Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
I’ve often wondered how different my childhood—and especially my teenage years—would have been if someone had taught me there was more than one way to use the mind. Not instead of reading, math or analytical thinking, but alongside them. Looking back, I don’t wish I had learned more facts or become a better test taker. I wish someone had taught me when analytical thinking serves us well—and when it quietly begins working against us.
When I was in kindergarten, my teacher believed I was academically advanced and recommended that I skip first grade and move directly into second. My parents agreed, hoping it would give me a head start. Looking back, they later questioned whether it had been the right decision for my overall development. Entering second grade as one of the youngest children in a diverse New York City public school was overwhelming. That was the year my confidence began slipping away. The children around me seemed older, tougher and much more confident than I was. I remember staying after class to finish tests while everyone else had already left the room. Eventually, I repeated second grade at the progressive private school New Lincoln. Whether I was truly behind academically or simply trying to catch up after skipping a year almost didn’t matter. As a young boy, I didn’t understand the difference.
Maybe I’m not that smart.
That quiet conclusion followed me into my teenage years. Ironically, while I struggled to use my analytical mind for the things school demanded, I became remarkably skilled at using it against myself. I replayed conversations long after they ended, rehearsed social situations before they happened and imagined every possible way I might embarrass myself. My analytical mind wasn’t solving schoolwork; it was trying to solve me.
The more I searched for certainty, the more uncertain I became. Before long, overthinking had evolved into social anxiety, performance anxiety and periods of depression. My attention became trapped in self-conscious thinking. Instead of experiencing life, I was constantly evaluating myself within it.
The more self-conscious I became, the less intelligent I felt—even though my intelligence hadn’t changed at all.
Questions like What do people think of me? What if I fail? became problems I believed I could solve if I simply thought hard enough. They never were.
Yet every afternoon something entirely different happened. I’d come home, spread notebooks across my bedroom floor and create elaborate fantasy sports leagues with nothing more than pencils, paper and a handful of dice. Every baseball game was played by hand. Every football season unfolded one roll of the dice at a time. I tracked standings, statistics and championships as though I were commissioner of my own professional league. I wasn’t just keeping score—I became the announcer, the crowd and the commissioner. Sometimes my imaginary stadium became so loud that our Manhattan neighbors would pound on the apartment wall because another dramatic home run or last-second touchdown deserved a standing ovation.
Hours disappeared. During those afternoons I wasn’t wondering whether I was smart enough. I wasn’t comparing myself with anyone else or trying to become somebody different. My attention wasn’t on me at all. It was completely absorbed in creating something I loved.
Back then, I simply called it fun.
Looking back, I realize those afternoons weren’t an escape from life as much as a brief escape from self-conscious thinking.
Years later I discovered that psychologists call this experience flow. What fascinated me was that I hadn’t stopped thinking. I was thinking constantly—creating schedules, calculating statistics, solving problems and inventing entire seasons. The difference wasn’t the amount of thinking. It was where my attention rested. It had shifted away from judging myself and toward creating something meaningful.
I wish someone had connected those two worlds for me. I wish someone had said, “Michael, your analytical mind is an extraordinary tool. Use it to solve problems, build things and learn new skills. Just don’t ask it to determine your worth.” I often wonder how different my teenage years might have been if someone had understood that distinction. Perhaps I still would have struggled. Perhaps I still would have been shy. But I suspect I would have suffered less.
Today, when I notice my mind turning inward—judging, comparing or trying to solve questions of self-worth—I remember that little boy on the bedroom floor. He wasn’t thinking less. His attention had simply moved away from himself and toward something he loved. That’s what I now think of as the flow mind. Not a replacement for analytical thinking, but its complement. It’s a quieter way of using the mind, one that creates space for creativity, compassion, presence and insight to emerge naturally.
I can’t rewrite my childhood, and I wouldn’t want to. Those experiences shaped the person I’ve become. But I can reinterpret them. The little boy who struggled in school wasn’t broken. The teenager trapped in overthinking wasn’t weak. He simply didn’t know there was another way to use his mind.
Today I understand something that took me decades to learn. My mind was never the problem. It was simply using the wrong part of my brain. That realization didn’t change my childhood. But it completely changed the story I tell about it.
