Go With the Flow
Discover what it really means to "go with the flow" and how it can shift the way you work, live, and lead.
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What does it really mean to go with the flow, and is it as passive as it sounds?
In this newsletter, I unpack my personal journey of navigating intuition, structure, loss, and unexpected detours, from volunteering in Laos to finding daily inspiration in conversations, rituals, and community.
If you’ve ever struggled to find the balance between planning and trusting your gut, you’ll walk away with:
A deeper understanding of how “flow” shows up in real life, beyond just spiritual clichés
Insightful reflections from creatives, founders, and thinkers who live and work in tune with their intuition
Practical takeaways for tapping into your own flow—without losing yourself or your momentum
Grab a drink, get comfy, and let’s explore the art of moving with life instead of against it
Read time: 6 minutes
This newsletter was drafted with the help of ChatGPT & Perplexity, then refined and human-edited by yours truly before publishing.
📌 Present: Where I Am Now
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about “flow.”
Not just in the mystical, new-agey, float-around-on-a-scooter-in-Bali kind of way (though I’ve done that too). But in a grounded, practical sense.
Yesterday morning, my wife and I were sitting outside one of our favourite local cafés. I had my usual — a hot soy mocha with honey and, for the first time, a toasted cherry croissant.
C looked at me and asked:
“What do we need to do to get you into flow?”
I smiled and said, “I think I’m already in some flow.”
Just last week, I scored a sponsored ticket to the Sunrise Startup Festival. And the way it happened felt completely aligned — not forced, just timely. Here’s how it unfolded.
Right now, I’m in a season of transition. I'm doing work I enjoy — teaching marketing and branding to international students, writing more stuff that I feel inspired to write, developing a new productised service to help startups build their content engine, and experimenting with new creative projects (like a podcast I’m about to launch).
And I’m doing yoga every other day, which definitely helps my headspace.
It’s not flashy. It’s not perfectly structured.
But it feels right.
I'm still planning and strategising — but I’m also learning to listen. To the nudges. The gut pulls. The subtle invitations that say: “try this” or “reach out to them.”
And honestly? The more I trust my internal compass, the more aligned my work and life feel.
The Origin of “Go With the Flow”
The phrase “go with the flow” has roots much deeper than the hippie slogans of the 1960s. Here's a quick dive into where it comes from:
Taoism taught that we should move like water—soft, strong, adaptive.
Stoics like Marcus Aurelius used river metaphors to remind us that change is constant, and we do better when we accept it rather than fight it.
Even Shakespeare hinted at this in Julius Caesar: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune…”
And then there's psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who coined “flow” to describe that delicious state of immersion in an activity where time disappears and you're fully present.
All point to one idea: when we stop trying to force the river, we discover new paths—some of which we never could have mapped ourselves.
💡 Perspective: Lessons from my Journey
“Being passive is not the same as being peaceful. If you aren't doing what you know, in your heart, you want to do, you are NOT going with the flow. You are going against the flow. Your reactions, emotions, desires, and talents are all part of the flow of life. Ignoring them is passive resistance. Let yourself go.”
―Vironika Tugaleva
The idea of going with the flow isn’t new to me.
Here I am, literally flowing down a river in Laos 14 years ago, without a care in the world.
I first embraced the concept of flow after recovering from brain surgery in 2005. That experience completely shifted how I approached life and work.
I leaned into meditation, wrote affirmations, practised yoga, and followed spiritual teachers like Eckhart Tolle and the Dalai Lama.
I watched The Secret and allowed myself to get swept up in the idea of the ”Law of Attraction”. Part of me still connects with the spirit of it — this idea that what we focus on grows, and that clarity and belief can shape outcomes.
But another part of me — the more grounded, curious side — sees why people roll their eyes. A lot of it feels like pseudo-science, magical thinking dressed up as personal development. I totally get it.
That said, some scientific studies do support the benefits of positive thinking, visualisation, and goal-setting. What spiritual teachers call "vibration," psychology might call mood, mindset, or belief loops.
I don’t think belief alone bends the universe, but I do believe the stories we tell ourselves shape how we show up, and that shapes a lot.
Back then, “go with the flow” felt expansive — like a new operating system for life.
But over the years, I’ve watched myself bounce between two modes:
Full surrender and flow
Hardcore strategy and structure.
I’ve seen both work. I’ve also seen both fail.
For example, in 2009, after my mum passed away from liver cancer, I felt a strong urge to return to my homeland of Laos — a country I left as a baby when my parents fled as refugees. I’d never been back.
When I shared this with my friend Shawn in Toronto, she mentioned a school in Vientiane called Sunshine School. So I emailed the director, Didi Gaorii, to volunteer. That led me to teach English, which eventually (and randomly, I might add…) brought me to a powerful TED Talk by Kiran Bir Sethi.
Her talk? “Kids, take charge.”
It hit me hard.
I showed the video to Didi and asked, “Could we try this at our school?”
She said yes.
And just like that, Design for Change Laos was born.
We started with my Year 8 class. The students launched a project to clean up the local market. The story got picked up by local media. And before we knew it:
9 schools in Vientiane joined us
Over 200 students got involved
We had a core team of volunteer teachers who met after hours and on weekends, in addition to running workshops and mentoring teachers and students at their schools.
We even had a local documentary filmmaker create a documentary about the project.
This wasn’t paid work. It was fuelled by passion.
And it changed lives — including mine.
Because of DFC Laos, I was invited to:
Attend the Design for Change Global Partner Meet in Ahmedabad, India, in 2011—at Kiran’s own Riverside School, where DFC all began.
Represent Laos at the Make a Difference (MaD) Conference 2012 in Hong Kong (and participate in the event opening sequence, which was spectacular)
And all of that started with a gut feeling… a quiet inner voice saying, “Go home.”
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. Trust that the dots will somehow connect.”
— Steve Jobs
You Can’t Plan Magic
Our minds love planning. They love certainty. But they’re not great at predicting what will actually make us happy.
Psychologist Daniel Gilbert nails this in Stumbling on Happiness:
“We treat our future selves as though they were our children... spending most of the hours of most of our days constructing tomorrows that we hope will make them happy... But our temporal progeny are often thankless... we toil and sweat to give them just what we think they will like... and they wonder how we could ever have been stupid enough to think they’d like that.”
It’s humbling, isn’t it?
🚀 Progress: Living, Learning and Letting Go
So, where am I now with this whole “flow” thing?
I’m learning to honour both structure and intuition. To plan, but also stay open.
A few things lately have reminded me of the magic that happens when you follow the feeling:
🧠 Meeting
Nick and I first connected online through a copywriting group.
We met in person in Melbourne last October. What struck me was how tuned in he was. Nicholas would get a gut feeling — a word, a signal, a subtle nudge — and just act on it.
That’s how he became a freelance copywriter. Someone casually mentioned ghostwriting to him. He listened to that prompt, pitched a client, and now earns a solid income doing what he loves.
I recently learned that Nick has been hanging out in Danang, Vietnam. Danang has a special place in my heart because it’s where I found my energy again after burning out during the pandemic.
Unlike me, though, Nick’s not making the same mistake that I made in the 18 months that C and I were based there.
🌉 Reuniting with Carlyn
We met back in 2011 via Twitter, part of a small online group we called The Sunshine Squad. We stayed in touch over the years, and in Feb 2024, we finally met in person — on a sunset Sydney Harbour Bridge walk with C and our good mate Daz.
As Carlyn shared on her Instagram:
“Within a day of arriving in Sydney, a @strangerstofriends story, 14 years in the making… came to life in the most epic way.”
What I admire most about Carlyn is her ability to breathe through the discomfort of things not working out as planned, ground, and reflect. She recently shared a personal reflection about the contrast between her experiences in New Zealand and Australia:
"If I’m being honest, Australia hasn’t been the same ‘flow’ as New Zealand. In New Zealand, things magically fell into place—almost effortlessly. Australia, on the other hand, has felt more… forced. Sure, things have worked out, but they’ve felt heavier, like I’ve been pushing instead of allowing… I created meaning, formed expectations, and convinced myself I needed to go.
This was completely different from my synchronistic cat sit in New Zealand. There, I had almost no expectations. I barely did any research. I didn’t even have my first road trip mapped out until the day before I started it! I booked my first Airbnb the night before arriving. And yet, it all unfolded beautifully. Sure, there were hiccups and a learning curve, but I found my rhythm."
Such awareness and honesty are rare. Carlyn’s story is another reminder that “flow” isn’t always about ease—it’s often about noticing when something feels off, and having the courage to recalibrate.
Now Carlyn’s in Danang too, and I’ve connected her with Nick. So who knows, they just might cross a bridge together as well, literally or metaphorically.
🌿 Learning from Karen Monaghan
Karen is the co-founder and CEO of Our Kinds, a sustainability startup I’ve been supporting for the past year as a fractional Chief Marketing Officer. Week after week, I watch her operate in sync with intuition — tuning into her body, the mission, and the timing of things.
She’s a master of rituals. In a recent LinkedIn post, part of her daily writing and sharing ritual, Karen wrote:
“The intersection of water and sand — the French call yod…
The arrival of ideas and resources and the letting go of what’s no longer needed — I call transition…
As my feet melt into the sand and are bathed by the sea…
We are at an intersection across the globe — it’s time to challenge the status quo and allow renewal.”
Watching her work has reminded me that flow isn’t passive. It’s listening. Then acting.
As someone with a Projector Human Design, I’ve had to learn to “wait for the invitation.” And it’s hard. I don’t love waiting. But I’ve realised that when I act from alignment, things move. When I force them, they stall. Learning this rhythm has made a real difference.
As Danielle LaPorte said:
“Going with the flow is responding to cues from the universe. It’s wakeful trust and total collaboration with what’s showing up.”
Each of these people reminded me that flowing doesn’t mean floating aimlessly — it means responding to life with presence.
🎁 Payoff: Key Messages + What You Can Try
You don’t have to be all-structure or all-intuition. Most of us are dancing somewhere in between. I recently ran a poll on LinkedIn:
“Do you follow a structured plan or trust your gut?”
📊 Results: 63% said “a bit of both.
But the real gold was in the comments:
“My intuition has never let me down, even if it means going against the grain! I always have some kind of structure but that’s also formed by my intuition. I think it’s good to have structure, as long as you’re willing to adapt as new concepts/ideas/opportunities come to light.”
“I think flow comes very naturally to me...It took me a while to discover how lost I felt within rigid structures. And now, I think I am finding my flow within softer structures, if I can put it that way.”
“Prep enough to wing it. It allows you to be flexible and/or stay on track as you need.”
“As someone late diagnosed with adhd and autism I spent 30 years trying to make my brain and my productivity work like everyone else’s…it never felt right or good. But I never missed a deadline or let people down - because I was already scared I wasn’t good enough!
Now, after understanding the biological and chemical make up of what makes my brain work the best, I have come to accept that “a plan with flex” is the best approach.”
💡 So what’s the takeaway?
Going with the flow doesn’t mean being passive. It means:
Listening to what lights you up
Trusting those nudges, even if they don’t make sense right away
Letting yourself move forward before you have it all figured out.
3 Things You Can Try This Week:
Pay attention to what energises you, not just what makes logical sense. A hunch might be the next breadcrumb.
Let yourself try without overplanning. Not everything needs a slide deck, spreadsheet or tight KPIs before you start. Furthermore, hard targets are problematic, so be flexible.
Revisit what used to feel like “too much” — it might be just right now.
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Thanks for flowing through this with me.
Live Confidently & Passionately,
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