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Steven Kotler

Steven Kotler Biography

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“Yet what appears to be impossible is actually progressive. Behind each of these feats is a litany of small steps: history, technology, training — and not just physical training, mental training as well. Success in these danger-fueled activities requires requires incredible psychological and intellectual talents: grit, fortitude, courage, creativity, resilience, cooperation, critical thinking, pattern recognition, high-speed “hot” decision making — on and on, and all under some of the most extreme conditions imaginable.”

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Book:The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance
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“The true challenge is how you continue doing it, after you’ve ridden the biggest wave, crossed the longest distance. You set up challenges that are more than what you ever did before. And by getting through it, you get the sensation you’ve completed something. And if it’s dangerous, then other things that scare you, the experience will strengthen you for those situations.”

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Book:The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance
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“When deeply religious subjects view sacred iconography or reflect on their notion of God, brain scans reveal hyperactivity in the caudate nucleus, a part of the pleasure system that correlates with feelings of joy, love, and serenity. But Lindstrom and Calvert found that this same brain region lights up when subjects view images associated with strong brands like Ferrari or Apple.”

GodPleasureMarketingSerenityBrandingConsumerismNeurobiologyBranding Marketing
Book:Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work
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“On the flow path, we are drawn forward by fire; by powerful hedonic instincts; by our deep need for autonomy, mastery, and purpose deeply fulfilled; by dizzyingly feel-good neurochemistry; by a spectrum of joy beyond common ken; by the undeniable presence of our most authentic selves; by a cognitive imperative to make meaning from experience; by the search engine that is evolution and its need for innovation; and by the simplest of truths: life is long and we’re all scared and, in flow, at least for a little while, we’re not.”

JoyPurposeFireFlowExperienceFeel GoodMeaningAuthenticFulfillHedonic
Book:The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance
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“Putting flow-prone kids into high-flow environments means a lot of flow. Arming them with advanced flow-hacking techniques means even more. All this flow makes the activity deeply rewarding, both fulfilling a child’s innate need for autonomy, mastery, and purpose and further increasing their sense of intrinsic motivation. When Tom Schaar says, “I love being with my friends at the skate park — that’s the greatest feeling,” what he’s saying is no one has to force him to practice, the autotelic nature of the activity — the fact that it drives him into flow — is the source code of his motivation.”

LovePurposeFlowMasteryAutonomyRewardFulfillIntrinsicMotiviation
Book:Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work
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“The greatest athletes aren’t interested in the greatest risks. I mean, sometimes they’re taken, sometimes not, but those physical risks are a by-product of a much deeper desire to take creative risks. Don’t be fooled by the danger. In action and adventure sports, creativity is always the point.”

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Book:The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance
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“Ecstatic technology isn't limited to silicon chips and display screens. As John Lilly's early research established, it's the knowledge of how to tweak the knobs and levers in our brain. When we get it right, it produces those invaluable sensations of selflessness, timelessness, effortlessness, and richness.”

TechnologySelflessnessRichnessEcstaticTimelessnessEffortlessnessEcstatic JourneyingJohn Lilly
Book:Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work
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“While we've painted the guardians of the pale in a somewhat reactionary light, let's give the gatekeepers their due. What lies beyond the pale isn't always safe and secure. Outside the fence of state-sanctioned consciousness, there are, to be sure, peaks of profound insight and inspiration. But there are also the swamps of addiction, superstition, and groupthink, where the unprepared can get stuck.”

ConventionsDrugsDrug AddictionDrug ProhibitionSocietal ConstructsContrabandWar On Consciousness
Book:Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work
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“No one can claim their particular vision of the divine as correct, if there are thousands of other 'visions' with which to compare it. And anyone who does try to claim the spotlight? Even a few decades ago, they could have started a cult. These days, they'll just get trolled online, then ignored.”

DrugsPsychedelicVisionsPsychedelic ExperiencePsychedelicsDmtDivine Revelation
Book:Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work
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“A “rich environment” is a combination platter of novelty, unpredictability, and complexity — three elements that catch and hold our attention much like risk. Novelty means both danger and opportunity. To our forbearers, a strange scent in the wind could be prey or predator, but either way it paid to pay attention. Unpredictability means we don’t know what happens next, thus we pay extra attention to what happens next. Complexity, when there’s lots of salient information coming at us at once, does more of the same.”

OpportunityRiskDangerNoveltyComplexUnpredicatability
Book:The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance
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“That’s because at the Flow Genome Project10 we study the relationship between altered states and peak performance, focused primarily on the experience known as flow. Defined as an “optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best,” flow refers to those “in the zone” moments where focus gets so intense that everything else disappears. Action and awareness start to merge. Our sense of self vanishes. Our sense of time as well. And all aspects of performance, both mental and physical, go through the roof.”

SelfTimeFocusFlowZoneBestPerformance
Book:Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work
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“When doing what we most love transforms us into the best possible version of ourselves and that version hints at even greater future possibilities, the urge to explore those possibilities becomes feverish compulsion. Intrinsic motivation goes through the roof. Thus flow becomes an alternative path to mastery, sans the misery.”

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Author:Steven Kotler
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“Instead, over the past thirty years, in the world of action and adventure sports, in situations where asses really were on the line, the bounds of the possible have been pushed further and faster than ever before in history. We've seen near-exponential growth in ultimate human performance, which is both hyperbolic paradox and considerable mystery. Somehow, a generation's worth of iconoclastic misfits have rewritten the rules of the feasible, not just raising the bar but often obliterating it altogether. And this brings up one final question: Where-if anywhere-do our actual limits lie?”

IfsWorldYearsHumansHas BeensActionPastLyingSportsGrowthLinesSituationGenerationsMysteryAdventureLimitsPerformancesUltimateFinalsBoundsBarsAssFasterThirtyParadoxThirty YearsOver The PastMisfitsRaising The BarExponential Growth
Book:The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance
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