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Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work

Book by Steven Kotler · 7 quotes · Drugs, Flow, Autonomy

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Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work Quotes

“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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“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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“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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“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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