The Art of Impossible - Steven Kotler
A Peak Performance Primer
[bq] "This is [...] a practical playbook for impractical people."
[bq] "The only thing more difficult than the emotional toil of pursuing true excellence is the emotional toil of not pursuing true excellence."
[bq] "More meaningful does not typically mean more pleasant."
[bq] "Whenever the impossible becomes possible, there's always a formula."
[bq] "Personality doesn't scale. Biology scales."
During flow our cognition is massively changed. Creativity, learning, empathy, environmental awareness and collaboration are as much as 500% above baseline.
[bq] "Flow is to extreme innovation what oxygen is to breathing."
[bq] "When it comes to tackling the impossible, flow is necessary but not sufficient."
[bq] “Motivation is what gets you into this game; learning is what helps you continue to play; creativity is how you steer; and flow is how you turbo boost the results beyond all rational standards and reasonable expectations."
I. Motivation
1. Motivation Decoded
[bq] "Motivation [...] is actually a catch-all for three subsets of skills: drive, grit and goals."
Drive is emotional motivation like curiosity, passion, and purpose.
Goals is knowing where we want to get to.
Grit is persistence when things get difficult.
Elite performers "stack" their fuel. Physically by making sure their nutrition, sleep, and health are on point, and psychologically by aligning things like curiosity, passion, and purpose.
Drivers can be split into extrinsic (money, fame, sex) and intrinsic (curiosity, meaning, mastery, autonomy,...).
[bq] "As high-minded as something like 'meaning and purpose' might seem as a driver, this is actually evolutions's way of saying: Okay, you've got enough resources for yourself and your family. Now it's time to help your tribe and your species get more."
Intrinsic drivers take over once a basic level of extrinsic ones are met.
Ultimately motivation and drive boil down to neurochemistry, particularly dopamine, norepinephrine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, and anandamide.
2. The Passion Recipe
[bq] "The easiest way to start stacking intrinsic drivers is with a list."
Write down 25 things you're curious about. The more detailed and specific, the better.
Then look for overlaps of several of them. When multiple interests intersect, it triggers your pattern matching mechanism, and leads to powerful releases of dopamine.
[bq] "By stacking motivations, that is, layering curiosity atop curiosity, we're increasing drive but not effort.”
Learning about the history and technical language of a subject might feel like a waste of time, but it's actually a powerful anchor that helps our memory and understanding.
Adding "public successes" where you talk about your interests, even just to friends, and get positive reinforcement can be a massive boost to our passion.
[bq] "At this point in the process, it's time to transform the fire of passion into the rocket fuel of purpose."
[bq] "Neurobiologically, purpose alters the brain. It decreases the reactivity of the amygdala, decreases the volume of the medial temporal cortex, and increases the volume of the right insular cortex. [...] All these changes seem to have a profound impact on our long-term health. [...] Additionally, from a performance standpoint, purpose boosts motivation, productivity, resilience, and focus."
By shifting the attention away from self-rumination, it's also a protector against anxiety and depression.
Want to dream big, identifying a "massively transformative purpose" MTP that intersects with our passions.
3. The Full Intrinsic Stack
Curiosity, passion and purpose are a great start, but they are not enough to reach the impossible. For that we also need to add autonomy and mastery.
[bq] "If autonomy is the desire to steer your own ship, mastery is the drive to steer that ship well."
Companies like Google and 3M show how giving even just a few hours of autonomy to each employee can have huge results.
Making your own schedule can be critical for sleep and making sure you are aligned with your chronotype.
[bq] "Exercise is a non-negotiable for peak performance."
Building flow activities into our day that are playful and not part of work is also important.
[bq] "Mastery is the desire to get better at the things we do. It's devotion to craft, the need for progress, the urge to continually improve."
[bq] "When we work hard toward an important goal - that is, when we pursue mastery - dopamine levels spike."
[bq] "Flow follows focus."
Flow triggers all help us shift our attention to the present moment, either through dopamine/norepinephrine release, or by reducing cognitive load.
[bq] "Start chasing the high of incremental improvements."
4. Goals
Want to break down the impossible into a long series of difficult but achievable goals, to give clear direction to our drive.
Clear goals are one of the easiest ways to increase motivation and boost performance.
[bq] "Because the brain is a prediction engine and consciousness is a limited resource, fear and goals are the basic building blocks of our reality."
[q] "Big goals significantly outperform small goals, medium-sized goals, and vague goals." - Gary Latham
[bq] "MTPs, utilized properly, aren't aspirational, they're filtrational: they weed out the work that doesn't matter."
"High, hard goals" (HHGs) are the sub-step that helps us accomplish our larger mission.
Counterintuitively, research shows that talking about your goals publicly reduces the chances of achieving them.
[bq] "The act of telling someone about your goal gives you the feeling that the goal's already been achieved. It releases the dopamine you're supposed to get afterward, prematurely."
HHGs should be further broken down into clear short-term (say daily) goals.
[bq] "At a very basic level, this is exactly what the road to impossible looks like - a well-crafted to-do list, executed daily."
[bq] "Clear goals act as a priority list for the brain, lowering cognitive load and telling the system where to expand its energy."
Clear daily goals are great triggers for flow.
[bq] "Impossible is always a checklist."
5. Grit
[q] “No pressure, no diamonds.” - Thomas Carlyle
Regularly doing hard things teaches the brain to associate persistence with dopamine rewards.
Six types of grit. The grit to…
persevere
control your thoughts
master fear
be your best when you’re at your worst
train your weaknesses
recover
Psychologists consider three levels of wellbeing:
Moment-to-moment “happiness,” a hedonic approach to life.
“Engagement,” a high-flow life where happiness comes through a pursuit of challenges rather than pleasure.
“Purpose,” same as engagement but with an added sense of having a bigger impact.
Studies show that the grittier a person, the higher their level of wellbeing, and despite embracing hard things, they actually experience a deeper sense of happiness.
Willpower is a big part of perseverance. It’s linked to our energy levels, and depletes throughout the day, so it helps to schedule things right (hard things first) and carefully choose/design our environment.
[bq] “For sustained perseverance, the research shows, a growth mindset is indispensable.”
[q] “Get obsessed, stay obsessed.” - John Irving
[bq] “Quite often, passion feels like frustration on the inside and looks like obsession from the outside. Peak performers must learn to tolerate enormous amounts of anxiety and overwhelm.”
[bq] “Passion doesn’t make us gritty. Passion makes us able to tolerate all the negative emotions produced by grit.”
[q] “High performance is 90 percent mental. And most of the mental edge comes from being able to control your thoughts.” - Micheal Gervais
Positive self-talk, mindfulness, and gratitude all help with controlling our thoughts, and teach us to focus on the positive.
Almost all peak performers struggle with fear of some kind. What sets them apart is that they find it more bearable to run towards the fear rather than away from it.
Fear is a great source of attention and motivation.
Should establish a regular fear practice, taking physical, emotional, intellectual, or creative risks in a controlled but increasing way.
[bq] “The goal is to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.”
Peak performers use fear as a compass.
[bq] “Going in the direction that scares you the most amplifies attention and this translates into flow. […] Our real potential lies on the other side of our greatest fears.”
[q] “The grit that matters most is learning to be your best when you’re at your worst. This is really the difference between elite-level performers and everyone else. And you have to train this kind of grit.” - Josh Waitzkin
When you’re not feeling great, it’s easy to make excuses. But that’s exactly when you should push, and tap into those energy reserves you didn’t know you had. If you do that in training, you’re prepared for bad situations when it actually matters.
Ask several friends to identify your weaknesses (to avoid your own bias), then find the most mentioned physical, emotional, and cognitive weaknesses and work on them.
[bq] “It’s hard for peak performers to relax. […] You absolutely have to get gritty about recovery.”
Key recovery tools should be good sleep, active recovery (e.g. yoga, nature walks, sauna, …) and occasional total resets, stepping away from everything for a few days.
6. The Habit of Ferocity
[bq] “Excellence always has a cost. On a daily basis, if your goal is greatness, then you’re going to put just about every available hour towards that goal.”
[bq] “It’s hard to achieve the amazing by accident. You have to dream big.”
Peak performers all share a “habit of ferocity”: When they come across a challenge, they immediately lean in. They are attracted to challenge.
[q] “Figure out what you would die for, then live for it.” - Peter Diamandis
II. Learning
7. The Ingredients of Impossible
Since flow requires a certain level of challenge, a continuous flow lifestyle also requires lifelong learning.
[bq] “Psychologists consider lifelong learning foundational to satisfaction and wellbeing.”
8. Growth Mindsets and Truth Filters
We need to develop our own rigorous “truth filters” to assess the information around us in fast and reliable ways.
[bq] “You can’t get to impossible on bad information.”
9. The ROI on Reading
[bq] “If you’re interested in learning, then you’re interested in books.”
Blogs are less condensed than long-form articles, which in turn are less condensed than books.
[bq] “Books are the most radically condensed form of knowledge on the planet.”
Talks are great for igniting curiosity but don’t have the depth and detail of books.
10. Five Not-So-Easy Steps for Learning Almost Anything
[bq] “Step One: The five books of stupid”
Pick five books on a subject and read them without judging your understanding too harshly.
[bq] “Biologically, a lot of learning comes down to pattern recognition, and most of that takes place on an unconscious level.”
Take notes in a notebook on three points: the historical narrative, key terminology, and anything that gets you excited.
This stage is about knowledge acquisition, skill acquisition is separate.
[bq] “Step two: Be the idiot”
Step one should have filled you with lots of questions. Now it’s time to seek out experts, leaving your own pride at home, and let them do the talking.
[bq] “Step three: Explore the gaps”
By following your own curiosity rather than a standard curriculum you should eventually get “slow hunches,” a feeling for gaps in the knowledge which none of the experts covers, or a new relation to a different domain.
[bq] “Step four: Always ask the next question”
Seek out experts that disagree with the standard narrative of a field.
[bq] “Step five: Find the narrative”
Condense all your learning into a story and tell it to both people with no background, as well as experts.
11. The Skill of Skill
Pareto’s principle, the 80/20 rule, is great for skill acquisition. Focus on the 20% of material that gets you 80% of the results.
Only the core skills should be approached differently, for anything else 80/20 is the shortcut to overall mastery.
12. Stronger
[bq] “The best way to increase flow is to spend as much time as possible on activities that utilize one or more of our five top strengths.”
Focusing on our strengths accelerates learning and motivation. Weaknesses get dragged along and improved in the process.
13. The 80/20 of Emotional Intelligence
Your support network has a big influence over whether you see something as an interesting challenge or a dangerous threat.
Neurobiologically, high EQ means a good ability to manage the brain’s emotional systems: fear, lust, care, play, rage, seeking and panic/grief.
[bq] “EQ remains one of the highest indicators of high achievement.”
Four areas of EQ: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.
14. The Shortest Path to Superman
Rather than early specialization, many top performers actually try and abandon a lot of different things, until they find “match fit.”
[bq] “When flow is the reward, learning shifts from something done consciously, with energy and effort, to something done automatically, out of habit and joy.”
III. Creativity
15. The Creative Advantage
[bq] “If your interest is high achievement, creativity matters.”
[bq] “In the infinite game of peak performance, motivation gets you into the game, learning allows you to continue to play, but creativity is how you steer.”
Alfred North Whitehead apparently coined the term “creativity” only in 1927.
Our cerebral cortex is much larger than other animals’, allowing us to put a break into the instinctive action-reaction cycle and allowing us to consider options, as well as simulate their results.
Creativity is “the production of novel ideas that have value.”
Three overlapping neural systems are involved in creativity: attention, imagination, and salience.
Imagination network more technically known as default mode network (DMN).
[bq] “When switched on, it’s the brain in daydreaming mode, stimulating alternative realities and testing out creative possibilities.”
Default mode network and executive attention network actually work in opposition and switch each other off, but creatives can transition between the two with far more fluidity.
Three Bs: bend, break, and blend.
Salience network is the master switch that orchestrates the other two.
16. Hacking Creativity
An active anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is required for insight moments. And good mood activates the ACC.
ACC monitors the ideas of the DMN and identifies valuable ones, brining them up to our conscious attention.
For creativity, we want to consider the big picture. Mood again is important (fear gets us to focus rather than think wide), but time in nature with literally open view can also help.
Solitude is important for creativity.
When starting a new creative task, starting with something weird or unfamiliar is much better than starting with the easy and familiar. It primes you for making unusual connections.
Constraints and limits drive creativity.
[bq] “If creativity is required, not knowing where you’re going is the fastest way to never get there.”
Read outside your core domain and allow yourself to daydream if an idea catches your interest. This gives our pattern recognition system a great chance to come up with new and useful ideas.
17. Long-Haul Creativity
Staying creative over decades requires to continually reinvent ourselves.
You have to get comfortable with learning and applying things outside your comfort zone.
“The Ferriss Four”: Daily exercise, keep a maker schedule, take long walks, and ask better questions.
Momentum is critical. Stopping the day’s work while still excited and with clear direction may seem counterproductive but it carries momentum to the next day.
[bq] “Long-haul creativity, [Sir Ken] Robinson believes, requires a low-level, near-constant sense of frustration.”
Remembering that the competition is always chasing you can be a great motivator.
[bq] “Creativity is almost always a byproduct of passionate hard work and not the other way around.”
[bq] “I always set out to write great sentences, but I never set out to write a great sentence.”
Creatives often combine personality traits from opposite extremes. Specifically, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi identified ten “both/and” characteristics of creatives:
Energetic and sedate
Smart and naive
Playful and disciplined
Fantastical and realistic
Extroverted and introverted
Ambitious and selfless
Conservative and rebellious
Humble and proud
Passionate and objective
Sensitive to others and cold as ice
While the source of creativity, these opposites can also lead to emotional rollercoasters and difficult social interactions.
18. The Flow of Creativity
[bq] “Nature builds creatives; nurture tears them down. Growing up, according to this research, was the number one risk factor for squelching innovation."
As our executive attention network matures, less creative/divergent ideas pass through its filter. Except in flow, where all the networks work well in harmony.
[bq] “Flow is the brain on creative overdrive. It mimics all the inventiveness that comes with being four years old, just, you know, without the downside of having a four-year-old brain.”
IV. Flow
19. The Decoder Ring
Flow can even be a source of mystical experiences.
During extreme focus, to conserve energy the brain can shut down regions that are not critical, such as the right posterior parietal lobe, which helps us navigate through space and gives us a sense of where our body ends. Without that sense it’s essentially like you’re becoming one with the universe, or at least with whatever you are focusing on.
20. Flow Science
Nietzsche was maybe the first thinker who studied peak performance through a modern scientific approach.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term flow and studied the concept intensively in the 1970s and after.
Flow has six core physiological characteristics:
Complete concentration
Merger of action and awareness
Sense of self vanishes
Altered sense of time
Paradox of control
Autotelic experience
[bq] “People who scored off the charts for overall well-being and life satisfaction were the people with the most flow in their lives.”
During peak performance and flow, our brain is actually less active, not more.
“Transient hypofrontality”: Our prefrontal cortex shuts down, handing over control to the faster and more energy efficient subconscious thinking. This also shuts down self-monitoring and our sense of past and future.
21. Flow Triggers
Initial research pointed at three main flow triggers: clear goals, immediate feedback, and challenge-skill-balance. But we now know of 19 more triggers.
All these triggers work by pushing attention into the present moment, through releasing norepinephrine and/or dopamine, and/or by lowering cognitive load.
Complete concentration, autonomy, and curiosity-passion-purpose are three more internal triggers.
[bq] “Peak performers routinely turn down opportunities, even fantastic ones, if those opportunities reduce autonomy.”
To really give flow a chance, should block out at least 90 to 120 minutes, ideally more, with completely zero distractions.
Statistically, surgeons are the only type of physician that actually get better over time after leaving medical school, because they receive immediate feedback.
Should set a “feedback buddy,” someone to share clear and concise feedback with without fluff or subjective opinions.
Societal norms and values can be tricky for peak performers and can weigh them down if they don’t manage to navigate/balance them properly.
[bq] “Demand more excellence from yourself.”
Extended triggers are high consequences, rich environments, and deep embodiment.
Rich environments actually contain three triggers: novelty, unpredictability, and complexity.
Montessori education offers some of the highest flow educational environment.
Creativity is a combination of pattern recognition and risk taking, both of which neurobiologically aid flow through dopamine release.
[bq] “Make creativity a value and a virtue. Your life needs to become your art.”
Flow can also happen in groups with a shared goal and collective ambition.
22. The Flow Cycle
Flow is actually a cycle with four phases that you have to pass through one at a time.
[bq] “Unpleasantness is a built-in part of the experience. It’s an unavoidable biological necessity.”
Stage one: Struggle.
[bq] “Optimal performance begins in maximum frustration.”
During struggle we acquire knowledge and skills. But at this stage it still feels uncomfortable and effortful.
[q] “Many people find [flow] so great and high an experience that it justifies not only itself, but even living itself.” - Abraham Maslow
Flow redeems the struggle, and lies beyond struggle. For peak performers, frustration and struggle are actually a compass, because they know what lies beyond it.
Stage two: Release.
Release is the incubation period where information moves over from our conscious to our subconscious mind.
Low-grade physical activity (a hike, long car drive, playing an instrument, etc) works best.
Stage three: Flow.
Once in the zone, need to avoid the main flow blockers distraction, negative thinking, non-optimal arousal, and lack of preparation.
Stage four: Recovery.
Flow is a high-energy state, so we need to recover from it. But it requires active recovery.
[bq] “After a hard day, even the extra energy it takes to take a long bath can feel like a Herculean task. Well, Hercules up, because there’s no choice.”
23. All Together Now
Seven daily and six weekly practices that are non-negotiable.
Daily:
90 to 120 minutes of uninterrupted concentration
5 min for distraction management (preparing for the next day)
5 min for making a clear goal list (preparing for the next day)
5 min for daily gratitude practice
20 min for release/mindfulness
25 min to learn and load the pattern recognition system through reading outside your core area
7 to 8 hours of sleep
Weekly:
2 to 6 hours of high-flow fun activity (surfing, dancing, skiing, …)
60 min, 3 times a week: challenging exercise session
20 to 40 min, 3 times a week: active recovery (sauna, massage, light yoga, …)
30 to 60 min, once a week: train a weakness or being your best when you’re feeling the worst
30 to 60 min, once a week: get feedback on the work you do during your daily high focus blocks
120 min once per work: social support, making time for other people
[bq] “Creativity and the pursuit of mastery should be built into everything you do."