In the Flow with Steven Kotler

Hello, ladies and gents Robert Sykes ketose a.com today, I have special guests Steven kotler on the line. He is a well-known author has written, many best-selling books. I have one on my bookshelf right now entitled, bold, he's recently written one called Nar country, which is all about his pursuit of Park skiing, and how he has been able to apply his protocol of maximizing flow to improving his ability. As a park, skier thrown into the

conversation. We are all pretty familiar with With the concept of flow and he Dives deep into how to get into flow more efficiently, how to stay in flow longer, how to maximize one's flow and ability to use that flow to reach Mastery with any given skill set. So very applicable to anyone. Listen to this podcast, wanting to master their own lives and their skill sets thoroughly,

enjoy the conversation. I've got a lot of respect for what he's doing, what he's experimenting on and how it's making a difference in his life and others. So without further Ado, sit back Lacks into a conversation with Steven kotler. We are live. Steven, how are you sir? Well, thank you. How are you? I'm good, man, I'm good.

So I was talking to my crew this morning about this podcast in preparation for this podcast and I was talking about flow and it's pretty safe to say that you're the guy that has certainly popularized that as a concept, right? Where did it come from? Originally. Well, work, research, Salt Lake, scientific research, and the flow dates back to the 1870s, okay?

Which is the sort of the first time, somebody noticed an altered state of consciousness, which is what flow technically is, have a huge impact on performance. It bounces around for most of the 20th century, different people, looking at different aspects, the name changes, and then the 1970s a man named me, I should sell me. Hi, there's at the University of Chicago as a psychologist. She runs their cigars. Psychology department. He start studying Optimal Performance, right?

Same concept going around the world for you to be alone and I feel their best and perform their best. And everybody says the same thing like I mean, this is one of the largest days of running psychology, tens of thousands of people. And he says, look when I'm at my best, I'm in this state of consciousness, where every decision, every action flows, seamlessly perfectly effortlessly from the laughs. The csikszentmihalyi I ringing Eames what was then going by Peak experiences.

Has and starts calling them flow and that becomes the scientific term. It get renamed as being in the zone and Runners a bunch of things along the way. But flow is the term, the scientists prefer. Gotcha. Gotcha, is it possible to be in flow with two separate individuals on a podcast? Or is that just is that just not sure.

There's so there's individual flow me and a flow State heard you and a flow State and then there's group flow which is technically defined as a team or a Group performing at their best but it comes in Bride. There can be two people in flow interpersonal, flow me, and you talking right? This is one of the most common flow States in are two people in a conversation that gets so sucked in ever lose track of time. Loose track itself, couple

hours, go by that sort of thing. Really frequently experience, then you can have Team plow or group flow. That's everything from a great brainstorming session to like a fourth-quarter comeback in football all the way up to float. A rock concert at flow it like scale, what they call communitas. So, which is, when you're Marie with the band and every sort of one with the music and clapping and sake, and that sort of thing. So, yes, you absolutely can share. Flow contagious impact.

Well, I will try to do my best as a host of this podcast to embody some Flow State here. When it comes, when it comes to a, I love origin stories, man. I love getting deep down the weeds and figure out why people have pursued the interest that

they have pursued. So like for you, you know, doing this deep dive into optimizing Peak Performance and flow States. Like was there a moment in your youth where you just felt, you know, unwieldy and cumbersome and recognize that you had zero flow and then you became motivated to try and fix that or what was the catalyst? Do you know it's never one day, right? Um, but it usually, for me, the way I can tell the story is, I became a journalist in the early 1990s that was where my career

started. And especially in the 90s, it was just like explosion in journalism and you know is amazing career if they paid you to be curious, right? So I was super curious about two things one you sort of had enough which was human behavior but More than just human behavior. In the 90s, we started to understand the Neuroscience of human behavior. And the difference is that psychology, for me, it felt

really squishy. It felt very subjective if you went into the psychological literature around human performers who are giving everywhere and very little agreement but you go one, layered 30 into neurobiology and that's magazines. And it's the same goes for all of us that were shaped by Evolution. And and so, that was Make the shift in the 90s prior to that, it was like, what's this region of the brain?

What's it doing? That sort of questions in the nineties, were like, well, wait a minute, what our emotions. What is consciousness, those sorts of questions, and you can ask start asking serious questions about Altered States Of Consciousness, like flow simultaneously and this is this is a story that's more familiar people. I was covering Action, Sports lifelong action sport athletes and I was living in what was then announced Squaw Valley today is known as Palisades Tahoe.

Oh and you know the 90s are this absolute Revolution. Actions books of gravity games are getting God explains just starting and there's this enormous flowering and you potential human potential. What they talk about the 90s and actions works in the so-called decade of the impossible. We're more impossible Feats got done than ever before and I was hanging out in these communities living. These people seeing this stuff firsthand and what really caught my attention. Robert.

What what like it wasn't just that. Oh my God. Doing the impossible which was, you know, like the greatest magic show in the history of the universe. It was that I knew these folks and they have none of the advantages that supposedly went along with people formance. They didn't come from good homes, they had shitty childhood, they had little education, they didn't have any money.

There was a lot of risk taking these communities that and to be frank a lot of substance abuse and normally you put those things together in a community and people die young to go to jail. What they don't do is reinvent. What Possible for the human species. So that was where it started for me, trying to figure out what I was seeing and experiencing some sort of firsthand. You know, what, how is this possible?

And every time you talk to an athlete and matter, their first skiers snowboarders rock climbers, they all said the same thing. We talked about this, Altered States, that State of Consciousness, they got into, they would describe its qualities. And characteristics is always the same. And that was sort of where it started for me, because, like, from a Strictly physical standpoint.

Like if you're looking and analyzing Elite level athletes, you know, all the records being broken year after year, like they are like from a physical standpoint alone. Yeah, we may be getting a little bit stronger. We have better Technologies, you know, better handle on nutrition, but this Quantum Leap in performance. Can it cannot really be distilled down to just simply an improvement from a physical standpoint? It's oftentimes more psychological, you think, right?

Well, it's neurobiological Right? Are we interface with it through psychology in a sense but the changes are neurobiological just to put things in context and flow flow. Definitely amplifies mental performance. And that's what it's sort of famous for when talk all about that. But on the physical side of the equation, dry goes up a little bit and flow because the governor, you can probably do

know this. Most people who aren't trained can only access about 65% of their stride before the brain, sort of shuts it down to you. Yourself. If you're a trained weightlifter, that goes up, 75, 85 percent, and then in like those fight-or-flight extreme like lift the car off the baby situations, you can the governor has gone completely in, get it 100%. Hello, quiets that Governor down a little bit.

So we're whatever triangle of earlier that there's no nobody's Quantified it but you get to access more strength. It's on top of it and it feels like even more because to the neurochemicals that underpin blower really potent painkillers. So a lot of paint, a lot of the pain you feel during during physical activity, goes away. So stamina goes up, strength goes up to those reasons, as well. And then the neurochemicals that underpin flow. Also a up fast.

Twitch muscle response. Dude, you're more dick stairs, you move quicker, you get a little more explosive on. So those things are improved, the biggest differences as you pointed out, our psychological their mental, and that have them has a much bigger impact on performance. But there is a physical side of level catchy.

So it's kind of like, when you Into that you're effectively resetting your homeostatic set point at a much higher level but in a sustainable fashion sustainable for the length of time that you get to you you just you just use one of my favorite herbs. Low does something really interesting with homeostatic set points especially with like emotional set points. So, you know, you know, everything in the body sort of gets set up. Pretty early on an emotional set points.

You live between them right? There's a there's a lowest experience of satisfied and I have a plan on the history going to be on the planet and they're movable right. You can actually feel worse over time. Death of a child or chronic unemployment will push you down as hell but those are the only two things that seem to do it and to go up. The only thing that consistently works is repeated, access to flow. You can raise your upper emotional limit with flow over

time. Gotcha, now flow in and of itself is It's kind of like you may be conscious of the fact that you are in flow, but it's also somewhat subconscious. Like you're tapping into that potential without trying to necessarily but you recognize when you're in it. But then it's beneficial to not become too aware of it because then you're liable to kick yourself out of it, so, to speak. So, how does one actively

pursue? He's spending more time in flow without offsetting likelihood that they'll get in flow. There's a six different answers to this question. Let me just sort of start at the beginning a little bit. Yeah. Low States our principal. How do we know we're in flow? Psychologists Define flow bike, six core characteristics that define the experience. In all six show up were in flow, those are complete concentration on the task at hand, merger of action awareness.

The Vanishing of our sense of self and self consciousness time. Perhaps a strange little slow down or more frequently, it speeds up. We don't, we don't experience on the inside P performance. Instead we feel a sense of control. Now I can control As I can't normally controls a basketball player saying, oh my God, it looks as big as a loop or, you know, it's me as a rider 6 a.m. on a Monday. When my sentences are suddenly doing things that my sentence is

normally different, do at 6 a.m. on a Monday. Um and finally we Define experience as autotelic which is a big fancy word for an ending cell and it means that flow is

an ecstatic. Joyous very, very addictive, but in a positive sense of the word experience, when once an experience starts producing flow will go Really fun our way to get Mormon. So how do we know when flow those six core characteristic show up everybody, every human being can get into Flow State as ubiquitous it shows up in anyone anywhere provided certain initial conditions are met. So the next part, the Ike's answer. Your question is, what are those initial conditions?

So how do you get yourself into flow? How do you get more flow? Load states have triggers preconditions that will lead to more flow. There are twenty five or six that have been discovered so far. This probably way more than we haven't found yet. That's where the total is today and all this triggers essentially do the same thing. So flow follows focus it only shows up when our attention is on the task at hand, on the right here, the right. That's what all the triggers, do.

They drive our attention into the now more formally? The push double, man. And norepinephrine into our system, in the lower cognitive and all three of those things what way more attention on to the present moment. That's what all the triggers do. They do it in various different way. If you want more flow in your life, these triggers your toolkit. In fact, when you look at the action sport athletes in the 90s, it was taking advantage to these triggers.

That really led to this, unbelievable flowering and human potential. Gotcha. And as it pertains to just daily habits, I'm just I'm assuming there's ways to kind of set yourself up for success to increase the likelihood of that. You'll be able to tap into flow, one of, which simply being not multitasking. I feel like a lot of people do that but certainly not going to bode well for tapping into that flow potential.

Yeah, just to put it in context. So my organization, the flow research Collective were a science and trying to organization or a study the neurobiology of pink human performance. What's going on, you know, in the brain in the body, when we perform at our best, and we do this work with neuroscientists and scientists in places like Stanford and USC, and UCLA and Bureau click on and so forth.

And then we take what we learn and we train people and we'd work in 130 countries, tens of thousands of people in, you know, average, you know, average folks all the way up, to professional athletes. Members of the Special Forces, we train a lot of companies Accenture, ADI base book, Bain Capital, blah, blah, San Francisco, Police Department the air. Split the list sort of goes on.

And the reason I'm mentioning all this is where data Geeks and we and we capture everything in the course itself. Just put in context about eight weeks long, it's digitally delivered. But you have a PHD psychologist as a coach though and it's a lot little bit of work. It's not super easy, but just to give you an idea of how trainable flow is on the back and an eight-week course on average, we see a 70 to 80 percent boost and flow.

This is a a very, very, very trainable skill in the first part and the second part part me, how is that being measured? Like the the 70 days percent increase in flow? So we we use for that, for that class. We're using Susan Jackson, short scale, the I csikszentmihalyi develops. A 36 question, question are back in the 80s one of those well validated Tools in Psychology and then six other Close scales, Susan, Jackson and chicks have a high strongest. The original 36 questions down

into a nine question. I think 18 questions total because you want a little redundancy in there and that's what we use and use this. It's the standard now, there we are working in our, on a biophysical, a slow detector. In fact, we just published a very unlike 100 page paper in neuroscience. And Bobby have your reviews. What happens in the brain inflow State on citizenry listed for?

Different are biological signals that we're trying to combine and measure all at ones that we think Mark the onset of flow. So we're getting there nor well logically. But right now the gold standard is the short scale, their log scale. Can you disclose those fours at top secret? It's it's not Top Secret at all. So couple things happen in flow. We got so All right, I'll give you the. Let me just give me the coolest one. Okay? The one that I'm totally geeked about.

So when you're in flow, you have this sense of control and that sends a control like you perform a tap and you get better-than-expected results. You're surprised. Oh my God, that was super well when we are surprised and get better than expected results, there's a very specific signal, there's an herb, which is, you know, a large-scale oscillation, the brand basically, In waves but it shows up 300 milliseconds after the surprise but it's known as a p300.

Positive meaning positive after the event, 300 300 milliseconds and it's p300 coming to versions. There's A and B we encounter p3i days when we encounter in halti and p300 bees when we get better than expected results. So flow, we think the opposite of flow is Mark one of the things that's Mark, by is a series of P3 hundreds. Oh, shit. That work super well. Oh my God. Look at that.

And, you know, that's a really very, you know, action sports or sport like if that's a really common experience where you just like, oh my God, this is, this is going better than expected better than I expected. And, you know, that excitement, by the way that p300 tends to correspond with a little bit of a dopamine release in the brain, do it, you know, you get better-than-expected results and you get a little more dumped.

Me feels good. Also, tightens your focus and your fast, twitch muscle response and pattern recognition. The whole bunch of stuff. Do you have a better shot at getting this better-than-expected results. So that's what we sort of think it's at the onset of flow, right before that. The other thing that might be familiar. Everybody is we think we see the fight response though. We know flow starts with the decision to approach and not avoid and that leaning in to challenge.

It triggers the fight response or tends to trigger the type or fight response. We don't know if this is going to be ubiquitous like it's going to happen across the boards or just in sort of like high-stress situations that's an open question. You definitely have to lean in but do you actually need the fight response and in sort of the hormones underneath it? We don't know but we should have

a better idea about a year. So like in a perfect scenario when you have all of this you know neurofeedback Mac data coming in real time. What would be the the use case scenario for the select? Like for I'm all about data to like I've got an aura ring. I've got the Garmin watch, I gotta like data, especially if I can use that to make some actionable. Yeah, well, I'll just give you a really simple example that lean and response, which is, especially Japanese martial arts.

And I do not in all martial arts, and definitely not in Judah to anymore. People make fun of me when I use this example of their martial artist, but When I was trained, you would kiosk before attacking, right? At this sudden shout that, you know, you oughta, be and why you doing that? Because when we shout while attacking, it's basically triggering the fight response.

So that's a really simple one. But like, you know, if you've ever, I ski a lot and, you know, always sort of like, this top of the big line do something like that. To, like, dial in my focus a little bit but that's so The better way to talk about this is the most effective way to get into flow, is the flow triggers and to stack, a bunch of them on

top of each other. So, let's just talk about, for example, the dopamine triggers because there's a bunch of different psychological triggers that produce dopamine when we encounter novelty, when we take a risk, when there's pattern recognitions of creativity, when you link two ideas together. Right, my My new book, not our country, which really looks and apply big performance in applied flow and things like that. And as skiing at the center of it, as an example.

And when you look at it, terrain feature, right, moving down the hill. And you see it like a mountain Estonia like, oh, wow, that's kind of perfect for a snow grind. When you do that, that kind of, when that takes place, that's pattern, recognition brain leaking ideas together. And that produces a little, a little squirt of dopamine which will drive Focus as well. Complexity doesn't so does unpredictability to, these are all flow triggers. How would you use them?

I'll give you a really simple example in my home. I have to read a lot of Neuroscience textbooks obviously and you know, the thrilling there for their dedication page Turners. Really. And it's really important to me to. Remember what I what, I what I've read along the way too. So when I sort of save up two or three textbooks, and I usually go like, take a trip goes just someplace new. That I haven't been, I'll get a hotel room with a balcony and

I'll sit out on the balcony. Looking at very, very novel, and sort of unpredictable scenery, and that's enough to get a little dopamine into my system. And what, as I start reading, as I start making connections between the new ideas and all

other ideas. That's that's pattern recognition, that's going to kick a little more double man in. So I always tell people if you have to like read and retain our stuff and you need to focus for it. Someplace where you can have complete concentration because that matter shall flow. So you want you know, quiet and distraction management all that stuff. But go someplace in novel where you're looking at really, you know, interesting cool, scenery

in that sort of stuff. It will provoke stuff man and helps. Yeah, totally. You would that mean if I'm ever feeling like I'm in a slump, I just simply change my scenery, go for a drive, you know, staying at an Airbnb or something, even if it's local, but just getting out of my normal bubble, my level of creativity and just ability to focus. Oka seems to amplify tenfold door, right? Yeah, absolutely. What about stress? Like a stress, like the Kryptonite to flow or is there a

certain? Yeah. So this is this is let's talk about flows. Most important trigger, what's known as The Challenge skills balance. The idea here is flow, follows focus and we pay the most attention to the task at hand. When the challenge the death slightly exceeds our skill sets, do you want to stretch but not snap. If I were to put that emotionally, I'd say flow sits on the midpoint between boredom and anxiety. Boredom is not enough stimulation.

I'm not paying attention, anxiety, way too much. I'm paying too much attention. Fix it at can't stop in between is what psychologists call the flow Channel physiologist would call the irk stops and curve, okay? On Davis, exact same thing, right? And there's a sweet spot for focus and attention stimulation and all that stuff. Now, it's interesting for flow that sweet spot, right? Because it's right outside your comfort zone. So you want to get good at this.

Got to get comfortable with being uncomfortable but you can't push too hard. The neurochemicals that underpin fear. Predominately norepinephrine cortisol little bit is great, right? Price focus and it Prime's learning. It too much. You not only do you block low, you destroy performance, creativity gets completely blocked by too much norepinephrine in your system, and brain gets very logical, very linear, very predictable, fast. Twitch muscle response goes

down. Our ability to generate full force and full power goes down like on and on, there's a huge detriment in the brain and the body for too much anxiety. So, yes, and if you want to get good at flying, One of the things that we train people in his emotional regulation, and, you know, there's sort of like, the Peak Performance Basics. Like, how do you on a day-to-day basis besides? Like proper hydration, proper nutrition that like, Body Energy

stuff, right? You also have to make sure you're managing your emotions and imagine nervous system. And there's, you know, there's four things you really want to be focused on social support, which you should be focused on every day for a lot of different reasons. Reasons. But predominantly if you want to keep norepinephrine. Now your system, whatever the brain. Whenever we people encounter an issue, right? Could be a threat. Could be a challenge to rise towards the brain runs a.

What is this? You know, approach River. Avoid. What do I do here? I'm like, energy. Do I need to produce to meet this challenge? That sort of stuff? Social support is supercritical. If you have people in your life, when your regular income pathetic with love, you have your back. Going to pick you up if you fall down. Well most things are challenges you are used for. It's not the raddest though. You get a lower energetic response you get a lower North the nephron and cortisol response.

The opposite is true. If you can loan wolfing it for a while. Hmm, you encounter a situation, your brain goes, oh shit, man, you're alone. There's nobody's noticed that your back and this is a big problem. Bursa Burns a ton of calories. Plimsoll, want to norepinephrine. Get into your system really problematic social, support matters and then that's the daily basis. And then I there are three other things you want to do.

And I always tell people uh, normal days, do one on days where you're a little more stressed out due to if you work for me at the flow research Collective, for example, during covid or Peak Performance organization. I wanted my people would be at their best. You had to do all three if you want to keep your job. So what are those three daily gratitude practice daily mindfulness or breath work? Practice and daily exercise,

right? And a gratitude practice takes about five minutes to do mindfulness for stress reduction. You're talking about 11, 12 minutes of breath work. And if you're exercising for stress reduction, you want to work out until it gets quiet upstairs, right? The voice in your head gets really soft and your lungs. Open up. That's a signal that the body has released. Nitric oxide is a gas to signaling molecules everywhere in the body and it It flushes stress hormones.

Out of our system, though. Normal conditions you want to use social support is more than I do. Anyway. So just support is different for everybody. I'm an extreme introvert. I have to have a couple two or three four conversations a week on the phone with close friends. Just checking it does have to be long but you know 20 minutes checking in and I like to talk to my wife every day and try to connect my wife every day, but beyond that like I'm hanging out my God.

I don't need More and that that that's just enough for me. Everything is gonna be different extreme extroverts are going to need a lot so that that that's up and down but the other stuff you know we know exactly how long it's going to take. And I always like to say People forms by the way, let's just Define it for a second. The way I defy is just getting our biology to work for us rather than against us when it

comes to be performance. It's really a checklist about six things you want to do every day about seven things, you want to do every week and you know of the of those things I just named a bunch of them right? You want to sleep seven eight hours to because that's the amount of sleep adults need and there's no real wiggle room and especially if you're trying to like take care of emotional regulation You need to sleep seven eight hours. That's one of the things you've

got to do every day. You got to take care of your nervous system. That's not a you know, it's goes like that and but it's ultimately a checklist of things that you do every day. Yeah. No, I totally agree. Man. Do you like to incorporate the Gratitude and the the mindfulness and kind of do that in the form of journaling and iku? 12 Journal? So, um, I'm not one to journal her say, in the way that people Journal ice catch is I write for a living.

So like all the stuff that goes into, people's Charles goes sooner or later your twines its way into whatever I'm the writing, right? So, I'll sketch and I'll draw and that'll be stum of it but I do. So another flow trigger is known as clear goals. Clear goals is like a daily to-do list, but the This is the sun is on process, not outcome goals and it's Vic. Clarity is what matters flow follows Focus. So when you bring those this is what we're doing now.

This is what we're doing. Next doesn't ever have to wonder? That's the most important thing. The goal itself is less important. But so clear goals are really important to flow like to create. I'd like to end my day or start my day. Making it clear goals list for the day right. Hardest task first and and work from there and right after I do it, clear goals list. I do my gratitude practice and I prefer and we've done a lot of work on gratitude, so probably the world's best expert on

gratitude in the neurobiology. Gratitude is dr. Glenn and foxes at USC. We've done a lot of work with Glenn over the years. In fact, one of the things we've learned is that a daily gratitude practice? Makes you more flow prone. Because it low or it keeps anxiety levels down, it allows you to get into that challenge skills. Sweet Spot, much more easily, but we did a lot of work on the neurobiology of gratitude and do

the standard. Psychological one is sort of three things you're grateful for and then you Journal about about a paragraph turning. One of those things into a paragraph, right? That's the standard positive psychology. Gratitude exercise, I find more effective for me. Just write down ten things. I'm grateful for and write each one. By hand three times. So I'm really and in the point is you want to feel the Gratitude in your body.

It's about finding finding finding the interior cept of sense of gratitude and that's what you're after because when you have gratitude is basically thanking the world really good. Things are already happening to you and it calms the brain down. So it basically gratitude e. Tunes are negativity bias on a

mountain on basis. Really important ways when under normal conditions, because we were, you know, we evolved in a very different era with threats were much more immediate we take in about 9 - bits of information, for every positive bit that gets through and not a lot of bits get through it. Right. The band with a Consciousness when you can consciously pay attention to is about 140 160 bits of information. And just by listening to my voice you're processing 4260 best though.

That just did put it in context. The battle developed is, this is really small and we're taking an eye - bits for every positive if it gets through. That's one of the reasons we tend to be a little more depressed or anxious or you know, hyper-vigilant or do those things. Gratitude tilts, it. Your brain goes. Oh shit. Look at all. The good things going on in your life.

Maybe it's not. So Bad. We don't need to gather all this - information and it tilts it to like 5 to 1 or 6 to 1. And that's excellent. Because those non those new bits of information are coming in that's novelty. So not only is it flow. Trigger novelty is the seed kernel of all creativity, Innovation intelligent problem solving. So really big benefit for that and 45 minutes a day. It's amazing but I'm not a journey or because I write for a living. Do I right?

Hours a day, anyways. I've got every day. I can impress them in 5 hours a day without fail is a lot of running. Let me ask you this. You seem like a very disciplined person for good reason. I feel like once you're able to quantify how much better you perform as a result of more time, spent in flo, I would assume you become that much more protective of that flow time, that flow State. And I feel like that's a great

question. It's very important to like, deter anything that could distract from that. And I feel like a lot of people's issue is simply saying no to things. So how do you kind of weighed that one? Water. Hmm, okay. So um, I think you're right, let me talk about a couple different Frameworks for how I say now and how I think about know I talked earlier about clear goals,

listen, to-do lists, hmm. One of the first things I do and I think everybody should run this experiment but what goes on at Clear goals list. Your to-do list is anything. You're going to do during the day that takes energy, right? That's the budget for your days, your energy level. I'm so you people fuck up when they do this because they'll forget putting things like I have to have a, you know, cam the conversation, my wife to my brother or my boss and those

sorts of things, right? And but that's a big energy sock or they'll, you know, they'll leave thing. Forget to leave off walking the dog or those sorts of things but those also doesn't take any energy. So what I tell people is you got to figure out how many things, can you be excellent at it a day and just sort of run the experiment, like see how many things you can put on?

On your clear goals list get all through all of them, be at your best doing all of them and you can time and flow time. During people format you'll learn how to extend this list over time perhaps a little bit but the truth of the matter is you know most of us I come out somewhere between like 9/11 things obviously. One of those things I'm going to do every day, is it going to write few like 4 or 5 hours? So that's the big thing that's going first on my list.

So that the first thing that is the know is if I know how many things I can do in a day, right? So if if I can't be excellent at something, I'm not going to try to do it in a give it in a given day because it doesn't, it doesn't make any sense to me. The other thing that I do is though this is a lot of this stuff is very, very, very much detailed in my book, The Art of impossible but so if you're interested in being performance, it actually starts with mode. Vacation and a part of

motivation is goal. Setting and Youmans for perform best with three tiers of goals. At the top, we have like our purpose or massively transformative purposes and you can have a couple of these. For me, I have three. I want to write books that have a really big impact kind of thing. I want to advance flow science and research and I want to make the world a better place for Animals. My wife and I run a dog saying, sure, I've been involved in animal rights and Animal Welfare

issues. 4:30 Some years though, those are my big three things and to do those three things, I also have to, you know, there's three other things that I focus on. There's all the sort of the business support stuff that I have to do to be after go after my three massively transformative purposes, there's also friends and family something that that matters to me and social support is really

important. Finally I don't function well without regular access to my primary flow activities and those are you The in part for me being or Mountain downhill mountain biking or surfing or you know, that sort of thing. So those are the six things I do and if you come to me with something and it fits into the one of those six categories, I say, yes, come to do something that's outside one of those six things, the answer is always and know.

So I start there, that's one of the filters I applied in my life. I also know how many things I can do in a day so that it's another pill. Out there. There are others but those are the two big ones that I start with.

I like that. Yeah, I have something similar with my like I've got like five primary pillars and I tried to have everything work, you know in unison somewhat chaotic in nature, like whenever I'm spending time towards one of those pillars, it as ideally improving the other in some form of fashion. If anything comes into my life, that is not any way shape form or fashion, benefiting one of those five pillars and it's just a hard, no, no matter what Right. Yeah exactly.

I want to dive into sustainability because I feel like you know, longevity sustainability, that is all Chi. That's awesome. Also a topic I believe a topic of your latest book North Country and how to be able to perform at a high level. Optimize human performance in a sustainable fashion for the Long Haul. And a lot of people. Look at, let's go ahead. No, no, you go ahead Robert. I'm sorry to tell you you're done. Yeah I mean I just can say that

a lot of people. Look at these, you know, flow States this this level of High high activity, high output and they don't think it's sustainable. And then I've heard you mention, you know, you look at people that are doing free soloing climbing for days on end, like you pretty much have to be in a flow state. By default in order to do that, not fall to your death so you can stretch this out in a sustainable fashion.

If you take the right approach though, The new button our country grow mold stammer and is about people for my staging. And you know, same definition as before, right? Getting our biology to work for us, rather than he got this only in this case, it's, you know, applying that biology to the opportunities and challenges of Aging. We've talked about a couple of things in, sort of response to

your question. The first thing is and I'm guessing most of you listeners are not going to fall into this category, but for the handful of people who still do If you want to know about performance aging, the place to start is with the traditional, the old idea about aging, and it's what I like to call a long, slow rock theory, right? This is the idea that all of our mental skills and our physical skills, they decline over time. And there's nothing we can do to

stop the slide. We now know that's not true at all. Well, excuse me. It is true that our physical skills decline over time and I mental skills, decline over time, but almost all of the skills that we used to believe decline. Climb. We now know their user loses deals and you never stop using these skills. You can hang on that. You're going to have some Far later in life than anybody thought possible.

So, that's amazing news. Yeah, honestly, I took very recently in the this story sort of told in our country is there's a whole bunch of stuff. That comes out of flow science. So let me back up and talk about what the hell flow has to do. With people from engaging is that was one part of your question or Aging in general and especially successful, aging healthy, aging performance aging.

So we mentioned earlier that, there's this challenge skills balance that you pushing on your skills, to the utmost to drop into flow. What that means is I'm other side of a flow State, your more complex, right? You've learned something. You've grown your more adaptable. A couple of things that flow amplifies, the amplifies learning studies run. By the US Department of Defense learning. Go up, two hundred fifty to five hundred percent above normal Big

Boost in learning. It also expands both empathy and wisdom and for a bunch of our biological reasons that we could go into if you really care. But like it expands a between wisdom and we get more skills. Csikszentmihalyi argued, then it's the engine of maturation is the engine of development. Flow is what? makes us grow up and I think he I think it's one of the engines. I don't think it's the only one. I think there are a couple of other things.

Small kick something. I really thought it was the main other adult development and our drive to get into float. Doesn't go away. It stays constant almost until the very end of our Lives. Um and This engine keeps us going. And it turns out Lo this is sort of the final part of the question. I think Flo really, really, really enhances. A lot of stuff we want access to late in life. So, when we're in flow, we had this feeling of Mastery, right?

Because their skills are growing and we get the sense of control. These are two of those positive powerful emotions that humans cannot get access to and we feel really positive power. Well, motions, that stimulates the production of T-cells, some of the, a lot of Selco cells and natural killer cells, which are the cells that Target tumors and other six cells really, really important for obvious. You know, people from its aging

perspectives. The other thing they happens in flow is I mentioned earlier that nitrous oxide release. You get at the gym that also shows up at the front end of a flow stated pushes, the mentioned stress hormones out of your system to there are nine known Aging. Right now, all of them went back to stress and inflammation in the body. So if any time you can dump, stress, chemicals. You're actually slowing aging

down. So flow boosts, our immune system, a bunch of different ways, it slows down aging, it also bonus underpins meaning, purpose penis. Overall well-being, low is, you know, psychologists define happiness. There's three levels of happiness now and the top two definitions. Us and flow baked into them. So so the way I like to kind of frame all this up and then I'll shut up and let you ask your. Next question is flow doesn't just make life worth living.

It makes a whole lot more life worth living. Yeah I feel like and it's at its core in the essence like if you're just simply excited about the potential of continuing continued Improvement that that in and of itself, which is going to be creating Flow by Design is is going to be doing One wonders to prevent the Aging aspects in all its totality. I mean, I feel like so many people wind up going downhill at an exponential rate, simply because they have quote-unquote

lost the will to live. They don't have excitement have bigger than of zeal for life anymore. If you can find something that continues to inspire you and continues to create and elicit, these emotions of excitement like that in and of itself will improve your likelihood to live a quality more fulfilled life. We actually have data on that. So what you're you're you're sort of blending, two things scientists or break. Apart one is mindset.

And let me start there because this is really cool. So what you're describing is essentially what's known as a positive mindset toward aging, right? This second half, my life is filled with exciting, thrilling possibilities in the best. My best days are ahead of me. Hmm, have pause it. When people talk about people, wanting and get asked a lot, where do you start start with mindset? You start with p and the there's

work on back. Ellen, Langer be in the 70s and the 80s started this but like it's gone all the way forward. We know that a positive mindset towards aging, produces an extra, seven and a half years of healthy longevity, so you should shift your mindset before you quit smoking before you lose weight and roughly in the same, it's roughly the same importance of, having a robust social life as Age, which is really, really,

really key. The other thing that you folded in there is this passion purpose in flow. You want to live in such a way that you knew you did your passion purpose and flow and that research comes out of the blue Zone research, right? The longest, the communities on Earth and some of the stuff they've discovered as a little controversial. Usually, their dietary advice is what's controversial and or the supplement, advices what's controversial, but the lifestyle stuff.

There's no arguing about And one of the overwhelming things is the healthiest long as the people on Earth are living with passion purpose and flow and this positive mindset towards agent. I went what I like about this, or what I find interesting about this is, if you talk to most people about aging and performance aging or whatever, terms you want to use there, they're not going to tell you that mindset, passion purpose and flowers, a secret to longevity, but the data is overwhelming.

Yeah, no for sure man. Honestly this is one of the reasons I love my sport of natural bodybuilding man. Like if you couple that you know with proper diet with recovery, Like There's No Cap to IT person like if you continue to use that muscle, if you continue to go in there and you train that flow State, there's no reason why your body can't continue to

improve. Yeah there may be some interesting, interesting on natural bodybuilding so I don't know what's going on. So bone density is one of the only only limits you have, right? And it declines over time. One of the reasons we recommend hiking with a weight vest or a lot of weight training, right? You really big, really gotta know what you're doing to load the poems properly. Um, but it's interesting. There's the, the, your bones is for the nutrient mineral,

Factory your body, right? Everything sort of runs off your bones, essentially and bone density climbs over time. So, you wrist, strength, training, being so to, when we talk about the Peak Performance skills, that are the skills of Skills that decline over time this 5, right strength sound that you have to train strength, stamina, agility, balance, and flexibility, and stammers along people to a lot of attention to

what you have. You need about 150 to 300 minutes of bigger moderate to vigorous exercise a week, like this guy activity or aerobic activity, but you also need to strength training days and three balance, flexibility and Agility days or you need to Find a sport that combines all those though. There's no I don't think you can age successfully without lifting weights. Yeah, I agree one I don't and you know is Henry Rollins does the iron - yeah.

That's a that's a very good saying is this like is this experiment in for Ray into skiing? Is this basically an experimentation and putting all these principles into practice or what was the motivation for? Yeah let me tell you what I did and let me tell you sort of a little bit Why I get it and then do I have a lifelong skier? I've missed and I'm a good skier, very big mountain, skiers his pro athletes around mountains. What? I'm not is a park skier, right?

Parks involve doing tricks off jumps. I'm rails and boxes and water rides. Incredibly acrobatic is very dangerous and providing 11 different biological reasons. Hence, the considered very difficult if you're trying to learn it over 35 once you get to 40 or it's downright impossible. So at age 53, a couple years ago, I took the whole bunch of sort of whiz-bang idea. Is a flow science bodybugg, cognitions new stuff in exercise. Physiology blah, blah blah can

bind him to alerting protocol. That I said in theory is this shit Works in. You know, Works in a lab if I if it works up in the while, they should be able to learn to park ski in my 50s. And to test it, we made a list of 20 tricks that would basically got me from 0 to intermediate and intermediate is the point sort of, in any learning curve where you sort of know enough, what you're doing.

At the random students, they start to dial down, you can still get a hurt but it's usually a little more contextually. Usually have a little more control. So the goal was, how long does it take me to get to intermediate, according to, you know, traditionalists it's going to be never not possible.

But everybody else myself included thought, you know, I thought it would take five years took under a season using a lot of very particular learning protocol that we could talk about afterwards if you want and we very particular learning protocol and I've ever learned anything that fast. I'm not a naturally gifted athlete a broken, a ton of belem. So my body is very injured or has been very injured along with other crazy busy schedule.

So time for like crazy new exotic training schedule or something like that wasn't really. Early possible. And I went, you know, 02 dangerous, very, very quickly single-season. My ski partner who's 20 years younger than me, was a former sponsored athlete sponsored Park skier but had gotten injured gotten out of this for have three.

Kids had a job. You know, came back to it after about a decade and a half gone, he use the same protocol and he went farther faster than anybody that, you know, then he believed and so what we had by the end of that season. Was one of the most radical experiments, a big performance, anything it is run, but it was a really fun experiment. You know, it's to study subjects for the next year we came back. We took 17 older adults ages, 20 1968.

Most of them were intermediate skier, so they didn't even have the level of skill. I brought into, it's the most of them started have this intermediate, we took the exact same protocol. We used in four days on the mountain, got them significantly very, very far, and Then because not everybody's interested in action sports script out, the action sports, we replaced it with, with a particular kind of

weight. Best hiking to the physical aspects, a couple of other things on the physical side and created a training. The goal of this training was to sort of get people to explode, their traditional mindset on Aging, right? Building with a whole bunch of new knowledge and then set them on what we call it. Like an AR style quest which isn't like skiing is not right for everybody but And I have a quest with like there's a thing, they've always wanted to get done in their life.

Something they want to go for and you know, the training is designed to get them on that road and moving moving that direction and We've ran over 350 people through that and it was a stunning success. And by the way don't take my word for it. Shit. Go tune our country.com and click on the Peak Performance aging experiment you can watch a video, we had an announcement. You graphic camera, person following us around for the whole thing is if you watch a video about the There's the

white papers right there. Nice man, this is like the stripped down version. That is applicable across all Industries across tall. Skinny this week, turn the stripped down version. It's not yet available, but it's we've tested and tested would love it. It's we're gonna we're calling it forever dangerous. Our core flow training at the flurries did Collective is 0-2 dangerous and are and we're bundling and with the people from engaging stuff because it's so tightly together.

And I'll also tell you this the other cool thing about in our country. Because the books sort of a ski diary, right and and what the the the disadvantages of sounds boring. And it's not, it's a fun adventure story than I and I really, I work my ass off on my writing to make sure it was really gripping cool.

But it's the first time I did it that way because nobody's ever done Book on a plaid Peak Performance and applied people, Foreman's aging, like what does it look like on a daily basis? And, you know, I don't know you've ever tried to train anybody in the and stuff you think about. But Like the hardest thing always is to sort of explain the checklist. This is what it looks like day

after day. And you know, the other thing that's really hard to explain is all people performance and people, fermentation as you know, it works like compound interest, right? A little bit today, little bit tomorrow and the really big benefits start showing up in three months or six months or a year or two. And that's really hard to explain to people and it's hard to believe from the outside when we put the front end, starting

your journey. So I wanted to show people exactly what it looked like all the way through. As well. So that that I think is one of the cool things I got to do in this book that I haven't been able to do in any other and I love that minute. You said, you had been skiing your whole life and then you were able to acquire these Park skiing skills within a season, would you have written the book, any differently in the context of those who have zero momentum towards the thing?

They're trying to excel at? It's like if you had never skied a day in your life and trying to do this like because it's still totally applicable, Is yet absolutely likeable? Um, well okay, let me might not be totally believable. This skiing the very you, but if you're in advance from an advanced beginner. Yeah, and you probably could start at the very beginning. All we did is so I have to tell you a couple idea. Couple of the key things that

led to our experiment. The first is this idea of allostatic load? Are you familiar with that term? I've heard it, but no means Define it. Allostatic load is just physiological and psychological impact of trauma, over time. Okay. And so, what we realized is, so most people, the challenge skills. Sweet spot is about five percent. Meaning the challenge of the cat who pay the most attention to ask, when, the challenge map 5% greater than our skills in older adults.

And and really older here is whenever sort of attitude of old, whatever your brains going to say, hey man, you're too old for this shit, right? When I put that start showing enough, some people have 30, some people have like 20, some people, it doesn't show up till 60 or 70 plus, you know, physical injury is a real big deal. If you've been injured in the path that'll impact a little is right. Well we just sort of went hey we think adults the challenge goes sweet, spot of shrunken.

And people don't even know it. We think it's about 1 to 2 percent. So what we're going to do is we're going to do what we did. Is we took Park skiing and snowboarding and we broke it into eight. National movements a slashed grind, a Crouch jump a 180 skiing backwards or riding backwards switch skiing or switch riding as its called. I'm in a 360 and the goal wasn't

to teach people the new tricks. The goal was to teach them these novel motions to, they could creatively interpret terrain features and we taught them to look at it terrain Park. Not as a look, that's a giant job and you know, I gotta hit that but oh look That's a big mound of snow with a bigger Mound on top of it. What can I do with any part of it? So creatively interpreting terrain features, using these new body motions, that's creativity. We teach them to motions a day.

Tell them to start with something they could do automatically with zero fear. No conscious interference, 117 lat, and everybody is an intermediate skier or snowboarder can hockey stuff. They turn their body sideways and stop. It's a foundational skill. You learned it as an advanced beginner. Our. And if you change the angle of

the terrain, right? If you go from flat ground to a slight Hill, you've moved from a hockey, stop into a grind or a / depending on where you put your hips and your shoulders, basically. So we knew everybody could do that and we said, okay, build on that one inch at a time with just one new motor pattern and creatively interpreting the terrain feature. And we knew a couple like three or four or five like experiences, they're going to get a lot of pattern. Ignition.

They're going to a lot of dopamine in the, that'll drop them in the flow flow, underpins Peak Performance. Everything will get jacked up including learning and a bunch of other things that we were using to teach them. And the flow statement self would take care of the progression. And it did though that methodology can be applied anywhere. Right? Does it doesn't matter what you're doing. It's the same methodology. Got you in your own personal life?

Is there a specific skill set that you have no foundational background? And that you are wanting And we're keen to improve upon and basically put these principles into practice with something totally unrelated to what you've done thus far. Yeah, I'm actually. So you want to have as many entrances into flow as possible as you age, right? You don't want to get locked out of flow. You want to have more and more

access to flow. So in do that, I've teaching myself how to park scheme, which gives me a million new entrances and flow rather than just Big Mountain skiing. So like that's one thing I'm rekindling. I'm a degree in Fine Arts from 30 years ago and I was okay sort of sketch artist but I've Dove back in. I've been drawing that 15 to 20 minutes today, I spent the entire morning getting my ass kicked by.

How do you draw feet by the way? Because today's project and I'm kinda just suck at it and I got my and you asked him. I starting something that I have zero experience. No skill, I am teaching myself piano, and I like I'm really musically challenged. I tried to learn three different instruments over the years and failed miserably, but this time, it's just 20 minutes day until I die. And hopefully I'll get there. I like him.

And you get to send me an email with your with your foot sketch, so I can put that in the show notes. Oh God! They're terrible. Also in that cab actually said, Daddy, I can't do it, but they're so bad. I mean, you really truly bad. It's amazing. I've been trying to draw this one image for like 15 years. It's a kid eternity Duncan for Great Oak. Great graphic artist great comic, book artist drawing and it's got a body of whim of you.

See the bottom of the foot and about is that a tote a gun and I'm trying to draw this thing for 15 years. I can't get the Foot Right in finding was just like, okay, I'm breaking it apart. I'm going to spend the next two months doing feet. Hey man. I'm getting no doubt that you will perfect the foot at some point for sure. I don't I don't I don't know Butthead. At least I could be able to sketch it so it's not embarrassing.

There you go. And I've got one final question for you and I kind of want to dive into the animal sanctuary. Man. You mentioned that earlier. I love to kind of just flesh that on greater detail. What was the motivation behind that? Yeah, bunch of different motivations but I'm a lifelong animal geek and I when I met my wife, she was doing dog, rescue,

mmm. And it was, I have been doing everything from, you know, volunteering for, you know, rainforest Action Network, kind of, you know what I mean, I was all over the place and I was writing a lot as a journalist, but the stories and things like that and I was actually running a different nonprofit. At the time, I sort of believe, I believe that. Part of your life, should be

serviced. And I think for me, I that became really important because I knew I was going to like, it was I wanted to this very strange strange strange idea that I could not only just make a living writing, I can make a good living writing, but to do that, I sort of knew I was going to have to become a well-known writer and I had a bunch of friends. I grew up in a very funky art community. A lot of people got famous out

of the community. Lot of video rock stars and what A lot of people I'd known a very long time turned into jerks. They got famous and became jerks, you know, I wanted to guard against that and I didn't, you know, I look at those folks, I was like, got there not didn't start out very different than me. You know what I mean? It wasn't like you could look at them at all. That's logic. Narcissistic ego Mania waiting. You know what I mean? Like they work.

Just like everybody else and then something shifted. So I didn't think I was I was special so I decided I wanted part of my life to be service to guard against that. And with when I met my wife and she was doing dog, rescue, it was just perfect because I all the other stuff I was doing, I have to leave my house and if it dry was living in that Los Angeles, become a drive, all the way across Los Angeles to like sort of do my, the volunteer work. I was doing and it was just crazy.

And I realized that I could make work with the animals in my own home and you know, be a little uncomfortable all the time but you know, save myself he's like hold a Interruption to have dinner options and it worked for me. Me and you know, so we found a graphic a Chihuahua which was this is also the origin of a lot of the longevity stuff so we don't just do not a rescue Sanctuary. It's a Hospice Care Sanctuary where we focus on, like the

worst of the worst. So if you're a elderly Chihuahua with an abusive past three legs, one, eye cancer, heart disease, Main and Excellence. You are dog.

And We saw the worst of the worst hospice hospice stuff on this where our Focus has always been those of you who like working with and weave in our facility treated helped over 700 animals directly and Pastor our facility, about 5,000 to our Outreach programs and that we have a very cool healing methodology, longevity methodology, that's very based on a lot of the ideas, the canine versions, many videos with the doctor about today and our dogs come to us.

They get checked out by a vet That really actually great fats. And usually that's in the beginning, they would say things like hey don't get too attached to this dog. Is really sick to be dead in about a month. Not that at all, we're doing here, riding it with a very great depth, right? That's the job and they have these animals would live for three, four, five more years in part of our protocol involves taking dogs off leash, on

Backcountry hikes. So this is not like, just wasting away for three or four or five more years. They're like Bentley hiking. 325 miles a day in the backcountry, And so we were seeing these incredible longevity turnarounds in our dogs. I started asking questions like why is this happening? Could have happen in humans and that sort of stuff and this was, you know, 15 18 years ago.

And that was sort of the beginning of the of this kind of work for me, I like men, like it, when people, you know, for people listening for is what is the single best thing? The general population can do to make an impact. With regard to like the dogs that are wanting up coming to you. Like how can people fight against that on a so. Um, the there are two big issues and there's one simple answer. The answer is adopter adopted a if you're going to if you can kind of get a dog in your life

get a dog out of a shelter. Don't get a dog from a breeder. The problem in a map of the problem is that we have known no breeder laws. So anybody who wants to can breed dogs? Her money and does not. And we euthanize 10 to 20 million dollars a year in America, it's a holocaust. It's a Slaughter, it's insane and it's because there's no regulation on the Breeders and there's no, there's no mandatory Spay/Neuter laws and there's a lot of politics around both of those things.

And, you know, apologies are outside my Lane. I don't, I don't do but I don't do that. Um, but so, what you can do on a A daily basis. As you know, if you've been together, good a dog adopt. Makes sense makes sense. I love it man.

I love, I love your book. I've actually get your book bold on my bookshelf and when I knew we were having this pain case like man, that that name sound so familiar and I was looking and I looked through all your prior books, and that one pop that like shoot, that's sitting right there, my bookshelf. So that's great. I'm glad you enjoyed bold. Yeah man. I've enjoyed everything else. It wasn't fun book. Yeah. I'm excited about the concept you're talking about today.

With Flo, I think this is very applicable to everybody. I feel like people need to be Playing this in all aspects of our life. And I really like the concept of just simply pursuing Mastery in some form or fashion on some level at every year of your life. I feel like that we let me tell you what, let me close with one final thing because yeah I dig this. There's a bunch of weirded flow come from right and most people believe it evolved out of Runners, right?

We used to run down our prey and if you got a little A pain killers or a little performance application along the way, you'd be able to run farther get longer than it also shows up during kind of fight or flight, right? Like in those moments roughly very similar. So that was sort of like how it got into US originally, but it's now believed that flow is actually a signal of Mastery and we're doing something and we drop them to a flow State.

It's a signal that we've mastered sort of the level of skills that were at, it's the body. It's Like, coming from an evolutionary perspective. It's good to know when, you know something, right? You don't want to go there first, tiger hunt, if you don't know how to wield a spear properly, it could have very fatal consequences, right? That sort of thing. And so one of the reigning theories about why flow is persisted for so long. And what's it doing?

One of the big thoughts is it's the signal of Mastery. I like that, I like that. Yeah Mastery I mean I don't know the pursuit of Mastery I think. Is I just love. That was the most fun. Yeah it's webbing. Is the most fun you can have here, right? And I always tell people like why would you do something? If you couldn't be best in the world at, it doesn't mean you have to be best in the world that I've been. You better want to try hundred percent man 100%.

Well, Stephen I've thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. I'm going to dive into your most latest book, nor countrymen read that. What can people go to find out more about you and just dive deeper, man. Yeah, so as it with the web server mention earlier in our country.com, that'll get you everything in our country, everything me Steven kotler.com. And if you're interested in flower flow, turning all that stuff, flow research, Collective.com, beautiful. I will link out to all those.

That will be in the show notes along with your foot drawing, and it'll be great, man. Protects man. Thank you. Nikki about your eyes and like is there even when I can said it's not terribly embarrassing. There's one. But yeah, I'll send you a page at the bad foot drawings. It's fine. Awesome. And appreciate your brother. Have a good man. Bye.