388: Steven Kotler on Flow, Recovering From Lyme Disease, Psychedelics, & The Art of Impossible

The Ultimate Health Podcast

Watch the full video interview on YouTube here: https://bit.ly/tuhpstevenkotler388

Steven Kotler (IG: @kotler.steven) is one of the world’s leading experts on peak performance. He’s an author, an award-winning journalist, and the founder and executive director of the Flow Research Collective.

Steven has written the national bestsellers The Future Is Faster Than You Think, The Rise of Superman, Stealing Fire, Abundance, and Bold.

His work has been nominated for two Pulitzer Prizes, has been translated into more than forty languages, and has appeared in more than one hundred publications, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, WIRED, and TIME.

Today we’re discussing Steven’s new book, The Art of Impossible. The core message of his book - We are capable of so much more than we know.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The crossover between magic and neuroscience
• Facing fear is a lesson in peak performance
• Neuroscience and action sports were catching everybody’s attention in the 1990s
• Flow is optimal performance
• Flow states have triggers
• How the Flow Research Collective began
• Steven recalls the first time he was in flow
• The highlights of our life tend to be flow states
• Steven’s battle with Lyme disease
• Steven shares a near mystical experience he had while surfing
• Heightened creativity shows up in flow
• What is a collective flow state?
• Great collaboration is a shared state of consciousness
• The art of impossible starts with motivation
• Flow resets the nervous system
• Reboot your primary flow activity
• The basics of positive psychology
• If you want to perform at your best, you need social support
• Anxiety blocks peak performance
• The three best tools to calm yourself down
• People who practice gratitude are more prone to flow
• Steven’s thoughts on caffeine, supplements, and nootropics in relation to flow
• Building a biophysical based flow detector
• Flow is better than psychedelics for creativity
• Psychedelics outperform flow for spiritual experiences and trauma work
• Flow in animals
• Steven and his wife run a dog sanctuary
• The difference between intuition and insight
• The experience of writing fiction vs. nonfiction
• Book are the most condensed knowledge form available
• Steven's current health status
• When the impossible becomes possible

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Related links:

Steven Kotler - The Art of Impossible (book)

Steven Kotler's website

Flow Research Collective

Follow Steven Kotler on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter

Steven Kotler - The Rise of Superman (book)

Steven Kotler - Abundance (book)

Steven Kotler - Tomorrowland (book)

Steven Kotler - A Small Furry Prayer (book)

E.E. Cummings (books)

Samuel Beckett (books)

Laird Hamilton

Listen to Laird Hamilton previously on TUHP (episode #323)

Andrew Hesssel

The Human Genome Project

Herb Benson – The Breakout Principle (books)

Burning Man

passionrecipe.com

Martin Seligman (books)

Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi (books)

Robin Carhart Harris

Tim Ferriss (books)

Roland Griffiths - Johns Hopkins Center on Psychedelic and Consciousness Research

Charles Yu - How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (book)

Rancho de Chihuahua

Related episodes:

382: Dr. Pedram Shojai – Becoming A Taoist Monk, Meditation Is the Ultimate Drug, Managing Your Life Garden

381: Dr. Dan Siegel – The Mind Is Broader Than The Brain

375: James Sebastiano – Chasing The Present

368: Jordan Younger Albrecht – Healing From Lyme Disease, Eating Vegan (Again), Psychedelic Transformations

361: Dr. Alejandro Junger – Living In A Higher State Of Consciousness

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