Steven Kotler

...Suddenly normal wasn't good enough.

— Steven Kotler

“creativity triggers flow; then flow enhances creativity.”

— Steven Kotler

“The United States is in a tough spot.”

— Steven Kotler

“Most people are so afraid of dying they never live.”

— Steven Kotler

“It is not often that Death is told so clearly to fuck off.”

— Steven Kotler

“We are the ones that we’ve been waiting for. — ALICE WALKER”

— Steven Kotler

Creatives fail and the really good ones fail often.

— Steven Kotler

“Flow is an alternative path toward mastery, but, like any path, not without its pitfalls. There’s a serious dark side to flow,”

— Steven Kotler

“Creativity has a brain wave signature as well: alpha waves pulsing out of the brain’s right hemisphere.”

— Steven Kotler

“As it turns out, what makes a dog adoptable has very little to do with dogs, a great deal to do with…

— Steven Kotler

With our sense of self out of the the way we are liberated from doubt and insecurity.

— Steven Kotler

“Most people live in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their…

— Steven Kotler

“From a quality-of-life perspective, psychologists have found that the people who have the most flow in their lives are the happiest people…

— Steven Kotler

“The ability to learn faster than your competitors is the only sustainable competitive advantage.”

— Steven Kotler

Time slows down. Self vanishes. Action and Awareness merge. Welcome to Flow.

— Steven Kotler

“By using the tanks to eliminate all distraction, entrain specific brainwaves, and regulate heart rate frequency, the SEALs are able to cut…

— Steven Kotler

“Risk heightens focus and flow follows focus. This means that the fight-or-flight response primes the body—chemically and psychologically—for the flow state. Athletes…

— Steven Kotler

“With the prefrontal cortex down-regulated, most impulse control mechanisms go offline too. For people who aren't used to this combination, the results…

— Steven Kotler

“The great civil rights leader Howard Thurman once said, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive. Because…

— Steven Kotler

“When you strip everything else away, technology is nothing more than the promise of an easier tomorrow. It’s the promise of hope.…

— Steven Kotler

“Given that seven of the top twenty most-visited sites on the Web are porn sites, and that nearly 33 percent of all…

— Steven Kotler

“Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is the frenzy with which you should be inoculated? Behold, I…

— Steven Kotler

“This means flow packs a double punch: it doesn’t just increase our decision-making abilities—it increases our creative decision-making abilities. Dramatically.”

— Steven Kotler

“Well, for starters, the obvious: we all seem to agree genius begins with feats of mental greatness. The thinking needs to be…

— Steven Kotler

“The second is trickier: the person who knows what to do next is the leader. We’re entirely nonhierarchical in that way. But…

— Steven Kotler

“Ecstatic technology isn't limited to silicon chips and display screens. As John Lilly's early research established, it's the knowledge of how to…

— Steven Kotler

“When deeply religious subjects view sacred iconography or reflect on their notion of God, brain scans reveal hyperactivity in the caudate nucleus,…

— Steven Kotler

“It was clear from talking to them, that what kept them motivated was the quality of the experience they felt when they…

— Steven Kotler

“the Altered States Economy totals out to roughly $4 trillion a year. That’s a sizable chunk of our income that we annually…

— Steven Kotler

“Training in high-stress situations increases what psychologists call “situational awareness.” Defined as the ability to absorb information accurately, assess it calmly, and…

— Steven Kotler

Instead, over the past thirty years, in the world of action and adventure sports, in situations where asses really were on the…

— Steven Kotler

“So, when we do experience a non-ordinary state that gives us access to something more, we feel it first as something less—and…

— Steven Kotler

“At most puppy mills, they pack the dogs into wire cages, usually for the entirety of their lives, often in pitch-black conditions.…

— Steven Kotler

“And the dark night of flow is an issue that society has not made particularly easy to handle. How many people have…

— Steven Kotler

“That day, after barely resurfacing from a seventy-two meter warm up dive into the Blue Hole, Mevoli went into cardiac arrest and…

— Steven Kotler

“The Everglades are dying. Nearly half of their 4 million acres have been swallowed up by sprawl and sugarcane. Almost 70 plant…

— Steven Kotler

“[T]he self “is not an unmitigated blessing,”6 writes Duke University psychologist Mark Leary in his aptly titled book, The Curse of the…

— Steven Kotler

It was even odds that the thing I was the most afraid of didn't actually exist at all.

— Steven Kotler

“Those highlight moments forever seared in your memory: that too is group flow in action.”

— Steven Kotler

“To get around these things, Maus lived at the back of a closet. The door was”

— Steven Kotler