PNTV: The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler (#258)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes. TV Today, another great book, the Rise of Superman. The Rise of Superman Subtitle Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance by Steven Kotler. Steven Kotler also wrote the book Bold and Abundance. He'll be featuring those soon. He started something called the Flow Genome Project, where they're basically decoding the science of optimal experience, which is what this book is all about. It's a fascinating, inspiring, quick read. He uses extreme athletes as his guide, our guide for tapping into flow. These guys have pushed the edges of possibility and they've pushed their sports forward exponentially. And he says they've been able to do that because. Because they've hacked the ability to get into flow consistently. And he challenges us to figure out how to apply that wisdom to our lives such that we can rise as superhumans and serve the world and make a difference and do so powerfully and profoundly. So, philosopher's note, bunch of big ideas. Five of my favorite ones here. So, as I mentioned, the book is all about flow and how to get into it, right? He walks us through kind of the history of it. William James, in the early days looked at these experiences where people in a different state of consciousness. And then Abraham Maslow, then his student Walter Cannon, described the fight or flight response, when people were really kind of jacked up, and how they responded physiologically in that state. Abraham Maslow started studying the actualizers of his generation. He talked about peak experiences. Then Mihaly Csiksikszentmihalyi came around and described those peak experiences as flow. Right? That's how people describe the state of consciousness in which time just kind of went away. They were fully present, weren't inhibited, and just let it rip, right? That's the basic idea of flow. And he says, well, how do we get into flow? Right? So there's kind of a what is it? And then most importantly, how do we get into it? And he gives us a bunch of internal and external triggers that we can use to enter the flow state. One of them, perhaps the most important, is this idea of 4%. So Csikszentmihalyi said, and researchers who study this say this is flow. Flow is at the nexus point of your challenges and your skill level, where you have your challenges and your skill levels properly matched. Now, if the challenge is too high and your skills are too low, you're going to feel overwhelmed, you're going to feel anxiety, not flow. On the other hand, if your challenges are too low and your skills are really high, out here, you're going to feel boredom, not flow. So to get into flow, one of the things we need to do is to get the right challenge to skill ratio. Challenge to skill ratio. This is our flow dynamic. Now, we can't be doing something that's in our comfort zone, which is one of the things we talk about all the time, right? Nor can we be doing something that's way outside of our comfort zone, right? Where we're stretching and snapping. We need to move slightly outside of our current skills and increase the challenges by how much is the question. And the research shows 4%. You need your challenge to be 4% higher than your current skills. Now, when I hear that, I think that doesn't sound like a lot, really. Like, shouldn't you push yourself a little more? He says 4%. At 4%, you are in that stretch zone where it requires your attention and your focus, but you're not so far out of your stretch zone that you snap and you give up and you feel anxious and overwhelmed and afraid, right? But the trick is these peak performers in athletics and in business and everything else put themselves into this state all the time. So it's 4% plus 4% plus 4% plus 4 percent plus 4%, day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out, decade in and decade out, for a career. That's the essence of greatness and how, as Stephen puts it, the impossible becomes possible as you improve 4%. And all of a sudden what was impossible is now what you do for breakfast. It's not a big deal, it's just another day at the office. But you do it not by going for a 4,000% improvement, but by being humble enough to stretch into that sweet spot we talked about with Daniel Coyle's Little Book of Talent, right? Same exact idea here for find that sweet spot and then go off in the note. We also talked about the Yeriks Dodson performance. Inverted U shaped little curve that dictates basically the exact same thing. I'll talk about that in another micro class. So check out the membership platform for more on that. But for now, that's our first big idea. The second big idea, M cubed plus M minus M. So Kotler does a great job of walking us through different paths to mastery. And he challenges some of the other theories out there, the hypotheses, and he playfully packages them into three M's, right? So he says, there's the mother's theory, then there's the musician's Theory. And then there is the marshmallow theory of mastery. We just did the marshmallow test, right on delayed gratification, vis a vis, impulse control, etc. So mothers, musicians, marshmallows. He says, look, what's fascinating is if you look at these extreme athletes, they actually don't follow this at all. They do something different that we may want to tap into. So let's look at them quickly. The mother's theory of mastery basically says that it's all about being nurtured in your youth and your upbringing and in your environment, right? That's the mothers, the musicians is the 10,000 hour principle that you need to put in 10,000 hours of structured, deliberate practice. He challenges that as well. Is that necessary? Then the third one is the marshmallows. This idea that if you can't delay gratification, you're not going to be able to achieve mastery, right? And he says, well, these extreme athletes flip all that on its head and they do something different. A lot of them didn't have a positive upbringing environment, wasn't it? So it's not mothers. And they didn't have deliberate structured practice that the musicians, 10,000 hour theorists say are necessary, right? They weren't structured at all. They just went off and had fun and they practiced a lot, but it wasn't deliberate or structured. And then the marshmallows, these guys, the extreme athletes, are some of the most impulsive people on the planet. They would have absolutely taken the one marshmallow and given up the two, right? So he says, well, how to explain their mastery then? And this is our M minus M. He says, mastery minus misery. These guys actually just did what they love to do. They immersed themselves in snowboarding or in extreme skiing or in mountain climbing or in whatever it is they're doing, right? Skateboarding, etc. And they loved it so much. And they loved being in the state of flow where they're pushing themselves 4% past their current level of skills, that it was just addictive to them. They loved it. And they didn't need to delay gratification because it was instant gratification. But at the same time, what they did so much rapidly increased their skill level, exponentially increased it. And this paradox exists where they didn't need the typical three M's to. To become masters in some stories, relatively and extraordinarily quickly. So this idea that we can attain mastery without misery is a really important one. And we talk about it some more in the note, but we can dissolve the dichotomy between work and play, what are you doing? Are you working or are you playing? I traded some tweets the other day with an awesome human who was basically suggesting that, hey, you know what? I really love what you're doing, but did you ever have an off day? And I said, well, of course I have off days, but it's hard to have off days when you're doing the meditation and the fundamentals and all that good stuff. You're still going to have oscillations, but the highs are higher and the lows are higher, Right? Then she playfully said, well, I hope at least one day a week you do something kind of for yourself. And it's awesome, because that presupposes that I'm not doing something for myself seven days a week, that this isn't fun. Just like the snowboarders, they didn't need to delay gratification. They loved to hit the mountain and ride down it as hard as they possibly could. Was that work or was it play for them? Hard to say. James Michener says, look, I don't care. I'll let other people decide whether I'm working or I'm playing. It's all the same for me. And that's where we want to get to. There's a paradox of work, where we think that when we're engaged in work, we must not be having fun. But the reality is, Csikszentmihalyi tells us, that's actually when we're having the most fun. And. And when we figure that out, we structure our entire lives such that we can experience that more often. And of course, we do other things that bring us joy. Hanging out with our family or whatever. I don't have hobbies. This is my hobby. This is my hobby. It's my work, it's my play, it's what I love to do. And I talked to. Who was it? Jonathan Haidt, who said the same thing. He's passionate about understanding the science of flourishing. And he jokingly said, I don't have hobbies. This is what I do, and I feel so blessed to do it. So we want to have the courage to say, how do I match this in a way that has no misery? It's what I'm loving to doing. I'm going to master my craft as basically a byproduct of doing what I'm fired up to do. That's a long look at our second Big idea. Third Big Idea is another really, really good one. He says that we need to if we want to create the type of life. We're living in flow more consistently. We need to use fear and as our compass. Fear as our compass. Why? It's the same thing we've been talking about a lot with the tools guys. Remember them? They said that if here we are, here we are. Right? We're sitting here and then we got this pain in front of us. Pain or fear. Right. And most of us don't like pain. We sit in a comfort zone and we just want to be okay and comfortable. Right? Right. But the greatest among us realize that outside of this pain equals our infinite potential. Ip, infinite potential exists on the other side of our pain or our fear. Again, these extreme athletes and those who consistently grow and learn and stretch and do great things have completely reoriented their relationship to pain and to fear. And rather than avoiding it, they lean right into it. He says fear becomes their compass because they realize, oh wow, I'm a little bit afraid right now, or a lot of bit afraid. I'm going to lean into that because my infinite potential is on the other side of this fear and this pain. Now again, we're not talking about 4,000% doing something stupid. We're talking about 4%. Wow, that makes me a little nervous. Not oh my God, I might die. Literally. These guys are doing things in his book where they can die but they incrementally built up to it. He talks about guys surfing 50, 75 foot waves. They didn't start at a 75 foot wave, they started at a tiny one and then they built up 4% where that 50 foot wave became something they can do easily, relatively easy. Easily. It was a 4% improvement. So we want to reorient our relationship to fear. We want to say bring it on. When we feel that little self doubt or niggling fear or whatever, we want to take a deep breath, realize that this is what's going to be the key to our potential. Lean into it and say bring it on. This is awesome. Reverse our desire as the tools guys say. I have links to a bunch more content in the note. So again, check out the membership for that fourth big idea. 359.4. 359.4. That's the time that Roger Bannister was ran the perfect mile. The first guy to break the 4 minute mile mark. Most of us know at this point that at one point people were convinced, really smart people were convinced that four minutes was physically physiologically impossible and that attempting to break the 4 minute mile might actually kill you. He has a quote, he says, well someone who Tried to do that, might not wind up getting a victory parade. They might wind up being carted away in a hearse. Dead right. 359.4. Once Roger Bannister broke that milestone, no one had done it in history. And people have been trying to do it, they just didn't do it. Didn't know if it was possible or not. Right then once he did it, a bunch of people did it. One guy did it like a couple months later. Within 10 years, a high school student, a teenager broke the four minute mile. And he makes the important point that what changed wasn't our physiology. You still had to run a sub 4 minute mile to break a sub 4 minute mile. That didn't change. But all of a sudden people realized, wow, it was possible. And when we realize and reframe the impossible as possible and then tap into some of these ideas of how we can baby step our way to doing the impossible, we can do great things in our lives. So that leads us to the fifth big idea here, which is what in your life have you said is impossible? Whether it's optimizing your life or being happy. Someone posted on YouTube the other day, can you be so in such a bad spot that these ideas don't help? Answer with one word no. Absolutely, unequivocally, no. That person might have a view that optimizing their lives and living with a sustainable level of happiness is impossible. We need to reframe that. It's not impossible. As a guy that's been as stressed and depressed as you can possibly be, I can see that and hold that and then see the progression. Basically exactly like this. Day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, that's not impossible. So wherever you are in your life on that front, if that's your challenge, reframe it, see that it's possible. If it's the business that might feel impossible to you or the relationship that you want to have optimized as impossible to you, reframe it, see it as possible, have the humility to realize. Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's easy. We don't need to be silly about it and think we're going to go surf 50 foot waves tomorrow. Just because we put it on our vision board. 4%, 4%, 4%, 4%, 4%. Day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out, decade in and decade out and over a career, we can do unbelievably powerful things. So There you go. Got me fired up. Let's rise. And the point here is let's rise and let's make a difference in the world. This isn't just a narcissistic pursuit. As Steven tells us. The world needs us to rise. The world needs us to tap into our superhuman abilities if we're going to meet the challenges that face humanity. Break the four minute mile in our own lives. Use fear as a compass again, prudently. We don't want to be rash, but we do want to lean into that 4% stretch fear and be willing to fall short. He says. Look, self help books get it wrong when they don't make the the clear statement that when you commit yourself to this type of life, it's risky for these athletes, it's risky physically. For non athletes, it's risky psychologically. It's a lot easier in quotes in the short term to check out on your couch or on your computer or whatever it is you do. Right? It's a lot riskier to lean into it because you fall short again and again and again. Ultimately, of course, it's a lot riskier to not. But we need to reframe our fear as a compass. Remember mothers, musicians and marshmallows and the idea that we can achieve mastery without misery. Have immediate gratification in pursuit of long term excellence by doing things that you love to do, baby step by baby step. Hope you enjoyed and I look forward to sharing more. Have another awesome day. See you. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that PNTV episode. A lot of people don't know all the stuff I do beyond these free videos I share on YouTube. So I thought I'd do a quick video to give you an overview of our membership program that you can get access to and get a ton of other stuff. So here's a quick look. Ten bucks a month. Join the Optimal Living Membership program. You get Instant Access to 250 Philosopher's Notes on some of the best Optimal Living books out there. Old school classics, positive psychology, modern stuff, mindfulness, peak performance, purpose, neuroscience, wealth, etc. And what you may not know is that in addition to the PNTV episodes, I create PDFs on all these great books. So six page PDFs. Let's take a look at one of them. Joseph Campbell, you want to figure out how to live your hero's journey? Well, this is a great place to start. I basically pull out my favorite big ideas, riff on them, connect them to other books and other ideas and help you apply this wisdom. To your life today. That's what the PDF looks like again. We have 250 of these on all these different great books. And then I record those PDFs as an MP3 so you can listen to that MP3 while you're on a walk or working out or doing some errands or whatever that is. Philosopher's Notes. A lot going on there. And then in addition to Philosopher's Notes, you get access to optimal living classes. 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