The Impossible: It's What’s For Breakfast (Areté +1 #91)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another arete plus 1 degree micro chapter from my new book Arete Activate youe Heroic Potential. 451 of my all time favorite ideas in this book. Here's one of my favorites. Among those favorites, it's called the impossible. It's what's for breakfast. Steven Kotler wrote a great book called the Rise of Superman in which he features extreme sports athletes to demonstrate how we can all accelerate our performance gains quick context. The things snowboarders and skateboarders and other extreme athletes can do today were literally impossible not too long ago. Stephen walks us through how by consistently pushing ourselves just outside our comfort zone, we can make the impossible into something that's possible. He says it's all about finding the sweet spot just outside of our comfort zone, right at the edge of Csikszentmihalyi's flow channel, where our skills meet our challenges. He tells us we don't need to go nuts and try to do the impossible tomorrow. We just need to go slightly outside our current capacities. A 4% stretch to be precise. And then do it again tomorrow in the day after that and the day after that. And specifically, he says, and I quote Stephen, if we want to achieve the kinds of accelerated performance we're seeing in action and adventure sports, then it's 4% plus 4% plus 4%. Day after day, week after week, months. In the years into careers. This is the road to real magic. He says, follow this path long enough and not only does impossible become possible, it becomes what's next. Like eating breakfast. Like another day at the office. End quote. Imagine that. 4%. 4%, 4%, 4%. I'm not going to bore you with all the four percents I got in the book, but I got a lot of them from 4% after 4%, after 4%, after 4%. Tiny little gains aggregated and compounded over an extended period of time, and the impossible becomes possible. It's what's for breakfast.