The Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler

Book Summary

This is a comprehensive summary of “The Art of Impossible” by Steven Kotler. The book explores a peak performance primer.

what’s in it for me? reach your maximum potential and achieve the impossible.#

Introduction

steven kotler the art of impossible

the peak performance primer narrated by oliver maines and alex vincent there are two kinds of impossible.

one is impossible with a capital i.

these impossible feats break paradigms and shatter expectations.

think landing on the moon or running a four-minute mile.

then there's impossible with a lowercase i.

this sort of impossible still lies beyond your wildest dreams, but on a personal scale.

it's the stuff you think is impossible for you.

it could be becoming an entrepreneur, building a musical career, or simply doing what you love for a living.

fortunately, neither sort of impossible is actually impossible.

there's a formula to achieving the impossible, and it's backed up by science.

it consists of four skills.

motivation, learning, creativity, and flow.

understanding and applying that formula is what these chapters are all about.

intrinsic motivators drive us toward the impossible.#

chapter 1 of 8 there are no two ways about it.

your journey to impossible is going to be long and arduous.

as with any long journey, you'll need fuel to keep you going.

that includes food and sleep, but you also need psychological fuel.

in other words, drive.

drive, or motivation, nudges us toward action.

but what creates drive in the first place?

from an evolutionary perspective, it's all about surviving in a world where resources are scarce.

drive is evolution's way of getting us to either fight each other to obtain the resources we need, or to use creativity to make more resources.

but drive doesn't consist of just one thing.

there are various drivers, like fear, curiosity, and passion.

all of these provide psychological fuel, and you can harness them to achieve the impossible.

the key message here is, intrinsic motivators drive us toward the impossible.

all psychological drivers are divided into one of two categories, extrinsic or intrinsic.

extrinsic drivers are things like money, fame, food, and sex.

they're external to ourselves, and we chase them to win the evolutionary survival game.

intrinsic drivers, on the other hand, are within us.

they're psychological and emotional concepts like curiosity, passion, meaning, and purpose.

psychological research tells us that extrinsic drivers only motivate us to a certain extent.

they get weaker once we have enough money to pay for food, clothing, and shelter.

after we've met these basic needs, it's the intrinsic motivators that take over.

it's those intrinsic drivers we'll be focusing on in these chapters.

the five most powerful intrinsic motivators are curiosity, passion, purpose, autonomy, and mastery.

you can stack them together so they feed off one another, and so you can achieve the impossible.

let's start with curiosity, the first element in the intrinsic motivator stack.

you can start building it by making a list.

write down, by hand, 25 things you're curious about.

what might you read a book about or attend a lecture on?

be as specific as possible.

for instance, don't just write down football or food.

instead, write down the specific mechanics and maneuvers necessary to play the left tackle position, or the potential for grasshoppers to become a primary human food source.

now that you have a list of things you're curious about, it's time to start hunting for overlap between the items on it.

this will help you identify your passions, your next intrinsic motivator.

find a niche that activates all your intrinsic motivators.#

chapter two of eight.

when you explore your curiosities, your brain rewards you with small amounts of a feel-good chemical known as dopamine.

dopamine is the key ingredient in drive.

it makes you excited, engaged, and more likely to keep doing whatever it is you're doing.

but satisfying your curiosity only gets you small amounts of dopamine, not enough for you to achieve the impossible over the long term.

what you need is passion, which provides a much greater dopamine boost.

often, you can find your passions by looking for intersections among your curiosities.

let's say one of your curiosities is the left tackle football position.

another is the potential for using grasshoppers as a sustainable food source.

putting these two together, your passion might be to find a way to use grasshoppers as a fuel for athletes.

when you combine items on your curiosities list like this, you're amping up your engagement and identifying passions.

as you begin to explore and act on your passions, you'll receive a reward, more dopamine.

the key message here is, find a niche that activates all your intrinsic motivators.

after you've identified your passions, you can begin to explore them by reading articles, listening to podcasts, or watching videos on the subject.

this will help you feed your curiosities and allow you to explore them a little bit each day.

that's important because it gives your brain time to process the information.

next, it's time to transform them into purpose.

that's the desire to do things that matter not just to you, but also to other people.

the other people part is more important than you might realize.

that's because the brain is innately, that is, neurochemically, motivated to care for and connect to other people.

when you have a purpose, you satiate that innate desire, and your brain rewards you for it.

the reactivity decreases in various regions of the brain, like the amygdala, and increases in others, like the right insular cortex.

the upshot is greater resilience to stress, paired with greater motivation and productivity.

so, how do you find your purpose?

get out your pen and paper and write another list.

this time, jot down 15 big problems that really concern you, like world hunger, poverty, or climate change.

then, look for areas where your passions intersect with one or more of these problems.

any intersection is a potential purpose.

you can have more than one.

the author himself has three, one of them being to make the world a better place for animals.

finally, it's time for the last two intrinsic motivators, autonomy and mastery.

autonomy simply means the freedom to pursue your purpose.

to cultivate it, try carving out at least 15% of the day just for yourself.

this will help increase your motivation.

and finally, there's mastery, the desire to get better at the things you do.

for this motivator, you need to get into a special state of mind psychologists call flow.

but wait, not so fast.

before you can achieve flow, you need to add a few more things to your toolkit.

link 3 of 8 you've unearthed your passions and discovered your purpose.

break up the impossible into large and small goals.#

now, how do you find the strength to act on them consistently over time?

the answer is by having clear goals.

in the late 1960s, psychologists gary latham and edwin locke conducted a study that showed just how powerful goals can be.

in it, lumberjacks were divided into two groups.

one group was told to gather as much wood as possible.

the other group was asked to reach specific quotas.

neither group was offered any financial incentives whatsoever.

the result?

the lumberjacks that had the quotas gathered far more wood than the no quota group.

those results were later confirmed in dozens of studies across industries.

clearly, if intrinsic drivers fuel our path toward the impossible, goals are our roadmap.

the key message here is break up the impossible into large and small goals.

according to latham, big goals lead to the largest increases in motivation and productivity.

these are called high hard goals or hhgs for short.

they're the major steps on your way to achieving your purpose.

your hhg might be, for instance, getting a degree in nutrition or starting a company.

hhgs can take years to achieve, so you'll need smaller daily targets along the way.

let's call these clear goals.

they take you closer to your hhgs.

say you're a writer and your hhg is to pen a novel.

one of your clear goals might be to write 500 words every day between 8 and 10 a.m.

completing your clear goals will reward you with dopamine.

even so, endless persistence can be tough.

that's where grit comes in, the energy it takes to push through years of hard work.

some people are more naturally gritty than others, but don't worry if that's not you.

it's a skill you can improve.

one way to cultivate grit is to work around your natural energy levels.

willpower is a major aspect of grit, and it deteriorates throughout the day.

so schedule your most difficult daily task for the morning, when your energy is at its peak.

then continue your tasks in order of descending importance.

as you complete goals, your brain rewards your persistence with dopamine.

grit will become easier, and the impossible will become more realistic.

learning requires a growth mindset, a truth filter, and lots of reading.#

chapter 4 of 8 intrinsic motivators, goals, and grit.

these three things will motivate you to achieve the impossible.

but motivation alone is far from the end of the story.

recall the fifth intrinsic motivator, mastery.

to attain mastery, you need expertise.

and to acquire expertise, you'll need to learn.

a lot.

we even have a special term for it, lifelong learning.

to gain expertise in the topic you've chosen, you'll need a few basic tools.

after all, you can't ski without boots and some poles.

it's no different when it comes to learning how to learn.

in this case, you'll need three basic pieces of equipment.

the key message here is, learning requires a growth mindset, a truth filter, and lots of reading.

let's start with the growth mindset.

a growth mindset is the belief that talent isn't simply innate, but can be cultivated through practice.

brain scans taken by stanford psychologist carol dweck show the benefits of thinking this way.

when faced with a hard problem, dweck found that the brains of people with growth mindsets lit up and became highly active.

by contrast, the brains of people who didn't believe their abilities could improve completely shut down.

in other words, those people didn't think they could ever solve the problem, so their brains didn't even try.

so, in order to learn, you'll first need to believe that learning is, in fact, possible.

then, you need to develop a truth filter.

a truth filter is a way of evaluating the quality of a piece of information.

being able to trust the information you're receiving reduces anxiety, doubt, and cognitive load, which are all things that can block learning.

the author's personal truth filter is the five-expert rule.

he interviews five experts to confirm some information is fact.

but feel free to play around and see what sort of truth filter works best for you.

now, for the final piece of the learning puzzle.

what materials to use.

nowadays, reading isn't exactly popular, but no other form of media contains the same density of information.

also, studies have shown that reading books improves concentration, reduces stress, and even staves off cognitive decline.

it's safe to say that if you want to learn, you've got to be willing to read some books.

now you have your tools for learning.

next, let's put them to good use.

use the five-step process to learn almost anything.#

chapter 5 of 8 once you start learning about the areas you've chosen to pursue, you're likely to encounter a lot of unfamiliar terms and concepts.

you won't understand or be good at everything right away, and that can be pretty frustrating.

some people might take frustration as a sign they're doing something wrong.

in fact, the opposite is true.

how so?

well, when you get frustrated, it increases the levels of norepinephrine in your brain.

that chemical's main function is to prepare your brain for learning.

so in fact, frustration is a sign that you're taking in information.

but how do you actually do the learning part correctly?

well, for that, you can follow the author's 5-step process.

the key message here is, use the 5-step process to learn almost anything.

the first of the 5 steps is all about reading.

5 books worth, to be precise.

each book should be harder than the last, and you should read them without judging yourself along the way.

your goal isn't to make you an expert on the subject you've chosen.

it's simply to familiarize yourself with the related terms and language.

once you're reading, you should be writing down plenty of notes.

naturally, these notes will include questions left unanswered.

exploring them is the goal of the second step in learning, seeking out experts on your chosen topic.

you might not be able to contact a nobel prize winner, but their graduate students would probably love to talk.

be sure to ask them thoughtful questions.

if you're interested in consciousness, for instance, don't ask a researcher, what do you think about the consciousness debate?

instead, you should ask them to elaborate on a specific paper they wrote.

then, for the third step, it's time to fill out the gaps in your knowledge.

say your interest is animal behavior.

doing further research about the behavior of entire ecosystems can help to illuminate how smaller subsystems within them work.

this step will naturally lead you to the fourth one, asking even more questions about the subject, as well as looking for opinions that contradict the ones you've already heard.

by this point, you should be able to understand multiple opinions on the subject at hand.

you should also be able to pick a side and explain why you feel that way.

finally, for the fifth step, you'll want to find the narrative.

what is the overarching story linking together everything you've learned?

you could do this by telling the information to someone else as a story.

why?

well, our brains love hunting for cause and effect stories.

when we find one, our brains reward us with dopamine, and that dopamine causes us to want to seek out even more patterns, which leads to even more learning.

creativity requires activating three different networks in the brain.#

in 2016, the company adobe conducted a survey of over 5,000 adults in five different countries.

the aim was to determine how critical creativity is to society.

the research found that creatives outperform their non-creative counterparts in several respects.

for starters, creatives tend to feel significantly more fulfilled than non-creatives, reporting 34% higher happiness levels.

creatives also make more money than non-creatives, 13% more to be precise.

clearly, there are benefits to creativity.

but what exactly is creativity, and how can you reap its benefits?

the key message here is, creativity requires activating three different networks in the brain.

creativity has been defined in many ways over the years.

many ancient cultures, in fact, lacked a single word for it, since they believed that creative ideas were simply gifts bestowed by the gods.

now, neuroscientists know a little bit more about what creativity is neurologically.

it involves two different networks in the brain working in tandem, attention and imagination.

attention allows us to concentrate and make choices.

imagination takes care of what happens when our minds wander, whether it's daydreaming, making plans, or imagining future scenarios.

when we're thinking creatively, these two systems are working in tandem, something they don't normally do.

creative people can keep both systems active at once, seamlessly switching from attention to imagination and back.

that's exactly what you'll need to learn to do if you want to cultivate creativity.

but before we get there, we'll need to discuss another part of the brain, the salience network.

the job of this network is to let you know that an idea you've just had is worth your attention.

it also controls your ability to shift between your attention and imagination faculties.

and, importantly, it also conducts repetition suppression.

this means it suppresses familiar stimuli so you experience them as normal rather than new and exciting.

but in creatives, the salience network doesn't engage in repetition suppression in the same way.

that means they tend to notice beauty and novelty where others may not.

so, how do you access the same sorts of brain function seen in creatives?

we'll cover that in the next chapter.

a positive mood boosts your creativity.#

chapter 7 of 8.

aha!

everyone knows that feeling you get when you finally solve a difficult puzzle or understand a joke.

we might call this a moment of insight.

insight, it turns out, is core to creativity.

and you don't just have to wait for it to suddenly appear.

instead, you can cultivate it.

how?

by strengthening a particular part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex, or acc, which is part of the salience network.

brain imaging studies have shown that the acc lights up right before we solve a problem using aha!

insight.

so, what can make the acc more active?

the answer is simpler than you might think.

put simply, a good mood.

the key message here is, a positive mood boosts your creativity.

bad moods lead to analytical thought.

that makes sense because when you feel threatened or scared, your brain wants to search for what's familiar.

it makes a beeline for the path of action it knows will work.

but when you're in a good mood, the opposite is true.

you don't feel threatened and your mind is free to wander.

it can switch between the attention and imagination networks.

this allows you to pay attention to new, different, maybe slightly weird possibilities, and then act on them.

so, how do you cultivate a good mood?

there are many ways, including a daily gratitude practice, meditation, exercise, and good quality sleep.

take gratitude.

our brains are overwhelmingly focused on the negative since we're trained to always look out for danger.

one downside is that negativity leads to high stress levels.

a daily practice of gratitude, just writing down 10 things you're grateful for each day, trains your brain to pay more attention to the positive instead.

but a good mood isn't the only contributor to creativity.

solitude and space are also important.

a 2012 study at the university of utah found four days alone in nature gave participants a 50% boost on standard tests of creativity.

so crawl out from under your desk and be sure to schedule yourself a broad stretch of free time to let your creativity flow.

flow is the ultimate condition for achieving the impossible.#

chapter 8 of 8 for three years, the author struggled with lyme disease, an illness that can cause flu-like symptoms and severe brain fog.

the disease reduced him to a shadow of his former self, leaving him barely able to walk with reduced concentration and failing vision.

in the midst of his illness, a friend appeared at his door.

she demanded that the two go surfing together, and she wouldn't take no for an answer.

eventually, despite how ridiculous the idea seemed, the author caved in.

the author's friend practically had to carry him to the beach, but once he dropped into the first wave, something bizarre happened.

his pain disappeared.

time appeared to slow down.

he felt like he'd somehow merged with the ocean and could see absolutely everything around him.

at that moment, the author was in a state called flow.

the key message here is, flow is the ultimate condition for achieving the impossible.

the author's experience on that day at the beach sounds almost mystical, but in fact, flow is scientifically well-documented.

the state is characterized by complete focus on the present moment.

mood-boosting chemicals flood our brains, while stress hormones are flushed away.

productivity is amplified up to 500%.

learning rates soar 230%.

it's no wonder that flow makes us feel like we can achieve the impossible.

so how do you get some flow for yourself?

the process consists of four stages.

the first is struggle.

here you're learning, taking in loads of new information, and feeling frustrated as a result.

the next is release.

in this stage, it's time to give our brain time to relax and let go by doing things like exercising, going for a walk, or engaging in a light hobby.

during this time, your brain will be busy passing what you've learned into your long-term memory.

after this stage, you'll get your reward.

flow.

to get into flow, give yourself a large chunk of time with no external distractions to work on your project.

finally, after a quality flow session, it's time for the last stage, recovery.

flow costs a lot of energy, and you've got to replenish it somehow.

so have a healthy meal, get some good sleep, or take a long bath.

motivation, learning, creativity, and flow.

we've now covered all four of the necessary skills for achieving the impossible.

so get out there and seize your impossible.

final summary#

Conclusion

the key message in these chapters is that everyone has the power to achieve the impossible.

the path certainly isn't easy, and it doesn't always feel good, but you can do it by cultivating a few key skills.

you need to find the topics that motivate you, persist in learning about them, foster your creativity, and set yourself up for a flow state.

and here's another piece of useful advice.

follow the 80-20 rule.

when you're trying to master a skill, try the 80-20 approach popularized by the author and investor tim ferriss.

the idea is that 80% of your results stem from 20% of your actions.

say you want to learn to play a new musical instrument.

most pop songs consist of just four or five chords, so mastering those chords alone can take you a long way.

when you're trying to master a skill, be sure to focus on the 20% that really matters.

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The Art of Impossible

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