100 Quotes by Steven Kotler

Words are too recent an imprinting. Animals, though, are part of our ancient grammar, prehistorically embedded in the brain.

All no means is they don’t know for sure or there’s a secret being kept, like someone’s trying to hide something really good.

Flow is more than an optimal state of consciousness – one where we feel our best and perform our best – it also appears to be the only practical answer to the question: What is the meaning of life? Flow is what makes life worth living.

Every good athlete can find the flow,” continues Pastrana, “but it’s what you do with it that makes you great. If you consistently use that state to do the impossible, you get confident in your ability to do the impossible. You begin to expect it. That’s why we’re seeing so much progression in action sports today. It’s the natural result of a whole lot of people starting to expect the impossible.

Zimbardo’s Stanford colleagues Jennifer Aaker and Melanie Rudd found that an experience of timelessness is so powerful it shapes behavior. In a series of experiments, subjects who tasted even a brief moment of timelessness “felt they had more time available, were less impatient, more willing to volunteer to help others, more strongly preferred experiences over material products, and experienced a greater boost in life satisfaction.

What looks inevitable in hindsight is often invisible with foresight.

Not only is the distracted present a miserable place to be, it’s also the worst kind of self-handicapping. Study after study shows that we’re terrible multitaskers. By trying to improve performance by being everywhere and everywhen, we end up nowhere and never. The sad truth is that our lives are pulling us in every direction save the one where we’re most effective.

I rap for the trees... for the trees have no tongues.

It’s not how good you are; it’s how good you want to be.