The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance

by Steven Kotler

Endorphins, our third flow conspirator, also come with a hell of a high. These natural “endogenous” (meaning naturally internal to the body) opiates relieve pain and produce pleasure much like “exogenous” (externally added to the body) opiates like heroin. Potent too. The most com...

Lastly, at the tail end of a flow state, it also appears (more research needs to be done) that the brain releases serotonin, the neurochemical now associated with SSRIs like Prozac. “It’s a molecule involved in helping people cope with adversity,” Oxford University’s Philip Cowen told the New York Times, “to not lose it, to keep going and try to sort everything out.” In flow, serotonin is partly responsible for the afterglow effect, and thus the cause of some confusion. “A lot of people associate serotonin directly with flow,” says high performance psychologist Michael Gervais, “but that’s backward. By the time the serotonin has arrived the state has already happened. It’s a signal things are coming to an end, not just beginning.”

Consider the chain of events that takes us from pattern recognition through future prediction. Norepinephrine tightens focus (data acquisition); dopamine jacks pattern recognition (data processing); anandamide accelerates lateral thinking (widens the database searched by the pattern recognition system).

flow’s neurochemistry performs an added function: it accelerates social bonding. Ever fall in love? That high—the sleeplessness, giddiness, hyperactivity, loss of appetite, etc.—that’s dopamine and norepinephrine at work. These are the neurochemicals that reinforce romantic love. Endorphins serve a similar function, only showing up in maternal love (in infants) and general attachment (in adults). Serotonin, as well, further reinforces love and attachment (alongside oxytocin). And anandamide, as any pot smoker will attest, makes one feel open, expansive, and empathetic—all of which further improves connection.

Of the hundreds of athletes interviewed for this book, very few enjoy this rush. Most share professional kayaker Tao Berman’s sentiment: “I’m the farthest thing from an adrenaline junky. I can’t stand that feeling. If I’m feeling adrenaline, it means I’m feeling too much fear. It means I haven’t done my homework. It means it’s time to get out of my boat to reassess.”

The fight-or-flight response—a.k.a. the adrenaline rush—cocktails adrenaline, cortisol (the stress hormone), and norepinephrine. It’s an extreme stress response. The brain switches to reactive survival autopilot. Options are limited to three: fight, flee, or freeze. Flow is the opposite: a creative problem-solving state, options wide open.

he can relax and—according to experiments run by Harvard cardiologist Herbert Benson—that’s flow’s real trigger. This so-called relaxation response floods the body with high quantities of nitric oxide (NO)—an endogenous gaseous signaling molecule.

“[T]he NO,” writes Benson, “counteracts the norepinephrine and other stress secretions. Simultaneously, as the NO puffs billow forth in the brain and body, the brain releases calming neurotransmitters…such as dopamine and endorphins. As a result of these secretions, the blood vessels dilate or open up, the heart rate decreases, the stress response fades, and inner tranquility takes over.”

Training in high-stress situations increases what psychologists call “situational awareness.” Defined as the ability to absorb information accurately, assess it calmly, and respond appropriately, situational awareness is essentially the ability to keep cool when all hell breaks loose. Because

Americans are literally killing themselves trying to achieve artificially the same sensations that flow produces naturally.

if we really want to be our best, we don’t just have to rethink the path toward mastery; we need to reconsider the way we live our lives.

Bloom was convinced that talent was innate and what we call expertise (mastery) is the result of talented individuals identified early, then encouraged to blossom. Afterward, though, the data told a different story. Few of Bloom’s research subjects showed any great promise as children. No Mozart concertos before the age of three; no solving for pi from the crib. Instead, the one commonality was encouragement, a lot of encouragement. In each case, there was a parent or close relative who rewarded any display of talent, and ignored or punished the opposite. Prodigies, it seemed, were made, not born. As Bloom later told reporters: “We were looking for exceptional kids, but what we found were exceptional conditions.”

Zimbardo found that the only way he could stop himself from sinking into despair was imagination—he kept imagining better possible futures. And to considerable impact. After Zimbardo recovered and was released, he was shocked to realize he viewed his stay in the hospital as a positive one: the time in his life that he learned to be self-reliant. “From this experience,” he later wrote, “I…learned that the past can be psychologically remodeled to make heaven of hell. Other people learn the opposite lesson, storing and recalling only the worst of times.… The horrors and sheer ugliness of the past they have experienced become a permanent filter through which they view all their current experiences.”

Psychologists describe flow as “autotelic,” from the Greek auto (self) and telos (goal). When something is autotelic—i.e., produces the flow high—it is its own reward. No one has to drag a surfer out of bed for overhead tubes. No one has to motivate a snowboarder on a powder day. These activities are intrinsically motivating, autotelic experiences done for their own sake. The high to end all highs.

the state shows up most reliably when we’re using our skills to the utmost. It requires challenge. While other hedonic pleasures—drugs, sex, gambling—make us feel good on their own, flow only shows up when we’re pushing ourselves to higher and higher levels of performance. “Because flow involves meeting challenges and developing skills,” explains Csikszentmihalyi in Good Business, “it leads to growth. It is an escape forward from current reality, whereas stimulants like drugs lead backward.”

When doing what we most love transforms us into the best possible version of ourselves and that version hints at even greater future possibilities, the urge to explore those possibilities becomes feverish compulsion. Intrinsic motivation goes through the roof. Thus flow becomes an alternative path to mastery, sans the misery. Forget 10,000 hours of delayed gratification.

“athletes in flow in death-facing situations likely gather more relevant data and code it more efficiently. Having these experiences frequently could significantly shorten the learning curve toward expertise.”

In 2011, neuroscientists with the United States’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) found that military snipers trained in flow decreased the time it took to acquire their targets by a factor of 2.3. Similar research run with amateur (i.e., nonmilitary) snipers found that flow cut the time it took to teach novices to shoot like experts by 50 percent. This means that flow doesn’t just provide a joyful, self-directed path toward mastery—it literally shortens the path.

“Soloing requires huge commitment. You can’t rely on your partners or ask their opinion, or even take solace from their presence. There’s no support. You can only reach inside yourself for answers. There’s a purity there, a stripped-down clarity that demands only one thing—belonging.

action and adventure sport athletes have used flow to accelerate performance faster and farther than almost any other group of people in history. Taking a look at how far they’ve come gives us a sense of the possible. It provides a benchmark. Yet this doesn’t mean these athletes have cornered the market on flow.

Meanwhile, for Internet surfers, researchers have found flow the secret ingredient to almost every aspect of online experience. Both website slipperiness (the ease with which we enter and exit an online experience) and website stickiness (how certain sites hold our attention) are influenced by the state. Researchers at Vanderbilt University have found that from the marketing side of this coin, online flow experiences attract customers, mitigate price sensitivity, and positively influence subsequent buying behaviors.

fact, even though flow is consistently associated with all elite-level athletic success, it’s actually rather elusive in traditional sports.

How have these athletes managed to produce flow so consistently? What are the conditions that led to their success? And how can we bridge the gap between the extreme and the mainstream, importing these conditions into our daily lives?

interruptions…move us out of ‘flow’ and increase research-and-design cycle times and costs dramatically,” writes Greylock Partners venture capitalist James Slavet on Forbes.com. “Studies have shown that each time a flow state is disrupted it takes fifteen minutes to get back into flow, if you can get back at all.”

our danger detector: the amygdala. An almond-shaped sliver of the temporal lobe, the amygdala is responsible for primal emotions like hate, anger, and fear. It’s our early warning system, an organ always on high alert.

consequences do more than catch our attention: they also drive neurochemistry. As risk increases, so do norepinephrine and dopamine, the feel-good chemicals the brain uses to amplify focus and enhance performance. Because norepinephrine and dopamine feel really good,

Once danger becomes its own reward, risk moves from a threat to be avoided to a challenge to be risen toward. An entirely new relationship with fear begins to develop. When risk is a challenge, fear becomes a compass—literally pointing people in the direction they need to go next (i.e., the direction that produces more flow). “If you’re interested in mastery,” says University of Cambridge, England, neuropsychologist Barbara Sahakian, “you have to learn this lesson. To really achieve anything, you have to be able to tolerate and enjoy risk. It has to become a challenge to look forward to. In all fields, to make exceptional discoveries you need risk—you’re just never going to have a breakthrough without it.”

“To reach flow,” explains Harvard psychiatrist Ned Hallowell, “one must be willing to take risks. The lover must lay bare his soul and risk rejection and humiliation to enter this state. The athlete must be willing to risk physical harm, even loss of life, to enter this state. The artist must be willing to be scorned and despised by critics and the public and still push on. And the average person—you and me—must be willing to fail, look foolish, and fall flat on our faces should we wish to enter this state.”

if you don’t want to take physical risks, take mental risks. Take social risks. Emotional risks. Creative risks. Especially creative risks. The application of imagination—one very shorthand definition of creativity—is all about mental chance taking. And the risk is real. Loss of respect, loss of resources, loss of time—the consequences of betting on a bad idea can certainly threaten survival.

He was also depending on two other external triggers—“rich environment” and “deep embodiment”—to keep him in the state.

A “rich environment” is a combination platter of novelty, unpredictability, and complexity—three elements that catch and hold our attention much like risk. Novelty means both danger and opportunity. To our forbearers, a strange scent in the wind could be prey or predator, but either way it paid to pay attention. Unpredictability means we don’t know what happens next, thus we pay extra attention to what happens next. Complexity, when there’s lots of salient information coming at us at once, does more of the same.

most of us have some familiarity with complexity triggering flow. If you’ve ever stood before a vast canyon and felt awe—well, awe is a state of total absorption and the front end of flow. When sucked in by the incomprehensible complexity of geologic timescales and epic beauty, reality pauses, if only for a moment. And in this moment, we taste the ...

And for those of us who want to take advantage of this fact, yet have no interest in action and adventure sports? Simple: Seek out complexity, especially in nature. Go stare at the night sky. Walk in the woods. If you can’t find big nature, contemplate the small. The reasons there are so many clichés about universes inside of dewdrops is because there are universes inside of dewdrops. No dew to contemplate? Use technology to induce awe: surf your city with Google Earth or go see an IMAX movie.

Next, up novelty and unpredictability. Normally, we go out of our way to avoid both. We rely on old habits, we cherish our routines. And why not? Automatic pilot is efficient. Routines save the brain energy and who hasn’t driven to work without remembering the trip? Yet vary the route next time. Brush your teeth with the wrong hand.

If you can light up that same constellation—say replace the novelty found in a natural environment with new routines in your daily life—you’ll get the dopamine and norepinephrine. This is why the flow hack of the twenty-second century is going to be a button on your augmented cognition device that lights up this same constellation.” Olds, by the way, practices what he preaches, driving a different route home from work every day.

The last external flow trigger, “deep embodiment,” is a kind of full-body awareness.

50 percent of our nerve endings are in our hands,...

We have as many neurons in the gut and heart ...

We also have proprioception to detect position in space, and vestibular ...

Zen walking meditation teaches an open-senses/all-senses awareness. Balance and agility training (like playing hopscotch or running ladder drills) enhance proprioception and vestibular awareness. Yoga, tai chi, and just about every martial art blend both together. And if technology is more your speed, there are video games for both Xbox’s Kinect and Nintendo’s Wii that do the same.

the “paradox of control,” another of flow’s defining characteristics. The paradox is real power in places we should have none. It’s that sense of controlling the uncontrollable

“It is this absence of…emotion, of almost any kind of conscious awareness of one’s state, that is at the heart of flow,” writes

“When you’re arrogant and egotistical,” says Dr. Olds, “you’re shutting out complexity, novelty, and unpredictability to preserve a distorted self-image. Any incoming information that could lead to self-doubt is stamped out. It’s a massive data reduction. Humility moves in the other direction, it opens us up and increases incoming information. As a result, there is more opportunity for pattern recognition, more dopamine, and less need for judgmental metacognition.”

300 feet underwater, there’s no way to be elsewhere. When she says, “It’s really important to not let myself get consumed,” she means, when diving, not thinking about the future (where she could run out of air) or the past (where a poor decision made her use up too much air) is survival. Instead, Cruickshank has trained herself to keep attention right here, right now—which is the only time flow can show up and the only time we’re capable of extraordinary.

Douglas Rushkoff writes in Present Shock, “[W]e tend to exist in a distracted present, where forces on the periphery are magnified and those immediately before us are ignored. Our ability to plan—much less follow through on it—is undermined by our need to be able to improvise our way through any number of external impacts that stand to derail us at any moment.

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.

Back in the 1970s, Csikszentmihalyi identified “clear goals,” “immediate feedback,” and “the challenge/skill ratio” as the three most critical.

when the brain is charged with a clear goal, focus narrows considerably, the unimportant is disregarded, and the now is all that’s left.

Philip Zimbardo pointed out that Western society is dominated by Futures—i.e., those well-trained to strive for goals. Thus, when considering “clear goals,” most have a tendency to skip over the adjective (clear) to get to the noun (goals).

If creating more flow is our aim, then the emphasis falls on “clear” and not “goals.” Clarity gives us certainty. We know what to do and we know where to focus our attention while doing it. When goals are clear, metacognition is replaced by in-the-moment cognition, and the self stays out of the picture.