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

by Steven Kotler

“I don’t think about breaking a record, I can’t ever think about the whole dive. It’s too overwhelming. I have to chunk it down, create tiny, clear goals. I go through kick cycles. The Voice (the voice of intuition) keeps count. I want to pay attention through one cycle, then the next, then the next. Keep the count, that’s my only goal. If I keep the count, I can stay in flow the whole dive.”

Applying this idea in our daily life means breaking tasks into bite-size chunks and setting goals accordingly. A writer, for example, is better off trying to pen three great paragraphs at a time—the equivalent of moving through Mandy-Rae’s kick cycles—rather than attempting one great chapter. Think challenging, yet manageable—just enough stimulation to shortcut attention into the now, not enough stress to pull you back out again.

Immediate feedback, our next internal trigger, is another shortcut into the now. The term refers to a direct, in-the-moment coupling between cause and effect. The smaller the gap between input and output, t...

what if we’re interested in pulling this trigger without help from the laws of physics? No mystery here. Tighten feedback loops. Put mechanisms in place so attention doesn’t have to wander. Ask for more input. How much input? Well, forget quarterly reviews. Think daily reviews. Studies have found that in professions with less direct feedback loops—stock analysis, psychiatry, and medicine—even the best get worse over time. Surgeons, by contrast, are the only class of physician that improve the longer they’re out of medical school. Why? Mess up on the table and someone dies. That’s immediate feedback.

that brings us to the “challenge/skill ratio,” the last of our internal flow triggers, and arguably the most important. The idea behind this trigger is that attention is most engaged (i.e., in the now) when there’s a very specific relationship between the difficulty of a task and our ability to perform that task. If the challenge is too great, fear swamps the system. If the challenge is too easy, we stop paying attention. Flow appears near the emotional midpoint between boredom and anxiety, in what scientists call the flow channel—the spot where the task is hard enough to make us stretch but not hard enough to make us snap.

How hard is that? Answers vary, but the general thinking is about 4 percent. That’s it. That’s the sweet spot. If you want to trigger flow, the challenge should be 4 percent greater than the skills. In technical terms, the sweet spot is the end result of what’s known as the Yerkes-Dobson law—the fact that increased stress leads to increased performance up to a certain inte...

“maybe (meaning uncertainty) is addictive like nothing else out there.”

If we want to achieve the kinds of accelerated performance we’re seeing in action and adventure sports, then it’s 4 percent plus 4 percent plus 4 percent, day after day, week after week, months into years into careers. This is the road to real magic. Follow this path long enough, and not only does impossible becomes possible, it becomes what’s next—like eating breakfast, like another a day at the office.

Mindset refers to our feelings toward basic qualities like intelligence and athletic talent.

Dweck found that most of us have one of two basic mindsets. Those who have “fixed mindsets” believe abilities like intelligence and athletic talent are innate and unchangeable—i.e., fixed at birth. Those with “growth mindsets” believe abilities are gained through dedication and hard work, that natural-born talents are merely starting points for a much longer learning process.

drivers with growth mindsets were able to enter flow more quickly and stay there no matter what went wrong during the race. Across the board, they were the winning drivers. What’s more important is why. The short answer is that a growth mindset is one of the secrets to maximizing the total amount of flow in your life. The longer answer starts with the challenge/skill ratio. If you consistently overestimate or underestimate your abilities, then tuning that ratio is like playing darts handcuffed and blindfolded. To find 4 percent, you need accurate self-knowledge—and this is tricky for fixed mindsetters.

If, like those with the growth mindset, you believe you can develop yourself, then you’re open to accurate information about your current abilities, even if it’s unflattering. What’s more, if you’re oriented toward learning, you need accurate information about your current abilities in order to learn effectively. However, if everything is either good news or bad news—as it is with fixed-mindset people—distortion almost inevitably enters the picture. Some outcomes are magnified, others are explained away, and before you know it, you don’t know yourself at all.”

flow is not binary. The state is just one step in a four-part flow cycle. It’s impossible to experience flow without moving through this entire cycle.

The first step in the flow cycle is known as “struggle.” Herbert Benson, the Harvard cardiologist who did much of the foundational research on this cycle, chose that name for a reason. Struggle is a loading phase: we are overloading the brain with information. “For a businessperson,” writes Benson in his book The Breakout Principle, “this may be concentrated problem analysis or fact gathering. The serious athlete may engage in extensive and demanding physical training. The person on a spiritual quest may plunge into concentrated study…or intense prayer, meditation, or soul searching.” A profound chemical change takes place during struggle. To amp up focus and alertness, stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine are pumped into the system. Tension rises. Frustration as well. Our problems seem unsolvable, our effort unsustainable, and the whole situation feels as far from flow as one could get.

The next stage in the cycle is “release.” To move out of struggle and into flow, you must first pass through this second stage. Release means to take your mind off the problem, to, as Benson says, “completely sever prior thought and emotional patterns.” If you’ve been cramming for a test all day, go for a walk. If you’ve been trying to master double black-diamond ski slopes, take a few runs down the blues. If the innovation team has been pulling all-nighters for a week, send them out for dinner and a movie. The method is unimportant. The message is relaxation. The moment this occurs, another chemical change follows: nitric oxide floods the system. This endogenous gaseous signaling molecule causes stress hormones to decline and feel-good neurochemicals like dopamine and endorphins to rise in their place.

And the zone, the flow state itself, is the third stage in this cycle. Struggle gives way to release gives way to flow—hallelujah.

Afterward, we move into the fourth and final step in the cycle: “recovery.” Flow is an extremely expensive state for the body to produce and maintain. It requires a lot of energy and a lot of neurochemistry and both take a little while to replenish. This is some of what goes on in recovery. More important, memory consolidation is taking place. Information is moving from short-term holding into long-term storage. Here, to borrow the gamer’s phrase, we are “leveling up,” or, as Benson prefers, “returning to a new normal.”

recovery is another cycle step that doesn...

Handling the massive delta between the world-at-your-feet sensation that comes with flow and the utterly ordinary, all-too-human reality that shows up afterward is not always pleasant. There’s no more feel-good neurochemistry, no more superhuman powers. It can take a considerable amount of r...

In today’s world, rarely do we give ourselves permission to recover; rarely does anyone else. Finish one project and there are always a dozen more deadlines to be met. In fact, in most of our lives, the reward for having a high-flow experience and pulling off something challenging at work is usually more work, more responsibilities, and less time to meet them all. Yet if we want to flow from cycle to cycle, we need to take full advantage of recovery to regroup and recharge. In short, on this path, you have to go slow to go fast.

Sooner or later, there’s always a Jaws: a mental hurdle we can’t clear, a decision too dangerous to attack head on. In those situations, sideways is forward.

Momentum over time—that’s the invisible kung fu.

Group Genius,

Ever been so sucked into a great conversation that hours passed like seconds? So have plenty of others. Csikszentmihalyi discovered the most commonly reported instances of flow are those of group flow showing up when people are having a conversation—especially, for reasons we’ll get to, if those conversations happen at work.

In comparison studies run by St. Bonaventure University psychologist Charles Walker, “solitary flow” (what Doug Ammons experienced on the Stikine) was measured against “coactive flow” (this comes from individual activities done in groups, like surfers sharing a break) was measured against “interactive flow” (where interaction is inherent to the activity, like rock climbing with a partner). Walker discovered that the more social an activity, the higher “flow enjoyment”—the level of joy experienced in flow—was for participants.

in group flow, spontaneity, cooperation, communication, creativity, productivity, and overall performance all go through the roof. “In a study of more than 300 professionals at a strategy consulting firm, a government agency, and a petrochemical company,” writes Sawyer, “…the people who participated in group flow were the highest performers.”

Sawyer also discovered that flow states have social triggers—ten in particular—which are ways to alter social conditions to produce more group flow. A number

The first three—serious concentration; shared, clear goals; good communication (i.e., lots of immediate feedback)—are the collective versions of individual preconditions identified by Csikszentmihalyi. Two more—equal participation and an element of risk (mental, physical, whatever)—are self-explanatory given what we already know about flow. The remaining five require a little more information.

Familiarity, our next trigger, means the group has a common language, a shared knowledge base, and a communication style based on unspoken understandings. It means everybody is always on the same page, and, when novel insights arise,...

Then there’s blending egos—which is the collective version of the same sort of humility that allowed Doug Ammons to merge with the Stikine. When egos have been blended, no one’s hogging...

A sense of control combines autonomy (being free to do what you want) and competence (being good at what you do). It’s about getting to choose your own challenges and having the necessary skills to surmount them. Close listening occurs when we’re fully engaged in the here and now. In conversation, this isn’t about thinking about what witty thing to say next, or what cutting sarc...

Always say yes, our final trigger, means interactions should be additive more than argumentative. The goal here is the momentum, togetherness, and innovation that comes from ceaselessly amplifying each other’s ideas and actions. It’s a trigger based on the first rule of improv comedy. If I open a sketch with, “Hey, there’s a blue elephant in the bathroom,” then “No, there’s not,” is the wrong response. With the denial, the scene goes nowhere. But if the reply is affirma...

How easy is it to produce group flow? Merely chatting on the job can be enough to put you in the state.

Group flow is a social unifier and social leveler, creating what cultural anthropologists call “communitas”—that deep solidarity and togetherness that results from shared transcendent experiences.

Potter, McConkey, Holmes, and every other athlete in this book got farther faster because they packed their lives with flow triggers and flowed in packs.

The lone-wolf maverick is a myth. When it comes to becoming Superman, we really are in this together.

the relationship between flow and creativity is complicated and not completely understood.

At a fundamental level, then, coming up with original, valuable ideas always requires risk taking and pattern recognition—and this means dopamine.

Dopamine is the pleasure chemical released whenever we take a risk or identify a pattern. We feel this inrush as excitement, engagement, and curiosity. But dopamine does more than just stimulate our emotions and increase our motivation—it also tightens focus, drives us into the now, and, thus, speeds entrance into flow. What all of this means is that the creative act (one that requires risk taking and pattern recognition) is itself an exceptionally potent flow trigger.

“when you can’t proceed on automatic pilot, that’s when flow shows up. That’s creativity to a T. Once you’ve thrown out the rule book and begun making creative decisions, the risk involved tightens focus and triggers a neurobiological cascade—it sweeps you right into flow.”

in studies run by University of Pennsylvania psychologist Sharon Thompson-Schill, when transient hypofrontality was artificially induced and subjects were presented with creative problems to solve, the hypofrontal subjects came up with more novel insights in far shorter time frames than control subjects.

Neuroelectrically, flow’s baseline brain-wave pattern of low alpha/high theta also boosts creativity. Alpha means we’re calm, confident, and content (thus more willing to take risks) and that the lines of communication between the subconscious mind and the conscious mind are wide open (thus more chances for pattern recognition and novel insight). Theta, meanwhile, is a relaxed state where the brain can move from notion to notion without much internal resistance—like what happens when you’re about to fall asleep—and has long been associated with intuition and idea generation.

creativity triggers flow; then flow enhances creativity.

Scientists who study human motivation have lately learned that after basic survival needs have been met, the combination of autonomy (the desire to direct your own life), mastery (the desire to learn, explore, and be creative), and purpose (the desire to matter, to contribute to the world) are our most powerful intrinsic drivers—the three things that motivate us most.

Thus toying with flow involves tinkering with primal biology: addictive neurochemistry, potent psychology, and hardwired evolutionary behaviors.

It’s almost ironic. How many self-help books have been written about living with passion and purpose (i.e., traveling the flow path); yet how few actually mention the dangers involved.

This is what the self-help books don’t tell you. Fully alive and deeply committed is a risky business. Once you strip away the platitudes, a life of passion and purpose will always cost, as T. S. Eliot reminds us, “Not less than everything.”

How many people have stopped playing guitar, writing poetry, or painting watercolors—activities packed with flow triggers—because these are also activities that do not squarely fit into culturally acceptable responsibility categories like “career” or “children”? How many, now grown up and done with childish things, have put away the surfboard, the skateboard, the whatever? How many have made the mistake of conflating the value of the vehicle that leads us to an experience (the surfboard, etc.) with the value of the experience itself (the flow state)?

If we are hunting the highest version of ourselves, then we need to turn work into play and not the other way round. Unless we invert this equation, much of our capacity for intrinsic motivation starts to shut down. We

In esoteric terms, flow’s tendency toward disruption is the reason it could be considered a “left-hand path.” A “right-hand path” is a path of orthodoxy. It’s cut, dry, and filled with “thou shalt nots.” On a right-hand path, we follow the rules and do what we’re told and no questions asked. This may sound dull, but right-hand paths have a very long history of keeping us safe. A “left-hand path,” meanwhile, is an ecstatic path and mostly gray. It’s little guidance and less security. Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism, warned that a left-hand path is best never begun, and once begun, must absolutely be finished.