He started out interviewing experts: rock climbers, dancers, artists, surgeons, chess players, and the like. Next, he expanded his search to include Italian farmers, Navajo sheepherders, Chicago assembly-line workers, rebellious Japanese teenagers, elderly Korean women—a gargantuan assortment in total. Surprisingly, and regardless of culture, level of modernization, age, social class, or gender, all of these people told him the same thing: when they were at their best and felt their best was when they were experiencing sensations very similar to Maslow’s peak experiences.
