Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work

by Steven Kotler

hammer, turning everything around us into a psychological problem to beat on. Instead, we can stay above our storytelling mind and simply monitor the knobs and levers of our neurobiology. And while this may seem far-fetched, top performers are already there. Tibetan monks can shut off their default mode network28 (or inner mind chatter) almost at will, SEAL snipers tune their brainwaves to the alpha frequency29 before locking on to targets, extreme athletes smooth out their heart rhythms30 right before dropping into a mountain or wave. They’re deliberately doing an end run around their conscious minds. They’re accessing more efficient and effective ways of being, and they’re doing this exactly backward from how most of us have been taught.