Summary: Steven Kotler is the co-founder and director of the Flow Genome Project, an international organization dedicated to putting flow state research onto hard science footing, mapping the genome of Flow by 2020 and open sourcing it to everyone. His articles have appeared in over 60 publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Wired, Forbes, GQ, National Geographic and Popular Science. He has presented to many of the top companies in the world including Google, appeared on CNN and many other programs. He’s a New York Times Best Selling author of several books including The Rise of Superman, which draws on decades of research decoding the mystery of ultimate human performance through the power of harnessing flow, with an emphasis on the study of extreme and endurance athletes who have been able to experience near exponential growth in performance in the last 30 years. Researchers believe flow sits at the heart of almost every athletic championship, every world record, better sprinters, marathoners, the most extreme achievements in endurance sports and just about every facet of high performers in life. If you think that this ability only resides in top performers and our best athletes, think again. Flow is ubiquitous and shows up in everyone and can take seemingly ordinary people to extraordinary accomplishment or at the very least bring you much closer to your very best performance and allow you to perform at a level perhaps better than your training. It can even boost the immune system and help overcome disease states where medicine has exhausted all options. Steven is one such case of this. In this episode, Steven shares all about the elusive flow state and how you can leverage it in your training including: What specifically the flow state is How to shut down your "inner critic" once and for all while running Why a pace group might bring out a better performance than racing alone The 4 cycles of the flow state - and how to identify where you might be The 7 specific triggers for the flow state in your individual running (plus 10 more for group) Why the "Runner's High" is barely delivering the benefits of flow to you - and how to get more Disabling your central governor and getting that reserve you have in the tank when you need it most Why you should visualize any flow experiences you have as you are falling asleep "Flow hacks" that allow you to hack into the flow state Coaching Minute Get an action plan for practicing getting into the flow state in your training so you can activate it on race day. Success Quote "Most people run a race to see who is fastest. I run a race to see who has the most guts." -Steve Prefontaine Links Mentioned in the Show PodcastAwards.com - Vote for Runner Academy Once Per Day Everyday! The Flow Genome Project The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance - get his book 17 Flow State Triggers - Steven's Slide presentation Focus at Will - Background Music to drive concentration and focus
