THE ART OF IMPOSSIBLE

“Very little is impossible with ten years’ practice.” Journalist and performance coach Kotler delivers an incitement for us all to up our games.

Just about every human achievement was once deemed impossible, whether breaking the 4-minute mile or landing on the moon. Kotler’s Flow Research Collective, borrowing from the insights of psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, studies “the neurobiology of human peak performance,” training and quantifying the nervous system at its optimum. Neurobiology being universal, it works for everyone in theory, even though when personality enters the picture, psychological traits such as risk aversion can affect the outcome. No worry, writes the author. Peak performance is attained through motivation, learning, creativity, and flow, the last of which is “how you turbo-boost the results beyond all rational standards and reasonable expectations,” surprising even yourself with the mastery that comes after figuring out how to do something perfectly. Kotler has something of the cheerleader about him, to be sure, but he’s thoroughly grounded in science, writing of the biological systems that drive fear, anger, grief, lust, and other emotions, all of which can be turned to advantage. He also offers a novel approach to learning, removing stress and letting curiosity make a game of it. “We’re letting our pattern recognition system find connections between curiosities that make us even more curious—which is how you cultivate passion,” he writes after chronicling a user-friendly approach to learning a new subject. Other strategies for performance optimization include getting enough restorative sleep; eating properly; spending your time effectively, including scheduling time for meditation and focused thinking; and avoiding stress. Kotler’s up-and-at-’em approach never sounds a false note, and it’s clear that he has applied his advice to himself. Besides, it’s fun to read sentences like, “Remember, the ROI on reading says books are the best way to go.”

An entertaining, inspiring approach to life-hacking that begs to be implemented by the willing reader.