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The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer
Bestselling author, peak performance expert and Executive Director of the Flow Research Collective, Steven Kotler decodes the secrets of those elite performers—athletes, artists, scientists, CEOs and more—who have changed our definition of the possible, teaching us how we too can stretch far beyond our capabilities, making impossible dreams much more attainable for all of us. What does it take to accomplish the impossible? What does it take to shatter our limitations, exceed our expectations, and turn our biggest dreams into our most recent achievements?
We are capable of so much more than we know—that’s the message at the core of The Art of Impossible. Building upon cutting-edge neuroscience and over twenty years of research, author Steven Kotler lays out a blueprint for extreme performance improvement and offers a playbook to make it happen.
We are capable of so much more than we know—that’s the message at the core of The Art of Impossible. Building upon cutting-edge neuroscience and over twenty years of research, author Steven Kotler lays out a blueprint for extreme performance improvement and offers a playbook to make it happen.
336 pages, ebook
First published January 19, 2021
About the author
Steven Kotler
26 books1,010 followersSteven Kotler is a New York Times bestselling author, award-winning journalist, and co-founder and director of research for the Flow Genome Project. His books include the non-fiction works "The Rise of Superman," "Abundance," "A Small Furry Prayer" "West of Jesus," and the novel "The Angle Quickest for Flight." His work has been translated into more than 30 languages. His articles have appeared in over 60 publications, including The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Wired, GQ, Outside, Popular Science, Men's Journal and Discover.
He also writes "Far Frontiers," a blog about technology and innovation for Forbes.com and "The Playing Field," a blog about the science of sport and culture for PsychologyToday.com.
He lives in New Mexico with his wife, the author Joy Nicholson.
He also writes "Far Frontiers," a blog about technology and innovation for Forbes.com and "The Playing Field," a blog about the science of sport and culture for PsychologyToday.com.
He lives in New Mexico with his wife, the author Joy Nicholson.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 331 reviews
February 4, 2021
Author had me in this:
Why to read books over blogs or news articles?
If you read a blog: it takes 3 minutes & gets you 3 days of author’s time;
Articles in magazines: 20 minutes of reading gets you 4 months;
Books: 5 hours gets you 15 years of author’s life!
Books are the radicalized condensation of life’s knowledge on earth.
Why to read books over blogs or news articles?
If you read a blog: it takes 3 minutes & gets you 3 days of author’s time;
Articles in magazines: 20 minutes of reading gets you 4 months;
Books: 5 hours gets you 15 years of author’s life!
Books are the radicalized condensation of life’s knowledge on earth.
February 26, 2021
I would’ve loved this 10 years ago, but with the benefit of more experience — just couldn’t take it as seriously. It talks a lot about PASSION and MOTIVATION and EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE CHANGING THE WORLD. But is light on substance. Reads more like a self-help book than one about performance
Peak (Anders), Deep Work (Newport), Endure (Hutchinson), Flow, and The Sports Gene (Epstein) are all much better if you’re looking for something more meaty and actionable
Peak (Anders), Deep Work (Newport), Endure (Hutchinson), Flow, and The Sports Gene (Epstein) are all much better if you’re looking for something more meaty and actionable
January 18, 2021
Steven Kotler’s new book, “The Art of Impossible,” shares territory with two of his previous books [“The Rise of Superman” and “Stealing Fire” (the latter co-authored with Jamie Wheal,)] but it also takes a step back to reveal a broader landscape than those previous books. Whereas the earlier books focused on how to achieve a high-performance state of mind called “flow” (or “peak performance,”) this one looks at the bigger picture of how to achieve success with daunting projects. So, while the fourth / final section of the book presents information that will be familiar to past readers, the first three sections – on motivation, learning, and creativity, respectively – are not addressed in the earlier works. [It’s worth pointing out that even section four (Ch. 19 – 23) presents some new information and organizational schemes because this is a fast-moving research domain of late.]
The book’s first six chapters (i.e. Part I) are about achieving and maintaining motivation. This starts from the logical bedrock of finding an “impossible” task for which one is likely to have sufficient passion and interest to follow through. The reader learns how to formulate goals that are challenging enough and clear enough to facilitate sustained interest, effort, and productivity. The importance of autonomy is discussed at length, and the reader learns what companies like Google, 3M, and Patagonia have done to make gains via employees energized by increased autonomy. The kind of motivation that allows one to knuckle-down under adversity, grit, is given its own chapter, and the author discusses six variations that are important to success.
Part II (Ch. 7 – 14) is about the learning process and how one can organize one’s pursuits to get the most learning per effort. Chapter ten is the heart of this section, offering a detailed approach to organizing one’s learning activities. Chapter fourteen offers yet another critique of the 10,000-hour rule that was popularized by (and oversimplified in) the Malcolm Gladwell book, “Outliers.” [This “rule,” developed by Swedish psychologist Anders Ericsson, has come under intense criticism in large part because every time the explanation shifted downstream it became less of an approximate rule of thumb that was applicable to some specific domains and more of an iron-clad rule deemed applicable to every activity that benefits from practice, resulting in insane behavior such as parents who pick their child’s sport in the womb so that the kid can get the requisite number of practice hours before the college recruiters come to see him or her play.]
The third part (Ch. 15 – 18) is about fostering creativity. Here, Kotler takes the reader on a tour of changing thought about creativity, ranging from the ancient stories of muses to today’s state-of-the-art neuroscience. Like the section on Flow, there is an elaboration of where the neuroscientific understanding of creativity sits at the moment. Having read a range of books discussing such descriptions, this approach is falling out of favor with me. First, whenever I’ve read a book by an actual neuroscientist, I’ve learned that these simple attributions of activities to certain brain regions are either vastly oversimplified, more tentatively agreed upon than suggested, or both of the above. Second, I have realized that learning a name like Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) and an oversimplified explanation of what it does doesn’t really help me. That said, I understand there is interest in these descriptions that drive their inclusion in such books. (I, too, have been interested in reading about it, but less and less so.)
The final part is about Flow, and this is where readers of “Rise of Superman” will be well-primed for the information that is covered. Chapter 21, which elucidates the twenty-two “Flow Triggers,” is the heart of this section. As I mentioned, Kotler has changed the way he organizes this discussion since his earlier book, but the material is still largely from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s work on the subject. In addition to explanation of what it means to get into the state of Flow and of how to improve one’s chances of getting there, there is a discussion of “Flow Blockers” – four mind states that hinder Flow. The last chapter lays out a plan consisting of daily and weekly activities, and – as such – it serves as both a summary and an outline for moving forward.
Writers may find this book particularly beneficial because Kotler relies heavily on anecdotes from his own work to clarify and explain the points under discussion. By contrast, “Rise of Superman” relied almost exclusively on stories from extreme sports athletes, and “Stealing Fire” drew on silicone valley and the special forces heavily for examples. I actually enjoyed that Kotler spoke from his own experience. As someone who has read a fair number of books on peak performance, I’ve seen a lot of the same stories repeated within popular books. That said, readers who haven’t read much on the topic may wish the book had a broader set of narrative examples and less definitional / conceptual discussion. The author may be aware that many of his readers will have fatigue from reading the same stories and examples. When Kotler does mention such widely-discussed examples (e.g. Steve Jobs putting bathrooms in the Pixar building in a central location that created cross-pollination of people on different projects) he does so briefly and without preaching to the choir.
I found this book to be an interesting overview of how to approach a large-scale life mission. It’s well-organized and readable (though it might benefit from less vocabulary-based neuroscience discussion.) If you are feeling a bit rudderless, this is a good book to look into.
The book’s first six chapters (i.e. Part I) are about achieving and maintaining motivation. This starts from the logical bedrock of finding an “impossible” task for which one is likely to have sufficient passion and interest to follow through. The reader learns how to formulate goals that are challenging enough and clear enough to facilitate sustained interest, effort, and productivity. The importance of autonomy is discussed at length, and the reader learns what companies like Google, 3M, and Patagonia have done to make gains via employees energized by increased autonomy. The kind of motivation that allows one to knuckle-down under adversity, grit, is given its own chapter, and the author discusses six variations that are important to success.
Part II (Ch. 7 – 14) is about the learning process and how one can organize one’s pursuits to get the most learning per effort. Chapter ten is the heart of this section, offering a detailed approach to organizing one’s learning activities. Chapter fourteen offers yet another critique of the 10,000-hour rule that was popularized by (and oversimplified in) the Malcolm Gladwell book, “Outliers.” [This “rule,” developed by Swedish psychologist Anders Ericsson, has come under intense criticism in large part because every time the explanation shifted downstream it became less of an approximate rule of thumb that was applicable to some specific domains and more of an iron-clad rule deemed applicable to every activity that benefits from practice, resulting in insane behavior such as parents who pick their child’s sport in the womb so that the kid can get the requisite number of practice hours before the college recruiters come to see him or her play.]
The third part (Ch. 15 – 18) is about fostering creativity. Here, Kotler takes the reader on a tour of changing thought about creativity, ranging from the ancient stories of muses to today’s state-of-the-art neuroscience. Like the section on Flow, there is an elaboration of where the neuroscientific understanding of creativity sits at the moment. Having read a range of books discussing such descriptions, this approach is falling out of favor with me. First, whenever I’ve read a book by an actual neuroscientist, I’ve learned that these simple attributions of activities to certain brain regions are either vastly oversimplified, more tentatively agreed upon than suggested, or both of the above. Second, I have realized that learning a name like Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) and an oversimplified explanation of what it does doesn’t really help me. That said, I understand there is interest in these descriptions that drive their inclusion in such books. (I, too, have been interested in reading about it, but less and less so.)
The final part is about Flow, and this is where readers of “Rise of Superman” will be well-primed for the information that is covered. Chapter 21, which elucidates the twenty-two “Flow Triggers,” is the heart of this section. As I mentioned, Kotler has changed the way he organizes this discussion since his earlier book, but the material is still largely from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s work on the subject. In addition to explanation of what it means to get into the state of Flow and of how to improve one’s chances of getting there, there is a discussion of “Flow Blockers” – four mind states that hinder Flow. The last chapter lays out a plan consisting of daily and weekly activities, and – as such – it serves as both a summary and an outline for moving forward.
Writers may find this book particularly beneficial because Kotler relies heavily on anecdotes from his own work to clarify and explain the points under discussion. By contrast, “Rise of Superman” relied almost exclusively on stories from extreme sports athletes, and “Stealing Fire” drew on silicone valley and the special forces heavily for examples. I actually enjoyed that Kotler spoke from his own experience. As someone who has read a fair number of books on peak performance, I’ve seen a lot of the same stories repeated within popular books. That said, readers who haven’t read much on the topic may wish the book had a broader set of narrative examples and less definitional / conceptual discussion. The author may be aware that many of his readers will have fatigue from reading the same stories and examples. When Kotler does mention such widely-discussed examples (e.g. Steve Jobs putting bathrooms in the Pixar building in a central location that created cross-pollination of people on different projects) he does so briefly and without preaching to the choir.
I found this book to be an interesting overview of how to approach a large-scale life mission. It’s well-organized and readable (though it might benefit from less vocabulary-based neuroscience discussion.) If you are feeling a bit rudderless, this is a good book to look into.
September 24, 2021
A smorgasbord of skin deep ideas taken from other authors excellent books. All you will learn from this book is that there are many other subject matter experts you should be reading instead.
March 20, 2021
The drivers:
- curiousity,
- passion,
- purpose,
- autonomy
- mastery.
A great passion recipe:
Q:
Start by writing down twenty-five things you’re curious about.
...
Hunt for intersections ... By stacking motivations, that is, layering curiosity atop curiosity atop curiosity, we’re increasing drive but not effort. This is what happens when our own internal biology does the heavy lifting for us. You’ll work harder, but you won’t notice the work. Also, because dopamine provides a host of additional cognitive benefits—amplified focus, better learning, faster pattern recognition—you’ll also work smarter. These are two more reasons why stalking the impossible might be a little easier than you suspected.
...
Play in the intersections ... The goal is to feed those curiosities a little bit at a time, and feed them on a daily basis. This slow-growth strategy takes advantage of the brain’s inherent learning software.6 When you advance your knowledge a little bit at a time, you’re giving your adaptive unconscious a chance to process that information. In the study of creativity, this process is known as “incubation.” What’s actually happening is pattern recognition.
...
to increase your chances of making those connections, pay attention to two sets of details: both the history of the subject and the technical language used to describe that subject.
...
Once the brain constructs that narrative, it functions like a giant Christmas tree. All the little details you learn along the way are the ornaments. But having this big tree—this overarching structure—makes those ornaments easier to hang. You don’t have to work as hard to remember them. This historical narrative becomes a de facto memory palace, allowing you to take a brand-new piece of information and correctly slot it into its exact right place. If we construct that narrative, we’ll see learning rates increase and time to mastery decrease. (c)
Q:
Neurobiologically, purpose alters the brain. It decreases the reactivity of the amygdala, decreases the volume of the medial temporal cortex, and increases the volume of the right insular cortex. A less reactive amygdala translates to less stress and greater resilience. The medial temporal cortex is involved in many aspects of perception, suggesting that having a purpose alters the way the brain filters incoming information, while a larger right insular cortex has been shown to protect against depression and correlate with a significant number of well-being measures. (c)
Q:
But don’t expect this to happen quickly, and find stopgap measures in the interim. I was a bartender for the first decade of my writing career, which allowed me the time to develop my craft without the terror of having to pay my bills off the results. This was critical to my success. (c)
- curiousity,
- passion,
- purpose,
- autonomy
- mastery.
A great passion recipe:
Q:
Start by writing down twenty-five things you’re curious about.
...
Hunt for intersections ... By stacking motivations, that is, layering curiosity atop curiosity atop curiosity, we’re increasing drive but not effort. This is what happens when our own internal biology does the heavy lifting for us. You’ll work harder, but you won’t notice the work. Also, because dopamine provides a host of additional cognitive benefits—amplified focus, better learning, faster pattern recognition—you’ll also work smarter. These are two more reasons why stalking the impossible might be a little easier than you suspected.
...
Play in the intersections ... The goal is to feed those curiosities a little bit at a time, and feed them on a daily basis. This slow-growth strategy takes advantage of the brain’s inherent learning software.6 When you advance your knowledge a little bit at a time, you’re giving your adaptive unconscious a chance to process that information. In the study of creativity, this process is known as “incubation.” What’s actually happening is pattern recognition.
...
to increase your chances of making those connections, pay attention to two sets of details: both the history of the subject and the technical language used to describe that subject.
...
Once the brain constructs that narrative, it functions like a giant Christmas tree. All the little details you learn along the way are the ornaments. But having this big tree—this overarching structure—makes those ornaments easier to hang. You don’t have to work as hard to remember them. This historical narrative becomes a de facto memory palace, allowing you to take a brand-new piece of information and correctly slot it into its exact right place. If we construct that narrative, we’ll see learning rates increase and time to mastery decrease. (c)
Q:
Neurobiologically, purpose alters the brain. It decreases the reactivity of the amygdala, decreases the volume of the medial temporal cortex, and increases the volume of the right insular cortex. A less reactive amygdala translates to less stress and greater resilience. The medial temporal cortex is involved in many aspects of perception, suggesting that having a purpose alters the way the brain filters incoming information, while a larger right insular cortex has been shown to protect against depression and correlate with a significant number of well-being measures. (c)
Q:
But don’t expect this to happen quickly, and find stopgap measures in the interim. I was a bartender for the first decade of my writing career, which allowed me the time to develop my craft without the terror of having to pay my bills off the results. This was critical to my success. (c)
June 2, 2022
While reading this book, I found much of it familiar - perhaps because I had read several of the books he mentioned but also because many books I’ve read, from popular best sellers to pedagogical literature to spiritual yoga texts contain similar messages. (One notion that was new to me was the ROI of reading - I appreciated his take on reading books vs blogs and articles and the math he used to support it.) I also appreciated how he chose to organize the book and it was a pretty easy read (since I only skimmed the long neuroscientific bits.)
I found the title to be a little over the top - like the bookstore version of click-bait. The book felt targeted to Type-A’s that just weren’t good enough in their own eyes and how could they be even better. The book had a flavour of white male privilege partly because of its name dropping (the author clearly moves in circles regular folks don’t have access to) and partly because of the “if I can do it anyone can” aspect. But hey, the author is a white male so I won’t hold it against him - it’s just that it becomes less relatable. I did appreciate that not all his examples were drawn from sports and writing nor did they all involve super human feats. He did give a nod to the fact that for some people giving a speech could be their small “i” impossible, it wasn’t all about riding big waves or writing books.
I noticed that many of the 5-star reviews of this book were written by fans of Steven Kotler and I guess if you already know and love this author, this book wouldn’t disappoint. Since this is the first of Kotler’s books I’ve read, I felt a little like I arrived late to a party where everyone already knows everyone else and the punch is all gone.
But my final impression of the book was that I had just read a long advertisement for his institute. Letting readers know he has an Institute is one thing, but to include a pitch for it at the end of the book? Really? That’s what search engines and the internet are for. That wasn’t cool.
I found the title to be a little over the top - like the bookstore version of click-bait. The book felt targeted to Type-A’s that just weren’t good enough in their own eyes and how could they be even better. The book had a flavour of white male privilege partly because of its name dropping (the author clearly moves in circles regular folks don’t have access to) and partly because of the “if I can do it anyone can” aspect. But hey, the author is a white male so I won’t hold it against him - it’s just that it becomes less relatable. I did appreciate that not all his examples were drawn from sports and writing nor did they all involve super human feats. He did give a nod to the fact that for some people giving a speech could be their small “i” impossible, it wasn’t all about riding big waves or writing books.
I noticed that many of the 5-star reviews of this book were written by fans of Steven Kotler and I guess if you already know and love this author, this book wouldn’t disappoint. Since this is the first of Kotler’s books I’ve read, I felt a little like I arrived late to a party where everyone already knows everyone else and the punch is all gone.
But my final impression of the book was that I had just read a long advertisement for his institute. Letting readers know he has an Institute is one thing, but to include a pitch for it at the end of the book? Really? That’s what search engines and the internet are for. That wasn’t cool.
November 3, 2023
"Ever since you were a little kid, you always have a dream about what you can accomplish. As soon as you get close to that dream, there’s another. There’s always a desire to keep learning, to keep evolving. Here’s the line. Let’s tickle it a bit. And then you figure out that’s not actually the line. The impossible is actually a little farther out, so let’s go over there and tickle it again. You do this for long enough, and you just get used to it..."
—MILES DAISHER
The Art of Impossible was a well-done book. I am a huge fan of well-written books on performance, mastery, and excellence, and I'll read just about any book I can come across in those genres. There was lots of super interesting writing presented here. The quote above is dropped at the start of the book.
Author Steven Kotler is an American writer, journalist, and entrepreneur. He is best known for his non-fiction books, including Abundance, A Small Furry Prayer, West of Jesus, Bold, The Rise of Superman and Stealing Fire.
Steven Kotler:
Kotler gets the book off on a good foot, with a high-energy intro. He mentions the continued expansion of human capabilities. These ever-increasing performance milestones are seen across many different sports. He mentions large wave surfing.
The author presents a straightforward delivery of the material in a matter-of-fact manner, that I felt was highly effective, as well as engaging. There is nothing I dislike in books more than dry, long-winded, monotonous prose, and thankfully, this one passes muster here.
Kothler drops this short blurb that outlines the goal of the book:
Recently deceased psychologist (RIP) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of Flow, or "Flow state" is a central theme of the book (as with many others in the genre). Flow is where all high-performance endeavours take place.
Kotler says this of flow:
The concepts of grit and delayed gratification are also covered in here:
Kotler also drops some great writing about the value proposition of books. Basically; they are the most efficient way to consume distilled information. You can trade a few hours of your time in exchange for literal decades of the author's life and/or professional experience. I wholeheartedly agree, which is why I spend so much of my time reading them. He writes (skip to the bold highlight below for summary if you are short on attention):
The book is very well formatted. It's broken into 4 parts, and then their corresponding chapters. Here are the contents:
Part I: Motivation
1: Motivation Decoded
2: The Passion Recipe
3: The Full Intrinsic Stack
4: Goals
5: Grit
6: The Habit of Ferocity
Part II: Learning
7: The Ingredients of Impossible
8: Growth Mindsets and Truth Filters
9: The ROI on Reading
10: Five Not-So-Easy Steps for Learning Almost Anything
11: The Skill of Skill
12: Stronger
13: The 80/20 of Emotional Intelligence
14: The Shortest Path to Superman
Part III: Creativity
15: The Creative Advantage
16: Hacking Creativity
17: Long-Haul Creativity
18: The Flow of Creativity
Part IV: Flow
19: The Decoder Ring
20: Flow Science
21: Flow Triggers
22: The Flow Cycle
23: All Together Now
********************
I enjoyed The Art of Impossible, and would easily recommend it to anyone interested.
5 stars.
—MILES DAISHER
The Art of Impossible was a well-done book. I am a huge fan of well-written books on performance, mastery, and excellence, and I'll read just about any book I can come across in those genres. There was lots of super interesting writing presented here. The quote above is dropped at the start of the book.
Author Steven Kotler is an American writer, journalist, and entrepreneur. He is best known for his non-fiction books, including Abundance, A Small Furry Prayer, West of Jesus, Bold, The Rise of Superman and Stealing Fire.
Steven Kotler:
Kotler gets the book off on a good foot, with a high-energy intro. He mentions the continued expansion of human capabilities. These ever-increasing performance milestones are seen across many different sports. He mentions large wave surfing.
The author presents a straightforward delivery of the material in a matter-of-fact manner, that I felt was highly effective, as well as engaging. There is nothing I dislike in books more than dry, long-winded, monotonous prose, and thankfully, this one passes muster here.
Kothler drops this short blurb that outlines the goal of the book:
"This is a book about what it takes to do the impossible. In a very real sense, it’s a practical playbook for impractical people. It’s designed specifically for those of us with completely irrational standards for our own performance and totally unreasonable expectations for our lives."
Recently deceased psychologist (RIP) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of Flow, or "Flow state" is a central theme of the book (as with many others in the genre). Flow is where all high-performance endeavours take place.
Kotler says this of flow:
"The neurobiology of flow is the mechanism beneath the art of impossible...
...Flow may be the biggest neurochemical cocktail of all. The state appears to blend all six of the brain’s major pleasure chemicals and may be one of the few times you get all six at once. This potent mix explains why people describe flow as their “favorite experience,” while psychologists refer to it as “the source code of intrinsic motivation.”
The concepts of grit and delayed gratification are also covered in here:
"Every time you ignore the frustration, delay the gratification, and cross an item off that list, that’s a little win. That small rush of pleasure you feel when you cross off an item is the reward chemical dopamine. Passion produces little wins, little wins produce dopamine, and dopamine, repeatedly, over time, cements a growth mindset into place. But because neurochemicals play a lot of different roles in the brain, this increase in dopamine also amplifies focus and drives flow. And flow over time produces grit."
Kotler also drops some great writing about the value proposition of books. Basically; they are the most efficient way to consume distilled information. You can trade a few hours of your time in exchange for literal decades of the author's life and/or professional experience. I wholeheartedly agree, which is why I spend so much of my time reading them. He writes (skip to the bold highlight below for summary if you are short on attention):
"This brings us to a hard truth: if you’re interested in learning, then you’re interested in books. Certainly, as an author, this might seem entirely self-serving, but hear me out. One of the most unsettling facts about my chosen profession in this digital age is how frequently people tell me they don’t read books anymore. Sometimes they read magazine articles. Often blogs. “A book is too much of a commitment” is one comment, frequently heard.
This isn’t surprising. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, most adults spend an average of seven minutes a day reading for pleasure.1 A few years back, the Pew Research Center reported that nearly one-quarter of American adults hadn’t read a single book in the past year.2
While it may not be surprising, it’s devastating to anyone interested in mastering the art of learning. To explain why, let’s start with the main response I hear: a book is too much of a commitment. Fair enough, but let’s talk about what you’re getting in return for that commitment. There’s a value proposition at work here. You give an author your time in exchange for their ideas. So let’s break down the exact nature of this trade. We’ll start with blogs.
The average adult reading speed is about 250 words per minute.3 The average blog post is about 800 words long. This means that most of us read the average blog post in three and a half minutes. So what do you get for those minutes?
Well, in my case, about three days’ worth of effort.
For a typical blog, I usually spend about a day and a half researching a topic and an equal amount of time writing. The research mainly involves reading books and articles. I also talk to experts. If the topic is in my wheelhouse, usually one or two conversations suffice. Outside my wheelhouse kicks that up to three or four. The writing usually requires some more reading and an extra conversation or two and the hard work of putting words together in a straight line.
That’s the value exchange. Your three and a half minutes in exchange for me digesting fifty to one hundred pages’ worth of material, then spending three to five hours talking about it, then spending another day and a half adding in my new ideas and restructuring the whole result into something to read.
Now, let’s look at a long-form magazine article, the kind you would find in Wired or the Atlantic Monthly. These articles are usually about 5,000 words long, meaning it takes the average person twenty minutes to read. So, again, what do you get in return for your twenty minutes?
In my case, you get about a month of research before the actual reporting starts, another six weeks spent reporting (figure twenty-five conversations with experts and far more reading), and another six weeks of writing and editing. So, in return for you agreeing to give my words about twenty minutes of your time, you’re getting access to about four months of my brain power, labor, whatever.
I think, if you look at it this way, you’ll see the average magazine article makes for a fairly good trade. Your time as a reader quintuples, but my time as an author has increased thirtyfold—and that’s a fairly incredible bargain.
But a book is an entirely different ball game.
Let’s take The Rise of Superman, my book on flow and the science of ultimate human performance. The book is around 75,000 words long, so it takes the average reader about five hours’ worth of effort. So what do you get for your five hours? In the case of Rise, about fifteen years’ worth of my life.
Look at these figures listed below:
Blogs: Three minutes gets you three days.
Articles: Twenty minutes gets you four months.
Books: Five hours gets you fifteen years."
The book is very well formatted. It's broken into 4 parts, and then their corresponding chapters. Here are the contents:
Part I: Motivation
1: Motivation Decoded
2: The Passion Recipe
3: The Full Intrinsic Stack
4: Goals
5: Grit
6: The Habit of Ferocity
Part II: Learning
7: The Ingredients of Impossible
8: Growth Mindsets and Truth Filters
9: The ROI on Reading
10: Five Not-So-Easy Steps for Learning Almost Anything
11: The Skill of Skill
12: Stronger
13: The 80/20 of Emotional Intelligence
14: The Shortest Path to Superman
Part III: Creativity
15: The Creative Advantage
16: Hacking Creativity
17: Long-Haul Creativity
18: The Flow of Creativity
Part IV: Flow
19: The Decoder Ring
20: Flow Science
21: Flow Triggers
22: The Flow Cycle
23: All Together Now
********************
I enjoyed The Art of Impossible, and would easily recommend it to anyone interested.
5 stars.
March 1, 2021
“You get one shot at this life, and you’re going to spend one-third of it asleep. So what do you choose to do with the remaining two-thirds? That is the only question that matters. . . . you lose by not trying to play full out, by not trying to do the impossible—whatever that is for you.”
Kotler’s The Rise of Superman is one of the books I recommend most; the extreme sports anecdotes and insights into how to achieve a flow state are mind-bendingly interesting.
This new book is a continuation of his lifelong work of helping people achieve their big goals. The Art of Impossible walks through, in fine detail, every step on the path towards the impossible—“the feats that no one, including ourselves, at least for a while, ever imagined we’d be capable of accomplishing.”
There are scientific/psychological insights on creativity, flow, motivation, grit, even compiling your weekly calendar and to-do list. Right on page 1, Kotler calls this book a “practical playbook for impractical people.”
It’s nitty gritty—in a good way—and fills a very concrete need in the world of motivational books. If how-tos are your thing, don’t look any further. After reading, it really does feel like you can achieve what seems like a crazy, impossible goal (though it certainly won’t be an easy road). While I usually roll my eyes at these types of books, every few years there’s one that stands out from the crowd. The Art of Impossible is that stand-out.
More of a 4.5 or 4.75 than a 4-star, for sure. Really inspiring.
Kotler’s The Rise of Superman is one of the books I recommend most; the extreme sports anecdotes and insights into how to achieve a flow state are mind-bendingly interesting.
This new book is a continuation of his lifelong work of helping people achieve their big goals. The Art of Impossible walks through, in fine detail, every step on the path towards the impossible—“the feats that no one, including ourselves, at least for a while, ever imagined we’d be capable of accomplishing.”
There are scientific/psychological insights on creativity, flow, motivation, grit, even compiling your weekly calendar and to-do list. Right on page 1, Kotler calls this book a “practical playbook for impractical people.”
It’s nitty gritty—in a good way—and fills a very concrete need in the world of motivational books. If how-tos are your thing, don’t look any further. After reading, it really does feel like you can achieve what seems like a crazy, impossible goal (though it certainly won’t be an easy road). While I usually roll my eyes at these types of books, every few years there’s one that stands out from the crowd. The Art of Impossible is that stand-out.
More of a 4.5 or 4.75 than a 4-star, for sure. Really inspiring.
January 23, 2021
This is not your ordinary self-improvement book.
Very informative and dense breakdown of what it takes to be at an extreme level of performance and in the flow. Delivered in a set of very clear-cut, easy-to-follow, and practicable messages.
Magic happens at the extremes.
Very informative and dense breakdown of what it takes to be at an extreme level of performance and in the flow. Delivered in a set of very clear-cut, easy-to-follow, and practicable messages.
Magic happens at the extremes.
April 22, 2021
There are two kinds of impossible. One is Impossible, with a capital I. These “Impossible” feats break paradigms and shatter expectations – think landing on the moon or running a four-minute mile.
Then, there’s impossible with a lowercase i. This sort of impossible still lies beyond your wildest dreams – but on a personal scale. It’s the stuff you think is impossible for you. It could be becoming an entrepreneur, building a musical career, or simply doing what you love for a living.
Fortunately, neither sort of “impossible” is actually impossible. There’s a formula to achieving the impossible, and it’s backed up by science. It consists of four skills: motivation, learning, creativity, and flow. Understanding and applying that formula is what these book are all about.
Impossible=I'm possible !
blinkist.com
Then, there’s impossible with a lowercase i. This sort of impossible still lies beyond your wildest dreams – but on a personal scale. It’s the stuff you think is impossible for you. It could be becoming an entrepreneur, building a musical career, or simply doing what you love for a living.
Fortunately, neither sort of “impossible” is actually impossible. There’s a formula to achieving the impossible, and it’s backed up by science. It consists of four skills: motivation, learning, creativity, and flow. Understanding and applying that formula is what these book are all about.
Impossible=I'm possible !
blinkist.com
April 2, 2021
I would absolutely recommend reading or at least listening to the audio book. I didn't give it more stars because I was really disinterested in the portions explaining the brain processes, etc. I'm sure the science is really interesting to some, but I found it really dry. Some of it, while making me roll my eyes (WHO READS FIVE BOOKS ABOUT MULTIPLE SUBJECTS THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND??) also actually motivated me to try those things that feel ridiculous and over-the-top (yes, I do have a list of 5 books a piece that I'm planning to read on three separate subjects now--THANKS, STEVEN -_-). It's not called "The Art of Totally Doable" amirite? :)
But for real, if you want some great food for thought, a TON of nuggets in terms of ideas and motivation, check this out!
But for real, if you want some great food for thought, a TON of nuggets in terms of ideas and motivation, check this out!
July 12, 2021
I wanted to love this book as I’m very interested in the topic, but never got into it. Not sure what it was, there was a lot of content based on research and experience, just didn’t really take anything anyway. Felt really vague in a lot of important areas and oddly specific in others (read 5 books with certain criteria in this order when learning a new field).
July 16, 2021
I do not really know what to say, I actually liked the content, but the presentation was just not my cup of tea, I guess.
January 21, 2023
این کتاب با عنوان هنر ناممکن از انتشارات طرح نقد توسط پویان کرمی ترجمه شده. خیلی از ترجمه اش راضی نبودم ولی تنها ترجمه ی توی بازاره و قابل قبوله. کتاب خوبی برام بود چون تمام آموخته هام رو به روش خیلی خوبی جمع بندی کرد و کمک کرد ذهنم منسجم بشه.
April 26, 2023
This book was a fascinating read and definitely left me with a lot of internal reflection and a desire to do better.
January 19, 2021
Art of Impossible is a thorough and scientific treatment of peak performance digested into four main themes: motivation, learning, creativity, and flow states. While other books cover individual components of peak performance such as habit formation or grit, this book balances depth and breadth in the most high leverage concepts in doing audacious things.
The book starts with motivation. It provides both the science of motivation such as the value of a massively transformative purpose to enhance drive as well as practical tools like looking at the intersections of different passions in order to differentiate yourself and tap into sustained motivation. This section also addresses the latest thinking on mindsets, internal vs external motivation, and goal-setting theory. In brief: motivation is hard to cultivate but if you understand the underlying mechanism, you can tap into sustained drive.
Next the book goes into learning with practical steps for accelerating learning including establishing an appropriate truth filter, improving emotional intelligence, and steps for learning practically anything. Personally I found the portrayal of what makes experts different from novices a helpful roadmap for how to develop expertise in any given field.
The section on creativity makes the argument that creativity is one of the most important 21st century skills. Then it goes on to explore how the process works with practical tips like how to load your pattern recognition system in order to improve creative connections. It also discusses the imagination or default mode network--which is an essential actor in creative moments--and how best to promote activity in this network.
Finally, the book addresses flow states, summarizing how best to engineer deep focus in order to amplify performance.
Overall, this book is a truly excellent treatment of these themes. It stands apart from his other books like The Rise of Superman in that it's deeply practical and has fewer case studies. Overall, this book is an excellent primer on the science of peak performance combined with a practical playbook that makes that science really matter.
The book starts with motivation. It provides both the science of motivation such as the value of a massively transformative purpose to enhance drive as well as practical tools like looking at the intersections of different passions in order to differentiate yourself and tap into sustained motivation. This section also addresses the latest thinking on mindsets, internal vs external motivation, and goal-setting theory. In brief: motivation is hard to cultivate but if you understand the underlying mechanism, you can tap into sustained drive.
Next the book goes into learning with practical steps for accelerating learning including establishing an appropriate truth filter, improving emotional intelligence, and steps for learning practically anything. Personally I found the portrayal of what makes experts different from novices a helpful roadmap for how to develop expertise in any given field.
The section on creativity makes the argument that creativity is one of the most important 21st century skills. Then it goes on to explore how the process works with practical tips like how to load your pattern recognition system in order to improve creative connections. It also discusses the imagination or default mode network--which is an essential actor in creative moments--and how best to promote activity in this network.
Finally, the book addresses flow states, summarizing how best to engineer deep focus in order to amplify performance.
Overall, this book is a truly excellent treatment of these themes. It stands apart from his other books like The Rise of Superman in that it's deeply practical and has fewer case studies. Overall, this book is an excellent primer on the science of peak performance combined with a practical playbook that makes that science really matter.
September 18, 2022
“The Art of Impossible” by Steven Kotler is a perfect example of a book by a journalist who does punchy write-ups of other books written by other punchy journalists who cite popular self-hack writers (like Tim Ferriss, whose advice is retold several times), who talk to actual researchers and achievers.
As a bonus, Kotler ads a lot of brain anatomy and chemistry jargon to this long citation chain. It sure kept my concentration up while visualizing the correct 3D locations of anterior cingulate cortex and the parietal cortex.
Sarcasm aside, it’s a great book if you want to understand how top-performing, entrepreneurial, creative people function. Whether you know someone like that personally or you’re interested in abnormal humans. I know a few people around me who’d totally benefit from reading such an instruction manual. As a way to reduce some of their complaints about the frequently unpleasant functioning of those abnormal people, especially when they try to make new stuff out of thin air instead of enjoying a weekend sipping beer at the terrrasse.
Sadly, for the `normal` folks with the “regular genes” and “standard upbringing”… sorry, this ain’t a manual of how to suddenly become impossibly performing and extraordinarily creative.
And, maybe because the subject is complex and there’s a word “ART” in the title, this is not a detailed, down-to-earth practical book from James Clear, nor is it a still-approachable, but rigorously academic research in book form by Steven Pinker, Daniel Kahneman or Richard Herrnstein.
I haven’t learned anything new, got annoyed by the glossing over of the details and by the very omnipresent, very misleading and very American illusion that “anyone with the right skill and mindset can achieve whatever they set their mind to”.
330 pages later, the author admits that “now you know the secret, and it’s pretty underwhelming, right? None of these interventions are particularly sexy. There is no nifty piece of technology to play with or unusual substance to ingest. They’re just items on a checklist. Worse, progress is often invisible. A little bit today, a little bit tomorrow, do this for weeks and months and years and the result won’t just be a life that exceeds your expectations, it’ll be one that exceeds your imagination.”
However, much earlier in the book, Kotler starts with yet another citation of someone else’s wisdom… A more realistic message from current neuroscience that, until we learn how to re-engineer our DNA, we’re stuck at thinking:
“When you’re young, your potential seems infinite. You think you might do anything, really. You might be Einstein. You might be DiMaggio. Then you get to an age when what you might be, gives way to what you have been. You weren’t Einstein. You weren’t anything. That’s a bad moment.”
As a bonus, Kotler ads a lot of brain anatomy and chemistry jargon to this long citation chain. It sure kept my concentration up while visualizing the correct 3D locations of anterior cingulate cortex and the parietal cortex.
Sarcasm aside, it’s a great book if you want to understand how top-performing, entrepreneurial, creative people function. Whether you know someone like that personally or you’re interested in abnormal humans. I know a few people around me who’d totally benefit from reading such an instruction manual. As a way to reduce some of their complaints about the frequently unpleasant functioning of those abnormal people, especially when they try to make new stuff out of thin air instead of enjoying a weekend sipping beer at the terrrasse.
Sadly, for the `normal` folks with the “regular genes” and “standard upbringing”… sorry, this ain’t a manual of how to suddenly become impossibly performing and extraordinarily creative.
And, maybe because the subject is complex and there’s a word “ART” in the title, this is not a detailed, down-to-earth practical book from James Clear, nor is it a still-approachable, but rigorously academic research in book form by Steven Pinker, Daniel Kahneman or Richard Herrnstein.
I haven’t learned anything new, got annoyed by the glossing over of the details and by the very omnipresent, very misleading and very American illusion that “anyone with the right skill and mindset can achieve whatever they set their mind to”.
330 pages later, the author admits that “now you know the secret, and it’s pretty underwhelming, right? None of these interventions are particularly sexy. There is no nifty piece of technology to play with or unusual substance to ingest. They’re just items on a checklist. Worse, progress is often invisible. A little bit today, a little bit tomorrow, do this for weeks and months and years and the result won’t just be a life that exceeds your expectations, it’ll be one that exceeds your imagination.”
However, much earlier in the book, Kotler starts with yet another citation of someone else’s wisdom… A more realistic message from current neuroscience that, until we learn how to re-engineer our DNA, we’re stuck at thinking:
“When you’re young, your potential seems infinite. You think you might do anything, really. You might be Einstein. You might be DiMaggio. Then you get to an age when what you might be, gives way to what you have been. You weren’t Einstein. You weren’t anything. That’s a bad moment.”
February 17, 2021
I am a big fan of Steven Kotler. I’ve read most of his other books. This one is amazing. His best one yet. He has me all fired up to put practices and habits in place that will foster creativity and flow.
The thing I admire so much about this book is its clarity and its focus. He just gets in there, gets right to the point, references neuro-science but leaves all the literature in the endnotes where they don’t clutter the narrative.
He writes for the reader curious about flow and how flow enhances creativity. Really, it’s for anyone who wants to live a maximally creative life.
He doesn’t pander or over-explain. He doesn’t belabor with illustrative stories about peak performers. I loved his book, The Rise of Superman, but that book had a lot of those kinds of stories. And while they were fascinating, they were long, and I was always wanting him to get to the point, the takeaway. I wanted to know how I could incorporate those things into my own life to duplicate that same flow state.
And this is the book where he does that. As a writer, I envy his economy, his directness, his simple sentences, his never succumbing to showing off his command of this material (which is daunting!)
It is so hard to write clearly. And he does it so masterfully.
You know how they say if you think you know something, try teaching it to someone else? Try teaching it to someone in 4th grade?
That’s what he does here.
Plus he has checklists. And recipes. For example, he says if you want to be creative you have to be in a good mood first. Then he tells you the recipe for a good mood: a daily gratitude practice, a daily mindfulness practice, regular exercise, and a good night’s rest.
I have so many underlinings! I think what I’ll do is download this on my Kindle now, and read it again, and save my underlinings in Kindle Notes so I don’t have to transcribe them by hand.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to live a creative life. Five stars. Maybe six. (And I’m cheap with my stars.)
The thing I admire so much about this book is its clarity and its focus. He just gets in there, gets right to the point, references neuro-science but leaves all the literature in the endnotes where they don’t clutter the narrative.
He writes for the reader curious about flow and how flow enhances creativity. Really, it’s for anyone who wants to live a maximally creative life.
He doesn’t pander or over-explain. He doesn’t belabor with illustrative stories about peak performers. I loved his book, The Rise of Superman, but that book had a lot of those kinds of stories. And while they were fascinating, they were long, and I was always wanting him to get to the point, the takeaway. I wanted to know how I could incorporate those things into my own life to duplicate that same flow state.
And this is the book where he does that. As a writer, I envy his economy, his directness, his simple sentences, his never succumbing to showing off his command of this material (which is daunting!)
It is so hard to write clearly. And he does it so masterfully.
You know how they say if you think you know something, try teaching it to someone else? Try teaching it to someone in 4th grade?
That’s what he does here.
Plus he has checklists. And recipes. For example, he says if you want to be creative you have to be in a good mood first. Then he tells you the recipe for a good mood: a daily gratitude practice, a daily mindfulness practice, regular exercise, and a good night’s rest.
I have so many underlinings! I think what I’ll do is download this on my Kindle now, and read it again, and save my underlinings in Kindle Notes so I don’t have to transcribe them by hand.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to live a creative life. Five stars. Maybe six. (And I’m cheap with my stars.)
April 13, 2021
This is a must read for everyone interested in peak performance. As an individual and as a team.
I'm kind of biased since I'm a big fan of Steven. I love his voice and his nicotine stained fingers which appears when his using his hands to tell you about neuroscience and flow.
I first got interested in Flow a couple of years ago when I again and again stumbled upon the research of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. My interested in flow developed due to my wish to undergo a personal transformation and I wanted it to be fast and transformativ.
When I first got connected with Steven and his writing was during some classes at Singularity University where the book 'Abundance' (he co-wrote it with Peter Diamandis) was part of the foundation of the course. I've since read 'Bold' and 'The future is faster than you think' (which he also co-wrote with Peter Diamandis). I got at closer and closer look at what makes some people succeed and others just being in the middle of the bell-curve.
If you want to be in the top 5 % of achievers in your business this book is worth the while. It will tell you have to stack your work so that you get as much help from evolution as possible (releases of neuro-chemicals). It's about getting the motivation right, setting up the right goals, do the learning, being creative and take action. But it's also about the right kind of exercise, nutrition and relaxation. If you want to be a peak performaner TV as a recreational tool is forbidden (you need to get away from the alpha waves a TV sets your brain in). If you want to be a peak performer. This is book include the 'To-Do list' and the tasks you need on your daily and weekly schedule.
I highly recommend this book. I would recommend you read 'Finding Flow' and 'Creativity' by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi first.
I'm kind of biased since I'm a big fan of Steven. I love his voice and his nicotine stained fingers which appears when his using his hands to tell you about neuroscience and flow.
I first got interested in Flow a couple of years ago when I again and again stumbled upon the research of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. My interested in flow developed due to my wish to undergo a personal transformation and I wanted it to be fast and transformativ.
When I first got connected with Steven and his writing was during some classes at Singularity University where the book 'Abundance' (he co-wrote it with Peter Diamandis) was part of the foundation of the course. I've since read 'Bold' and 'The future is faster than you think' (which he also co-wrote with Peter Diamandis). I got at closer and closer look at what makes some people succeed and others just being in the middle of the bell-curve.
If you want to be in the top 5 % of achievers in your business this book is worth the while. It will tell you have to stack your work so that you get as much help from evolution as possible (releases of neuro-chemicals). It's about getting the motivation right, setting up the right goals, do the learning, being creative and take action. But it's also about the right kind of exercise, nutrition and relaxation. If you want to be a peak performaner TV as a recreational tool is forbidden (you need to get away from the alpha waves a TV sets your brain in). If you want to be a peak performer. This is book include the 'To-Do list' and the tasks you need on your daily and weekly schedule.
I highly recommend this book. I would recommend you read 'Finding Flow' and 'Creativity' by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi first.
January 31, 2023
"I am more a war than a man; I am doing exactly what I love while also hating my life."
Basically this book is just a cheat sheet to achieving anything you deem impossible.
Steven is an incredibly educated individual with immense knowledge in peak performance.
This book goes into depth on the science behind many things that seem almost automatic in daily life and gives you a step by step guide to how to fully utilise your biology to achieve anything you desire.
The only problem I have with this book, is I have no choice but take what he teaches and achieve greatness. There is literally no excuse not to.
Basically this book is just a cheat sheet to achieving anything you deem impossible.
Steven is an incredibly educated individual with immense knowledge in peak performance.
This book goes into depth on the science behind many things that seem almost automatic in daily life and gives you a step by step guide to how to fully utilise your biology to achieve anything you desire.
The only problem I have with this book, is I have no choice but take what he teaches and achieve greatness. There is literally no excuse not to.
June 15, 2021
I continue to be inspired and encouraged by Steven’s books. While some of the reviews here were less enthusiastic - for me this book hits the nail on the head. I grew up with action sports, have been an avid skier and runner my whole life and can relate to the topics covered here in many ways. Though not itself a book on sports, rather the tools to help you perform at your best, whatever that may be. This is a brilliant actionable formula. The challenge is simply ours to embrace.
March 7, 2023
Meh. Didn’t finish
If you liked Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow or are a Tim Ferris/biohacker bro fan this will probably be up your alley. For me, it was mostly grandiose self help stuff that talks way too much about optimizing neuro chemicals (whatever that means) and not enough about tangible things. You could probably listen to this guy on a podcast and get all the information you need. Gave it 2/5 instead of 1 because the “Learning” section actually made some decent suggestions/points
If you liked Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow or are a Tim Ferris/biohacker bro fan this will probably be up your alley. For me, it was mostly grandiose self help stuff that talks way too much about optimizing neuro chemicals (whatever that means) and not enough about tangible things. You could probably listen to this guy on a podcast and get all the information you need. Gave it 2/5 instead of 1 because the “Learning” section actually made some decent suggestions/points
Read
February 13, 2021DNF - what an odd little book. Inadvertently picked this up and was reading my first self-help guide: had always wondered what some of those books were like and this didn't disappoint in its weirdness and cliches. It was like listening to Alex Jones try to sell you man milk or something.
April 23, 2021
In The Art of Impossible, Steven Kotler regurgitates research by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (the study of flow) and Anders Ericsson (the study of expertise). If you’re unfamiliar with their work, read this book. Otherwise, save your time.
May 29, 2021
So much great information in this book. The challenge as I see it is, committing to your cause. This stuff will really work, if you put the effort in. Continuously. Without fail. Yeah, a big ask in our very busy world.
May 26, 2023
Wanted more tangible tips to activate flow. This book dives heavy into the neuroscience of it which is fine just not really what it pitched to do in the intro.
March 17, 2024
I have mixed feelings about this book. It had its ups and downs, but maybe more downs than ups. Though at the end I was glad I read it.
This book focuses on "flow", a state of mind where one can be super productive, or be especially prone to achieving seemingly impossible feats (including sporting-related achievements).
The idea is interesting and realistic, and the book goes through many details on how to get into flow.
The part I didn't enjoy much is the heavy focus on physiology. Sure, some background can be illuminating, but the book spends too much time on it.
Another part I didn't enjoy as much is how it tries to cover too much.
Ultimately, I feel there are better books out there which go over these topics in a more engaging way.
That said, I almost gave this book four stars. And it had memorable points. Like the explanation on why books are the best form of knowledge acquisition (more dense), how you should run toward your fears because you're afraid not in spite of being afraid, and how a writer should write some bad sentences so their editor has something to do (otherwise the editor would ruin the good sentences, because everyone being paid to do a job will do the job even if they have to find work).
This book focuses on "flow", a state of mind where one can be super productive, or be especially prone to achieving seemingly impossible feats (including sporting-related achievements).
The idea is interesting and realistic, and the book goes through many details on how to get into flow.
The part I didn't enjoy much is the heavy focus on physiology. Sure, some background can be illuminating, but the book spends too much time on it.
Another part I didn't enjoy as much is how it tries to cover too much.
Ultimately, I feel there are better books out there which go over these topics in a more engaging way.
That said, I almost gave this book four stars. And it had memorable points. Like the explanation on why books are the best form of knowledge acquisition (more dense), how you should run toward your fears because you're afraid not in spite of being afraid, and how a writer should write some bad sentences so their editor has something to do (otherwise the editor would ruin the good sentences, because everyone being paid to do a job will do the job even if they have to find work).
July 9, 2022
Kotler's goal with his book is to create a compact work on peak performance and achieving it. In my opinion, he has succeeded in doing so. In the book, he lists the most important topics in this regard, including motivation, creativity, and passion and purpose. The content is mostly limited to concrete examples and the benefits from them. Long sprawling examples and stories do not occur, good! At the same time, the author maintains a sympathetic writing style.
Overall, however, I would recommend the book to people who have not yet dealt in detail with the respective concepts (e.g. also Flow), because the book addresses many of these well-known adjusting screws, but does not treat them in detail enough. For an overview or a summarizing function, however, the book is quite suitable. Those who have already read some books in this area will find little that is really new in this book.
Overall, however, I would recommend the book to people who have not yet dealt in detail with the respective concepts (e.g. also Flow), because the book addresses many of these well-known adjusting screws, but does not treat them in detail enough. For an overview or a summarizing function, however, the book is quite suitable. Those who have already read some books in this area will find little that is really new in this book.
February 5, 2024
This book felt like a compilation of other books. The best chapter was the last, where he gave a summary of the whole book, and the chapter where he was talking about the brain was also one of my favorites. I feel like that is all that was needed. This could have been a really good blog post. I gave it 3 stars because there was some stuff I did learn, so it wasn't completely useless. I wanted to stop listening to it half way, but instead I just started another book, which was 100M Leads.
May 8, 2021
Reading "The Art of Impossible" in my mid-40s it was interesting to reframe some of my past through its lens. Balancing that, the book has given me a few different ideas for shaping the future; for understanding what I'm doing, why, and what not to waste energy on.
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