Steven Kotler’s Talks at Google presentation looks at flow states, an optimal state of consciousness where we both feel our best and perform our best, and at how to get more of it.
Steven Kotler is the author of The Rise of Superman and co-founder of the Flow Genome Project, and Talks at Google describes him as one of the world’s leading experts on ultimate human performance. In this talk, he surveys current research, primarily focusing on “flow states“—an optimal state of consciousness where we both feel our best and perform our best. According to the talk’s description, researchers now know that flow sits at the heart of almost every athletic championship, underpins most major scientific breakthroughs, and accounts for significant progress in the arts.
On business, the description says that coders in flow built the internet and that video game designers in flow built the video game industry. It adds that “flow state percentage”—the amount of time employees spend in flow—has been called the most important management metric for building great innovation teams, and that a growing number of companies now put the cultivation of flow at the heart of their philosophies. These are the talk’s claims, and this page does not cite the studies behind them. The talk asks what this state is, how it works, and—if it really is the secret to ultimate human performance—how we can get more of it in our personal and professional lives.
