The Rise of Superman

Steven Kotler argues that action and adventure sports athletes have pushed the boundaries of human capability farther and faster than any group in history, and that the key to their success is a state of consciousness scientists call "flow." The book draws on Kotler's extensive interviews with elite athletes and his survey of neuroscience research. It is organized in three parts: The first examines the science of flow, the second explores how athletes cultivate the state and how others can apply their methods, and the third addresses flow's dangers, cultural implications, and future potential.

Kotler defines flow as an optimal state of consciousness in which people become so focused on a task that everything else falls away: Action and awareness merge, time distorts, the sense of self vanishes, and performance escalates dramatically. He cites a Gallup survey showing 71 percent of American workers are disengaged from their jobs and contrasts this with research showing that happiness raises sales by 37 percent and productivity by 31 percent. Flow, Kotler contends, sits at the heart of athletic championships, scientific breakthroughs, and artistic progress. Yet for most people, the state is elusive. The exception is action and adventure sports athletes, for whom the choice is stark: access flow or die.

To illustrate the performance revolution, Kotler catalogs a series of examples. In freestyle motocross, the backflip was considered impossible until 2002; four years later, a double backflip followed. Kayak waterfall records climbed from 83 feet to 189 feet. Big Air skiing added 1,640 degrees of rotation in roughly a decade, a feat that took platform diving over a century. He introduces skier Shane McConkey, who at the 1993 Crested Butte Extremes impressed filmmaker Steve Winter by crashing on an attempted double backflip off a forty-foot cornice, then launching a giant naked spread-eagle on his second attempt. McConkey became one of the most innovative athletes in the world, and Kotler frames his trajectory as emblematic of the broader mystery: How did a generation of outsiders, operating far from traditional athletic systems, rewrite the rules of human potential? He raises the emotional stakes through the 1994 death of big-wave surfer Mark Foo at Maverick's, a fearsome wave off Northern California. Evolutionary science predicted Foo's death would deter others, but participation surged.

Kotler anchors the science through skateboarder Danny Way's 2005 jump over the Great Wall of China. Way invented the MegaRamp, a massive skateboarding apparatus with a 100-foot roll-in and a seventy-foot gap, then traveled to China, where he fractured his ankle and tore his ACL in a practice crash. He returned the next day and cleared the wall five times on a shattered limb, attributing his abilities to "the zone." Kotler declares this zone the book's central subject and traces flow research from geologist Albert Heim's 1871 mountain fall, through philosopher-psychologist William James's work on mystical states, to physiologist Walter Cannon's discovery of the fight-or-flight response. In the late 1960s, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term "flow" after interviews across cultures revealed that the feeling of being at one's best was universally the same. He identified ten core components, including clear goals, deep concentration, loss of self-consciousness, and distorted time sense. A McKinsey study found executives in flow are up to five times more productive.

Three extended athlete profiles map flow's effects on the brain. Through big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton's ride of the "Millennium Wave" at Teahupoo, Tahiti, Kotler explains flow's neuroelectrical signature. Hamilton survived by inventing a move on the spot, dragging his hand in the water to resist the wave's suction. Neuroscientist Leslie Sherlin's EEG research shows that elite performers in flow hold themselves in a low alpha/high theta brain-wave state, shutting out the conscious mind and letting the implicit (unconscious, pattern-based) system operate. This state is neurologically poised for creative breakthroughs, because the gamma waves that signal sudden insight always occur inside theta oscillations.

Through climber Dean Potter's free solo ascents in Patagonia, where he made roughly 670 correct decisions in a row guided by what he calls "the Voice" of intuition, Kotler explains transient hypofrontality, the temporary deactivation of parts of the prefrontal cortex that neuroscientist Arne Dietrich identified as flow's neuroanatomical signature. When brain regions responsible for self-awareness and impulse control go offline, the inner critic falls silent and action becomes fluid. Neuroscientist Andrew Newberg's brain-scan research on meditating Tibetan Buddhists and Franciscan nuns showed that intense focus also deactivates the orientation association area, the region that draws the boundary between self and universe, producing experiences of profound unity.

Through the Red Bull Air Force's wingsuit flight off Chicago's Willis Tower, Kotler explains flow's neurochemistry. Five key chemicals drive the state: dopamine (engagement and pattern recognition), norepinephrine (attention and arousal), endorphins (natural pain relief), anandamide (an endogenous cannabinoid that amplifies lateral thinking), and serotonin (an afterglow chemical arriving as flow ends). Together, these produce the most powerful feel-good cocktail the brain can make while also accelerating social bonding. Kotler draws a parallel to America's drug crisis, noting that the substances Americans most frequently abuse each target one of these same neurochemical systems; flow produces the combined effect naturally.

Part Two explores how athletes cultivate flow through four categories of triggers. External triggers include high consequence (risk drives focus through the amygdala, the brain's danger detector), rich environment (novelty, unpredictability, and complexity), and deep embodiment (full-body sensory awareness). Kotler illustrates these through kayaker Doug Ammons's 1992 solo descent of the Stikine River in British Columbia, sixty miles of the most dangerous whitewater on earth. Internal triggers include clear goals, immediate feedback, and the challenge/skill ratio, with flow appearing when challenges exceed skills by roughly 4 percent. Social triggers emerge from Washington University professor Keith Sawyer's research on group flow, which Kotler traces through Camp 4, a legendary campground in Yosemite that became a crucible for climbing innovation. Creative triggers complete the picture: creativity and flow form a reciprocal cycle, each amplifying the other, as demonstrated by the freeride movement that McConkey helped pioneer.

Kotler also presents flow as an alternative path to mastery. Psychologist Benjamin Bloom's research showed prodigies need encouraging environments, yet many action athletes came from broken homes. Psychologist Anders Ericsson's research showed 10,000 hours of deliberate practice distinguishes experts, yet McConkey's approach was to "find an interesting way to do something fun" (81). Psychologist Walter Mischel's marshmallow experiment showed delayed gratification predicts success, yet action athletes are sensation seekers. Kotler resolves these contradictions through psychologist Philip Zimbardo's research on time perspectives: Flow's neurochemical rewards make instant gratification the path to growth rather than its enemy. DARPA research found that military snipers trained in flow cut learning time in half.

Part Three confronts flow's dark side: an escalating ladder of risk, the soul-crushing "dark night of flow" when the state becomes inaccessible, and the danger of "bliss junkies" who mistake effortlessness for the goal. Kotler traces snowboarder Jeremy Jones's trajectory through ever-more-dangerous terrain and recounts how McConkey's death during a wingsuit ski-BASE jump in Italy's Dolomites, caused by a malfunctioning ski-release system, devastated the community but also deepened its resolve.

Yet Kotler argues the reasons to persevere outweigh the risks. He examines the first generation raised in a flow-hacking tradition: twelve-year-old skateboarder Tom Schaar landed the world's first 1080, and climber Alex Honnold became the first person to free solo Half Dome's 2,000-foot northwest face. He explains the "Roger Bannister effect," whereby demonstrated impossibilities unlock imagination and accelerate learning, and surveys emerging technologies from portable EEG neurofeedback to bionic prosthetics. Kotler closes with skydiver Felix Baumgartner's 2012 free fall from 128,100 feet, the first human supersonic descent, and argues that flow is the capability humanity needs to tackle its grandest challenges. Citing researcher Arie de Geus's study of long-surviving corporations at Royal Dutch Shell, Kotler identifies their shared advantage: "The ability to learn faster than your competitors is the only sustainable competitive advantage" (193). Flow, he concludes, is the key to learning faster, and what these athletes have accomplished points toward what all of us might achieve.