Quick Cut: S2E345 Peak Performance with Steven Kotler
It's a Good Life
Brian Buffini
4.4 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 6 November 2025
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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A state of flow is an optimal state of consciousness when we both feel our best and perform our best. In this episode, Brian interviews Steven Kotler, one of the world’s leading experts on human performance. Steven shares how to achieve flow and unlock peak performance – those moments in time when the impossible becomes possible. Topics discussed include: why our biology is hardwired for three levels of goals, why practicing distraction management is key and why there is power in invisible skills.
YOU WILL LEARN:
- Why everyone can access flow.
- How to trigger flow.
- How to focus and achieve complete concentration.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
https://www.flowresearchcollective.com/radio
“The Art of Impossible,” by Steven Kotler
“Flow,” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:
“Peak performance is nothing more or less than getting our biology to work for us rather than against us.” – Steven Kotler
“Whenever you see people accomplishing the impossible, you tend to see people in a state of flow.” – Steven Kotler
“Flow is a massive amplification of skills.” – Steven Kotler
“I work for the boss. The boss is who I am yesterday that made my to-do list.” – Steven Kotler
“In peak performance, motivation gets us into the game. Learning allows us to continue to play. Creativity - creative problem solving - it's how we steer. And flow, which is
a state of optimal performance, is how we turbo-boost the results beyond all reasonable expectation.” – Steven Kotler
“If you use the system the way it's designed to be used, you just get farther faster with a lot less fuss.” – Steven Kotler
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to It's a Good Life with Brian Bafini, founder of America's largest business coaching company. |
| 0:10.4 | Here's a short classic cut from one of our all-time favorite episodes. |
| 0:17.1 | I'm very excited for you guys today to listen to our guest, Mr. Stephen Kotler. |
| 0:23.0 | Now, Stephen is a New York Times bestselling author. |
| 0:26.7 | He's an award-winning journalist and the executive director of the Flow Research Collective. |
| 0:31.9 | He's one of the world's leading experts on human performance. |
| 0:35.1 | He has nine bestsellers out of 13 books, which is hard to do, |
| 0:38.9 | if ever you've tried. Before we dive into the newest book and all the work you have with the |
| 0:43.2 | Art of Impossible, tell the folks a little background, where are you from, where'd you grow up, |
| 0:47.1 | and how did you get into this crazy line of work? The easiest way to explain it is I have spent |
| 0:52.5 | 30 years studying those moments in time when the impossible becomes possible. |
| 0:57.2 | When we see stuff that's not supposed to happen, that's never supposed to happen, whether it shows up in business or art or science or technology or whatever, that's been my domain. |
| 1:07.6 | So that's been the center of my focus. |
| 1:09.8 | And as you pointed out, you know, in your |
| 1:11.9 | references to flow, flow is an optimal state of consciousness. We feel our best and we perform our best. |
| 1:16.9 | Whenever you see people accomplishing the impossible, you tend to see people in a state of flow, |
| 1:22.7 | which is what led me to that work. And i started as a journalist and then i started you know |
| 1:29.0 | investigating flow that way and then i kept going and kept writing books about it and eventually |
| 1:33.7 | started the flow research collective uh where we study the neurobiology of uh of flow and peak human |
| 1:40.1 | performance so what's going on in the brain and the body when people are performing are their best? And if I have added anything to Mike's brilliant work on flow, his focus was on |
| 1:50.5 | the psychology. And you know, you can't touch his work on the psychology. I've been focused |
| 1:55.8 | much more on the neurobiology. And the difference really, psychology is incredibly useful, but if you want to make an |
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