Our limits are governed by flow’s ability to amplify performance as much as by imagination’s ability to dream up that performance. - Steven Kotler

There wasn’t anything wrong with these dogs. I wanted to take them all home with me. The whole damn warehouse of misery. Just strap it to my back and get the fuck out of the way.

If you’re interested in mastery,” says University of Cambridge, England, neuropsychologist Barbara Sahakian, “you have to learn this lesson. To really achieve anything, you have to be able to tolerate and enjoy risk. It has to become a challenge to look forward to. In all fields, to make exceptional discoveries you need risk — you’re just never going to have a breakthrough without it.

They are deliberately cultivating these states to solve critical challenges and outperform their competition. It isn’t just grit, or better habits, or longer hours that are separating the best from the rest. To hear these trail-blazers tell it, the insights they receive in those states are what make all the difference.