In 1977, when Edward Deci and Richard Ryan were both young psychologists at the University of Rochester, they bumped into each other on campus.1 Deci had just become a clinical practitioner, and Ryan was still a grad student. They shared an interest in the science of motivation, which led to a long conversation, which led to a fifty-year collaboration that overturned most of the foundational ideas in that science of motivation. Put differently, at the Collective, we have a saying: “Personality doesn’t scale. Biology scales.” What we mean is, in the field of peak performance, too often, someone figures out what works for them and then assumes it will work for others. It rarely does. James penned those words in the late 1800s, in the very first psychological textbook ever published. The more modern version belongs to the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and the opening lines of the 2002 film Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: “When you’re young, your potential is infinite. 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.”14 Yet the neurochemistry of reward isn’t simply about how individual neurochemicals work, as we’re often motivated by combinations of neurochemicals. Dopamine plus oxytocin is the blend beneath the delight of play. Passion—including everything from the passion of an artist for their craft to the passion of romantic love—is underpinned by the pairing of norepinephrine and dopamine.14 When the brain wants to motivate us, it sends out a neurochemical message via one of seven specific networks.9 These networks are ancient devices, found in all mammals, that correspond to the behavior they’re designed to produce. There is a system for fear, another for anger/rage, and a third for grief or what’s technically known as “separation distress.” The lust system drives us to procreate; the care/nurture system urges us to protect and educate our young. Yet, when we talk about drive—the psychological energy that pushes us forward—we’re really talking about the two final systems: play/social engagement and seeking/desire.

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Drive, the subject of the next two chapters, refers to powerful emotional motivators such as curiosity, passion, and purpose. These are feelings that drive behavior automatically.1 This is the big deal. When most people think about motivation, they’re actually thinking about persistence—meaning the stuff we need to keep going once our drive has left us. Consider the simplest drive: curiosity. When we’re curious about a subject, doing the hard work to learn more about that subject doesn’t feel like hard work. It requires effort, for certain, but it feels like play. And when work becomes play, that’s one way to know for sure: Now, you’re playing the infinite game. This, too, is evolution at work. It’s not that evolution ever lets us stop playing the “get more resources” game, it’s that our strategy evolves. Once baseline needs are met, you can devote yourself to ways to get, well, you guessed it, seriously more resources—for yourself, for your family, for your tribe, for your species. As high-minded as something like “meaning and purpose” might seem as a driver, this is actually evolution’s way of saying: Okay, you’ve got enough resources for yourself and your family. Now it’s time to help your tribe or your species get more. This is also why, in the brain, there’s really not much difference between drivers. Intrinsic drivers, extrinsic drivers, it doesn’t matter. In the end, like so much of life, it all comes down to neurochemistry. Motivation is what gets you into this game; learning is what helps you continue to play; creativity is how you steer; and flow is how you turbo-boost the results beyond all rational standards and reasonable expectations. That, my friends, is the real art of impossible. Welcome to the infinite game.” When multiple curiosity streams intersect, you not only amp up engagement—you create the necessary conditions for pattern recognition, or the linking of new ideas together.2 Pattern recognition is what the brain does at a very basic level. It’s essentially the fundamental job of most neurons. As a result, whenever we recognize a pattern, the brain rewards us with a tiny squirt of dopamine. Norepinephrine is similar but different. It’s the brain’s version of adrenaline, sometimes called noradrenaline. This neurochemical produces a huge increase in energy and alertness, stimulating both hyperactivity and hypervigilance. When you’re obsessed with an idea, can’t stop working on a project, or can’t stop thinking about the person you just met, norepinephrine is responsible.Solid. A helpful and/or enlightening book, in spite of its obvious shortcomings. For instance, it may offer decent advice in some areas while being repetitive or unremarkable in others. The Art of Impossible is consistently fascinating. There aren’t many writers I would follow on an intellectual journey as ambitious as this to examine peak performance; fortunately, Steven Kotler is one of them.”— David Epstein, New York Times bestselling author of Range and The Sports Gene

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At the start of this book, when I described the impossible as a form of extreme innovation, this is exactly what I meant. And when I saw this much extreme innovation pouring out of surfing and nearly every other action sport, this definitely caught my attention—but not just for the obvious reasons. Autonomy is the desire for the freedom required to pursue your passion and purpose. It’s the need to steer your own ship. Mastery is the next step. It drives you toward expertise; it pushes you to hone the skills you need to achieve your passion and purpose. In other words, if autonomy is the desire to steer your own ship, mastery is the drive to steer that ship well. The existence of reservoirs of energy that habitually are not tapped is most familiar to us as the phenomenon of “second wind.” Ordinarily we stop when we meet the first effective layer, so to call it, of fatigue. We have then walked, played or worked “enough,” and desist. That amount of fatigue is an efficacious obstruction, on this side of which our usual life is cast. But if an unusual necessity forces us to press onward, a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain critical point, when gradually or suddenly it passes away, and we are fresher than before. We have evidently tapped a new level of energy. There may be layer after layer of this experience. A third and a fourth “wind” may supervene. Mental activity shows the phenomenon as well as physical, and in exceptional cases we may find, beyond the very extremity of fatigue-distress, amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves to own—sources of strength habitually not taxed at all, because habitually we never push through the obstruction, never pass those early critical points.37” Start by writing down twenty-five things you’re curious about. And by curious, all I mean is that if you had a spare weekend, you’d be interested in reading a couple of books on the topic, attending a few lectures, and maybe having a conversation or two with an expert. The Art of Impossible is a must-read! Steven Kotler is one of a handful of people on the planet with a deep understanding of the frontiers of human performance. His ability to bring applied neuroscience and psychology to life through storytelling is world-class. This book is a treasure. DR. MICHAEL GERVAISWe are all capable of so much more than we know. This is the main lesson a lifetime in peak performance has taught me. Each of us, right here, right now, contains the possibility of extraordinary. Yet, this extraordinary capability is an emergent property, one that only arises when we push ourselves toward the edge of our abilities. Far beyond our comfort zone, that’s where we find out who we are and what we can be. In other words, the only real way to discover if you are capable of pulling off the impossible—whatever that is for you—is by attempting to pull off the impossible. This is also why we started our exploration of drive with curiosity, passion, and purpose. This trio establishes interest and enjoyment—via curiosity and passion—and then cements core beliefs and values via purpose. In other words, this trio of drivers came first in this book because they’re the foundation required to maximize autonomy. Neuroanatomy describes specific brain structures: the insula or the medial prefrontal cortex. But, in the brain, structures are designed to perform specific functions. The medial prefrontal cortex, for example, aids in decision-making and the retrieval of long-term memories.7 So, if a particular “do more” message arrives in the medial prefrontal cortex, the result is more, or sometimes more finely tuned, decision-making and long-term memory retrieval. Neuroanatomy and networks, meanwhile, are the places those messages are sent from and received, the where in the brain something is taking place.6 Peak performance isn’t something we win. There are no fixed rules, no established time frame for the contest, and the field of play is as big or as small as you choose to live your life. Instead, peak performance is an infinite game—but not quite.

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First, the obvious: that damn ball was gone. Second, the slightly less obvious: my little brother wasn’t magic.I’m using the term formula in the same way that computer scientists talk about algorithms, as a sequence of steps that anyone can follow to get consistent results. And while the rest of this book is dedicated to the details of this formula, there are a couple of key questions that are worth answering up front. Bestselling author and peak performance expert 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. Does this mean you lose the infinite game if you’re not a paradigm-shifting physicist or a record-breaking ballplayer? No. It means you lose by not trying to play full out, by not trying to do the impossible—whatever that is for you. The Art of Impossible is a must-read! Steven Kotler is one of a handful of people on the planet with a deep understanding of the frontiers of human performance. His ability to bring applied neuroscience and psychology to life through storytelling is world-class. This book is a treasure.”— Dr. Michael Gervais, high-performance psychologist