Jamie Wheal - Altered States to Altered Traits: Hacking Flow

Jamie Wheal is the co-founder of the Flow Genome Project, a project dedicated to mapping the states of ultimate human performance, based on the idea of flow states. Flow is a concept first introduced by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1990) and expanded on in Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (1997).

Altered States to Altered Traits: Hacking Flow

Jamie Wheal speaks at TEDx Black Rock City. "It's never been easier to get high, and it's just as hard as it's always been to stay that way." In this talk, Jamie Wheal, Executive Director the Flow Genome Project, details how rapid advancements in technology, psychology and pharmacology have led to an unprecedented uptick in our access to peak states, and how we might be able to use those moments of clarity and inspiration to learn, do and be much more than we thought possible.

From Talks at Google, Steven Kotler stopped by recently to discuss his new book, The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance (2014). Essentially, this is a book on applied flow states.

Here is the publisher's ad copy for the book:

In this groundbreaking book, New York Times–bestselling author Steven Kotler decodes the mystery of ultimate human performance. Drawing on over a decade of research and first-hand reporting with dozens of top action and adventure sports athletes like big wave legend Laird Hamilton, big mountain snowboarder Jeremy Jones, and skateboarding pioneer Danny Way, Kotler explores the frontier science of “flow,” an optimal state of consciousness in which we perform and feel our best.

Building a bridge between the extreme and the mainstream, The Rise of Superman explains how these athletes are using flow to do the impossible and how we can use this information to radically accelerate performance in our own lives.

At its core, this is a book about profound possibility; about what is actually possible for our species; about where—if anywhere—our limits lie.

 Interesting stuff.

Steven Kotler, "The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance"

Published on May 5, 2014


As the author of The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance and co-founder of the Flow Genome Project, Steven Kotler is one of the world's leading experts on ultimate human performance. In this riveting talk, he provides a stunning tour of current research, primarily focusing on "flow states"—an optimal state of consciousness where we both feel our best and perform our best. 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. In business, its impact has been substantial. Coders in flow built the internet; video game designers in flow built the video game industry. "Flow state percentage"—which is the amount of time employees spend in flow—has been called the most important management metric for building great innovation teams. As a result of all of this, an increasing number of companies have put the cultivation of flow at the heart of their philosophies. So what is this mysterious state? How does it work its magic? And—if this really is the secret to ultimate human performance—how can we get more of it in our personal and professional lives?