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Dear Reader,

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Greetings Brain Food Wednesdays Subscribers,

Welcome to this week’s edition of Brain Food Wednesdays, issue 244, where we dive deep into insights that fuel your mind to achieve more.

This week, we’re exploring Steven Kotler’s remarkable book, The Art of Impossible, which tackles the age-old question: How do you achieve the unachievable? Whether you're an executive, entrepreneur, creator, or someone striving for extreme innovation, Kotler provides a structured roadmap to turn the "impossible" into reality.

In today's article, you'll discover a step-by-step process for mastering motivation, creativity, learning, and flow to perform at your highest potential.

Get ready to challenge your limits and redefine what's possible!

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The Problem The Art of Impossible Addresses

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The primary problem "The Art of Impossible" by Steven Kotler addresses is how to achieve extreme innovation and seemingly impossible goals. Many people struggle to reach their peak potential, often because they lack the necessary tools, motivation, or understanding of how to push past limits and enter a state of optimal performance. Kotler breaks down how to overcome these obstacles and perform at the highest possible levels, offering a roadmap to turn the "impossible" into reality.

The problem also includes the challenge of maintaining long-term success in high-stakes environments where innovation and creativity are necessary for achievement. People often get stuck in their progress or feel overwhelmed by the scope of their ambitions, and Kotler provides a structured approach to break through those barriers.

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Step-by-Step Solution:

1. Master Motivation
   • Identify Your Intrinsic and Extrinsic Drivers: Understand what drives you internally (e.g., curiosity, passion, purpose) and externally (e.g., money, recognition). While external drivers get you started, intrinsic drivers sustain long-term progress.
   • Stack Intrinsic Drivers: Find the intersections between things you're curious about. Engagement increases when multiple interests overlap, leading to passion and purpose.
   • Practice Purpose and Mastery: Once you find your purpose, work hard to achieve mastery in it. This gives you a long-term mission and direction.
   • Dedicate 20% of Your Time: Devote a portion of your week (about four to five hours) to passion projects that align with your purpose, allowing you to grow autonomously and fuel further motivation.
2. Optimize Physical and Mental Health
   • Maintain Physical Peak Performance: Prioritize hydration, proper nutrition, sleep, and social support. These are essential to entering a state of flow, where peak performance is achieved.
   • Daily Practices for Mental Health: Practice gratitude, meditation, and regular exercise to maintain mental resilience. These habits also contribute to flow states.
3. Set Goals and Break Them Down
   • Hard Goals and Clear Goals: Break down big, impossible goals into smaller, challenging yet achievable steps. This creates a clear path and direction for sustained effort. Clear, daily goals serve as flow triggers and keep motivation high.
   • Commit to Long-Term Grit: You need grit to sustain motivation through the difficult tasks required for achieving your long-term goals. This includes pushing through adversity, recovering effectively, and continuously training your weaknesses.
4. Focus on Lifelong Learning
   • Be Committed to Learning: Learning is the engine that keeps you progressing. Kotler outlines that to achieve the impossible, you must constantly expand your knowledge and understanding.
   • Learn Through Patterns: Look for patterns that novices may miss, identify anomalies, and train yourself to see the big picture. This requires the continual expansion of your knowledge. This practice helps you to spot trends.
   • The 5 Steps to Learn Anything: Start by reading five books on the topic, ask intelligent questions to experts, explore the gaps in knowledge, challenge assumptions, and then teach others to cement your learning. This step-by-step process helps you master new information and skills.
5. Master Creativity
   • Creativity as a Steering Mechanism: When you're pursuing big, impossible dreams, creativity is essential. It's how you navigate the journey when the path is not obvious.
   • Hack Creativity: Feed your brain with new ideas, broaden your horizons, and give yourself "non-time" (time away from direct work) to let ideas incubate. Creativity requires active pattern recognition and exploration.
   • Focus on Long-Haul Creativity: View creativity as an infinite game, one where constant effort and frustration lead to breakthroughs. Surround yourself with a broad skill set to tap into when needed.
6. Enter Flow and Stay in It
   • Flow as the Ultimate Performance State: The state of flow is where the impossible becomes achievable. It is the psychological state in which you perform at your highest levels, completely absorbed in the task at hand.
   • Trigger Flow Regularly: Set up your environment and mental state to regularly enter flow through clear goals, immediate feedback, and the right amount of challenge. Flow amplifies learning and shortens the path to mastery.
   • Sustain Momentum: One key to sustaining progress is stopping when you're still excited, so momentum carries you into the next work session. This keeps motivation high and performance consistent.
7. Grit and Resilience
   • Train Grit Across Dimensions: Train your grit by improving willpower, controlling your thoughts, managing fear, and learning to perform under tough conditions. True grit requires resilience in the face of adversity.
   • Prioritize Recovery: To maintain performance, recovery is crucial. This includes sleep, active rest, and setting up routines that allow your body and mind to rejuvenate.

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The Core Idea:

The combination of motivation, learning, creativity, and flow forms the foundation of peak performance and the ability to achieve what seems impossible. Kotler's roadmap teaches that achieving the "impossible" isn't magic—it's about systematically developing the right skills, stacking them over time, and aligning them with your passions and purpose. The book emphasizes that by mastering these steps, anyone can break through their limits and create extraordinary achievements.

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Thank you for your continued interest in Brain Food Wednesdays.

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If you’d like to read my Bookish Note on The Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler, join my paid membership site the Art of Learning Leadership Academy. Recently, I’ve included a new section that highlights the problem a book solves and the step-by-step solution. You’ll also find practical applications for the book’s content. Be in-the-know and get an edge over your peers.

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Warm regards,

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Avil Beckford

Editor, Brain Food Wednesdays

Founder, The Invisible Mentor & Art of Learning Leadership Academy

​theinvisiblementor.com artoflearningleadershipacademy.com​

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