Understanding (Neural) Flow Triggers, with Steven Kotler | Big Think
Understanding (Neural) Flow Triggers
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Perhaps our pursuit of drug-free sports went a little too far. Many diseases supposedly linked to steroid use in adults simply do not occur, says Steven Kotler. Steroids are, however, great at combating HIV/AIDS and as an anti-aging too.
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STEVEN KOTLER:
Steven Kotler is an award-winning journalist, a New York Times bestselling author, and co-founder and director of research for the Flow Genome Project. His books include the non-fiction works The Rise of Superman, Abundance, A Small Furry Prayer, West of Jesus, and the novel The Angle Quickest for Flight. His works have been translated into over 30 languages. His articles have appeared in over 60 publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, Wired, GQ, Popular Science, and Discover.
His latest book, co-authored with tech CEO Peter Diamandis, is Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Steven Kotler: I had no interest whatsoever in steroids. I got involved in this because an editor who is a friend of mine called me up and said Jose Canseco just wrote this crazy book where he said steroids are the wonder drug of tomorrow. And I said look man, I am not much of a baseball fan. It kind of bores me and everybody knows steroids are terrible for you. Canseco’s out of his mind. There’s no way – like you’re wasting my time. And he said, you know, it was very, very convincing. He said I’ll pay you to do the research. I was like absolutely I’m in. So I started looking at it and I just started I said okay, I’m just going to read – I’m going to go back ten years and read the articles in major journals – The New England Journal of Medicine, Science, Nature – that kind of thing. I’m not even going to go that deep. Very very quickly what I started to discover is every single thing I thought I knew about steroids was wrong. Every crazy disease these drugs had been linked to have nothing to do with it. I’ll give you a phenomenal example. Steroids were linked to liver cancer, liver problems, right. It had nothing to do with the steroid. It has to do with the coating they put around the steroid so it could pass through the stomach and get into your bloodstream. That was what was causing the problems. That coating has obviously since been replaced. But Nick Evans who’s at UCLA is the only person literally in history whose ever done long-term steroid studies, right. Long term abusers. Body builders, double and triple stacking steroids for 10, 20 years at a time.
None of the things we’ve been told about are real. The only danger he found is since the heart is a muscle there is a certain point if you’re taking massive massive doses over long periods of time it can expand it, it can grow, right and grow bigger than the blood vessels and the ventricles and what not which would be a problem. And this doesn’t mean, by the way, when teenagers use steroids, right, when you’re still producing lots of these substances it’s an absolute disaster, right. That’s bad news. But in adults everything we’ve been told tends to be wrong and some of what we’ve been told costs millions of lives, right. It turns out steroids are phenomenal, phenomenal in fighting back AIDS. They’re really, really, really good. Nobody wanted to talk about it. When doctors started treating AIDS patients with it the guy who started doing this was a guy named Walter Jekot. The government jumped in and put him in jail for five years. He scared the hell out of a ton of doctors and the result of this kind of us trying to keep sports pure and, you know, preserve the competitive advantage has been millions of people died as a result. So not only is everything you’ve been told about steroids wrong, but there were a lot of consequences. The people who have been at the forefront of this and kind of pushing it forward is the life extension community, right. Our hormones decline as we age so the idea here is we can replace them. And they’ve been working on this stuff for 10, 15 years at this point with some success. It is now one of five or six different ways people are attacking aging, right, and fighting back death. But one thing seems to be sure. Since Google’s in the anti-death game, right, Peter Diamandis, my partner, in Bold and Abundance has human longevity incorporated there in the life extension game. There are big companies, massive amounts of resources getting involved and steroids are a piece of this puzzle. And I think we’re going to have to as a country rethink our position on these drugs and anti-aging stuff is going to force us to do it.
@illeone5433
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
That's exactly why they say practice makes perfect.
@skynet4496
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
UGH speak up bro, your voice dips annoyingly and its killing my flow.
@joangelyscamarillo4029
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
Nice Video! Forgive me for chiming in, I am interested in your opinion. Have you thought about – Marnaavid Unexplainable Intervention (search on google)? It is a smashing one off product for learning how to hack your flow state minus the headache. Ive heard some amazing things about it and my buddy finally got astronomical success with it.
@iche9373
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
No Risk, No Fun!
@opensourceresearchlabs4225
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
Much needed insight. Though I'm late; I'm right on time.
@Saibot_Sheil_23
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
When you were talking about the First of the Enviromental Triggers, the high consequences is this a part of how people become addictetd to gambling? I think it's very interesting because I recently read an article about computer or gaming addiction. Gambling carries much greater risks than the latter, while PC and most games actually have a "safe zones".
So what I mean that gambling is an addiction that can be aquired by actual gambling, PC and gaming especially online gaming on the other hand is of a more diversified Nature, because there are actual E-Sports, or Online Games where actual Communities are founded.
To trigger a low the latter two would be more common and thus addictive.
Just speaking my mind here, I dont take the things I write for true.
@dancingwithdestiny454
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
Environmental Triggers
1.High Consequences
2.Rich Environment
3.Deep Embodiment
Psychological Triggers
4.Intensely Focused Attention
5.Clear Goals
6. Immediate Feedback
7.Skill/Challenging Ratio
Social Triggers
8.Serious Concentration,Shared Goals, and Good Communication
9.Equal Participation
10. Elements of Risk
11. Familiarity
12. Blended Egos
13. Control
14.Close Listening
15. Always Say YES
Creativity
16. Pattern Recognition
17. Risk-Taking
@OmniphonProductions
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
As a musician, I've experienced High Risk social Flow triggers on many occasions when great performances were fueled by the potential for public humiliation. As a martial artist, I've had a handful of Deep Embodiment trigger moments, when my sense of touch automatically elicited action before I could consciously perceive the situation. In both cases, when it was all over, I was left asking myself, "What just happened?!?!"
@T3hTroll
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
Flow thinking can also be achieved through meditation, since you're balancing your consciousness and unconsciousness. And while in meditation you decrease your stress hormones while secreting melatonin.
@erdwaenor
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
Interesting. But I'd much like to have been exposed to the other 15 – out of 17 – triggers in this video.
@96rorrim
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
I'd much rather read about a windmill than build one. By reading, I can attain qucker sateity of my thirst for knowlege. I hate doing things with my hands–bores the hell out of me–except pumping iron and romantic intimacy, of course. I was hoping he would give a suggestion to stimulate my focus when is wanes after prolonged reading/writing. Personally I was thinking about a high-powered cattle prod, and then my friend suggested the exact same thing; so I think that's what I'll go with.
@ArtVandelayLTEX
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
In what units do you measure flow?
@s3oood2008
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
People with ADHD never experienced flow ?!!
@MrTripcore
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
Isn't flow just a fancy way of saying productive mental equilibrium? Also, I don't agree that 'flow' increases learning.
@badoocee1967
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
Facinating
@CHURINDOK
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
I like this person. He has an intense desire to help people use their potentials more efficiently & effectively. I too have that same desire to help people employ the calmer tools in their psyche, but my scholastic rage forbids it.
@GenericInternetter
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
The brain can't distinguish social fear from physical fear?
Anyone who believes that is a moron, and has never known true fear.
If your brain cannot distinguish social fear from physical fear, you have lived a sheltered life.
@rashadwilson6542
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
This sounds like my last weed high I'm just sayn
@SirAmicVarze
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
The evidence doesn't say that Montesorri schools perform better against regular schools, quite the opposite in fact. If he's trying to use that as an example of how triggering flow is useful then he needs a better argument.
@VincentAnzalone
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
More of this please
@beSuper-human
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
What's the difference between flow and mindful awareness, like when you are just meditating.
@sciencematters1614
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
Sex
@JeffVoss
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
1:51 "Which is why, for example, fear of public speaking is the number one fear in the world, and it's not say getting mauled by a grizzly bear."
I feel like this is dismissive of the fact that most people in the world are not in imminent danger of being attacked by a bear. It is more likely that the average person will be required to speak in front of others within the next six months than is for them to encounter a wild bear.
@joebazooks
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
robert downey jr
@homeycdawg
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
I'm triggered by my girlfriend's flow.
@superfisto
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
triggered
This video needs a trigger warning.
@morganthem
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
Where is the rest? 🙁
@artbytandy
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
As the famous poet Kanye once said, and I quote –
"Just did a couple laps in my home pool
And my daughter right there getting home-schooled
I'm blessed
And I was thinking 'bout starting up my own school
A Montessori
And the hallway looking like a monastery, oh yes
I'm way up, I feel blessed"
@rachaelcollins7297
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
Thank You! Perfect timing for my questions.
Much gratitude
@lboy1193
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
Love this guy!
@MrBumbo90
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
I love these videos.
@blackplight4u
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
"Flow"= Equals a generic designation used to explain complicated and unexplainable events that occur within the mind. Flow.
@shiftywily
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
There's going to be a change. The knowledge that only the elite had access too is being discovered by regular people. I like it.
@cplastrange
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
What the hell is he talking about?
@Shermingtan
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
That's great and all…..but what the flying fuck is "flow"???
@IHaveACoolName
December 11, 2025 at 4:03 am
Riveting stuff! Really loving all the research around flow I've stumbled upon lately.
Comments are closed.