Steven Kotler is an American author and expert in the field of peak performance and the evolution of human potential through consciousness.
CLEAR ALL
Resolve to do the things you find to be difficult. That’s what confident people do. They tackle those things that are scary and they get addicted to doing it.
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Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.
Stay a verb—don’t become a noun.
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Life’s work is to wake up, to let the things that enter into the circle wake you up rather than put you to sleep. The only way to do this is to open, be curious, and develop some sense of sympathy for everything that comes along, to get to know its nature and let it teach you what it will.
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Excessive use of external motivation can slow and even stop your journey to mastery.
Learning any new skill involves relatively brief spurts of progress, each of which is followed by a slight decline to a plateau somewhat higher in most cases than that which preceded it . . . the upward spurts vary; the plateaus have their own dips and rises along the way. . . .
What we call ‘mastery’ can be defined as that mysterious process through which what is at first difficult or even impossible becomes easy and pleasurable through diligent, patient, long-term practice.
Indecision leads to inaction, which leads to low energy, depression, despair.
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Ultimately, nothing in this life is ‘commonplace,’ nothing is ‘in between.’ The threads that join your every act, your every thought, are infinite. All paths of mastery eventually merge. [Each person has a] vantage point that offers a truth of its own.
How relationships unfold with the most important people in our lives depends on courage and clarity in finding voice. This is equally true for our relationship with our self.