About
Steven
Steven’s Resume
Steven Kotler is a New York Times–bestselling author, award-winning journalist, and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences at Florida Atlantic University, where his work focuses on the neuroscience of flow, intuition, creativity, and human performance. He is the founder and executive director of the Flow Research Collective, one of the world’s leading research and training organizations dedicated to peak performance and human potential.
The author of seventeen books, including thirteen bestsellers, Kotler’s work has earned three Pulitzer Prize nominations and been translated into more than 80 languages. His writing has appeared in over 100 publications, including The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Wired, TIME, and Harvard Business Review. His books—The Rise of Superman, Stealing Fire, and The Art of Impossible—are considered foundational texts in applied performance neuroscience. Stealing Fire was named Best Business Book of the Year by both CNBC and Strategy + Business and helped catalyze renewed scientific and cultural interest in altered states and peak experience.
Recognized by The New York Times as “one of the world’s leading experts in ultimate human performance,” Kotler conducts peer-reviewed research on performance and cognition that bridges neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and complexity science. He is the co-author of the forthcoming Springer textbook Performance Neuroscience (2026). His training programs have reached individuals in 156 countries across 28 industries, including U.S. Navy SEALs, Olympic athletes, and executive teams at Google, Meta, Microsoft, Audi, and Accenture.
Kotler is also a serial entrepreneur who has founded or helped launch more than 16 companies spanning media, technology, and human performance. In 2021, Forbes named the Flow Research Collective one of the fastest-growing companies in America. He hosts Flow Radio, a top-ten Apple science podcast, and lectures globally on human performance, creativity, and the future of work.
Stuff at the bottom of Steven's resume
Steven flew a Russian MIG-17 fighter jet into G-LOC (gravity-induced loss of consciousness) to test a theory about the neuroscience of near-death experiences.
Steven makes a drawing every day (or most days). He doesn’t claim to be an artist. He just likes to draw for flow and fun. You can find examples on Instagram. @stevenkotler
Steven ran a strange experiment in peak performance aging—he taught himself how to park ski at age fifty-three. Then, Steven expanded the experiment, convincing eighteen adults (ages 29-68) to test his methods on the mountain. If you don’t know what park skiing is, or want to see a video of the experiment, both can be found here.
Steven has helped launch over sixteen companies. This includes two flow-based organizations, five national magazines, an environmental marketplace, an environment-focused events company, a publishing house, a video game company, two canine non-profits, a prestidigitation events company, one short-lived forest fire non-profit, and the now defunct Reporter’s Gym, which taught inner-city kids how to be sportswriters, and was cofounded in conjunction with the Los Angeles Lakers and Dave Eggar’s afterschool tutoring organization, 826 LA.
Steven covered music early in his career as a journalist. This is why his books contain references to bands, and his endnotes contain playlists. This is also why he teamed up with fashion designer and punk rocker, John Varvatos, to create A History of Punk: How The Kids Who No One Wanted Created The Future We’re All Living In. A Punk Rock Legacy. Stay tuned…
Steven has helped over a million people use flow to maximize performance.
Everything we thought we knew about aging is wrong
Everything we thought we knew about aging is wrong.
Before the 1970s, scientists thought of aging as a long, slow rot.
Everyone agreed: depression, loneliness, and cognitive decline were inevitable, and there was nothing we could do about these facts.
Not so fast...
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