The Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler

Finite games are those that have clear rules, clear criteria for winning/losing, clear winners/losers, set number of players and a set number of outcomes. You play finite games for the outcome. All competitive sports fall under this category, but so does business and corporate careers.

Infinite games are the opposite of finite games. No clear rules, no clear win/loss criteria (indeed the idea of “winning/losing” may not even make sense), players free to come and go and endless list of possible outcomes. You play infinite games for the love of the game. Examples include love, children’s play, art, music, life itself.

1. Motivation – Gets you to start and consistently going
2. Learning – Helps you up your game
3. Creativity – Helps you navigate challenges
4. Flow – Turbocharges performance and results

Flow is the ultimate goal but you cannot reliably get (and stay) there without the other three parts – throughout the book Kotler reminds us to stack parts to achieve peak performance – they are intimately connected. “… elite-level performers never rely on a single source of fuel …”.

This is the foundation: No intrinsic curiosity ➡️ no drive ➡️ no motivation ➡️ no flow ➡️ no peak performance.

Coincidentally, curiosity is also the foundational value of Sunchaser.

If you’re not inherently curious about it, you will fail eventually. So, spend time getting this right.

Write down many things that you are curious about (Kotler recommends twenty five).

List specifics and not general stuff. For example, “I am curious about PC RTS games based in the Middle Ages with a focus on economy building” instead of “I am curious about gaming”.

As you can see, this will need some thinking to get honestly right. Spend the time.

In my opinion, you know you are curious about something if:

• You find yourself thinking about the thing, turning it over in your head and imagining alternate possibilities and solutions to problems.
• You have seen over several years that you automatically gravitate towards doing it, learning more about it and can talk in some depth about it.
• You’d do it for free and consider it a good use of your time even if you’re not being paid for it.

Then, look for intersections (of three or four curiosities). This should excite and energise you, since you are “… layering curiosity atop curiosity atop curiosity … increasing drive but not effort.“.

Think and learn about those intersections from people, podcasts, videos etc. 20-30 minutes daily.

You want your brain to start making connections between the things that you erstwhile engaged discretely.

After playing with the different intersections for a few years (or months, depending on your conviction) – Pick the one that you’re most curious and energised by, that you feel you can devote a lifetime to, and start diving deeper in it. This is your passion.

Continue the learning and gaining experience in your passion and after a few years (or months), start talking to people about it. Friends, family, acquaintances, strangers. See if you can join clubs and forums (online or offline) around your passion, start one if they do not exist.

It is a powerful motivator when people start to recognise you for your passion, as someone who not only knows about the intersection of those subjects but also has something to add, “… having a few ideas of your own and a few public successes built off those ideas—now you’re approaching escape velocity.“.

Finally, after having devoted considerable time on your passion in private and in public, start finding ways to use it for the benefit of other people, now your passion becomes your purpose. For example, reading books and drawing lessons from them is my passion, something I have been doing for years. While my purpose Sunchaser that I consider a way to share that learning with the world.

Important: “When it comes to crafting your purpose, dream big. This is going to become the overarching mission statement for your life.“. “Big” not as in “grand” or “world changing” or “history making”, but “personally very important, something you’d only dream of being capable of achieving“.

After all, we’ve come here post some real soul searching: finding our many curiosities, converting them into intersections of curiosities, then to passions, then down to one main passion and finally to our purpose. You do not want to use all that effort to pick something that you are not all about.

To really zone in on your MTP do the following:

1. Make a list of the biggest problems in our world that you’d like to see solved. Be specific, write down the root cause of the problem and not its manifestations.
2. See where your passion overlaps with these problems.

This ensures you find something you can devote your life as a worthy problem to solve, and it also ensures that you get paid for helping solve that problem. Whether you like it or not, in the world today you will need money to support your passion. And though it is ideal you be paid for your passion, it will likely not happen soon.

That is why, unless you have financial inheritance or some way of supporting your passion, you will need to do other work – best case being you work in a field that prepares you for your passion. Kotler was a bartender, I am a marketer, you gotta do what you gotta do.

“Curiosity into passion; passion into purpose; and purpose into patient profit—that’s the safest way to play this game.“. Yes, patience, patient progress, patient profit, that is the way of the wise.

Or like Jon Batiste advises in his talk with Tim Ferriss “Youngster, take your time, to find the prize, there is no rush, pace yourself …”.

Autonomy is the need to be in control of your time, the desire for freedom to pursue your purpose and passion. “… we’re tapping autonomy correctly when we’re doing what we’re doing because of ‘interest and enjoyment’ and because ‘it aligns with our core beliefs and values’ … autonomy turns us into a much more effective version of ourselves … more focused, productive, optimistic, resilient, creative, and healthy.“.

Or, as I love to repeat – we become unstoppable when we do the work because of itself, when the work itself has become the reward. You do not need to be in full control all the time to enjoy the benefits of autonomy – just need to be in reasonable control of the time you work, sleep and exercise.

And if your work is not your passion then you will need some regular time, as low as one afternoon a week, to dedicate to your passion.

Mastery is the desire to get better at what we do, and the things that matter to us, our passion. Mastery requires a fine balance between skills and challenge.

That is, your desire to pursue mastery will be optimally fuelled if you are given challenges that are just outside your comfort zone but not too far out lest you give up and feel like a loser.

“To really harness mastery as a motivator, take … your autonomy time—and spend it pushing on that challenge-skills balance, trying to get a little better at something that’s aligned with curiosity, passion, and purpose.“.

As you can see in the graphic below, skills and challenges need to match to achieve flow.

They’re hard to achieve and require real work and sacrifice (that you should be naturally willing to make since they move you closer your MTP). See how the initial steps of finding curiosity, passion, purpose fit in? You cannot hold steady through the grind unless you truly feel connected to the work. Wish someone has told me that when I was a youngster.

“High, hard goals need to be challenging but attainable.“. Also, don’t tell anyone your goal – it makes you think you’ve already achieved it, making you less likely to actually achieve it. Weird but true.

Learn to like gritty hard work because those who are able to persist through challenges are the likely to emerge victorious when times get easier.

And you should be able to do that by continually seeking and facing challenges (in the direction of your HHG of course) effort.

“… if we accomplish hard tasks over and over again, the brain starts to connect the feeling of persistence with the dopamine reward to come.“.

Grit to persevere

Made up of willpower, mindset, passion.

• Willpower: Declines over the course of the day and is decreased by fatigue.
  • So, tackle the hardest things early in the day.
  • Make time in the afternoon for recovery – exercise, mediation, (mindful) eating and naps.
• Mindset: Cultivate a growth mindset, see how far you have come and believe that you can go farther by putting in effort.
• Passion: Again, if you’re not passionate about it you will not preservers through the challenges.

Grit to master fear

Master your fears by looking at them, dead in the eye. Fear spares none, but what you decide to do with the fear is what matters. Not coincidentally a core value for Sunchaser is fearlessness.

• “using fear as a motivator provides focus for free while also enhancing learning … fear is a constant in peak performance.“
• Develop a fear practice: Tim Ferriss has a great blog on this.
• Change your language around fear: Instead of saying “I will do it despite the fear”, say “I will do it because of the fear”.
• Use fear as a compass: Treat it as a very smart teacher who knows exactly where to hit you, but who also offers the most valuable lessons.

Grit to control your thoughts

Your inner voice cannot be pulling you down all the time. It cannot be sucking out energy by making you doubt and second-guess yourself.

Remember to be action oriented – You will not think your way into a new way of acting, you will act your way into a new way of thinking. Learn to lean into the pain of progress.

“We burn a lot of calories being anxious about the task ahead. But once we can automatize our lean-in instinct, we not only save time, we save energy.“.

Grit to be your best at your worst

During your off days, the bad days when nothing seems to be going right and you’re just not feeling it – train extra hard. If you can teach yourself to deliver superior performance even during tough times, you will be unstoppable when times are good.

Grit to train your weakness

Ask friends, family and coworkers to identify your weaknesses, figure out the ones that can impact your HHG and work on overcoming them. “We have blind spots that lend our mistakes a certain consistency. So weaknesses tend to have root causes. By training the root causes, you can erase whole categories of weakness at once.“.

Grit to recover

Like I said before, when you have completed your day’s clear goals, shift focus to recovery. This is especially important as over time as you get better at your passion, time not spent pursuing it will feel wasted (it is not).

• Protect your sleep
• Have an active recovery protocol
• Schedule total reset days

Passion and purpose will keep you engaged, but if you are not growing your skill set then you’re not going to achieve your MTP which by definition is something you consider impossible to achieve at the outset.

The key is lifelong learning. “Lifelong learning is how we can keep pace with the moving target that is the challenge-skills sweet spot.“.

The following things are foundational to learning:

• You have to believe that you’re capable of learning and improving your skills. That is, you need to have a growth mindset.
• You also need a truth filter: something that helps you figure out if what you’re learning is important and will take you closer to your HHGs. The scientific method, first principle thinking are examples of truth filters.

Develop a habit of reading books (and also applying the lessons), they are the highest ROI on your time. “Books are the most radically condensed form of knowledge on the planet.“. Someone has spent years if not decades of their time to pack a few hundred pages with only the most pertinent information on a topic, you can’t beat that kind of information density.

You save yourself a lot of time and effort by applying what the good books tell you. Indeed, this very book “The Art of Impossible” is proof, it is packed with insights that’d take years of hard experience to unearth otherwise.

For instance, how Kotler advises starting from the point of our curiosities – I know that is absolutely the correct approach because I have learnt the hard way that nothing can sustain unless you’re intrinsically motivated.

1. Read five books on the topic: There is an order to the books you should read.
   • First the most popular but easy to understand, a 101 book.
   • Second the more technical but still popular.
   • Third even more technical and does not simplify concepts (assumes you know them)
   • Fourth the most technical (and hence covering questions that the real experts in the field are battling)
   • Fifth the book that talks about the future of the topic (hence may also be abstract and harder to comprehend).
2. Talk to the real experts: Try to find them on social media or through email.
   • If the main experts are not available then meet their students and assistants.
   • Assume you will only get thirty minutes of their time.
   • Pose questions that you answer yourself, do not ask what can simply be looked up through effort.
   • “… make sure your first few questions display both personal knowledge about whomever you’re interviewing and general domain knowledge about their subject.“.

3. Explore the gaps: As you deepen your understanding you will start to come across the same questions that over and over, these will be the central questions in the field that other experts are also battling.
   • Then, see if the other curiosities that made up your purpose have something to offer (the idea of the “slow hunch” by Steven Johnson). Doing this you will “… get a feel for the questions not being asked by the experts.“.
   • And since no one is asking these questions, you will have to ask and answer them yourself, this is where real learning begins.
4. Hunt for conflicting answers to the gaps: As is often the case you will find experts on both sides of the debate, you should be able to understand both arguments and then pick a side and be able to defend it.
5. Go public: Tell two sets of people what you’ve learned.
   • First set of people should be novices and likely not interested in the topic – See if you can hold their attention, answer their questions simply and have them learn something.
   • Second set of people should be experts – See if you can debate with them, discuss more advanced issues and learn something.

Such as learning accounting to manage the coffee shop you’re passionate about – basic bookkeeping, cash flow management, budgeting / forecasting, tax basics, receivables / payables will cover 80% of what you will need to do and can be learned over a week or so.

Just note that you must not (ideally should not even want to) use the 80/20 rule on your passion. In fact you can use this in the reverse as well: those skills that you’re always inclined to 80/20 are probably not your passion.

If you do not know your core strengths already there are many tools available to help you such as the VIA Strengths Survey (not an endorsement). Better yet, look at the top five things you are proud of having done in life – your wins, then analyse those events and try to figure out the common strengths you used to achieve those outcomes.

Make sure you are specific about the strengths you list, not generic ones like “hard work” or “persistence”. Work on getting better at your core strengths, “… best way to increase flow is to spend as much time as possible on activities that utilize one or more of our five top strengths.“.

Train one of your core strengths at least once a week in an environment that matters, for two to three months before moving on to the next one. Sharpen the saw as Stephen Covey would say. “Learn to use your strengths to advance your cause.“.

Kotler talks about the ten thousand hour rule and presents three problems with it:

1. It does not apply in every field, and most people take a lot longer to achieve mastery.
2. People have achieved mastery without the essential aspects argued necessary for mastery: an optimal learning environment, rote repetition and ability to delay gratification.
3. People have achieved mastery despite dillydallying for a long time.

While the ten thousand hours of practice can help, it needs to be first based on two even more foundational to mastery:

1. Match quality: Which refers to how tightly your interests and skills align with the job you’re to do.
   • The more the alignment the higher the match quality.
   • That is why having a period of wide experimentation in your early childhood and teens is so important, you are finding your perfect match – you are correctly stacking your curiosity, passion, purpose, and laying the groundwork for autonomy and mastery.
   • “… this period looks like the exact opposite of early specialization … dillydallying … But … get that fit right … result is a serious turbo-boost.“.
2. Higher flow: Yes, there are gradations to flow, from a mild state of deep immersion and focused engagement to a highly optimised state where all conditions align perfectly.
   • Once you have found your perfect match, you are already primed for some flow.
   • If you can then increase that flow (through the techniques mentioned in this book and others), you will achieve mastery faster.

It requires the interaction of three network systems in our brains: attention, imagination and salience.

1. Attention network: Understandably, this helps us pay attention to something. Also called the executive attention system.
2. Imagination network: Also called the default mode network “… it’s the brain in daydreaming mode, simulating alternative realities and testing out creative possibilities.“.
3. Salience network: Controls our ability to move back and forth between the attention and imagination network (they’re not both active at the same time under normal conditions).

1. Keep a good mood: Gratitude, mindfulness, exercise, sleep. “When life gets complicated, these four practices are typically what we remove from our schedule. But the research shows this is the last choice we should make.“.
2. Be in wide open spaces: Seeing in the distance, time in nature.
3. Build time for daydreaming and solitude: “Taking a break from the sensory bombardment of the world gives your brain even more reason to wander into far-flung corners.“.
4. Start with the unfamiliar: When facing a creative problem, start with ideas that are new to you and are not tried and tested before.
5. Know your limits: That is, clearly know the constraints within which you’re working. As Tim Ferriss has said “If you want to be more creative, apply more constraints, not fewer.“.

6. Read, watch, listen widely and gain skills in other fields (related to you passion): Visit places and talk to people who are diametrically opposite to the life you’ve seen. “Read twenty-five to fifty pages a day in a book that’s far outside your specialty.“.
7. MacGyver Method: Write down a problem, step away from it, and then return to it with fresh ideas. The method is based on the idea that lightly stimulating activities can help you solve problems.
   • Write down the problem: Be detailed and don’t speak it aloud.
   • Step away from the problem: Engage in a mildly stimulating activity, like cooking, gardening, or taking a shower.
   • Return to the problem: Doodle through the problem and articulate what your subconscious has come up with.

8. Quit working when you’re excited: This way “… you’re carrying momentum into the next day’s work session.“.
9. Understand that frustration is an essential step in creativity: Do not assume it to be a sign of failure.
10. Don’t try to be the best, try to be the only (in your area of passion).

All we’ve been reading about up to this point has been to make us more likely to achieve flow.

Choosing to work on our curiosities and passions, to turning them outside into our purpose, to designing our lives in a way that we have greater autonomy to seeking skills-challenge match for mastery to choosing our HHGs and clear goals to having the grit to persevere to committing to lifelong learning to increasing creativity. All of this leads to flow and is also benefitted by it.

1. Flow is universal: Csikszentmihalyi found that people from diverse cultures and backgrounds reported similar experiences of flow, suggesting that it is a universal human experience.
2. Flow can be measured: The experience of flow exists on a continuum, similar to how emotions can vary in intensity. On one end, you have “microflow” – a light, low-grade state of engagement. On the other end, you have “macroflow” – an intense, full-blown state of deep immersion and high performance.

3. Flow has six characteristics:

• Complete Concentration: Intense focus on a limited field of information.
• Time dilation: Time behaves weirdly as hours may go by without you even noticing or you may get a frame by frame of every moment, depending on the activity you’re doing.
• Sense of Control: Over your actions and the outcome.
• Loss of Self-Consciousness: So absorbed in the task that you lose awareness of yourself.
• Autotelic experience: The activity is its own reward.
• Oneness with the work: “You can no longer distinguish the self from the thing that the self is doing.“. Indeed, combined with the previous point this reminds me of a quote from the book The Great Work of Your Life – “We work first because we have to work. Then because we want to work. Then because we love to work. Then the work simply does us.“.
• “… people who scored off the charts for overall well-being and life satisfaction were the people with the most flow in their lives.“.

Inner triggers

1. Autonomy
2. Curiosity – Passion – Purpose
3. Focus (no distractions, just single pointed attention on the work)
4. Clear goals
5. Immediate feedback (put systems in place that tell you immediately if what you’re doing is working or not)
6. Challenge-skills balance

External triggers

1. High consequences environment (where messing up would be costly, whether physical injury, loss of social standing or financial loss – these settings serve as powerful flow triggers)
2. Rich environment (i.e. the environment where we’re working should be novel,, unpredictable and complex)
3. Deep embodiment (engage multiple senses in doing the task)

Creative triggers

1. Load the pattern recognition system (i.e. read unfamiliar stuff and explore yourself to novelty)
2. Learn to think differently (approach problems for different angles)

Social triggers (for group flow)

1. Shared clear goals
2. Shared risk
3. Close listening
4. Good communication
5. Blending egos
6. Equal participation
7. Familiarity
8. Sense of control
9. Additive approach

Struggle

• First stage, characterised by maximum frustration and information overload.
• Prefrontal Cortex: Hyperactive during struggle to aid in learning and acquiring new skills.
• Frustration during struggle indicates progress towards flow, contrary to common belief.
• “… if you can’t handle the frustration of struggle, you can’t get access to flow …”
• Frustration transforms into courage when you decide to fight.
• “… in most circumstances, the brain favors the option to flee. Flow starts when we say yes to the fight.“
• Flow redeems struggle: Flow is the reward for enduring and overcoming the struggle phase.
• Use triggers: Employ flow triggers like novelty, complexity, and clear goals to navigate struggle.
• “Never struggle outside the challenge-skills sweet spot, without clear goals or structures in place to provide immediate feedback.“.

Release

• After having struggled, we need to relax and let go.
• Engage in some low grade physical activity that puts your brain waves in alpha range. Don’t exhaust yourself during this time.
• “… use the release phase as a time to utilize the MacGyver method.“.

Flow

• At the end of the MacGyver method when you return to the problem the release activity should slip you over into flow.
• Avoid flow blockers during this period:
  • Distractions
  • Negative thinking
  • Lack of energy
  • Lack of preparation

Recovery

• Flow is a high-energy state that requires a subsequent recovery phase.
• Deep delta-wave sleep is essential for memory consolidation and learning.
• Practice active recovery: Requires practices like mindfulness, saunas, stretching, massage, and ice baths.
• Avoid Passive Recovery: Passive activities like watching TV and drinking beer don’t work.
• Use the recovery phase to evaluate ideas formed in flow.

• You must get the curiosity – passion – purpose right. Play long, play wide but get this right. Commit to it after due diligence, but once committed hold steady.
• Be unrealistic about MTP, ambitious about HHGs and realistic about clear goals. Always keep your word to yourself.

“Cross an item off that list, get a little dopamine; cross another item off, get a little more dopamine. One little win at a time, that’s how this works.“.

• Daily schedule
  • Focused work – 1.5-2 hours
  • Release – 25 minutes
  • Reading – 25 minutes”
  • Mindfulness – 20 minutes
  • Clear goal setting – 5 minutes
  • Gratitude – 5 minutes
  • Distraction management – 5 minutes
  • Sleep – 7-8 hours
• Weekly schedule
  • Highest flow activity – 1-2 times a week – 2-6 hours each time
  • Exercise – 3 times a week – 1 hour each time
  • Active recovery – 3 times a week – 30 minutes each time
  • Weakness training – Once a week – 60 minutes
  • Feedback session – Once a week – 60 minutes
  • Social support – Once a week – 2 hours

Flow is ideal for some tasks but unsuitable for others, especially those requiring logical decision-making or long-term planning. In flow, large parts of the prefrontal cortex are deactivated, affecting logical thinking and planning. “… we make errors in flow, but they don’t feel like errors.“.

• Have deep insights in flow but wait until afterward to make step-by-step plans.
• Use flow for creation but not for decision making.
• Never fully trust decisions made in flow without reassessing them afterward.