Audiobooks by Steven Kotler

Gnar Country: Growing Old, Staying Rad Audiobook

The New York Times bestselling author and human performance expert tests his knowledge and theories on his own aging body in a quest to become an expert skier at age fifty-three. Gnar: adjective, short for “gnarly,” def: any environment or situation that is high in perceived risk and high in actual risk. Country: noun, def: any defined territory, landscape or terrain, fictitious or real. Cutting-edge discoveries in embodied cognition, flow science, and network neuroscience have revolutionized how we think about peak performance aging. On paper, these discoveries should allow older athletes to progress in supposedly “impossible” activities like park skiing (think: jumps and tricks.) To see if theory worked in practice, Kotler conducted his own ass-on-the-line experiment in applied neuroscience and later-in-life skill acquisition: He tried to teach an old dog some new tricks. Recently, top pros have been performing well past a previously considered prime: World-class athletes such as Kelly Slater, the greatest surfer of all time, is winning competitions in his fifties; Tom Brady can beat players half his age. But what about the rest of us? Steven Kotler has been studying human performance for thirty years, and taught hundreds of thousands of people at all skill levels, age groups, and walks of life, how to achieve peak performance. Could his own advice work for him? Gnar Country is the chronicle of his experience pushing his own aging body past preconceived limits. It’s a book about goals and grit and progression. It’s an antidote for weariness that is inspiring, practical, and, often hilarious. It is about growing old and staying rad. It’s a feverish reading experience that makes you put down the book, get out there, and move. Whether hurtling down a mountain side, running your first 10K race, or taking your career to new heights, Kotler challenges us to test ourselves, surpass our limits, and achieve our own impossible, whatever it might be. Part personal journey, part science experiment, part how-to guide, Kotler takes us on his punk rock, high-velocity joy-ride for a better life in spite—and often in defiance of—the perceived limitations of the aging human body. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Steven Kotler (Author), James Patrick Cronin (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Devil's Dictionary

New York Times bestselling author Steven Kotler's follow up to Last Tango, a near-future thriller about the evolution of empathy in the tradition of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. Hard to say when the human species fractured exactly. Harder to say when this new talent arrived. But Lion Zorn, protagonist of Last Tango, is the first of his kind—an empathy tracker, an emotional soothsayer, with a felt sense for the future of the we. In simpler terms, he can spot cultural shifts and trends before they happen. The Devil's Dictionary finds Lion Zorn enmeshed with a strange subculture: polyamorous crypto-currency fiends with a tendency toward eco-terrorism. These crypto-eco-punks have executed the largest land grab in U.S. history, buying up huge swatches of the American west to establish the world’s first mega-linkage. This unbroken tract of wild lands stretching from Yellowstone to Yukon is meant to protect biodiversity and stave off the Sixth Great Extinction, but something’s rotten in Eden. Instead of saving existing species, exotic creatures unlike anything seen on Earth keep turning up. Called in to track down the origin of these exotics, Lion quickly finds himself entangled in a battle for the survival of our species. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

Steven Kotler (Author), Ryan Vincent Anderson (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer

Bestselling author and peak performance expert Steven Kotler decodes the secrets of those elite performers—athletes, artists, scientists, CEOs and more—who have changed our definition of the possible, teaching us how we too can stretch far beyond our capabilities, making impossible dreams much more attainable for all of us. What does it take to accomplish the impossible? What does it take to shatter our limitations, exceed our expectations, and turn our biggest dreams into our most recent achievements? We are capable of so much more than we know—that’s the message at the core of The Art of Impossible. Building upon cutting-edge neuroscience and over twenty years of research, bestselling author, peak performance expert and Executive Director of the Flow Research Collective, Steven Kotler lays out a blueprint for extreme performance improvement. If you want to aim high, here is the playbook to make it happen! Inspirational and aspirational, pragmatic and accessible, The Art of Impossible is a life-changing experience disguised as a how-to manual for peak performance that anyone can use to shoot for the stars . . . space-suit, not included.

Steven Kotler (Author), Fred Sanders (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industri

Audio Bonus! Includes exclusive conversations with the authors! From the New York Times bestselling authors of Abundance and Bold comes a practical playbook for technological convergence in our modern era. In their book Abundance, bestselling authors and futurists Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler tackled grand global challenges, such as poverty, hunger, and energy. Then, in Bold, they chronicled the use of exponential technologies that allowed the emergence of powerful new entrepreneurs. Now the bestselling authors are back with The Future Is Faster Than You Think, a blueprint for how our world will change in response to the next ten years of rapid technological disruption. Technology is accelerating far more quickly than anyone could have imagined. During the next decade, we will experience more upheaval and create more wealth than we have in the past hundred years. In this gripping and insightful roadmap to our near future, Diamandis and Kotler investigate how wave after wave of exponentially accelerating technologies will impact both our daily lives and society as a whole. What happens as AI, robotics, virtual reality, digital biology, and sensors crash into 3D printing, blockchain, and global gigabit networks? How will these convergences transform today's legacy industries? What will happen to the way we raise our kids, govern our nations, and care for our planet? Diamandis, a space-entrepreneur-turned-innovation-pioneer, and Kotler, bestselling author and peak performance expert, probe the science of technological convergence and how it will reinvent every part of our lives—transportation, retail, advertising, education, health, entertainment, food, and finance—taking humanity into uncharted territories and reimagining the world as we know it. As indispensable as it is gripping, The Future Is Faster Than You Think provides a prescient look at our impending future.

Peter H. Diamandis, Steven Kotler (Author), Peter H. Diamandis (Narrator)

Audiobook

Tomorrowland: Our Journey From Science Fiction To Science Fact

New York Times, Wired, Atlantic Monthly, Discover bestselling author Steven Kotler has written extensively about those pivotal moments when science fiction became science fact...and fundamentally reshaped the world. Now he gathers the best of his best, updated and expanded upon, to guide readers on a mind-bending tour of the far frontier, and how these advances are radically transforming our lives. From the ways science and technology are fundamentally altering our bodies and our world (the world's first bionic soldier, the future of evolution) to those explosive collisions between science and culture (life extension and bioweapons), we're crossing moral and ethical lines we've never faced before. As Kotler writes, "Life is tricky sport-and that's the emotional core of this story, the real reason we can't put Pandora back in the box. When you strip everything else away, technology is nothing more than the promise of an easier tomorrow. It's the promise of hope. And how do you stop hope?" Join Kotler in this fascinating exploration of our incredible next: a deep dive into those future technologies happening now-and what it means to be a part of this brave new world.

Steven Kotler (Author), Alexey Muzhitsky (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Flow State Of Mind

Steven Kotler (Author), Steven Kotler (Narrator)

Audiobook

Focus To Maximize Your Potential

Steven Kotler (Author), Steven Kotler (Narrator)

Audiobook

Last Tango in Cyberspace: A Novel

New York Times bestselling author Steven Kotler crafts a near-future thriller about the evolution of empathy. Hard to say when the human species fractured exactly. Harder to say when this new talent arrived. But Lion Zorn is the first of his kind-an empathy tracker, an emotional soothsayer, with a felt sense for the future of the we. In simpler terms, he can spot cultural shifts and trends before they happen. It's a useful skill for a certain kind of company. Arctic Pharmaceuticals is that kind of company. But when a routine em-tracking job leads to the discovery of a gruesome murder, Lion finds himself neck-deep in a world of eco-assassins, soul hackers and consciousness terrorists. But what the man really needs is a nap. A unique blend of cutting-edge technology and traditional cyberpunk, Last Tango in Cyberspace explores hot topics like psychology, neuroscience, technology, as well as ecological and animal rights issues. The world created in Last Tango is based very closely on our world about five years from now, and all technology in the story either exists in labs or is rumored to exist. With its electrifying sentences, subtle humor, and an intriguing main character, listeners are sure to find something that resonates with them in this groundbreaking cyberpunk science fiction thriller.

Steven Kotler (Author), Ryan Vincent Anderson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the W

The author of the bestselling Bold and The Rise of Superman explores altered states of consciousness and how they can ignite passion, fuel creativity, and accelerate problem solving, in this groundbreaking book in the vein of Daniel Pink’s Drive and Charles Duhigg’s Smarter Faster Better. Why has generating "flow" and getting "into the zone" become the goal of the world’s most elite organizations? Why are business moguls attending Burning Man? Why has meditation become a billion-dollar industry? Why are technology gurus turning to psychedelic drugs to unlock creativity? All of these people are seeking to shift their state of mind as a way of unlocking their true potential. Altered states, the authors reveal, sharpen our decision making capabilities, unleash creativity, fuel cooperation, and let us tap into levels of inspiration and innovation unavailable at all other times. Stealing Fire combines cutting-edge research and first-hand reporting to explore a revolution in human performance — a movement millions of people strong to harness and utilize some of the most misunderstood and controversial experiences in history. Building a bridge between the extreme and the mainstream, this groundbreaking and provocative book examines how the world’s top performers—the Navy SEALS, Googlers, Fortune 100 CEOs—are using altered states to radically accelerate performance and massively improve their lives, and how we can too. Ultimately, Stealing Fire is a book about profound possibility—about what is actually possible for ourselves and our species when we unlock the full potential of the human mind.

Jamie Wheal, Steven Kotler (Author), Fred Sanders (Narrator)

Audiobook

Tomorrowland: Our Journey from Science Fiction to Science Fact

New York Times, Wired, Atlantic Monthly, Discover bestselling author Steven Kotler has written extensively about those pivotal moments when science fiction became science fact…and fundamentally reshaped the world. Now he gathers the best of his best, updated and expanded upon, to guide readers on a mind-bending tour of the far frontier, and how these advances are radically transforming our lives. From the ways science and technology are fundamentally altering our bodies and our world (the world’s first bionic soldier, the future of evolution) to those explosive collisions between science and culture (life extension and bioweapons), we’re crossing moral and ethical lines we’ve never faced before. As Kotler writes, “Life is tricky sport—and that's the emotional core of this story, the real reason we can’t put Pandora back in the box. When you strip everything else away, technology is nothing more than the promise of an easier tomorrow. It’s the promise of hope. And how do you stop hope?” Join Kotler in this fascinating exploration of our incredible next: a deep dive into those future technologies happening now—and what it means to be a part of this brave new world.

Steven Kotler (Author), Tom Parks (Narrator)

Audiobook

Bold: How to Go Big, Make Bank, and Better the World

"Bold is a visionary roadmap for people who believe they can change the world-and offers invaluable advice about bringing together the partners and technologies to help them do it." -President Bill Clinton Bold is a radical, how-to guide for using exponential technologies, moonshot thinking, and crowd-powered tools to create extraordinary wealth while also positively impacting the lives of billions. Exploring the exponential technologies that are disrupting today's Fortune 500 companies and enabling upstart entrepreneurs to go from "I've got an idea" to "I run a billion-dollar company" far faster than ever before, the authors provide exceptional insight into the power of 3-D printing, artificial intelligence, robotics, networks and sensors, and synthetic biology. Drawing on insights from billionaire entrepreneurs Larry Page, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Jeff Bezos, the book offers the best practices that allow anyone to leverage today's hyper connected crowd like never before. The authors teach how to design and use incentive competitions, launch million-dollar crowdfunding campaigns to tap into tens of billions of dollars of capital, and build communities-armies of exponentially enabled individuals willing and able to help today's entrepreneurs make their boldest dreams come true. Bold is both a manifesto and a manual. It is today's exponential entrepreneur's go-to resource on the use of emerging technologies, thinking at scale, and the awesome impact of crowd-powered tools."

Peter H. Diamandis, Steven Kotler (Author), Steven Kotler (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Rise of Superman

Drawing on over a decade of research and firsthand reporting with dozens of top action and adventure sports athletes, like big wave legend Laird Hamilton, big mountain snowboarder Jeremy Jones, and skateboarding pioneer Danny Way, Kotler explores the frontier science of “flow,” an optimal state of consciousness in which we perform and feel our best. Building a bridge between the extreme and the mainstream, The Rise of Superman explains how these athletes are using flow to do the impossible and how we can use this information to radically accelerate performance in our own lives. At its core, this is an audiobook about profound possibility, about what is actually possible for our species, and about where—if anywhere—our limits lie.

Steven Kotler (Author), Jeff Cummings (Narrator)

Audiobook