Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work
Written by Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal
Narrated by Fred Sanders
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
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.
Steven Kotler
Steven Kotler is a New York Times bestselling author, an award-winning journalist, and the Executive Director of the Flow Research Collective. He is one of the world’s leading experts on human performance. He is the author of nine bestsellers (out of thirteen books total), including The Art of Impossible, The Future Is Faster Than You Think, Stealing Fire, The Rise of Superman, Bold and Abundance. His work has been nominated for two Pulitzer Prizes, translated into over 40 languages, and appeared in over 100 publications, including the New York Times Magazine, Wired, Atlantic Monthly, TIME and the Harvard Business Review. Steven is also the cohost of Flow Research Collective Radio, a top ten iTunes science podcast. Along with his wife, author Joy Nicholson, he is the cofounder of the Rancho de Chihuahua, a hospice and special needs dog sanctuary.
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Reviews for Stealing Fire
317 ratings24 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5very insightful. Especially the later chapters. I highly recommend this book!
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Extasis will make the difference on our performance , you got to read this to thoroughly understand this concept and all the benefits. High performance book.
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Read it twice maybe 3x! It'll change how you think about everything.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very exciting but also very confusing. I still don't understand all the term even.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wow, what an epiphany! So much insights and eye opening information! A must listen!
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Get it. It will alter your way of thinking and confirm what you’ve been thinking all along.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A must read for anyone searching for more! Stealing fire has been an true eye opener.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great journey with this mind blowing book. Hope you enjoy it too
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great listen! Great discourse on flow. I really like the stealing Fire origin
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book is recommended and would be relevant for you if you're also currently on the path for self-actualization (Maslow), altered states of [higher] consciousness, the science & psychology of optimal experience (Flow states, peak states performance, in the zone states of extreme sports atheletes), the mystical & spiritual transcended experiences of deep alpha-theta meditation, tantric sex, shamanic rituals & chants and plant medicines like Ayahuasca, Psilocybin, Soma & Mushrooms, psychedelic experiences of pharmaceuticals like MDMA (ecstacy, Meth), marijuana, etc., and even the hypnotic trance-inducing effects of EDM rave parties through audio & visuals. If those keywords & phrases resonate with you, then you will surely love the book as much as I did.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Incredible. Mind opening and amazing. Highly recommend if you’re interested in psychedelics, biohacking, and leveling up your approach to life!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Was a good read learned a few things kinda of a guide
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A small blueprint for what giants know. Thanks
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Chapters are interesting and some of the ideas are powerful, however, the tech bro worldview gets nauseating at points. Even though the authors go out of their way to say otherwise, everything is essentially reduced into a quest for corporate productivity/profit. When corporations embrace self-actualization, take everything they say with a grain of salt.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It's like nothing I've ever read. I came in as a seeker coming at it from a different direction, and am a curious guy. I check out all the angles. I try to be wide open in my seeking. One of these days it will resonate like nothing has yet. Likely it will be a combination of widely variable stuff. I plan to check out the Hedonic Calendar and continue down this path to see where it leads.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5it helds the keys to what i(and i am sure we) ve been searching ...our whole lives...something to feel taht emptiness we can.t put a finger on it...or that sense of mission we all have deep embodied in ourselves even if we may have not found it yet ...this book is the user manual of the future
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A mind opening, and life changing book, an enjoyable read
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'm not one who reviews books, ever. This will be short and sweet. All I'll say at this time is that Stealing Fire is the high rise building to The Rise of Superman's lobby. Put in another way, TROS is only the tip of the iceberg.
If you want to know where we can potentially go as a species, what heights (and pitfalls) we now have within our grasp, read this o
book. Then read it again. Drink deep from it's waters until you embody the knowledge and wisdom contained within.
Aaand, I'm out. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I did not expect myself to fall head over heels in love with this book. It was spot-on, on so many levels! I really enjoyed the wide range of examples and cases that Kotler presents here. And yet, all the different cases merge in/around 'flow' - the book's core theme.
I also really appreciated the references to various cultural legends and traditions, from Greek mythologies to Christian scriptures.
The first one I've ever read by the author, this book has been a great doorway for me to explore more of Kotler's authorship. Warmly recommended. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gamechanging. A unique look into our desire for more and the risks attached
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A must read for any aspiring over-achiever. This is book is a guide through extreme personal development
3 people found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I enjoyed this book a lot. But I'm left wondering what to do with the insights I've learned.
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It is an eye opener. Well written and informative. Awesome .
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Navy Seals train their personnel how to use perceptual abilities that aren't based on the traditional senses. This psi capacity exists in all of us to some extent. Apparently, this inherent ability can be enhanced through training. Silicon Valley companies are using microdoses of LSD to enhance their creativity and ability to work collaboratively with others. The medical/psychiatry professions are finding drug induced altered states can be beneficial tools in treating mental conditions such as PTSD.The use of altered states has been growing in recent years. This book is an interesting read if you want to explore options for living up to your full potential.Jim Fisher