Stories from Steven Kotler’s students

I had a choice... be a miserable victim who eventually died with regret or take my marriage settlement money and go travel round Europe for the first time and on my own for 5 months???... My default setting was the Habit of Inferiority... 60+ years of it trained into my neural pathways, so it was not an easy journey, but the longer I stayed with the Quest, the more the path I was looking for, lit up... in October I flew from Brisbane, Australia to Toulouse, France to do a TED talk... '64 and Fearless. How living in my car allows me to live my wildest dreams.' Who'd have thought that that was a possibility when I was doing my MTPs.

When I apply the principles I learned in this course, I am able to bring myself in a state of full immersion, motivation and heightened mental sensitivity and stay focused on my tasks longer and deliver results... I learned that grit is not something you eat is something you become. I roll up my sleeves every day, take the tools I learned from the course and I build the cathedral of my dreams.

I was in great physical shape but mentally I wasn't committed to the work, I knew I wanted to qualify to Tokyo but I didn't know why, and how could I use the achievement in case of making the goal, in order to make a positive impact in my community... The most important thing from the quest for me, is not that I was able to reach the goal, but that I found purpose in my life sportwise and personally; regardless of the outcome of the race.

I'd built a platform that had allowed me to self actualise sustainably and consistently, with ever growing feedback/validation, and a fantastic skills/challenge ratio that made me better, too. I was in the zone for over 3 years.

The course was an awakening for me of the potential of what you can truly accomplish when you attack life at a completely different level of life... I keep thinking what if I knew this stuff at the beginning of this year or how about 30 years ago. Mind-blowing.

I rekindled a Love Affair with Fine Art Painting and completed a Donation Piece for Aids Life Cycle Los Angeles that I had been struggling on for months... Thanks to the program, many pieces have started to fall into place and the Bigger picture is becoming clearer.

The real game changer for me was taking action facing my biggest fears head-on... I decided at the very last minute to ditch my script and just speak from the heart. And while I still cringe looking back I know I've gotten over the most difficult hurdle... one of the most significant learnings for me on this quest, means that I can ultimately experience that sense of flow in areas I feel anxiety towards.

For the first time in my life, I've really managed to formulate a vision of an overarching goal that is really coherent, that feels right and worth being active for.

I wanted to break just one record of mine for different routes per month. And I was Unable to for 5 months. After doing this program, I broke all My Personal Records in a Single week.

Working through the quest really taught me how to intrinsically motivate myself which will tremendously help me move towards my MTPs because my default setting was to lose excitement with time while accomplishing goals. I had ideas and saw a way towards them, but the quest helped me put everything together and showed which triggers to utilize to reach my potential ultimately.

In reflecting on the whole experience, I'm extremely appreciative of the effort I put into it, as it created the backdrop for what was to come... I was able to develop a multi-dimensional, personalized framework for high performance... Though precisely identifying how I will change humanity has not yet fully materialized, the evolution into a much higher performance, grittier and finely tuned version of myself definitely has.

I was an INTJ who also struggles with ADD/ADHD. This creates a strange dichotomy - I expect excellence and mastery of myself and others AND it is hard to become a master and be excellent at something when you are thinking about 100 things at once... Thanks to the Habit of Ferocity course, I have a clearer grasp of what I care about, the big picture problems i want to solve, and the plans and ideas to tackle them.