Steven Kotler, Secrets to Peak Performance in Your 30s, 40s, and Beyond | Mental Health | YAPClassic
episode
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha: Entrepreneurship and Self-Improvement Podcast
1h 10m
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
How can we debunk the 'Long Slow Rot' Theory of Aging?
I know I personally have said it a lot, but is it actually possible to teach an old dog new tricks? How about a really old dog? To answer that question and many others, we're going back to an interview I did in 2023 in episode 211 with the award-winning journalist and human performance expert, Stephen Kotler. These days, Stephen is a best-selling author and the executive director of the Flow Research Collective. But when he was a kid, Stephen was a skinny, klutzy, and usually the last guy picked for any team. At 53 years old, he decided to conquer his past shame and push his own aging body past preconceived limits.
What did Stradivarius Teach Us About Aging?
In this episode, Stephen shares how to navigate peak performance as we age and how to keep our use it or lose it skills. He'll also dispel some myths around our aging brain and provide some tips for how we can stay at the top of our game as we enter our 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond. So stay right here and listen up. I give you Stephen Kotler. So Stephen, I'm super looking forward to this conversation. My podcast is called Young and Profiting, but I actually have avid listeners of all ages in their 40s and 50s and beyond. And so I know they'll greatly appreciate this conversation. And to kick it off, I figured we would start with how you got the inspiration to study peak performance.
How can we preserve our skills as we age?
So I learned that you were really shocked by the story of Antonio Stradivaris. And he's a famous violin maker. And he had an amazing feat of creating two of his most famous violins when he was 92 years old. And this was in the 1700s, way before medical advancements. And so I'd love to understand why his story was so shocking to you. How did he dispel the typical, you know, thoughts around traditional aging? And how did he inspire you to study peak performance aging?
So, you know, books have a lot of origin stories. There's like 11 different things that come together. I've been working, researching, looking at the field of peak performance for a while in a totally unrelated project, right? I was going to write a mystery novel and I wanted a cat burglar as a character who was going to steal musical instruments. who made the rarest musical instruments in history, which is Stradivarius. And then I found, figured out what you mentioned, which is he made two of the rarest and most expensive musical instruments in his 90s. And I went, well, wait a minute. Everything I've been told about physical abilities is like the older myth about aging, which most of us believe, and I believed at the time of this, is what you could call the long, slow rot theory. It's the idea that all of our mental skills and our physical skills, they decline over time, There's nothing we can do to stop the slide.
So included in those physical skills would be fast twitch muscle response, fine motor performance, dexterity, all this stuff you would need to make a violin or a viola in your 90s, along with expertise and wisdom and all that, like cognitive abilities. And it sort of paused me and I was like, well, wait a minute. If this is true, either Stradivarius is like the one in a billion,
What role do outdoor challenges play in boosting performance?
Or most of what we've been told about aging is wrong. I had already been looking at other aspects of it, but it really sort of lit a fire under me to really investigate our physical abilities and what happened to them over time. I've been looking at the cognitive stuff for a while. It's very related to flow, how we age. Flow plays a big role there. So this is not new territory to me. The physical side was like, holy crap, could this possibly be true? And it is true. It's true across the board. Every one of our physical skills are use it or lose it skills. And the research is really clear. We don't stop using these skills, both physical and mental. We can hang on to them, even advance them far, far later into life than anybody thought possible.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How can we debunk the 'Long Slow Rot' Theory of Aging?
0:32–1:13
2
What did Stradivarius Teach Us About Aging?
1:13–1:54
3
How can we preserve our skills as we age?
1:54–3:35
4
What role do outdoor challenges play in boosting performance?
3:35–6:16
5
How does social connection serve as an anti-aging tool?
6:16–7:20
6
Why is forgiveness important for aging well?
7:20–15:21
7
What do Blue Zones reveal about thriving through aging?
15:21–17:29
8
How can we achieve a flow state as we age?
17:29–1:10:40
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha: Entrepreneurship and Self-Improvement Podcast
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