A Wall Street Journal bestseller.In this groundbreaking book, New York Times bestselling author Steven Kotler decodes the mystery of ultimate human performance. 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 a book about profound possibility; about what is actually possible for our species; about where-if anywhere-our limits lie.