For people in agency collapse, he argues, returning to the wound can deepen it. The move that saved his life was not processing the past. It was one small act of agency in the present. He dragged himself to the ocean and caught a wave. That single decision began reversing what medicine had written off.
Kotler is the author of seventeen books, twelve of them bestsellers, with three Pulitzer Prize nominations. He is the executive director of the Flow Research Collective, a nonprofit democratizing access to peak performance states. He is a Distinguished Research Fellow at Florida Atlantic University. His latest book, We Are As Gods, was released in April 2026.
In this conversation, he reveals what AI is quietly erasing from the human brain, nine to twelve cognitive capacities already degrading in heavy users, including the capacity to enter flow at all. He makes the case that ADHD is not a disorder but an evolutionary adaptation. He argues that if you survived a difficult childhood and have ADHD, you are not broken. You are built for exactly the world we are entering.
Topics include: why revisiting trauma can reinforce agency collapse; the single agentic decision that reverses the spiral; ADHD as evolutionary advantage; the Paradise Paradox and why abundance creates misery; what AI is erasing from your brain right now; Flow for the Many and why peak performance can no longer belong only to elite athletes; the 90-day protocol most people abandon too early; and the moment on a surfboard that changed everything.
Connect with Steven Kotler: https://stevenkotler.com
Instagram: @stevenkotler
https://flowresearchcollective.com
About Dov Baron
Dov Baron is the creator of two proprietary frameworks, the Emotional Meaning Architecture and the Emotional Source Code, which underpin his advisory work with founders and senior executives. He is a Vancouver-based leadership speaker, executive advisor, and author. He’s the author of The Art of Belonging: Why Conformity Silences Genius and How to Unleash It, and he hosts The Dov Baron Show, a guest-interview program on leadership and meaning, alongside The Polymathic Perspective.
Links
Website: https://DovBaron.com
The Dov Baron Show (interviews): https://DovBaron.com/podcasts
Apply to Work with Dov: dov@dovbaron.com
Book: The Art of Belonging
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