In early 2019, I happened upon Mindvalley’s Habit of Ferocity quest. As a big fan of Steven Kotler’s writing and research at the Flow Genome Project, I decided to dig deeper into what this quest was all about. I’d barely skimmed the syllabus before concluding it was not only a unique and intriguing presentation of material but clearly a great value. I signed up and started digesting the prerequisites right away.
As a student and practitioner of self growth and transformation, I’ve taken part in multiple transformational workshops, research groups and masterclasses over the past 15 years. My pursuits have led me to deep dives into goal setting, habit forming, quantum mindset alignment and numerous meditation modalities. I’m also an endurance athlete and fitness junky so training hard comes second nature to me.
At the start of HOF, I oscillated between feeling over prepared to being completely intimidated. Having previously immersed myself in the science of Flow, week one was an exciting refresh, albeit one with more refined terminology, instruction and context. It was also during this first week that we began to explore our true reasons for embarking upon the HOF as well as identifying our personal core values and motivators.
Though the core values exercise was initially daunting, it ultimately became quite enlightening. After significant soul searching, I concluded my core values to be connection, creativity and growth.
An excerpt from my day one homework follows: “Connection embodies my desire to relate on a deep level to those around me, Spiritually, emotionally and physically, both in friendship and affairs of the heart. Creativity encompasses my lifelong quest to share unique and unconventional concepts, ideas and approaches as a means to understanding and overcoming life's daily challenges, large and small, both for myself and for humanity as a whole. Growth motivates my every thought and desire, be it physical, emotional, spiritual, financial or intellectual.”
In many respects, the core values exercise made the entire quest worthwhile. For some, this assignment was likely easy. For me, it was not. However, 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.
In many respects, the core values exercise made the entire quest worthwhile. For some, this assignment was likely easy. For me, it was not. However, 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.
Following week one, the real work began.
Turning my curiosities into passions, learning practical tools of mastery and then dissecting the primary elements of mindset, grit and training all paved the way for my development of automatic and reproducible productivity routines.
Much to my surprise, I even began to recognize the importance of active recovery, something I’d neglected through decades of high intensity training. Combined with an ever expanding grasp of my flow profiles and triggering environments, I was able to develop a multi-dimensional, personalized framework for high performance. As with any skill set, utilization of the HOF principals relies on continued rigorous repetition and adaptability. This quest should be run like a marathon, not a sprint. There are no requirements to finish in 35 days nor will rushing improve your results. Despite “finishing” well over a month ago, I return to the material daily. Realizing the support of fellow tribe members will greatly improve your experience. To maximize your growth, embrace the community and your accountability partner(s). Create personalized adaptations of the material to catalyze deeper understanding of your core purpose, motivators and big picture goals. For me, the Habit of Ferocity has truly been a unique experience. 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. And this new and improved model is far better poised to change humanity.