How do I get into flow?
Four phases, one cycle. Why the state can be prepared for, and why motivation is not enough.
Speaking
A talk you still feel on Monday.
Max Gotzler gives keynotes on flow, energy and performance for conferences, leadership teams and companies: 20 to 90 minutes, in English and German, on site and remote. A talk you still feel on Monday. At the end there is one thing everyone in the room can do from tomorrow. Not ten, one.
Max Gotzler combines biohacking and flow psychology: health as the foundation, flow as the goal, aliveness as the result, with a method. Founder of Flowgrade, author of Die Flow-Formel, host of the Flowgrade Show and organiser of the flowFEST in Munich.
Booked by
VolkswagenMercedes-BenzadidasBMWERGOGleiss LutzMerz LifecareSparkasse LandshutSchmidtCollegMITOcarePRIMAVERA LIFEBiohacking Congress
Sample talk
Manifest like a biohacker. flowFEST 2025, 24 minutes, in German.
An excerpt from the keynote on biological manifestation: why most of our thoughts stay unconscious, what neuroplasticity and the placebo effect have to do with it, and how imagination becomes action. This is what it sounds like when the room is large. English keynotes on request; a German sample shows delivery and stage presence.
50+Keynotes for conferences, leadership teams and companies
7,000People in the largest room: Olympiahalle Munich and Lanxess Arena Cologne
900+Visitors at flowFEST 2026, which he has organised since 2017
EN · DEOn site and remote, 20 to 90 minutes
The model
Flow lives on a narrow edge.
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi described what the state actually depends on: the relationship between what a task demands and what a person can do. Too much demand and you get anxiety. Too little and you get boredom. Between them sits a narrow band.
The edge keeps moving. As people get better, they need more demand to reach the same state. That is why my talks are not about motivation but about the conditions under which a team keeps finding that edge.
Drawn after Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. The four phases on the home page go back to Herbert Benson; Steven Kotler made them widely known.
Topics
Six topics, one throughline.
All of them rest on my book Die Flow-Formel (2025). Each one works as a keynote, as a keynote with Q&A, or as a half-day session.
Introduction
How do I come alive again?
Energy, awareness, connection, growth. Four pillars instead of good intentions.
How do I reach what I set out to do?
Biological manifestation: 60,000 thoughts a day, and how the brain decides which ones count.
How do I stay healthy and awake?
Not simply living longer, but staying in shape while you do. What actually decides it.
What really works, what is merely expensive?
Sleep, nutrition, movement, stress, relationships, surroundings. Six levers, honestly sorted.
When does optimizing stop helping?
Ten years of self-measurement, and what survived it. I learned this the hard way.
Effect
What actually changes.
Leaders report being roughly five times more productive in flow, according to a survey by McKinsey. So the question isn't whether it pays off. It's how to make that state show up on purpose.
- Everyone leaves with one thing they will do differently starting tomorrow. Written down, not just resolved.
- The team has a shared language for burnout. That alone changes how meetings go.
- Leaders know the three rules that apply to their own team on Monday morning.
If you want, we measure it: a short survey before the talk, the same one four weeks later. You get the results either way, including the uncomfortable ones.
Boundaries
What I don't do.
- No selling products, neither from the stage nor afterwards.
- No diagnoses, no promises of healing, no dietary dogma.
- No talk meant to stand in for a culture instead of changing one.
If that's what you need, I'll say so on the call and point you to someone who fits better.
Process
Three steps. No more.
01
You reach out
I usually reply within two business days.
02
Intro call
30 minutes: who is in the room, and what should be different when they leave.
03
Stage
The talk itself, plus material for the weeks after.
Practical
The practical stuff.
Length20 to 90 minutes. Or a half-day session with hands-on work.
LanguagesEnglish and German.
FormatsKeynote, keynote with Q&A, or a half-day session. In person if you can, remote if you must.
TravelBased in Munich, 40 minutes from the airport. Anywhere in Europe without fuss. Farther out, let's talk.
FeeDepends on the format, the length and the travel. Schools, associations and nonprofits have their own rate. I'll give you the range on the first call, before you put work into it.
Flow appears exactly when thorough preparation meets the willingness to let go of the outcome completely, at the decisive moment.
From Die Flow-Formel, translated“Our team came away with more than good ideas. They came away with thoughts that are still with us today.”
As seen in
Coverage
What others have written.
FOCUSHealth: In the Flow26 Sep 2024
Men’s HealthBiohacking: more performance, less guesswork31 Jul 2024
WELT“The 90-minute cycle is biologically real”31 Oct 2022
DIE ZEITBiohacking: the system behind self-optimization4 Feb 2021
RTLBiohacking: what is behind the trend?13 Oct 2020
brand eins“Vermesst euch!”, the chapter Der Körperoptimierer. By Christoph KochIssue 03/2014
For your announcement
Copy and photos, ready to use.
Three lengths, print-ready. Please use them unchanged so that programme, website and invitation say the same thing.
One sentenceMax Gotzler combines biohacking and flow psychology. He is the founder of Flowgrade and the author of „Die Flow-Formel“.
Short bioMax Gotzler combines biohacking and flow psychology: health as the foundation, flow as the goal, aliveness as the result, with a method. He is the founder of Flowgrade, organiser of the flowFEST in Munich and host of the Flowgrade Show with more than 300 episodes. His books „Biohacking – Optimiere dich selbst“ (2018), „Der tägliche Biohacker“ (2020) and „Die Flow-Formel“ (2025) were published by riva, FinanzBuch Verlag and Deutscher Wirtschaftsbuch Verlag. In his keynotes he shows how people and teams get into flow under real conditions.
Long bioMax Gotzler combines classic biohacking with flow psychology: health optimization as the foundation, flow as the goal, aliveness as the result, with a method. The former college basketball player (NCAA Division I, Boston University) founded Flowgrade, one of the first German biohacking companies, and has organised the flowFEST ever since, a festival for biohacking, longevity and flow in Munich. On his podcast, the Flowgrade Show, he has interviewed researchers, physicians, entrepreneurs and athletes in more than 300 conversations. He is the author of three books, most recently „Die Flow-Formel“ (2025), in which he describes how flow arises in four phases: resistance, letting go, flow, renewal. His more than 50 keynotes combine research with ten years of his own practice; he has spoken to audiences of up to 7,000 (Olympiahalle Munich, Lanxess Arena Cologne) and has been booked by Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, adidas, BMW and ERGO, among others.
MaterialSpeaker one-pager (PDF, German) · Press photos: Portrait, Stage, flowFEST. Free to use in connection with the talk.
Contact
Let’s find a date.
Five fields. Everything else we sort out on the call.
Or just email me: office@flowgrade.de
Rather talk it through? Pick a slot in my calendar and we can sort it out in one conversation.
Thank you
Got it. I usually get back to people within two business days.