rían doris
About
I'm Rían Doris — entrepreneur, applied neuroscientist and investor. I've studied the state where humans work best and built the organizations that make it trainable. It started with a head injury.
Previous owner of Consulting.com (exited) and angel investor in startups like The Way, MyoDetox, Levels Health, Skool.com and others.
age 13 — the injury
A hundred-foot waterslide and a three-foot pool.
On a family holiday, I shot off the bottom of a near-vertical waterslide and hit my head on the concrete floor of the pool. An inch forward or backward, the doctor said, and I would have died on impact. What followed was seven years of traumatic brain injury: amnesia, blurred vision, exercise intolerance, chronic fatigue, depression. For the first two years I could barely leave my bed.
age 16 — the obsession
A book about the state I'd lost.
When I could read again, I worked through self-help, then psychology, then neuroscience — trying to understand how consciousness works so I could heal faster. At sixteen I found Csikszentmihalyi's Flow on a train through Dublin and almost missed my stop. An optimal state where we feel our best and perform our best. Everything I've built since traces back to that train ride.
the apprenticeships
Working for free until the right doors opened.
I offered to work free for hundreds of researchers and operators I admired. Keith Ferrazzi took me on in the Hollywood Hills — I supplemented the income selling ice cream in Long Beach. A Facebook message got me to Steven Kotler, then the world's best-known writer on the neuroscience of flow. I worked with him through my philosophy degree at Trinity College Dublin and my MSc in Applied Neuroscience at King's College London.
2019 — flow research collective
Turning the science into an organization.
With Kotler I co-founded the Flow Research Collective and ran it as co-founding CEO — zero to $15M in two years with no outside funding, surpassing $45M in cumulative revenue. I led a team of over sixty, including more than a dozen neuroscience and psychology PhDs, and we trained 15,000+ entrepreneurs and executives at organizations like the U.S. Air Force, Audi, Accenture, Meta, Bain and Calendly. Along the way: research partnerships with Imperial College London, UCLA and Deloitte, Forbes 30 Under 30, opening for President Obama in Helsinki, and contributing-editor work with Dr. Dan Siegel on The Developing Mind.
now — flowstate
FlowState, Zone, and the book.
Today I run FlowState.com, where I train founders and CEOs through Zone, write the Flow Trigger newsletter, host Seeking Flow, and am finishing my first book, Flow State, alongside a PhD on flow and meaning. In between, I built the largest public education platform on flow — one of the fastest-growing channels in the productivity space, now past 500,000 subscribers and 30 million views. The through-line hasn't moved since I was thirteen: understanding the state where humans work best, and making it repeatable.
in his own words
A longer conversation.
The story, the science and how the work actually happens day to day.
the record
Track record
Flow Research Collective
Co-founded with Steven Kotler and ran as co-founding CEO. Zero to $15M in two years with no outside funding. 15,000+ entrepreneurs and executives trained, and research initiated with UCLA and Deloitte.
Consulting.com
Previous owner of Consulting.com, the leading business-education platform for online consultants. Acquired it, ran it, and exited after two years.
Angel investing
Angel investor and startup advisor in companies including The Way, MyoDetox, Levels Health, Skool.com and others — with multiple unicorn successes.
Research & writing
Contributing editor with Dr. Dan Siegel on The Developing Mind. MSc in Applied Neuroscience from King's College London, and a PhD in progress on flow and meaning.
Recognition
Forbes 30 Under 30. Work featured in TIME, Harvard Business Review, Forbes and Fast Company. Opened for President Obama in Helsinki.
