 Harper Audio presents Head Strong, the bulletproof plan to activate untapped brain energy to work smarter and think faster in just two weeks by Dave Asprey, read by me, the author, and Rob Shapiro. To you, dear reader, at the first time you hit the wall, when you reach deep within yourself only to find that there is no reservoir of energy and willpower waiting for you, this book will help you move that wall out of your way. Introduction If you're like most people, you learn the same things I did growing up. Your intelligence is fixed and your performance is a matter of effort. If you're stupid, you're stupid and there's nothing you can do about it. If you fail, it's because you must be lazy and didn't try hard enough. Or maybe you're just not that strong. Next time, you'll have to summon even more willpower to work harder. But if you fail again, it's because you are a failure. It's your fault. The belief that we either need to have superhuman smarts or put in an incredible amount of effort in order to be successful is built into our culture. We worship the struggle and the idea of natural talent. Trying hard is how you win. Being smart is how you win. But what if it doesn't have to be that way? What if it can be easier? In my experience, fear of failure could drive an amazing amount of achievement. Before I was 30, I was fortunate enough to have already attained the kind of career that would have made someone happy who was decades older than I was. I'd run technology strategy for a company valued at $36 billion, played a meaningful role in creating the infrastructure of the modern Internet, and set on the highest level advisory board of IBM, international business machines. I'd already made and lost $6 million. I was getting my MBA at Wharton, one of the top Ivy League business schools in the world, while working full-time as an executive at a startup that eventually sold for more than $600 million. In short, I kicked ass and it looked easy. But behind that success was a constant hidden struggle. The people around me could see my physical challenges, but most had no idea about the level of inner struggle it took to perform. For example, it was obvious that I was overweight and out of shape, and I famously fell asleep in meetings. But few people knew that it was a battle for me just to get through the day because my brain wasn't working the way I needed it to. I couldn't focus at work, I had trouble retaining new information, and I had started to feel a chronic, debilitating fatigue that couldn't be explained away by an entrepreneur's lack of sleep. I felt foggy, as if I had a constant hangover. It seemed like something was broken in my brain. I was irritable and cranky, quick to anger, and I made impulsive decisions. But I kept pushing myself. My middle finger got an excellent workout thanks to my driving habits, but the rest of my body was bloated and out of shape. It felt like I had to work twice as hard as other people to get the same amount done.