Man 2.0 Engineering the Alpha

introduced the masses to the concept that all great heroes have similar paths.
    Taking it a step farther, writers in other disciplines have applied the monomyth to everything from psychological treatment to athletic programs—all with equal success. Campbell’s theories can be applied to nearly any concept, and will prove suitable for examination of any great change. The monomyth is universal, and the journey exists in the lives of all men—you, me, your buddies at the bar—and not just the characters in the books you read and the movies you watch.
    The problem: we fail to realize that we are the hero and that our life should be a tale worth telling.
    This is why we oftentimes don’t reach our potential—because we completely avoid the opportunity to take the journey that can improve our lives. This is important for one simple reason: you need to believe you can change your life. This is the very foundation of behavioral change psychology and the determining factor of whether the information you receive in this book will actually help you.
    People want to change and become better, but when they don’t believe they can, they end up stuck in the same place: the first stage of the Hero’s Journey—the Ordinary World.
    According to Campbell, the Ordinary World is the boring and mundane existence where the hero lives at the beginning of his journey. It marks the sharpest contrast from the Special World where the hero eventually ends up.
    The Ordinary World is Luke’s farm in Star Wars . It’s Dorothy’s farm in The Wizard of Oz . It’s the Joads’ farm in The Grapes of Wrath . * But it’s also your desk. Really, it’s any farm. Ever. It’s your desk. It’s your couch. It’s your bedroom. It’s the office parties you hate going to. It’s the food that makes you feel like shit. It’s every fitness book you’ve ever read.
    Most people just accept this. They swallow their reality as the only one that’s possible. It’s normal. It happens. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

    THE EVOLUTION OF AVERAGE
    If you consider—as we do—that every great change you make in your life is an adventure, then the starting point for your journey is your Ordinary World. It’s a world that you know, whether it’s tame and sane or chaotic and destructive. However, it’s a world you also want to leave. That’s why you have this book. If you were happy with where you are, you would not seek change; if on some level you didn’t crave that change, you would not be reading these words right now.
    But it’s good that you are—because change is exactly what Engineering the Alpha is about.
    We want this book to do more for you than just help you get in shape.
    Don’t get us wrong. We’re happy to pack ten pounds of muscle onto your body, drop you to less than 10 percent fat, and make your sex life almost too much to handle. And these changes will happen. We’ll teach you why optimizing your hormones is the key to everything, and we’ll share the science and real world results that make this an undeniable truth.
    But more than anything, we want this book to serve as a blueprint and a guide to creating your own version of the Hero’s Journey. Remember, the goal of all of this is to engineer you into the Alpha version of you . And in order for that to happen, you must reach a moment of Apotheosis—one of the late stages of the Hero’s Journey—which is when you achieve, even if only for a second, the highest level of self-awareness.
    Remember, these things don’t just apply to mythology; this is an essential psychological process that you need to go through in order to reach your goals, and apotheosis is one of the most important steps in that process. It’s the moment when you become who you were meant to be.
    Your hormones make these improvements possible, but the biggest hurdle is learning how to navigate the journey and not fall victim to the traps and barriers that sidetrack the ordinary man.
    By avoiding those, you’ll unlock your truest and highest levels of potential. And when that happens, no dream scenario—whether it’s for your career, your body, or your personal life—will be untouchable.
    But none of this is possible until you realize that you need to pave your own path and stop jumping around from one program to another, taking an ADD approach to changing your life from the inside out. You need to go big . Invest in your search for the truth and play out your hand with confidence so that you