Man 2.0 Engineering the Alpha

universally associated with looking good. It’s why scientists have also found that people who are overweight make less money and are more likely to be perceived as dumb. Is this a fair judgment? Of course not. In fact, we think it’s a little crazy.
    But we tell you this because this is your frustrating reality: the aesthetic image you exude and the perception it creates are influencing your ability to earn higher-paying jobs and workplace advances. In fact, a study by Professor Vasilios Kosteas at Cleveland State University, published in the Journal of Labor Research, found that people who exercise and are rated as “in shape” make on average 10 percent more salary per year than people who aren’t.
    What’s more, the researchers took their study a step farther and determined that the more time you spend in the gym, the more money you earn. Based on their calculations, working out three times per week increases your earning potential by 20 percent.
    The reasons are numerous. Exercise improves brain health, confidence, energy, and even your mood—all of which are positive attributes in the workplace and for those deemed fit for upper management positions.
    Translation: your health is literally your wealth.
    But muscles that you can see through your suit aren’t necessary to become an executive. Simply optimizing your hormones and becoming the Alpha create the confidence you need to climb the corporate ladder. Confident people make better decisions. And in the office, the more good decisions you make, the more people will respect you and the more your superiors will notice your work. In the end, success isn’t always about the smartest and most competent person rising to the top; we know plenty of broke, frustrated Ph.D.s.
    If you look at our society’s entertainment, bosses in the movies are usually overly confident but highly incompetent. That’s Hollywood’s commentary on the reality of the working world, the best example being Michael Scott from The Office . Confident people rise to the top.
    Sure, money won’t buy happiness. But confidence will drive your success, which will build happiness and ultimately leave you a richer person in every aspect of your life.
    Reduce Stress
    While money can’t fix everything, it does solve the problem of not having money. Not having money causes stress. That’s a simple fact of life, and it happens to be the leading cause of stress in individuals and in interpersonal relationships. Money is the leading cause of marital problems, leading to more divorces than any other issue. And when you consider that the divorce rate is greater than 50 percent, it’s not hard to see how sorting out your finances is essential to your relationship and your health.
    We’ve already explained how we’re going to help with the money situation, and there are more details to come. For now, you must realize that your finances are an indirect stressor. We want to eliminate those, but we also want to attack your stress in a direct way. Stress is caused by a psychological awareness of a lack of control, which literally causes a physiological reaction that makes you feel awful.
    You should never feel that bad. That’s why we’ve designed a program that puts you back in control. We want you to feel like you can shift your world in a real way. By creating this new reality where you can effect change, you will successfully remove one of the biggest causes of stress from your life.
    That all starts with a diet and workout approach that is so powerful that you have no choice but to feel better. If this sounds too good to be true, we understand. But this is legitimate science. Even if you’ve never worked out before, you’ve probably heard about endorphins. These feel-good hormones are produced by biochemical reactions that occur when you exercise. They can help offset bad hormones, like cortisol. We’ll talk more about cortisol in chapter 5, but if you’ve stayed up late at night watching TV, you’ve probably already heard about cortisol. It’s the pitch made in every single infomercial for a fat-loss product. Stop cortisol, and you stop fat gain. That’s partially true, but those infomercials use twisted science and crappy supplements that really don’t fix the problem.
    Put simply, if you’re stressed, you produce more cortisol, which makes you fatter, more irritable, and in need of about five espressos to start your day. If that wasn’t bad enough, the presence of cortisol