THIS BOOK
The process outlined in this book mirrors the one I use for my clients. As you move from the planning phase to the day-by-day guidelines of Hell Week to the post–Hell Week instruction, you’ll be experiencing the same process I’ve prescribed to hundreds of business leaders, top athletes, and other high achievers.
The book is divided into three basic parts:
Part One, “Planning and Preparation,” deals with the planning and prep work, and includes things like gathering feedback from important people in your life and taking a hard look at your exercise and eating habits. This process generally takes two to three weeks.
Part Two, “Here Comes Hell Week,” deals with Hell Week itself, with each day being devoted to a key tenet of what I sometimes call “The Bertrand Method.” You’ll work on mood control one day, time management the next, and so on.
Part Three, “Life After Hell Week,” teaches you how to apply the lessons of Hell Week to the rest of your life.
When I work directly with clients, no two processes are the same. Some people take easily to the program and even end up committing to multiple Hell Weeks throughout the year. Others go through a period of resistance before coming around. A handful of clients even decide that Hell Week isn’t right for them. Obviously, I hope you’ll go all out from start to finish, which is how to get the most out of the experience. But my point is that there’s no one right way to approach Hell Week. Likewise, there’s no one right way to read this book.
You might read it cover to cover before embarking on your Hell Week journey. I love that enthusiasm, and I’ve kept the book short enough so that a free Sunday or cross-country flight should be enough time to plow through it.
Another option is to take the sections of the book as they occur during your actual Hell Week journey. In other words, read Part One while you’re preparing, Part Two while you’re in Hell Week, and Part Three in the weeks and months that follow. I like this approach, too, since it encourages you to return time and again to sections of the book that are most relevant to your journey.
That’s another important point that I want to emphasize further: everyone’s Hell Week is going to look different. For the top athlete, they’ll need to focus less on exercise and diet and more, perhaps, on time management or embracing adversity. For the high-powered CEO, the opposite might be true.
I’ve written this book for everyone, and I’ve tried to organize the material so that you can find your own best way through it. Whether you move from beginning to end or jump around is entirely up to you. All I ask is that whichever path you choose, you commit to it 100 percent. When it comes to Hell Week, “all out” is the only way to go.