Advanced Praise
“There is no shortage of books about peak performance. There is a significant shortage of books that actually advance the conversation. The Intelligent Struggle is a rare find: great science, a fun read, and packed with genuinely important new insights.”
- Steven Kotler, New York Times bestselling author and Founder of the Flow Research Collective
“The Intelligent Struggle is a rare kind of performance book: deeply scientific, profoundly human, and immediately useful. The Intelligent Struggle reframes difficulty not as an obstacle to growth, but as the very place where growth begins. This is a book for anyone ready to stop being shaped by struggle accidentally and start being shaped by it intentionally.”
- Tristan Walker - #19 in a list of the world's 50 greatest leaders in 2019 (Fortune). "The highest-profile African-American CEO and founder in Silicon Valley." (USA Today). Board member of Shake Shack and Foot Locker. Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council.
Twenty-five years building companies and working with global brands taught me one thing the hard way: effort and progress aren't the same. I pushed harder, tried to will things into existence, and mistook resistance for a signal to grind instead of a signal to recalibrate. The Intelligent Struggle explains why that fails — not because struggle is bad, but because most of us are doing it wrong. Blind to what's right in front of us. Unwilling to trust what we've built enough to let it work without interference.
Bertram and Guadagnoli turn the science of struggle, difficulty, and challenge into something you can actually use to level up your own performance. I wish I'd had this building Beats. It's going straight into the hands of every founder I work with
- Susan Paley, Founding CEO, Beats by Dre
“Our world has gotten faster and more complex, creating demands on our brains and bodies that are outpacing our ability to adapt. The Intelligent Struggle is a beautifully written roadmap for anyone pursuing their next level of performance and growth. Drs. Bertram and Guadagnoli show that lasting progress isn't built by training the mind or the body alone, but by understanding the powerful connection between the two. By revealing the biology behind how we adapt to challenge, they provide practical, science-backed strategies to help readers build capacity, unlock their potential, and perform at their best in sport, work, and life. This book redefines what it means to grow, replacing the outdated notion that success comes from grit alone with a smarter, more sustainable path to high performance.”
- Amanda Phillips, President of Performance at Exos
“Our culture tends to treat struggle in one of two ways: worship it or run from it. Honestly, both make me cringe. The Intelligent Struggle charts a wiser path—engaging difficulty with curiosity, intention, and skill so that it actually transforms you. Bertram and Guadagnoli have written a science-rich, deeply humane guide to growing through the hard things in your life. I'll be returning to it often.”
- Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, cognitive psychologist and bestselling author of Transcend
“Most of us treat struggle as a problem to solve. The Intelligent Struggle makes the case that it is a skill worth learning, with real science behind it. Read it before your next hard season, not during.”
- Chip Conley, former Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy for Airbnb, New York Times bestselling author, and Founder of MEA
“I spent twenty-six years training US Marines to perform where failure cost lives. In all that time, I never had a framework for what actually separates the people who hold together under pressure from those who don't. I do now. The Intelligent Struggle gave me that framework—and one insight that reorganized everything: Difficulty has to be calibrated, not just survived. Grinding without intelligence is the failure mode. This book moves through body, mind, and consciousness, and it ends somewhere most performance books never reach: the payoff. I write this as a PTSD survivor and a chronic pain thriver who spent years searching for a better way. This is it. For anyone who develops people for high-stakes environments, this book lights the way. Read it.”
- John Black, Lt. Col., USMC (Ret.); Co-founder of the JASSD Group Consulting Services, LLC
“Working with athletes in an ever-evolving, high-risk sport—where months and years of preparation come down to mere seconds of performance—I have come to understand that those seconds demand two things in equal measure: everything you have built beforehand, and the capacity to trust it completely when the moment arrives. This book is the most complete account of both sides of that equation that I have ever encountered. It is a resource I will return to again and again, and one that will help guide my work for years to come.”
- Elliot Catton, Canadian National Slopestyle Snowboard Team Coach
“In The Intelligent Struggle, Bertram and Guadagnoli overturn one of the most persistent myths in personal development: that more effort is always better. The book deftly shows an evidence-based roadmap for transforming difficulty into development that will immediately enhance your performance. Reading this book will surely make you more intelligent.”
- Dr. Paul J. Zak, neuroscientist and author of Immersion
“I've always believed that struggle is an essential part of a full human life, but I could never fully explain why. Dr. Bertram and Dr. Guadagnoli solve that puzzle in this deeply engrossing read. Blending fascinating science with practical tools, they transform struggle from something we fear into something we can understand, embrace, and ultimately use to become our very best selves.”
- Sarah Robb O'Hagen, former CEO of Gatorade
"We build products for the world’s best athletes, and we strive to operate the same way—with discipline, continuous growth, and a commitment to excellence. The Intelligent Struggle offers a powerful framework for understanding the conditions that enable sustained performance—not just in athletes, but in leaders and teams. No matter where you are in your career, this is a book worth reading and sharing with those you work alongside every day."
- John Miller, President, Adidas North America
“The Intelligent Struggle offers a transformative blueprint for anyone who knows that effort matters but feels like grit alone is no longer enough. This isn't just another book about ‘pushing through’; it is a deep dive into the science of how we navigate difficulty, embrace challenges, and—ultimately—grow stronger. We are biologically wired to avoid discomfort, yet our most profound moments of growth almost always carry the fingerprints of struggle. Whether you are an elite performer, a leader, a parent, or a person just trying to figure it out, this book is an invitation to stop outsourcing your development to habit, circumstance, or even grit. It's time to lean into the struggle, not because you have to but because you've learned how to make it work for you. Through a powerful architecture that spans from the biology of your gut to the psychology of surrender, you will learn to turn pressure into a resource for becoming your most capable self. Read this book. You won't regret it.”
- Dr. Sarah Sarkis, clinical psychologist and leadership strategist