Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Kyle Hunt on Writing, Reading the Right Books, Marketing, and More

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

Kyle Hunt and Mike Matthews talk shop about business and marketing, what it’s like writing books, how they decide what books to read and why, how they efficiently get the most out of those books and put the information they learn to use, and more. This podcast is a low-key discussion with my buddy Kyle Hunt where we share a “behind the scenes” look at the process of writing, revising, publishing, and marketing books, how we pick and choose books to read, how we take notes and learn from those books, and more. Specifically, we chat about . . . The “sausage process” of writing books and what it’s like working with editors How we revise and update books to take them from “minimum viable product” to masterwork How we decide what books to read (and how we take notes) Publishing books and marketing them The “magic” of finding the right timing for a business or idea And more . . . In case you’re not familiar with Kyle, he’s a repeat podcast guest and author of several books, including Bodybuilding For Beginners and Strength Training For Beginners. He’s also a competitive powerlifter, coach, owner of Hunt Fitness, and podcaster, who’s the host of The Absolute Strength Podcast, which I’ve been a guest on a number of times. So, if you’re at all curious about what it takes to write a book, what the research and editing process looks like, or just want to hear two authors chat about business, marketing, and writing, I think you’ll enjoy this podcast! Press play and let me know what you think! --- Timestamps: 0:00 - Try Fortify risk-free today! Go to buylegion.com/fortify and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% or get double reward points! 5:25 - With so many projects you want to do, how do you choose the next one? 9:31 - How do you know when a product is done? 11:02 - How do you choose books to read? 13:16 - Do you like ebooks or physical books and why? 27:20 - Do you read one book at a time? 32:06 - Where can people find you and your work? 32:31 - Are you working on a new book? 36:21 - How important is timing when it comes to business? --- Mentioned on the show: Try Fortify risk-free today! Go to buylegion.com/fortify and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% or get double reward points! Kyle Hunt’s Absolute Strength Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-absolute-strength-podcast/id1146086687 Kyle Hunt’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/huntfitness/

Hello, and welcome to Muscle for Life. I am Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today for something a little bit different than the usual. Today's interview is with Kyle Hunt, but it's not about fitness per se. It's about writing, although we both write fitness stuff, so I guess it is indirectly about fitness still, but mostly about writing business, marketing, reading, both choosing books to read and reading efficiently and taking good notes. And in case you are not familiar with Kyle, he is a repeat guest on my podcast and buddy of mine. And he is the author of several books himself, including bodybuilding for beginners and strength training for beginners. And he's also a competitive

power lifter and coach and fellow podcaster. He's the host of the absolute strength podcast, which I have been on several times. So if you are at least a little bit curious about what it takes to write a book, what the research and the editing process looks like, or if you'd just like to hear a couple of authors and entrepreneurs chat about business and marketing and writing and such things, I think you're going to like today's episode. But first, many people say that you are as old as you feel, and there's definitely some truth there. But for us physically active people, for us fitness folk, it's probably even truer to say that we are as old as our joints feel, because healthy, functional, pain-free joints make our workouts more enjoyable and more productive,

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doses used in the studies that found benefits. And all that is why I've sold over 90,000 bottles of Fortify and why it has over 904 and five star reviews on Amazon and my website. So if you want healthy, functional, and pain-free joints that can withstand the demands of your active lifestyle, and even the toughest training, you want to try Fortify today. Go to buylegion.com, B-U-Y legion.com slash Fortify, and use the coupon code muscle at checkout, and you will save 20% and use the coupon code MUSCLE at checkout, and you will save 20% on your first order. And if it is not your first order, you will get double reward points. So that is 10% cash back.

And if you don't absolutely love Fortify, just let us know, and we will give you a full refund on the spot. No form and no return is even necessary. So you really can't lose. Go to buylegion.com slash fortify now, use the coupon code muscle at checkout to save 20% or get 10% cash back and try fortify risk-free and see what you think. Hey, Kyle, welcome back to my podcast, man. What's going on, man? This is awesome. Yeah, well, I'm in a new house uh it's not mine but that's the for people wondering how the why the background has changed yeah so i'm out of i'm out of my my farmhouse into

a rental construction is underway so i guess it's probably going to be a year and a half unfortunately yeah i think last time you were on my podcast and what you were talking about how you were it was kind of a temporary living situation yeah yeah from one temporary to this temporary so we'll see we'll see if the world is still here by the time i'm supposed to move into the permanent that that's what i'm hoping you know yeah well i saw your i saw your book at the store the other day so that was awesome yeah yeah it's uh it's exciting to have that out and about and, you know, doing, doing a bunch of publicity stuff for it. And, um, I'm going to be putting together some, some advertising and just marketing initiatives on my end.

Like now I have enough books, for example, and programs, uh, that I think it makes sense to have a simple quiz that people can take. So people will ask me like, what, what should I do? Should I do bigger, leaner, stronger, or beyond bigger, leaner, stronger, or muscle for life? And so I have that coming together. And then some other just simple marketing things I can do. Once I have that, it'll be easier to work that into all of my ecosystem, so to speak, and allow people then to be able to easily understand which book they should get and which program they should follow and why.

But it's good to have it done. I'm already on to the next, but that's because I like to do that stuff. Yeah, I know how that goes. You finish up one and then you're like immediately writing the next one. Yep. Yep. Well, yeah, I already have. I'm probably like you.

It's actually a matter of what is, okay, out of the. Well, I already have. I'm probably like you. It's actually a matter of what is, okay, out of the five things, I think all of these projects make sense. Yep. Which one am I going to work on next and why? Yeah. It's almost like you have like a bunch of options and then you're just going to decide on one. It's kind of how I have it where it's like, it's almost like with reading books too.

I love reading so much that I have, when I finish one, it's like, okay, well, I have all these options. Which one am I going to start next? It's kind of the same thing with writing. It's like, okay, I have all these ideas. I think all of these would work. Which one am I going to pursue next? And you got variations on the other books and just, it's a lot. Yeah. And I've done a lot of that. I have for people listening, anybody who has read Bigger, Leaner, Stronger or Thinner, And just, it's a lot. through the mechanics of getting the final files ready to go to the printer and go to Amazon and the other platforms and so forth. But both of them will be up by the middle of the year. Bigger, Leaner, Stronger is going to be up first.

And I'm also going to be updating the workout journals that go with those. They're just called the Year One Challenge for Men and Women. It's just a year of training as if I were giving people a, I mean, I even talk about in the book that one size fits all doesn't necessarily work, but here's a good foundation to start from. And then you can modify it based on what you've learned. But a lot of people find that they don't need to modify it unless there's just a piece of equipment that's not available or whatever, because I'm not asking them to do anything unconventional really. So anyways, I'm excited about that too, just because I hope that I will not feel like I have to touch those books again for some time. I think that, yeah, where they're going to be now is it's going to be hard. It certainly can be improved

upon anything can, but I will, I will, I wouldn't, I wouldn't put a lot of money behind this, but I think there's a fair chance that these will stand for at least the next four or five years before I have enough grist, so to speak to, to warrant another overhaul. Yeah. Well, if you compare what's this, the fourth edition to the first edition, what did it do? Like quadruple in size, probably? Almost over double. So the first was probably 50 or 60,000 words. And I'm a much better writer and I think a better thinker now than I was then. And also then I didn't know that was where I started. So I had no following of any kind. I didn't know anybody in the fitness industry. I was just a dude who was in shape,

who said he knew some things and could explain some things and, you know, talk about some research and so forth. And so I put what I thought was an appropriate amount of time and work into it, but I didn't do 32 drafts of the manuscript. It just wouldn't have made sense to do that. Right. And so, so yeah, I went from 50 or 60,000 words, very minimum viable products, so to speak, to the fourth is probably 130,000 or so. So, and, um, I think that's one of the big improvements I've made in, in this fourth versus third, I've reorganized things, which I think make it even more user-friendly, especially for people who just want to get into action as soon as possible. Uh, but then also just based on a lot of feedback that I continue to get, and also just my own, uh, my own perspective, I have, I think, taken out stuff that it might be interesting and it might be helpful, but it's not crucial. And then I've been able to put stuff in its place that I think is

more important, again, based on actual questions that people ask me. A lot of people read these books and reach out to me and they have questions. And that's a great way for me to learn how to make the books better. Because as you know, it doesn't matter how clever we think we are. You just never can think of everything. There's just too much. There's too much going on. Yeah. There's just too many layers to it. So it's like you think when you have the final product, okay, this is going to answer all the questions. This is plug and play. Then the first person that reads it, sends you an email and like, hey, what about this? And you're like, how did I not think of that? But it's totally on you. You're not, it's not like they're asking some silly question. It's a good question. And you're

like, I don't know how I do, you know, X number of drafts of this. And then three different editors go through it. And that's what got me. I'm like, how did I get, went through all these editors. Not one person brought that up, which is actually when my first book, Bodybuilding for Beginners, one of the actually valuable things I got from it was the editors didn't have a fitness background. So they actually did present a lot of questions. You're like, hey, I don't work out. I know this probably seems pretty obvious to someone who works out, but people who don't work out will probably read this. Can you clarify that? I'm like, oh, that's actually a great point. Because in our heads, it's like, oh, this is super easy to comprehend.

And then someone who doesn't have a large fitness background reads it and like, oh, this doesn't make any sense to me. Present it and you're okay. Well, this is great. Yeah, that's something that I enjoyed working with the people I worked with. They also, they've done some fitness things, but they were not fitness people. And so that helped me make sure that I understood who I was writing to. Cause I really was writing to these people. They were perfect examples of like the archetypes or, or the avatars of the people I was writing to. How do you choose books to read? Do you just jump into

whatever or your system at? Usually. So it's, it's, I have a kind of autistic system that I use. I was curious. I'll be, I'll be interested to hear your system. So for me, it's, I always have a list that's on hand. It's like, okay, here's my, my list that I'm going, you know, I want to read. And then it then it's really like kind of random. So if there's a specific topic, a lot of times I read based off from topics. So it'd be like, I'll be deep into something and then it'll just almost answer because it'll be like the next in line, like the next level of the topic I'm reading. So a lot of times it's that, or sometimes if I just get recommended a book from someone who I respect, let's say at the end of this podcast, you're like, Hey, I just read this book. It's awesome. I'll probably check it out. You know what I mean? So a lot of times that happens too. I'll get recommended a book from someone who I respect their opinion. And then I'll, you know, read the first chapter or something. And I'm like, okay, awesome. It's a business book recommendation. One of the better business books, very tactical business growth.

And it is, I'm like two thirds of the way through it. It has this kind of a silly name. So you wouldn't, the title would not get you. Let me pull it up. It's by Jay Abraham, getting everything you can out of all you've got, which it's kind of ironic that somebody who has a great mind for building businesses for marketing would choose a title like that. Yeah, I know. It does nothing for you, but it's quite good. It's quite good. It has a lot of very practical, very tactical, and just real world, easy to implement.

Well, let's say straightforward to implement advice that I'm doing in Legion to some degree. In some cases, I'm doing it better than in others. So I'm liking it. Yeah. Are you a like a e-book guy or do you like the hard cover? I mean, I like I like hard copies, but it but it's just so convenient to read on my phone. So I use the Kindle app. And then I also like Amazon's little, well, their whole little system.

So I can make my highlights. I can make my notes in, let's say, on my phone, which is convenient because I'm not. I mean, sure, sometimes I'll dick around a little bit. I'll check my email or if I want to see how something is doing on social media, maybe I'll check that. But I'm pretty good. I'm not that interested in just playing around with things on my phone. So if I'm sitting there reading, the vast majority of that time is just going to be reading. And I also like that I can take small pockets of time. So even if I just have five or 10 minutes, so I like to take a chunk of time in

the beginning of the day, and then sometimes a chunk of time at night. But sometimes I just spend time with my wife instead. So I have my chunk in the beginning. And then if I just have little pockets of time throughout the day, even if it's just five or 10 minutes, even if it's just to take a break from, I was just in something for an hour or two hours or whatever. And I just want to just not stare at the computer screen, even though it's to the phone, but it's still, I can like step out of the office five, 10 minutes and, and get in more, get in more reading. Um, and then also you can pair it with audio books if people want to do that as well. So then if you go out for a walk, you can continue. So it's just so convenient.

I'm not too particular with my schedule on this. I just get in some time. I just make sure to do it semi-regularly, which is I'll then go onto my computer and Amazon, what do they call it? Your Kindle notebook or something like that, that shows all of your highlights and notes. And so I'll pull out all of my highlights and notes from the books that I've read. And I keep all this in a spreadsheet just to organize it all. And I'll put it all into a single Google Doc. So a book like this, it'll be the title, highlights and notes. That'll be the title of the Google Doc. I'll dump all of my highlights and notes in there and I separate them into just highlights.

And then I take my favorites and put those into a kind of a key takeaways at the top of the doc. So then if I ever want to go back and review a book that is not necessarily worth rereading, it just makes it fast and easy. And then I can take that content and repurpose it into this little book club series that I'm behind on. I haven't given it time recently. I was pretty good about doing one or two a month. I mean, I continue to read. It's just the extra time of getting all my notes, getting my thoughts together. What are my five? I usually pick my five favorite takeaways from the book and share some of my own thoughts to try to make it a little bit more interesting than just

like here are five things from the book, whatever. Right i like doing that that kind of work it's just i've had so many other things i've prioritizing other things but that's why i read digitally i sometimes want to read books that are only available uh as a hard copy like the last one was um is it six thinking hats is that the number thinking hats by deb, which I also really like? I think it's six. And that wasn't available as a Kindle ebook. So I read the paperback and it's just a little bit of added time because to get, I don't type all of the highlights out. What I do is I take pictures with my phone and dump them into Google Keep, which you can just have the Google Keep app

open. Evernote might have the same functionality, but then you can grab, I think the acronym is OCR. It's probably, the CR is probably character recognition. I don't remember what the O online, I don't know. I'm going to pull it up while I'm talking. But regardless, you can pull the, you can just grab the text from the image. So it's just a little bit faster. So I can just take a picture, keep take, take, take pictures and then just grab the text and, you know, adds time.

But that's how I go about reading and then kind of processing what I've read. And I even take it a little bit further where I then dump key takeaways into Evernote and I have like a grist, kind of a swipe. I just call it a grist file. And I have a bunch of tags in Evernote, like a lot of different topics basically. And so whenever I come across stuff I like, eventually it finds its way into Evernote and tagged. So then if I'm writing and I'm like, all right, what do I have on courage? Let me go look. And

then I have a bunch of stuff that i've pulled from all kinds of places all over the years and um that helps with i mean if you're writing an essay and you're going to follow the classic like okay here's my theory here's the here's the reason here's an example here's a summation of the theory or some variation of that, the examples are always then kind of, you know, at hand. Um, and then, and then also, uh, I think it's, it's good for stimulating your own thinking too. It's, there's nothing wrong with, you know, if you, if you steal from a bunch of sources, that's research. If you steal from one source is plagiarizing, right? And so there's nothing wrong with taking other people's ideas and making them your own adding

to them changing to them changing them combining things that's writing that's what i thought right 100 yeah it's just it's just some people they they might not want to admit that yeah because it kind of it kind of takes a little bit of the mystique out of the experience of the reader who might think that this person is just so brilliant they just sit there and have brilliant thoughts all day and that's it no it's it's a lot more uh just kind of making sausage than it is like alchemy i mean you know there is a bit of that and particularly with i mean you have yes geniuses who i think of a guy like, I mean, there are so many, but C.S. Lewis. I mean, he was a genius. And did he do what we're talking about? Yeah, of course he did.

Of course. I'm sure he read thousands of books and he had all kinds of ideas that stimulated his own thinking, but he also brought a very unique perspective, a very unique voice, a very unique oratory that only the most elevated among us could ever reach that level. You know what I mean? And whether we can or not, I don't know, but we can at least be in the sausage factory. Yep, exactly. Now about the reading thing though, with having it on your phone, I feel like that has saved me social media time. Because like you said,

if I'm like sitting down just to have my lunch, like normally I'll just sit down by myself to have lunch. What I would sit down and open up Instagram or just scroll and waste the time. But when I have a book that I'm reading on my phone, I'll sit down to eat my salad. It's like, oh, well, I'll just read here for five minutes. Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, that's a great point. And what I also, I put some time every day into. So do you know Anki? You know the app? I don't know. No, I don't think so. A-N-K-I. And it's an SRS app, flashcards, spaced repetition system.

So for anybody listening, I won't go off on a tangent on it. Check it out. If you do any sort of flashcards, it is the way to do it. It's based on research on how our memory works and how likely we are to remember or forget things depending on how ingrained they are. And it's a much more systematic way to get things into your long-term memory as opposed to traditional flashcarding. And so what I do is I, in my reading, when I come across words that I like, so I'm in the dictionary a lot. I like to check words, understand words. I take a screenshot of the word and the definition of the word and put it into Google Keep.

So Google Keep is my, if anybody has read Getting Things Done, that's my, it's not tickler. What is, I forget the term for it, but that's my just dumpster that gets processed. So, I mean, I put all kinds of stuff in there. If I need to order more espresso beans, order coffee goes in there, whatever. Just, I don't try to remember anything. espresso beans, order coffee goes in there, whatever. I don't try to remember anything. Things either go on my calendar or in Google Keep. And then I process my Google Keep a few times per week. And so when I come across a word that I like, I take a screenshot, put it in Google Keep. And then when I'm processing my Google Keep, I do the character recognition.

And I put that word into a spreadsheet that has tabs for, there's an export tab for exporting into Anki. And then there's a tab for funny kind of cutesy stuff that I like to go to when I'm writing, if I want to do that. And then I have nouns, modifiers, verbs, prepositions, and then like idioms and phrases and stuff. And so from the spreadsheet, I can then load those into Anki and I can do flashcards. And so I'm building my vocabulary, but I'm building it in a personalized way.

I found that to be more rewarding than just doing random vocabulary, building apps or websites or games or whatever, because these are words that I actually like and it helps me in my writing to sure. I have them all in a spreadsheet, but it's, it's one thing to just dump them in a spreadsheet. And it's another thing to do what I'm doing, because I, even though let's say I'm writing and I have a concept that I want to communicate, though let's say I'm writing and I have a concept that I want to communicate. I might not remember exactly the perfect term that I have in my spreadsheet, but a lot of times I'll remember

there's something I was like, Oh yeah, there's something that's good along these lines. Sometimes it will just come to me because I do the flashcards, but other times it's just enough to remind me that there's something in there. And then I go and I go and find it so um for my little random like i do those flash cards in the gym that's what i do um when i'm resting in between sets i work out by myself and if i'm if there's somebody that i know there i'm not going to like say like okay just keep it to yourself and do my flash cards yeah yeah i'll let you know when my flash cards are done then you can speak to me uh but but but most of the time it's just like somebody, Oh, Hey, what's up? You know, whatever. And I'm doing my flashcards. And then if those are not done by the time I get home, then I'll take those little,

like, okay, if I'm, when we're done here, yeah, I'm going to go, I'm actually gonna go eat a salad and I will either just work on my flashcards. Cause I, I don't like to save them until the end of the night when I'm kind of like half out of it, hopefully, right? Hopefully getting sleepy and ready to go to bed. And because then I'm just rushing through it and it's more productive if I do it when I'm fully conscious. And so I like to take those little bits of time to get through the flashcards. And then when that's done, it's opening up a book. So I like to read in the morning and then right before bed. And I found, so I have, it's like a game I play with myself right before bed. Like every night I'll read and in my head, I'm like, okay, my goal is to read as much as I possibly can. So I'll fight it. Like when I'm getting tired, like dozing off, I'm like, okay, my goal is to read as much as I possibly can.

So I'll fight it. When I'm getting tired, dozing off, I'll keep reading to fight it. And then I'll wait right to the last minute. Literally, I can't even remember what I'm reading. I'm that tired. Then I'll put it away and close my eyes and go to bed. And that's my secret to falling asleep. I've always had trouble winding down at nighttime. And the reading the book before sleep trick.

So it's like the best thing I found. That's great. I wish, I wish that were the case. It doesn't work for me at all. No, it, it stimulates me and it keeps me awake.

Oh yeah. So I just have to stop. Like, you know, again, I will eventually get sleepy off town. It's not like I'm, it's not like it's math or something, but, but it doesn't help me go to sleep. That's for sure. It, it makes it harder to,

to get sleepy enough. And these days for it's probably just related to general stress, even though I don't feel like stressed out per se, maybe a whole podcast. I could explain why, but, but, um, I'm a light sleeper. My sleep is touch and go. Sometimes it's fine. Sometimes it's not, it's hard to say why I think I'd know generally why, but I don't have a great explanation why for a few days I'm like, man, I'm just feeling good. Sleep good. And then a few days it's, it's back, you know? But, um, it's it's back you know but um so i just try to avoid anything once once after about 9 p.m is like i don't watch tv um i try not to i can read that's not so stimulating tv i've had that be a problem like it's just too stimulating and i consistently will sleep worse if I try to relax or wind down with even stupid shit. Like my wife and I,

the other night we're watching this Anna show on Netflix, which is, which is, it's awful. I mean, it's terrible acting. It's completely mindless. But even that was enough,

like where I just wasn't getting sleepy. If I'm going to sleep well, it's there's a fair chance that it's going to first start with me being sleepy when I go to bed. And, um, so, so anyway, I, I try to just not do much of anything for at least 30 or 45 minutes and before going to bed. And who, what's this, what's the Roman sleep sleep god was it morpheus hope that hope that hope that morpheus bless blesses me i uh yeah that used to be my method and it didn't work i would just end up just not sleeping so then i'm like let me try just reading and not and then at first i would

read but it would still be with the idea that okay i'm just reading until i'd fall asleep and it would never work either probably the same thing what you're saying is like, we're just like, I don't know, just like wind me up more. But now I think, cause I go into it with the mindset, like, no, I'm, I want to shit. If I read all night, I'll just read all night. Like, I'm just going to read until I fall asleep. Like if I'm up at 3am, I'll keep reading. Will you read, do you, do you read one book at a time or do you have one book that like, maybe, maybe it's a fiction book that you just, you read do you do you read one book at a time or do you have one book that like maybe maybe it's a fiction book that you just you don't care whether you remember a single that's

what it is see that's the key i'll always read something that i don't care if i remember so usually that's what i've never done it's always been like i'm reading this j.a. brand yes i wouldn't read that before bed like it won't be a book that it's you know usually it's like i'll read two books at a time one's fiction one, one nonfiction, the fiction one, like whatever. If I don't remember, I'll pick up tomorrow night. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That makes sense.

That makes sense. That's something I've thought about trying. I think that's the key. Yeah, that's the key. I should have mentioned that. Yeah. I like it. You're not going to be able to take your notes if you're falling asleep.

Yeah, exactly. Well, that's what happens though. So I read on a rotation of genres. your notes if you're falling asleep yeah exactly well that's what happens though when i'm so i i read on uh a rotation of genres i have a personal and then i have a business and and i flip between them read one or two books in each genre and those are chosen based on on the personal it's my pers it's just my interests also from a self-development standpoint, like where I'm at in my life and what I think is going to serve me to get better basically. And that has changed as I've gotten older and circumstances have changed. Um, and then, and then the business side of things, it's very practical. It's, it's like marketing, um, work slash, uh, what is it?

Work slash business slash success, uh, success, leadership, sales slash persuasion, and maybe one or two others. And so the reason why I'm reading those books is not only retention, but I want ideas. Like if I read an entire book related to business and I don't, I wouldn't get through it. book related to business. And I don't, I wouldn't get through it. Actually, if I, if I've read a hundred pages and I have no ideas of what I can do with this, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna finish it, but I've avoided that by, this is a good tip. I think I've shared this before, but for people who haven't heard it, they might find it interesting. I find it useful. So what I don't like is probably like you. So I keep all of my lists, my to be reds on Amazon, and then I actually export them like once every six months, just in case Amazon, I don't know, deletes me one day or something. I don't want to lose all of my books that I would like to check out and say the wrong thing on the podcast. And so what I'll do is I will look for book summaries first of whatever. I think I'm having deja vu. I think I've already shared this on your podcast, so I won't go

into too much more on it. But I read book summaries first, and I've found pretty consistently that if I don't like the summary, if there's nothing in the summary that was interesting to me, I made no highlights, or if it was all derivative of other stuff that i've already read and then i will not like the book and i've tried it a couple times just to confirm my theory where i'm like ready to quit the book after 50 pages because it's not for me not what i need not what i was looking for and so now i i trust that, yeah, uh, you might miss a little bit with that approach where I might decide not to read something that, that could actually be, or at least could be more valuable than, than my impression based on a summary, but whatever.

I mean, at least this way I've found now that I spend, I don't quit. I mean, I haven't quit a book in some time, actually, because there's been a pretty good correlation between that was a good summary. Like, that's how I found this Jay Abraham book. I had heard of it, but I didn't know much about him and the title. It was just one of those books that sat on the TBR, basically. But then I read the summary and I was like, of those books that sat on the TBR basically. But then I read the summary and I was like, oh, this actually seems

to be a lot better than I was giving it credit for. And now I'll say it's one of the better business books of its kind that I've read in a while. Yeah, awesome. Yeah, I got it on my list now.

You got to let me know what you think if you end up reading it. For sure. Hey there, if you are hearing this, you are still listening, which is awesome. Thank you. And if you are enjoying this podcast, or if you just like my podcast in general, and you are getting at least something out of it, would you mind sharing it with a friend or a loved one or a not so loved one even who might want to learn something new? Word of mouth helps really bigly in growing the

show. So if you think of someone who might like this episode or another one, please do tell them about it. Awesome. Well, I think this was a great discussion. And why don't we wrap up with where people can find you, find your work. What are you working on specifically? Is there a book you want them to know about or anything else? Yeah. Well, you guys, if you like this conversation, you can check out my podcast. It's called The Absolute Strength Podcast. Mike's been on it, what, three, four times now. It's different concept, different topics, but similar enough to where if you like one, you're probably going to like the other. True. Yeah. Agreed. And then on the book front? Yeah. So I have a couple of projects I'm working on right now. So I have, obviously, the three books with the publisher, but I think I'm going to take a page out of your book and probably stick to self-publishing for the foreseeable future i did the did the publisher thing which is cool you know get the

book in you know more people's hands um but you know i think i think the self-publishing route's probably what i'm going to go for the next couple years yeah yeah yeah it makes sense i mean that we could do a whole podcast on that but i I think hybrid can make sense to go exclusively with a big publisher. Probably only makes sense if you're getting paid a lot of money and your book just sells and sells and sells regardless of, I think of James Clear with Atomic Habits where the distribution really does help him. Yeah. And he crushed that. Yeah. I was a little bit surprised.

It's the content of the book that did it, obviously. And that's always the case with books that sell really well. They're always good books because word of mouth is really what drives book sales. But I remember when, so this is when he first released that book, um, what was it? The power of habit was still popular, still selling. Well, Charles Duhigg was like the guy, the habits guy. And, you know, James had built a bit of a brand for himself with his website, but outside of that, um, you know, he had an email list that was something. Um,

I don't know if he had much going on in social media. And I remember seeing the book title. I, I personally didn't like it and it, it has done. I think it has done well, not despite the title. I think I was just wrong. It just didn't from my marketing mind it didn't resonate for me the word atomic in particular i understood what what the the double meaning and and i just didn't think it was all that i didn't get it either it didn't it didn't resonate like i didn't plan on reading the book i was like another habits book and then atomic habits that's gonna fail um and and i i couldn't have been more wrong that might be the number one bestselling book in the world. Well, I think it was still like number one on Amazon last year, wasn't it?

Oh, I mean, it's cool to see that, you know, I just was surprised. Have you had him on the podcast? I have some time ago. And then I've reached out a couple of times and didn't get a reply. I think he's a fan of your work. I think he's, he's, I mean,

he's had good things to say about bigger, leaner, stronger, and I didn't take it personally. He's, uh, I'm sure busy. And,

and also I don't know him. Um, but I got the impression that he's kind of a private guy and he has, uh, I think he likes to travel and likes to do photography and so he likes to put time into other things and so i would suspect that um he's he's very careful with how he uses his time makes sense and the book is doing everything is going so well you know i can't blame him for not wanting to come on my podcast to talk about, you know, what's it going to do?

Sell another. Probably 80% of the people listening have already read the book. You know what I mean? So I get it. How do you follow up that book? I thought about that. And maybe you don't. Yeah.

I mean, Charles Duhigg, he followed up with Smarter, Faster, Better, I think, which I didn't. I wasn't impressed by. It just didn't, didn't do it for me. And despite, I mean, he put in the work, it just, I don't know. I just kind of finished it and was like, okay. And so in the case of James, I mean, that's, it's also, it could be an interesting podcast. Something I've been thinking about recently is, And that's also an interesting podcast. Something I've been thinking about recently is just how important timing is, right? So you look at how did a business succeed?

How did a book succeed? How did a product or service succeed? What are the driving factors? And you could think of things, timing. You could think of the idea itself. You could think of funding the team and maybe a couple of other factors. But I think timing is a lot of it. And you could argue that timing is part of idea that a quote unquote good idea at the wrong time is actually not a good idea. But I think for the point I'm making it, it makes more sense to split those things out. Meaning that the right book glass and you play a sound at a certain frequency and the glass vibrates. If you get it at just the

right frequency, the glass shatters. And that's the difference of just the right idea at the right time or less so. I think it's degrees. I don't necessarily think it's binary. And so in the case of Atomic Habits, he did a very good job on execution. He had been working on that material for years. So it was very polished and there's a lot to be said for that, but it was also very much the right book at the right time. And it was, I think, better than Duhigg's in ways that were very meaningful to the market for that book. And there are probably some timing things I don't even know about regarding when he released it and why the marketplace was particularly ripe for that book. And so if I were him and I was going to try to live up to that standard, then before I spent any time drafting anything, I would be looking for what is that next idea? What that whose time has come that has not been served, let's say, to its full potential or served in the way that I think

I could do it. Not that it has to be completely blue ocean, no competition whatsoever. Because again, remember, Power of Habit was like a mega bestselling, multi-million copy bestseller as well. And Clear has completely flattened i mean that's it he owns that space now uh so so it can be done but you know again i think it starts with um finding finding that that idea that can shatter the glass and knowing that if you bring your personality to it you bring your perspective to it your you bring your perspective to it, your ability to it, you can do it in a way that is very unique. I think exclusivity is a big thing that plays into timing,

doing something in a very different way. And Clear did that for that space. That type of writing you can find in other spaces. But he says James Clear is not a pseudonym i don't believe him uh it has to be it's too it's too too good from a marketing perspective but but his he's a very good and clear writer and clarity trumps persuasion always. Even in copywriting, you have to be able to communicate clearly before you can add anything else to the selling power of copy. And so anyway, kind of rambling, but those are my thoughts about Atomic Habits and maybe where he might go from here. Yeah, well, trying to find the right timing is tough.

I feel like a lot of times you kind of stumble on it. Like I think about myself. And so when I started online coaching, I graduated high school in 2009. That summer, I started working at a gym, started personal training. And within a couple months, I pretty much figured out, I'm like, damn, like a lot of these people

I'm sitting down and having consultations with, like they don't actually need me to personal train them in the gym. They need me to come up with a training program for them, probably help them out with their nutrition, and then somehow hold them accountable. Maybe that's through email. And then I was in the bodybuilding world enough to know that bodybuilding coaches were doing something similar to that. I was like, okay, well, why can't I just do online training like bodybuilders do, but for just general strength training or body composition improvements? And I already had a blog at that point. I was writing articles.

So I kind of just stumbled onto online training in 2009, early 2010, just from doing in the gym personal training. And I think the timing was really great because not a lot of people were doing it. And then, you know, snowballed. And I think that, yes, you can stumble into it, but I do think that there also can be a method. There can be a strategy for sure. that there there also can be a method there can be a strategy for sure i've i've read a few books that come to mind on on creativity um and some marketing books that i haven't i haven't really synthesized the information into any sort of framework like here's my my timing how to how to how to get to those ideas uh it might be beneficial if I did it, honestly, because although at this point, I feel like I'm more now just kind of an executor as opposed to a progenitor or a, a visioner, you know, now I just have these machines and they're going well.

And I just kind I had the quote unquote luxury to just try things that, that made sense to me or that might work out. And then I, so I did that and then found things that worked and now I'm kind of trapped quote unquote in the things that work. But regardless, I would bet that either I think you're right, that there is a little bit of magic to it. And there's a little bit of X factor, and a little bit of eureka that goes into it. But that's probably no more than, to my mind, 50%. Maybe it might be even more like the 20% where you could actually kind of instrumentalize the 80% of, um, minimally getting close to the thing and, and taking, cause, cause again, you have these, you have these useful little creativity, um, heuristics you can use for like, if, if people listening, um, you check out the book thinker toys, it has a lot of cool little exercises and other, other creativity books

have riffed on this kind of thing where, um, you can, you can just, if you just take the time to sit down and you just do these little exercises, you can come up with interesting ideas like this point of, of taking that's, that's marketing one-on-one, right? You take an idea that's working in one space and you see an opportunity to apply it in another space. That's, that's an easy, an easy one where you're just looking, Hey, what are other people doing? And how can I do the opposite of that? Or how can I take one specific component of this and make it the entire thing or um how can i take something and magnify it and so you go through these exercises if you do it when you're well rested and caffeinated uh then you know you can you can you start you start generating ideas and a lot of the ideas

are bad and that's fine that's how it works for all of us but then there's that it's like when you're writing you have your drafting mode and that, it's like when you're writing, you have your drafting mode and your editing mode. And so when you're drafting, you just, you know, don't judge too much. Just kind of put things down and then you start to winnow them down. And so I've gone through kind of informal processes

like that in my marketing and in business, but I would suspect that it could actually be pretty formalized. And that's not to say that you can just press the buttons and pull the levers and you have the next atomic habits, but let's just say, I think it would increase the chances of hitting on something that could be a real bullseye. Yeah. I think having just like throwing the ideas out there is probably having some type of strategy behind that is probably what's important. have some people who just really, uh, they had just have a talent for, uh, I mean, it could be, it could be related to, to selling things, or it could be in a creative field. Like, you know, you have these artists who, um, yes, there is the sausage process we talked about earlier where

they, they wouldn't, they, they wouldn't maybe want you to know how mechanized it really is but still but still there's just a there's something special they bring to it and um the the the sum is more than just the or the whole is is more than just kind of like the sum of the parts it's when they put it together, it just then has a magic to it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely people who are capable of that.

Anyway, anyway, I appreciate your time as usual. I like, I like having these discussions. Yeah, me too. Well,

I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did subscribe to the show, because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just

feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.