Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Mike Matthews on Becoming a Successful Fitness Entrepreneur

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

This podcast is a bit different because rather than interviewing a guest, I’m sharing an interview of me. Specifically, I recorded a webinar for students at Oxford Brookes University in the UK, in which I shared business advice for students who wish to start a health or fitness business or for fitness professionals who wish to grow their existing business. I was interviewed by professor Paul Hough, a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Science at the university. Not only is he a fellow author, but he’s worked with elite-level athletes in tennis and Formula One, and published several studies in academic journals. In our discussion, we chat about . . . Writing books (and why you need to enjoy it if you're going to do it) How to use content marketing to help people The time management structure I use for projects and my daily schedule My system for taking notes on what I read How I deal with procrastination My favorite part of being an entrepreneur Marketing, "micro yeses,” and how to price your goods and services And more . . . So, if you have your own health and fitness business or are interested in starting one, or you’re just curious to hear a bit of my story and about the business side of my work, you’re going to enjoy this podcast! Timestamps: 0:00 - Save up to 30% during our big Labor Day Sale! https://buylegion.com/ 7:23 - What do you attribute the success of your first book to? 14:35 - Do you think there is pressure for new trainers to write books? 24:00 - What time management strategies do you use to manage all the projects you’re involved with? 37:24 - Do you ever procrastinate? 40:10 - Do you use a calendar or a to-do list? 44:31 - What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur? 51:12 - When you say that your supplements aren’t necessary, is it to be different or is it a philosophy you’re passionate about? 57:50 - How do you place monetary value on your servicing when establishing a business? How do you place yourself competitively without undervaluing yourself? Mentioned on the show: Save up to 30% during our big Labor Day Sale! Go to buylegion.com and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% on any non-sale items or get double reward points!

Howdy, howdy. This is Muscle for Life, and I'm Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today for something a little bit different, because rather than rambling myself by myself or interviewing a guest in this episode, I am interviewed by a professor at Oxford Brookes University in the UK. I'm sharing a recording of a webinar that I gave to some of his students who were looking for business advice. And specifically, these are people who are interested in working in the health and fitness industry. They want to be fitness professionals of one kind or another. And as I have had some success in my work in the health and fitness space, I was invited to come and speak to them and answer their questions.

And as for the interviewer, his name is Paul Huff, and he is a senior lecturer in sports and exercise science at Oxford Brooks University. And not only is Paul a fellow author, but he has worked with elite level athletes in tennis and Formula One in particular. And he has also published several studies in academic journals. And in this discussion, Paul and I talk about writing books, we talk about content marketing, note taking a system that I like to use that is fairly labor intensive, but very productive. We talk about procrastination, entrepreneurship, various aspects of marketing, including getting quote unquote micro yeses and how important that is to selling stuff, as well as how to price your goods and services and more. But first, if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere,

and if you want to help me do more of it while helping yourself reach your fitness goals faster, please do check out my sports nutrition company, Legion, because while you don't need supplements to build muscle, lose fat, and get healthy, the right ones can help. And that's why over 350,000 discerning fitness folk have chosen Legion for their supplementation needs. Well, that and our 100% natural products, our clinically effective ingredients and doses,

and our no hassle money back guarantee. And you should also know that for this week only Legion is holding its big Labor Day sale. And that means you can save up to 30% on some of our most popular products, including our protein powders, pre-workout and post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support supplements, and more. And so to take advantage of this, head over to buylegion.com now that's B-U-I-L-E-G-I-O-N.com and save big before we run out of stock of at least a thing or two, which always happens in our site-wide sales. Usually not at a product level, but at an individual SKU level. So certain flavors run out of stock, certain options run out of stock.

Simply because we've learned it is impossible to be fully accurate in your inventory forecasting. Today, we are lucky to be joined by Mike Matthews. I'm sure many of you will be familiar with Mike's work. He's a best-selling health and fitness author and the CEO of Legion, which is a best-selling brand of natural sports supplements. He's also the creator and host of the Muscle for Life podcast, which I believe has over 25 million downloads, if that's right, Mike?

That's a lot. It's probably a bit higher now. I update it like once every six months when the number is significantly bigger, but it's something around there. So it's a lot of people basically listening to my podcast. And I'm one of them. So you can include me on that.

And if you're not, then I recommend subscribing to Muscle for Life. Mike does some great talks with a lot of different varied guests. It's not just all about health and fitness. You get some great people from business, psychology and other walks of life. So I'd recommend tuning into that.

For those of you that have seen the brief intro I did on Zoom, on the link, Mike's also an accomplished author. His first book, which I believe is Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, became one of the best-selling fitness books on Amazon. And his books have collectively sold over a million copies. So today's webinar is going to be useful for you if you're interested in creating written content, or maybe even starting your own podcast. And for what it's worth, I'm actually... I'm close to 2 million copies now. It's probably at 1.9 million. That's just the fitness stuff. I've actually written... I could talk about it. It's kind of funny. I've written in other genres under a pen name, just to keep it separate. I have a book I wrote on the Bill of Rights here in the United States.

And ironically, last year and the year before, I think by units sold, that was actually my best-selling book, just because of what's going on here in the country. For a while, my book on the Bill of Rights was out selling the Constitution that people can buy for like 99 cents, which was funny. Wow. Another string in your bow. I haven't got that on my list that I was just going through. That's cool. I didn't know about that at all. Yeah, I'm kind of familiar with your work in the fitness space. And like my previous guests, Mike actually contributed to my book, Advanced Personal Training, Science to Practice. Mike co-authored the training for fat loss chapter with me.

But a topic that actually wasn't covered in the book is exactly what I've got Mike, who's kindly given up his time to talk about today. And that's all the business aspects of personal training and working in the fitness industry in general. So I'm often asked about this in terms of authoring, starting as a trainer and marketing your service. And this is something I've got hardly any experience. I'm certainly nowhere near an expert in any of this. So I thought it'd be really

useful to bring in someone that's got a proven track record of both author, publisher of a podcast, and also CEO of a successful company. So many of the students that are joining us today, Mike, are either still at university or have just finished. There's a few people in the audience as well that are actually trainers. So I think this will be a really useful session for these people that are students and working in the industry, just to find out a little bit about kind of what it takes to make it, particularly in multiple facets of businesses as you've managed to do. in multiple facets of businesses as you've managed to do. So if it's all right with you, Mike,

I'll start straight away with the questions that have come in. Yeah. And we'll just go through these and I'll try not to go off on too many tangents. I had a few people last time said I kind of asked too many of my own questions. So I'll try and avoid that. So we'll start with Steve. And Steve's question is, what do you attribute the success of your first book to? He said, I would like to write a book on strength training, but I don't have a large following on social media, so I'm not sure how I would promote it.

Yeah, good question. So when I published Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, that was 2012. I also had no following at all. I had no connections in the industry at all. It was a nights and weekends thing. And I had my own personal story, a personal transformation, some beginning when I first learned about it and learned about macronutrient balance and learned about some of the actual fundamentals of training. Whereas up to that point, I had just done a lot of stuff that you would read about in bodybuilding magazines. And even that content has changed. And it's, I'd say, on the whole better now. It's a bit more evidence-based now and practical than it was back then. So you don't have to have a big following to have a successful book. So that's something that I think is just encouraging. However, I will say... And so this is just directly answering the question. Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, it was the right book at the time and for a couple of reasons. And in business, you often wonder...

You take a successful business and you wonder, what was the number one factor that really made this business go? In a lot of cases, timing is a big role. The right idea at the wrong time is the wrong idea. The right idea at the right time, that's when you can really find that product market fit. And so coming back to Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, we rewind 10 years or so, 2012 was when I published it. And at that time, there were not nearly as many books, fitness books on Amazon as there are now. So that was something that was working in my favor. So that was something that was working in my favor. And there were no books like Bigger, Leaner, Stronger in that that first book that I wrote

was kind of like a minimum viable product. And if people haven't read the book, Lean Startup, I recommend reading it because I think that's a smart way to approach business. So when... And this is, I think, a good framework for just decision-making in general. But in business, you have to ask yourself,

all right, what's my goal? What am I actually trying to achieve here? All right. Now, what's the most effective way that I can come up with to achieve that goal? All right. Now, what's the most effective way to test my idea and see if it has legs and if I should invest more? And then finally, when you start testing, then you start revising the first three based on your results. And so I think that's a smart

approach in business. And I took that approach with Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, where that first book, maybe it was 50,000 words, certainly no more than 80,000 words, which is a standard-sized book. But I will say that I didn't take great pains over the prose. I worked with an editor. I went about it in a semi-professional manner, but I didn't belabor it. I just put it together. I put as much stake in there as I could and left the sizzle out. And basically, really what I was doing is I was writing the book that I wished somebody would have just given me back when I was 17 or 18 and said, Dude, just do this. Before you worry about anything else, just do these things for at least 3 to 5 years. And chances are, you'll be happy enough with the results that you probably won't even care to really do much of anything else, but you can at that point.

that you probably won't even care to really do much of anything else, but you can at that point. And so that book was missing. There was a gap in the marketplace. And I knew that firsthand because I was the target reader. I was a consumer. And after I had learned these things that I had learned from reading scientific research, from reading Lyle McDonald's work, from reading Alan Aragon's work, from reading Martin Burkhan's work, from reading Starting Strength, from... Oh, I'm probably not giving enough credit. A few other pioneers in the evidence-based fitness space. I was like, why isn't somebody just taking the 20% that gives you the 80% and just put it in a simple book that explains exactly what to do and gives a prescription. Don't make it too complicated. Don't give people too much latitude to change things because it can get confusing in the beginning when you're just learning this stuff. It's much easier to have somebody teach you the fundamentals and then say,

all right, to put those fundamentals in practice, just do these things. Here are some example meal plans. You can play them around if you want, but here's an example of how it all comes together. All right, for training, here, do these workouts for 6 or 12 months. And then when you come on the other end of that, you are going to have gained a lot of muscle, a lot of strength, and a lot of experience. And then start playing around with the programming. And so that was the approach with Bigger Than Stronger. And again, coming back to that framework of my idea of how can I test?

I think that there's an opportunity here. How can I test this? Then I put it out in the marketplace. And within a few months, I got a strong signal of like, I think there's something here. I see. So you spotted what we would call a niche. I think over in America, you call it a niche. And then you used that and tested it. I think it's interesting because that's exactly the same process um from my first book um which is nowhere near as successful uh as yours but it moment is an academic book and the reason that it came about is it's not because i decided i want to write a book it was because we were approached by publishers often in academia and

they say what books do you want and exactly the the same as you, Mike, I thought, this is the type of book I wanted when I was studying to get into personal training and have that sort of link between the sports science side of things, but make it more applicable to the general population. And I've had that question a few times is what you know how did you come about writing a book and it was a little bit as you like you just mentioned a bit sort of timing where there was a little bit of a gap in the market for that and just to as a kind of branch off to that do you think that could be an issue in today's market is that people now feel there's so many ebooks

whereas when in 2012 when you publish yours there wasn't that so you had a little bit of a competitive advantage but now it's easier to publish online and self-publish and or even sort of the nature of this person's question linking in social media do you feel that there's maybe a pressure on young personal trainers or people coming through the industry to kind of have to or feel like they have to publish and write? Yeah, that's a good question. I think there are a couple of ways we can go with that. So one, if we're talking about writing books, I actually would not recommend writing books unless you like writing. And that also applies to content creation.

I would 100% agree with that as well. For multiple reasons. It's too much of a pain in the ass. It sure is. And the thing is, to your point, there is a lot of material out there. And even if you spot an opportunity, again, where you see there's an unmet need, there's something unique that you can bring to the marketplace.

It also does need to be up to a certain standard. And again, if you don't enjoy writing, it is going to be very hard to produce that standard. The best option in that scenario, I would say, if somebody doesn't really enjoy writing and they're not very good at it, but they do have an idea that they believe in, let's say they've tested it. And I have some thoughts I can share on how to go about testing. But maybe then it would even be smarter to work with a ghostwriter and make sure that they understand all of your ideas. But if you're going to do the writing, I would recommend only doing it if you generally enjoy it. Just like working out. Most of us, if we have our programming set up correctly,

we enjoy working out generally. We don't enjoy every workout. We always enjoy having worked out. That's a good sign. In writing, it's the same thing. You got to get to a place where you generally enjoy the process. It's not always fun and sometimes it's frustrating. And it always takes longer than you want it to. Yes, those are just table stakes. But generally, and I think that you're probably the same way, I enjoy reading, I enjoy writing, I enjoy thinking, I enjoy figuring out how to communicate things. I like it. And that's why I did it in the first place. A friend of mine I was working out with at the time. So I had gotten pretty lean at the time and I looked pretty good. And a friend of mine was like, dude, you should just go on YouTube

and take your shirt off and sell stuff. And that was so uninteresting to me. But writing a book was interesting to me. The smarter business move and marketing move though, would have been to just take my shirt off on youtube and sell stuff if i would have went that direction maybe i would have a huge youtube channel millions of subscribers but i didn't want to because i just wasn't interested in that and i was interested in writing and so that's when you probably would have alienated your current audience as well had you done that as well because if you sometimes i get asked that about um writing in academia because it's kind of a bit of a thankless festival a lot of the time particularly

when you're publishing journals is that the people that you're actually aiming at your target audience don't usually read the journals themselves but um as you've just alluded to there sometimes if you go down sort of the easier path of you know of making clickbait, user-friendly content, then it doesn't really give you anywhere to go in the long term. Yep. I mean, again, it comes back to clarifying the goal. What is my actual goal? And it's important to be very clear with that. So if the goal is to just make money, to be very mercenary and ethics be damned and churn and burn business, then that would take you in one direction. But if the goal is to create good content, to help people understand how to get into better

shape... And yeah, most people don't read books. Statistically speaking, the average person reads zero books a year. So by writing books and continuing to put time into writing books, I am targeting a specific segment of people. But there are very good reasons, I think, for targeting that segment of people. And so there's an overlap there between a business case and my own personal interests. But anyway, coming back to the question. So you don't have to... If you want to, let's say, build a following, build a business from that, you don't have to write. I do think that you don't even have to do any sort of content marketing per se. Now, that's something that I have chosen to do a lot of and a lot of Legion's success is from content marketing, my content marketing, Legion's content

marketing. I like it for a lot of reasons. It is not the only way to build a business though, of course. There are plenty of businesses that produce no content whatsoever, but they do very well on the paid advertising side of things, for example, or they do very well on the paid advertising side of things, for example, or they do very well with influencer marketing, for example. However, I really like content marketing, first and foremost, because of what I said is it's a way to really help people, especially in fitness. Take supplements, take Legion. You don't need any supplements to get into great shape, to be healthy. And so one of the things I like about Legion is

I stand behind our formulations. I think that we produce high quality products that are backed by a lot of high quality evidence. I think we promote them in an honest way and don't oversell them. But what is cool about Legion is it brings a lot of people in who are looking for quick fixes, looking for the miracle pill powder potion, and then gets them into learning what they actually need to know. Gets them into learning how to eat, how to exercise, gets them to understand that supplements aren't as important as a lot of these other companies have told them they are. And so I do think it's... I really like content marketing, but it doesn't have to be written. So for people who want to have the desire to help people in that way and to communicate and to teach,

again, I think those are important qualities to have to be able to succeed in any form of content marketing. But if somebody has that desire, I think that they should choose what is most appealing to them. Some people I know, very successful content marketers who don't particularly like to write, they like doing podcasts. That's what they like. And take Mind Pump, right? Very popular podcast, cool guys. Sal likes to write, but the other guys don't like to write. They like to have conversations. And even Sal mostly likes to have conversations. And they do very well with that. Take YouTube, for example. You can have highly scripted YouTube

content and that obviously requires writing. But there are plenty of examples of people out there who don't script out... Maybe they put together some bullet points and they organize their thoughts, but they like to speak and they like to be on camera. And for me personally, I don't particularly like being on camera. I'm ambivalent about it. I think YouTube is a great platform and there are a lot of arguments to be made for why I should be producing more content on YouTube. But I don't particularly like it. I much more prefer working on the next book, working on articles, working on podcasts. And so that's what I focus on. And so I don't think it's necessary to write per se. However, if you do like to write and you can become competent at writing, I think there are some big advantages to that.

But I'll stop there. So I don't want to take up too much time. No, that's really an interesting point. So I guess to boil it down, it's play to your strengths and what you enjoy doing and don't feel like you have to communicate for a certain medium just because everyone else is and there's a certain um expectation whether that's perceived or real is um just do what you kind of feel your strengths are yeah or even just maybe you don't know what your strengths are yet but then okay where are your curiosities? Where are you just drawn toward?

And it's just because of the creative nature of content creation. Marketing is like this as well. It's very hard to be good at it if you don't like a lot of what you're doing. Again, you're never going to like every moment and every detail, but it's very hard to be a good creative thinker when you're just bored and you're having to push yourself every step of the way and you don't feel drawn into it at all. For sure. Yeah, I can relate to that. As someone that's obviously, I've studied sports science and worked in it for quite a long time. And there were a few trainers

early in my career I worked with and they would say to me, look, we really enjoy training, Paul, but we don't want to be bored by it when we're going into all the stuff about the science. So, yeah. And I think you're right.

That probably comes out, you know, if you try and force it and communicate in a way that's maybe not your kind of style or you're not really that into the science of training, then what you end up doing is just regurgitating other people's content. And things like Instagram and Twitter, it becomes quite obvious that you're doing that. But anyway, we'll come on to the next question, which is from Claudia. It's a little bit different one, actually. It's more from the business side, I suppose, and the work side. So Claudia asks, what time management strategy do you use to manage all the projects you're involved with?

Yeah, that's a good question. I've tried different things over the years. And I like a basic time-blocking strategy where I block out periods of time and do certain types of work during those periods of time. And sometimes things have to change, obviously, just because of emergencies or whatever. But generally speaking, for example, I'm the kind of person that I have the most energy, the most, I guess you could say, motivation. I do my best, I think, thinking and writing earlier in the day. Some people are different and the morning is kind of a fog and then they start to perk up later. But I just have noticed that over the years, trying to do that work and doing that work at different times of the day.

have noticed that over the years, trying to do that work and doing that work at different times of the day. So my mornings are generally... So I do some cardio in the morning. I do 30 minutes, which also I find helps just even further wake me up and stimulate me. And then I'll do whatever is my most important creative work that needs to be done that day. I do that in the morning. important creative work that needs to be done that day, I do that in the morning. And so currently, I'm working on another book. So I'll work on the manuscript, put some time into that. And then I also will usually do some podcast work if I have some monologues that I need to record. Interviews are usually in the afternoon. That's okay because a good interviewer mostly just shuts up. So that's just, I don't need... And again, I feel fine in the afternoon,

but I find that when I have to actually be the speaker and talk for 30 minutes on something or go through a Q&A or something like that, I just find that I'm a little bit sharper and a little bit maybe more articulate and fluent earlier in the day. And so I do that work then. Then around 12 to 1, I go and do my weightlifting for about an hour and then come back. And I always have... Well, most days, I either have an interview, something like this. And I always try to push those into the afternoon for the reason that I just gave.

And I also am always involved in at least one or two specific Legion projects, marketing projects in particular. So there's routine stuff, meetings and decisions that need to be made. Again, I'll usually try to schedule those in the afternoon. be made. Again, I'll usually try to schedule those in the afternoon. And if I don't have that going, then I'm going to take my one or two marketing projects that I try to take a commando mindset, where in the past, my inclination was to actually just take on too much. And there was a point when I was working seven days a week. I would take maybe Friday evenings off, but otherwise I'd be working after dinner on weeknights. I would work

probably six hours on Saturday and four to six hours on Sunday, sometimes a little bit more consistently. There were exceptions, but that was the rule. And I would just take on as much as I possibly could cram into everything. And that was fine. And that maybe it wasn't entirely necessary, but it did help accelerate things. Was that still blocked out? Yeah. Would you still block that out as you're doing now?

Just more stuff, right? So like, for example, there was a time when I had four to five hours of email every day because I would get flooded with questions. I mean, it was cool because I still get a lot of email. I still put time into it every day, but I was really encouraging people in my books and I was like, email me if you have any questions, right? Because at the time I didn't have as many things that I needed to put my time into. And that's a great, It's one of those great things.

That's actually a great tip that doesn't scale. And so many people aren't willing to do it. Like actually put... I mean, I would... Again, I became a Gmail wizard shortcuts. But I was answering hundreds of people's questions every day via email. This was before I was really active on social media. And that generated a lot of goodwill and also word of mouth because even now, that's kind of rare to reach out to anyone with any sort of following of any kind and get a real answer

that's good. Or an answer at all. Or an answer at all. And so I was very diligent about that. And so exactly, I still would approach that from a time blocking standpoint. And so anyways, so in my afternoons, I have one or two marketing projects that I think are a good use of my time that have a high potential impact. I try to avoid stuff that might be a good idea, but even if it goes well, won't really move the needle that much. That's the kind of stuff that I would rather delegate to other people only because I only have so much time. It's not that I think I'm too good for it or anything. But so I work in the afternoon on that. And then as we get a little bit later in the day, I take time. So I should have mentioned

when I'm doing cardio in the morning, I'm doing one or two things. I'm either doing a phone call that I have to do, like a work call, for example, or maybe a personal call just to stay in touch with people. Or I'm reading and I read on my phone. I use the Kindle app. And so I have this bike back here. So I'm just on this bike. And I'm doing maybe like 5, 6 out of 10 in terms of intensity. So I'm breathing, but I can still have a conversation. You would hear me breathing, but I'm not gasping. I'm not doing high intensity stuff. And so I like to multitask that time just because it's... I'm going to take time reading anyway. I have to do this call anyway.

I might as well do it on the bike. Fast forward to later in the day now as we approach dinner, then I have another period of 30 or 45 minutes where I read. It's like a thing in my schedule. And I used to do that in the morning. But again, I found that I do my most productive, my highest and best use of my time, at least that I can come up with currently. I do that work best in the morning. So I really don't want to take time away from it. And the reason I shifted my cardio to that time is I actually find I do it even a little bit better after I've done 30 minutes of exercise. And so I'm really trying to optimize that morning to get the best work out of... Because as you and anybody who does

creative work knows, it's not just about quantity. It also... Quality matters. And when you're in the right state of mind, that quality can be so much better and save you time on, let's say, writing a shitty first draft that you know is shitty, but that's fine. And then it takes 4 revisions to get it to the right place. If you're in a different state of mind, or if that quality is better, it might only take two drafts to get it into the same place. And so we fast forward to later in the day, I have another set period of time that I read. I read on a genre rotation. I won't waste time going into it. But I'm pretty systematic about what I study because there are a number of things for my work and my personal that I want to make

sure I'm covering. And then after that, I put some time into email. I save that now the email just because it's mindless. I don't need to be... I can be drained and get through my email just fine. And I don't want to waste energy earlier in the day. I will check my inbox a couple of times just to see if there's anything that... Because for example, I'm getting ready to build a house and the bank is sending me stuff and some of it's timely. So there's always something I need to pay attention to, but I'm not actually engaging in my inbox until later in the day, usually. And then I have dinner. And then after dinner, I do usually one of two things. One is pulling notes and highlights out from the books that I read. That's one of the reasons why

I read digitally. It makes that very easy to do. Do you use a particular app for that or is that just on the Kindle? Yeah, so what I do is... So I use... It's called... It's Amazon's... It's like Kindle Notebook, I think they call it. So in your browser, you can go to a book that you've read

and it'll show all of your highlights and all of your notes. And so I'm copying and pasting them. I'm rereading them, which is nice to go through again. And then I'm bringing them over into a single Google Doc. And then what I do is I choose my key takeaways from all of those highlights. And then, so that's like a short list of ideas I really liked in read, and you can drop that as a comment for the context. And then I'm bolding the key takeaways that are like the key, key takeaways. And so I do that with books and then also articles.

I mostly read books, but also with articles, I use Instapaper, which is... Pocket is fine as well, but same kind of concept, right? Bringing ideas out. And then I will alternate that with the, I don't know if you're familiar with the Zettelkasten method of note-taking. So there's a book called How to Take Smart Notes that I'd recommend for anybody who reads a lot and takes notes and wants to think deeply about things. and takes notes and wants to think deeply about things. And so I use that system. I use it for certain topics that, again, I want to go deep in and I really want to think in an interconnected fashion about and want to essentially build out a second mind that I can manipulate.

And anybody who has done a lot of studying has run into the... I mean, I'm sure it's a little bit... It's almost like a little bit disconcerting when you realize how much of the material you're forgetting. No matter how diligently you study, no matter how many highlights you make, no matter how many notes you make, there's so much stuff that is just gone a year later. And so that Zettelkast method was a solution for me, at least, to take things like some health

and fitness stuff, obviously, and marketing and persuasion, something that I do every day. I want to get better and better at writing. I have a lot of writing material in there. And so that is... It's very time consuming. So again, I use it selectively and my bias is toward application. My bias is toward... At least currently, if I didn't have to... If I had hours and hours a day to just sit around and think about things, I would probably expand it to include some stuff that's just for fun. But currently, it's stuff that I use and I want to do something with.

And so that I will save also for later in the day, even though it probably... I would do a little bit better work if it were earlier in the day, because it actually does require thinking. Um, but I find that it's a reasonable compromise for now. I think that's, um, really interesting, particularly for the people that are still studying, um, on this, um, webinar, uh, the students, um, that those sort of tips. I would highly recommend checking it out. Yeah, note-taking and also what you said there about the amount of stuff we forget. And I think that's where, for me, Kindles are quite useful because it stays on your tablet and often I will reread a book.

Whereas, I don't know, in a hard copy format, you kind of put it on the shelf or you get rid of it. You never revisit it. And I think that's quite important, particularly with books on personal development, is that it's very easy to read through a book and you can get some great tips. But as you said there, if you don't really action it, then it just becomes more of a leisure pursuit

than something that's actually given you results and is useful. Yeah. That's one of the reasons why I like pulling all of the highlights and notes out into a single Google Doc is because in my experience, most books are not worth rereading in their entirety. And so then you can just go... I mean, I'll do this where it depends on why, but I'll pull up my Google Doc on whatever book and just go back through what were the key takeaways,

maybe even go back even into some of the highlights. And is it... Maybe in some cases, rereading the book would be a bit better. But I think often, you're now into the realm of diminishing returns. That the extra time that it takes is not worth the marginal improvement in utility versus just reviewing, oh yeah, these were the big ideas in the book and these were my thoughts. And now I have different circumstances. So I maybe have new thoughts now, but at least if we were to distill this book down into one article with the biggest ideas, here it is. For sure. And I think I know the answers, but you said for a lot of people listening, that would sound pretty exhausting and

quite regimented. Do you ever procrastinate? Yes. I wouldn't say it's a problem that I generally have, but I do understand. I do feel the internal friction where I feel it is with stuff that I just don't want to do, right? Have you got any hacks to get around that? Because this is something I think is something everyone suffers with, you know, no matter how passionate they are. Is there anything you do to kind of overcome that procrastination? Is there anything you do to kind of overcome that procrastination?

Yeah. Yeah. So what has worked best for me is pretty mundane. It's just do it. Just get it done first thing. And so there are podcasts where I don't care. I don't really want to record this podcast. Let's say it's a monologue on something that is not interesting to me anymore because I've already gone through it. I've already written about it. And I would rather move

on to something else. But I got to do the podcast. And so something as simple again as making sure that I get that done. Maybe I'll even do it before I write. I'll just get that done first thing. It just... It makes, it gets it done. And also it sets me up to just enjoy my day more as opposed to putting it off where it's like kind of just lurking, you know, and I know, I know that I have to do it. It ruins the rest of your day, doesn't it? Exactly. Exactly.

But the other way around it, when it's done again, it's like slogging through a bad workout. We all have to do that now and then. But then when it's done, we still feel good. We're still like, hey, I'm glad I got that done. And so I also remind myself that that is how it goes. No matter how much resistance I might be feeling, once it's done, I'm going to be glad that it's done. And then I can move on to something that's more interesting. And then also the 10-minute rule. Again, it's cliche, but it works. It works for me, at least. And for people not familiar, it's just... Tell yourself that you'll do it for 10 minutes. Just commit to 10 minutes of whatever it is. And you'll probably find that after 10 minutes, you're like, Yeah, what's another 10 minutes?

I find that really, really useful. And that's one thing I used to say to clients is that when they were unsure if they wanted to train, I'd say to think about it during your warm-up. And if you do your warm-up and you don't want to do it, then quit. Go home. But 99

times out of 100, they would stay on and do it. And that's something I apply myself just to get on with it. Yeah, I mean, it seems kind of silly, but it works. So who cares? That's my opinion. Quickly, before we move on to the next question, when just the audience time blocking,

do you use like a calendar to do that? So you'll put in blocks of time on your calendar as opposed to a to-do list? Yeah, good question. So I have done that, but I found that it's not necessary. So what I've done is I've just worked out a daily template for myself for my weekdays. And I have a different template for my weekends. And I still work on the weekends. It's just a bit less. It's maybe two to four hours on average. And so I found that I don't really need to deviate much from that just because of, I guess, how my world is set up and where every day is the same.

And so if I were to add time blocks to my calendar, it would just look like the same thing over and over. So what I use my calendar for is just anything like this, anything that I need to do at a certain day at a certain time, I put it in my calendar. I never try to remember any appointments of any kind. It goes in my calendar and I look at my calendar first thing in the morning. It's just part of my... It's just so I know exactly what I'm doing that day. And then I move that. I use Notion to manage my tasks of like, here's what I'm doing today. Here's what's in progress. Here's what I have this week. Here's what I have next. And I have a column for calls just because I look at my Notion several

times per day because I get something done, move it. Okay, what am I doing next? And just to make sure I don't forget that I have something like this or whatever, because I've made that mistake before where I'll get into work and then lose track of time and be late for things. It's embarrassing. So that's how I track that. And also one other thing worth mentioning, just speaking about not wanting to remember things, I use Google Keep for dumping any random ideas that I have that I think are worth saving, even if they're just mildly interesting. I mean, stuff like...

Oh, I think I want to tweet that out and just see what people think about that idea. Like stuff like that. Is that an app? Yeah, it's just... I mean, I'm sure there are better out there. It's just a free, simple app that you just throw stuff in. And then I process that a couple of times per week. I have that in my template of...

I have my daily... These are the big things I want to make sure I get. I want to make sure I get my creative work done. I want to make sure I put some time into Legion projects, blah, blah, blah. And then I have my weekly of... I want to make sure I get certain things done every week. And one of them is a couple of times I process everything that I've dumped into my Google Keep. And the point of doing that is I don't want to waste any mental energy trying to remember things that are just one-off appointments or little interesting ideas. And so also what I like about Google Keep is you can take screenshots on your phone and then add notes and save it in there. So if I come across an email

that I like, a marketing email, I know that's kind of clever. I want to maybe do my own version of that. Save it to Google Keep. And then I don't have to even think about it anymore. And I know it's there, which then frees up attention to focus on work and other things. Cool. For people in the audience, I'm noting down as many of these apps and books that Mike's recommending. So I'll send those out afterwards to you all. I should also mention for the Zettelcast and for people who read that, how to take smart notes and like it. I personally like the Obsidian app. I'm just throwing it out there. I know Rome is popular as well. You have to pay every month for it, but I use Obsidian for what

it's worth. Cool. Thank you very much. It's all really useful and up-to-date. 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. The next question I'm going to ask, I'm going to come on to Sam's because Sam actually was that eager to ask this. He joined the webinar a day early. I got a message yesterday saying,

where is everyone? And he was on the wrong day. So this is from Sam, hopefully he's with us. What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur? That's actually a good question because if I rewind to I was 17, 18, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I figured I probably would become an entrepreneur. But at the time, my idea of an entrepreneur was just someone who sells widgets for a profit. And that sounded so uninspiring to me. The idea of making money, making a lot of money, wasn't nearly stimulating enough for me to get excited about that. Like, yeah, I can't wait to just figure out how to make crap that people will buy at a good margin. You know what I mean?

And now that I've had some success in business, I have more appreciation for the art and science of building a business. And I have more appreciation for the positive impact that businesses can have in people's lives. Of course, depending on what they're selling and how they're going about it and blah, blah, blah. But I was not necessarily inclined toward entrepreneurship just as a thing. The idea of working... A lot of what I see, some of the appeal, the idea of making a bunch of money and just working for yourself and calling yourself a founder, an entrepreneur.

I just didn't really care about that stuff. I wanted something that I really... Would you say that's become more prevalent now over the last five years or so than when you first started out, Mike, in terms of that whole hustle culture and do-it-yourself type thing? Yeah, I'm sure it has. I didn't personally participate in social media really until it became a thing for work. I remember having a MySpace. I remember that.

That was just for friends and just saying stupid stuff online. And maybe I had a MySpace. I remember that. But that was just for friends and just saying stupid stuff online. And maybe I had a Facebook. Same thing. I didn't really pay attention to it much though. But I'm sure. I'm sure as social media has become more popular, I would guess if we were to poke around online and even just probably like Google Trends, doing a couple searches, we would see that that's the case. a couple searches, we would see that that's the case. And I actually don't think that it's a smart... I don't think that just the desire to, again, be a hustle and grind and make money and show off stuff and call yourself an entrepreneur, that's not a good reason to go down that path. And I don't think it bodes well. What is much more important is wanting to solve problems,

help people solve problems. That's where it starts. People have problems and you can help them. Or in some cases, maybe it's people they want... Why does a woman buy a $5,000 purse? It's not to solve a problem, a lot of businesses, of course, what they do is they solve problems for people. And so starting with that mentality and also considering not just... They aren't just customers, but maybe taking the perspective of these are clients. These are people who you want to treat as friends and you want to take... You want to act in their best interests over your own. So that's just... I think that that is the correct mentality to have when getting into business and looking for an opportunity where you can help solve problems. And you can show people, again,

in their own interests as a trusted advisor and friend, how they can experience better, whatever it is that we're talking about. And so that's more what drew me into the work that I do. I mean, like I've said, I do enjoy writing for its own sake. I enjoy researching for its own sake. But it is also particularly rewarding that my work has made a real difference. It has really solved important problems or helped people solve important problems. solve important problems. And so that's why I moved in that direction. And in terms of what do I enjoy the most about it, what I find most satisfying is really what I found most satisfying in the beginning. I still enjoy researching. I still enjoy writing. And I still enjoy seeing the effect that my work... And it's not just me. There's like 60 plus of us.

I can't take all the credit. But to see the actual impact in people's lives. And I know it sounds almost like that's what I'm supposed to say, but it really is the truth. I have friends who are very successful, more successful than I am, who are not bad people, but they love making money. They just fucking love it. I have one friend, all in his net worth is, I don't know, $700 million, $800 million. And he loves making money. He doesn't work in the fitness industry. No, he does not. He loves making money though. He loves it.

What's another $10 million to this guy? It really doesn't matter, but he loves it. He gets so excited about building his business and making more money. And he's not a bad guy. He doesn't do it unethically. It's just... That's how he's wired. And I'm just not wired that way and so for me what's more exciting

really is is it's more about the impact uh that that i can have and that legion can even have like i mentioned earlier where we kind of lure people in with they have these certain expectations of what supplements are and then uh educate them into a new way of thinking and you know eating and exercising and so forth sure i think you're pretty much the only supplement company that um this kind of tagline is you don't need supplements or that's what i often hear you say on your podcast is that and i think that's quite um disarming to a lot of people because in the particularly in the supplement market i don't want to go off on a tangent too much but you know there's this sort of the market is if like you need this and this will solve your problems and make your health or etc but i think um someone

like yourself who owns a supplement company is to be that honest with your client base and say let me supplements but they can help you if used appropriately. Was that deliberate in any way to be different? Or is that just sort of general philosophy that you were passionate about coming through from the onset? Yeah, that's a good question. So I would say that that is me, coming back to even what I was saying of acting in other people's best interests. I think that that is an example of that because that's the truth. And a lot of the marketing puffery, a lot of the sales jargon and nonsense in the supplement industry is not true. And somebody like me knows that. Somebody like you knows that. A lot of people listening probably know that. But many laymen, many consumers don't

know that. Especially, I remember I was once that person who would go to GNC and ask the guy, what should I be taking? And then I'd leave with $400. I mean, we've all been there, right? Massive pub city. Yeah. And remember in the back, the stuff under lock and key? Yeah. Yeah.

The Gorilla Test 2000 and all that shit, right? And it's just like tribulus terrestris and sawdust, who knows? And so that's an example of, I think, of exhibiting that. marketing. And so somebody cynical could say, yeah, right, Mike, you just know that it's good marketing. You know that when you admit a flaw, people are instinctively inclined to trust you. It's just human psychology, right? And yes, that's true. That is true. And I know that. And yes, I've read that in a number of books and it works. That's correct. But that doesn't mean that it's wrong to do it if it is being done honestly. And this is an example of it being done honestly. And that message, it resonates with a lot of, at least a lot of my target audience. There are some people it doesn't resonate with. And for example, there are a lot of people who are just getting started.

And they're unsophisticated as a consumer. Not stupid, just unsophisticated. We were all unsophisticated at one point. And they hear me say, supplements are not that important. You don't need them. The right ones can help if you use them correctly, but you really want to know how to do this other stuff first. And then they hear somebody else, some guy on YouTube, maybe some good looking ripped guy on YouTube. What's his name? V Shred, named V Shred. They see him saying, hey, look at me and take this pill and you're going to lose 20 pounds in 30 days. It's that easy, really. And whatever the rest of the pitch is, but that's the pitch. And even somebody who's unsophisticated, and let's say they're not stupid they might be skeptical and go really i don't know but whatever who cares it's 50 bucks and maybe this maybe this be just maybe right and exactly exactly Exactly. And so those are lessons that people just have to learn.

And we've all had to learn those lessons the hard way, so to speak. But what's nice is once those unsophisticated, let's say they're at the lowest level of sophistication when they start out, okay, they try his, they try one or two others, and then they go, all right, I'm done with the quick fixes. And then now all that type of messaging turns them off and maybe they remember me or they come across me again. And now my messaging appeals to them because they've had some experience and they've moved to a higher level of sophistication as a consumer. And so, yes, to answer your question directly,

that messaging is very deliberate and it has even been tested. I know that messaging wins out versus many other types of messaging that we've tried. But I think that the primary, the two biggest reasons why are, yes, it is a good admission of a flaw, so to speak, but it's also true. And it speaks to a truth that many people, maybe they don't know it yet, but they instinctively, they've come, they've started to come to that conclusion. And so then when somebody says it, also somebody, a supplement company is saying it, it gets people to pay attention. And in marketing, so to get somebody to the ultimate yes of saying, yes, I will buy, they need to go through a series of micro yeses, so to speak. And that first one starts with, yes, I will pay attention.

And there's so much noise out there. It's hard to get people just to pay attention. And there's so much noise out there, it's hard to get people just to pay attention. And from, yes, I will pay attention, it's, yes, I will engage. I'll engage deeper with this. I will start to have a conversation, so to speak, with, in this case, I mean, it's literally me who wrote the copy. So that's one of those things that it grabs people's attention, and it makes a certain percentage of people inclined to engage further. And I guess it's the same audience potentially that will be listening to your podcast because someone like myself and people of the quote-unquote evidence-based community know about supplements and they have their place but they're not a fix-all. They would listen to that and that's exactly what caught my eye. That's really refreshing to hear someone say that um about supplements and i guess we would call it um in today's day and age being being authentic but yeah i avoided the word because it's such a buzz word yes it's correct yeah i saw i think it was a workshop advertised um maybe on Instagram or somewhere, of an authenticity workshop.

And I just put the ironies up because I'm kind of completely lost on these people having to go to a workshop to learn how to be authentic. It's quite funny. But thanks for that. I've got a couple of questions that have come in. And I know we're at time now. That's really flying by is okay if i just put one of these to you yeah yeah sure no problem cool um so vanetta said sorry for the late question um how do you place a monetary value on your servicing when establishing a business

without prior paid advice nutrition planning how do you position yourself competitively without undervaluing yourself and i think this is a common problem a lot of people starting out have not been raised to the bottom yeah yeah and and is this question i mean if if we if i could just pose a follow-up is this specifically like in the context of training or just in business in general i just want to make sure I get... From the wording, I'm guessing it's a nutrition student or someone that's starting out providing the sort of nutrition advice of a consultant.

I'll speak generally because I think what I can say on this would apply really to any commercial activity. So low price is a strategy. It is, right? I mean, if we look at in the world of physical products, that's the strategy of Costco and Walmart and similar big box retailers. And if you look in any space, like look at supplements, I think of Body Fortress Protein. That is there to use a marketing buzzword like a unique selling proposition or their value proposition, which is really just... What's the answer to the question? Okay, if I am your ideal consumer, why should I buy your product versus your competitors' products?

In the case of something like Body Fortress, they would say because we're the cheapest or one of the cheapest or whatever. And that actually is a valid business strategy. It's just a difficult strategy to execute. It's not a strategy that I personally would... I don't think I would look to pursue it in any business because the margins are very slim. The capital requirements are very large. it in any business because the margins are very slim, the capital requirements are very large, you have no customer loyalty, customer lifetime value is low, and it really is a quantity game. Do you think that's more problematic in a service industry like consulting, where if you start too low, then people might think, oh, the actual standard of the advice I'm going to get is going to be poor. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's a great point in that there is certainly a perceived value in cost as well. And so this is where you'd want to know who you are trying to sell to and why.

So in the case of Body Fortress Protein, I think they sell in Walmart, for example. And that's worked out where they're selling to people who don't have very much money to spend on supplements. And so that is what is most important to them is the price. Now, if we're talking about a service, yes. If you charge too little for a service, it's perceived as less valuable. If you're trying to charge too much, too little for a service, it's perceived as less valuable. If you're trying to charge too much, then the total cost outweighs the perceived benefit. And so my inclination in business and what I've done with Legion is I wanted to make a premium product really first and foremost, because I myself personally wanted to take premium products.

And that meant that the products were going to wanted to take premium products. And that meant that the products were going to cost a lot to produce, and I was going to have to be able to sell them at a premium. I didn't want to price... I didn't want to be so much more expensive than my, let's say, second most expensive option in a space. But I knew that I needed to justify a top tier, like to be one of the most expensive products in every category. And so that I think is a... I just find it a more appealing business strategy. You can create better products. You generally are going to have less annoying customers. And that might sound bad, but it's just a fact of business that if you're dealing with, let's say, more of a commodity, and it's all about low price,

and I've spoken to a lot of people in business, you're going to get a lot more complaints and there are going to be more headaches than if you're selling to people who have a bit more money to spend on stuff. And it just is a point of psychology, I suppose. That's interesting you say that because one of the services, like my previous lab that I worked at, we would sell sports science services. So clients come in, they pay for a fitness test or body composition analysis, whatever it is. And I would find that with people that initially might sort of haggle at the

price at the start, tended to ask a lot more questions after the assessment and want a lot more follow-up than people that didn't even ask how much the test was. They kind of, you'd never see them again. And what's going on there? Is that a common phenomenon? We've seen it a lot. So we have a coaching business as well that does fairly well. We do a few hundred thousand dollars a month in revenue. We've worked with thousands of people and we have seen that consistently where just that point of the more the bargaining and the more of the more difficult somebody is in the outset, the more difficult they generally

are as a client. And whereas people who are just kind of... They go with the flow. They understand the process. They don't have any major complaints. Sure, they have questions. But once it makes sense to them, they just do it. They tend to just be smooth clients. And a lot of our clients will stay with us, even though part of the pitch is, we want to make you self-sufficient. But we actually... It's in the copy. We want you to fire us after three months. And that's copywriting, but it's true, actually. We want people after three months or so of coaching to at least feel like they could just go off on their own. Many people choose to continue, copywriting, but it's true, actually. We want people after three months or so of coaching to at least feel like they could just go off on their own. Many people choose to continue though,

because they like the service. But yeah, I mean, there are... I think it's Selling the Invisible is a good classic book on selling services. And what we're talking about here is talked about in that book and elsewhere. So it just is something to understand that if you... Generally speaking, if you target higher segments of a market in terms of product quality, product price, and so now you're going after people who... In the case of Legion, what it really means is... And I know this. I have this data. So my best customers generally are quite a bit more educated than the average person. So we have a lot of college degrees, a lot of advanced degrees. They make quite a bit more money than the average person.

So household income of $100K plus is overrepresented. And I guess those are kind of the two main points for just this point here, right? And so we've just found that those people, again, they just tend to make better customers. And I don't want to say they're better people because I don't think that's fair, but I'm just speaking in a business context. They tend to make better customers than people who maybe are on average, a lot less educated and

make a lot less money. And part of that, of course, is just the people, the latter group, the money is tighter and the problems are greater and not having enough money sucks, having financial problems sucks. And then making maybe bad financial decisions on top of having money problems, like for example, buying hundreds of dollars of supplements when you can't really afford it, and then having buyers regret. So I understand these things. And I just find, though, that we deal with maybe less of that than some of our competitors. The question is, how do you create products and services that people who, let's say, are in the former group, maybe a bit more educated than average and make more money than the average people? Also, those people tend to be pickier as well. So they're not necessarily easy to sell. So how do you create products and services that will appeal to those people?

Well, I think fundamentally, that is just a marketing question. And marketing begins with ideation. It's not just, I have a product, now it's time to market it. Marketing informs even the creation of products and services. And so really what we're talking about here is how do we create a product with enough appeal and enough exclusivity that's unique enough to warrant the high cost? And I don't want to go on and on. I don't want to take... I go off on tangents and I don't know if I'm even saying things that people want to hear anymore. But my point is that you can systematically create products and services that have enough appeal and enough exclusivity.

And those two things are very important. They almost are like multipliers in terms of, ultimately, can you get the person, again, to see that the value outweighs the cost, right? And the cost isn't just the money. It's also the time, the energy. Nobody likes to buy things that don't work out. We feel it makes us feel kind of stupid and annoyed that, you know, so there's some psychological costs

that comes into play as well. So I'll stop there. Yeah, a large part of this then from just taking what you were saying there is actually establishing what type of client you are looking to work with. And you've got your demographics there and a lot of data, which probably feeds into your future marketing. So this person starting out who asked the question probably wants to be in a position where they can almost kind of draw their their intended client base and help them sell to that that it's very important specificity specificity sells rather than just sort of a

blanket approach that's a more targeted approach which as you say it might alienate a group of people but equally it will resonate more with with the people that you want to work with maybe that i mean if they're going for sort of i'm guessing it's nutrition uh advice in this this context they're probably going to have to be thinking of being health conscious or already health conscious and they just want that advice um but they maybe don't want to pay a premium so you just got to get an idea of what that person looks like. Would that be the way of starting for this person? Yes. Yes. It's very important. So specificity sells in marketing specific claims and speaking

specifically to certain people and to people who you understand, who you understand the psychology of. You understand what it's like to be in their shoes. You understand what they are drawn toward. You understand what they are repulsed by, what pushes them away. You understand their problems, right? You understand how they talk about their problems to themselves. You understand the types of things that they've tried before, right? And so the better you can understand really who you're talking to, the better you're going to be able to sell to them, of course. And having that honesty as well is also important about who the product is for and who it's going to be beneficial for. And who it is not for. That's also a marketing... For sure.

That's like a copywriting tactic that is smart. I mean, when you see there are smart copywriters and you'll see them use it and you know what they're doing, but if it's used authentically, then it's a powerful persuasion tool that actually is helpful because no product or service is for everyone. There are always people it is not for. And when you can explicitly say, this is not for everyone, it is not for... And sometimes there's a little bit of salesmanship in there, right? It is not for... And sometimes there's a little bit of salesmanship in there, right? You wouldn't necessarily say this is not for lazy slobs who don't want to put in any work. It's in the reverse psychology.

Yeah, yeah. But depending on what you're doing... So if you're in the make money at home space, how to start a business space, that probably would be something that you would want to work. space, that probably would be something that you would want to work. Maybe not in those terms, but there are a lot of people out there who just buy product. They buy these courses and they read books, but they don't really follow through on anything and they often want refunds. And so you actually... It might be appropriate, depending on what you're selling, to say, this is not for people who don't take action. This is not for people who are looking for just get rich quick buttons. But to your point, yes. Getting very specific about who you are trying to help. And that might even mean maybe these people all have a common interest.

And that's something that you're interested in and um you know maybe it's uh i mean it really it could be it could be uh it could be related to let's say a sport it could be related to a hobby it could be related to any any type of interest that brings people together it does make your product better as well because i mean in in terms of a book i often get um people on social media message me that aren't personal trainers and they're not studying they're not students and they're just sort of interested in fitness and they ask me is this book for me and most of the time i say no that's not really how i wrote the book because if i try to to catch that audience as well it would have diluted it too

much for my actual target audience so i think being honest with you as well, it would have diluted it too much for my actual target audience. So I think being honest with you as well, because the book's pretty expensive. I don't set the prices. The publisher does. But I'd feel quite uneasy about saying, yeah, yeah, it's for you, it's for everyone, because they'd buy it and maybe be a bit baffled by it or find it a bit too arduous to read. And then, of course, then that doesn't look good on you. You lose your authenticity, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. And again, coming back to that's not acting in their best interests. You're acting in their best interest actually by telling them,

honestly, probably not for you. And I've done that many times over the years where people would email me with questions. And instead of pitching them to try to buy a book, I would just send them to a free article that I already had written that answers their question and just leave it at that. And if they have more questions and eventually some of them would find a way to a book, but people, they really appreciate that type of honesty because I don't know if I would say it's rare, maybe, but I can say in the fitness space, especially with supplements, it's kind of rare. Yeah, definitely. I can vouch for that. Mike, I've taken up more time than I intended to with this. It's gone pretty quickly and I found your responses and

your answers and advice really useful and I'm sure the audience has and we can take these points away and really be able to apply them. Thanks very much for your time. Really appreciate you taking time. I didn't get through anywhere near

the questions that came in. If you wanted, we could do a round two. I'd be happy to do it. I didn't get through anywhere near the questions that came in. If you wanted, we could do a round two. I'd be happy to do it. Oh, that would be awesome, yeah, if you'd be cool with that. Because I said there's a couple of questions that have come in on the chat and also that I received beforehand that I've not managed to get to. So, yeah, maybe we can arrange something in the future. That would be really useful.

Appreciate you giving me time. Cool. I'll contact you about that. So, yeah. I feel like I'm partially to blame because I tend to talk a lot. So, you know, maybe I should have given shorter answers and we could have gotten through more. No, no, not at all. It's better to elaborate and get in what my colleague would say the richness of the answers uh i went with a few

sociologists and they they really like long extended uh answers so no i found that really useful and as i said i've taken notes myself and um for people uh on the call i will um send you the the articles and the apps and things that Mike's mentioned, and I'll be in touch about the second part we do. So thanks very much for your time, Mike. I don't know what time you're on over there. It's 2.45, yeah. Okay, quarter to 2.08 here.

It's still pretty hot. Yeah, I'm in Florida, so it's the same kind of like, you know, 8, 9 p.m. It's still hot and the sun is just going down. You have air conditioning over there, though. Actually, yeah, that's... Yeah, UK Europe is not...

Yeah, it's brutal. But anyway, taking up enough of your time. Thanks so much, Mike. Really appreciate that. Most big thing. 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.