Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Motivation Monday: 3 Powerful Ways Working Out Makes You Better at Life

Episode Date: June 4, 2018

This episode is part of a weekly series that I have dubbed “Motivation Monday.” (Yes, I know, very creative of me. What can I say, I’m a genius…) Seriously though, the idea here is simple: Every Monday morning, I’m going to post a short and punchy episode that I hope gets you fired up to tackle the workouts, work, and everything else that you have planned for the week ahead. As we all know, it’s one thing to know what you want to do, but it’s something else altogether to actually make yourself do it, and I hope that this series gives you a jolt of inspiration, energy, and encouragement to get at it. So, if you like what you hear, then make sure to check back every Monday morning for the latest and greatest installment. Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

This episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my hugely popular and 100% natural pre-workout supplement, Pulse. It has sold over 250,000 bottles in the last several years, and it increases energy, improves mood, sharpens mental focus, increases strength and endurance, and reduces fatigue without the unwanted side effects that you probably experience with many other pre-workouts or the dreaded post-workout crash.

It's also naturally sweetened and flavored and contains no artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk. And all of that is why Pulse has over 3,100 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average and another 500 plus reviews on my website also with a four and a half star average. So if you want to feel focused, tireless, and powerful in your workouts, and if you want to say goodbye to the pre-workout jitters, upset stomachs, and crashes for good, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of pulse today and if you're not sure which flavor to get i highly recommend blue raspberry it's my personal favorite and just to show how much i appreciate my podcast peeps

use the coupon code podcast at checkout and and you will save 10% on your entire order. And lastly, you should also know that I have a very simple 100% money back guarantee that works like this. You either love my stuff or you get your money back, period. You don't have to return the products. You don't have to fill out forms. You don't have to jump through any other hoops or go through any other shenanigans. So you really can't lose here. Head over to www.legionathletics.com now, place your order and see for yourself why my supplements have thousands of rave reviews

all over the internet. And if for whatever reason, they're just not for you, contact us and we will give you a full refund on the spot. All righty, that is enough shameless plugging for now at least. Let's get to the show. Well, it is Monday. I am Mike Matthews, and that means it's time for a Motivation Monday podcast. And of course, that means that we start with a quote. This week's quote is from Henry David Thoreau. And he said that the cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life, which is required to be exchanged for it immediately or in the long run. And that last point, the long run,

the bigger picture is particularly important when you are weighing decisions. How much life is that decision going to cost, not just immediately, but in the long run? Because many bad decisions don't cost very much immediately, but have a tremendous cost in the long run. And conversely, many good decisions don't accrue many benefits immediately, but accrue very, very large benefits over the long run. But that is not the topic of today's discussion. Today, I want to talk about how working out just makes you better at life. Now, nobody argues the many health benefits of working out regularly. At least nobody who's even remotely informed does. We all know that it helps ward off all kinds of disease and research has shown it's also a great way to fight depression,

improve intelligence, protect against the cognitive and physical decline that is associated with aging and so forth. But what many people don't realize is that the benefits of regular exercise and working out go far beyond those physiological and psychological things. That achieving your fitness goals can fundamentally change you as a person. That working out regularly and transforming your body can help you overcome your fears and your weaknesses and teach you a lot about how to succeed in all areas of your life. I myself do truly believe that if you can create the body of your dreams, then you probably have what it takes to create the life of your dreams as well. Now I know that sounds like a stretch, but hear me out. So the first big lesson, life lesson that working out teaches you is that there is no

way around hard work. You know, sometimes when I'm in a pessimistic, maybe cynical mood, I wonder how much of our current population would survive a thousand years ago. I wonder if I could survive a thousand years ago. would survive a thousand years ago. I wonder if I could survive a thousand years ago. You know, when you had to chase, fight, and kill to survive. When grueling physical hardship was a price we had to pay to remain at the top of the food chain. There's no doubting that the social veneer of modern living and all of its technology and all of its luxuries has made us soft. The basic necessities of survival are just a few mouse clicks away. And the problems that most of

us struggle most with in these modern times are really laughable in the scheme of things. And again, I'm speaking for myself here as well. Where are we going to go on vacation this year? What color couch should we buy? Why is Facebook going slow today? Why is Facebook down? Why did they cancel Firefly? But there is one aspect of existence that hasn't changed with time and never will. And that is the sheer amount of effort that it takes to create something worth having, to create financial success, to create recognition, to create the satisfaction of self-actualization. The crucibles of our forebears revolved around how to stay alive. Ours revolve more around how to feel alive. They're more fuzzy in nature,

more existential in nature. A thousand years ago, someone who was too lazy or too broken to go to work, to go do something productive, just starved to death. Today, he gets on welfare and gets everything he needs to survive. And yes, it's subsistence, but food, shelter, security, that's what you need to survive. But is that person really alive? I don't think so. Because that, really being alive, it takes effort. It takes focused, persistent, dedicated work toward goals to be alive, to really create anything of any value, to create a good family, to create a good family, to create a good career, to create a good social life, whatever. And I think this is the first life

lesson that working out regularly teaches us. It teaches us that the person who can confront and exert effort, large amounts of effort, sustained amounts of effort, reaps the rewards, reaps the lion's share of the rewards. And the greater the effort, the greater the rewards. Now, if you've ever squatted until your legs were jello, if you've ever done 10 sets of 10, for example, you know what I'm talking about. If you've ever skipped on sleep hangouts or precious, precious TV time to get your workouts in, you know what I'm talking about. If you've ever filled your fridge with Tupperware full of carefully weighed meals, you know what I'm talking about. Despite what the fake gurus and pill and powder pushers might say, there are no real shortcuts

in this lifestyle. You either do the work or you don't, and you either transform your body or you don't. And the rest of life really is the same, fundamentally the same. I cringe every time I see someone that I know who is hunting for shortcuts to success in business or success with women or success in networking, whatever it might be. People who are secretly obsessed with avoiding effort. They have to get more for less. They have to figure out how they can work smarter and not harder. There's got to be an easier way. All that is bullshit. I mean, I'm all for seizing opportunities, being clever, doing things that make sense, but no amount of genius allows you to escape this rule of effort. I mean, I myself think that I'm a fairly intelligent person, but I am not the smartest person out

there. I can succeed though, because I'm willing to outwork whatever I am lacking intellectually. I don't care if that means 12 hour work days, 14 hour workdays. I don't care if that means that I'm known as the boring guy that's always working. I don't care if that means that I'm working on the weekends while my friends are off goofing off. I don't care about the latest TV shows. I don't care about taking it easy. And that's primarily why I've been able to go from nothing to over a million books sold in five or six years. And also in that same time period, go from zero to eight figures in supplement sales per year over at Legion. And that's eight figures in annual revenue too. Some people will say, oh, it's an eight figure business based on some monkey math of, oh, a hundred times EBITDA or something. No, no, eight figures in

sales and do everything else that I've been able to do. For me, it's not about getting rich. It's not about trying to become famous. It's more primal than that. It's more personal than that for me. If you're a regular here at Muscle for Life, if you've been following me for a bit, you're probably on the same page. It's why we push ourselves for one more rep on that last set of deadlifts. It's why we crawl out of bed after legs day happily crippled. And it's why we go to the gym every day to more or less beat the shit out of ourselves, not to chat and take selfies. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying

this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. Twitter at Muscle for Life and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. At bottom, it's really about knowing that we are tough sons of bitches, that we are wired differently than most people, that we can't be easily destroyed. And that's all it really takes to win a lot of the competitions of life. You don't have to be the best. You don't have to be the smartest. You don't have to be the strongest, fastest, most talented. Just being the hardest to destroy is often enough to win. So the second life lesson

that working out teaches you is to learn to love the process. And we were kids, we all remember being in the car. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Sick of staring at the same rolling pastures, dreaming about arriving to Disney World. And the average person hasn't changed very much since childhood in that regard and in many regards, unfortunately, especially with my pathetic generation. I am unfortunately a millennial and growing up with millennials, I see that it really is a thing to just not grow up. Like Peter Pan syndrome is real. I know quite a few people who fundamentally have not changed since they were maybe 17 or 18. It's bizarre. They fantasize about where they might want to be, and then they very quickly grow bored with the drudgery of actually getting there.

Of course, this lesson is similar to the last one, but not exactly the same because this one relates to breaking the obsession with instant gratification, which is a hallmark of the, I think, decline and degeneration of our current culture. Because whether it's weight loss or work, success always comes slower than we want. It always is harder. It always takes more effort, more time, more money. And even when it's fast, objectively speaking, when it's fast, it's still too damn slow. And I feel that way for all the success that I've had and all the success that my team has had. We all feel like it was too slow. It should have been faster.

We could have done it better. And our businesses really should be twice as big as they currently are and would be if we only knew when we started what we know now. And if you let these types of feelings get under your skin, the feelings of restlessness, frustration, impatience, they will derail you in every endeavor. We have to know how to focus on and enjoy the process of arriving at the goal, the system that we're going to use to get to the goal. So much so that the goal is the initial spark. It's the initial motivation, but then it really just needs to take the back

seat. You really need to stop focusing on the goal and really just focus on how you're going to get there and simply make incremental progress. If you can't really come to enjoy that, or at least show up every day and do it. Even if you don't enjoy it, then you show up and you do it anyway, then goals are pretty much useless. We have to be able to disabuse ourselves of the idea that satisfaction only comes from having or having done, not doing. And this is a lesson that we can learn by working out regularly. We can learn to appreciate that process of making slow but steady improvements that in time add up to major changes, major wins. And there's something special about that state. It's almost Zen-like. When we can stop counting on miracles or quick

fixes, when we can stop weighing and measuring ourselves every day and wondering if we're there yet and just embrace the process of change. Instead, embrace the system and know that if we work the system long enough, we will get to where we want to be. We can kind of fall into a calm, confident rhythm. We can learn to confront time comfortably and learn how to think with further time horizons in mind, be able to go into something knowing that it's going to take a year, year and a half, two years, three years, even five years of consistent work and not be intimidated by that.

If we can do this, minor setbacks also lose their power over our emotions because we can learn to care a lot less about day-to-day and a lot more about the overall trends. There are going to be good days, there are going to be bad days, and that just is what it is. So long as we can keep the days trending in the right direction though, we can keep our work trending in the right direction, all is good. When you can really place your trust in the process, then progress no longer becomes a matter of hope. You don't have to live on faith in that sense.

That's how it is in the gym and that's how it is in life. So for me, the completion of a work project or even the fulfillment of a goal or ambition is kind of actually a bittersweet moment. I'm happy to have arrived, but I always find myself reminiscing about the journey almost nostalgically. There's something comforting about the process, knowing that I am spending my time going somewhere and I really stopped caring about what I've achieved once I've achieved it. And I long to start on something new to get back into that process. and I long to start on something new to get back into that process. And as a, as just a little anecdote of that, my parents had a neighbor named Phil and he had built up a computer hardware

company selling computer hardware and super successful sold it for a lot of money. He walked away with when it was all said and done 80 to a hundred million dollars. And he then invested that money well. This was in Florida. So he invested early on into a supermarket chain called Publix, which exploded. He also invested into Pods, the mobile storage company early on. And so his net worth was in the hundreds of millions of dollars. And he had done everything you could want to do when you have that kind of money. He traveled the world. He bought a plane. He had bought cars. He lived in a massive $15 million house on, I don't know, six acres of land. He one day was gardening. He had, of course, people that do this, but he was out there gardening with the people, the landscaping crew. And I asked him just out of curiosity, like, what are you doing? Why are you out here gardening? Long story short is he was bored. He said he actually missed the days of when he was building his company, working 12, 14, 16 hours a day because it was exciting and it felt like he was going somewhere and he had a purpose and he had a goal

that he was working toward. And now that that game was done, he didn't really know what to do with his time anymore because he went and had fun. And now that wasn't so much fun anymore. Anyways, it was just an interesting conversation because, you know, outside looking in, you'd think this, this is the ultimate life. This guy has the ultimate life. He's at the time he was probably 50, maybe 55 years old. He was really into fitness. So he's in very good shape. He had a family. As far as I know, he wasn't a degenerate. He wasn't having affairs. He wasn't an alcoholic. He wasn't a drug addict. He was legitimately a good dude. But for him, he was bored and he missed the days when things were a lot, quote unquote, harder because it meant more. And eventually what

he did is he just got back into business. So he got more actively involved in business and startups and started doing what he liked to do, which was build businesses. So anyway, my point here is when you are more drawn to the process of arriving than you are of having arrived, you've learned this lesson very well and your life will change for the better. So the third life lesson that working out teaches you is that you can do more than you think. Now we all have forces within us. We all have parts of us that want us to fail, that tell us we're too dumb, we're too lazy, we're too clumsy. Parts of us that genuinely resent anything creative and constructive that we want to do or that we try to do. And these forces can be incredibly persuasive and they can work tirelessly

to try to squash us. Some people call these forces resistance, right? War of art. Others simply refer to them as demons. And regardless of what you call these ethereal enemies, if you want to see how effective they are, just take a good, honest look at the people around you. And if not in your immediate circle, just in the world in general, how many people are truly confident in their abilities? How many people can calmly deal with criticism or even banter? How many people refrain from talking themselves up and others down, no matter the circumstances? I think it's very clear that many of us are suffering from varying degrees of crises of confidence. Insecurity is rampant. And these crises hold us back in every area of our

lives. They convince us that it's safer to stay small and to not even try. And if we let them, these things make cowards of us all. We tell ourselves otherwise, of course. We need to believe, most of us at least, that we're in control and that we choose to be the way that we are and that in the end we are right. But in many cases, it's really just fear, being afraid of failing, being afraid of what other people will think, being afraid of what we will think of ourselves. And when you work out regularly, you can learn to tune out those voices. Maybe they'll never go away, but you can turn the volume down and you can turn the volume up on more positive self-talk. You can learn to believe in yourself and in your ability to simply make shit happen, to decide something and then manifest it through work, not through my law of attraction,

not the, if I just dream about it enough, the universe will give it to me. No, no, no work for it. And this boost of self-confidence goes beyond the visual. It goes beyond just gaining muscle or losing fat. It goes beyond looking better. That's not the whole picture. When you start lifting weights, for example, you're a weakling. You feel like Gumby and the voices in your head might jump all over this, mock you, ridicule you. But if you just keep going, you get better. You learn to stop making excuses. You learn that you can be in control simply by stepping foot in the gym, despite any head trash that might try to stop you and doing the work. And when you do that, you sap the forces

of resistance in you of their power. This is an ability that you gain. It's something you can practice, you can train, and it's good for a lot more than just getting some pretty muscles, getting a pretty body. Half of any battle that you face in life is just showing up every day, despite how you feel. If you can do that, you are halfway there to literally anything you want to do. If you can do that, you are halfway there to literally anything you want to do. And that's what really makes a pro. The real pro doesn't wait for inspiration to get to work or wait for the right moment, the right feelings. He doesn't bargain with himself.

He just puts his ass in the chair every day like he knows he should and does work, even if it's bad work. Because if you do enough bad work, some of it will inevitably be good, or some of it can be made to be good. Like if we're talking about writing, first drafts are always shit, right, Hemingway? I agree with that. I like to think that I produce good first drafts, but they're still pretty bad. So bad work can be turned into good work. And in this way, the professional just learns to master his emotions. Now, master your emotions. That sounds a bit grandiose as if you can just create any emotion at will or turn off

any emotion at will. And that's not exactly what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is being able to create positive emotions reliably. And you can do that by simply doing creative, constructive things. You can create your emotions through your behavior. There's actually quite a bit of scientific research on this and shows that is the only way to reliably change attitudes, emotions, subjective realities is through objective behaviors. The other way around does not work. Trying to first work on the subjective to see if it can manifest objectively, that does not work.

But if you can force yourself to behave in a certain way, it's going to change the subjective reality. It's going to change your emotions. It's going to change your ideas, your thoughts, your attitudes, not right away. And that's where it's tough. In the beginning, you have that cognitive dissonance where you're thinking one way, but you're acting another way. And those are not in alignment. You're acting positively, you're thinking negatively. If you can just keep acting positively, your thinking will come around. And when you realize that, when you realize that you can create your emotions through your behaviors, and when you're confident enough to just keep taking the right actions, you create a very powerful engine for change in any area of

your life. It doesn't mean that you don't have bad days. Of course you have bad days. You're going to have days where you don't really want to put in the work. You don't really want to do anything. But so long as you have enough strength of character to keep showing up and putting in the work and doing the right actions, your feelings will change. And on the whole, if you can do this, you will have many, many more good days than bad days. And that is, at least for me, that is a pretty good place to be where I can say that 80% of my days are good. Yeah, sure. I would prefer 100% of my days to be good. I don't know if that will ever happen. Maybe. Yeah, I have no idea. I don't know exactly how to make that happen. Let's just put it that way. But I know that if I can have 80 percent good days and just muscle fuck my way through the bad days, that I

can create a life that is very worth living. And you can do the same. Maybe you'll have even more good days. Maybe you'll figure out how to go 90-10 or 95-5. Maybe not. Maybe it'll be more like 60-40, maybe even 50-50. But you can take solace in the fact that so long as you keep going, keep doing the right things that accrue long-term benefits, so long as you keep working for the sake of future you, the proportion of good to bad days will improve over time. I'm 33 now. I've been really working at the things I've been working at that you see for the last six years or so. And again, I feel I'm probably around 80, 20, maybe 70, 30. How do I get to 90, 10, 95, 5, 100%? Again, I don't think 100%, but how do I get at least into the nineties? I really think I just

need to keep going. Just keep doing what I'm doing and just know that the bad days that I have are temporary and fleeting in nature. And I'm not going to let one bad day derail me at all. I don't want one bad day to even take a week out of my journey. I'm just going to keep going because there's a good chance the next day is going to be better because I am doing things that make for better days. They may not always pay off right away, but they are investments that do pay off. And you can do the same thing. You can make those investments every day and eventually reap the rewards. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful.

And if you did and don't mind doing me a favor and wanna help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how

to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback. So please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff

that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine. Specifically, my hugely popular and 100% natural pre-workout supplement, Pulse. It has sold over 250,000 bottles in the last several years, and it increases energy, improves mood, sharpens mental focus, increases strength and endurance, and reduces fatigue without the unwanted side effects that you probably experience with many

other pre-workouts or the dreaded post-workout crash. It's also naturally sweetened and flavored and contains no artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk. And all of that is why Pulse has over 3,100 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average and another 500 plus reviews on my website, also with a four and a half star average. So if you want to feel focused, tireless, and powerful in your workouts, and if you want to say goodbye to the pre-workout jitters, upset stomachs, and crashes for good,

then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Pulse today. And if you're not sure which flavor to get, I highly recommend Blue Raspberry. It's my personal favorite. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code podcast at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order. And lastly, you should also know that I have a very simple 100% money back guarantee that works like this. You either love my stuff or you get your money back, period. You don't have to return the products. You don't have to fill out forms. You don't have to jump through any other hoops or go through any other shenanigans. So you really can't lose here. Head over to

www.legionathletics.com now, place your order and see for yourself why my supplements have thousands of rave reviews all over the internet. And if for whatever reason, they're just not for you, contact us and we will give you a full refund on the spot.