Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Motivation Monday: “Secrets” Don’t Work Unless You’ve Worked for Them

Episode Date: March 26, 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: 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 100% natural post-workout supplement Recharge. Recharge helps you gain muscle and strength faster and recover better from your workouts. And it's also naturally sweetened and flavored and it contains no artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk. All that is why it has over 700 reviews on Amazon with a 4.5 star average and another 200 on my website, also with a four and a half star average. So if you want to be able to push harder in the gym, train more frequently, and get more out of your workouts, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Recharge today. 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.lesionathletics.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. Alrighty, that is enough

shameless plugging for now at least. Let's get to the show. Hello, hello, lovely listener. Mike here back with another episode of the podcast. And it is Monday. So of course, that means it means it is a motivation Monday episode. And as usual, we will start with a quote. And this quote comes from Boris Lauer Leonardi, who was a publisher and editor and a sailing enthusiast. And he said that life is like an echo. We get from it what we put in it. And just like an echo, it often gives us much more. Now, you have a lot of people out there that want to do a lot of things. A lot of people who want to lose that belly fat. They want to pick those winning stocks or they want to pick up those winning dates. And many of those people are frantically searching for one thing.

They're searching for secrets, hacks, shortcuts, ways to get more for less. And while there's nothing wrong with trying to be efficient in your work and trying to get the most output from the least amount of input. In fact, that's something you should strive for, I think, in all areas of your life. It is a mistake to look at people that can do things that we can't, or that have things that we don't, like they're magicians, like they possess some sort of arcane wisdom, and that's what has allowed them to rise above the rest. It's a mistake to think that these people have followed a neat little set of esoteric yet teachable and easily understandable and applicable principles and methods that produce almost

infallibly outstanding results, and that if we can somehow catch a little of their lightning in our bottle, that we too can experience at least some of their success. Don't be fooled by the well-groomed image that many of these people present to the world. These people are not dandy, are not dandy, dainty show horses. These people are stubborn plow horses. These people have spent more time just working their fields than any rational person would. These people know every bump, stump, and hump by name. The yokes are almost form- form fitted to these people's leathery necks. Now, if we're talking something simple like muffin making, sure, there are a handful of little secrets, little tricks that you can learn to make good muffins. But if an activity is even remotely complex, there are just so many techniques and methods and skills and variables, and some are easily

teachable and some are not. And the only way to make sense of all of those secrets, all of those parts, is to spend a lot of time in very deliberate, mindful practice. And if you're not sure what I mean by that, go back and listen to my interview with Jeff Colvin, who wrote a book called Talent is Overrated. The real secret to really standing out in any way, whether it's your work or your body or some other area of your life is skill. And the only way to get skill is to stop looking for the special robes and crystal balls and incantations and just put on your overalls and grab one of those hammers that are lying around and get to work. Because

the truth is, if you don't want to work for them, then secrets will never work for you. Dollars to donuts, you can take that one to the bank. I believe it's almost axiomatic. So you can read books, you can read blogs, you can get tips that may supply pieces to the puzzle, but in the end, you're going to have to roll up your sleeves and you are going to have to figure out how everything fits together. And that's often a meandering, non-linear, difficult, and often discouraging process because it always involves spending a lot of time doing things that aren't really enjoyable, which then of course makes you question whether you really want this or not, makes you question why are you going through this? And that often leads back to the

hunt for, oh, there's got to be a better way. There's got to be an easier way when there almost never is. The most straightforward path toward a great anything is almost always straight through pain, straight into pain and straight through pain. Ray Dalio spoke about this quite a bit in his book Principles, which I highly recommend. And I have a few quotes, but I'll share one here where he said, remember this, the pain is all in your head. If you want to evolve, you need to go where the problems and the pain are. By confronting the pain, you will see more clearly the paradoxes and problems you face. Reflecting on them and resolving them will give you wisdom. The harder the pain and the challenge, the better. That really resonates with me and it's something I try to live by both internally and externally, I guess you could say. So in terms of

what areas of my own life or what areas of even just me and my existence are proving to be painful and how can I really face that and what can I learn from that? That'd be the internal. And then on the external, when I'm getting into something new, whether it's a hobby or a work project, I don't look immediately for shortcuts. I look immediately for what's the hard work, what's the painful work that most people don't want to do here? Of course, I want to work smart. And again, I want to be as efficient as possible. So I want to get as much output for as little input as possible. But I've learned that the most reliable route to efficiency is looking for the aspects of whatever we're talking about that are toughest and usually least enjoyable, that produce the

least amount of instant gratification. I look immediately for those things because more often than not, those are the things that if done well enough and consistently enough produce outstanding results. So for example, let's take writing, which is something that I've been working at getting better at for years now and is something I think that I have improved markedly at both by subjective and objective measures. How did I go about it? So I first went around and gathered up a bunch of advice on writing, mainly by just reading books, books from writers on how to write better, as well as books on writers and how they went about their lives and went about their careers. And then I went through that advice to look for not

little tricks or tips or techniques, but cornerstone fundamental practices that if repeated enough would increase my skill as a writer. In other words, I was looking more for first principles as opposed to principles that come from those first principles, more downstream stuff. And I found a number of things that just popped up over and over. For example, the best writers were always avid readers. And this makes sense because you do definitely learn to write better through osmosis. By just exposing yourself to good writing, your writing does improve. Another key point is writing a lot. The best writers were very consistent in their writing. They wrote every day, varying amounts of words, but they wrote consistently whether they felt like it or not

and whether they liked what they were writing or not. Very often when it came to editing, they were pretty disappointed with what they had written initially, but they can always make it better. This of course makes sense because like anything, writing is a skill and the more you practice it, the better you get at it. Now, of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that just going through motions makes you better at things. You have to be a bit more deliberate in your practice. And again, if you don't know what I'm talking about, do listen to that interview with Jeff Colvin. But what it really comes down to is intense focus and pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone and getting feedback. And those are relatively easy to engineer in pretty much any

activity, including writing. 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 MuscleForLifeFitness, Twitter at MuscleForLife,

and Facebook at MuscleForLifeFitness, Twitter at MuscleForLife, and Facebook at MuscleForLifeFitness. Another thing that I picked up that really stood out in my mind wasn't as directly obvious as these previous points, but has paid huge dividends for me, and that is vocabulary. Working on my vocabulary, mostly by just clarifying words that I don't understand in the dictionary whenever I encounter them, whether it's reading a book or watching a movie or even overhearing someone else's conversation. I am OCD about clarifying the meaning of words. And doing this can benefit you in more ways than most people realize. Most people would think of increasing vocabulary simply as a way to increase fluency, to increase your ability to express yourself articulately. But I think there's more to it.

conducted by a guy named Johnson O'Connor, who was a Harvard graduate and a pretty smart dude that studied astronomical mathematics under the famous astronomer Percival Lowell. And in the 20s, General Electric hired O'Connor to study and test their most successful employees and discover which traits these people had in common. What really made these people good at their jobs? And the company wanted to be able to test new employees or potential employees. And then, of course, based on the results, assign them to jobs that best fit them and best set them up for long-term success. Now, the research and the experimentation that he did there really sparked his curiosity and turned out to be the beginning of what would become his life's work, which was the study of human talents and learning in particular. So over the next

several decades, he worked very hard gathering data on all types of skills, skills specific to various professions, as well as more generalized cognitive and interpersonal and social abilities, and in particular, the ability to learn. He was fascinated with that process of learning. And after a tremendous amount of work, he made a very unexpected discovery. What he found is that a person's vocabulary level was the best single predictor of their success in any area that he had analyzed. In other words, an understanding of not only general language, but of words specific to the activity, and not just an understanding, a precise understanding, a correct understanding by the dictionary's standard, which is the best standard that we have,

right? That was the most important factor that separated unsuccessful people from successful people. Now, O'Connor was fascinated by this and was also skeptical. So he really dug in. He really wanted to see if it could prove out. And it did. So much so that later in his life, he concluded that the understanding of words alone was a major key to unlocking human potential. And his reasoning for this was that words are the tools with which we think and with which we grasp the thoughts and ideas of other people. And so the fewer words that we understand and the fewer words that we understand correctly, because many people think that they understand words when they don't, they could give you a definition. But if you were to compare it to a dictionary, which is again, the standard for

what words mean, they would just be wrong. At best, maybe they would have half of the meaning, but be missing half, or they would have a quarter of the meaning. They would have half of the meaning, but be missing half, or they would have a quarter of the meaning. They would have kind of the gist, but they wouldn't understand the subtlety or the nuance, which is one of the great and most powerful aspects of the English language. We have so many words to describe so many things that have different connotations that have similar meanings, but not the same. And in fact, O'Connor became a very fierce opponent of educators who believe that the precision with which we

understand words isn't very important. That as long as we can use them approximately correctly, that that's fine. That we don't really need standard precise definitions like those that we find in a dictionary. O'Connor's argument against them, the crux of that argument was, why would we want to let the ignorant define our words for us? And so if we don't have standardized modes of expression through standardized meanings of words, how are we supposed to communicate precisely? How are we supposed to understand what other people are trying to communicate exactly? And furthermore, how are we supposed to understand the world around us when there are so many things that we see and hear every day that we don't really understand, that we couldn't really explain?

There are profound psychological implications too. Look to the field of propaganda, for example, and you'll see that one of the core fundamentals of effective propaganda is hijacking the meanings of key words, redefining them in a way that forwards your propaganda. Hugely important and hugely effective. I mean, we can see just how effective that is today. Look at a lot of the people that are saying that Trump is a fascist and that Trump's regime is fascism. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not particularly a fan of Trump's. I'm definitely not a fan of him as a person and his personality. I like some of the things that in terms of policy, I like some of the things that in terms of policy, I like some of the things that

his administration has done, and I don't like some of the things that they've done. And in the end, I do hope that his administration succeeds, or if it simply can't succeed, I hope that is replaced with an administration that can succeed because ultimately we need that so we can all succeed. But to the people who are saying that he is a fascist, that he is literally Hitler, and I've had these conversations with people, I don't argue with them because it's obviously not worth it, but I'll just ask them for the definition of fascism. What does the word mean? And every single time these people just stutter and stumble. They can't even define the word correctly. It usually just comes down to like monazism basically. Oh, it's just like a radical

right-wing Nazism. That's about it. Or they can maybe spit out a synonym. They know that fascism is like authoritarianism and that's it. That is not understanding the word at all, especially not a word like that, which is so loaded. And so what you have here are incredibly ignorant people just agitating for things they don't even understand. To bring it to fitness, to bring it to health and fitness, it's the people who argue that calories don't count when they can't even define the word. They don't even know what a calorie is. They don't know what energy balance is. They're going to tell you energy balance doesn't matter. They're going to tell you calories don't matter, but they can't tell you what those things are. And they can't tell you how they actually relate to the body and relate

to metabolism. So anyways, my point is I believe very strongly in the importance of constantly growing and enhancing your vocabulary in both quantity and quality. So learning new words and acquiring a more rich understanding of words that you know decently well, that if you were to be put on the spot, you could say something that conforms to the dictionary. put on the spot, you could say something that conforms to the dictionary. But of course, there's always a lot more that you can learn about a word and what it really means beyond just a dictionary definition. And so again, I've been very diligent in clarifying words in the dictionary that I don't understand. I also do a little thing where I save words that I like, and this is particularly for writing. I save words that I come across that I like, and this is particularly for writing. I save words that I come across that I like. And the words that I like the most when I'm really looking for are really good nouns and verbs because anyone can open a thesaurus and grab some fancy sounding modifiers, but it's much harder to find really good nouns and verbs that really have the exact meaning that you want for

whatever you're trying to communicate. Anyways, I save words that I like in a spreadsheet, and then I export that spreadsheet into an SRS flashcard system, which if you're not sure what that is, just look it up. And then I do flashcards every day on these words. So I'm also enhancing my vocabulary every day in that way, which then also increases my fluency as a writer because I've found now that many of those words come to me when I'm looking for what's a good word for that. There's at least a decent chance that there is something in my word lists that would fit because there are thousands of words in those lists now. So my point with all of that, bringing this rambling monologue back on track is those are the types of things that most people don't want to do. Most people

that say they want to become a better writer are not going to be willing to spend, let's say on average, 45 to 60 minutes a day reading and reading things that are challenging, reading things that are difficult, that make you think, that challenge your vocabulary and force you to learn new words. And then spend a considerable amount of time writing every day, whether they feel like it or not, whether they feel inspired or not. Sit down, do the work, put in the hard time learning new words by using the dictionary frequently, by doing vocabulary building programs. I've done that as well. Go through vocabulary building books. I've just done enough now to where I found they weren't very helpful. I found that that time wasn't as productive. I felt as simply writing or reading for the purpose of getting better as a writer or even improving my vocabulary. Because at this

point, I've found that I usually know most of the words in these vocabulary building programs and books. And so it's just not very productive. Sure. You can find books that present a lot of really obscure esoteric terms, but that's not very useful because you're not going to use them. Those aren't words you're going to use in your daily conversation or in your writing because you'll just look pretentious. And you're also not going to come across them because no one else uses them. So they're not really that associated with reality as we experience it. So that's an area of my work where I've really tried to take a first principles approach and where I've really looked for the uncomfortable

stuff that most people don't want to do and that I think will provide the most benefit. And usually those things are correlated. In fact, I bet you it would be productive if before you got into anything, you went and interviewed 20 people that have spent some time doing it and have gotten maybe okay. And you ask them, what are the top three things that you are not doing right now that you probably should be doing if you really wanted to get as good as you can at whatever this thing is? If you ask that question to enough people, I bet you, you could probably just start there. Look for the common nominators of those surveys and just start there and you'd make a lot faster progress than most people. Now, if everything that I've been talking about is discouraging to you,

I think that you are looking at it wrong. Hunting for secrets is discouraging. Stumbling around in the dark, anxiously turning over rocks in search of arcana is discouraging because a part of us, the intuitive part knows that we are trying to catch wind with a net when we do this. On the other hand, donning the yoke can be incredibly encouraging because while yes, it is bulky and uncomfortable at first, there is a lot of solace to be had in knowing that no matter how tough the experience is going to be or how unenjoyable or unfun the experience is going to be, it will transform you for the better. So the bottom line is this, if you want to do special things or if you want to become a special person in any regard, the fields that you're going to

have to work, the fields that you are going to have to cultivate are large and they are overgrown and they are full of pitfalls and setbacks, but they are conquerable. They have boundaries. There are only so many weeds and bugs and so much dirt, and it only takes so much time. It only takes so many passes until those fields are yours. There is no impenetrable gloom that obscures them like the great secrets that people hope to find. So you want to lose weight. You want to build muscle, you want to make more money, you want to learn something new, whatever you want to do, just don't be one of the suckers who is groping around for secrets. Just find the field, throw on the yoke and get pulling.

And eventually the quote unquote magic will happen. And then everyone will marvel at your overnight success and at how lucky you got. Because of course they don't understand the process. That is their worldview. They themselves are trying to get lucky. They themselves are chasing overnight success and simply don't realize that it's a myth. 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 want to 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 mikeatmuscleforlife.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 100% natural post

workout supplement recharge. Recharge helps you gain muscle and strength faster and recover better from your workouts. And it's also naturally sweetened and flavored and it contains no artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk. All that is why it has over 700 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average and another 200 on my website, also with a four and a half star average. So if you want to be able to push harder in the gym, train more frequently and get more out of your workouts, then you wanna head over to www.legionathletics.com

and pick up a bottle of Recharge today. 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.