Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Motivation Monday: Success Isn’t Always What You Think

Episode Date: November 6, 2017

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/

my experience so far has been that the main benefit of making money is more just the absence of a negative than the presence of a positive in that it's nice to not have to worry about money, but otherwise money doesn't provide that much in the way of happiness or satisfaction. satisfaction. Hey, this is Mike from Muscle for Life and welcome to another episode of my podcast. This episode is part of a weekly series that I have dubbed Motivation Monday. Yes, I know, so creative of me. What can I say? I'm just a genius. Seriously though, the idea here is simple. Every Monday morning, I am 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. Because 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 energy and encouragement to go ahead and do all of those things that you want to do. So if you like what you hear, then make sure to check back every Monday morning for the latest and greatest installment. Quote, if you have everything under control, you're not moving fast enough. Mario Andretti. I like that one. So recently it has really dawned on me just how much you have to grow as a person to prevent success from ruining your life. And I mean, that was a bit of a surprise to me that I actually do think that

success can ruin your life because every step that you take forward comes with more responsibility, bigger challenges, higher stakes, and smaller and smaller margins for error. And if you're not up to that, if you're not up to the challenge, then you just fall on your face. And eventually, if we just keep raising the bar for ourselves, if we just keep striving for more and more, we will reach our ceilings and we'll find ourselves facing a crisis. And what I'm talking about here is really just a generalized version of the Peter Principle, which is a business management term that states that we tend to rise to the level of our incompetence. So in other words, we keep doing whatever has worked until the tasks or the

circumstances become so burdensome or complex that our modus operandi fails and sometimes fails spectacularly. And then we often wonder what the hell happened. And I think that applies to more than just our work activities as well. I think it applies to our approach to living life on the whole. Sure, we can sacrifice everything on the altar of productivity and we can achieve tremendous financial success, but can all the money fix battered health, shattered relationships, and frazzled nerves? Can it fill the void that inevitably opens when you start asking, is this it? And I'm speaking from experience here because recently I've kind of felt this shadow looming, so to speak.

And when I stopped and stepped back and kind of zoomed out, I realized that what has gotten me this far in this game wasn't going to get me really to where I want to be. And not just as a business person, but also just as an individual, as a husband, a father, friend, community member, and maybe even human being, I basically just kind of had to admit to myself that I had reached my level of incompetence and that my decisions and values and behaviors really weren't going to create the future that I really wanted for myself, which is a lot more than just having a lot of money. And moments like these are tough at first because it's uncomfortable to get radically honest with yourself and really face your dragons, face your shortcomings, face the penalties that you are accruing, basically, you know, the negative consequences of the things that you are doing right now

that will manifest in your life at some point. It's not a matter of if, only when. But looking at these things is really the only way to make the sweeping, lasting changes that are necessary to rise to that next level. A simple analogy for this is learning to play sports and how do you get good at sports? Anybody that grew up playing a lot of sports, especially competitively, has experienced it. You start out and you pick up what you can pick up. And before long, you are really honing in on your weaknesses and really working on improving your weaknesses, not just ignoring them and playing to your strengths. I mean, you can, but if you do that, you're never going to get very good. And a good coach, of course, acknowledges what you do well, but also points out what you don't do well and make sure that

you focus on improving what you don't do well. Now, unfortunately, most of us don't have coaches in our lives that are objectively analyzing everything that we do and pointing out to us what is working, what is not working, what we should keep doing, what we should stop doing, what we should start doing instead and so forth. Unfortunately, that has to be us. We have to coach ourselves. And that can be tough because we don't have the inherently objective perspective that other people have. We're on the inside trying to place ourselves on the outside. And thanks to our inherent biases and weaknesses of character, that can be tough. We don't know what we don't know, and we don't know what we're not seeing. And that's one of the reasons why I

think it is hugely beneficial to remain open to constructive criticism from the people that care about us and to remain open-minded and to not assume that we are automatically right in all of our thinking, but to have more of a skeptical view of our values, of our principles and ask ourselves, how do I know if I'm right? So for my part in facing my own dragons, there are really two things that kind of stood out to me. And the first is I need to make sure that I stay connected with my purposes because I didn't get into the fitness space with visions of quote unquote, building an empire or getting rich and famous. And I really still don't care much about those things. And I particularly don't care about the getting famous part because I'm

just not the type of person that really desires to be liked or admired. Like sure, it's nice for people to like me and admire me, but it doesn't really factor into any of my decisions. admire me, but it doesn't really factor into any of my decisions. And as far as money goes, I would say that so far has been that the main benefit of making money is more just the absence of a negative than the presence of a positive in that it's nice to not have to worry about money, but otherwise money doesn't provide that much in the way of happiness or satisfaction. I do need to remain cognizant of the effects of spending too much of my time on things that I feel, again, are poor uses of my time and that other people really should be doing. And the main thing that really bothers me about that is there's an opportunity cost to everything. So whatever I or you, whatever we're doing at any given time, we can only do that. So that means that we are choosing to do that over everything else that we could be doing.

the bigger goal in the case of, let's say Legion is to get to $50 million a year in revenue in the next three to five years, which is very doable just given our current trajectory and our current strategies. I really do think we can do it if we just execute and, you know, things have to go right and things have to not go wrong, but it is there. So with that being the bigger goal, you know, what we do, all of us, me and everybody on my team every day is either contributing to that or not to a greater or lesser degree. And in my case, I need to be a great contributor to that. And so when I'm spending my time on activities that I feel are really not contributing much toward that bigger goal, and I know that there are other things, many other things that I feel are really not contributing much toward that bigger goal. And I know that there

are other things, many other things that I could be doing that would contribute much more that bothers me. And so it's on me to make sure that I do what I need to do to put myself in the position where I can spend the majority of my time on those high leverage activities and delegate everything else and make sure that it still gets done well, even with me not doing it. 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. And the other uncomfortable truth, I guess that I had to confront recently is that I have to remember to create my life outside of work as well. I mean, I love working. I'm just that kind of person. I could work. If I were single, I probably would end up working, I don't know, 80 hours a week. I mean, I just like it. It just satisfies me in a way that really nothing else does. And that part of me has obviously gone a long way to help me and my team do what we've done and gotten to where we are. And I have obviously other people in the group that are the same way. And collectively,

that's great for our purposes here. But there's a problem in that for me, it was getting to a point where I was kind of losing my ability to enjoy anything but work. And again, that's just a, I don't know, it's just a quirk of my personality, I guess, that I'm very much that person that when I decide that I want to do something, when I hone in on a goal or an objective, that's all I want to do all day, every day until it's achieved. And I've always been like that. That's just the way that I'm wired, I guess. So what would happen is if I wasn't working, I was thinking about work and I was kind of just biding my time until I could get back to work. And that's really just

not healthy. That's not how I want to live. I'm married. I have kids. I don't want to be the absent father that never sees his kids, is never around, but provides a bunch of money and provides nice things because I don't think that's fair. And I also have known quite a few people that have grown up like that, and they're pretty fucked up. I would not want my kids to turn out like them. So I had kids. Now I have a responsibility to make sure that I do a good job raising them. And that means that I have to be around. I have to be present. I have to be engaged in their lives. And the same thing goes for my wife and for my marriage. I admire people like, for example, Ray Dalio, whose book Principles I'm currently reading and which I highly recommend.

The dude has just an insane story. He's like the Elon Musk of the finance sector. Really, really just an extraordinary story. And about 30 years into his career, he was still working about 80 hours a week, which to me sounds awesome. I mean, that's great. He loved working. He loved being successful.

He loved his group. He loved what he was doing. But I wonder how he kept his marriage and kept his family together. I actually wonder. And maybe his wife knew what she was getting into in the beginning. And that was part of the agreement was that basically he just wasn't going to be around much because when you're working that much, you are not around much. And you also are going to have a very hard time turning it off. Even when he wasn't working, I guarantee you, he was always thinking about it. So yeah, maybe his wife

understood that and maybe they had an agreement along those lines, or maybe she was never really okay with it, but suffered quietly, or maybe it was an ongoing matter of contention between them. I don't know. He hasn't mentioned anything about it. And I don't think he will because he has mentioned a few times already that he's not going to get into his personal life. But for my part, I know that that's not what Sarah would want. It doesn't matter how much money you could run it into the billions and she wouldn't sign up for that. She's okay with me working a lot and working hard and not having as much time together maybe as some people. But if I were just completely gone all the time working, it would make her sad. She would feel like there's a whole

part of her life that's missing and that what she's getting for it in return in the way of money. And even maybe if she knew that it satisfied me, she'd be happy for me. But again, it's just, that's not really the agreement bargain. Yeah, I want to work hard. I really do enjoy just putting my nose to the grindstone. I enjoy getting shit done, making things happen, but I also do like to enjoy other things in life that matter as well. And that could be personal things, even like exercise. And then there's family, friends, community, and so on. Now, again, I don't think I need as much of that as some people, or I don't feel compelled to put as much time into all those things to other people, but I don't want to lose my ability to participate in anything that's not work. And that means that, you know, I have to actively participate in those other areas of my life,

just as creatively and vigorously as I have and continue to participate in my work. I truly do believe that you can only get as much pleasure out of life as you can be interested and active in it. And I think that applies on the microcosmic granular level, as well as the macro cosmic, more general level waiting for people or money or things to quote unquote, make you happy. Just never works. 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 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 100% natural post-workout supplement Recharge. Recharge helps you gain

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