Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Motivation Monday: What's More Important than Necessity?

Episode Date: September 24, 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 newest book, The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Now, this book was fun to write because it really is my personal and 100% practical and hands-on blueprint for transformation, both inside and outside of the gym. And I promise you that it will provide you with new and valuable knowledge and skills that you will use for the rest of your life. In short, I wrote this book to help you fix the things

that are most holding you back from doing and achieving the things you care most about. So if you want to learn how to overcome the mental blocks that are making you unmotivated, unhappy, and unhealthy, then the little black book of workout motivation is for you. And you can find it on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. And I should also mention that you can get the audio book 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, get the audio book 100% free when you sign up for an audible account, which I highly recommend that you do. If you're not currently listening to audio books, I love them myself because they let me make the time that I spend commuting, prepping food, walking my dog and so forth more valuable and productive. So if you want to take audible up on this offer and get my audio book for free, simply go to www.workout

motivation book.com slash audio book, click the sign up today and save button, create your account and voila, you get to listen to my little black book for free. Alrighty, that is enough shameless plugging for now at least let's get to the show. Hello, hello. Mike Matthews here from Muscle for Life and Legion Athletics back with another Motivation Monday episode of the podcast. And that means first we have a quote and this one comes from Bob Marley. He said, you never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice. And that's a perfect introduction to what I want to talk to you today about, which is necessity. So imagine that at nine years old, you are receiving music lessons from an accomplished composer who quickly heralds you as the next Mozart. Imagine that just three years later, you release your first composition, and then the following year, you're appointed as

the assistant court organist alongside your mentor and teacher. Imagine that over the next decade and a half, you eventually meet and perform for Mozart, who then tells a friend that you're going to make a great name for yourself one day, and you continue to hone your skills, amaze your teachers, and establish yourself as a once-in-a-generation talent. But then, at just 26 years old, you notice a strange buzzing and ringing in your ears. It's there the next day too, and the next one. You continue to write, practice, and perform your music, but day by day, week by week, month by month, the static hum in your head begins to drown out the world around you. And it's not long before you realize that you are going deaf. And after trying all kinds of remedies, doctors tell you that the condition is likely to afflict you for the rest of your life. You are overwhelmed

by sadness for your entire life. Music is all you've known. It's all you've done. It's who you are. And now in a cruel and ironic twist of fate, you're being robbed of your ability to even appreciate it, let alone produce it. What would you do? Do you think that you could somehow find the will to soldier on as you slide into a realm of utter silence? Or do you think you would curse your unlucky stars and vow to never touch an instrument again? Well, Ludwig van Beethoven once faced this predicament, and if he hadn't refused to give up, we would never have masterpieces like his Ninth Symphony, his late string quartets, or his Diabelli Variations. Now, how the hell did he write and play music if he couldn't hear, you might be

wondering? Well, he imagined in his mind what his work would sound like, and then he went on to produce what are considered some of the most beautiful compositions and arrangements in the history of music. Such is the power of necessity, which another genius, Leonardo da Vinci, once said is the theme and inventress of nature, her curb and her eternal law. 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. What is necessity though? Merriam-Webster defines it as the quality or state of being necessary, but that doesn't really capture its essence. To get a better sense of what necessity really is, what it feels like, and how it manifests, let's start with the definition from the original 1828 Webster's Dictionary, which is irresistible power, compulsive force, physical or moral. The word comes from the old French term necessitate, which meant need, necessity, privation, poverty, distress, torment, obligation, duty, and can be traced back to the Latin necessitatum, meaning compulsion, need for attention, unavoidableness, destiny. So as you can see, necessity goes beyond mere

desire or even passion, which many people find admirable, and enters the territory of obsession, relentlessness, and inevitability, which many people regard as a form of madness. When you approach something with necessity, you do it with an extreme level of intensity and focus. As Oscar Wilde once said, moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess. There's no question that Beethoven was animated by necessity. As Anton Schindler wrote in his biography, The Life of Beethoven, quote, Beethoven rose at daybreak, no matter what season, and went at once to his work table. There he worked until two or three o'clock when he took his midday meal. In the interim, he usually ran out into the open two or three times, where he also worked while walking. Such excursions seldom exceeded a full hour's time and resembled the swarming out of the bee to gather honey.

They never varied with the seasons, and neither cold nor heat were noticed. Beethoven always spent his winter evenings at home and devoted them to serious reading. It was but seldom that one saw him busy with music paper in the evening since writing music was too taxing on his eyes. In former years, this may have been the case, yet it is quite certain that at no time did he employ the evening hours for composition, creation. At 10 o'clock at the latest, he retired to bed. In other words, for decades, Beethoven spent nearly every minute of every day either thinking about or working on live and work, and what they're trying to achieve. Top performers are almost always characterized by an all-consuming single-mindedness. mindedness. I myself can relate to this to some degree at least because I've dedicated at least 80% of my waking hours to my work for six plus years now. And I've done that not because I have

an irrational compulsion to just work long hours or a need for a productive form of escapism that allows me to evade other areas of my life that are falling apart. For me, it comes down to something that's summarized in Alice in Wonderland, of all places. My dear, here we must run as fast as we can just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere, you must run twice as fast as that. In other words, I wholeheartedly believe that in order to escape the universal pull toward decay, entropy, and create and sustain anything worth having in life, whether a body, career, relationship, or even society, We have to learn to run faster than we ever thought possible. And I think that the only way to muster the courage and energy to do that is to fill ourselves with necessity, with

the desperate urge to succeed at all costs. Peter Thiel echoed this in his best-selling book, Zero to One, where he challenged readers to imagine how to achieve their 10-year plans in the next six months. That's impossible, you say? Well, don't be so sure. It might just take a radical shift of your perspective away from what you believe is possible or realistic or worse, comfortable toward simply what it would take to get it done. Look at it this way. If pushed to the wall, I doubt that any of us would die on any of the hills we are currently struggling to climb. In just about every case, I bet we'd figure out a way to make it to the top and probably faster than we ever thought possible. What does that tell us then about many of our unrealized ambitions and our excuses?

How many times have we failed merely because we lacked the will to win. Well, I don't know about you, but I would be hard pressed to think of an instance where I failed to achieve a goal or live up to a standard for any reason other than I just couldn't summon enough necessity and thus wasn't willing to do what it took. That's why the first questions I now ask myself before embarking on any endeavor, really, whether personal or in business or otherwise, are one, what does a win look like here exactly? Two, what is it probably going to take to get there in terms of time, money, energy, and effort? And three, can I say without reservation that I am ready to pay that price and probably more? And I don't begin until I'm satisfied

that I've fully answered numbers one and two and absolutely positive in my answer to number three. In other words, I avoid vague, unquantified, lukewarm commitments. And this means that I get to spend most of my time on activities that are aligned to clear-cut and achievable objectives. And as this has proven to be a reliable recipe for necessity for me, I also now get to enjoy more meaningful wins. Okay, so let's wrap this episode up with a little practical exercise, a little do this now. So can you think of any endeavors or even entire areas of your life where you feel that your necessity quotient is lacking, where it's low,

you know, where you're just kind of going through the motions of half-hearted commitments. Of course you can. We all can. Now consider this. What would your relationship to those undertakings or those parts of your life look like if you were to approach them with unwavering compulsion, duty, and relentlessness? What would you have to do for other people to consider you obsessed? Take your time. Think about this. Get specific. Now, what do you think might happen if you were to be that person for the next year or two or five? How might things change? And what's at least one thing that you could start doing today, no matter how small or simple, to move toward becoming that person, to start thinking and behaving that way. Well, there is your jumping off point. There is your first step of what could become a transformative journey if you're willing to continue walking the path. 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 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. Oh, and if you liked this episode, then you are going to love my newest book, The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. You should definitely check it out because this book is my personal and 100% practical and hands-on blueprint for transformation, both inside and outside of the gym. I promise that this book will provide you with new and valuable knowledge and skills that you will use for the rest of your life. In short, I wrote this book to help you fix the things that are most holding you back from doing and achieving the things that you care the most about. So if you want to learn how to better overcome the mental blocks that are making you unmotivated, unhappy, and unhealthy, then the little black book of workout motivation is for you. And you can find it on all major online retailers like Audible,

Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, I should also mention that there's an audiobook as well, one that I recorded myself. So if you like listening to me talk about this kind of stuff on the podcast, then you'll definitely like listening to the audio book. And you can actually get that audio book 100% free when you go to www.workoutmotivationbook.com slash audio book and sign up for an Audible account. Now, I myself love audio books and highly recommend them to everyone because they let you take downtime that you spend commuting, prepping food, walking dogs, stuff like that into something more valuable and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my audiobook for free, simply go to www.workoutmotivationbook.com slash audiobook. Click on the little sign up today and save button,

create your Audible account, and voila, you get to listen to my little black book for free.