Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Motivation Monday: When You Can Do This, You Can Do Anything

Episode Date: July 16, 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 fitness book for women, thinner,, Leaner, Stronger. Now, this book has sold over 150,000 copies in the last several years, and it has helped thousands of women build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 1,200 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average. So if you want to know the biggest lies and myths that keep women from ever achieving the lean, sexy, strong, and healthy bodies they truly desire, and if you want to learn the simple science of building the ultimate female body, then you want to read Thinner, Leaner, Stronger today, which you can find on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can actually get the audiobook 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do if you're

not currently listening to audiobooks. I myself love them because they let me make the time that I spend doing things like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog and so forth into more valuable and productive activities. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free, simply go to www.bitly.com slash free TLS book. And that will take you to Audible. And then you just have to click the sign up today and save button, create your account. And voila, you get to listen to thinner, leaner, stronger for free. All righty. That is enough shameless plugging for now. At least let's get to the show. Hey there, Mike Matthews here from Us For Life and Legion Athletics. And it is Monday, which means it's time for a Motivation Monday episode of the podcast.

As you may have noticed, I missed, I think it was last Monday and I missed a few Mondays ago. And the reason why is I simply haven't been putting any time into creating these episodes because I am all out on updates to Thinner, Leaner, Stronger first. So this is going to be my third edition of Thinner, Leaner, Stronger. And it's really a rewrite from the beginning because although the basic information in the book is not going to change and not much about the program is going to change, but I am going to do a better job of communicating everything that is in the book because I'm a better writer now than when I wrote the

second edition. And I also have a long list of questions and suggestions from readers that I want to address along with my own list of things that I want to address to make the book even better. So I am about halfway through on I'm calling TLS 3.0, and then I'm going to go through BLS and create the third edition for BLS for Bigger, Leaner, Stronger as well. And I want to get these projects done as quickly as possible. So I am pretty much devoting every free minute that I have to those projects. And I hope to have both of them done by the end of this month. Latest would be

by the middle to end of next month. And until then, I just can't bring myself to do much of anything else because I have an overall timeline of various projects between the different companies, between book publishing and Muscle for Life and Legionion athletics that i want to stick to and right now i'm really on a deadline so anyways that's my excuse for being sporadic with the podcast but once i get through bls and tls 3.0 again end of this month latest end of next month i'll be back on my normal content production schedule which means the regular production schedule on the podcast as well as the production schedule on the podcast, as well as the regular schedule on the blogs. 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. Here we are today, and let's start Motivation Monday as we always do with a quote.

And this one comes from the famous Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. And he said that it is not difficult to wield a sword in one hand. The way to learn this is to train with two long swords, one in each hand. It will seem difficult at first, but everything is difficult at first. This is a good one to meditate on, to reflect on, because if you are ever struggling to keep up in life, a very effective way to bring yourself up to speed is to take on twice as much as you are currently handling. If you really do this and you do it in such a way that you cannot easily back out, necessity alone will force you, will drive you to figure out how to make it work. But that can be a topic for another episode.

In this episode, I want to talk about a simple change that you could make right now that would change everything, everything in your life, your health, your happiness, your fitness, relationships, finances, career, you fill in the rest. And what if I told you that this single factor is what really at bottom, what really sets extraordinary people apart from everyone else? What if this is how Alexander the Great, one of my favorite characters in history, became the king of the world, how Thomas Edison became the king of inventing, and how Elon Musk is becoming the king of the impossible? And what if this is how you can find out just how special you can be as well?

Find out what you are really capable of. What if this is a magic bullet of sorts? Now, what is it? Is it being obsessed? Is it being present? Is it setting big goals, admitting mistakes, or inspiring others? Nope, it is not. It is far more primal than any of that. In fact,

without this one thing, none of those things really matter. Now I have to warn you though, you're probably not going to like this thing. You're probably going to feel like I am asking you to step out into a blizzard naked. Like I'm asking you to force a dislocated limb back into place. So, ready? Here it is. It is simply refusing to make excuses. Refusing to make excuses for every failure, for every shortcoming, for every disadvantage. Refusing to believe that it's okay to give up and take the easy road out.

Refusing to look for reasons to be weak, refusing to blame anyone or anything else for your troubles and for your failures. Speaking of Elon Musk, early on in his career in one of his first companies, he wooed investors by sharing that he approaches life and work as a samurai would. He'd rather kill himself than fail. And I think the life that he has lived so far is a testament to that. For Alexander the Great's part, whether he was sieging a supposedly impregnable city or facing a supposedly invincible army, city or facing a supposedly invincible army, he refused to believe that he couldn't succeed. He said there is nothing impossible to him who will try. And Thomas Edison's take on this? Well,

after he had gone through thousands of unworkable light bulb filaments, he was challenged by a reporter about his lack of results. And here was his reply. He said, results? Why man, I've gotten lots of results. If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I'm not discouraged because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward. That mindset is power. That is how people do the quote unquote unimaginable. That is the big secret. So what about you? Well, the next time you say you're going to do something, whether it's big or small, don't do what most people do. Don't lard the decision with a code of maybe or leave yourself little loopholes or little outs. Don't saddle the decision with ifs or buts and don't allow excuses to wait in the wings. The next time you say you're going to do something,

channel your inner Elon or Alexander or Thomas or whoever you might be most inspired by instead. You're either going to do the thing or you're going to die. And when you can really embody that mindset, you can do anything. 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 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 fitness book for women, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger. Now, this book has sold over 150,000 copies in the last several years, and it has helped thousands of women build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 1,200 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star

average. So if you want to know the biggest lies and myths that keep women from ever achieving the lean, sexy, strong, and healthy bodies they truly desire, and if you want to learn the simple science of building the ultimate female body, then you want to read Thinner, Leaner, Stronger today, which you can find on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can actually 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 audiobooks. I myself love them because they let me make the time that I spend doing things like commuting,

prepping food, walking my dog, and so forth into more valuable and productive activities. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free, simply go to www.bitly.com slash free TLS book. And that will take you to Audible. And then you just have to click the sign up today and save button, create your account. And voila, you get to listen to Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for free.