Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Motivation Monday: Why You Should Start With Why

Episode Date: December 11, 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/

When you are knee-deep in shit and you don't know up from down, lyrical musings won't cut it. You just need a single, simple, definite, primal, visceral concept to keep you going. Hey, this is Mike from Muscle for Life and welcome to another episode of my podcast. 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. Okay. So this week's quote comes from one of my favorite people whose work I only came across recently and whose work I highly recommend you check out. And that is Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. And he said, quote, don't sacrifice who you could be for who you are. A couple thousand years ago, the brilliant Greek general Pyrrhus wanted to sail to Italy and help fight against the Romans and revive the glory of his cousin,

Alexander the Great. Now, Pyrrhus had a friend, a philosopher named Sineas, and Sineas asked him what they will do once they've defeated the Romans. And Pyrrhus said that once Rome falls, the rest of Italy and its vast wealth will be free for the taking. And Sinius thought about that answer for a moment. And then he asked what they will do once they've taken all of Italy. Pyrrhus said, Sicily is nearby and she stretches out her hands to us. And he then explained how easily it would be to bring that politically troubled territory

into the Greek fold. And Sineas agreed that Pyrrhus' plans to absorb Sicily next sounded plausible, and he asked if the capture of the island would end their expedition. Quite to the contrary, Pyrrhus replied, he said that Sicily would be used as a staging ground to then sail to Libya, Africa, and Carthage and extend the Greek empire to include those great lands as well. And once he had done that, Pyrrhus figured that none of the remaining enemies of Greece would be able to resist him. And Sineas agreed, they surely couldn't. And if Pyrrhus were to do those things and to have those victories, it would definitely give him the military and economic muscle needed to win back

Macedon and then the rest of the Greek city-states. But Sineas then had another question. So, once they've done all of that, once they've established their dominance everywhere, what shall they do? Pyrrhus thought about that and laughed and he said, well, then they could just lead a life of leisure and entertainment and daily drinking parties and asked why they couldn't just do that right now. Why did they have to conquer the world first? And to that, Pyrrhus had no answer, but ultimately he would embark on his Italian and Sicilian campaigns, which ultimately would prove too costly in men material and ultimately would be abandoned. Now, what is my point for telling this little historical anecdote? Well, I think it strikes at the heart of an issue that we all must face in our endeavors, in our journeys, if we are going to succeed. And that is the issue of why. Why start if we may have to stop one day? Why sacrifice so much time and effort and comfort, money, energy? Why hang our goals over our heads like swords of Damocles? And I think that these

questions are especially important in a culture like ours that on one hand worships work ethic and productivity and on the other hand worships whatever is easy, immediate, and instantly gratifying. We have to pay special attention to purpose because without a purpose to guide our daily activities and also to just guide our general trajectory in life, it makes it very easy to fall prey to the mindless pursuit of busyness and or short-term pleasure. So for example, take something that you are working toward or considering working toward, maybe building a better body, getting a better job, finding a better relationship or creating a better relationship, and take a minute to explore the question of why, how well can you answer that question?

Why do it? And if you want to use the Toyota method, ask yourself five times, get beneath the surface answer of why and ask, well, why that? Well, why that? Until you reach the fundamental why. And once you've gotten there, how does that make you feel? If that why doesn't fill you with a sense of conviction and doesn't arouse at least a bit of enthusiasm, you're not going to make it. When things get tough, and they always do, it always takes more time, more energy, more effort than you think going into it, whatever it is, it's always more difficult than you think. Even if you try to adjust knowing that in the beginning. So, you know, I, myself, whenever I'm getting into, I guess this would be mainly applicable to work projects. I try to realistically estimate the amount of

time, effort, energy, money that it'll take to do something. And then I usually double it just to set my expectations going in. I double whatever I think is reasonable. And many times, even that has been an underestimation. So when you realize that, when you are at the coalface, dirty, tired, grinding, you're going to start asking these questions. Why am I doing this? Why am I putting myself through this? And if you can't find inspiration in your answers at those key moments, especially in the middle, when it's the dip, when it's just a pain in the ass, then what you're going to find is despair. And then of course, the ass, then what you're going to find is despair. And then of course you quit. And you know, one of the interesting things that I've noticed about the whys of many of the greatest achievers in history,

ranging from athletes to business people to philanthropists and so forth, because many of these people were not driven by flowery ideals necessarily, but instead by stark, simple ideas. So for example, at his peak, Tiger Woods was indisputably the greatest golfer to ever play the game. For that stretch of three to four years, he was just dominant. He didn't just win tournaments, he crushed his competitors in a way that the golf world had never seen before. He left people so far behind that they simply had no hope of even contesting his lead. And in an interview that was conducted with him when he was in his prime, he was asked what drove him to practice so hard and play so hard and really push himself as far as possible. And his reply was just one word, winning. And the

interviewer was a little bit surprised. He paused for a moment because he was expecting something more profound or personal or wide ranging. And the interviewer asked if that was really it. And in golf, Tiger said, yep, that's it, winning. And I love that because I think there's just an incredible power in its simplicity. You don't know up from down. Lyrical musings won't cut it. You just need a single, simple, definite, primal, visceral concept to keep you going. You don't need shiny sparklers. You need that

chunky ember that really never loses its glow. And so if you go back to Pyrrhus' story, and Pyrrhus was one of the most gifted generals of all time, why did he want to go through all the trouble of building this empire? Was it really to just rest after all of it? Of course not. Like his cousin before him, Alexander, who had conquered most of the known world by the time he was my age, Pyrrhus' why was glory. And while that word may inspire nothing in you or me, it represented the essence of life to people like Pyrrhus and Alexander, Napoleon, Hannibal, and so forth. And that's the real point of this podcast. If you can take the time to find the whys that inspire you, regardless of what other people

might think of them, then you too will have the chance to see what you're really capable of. And this is something I'm asked about fairly frequently because many people that follow my work and that know me personally know that I work a lot and I have been working a lot and I've been very consistent with that over the last four or five years. And I've put out a lot of stuff. And so I've been asked many times, like, why, why do you keep working with that sense of, I guess you could almost say desperation when you don't have to, because I don't have to. If I wanted to just take it easy and enjoy the fruits of my labor and sit on my laurels and have no stress, then I could work probably a few hours a day to get enough key things done to just keep things rolling along

and just keep providing me with more than enough income to do whatever it is that I wanted to do. But that sounds awful to me. That idea is honestly repugnant to me. I would be deeply unhappy and deeply unsatisfied because for me, one of the most fundamental whys for why I'm doing all of this is excellence. Whatever it is that I'm doing, I want to be really good at it. So that means personal abilities, personal skills, and also products and services. So I want to be an excellent educator. I want to be an excellent writer. I want to be an excellent podcaster. I want to be an excellent business person. And I want to have excellent books and articles and podcasts and businesses that provide excellent products and services and that perform excellently and provide jobs and make a lot of money and help

a lot of people. And that's just my thing. And I've always kind of been that way. Whatever games I was playing at that time, I wanted to be excellent at them. And so I was willing to work really hard because no matter how intelligent you are, no matter how talented you are, no matter how much you might have a knack for something, if you want to truly become excellent at it, it takes a lot of work. It doesn't necessarily take 10,000 hours, but it takes thousands of hours invested into whatever it is that you're talking about to truly become excellent. And so that's why I do all the things that I do and why I'm always looking to do more. And obviously you can only do so much. There's only so many hours in the day. And if you don't want your life to kind of implode around you, you have to put time into

other things as well, outside of just work or personal pursuits, but you can figure out how to get the absolute most out of the time you have. And that's something I'm also always pushing myself toward. And it would be no different if I were off playing some other games. So if I were done being Mike Matthews, the fitness guy, let's say I sold everything and walked away with enough money to never have to think about making money again. Even then I would have no interest in just taking it easy. I do have two kids and as they get older, I definitely will want to be able to spend quality time with them. And I don't want to be an absent father that's always working, who just provides a bunch of money, but nothing else. However, I would need that next game that

I could really sink my teeth into and really apply myself to and develop excellence in. And if I were making that decision right now, I would say writing fiction, still very interested in that, always have been interested in that. And I can see myself pursuing that seriously at some point in the future, or, or maybe I could say, and, or depending on time, uh, board games. I love board games. I mean, I've always liked games. I mean, I grew up playing sports, never got too much into video games, played a little bit in my teenage years, like for, I don't know, when I was 13 or 14, I played a lot of one game and played video games maybe on and off, but I've always liked games. I like competition in front of a computer or in front of a TV, listening to 13-year-olds call each other racial slurs. And I also like that board games are more casual in nature and you can't get addicted to a board game in the same way you

can get addicted to a computer game, especially like an MMO type game. So anyways, that's what it is for me. Again, it comes down to just excellence and becoming as excellent of a person as I can and becoming as excellent at the things that I do as I can. And everything else, I mean, there are, I would say other sub purposes, even within the, my fitness work, of course. I really like seeing the results with everybody. I really like when people email me or DM me the results from my programs and not just the physical results, but also the psychological results, the emotional results, the ripples that go out into all areas of their lives.

It's pretty cool. But all that stuff, I would say, is kind of like the superstructure that rests on top of that foundational why of excellence. So again, that's me. And what is it for you? If you haven't thought about it, think about it. And again, go deeper than just your first knee-jerk answer to why. ask why that and ask why that until you really get to the bottom of something simple and that Appeals to you in a visceral way that just hits you and makes you feel something 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 fish oil supplement Triton. Now Triton is a high potency, high purity, 100% re-esterified triglyceride fish oil with added vitamin E to prevent oxidation and rancidity and natural lemon oil to prevent the noxious fish oil burps that we all know and hate.

Furthermore, Triton is made from sustainably fished deep water anchovies and sardines and is molecularly distilled to remove natural toxins and contaminants. So if you want to optimize your mental and physical health and performance and reduce the risk of disease and dysfunction, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Triton today. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code podcast to check out 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.