Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - My Interview on Mind Pump Media

Episode Date: August 23, 2017

Those of you that follow me on Instagram know that I was in San Jose last week visiting with the Mind Pump Media team to appear on their hugely popular podcast. We had a great time chatting about all kinds of things ranging from the trials and tribulations of being a supplement seller on Amazon, my “origin story” and initial reluctance to work in the fitness space, why many supplement companies “pixie dust” their products, what kind of music I like to listen to for working out, and much, much more. Here are some of the main things we discussed: Shenanigans of product reviews on Amazon (0:00) Company acquisition vs. customer experience (15:27) How hard is it to have integrity in supplement industry? (17:02) What drives me? (18:12) How do I get inspired to write? (20:22) Guys talk the power of the human brain How did I decide to get into fitness industry and why was I hesitant initially? (28:25) Did things go as planned with creating Legion Athletics? (52:57) How much sun exposure do you need? (1:02:55) How has my own perspective on health and self-image evolved over time? (1:04:37) What do I do for fun besides work? (1:14:20) Relationship talk (1:26:05) How do I tackle food with my kids? (1:29:52) What are some of my main philosophies regarding fitness? (1:35:47) What fascinates me right now in the industry? (1:47:56) Related Links & Products Mentioned Walmart Agrees to Acquire Jet.com, One of the Fastest Growing e-Commerce Companies in the U.S. (article) - http://news.walmart.com/2016/08/08/walmart-agrees-to-acquire-jetcom-one-of-the-fastest-growing-e-commerce-companies-in-the-us Amazon patent hints at floating warehouses in the sky (article) - http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/29/technology/amazon-aerial-warehouse/index.html What Doesn't Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude and Environmental Conditioning will Renew our Lost Evolutionary Strength – Scott Carney (book) – http://amzn.to/2vqq2QC The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance – Steven Kotler (book) – http://amzn.to/2g75if2 The use of visual feedback, in particular mirror visual feedback, in restoring brain function (article) - https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/132/7/1693/328686/The-use-of-visual-feedback-in-particular-mirror Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome (RSD) - http://www.medicinenet.com/reflex_sympathetic_dystrophy_syndrome/article.htm Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction - Derek Thompson (book) – http://amzn.to/2wpiqCv Every Shot Counts: Using the Revolutionary Strokes Gained Approach to Improve Your Golf Performance and Strategy - Mark Broadie (book) – http://amzn.to/2xe5qgL Hustle: The Power to Charge Your Life with Money, Meaning, and Momentum - Neil Patel (book) – http://amzn.to/2vqlJFe Baby's Palate And Food Memories Shaped Before Birth (article) - http://www.npr.org/2011/08/08/139033757/babys-palate-and-food-memories-shaped-before-b

Hello there, this is Mike Matthews with MuscleForLife.com and this episode of the podcast is going to be a departure from the normal programming. Instead of me rambling about a topic or bringing someone else on to ramble about a topic, I'm going to play for you my appearance on the Mind Pump Media podcast, and you can listen to me and the rest of the guys ramble about all kinds of topics. No, seriously though, the Mind Pump guys were nice enough to invite me to fly out to San Diego and hang out with them for a couple of days and record some podcasts in studio, which I did last week. And we had a lot of fun, super cool guys, and a lot of interesting

discussions about a lot of interesting things. So Adam, Saul, Justin, Doug, thanks again for having me on the show. And I would give you, Mr. And Mrs. Listener, a quick synopsis of what we talk about in this episode, but I don't have the show notes from them yet, and I don't remember because we kind of just went all over the place. However, I do think you're going to find it entertaining, if nothing else. So, here it is. Garfunkel? That guy got laid. Simon and Garfunkel? If Garfunkel can get laid... If you can get laid with a name like Garfunkel and look like that. That's why I like

Justin because it's true. More fans fucking like him more. All the girls fucking are always, oh, Justin! He gets a lot of attention. I'm not denying it. Part of the reason is the mysteriousness because me and you talk so fucking much and Justin's a little more mysterious. He's way likable he also he's got the glorious glutes that's his

wrestling name when he was a wrestler in mexico remember that yeah that's that's the move that puts everybody to sleep you know what i mean mike said wrestling with court yeah yeah glorious glutes glorious glutes dude so the shit you're telling me right now mike is fucking melting my mind right now you're blowing my well how do you know what i'm impressed with is how calm and cool you are because i'll tell you right now that shit happened to me right now i'd be a fucking angry person all day today like you just i guess you're just used to it is that the deal we've gone through it a number of times, but I mean, I don't know. That's more a bit of my personality, I guess. Really?

Yeah. I tend to, because getting all worked up about things, it takes a lot to get me angry. Like I do. I'm not, it's not a person that gets worked up easily. I can get there. But somebody has to work at it to really get me going. You know what I mean? So stuff like this, I mean, I don't know. It's just my natural instinct, I guess is a bit more just like, all right, well, that's kind of fucked. All right. So what are we going to do about it? You know what I mean? So stuff like this, I mean, I don't know. It's just my natural instinct, I guess is a bit more just like, all right, well, that's kind of fucked. All right. So what are we going to do about it? You know what I mean? Right. As long as there's something that we can do about it now, but, but again, this is also, so we've had it before where we had our top three bestselling products on Amazon, which is a lot of revenue. I mean, it's probably 70 to 80% of, of the money that we're making.

I don't, let's say it's at least 60. Go down for anywhere from four to six weeks all at once. Whoa, over a month. Yeah, yeah. And that's because- And this is on Amazon. Yeah, this is on Amazon. This is Amazon.

So this is the Amazon. I mean, it's, I was like, I've been telling you, it's a battleground really. Yeah, these are supplement- So those targets, those products were targeted to we know for a fact. They were targeted by other supplement companies. Yeah, and there's just like little little there's just non-stop shenanigans and there are ways to get people's products taken down um this time though suspending the entire account is amazing that's the first time we've

had that happen usually usually they're it's it's it's sniping individual products you know what i mean it's like oh um so what example, someone that's, that doesn't give a shit, they're shady. Um, and they want to get into, let's say they're launching a pre-workout. Uh, what they'll do is, and we've seen this multiple times are, we're always in the top, um, three for pre-workouts on Amazon, right? So if someone's launching into the pre-workout space, part of their launch is taking down the competitors. So it's, it's really, that's a part of the strategy. Yeah. It's going after, okay, let's get rid of the top five, right? Or let's go, let's just do what we can do and see, it's not a guaranteed, even regardless of what you do, it's not guaranteed. You're going to get someone taken down, but man, there's a good chance.

Let's say it's at least a coin flip, right? So part of that is let's get the top five taken down. Let's get, let's take down what we can. And then also let's game Amazon search algorithms and do some black hat stuff so we can come out the gates with one, they accrue a ton of reviews, fake, paid for, but they look for a verified purchase. It looks legit. At least as a consumer, you think like, oh, this thing has 300 reviews. You didn't know it just launched five days ago. So it's coming out of the gates with doing a bunch, giving away a bunch of product in a way where you get a bunch of reviews, taking down your competitors and doing some black hat stuff on the search. So you go from nothing to like significant sales right away. And, and because of how Amazon now, now, if we launch a supplement,

can you help us with this? Oh yeah, of course. I have the right to the top. This is actually, this is some, these is some views of the type you need to write a book on this dude this is an expose and confessions confessions marketing on amazon supplements oh dude i'm serious okay we had to catch our listeners up a little bit before we got on air you know we were talking and mike was sharing with us what some of the stuff he goes so literally this is yesterday that happened yesterday So yesterday somebody comes in, he has a, he has a supplement company Legion and somebody you, you have,

you'll him be in one of them. Somebody decides to intentionally get on there and put a post that says, Oh, it made my heart rate. I had to go to the hospital or something like that. And right away, Amazon, it's like,

like you said, guilty until proven, right? Is it an algorithm that literally identifies this or is it like somebody that works there? This one, we think it was algorithmic. You don't know exactly, but they do have algorithms in place that just flag certain things. And we've run into this before where it definitely was algorithmic and it was taking down individual products, not everything. But yeah, so they have algorithms,

but that's their version of red flag is like, yeah, just shut it down until we get around to figuring out whether this is even legit. And meanwhile costing your company tons of money. Yeah, exactly. Somebody listening right now may not think that's a big deal, but it's a big fucking deal when over 60% of your revenue is coming from your supplement business.

Well, people don't realize if you've got a decent-sized supplement company and you're selling your product through Amazon and one of your competitors wants to fuck with you and get you shut down for four days, you think, oh, what's the big deal? Four days. That could be like hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars.

Depending on it. Gone. Yep. And you can't do anything about it. Nope. And the process to get it back up is a big pain in the ass. Yeah, I mean, now, fortunately, we know what it is

because we've just gone through it a number of times and you have to submit paperwork and just do a bunch of nonsense. And then it gets, you know, a random person in India decides if you get your account turned back on. Oh, fuck. Interesting. And there was something you said yesterday about like where they would order a bunch of product so that you're out of stock and then return it before it

gets shipped. Yeah. So that was before, that didn't happen to me, but I know there was a company that was called Ubervita was the name of the company, right? And they were on Amazon. You can look them up. They're gone now. And so they, I know just from, these are stories that I've been told from people that just been on the inside, also ex-Amazon people that worked at Amazon and they just knew a lot of the shenanigans. And so there was like this company, Ubervite, was doing all kinds of shady stuff, going after people that had left one-star reviews, getting their contact information,

which is a break in Amazon TOS. They will ban you for that. And then contacting people and threatening legal action if they don't take their one-star review down or change it. That was just one thing. But I know they also got into some wars, I guess, with other supplement sellers and part of this included. And I don't know the logistics. I don't know exactly how it worked because since then Amazon has actually changed. I don't know if it's necessarily because

of this, but it's different in terms of the quantity that you can order in one order at the time, I guess it was, you could order a very large quantity of something. Um, and so essentially what you would do though, is, um, when, how, again, I don't know exactly how this worked, but you would, you would order everything that the entire stock of a product basically, and it could be a series of orders. But so you're talking about in, in 10 minutes, somebody is going from like, you know, a supplement that's selling thousands of bottles a day to nothing gone, right. Cause we're out of stock. And then eventually what would happen is that all that product would have to go back to, it would all get returned, which means it'd have to be rechecked back in Amazon's warehouse. So you're talking about like three

to four weeks of out of stock and you get no money and you actually have to pay money. You have to pay to send it all back to Amazon. So, so there was, yeah. So now Mike, did you know all this getting into it or was this something that you had and how did, how did that unfold? Was this like, when did you get, when was your first surprise? First slap in the face. Oh, okay. So the first one was my pre-workout, uh, pulse, right? How long ago was this? This was, this was in the beginning. So, so this is, this is legion's fourth year, right? So this was in the first year, I want to say within the first six to eight months or so. Um, it got, it was just, we, you know, check everything one day and it's just down, it's gone. Right. And, and Paul said at that point, it had built up a good amount of momentum and it was selling well.

And, you know, we were, we of course needed the revenue and you need the sales anyway, but at the time it was like, it was, the business was new. And, and so it was, it was down and no, no reason given as to why just down. Like you didn't get an email or a message. You just get on one day and say, oh shit, my shit's not selling. Yep. I think it was, the term is suppressed, right? So it just means it's not up. It's not selling.

It's gone as far as the consumer is concerned. And so we're trying to find out why. Can't find out why. Like we are contacting anyone that we could contact at the time, which Amazon had even less infrastructure in place in the sports nutrition space. I mean, they've gotten better now. I think they're still understaffed for it, which is why, for example, that you have someone in India deciding if my account gets turned back on, you know what I mean? Now I know it's going to get turned back on. Like we have people in Amazon, we have account reps and stuff, but even like, it's not up to them.

It's up to some random person in India, which, and we've had our, our worst interactions have been with their Indian teams. And that's not, I mean, I'm not even saying that as anything against Indian people, but I'm saying that against Amazon's Indian teams, because it's a rough where they don't really even understand English and you're trying to like, you know, get things going again. Right. So, so anyways, we don't know, we have no idea why three Three to four weeks have gone by now, right? So we're, we're, we're- Oh shit. So we're still, we're trying to call

and you don't really, you don't really have anybody to call. So at this point are you thinking like, fuck, I gotta start a new business? Well, no, it's just that product, that product. Oh, okay. You know what I mean? So again, I figured that, I mean, we'll figure it out if we just keep going, but we're still just in the dark, right?

So, so what it actually took is, so it's been three to four weeks and I don't remember the specific numbers, but we've lost, I mean, it's, it's definitely five figures in sales at this point. Right. And still have no communication even as to what's wrong. Why did you take this down? And it was kind of just like, you know, not sure. And then just, just ball off to, we have to check with this department and they have to check with this department. And it was just going around in circles. And so this is just serendipity.

Randomly, one of my, a guy who had read one of my books and liked it, his brother-in-law was the head of HR for Amazon, like globally, right? Oh, wow. Thank God. So he reaches out to his brother-in-law and says, hey, you know, there's this guy, a supplement company.

I like his stuff. He's a good guy. You know, this is a good product. And it's just down. Nobody knows why. He's not getting any help. Can you help? So essentially, I forget the guy's name, but he is, or at least he was at the time, the head of HR for Amazon Global.

He got involved, which has nothing to do with his job, but just because he has clout, because he's one of their big executives, he was able to get to like some people that were at least involved in this, in the sports nutrition space on Amazon and help us find out what was wrong. And what it was in the end was that there are two claims that you cannot, you cannot mention anything about growth hormone. And in the, uh, in the, in the copy, uh, there was, it had mentioned that there was research that indicated that, um, ornithine if taken, if I remember correctly, if taken before exercise can increase growth hormone production, uh, during exercise, not that I even, it wasn't even like a big set. It was just, um, like a random little thing, like almost, it wasn't like a pushing,

like, that's why you should take this. It was just in there as like, oh, that's kind of interesting. You know what I mean? So that's why, that's why they took it down because it was flagged. It was flagged because they had a flag. If any supplements are talking about growth hormone, yeah, just take them down. And then for, what I don't know is why no one cared to even tell us why, or that's just a mystery, but that was why it was because it said growth hormone in it. And they're like, and it got flagged and it was like, yeah, whatever, turn it off. Any idea on how long that would have kept going? Had you not? It's a good question. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. It could have been, it could have been months because we have subsequently had that before. We've had products go down for six to eight weeks with no clear,

trying to work through why this, and that's with actually at that point, having some people on what's called their seller performance team, having some actual people to work with who are themselves trying to find out. Cause they have, and again, it's getting more integrated and it's getting better. But at that time also, um, their, their teams were very compartmentalized. So like only the people that, that were, had the power to actually fix your account were very, you could never reach out to them. And only certain people could even reach out to them within Amazon. So it's like, they're often an ivory tower and they could, they, they work on their own priorities and their own,

like if, if they kind of care that they're going to work on it, they don't care. You know what I mean? Um, and so, so again, we've gone through it so much. We're like, now I know the process and I know also like, um, I know that, you know, it'll get, it'll get fixed because now I'll say that Amazon, they've definitely invested quite a bit of, uh, you know, just resources into improving things on the seller side, because that's been, that's jet's whole USP jet, you know, just resources into improving things on the seller side, because that's been, that's Jets whole USP jet, you know, jet Walmart bought jet for jet was around for 18 months. Walmart bought them for $3 billion. Um, and Jets USP, big USP. And I know from, um, my partner, Jeremy, like we're doing, we're kind of partnering with jets, so to speak. They want to like make us their featured supplement brand, basically.

And their big USP is actually more to the sellers. Like they're saying, you know, for the consumers, they have good prices. Jet does. They don't have the shipping like Amazon does. But Amazon's losing a lot of money on their shipping. Kind of curious to see where that goes. Oh, wow. Interesting.

I mean, they're spending billions of dollars a year just on shipping people stuff. Cause I mean, it's insane, dude. Free same day shipping for prime members. Dude, I ordered all of my home gym equipment through them because you know, expensive as a ship. Yeah. No shit. Yeah. Shit. So I was like, perfect. Yeah. Same. Yeah. I have Bowflex dumbbells at home and stuff. I bought everything I can off Amazon free shipping, but free same day shipping with Amazon. Like that's nuts. Right. Do you think they did that mainly? So that way they corner people's search like to get a product absolutely it's a gratification right i mean it's so they'll take you know they took out all that money have you seen have you heard about their patent with the floating like uh zeppelin of shit with the drones that'll that'll

i'm actually serious they took out a patent for it. So they'd have, it's like, they would have a big floating warehouse, like a, like a, like a big, you know, dirigible floating in the sky full of product. And, and that drones would deliver your stuff. So like you'd have it,

you know, within an hour, it's like X-Men, the Jets, bro, or this close to the Jets. So, so one of Jets,

big USPs though, is, is we treat sellers. Well, like we actually care about your business like we i'm not even familiar with jet i've never jet.com oh wow and they sell yeah school us on this a little bit because i so you know i mean they're just they're that's this is walmart's play this is sorry this is walmart's uh amazon play oh so um because i mean i would assume oh i fucking love

it walmart is probably they probably hate amazon right they probably because i mean what company has been hurt more with amazon right yeah and uh, and so Walmart has obviously the resources to, to fight back. So this is, this is like their first, this is their overture, uh, you know, in, in the war with Amazon. I did not know this. Yeah. And they're pouring a lot of money. Like, so, um, so in working with them, uh, you know, send their prices and you always have to let people know, like, you know, we're going, we're going up on bodybuilding, we're going up on GNC. And one of the first things you have to talk about is margins. Like my cost of goods is much higher than average.

I spend a lot more than the average company does to make every single one of my products. Yeah, you were saying you were talking about this a lot yesterday. And you're saying how a lot of supplements have such these massive margins. And then they use all that money to spend on fucking with other supplement companies or or just marketing just just all goes to marketing yeah like my marketing spend is on average like 14 to 15 percent of revenue and that's fairly low for supplements like you'd normally find probably closer to 25 percent of revenue goes back into acquiring customers and that's because you're spending more on your product yeah and then also

um we have we have we have a very good like our churn rate is much lower than average for the industry as well. So, you know, we do a good job keeping the customers that we get, which we're continually working on that to keep. Because that's where, I mean, from a business model perspective, it's much, your existing customers are much more profitable than, you know, new customers. And it's very hard and it's very expensive to get new customers. So it's actually pretty stupid to spend a lot of money on customer acquisition and not really pay attention to customer retention and not really take care of your company. What company was it that really put that together first? I remember, where did I read that? Talking about how we focused for so long on acquisition versus retention. Who, who was that? Do you remember?

I don't know. I mean, it's, that's just one of those little things that I've read in so many random business books and marketing books. It's like, at this point, it's a cliche, even though still a lot of companies I think are behind the curve and they're so focused on just acquiring customers when- They've got a big hole in the bucket, man. They keep filling it with water. Exactly. Yeah. If you look at it that way, exactly. So it'd be much smarter for them to divert time and money away from customer acquisition and put it into making the customer experience better. How can you make your existing customers happier and how can you keep them coming back? That's much easier to do.

How hard is it to be, to have integrity in the supplement industry with your competitors? I mean, how difficult is it? I mean, if I'm, it's, it's the, it's going to be mean, it sounds like it's the PR answer, but for me personally, it's not hard. And the reason why I say that is because I'm not willing to just sell myself out for money, basically. Like I just couldn't be that person. And maybe it's because I'm not a very financially motivated person. Like, sure, I mean, I have nice things,

but I don't live extravagantly. I don't, that's not my thing. It's not like I don't have a Lamborghini or something like that. I don't really care about that shit. And I mean, sure, I have some nice things and I'm more like I have a nice house and because I have a family,

like I care about that kind of, it's not that I don't care about having nice things, but it's not like I'm just dreaming about, you know, being able to stunt on the fucking peasants and shit with you know and fill and fill my arms up with like hermes fucking bracelets and like squashing everybody yeah exactly i find those some of the most successful people we talk to are more like that very very rarely right right normally driven right exactly i feel like the other way is so short-lived right I think the guys that

do really, really big things, they're not. It's not about the dollar amount, right? What drives you? That's a good question. I'd say first and foremost, I honestly really just like to work. So there's always like, for me- What do you think that is though? When you say that, I love breaking that down. Because I enjoy work. Is it your competitive nature with yourself? Is it the, the process of taking something from nothing and building it? Like, what is it that you enjoy so much about work? Accomplishing goals. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's that, there's like the standard,

right? I think that happiness comes from like making progress toward, you know, noble and meaningful goals. I mean, everybody says that, but I do think that's true. I think it's not something that you can pursue so much as that like it ensues from how you live and what you do. So I think it's, for me, it'd be very hard for me to be happy as a person if I weren't making every day,

making progress toward goals that I've, you know, that means something to me. So there's that. I think there's also something to be said for, I find that like, that's the, maybe one of the easiest activities for me to kind of get in that flow state, especially if I'm doing work that I enjoy. I mean, you guys know, you always, there are always things you got to do that you don't want to do. That's part of the, that's just the nature of everything, right? I mean, in any area of life, it's not just work. Some of the things like, but that thing, that's one of the things that separate successful people

from unsuccessful people is successful people generally do a lot of the things that other people don't want to do. Right. You do the things you have to do now, so you can do the things you want to do later. Exactly. And you reframe it. So you enjoy the process. Totally. Because there's a purpose there. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, sure. Do I really enjoy, you know, I mean, take just even the stuff. I was on phone calls this morning and going over, take this Amazon stuff. Like, yeah, of course I don't enjoy doing, you know, that stuff, but you got to do it. It's whatever. There's a reason why I'm doing it.

That's like a stupid example. But so, so. And it all started with writing. Yeah. Yeah. So for me, like writing is that, right? So I find I really enjoy, I enjoy, I enjoy researching and I enjoy enjoy writing and I, well, I'd say that now I kind of extend that to, I like creating content. So, um, I do particularly like writing, but, um, you know,

I'm kind of ramping up my podcast, doing a few episodes a week and putting more time into it. And that process is fun to me. Like I like create, I like the creative side of that. How do you, how do you get inspired? Is there like a process that you kind of go to a certain place or do you like surround yourself with people? You mentioned flow state. Yeah. Not, not really, but I may be missing out in, in that regard. I've thought about that because it's something I've, I've come across multiple times in various books that I've read. Like I think of, there's a book, was it Daily Habits or something? It was a book that it was like basically short chapters on a bunch of just luminaries throughout history, creative people, philosophers, entrepreneurs, blah, blah, blah. And what were their daily routines like?

It has a red cover. I don't remember the title, but something daily routines was the title. And then I had some subtitle, right? And that was definitely a recurring thing is that a lot of people, especially creative type people, they, they, they have an environment that they kind of craft that, that, uh, you know, where they, where they find they work most efficiently. And I probably could improve in that regard because I mean, I, I inevitably end up doing most of my work in the office, just in my, my little office, you know what I mean? And, um, you just wake up in the morning. What do you do? Workout first. Yeah.

So I go to the gym first. I like that. Infrared sauna. I do that at night actually. Okay. Yeah. So workout, come home. Yeah. Lock yourself in your room. How long have you been doing that? The infrared sauna? Um, well I just got it actually. So it's only been a few weeks. Um, but you know, I'm, I'm excited for it just because like of, uh, the, the science on it, like it's legit. No, I mean, there's- We were fascinated. We're on the same kick right now. We just got it, what, last week ourselves.

No, no, no. He's talking about- That thing's on a different- Uh-oh. Yeah, but hot-cold contrast is excellent. The cold dips are fucking amazing. I do cold showers every morning. Yeah.

Raises testosterone in the short term. Yeah. I mean, I had Scott Carney. He, do you know, he, he wrote a book, what doesn't kill us. So he went and hung out with Wim Hof for a few years and he actually went to like debunk him. I think he was commissioned by Playboy in the beginning and he was like, this is bullshit. No fucking way. Right. He's like, no way. And, and then at the end though, he's like climbing Mount whatever with women's underwear and he's fully like, no, no, this is not bullshit. There's, there's, there's, and actually it,

it impacted him so much that, you know, his next thing that he's working on, I'm sure he wouldn't mind that I say this is, is the, it, the, the, what, what was going on mentally, but almost like it kind of opened the door to him, to the idea of a spiritual existence because some of the some of the stuff that he experienced um so that's like i guess his next now deep dive is just into altered states of consciousness and spirituality and like is it is it um are we just talking about

uh is it all just you know biochemical or is there something else to to to all of this when you can when you can push i mean this is it doesn't matter what it is, but physically, I think, um, testing yourself physically seems to be one of the easier, and I don't mean easy in the sense that it's easy, but it's easy in that you can identify it. Like, okay, if I can push my body to a place that I never thought was possible, you start to realize that it's a lot more, there's a lot more to it than just the physical you know like i'm able to withstand this cold temperature or i'm able to hold my breath this long i'm able to climb this mountain or run this marathon that i never thought

was possible um you realize that there's a lot more to it than just the just your body being able to do particularly they get into that into in the book rise of superman which i don't know if you've read that or not that's a great getting into flow state i feel like i've heard of it i feel like i've come across dude yeah excellent read uh steven kotler and it was um you know they talk about i don't know how much you followed this when you were a kid or not but i was big into like bmx bike racing and motocross and all and i used to watch all that and i watched the evolution of the X games and everything. And I remember as a kid, I remember watching and going,

you know, seeing the first like backflip on a bike. And it was like, holy shit. Look at that. It was such a big deal. Right. That was like the,

right. That was, that was a big deal. Right. And then the five minute mile. Right. And then all of a sudden a year later, like boom,

a double backflip comes out. Then someone does it on a motorcycle. And then it was like, we were, we were all of a sudden within like a small five ten year window we were we were surpassing these feats that we hadn't done ever and almost like moore's law but for just yes so and they actually talk about this in the book and they say there's nothing else in history that we've ever uh advanced in that that before. And they attribute that to the ability for these athletes to get into this flow state.

Because it's so dangerous. That's the nature of the sport. It's life or death. And so in these life or death situations, it's like you turn on a different operating system. Yeah, what is that? Right, and everything slows down. So it's very fascinating.

So last, was this week, we were hanging out with Tom Bilyeu and he brought Dr. McCown. how do you say his name, Doug? McCown. McCune. McCune. McCune. McCune.

Anyway, brilliant guy, and we all had lunch together, and we were talking about the power of the mind and belief. And for a long time in medicine and even fitness, it was – nobody really thought that that was that important. It's all about the physicality. If you're sick, this is what's wrong with you. It really doesn't have anything to do with your mind yeah totally in fact uh uh in medicine they separated the two or they consider your quack if you haven't considered anything yeah yeah like anything psychosomatic if you even try to go down that road yeah it's complete bullshit well uh you know uh dr mccune works with

dr ramachandran who's the inventor of the mirror box I don't know if you're familiar with the mirror box. I feel like I've heard of it, but I couldn't tell you what it is. So people who have phantom limb syndrome, phantom limb syndrome, they lose a limb. So my arm gets lost in an accident, but they will feel like they still have an arm and it feels like it's in tremendous pain. So although they know they don't have an arm,

they can see it's not there. Their brain is perceiving this tremendous pain. And many times they feel like they have this real clenched fist with their arm that's missing. And what he did is Dr. Ramachandran invented a – he invented it. It's a very simple device. It's literally a box with a mirror on it. And they put their – what's remaining of their arm in it, and then they would put their other hand on the other side so they see reflection of their other hand

and see that it looks like, it tricks their brain to believe they have a hand, and then all of a sudden, they'd feel their hand relax and release because their brain is associating with that. So we were having a conversation on that particular topic, and then I wrote it down, so I'm going to look it up real quick.

There's this other condition that I found absolutely fascinating called RSD. I'm not quite sure what that stands for. But it's this condition where, let's say I break my finger and it heals. I get this crazy sympathetic response where I'll get this ridiculous inflammation in the arm. I'll get this strange you know scaling on my skin on the whole arm and they don't they can't figure out what it is there's no infection there's no bacteria they they for a long time it was a massive mystery until they use the box on these people as well they use the mirror box where the person would put their hand in there and then envision it looking like their you know normal healthy hand and the fucking symptoms would go away. So much power in the mind just to overcome the ailment.

So much power in the mind. And the funny thing is we know this because when we do drug trials, we have to account for the placebo effect. It's such a real thing that they have to account for it that I think the future of performance and everything is all in the mind.

It's not in the physical. I think we figured out the physical. It's all having and everything is all in the mind. It's not in the physical. I think we figured out the physical. It's all having to do with stuff in the mind. Greg Knuckles, he came on a podcast to talk. He was talking specifically the relationship between strength and hypertrophy, muscle hypertrophy. But he was talking about some steroid research where he had placebos. People thought they were on steroids, but they were on placebos.

And you saw comparable results to steroids. Oh, wow. Just because they thought they were on steroids. Wow, that's fascinating. I am on steroids. I get to see it every day. Where's the fake steroids, guys? We should make a supplement like that, right?

Just call it that. You can just convince enough people. Actually, it's a homeopathic steroids. There is testosterone in this. It's one part per five trillion, but you've got some. You know, yesterday, Mike, you said something I thought was really fascinating too. Um, you really were hesitant to even get into the fitness realm. Like you, you had this passion for riding and you talk to me and share with the audience a little bit. Cause I would have just assumed you were like a hardcore fitness guy.

Always. What made you go that direction? Why were you hesitant? Share with the audience a little bit of that. Yeah. So, um, so I mean, my foray into the space began with self-publishing a book, which was bigger, leaner, stronger. That was in 2012. It was kind of just on a whim. It was a nights and weekends thing. And I was just kind of writing the book short and simple, something that I wish that I would have when I started training that would have, uh, you know, whatever, just, I would have gotten more out of the time that I put in the gym basically over the first five or six years. And I was curious, I didn't know if anybody would care because I was, I had no platform. I had no network. I had no name. I had nothing. I was just some dude that, you know, could articulate things fairly well and explain and then say, just do this. And if it works, then that's what matters. Right. So like in the end, that's really what matters.

And so I, you know, put that up in 2012 and I think the first month it sold like 20 copies. And I was like, Oh cool. Somebody bought my book. Cool. Thanks mom. I shouldn't even tell anybody. They were legit customers. All right. Thanks Amazon. Let's be honest though. We all know that family are the last ones to buy your shit anyways.

That's true. Not my family. They'll buy all my shit. I know I got 300 sales no matter what. That's like a 30th of the way on to the end. It was NYT. Yeah, exactly. So anyways, yeah.

So I had also put my email address in the book. I'd made a, I think at the time it was like buildhealthymuscle.com or something like that. It wasn't even really a website. It was just like, oh, whatever. It's a domain. People can email me. And so sales then, it was maybe 40 or 50 copies the next month. And so people would write in.

So they actually really liked it. And they had some questions and stuff. So I would just answer their questions. And then I also asked them like, oh, P.S., if you like the book, would you mind leaving a review on Amazon? It's kind of how it started, right? And so that it kind of grew exponentially initially, which was really just through word of mouth because I didn't do anything marketing-wise. I mean, I had a different company.

I had different work. This is, again, something I just randomly did. This must have been exciting watching this happen. Yeah, it was. I mean, totally because at the time I had credit card debt because I was an idiot and I would go. And it was going around. Really?

Because you're a very successful person in this particular sphere. So at this moment, you're like, no, I'm not doing great. I'm swinging the bat. I'm missing. And then this starts happening. Yeah. So I mean, to be fair, so how the credit card debt came about is, so previously, my wife's from Germany, right? And so at the time, we did long distance for two and a half years. So we were together for a couple of years in Florida and then her parents would come and visit and she was going to school in Florida. And then, and then she went back to Germany for a couple of years and did long distance. So I would go over there and I, you know, I would travel.

Sometimes she would come, but usually I would end up going over there every four to six weeks or so. And I mean, so I would, we mean, so I'm in Europe, right? So we just go and waste money on, you know, staying in the nicest hotels and just doing, buying shit. You're in love, man. You're trying to impress your girl. And so I'd come back, right?

And my dad is an entrepreneur. He's built a couple of companies and sold them and made money, retired for a bit, got bored and got back into business and stuff. So, and, you know, I don't know. I don't know why exactly he was even okay with it, but I w I would go and, you know, spend a bunch of money and then I would, you know, get money from him basically. So I was just like a spoiled little, you know, at least I wasn't a prick about any, I wasn't like, I wasn't your typical arrogant douchebag rich kid or whatever. But, uh, you know, I was, I was working, I was working in his company

some, and I was trying to find my way in terms of work, like what I want to do. So it's kind of like finding my way slash just having fun. And, but sometimes I would go on these trips and I'd spend enough, like an amount of money where I'm like, I can't ask him for that much money. Right. So, so I would just ask for like half of it or something. Right. And then I just like, let my credit, let's let it build up my credit. Just stupid as shit. Right. Um as shit. So that's where I was at in the beginning. I had stopped that at that point. I got to a point where I was like, all right, this is enough. I think I had like $50,000 or $60,000 in credit card debt.

Oh, shit. Yeah, and I was like, I got to stop. And I can't ask my dad to pay for this. I got to handle it. I got to stop. And this is, I mean, maybe I was 22 or whatever, right? So 23 or something. There it is.

Oh, there's the book, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, I like that. So then initially with the book kind of making some money, I was like, oh, I'll pay my credit card down. I like that, right? So yeah, I was actually excited from that perspective. And now I'm much smarter with money.

At the time, I obviously didn't save any money. I was just stupid. I don't know. But so by the end of the year, by the end of 2012, I believe I'd written one or two other books, shorter kind of trial balloons, just some other ideas to kind of see like, hey, this one's doing well.

The next one that did really well was a cookbook actually, which still does very well. Oh, interesting. And I've also subsequently revamped my book several times, which is a smart business strategy. I'm not saying, I'm not like puffing myself up. I'm just saying for as just a, like when you have something that works, iterating on it and making it better. You know what I mean?

And so I've done that several times and actually took quite a bit of work. Now, were you writing blogs or anything at this time? Along the way? Well, not really, no. So I had posted like one or two little things on this Build Healthy Muscle website, but otherwise, no. I had really just kind of like, by the end of 2012, I don't remember the exact timeline, but I had maybe two max, three books. So Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, and then a couple of shorter other ones. I believe the cookbook was in 2013. I don't remember exactly. But at the end

of the year, Bigger, Leaner, Strong was selling a few thousand copies a month. Oh, organically at this point. Yeah. Wow. That's excellent. And two word of mouth. And I'll say also a big takeaway from, and it's something I've kept in up until now, is being helpful to people. So when people write emails, when they, when they message me on social media, if they DM me on Instagram, like they will hear back. Uh, you're still like that. Yeah. I messaged you and you messaged me, you know, right away. Exactly. That's why,

good. And that was me. It's not like an assistant or something. Right. And I have a couple people that help, like my email gets hammered. And so I have a couple people that help, uh, with sometimes they're very filtering. they're very simple questions. Everyone always gets an answer though, you know what I mean? Where it's like a lot of them actually are fairly simple questions that I've already answered in an article that I've written or a podcast.

So it's kind of just like, oh, that's a good question. Go check this out, this will answer your question. Let me know if you have any, you know, let me know if it doesn't and then, you know, I think this is gonna take care of you. But it's just that point of taking care of, really taking care of people. So up until, you know, maybe the last year or so, I mean, I was spending four ish hours a day every day,

and then probably six hours, seven hours on the weekends as well. It was usually on Sunday, like I would be off on Saturday and then, and then so just answering people's communication. Um, and, and that, I mean, does tremendous things as far as word of mouth goes, because, I mean, that's pretty cool. If you just look at it like you just you bought some book on Amazon, you read it and you're like, oh, it's a good book. And you have a question you actually heard back and got a really good answer. What a lost art. That is such a lost art nowadays to be able to do that. And those are old school. Makes big impacts.

Yeah, that's old school business advice is to be able to do that kind of stuff. And I think it doesn't scale, but it's huge. And that's one of the reasons why it's huge. And it's one of the things that, again, like people, a lot of people don't want to do that because it's not sexy. Well, or they give up right away because like you just said,

that doesn't scale very well, but it's how you lay a solid foundation. Totally. And that's something I'll never change. Like that's always going to be the case. People will always be able to get answers to questions and get help. And I don't ask them to buy anything. Like I was never pushy. The most I ever asked for

was like at the point where I, they were happy with my, uh, you know, but they felt like they got their question answer. Their problem was resolved. If they liked the book, the most I'd ever asked for is if they wouldn't mind leaving a quick review. And it was just like a PS, it wasn't even pushy. You know what I mean? Which is easy to ask for that when you service someone like that, right? When you're helping, asking questions. It's not much to ask for in a person. So many people have been absolutely, they're probably like, of course I'll leave you. They wouldn't necessarily think of it, but they're thinking that's the least I can do that you actually took time to help me.

Right. Well, a lot of your information does, is counter to the fitness common knowledge, like where you're, you know, kind of tackling some of the myths that are out there. What brought you along, you know, on that particular journey? Was it your own training? Just your own? Yeah, I mean, I guess, guess my own. I mean, this is kind of ties into finish answering what you have. Yeah, I want him to finish talking about that. They kind of go together, right? So, so that was, that was the beginning is with bigger than you're stronger. And I was like, that's really cool. Um, but I didn't want to really dive into the fitness industry because I didn't really like a lot of what I saw. I didn't like that. There was speaking just to that so much bullshit,

right. And so many bullshit people, um, that instinct like inherent right away. If someone is, um, if someone is just a generally immoral, unethical bullshit type of person, I kind of instinctively just don't like them. I don't care how much money they make. I don't care about how cool they are. I don't care if it's a girl, how good she, you know what I mean? Like that is such a turnoff to me in terms of who they are as a person where like I don't even want to be around them. I don't care even what it might get me in terms of self-interest. I really just don't believe in having those people in my life at all.

You know what I mean? I do not want to be connected to people like that. And I, that's what I saw so much of in the industry. Most of the industry. Yep. And, and, and I also saw that like the way that it's at least what a lot of people were trying to do to get into the industry is suck up to people like that. Right. Cause you have a lot, you have people they've put themselves. Yeah, sure. They've hustled and they've, they have established, um, a platform and they have like, they have that. I mean, it reminds me of what you were talking about with that book that I want to read where like they're one, they are a person that could help something go viral in that sense. I mean, they have that power where if they get behind someone or something, they can make it go. But I didn't want to play that game of like,

something, they can make it go. But I didn't want to play that game of like, again, just kind of like, uh, soft soaping people that I don't really like. And, and so that was one of the reasons why I was like, if that's what it would take, not interested. Um, and then, and then I would say there's a lot of the, there's a lot about the fitness culture, so to speak, that I also doesn't really resonate with me. I think it's a kind of cheesy and some of it a bit neurotic and narcissistic. A bit. Oh my God. You're being very polite. Yeah, you are.

I don't want to demonize, I don't want to paint everyone with tar. Well, it's the industry. I mean, when I first got on Instagram, I mean, me and Adam were talking before we started the podcast and he's like, you got to get on Instagram. You got to get, that's the place to,

that's where you promote fitness. And I got on Instagram and I flipped through and I'm like fuck no like this is are these people this is narcissism hell and I don't know if I like this and what's going on and yeah but I mean you know obviously you can promote it the way you want to exactly we try to do yeah and I'm the same way with it um I mean I I'm admittedly pretty bad at social media I'm kind of inconsistent with And I don't really like it personally. I don't spend time on it because I'd rather spend time productively. And I don't feel like as an individual, I don't find that productive. Very, very time sucking.

Yeah. I mean, I like, I use it to interact with people that want to interact with me. You know what I mean? Otherwise I don't use it. But, but so, yeah, so that's why I was kind of looking at the beginning and I was just like, eh, this doesn't, this doesn't really seem like I don't want to – I don't really want to play that game. So initially, I was thinking I'll do a publishing company instead. And what I'll do is I'll take what I've learned about – because I would say like book marketing starts with the creation of the book. Ultimately, what makes or breaks a book is word of mouth.

Like it doesn't matter how much marketing muscle you have behind a book. Sure, that can get you off the tarmac, but if you're gonna, you know, stay up in the, if you're gonna sell a lot of books over a long time, it's gonna be because word of mouth. It's because of viral coefficient, right? It seems more, that's more true for books

than almost anything. Cause I can think of like right now, like 50 Shades of Grey totally exploded because of word of mouth you know that story right it started as like so hit makers covers that story yeah yeah it's crazy yeah yeah crazy story yeah it is it's a it's a crazy story but it goes right back into the what we talked about dinner the other night about uh you know how things actually go viral and stuff so hit makers actually uses that that's the book you were talking about i drew a blank last night when we were at dinner, but they break down the science of exactly how that all happened. And it's really fascinating. It's a very fascinating story, but you're right. I mean,

it'll only, if it's, if it's caca, you know, it'll, you may have enough influencers to get it rolling, but even big people, I mean, you can have the biggest people and you might be able to come out the gate strong. Sure. You might, you know, you can hit the NYT. You can also just pay to hit the NYT. There's a company, I won't say the name, but you basically, uh, what you do is you, you buy your own books and you, you coordinate it through them and they have people on the ground that go because there's Paul, there's hitting NYT is, is obviously quantity. There's quantitative, like you need to sell a certain number of books, pre-orders first week, but also distribution matters. Where the books are available

and where those books are being sold matters. So like as a self-published author, I mean, I have a, you know, it's just a, it's an S Corp and it's a publishing company, but it just is publishing only my stuff right now, which is something I actually still might come back around to my publishing company idea. It just wouldn't be right now.

But anyways, so like if I were to publish a book and sell a ton of copies, pre-sales and first week, all on Amazon, right? Because I just drive it with email lists and whatever. That does not mean I'm going to be on the list because the people that keep the list, that curate the list, that decide who gets to be on it, not they care also about who published this book, who, you know, what is

the gatekeepers actually. So, oh, this is, you know, this is clearly just a, um, this one dude's, you know, thing. And this book is not available in bookstores, um, which getting into bookstores, I mean, it can happen. It's just, um, it's actually something my brother's helping him with some book marketing stuff as well. I think, you know, you have to – basically, he's going to have to sell a buyer at Barnes & Noble to put my book into stores. That's how big publishers work. They just have those – obviously, they have those relationships. So it's like, what do you got coming? Okay, cool.

And they work it out. But if you're a nobody, it's kind of like, what is this? But it has enough numbers behind it, like a few of the books where they're going to be interested. But anyways, my point is I could sell 100,000 copies preordordered in first week and not be on the list simply because it doesn't really meet their criteria. Self-publishing still has a bit of a stigma as a self-published author. You know, if a lot of people would hear that and like kind of scoff, I'm like, oh, loser. I'm a writer. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, you're unemployed. Yeah, exactly. Exactly it. Right. So, so, so yeah, so there's like, you know, there's a company, what you that. Oh, you're unemployed. Yeah, exactly it. Exactly it, right?

So yeah, so there's a company. What you can do though is you can pay them. And so you're going to be buying your own books. And then, but they send, the money goes to people that go into bookstores all over the country to buy your book. And so it looks totally okay. God. I know several people that have done that.

Because they don't, in one case, he's not a writer. He didn't care. He paid ghostwriters to write the whole book. And so it looks totally, I know several people that have done that. Cause they don't, they don't in one case, he doesn't, he's not a writer. He didn't carry paid ghost writers to write the whole book. He just wanted it to, because he he's on the speaking circuit. And if you if you're an NYT bestseller especially in the business space, B2B or even just B2C, but if it's like business related on, you know, entrepreneur, entrepreneurial type of speaking circuit, marketing, all that stuff you can raise your speaking rates by anywhere from probably like 30 to 40%. If you're an NYT bestselling author, um, just like that, just, just cause it's instant authority. Yes. But because it helps them sell people to come, you know, the NYT bestseller,

so, so-and-so is going to be here. Um, and if you get into number one, it can be 80 to a hundred percent. So you can almost double. So you can go from like getting $20,000 an hour to talk to $40,000 an hour, just because you have a number one NYT bestselling book. So a buddy of mine, that's what he did and spent a million dollars on, on buying his book. Cause he, he was, he was like, I'm, I'm getting that. Right. And, and actually it didn't, it didn't, it didn't, he, I think he, I think he had number four or something. Oh, the whole thing he was just pissed about. I mean, to be fair, I mean, he has for all intents and purposes, unlimited money. So he didn't care so much about that. He just wasn't happy with how the whole thing went down and whatever. Um, but so, you know, you can,

anything's game. Well, that's like, Oh my God, you start looking behind the scenes, everything you see, it's all fake. Um, that's the supplement industry. The fucking wizard of Oz, dude. Exactly. Right. So, um so and you're saying fitness is just that's and that's yeah so the fitness and looking at it uh i was like i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm more interested at the time like i was like i'm more interested in just books i mean i've always liked i've always enjoyed school and studying and that's been a thing for me and i like to read and i was like and i and i know that i can do there are big opportunities particularly on the internet and on Amazon as well with their marketing ecosystem to do very well, actually.

And to be able to offer deals to people that would have a hard time getting book deals otherwise, because especially now, big, they, they really want people like, uh, they really want people like, like me, like they want someone that I can go to them and I can say I've sold close to a million books. Now as a self-published author, I have 400,000 people on my email list. My websites get 2 million visits a month. I have a podcast that does three or 400,000 downloads a month, like where they know we cannot lose money on this dude. You know what I mean? Like he's already established himself as a writer and has a platform and you guys similar, you could probably, you could get a book deal. It'd be a little bit harder though of a sell because you haven't done one before, but you still could because you have a big enough, they would, they would, you could also,

you guys could do it. Right. But like if you did not have a platform and even if you have a fantastic idea that you know is a great idea, very hard to get a deal. And if you do, it's not going to be, you're looking at a very, very small advance, which is what it is. But, you know, low royalties. Like, you have no leverage. You know what I mean? Wow. So, it was just the word of mouth that got you because you didn't have any of that when you first started.

Yeah. So, but that also, again, that's still always, though, what it comes down to. I mean, Ryan Holiday, I read his most recent book, The Perennial Seller, I believe it's called. And I thought it was okay. I liked a bit of what he had to say. But I very much agreed with some of what he had to say. And one of the points is that, like, in the end, if you're going to create a book that isn't just a flash in the pan, because that's really the goal, right, is to create something that is going to still be selling 10 years from now, like what Mark Ripito has done with Starting Strength, something like that.

That's what you want. You want something that's going to pay you for the rest of your life. And that doesn't just happen by accident. So, again, at the time, one of the reasons why the book did very well is because there wasn't a book like that at the time. There wasn't a book that was really just breaking down flexible dieting and explaining it in simple terms and giving simple numbers. And here's how to do this. And you start here and here's how you renegotiate depending on how your body's responding. And then on weightlifting, you don't have to sit in the gym for two hours a day doing bodybuilding workouts and doing like a million sets for your biceps every week and stuff like that.

You can more focus on the heavy compound stuff. And then you can do some accessory work to bring up depending on what you want to do with your physique. All that basic stuff. Yeah, good information stuff. And then you can do some accessory work to bring up, depending on what you want to do with your physique, all like basic stuff. Good information. Yeah. Just good information. And again, it was like, this is what I wish somebody would have given me when I first started training. Um, so, so I was going to do the publishing company and, um, started it, like came up the name, uh, put the, put the website there. I was putting it together. And then in that process, though, it's probably a two month process, kind of putting everything together, um, with my, with my friend, Jeremy, I recruited him to work with me and we were just talking and i kind of was like

looking at it and you know we basically just both agreed that it probably is smarter to there's you know health and fitness is not only is it huge but it's just getting bigger and that um obviously i mean i just not took a genius to see that but like like, you know. I just did some research yesterday that the entire health industry, which includes fitness, beauty, and diets and stuff like that, supplements, it's gonna be the next, they consider it to be the next trillion dollar global industry.

I mean, supplements alone are 100 billion plus a year globally right now. Yeah. That's not sports nutrition supplements, but still, I mean, that's insane. Yeah, so it's a monster of an industry. And on the whole, I think it's great. I mean, I think it's great that it's getting, you know, you can take something like CrossFit,

which, I mean, sure, you can criticize CrossFit, but at least it has introduced a lot of people to barbell training. At least it has gotten people to do it. We've made the same argument. That's what we talk about. We did it. One of our first viral episodes that we did was why we don't CrossFit, and we kind of came after him a bit, but we also said, man, a lot of great things is happening. The communities that they've built, like the, that, that idea and concept,

I think is they've done beautiful, beautiful job. We just had Kelly start on the show the other day. The bar, I mean, nobody was dead lifting and squatting 10 years ago. I mean, we've, we've been working in gyms for over 15 years and i mean a week could go by and i would see nobody even get under the under a barbell on the squat rack so that i mean i and we attribute crossfit to being a major proponent i spoke about the same or like yeah i mean it's you can always poke holes in in pretty much anything and in crossfit on the yes, it has some systemic problems, but I think it's, it also has done a lot of good. Yeah. I think it's done more good

than bad. I totally agree. I totally agree. So, so then that, that's when we really reevaluated and said, okay, this is a big opportunity. And it's also is something that I enjoy. Like, and I basically, for me, how I kind of changed my mind on it is, okay, I'm willing to do it if I can just do it my way basically. And not again, play the game of like trying to weasel around. And one, like I didn't want to do things that are dishonest and I didn't want to have to associate with dishonest people. And so if I could do that, if I could make good products. So the odds were stacked against you. I was just going to say, which that's fucking hard to do. Yeah, I know. But I was like, that's, those are my terms personally.

That's the long game. Exactly. And that's so, so I'm okay with a change in my mind if I can do it that way. And so Jeremy agreed and, you know, that's also just kind of the person he is too. He has a good moral compass as an individual and he would be the same way. Like he just wouldn't be okay with doing what a lot of people are okay with, you know, that's not him. So that's when we kind of pivoted and then started working on Muscle for Life, which then launched in like March

of 2013. And that from that point forward, it was kind of like full-time on writing for Muscle for Life and working on more books. And then Jeremy, because in the beginning, so like I thought that marketing, like that's, I kind of gave that to him and said, cause he, he was kind of like a, one of the, one of the lost boys at that time. Right. So like he grew up in a family with a lot of money and he had worked in there in the, in the family company for a bit and tried different things and didn't really find his way. And he was at the time, I want to say he was like 20 or 21, right? And I didn't really know what he wanted to do. And so, but he's very smart and he can learn very, very well. He's very high aptitude, high IQ kind of person. And also good at execution, like he gets things done. You know what I mean? And so I saw-

Everybody needs one of those. Everybody needs a Jeremy, that's true. And so I saw that in him and so I recruited him and kind of told him like, all right. So, and he respected me just because, um, I mean, yeah, I, despite having my kind of bon vivant days, a little bit of my European debt accumulation, he saw, he also saw that like, I'm actually a pretty conscientious individual. Like I do work hard and I get things done and I, I tend to, I don't go too off the rails as an individual. Right. So, um, so, you know, I told him like, okay, you're going to learn marketing. That's what you need to do. You need to become a really good marketer. And I think you're going to like it. I think it fits your personality.

There's a, you know, always new things to learn, always new things to do. And once you figure something out, that's very easy to then you kind of delegate things out once you have things working. But, you know, very good marketers are very good at ideation. They're very good at like coming up with theories on, on what might work and then doing it and then quantifying it and seeing what happens. Right. And that's there, it's hard to find people that are really good at that. So, so that was like, I kind of threw them in and just said, okay, and here's some resources at that time. I was, I always said, I would say I was a decent marketer. I had decent marketing instincts, kind of a generalist because I had dabbled in the internet marketing space more from the educational side of things. marketing, right? So through Muscle for Life, that was kind of the beginning. And then we started working on Legion that year as well, putting it all together. If I remember correctly, it was

about six months of work to go from like the decision to get into supplements to actually launching. So- Did everything go accordingly? Was this like the vision and the plan or did you, did things just unfold? I mean, did you see it? So I definitely, I definitely, okay. So what, what, at that time, what I saw was that I knew there's an opportunity in supplements and I, and I, now what was the opportunity that you saw? So it was one to scratch my own itch, honestly, to make products that I myself wanted, um, good products that I knew ultimately would just come down to like, uh, spending more on them than most people would and spending that money intelligently which means finding people that were very knowledgeable and giving them almost carte blanche like that's how that's how we still do it now is like um you know there's there's one person that i can't say who it

is yet um but you know very very smart i mean people would know if you knew if i were to say who it is a lot of people if you supplementation, you know who this guy is. Very, very bright. And so kind of tell him, hey, let's do a, so like whatever it is, multivitamin pre-workout, blah, blah, blah. And we start with no budgetary restrictions. Like don't even just make the ultimate multivitamin. That's the starting point. Yeah. What would that look like? Right?

And then we get it costed. And like in the case of the pre-workout, I remember specifically, it came back at $70 a bottle, our cost. It's like, yeah, okay. The first $200 pre-workout. Yeah, exactly. I wonder if somebody would buy that. Somebody would buy that. What the hell was in there, man?

Unicorn dust? Gold, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Gold cocaine? Yeah, I mean, if gold dust, there's a market for that. There is. I saw some news story.

I think it was around here. It was like Silicon Valley where some $700 a head restaurant where you're eating steak with gold flakes and shit. Just gold flakes. Hey, if people are going to- So you can shit gold too, right? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. People will pay for it.

There are some people. Maybe in this, maybe that. As in Silicon Valley. There's a status to that. Yeah, there is. Where you want to make sure everybody knows that that's what you're taking. When we turn turn off the mics we'll come up with that product this has gold in it um you're too poor like yeah not for poor people it's not for you you know who you are poor people if this is for you that's the tag how bad do you want to get in shape yeah will you spend all your money yeah

exactly oh my god um so so then now what we have to do though from there is find out, okay, what are the cost drivers in terms of the ingredients? And we've run into that multiple times where it's usually one or two ingredients in particular that are just super expensive. So like for our greens supplement, we wanted anthocyanins and we wanted a good dose of anthocyanins. Turns out it's absurdly expensive to get a good dose of anthocyanins just because it's very expensive to to produce them and extract them from the berries you know what i mean um so that alone was gonna be 30 a bottle we're like okay so so we have two options now we can we can pixie dust uh with some you know and so just says it on the label explain that by the way so that's like just including a very small ineffective dose and not nothing a nominal dose of something simply so you can put it on your label.

How common do you think that is? Oh, everybody does. I mean, it's like, it's such a thing. Whenever you see proprietary blends, like there it is. You know what I mean? That's what that is. So, you know, proprietary blends, when you're looking at what's in there, it's listed by weight.

So whatever is first on the list, that's what it contains the most of. But what you don't know is that the proportions, it's not like those are all in equal doses. I mean, it could be 99% maltodextrin in the beginning of that prop blend and then have nine other ingredients. And those all could be like a milligram each. So, yeah, that's pixie dusting. It's putting a little bit of something in there just so you can say, oh, and it has, you know, blah. And that's really, you know, you know that shit's good for you. It has peptides.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Molecules. Chemistry. HMB. So, yeah, so, you know, we, then what we can do is we can, we can do that or we can just get rid of it. So, we always just get rid of it. Like if it gets below the clinical effective dose, then we just have to kill the ingredient. So, then there's a balancing game. Which takes some integrity to do that, right?

Yeah. I mean- You probably would sell more to be able to say, we've got this in here, right? Yeah, probably. Yeah. But, so I look at it, I mean, one, there's a moral component to me, which is kind of non-negotiable. But even if that weren't the case, even if I was more just like a greedy capitalist about it, I look at it and I go, okay, yes. You sound like Smeagol there for a second. That's how all capitalists are. Yeah.

Sorry. Shekels. So, you know, I could say maybe it would help me acquire more customers possibly because it might make for a little bit sexier of a pitch although i mean in my experience a lot of people they don't quite understand even if you try to go out of your way to explain the ingredients and what they are and why they're in there and why you put them in this doses a lot of people aren't tremendously interested in that actually um they're kind of buying it more on, it's, I would say like that they just trust me, for example, a lot of people just buy the stuff. They just trust that I'm producing a good product. Even though if you look at my website, if you look at any of the

sales pages, they're pretty, I mean, they're long form and they really break everything down and really explain every ingredient. But you know, with heat, with I believe it's heat mapping is what you use for that. Well, you can see, yeah, it would be, it's a, I guess like a function of the heat mapping where you can see how far down people scroll on average, maybe 30 or 40% even make it to the bottom of the sales page. And you know, it's really starts to drop off right around like, right when you start getting into the details of the product. So a lot of people are kind of just buying it. This builds muscle and burns fat. Find out how, I don't need to. Yeah, there's like, yes. If he says it, then I'll do it.

Yeah, and I understand. I mean, that's just the nature of consumer psychology. But that makes you feel responsible, which is good. Well, yeah, and a lot of people actually appreciate that though. And that has won me a lot of very educated and discerning consumers that will specifically even email in to be like, it'll be some PhD and he'll really actually appreciate

that we have taken the time to really lay this product out and the formulation. to be like, you know, it'll be some PhD and he'll really actually appreciate that, you know, we have taken the time to really lay this product out and the formulation. Of course, it's all not all trend, not just all transparent in terms of what's in there and what amount, but also why, like, why is this in here and what's the relevant research and why even that dose? Like how you say that's a clinically effective dose, but where's the research? What are you basing that on? You know what I mean? So, cause again, like how I've gone about it from that perspective is I want to, that's who I was. I wanted to meet that standard where I could have someone like the guy that I work on the formulations with. Um, you know, I wanted someone like him to be

able to read that copy and not be able to tear it apart. You know what I mean? Be like, that's solid. Like there's a lot that goes into trying to make a good, decent product. And it's so easy to not do that. I mean, and you're not even talking about like lying, like just flat out lying like a lot of supplement companies do. I remember reading some of these early independent lab reports on these supplements. And I was blown away.

I was a young kid. I'd be taking supplements left and right. Same. I used to spend a hundred dollars a month. Yeah. And I'd read this report and it's like, uh, Oh, this is the best one in testing. And it had 70% of its label. I'm like, that's the best one. The best one at 70%. I mean, how, how widespread is that? Have you actually gone out and tested other products to see? Not other products. Um, just cause I guess I don't really care. I probably know what's, but I test my own. I use Eurofins, which is a big respected lab. Um, and it's expensive, but you know, we do once or twice a year, uh, around, we do like spot checks. Um, because you want to make sure the manufacturer I've done. Yeah, exactly. But I've done the full, you know, in it, I would say,

I think the last time I did full, it was like $30,000 to get everything tested. Um, but I just, you know, it's a peace of mind for me to know that, you know, I know what I'm ordering. I know what I want and I know what I'm paying for. But, um, and I, and at this point I actually very much do trust my manufacturer. They are, they have a very good reputation. They work with very, very big, not just sports nutrition but like pharmaceutical companies and shit like they don't fuck around they're actually good guys but still it's just a matter of quality control because i actually have caught a couple times when this was this is not them trying to fuck me but where they had gotten for example they

were supposed to be a like an extract was supposed to be standardized for a certain molecule to a certain amount and they didn't get that or they messed up on their raw purchase. And so it's not that it didn't have, you know, what I wanted in there. It just wasn't in the amount that I wanted. Um, so I have caught that that was one time on one product and then it hasn't happened again. So, I mean that I wouldn't have otherwise known and it wasn't them trying to fuck me at all. And it wasn't, it was just like a, an honest mistake, purchased the wrong raw. And sometimes, uh, when you, when you take a product and you'd be like, oh, it doesn't work, sometimes it's not because the ingredient that it lists isn't effective.

Sometimes it's because it doesn't have any in it. So then, you know, now you're like, oh, creatine doesn't work. I tried it and it doesn't work. Well, what you were taking didn't have any creatine. Yeah, no, like maltodextrin doesn't work. Yeah, yeah. And I experienced this. So we don't promote supplements that often.

In fact, some people say we're anti, but we're not anti, we're just anti-bullshit. And there was one particular- We're also in order of operation. So that's what we- Yeah, what's the most important? It's like, you know, if you're not fucking eating correctly,

you're programming shit and you're taking all the best supplements in the world, what the fuck is it really doing for you? Totally, right. And that's part of like the sales pitch of, I mean, that's like on my website. And like this, you know, supplements do not build a great physique.

And just that point, you have to know. And I really tell people, and this is built into sales pitches, like supplementation is for if you have the budget and you have the inclination. And I would say that I do personally like, and I more strongly recommend actually just a few things for health

purposes, like an omega-3 supplement. I mean, I personally do fish oil. Vitamin D, depending on your levels, you can get tested and know. Most people though have to supplement with a fair amount of vitamin D, even now that we know that vitamin D sufficiency is a bit higher than what we once thought, where most people probably need to take anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 IUs a day to be, you know, at the upper levels of where you want to be. What do you think about the whole like, oh, 10 minutes of sun exposure and you'll get all the vitamin D that you need? I mean, I've read up a fair amount on this. So that's where I'm coming from. But from what I've read, and this is also according to like Dr. Michael Holick, I mean, he's like the vitamin

D guru, right? He spends his life's work studying vitamin D basically. And yeah, if I remember correctly, it was about like 15 minutes per day with at least 70% of your skin exposed. Also, it depends on where you are, like equatorial, equatorially. So. And your skin color and all that stuff. Yeah. And how exactly there's that as well, like how much melatonin, how dark or light your skin is. And so, yes, if you were to do like 15 minutes with most of your skin exposed every day, you might be fine. Yeah, but how many people actually... But who does that?

Yeah, who walks out in their underwear... Oh, yeah, right. I got to go... For 15 minutes in their underwear... I do. And sun. Just you. I do it all the time.

And then there's winter. Yeah. If you're in a state that has a winter. Right. And another factor is cholesterol. You have to have a certain amount of cholesterol your body to synthesize vitamin d so if you're on a statin or you have really low cholesterol people never talk about the dangers of low cholesterol one of them is uh you're much higher much more likely to have a vitamin d deficiency vitamin d acts like a hormone in the body by the way in fact i've heard

some like every cell has a receptor yeah Yeah, I've heard people actually say vitamin D should be classified as a hormone. Yeah, I mean, that was one of Michael Hallock's big, I mean, that came from his research. Like that revelation that, wait, this isn't just like a bone vitamin, like we thought. There's a bit more to this.

What's funny to me is, well, they'll have populations who will use like shit tons of sunscreen and they'll reduce, they'll see a small drop in skin cancer but that you'll you'll see an increase in all other kinds of other cancers chronic illnesses and chronic illnesses because of the vitamin you know vitamin d deficiency yeah yesterday we were talking about uh just your own personal motivation with fitness and how it switched from i guess when you were

younger like a lot of us it was to get look a certain way. Yeah, to impress girls. To impress, be honest. And now it's much more health-focused, but as a side effect, you're noticing great aesthetic results as well. I mean, when did that transition happen for you? You know, that's a good question. along the way, um, I mean, I've always been cognizant of, of my health, uh, when I was never really a hypochondriac, but I wasn't worrying about, you know, is everything I'm eating GMO free and gluten free and blah, blah, blah. Um, but I generally would eat well and grew up playing sports and never really had any, any, any physical or health issues. So it wasn't really something that ever occurred to me. I just had good habits, I guess. And so I would say there wasn't a major shift because I feel like,

you know, for the last probably four years or so, three or four years, I've been pretty happy with my physique and I haven't like, sure, I've worked, I wanted to work on certain things just for the sake of having a game. Like, you know, at least I'm working towards something. In some cases, more performance based, like certain numbers on my big lifts. And in other cases, it was more just like having more calves, which is probably a waste of time. But I'm still trying. Oh, man. Join the club, bro.

That's the calf pity part in here. No, no, no. You're good. Oh, man. That's trying. That's like five times. Oh, man. That's trying. That's like five times a week, bro. I put some volume into these guys, dude. You might be surprised.

You got cell caps. Come up with a cap supplement. I'm still, yeah. Right. Game over right there, dude. Yeah, that's it. And so, yeah, there wasn't a major shift, so I've been pretty happy with where my physique is at.

And also, I think I have a good sense of what is actually attainable naturally. Like, yeah, sure. There are, if I were to get on the right cycle, I would like how that looks. Absolutely. That's true. But I know that like, yeah, that's only happening with drugs. If I know that, I mean, even just given if we want to be scientific about it, like using Casey Butts' research on maximum muscular potential, given my wrists and ankles, right? I've done this.

There's like a calculator online, right? Yeah, I have one on my site. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, do you? Maybe it was on your site that I did it. Maybe. It might have been, yeah. It'll tell you what your potential is, your natural potential.

Yeah, yeah. We have a couple up there based on a couple models. Have you reached yours? No. So, uh, and that's where like, uh, but also there's something though, my weight is strangely low. So I weigh like one 92, one 93.

Okay. And it's not because I don't train legs. Like my, my legs, my calves suck, but, uh, but my upper legs are pretty fortunate with Robert. We haven't, me and you have a similar build. You're a little heavier than I am, but we have a very similar build. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. You're a little more broad than I am. Yeah. Um, so, but, but like people will guess my weight. They usually guess me, you know, 10 ish pounds heavier. They'll guess me more around 200, 205. Even like when I was at universal studios years ago, there was a girl, she was, I don't remember what kind of booth, but she used to run the weight guessing booth. Right. And like, if they guess you wrong by X number of pounds, you win something kind of thing. And, uh, and so just, just randomly, I was like how I was like pretty lean, but I was smaller as well as the first time I really got lean. And I was like 183, 184 at the time. And so she guessed me like 196 or something like that. So my weight has always been a bit

strangely low. Even guys I've worked out with, um, that I, you know, I'll be a bit bigger than everywhere, but I'll be like seven pounds lighter. Right. So taking that into account, I would like, according to the calculators and the models, apparently at about, at about 10%, I could weigh 215. I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case. I mean, just cause again, I know my weight is, is strange. I do think though that I could probably be 10 pounds heavier. I do think if, and it would probably take a few years of like, and I'd have to be in a surplus for a lot of that time and have to, you know, just do the thing and really push my volume and really work hard at it.

I think I probably could walk around it now, get to like where I'm at with my body fat right now. I probably could be 10 pounds heavier if I wanted to, but I'm not, I'm kind of happy again with where I'm at. Yeah, there's a bit of a trade-off, I think, when you start to push those limits. For sure. And then that also comes into the health issue

where like I'm more concerned. Actually, what has changed for me, and if I look at it like three or four years ago, even five years ago, is I've noticed that my recovery is a little bit worse. It's not bad, but like I can't push myself as hard, especially on heavy squat deadlift. I see it mostly there. Mostly I especially on heavy squat deadlift. I see it mostly there.

Mostly I'm on heavy squatting and deadlifting. I can't push the volume as much as I could four-ish years ago, you know, with heavy weight. I know it's the same thing. I have to be a bit more- My hips start to bother me, elbow stuff. It's like once you start really- Knee or like, you know, just-

Get off my lawn. Yeah, I mean, that's what I've noticed. So also if I look at what would it take, um, to, to gain that, that muscle, if I'm gonna do it most efficiently, um, you know, I probably would deal with some nagging, just nagging joint stuff and things that where I'm like, I don't feel compelled to do it. And I, and I also at this point want to make sure that, um, I want to do everything I can to not get hurt. And, uh, you know what I mean? Cause I like training. I like, I like things where they're at right now.

What does your mobility training look like? I do yoga, actually. That's what I do. I do an hour of yoga a week. And so before that, I was doing- Like just a regular vinyasa flow? Yeah, vinyasa. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And before that, I was doing an upper and lower body mobility routine, but I found yoga more enjoyable. And in some ways, I'm getting more out of yoga than I was out of the mobility work. It's the mindfulness aspect of yoga. Do you do like a legit like the mindfulness practice with it or is it just – I actually prefer – that even – when you go into like meditation, it's just not – I haven't really – it's not really for me. I don't know. I don't feel like I don't do anything. I don't get anything out of it. Even journaling and stuff, like I'd rather just not and i haven't really that's not really for me i don't know it doesn't i don't feel like i don't do anything i don't get anything out of it even

journaling and stuff like i'd rather just work have you trying like honestly i'll be sitting out if i do all this 20 minutes i'm like i could have made this much money if i would have fucking been doing not even that i could have i could have just gone ahead and you know i would be 20 minutes into my day uh the way you got to look at it is it's trading you know it's trading dimes for quarters like you know 30 minutes of meditation you'll end up finding no joke. And I learned this recently. Yeah. You end up getting 45 minutes back in productivity and time.

So it's one of those things, but for people like you, and I can completely relate to you. I think everybody in this room can. This is hard for all of us. Very, very hard to sit down and do nothing. That's the way I used to think about it.

Like, and then I would approach meditation, like a workout, like, all right, I'm going to sit here and meditate. Yeah. Fucking crazy. I'm going to get, I'm going to sit here and meditate. Yeah. Fucking crazy.

I'm going to get a great idea of this right now. And that's the opposite of meditation. So really learning to let go. Yeah. And then you end up finding you get to flow states better. You remember things more. And it's pretty cool. But yeah, I can say it very possible. I'm missing out.

Uh, I have brain FM, brain FM. I have an app for you to try. Did you go try the app? It's called brain FM. And, they have like,

you could trial thing you can do for just their basic stuff, but they have like music and stuff too. Okay. I've used sleep. They do sleep, focus, meditation. Oh,

you do focus. What's that? Did you, the focus one? Have you tried it? Oh yeah. Yeah. I've tried it. I liked it actually. Like, I can't say I noticed the focus one have you tried it oh yeah yeah i've tried it i

like that actually like i can't say i noticed a difference but it was nice like five in while i'm working yeah i tend to just listen to like classical though when i work i mean that's that's for me for whatever reason especially because if i'm writing like if i'm going so i have when i was doing uh like four hours of communication stuff a day, I had it pretty efficiently, like using all the keyboard shortcuts on Google and like made it as, you know, burn through these emails. And so I'd put on like a hard style, obnoxious, loud, you know, just weird electronic music that just get me like, all industrial. Yeah. Yeah. Actually like, what was some of the shit? Um,

I don't even remember. It was like, it's called hard style. No, it's called hard style. It's like, uh, I don't even know how to,

how to, how to, how to, uh, characterize it. It's, it's just like, it's like computers fucking each other.

A lot, a lot of weird noise and just really fast and like cheesy vocals and shit. Um, it's like, yeah, yeah, basically. Yeah.

Sweet. Um, but then for but then for for the more deep focus stuff I like I like classical and I'll listen to some soundtracks as well what do you listen to

classical do you have particular artists or yeah so I listen to a lot of Max Richter dude's amazing like I love particularly his

Vivaldi's Four Seasons Recomposed amazing like the first, I just started getting into classical music myself because I found it to be,

there's something, there's definitely something to it and it's different than other forms of music. It's very interesting. Totally. It actually makes me want to learn piano. So I have a piano in my house

that I don't, my wife wanted to buy it just because it looks nice. And I was like, that's an expensive thing that just looks nice. But okay. So, but now I'm actually, Your kids are going to learn it just cause it looks nice. And I was like, that's an expensive thing that just looks nice. But, but okay. So, but now I'm actually.

Your kids are going to learn it though. Yeah. Lennox already plays. My son already plays on it. And then actually, honestly, like I would like to do it right now. It's just a matter of like, I I'm not ready to carve time out for it.

Cause I, that's kind of how I like, I'm very, very much. My, my life is a routine and I'm a big believer in routine. And I think in many ways it allows me to, it frees me up to do the things that I really want to do. Like a lot of people think of routine as restrictive, especially if it's fairly structured. Like I know pretty much what I'm doing most days from this time to this time. It's going to be this kind of thing, whatever. But anyway, so yeah, Max Richter is really good.

Philip Glass is really good. I've been listening to a lot of Luigi Baccarini. You know, actually my cousin, cousin, great, great, great, great, great. Yeah. What do you, what do you do for fun besides work? So like you and you're like, what do you, you're like, okay, I got some time. Like I'm going to, I'm going to do what I really want to fucking do and have a good time. So I haven't been in, in Virginia. I've been, so in Florida I had like, my routine was I would golf on like Sunday afternoons. And so I was into that. And, but I was funny because like

the first probably 500 hours of golf or so was working on a building a swing. Cause I don't like to be bad at things. Like I don't like to do things that I'm bad at. So if I'm going to do something, I'm going to get good at it, or I'm not going to do it, basically. And so to get good at golf, and I'd read 20... That's also what I'll do. If I'm going to get into something, I'm like, I'll find 20 books to read on it. Oh my God. How did that go? That is such a complicated sport. I mean, actually, so it went well, but just because I'm such an OCD Nazi about how I'm going about it. Right. So like I read a bunch of books and to first, so one of the first things is a book called every stroke

counts, really good book. If anyone's into golf and you haven't read it, read it, read it, right. This is a guy, he's a professor of statistics at Brown university, I believe. And he is a business statistics, but also happens to be a golf aficionado. And so anyways, the dude he, because of who he was, he got access to the PGAs. They have a database going back, I think a couple of decades now, of every long shot accurate to within a yard and every putt accurate to within an inch.

And so they gave him access to all of their data and basically allowed him to just go have fun and see what kind of correlations there were. And so basically he kind of debunked his, similar to like, it was, it's like the, I don't want I won't say it's my book, but it was a, it was a book that like overturned a lot of things that people assumed about golf and what made for a good golf. You know what I mean? And one of the big things was one of the big takeaways was that, um, if you want to be a great golfer, you have to have a good long game, meaning like, you know, getting to the

green where you're putting, you have to, especially off the tee. So like your, your, your drives and then your approach shots, that's where you, that's where great golf is. That's where it happens. And there are different reasons for that. And it's backed up with data. And so anyways, this dude is, I mean, his work, he, he came up with a statistic that the PGA tour now uses. So, I mean, he's completely legit. Right. And so that, that's why i was like okay so i want to get good i don't want to just be like okay so i need to have a good long game which means i need to have a good swing and that's what a lot of people going back to doing what people don't most people don't want to do they don't want to work on building a swing it's a pain in the

fucking ass it's it's well it's so tough to intellectualize that right so like every little nuance thing that you have to do mechanically. There's so much that goes on in your body. Yeah. You have to get to a point too where you reach that kind of flow state where you let it free flow. Totally. How did you even get close to that?

So that's a matter of, again, first understanding intellectually what the big moving parts are in the swing and how things need to, like, what are the sequences and how does it all come together and there's also um doing a lot of work on camera because similar i mean it's i i'd say it's uh i mean there's a similarity with anything any physical action but like even weightlifting you know when you first were squatting for the first time you thought you're even i explain breaking down a squat or a deadlift or a snatch or a movement like that to a golf swing like the mechanics there's so much it's because the the whole entire body is incorporated there's not a

lot of like basic exercise movements that you know they're most hinging but the golf swing you're all planes are getting incorporated so many muscles up or lower so very similar and it's very foreign because yeah it's rotary and everything else asymmetrical it's just weird it's just it's just a weird movement it's really not like you know what the it doesn't come naturally right nothing else emulates it really exactly um except for like you know people that make generally good golfers are baseball players because there's a lot like it's it's actually the golf swing is very similar to the baseball swing just on a different plane now you play hockey though yeah but i was left i was a lefty oh shit so you Oh shit. So it meant nothing like, yeah, there was no carryover, but, but so then it was working on camera because then you have that,

you know, uh, kinesthetic awareness. You start to build that where, and at first, and you know, it's again, like when you, I mean, even if it's just a simple movement, like a squat, what you think you're doing is not what you're doing. You put yourself on camera. So you filmed the whole process. So, so I worked with, for again, for probably 500 hours on camera, working on my swing and just nitpicking, working with a couple of different coaches. And then also myself just modeling my swing on a few people on tour that have like essentially technically perfect swings. And that's also ironically. So that was why that was just my own, like, I'm going to go about it that way. Cause that makes the most sense to me. And so after that time, you're like, I'm going to go about it that way because that makes the most sense to me. And so after that time- You're like, I'm going to go relax and totally obsess about fucking golf.

That's what I'm saying. I'm weird, dude. Perfect it right out of the gate. Is that what you do? But it worked. It worked. After that, so the people, these old guys in the range, they actually kind of respected it because I'm putting in work.

You know what I mean? But at the same time, they're like, are you ever going to fucking play golf, dude? What are you doing? And I was telling them, I was just like, I know, like, yeah. Okay, dude. Uh, and, and, but so I came out, I came out. So these are guys again, like you'll, you can go and play golf for, for your entire life and never break 90. If you count every stroke and you play from the tips, like play real golf, um, you have to be decent to, to break 90. Right. So I spent about 500 hours until I got my swing to a point where then I'm at a point of diminishing returns

where I knew that like, I don't need to grind my swing anymore. No, it's not perfect. I mean, I'm not on the tour, right? But it's solid and my ball striking is good now. And I know that I can take this to the course and start, you know, actually putting up scores. And because working on the short game is much easier.

It's small, there's smaller motions, like putting is fucking this, you know i mean like yeah you practice it over and over fine whatever but it's not like learning to hit a good drive right um and so then within a couple months of then switching it towards more like 80 time playing to 20 in the range my best score was an 83 which uh my always my if it was like a 38 or 39 in the front nine two like i could have if i would have you know i fucked up 38 or 39 in the front nine two like i could have if i would have you know i fucked up a little bit on the back nine and but that could have been a break 80 so so then when i was telling guys i was giving them shit right and just because you know they were

kind of giving me shit that i was wasting my time right and i was like giving them shit like yeah you're like here it is yeah what's that what's that saying adam that you like with me that you like to say again what you how you do one thing is how you do all things. Yeah, how you do anything is how you do everything. Yeah, so you basically like, will get into something and then obsess about it. It's kind of hyper-focused. Kind of my personality. Yeah, just become a maniac about it.

And you did that with fitness. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's how I tend. And that has gotten me into trouble, like in my relationship with my wife. I was just going to ask you. That's exactly the direction I was going to go. Your greatest strength is normally your

greatest weakness. And I always challenge people. Do you see that? And I still struggle with it. I still struggle with it. And, you know, I've gotten better because my wife is, I mean, she's, she's German, right? She's a super sweet girl, but she's also German. So I married a German too. So, so she there's, you know, there's, she'll only take so much shit basically. And, and until, and that's also, that's how her mom, yeah, that's how her mom is and was, and that's how her mom is. That's just, that's, it's just in their blood. You know what I mean? So, so yeah, I mean, I'm just that person that like, I'll tend to, if I want to do something, if I, it doesn't matter how stupid the goal is. The goal is to, is to get good at golf. It means fucking nothing, right?

It's a hobby. Although I'm just not good at like, no, let's just go in the fucking drink a couple of beers and hit some balls in the woods. Like I'll get no enjoyment out of that. You know what I mean? I'd rather work. I'd rather just go in. A lot of people do get enjoyment. I know I'm broken. I don't know, dude. No, it's fine. My two best friends. So it's funny because, okay, so like maybe five, six years ago, my two best friends, childhood, we grew up together, elementary school, and they live about an hour and a half away from here.

They got into golf, hardcore. Like, I mean, that's all they do now on weekends. And it finally got to a point where it's like, fuck, if I want to see my boys, I got to pick this sport up that I don't give two shits about. Yeah. And like yourself, like instantly, like I can't just play something and just be okay with being shitty and chasing balls i was like so you know i'm secretly at the range four or five times a week fucking hitting hitting hitting hitting hitting getting good at and i mean i just could not keep up with the amount

of volume that i needed to put in it to actually play and so i get really frustrated because they're fucking good and they keep playing and stuff. And I'm like, man, I don't have enough of a passion for it. And I don't have the ability to just go out there, have some beers and not care. Like that will drive me more. Like this is not relaxing for me. It's just frustrating because it makes me want to go home and go practice so I can actually put a good score. I know. So that's, that's how I'll be. I'll, I'll, and then, so I'll get something in my mind and then that's all I want to do. Like, I literally won't want to do anything else. We're all the same. That's so funny. I want to fully obsess. You know what I

mean? Like I joke that maybe I should have in the military or something, be that person, like just go and find all those people and kill them. And I'd be like, absolutely. That's, that's my, that's all I want to do with my life right now is find those fuckers and kill them. You know what I mean? And so, so yeah, I mean, that's been where I've just gone, you know, to where I'll, I'll work. I mean, I, I don't know, 90 hours a week or something and completely neglect everything else, including Sarah, including my, including, and just, just almost like as if I don't exist, you know what I mean? And that has absolutely caused problems to where, I mean, Sarah has made it very clear that that's not what she signed up for.

Like that's not going to work. You know what I mean? She wants to have a relationship. She wants to have a family and, you know, not, that's just not her thing. And I understand. So I've had to like. She's normal. Yeah.

And we're not. She married a maniac, which is part of part of the part of the reason why she liked you i have a gym for you then because we are actually we had a similar conversation kelly start was in here just a couple days ago and we were talking about this and um this is something that uh we we all are very similar and it's i have learned now being a you know 36 year old man like i have to put systems in place to make sure that I'm a good partner you know and it's not a it's not a matter of loving or not loving my girl it's just a matter like understanding who you are and that this is what's made me successful my whole

life is I have this ability to get become hyper focused on whatever it is that I'm passionate about and that doesn't mean I don't love her. It's just that that's just how I work. And so I've also realized that that's also not an excuse for me not to be able to make time for her or make her happy. Totally. I mean, especially also, I mean, I've had a run and we've probably had the same thing where like, if you look at it logically, putting in that extra hour and a half at the end of the night, how much am I really gaining? You know what I mean? Versus what I'm losing. Yeah. I mean, Versus what I'm losing. I mean, and not even that, like even if, you don't have to say it's efficient work even,

but still in the bigger picture, you know, I've already put in a lot of time. It's not just me. I mean, everything also that I don't take credit for everything that I talk about is not just me. I mean, I have a team of also smart people that work very hard and very conscientious and really care. So, you know,

I play my role basically, but still, so I can say like, all right, we have the end of the night here and I can, what that extra hour, hour and a half that I can put in before bed in the bigger picture, let's say it gets me this much in that sphere of like, cool, it moves, it moves, keeps things moving a little bit, but it's going to cause this much harm, you know, on the relationship. Which ends up setting you back because now you're dealing with a relationship issue where you got right. What's could end up being hours and days that could drag on if you're in the doghouse. Or you're just the mental strain of it. Right. Then, and you know, even if, when you know you're wrong too, you're like, yeah, I'm fucking dumb.

Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? And then, so maybe, maybe you're in a little bit of a funk for a couple days where, so, you know, I've had to also realize that i'm in some ways just being illogical and just giving into my lizard brain that just says like you know i mean like yeah that's what you want to do right you know you want to just fucking work all the whole the time don't you so something that we so this year we started doing this and i was this is what i was telling kelly and he's like man that's really that's a really good gym you should share share that. And I've shared, so our

listeners are probably tired of hearing me say, cause I've said it several times, but anytime I hear, get a chance to talk to a guest who I think has similar issues as the three of us have with our partners, when it comes to that, um, we started in January, we said, okay, here's the deal. This is what we're going to do is together. We're going to knock out a book a month together. It's a book we'll choose together and we'll listen to it audible. And so, you know, and what I, why I like a small goal like that gives us a goal. So it's not, it's not hard to knock one book out in a month. It's not, I'm not overreaching, you know what I'm saying? We could probably push more, but it's like, Hey, I know what that would require. That requires a few hours a week, every single week for us to make sure that we sit and we listen to it or go on a nice drive or

whatever. And, uh, it's been incredible for our relationship because it always creates incredible dialogue, which I know that's what she's, she's searching for that interaction. Yeah. I've had the same thing, right? Sometimes also I'm just kind of too, I mean, I, I'm generally a a higher energy person but there's a point where dealing you know after maybe it's 14 hours of of a day where i'm just kind of like i don't want to talk i just want to be left alone now we are i'm totally different home than i am here here because you're on you're on you're on you're on you're on you're on so when you go home you kind of shut down and you're all up in here because you're thinking about everything else right so very

cerebral right so we we all are very much so alike like that and this has done it's done wonders for me and our relationship because it does it ends up it gives her that what she needs because she gets that quality time with me it strikes up good conversation it forces me to be present because i'm listening to this book with her um and it's not a lot of time that I have to say, plus I'm growing too. So I'm learning. We choose something we both want to learn it. Rise of Superman was actually the first book that we read together. So if she's growth minded too, which I imagine she is if you married her. So that has been like a fucking game changer. That's smart. I like that. Actually, something similar was we started listening to those Jordan Peterson Bible lectures. Oh, cool.

Yeah. So it was kind of tough because this was at the end of her pregnancy. So, I mean, it depends how she was feeling. Like at the end, she's pretty uncomfortable. So sometimes it would only be like maybe 20 minutes at night or 30 minutes at night. And, you know, that's how it started. I mean, it wasn't even necessarily a, I mean, it's, I think it's smart that you thought about it and figured something out. I didn't even go

that far. I just was like, these are really interesting. You should listen to these with me. It's kind of, well, what I noticed, and because you are a goal oriented person, like I am that same way, like I felt like if I just, and we agreed on this at the beginning of the year, it was a new year's resolution to have a deal for us. We agreed that, you know, let's set a goal to hold us accountable because we both know, you know, how you'll get with business, something will happen and you'll be like, Oh honey, you know, we will, we'll get to that. But right, right now this is a priority. And if I set a goal and I, and I'll, I'll stick to it just the way I am, you know? And so, uh, and I've definitely, I just hate doing things when I feel like there's no real purpose. Right. Right. Like if I can't really justify to myself, why am I doing this? Uh, I just tend to like, it just makes me, it makes me, I just get

bored and I don't like that feeling. Which, which, which is a sign that you may benefit sometimes from doing that. You know, if you, if you're bought, if you're trying to fight it so hard and you're obviously, I, I could, I've only met you for two days, but I could say safely a hundred percent with a hundred percent 100 certainty i don't think you'd ever have an issue with not being productive i don't think that would ever be an issue for you right but you know setting a time aside to kind of do that uh you'll probably see maybe you might see some benefit from it yeah i guess that i don't disagree yeah and the irony of it is aiming going into it thinking that may actually backfire like i'm going to go into this

knowing it's gonna make me more productive. This is going to preach. Yeah, you know what I mean? And it just makes it more. So now as a father, you're in the fitness space. This is a big part of your expertise. You have kids now. How do you – your oldest is what, four, you said?

How do you tackle food with kids? We get this question all the time because it's very – it's one thing being an adult. It's a reoccurring theme for sure. Yeah. It's one thing being an adult and eating right or whatever, but then when you're dealing with a kid and then they go to birthdays or they start going to school, what are some takeaways that you can maybe give our audience that you found with your kids or how do you handle that? So far, so Lennox has, he's been going to school for about a year now. And there, I would say that he doesn't, he's not a big fan of sweets and like the normal junk food stuff, maybe that kids go to. And I also don't, I don't like not completely not allow him to have some like- No, is it because you created good habits around the house of just you guys eat that way. Exactly. And he also sees, so like when, you know, he sees how Sarah and I eat, which is generally very clean, so to speak.

And not because I have, you know, weird ideas about clean eating, but no, like I'm talking about eating nutritious foods. Right, whole foods. Exactly, whole foods. They eat a lot of fruits, a lot of vegetables, a lot of whole grains. And I myself am not an indulgent person

when it comes to food. I don't, I think I probably, I think I have a good relationship with food where I can go out and I can eat random stuff and enjoy it or not. You know what I mean? And generally, you know, my diet is, I prefer to eat that way. And so like my little thing is I like dark chocolate. So I'll have maybe 150 calories of dark chocolate every day and that's enough. That's status. I like that.

You know what I mean? So I'll have maybe 150 calories of dark chocolate every day. And that's enough. I like that. You know what I mean? And so Lennox from the beginning, Sarah also did a good job in the beginning exposing him to different foods when he was a baby. So like blending up different stuff,

vegetables, fruits, and just kind of, I guess, maybe conditioning his palate in that way as opposed to giving him very sugar laden stuff right off the bat. I'm glad you said conditioning his palate. That's something that's real important there because if you do understand

that you're conditioning your child's palate, you know that in the beginning, like any kind of conditioning, it's going to suck. If you have a kid and you're all of a sudden like, oh, okay, we need to clean up their diet. But all they've eaten is candy and fast know, yeah, candy and like fast food. It's going to take you a second. It's going to take you a second.

And you're going to have to recondition them with new foods. And it's a slow process. So because I've had people message me and they're like, oh, I tried what you said. And my kid just didn't want to eat. So it's not going to work for us. It's like, well, it's going to take some time. You have to change the way they perceive the taste of these foods and associate it. I mean, there's research on both that point of uh exposing the when they're when they're

especially when they're infants exposing them and i believe if i remember correctly i read this i read it a bit ago but i believe it also you can even start with breastfeeding if i remember correctly it starts in the womb they have studies now we got was it dr nicole avina we had on the show that got into that so so that then then then i would say i didn't even know that but then that has also benefited Lennox. And then now my daughter, Romy as well, will benefit from that in that Sarah's diet. She also is, she really enjoys eating fruits and that same, same way. And she eats a variety of things. So, so, you know, I guess that Lennox had a, had a leg up in that sense to start with,

but he's still a kid. He doesn't like vegetables. He just doesn't. Even though he would eat them as a baby and Sarah would find ways to make them taste good without adding sugar. You know what I mean? But combining some sweeter, like if you cook carrots, they get sweet.

So you can mix that with some green stuff and whatever and he would eat that. Now he doesn't like vegetables, but he still likes fruit, which is good. And he doesn't really like sugar. he still likes fruit, which is good. And he doesn't really like sugar. And he likes, you know, Ezekiel toast. He likes, so we work around with, and he likes, he likes Greek yogurt. So he gets some protein in his diet.

And we're still honestly trying to figure out, and this is something I'm sure that if I were to, I'm sure there's some good ideas out there. I haven't like really tried to, it has now become a thing where I myself, I'm like, I would like him to at least, I'd like to find some way for me to get some vegetables. And so I haven't looked into it now, but it's something that I want to do. But it's been, that's kind of been the experience so far. And- I guess the big takeaway is your kids will eat the way you do. I think there's also that as well. Yeah, setting a good example, right? So he sees that, you know, how Sarah and I eat.

And of course, kids mimic. That's how they learn everything, right? So it's normal to eat the way that he eats because that's the way that we eat. And I mean, yes, he's not really into vegetables yet, but maybe we can figure out, like, at least find something that he likes. But on the whole, his diet is very good. And there is that, you know, he sees us eating like that as well. So, of course, then that's normal. It's a difficult uphill battle that even being as aware as you are with health and fitness, it's just because then they go out into the world.

And what you don't want to do, because I know this through personal experiences. I mean, I grew up in a traditional Italian home, and none of us have good relationships with food. We love food, for sure. But just through our upbringing, and we've got to clean your plate and force you to eat this and bribe you to eat that. You develop these poor relationships. But the other thing you don't want to do is be so crazy strict about it that that's how they rebel. Yes. Kids will rebel against whatever you are insane about.

And this is when you get the kids who go off to college and just eat horribly. I have a friend like this. Just blow themselves up. I have a friend like this. We would go to school and he ate the most healthiest lunches and snacks and he couldn't eat certain things because his mom was a nutritionist and she was super, super strict. And, uh, I saw him on Facebook not that long ago and he's like

massively obese. And it's, I know my guess is, I mean, you're like, yeah, my guess is he's like, I had such a bad experience with all these foods and my parents and I'm going to go eat all this horrible garbage. So, uh, let's talk about exercise for a second because i i know people are listening to this for fitness advice too um what are some of your i hate talking about all that stuff all the time that we all have well let's give them some let's talk about macros right right let's talk about macros but talk about progressive overload yeah exactly what are what are some of your takeaway philosophies with for with exercise what are some things that you'd like to hammer home with your audience so so my audience primarily like the people that i i mean chose to serve and

then now obviously serve most is uh people i'd say the general fitness crowd right um so people that are um maybe this is kind of their their introduction to strength training or um they've been kind of dabbling in resistance training of one kind or another and haven't quite seen the results that, you know, they wanted. So it's, it's a lot of the basics again, of, you know, exercise selection, programming, progressive overload volume, and then, and then also not making, making rest and recovery, making sure that you are recovering and not, because there are, it's become like high frequency, high volume training is the thing right now. Beast mode, all out, no days off. Yeah, exactly. Six, seven days a week. And like, you know, every, every, so you're like squatting,

pulling a bench overhead, pressing twice a week, and you're going to have your heavy day, which is legit heavy. And then you're gonna have your hypertrophy day, which is, and it's fine if you can recover from it. And, you know, I like, I've, I've emailed with quite a few people on some of these programs where they, they just can't do it. You know what I mean? Even, even, even just in a younger guys in a surplus, like, you know, Lane Norton's fat program, not, not, I'm not like, you know, casting aspersion on the program at all, but I can just say from personal experience, working with a lot of people, I've heard from a lot of people that after a couple months on running fat, they, they do not feel good. Um, and it's too much.

Yeah. And you know, I can't, I can't, I can't, uh, say, of course I know exactly what they've done. And I mean, I've emailed back and forth just to get information. Cause I'm kind of curious, like, you know, how much do they really know about their diet? You know, and what's their sleep hygiene like? Just the obvious things. And so, again, I've come across quite a few people that, I mean, they knew what they were doing. And they were doing everything right that I could tell and had struggled with his program. And again, I don't mean to say that it's a bad program at all.

It's just very difficult. Well, I feel like there is this, even for intelligent, you know, program creators, there's this thing where it's like, let's make the hardest program we can write so that if people fail, they feel like, oh, the reason why I don't look the way I want to look is because I can't complete this thing. It's like that. It's that mentality. I'm not tough enough. Right. That might be. That'd be, that's maybe even a little bit too cynical of that.

I mean, maybe some people are doing that. Yeah, dude, I feel like a lot of, a lot of them, a lot of them that we have met, I mean, they're, they're putting workouts that are 40, 50 sets in a, in a, in a. That's absurd. Absurd. Yeah. And it's like the, anybody who's like anybody who's trained hundreds or thousands of people like we have know that 90% of those people will never be able to handle that type of volume. I think it's a protective mechanism, too, because if you're pointing out and you're criticizing some of that, that's the first thing.

It's like, well, you just can't do it because you're not awesome. Yeah. We do get that a lot, to be honest with you. There's a lot of guys touting that kind of behavior so well i mean the human body can handle a tremendous amount of frequency and volume if you allow your body time to get to that point yes a long yeah long slow process and there's a large individual variance yeah so i mean like our programs you know we kind of scale them.

We talk about like MAPS Aesthetic is one of the programs that we have is by far our most high volume program. And we tell people like, listen, if you're not like, if you don't have excellent recovery ability and you're not used to lots of volume and frequency, you're going to end up burning yourself out.

Start back at MAPS Anabolic where we'll recommend only two days a week, three days a week. Yeah, exactly. So, but that's that rest and recovery thing. There's that individual variance. But at the end of the day, it's like, listen to your body, man. Totally. anabolic where we'll recommend only two days a week three days a week yeah exactly so um but that's that rest and recovery thing there's that individual variance but at the end of the day it's like listen to your body man totally like if you're not getting results and your body's not improving listen to your body totally change it a little bit yeah and there's also something to

be said for again so the people that i'm serving most of them they don't need to be in the gym for what they want they don't need to be in the gym six days a week. They don't need to be pulling and squatting twice a week with high volume heavyweight. You know, they don't need to. And so, you know, that's coming back to your original question. It's just indoctrinating people in the basics of, I mean, first it's starting at first principles, right? So on the diet side of things, it's obviously energy balance and macronutrient balance. And then there's food choices and nutritional quality and so forth. And then on the training side is teaching the basics of progressive overload and frequency and volume and how these things all relate. And how obviously at the top of everything is progressive overload.

And then you have the other pathways of growth of, you know, metabolic stress and muscle damage. So it's just kind of laying out the foundation for people. So they understand these are the variables. These are the facts. These are what we're playing with. In some, I guess, in some ways, it's like, there are certain things here that are not negotiable on the diet, for example, like energy balance is not negotiable. What you eat is negotiable. Your macros are negotiable. You could say, depending on what you want to do, there are, there are optimal ways of going about it and non-optimal. So, you know, I'm really like my program, my bigger than your stronger is like, it has a program, right with it. And it's, it's a basic, basically it's like a push pull legs with accessory work, which I think is a great introduction for new people where they're not in the, again,

they can get their workouts done in let's say 45 to 60 minutes. Um, they're not beating the shit out of themselves. Like they actually leave their workouts feeling good. Which is how you should leave your workout. Exactly. Which, which matters. I mean, cause there's something to be said for just enjoyment, I think with diet and training where, you know, the best diet is the one you can stick to, but there's, there's some truth to that. um, where, you know, even if there were the most scientifically optimized diet or training program, let's just say whatever that might be. If that doesn't, if you don't like it, if you don't enjoy, if you're not looking forward to eating your next meal or your next workout, it's not going to last. You have to find something that works for you and, and work within certain

parameters is kind of how I've gone about approaching it. So on the training side of things, um, that program, like bigger than you're stronger, is that optimal for someone that's like an intermediate or advanced weightlifter that really wants to max or maximize their, uh, genetic potential? No. And I say that this is, this is not that, you know what I mean? Like that's where to the point of like, you guys are saying, yeah, you have to do a lot of fucking work. You have to do a lot more work and it becomes exponentially harder, you know,

to like to gain those last five pounds of muscle. You have to work so much harder than you had to work to gain that first 20 pounds of muscle. And that's fine. That's a great point. If you want to play that game, that's what you want to do. That's great. Just know that, you know what I mean?

And so, again, the crowd, the people that I've helped most are people that have benefited most from learning the basics and then putting them into use. And so for talking guys, it's talking, I'm talking about guys really kind of gaining their first 30 ish pounds of muscle, you know what I mean? And so, I mean, and I've found in working with a lot of guys and a lot of the, just if I'm, if I'm segmenting just the male, you know, uh, population of my following, they're pretty happy. Like with their first, these are people that they have a fitness is not their lives. I mean, they have jobs. A lot of them have families. They have fitness is something they really enjoy and it matters to them, but they, they don't want to also be spending hours and hours in the, in the gym. And, um, they're not

trying to look like a fitness model per se. They just, they want to look good and they want to feel good. They want to have energy. They want to do workouts they enjoy and they want it to be a lifestyle. And so that's kind of how I've gone about it. Well, even if you do want to eventually look like a cover of a magazine, I still think that's the process you have to go through first anyways. I think that's the biggest mistake that, cause let's be honest, a people even people that um are just starting you know in the back of their head they say oh i just want to feel better look better in the back of their mind like well i wouldn't mind looking like the cover of a magazine yeah the problem is that they go right to

those magazine workouts and they start trying to follow these routines that somebody who's hopped up on a lot of steroids or have been training for 10 years and they can handle all this volume, two hours of arms or something. Yes. Right. And then they try and go straight to that thing. And it's like, no, there's, we always talk about that. Like the goal is to do as little as possible to elicit the most amount of change. And then you build upon that. I talk about that in the book. That's kind of, uh, I wouldn't say I necessarily want to go with the, the minimal effective dose, but more let's, let's, let's err on the side more of that, as opposed to getting past that point of diminishing returns where you can put in a bunch of extra work, but are you really getting that much more

out of it? No. I mean, I mean, I talk about this with, especially with people that are new to weightlifting where, cause they'll ask me about, cause my program is, it looks, it's a bit lower volume than what is popular right now. Right. Like what you'll see all over Instagram. Um, and, and so guys will ask me about that and guys that are new to weightlifting and I'll say, look, I mean, and I'll link them to an article where I have these calculators, right? I mean, you can go check this out. If you want to check this out and see why I'm, why am I saying this? But what I'm, what I'm telling you is you're only going to really gain no more than 25 pounds of muscle in your first year, regardless of what you do. And if you're like most guys, it's probably going

to be around 20, give or take some, right? And, you know, I've, at this point, I've worked personally just in staying in touch with people, thousands of guys. And I can tell you that if you just do what is in this book, you will get there. You will get to around 20 pounds of muscle, unless you're an extremely low responder, or if you don't stick to the plan and you fuck around. You just fuck off the diet, right? Yeah. You fuck off on your diet and don't pay attention at least to your calories. So, you know, you're, you're in a deficit half the time anyway, and you don't even know it kind of thing. And so I'll say like, what else do you want basically? I mean, you can, you can go jump from you and you can spend, you know, the next two months researching programs and trying to get, you know, super sophisticated with your programming

and, you know, undulate your, your, your volume. And you're still not going to get more than 20 pounds of muscle in your first year. So, uh, especially in the beginning is like, this is simple and you're going to enjoy it and you're going to get more or less everything that you can get out of it. Now, again, if, if you were, if we were having this conversation and you'd put in a few years of, of good solid work and you've really gained some strength. So then I think as you get stronger, higher volume has more, uh, value from a muscle building potential. Cause you actually can move some weight. You're not just like weak as fuck doing high volume, like benching one 35 or something. Um, and so from like a muscle damage

perspective, there's shit's that's all right so so then that would be a different that'd be a different discussion you know what i mean right yeah it's um it's great finding people in the in our in the fitness uh world that are addressing these types of things like you and that are being honest it's crazy that here is his philosophy for as little as you've been in the industry for. That's what's striking me. Well, I mean, look at the guy. He's super smart, and he obviously obsesses about things. So he gets into it, and he learns.

And when you do that, there's negatives to it, but there's positives, too. And the positives are throughout a period of time, you start to sift through a lot of bullshit, and you start to see what really is the truth and what really works. Coming with a clear lens, and you see everything for days. Because I'll be the first to admit, I've up for 10 years that was an idiot bad advice doing bad things for the first 10 years of our career it's the back half where we really started to piece things together one of the biggest one of the biggest uh when we first launched uh our our programs the first program we launched was maps anabolic and we call that our foundational program and the the

biggest complaint we would get is before people would even try the program, they'd buy it, they'd open and be like, oh, I know all this stuff. This looks basic. Yeah. Yeah, you know. I mean, I've had that.

I've gotten reviews like, oh, this is all just free on the internet. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's like try it and do it and see what happens. And there's also, you know, there's a lot of complexity in the simplicity.

There's a lot of things that people don't see and don't understand from a programming standpoint where it may look basic, but there really is things, you know, it's really kind of a skill. Yeah. There was thought put into this. Absolutely. So what, uh, moving ahead, like what is really fascinating you right now in health and fitness? I don't care. You can go as deep as you want. Like, uh, what's really fascinating right now? What are you obsessed about right now in this particular sphere? Um, so that's, that's a good question. I would say, uh, it's really fascinating right now. What are you obsessed about right now in this particular sphere? So that's, that's a good question. I would say it's on the, what I'm most interested in personally

is on the content creation side of things. So I'm excited to, I'm putting together, I guess you could say, I mean, it's like a team of people so we can, we can get more content going because I can only, you know, do so much myself, which has been really just me up until recently. And then I've brought in one person to help with some, I mean, I've had some, like I have a girl that helps with research and she's really good going through the literature. Probably saves me six to eight hours

if I want to write on something because there's like an opportunity in terms of like SEO, right? So like that's my strategy first and foremost with all written content or most of the written content is it's driven by, is there an SEO opportunity here? I want to stick something on the first page, ideally the first, obviously I want the first spot, but I want to stick something in the top, the first page of Google. How do you go, how do you go about finding that? How's that strategy work? You have somebody who's

like trends on Twitter or? Well, no, I mean, there's like a whole checklist basically, but you know, who's written a lot of good stuff about this is Neil Patel. So anyone listening, if you go to neilpatel.com and also quicksprout and I mean, it's all, yeah, it's all, you know, I really, I just kind of follow, follow. Does he have a book? That name sounds really. Hustle. Okay. I know. I've seen that name. Yeah. Yeah. He's also a friend of mine and Jeremy's cool dude. Super nice guy. Like he kind of consults for us. I mean, we don't have to pay him, but he's just really nice actually. Like he's very helpful. You know what I mean? So, but yeah, honestly, I just follow the

little structure that he has. And it's just, it's obvious stuff. You're looking at search volume, you're looking at who you're going up against, you know, the competition. So, and also you need to know like your domain authority. So like, for example, I know muscle for life, um, has high topical authority on things related to, to body composition, right. But lower topical authority on things just related to general health. So for example, let's say I wanted to, I wanted to write an article on push, pull legs, which I did. Right. So I, if I go on Google push, pull legs for one of the steps is looking at who am I competing with? What's out there, right? What's on the first page of Google? You go and you look at every article and you look at how long it is. You're

looking for strengths and also more importantly, weaknesses. What could you do better? You know what I mean? How could I write a better article than what is up on Google right now? And so I'll see, let's say I see bodybuilding.com. I see, you know, all the different magazines, their big websites. Um, and I see blah, blah, blah, whatever. I know that I can beat all of them. I know I can outrank them. Like if I, if I produce something better, muscle for life can outrank them. Now, if I wanted to write something on, um, you know, uh, something on like your blood sugar, we actually just published that on Legion. I'm kind of curious to see how that's going to go. Normally I'd stay away from that because for that kind of thing,

usually going up against, I think this was like the opportunity, this is a little bit unique in that we weren't, it wasn't as the competition was heavy. It wasn't as heavy as we'd usually see, but like if it was a more of a health related thing and I was going up against like WebMD and any sort of EDU, um, even, even authority nutrition has a lot of topical authority there i would skip it because i know i cannot beat them right um also ran into this with so i'd do these these recipe posts and i had a girl that was really good and she would like do a bunch of research she'd put time into it right and like that you know 20 different types of recipes and find stuff that is is kind of macro friendly and not not not like outrageously high calorie

high fat shit all the time that like when can can you, you know, yeah, maybe you can eat that here and there. Uh, but most people, you know, they're not eating 150 grams of fat a day, so they can't eat 80 grams of fat for dinner. You know what I mean? Um, and so, but I know that like, I really can't rank, I can't beat, I don't, uh, the, the, even just the big food sites and food blogs and stuff to rank for even lower traffic, lower competition stuff. So, so you have to know like what, what will Google, uh, allow you to rank for and kind of stick to your wheelhouse, so to speak. And, um, so that that's part of it, right. And, and looking at, uh, then how do you do something better generally, the longer, the better as far as rankings go. So like a sweet spot,

the problem is the longer it is, the harder it is for people to want to read it, which is something like Greg Knuckles obviously has run into with his stuff. And he knows that. I mean, he's writing to a very specific crowd, but the average person, when the first thing you see on an article

is a paragraph this big that has like 15, 22 syllable words, you're just like, yeah, no, no, no, no. It's not for me. Like I'm clearly in the wrong place. I don't have that long of a coffee break. And I'm saying that I love Greg's work. I'm a big fan of his work and I've had him in the podcast. It's like what you and I talked about yesterday.

Just like some people, as far as like the average consumer listening. Yeah. And he knows that he knows that he's, he's writing to more. Professionals. Yeah. More people like, like him than just like the gen fit crowd. So, so anyways, that's that's kind of like what my, if I'm going to be, if I'm going to be writing, it's usually I'm looking for first and foremost, an SEO opportunity and then finding how can I, how can I do something really good? You know what I mean? How can I put something out there that's going to rank and that people are really going to enjoy? So anyways, ramping that up,

which is fun because it's, again, it's the type of stuff I like to do. I like to research. I like to write. I mean, I like to formulate ideas and articulate them. So I can be writing or it can be speaking. So I enjoy the podcast. So I'm like having fun with that where now I'm doing three episodes a week on my podcast. And I'm, and I'm like previously I was so kind of off the cuff and nonchalant about it. And that's why I was like unprofessional and I'm almost embarrassed about it. But, uh, but now I'm doing, I'm like actually applying myself a bit more to it, um, which is fun. And, and so I'm working on also, I'm going to do, um, uh, a series of, well, on the book front, I'm doing front, I'm going to do a series of shorter books that I'm going to be self-publishing because there's an opportunity there. And that's fun. Like I almost have the first one done.

And then I'm also working on my next actual book, which is going to be, I'm going to do a traditional publishing deal because I want to do a New York Times campaign. I'm going to do it. I don't have to pay the unnamed company a lot of money for it. Um, because I can, I can get the sales legitly. I don't need to buy them. Like I have enough people that will actually buy the book. Um, and that's not even factoring in people, um, like you guys, maybe that might want to promote it when it comes out. Uh, that's just, I'm just thinking like in my own, in my own, you know, ecosystem, I think I can drive enough sales and I would like to do that. I mean, because one, it's kind of cool. I will say as like, uh, I consider myself a first and foremost, a writer and it's kind of cool from a, you know, bucket list thing, right. To have a legit NYT. Like I didn't just buy it. You know what I mean? Like I had to work for it. Um, and, and then also I just know that it will open doors, especially media stuff that might

otherwise I might not, might not otherwise even know about. And it's kind of stupid, but it just is what it is. If you are a New York times bestselling author that people perk up. Yeah, it does. So, so, so that's, that's something I'm excited for. And, and also, and honestly, like, I'm also excited for the group that I'm putting together. I like working with the guys that I have and we're bringing on some more people and that's, um, it's also, it's fun from that perspective. Um, so. Excellent. So we can expect a lot more out of, out of your stuff. A lot more,, Eddie. Stuff. And you have a new baby. Health and fitness things.

That's like when people ask what I do. I'm like, I do health and fitness things. What do you mean? I'm like, I have some books. That's rad, man.

So you mind sticking around doing like a Q&A with us later on? Yeah, definitely. That'd be fucking awesome. Let's go grab something to eat. Let's go grab something to eat right now

and then we'll definitely continue on with some stuff. Yeah, fuck yeah, man. Thanks for coming on. We'll do another episode. I totally we'll definitely continue on. Yeah, fuck yeah, man. Thanks for coming on. We'll do another episode. I totally appreciate you guys having me. Excellent. So check this out.

Go to mindpumpmedia.com. We have 30 days of coaching. It's available and it's for free. It's for anybody. Also, if you want to find us on social media, the place to find us is Instagram. Our page is mindpumpmedia. We all have personal pages as well.

Mine is mindpumpsal. Justin is mindpumpjustin. And Adam is mindpumpadam. Hey there have personal pages as well. Mine is Mind Pump Sal. Justin is Mind Pump Justin and Adam is Mind Pump Adam. Hey there, it's 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, then please do leave a quick review on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This helps other people find their way to the show and learn how to build their best bodies ever as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on new episodes. And if you didn't like something about the show,

then definitely shoot me an email at Mike at muscle for life. And that's just spelled out muscle, F O R life.com and share your thoughts on how I can make this better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon. Oh, and before you leave, let me quickly tell you about one other product of mine that I think you might like. Specifically, my fitness book for men, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. Now this book has sold over 350,000 copies in the last several years and has helped thousands of guys build their best bodies ever. And that's why it has over 3,000 reviews on Amazon with a 4.5 star average. So if you want to know the biggest lies and myths that are keeping you from achieving the lean, muscular, strong, and healthy body that you truly desire,

and if you want to learn the simple science of building the ultimate male body, then you want to read or listen to Bigger, Leaner, Stronger today, which you can find on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play.