Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - My Top 5 Takeaways from the Book Thinking In Systems by Donella H. Meadows

Episode Date: October 16, 2019

“Can you recommend a book for…?” “What are you reading right now?” “What are your favorite books?” I get asked those types of questions a lot and, as an avid reader and all-around bibliophile, I’m always happy to oblige. I also like to encourage people to read as much as possible because knowledge benefits you much like compound interest. The more you learn, the more you know; the more you know, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more opportunities you have to succeed. On the flip side, I also believe there’s little hope for people who aren’t perpetual learners. Life is overwhelmingly complex and chaotic, and it slowly suffocates and devours the lazy and ignorant. So, if you’re a bookworm on the lookout for good reads, or if you’d like to get into the habit of reading, this book club for you. The idea here is simple: Every month, I’ll share a book that I’ve particularly liked, why I liked it, and several of my key takeaways from it. I’ll also keep things short and sweet so you can quickly decide whether the book is likely to be up your alley or not. Alright, let’s get to the takeaways. Want to be notified when my next book recommendation goes live? Hop on my email list and you’ll get each new installment delivered directly to your inbox. Click here: https://www.legionathletics.com/signup/

Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider supporting my sports nutrition company, Legion Athletics, which produces 100% natural evidence-based health and fitness supplements, including protein powders and protein bars, pre-workout and post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and more. Head over to www.LegionAthletics.com now to check it out. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code MFL at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order and it'll ship free if you are anywhere in the United States. And if you're not, it'll ship free if your order is over $100. So again, if you appreciate my work and if you want to see more of it, please do consider supporting me so I can keep doing what I love, like producing podcasts like this. Hey, this is Mike from Muscle for Life, and I'm often asked about books.

People ask me for book recommendations on various topics. They ask me what book I am currently reading and what books I have recently read and what my favorite books are and so forth. And as an avid reader, I am always happy to oblige and get some book recommendations in return as well. I also just like to encourage people to read as much as possible because I think that knowledge benefits you much like compound interest benefits your bank account in that the more you learn, the more you know, that the more you learn, the more you know, and the more you know, the more you can do, and the more you can do, the more opportunities you have to succeed. And on the flip side, I also believe that there is little hope for people who

aren't perpetual learners. I know that might sound a little bit pessimistic or cynical to you, but let's face it, life is overwhelmingly complex and chaotic. And if we look around, we can find plenty of evidence that it simply suffocates and devours the lazy and ignorant. So if you are a bookworm and you're on the lookout for good reads, or if you'd like to just get into the habit of reading more, then this book club is for you. The idea is very simple. Every week I'm going to share a idea is very simple. Every week, I'm going to share a book that I've particularly liked, and I'm going to tell you why I liked it and give you several of my key takeaways from it. I'm also going to keep these episodes short and sweet

so you can quickly decide whether or not a book is likely to be up your alley or not. Okay, let's get to the featured book, which is Thinking in Systems by Danella H. Meadows. Now, I follow a genre rotation in both my personal and my work reading. So I read one or two books per genre before moving on to the next. And my personal rotation includes Be Smarter Slash Better. And this book, Thinking in Systems, was one of my choices for that genre and was actually one of the best Be Smarter Slash Better books I've read this year because systems thinking is a powerful tool for gaining a deeper and more practical understanding of how you and other people and the world around you tick. And I was surprised actually at how much I got from this book because I wasn't familiar

with systems thinking before diving into it. I just had heard good things about it and figured, hey, why not? And something else that surprised me was just how pragmatic the information in the book can be. It's not a self-help book, so it's not geared toward checklists and action items. But if you can take the information, understand it, and transfer it to the functional level in your life, you can absolutely gain a greater ability for effective and meaningful action in change. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that understanding how to envision and then create productive and efficient systems is one of the highest leverage life skills you can develop. And so many personal, interpersonal, and social failures out there are not so much the result of inherently flawed people, but of faulty systems.

Now, to understand why I think that, let's first define systems thinking, which is the art and science of understanding forces and interrelationships that shape the behavior of systems. And what are systems? Well, Meadows defines them as sets of things like people, cells, molecules, whatever, that are interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior over time. All right, so what are some examples? Well, you can find systems everywhere you look. Our bodies and our minds are systems. Animals, gardens, trees, forests, those are all systems. Businesses are systems. Local, national, and global economies are systems. Hell, even diet, exercise, and lifestyle regimens are systems. And moreover, all of those systems and all other systems are comprised of different types

of elements and relationships that can take an infinite number of forms. In other words, all systems have common denominators that can be isolated, analyzed, and modeled. And the better you do this, the better you can understand and influence the many systems that you interact with in your life. Now, that realization alone can be powerful. It can have profound effects in your life as you begin to understand that many of the desirable and undesirable outcomes that you are experiencing and that you will experience are the result of functional and dysfunctional systems and not luck, fate, randomness. That is, many of the situations and circumstances in your life, both the good and the bad ones, are the direct consequence of systems

that have finite and knowable structures and that are very good at producing exactly what you are enjoying or enduring. These systems are real, they are there, and they're working either for or against you every minute of every day. Therefore, if you want to make your circumstances markedly better, you need to be able to consider more than just the first order actions and effects, the obvious things that you can see and experience, and think more holistically, think more systematically. Otherwise, it's very easy to fall into the trap of chasing your tail and wondering why things are just not going your way. And that, for example, is exactly why some people, many people work very hard at goals, any goals, any type of goals, yet make little progress. Oftentimes they're pouring all of their

resources, all of their effort and energy and time and money into defective systems that simply have a very low probability of success. And a simple example of this is diet and training. No matter how diligently you follow a poor system for diet and exercise, you are probably going to wind up disappointed in the end, right? We've all been there. Well, the same goes for literally any other goal and activity in your life, whether it is getting a job, learning to play the piano, or finding a partner. There are many ways, many systems of going about those things, but some of them are far more likely to work than others. So once you have formulated a goal, the very next step should be careful meditation

on the system that is going to get you there. Of course, you're not gonna figure it all out in the beginning, but you need to start with something. Start with the semblance of a workable system. And that's not always easy. And that's one of the reasons why many people don't do it. It often requires quite a bit of study and creative thinking and bright ideas, but it is also the proverbial aiming the arrow moment where just an inch of miscalculation can

all but guarantee you are never going to hit the target no matter how many attempts you make. And so to continue that metaphor by continually working on the systems in your life, you are continually calibrating your aim, so to speak, which will then allow you to eventually hit the bullseye again and again. And that's why I recommend you read this book. If you want to live an orderly, productive, enjoyable life, of course, you have to be willing to put in the work. There's no getting around that. But you also have to know how to design systems that work, design systems that can transform your raw effort in whatever direction into real results. Okie dokie, let's get to the takeaways. The first one, quote, a system's function or purpose is not necessarily spoken, written, or expressed explicitly except through the operation of the system. The best way to deduce the system's purpose

is to watch for a while to see how the system behaves. And my note here is, in other words, it's safe to assume that the purpose of any system is to produce the results it's producing. Now think about that for a second in the context of many of our current social, political, and economic systems, which were purportedly created to do so many great things that somehow never really came to pass. For example, a school textbook might say the Federal Reserve System was created to provide Americans with a stable, safe, and flexible financial system. That's nice, but how has it performed? Well, the Fed presided over the crashes of 1921 and 1929, the Great Depression of 29 to 39, the recessions of 53, 57, 69, 75, and 81, the000% of inflation that has destroyed about 90% of the dollar's purchasing power, as evidenced by the fact that in 1990, it required $10,000 to buy what took just $1,000 to buy in

1914. And all of that is to say nothing of the staggering level of government debt that would have never been possible without the Fed. And so you got to wonder, were the people who created the Federal Reserve incompetent or have they actually gotten exactly what they wanted? Has this system simply realized its actual purpose? simply realized its actual purpose? Well, considering the primary architects of our central banking system were six men who represented approximately a quarter of all the wealth in the world, including agents of the notoriously mercenary financial houses of Morgan, Rockefeller, Warburg, Rothschild, and Kuhn Loeb and Company. If you truly believe these guys just

made a boo-boo that accidentally enabled them to exponentially increase their wealth and power at the expense of American taxpayers, please reach out to me regarding a highly profitable portfolio of Nigerian bonds that I'd like to sell you. Limited time opportunity. The easiest money you will ever make, I promise. Anyway, my point is, when you see a system working in a certain way, your first assumption should be that's probably its true purpose, regardless of what's stated otherwise. Now, that may turn out to not be the case, but that is the most likely case. Without further information, that is the probabilistically accurate assumption. And similarly, you should also be very interested in who created a system and what their likely

motives were, as well as who is working to perpetuate this system and what they have to gain as well. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Twitter at Muscle for Life,

and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. All right, the next takeaway, number two, quote, language can serve as a medium through which we create new understandings and new realities as we begin to talk about them. In fact, we don't talk about what we see. We see only what we can talk about. And my note here is a story on this point. So once there was a guy named Malcolm Little. And Malcolm dropped out of school in eighth grade after his teacher told him that his ambition of becoming a lawyer just wasn't realistic because he was a black kid. And by the time Malcolm was 13, he had lost both of his parents. His father had died and his mother had a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized. And then a few years later in 1943, Malcolm was 18 and he was living in Harlem and he was involved in drug

dealing, gambling, racketeering, robbery, prostitution, and burglaring the residences of wealthy white families. Then in 1946, he was arrested for larceny and breaking and entering and was sentenced to eight to 10 years in Massachusetts State Prison. Now, at this point, Malcolm was 21 years old and had no skills and could barely even read. He said that every book he picked up had few sentences that didn't contain anywhere from one to nearly all of the words that might have been in Chinese. In prison, however, Malcolm met a self-educated man by the name of John Elton Bembry, who was a well-regarded prisoner. And this is a guy that Malcolm would later describe as the first man that he had ever seen command total respect with words. Now, these two guys became friends and Malcolm decided to educate

himself as Bembry had done. And painfully aware of his illiteracy, Malcolm decided to start by just getting his hands on a dictionary and copying every entry in the dictionary out by hand. And it took him a day just to do the first page. But every day, he would work at it, and he would copy out a new page. And then he would go and read back, read aloud, each of the words that he had copied and their definitions. This was slow going at first, but as Malcolm continued to do it, he started to remember words and remember what they meant. that his dictionary was actually a little encyclopedia that taught him about all kinds of things, taught him about people and animals and places and history, philosophy, science. And as Malcolm's vocabulary grew, so did his understanding of life and the world around him and his interest in it. And he then found that he could pick up a book and start to understand what

the book was saying. And from there, he was hooked. He said that from that point until he left prison, every free moment he had, he was reading. If he wasn't reading in the library, he was reading in his bunk. He said that you couldn't have got him out of a book with a wedge. And so Malcolm read and read and read, and he devoured books on history and was astounded at the knowledge that he obtained about the history of black civilizations. He read books by Gandhi on the struggle in India. He read about African colonization and China's opium wars. He read about genetics, philosophy, religion. And he later said that he often reflected on the new vistas that the reading was opening up to him.

And he knew right there in prison that reading had forever changed the course of his life. Now, in 1952, Malcolm was paroled and he was released from prison. And this new course in his life led him to become Malcolm X, one of the most prominent figures in the American civil rights movement and something he will be forever remembered for. Now think about this story for a minute. By 21 years old, Malcolm's fate should have been sealed. He was an illiterate black drug dealing pimp stuck in prison, living in the harsh realities of 1940s racial relations. So where should have he gone? He should have gone nowhere, of course. His destiny should have been a cold, insignificant death in the streets of Harlem. But by using the power of language, Malcolm literally rewrote his destiny in a way that almost defies belief. Who's to say you can't do the same or at

least make things a little bit better than they currently are? All right, my next takeaway. This is a little bit of a longer one, so I apologize, but it's a good one. Quote, one, everything we think about the world is a model. Every word and every language is a model. All maps and statistics, books and databases, equations, and computer programs are models. So are the ways I picture the world in my head, my mental models. None of these is or ever will be the real world. Two, our models usually have a strong congruence with the world. That is why we are such a successful species in the biosphere. Three, however, and conversely, our models fall far short of representing the world fully. That is why we make mistakes and why we are regularly surprised. So my note here is this is one of the

reasons that continually educating ourselves is so, so important if we want to do well in life. The more we understand, the more our mental models will accurately represent reality, which is how things really are and how they really work. And the more accurately our mental models represent reality, the more we'll be able to effectively interact with and influence reality. And by the same token, many mistakes and missteps that people make come from perfectly good reasoning applied to faulty mental models. In other words, we can only be as rational as the information we have. And if we aren't actively working to not only acquire important information we are missing, but also to improve and often correct a lot of the information that we do have,

we are going to be at a huge disadvantage in our lives. All right, next takeaway, number four, quote, at any given time, the input that is most important to a system is the one that is most limiting. And my note here is when we want to grow something, whether it's muscles or income or social capital or whatever, we tend to think in terms of merely strengthening factors that can drive growth, you know, do more volume in the gym, work longer hours, attend more meetups and get-togethers and so forth. What can often go unexamined, however, are the factors that are most limiting our advancement, which may not be volume, work hours, or meetups. Instead, the most limiting factors might be eating too few calories, if we're talking about building muscle, or having poor financial controls, if we're talking about, muscle or having poor financial controls if we're

talking about, let's say, owning a business and the business is not very profitable. Or maybe it's poor conversation skills and that's why we're not connecting with people in the way that we want to. And you see, these types of bottlenecks can be insidious because if you are unaware of them, you can expend a tremendous amount of effort for very little additional return. Think of it like driving around with your parking brake on. Now, what's more is growth itself can deplete or enhance limiting factors and therefore change what is limiting. therefore change what is limiting. And so when you learn how to pinpoint and address the limits of a system, you can gain real understanding and real control over it. All right, my fifth and final takeaway. Again, this is another long one, but I liked it a lot. So here it is. Quote, if something is ugly, say so. If it is tacky, inappropriate, out of portion, unsustainable, morally degrading, ecologically impoverishing, or humanly demeaning, don't let it pass. Don't be stopped by the, if you can't define it and measure it, I don't have to, freedom, truth, or love. No one can define or measure any

value. But if no one speaks up for them, if systems aren't designed to produce them, if we don't speak about them and point toward their presence or absence, they will cease to exist. And my note here is, criticism and intolerance of everything that is evil and ugly and immoral and degrading is a contribution toward the preservation of high personal, social, and cultural standards. And this is one of the reasons why I speak out so harshly against the charlatans of the fitness business, including fake natties, dishonest pill and powder pushers, fake gurus, and the like, and why I'm equally quick to denounce the different aspects of society that I feel are most destructive to our collective well-being. And this is also why we all have a social responsibility to embody and

uphold the virtues and values that are truly admirable, honorable, and beautiful. Because if we don't, who will? And if nobody does, a drift toward low performance will inevitably result. And that's referred to as goal erosion in systems lingo. Now, some people scoff at this idea. Who are you to judge? They say, well, this is a bit of a non-starter and a red flag for me because many of these people who are so virtuously against judging others, no matter how degenerate and depraved, aren't doing so out of compassion or tolerance per se, but self-preservation. That is, these people, these virtue signaling people, are degenerate and depraved themselves, and they want to live in a world that gives them a free pass. Hence, their insistence that everyone, including them,

should just be able to do whatever they want so long as it makes them happy. And so I'm always highly skeptical of people who advocate for the acceptance of obviously rotten and dysfunctional ideas and behaviors under the guise of personal liberty and equality and the like. Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider supporting my sports nutrition company, Legion Athletics, which produces 100% natural evidence-based health and fitness supplements, including protein powders and protein bars, pre-workout and post-workout supplements,

fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and more. Head over to www.legionathletics.com now to check it out. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code MFL at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order. And it'll ship free if you are anywhere in the United States. and it'll ship free if you are anywhere in the United States. And if you're not, it'll ship free if your order is over $100. So again, if you appreciate my work and if you want to see more of it, please do consider supporting me so I can keep doing what I love, like producing podcasts like this.