Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - NYT Bestselling Author John Romaniello on Living Our Hero's Journey

Episode Date: July 2, 2016

In this episode I interview John Romaniello, author of the NYT bestseller Engineering the Alpha and founder of the multi-million dollar, multifaceted fitness business Roman Fitness Systems. We’re not going to talk fitness or business, though. Instead, we linked up to discuss something else altogether, and that’s how you and I can use the brilliant and groundbreaking work of a rather obscure comparative mythologist to live better lives. The work is codified in the book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, which was written by the mythologist Joseph Campbell, and it has served as a template for some of the most popular and timeless stories ever told, ranging from King Arthur to Moby Dick to Star Wars, Harry Potter, and more. I know that sounds incredibly abstract and inapplicable to our lives, but bear with me because John does an amazing job making the material accessible and practical, so I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised. It’s really not a stretch to say that our conversation can be the nudge that leads to incredibly positive changes in your life. 5:30 - Natural progression of fitness to self improvement in life. 20:41 - Why does life mirror a hero's journey and how it fits into changes of life 36:34 - Why you need a mentor in life how to get one. 49:13- This is your call to adventure to change your life. RELATED TO THIS PODCAST The Writer’s Journey: www.amazon.com/Writers-Journey-M…6X/?tag=mflweb-20 The Hero With a Thousand Faces: www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Co…36/?tag=mflweb-20 Neil Gaiman’s Epic “Make Good Art” Speech: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikAb-NYkseI The Hero's Journey graphic: www.thewritersjourney.com/graphictwo.gif Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, it's Mike, and I just want to say thanks for checking out my podcast. I hope you like what I have to say. And if you do like what I have to say in the podcast, then I guarantee you're going to like my books. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger If You're a Guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger If You're a Girl. I mean, these books, they're basically going to teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build muscle, lose fat, and look and feel great without having to give up all the foods you love or live

in the gym grinding through workouts that you hate. Now you can find these books everywhere. You can buy them online, you know, Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and so forth. And if you're into audio books like me, you can actually get one of them for free with a 30-day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to www.muscleforlife.com forward slash audio books and you can see how to do that there. I make my living primarily as a writer, so as you can imagine, every book sold helps. So please do check out my books if you haven't already. Now also, if you like my work in general, then I think you're going to really like what I'm doing with my supplement company, Legion. As you may know, I'm really not a fan of the supplement industry. I've wasted who knows how much money over the

years on worthless junk supplements and have always had trouble finding products that I actually liked and felt were worth buying. And that's why I finally decided to just make my own. Now, a few of the things that make my supplements unique are one, they're 100% naturally sweetened and flavored. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer-reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because we explain why we've chosen each ingredient

and we cite all supporting studies on our website, which means you can dive in and go validate everything that we say. Three, all ingredients are also included at clinically effective dosages, which are the exact dosages used in the studies proving their effectiveness. And four, there are no proprietary blends, which means that you know exactly what you're buying. Our formulations are 100% transparent. So if that sounds interesting to you, then head over to legionathletics.com. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics.com. And you can learn a bit more about the supplements that I have as well as my mission

for the company, because I want to accomplish more than just sell supplements. I really want to try to make a change for the better in the supplement industry because I think it's long overdue. And ultimately, if you like what you see and you want to buy something, then you can use the coupon code podcast, P-O- A S T. And you'll save 10% on your first order. So thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let's get You must have thought you were lying. So my guest is John Romaniello, and he's the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Engineering the Alpha. And he's also the founder of the multi-million dollar, multi-faceted fitness business that he calls Roman Fitness Systems.

And he's kind of one of the grand poobahs or the anointed ones of the fitness industry as a whole. Super connected, super successful, and a super cool guy. Now, we're not going to talk fitness or business, though. Instead, we linked up to discuss something else altogether, and that's how you and I can use the brilliant and groundbreaking work of a rather obscure comparative mythologist to live better lives. Now, the work is codified in the book, The Hero with a Thousand

Faces, which was written by the mythologist Joseph Campbell, and it has served as a template for some of the most popular and timeless stories ever told, ranging from King Arthur to Moby Dick to Star Wars, Harry Potter, and many, many others. Now, I know that might sound incredibly abstract and kind of inapplicable to our lives, but bear with me because John really does an amazing job making the material accessible and practical. So I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised. And I mean, honestly, it's really not a stretch to say that our conversation can be the nudge or the call to adventure, which you'll learn more about in our interview, that leads to incredibly positive changes in your life. So with that, let's get to it. John, thanks for coming on the show. I'm excited for this.

I am too, man. Thank you so much for having me. It's always a pleasure to chat with you. Yeah, yeah. My pleasure. So obviously you're best known for everything you've done in the fitness industry and New York Times bestselling author. And you have a big brand, I guess you could say, of fitness things. Sure. Yeah. That's a great way to put it. That's how when people ask me what do I do, that's my answer. I'm like, I do health and fitness things.

I do stuff with health and stuff. Yeah. That's great. Whatever. Books and things and whatever. health and stuff. Yeah, like whatever, books and things and whatever. Books and stuff. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but I'm excited because in this, you know, what we're going to be talking about here is different, which is cool because it's also, I wanted to, I want to change a little bit of the direction of the podcast. Like I'm going to stick to doing health and fitness things, of course, and talking about that kind of stuff. to doing health and fitness things, of course, and talking about that kind of stuff. But I think branching out to, I guess, just the bigger subject of self-improvement is something that I myself am

personally interested in. And I like talking to people like you that have interesting ideas and can articulate themselves well. Well, you know, I think that it's actually a very natural progression for both fitness professionals and people who get involved in fitness as enthusiasts and consumers, right? You like begin this process of change for your body and you start the cycle of learning, whether it is, you know, like in our case from a sort of academic perspective so that we can disseminate information or in the case of the people who read your stuff or my stuff, they're reading all of our information and applying it to their own lives. And then there does come a certain, I don't think anyone is ever, ever like satisfied or has a perfect body.

But I do think that if you're consistent within, you know, two to four years, pretty much going to get to within 10% of your genetic potential. And at that point, that drive to improve doesn't really go away and you start looking at other things. And so for me, you know, I started with the fitness stuff. And then once I had sort of like mastered that, I was like, well, how do I use these qualities that I've developed in terms of discipline and dedication and an application of knowledge to other things? And for me, the first thing that I did outside of that was building a business. And obviously you've done that as well. But I think that there are so many people who can take

what they learn in fitness and apply it to their relationships or to going back to school. I know a lot of my clients, young guys in their 20s who had dropped out of college because they didn't know what they want to do. And then after the fitness stuff, they found direction. And not only were they able to go back to school, they were so much more successful because they built up all these habits. And I think it's hugely successful. So for guys like you and me, I think it comes to a point where – how many articles have you written for Muscle for Life? We actually just looked at this recently. I think it was around 400.

Right, yeah. So I've got about 400 or 500 on Roman fitness systems, not counting what I've written for men's health, men's fitness, teenage, you know, everything else. And books. I mean, that takes a little bit of time too. Like, so then I got alpha, I have like eight eBooks, you know, it's not, I don't, I never want to say I'm done with fitness, but I have more or less said what I have to say. Right. Right. And I think we all get to that point. And then it's like, well, I still want to keep helping people and disseminating information. And so we move into, you know, in my case your podcast it's natural that after a while you know the the fitness stuff is going to be separated a little bit and you're going to be interspersed

with stuff like what we're going to talk about today totally totally yeah i mean i run into that where i've recorded so many i've talked about so many things and written about so many things i run into like so i guess i could just i mean i've written all about this i guess i could talk about that in the podcast at least at least it's in a different medium. But yeah, I think it'll be fun. And I know that I've gotten a lot of requests from listeners and from readers to talk more about it. Because I'll dabble in some self-improvement stuff here and there in the podcast. Almost just like tangents sometimes of, hey, that reminds me of this. I'm just going to talk about it for five minutes.

But then people will say, hey, can you do more episodes like that? Can you talk more about that kind of stuff? So here we are. Here we are. And so let's get right into it. So the subject here is going to be obviously Joseph Campbell's work. And I'll let you just kind of jump into the intro on that and a quick background on it. How did you find his work? And, you know. Okay. So I think maybe start with who campbell is and why it's important um joseph campbell was a mythologist who taught at sarah lawrence university in the 40s and 50s um and uh he focused on comparative mythology and uh this looks at myths across cultures so myths from the egyptians the babylonians, the Romans, the Greeks, and he focused on where they converged or what they had in common rather than where they diverged.

And what Campbell found was that in nearly all cultures, every great story has the same narrative thread. It more or less follows the same pattern, what he called the monomyth or the hero's journey, this storytelling structure that takes us through the perspective of this hero from what's called the ordinary world, the status quo, all the way around through this great adventure, which can include everything from going to Hogwarts, the battle on the Death Star, destroying the ring in Mount Doom. Or, you know, like going through the Looking Glass in Alice in Wonderland. Or learning karate and fighting in the 1984 All-Valley Karate Tournament, the Karate Kid. All of these different things all fall into the hero's journey.

And at the very end of it, the hero has not only accomplished this great goal, but has also improved himself emotionally. And even if there's some sort of physical sacrifice. not only accomplished this great goal, but has also improved himself emotionally. Um, and even if there's some sort of physical sacrifice and he is able to, um, now return with the elixir, we'll go through all the steps of the hero's journey. Um, but the most important one at the end is returning with the elixir.

And this is basically the hero has gone off on this quest and he's learned this great thing. And now it is his duty to bring it back to the tribe because all of our story you know we're all like tribal creatures and so campbell often talks of like leaving the tribe and then returning to the tribe and and it's basically the hero's journey is is not just about the actual adventure and the quest and the treasure that the hero goes on it is about becoming the hero, becoming the best possible version of himself through sacrifice, through strife, um, through, uh, work and so that he can best serve

the world. I found Campbell, um, my sophomore year of college. And, um, for me, it was the right book at the right time. Uh, I had always been really interested in mythology. And for me, it was the right book at the right time. I had always been really interested in mythology. And when I was a kid, I just was always reading Greek mythology, Roman mythology, Egyptian. When I got a little older, I got into Norse mythology. So I just really, really enjoyed it. And so I've always been a writer. And, you know, if I hadn't wound up writing about fitness, it would have been something else. And so when I was was a kid when i was 14 or 15 years old i got my first uh short story published in dragon magazine and then i got another one published in dungeon magazine in scry and these were the kind of magazines where you could go and read how to create your perfect dnd character or how to

build a very effective deck for magic the the gathering. So real fucking hardcore nerd shit, real, real nerd, very, very niche magazine. Um, but I was getting published when I was 15 and getting paid like $150 and I felt amazing. And, uh,

and I like to write about this stuff. And, um, so when I, when I discovered Campbell, which was, I don't know if it was in a mythology class or maybe just a creative literature class. Um, so I discovered Campbell and I was reading through his seminal work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which more or less discusses his thesis of the monomyth that all stories pretty much follow the same pattern.

Now, from the time I was a very young child, I have been heavily into Tolkien. and reading Campbell, I was immediately able to apply the steps of the monomyth directly to the Lord of the Rings and, you know, directly to Narnia and all of the other less well-known, but equally nerdy fantasy that I had read. And so I read Campbell and I like really fell in love with it. And then later that year, I went through a fitness transformation. And that lasted, you know, the actual act of transforming was like four months. But and then I, you know, this the following summer was it was the most crazy summer of my life. Right. Because I went from being a guy who was like kind of muscular, but chubby to this dude who's just shredded. And I worked at a summer camp. And so that's a, that's a place where you're surrounded by women, your age, you know, it's a lot of like 20 to 24 year old guys and girls. And, uh,

you have hormones oozing everywhere, right? Hormones oozing everywhere. And so like my life dramatically changed just from having gone through this physical transformation. And, um, so then I went back to school and I sort of didn't read Campbell for a while. And then, you know, when I graduated, I started – I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was probably on track to go back and become a professional student and get a master's and then maybe two doctorates or whatever it was going to be. I mean, your parents could talk about it at the social events.

They could, you know. Right. Oh, he's working on his third PhD. Oh, fantastic. Well, yeah, because I just figure, like, if you're going to get one doctorate, you should get two, and then everyone would have to call me Dr. Dr. Romanello. And I thought that, like, spending an extra eight years in school was enough. Like, that joke was funny enough to spend eight years in school,

which is not a good joke. Um, so I just started to start, uh, I had, um, now been in shape for a year and I was helping my friends get in shape. And so I started this personal training company, Roman fitness systems. And as I was starting it and going through the process, I really realized that so much of what I was doing, the actual steps that I was taking in solving that business was very similar to sort of the steps I had to take when I went through my fitness transformation. And then something clicked for me and I picked up Campbell again. And I realized that going through my fitness transformation was a hero's journey. I started in the ordinary world of being overweight. I experienced a call to adventure or an inciting event,

which is, in my case, I was thinking about joining a gym, but I had been thinking about it forever. And what happened for me was I was working at The Gap, which is the worst place you can fucking work ever. Of all the retail places you can work, The Gap is like, I think it's by maybe Walmart and then the Gap. The Gap is pretty bad. And so this woman called, and she said, I need like 27 polo shirts in all these different sizes, and they all have to be white, 27 white polo shirts.

And I was like, all right, lady. That's weird as hell. But sure, I go down to the stock room, and I find all the polo shirts, and she comes up. And I'm ringing her up, nice Italian nice italian lady reminds me of my mom and i asked like what do you need these shirts for she said my husband is opening a gym and these are for employees to wear at the desk and i said oh that's really interesting where's the gym turns out it was like five minutes from my house and this woman was so sweet she's's like, you got to go in. Tell my husband I sent you. So I went in the next day. And I walked around and I met the owner, this guy named Alvin, who was like very welcoming and super cool.

And this is now step three, the meeting with the mentor. It's like being unhappy and depressed and unfit in the ordinary world. And then there's the inciting event or the call to adventure of this call from marie and then you know there's i go to the gym and i'm like i don't know and that's kind of refusal of the call and then i met alvin and he at the time alvin was i guess 42 years old and he had a lat spread like this and like big shoulders and like good looking older dude and i was like this guy's like half his age and he's in way better shape than me and like big shoulders and like good looking older dude and i was like this guy's like half his age and he's in way better shape than me and like and he was like cool and funny and he's like you should join we'll give you the student discount well you know we'll get you sorted and alvin

became my mentor and you know he helped me out a lot and we just hit off we built this relationship he kept giving me books to read about fitness and i just like dove in and, you know, I think I joined that gym on April 26th of 2000, I guess, um, 2001. And I was like a size 35 waist. I don't know what my, what my body fat percentage was, but a lot. And then on July 4th, I had six pack. I was like 6% body fat with a 28 inch waist. So I made unbelievable progress very quickly because as it turns out, I had a six-pack. I was like 6% body fat with a 28-inch waist. So I made unbelievable progress very quickly because, as it turns out, I have good genes for this stuff. I was just fucking lazy and wasn't flying myself. And so this changed my life in so many ways.

And so I began to realize that all of the steps that I had gone through in this fitness transformation were mirrored in the hero's journey. And then as I began to start this personal training business, I had to go through the same thing, right? The ordinary world for me was like, I've just graduated school. I'm probably supposed to go to grad school now. The call to adventure was, you know, Alvin telling me like, if you want to do this, I'll help you. And obviously he's the mentor. He actually paid for my first personal training certification. It was amazing. And then there's, like, you know, tests, allies, and enemies, right, where most tests are sort of like a reaction to how you react to your enemies

testing you or trying to push back against you. In my case, that was my family, right? So I went to an Ivy League school, first person in my family to graduate college, and I've got all these people telling me, like, you have to be a doctor or a lawyer. You have to go back to grad school. You have to do these things. Yeah, make use of this gift. Make use of this gift that you've been given, you know, like this intellect and this education.

Do something. And so there are all these people chattering. And, you know, I'm starting this personal training business. And I grew up in a single-parent family. My mom and I are – we've been very, very close my entire life. She was – you know, my parents split when I was like 10. My dad was super abusive to me and my mom. So starting from when I was 10 years old, it was like me and my mom and my sister, she took care of all of us.

We took care of each other. Worked her ass off to help me get through school. I mean, like she would have scrubbed floors if it wasn't – like I got some scholarships, but she really would have done anything. And so now I graduate from this expensive school, and I'm like I'm going to work in this gym. I broke my mother's heart, and she was like you're going to – you go to work in your pajamas. Are you really going to work in the gym for the rest of your life? Just wouldn't accept it. But I knew that I had, I wanted to do this at least for a while. For me, again, I will be very honest at the time, it felt like something to do until I figured out what I was going to do, which it turned out to be. And it just happened

to me that what I was going to do was work in the fitness industry and write books and build this company. So just to sort of like, you know, put a bow on that and then get back directly into Campbell, what I really noticed was that every large change you go through in your life, whether it is getting into a relationship, going through a breakup, getting a divorce, getting a new job, starting a new business, going through a fitness transformation. Every single one of those changes follows the cycle of the monomyth or the hero's journey. And the original version of the hero's journey that Campbell outlays is 17 stages or steps. And then there's another one that I prefer. I think it's a little bit more applicable to everyday stuff.

It was Christopher Bogler's version of The Hero's Journey, which is in his book The Writer's Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers. So, yeah, I mean, that's really how I got introduced. It was right book, right time. And why do you think that is? Why do you think that life mirrors art in that way? I think that what Campbell hit on, unknowingly or not, is that we tell stories this way not just because it's a great narrative structure.

It helps us understand the journey of the character, the evolution of the character. Because I think that ultimately what it comes down to is this is how we process change. These 12 steps are how we process change. And I say 12 steps very intentionally because if you look at it, if you look at the 12 steps of Bogler's Hero's Journey, you can overlay them directly on top of the 12 steps of recovery programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, whatever it is. So going through a major change like recovering from an addiction literally mirrors the hero's journey, and those are the same steps necessary when you go through a divorce, for example. when you go through a divorce, for example. So it's almost like we're observing stages of life that are just kind of hardwired for, they're just built into the wolf and warp

of whatever we are and- Yeah, whatever this ethereal thing that we are, the ethereal essence that is thrust into this corporeal form, this is how we process change on a very deeply primitive and emotional level. And it's the same thing, by the way, if you look at the five stages of grief, very similar to the hero's journey, right? First, there's the ordinary world where this person is alive. And then there's the

inciting event where unfortunately someone you love dies. Then there's the refusal of the call. Stage one of the five stages of grief is denial, right? And then you go through bargaining, anger, whatever. And then finally acceptance, which is return with the elixir where now you can accept that this person has passed on. That's the final stage of the year's journey. And instead of mourning them and grieving for them, you can take what you've learned from them and use it to make your life better and the lives of everyone around you better. You know, you don't have to – like when your grandfather dies, obviously you're very sad for a while. But then it gets to a point where you've gotten over the initial pain of it and you can look back and be like, here's some really awesome things my grandfather taught me.

Here's how he made me a better man. And that's the hero's journey. And that's the hero's journey. Like going through the five stages of grief is the same thing as going through the 12 steps of recovery or the 17 steps of the hero's journey. This is just how we as humans process change. have really survived the millennia in some cases and there's a reason why we kept on telling these stories over and over and there's a reason why cultures have valued certain stories so much uh i think you know what i mean and that there's it's not just it's not just a story it's not just about luke skywalker doing some things and defeating ralph vader you know there's a symbolic meaning to it that is you know it means something to people subconsciously whether they realize it or not absolutely and

that is why star wars is what it is right i mean star wars is more or less the perfect yeah i mean it was built for so yeah i mean yeah so obviously like lucas wrote star wars and then dove more deeply into campbell and rewrote a lot of things to conform to the hero's journey and lo and behold 1977 people didn't know anything about what Star Wars... Can you imagine living in a world where people don't know what Star Wars is? I can't even process that. I was born in 1982.

First movie I ever saw in the movie theater. I was one year old. My dad took me to see Return of the Jedi. Which I, by the way, is a move I do not agree with. Do not take a one year old child to see a movie. I happen to be a quiet kid. But what if I was a crier? Don't do that to other people.

Don't take your baby to the movies. I know. My wife would ask me all the time, she's like, should we take when my son was younger? Should we go to the movies? I'm like, let's not be one of those people. Come on. Don't be those people. Never be those people.

We'll wait until he's a little older. We'll take him to what is now Finding Dory and all the kids. Yeah, the kids movies. All the other kids who are going to cry or whatever. But't don't take your kids to see star there's a lot of explosions in that movie i could have cried um and uh but imagine like living in a world where nobody knows what star wars is in 1977 and this massive thing happens and it like look star wars is a good movie it's very well acted um it's it's a great story. But it affected us on such as a culture on such a deeply intense level that it did a few things. Firstly, it immediately became part of the cultural zeitgeist. established science fiction as a commercially viable genre every science fiction movie made before star wars was like a rinky-dink b movie and then star wars comes along with it's like

relatively big budget for the day and changes our lives and now everyone's just like spaceships explosions let's throw money at this and make these things and now like every every blockbuster that comes out in 2016 um is science in some way, even if it's, if it's comic books. So it changes us, right? Because, you know, it starts with Luke Skywalker on his farman Kenobi. You're my only hope. The call to adventure. And then, you know, he finds Obi-Wan. That's the meeting with the mentor. And Obi-Wan says, you must come with me to Alderaan and train to be a Jedi if you're going to help me rescue the princess. And Luke is all, you know, I can't go with you to Alderaan. My aunt and uncle are going to make me work on this lame farm.

And I didn't even get to, you know, my friends all went to the academy and I got to wait another season. The universe always gets what it wants. Most of the time in storytelling and a lot of times in life, refusal of the call is met with a swift reversal of fortune on the part of the universe, right? So Luke says, I can't go with you to Alderaan. I have to be with my aunt and uncle. And then they get back to his farm and his aunt and uncle have been killed by stormtroopers. And now they're dead. And so he has nothing holding him back. Right. And then he goes with Ben to Mos Eisley, which is crossing the first threshold. It's the first time he's ever been to this Mos Eisley spaceport. And he sees the world. You know, he meets Han Solo and Chewbacca.

But he walks into that bar that cantina and his whole like his whole fucking world is rocked Mike it's you know there's all these different types of aliens with weird faces they speak different languages and he's there not five minutes and some crazy dude who has the death sentence on nine systems like starts a fight with him and winds up getting his arm cut off by a lightsaber. Imagine you're a kid who's lived on a farm your entire life and now, but how is that any different, right, from when you're 14 years old and you've been in middle school for four years, and now you walk into high school for the first time, right,

and you see, like, you know, you're 14 and you're just going through this stuff, but there's, like, 18-year-old guys who are jacked or women who are incredibly developed, and, you know, there's,'s like couples making out in the hallway. You're going through this. An alien world. It's stuff you've never seen before. Yeah.

And that is a massive change for you. So that's crossing the first threshold, and that's'm making with regard to Star Wars is it changed everything for us because it was so closely mirrored to the hero's journey that we could not help but be pulled into it. Because this is how human beings process stories and have since the dawn of time. All of these characters in every story you've ever heard fall into these archetypes. into these archetypes. The mentor, whether it's Merlin or Gandalf or Dumbledore or Mr. Miyagi or Morpheus from The Matrix or Hitch from Hitch, all of these characters are just there. And the hero, Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Frodo, King Arthur,

this young hero, or Dorothy Gale, obviously it's not all men, this young hero who needs to go on this adventure. Kat is Everdeen, the latest. Kat is Everdeen, of course, yeah. And in her case, Haymitch, played by Woody Harrelson, is the mentor, right? And so there are these characters that appear over and over again, these archetypes that appear over and over again, because this is how we process stories. And it's the way that stories have been told since the dawn of time around campfires. If you can travel back in time, assuming no language barriers, if you told the story of Star Wars to a tribe around the campfire, once they wrap their head around lasers and spaceships, they would just nod along and like, oh, I know this story. This is, I know where this is going. Totally. We get it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So then how do we tie that into living a better life? Because that's

really also what you're working on with your book project. And I mean, I think as someone just personally very interested in storytelling, I've storytelling, that's how I found it. And I found his work fascinating from that angle, but for everyone listening. So how do we use what Campbell discovered to be better in life? I think that in addition to being a great storytelling medium or structure, the monomyth can serve as two things. Firstly, I think that it can serve as an effective thesis for self-directed growth for people who want to be better. And that is sort of like a larger global thing. And then a more acute, immediate thing is, I think it's a really good tool set for problem solving. And so what I mean is that if you've decided, I want to start a business, all you need to do is look at the hero's journey and see

where am I in this moment, right? The call to adventure is you want to start whatever, whatever business that you want to start. So let's look at, at Legion, for example, right? There was something like, obviously there was something that spurred you to start this company. Why did you want to start a supplement company? Is it just because like I can make money? I mean, I'm sure there was like, there was a dearth of great products out there.

You want it to be transparent. You want it to contribute something to that arena. Honestly, the, the, the origin was I wanted to make the products that I myself have always wanted. And,

you know, I was sick of using products that I felt were inferior and recommending. So no one else was doing it. So that, I mean, that's really, that was kind of the, the beginning. That's called adventure, right? You decide. And I'm sure there was a moment when you were like looking at the amount of work that you were going to go through and you're like, do I really want it? And that's what I had that conversation with my partner at the time. His name's Jeremy. I was like, okay, Jeremy, so this is what we could do. I'm pretty sure it's going to do well because I think there are a lot of other people out there like me that feel the same way about supplements. But if we're going to do it, if we say yes, we have to understand what we're committing to here.

This isn't something we just like, you know, kind of do a little bit here and there. And it's just going to be. No, you're like starting a company, you know, like a big thing. We're going to do that. It's like we got to do it or it's going to kill us that's that's how we got to go into it right so who did you talk to other than jeremy who was the mentor in this did you speak to other people who had been involved in supplements before not directly involved in the industry no um i would say probably the the the mentor was um the person who helped me do a lot of the research initially and has actually been consulting. He's been super overloaded.

Now, I would say who he is, but he needs to stay anonymous for his work actually. He does consulting and stuff, but because of where he works and what he does, he doesn't associate his name with it. So he helped a lot in helping me crystallize what these products could be. You know, I had a lot of my own ideas and things based on my research, but he knew this stuff a lot better than I did. And, um, so he was able to, you know, take a look at everything, all of my ideas and say, okay, that's a good idea. And we can make it better by doing this. That's not a good idea. This is why. Here's something that we should wait on until we're profitable. Cause there's a lot of things like everybody when they jump into supplements

like i want to start a like people who don't like who have never looked into supplement manufacturing might not realize this but like when you're going to start a supplement company the last thing you want to do is start with a protein powder because the margins are crap it's like you're not making any money on that. But there's a lot of crappy supplements, crappy protein supplements out there. So obviously you want to come in and you want to hit it out of the park and make the best one. But in order to do that, you have to make other cool supplements with higher margins that can finance this. And that is something that you only learn by like going through that. Or you do what I'm doing, which is you just forget about retail

basically and sell direct to consumer and then use that what normally would go to the distributor to make better products. Right, right. So you've got this mentor who, for the sake of argument, we will call him Gandalf. And Gandalf, you know, he guides you in this way. So you found a mentor. And then crossing the first threshold is making that first product like putting up the website all of these steps that are necessary in starting any business sending that first email right so now there are tests allies and enemies your allies are your business partner your wife

all of your customers who are like ready to go followers yeah the enemies are the people who like i can't believe you started a supplement line. You're such a sellout. People are going to hate you. Right. Like everyone. I think also there's something to be said for obstacles too that go into this phase of the whole thing that serve as – I mean they're not enemies personified but things you have to overcome. Like big fires that just break out and you're either going to put the fire out or it's going to consume you. So you have one or the other.

That's exactly right. And so those are tests, you know, and things you have to overcome. And so how this makes you a better person is that whatever massive change you are going through, you can use this as a tool set for problem solving. So I have a friend who is getting a divorce and he's been married five or six years and it was great. Now it's not. And he and his wife have decided to split. So his mentor in this situation, they were actually just going to go and file some paperwork and let that be that. And I told them, I was like, you need someone who's done this to walk you through this. Not just to like – I never want to demonize anyone in this situation. Not to protect you and your assets from her, but to make sure that you're both protected. Like find a lawyer or a mediator or someone who can walk you through this.

Don't just go down to the courthouse and like sign some shit well yeah because who knows what the relations are going to be like later when then it right then the lawyers do get involved and it gets more ugly exactly so you know i think i said like find a mentor and that's really important and you know it's it's uh they found this person who is representing both of them as a mediator which i think is incredibly mature and amazing um and it's not an acrimonious divorce. It's very amicable. But this person found all of these things that they actually need to talk about in terms of some of their assets and things.

And that's crazy that they were just about to miss that. So you need that mentor, whatever change you're going through. And then there's refusal of the call. As they were going through this, it pushed them back and they're like do we really want to go through with this maybe we'll give it another shot um even though i think they both knew it was the the right move for them and then they um continued talking with their

friends and family and decided to go through with it and now they're in the trial stage which is really discussing the brass tacks of how to separate everything. And so, you know, you just need to know where you are in any of these cycles. And then if you know that, all you need to do is focus on that step and then getting to the next step. There are so many people who don't realize they need a mentor. Like whatever you're going to, if it's a fitness transformation, you need a coach or a mentor. You don't go to law school to become a lawyer and not have mentors. There are people who teach you things. This is the way we've been doing it from the dawn of time, and it works.

I should also add, though, that books make great mentors. Books make great mentors, right? There have been thousands of people who have read my book, and the structure of Alpha follows the hero's journey. Which is a connection to you. Yeah, it's not a personal one-on-one hero's journey. Which is a connection to you. Yeah, it's not a personal one-on-one connection. Right. It doesn't happen to you. But here's this person, in my case, myself and Bornstein, who know more than you, who are going to, like, be there to support you.

They're going to give you the information. Then you just got to follow it. You know, like all of the books you've written, same thing. You're the mentor. Books make a tremendous mentor, you know. I know – I'm sure you're familiar with Ryan Holiday. Sure, of course. I'm actually reading his new book. It's amazing. So Ryan, right? Ego is the Enemy is the new book. Ryan is a good friend of mine.

And that's a guy, he's had a lot of mentors from Tucker Max to Robert Greene. But because of his interest in stoicism, his mentors also include Marcus Aurelius. It's like most of us don't have the opportunity to be directly mentored by Marcus Aurelius. By a Roman emperor. Right. But if you read meditations and really get into it, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Epictetus, you can absolutely be mentored by these great men the way I have been mentored by Campbell. And, yeah, so books make a tremendous mentor.

So I think that the most important thing is to first learn what those steps are. Back in the day, I was like a semi-professional poker player. I didn't know that. Yeah, I played like 20 to 25 hours a week at underground clubs. It was very much like rounders, except there was no John Malkovich character. Everyone was cool. And everyone in poker rooms has a nickname. underground clubs. It was very much like rounders, except there was no, no John Malkovich character. Everyone was cool. And everyone in poker rooms has a nickname. Like they never called anyone by their name. Everyone's got a name. So there was like, there was this guy who owned Carvel ice cream stores and his name was like Charlie Carvel. I think his name was Chris, but he became Charlie

Carvel. And my name was Muscles Marinara because I amian and jacked and so shit like so so i'm playing i'm playing um poker like 25 hours a week and i and and it took me a really long time to be able to do this but um i wound up getting a conversation with a professional poker player uh like a guy who had been in the world series several times and he said the single biggest thing you need to develop is the ability to look at the board and immediately know what the nuts are. The nuts is the best possible hand, right? So every stage from the flop to the turn to the river, you need to instantly look at the board and know what the best possible hand would be because that is going to help you assess the strength of your hand against the potential range of hands that your opponents can have. opponents can have. And, um, and so I think that like that skill, developing that skill,

looking at any major problem in my life and being able to instantly recognize where in the cycle of the monomyth I am has been hugely important. Right. So I recently went through, um, a shitty situation with an employee. Um, this is a guy who worked for me for a couple of years and a good friend, uh, who I, who I hired because he was a good friend and he did a good job for a couple of years and a good friend who I hired because he was a good friend and he did a good job for a while and then didn't. And I had to, you know, I had to let him go. And so much of going through this incredibly painful emotional process of firing a guy who was one of my best friends and like pushing him out of my company while at the same time, like trying to preserve the friendship. Every single time I was about to make a move. I was like, where in the hero's journey am I? Right.

The call to adventure was, you know, it was very much like I became aware of some things he had fucked up and like multiple times. I'm like, that can happen. Meeting with the mentor was I, um,

I spoke with, uh, three of my close, like business guys, uh, business friends with advice. Ryan holiday was one of them. Um,

and I was like, what do I do in this situation? And then the crossing, the first threshold is like that first conversation that I had with him where I'm like, this is all the stuff that I've seen. And I absolutely like need you to fix it. And this is going to serve as your last warning. This is the last chance. And I need you to do it. And then, you know, tests, allies and enemies are like, you know, he becomes my enemy in that situation.

He becomes someone who, like, is he going to do this? Your allies are the other people in the company who are trying to step up the cover for him. And it's a whole thing. And then finally, you know, you get to the end of that journey. The ordeal itself is when I realized I had to let him go. And, you know, this is Stingy. You have to actually do it. I mean, experience it.

Actually fucking do it. And just be like, I got to let you go. But it doesn't stop there right because now i've let this guy go he's a big part of what i do now i got this hole to fill so now i am in the actual ordeal doing his job filling that void which is which is like very time consuming you know he's a big part of the company and i've got to do all of that and then stage nine which is reward which is all of a sudden, because things are being done correctly,

revenue goes up, you know, and we just go through it until we finally get to like return with the elixir, which is I personally feel that firing him was the best thing that I could have done for him. You know, he's doing better now. He's like got a new job and hopefully he'll figure out

what it is he really, really wants to do. But honestly, I think that I coddled him for a long time and I allowed him to get away with shit because he was one of my oldest friends and He knew that like there was not a lot of consequence for fucking up. Yeah, and and I think like that didn't do him any favors You know, I wasn't doing him any favors by being lenient with him Uh, he knew there were no consequences. And so he fucked up. And now he's in a place where he has to like work harder. And I think that will allow him to figure out whatever it is he really wants to do.

And I hope he finds that. But it was a very, very. So you could have been a better mentor for him is what you're saying. I could. But, you know, when I that's the thing I wasn't. It's very hard to mentor your friends. Right. There's a lot of proximity bias.

I didn't hire him and I'm going to teach you how to do things. It was I need you to do this job for me. I want you to help me run my company, and he did for a few years. And so that relationship was very much one of two people being equals. But obviously as the owner of the company, it created some tension. I know. It can be hard to separate those hats. Right.

And so I just followed the model of the hero's journey. I recognized where I was at every stage of the game. And when I realized it was time to fire him, I prepared myself and I was like, this is the ordeal. This is the most important piece of this. This is the lightsaber battle on the Death Star. This is Harry fighting Voldemort.

This is Frodo about to destroy the ring. I have to do this. This is everything. If I don't do this, what kind of business person am I? What kind of friend am I? And so for me, avoiding conflict is sort of second nature, particularly with my friends. I don't like to break balls. I don't want to let everyone do what they have to but like telling myself this is the ordeal this has to happen that is what allowed me to go into it

and say very clearly listen dude i love you i think you're an incredible human being but i cannot keep you on anymore you're you're not doing the job the way it's supposed to be done and i've given you enough chances and even if I believed that you could improve, I no longer believe that you will. And keeping you on is causing me too much stress. I've got to let you go. I'm going to give you a month severance. You stop working tomorrow. I'm going to start doing your job and you have, you know, I'm going to keep paying you for a month from this day forward so that you can, you know, like support yourself and find something else, but it's gotta be done. And, and it was, what was crazy to me is he didn't see it coming. And like, we'd had several conversations and I was like, I don't know what to do, but

telling myself, this is the ordeal. This needs to be done is what allowed me to have that conversation with grace. It's what allowed me to speak to him man to man, friend to friend, but also employer to employee. And that's a very difficult thing to do. And then, you know, like eventually getting to returning with the elixir, it's better for both of us. Our friendship is stronger now, you know, like, because we're not constantly fighting about things he's messing up. And, you know, like, I can imagine how it was for him. Every time his phone went off and he sees my name, he's got to get this feeling of dread being like, what am I getting yelled at about now? And like every time, you know, like something, I got to take a screenshot and send it to him.

Like this thing needs to get, that's not good for a friendship. And so our friendship is stronger now. Our relationship is stronger now. And business is better. And that has to happen. stronger now and business is better and that has to happen so you know to become the best version of yourself so that you can best serve the world is really what returning with the elixir is and it's why we have to go through these changes right if you think about it in terms of a marriage returning with or divorce rather returning with the elixir it's the divorce itself it's being

separated like and being in both people ideally being happier and being able to move on with their lives right if you've ever been in an unhappy relationship you can't possibly you know you can't possibly be your best self and neither can that person because even if they're happy and they don't know you're unhappy there's some sort of like energetic shifts that happen and they're very aware that like something's not right and they can't be their best self and you can't be your best self and the other problem is when you're in a shitty relationship or an unhappy relationship you spend so much energy being unhappy or trying to get happy or trying to fix it or make the other person happy right you can't serve the world you

can't fulfill whatever your mission is i was was in not a bad relationship, just like a mediocre one before I met my wife. And the way that it tanked my productivity, because I was always dealing with this girl who's super jealous. And she's like, I don't understand why you have to travel all the time. Because I'm running a multi-million dollar company. I got shit to do. What do you mean? That's funny. I feel that. Because my wife is great with that like she understands and she she benefits from it of course but she understands that you know if i were a nine to five kind of guy we would not have the quality

of life that we have i might be around more but is that really what she would want kind of you know what i mean and and you wouldn't be as happy you wouldn't be the man that's just not me i mean what i don't know i'm programmed. I don't know what to say. Right. Yeah, my wife is, like, super supportive. Like, you know, we have a place here in New York right now, and we have a house out in L.A. And, like, she knows that for my productivity, I need to be in New York, like, very frequently. Yeah.

So that's why we got a place here. You know, my mom isn't in the best of health, so, like, seeing her more is important. But I got tired of, like, staying in hotels and sleeping on couches so we got this apartment and it's like it's like my little place it's like decorated how i want it i picked out all the furniture i see r2d2 there in the background yeah yeah exactly so this is all my stuff so i'm like i come here and i like crush work and she's texting me she's like when are you coming home i miss you i'd really like to see you and i was was like, I haven't booked a flight yet, and I'm not going to book it until I finish this project that I'm working. Like I needed to finish writing something. And so I finished it yesterday, and I booked my flight for tomorrow.

And she's like – she lets me know that she wishes I were there. But she's also very clear that like do what you need to do. I'm not pressuring you. I just want you to know that I miss you. And, like, that's huge. And for me, having gotten out of that mediocre relationship, like, allowed me to be a better person so I could attract a better person so I could be in this marriage that's actually, like, fulfilling. And so all of those things, they follow the model of the hero's journey. It's really – so whenever you're going through

something we're about to start something we're about to start something you know whether it's a business or think think about getting shape right exactly let's go back to fitness right everyone listening to your podcast all of you guys out there and and women i'm sure you have a lot of female readers and listeners as well if If you haven't started yet, this is your call to adventure, right? Your ordinary world is wherever you are now. You're probably not particularly thrilled about your body. Hopefully you don't like walk around hating yourself. I would hate that, but there's still, there's things you want to change, you know, and it could be as simple as like, I'd like my upper chest to be a little bit better for my V-necks, or it could be like something major, like I need to lose 100 pounds so that I can fight a heart

disease and stay alive for my kids. Whatever it is, this is your call to adventure. You're going to refuse the call. You're going to listen to this podcast, and you're going to think, this is really great stuff, and I want to read Joseph Campbell, and I want to watch Star Wars again, and then life is going to happen, and it's going to get in the way and you're not going to do it. But at some point you will meet with a mentor and that could be listening to Mike's next podcast. It could be picking up my book and reading it. It could be reading the right article. It could just be, you know, maybe Mike tweets out something particularly inspiring and you're like, fuck, now I'm ready. And then you're going to join the gym and going into that gym the first time, walking into that gym, that is crossing the first threshold.

It really is, especially when it's your first time. I get emails from women all the time that I understand. This is their first time stepping in the gym. And they go by the cardio, and there they go to the weightlifting, the iron jungle. And it's crazy. And it's very much like Luke walking into Mos Eisley, right? Yeah, totally. There's all these different types of people.

There's a power lifter over here. There's this person doing snatches and throwing weight over his head. And then there's – A person over there taking his shirt off to just take selfies for 20 minutes. Right. And then there's all these different types of people, these aliens that you're not aware of. And you're just like, I don't even know where to start.

That's crossing the first threshold. That is your first step into the special world. And it can be terrifying. But as long as you know ahead of time that it's going to be terrifying and it's going to be intimidating, you can really just like muster your mettle and it's going to be intimidating. You can really just like muster your metal and you can prepare ahead of time. And you just, and all you need to do is, I just need to go in and follow this plan. Whatever you get from Mike or me or any other fitness professional, I just need to do this. And honestly, you don't even have to finish it.

Even if it's an hour workout and you do like 20 minutes, just start. But the key here is that the thing that is going to help you feel comfortable is knowing ahead of time what to do. I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone walk into a weight room for the first time and they wander around and they don't know what to do. And like, they don't know a lot of exercises. So they're like, okay, I'm going to pick up the dumbbells and do some lateral raises. I'll do some, I know, I know curls. I know these guys. And I know, I know, I know these guys and these guys and some of these guys and, and, you know, that's what they know. And so that's what they do. But having a plan is huge. And this is a stage called approach, right? This is the stage of the hero's journey where the heroes make ready before they they attack, whatever it is.

And they check all their gear and they arm up. And it's usually a montage. Things are getting tied and swords are being split into sheaths or whatever. And or in the case of Rocky, it's the training montage. Right. Like that is how Rocky makes ready for the ordeal of battle it's training right um so in the case of getting ready to train for the gym you have to like do some research you have to know you know what a deadlift is or some version of the deadlift you get need to know like hold the kettlebell like this and do a goblet squat and honestly it's like gonna take you 15 minutes on youtube to create a basic playlist of what you need to do.

You know, overhead press, push up some sort of row, maybe a pull up if you can do it, squat, lunge, plank. You're done. You don't have to go crazy. And then you ratchet up. Now, this is where like the role playing game aspect of fitness comes in. And you gain levels. You get stronger like Final Fantasy, right? You get through. You defeat this workout. You get stronger, your weights go up, your muscles get bigger,

and then you keep going from there. And so being prepared, going through approach is what is going to allow you to really get through the ordeal of your physical transformation. And let me tell you this right now. I've been doing this for 14 years. My transformation was when I was 20. So now I'm 34. So it's 14 years. And I've seen tons of other people go through transformations. And let me tell you right now, I have never seen one person, myself included, go through a major body transformation in a reasonable period of time without following a rigid plan. Not rigid.

There's no – but something structured. They have to follow rigid plan. Not rigid, but something structured. They have to follow a plan. I've never seen anyone either gain a ton of muscle or lose a ton of fat by walking into the gym and saying- Yeah, just doing whatever your body tells you to do today. Yeah, exactly. Okay, well- I think I'll just- It's Monday, so I'll train chest. Yeah, I think I'll just do maybe Chipotle for lunch, and I don't know, I'll figure out dinner, and we'll see what happens. Yeah, so you have to have a plan,

and approach is hugely important. That's the hero's journey, man. It's all about like understanding that whatever major change you're going through or whatever thing you're about to start, however you, your life is about to change, whatever that means to you. If you first take the hero's journey and overlay it on top of whatever that major change is. And so, so there's, um, we can probably link to a graphic of,

of Hogwarts model of the hero's journey. I'll put it, I'll put it in the show notes and in the description on YouTube. Perfect. Um, you just write, you know, body transformation in the middle of this graphic and then just write down what

you think those steps are one by one. So I would highly, highly recommend everybody read Campbell. But Campbell can be a little weighty. It can be a little dry. So what I would recommend is that read Vogler first. Vogler's book is called The Writer's Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers. Christopher Vogler is a movie producer, and he worked for Disney for a long time. And when he was working on The Lion King, he wrote this three or five page memo

for everyone about Campbell and why they needed to change these pieces of The Lion King story to more closely follow the hero's journey because it would be a better story and it would resonate more humanly. And it blew up in Disney. And so he just kept adding to it over the years, and then he turned it into a book.

And now it's a very thick volume. But it's very accessible. It's very accessible. The thing that makes Campbell somewhat hard is the writing can be a little dry. But I think that the challenge for most people is that Campbell makes many of his points by comparison and example. And so he uses a lot of myths that you may not be familiar with. And so some of that may be lost in you. Vogler makes those same points through comparison, but he uses movies and TV shows that you've probably either heard of or seen. And if you haven't seen them, it's going to be a lot

easier for you to put on Beverly Hills Cop and spend 90 minutes watching that than it is for you to like, dig into the red badge of courage or whatever else. Yeah. I think Campbell, he was like the, the enlightenment thinkers that wrote kind of more for each other. And then Vogler is like, like Thomas Paine, who took their stuff and made it accessible to the common person. Thomas Paine who took their stuff and made it accessible to the common person. That's a great example. Absolutely. So yeah, Campbell is very near and dear to my heart. It's been really, his work has been massively influential on me as a writer and as a man. And this is the kind of stuff that I'm very passionate about and that I teach because I truly believe that learning the hero's journey gives you a model that you can apply for your life. So if you look at your life as one big

journey, then there's all these little circles on that big circle. And you think about where you want to be at the end of your life, what you want to do, you know, like Mike, I'm, I'm very certain that 10 years ago, you couldn't see yourself running a huge fitness company and a huge supplement company. Not at all. Right? So whatever your plan was for the end of your life, it's very, very vague. And for me, I honestly hope that the very last thing I do, I really hope that I type a sentence and hit period on a keyboard and I fucking die at my desk. At the end of your magnum opus, here it is.

Right, at the very end. The final edit, the ninth edit, and that's it. Dead. And that's how I want to go out. Like, I have that, you know, like, and I think that's, like, very dark, and that comes from my Hemingway fetish. But, you know, I think, like, on the other hand,

maybe surrounded by fat happy grandchildren would be nice but for me as a creator like that's what i want but other than that i don't really know what that's gonna be right um i think it's really a matter of i know what i want to accomplish during the rest of my life you know um neil ga, in his commencement speech at the University of the Arts in 2012, please put that in the show notes. Everybody watch it. It's the best 20 minutes on the internet. It's the most important video on the internet.

But Neil Gaiman, who is a fantastic science fiction and fantasy writer, in his commencement speech says, I didn't really have a career plan. Instead, I liked to envision where I wanted to be as a mountain on the horizon. And I had a list of things that I wanted to do. And if they took me closer to the mountain, I just did the next thing on the list. And for him, it was being an

author primarily of books and comics. And he had all these things he wanted to do, like write a screenplay and write an episode of Dr. Who. And so for me, like I have all these things I want to do. And I know that ultimately where I want to be is I want to be a storyteller. I want to be an author. I,

you know, I've written, I wrote three screenplays last year. None of them are fit for human consumption yet, but I'm working on them. That's a craft that I'm interested in learning. Same. And I want to be, you know, known as as an author that's where i want to be at the end of my life and so i have all these things that i want to do and i just cross the next thing off the

list and i know that as long as i i'm doing that in addition to like just checking off things from my bucket list i'm also slogging through the hero's journey, this ordeal of my actual life, which will eventually allow me to return with the elixir. And that may be posthumously, maybe after my death, that these stories, these things that I write, you know, eventually help other people. And I forget who said this, but some author said authors are in the unique position of not needing an epitaph for their work speaks for them. And like it's crazy to me so it's going to be john romanello he wrote some he wrote some things and he wrote some things yeah here lies john romanello here's a website you know it's like like i think that's going to happen i think honestly we're probably about 10 years away from like at the like right underneath like the the date of birth

and date of death www.chrisjones.com. Hey, there's a website. There's a business. Somebody – get ahead of Kirby. I'm going to be the first one. I hope. I hope it's like all of my work, all of my published works will be accessible through my website if you happen to see it on my gravestone. And it's like – and it will be a special offer.

It will be like johnromedal.com slash great. a gravestone and it's like and it'll be a special offer it'll be like john remedale.com slash great it'll have a timer up there counting down five minutes it's gonna be great but yeah i mean so so my point is that as you're going through your entire life you're going to go through 150 000 of these little tiny journeys and you go through a couple of dozen of the bigger ones, you know, becoming a father, going through a marriage or divorce or a big relationship, your parents dying, whatever it is, you know, your kid coming out as gay or whatever, any of these massive things that you'll have to deal with in your life, those are versions of the monomyth and all of those plug into this massive circle that is your

life. And I think that as long as you understand Campbell, not only can you get through all of these individually, but you can sort of direct where you want your life to go. And it is as good a plan as any I've heard, because it's certainly better than just walking into the gym and being like, oh, I guess back. Yeah. You can't go into life. Oh, I guess this go down that road and see where that goes. I don't know. Exactly. You have to have a path and you have to have an idea and a plan.

And I think that this is a learned skill. I think that the skills that I learned and the steps that I went through during my fitness transformation became sort of indelibly burned into my consciousness. And then when I started a business, it was like, oh, I'll just do those same things again. And when I went through relationships, I was like, I'll do those same things again. When I move the business online, I'll do those same things again. And it's this portable system that works for any major change. And it's worked, obviously, for building a business in terms of personal training building online business um moving you know so i i had this massive change about three years ago i got married moved across the country to california and became a stepfather all within

six weeks of each other and so like that's a lot and i would not have been able to do all of those things and handle them with a with a reasonable amount of equanimity. If I had not practiced going through changes intentionally, and that is the difference between Campbell and not Campbell. It's, it's going through with intention and awareness of where you are in that change, because whether or not you study Campbell, the changes you go through,

they follow the hero's journey. That's unassailable. That's how we process change. We covered that in the beginning. Or you just face plant and crater somewhere along the way. Right. Understanding Campbell allows you to take the wheel and direct yourself. I think that whether you're a man or a woman, whether you're young or old, whatever it is you have left to do in your life, you are going to be exponentially more likely to do it if you have taken control of all of these massive events in your life. And you don't just let the events in your life unfold to determine the course of action. You take control and you actually – you direct them. You decide where they go. Obviously, you can't control everything.

Shit's going to happen. People are going to die. But we can focus on what we can control. Exactly right. And Campbell allows you to do that. Yeah. And I think there's also something to be said for, I like that, and this is one of the things that I took from it personally, is looking at life as an adventure and looking at all the things that happen in life as adventures. And because it might be easy to do that when things are good

and something good, windfall, and then, oh, that's great. But, you know, when you're talking about dealing with adversity and, you know, unexpected bad surprises and so forth, and this kind of also goes back to there's a lot to be said for stoicism and taking that as just a worldview, because then you can look at these things that happen as not as something terrible that has happened to you. Why is this happening to me? What am I in?

And just kind of, you know, caving in about it. But looking at it as an opportunity to, so you've started this, this journey, whether you want it to or not, here you are. And what are you going to do with it? And are you going to turn it into something positive? And if you want to, here's a way to do that. I think that's a really good point. And I'm going to share something with you that I don't think I've ever shared in a podcast or online or anywhere. It is something that I learned from my mentor. And I couldn't remember how he said it. So I dressed it up and romanified it and made it fancy. But I wrote it

in my journal when I was 21 years old. And every single time I've had a new journal, I've written it on top on the first page. So I've written this now 15 times. And it's this. Every single decision you ever make in your entire life is an opportunity to show your quality. And I think that's true. I think that, I mean, and it's like, whether or not you're going to fire someone with grace or be an asshole, like be the better person, be a good person. And I think that, you know, there's a, I think that

there are so many people who don't really take the way they behave into account. They don't really audit themselves and decide like, I'm going to be a good man today. And for me, that's, that's sort of like the guiding post or even give much thought to what the kind of person they are or want to be, I think.

Right. And, and I think it's not too late. It's not too late to change. The next time you're going to make a decision and, and I, and I think it's not too late. It's not too late to change the next time you're going to make a decision. And, um, and I, and I mean like any decision, whether you're going to stick to your diet or like go out for pizza, that is an opportunity to show your quality, choose the right thing, you know, like, and show to yourself, what are your values, have the discipline and the dedication and the drive and the wherewithal to hit your goals. dedication and the drive and the wherewithal to hit your goals. Because this is a learned habit. It's a learned trait. The more that we do this, the easier it becomes to do it. And the more successful we will be not only at doing it, but at doing other things. And so every decision you make is an opportunity to show your quality. And I think that if you can remember nothing else,

please remember that that is a good thesis for life. I love it. I love how passionate you are about it. It's fun to talk to people when you touch on something they really care about. And in this case, it's something I also care about and has also been valuable to me. So this has been great. So now for the listeners that want to know, I don't know exactly where you're at in terms of your work project on this, but what, this is where you get to say, all right, here's, here's what I have coming for you here. Yes. Here's what I have come. I'm almost hesitant to, so Campbell, it's like, this is my white whale writing this book. Um, it's really, it's really, obviously Campbell's very near and dear to my heart. I wrote my thesis on it, uh, 14 years ago, whatever it was. And, um, yeah, so I am, this is this this everything we've talked about in this podcast this is my next book

this is not a fitness book it is taking the hero's journey and explaining it and also teaching you how to apply it to personal development so this book is going to be part philosophy um and and part storytelling and part understanding it is it is very much a. I don't like self-help. I don't like that term. I like self-development or self-edification. So I have two goals for this book. Well, three goals. The first goal is to come up with a name for it,

which at some point we'll do. That's going to be important. I'm good at that sometimes. Let me know. I might be able to help. Yeah, we'll chat. We'll just spitball. So my first goal for this is like write a book that people will understand and will help people and they'll sort of walk away with immediately.

And I really believe I can do that. And that's a very reasonable goal. My big, hairy, audacious goal, the thing that I am like most excited about trying to do, and this is why like every single word has to be carefully chosen is I want this book to be the book that people recommend when they're being introduced to candle, you know, in much the same way that people, I think it's smart people.

If you're, if you're interested in stoicism, the first book I would recommend is the obstacle is the way that's like the new starter place for stoicism as opposed to Meditations or Seneca. I want my book to be like the perfect introduction to Campbell. I want it to be the place where if you've read Campbell and you're passionate about Campbell the way I am, I want people to say, read Romanello's book, then read Vogler's book, then jump into Campbell. This will be the best introduction. So I really want it to not redefine the Campbellian structure, but I really want it to become part of that conversation so that Campbell scholars worldwide read this, recognize it, respect it. And even if they don't agree with everything in there, it will be true enough to what Campbell is that they feel comfortable recommending it to people who have never read Campbell. And that is going to be a

challenge. So as for when that will happen, uh, I'm writing it. It's I'm, I'm, uh, the, the thing that I told my wife I needed to finish before I went back to California. Uh, I just finished, um, I have a real strong outline and I just finished the fourth chapter. Um, I think it'll be 20, 21 chapters. So it's a slowly but surely coming. I would not expect it anytime before late 2017. I will see what I, I'll have to make a decision about self publishing versus traditional,

but traditional will set that calendar back another year. But yeah, thank you for asking, man. I'm really, I'm really excited. Yeah. And then otherwise,

where can people find, I mean, they can just Google you, but you know, I'm very good. but uh yeah thank you for asking man i'm really i'm really excited yeah and then otherwise uh where can people find i mean they can just google you but you know i'm very good we'll have a wikipedia page um but uh if for all my fitness can i get your autograph i'll send you a book um all my fitness stuff uh roman fitness systems.com um so i apologize when i started my personal training company, I didn't think how obnoxious that URL would be to type and how there's like three S's in a row, but romanfitnesssystems.com, plural. And then I am on all of the social medias, the Facebook, the Twitters, the Snapchat, the Instagram, and my handle on all of them is just at John Romanello. So it's very easy for

you. Cool. And then just to clarify the last name, it's N-I-E-L-L-O. Yes. Yeah. It's Roman, like the empire, and then I-E-L-L-O. Awesome. Okay. Well, thanks a lot for coming on and talking, John. I really appreciate it. This is great fun. My pleasure, man. This is a lot of fun. Awesome. Awesome. All right. Thank you guys for having me. Everyone. Thank you for listening. I appreciate you dealing with my, my high energy.

And so if anyone has any questions, and this is, this is something I don't do for a lot of people, but because I love you, Mike, and because I love Campbell, if anyone has any questions at all, please feel free to reach out to me directly on any social media channel or,

or email me through my site and just say, I heard you on Mike Matthews podcast. I have a question and I will get back to you personally. It won't be a member of my staff. It'll be me. So just for you guys, if anything, if there's anything at all I can help you with, let me know. That's awesome. Thank you. And my people are communicative, so I'm warning you. It's good. I like that. Okay. Awesome. Thanks. Thanks so much. Sure. Hey, it's Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast.

If you did, go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also, head over to my website at www.muscleforlife.com where you'll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you'll also find a bunch of different articles that I've written. I release a new one almost every day. Actually, I release kind of like four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at muscleforlife.com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.