Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A Part 2: Sleep Needs, Future of MFL and Legion, My "Past," and More...

Episode Date: December 30, 2014

In this podcast I answer a few more popular questions in my Google Moderator relating to sleep needs, work/life balance, the future of MFL, what I did before all this, and more... Want to submit questions for me to answer? Go here: http://www.muscleforlife.com/ask-mike-anything/ Legion Supplements: http://legionsupplements.com/ ARTICLES RELATED TO THIS PODCAST: Help, I Can’t Sleep! Effects of Sleep Deprivation and Natural Cures for Insomnia: http://www.muscleforlife.com/help-i-cant-sleep-effects-of-sleep-deprivation-and-natural-cures-for-insomnia/ The Great “Work-Life Balance” Dilemma: http://www.muscleforlife.com/work-life-balance/ The Simple Science of Effective (and Ineffective) Goal Setting: http://www.muscleforlife.com/goal-setting/ Are You a Fox or a Hedgehog? http://www.muscleforlife.com/fox-hedgehog-parable/ 5 Huge Fitness Mistakes That Nearly Made Me Quit: http://www.muscleforlife.com/5-common-fitness-mistakes-to-avoid/ 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-D-C-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 Muscleful Life in the description below. If you're on YouTube or if you're on the website here, you'll see it where you can go submit questions and then vote on other questions that people have submitted. Works basically like Reddit for questions. The more popular questions kind of rise to the top and the ones not so popular fall off. And I'm just going to be going through and spending 30, 40 minutes answering the popular questions and just kind of keep it going. People like the last one. So I thought I'd do another one. So let's get to it. Starting with the first question. So the first question here is by Alakhan and he or she says, Hey Mike, how many hours of sleep do you get per night? And what do you do to balance sleep with family time and working 60 plus hours per week?

So my sleep, it's kind of, my sleep is randomly, I don't need a lot of sleep. And I've actually spoken to a couple doctors about it. Dr. Lee from GeneSolve, who I had on the podcast a few weeks ago, I was curious what his opinion was. Because I rarely sleep more than six or six and a half hours a night. Sometimes on the weekend, although I've been getting up early to golf. because I rarely sleep more than six or six and a half hours a night. Sometimes on the weekend, although I've been getting up early to golf. So I've been getting up like I get up at about 630 on weekdays to go work out. So then on weekends, I was getting up at 630.

I was doing that to go golf. And now I've kind of switched it where I'm doing my work earlier in the day. And then I'm going to the golf course later in the day when it's empty and the weather is the weather's even a little bit better and whatever, but still, um, so maybe on the weekends now, maybe I sleep seven hours. I don't know, but, uh, I don't need much sleep and I don't really have that great of an explanation for it. Um, like I said, I mean, it's not a health issue. Uh, I've spoken to Dr. Lee and a couple other doctors just to get their opinion.

And basically, uh, the, the general, like that general advice of sleeping eight, nine hours a night doesn't apply to everybody. Um, there was even some research recently that showed that certain people have a gene that allows them to get by with less sleep basically. So I haven't, I haven't had like gotten myself tested to see if I have that gene. Um, I would be a little bit surprised if I did have it because I wasn't, it wasn't always like this when I was younger, I'm 30 now. So when I was younger, uh, I remember needing more sleep. If I slept six hours, it would have felt like a zombie. Now I sleep six hours and I'm like fully ready to go. I can't even sleep more if I wanted to. Like I wake up after six hours of sleep and I'm now awake. If I go back and maybe if I sat there

for 30 minutes, I could fall back asleep, but I don't, you know, I don't feel tired. I'm just ready to go. And I guess that's the important thing is, um, if you're not setting an alarm, how long do you sleep? That's generally how much sleep your body needs. Um, recently my son, he's been teething. So my sleep's even been a little bit less, but it hasn't really bothered me. I probably slept five hours last night. I feel fine. When did my workout went up on my deadlifts? I'm happy. So, you know, I don't know. Um, I, I, I know that, you know, like, like my partner in Legion, Jeremy, he's tried to do my sleep schedule and he, he does it for two days and then he can't even think. So, um, I think, you know, you got to find how much body, how much sleep your body needs.

That's really what it boils down to. I actually wrote an article on sleep. I'll link it down below if you want to just check out a little bit more on this. But I'm not even sure if you can just train your body to sleep less. A couple of years ago, it just kind of happened randomly where I started waking up after about six, six and a half hours and just full of energy and not needing any more sleep. So I was like, well, I guess I don't need to sleep seven, eight hours anymore. So I'll just sleep six hours. And I love it because it gives me more time in the day. I'm able to get my workout done first thing in the morning, early, get to the office, do all my work and whatever. Whereas in

the past, you know, if I was working out at night, um, also the gym is empty at, you know, I get there at seven 15 ish or so, um, nobody there. So that's nice. Uh, so I was working out at night, also the gym is empty. I get there at 7.15ish or so. Nobody there, so that's nice. So yeah, it's great for productivity reasons. Also, I like being able to get my workout done first thing in the morning. Good start to the day. I feel energized. So there's that as well.

So yeah, I guess that's it on the sleep. And then balancing, you know, family time and working. Um, I mean, I do work a lot. Uh, you know, I actually wrote an article on this, which I'm going to link down below, but, um, kind of like the, the key points to it are, uh, in terms of finding a balance for me are, uh, one, I don't take very much time for, I take very, very little time actually for just doing random things. Like I don't watch much TV. I usually watch one show

at a time. My wife and I watch a little bit before we go to bed. And that's usually like where my recommendations on cool stuff. Those are like, those are shows over the years that like, if I'm watching one show at a time and I kind of get through it and either I end up losing interest or, you know, make it through and then whatever. And I don't my I don't hang out with people during the week ever. Like I'm never at parties. I'm never hanging out at Starbucks. I kind of just I follow a bit of a schedule and I find that's important. Well, I guess it's not a bit of a schedule.

It's a pretty rigid, like a rigid schedule, really really where every day I'm waking up at a certain time, going to the gym at a certain time. I'm arriving here at the office at a certain time. My first couple hours are spent doing a certain type of work and then my next couple hours are spent answering emails and my next couple hours are spent doing something else. Then I'm going home and then I'm eating from this time to this time and then I'm spending my now I have an hour to work on this and an hour to work on that. And now it's 10.30 or I usually get off, stop my work at about 10.30ish.

Sometimes it's later to get ready for bed, spend some time with my wife. And at dinnertime, I spend some time with my wife and my kids. So for me, I guess balance is is I just work a lot. There is no like real secret to it other than just I don't need as much decompression time or whatever as some people, I guess. And a lot of that I think is just your own – how much like play time you think you need is, is how much you're going to feel you need. I mean, I've heard people say things like, what, uh, I remember where I saw this, but like someone was saying that they find like the eight, eight, eight rules for happy living eight every day is eight hours of work, eight hours of play, eight hours of sleep. I mean, that's ridiculous

to me. Eight hours of just dicking around every day. That makes no sense to me. I would be so bored. You know, assuming that play is just like kind of inherently pointless activities, watching TV, I don't know, playing video games, stuff like that. I mean, I can do it in very short dosages, but I could never just do hours a day of just random kind of pointless activity. And that's, I don't know, that's just the way that I am. And in the future, I mean, I'm willing to, in the future, it might be different. It might be, uh, as, as my son gets older, I might be wanting to take more time, you know, if he's gonna be playing sports that there's traveling involved in that and you know, whatever. But I figure now is, uh, now's the time to, to work hard and set myself up

financially. So maybe in the future, if I want to work less, I can, but for me, work is not something that I am looking forward to getting away from or something like that. I enjoy working and I, I don't know if that will ever really change, uh, because it doesn't matter how much money I would have. I'm not working to just hit a number. I'm not working to try to make a certain amount of money so I don't have to work anymore, so I can go on awesome vacations. I can go on awesome vacations right now if I wanted to, but I don't because I just want to work.

So I don't really see that changing much. So, yeah, I mean, that's really it. don't really see that changing much. And so, yeah, I mean, that's really it. And Sarah, my wife, is very good with, she understands and she doesn't give me a lot of shit for how much I work. And I do try to keep in time and make sure that we're spending time. And Friday nights, we go on a date. And then Saturday, I take off Saturdays to do stuff with her and my son. And then Sunday is I play some golf and then I just work. So I'm not really around on Sunday, but yeah, I mean, we've worked it out between the two of us to a schedule that allows us to, you know, still keep our marriage together and still enjoy that. And, you know,

also give me the time to do what I need to do to, you know, do what I'm doing with my work and all that. So I guess then that's kind of my rambling answer to that one. Okay. Let's go to the next question here. Chris from Boulder, Colorado, Mike, how have your goals changed as you become more successful with your books, blog, supplement range? Where do you see muscle for life in the next five, 10 and 20 years? Uh, that's a good question. Um, really honestly, my goals haven't changed. question. Really, honestly, my goals haven't changed. They haven't changed so much. It's more become just what the possibilities have become more real, I guess, have kind of crystallized where, well, I'm in the very beginning. I mean, I published Bigger, Leaner, Stronger in January of 2012 with just, you know, I was just interested in seeing, really, I had been hearing things about

Amazon's publishing platform, KDP, and heard that it was picking up and, you know, as a self-published author, you could actually sell some books. So I figured I'd just give it a go and see what it's like. I didn't do, I mean, I didn't have any sort of marketing plan, nothing. I just wrote the book, put it online. I think it sold five copies the first month or 10 copies or something like that. And I was like, somebody bought it. Okay. And then the next month it was was like 30 copies. Oh, wow. And the next month, it was 70 copies. And so there was a point, like maybe by month six, we're selling a few hundred copies a month. And I was like, actually saying, well, this, this could be something. So I'll start writing another book. And so in the beginning, I didn't really have didn't have any big goal other than put a book online, see if

anybody buys it and even likes it. And I was getting some emails and some reviews and people were liking what they were reading. So that was in the beginning. I'm going to probably write an article on this, a metaphor of kind of kicking. If you're up on a mountain and you have a snowy mountain, you kick the rock over to see if you can create a big, massive snowball. See if you can get that momentum going that turns into something big, as opposed to trying to make something big in the beginning, just get something out there, get something, you know, kind of like the minimum viable product type of mentality and just see, does it have any life? Is there any possibility? The quality, well, I always try to do my best in

terms of quality. The quality of everything has improved and I'm always try to do my best in terms of quality um the quality of everything has improved and i'm always looking to improve that's why i'm working on second editions of bigger than you're stronger and thinner than you're stronger because since publishing it i've made some updates already just based on people's feedback and questions but i was gathering a lot of uh feedback and questions and just you know suggestions for clarifications and things over the course of the last eight, nine, ten months. And in anticipation of not like the principles of the books are the same, but I'm now just upgrading. I'm a better writer now.

I've done a bit more research. I'm going to be reorganizing the book. Just a lot of stuff that people had suggested to me. So I'm always kind of looking to improve quality going forward. But I knew that you don't have to have something perfect in the beginning. People are, are, uh, you know, if they can see that you put effort into it and you're trying, you're trying to be helpful and you put out a decent product, people are a lot more forgiving than, you know, than you might think. And I understand the wanting to be a perfectionist and wanting things to be,

you might think, and I understand the wanting to be a perfectionist and wanting things to be, you know, trying to produce the ultimate product right off the bat. But in more cases, I see that failing more often than not. A lot of the successful business people that I know, and, you know, that includes artists as well, they did, they started out with something, even instances of where the beginning actually required a bit of time and a bit of work because the product being launched was actually a pretty sophisticated thing. But relatively speaking, it wasn't sophisticated compared to where it's at now. company that they have like a whole automated software thing for car dealerships to like schedule your appointments and tell you when your car is ready and whatever. So I know it was quite a bit of money and time going into putting that there because just getting a minimum viable product there cost a lot of money and time. But now, I mean, now this company is huge and

it's way more sophisticated now than it was. So yeah, in the beginning, it was kind of just like, all right, I'm going to put something out there that I'm going to try to, you know, do my best, put everything down that I knew at the time and organize as best as I could and see what people think. Now, rolling forward, of course, it's turned into this whole thing. There was no Muscle for Life at the time. There was no website. There was nothing. I didn't even have – I didn't even know a single person in the fitness industry. I just kind of got something out there. So now my goals, so I guess they have changed of course from the beginning, but once I started seeing it becoming

something, the goal was, I mean, I could see that in the distance, it's possible that this could become something big. I could build a website. There is a niche here. I can fulfill a need that other people, and I can do it in a way maybe better than a lot of the other people in this space. Um, so that, you know, that then was in the future, but I'm, uh, I don't get too fired up like now, you know, fast forward to, to today and muscle for life is receiving over 800,000 visits a month and it's growing at a rate of a hundred to 150,000 visits a month. That's, you know, so next month it's going to probably break the 900 mark and then it'll break the million mark and so forth. Legion is doing very well. So yeah, now if I look forward,

I don't really like when I'm setting my personal goals, I don't sit and dwell on the real big picture that much. Um, I don't, you know, it's not like, Oh sure. Legion could become a $50 million, a hundred million dollar a year company. Yes, that's possible. Um, you know, is it probable? I don't know, but, uh, 10 to $20 million is that that's like, all I have to do is just keep going and it's, it'll be there. So when I'm looking at my goals, it's more just like, I, my focus is on the present and what I'm doing to get there. And I don't focus too much on it. I don't, I'm not like, I don't, I don't even want to talk about it. Like I'll say that to you guys and girls, but I'm not like people that when

they ask how, how's my work going? How are things going? I'm not wanting to talk a lot about like, Oh, well, Legion is going to be a hundred million dollar your company. And we're going to sell it for all this money one day, which I don't even know if I would do. It really would depend on who would ever buy it. And if they would continue it the way that I would want it to be continued and whatever, but, or, or, you know, selling a million books or muscle for life, this or that, or whatever. It's kind of just for me. I even wrote an article on this point, which I'll link down below on what I, on just a more effective way to set goals and not to go around just talking about them.

So in terms of what has changed, it was really just the change was seeing that there's a possibility and then seeing some of that possibility getting realized and pouring more into seeing, okay, if I go more in that direction, then it's going to get bigger. So I'm going to do that. The book Good to Great, which is written by Jim Collins, a very popular business book, where basically you have a lot of these big companies that they were good at one point and they exploded and became huge and maintained it, where one of the big things that they did is they focused on, as they were growing,

they were getting all these different opportunities to go in different directions, to diversify, buy into different markets and do different things. And they were turning down way more opportunities than they would actually take because they wanted to stay focused on what worked for them. And they had their – what Jim calls their hedgehog concept, which is something that they can be very good at, something that they're passionate about and something that makes money. And they had that very, very narrowly defined and they just focused on that and they ignored all the other distractions, even if they were technically good opportunities, if it didn't fit within that narrow focus, they ignored it. So I've kind of applied that where my focus is on with muscle for life, uh, producing high quality content and, uh, you know, that, that

I give away for free and interacting with everybody and actually being helpful and, um, you know, doing, doing my due diligence on, on the content and taking the time to do the research and also walking the walk. Like I, I'm, you know, I'm in good shape. Uh, I, I practice what I preach. I lift heavy and, um, you know, I, I'm not one of these these flabby gurus that try to tell people how to lose fat. And then with Legion, it's focusing on creating high-quality products where all ingredients are backed by valid scientific research that everyone can go review for themselves. And all ingredients are included at clinically effective dosages, meaning the actual dosages used in, in clinical

studies, uh, and then naturally sweetened and just not full of all the artificial crap that we find in other products that can be harmful to our health. Uh, you know, if like in the case of artificial sweeteners, they may not be as bad as some people say, but more and more research is coming out that regular consumption of these chemicals can like there was a new study that just came out recently that showed that I believe it was sucralose. It just alters the gut flora, which it can mess with how your body, how it deals with sugars and can cause different cravings and problems with sugars. And there was research that I saw about a year and a half ago that showed the same in rats, and now they show it in humans. So, yeah, so that's kind of the focus with Legion. Instead of having, you know, 20 different products that we cycle through

and people just get sick of and try to do that constant product launch where we have the new product and then, you know, and then it dies off because the, because it's crap because it doesn't actually do anything, but people get excited to try it and then it runs out its life cycle of six, seven months and then it's gone. It's replaced by the next generation blah, which is equally crappy. They just make a different, you know, make a different formulation and emphasize a different ingredient this time and just rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. Yeah, that makes money, but it's unethical. So it's just not necessary. I mean, I want to produce high quality products that are going to stay. I mean, the only thing I would like to do in the future is maybe as

because of economies of scale, as prices come down for me in manufacturing, because my products cost quite a bit more to manufacture than, you know, when a product has four times the effective ingredients as another, I mean, per serving, it costs more to manufacture. But as the manufacturing costs come down, the only thing I would like to do is we have some ideas on what we'd like to even add to some of the products when, when, if, uh, you know, when, when we have some more room, um, cause that's basically how we, how we do our research is when we're going to be producing a product, we kind of, we start with like the ultimate formulation. So for, you know, we just launched our multivitamin, our, uh, our first formulation was going to cost us like $45 a bottle to produce, or might've been more, actually it might've been closer to 60 a bottle actually. So that's where we start. We go,

that would be the ultimate multivitamin. If we could just have that, Oh, it's $60 a bottle for us. I, you know, if we were just use a standard margin of 50%, if we were just to market up, you know, a hundred percent, you know, which is, it would be a, it would be okay. I don't think people are going to be buying $120 multivitamin. So we, then we have to work backwards. Then we have to go, okay, so find out which of these ingredients are really, really expensive. And some of them are, they just don't warrant the amount of money that it costs. You know, it might cost $7 a bottle to have this one molecule when you can use a different molecule that has very similar effects

and it costs 50 cents a bottle. So, you know, there different molecule that has very similar effects and it costs 50 cents a bottle. So, you know, there's, that's kind of the process of pairing it down to what's the best possible product we can do given a high production budget, very high compared to other companies. So that's kind of like how, you know, I've been focusing on things, just pouring all my energy and time into the, the, the single narrow kind of like, uh, actions. And it's almost like a, uh, philosophy or ideology of, of how to, how to, you know, of, I guess, doing business. And, um, that's, that's how I kind of approach it. So going forward, you know, where do I see things in the future? Uh, you know, it's hard to say because I don't, say because there are things that I haven't been putting time into, which would be like networking.

I'm not very well networked in this industry despite having probably one of the biggest fitness blogs. I don't know how many fitness blogs are out there doing a million visits a month, but there probably aren't that many. And then in with Legion and whatever. In the future, I definitely want to get more networked. Um, I'll do some PR stuff. Like I haven't really, I haven't tried to get into magazines. I haven't tried to get any real exposure. Anything that I've gotten has just been word of mouth. Um, so, you know, in the future, shit, I don't know. I mean, how, all I know is if I just keep doing what I'm doing, then I could make muscle for life, the biggest fitness blog on the internet for sure. I mean, by the end of next year, let's say it's 2 million visits a month or there's a point where if it just, you know, and this growth has just been steady since the beginning.

It launched in March of 2000, last year, March of 2013, and now it's already doing over 800,000 visits a month. So, but where, well, if I were, I mean, who knows? What I would like to see is I want to build out Mus muscle for life into, I want to have a bunch of tools. I want it to be not just a source of information, but like where you can come to your meal planning. You can come to your workout planning. I'm building this app. I want that all integrated. It's almost like I want to build like a muscle for life ecosystem in a sense where, you know, I guess you see that on other websites, not that that's

all that revolutionary, but I have some cool ideas that would make it a little bit different and, uh, offer some things that other, uh, you know, other companies or other websites aren't offering and, and that having all linked together, this workout app is going to kick ass. And, um, so having that, and then everything's synced up Muscle for Life and whatever, that alone would be cool. I enjoy the writing of it. So that's kind of something I'll probably always see myself doing, obviously expanding the content with guest writers. It's hard to find guest writers that I want to put on the website, but I'm sure there are more out there. And with Legion, I mean,

yeah, it's just creating more products and getting into retail. I mean, we already have, we have GNC interested. Um, we have some other, some other retailers that are interested in some online bodybuilding.com is very interested right now. It's just, um, you know, we have to, we have to be careful to not over to, essentially, not take on too many commitments that we can't meet because of production times, because of capital requirements. So right now, it's growing very quickly, but we're trying to manage it and not grow so quickly that we get into all kinds of production problems, which then can really hurt the brand image. I think people are probably, because it's a new company, this is its first year in business, run out of stock.

I mean, if you've been following Legion at all, you know that. And we are switching manufacturers to a bigger manufacturer that can give us even better prices and give us faster turnaround times. So in that process of there, we like ran out of stock of everything because it took them longer than we thought to get the flavoring right and blah, blah, blah. And, I mean, in the future, I would love to see Legion, not just because it's a financial thing, but I'd love to see it getting very big, not just because it would make me a lot of money or sell a lot of products, but because of what Legion stands for in terms of the product quality and what we're doing with our formulations and naturally sweetening everything. I think that those, it would be very cool to see that becoming more of a trend. It's going to be hard. I don't know how some of these bigger companies exactly would do it. Like I can guarantee you no, no big company could produce pulse with their current business model. It costs too much to make because the current business model is to spend very, very little on the products themselves and pour tons of money

into advertising and marketing and sponsoring all the bodybuilders and doing all that stuff to drive sales. It works. You know, the, the big supplement companies make tons of money and the margins are huge. And in some cases, this, the staff, the staffs are skeleton for how much money they're making. You'd be surprised. You have,. You have a company doing $80 million a year with like five staff. It's out there. But it would be cool to see, you know, at least it'd be cool to see consumers a bit more educated and a bit more aware of what they're putting in their bodies

and demanding things like the proprietary blend. Proprietary blends just need to go away. It's only used for deception. That's something that I don't do with Legion. We're completely transparent with our formulations because we're proud of our formulations. Like the products sell themselves. If you look at our sales copy, it's quite a bit different than other companies. We don't use hyperbole and big muscle pictures to sell products. It's a much more sober type of sales

pitch based on research, based on there are this many grams of this in the product, and here's what research shows that does. And that's why we've included this. And in some cases, for instance, in our multivitamin, we're including quite a bit more of the RDI on certain vitamins and minerals. And we explain why. And then with all the additional ingredients, you know, we talk about clinically effective ranges because, you know, you don't have, it could be a clinically effective dosage of something could range from, I don't know, let's say a hundred milligrams to a gram. Um, but you know, it might be that the lower end is used for fighting stress and anxiety and the upper end is used for, you know, um, some other, some other use for instance. And as we want the stress and anxiety effects, we're going with

the lower end, maybe we use 200 milligrams. So, you know, I, we get into a lot of that and give details and assume that the customer that you as the customer want to actually know what you're buying. You don't just want to be told, you know, by, you know, we don't want to like see, uh, some mass, a couple of massive bodybuilders doing curls and then just have some simple little texts like, trust me, bro, this is the sickest multivitamin. This is, this is what you want. This is gonna make you build more muscle now. Like, you know, I hate that kind of stuff.

Uh, so that's the way that, you know, we going about it, and it's really resonating with people. So I guess that's kind of like where I see things going in the future. And as I said earlier, I mean, I'm not looking forward to being able to not work. That's not my thing at all. So the money that's made from it, you know, it's cool financial security for my family and I like having nice stuff. So there's that, but it's not, uh, you know, I'm not one of those people that, uh, I'm not very money motivated, I guess. And I'm not a greedy person either. So, um, I don't see that changing. I'm trying to just kind of stay,

always kind of keep that, uh, because also I don't like people like that. I just growing up, I've known quite a few people with money and I've known people that kids that came from money and there's certain, I really don't like when people get, uh, I guess it's just an arrogance thing when they get very, very arrogant because they've made money or because they're making money. And, uh, so whatever, that's just something that I have kind of definitely told myself. I do not want to be like that person. I just want to be some dude who's doing some stuff. That's how I kind of look at myself. I do my, I do my work and it goes well. That's about it. So, uh, yeah, let's move to the next question. All right. So we'll do one more and then I'll just continue.

I mean, there's quite a bit more popular ones so that I can just continue in the next Q&A. So we'll just do one more here. This is a question from Ben from England. What did you do before becoming an author? And why did it take you seven years before deciding to take the gym seriously? So before I was an author,

I actually was working in a company where I was building employee training programs for companies, mainly healthcare professionals. Very random, I actually was working in a company where I was building employee training programs for, for companies, uh, mainly healthcare professionals, very random. I know, um, as a company, actually I was in, I had with my dad and it's still going. I just, I don't do anything with it now. My brother just takes care of it. It's kind of like a niche publishing company. So in a sense, I was kind of an author. Actually, I was writing a lot of this training and I would go to companies and meet with all their people and work out, uh, you know, had to interview people and build

training programs and blah, blah, blah. And before that, I worked in my dad's company. My dad has a company that sells energy. So I spent some time working there doing various things. I didn't go to college because I graduated high school early. I was 15 turning 16. I had all my credits because I never took summer breaks. I just studied through summer and never even took spring breaks. All I did was just study. So I had all my credits that I needed here in Florida. That's just how it works.

So as I wasn't planning on going to college, I was like, well, I guess I don't need to, uh, you know, I, I didn't, I didn't need to take it anywhere beyond where I was at by the time I was 15 or 16, where I'd finished my, my high school curriculum, uh, the, it was a private school I was going to. And, um, so, so I just got my diploma and then, uh, started working in my dad's company at that time doing various things, kind of, I just had to find what it is that I wanted to do and where my interests were. And that was a matter of studying different things and just doing different things. And then I worked in a real estate company that was, they actually never ended up doing it, but they were going to build a whole hotel chain.

They raised a bunch of money and I was helping one of their project managers and learning that whole business and a couple other random things. And then I really liked to read and study. So that's how I kind of originally got the idea. Maybe I would like to write. And originally my interest in writing was actually fiction to write, you know, storytelling. And which is still an interest of mine. It's still something I actually work on. Just I don't have much time to give it, but it's something I kind of chip away on in the future. That will be probably a bit more of a focus of mine. Um, but now right now that that's my indulgence, basically my indulgence is like that kind of work. Um, and you know, maybe I have like 45 minutes every other day to give it, but, uh, you know, I keep going on it and I will get something done on it next year. Next year, I'll have my least a short story

out and I have some ideas and whatever. Anyway. So that's how, that was my original interest in writing. And, um, and then it, as I said earlier, it kind of, the opportunity came with, uh, publishing bigger, leaner, stronger, and just seeing how it went and seeing that that's, that's actually something I can do. So then I stopped, eventually I stopped doing the training company, just stopped working on it. Cause it just, you know, my dad didn't care. He just wants whatever would be best for me is what is what he wanted me to do. And he saw that there's a bigger opportunity in the fitness stuff. And it's also something that I, you know, I, I care about and I'm passionate about. So, um, yeah, that's, that's basically that story. And, uh, on the college thing, I mean, some people are surprised

to, to learn that. Uh, you know, I figured that, um, there wasn't a specific vocation that I was interested in, in, in, I couldn't say I want to do this. And that means that I have to go learn it in school and getting a one. I was like 16. I'm not going to college at 16. And just be the weird, awkward. So that wasn't even, you know, I would have been later anyway. But getting a degree for general business, it's just the people that I spoke to and asking them about it, my dad and then different people that he knows

and a couple of them even had degrees from Ivy league schools where they, they basically said it's a waste of time. Like these were people, you know, that had MBAs and in some cases from some big schools. And they're like, don't even bother. If you want to be an entrepreneur, go be an entrepreneur. If you want to go climb the corporate ladder, then, you know, try to go in and try to get into an Ivy league school and get an MBA. Basically what they said, I was like, well, I don't want to do the corporate thing. I want to do my own thing. They're like, well, then just go do your own thing and you're going to be better off. So I took their advice on it and, um, did a bit of traveling,

which was fun. My wife is from Germany. We started dating when I was 17, turning 18. And, um, so that was, that was a cool experience to where I'd go there. She would come here. So, you know, went around, did the whole traveling thing, went around Europe. And so that was, that's a fun experience that I definitely want my son and any future kids to have. Um, so yeah, I mean, that's basically kind of how I came to where I'm at now. And in terms of taking the gym seriously, I actually took the gym. I wouldn't say, I mean, I don't even know if I'd say I take it seriously. Now I put less time into the gym now than I did when in the beginning for my first six, seven years, when I really, yeah, I made some gains, but not what you would expect from seven years.

I'll link an article down below where you can kind of see my little story of that and what that got me. Um, but the, I mean, I was very consistent. I would, I was in the gym on an average of two hours a day, four to six days, no less than three days a week. Cardio, lifting, you know, harder workouts, like in terms of perceived effort, harder workouts then than now. Because when you do a lot of high rep stuff and drop sets and supersets and everything's on fire, that is less comfortable to me than, you know, trying to squat 380 pounds or something like that, or trying to pull 500 pounds, something like that. Um, sure. I mean the, you have the, the heavier weight feels harder, but it's a shorter duration of, of discomfort, I guess. Um, so it wasn't so much that I didn't take it seriously. It was more that, um, I didn't, I mean, I guess. Um, so it wasn't so much that I didn't take it seriously. It was more that, um, I didn't,

I mean, I guess the one thing I didn't take seriously is the education side. I didn't really get myself educated. I just kind of read magazines and did workouts and I had friends and we all just kind of, you know, did our thing. And at the time I didn't have a particular, like, it wasn't even real to me that I could maybe look the way that I look now. Like I didn't really, I never, I didn't know anybody that look now. Like I didn't really, I never, I didn't know anybody that was lean. Like I didn't know a single person under 10% body fat that lifted weights. I knew like a couple, you know, naturally skinny kids, but that was like the whole while, you know, you're skinny with abs, who cares? It doesn't count kind of thing. Right.

So, I mean, I was never fat. I was probably like 16, 17% at the highest, which isn't lean. It's not fat. It's somewhere in the, you know, a bit fatter than athletic kind of, kind of look. And, um, I was eating a lot of food though. So, you know, I was like on a permanent bulk, basically not, no, I wasn't eating junk food. I just ate a lot of food. Like I, my lunch could be, uh, you know, a couple of chicken breasts and like a pile of rice or something like that, or a pile of pasta. I would just kind of eat like, you know, I would eat a lot. And I used to think I had to eat absurd amounts of protein. I used to think I'd eat like 400 grams of protein a day. So, uh, I thought my carbs, I thought I had to eat a lot more food than I actually had to eat. But, um, in terms of the educational side of things, yeah, I guess,

uh, that was the, that was probably the main reason why I didn't really take it seriously was I didn't know that I could do much better, I guess, because I just wasn't exposed to it. And I enjoyed my workouts and I enjoyed hanging out with my friends. It just kind of worked. But then as I got a little bit older and I started seeing some other people and being like, oh, wow, I want to look like that. What is that guy doing? doing. Um, then that's when I started to, to take it seriously from an educational, you know, standpoint and start actually learning how the body works and what, what is going to get me to the, that type of look and you know, what doesn't get me there and whatever. So, um, yeah, that was

basically my, my experience. And that, that was about five years ago now, I guess, four or five years ago when I really started to look at it and, how I'm eating, changing how I'm working out. And again, you'll see in the article that I linked that kind of tells the story how my body has changed since. So, all right. I'm going to cut it off there. I don't want to go too long on these. So if you comment, let me know if you like this, if you want me to continue. Also, I will link to the Google moderator page down below.

So you can go submit questions and it allows you to vote on other people's questions and stuff. And if you like it, I'll just keep it going, just make it an ongoing thing, do one every couple of weeks or something like that. So again, thanks for checking out the podcast. If you like it, just go ahead and subscribe. I come out with them every week or two. You can also find them on YouTube. You can, of course, find me and all my work at muscleforlife.com. Thanks again and see you next time.