Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Steve Magness on the Science of Achieving Peak Performance

Episode Date: March 2, 2018

Today I talk with Steve Magness, an elite-level runner, running coach, exercise physiologist, and author. His latest book, Peak Performance, is a detailed and practical overview of the science of optimizing your mental and physical performance, and in this interview, we discuss some of the key takeaways from the book, including how to use stress and recovery to stimulate progress and growth, how to prime and prepare yourself for optimal performance, and how to avoid overwhelm and burnout. Here’s a little sneak peek of what we talk about: - How much “deep work” can we really do in a day? - A handful of simple recovery strategies we can use in our day-to-day lives. - How self-talk affects our mental and physical state. - How we can positively change the way we view and react to stress. And more… 4:30 - What is the stress and recovery model and is it effective? 9:00 - How much time should people do deep work per day? 15:48 - What are some recovery strategies we can use in our day-to-day life? 21:49 - How can we change the way we react to stress? 24:48 - What is tend-and-befriend? 29:40 - How does self talk affect our mental and physical state? 31:37 - What is an example of positive self talk? 56:10 - Where can people follow you and find your work? 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/

the reality is if you want to be productive, yeah, you got to go do difficult stuff. Like you got to, you know, if you're writing a book, you got to go to town writing for a bit, but you can't do that all the time. Like to optimize performance, you need these periods where we go really hard, stress ourselves. Then we step away, recover, rest, let our mind and body coalesce everything. And if we kind of stagger our life like that, we'll get better performance and longer lasting performance versus this kind of grind mentality that we often have. Hey there, welcome back to another episode of the Muscleful Life podcast. This is Mike, of course.

And in this episode, I interview Steve Magnus, who is an elite level runner, a running coach at the University of Houston. He's the cross country coach there. And he's also an exercise physiologist and published author. And Steve's latest book, Peak Performance, is one that I really liked, which is why I wanted to get him on the show to talk about it. And the reason why I really liked it is it is a detailed and very practical overview of the science of optimizing your mental and physical performance. And in this interview, Steve and I discuss some of the key takeaways from the book, some of the key concepts, takeaways from the book, some of the key concepts, including how to use stress and recovery to stimulate progress and growth, how to prime and prepare ourselves for optimal performance, and how to avoid overwhelm and burnout. So here's a little sneak peek of some of the specific things that we talk about. So first we talk about how much deep work can we really do in a day.

We talk about a handful of simple recovery strategies that we can use in our day-to-day lives. Steve explains how self-talk affects both our mental and physical states and performance capabilities. And he also talks about how we can positively change the way that we view and react to stress and make it something that is constructive rather than destructive, and more. This is where I would normally plug a sponsor to pay the bills, but I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm just going to quickly tell you about something of mine,

specifically my one-on-one coaching service. you about something of mine, specifically my one-on-one coaching service. So the long story short here is this is the personal coaching service that I wish I had when I started in the gym many years ago. Every diet and training program that we create for clients is 100% custom. We provide daily workout logs and do weekly accountability calls. Our clients get priority email service and discounts on supplements, and the list goes on and on. Furthermore, my team and I have also worked with hundreds of people of all ages, circumstances, and needs and goals. So no matter how tricky you might think your situation is, I promise you we can figure out how to get you results. If I have piqued your interest and you want to learn more, then head on over to

www.muscleforlife.com forward slash coaching and schedule your free consultation call now. I'll tell you, there's usually a wait list and new slots fill up very quickly. So if you're interested at all, don't wait, go schedule your call now. All righty. That is enough shameless plugging for now, at least let's get to the show. Hey, Steve, thanks for coming on the show. Yeah. Thanks a lot for having me. Absolutely. So I'm excited to talk to you because I read your book, really liked it. And I have like a, it's, I do it every two or three weeks or so. I recommend, I write a little book review and have a book that it's, I do it every two or three weeks or so. I recommend, I write a little

book review and have a book that I like that I've read recently. Peak Performance was one of them. And I actually heard back from quite a few people who bought it based on my recommendation and liked it. This topic is popular with a lot of my readers and listeners. And yeah, so I think, I think it's going to be a good discussion. That's exciting. We really, really glad to hear that you enjoyed it. And thanks a lot for recommending it to people. Absolutely. So let's just get right into it.

So I put together some talking points, just some specific things that I really liked from the book that I haven't particularly spoken about previously, because I've had a couple people on the show to talk about just performance in general and optimizing performance. And I've written a bit about it. So yeah, I think let's just jump right into the first, which is the kind of, I guess it's the over, we can start with the overarching theme of the book, right? Which is using stress and recovery to improve, not just, I mean, it's pretty obvious that that's what you need to do to improve your exercise capacity, whether it's cardiovascular or strength or whatever, but it's a good system. It's a good formula for improving any area of our lives. So,

I think that's a good place to start if you want to break down how that plays out. Yeah, sure. You know, I think it's interesting because you're familiar, I mean, most of your, almost all your listeners will be familiar with like this applied in the exercise world because we're used to it, right? We're used to like going out, lifting some weights, running, working hard, and then like, you know, stepping away or having an easier day and having recovery. Although some people don't actually, I mean, go look at, actually funny enough, I'm writing a book proposal for the next book that I'm going to be writing.

And I'm doing right now the chapter by chapter outline. And so I went and looked, it's funny timing. I went and looked at the hashtag no days off hashtag on Instagram. And right now there's like 4.9 million posts. And I'm writing an outline to a chapter on like, stop working out every day and do this instead, which is basically stop beating the absolute shit out of yourself and make sure that you have some active recovery, some rest in there as well. Yeah. You know, it's funny. Like, uh, I think it's because of the no pain, no gain kind of mantra that exists in our world. Right. And I get it. Like I've been there too. Like I'll train myself into the ground. And then if you're in that world, it feels good to do so when you're thinking like, oh man, like this is where I'm getting my gains in. I work hard, I get better. But you know, the reality is,

and what we found both from the research side, and then also talking to, you know, some elite performers all over the world in different things is like, you get better on the recovery time, right? Like your, your body physically like repairs all that damage from the workout, your muscle gets stronger, like the proteins kind of bind together and form a stronger muscle. It doesn't happen during the workout time. It's that time in between. And what's interesting enough is that that same principle applies to everything else we do essentially, right? So, if we looked at, principle applies to everything else we do essentially right so if we looked at you know we we were talking to this like world famous mathematician who developed all these theories that are way too complex for me to understand and he was sitting there and he's saying like yeah

like i go and i like work really hard on this problem or like you know go on my blackboard or my whiteboard and go after it and And I could never solve it during that time. It was always when I like stepped away, took a nap, went to sleep or like went for a nice walk and like the answer would come out to me. And I think that that kind of showed that this is an overarching theme is that while we kind of romanticize the grind, right? The reality is if you want to be productive, yeah, you got to go do difficult stuff. Like you got to, you know, if you're writing a book, you got to go to town writing for a bit, but you can't do that all the time. Like to optimize performance, you need these periods where we go really hard, stress ourselves.

Then we step away, recover, rest, let our mind and body coalesce everything. And if we kind of stagger our life like that, we'll get better performance and longer lasting performance versus this kind of grind mentality that we often have. Yeah. You know, Cal Newport spoke about that in Deep Work. I think, you know, based on the research he did for that book, he found that most top performers are not doing their thing more than maybe four or five hours a day, regardless of what that thing is.

Yeah, exactly. And I think that's a big misconception, right? Because again, we romanticize the hard work. And then we just imagine that the Olympics are on right now. And we imagine that these people are training eight, nine, 10 hours a day, like doing their life is nothing but skiing, snowboarding, whatever. And that isn't the case. It's not humanly possible for a long sustained time. And regardless of the domain you see, like there's a cap, you know, once you get four or five hours of work in, in the day, like you can't do anymore, which, you know, begs the question on our work days, why they're scheduled like they are, but it's another topic. But, you know, it's something that I think needs more awareness so that we can start working smarter and not necessarily just harder. Yeah. Have you found that to be true for yourself personally? Because I would say it depends like what kind of work we're talking about. In Newport's case, he was talking about particularly what he calls deep work, right?

So work that requires basically all of your focus, all of your attention. And due to the nature of the book he was speaking against, again, more about like abstract stuff, not necessarily digging ditches, but mental work that requires a fair amount of exertion and controlling your attention, controlling your focus and so forth. And I guess I could say myself, yeah, I mean, I can see performance maybe starting to drop off. Writing is a good example of that because if you're going to do a good job at it, you really have to focus and you're really trying to pay attention to every word and every sentence and trying to make connections and blah, blah, blah. And so, yeah, I mean, I think I would generally agree with that. It probably myself, I mean, sure, I have spent more than four hours in a day writing,

but I can see performance maybe starting to decline. I think it also, again, I'm curious as to your experiences with this. I think it kind of depends on what I'm working on as well. If I'm able to like write for a few hours on one project and then switch to something else that is different, I can feel like I can go longer and be really fully there and high energy and high output as opposed to yesterday I worked six hours on this book proposal. And book proposals are boring by their very nature. I mean, this is something I'm actually just grinding out. And by that sixth hour, I actually was like, I've had enough of this. I'm going to go write an article or something. And by that sixth hour, I actually was like, I've had enough of this.

I'm going to go write an article or something. I just, I'm done writing on the book proposal. But in terms of just work, I think that anyone is capable of more than four to five hours of just work per day. And not only capable of, but can handle it without much stress or blowback. What are your thoughts? Yeah. So there's a lot of nuance in this stuff. So we have to look at how engaged you are when you're doing the work right so in in newport's you know terminology is it deep work is it erickson's is

it deliberate practice right like how much attention and focus are we assigning to this right you mentioned writing i mentioned writing when you're really deep into writing like every sentence almost becomes like you know not torture but to a degree it does like you're really deep into writing, like every sentence almost becomes like, you know, not torture, but to a degree it does. Like you're thinking of the words, you're thinking of the sentence. You're never quite saying things the way that you want to. Exactly, right? So, you have to be highly engaged, right? Other things I can do, like maybe answering email, right?

Which I hate doing, but I can do that without being completely engaged, right? I can just kind of get in a little zone and get that done. And like, it doesn't take that much mental energy. So there's that engagement part. And the same is with exercise, right? If I go out and say, hey, I'm going to go out and run an easy five mile run and just go slow, like that's not that hard, right? Because I'm taking an easy, it's, it doesn't take much energy. If I take that same time period and I say, Hey, I'm going to go down the track and blister some 400 meter repeats. Like that's going to drain me a lot more, even though the time component is, is about the same. That engagement is number one.

And then I think the other part that you hit on, and it is entirely true, is almost like the motivation and enjoyment of it, right? If we're enjoying the activity, we're going to be able to last longer at it, right? If I'm in the zone and I'm writing something and really having fun with it, then I can press that further than if I didn't, if it's a grind. So I think that is another component that we have to consider. And those come down to like, there's an ability to switch between things when we're working throughout a day. And that's one of the things that we mentioned a lot in the book, is that similar to how I wouldn't go work out and I wouldn't go run, you know, 15 miles every day, if I was trying to train one day, I might run fast one day, I might run slow one day, I might lift weights one day, I might cross train, like that changing up of the stimulus just enough,

even though it's work can prolong what you can do. So, you know, I might write for blocks of an hour and total three or four hours in the day, but then I might go record a podcast, right? Or I might go work on some presentation I'm going to give because it changes that, that stimulus just enough where it's like, yes, it's work, but it's a different kind of work. And if we can kind of periodize our day for lack of a better term, then I think we can get more quality and longer work out of it if that's the goal. Yeah. I mean, that's what I do. I'm sure you do the same thing is you block your time out and you base it on, you know, probably primarily

right on your energy levels, mental energy and physical energy. And, you know, if you do your best work, if you seem to most uh focused and kind of in tune with whatever you need to be in tune with to write well the uh ethereal muse if that's your if that's the morning for you then you do it in the morning or if that's the night for you do that at night and you and you work around your natural rhythms exactly i i think that's a brilliant piece of advice there is that like you need to work around your natural rhythms and realize that there's no one set grand secret to like, hey, this is how I need my day to be, right? Which I think sometimes gets lost as people are looking for like the magical,

you know, routine to get done. Yeah, like how to have the perfect day. And here's the one size fits all that, you know, based on some, in some cases it's just anecdotes and in other cases it's, it's misinterpreted or misrepresented research where it's trying to force people into a straight jacket, or at least that's what it feels like for some people. Exactly. And, you know, you, you and I can both speak on it all the time, but like, we probably have different periods of the day where, you know, I can work really well and I can't. And like, I just have to acknowledge and recognize that and kind of build my day around that. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread

the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. Let's talk about recovery now. So obviously in the case of exercise, it's pretty obvious there's like not exercising. That's one way to recover or some sort of active recovery. It could be light cardio, walking, biking, or it could be like, I like yoga for active recovery for its other benefits as well. What are, what are some,

some good recovery strategies that we can use more in our, in our day-to-day life? And I'd say again, because, you know, and this is something I want to get to is mental fatigue is, is real, obviously, and it can even affect physical performance. What are, even if it's just your personal recovery strategies, or if it's things that, you know, you came across in your research and, and also just your work with elite athletes, what helps them best refresh, not just their bodies, but you know, their minds? Yeah. You know, I think that, that mental recovery is probably one of the most neglected things that we have, especially now with, you know, the 24 seven world that we live in and the constant fear of what am I missing out on? Right. And you also think like, you know,

maybe 10, 15 years ago when you recovered, when you stepped away from work, et cetera, like you were actually stepped away, right? Now, like our minds are always active. Our phones are always on, like we're always checking that we're always available. So like, when we step away, we're not really truly stepping away and recovering. And I think from a mental standpoint, that really affects things. So what I found in research, and also working with some world class athletes is that the best thing is actually what I'd call social recovery, where you step away from what you're doing, but but like engage with other individuals other people who you enjoy talking with like there's some really interesting and cool research

that shows that you know after a hard workout for example if i spend the next 15 20 minutes like shooting the shit with my friends who were i was working out with like my recovery profile will switch right i'll go from super stressed with high cortisol levels and stress hormones to like that will drop immediately and recovery hormones like testosterone will go up just based on if I'm interacting socially after I'm done, right? There's a really cool study that took a bunch of elite rugby players and had them either like go on the bus after the game and sit there and be on their phones individually or have dinner in the locker room where they're interacting with each other without phones and the research showed quite

clearly that there was a hormonal change but more importantly that the players who had that social interaction played better in the next game like like three days later, it was significant. So you look at things like that. And you're just like, wow, this is a blown away. And you know, it also fits with anecdotes. Greg Popovich of the Spurs is famous for having his athletes go have dinner together and making scheduled dinners after important games. And, you know, they'll feast on good food and wine and all this stuff, which you might think like, okay, wine, alcohol, like, is that best for recovery? Well, he doesn't really care because he knows if he can get that like social component going, like they're going to be recovered way better the next day. So I think, you know, that's number one for me. And then the other thing that I think that really you can take advantage of is there's a lot of research on like nature, which is like just going for walks outside, maybe a 10 minute walk

outside as your break instead of sitting in your cubicle, like that impacts mental recovery and entirely and gives you better creativity and performance throughout the day. So just like building that into your day, if you have somewhere you can walk around afterwards is great. And surprisingly or not, the research actually shows that even just looking at nature can kind of bring that on and improve recovery. So, if you're stuck in a drab, dreary place, like get some good posters of some nice scenery and that actually can help. Yeah. I mean, you in the book, you discussed some research, right? That showed that just on a computer, like a background, like nature pictures in the background, it has positive benefits physiologically. Yeah, exactly. Which is kind

of mind blowing when you think of it. You're just like, oh, like why? I mean, I guess though, it kind of, you know, you feel good. I mean, I could see that. You look at it and you feel good and you go and that's all. And that maybe that's your only experience with it. Even with the social interactions and that stuff. Yeah. If you go spend time with people you like and you have interesting conversations, you

leave feeling good. That's just how you'd probably you wouldn't you wouldn't you wouldn't really analyze it more than that but then you go okay so why do you feel good physiologically what's going on oh it makes the what what are you know what chemicals most influence our our feelings oh hormones oh so we're you know and we see positive changes in hormone profiles through these things oh that makes sense exactly 100 you know i was talking to a good friend and and researching this book who worked with a couple of Olympic teams, field hockey teams who medaled at the Olympics. And he did all this measuring of like all these hormones, trying to figure out like how to get

his athletes to like prime for performance and then also recover off of it. And he was doing all these blood and saliva tests. And I asked him like, okay, like what do you find? He said very simply, he was like, whatever your athletes say makes them feel good is going to help. So if like they are convinced that, you know, doing this crazy ritual, like makes them feel good, let them do it because like it's directly tied to performance. So I think that's like a very simple rule of thumb is that like, hey, if that gives you some experience of awe or feeling good, then it's something that hopefully isn't just outright destructive, that it also makes you feel good, then it's going to be essentially good for recovering, whether it's physical or mental. Let's move to stress now because most people obviously feel, well, I mean, if you just

look at like, I think it's every year, is it the APA, either the American Psychological or Psychiatrical Association does a survey, kind of a census. either the American Psychological or Psychiatrical Association does a survey, kind of a census. And stress levels are basically at a highest point now since they started doing this. And most people probably just instinctively associate the word stress with just negative feelings and something that's bad, something that's destructive. That though can be changed. And you talk about that in the book in that, sure, some types of things are stressful and bad and there's no question, but how you respond to them and how you view them matters, right? is. And if you look at stress, it's actually just like a stimulus, right? Lifting weights is a stress, right? But it only becomes a negative stress if we do it too much and like break down

and all that good stuff. So, in our lives, it's almost the same. Like anything that feels like stress becomes instantly a negative. But what researchers have found is that how we view that, if we view stress as a threat, right, then we're going to have a negative reaction to it. So our body will have a bad hormonal reaction to it. Like we'll have bad consequences if we have enough of it, like our health will decline. But interesting enough, if we view it as positive or as something, a challenge or as a stimulus to adapt to or something that we can grow from, then the hormonal profile switches. And then also the consequences of the stress can change as well, which is, again, pretty

fascinating. But the reason is pretty simple in the sense that our body partially determines like our reactions to stress based on like our expectations of it. So if we're always walking around saying like, oh, man, like I'm super stressed today or like I'm late and this is stressing me out, then the body is going to follow suit and say, OK, he's having a negative reaction. So this is a bad thing. So let's prepare for that. Yeah. Fight or flight, right? Exactly. That's what's going on. What are we getting ready for? And in a modern world where everything, your body almost goes into this hyperactive fight or flight, right? But if instead you see it as like a challenge, your body switches from a

fight or flight response to more positive one, whether that's like preparing a kind of a preparation phase or also what they call attend and befriend phase of stress and recovery. It just changes things. So, I think, you know, the kind of takeaway message is that, well, stress can be thought of as a negative is like you start, you have to start seeing in a light of like, okay, this can be a positive, this can be thought of as a negative is like you start, you have to start seeing in, in a light of like, okay, this can be a positive, this can be a challenge, this can be something that I adapt and grow from. Right. Can you tell us more about the preparatory attend, befriend? Like what are, what are those things? What are those strategies?

Yeah. So, so what happens is like that traditional fight or flight responses, your body just gets just flooded with like cortisol and stress hormones, right? And like the other phases, like a preparatory or tendon refriend, what happens is your body doesn't get as much cortisol. And instead, it gets releases of like these other hormones like oxytocin, and to a degree, a little bit of dopamine. And what happens is you're in a position to essentially grow and adapt to things. So you stop seeing everything as a threat, right? So it's not like, oh, I need to overcome this or this is going to set me back.

Instead, it's just another part of life that happens and you can grow and adapt from if that makes sense. Yeah. And what are some ways that like, do you have some examples, some stories, personal stories, or just stories, again, working with athletes or whoever, like on a day to day, because I could maybe see some people listening, thinking that, you know, that might make sense in a highly structured type of physical activity. Like, let's say you said running, you know, 400 meter sprints or however, you know, if maybe you keep, maybe that's not a sprint, I guess, or maybe it would be, I don't know. I don't know endurance

exercise at all, but okay. So you're like doing your, you're working your 400 meter time. I could see them going, okay, I could see that, you know, this is going to suck. This is going to be really hard. My muscles are going to hurt and burn, but I'm doing this for a purpose. So I'm going to, you know, I know that if I can just push myself, I'm going to grow. But I think it's a little bit harder to take that perspective if it's just random fuckery in life. You know what I mean? Like you're running late for the day because of who knows what in the morning and you maybe had a presentation that you're, you know, you're supposed to be giving in the morning and maybe you're not going to be late for it, but now you don't have time to prepare. You know what I mean? Just stuff that the everyday kind of, it just, it seems like it's just the entropy of life, random chaotic things that get

in our way that stress people out. Yeah, I hear you. And I think the answer to that is twofold, is one, is that we have an overreaction to stress, right? Especially in modern world. So, overreaction to stress right especially in modern world so right like if you're running two minutes late to you know a meeting or whatever what happens is during that you know during those 15 minutes leading up to that like you're freaked out you're like super stressed and panicked and like you're starting to sweat you're like oh my gosh i'm super late etc and that's normally an overreaction right i mean if you show up to a meeting a minute or two late, like, yeah, it's not good. It's not great. But normally, it's not life or death, but your body almost prepares for it like it's life or death, right? So you've had this

overreaction to something that is fairly minimal. And if you look at most of the stress in our life, in the big picture, it's fairly minimal, right? It's just, as you said, the overall fuckery of life. Like, does it really matter in the big picture? Probably not that much. And I think that's where a little bit of perspective should come in is that like, yes, it's okay to be stressed and anxious over these things and maybe like slightly missing a deadline or having something or not responding to email when you're supposed

to or whatever, whatever it is that is stressing you out. But you probably have an overreaction to it. So like having the awareness to step back and be like, okay, like, is this life or death? Is this gonna like really truly end my day probably not then why am i freaking out and the other part of it is like looking at in a positive standpoint is maybe not for running late and things like that but looking at other stressors like if you're a student and you do bad on a paper or you're stressed out because you're afraid of like failing this or doing poorly at this presentation like instead of seeing those as like fear of failure if you see those as like hey

like this is a challenge to figure out where my strengths and weaknesses are you're gonna have a better reaction to it and you're you're gonna grow from it right and we can see this again i use like using athletic examples but we can see this. Can I use like using athletic examples, but we can see this in athletics in terms of people who watch, like who play a game and then watch their posts game tape, right. And football or basketball or whatever, you know, if you go in there and you say, oh shit, like, look how many times I screwed up. Then that game just became a waste. Right. But if you go in and say yeah i screwed up here here and here but these are opportunities to grow then it becomes something that you're better prepared for it next

time so in a lot of ways like all of this stuff even with stress and recovery is about how you're framing it um and that actually affects like the body and and what your reaction and adaptation is. And yeah, I mean, you had mentioned something about basically self-talk and something you talk about in the book. And I think that a lot of people don't appreciate how much that matters. You're saying like, oh, if you're telling yourself, I'm so stressed out because I spilled some coffee on my car seat or I'm two minutes late or whatever. What can you tell us about that

in terms of like negative versus positive self-talk and how that can influence our, not just our mood and our psychology, but also our ability to perform physically? Yeah, sure. So self-talk is incredibly important, I think. And I think, you know, a good coach, a good coach in the world of track and field, Dan Paff, who's world famous, once said that most people, when they're looking at a good self-talk, they create an outline. And when they're looking at bad self-talk, they create a novel. And I think that that's genuinely true, right? We begin to like rationalize our way out of the good and tend towards the bad stuff. And I think we need to like work on how to flip that equation. And if we balance ourselves out with more positive self-talk and negative, then like our mindset, our worldview, et cetera, will all be shifted into this view.

And we'll start appraising things in a better light. So we might start appraising that presentation, that meeting we're about to go to instead of in a negative anxiety state and instead of something as like, okay, yes, this is going to be difficult. This is going to kind of suck, but like I need to do it. I'm going to be better at it. And I think if you look at the world of athletics, you see this very clearly in terms of like a pregame anxiety, right?

And those, or if you're watching the Olympics, like the pregame anxiety, if you have a lot of negative self-talk, then you're almost setting yourself, you're priming your body for like disaster and failure. Whereas if you can rationalize and create that positive self-talk, then you're setting yourself up to let your body do what it knows to do. And how does that play out specifically? So, I mean, we could all come up with negative scripts. We've all experienced it. You know, we haven't been to the Olympics, but we've all experienced the pre-performance anxiety of one kind or another. What would be like an effective positive script? How might that sound? Yeah. You know, I think what we found is that it comes down to like your reason for why you're doing things and like the work you've put in,

right? So, for example, I'll give you an example from my own. Like writing is not my natural forte. Like it's not like I grew up in high school and college and thought like, oh, I'm going to become a writer. So, I have a lot of negative self-talk on like, oh, especially when I'm struggling through things of like, oh, this kind of really sucks. Like, I don't know how to do this very well. The same goes with like public speaking. Like I grew up as like an introvert. So like giving talks and such is somewhat of a negative. So it's easy to let that come out. And what I try and do for myself is do two things is first, I try to remind myself of all the work I've done to get to this point. Right.

So I'm almost like counterbalancing the negative by saying, OK, yeah, writing might not be my thing, but like I've now written, you know, a book or like I've had all these articles published in this or I've written, you know, hundreds of blog posts. And I've studied this like, OK, I'm reinforcing the positive there to remind myself of the work I've done. And I do the same in athletics, right? I remind myself in a race of like all the work I've put in. And then the other side of it is like the purpose section point of it which is like the why i'm doing this right so i'm writing why because i feel this information is pertinent and valuable and it needs to get out there or i'm giving this talk to this group why is it important i'm doing

that because it will help you know a b and c people and when when you're looking at like your why it really helps and research clearly shows to make it something that isn't just like for personal gain, right? So, your positive self-talk and like, oh, I'm doing this to make money. That doesn't work very well. It doesn't because it just isn't a very good motivator. I mean, for a very short term, sure, it seems like one. But when push comes to shove, it doesn't work very well under high stress situations you tend to keep. So if you look at it in terms of all right, I'm doing this to support others to get to fight for a cause that I feel strongly for, or even from an informational standpoint, like people need to hear about like why they're feeling burnt out, overstressed, and maybe I can save someone from like going through this whole process that I've been through. So like really thinking beyond yourself and giving yourself like that positive

reaffirmation in that sense of why you're doing it can really help. Yeah, that's a great tip. And you know, you also had something on the point of you've put in the work and you're reminding yourself. So, you're almost having a dialogue with yourself or some part of yourself, I guess, resistance as Steven Pressfield would call it. It's an important point to make that if you haven't, let's say you hadn't put in a lot of work though. And let's say you're new and just starting out with something. I don't think it's necessarily productive to try to delude yourself into trying to pretend like you are further than you are or better than you are. And the reason I bring that up is I guess I feel like I just see a fair amount of that in the, I guess you could say that the self-help or self-development space,

especially as it relates to affirmations, where I think if you take that too far to where you have a hard time believing what you're even saying, probably not going to be very helpful. Yeah, exactly. A hundred percent. I think that's a, it hits the nail on the head is that you can't, if your, your positive self-talk, your affirmations depend on stuff that isn't true like your mind is it's smarter than like your your faking self-talk is like it's gonna be like no no that's bullshit like that that no that's not gonna work and it doesn't like if you look at contests of like extreme endurance like if you sit there and say oh i'm prepared i'm prepared like i've done this and you really haven't like your performance suffers because like your mind can sort through

the bullshit and it's the same regardless of anything so i always encourage people like hey like you're not you're not faking your way through it you're not like giving some you know pseudo feel good like oh i'm prepared and i'm ready I'm ready. Like, or like, I'm the best. I'm the best runner in the world. Like, yeah, but you're not. Like that stuff only works if you actually like truly deep down, believe it. Right. And the same with like doing stuff for others. Like you can't say like, oh, I'm doing this for children of cancer or something if you don't really feel a connection to it. Or even to change the world unless you got to really believe that. Right. Exactly. Like it only works.

I don't think there's anything wrong with going small on that kind of stuff either. What might feel small? Like, yeah, not everybody has to try to change the world. Maybe if you just want to change, if you can just change a few people's lives. And if that, then if you can get more behind that emotionally and actually really see it and be like, no, I really do think like, take your book, your book has definitely changed people's lives. Has it changed the world? No. Has any of my work changed the world? No, but we've changed some people's lives. And that is, I think it's more satisfying to think about it as it is than as maybe we wish it were. Exactly. And I think, you know, one of the suggestions I always have is when you're looking

at this, like, think of it in terms of like, hey, am I helping like one of my friends that I know? Like, is this work that I'm doing? Like, is that going to help that person? And a lot of times it can. And if it's, if it helps, like if our book, you know, changes like a couple of friends, you know, view on things and maybe makes them where they can handle their life and stress and work balance a lot better, then great. Like it was worth it versus saying like, oh, man, this is going to revolutionize the world and I'm going to change everything. Like that won't get me very far. But knowing that I impacted that person who I know or can visualize or conceptualize, that will.

Yeah. And I don't know about you, but I've personally found it satisfying to stay in touch with a lot of viewers. I get a lot of emails still every day and social media messages. It's cool still to hear from people that share their stories. In my case, I'm just teaching the fundamentals of diet and exercise and how to build muscle, lose fat, get healthy and so forth. And it's always nice though to see firsthand and to hear firsthand. In the day-to-day grind, I'm sitting in my office.

I'm like a hermit in my office most of the time, just researching things, writing things or recording things. And it's easy to kind of lose touch with what am I really doing this for? You know what I mean? Like you said, money. Yeah, money's fine up to a certain point. And then it's utility value just kind of plummets and the diminishing returns kicks in and it just doesn't really matter anymore. So that's not a very motivating thing. Even the idea of like, you know, making a lot of money with something isn't that motivating. It's just, it's sure. Fine. I mean, I'd rather have the, the lot of money than not have it, but, um, that doesn't really fire me up. So, you know, actually being

able to see the, the impact that you're having, even if it's again, even if it's just five people that week, you heard from five people that week who shared their stories. I think that's pretty cool. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's a good, uh, good tip because like, we're all going to go through struggles, right? We're all going to go through things where it's like, oh, this really sucks to write this or talk to this person or grind away at whatever we're grinding away at. And the more you can set yourself up with reminders, the better you are. I save a lot of the best feedback that comes in from like writing from others who say like, hey, you really changed my life or impacted my life. And this was great. I have an email folder like saved with those. And like, when I really don't want to do something, sometimes I'll go click on that email folder and be like, oh, oh, yeah, like, this is this is part of the reason why I do it. Like I'm actually

helping people. And if that's only a handful of people, well, it still makes a difference. So I think it's important to like have those reminders in there just in case like things go bad or, or when things are a struggle. Absolutely. And, um, so we're talking about pushing through pain, pushing through discomfort. So you have, you have the, why are there any other strategies that we can use to get through? Cause you know, I've actually do the same thing. I have not just emails, but I have like that are starred in my Gmail. That are the ones that it's same concept. And then I'll, I have a lot of, I have like a whole Google photos folder from, I guess it's mainly, I don't, I don't use social media that much, but it's Instagram. So people will DM me all the time, their stories, and they'll send me pictures before and afters

and stuff. And so I have those saved as well. I use it in the same way. What else can we do though to help us just get through? And again, it could be physical pain if you're trying to hit a PR on your bike or whatever it is you're doing, or I guess more maybe some psychological or emotional pain or at least where it feels, it's drudgery. No matter what you're doing, there's always drudgery. What are some things that we can do to make it through the drudgery better?

Yeah, that's a good question. I wish I had all the answers on that. But I think the first step is acknowledging that you're going to go through it and that it isn't unusual right i think sometimes people have this this expectation that like the best people in their fields like never go through these things whether that's like you know the best writer artist or you know athlete whatever it will they do and like acknowledging that is number one and then i think all those reminders that you talked about like finding something that like triggers you to remember why you do it, you know, what is the purpose of it is incredibly important. I had a team once who all wore the same color wristbands. They were a bunch of runners and all wear the same color wristbands to remind themselves, like when it

hurt to look down at your wrist and be like, oh yeah, I've got, you know, seven other guys who are counting on me to run, run fast and finish this race. And it's just it sounds, you know, retrospectively, it sounds like, oh, it's like just a wristband. But in that moment, when it's like push comes to shove, it was a way for them to like recenter their mind. I'm like, okay, it's not just me out here. Like if I slow down, no one cares except for me, but like other people are relying on me and other people are dependent. So whether that's a wristband, whether that's photos, whether that's one of my good friends who worked in the drudgery of healthcare and had to do all these reports, like wrote a sticky note and reminded himself, he's like, what you are doing is saving lives. Now, all he was doing was filling out reports on like, you know, health of

patients and different treatments. And it was just a long Excel spreadsheet that kind of sucked to do. But he had to remind himself like, hey, the end goal of this is this is going to change healthcare, like treatments and policy, which will impact people. So while it seems like a mindless spreadsheet that I'm creating, like it's end goal is going to have a big effect. So creating things like that for your work is incredibly important. Yeah, I know that reminds me of a study that I read, it was about job satisfaction in hospitals, actually. And what they found is that you had people who were basically their job was janitorial, but they were like cleaning bed pans and when people would throw up and stuff. And some of those people reported very high levels

of job satisfaction. They found their jobs very, very satisfying. And so, researchers were curious as to like how on the surface, that doesn't, it seems to be a bit counterintuitive, obviously. And that's how they looked at it. They looked at it that they played an integral role in the overall functioning of this organism of, you know, the hospital, which was saving lives and changing lives for the better. And this was something that needed to be done and somebody needs to do it. And so why not them? You know, they're not, they're in a position where they could, they could be a doctor or there's only a certain number of things they can do based on their qualifications and whatever. So when they

viewed it that way, you know, that they were, they were able to find joy in that job. And that was the key differentiating factor between other people who did the same type of work, who basically hated their jobs. Exactly. And you know, there's, there's a good line of research there, including people like a trash man, right. And sanitation workers, where if they, they change their framing of it, of like, you know, we're not picking up trash, but like, we're helping keeping the city clean and functioning and roll. And without us, like the city will become a literal shithole yeah exactly and if they change their framing of it and even if they change like what they call themselves like

there's job satisfaction and enjoyment you know went up and they're literally picking up trash but they provide a vital job to society so sometimes I think like just that reframing of things, right? And like seeing yourself in the bigger picture and like what your role is. Well, it might seem like drudgery to you right now. Like it probably has a much more important role that and there's a reason you're doing. Yeah. I mean, again, coming back to my own gripe on this book proposal, it's like a 70-page book proposal so far. Yeah. I mean, it's a complete drudgery, but I know why I'm doing it. So, hey, whatever. I'm actually emotionally ambivalent to it. And so, I'm going through that right now.

Exactly. And I think that's a great example because the book is going to do great and do great things for people in their lives. But like to get to that point, sometimes you got to go through some menial drudgery, right? And that's part of life. And I think that's also, I mean, I guess it's kind of maybe a stoic kind of meditations type of concept, but I think that that's a great skill to cultivate. That's also how I choose to look at, really, I try to take that viewpoint whenever I'm going through a situation that just doesn't make me feel good for whatever reason. And it could be something more like that where it's not stimulating to me. Writing the book will be more stimulating

than the proposal. The proposal is boring to write straight up. That's my emotion. And I have to force myself to get into interest on it to make sure that it's not coming across boring, but whatever situation I'm going through, you know, I choose to look at it in a few different ways. One, I choose to see it as a potential learning situation. So I can take away a lesson from whatever it is that I'm going through. And also if nothing else, if nothing else, if I learn nothing from it and it just seems again, like random kind of just lightning striking for no reason, then I learn nothing from it and it just seems, again, like random kind of just lightning striking for no reason, then I can improve my ability to just do shit that sucks and just kind

of maybe suffer through something and keep going and not give in. And I think that's a skill that applies. It's like one of those meta skills that allows you to be better at everything. Right. Exactly. And I think what you're displaying right there is that regardless of the situation, there's something to take away from it. Right. And even if it seems like it's pointless right now, maybe like it does improve your skill set. Right. If I can handle menial mind numbing stuff, then like that's going to improve my life because I'm going to go through a lot of mind numbing stuff, then like, that's going to improve my life because I'm going to go through a lot of mind numbing stuff. Right. And that, that applies to other things, you know, although you're like, as a runner, you know, if I'm running, you know, 15 miles, a bunch of it is, is menial mind numbing. Like there's only so much thoughts you can have in your head yeah or so much music you can listen to or scenery that is not really changing exactly but like if i've gone through enough of like oh yeah like i've been through this like grind before this like torturous thing before

then that helps right and it can apply to different parts of life so i think again it kind of all comes down to how we see things and how we frame things. And a lot of times we're like taught to see things in a negative light or not see like the benefits that come out of them. And we almost have to like rewire, rethink about our life similar to a bunch of the stoic philosophy, which you referenced and seeing it in a way that like helps us grow. Yeah. And learn how to not necessarily shrink away from things that seem scary or seem like they are going to be tough or difficult or painful. Jordan Peterson, you know, the, the psychology professor from Toronto, who's blowing up in one of his biblical lectures,

he was talking about the, he thinks one of our basically fundamental imperatives as people is to bear as much burden as we can to, to to bear as much burden as we can, to take on as much responsibility as we can. And that means, of course, even coming back to connecting to other people and making a difference in other people's lives and doing things for other people. And that's like one of his things. If you want to have a better life, find more responsibility and take it on. Make more commitments, have more people relying on you. And I agree with that. I really agree with that. I mean, of course you can take anything too far and you can end up crushing yourself. But again,

coming back to him, I'm a fan of his work, obviously, is he says, we don't know how much we're individually capable of. We don't know how much we're capable of collectively either. We're capable of a lot more than we are doing right now. That's for sure. Yeah, I'd agree. And I think it comes down to like the myth that people think like, oh, the perfect life is like sitting on a beach and having nothing to do and like just enjoying life. But the reality is like we're not built for that, right? We're not developed for that. We're built to like, go to work and have some meaning and like, actually put effort in. And there's actually some really cool research in addition to Peterson's that shows that like,

effort is a key part of life, right? And we were built to go through and find challenges and like be stressed and like find some way to grow and adapt. And if we're not, then like we don't feel satisfied. I mean, there's underlying hormones like dopamine, which are designed to essentially push us to want to do more, right? Because we get that hit of dopamine in doing like the craft that we're doing, not necessarily in terms of like winning the reward, it's in the effort of doing the task. So, I think there's a lot to be said and learn from like putting yourself in positions where you're doing difficult things and you're putting a burden on yourself. And if you're not, then you're not going to feel like you're living.

That aspect of exerting effort, that's something, again, that I guess that's the ultimate, right? Is if you can learn to love exerting effort just for the sake of exerting effort, who knows what you can do? Who knows what you can't do? You know what I mean? Because it's just a theme. If you're into reading biographies of great people or successful people or whatever, not just successful in business, but people who live extraordinary lives, you just see that over and over and over, where these people were just capable of an extraordinary amount of effort, long-term, consistent effort. And because of that, they were willing to take on things that other people thought were impossible, strictly because the amount of effort involved seems so overwhelming.

How could anybody do that? Yeah, exactly. They're game changers, right? They challenge the norms and don't stay in this comfort zone where it's like, oh, this is what we're capable of. This is what has been done before. I think that effort piece is, it's a fundamental skill, right? And I think that's why you see people who have accomplished great things aren't always just good at one thing. And it's not that they have talent at all these other things, but they've mastered the almost secret that is like hard, disciplined work. But more importantly is like enjoying the effort of things, which is, hey, like, if I can put the work in on this topic, or this subject, or this job,

then I can just as well put in the effort on this other, maybe somewhat related or tangential job and effort. So it's a skill that can be developed if you live it. And that's one of the reasons why I like exercise. I'm sure you do as well as I think it's just a meditative in that sense where you're focusing on exerting effort over and over and over. And over time, if you're programming correctly, you're focused on increasing the amount of effort that you can exert before failing. Right. No, that's why I love exercise because it's brilliant and it's simple. Like regardless,

I mean, it's complex, but in the reality is it's very simple. It's like, it's getting used to ever increasing levels of effort if you do it right. And you get adaptations and gains and like noticeable changes based on that. So you can tie it back directly to the work that you did. And I think part of what hampers us in the rest of life is a lot of times we can't see that direct correlation, right? And we don't know what effort is. I know what effort is if I go in the gym, right? But sometimes we don't know what effort is if I'm sitting in my office cubicle and doing

some sort of work. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. And I think that the more effort you're willing to exert though, the less you have to worry about, are you exerting the right effort? Like you can muddle your way through a lot of things if you're willing to work really fucking hard. I've known quite a few people in just growing up and in some cases, very successful people who were not particularly bright, not educated, but nobody can outwork these people. And that alone was able to make up for a lot of their deficiencies more that they could have gotten to where they got to faster if they would have been maybe smarter with their effort, but it just didn't matter because they were capable of so much output. You had a tsunami of output that eventually it,

you know, it wins. Eventually it hits. Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting phenomenon. And also I think you see incredibly intelligent, bright, gifted, talented people who, you know, maybe don't accomplish as much, maybe because they have like that fear of failure or that like feeling of, oh, I don't know as much. So, I'm not gonna like go all in and put all this effort because I'm not ready or I'm not there yet. Yeah, or maybe even a more apathetic why, you know, what's the point? Right.

I think those are interesting cases because sometimes like we can talk again, going back to self-talk, like we can talk ourselves out of anything almost. And probably the smarter we are, the better we are at that. Yes, exactly. Like the hundred percent, like if you're the smarter you are, the more you can talk and rationalize yourself out of anything. And sometimes that's why people who, you know, might not be quite as gifted or talented or intellectual, like that here's what I want to accomplish. And like, I'm going to put in work and like, I'm going to miss on a lot of that work. But if I put in enough work, like something's going to stick. Totally. All right. Well, this has been a great discussion. I actually had a few more questions, but that's fine. I think we pretty much touched on everything. And again, the book is Peak Performance. Again, I've already recommended

it on the podcast. There's actually a little episode on it. But if you didn't hear that, if you haven't read the book, I definitely recommend you check it out. A lot of great information. And I've read quite a few of these types of books. And this was one of my favorites that I've read in a while. I thought it was a really good summary of research and stories. And it was well-organized and it was practical. So again, you did a great job, Steve. And obviously, you did it with practical. So again, uh, you did a great job, Steve, and obviously you, you did it with Brad. So you guys did a great job and I highly recommend it. And so what are you working on now? Where's your, where's your hub? Are you a social media person? Do you have

a website? Yeah. So, uh, social media is probably best. So you can hit me up on Twitter or Instagram at Steve Magnus. Our book website is peakperformancebook.net. You can check things out. And yeah, I appreciate you having me on and glad you enjoyed the book. And this was a fantastic discussion and keep doing what you're doing because you're sending a great message. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show

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