Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - The Final Episode (For Now)

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Yup—it’s true—after more than 10 years and nearly 1,200 episodes, I’ve decided to step away from the Muscle for Life podcast… at least for now.In this final episode, I share how I came to the decision to pause the pod, what’s next for me and Legion, and how I’ll continue creating content to help you get fitter, healthier, and happier. I also reflect on what the show has meant to me, what I’ve learned along the way, and why now feels like the right time to move on.So, to everyone who has listened, shared, worked on, appeared on, and supported the podcast—thank you.It’s meant a lot.Farewell for now.

Hello, I am Mike Matthews. Thank you for tuning in today to what actually is going to be the last episode of the podcast. At least for now. The title is not a joke. It's not clickbait. I am going to be stepping away from the podcast. And I thought it would be appropriate to explain why. For those of you out there who care for those of you who subscribe to the show or regularly listen, I thought it would be a bit abrupt to just stop releasing episodes. And so again, I'm going to explain why I am not going to be releasing any more episodes, at least for now. So the number one reason is that I'm not really enjoying the work anymore. I've done this podcast for over 10 years.

I have released, it's almost 1200 episodes now. And I've had a lot of great discussions and I have really enjoyed it over the years. But for several years now, my intrinsic motivation to keep working on the podcast has been declining. And that's why I went from five episodes per week, which I was doing for a long time, which was fun for a while, but then became a bit much. And I went from that to three episodes per week and then from three episodes to one episode per week. And I've been at one episode per week for some time now, but the intrinsic motivation has continued to decline. My intrinsic interest in doing the work for its own sake rather than for other reasons has just been declining. And that has nothing to do with the

guests. And this is not a criticism of anybody who has come on my show again I've had a lot of great guests a lot of great discussions and I've gotten a lot of great feedback from a lot of listeners and so this is really just me it's not you it's me because at this point the podcast it just feels like a chore it's not painful chores are easy to do but mopping the floor is mopping the floor right and so that has been pushing me away from the podcast and then there are other work projects that I would rather put the time and the effort and the

money into that have been pulling me away from the podcast and that of course is the opportunity cost of continuing to work on the podcast because I simply don't have enough time in particular to do all of the things that I want to do. I have to force myself to focus on the work projects that are the most important given my current work goals, and I barely have enough time to keep up with those. And so by continuing the podcast,

there is a very real opportunity cost because even though one episode a week doesn't take as much time as three episodes per week or five episodes per week, there still is a bit more work than you might think that goes into finding guests and finding good topics for discussion and preparing for interviews and so on and so forth. Now you might be wondering if there is a good business argument against all of what I just

shared. If the podcast produces enough revenue, for example, for Legion, my sports nutrition company, or for my little publishing company that sells my books, then shouldn't I keep doing it regardless of how I feel about it? Or shouldn't that make me a little bit more excited about doing it?

And that's a good point, but the short answer is no, it doesn't drive enough revenue to Legion or to my publishing company to make much of a difference for either of those companies and certainly no difference to me personally. And another argument that can be made and that has been made by people I've spoken to about this, which is another perfectly valid point, is that instead of only promoting my own things, I could start promoting other people's things as well. And I could, I was told,

expect maybe 20 to $40,000 a month in advertising income if I took my inventory and opened up at least half of it to other companies and I considered it but decided against it for a few reasons. One is the amount of money that would come to me personally, which probably would be most of that advertising revenue because it wouldn't cost all that much more money for us to sell advertising inventory. It would be appreciated. More money in my life is better than less money in my life, but it also wouldn't make any difference in my life. And I'm not saying that to brag. I'm just

being honest. Legion is my primary source of income by a long way. And Legion will do about 62 to 65 million in revenue this year. And Legion is solidly profitable. And the cap table is me at 90% equity, and then an employee stock options program at 10%. I took 10% of my 100% of equity and then put it into an ESOP because I think that is the smart thing to do. I also think it's the right thing to do. And in addition to that, considering all the good things happening with Legion right now, I think it is going to be fairly straightforward, not easy. That's not the right word, but straightforward to get Legion to a hundred million in revenue within the next two to four years.

And so then coming back to the podcast, when you look at what it is contributing to Legion's growth, it is negligible. It would have to be producing 10 times the current results to even warrant some attention. Now you could wonder, and I have wondered, I've thought about this, what would it take to make the podcast 10 times bigger than it currently is, or at least produce 10 times the economic

value for Legion, the growth value for Legion, and it would take a lot. I'd have to get very serious and very professional about podcasting. I would have to hire some key people, build out the infrastructure a bit more, and put a lot more time into it personally. And I just don't want to do those things. And so that's why I decided against that avenue as well. And that brings me to another factor that has been pushing me away from the podcast. And that is that I don't like doing things at a middling level. I don't like mediocrity. I don't like having a number of projects that I work on and my assessment of the quality of my work on all of them is something in the middle. I much rather would have fewer

things to work on and really try to achieve excellence. And so my honest assessment of the podcast is mediocre could be so much better in so many ways. Same thing with my presence on social media, maybe even worse than mediocre, but at best mediocre could be so much better in so many ways. And so while it is not physically difficult to keep doing the podcast chore to keep mopping that floor, it has become more and more psychologically difficult.

The psychological friction has grown because I just am what I am. I'm just wired the way that I am. And that's why my social media is so mediocre. I'm not willing to give it any more time than I'm currently giving it, which is pretty minimal because I'm mostly just repurposing writing that I do and I enjoy doing the writing and so that's cool. But if I really wanted to grow my

social media it would take a lot more of my time. Yes there's an opportunity, yes it would be very straightforward, even easy time. Yes, there's an opportunity. Yes, it would be very straightforward, even easy at this point. But I don't intrinsically enjoy any of that work. I don't really like social media. And it wouldn't contribute all that much to Legion and in some ways would even detract from the enterprise value of Legion, the business value of Legion, because the bigger of an influencer I am personally, and the more business that I bring personally to Legion, the more there is what a strategic partner would refer to as a key man risk. So if I were to ever want to bring, let's say a strategic partner into the business, allow

them to buy into the business to help grow it, they would try to push down the value of the business by claiming that I am a key man, that I am responsible for a significant portion of revenue or new customer acquisition or both. And therefore, if something were to happen to me, the business would be severely impacted. Or if I were to want to leave the business and go do something else, the business would be severely impacted. And so the amount that they would value the business at

would go down and it can go down a lot. I know for example, someone, I guess you could even say a competitor. I'm not going to say who who tried to sell his supplement company because he apparently has another business that he wants to go off and do and already started working on that other business. But the supplement company, I don't want to give too many details. So well, he is the face of the company. He don't want to give too many details. Well, he is the face of the company. He is the primary influencer. I don't know anything about

their internal numbers other than just their general revenue, but I don't know how much of that he is personally responsible for. But it is not a small portion. It is a significant portion of revenue and new customers are coming from this guy's activities on social media, including YouTube, including other platforms, even a podcast, I think. And so when he went to go sell his business, of course, the buyers who were interested were asking him,

so what's your role in this? Oh, he's also the CEO of the business too. So he's running the business and he is the biggest influencer and he is personally responsible for a lot of the business's revenue and new customers. And so buyers ask him, Mr. So-and-so, so what do you want to do here? What exactly is your plan?

And apparently he told them he wants to leave. He wants to go do this other business that he has already started working on. Now, imagine you're that buyer. Are you going to be concerned about the future of that business when you have your CEO and the face of the business the biggest influencer. He wants to just walk away and do something else.

Are you going to pay a premium for that business? No, absolutely not. You may not even want to buy it at all. But if you do want to make an offer, you are going to significantly discount the value of that business just because of that. Now if this guy would have said I'll stay on for at least three years, maybe five years, here's what we're gonna do to get me replaced in the CEO role. Here's what we're gonna do to mitigate the influencer key man risk. We're gonna build a really big influencer

program for example, we're going to get so many influencers that collectively it dwarfs my influence and I will wind down my social media activities and show that I can bring it down to this low baseline level without hurting the business with the business still growing. Now if he were to say something like that, he might have gotten some interest from buyers. They probably still would have discounted the value of the business,

but most likely, No Deal, they would have said, why don't you do that? And then we'll talk. If you can do that successfully, we are interested. So we'll see you in, if you're gonna say, three to five years, if that's what it takes, we'll see you in three to five years. And so in the end, no deal got done. And I don't know what the guy's plans are going forward. But I've been thinking with key man risk for years now and mitigating it. And so that's why I am no longer

the CEO of the business. I actually don't even have an official role in the business. I guess you could just say I'm the founder. And what I do is I work on marketing projects that are interesting to me. So I'm helping with our meta advertising, which we are finally doing seriously, something we should have been doing seriously a long time ago, like retail, which we're finally doing as well with vitamin shop. But I'm working so on a meta advertising project for us. I'm working on a conversion rate optimization project for us because those things have a high value to the business. And they're interesting to me. I don't always enjoy doing the work, but I generally enjoy working on those things. And then once I feel like I'm no longer bringing value to the meta advertising and the CRO, then I'll just find something else to work on. Again, probably something in marketing because that's what is most interesting to me in business and something that's high leverage that can make a big impact and that can keep the key man risk low, where I can make an honest, evidence-based argument

that I am not a key man in the company. I do provide value. I'm not useless. But if I were not involved, this business would still do well. It would still grow. Here's why. Here are the people who are producing the majority of the growth. It is not me personally. And that's important because at some point, it will almost certainly make sense to bring in a strategic partner to help the business reach the next level. Because while I mentioned earlier that I think it's very straightforward to get to 100 plus million, let's just say 100 million in revenue in the next few years.

We may need to make a couple additional key hires to make that even more straightforward, but more or less with the company that we have currently, we can do that. However, to go from a hundred million to 300 million, I don't know what that looks like. I don't know what that will require on the e-commerce front, on the retail front. And so at that point, for example, let's say the business is at 100 million in revenue. And now I see the path to 300 million. Let's say it is going to require a lot of international distribution and domestic distribution, retail distribution, for example. And while that could be bootstrapped, like my team and I have done for 10 years now, it would be a lot faster to just partner with this big business that has already done all of the hard work to set up all of this distribution and basically could just start pressing buttons and just make it happen for Legion. And that would also give me an opportunity to take some chips off the table as they say,

and it would provide a liquidity event for my employees as well who own options. And so that would be a win for them as well. And even if as a business owner, you don't want to sell any piece of your business, you are not interested in taking some trips off the table, you want to always have that option. You want to always have a solid business with good financials, good growth that would be very attractive to a potential partner.

So anyway, to bring that tangent back on topic, that is the primary reason why my social media is and really always has been very mediocre or at least has been for a long time. That's why I have not pursued YouTube seriously. That's why my channel is very mediocre at best. I am not doing YouTube the way you're supposed to do YouTube. And yes, I know that. So anyway, coming back to the podcast, one final reason to continue it that I did consider is the impact that it has had and that it continues to have in people's lives. I regularly hear from listeners, they either DM me on a social media platform or they email me to tell me how the podcast is helping them or has helped them achieve their

fitness goals faster. And that actually is the most meaningful factor to me. That is more compelling, is more intrinsically motivating than making an extra 20 to $40,000 a month by selling advertising inventory to other companies. And that has always been the case, actually. That's why I started writing books. I like to educate people and I like to help people find their way to true and workable principles and show them how to use those principles and those and the techniques and the methods that come from those principles to make their life better. And I never get sick of getting those messages where people just tell me, Hey, your book

or your podcast or your article made a really big difference in my life. And to be honest, if it weren't for that, I would have stopped the podcast years ago because years ago, my intrinsic motivation, my intrinsic interest had fallen enough to where I could have walked away from it and just put that time and effort and money into something else and been totally okay with that

But I really did enjoy the effects that it was having on Listeners and so that was enough for me to keep going However at this point while I still enjoy getting those messages I can have the same effects with other work the podcast isn't the only way to do that Of course like take books, for example, that is why I keep writing books, in addition to I just really like writing. So writing is something that is just intrinsically interesting to me.

I just enjoy doing it. And I can also help a lot of people by writing articles and writing books and working on the marketing for the articles and books to get them in front of as many people as possible and have even more time to work on getting as good as I possibly can get to achieve excellence in writing articles and writing books.

And so that's the work I'm gonna keep doing, the stuff that I've been doing from the beginning and also continue working on Legion marketing, helping with the growth of the business. And the reason why I have added the qualifier on this episode of for now is maybe I'll change my mind at some point. Maybe I will be intrinsically motivated to podcast again. And I could always resume it.

And yes, I would be starting from a lower level obviously, maybe not from scratch, but something closer to from scratch than where I am now or where the podcast is now. But that's okay. That can be overcome with smart work with hard work and I would expect that. And so, yeah, that's enough about me. And before I sign off, I do want to say that I'm very proud of what my team and I have accomplished. It has not just been me.

A number of people have worked on this with me over the last 10 years or so. It's been, I think it's been 11 years of the podcast and almost 1,200 episodes. We've gotten, again, I think it's been 11 years of the podcast and almost 1200 episodes. We've gotten, again, I think it's over 40 million plays now. It's certainly over 35 million, thousands of four and five star reviews. We've been in the top 10 fitness podcasts on iTunes for years now. We've taken the number one spot from Mind Pump at least a few times, which was fun considering that they are the Mind Pump team are good friends of mine.

And I've mentioned that I've heard from thousands and thousands of listeners over the years who have told me how much the podcast has helped them achieve their fitness goals. And that has meant a lot to me as well as the people who have worked on the podcast with me. And so I want to say thank you again to the people who have helped me do all of that. And that includes you, of course, I want to thank you and everyone who has listened to the podcast who has supported in any way has told somebody about it, who has subscribed. I don't take that for granted. Everything that I've achieved in the fitness endeavors, in my writing, in the podcast,

in Legion, is with the help of many other people. I am very aware of that. And I deserve some of the credit, but I don't deserve all of the credit. I have all of the people, again, who have worked with me on those projects, and they deserve a lot of the credit. And then I have all the people who have bought a book,

who have told people about a book, who have listened to the podcast, told people, subscribed, bought from book, who have told people about a book, who have listened to the podcast, told people, subscribed, bought from Legion, and told other people about Legion. Not only have all of these people supported me and helped me achieve the success that I've achieved, they have chosen to support me over all of the other people and companies that they could have supported. And that is big. That really means something. Even if you're just listening to this podcast, you are choosing to do that rather than all of the other things that you can do with your time. And for most of us, we would probably agree that our time is actually the most valuable

commodity in our life. That in many ways, our time is more valuable than money. And often people want to have more money so they can have more time to do things that they want to do. So they can spend more of their time the way they want to spend it. And so the fact that you're sitting here spending it with me really does matter. So again, I really want to say thank you to everyone who has supported my work in any way. I don't take any of that for granted and I hope to continue doing things that help you get healthier and get fitter and get happier. And I also want to say thank you to all of the guests that I've had on the show over the years. I don't take any of their time for granted either. There have been many great

discussions that I've really enjoyed. A lot of great information, very helpful information, very accurate information, very practical information. And finally, I just want to encourage you the listener to keep at it, keep working on your fitness goals, keep working on your health goals, stick to the fundamentals, stay patient, keep showing up, be consistent and you will get there. And if you want to reach out to me, if you have any questions, email is best, Mike at muscle for life dot com for life dot com. If you want to follow my mediocre social media accounts, you can find me over on Instagram at muscle for life fitness.

I may change that. Um, but at currently the at muscle for life fitness is unnecessarily long and has too many words, so I may change that. But regardless, that's what my Instagram handle currently is over on X. I'm at most for life on Facebook. I don't remember, but you can search Mike Matthews and I have a page with a decent amount of followers. So you should find it fairly easily. And if you like my writing and want to be exposed to it regularly, you can find articles over at Legion's blog, LegionAthletics.com. Go to the blog, you'll find a lot of articles

that I have written and that I continue to write. You can also get on Legion's email list because I have my own little newsletter basically that I send to all of Legion's subscribers and maybe I will actually turn this into a separate newsletter give it a little landing page and promote it separately to everything that Legion is doing because a lot of people like it and it is a bit different than Legion's newsletter which is kind of just a compilation of all the articles that went up on the blog that week, as well as some other things that our customers

and our subscribers might find interesting. So that is Legion's newsletter. Mine is a little bit different, and you can check them both out over at legionathletics.com if you just subscribe to the email list. Well, friends, that's it. That's all I have on my outline for today's episode. So I hope you found it at least a little bit interesting. If you are still listening, thank you for listening to it and farewell for now.