NYT Bestselling Author John Romaniello on Living Our Hero’s Journey

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Hey, welcome to another episode of the podcast. And in this episode, I interviewed someone that. It doesn’t really need introduction to us fitness folk at least, but I’m going to do it anyway. So my guest is John Romanello and he’s the author of the New York times bestselling book, engineering the alpha.

And he’s also the founder of the multimillion dollar multifaceted fitness business that he calls Roman fitness systems. And he’s one of the grand pubas or the anointed ones [00:03:00] of the fitness industry as a whole, super connected. Super successful and a super cool guy. Now, we’re not going to talk fitness or business though.

Instead, we linked up to discuss something else all together. And that’s how you and I can use the brilliant and groundbreaking work of a rather obscure comparative mythologist to live better lives. Now, the work is codified in the book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which was written by the mythologist Joseph Campbell.

And It has served as a template for some of the most popular and timeless stories ever told, ranging from King Arthur to Moby Dick to Star Wars, Harry Potter, and many others. Now I know that might sound incredibly abstract and inapplicable to our lives, but Bear with me because John really does an amazing job making the material accessible and practical.

So I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised. And honestly it’s really not a stretch to say that [00:04:00] our conversation can be the nudge or the call to adventure, which you’ll learn more about in our interview that leads to incredibly positive changes in your life. So with that, let’s get to it, John, thanks for coming on the show.

I’m excited for this. 

John Romaniello: I am too, man. Thank you so much for having me. It’s always a pleasure to chat with you. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. My pleasure. So obviously you’re best known for everything you’ve been, you’ve done in the fitness industry and New York times bestselling author and you have a big brand, I guess you could say of fitness things Great way to put it.

That’s how when people ask me, what do I do? That’s my answer. I’m like, I do health and fitness things. I do stuff 

John Romaniello: in with 

Mike Matthews: health 

John Romaniello: and stuff. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, like that’s correct. Whatever books and things and whatever 

books and stuff. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, 

that’s great. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. But I’m excited because in this. What we’re gonna be talking about here is different, which is cool because it’s also, I wanted to, I want to change a little bit of the direction of the podcast.

Like I’m not stick to doing health and fitness things, of course, and talking about that kind of stuff. But I think branching out to I guess just the bigger subject of [00:05:00] self improvement is something that I myself am personally interested in. And I like talking to people like you that have interesting ideas and can articulate themselves well.

John Romaniello: I think that it’s actually a very Natural progression for both fitness professionals and people who get involved in fitness as enthusiasts and consumers. You like Begin this process of change for your body and you start the the cycle of learning whether it is like in, in our case from a sort of academic perspective so that we can disseminate information or in the case of the people who read your stuff and my stuff, they’re reading all of our information and applying it to their own lives.

And then there does come a certain, I don’t think anyone has ever Satisfied or has a perfect body. But I do think that if you’re consistent within, two to four years, pretty much going to get to within 10 percent of your genetic potential. And at that point, that drive to improve doesn’t really go away.

And you start looking at other things. And so for me, I started with it. The fitness stuff and then once I had mastered that I was like [00:06:00] how do I use these qualities that I’ve developed in terms of discipline and dedication and an application of knowledge to other things and for me the first thing that I did outside of that was building a business and Obviously you’ve done that as well but I think that there are so many people who can take what they learn in fitness and apply it, you know to their relationships Or to going back to school.

I know a lot of my clients, young guys in their 20s who had dropped out of college because they didn’t know what they want to do. And then after the fitness stuff, they found direction and not only were they able to go back to school, they were so much more successful because they built up all these habits.

And I 

John Romaniello: think it’s hugely successful. So for guys like you and me, I think comes to a point where, you know, how many articles have you written for months of a life? 

Mike Matthews: We actually just looked at this recently. I think it was around 400. 

John Romaniello: Yeah. So I’ve got about four or 500 on Roman fitness systems, not counting what I’ve written for men’s health, men’s fitness, teenage, everything else.

Mike Matthews: And 

John Romaniello: books. That takes a little bit of 

Mike Matthews: time too. 

John Romaniello: So then I got alpha, I have eight eBooks, I’m not it’s not, I don’t, I never want to [00:07:00] say I’m done with fitness, but I have more or less said what I have to say. 

Right. 

John Romaniello: And I think we all get to that point and then it’s I still want to keep helping people and disseminating information.

And so we move into, in my case, a lot of business coaching and for other people, life coaching and in general, just trying to help people become better and happier and more successful. So it’s very natural progression, I think. And I think that even for one aspect of a business, in this case, your podcast, it’s natural that after a while, the fitness stuff is going to be separated a little bit and you’re going to be interspersed with.

Stuff like what we’re going to talk about today. 

Mike Matthews: Totally. Yeah, I mean I run into that border. I’ve recorded so many, I’ve talked about so many things and written about so many things, I run into so I guess I could just I’ve written all about this I guess I could talk about that in the podcast at least it’s in a different medium but but yeah, I think it’ll be fun and I know that I’ve gotten a lot of requests from listeners and from readers to talk more about.

Cause I’ll dabble in some self improvement stuff here and there in the podcast, almost just like tangents sometimes of, Hey, oh, that reminds me of this. I’m just going to talk about it for five [00:08:00] minutes. But then people will say, Hey, can you do more episodes like that? Can you talk more about that kind of stuff?

So here we 

John Romaniello: are. 

Mike Matthews: And so let’s get right into it. The subject here is going to be obviously. Joseph Campbell’s work. And I’ll let you just jump into the intro on that and a background on it. How did you find his work? And, 

John Romaniello: okay. So I think maybe start with who Campbell is and why it’s important.

Joseph Campbell was a mythologist who taught at Sarah Lawrence University in the 40s and 50s and he focused on comparative mythology, and this looks at myths across cultures, so myths from the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Romans, the Greeks, and he focused on where they converged, or what they had in common, rather than where they diverged, and what Campbell found was that in nearly all cultures, every great story Has the same narrative thread it more or less follows the same pattern what he called the monomyth or the hero’s journey this storytelling structure that takes [00:09:00] us through the perspective of this hero from what’s called the ordinary world the status quo all the way around through this great adventure which can include everything from Going to Hogwarts, the Battle on the Death Star, destroying the ring in, in, in Mount Doom or, going through the Looking Glass in Alice in Wonderland or, learning karate and fighting in the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament, the Karate Kid, all of these different things all fall into the Hero’s Journey, and, at the very end of it, The hero has not only accomplished this great goal, but has also improved himself emotionally and even if there’s some sort of physical sacrifice, and he is able to now return with the elixir.

We’ll go through all the steps of the hero’s journey. The most important one at the end is returning with the elixir and this is basically the hero has gone off on this quest and he’s learned this great thing and now it is his duty to bring it back to the tribe because all of our story and we’re all like tribal creatures and so Campbell often talks of leaving the tribe and then returning to the tribe and it’s basically.[00:10:00] 

The hero’s journey is not just about the actual adventure and the quest and the treasure that the hero goes on. It is about becoming, the hero becoming the best possible version of himself through sacrifice, through strife through work. And so that he can best serve the world. I found Campbell my sophomore year of college.

And for me, it was the right book at the right time. I had always been really interested in mythology. And when I was a kid, I just was always reading Greek mythology, Roman mythology, Egyptian. When I got a little older, I got into Norse mythology. So I just really enjoyed it. And so I, I’ve always been a writer.

And, if I hadn’t wound up writing about fitness, it would have been something else. And so when I was a kid, when I was 14 or 15 years old, I got my first A short story published in Dragon Magazine, and then I got another one published in Dungeon Magazine and in Scry. 

And 

John Romaniello: these were the kind of magazines where you could go and read how to create your perfect D& D character, or how to build a very [00:11:00] effective deck for Magic the Gathering.

So real fuckin hardcore nerd shit. Real nerd. Very niche magazine. But I was getting published when I was 15 and getting paid like 150 and I felt amazing. And and I like to write about this stuff. And so when I discovered Campbell, which was, I don’t know if it was in a mythology class or maybe just a creative literature class.

So I discovered Campbell and I was reading through his seminal work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which more or less discusses his thesis of the monomyth that all stories pretty much follow the same pattern. Now from the time I was a very young child, I have been heavily into Tolkien. And reading Campbell, I was immediately able to apply the steps of the Monomyth directly to the Lord of the Rings and, directly to Narnia and all of the other less well known but equally nerdy fantasy that I had read.

And So I read Campbell and I like really fell in love with it. And then later that year I went through a fitness transformation and that lasted, the [00:12:00] actual act of transforming was like four months, but and then I, this, the following summer. Was the most crazy summer of my life, right?

’cause I went from being a guy who was like, muscular, but chubby to this dude who was just shredded. And I worked at a summer camp. And so that’s a place where you’re surrounded by women your age. It’s a lot of 20 to 24-year-old guys and girls. And you had hormones oozing everywhere.

Hormones using everywhere. And so like my life dramatically changed just from having gone through this physical transformation. And so then I went back to school and I didn’t read Campbell for a while and then when I graduated I started I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

I was probably on track to go back and become a professional student and get a master’s and then maybe two doctorates or whatever it was going to be. Your parents 

Mike Matthews: could talk about it at the social events they could, 

Right. Oh, so he’s working on his third PhD. Oh, fantastic. 

John Romaniello: Yeah, because I just figure if you’re gonna get one doctor, you should get two, and then everyone has to call me Dr.

Dr. Romanello, and that was my [00:13:00] And I thought that spending an extra eight years in school was enough of a that joke was funny enough to spend eight years in school, which is not it’s not a good joke. So I decided to start I had now been in shape for a year, and I was helping my friends get in shape, and so I started This personal training company, Roman fitness systems.

And as I was starting it and going through the process, I really realized that so much of what I was doing, the actual steps that I was taking and solving that business was very similar to the steps I had to take when I went through my fitness transformation and then something clicked for me.

And I picked up Campbell again and I realized that going through my fitness transformation Was a hero’s journey. I started in the ordinary world of being overweight. I experienced a call to adventure or an inciting event, which is in my case. I was thinking about joining a gym, but I had been thinking about it forever.

And what happened for me was I was working at the Gap, which is the worst place you can fucking work, [00:14:00] ever. Of all the retail places you can work, the Gap is I think it’s by maybe Walmart and then the Gap. The Gap is pretty bad. And so this woman called, and she said, I need 27 polo shirts in all these different sizes.

And they all have to be white. 27 white polo shirts. And, I was like, all right, lady, that’s weird as hell, but sure. And I go down to the stock room and they find all the polo shirts and she comes up and I’m bringing her up. Nice Italian lady reminds me of my mom. And I asked what do you need these shirts for?

She said, my husband is opening a gym and these are for employees to wear at the desk. And I said, Oh, that’s really interesting. Where’s the gym? It turns out it was like five minutes from my house. And this woman was so sweet. She’s you got to go in and tell my husband I sent you. So I went in the next day and I.

Walked around and I met the owner this guy named Alvin who was like very welcoming and super cool And this is now step three the meeting with the mentor It’s like being unhappy and depressed and unfit in the ordinary world. And then there’s the inciting event of Or the call [00:15:00] to adventure of this call from Marie and then you know, there’s I go to the gym I’m like, I don’t know and that’s refusal of the call and then I met Alvin and he at the time Alvin was I guess 42 years old and he had a lat spread like this and like big shoulders and like good looking older dude and I was like this guy’s like I’m like half his age and he’s in way better shape than me and and he was like cool and funny and he’s like you should join we’ll give you the student discount you know we’ll get you sorted and Alvin became my mentor and you know he helped me out a lot and we just hit off we built this relationship he kept giving me books to read about fitness and I just like dove in and you know I think I joined that gym on April 26th 2000, 2001 and I was like a size 35 waist.

I don’t know what my body fat percentage was, but a lot. And then on July 4th, I had six pack. I was like 6 percent body fat with a 28 inch waist. So I made unbelievable progress very quickly because as it [00:16:00] turns out, I have good genes for this stuff. I was just fucking lazy and didn’t, and wasn’t applying myself.

And so this changed my life in so many ways. And so I began to realize. That all of the steps that I had gone through in this fitness transformation were mirrored in the hero’s journey. And then as he began to start this personal training business, I had to go through the same thing, right? The ordinary world for me was like, I’ve just graduated school.

I’m probably supposed to go to grad school now. The call to adventure was Alvin telling me if you want to do this I’ll help you. And, obviously he’s the mentor. He actually paid for my first personal training certification. 

It was 

John Romaniello: amazing. And then there’s tests, allies, and enemies, right?

Where most tests are like a reaction to how you react to your enemies testing you or trying to push back against you. In my case, that was my family. So like I went to an Ivy League school, first person in my family, like graduate college. And I’ve got all these people telling me like, you have to, be a doctor or a lawyer.

You have to go back to grad school. You have [00:17:00] to do these things. Yeah make use of this gift. Make use of this gift that you’ve been given, like this intellect and this education. Do something. And so there are all these people chattering and, I’m starting this personal training business and I I grew up in a single parent family.

My mom and I are we’ve been very close my entire life. She was, my, my parents split when I was like 10. My dad was super abusive to me and my mom. So starting from when I was 10 years old, it was like me and my mom and my sister. She took care of all of us. We took care of each other, worked her ass off to help me get through school.

Like she would have scrubbed floors. If it wasn’t like I got some scholarships, but. She really would have done anything. And so now I graduate from this expensive school and I’m like, I’m going to work in this gym. I broke my mother’s heart and she was like, you’re going to, you go to work in your pajamas.

You can, are you really going to work in the gym for the rest of your life? Just wouldn’t accept it. But I knew that I had, I wanted to do this at least for a while. For me, again, I will be very honest. At the time, it felt like something to do until I figured out what I was going to do, which it turned out to be.

And it just happened to be that [00:18:00] what I was going to do was work in the fitness industry and write books and build this company. So just to put a bow on that and then get back directly into Campbell. What I really noticed was that every large change you go through in your life, whether it is getting into a relationship.

Going through a breakup, getting a divorce, getting a new job, starting a new business, going through a fitness transformation. Every single one of those changes follows the cycle of the Monomyth or the Hero’s Journey. And the original version of the Hero’s Journey that Campbell outlays is 17 stages or steps.

And then there’s another one that I prefer. I think it’s a little bit more applicable to everyday stuff. It was Christopher Vogler’s version of the Hero’s Journey, which is In in his book, The Writer’s Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers. So yeah, that’s really how I got introduced.

It was right book, right time. And 

Mike Matthews: why do you think that is? Why do you think that life mirrors art in that way? 

John Romaniello: I think that what Campbell hit on, [00:19:00] unknowingly or not is that we tell stories this way, not just because it’s a great narrative structure. It helps us understand The journey of the character, the evolution of the character because I think that ultimately what it comes down to is this is how we process change these 12 steps are how we process change and I say 12 steps very intentionally because if you look at it, if you look at the 12 steps of boggler’s hero’s journey, you can overlay them directly.

On top of the 12 steps of recovery programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, whatever it is. So going through a major change like recovering from an addiction, literally mirrors the hero’s journey. And that is, those are the same steps necessary when you go through a divorce, for example.

Mike Matthews: So it’s almost like we’re observing stages of Life that are just hardwired for, they’re just built into the wolf and whatever we are and whatever, yeah, whatever, 

John Romaniello: whatever this ethereal thing that we are, the, like the ethereal [00:20:00] essence that is, it’s thrust into this corporeal form.

This is how we process change on a very deeply primitive and emotional level. And it’s the same thing, by the way, if you look at the five stages of grief, very similar to the hero’s journey, right? First, there’s. There’s the ordinary world where this person is alive, and then there’s the inciting event.

Where, unfortunately, someone you love dies. Then there’s the refusal of the call. Stage one of the five stages of grief is denial, right? And then you go through bargaining, anger whatever. And then, finally, acceptance, which is return with the elixir, where now you can accept that this person is passed on.

That’s the final stage of the hero’s journey and instead of mourning them and grieving for them You can take what you’ve learned from them and use it to make your life better and the lives of everyone around you better You know, you don’t have to like when you’re when your grandfather dies Obviously, you’re very sad for a while but then it gets to a point where you’ve gotten over the initial pain of it and you can look back and be like Here’s some really awesome things.

My grandfather taught me. Here’s how he made me a better [00:21:00] man And that’s the hero’s journey like going through The five stages of grief is the same thing as going through the 12 steps of recovery or the 17 steps of the hero’s journey. This is just how we as humans process change. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. And I think that, the reason why that’s the reason why it’s found in these stories that have really survived the millennia in some cases.

And there’s a reason why we kept on telling these stories over and over. And there’s a reason why cultures have valued certain stories so much I think, and that there’s, it’s not just, it’s not just a story. It’s not just about Luke Skywalker doing some things and defeating Darth Vader.

There’s a symbolic meaning to it that is, it means something to people subconsciously, whether they realize it or not. 

John Romaniello: Absolutely. And that is why Star Wars is what it is, right? Star Wars is more or less the perfect. Yeah, he was built For, yeah, yeah, so obviously Lucas wrote Star Wars and then dove more deeply into Campbell and rewrote a lot of things to conform to the hero’s journey, and lo and behold, 1977, people didn’t know anything [00:22:00] about what Star Wa Can you imagine living in a world where people don’t know what Star Wars 

is?

I 

John Romaniello: can’t even process that, right? I was born in 1982. First movie I ever saw in the movie theater, I was one year old, my dad took me to see Return of the Jedi which I, by the way, is a move I do not agree with. Do not take a one year old child to see a movie. I happen to be a quiet kid, but what if I was a crier?

Don’t do that to other people. Don’t take your baby to the movies. 

Mike Matthews: I know. But My wife had asked me a couple times should we take, when my son was younger, should we go to movies? I’m like, let’s not be one of those people, come on. Don’t be those people! Never be those people! We’ll wait until he’s a little older, we’ll take him to what is now Finding Dory, and all the kids, at least that Yeah, 

John Romaniello: take the kids movies, all the other kids who are gonna cry, or whatever, but don’t take your kids to see Star Wars.

There’s a lot of explosions in that movie, I could have cried. And but imagine like living in a world where nobody knows what Star Wars is. And then 1977, and this massive thing happens, and it Star Wars is a good movie. It’s very well acted. It’s a great story, but it affected us on such as a culture on such a deeply intense level that [00:23:00] it did a few things.

Firstly, it immediately became part of the cultural zeitgeist. Secondly, it it established science fiction as a commercially viable genre. Every science fiction movie made before Star Wars was like a rinky-dink bee movie. And then Star Wars comes along with, it’s relatively big budget for the day and changes our lives and now everyone’s is like spaceships explosions Let’s throw money at this and make these things and now every blockbuster that comes out in 2016 is science fiction in some way even if it’s comic books So it changes us because, it starts with Luke Skywalker on his farm, which may as well be Dorothy Gale on her farm in The Wizard of Oz, and then, it’s, Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope, the call to adventure, and then, he finds Obi Wan, that’s the meeting with the mentor, and he said, and Obi Wan says, You must come with me to Alderaan and train to be a Jedi if you’re going to help me rescue the princess, and, Luke is all, [00:24:00] I can’t go with you at Alderaan, my aunt and uncle are going to make me work on this lame farm and I didn’t even get to, my friends all went to the academy and I got to wait another season.

The universe always gets what it wants. Most of the time, in storytelling, and a lot of times in life, Refusal of the call is melt is met with a swift reversal of fortune on the part of the universe. So Luke says, I can’t go with you to Alderaan. I have to be with my aunt and uncle. And then they get back to his farm and his aunt and uncle have been killed by stormtroopers and now they’re dead.

And so he has nothing holding him back. And then he goes with Ben to Mos Eisley, which is crossing the first threshold. It’s the first time he’s ever been to this Mos Eisley spaceport. And he sees right. The world, he meets Han Solo and Chewbacca, but he walks into that bar, that cantina and his whole his whole fucking world is rock, mate, it’s, there’s all these different types of aliens with weird faces, they speak different languages, and he’s there not five minutes, and some crazy dude who has the death sentence on nine systems [00:25:00] starts a fight with him, and winds up getting his arm cut off by a lightsaber.

Imagine you’re a kid who’s lived on a farm your entire life, and now, but how is that any different, right? From when you’re 14 years old and you walk into your, you’ve been in middle school for four years and now you walk into high school for the first time, right? And you’re 14 and you’re just going through this stuff.

But there’s 18 year old guys who were jacked or women who were incredibly developed. And, there’s like couples making out in the hallway. You’re going through this and it’s alien 

world, 

John Romaniello: it’s stuff you’ve never seen before and that is a massive change for you. So that’s crossing the first threshold and that’s what happens with Luke’s.

And so the point of the point that I’m making with regard to Star Wars is it changed everything for us because it was so closely mirrored to the hero’s journey that we could not help but be pulled into it because this is how human beings process stories and have. Since the dawn of time, all of these characters in every story you’ve ever heard fall into these archetypes, the [00:26:00] mentor, whether it’s Merlin or Gandalf or Dumbledore or Mr.

Miyagi or Morpheus from the Matrix or Hitch from Hitch, like all of these characters. are just there and the hero, Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Frodo King Arthur, this young hero, or Dorothy Gale, obviously it’s not all men, this young hero, who needs to go on this adventure, and at the very least, Katniss Everdeen, the latest, Katniss Everdeen, of course, yeah and in her case, Haymitch, played by Woody Harrelson is the mentor and There are these characters that appear over and over again, these archetypes that appear over and over again because this is how we process stories and it’s it’s the way that stories have been told since the dawn of time around campfires.

If you could travel back in time, assuming no language barriers, if you told the story of Star Wars. To a tribe around the campfire once they wrap their head around lasers and spaceships, they would just nod along and Oh, I know this story. This is I know where this is going. 

Mike Matthews: Totally. Totally. 

John Romaniello: We [00:27:00] get it.

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. So then how do we tie that into living a better life? Because that’s really also what you’re working on with your book project and yeah. I think as a, as someone just personally very interested in storytelling, I’ve always, that’s how I found it. And I found his work fascinating from that angle.

But for everyone listening, so how do we use what Campbell discovered to do better in life? I 

John Romaniello: think that in addition to being a great Storytelling medium or structure. The monomyth can serve as two things. Firstly, I think that it can serve as an effective thesis for self directed growth for people who want to be better, and that is like a larger global thing.

And then a more acute immediate thing is I think it’s a really good tool set for problem solving. And so what I mean is that, If you’ve decided I want to start a business all you need to do is look at the hero’s journey and see where am I in this moment, right? The call to adventure [00:28:00] is you want to start whatever business that you want to start.

So let’s look at Legion, for example, right? There was something like, obviously. There was something that spurred you to start this company. Why did you want to start a supplement company? Is it just because I can make money? I’m sure there was like, there was a dearth of great products out there.

You want it to be transparent. You want it to contribute something to that arena. 

Mike Matthews: Honestly the origin was I wanted to make the products that I myself have always wanted. And, I was sick of using products that I felt were inferior and recommending. So no one else was doing it. So that, that’s really, that was the.

The beginning, 

John Romaniello: that’s called invention, right? You decide. And I’m sure there was a moment. When you were like looking at the amount of work that you were going to go through and you’re like, do I really want it? And that’s what I had that 

Mike Matthews: conversation with my partner at the time. His name’s Jeremy. I was like, okay, Jeremy, so this is what we could do.

I’m pretty sure it’s going to do well because I think there are a lot of other people out there like me and that feel the same way about supplements. But if we’re going to do it, if we say yes, We have to understand what we’re committing to [00:29:00] here. This isn’t something we just like, do a little bit here and there and it’s just going to be not, you’re like 

John Romaniello: starting a company, you 

Mike Matthews: know, 

John Romaniello: like a big thing.

And we’re going to do that. 

Mike Matthews: It’s we got to do it or it’s going to kill us. That’s how we got to go into it. 

John Romaniello: So who did you talk to other than Jeremy? Who was the mentor in this? Did you speak to other people who had been involved in supplements before? Not 

Mike Matthews: directly involved in the industry?

No. Okay. I would say probably the. The mentor was the person who helped me do a lot of the research initially and has actually been consulting. He’s been super overloaded now. I would say who he is, but he needs to stay anonymous for his work. Actually he, he does consulting and stuff, but because of where he works and what he does, it’s, he doesn’t associate his name with it.

So he helped a lot in helping me crystallize. What these products could be, I had a lot of my own ideas and things based on my research, but he knew this stuff a lot better than I did. And so he was able to, take a look at everything, all of my ideas and say, okay, that’s a good idea.

And we can make it better by doing this. That’s not a good idea. This is why did it do 

John Romaniello: [00:30:00] something that we should wait on until we’re profitable. Cause there’s a lot of things like everybody, when they jump into supplements, like I want to start a, like people who don’t like, have never looked into supplement manufacturing.

I might not realize this, but like when you’re going to start a supplement company, the last thing you want to do is start with a protein powder because the margins are crap. It’s like you’re not making any money on that, but there’s a lot of crappy supplements, crappy protein supplements out there. So obviously you want to come in and you want to hit it out of the park and make the best one.

But in order to do that, you have to make other cool supplements with higher margins that can finance this. And that is something that. You only learn by going through that 

Mike Matthews: or you do what I’m doing, which is you just forget about retail basically and sell direct to consumer and then use that what normally would go to the distributor to make better products.

John Romaniello: So you’ve got this mentor who, for the sake of argument, we will call him Gandalf and Gandalf, he guides you in this way. So you found a mentor and then crossing that crossing the first threshold is. Making that first product, like putting up the [00:31:00] website, all of these steps that are necessary in starting any business, sending that first email, right?

So now there are tests, allies and enemies. Your allies are your business partner, your wife, all of your customers who are like ready to go. Leaders, 

followers. Yeah, 

John Romaniello: the enemies are the people who are like, I can’t believe you started a supplement line. You’re such a sellout. Everyone, 

Mike Matthews: I 

John Romaniello: think, 

Mike Matthews: I think also there’s something to be said for obstacles too, that that go into this phase of the whole thing that serve as, they’re not enemies personified, but things you have to overcome, like big fires that just break out and you’re either going to put the fire out or it’s going to consume, consume you.

So you have one or the other. 

John Romaniello: That’s exactly right. And so those are tests, and things you have to overcome and and so how this makes you a better person is that whatever massive change you are going through, you can use this as a tool set for problem solving. I have a friend who is getting a divorce and he’s been married five or six years and it was great.

Now it’s not. And he and his wife have decided to split, right? So his mentor in [00:32:00] this situation. They were actually just going to go and file some paperwork and let that be that. And I told them, I was like, you need someone who’s done this to walk you through this.

Not just to I never wanted demonize anyone in this situation. Not to protect you and your assets from her, but to make sure that you’re both protected. Like find a lawyer or a mediator or someone who can walk you through this. Don’t just Go down to the courthouse and sign some shit. Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: because who knows what the relations are going to be like later when then the lawyers do get involved and it gets more ugly.

Exactly. 

John Romaniello: I think I said find a mentor and that’s really important. And, it’s they found this person who is representing both of them as a mediator, which I think is incredibly mature and amazing. And it’s not an acrimonious divorce. It’s very amicable. But this person found all of these things that they actually like need to talk about in terms of some of their assets and things.

And that’s. Crazy that like they were just about to miss that, right? So you need that mentor, whatever change you’re going through. And then there’s refusal of the call as they were going through this. It’s it’s they, it pushed them back and they’re like, do we really wanna go through with this?

Maybe we’ll give it another [00:33:00] shot. Even though I think they both knew it was the right move for them. And then they continue talking with their friends and family and decide to go through with it. And now they’re in the trial phase, which is like really discussing the brass tacks of how to separate everything.

And so you just need to know where you are in any of these cycles and then. If you know that, all you need to do is focus on that step and then getting to the next step. There are so many people who don’t realize they need a mentor. Whatever you’re going to, if it’s a fitness transformation, you need a coach or a mentor.

You don’t go to like law school to become a lawyer and not have mentors. There are people who teach you things. This is the way we’ve been doing it from the dawn of time and it works. I should also 

Mike Matthews: add though that books make it. Books make 

John Romaniello: great mentors, right? Like there have been. Thousands of people who have read my book and the structure of Alpha follows the hero’s journey.

And so connection 

Mike Matthews: to you. Yeah, it’s not a personal one on one connection. It 

John Romaniello: doesn’t happen 

Mike Matthews: to you. 

John Romaniello: It, but it’s, here’s this person, in my case, myself and Bornstein, who know more than [00:34:00] you, who are gonna be there to support you, they’re gonna give you the information, and then you just gotta follow it.

Like, all of the books you’ve written, same thing. You’re the mentor. Books make a tremendous mentor, I know I’m sure you’re familiar with Ryan Holiday. Sure, of course. I’m actually reading his new 

Mike Matthews: book. 

John Romaniello: It’s amazing. So Ryan Ego is the Enemy is the new book. Ryan is a good friend of mine.

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

And, yeah, so books make a tremendous mentor. So I think that the most important thing is to first learn what those steps are. Back in the day, I was I was like a semi professional poker player. And yeah, I played like 20 to 25 hours a week at [00:35:00] underground clubs. It was very much like rounders. Except there was no, no John Malkovich character.

Everyone was cool. And everyone in poker rooms Has a nickname. They never call anyone by their name. Everyone’s got a name, so there’s there was this guy who owned Carvel ice cream stores, and his name was like, Charlie Carvel. I think his name was Chris, but he became Charlie Carvel. And my name was Muscles Marinara, because I am Italian and jacked.

And shit so I’m playing poker like 25 hours a week. And I and it took me a really long time to be able to do this. But. I wound up getting a conversation with a professional poker player like a guy who had been in the World Series several times, and he said, The single biggest thing you need to develop is the ability to look at the board and immediately know what the nuts are.

The nuts is the best possible hand, right? So every stage from the flop to the turn to the river, you need to instantly look at the board and know what the best possible hand would be. Because that is going to help you assess the strength of your hand against the potential range of hands that your opponents can have.

And and so I think that like that skill, developing that skill. [00:36:00] Looking at any major problem in my life and being able to instantly recognize where in the cycle of the monomyth I am has been hugely important, right? I recently went through a shitty situation with an employee this is a guy who worked for me for a couple of years and good friend who I hired because he was a good friend and he did a good job for a while and then he didn’t and I had to, I had to let him go.

End. So much of going through this incredibly painful emotional process of firing a guy who was one of my best friends and pushing him out of my company while at the same time like trying to preserve the friendship. Every single time I was about to make a move, I was like, where in the hero’s journey am I, right?

The call to adventure was. It was very much like I became aware of some things he had fucked up and like multiple times. I’m like, that can’t happen. Meeting with the mentor was I I spoke with three of my close, like business guys, business friends with advice. Ryan Holiday was one of them.

And I was like, what do I do in this situation? And then the crossing the first threshold is like that first conversation that I had with him, where [00:37:00] I’m like. This is all the stuff that I’ve seen, and I absolutely need you to fix it, and this is gonna serve as your last warning. This is the last chance, and I need you to do it.

And then, tests, allies, and enemies are like he becomes my enemy in that situation. He becomes someone who like, is he gonna do this? Your allies are the other people in the company who are trying to step up the cover for him. And it’s a whole thing. And then finally, you get to the end of that journey.

The ordeal itself is when I realize I had to let him go. And, this is You have to actually 

Mike Matthews: do it. Experience it. 

John Romaniello: Actually fucking do it. And just be like, I’m sorry, but I gotta let you go. But, it doesn’t stop there, right? Because now I’ve let this guy go. He’s a big part of what I do. Now I got this hole to fill.

So now I am in the actual ordeal doing his job, filling that void, which is like very time consuming. He’s a big part of the company and I’ve got to do all of that. And then stage nine, which is reward, which is all of a sudden, because things are being done correctly. Revenue goes up, and we just go through it until we finally get to like return with the elixir Which is I [00:38:00] personally feel that firing him was the best thing that I could have done for him, you know He’s doing better now.

He’s got a new job and hopefully he’ll figure out what it is He really wants to do but honestly, I think that I coddled him for a long time, and I allowed him to get away with shit because he was one of my oldest friends. And he knew that there was not a lot of consequence for fucking up.

And I think that didn’t do him any favors. I wasn’t doing him any favors by being lenient with him. He knew there were no consequences, and so he fucked up. And now he’s in a place where he has to work harder. I think that will allow him to figure out whatever it is he really wants to do.

And I hope he finds that. But it was a very experience. So you could, 

Mike Matthews: you could have been a better mentor for him, is what you’re saying. . 

John Romaniello: I could when I, that’s the thing, I wasn’t, it’s very hard to mentor your friends, right? Sure. There’s a lot of proximity bias. I didn’t hire him and I’m gonna teach you how to do things.

It was. I need you to do this job for me. I want you to help me run my company. And he did for a few years. And so like that relationship was very much one of two people being equals, obviously as the owner of the [00:39:00] company, like it created some tension, it 

Mike Matthews: can be hard to separate those hats, 

John Romaniello: right.

And so I just followed the model of the hero’s journey. I recognized. Where I was at every stage of the game, and when I realized it was time to fire him, I prepared myself, and I was like, this is the ordeal, this is the most important piece of This is the lightsaber battle on the Death Star, this is Harry fighting Voldemort, this is Frodo, About to, destroy the ring I have to do this is everything, if I don’t do this What kind of business person am I?

What kind of friend am I? And for me, avoiding conflict is second nature, because I just like, particularly with my friends, because I don’t want to, I don’t like to break balls, I don’t want everyone to do what I do, but telling myself, this is the ordeal, this has to happen, that is what allowed me to go into it and say very clearly, listen, dude, I love you, I think you’re an incredible human being, but I cannot keep you on anymore.

You’re not doing the job the way it’s supposed to be done and I’ve given you enough chances and even [00:40:00] if I believed that you could improve, I no longer believe that you will and keeping you on is causing me too much stress. I’ve got to let you go. I’m going to give you a month severance. You stop working tomorrow.

I’m going to start doing your job and you have, I’m going to keep paying you for a month from this day forward so that you can, support yourself and find something else. But it’s got to be done. And it was what was crazy to me is he didn’t see it coming. And we’d had several conversations, and I was like, I don’t know what to do.

But, telling myself this is the ordeal, this needs to be done, is what allowed me to have that conversation with Grace. It’s what allowed me to speak to him man to man, friend to friend, but also employer to employee. And that’s a very difficult thing to do. And then, eventually, getting to returning with the elixir, it’s better for both of us.

Our friendship is stronger now, because we’re not constantly fighting about things, he’s messing up, and I can imagine how it was for him, every time his phone went off and he sees my name, he’s gotta get this feeling of dread, being like, what am I getting yelled out about now?

And every time, something, I gotta take a [00:41:00] screenshot and send it to him this thing needs to get, that’s not good for a friendship. And our friendship is stronger now, our relationship is stronger now, and Business is better and that has to happen. To become the best version of yourself so that you can best serve the world is really what returning with the elixir is.

And it’s why we have to go through these changes, right? If you think about it in terms of a marriage returning with or divorce father, returning with the elixir, it’s the divorce itself, it’s being separated and 

Mike Matthews: being in both people, ideally being happier and being able to move on with their lives. 

John Romaniello: If you’ve ever been in an unhappy relationship, you can’t possibly, you can’t possibly be your best self, and neither can that person, because even if they’re happy and they don’t know you’re unhappy, there’s some sort of like energetic shifts that happen, and they’re very aware that Something’s not right and they can’t be their best self and you can’t be your best self.

And the other problem is, when you’re in a shitty relationship or an unhappy relationship, you spend so much energy being unhappy or trying to get happy or trying [00:42:00] to fix it. Or make the other person happy. You can’t serve the world. You can’t fulfill whatever your mission is. I was in, not a bad relationship, just like a mediocre one before I met my wife.

And the way that it tanked my productivity. Because I was like always dealing with this girl who’s like super jealous and she’s like I don’t understand why you have to travel all the time Because i’m running a multi million dollar company. I got shit to do What do you mean? 

Mike Matthews: Oh, that’s funny I feel like because my wife is great with that like she understands and she benefits from it, of course, but she understands that If I were a 9 to 5 kind of guy, we would not have the quality of life that we have.

I might be around more, but is that really what she would want? 

John Romaniello: And you wouldn’t be as 

Mike Matthews: happy. You wouldn’t be the man. That’s just not me. What, I don’t know. I’m programmed differently. I don’t know what to say. 

John Romaniello: Yeah. My wife is like super supportive. We have a place here in New York where I am now and we have a house out in LA and she knows that for my productivity, I need to be in New York very frequently. So that’s why we got a place here. My, my mom isn’t in the best of health. So only [00:43:00] seeing her more is important, but I got tired of like staying in hotels and sleeping on couches. So we got this apartment and it’s like my little place.

It’s decorated how I want it. I picked out all the furniture. I see 

Mike Matthews: R2D2 there in the background. 

John Romaniello: Yeah, exactly. So this is all my stuff. So I’m like, I come here and I like crush work and she’s texting me. She’s like. When are you coming home? I miss you. I’d really like to see you. And I was like, I haven’t booked a flight yet and I’m not going to book it until I finish this project that I’m working.

Like I needed to finish writing something. And so I finished it yesterday and I booked my flight for tomorrow. And that, and she’s she lets me know that she wishes I were there, but she’s also very clear that take your, do what you need to do. I’m not pressuring you. I just want you to know that.

And that’s huge. And for me, having gotten out of that mediocre relationship, allowed me to be a better person so I could attract a better person so I could be in this marriage. It’s actually like the feeling And so all of those things, they follow the model of the hero’s journey. It’s really so whenever you’re going through something, We’re about [00:44:00] to start 

Mike Matthews: something.

John Romaniello: We’re about to start something, whether it’s a business or think about You’re just getting in shape, right? Exactly. Let’s go back to fitness, right? Everyone listening to your podcast, all of you guys out there and women, I’m sure you have a lot of female readers and listeners as well.

If you haven’t started yet, This is your call to adventure, right? Your ordinary world is wherever you are now. You’re probably not particularly Thrilled about your body. Hopefully you don’t walk around hating yourself I would hate that but there’s still there’s things you want to change, And it could be as simple as like I’d like my upper chest to be a little bit better for my v necks or it could be like something major like I need to lose a hundred pounds so that I can fight a heart disease and Stay alive for my kids Whatever it is, this is your call to adventure.

You’re going to refuse the call. You’re going to listen to this podcast and you’re going to think this is really great stuff. And I want to read Joseph Campbell and I want to watch star Wars again. And then like life is going to happen and it’s going to get in the way and you’re not going to do it. But at some point.

You will [00:45:00] meet with a mentor and that could be listening to Mike’s next podcast. It could be picking up my book and reading it. It could be reading the right article. It could just be, maybe Mike tweets out something particularly inspiring and you’re like, fuck now I’m ready. And then you’re going to join the gym and going into that gym the first time walking into that gym that is crossing the first threshold.

It is. It really 

Mike Matthews: is. Especially when it’s your first time. I get emails from women all the time that I understand this is their first time stepping in the gym. And they’re not going to, they go by the cardio and there they go to the weight lifting the iron jungle and you have all this crazy.

John Romaniello: And it’s very much like Luke walking into Mos Eisley, right? It’s, there’s all these different types of people. There’s a power lifter over here. There’s this person doing snatches and throwing weight over his head. And then there’s over there, take a shirt 

Mike Matthews: off and just take selfies for 20 minutes.

Right. 

John Romaniello: And then there’s all these all these different types of people, these aliens that you’re not aware of. And you’re just like, I don’t even know where to start. That’s crossing the first threshold. That is your [00:46:00] first step into the special world. And it can be. terrifying. As long as you know ahead of time that it’s going to be terrifying and it’s going to be intimidating, you can really just muster your metal and you can prepare ahead of time and you just, and all you need to do is I just need to go in and follow this plan.

Whatever you get from Mike or me or any other fitness professional, I just need to do this. And honestly, you don’t even have to finish it. Even if it’s an hour workout and you do 20 minutes, you Just start but the key here is that the thing that is going to help you feel comfortable is Knowing ahead of time what to do I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen someone walk into a weight room for the first time and they wander around and they Don’t know what to do and like they don’t know a lot of exercises.

So they’re like, okay, I’m gonna pick up the dumbbells I’m gonna do some lateral raises. I know I 

Mike Matthews: know curls. I know these guys. 

John Romaniello: Yeah, I know I knew these guys and some of these guys And that’s what they know. And so that’s what they do. [00:47:00] But having a plan is huge. And this is a stage called approach, right?

This is the stage of the hero’s journey where the heroes make ready before they they attack, whatever it is, and they Check all their gear and they arm up and it’s usually a montage, things are getting tied and swords are being slid into sheaths or whatever. And or in the case of Rocky, it’s the training montage, right?

That is how Rocky makes ready for the ordeal of battle. It’s training, right? So in the case of getting ready to train for the gym, you have to like, do some research. You have to know, what a deadlift is or some version of the deadlift. You need to know Hold the kettlebell like this and do a goblet squat.

And honestly, it’s going to take you 15 minutes on YouTube to create a basic playlist of what you need to do. Overhead, press, push up some sort of row, maybe a pull up. If you can do it squat lunge plank. You’re done. You don’t have to go crazy. And then you [00:48:00] ratchet up. Now, this is where like the role playing game aspect of fitness comes in and you gain levels.

You get stronger, like Final Fantasy, right? You get through, you defeat this workout, you get stronger, your weights go up, your muscles get bigger, and then you keep going from there. And so being prepared, going through approach is what is going to allow you to really get through the ordeal of your physical transformation.

And let me tell you this right now, I’ve been doing this for 14 years. Yeah, when my transformation was when I was 20, so now I’m 14 years. And I’ve seen tons of other people go through transformations. And let me tell you right now, I have never seen one person, myself included, go through a major body transformation in a reasonable period of time.

Without following a rigid plan not rigid, there’s no, but something structured. They have to follow a plan. I’ve never seen anyone either gain a ton of muscle or lose a ton of fat by walking into the gym and saying, yeah, 

Mike Matthews: just doing whatever your body tells you to do today. Yeah, exactly.

Okay. I think I’ll just one day. So I’ll train chest. Yeah. I think I’ll just do like maybe Chipotle for lunch and I don’t know, we’ll figure out [00:49:00] dinner and we’ll see what happens. 

John Romaniello: So you have to have a plan and approach is hugely important. And so that’s the hero’s journey, man. It’s all about like understanding that whatever major change you’re going through or whatever thing you’re about to start, however, you, your life is about to change, whatever that means to you.

If you first take the hero’s journey and overlay it on top of whatever that major changes. And so there’s we can probably link to a graphic of a model of the hero’s journey. I’ll 

Mike Matthews: put it, I’ll put it in the show notes and in the description on YouTube. 

John Romaniello: Perfect. You just write, body transformation in the middle of this graphic and then Just write down what you think those steps are one by one.

So I would highly recommend everybody read Campbell, but Campbell can be a little weighty. It can be a little dry. So what I would recommend is that read Vogler first. Vogler’s book is called The Writer’s Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers. Christopher Vogler is a movie producer, and he worked for Disney for a long time.

And when he was working on The Lion King, [00:50:00] he wrote this three or five page memo. For everyone about Campbell and you know why like they needed to change these pieces of the Lion King story to more closely follow the hero’s journey because it would be a better story and it would resonate more humanly and it blew up in Disney and so he just kept adding to it over the years and then he turned it into a book and now it’s a very thick volume but it’s very accessible.

It’s very accessible. The thing that makes Campbell somewhat hard is, the writing can be a little dry, but I think that the challenge for most people is that Campbell makes many of his points by comparison and example. And so he uses a lot of myths that you may not be familiar with, and so some of that may be lost on you.

Vogler. Makes those same points through comparison, but he uses movies and TV shows that you’ve probably either heard of or seen. And if you haven’t seen them, it’s gonna be a lot easier for you to like, put on Beverly Hills Cop and spend 90 minutes [00:51:00] watching that, than it is for you to dig into the Red Badge of Courage or whatever else.

Mike Matthews: Yeah. I think Campbell, he was like the the Enlightenment thinkers that wrote kinda more for each other. And then Vogler is like Thomas Paine who took their stuff and made it accessible to the common person. That’s a great example. 

John Romaniello: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, Campbell is very near and dear to my heart.

It’s been really his work has been massively influential on me as a writer and as a man. And this is the kind of stuff that I’m very passionate about and that I teach because I truly believe that learning the hero’s journey gives you a model that you can apply for your life. If you look at your life as one big journey, then there’s all these little circles on that big circle.

You think about where you want to be at the end of your life, what you want to do, like Mike I’m very certain that 10 years ago, you couldn’t see yourself running a huge fitness company and a huge supplement company, right? So whatever your plan was for the end of [00:52:00] your life, it was, it’s very vague.

And for me, like I, I honestly hope that the very last thing I do. I really hope that I type a sentence and hit period on a keyboard and I fucking die at my desk. At the end of 

Mike Matthews: your magnum opus, here it is, the final edit, the ninth edit, and that’s it. 

John Romaniello: And that’s how I want to go out. I have that, and I think that’s like very dark and and that comes from my Hemingway fetish.

But I think like on the other hand, maybe surrounded by fat, happy grandchildren would be nice, but for me as a creator, that’s what I want. But other than that, I don’t really know what that’s going to be. I think it’s really a matter of, I know what I want to accomplish. During the rest of my life, Neil Gaiman in his commencement speech at the University of the Arts in 2012.

Please put that in the show notes. Everybody watch it. It is, it’s the best 20 minutes on the internet. It’s the most important video on the internet. But Neil Gaiman, who is a fantastic science fiction and fantasy [00:53:00] writer, in his commencement speech says, I didn’t really have a career plan. Instead, I liked to envision where I wanted to be as a mountain on the horizon.

And I had a list of things that I wanted to do. And if they took me closer to the mountain, I just did the next thing on the list. And for him, it was being an author, primarily of books and comics. And, he wanted to, had all these things he wanted to do write a screenplay and write an episode of Doctor Who.

And for me I have all these things I want to do. And I know that ultimately where I want to be is I want to be a storyteller. I want to be an author. I’ve written, I wrote three screenplays last year. None of them are fit for human consumption yet, but I’m working on them. That’s a craft that I’m interested in learning.

And I want to be, known as an author. That’s where I want to be at the end of my life. And so I have all these things that I want to do. And I just crossed the next thing off the list. And I know that as long as I’m doing that, in addition to. Just checking off things from my bucket list, I’m [00:54:00] also slogging through the hero’s journey, this ordeal of my actual life, which will eventually allow me to return with the elixir, and that may be posthumously, maybe after my death, that these stories, these things that I write, Eventually help other people and I forget who said this, but some author said authors are in the unique position of not needing an epitaph for their work speaks for them.

And like it’s crazy to me. So 

Mike Matthews: it’s going to be John Romanello. He wrote some. He wrote some things. He wrote some things. Yeah. 

John Romaniello: Here lies John Romanello. Here’s a website. I think that’s gonna happen. I think, honestly, we’re probably about 10 years away from like at the right underneath like the date of birth and date of death.

www. chrisjones. com Hey, there’s a website. There’s a 

Mike Matthews: business. Somebody get 

John Romaniello: ahead of the curve. I’m gonna be the first one. I hope. I hope. I hope it’s like all of my work, all of my published works will be accessible through my website if you happen to see it on my gravestone. And it’s and it’ll be a special [00:55:00] offer.

It’ll be like johnrimadal. com slash brave. I 

Mike Matthews: don’t have a timer up there counting down five minutes. It’s 

John Romaniello: going to be great. But yeah, so my point is that. As you’re going through your entire life, you’re going to go through a hundred and fifty thousand of these little tiny journeys and you go through a couple of dozen of the bigger ones, having a, becoming a father, going through a marriage or divorce or a big relationship, your parents dying, your, whatever it is, your kid coming out as gay or whatever, any of these massive things that you’ll have to deal with in your life.

Those are versions of the Monomyth and all of those plug into this massive circle that is your life. And I think that as long as you understand Campbell, not only can you get through all of these individually, but you can direct where you want your life to go. And it is as good a plan as any I’ve heard.

Because it’s certainly better than, just like walking into the gym and being like, Oh, I guess back. You can’t go into 

Mike Matthews: life. Oh, I guess this go down that [00:56:00] road and see where that goes. I don’t know. 

John Romaniello: Exactly. You have to have a path and you have to have an idea and a plan. And I think that this is a learned skill.

I think that The skills that I learned and the steps that I went through during my fitness transformation became indelibly burned into my consciousness. And then when I started a business, it was like, Oh, I’ll just do those same things again. 

And 

John Romaniello: when I met, went through relations, it was like, I’ll do those same things again.

When I moved the business online, I’ll do those same things again. And it’s this portable system that works for any major change. And it’s worked obviously for building a business. In terms of personal training, online business moving, so I, I had this massive change about three years ago, I got married, moved across the country to California and became a stepfather all within six weeks of each other.

And so that’s a lot. And I would not have been able to do all of those things and handle them with a with a reasonable amount of equanimity. If I had not practiced going through changes intentionally, and [00:57:00] that is the difference between Campbell and. Not Campbell. It’s going through with intention and awareness of where you are in that change.

Because whether or not you study Campbell, the changes you go through, they follow the hero’s journey. That’s unassailable. That’s how we process change. We covered that in the beginning. But understanding Or you just, 

Mike Matthews: you just faceplant and crater somewhere along the way and 

John Romaniello: Understanding Campbell allows you to take the wheel.

And direct yourself. And I think that Whether you’re a man or a woman, whether you’re young or old, whatever it is you have left to do in your life, you are going to be exponentially more likely to do it if you have taken control of all of these massive events in your life, and you don’t just let the events in your life unfold to determine the course of action, you take control, and you actually, you direct them, you decide where they go, obviously you can’t control everything, shit’s gonna happen, people are gonna die, But we can focus on what we can control.

Exactly right. And Campbell allows you to do 

Mike Matthews: that. Yeah. And I think there’s also something to be said for, I [00:58:00] like that, and this is one of the things that I took from it personally, is looking at life as an adventure and looking at all the things that happen in life as adventures and because, it might be easy to do that when things are good and something good windfall and then, oh, that’s great.

But, when you’re talking about dealing with adversity, And unexpected, bad surprises and so forth. And this kind of also goes back to, there’s a lot to be said for stoicism and taking that as a, just a worldview, because then you can look at these things that happen as not as something terrible that has happened to you.

Why is this happening to me? What am I in? And just caving in about it. But looking at it as an opportunity to, so you’ve started this journey, whether you want it to or not, here you are. And what are you going to do with it? And are you going to turn it into something positive?

And if you want to, here’s a way to do that. 

John Romaniello: I think that’s a really good point. And I’m going to, I’m going to share something with you that I don’t think I’ve ever shared in a podcast or online or anywhere. It is something that I learned from my mentor, and I couldn’t remember how he said it, so I dressed it up and romanified it and made [00:59:00] it fancy.

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

There are so many people who don’t really take the way they behave into account. They don’t really audit themselves and decide I’m going to be a good man today. And for me that’s like the guiding post. Or even give 

Mike Matthews: much thought to what the kind of person they are or want to be, I think.

John Romaniello: And I think it’s not too late. It’s not too late to change. The next time you’re going to make a decision. And and I didn’t mean like [01:00:00] any decision, whether you’re going to. Stick to your diet or go out for pizza. That is an opportunity to show your quality choose the right thing You know and show to yourself What are your values have the discipline and the dedication and the drive and the wherewithal to hit your goals?

Because this is a learned habit. It’s a learned trait. The more that we do this, the easier it becomes to do it, and the more successful we will be, not only at doing it, but at doing other things. And every decision you make is an opportunity to show your quality. And I think that, if you can remember nothing else please remember that is a good thesis for life.

I love 

Mike Matthews: it. I love how passionate you are about it. It’s fun to talk to people when you touch on something they really care about. And in this case, it’s something I also care about and has also been valuable to me. This has been great. So now for the listeners that want to know, I don’t know exactly where you’re at in terms of your work project on this, but what this is where you get to say, yeah, all right, 

Here’s what I have coming for you 

John Romaniello: here.

Yes. Here’s what I have come. I’m almost hesitant to, so Campbell, it’s this is my white whale writing this [01:01:00] book. It’s really, obviously Campbell’s very near and dear to my heart. I wrote my thesis on it. 14 years ago, whatever it was. And yeah, so I am, this is this, everything we’ve talked about in this podcast, this is my next book.

This is not a fitness book. It is taking the hero’s journey and explaining it and also teaching you how to apply it to personal development. So this book is going to be. Part philosophy and part storytelling and part understanding. It is very much a book. I don’t like self help. I don’t like that term.

I like self development or self edification. So I have two goals for this book. Three goals. The first goal is to come up with a name for it, which I at some point will do. That’s going to be important. I’m good at that sometimes. Let me know. I might be able to help. Yeah, we’ll chat. We’ll just like spitball.

So my first goal for this is write a book. That people will understand and will help people and they’ll walk away with immediately and I really I really believe I can do that and that’s a very reasonable my big hairy audacious school the thing that I [01:02:00] am like most. Excited about trying to do and this is why every single word has to be carefully chosen is I want this book to be the book that people recommend when they’re being introduced to Campbell, in much the same way that people.

I think it’s smart people. If you’re interested in stoicism, the first book I would recommend is the obstacle is the way. That’s like the new starter place for stoicism as opposed to meditations or Seneca. I want my book to be like the perfect introduction to Campbell. I want it to be the place where if you’ve read Campbell and you’re passionate about Campbell, the way I am, I want people to say, read Roman Ello’s book, then read Bogler’s book, then jump into Campbell.

This will be. The best introduction. So I really want it to not redefine Ian the ian structure, but I really want it to be, to become part of that conversation so that Campbell scholars worldwide read this, recognize it, respect it, and even if they don’t agree with everything in there, yeah, it will be true enough to what Campbell.

That they feel [01:03:00] comfortable recommending it to people who have never read Campbell. And that is going to be a challenge. So as for when that will happen I’m writing it. It’s I’m the thing that I told my wife I needed to finish before I went back to California. I just finished I have a real strong outline and I just finished the fourth chapter.

I think it’ll be 20, 21 chapters. So it’s slowly but surely coming. I would not expect it anytime. Before late 2017. I will see what I can, I’ll have to make a decision about self publishing versus traditional. But, traditional will set that calendar back another year. Cause that’s how it works. But yeah, thank you for asking 

Mike Matthews: man, I’m really excited.

Yeah, and then otherwise where can people find, I mean they can just Google you, but, I’m very 

John Romaniello: good, we’ll have a Wikipedia page. But for all my fitness. Can I get your autograph? I’ll send you a book. Or all my fitness stuff roman fitness systems.com. So I apologize when I started my personal training company, I didn’t think how obnoxious that URL would be to type and how there’s three S’s in a row, but RomanFitnessSystems.[01:04:00] 

com, plural. And then I am on all of the social medias the Facebook, the Twitters, the Snapchat, the Instagram, and my handle on all of them is just at John Romanella. 

Mike Matthews: So it’s very easy for you. Cool. And then just to clarify in the last name, it’s N. I. E. L. O. 

John Romaniello: Yes. Roman like the empire and N. I. E. L. O. 

Mike Matthews: Okay. Thanks a lot for coming on a talk. John really appreciate it. This is great fun. And again, it’s a lot of fun. Awesome. Awesome. 

John Romaniello: All right. Thank you guys for having me. Everyone. Thank you for listening. I appreciate you dealing with my My high energy and so if anyone has any questions, and this is something I don’t do for a lot of people, but because I love you, Mike, and because I love Campbell, if anyone has any questions at all, please feel free to reach out to me directly on any social media channel or email me through my site and just say, I heard you on Mike Matthews podcast.

I have a question and I will get back to you personally, it won’t be a member of my staff, it’ll be me. So just for you guys, if anything, there’s anything at all I can help you with, let me know. 

Mike Matthews: That’s awesome. Thank you. And my people are [01:05:00] communicative. So I’m warning you. It’s good. 

John Romaniello: I like that.

Mike Matthews: Okay. Awesome. Thanks. Thanks so much. Sure. Hey, it’s Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also, head over to my website at www dot muscle for life.

com where you’ll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you’ll also find a bunch of different articles that I’ve written. I release a new one almost every day. Actually I release four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I’m involved in over at muscle for life.

com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.