Ep. #1184: Jonathan Goodman on Writing, Success, and Finding Your Way

Jonathan Goodman: [00:00:00] There are so many people that are working so tremendously hard on their businesses and getting nowhere. And it’s not for lack of information, knowledge, or work ethic. It’s just that they’re doing the wrong thing. And it’s not even that the thing is wrong; it’s just wrong for them. And so The Obvious Choice ostensibly is a book about recognizing the fact that there are different games that you get to choose to play today.

Jonathan Goodman: And it’s up to you to choose the right game, right? There’s the game, just as one example, of trying to win the internet, and then there’s the game of trying to build a business. And while there might be some crossover, at their core, they’re fundamentally different games with different rules of engagement, time horizons, odds of success, and reward mechanisms.

Jonathan Goodman: And a lot of people are playing the “win the internet” game. And it’s a gloriously inefficient way to build a business.

Mike Matthews: Hello, and welcome to a new episode [00:01:00] of Muscle for Life. I am your host, Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today to hear from my buddy, John Goodman, about his new book.

Mike Matthews: Well, the material in his new book called The Obvious Choice, which is out now. You can pick up a copy wherever you buy books. And the book and this conversation are about simplifying business success and focusing on what truly matters. And Jonathan’s business playbook isn’t just theoretical. This is the playbook that he has personally used to build multiple multi-million-dollar businesses and help over 200,000 small business owners worldwide grow their businesses as well.

Mike Matthews: And in this interview, Jonathan is going to share pages from the playbook, like why you need to define what he calls your unique game and why you need to play to your strengths. He talks about why storytelling is critical for connecting with your audience, how to focus on solving problems, not chasing likes or [00:02:00] algorithms. He talks about the power of community—of building community, building familiarity, building trust, and more.

Mike Matthews: Before we sink our teeth into today’s episode, I need to tell you about the pre-workout supplement that I use almost every day. It’s called Pulse, and it’s from my sports nutrition company, Legion. Now, Pulse is naturally sweetened and flavored, and it contains clinically effective doses of six ingredients that increase energy, focus, strength, and stamina without any jitters or post-workout crash.

Mike Matthews: And I know the term “clinically effective doses” sounds like marketing puffery, but what I mean by that is Pulse contains the exact ingredients, forms, and doses used in peer-reviewed scientific research demonstrating the benefits that I just claimed. In fact, 54 peer-reviewed scientific studies support the effectiveness of Pulse’s [00:03:00] combination of ingredients and doses.

Mike Matthews: And another reason Pulse is so popular—Legion has sold over 2 million bottles—is that the only stimulant it contains is caffeine, and this is paired with an equal amount of an amino acid called L-theanine. Now, theanine is primarily found in tea, and it helps balance the levels of two different chemicals in your brain, glutamate and GABA.

Mike Matthews: These chemicals transmit nerve impulses and affect mood, cognition, and more. And studies show that when you pair theanine with caffeine, it further improves focus, cognition, and mood, and it reduces mental fatigue, while also promoting a calmer and more balanced state of arousal. This is why so many of Legion’s customers say that Pulse gives them just the right amount of stimulation with no post-workout crash.

Mike Matthews: And all of that I just explained to you is why Pulse has received over [00:04:00] 9,000 five-star reviews from verified buyers over on Amazon and Legion’s website. And if you want to give it a try and see for yourself, you can get 20 percent off your first order by going to buylegion.com/pulse. That is buylegion.com/pulse and using the coupon code MUSCLE at checkout.

Mike Matthews: And then, if heaven forbid you don’t like Pulse for whatever reason—or you don’t like maybe whatever else you might buy from Legion for whatever reason—you simply let us know, and we will just give you your money back. You don’t even have to send the products back to us. So go to buylegion.com/pulse now, try Pulse risk-free, and see for yourself why it’s one of the most popular naturally sweetened and flavored pre-workouts in the world.

Mike Matthews: And don’t forget to use that coupon code MUSCLE at checkout to save 20 percent on your first order. Why did you want to write [00:05:00] this book now? Why did you want to write The Obvious Choice? And also, why did you call it The Obvious Choice?

Jonathan Goodman: I self-published a lot of books, and I told myself that I wasn’t going to write another book until I could not write the book.

Jonathan Goodman: And so, it’s been, god, seven years? Eight years? Since my last self-published book or since my last book that came out. You know, there’s this frustration that I felt that’s been bubbling underneath the surface for a very long period of time that really came to a head with COVID and after COVID, where there are so many people that are working so tremendously hard on their businesses and getting nowhere.

Jonathan Goodman: And it’s not for lack of information or knowledge or work ethic. It’s just that they’re doing the wrong thing. And it’s not even that the thing is wrong; it’s just wrong for them. And so what The Obvious Choice ostensibly is, is a book about recognizing the fact that there are different games that you get to choose to play today.

Jonathan Goodman: And it’s up to you to choose the right game, right? [00:06:00] There’s the game, just as one example, of trying to win the internet. And then there’s the game of trying to build a business. And while there might be some crossover, at the core, they’re fundamentally different games with different rules of engagement, time horizons, odds of success, and reward mechanisms.

Jonathan Goodman: And a lot of people are playing the “win the internet” game. And it’s a gloriously inefficient way to build a business. And so we saw this with all the folks that we talk to, that we help, you know, build online fitness businesses. For example, I see it with a lot of my entrepreneur buddies who are trying to build personal brands.

Jonathan Goodman: Now, they’ve done great things building their business. And then it’s interesting because they built their business from the ground up, you know, doing what you do when you build a business. The Peter Thiel thing—you want to build a monopoly as fast as possible. So you find the smallest available market to monopolize, and then you monopolize that, and then you begin to expand outwards as you gain more resources.

Jonathan Goodman: And [00:07:00] they did that, and they did that really successfully, but then they kind of forgot about that, you know, when it became time to build their personal brand. And all of a sudden, now they’re trying to just go everywhere and as big as possible on day one, thinking that their way of pointing at words in space—”The three things you need to know about e-commerce”—is somehow going to stand out.

Jonathan Goodman: And so, you know, the best books are always, in Maria Popova’s words, timely yet timeless. Charlie Hoehn—you know, the great book marketer, kind of behind-the-scenes guy—but he’s always told me, you want to make sure that the book, whatever you’re talking about, is timeless in nature. It’s always going to apply. The angle with which you write it hits into this underlying cultural zeitgeist.

Jonathan Goodman: That’s bubbling underneath the surface. That’s frustrating people right now. And for all those reasons, I [00:08:00] think what I wrote about and what I published in The Obvious Choice really hits it. Like, “Hey, actually, maybe you shouldn’t be spending much time on social media,” or “Maybe you shouldn’t be, you know, trying to do a podcast,” or whatever. Or if you do use these media platforms, maybe you should use them differently for your goals and measure the success of your use on them differently.

Jonathan Goodman: You know, Goodhart’s Law states that when the measure becomes the goal, it ceases to be a good measure. The measure is not the number of followers that you get or the engagement that you get. It ceases to be a good measure when you make that the goal. That’s an instrumental goal. That’s not the final goal.

Jonathan Goodman: Perhaps, or it might not be involved. And it’s up to you to stop.

Mike Matthews: Can you give some examples of how? I mean, I know you’ve worked personally with a number of people, and you’ve had many conversations over the years. And [00:09:00] I mean, I could jump in with examples, but I’m not here to interview myself.

Jonathan Goodman: I thought we were having a conversation.

Mike Matthews: If I don’t interview you, then people are going to email me about how I need to shut up and I talk too much. I’ve learned that lesson over the years. I’ve had to curb my tongue. But no, do you have some real-life examples of some of what you just described?

Mike Matthews: For example, I agree. I see a lot of people trying to win the Internet, as you said, almost just for its own sake, under the assumption that if you win enough of the Internet, you can then leverage that to produce all different types of other outcomes. Question mark, question—

Jonathan Goodman: Mark, profit.

Mike Matthews: Exactly. That eventually means I get rich somehow. But first, I have to win the Internet. Right?

Jonathan Goodman: Right, right, right. I haven’t figured out that step two yet. But I’ll figure it out when I get there. You know, once this, you know, once this becomes big, I’ll figure it out. It’s—there’s just too many things, I know.

Jonathan Goodman: There are lots of [00:10:00] examples in the book from all over industries. One of the examples that I really love telling, because I think it really showcases it, is a guy named Greg Finch. Greg is, call it, a mentor and performance coach for surfers. And Greg was doing what you would think you would do if you’re any kind of a coach for anything—you start creating content around your coaching.

Jonathan Goodman: But what people often miss when they create content on, call it Instagram, which is what he was doing, is that you’re not actually competing with other people who have a business like yours on those platforms. You’re competing against full-time content creators. You’re competing against full-time influencers.

Jonathan Goodman: And there’s always going to be somebody who is better looking, more well-spoken, and has more money and resources than you do. And in the surf community—holy hell, man—talk about that times ten. You’re competing for attention against people who are [00:11:00] shooting the most beautiful videos of the most beautiful people wearing very little clothing in the most beautiful locations.

Jonathan Goodman: There’s just no way you’re going to stand out with your content in that market. And even if Greg could—even if he shot beautiful videos or whatever—nobody would hire him for mental and physical performance. They’d be like, “Can you shoot videos of me?” Which is kind of actually what you see a lot of the time with these—particularly fitness coaches who are able to break through with content.

Jonathan Goodman: Nobody hires them as fitness coaches. What they do is they basically become coaches of how to be influencers. And that’s fine, you know, there’s a market for that. That’s totally cool. But Greg didn’t want to do that. So Greg started working with us, right? And, you know, I always say to people, you want to fix what’s inside of your fence.

Jonathan Goodman: First, you want to become famous to the family before you become famous to the Internet. Well, that might mean, physically, people who live within a two, three, four, or five-mile [00:12:00] radius of you. In a lot of cases, it is. You have way more customers for your business who live locally, who know somebody you know, somebody you’re connected with in your community, who’s going to trust you way faster.

Jonathan Goodman: And they’ll be an easier and more profitable sale than anything you’re ever going to convert online. So, for a lot of people, it starts there. For Greg, though, it didn’t, which is why I like this example. Because surfers are kind of, by definition, scattered all throughout the world in remote locations on surf breaks.

Jonathan Goodman: And not only that, a lot of them don’t even like to tell you where they are because they want to protect their surf break and don’t want other people to know about it. And so how do you access these people? Well, we’ve already established you don’t really do it through content. I mean, you could have content, sure, you know, to nurture them, but you’re not going to attract them with it. You’re not going to stand out with it.

Jonathan Goodman: And so what Greg did is he became famous to the surf community through a podcast. Now, he started a podcast [00:13:00] called Surf Strong. And this is not a podcast that’s ever going to get a lot of downloads. This is not a podcast that’s ever going to be on a top 100 list. He’s not ever going to be able to look at the data or the metrics from Spotify or his YouTube views and be like, “I’m winning now.”

Jonathan Goodman: But what he did before he even launched the podcast was create on Canva a little, kind of crappy—if I’m honest—image. You know, he’s made it better over the years, but you start fast and then you make it better. And he started reaching out to people he kind of knew, or who he knew of, or who had some connections in the surfing community.

Jonathan Goodman: For example, the physiotherapist on the island of Kauai who serves the community. The outreach director for a foundation that helps people with special needs take up surfing. And various other people involved who serve the surf community in some way, through organizations or actually on location.

Jonathan Goodman: And within a [00:14:00] few days, he had his first eight podcast guests booked. He didn’t have a podcast yet. He had to buy a microphone to record this, right? And so he recorded those. And then, you know, they introduced him to other people. “Oh, do you know any other physiotherapists? Oh, do you know anybody else, you know, with organizations, charity organizations that serve surfers?”

Jonathan Goodman: And what he was doing was becoming famous not to the listenership. He was using his podcast to become famous to the person he was interviewing, systematically, one by one. The way to build a business these days—oftentimes the most scalable thing that you can do—is the unscalable.

Jonathan Goodman: So he had a one-on-one conversation where he was talking about other people. What does Dale Carnegie say in How to Win Friends and Influence People? Imagine every single person walks around with a big sign on their forehead that says, “Please make me feel important today.” That is the single number one way to ingratiate [00:15:00] yourself to them.

Jonathan Goodman: And so that’s what he was doing with the podcast. And then, of course, these people are the ones others are going to come and complain to: “Oh, you know, my back’s hurting,” or, “I just don’t have the energy to pop up on the board the same way.” And Greg started getting the calls. So Greg’s adding one to two $1,500-for-three-month coaching clients a week, every single week, like clockwork.

Jonathan Goodman: And the hard part about all of this is it always seems random when he gets a referral. But it’s not, of course. It always seems random when he gets a referral. So I like that example, because whether it’s a podcast or not, you can make it work.

Jonathan Goodman: We have somebody else who we work with named Miles, who’s always had a hard time breaking through with his fitness business—locally, online, whatever. And he’s in Toronto, and he’s a Filipino guy who’s really interested in self-development and fitness. He told me about this event he went to, this meetup in Toronto, with all these other Filipino [00:16:00] entrepreneurs—finance people, restaurant owners, that type of thing. And I was like, “All right, so here’s what you do. Everybody wants to connect; nobody wants to do the work to make connections. That’s where you come in, man.”

Jonathan Goodman: So I said, “Start with this guy you’re friends with who owns a restaurant. Get him on board. Then everybody else that you can go to—you know, you call up a finance guy who you kind of know, kind of don’t really know—and you say, ‘Hey, you know this guy who owns this top restaurant is going to be there. I’m going to host a Zoom call. It’s an hour. There’s going to be no more than eight, nine, or ten of us. And we’re all going to get five or six minutes to introduce ourselves, talk about the cool stuff we’re doing, and, if we need any help, ask for help. Or we can talk about how maybe we can help others. What are we good at, right? It’s only Filipinos. Do you want to join the call?'”

Jonathan Goodman: Three days later, he had seven people on the call, and now he’s becoming [00:17:00] systematically famous to the Filipino high-net-worth entrepreneur and business owner community in Toronto. Well, that’s a pretty damn good position to be in if you’re a high-end fitness coach in Toronto, isn’t it? So it’s that type of thing.

Jonathan Goodman: You’re not going to see his content. You would never—and he makes content, sure. People hear about it. They go and check him out. That’s a business card. Right, fine. But that’s how you get in there.

Mike Matthews: And that experience can be invaluable if, at some point, you are trying to go wider. With a lot of people who have succeeded very widely, we often don’t hear about their beginnings. We don’t hear about these very unscalable, small activities that they got involved in initially, how long they did those things for, and what they learned while doing those small-scale, generally, [00:18:00] quote-unquote, “unsuccessful” efforts if judged by external metrics associated with winning the Internet. And so we just—you often don’t hear about that phase.

Mike Matthews: You only hear—or really see—the end result.

Jonathan Goodman: That’s the idea. You don’t hear about it.

Mike Matthews: And I would argue—sorry, just to interject, and I’d be curious to hear your thoughts—I would argue to somebody, and just if you and I were talking to somebody about this, that if somebody, okay, can’t figure out how to execute on the type of playbook that you’re talking about, it’s almost certainly not worth trying to go any larger.

Mike Matthews: Because, coming to your point about trying to stand out, I mean, this is really what you’re talking about. You’re talking about a value proposition of a personal brand. I’ve had this discussion with people, right? So, value proposition has different definitions, but a definition that I like is it’s simply the answer to a question, right? So here’s the question: If I am your ideal prospect for whatever it is that you’re offering, and I am—here’s why I [00:19:00] fit one of your little avatars, or whatever.

Mike Matthews: Sure. Why should I buy your thing rather than a competitor’s thing? Or, in the context of this conversation, why should I pay attention to your content? Why should I give you any of my time rather than all of these other people you’re competing with? And coming back to what you said—if you don’t have a compelling answer to that, and in the case of creating content, your content is your answer.

Mike Matthews: But if you don’t have a compelling answer, you are not going to succeed. And that’s true in business, and I think that’s true in building a personal brand as well.

Jonathan Goodman: What I love to do is ask people, “Look around you in your home, wherever you are right now—everything you’re wearing, everything you own. Do you even know if any one of those companies has a social media account? If so, have you ever consumed their content in any way?” [00:20:00] Have you ever been to another reviewer talking about the microphone or exercise bike that you’ve got behind you or whatever? And if you looked up the person doing the review, did you even look at who they were?

Jonathan Goodman: Let alone, were you interested in whatever services they offered or thinking that their review of the thing—maybe they were just an affiliate marketer, or maybe they were a coach trying to get attention for their coaching, and they were talking about exercise bikes because, you know, if I can perhaps kind of—what’s it called when you’re, like, behind a bike in a Peloton? You’re traveling behind them.

Mike Matthews: Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’ll come to me. But where you’re basically—you’re in the wake.

Jonathan Goodman: You’re in the wake of them.

Mike Matthews: Yeah.

Jonathan Goodman: So you’re in the wake a little bit. I think it’s an advantage, right? Because there’s a little bit less wind resistance. They were [00:21:00] going to get attention, and people are going to search for it. And so if you talk about them, maybe you can take some of that attention. And hey, maybe—question mark—these people think about that. Think about, you know, the coaches you hire or services you go to or restaurants you attend or whatever those things are.

Jonathan Goodman: I would ask you the same question. Do you even know if they have a social media account? If so, how much did that impact—either consciously or unconsciously, be honest with yourself—how much did that impact your desire to purchase from them? And even if it did, was it the leading factor? Is that how you discovered them? Social media can be a very good way to nurture or convert attention generated elsewhere, but it’s very much a lagging indicator of success. It’s not a leading indicator of success.

Jonathan Goodman: There’s this wonky misconception that you have to do dope stuff on the internet to enable you to do dope stuff in the real world. It’s the opposite. You do dope stuff in the real world and then, perhaps, amplify it by talking about it in a dope way online.

Jonathan Goodman: And so, the real reason why over 90 percent of purchases are [00:22:00] made through mostly offline word of mouth is some combination of specificity, familiarity, and community. I call it the trust triangle.

Jonathan Goodman: So, specificity is what you were talking about, right? How unbelievably specific is this for you? And you can create that with content. For example, a friend of mine, John Finkel, runs a newsletter called Books and Biceps. It’s the first time ever that I’ve come across the name of a newsletter where I’m like, “I’ve got to subscribe to this.” It’s just so amazingly for me in obvious ways. I’ve never had that before.

Jonathan Goodman: And so, you could create that with content, but you could also create that in conversations. You know, your thing is specific and can help somebody else, but do they know that? All you’re really looking for is one spec or one credential of what you do. All that somebody else is looking for [00:23:00] is to feel like they can justify their purchase based on one spec or one credential. That’s all they need.

Jonathan Goodman: And so, maybe you could do that through content. It’s way harder. It’s much easier to ask that person a single question and say, “Hey, I’m curious. What are you looking to gain from this?” And then you can talk about one part of your background or one part of your product or service and how that specifically solves that one problem. And you’ve hit specificity, right?

Jonathan Goodman: Familiarity is, “Are people like me doing this thing?” Familiarity is how often you see something. And so, there’s a lot of neighborhood stuff, for sure, with that. And then the final one is community. You know, we exist in all of these really tight communities—algorithmically filtered bubbles online, but also in the real world. Someone you’re church buddies with or play pickleball with—you will actually (we [00:24:00] don’t like to admit this about ourselves)—you will follow their recommendation for something more than you will follow the recommendation of an actual credentialed expert in that same field.

Jonathan Goodman: Even if this dude you play pickleball with really doesn’t know anything about the thing and this other person has spent their life studying it. That’s actually the reality of how almost every human purchases almost everything.

Jonathan Goodman: This cuts at the core of a frustration of a lot of people, right? That their customers just don’t get it. And it’s true—they don’t. Your customers don’t get it. And you can’t expect them to. You get credentialed, you build your education, you build a great product because it helps you solve their problem once they’ve already hired you. But that actually won’t contribute much to getting them to hire you in the first place.

Jonathan Goodman: I think that’s the misconception. It’s how you’ve got to think about these things. [00:25:00]

Mike Matthews: If I’m hearing you correctly, I mean, a lot of this is the importance of marketing. And I would say the essence of marketing is messaging. What’s the message? And that also ties into the value proposition.

Mike Matthews: I think that’s probably the most important message you can give to someone, especially when you are making that first contact and the person is trying to decide whether they should care about anything you have to say or not—whether it’s a personal brand or a business. And a mistake that I have seen many people make over the years, particularly people who are more creatively inclined, is focusing all of their efforts on the creation of products and services—or even the creation of content—and not only focusing very little, if any, effort on marketing, but almost disdaining it, like feeling that it’s beneath them. [00:26:00]

Mike Matthews: And not understanding how vital it is to be able to communicate to people very quickly, very simply: what this is, what you have to offer, and, again, why should they care? And something that I do, just for example, whenever I’m working on anything related to marketing, whether it’s copywriting (which I still do a fair amount of) or branding, is I take the perspective of someone who’s cynical, skeptical, doesn’t really care, and is half a second from just leaving the page or moving on from the piece of content.

Mike Matthews: That’s kind of like—that’s an editorial lens that I view my work through. And so I have to convince me as this person who’s basically repeating, “So what? Who cares? So says you. I don’t believe you.” Yeah, right. And then work [00:27:00] to try to convince that person to give me a shot, to get them to think, “Okay, well, maybe there’s something of value here.”

Mike Matthews: I mean, yes, I—

Jonathan Goodman: I agree, because a lot of the time what you do have, there is value, right? But where do you go from there then? Like, how do you do it, right? I mean, you’ve been able to break through in an exceptionally bloody ocean in a market that has a very small TAM. You know, the total available market’s pretty small.

Jonathan Goodman: So, you’ve been able to break through in fitness publishing, where the total available market’s very small, and then break through in supplements, where it’s just a very noisy, very—I don’t know—complicated, saturated, dishonest, and corrupt market. Like, Legion’s great, sure. Are there other supplements that are as good as it? Absolutely. Are there a lot of supplements that are not as good as it? [00:28:00] Sure. Does any consumer really know the difference? Probably not, most of them, if you’re honest.

Jonathan Goodman: And so, you can say nice-sounding words, but a lot of people do. And, you know, well, of course, I would say a lot of people don’t take as much care into making the product as you do. But they say the same nice-sounding words as you. So—

Mike Matthews: And then there’s the evidence though. So, you have the words, sure, and you get their attention with the words, but then you have to give the evidence. And I like to think about it in terms of a preponderance of evidence. So, try to overdeliver on the evidence that backs up the claim that backs up the words. And so, in the case of sports nutrition, there are various ways to do that. You have different types of testing you can do and different types of endorsements you can get for products, which would also include social proof in the way of customers.

Mike Matthews: [00:29:00] And social proof to make it—

Jonathan Goodman: About. I mean, the social proof, like a customer’s had a transformation that used your product, let’s say, a performance transformation, a physical transformation, whatever. I mean, there are just so many factors involved in that transformation that—

Mike Matthews: Yes, but the fact that we don’t even promote transformations, for example, is—

Mike Matthews: One of the reasons—so if we’re talking about Legion—one of the reasons that a lot of people choose Legion over our competitors is how we market our products, the type of claims that we make and the type of claims that we don’t make, and the support of the claims that we do make. And it’s even how those claims are worded. But then there’s the support of the claims that we do make with research that is openly referenced.

Mike Matthews: And so, that’s one of the things. That’s one of the things that—there are many people, when they spend a little bit of time consuming content, [00:30:00] whether it’s on our website or on social media—probably more so on the website, but also on social media—a lot of people get the impression that we are more trustworthy than a lot of our competitors, and that it’s less likely that we’re just blatantly lying to try to get their money.

Mike Matthews: Because that is what a lot of supplement companies are doing. They are just lying to take people’s money. That’s 80 percent of the business, right? And it’s so egregious that it’s actually, in some ways, kind of ironic that it’s not—it’s actually not that difficult to create a different impression. But you have to actually back it up. You have to, and so that’s where just the words—

Jonathan Goodman: Oh yeah. None of this matters if your product isn’t good.

Mike Matthews: Yes, correct.

Jonathan Goodman: Like, no marketing—I mean, what’s the famous line? It’s like, “Good marketing is only going to make a bad product fail faster.” Like, it’s not going to make a difference, you know? One hundred percent.

Jonathan Goodman: I talk about this with books with all of my [00:31:00] entrepreneur buddies all the time. They’re just like—they’re, you know, they’re all trying to write books now. And it’s interesting because they’re all trying—

Mike Matthews: What’s the first question?

Jonathan Goodman: How does that—?

Mike Matthews: What book should I study? And what do you say, though? Like, where does that conversation start for you? Because I’ve had these conversations too, and I always have the first question, and I often don’t get a good answer to it.

Jonathan Goodman: Well, what I tell them is that there are three types of nonfiction books that exist.

Jonathan Goodman: Type number one—call it translators. Like, nonfiction authors—call them translators, right? You’re talking the James Clears. You’re talking the Malcolm Gladwells. It’s not their original thoughts or their original research, but they are exceptionally skilled at translating those thoughts for a mass audience. Like it or hate it, it is what it is. They’re incredibly valuable to society.

Jonathan Goodman: And they generally have the most success long-term in the nonfiction genre, I believe, because, kind of by definition, they’re able to write a lot of books. Because it’s not the original work or research, they can just find other research and write books about it, which is why you see this type of nonfiction. These are authors who generally write a lot of books.

Jonathan Goodman: James Clear is an exception. I mean, that’s what I’ve done.

Mike Matthews: I don’t—I call myself a desk researcher. I haven’t done any firsthand scientific work. I don’t pretend like I’m a scientist. And my goal from the beginning was simply to take other people’s hard work that isn’t accessible to laymen and make it more accessible.

Mike Matthews: Curate this information, present it in a way that most people can understand and apply and get results with.

Jonathan Goodman: I would say that you’re a combination of one and three. I’ll tell you what three is in a second. Number two are like journalists—experiential journalists. Someone like Michael Easter with The Comfort Crisis and Scarcity Brain is a really good example of this.

Jonathan Goodman: Somebody who is really skilled at telling stories, but they go out into the world. Like when Michael wants to talk about addiction, he doesn’t sit back. He reads the research, but he doesn’t sit at home. He goes to Iran during an opioid crisis and does ride-alongs with the drug police, you know, and then uses that to tell the story. And so that’s number two.

Jonathan Goodman: And then number three are probably most of the people you’re speaking to. I would say that you probably fit in this bucket as much or more than the first bucket, which is somebody who’s done something that is in some way meaningful—could be physically, could be professionally.

Jonathan Goodman: And then what they’re doing now is creating a post-narrative and trying to pull out central lessons as a way to teach others and lessen the curve for others to make that same jump or go on that same journey. And so, you combine it, right? You read the research, you might read some of the work of others who are also talking about this thing.

Jonathan Goodman: You generally surround yourself with lots of friends who think about [00:34:00] health and fitness and supplements and stuff like that all the time. And you talk to them, and then you take that all and wrap it in with your experiences, and it all comes down into this really neat miasma of, “Okay, here’s my own unique way to talk about this.”

Jonathan Goodman: And then, obviously, some people like you, a good example, are just so skillful at putting this together and communicating it. And then, of course, marketing the work afterwards. And part of marketing the work is not just the titles of the work. It’s, “Hey, how can I actually build an economic engine behind the book that allows me to continue to talk about the book and promote the book?” That’s very important.

Jonathan Goodman: And so I tell them that first. And then what I say is, the majority of people who fit in bucket three—which is most people I’m speaking to—you know, they ran some business, right? And they want the world—really, it’s a lot of ego. You know, maybe they want to speak and get on bigger stages or make more money.

Jonathan Goodman: But when you break it down, it’s often ego. They just—

Mike Matthews: People need to know who I [00:35:00] am and what I’ve done.

Jonathan Goodman: Look at that guy getting all the attention. F*** him. I’m better than him. You know, I know the background of his story. I know the skeletons in his closet. Why don’t other people recognize this? You know, I don’t have those same skeletons—whatever. Whether that’s true or not, it is what it is. And so a lot of it is that.

Jonathan Goodman: And so I tell them that first, and then I say, “What’s your approach?” Because most people who are in bucket three have their books ghostwritten, or are using a lot of AI generators, or hybrid publishers where they do interviews, and, you know, they’re not obsessed with the art of what makes a book great.

Jonathan Goodman: Like the stuff that I can tell you I’ve done with The Obvious Choice that most people will never notice, in terms of attempting to make it readable, narrative structure, transition statements—I obsess over this. I mean, I don’t just save covers and titles. I study authors, and I study authors who do very specific things well.

Jonathan Goodman: For example, Ryan Holiday is able to write in a cadence that I think is really enjoyable. Morgan Housel begins and finishes sections exceptionally well. There are just all of these different authors. Then you look to fiction for how you tell a story, and you look at magazine writers for how they are able to do business writing.

Jonathan Goodman: And Jason Pfeiffer calls it the bricks and mortar. You tell the story, then you pull it out and say why it matters to the person. Then you enter back into the story. Then you give the steps to solving it—what to do about it. Then you enter back into the story. Brick, mortar, brick, mortar, brick, mortar.

Jonathan Goodman: And so I’m looking, ethically swiping and using, and maneuvering all of these things around each other. Most nonfiction authors that are in that category three—they don’t. This just isn’t what they do. They’re not obsessed the same way. And so what they try to do is they try to build efficiencies because that’s what they learned with business.

Jonathan Goodman: They’re like, “I’m going to find somebody doing this on the greatest scale, deconstruct it, and then build it back up.” And whenever anybody says anything like that to me, I’m just like, “I’ll wait for 20 people to tell me your book is good before I pick it up.” It’s just not the same kind of care and consideration and artistry around it.

Jonathan Goodman: But what do you say?

Mike Matthews: My first question is, “Why do you want to write a book?” And then, to the point of ego, often there either isn’t a clear reason—at least one they want to share—or it’s something more just kind of egotistically driven again. “Look at me. Look what I did. People need to know about this.” [00:38:00]

Mike Matthews: That’s—for me—that’s not a good answer to write a book. Because, to your point—yeah, I mean, something I’ll tell people is, “I don’t recommend writing a book, at least doing the work yourself, unless you really like writing.” Because it’s a lot—it’s a lot of work. And it might seem like it’s going to be fun, but if you don’t really enjoy writing, it’s going to become a slog.

Mike Matthews: And then also, I tell people, “Another bad reason to write a book is to try to make a bunch of money.” And you can fill your mind with outliers all you want, but if we start at base rates—this is what I explain to people—whatever genre you’re thinking about writing in, even if it’s—what is it—romantasy? Which, if you want to just make money, right?

Mike Matthews: Oh, sure. Softcore porn for middle-aged women. That’s where all the money is.

Jonathan Goodman: Ever since the [00:39:00] invention of the Kindle, where you could be reading softcore porn in public and nobody knows. All of a sudden, that genre is now the literary genre. But have you looked at the growth chart?

Mike Matthews: Yes, I have.

Jonathan Goodman: When the Kindle started taking over, have you looked at the growth chart in that industry?

Mike Matthews: And you actually have quite a few mega success stories of self-published women who just churn these books out and make millions of dollars a year.

Jonathan Goodman: You don’t have to hide your book inside of a magazine anymore.

Mike Matthews: You take the dust jacket off, you know? And so—so, but generally, you look at what are the base rates in terms of success in just about—

Mike Matthews: I mean, even in romantasy, in any genre, the base rate level of success is quite low.

Mike Matthews: Sure.

Mike Matthews: And so if you have this idea that you are going to succeed at a much higher level, you have to make a case for it. Why?

Jonathan Goodman: You get them to actually—you say to them, “What’s your case?” I mean, in not—

Mike Matthews: So many words, yeah. I argue, “I’m an investor. You’re trying to get my money to invest in your project. What’s your business plan?”

Jonathan Goodman: “Why do people care about you? What do you want to do? Why you? Why are you going to [00:40:00] succeed where all these other people have failed?” Because there’s such a power law distribution with books.

Mike Matthews: There’s such a power—

Jonathan Goodman: Law distribution with them.

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Yes.

Jonathan Goodman: Okay.

Mike Matthews: And so—I mean, I can speak personally. At this point, my interest in writing is at least 50% “What do I want to do? What work draws me in?” And if, hopefully, there’s some commercial demand—if there were no commercial demand, fine. I’d find something else. Because I don’t only write for my own entertainment.

Mike Matthews: I like to put the work out there, hear from people, see what people think about it, and feel like I’m making a difference in some way. But for me personally—and this is something that I recommend to people who want to write a book—is just make sure that you’re working on a project that is genuinely interesting to you and something you genuinely want to work on. [00:41:00]

Mike Matthews: Because coming at it purely from an economic angle simply does not make sense. In business, it can make sense. In many businesses, you can have no passion for or even particular interest or curiosity in something, but it’s just a good opportunity. You’re a good operator, you’re a good marketer, and you go for it, make it happen, and succeed. That can work in business. It rarely, if ever, will work in books.

Jonathan Goodman: Yeah, I mean, if you’re a big enough influencer and have a big enough audience, you can guarantee that you’re going to sell a few tens of thousands of books, right? If you have a massive—say a hundred thousand, let’s say.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, but big deal. It’s probably going to be ghostwritten, to your point. That’s going to be six figures, too. If you want to hire a good ghostwriter, they’re not cheap. And so, in the end, it’s probably going to be traditionally published as well. So, you likely won’t even earn out your advance. And you’re going to look back on it and say, “Well, that was a waste of time.”

Jonathan Goodman: But, you know, this is why—I guess the concept of the book is ostensibly about figuring out what game you’re playing. You know, your [00:42:00] favorite Twitter influencer came out with a book this week, right? And it’s interesting because it actually makes perfect sense for them to do it. You know, they probably got a $300,000 to $500,000 advance from a big publisher.

Jonathan Goodman: The agent’s happy. They’re happy because they got that money in. They’ll spend, call it $150,000 on hiring a ghostwriter and marketing the book, and they’ll keep the rest. They’re not going to earn out their advance. They’re going to be able to put out their book. The publisher knows that they’re going to sell enough books to make back the advance and a few extra hundred thousand dollars.

Jonathan Goodman: It’s virtually guaranteed to be, you know, call it a single for the publisher, with a chance that it’s going to be a Peter Attia Outlive. You know, not odds-on good, but it could. But then this Twitter person will probably hit the list. So now they’re going to be able to call themselves a Wall Street Journal or New York Times bestseller, and they’re going to be able to command higher [00:43:00] rates for speaking. And everybody goes home happy—except the reader.

Jonathan Goodman: Because the book was never good. Because the book never needed to be good.

Mike Matthews: And there are so many of those books out there.

Jonathan Goodman: And so it’s not that it’s necessarily bad. Whenever I see, you know, a book come out from—does the world need another one?

Mike Matthews: Especially when every idea is derivative, which is fine. You can say that about any idea if you’re willing to read widely enough. But even how the ideas are presented—it’s all just derivative. If you’ve read one, you’ve read them all.

Jonathan Goodman: And so, you know, as a reader, I’m sitting here and I’m saying, “I get the game you’re playing. I need to wait for a lot of people to tell me this book is good, people I really trust, before I pick up this book.” Not the same kind of circle jerk of everybody doing the same thing, all endorsing each other’s books.

Jonathan Goodman: You know, I need to figure that out. But again, I [00:44:00] don’t knock them. I get the game. I get the game that everybody’s playing and participating in. And I think that it’s perfectly reasonable to play that game. As a consumer, you need to understand it. As a consumer, you need to understand it. But that’s—it’s fine. This is a business. That is a way to—

Mike Matthews: Run the business. And as someone trying to figure out what game they want to play, it would be helpful for them to understand what game that person is actually playing. Because a lot of people mistake—they think that person is playing a different game. And maybe it’s the game they want to play. What they didn’t realize is what you just said—it’s, “No, this was ultimately about raising speaking rates from $20,000 to $40,000 a keynote.” Like, that’s ultimately what this was all about, right?

Mike Matthews: And once that’s done, they’ll never talk about the book ever again.

Jonathan Goodman: You won’t hear about that book ever again after the two weeks that it’s launched. Like, it’ll be there, you know, it’ll be there, but you won’t ever hear about it again because it served its [00:45:00] function.

Mike Matthews: We will get back to today’s episode shortly, but first I need to tell you about my bestselling flexible dieting cookbook for eating delicious and fitness-friendly meals without having to spend hours in the kitchen struggling with expensive and hard-to-prepare recipes.

Mike Matthews: Now, this book is called The Shredded Chef. And while it’s not a cookbook full of fat-burning and craving-killing recipes that will give you a sculpted physique in 30 days flat, and it’s also not a boring bodybuilding cookbook for meatheads who have never met a chicken, rice, or oatmeal recipe they didn’t like—it is a high-protein, low-calorie cookbook that will show you how to lose weight, build muscle, and get healthy by eating tasty, nutritious, and easy-to-make meals that you love each and every day.

Mike Matthews: For example, in The [00:46:00] Shredded Chef, you will learn how to create meal plans for building muscle and losing fat that don’t make you feel like you are starved, deprived, or even on a diet—and especially not a bodybuilding diet. You’ll also learn simple, chef-approved ways to immediately start making better food at home—even restaurant-quality food at home—that don’t require you to spend even more time on preparation or cooking or spending more money on ingredients or gear.

Mike Matthews: You will find 13 delicious and easy-to-make breakfast recipes like BLT eggs benedict, huevos rancheros, high-protein banana oat cakes, spiced Caribbean oatmeal with yogurt swirl, and more. You’ll find 11 mouthwatering salads and dressings, 14 low-calorie snacks that you’ll actually want to eat—like maple walnut protein muffins, for example, one of my favorites.

Mike Matthews: There are [00:47:00] 16 succulent beef and pork recipes for savory lunches and dinners. There are 18 tasty poultry dishes that you’ll love again and again. One of the most popular, for example, is the Mexican meatloaf, which, again, I personally love. There are 8 flavorful seafood recipes, 11 appetizing side dishes, and finally 10 delectable and fitness-friendly desserts.

Mike Matthews: What’s more, The Shredded Chef contains 55 beautiful, professionally produced full-page pictures. And every recipe contains the prep time, cook time, servings, calories, protein, carbs, and fat—making macro counting, calorie counting, and meal planning a breeze. And all of that is why The Shredded Chef is one of the most popular flexible dieting cookbooks of all time.

Mike Matthews: With over 300,000 copies sold and why it has helped tens of thousands of men and women of all ages and abilities transform their body composition, [00:48:00] fitness, and health. And so, if you want to see if it can help you reach your fitness goals faster, just head over to Amazon, pick up a copy, and enjoy.

Mike Matthews: I want to hear more of your thoughts on finding—and this comes back to your book—this topic of finding the game you want to play. Or, I guess at first, maybe it’s finding a game, or identifying and clarifying the game you’re trying to play. Because I think that is something sorely—

Mike Matthews: Lacking among early-stage entrepreneurs, right?

Jonathan Goodman: So I have a process. And I actually have the final version, which is very exciting. I got this two days ago, but it’s the first hard-copy version of it. So there’s a partner, which is—it’s a process. I’m of the opinion that just about [00:49:00] everybody, with enough work, can go from bad to good at just about anything.

Jonathan Goodman: I think all of us have one, maybe two, maybe three things that we can go from good to truly great at. Our natural energies, skills, and attributes really don’t lend themselves to us being great—truly great—at more than one or a few things. And so the question is, what is that thing, right?

Jonathan Goodman: I think that with a tremendous amount of work, I could be a mediocre-to-decent YouTuber. I think with that same amount of work, I could become a truly world-class writer. I don’t think I’m there yet. I don’t think I’ll be there for decades, but you bet your ass that’s what I’m playing. That’s what I’m doing. That’s what I am focusing all of my efforts on, pointing toward.

Jonathan Goodman: And so, how do you find that? I have a very simple process. It goes like this: You take a piece of paper and you write down all the things you think it might be—podcasting, writing books, building an e-commerce brand, dropshipping supplements, whatever—all the things you think it might be, right?

Jonathan Goodman: I’m going to become a YouTuber, I’m going to start a local restaurant. It could be anything. Make your list. You really don’t want more than four or five on there. If you do, you can probably eliminate a few things pretty quickly. Go with what feels good and, no gut—what doesn’t.

Jonathan Goodman: Then, you’re going to go for a series of two-week testing cycles. Two weeks is not long enough to get good or see any results with any of these things, but it is long enough to answer three questions:

1. Did I enjoy this?
2. Do I believe I could become truly great at this?
3. Do I think this has the amount of potential [00:51:00] I need in an opportunity?

Jonathan Goodman: And I say “that I need in an opportunity” because a local restaurant does not have the same type of potential as a software business. But your ambitions might not be to be a billion-dollar Silicon Valley entrepreneur. So it’s about whatever potential you want for the type of life you want to live.

Jonathan Goodman: Once you can answer those three questions confidently as a yes, that’s your thing. You close the book, and you execute on that. Not to say there won’t be other opportunities. In those two-week cycles, you obsess over that thing. All the information you consume has to do with that thing. You’re listening to podcasts, reading books—whatever you’re doing, that’s what you’re Googling. You’re going down Reddit rabbit holes left, right, and center. You’re trying to find earnings statements. And you’re actually producing content on these things.

Jonathan Goodman: So, if it’s podcasting, yeah, you’re going to record a podcast every day for two weeks. Nobody needs to listen—it doesn’t matter. [00:52:00] All you need to do is figure out how to answer those three questions confidently. Two-week cycles. Once you finish that two-week cycle, ask:

1. Do I believe I can get truly great at this?
2. Did I enjoy this?
3. Does this present the type of opportunity that I desire?

Jonathan Goodman: Once you have that, that’s your thing. Everybody’s got a thing. There are lots of things that could work in this world. What’s important is that you find yours.

Jonathan Goodman: I don’t know if you’ve seen the same thing—how old are you, Mike? I think I’ve asked you this before.

Mike Matthews: Forty.

Jonathan Goodman: Okay, so I’m 39. Around 35, I started to notice that many of the people I knew kind of just stopped evolving. They stopped learning new things.

Mike Matthews: For a lot of people I’ve met, that happens closer to 25—basically once they’re out of college.

Jonathan Goodman: Maybe. You may be right. I don’t know. I just noticed—

Mike Matthews: You’ve been surrounded by better people over the years.

Jonathan Goodman: Like, those lines started to more sharply accelerate away from one another at that point. Whether it was happening before and I didn’t notice it as much, or one of those two—

Mike Matthews: Types of people moments—you know, you have many of them.

Jonathan Goodman: It’s wild. And one of the things I’ve noticed is it’s not for lack of hard work, knowledge, or IQ. It seemed to me that it was just a lack of focusing on one damn thing they were really passionately interested in.

Jonathan Goodman: A lot of folks are working very hard these days and getting nowhere. Not because they don’t know what to do—it’s because they’re doing too many damn different things.

Jonathan Goodman: Being a grown [00:54:00] ass adult means accepting trade-offs, accepting that you’re not going to be able to do it all. So, what’s your thing?

Jonathan Goodman: How can you point all the rest of the elements of your work life, and even perhaps your personal life, toward that thing to amplify it? You and I have known each other for a lot of years. I’ve decided that, really, probably for the rest of my career, I’m going to consider myself primarily as an author.

Jonathan Goodman: And about 90 percent of my time is committed to my career in authorship. You know me well enough to know that there were other opportunities that had perhaps greater financial outcomes that I could have stepped into. But this is my thing. There’s no other thing I’ve ever found that gives me that same beautiful combination of struggle, frustration, and creative fulfillment, where every single day I finish and I’m like, “That was hard. I suck. How am I ever going to make something come of this?” And [00:55:00] then I wake up the next day and can’t wait to do it again. There’s nothing else I’ve found.

Mike Matthews: I mean, that resonates with me. I still enjoy the writing that I do more than any of the other work that I do. And if I look at the business work that I do, I enjoy the marketing work the most because it has the most capacity for creative expression.

Mike Matthews: It doesn’t have to be writing. I mean, I really do enjoy writing, but there are other elements of marketing. Really, what it comes down to for me is creativity. That’s what I like. Operations? I do not like. I’ve done a lot of it, and I’ve gotten good enough at it to get to a point where I could give it to people who are better and who love operations.

Jonathan Goodman: You’ve learned the language enough to recognize when somebody is speaking in tongues or when somebody is speaking [00:56:00] well.

Jonathan Goodman: And that’s—yeah, I mean, I’ve always viewed you—you’re such a cerebral guy. Maybe it’s writing with you. To me, the way I’ve always viewed you is, it’s just deep thinking. You and I get along because we are both disagreeable to the core.

Jonathan Goodman: We are always going to question every assumption and every way that anybody else does anything and say, “I think there might be a better way.” That’s what I’ve always respected about you. But it is—it’s deep thought. I mean, maybe creativity is the word. I don’t know if I’d even use that term with you.

Jonathan Goodman: I’d use a different term. I’d just say you are creatively disagreeable. You think much deeper, you gather a much wider variety of inspirations and information and networks and contacts to attack problems that your industry has in new and profound ways that others—who are much more insular in their approach—simply [00:57:00] don’t see.

Jonathan Goodman: That’s the way I look at you. Writing is part of that because writing is how you learn. Writing is how you understand. Writing is the best way to figure out what you’re thinking.

Mike Matthews: For sure. But organize your thoughts—even make new connections, come up with new ideas. Totally. And I want to come back to—I think this two-week concept you shared is quite profound. There’s a concept in it that I use in business a lot, right?

Mike Matthews: And that is the generation of hypotheses and understanding that hypotheses need to be tested. Looking at something, right? A hypothesis: If I make this change by doing the things that would produce this change, I think this will result because of this reason. Okay, so there’s your hypothesis.

Mike Matthews: And then you have to go and test this hypothesis. So, in the case of—and again, I’m speaking personally here—I mentioned that an interest, an enduring interest of mine, is writing fiction. I’ve been working on it on the side—I treat it like a hobby. I don’t [00:58:00] give it the priority I would like to give it because life is irritating, and I have to do other things. However, this is a hobby I’ve been chipping away at for some time now and thinking about it very much through the same lens you just shared.

Mike Matthews: For me, it’s looking at, okay, what’s my real objective here? For people listening, if you just think about what John shared—okay, so you make this list of potential things that might be your thing. Really, what you’re doing here is generating hypotheses. It could be—and whether you’re explicitly outlining that hypothesis or not, it’s implicit. Regardless, you put it on the list, right?

Mike Matthews: And so, looking at, okay, what are my real—

Jonathan Goodman: Things that you’re like, “Oh, I feel like I should, because so-and-so is doing that thing.” You put it on the list, and then you look at it and you’re like, “That ain’t for me, man.”

Mike Matthews: And I totally agree with the gut check. You probably don’t need to go much further than that. I mean, you could become maybe a little bit more analytical if you [00:59:00] had to, but gut checking makes sense to me. Looking at what’s the real objective—so that’s kind of a first question when I’m considering doing something: What am I actually trying to do here?

Mike Matthews: To your point of wanting to commit yourself wholeheartedly to becoming the best possible author you can—I would argue, why not shoot for doing something the best that it’s ever been done? Even if it’s just one project. If you could accomplish that as an author—I mean, at least I can speak personally—that, to me, is very appealing.

Mike Matthews: Just the challenge of it—and whether I can do it or not is another question—but not just trying to become great. And not just necessarily world-class, but can you write a book that is the best of whatever type of book—recognized as, let’s just say, at least one of the best of that type ever? I mean, look at what James Clear did with Atomic [01:00:00] Habits.

Mike Matthews: I know it’s the clichéd example, but everyone has heard of this book. And I think at this point, it’s clear that he has done it—a habits book—the best that it’s ever been done. I mean, this is going to become the number one bestselling nonfiction book, probably of all time. And so, anyway, what’s the real objective here, right?

Mike Matthews: It’s not just to make money. There’s much—

Jonathan Goodman: He has effectively marketed and built that book, that one project, focused on that and nothing else really for 15 years and counting. Eight years building up the audience. And remember, that started with him—

Mike Matthews: Writing. He wrote fitness.

Mike Matthews: He wrote—I forget—a number of different pieces, different topics. And he just saw that it was this habit stuff that was getting the best response. So, he’ll just keep doing more of that.

Jonathan Goodman: So, eight years of basically preparing to write the book, you know, put out the book, and now seven years and counting.

Jonathan Goodman: Well, he [01:01:00] really hasn’t done anything but promote the book. I mean, he came up with an app that he worked on with a tiny team, right? With Andy Wilkins—saying they did a 60/40 thing. And, you know, how involved was he really? Like, probably kind of, but, you know, it’s not like he’s building a software company and operating it.

Jonathan Goodman: There are some pens, there’s a journal, but he really hasn’t done much else for seven years other than promote that book every single day, all day. Yeah. And so you’re talking 15 years and counting on one product. This product is a multibillion-dollar business. But you’re right.

Jonathan Goodman: When you know, can you do the best in the world? There’s a lot of rewards when there’s a power-law distribution in—

Mike Matthews: That. But just coming back to, so what’s the real objective here, right? What am I trying to achieve here? And so, if somebody’s trying to figure out their thing, what is the real objective here?

Mike Matthews: Is it just to make money? Well, I [01:02:00] think that is not a great—if that’s the only reason you can come up with, maybe that shouldn’t be on your list. Because, to your point, accomplishing extraordinary results requires a lot more effort than I think a lot of people realize. I think that, yeah.

Mike Matthews: If you are going to try to become great, it’s going to require the type of effort that you outlined, which is you’re going to have to give everything you’ve got for a long period of time to that one thing. Yes, and when the only reason you chose that thing is money, it rarely ever works out.

Mike Matthews: I mean, this is the story that just repeats over and over—the person who chose the safe career of medicine or law because it comes with status. It comes with—well, not easy. It comes with a stable income, an average income. But then they [01:03:00] do it for 5, 10, or more years and end up hating it because there was nothing else there.

Mike Matthews: Right? So, okay, what’s my real objective now? What’s the most effective way of accomplishing this objective? So, in the case of figuring out what’s my thing?—okay, I’m trying to determine my objective here, which is to figure out which of these things could be the one I’m going to focus all of my efforts on and break through in. What’s the most effective way to accomplish that objective?

Mike Matthews: And then, what’s the best way to test the effectiveness of this method? How do I adjust? And then, how do I adjust my objective, the way I’m going to get to that objective, and the way I’m going to test based on my results? Yeah, and I see that flavor in what you’re sharing, and I just think it’s something that is uncommon. I have not seen many people go through a process like that before choosing a [01:04:00] thing. And I think that it can be very powerful if it’s done honestly.

Jonathan Goodman: Yeah, so long as you understand the outcome that you’re going for. You know, the outcome is not to gauge whether something is successful or not because that takes a long time. And by definition, there’s going to be a lot underneath the surface that you’re not going to see or recognize for a very long period of time.

Jonathan Goodman: And so, you can’t have testing cycles that take too long if you’re judging yourself based on the outcome. You have to figure that out because you also only—

Mike Matthews: Have so much time and energy. I mean, if it’s going to take 3 to 5 years to go through a testing cycle, that doesn’t work. And the outcome—specifically, you had said, well, first, is this something that you can keep doing a lot of for a long time?

Mike Matthews: I mentioned fiction writing because I’ve gone through a very similar process. Initially, at the beginning of testing this little hypothesis that maybe this is a thing I want to give time to—it was in the past, but that was, I don’t know, 10 years ago. The first objective was just to see how much I like the work for its own sake. And that actually starts with learning.

Mike Matthews: Now, I had read previously, 10 years ago, when I was actually planning on writing fiction. I had probably read 10 or 15 books—some of the classics on storytelling and fiction writing—to understand some of the art and science of storytelling. Because there is very much a science to it as well. It’s not just telling a story that you think is interesting.

Mike Matthews: And so, coming back to that, to review a lot of that material and fill in some of the holes—to answer questions I had about how to make this work and gain a better overarching understanding of effective storytelling—the first question was, how much do I enjoy studying about this? Because if I don’t enjoy studying it, [01:06:00] forget it. I would just move on to something else. Because I’m never going to get great at something I’m unwilling to even read a book about.

Jonathan Goodman: If in your spare time you’re not saying, “I’d love to read a book about this,” then it’s probably not—

Mike Matthews: Your thing. Totally agree. So, that was the first question: in my spare time, when I’m not reading professionally for my job, do I want to read a book about storytelling—yes or no? Do I even want to read fiction books—yes or no?

Mike Matthews: And from there, that was a yes.

Mike Matthews: And then from there it’s, do I like doing the work for its own sake?

Jonathan Goodman: Yeah.

Mike Matthews: And that was another binary yes or no. And if it was going to be a no, then I’m taking it off the list. It’s not going to be a hobby. I’ve answered my question, and I’m going to move on to find some other hobby, right? But from there—and I’ll be curious to hear your thoughts—okay, so you have somebody who’s found something they really enjoy learning about.

Mike Matthews: For [01:07:00] me, I was looking for something I could consume almost endlessly. I could read a book, and then I’d want to read the next book. I had this long list of books I’d like to read on it. Yeah, I might have to force myself to even read something else because I have a business thing and need to learn about it. So, I’ve got to read that book before I can get back to it kind of thing.

Mike Matthews: Then, okay, they enjoy doing the work for its own sake. Now, speaking personally, it’s like working out. Do you enjoy every workout? Sure, no. But you enjoy most of them, and you always enjoy having worked out. For me, writing is similar in that way, right? Not every session is thrilling, but I’m always happy I’ve done it. Correct. Always happy I’ve done it. Correct. And sometimes, I’m also having a good time while I’m doing it.

Mike Matthews: Yeah. I like editing.

Jonathan Goodman: I like editing. First drafts—I’m always frustrated.

Mike Matthews: You have to care less on your first draft. That’s what I’ve learned. You have to resist the urge to be a wordsmith. You just have to barf your [01:08:00] ideas out and be okay with that, knowing nobody’s going to see it.

Mike Matthews: Yes, it’s disorganized. But you’re always comparing yourself to what you did before.

Jonathan Goodman: I’ve got this book coming out in a month that’s finished. It’s beautiful. It’s been three years of work. I’m seven-eighths done with the next book—the first draft of it. Every morning, I’m waking up and writing the next book, right?

Jonathan Goodman: But I’m comparing that, because I’m having to review this book for so many podcasts. And so, I’m comparing what I’m writing now to this finished product. How the hell am I going to get there again, man?

Mike Matthews: Editing. That’s how you’re going to get there. Editing.

Jonathan Goodman: Editing. So, I like the editing part. Yes, I like taking something, looking at it, and putting the puzzle pieces together—moving some sentences around, saying something that took me 11 words in 6 words, or throwing in a great metaphor somewhere and really taking pride in that. I like that part of—

Mike Matthews: It. For sure. Yeah, I understand [01:09:00] that. The same goes for me. But so, you have somebody now, and you talk about finding out whether this is something they can become great at. What does that look like? How does somebody go about determining that? And really, we’re talking about probabilities.

Mike Matthews: I mean, we’re not going to get to 100 percent probability, but if you’re going to pursue a thing, in my opinion, you probably need—

Jonathan Goodman: That’s when you decide to give it two or three years. Like when I take on a new project—like, I decided to start a software platform, for example—I’m like, this is a maximum five-year project, right? No more than that. But if I’m going to do anything now, I ask myself in the back of my mind, “Am I willing to commit a minimum of three to five years to this?”

Jonathan Goodman: If I’m not, then I don’t do it. If I am, then I need to be very much all in on that thing, which means perhaps [01:10:00] going and acquiring new skill sets. For example, if I wanted to be a YouTuber, I’d go to an improv comedy troupe, study standup, study presentation.

Jonathan Goodman: You’d want to take acting classes too, in my opinion. For sure. If I thought I wanted to influence around any idea—whether it’s fitness or anything—I would do that. I think that’s how you have to stand out.

Jonathan Goodman: So, study the skills of the thing. Build your network in the thing. Create a local group of other up-and-coming YouTubers. Arrange the get-togethers and reach out to more established YouTubers to have them come and present to your group. Build the network for that thing you want to do.

Jonathan Goodman: I’d learn the ins and outs of the technical aspects of the platform. If it’s supplements, the infrastructure and management of your materials have got to be insane—even down to, for example, USD to Canadian dollar conversion, FX trading—all of those details. I’d study the nuances.

Jonathan Goodman: Using a YouTube example—how does the algorithm work? How do thumbnails work? All of that. The final thing a lot of people miss is how to convert people within the confines of that platform. It’s not just, how do you get attention on YouTube? How do you convert attention on YouTube?

Jonathan Goodman: Because it’s different from how you convert attention via email, Instagram, or other platforms. How do you convert people on an e-commerce store? How do you increase lifetime customer value? What tests can you put into play? What best practices should you start with?

Jonathan Goodman: Once you’ve [01:12:00] decided on your thing, you break it down. I was a bit messy describing it, but you break it down. I have it in the book—those elements: your network, the details of the thing, the skills of it, and how you convert from it. That’s your job.

Jonathan Goodman: You either do it, or you don’t. On the cover of the book is a whale chasing after pennies. The whale is an origami hundred-dollar bill. It represents the final chapter, Whales and Minnows. That’s my life philosophy and business philosophy.

Jonathan Goodman: It’s either free or expensive. You show up, or you don’t. You do the thing, or you don’t do the thing. You don’t stand anywhere in the middle. The middle is a dead zone. The middle is why you’re frustrated. The middle is why you’re not getting anywhere. You’re not committing to anything.

Jonathan Goodman: If you’ve decided this is your thing for the next three years, make it your thing or don’t. Both are fine, but [01:13:00] don’t be frustrated that you’re not getting anywhere when you’re only half-assing it—putting 50 percent of your all into it while kind of doing other stuff on the side.

Mike Matthews: I want to hear your thoughts on the period of these three to five years. You’ve made this commitment because inevitably—and I’m sure you’ve experienced this, and people listening will experience this if they go through this process—it’s what Seth Godin calls The Dip.

Mike Matthews: There’s a point where it’s going to get really hard—harder than you thought it was going to be—and you’ll start to question whether this really is your thing and whether you should quit or not.

Jonathan Goodman: How many points like that are we to expect? You said it like there’s only one.

Mike Matthews: Well, actually, I like how Godin explained it. It’s not really a point; it’s an expanse. You’ve got to get through this dip, as [01:14:00] he called it. I never read that one of his—either that, or you need to quit.

Mike Matthews: And I do think there are times when it makes more sense to quit than to keep going. What are your thoughts on that?

Jonathan Goodman: My thoughts on that are you’ve got to take an antifragile approach to your business, which means you look for asymmetry, and you appreciate the fact that if the odds are in your favor, they are eventually going to win out. But it might not happen right away.

Jonathan Goodman: The best investors in the world, for example—the smartest people with the most resources and the most money—have about a 60 to 65 percent success rate. That’s really good. They get really rich. But invert that, and four out of 10 times, they’re wrong. [01:15:00]

Jonathan Goodman: You learn a lot of this in poker. Annie Duke’s book Quit is really good on this. She talks about—oh, I forgot the term—but she talks about the power of celebrating when you make a good bet, not the outcome.

Jonathan Goodman: Serious poker players don’t get angry if they lose a hand, as long as they played the hand properly. They know that over time, it’s going to even out, as long as they have a big enough bankroll to withstand it.

Jonathan Goodman: So, where do I come in with this? I say, don’t ever make a move or do something that, if it doesn’t work, will take you out of the game.

Jonathan Goodman: If you’re able to continue showing up in a way that, if something works, it’s going to work really big, and if it doesn’t work, you can show up the next day—keep showing up. But if you get to a point where the odds start to skew the other way—where, if this thing works, it’s not actually going to do that much for you—then you should quit.

Jonathan Goodman: Are you executing at a level eight on a level three opportunity? Or are you executing at a level five on a level eight opportunity? Be real with yourself.

Jonathan Goodman: If whatever you’re doing works—if you’re a self-published author, or if you own a local restaurant, or whatever—if whatever marketing thing you’re doing works, what’s really going to be the impact of it? How big will it be? If everything that could go right goes right, [01:17:00] what’s the impact?

Jonathan Goodman: Is it worth the time and effort you’re putting into it? Or are there other opportunities that meet your guidelines that you should turn to? I look at it that way. I’m always just trying to skew the odds in my favor and make sure I can keep showing up long enough for those odds to play out.

Mike Matthews: And what about excellence, in terms of achieving excellence? If someone has set even moderately ambitious goals for themselves, they’re probably going to have to eventually get to the excellent spectrum. Even if they don’t get all the way to world-class, they need to get at least mildly excellent at something. Achieving this real objective, whatever that is, probably requires some level of excellence.

Jonathan Goodman: Which means they’re going to have to accept the fact that they can just be good, okay, or mediocre at just about everything else. Right. That’s just the reality. There’s not enough time, and there’s too much competition and too much information out there.

Mike Matthews: And I think there’s something to be said for being—though it can be hard—objective about how I’m progressing here. What does excellence truly look like in whatever realm of activity we’re talking about? This can be objectively analyzed, even if it’s something like writing. So, what is excellence?

Jonathan Goodman: Writing excellence? How would you define that?

Mike Matthews: Well, I mean, some of it is probably personal taste. But you can start with people who are generally considered the best to ever have done it. They’re probably excellent. You think about biographies, right? Walter Isaacson, I would say, is an excellent biographer.

Mike Matthews: Ron Chernow is even above him in my eyes. [01:19:00] But I don’t know anyone who would argue that he’s not an excellent biographer.

Jonathan Goodman: But would they have recognized that as they were writing the biographies, particularly the earlier ones, that they had an opportunity to be excellent?

Mike Matthews: Maybe, maybe not. But now they’re excellent. For us, though, when we’re looking at what excellence looks like now—that’s world-class. But we can go down a few rungs from them and still be on the spectrum of excellence, right?

Mike Matthews: If it’s going to require becoming excellent at something for this to support us for the rest of our lives—financially and otherwise—we’ll have to get at least mildly excellent at some point. What does that look like? How long have I been working on this? How close am I to excellent?

Mike Matthews: The reason—I’ll give an example. Actually, I’m not going to say who it is. I’m not going to give that example. I’ll leave that idea.

Jonathan Goodman: Lisa S.—no, that’s too obvious—Simpson?

Mike Matthews: I’ll keep it more generalized. I’ve seen this a number of times. I’ve known people who’ve come up with ideas about what they want to become or do. They want to do a certain type of work or become excellent at something.

Mike Matthews: They’ve been working at it for some time. This happens to also be something I’m fairly good at, where I truly know what excellence looks like. Objectively speaking, they’re so bad at it, they don’t realize it. They’ve read the books and spent the time doing it, but the results just aren’t there.

Jonathan Goodman: My best advice, if they were to ask, would be to quit doing that thing. Not to give up on everything, just quit that [01:21:00] thing. It’s not your thing, because it’s been two years now, and you don’t even have an odor of excellence. It’s just—

Jonathan Goodman: I give the example of someone I call Jessica in the book. She had 20,000-plus Instagram followers—enough people following her to fill Madison Square Garden. I don’t remember the exact number, but let’s call it 20,000. She messaged me, saying, “Hey, I need your help with my Instagram to get more clients for fitness.”

Jonathan Goodman: I asked her, “How many clients do you have?” She said, “I have six.” I said, “Okay, what do you think you need to do?” She replied, “I feel like I need a social media manager, better pictures, and more time.” That struck me as crazy. Here’s a person who was objectively good at Instagram—her content was fine—and despite all this, she had six clients. Her conversion rate was like 0.03%.

Jonathan Goodman: She was still firm in her conviction that the solution to her problem of building a business to feed her family was prettier pictures. It was so clear to me that it wasn’t just about Instagram—there was something else missing. But she was so deep into it, and everything she saw and the stories she told herself revolved around the idea that Instagram was how you get clients.

Jonathan Goodman: She thought, “All these other people are successful.” First of all, do you even know that? Is it your definition of success, not theirs? And are they even successful in the first place? Maybe they are, maybe they’re not. You’re telling yourself they are, but is that objectively true?

Jonathan Goodman: In that case, it’s like, how long have you done a good job with this? How much time, work, and effort have you put into this? How much of your all have you really put into this?

Mike Matthews: A question I like to ask in the context of business is, how many books have you read about it? If you’re saying you have these business problems or you want to be an entrepreneur—how many books have you read? If the answer is zero, there’s your answer.

Jonathan Goodman: How far down the rabbit hole have you gone? Is it still not working for you in any capacity? Do you not even have a hint or an idea of how this could be unlocked in a big way? Then maybe you should quit. But to get to that point—you talked about excellence, right? What does that mean? How do you pursue it? How do you perhaps get there? To me, it’s about designing your life and your business to point toward it.

Jonathan Goodman: I can give you an example from my own world. I have a podcast. It’s also called The Obvious Choice. [01:24:00] The sole purpose of the podcast is to workshop ideas for the book. I wanted to provide myself with external accountability to keep writing. So, I know I have to record my podcast every week and present what I’m writing to my two co-hosts.

Jonathan Goodman: It keeps me going, right? My two co-hosts live in my blind spots—they help make my work better. I’m from a middle-to-upper-class white Jewish family in Toronto, Canada. Amber is a single mom to a son far along the autism spectrum in a military family in South Carolina. Ren is the Black son of a preacher from North Carolina. They provide insights, opinions, metaphors, stories, and feedback in ways I wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

Jonathan Goodman: If anyone else listens to the podcast, wonderful. But I’m not measuring its success based on downloads or Spotify Wrapped stats. It simply points toward my writing—it points toward my one thing.

Jonathan Goodman: The businesses I run, like my mentorship program and my software platform, are both operated by someone else. I’ve given away a comically large amount of upside. I still own 100%, but they get so much of the upside. My business owner friends tell me I’m an idiot: “You should hire a CEO, pay them a salary.” But my goal is writing. [01:26:00] My goal is authorship.

Jonathan Goodman: You’ve got to give more if you want to get more. Where do I spend a lot of my time professionally? On what I call literary citizenship. I’m reading authors’ stuff, sharing it, emailing them, following them on Twitter, and meeting up when I travel. Everything points toward the one thing I want to become excellent at.

Jonathan Goodman: I’ve already received evidence that there’s opportunity here. I’ve sold big book deals, haven’t sold as many books as you, but I’ve sold a couple hundred thousand self-published books and built businesses off the back of the books. I’ve seen enough to know there’s something there, and it could be something much bigger.

Jonathan Goodman: I don’t know if it’ll happen with this book, the next, or the one after, but I know if I stick to this plan of pursuing excellence, it’ll happen. Maybe when I’m 70, but it will happen. And I’m fine with that—it wouldn’t happen if I tried to be a famous thought leader at the same time.

Jonathan Goodman: I hired Robert Greene’s video guy. Why? Because I admire Greene—he’s built massive online platforms in recent years, even though he’s not particularly eloquent or a marketer. I found out his guy peppers him with questions for a few days, gets the footage, and doesn’t bother him for months. I flew to Mexico, filmed for three days, and won’t see them for six months. That’s not the best way to build an audience, but it’s fine.

Jonathan Goodman: Seth Godin says it’s the author’s responsibility to sell the first 10,000 copies—it’s the book’s responsibility to sell the rest.

Mike Matthews: I agree with that. In a free market, we reward the exceptional. There’s hope in that for people wondering how to stand out in noisy markets. The best strategy is to achieve excellence. If you create something excellent, you can count on that to carry you to success. The more excellent you are, the less excellent your marketing needs to be.

Mike Matthews: Robert Greene is a great example. His books suggest he’s not much of a marketer, but he’s focused on producing excellent material. He’s gotten very good at that. But we’ve been going for a while, so we should probably wrap up. I know you’ve got to run.

Mike Matthews: Again, I appreciate the great discussion. The book is The Obvious Choice. By the time this episode is out, the book will be available, right?

Jonathan Goodman: Yep. The book is already available for preorder. But yes, by then it’ll be fully released. And it’s with Harper Collins.

Jonathan Goodman: It’s available anywhere you get books. It’s in audio, Kindle, and hardcover. What I’ve been saying to people is: buy the book, don’t even think about it. You’ve been listening to us for an hour and a half—buy the book. And if you don’t absolutely love the book, send me a message. I’m on Instagram, I’m on Twitter, I’m @iscoachGoodman. I’ll send you back 100% of your money.

Mike Matthews: And I’ll say, if you buy it as a Kindle ebook and you don’t like it—or if you buy any of [01:32:00] my ebooks and don’t like them—you can also just refund them right from the device. A lot of people don’t know that, but hey—

Jonathan Goodman: Make it hurt for me. Don’t even refund it—send me a message and make it hurt for me.

Mike Matthews: So it’s one of those 200% money-back guarantees?

Jonathan Goodman: 100% money-back guarantee, and you’ll inflict personal pain on me. That’s how confident I am.

Mike Matthews: And otherwise, where can people find you? Find your stuff?

Jonathan Goodman: Instagram, Twitter—

Mike Matthews: Where are you active? Where would you send people?

Jonathan Goodman: Yeah, I mean, I’ve got a podcast, if you like podcasts, called The Obvious Choice. But then, yeah, Instagram, Twitter.

Mike Matthews: Awesome. Thanks, John. Appreciate it.

Jonathan Goodman: You got it, man. Thanks, man.

Mike Matthews: We will conclude today’s episode shortly. But first, there are very few supplements that I would say everyone should be taking. Most supplements are, by definition, supplemental—not essential. An exception, however—a supplement that I do think everyone should at least [01:33:00] strongly consider taking—is creatine.

Mike Matthews: Now, you probably know that creatine is the most studied molecule in all of sports nutrition. Hundreds of studies confirm that it can safely boost muscle and strength gains, improve muscular endurance, and even reduce soreness from exercise, helping you recover faster. It can also help preserve lean mass and strength while you’re cutting calories, so you can improve your body composition maximally during a cut.

Mike Matthews: However, what you might not know is that there’s new research suggesting that creatine also supports various aspects of brain health. That’s why experts are now starting to think of creatine as less of a fitness supplement for meatheads and more of a must-have supplement for everyone—like vitamin D, vitamin K, or omega-3 fatty acids.

Mike Matthews: And all of that is why I just—and finally, I should have done this a long time ago; this was a mistake—but I just released a micronized creatine monohydrate supplement. My sports nutrition company, Legion, has just released this, and you can find it over at buylegion. [01:34:00] com/creatine. That’s buylegion.com/creatine.

Mike Matthews: In case you’re wondering why creatine monohydrate versus another, more exotic-sounding form like creatine citrate or creatine malate, it’s because creatine monohydrate is the most studied form. It’s the gold standard in the scientific literature for creatine’s effectiveness.

Mike Matthews: Contrary to what many marketers would have you believe, research has shown that many of these other “exotic” forms of creatine actually perform worse than creatine monohydrate. And in case you’re wondering about the micronized part—that simply means that the creatine molecules have been broken down into very small particles, up to 20 times smaller than regular creatine monohydrate crystals.

Mike Matthews: The primary benefit is solubility—it mixes in water better and can be easier on your stomach. Some people get an upset stomach from creatine, but they often don’t with micronized creatine. There are also claims about enhanced absorption with micronized creatine monohydrate—faster and more efficient uptake by muscle cells—but that’s mostly speculation. [01:35:00]

Mike Matthews: The bottom line is, creatine isn’t going to help you pack on brain-shrinking amounts of muscle in 30 days, nor will it add another plate or two to the bar. But it is going to help you train harder, recover better, and gain muscle and strength faster. And contrary to supplement fake news, it’s not bad for your kidneys, it doesn’t cause hair loss in men, and it won’t make you bloated.

Mike Matthews: So, if you want to see for yourself, head over to buylegion.com/creatine—that’s buylegion.com/creatine. Pick up a bottle, take 5 grams a day if you’re mostly after the performance and body composition benefits, and take 10 grams per day if you want to also maximally benefit your brain health and cognition. That’s the amount research suggests is optimal for body composition, physical performance, and mental health.

Mike Matthews: See how it goes.

Mike Matthews: I hope you liked this episode and found it helpful. If you did, subscribe to the show—it ensures you don’t miss new episodes and helps me because it increases the rankings of the [01:37:00] show, making it easier for others to find. If you didn’t like something about this episode or the show in general, or if you have ideas, suggestions, or feedback, email me: [email protected].

Mike Matthews: I read everything myself and am always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. Thanks again for listening, and I hope to hear from you soon.