Ep. #941: Kyle Hunt on Writing, Reading the Right Books, Marketing, and More

Mike: Hello and welcome to muscle for life. I am Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today for something a little bit different than the usual. Today’s interview is with Kyle Hunt, but it’s not about fitness per se. It’s about writing, although we both write fitness stuff. So I guess it is indirectly about fitness still, but mostly about writing business, marketing.

reading, both choosing books to read and reading efficiently and taking good notes. And in case you are not familiar with Kyle, he is a repeat guest on my podcast and buddy of mine. And he is the author of several books himself, including bodybuilding for women. for beginners and strength training for beginners.

And he’s also a competitive powerlifter and coach and fellow podcaster. He’s the host of the Absolute Strength Podcast, which I have been on several times. So if you are at least a little bit curious about what it takes to write a book, what the research and the editing process looks like, or if you just like to hear a couple of authors and entrepreneurs chat about business and marketing and writing and such things, I think you’re going to like today’s episode.

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Use the coupon code MUSCLE at checkout to save 20 percent or get 10 percent cash back and try Fortify risk free and see what you think. Hey, Kyle. Welcome back to my podcast, man. What’s going on, man? This is awesome. Yeah. I’m in a, I’m in a new house. It’s not mine, but that’s the, for people wondering how the, why the background has changed.

Yeah. So I’m out of, I’m out of my farmhouse into a rental construction is underway. So I guess it’s probably going to be a year and a half, unfortunately. Yeah. 

Kyle: Cause I think last time. You were on my podcast and what you were talking about how you were it was a temporary living situation. 

Mike: Yeah from one temporary to this temporary.

So we’ll see if the world is still here by the time I’m supposed to Move into the permanent that’s what I’m hoping. 

Yeah. 

Kyle: I saw your book at the store the other day So it was awesome. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah, it’s it’s exciting to have that Out and about and, doing a bunch of publicity stuff for it.

And I’m going to be putting together some advertising and just marketing initiatives on my end. Like now I have enough books, for example, and programs that I think it makes sense to have a simple quiz that people can take. So people will ask me what should I do? Should I do bigger, leaner, stronger, or beyond really stronger or muscle for life?

Or and so I have that coming together and then, Some other just simple marketing things I can do. Once I have that, it’ll be easier to work that into all of my ecosystem, so to speak, and allow people then to be able to easily understand which book they should get and which program they should follow.

And why? But it’s good to have it done. I’m already on to the next. But that’s because I like to do that stuff. Yeah, I know how that goes. You finish up one and 

Kyle: then you’re like. Immediately writing the next one. 

Mike: Yep. Yep. Yeah, I already have. I’m probably like you. It’s a, it’s actually a matter of what is, okay, out of the five things, I think all of these projects make sense.

Yep. Which one am I going to work on next and why? 

Kyle: Yeah, it’s almost You have a bunch of options and then you’re just going to decide on one. It’s how I have it where it’s it’s almost like with reading books too, like I love reading so much that I have when I finished one it’s okay, I have all these options.

Which one am I going to start next? It’s the same thing with writing. It’s okay, I have all these ideas. I think all of these would work. Which one am I going to pursue next? 

Mike: How do you got variations 

Kyle: on the other books? And just, it’s a lot. Yeah. 

Mike: Yeah. And I’ve done a lot of that. I have for people listening, anybody who has read bigger, leaner, stronger, thinner, stronger, you might be excited to hear that.

I have new fourth editions of those books coming out. Although all of my work is done. We’re just because those are self published and I am keeping them self published. So we’re just working through the The mechanics of getting the final files ready to go to the printer and go to Amazon and the other platforms and so forth.

But both of them will be up by the middle of the year, bigger, leaner, stronger is going to be up first. And I’m also going to be updating the workout journals that go with those. They’re just called the year one challenge for men and women. And it’s just a year of training as if I were giving people a.

I even talk about in the book that one size fits all doesn’t necessarily work, but here’s a good foundation to start from. And then you can modify it based on what you’ve learned. But a lot of people find that they don’t need to modify it. Unless there’s just a piece of equipment that’s not available or whatever, because I’m not asking them to do anything unconventional really.

So anyways, I’m excited about that too, just because I hope that I will not feel like I have to touch those books again for some time. I think that, yeah where they’re going to be now is it’s going to be hard. It certainly can be improved upon anything can, but I will. I will, I wouldn’t put a lot of money behind this, but I think there’s a fair chance that these will stand for at least the next 4 or 5 years before I have enough grist, so to speak, to warrant another overhaul.

Kyle: Yeah if you compare what’s the 4th edition to the 1st edition, would it do quadruple in size, probably? 

Mike: Almost over double. So the first was probably 000 words. And I’m a much better writer and I think a better thinker now than I was then. And also, then I didn’t know that was where I started.

So I had no following of any kind. I didn’t know anybody in the fitness industry. I was just a dude who was in shape, who said he knew some things and could explain some things. And talk about some research and so forth. And so I put what I thought was an appropriate amount of time and work into it, but I didn’t do 32 drafts of the manuscript.

It just wouldn’t have made sense to do that. And so yeah, I went from 50 words, very minimum viable products, so to speak, to the fourth is probably 130, 000 or so. And I think that’s one of the big improvements I’ve made and In this fourth versus third, I’ve reorganized things, which I think make it even more user friendly, especially for people who just want to get into action as soon as possible.

But then also just based on a lot of feedback that I continue to get and also just my own my own perspective, I have, I think, taken out stuff that it might be interesting and it might be helpful, but it’s not it’s not crucial. And then I’ve been able to put. Stuff in its place that I think is more important again, based on actual questions that people ask me, a lot of people read these books and reach out to me and they have questions.

And that’s a great way for me to learn how to make the books better. Because as it doesn’t matter how clever we think we are. You just never can think of everything. There’s just too much. There’s too much going on. 

Kyle: Yeah, there’s just too many layers to it. So it’s like you, you think when you have the final product okay, this is going to answer all the questions.

This is plug and play. Then the first person that reads it, sends you an email. I’m like, Hey, what about, and you’re like, 

Mike: how did I not think of that? Where it’s totally on you. You’re not, it’s not like they’re asking some silly question. It’s a good question. And you’re like, I don’t know how I do, X number of drafts of this and then three different editors go through it and appropriate, like, 

Kyle: how did I get through all these editors?

Not one person brought that up, which is actually when my first book, bodybuilding for beginners, one of the actually valuable things I got from it was the editors didn’t have a fitness background. So they actually did present a lot of questions. You’re like, Hey, I don’t work out like I know this probably seems pretty obvious to someone who works out, people who.

Don’t work out. We’ll probably read this. Can you clarify that? I’m like, oh, that’s actually a great point, because in our heads, it’s oh, this is super easy to comprehend. And then someone who doesn’t have a large fitness background reads it and oh, this doesn’t make any sense to me present it.

And you’re okay. This is great. 

Mike: Yeah, that’s something that I enjoyed working with the people I worked with. They also go. They’ve done some fitness things, but they were not fitness people. And so that helped me make sure that I understood who I was writing to, because I really was writing to these people.

They were perfect examples of the archetypes or the avatars of the people I was writing to. How do you choose books to read? Do you just jump into whatever or your system at 

Kyle: usually? So it’s I have 

Mike: a kind of autistic system that I use. That was, 

Kyle: I’ll be interested to hear your system.

So for me, it’s, I always have a list that’s on hand. It’s okay, here’s my list that I’m going, I want to read. And then it’s really like random. So if there’s a specific topic, a lot of times I read based off from topics. So it’d be like, I’ll be. deep into something and then it’ll just almost answer because it’ll be like the next in line, like the next level of the topic I’m reading.

So a lot of times it’s that, or sometimes if I just get recommended a book from someone who I respect, let’s say at the end of this podcast, you’re like, Hey, I just read this book. It’s awesome. I’ll probably check it out. Yeah, it’s a lot of times that happens to I’ll get recommended a book from someone who I respect their opinion and then I’ll, read the first chapter or something like, okay this is my next book.

Mike: I have a book recommendation for you. If you want, it’s a business book recommendation. One of the better business books, very tactical business growth and it is I’m like two thirds of the way through it. It has this kind of a silly name. So you wouldn’t, the title would not get you. Let me pull it up.

It’s by J Abraham. I am. Getting everything you can out of all you’ve got, which it’s ironic that somebody who has a great mind for building businesses for marketing would choose a title like that. Yeah, I know it doesn’t seem like it’s, it does nothing for you but. It’s quite good.

It’s, it has a lot of very practical, very tactical and just real world, easy to implement. Let’s say straightforward to implement advice that can help you in growing your business. If you haven’t done each chapter, he talks about one kind of key initiative. And they are all things so far that I’m doing in Legion to some degree.

In some cases, I’m doing it better than in others. I’m liking it. Yeah. Are you a 

Kyle: like a e book guy or do you like the art? 

Mike: I like hard copies, but it’s just so convenient to read on my phone. So I use the Kindle app and then I also like Amazon’s little their whole little system because, so I can make my highlights.

I can make my notes. In, let’s say on my phone, which is convenient because I’m not, sure. Sometimes I’ll dick around a little bit. I’ll check my email. Or if I want to see how something is doing on social media, maybe I’ll check that. But I’m pretty good. I’m not that interested in just Playing around with things on my phone, so if I’m sitting there reading the vast majority of that time is just going to be reading and I also like that.

I can take small pockets of time. So even if I just have 5 or 10 minutes, so I like to take a chunk of time in the beginning of the day and then sometimes a chunk of time at night. But sometimes I just spend time with my wife instead so I have my chunk in the beginning, and then if I just have little pockets of time throughout the day, even if it’s just five or ten minutes, even if it’s just to take a break from, I was just in something for an hour, two hours or whatever, and I just want to just not stare at the computer screen, even though it’s to the phone, but it’s still I can Step out of the office 5 minutes and get in more reading.

And then also you can pair it with audio books if people want to do that as well. So then if you go out for a walk, you can continue. So it’s just so convenient. I’m not too particular with my schedule on this. I just get in some time. I just make sure to do it semi regularly, which is I’ll then go onto my computer and Amazon.

What do they call it? Your Kindle notebook or something like that shows all of your highlights and notes. And so I’ll pull out all of my highlights and notes from the books that I’ve read. And I keep all this in a spreadsheet just to organize it all. And I’ll put it all into a single Google doc.

So a book like this, it’ll be the title highlights and notes. That’ll be the title of the Google doc. I’ll dump all of my. Highlights and notes in there and I separate them into just highlights and then I take my favorites and put those into a kind of a key takeaways at the top of the dock. So then if I ever want to go back and review a book that is not necessarily worth rereading.

This it just makes it fast and easy and then I can take that content and repurpose it into this little book club series that I’m behind on. I haven’t given it time recently. I was pretty good about doing 1 or 2 a month. I continue to read. It’s just the extra time of getting all my notes, getting my thoughts together.

What are my 5? I usually pick my 5 favorite takeaways from the book and share some of my own thoughts to try to make it a little bit more interesting than just here are five things in the book, whatever. But I like doing that. That kind of work. It’s just I’ve had so many other things. I’ve prioritizing other things, but that’s why I read digitally.

I sometimes want to read books that are only available. As a hard copy, like the last one was is it six thinking hats? Is that the number of thinking hats by Debono, which I also really I think it’s six, and that wasn’t available as a Kindle ebook. So I read the paperback and it’s just a little bit of added time because to get there.

Yeah I don’t type all of the highlights out. What I do is I take pictures with my phone and dump them into Google Keep which you can just have the Google Keep app open. Evernote might have the same functionality but then you can grab I think the acronym is OCR. It’s probably the CR is probably character recognition.

I don’t remember what the, Oh, online, I don’t know. Pull it up while I’m talking, but regardless, you can pull the, you can just grab the text from the image. So it’s just a little bit faster. So I can just take a picture, keep take the pictures and then just grab the text and. Adds time, but that’s how I go about reading and then processing what I’ve read.

And I even take a little bit further where I then dump key takeaways into Evernote. And I have a grist kind of a swipe. I just call it a grist file. And I have a bunch of tags in Evernote, like a lot of different topics basically. And so whenever I come across stuff, I like eventually it finds its way into Evernote and tagged.

So then if I’m writing and I’m like, All right. What do I have on courage? Let me go look. And then I have a bunch of stuff that I’ve pulled from all kinds of places all over the years. And that helps with, if you’re writing an essay and you’re going to follow the classic okay, here’s my theory, here’s the reason.

Here’s an example. Here’s a summation of the theory or some variation of that. The examples are always then at hand. And then also I think it’s good for stimulating your own thinking too. It’s, there’s nothing wrong with, if you steal from a bunch of sources, that’s research.

If you steal from one source is plagiarizing, right? And so there’s nothing wrong with taking other people’s ideas and making them your own, adding to them, changing to them, changing them, combining things. That’s writing. That’s what I thought, right? 100%. Yeah. It’s just some people. Cool. They might not want to admit that because it takes a little bit of the mystique out of the experience of the reader who might think that this person is just so brilliant.

They just sit there and have brilliant thoughts all day. And that’s it. No it’s a lot. More just making sausage than it is like alchemy. There is a bit of that and particularly with, you have, yes, geniuses who I think of a guy like, there are so many, but CS Lewis. He was a genius.

And did he do what we’re talking about? Yeah, of course he did. Of course he was I’m sure he read thousands of books and he had all kinds of ideas that stimulated his own thinking, but he also brought a very unique perspective, a very unique voice a very unique oratory that only the most elevated among us could ever reach that level.

You know what I mean? And whether we can or not, I don’t know, but We can at least be in the sausage factory. Yep, exactly 

Kyle: know about the reading thing, though, with having it on your phone, I feel like that is saved me social media time because, like you said, if I’m like sitting down just to have my lunch normally, I’ll just sit down by myself to have lunch, what I would sit down and open up Instagram or just scroll and waste the time.

But when I have a book that I’m reading on my phone, I’ll sit down to eat my salads ago. I’ll just read here for five minutes. 

Mike: Yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah, that’s a great point. And what I also, I put some time every day into so do you know, Anki, the app? I don’t know. No, I don’t 

Kyle: think so.

Mike: A N K I. And it’s an SRS app. Flashcards, space repetition system. So for anybody listening, I won’t go off on a tangent on it. Check it out. If you do any sort of flashcards, it is the way to do it. It’s based on research on how our memory works and how likely we are to remember or forget things depending on how ingrained they are.

And it’s a much more systematic way to get things into Your long term memory as opposed to traditional flash carding. And so what I do is I in my reading when I come across words that I like, so I’m in the dictionary a lot. I like to check words, understand words. I I take a screenshot of the word and the definition of the word and put it into Google keep.

So Google keep is my, if anybody has read getting things done, that’s my it’s not tickler. What is, I forget the term for it, but that’s my Just dumpster that gets processed. I put all kinds of stuff in there. If I need to order more espresso beans, order coffee, goes in there, whatever, just, I don’t try to remember anything.

Things either go on my calendar or in Google keep. And then I process my Google keep a few times per week. And so when I come across a word that I like, what I take a screenshot, put it in Google, keep and then when I’m processing my Google, keep I do the character recognition and I put that word into a spreadsheet that has tabs for.

There’s an export tab for exporting into Anki and then there’s a tab for. Funny kind of cutesy stuff that I like to go to, and I’m writing if I want to do that, and then I have nouns, modifiers, verbs prepositions, and then like idioms and phrases and stuff. And so from the spreadsheet, I can then load those into Anki and I can do flashcards.

And so I’m building my vocabulary, but I’m building it in a personalized way. I found that to be more rewarding than just doing random vocabulary, building apps or websites or games or whatever, because these are words that I actually like. And it helps me in my writing to sure. I have them all in a spreadsheet, but it’s one thing to just dump them in a spreadsheet.

And it’s another thing to do what I’m doing because. I, even though let’s say I’m writing and I have a concept that I want to communicate, I might not remember exactly the perfect term that I have in my spreadsheet, but a lot of times I’ll remember there’s something I was like, Oh yeah, there’s something that’s good along these lines.

Sometimes it will just come to me because I do the flashcards, but other times it’s just enough to remind me that there’s something in there. And then I go and find it. For my little random, like I do those flashcards in the gym, that’s what I do. When I’m resting in between sets, I work out by myself and if I’m, if there’s somebody that I know there, I’m not going to say okay, just keep it to yourself.

I’m doing my flashcards. Yeah, I’ll let you know when my flashcards are done. Then you can speak to me. But most of the time, it’s just like somebody. Oh, hey, what’s up? Yeah, whatever. And I’m doing my flashcards. And then if those are not done by the time I get home. Then I’ll take those little okay, if I’m, when we’re done here, yeah, I’m going to go, I’m actually going to eat a salad and I will either just work on my flashcards because I don’t like to save them until the end of the night when I’m like half out of it, hopefully, hopefully getting sleeping, ready to go to bed and cause then I’m just rushing through it. And it’s just it’s more productive if I do it when I’m. Fully conscious and so I like to take those little bits of time to, to get through the flashcards. And then when that’s done it’s opening up a book.

Kyle: So I like to read in the morning and then right before bed. And I found, so I have a game. I play with myself right before bed. Every night I’ll read and in my head, I’m like, okay, my goal is to read as much as I possibly can. So I’ll fight it. Like I, when I’m getting tired, like dozing off, I’ll keep reading to fight it.

And then I’ll wait right till the last minute. Like literally I can’t even remember what I’m reading. I’m that tired. Then I’ll put it away and close my eyes and go to bed. And it’s that’s like my secret to falling asleep. Cause I’ve always had trouble like winding down at nighttime and the sleep, the reading the book before sleep trick.

It’s always, it’s like the best thing I found. 

Mike: That’s great. I wish that were the case. It doesn’t work for me at all. No, it stimulates me and it keeps me awake. Oh, 

Kyle: yeah. So I just have to 

Mike: stop. Again I will eventually get sleepy off sound. It’s not like I’m it’s not like it’s math or something but it doesn’t help me go to sleep.

That’s for sure. It makes it harder to get sleepy enough. And these days for, it’s probably just related to general stress, even though I don’t feel like stressed out per se, maybe a whole podcast, I could explain why but I’m a light sleeper. My sleep is touching go. Sometimes it’s fine.

Sometimes it’s not. It’s hard to say why. I think I know generally why, but I don’t have a great explanation why for a few days. I’m like, man, I’m just feeling good. Sleep good. Then a few days it’s back, but so I just try to avoid anything. Once after about 9 p. m. Is like I don’t watch TV.

I try not to, I can read. That’s not so stimulating TV. I’ve had that be a problem. It’s just too stimulating. And I consistently will sleep worse if I try to relax or wind down with even stupid shit. Like my wife, neither night. We’re watching this Anna show on I haven’t watched it yet, but I’ve heard people talk about it.

Was enough like where I just wasn’t getting sleepy if I’m going to sleep. It’s there’s a fair chance that it’s going to first start with me being sleepy when I go to bed. And so anyway I try to just not do much of anything for at least 30 or 45 minutes. And before going to bed and what’s this, what’s the Roman sleep God, was it Morpheus hope that hope that Morpheus bless blesses me.

Kyle: I yeah, that used to be my method and it didn’t work. I would just end up just not sleeping. So then I’m like, let me try just reading and not. And then at first I would read, but it would still be with the idea that, okay, I’m just reading until. I fall asleep and it would never work either. Probably the same thing.

What you’re saying is we’re just like, I don’t know, just wind me up more, but now I think, cause I go into it with the mindset no, I’m, I want to shit. If I read all night, I’ll just read all night. I’m just going to read until I fall asleep. If I’m up at 3 a. m., I’ll keep reading.

Mike: Will you read, do you read one book at a time? Or do you have one book that like maybe it’s a fiction book that you just, you don’t care whether you remember a single So that’s 

Kyle: what it is. See, that’s the key. I’ll always read something that I don’t care if I remember. So usually That’s what I’ve 

Mike: never done.

It’s always been like, I’m reading this J. Abraham book. I wouldn’t read 

Kyle: that before bed. Like it won’t be a book that it’s, usually it’s I’ll read two books at a time, one section, one nonfiction, the fiction one, like whatever, if I don’t remember, I’ll pick up tomorrow night. 

Mike: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

That makes sense. That makes sense. That’s something I’ve thought about. Yeah, 

Kyle: that’s the key. I should’ve mentioned that. 

Mike: Yeah. I’m 

Kyle: be able to take your notes if you’re falling asleep. 

Mike: Yeah, exactly. That’s what happens though. When I’m, so I read on A rotation of genres. I have a personal and then I have a business and I flip between them read one or two books in each genre.

And those are chosen based on the personal. It’s my purse. It’s just my interests. Also, from a self development standpoint, like where I’m at in my life and what I think is going to serve me to. Get better basically. And that has changed as I’ve gotten older and circumstances have changed. And then the business side of things, it’s very practical.

It’s like marketing work slash what is it? Work slash business slash success leadership sales slash persuasion, and maybe one or two others. And so the reason why I’m reading those books is not only retention, but I want ideas. If I. Read an entire book related to business and I don’t, I wouldn’t get through it actually, if I’ve read 100 pages and I have no ideas of what I can do with this, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna finish it, but I’ve avoided that by this is a good tip.

I think I’ve shared this before, but for people who haven’t heard it, they might find it interesting. I find it useful. So what I don’t like is probably like you. So I keep all of my lists, my to be reds on Amazon. And then I actually export them like once every six months, just in case Amazon, I don’t know, deletes me one day or something.

I don’t want to lose all of my books that I would like to check out and say the wrong thing on the podcast. And and So what I’ll do is I will look for book summaries first of whatever I think I’m having deja vu. I think I’ve already shared this on your podcast. I won’t go into too much more on it, but I just, I read book summaries first and I’ve found pretty consistently that if I don’t like the summary, if I, if there’s nothing in the summary that was interesting to me, I made no highlights or if it was all derivative of other stuff that I’ve already read.

Okay. And then I will not like the book and I’ve tried it a couple of times just to confirm my theory where I’m like ready to quit the book after 50 pages because it’s not for me. Not what I need. Not what I was looking for. And so now I trust that enough to where, yeah you might miss it. A little bit with that approach where I might decide not to read something that, that could actually be, or at least could be more valuable than my impression based on a summary, whatever.

At least this way I found now that I spend, I don’t quit. I haven’t quit a book in some time actually, because there’s been a pretty good correlation between that was a good summary. That’s how I found this J Abraham book. I had heard of it. But. The, I didn’t know much about him and the title.

It was just one of those books that sat on the TBR basically. But then I read the summary and I was like, Oh, this actually seems to be a lot better than I was giving it credit for. And now I’ll say it’s one of the better business books of its kind. That I’ve read in a while. Yeah. 

Kyle: Awesome. Yeah.

I got it on my 

Mike: list now. You got to let me know what you think. If I will. For sure. Hey there. If you are hearing this, you are still listening, which is awesome. Thank you. And if you are enjoying this podcast, or if you just like my podcast in general, and you are getting at least something out of it, would you mind sharing it with a friend?

Or a loved one, or a not so loved one even, who might want to learn something new. Word of Mouth helps really bigly in growing the show, so if you think of someone who might like this episode or another one, please do tell them about it. Awesome. I think this was this was a great discussion and why don’t we wrap up with where people can find you, find your work.

What are you working on specifically? Is there a book you want them to know about or anything else? 

Kyle: Yeah. You guys, if you’d like this conversation, you can check out my podcast. It’s called the absolute strength podcast. Mike’s been on it about three, four times now. It’s different concept, different topics, but it’s great.

Similar enough to where if you like one, you’re probably going to like the other 

Mike: true. Yeah, agreed. And then on the book front. 

Kyle: Yeah, so I have a couple projects I’m working on right now. So I have obviously the three books with the publisher, but I think I’m going to take a page out of your book and probably stick to self publishing.

For the foreseeable future, I did the publisher thing, which is cool. Get the book in more people’s hands. The self publishing route is probably what I’m going to go for the next couple of years. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. That we could do a whole podcast on that, but I think I think hybrid can make sense to go exclusively with a big publisher probably only makes sense if you’re getting paid a lot of money.

Yeah. And your book just sells and sells regardless of, I think of James Clear with atomic habits where the distribution really does help him. And he crushed that. It just, yeah, that’s, I’m a I was a little bit surprised. It’s the content of the book that did it, obviously.

And that’s always the case with books that sell really well. They’re always good books because word of mouth is really what drives book sales. But I remember when, so this is when he first released that book what was it? The power of habit was still popular, still selling. Charles Duhigg was like the guy, the habits guy.

And, James had built a bit of a brand for himself with his website, but. Outside of that he had an email list that was something. I don’t know if he had much going on in social media and I remember seeing the book title. I personally didn’t like it and it has done, I think it has done well, not despite the title.

I think I was just wrong. It just didn’t, from my marketing mind, it just didn’t resonate for me. The word atomic in particular. I understood what the double meaning and. And I just didn’t think it was all that clever. I didn’t get it either. It didn’t resonate. Like I didn’t plan on reading the book.

I was like, Oh, another habits book. And then atomic habits, that’s going to fail. And I couldn’t have been more wrong. That might be the number one bestselling book in the world. 

Kyle: Yeah. I think it was still like number one on Amazon last year, wasn’t 

Mike: it? Oh, it’s cool to see that, I just was surprised.

Have you met him on the podcast? 

Kyle: Yeah. 

Mike: I have some time ago and then I’ve reached out a couple of times and didn’t get a reply. 

Kyle: I think 

Mike: he’s a fan of your work. I think he’s, yeah, he’s had good things to say about bigger, leaner, stronger, and I didn’t take it personally. He’s I’m sure busy.

And also I don’t know him. But I got the impression that he’s a private guy and he has I think he likes to travel and likes to do photography. And so he likes to put time into other things. And so I would suspect that he’s very careful with how he uses his time and the book is doing, everything is going so well.

I can’t blame him for not wanting to come on my my podcast to talk about, what is it going to do? Sell another. 

Kyle: Yeah, 

Mike: probably 80 percent of the people listening. I’ve already read the book. You know what I mean? So I get it. How do you follow up that book? I thought about that and maybe you don’t.

Yeah. Charles Duhigg, he followed up with smarter, faster, better, I think which I didn’t, I wasn’t impressed by. Yeah. Yeah. It just didn’t do it for me. And despite, he put in the work, it just, I don’t know, I just finished it and was like, okay. And so in the case of James, that’s it’s also, it could be an interesting podcast.

Something I’ve been thinking about recently is just how important timing is, right? So you look at. How did it, how did a business succeed? How did a book succeed? How did a product or service six succeed? What are the driving factors? And you could think of things timing. You could think of the idea itself.

You could think of funding the team and maybe a couple of other factors. But I think timing is a lot of it. And you could argue that timing is part of idea that he A quote unquote, good idea at the wrong time is actually not a good idea. And I get that argument, but I think for the point I’m making it, it makes more sense to split those things out.

Meaning that the right book or the right business or the right product or service At the right time, if you can get that point, it’s to use a metaphor, I think it’s a good marketing metaphor, but to use a metaphor, it’s okay, you have a glass and you play a sound at a certain frequency in the glass vibrates.

If you get it at just the right frequency, the glass shatters. And that’s the difference of just the right idea at the right time. Less so I think it’s degrees. I don’t necessarily think it’s binary. And so in the case of atomic habits, he did a very good job in execution. He had been working on that material for years.

So it was very polished. And there’s a lot to be said for that. But. It was also very much the right book at the right time. And it was, I think, better than do eggs in, in ways that were very meaningful to the market for that book. And there are probably some timing things I don’t even know about regarding when he released it and why the marketplace was particularly ripe for that book.

And so if I were him and I was going to try to live up to that. Standard than before I spent any time drafting anything I would be looking for. What is that next idea? What that whose time has come that has not been served, let’s say to its full potential or served in the way that I think I could do it now.

Not that it has to be completely blue ocean, no competition whatsoever, because again, remember power of habit was like a mega bestselling multimillion cop multimillion copy bestseller as well. And Clear has completely flattened. That’s it. He owns that space now. So it can be done, again, I think it starts with finding that, that idea that can shatter the glass and knowing that if you bring your personality to it, you bring your perspective to it, your ability to it, you can do it in a way that is very unique.

I think exclusivity is a big thing that Plays into timing, doing something in a very different way and clear did that in for that space, that type of writing you can find in other spaces. But he says James clear is not a pseudonym. I don’t believe him. It has to be, it’s too good from a market perspective but his, he’s a very good and clear, Writer and clarity trumps persuasion always, even in copywriting, you have to be able to communicate clearly before you can add anything else to to, to the selling power of copy.

And anyway, rambling, but those are my thoughts about atomic habits and. Maybe where he might go from here. 

Kyle: Yeah trying to find the right timing is tough. I feel like a lot of times you stumble on it. I think about myself, and so when I started online coaching, I graduated high school in 2009.

That summer I started working at a gym, started personal training, and within a couple months, I pretty much figured out damn a lot of these people I’m sitting down and having consultations with like they don’t actually need me to personal train them in the gym like they need me to come up with a training program for them.

Probably help them out with their nutrition and then somehow hold them accountable. Like maybe that’s through email. And then I was in the bodybuilding world enough to know that bodybuilding coaches were doing something similar to that. I was like, okay why can’t I just do online training like bodybuilders do?

But for Just general strength training or body composition improvements. And I already had a blog at that point, I was writing articles. So I just stumbled onto online training in 2009, early 2010, just from doing in the gym, personal training. And I think the timing was really great because not a lot of people were doing it.

And then, snowballed. And I 

Mike: think that yes, you can stumble into it, but I do think that there, there also can be a method. There can be a strategy for sure. I’ve read. A few books that come to mind on creativity and some marketing books that I haven’t really synthesized the information into any sort of framework.

Here’s my, my, my timing, how to get there. Get to those ideas. It might be beneficial if I did it, honestly, because although at this point, I feel like I’m more now just an executor as opposed to a progenitor or a a vision or, now I just have these machines and they’re going well.

And I just do the things. And in some ways, no complaints, but There’s a bit of a, I miss a little bit of the time when I felt like I had the quote unquote luxury to just try things that made sense to me or that might work out. And then I, so I did that and then found things that worked.

And now I’m trapped, quote unquote, in the things that work. But regardless I would bet That either I think you’re right that there is a little bit of magic to it, and there’s a little bit of X factor and a little bit of Eureka that goes into it, but that’s probably no more than to my mind, 50%.

Maybe it might be even more like the 20 percent where you could actually instrumentalize the 80 percent of minimally. Getting close to the thing and taking cause again, you have these useful little creativity heuristics you can use for if people listening you check out the book thinker toys, it has a lot of cool little exercises and other creativity books have riffed on this kind of thing where you can just, if you just take the time to sit down and you just, Do these little exercises.

You can come up with interesting ideas, like this point of taking that’s marketing one on one, right? You take an idea that’s working in one space and you see an opportunity to apply it in another space. That’s an easy one where you’re just looking, Hey, what are other people doing?

And how can I do the opposite of that? Or how can I take one specific. Component of this and make it the entire thing, or how can I take something and magnify it? And so you go through these exercises. If you do it when you’re well rested and caffeinated then yeah, you can, you start generating ideas and a lot of the ideas are bad and that’s fine.

That’s how it works for all of us. But then there’s that, it’s like when you’re writing, you have your drafting mode and your editing mode. And so when you’re drafting, you just. You just, don’t judge too much. What just put things down and then you start to winnow them down.

And so I’ve gone through kind of informal processes like that in my marketing and in business, but I would suspect that it could actually be pretty formalized. And that’s not to say that you can just. Press the buttons and pull the levers and you have the next atomic habits, but let’s just say, I think it would increase the chances of hitting on something that could be a real bullseye.

Kyle: Yeah. I think having just throw in the ideas out there is probably having some type of. Strategy behind that is probably what’s important. 

Mike: Yep. And then that certainly, even if I’m right, my 80 20 assumption that 20 percent can make a big difference. Of course, where again, you just have some people who just really they had just have a talent for it could be.

It could be related to selling things, or it could be in a creative field. You have these artists who yes, there is the sausage process. We talked about earlier where they wouldn’t maybe want you to know. How mechanized it really is, but still, there’s just a, there’s something special they bring to it.

And the sum is more than just the or the whole is more than just like the sum of the parts. It’s when they put it all together, it just then has a magic to it, 

Kyle: yeah, 

Mike: there’s 

Kyle: definitely people who are capable of that. 

Mike: Anyway, I appreciate your time as usual. I like having these discussions.

Yeah, me too. I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don’t miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you and if you didn’t like something about this episode or about the show in general or if you have ideas or suggestions or just Feedback to share, shoot me an email, Mike at muscle for life.

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