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It has really dawned on me how much you have to grow as a person to prevent success from ruining your life.
Yes, success can ruin your life.
Every step forward comes with more responsibility, bigger challenges, higher stakes, and smaller margins for error, and if you’re not up to the challenge, you fall on your face.
And eventually, if we keep raising the bar, we reach that ceiling and find ourselves facing a crisis.
This is a generalized version of the Peter principle, which states that we tend to rise to the level of our incompetence.
That is, we keep doing whatever has worked until the tasks become so great that it fails (and sometimes spectacularly), and then wonder what the hell happened.
I think that applies to more than just work, too. I think it applies to our approach living life on the whole.
We can sacrifice everything on the altar of productivity and achieve tremendous financial success, but can all that money fix battered health, shattered relationships, and frazzled nerves? Can it fill the void that opens when you start asking “is this it?”
I should know, because I’ve recently felt this shadow looming.
And when I stepped back and zoomed out, I realized that what has gotten me this far wasn’t going to get me to where I want to be, not just as a businessman but as an individual, husband, father, friend, community member, and human being.
I had to admit that I had reached my level of incompetence, and that my decisions, values, and behaviors weren’t going to create the future that I really wanted.
Moments like these are tough at first–when you get radically honest with yourself and “face your dragons”–but they’re the only way to make the sweeping, lasting changes necessary to rise to the next level.
For me, it boiled down to two things:
Reconnecting with my purposes.
I didn’t get into this game with visions of “building an empire” or getting rich or famous. I just wanted to help people with what I knew and make new friends and connections.
I feel like I’ve fallen away from that in the last year or so, as more and more of my time has been tied up in organizational and marketing activities.
This has drained me spiritually, so to speak, and I needed to get other people to do that work so I could get back to my big whys.
Remembering that I have to create my life outside of work as well.
I love working.
It satisfies me in a way that nothing else does, and that has gone a long way to help me and my team do what we’ve done.
There was a problem, though: I was losing my ability to enjoy anything BUT work.
If I wasn’t working, I was thinking about work, essentially biding my time until I could get back work.
That’s not healthy. That’s not how I want to live.
Yes, I want to work hard. I enjoy putting my nose to the grindstone and getting shit done. I also want to enjoy the other things in life that matter, too.
You know, exercise, family, friends, community, and so on.
The only way I’m going to get there, though, is to PARTICIPATE in those other areas of life just as creatively and vigorously as I’ve participated in my work.
I truly believe that you can only get as much pleasure out of life as you can be interested and active in it. Waiting for people, money, or things to “make you happy” never works
What’s your take? Have you had a similar experience of “radical honesty” that helped you make your own personal breakthrough? Let me know in the comments below!
Legion Featured Author
Mike Matthews
Mike Matthews is the founder of Legion as well as the author of several award-winning fitness books, including Bigger Leaner Stronger, Muscle for Life, and The Shredded Chef.
His simple and science-based approach to building muscle, losing fat, and getting healthy has sold over a million books and helped thousands of people build their best bodies ever, and his work has been featured in many popular outlets including Esquire, Men’s Health, Elle, Women’s Health, Muscle & Strength, and more, as well as on FOX and ABC.
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We just . . . wait for it . . . give you your money back. No returns. No forms. No nonsense. Holy moo cows.
That means you can say “yes” now and decide later. You really have nothing to lose.
Free Worldwide Shipping & Returns
Many companies use shipping and handling fees to increase their profit margins, but here at Legion, we hate profits, so our shipping is free!
Okay, so we do dig on profits, but we also go in for happy customers, and free shipping works like gangbusters. So, if you live in the UK or Canada, your order ships free when it’s over $99.
Why the restriction on international orders? Unfortunately, shipping abroad is very expensive, and if we didn’t require a minimum order size, we’d lose a lot of money. But! We're also hustling to improve our international logistics and will be passing our savings along to our international customers.
Also, if you don’t absolutely love our stuff for whatever reason, we don’t request you deliver it to a PO box in the Gobi Desert by carrier pigeon.
We just . . . wait for it . . . give you your money back. No returns. No forms. No nonsense. Holy moo cows.
That means you can say “yes” now and decide later. You really have nothing to lose.
Free Worldwide Shipping & Returns
Many companies use shipping and handling fees to increase their profit margins, but here at Legion, we hate profits, so our shipping is free!
Okay, so we do dig on profits, but we also go in for happy customers, and free shipping works like gangbusters. So, if you’re outside the USA, your order ships free when it’s over $199.
Why the restriction on international orders? Unfortunately, shipping abroad is very expensive, and if we didn’t require a minimum order size, we’d lose a lot of money. But! We're also hustling to improve our international logistics and will be passing our savings along to our international customers.
Also, if you don’t absolutely love our stuff for whatever reason, we don’t request you deliver it to a PO box in the Gobi Desert by carrier pigeon.
We just . . . wait for it . . . give you your money back. No returns. No forms. No nonsense. Holy moo cows.
That means you can say “yes” now and decide later. You really have nothing to lose.
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That’s why we test every ingredient of every supplement we produce for heavy metals, microbes, allergens, and other contaminants and ensure they meet the strict purity standards set by the FDA.
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No Chemical Junk
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That’s why all of our ingredients in all of our products come from plant and animal sources, including sweeteners, colors, and flavors.
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In consideration of the services and/or products offered by Legion Athletics, Inc. (“Legion”) including, but not limited to, nutrition plans, exercise routines and coaching, and in addition to the payment of any fee or charge:
I knowingly and voluntarily enter into this waiver and release of liability and hereby waive any and all rights, claims or causes of action of any kind whatsoever arising out of my use of Legion’s services and/or products, and I hereby release and hold harmless Legion and its consultants, officers, contractors, agents, owners and employees from any and all responsibility, liability, cost and expenses, including for injuries, damages or disorders (physical, metabolic, or otherwise), resulting from my use of Legion’s services and/or products.
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Some popular pre-workouts are all-natural. Some contain the right mix of high-quality ingredients. Some provide clinically effective doses. But only Pulse checks each of these boxes.
Pulse doesn’t just “contain natural ingredients''—every ingredient is naturally sourced from plants and animals. Pulse contains no artificial or synthetic substances of any kind.
Every serving of Pulse contains 15.1 grams of active ingredients that have been shown to be safe and effective in peer-reviewed scientific research.
Every active ingredient in Pulse is backed by published scientific studies that show benefits in healthy humans.
Pulse contains no harsh stimulants that wind you up and burn you out. Instead, it contains a 1:1 ratio of caffeine and L-theanine, which produces a smooth energy rush and comfortable comedown.
We carefully examined 508 pages of scientific research to find out exactly what should and shouldn’t be in a pre-workout supplement.
Every bottle of Pulse is guaranteed to provide exactly what the label claims and nothing else—no heavy metals, microbes, allergens, or other contaminants.
While these types of chemicals may not be as dangerous as some people claim, studies suggest that regular consumption of them may indeed be harmful to our health. And that’s why we don’t put any of them into our products.
Before you buy a sports supplement, you should know that it's clean, safe, and transparent. And that's exactly what Labdoor's third-party testing and certification means.
It's hard to know for sure, but this probably makes Pulse the most-popular all-natural pre-workout supplement in the world.
If you don’t absolutely love this product, just let us know, and we’ll give you a full refund on the spot. No forms or return necessary.
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Analyzed for purity and potency in a state-of-the-art ISO 17025 accredited lab by Labdoor™, the gold standard of third-party lab testing.
Analyzed for purity and potency in a state-of-the-art ISO 17025 accredited lab, the gold standard of third-party lab testing.
This product doesn’t just “contain natural ingredients”—every ingredient is naturally sourced from plants and animals. This product contains no artificial or synthetic sweeteners or flavors of any kind.
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This allows them to not only review individual studies but also analyze the overall weight of the evidence on any and all topics related to diet, exercise, supplementation, and more.
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