Happy 5-Reps Friday!
Here's what's new this week.
Obvious Choice Podcast Episodes:
*If you only listen to one, make it this one.
As I age, I've come to appreciate that the body needs to be pushed. And then the body needs to rest.
The problem's granting permission to rest. I suck at that. Maybe you do too.
I read a book about 15 years ago called The Power of Full Engagement. It said that we need to periodize our mental efforts the same as our physical ones.
That lesson's stuck with me.
--
Push beyond your limit, recover, push harder the next time.
I don't know about you, but that recover part is the hardest for me.
I'm having too much fun. I want to do it all.
I want to be everyone to everyone. To write the book. To grow the business. To be the fun Dad, the swole old man, the well-read intellectual reading a novel sipping a cold Toña beer under a bamboo hut on a banana plantation in Nicaragua.
It's all so wonderful. There's so much to do and explore and enjoy and be challenged with. Life's all so wonderful.
And that's what makes recovery so hard.
--
Last week I handed in the final chapter of the first draft of my upcoming book, The Obvious Choice, to my editor at HarperCollins.
For the past three weeks, Monday through Sunday, I've been up at 4:45am writing. Nothing else changed. I added early mornings without subtracting daytime or nighttime activities.
The business still grew, podcast got recorded, QuickCoach crushed, and my two boys got snuggled. It took everything out of me.
Once I submitted the final chapter, my body shut me down. Literally. On my back. In bed. I'd been running on fumes for weeks. Once done, there was nothing left.
So now, I'm resting.
There's no fitness or business advice this week. I didn't work out or do much work.
Or maybe this is advice. I'm not sure.
--
There was a period in 2011 where I trained 10-12 clients a day. Then I'd get home at 9:45pm and work on my website until 2am.
The next morning I'd wake up at 5:45am and do it all again.
That pace isn't sustainable. It wasn't back then and it isn't now. But it did teach me a valuable lesson:
"If you want to one day have what others don't, you must be willing to do, at one point, what others won't."
That little website I was working on in 2011 took four years to get going. But by 2015 had four million yearly readers.
Between 2011 and 2023 it helped me sell to over 200,000 customers.
Homeostatic set points are fascinating.
We get used to operating at a level. It becomes normal and easy to maintain. To rise to the next level doesn't take sustained small efforts like others lead you to believe. It takes very intense short bursts of intensity and then sustained small efforts.
I call this the Leap Frog Approach.
--
The final chapter in my next book is called Whales and Minnows. It's my guiding philosophy.
In business: Make it expensive, or free.
In life: Show up or don't. Do the thing or don't do the thing.
I guess what I'm saying is that if you want to achieve anything meaningful, get out of the middle.
You know what, I think I'll leave it at that. That's the email for this week. Hope you're awesome.
-Jon
P.S. One more than I have
1 Quote to Consider
"You have two lives, the second begins when you realize you have one." - Confucious
February Cohort Sold Out
Thanks for everybody who has joined the Online Trainer Mentorship.
I'm happy to announce that we're full for the month of February.
We cap registration because there's a lot of individualized support.
Just so you know, the price is increasing for our next cohort, which begins March 4th.
If you're interested in learning more, please apply now. Applications received before February 5th will still qualify for the lower pricing.
-Jon
Coach. Author. World explorer. But mostly, Dad.
Free
Instagram: @itscoachgoodman
Podcast: The Obvious Choice
Software: QuickCoach
Paid
Book: Ignite the Fire
Course: Online Trainer Academy
Mentorship: Online Trainer Mentorship
