Mondays with Matt

When Important Becomes Urgent: Faith, Family, Fitness Those things that are important but not urgent, such as family, health, and religion, can become urgent when unattended to (or minimally attended to) long enough. You find yourself bickering with your spouse or family more than normal, clothes unable to fit and feeling physically and mentally worse, and falling short of the standard your faith...

Extreme Gratitude Matt goes through and thanks many of the people that have helped bring him and Barbell Logic to the point it is today. Having just submitted the book to Forbes, about to go on vacation, and halfway through the year, Matt takes time to thank the people who matter to him. He recommends doing this if you have not. We want to appreciate the pursuit, not the outcome, and taking time t...

How to Write a Book: Tips & Tricks for the Process Matt has been writing a book for Forbes with Nick as the editor. This process has worked especially well, as it has allowed Matt to do what he does best: verbally process ideas and tell stories. Nick has been able to use his strength, of writing and editing to ensure not just correctness of grammar, syntax, and language but clarity of thought. As...

Transition to TurnKey Coach: In-Person to Online Anthony Diehl is a highly successful coach, who provides both strength & conditioning coaching as well as nutrition coaching for clients. As with most coaches, he began fully in-person and began to experiment with online coaching. Online coaching, however, comes with many frustrations and inefficiencies if done poorly. 2020 and the Covid lockdowns,...

The Flywheel Not the Funnel for Marketing Success Matt discusses two different analogies when it comes to marketing and acquiring clients. The traditional paradigm is the funnel. This idea is not wrong, but fails to emphasize certain aspects of successful marketing. Generally, you create a funnel to capture as many leads as you can, they build trust over time with you and eventually become clients...

Road Trip Analogy Matt shares an analogy he picked up from Niki Sims regarding how long-term goal achievement is like a road trip. Your destination is the desired end state. You envision where you want to go first. Before you set out or plan your route, you must know where you are going. You next decide on your route. Maybe you want to get there as quickly as possible, so you plan the shortest rou...

Introduction to Undoing Urgency Ryan Matt Reynolds reads the introduction to his forthcoming book Undoing Urgency, which will be available for pre-sale on Amazon in August 2024. Forbes is publishing this book. Nick Soleyn , Barbell Logic's editor-in-chief, has been critical to the writing and editing of this book, making Matt's ideas and thoughts more clear and beautiful on the written page. Undoi...

When to Hire Out: The Eisenhower Matrix The Eisenhower Matrix groups tasks into 4 categories: Not urgent and not important Urgent, not important Not urgent, important Urgent and important Urgency deals with a close due date. These tend to be someone else's priority (bills, taxes, work tasks, household chores). Important tasks are important to you. Tasks can overlap in terms of urgency and importan...

Take a Sabbath! Rest, Recharge, Refresh If you are like Matt, someone who works long days, enjoys work, and can tend to overdo work and grind yourself away, you need to take a day off. This does not necessarily mean you do nothing. If your job involves mental work, you might do some manual labor and turn off your phone. If you read, you might read fiction. If your job primarily involves manual lab...

Swing for the Fences! – Aggressively Pursue the Urgent & Important A single decision or event can change the course of your life. Regardless of life, philosophy, or religion, this is true. When presented with a big opportunity, you need to swing for the fences. Hyperfocus your life and efforts on this. This is when urgent and important overlap. This is when you put your sleep, family life, and oth...

Enjoy the Pursuit Not the Outcome We find joy in the pursuit of hard things. The process of doing hard things refines us, not the outcomes. Jasen Huang shares how he would not do it again if he could do it again. He did not know how hard it would be but often asks, "How hard can it be?" Andrew Schulz discusses with Joe Rogan how Joe enjoys hard things. You have to come to love the hardship and pur...

Uniquely Hard, Uniquely Successful If you set challenging goals, expect (and demand) hard efforts. Alex Hormozi said on the Modern Wisdom podcast , the following: When things get hard, this is where most people stop. And this is why they don't win. And hard feels shitty. This is what hard feels like. And this is why most people can't do it. People who succeed work hard. And, guess what, in those r...

Applying MED to Coaching Beyond Programming (Some Principles) Matt and Scott developed the principles of MED programming, which approached programming by keeping as many variables constant as possible. Change as little as possible. This does not mean easy. Simple and hard is wildly ineffective. The approach focuses on intelligent resource allocation. For example, if you can get stronger and add mu...

When Should I Leave My "Safe" Job? – There Is No Safe Job Totally safe, secure jobs do not exist. If you're an employee, whether it be at a small or big company, you could lose your job for countless reasons outside your control. If you work in the government, a shutdown or change in law could spell the end of your job. Furthermore, even if you have a job that has a lower chance of loss, what is i...

Online Coaching Success Story: Before Coaching Adam Skillin worked various jobs, including banking, but always knew he did not want to go down the typical 9-5 path. Adam lives and grew up in New Jersey. He worked in the banking industry and also did various jobs including bartending. More than once he picked a job that did not align with good macroeconomic timing. He became interested in BJJ and M...

Reliability Costs Nothing – Integrity over Time Andrew Jackson shared his value equation a couple years ago, which includes ability, integrity, and benevolence. Reliability is essentially integrity over time. Do you show up each time, on time, and do the thing you said you would do. This costs no money. It takes time and effort. It means you will show up when you're sick, tired, and for whatever r...

Defining Your Core Values: Brainstorming & Reflecting Matt discusses how to identify and list your core values. These should reflect your personality but also be aspirational. For example, for Matt, quite reflection would not be a core value. He verbally processes ideas, and he would be working against his natural tendencies. Rather, lean into your personality, though work on addressing your weakn...

When One Teach Two Learn: Importance of Teaching In order to become an expert coach, or to master any subject, you have to coach, or teach, when it matters. You may have found at some point that you had read or consumed a lot of material on a subject. When you tried to explain it to someone else, the apparent coherent thoughts were not there. Technique coaching in person is important to mastering...

Building EliteFTS – Before EliteFTS Both Dave's dad and grandfather were business owners, who inculcated and demonstrated the value of hard work. Dave helped his dad as a teenager, and his dad stressed the importance of quality products (which Dave has stressed with EliteFTS' equipment). As a teenager, Dave grew sick and tired of being "beat all the time," so he trained harder and worked harder an...

Chase Value not Status In a social media world, it can be easy to pursue status. In the world we inhabit, it can always be easy to chase money. Pursue something else. Chase value. Deliver value to your customers. When entrepreneurs talk about opportunities, unless they are discussing some loophole or morally questionable pursuits, they're talking about a clear area where a problem exists where bus...

Excuses that Derail Progress – Valuable Things are Hard We at Barbell Logic value voluntary hardship. Simple, hard, effective training brings you toward your goals. Voluntary hardship is refining, whereas involuntary hardship may or may not refine someone who experience the difficulty. As we grow and encounter growing challenges, common pitfalls or excuses arise, where people can sabotage themselv...

Job or Business – Should I Own a Business? Not everyone should own a business. Probably, most people should not own a business. It's not an insult: it's reality. Owning a business is too much risk and stress for some people. You still may be an excellent coach or technician. You may provide a huge amount of value to your employer or to your customers. If you're the right person to own a business,...

New Year's Resolutions Done Well New Year's resolutions have really been dismissed in recent decades, likely because of the high failure rate they have (especially when you consider fitness or health goals). It's true, New Year's resolutions can be done poorly. If this is the only time of year you make big, bold goals and you find yourself never having achieved them, you may need to reevaluate how...

Don't Prioritize. De-prioritize. Remove Things That Provide No Value If you're looking to create your GAMEplan, first remove those tasks and goals that do not provide you value. Remove the unimportant and non-urgent. One way Matt has identified these tasks is by how he creates his daily to-do list. He has a to-do list that populates on his tablet or phone every day. He simply renames it. When he n...

Coaching is Secondary for Business Success Consider this scenario. Someone becomes an expert in creating a certain craft or providing a certain service. Maybe this is butchery, baking, or candlestick making. Because friends and family love what this person does, their friends and family encourage this person to become a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker and start his own business. It fails. Why...