Hey, good evening!

Just one book recommendation for you tonight, but it's a damn good one.

I haven't been this impressed with a fitness book in a long time, and as someone who knows a thing or two about a thing or two when it comes to fitness, it is my pleasure to introduce you to this one.

I really think that reading it could be the start (or continuation) of something great for you.

The book is called The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation, by Michael Matthews, and when I shared some highlights and my review on Instagram last week, people responded in a BIG way.

800+ likes, 900+ saves, 70+ shares, and plenty of DMs (I always love to hear from readers/followers in my DMs, btw, even though I'm worse at answering them than I am at answering emails!)

Anyway, people seemed to really resonate with the book and my notes/highlights, so I wanted to share it with everyone on my email list too!

Here's the book...

This is a thinking man's (and woman's) fitness book, and somehow...somehow...Mike Matthews finds a way to bring Epictetus, Solzhenitsyn, Teddy Roosevelt, Socrates, and more into a book about health and fitness and still make it accessible, easy to get into, valuable, and fun.

And fitness should be fun.

It should make your life better and not be seen as a chore, a fearful obligation, or something that's beyond your reach.

Mike and I also share the conviction that training isn't just about training. People think, "Oh, yea, well, that's just the gym."

But the gym is...Life!

And once you learn that you control what happens to your muscles inside the gym, you find out that there's a lot more that you can control outside the gym too.

​My Complete Book Notes from The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation:​

Oscar Wilde: “Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.”

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“What we’ve done or failed to do doesn’t forever determine who we are or will be. In fact, I believe that we have no idea what we can really do. We may never find out, either – there may always be another level – but striving to reach the top is the most rewarding adventure life has to offer.”

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Mario Andretti: “If you have everything under control, you’re not moving fast enough.”

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“If we can do just one brutally simple thing well, then no amount of psychological and emotional trauma can put us down. If we can truly embrace this one little thing, then we can even learn to tune out the treacherous voices in our heads and inoculate ourselves against their poison. This little thing is action. By staying in motion, the roots of doubt and despair can’t take hold and ensnare us. By doing things, we can’t be stopped by thinking things.”

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Quarry Worker’s Creed: “We who cut mere stones must always be envisioning cathedrals.”

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“You can put in the work, or get put in your place.”

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“Let’s not forget that not so long ago, our forebears had to chase, fight, and kill just to survive. They expected hardship. They were willing to face the worst. They embraced the fact that the universe, in all its apparent tranquility, is a carefully balanced chaos of forces that we barely understand. We, on the other hand, have it easy. And that makes it easy to go soft, lose perspective, and be lulled into idleness. Working out is something of an inoculation against this. It's a tribute to the primacy of effort.”

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“If you have what it takes to conquer your psychology and your physiology, then you might just have what it takes to reach out into the world and conquer a whole lot more. In short, the better you get at the fitness game, the better prepared you’ll be for every other game you might want to play.”

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“I’ve learned, however, that the more of yourself that you’re willing to sacrifice to your cause, the less perfect you have to be to succeed. You just have to get enough right, enough of the time.”

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“Nothing fails as spectacularly as half measures.”

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“We have been watching people succeed and fail for thousands of years, and in distilling and codifying our findings and observations, we’ve learned an important lesson: the people who win make the right sacrifices and the people who lose don’t. That’s an unforgiving and unpalatable idea, but also powerful and empowering, because it says that there’s no telling what you might be able to do if you’re willing to pay the full price.”

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“Most people would say they just lack the willpower or self-control, but it’s not that simple. While our ability to tap into willpower and exert self-control is influenced by our genetics and upbringing, it’s not an immutable element of our biology. We can influence these things greatly through our choices – our mindsets, decisions, and environments.”

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Ray Dalio: “In order to have the best life possible, you must know what the best decisions are and have the courage to make them.”

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“While the concrete rewards of making good decisions may be delayed and uncertain, the emotional ones are always instantaneous and assured. By focusing on the latter, we can gain considerable power over our behavior. We can consider how it will feel to smoke or drink less or stick to our diet and exercise routine instead of how it will benefit our physiology; how it will feel to see our savings rise or debts fall, instead of how it will impact our net worth or financial resilience; how it will feel to spend less time on social media or watching TV, instead of how it will free up time for other valuable activities.”

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Mark Divine: “I decided that I would keep going until I died. And then it got a whole lot easier. Am I dead yet? No? Then I can keep going.”

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“Many people think that finding answers to the right questions is the ‘secret’ to setting and achieving goals. They’re wrong. That’s the easy part. The secret is facing the answers. How much pain are you willing to take? What are you willing to sacrifice? How far are you willing to go? And know this: It’s always going to be harder than you think. It’s always going to take more time, effort, and energy than you want to give. You’re always going to face more seductions to stray than you think you can resist. And you’re always going to suffer more setbacks and shocks than you feel is fair. If you can clear those hurdles, though, then there’s quite literally nothing that can stop you except death itself.”

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“For whatever reason, intention seems to be a force multiplier of sorts, and work done with resolve seems to outpace work done with a wavering mind.”

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Larry Page: “Even if you fail at your ambitious thing, it’s very hard to fail completely. That’s the thing people don’t get.”

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Tom Brady: “If you’re going to compete against me, you better be willing to give up your life, because I’m giving up mine.”

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“As it happens, there are over one hundred published studies on this phenomenon, and the conclusion is crystal clear: if you explicitly state what you’re going to do, when you’re going to do it, and where you’re going to do it, you’re much more likely to actually do it.”

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“The findings of the study were clear: writing down specific goals, working out specific steps to achieve them, and creating accountability appear to be very conducive to success.”

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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: “The peak of the mountain is important only because it justifies climbing, which is the real goal of the enterprise.”

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“The fight against Resistance is a war to the death.”

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“You have what it takes to do what it takes.”

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“In many competitions, you don’t have to be the best to win. You just have to be harder to destroy.”

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“You have to give something to get something.”

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“The plan starts with shutting up and ends with training.”

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“We can only be as great as our circumstances demand.”

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Socrates: “Be less concerned with what you have than what you are.”

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“The more you suffer voluntarily, the less you’ll suffer involuntarily.”

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“Where you are now is a result of who you were, but where you go from here and ultimately end up depends solely on who you decide to be from this moment forward.”

Further Reading

Alright, that just about does it for my notes on this fantastic book!

If you made it through the whole thing, congratulations! You are the rarest of the rare.

People who finish what they start are generally WINNERS in the rest of their lives, too.

Again, I was really impressed with Mike's book overall, and I hope that my notes inspired you to check it out as well! You can do so here on Amazon.

Most people who get this email also know that they can go to my Patreon to get my complete book notes for all 1,150+ books I've ever read for just $1.

That's a pretty incredible deal!

​You can also preview 70 of my book notes here, though, before you jump into committing a whole dollar for a lifetime of knowledge, wisdom, and power :)

Thanks for reading, as always, and we'll talk soon!

And remember, you can just hit "reply" to this email to ask me a question or offer a book recommendation of your own. I may take a while to respond, but I read every one!

All the best,

Matt Karamazov

P.S. Whenever you're ready, here are two more ways I can help you apply the wisdom found in the greatest books ever written to your life:

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