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Notepod #22: “Arnold”

Check out the full notes for Arnold: The education of a bodybuilder

I finished reading the biography portion of  “Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder” and wanted to share some thoughts about the book.

Some quotes I mentioned in the podcast. First this one about visualizing the lift and how if you don’t think you can do it, you definitely won’t be able to do it.

There’s no two ways about it, because they’ve done all the training, their bodies are ready; now it’s only the mind. The mind must carry through. If a man stands there and thinks for one-tenth of a second, “Maybe I can’t lift it,” it’s gone. He will not make the lift.

Then there’s this quote about being backstage before the competition, hearing 1960s bro science flying around as fast as possible. Overwhelming—and even more so since he wasn’t fluent in English.

Backstage before the contest I heard endless theories. Some guys were talking about taking saunas before competition as a way of wringing the last bit of water out of their systems. Some were claiming that tensing and flexing helped promote great definition and vascularity. I kept hearing new things right and left. I understood only enough English to get it in snatches, which made it even more confusing.

Have a vision for the future

It can be a very specific vision. In fact, it can be a very specific person. For Arnold, it was Reg Park.

From then on in my mid-teens, I kept my batteries charged with the adventure movies of Steve Reeves, Mark Forrest, Brad Harris, Gordon Mitchell, and Reg Park. I admired Reg Park more than the others. He was rugged, everything I thought a man should be. I recall seeing him for the first time on the screen.

The hedonic treadmill of biceps

Arnold mentions a few metrics in the book. The two that stick out: 250 lbs and 20-inch arms. He tried packing mass on and had 250 lbs in mind early on. Then the arm size was important. (He also points out that triceps are half the battle here.)

Bodybuilders were becoming better and better. I’d seen the sport improve by leaps and bounds in the few years since I’d begun training. In 1962 Joe Abender, the Mr. Universe winner of that year, had 181/2-inch arms. The same with Tommy Samsone in 1963. But now the 19-inch arm wasn’t even big enough to get you in the top five. I’d come in second with 20-inch arms.

I mentioned this Khe Hy tweet

The 4-minute mile (for weightlifting)

Throughout the book, Arnold mentions the importance of mindset in many different ways. One way is just in knowing something is possible at all.

Proof of my point is that for years weight lifters could not lift more than 500 pounds. Nobody could. They did 4991/2 but never 500. The reason was this supposedly insurmountable mental barrier that had existed for years. They stood in front of the weight thinking, “No one has ever lifted 500 pounds. Why should I be the one?” Then in 1970 Alexiev of Russia lifted 501 pounds. He broke the barrier. A month after that, three or four guys lifted 500 pounds.

Something incredible about Arnold’s story is that, while he envisioned a lot of these things, there probably weren’t many models for foreigners coming into Hollywood and becoming the biggest movie stars.

The original influencer

To spend time in America, and California specifically, he needed a bit of support. For his first extended stay, he traded a bit of influence for a roof and transportation.

My part of the agreement was to make available to Weider information about how I trained. He agreed to provide an apartment, a car, and to pay me a weekly salary in exchange for my information and being able to use photographs of me in his magazine.

This playbook is available more widely today, in fitness and beyond. Build up an audience, get sponsored to represent and recommend products, sell some information in books or courses.

Look good feel good play good (but for non game days, make sure you can move)

Not much feels better than heading to the gym in a brand new color-coordinated workout outfit.

Or maybe just sweats and a cotton shirt are fine.

If you start worrying about how your clothes look while you’re in training, then you’re already training for the wrong reason.

(Also, he’d drop the sweats and go with shorts to always reveal the weakness in his calves until he eliminates it.)

And a link to that Bill Burr bit about how ridiculous Arnold’s life is

Reverse engineering Gladwell, Obama, and other creatives

Check out the full notes for “Decoding Greatness: How the Best in the World Reverse Engineer Success” by Ron Friedman

  • Podcast
    The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience
  • Episode Title
    How to Reverse Engineer a Bestseller with Award-Winning Psychologist Ron
    Friedman
  • Episode links
    Apple Podcasts • Spotify • @KeltonReid

Want a great tool to tunnel through writer’s block? Try some copy work.

Ron Friedman is the author of “Decoding Greatness” and he discusses the book on this episode of “The Writer Files”. Some of my takeaways:

Original work → Copy work → Original work

He references a study done in Tokyo where the participants created work for 3 days. One group did original work all three days. The others copied other people’s work (here’s the study) during day 2. What does copying do?

From “Decoding Greatness” by Ron Friedman

The process of copying—of carefully analyzing a particular work, deconstructing its key components, and rebuilding it anew—is a transformative mental exercise that does wonders for our thinking. Unlike the experience we get when we passively consume a work, copying demands that we pay meticulous attention, prompting us to reflect on both subtle details and unexpected techniques.

Copy work is often something you’ll see recommended for copywriters who are starting out. Grab some classic ads, then re-write them by hand. You’ll get a feel for good persuasive writing this way. It can feel like magical osmosis, but writing it longhand makes you slow down and actually consider writing sentence by sentence.

Switching back and forth helps to keep things moving so that you (1) keep from rabbit holing in a silo and (2) keep from copying too much to the point that you’re really just ripping something off without putting your own twist on thigns.

Story → Study (How to be Gladwellian)

A phrase that Friedman uses in the podcast episode is “Gladwellian”. If you’ve read a nonfiction book from the past decade, you’ve likely come across. If you’ve read a bunch of nonfiction books from the past decade, you already know what’s meant by this structure for writing.

One sec, I’ll sketch it out.

UntitledImage

From “Decoding Greatness” by Ron Friedman

Certain patterns are obvious. There is the story-study-story-study structure that is now a fixture of popular nonfiction, the novelistic flair used to bring central characters to life, and the sticky simplicity with which complex ideas are communicated, transformed from lifeless data into irresistible dinner party ammunition.

It’s effective and it’ll be effective for as long as humans are interested in information and storytelling.

Obama the storyteller

On the podcast, Friedman also mentions that Obama needed to shed some of the lecturing style he picked up as a law professor before reaching greatest successes as a politician.

From “Decoding Greatness” by Ron Friedman:

By the time Obama declared his candidacy for the US Senate just a few years later, his speaking style was transformed. Instead of communicating in abstractions, he was now telling stories, quoting the Bible, and using repetition to drive home his points. But it was more than just his words; it was also the way he was delivering them. Obama had learned to speak loudly at some points and softly at others, to modulate his tone and subtly convey emotion, to emphasize important arguments with a calm, deliberate pause. By adapting techniques commonly used in churches and importing them into the political arena, Obama was able to evolve his speaking style and establish himself as a unique political force.

Learn, unlearn, re-learn.

Brainstorming book notes podcast segments

I’m trying to think about how to do book notes episodes better and I think it’s by starting with questions that can lead to somewhat more interesting answers. I’ll update this post with more questions.

Intro/overview ideas

  • What’s the overarching story of the book?
  • What’s the overarching theme of the book?
  • How would you explain the book to… your childhood self?
  • How would you explain the book to… an alien?
  • How would you explain the book to… a friend?

Middle ideas

  • What was your favorite scene?
  • What are your 3 favorite quotes from the book?
  • What are 3 mental models from the book?
  • What was surprising about the book?
  • What was unsurprising about the book?
  • Who was your favorite character in the book?

Conclusion ideas

  • Did this book change your mind about anything?
  • What are books that are similar or related?
  • Is there a different book you’d recommend reading instead of this book?
  • For fiction books: what would the nonfiction version be like? (Musashi →  Mastery)
    • Musashi example: How to master the sword, kill effectively, and mentor (without going crazy!)
  • For nonfiction books: what would the fiction version be like? (Mastery → Musashi)

Arnold, ballet, and being a curious novice

Check out the full notes for Arnold: The education of a bodybuilder

This morning I’m trying a mushroom coffee with powdered MCT oil. I rarely do hot coffee but I’ve also been drinking way too much coffee so maybe going hot for some will slow it down a bit. Let’s see how the writing goes.

As I mentioned a few days ago, I want to go through good material more rather than trying to find more new material. But I also just haven’t really nailed down what I want to focus on learning. Doing a little too much exploring.

There are benefits to generalism and exploration. But there’s always a second part to it.

Explore then exploit. Generalize but with short term specialization.

It could be worth switching a few times before focusing. From David Epstein’s Range:

For professionals who did switch, whether they specialized early or late, switching was a good idea. “You lose a good fraction of your skills, so there’s a hit,” Malamud said, “but you do actually have higher growth rates after switching.” Regardless of when specialization occurred, switchers capitalized on experience to identify better matches.

Arnold Schwarzenegger knew the posing routine was critical to winning bodybuilding competitions. He wanted to look graceful. He had one of the smoothest posing routines among his bodybuilding peers, so he looked elsewhere to learn more about posing technique.

What’d he specialize in? Ballet.

From Arnold:

I went to a dancer at UCLA and started taking ballet lessons to further improve my posing. This dancer showed me how to move my hands gracefully, when a hand should be opened and when it should be closed. We talked about what a fist represents, what an open hand represents, how you should move for the greatest impact, using your hands as a signal. For instance, if you start a circular movement you should open your hand, and if you come down in a sweeping movement you should close it in a fist.

If you’ve seen Pumping Iron, the documentary about the 1975 Mr. Olympia competition (spoiler: Arnold wins), you might remember brutal workouts and Arnold being sort of a jerk (but a charismatic one!) to his competitors.

But the very first shot is of Arnold and Franco Columbu with ballerinas.

From “Pumping Iron”. Another awesome movie they both appear in is Terminator, where Lou makes a cameo as a Terminator in the future and infiltrates a human base and blasts everyone to smithereens.

Arnold became the best bodybuilder in any room of bodybuilders. So he looked for other rooms where he could be a curious novice.

Curious Novice Topic for July: Fat loss

Quick post before heading to the gym.

In light of my last post, I thought it’d be good to pick a topic and try to focus on it for a month. A month is pretty short but it’s also a good amount of time to focus on a single topic.

I’m taking some inspiration from what Matt Ragland did with his Ship 30 for 30 essays. He did the 30 essays during the cohort (which is the hardest part, I imagine) and then compiled them, revised, formatted them nicely, and started selling the collection as an eBook along with a video course to accompany it.

30 short essays on a single topic is good amount of time being a curious novice. You’ll, at the very least, be 30 days ahead of someone just starting out. You can guide them.

So that’s what I’ll try for July, but on this blog. Which, of course, goes against the whole thing Ship 30 for 30 is about. (Lesson 1: Don’t start a blog. Write on public platforms first.)

Oh yeah, so fat loss. Why?

This is a little bit of just-in-time learning. I’ve been trying to lose the same 10 pounds for 5 years. I think it’d be helpful for me to get very focused on it, including in things I read and write about.

I have been tracking things in my Road to 159 tag but, you might notice, the numbers haven’t been moving down very quickly.

First book quote I’ll share, from Fat Loss Happens on Mondays by Dan John and Josh Hillis:

Your two most important ‘workouts’ each week are— Journal Review, Meal Planning, and Shopping for Food Preparing, Cooking, and Portioning Food

It’s a great book that helps reframe time you’re allotting to a fat loss goal. If you have an hour 5 days a week, you can be tempted to do 5 one hour workouts. But if you’re not explicitly setting time aside for your food journal and for food prep then you’re not going to get results.

Dirty bulks can be effective. Dirty cuts… not so much.

Stillness is the Key: Get rid of your stuff

Check out the full notes for “Stillness Is the Key” by Ryan Holiday

One of my favorite chapter titles in all of Ryan Holiday’s books is “Get Rid of Your Stuff” in “Stillness is the Key”. Grab a bag, fill it up with stuff you don’t need, and get it out of the house.

A good lesson from living in New York was that I didn’t need all that much space. There were certainly times when I could’ve used more space. But my now-wife and I got by fine.

In California, I’m starting to feel some of what Ryan Holiday calls comfort creep. From “Stillness is the Key“.

There is also what we can term “comfort creep.” We get so used to a certain level of convenience and luxury that it becomes almost inconceivable that we used to live without it. As wealth grows, so does our sense of “normal.” But just a few years ago we were fine without this bounty. We had no problem eating ramen or squeezing into a small apartment. But now that we have more, our mind begins to lie to us. You need this. Be anxious that you might lose it. Protect it. Don’t share.

Sometimes I love the comfort and convenience of owning a car. Other times I very much miss the careless life in New York.

(But as I write this, I got a flashback of rainy, cold subway commutes. Maybe some comfort creep is okay…)