James Smith

I became a PT at 24. I started posting on social media the day I qualified. I then didn't hit 10k followers until 27. I had my first good idea the same year, created JSA. First book deal, 29. Bought my parents a brand new car at 29, then again at 31. Didn't buy myself a brand new car until 35. Young people nowadays think they're running out of time. I was happy at 24. I was happy at 27. I was happy at 31. I am happy at 36. It's not about the metrics you acquire by a certain age, it's about how much you enjoy what you do. We construct a life for one thing, satisfaction. Sure we need our Maslow hierarchy of needs, but beyond that, optimise for satisfaction. I know miserable millionaires, model your life carefully. James

One of my "productivity" hacks is to be the first man up, anywhere I go, I always grab my laptop the second I wake up. Get to wifi and good coffee. I nut out all creative work before training, so today I'm training at 10:30am at Soma Fight Club, I need to then get everything done before that. 3 hours, headphones on, world off. There is a pre-training and post-training energy difference. Admin later. Creativity sooner. Emails later. Posts for socials sooner. Get to learn what you can do tired and what you need 3 coffees to do. Mark Twain said if your job is to eat a frog, do it first thing in the morning, get it out the way. I'm pretty sure he then said, if your job is to eat 2x, eat the biggest one first. James

It's not that you're not good enough, you just haven't done enough reps yet. It doesn't take a few months of posting content to be good at it but years. Not 100 posts, a 1,000+ If you're sat there thinking 'I can't be f*cked', then you're playing the wrong game.

Imagine you've never played golf, I take you to the driving range and I expected you to develop a world class golf swing. I then lay down 400 balls in front of you. You're unable to waste a single one. What do you think the likeliness is that you'd be world class in under 400 swings? Small, right? Then why the f*ck do you think that you should be good at content, going viral and getting clients online from only 400 posts on Instagram. DO MORE. GET BETTER. IT TAKES REPS. I reckon you need to do 1000 posts to even break past the average stage. Get busy, James

Controversial take: most people have gone soft. They're crying about their socials not blowing up or having a mad business with just a few months work. It took me 9 MONTHS to get 1 sale from an email. Keep. Pumping.

Thanks @ChrisWillx for the helicopter heliiicoppterrrrr

Don’t cry about results you didn’t get from work you didn’t do.

I never thought remote work would be possible as a personal trainer. When I first told people I ran an online coaching business in 2016, they looked at me like I'd said I was an online plumber. I'm by the beach, working away in my discord, life is good. I am always on holiday, but also always at work too. Social media has made freedom an option for anyone with a thick skin who's willing to eat shit for a few years finding their feet online. I am so grateful to a man I met in Croatia, he had his laptop open in the back of a minivan to the waterfalls in Split. I asked him what he was doing, when he said "working" I couldn't understand. He told me to read "the 4 hour work week" and although the book wasn't the most incredible read, it created a point of inception where in my mind I never saw business as just the thing that existed in the 4 walls of my gym, it was wider, larger and had more potential. Everyone wants to be rich, but if they just had a taste of freedom they'd realise all you need is this: - to work when you want in the day, usually in ebs and flows with when you feel most productive - enough to live on, I am just as happy in a 5* hotel as I was in a hostel, I am just as happy in sports car than a rental I got for the day as a backpacker - a plan, daily, weekly, monthly. Objectives, usually socials, squeezes for emails, landing page visits and conversions Freedom is the goal, I'd rather work 2 hours a day at the beach for $100k than to earn $10m a year but be stuck in a skyscaper 9-5 each day. Grateful for what I do, and those who listen and make it happen for themselves. If you have any questions about working online, ask me below :) James

Not guilty.

The cost of marrying an ambitious man

Leave seed oils alone

First show down @ChrisWillx - melbourne tonight tickets chriswilliamson.live/aus

On this day 15 years ago I called my Mum from a payphone in France. She had no idea that I was even going. Long story short I was invited to Manchester to do this event with Red Bull. It was called "red bull can you make it?" Long story short, we were told we had 10 days to make it to a party in Paris. There was one condition. They locked our mobile phone and wallets into a sealed brown envelope, if it was tampered with, we lost. We were given a map, loads of checkpoints across Europe and a ferry pass to Calais, we were told we're the only team that need to cross the channel. We then found out there were teams in Madrid, Rome and Berlin all setting off to make it to Paris for the party. We had to do missions at checkpoints across Europe to 'earn' more Red Bull. We then had to trade it for transport, shelter and we even traded for food. We spent the first night at Oxford Brooks Uni, we traded Red Bull for Vodka in the student union. The next day we ended up at a train station and decided to get on the next train no matter where it went, so we ended up in Lyon. Then Strasbourg, Zurich and a few other places. Footnote: don't go to Zurich if you only have flip flops. Students took us in and fed us, I met Al Pacino's doppelgänger and we spent the night in a hostel which we had to access through the kitchen of a dodgy restaurant. I called my Dad from a payphone a week later and he said "Mum thought you were joking." I'd not ever dreamed within 15 years I'd be co-operating a business that's competing with Red Bull. Life is mad. That was one of the best 10 days of my life. If you haven't tried Neutonic, our Creatine is smashing it, we ship from USA, UK and Australia. Please try it here at neutonic.com Cheers, James

Here’s a weird reason to start BJJ. I think my whole life I’ve been worried about being a coward. I have no reason to, but it’s always there. I don’t think I am. But in my late twenties I needed proof. Undeniable proof. I wasn’t gonna start fighting strangers or sitting by a busy road to react to a road traffic accident. So I learned to wrestle people to the ground and submit them. I then compete whenever I can. I’m always nervous the day I compete. Always worried to lose. But when you do it anyway irrespective of emotion. The part of you that worries you’re a coward is a little quieter for the day. Being courageous isn’t about not being scared. It’s about feeling the same as everyone else, but doing it anyway. Undeniable proof is the antidote to self doubt. James

I was trying to make a point the other day to a business owner that if they tried something and it went wrong, it wasn't the worst mistake. I made the point that not all mistakes are equal. If you make a mistake with who you marry, or who you have kids with. That's a life impacting decision. But if you make a mistake in the gym, or use a machine wrong, or even mis-measure ingredients cooking something. It's not the end of the world. The beautiful thing about social media is that if your post performs terribly, no one sees, because it performed terribly. BIG mistakes that stay with you for life should be avoided. But SMALL mistakes are actual crucial for progress. Thomas Edison found loads of ways not to make the lightbulb, your nan probably had hundreds of ways she found not to make a Shephard's Pie. Small mistakes are actually great, finding ways not to do things makes the path to find how to do them so much clearer. It's why volume is essential for your learning experience within content creation

My response:

I've been asked a lot about my opinion on the Manosphere documentary, so here it is: I've seen so many people exaggerate outrage for some extra engagement I can't be arsed to even comment on it. It would be drowned out in a sea of performative outrage. If you find the top 1% of dickheads in any niche, you'll feel the same when you hear what they say. I think to be perfectly honest, we need more cohesion between men and women, politically already increasingly divided. Whether you think men are going right wing, or women increasingly so more left wing (as recent data shows). I'm not going to take a <0.1% subset of "alpha bros" and let it ruin my evening when I could be watching the most recent series of Traitors with my mrs. But you lot enjoy being outraged about it lol, hope you get the clicks you want and need. James

People underappreciate the power of consistently: - Posting 1 piece of content per day - Earning your stripes with sweeping the gym floor - Growing your email list to 20% of your following - Being productive in early hours of the morning Social media can very much change your life if you commit to it.