GM. This is Harry. Welcome to another episode of EXECUTE 🤌🏻, the newsletter making you sweat more than Steve Jobs’ turtle neck 🥵

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Here’s what I’ve got for you today:

A one-step way to make insane progress starting right nowA quote. Because everyone likes quotes.A question you can use to push yourself further

Feel The Burnnnnnn

An amazing book I’ve been going back to again and again and again and again is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ‘Be Useful’. It only came out a few months ago, and I catch myself nodding along to it on my way to work because of two reasons:

it’s easily accessible, I can listen to it on SpotifyThe lessons are easy to understand, but NOT easy to DO. It gives me a push and motivates me when I need it.

So I applied something I learned.

More than anything, it’s helped me at the gym. I no longer fit into 80% of my business shirts and pants, and yesterday after training arms, it took me a solid 3 minutes to do-up the top button on one of my shirts.

It was funny at first, watching myself in the mirror in the changing room, trying to reach the top button… and trying again, and again, and again - and for a second I honestly contemplated asking someone for help.

It’s a small problem I’m happy to deal with for now.

But aside from the gym, I’ve applied this ‘trick’ to my writing. And I think it’s paying off. More often than not - I’m seeing more emails come through from you guys saying that the articles have resonated with you. More and more I’m hearing that these words are helping.

So what’s the secret? The ‘one’ thing that’s helped me level up in the last few months?

It’s simple - I call it

The 10 Set Rule

As a throwaway comment in his book, Arnold let slip that one time at the gym, he saw a guy doing this weird tricep exercise. It looked stupid. But he decided to try it anyway - so he did 40 sets. 40 SETS. That’s between 320-400 reps!

It worked. He liked the exercise.

So after hearing this sitting on the train in the morning sometime in december, I thought I’d try ‘40 sets’ today. I was feeling confident. I got to the gym, went to the weights section and grabbed a pair of dumbells for shoulder exercises.

Here we go.

Set 1. Easy

Set 2. Still easy (I can do this!)

Set 3. Hmmm… I’m starting to feel something

Set 4. Okay, this is hard

Set 5. Holy shit it burns

Set 6. Do I really need to be like Arnold? He’s probably an idiot

Set 7. Okay okay, I’m not going to make it to 40 sets. But can I do 10?

Set 8. Oh my god I have two more to go….

Set 9. Fuccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkk….

Set 10. Oh wow, I did it!

I’ve done this now for 2 months at the gym. I’ve gained 3-4kgs, and feel stronger than ever. And the great thing? I don’t need to switch up my exercises all the time. I can do the same stuff, and the huge number of reps means I’m ALWAYS sore at the end.

And you know what? It’s not normal.

Standing in the same place and doing more reps than anyone else, I see people at the gym shifting around. Three sets here, three sets there. I don’t see them tired. I can’t see them really pushing themselves.

So I think this is a competitive advantage. I think this is the 20% that delivers 80% of the results.

And with my writing? I’ve done it with the word count.

1,000 words per day. No excuses.

Quality doesn’t matter, output does. Quality will come.

And now - if you trust my screenshot below - I’m up to my 31st day today. So I’ve written 31,000 words so far this year. THAT’S LIKE 31% OF A BOOK!!

So this rule works. You’ve gotta do the reps.

Visual by milani creative

Put in 100 reps. Do it everyday.

It’s made a HUGEEEEE difference for me, and I guarantee it’s all you need.

A quote that made me laugh:

"I'm not a gym rat; I'm a gym unicorn - rare and majestic." - Unknown

Finally, here’s a question you can use when you’re working hard:

“Aside from how I feel, is there anything stopping me from doing one more set?”

Make the most of this week.

Ciao,

Harry

P.S. here’s a link to Arnold’s book.

P.P.S. It’ll take you like, 18 seconds to forward this to a friend. I challenge you.