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BOOKS

River of Doubt and Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

Candice Millard is one of my all-time favorite writers. I think I’ve recommended every one of her books on here the week they come out. She is a master of narrative non-fiction and her books often read like a cross between a National Geographic documentary and an Indiana Jones movie. They are true, historical tales but she writes them like they’re thrillers, which is a gift few authors have.

This week my friend Greg Campion had Candice on his Intentional Wisdom podcast and they had a terrific conversation about her 5-year writing process per book (incredible), how she outlines every manuscript and what she looks for in great characters and stories. Here are some of my favorite responses from Candice (shout out to Greg for smart questions):

On struggling and characters:

I spend a lot of time thinking about the idea of a book before I commit to it, making sure, first of all, that I have enough primary source material. But also that it is going to interest me deeply and that the story is on a large canvas.

It has to have some sort of larger importance in the world. I love to dig in deep and see what I can reveal about this period in time, and not just about these main characters, but also the individuals around them.

And I think that that, in my experience, happens best when somebody is struggling.

On research and travel:

I've been really lucky I've been able to do that with each one of my books. Obviously for James Garfield, that was Washington, DC and Ohio when he was growing up. But, I went to the Amazon. I went to the River of Doubt, which is still extremely remote.

People say, oh, I've been to the Amazon in Manal or something like that. No, I mean, I had to rent my own plane, hire a pilot, fly for hours into just completely unbroken jungle from horizon to horizon to try to reach this river. I went to where Winston Churchill was captured in South Africa, and the building where he was kept as a P.O.W.

On developing tension:

With Theodore Roosevelt's expedition, there's this guy on the expedition who ends up murdering somebody later on.

And when I'm doing the research, I realize at some point I was reading that this guy had threatened somebody on the expedition with a knife. It was in a journal. It was just like one sentence, but I'm like, “oh, great, okay, so I'm gonna say that, I'm gonna talk about that.”

So the reader is going to think, “I'm gonna keep my eye on that guy. He's gonna be trouble.” And he does a couple other things: he steals food and he's always kind of grumpy and pouty and you're like, this guy is gonna be trouble.

So I'm keeping my eye on him. That's foreshadowing. All those things absolutely happen. I would obviously never put something in that didn't happen. But you have to think about it ahead of time. You can't just say, “he killed somebody and earlier he did this and this and this.”

These are just three quick answers in a far-ranging and fascinating conversation that lasted well over an hour. If you’ve never heard of Candice or her books, start with River of Doubt. I’ve recommended it too many times to count and it has a 100% success rate.

And subscribe to Greg’s YouTube channel here to watch all his new episodes.

BICEPS

I interviewed Triple H for Muscle & Fitness as he was taking over his role as Chief Content Officer with the WWE. If you pay attention to wrestling (my son has his own WWE championship belt and I’m writing a Macho Man biography, so you know where we stand) then you know tonight is WWE’s draft, where the stars get drafted onto either the SmackDown or Raw rosters.

If you don’t follow wrestling, you care about none of this.

However, what you can’t help but be impressed with is how Triple H travels about 300 days a year, runs a multi-billion dollar company and has managed to stay jacked for about thirty years.

When I talked to him, he said, “If I hadn’t stepped foot in the gym at 14, I truly believe I wouldn’t be where I am today. The discipline that weight training taught me has really helped throughout my career. I mean, when I was a young teenager, one of the things I loved about pro wrestling was the physiques and the larger-than-life guys. I remember looking at their bodies and thinking, I want to be like that.”

But now at 53 years old, his philosophy has to change a little bit.

“I train in the same style I always have—just smarter,” he says. “The thing is, because I’m so busy with traveling and my family, I need to plan every workout. Sometimes I have five straight days to train, so I do one body part per workout. Other weeks I might be in five cities in five days so I have time to train only once. If that happens, I’ll train my whole body in one workout.”

“No matter where or what time I land, I get off the plane and go right to the gym. If the hotel doesn’t have one, I’ll find something local,” he says. “There’s a gym everywhere as long as you have the intensity. One time we trained in a place that had only cinder blocks hooked up to a pulley system.”

If you have more than blocks and pulleys at your disposal, try this max out upper body workout Triple H shared. It hits EVERYTHING in one shot:

Triple H’s All Out Max Upper Body Workout

Barbell Bench 80% Max 5 sets of 3-5

Band Pulls 5 sets of 20

Incline Dumbbell Press 75% Max 2 sets of 7

Dumbbell Flat Bench 1 set of 7, then 1 set to failure

Face Pulls with Cable 3 sets of 15

JM Press (for triceps) 3 sets of 10

Incline Barbell Biceps Curls 3 sets of 10 (last set rest 5 seconds then to failure)

Quick Flexes

If you watched the NFL Draft and wondered what it’s like to train for the 40, this is your article. Enjoy:

And this is one of my favorite stories Bill Russell tells about coaching:

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Legendary martial artist Bruce Lee was a voracious reader. He studied his whole life and built an impressive personal library in a short period of time. Wherever he went, he'd have several books nearby. He often completed reading 2 or 3 books per month. I've adapted some of his easy techniques with habits that have worked for me.

No tricks. No gimmicks. No hacks. No tech.

Just 6 simple strategies that work to improve and increase your reading.

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Strong Links

🏋️If you’ve seen pictures of the Flex Factory, AKA, my garage gym, you know I’m a fan of Titan Fitness equipment. It’s durable as hell. It lasts forever. And it looks cool. Amazingly, through the magic of Books & Biceps, I’ve been in touch with them and they’ve made me a partner. Incredible, right?

Right now they have the exact power rack I have in my garage gym on sale. You can check it out here.

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Thank you all for reading.

Have a great weekend! - Jon