Why In-Person Matters, How to Handle Life’s Surprises & A Fitness Trick That Works

Intro

Welcome to my weekly newsletter, Iterations, where I discuss random thoughts, ideas, and stuff from my trials and errors that might hopefully be useful to one or two others.

Quote of the Week

“If you can’t use your legs and they bring you milk when you wanted orange juice, you learn to say, ‘That’s all right,’ and drink it.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

This is the 32nd President of the US talking. If he can be humble enough to accept what life gives him, even in the most basic of senses, then I know I better be able to!

I love the practical and metaphorical here: if you’re brought the wrong order in a restaurant, well, sometimes it is what it is. Equally, when life itself inevitably throws you a challenge—whereby you expected one thing and got something completely different—roll with it!

I came across the quote in Morgan Housel’s book Same As Ever (which I mentioned a few weeks back in my first newsletter). The book is packed with brilliant quotes and lessons, and this one, in particular, stuck with me.

Behind the Scenes (Projects and Thoughts)

Indexing on the in-person connection in 2025.

If I’m honest, I could be much better at getting out and meeting people. It’s something I see tremendous value in doing this year and beyond, regardless of outcomes.

For many of you out there, I’m stating the obvious—you know this already!

But I firmly believe meeting in person (whenever possible) is going to be key to unlocking business results this year.

In software sales (my background before media production), in-person meetings have become rare. Even before COVID, most sales happened over virtual calls. SaaS salespeople, in particular, have mastered remote selling and relationship-building, yet I don’t think there’s enough emphasis on getting out there and physically meeting people. Other industries see this as a given, but in SaaS, it’s far less common for some reason.

COVID is long gone! Yes, it’s great to work from home and conduct meetings in sublime comfort, dressed with absolute formality at the torso level and in pyjamas or otherwise downstairs. But there is a reason why political candidates get out there and meet the people they aim to win over. It’s time to go out into the open—time to shake hands and kiss those proverbial babies! Make sure you get that last one in the right order though!

What I’m Experimenting With

Some of you may know that I’m a fitness enthusiast and a pretty big deal at my local gym. Or at least, I like to think that!

So I thought it could be valuable to share with you all, one of the most simple yet effective game-changers in my fitness life (or career, as I like to think) has been the tracking of workouts.

For whatever reason, I was off and on with noting what I actually did in my workouts. I think it’s because I used to do it manually—taking a notebook and writing the reps, sets, and weights down, which is great and works.

But if you’re like me and you can’t read your handwriting and you lose your notebooks constantly, then you just end up in a place where your workouts become guesswork. Don’t get me wrong, I can enjoy pretty good workouts without tracking, but I would lose where I was in terms of what I did last week. I’d forget how many sets I’d done, thanks to my goldfish-like short-term memory.

I worked with a personal trainer a year or so ago—you can read about that here. And amongst other helpful measures, we went through together, one of the things we would do was write down and track everything, which turned out to be extremely effective.

And I’ve continued to do it by myself in an app called Strong—plugging in my workouts, recording the weights and reps performed, and providing a helpful yardstick in pushing past the results of previous training sessions.

Just by being consistent with tracking my workouts, I have seen my results go through the roof.

You can get the app here—it’s available on iPhone and Android. Let me know how you get on with it.

Also, I′m always happy to talk fitness if anyone out there wants to have a conversation on that topic.

Podcast/Video Recommendation

My YouTube algorithm rabbit hole led me to something powerful this week—the 10-year anniversary of The 21. Twenty Egyptian Coptic Christians and one Ghanaian Christian were executed by ISIS in Libya a decade ago.

A short and beautifully animated film has been produced in their honour. The 21 is just 13 minutes long, but the weight of the story is incredibly impactful.

If you’re looking for something meaningful to watch this week, I highly recommend watching the film.

Book of the Week / What I’m Reading

I’ve put off fiction reading again this week, promising myself I will definitely read a novel once I complete this book.

The book I have chosen to supplant my fiction reading duties with this week is Epictetus: The Teachings of a Stoic.

I know, the works of the Stoics are stereotypical reading, but I just gain so much from their mindsets and outlooks on life.

Epictetus was a slave, and I’m curious to dig into his Stoic philosophy under indenture in comparison to the works of others I have read. Seneca was an advisor to an emperor, for example, and Marcus Aurelius was himself Emperor of Rome.

I need to fly through this one, though, in order to get back to fiction. Here is my public oath to you all—next week I will be onto fiction, or enact your desired form of Roman punishment upon me! (Please don’t.)

As always send me a direct message or comment if you want to add your say on any of these topics.

Have an incredible week ahead. Keep iterating, keep trying, and keep learning!

Yours faithfully,

Matthew Barton