Back in 2016, I shot Eric Helms a message, asking if he’d be interested in starting a research review together. Eric brought Mike Zourdos on board as well, and we started planning. By the spring of 2017, we were ready to launch. Ever since then, MASS (which stands for Monthly Applications in Strength Sport) has been far more successful and rewarding than I’d ever imagined or hoped for. So, it may come as a surprise that I’m stepping away.
I wanted to write this for a few reasons.
First, there’s frequently an air of suspicion when a founder of a business steps away. Was there bad blood internally? Were they forced out? Are they abandoning a sinking ship? So, I just wanted to head off any musings or assumptions people might have.
Second, I feel like I owe an explanation to subscribers. If you looked forward to my articles each month, you might be disappointed that I’m leaving. So, I feel like you deserve to know the reasons for my decision.
Finally, I just wanted to share my reasons for leaving. Partially because I simply like being understood – it’s preferable to tell people what I’m thinking, instead of leaving them to make assumptions. And partially for purely practical reasons – I’m sure a lot of people will ask me why I left. A full answer is better than a partial, hasty, one-off reply, and being able to link an article will save me from having to type it all out multiple times.
Just to get this out of the way early: everything’s good within the MASS team. We’re all still buddies. There’s no bad blood. The business is doing great. My reasons for wanting to step away are not related to any interpersonal or business-related conflict, and I’m leaving completely of my own volition.
So, what are my reasons for leaving?
The biggest, by far, is that I feel like I’ve said virtually everything I’d like to say about the topics at the intersection of my interests and the audience’s interests. I’ve written about 10,000-15,000 words per issue for 70 issues. I’m too lazy to get a word count on every single MASS article I’ve written, but it’s 500,000 words of content at minimum, and probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000,000, spread across approximately 200 articles. In all of those words, and spread across all of those articles, I feel like I’ve said most of what I’d like to say.
Of course, science always advances, and exciting new topics of inquiry come to the fore every so often, so I don’t feel like I’ve said everything I will ever want to say. But, I don’t feel like I have 3-4 substantial new things to say each month (at least, on topics that would interest most readers). Maybe more like 3-4 new things to say per year. Not enough to be a regular contributor to a monthly research review.
My second reason for leaving dovetails with the first: I know MASS will simply be better with some fresh blood and fresh perspectives. I’ve had about six years to put my thoughts out into the world in MASS, and I’m acutely aware that my own insights and perspectives are inherently limited – any single person has a finite amount of useful thoughts and ideas to share with people. So, in a vacuum, I think that replacing me with anyone who was similarly competent would be a net positive.
Thankfully, MASS has done even better than that. Lauren Colenso-Semple is taking my spot. She’s smarter than me, better educated than me, has far more hands-on research experience than I have, and she’s probably a better writer than me as well. So, not only will she have fresh perspectives to bring to the table – we had very different journeys into fitness, into coaching, and through higher education – she’ll be an upgrade.
My final reason for leaving is a combination of time, and an innate need to feel like I’m pulling my weight. For most of my time with MASS, MASS was my highest business-related priority by far. However, that’s not the case anymore: I’m also part of the team behind a nutrition app now (MacroFactor). MacroFactor is (thankfully) doing really well, but success often brings expanded duties and obligations. I’ve reached a point where I don’t feel like I can do everything I need to do to make MacroFactor as successful as possible, and also do everything I need to do to make MASS as successful as possible. I’m not wired in a way that allows me that do something with half focus – I either need to be all-in or all-out, and I just can’t be all-in with both MASS and MacroFactor anymore.
So, this is where my first two considerations came in – which company can I contribute more to, and which company needs me more? After (honestly not that much) deliberation, the decision was pretty clear: I feel that I’ve contributed most of what I feel I can contribute to MASS already, and I sincerely believe that MASS will be better off without me (and knowing Lauren would be replacing me made the decision particularly easy). I could have stayed with MASS and just phoned it in, but that’s not something I’m capable of doing long-term. I’d feel too guilty about it. If I’m the part-owner of a business, I think I owe more than that to my partners and customers. The rest of the team deserves a partner who lives and breathes the business, and the subscribers deserve writers who are 100% focused on making the best content possible. If my personal financial interests conflict with the collective interests of everyone else involved, I wouldn’t be able to sleep easy if I picked myself over literally everyone else.
So with that, I’m closing the book on this chapter of my life. I really do love, value, and appreciate everyone who’s subscribed to MASS over the years, and I have nothing but respect for the MASS team. I’d also like to thank everyone who’s helped out or contributed behind the scenes – Chad Dolan, Katherine Whitfield, Kedric Kwan, Colby Sousa, Jay Ehrenstein, Leonardo Ehrenstein, Lyndsey Nuckols, and Anna Wilder. MASS would not be in the place it’s in without all of them. Last but not least, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Sol Orwell for giving me the nudge I needed to start MASS in the first place.
A few final notes:
- I fully intend to keep shilling for MASS. And, if anything, I’ll probably start shilling harder. Promoting a product I profit from always feels a little weird (“is he promoting it because he thinks it’s really that good, or just because it’s good for his bank account?”), but now I’m fully unencumbered. To be 100% clear, I no longer have any financial or equity stake in MASS. It’s a clean break.
- If you’d like to read my MASS content, it’ll still be in the MASS archives. It’s not going anywhere.
- I hope this doesn’t make it sound like I’m primarily leaving MASS because of MacroFactor. On the contrary, I’d been feeling like I should probably step away for a while (for the first two reasons listed), and expanded time pressure from MacroFactor was just the consideration that provided the final nudge.
- If you subscribed to MASS solely (or primarily) to read my articles, shoot me a message and I’d be happy to personally refund you for the remaining time covered by your subscription (please don’t request a refund from MASS directly – I’m the one leaving, so the rest of the team shouldn’t have to pay the refund). So, for example, if you got a yearly subscription 8 months ago, I’d be happy to refund you for the forthcoming 4 months. You don’t even have to cancel your subscription – you can just treat it as a few free months on me. If anything, I suspect you’ll be pleasantly surprised if you stick around.