Before we begin, the Kindle version of Unhinged Habits has been put on sale for $2.99 by my publisher. Now is an excellent time to get your copy. (Buy here.)
Next, here’s a new article:
My three-part plan to sell 18,000 books and raise $325,000 on Kickstarter
Moving on, here are a few short thoughts this week.
Money
1
$1.6 million dollars in Bitcoin was drained from my account on July 29th in the Cold Card wallet hack.
My Bitcoin was in cold storage. My keys were on a ColdCard device kept in a safety deposit box that had never been connected to the internet.
This part’s nerdy, but here’s what happened:
Hackers discovered a vulnerability in the part of the hardware wallet code used to create seed phrases.
This allowed them to use AI to brute force guessing seed phrases.
I was at our cottage and heard about the hack today.
“No way this affects me.” I thought.
I logged into Wasabi––software that lets me view my bitcoin wallets online.
Right away I saw lines of red transaction–withdrawals–and I knew.
From 9:36pm – 9:43pm on July 29th, every wallet I had had been emptied.
18.25245043 btc gone. That’s just over $1.6 million dollars CAD.
Perhaps the hardest part about this is that I did everything right.
I never shared my seed phrase with anybody. My devices never touched the internet. Everything was kept in multiple safes and safety deposit boxes.
None of it mattered. All because the hardware that created the seed phrase originally had one line in their code from 2021 that had a vulnerability.
I’ve filed a police report and a report with the Ontario Securities Commission. But I don’t expect to recoup anything.
A part of me is trying to make sense of what just happened. Or try to figure out a lesson in it. I’m struggling. $1.6 million is a staggering amount of money to have stolen.
I guess all that I can think about right now is that I’m so damn happy that I’m an entrepreneur and that my earning potential is under my control. Mark my damn words. I’ll recover.
–View more about this story on X (7.8-million views)
Health
1
The Wall Street Journal just asked me how I felt the moment that I discovered $1.6M in Bitcoin had been stolen from me.
Here is what I said:
Surprisingly stoic. If anything, empowered. I never thought I’d be the victim of a robbery—let alone a million dollar robbery. Nobody does. But it happened. After telling my wife, I went for a walk. I thought I was going to feel horrible or hopeless. Instead, all I could think was that there wasn’t anything I can do but to keep moving forward.
It was at that point that I found myself simultaneously sad for everybody else affected and grateful to be an entrepreneur. I’m confident in my skills to recover and, in a (very) weird and (admittedly) hardy way, immediately viewed this terrible thing that happened to me as a test to overcome––a part of my story.
2
Real life progressive overload.
Takeaway
At the end of my interview with the Wall Street Journal about the theft, I was asked to share a takeaway.
Here is what I said:
I don’t have any words of wisdom to help people avoid an attack like this. But I am now in a position to give advice on how to move forward after a terrible and undeserved thing has happened to you:
A sad reality is that bad things happen to good people who don’t deserve it. The only thing you can expect to happen with any degree of certainty is that, at one point, the unexpected will come and kick you in the teeth.
In Unhinged Habits I wrote that “Awful things happen. Loved ones get sick; business deals go sour; strings of bad luck feel endless. The question is not whether or not you will roll your ankle. It is whether or not rolling your ankle will injure you.”
I’ve spent my career telling people to get strong. Not so they can lift more, but so they can handle more. That’s the real reason I lift weights; not for the fitness industry I built a career in, but so I’m strong enough to take a hit. It’s what got me through my wife’s cancer diagnosis. It’s what’s getting me through losing $1.6M in Bitcoin.
I’ve also written 12 books, and most of them exist because writing is how I process the things that knock me down. Strength doesn’t stop bad things from happening. It just means you’re still standing after they do.
So maybe my takeaway is this: read books and lift weights. Jacked nerds are unstoppable.
If you enjoyed this, please consider forwarding a copy via the link below to somebody else today:
www.theptdc.com/articles/5-reps-Aug-7-2026
-Jon
Promo
My Books
Below are my top 3 bestselling books. Each was written for a different audience. If you enjoyed this email, please consider buying a copy of whichever best suits you.
All books are available worldwide in all formats (hardcopy, kindle, and audio) wherever you buy books. Linked below is the Amazon USA link for your convenience.
Ignite the Fire: The Secrets to a Successful Personal Training Career – For personal trainers (Buy here)
The Obvious Choice: Timeless Lessons on Success, Profit, and Finding Your Way – For small business owners and coaches. (Buy here)
Unhinged Habits: A Counterintuitive Guide for Humans to Have More by Doing Less – For people looking for habits and self-improvement. (Buy here)
The Kindle version of Unhinged Habits has been put on sale for $2.99 by my publisher. Now is an excellent time to get your copy. (Buy here)
Coach. Author. World explorer. But mostly, Dad.
Free
Exclusive newsletter for online trainers!!!: Subscribe here
Pop-up newsletter for authors: Diary of a Book Launch
Instagram: @itscoachgoodman
LinkedIn: /jon-goodman (please send a connection request. I’ll accept.)
Paid
Books: Ignite the Fire and The Obvious Choice
Mentorship: Online Trainer Mentorship
The post 5 Reps: I just got robbed appeared first on The PTDC.