0:00:11.5 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.
0:00:12.0 Jordan Syatt: What’s going on, Michael?
0:00:16.1 Mike Vacanti: We made a big promise about weekly uploads, but then something happened, something big happened. My man, Syatt Fitness is a married man.
0:00:27.0 Jordan Syatt: Wait, is that what happened?
0:00:29.0 Mike Vacanti: No, no, but… [laughter]
0:00:32.0 Jordan Syatt: Can’t fall back on that as an excuse.
0:00:34.8 Mike Vacanti: Congratulations to Jordan.
0:00:36.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, ’cause I didn’t bring my microphone that week. So yeah, I guess that is… What happened was I didn’t bring my microphone, and yeah, I’m just not carrying this huge microphone to the week of my wedding. But yeah, that is what happened. Thank you, bro.
0:00:50.9 Mike Vacanti: Look, there was a lot going on. We finished the book, which is incredibly exciting. There’s been many moving pieces, so we’re not putting it squarely on the back of your wedding. But this is more so not an excuse about our lack of uploading, but rather wishing you congratulations.
0:01:10.1 Jordan Syatt: The book writing has been taking up a significant amount of time, which, it’s funny, ’cause we do it so early in the morning, I don’t think about it as work throughout the day, but it takes up the first two hours of the day every day. So I’m very excited to be… And we’re not done with it yet ’cause we still gotta go through all the other rounds of edits and still got more stuff to do. But the first draft is done, and that’s very exciting.
0:01:36.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:01:37.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:01:38.2 Mike Vacanti: Incredibly exciting. Someday we will tell the story of this book and the backend and the bureaucrats and the system, but for right now… I mostly kid, but yeah, really, really excited about what we put together.
0:01:52.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, me as well, man. How are you? How’s Gary this morning?
0:01:56.1 Mike Vacanti: He’s good. He was real hot on NFTs.
0:02:00.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh. I know someone else who’s real hot on NFTs as well. His name’s Michael Vacanti. [laughter]
0:02:09.8 Mike Vacanti: I am and I’m not. I still don’t understand it. I was on a text thread with two of my, well, one of my oldest friends and then a college friend, both very, very smart guys, and one of them said… I was talking about some of the different projects in the crypto NFT space that are doing well, and he was like, “I just… I can’t invest in it, I just don’t get it.” And I said, “Honestly, I don’t get it either, but there are too many people from different worlds, like guys who I revered in the poker community 15 to 18 years ago, Gary, obviously, too many worlds colliding around the same space of really, really smart people who have better vision of the future than I do, that I’m making a small bet on the fact that they see it even if I can’t.”
0:03:07.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And also, you said… It’s along those same lines, but you said something to me like, there are too many people putting so much investment into this, putting so much time, so much energy, so much money into this, that it’s like, you don’t see it as a possibility for them to let this fail. And I was like, maybe it could, but that’s one of the things you’re hedging on, is like these people…
0:03:33.0 Mike Vacanti: With VeeFriends specifically, yes, definitely.
0:03:35.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.
0:03:41.1 Mike Vacanti: And we’re talking… We’re not even gonna get into this because that’s not what this episode is gonna be about, but yeah, Gary was real hype on NFTs this morning. [laughter]
0:03:53.1 Jordan Syatt: Cool, cool. What do we got planned for today? I’m really hoping my audio’s alright. It’s showing me some weird frequencies, but I think it should be okay.
0:03:58.9 Mike Vacanti: We’ll find out. What do we got for the day? We got a couple of good questions, but I just… We’re in no hurry, Jordan. I know it’s been a little while, but… [laughter] What are you up to today? You’re rolling? You got an 11 o’clock Jiu-jitsu?
0:04:13.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I got Jiu-jitsu at 11. Yeah, got Jiu-jitsu at 11, got a mentorship Q&A as well.
0:04:21.4 Mike Vacanti: It’s gonna be a good one. There’s some good questions.
0:04:24.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I was going to… I’ve been meaning to record this or film this YouTube video about my Jiu-jitsu cut for like a month now, granted I had the wedding and travel and da, da, da, book writing and all this other stuff, but I think I’m just gonna make it a podcast instead of a YouTube video, ’cause I’ve been planning on doing it, but the YouTube videos, they take so long. The filming isn’t the issue, the filming is relatively quick, it’s the editing, the editing takes so long. And so I think… I’m like, “You know what, I just need to stop trying to wait and wait and wait to find the perfect amount of time to do it, and I’m just gonna put it onto podcast and drive people there instead.” So.
0:05:01.3 Mike Vacanti: Cool.
0:05:03.2 Jordan Syatt: That’s what I’ve got later today as well. What about you? You’ve got… You rollin’ Jiu-jitsu? [laughter]
0:05:08.0 Mike Vacanti: No, I don’t roll. We know this. I got a rest day. But hang on, let’s go in on that for a second. The editing process is a huge pain and takes an absurd amount of time, will you still film the podcast to put it on YouTube or no?
0:05:25.9 Jordan Syatt: No, probably not. Because the whole… One of the reasons I like YouTube is the visual aspect of putting up B-roll of my workouts, being able to show people more specifics of what I’ve done with the visual aspect of it, but I was doing an Inner Circle live yesterday and basically people were asking me, “When is the video gonna come out?” And I told them, I was like, “Listen, the reason it hasn’t come out yet is because it takes an obscene amount of time to edit all of this and put it together the way that I want, and so I’ve just been procrastinating ’cause I know it’s gonna take so long.” And I was like, “Would you prefer that you wait maybe potentially another month until this video comes out, or would you rather I just make a podcast out of it so you can get it sooner?” And everyone was like, “Would rather a podcast.” Because number one, even if they would watch it, they’re like, “We’d rather just get this information sooner.” And, yeah, so I’m gonna make it a podcast.
0:06:17.8 Mike Vacanti: What does that mean for long-term YouTube strategy for you?
0:06:21.9 Jordan Syatt: Man, I don’t know. In an ideal world, I would do one YouTube video a week. It’s just… I think what’s happened is two things: Number one is, before in my career I had more time to do it and I didn’t have as many different projects going on. So between book writing and all this other stuff, I don’t have as much time necessarily to do YouTube videos.
0:06:46.9 Mike Vacanti: And just time, 10-plus hours dedicated to your own health per week, if not more than that.
0:06:54.2 Jordan Syatt: That’s what I was gonna say next is, my priorities have changed as well. And so sometimes my brain gets stuck in the, you should still be making this content, but right now my own personal health and fitness is way more important than cranking out more YouTube videos. And so I think that’s the other thing as well. So for me, I think the biggest thing is, if and when I think it’s appropriate to do YouTube video, I guess I will. And candidly I think it would be very appropriate to make a YouTube video for this cut, I just… I don’t want to. I don’t wanna spend that time making that video. I’d rather just talk into a microphone for an hour and get it all out there and not have to edit it.
0:07:31.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, understandable. This is where a remote editor… Because you said the filming isn’t hard, but the editing is, potentially, freelancing a remote editor is a cool idea, and something that I’ve played with unsuccessfully in the past. I’ve had editors who I’ve worked with in person, but I haven’t ever had success with a remote editor, but I love the idea.
0:07:57.0 Jordan Syatt: You know the issue with that, though, and this is where a lot of people… It’s sort of like this grandiose idea, “Oh, I’ll just have someone edit it for me.” No, no, no, it’s not that easy. ‘Cause then not only do you have to upload all the video content and send it to them, which can be a bitch sometimes, which just in and of itself, that can take a while, but also they have to edit it and then you have to review the edits and check for any mistakes on there and check to see if it’s the way that you want it done, and then sometimes it can take just as much time if you had just done it yourself. Which is what I realized when I started editing my own videos. I was like, this takes the exact same amount of total time, it’s just in one hand, I’m watching the video, scrutinizing, and then giving my feedback, and then gonna have to do that over and over and over again. In the other scenario, I’m just doing it from the beginning, but it takes the same amount of total time.
0:08:44.7 Mike Vacanti: So hang on, but then what is the long term… Or you just don’t know? Bro, if you ever stop making content, you know people are gonna kill me, right? ‘Cause they’re gonna think that I did this to you. [laughter]
0:08:57.6 Jordan Syatt: I’m not gonna stop making… I’m going harder on my podcast now than ever. I’m doing… I’m going even harder on my podcast than I was. I’m doing at least two to three a day with Inner Circle members.
0:09:08.3 Mike Vacanti: Two to three a day?
0:09:09.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot lately with Inner Circle members.
0:09:10.1 Mike Vacanti: You’re uploading 15 podcasts a week?
0:09:14.7 Jordan Syatt: No, no no. So I don’t publish all of them. I don’t publish all the conversations I have with Inner Circle members. But I do at least two Inner Circle podcasts a day, and then sometimes… And I do at least two to three other people’s podcasts a week. So I’m doing a lot of podcasts every week.
0:09:31.0 Mike Vacanti: A lot of talking. That makes sense.
0:09:32.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And that’s my favorite type of content to make right now. Realistically, I think my ultimate favorite type of content to make is YouTube videos, because I can bring in characters and do voices and all that stuff, but the time investment makes it not worth it for me anymore. Whereas with podcasts, I can crank it out, I have a great conversation, I enjoy doing it, and for the Inner Circle ones, I publish probably about 50% of the conversations that I have. And that’s pretty much it. So I’m not gonna stop making content, but specifically around Instagram feed posts, I’ve done next to none, and YouTube, I’ve done next to none, but podcasting and Instagram story, I’m doing a lot.
0:10:12.7 Mike Vacanti: Cool, man.
0:10:14.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, man, that’s it. You’re making a content comeback?
0:10:18.7 Mike Vacanti: Oh, yeah.
0:10:19.6 Jordan Syatt: For the book, big time. [laughter]
0:10:27.0 Mike Vacanti: I think that is the… Maybe that’ll just be the title, like six months of free content because I have to sell this book… [laughter] No, I’ve… I podcast here with you. I’m feeling pretty good about that.
0:10:46.7 Jordan Syatt: Good, good.
0:10:48.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t have a real plan right now. My plan right now is to bench 225 for 20 reps, which has been my plan for about five years, but I’ve worked back onto that Syatt Fitness, by the way, I’m gonna give you a shoutout right now. I’m gonna give you some love here on the podcast. In 2016, Jordan did my programming for me, [laughter] and it was the fastest that I’ve ever gained both strength and muscle, was when I was doing those workouts, which I’ve actually… Sometimes a client will email you and be like, “Hey… ” Or an old client would be like, “Hey, it’s been a long time, I just want you to know I started back up on those workouts from three years ago, it’s going really well, thank you so much.” That’s been me for the last month, I’m like, yeah, I’m feeling good. So we’ll see. 225 x 20 has been just a fun, random arbitrary bench press goal, but I’m afraid that I would have to get bigger than I want to to be able to be strong enough to do that, but we’ll see. I’m just doing that right now.
0:11:49.8 Jordan Syatt: Taking a day at a time. I remember… Those were great workouts.
0:11:53.8 Mike Vacanti: Oh, yeah.
0:11:54.1 Jordan Syatt: Those were great, yeah. Those were fun back in the… That was 2016 or 2017?
0:11:58.4 Mike Vacanti: 2016.
0:12:00.4 Jordan Syatt: 2016, 2016, yeah, summer 2016.
0:12:01.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, ’cause we were out East, and…
0:12:06.7 Jordan Syatt: Sleeping on the same air mattress. [laughter]
0:12:06.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. We talked about… I texted you that the other day. I was like, “I can’t believe we did that.” [laughter] ‘Cause we didn’t know each other that well at the time.
0:12:15.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we didn’t at all, but we got to know each other very quickly, that’s for sure. [laughter] And you read Rickson’s book, Rickson Gracie’s book, “Breathe”.
0:12:24.9 Mike Vacanti: Really good book. So this is where I feel like… [chuckle] I texted you about what’s the other… The samurai book. I forget his…
0:12:36.9 Jordan Syatt: Musashi.
0:12:37.7 Mike Vacanti: Musashi. ‘Cause you had started reading that, and I thought of it when I was done with Rickson’s book, and I looked at it and the audio book was 53 hours, and I was like, “Jordan, is this the right book?” [chuckle] You’re like, “Yeah, that’s the one.” And in my mind, because Rickson’s book made me want to… Made Jiu-jitsu as attractive as it’s ever been to me, I’ll put it that way. And then when I thought… When I considered reading that Musashi book, I immediately had a flashback to the person who has read every single article about programming, has gone through starting strength with a highlighter and underlying three times through, but hasn’t actually been in the gym.
0:13:26.0 Mike Vacanti: I was like, “I’m not reading a 53-hour book about being a samurai when I’m not practicing any kind of martial arts.” So I backburnered that. Rickson Gracie’s book, “Breathe” is six hours long. I don’t know how many pages that translates to. I’ve been doing a lot of outdoor walking, and hence, the audio books. But his story is amazing. And I like audio… I like, sorry, biographies in general from people who I respect and revere and have cool stories and something to learn from. But having watched “Choke”, his documentary around one of his fighting tournaments in Japan back in the ’90s, I believe, and having a little bit of context on him and the Gracie family in general, and then reading the book was very enjoyable.
0:14:13.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. For everyone who doesn’t know, the Gracie family is like Jiu-jitsu royalty. They’re the family that really popularized the sport of Jiu-jitsu. This is why often people call it Gracie Jiu-jitsu. So Rickson Gracie recently came out with a book called “Breathe” that I have not read yet, but everyone that I know in the Jiu-jitsu community is reading it, saying it’s amazing. I know you read it. And you’re gonna hate me for bringing this up, do you think that you’re gonna give it a shot, you’re gonna go do some Jiu-jitsu classes?
0:14:47.4 Mike Vacanti: The timing is uncertain. Look, I’ll say this, I will at some point, want to be able to kill an intruder into my home to protect my wife and children at some point in my life, probably in the not too distant future, and I have come to believe that Jiu-jitsu is the best form of self-defense for hand-to-hand combat. And so by way of deduction, yes, I think that that is on the table.
0:15:22.7 Jordan Syatt: Let’s go.
0:15:23.6 Mike Vacanti: I’m not looking forward to it because I’m not looking forward to putting on the backburner weightlifting, which I will have to do, kinda like we talked about yesterday, for a period of time, but yeah, it’s inevitable.
0:15:37.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:15:38.3 Mike Vacanti: I also wanna know… I’ve been bouncing around… Location-wise, I wanna be settled before… I’m spending a couple of days in the city, I’ve been out East a little bit, I’m getting to Minnesota, I go to Mount… I’m considering where I want to end up long-term. And so I’d rather not go take random classes at random gyms. I’d rather have somewhere to commit to.
0:16:04.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’d be like if someone goes to a new personal trainer every month, it’s like, it doesn’t work out well that way, it’s smarter to find a place where you’re gonna be consistent, hang out with the coach who gets to know you and be there for a long time. That makes sense.
0:16:17.8 Mike Vacanti: Just an analogy king.
0:16:20.6 Jordan Syatt: It was an easy one, the analogy.
0:16:20.7 Mike Vacanti: What’s it like being so jacked and good at analogies?
0:16:25.5 Jordan Syatt: I’m really not jacked. [laughter]
0:16:31.2 Mike Vacanti: You’re on that…
0:16:31.3 Jordan Syatt: At all.
0:16:31.4 Mike Vacanti: You’re on that push-pull leg though.
0:16:32.7 Jordan Syatt: I do love the push-pull leg.
0:16:34.8 Mike Vacanti: And I think that extra upper-body volume compared to what you’ve done historically has…
0:16:39.9 Jordan Syatt: Has helped for sure.
0:16:41.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:16:41.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. No, for sure I have more upper-body mass than I think I’ve ever had, which I don’t think says a lot, considering I was never an upper-body guy, I was always deadlift king, like squat, whatever. Now, lower-body days are my least favorite days. And it’s so funny, it’s like whatever my goal is, it really highlights the importance of having a performance-based goal, at least for me, where it’s like whatever my performance-based goal is, that’s exactly how I structure my training. And I really think that having a push-pull leg day, a push-pull leg split for Jiu-jitsu is probably infinitely better than an upper or lower split.
0:17:24.9 Mike Vacanti: How come?
0:17:29.3 Jordan Syatt: For many reasons. Number one, I think… Here’s what I think. I think for someone who’s in Jiu-jitsu, who is like a… Someone in Jiu-jitsu who is great at Jiu-jitsu, but they don’t have enough full body strength, I think an upper or lower split might be a really good idea in order to just get more muscle mass on them in general. But for someone in Jiu-jitsu who comes from a strength background, who doesn’t need more muscle mass especially on their lower body but could definitely stand to improve upper body strength and endurance, I think having one lower-body day a week is plenty, whereas the upper-body days I think do have a significant transfer over. So yeah, I think it does depend, but I think for if you have enough muscle mass already, there’s a thing with Jiu-jitsu where if you add too much muscle mass to your legs, it’s gonna be difficult to move around.
0:18:20.2 Mike Vacanti: Ah, yeah.
0:18:20.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s gonna be difficult. ‘Cause you use your legs like arms in Jiu-jitsu in so many ways. And it’s one of the reasons why learning Jiu-jitsu is so difficult because you’re learning all these new movements and all these new patterns and all these habits with your legs that you wouldn’t do… Like you’ve never done otherwise throughout your entire life. And also, there are different ways that you hold people with your legs, and if you have too much muscle mass, it can be difficult to make these connections ’cause it’s actually physically blocking you from being able to make the connections and to have enough dexterity in your legs. So yeah, I like that upper, lower, that push-pull leg split a lot.
0:18:54.2 Mike Vacanti: Nice. I’m glad it’s going well. And you like Planet Fitness.
0:18:58.0 Jordan Syatt: Big fan. I didn’t know that you love Planet Fitness. I didn’t know that.
0:19:03.8 Mike Vacanti: So in 2016, when I began getting my dad jacked and we worked… I trained him at Planet Fitness, he had a $20 membership, that got him unlimited free guests, I went with him. I posted a few times of us in Planet Fitness and I was putting stuff in my story of us in Planet Fitness and just getting the like… Just not even nerdy or dweeby, but basically dopey dudes replying about how lame Planet Fitness is. But then I click on their profile and I’m like, “If Planet Fitness is so lame, then why is my dad stronger than you? Why aren’t you making more progress at your elite gym?” And so that made me and… When you have something to push against, it kinda creates that… It’s like having an enemy makes you more strong to one side or the other, and that made me really like it. I mean, it’s dirt cheap, it’s clean. It’s… If you go at the right times, it’s dead, and they have literally everything that you could ever want except for free barbels.
0:20:06.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. Completely agree. Some of the machines are great too, they’ve got some Hammer Strength equipment, it’s just purple, but otherwise it… [chuckle]
0:20:16.9 Mike Vacanti: Vikings.
0:20:17.2 Jordan Syatt: Everything’s great. [laughter]
0:20:18.3 Mike Vacanti: Skol! [chuckle] But their… You said something interesting about they claim not to be judgmental, but really they’re the most judgmental.
0:20:31.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah, they are the most judgmental gym that I’ve ever been to, and I’ve been to some really judgmental gyms before. [laughter]
0:20:39.1 Mike Vacanti: Elaborate.
0:20:41.3 Jordan Syatt: It’s like… I don’t have the picture in front of me, but on the lunk alarm, which in and of itself is like… The lunk alarm is judgmental, if you really think about it.
0:20:51.0 Mike Vacanti: To lunks…
0:20:55.0 Jordan Syatt: To lunks, of course, people who… In their definition of a lunk is just someone who likes to lift heavy, but… Oh, yeah, so they have the definition of a lunk right there, and it’s like someone…
0:21:02.6 Mike Vacanti: Gallon of water, right?
0:21:03.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, they’ve got… God forbid, they’ve got a gallon water jug, like making fun of people who carry around water to stay hydrated, a string or a t-shirt, and something that says something about them lifting really heavy. And I remember watching commercials or listening to a radio commercial about Planet Fitness, them making fun of people who take Creatine, vividly remember that. They’re like, “We don’t take Creatine here, da, da, da, da, da.” And I was like, “What a weird thing to have a commercial about.” It makes sense, I think for their target market of people who don’t understand and don’t wanna understand, they just wanna have a gym that they can go to, but in the process of saying that they are the non-judgment… Judgment-free zone, it’s like they are going out of their way to be mean to people that don’t fit their target market. Which could be a great marketing strategy for them, it might, and clearly it works super well, they’re… As far as I know they’re doing great, but yeah, that’s the one thing that annoys me about the place more than not having barbels.
0:22:05.6 Mike Vacanti: It’s judgmental towards someone outside of the “core group” or the target audience.
0:22:12.0 Jordan Syatt: Correct. I’ve gotten a little kickback from people as well about going there, the biggest kickback is being like, “You know they serve pizza on Mondays.” It’s like…
0:22:21.1 Mike Vacanti: Pizza is delicious. [laughter]
0:22:26.1 Jordan Syatt: Also, it’s like…
0:22:27.4 Mike Vacanti: What you… Are those people saying that it… Using food as a reward for a workout is a bad strategy, or mindset?
0:22:34.7 Jordan Syatt: I think that’s what they’re insinuating. Is that they’re being like… And in my mind I’m like, listen, if serving pizza once a week gets people to go to the gym three times a week, cool.
0:22:46.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:22:47.2 Jordan Syatt: Probably gonna be better off than them just not going to the gym at all. I would rather… Cool, they go in, they have a slice of pizza on Monday, and then they work out three times that week because they like the gym that gave them pizza free one time a week, like great. For me, I don’t see it any different than offering a cash prize for someone to take part in your challenge. If you’re offering a cash prize for someone to take part in your challenge, I think it’s a very similar, not the same, it’s a very similar way, you’re trying to get an incentive for them to do something. If you’re offering a cash prize for someone in your weight loss challenge, some people could be like, “Well, that’s a really bad idea because they’re not gonna get cash for the rest of their life, da, da, da, da, da. You could be ingraining bad habits.”
0:23:34.2 Jordan Syatt: It’s not about the cash, as much it is about what you teach them during the challenge. It’s not about that one-time pizza, as much it is about them ingraining the habit of going to the gym and exercising. And oftentimes, if they start going in and exercising frequently, maybe they’ll get to a point where they don’t want the pizza anymore. But yeah, I think it’s a very short-sighted view to be like, “Well, they serve pizza. Ha, ha, ha it’s stupid.” It’s like, “Alright, well, at least they’re working out.”
0:23:57.8 Mike Vacanti: You also… I can’t even imagine what you have to see in your DMs.
0:24:02.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, someone was… I was having this conversation in my story, talking about what I like, what I don’t like about it. And in the story that I wrote bullet point what I like about it, I was like, “It’s clean, $10 a month. They have great equipment. Da, da, da, da, da.” So this woman replied to it, and I don’t remember what she said, but she replied. Oh, she was like saying like, “Oh, this should be an ad for Planet Fitness.” And then in the next story, I said, “Now the things I don’t like about it are this, this and this, and especially that their marketing is super judgmental.” And then to that she replied, “So I don’t understand, why do you come here?” And she’s clearly a Planet Fitness person. She’s like, “So if you don’t like it, then, why do you come here?” And I said, “Like I said above, I like that it’s $10 a month. It’s clean and they have great equipment.” And she was like, “Where did you say that?” I was like, “I said that to the story you replied to above.” And she was like, “Oh, sorry, I didn’t read that.” I was like, “What? What is going on?” [chuckle]
0:25:00.0 Mike Vacanti: But she said it would be great marketing for Planet Fitness.
0:25:01.6 Jordan Syatt: She said, she… I screenshotted it ’cause it was so ridiculous, but yeah, yeah, some of the stuff in my DMs is just mind-boggling. Blood pressure is doing great though.
0:25:11.2 Mike Vacanti: [chuckle] Despite the DMs, my blood pressure is the best it’s ever been.
0:25:17.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:25:18.5 Mike Vacanti: That’s amazing.
0:25:18.8 Jordan Syatt: Blood pressure’s doing great.
0:25:20.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s amazing. Yeah, it’s interesting whether that is just a function of communicating with so many people, and so you’re gonna have a certain percentage of them who are just different, [chuckle] or if it’s also partly driven by the mode of communication, which time will tell.
0:25:46.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I don’t know, man, I definitely interact with a lot of people and I see some weird shit from… People, like I don’t understand, I’m so far removed from that world of consuming content for the sake of consuming content and then replying to someone without thinking that they’re an actual human. It’s a completely different mindset and world, and I think most people are… When they consume content and they reply to someone who makes that content, they’re not thinking that that’s an actual person, they’re not under the mindset that’s a real individual, and so I think some of these people just say things that are just so stupid without… I don’t understand, for example, the video where…
0:26:30.0 Mike Vacanti: That would never be said in a face-to-face conversation. Yeah.
0:26:33.6 Jordan Syatt: Ever, ever. And I think even when they read it back, they’re like, “That was so dumb, like why would I say that?” I’ve had people do that before. I’ve had people where… ‘Cause you can see the date that someone sent something, and so someone will send me a message and then they’ll send me a message like we’ll call it today, and then they’ll look back through the messages they have sent me over the years, and then they’ll be like, “Hey, I’m looking back at the last message I sent you in 2019, and I don’t know what the hell provoked me to say that, but I’m really sorry.” And it’s like sometimes people just say things without any thought as to like… I have no idea. It’s very odd, but the video of me throwing the basketball backwards with… To the net?
0:27:13.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:27:14.6 Jordan Syatt: Someone applied to that today, and they were like, “So, what you did is you just… You took that video of you missing and you only put up the video of you making it, I think that’s pretty deceiving.” I was like, “What do you want me to put up, a 17-minute video of me missing over and over and over? [laughter] What do you want me to do?” [laughter]
0:27:36.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, man.
0:27:37.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:27:37.8 Mike Vacanti: You’re a saint. You’re a saint. Alright, we got three good questions. First one’s interesting, I’m curious to hear your take on this first one. I’m gonna read it right now. It’s a little far away from me, so I’m gonna squint and do my best here. A question for your podcast, can you talk about style of online training/differences between online coach that is sending workout plans versus those that work with the client virtually like on Zoom and are doing a live session with them? I coach in-person, mostly at a gym, but I have a client I train on Zoom, I’d like to expand that business and work with people online that don’t go to the gym for my virtual and in-person, I rarely have a set plan ahead of time as my brain works best when I’m with my client and the workout comes to me as we go. Do you train that way as well, or do you literally write up a plan every time you meet someone? I have a group fitness background as well, and many times I’m spontaneously coming up with workout circuits, etcetera, on the fly, I always keep everyone safe and offer progressions, regressions. I’d like to hear your thoughts. Do you have successful online trainers that actually stay for the hour or 45-minute workout? Maybe I can also send them additional workout they can do on their own time, but that seems hard for me as clients might not understand the goblet squat, etcetera. Thoughts? Thank you so much for such a fun and informative podcast. Judy.
0:29:00.6 Jordan Syatt: Well, thank you for the questions, Judy. I’m a little bit… I might need you to read some of that back again, ’cause I feel like there were a number of questions within there.
0:29:06.6 Mike Vacanti: So I think the first one is mostly on the way that we have talked about and the way that I run and you have historically run one-on-one online coaching compared to a virtual coaching session where you get on Zoom with someone, they have some dumbbells maybe, and you sit there with them for an hour, like a one-on-one in-person session except on Zoom. So we can start there.
0:29:33.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I think that’s totally valid. I know a lot of coaches who do that. It depends on where you are in your career and what you want in your training. I think if you want more control over… If you want the most control over what your clients are doing, then you’re gonna be in-person with them. If you are only going to have the most amount of control over what your clients are doing, then you will only do in-person. If you’re okay not having the most amount of control, then maybe you’ll do Zoom calls because obviously you can’t put your hands on them, you can’t be right there with them, but you’d still have more control than you would if you were solely online and sending them their program. If you’re okay with less control or the least amount of control, then you’ll just send them their program, and ideally, as a good coach you’ll also include video tutorials so that they can watch them and see for themselves.
0:30:35.4 Jordan Syatt: I know it’s a very common justification against coaches doing online coaching because they’re gonna say like, “Oh, I don’t know if they’re doing it properly.” But the way I see it is if the only option is either working online without a Zoom or without an in-person or working with another coach, and then you’re gonna go to another coach. And so I would rather have them work with me, I can give them my video tutorials, have them send me videos of them doing it once they’ve done it, and then I can correct it rather than just having them to go to someone else entirely, who might not do any of that whatsoever. So doing Zoom calls or Skype calls or whatever are great. I know many coaches who do them, if you don’t have many clients, then it might be a great way to continue to improve client retention, to help them stay on with you, but as your online clientele grows and as your time goes down, that’s not gonna be feasible.
0:31:32.5 Mike Vacanti: Great answer. From a financial perspective, I think you can think about it from your businesses finances as well as from the perspective of what your client can afford doing three or let’s say four days a week, they’re essentially paying for in-person coaching on these Zoom calls, that’s 100 bucks a session, we’ll call it, times four per week, times four plus weeks in a month, that’s $1600 per month, minimum, that your client is gonna be paying; that’s $20K a year, whereas online coaching, when you’re not sitting with them for 45-60 minutes a day, four days a week, you’re gonna… And in the former example, you might even be charging more because if you’re offering nutrition, if you’re offering email tech support, whatever it is outside of those sessions, but if you’re offering online coaching where you’re not sitting basically with them through every single workout, you’re charging, we’ll call it between $200 and on the very high end $400 a month…
0:32:43.0 Jordan Syatt: Or more.
0:32:44.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that’s not even the very high end, to be honest, but your client is paying a fraction of what they would be paying for Zoom coaching, we’ll call it.
0:32:56.8 Jordan Syatt: Correct. And it’s funny that I think early on in my coaching career, I would have been… In my in-person coaching career, I would have been very much against online for these exact same reasons. You can’t be with them, da, da, da, but having gone through all the experiences I’ve been through with in-person, one-on-one online, online group coaching, and then the inner circle, more of a membership model, I think all of them are better than any of them alone, and as long as you give people the tools to do it properly, you’re gonna be able to help way more people online than you would in-person, and that’s something that has never ceased to amaze me is how many people you can help when you stop trying to make everything perfect, when you stop having to control every single rep of their entire workout, when you have to make sure you’re looking at… ‘Cause listen, you’re not looking at every single rep either, and you’re not. You’re just… It’s not happening.
0:33:57.5 Jordan Syatt: If you’re a good coach within a relatively brief time frame, you should be able to manage several clients at the same time in-person, ’cause… And your client’s gonna be talking to you throughout their set sometimes, and they’re gonna… You don’t need to micromanage everything and you can help way, way, way more people in an online model than you could solely in-person.
0:34:18.8 Mike Vacanti: That’s the other point is in-person or with the Zoom coaching, you’re going to be able to reach and help more people, and foster a little bit more independence and a little, like you said, give them the tools, give them technique videos, analyze their technique videos, program in a way that’s safe and effective, but you’re also helping them get better rather than, I don’t wanna say hand-holding, because that’s not true for every client, but there can be a… Become a degree of dependence.
0:34:51.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:34:53.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Alright, number two.
0:34:55.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, wait, wait. Hold on, hold on, hold on, ’cause I remember Judy asked another question.
0:34:57.9 Mike Vacanti: Oh, sorry, sorry.
0:35:00.2 Jordan Syatt: Something about like, do you write a program?
0:35:01.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. [chuckle] So sometimes I work best when I’m with my client and the workout comes to me as we go. Do you train that way?
0:35:12.0 Jordan Syatt: No. There’s a difference between being able to change your program on the fly and not having a program at all. And so you should absolutely have a program pre-written for your clients, if you’re not doing that, you are not training responsibly. It doesn’t mean you can’t keep your client safe without having a program, but it does mean that you are not thinking ahead about what this client specifically needs and what’s gonna help them achieve their goals. And group classes can be great for people who just wanna sweat and get some movement and exercise in, but there’s a difference between exercise and training. And that’s really the difference between going in and doing a random workout versus having a pre-planned workout routine and training program. You should know exactly what your client’s goals are, you should know what they’re trying to achieve, and your program should be attacking specifically that; and you should write that out, I would say each program should be at least a month in advance.
0:36:13.3 Jordan Syatt: What then is gonna happen is they’re gonna come in and you’re gonna do the same workouts together for four, or five, six, seven, eight weeks, and that is how you track progress. If you do a new workout every single time, how can you track their progress? You’re not, and yeah there’s no consistency, there’s no way for you to know, are you actually getting stronger? Are you getting better? Or you’re just doing something new because you think that they’re going to enjoy it better with new exercises they haven’t done before, but you’re not actually giving them an opportunity to improve in progressive overload in specific exercises. So yes, you need to have a program, but there’s also something called cybernetic periodization in which let’s say someone comes in, they’re super stressed out, they’re going through a divorce, they lost their job, they’re really tired, they didn’t sleep, whatever it is, and they’re like, “Hey, I just can’t do this workout today?” Cool, then you can change it on the fly based on how they’re feeling, but you still have to have a plan.
0:37:04.2 Mike Vacanti: Cool. We’re pushing time, so we got two pretty short ones, I think we can get through both of them here. Cool. How to lose the last five pounds? Any tips? It’s been almost two months.
0:37:18.0 Jordan Syatt: What do you think, Michael?
0:37:19.9 Mike Vacanti: I think that anyone asking this question, and I think you will be able to better glamorize this or maybe make this answer hit the intended audience, but anyone who “needs to lose the last five pounds and it’s been two months and they haven’t lost any, doesn’t need to lose the last five pounds.” Like shifting to maintenance, shifting to a different goal, shifting to trying to get stronger, shifting to gaining lean mass. There’s nothing wrong with having precise fat loss targets, right? I have a client right now who… We’re maybe like seven or eight pounds away from where he wants to be and where I want him to be before we transition into another muscle gain phase, that’s okay. Having precise targets is okay, but having this perpetual like, I just need to lose a little bit more fat and then I’ll feel good and then I’ll be done, but I also haven’t been making progress toward that goal, I mean, for one, you’re not gonna look any different down five pounds, you might be able to notice something, but you’re basically, even in a swimsuit, you’re not gonna look different losing five pounds of body fat.
0:38:34.3 Mike Vacanti: And it just is a question coming from a mindset of whether it’s a fixation on, oh, I remember when I weighed 130 and I’m 135 now, and I remember feeling good at 130, so I wanna get to 130 again, there’s some kind of emotional attachment to a number, whether it’s that or just this moving target, like, once you lose five, then really, you wanna lose another five and then you wanna lose another five, whatever it is, losing those five pounds isn’t gonna be the solution, and so I would say that if you’ve been trying hard for two months and you can’t lose that last five, and you still wanna lose five more, it’s a good time to change your goal and your focus.
0:39:15.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. No, I agree 100% with everything you said. Yeah, I mean, the way I always think about it is almost everybody has this experience where they look at an old picture of them, whether it’s in a swimsuit or not, they look at an old picture when they weighed less and they’re like, oh my God, I looked so good. But if they go back to that person in that picture in that time, they were self-conscious with how they looked in that moment and they didn’t like how they looked, and that person still wanted to lose weight, it’s like it’s always… Hindsight is always better. You’re always like… You always are like, oh, I looked so good, how did I not realize how good I looked in that picture? So if you really think you’re gonna love how you look way more five pounds lighter because that’s what you weighed several years ago, no, it’s not how it works. You might get there, but what you have to do is analyze the cost, sort of like how I analyze the cost of the YouTube video versus the podcast. And so you have to analyze what’s the cost versus the benefit here. In terms of losing those last five or… It’s usually the last five of the last 10 pounds is what people say, how do you lose the last five, the last 10 pounds?
0:40:26.9 Jordan Syatt: Let’s say you can lose those last five pounds, how is your life gonna be any better? What’s gonna happen in your life? Are you all of a sudden going to be significantly happier? And in order to understand that, you have to understand what you have to give up in order to achieve those five pounds, you’re gonna have to reduce your calories significantly further, you’re probably gonna have to increase your activity, you’re probably not gonna be able to be as flexible and lenient with your nutrition when you go out with friends and family, so you’re not gonna be able to eat as bunch of chips and guac at the Mexican restaurant. You’re not gonna be able to have a dessert as much as you want, maybe you’ll have to say no to the drinks, whatever it is. Is that worth it for you? And if you can really think about your life like that, do you really think being five pounds lighter but being significantly more strict with your nutrition is gonna make you happier? Probably not, it’s probably gonna make you feel deprived and upset, and feel like it’s unfair that you can’t be enjoying yourself when in reality you can, you’re just imposing that on yourself. And again, the question isn’t last 50 pounds, where health is at play, we’re talking about the last five pounds.
0:41:27.7 Mike Vacanti: Great answer. How much to charge for online coaching?
0:41:34.9 Jordan Syatt: Man, we could talk about this for a long time. I would say when it’s early on, when you have no clients, I’d say start with free, just because you have no clients, people aren’t paying you and you need people to get in, and the first round of clients you take on for free will be great testimonials and referrals to get your next round of clients being paying. So you take on one, two, three, four or five clients for free, guarantee you’re gonna get some paying clients after that, so I’d start with free and then I would start… I don’t know, at least $100 a month, maybe as like a baseline, $100 a month at the lowest point after free, then from there, go to $150, then from there go to $200, and then you could go up as high as you want. But as you get more and more clients and you raise your prices, what really becomes the deciding factor is what you feel comfortable with. And there’s a difference between feeling comfortable with it versus being nervous to raise your prices. They are two different things. Every time I raised my prices, I was always nervous about it, but there came a point where I felt like I was actually charging more than I was worth, more than my services were worth, so I remember there was a time where I got up to about $500 a month, but I didn’t feel good about that.
0:42:54.2 Jordan Syatt: I was not… When I sent that link, I was not feeling like, this is fair. So then I ended up reducing my prices until I was around $300 a month, and that’s where I sort of landed as my most common price after a certain point, but I went from free to…
0:43:11.3 Mike Vacanti: And for context, those are 2016 dollars, so we need to do inflation adjust that $300. [laughter]
0:43:18.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s exactly right. So I went from free and then I remember the first time I charged, it was like $20 for a 12-week program to some kid in my college dorm, and progressively went up and up and up. And every single time I raised my prices, I was always nervous, but it wasn’t until I got to about $400 and $500 a month that I didn’t feel good about it anymore, and so that’s purely individual. I’m not saying those are the numbers you have to follow, but your gut and intuition will tell you. I have some friends and colleagues who charge $400 or $500, $600 a month, and they feel great about it and their services are awesome, so, fantastic, but for me, I felt best around $300 a month. Which, for whatever it’s worth it, it translates to about $75 a week. So $75 a week when a single one-on-one personal training session is usually anywhere between $80 to $150 an hour, like $75 a week is a no-brainer, it’s actually… It’s a very, very affordable and very low cost, if you think about it.
0:44:18.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I completely agree. We often get people who reach out to join the mentorship and we’ll get questions submitted through the website that are along the lines of, hey, I wanna build a high-ticket coaching business, I really want a few clients that I really help a lot and go the high-ticket route, and by the way, I don’t know who invented that term, but I couldn’t be more annoyed with it.
0:44:44.5 Jordan Syatt: What a loser. [laughter]
0:44:48.3 Mike Vacanti: When I follow up, like, how much do you… What is high-ticket? I just wanna make sure we’re on the same page because they ask if that’s something that we can help them build in the mentorship, and they’ll say like $2000 to $5000 a month for one-on-one fitness coaching. And I’m like, no, we can’t help you with your high-ticket.
0:45:08.8 Jordan Syatt: The hell are you gonna offer for $2000 to $5000 a month.
0:45:13.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, exactly, exactly. But… Not to mention, if you think about, back to the point in the book, Anti-fragile, having more clients at a more reasonable amount, having 40 clients paying you $300 a month compared to a handful of clients paying you several thousand each, you’re anti-fragile with more clients… With fewer clients. One or two of them have a blip in the road and something happens, job lost, whatever it is, and all of a sudden your net income is down 40% overnight. It’s not an anti-fragile business model, but yeah, like you said, we all have a different amount… When I charged $500 a month for one-on-one coaching, I didn’t feel great about it, I pulled back and in the $350 to $400 range is where I have ended up feeling comfortable. The only other point that I would make on top of what you said is with the free clients, even early on, I would make my default paid, but offer free coaching for someone who can’t afford it, and I was even charging as little as $30 or $40 or $50 a month early on just to give the client a little skin in the game, a little investment, make it matter a little more to me, just make it feel a little more real, even if it was an amount of money that wasn’t… That didn’t necessarily matter to either of us, it made the arrangement more real.
0:46:44.0 Mike Vacanti: That being said, there are people who you will want to work with who can’t even afford that, and that’s completely understandable, and then coaching them for free still yields all of the benefits to helping you become a better coach, helping with your programming, getting a testimonial, helping build your online coaching systems, which is huge, especially early on, and only comes through practice and time, not through some software that you build, it’s automatically gonna blow up your coaching business. Great episode. Feels good to be back.
0:47:16.9 Jordan Syatt: Where can people ask questions? Is it on howtobecomeapersonaltrainer.com? Or do we not have that yet?
0:47:22.7 Mike Vacanti: We asked for it, I don’t know if it exists yet.
0:47:27.3 Jordan Syatt: Got it. Okay. Soon, is it gonna be on how to become a personal trainer?
0:47:30.3 Mike Vacanti: Yes.
0:47:31.0 Jordan Syatt: Soon on howtobecomeapersonaltrainer.com, which is our podcast website, we’re going to have a question box, so any questions you have, you can put them in there and we will answer them just like we did in this Q&A. In the meantime, feel free to DM or email, actually email is probably the better option. What email or no, now you know.
0:47:51.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, info@fitnessbusinessmentorship.com, info@fitnessbusinessmentorship.com. Hey, Mike and Jordan, what’s up? Got a question for the pod insert.
0:48:03.0 Jordan Syatt: And then I have basically my wedding 2.0/honeymoon coming up in about a week, so there will be another week or so where we don’t have a podcast, but after that, not going anywhere for a long time, so we’re gonna be very consistent with these podcasts.
0:48:20.6 Mike Vacanti: As we’ve said before, so take this with a grain of salt. [laughter] Thank you very much for listening.
0:48:27.3 Jordan Syatt: Awesome. Thank you.
0:48:28.3 Mike Vacanti: Everyone have a great day and we will see you soon.
