0:00:11.5 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.
0:00:13.0 Jordan Syatt: Hello, Michael.
0:00:14.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s been a while.
0:00:17.1 Jordan Syatt: Man, it has been a while, but Happy New Year, brother.
0:00:20.1 Mike Vacanti: New Year, new us.
0:00:21.5 Jordan Syatt: Happy New Year, brother. [chuckle]
0:00:21.6 Mike Vacanti: Gary, brother, it’s Hulk. [laughter]
0:00:28.2 Jordan Syatt: How was your workout today?
0:00:28.9 Mike Vacanti: Just, really good, first of all, and second of all, just peering down at my heart rate every so often on this beautiful Garmin watch that you got me as a Christmas gift.
0:00:42.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah, bro. How do you like the watch?
0:00:45.5 Mike Vacanti: I love it, man, I love it.
0:00:47.4 Jordan Syatt: You’re getting your Zone 2 in?
0:00:47.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I have been. Not during… Well, we did a Zone 2 challenge in the Mentorship, we can talk about that. But what I really like is the sleep tracking, it’s so interesting.
0:01:00.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:01:00.7 Mike Vacanti: It’s confirming what I always thought, which is like, when I think I sleep well, I’m sleeping well, and when I think I don’t, I’m getting less REM, less deep sleep, waking up more often. It’s really interesting.
0:01:11.0 Jordan Syatt: It’s been cool for me with alcohol, because it doesn’t… I don’t tell it when I drink alcohol, but there’s no question that my sleep quality is significantly worse when I drink alcohol. Just based on the information it gives me. Which to me is crazy, right? It’s like, I knew that without this watch or without the app or any of that, but it’s cool that it can detect that, that it knows that, that my REM is less, that I’m waking up more often, that my movement is way more. Yeah, it’s crazy.
0:01:40.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, I really like it. So, thank you very much. I also… Hanukkah comes before Christmas, so it was a little… Well, I’m greatly appreciative. Now, you have a very late Hanukkah gift on the way that should be there before our next podcast, so…
0:01:58.9 Jordan Syatt: Man, you didn’t have to get…
0:02:00.9 Mike Vacanti: Keep your eyes peeled.
0:02:01.0 Jordan Syatt: It wasn’t like an obligatory… [laughter]
0:02:03.6 Mike Vacanti: Well, this is… It didn’t feel obligatory. If it’s out of the goodness of my heart, so keep your eyes open.
0:02:08.3 Jordan Syatt: 100% it felt obligatory…
0:02:09.8 Mike Vacanti: Very, very.
0:02:10.3 Jordan Syatt: ‘Cause Hannukah had already passed. [laughter]
0:02:12.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but this is… It’s not just a random thing. It’s something that you and I need.
0:02:19.5 Jordan Syatt: Now we’re gonna get in this like back and forth. [laughter]
0:02:21.7 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no, this is it, this is it. Don’t do another one. [laughter] I’m not really a gift guy, I run out of ideas very quickly.
0:02:30.6 Jordan Syatt: I’m, you know I’m not a gift guy at all. Like, at all, I never give gifts. Even if I go to someone’s wedding, I’m always like, do I really need to get them a gift? I’m just like, I’m going there.
0:02:42.0 Mike Vacanti: Why not? [chuckle]
0:02:43.1 Jordan Syatt: So I’ve never been a gift guy, that’s one of the… If we had had a public wedding or like a wedding where we invited many people, I would have been like, “Don’t bring gifts. Just the fact that you’ll take the time to come, you spend the money to get here, that’s plenty.” I’ve never… I don’t like when people get me gifts, I’ve never been a gift guy, I’m just… I’m not. But when I got the watch and you’re like, “Oh, that’s sick.” I was like, “Oh, yeah.” And then you said you put it on your Christmas list. I was like, I’m just gonna get it.
0:03:09.2 Mike Vacanti: Well, I’m greatly appreciative. Do you really not give gifts at weddings?
0:03:15.2 Jordan Syatt: No, I give cash. It’s just, I give them cash. That’s like the best gift, ’cause they can do whatever they want with it.
0:03:22.4 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely. It’s a mob move.
0:03:22.5 Jordan Syatt: But I’ve never been good with gifting. My wife is very good at gifting, she’s always super thoughtful with it, and she pays attention to what you say. So she’ll really get you very thoughtful, well, well thought out gifts, and I’m just… I’m not… I’m a good listener, but I’m not good with gifts. So it’s very rare for me to do anything other than… I’ll write a check or give you cash, but that’s pretty much it.
0:03:45.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That’s the same thing I do at weddings, is give cash. I thought you were saying that you showed up empty-handed and just said, “Hey, my presence is enough for this situation.” [laughter] I’m happy you two are starting your lives together, but you got nothing from me. But here I am, mazel tov. [laughter]
0:04:05.1 Jordan Syatt: I kno me being here cost you significant amount of money, but no, you don’t get anything. No, no. And if it’s my buddy, I’ll get like a big wad of cash and I’ll just put it in their suit coat pocket or something, which feels pretty bad ass. [laughter]
0:04:16.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, I like that. Well, we got another rapid fire Q&A style episode, which might not actually be rapid-fire we might deep dive on some of these, we’ll see. But a unplanned… They were going well for us in our last streak of podcasts. [chuckle] By the way, I am unbelievably confident that we bang out 52 episodes this year. [laughter] I truly can’t see this year going any other way than having 52 plus episodes of this podcast.
0:04:49.1 Jordan Syatt: Plus, 52 plus. Wow.
0:04:50.8 Mike Vacanti: There might be some weeks where we just grip it and rip it a few times. But let’s just… Let’s call it 52.
0:04:54.8 Jordan Syatt: Alright.
0:04:56.2 Mike Vacanti: But if there’s a bonus in there, I wouldn’t be shocked.
0:05:00.3 Jordan Syatt: Cool. I’m in bro, I’m in. I’ve blocked every Friday off for me in full, like, just for podcasting. ‘Cause… For my own podcast, ’cause Monday through Thursday is either inner circle members, or me guesting on other podcasts. But Friday is just for my podcast, for me, solo podcast or for mentorship. So, if you ever wanna crank out an extra one, it could be 53 or 54 pods this year.
0:05:26.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it’s gonna be a real year, 2022. What was I just gonna say? Do we have anything else before we dive into questions?
0:05:35.2 Jordan Syatt: How have you been liking your Zone 2 cardio?
0:05:37.6 Mike Vacanti: Oh yes. Okay. So every month in the mentorship we have a monthly Challenge and the winner of the challenge gets a prize, usually like a deep dive one-on-one consult with us. And most of the challenges are business-related, obviously, since coaching and business are the two main focuses of the mentorship. But in December, we added a fitness component, just because we felt like it was something that most people, personal trainers, especially in the evidence-based community, were under-rating. And that it had disproportionate upside for health. And so, we made a Zone 2 Cardio Challenge as part of the December challenge, and you and I both did it along with everyone in the mentorship. And I think I did one cardio session in the month of December. [laughter] So I was in mom’s…
0:06:32.5 Jordan Syatt: How was that one cardio session? [laughter]
0:06:34.2 Mike Vacanti: I don’t remember, it was probably bad. Five below zero outside, trying to get in the Zone 2, just walk, jogging my… Not good. But January has been very good. I’ve had… I’m alternating between cardio and lifting days, I’ve gotten something in everyday, so it’s going well. It’s kind of the… Like we would tell our clients, you have a bad month that doesn’t mean you just give up on it. It’s… Pick up when you can.
0:06:58.7 Jordan Syatt: Are you shooting for X number of minutes per week in Zone 2 or no?
0:07:04.9 Mike Vacanti: Yes, yes. Three by… Three sessions by 30 minutes each minimum. But really, I’m lifting and doing cardio every other day, so really I’m doing three and a half sessions a week on average. And my first session was 30 minutes, my second session was 35, my most recent session was 40, so…
0:07:22.5 Jordan Syatt: Wow.
0:07:22.8 Mike Vacanti: I’m really gonna be at three and half sessions a week times 40-60 minutes. So, it’s going up. And I feel really good.
0:07:33.7 Jordan Syatt: Good.
0:07:34.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:07:35.0 Jordan Syatt: My eye is bothering me so bad right now, bro.
0:07:37.2 Mike Vacanti: I see that from getting poked.
0:07:39.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it was fine for like two weeks. And then all of a sudden, every time I wake up, as soon as I wake up, it was burning like crazy. So I would wake up because my eye was burning. And then, I went to the eye doctor yesterday, oh God. And he’s like, “Basically, what’s going on is when you sleep, your eyes close, and then a scab forms that you can’t see with the naked eye, but… ” So then when I open my eye, the scab rips off. And so we have to use all these crazy eye drops right now, and hopefully in a month or so, it’ll heal. But it’s just watering like crazy right now. It’s so uncomfortable, oh my God. [laughter]
0:08:17.6 Mike Vacanti: Dude I’m sorry. That is brutal.
0:08:20.6 Jordan Syatt: It’s not good.
0:08:20.9 Mike Vacanti: It looks brutal.
0:08:22.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, not comfortable. And then…
0:08:22.5 Mike Vacanti: Watching you blink like 400 times per second right now.
0:08:26.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah, and then… And then, for whatever reason, when your eyes go like this, then your nose gets congested as well. So then my nose is running at the same time, just a mess. Look like a weepy mess right now, brother. I promise I’m not crying. [laughter]
0:08:43.4 Mike Vacanti: I believe you. How does that even fix itself, if it needs to form a scab, but it can’t form a scab ’cause it’s on your eye?
0:08:52.5 Jordan Syatt: It can’t heal, the scab can’t heal because every day when I wake up, I open my eye and then it rips off that scab. So, the first thing we’re trying is these eye drops that I have to put in my eye like every hour, and then I have one that I put in before bed that’s more of like a cream, and hopefully that will help. If that doesn’t help then they have to give some type of contact lens that acts as a shield, so that even when I open my eye, it doesn’t matter.
0:09:19.7 Mike Vacanti: Okay.
0:09:20.1 Jordan Syatt: So trying to avoid the contact lens, but we’ll see.
0:09:22.5 Mike Vacanti: These are all costs of becoming a world class martial artist. [laughter]
0:09:31.3 Mike Vacanti: The cost of developing the ability to defend yourself/kill another if needed with your bare hands. [laughter]
0:09:41.1 Jordan Syatt: Yes, sir.
0:09:42.0 Mike Vacanti: Jujutsu. [laughter]
0:09:45.6 Jordan Syatt: Should we get into the Q&A?
0:09:46.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, let’s dive in.
0:09:46.7 Jordan Syatt: Is there anything else you wanna discuss?
0:09:49.1 Mike Vacanti: Did you… You didn’t happen to watch Batman Begins, did you?
0:09:51.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh shoot. No, I didn’t. I’m sorry, bro.
0:09:53.0 Mike Vacanti: That’s okay. That’s okay. That gives everyone listening a chance to watch if they wanna follow along for next week’s episode where we’re gonna be talking about… In my slightly under-educated opinion, because I don’t… I’ve seen most of the big superhero movies, and I actually don’t really like the majority of them especially any that have come out in the last 10 years. But the Batman trilogy by Nolan and specifically Bruce Wayne’s origin story in Batman Begins is so good and relatable that I just watched it randomly the other day, and it’s worth doing a deep dive on. And I also, given both of our history with relating to anger as fuel for productivity, motivation, like a lot of good things stemming from a place of anger, will be very relatable.
0:10:46.8 Jordan Syatt: It is funny, Mike was telling me about it and I was like, “Wait, is that the one where Batman is like, ‘where is the Detonator?'” [laughter] Mike got mad. He’s like, “If the only thing you remember or you think of what that movie is his voice, then you need to watch it again. ‘Cause the lessons you learn from that movie… ” And like I don’t remember the last time I watched that movie, it must have been years and years and years ago. So I’m very excited. I’m excited to re-watch this.
0:11:10.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. [laughter] It does, it gets, I don’t know. I remember a lot of people not liking that about it. They’re like, “Oh, his voice when he’s Batman was so fake.” And I didn’t even notice it watching the movie.
0:11:26.2 Jordan Syatt: I… My buddy David and I just, would do that voice back and forth to each other. Any time he picked up the phone, he’d just be like, “Where’s the detonator? Where is it?” [laughter]
0:11:35.5 Mike Vacanti: I’m trying to think of when that movie came out. Off the top of my head, I feel like it was ’06 or ’05, which would’ve put you in late middle school, which makes sense that you wouldn’t have really cared.
0:11:49.0 Jordan Syatt: No, no. ’06, ’05, I was early high school. I was like freshman.
0:11:54.5 Mike Vacanti: Okay.
0:11:54.6 Jordan Syatt: Freshman, sophomore. [laughter]
0:11:56.5 Mike Vacanti: Late middle? No, no, I wasn’t late middle school in ’05.
0:11:58.9 Jordan Syatt: No, no. Not late…
0:12:00.1 Mike Vacanti: I was a freshman.
0:12:00.4 Jordan Syatt: It wasn’t 8th grade, it was 9th grade. [laughter]
0:12:03.2 Mike Vacanti: It wasn’t 8th grade. [laughter]
0:12:05.8 Mike Vacanti: But the Dark Knight, the second movie of the trilogy gets all of the love and is the highest rated on IMDB. And Heath Ledger’s performance was unbelievable as Joker, so it makes sense. But the origin story… As someone who… In any fiction that I consume, movie, book, etcetera, put myself in the protagonist position and basically judge how much I like it based on how much I can relate to/learn from the protagonist. Bruce Wayne’s history is something that I always connected with.
0:12:38.5 Jordan Syatt: Got it. Who do you relate to in Game of Thrones?
0:12:42.4 Mike Vacanti: I don’t wanna say it because it’s very arrogant and… [laughter] And I relate to in an aspirational sense, I relate to…
0:12:51.4 Jordan Syatt: Jorah? [chuckle]
0:12:52.2 Mike Vacanti: No, not Jorah. That wouldn’t be… No.
0:12:57.8 Jordan Syatt: I like Jorah a lot. That’s who I would… Who do you think you relate to? Oh, Ned. Ned Stark?
0:13:03.7 Mike Vacanti: Probably actually, but you only get one season with him.
0:13:06.4 Jordan Syatt: Not even.
0:13:07.7 Mike Vacanti: The protagonist of the entire series is Jon Snow, and…
0:13:09.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, got it, got it. Yeah yeah.
0:13:13.0 Mike Vacanti: I don’t even know if relate to is the right word, because…
0:13:17.8 Jordan Syatt: Aspire to, it’s Jon Snow yeah, yeah.
0:13:17.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, we’re talking about heroes. We’re talking about heroes in fiction, so it’s like how you see yourself as the best version of yourself, if you could attain that.
0:13:27.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah, no, not Jorah, that doesn’t make sense. That, no, that wouldn’t make sense. But I could see Ned Stark. I just like Jorah a lot, and he’s super loyal. Jorah, he’s like ultimate loyalty, for… And also Jon Snow. But Ned Stark, I could see you being. In terms of relating to, not necessarily aspiring… Aspiring Jon Snow, but Ned Stark is like, you’d die for your cause, right? No matter what.
0:13:49.9 Mike Vacanti: Ned Stark’s an ISTJ.
0:13:53.6 Jordan Syatt: I could see that. Oh, really? Wow, that makes sense.
0:13:54.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I definitely was both shocked and very… I wasn’t pumped when he died in Season 1.
0:14:04.8 Jordan Syatt: No one could like that, that was awful. That was, I think watching him get killed was actually what brought me into the series. Watching him die, was finally when I was like, “Oh my God, how could they take away, in my opinion, the most important character at that point in time? What?” And then I was like, “Alright, now I have to watch.”
0:14:22.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, they’re okay with killing anyone. But no, not everyone was upset about that, like us. Because…
0:14:30.9 Jordan Syatt: Really?
0:14:31.7 Mike Vacanti: Well bro, you gotta remember, there’s people in the world who read Harry Potter and don’t identify with Gryffindor. There’s people in the world who watch Game of Thrones and don’t identify with Winterfell and the Starks. I… [chuckle]
0:14:43.9 Jordan Syatt: Crazy man, crazy.
0:14:45.7 Mike Vacanti: I distinctly remember, I’m not gonna call them out, it’s actually someone in the fitness, he wouldn’t actually care, but, who was like, hardcore Slytherin, hardcore… Tywin Lannister was his favorite character on the show. And when Ned Stark was killed, he said that he’s an idiot and had no sense of… Basically, he put honesty, integrity, whatever you wanna call it, above any sort of ability to… I don’t know, understand people like plot scheme, basically, thought it was very bone-headed to go straight to Cersei and tell her essentially that he knew that her kids weren’t actually Robert’s. But that they were Jaime’s and that his stupidity got him killed.
0:15:36.2 Jordan Syatt: Wow.
0:15:37.5 Mike Vacanti: And I think there’s a real argument to be made for that, but… Yes, I identify with Ned. [laughter] You really sent us on a tangent here… An enjoyable one, but…
0:15:51.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, hopefully no one was hoping to watch Game of Thrones for the first time. [laughter]
0:15:58.6 Mike Vacanti: Ned dies, what? [laughter] Yeah. But Batman for next week.
0:16:04.2 Jordan Syatt: Batman, for next week, I’ll watch that, I’ll watch that in preparation for next week.
0:16:10.3 Mike Vacanti: Beautiful.
0:16:10.6 Jordan Syatt: Alright, should I get these questions out?
0:16:11.6 Mike Vacanti: Let’s dive in.
0:16:13.4 Jordan Syatt: Alright, let’s see. Alright, Mike, how do you like to drink your protein shake? [chuckle]
0:16:20.0 Mike Vacanti: Shaken.
0:16:21.2 Jordan Syatt: Not stirred.
0:16:21.9 Mike Vacanti: Well, hey, this is actually an unbelievable question. How do I like to drink my protein shake? First, I like to choose a protein that is reasonably priced from a CEO I trust that has solid macronutrients, meaning not a lot of tag along carbs or fats. And then, lately, I’ve been having one scoop, so like 25 grams with about three grams of creatine in it in water every morning. And that’s the majority of my protein powder…
0:16:48.7 Jordan Syatt: Three grams?
0:16:48.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:16:49.2 Jordan Syatt: Not five?
0:16:51.7 Mike Vacanti: Well, I’m having it every day, twenty…
0:16:54.8 Jordan Syatt: Saturated source, got it.
0:16:56.5 Mike Vacanti: I mean, 20-25 grams a week’s the recommendations. So you could go like training day, five grams a week, but yeah, that gets me to 21 a week, which is a good place to be. But then sometimes what I’ll do is if I want a protein shake as a meal replacement or a snack, and I want it to be a little more filling, not just 25 grams of protein, basically 100 calories total. I’ll blend it with almond milk, ice, a banana and some peanut butter, and that’ll end up with 15 to 20 fat, 40-ish carb and if I go two scoops of protein for like 50 protein, and that makes for a nice afternoon snack.
0:17:36.5 Jordan Syatt: What kind of peanut butter do you use?
0:17:39.0 Mike Vacanti: The kind of peanut butter that used to have people replying to my stories when I made content yelling at me because apparently Skippy and Jif have some fats that are gonna kill me. [laughter]
0:17:50.0 Jordan Syatt: Bro, Skippy is the best. It’s by far, Skippy smooth is my favorite.
0:17:54.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I’m not a chunky guy. How do you like your protein shakes?
0:17:58.9 Jordan Syatt: So, I mean we both… You drink Legion, right? I drink… We both drink Legion. I was… Cinnamon cereal used to be my favorite. And then more recently, it’s become cocoa cereal.
0:18:11.7 Mike Vacanti: Dude, cocoa cereal every morning.
0:18:15.8 Jordan Syatt: Just unbelievable. It’s incredible. Cocoa cereal, and I just put it in Fairlife milk. And that’s it. I used to be a big blender guy, put it into the blender, da-da-da-da-da, put ice in it and all this stuff, but on… Dude, I hate cleaning the blender… I hate cleaning the blender.
0:18:30.1 Mike Vacanti: Wait, you would do it in the blender with ice, if you were only having protein powder and a liquid?
0:18:35.1 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no, ’cause I put other stuff in it as well. Like I’d put peanut butter in it, I’d put whatever else in it, like sometimes I’d put spinach in it, just to get some more vegetables in there. Just like a bunch of random stuff.
0:18:45.0 Mike Vacanti: Over under seven times in your life have you put spinach in your protein shake?
0:18:48.8 Jordan Syatt: Way over.
0:18:49.9 Mike Vacanti: Wow.
0:18:50.6 Jordan Syatt: I had a huge phase of doing that when I was a powerlifter. A huge phase. Actually inspired by Tony Gentilcore, ’cause he did that when I was interning at Cressey Performance.
0:18:58.3 Mike Vacanti: Shout-out to Tony G.
0:19:00.1 Jordan Syatt: So, I used to do that all the time. But cleaning the blender to me is one of the most… One of the worst things in the world. I hate cleaning the blender and if you don’t clean it quickly, it stinks and it’s just… It’s not good. So, I was like, screw it, no more blending. Fairlife Milk is just without question, the best milk there is, so I actually have gotten a lot of the Fairlife chocolate milk as well, so I’ll get Fairlife chocolate, put some cocoa cereal in there and I’m good to go.
0:19:27.2 Mike Vacanti: I love it.
0:19:31.4 Jordan Syatt: Someone said, I have no idea how to treat sugar in a calorie deficit, which isn’t really a question, but what do you think? How should you treat sugar in a calorie deficit, Michael?
0:19:43.6 Mike Vacanti: It’s actually, it’s kind of a cool question. So sugar is a type of carbohydrate, carbohydrate is a macronutrient, and there are four macronutrients including alcohol, which add up to a total number of calories, so… How to think about sugar intake? You could eat exclusively sugar, table sugar and no carb… No other carb sources, no fats, no proteins, you know, just straight eating table sugar for a period of time and be in a deficit and lose body fat over that period of time. That’s not a great strategy, one that I probably wouldn’t recommend to anyone ever, but you could theoretically do it. On the other end of the spectrum, you have people who would argue that you shouldn’t ever eat any sugar because it’s, insert reason, bad for you, causes cancer, insulin, blah, blah, blah…
0:20:45.6 Jordan Syatt: Addictive.
0:20:47.7 Mike Vacanti: Adds to belly fat, like, whatever. That lever level of rigidity and strictness is both unsustainable for most people and unnecessarily strict. So somewhere in the middle of those two make sense. Historically, I’ve kind of taken a hit your macros for the day, if sugar makes up a disproportionately high amount of your carbs on any given day, so what? Make sure you’re getting vitamin and mineral rich foods and eat as healthy as you can and you’ll be fine. I’ve kind of moved away from that in the last year or two or three years, just because while sugar isn’t addictive like heroin is addictive, highly palatable, high sugar, high fat dessert type foods, especially for certain people who would call food their “drug of choice,” lead to overeating. Like, we’ll call it, if it’s a trigger food for you. So, for those people I would say, staying on the low side. And when we say sugar, let’s call it added sugar, let’s call it processed sugars, we’re not talking about fruit, etcetera.
0:22:05.0 Mike Vacanti: I would say keep sugar on the lower side and fill up on protein, healthy fats, high fiber, micronutrient dense foods, which is gonna lead to you not only feeling better and feeling a bit more full in a deficit, but also is gonna likely give you more energy and have you feeling better throughout the day.
0:22:24.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. I know when a lot of people say they’re addicted to sugar, and then you say, Well, can you give me some examples of the foods? They’re like, cake and donuts and ice cream, and it’s like, well, like you were saying it’s not just sugar, it’s also the high sugar, high fat combination that makes it so palatable and seemingly addictive. On another type of food, but also similarly, “addictive” would be high fat, high salt, so things like French fries or pizza also have a similar response. We know nobody is just taking spoonful of sugar or keeping like a bag of sugar in their drawer at work and eating it, but it’s the higher sugar, higher fat combinations that are difficult for people. So, if it’s something that you really struggle with, then finding a way to moderate it, right? It’s… I think the old school, if it fits your macros, which is weird to say that that’s old school, ’cause I remember when that was brand new, right?
0:23:29.7 Jordan Syatt: Remember when if it fits your macros was brand new, but like the traditional, eat whatever you want and whatever quantity you want, as long as it fits your macros, turns out to not be the best, especially for people who have a lot of weight to lose, are just getting into a health journey and really need to get… ‘Cause the reality is, if you’re so used to eating Pop Tarts and cakes and donuts and ice cream, if that’s what you’re used to, you don’t have a good relationship with it right now. And sometimes the best way to develop a better relationship with it is to more or less eliminate it for a brief period of time, so that you can get used to eating more high quality foods. It’s sorta like, we’ve spoken about the dopamine detox, where it’s like, you take some time away from social media or from whatever it is, things that have a huge dopamine release, then when you go back to them, they almost seem overwhelming in small amounts.
0:24:25.7 Jordan Syatt: Same things with sugar or higher fat, high sugar things, where it’s like, you take some time away and then all of a sudden you go back, so you’re like, Whoa, that’s plenty. I do not need much more than that. And that’s where I think that can be very helpful, is taking some time away from them and then bringing them back in progressively.
0:24:41.6 Mike Vacanti: I love that. If you use Oreos as an example, and I am someone who… My weakness or my like trigger is high sugar, high fat, like I… High salt, high fat, I don’t feel good when I over consume. We’re coming off of Christmas, we’re coming off of the holidays, I had many days where I consumed 3000 plus calories and dessert foods alone and took under 1500 steps for the day and like, really was just like in holiday mode. And I can do that back to back to back days and feel pretty fine. I have no interest in ever eating one Oreo.
0:25:25.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:25:26.4 Mike Vacanti: I have no interest in having that moderation, and I know… I actually like it to show the science of it, right? To show like, Okay, I can consume 200 calories per day every single day of a dessert food and make really awesome progress. I like that as an experiment, and I like when people have done it, and I’ve talked about it myself, but from a practical level, if I’m trying to lose fat or dial in myself, it’s not enjoyable enough to expose myself to one Oreo and then not eat anymore and give myself that sensation, but then leave the other three sleeves of Oreos in the pantry, it’s like, no, no, no, no, no, if I’m gonna have the Oreo, [chuckle] I’m gonna eat the Oreos till I’m uncomfortable and really enjoy it.
[laughter]
0:26:07.6 Mike Vacanti: So, I like the environmental hack of like, Hey, if you’re gonna eat it, go buy it and eat it, but if it tempts you, don’t just keep it around and have it in the back of your mind that it’s in your cupboard, which can be difficult for a client to… My wife has a sweet tooth, or my kids like to have these foods around, you can’t just tell them to never keep those foods in their house, but for people who can set up their environment, not keeping those foods around is really beneficial.
0:26:37.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, agreed.
0:26:38.7 Mike Vacanti: What do you think the top three martial arts are that someone should learn before the age of 46?
0:26:46.0 Jordan Syatt: What are the top three martial arts people should learn?
0:26:48.7 Mike Vacanti: Jujitsu, Muay Thai and…
0:26:51.5 Jordan Syatt: I think Jujitsu and Muay Thai for sure. And then… Well, I guess it depends, right? So I think Jujitsu for ground game, absolutely, and also, if you’re a smaller person, just sort of being able to handle yourself against a bigger person, Jujitsu, for sure. Muay Thai for anything stand up. And the next one… I’ve sorta been going back and forth on this a lot recently, but I think having some type of self-defense specific in regard to weapons, whether it’s teaching yourself how to use it or also how to go against someone if someone else has a weapon, and that could be called Krav Maga, like they do that a lot in Krav Maga. But getting specific training on… You could have all the best Jujitsu in the world, all the best stand up in the world, but if someone has a knife or something, God forbid, like the number one obviously, you just run away, run, you don’t wanna try and fight, but if you don’t have an option of running away, learning how to do your best to defend in that scenario, I think would probably be the most “functional.”
0:27:56.3 Mike Vacanti: Cool, I like that.
0:27:58.6 Jordan Syatt: What are your thoughts on caffeine?
0:28:03.1 Mike Vacanti: Very broad. I’m always interested in talking about caffeine. I guess, I’ll go personal experience recently in the last several months. Or we’ll go historic first. I used to consume 400 plus milligrams of caffeine every day, and up to 700 in, we’re talking 2014, 2015, 2016. Coffee, very strong Starbucks coffee, like a large dark roast at Starbucks is over 400 milligrams by itself, I’m pretty sure. Monster’s 140, Bang, 300. A lot of pre-workouts, if you follow the full dosage, meaning the serving size says, two scoops, you actually use two scoops, that’s like, 300-350 mg of caffeine, which is a lot. And my understanding of the most recent research is that for the purposes of long-term heart health, 400 is kinda the upper limit for daily caffeine intake.
0:29:07.6 Mike Vacanti: Now, in the last several months, I have maybe zero days where I’ve gone over 300 milligrams of caffeine. A lot of days I’ll have 100 milligrams, my non-lifting days and on my lifting days, I’ll have 200 milligrams, so like 100 milligrams when I wake up and another 100-120-ish pre-workout. And the most interesting observation for me has been… And I’m not someone who historically suffers from anxiety badly, but I have obviously had periods of time in my life where I’ve been more anxious, and those are directly correlated with high levels of caffeine/stimulant use or an intake. In the last few months, keeping my average caffeine in that 150 milligram per day average, I have had unbelievable sleep and zero anxiousness.
0:30:05.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, you and I both had years of abusing caffeine. I remember where we’d have like, multiple Monsters, multiple coffees, and then I’d still be able to go to sleep, no problem. [laughter] And then after I did that, the coffee for 24-hour challenge for YouTube, when I wanted to see if it dehydrated you, and I had over 1000 milligrams of caffeine in that one day, and I had the worst panic/anxiety attack of my life. I legitimately thought I was dying. Ever since then, coffee gave me real anxiety and heart palpitations, like, my heart would just start going crazy. So in the last few months, I completely cut coffee out. I haven’t had any coffee for months at this point, and I don’t have energy drinks. So sometimes I’ll have like a Diet Coke. I have a Diet Coke maybe like, three or four times a week, but that’s it, just one. So I think my caffeine has probably been below 150 every single day for the last…
0:31:05.2 Mike Vacanti: Do you have tea as well, ever?
0:31:07.2 Jordan Syatt: Sometimes I have tea as well, yeah. Sometimes I have tea, but usually it’s decaffeinated.
0:31:08.0 Mike Vacanti: Like, what… Oh. Dude, Diet Coke, I’m pretty sure it’s like 36 milligrams per can.
0:31:16.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, that’s it? Wow, Okay, wow. So I’ve probably been under 75 milligrams for the last few months and I felt great. Like, I felt really good. I actually… And it’s… The other thing that has impacted it is, is this Zone 2 cardio, where I deliberately did not want to have caffeine before I did cardio, because I didn’t want my heart rate to go up and put me into a higher zone, like just… ‘Cause you’re just… From doing nothing, your heart rate goes up when you have caffeine, and I didn’t want that to happen, I didn’t want that to screw with my training, which has been really interesting ’cause I used to need caffeine to workout, but since I started paying attention to the zone that I’m in, I actually like… I didn’t want to have it before I worked out, which was really good.
0:31:58.8 Jordan Syatt: So that being said, I’m a huge fan of caffeine if you have no issues with it, and up to 400 milligrams a day is totally fine, especially in coffee. There are many, many, many health benefits of coffee, not like the Mocha Frappachapellalachino Finos with Oreo cookie [chuckle] and cheesecake inside them, but like a regular coffee, there are many, many, many benefits to it, cancer prevention, Alzheimer’s prevention, performance improvements. There’s literally amazing, amazing benefits to coffee from a performance enhancement perspective. The only sport that I’m aware of that caffeine has been shown to inhibit performance is in the biathlon, where I believe they do cross country skiing and they go straight from cross country skiing to shooting a sniper rifle.
0:32:48.5 Jordan Syatt: And the reason that is like… ‘Cause sniper shots are so precise that they can literally shoot in between heartbeats, and so, because if they pull the trigger while their heartbeats then that can pull the gun just enough to make the bullet go off track slightly. So, they actually deliberately do not have any stimulants that raise their heartbeat because they want to be able to shoot in between heartbeats, but for literally [chuckle] every other sport, any lifting events, any sport, weightlifting, any other sport, caffeine has been shown to improve performance, improve focus, improve strength, improve power, all of that. So, nothing against it, but for me, it was mainly because the anxiety that I was having as a result, and I was like, “Screw it, I just… I don’t wanna it have anymore.” And who knows, maybe I’ll be able to go back to it and have no issues, but I’ve taken some time off. Yeah.
0:33:36.4 Mike Vacanti: Have you noticed any changes in sleep quality?
0:33:40.3 Jordan Syatt: No, honestly, it’s always been a joke in my family that I can have a double espresso and then fall asleep within 20 minutes. I believe I’m called a fast metabolizer of caffeine where I’ve never had an issue with it. You know? You’ve seen me have a Monster and then go to bed, like, it’s not crazy for me, for whatever reason, I’m just able to do that. Other people, they cannot, but it was… Whatever happened after that YouTube experiment where I drank only coffee for a day to see if it dehydrated you, yeah, that…
0:34:10.8 Mike Vacanti: That was frightening because I don’t know if you remember, but I came over in the afternoon…
0:34:14.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, of course, I remember. We played hacky sack together. Yeah, I remember.
0:34:17.5 Mike Vacanti: But I also remember like, you had already had, I don’t remember, 500 milligram, like you’d already had a lot, and then you had a full [chuckle] large iced coffee from Starbucks, and in my mind, I was like, I know, iced… Or like cold brew is a higher caffeine from Starbucks than their hot coffee, and I just remember turning my back for two seconds to look at something and I looked back and you were like chugging it. I was like, “There’s no way he’s really chugging that.” And then you turned and looked at me and it was empty and I was like, “Did you just chug that?” And you were like, “Yeah.” [laughter] I was like, “You’re in trouble, man. This isn’t good.” [laughter] I thought you were gonna be sipping on it for the rest of the evening, it was 3:00 PM or something like that, and you just chugged the whole thing. I was like, “Oh wow, this is interesting.”
0:35:05.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. That was bad. And then you left, and soon after you left, I started like… My chest started getting tight and then I just went outside and it was freezing out. I got all bundled up.
0:35:15.7 Mike Vacanti: Why did you go outside?
[chuckle]
0:35:16.5 Jordan Syatt: I just walked, I walked around there, ’cause there was like a… What’s it called? The MedRight or something.
0:35:22.5 Mike Vacanti: Urgent Care?
0:35:23.8 Jordan Syatt: The emergency…
0:35:25.4 Mike Vacanti: Yup.
0:35:25.5 Jordan Syatt: The Urgent Care. I literally was just walking around that one block because I was like, “If I have a heart attack, [chuckle] I’d rather be right outside of Urgent Care [laughter] than be up in my apartment.”
[laughter]
0:35:36.2 Mike Vacanti: Oh, man. That is not a good feeling.
0:35:36.5 Jordan Syatt: And I just walked around listening to stand-up comedy and I called you, I called my buddy Adam, and I just listened to stand up comedy to calm myself down and just walked around there for three hours until I felt better.
0:35:48.5 Mike Vacanti: But it’s still… Even I remember then once you went back to your apartment, it was like you were starting to feel better, but you were still very uncomfortable.
0:35:55.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah, and it’s had lasting… Like, up until several months ago, every time I had a coffee, I would start to get that feeling, I was like, “I gotta stop drinking this.” And I wasn’t drinking a lot, just one cup would give me that feeling again, so we’ll see. [laughter] So, like everything, caffeine can be great, but don’t abuse it.
0:36:16.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:36:17.3 Jordan Syatt: Even for YouTube.
0:36:19.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And we’ll move on. This is enough caffeine talk probably, but I’ve had clients who… And friends and people in general who weren’t specifically tracking how much caffeine they were ingesting and when they finally did, they realized that it was north of 700 milligrams a day, which… And they weren’t fast metabolizers, they were having poor sleep quality as a result. They were only sleeping five hours a night as a result, they were… Like, their new baseline had shifted down, so they… Basically, when they did a reset and they did a few days of very low caffeine 100, 200 milligrams and then started slowly working their way back up, they felt the sensitivity again and realized that they actually weren’t that productive, they just needed that much to get back to normal and…
0:37:07.6 Jordan Syatt: Geez.
0:37:08.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. So, it’s definitely worth paying attention to, if you haven’t.
0:37:11.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, maybe doing a little caffeine detox for a little bit, like cycle on and off, have some periods where you have up to 400 and then have some periods maybe where you only go up to 100. And go back and forth.
0:37:25.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, and see what works for you. Pay attention to your body, your sleep, your productivity, your mood. Definitely.
0:37:31.1 Jordan Syatt: Alright, someone said, is the standard bench too high for single-leg hip thrusts?
0:37:37.7 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know what would be considered standard. Because since I’ve been… I’ve been working out at Planet Fitness recently, given proximity of where I am and what I’m doing with my training and the benches are high, like I stopped flat benching because they’re just… They’re high and I don’t feel like stacking multiple plates to get my feet in position. So, I don’t know what would be considered standard.
0:38:05.9 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know any bench press bench… Like any, you in any gym, LA Fitness, Planet Fitness, Gold’s Gym, whatever. I don’t know any bench that you’d use for bench press, I’ve never used one that is an optimal height for hip thrust or single leg hip thrust. Usually an optimal height is a little bit lower than those benches. So to answer the question, yes, usually it is too high. That being said, I’ve done many single leg hip thrusts on those benches and it’s still been fine, it just hasn’t been optimal. It’s not like you’re ruining your progress, but sometimes you have to make adjustments and sometimes it’s not as comfortable and maybe you’re not getting the best glute activation, but you can still feel it. But yeah, generally, I’ve found optimal height probably somewhere between 12 to… Yeah, about 12 to 16 inches off the ground, somewhere in that range is fine based on your height and your proportions, but yeah, the… Most benches tend to be a little bit too high.
0:39:06.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And if you have access to a 12-inch box or something where you can hip thrust with your back on something a little bit lower than a bench, great. But like Jordan just said, if you’re a little bit higher than optimal, that’s definitely not a reason to not hip thrust.
0:39:26.6 Jordan Syatt: What is an underrated source of carbohydrates?
0:39:30.6 Mike Vacanti: Bananas.
0:39:32.4 Jordan Syatt: Wow, that came out fast. You like bananas a lot, huh?
0:39:35.3 Mike Vacanti: I do.
0:39:35.7 Jordan Syatt: Why? Why is it underrated?
0:39:39.1 Mike Vacanti: Just think they don’t get enough love.
0:39:40.8 Jordan Syatt: Fair.
0:39:41.4 Mike Vacanti: And I really, really like them. I mean, honestly, I’m a big… Like you want a variety, you want a variety for the purpose of micronutrients, a variety of fruit, variety of vegetables, variety of colors, you want fiber and your carbohydrates. But a lot of my food choice and recommended food choice is not only what you enjoy, but what makes you feel good, and for whatever reason, I like bananas more than berries in the morning. I feel better, I feel more energy after. Is that because of the texture? Is that because of the potassium? Is that purely psychological? I have no idea, but they’re all good carb sources, and because I prefer one and feel better after eating one, then I would call it underrated.
0:40:38.8 Jordan Syatt: I think I feel better from banana as opposed to berries, because… Like, if I’m gonna have berries, I have to have berries with something. I can’t just eat straight berries, I’m not gonna feel very full, I’m not gonna feel… I feel like it’s a quick sugar rush and then drop, whereas something a little bit more starchy, like a banana has more substance to it, takes a little bit longer to digest. So, I prefer banana in that case as well. I would say underrated source of carbs is oatmeal. For me, I feel so, so good when I eat oatmeal. It’s like high fiber, it’s very filling, it gives you a lot of energy. What are you laughing about?
[laughter]
0:41:15.6 Mike Vacanti: I’m just imagining clip in that, “I feel so, so good when I eat oatmeal.”
[laughter]
0:41:22.8 Jordan Syatt: I’m just so passionate about oatmeal… And just like regular Quick Oats… It’s like the 60-second oats.
0:41:28.6 Mike Vacanti: Quick or one minute oats?
0:41:30.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, those are the best. They get… They get really fluffy when you put them in the microwave, they’re quick to make, they’re super easy. Yeah, and they mix well with anything and they can take on the flavor of whatever you want, so even if you just put a little bit of peanut butter in there, you got a nice peanut butter flavor, like so good.
0:41:47.5 Mike Vacanti: I once remember a man saying that just because you could add peanut butter or jelly to something doesn’t mean that that thing is good, it just means that the peanut butter is good. So that’s in defense of rice cakes.
[laughter]
0:42:02.0 Jordan Syatt: Well, yeah, rice cakes suck…
[laughter]
0:42:06.5 Jordan Syatt: Rice cakes are like crispy air.
0:42:07.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I’m not a fan of the texture of rice cakes either.
0:42:11.3 Jordan Syatt: And they’re so messy, you can’t eat rice cakes without making a fucking mess.
[laughter]
0:42:13.7 Mike Vacanti: I don’t wanna open this can of worms.
[laughter]
0:42:17.5 Jordan Syatt: You opened it.
[laughter]
0:42:20.1 Mike Vacanti: What… Is oatmeal not getting respect these days in the streets?
0:42:25.8 Jordan Syatt: It just, it ain’t getting no respect. It ain’t got no respect.
[laughter]
0:42:27.8 Mike Vacanti: Well, the reason I asked…
0:42:28.9 Jordan Syatt: What’s that comedian? There’s a famous comedian? You ain’t got no respect. [laughter] Is that Rodney Dangerfield? I ain’t got no… Oatmeal, I ain’t got no respect. [laughter]
0:42:39.4 Mike Vacanti: It sounds like something he would say. But we were talking underrated, are people on an anti-oatmeal kick?
0:42:47.0 Jordan Syatt: Man, you’re just so off social media. Everything I say you’re like, “Is this a big thing on social media lately?” [laughter]
0:42:54.1 Mike Vacanti: I didn’t know if there was an anti-oatmeal movement going on.
0:42:57.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, there’s definitely an anti-oatmeal movement, I’m going after them. No, no, I don’t know, I haven’t seen any anti-oatmeal stuff.
0:43:03.2 Mike Vacanti: Sometimes you need to make fictitious enemies to motivate yourself, that might be a part of next week’s…
0:43:06.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, all these anti-oats people out there, just really getting under my skin. All these people making anti-oats accounts, YouTube channels. I see it, writing books anti-oats… Just getting… Ain’t got no respect for the oats.
[laughter]
0:43:22.1 Mike Vacanti: Alright, next question.
0:43:25.9 Jordan Syatt: Alright, let’s see. I’ve been getting this question a lot, which has sort of blown my mind ever since I started talking more about cardio. What’s better for cardio, elliptical versus treadmill? And I get a lot of questions about, is the elliptical worthless? Apparently, there’s a big anti-elliptical movement lately, and elliptical ain’t got no respect.
[laughter]
0:43:46.8 Jordan Syatt: I’m a big elliptical fan. We gotta make that a whole thing now on the podcast, “I ain’t got no respect.”
0:43:53.1 Mike Vacanti: I ain’t got no respect.
[laughter]
0:43:54.9 Jordan Syatt: I’m a huge fan of the elliptical. I don’t know why… Apparently, people are saying the elliptical is bad. The elliptical is great, especially if you’ve got ankle or knee or back pain. It’s an amazing way to get cardio in with essentially no impact on your joints. The only other type of cardio that I can think that has little to no impact is swimming, but that’s not very convenient unless you’ve got a pool in your house. And even then, it’s still not convenient ’cause you gotta get all wet and then dried up and all that… And swimming is really difficult, it can be a whole big mess, especially if you’re not taught how to swim, any of this stuff. Whereas with the elliptical, you just hop on. You don’t need a teacher, you just hop on and you start fucking moving. I love the elliptical. A big elliptical fan. What about you, Michael, you got some respect for the elliptical?
0:44:38.7 Mike Vacanti: I definitely have respect for the elliptical.
[laughter]
0:44:42.0 Mike Vacanti: I definitely disrespected the elliptical in the ’06 to ’13 timeframe, because I was comparing cardio bunnies, elliptical bunnies versus… I don’t know why we… Bunnies don’t get enough respect in that sense, but comparing that to weightlifting…
0:44:55.9 Jordan Syatt: Bunnies ain’t got no respect.
[laughter]
0:44:57.1 Jordan Syatt: Bunnies are so quick, ain’t got no respect.
[laughter]
0:45:04.8 Mike Vacanti: But in terms of selecting cardio equipment to do Zone 2 cardio, not only do I like the elliptical for the reasons that you just mentioned, specifically how low impact it is, but I also like variety, especially if you’re doing a lot of hours. It’s funny in that Peter Attia, Instagram Q&A from back in March that you linked me up, I was listening to yesterday. He talked… He talked about how much total Zone 2 is a good minimum depending on the person, but then he also had an off-hand comment along the lines of, “If you’re a pro athlete and you’re early in your off season, you could be doing 20-24 hours a week of Zone 2 cardio.”
0:45:47.1 Jordan Syatt: I heard that, crazy.
0:45:49.1 Mike Vacanti: And obviously, that’s not the target unless you’re a pro-athlete early in your off-season, but for the majority of us, we’re not doing that much cardio. But if you are doing a lot of cardio just to avoid repetitive movement, wear and tear we’ll call it, changing your cardio makes sense. Instead of doing five hours of Zone 2 a week and doing it all on the treadmill, walking, brisk walk at the exact same incline, mixing in the elliptical, mixing in stair master, mixing in different inclines and speeds on the treadmill, mixing in different forms of cardio, mixing in jogging all makes sense. So, I especially like the elliptical for that reason, for variety.
0:46:33.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I’ve been, ’cause my gym has, the gym in my building, we’ve got the treadmills and we’ve got ellipticals, we’ve got stair master, we’ve got the rowing machine, and so if I wanted to do an hour of Zone 2, I could just spend 15 minutes on one of each and it makes it go by so fast because it’s just the variety and instead of waiting for… ‘Cause when you do cardio, you look at the time, the whole freaking time, and it can just seem like it takes forever, but 15 minutes goes by pretty quick, and you do that on four different machines, it goes by super fast. The other thing I’ve been doing is, I’ve been watching Yellowstone while I do cardio, and that makes it go by wicked fast, man. That is just, what a show and wow. And it’s also good because I found if I’m watching it and I start to laugh or something or whatever, and I get out of breath, I know I’m going too hard, so it’s a natural way for me to manage my Zone 2.
0:47:29.2 Mike Vacanti: And you’re on season two of Yellowstone?
0:47:32.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, season two. It’s so good. So good.
0:47:36.1 Mike Vacanti: The season four finale was just this past Sunday.
0:47:40.1 Jordan Syatt: Oh, was it?
0:47:41.1 Mike Vacanti: Mm-hmm.
0:47:41.7 Jordan Syatt: And it’s not the series finale, just the season finale? They’re gonna make another season?
0:47:45.0 Mike Vacanti: Correct.
0:47:45.2 Jordan Syatt: Okay, good. How do you start a social media presence without feeling vein or narcissistic? What do you think, Michael?
0:47:56.4 Mike Vacanti: I think you need to ignore those feelings or emotions, even if you do feel like you are that in a way to serve the greater purpose of what you’re doing. Meaning, you need to actually know why you’re, because maybe you are starting it primarily to be vain and narcissistic, primarily because something’s missing in your life and you wanna fill it with likes and fame and notoriety and DMs and etcetera. That might be the primary reason, and if it is, then you probably shouldn’t start the social media account. But if the primary reason is you genuinely want to help people, you have a message that you feel like you need to share with the world, you see the opportunity to build a business and have your own business rather than working for the man and having the man’s boot on your throat.
0:48:47.3 Mike Vacanti: You have the opportunity to have something of your own that you’re in control over, and that’s… One of those is the primary reason, but you also feel vain, narcissistic, focus on the primary reasons as to why you’re doing it. Because I struggled with this when I was starting, when I launched my website initially, when I started posting initially. I think I was actually called vain or narcissistic by strangers and by people close to me, and I probably was partly, but I pushed through because that wasn’t the primary reason for starting my accounts. That wasn’t the primary reason for continually posting, that wasn’t the primary reason for doing what I was doing.
0:49:34.8 Jordan Syatt: I think if someone is asking this question, they’re already not very vain or narcissistic and it’s pretty clear that they wanna do it for the right reason. I feel like the people who are doing it for vanity and narcissism, they wouldn’t even be aware of it. They wouldn’t be consciously aware of feeling this way. They would be more than happy to go on and start posting for likes and validation and ego and all of that stuff, whereas someone who’s saying like, “Hey, I’m going on and I feel vein. It just feels narcissistic.” That’s the kind of person, well, you’re probably doing this for the right reasons. You’re probably doing this because you want to help people, you’re probably doing this because you want to grow your business so you can help more people and support your family and all of that. And there’s also this feeling of well, this feels vein, this feels narcissistic.
0:50:27.8 Jordan Syatt: Just the fact that you’re aware of it is a really good thing, because if you weren’t aware of it and you were just eating up all those likes and all, that would be a bad sign. So, I think it’s already a good sign that you’re aware of it and just like you were just saying, you have to pay attention to what the actual goal is. And some people might perceive what you do as vain or narcissistic, but I think the easiest way to overcome that is as long as you’re educating, as long as the primary purpose of what you’re posting is education as opposed to; look at me, look at what I can do, or look at how good I look. So I would say, for example, not using filters to change your appearance is a really good idea, because if you’re using a filter to change your appearance or using fucking face tune to change how your body looks or you’re photoshopping your pictures.
0:51:21.0 Jordan Syatt: But even something as simple as you post on your story and you change the filter, just so you can, you like how you look better, don’t do that. That is, you’re being vain. You’re trying to go for a certain look, but if all you’re doing is posting who you are as you are and what you are with education, that’s the least amount of vanity and narcissism and the most amount of just pure education and you’re just being honest about who you are and what you look like. So, if you’re worried about that, I would try not to edit your stuff too much, try not to make you look a certain way. I wouldn’t do things like just try to get a pump to look a certain way or, I would do things as you are, and that’s probably the best way to eliminate those feelings.
0:52:06.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Great answer. Great podcast. We’re back, one of 52 coming at you strong. We’re here in January 2022. Thanks for listening.
0:52:18.1 Jordan Syatt: Have a good one.
0:52:19.1 Mike Vacanti: Bye everyone.
