Episode 76: Fitness Trackers, Work-Life Balance, and Content Creation

0:00:11.5 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

0:00:12.6 Jordan Syatt: What’s going on, Michael?

0:00:15.0 Mike Vacanti: Just finished editing that YouTube video that we were talking about off camera, off-air.

0:00:20.1 Jordan Syatt: Have probably a lot of people go check out your YouTube channel, see if they missed the upload. So they didn’t miss it because it was not by then, but now you finished editing it.

0:00:29.7 Mike Vacanti: Editing a long YouTube video is very difficult.

0:00:33.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, it’s brutal.

0:00:37.3 Mike Vacanti: I feel like an old man who forgot what it was like to be in the game, like retired and then maybe goofed around in men’s league for a few years and relaxed, and then tried to play a game, and it was just like, “Oh wow. Now, I remember the speed of this.”

0:00:52.2 Jordan Syatt: “This is much harder than I remember.” [laughter]

0:00:56.7 Mike Vacanti: Seriously. In fairness, I never… Now I see the value of… I actually think there’s been a decline in the average consumer attention span over the last five to 10 years, and I see a greater value in having zero opportunity for someone to click off a video now than six years ago.

0:01:16.3 Jordan Syatt: Agreed.

0:01:16.9 Mike Vacanti: So just taking out all of… I don’t remember exactly how long the video was, but taking out the dead time, taking out the thinking, taking out pauses, and just making sure that the video flows and doesn’t give a single opportunity to click off of it, took a lot of hours to get that done.

0:01:34.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. How long is the video in full?

0:01:37.4 Mike Vacanti: Close to 30, probably 28.

0:01:40.6 Jordan Syatt: Finished?

0:01:41.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:01:42.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh god, that must have been like what? 40-45-minute video that you had to cut down?

0:01:47.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it was over 40.

0:01:48.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s a lot of tedious jump cuts, but it is worth it. It’s just like that’s a lot of work.

0:01:55.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, and every cut is probably… A few of them were a little longer, but most of them are a half-second to one-second clip, so it’s just constant.

0:02:05.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. [laughter]

0:02:07.8 Mike Vacanti: But it’s an interesting cost-benefit in terms of incentivizing different platforms for making content, incentivizing different styles of content, right? A podcast, there’s no expectation for that kind of delivery like there is on a faster-paced YouTube video. Also, the decision to, “Do I want to be editing videos? Do I wanna hire an editor? Do I want to… How frequently am I gonna upload?” And when I say I, I’m talking about any content creator, like we’ve talked about it, how much you enjoy creating on a platform and the performance of those posts, obviously, but affects where you’re spending more time and energy.

0:02:50.5 Jordan Syatt: Have you made the thumbnail yet?

0:02:52.4 Mike Vacanti: No. [chuckle] I’m not… Whatever YouTube serves me up… I know this is terrible, but I have this…

0:03:00.0 Jordan Syatt: No way.

0:03:00.9 Mike Vacanti: We’ll see what it looks like.

0:03:02.7 Jordan Syatt: Wait, what were you gonna say? Whatever YouTube serves you up, that’s just what you go with?

0:03:08.2 Mike Vacanti: Historically, when I was just making my own videos, yes, I’ve had people make thumbnails for me, but if it looks decent and it’s me, I’m not gonna do anything crazy. Unless I think of some words that I want to put on the thumbnail, but a straight close up, straight to the mug, my face, haven’t been on the platform in a year and a half, should be clickable enough.

0:03:28.6 Jordan Syatt: Okay, so no words on it. No fancy stuff.

0:03:33.2 Mike Vacanti: When I have done that myself, historically, it just looks like trash.

0:03:37.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, me as well.

[chuckle]

0:03:39.7 Jordan Syatt: Especially when you compare it to thumbnails that are done by a professional editor, it’s just…

0:03:42.5 Mike Vacanti: Oh, my gosh.

0:03:43.9 Jordan Syatt: It looks terrible.

0:03:45.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

[laughter]

0:03:47.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s so true.

0:03:49.4 Jordan Syatt: Do you know what the title is gonna be? Or are we leaving that a surprise?

0:03:53.0 Mike Vacanti: If you go check out my YouTube channel right now… [chuckle] I have some ideas, I haven’t narrowed it down exactly.

0:04:01.0 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:04:01.6 Mike Vacanti: But it’s another one of those… This is just a what-I’ve-been-up-to video for the people who have emailed and DMed and been wondering for the last however long, people who obviously aren’t listening to this podcast where we’ve been crushing it weekly for… And we’ll continue to…

0:04:17.5 Jordan Syatt: Months.

0:04:18.6 Mike Vacanti: Months now. Months and months. Soon to be years and years. But really, those things, those thumbnail, tagging, titling really do matter for YouTube, and especially if you’re trying to make highly SEO-able content that’s gonna reach new audience and is you want to get a lot of views over a number of years.

0:04:43.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I think for the first video back where it’s you’re obviously not trying to SEO for this video, it’s just like people are gonna be excited to see, period. But as you go forward, maybe you’ll add some tagging in, some specific titles, maybe a cool thumbnail.

0:05:01.0 Mike Vacanti: We’ll see.

0:05:01.5 Jordan Syatt: Who knows? Maybe not.

[chuckle]

0:05:04.5 Jordan Syatt: Maybe just butcher the platform and do everything incorrectly. Just make awful videos. Just say, “Uuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm… ” and then leave that in the video. [chuckle]

0:05:15.2 Mike Vacanti: You know what’s interesting though? And this actually… So my two thoughts are either SEO-able, planned-out, scripted type of educational content where I’m essentially writing an article beforehand, and maybe that is the strategy, you have an article and a video and you’re linking them back and forth to one another, and a lot of time and effort goes into that, and potentially even working with an editor or a designer on that type of video, or just straight podcast uploaded to YouTube, because when I think of… If you’re looking for something that’s gonna pop two million views over the next three years because people are Googling something about muscle building, something about… You just did a great piece on blood pressure on your podcast, but some specific educational… That’s one strategy that takes more work per video. You can also go podcast style. And some of the people who I have spent the most time consuming over the years think for 15 seconds between words. I think of Jordan Peterson walking around a stage and literally just… And that’s not getting edited up, and those are getting millions of views. So there are multiple ways to do it.

0:06:25.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, agreed. Well, I’m excited to see the video. I, for one.

0:06:29.4 Mike Vacanti: You’re gonna watch the whole thing?

0:06:32.0 Jordan Syatt: A hundred percent.

[chuckle]

0:06:34.3 Jordan Syatt: I’m gonna sit down, get some… Get a good snack.

0:06:39.5 Mike Vacanti: You do so much Zone 2 cardio that I feel like you are in a good position to consume as much as you want to consume, and productively too. ‘Cause, you’re doing like 25 hours of Zone 2 a week. I feel like.

0:06:54.1 Jordan Syatt: Oh, trying to think… Yeah, I would say easily, easily I’m doing that.

0:06:56.2 Mike Vacanti: Probably not that much. I was trying to exaggerate.

0:06:58.3 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know. I’m not good at math. I was just trusting you to be the math guy and I just go like, “Yeah, yeah, bro easily.”

[laughter]

0:07:06.8 Mike Vacanti: No, but you are doing a lot of volume in total and a lot… During a lot of it you can consume… During your Zone 2, you can watch a movie if you want to, you can watch a YouTube video, you can listen to a podcast.

0:07:16.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah. Scarface. Most recent one. Now I’m watching Inception.

0:07:21.2 Mike Vacanti: Inception is a great movie.

0:07:22.0 Jordan Syatt: I’ve never seen Inception before.

0:07:23.9 Mike Vacanti: Really?

0:07:24.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. So basically, I went to IMDB and looked at the top movies and I’m going down the list. And I had never seen Godfather Part 1 or 2. Is there a Part 3 or no?

0:07:35.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And there’s a good reason why you won’t run into it on the top 250 or on IMDB for a long time.

0:07:42.3 Jordan Syatt: Got it. Okay, so I didn’t look at that.

0:07:45.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, you can stop at two on the Godfather trilogy.

0:07:49.9 Jordan Syatt: I can’t believe you haven’t seen Scarface, man. That is a phenomenal movie.

0:07:52.2 Mike Vacanti: Is Scarface actually high on IMDB?

0:07:57.9 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think so. I just remember it’s the same…

0:07:58.2 Mike Vacanti: I know it has a cult following.

0:08:00.4 Jordan Syatt: It’s Al Pacino. It’s the same actor as Godfather. And so then I was like, “I haven’t… ” I remember growing up as a kid, it would be on TV occasionally. And they would dub in fake words to put over the bad words.

[laughter]

0:08:15.1 Jordan Syatt: And I would see bits and pieces, but I never actually saw the whole movie. So, man, that movie is phenomenal, that, I liked it better than Godfather.

0:08:24.0 Mike Vacanti: Wow.

0:08:24.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, now I’m watching Inception. So far, so good. It’s pretty… There have been a lot of jokes about Inception, I see TV shows and movies about how confusing it can be. It’s like a dream within a dream within a dream. It can be a little bit confusing. And I think there’s so much in it that at parts, it can move a little bit fast. They probably have to move a little bit fast just to fit everything into the movie. For example, and this isn’t a spoiler to anyone who hasn’t seen it, but they’re looking for that new architect. And they find that young woman, and the speed at which she becomes part of the crew seems very odd to me as part of… So far, great movie, but the rate at which they just trust her and she just gets into this whole new world of seemingly fucking crazy shit. That’s so odd how quickly now she’s part of this crew. I was expecting more of a trial period, more of teaching. It was just like within a minute she was already like fully immersed in this crew and ready to go. I was like, “That was a little bit fast.” But otherwise, I really liked the movie.

0:09:40.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s a long movie, right? Three hours?

0:09:43.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s a long movie. Yes. They obviously had to speed that up. [laughter]

0:09:46.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, if you’re speeding things up, and it’s still a three-hour movie. It seems… That makes sense.

0:09:51.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:09:53.9 Mike Vacanti: But you’re not confused at all so far?

0:09:55.4 Jordan Syatt: No, no, it all makes sense so far. I mean, it is like a very out-there idea. But it makes sense based on how they’ve presented it.

0:10:04.8 Mike Vacanti: You stopped midway through. You have always given me such a hard time about stopping midway on shows and movies.

0:10:11.2 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no, that’s when I would watch them lying down. Now I only watch that stuff when I’m doing Zone 2. So yeah. I’ll watch shows with my wife if we’re just lying down at the end of the night, but during the day, if I’m gonna watch something, I’ll just watch that during Zone 2 and then I’ll save it for my next Zone 2 session.

0:10:30.2 Mike Vacanti: That makes sense. Going down the IMDB list is a great strategy.

0:10:34.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, all these movies people are always like, “You’ve never seen that movie. You’ve never seen that movie?” I’m like, alright, I’m just gonna watch all of them.

[laughter]

0:10:42.0 Mike Vacanti: Shawshank. Shawshank is number one on there, right?

0:10:46.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s a great movie. Yeah. But you know, I hated it.

0:10:51.7 Mike Vacanti: Fight Club’s on there.

0:10:51.8 Jordan Syatt: I hated Shawshank ’cause it’s like this innocent dude in prison. I’m just like, “Great. Just playing right into my biggest fear.”

[laughter]

0:11:04.0 Mike Vacanti: But once the movie went on…

0:11:04.1 Jordan Syatt: When you told me I had to watch that. I was like, “Why would he make me watch this? This is like the worst.” The fear of just a completely innocent guy going to jail. I’m like, this is actually my worst fear.

[laughter]

0:11:18.2 Mike Vacanti: Prison Break isn’t too unlike that. Although I guess he goes in voluntarily.

0:11:22.4 Jordan Syatt: No, but he did something… Yeah, he went in a bank and shot up the bank. He didn’t kill anybody but that… He knew what he was doing. He willingly went in there. But actually, his brother was in there who shouldn’t have been in there. But I mean, his brother did do a lot of illegal stuff, he was just framed for that one thing. But that was a great show. Prison Break. I can’t believe you’ve stopped that a million times. You’ve been watching season two for four years.

[chuckle]

0:11:46.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s true. I don’t know if I’m going back. Season one was amazing, though.

0:11:49.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Season one was incredible. Season two is not as good, but still very good. I can’t believe you just stopped. You watch like 15 minutes of an episode every six months. You’re like, “I’m back.”

[laughter]

0:12:02.4 Mike Vacanti: You know what it was? It’s too… It’s just nonstop. Every single commercial. And there aren’t actually commercials. But every commercial for the entire show is an intense cliffhanger. And I just didn’t… Yeah, I didn’t enjoy that.

0:12:19.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, too much.

0:12:19.1 Mike Vacanti: It’s too much.

0:12:20.0 Jordan Syatt: Too much, your cortisol spikes. Just like get your heart rate going. Yeah.

0:12:23.7 Mike Vacanti: Constant cortisol. I’m trying to get my resting heart rate down.

0:12:26.8 Jordan Syatt: And they did such a good job of having those huge cliffhangers at the end of every episode, ’cause it’s like you just wanna watch the next one immediately. And it’s the worst if you’re watching it before sleep because good luck trying to go to bed with that.

0:12:39.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that’s true. It’s a great, it’s a… That pairing of something you enjoy with something you don’t necessarily love. I was listening to another Peter Attia podcast today and he was just quadrupling down on the positive effects of good cardiovascular health and longevity, and lifespan and quality of life and health, and that strategy where you… Especially for people who don’t enjoy exercise, when you can link up something that you don’t necessarily love, like cardio, with something you do enjoy, like watching a movie, it’s a nice hack.

0:13:18.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I mean, cardio sessions have gone by infinitely faster when I watch a great movie. There’s one time though Alex Viada was doing my programming, where he was like, “I want you to cover up the screen on the treadmill, and I want you to put in white noise on your headphones, and I just want you to run.” It was a 45-minute run, and he was like, “I don’t want any stimulation, nothing. Just go.” And then he was like, “And I wanna know what you think about.”

[chuckle]

0:13:46.5 Jordan Syatt: He’s like, “I wanna know what goes in your head. What are you thinking about? What’s motivating you? Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.” And he was like, “Don’t… ” He’s like, “Only look at your watch. Don’t check your heart rate, don’t check that.” He’s like, “Only check to see if you’re close to the 45 minutes.” So by the end of it, I checked it a few times, but that was terrible. That was just… I was like, “Dude, I’m never doing that again. That… [chuckle] That was… “

0:14:11.0 Mike Vacanti: If I had to pick one person on earth who I thought would struggle with that or enjoy that the least, it would be…

[chuckle]

0:14:17.3 Jordan Syatt: Me. [laughter]

0:14:18.6 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely, absolutely.

0:14:21.6 Jordan Syatt: If it was outside running like on a hill or whatever, that’d be much better, but on a treadmill inside, just running with white noise in your ears, looking at the same spot in front of you for 45 minutes, it was very difficult. [chuckle]

0:14:37.1 Mike Vacanti: Let me ask you something. When you were coaching Gary and you were on a plane, and let’s say you had a window seat and it was a night-time flight, did you ever just look out the window for 30 or 45 straight minutes and think about your life, and game plan and brainstorm…

[laughter]

0:14:55.6 Mike Vacanti: You’re laughing. I’m guessing this is a hard no. [laughter]

0:14:58.2 Jordan Syatt: I thought you were gonna say 30 to 45 seconds.

[laughter]

0:15:01.8 Jordan Syatt: You were just like, “Out for 30 to 45 seconds,” I’ll be like, “Nope.” You’re like, “30 to 45 minutes.” It’s like, “Are you kidding me?” [laughter] “Absolutely not.” You would stare out for 30 to 45 minutes and just game plan in your head?

0:15:16.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, and reflect. Almost like a meditative, thinking about…

0:15:20.8 Jordan Syatt: Man.

0:15:21.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, absolutely.

0:15:21.8 Jordan Syatt: You’re on another level. You’re like a monk.

[laughter]

0:15:26.1 Mike Vacanti: No.

0:15:26.2 Jordan Syatt: You belong in Tibet. You are… Man.

0:15:28.5 Mike Vacanti: No, I don’t think so. But I think it’s just a personality difference. And I actually don’t know what it boils down to, but I know that I used to be able to do that a lot better when I was younger and found it very beneficial. And the more that technology has infiltrated our lives and the more quick, easy, entertaining, enjoyable dopamine-producing consumption that exists, it’s harder for me to go there. And we’ve talked… I think it was even last week on the podcast, you were talking about if you start looking at social media before bed, and then even though you’re probably physiologically tired, you’re getting this mental ping, ping, ping in your brain, and that keeps you up later.

0:16:10.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, that’s true. That’s true.

0:16:12.7 Mike Vacanti: It’s hard to fight that up. “30 to 45 minutes? What?”

[laughter]

0:16:17.7 Jordan Syatt: When you said minutes, I was like, “What is he talking… He knows the answer to this question. That is crazy.” No. Matt McLeod messaged me on Instagram. He listened to our podcast from last week, and he said he loved the Middle East section of [laughter] the podcast.

[laughter]

0:16:36.2 Mike Vacanti: Good. I’m glad. I’m glad. Matt McLeod… I love Matt McLeod. I feel pretty comfortable putting him on blast publicly right now, but something really funny from seven years ago.

0:16:47.6 Jordan Syatt: Let’s do it. Let’s do it.

[laughter]

0:16:49.3 Jordan Syatt: I think I know what you’re gonna say. [laughter]

0:16:52.7 Mike Vacanti: Matt McLeod on Snapchat would send these really nice messages to me.

[laughter]

0:17:02.0 Mike Vacanti: Like, I don’t even remember the exact messages, but they were just friendly and cool and like, “You’re doing great.” I don’t remember the exact nature of them, but one time we were together and it was like four sentences, and they were legit copy paste to both of us.

[laughter]

0:17:16.2 Mike Vacanti: And then we both replied and we’re like, “What is this? How many people are you gassing up Dale-ing like this? Like, what are you doing?”

[laughter]

0:17:25.9 Jordan Syatt: Did he reply to that? Did he reply when you said that?

0:17:27.7 Mike Vacanti: Oh, immediately, I think. I think he was like, “Hahahaha,” like…

[laughter]

0:17:29.6 Mike Vacanti: He goes like, “Fuck.”

[laughter]

0:17:35.7 Jordan Syatt: That’s funny.

0:17:35.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:17:36.1 Jordan Syatt: But always like such a sweet kid. I really like him a lot. But that was hilarious.

0:17:40.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I’m a huge fan, but it was… That was a great moment. And now, over the years, a few times that’s come up, and we’ve had a good laugh.

[laughter]

0:17:50.7 Jordan Syatt: It is a good strategy though, if you think about it, like rather than messaging people and just being a dick or liking what people are doing and not saying anything, it is a good strategy, just like to send something nice.

[laughter]

0:18:06.1 Jordan Syatt: It was just bad luck that we’re both together with the copy paste.

[laughter]

0:18:13.0 Jordan Syatt: “Oh, I just got a super nice message from Matt McLeod.” “I did too.” “What is does yours say?”

[laughter]

0:18:20.3 Mike Vacanti: I don’t even know that… I mean, you understand humans better than I do, so when you say it’s a good strategy, you’re probably right, but everything he’s ever said to me, and this goes for a lot of people, felt genuine, like in… I don’t remember if it’s chapter two or chapter three of How to Win Friends and Influence People, but he talks about giving compliments, and he talks about the difference between flattery where you’re only saying what they want to hear versus, essentially, a compliment. I don’t remember exactly what he called it, but you’re gassing the person up, but you actually believe what you’re saying about them.

0:18:56.8 Jordan Syatt: Are you rereading that book? Are you on chapter two or three right now?

0:19:00.1 Mike Vacanti: I’m on chapter three in the audio book, yeah.

0:19:02.0 Jordan Syatt: Wow!

0:19:02.8 Mike Vacanti: I’m essentially going to continue to listen to this audio book on repeat. This is only the third time that I’ve listened to it. And I don’t know if I made it all the way through the second time. The first time, it really impacted me. Second time, I might not have made it through. But as someone who basically doesn’t understand human beings even 1%, except what I copy from other people who are more competent than I am…

[laughter]

0:19:25.9 Mike Vacanti: Listening to that book and then having an interaction and mid-interaction catching myself, like “Oh my gosh, why am I criticizing this person?” [laughter] I’m like, “Dale would not do this,” and then immediately changing my demeanor and my approach to the interaction, and then immediately after that watching the interaction unfold differently than it has the 50 times that that has happened, is absolutely mind-blowing to me.

0:19:52.3 Jordan Syatt: Has that really happened? Have you noticed changes during interaction?

0:19:56.4 Mike Vacanti: Mid-interaction, multiple times. One of which today.

0:20:02.9 Jordan Syatt: Really?

0:20:04.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:20:04.6 Jordan Syatt: That’s awesome.

0:20:05.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s real. Yeah, the fact that you were essentially Dale Carnegie reincarnated is good for you.

0:20:15.0 Jordan Syatt: Now we’ve got mentorship people call me Dale, Eric Roberts called me Dale, yeah. [laughter]

0:20:22.7 Mike Vacanti: Okay, Dale.

0:20:26.0 Jordan Syatt: Which… Because the kid’s gone up like 80,000 followers in like a month, and I was like, “Bro, you’re a savage.” And he was like, “Okay, Dale.” I’m like, “No, that’s true… ” [laughter]

0:20:33.1 Mike Vacanti: No, you really are. You really are killing it. He is just destroying. His ability to consistently produce high-quality content across the board is… It’s 2017 Syatt-like.

0:20:50.0 Jordan Syatt: And 2016 Vacanti-like.

0:20:53.2 Mike Vacanti: No, I was… I never created at that volume.

0:20:56.0 Jordan Syatt: You posted a YouTube video every day for 100 days straight, in multiple times.

0:21:03.0 Mike Vacanti: You don’t understand, all I did was live my life and I had Benedict Hanratty following me around, and…

0:21:09.0 Jordan Syatt: There were times where you uploaded yourself. I remember watching…

0:21:11.7 Mike Vacanti: Oh, that’s right. I did do that. I did do that.

0:21:14.4 Jordan Syatt: See, you just forgot how much of a savage you were.

0:21:18.3 Mike Vacanti: I really did.

0:21:19.2 Jordan Syatt: You were like… It was like 11:52 PM, your Wi-Fi wasn’t good, you were waiting to get it uploaded.

0:21:23.5 Mike Vacanti: Yes, I went to the Starbucks.

0:21:26.0 Jordan Syatt: I remember. [laughter]

0:21:26.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, I was… I think I just blacked, I think it was osmosis of Gary. And it’s funny, I wasn’t even thinking we would talk about this, I have a client who is a personal trainer, lives in Upstate New York and is talking to me about wanting to move to the city, ’cause it’s always been a dream of his. And asking me if I think it’s worth it, and if it makes sense, because he’s thinking cost of living wise. If you have an online business, moving to one of the most expensive cities in the world doesn’t seem to make sense. But the reasons that he thought that it might be beneficial are, for one, the relationships or connections that he could make, and two, just the energy of being around more like-minded people. And I told him in an era where the internet exists and you can create content and essentially connect with anyone in the world at any time, I don’t think moving to a specific city, unless there’s an opportunity there, unless you have a job there waiting for you, unless you have a network you’d fall into, but just moving to a city where you don’t know anyone and hoping to make connections, I don’t think that justifies the move, but being around like-minded, hard working, like that “magic”, that energy that we both experience, it’s…

0:22:46.0 Mike Vacanti: Especially if you’re in that grind mode, if you’re in that wanting to work 60, 70, 80 hours a week, it’s your number one focus at that time, being in that energy probably does justify even the increased costs and all of the other potential negatives that come with the move.

0:23:02.0 Jordan Syatt: Without question. The energy in New York City that you get from when you wake up till you go to bed is work, work, work, work, work. It’s like I’ve never experienced anything like that. And when I was in that grind mode, that was the best thing ever, just because… And not to mention, when you live in a place where your dollar goes for less, it just means you gotta work harder. And then eventually if you decide to move out now your dollar goes further. It actually motivates you to work harder and do more because you can’t get as much with the same dollar, so between that… Putting a fire under your butt, it’s like, “Okay, listen, I’ve really gotta,” go versus… In conjunction with the environment of that city. It’s hard to describe, it’s very weird, but once you’re in it, it’s like work just becomes part of your life, further work is your life. Which is then ironically, why I wanted to leave because I was like, “I can’t do this anymore.” But if you’re in that mindset, I completely agree. I will say one of the major negatives though, if you’re gonna be making videos, the honking and the sirens [laughter] good luck. That was one of the worst parts of making content, I’d be crushing it, I’d be in the middle of a great video and then “rwhoooooooooooo.” I’d be like, “Oh man, I gotta start all over again.” [laughter]

0:24:19.0 Mike Vacanti: Seriously.

0:24:19.1 Jordan Syatt: Constantly, I had to stop taking business calls walking down the street pretty early on in my New York, like it’s awful.

0:24:26.1 Mike Vacanti: It’s so loud.

0:24:27.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It’d be like I have to stop every seven seconds ’cause there’s a huge truck going by, or siren, or whatever it is. Yeah.

0:24:34.5 Mike Vacanti: Eventually you just embraced it though, with podcasts and it was just, “Oh, sorry.”

0:24:39.9 Jordan Syatt: It becomes a joke, it becomes a joke, like, “Alright, you know what that is.” [laughter]

0:24:43.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah, or you go the other way and you completely immerse yourself in it. I remember some of my best rants came when I was vlogging walking through Chinatown, and it was just like packed, bumping into people, but just going hard into the camera. So there’s obviously a lot of external noise, but I did get a lot of messages about people liking those vlogs or those videos because they like seeing what’s going on around there, ’cause it’s like a cool place.

0:25:12.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. There’s no place like it in the world. It’s definitely, I think… Even looking back at some of my old videos, I’m like, “Man, that’s so unique, that city, that area.

0:25:22.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah, when we were in 2020, basically, and into 2021, there were some changes in the city, it was obviously COVID, we were locked down. There are a lot of moving parts and a lot of new negatives that didn’t exist prior, so there were downsides to the city. But now that I don’t live there, looking back on when I did is always with intense nostalgia, real… A lot of gratitude and a lot of just nostalgia. I can’t think of a better word to describe how I feel thinking about New York City.

0:25:58.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s sort of like an ex-girlfriend sometimes.

0:26:00.7 Mike Vacanti: No, no. Not even close. [laughter]

0:26:02.5 Jordan Syatt: Well, maybe like…

0:26:05.3 Mike Vacanti: What are you talking about?

[laughter]

0:26:08.4 Jordan Syatt: Well, you know how some people, like you’ll break up with them, and then years later, or even months later you’re like, “Ah man. That was really great.” And then you see them again and you’re like, “Oh nope, I’m really glad I ended that.” It’s sort of like… That’s how I think of New York. I’m like, “Oh, that’s great.” And then I go back to visit and I’m like, “Fuck this.” This is why I left. You know what I mean?

0:26:27.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, you just had a recent trip back, so you got a taste. I haven’t been back in a while.

0:26:34.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. So… Yeah, it was fun to be back for a second, but then the sirens and the tiny spaces, and you go out to eat and just everyone’s super close and packed around you, and it was like… The things I used to love, now I’m like, “Alright, give me some fucking space, bro. Why are you so close to me? What is going on?”

[laughter]

0:26:53.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. The prices, the…

0:26:55.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, everything. So yeah, that’s what I mean, where it’s like… You… Sometimes you finally remember an ex until you see them again, and you’re like, “Oh god, alright. That’s why… That’s why it didn’t go anywhere.”

[laughter]

0:27:09.3 Mike Vacanti: I understand. That does make sense. I think part of it too was probably the crew of people who we spent time with while we were there, and kinda Gary’s like Ty, and D Rock, and a lot of those are just good people who we developed relationships with that are fun to be around and funny, and were like-minded, especially at the time.

0:27:34.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yes, but they were working just as hard us. We’d all be like staying up all night, working together… It’s a very unique environment and ecosystem to be in in the world, I don’t think there’s many that are similar to that.

0:27:49.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Questions?

0:27:54.1 Jordan Syatt: Oh, you know what? So this is not what someone asked. So someone asked me this, and I sort of wanna ask you a question off of this.

0:28:00.3 Mike Vacanti: Great.

0:28:00.4 Jordan Syatt: ‘Cause I know you’ve done it 100 times, but could you link the watch that you use, please? And I have a Garmin Instinct Tactical. Mike has the same one. Mike, do you think based off of all the information that you get from the watch, would you recommend your clients have a similar tool or a device to keep track of their steps, their cardio, their sleep, what do you think about it? And would you recommend clients have it?

0:28:27.9 Mike Vacanti: Would I recommend clients have it? The first place my mind goes is when someone signs up for coaching, I don’t want to inundate them with things to do, tasks, further expenses beyond signing up for coaching. So it wouldn’t be a part of my “You have to do this.” But I wanna simplify as much as possible, especially for beginners and people who don’t enjoy exercise. That being said, if I could snap my fingers and every single one of my coaching clients had the same watch that I had, I would do it in a heartbeat, and for two main reasons. The first being step count, and I don’t even know order of importance, they’re probably tied, but the first one is step count and the second one is sleep. And on the step count front, first, your phone doesn’t get a majority of your steps, you just do a lot of things without your phone, so using the step tracker on your phone isn’t necessarily accurate. Having that data on hand and accurate is really useful from a self-motivation perspective, just seeing that number and being able to compare it with previous day’s number. It’s useful for me when I’m assessing like, “Okay, these are your stats, this is what you do for work, like this is what you say you’re doing during the day, this is how much you’re eating, you’re sending me your food logs, I’m seeing this. But something isn’t matching up… “

0:29:57.2 Mike Vacanti: And oftentimes I’ll ask for a step count and it’s like 1500 steps a day maybe, it’s like, “Okay, that makes sense.” And then that will help direct my cardio programming versus someone who’s like, “I’m taking 14,000 steps a day on average because I’m doing blah, blah, blah.” So useful for the client. Useful for me for step count and sleep. Like your story alone about seeing how alcohol impacted your sleep quality and then the adjustments you made based on that, huge. And I’ve always been a big sleep guy, but the ability to see running seven-day average on number of hours you’re sleeping, see how caffeine timing, alcohol timing, quantity of caffeine and alcohol, these things, impact sleep quality, REM versus light sleep versus deep sleep versus hours when you’re awake during the night. Being able to reflect on this helps you prioritize sleep. Prioritizing sleep leads to so many good things, especially on the fat loss front, especially on the body comp front, ability to adhere to nutrition. Yeah. So for the sleep and the step count, I would like anyone to be able to have that data and therefore this watch for sure.

0:31:13.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I echo all of that. It’s been interesting for me, ’cause the data that I have on my watch goes directly to Alex Viada, my coach. And I’ve had a very interesting experience. It takes accountability to a new level, where if I… So for example, even if it didn’t connect directly with the app that he has access to, as a coach, I could say every morning… I used to say, “Send me your weight, send me your calories and protein, and any questions.” I could also say, “Send me a screenshot of your sleep from last night and your steps from yesterday.” I could do that easily, and that would be something he would always have to include. Alex doesn’t have me doing that, but it just automatically connects, so if I do… If I do a cardio workout or whatever, it automatically goes directly to the app that he uses. So he will know if I did it or not, regardless of whether I send it, which again, either way it’s still accountability, but I very much… I know for a fact that there have been times when I didn’t wanna do it, but I also didn’t wanna disappoint Alex, so I would get that workout in, I would go get my steps in, I would go get my Zone 2 in, ’cause he’s gonna see if I did it or not, just based on that… And you can’t fake that. You can’t fake 45 minutes of Zone 2.

[chuckle]

0:32:31.6 Jordan Syatt: People can fake a workout, “Oh yeah, I went to the gym,” they can lie about it, which is crazy that they do, but you can’t lie about that when it’s going directly there or if they’re gonna send you a screenshot of it. So I do think there’s a huge accountability component as well, but even… Forget the Zone 2 stuff, just the sleep and the steps, just getting that NEAT in, making sure people are getting their total steps in, which is a massive portion of your metabolism, massive, massive portion of your calories burned every day, getting your sleep quality and your steps in, I think that could be huge for coaches to make their clients aware of. And I completely agree, when they first sign on, especially if someone’s like, “Hey, my finances are tight,” not be like, “Alright, well, now you’ve gotta buy this,” but if they ask about it or if you think someone could really benefit from it a little bit into coaching, definitely worthwhile I think from an accountability perspective.

0:33:26.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, 100%. I love the idea for accountability, especially it’s beneficial for the coach and client. It’s beneficial for the client because it removes that opportunity to… And I think it’s a low percentage of clients who lie, and I think some of the clients who lie aren’t being deceitful, I think they’re being willfully blind, I think they’re lying to themselves so well maybe in multiple areas of their life that they have bought into their own… “Don’t track for a few days but I was on point, I swear,” it’s like [chuckle] okay, but I think…

0:34:02.5 Jordan Syatt: I know you swear.

0:34:03.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, and I think a lot of those instances, I think they believe they were. I think because “I ate most of the same food choices, I ate dinner out and I had this that I didn’t track, but I couldn’t have add… ” It just adds up, we know, but that takes out not on the nutrition side of things obviously, but it removes the opportunity for that. So we’re just dealing with 100% truth and accurate data on everything that the watch tracks unless you’re strapping it on your dog and like, “Go run around, pal.” [chuckle]

0:34:38.8 Jordan Syatt: That made me think of a funny story where if you follow your clients on social media, especially some of the ones that are not being fully honest about this stuff, it’s funny because sometimes you’ll see on their stories, they’re out and they’re getting stuff to eat and drink and dah, dah, dah, and then the next day, they’re like, “Why aren’t I making progress?” And all this stuff. And I remember… I forget who it was, but one coach was like, “I saw my client was out having Mexican food and they were just eating all these chips and guac and getting tons of drinks, and I DMed them and I was like this is why you’re not making progress,” and I was like, “That’s a really bad idea.” [laughter]

0:35:19.7 Mike Vacanti: Should read Dale.

0:35:20.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, like, “Here, read Dale Carnegie, ‘How to Win Friends’…” You don’t message your client and say, “This is not why you’re not making progress.”

[laughter]

0:35:31.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:35:31.8 Jordan Syatt: But it is… And that even brings up the whole question of do you even bring that up? For example, let’s say a client is complaining about progress and you’ve seen in their stories that they’re clearly not being it, like they will tell you, “Oh yeah, it was 100%. It’s like… ” But you know, last night you saw them down this and this and this, and this and this and this, whatever it is, do you say, “Well, I saw on your stories,” because then they’re gonna be like, “Fuck, I need to block you or I need to restrict you.” I don’t… It depends on your relationship with the client but I don’t see many situations where it’s a good idea to do a gotcha on them. Have them send you pictures of stuff, make assignments going forward for them to include you, but I think it’s even just enough sometimes for them to see that you’re watching their stories, like they know. Just to see your face there like that’s it, that’s enough.

0:36:26.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s enough. That’s enough.

0:36:27.9 Jordan Syatt: You don’t need to say anything about it. [laughter]

0:36:29.6 Mike Vacanti: You know and they know that you know, and that’s it. And I would take the same approach. “I’m not making progress.” I would treat that as if I hadn’t seen what’s going on on their story because for the most part, you’re still gonna have the same assumptions. If I didn’t see them eating Mexican on the weekend and they’re with certain clients, I’m gonna assume that they were probably doing something similar, but I would… I like the strategy of finding a time to casually bring it up in a positive light. And I don’t mean bring up what they did on their story, I mean bring it up… If the subject of Mexican food comes up, bring up that like, “I think it’s awesome to take a night off tracking and go out and have Mexican and really enjoy yourself and enjoy your friends and your family, and that’s amazing. Obviously, the scale will be up the next day and you might set yourself back a week of progress, but that’s completely reasonable to have that enjoyable experience.” So it’s encouraging it, but it’s also instilling that like, okay, when I do this, I know that I’m not gonna continue to lose a pound and a half of fat every single week, without doing a gotcha.

0:37:42.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [laughter]

0:37:46.4 Mike Vacanti: Or maybe I just think I’m being smart and they’re like, “I saw you saw that story, so I know what you’re doing here, coach,” but…

0:37:52.8 Jordan Syatt: “You’re not being sneaky. I know exactly what you’re talking about.”

[laughter]

0:37:58.4 Jordan Syatt: Completely reasonable. I love doing that too.

[laughter]

0:38:03.5 Mike Vacanti: They’re so…

0:38:04.5 Jordan Syatt: Little do they know that you get the fajitas every time, you’ve got your Mexican corner down.

[laughter]

0:38:10.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s if I’m dialed.

0:38:11.7 Jordan Syatt: Well, what do you get if you’re not dialed? You’re always dialed, you’re on the regiment.

0:38:15.4 Mike Vacanti: Definitely not always dialed. I am dialed right now, I’m not always dialed. If I’m not dialed, and Mexican food? Well, I used to go to a place called Frida’s every Thursday my senior year of college for happy hour where they had, I don’t know, $5 pitchers of frozen margaritas and we would have quesadillas and nachos and an absurd amount of strawberry margaritas that probably have multiple shots and I don’t know, 75 grams of sugar per cup and would drink a lot of those, but now with this…

0:38:50.8 Jordan Syatt: That was college though, what about in the last 10 years?

[laughter]

0:38:57.5 Mike Vacanti: Extra chips and guac, so more stuff before the meal. I love quesadillas.

0:39:04.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah, quesadillas.

0:39:05.4 Mike Vacanti: Right, and it’s…

0:39:05.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, you do like quesadillas, you’re a big quesadilla guy.

0:39:07.8 Mike Vacanti: And so that’s just… With all the cheese and then dipping it in guac, dipping it in sour cream, you just go into that meal knowing that even if you estimate, you’re gonna be taking in more fats than you think you’re taking in.

0:39:20.4 Jordan Syatt: Your testosterone’s gonna be super high after that meal for like a week. Just got so much fat in there, like yes, feels amazing.

[laughter]

0:39:28.9 Mike Vacanti: Just delicious.

0:39:31.3 Jordan Syatt: There’s no science behind what I just said, but I don’t know… [chuckle]

0:39:33.5 Mike Vacanti: But there are… No my… I was like, saturated fat precursor test levels? Like… [laughter] Egg yolk? I don’t know. I think Mind Pump Sal was tweeting about cholesterol and saturated fat and this like 12 egg yolk, I don’t know, test boost? I don’t wanna take it out of context. [laughter] I think, yeah. Saturated fat is a precursor to testosterone production, unless… What I read about it when I was fascinated about it probably 11 years ago to the day, unless that was incorrect. It’s not gonna move the needle really. You’re not going super physiological on the high sat fat diet, but yeah.

0:40:16.2 Jordan Syatt: You’re not gonna be at 1200 because you had a quesadilla and guacamole.

[laughter]

0:40:22.6 Mike Vacanti: Not to mention, I should probably layer in that on the whole I think there’s probably more negatives to… Not probably, there are more negatives to a high saturated fat diet consistently than there are positives.

0:40:37.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, absolutely, without question. Yeah, without question. I just… Did you see me a few minutes ago typing on my phone?

0:40:43.7 Mike Vacanti: Didn’t even notice it.

0:40:44.9 Jordan Syatt: Alright, good.

0:40:45.0 Mike Vacanti: And usually I’m very attuned to those things.

0:40:47.9 Jordan Syatt: I know. You hate it when I do that or… [chuckle] So I’m looking through my questions in my Q&A, and someone goes, “Hey, I like your stupid exercise videos, but could you please include what people can do that would add a lot of value.” And I just wrote back, I was like, “I add what exercise you can do at the end of every video.” In every fucking video, here’s what you can do instead. I was like, “God, they’re not even 60-second videos. It’s like this person’s stopping watching at 30 to 40 seconds?” Yeah, just had a little mini conniption there.

0:41:25.0 Mike Vacanti: You held it in very well…

0:41:27.0 Jordan Syatt: Thanks, bro.

0:41:27.1 Mike Vacanti: And I didn’t even see any micro-expressions of the anger.

0:41:30.5 Jordan Syatt: But I struggle with… I struggle with the micro-aggression of the anger…

0:41:35.0 Mike Vacanti: You have high standards for yourself on that front.

0:41:36.9 Jordan Syatt: Well, I’m trying to learn from the best. [chuckle]

0:41:40.7 Mike Vacanti: Not me. Who are you learning from? [laughter]

0:41:46.2 Jordan Syatt: I love this podcast. “He’s my best friend.” [laughter] Should we tell that story? [laughter]

0:41:57.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, go ahead.

0:41:58.0 Jordan Syatt: You don’t have to…

0:41:58.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. We were… I was visiting New York. This was after I… Or maybe I had moved back in 2016…

0:42:05.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, this was when you… You were in Chinatown at this point. Here in the Chinatown grind house…

0:42:10.3 Mike Vacanti: And we… And I was tagging along in the morning to go to Gary’s workout.

0:42:15.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:42:16.2 Mike Vacanti: And we had an Uber together, and I basically blacked out. Tell me what happened.

0:42:25.0 Jordan Syatt: We were talking about a guy that we’re both close to that we both know very well, we’re not the biggest fans of him. And we were talking about him, and then the Uber driver starts talking shit about him too. [laughter] Sorta like joins in on the shit talking, and then all of a sudden Mike just gets really mad and starts to defend the guy…

0:42:52.1 Mike Vacanti: I got so defensive.

[laughter]

0:42:54.3 Jordan Syatt: And this is not either of our best friends at all, but then it was an interesting combination ’cause Mike starts to defend him and then the Uber drivers going the other direction, still talking shit, and Mike’s like, “You don’t even know him. This is my best friend.” [laughter] Just to win the argument with an Uber driver about a guy that the Uber driver didn’t know and we’re not even the biggest fan of [chuckle], and we get out of the Uber and you’re like, “Why did I say he was my best friend?”

[laughter]

0:43:29.8 Mike Vacanti: I think, I think… You know what I think the lesson there is? I think the lesson there is just don’t speak badly of people, because when I heard the Uber driver saying not nice things about this person, I got so defensive of him. I was like, “No.” I was like, “No one talks bad about him.”

[laughter]

0:43:52.4 Jordan Syatt: “You don’t even know the guy. He’s my best friend.” [laughter] I looked at you like, “What?” [laughter]

0:44:02.1 Mike Vacanti: Oh, I was gonna say, when you first read that comment, I was like, “Oh, would be cool if you included alternative exercises that people could do… “

0:44:12.0 Jordan Syatt: I do. In every single one.

0:44:13.8 Mike Vacanti: And then I started thinking, then I was like on the external rotation, you were like, “Do a banded,” and then I saw the burpee one. By the way, I probably spent 46 minutes on Instagram over the last year, and then I spent a solid hour on there yesterday or two days ago, really getting a lay of the land. I was texting you all these questions like, “Why is there stuff in my feed of people I don’t even follow?” You’re like, “Things have changed over the last three years.” But I…

0:44:40.5 Jordan Syatt: That’s really new. That’s new over the last week or two weeks?

0:44:43.6 Mike Vacanti: Oh wow, okay.

0:44:44.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:44:45.0 Mike Vacanti: I was getting a feel. And I saw your plank jack video, and then just now I was thinking like, “Oh, you did.” You were like, “You could do a body weight plank. You could do a single arm plank reach. You could do… ” whatever alternatives you gave at the end.

0:45:01.1 Jordan Syatt: Exactly. Yeah. So I just got real pissed at that person.

0:45:04.3 Mike Vacanti: Did you reply and say, “I do”?

0:45:05.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I said, “I do that in every video”.

0:45:09.3 Mike Vacanti: And what did the person say?

0:45:11.4 Jordan Syatt: I didn’t look yet. I’m still on the list of questions. But [chuckle] it’s like, Oh man.

0:45:16.4 Mike Vacanti: This is… You know what? We should dedicate a podcast to how Jordan deals with something like annoying/basically uncomfortable… I don’t know. DMs that you don’t want to reply to.

0:45:36.1 Jordan Syatt: It’s very different now than what I used to do. Just like as I’ve progressed. Someone left a comment on my post the other day. They’re like, “Why do you swear so much? It’s trashy and unprofessional.” And so I just pinned their comment to the top, knowing that my audience would go in and then I think they blocked me. [laughter] ‘Cause my audience was just like, “That’s why I’m here. I love it.” Like… They were just going in on it, and I think they blocked me ’cause now their comment’s not there anymore.

0:46:06.5 Mike Vacanti: Well, no content for them.

0:46:07.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Don’t call me trashy and professional. [laughter]

0:46:12.8 Mike Vacanti: I’m not trashy and I’m very professional. [laughter]

0:46:15.9 Jordan Syatt: I’m a little trashy. Not very professional. But just don’t say it to me.

[laughter]

0:46:21.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. [laughter]

0:46:23.9 Jordan Syatt: Someone asked me, Do you have a golf handicap? Which I don’t really know what that means, but I know you do. Mike, do you have a golf handicap?

0:46:30.9 Mike Vacanti: I don’t keep a handicap. No. I should I’ll probably start keeping a handicap. I played some golf…

0:46:36.9 Jordan Syatt: What does that mean?

0:46:37.2 Mike Vacanti: A little while recently. You can think of it as average number of strokes over par, even though that’s not exactly correct.

0:46:46.2 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:46:46.3 Mike Vacanti: So… Yeah, if you’re a scratch or like a zero handicap, you average close to shooting even par, if you’re like a 15 or an 18 handicap, you average that many strokes over par.

0:47:00.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh, okay, and you’re just always under par?

0:47:03.6 Mike Vacanti: Me personally, no, I’m the same exact golfer I was when I was 14 years old.

0:47:10.0 Jordan Syatt: No, you’re not.

0:47:11.8 Mike Vacanti: Probably worse.

0:47:12.0 Jordan Syatt: Stronger, better…

0:47:12.8 Mike Vacanti: Probably worse, ’cause my short game is now worse because I don’t really play very much. However… So I no, I’m not, I’m like a bogey golfer basically, but I… Having the basement… I’ve said this to so many people recently, I don’t even remember not living in a 350 square foot apartment in New York City, and instead having an actual house and being able to chip in the basement, my short game is so dialed. When we’re on the phone or if I have any phone calls and I’m just literally just hitting wedges in my basement, little chips, you can’t really swing, but I’ll be down there sometimes and catch one a little funny and it’ll go off the wall, but it will all…

0:47:52.3 Jordan Syatt: It’s your house.

0:47:53.2 Mike Vacanti: Exactly, exactly.

[laughter]

0:47:57.8 Mike Vacanti: But that…

0:47:57.9 Jordan Syatt: Have you dented the wall?

0:48:00.6 Mike Vacanti: I have not dented the wall. No, I haven’t… I haven’t like really…

0:48:01.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, you’re good.

0:48:02.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but sometimes it’ll just come in a little hot, make a little noise off the wall.

[laughter]

0:48:13.1 Jordan Syatt: I’m gonna look for another question.

0:48:14.5 Mike Vacanti: Let’s do this. What are you… I know in Pat Flynn lingo, neither of us recently have been “setting any PRs” in terms of business or content creation where we’re living balanced lives, and we’re doing other things that bring us meaning and joy, but do you have any business-specific goals that you would hope to achieve, we’ll call it, in the next six months, one year, three years, five years? Pick any window and let’s jam.

0:48:50.5 Jordan Syatt: Alright, you go first.

[laughter]

0:49:01.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I want to… Gosh, I hate… I’ve made proclamations that then just… I went the complete opposite direction on. What I said in the YouTube video I just uploaded was that my goal is to follow Aristotle’s Golden Mean, which is the midpoint between two extremes, and the extreme of not making anything, and the extreme of daily vlogs was the example I use. It is was like I am… Are you gonna daily vlog again ’cause that’s something… People really enjoyed those streaks, and I’ve gotten that question a lot.

0:49:34.7 Mike Vacanti: Will you ever daily vlog again? I will never daily vlog again as long as I live. But I think there’s a happy medium between no content creation and daily vlogging. So in terms of goals, start creating on platforms I enjoy, at a reasonable frequency that I can be consistent at, which is probably a monthly YouTube video, I said one to two, but probably monthly, and then dabbling on Instagram, dabbling on TikTok, dabbling on Twitter, nothing crazy nothing 3X a day, nothing… Nothing that I would recommend if I were in a position where I was trying to grow my business, but more like getting my feet back in the pool to potentially do something at some point. So I guess I don’t have any results-oriented goals, to accomplish X, to make Y dollars, to have this many followers, to do whatever, but just to create stuff I enjoy making that hopefully people enjoy watching, reading, listening to, and doing it consistently for the next 6-12 months and then re-evaluate. And more gas, cool. More breaks, cool. Come out with something, sell something, maybe who knows, but more just like, get back in the flow.

0:50:54.5 Jordan Syatt: It would be interesting to talk to our… Or talk to ourselves like eight years ago and ask them this question ’cause it would be a very different conversation, right?

0:51:03.8 Mike Vacanti: Oh my gosh.

0:51:05.4 Jordan Syatt: It’d be… It’d be so different. So it is… For you listening, it’s different to hear us talk about it now versus when we were just really getting started in the online world.

0:51:17.1 Mike Vacanti: Night and day.

0:51:17.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Completely, completely different. I think for me, it’s… With my kid on the way, and all of that, it’s… My number one business goal has always been just to help as many people as I can. That’s like always the goal from a business perspective, but now it’s funny ’cause business used to be my life, my life was business. That’s all I thought about, it’s all I cared about, it’s all I wanted to do, it’s all I did, it was just business, business, business. Now it’s different, now my life… Now business is a part of my life, not my whole life. And so I think that’s a continued goal as my wife brings our child into this world where it’s like I want to be able to go to their sport events or go to their teacher meetings and not be worrying about work or not even thinking about work, just be fully present or take them on weekend trips, whatever it is, and have work be okay.

0:52:25.8 Jordan Syatt: Which I thank God it is, like at this time. I know… That’s why my wife and I decided to like, “Alright, now we’re ready to bring a kid into this world,” because that’s where I was at in business, which I think just… It was a blessing, it all worked out, the timing worked out the way… Like the way it did, because I think if I had had a kid five years ago, it would have… I would have been able to figure out a way to make it work, but I don’t think I would have been able to be as present in their life as I will be able to hopefully now. You know what what I mean?

0:52:58.5 Mike Vacanti: There are two outcomes there, either your business wouldn’t have been as successful and wouldn’t have grown as much, or you wouldn’t have been able to, yes, be as involved as a dad as you will be now with your current plan.

0:53:11.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:53:11.9 Mike Vacanti: People who… I’ve seen the advice that like… Specifically to me many times over the last several years, that essentially being single and dedicating all of your time towards work and making a transition toward, for example, having a family and having kids and having a spouse, that that transition won’t negatively impact business, or that you can have the same business outcome in either scenario. And at the time I was like, “Okay, well, in one scenario, you have 168 hours to dedicate everything in your life towards work, and in the other one you don’t, so how are you telling me that you can be equal?” And I think some people are making the argument that you can actually have more business success if you somehow have less time and more balance, which is just… [chuckle]

0:54:07.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense to me.

0:54:08.6 Mike Vacanti: Which obviously doesn’t mean that… Why I do, personally, I think one is better than the other. I think that more balance leads to a more meaningful and more fulfilling life, which I think you agree on, which is why we’re making the decisions we’re making over the last several years. But it’s just mind-blowing to hear that, “Oh, you can have equal business success in either scenario”.

0:54:33.9 Jordan Syatt: Well, equal business success along with family life balance. It’s like, you can’t have both. You can’t… And that’s fine. It’s not saying, “Don’t do it if you’ve already got a family and kids”, ’cause it could still be worth it, but that might be a three to five, or three to seven or three to 10 year window where you don’t have the balance that you want, as you’re building your business. So if you’re… You might not be as present with your spouse or with your kids as you’re grinding to build your business, which is… That’s your decision. That’s totally fine. But to say that you could have complete work-life, family balance and build this super, super, super successful business at the same time and they’re equally as if you had already built it, and that… It’s just not accurate.

0:55:26.6 Mike Vacanti: Cool, I like that. I like that.

0:55:29.7 Jordan Syatt: And obviously the Inner Circle and the Mentorship from an actual business perspective, continue to grow those and optimize them and make them better and better and better, but yeah. The followers or the views or the likes, that’s a goal that was many, many, many, many millions ago, sort of extinguished, that I’m just not… It just doesn’t matter anymore.

0:56:00.5 Mike Vacanti: And probably never did…

0:56:03.6 Jordan Syatt: It did matter to me, not necessarily from a… It wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought it would be from a business perspective, it wasn’t, which is so funny, it just wasn’t as big of a deal.

0:56:18.4 Mike Vacanti: For business and from a emotional and psychological perspective. When you hit a milestone, there’s just another mountain top waiting, and that exists in anything, that exists with money, that exists with… Like chasing those goals. You’re always gonna have more. Yeah. We’ll wrap it there. We’ll leave it there. Great episode. This was very fun. Hope you enjoyed listening. We love five star reviews, if you have 30 seconds to just jump in there, Spotify, iTunes, Apple, wherever you’re listening to this and drop a review, we would really appreciate it. We love reading those. And we’ll be back next week.

0:56:58.9 Jordan Syatt: We appreciate you listening. Thank you so much.

0:57:00.9 Mike Vacanti: Have a great week. See you soon. Bye.