Episode 100: Episode 100, Clips Nation, Coaching Burnout, Motivation 101, and More

0:00:11.4 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

0:00:12.5 Jordan Syatt: What’s going on, Michael? Clips Nation.

0:00:15.9 Mike Vacanti: Clips Nation. How are you?

0:00:16.9 Jordan Syatt: Episode 100. Episode 100, take two. Take two.

[laughter]

0:00:25.6 Mike Vacanti: I think we should upload the first one.

0:00:25.6 Jordan Syatt: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. It was a…

0:00:29.1 Mike Vacanti: I think it’s highly entertaining.

0:00:32.3 Jordan Syatt: When we get to episode 1800, then we can upload the first episode 100. [laughter]

0:00:38.7 Mike Vacanti: It’s the first redo I think we’ve ever done.

0:00:41.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. No, no, no. I think we did…

0:00:42.2 Mike Vacanti: Actually, that’s not true. There was… About 25 episodes ago, Jordan went on like a 30-minute rant about abortion and then I just told David, “we’re not uploading that” and I don’t even think I told you, until like three weeks later, I was like, “By the way, we didn’t upload that.” You’re like, “What?”

[laughter]

0:01:07.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. So we’re definitely not uploading the first take of episode 100, but take two is going to be better. Clips Nation, for everyone who doesn’t know what Clips Nation is because we just made this term up after the last failed attempt. We are, as you are well aware, hopefully, we have social media platforms on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, @thepersonaltrainerpodcast… or @personaltrainerpodcast, right?

0:01:31.9 Mike Vacanti: Yep.

0:01:33.8 Jordan Syatt: @personaltrainerpodcast. I think there’s a little delay here probably because my Wi-Fi at this hotel isn’t the greatest, but anyway, uploading very frequently on those and a large portion of what we’re doing on these podcasts is getting clips for that, for those channels. So the old style of podcasting in which we just sort of jam on random shit will probably be fewer and further between. Now, Clips Nation. Alright? So like we’re talking about stuff much more potently directed towards getting clips.

0:02:10.6 Mike Vacanti: I think we still start out every episode with a, you know, talk about whatever and then we have a little bit more of a plan with more structure around fitness and business content thereafter.

0:02:20.4 Jordan Syatt: I like that. All right. Clips Nation, let’s dive into it. [laughter]

0:02:23.9 Mike Vacanti: I mean, episode 100 though, who would have thought? And thank you very much everyone listening who has made it this far. We appreciate you very much. The Spotify, I don’t even know what they call it, unwrapped, I think.

0:02:40.1 Jordan Syatt: I think it’s wrapped.

0:02:41.4 Mike Vacanti: Should be unwrapped because really it’s like unwrapping a present.

[laughter]

0:02:46.9 Mike Vacanti: You see the podcast and the minutes listened and the music you listen to throughout the year. And so big, big shout out to everyone tagging us on social media in their Spotify wrapped. It’s really, really fun and cool to see. And we do appreciate you a lot.

0:03:00.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And in take one of this episode, Mike actually read off names of the people who did that. Just like to give you individual shout outs. So I don’t know if we have that, but even if we don’t give the individual shout outs, you know who you are. You shouted us out and we really, really appreciate it. So thank you.

0:03:17.4 Mike Vacanti: You excited to speak?

0:03:18.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I’m at a big fitness event, I’m gonna be speaking. Yeah. One of the nice things about speaking is just like, because everything we do is online, it’s nice to actually see people in-person. I think that’s my favorite part about doing these types of events, is just actually getting to see and interact with real humans, which is, it’s funny. Like it’s before, 10, 15 years ago, I was in person coaching people all day, every day, that’s what I did. But now with, an online business, I don’t interact with as many people in person. So it’s nice to actually get out, meet people, shake their hands, see people who you’ve been interacting with online. Oh, you know who I literally, I didn’t tell you this before we started recording. I just met for the first time in person. I think it’s the first time in person, Matt McLeod.

0:04:09.1 Mike Vacanti: Oh, nice.

0:04:10.5 Jordan Syatt: It was funny because…

0:04:11.0 Mike Vacanti: Shout out to Matt.

0:04:12.1 Jordan Syatt: Sometimes when you meet people for the first time in person, but you’ve been friends online, it doesn’t feel like the first time in person. So I actually don’t know if this was my first time meeting him in person or not. I think it was, but yeah, it was awesome. Super nice guy. So yeah, it’s just cool to be and meet with people.

0:04:32.2 Mike Vacanti: He’s also someone who, you know, sometimes you meet someone and their in person, like real personality, doesn’t match up with the facade they put online. He’s someone who’s very transparent online and very like genuine dude, which is always a fun, pleasant surprise in person.

0:04:49.7 Jordan Syatt: I think that plays into like why I’m unsure if I’ve actually met him in person before or not because I’m like, “Oh no, you’re exactly like you are online.” So it is, ’cause you can always tell when you haven’t met someone in person before because they’re immediately so different than who they are online. So it’s a… Yeah, that speaks to Matt a lot. And I think David’s gonna have his work cut out for him in this podcast to line up our timing on this ’cause there’s definitely a delay. So apologies in advance to our podcast editor, David, but hopefully, it sounds good and the delay isn’t too bad when you listen.

0:05:25.3 Mike Vacanti: He’s an absolute master genius. So we can just assume we’re not going to have a lot of like quick back and forth here, but do a little more monologue style. And actually, it’s interesting because the one thing, the one non fitness business related thing that I have found interesting that I wanted to bring up here somewhat relates to what you were just talking about, about getting to meet people in person and like interact in person and have a day or two days or I’ve forgotten how long exactly you’re there, but I know it’s at least a three plus day event where people are going to be interacting for 10 to 12 to 14 plus hours a day, which actually sounds like complete hell to me.

[laughter]

0:06:04.8 Mike Vacanti: I can’t think of anything more exhausting. And it’s funny because I just listening to a Jason Calacanis, the host of the All-In Podcast on Tim Ferriss and they were talking about Myers-Briggs and introverts versus extroverts and how, how J Cal like structures his day and compared it to the Tim Ferriss podcast. And they were actually talking about events and how Tim has done one event in his entire life. And he said it was the most exhausting thing he ever did and he will never do another one. And the structure of different podcasts and how basically just introvert versus extrovert derive energy from human interaction versus get drained from human interaction. And the thing I wanted to bring up that I found super interesting and it’s a luxury to be able to do this, right? So neither you nor I could have done this eight, nine, 10, 11 years ago because we just had to do whatever it took to build at that point. But we’re now both in a position where we have the luxury to implement this idea from a Sahil Bloom, who I’ve been… Who you know, who I’ve been telling you about a little bit recently was talking about analyzing his schedule.

0:07:17.4 Mike Vacanti: So looking at, kind of hour by hour, all of the things that he does in a day and then highlighting green, yellow, red for gives me energy, neutral or takes energy away from me and then doing the best that you can to delegate some of those reds, potentially delegate and get as much green and as little red as possible. Obviously, there are going to be things that you simply can’t delegate, but you can make decisions based on that color coding. And introvert versus extrovert, human interaction to a certain degree is going to be more red for introverts, more green for extroverts. It’s actually interesting because in our yesterday, we did like three and a half straight hours of recording. We went long on the mentorship Q&A, or I guess this was two days ago, and then hit a podcast right afterwards. And you were like, “Man, I was feeling great.” And I was like, “I was dead,” but I have started to do that activity and it’s, it’s been somewhat enlightening as far as. Right now, I’m in a position where things are going well in business, but I’m not working a full time schedule obviously.

0:08:25.6 Mike Vacanti: And I have the opportunity to like, okay, move some puzzle pieces around thinking about building things out. How would I want to do it? How would I want to structure things in a way that basically gives me the most fulfillment and joy and energy and meaning and like suits my style and personality best within each day. And yeah, this podcast was, was on the upper yellow by the way. So you can take that as a compliment.

0:08:51.8 Jordan Syatt: Wait, so I don’t know the scaling and grading, like what is upper yellow? Like was that good or bad?

0:09:00.0 Mike Vacanti: Yellow is neutral. So for an introvert to be fine with human interaction and not have it be draining is a good thing. Like if I were to go on other people’s podcasts, that would be the reddest of the red thing that I could ever do in my entire life, ever. Which is why I may never go. Like I have a nice canned response whenever someone asks me to go on their podcasts and it’s like, but that’s essentially done forever. And candidly, unless it’s a… Like Gary always did this, “I don’t… People, I don’t care if you get 13 listeners, like I’m giving back to my community. I’m going to do a podcast,” like you’re extroverted. You enjoy doing that. Like good for you. Whereas for me, it has to be like a real marketing opportunity for me to even consider going on a podcast. And even then it’s like, “I do not want to do it.”

0:09:45.6 Jordan Syatt: Bro, it’s so funny. I told you I saw Andrew Coates, last night for the first time, really great guy. We’ve been on his podcast before and he said throughout the conversation we were talking, he was like, “Yeah, I’ve, I’ve tried to get Mike on my podcast a couple of times, but I think that he just really… He doesn’t want to do it.” And I said, “Bro.”

0:10:04.2 Mike Vacanti: I love Andrew Coates.

0:10:06.3 Jordan Syatt: “He has a canned response that he sends out to people when they invite him on his podcast. He just, he hates doing it. Not like, not you. He just hates doing it on other people’s podcasts. It’s nothing against you.” He was like, “Totally get it. Understand.” He was… But it was so funny that you just brought that up, ’cause I was like, “Oh yeah,” like it’s your personality. It’s just like, that’s not what you’re going to do. And it’s nothing against them. It’s like, you’re trying to conserve your energy.

0:10:30.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s a 100% right.

0:10:32.9 Jordan Syatt: Like going on, you kept talking about delegation, and how Sahil had this whole system. Like you have your greens, your yellows, your reds. And I wanted to talk about delegation from a business perspective. ‘Cause you were talking about how you and I we are fortunate now to be in a position in which we can do this, like we can delegate more, we can do that. I think a huge mistake that I see among new coaches and business owners is trying to delegate too much too early within their business. They’re trying to build out these huge teams, like… And these coaches and owners of businesses who are just starting out are like, “Well, I don’t like doing this, so I’m not going to do this.” I’m like, “Hold on. You’re like a year into this game. That’s not how this fucking works. It’s the earlier on you are, the more shit you have to do that you don’t like.” I remember, I hated college. I was, I didn’t like it. I didn’t like my professors. I had a couple, like two good ones. One of them actually, his name was Dr. Peterson. Amazing, amazing, amazing professor. And he saw that I was trying to start my own business and we spoke about it a lot. He was super supportive. And I remember in class one day he was talking, he always was encouraging his students to be more entrepreneurial, which I loved.

0:11:53.1 Jordan Syatt: And he was talking about, he was like, “Listen, when I first started… ” ’cause this guy has multiple businesses. He’s a high level advisor for the government. Like he’s a sort of a savage dude. And he was like, “Listen, when I first started doing all of this stuff, when I first started working for other people, for example, I hated 90% of what I did and I enjoyed 10%. And then as I moved up the ranks, I hated 80% and then enjoyed 20%. And then I hated 70% and enjoyed 30%. And once I started my own business, then it went like 50, 50,” but then over the years, now he’s like, “Now I hate 10% and enjoy 90%.” And this is a guy near the end of his career. And I see so many people now, coaches, business owners who are like, as soon as they don’t like doing something, they want to hire it out. They wanna outsource it. I’m like, “That’s a bad fucking idea. You should eat shit for a while and do the things you don’t wanna do until you build up enough leeway to then be able to delegate it out.” But I think, especially when it’s your business, you have to be in the weeds of your business. You have to know how your business works. You have to do… You have to interact with the clients. You have to interact with all the people. You have to bear the brunt of the load and you can’t just try and delegate everything out early on. I think it’s a huge mistake that people are making.

0:13:13.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Eat more shit early on, and then over time you earn the opportunity to delegate out stuff you don’t wanna do or not even delegate it out. Simply not do stuff that you don’t wanna do because you’ve earned yourself into a position where you don’t have to do those things. And especially on the relationship building, content creation, replying to comments, replying to DMS, replying to emails, interacting with clients, building your core true 1000 fans, Kevin Kelly’s idea. You can’t outsource that, because that’s genuine human connection. You can’t like bot that out into like some DM AI bot chat reply thing. You can’t like have an admin be doing it for you because then you’re not actually forming those relationships. I’m sure there are some ways to use a virtual assistant to do like some minor tasks that you don’t wanna do that are, that are less important to the business, but all of the fundamental coaching, creating content, all of these things need to be done yourself. You’re a 100% right.

0:14:23.3 Jordan Syatt: And I just see, it’s just, maybe it’s a fad in society culture right now to, just don’t, “If you don’t like it, don’t do it. You don’t like it, don’t do it.” Like you’re a king, you’re a queen, do whatever you deserve it all. It’s like, “What the fuck are you talking?” It’s sort of like, imagine if your client was like, “I wanna be able to lose fat, but I also wanna eat as much as I fucking want.” So “Yeah, you’re a king, you’re a queen,” shut the fuck up. Like if you wanna lose fat, you’re gonna have to restrict a little bit. If you wanna build a business, you’re gonna have to do shit that you don’t want to do, especially early on, but also for the duration of your business. That’s like, if you wanna own a business, you’re gonna have to do shit you don’t want to do. And the goal is to change the ratio of what you like to what you don’t like so that the majority is what you really like. But this idea that you should never do anything that you don’t like is just fucking hogwash horse shit, ’cause of course, you have to do shit you don’t like. It’s just, that’s part of life.

0:15:33.0 Mike Vacanti: I’m absolutely loving it. This transitions us really well to an email we got from Laura who said, “I decided recently to take a small step back from personal training to focus on my mental health and possibly initiate a career change. I’ve been training for about two years and I’m just not a 100% sure that I’m living my dream. It was a very difficult decision to make and it’s definitely bittersweet. There’s a lot of possibilities out there, which is both exciting and scary. I started saying goodbye to a few clients this week, but fortunately I think all of them will stay in my life as friends and I can continue to support them in other ways. I currently have three jobs. I work at a gym training clients. I coach group fitness at OrangeTheory, and have an LLC that I run on my own. I decided to leave the job at the gym, which was going to happen at some point anyway. I’ll probably still be working 10-12 hours a week with one-on-one clients and only about two to three hours a week in group fitness. This will allow me more physical and mental space to explore other options.

0:16:29.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s possible I’ll continue back on my original path, but I just needed a bit to better assess my priorities. Fitness has gradually stopped feeling like my passion and felt more and more like a chore, which really sucks. I noticed myself losing desire and excitement to help others and my own fitness has suffered as well. I would welcome any advice or wisdom you guys could impart. As I know, I’m not the only one who’s ever been through something like this.”

0:16:55.3 Jordan Syatt: You wanna take the lead on that one?

0:16:58.8 Mike Vacanti: I think that if you deep… So there’s two ideas pulling from opposite directions. One is that when you first find fitness, when any of us first get into strength training, when we first… Like those of us who become obsessed or end up really enjoying it for our own personal, how it makes us feel, how it makes us look, like even just the process of fitting training into your routine, there’s a love for it like a love for a sport or a love for a hobby that dissipates when it becomes your full-time job. That’s 100% normal. The person who is a fitness enthusiast and sees incredible body transformation over a two-year period, they feel differently about fitness than someone who is training 30-40 hours on the gym floor every single week. That’s just part of the game. That’s an important reality to understand. The other side of the coin is maybe you’re right and you’re not passionate about this. Maybe you do dislike this line of work more than the average person. Maybe there is another industry, another career path that much better suits you. I think it’s really, really smart to hit the brakes on coaching, whether that means stopping completely or like you’re doing coaching much less and exploring other things, exploring other opportunities, exploring other industries, taking time to try other things.

0:18:26.6 Mike Vacanti: And so, Laura, I think you’re doing the right thing by tasting what else is out there. At the end of the day though, work is work. You can love what you do. You can like one job more than another job, but you’re gonna have to eat shit at all jobs. I’m really happy you’re doing this because you might find out that, “Oh, I actually like this other thing way more than I like coaching.” That’s incredible. Then pursue that. You might also find out that, “Oh, I tried this thing and then this thing and then this thing. I wasn’t super passionate about any of those either.” That’s like the bitter pill to swallow is that you can be unbelievably passionate about the industry you work in and still have times where you experience burnout, still have times where you don’t wanna design that client’s program, still have times where it feels like work and that’s okay and that’s normal.

0:19:18.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You hit the nail on the head, bro. I want to go in on it, but I’m just going to end up repeating everything you said. Work is work. It’s sort of like working out. I love working out, but there are many times that I work out that I fucking don’t wanna work out and I hate it. It’s like I love fitness and I love health and I love exercise, but there are many times that I get a workout in and I don’t wanna do it at all, like at all. No matter what job you choose in life, there’s gonna be things, hopefully, that you really enjoy about it and there are going to be things that you don’t enjoy about it at all. If you’re working for someone else, in which like if you have a boss, there are gonna be things that your boss does that you’re like, my boss is a fucking idiot. I don’t know why I’m doing this. This is stupid. I could do this better than them. In which case, it’s like fine, then go do it better. Then don’t have them be your boss. It’s like, “Stop fucking complaining.”

0:20:18.6 Jordan Syatt: But on the other hand, if you own your own business, guess what? You still work for other people, your clients. Even though you’re technically your own boss, you’re also not your own boss because your clients are your boss. You’re working for them. It’s like, they’re fucking idiots. They’re doing stupid shit. It’s like, and then you’ve got employees and your employees are doing stupid shit and you’re fucking mad at them ’cause they’re not doing it the way you want to and they think that they can do it better than you.

0:20:45.0 Jordan Syatt: So no matter where you are in this chain, there’s gonna be things that you like and things that you don’t like. What you have to ask yourself is, does the good outweigh the bad and/or is it worth it? Period. Those are the questions you have to ask yourself. And if the good doesn’t outweigh the bad or if the bad outweighs the good, leave, find something else. But what I see is I see so many people who just have this odd entitled feeling to think that everything is just supposed to be good for them all the time. It’s this weird thing that I’ve seen. Everything is just supposed to be great and they should never have to deal with a shitty person or a shitty situation or do something they don’t like. And it’s like, “Where did you get that idea? Who told you that you would have, that everything would just be wonderful all the time? Where did this idea come from?” [laughter] Like I don’t know. I’m actually wondering where at any point in your life, who led you to believe that everything you do was just supposed to be wonderful. And if it’s not wonderful 100% of the time, then it’s not worth it and you deserve better. Like, I don’t know. It’s just weird to me.

0:22:00.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And that’s a society at large in today’s day and age problem. Like I don’t think in the 1940s in the West, there was an expectation that life was just easy and that we should enjoy every single thing we do. And we’re getting slightly away from responding directly to Laura and talking more at large. But the last thing I wanna say to Laura and to that specific instance is I can relate because my absolute worst day as a coach, when I have that client who’s sending me an email, once every four years you have a client who every time their name shows up in the inbox, your stomach just drops, which thankfully is only like one out of 500 or one out of a thousand, but they do exist. My worst day ever is better than my best day as an accountant working at a public accounting firm, getting told what to do, you know, sitting there with posture like this and mandatory, take your lunch down here with the team at this time and do this and tuck your shirt in and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. My best day in two years as an accountant can’t touch my worst day as a coach working in the fitness industry. So maybe Laura, maybe fitness to you is what accounting was to me and maybe there’s something else out there to you that is what fitness is to me, which is why I’d encourage you to taste those things, but don’t be closed off to the idea that like, yeah, burnout and like these things do occur in any industry.

0:23:28.2 Jordan Syatt: I love that. I think that’s super important. And trying new things is amazing. Try something for whatever it’s worth. This is why I highly doubt I’ll ever get into the jiu-jitsu world as a profession because I know for a fact that if I started working in jujitsu, I would lose my passion for jiu-jitsu. I want to keep my passion. My passion, I don’t want to make it my business ’cause once it becomes business, now it’s hard to keep it something that is just all fun. As soon as it becomes business, it can’t all be fun anymore. The… What was it? I was just going to say something else on that front. Fuck, I might’ve lost it. And that was going to be a good clip. That was going to be a Clip Nation right there, bro.

0:24:08.2 Mike Vacanti: It’ll come back.

0:24:09.1 Jordan Syatt: What was I going to say? I forget.

0:24:13.5 Mike Vacanti: Cool. We’re going to jump into another question. If it comes back, it comes back. Tyler said, “So, I’ll have clients initially sign up, sign up for coaching. They’re following macros and a few months in or later down the road, they get tired of tracking. How do you approach that? We’ve done diet breaks, but I’ll get clients now and again who want to live their life and not worry about tracking. We’ll fully incorporate flexibility within the program. So it’s not like they are super restricted, but they just don’t want to think about food. How do you approach something like this? So you don’t lose the client.

0:24:49.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Amazing question. Like, and I remember when I was a younger coach, this really threw me for a loop for many reasons, but to be very blunt about it, I realized that the reason that it threw me for a loop, there were a number of reasons it threw me for a loop, but the main one was because I didn’t want to lose the client, which was selfish of me. Right? It was like, it came from my own selfishness, not because I wanted to help the client. It came because, well, if you aren’t tracking and you’re not aware of your food, then you’re probably going to end up gaining some body fat and I’m probably not going to get a success story from you. And then if I don’t get a success story from you, then I’m gonna lose you as a client and I’m not gonna get more clients because I can’t share the success story anymore. So like, if I’m being very honest, it came from, and it sounds like that might be where you are with this as well being like, how am I not gonna lose the client if that, if that’s the point?

0:25:47.9 Jordan Syatt: Sometimes lose… And you don’t have to lose the client, but sometimes a client shouldn’t stay with you for very long. And sometimes it’s okay for them to take breaks and they’ll come back later. It’s okay for them to have breaks. Like I don’t think any coach worth their salt would say that you need to be meticulously tracking all the time, all year, every year. I don’t think any coach worth their salt would say that to anybody. So having these breaks is normal and fine and healthy. And sometimes letting them go will allow them to then come back later when it’s time and when they’re ready to do it. And it also help them develop a healthier relationship with food. So with all that being said, I got to a point where I realized I need to stop trying to force people to be tracking all the time. I needed to find things that will allow them to still stay on track and remain healthy and limit excessive body fat gain or even continue to lose body fat without necessarily tracking, which is why I ended up coming up with my like three plates, two snacks method.

0:26:46.4 Jordan Syatt: It’s why I came up with my, a one, two, three method. You have one salad a day, two pieces of fruit, three bottles of water. I guess just the bare minimum of what must be included. You can also eat other things, but you must include those bare minimums. Just these simple things that allow them to, to make sure they’re still getting high quality food, high quality nutrition. They’re hitting the basic needs of what they need to hit without being as meticulous as tracking would have them be. And ironically, when this happens, some of them might gain some body fat, some of them might lose some body fat, but if they need a break from tracking, it’s your responsibility as a coach to give them that break in a controlled environment. And if that means that they leave, that’s okay. They might come back, they might not, but that’s the right thing to do as a coach.

0:27:31.7 Mike Vacanti: Great answer. The two pieces of the question that stand out to me are the very end when he said, “How do you approach something like this so you don’t lose the client?” And, and that is… It’s just normal. Like you’re a business owner, a client is a part of your revenue stream. When you’re just getting started, you don’t have many clients. If you lose one client, like that’s a big chunk of money annualized. And so you’re thinking that you wanna do whatever you can to not lose the client, but the, the longterm that probably is the best financial strategy in the short term, but it’s not the best strategy in the longterm. It’s not the best strategy for the client, and it’s not the best strategy for you and your business in the longterm because if you take a little bit more of a hard line, if you draw a line in the sand and if you recommend, like, if… And there are certain circumstances where I’ll have a client not track, but when it’s… I wanna live my life, I’m done tracking. I’m frustrated that I’m not losing any weight. I wanna lose 60 more pounds so I can be healthy, but I wanna be able to live my life. And this is too restrictive.

0:28:35.8 Mike Vacanti: And so I wanna keep making progress, but I don’t wanna track anything ever. That might be a time to like very politely and cordially say it might be the time to take a break from coaching. Maybe they end up working with an intuitive eating coach. Maybe they gain 24 pounds the next six months working with their intuitive eating coach, intuitively eating.

0:28:52.3 Mike Vacanti: And then maybe they come back then when they are ready and they’ve tasted the other side and they’re like, “Oh, you know what? Like tracking actually does help me lose body fat. I know it’s not a forever thing, but I know it’s very beneficial during the fat loss phase. And so I am gonna make the sacrifice for the next eight to 12 months, get here and then maybe I’ll be tracking less when I’m in more of maintenance mode.” Incredible. I would also say that just in general, to answer your question, when a client does that I’ll usually push back a little bit. And again, I’m focusing on the just want to live my life. It’s not like I’m developing binge eating tendencies or I am binge eating. It’s not the… And these are less common instances. But when there is some, like some kind of disordered eating develops as a result of tracking or like client is having a really bad time with, with mental health anxiety as a result of tracking. Those are times when taking a break from tracking, taking a diet break, going to maintenance, trying one of Jordan’s method, two methods that he just listed are a great idea.

0:30:03.0 Mike Vacanti: When it’s simply that this is too hard and I don’t really want to put the time in to do this, that’s where I’m going to push back and say, “Okay, like we cannot track, but just so you know, you’re probably not gonna make fat loss progress during this timeframe. If you’re okay with that, I would recommend and whatever push back to help them understand that it isn’t necessarily easy, but this is a sacrifice worth making. This isn’t going to last forever, but I’m pushing back and saying, if we want to keep making fat loss progress, we’re going to keep tracking.”

0:30:33.2 Jordan Syatt: Love that clips, baby. Clips Nation.

0:30:38.4 Mike Vacanti: [chuckle] Dude, did you know people don’t like Muscle Milk?

0:30:42.9 Jordan Syatt: Dude, do you remember the original Muscle Milk?

0:30:46.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it was delicious. But as like a ready to drink option in a gas station, like people hate on Muscle Milk.

0:30:55.1 Jordan Syatt: Well they changed their branding. That’s weird. That’s weird. I mean, it’s a great option. I mean, it’s… You could hear that cough. It doesn’t taste as good as that Core Power, right? Core Power tastes way better.

0:31:12.4 Mike Vacanti: Core Power.

0:31:12.5 Jordan Syatt: Wait, is that Muscle Milk? Core Power is Muscle Milk, right?

0:31:14.8 Mike Vacanti: No, Core Power is not Muscle Milk. Core Power… And I have to say allegedly, ’cause I don’t want to get sued. I’ve been paying attention to things like this recently, but allegedly there isn’t 42 grams of protein in those. There’s allegedly no way based on my strong intuition around protein. By the way, if we get Layne Norton on the podcast, this is going to be the first question that I ask him because he’s like the protein connoisseur based on satiety, based on how easy it is to consume I know what 42 grams of protein is via chicken breast, via beef, via salmon, via Muscle Milk, via Legion, via 1st Phorm. I know what 42 grams of protein is and those things are water that tastes like chocolate. There is no satiety afterwards. Like I allegedly, am 100% sure allegedly that there’s no protein in those things.

[laughter]

0:32:05.5 Mike Vacanti: So yes, they taste better, but it’s like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, and based on everything else that’s in a gas station, peanuts, pop tarts, like there aren’t their beef jerky, I guess, which is super expensive, but like the pro series Muscle Milk in a Holiday gas station or Shell or whatever, BP, whatever gas station suits you or is around you, this is such a solid option and reasonably priced for the amount of protein you’re getting. And there’s actually that, like, I just I think it’s a phenomenal option.

0:32:36.4 Jordan Syatt: I just, I didn’t know people were hating on it, but man, I just remember the first time that I tried Muscle Milk because I remember the first protein shake I ever tried. I was like 13 or 14 years old. I was at Justin Gibbs’ house. He was on the wrestling team as well. And I was very excited to try protein shake ’cause my mom wouldn’t let me have it ’cause she thought it was steroids and, and Justin, his mom let him have protein shakes and he had this, it was called Designer Whey Protein. Do you… I don’t know if you remember Designer Whey.

0:33:09.7 Mike Vacanti: From GNC.

0:33:11.7 Jordan Syatt: Bro, this shit was disgusting. It was awful. It tasted terrible. It was like it was just nauseating. You don’t remember that.

0:33:20.1 Mike Vacanti: No.

0:33:21.0 Jordan Syatt: It was awful. It was a strawberry flavor. It tasted so bad, but I remember in my head being like, this is so sick. I’m getting protein in, and he even put some in a baggie for me so I could have some the next day after my workout. I hid that from my mom and then I just kept getting protein like under the radar from my mom for awhile. And then I got Muscle Milk and I think I went into a GNC or vitamin shop in Framingham Mass and I think it was either their salesman or I just saw it and I was just caught my attention. Dude, I used to scoop this Muscle Milk powder just and eat the powder with like, it was the best protein powder I’ve ever tasted to this day in my life. And I would imagine they’ve reduced the fat content now, which is why it doesn’t taste as good, but like, oh God, that I would put it in just a little bit of milk. Sometimes it was better than chocolate milk. It was unbelievable.

0:34:23.1 Mike Vacanti: Do you know… ‘Cause I do remember, let’s play, guess the macros on the original Muscle Milk.

[laughter]

0:34:30.3 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:34:32.1 Mike Vacanti: Two scoops was the serving size.

0:34:32.5 Jordan Syatt: Two scoops?

0:34:35.1 Mike Vacanti: Mm-hmm.

0:34:35.5 Jordan Syatt: Okay. 180 calories. You don’t know that?

0:34:41.9 Mike Vacanti: P-C-F baby. I got to do the math to get there.

0:34:47.1 Jordan Syatt: Was it 24 protein?

0:34:47.4 Mike Vacanti: 32 protein. Not bad.

0:34:48.5 Jordan Syatt: Okay. 32 protein. Was it nine fat?

0:34:52.2 Mike Vacanti: 18.

0:34:54.8 Jordan Syatt: 18 fat? Was it really?

0:34:56.6 Mike Vacanti: Mm-hmm.

0:34:57.6 Jordan Syatt: How much carb?

0:34:58.8 Mike Vacanti: Like in the 16-24 range?

0:35:01.6 Jordan Syatt: Wow. I did not expect the fat to be that high. That’s crazy. That man, no wonder it tasted so good.

0:35:07.8 Mike Vacanti: Chocolate milk flavored.

0:35:11.6 Jordan Syatt: Great if you wanna put on weight.

0:35:11.7 Mike Vacanti: Chocolate malt flavored, chocolate mint flavored, all of these with 2% milk at Jefferson high school after advanced weightlifting class. That’s where dreams were made. That’s where Barre Moen’s physique was sculpted. Who went on to, to briefly have a stint in the NFL. Fantastic division one college defensive end. One of my best friends. Shout out Barre. Let’s talk about… Oh, you know what? [chuckle] Actually this is not clips nation, but it is fitness related. We got an email from someone saying that the, the three to five minutes where we played guessing the exercise and it was line plate loaded neck extension was the most brutal five minutes of podcasting he’d ever listened to.

0:36:00.7 Jordan Syatt: [laughter] I knew it. I knew that that would not be a good podcast.

0:36:04.4 Mike Vacanti: So the minute I read that and I read that this morning, I told myself, “We’re going to do another guessing game today”, because that’s just how I’m wired. So Jordan, I want you to think of an exercise.

0:36:13.3 Jordan Syatt: Well, I just did the guessing game. I did guess the macros.

0:36:15.8 Mike Vacanti: I know. I want you to think of an exercise. I want it to be the guesses. It’s gonna be quick and then we’re diving into a great question.

0:36:22.1 Jordan Syatt: I’m not going to make something as obscure as you know, lying neck extensions.

0:36:26.3 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no, no, no. Just make it… Yeah. We’ll get through this one quicker, but I just want… It made me want to play this game.

0:36:35.2 Jordan Syatt: Okay. I got it.

0:36:37.6 Mike Vacanti: Is it upper body?

0:36:38.8 Jordan Syatt: It’s not upper body.

0:36:40.1 Mike Vacanti: Is it lower body?

0:36:40.3 Jordan Syatt: Yes.

0:36:44.6 Mike Vacanti: Alright. Is the prime mover, the quadricep?

0:36:47.3 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:36:47.3 Mike Vacanti: Hamstring?

0:36:50.3 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:36:50.4 Mike Vacanti: Glute?

0:36:50.5 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:36:52.0 Mike Vacanti: Calf?

0:36:53.8 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:36:55.0 Mike Vacanti: It’s lower body.

0:36:55.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. [laughter]

0:37:03.6 Mike Vacanti: I thought it was not gonna be obscure. Is it a strength training? Is it a form of cardio?

0:37:08.7 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:37:10.9 Mike Vacanti: Okay. So it’s a strength training exercise.

0:37:12.6 Jordan Syatt: There’s a big muscle group you’re leaving out.

0:37:14.7 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Well, those are the only ones that I know off the top of my head here. Are you a compound? Is it a compound movement?

0:37:22.6 Mike Vacanti: No. It’s a…

0:37:26.7 Jordan Syatt: Does it use a machine? Don’t give me any extra information. Is it a machine?

0:37:29.5 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:37:30.5 Jordan Syatt: Ah, is it on the good girl, bad girl machine?

0:37:33.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that’s it. It’s good girl, bad girl.

[laughter]

0:37:40.0 Jordan Syatt: So adductors?

0:37:41.5 Mike Vacanti: Adductors. Yeah.

0:37:42.3 Jordan Syatt: Nice. Nice. So, good girl. It’s a good girl. Right?

0:37:44.8 Jordan Syatt: [laughter] Yeah.

0:37:45.4 Mike Vacanti: ‘Cause bad, bad girls, bad girls with the glute medias.

0:37:50.7 Jordan Syatt: Bad girls with the glute medias. Yes. [laughter]

0:37:50.8 Mike Vacanti: Just in case you’re getting a little… There’s too much politically correct content out there. We just… There you go. We give you a little bit of a breath of fresh air, a breath of fresh air. Actually, one other interesting point on that Tim Ferriss, J Cal podcast, they talked about basically podcasts that have two friends or like friends as the people on the podcast. And one of the huge appeals or benefits is that the two friends know each other so well that they hold each other more to like their real life personality. And there’s less room to like kind of BS and like BPC and be like, they’ll call each other out. They’ll like feel more comfortable, like saying stuff that you might not say if you’re on a random podcast, which has appealed to the listener in a culture where everyone’s walking on eggshells, that it’s more authentic conversation.

0:38:41.6 Jordan Syatt: I like that. I was thinking about that recently. I was thinking about that with our podcast. It’s like, it would be impossible for us to pretend to be someone else just because we talk all the time anyway. Like it would be impossible to go from us to then to this podcast and be different. I don’t know. That’s one of the reasons I like this podcast is ’cause it’s just a continuation of our conversations.

0:39:07.6 Mike Vacanti: We’d also just call each other out.

0:39:09.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. We’d be like, “That was fucking weird. Why’d you say that?”

[laughter]

0:39:12.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Exactly. Alright. We got a bunch of questions here.

0:39:21.1 Jordan Syatt: Are people asking questions in our, like where are you getting these questions?

0:39:30.0 Mike Vacanti: TubeBuddy.

0:39:30.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh. [laughter]

0:39:32.8 Mike Vacanti: Clips Nation.

0:39:33.9 Jordan Syatt: Got it.

0:39:34.3 Mike Vacanti: Clips Nation.

0:39:35.7 Jordan Syatt: But if people do have questions, they can submit them…

0:39:37.1 Mike Vacanti: Email.

0:39:40.1 Jordan Syatt: To our website. Email.

0:39:40.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. The best way is to reply to the email on the email newsletter. You subscribe to the newsletter in the show notes, Spotify, Apple, anywhere that you get a free 30 ways to build your online fitness business guide, which is like a great resource that Jordan and I put together. And, then you’re on the email list. You can reply to the email and ask your… Submit your questions for a chance to have them answered on the podcast. It’s really a wonderful system.

0:40:02.6 Jordan Syatt: [laughing] …just made me think about, for some reason, Trump just popped in my head when you were like, it’s a great resource that we put together. It’s like, “It’s a great resource. The greatest resource ever made. Yeah, we made it. It’s so great. Everyone says it’s great. It’s the greatest.” [laughter]

0:40:20.3 Mike Vacanti: Did you send me or I saw some clip of, it was like the 24 things Donald Trump is the greatest at. And he’s like, one of them, I just remember him being like, “I’m the greatest Christian. I’m the greatest Christian of all time. Nobody’s more Christian than me.” That was the best I ever got.

0:40:38.0 Jordan Syatt: [laughter] I have not seen that. That’s so funny. Alright. What’s this question, TubeBuddy?

0:40:41.7 Mike Vacanti: We’re gonna start with, this is a good Jordan question. I like this one. How to get motivated to eat healthy and exercise.

0:40:53.3 Jordan Syatt: How to get motivated to eat healthy and to exercise, man. So I’ll start by saying, man, I’ve been getting… There’s been like a resurgence of our book recently in my DMs. Like people tag me in our book, ‘Eat It,’ which has been great to everyone who’s read it, left a review. Thank you so much. I think the section on motivation in our book is one of the most shared, the most popular and one of my personal favorites that we wrote. And it’s such a huge fad right now for people to talk about motivation and discipline, out of our motivation and all this stuff. But like, I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding around motivation. And a lot of people downplay the role of motivation. But the reality is number one is that motivation, like anything is… It’s an emotion. It’s a feeling. It’s like, you would never expect someone to stay happy all the time. You would hopefully never expect someone to say sad all the time, angry all the time, excited all the time. These are all emotions and emotions. Every emotion is fickle by nature. It’s like, it’s… As a human being, unless you’re a fucking psychopath, like you can’t just be one emotion all the time. And you can’t stay that emotion.

0:42:14.3 Jordan Syatt: Like it’s dictated by not just your biochemistry, but your environment, like things you’re going through. There’s so much going on. So to expect to just stay motivated all the time is to expect to just get motivated when you want it is to expect to just get happy when you want to or excited whenever you want. Like it’s not how it works. There usually has to be an impetus for that emotion to come and to infiltrate you. And so you can really experience it. With that in mind, the way that we described motivation in the book, and you could describe any feeling, any emotion like this is imagine trying to hold water in your cupped hands. Like, I would do this when I was a kid. I remember like going to the sink in my bathroom, trying to hold water in my hands and I’d squeeze my hands really, really, really tight, but the water would still trickle through through the cracks in my hands and my fingers. And no matter what I did, it would always end up being empty. And that’s like motivation, no matter what, no matter how hard you try, no matter how hard you squeeze, the water is going to trickle through.

0:43:13.2 Jordan Syatt: Motivation will trickle through. And eventually you will have empty hands and you’re not going to be motivated. But you still have to do what you want to do even and especially when you aren’t motivated. And ironically, or I don’t know if ironic is the right word, but interestingly, at the very least, when you do it and you aren’t motivated, that actually motivates you. Right? So the loop here, the motivation loop, a lot of people think motivation comes first from motivation. Then you take action from that action, then you get results. And then with those results, you get more motivated. That’s not how it works. The first step is actually action. No matter whether you’re motivated or not, action comes first, then you get motivated. Then you get results, excuse me. So action, then results then you get results from that action. And then from those results, you get more motivated, but action is actually the first step. And the results that you’re getting initially, they’re not like physically visible results. If you are not motivated to go work out, but you take action and then you go work out. Well, what are the results that you get?

0:44:21.4 Jordan Syatt: Well, number one, you get a feeling of pride. You’re proud of yourself because you did it. You might get an endorphin rush because like, endorphins will rise. You will actually feel happier as a result of it. So well, this feedback loop will now encourage you to do it again and again and again, to take more action because of those good feelings that are associated with it, even when you didn’t want to do it in the first place. So the answer is you just got to fucking do it. And the cool part about it is I think this is where most people struggle. They aren’t sure what action to take. And I think in their mind, it’s either, “Okay, I’m lying in bed right now. I don’t want to do anything. The only option is get dressed, drive 20 minutes to the gym, go do a workout that I don’t know what I need to do.” It’s like, “No, no, no. Your action could be stand up and go, go on a five minute walk. Like literally, you don’t even have to change out of your pajamas. Get the fuck up, go outside, go on a five minute walk, get some fresh air, get some sunlight,” whatever.

0:45:13.5 Jordan Syatt: Just do something that is the lowest hanging fruit. Because if you take the time to get up and get out of bed, and go on a walk, it’s probably not just gonna be five minutes. You’re gonna end up doing more anyway. But even if it’s just five minutes, you’ve taken that action, you’re developing the habit and you’re going to get those results that you want that will then lead to more action. So yeah, that’s how it fucking works. Clips Nation. Let’s go.

0:45:32.3 Mike Vacanti: Very, very well said. And great summary of that section and that nice little graph from the book. Yeah. I don’t even have much to add. I really like that you hit on the point that the action can be easy because what you’re doing is you’re getting… You’re building momentum. You’re getting yourself in motion. You’re creating like this inertia. You’re getting going. And a walk is a perfect example because it’s something that the majority of people can do. Even if it’s an indoor five minute walk within your house, getting, 500… Like just doing something is going to get you on that trajectory, get you on that hamster wheel of that loop, essentially. Action, result, feeling better based on the result, wanting to do the action more and, and it becomes easier. Objects in motion, stay in motion. Objects at rest, stay at rest. Waiting to feel motivated, to do anything, starting an exercise program, starting a nutrition plan, something in business, something at work, anything. You can end up waiting a really, really long time before you feel like doing something. But once you start, if you’re like, “I don’t really feel like doing this, but I’m gonna start doing it.” Writing is a great example.

0:46:56.1 Mike Vacanti: Who’s ever felt motivated to write? Alright. I know I’m supposed to write. I’m gonna sit down. I mean, every great author has, Steven Pressfield talks about this in his book, ‘The War of Art.’ Like it’s a real struggle for creatives to create, to fight past the resistance, start doing it. And you can trick yourself. You can say, “I’m gonna write one bad sentence.” And be like, “Oh, I’m already in my chair. I’m already here. I wrote a bad sentence. I kind of, do the… And you go as a result, but you have to take the action even when you don’t feel like it and it will get easier. And, yeah, so that’s… Maybe David can even work in. We’ll see. I don’t know we can take this part out if you can, but like, the picture from Eat It up here on there, because I think that helps visualize it too.

0:47:38.9 Mike Vacanti: That’d be great. And also, we can all leave this in here. Like we don’t need to take this out. David, I know like my clip was probably gonna be longer than 90 seconds. It’s okay. You can make it as long as you need to make it. It doesn’t have to be a 60 or 90 second reel. It could just be like a two and a half minute clip. We’re fine uploading that as well.

0:47:56.9 Mike Vacanti: Well, dude, and these even longer, we can upload the whole conversation on some of these for YouTube clips.

0:48:03.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

0:48:06.3 Mike Vacanti: Like up 10. I mean, I think 15 is probably the upper end and now we’re… This is kind of fun. Like biz strat, if people are interested. But one thing I don’t love is podcasts on YouTube that end up clipping the entire episode. And so you have the episode, but then you have so many clips that it makes up the whole episode and then there’s not really incentive to listen to it. I like having some percentage of the episode in the clips, but then there’s a lot more in the episode to actually listen to. But it could be a 15 minute clip, 12 minute clip, 10 minute clip.

0:48:39.5 Jordan Syatt: I think… I see a lot of people. I see a lot of… Like for example, I uploaded like a three and a half minute clip to my Instagram yesterday. And several days earlier, I uploaded like a six and a half minute video to my Instagram, which is like not necessarily prioritized, but they do well. Like they do really well. And it’s… Here’s the thing, I think so many people get focused on trying to make short form content because they’ve been told and they believe that short form is gonna be better for keeping people’s attention and dah, dah, dah, dah. It’s like you’re… If all you do is short form because you think your audience will only watch short form, then you are training your audience to only watch your content in short form. If you want your audience to watch you for longer, then fucking make longer content, and obviously make it good. That’s the number one most important thing. But I would rather make great content that’s five, six minutes and train my audience to expect that and to expect that in the fourth minute and 37 seconds, I might drop a fucking bomb that changed their life so that over time they get, all right, you know what, I’m just going to, you know, it’s a six minute video, it’s longer, but I’m going to watch the whole thing, ’cause he might say something in here that’s going to really impact me.

0:49:56.8 Jordan Syatt: I would rather do that than train them to only watch a 60 second reel. And when I do drop a four minute video, “Oh no, no I’m not watching that whole thing.” Right? It’s like people get so focused on the views and the likes, oh my God, I need to have more people watch this. So I need to make it 30 seconds or 60 seconds. No, train them to expect amazing long form content.

0:50:16.1 Mike Vacanti: What type of content do you consume the most yourself right now?

0:50:27.5 Jordan Syatt: I was… There’s two types of content that I consume the most right now. The first type is jiu-jitsu type content, and, oh there’s three. I have jiu-jitsu type content. And for that, there’s obviously the short form Instagrams, but also I spend a considerable amount of money on jiu-jitsu, instructional videos. They’re like 12 hours long. And it’s funny because like, this is like the most long form content that you can imagine. Like it’s, very, very long form, but I’ll sit down and I’ll watch it. And it’s that’s one type of content I watch. Another type of content I watch is standup comedy, which I have like short form clips of that as well, but I’ll do cardio for an hour and I’ll watch someone do standup for an hour, hour and a half, two hours, three hours watching like Robin Williams for like three hours straight, just do insane standup, and then movies, movies as well. Just like, I’ve been on a big, like action movie kick. I think I’m watching one called Zero Dark Thirty right now about 9/11. So like just watching, those are the main types of content I watch. What about you?

0:51:34.1 Mike Vacanti: I love it. That’s, that’s awesome. I asked the question because I’ve recently really made a concerted effort to shift away from TikTok shorts reels. Like I have many times over the last year, I’d say, and, and toward more long form content, because I really believe in the thesis that high frequency attention changes is doing something bad to my, like, I’m just not retaining so much of what I’m consuming. There’s no depth. And I know that I feel worse after consuming it compared to how I feel after consuming other types of content. So, newsletters, a handful of newsletters that I’ve subscribed to in the last one to three months that I’m enjoying reading. I’m making my wife watch Game of Thrones because she’s never seen it, even though she doesn’t… doesn’t love it. And I’m rewatching it because it’s incredible. And so right now we’re alternating between, like, she gets a night and we’ll watch like a Christmas movie. And then I get a night, like literally we watched like 12 Dates of Christmas a couple nights ago. And then the next night is like Ramsey Bolton, literally flaying Theon. It’s like, this is all like, yeah, those are brutal scenes.

0:52:45.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh my God. She must hate that. She must hate that. [laughter]

0:52:47.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. She’s like, “I don’t wanna think, I don’t wanna… Like it’s gruesome,” so there’s that. I’m trying to read more books, which is audio books are so much easier for me. And that’s somewhere where I’ve probably spent 30-60 minutes a day on average, but also trying to like read books as well, which is, something that is slowly but surely happening. And yeah, even I just feel drastically better as a form of relaxation, watching something that’s nonsensical, non-educational, like turn your brain off Netflixy because it’s one plot. It’s one story. It’s one arc for an hour compared to getting 120, 180, 240 pieces of just like fragmented in my brain. I feel so much better on the backend of consuming longer form stuff. And then part of the reason I asked that is because it actually, I think there’s… I don’t know if this is true, at least for me, I feel more pulled toward creating things that I enjoy consuming. And, so that’s where I was. I know you have to speak, we’re coming up on an hour. I think we had a lot of really good stuff in here. Episode 100. 100 more of these podcasts to come. Thank you very much for listening to these first 100. We’re pumped for the next 100. We appreciate you leaving a five star review, please, if you haven’t already, it really helps us a lot. We’re trying to grow the podcast and we will see you next week.

0:54:22.6 Jordan Syatt: And Core Power… It was all alleged. Allegedly. Okay? It was all alleged. We did not make any statements otherwise than the alleged ones. Okay? So thank you for listening. Have a wonderful day. We’ll talk to you soon.