Episode 119: Caffeine, Nicotine, Pattern Interrupts, Branching Off On Your Own, and More…

0:00:11.4 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan. [chuckle] You good, bro?

0:00:21.0 Jordan Syatt: Literally, could not have been better timing… I swallowed down the wrong pipe. Immediately starts coughing as soon as the podcast starts. What’s up, Michael?

0:00:32.8 Mike Vacanti: One-take show. How you doing?

0:00:35.1 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I’m good, man. How are you?

0:00:36.9 Mike Vacanti: I’m great. I just hope David can edit out that chewing noise.

0:00:39.8 Jordan Syatt: I’m sure he can, I’m sure he can. He can edit out the bubbles from your La Croix, edit out my chewing noise, it’ll be fine.

0:00:45.7 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no, no, that wasn’t… Your microphone is super, super good.

0:00:50.8 Jordan Syatt: Maybe it’s too good, though. [chuckle]

0:00:53.8 Mike Vacanti: How’s Israel?

0:00:54.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh man, it’s great!

0:00:57.0 Mike Vacanti: Nice!

0:00:57.2 Jordan Syatt: It’s great, it’s just the food is great, the people are great, it’s a great time here. It was a little bit… It was crazy because literally, the day that we were coming, the day that we were flying here, the news started showing all of these missiles coming in from Lebanon going into the north of Israel, and it’s getting blasted all over social media, all over the news, and I… You know, I lived here, so I know what’s going on, I know it’s really not that big of a deal relative to what the media is saying, but my wife’s family starts freaking out, and they’re texting me, and they’re calling me, “Are you sure you wanna go?” And I totally get it because the news is telling you that missiles are flying into the country from the north. And they were, to be fair, missiles were flying at the country from the north. It’s not like they weren’t. They were launching missiles towards Israel, but Israel has unbelievable defense systems that I don’t even think Americans realize probably how good the defense systems are in America. If missiles came, they would be able to completely disarm the missile in the air before it landed.

0:02:13.4 Mike Vacanti: Knock on wood, but yeah.

0:02:14.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean yeah, so it’s called the Iron Dome. And so 99% or 98% of the missiles don’t even land. And the ones that do land, they usually decide to let them land because they can tell from the trajectory where it’s going to land and see if it’s a populated or not populated area, which is just insane that they can tell that while the missile is flying at them, they know where it’s gonna land. “Oh, okay, we’ll let that one land ’cause literally, no one’s in the area.” So then I had to call some my friends, friends in the Israeli Defense Forces and talk to them and be like, “Hey, what’s going on?” And it was funny ’cause I was trying to call my family and I was trying to be like, “Hey, is everything okay?” But they weren’t picking up, and I started getting a little nervous. And then finally, two hours later, they called me they’re like, “What’s going on?” And I was like, “You tell me. Are you okay?” They’re like, “Jordan, we were taking a nap.” Like every like, “What are you worried about?” So yeah, it’s been great. Everything’s been really good, it’s been awesome trip.

0:03:13.5 Mike Vacanti: Just another day for them, basically.

0:03:15.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, they literally didn’t even know it was happening.

0:03:17.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:03:18.9 Jordan Syatt: You know? It’s like they had no clue what was going on, so yeah. And it’s also I think missiles sound scary. I just know the missiles and rockets, they sound really scary, and they are… There are innocent people who die from them, it’s not to diminish them. But there are way more innocent people killed in the United States on a day-to-day basis from knives and guns and stuff than there are, in general, here. So it’s just the media doing the media trying to scare people. And yeah, overall, it’s been a great trip. I have not seen a single missile while I’ve been here.

0:03:54.9 Mike Vacanti: I’m happy to hear it, and I’m sure everyone listening to this, too.

0:03:57.3 Jordan Syatt: What’s up with you, man? How’s Minnesota?

0:04:00.0 Mike Vacanti: It’s good, things are good. So a little leg day, everything’s good, brother.

0:04:06.3 Jordan Syatt: Can you see if I’ve gained weight in my face?

0:04:08.2 Mike Vacanti: You look like you’ve lost weight.

0:04:09.5 Jordan Syatt: No way. Is it because I shaved?

0:04:10.3 Mike Vacanti: Uh-huh. You look leaner. It could be the tan and shaving, yeah, but you look leaner.

0:04:17.0 Jordan Syatt: I’m gonna guess that I gained somewhere between five to 10 pounds. I’m excited to see ’cause dude, I’ve been eating an unbelievable amount. I haven’t worked out. I’ve walked a lot, I’ve been walking 20,000 steps a day, but I haven’t worked out this entire time except for really twice and they were sort of yeah, workouts, so we’ll see. I’m actually very interested to see what the scale says.

0:04:40.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. You don’t have one at the Airbnb?

0:04:43.0 Jordan Syatt: Mm-mm, no.

0:04:45.3 Mike Vacanti: It’ll set you up nice for a mini cut when you return.

0:04:47.8 Jordan Syatt: That’s exactly right, that’s exactly right.

0:04:50.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, did you plan this?

0:04:55.0 Jordan Syatt: No, not really. It’s sort of just go with the flow, and we are launching a… My wife made a big ass salad recipe guide that we’re gonna launch for the Inner Circle when I get back, and for my birthday in early May. Every year, we do a sale for the Inner Circle in early May. And so in addition to the sale, as opposed to not… It’s not just 30% off, but now, we’re also launching the salad guide, recipe guide, and we’re actually… This isn’t like… My wife and I were talking about it the other day. Probably in September, October where we’re gonna do another guide, depending on how this one does, and it’s gonna be a mini cut recipe guide because usually, I do a mini cut every summer or leading from the summer leading into the fall, I lose about between five to 12 pounds, depending on how fat I’ve let myself get. And she’s gonna make a recipe guide with all of my favorite recipes that she makes when I’m cutting, and so at the… That’s gonna be leading into that. So after the mini cut, we’ll have that recipe guide come out.

0:05:53.2 Mike Vacanti: If you didn’t have a business, do you think that you would still follow the same cadence in terms of too many cuts a year and the duration of them? ‘Cause we talk about this in the mentorship extensively, like documenting your own fitness progress, especially leading up to a launch, is something that can be really beneficial for the success of that launch. Do you think you’d still structure your annual body comp management in the same way if you didn’t have a November and a May sale every year?

0:06:30.1 Jordan Syatt: 100%, yeah, absolutely.

0:06:32.0 Mike Vacanti: You’d do it exactly the same?

0:06:33.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I would probably do it exactly the same just because this is my maintenance. My maintenance is about… It’s within 3% to 4% of my lowest, so my lowest weight is generally 145, 146. And so if I get up to 155 or so, that’s when I start to be like, “Okay, now, I’m at the top range of really where… Of where I wanna be.” And so any time I get there, then cool, I’ll just do a little mini cut four to eight weeks, and then I’ll cut back down. And that’s just because that’s where I feel best I know it’s healthiest for me and also where I perform better in Jujitsu. So the only difference would be I just I wouldn’t make it public. And actually, I didn’t make it public for years until I was like, “You know what? I’m just gonna do this one publicly and show people what it looks like.” I would do it without weighing myself. If I wasn’t doing it publicly, I wouldn’t weigh myself. I just would know what to do, and I would lose the weight, and then I would be fine.

0:07:30.5 Jordan Syatt: But the whole reason I bought a scale when I was living in New York City, I remember, I think it was 2018 or 2019, I called it the Just Another Muggle Challenge. It was a mini cut where I just was like, “I’m just another Muggle and I’m gonna show you how I lose weight.” And I got a scale. Oh my God! I didn’t buy a scale; I got sent a scale. A company had sent me a scale like a year prior and as I didn’t use it and I was like, “You know what? Whatever, I’ll just use it and show it.” And after seeing the response to that, and then after seeing the response to my Big Mac Challenge in which people were freaking out over the scale, that’s when I was like, “Wow! It just it makes so much more sense to show people when I’m doing this as opposed to just doing it on my own.”

0:08:17.2 Mike Vacanti: For business.

0:08:18.2 Jordan Syatt: For business, correct.

0:08:19.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That’s interesting that you said you wouldn’t weigh yourself if it wasn’t to document for everyone to see because I didn’t know that. That’s like one of the benefits of having done it so many times is, right?

0:08:33.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:08:34.2 Mike Vacanti: It’s just kinda like you want to intuitively eat, but you haven’t put in the work to understand how to intuitively eat.

0:08:40.4 Jordan Syatt: Right.

0:08:41.1 Mike Vacanti: You’ve done enough cuts where you closely documented stats that you’re like, “Okay, if I wanna lose 10 pounds of fat, I can lose 10 pounds of fat in six to eight weeks and do it where I’m not even tracking that diligently and not tracking stats hardly at all.”

0:08:55.2 Jordan Syatt: I can tell based on my hunger levels when I’ve reached about 145 to 146 pounds. Just based on my hunger levels and based on how much I’m thinking about food, I know. I don’t need the scale to tell me that just ’cause I’ve done it so many times. So yeah, it’s very much intuitive now that I’ve taught myself that.

0:09:14.6 Mike Vacanti: How about a good stomach pinch? You ever do that as a metric of progress?

0:09:21.0 Jordan Syatt: For me, not a… It’s more… I have a certain pair of jeans that I wear that I know when those jeans… I have a pair that’s when they’re tight, that’s an issue, and a pair that when they’re falling off me, it’s like, “Okay, cool, I know that I’m at the lowest that I wanna go.” You do the stomach pinch? The self caliper?

0:09:41.9 Mike Vacanti: More visual in the mirror. I was kinda referencing throwbacks to inside jokes from years ago that we don’t necessarily need to publicize, but no. For me, personally, the mirror, largely. And I’ll jump on the scale out of curiosity now and again, but yeah.

0:09:58.0 Jordan Syatt: You don’t really do mini cuts, right? You’re just pretty much the same all year?

0:10:03.2 Mike Vacanti: No, I wouldn’t say that. In like, I don’t remember when exactly it was, I wanna say January into February, I had four to six weeks in a deficit after sitting on the beach and looking down at my… I think I told the story in the podcast, and I was like, “This is unacceptable for me,” and… But they’re not planned, they’re… Similarly, I wouldn’t call it within a weight range, but within a body fat percentage range, and it’s like, “Okay, if I’m on the upper end of that where it’s like, ‘Alright, let’s clean this up a little bit,'” boom! Do it. Yeah, four to six weeks.

0:10:37.2 Jordan Syatt: Or that the famous story of when you tried putting pants on, your pants didn’t fit. [chuckle]

0:10:40.0 Mike Vacanti: Bro. My suit pants didn’t fit. And I was like, that was wild. That was spring of 20, that was like one year into COVID, exactly. I remember distinctly, yeah.

0:10:54.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, you were aghast. You were like, “This has never happened to me before.” [chuckle]

0:11:03.0 Mike Vacanti: We have a bunch of email questions that I figured we can dive into for this one.

0:11:09.2 Jordan Syatt: I thought you were gonna wanna talk about nicotine.

0:11:11.7 Mike Vacanti: We could talk about nicotine. I actually, I had… That was not nicotine, specifically, but yeah, we’ll talk about nicotine. We’ll also talk about what I did yesterday, which was, for the first time, and you and I had a great conversation on the phone on Sunday and…

0:11:31.9 Jordan Syatt: That was an all-time, all-time great.

0:11:33.0 Mike Vacanti: It was an all… It was a top-five, it was a top-five aha moment. And sometimes in life, you just need to break pattern, right? You can get in the same, call it a routine, but almost just like things become repetitive, time starts passing faster, you need to break pattern. And I’ll never forget this Elliott Hulse video back in the day where he did “Yo Elliott!”, he’d answer teenage kids’ questions. And I don’t remember what the question was, but his answer was, “You need to take your video game console, you need to bring it out into your street in front of your house, and you need to smash that thing to pieces in the street,” ’cause the kid was addicted to video games, wanted to get into working out. He’s like, “You need to have that moment, break pattern, and then go straight to the gym.”

0:12:17.8 Mike Vacanti: I don’t remember the rest of it, but yeah, basically, yesterday, for the first time in I don’t even know how long, for no other reason than I wanted more edge and more hunger, and… Oh, I know, we were talking about a classic conversation topic of: How do you make yourself work out hard when you’re content in life, when you don’t really want anything, when you’re not angry, when you don’t have demons, when you don’t have trauma? When you’re like when you’ve gotten yourself in a good place, but you’re like, “Oh, this is almost weird because I want to work hard, but I don’t have anything that is pissing me off, making me. I’m in a good place,” like, “All the clients are taken care of. Everything’s like good. Things are good in life. How do I make myself work hard?” And for some reason, one meal a day came up. I was like, I was just throwing stuff out there in the conversation. I’m like, “I’m one meal a day tomorrow.”

0:13:06.2 Mike Vacanti: Here’s what I ended up doing yesterday: For the first time in I don’t know how long, I drank three cups of… I usually have half a cup of coffee on rest days. I like 75 mg of caffeine on rest days, four days a week. I had probably 450 mg of caffeine, woke up at 6:00 AM, had a half a coffee like I normally do, drank the other half, and then around 10, went to Starbucks, got another coffee, I was like, “I’m not eating until dinner today.” Ended up eating at three-something, but the longest I fasted in a day in a long time and was just buzzing, like just wired, getting things done, like getting things done around the house, getting things done on the computer. Really, the combination of fasting plus high caffeine gave me that edge that I was looking for. I’m not sure if it’s a long-term strategy. It really reminded me of the 2014 to 2016 era of like just on edge the whole day, which is kind of a bad thing if you don’t have anything to be doing, but if you feel like your pressured to accomplish things, it’s a good feeling because you’re like, “Boom! I’m getting this, I’m getting this, now text this person, do this call, do this, like take care of this.” And so it was a great day. I’m contemplating bringing back super high caffeine and probably not one meal a day, but fast for the first eight hours on non-training days.

0:14:30.4 Jordan Syatt: Would this be something where you’d do it every work day, or would it be maybe three days a week you fast, high caffeine, two days a week, recover? What are you thinking?

0:14:44.1 Mike Vacanti: It’s a good question. I’m taking it one day at a time. It definitely couldn’t be every day because… And maybe not weekends. Weekends are more family time, low-key, less work getting done, don’t need to be wired out of my mind on those days, but yeah, I’m not exactly sure, the frequency. I remember when I would do this and when I would just push myself to that level, working 12 to 14 hours a day, drinking coffee and pre-workout all day every day, I was… I’d get sick every other month. So my body would naturally have one or two days where I didn’t have any caffeine, was in bed, down, and I haven’t been sick in a year. So there’s definitely pros and cons to this, but in the spirit of breaking pattern and how good it felt yesterday, I think there’s something interesting there.

0:15:39.6 Jordan Syatt: So you didn’t do it today?

0:15:41.1 Mike Vacanti: No, it was a training day, like normal, woke up, had some coffee, ate breakfast, just went and trained legs. I don’t like training fasted anymore, like training performance is higher when I have some food and pre-workout. Mental state during workout is better when I have food and pre-workout. But on non-training days, yeah.

0:16:02.3 Jordan Syatt: What time are you normally waking up?

0:16:05.0 Mike Vacanti: Between six and seven, recently.

0:16:08.4 Jordan Syatt: Is this an alarm, or your body just wakes you up?

0:16:11.0 Mike Vacanti: Just waking up. Between six and eight, I’d say.

0:16:15.5 Jordan Syatt: And you’d go to bed at like 10:00, 10:30?

0:16:18.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, between 9:00 and 11:00.

0:16:20.0 Jordan Syatt: Got it, nice.

0:16:21.3 Mike Vacanti: But you brought up nicotine, I was thinking… So after… [chuckle] Have you read any Attia?

0:16:30.0 Jordan Syatt: I’m on chapter two, still.

0:16:31.3 Mike Vacanti: Okay. I don’t think it was in the book, I think it was in a random YouTube clip or something along those lines, but he was talking about having 7 mg lozenges and that… And talking about the benefits, the mental benefits that differentiating between smoking and other forms of nicotine like a nicotine gum or a patch or a ZYN or all pouches, all these things. And I’ll let you talk about that more, but basically…

0:17:05.0 Jordan Syatt: Why me?

0:17:06.4 Mike Vacanti: I think you know more around it.

0:17:09.8 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think so.

0:17:11.0 Mike Vacanti: You don’t think so?

0:17:12.5 Jordan Syatt: We’ll see, maybe.

0:17:14.0 Mike Vacanti: Okay. Well…

0:17:15.0 Jordan Syatt: I’m no nicotine expert.

0:17:17.3 Mike Vacanti: Neither am I. Here’s what I know. So I was, so my plan was, I was like, “I’m gonna go buy some nicotine gum tomorrow,” but I ended up just liking the caffeine. Not to mention I have a slightly addictive personality, and so I’m like, even though it’s not… It’s supposedly not dangerous, like vapes are bad because of the other things in vapes, not the nicotine cigarettes are bad because of the other however many carcinogens in cigarettes, not the nicotine, but the nicotine is the addictive component.

0:17:51.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:17:51.1 Mike Vacanti: And so even if it’s not inherently bad, I don’t know that I wanna pick up a vice, although I’m open to it. [chuckle] I’m definitely open to it, but I was like, “If I can accomplish the same kinda thing of productivity pattern breaking, like feeling different through an extra cup of coffee, rather than through picking up this new potentially not great habit, I’m gonna start with this, I’m gonna dip a toe in the pool before I jump all the way in.”

0:18:19.8 Jordan Syatt: Is caffeine addictive, too?

0:18:21.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s a great question. I…

0:18:23.9 Jordan Syatt: I feel like it might be, but to a lesser degree, and maybe the withdrawals are not as severe as with nicotine.

0:18:29.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I don’t…

0:18:33.0 Mike Vacanti: Again, we’re both talking out of our ass a little bit here.

0:18:36.0 Jordan Syatt: Just two dudes spitballing.

[laughter]

0:18:38.9 Mike Vacanti: I know that nicotine is more dopaminergic, so elicits a greater dopamine response than caffeine does. I also know that there’s… Well, I think there’s some research around neuroprotective and anti-Alzheimer’s help from nicotine…

0:18:55.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s what I’ve been looking at.

0:18:56.5 Mike Vacanti: Okay, well that’s where I was looking you can take the lead…

0:18:58.2 Jordan Syatt: There is real benefits out of it, which is crazy. It gets such a bad reputation because of the association with cigarettes, but nicotine itself, it’s not a carcinogen. As far as I’ve seen, and again, I’m no expert, there’s not… The main drawback is that it’s addictive at a very, very highly addictive, but very dopaminergic. Incredible for focus and for performance enhancement… Yeah. In terms of, there might even be cancer prevention benefits, Alzheimer prevention benefits. This is real stuff that I’ve seen around it. Again, I haven’t been diving… Maybe we should ask ChatGPT to send us the study.

0:19:42.5 Mike Vacanti: Let’s not. ChatGPT thinks that all fiber has zero calories. ChatGPT is an unreliable source of… It’s… We don’t need to get in to that…

0:19:51.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Unless you really know what you’re talking about, you gotta lead the questions properly. Yeah.

0:19:57.3 Mike Vacanti: Another example, so I don’t know if it’s the US, it might be the CDC or WHO, the World Health Organization, I don’t remember which organization it is, but they have classes of carcinogens, right? And processed meat is obviously on that list, deli meat, even just red meat, like unprocessed, but red meat is on that list. I think it’s the lowest category of carcinogen. And I think there are about 70 ingredients in cigarettes that are on that list, but nicotine isn’t on that list at all. So this association, like nicotine bad smoking isn’t a fully accurate one. That being said, I’m definitely not advocating this. And I’m not… No, no, no, seriously. And I’m very cautious for myself because I just don’t know if it’s a good idea to pick up another vice of something that is potentially very addictive.

0:21:03.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:21:05.1 Mike Vacanti: And I read some anecdotal stuff on…

0:21:08.2 Jordan Syatt: On Reddit?

0:21:09.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Reddit, Quora, YouTube comments, like real, like… but people telling their stories of… Hey, this is a loosey-goosey pod. Jordan’s got some wine over there. This is going to be a good three… Because we’re filming a triple header today. This is the first of a triple header.

0:21:25.2 Jordan Syatt: I have the most, like, Mediterranean… got some olives and wine over here, man. This is the life.

0:21:31.7 Mike Vacanti: Basically, the anecdotal stories of, I started taking it, I started taking it more and more, I started wanting to take more and more. And then the part that scares me is the things in life that used to give me pleasure, like good conversation, good music, like going for a walk. All these things that are like simple pleasures in life, they were like, don’t excite me at all anymore. Like, I’m always only thinking about getting the pleasure of the nicotine, which makes sense because I don’t remember if… I think it’s like a 200% increase in dopamine from nicotine.

0:22:15.5 Jordan Syatt: It’s like Adderall, it’s not as severe. Not as…

0:22:20.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I mean, 200% on nicotine, 500% on cocaine. 1000% on meth.

0:22:31.1 Jordan Syatt: That’s crazy.

0:22:31.5 Mike Vacanti: That’s insane.

0:22:33.3 Jordan Syatt: That’s crazy. Yeah.

0:22:34.1 Mike Vacanti: But do you want to talk about your experiences with nicotine? I’ve chewed Nicorette, like the 1 mg or like broken a 2 mg in half a handful of times over the last five to eight years and felt like good focus from it the last one or two times I did it, which was maybe a year or two ago. I wouldn’t call it binge eating on the backend, but on the come down from it, I was looking to replenish dopamine stores via Oreos, like dessert, essentially, which was a real like, I knew that I wasn’t physiologically hungry, but I wanted the sweets to satisfy something. I was like, “This isn’t good. I probably shouldn’t be dabbling in this stuff. I’m going to test out a month of lots of coffee first before I start anything too crazy.”

0:23:33.2 Jordan Syatt: It’ll just be interesting to see how quickly you adapt to the caffeine. And at what point does it no longer give you that boost anymore?

0:23:44.0 Mike Vacanti: Dude, hopefully never.

0:23:49.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I’ve only used nicotine a handful of times. I’ve used those ZYN packets that you told me about. And…

0:23:56.1 Mike Vacanti: That I told you about? What?

0:24:00.3 Jordan Syatt: You told me, man.

0:24:00.6 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:24:02.5 Jordan Syatt: And it was funny…

0:24:04.5 Mike Vacanti: And those are higher dose because the gum is like… A cigarette is like 1 mg, and people smoke a bunch of cigarettes a day. The gum is one, two, or four mg. The pouch things, the ZYNs are three or six.

0:24:20.2 Jordan Syatt: Six.

0:24:20.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:24:21.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, and I didn’t know that. So I went into the store. And the guy was like, “Which one do you want?” And I was like, “I don’t know. Just give me one.”

0:24:29.5 Mike Vacanti: “Give me your strongest ZYN.”

0:24:31.1 Jordan Syatt: I literally went and said “I don’t know. Just give me one.” He just grabbed one and gave it to me. And then I think I either sent you the picture or you asked me how much, and that’s when I looked, and you were like, “Oh man, break it in half.” But I can’t break it in half because it’s like a little pouch. But I’ve only taken it a few times and it was funny because I used it once, and then my wife found it in my pocket, and she threw them out because she was just like, “This is bad.” And then she got mad at me. She was like, “Why didn’t you tell me?” And then I had this conversation, and I was like, “I wasn’t hiding it. It was just in my pocket.” And then I got it again.

0:25:05.4 Mike Vacanti: I’m sorry to interrupt. Let me real quick, though. I was surprised how loosely you dove into this conversation, because you’re so good at understanding public perception of topics, and I’m pretty sure your wife’s reaction is 98% of people’s reaction, other than, like, dudes, 15 to 30, I think this is 98% of people’s reaction is like, “Nicotine is very bad. Never do it. Don’t promote it.”

0:25:29.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, dude, I bet that over the next one to three years, we’re going to see a lot more come out about nicotine in the same way that we’ve seen creatine come out and people talking about creatine. Dude, I’ll say the prediction, maybe I’m wrong, but that look you’re giving me tells me that you think I’m an idiot but that’s my prediction, especially with, I’ve seen a number of very, very, very smart people in the, not the fitness industry, but the medical world and the science-based world talking about it with very openly and very from actually a very positive perspective. And it’s funny, what’s interesting is that you can even look at this package, the package. If you look at a package of cigarettes or you look at a package of dip, you look at a package of tobacco, it all says, it says this will give you cancer. This can kill you skull and crossbones. So we know there are these products they require you to say things like that.

0:26:31.7 Jordan Syatt: For nicotine, the main thing, it’s addictive, but like we’ve been talking about it. There haven’t been anything that shows it’s gonna cause cancer. It’s a carcinogen, any of that. And again, I’m not saying I know a ton about this, nor am I suggesting anybody do it. But if I were to predict in the same… Dude, if someone said five years ago, “Yeah, ice baths are gonna be a huge thing where people are gonna talk about spending $20,000 on this container that you fill with ice, and then people are gonna sit in it for a certain amount of time and everyone’s gonna be talking about, you should sit in an ice bath,” it would’ve been like, “No, that sounds really stupid.” I think that’s what’s gonna happen with nicotine, where it’s gonna be like people are gonna start talking more and more and more about nicotine and its benefits.

0:27:12.4 Mike Vacanti: I understand. I didn’t understand the comparison. You’re saying that people are gonna start talking about it more, it’s gonna become more popular in both the science and just pop culture, et cetera in general. Yeah.

0:27:26.7 Jordan Syatt: Yes.

0:27:27.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. The thing about ice baths and creatine is the majority of people don’t think about them. Your average person walking down the street doesn’t think about either of those, whereas everyone knows, everyone’s heard of nicotine.

0:27:38.9 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Yeah, and the association is cigarettes, which kill you, so bad. And I think we’ll start to see, especially as… I think one of the reasons we hear about ice baths so much is because people are looking for new types of content to make content around ’cause they’ve made content about everything and so something new comes around, and they’ll jump at the opportunity to talk about it because then they’ll be the first one with that new content. It’ll get people interested. I think that’s why people talk about ice baths so much. And yes, I’m sure people feel better and da da da da, but I think that’s one of the main reasons we’re hearing about it so much is because it’s relatively new and it’s very… It’s super uncomfortable and there’s a uniqueness to it that make people wanna hear about it more. And I think that’s what we’ll start hearing with nicotine.

0:28:27.0 Mike Vacanti: We’ll see. Time will tell. So what’s your nicotine strategy? You’re gonna throw one of those in for this triple header?

0:28:34.4 Jordan Syatt: I might, I might later. Dude, I could count on two hands how many times I’ve actually used the nicotine. Probably six to seven times in my life. It’s been awesome when I’ve used it. For me, what… You did that inhale, that lets me know you’re about to say something.

[laughter]

0:28:58.8 Mike Vacanti: Cigars would be nicotine.

0:29:00.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, but I’m talking about specifically just pure nicotine.

0:29:04.6 Mike Vacanti: I see, yeah.

0:29:06.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. If we’re talking about cigars, then maybe 24 times, but yeah, so I did it during a couple of workouts. Actually, I did it during a couple early morning workouts when I had to wake up really early and I was like, ugh, I don’t wanna get up. Just popped one in, and they are six milligrams. And it’s funny, the directions say to keep it under your lip for an hour, I do it for 10 minutes.

0:29:31.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s probably really smart.

0:29:33.0 Jordan Syatt: I was like 10 minutes it’s enough. I’m like, after 10 minutes I’m like, “Nope, I don’t need more. I’m good.” And it’s immediate mood enhancer, immediate cognitive, like cognitively more aware, performance enhancer. It’s funny, it’s one of those things where I look at a lot of pre-workouts that people take and I’m like, I feel like if you’re okay with taking pre-workout, but you’re looking down on someone using nicotine, I think it might be a little bit of a very hypocritical thing to do. Sort of like the people who…

0:30:05.0 Mike Vacanti: I have an even do a better one. Alcohol.

0:30:08.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah, alcohol. That’s the obvious one. Yeah, that’s for sure.

0:30:10.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, completely normal, completely acceptable. It’s the only drug where you’re weird if you don’t use it, yet, all of the supposed health benefits that the minor health benefits that were claimed existed have been debunked. Like sure, drink if you enjoy drinking 100%, but it’s not like it’s good for you, but that’s completely socially acceptable, whereas something like nicotine isn’t at all.

0:30:42.5 Jordan Syatt: It’s really interesting. I know you’re not on social media much. There was a new study that came out that showed there are no health benefits with alcohol.

0:30:51.5 Mike Vacanti: Correct.

0:30:51.6 Jordan Syatt: And it’s been all over social media. Everyone’s been talking about it and I was looking into it and the reason I find it funny is because a lot of people are talking about this one study as though it’s like, this is a brand new finding. But if you actually dive into the research, there’s an unbelievable amount of research that has shown this for years and years and years long before the most recent one in 2022 or 2023. It’s like, there are countless studies that have shown, “No, that’s wrong, that’s wrong, that’s wrong, that’s wrong.” It’s funny to me that now people are posting about this one study, and it’s like, “All right, but this has been, we’ve known this for a very long time.” That, so it’s, yeah, there’s alcohol I think is the worst of the worst of the worst as I’m drinking wine.

0:31:45.9 Mike Vacanti: No, but I don’t know, that wasn’t even my point that it’s the worst of the worst of the worst. It’s just that it ain’t good for you, but it’s very socially acceptable, whereas something that’s not that bad for you is extraordinarily shunned. That was kind of…

0:32:04.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:32:05.9 Mike Vacanti: But that is interesting. One study comes out and people go crazy over that when there’s already a body of evidence in that direction, not to mention, I’m so sick of needing studies for everything. It’s like, guess what, “Have four drinks and look at your freaking WHOOP and how did you sleep?” Oh okay, “Now don’t drink.” “Oh, you feel amazing in the morning? Oh, your wristband says that you actually got an adequate amount of REM and an adequate amount of deep sleep, and you didn’t have 47 minutes awake in the middle of the night. Oh, your heart rate was 10 beats per minute lower, oh weird. Oh your sleep score was infinitely better when you didn’t drink, but great.” Let’s do it, let’s make sure we get a randomized control trial around it then and wait for three years until we get the funding and everything that they tell us.

0:32:47.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, you don’t wake up with a throbbing headache?

0:32:49.8 Mike Vacanti: No. Exactly.

0:32:51.3 Jordan Syatt: You’re not binge eating after it, in the middle of the night? It’s so weird.

0:32:56.2 Mike Vacanti: And by the way, do it, but just know that it’s not like, whatever.

0:33:04.2 Jordan Syatt: It’s just that, period. It’s not good for you. And again, I’m gonna say it, it’s not good for you, it’s like I’m drinking it right now, it’s something that you can enjoy in moderation, but there’s also don’t play the mental gymnastics of… “Okay, well, I’m drinking it, so now I have to pretend like it is good for you.” It’s okay to do things that aren’t good for you. It’s okay to do that. Your body, you get to choose what you do, but don’t play mental gymnastics, especially if you’re putting it out there and tell people, “No, it’s okay for me because… ” No, it’s not good. But it is what it is.

0:33:35.1 Mike Vacanti: I love it. Good convo. Where should we go from here?

0:33:37.2 Jordan Syatt: You tell me, I know you said we had some email questions.

0:33:40.6 Mike Vacanti: Oh, this one was somewhat interesting, we can do this kind of quickly. How did you guys meet? Meaning, how did you and I meet each other?

0:33:50.8 Jordan Syatt: I understood… You wanna tell the story?

0:33:57.6 Mike Vacanti: Dude I feel like they’re different from different perspectives. I feel like I somehow… I don’t know the real story. Here’s how I think it happened. I think I stumbled across evidence-based fitness circle jerk via Twitter via JC Deen.

0:34:19.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh via Twitter?

0:34:21.6 Mike Vacanti: Via Twitter, via JC Deen in 2012. And from there, because he was promoting Fitocracy or tweeting about it, I signed up for Fitocracy, and I don’t know if it was… I don’t know if it was through following Cressey and Cressey’s Twitter that I found you, or if it was through Fitocracy that I found you, or if it was through JC or Twitter in general, or who knows all of Tony Gentilcore and Nia Shanks and all of the OG, OG bloggers. Somehow in that circle jerk, I found either your Twitter or your Fitocracy, and then there’s the story of… I don’t remember if it was SEO’d or if it was me coming across the article you wrote and me commenting on that article, but I think that was the original place.

0:35:21.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, so I think the common denominator here is JC Deen. So I found JC with my buddy David when we were in high school. I think it was like 2008 or 2009, I believe. We found JC, and the reason I remember it we were in highschool…

0:35:40.6 Mike Vacanti: Hang on, hang on… JC Deen was making content in ’08?

0:35:43.6 Jordan Syatt: Here’s why I know for a fact it’s in high school, because my buddy David and I… David was at my house, he was at my mom’s house in Sudbury, Massachusetts, and we had my mom’s computer open on Facebook, and the Facebook chat had just come out, and you could see that they were… When someone was live, or not, like you could message someone or IM…

0:36:10.8 Mike Vacanti: The green dot?

0:36:10.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, the green dot. I saw JC was… And I remember I had a friended JC, and he had accepted and I couldn’t believe it, and da da da, and then I was with David and I was like, “Oh, JC is live, I wonder if we should message him?” And he was like, “Yeah, do it.” And so I messaged him and he replied back and I freaked out, and that was the first time I ever spoke with JC. There’s a chance, it was 2010 and not 2008 or ’09, but it was one of those ’08, ’09 or ’10. And he ended up becoming a huge mentor of mine, got me a website, and then the way that I thought we found each other was I had written a guest article for Eric Cressey about sodium, and I know you were following Eric Cressey because…

0:37:00.0 Jordan Syatt: Everyone was following Eric Cressey. And I imagined in my mind that you must have found me through that guest article, and then went to my website and then saw that article about posture. I made that entire scenario up in my head, but that’s how I’ve imagined that we ended up meeting. And then… But I remember, so we communicated a couple times, you invited me to come do Fitocracy group coaching, and I declined at some point.

0:37:24.3 Mike Vacanti: Terrible decision.

0:37:27.4 Jordan Syatt: Terrible decision. And then, I forget what happened, but it was 2014 or 2015, I think it was 2014, where somehow we reconnected and you were in town, in Boston with Gary, you were at Gillette Stadium, and you and I had been talking, and you took an Uber from Gillette all the way into the city to come meet me, which is not a quick Uber, and you must have just been grinding the whole Uber ride…

0:38:00.7 Mike Vacanti: Grinding emails.

0:38:01.1 Jordan Syatt: Just doing programs and emails and all of that. And then we met up, and I remember seeing the videos that you were doing at the time with David Bracetti and me just being mind-blown at the quality of them, and then I tried to start editing my own videos and they were so bad. But yeah, that’s the first time that we met in person…

0:38:18.6 Mike Vacanti: We met, yeah.

0:38:18.7 Jordan Syatt: Which was… Was that 2014 or 2015?

0:38:22.1 Mike Vacanti: I think 2015.

0:38:23.5 Jordan Syatt: Okay, yeah.

0:38:26.6 Mike Vacanti: Cool. Yeah, I remember trying to get you to sign up for a Fitocracy group coaching, I remember you posting on Fitocracy Every day, linking out to your website every day, which…

0:38:37.0 Jordan Syatt: Every day.

0:38:38.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, kudos.

0:38:40.2 Jordan Syatt: Every day. I would post three articles a day every day on my Facebook, on my Fitocracy, on my Twitter, on my… There was a website called Klout, K-L-O-U-T, that I used to post on. There were… I was on every website. Oh, there was Google Plus, I think there was. It was also a social media network I was using at the time. I think that’s what it was called. But I would post three articles and usually, two of them were other peoples’ and then one of them was mine. And I just wanted to be the person that was sharing amazing information on the internet about fitness. And I got the idea because I remembered Martin Berkhan used to post stuff on his Facebook page to Science Direct into other websites with great information about science and about fitness. And I was like… Every time he posted, I would go read the article. And I was like, “If he’s doing it, then why don’t I… ” And I would go to his page, I would go to his Facebook page every day, because he was posting really good articles from other people. And I was like, “Well, what if I did that?” And so then I would post three a day, every single day, and I got to a point where a lot of people, every day, were coming to my Facebook page to go read whatever articles I was posting about. And the vast majority of them weren’t mine, but also a significant percentage of them were mine.

0:40:05.6 Mike Vacanti: Should we do one more?

0:40:06.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, let’s do it.

0:40:08.9 Mike Vacanti: This one leads with, “Please, don’t read my name. Thanks.” So I’m gonna… This one’s from… Barry. It’s a code name, Barry. Barry says, “Thanks for everything. I started listening to the pod about a year ago, and I’ve caught up on every episode and learned more than I could learn at any IG business coach mastermind, and all for free. I enjoy the humor.” Yeah. “Here’s my question.” Thank you so much, Barry. “Here’s my question. When is the time for me to go off on my own? Some back story: A little under a year ago after failing to get and retain clients for my own online biz for a few months, I answered a posting for an online coach position for someone else’s online training business. The coach I work for has taught me so much about how an effective online business runs and is honestly a joy to work with, but I feel I now have the skills to go off on my own. The business I work for pays me about one-third of what the client pays, and I know I could have fewer clients and serve them better while making more money if I went off on my own. Here’s the dilemma. I really like the business owner as well as the other coaches I work with, and I like the collaborative nature of our team calls. The head coach/owner has a large following as well, which generates a lot of leads that I may not otherwise get with my small but active following.

0:41:29.2 Mike Vacanti: I don’t want the owner to feel like I used them to learn as much as possible and then leave them high and dry. I know eventually I will need to go off on my own if I really want to make a living doing this, but when is the right time? And how do I gracefully exit while not betraying someone I respect and care about? Thanks, and apologies for the lengthy email.”

0:41:47.9 Jordan Syatt: That’s a great question. Thank you for the kind words. Do you wanna start or you want me to start?

0:41:53.2 Mike Vacanti: You take the lead here.

0:41:54.7 Jordan Syatt: So, it’s a really good question. It’s also very difficult. First, I think we should talk about the principle and understanding of the nature of the industry, and understanding that… I like that near the end, you said you know at some point you’re gonna have to leave. There’s nothing to feel bad about with that. I think that one of the most important things for any gym owner to know is that the nature of this industry is that people will start working for you, and then they’ll work for you for a certain amount of time, and then they’re gonna leave and oftentimes, they’re going to take clients with them. This is the nature of the fitness industry. And also, the more I get into the business world, even outside of the fitness industry, this is a very common thing that happens in all ends of business.

0:42:48.5 Jordan Syatt: And especially now, especially what we’re seeing with the great resignation, but also people are realizing they have their own opportunities and people are able to start their own businesses from their phone. We’re just seeing more and more and more people being able to have a very successful, happy life and great work-life balance on their own rather than working for someone else and getting a third of what the customer is actually paying. So, I wouldn’t feel bad about this. I think it’s normal. And for whatever it’s worth, this is why if you’re a coach and you’re looking to hire… Or you’re a business owner and you’re looking to hire coaches, I would be very cautious with the type of person you hire.

0:43:32.5 Jordan Syatt: If you’re a coach and you hire a young… Doesn’t even have to be young, but let’s say a young, hungry individual who probably wants to own their own business one day, you might not wanna hire that person, because odds are, they’re going to end up leaving and taking a lot of clients. I think probably… I have two amazing hires. I have a lot of amazing hires, but I have two amazing hires in my life that changed my life forever. Number one is Susan, changed my life forever, and I knew from the… She didn’t want her own business, she didn’t want her own business, she was burned out. It’s like, “Great, you have all of the knowledge, you’re unbelievably smart, you’re unbelievably well-spoken, you’re an amazing coach and you don’t want your own business. This is perfect.” Same thing with my assistant, Kat. Kat was a previous client of mine, as well as Susan, very smart, knew what she was doing, and she didn’t wanna own her own business. So both worked out very well, in which I knew what I was getting into, because I had the foresight to understand, if I did hire a young hungry coach, they probably would end up leaving at some point.

0:44:43.7 Jordan Syatt: So with that being said, I don’t want you to feel bad about it. In terms of when is the right time to leave, it’s a very difficult answer, but I think the easiest way for me to answer this as generally and as accurately as possible would be to… I would not leave until, number one, you have enough savings for at least on the low end, six months to a year of living your current lifestyle with some safety in there. And that’s on the low end, six months to a year. And I also would not leave until you have enough current clients to match what you need to currently live on your monthly income. So, start bringing in clients on your own, on the side, outside of the business that you’re currently working in, from your own online coaching program. And once you have enough clients to match what you need to live on, that’s when I would say it’s a pretty good… A safe time to leave. What do you think, Mike? Do you agree, disagree? What are your thoughts?

0:45:55.0 Mike Vacanti: I think it’s a great answer. I think I agree with everything that you’ve said. What I will add and emphasize is, start building your own business on the side now. That’s one, meaning, taking on clients not through your employer, but you said you have a small but active social media following, on your own, taking on clients, getting 100% of the revenue for yourself, build that up while you’re working with your current employer. There’s no rush to get out of there because you really like your co-workers, you really like your work environment, you like what you’re doing, so it’s not like you need to leave right now or you want to leave right now. So this happened to me, I worked at a gym in New York City before I transferred fully online or 90% online, I guess. And what I did in that situation was I communicated with my boss, with the owner of the gym who I’m still friends with today. I made a point not to take any clients, either in person or online, because it felt wrong in my gut at the time. I’m not sure if I could have, legally, I don’t really know, but I just know that he gave me this opportunity to work here, I wouldn’t feel right about leaving. I had built up my own…

0:47:25.9 Mike Vacanti: I wouldn’t feel right about leaving and taking clients. I’d built up my own online one-on-one to the point where it would support my lifestyle before I left. And so yeah, there were a lot of clients who I really enjoyed working with at that gym, who I communicated with after but didn’t take on as clients. A number of years down the road, some of those people reached back out and then it felt okay. But at the time, I wasn’t gonna steal from his bottom line, on the way out the door. And then communication with your employer, and this is where I don’t know if… It’s probably not a great idea to say right now, like, “Hey, my six to 12-month plan is to be out of here, and I’m trying to build my own on the side.” That transparency could be amazing, but it’s probably not optimal. So right now, I think your focus should be working hard to build your own roster on the side right now, and when you have enough savings and enough revenue from your own business, giving adequate heads up and adequate notice that… Standard in corporate America is two weeks.

0:48:34.0 Mike Vacanti: But I don’t know what that is. Maybe you give a little more of a notice so that you can finish working with a certain number of clients you have, or give adequate heads up on your replacement. But something I’ve been talking about recently is just not burning bridges in life, and I would maintain good relationships with those employees and that boss. And yeah, that’s what I’d suggest.

0:48:57.0 Jordan Syatt: Love that.

0:49:00.9 Mike Vacanti: And I think you’re spot on with, grow your own on the side and… Grow your own on the side, have enough savings, cut down on lifestyle and monthly spend and churn and do as much as you can to be useful and helpful on your way out the door. Help train up the next person.

0:49:17.8 Jordan Syatt: Love that.

0:49:19.6 Mike Vacanti: Alright.

0:49:20.7 Jordan Syatt: Is that it? Should we call this podcast here?

0:49:22.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that’s perfect. Thank you very much for watching… For listening. We have a deal here, we have a handshake agreement, we have a… Like Gary taught it. Handshake deal. If you’re watching, we don’t run ads, we don’t blast you with AG4 or whatever, like, “Sign up for this hormone optimizer.” We’re not selling you anything. But if you’re listening to this free content, please, in exchange for the content, subscribe to our YouTube channel @personaltrainerpodcast. We’re trying to make organic gains there, organic nerdy podcast gains. Thank you, we appreciate you. Have a great day, we’ll see you next week. Bye.

0:50:02.3 Jordan Syatt: See you, thank you.