Episode 141: What Would You Do With 50 Million Dollars?

0:00:00.0 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

0:00:14.9 Jordan Syatt: Michael ran a marathon.

0:00:17.5 Mike Vacanti: Bro. Oh man, you’re J-ing it, I’m gonna over J it because I got something.

0:00:19.7 Jordan Syatt: Wow, you’re gonna J my J? And I’m gonna P that J. All right.

[laughter]

0:00:29.0 Mike Vacanti: I did run a marathon when I was 19 years old, didn’t go well, we’ll get to that in a second. I think I found a barber.

0:00:36.0 Jordan Syatt: Wow, in Minnesota?

0:00:38.3 Mike Vacanti: Mm-hmm.

0:00:38.6 Jordan Syatt: That’s awesome. Did you just get your hair cut right now?

0:00:41.9 Mike Vacanti: No. Like a week ago, but I’m gonna tell you a quick story that you’re gonna like. So it’s been, I don’t even know, well over a year, a year and a half, and haven’t found anyone like Boris in New York. Basically, when looking for a barber, there are a few things I like: The speed of the haircut. Right? Yeah, so not like an hour, I’d prefer it to be like 15 minutes. Proximity to house just to cut down on commute time. The ability to actually give a high and tight, which seemingly outside of New York City, no one really does, they leave this kind of like mushroom top around here. And so I’ve gone to I don’t know how many barbers here in Minnesota, some are very nice, they do a great job for what they’re trying to do, I’ll show them a picture, they don’t really do the picture, they do what they wanna do and… Anyway, I go to this dude, Lamar. Walk in. Oh, and one of the other like qualifications is someone who isn’t just like talking your ear off.

0:01:45.5 Mike Vacanti: This dude, very soft-spoken, I show him a picture, he’s like… Show him a picture, does it perfectly, doesn’t talk a ton, really friendly, in and out in like 13 minutes, I’m pumped. This is probably a month ago. I’m like, “All right, I like this guy.” I go back last week, “Hey, good to see you.” Like very friendly. Starts cutting my hair, he goes… All right I said something, I was like, “Yeah, how’s your morning been?” He’s like, “It’s good, it’s good.” “Woke up 7:00 AM, did my grounding,” and then I was like, “Wait, wait, wait. Grounding?”

0:02:26.2 Jordan Syatt: Wow.

0:02:27.5 Mike Vacanti: He’s like, “Yeah, it’s similar to earthing, you get… ” I’m like, “Oh, I know what grounding is.”

[laughter]

0:02:34.2 Mike Vacanti: And so we talked about grounding the entire time. I was like, “This guy’s legit.”

0:02:39.5 Jordan Syatt: Wow, that’s amazing. Does he train too?

0:02:41.0 Mike Vacanti: We didn’t get there.

0:02:42.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh wow, it was just all grounding?

0:02:45.5 Mike Vacanti: All grounding, hour every morning on the soccer field.

0:02:49.8 Jordan Syatt: Really? He plays soccer barefoot? And that’s his ground—?

0:02:54.7 Mike Vacanti: No, He just likes the soccer field and he just walks around. There’s a soccer field by his house.

0:02:58.2 Jordan Syatt: Wow, is there anything else with grounding outside of just walking barefoot? Like is there any mental component to it or is it just like you get outside barefoot?

0:03:07.5 Mike Vacanti: I think it’s just you get outside barefoot.

0:03:12.5 Jordan Syatt: Got it.

0:03:13.4 Mike Vacanti: By the way, I’m no expert at all, and…

0:03:14.3 Jordan Syatt: Do you Know like if he was like listening to podcasts or like doing like any type of like specific movement with it or if it was just…

0:03:21.1 Mike Vacanti: Much more of an intuitive connection with the earth.

0:03:23.4 Jordan Syatt: I love that, that’s awesome. Anyway, you got your barber, bro, you’re running a marathon.

0:03:30.3 Mike Vacanti: No. No.

0:03:36.5 Jordan Syatt: You’re running a… You told me you’re gonna get back into running.

0:03:37.7 Mike Vacanti: I did not.

0:03:37.8 Jordan Syatt: Yes, you did, that’s exactly what you said less than an hour ago.

0:03:41.8 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no, no, I said, “I might start running.”

0:03:49.5 Jordan Syatt: Okay, that’s fair.

0:03:49.6 Mike Vacanti: I might run, I don’t even think it was a start.

0:03:50.7 Jordan Syatt: I think it’d be fair to assume from that that that means you’re about to start running.

0:03:55.7 Mike Vacanti: Let’s back it up and give… Backup and give the context of yesterday.

0:04:01.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yesterday you were asking me, What’s going on in the Instagram sphere?” You were asking me, “What’s going on online? What’s the word? What is the scuttlebutt?” All that stuff. Right?

0:04:14.5 Mike Vacanti: What’s happening on the streets?

0:04:14.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, that’s what you said, “What’s happening on the streets?”

0:04:15.9 Mike Vacanti: On the dopamine-depleting streets of the short-form content fitness scene.

0:04:22.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And then I think I started going into like what people are into in terms of fitness, where it was, what they’re doing now, and where it’s going. And I said, “Right now, a lot of people are really into running.” And you were like, “What? Running?” And you were like…

0:04:42.3 Mike Vacanti: Well, because you said, “I’m really excited to go for a run outside.” And I was like, “Why?” I was like, “Huh, what is this?”

0:04:48.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, “Why are you… “

0:04:49.4 Mike Vacanti: And then I had said, I’ve seen a few people, younger dudes into running, which makes sense.

0:04:55.3 Jordan Syatt: This is how it happened.

0:04:57.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, I was like, “Tell me what happened yesterday,” I was like, “I don’t remember.” I was gonna…

0:04:57.9 Jordan Syatt: Wait wait, that was not what happened at all. I really thought that’s how it happened.

0:05:08.8 Mike Vacanti: No, that’s okay.

0:05:08.9 Jordan Syatt: That’s really not how it happened, I just kept talking about how excited I was to go on a run in the new place and then you were like, “Why are you so excited to go on a run?”

0:05:16.4 Mike Vacanti: And so I was thinking, because there’s… We can talk about this a little bit if you want to. We have a really good question from someone about money, so I think that’s actually gonna be the theme of this episode, but I just didn’t understand, like I don’t understand the appeal to it, especially from a health perspective, from a longevity perspective, from a ability to do it into later years perspective, from a not getting injured, from a getting appropriate levels of zone two without like the negative effects of, what do you call it? Like training interference if someone’s serious about their strength training as well. And I know there are like hybrid athletes who are doing it with the assistance of certain compounds that make it easier to do. But I wasn’t following the popularity of running from a physiological perspective. From a mental perspective, I love it because both from like a placebo and just how it has made me feel historically perspective, but also from a like physiological runner’s high, what it’s doing to your neurotransmitters perspective. And so when I said, “I might go for a run.” I was thinking about it from the perspective of back in college when I ran more, and this is when the marathon thing came up, I really enjoyed how it made me feel mentally, not physically.

0:06:49.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, makes total sense. I mean especially marathon running can just destroy you physically, like every joint and tendon and ligament, it just can really, really, really take a toll. I’m not saying it automatically does, there’s obviously great and intelligent ways to train for it and to help with it, but it can really take a toll, but mentally it’s great, and I’m not… I don’t think I’ll ever run a marathon, I don’t think I’ll ever do that, I have no desire to. But I’ve been excited to go on a run just because living in the city… It’s funny, some cities are much more runnable than other cities. Like New York City is a super runnable city. Even if you’re like running in relatively unrunnable parts of it, like you could still run in the city without really an issue, you could…

0:07:47.4 Mike Vacanti: Or just West Side Highway, East River, like…

0:07:48.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, go on one of the paths, whatever. Downtown Dallas is not a runnable city at all, at all. So moving into like a cul-de-sac with like a walking trail nearby, it’s just been a couple of years of not having the ability to really run on anything other than a treadmill in my building, so that’s where I was coming from with that. But with that being said, there also is a huge push, even though like the story that I said apparently was completely inaccurate in terms of how we came to that discussion, running is definitely picking up. And it is very interesting to see the pendulum swings and how like right before I got into the fitness industry, probably I got in around like 2000. I think I really started getting into it around like 2007, ’08, ’09.

0:08:42.6 Jordan Syatt: I think right before that time, cardio was huge, and I think before just regular cardio, you had step aerobics and all that stuff. Then as I started to get into it, I think it was a lot of like strength training and what I would call like “functional training,” what a lot of people would call like that “functional work.” Kettlebells started to pick up and be really big. And then from there, we got into like, powerlifting was huge, Olympic weightlifting was huge. Obviously, like bodybuilding was I think really big during the ’90s and early 2000s as well. But there have been so many different trends and transitions, and now I feel like we’re really coming back to cardio again. And like I was telling you yesterday, and we spoke about I think people like David Goggins have been a huge push for… A huge influence over people’s mindset towards, What are they gonna spend their time on? And so we just see all these guys being like, “I’m gonna carry the boats, carry ’em running, carry the boats. Be hard, stay hard.” Whatever that is. And so like everyone’s running now, but it is interesting to see how many people are doing it, which is great, it is fantastic. But I also know some people personally who tried to do it like Goggins style and within a week they were like, “Oh man, my knee is just messed up,” or, “My ankle’s messed up.” It’s like, yeah, that’s definitely not gonna be the best bet for everybody.

0:10:06.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. It’s a young man or any young woman’s game, it’s not like if you’re 24% body fat, 28% body fat, 30% body fat and you’re 50, 55 years old, like starting running isn’t the best move from a health perspective. From an enjoyment perspective, I mean I wouldn’t even… I don’t know that many people who run for the love of the game anyway. Most people historically who run are doing it because they think they have to do it to manage body comp or to lose weight, mistakenly, and maybe there’s less of that now than there was 10 years ago, but you were saying you think the primary driver of it is this like carry-the-boats mentality.

0:10:55.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I think that the major shift especially among men, especially among men running. I think women, there’s always been a strong female component to not just running but cardio in general. Generally, I think women will opt more for cardio. And there has been a huge push for women in strength training. But among men recently, the Goggins style, carry the boats, let’s go, stay hard. Look at his social media, his videos get like hundreds of thousands, millions of views, likes, never mind views. Like hundred thousand millions of likes of him just running, running, running, and he has like the 4 x 4 x 48, which is like you run 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours straight, and it’s crazy, but like people are really getting on board with it.

0:11:43.6 Mike Vacanti: And I think there are many pros to it, many cons to it. But yeah, I think that’s like the major reason why running has gained popularity in the last few years, is mainly because of people like Goggins. Whereas cardio as a whole, I’d love to see cardio as a whole getting more… Especially in our end of the industry. I think for outside the science-based world, and I would consider that we’re in the more science-based end of the fitness industry. Outside of that, I don’t think cardio ever lost its steam, I don’t think cardio ever was like looked at as like a bad thing, but inside the science-based strength and conditioning world, cardio gets a bad rap, and it’s gotten a bad rap for as long as I’ve been in it. And I even got like wrapped up in that world of like, You don’t need it, it’s unnecessary. Lifting weights faster is my cardio, you just need to like just do squats or whatever it is because it gets your heart rate up. And it’s great to see cardio coming back, whether it’s in the form of running, cycling, swimming, whatever, it is really good to see even just basic zone two training several times a week coming back as an important factor.

0:12:54.1 Mike Vacanti: That pendulum swing though, it swung too far back away from cardio, but the swing was because all of these people doing cardio were doing it for weight-loss purposes. It was like the Berkhan, Whatever, you can do… You can eat seven fewer Oreos and save yourself the hour-plus on the treadmill that you’re doing. That was what caused it to swing back. Unfortunately, when it swung back and there was less popularity of when cardio was less popular for whatever period of time, the health benefits associated with that cardio were also lost for the number of people who weren’t doing it as a result, but the swingback made sense because so much of cardio historically is for aesthetics, or that’s why people think they’re doing it, is for aesthetics, and it doesn’t work.

0:13:53.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, and that’s where people really conflated health with fat loss, where people were like, “You don’t need cardio, you don’t need cardio, just watch your calories.” And people are like, “Oh, so I’m just not gonna do cardio at all.” And then that ended up going into people saying, “Oh, you don’t need cardio. Period.” And then not only did it go from that, it went even further being like, Cardio’s gonna kill your gains, you can’t get stronger, you can’t build muscle if you do cardio. And people still talk about this all the time. And so it’s still perpetuated that there are people who are worried to do several 20-minute sessions of zone two a week because they think it’s gonna ruin their gains and ruin their muscle. It’s just wild and it’s still very much perpetuated so that we still see… We still see some trickle effect of that.

0:14:41.9 Mike Vacanti: Dude, I remember being on the Wisconsin campus back in ’05, ’06 as a freshman and doing these long… Long, long for me because I’d never run this far, but at the beginning of marathon training, like 6-mile runs from the top of Langdon Street, which is at one end of the campus to the end of Picnic Point, which was basically a few miles into a running trail alongside a nice lake. Doing this in the middle of the night being on like weird sleep hours and it being some of the most enjoyable, like mentally stimulating activities that I’ve ever partaken in, but not the greatest for my body.

0:15:31.5 Jordan Syatt: Did you get hurt doing that? Did you like get ankle and knee, back stuff?

0:15:36.2 Mike Vacanti: No, not seriously hurt, dinged up. Sure. And just ran through it, but no, not seriously hurt, no. But when you’re doing that much time and that much volume of something, then I’m doing less strength training, I’m doing less of other things. I like the mental benefits much, much, much more than the physical, especially because for most people, they’re not gonna be able to run and stay in zone two. So I prefer an inclined walk or a speed walk or a weighted vest walk for that for 90% of people.

0:16:14.6 Jordan Syatt: Did you ever go to the ice rink, get your skates on and just get some zone two that way?

0:16:18.9 Mike Vacanti: Played intramural hockey, yeah, but that’s…

0:16:21.0 Jordan Syatt: No, I mean recently, like as an adult.

0:16:24.5 Mike Vacanti: Oh, no, I haven’t, but I can’t imagine… That would be good, like zone five, like playing a game, sprinting, and then resting, I don’t. I wouldn’t just sit for an hour.

0:16:39.7 Jordan Syatt: You wouldn’t be. No.

0:16:40.6 Mike Vacanti: No. No-puck practices were like torture, that was a punishment. You lost to Eastview and then you showed up 7:00 AM practice the next day and you’re like, “Where are the pucks?” And there were no pucks, and like goal line, that one.

0:17:00.6 Jordan Syatt: You were doing suicides.

0:17:02.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:17:02.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh wow. Dude, is that an okay thing to say now? Now that I’m… Because that’s what we called them.

0:17:08.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s what they’re called.

0:17:09.4 Jordan Syatt: As I said, I was like, man, are people upset about that word now or like are they calling those sprints that?

0:17:11.9 Mike Vacanti: I think anyone logical understands that you calling sprints “suicides” isn’t… You’re not like demeaning the importance of actual suicide, I think anyone with half a brain understands that that’s okay.

0:17:25.3 Jordan Syatt: Literally, as I said it, I was like, “Oh geez, I didn’t even think about that until this moment.” As a kid, it never even crossed my mind that it was like the same. I never even thought about that until this moment.

0:17:36.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, you don’t associate the two. Alright, we got a cool question here. “Hey, Mike and Jordan, I’ve followed you both for years. Mike, you answered some fitness questions for me years ago, and Jordan, I’m a member of the Inner Circle, read your book…”

0:17:51.3 Jordan Syatt: Let’s go.

0:17:51.3 Mike Vacanti: “And loved it. I love it when you guys chat about money, politics, religion, and current events, I would like this question to be anonymous. My question is… “

0:18:02.5 Jordan Syatt: Nice. All of like the really difficult thing, and I love that.

[laughter]

0:18:05.6 Mike Vacanti: “My question is not fitness or business related. Just curious…” and I actually think that we can take this in a place that is somewhat business related and very like how to set up your life-related. “How would you handle getting a huge sum of money, life-changing, I.e., ballpark 50 million? As in, what would you change about your life? How would you go about managing it? Do you try as much as you can to keep it a secret? Would you seek counsel in estate planning, etcetera? This is also assuming a very good responsible history with money, no debt, good savings, and a good retirement fund already set up, good emergency fund, comfortable life. What say you?”

0:18:55.0 Jordan Syatt: Wow, that’s a great question. Do you want to start or you want me to start?

0:19:04.2 Mike Vacanti: If you have thoughts, you can start. Otherwise, I’m happy to.

0:19:07.7 Jordan Syatt: I’ll hear what you say first.

0:19:10.8 Mike Vacanti: Something that I’ve always thought was, and I haven’t played the lottery very much, but, “Oh, it’s 800 million, it’s a billion, buy a ticket, buy two tickets.” If I ever won the lottery, I would not tell anyone, I wouldn’t tell my family, I wouldn’t tell… Just because it… I’m not worried about this with my family, but having that much money inverts your relationship with everybody, essentially everyone you know, there’s now an expectation that they’re getting a piece of that. It would change dynamics in so many ways. I would rather do the good that I would want to do with that money for all of these people without any of them knowing. I’ve had a thought where I would put millions in cash in a brown paper bag in each of my family members’ front door. And then I would be the first one on the text thread and be like, “Someone just left millions of dollars in my front door in a brown paper bag.” “Me too, me too. What is going on?” I wouldn’t want anyone to know. That being said, there’s probably a difference between 800 million and 50 million, so I would consider keeping it private. That was my only initial thought.

0:20:47.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, needs to be completely secret. I saw a funny story a few months ago, I think it was a guy in China who won some type of mega million whatever, and when he showed up to claim it, he wore one of those mascot suits.

0:21:03.1 Mike Vacanti: Genius. Genius.

0:21:06.6 Jordan Syatt: He was just like, no one is going to know who I am, not even my family, no one, including his kids, he was like, “I don’t want my kids to know ’cause then I don’t want them to be… ” I thought that was genius. So yeah, absolutely, completely 100% secret, not bragging about it, none of that.

0:21:24.6 Mike Vacanti: Have you heard the saying that the best way to grow up is two loving parents, little money?

0:21:35.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, I thought there was going to be more to that. No.

0:21:40.3 Mike Vacanti: Just like not a lot of money but two loving parents in the home?

0:21:45.7 Jordan Syatt: I love that.

0:21:49.7 Mike Vacanti: I think there are real… This is in terms of how I would handle estate planning/kids or think about it is, I don’t want my kids to know that they would have millions of dollars coming their way at a certain age.

0:22:09.4 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Correct.

0:22:11.0 Mike Vacanti: It completely warps their incentives for life, I think it breeds entitlement, no matter what you do as a parent.

0:22:20.0 Jordan Syatt: They don’t feel like… “No matter what happens, I’ll always be okay.” There’s never a fear of, “What if?” Because they know that safety net is always there. And I think that the removal of that safety net is what pushes you to change your life for the better. If the safety net is always there, then you won’t do what you need to do to take yourself to the next level, to be very self-sufficient. Or it’s not that you won’t, but I think most people would have a very hard time doing what they need to do if that safety net was always there. And they always knew that mommy and daddy will always be able to take care of me, and when they’re gone, I’ll just inherit all this money, all this… It’s a huge disadvantage.

0:23:13.8 Mike Vacanti: And so we’re not saying, “Don’t give your kids anything.” Right? Fund college fully, if that’s what makes sense for them if they want to go there. Probably some kind of trust that they don’t know about that gives them enough for baseline security on a 50 million windfall. Assume you have three children, maybe like a million dollars each that they don’t know about, that they get at a certain age, that they find out when they get it, which is definitely not before the age of 30. I don’t know exactly what age would make the most sense, but make sure they establish themselves in some kind of career, some kind of trade, area of expertise, build the habits and routines to be a functioning member of society before they know that they have this level of security to fall back on.

0:24:12.6 Mike Vacanti: Obviously, from the perspective of how you’re spending your day as the person who’s inheriting that money, it’s a double-edged sword. Everyone listening right now is like, “That would be incredible, to just be given $50 million.” But I think there… I’m going to sound ridiculous saying this, but there are definitely downsides to it like when you don’t… Too much freedom and too much downtime… And you’re going to have to build your own purpose in terms of how you spend your day because when you get $50 million, you could literally just eat powdered sugar donuts and scroll TikTok 16 hours a day for the next 70 years, you could actually do that and be okay, and that would not be a objectively meaningful way to spend your life, so whether it’s… I don’t know if you have business aspirations, if you have like a philanthropic or charity-related motivations or whatever it is, find a way to spend your time in a meaningful way.

0:25:27.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, there’s a saying mainly used for politics, but I think you can use it in many different areas, it’s called… It goes, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” And I feel like getting $50 million is a form of absolute power, where you have this absolute power in which you’re, “Okay, well, I can quit, I don’t have to do this ’cause I don’t have to do it anymore, and I don’t have to do this, and I don’t have to do this,” it’s like ’cause now you have the power essentially to live, to do whatever you want to do regardless of any potential negative outcome.” And I think that can corrupt your soul, it can corrupt your life, it can corrupt your mind in that if you don’t have to do anything, then what are you going to do? And I think from an imagination perspective, it sounds great. It’s like, “Oh my God, I can just do whatever I want.” It’s like, “Cool, so what does that actually mean?”

0:26:34.1 Jordan Syatt: And because a lot of times doing something that you love, you don’t love it all the time. It’s not something you enjoy every moment, but if in your mind you’re like, “Well, I don’t have to do this because I don’t need the money,” then you just won’t do it at all, and you won’t ever reap any of the positive benefits from doing it. So what do you actually end up doing when you don’t have to do anything? I think that’s when you can get corruption of your mind and your soul and all of that when you end up doing nothing. So definitely not telling anybody, for sure. I think one thing that you brought up, paying for college. One thing that I would like to do ’cause if this happened to me, there would be no… My kids wouldn’t know, none of that. But one thing I’ve even thought about now is, let’s say my daughter wants to go to college.

0:27:25.4 Jordan Syatt: So we started a fund for her within the last year, maybe in six months, if it’s six months to a year, we started a fund. And my finance guy said, “Let’s start a college fund.” And I said, “Well, the only issue with the college funds is that they can only be used for college. Right? There are college funds where the money can only be used for college, I don’t want my daughter, for example, if she’s like, “Hey, I don’t want to go to college, I’ll be okay with that, but there has to be a separate plan, whether it’s starting her own business or whatever it is. So there are other funds in which she doesn’t know that they exist, but they’ll be available to her at a certain age, that if she wants to go to college, she can use it for college. If she wants to use it for starting a business, she can do that.”

0:28:09.4 Jordan Syatt: But let’s say she wants to go to college, I think one thing I would do is tell her that we’re going to split the payments, I’ll pay for half and she’ll pay for half. But what I’ll do is I’ll say, “I will cover the payments, all you need to do is write me a check every month or whatever it is. I’ll take the check that she writes me and then put that into another fund, so I will actually pay for her college, but she won’t know it. And that way, I’ll take that money that she’s essentially sending me and have it for her available at another point in time. And so that way, gaining the knowledge and learning, Hey, you have to save this money, ’cause she thinks that she’s using that money for her college fund.

0:28:49.2 Jordan Syatt: And I think teaching in that way can be helpful, and at the end being like, “Hey, look, maybe set up investments, whatever it is, this is how much money you ended up saving, this is how much money you get as a result of that. I think that would be a good way to structure it. But from a $50 million perspective, it’s funny you brought up a point. If we had this conversation three years ago, I would’ve been like, “50 million and 800 million, it’s the same thing.” Obviously, it’s not the same thing. But I would’ve been like, “50 million’s really basically the same thing, there’s no way you could spend that.” But it’s like, “Oh no, you absolutely can, you can. It’s two very different things.”

0:29:26.5 Mike Vacanti: I meant it’s not the same thing in terms of like maybe people would have less expectation, maybe that…

0:29:36.6 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think they would.

0:29:36.7 Mike Vacanti: Maybe your 16th best friend expects 10 million off of 800 but understands that you haven’t talked in five years and so you actually… Like if it’s 50 million, not getting anything.

0:29:50.8 Jordan Syatt: I think as soon as you get past 10 million, people just think, “That’s a fortune, I deserve a lot of it.”

0:29:56.3 Mike Vacanti: That’s a wild expectation.

0:29:58.7 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I mean even if you won 800 million, zero part of me would expect any of that.

0:30:06.2 Mike Vacanti: Of course, ’cause you’re a reasonable person.

0:30:08.1 Jordan Syatt: But for some people, I think they would, I think there absolutely would be people who’d be like, “Well, I don’t know, I ate lunch with him once and, I don’t know, I said I really liked his hair,” whatever it is. And they feel like they just deserve whatever it is from you. But I think obviously, the first thing is making sure everyone in my close network is going to be taken care of, whether it’s medical bills, mortgages paid, all that stuff, and done in secrecy. I have no idea how that would happen, I don’t think I would just leave a suitcase full of cash ’cause they’d probably call the police and be like, “I don’t know, it just came and… ” But something along just making sure they’re good. And then I would absolutely seek financial help and I would just go to you for it. But I would absolutely… I would not know what to do with that, I have no clue how to handle that in any way, shape or form like in terms of setting up for future finances, in… I have no idea, so I would absolutely get help for that.

0:31:18.6 Mike Vacanti: I mean the thing about 50 million is, unless you’re looking to maximize every dollar, just don’t spend like an idiot and you’re good, and this person has a reasonable… Look, if you were someone who had zero financial literacy and just zero impulse control and spent every dollar that you made… What?

0:31:45.6 Jordan Syatt: I’m just… It’s just, it’s funny ’cause I’m imagining there’s definitely someone who would get that and they would immediately buy a yacht…

0:31:52.9 Mike Vacanti: Immediately.

0:31:53.5 Jordan Syatt: And then they’d be out.

0:31:55.5 Mike Vacanti: Multiple yachts, jet skis, cocaine, they’d be… Yes.

0:31:58.3 Jordan Syatt: Done within a month, they’d lose all the money.

0:32:01.4 Mike Vacanti: Assuming… Yeah, assuming you’re not that person… That person? Have someone manage your money for you. For most people, I would say don’t, just because you’re paying 1% of assets, probably at a minimum, which is $500,000 a year for someone who can’t beat the S and P, I would right now… Right now, the four-week US treasury bill interest rate is 5.3%, which is insane, so I would put 5 million in T-bills and just in every four… Have it auto reinvest every four weeks, that’s essentially cash that’s generating 5.3% interest. And I would… It’s a different conversation if you’re thinking about, How do I maximize this money? Meaning… In which case your age comes into play, the percentage that goes into higher risk versus lower-risk assets is going to be different if you’re 28 or 38 or 68. Yeah, don’t spend it all and you almost can’t screw it up.

0:33:19.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, well, I mean let me ask you this. Would you try and diversify it among a variety… Not from the perspective of maximizing it. You get 50 million, you’re comfortable, you’re good, but just from a safety perspective, would you spread it out among different accounts in terms of indifferent financial investments. Obviously, FDIC insured is only up to 250K, so you wouldn’t put all of it, you wouldn’t put 50 million in one bank account. What’s that smirk for?

0:33:53.1 Mike Vacanti: No, I like it, I like you dropping finance knowledge, it’s good. No, I wouldn’t have it all in one bank account, I would… Here’s the other thing about this. It’s fictional, but this principle applies for any windfall… Or maybe it’s not fictional, actually. I actually don’t know, so maybe this is actually happening to…

0:34:12.5 Jordan Syatt: Can you imagine if this person actually got like 50 mil and they’re just asking us what they should do with it?

0:34:18.0 Mike Vacanti: With any windfall, I’m not going to immediately put it all into any kind of market or asset because it’s such a large amount of cash relative to your current net worth that you’re going to have to dollar-cost average over a period of time, meaning rather than putting 50 mil into a Vanguard ETF that mimics the S and P 500. Rather than doing that, maybe put 1 million in, wait three months, put another million in, in which case I would have a lot of the money in treasuries, so it’s earning some interest in the meantime. But to answer your question, yes, I would definitely diversify.

0:35:12.0 Mike Vacanti: In Tony Robbins’ book, Money, which is funny to bring up because it’s like, “You know the motivational guy, Tony Robbins? And he has a book called Money? Is that actually legit?” It is, he has something called the All-Weather Fund, I believe it’s called, or All-Seasons Fund, which shows how he would… And Ray Dalio gave feed… A bunch of these top brilliant finance guys gave their input into this book. And it talks about how much in equities, how much in bonds, how much in real estate, how much in commodities. I would follow something similar to that and I would invest it over a multiyear window so that if the market crashes, you didn’t just put 50 million in and then lose 40% of your value.

0:36:06.0 Jordan Syatt: Should I get that book? You never told me about this book.

0:36:09.3 Mike Vacanti: No, you’re good, you’re on a system right now.

0:36:12.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, okay. I was literally about to order it right now.

0:36:18.7 Mike Vacanti: We’re younger too, you’re especially younger and…

0:36:24.1 Jordan Syatt: Well, you’re like four… It’s four years.

0:36:25.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I know.

0:36:25.5 Jordan Syatt: It’s not that big.

0:36:26.9 Mike Vacanti: Well, I’m just… And so having the majority of your assets in equities makes sense for you, and then traditionally, you shift to lower risk as you get closer to “retirement,” and we don’t actually have to go down this…

0:36:46.5 Jordan Syatt: I know exactly where this is going.

0:36:48.8 Mike Vacanti: Where am I going? Tell me where I’m going.

0:36:51.1 Jordan Syatt: No, you got to…

0:36:51.2 Mike Vacanti: No, no, I want to know because you know exactly. “I know exactly.” Tell me.

0:36:56.1 Jordan Syatt: You’re going to bring up the 10 million? Oh, God, okay.

0:37:02.1 Mike Vacanti: That’d be funny though, we can if you want to, that’s a way better place to take it. I was watching the first episode of this Netflix documentary called Living to 100, it’s a four-part docuseries.

0:37:14.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah, the Blue Zones one?

0:37:15.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. My sister brought it up, and before she could even finish her sentence, I barked at her, “I don’t get my nutrition information from documentaries.” And then I was like… I’m an asshole. And then I listened to her talk about it, I was like, “It does sound cool, I’m going to listen to it.” Because it… I’m not going to give a rant about epidemiological studies versus randomized placebo control, but it was cool and interesting, and the first episode had some things that I agree with and that makes sense, and they’re not just talking about nutrition, they’re talking about community and other things. And essentially, the Japanese, I believe, I think it’s right, that the Japanese don’t have a word for retirement or they might have just said that they don’t retire because keeping that sense of meaning, that… Gosh, what’s the word? Iki… Ikigah?

0:38:11.4 Jordan Syatt: Ikigai.

0:38:12.7 Mike Vacanti: Ikigai. Where the meaning or the thing you’re good at overlaps with something the world needs, you can make money but continuing to have purpose even after the age of 60 or 65 or 70 is important in longevity. So I’m not saying retirement is a good thing or that we should be planning for it but traditionally, you shift from higher-risk assets to lower-risk assets as you get older so that you then have this stockpile of cash where you can live… Not cash, but assets where you live off the interest and that dwindles down into your later years is how we do it in upper middle-class America.

0:38:55.4 Jordan Syatt: I did not know that’s where you were going with that, I did not know.

0:38:57.9 Mike Vacanti: Do you wanna talk about the 10 million?

0:39:00.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, sure. Why not?

0:39:02.1 Mike Vacanti: Jordan gave me a freeroll… a freeroll, and maybe we’ll circle back.

0:39:07.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Explain what that is.

0:39:08.9 Mike Vacanti: I think you’re pretty adequate… If we didn’t adequately answer that question, shoot us an email and we’ll hit it again in another episode because I think it’s interesting. Jordan gave me a freeroll, which is a bet where if I lose, I don’t pay anything, but if Jordan loses, he has to give me money, and Jordan gave me a…

0:39:25.8 Jordan Syatt: $100,000.

0:39:27.9 Mike Vacanti: $100,000 freeroll, that if and when he hits 10 million in net worth…

0:39:37.6 Jordan Syatt: No, in the bank.

0:39:38.6 Mike Vacanti: Okay, in cash?

0:39:40.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:39:42.2 Mike Vacanti: Well, cash investment… No, in assets. 10 million.

0:39:44.0 Jordan Syatt: Not in terms of like… Not including like a house and stuff.

0:39:47.4 Mike Vacanti: Okay, not including a house. Cash and cash equivalents and investments, we’ll say, but not real estate. Are you just gonna game this bet by putting all of your money into properties?

0:40:04.5 Jordan Syatt: I wouldn’t even have thought of that until you just said it.

0:40:07.6 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no, it’s only in your primary residence, and your primary residence has to be limited to a reasonable percentage of your total net worth. We were talking about making content, which isn’t something that I have a lot of interest in, one might say, these days.

0:40:24.0 Jordan Syatt: One might say.

0:40:25.3 Mike Vacanti: One might say quite confidently. But we were talking about making content, and Jordan said something along the lines of, “Making content isn’t as enjoyable as it used to be/it’s work, and so you have to like get yourself to do it. Right? It’s not just out of the joy of your heart. And I said that I think you’re gonna make content forever. And you said, “Absolutely not,” and you basically had a number which was 10 million, where you won’t be making content after you have 10 million in net worth less primary residence.

0:41:06.6 Jordan Syatt: If I ever get 10 million in bank, yeah, if I ever get 10 million in cash, then I would never make content again.

0:41:15.2 Mike Vacanti: And I said, “You’re absolutely gonna continue making content after you have 10 million because you make it for more reasons than just marketing, in my observation.” And you said, “No way.” And you gave me a free roll. You said, “If I keep making content past 10 million, I’ll give you 100K.” And I can’t wait to collect that live here on the podcast.

0:41:33.8 Jordan Syatt: No, it’s not gonna happen. And content as in like Instagram posts, Instagram stories, Instagram feed, podcasting doesn’t count as content. Right? Our podcast will still be…

0:41:45.6 Mike Vacanti: No, no, the podcast we’re doing until we’re 100.

0:41:49.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Mike is like, “You’re still gonna post content.” And I’m like, “No, I’m not. Once I have 10 million, I’m not.” Because once I have that, there are so many… So many other things will have happened if I ever get to that point, so many other things will have happened.

0:42:08.8 Mike Vacanti: Don’t play false… Don’t give me that false humility stuff. Say, “When I hit 10 million, so many other things will happen.”

0:42:14.1 Jordan Syatt: If, if, you never know, if. Then there’ll have been so many other things that’ll have happened, where it’s like posting content will… It’s funny, like the way I think there are many different aspects of it. But there was a point in my life in which coaching people one-on-one made the most sense in terms of my ability to help the most people. Then it went from one-on-one in person to one-on-one online, then from one-on-one online to the inner circle. If that ever happens, I think posting content will actually no longer be the best way for me to actually help the most people, I think there will be other ways in which that I could spend my time that would actually benefit people to a greater degree.

0:43:08.4 Mike Vacanti: What do you think that’ll be?

0:43:10.1 Jordan Syatt: One of them is, I would love to open… And I would need way more than 10 million for this, but I would love to… I’ve always wanted to open a gym that’s completely free and I’m actually super… What? What?

0:43:22.3 Mike Vacanti: Good news. Good news. You don’t need way more than 10 million to open a gym.

0:43:28.2 Jordan Syatt: No, I understand I don’t need way more than 10 million to open a gym, but I would like to make it something that’s not just a single gym. Right? To make it something that has many, many locations over many countries. Right? Where it’s something that provides opportunities across the world, in which case if I wanted to fund that.

0:43:53.5 Mike Vacanti: You’d have to have enough to… You’d have to have enough gyms so that you had more than like… That you’d have millions of members then.

0:44:02.6 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no, no, because the way I think of it is an Instagram post, it’s so helpful…

0:44:08.9 Mike Vacanti: Depth of how much you’re helping?

0:44:10.4 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:44:10.5 Mike Vacanti: I literally was gonna say this, it’s not about helping more people, it’s about breadth times width, like how much you help each person times number of people.

0:44:23.3 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Exactly.

0:44:25.3 Mike Vacanti: If you do something that’s mildly helpful, if you give an idea on social that’s mildly helpful, that 100,000 people see, versus, I don’t know, someone’s dying and you would save their life right in front of them, there’s more depth to that interaction than the other one.

0:44:44.1 Jordan Syatt: Even, for example, I’ve always loved… There’s an amazing program, I believe it’s out of a number of different cities, but it’s called InnerCity Weightlifting.” And the whole… It’s free, it’s 100% free, and the idea was to bring inner city kids into the weightlifting environment so that they’re not ending up going in gangs and doing terrible, terrible shit. And imagine like just one kid goes in there for free, changes their life, how many people could have been negatively affected if they went a different route versus how many people have been positively affected from that kid because of the route that he went. So that’s where I would way rather spend my time doing that if I ever get that amount of money or if I ever get that… Building something like that, then post it because you know why? Selfishly as well, posting on social media, it’s just gotten to a point where it’s still a net positive for me, but the negatives are racking up.

0:45:53.7 Mike Vacanti: Give me examples.

0:45:54.5 Jordan Syatt: Like in term… Just mentally. Just like even… I go through different phases of where I notice I’m just scrolling for way too long and I’m like… I get stuck in a void. And I literally have to tell myself, I’m like, “Watching this reel doesn’t matter at all because they’re so good at showing you reels that suck you in immediately, boom, boom, boom, boom, next post, next post, next post. Everything I see is like, ‘I really wanna see that, I really wanna see that.'” And I have to be like, “How is this gonna benefit me? I’ve already watched 40. Like, relax.” Right? So I think that it’s still overwhelmingly net positive, but it’s getting to a point where I’m like I just… I definitely am excited to one day just put the phone down, get a flip phone and just be with people in person.

0:46:51.8 Mike Vacanti: So you would not only not be creating, but you wouldn’t be consuming.

0:46:56.2 Jordan Syatt: That would be a major reason to not be creating because it’s hard to create and not consume, especially when you wanna be interactive with comments and with messages. It’s very difficult.

0:47:06.4 Mike Vacanti: 100%. Yeah, you need to be on there in a timely fashion too, can’t just post and ghost. Wouldn’t posting on social media be a strategy that would help you grow the gym franchises?

0:47:24.7 Jordan Syatt: I’d have someone else do it.

0:47:27.0 Mike Vacanti: Company name, not your name, yeah. Not me…

[laughter]

0:47:35.6 Jordan Syatt: Mike is running my social media accounts.

0:47:39.9 Mike Vacanti: Nope. Cool. All right, I’m excited to see it, we’ll keep everyone updated, we’ll do… On your birthday we’ll do annual Jordan net worth announcements. Let people know where you’re at.

0:47:55.4 Jordan Syatt: Rounders.

0:48:00.3 Mike Vacanti: Good podcast, Jordan. Do you wanna tell the people what’s going on at the mentorship?

0:48:05.3 Jordan Syatt: We don’t have an established 100% date yet, but we promise, before the end of 2023.

0:48:12.1 Mike Vacanti: Oh, no, they don’t have that much time, they might have a month maybe, perhaps less, like the next couple weeks, this is happening.

0:48:20.1 Jordan Syatt: Got it. Okay, so I would give yourself seven days max and if there’s a little bit of wiggle room, great, but seven days max in terms of we’re changing the pricing structure, the price… What’s the amount… What’s the times? Like what’s the multiplication factor that I’s gonna go up by, Mike?

0:48:36.5 Mike Vacanti: In year one, in year one, you’ll be like two to two and a half x, and in years two and beyond, it’s gonna be five times more expensive.

0:48:49.2 Jordan Syatt: Got it. Okay, so the first year, you’re gonna be paying more than double and after that, you’re gonna be paying five times more. And if you are a current active paying member of the mentorship, when we change the prices, then you will not have to worry, you’ll just be locked in at that price as long as you stay a paying member. If you cancel, then when you come back, that’s fine, you will have to pay that higher price point, but if you wanna get in the mentorship for the lowest for this very, very, very outrageously low price point that we’ve had for the first few introductory years while we iron out all the kinks, get in right now because now that we’ve got things going and we’re rolling, we’re increasing the price and we would love to have you in there. And if you wanna wait and join in two months, in three months, in six months when the price is higher, great, that’s fantastic too. But probably better to do it right now when the price is low just from your perspective, we would love to have you in there. Thank you for listening to the podcast, if you enjoy it, please leave a five-star view on iTunes, Spotify, they’re super helpful. We’ll talk to you next week.

0:49:49.9 Mike Vacanti: Thank you. See you soon. Goodbye.