Episode 143: This One’s Gonna Ruffle Some Feathers…

0:00:11.7 Mike Vacanti: Hello Jordan.

0:00:12.7 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, Michael?

0:00:14.1 Mike Vacanti: Just trying to get all the almonds out of my teeth that I just wolfed down before this podcast.

0:00:18.5 Jordan Syatt: I don’t see any. You’re good.

0:00:20.1 Mike Vacanti: Thanks.

0:00:21.7 Jordan Syatt: We getting canceled in the first two minutes or what?

[laughter]

0:00:24.4 Jordan Syatt: Mike, just asked me right before we started, he goes, “You wanna get canceled in the first two minutes of this podcast?” I was like, “Let’s do it.” I’m now expecting something big.

0:00:38.4 Mike Vacanti: Okay. So today is Saturday, September 23rd, I don’t know exactly when this podcast is coming out, so this might be completely irrelevant, but during the leg day I was just hitting, I opened my phone and I see a post. Now, you don’t know who this person… Do you know who Travis Kelce is?

0:00:56.6 Jordan Syatt: How do I know that name? I do know that name. Oh yeah, he’s a football player. I only know that name because you told me about him for the football draft.

0:01:05.2 Mike Vacanti: Oh okay.

0:01:05.2 Jordan Syatt: The fantasy draft. Yeah, he was one of your number one picks.

0:01:08.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I didn’t actually take him but by far, the best tight end in the NFL. Plays for the Chiefs, has become one of the faces of the NFL through his personality, through his amazing play on the field and through… He has a podcast with his brother, who is a center for the Philadelphia Eagles, Jason Kelce. Their podcast is huge.

0:01:28.8 Jordan Syatt: Geez, they’re both NFL players?

0:01:30.0 Mike Vacanti: Mm-hmm.

0:01:32.4 Jordan Syatt: Wow okay.

0:01:33.3 Mike Vacanti: And last year, the Chiefs played the Eagles in the Super Bowl, so they were playing each other and both of them were in the spotlight, and their mom was a central figure in the media, getting asked questions and became a public figure. Anyway, recently, Travis Kelce’s been in the news because he is starting to date or has gone on a couple of dates with Taylor Swift, apparently.

0:01:56.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh that’s Travis Kelce. Wait is that the guy who said, “I played in Arrowhead. And you’re gonna have to see me in Arrowhead.”

0:02:05.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:02:06.1 Jordan Syatt: It’s that guy? Okay yeah. I know exactly who it is. Yep.

0:02:08.9 Mike Vacanti: Okay, so allegedly, based on what I’m seeing in the last couple of hours, which may have changed, he did a paid post for Pfizer promoting getting your booster.

0:02:24.6 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:02:25.9 Mike Vacanti: What a complete sellout.

[laughter]

0:02:33.8 Jordan Syatt: I didn’t know where you were going with that. Yeah.

0:02:36.9 Mike Vacanti: Where could I possibly go with that?

0:02:38.4 Jordan Syatt: I mean, it’s just not surprising to me. I don’t know him, I don’t know him personally, but I see celebrities and athletes and stuff do stuff… Do that all the time.

0:02:50.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but it’s…

0:02:51.3 Jordan Syatt: Not just for the vaccine, but for political figures, that’s the least surprising thing I’ve seen… I’ve heard ever.

0:02:58.9 Mike Vacanti: Give me some examples of people who are that out of touch with their fan base, and to give a 30-second recap, by the way, obviously the vaccine was a really good thing for people who were in high risk classes, whether they were older individuals, overweight or had various health conditions, saved hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives, based on everything that I have read and observed over the last several years, I believe that. Getting your fifth, sixth, seventh booster doesn’t do that. We’ll just leave it at that as far as vaccine talk or at least on my end.

0:03:37.6 Jordan Syatt: Listen the…

0:03:40.2 Mike Vacanti: For younger people and for specifically athletes.

0:03:42.4 Jordan Syatt: For younger people it’s probably a greater risk than there is benefit with…

0:03:45.8 Mike Vacanti: Benefit. Correct.

0:03:47.0 Jordan Syatt: Continuing to get more of those. And I think that’s pretty clear based on looking at non-partisan information and just if people get mad about this, it’s like… This isn’t saying anything about politics, is just like, let’s look at the science of these vaccines and boosters and… So yeah, I’m very much with you on that, I don’t know his fan base, I don’t know…

0:04:11.4 Mike Vacanti: You don’t know the typical NFL fan.

0:04:14.6 Jordan Syatt: I would imagine who they are. But, again…

0:04:21.0 Mike Vacanti: When you say you’re not surprised by it, the shill celebrities, the Kim Ks or fake natty…

0:04:29.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:04:30.9 Mike Vacanti: Allegedly fake… I need to start doing things to not get sued ’cause I’d like to not have that happen, but The Rock, people who are… Who it seems obvious that they just want money and will do whatever to get that. I don’t know. The disconnect between… We’ll see how it plays out in the next couple of weeks, but…

0:04:57.8 Jordan Syatt: Do you know how much she got paid for it?

0:04:58.6 Mike Vacanti: No. Definitely a seven-figure post though.

0:05:02.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s just so not surprising to me. And also because it’s pretty crazy looking at… And I don’t know anything about this guy, I don’t know anything about these claims, none of it, but what’s pretty crazy to me is to see what some of the things that were said during 2020, during the whole pandemic, all of that, looking at some of the things that some people said, either politicians, government officials, whatever it is, doctors, social media companies, looking at what they did, and looking at what they said which… And things that have been proven to be completely and utterly false, done for money, done… Terrible, terrible, terrible things. Knowingly lied, caught people on hidden cameras admitting their lies, all this stuff, and how quickly people just forget about.

0:06:00.6 Mike Vacanti: Forget about yeah.

0:06:01.7 Jordan Syatt: Immediately, like immediately forget about and justify it. Which, to me, I can see how in hindsight someone who is now faced with this proposition could be like, “Yeah, you know what, I could see his PR agency being like, ‘Listen, you’re gonna get some kickback early-on, but you have a few good games and then they’ll be back on your side.'” I could very much see that being a back room talk.

0:06:28.7 Mike Vacanti: The thing is he’s riling a base that… The people who are… And I’m just baffled by it to be honest. I’m baffled at how bad of a PR move it is to make that move given who his audience is. I don’t think people really forgot Target stuff. I don’t think people really forgot Bud Light stuff. Both of those companies are still feeling the effects of those moves. We’ll see how the next few weeks go or few months but he had to turn the comments off of his Instagram posts. I also…

0:07:06.4 Jordan Syatt: Did he just do it in the last couple days?

0:07:11.0 Mike Vacanti: Couple hours.

0:07:11.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, he posted…

[overlapping conversation]

0:07:12.8 Jordan Syatt: Got it, got it. Okay.

0:07:13.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Or maybe last night, I don’t know. Yesterday or today.

0:07:16.6 Jordan Syatt: Got it, okay.

0:07:17.4 Mike Vacanti: It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.

0:07:22.4 Jordan Syatt: I think it’s easier to boycott a Target or a Bud Light than it is to boycott that individual especially based on this type of a claim or this type of an issue. I don’t know. I don’t see… Especially if he starts crushing it and he has an amazing season, his fans are going to be like, “Whatever.” They’re not gonna give a shit, I think. The people who… I don’t know what team he’s on, I don’t know anything about what he does or any of that but I could see like if he helps them win a Super Bowl, I think his fans are going to be like, “Whatever.” They’re not going to worry about it at all.

0:07:55.6 Mike Vacanti: Football fans are on average, though, like red blooded Americans. I don’t know that you’re fully… I think this is…

0:08:04.3 Jordan Syatt: I might not be in touch with it.

0:08:06.5 Mike Vacanti: I think this is you getting paid 500K to completely flip and start promoting Carnivore really heavily.

0:08:15.9 Jordan Syatt: Which is wild. Yeah, it’s just, yeah, correct. Which would, yeah, just be such a stupid decision. Correct.

0:08:20.4 Mike Vacanti: So short-term, so unaligned with your audience.

0:08:23.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. I mean it sounds like it was that, which is pretty crazy. It makes you wonder how much money actually was paid. I mean these big pharma companies they… I really hope they don’t kill me. I’m so scared about that. Those companies talk about power. Yeah, I mean it makes you wonder how much money. It’s also crazy because it’s like, it really makes you… These companies aren’t stupid. They have to know about how much hate and vitriol and resistance they’re getting in terms of people not taking them, not wanting to take them, all the bad press around them, all the hidden camera stuff that’s come out about the heads of these companies who’ve been wheeling and dealing and lying about stuff. It makes you wonder why would they think this would be an effective strategy from a marketing perspective? It just doesn’t… I don’t know. Is any press good press?

0:09:29.7 Mike Vacanti: Well, dude, you remember…

0:09:29.8 Jordan Syatt: Is like just the name gets out?

0:09:32.4 Mike Vacanti: Remember de Blasio eating the burger and the French fries sitting on TV and being like, “If you go get your vaccine then,” we might need to blur some of these words for YouTube, but he’s like, “You get a free burger and French fries. Mm good burger. This is delicious.” I don’t know. It actually makes me think, ’cause we were spitballing on how much he would have gotten paid to shill this advertisement. And my mind goes to like, it has to be at least, and who knows if it’s a multi-post campaign coming, but it has to be at least a million and probably in the like one to five range, assuming he knows what the reaction will be from the majority of his fan base. But then it makes me think, “What if it’s not just money?” This is one of the first times where I’ve been even more suspicious about, “Hey, you promote this and then we’ll have you date the most famous singer and you’ll get even more popular.” It makes me even more conspiratorial and thinking about strings getting pulled behind the scenes.

0:10:45.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, a 100%. Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. And I’m definitely gonna piss a lot of people off at this talk.

0:10:52.5 Mike Vacanti: You think there’s people who listen to this podcast who have seven boosters?

0:11:00.5 Jordan Syatt: It’s not that they have them, although I’m sure there are people who have multiple boosters listening.

0:11:06.4 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no, but… No, but people who have gotten every booster that was recommended.

0:11:12.5 Jordan Syatt: I’m sure. I’m sure there’s, yeah, I’m sure there are if they’re…

0:11:13.4 Mike Vacanti: People on their 7th, 8th, 9th booster who… Continue.

0:11:18.4 Jordan Syatt: The question isn’t whether or not they have it. The question is whether or not they can hear this without taking offense to it. That is my… I’m sure there are people who’ve gotten every booster who listen for sure. And they’re probably a minority among people listening. But to be able to separate getting that from being offended or getting upset, that’s a very unique individual. And I would imagine if they’re getting every booster and they’re not severely immunocompromised and significantly older, they’re not… They’re getting all of their information straight from MSM, from mainstream media, and not from actual scientific sources. And so I think it’s a very… It’s a different person.

0:12:06.4 Mike Vacanti: I have people close to me, and people relatively close to me in my life who lean that way, who live with a lot of fear and who did get the first booster, the second booster, maybe even the third in some cases. But even they stopped when they saw the data into 2022 at the dwindling efficaciousness of these. Each additional booster and how small the benefit is and for how short a period of time it lasts.

0:12:36.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:12:38.7 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know. I said, “Should we get canceled?” And you said, “They hate us anyway.” But apparently they didn’t all hate us anyway. But now some more of them do.

0:12:47.8 Jordan Syatt: There might be a couple angry, couple angry reviews, but if you like the conversation, please leave some positive reviews for us to help balance those negative ones out. That would be super helpful. So, iTunes, Spotify, [laughter] the written positive reviews are super helpful.

0:13:07.8 Mike Vacanti: We can cut this if you want but…

0:13:09.4 Jordan Syatt: No. I don’t know.

0:13:09.4 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We can cut what I’m about to say…

[overlapping conversation]

[laughter]

0:13:15.3 Mike Vacanti: Has your mom gotten a booster every, like, few months?

0:13:18.2 Jordan Syatt: No. No. So she got the first, and we can keep this in. She got the first, I think she got one, maybe two, but that was it. And she was very gung-ho about it early-on. And now she’s like, “Whatever.” She’s, it’s just, yeah. But yeah, that’s part of who I was thinking in my head. It’s that demographic. My mom was very much that, but we could keep this in here. It’s not bad.

0:13:45.6 Mike Vacanti: But, and now I’m trying to think of people further out there than her who continued to get every booster, who also listened to our podcast every week.

[laughter]

0:13:57.5 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think there’s any.

[laughter]

0:14:00.6 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think there are. You think there’s a few?

0:14:02.8 Jordan Syatt: Maybe there’s none.

0:14:03.2 Mike Vacanti: I think the number is zero.

0:14:05.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I don’t know, our podcast is wildly popular. There are listeners from all over the world. We’ve got hundreds of millions of downloads every day.

0:14:15.3 Mike Vacanti: Alright. Well maybe I need to… Maybe I need to read…

0:14:17.6 Jordan Syatt: This is a joke by the way. We don’t actually have that.

0:14:20.3 Mike Vacanti: No. [laughter] I believe you. I think I need to read Dale Carnegie again and I need to tone it down. I think that’s what Jordan’s telling me.

0:14:25.6 Jordan Syatt: No, no. Tone it up. Tone it up.

0:14:26.2 Mike Vacanti: I need to be more of an ESTP.

0:14:28.4 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no.

0:14:30.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I can’t walk on eggshells any longer.

0:14:34.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. No…

0:14:34.9 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know that I ever was, actually.

0:14:35.9 Jordan Syatt: And I agree with everything. I’m just thinking like, I don’t know, I don’t know everyone who listens to the podcast. Could be.

0:14:42.6 Mike Vacanti: Where should we take this?

0:14:43.1 Jordan Syatt: How is your lower body lift?

0:14:46.2 Mike Vacanti: The leg extension machine was taken for a significant amount of time, so I couldn’t finish my last isolation exercise, but otherwise it was good.

0:14:54.8 Jordan Syatt: Did you do a substitution exercise for leg extension or no?

0:14:58.5 Mike Vacanti: No, I was already late for the podcast.

0:15:01.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, got it. Yeah. Yeah. You were… You were pretty late. [laughter] which honestly I wasn’t upset at all because like, you know, leverage. [laughter]

0:15:14.5 Mike Vacanti: The next time you wanna stroll in, in fairness, I was probably like eight minutes late and then GI track, so I was a few more minutes late. Okay. Let’s fire up some questions. Wanna fire up Q&A?

0:15:28.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, actually, did you see Gary made an interesting post on Instagram the other day. It might’ve been yesterday, you saw it?

0:15:37.2 Mike Vacanti: I can’t believe big pharma… I can’t believe big pharma companies are even allowed to…

0:15:40.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh wow. You really…

0:15:42.0 Mike Vacanti: Put marketing dollars like they do. [laughter] I can’t believe for the last how many years of my life I have to sit here and watch these commercials with smiling elderly people while the background is like, “Risk of heart disease, risk of death, risk of sudden death, risk of… “

0:15:58.1 Jordan Syatt: Colon cancer. Yeah.

[laughter]

0:16:00.2 Mike Vacanti: Every single risk. And they’re playing with their grandchild in a field smiling. And it’s like…

0:16:03.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Dude, the pharma world is pretty wild. I remember, I think, when I had the podcast with Spencer Nadolsky and Danielle Belardo, I didn’t realize it, but there’s a way where you can check to see which doctors have gotten paid from pharma, which is you can actually see how much money each of these doctors have gotten paid. But what I don’t think is available is, what I don’t think [chuckle] what is definitely not available is what other public figures have gotten paid by them, whether it’s political figures or whether it’s actors or whatever it is. What I would love to know is which politicians, on both sides, are getting paid and by who, or I don’t know if it’s who or by whom, but it’s one of those.

0:17:02.4 Mike Vacanti: I don’t either.

0:17:03.5 Jordan Syatt: And I would love to… If there’s a way to make that public, but obviously that will never be, I shouldn’t say never, that would be… It’s funny, I’ve been listening to all of the podcasts Joe Rogan did with Edward Snowden, and he was really… He was talking a lot about this, about how we have these public officials and private citizens. And public officials are supposed to be public. That’s what they sign up for. That’s what they’re getting paid for, that’s their job. And private citizens are supposed to be private by nature. What we really have is a reversal of that in which private citizens are actually… There’s public access to them. Whether all these companies, all the data that we collect is public information for all of these people. And these, the politicians, they will commit crimes, they will do certain things, and by and large some of them get caught and some of them face issues, but a lot of them, it gets swept under the rug.

0:18:02.4 Jordan Syatt: They get moved around. They’re actually far more private. It doesn’t actually get covered because of the influence they have. I thought it was such a unique and interesting way to look at it. It’s like it really is a huge role reversal. And he said the only way that this can change to make it more fair and what our government was designed to be like is through complete transparency and through real accountability held at the highest level where if a crime is committed, whether it’s… Whoever it is, regardless of what level of office they hold, regardless of anything, they have to be met with the repercussions. And it has to be open and public information. And…

0:18:44.0 Jordan Syatt: It shouldn’t be private. And so it was… Edward Snowden’s… He’s one of the most amazing speakers I’ve ever heard. He’s so thoughtful, so articulate, if you haven’t listened to those episodes on Joe Rogan’s podcast, listen to them in order. They are truly remarkable. And he’s an incredible, incredible man, and I knew the base story of what he did, I didn’t fully understand it, I’m gonna get his book and listen to that as well, but we have a huge role reversal, and I think so much of that is driven by money. I would imagine pharma and other industries paying off politicians. And also, I don’t know, never mind paying them off, killing them off or threatening to kill them. We’re talking about some of the most powerful people and companies in the world. Of course, the stuff that we see in movie is the stuff that we see at whatever it is, I don’t know, what their… Who is being threatened and what information they have, and… I have no idea. I don’t know, but it wouldn’t shock me, in the least, to find out about that.

0:19:57.3 Mike Vacanti: I’m with you brother. I’m with you. What was Gary’s post?

0:20:05.2 Jordan Syatt: Gary made a post about Instagram and social media, which I thought… It was really good. It was very good. I actually sent it to my videographer ’cause we’ve been… We’re always trying to tinker. And everything that I do on social media, the way that I think about all of my posts is every post is a test, everything that I do is just a test to see, it’s not like a pass or fail, it’s sort of like when people look at their daily nutrition as a pass or fail. If they didn’t hit their calories that day, they look at it as a failure, and they’re like, “Well, why bother?” And people, often coaches, people trying to build their fitness business or whatever it is online, they look at their social media posts like a pass, fail. If it gets a good amount of likes or a good amount views, or whatever it is it’s a pass, and it’s all completely subjective in terms of what’s a good amount versus a bad amount, and it can change day-to-day and all of that, but if it gets a bad amount, whatever you’ve deemed bad response, then you failed. And I think that often leads people to not wanna post anymore, not wanna share content, not think that they can succeed, and it’s been very interesting looking at Instagram especially over the last year, but especially since TikTok really blew up, but I think Instagram changed a lot over the last year or so, maybe even six to eight months, how content does.

0:21:27.7 Jordan Syatt: I used to be able to predict it with a pretty high level of certainty how a piece of content would do, now it’s zero level of certainty, I have no idea how a piece of content is gonna do, and he made a great piece of content. I’ll show it to you, people are watching on YouTube. He had… The first slide has… It’s gonna be backwards on the screen, but me trying to figure out what’s working on Instagram right now, it’s just like him in the middle of an office with red lines and papers posted up, but then you swipe over and it’s a video of him talking about it, and he’s basically, in the video, he’s talking about how he’s trying to hack Instagram, and he said… He was talking about how some social media platforms are early-on in the social media game, different platforms where it was like the minor leagues or little league. He said Instagram used to be more minor leagues, a little league, it was relatively easy. Now it’s the pros. Instagram is a different ball game now, it’s a very different world, and he’s constantly trying to figure it out, and he’s going through periods of better or worse engagement, which I think he’s got over 10 million followers, and this is Gary, this is what he’s arguably most…

0:22:38.1 Jordan Syatt: Well-known for, his social media stuff. And so it was a very, very good, insightful, honest, open post, just saying, this is normal, it’s a different ball game. Things have changed, but keep trying new things, and instead of looking at it from a pass, fail perspective, look at every post… It’s just a test. You’re just testing it out. Try new things. I just did an entire series, part 1, part 2, part 3 of chin-up videos like how to get your first chin-up. Probably the worst engagement I’ve had since like 2014 on post. Just terrible. But like, “Cool.” And I think… It’s funny, I don’t think… It’s definitely not ’cause the videos were bad, I guarantee if I posted those videos in 2017 2018, they would have went bananas. I actually think what’s an interesting thing to be aware of now on social media, especially Instagram, is there are so many more people making educational content that purely educational content doesn’t hit as well as it used to. There are so many videos of how do you push-ups, how to do squats, how to do chin-ups, there are so many of those, and so many…

0:23:44.1 Jordan Syatt: It doesn’t hit like it used to. People aren’t as interested in that anymore, whereas unfortunately, one thing I do see people really interested in is these stitch videos where you take someone else’s video and then you give you a commentary on it, and I think there are ways to do that, that are intelligent and not at homonym, not attacking the person. But I would be… I know someone, actually, a good friend who’s been doing it recently, and I’ve looked in the comments of this person’s post, and a lot of comments are people saying, “I don’t like how you’re doing this because you’re tearing the other person down.” So just be very aware of when you’re doing these style of posts, how you’re actually talking about the post and making it clear that you’re not ripping the person apart, you’re talking about the ideas presented, because it’s a huge brand shift to go from an educational-style coach to a almost like… It almost looks bitter. It doesn’t look good if you’re trying to tear people apart, and I actually don’t think it’s good for… I don’t think it’s necessarily good for business, I don’t think it’s good for your soul, I don’t think it’s good for your mind, for your body, I don’t think it’s good for you to be looking for people’s content…

0:25:01.8 Jordan Syatt: To then… ’cause that’s what you’re gonna have to do. You’re gonna have to look for content that’s bad to then rip it apart. And I don’t think it’s the best business strategy from the majority of your content perspective, I don’t think that’s the best idea. Sometimes, occasionally sure. But I don’t think it should be done a majority of the time, it’d be better to just take a news story, a headline, as opposed to an individual’s content.

0:25:27.8 Mike Vacanti: I like that. I like those ideas about the current landscape of Instagram and the mindset shift of, “This isn’t pass fail, this is all testing, this is all learning, there’s no good or bad outcome, there’s just try, learn from, adjust, try again.” And I think that’ll especially help any coaches who are struggling to make content because they feel like they aren’t getting the level of feedback or the level of engagement or the positive response that they deserve, or maybe even that they used to get one or two or three years ago.

0:26:04.3 Jordan Syatt: You wanna talk about Sam Sulek and his YouTube? We were talking about it earlier. You introduced me to it.

0:26:09.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I randomly… So I think it just hit my algorithm, my YouTube, not shorts, but just scrolling through YouTube, and there was a vlog that said, I don’t remember what it said, back day… Cut day 28 back or something, and there’s just monster dude in the picture, but what caught my eye the most was it had 800,000 views. I was like, “What the heck is… Who is this guy? I’ve never even seen this guy before,” this giant guy with long hair and a hat, baseball cap pulled down though, and click on it and just this chill, roided out, happy dude, just talking about, “What’s up, so I had this two fucking slices of cheese, it’s like a snack, 18 protein, 20 fat,” stuff that… Clearly just saying what’s on his mind, not trying to be performative, not trying to be engaging there is no jump cuts.

0:27:23.8 Jordan Syatt: Not like a Mr. Beast style.

0:27:27.4 Mike Vacanti: The opposite of Mr. Beast’s style videos. Just old school 2015 style, him in the camera vlog, no videographer, no editing no music, no jump cuts, none of that. And then I go through and it looks like he’s uploading daily, and it all is around his training, all of his content and nutrition and life, and he’s getting hundreds of thousands of views on every single video…

0:27:54.2 Mike Vacanti: Like 1.2 million views on a video from a full day of eating video from three days ago, just crazy numbers. Which is, I guess, surprising, number one, and number two, cool. I think it makes sense that people connect with authenticity, which seems like something, in my limited exposure to him, that he has, and I’m talking like maybe 10 minutes of consumption total, he seems to have that and I don’t know, would he be doing those numbers if he didn’t have an incredible physique, probably not to be…

0:28:34.9 Jordan Syatt: No. Definitely not. Yeah.

0:28:37.3 Mike Vacanti: To be honest, but seems like a cool guy and just a testament to the fact that different styles of content can work.

0:28:49.3 Jordan Syatt: The other thing is there’s a lot here. One of the things that you pointed out earlier when we were looking at his channel was the comments on his channel, there were thousands of posts people saying, “He just seems like such a chill dude, such a nice dude, just his videos or just him and the camera. There’s no special effects,” and to see many people commenting that they enjoy that and that they like how it’s not jump cutty, they like how it’s not special effects, they like how it’s not super well-edited, it’s like… I think it can be very comforting to people, to creators to know that you don’t have to have super highly edited videos and have it make it look really good. It’s more about you. And the other thing on top of that is, I’ve never had those types of views that Sam Sulek has. Ever. Neither have you.

0:29:41.7 Mike Vacanti: No.

0:29:42.4 Jordan Syatt: But we both have done very well with our business, and I think that’s a really, really important point to understand is you don’t need that level of engagement to have a very successful business. And even if you have a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of that many, many views and subscribers, and all of that, you can still follow that same protocol, that same model of just being yourself and sharing helpful information and with a smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller level of people, smaller amount of people who follow you, still build a very, very successful business, that is one of the things I love about seeing that channel, and I think people are craving that style of content, people are more than ever… More than ever.

0:30:27.1 Jordan Syatt: I think people are already getting burned out from the outrageous fast reels, jump-cut, quick fast, I think people are getting burned out, and they’re getting tired of it, and people are looking for a long-form content that can keep them on one task, one piece of content for a long period of time…

[overlapping conversation]

0:30:51.9 Mike Vacanti: You’re describing yourself right now too.

0:30:57.2 Jordan Syatt: Of course.

0:30:58.4 Mike Vacanti: I know because you in the last three weeks, I’ve witnessed your consumption style change, I didn’t even think it ever would. I remember you being on a flight talking about not wanting… You were like, “I was scrolling, but I didn’t wanna be scrolling,” and your exact words in your texts to me, you said, “I wanted to do something less dopaminergic.” And so you put on a podcast. It’s that constant attention-switching depleting effect on the brain. I think that I haven’t watched enough of Sam’s videos to know for certain, but he also seems to not be selling anything, and I would imagine that that also plays a beneficial role in engagement. Now, is that optimal for business? No. Depending on long-term strategy.

0:31:51.7 Jordan Syatt: Maybe.

0:31:54.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, maybe maybe. But maybe he doesn’t… Maybe he’s not doing it to monetize, maybe he’s just doing it to share, maybe he’s doing it to monetize in the future, maybe he’s monetizing now and I’ve just missed it, but it seems like he’s genuinely documenting his bulking seasons and then his cutting seasons. I think he’s been doing this for eight months. I scrolled back on his YouTube today.

0:32:16.1 Jordan Syatt: That’s crazy. It’s definitely not, and that’s an important discussion to have, is it best for business? Is it good for it for dollars? Short-term, no, absolutely not. If he was selling something, he can make way more dollars short-term. Is it good for brand long-term, yes. And I think something that’s good for brand long-term is good for dollars long-term, but that’s where people get into these issues is like, “Okay, well,” they wanna be doing these supplement sales and affiliate codes and selling this and selling that short-term, and those short-term dollars can look really enticing, but it’s actually terrible for brand and money long-term.

0:32:57.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. You get your first 300 followers and then you’re like, “Oh, I need an Athletic Greens code,” and then you start pumping it at them, that’s gonna inhibit your ability to grow your audience.

0:33:06.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, especially now, if this was 2004…

0:33:10.4 Mike Vacanti: Sure.

0:33:11.4 Jordan Syatt: I think it’d be different because it was, wow, 20 years ago, that’s fucking wild, but it was… No one was doing it then. Now everyone and their mom has a discount code, and it’s just… Everyone understands how it works, and it’s obnoxious.

0:33:27.3 Mike Vacanti: And I skew anti-sales. I wrote an article why I don’t do affiliate marketing in 2014, because even then I felt it was over-saturated and it hurt brand. But yeah, cool to see someone like that. And I actually I’m gonna watch more of his stuff, I hope he talks openly about what compounds he’s using and how he developed that insane physique.

0:33:52.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah that’s wild.

0:33:53.7 Mike Vacanti: No, really, ’cause I would bet 90% of my net worth at 1 to 1 that he’s not on there saying…

0:34:02.7 Jordan Syatt: He’s natty.

0:34:04.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah because that would… There’s too much good information from More Plates More Dates to, Greg Doucette to these guys who have gone after fake natties so hard for the last three to five years, I don’t think that a Mike O’Hearn or a Simeon Panda or a… These classic guys who get accused of being… I’m gonna say get accused of being a fake natty. I don’t think that you can explode like that at this time, I think that in this era of material wealth and showy-ness and deceit and lying, I don’t think that that can win at that level, so I would imagine he’s saying that like, “Yeah, of course, I’m taking stuff.”

0:34:49.9 Jordan Syatt: You really don’t wanna get sued.

0:34:51.8 Mike Vacanti: No I don’t wanna get sued. If not… If he is claiming natty, then I don’t understand. Then I wanna never go on the internet again ’cause I just don’t understand anything.

0:35:04.6 Jordan Syatt: I would be shocked based on the positivity of the comments, I feel like that would be the top comment. Every video it would be like, “Alright, just stop pretending you’re natural.” And for all of the comments to just be so positive and nice, it doesn’t seem like anyone can have anything bad to say about this guy. Probably stemming from his honesty. Honesty in terms of actually what comes out of his mouth, and also honesty in terms of his production and everything he’s doing, it’s honest of him. It’s funny, it’s almost like when you have all these fancy edits and crazy… These fancy things that you put in your videos, it’s like a filter, it’s like you’re catfishing people on a dating app, it’s not real it’s not authentic.

0:35:55.9 Mike Vacanti: Or clickbaiting.

0:35:58.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, it’s just… It’s not honest is what it is, and it’s not to say you can’t use them, shit I use them, I have a videographer and he helps me with it, but if you watch my videos, even my videographer, it’s just me in front of a whiteboard and he’ll maybe get a 7-to-15-second clip of me training Jujitsu every now and then.

0:36:18.8 Jordan Syatt: Or strength training where he’s just moving around and getting different shots of me, but it’s still all very straightforward and honest, it’s not like crazy shots or any of that, but someone like Sam Sulek, who’s literally just him and a camera, nothing crazy, no jump cuts even, it’s just… That’s the definition of honest because that’s exactly… It’s exactly what it looks like. It’s like your one-take show, this is it. Is what you get.

0:36:50.7 Mike Vacanti: I’m gonna finish because I think this is an educational segment for people to learn from what he’s doing, but in the fitness industry, I’m gonna put the cap on this conversation that you need to be remarkable in some way, which either means physique or strength or something fitness-related to do numbers like that with this strategy.

0:37:13.9 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Yeah, correct.

0:37:16.0 Mike Vacanti: Can’t just upload 60-minute vlogs every single day of your life and… It wouldn’t work.

0:37:22.8 Jordan Syatt: Or I do it and look like me, you can’t look like me and just upload a 60-minute blog just like, “Yep, I’ve got two slices of cheese, it’s a fucking snack,” that’s how he started a video, he was like…

0:37:35.0 Jordan Syatt: “Oh. Almost forgot to record. All right, let’s look at what I eat. Two slices of cheese. [laughter] fucking snack.” [laughter] Which is funny ’cause that was like 14 seconds in. And like, one of the number… Like top five rules of YouTube is don’t swear in the first minute because they’ll downgrade it. And that video had like over a million views and he just doesn’t give a shit at all. [laughter] Fucking snack.

0:38:03.7 Mike Vacanti: There’s no attention getter or hook or any of that. It’s just, “Hey… ” he’s like a lot of verbal fillers, not really making any points in the first 30 seconds of the video.

0:38:15.4 Jordan Syatt: It looked like a 1998 home video.

0:38:18.0 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:38:19.6 Jordan Syatt: Just like a…

0:38:20.3 Mike Vacanti: Yes. [laughter] Which, look, I get content that is nostalgic, like throwback to ’90s content. So maybe that’s a real play.

0:38:35.0 Jordan Syatt: You know what I’ve actually seen people doing and I’ve felt nostalgia for it, is they’ve been taking those cameras that give you an instant picture. Remember those cameras that we had when we were younger? You get an instant picture from it.

0:38:48.5 Mike Vacanti: Polaroid.

0:38:48.9 Jordan Syatt: Polaroids. Yeah, exactly. And people are even… There are filters now to make your pictures look like they’re Polaroids. Which is just like, you have the highest quality camera that money can buy, and you are using a filter to make it look like a shit quality picture. It’s funny. People are wanting to go back to that style. It’s so interesting. Back then they were like, “I wish this could be clearer.” And it didn’t look like… There was just like terrible, terrible quality. And now it’s like, “Oh, let’s go back to make it look like it’s that shitty-ass polaroid picture.” [laughter]

0:39:27.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Wild, right?

0:39:29.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. People are nuts. Humans are… We’re an interesting species.

0:39:35.3 Mike Vacanti: Should we pull another question?

0:39:36.2 Jordan Syatt: Actually, we didn’t even have a question.

0:39:37.9 Mike Vacanti: This is a great pod. Leave a five star review if you want more pods like this. [laughter] Would you say your primary training objective right now is health and longevity?

0:39:57.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:39:58.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:40:00.4 Jordan Syatt: Yep. And feeling really good. I just, right before this podcast, I did a 30-minute stretch session and it’s just feeling my back loosen up and my hips loosen up and my hamstrings loosen up and feeling… Doing movements to get more movement in my spine and lateral flexion, all that, just feeling really good. Yeah. Health, longevity and feeling good. For sure. And Jujitsu is now a second. What about you?

0:40:35.1 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know, definitely not strength. Like some combination of health and aesthetics, but not aesthetics in the way I thought about them in 2012. Which was, not idolizing, but holding a higher level of leanness on giving it more value than I do now. But reasonable strength, reasonable amount of muscle, reasonable leanness, reasonable mobility. Feeling good. Yeah. Cardio. Yeah.

0:41:15.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s so funny. I didn’t realize how good I felt when I was younger because I just felt good all the time. My mobility was good and I had no aches and pains and I didn’t have that tight feeling. But now after I sit down or even just waking up, I’m like, “Ah, my back… ” it’s tighter. It has that tight feeling. So for me to go and just do a 30-minute stretch and just have that be alleviated. That’s addicting because then I actually… That’s like feeling younger for me. It’s like I feel young, I can move better, I’m not restricted that underlying low level tightness… The brain is… I can relax a little bit more because I’m not thinking about it. Even subconsciously.

0:42:10.0 Mike Vacanti: You think that has come for you with age?

0:42:13.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:42:14.5 Mike Vacanti: Age being the primary factor that’s increased your level of tightness?

0:42:17.8 Jordan Syatt: Lifestyle, not age.

0:42:21.3 Mike Vacanti: Okay. Because I…

0:42:22.6 Jordan Syatt: It’s lifestyle. Yeah.

0:42:23.7 Mike Vacanti: I feel that tightness in these isolated periods of time where I spend massive amounts of time at the computer. Whether it’s a very busy week with a lot of program design, a lot of client updates, a lot of client issues kind of box together in a few days where I have to spend a lot of time at the computer. I’ll feel that. But most of the time when I’m rolling, when I’m using a softball, when I’m not sitting for extended periods of time consecutively, or at least if I have a lot of work to do, I get up every 30 to 60 minutes and move around a little bit. When I’m not being an idiot with my training, like taking certain heavy compounds close to failure and risking some kind of tweak. When I am eating reasonably, my body feels way better and way better now than it did 10 years ago or even 6 to 15 years ago, that entire window basically. I feel better now as a result of modifying training and lifestyle.

0:43:31.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I mean, that makes total sense. But also I would imagine that six, however many years ago, you were also… You were lifting really heavy weight. You were lifting super heavy and… Right? I mean, that’s when you deadlifted your heaviest ever and you were squatting super heavy.

0:43:48.4 Mike Vacanti: No. No. That was…

0:43:49.4 Jordan Syatt: That was like six years ago, right? 6, 7, 8 years ago?

0:43:54.2 Mike Vacanti: Oh. Yeah. That bulks. Yeah. That was seven years ago. That’s when I was definitely my biggest. Not at my strongest low… Yeah. At my strongest upper body, I’d say not lower body.

0:44:05.2 Mike Vacanti: But yeah, you’re right. Like training for maximal strength is going to lead to you feeling banged up and tight very often. Whereas bringing intensity down a little bit, absolute intensity or the amount of weight you’re lifting, bringing that down a little bit, bringing volume down a little bit, you’re just gonna feel better day to day as a result of that.

0:44:25.6 Jordan Syatt: Running also really screws with my back. That’s why I like doing the high incline walking or elliptical as opposed to direct ’cause running just, it really does. I can do a zone two and not really an issue, but a relatively short zone two. But if I’m going for like an hour or more, my back really starts to feel it. And so that for me that’s… I love that lower impact type cardio ’cause it doesn’t have any issue with my back whatsoever.

0:45:00.6 Mike Vacanti: Don’t quote me on this, but allegedly Goggin spends 2 to 3 hours every night static stretching.

0:45:08.2 Jordan Syatt: I believe it. I mean, he has to. I believe that. Yeah.

0:45:11.9 Mike Vacanti: My low back has always been okay with running, historically, but my hips would get so tight and I wouldn’t put in the time required to stretch them to offset. So yeah.

0:45:25.7 Jordan Syatt: I’m really liking, and this is… When I first started strength training, I started really strength training with kettlebells and doing awkward lifts, whether it was Turkish get ups or windmills or any of those awkward movements where you’re almost inherently limited by how much you can lift because it’s sort of an awkward implement in an awkward position as opposed to a deadlift or a squat in which you’re optimizing… Number one; the barbell is optimized to hold as much weight as possible in your hands on your back. And the movement is optimized to try and lift as much weight as possible. It’s like you are loading your body with the most amount of weight you possibly can, and you’re also trying to reduce the range of motion as much as you can in order to lift it. It’s terrible, terrible strategy from a joint health perspective and overall movement perspective.

0:46:23.1 Jordan Syatt: I’m getting back into these awkward movements and awkward lifts. Doing these things that so many people traditionally say are bad for you. Rotating under loads. Yesterday I did a bunch of kettlebell windmills but with a lot of added rotation to it, like a lot of added rotation to it. And with a pretty relatively lightweight from a max weight perspective, nowhere near as much weight as I would squat or deadlift, but it felt pretty heavy for that movement. But these awkward lifts… Severe rotation inflection while lifting is making me feel so good. And the mistake I would’ve made when I was younger is trying to overload these movements outrageously heavy when the reality is you need to reduce it for the demands of that movement, which will require and necessitate you to lift lighter loads, but still heavy relative to that movement.

0:47:28.6 Mike Vacanti: You would’ve loaded them heavier due to ego or because…

0:47:33.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Ego. And I would’ve completed the lift out of ego. [laughter],

0:47:37.7 Mike Vacanti: And I would have done it.

0:47:39.5 Jordan Syatt: And I would’ve done it, but it would’ve screwed me up big time. Now there… As you know, it’s Henry Rollins, there’s no ego in the gym once you really understand the iron. 200 pounds is always 200 pounds. It’s actually, you know what, it’s almost funny, 200 pounds is always 200 pounds, but 200 pounds feels a lot different based on whatever movement you’re doing. Right. And so you really gotta adjust that to not only have you been giving the iron the time it deserves. Have you been consistent in the gym? Have you been training hard? But also have you trained your body through this range of motion? Have you done this movement? I haven’t trained in these awkward movement patterns for a long time. So getting back into it just, it feels great, but I’m starting at ground zero again.

0:48:27.7 Mike Vacanti: One question to finish.

0:48:30.3 Jordan Syatt: I got such a weird question in this Q&A [laughter] I’m not gonna say the person’s Instagram handle. I don’t understand it. Maybe you can, maybe you’ve been on some weird places in Reddit where this will make sense. I don’t know. Someone asked me…

0:48:46.2 Mike Vacanti: You’re a Redditor. I’m not a Redditor.

0:48:48.4 Jordan Syatt: I’m not a Redditor [laughter]

0:48:50.3 Mike Vacanti: The only time I ever go on Reddit is to see what people think of an episode of ‘The Challenge’. And I’m like, “What the heck happened here in this hall brawl? Can you believe that TJ didn’t blow this?” And then the first thing that pops up is like Reddit The Challenge Season 24, episode nine, Zach versus CT Hall Brawl [laughter]

0:49:10.4 Jordan Syatt: Seriously. Oh, that’s so funny, man. Reddit has everything.

0:49:14.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. You would know.

[laughter]

0:49:15.9 Jordan Syatt: They said, “is it offensive to name a child Cohen?” Which it’s…

0:49:27.2 Mike Vacanti: I would imagine they’re saying, because Cohen’s a common Jewish last name, they’re asking you…

0:49:32.3 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Correct.

0:49:33.4 Mike Vacanti: If it’s offensive for them to make their child who isn’t Jewish making their first name, Cohen.

0:49:40.9 Jordan Syatt: So is it offensive to name a non-Jewish child, a Jewish name?

0:49:45.5 Mike Vacanti: I think specifically they want to know if they can make their child’s first name, Cohen, if the child isn’t Jewish or if that’s offensive. [laughter] I think that’s what they want to know.

0:49:58.1 Jordan Syatt: I just think it’s so funny. That’s such a wild thing to ask. No, and I mean, for me, no. I don’t… It’s very difficult to offend me. I don’t know anyone who would be upset about that. [laughter] I just, I’m taken, I remember seeing this question and I was taken aback by it. I was like, “I don’t know how to… No, if you like… ” I mean, listen, I’ve seen some pretty crazy names that parents have chosen to name their kids. That doesn’t seem like that crazy of a name. If you like it, go for it. I don’t know. What do you think? Are you offended by it?

[overlapping conversation]

0:50:41.2 Mike Vacanti: Dm, “No, I’m not offended in the least bit. I think it’s kind of cool.”

0:50:44.2 Jordan Syatt: I think it’s a cool name.

0:50:46.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I think it’s akin to asking like a… I’m trying to think of a different ethnicity/common name for a group of people. I’m blanking.

0:51:07.1 Jordan Syatt: I can’t wait to hear this one.

0:51:08.4 Mike Vacanti: Hang on, hang on. I got one. [laughter] What ethnicity is… Okay, so, all right. I got some Swedish in me. So if someone was like, “Mike, I want to name my kid Forsberg after the great Peter Forsberg, but I’m not Swedish.” Not only would I not be offended, I wouldn’t care. And I wouldn’t even think about it.

0:51:35.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It wouldn’t even be a… [laughter] there would be no… Like if I met that person and they’re like, “Yeah, this is my son. His name is Cohen.” Like, “Oh, nice to meet you.” There would be zero, “Why is… ” [laughter]

0:51:50.2 Mike Vacanti: I think, you know what? I bet there’s probably some element.

0:51:53.0 Jordan Syatt: It’s actually a great name.

0:51:54.7 Mike Vacanti: That’s a cool name. You put that one in here?

0:52:00.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:52:01.8 Mike Vacanti: There’s probably some element too that where they’re hypersensitive to offending Jewish people versus people of other ethnicities for whatever reason.

0:52:12.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Maybe. Or just like aware of not wanting to offend anybody. I don’t know. Maybe I’m the only Jew. I get that a lot. I’m the only Jew that a lot of these people follow. So sometimes people will ask me questions because they don’t have any one else to ask.

0:52:27.8 Mike Vacanti: Or no one in their real life.

0:52:30.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. They don’t know any real Jewish people. I get that a lot. Anytime I’ll share like Hanukkah stuff or Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur or whatever it is. Anytime I share anything Jewish, I get a lot of messages from people being like, “I don’t know any Jews. Can I ask you questions?” [laughter] And I’m like, “Yeah, absolutely. Of course.” So like, maybe that was it. That would actually make a lot of sense.

0:52:54.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Cohen. Cohen Syatt.

0:52:56.0 Jordan Syatt: Cohen.

0:52:57.6 Mike Vacanti: No, I know what your name in… I know some of the names you have up your sleeve.

0:53:03.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, if I have a son, I know exactly what I’m gonna name him.

0:53:06.7 Mike Vacanti: Can I say it?

0:53:07.8 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no.

0:53:09.5 Mike Vacanti: Well, David will bleep it out.

0:53:10.5 Jordan Syatt: Well then what’s the point of saying it?

0:53:11.0 Mike Vacanti: [REDACTED]

[laughter]

0:53:11.6 Jordan Syatt: Bleep that out. David bleep that one out. [laughter] You know what’s crazy?

0:53:20.5 Mike Vacanti: Do you remember that though? We were on the phone this was like over…

0:53:25.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I do remember that.

0:53:26.7 Mike Vacanti: This was a year and a half ago.

0:53:27.1 Jordan Syatt: Before my daughter was born. Yeah.

0:53:29.4 Mike Vacanti: And I was on speaker. Your wife was on too. And I was like, “Oh, you gonna name him [REDACTED].” bleep that out.

0:53:35.8 Jordan Syatt: Bleep that out, David.

0:53:35.9 Mike Vacanti: And she looked at you like, “You told Mike?” Kinda was like the reaction. And you’re like, “Bro, did I tell you that?” [laughter] It’s like, “No, just [REDACTED].” [laughter]

0:53:46.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah dude. Dude, I remember that. That was crazy. But did I tell you about my buddy Adam, how he named his son that and like…

0:53:55.1 Mike Vacanti: No.

0:53:56.2 Jordan Syatt: So his wife was pregnant with his son when my wife was pregnant with our daughter. And we were telling each other the names and I was like, “What are you gonna name your son?” And he said it. And in my mind I was like, I must have told him that that’s what I was gonna name my kid if I had a son. So I laughed and he was like, “What?” I was like, “Yeah, that’s funny.” He was like, “What’s funny?” I was like, “No, really, what are you naming him?” And he was like, “That’s his name.” [laughter] And I was like, “That’s what I was gonna name if I had a son.” [laughter] So now he knows. I was like, “If I have a son, just so you know, I’m not copying you. That’s what I was planning even before you told me that.” But yeah, [laughter]

0:54:43.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s funny.

0:54:45.0 Jordan Syatt: Bleep those out, David. Bleep those names out. What would you name your son?

0:54:52.1 Mike Vacanti: Right here.

0:54:53.2 Jordan Syatt: If you have a son?

0:54:54.2 Mike Vacanti: It’s right here. I’m a vault.

0:54:58.3 Jordan Syatt: Temple?

0:55:00.2 Mike Vacanti: Temple [laughter]

0:55:01.8 Jordan Syatt: Temple Vacanti. [laughter]

0:55:03.8 Mike Vacanti: If you are interested in joining the mentorship, just so you know, the price is going up. It’s going up very soon and it’s going up by a lot. And we’ve made a bunch of these announcements over the last several weeks. So you’ve had ample time. Just one of your final reminders. Thought I’d lay it for you here at the end of this landmine filled episode of talking boosters and [REDACTED] and Cohen and [laughter] the Personal Trainer podcast with Mike and Jordan. Thank you for listening.

0:55:36.6 Jordan Syatt: Have a good week.

0:55:37.3 Mike Vacanti: Have a great week, and we will see you next week. Goodbye.