Episode 148: New Research On Productivity, Jeff Bezos, Male vs Female CEOs, and More

0:00:12.2 Mike Vacanti: Hello Jordan.

0:00:13.0 Jordan Syatt: People like the post I put up this morning on our Instagram feed.

0:00:16.8 Mike Vacanti: Oh, wow. You’re, you’re J-ing on me. What did you put up? And by the way, good job posting.

0:00:21.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You only had asked me twice in the last 24 hours. That was good. That was good. Yeah. Yeah. You, I put up [laughter] It was actually a funny, it was a funny one. It was a clip of when you were reading someone’s question and they were asking about a plank with a tricep extension. And I was like, what the fuck is a plank with a tricep extension? [laughter] And there, and, David made a whole clip about that. So I posted that this morning. It was a funny one.

0:00:48.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s awesome. People enjoyed it on our Instagram, @personaltrainerpodcast.

0:00:52.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh Yeah. Oh yeah. Instagram, YouTube. Yes, sir. They enjoyed it. They liked our, our facial expressions while… Like trying to decipher what the fuck that would look Like.

0:01:00.9 Mike Vacanti: I’m gonna have to jump on Instagram on my desktop, which for the last 10 days is where I have been using Instagram only to check the PT pod page if I’m being completely honest. And I’ll have to watch that one.

0:01:14.3 Jordan Syatt: Yo. Bring your mic closer to your mouth.

0:01:17.0 Mike Vacanti: You can’t hear… Turn the volume up on your computer.

0:01:19.7 Jordan Syatt: I just turned it up literally to the max. I can hear you. It’s just, it’s not as, not as like oomph as it normally is.

0:01:26.7 Mike Vacanti: Oh, interesting. Okay. How’s this?

0:01:29.4 Jordan Syatt: There we go. Yes, that’s better.

0:01:30.9 Mike Vacanti: Alright. Dude, I’m, I’m exhausted. Yeah. Get, get that phone on DND.

0:01:37.8 Jordan Syatt: Let me turn on DND [laughter] What, what.

0:01:41.6 Mike Vacanti: I…

0:01:42.1 Jordan Syatt: What happened? Why are you exhausted?

0:01:43.6 Mike Vacanti: Well, I just hit a, a big time poll day. However, I’m usually real jacked up and I made a pre-workout switch that I was telling you about in the last week. And so previously I was having a third of a can of Ghost and a quarter scoop of David Laid’s Euphoria. Which had like, unbelievable psycho stimulatory benefits. There’s only like 150 milligrams of caffeine total in, in the combination of the two. But, my mental state during my workout and for hours after my workout was incredible. And so I’d have that then we’d podcast or do a Q and A with the mentorship. Like that’s peak mental state for me. If we don’t have anything else, then I’d be designing training programs or doing client updates, whatever it might be. But that was like a highly productive timeframe. I switched over out of nostalgia ’cause I found this, this giant thing of Purple Wraath, which was highly recommended by Martin Berkhan back in the day.

0:02:46.0 Mike Vacanti: It’s basically BCAAs. There’s a little bit, there’s like some beta alanine, there’s some kind of proprietary blend in there. But, I found a giant jug of it that’s about to go bad in my cabinet that I probably bought two years ago. I was like, “Why not?” So I did a scoop of that with a little less than a full scoop of Legion. So it’s still 150 milligrams of caffeine, but obviously some of the ingredients are different for my prior pre-workout, my actual lifts, the last few lifts have been incredible. Like very strong, very explosive, felt really good. However, there’s no, like, there’s no mental upside, there’s no euphoria for lack of a better term. So I’m starting to think there’s something illegal in one, in either Ghost or Euphoria, There’s something weird [laughter],

0:03:39.9 Jordan Syatt: Some kind of meth in there that really [laughter]

0:03:42.4 Mike Vacanti: Some kind of, some kind of meth.

[laughter]

0:03:46.0 Mike Vacanti: Or like a nootropic or like something that is super stimulatory mentally, but not as beneficial physically. So I’m trying to work through that. I might have to go to the old stack prior to filming.

0:04:00.4 Jordan Syatt: Are you taking pre-workout before every workout.

0:04:04.2 Mike Vacanti: Jordan. I haven’t lifted without caffeine since.

[laughter]

0:04:07.1 Jordan Syatt: But just caffeine isn’t a pre-workout.

0:04:08.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it is.

0:04:10.2 Jordan Syatt: I mean, guess it depends how much, but.

0:04:13.0 Mike Vacanti: I haven’t lifted without caffeine legitimately since the year 2007 probably.

0:04:23.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, wow. Since you were in college.

0:04:24.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:04:25.2 Jordan Syatt: Wow. Okay.

0:04:26.2 Mike Vacanti: Good Job.

0:04:27.0 Jordan Syatt: See? Yeah. [laughter]

0:04:30.4 Mike Vacanti: Anyway, I, I thought it was interesting. There’s also, I understand the BCAs are completely irrelevant and the science says they don’t do anything and yada yada, yada. I know what, what the evidence says about BCAAs. There is something about my, like energy levels and like physical energy levels for four to six hours after I take Purple Wraath that, that I can’t explain. And I don’t know what it is, but it’s a, it’s a very unique, like calm, zen, interesting feeling that probably comes from the proprietary blend and not the actual amino acids, but there’s something there.

0:05:11.5 Jordan Syatt: I think you’re a hyper responder and like super sensitive to branch chain amino acids. [laughter] I feel like once you’ve got those flowing through your blood, you’re just like, you’re in a zone. You haven’t had a meal without protein since 1994. You responded so well to protein.

0:05:27.2 Mike Vacanti: No, no, ’97.

0:05:28.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh ’97. ’97 Got it. ’97.

0:05:30.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:05:31.5 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So since you were like nine years old or like, no.

0:05:36.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. 10, 9-10.

0:05:37.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. So I just feel like the way, like you love protein and how it makes you feel and you love amino acids. And so…

[laughter]

0:05:49.2 Mike Vacanti: I love this little tangent run. The thing is, other brands of amino acids, other brands of BCAs do nothing. It’s only Purple Wraath.

0:05:55.7 Jordan Syatt: Now that’s interesting.

0:05:57.8 Mike Vacanti: Which. And, wild, wild west unregulated supplement space. Like who knows what’s in these things. That’s probably [laughter] got me all hyped up.

0:06:06.8 Jordan Syatt: I want to know what’s in this proprietary blend. We gotta contact Purple Wraath.

0:06:12.3 Mike Vacanti: Well, I. [laughter] Yeah. Controlled Labs is who makes it. And by the way, zero affiliation, as always. But, I want, I think it’s a very small amount of beta-alanine, maybe a small amount of citrulline malate. The entire proprietary blend is supposedly 2700 milligrams, so 2.7 grams. So even if you picked one of the supposed ingredients in the proprietary blend, it wouldn’t be at the clinically effective dosage for a pre-workout. Like, like, Legion’s… Legion has 8 grams of citrulline malate in a full serving…

0:06:47.3 Jordan Syatt: Geez.

0:06:48.1 Mike Vacanti: Any decent pre-workout has at least 6 grams of it. Yeah. So I don’t know what they’re putting in the Purple Wraath, but. It’s sensational.

0:06:58.7 Jordan Syatt: Adderall. Just.

0:07:00.4 Mike Vacanti: No. No, it’s not.

0:07:00.5 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:07:00.8 Mike Vacanti: It’s not ’cause there’s no, you’re mixing up the pre-workouts here.

0:07:04.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, oh, oh Oh, oh. Got it, got it, got it. They don’t have the…

0:07:06.2 Mike Vacanti: There’s no psycho stimula… No.

0:07:07.4 Jordan Syatt: Interesting.

0:07:08.6 Mike Vacanti: Strength benefits.

0:07:10.5 Jordan Syatt: Interesting.

0:07:10.6 Mike Vacanti: And muscle endurance benefits anyway. Anger.

0:07:20.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, anger. That post. You loved that post that I sent to you.

0:07:22.1 Mike Vacanti: Well I, I just am so com… As a bro myself, I recognize that the bros are always one to two decades ahead of the scientists and always have been.

0:07:36.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:07:36.6 Mike Vacanti: And you and I have been harping on this point for years, which is anger is an incredible tool for motivation.

0:07:44.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. New research study came out. I saw it pop up. Basically anyone who’s been listening to the podcast for a while.

0:07:50.7 Mike Vacanti: Want me to read it?

0:07:52.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyone who’s listening to the podcast for a while and has heard us talk about this will laugh. Just ’cause we’ve gone hard on like how anger can be so helpful. And, I saw a new research study come out discussing how anger is super helpful for it, and I forwarded it to Mike. You read the post.

0:08:07.1 Mike Vacanti: Getting angry boosts performance and productivity, study finds. A new study by the American Psychological Association, surveyed more than a thousand people who were triggered into experiencing a specific emotion and then given a task. The study found anger elicited shorter response times and higher scores on the task.

0:08:29.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. And that just, that’s, I can relate to that so hard, when I get angry and I want to do something. Oh man, it’s just unstoppable. It be, it’s like I do it super fast. It’s high quality. I’m like, my pupils are dilated. I’m ready to, like, it’s just, I’m ready to go. Versus any other emotion. Contentment is not good for productivity. That’s for sure. [laughter]

0:08:58.8 Mike Vacanti: That’s absolutely right.

0:09:00.1 Jordan Syatt: It’s great for life and happiness. It’s not good for work.

0:09:05.0 Mike Vacanti: Relating this to coaches. Watch me tie this in.

0:09:08.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, wow.

0:09:10.0 Mike Vacanti: In our content creation module in the mentorship, I remember you talking about writer’s block. Or if you’re not, if you’re struggling with coming up with ideas for content, what’s one of your best pieces of advice?

0:09:22.6 Jordan Syatt: Think of something that makes you angry and write about it. It’s the best way to get out of writer’s block. If you don’t, “I don’t know what to do”. Well, what pisses you off in the industry? Write about it. Talk about it. Make a content, make content about it. It’s just immediately no more writer’s block. Bingo, bango, bongo, bro.

0:09:44.1 Mike Vacanti: Bro.

0:09:44.2 Jordan Syatt: Bro.

0:09:44.4 Mike Vacanti: Orange juice is criminally underrated.

0:09:48.9 Jordan Syatt: Wow. From a pre-workout perspective?

0:09:53.5 Mike Vacanti: From a, we all know what healthy protein looks like. We all know what healthy fats look like. Carbs are more interesting for me at least personally, especially at breakfast time, because I don’t want a lot of volume in my stomach when I’m training. But I want to get carbs in my system because I feel better working out from a performance perspective. And I also don’t want to have things that lead to digestive distress. Which could be a high amount of carbs. Or it could just be like, gluten for some people or wheat or whatever they don’t feel amazing on. For some reason I had orange juice squarely in this, like regular soda, like never drink your calories bucket of, I probably haven’t had orange juice in 20 years. And we had orange juice in our refrigerator enhanced with calcium and vitamin D, whatever. And I was looking for a carb to have with breakfast, and I just poured 8 ounces of OJ, 24 grams of carbs right there. Little vitamin C, underrated.

0:11:03.9 Jordan Syatt: Was your wife drinking the orange juice? Is that why it was in the fridge?

0:11:05.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, she’s got a little mix with a scoop of vanilla protein powder and like 6 ounces of OJ.

0:11:11.0 Jordan Syatt: That’s so good. Yeah.

0:11:13.0 Mike Vacanti: An Orange Julius, she calls it.

0:11:17.0 Jordan Syatt: That’s, that’s, I love that. When I was in high school, that was a… I would do that with blueberries. Orange juice makes a great like, base for protein shakes, especially if you’re going a little bit higher calorie. That’s smart. I like that.

0:11:29.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. But, but OJ as a carb source. Oh. You don’t want to have, I don’t know, you don’t want to have a bunch of berries or you don’t want to have watermelon because you’re gonna have so much more volume in your system. Having those things, which, we talk about as such a beneficial thing because a lot of people who we’re communicating with, a lot of our clients are in fat loss phases, and so getting a little more filled up on fewer calories is a good thing. But in certain situations, like this one, a couple of eggs, a little bit of protein powder, where am I getting my carbs? OJ, consider it.

0:12:03.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Especially if like a weight gain scenario, someone struggling to gain weight, orange juice, super simple, easy. Or for someone who is, just struggling to get calories in, in general, which is obviously not the majority of the population, the majority of the population is not struggling to get calories in. But for there are those who do, there are those who do. And it’s actually like OJ and, I would always do like the PB and J recommendation for the hard gainers as we used to call them back in the day for the, the dudes who were like, “Oh, I just can’t eat.” I’m like, “All right, you’re gonna have a peanut butter and jelly at least two a day,” and that just adds up like a thousand calories so fast.

0:12:42.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yep. That’s great advice. That’s, that’s liquid calories are good for that population in general, but, and that’s good advice. And I think we knew that. I think there’s additional benefit even for people who aren’t hard gainers or aren’t trying to get additional calories in.

0:13:01.6 Jordan Syatt: Interesting. It’s just like…

0:13:01.9 Mike Vacanti: Maybe it’s just in the pre-workout window when you don’t want.

0:13:06.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:13:06.2 Mike Vacanti: But.

0:13:07.8 Jordan Syatt: You mean what, like not like being super full, but still getting the carbs in.

0:13:13.4 Mike Vacanti: There’s, there’s that and there’s like, I’m starting to realize that there aren’t that many carb sources that I feel good on. Digestively. Like, not having a crash later on. Having 75 grams of carbs via oatmeal in the morning doesn’t lead to a maximally productive day for me.

0:13:34.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Do you have orange juice pulp or no pulp?

0:13:36.7 Mike Vacanti: No pulp.

0:13:37.6 Jordan Syatt: No pulp. What brand?

0:13:41.5 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know. Simply Orange?

0:13:42.9 Jordan Syatt: Simply Orange. Yeah.

0:13:45.5 Mike Vacanti: Tropicana. It’s one of those two.

0:13:47.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Two like the classic American OJ sources. Love that.

0:13:52.0 Mike Vacanti: That’s right. That’s right.

0:13:53.6 Jordan Syatt: What was that? What was that fake orange juice when we were kids? It was the chimpanzee on the front and like in the commercials it, was it Sunny D, Sunny Delight? Do you remember that?

0:14:01.7 Mike Vacanti: Oh yeah.

[laughter]

0:14:03.1 Mike Vacanti: Sunny D’s delicious.

0:14:04.6 Jordan Syatt: Bro. Sunny D, man, that’s like fake orange juice, but oh, you know what else? You ever have Orangina?

0:14:09.7 Mike Vacanti: No.

0:14:11.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, man, you would love Orangina. We used to call it Orangina. Orangina is super, dude. It’s, oh my God, it’s so good. It’s not like real orange juice, it’s just soda. But that stuff, you’d love it.

0:14:26.4 Mike Vacanti: Like a Fanta or an orange soda?

0:14:30.0 Jordan Syatt: Similar. It’s not as sweet. It’s not as sweet as Fanta. It’s has like a little bit of a bitterness to it, I think from what, what I remember it was, it was my favorite soda as a kid, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. But Sunny D, man, that stuff was, that was fantastic in that chimpanzee commercial. Sorry to go off topic, but just think about all the different.

0:14:49.8 Mike Vacanti: No. I like it.

0:14:50.9 Jordan Syatt: Orange juice. I like the pulp. I like the pulp in the orange juice. There was something about it. My brother was always like, “What the fuck? Like, pulp is the worst.” He would gag if there was pulp in it.

0:14:58.1 Mike Vacanti: I feel like it’s whatever you grow up on.

0:15:00.5 Jordan Syatt: That’s the weird part. I liked pulp and my brother didn’t like pulp. We grew up in the same house.

0:15:06.4 Mike Vacanti: Did you have both options?

0:15:09.6 Jordan Syatt: We would alternate. Sometimes we’d get with, sometimes we’d get without, because.

0:15:10.6 Mike Vacanti: This is a real thing in the Syatt household, like [laughter]

0:15:13.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:15:14.7 Mike Vacanti: “Are we getting the…”

0:15:15.9 Jordan Syatt: I wanted pulp and he didn’t want pulp.

0:15:17.6 Mike Vacanti: “We got no pulp last week. Come on, Jordan. Pulp’s gross.”

0:15:21.1 Jordan Syatt: And then he would strain it, and then when we would get the pulp, he would take out the strainer. [laughter] So he wouldn’t get the pulp.

0:15:25.6 Mike Vacanti: I get that. I get that. I can respect not wanting physical objects in my liquid drink.

0:15:34.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:15:36.4 Mike Vacanti: I can see. But then pulp feels a little more natural too. A little healthier, psychologically.

0:15:42.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Jeff Bezos is moving from the state of Washington to Miami on speculation that, well, not on speculation, but one of their senators, I don’t know, congresswomen is proposing a bill that will tax net worth.

0:16:06.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, geez.

0:16:07.4 Mike Vacanti: And supposedly, his net worth would make up almost 50% of the total annual revenue that the plan would bring in in tax dollars per year.

0:16:21.6 Jordan Syatt: That’s disgusting.

0:16:23.7 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know if it’ll pass, but that’s a wild, like, taxing assets on an annual basis is a wild concept.

0:16:35.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:16:35.5 Mike Vacanti: If you think of all, if you think of all the forms of taxation, income tax has been normalized, sales tax. But to tax what you own, and it wouldn’t be everyone obviously, I haven’t read the proposal. I’m assuming it’s just very high net worth individuals, but it’s still interesting to think like, you already paid taxes on this money.

0:16:57.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:16:57.3 Mike Vacanti: It’s yours. And then some amount every year is gonna go back to the state government. It’s crazy.

0:17:04.6 Jordan Syatt: What, do you know what the percentage of tax, like, when the people in the UK decided they wanted to leave and come to the United States because of the taxes, do you know what percentage they were getting? Like what were they, what was that percentage?

0:17:24.8 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know what the percentage was, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t the fact that they were being taxed that they were upset about. It was the fact that they were being taxed by a government that they didn’t have any say in.

0:17:38.4 Jordan Syatt: Right.

0:17:39.7 Mike Vacanti: Who the government was. So it was the fact that it wasn’t a representative democracy.

0:17:45.1 Jordan Syatt: Right. Taxation without representation. Yeah.

0:17:48.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:17:48.5 Jordan Syatt: But I think it was like 3% or something. And they were like, “Fuck this. Like, [laughter], I’m not doing 3% taxes.” [laughter] Right? Like.

0:18:00.8 Mike Vacanti: “Colonial and early Americans paid very low tax rate, both by modern and contemporary standards. Just prior to the revolution, British tax rates stood at between 5% to 7%. Americans tax rates were 1% to 1.5%.”

0:18:15.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Single digit taxes is what led to people being like, “We’re gonna have a war. We’re out, we’re gone. We’re gonna go across the ocean and fuck off.” And now we’re getting taxed at like 30, 40, 50%. And people are like, “More, more, more, more.” What, what is going on, dude? What? Like, at what point did people say taxes are good, especially exorbitantly high taxes? There’s a point for them. I get it, but I mean, dear, I just don’t understand. I don’t understand. At how people are just willing, you, you know what? I think a lot of it is people, it’s just automatically taken out of their checks. And so they just never think of it as their money to begin with. And so it’s like, out of sight, out of mind. I don’t think about it. This is why I think everybody needs to spend. For three years, everyone must be required to pay taxes out of their own account in terms of like, they have to write a check to the IRS for three years of their life. They have to do that.

0:19:25.5 Jordan Syatt: And then I think we would see a change in opinion of what’s going on.

0:19:31.0 Mike Vacanti: Interesting. There’s a lot of political theory behind this and a lot that I don’t understand at all. So, oh, I got a good one. This actually, I think you would massively benefit from this, and I benefited from it over the last few days. There’s a, there’s a psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Amen. He’s like in his 70s, super sharp. He’s been making content for the last several years. Has a practice. He’s worked with over 250,000 patients over the years. Like, his practice analyze brains like in-person consults, treating all kind, depression, anxiety, being like the big ones. He, his number one piece of advice for someone who is, that he said specifically related to depression, I would imagine it applies to everything on that spectrum as well as a host of other things that we may or may not call mental illnesses.

0:20:32.3 Mike Vacanti: But the number one thing that people should stop doing to feel less depressed is stop watching the news now.

0:20:45.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, bro.

0:20:46.0 Mike Vacanti: I, I think, I think that we have internalized that we understand that, I would say going back to like 2010 to 2013 timeframe, like that’s been known and executed on, I would say, at least for me, solidly. However, the news isn’t just turning on the TV and watching CNN or FOX or MSNBC anymore. There’s news all over this thing constantly, no matter what platform you’re on. And I’ve realized over the last few weeks that, especially with all the stuff in Israel, my Twitter is just like the most depressing and like, news ridden thing ever. So even if it’s not coming from a mainstream organization, it’s still constantly plugged in to tragedy and atrocity around the world. And I’m not making this specific about ten seven or two…

0:21:40.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:21:41.4 Mike Vacanti: But just news in general. But now news has infiltrated this thing that most of us are addicted to and like, consuming out of constantly. It was a nice reminder of, exercise, like move, get sunlight, social interaction. These things are all good for our mental health, but this dude who’s worked with tons of people had at the top of his list, stop watching the news. And then with the caveat, yes, you should be educated and you can be educated through, ways where you’re not committing hours and hours every single day to just consuming information.

0:22:17.2 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I love that. I agree with it wholeheartedly. There’s a lot that I would say about that. Number one being like social media, like the, the short form content has this really unique way of making you feel like you’re becoming educated when you’re not. It’s a very unique way of giving you a lot of information with, one of my favorite quotes is social media is where nuance goes to die. And you’re getting a lot of very face value information that you think is educating you, and it’s actually not. I think if someone wants to get educated, whether it’s on whatever conflict, whether it’s the Israeli-Palestinian, whether it’s Russia Ukraine, whatever it is, like the place you should be going to is like history books.

0:23:02.2 Jordan Syatt: You don’t go to, if you’re only looking at current events, it would sort of be like, imagine you have a client who’s like, “Oh yeah, I’m really struggling. I’ve struggled my whole life with my weight,” dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, whatever. And all you wanted to know is like, “Well, what’d you have for lunch today?” That’s all the information you have. “What’d you eat for lunch today?” Like, and that’s it. And you only see them eat that lunch every day. You only, or same thing, like if, “Oh, that person, they can eat whatever they want. Like every day I see them.” Like we wrote about in our book, “That person at the office, they always have a chocolate bar.” They’re like, “Every single day they can eat whatever they want.” It’s like, “Well, yeah, you see them eating a chocolate bar.”

0:23:39.9 Jordan Syatt: What’d they have for breakfast? What’d they have for lunch? What it like, where, what about their workouts? What have they been doing their whole life? How much muscle have they built? Like there’s so many aspects to this that you’re not seeing. It’s when you’re looking at these individual posts on social media and you think you’re becoming informed on the topic, you’re actually just seeing one glimpse that like, you cannot confirm what’s actually going on. You’re seeing one snapshot in time, that is, by the way, specifically designed to make you want to watch it for longer. I’m watching a ton of platforms, a ton of people, especially now with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, people who are blowing their platforms up with now millions and millions of followers. And they’re noticing that like, “Oh my God, my account’s growing, getting so many more people following me.” If you think that these people who are oftentimes calling themselves journalists and reporters are not overwhelmingly happy that their accounts are growing dramatically and getting more attention, and now getting more sponsorships and seeing their business grows, literally using a conflict and people dying as a means of building their own business, you’re out of your mind.

0:24:41.1 Jordan Syatt: Like this is… They’re… Like the more they post, the more likes they get, the more shares, the more followers. They’re building their business on the backs of people dying. And they’re often using this as a way to grow their audience. So it’s, and this is what the news does, the news does it as well. Like, “Okay, what can we do to get people to watch to get more advertiser dollars?” It’s the exact same thing. Just on a different platform.

0:25:04.3 Mike Vacanti: Yep. 100%.

0:25:06.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Fuck the news.

[laughter]

0:25:11.2 Jordan Syatt: Anywhere. Did you wanna take that anywhere else, or it was just that?

0:25:13.0 Mike Vacanti: No, I just, I just thought it was a good reminder, of something that we both know. But like I would say, I love the point about reading books rather than watching news. For so many reasons. One being like, the barrier to entry for a book is so large, right? Like someone took so much time to write that thing, to get it edited. To get it published, and, going back, self-publishing has only been around so long. So going back prior to that, like, it was hard to get a book published versus like, “Okay, we need a story for this for today to just spit it out. It’s less reliable. It’s less informative, there’s less detail.” No, just the, it’s, it’s clearly… Consuming it’s clearly bad for us. And it used to just be sitting down in front of the TV consuming it, which some people still do, and that’s also really bad for you. But now it follows us all around everywhere.

0:26:20.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:26:20.5 Mike Vacanti: Something to be aware of.

0:26:22.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Be aware of it.

0:26:23.9 Mike Vacanti: Because it can get you like that… And it’s not.

0:26:25.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah.

0:26:26.4 Mike Vacanti: Like the whole feed is that, right? You got, I don’t know. Elon’s so good with the algorithm at making me watch crap that I, like it stimulates me and I wanna be watching, but I actually don’t want to be watching fight videos random, like yeah, just tap my brain.

0:26:47.7 Jordan Syatt: Speaking of Elon, and this is a little bit of a shift, not a full 180, but like, it is a little shift. Basically this reporter was interviewing Elon, and this, this reporter’s like, “I feel like you post things that are very like, encouraging of conspiracy theorists,” and Elon’s like, “What do you mean? Give me an example.” And, and the guy gave an example, which was not even a conspiracy theory, and Elon was like, “No, no, I believe that.” Like, I believe that’s true. Oh, he was talking about George Soros. I don’t, whatever Elon said about George Soros. And the guy was like, “But why say it? Well, why give your opinion?” And Elon was like, “Because I want to, ’cause I want to give my opinion. Like I have a whole platform that allows people to give their opinions whether I agree with them or not.”

0:27:34.8 Jordan Syatt: And he was like, “But don’t you have like sponsors or people who are getting upset with you and maybe they want to pull out and not give you money because you’re giving your opinions?” And Elon pauses for 12 seconds. He just doesn’t say a word. He’s like, looking at the guy sort of looks into space for 12 seconds and which is a long time in a conversation, especially on like a TV interview. And Elon just goes, “This reminds me of a quote from the Princess Bride where a guy says, ‘Offer me money, offer me power, I don’t care.'” And it was just like a super, he was like, “If me giving my opinion leads to a loss of money, like so be it. I’m going to say what I very much believe to be the truth.” And, it was just, man. I don’t always agree with everything Elon says or does, but like, that was, I do really like him a lot by and large. And that was, that was a sick quote. I love that.

0:28:35.0 Mike Vacanti: I’ve seen that clip. That is awesome.

0:28:39.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:28:39.9 Mike Vacanti: And it’s rare in the current culture, the things that we value on average as a society. Like most people in his… Most billionaires value money more than they do something else. Telling the… Saying what you believe, even if that’s gonna negatively affect your bank account.

0:29:06.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Did you see him on Rogan again recently?

0:29:10.3 Mike Vacanti: I saw that he was on there. I didn’t, I watched maybe one minute of it. I [laughter] it just doesn’t, even the first episode or two, remember when he smoked weed and it, there was the big meme about it.

0:29:21.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:29:22.6 Mike Vacanti: And he is clearly brilliant, but I don’t know why I, and I listen to a lot of podcasts. I haven’t found him on there to be particularly insightful.

0:29:34.4 Jordan Syatt: Entertaining.

0:29:35.4 Mike Vacanti: Or.

0:29:35.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:29:35.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Entertaining or like, interesting for the things that I’m interested in. I don’t know.

0:29:41.1 Jordan Syatt: I feel like he’s so smart that it’s really like I can’t watch him and like really enjoy it. I’m, it’s almost like you’ve got a book that you know there’s some great information in, but the way it’s written is just really bad. And like, you don’t like, what I mean? Like, sort of like the way he talks. I have a really hard time relating to, and I’m like, I just, I can’t listen to like, I like his short form thoughts much better than his long form discussions. ‘Cause when he’s just talking, I’m like, I can’t, it’s like a book that I like, it’s getting through one paragraph is fucking difficult.

0:30:19.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:30:20.6 Jordan Syatt: There was a very popular clip from that podcast going viral in the jiu-jitsu community though. ‘Cause Elon was explaining how he would, his strategy to fight someone and how like yeah, “If I get, if I get on top of them, they’re done.” And Joe is a black belt in jiu-jitsu, and Joe’s just looking at him like, “What do you mean?” [laughter] And, and Elon’s like, “Well, like I would just smother them. Like, like if a horse falls on top of you, you can’t get out.” And Joe’s like, “Yeah, but you’re not a horse.”

[laughter]

0:30:53.4 Jordan Syatt: Like just like the, the, and the MMA community was like, “Yeah, this just, Elon doesn’t know what he is talking about with fighting.” That was a funny clip from that. But overall, I like a lot of his thoughts. It’s just very difficult to hear him talk.

0:31:04.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That reminds me of something interesting. I remember back in the day, I feel like this was maybe Tim Ferriss related or like the early days of people making content and listening to podcasts where I really looked up to and like, relied on, and not Tim specifically, but like people in that era relied on them for information about a wide variety of topics, but then they’d say something very confidently about fitness.

0:31:43.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:31:44.9 Mike Vacanti: That was not accurate whatsoever. [laughter] And then I’m like, wait a second, [laughter], why am I believing everything he’s saying about all these things that I don’t know anything about? But then the one thing I do know that I’m certain on here, he’s like wildly off.

0:31:58.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:32:00.1 Mike Vacanti: It’s just interesting.

0:32:00.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s very true. It’s, it really makes you question like, “oh shit.” [laughter]

0:32:04.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. [laughter]

0:32:07.6 Mike Vacanti: So does this mean all that other stuff was wrong?

0:32:10.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. He’s said it so confidently. I just believed it. There was a great TED talk that went viral. This like college student who the, his entire Ted Talk, he was like, I’m sure if you google Ted talk about nothing, basically he was like, this whole TED Talk is about nothing. I will change my tone and my intonation and my hand gestures all throughout this TED Talk. And by the end of it, you will have learned nothing. And it was for the entire time, like 18 minutes. It was, and it was amazing. And obviously the funny part about, it’s like you did learn, you learned the importance of how you speak and how you articulate yourself and how you present yourself and changing your tone and all of that. But literally that was the entire thing. He’s like, “I’m gonna take my glasses off and I’ll look smart when I do it, and then I’ll put them back on and you’ll say, ‘wow.'”

[laughter]

0:33:09.7 Jordan Syatt: It’s almost like, like I’m thinking of like Trump, “You know, they say, I’m great, and you’ll say, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, he was right.'”

[laughter]

0:33:20.7 Jordan Syatt: It’s a lot of what he does.

0:33:22.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:33:23.5 Jordan Syatt: Where it’s like, “And they said, oh,” I’m gonna stop there.

0:33:28.9 Mike Vacanti: I’ve been getting a, I’ve been getting a lot of Shane Gillis Trump impersonations.

0:33:33.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, he’s…

0:33:34.6 Mike Vacanti: Not a lot. Maybe Three.

0:33:34.7 Jordan Syatt: So good.

0:33:34.8 Mike Vacanti: But then…

0:33:35.6 Jordan Syatt: He’s so good.

0:33:37.6 Mike Vacanti: One of them where he describes how he does it.

0:33:41.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:33:42.2 Mike Vacanti: Have you, do you know what I’m talking about?

0:33:43.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:33:43.3 Mike Vacanti: Where he’s like, “You don’t actually need to mirror his voice. You just… ” He did the hand gesture and then he is like.

0:33:49.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:33:49.9 Mike Vacanti: “And then you just reference something that you said earlier.” It’s a funny clip.

0:33:55.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You, yeah. You say like, you say what you wanna say and then you say that you said that [laughter] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[laughter]

0:34:06.8 Jordan Syatt: “Michael. He’s a great personal trainer. I said he’s a great personal trainer.”

0:34:09.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:34:12.5 Jordan Syatt: “No one believed me. They all said I was wrong. And I said, they said they were wrong.” [laughter]

0:34:17.7 Mike Vacanti: It’s pretty good.

0:34:19.8 Jordan Syatt: It’s. [laughter] I’ve been thinking about bringing some impressions like that into my fitness content. I just, I haven’t, I’ve been thinking about ordering like a Trump wig from Amazon or like a Biden mask from Amazon, just so people would be very upset about it. And I need to, whatever. Maybe I’ll do that.

0:34:37.8 Mike Vacanti: You gonna lean into that in 2024?

0:34:44.4 Jordan Syatt: I think I am… Trump’s hands. It’s a very interesting position that he puts them in, like, he, like really externally rotates his wrist pretty hard, this one. And he’s like, if you’re watching on YouTube, you see what I’m doing. He like, really, like palms out, rotates into the side, sort of a difficult one to hold. He’s got some good wrist mobility.

[laughter]

0:35:04.5 Mike Vacanti: Do you think I’m gonna… Do you think I’m gonna win our bet?

0:35:07.7 Jordan Syatt: About me posting on social media?

0:35:10.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:35:10.7 Jordan Syatt: I mean, I hope that it happens, I hope that I get to that point in my life and career, but I think that if I do get to that point in my life and career that you’ll lose.

0:35:23.6 Mike Vacanti: Oh, interesting. Okay.

0:35:25.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I think if, if I, and the bet being that, what was it, 10 million in the bank? Was that it?

0:35:28.0 Mike Vacanti: 10 million net worth, not including house.

0:35:31.5 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Yeah. So if I get 10 million net worth, the bet is that I’ll never post on social media again. Mike said, and if, and what’s this type of bet called where you risk nothing.

0:35:41.9 Mike Vacanti: A free roll.

0:35:42.0 Jordan Syatt: And I… A free roll. So if I lose, if I end up posting, I give Mike a $100,000. And if I don’t post, then I win nothing other than the benefits of not being on social media. So, and, and Mike thinks I’m gonna lose this, lose this bet. But if that happens, I think I win.

0:36:00.0 Mike Vacanti: Not, I… The only reason that popped into my mind is I see the excitement on your face about like, “And then I’m gonna put on a Trump wig. I’m gonna do my hands like this, and I’m gonna talk like this.” Like, it’s not a bad thing at all. It’s just a prediction that whereas the majority of my posting was driven by desire to grow business or maybe like some degree of ego in the past. For you, I see a lot of like entertainer and like you, like that, like back and forth with the audience.

0:36:33.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It’s just fun.

0:36:34.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:36:35.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. No, but I, maybe I would just do it in, I would, I would try something else. Maybe I would try standup comedy.

0:36:40.6 Mike Vacanti: I think you’ll do that too. I think it’s an and game, as Gary would say. Why not both?

0:36:43.4 Jordan Syatt: Well, not if I don’t, I mean, I guess if I, if I have 10 million, then I could stand to lose a hundred grand.

0:36:48.0 Mike Vacanti: It’s only 1%

[laughter]

0:36:49.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s only 1% of your net worth.

[laughter]

0:36:51.8 Mike Vacanti: It’s perfect.

0:36:51.8 Jordan Syatt: So who knows? But I would, I would rather win. I’d rather win. So, Mitch, my videographer was like, “You’re really competitive.” I was like, “Dude, I’m super competitive.” [laughter]

0:37:01.2 Mike Vacanti: You should have been like, “Mitch, if you knew the half of it.”

[laughter]

0:37:05.3 Mike Vacanti: “If you knew…”

0:37:09.0 Mike Vacanti: You know what scene is unbelievably impressive and underrated.

0:37:13.9 Jordan Syatt: In a movie?

0:37:15.1 Mike Vacanti: In a show.

0:37:18.3 Jordan Syatt: I don’t, tell me.

0:37:21.6 Mike Vacanti: When Jon Snow is at Castle Black and he’s lord commander and he’s in… He’s in like his chambers and the Red Lady is there with him.

0:37:32.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah. Oh.

0:37:33.1 Mike Vacanti: And she’s got like that coat on.

0:37:33.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I know what you’re talking about.

0:37:34.6 Mike Vacanti: And she tries to seduce him.

0:37:36.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:37:37.9 Mike Vacanti: And it, and it’s like about to happen and he’s just like, “Nope. Not Happening.”

0:37:44.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:37:45.3 Mike Vacanti: He’s a beast.

0:37:45.4 Jordan Syatt: That is a very underrated scene.

0:37:46.2 Mike Vacanti: He’s a beast.

0:37:47.7 Jordan Syatt: That. Yeah. You know what’s funny? So I watched that the first time and I was watching it through the second time, and in my mind as I’m watching it the second time, I know it’s happening now, I know, I know it’s gonna happen, but in my memory, the scene lasted much longer than it actually did. Like in, when I thought back on the scene, he had let it go much further in my mind. But then when I watch it back, he actually ended it pretty decidedly and pretty swiftly.

0:38:25.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:38:25.6 Jordan Syatt: Much more quickly than in my memory of it, which is interesting. But yeah, that was a…

0:38:27.9 Jordan Syatt: And that’s one of the great parts of watching it over again, because there’s so much that you see in the second time through. But yeah, that is a phenomenal scene and Jon Snow is just like the ultimate do the right thing all the time.

0:38:40.7 Mike Vacanti: He’s a… Well, what… You know what, I would argue that he’s an ultimate do what he believes to be the right thing all the time. Because in the last couple seasons on like the battle front and military front, he had a couple of like strategic blunders, but they weren’t for lack of… They were maybe for like lack of foresight or planning strategy related, not like a moral failure.

0:39:08.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, obviously make mistakes, but not like never sacrificing his ethics, his who he is and what principles he stands for.

0:39:21.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, that’s well said.

0:39:23.2 Jordan Syatt: Mike is Jon Snow, Mike is my Jon Snow.

0:39:25.8 Mike Vacanti: I’m not, but thank you. That’s a…

0:39:29.0 Jordan Syatt: You are to me.

0:39:31.0 Mike Vacanti: Thank you.

0:39:32.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, you’re welcome.

0:39:33.5 Mike Vacanti: Tell… This might be getting cut out and I might not have a big enough sample size on this, but I think I do. I think I have a solid like couple dozen names I could rally off, it’s a very specific demo of potential client. Which is very hard working, dude, family man, not like Gary level, but very wealthy and works massive amounts of hours, probably doesn’t have to work anymore. Maybe in his 40s, maybe 50s, somewhere in there doesn’t have to work anymore, still works 60, 70, 80, working all the time. But can’t really get it going on the fitness front even though it’s such a small commitment, relative to what he’s putting in at work. But just can’t let off the gas at work and yeah, that’s a pattern I’ve seen over the last five years.

0:40:38.3 Jordan Syatt: Of someone who’s just going nuts with work at that like 40 to 50 age?

0:40:43.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.

0:40:44.2 Jordan Syatt: And they’re struggling with their fitness?

0:40:46.4 Mike Vacanti: Not even struggle, but like have goals that they’ve been unable to accomplish, but they’re… Work takes priority over fitness in every way every time, but the interesting caveat is this isn’t someone who’s like struggling to make it, they could live off of dividends and interest income and support their family and have a really nice lifestyle. But it’s like, almost the competitive game aspect of business that keeps them dedicating everything to that.

0:41:16.3 Jordan Syatt: I wonder if it’s also like the one thing that they’ve been really good at, right? Or it’s like…

0:41:21.0 Mike Vacanti: For sure.

0:41:21.5 Jordan Syatt: That’s the one at thing that like, people come to them for advice, people look up to them because of what they’ve done. And you know who’s actually spoken a little bit about this, Mike Doehla, I’m a big fan of Mike Doehla. He was the the owner of Stronger U, do remember him? He came to our seminar when you and I spoke in New York.

0:41:40.6 Mike Vacanti: I know the name. Oh really?

0:41:41.9 Jordan Syatt: He was there, he came like really early on in Stronger U he was there. And he recently sold Stronger U.

0:41:49.0 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:41:49.7 Jordan Syatt: And he, and then he retired now, he took the route of like he sold Stronger U and he retired at like, I don’t know in his 30s or 40s.

0:41:58.7 Mike Vacanti: Good for him.

0:42:00.5 Jordan Syatt: Just like what a beast, he’s got two little kids now.

0:42:02.6 Mike Vacanti: That’s awesome.

0:42:04.3 Jordan Syatt: Just living right. And he’s been pretty open about some of the struggles he’s had in terms of he misses, I think and I hope I’m not putting words in his mouth. But he said to the effect of like, “I miss seeing people, I miss interacting with people, I miss being able to help people on a more regular basis.” So I do wonder if the guys who are or women who like stay in it for a long time, it’s like… Yeah.

0:42:33.3 Mike Vacanti: And by the way, I’m saying guys, because I’ve only seen it.

0:42:36.9 Jordan Syatt: That’s your… Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:42:38.3 Mike Vacanti: Well, no, I coach tons of women, but this specific demo that I’m talking about, I can only list male examples, and I’m not just for the sake of political correctness gonna say it’s both.

0:42:48.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Why also it’s funny ’cause we could use this exact same, we could use this, let’s say men who do this, and then we could also use the general demographic of women who are mothers, right? And in both of these demographics we could take that what they’ve been best at for many years, either the guy who’s been a business tycoon or the mother who’s just put everything into being an amazing mother, raising her children, doing everything, which is like a full time job and insanely difficult. And sometimes they will both struggle with fitness, I think it’s because a number of different potential reasons. But it’s almost like as the kids get older and the woman doesn’t have as much to do with the kids anymore, and they’re being more independent. And then as the guy like, as his bank account grows and he doesn’t need to work anymore, they’re still doing things going out of their way to do the thing that they were best at. Trying to find, do more mothering, trying to do more business ’cause that’s what they’re best at. And so the idea of leaving it is like maybe difficult for them for probably actually very similar reasons. But that is a very unique and interesting situation.

0:44:03.0 Mike Vacanti: The thing is, though, and by the way, that’s good for Mike Doehla, and that’s really cool, I didn’t know that story. The part that’s different is these business tycoons don’t have to stop, they just need to like go from 70-65 hours, they just need to pull back a little, get your three 45 minute workouts in, and maybe get an extra hour of sleep at night. It’s just pull back on the reins a little bit. And by the way, now that I’m thinking, because obviously there’s alpha business women who are, crush it in their career. Usually, that personality type also has their fitness dialed.

0:44:42.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, you’re right, 100% they do.

0:44:45.4 Mike Vacanti: They’re the ones who it’s like, “Oh, I got to leave at 5:30 AM to get to the office, I’m a practicing lawyer.” It’s like, “Okay, then I’m waking up at 4:00, 4:15 and I’m getting my workout in. And I haven’t missed a workout since eight months ago.” It’s that kind of personality type. But for whatever reason, yeah, I don’t know, I don’t… What you’re saying makes sense, it’s what they’re good at, but you can continue to be good at it and just let off the gas a tiny bit.

0:45:14.0 Jordan Syatt: That is actually really interesting, you’re right, when just looking at these demographics, men versus women, the male business tycoon versus the female business tycoon, obviously talking in generalities. But I think the female version generally has her nutrition and fitness way more in check, generally speaking, usually probably not staying out getting drunk as often. Not if they’re gonna have drinks, maybe they don’t have as many drinks, they do get up early, they get their workout in, they prioritize their self care a little bit more. Whereas the guys often not as much, super interesting, I’ve never thought about that.

0:45:49.6 Mike Vacanti: I literally just that made me think of I don’t even know who said it, it might have been Carl Jung, that men strive for perfection and women strive for wholeness. So maybe there’s more balance to the effort.

0:46:06.8 Jordan Syatt: That makes sense. Yeah, that makes total sense. You want to do some cues?

0:46:12.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, let’s do a question.

0:46:13.4 Jordan Syatt: It’s the How to Become a Personal Trainer podcast, you have to answer a question here and there. Someone said, “Because of you, I bought a Garmin watch, best purchase ever.” Thank you. Love that.

0:46:24.4 Mike Vacanti: Do you find the heart rate on the Garmin to be accurate when doing outdoor cardio?

0:46:31.0 Jordan Syatt: When I’m doing low intensity cardio, yes, when I was doing sprints or probably anything about like zone four, zone five, no, it was not accurate.

0:46:39.8 Mike Vacanti: Interesting. Are there temperature related differences in heart rate?

0:46:45.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:46:46.3 Mike Vacanti: Okay. Alright. So you think that that’s accurate? Because when I would compare me checking pulse to watch, specifically with outdoor cardio, if it was cold outside.

0:46:58.8 Jordan Syatt: Lower.

0:46:58.9 Mike Vacanti: My heart rate would be higher than what the watch said. But if it was warm outside, then they would be more synced up.

0:47:09.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, interesting. Maybe… It is a piece of technology, there could be issues from that perspective of sometimes when it gets super, super cold, or super, super hot, your phone might glitch a little bit, maybe that could be as well with the watch, I don’t know. But yeah, that’s very interesting. I do know that from a heart rate perspective, it’s great, especially during resting and lower intensity. But anytime you start adding more intensive movement to it with your arms swinging, sweat getting involved, if your watch isn’t on super tight, it’s definitely not gonna be as accurate, which is why the heart rate straps, like the polar heart rate straps are generally much better.

0:47:47.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Cool.

0:47:50.6 Jordan Syatt: Alright. Someone asked, “How did you launch the inner circle? Did you just tell your clients no more one-on-one?” You wanna answer that or no?

0:47:57.0 Mike Vacanti: We definitely can, we should put the caveat that you… Almost everyone listening to this should not do a membership if you’re interested in starting an online fitness business, one-on-one coaching is what we strongly recommend as a starting point.

0:48:11.0 Jordan Syatt: How about we answer it, but then you just keep… How about you start with that, you start with that and then I’ll just…

0:48:16.7 Mike Vacanti: Great, that.

0:48:17.7 Jordan Syatt: Like, why? Why not?

0:48:20.8 Mike Vacanti: It’s… So a membership is going to be or one-on-one coaching is going to bring you something like 12-20x the revenue per person. And it’s much easier to get five or 10 one-on-one online fitness clients than it is to get whatever that multiple is in a membership. We’ve seen many, many people grow successful online one-on-one coaching businesses, where they might have several hundred or several thousand followers on social media, but not tens of thousands. And they’re making a living from one-on-one online fitness coaching, where you cannot do that with a membership, a membership you basically need a very large audience to scale a membership $19, $24, $29 a month. And for revenue to match coaching versus membership.

0:49:26.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, to add on to that and just piggyback. People think that having a membership is going to be beneficial because oh, people will sign up because it’s lower cost. That is a mistake, people will not sign up for your program just because it’s lower cost. If you were walking outside and someone was selling, I don’t know, thumbtacks for a penny, you wouldn’t buy a thumbtack just because it’s a penny. Just because it’s very low cost, even if they’re selling 100 thumbtacks for a penny, you’re not, “Oh, yeah, I’ll just like go find a penny just so I can get.” Unless you need a thumbtack. And this is what’s really important to understand, people don’t just buy stuff just because it’s not very expensive. And what I’ve always found is that if someone is looking for a fitness coach, and they want to hire you as a fitness coach, whether it’s 20 bucks, or 200 bucks, if they want to work with you, then they’re gonna take their credit card out and they’re gonna work with you, regardless of whether it’s 20 bucks or 200 bucks. So especially early on, especially if you don’t have a large audience, because the other aspect here is with the membership, inherently churn rate will be higher.

0:50:39.8 Jordan Syatt: You might get more people signing up, but you will also get more people canceling because a membership is not as individualized, it’s not as one-on-one. And so, and early on, you might want to have a membership, you might think you might get more people, what you’re essentially gonna do is you’re gonna be giving one-on-one coaching to people paying a fraction of the price. So early on, having a membership is a really bad idea, if you were… If you have a couple 1000 Instagram followers, there’s no reason why you couldn’t get 20, 30, 40 one-on-one online coaching clients. Let’s just say, for example, you have 25 one-on-one online coaching clients paying you $300 a month, that’s $7500 a month, that’s 7500 a month. If you have 40 online coaching clients for 300 a month, that’s $12,000 a month for 40 clients, you can absolutely do that. You don’t need to do any high ticket bullshit, it’s 300 a month, it’s relatively low cost, you don’t… On the other hand, let’s say you have 100 people paying you $20 a month, well, that’s $2000 a month. So you would need to more than double the amount of people who are willing to pay you and you still are making a fraction, a fraction of what you would be making if you had less than half of that paying you 300 for one-on-one coaching.

0:52:06.0 Jordan Syatt: It is a huge mistake, huge mistake to go into a membership early on without like really the main people, there are two different types of people who should do memberships. If you have a huge engaged audience of people, that’s number one, or and/or if you are very good with advertisements, and you don’t need a huge audience, but you know how to reach a huge audience. Either way, you need to be able to reach a huge audience, whether it’s through paid advertising or organic reach, you need to be able to reach a huge audience. And even if you do know how to reach a huge audience with paid advertising, if your advertisements suck, and they don’t convert well, then it doesn’t matter ’cause you’ll just be paying for advertising and people not joining anyway. So what Mike was saying is 100% accurate, start with one-on-one coaching and a lot of people think a membership is easier, it’s not, it’s fucking difficult, it’s really hard, takes a ton of time and energy. It’s mentally and emotionally draining in the same way that one-on-one coaching can be mentally and emotionally draining and it’s very difficult.

0:53:08.8 Jordan Syatt: But there are differences, so don’t do it thinking it’s just easier thinking it’s just, “Oh, it’s passive income, it’s easy.” Passive income doesn’t exist, it’s not fucking real, it is a myth designed to… In the same way that effortlessly losing weight isn’t real. Same with passive income, effortlessly making money isn’t real. So when I did decide to switch, no, I didn’t just say no more one-on-one coaching, I, it was a slow transition, I created it in 2015 and I didn’t stop accepting one-on-one coaching clients until 2017. And I still worked with all my one-on-one clients until about 2019, until it slowly dwindled off, and then there were some people who I let go but the vast majority just slowly dwindled until I was working with a handful of people. And now I still work with a handful of people one-on-one, but those are just people who have been with me since like the early, early, early, early, early days and that’s it. And there’s really not even much communication, it’s literally just like, “Hey, here’s your new program.” And that’s it and then they’re like, “Hey, how are you? How’s your baby? Da, da.” And that’s it, there’s not like, “Hey, can you watch this technique?” This is I’ve been working with them for almost 10 years and it’s just very easy.

0:54:17.0 Mike Vacanti: Great answer.

0:54:18.0 Jordan Syatt: Another question?

0:54:19.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, let’s do one more.

0:54:21.0 Jordan Syatt: Someone said, “I finally got a walking pad, I’ve hit 10,000 steps every day since I got it.”

0:54:27.0 Mike Vacanti: That’s awesome.

0:54:29.4 Jordan Syatt: I think the walking pad is like, one of the greatest investments I’ve ever made in my life. It’s just especially like now, I’m in the cul-de-sac and the weather’s really good here in Texas, so we walk outside all the time and I get 10,000 easy there. But in the apartment for years I would be with you on the phone, I would take conference calls, I would do podcasts just on the walking pad and easily get 10,000 steps a day. It’s like, especially now for coaches who are online coaches, back in the day when people were coaching people in person, there really wasn’t online, getting 10,000 steps was a joke. That was like a light day, but for all the online coaches now who are sitting at home, who are essentially desk workers, and just answer emails all day and making content, get a fucking walking pad. Or if you want, if you have the space, get a treadmill, sure, but walking pad way less expensive, way more space efficient, very quiet. Yeah, walking pad is where it’s at.

0:55:25.9 Mike Vacanti: Dude, you’re preaching. The… If we’re comparing like a day where you barely move around, compared to a day where you do all the exact same things from a work perspective, but you get a whole bunch of steps in intermittently throughout the day, that’s gonna add up in a massive way over time. We already know the association between step count and longevity. Yeah, it’s a no brainer for maintaining body composition, it’s so beneficial for fat loss, I really like zone one, zone one and a half cardio, that calorie expenditure adds up relative to just sitting, the pain relief and wear and tear benefits of not sitting at a desk hunched over for 8-10 hours. But instead changing positions frequently, getting blood flow throughout the body, extending your hips, activating your glutes, getting moving is so good for you. And if you can’t do that outside, the next best thing is a walking pad. So I completely agree. And whoever wrote in, keep it up, that’s amazing.

0:56:39.6 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I can’t believe I’m about to quote this movie. Did you ever see Legally Blonde?

0:56:46.6 Mike Vacanti: Probably. Reese Witherspoon? She’s a lawyer?

0:56:49.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:56:49.6 Mike Vacanti: She’s got a dog?

0:56:50.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:56:50.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, probably, maybe half of it.

0:56:52.8 Jordan Syatt: I haven’t watched this movie in years. But basically, she… They’re trying to figure out who killed this person and she’s defending someone and she’s like this, “My client did not kill this person, she exercises.” And she goes, “Exercise gives you endorphins, endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t shoot their husbands, they just don’t.” And it’s like, man, you and I were talking, I think it was yesterday, about how people who don’t exercise, they’re… Not all of them, but like a lot of them are just like really unhappy people. You know what I mean?

0:57:29.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:57:29.3 Jordan Syatt: Like they’re just unhappy.

0:57:29.5 Mike Vacanti: There’s… And not like there’s a spectrum of exercising, right? So there’s someone who gets a ton of steps, does lots of workouts, is very, very active all the way to completely sedentary, maybe a few hundred steps a day, like very little human interaction, very little standing, just that’s the way that their lifestyle is set up. And the people on the sedentary side of that spectrum, it’s definitely partly due to exercise, is probably partly due to limited social interaction. But yeah, they’re generally not very happy and it’s sad.

0:58:09.4 Jordan Syatt: You know what I’m thinking about now, though, is now I’m like, okay, I think also people who take their exercise too seriously…

0:58:15.4 Mike Vacanti: For sure.

0:58:15.7 Jordan Syatt: Are also not happy people. It’s like… [laughter]

0:58:17.3 Mike Vacanti: But that’s why I even…

0:58:19.0 Mike Vacanti: That’s why I even capped it. I capped the spectrum to not include people who are psychotic, which you see a disproportionate number of for various reasons, but meaning they’ll be in your comments or whatever, in your DMs, but as a percentage of the population, that’s nothing, like that’s… We’re…

0:58:39.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I’m just lucky enough to have them in my DMs all day.

[laughter]

0:58:44.0 Mike Vacanti: I think… Are we over 70% in America of obese plus overweight?

0:58:49.3 Jordan Syatt: Obesity?

0:58:51.4 Mike Vacanti: No well, if you take… If you stack overweight and obese BMI.

0:58:55.5 Jordan Syatt: Probably. Yeah.

0:58:56.1 Mike Vacanti: But you’re right that there is… The people who are exercising for hours and hours every day and have to and can’t miss it. There’s something unhealthy about that as well, although I think the limit to that is much higher, and I know you would agree is much higher than you would have previously assigned it, say three to five years ago.

0:59:19.1 Jordan Syatt: 100%. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. It’s funny, it’s not even necessarily about the people who exercise a lot, it’s more about the people who associate… Who like their ego is wrapped up in how much they exercise.

0:59:30.1 Mike Vacanti: How interesting.

0:59:33.4 Jordan Syatt: Right, and so like I know some really amazing people who exercise for hours every day, and they’re some of the nicest people ever, but it’s the people who associate everything about them. They are the people who are like, “I do this every day. You have no reason not to. You’re a lazy piece of shit.”

0:59:49.0 Mike Vacanti: No no no [chuckle]

0:59:51.6 Jordan Syatt: Da-da-da.

0:59:51.8 Mike Vacanti: You even. You know what, I’m gonna defend these people, I don’t think…

[laughter]

0:59:55.6 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think that they have it, and I wish I was one of them. I’m not anymore. Or maybe I never was, I actually don’t know. But…

[laughter]

1:00:04.3 Mike Vacanti: They don’t have it as bad. ’cause this is where I thought you were going with this. I thought you were gonna say the people who feel like they have to do massive amounts of exercise to compensate for nutritional failures, that to me looks like the most…

1:00:23.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Sad.

1:00:25.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. Very.

1:00:25.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s the most sad for sure.

1:00:25.8 Mike Vacanti: Heart-breaking as a coach to see that and try to unwind that.

1:00:30.3 Jordan Syatt: That’s like a different aspect of it. There was like… It’s like very… It’s very sad to see. It’s literally there’s this word in Hebrew it’s called misken, it’s really sad to see it you feel empathetic for them. Then the other aspect of it is those people that I’m talking about who are just like “Fuck you, fuck… ” Like that aaah like and they’re like red in the face and they’re just like.

[vocalization]

[laughter]

1:01:00.3 Mike Vacanti: I’m gonna go out on a limb here for our audience, and I’m gonna give a real take. A real like I think I might be onto something. I think you don’t like that crew because I think you’re competitive with them.

1:01:11.2 Jordan Syatt: No. No, no, no. I’m not competitive with them.

1:01:13.3 Mike Vacanti: But you’re so competitive. Mitch said it.

1:01:14.8 Jordan Syatt: I’m competitive with everybody.

1:01:19.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, including them.

1:01:19.6 Jordan Syatt: It’s all, yeah. Yeah. I include them, of course. Yeah. I’m competitive with everyone.

1:01:22.8 Mike Vacanti: I feel like you…

1:01:25.4 Jordan Syatt: But…

1:01:25.5 Mike Vacanti: You’re ramping up your… I don’t wanna say like anti-Goggins, but like anti-Goggins. I feel like you’re competitive with that, carry the boat’s crew because you wanna carry the boats, but right now they might just be a couple of steps ahead of you and you’re on their heels.

1:01:49.0 Jordan Syatt: Are you trying to light me up right now, they’re not a couple of steps ahead me, bro, they’re behind, they’re… I’m lapping them. I’m about to lap them that’s…

1:02:00.3 Mike Vacanti: I meant in terms of weekly mileage and… Not in…

1:02:04.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, I don’t care about that. Let’s do a fucking. Hey, let’s go fight. That’s fine. I don’t care how much they can run.

1:02:13.2 Mike Vacanti: What if they’re also… What if they’re psychos, but they also are brown or black belts.

1:02:19.2 Jordan Syatt: They’re also… Yeah, then I’m in trouble. Then I’m a deep trouble, then I gotta keep my opinion to myself. [laughter]

1:02:28.8 Mike Vacanti: Bottom line here, movement and exercise is really, really good for mental health and happiness.

1:02:38.6 Jordan Syatt: That is the most important takeaway from this podcast. Exercise is good for you. And we hope that you understand that now.

1:02:50.2 Mike Vacanti: [laughter] Let’s have another question, we’re just warming up, bro…

1:02:51.8 Jordan Syatt: Welcome to the personal trainer podcast.

1:02:51.9 Mike Vacanti: We’re ramping up. This one might have started off a little slow, this one’s ramping up late.

1:03:00.6 Jordan Syatt: If you’re ordering from fast food restaurants, do you always believe the calories?

1:03:04.4 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

1:03:05.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, they just like… I trust fast food far more than I trust like a regular restaurant where you go in and they say, “Hey, here’s the calories for this Cobb salad,” and it says like 400. I’m like, “Yeah, fucking right. Cobb salad is like 2000, like get out of here with that nonsense.” But I think the calories are much more controlled in fast food restaurants, they have to be much more strict.

1:03:26.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it doesn’t have to do with the quality of the food. Basically, the bigger the establishment, the bigger the name, the more trust I have in the accuracy, and I’ll give two examples. On one end, we’ll say McDonald’s golden arches, not healthy at all, but I have a great deal of faith in the listed calories and macronutrients versus a New York City Bodega, where there might be a muffin that has a calorie sticker on it or says a number of calories, but there’s not even a real nutrition label and maybe they just wrote it on and it’s 150 calories for this giant banana nut muffin that’s probably 650 calories. So fast food restaurants, you’re good, and it’s just not…

1:04:19.8 Mike Vacanti: I see this from people who are maybe using the fact that they don’t think they can track perfectly as a reason not to track, whereas we know that there’s gonna be some variance between the label and what you’re actually eating, not every portion size is absolutely perfect and so if you’re within 5%, 10, 15%, and you’re gonna have errors in both directions, so the numbers might be overstated slightly, they might be understated slightly, doing the best you can and using the numbers provided to you is gonna get you way closer and lead to you consuming fewer calories more consistently than just not tracking.

1:05:04.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Even like, nevermind the Bodega, we could even look at like a McDonald’s versus like a Morton’s or like a Nick & Sam’s Famous Steakhouse or like a real restaurant. I would trust McDonald’s more than I would trust one of these high-end restaurants in terms of calories. I don’t know if Nick & Sam’s or Morton’s put the calories on there, what I’m saying is a regular restaurant where there’s the chef in the back and he’s preparing it differently every time… Like, yeah like he can… But you don’t know how much oil they’re using, you don’t know how much butter they’re using. McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Burger King, Arby’s. This is it, and it’s like, again, not talking about food quality, I’m talking about the calories, like that shit is made and weighed and everything is the same. That’s why every time you go, the burger tastes exactly the fucking same, the fries taste exactly the… Everything is boom, this is it. Go, go, go. I trust those calories way more than I would trust the calories in a higher-end restaurant just because it’s a different chef you don’t… Even the same chef, you sprinkle on the oil, whatever it is, you don’t know, you don’t know exactly how many calories are in there.

1:06:17.1 Mike Vacanti: I agree, gonna be more variants in the higher end restaurant. I’m still, if they’re publishing calories, I’m still trusting them.

1:06:25.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

1:06:25.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s the places that don’t publish it that then… Then when I make my estimate, I’m going to try to overestimate. The cheese, butter like just taste greasy, I’m building more fats than I think could possibly be in that entree.

1:06:46.0 Jordan Syatt: Also it’s good… You should just go and it’s better to get an estimate, even if it’s not exactly right, at least you’re getting an idea, a general… You’re still tracking, whereas, you shouldn’t be eating at these fucking places every day anyway. The majority of your meals shouldn’t even be at these fucking places.

1:07:08.1 Mike Vacanti: I’m gonna give… I’m gonna give one caveat for like work travel and like salesman.

1:07:11.8 Jordan Syatt: Travel, work travel.

1:07:14.3 Mike Vacanti: I’ve coached a few who… But yes, don’t, if it’s within your control to any degree, don’t go to high-end restaurants where they don’t have nutrition facts every single day if your goal is fat loss.

1:07:28.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, if you’re going once in a while, it’s not that big of a deal anyway, but also even then for the traveling salesman that you just brought up, like, I don’t know, go to the grocery store. Go to… I don’t know, you know what I mean? You don’t have to go… You did it all the time, remember it? Like…

1:07:47.9 Mike Vacanti: No, for sure.

1:07:49.7 Jordan Syatt: You always go to the grocery store, pick up the sushi or like an apple, and your fucking turkey sandwich, like come on.

1:07:56.8 Mike Vacanti: “I gotta… I’m flying out to Los Angeles, I got a big meeting with Pfizer. I’m trying to sell them some stuff out in Los…”

1:08:04.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, Pfizer boy.

1:08:05.7 Mike Vacanti: “And I’m taking my client to the grocery store and we’re gonna get…”

1:08:13.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Are you taking that client to Chick-fil-A?

1:08:19.9 Mike Vacanti: Well, no, to steakhouses when there are…

1:08:20.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:08:21.3 Mike Vacanti: I’m saying that these… It’s not like, oh, I’m on the road, so I’m just gonna go to a steakhouse. ’cause I’m on the road, it’s like, No, I have… I’m trying to sell someone something, build a relationship even like Gary dinners, like he’s eating at a little bit nicer restaurants, eating with people, networking, et cetera.

1:08:39.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

1:08:41.3 Mike Vacanti: But when it’s just you and when it’s within your control. Absolutely, I love Whole Foods. Plenty of options there in the readied prepare food section.

1:08:49.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah, yeah. Pack a lunch.

1:08:52.7 Mike Vacanti: Pack a lunch.

1:08:55.0 Jordan Syatt: Pack a lunch, get a lunch box, or put it in a paper bag. Paper bag lunches are the best. Pack a fucking lunch. Make a sandwich. Get some fruit in there. Get some bran buds, make a salad.

1:09:06.4 Mike Vacanti: Those are like bran buds. You know what…

1:09:09.5 Jordan Syatt: Pre-packaged salads.

1:09:09.6 Mike Vacanti: You know what, we haven’t… We’re gonna talk about fiber. We haven’t talked about fiber. Bran buds are awesome.

1:09:14.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I was not gonna bring it up, ’cause every time I’ve brought fiber up, it hasn’t gone well.

1:09:19.3 Mike Vacanti: Well, protein is better than fiber, but…

1:09:21.0 Jordan Syatt: Uhh… Dude…

1:09:25.7 Mike Vacanti: It is.

1:09:25.6 Jordan Syatt: I’d say equal. They’re equal…

1:09:25.7 Mike Vacanti: No, because guess what?

1:09:25.7 Jordan Syatt: You love the amino acids.

1:09:26.7 Mike Vacanti: It’s not that I love them. It’s not that I love them. I wrote a blog post called ‘How to count your macros, a comprehensive guide’ in October of 2013. And in that post, I had a sentence that I learned from Lyle McDonald circa ’07, which is that we can survive. So when I was deep in my business accounting education, I was reading about nutrition on the side, and the fact that we… And now this is like a parroted thing in the carnivore community, which I hate, but in that post, I said, “You can’t survive without dietary fats, you can’t survive without protein, you can survive without carbohydrates,” so on the what is more important, Protein versus fiber argument. Technically speaking, amino acids are more important.

1:10:09.2 Jordan Syatt: I can’t argue with that. I really can’t. Yeah, I guess I lose that one.

1:10:14.3 Mike Vacanti: You know what…

1:10:15.5 Jordan Syatt: What?

1:10:17.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.

1:10:19.0 Jordan Syatt: What’s with the but?

1:10:20.0 Mike Vacanti: Well, I was gonna try.

1:10:19.9 Jordan Syatt: No, there really was no but.

1:10:20.0 Mike Vacanti: I was gonna argue against myself.

[laughter]

1:10:21.1 Jordan Syatt: You always do that. You’re like, Oh yeah, yeah. Now you’re gonna do, yeah.

1:10:27.7 Mike Vacanti: It’s so good for digestion. It’s so good.

1:10:30.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude, yeah, super good.

1:10:30.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

1:10:32.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

1:10:32.0 Mike Vacanti: And then you hear the argument like, “Oh, well, if you were eating a healthy diet and not a standard American diet, then you wouldn’t need fiber to help your digestion.” No. No. Even if you’re eating primarily unprocessed whole, like micro-nutrient dense foods, having 30-40 grams of fiber in a day or more compared to zero grams of fiber in a day is gonna lead to improved digestion and…

1:10:56.7 Jordan Syatt: And better health over the long term anyway.

1:10:58.6 Mike Vacanti: Do you have any research around intestinal/colon cancer around fiber intake?

1:11:04.0 Jordan Syatt: I don’t have it on me, but I’ve… Actually I’m bringing some, a cancer specialist on the podcast soon around colon cancer and how… Dude, yeah, I don’t have that research on me, but the rates of colon cancer are going astronomically high, and every specialist I’ve spoken to is like, “Increased red meat, decreased fiber is the equation for increased risk of colon cancer.” That’s it.

1:11:31.3 Mike Vacanti: Bran buds. Bran buds have a ton of fiber, 17 grams per serving and mix super well with vanilla Greek yogurt, throw some blueberries in there, maybe some blackberries, it has become my way of curbing a sweet tooth in the evening where my calories are capped because I get really full ’cause there’s so much fiber, and it hits the sweet tooth and prevents me from going to something else, like fruit snacks or rice crispy treats or something that I otherwise may want to snack on in the evening.

1:12:01.4 Jordan Syatt: I’ve been trying to figure out how it can beat your argument around protein being more important.

1:12:05.7 Mike Vacanti: That’s ’cause you’re competitive.

1:12:07.7 Jordan Syatt: I think I’ve got it.

1:12:09.6 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

1:12:11.0 Jordan Syatt: I think I’ve got it. You win when it comes to survival.

1:12:14.8 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

1:12:15.5 Jordan Syatt: When it comes to… There’s no question.

1:12:17.5 Mike Vacanti: And you’re a big survival guy.

1:12:19.2 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I’m a huge survival guy, Bush Craft 101.

1:12:25.5 Mike Vacanti: A field guide to wilderness survival, the ultimate…

1:12:31.7 Jordan Syatt: Survival medicine.

1:12:33.2 Mike Vacanti: The Ultimate Survival Medicine Guide, Jordan’s got some… If you’re only on audio here, Jordan’s pulling books out, Jordan has a plethora, Prepper’s Long-Term Survival Guide. Jordan has all of the information on surviving.

1:12:44.9 Jordan Syatt: Literally, right here on the desk. Dude, I’m a big survival guy. I might have just kicked myself in the foot for showing all those.

1:12:51.1 Mike Vacanti: This is the personal trainer podcast. And that’s what we do here.

1:12:57.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, we survive.

1:12:58.8 Mike Vacanti: But I want you to… I want you to beat me in this argument.

1:13:00.5 Jordan Syatt: Well, no, no. It’s not beating you because when it comes to survival, protein is more important. There’s no question about it. There’s just no question, if you’re in a survival situation, you’re not looking around for fucking fiber. “Oh God, I need fiber, like no, I need to fucking eat meat.” That’s how it works. Assuming survival is… Assuming we don’t just wanna survive, let’s say we wanna thrive.

1:13:32.2 Mike Vacanti: I have arguments for this too.

1:13:33.7 Jordan Syatt: I bet you do. I bet you do.

[laughter]

1:13:35.3 Jordan Syatt: Once it goes into thriving and optimizing health over the long-term, that’s when I say protein and fiber are equal.

1:13:48.5 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

1:13:48.9 Jordan Syatt: I wouldn’t say fiber is better, but I would say fiber and protein are now equal in terms of importance. But survival, yes, protein is most important. There’s no arguing that.

1:13:58.7 Mike Vacanti: You know, in high school debate class where there’s pre-set topics and then you draw a topic and one person is argue for and one person is argue against it, you were at quite the disadvantage in this little back and forth having to defend fiber against protein. So I’m gonna give… That was pretty well done by you.

1:14:19.0 Jordan Syatt: It’s okay. It’s just the truth, it’s like the truth is protein is more important for survival, like no one can logically argue against that.

1:14:26.6 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think they’re equal for thriving either, when you…

1:14:30.3 Jordan Syatt: Dude, yes, they are.

1:14:31.0 Mike Vacanti: Especially…

1:14:31.8 Jordan Syatt: They absolutely are.

1:14:32.6 Mike Vacanti: Protein is required for basically maintaining and building lean tissue, you can’t do it without consuming amino acids.

1:14:43.2 Jordan Syatt: Well, there is the protein sparing effect from carbs, that’s fair.

1:14:46.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, protein sparing effect from carbs would slow down the rate of muscle loss, we don’t have… We don’t have a way of converting carbohydrate, fat or alcohol into amino acids in the body. Similar to how we have a way of converting amino acids into glucose into…

1:15:10.0 Jordan Syatt: Into glucose.

1:15:10.7 Mike Vacanti: Into glucose.

1:15:12.2 Jordan Syatt: Gluconeogenesis.

1:15:12.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, gluconeogenesis, which is a bro’s worst nightmare, by the way. You never ever want that to happen, but I don’t believe… Unless I’m missing something that we can convert something else into amino acids.

1:15:26.2 Jordan Syatt: So, are we… If we’re talking at the extreme of zero protein but enough fiber… I’m saying like they’re equal, assuming you’re getting enough protein and enough fiber like what’s the argument?

1:15:39.5 Mike Vacanti: Let’s just say we like both of them, we don’t need to really be… Well, the argument is around the correlation between strength and lean mass and longevity, and the increased requirements of protein as someone gets older to maintain strength and lean mass and bone density, which are all directly associated with increased lifespan and quality of life. You don’t wanna fall and break your hip at 72 and then just be in real perils for the rest of time, you’d rather be moving and grooving and lifting weights at 84 and doing kettlebell swings and picking up your great grand kid.

1:16:20.9 Jordan Syatt: Dude, without fiber, you might be getting colon cancer at 28, all those years of just meat no fiber might be having real digestion issues, you might be fucking in stomach pain, keeled over, bloated.

1:16:33.7 Mike Vacanti: I don’t wanna argue the…

1:16:34.8 Jordan Syatt: You might not even get to that point.

1:16:36.5 Mike Vacanti: I don’t wanna argue the carnivore position on this because I agree with you. I just don’t know that that risk is as high as the risks associated with not having protein in addition to that.

1:16:48.4 Jordan Syatt: Well, yeah, we’ve… Survival, yes. Survival, yes.

1:16:51.5 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no. But even thriving in the later years. Let’s hit another question. We’ve beaten this horse. They’re both good.

1:17:00.5 Mike Vacanti: This Purple Wraath is like, it’s got like a half life of three days, stuff just lives in you.

1:17:02.6 Jordan Syatt: What is one food you could eat and never get sick of?

1:17:07.9 Mike Vacanti: My mother’s apple crisp.

1:17:09.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh wow, that’s a real homely response. I like that.

1:17:15.2 Mike Vacanti: How about you?

1:17:16.1 Jordan Syatt: Pepperoni pizza. Sushi, Pepperoni pizza.

1:17:21.8 Mike Vacanti: Chicken wings?

1:17:21.8 Jordan Syatt: As soon as I said sushi, it made me think of when Gary, the first week of coaching Gary, Gary was like… I was like, Gary’s like, “Sushi’s a good source of protein, right.” I was like, “Yeah, it’s a great source of protein.” He was like, “Oh, I’ll have sushi every meal all the day.” He’s like, and I was like, “Every meal?” He was like, “Yeah, I’ll have it for breakfast.” This was my first week coaching Gary. I was like, “You’ll have sushi for breakfast?” And he was like, “Yeah, I love sushi. I could eat it every day. I’ll never get sick of it, I’ll eat it for breakfast.”

1:17:50.9 Jordan Syatt: I was like, Okay, ’cause he’s… Oh, he started to get sick of the Greek yogurts, apparently you were bringing him Greek yogurts, and then when I started, I didn’t know that, but I was bringing him Greek yogurts too, ’cause this is a great breakfast. I’ll bring him Greek yogurts for breakfast. Two Greek yogurts after every workout. I went to his office. Gave him two Greek yogurts and he was like, “Oh, I’m getting sick of these. What else?” And he was like, “Sushi’s protein, right?” I was like, “Yeah,” he’s like, “Okay, I’ll have sushi for breakfast.” I was like, “Are you sure?” Then I had to find what fucking sushi place was open at like 6:00 in the morning for me to go get sushi for him, so I find a place to get sushi for him at 6:00 in the morning, I bringing into his office after our workout, and I’ll never forget… He was like, “What’s this?” I was like…

1:18:31.1 Mike Vacanti: And what time is it? Probably like 9:00 AM.

1:18:32.8 Jordan Syatt: Probably like 8:30, 9:00 AM. Yeah. He’s like, “What is this?” I’m like, “Sushi.” He’s like, “For breakfast?” I was like, “Yesterday, you told me you would eat sushi for breakfast.” He’s like, “I’m not eating sushi for breakfast.” [laughter]

1:18:48.1 Jordan Syatt: It’s like, what the fuck, man? Yeah.

1:18:48.9 Mike Vacanti: But then didn’t he go… Didn’t he like call people into his office, he’s like, “Guys, guys, come here, look what Jordan got me from breakfast.” Or did you make that part up?

1:19:00.7 Jordan Syatt: I was so mad.

1:19:01.2 Mike Vacanti: Or did that part happen too?

1:19:01.8 Jordan Syatt: No, that part. Yes, it absolutely happened. I didn’t make that part up.

1:19:05.6 Mike Vacanti: Well, I don’t know if you’re…

1:19:06.1 Jordan Syatt: What a ridiculous question.

1:19:07.6 Mike Vacanti: I mean maybe for…

1:19:07.7 Jordan Syatt: Did you make that part up?

1:19:10.2 Mike Vacanti: For the lie part. I found that to be the punchline to the story, so the fact that you left it out on air, I wasn’t sure if it was fully.

1:19:14.7 Jordan Syatt: No, that actually happened. Yeah, and this is actually on… That actually might be on DailyVee, because another part that was on DailyVee was… It was… It was my maybe second or third day, I’m in there giving him his lunch or making him drink water or whatever it was, and all of a sudden he calls in Ty and a group of four to six other people, and he’s like, “Jordan, what are all their names?” And I was like, “I don’t know. I started two or three days ago,” and he was like, “Alright, well, we’ll go around and we’ll figure it out until you learn it.” and I had to go through one by one, learning all their names, and then I had… As soon as they said their names, I had to go back around, go back around, go back around until I got it, which as you know, my memory is not good, and not to mention DRock’s in my face filming me, it’s like day two or three coaching Gary, I’m still super nervous. That was a real rough entry into the coaching Gary.

1:20:09.2 Mike Vacanti: “Guys, guys get in here. Look at what Jordan got me for breakfast.”

1:20:16.9 Jordan Syatt: Ridiculous.

1:20:19.0 Mike Vacanti: I actually, I have some insider information or I have…

1:20:23.1 Jordan Syatt: About what?

1:20:25.9 Mike Vacanti: I have a prediction of what was happening there.

1:20:29.5 Jordan Syatt: Okay, what was it?

1:20:32.3 Mike Vacanti: I would just imagine that the quality of sushi at somewhere where it’s available at 7:00 am is like not good sushi. And so I’m guessing there was a…

1:20:45.2 Jordan Syatt: But it’s in Manhattan.

1:20:45.8 Mike Vacanti: I know. I know, but I’m guessing there was probably, not your fault obviously.

1:20:49.9 Jordan Syatt: Or he was just really trying to establish dominance.

1:20:54.9 Mike Vacanti: See, competitive. My mind would not have even gone there.

1:20:57.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, well, Gary is super competitive too. He’s even more competitive than I am.

1:21:02.2 Mike Vacanti: Let’s do one more. We’re just rolling.

1:21:04.6 Jordan Syatt: Do you need to be at a certain leanness before starting a bulk?

1:21:06.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

1:21:07.3 Jordan Syatt: How lean?

1:21:14.3 Mike Vacanti: I’m never starting someone… A guy on a muscle gain phase above 15% body fat.

1:21:20.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that makes sense.

1:21:23.2 Mike Vacanti: And we’ll keep it real brief, but you’re gonna… No matter where you are starting a muscle-gain phase, if you’re in a calorie surplus, you’re gonna gain some body fat, and so if you have too much fat at the beginning of the surplus, you’re essentially short-changing yourself on how long you can be in a surplus which makes it less beneficial, obviously. There are probably some calorie partitioning effects where being leaner leads to more muscle gained relative to fat gain, however, in the last few years, there’s been more evidence that that doesn’t apply to super lean levels. So if you’re 30% body fat versus like 13%, the person who’s bulking at 13% is probably adding a little bit more muscle relative to fat than the person who’s at 30%, but the person who’s at like 5% compared to the person who’s at 12 or 13%.

1:22:16.5 Mike Vacanti: They might actually be gaining more body fat.

1:22:21.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, makes total sense.

1:22:22.8 Mike Vacanti: You went for a question that you thought I’d like, you really…

1:22:24.6 Jordan Syatt: Well, that one just popped up, that was a gift from God. Like this isn’t my question.

1:22:30.1 Mike Vacanti: Thank you for listening.

1:22:32.9 Jordan Syatt: Thank you listening.

1:22:34.2 Mike Vacanti: Tuesdays. We’re back on Tuesdays.

1:22:34.3 Jordan Syatt: Leave a five star review, please. And have a good one. We’ll talk to you soon.

1:22:38.4 Mike Vacanti: Bye, everyone.