Episode 190: The Truth About Exercise Addiction, Jordan Can’t Meditate, Heel Elevated Squats, and More…

0:00:12.4 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

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

0:00:13.9 Mike Vacanti: My anger levels are high.

0:00:16.3 Jordan Syatt: What happened?

0:00:16.4 Mike Vacanti: 18 out of 100. The highest they’ve been in years.

0:00:20.7 Jordan Syatt: It’s funny ’cause it doesn’t sound like that’s high, but you’re coming in aggressive as though it’s super high. Like I would’ve put you at like a 90 with that level of aggression.

0:00:28.7 Mike Vacanti: My baseline is three. Your baseline is higher.

0:00:34.4 Jordan Syatt: So what’s going on? Why are you so angry?

0:00:34.4 Mike Vacanti: I think I just manufactured some anger in my head to get my workout in actually. Nothing is actually bothering me other than this fictitious story that I’m about to share with you.

0:00:42.7 Jordan Syatt: Okay, let’s hear it.

0:00:46.1 Mike Vacanti: All right. So I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have a single vice. Like, I don’t know, even the best people I know have something, right? And we’ll think of vices traditionally as things that bring you immediate pleasure. Okay?

0:01:04.1 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:01:04.9 Mike Vacanti: You could also interpret vices as something that gives you midterm pleasure, right? So leaning into pain, something like an ice bath, something like a working out, something like skydiving or adrenaline seeking behavior. Things that are technically painful short term, but elevate dopamine for three to five hours thereafter. Traditional vices though are things that make you feel good immediately. Alcohol, drugs, sex, pornography, video games, social media, all of these things immediately dopaminergic things. Weed. Weed being a big one. People with having weed every single night to go to sleep. Gummies every single night to go to sleep.

0:01:42.5 Mike Vacanti: I see. And no, again, no judgment, because I don’t know a single person who doesn’t have a vice. The best people I know have something. Alright? No one’s perfect. The amount of, “oh, like, are you sure that’s a healthy relationship with exercise?” Like, “are you sure?” And these aren’t people who are seven days a week, three-hour workouts, can’t miss a workout, or it screws with their mental health. Like, I’m not talking about over the top, I don’t wanna throw names, but like David Goggins types of people. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about four days a week. 60, 75 minute lifts. It’s your thing to make you feel good. You have people who are drinking daily, using marijuana daily, using all of these other vices on a high frequency basis who are like, I don’t think what you’re doing with exercise is very smart. “Do you really have to work out?” Like, “do you… You can’t miss your workout?” I don’t know. It was driving me nuts.

0:02:51.2 Jordan Syatt: Bro. You’re preaching.

0:02:53.9 Mike Vacanti: Drive me nuts.

0:02:54.9 Jordan Syatt: Clip that, clip that. It’s obnoxious. It’s like it’s…

0:02:57.8 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think it’s clippable, but…

0:02:57.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s a super clippable clip.

0:03:00.1 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think it’s clippable.

0:03:01.1 Jordan Syatt: Absolutely. Are you kidding me?

0:03:01.7 Mike Vacanti: We should clip you saying that.

0:03:03.5 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no. Listen man, these fuckers, they need to get outta here with that. [laughter] I’m getting angry. I’m getting angry now. Get outta here. You’re worried about my salad and me putting, like asking for the dressing on the side. Olive oil on the side. You’re worried about that? You should be worried about the fucking, you ate the entire thing of chips and ordered two margaritas.

0:03:25.8 Mike Vacanti: And had four weed gummies because you haven’t slept without them in six years.

0:03:31.2 Jordan Syatt: And you haven’t worked out. You don’t work out. You just talk about how you don’t have the motivation. You’re worried about my getting dressing on the side.

0:03:37.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:03:38.3 Jordan Syatt: Get outta here.

0:03:39.0 Mike Vacanti: Get outta here. You’re worried about the fact that, oh, guess what, maybe I only had 20 minutes to work out this morning because I had work obligations, so I only benched and I’m gonna go back later to hit the back and the biceps and whatever else I’m gonna hit. Great.

0:03:54.6 Jordan Syatt: Shoulders.

0:03:55.3 Mike Vacanti: That’s what I’m gonna do. Maybe some lateral raises. Who knows? I might make it a full second workout. What are you gonna do about it? Just keep slamming the bottle?

0:04:01.0 Jordan Syatt: Judging me? I would… And we’re not even judging them. Like, we’re not like the one initiating me like, Hey, I think you like, are drinking alcohol. Hey, I think you’re doing this. They’re the one who initiate the judgment. And then it’s like, oh wow, oh wow. You’re coming at me? I was just, I wasn’t saying anything. I was just enjoying this time together.

0:04:19.2 Mike Vacanti: Minding my business, staying in my lane.

0:04:24.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:04:24.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. If that ain’t…

0:04:24.6 Jordan Syatt: Get the fuck outta here.

0:04:24.6 Mike Vacanti: The pot calling the kettle black. I don’t know what is.

0:04:28.5 Jordan Syatt: Man. Yeah.

0:04:31.6 Mike Vacanti: And no one even said anything. I just made up this story driving home from the gym.

0:04:36.8 Jordan Syatt: Now I’m mad. And you said it.

0:04:38.0 Mike Vacanti: Good. Let’s use this anger. Anger is and always has been, albeit unhealthy, the best form of gasoline for the human body to…

0:04:51.6 Jordan Syatt: Be productive.

0:04:52.5 Mike Vacanti: To either grow business or lift weights.

0:04:57.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. I mean that’s why, why people like, like intense music. I think often intense music will create some form of, obviously it depends on the genre, but usually when you’re working hard and you wanna get bumping in the gym, like you’re listening to something that pumps you up, it often will create some form of anger or I don’t know, resentment or just like, fuck them. I’ve got a chip on my shoulder type thing. Like that’s often where that comes from. It’s another way of manufacturing the anger.

0:05:36.1 Mike Vacanti: I used to have that to such an insane degree. I was gonna send you the screenshot, but I’ll just share it now because I forgot to. I was reading through, I wanted to dig up. I’ve kept like an ongoing word document over the course of, since I was a freshman in college, basically of like, just random thoughts and I date and…

0:05:58.4 Jordan Syatt: A journal.

0:06:00.3 Mike Vacanti: Time them. Yeah. You could call it a journal. I wouldn’t call it a journal. It’s just sometimes there’s lists. Sometimes it doesn’t take on any kind of true form. But I wanted to scroll to a specific period of time to see what my mindset was at that time.

0:06:14.2 Jordan Syatt: Smart.

0:06:14.6 Mike Vacanti: And I’m like, I’m not gonna get lost in this thing. ’cause there’s, it’s very long. But I opened it, started scrolling and landed on a random entry from 2008.

0:06:26.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh my gosh.

0:06:26.9 Mike Vacanti: Which is nowhere near the timeframe I was going for. But I was in college and it was basically, it was to the… I was riding in the car with this friend kind of colleague from college who…

0:06:47.6 Jordan Syatt: You didn’t really like him.

0:06:48.7 Mike Vacanti: He was, he was a good guy.

0:06:51.3 Jordan Syatt: He was just there.

0:06:52.1 Mike Vacanti: He was just there. He’s a good guy. But basically he said something to the effect of, “I got this amazing new ab workout” and it’s so funny. I just J-ed so hard. I said, well…

0:07:06.1 Jordan Syatt: Oh no.

0:07:06.6 Mike Vacanti: I said, “it’s impossible for…”

[laughter]

0:07:09.0 Mike Vacanti: 2008. “It’s impossible for it to be better than P90X Ab Ripper. But go ahead,” was my response.

[laughter]

0:07:22.3 Jordan Syatt: “Just so you know, it’s physically impossible…”

0:07:25.3 Mike Vacanti: It’s impossible.

0:07:25.6 Jordan Syatt: “To do better than Ab Ripper.”

[laughter]

0:07:28.7 Mike Vacanti: Which I don’t agree with on like a technical obviously at this point in my life and career. But his response was, “yeah, but it’s actually realistic.” And where I was at at that time, I was like, I never wanna be like this. Like, being realistic is the worst thing ever. I’m gonna use this to push myself even harder. Like I’m gonna use, it was very what you and I were both experiencing in college, which was significant amount of chip on shoulder, motivating all action and behavior.

0:08:06.4 Jordan Syatt: Realistic? Realistic? Are you stupid? What kind of a defeatist mindset is that is disgusting.

0:08:15.5 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:08:18.7 Jordan Syatt: Get… I don’t, I’m gonna jump out of this car. I’m fucking sick of this conversation already. Realistic? Fucking get outta here. Yeah.

0:08:26.7 Mike Vacanti: Which from the perspective of, not to be cliche, but like achieving greatness in any endeavor is the proper mindset. Now from the perspective of being healthy and through everything I’ve learned since then, almost 20 years, largely through coaching people over the course of that time, I actually have the opposite mindset, which is…

0:08:52.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:08:52.5 Mike Vacanti: For the overwhelming majority of people, I do want you to do what’s realistic because I want you to be consistent ’cause that’s gonna get you the best results. But it was funny because I didn’t remember just how intense my mindset was at that time around hard work is the answer.

0:09:11.7 Jordan Syatt: Man. I think being young is the time to be unrealistic though. Like, that’s the best time. I think, I don’t know, from birth until, I’m gonna just say an age, and obviously this is an arbitrary number, but we’ll say like, birth until, birth until 28 is like a really great time to be very unrealistic with your methodologies, with your thought processes, with like, just be super unrealistic, do crazy shit and just go all in on it. And obviously arbitrary numbers, I was like, well, I’m 29. I was, okay, fine, whatever. But I’m saying birth to 28 is like the best time of your life to actually be unrealistic. ’cause soon after that, you’ve gotta start getting your shit together. [laughter]

0:10:05.8 Mike Vacanti: Being realistic is… Or sorry, being unrealistic is almost the inverse of having responsibility, right? The more responsibility you take on, the more that it’s hard for you to be unrealistic with your own personal pursuits because you have people relying on you.

0:10:22.7 Jordan Syatt: I love… That’s great. And then that leads into you having more responsibility allows, gives the people who you have responsibility for it gives them the space to be unrealistic. So like you, if you’re a parent, you hold that space for your children to be unrealistic. That’s… Yeah. I like that a lot.

0:10:43.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. To dream, to… Yeah. Yeah.

0:10:48.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Dude, I love that.

0:10:50.2 Mike Vacanti: What… You still do a pretty good job of balancing, using anger as motivation for work with not letting that anger bleed into other areas of your life or as the great bodybuilder Tom Platz once said, you essentially when, and you know, bodybuilding was his career, so we could think of it like building a business, but when he’s in the gym, he wanted to kill everybody. And that’s his quote. And then the second he walked in the door, you had to become a different person. Like, walked in to your house, it’s, “hi honey, how was your day? Like, what can I do?”

0:11:40.8 Jordan Syatt: Yes.

0:11:41.3 Mike Vacanti: “What can I help with?”

0:11:42.6 Jordan Syatt: Yes.

0:11:42.7 Mike Vacanti: And really being able to turn those two distinct people on and off like a light switch in a moment is a very valuable skill.

0:11:55.7 Jordan Syatt: Bro, the number of, like, it’s so funny. I can go from full on raging debate on Instagram and put my phone down, and within literally the time it takes me to hit send to when I’m picking up my daughter, like milliseconds, I can go from raging, like, angry debate to, “I thank God every day for you, sweetheart. I love you so much.” And just like putting her on my shoulders, running around the house, like in milliseconds and complete shift. And neither of the people on either end of the receiving end would know that I was just the complete opposite way milliseconds later. My daughter won’t know that I was just in a raging debate. The person I was in a raging debate has no idea that I’m like laughing and enjoying time, like, and just completely giddy with my daughter. It is actually pretty wild. And I can see it also goes to show that whenever you’re seeing someone on social media, you’re really only just seeing often a manufactured image of who they are. Or just an image of who they are in that moment, which could be completely different from who they are when they’re with people they love or with people who are in person. It’s just, it’s a completely different… You only see one thing on social media at that one point in time.

0:13:17.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That’s a great point. Let me ask you this, do you think that’s a skill that you developed/do you think that you are flipping the light switch on your own? Or do you think part of the immediate mood shift is how your daughters make you feel?

0:13:38.9 Jordan Syatt: I think it’s a little bit of everything. So I know, like, I think I’ve been very fortunate in terms of having more perspective than I think. I think our generation will have more perspective than previous generations. And what I mean by that is we now have access to so many different thoughts and people giving their honest reviews and ideas on what their life was like and their regrets. Before Gary would always say, go to a nursing home and talk to old people and they’ll tell you what their regrets are. Now you don’t even need to do that. Like, you can actually hear people in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s talking on social media about what they regretted, what life like, what they wish they did as a parent. So I’ve seen so many amazing messages and I’ve heard so many amazing analogies.

0:14:26.8 Jordan Syatt: In terms of, one of the greatest things I’ve heard from a parenting perspective is there will be a time when I wish I could go back and like, my house will be quiet and everything will be calm. And I’ll wish I could go back even for 10 minutes and have it be insanely chaotic and loud and difficult. And I’ve seen and absorbed so many of these messages that it is always top of mind for me. So it’s easier for me to make that shift because of the messaging that I’ve heard. I also think it is part of just my DNA and who I am, but I also, I think that it’s more about being consciously aware of what I want to be and the impact I want to have in that moment. I think being able to do it is… Everyone has the skill, I think some people are innately better at it than others. I think I’m innately better at sort of shifting and shape shifting in the moment. But I also think that the perspectives that I’ve heard and that I’ve learned through other people help me make it a better habit, an easier habit to accomplish.

0:15:40.4 Mike Vacanti: That makes sense. It might come a little bit more naturally to you than most, but through the effort you’ve put in over the years that has been driven by the perspective that you’ve gained from what you’ve consumed, and I don’t know, we’ll just call it thinking about perspective and life and how you want to be. You’ve improved at that skill.

0:16:03.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. That’s exactly right.

0:16:06.0 Mike Vacanti: Probably part of it too is maturity in that you don’t get as angry as you once did. Or I could be wrong.

0:16:14.6 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know.

0:16:14.5 Mike Vacanti: Really?

0:16:14.6 Jordan Syatt: I think I get really fucking angry. So like, I can still get really angry. I’m trying to think. I’m trying to like, now think of the, in terms of levels, like when I… Here’s what I think. When I think of anger, I’m thinking of heart beating loudly. Like I can hear my heart beating in my chest. Here’s what I think, I think I get just as angry, but I’m better at managing my anger. I’m better at being objective and sort of looking at it from above and putting it into the greater scheme of things. I think I am more empathetic. I have a better idea of who that someone else is on the other side and like they have a life and thinking about it rather just in terms of what they said and how it impacted me. Also potentially thinking about their intent. I just, it’s more of a spider web now that I have a greater view of from above. Whereas before it was only how is this impacting me and how is it affecting me? And I’m angry about this and they don’t understand it’s just me, me, me. Now it’s more, a little bit more of a global thing. So I think I can get just as angry, but I’m much better at managing it and putting things into perspective.

0:17:16.2 Mike Vacanti: Good for you. What you just described is what I hear a lot of people who get into meditation develop and improve via the process of consistent meditation. But I know that…

0:17:31.2 Jordan Syatt: Interesting.

0:17:31.8 Mike Vacanti: I know that you don’t do any of that.

0:17:34.0 Jordan Syatt: I don’t meditate. I don’t meditate.

0:17:35.1 Mike Vacanti: But you clearly have your own…

0:17:37.0 Jordan Syatt: I have bad experiences with meditation.

[laughter]

0:17:45.1 Mike Vacanti: Is that…

0:17:45.6 Jordan Syatt: Not good. I can tell it if you want. I know, I can tell this like, basically my dad ironically was very into meditation. And then I say very into, I mean like he would pay a lot of money to go to these meditation courses. And he got, he tried to get my whole family involved in it. And he took us to this meditation place. Like, and…

0:18:12.5 Mike Vacanti: Like a conference or like a class?

0:18:16.7 Jordan Syatt: No, not a conference. It was literally the guy’s name was Maharishi. I don’t know. It was like a whole, it was a fucking thing. It was in the middle of nowhere. It was in Maine. It was like this big mansion building and it was a whole experience. And he brought us there to meet…

0:18:33.6 Mike Vacanti: How old were you?

0:18:36.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh man, probably like third grade, fourth grade. And he would bring my brother and I consistently, I don’t know, a couple times a year and it would just be an afternoon thing. But we would go and we would try and practice meditation and I enjoyed that part of it. But then when we came home, my dad had real anger issues, like real anger issues. And so there would be times where like I was supposed to be meditating in my room and like, it was forced meditation, which in and of itself I think is against the concept of meditation.

0:19:14.5 Mike Vacanti: Principle.

0:19:15.2 Jordan Syatt: Like, we would be like, you… Now you go and you meditate and you go in there and like, I wasn’t allowed to come out to use the bathroom. And there was one time where I really had to use the bathroom and like the fury that was expelled from this man when I had to use the bathroom to… It was just insane. And then there was another time, you love the story, when…

0:19:38.0 Mike Vacanti: It’s so, it’s so ironic. It’s so the opposite…

0:19:41.6 Jordan Syatt: It’s there.

0:19:43.1 Mike Vacanti: It’s the opposite of what meditation should do for you.

0:19:46.9 Jordan Syatt: So we have a three story house, which is very common in the northeast, a basement, first floor, second floor. And my dad’s office was in the basement, and I didn’t even know he was meditating. I had no idea. So he was downstairs and I was a young kid. I was like, probably fourth grade, fifth grade. And you know, kids just, they run around, stomp on the ground, make noise. I had been playing with Lincoln Logs and they were all over the, the ground. And my mom was like, Hey, could you pick up the Lincoln Logs? And so I am, instead of just like a normal adult, just picking up one Lincoln log at a time, I’m somersaulting on the ground from one Lincoln log to the next, just like rolling and jumping and just doing all this stuff like a normal kid. And then I hear from, I hear the, his office door slam, and like, my butt, dude, I like the, my butt hole, like immediately started shaking. I was like oh, I know what that means. I hear him, boom, boom, boom. Like stomping up the steps and the fury that I was like the yelling and he was throwing pillows at me just like absolutely freaking out angry. He’s like, “I was meditating!” And in the moment I was really scared. I was really young. Whatever. And like you and I have spoken about, it’s like, I think meditation’s supposed to make you more calm.

0:21:04.7 Mike Vacanti: I was meditating. Like that’s…

0:21:08.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s just, I have to see the comedy in it at this point in my life. It’s, yeah.

0:21:12.3 Mike Vacanti: Well, as a kid, first of all, I think it’s very, very common for kids, for boys especially to fear their fathers. And then on top of that if he was more aggressive than average, yelling more than average, scarier than average, we’ll just call it allegedly and because I wasn’t there. But you know, for him to be, or for anyone we’ll say to be meditating and then to come out of it in a rage because of like, noise being made. And screaming, I was meditating. It’s just…

0:21:58.6 Jordan Syatt: It’s so funny. It’s like a movie. It’s like a movie character.

0:22:02.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s comedy.

0:22:03.3 Jordan Syatt: You’d see that in a, like a, I don’t know, a Ben Stiller movie and you’d just lose it, laughing.

0:22:10.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. Which not funny at all while you’re going through it, but…

0:22:11.0 Jordan Syatt: No. No, but you have to find the humor in dark thing. I don’t know. You don’t have to. But that, I think it’s helpful to find humor in dark things because…

0:22:20.5 Mike Vacanti: Especially, and what’s funny is the people who have actually experienced the dark things, generally like that specific type of humor, if it’s about the thing they’ve been through.

0:22:33.9 Jordan Syatt: That’s true.

0:22:33.9 Mike Vacanti: Whereas the people who are clutching their pearls are generally in a position where they’ve never experienced anything like that. And like, how dare you joke about that, whereas the people who actually went through it. Yeah.

0:22:46.8 Jordan Syatt: Who’s this famous? Was it… Her name Joan Rivers? Let me, Joan Rivers, one second. Let me see if that’s, I wanna make sure that’s, yeah. Joan Rivers. All right. Joan Rivers one of the greatest comedians of all time, one of the greatest comedians of all time. She passed within the last 10 years or so. I think she’s one of the greatest, not just comedians, but she was like, I think one of the first, if not the first great women comedians. And she’s set the stage for more women to really become, very well known and to inspire other women to be standup comics. And she was making jokes. It’s a very famous bit of one of her specials. She was making jokes. Huge crowd. She’s, if you haven’t watched her, she’s fucking hilarious. She was making jokes about deaf people, like dark jokes about deaf people.

0:23:36.7 Jordan Syatt: And this is a while into the, into her bit. And this guy in the front row gets up and he’s like, “fuck you.” Like something like, “my mom is deaf,” or someone in my family is deaf. And like got really mad. And she was like, and she lost it. She was like, “fuck you.” She’s like, “you’ve been sitting here this whole time laughing at other people, but now that it’s something related to you, you’re gonna get up.” And she goes, “my son is deaf.” And it’s something where, because she’s gone through it, her way of dealing with it is through creating humor. And through… And it’s another way of understanding that different people deal with trauma differently. But it is very interesting. I’ll never forget watching that scene for the first time, and her just being like, “my son is deaf. This is how I deal with it. Like this is, we make jokes about it. You’re at a comedy show. It’s supposed to be making jokes like no one is safe.” I just thought it was really good. And a huge respect to Joan Rivers.

0:24:36.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That exemplifies it perfectly.

0:24:39.2 Jordan Syatt: She is a no bullshit hilarious. I think she’s, well, she’s one of the greatest comedians of all time, and I think she’s the greatest female standup comedian of all time without question.

0:24:52.4 Mike Vacanti: Dude. So my Twitter is officially gone and may never come back. And I know this ebbs and flows. We were talking about vices earlier, right? I’ll probably be back at some point, I don’t know. But I opened Twitter the other day and the first thing I saw was this dude die.

0:25:17.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh my gosh.

0:25:19.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. So I deleted Twitter after seeing that.

0:25:22.2 Jordan Syatt: Just desens… We’re… We’ve become desensitized to seeing horrific things on social media. Like…

0:25:27.1 Mike Vacanti: Or at least we can. I don’t know that I have, because if you’re desensitized…

0:25:33.7 Jordan Syatt: Maybe not desens… We’ve become almost normalized to it though. It’s like I see videos like that. I see accounts that will advertise their account in the comments of like big accounts. Like they’ll like, “Hey, I post gruesome death videos,” or “I post like crazy…” It’s… There are entire account and they have millions and millions of followers and like insane engagement. It’s crazy.

0:25:54.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. There’s, I haven’t thought enough about this, but there’s clearly something inside of us that or maybe inside some people that is attracted to that or I don’t know.

0:26:08.6 Jordan Syatt: I mean, I think we’re all interested or intrigued by death in some capacity and like to watch it unfold is, I mean, I think about it like a car accident. You’re on the highway and there’s a car accident on the other side of the highway. And there’s no reason for your side of the highway to be backed up, but people are just slowly going by to try and get a glimpse of the carnage. It’s very odd, but I think it’s innate within us to sort of want to see what happened, like what caused it. I mean, these crime stories, these crime podcasts where you hear about these crazy deaths and mysteries people are drawn to. And I think death in and of itself is mysterious and we don’t know. And we don’t have all the answers. And it’s one of the only things in life that like we all go through, but we don’t understand what’s gonna happen. And so it’s…

0:27:08.8 Mike Vacanti: Yes. I still think there’s a difference between meditating on the concept and seeing it happen violently and like, or maybe it’s individual. Maybe some people are so desensitized they can watch that and have no ill effects on their soul. Whereas, I don’t know, I almost think about it in terms of like levels of energy or levels of consciousness where there’s different scales and this is very pseudoscience, not real, but not real physical science. But there’s level, I should almost look at it to get the chart, but when you’re in a certain place, scenes when you’re in like a low place, maybe seeing something very intense elicits an emotion that actually lifts you up. Whereas if you’re in a higher place, it brings you down. I don’t know.

0:28:10.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I’m just thinking about the Roman Colosseum and how thousands of people would go and not only deliberately watch, but like gleefully watch as people were killed and they would happily go into a stadium to watch people die. And in gruesome, gruesome ways. And I think, yeah. It’s pretty crazy.

0:28:33.7 Mike Vacanti: And so do you think that says something about that group of people at that time or do you think that says something about all people?

0:28:42.8 Jordan Syatt: Both. I mean, it’s a huge part of Roman culture, or it was a huge part of Roman culture and it was seen as an amazing celebration and people would get really excited about it. But I think we can see that in many different ways throughout history. Whether it was the Roman Colosseum or different fighting pits or whatever it is. I think it’s human nature. I really do think… And not saying everyone enjoys seeing that stuff, but I do think that it’s human nature for people to be at the very least interested in it enough to watch it or want to learn more about it. I think it’s very normal.

0:29:21.5 Mike Vacanti: I wonder what percentage of the Roman population enjoyed watching that.

0:29:28.2 Jordan Syatt: I wonder that as well.

0:29:28.3 Mike Vacanti: Because clearly some people do.

0:29:31.2 Jordan Syatt: I also wonder, to go to your point of, I wonder if it was the people who were very poor and underprivileged, if they were more likely to enjoy it, and if the people who were higher up and they had more money and more wealth and more happiness and more knowledge and more education, I wonder if they were less likely to enjoy it. I would imagine it probably went that way. To my knowledge, the majority of the stadium was filled with the very poor, like the, I believe the emperor funded the entire thing, so people didn’t have to pay. They could go, oftentimes food was available for them. And so like, they would go and watching someone else die maybe elevated their mood. But for the philosophers and the educated, knowing a little bit more about the pain and what was going on with these fighters and the slaves and these people who were losing their lives, I would imagine that they probably didn’t enjoy it nearly as much.

0:30:26.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. There’s a quote about how to prevent revolt along the lines of “give the mob bread and circus and they’ll be entertained and they won’t revolt. Even though they have the numbers they won’t because we’ll keep them at bay.”

0:30:46.9 Jordan Syatt: That makes total sense. That makes total sense. It’s a very powerful quote.

0:30:50.1 Mike Vacanti: But Jordan, I need you to hold me accountable on Twitter here. We’ll see how long it takes.

0:30:54.6 Jordan Syatt: I can’t do that. I can’t do that.

0:30:57.6 Mike Vacanti: You can, I’m gonna send you a daily accountability email.

0:31:00.0 Jordan Syatt: You can do that. You can… I mean, email. You know, I’m not gonna see that. I’m gonna send you an email. Bro, you know what’s crazy?

0:31:13.7 Mike Vacanti: What?

0:31:15.1 Jordan Syatt: I have been feeling… Like when I sleep really well, like when I’m getting eight hours a night and I’m sleeping really well, really high quality, obviously I feel good and I’m very relaxed and I’m in a more content mood and I actually feel like I’m less productive. Whereas when I sleep less and I’m more tired and I’m more stressed, I actually feel I’m more productive.

0:31:46.1 Mike Vacanti: Interesting.

0:31:48.0 Jordan Syatt: At least in the short term, I’m sure. I would imagine long term it would probably play out the opposite way. But my daughter is just over two weeks old now and sleeping very little, staying up very late, getting four to five hours of sleep oftentimes. And I get up and it’s go, go, go, go. And like, I’ve gotta get stuff done, I gotta get… Whereas like when I sleep really well and I wake up and it’s a slow start to the day, I’m like, ah, you know, it’s a little bit more, I’m more relaxed. I’m more content. It’s like, okay, maybe I don’t need to go as hard today. It’s very interesting. I just thought about that this morning.

0:32:25.2 Mike Vacanti: Keep us updated on that. Maybe the momentum associated. Well, just meaning how long that lasts.

0:32:33.9 Jordan Syatt: Maybe the financial aspect of having another kid has got you really going.

0:32:39.5 Mike Vacanti: I’ve heard people argue from their personal experience that too much sleep has a negative effect on them in the short term.

0:32:49.1 Jordan Syatt: From a productivity perspective.

0:32:51.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I think productivity, mood, almost excess sleep makes them lethargic.

0:32:56.1 Jordan Syatt: For me, I feel like it’s more just like contentment. Like when I’m really content with everything, I’m like, it’s okay. I don’t need to do that.

0:33:05.3 Mike Vacanti: Is that a bad thing?

0:33:06.8 Jordan Syatt: No, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I think it’s a bad thing if you wanna grow your business. Contentment and desire to grow a business do not really go well together.

0:33:18.9 Mike Vacanti: I completely agree with that. And you want to continue growing your businesses.

0:33:22.0 Jordan Syatt: Yes, of course. Especially the mentorship, which by the way, if you are not in the online fitness business and mentorship.

0:33:27.8 Mike Vacanti: What are you doing?

0:33:29.1 Jordan Syatt: What are you doing?

0:33:29.2 Mike Vacanti: What are you doing?

0:33:29.7 Jordan Syatt: Come on.

0:33:31.5 Mike Vacanti: You’ve been listening to this podcast for weeks, months, maybe years, and you haven’t signed up yet.

0:33:36.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, we have weekly Q&As. Get in there every single week. We answer your questions.

0:33:38.7 Mike Vacanti: Monthly challenges, 13 courses.

0:33:41.9 Jordan Syatt: Everything you need to build an online fitness business to help people all over the world help support you and your family.

0:33:46.8 Mike Vacanti: I love the… The community has become, from my perspective, at least even more tight knit since. Was it January of this year? We upped the Q&A frequency. So it’s every single week we got everyone in there on Zooms. Yeah. I love.

0:34:03.2 Jordan Syatt: It’s that people are, they’re super vulnerable and they post like, the truth about what’s going on. It’s not people flexing and making shit up. It’s like when people are going through a hard time, they’ll talk about it. When they’re going through a good time, they’ll talk about it. There, it’s not just questions about building businesses, although there are a lot of questions about building your business and social media and sales and all that. But a lot of specific questions about things that clients are struggling with. Something like, Hey, my client is struggling with this aspect. My client’s struggling with that aspect. Whether it’s food, nutrition, mobility, strength, programming, whatever it is. Like it’s, I don’t think there’s anything like this. I think most if not all other business programs are basically solely focused on business, which is fine. This is the only one that I know of that also has a major, probably a large… The largest focus on how to actually be a really, really, really good coach, program design, basic psychology, and understand like…

0:35:02.5 Mike Vacanti: Client communication.

0:35:03.9 Jordan Syatt: Understanding how to… Client communication, structuring conversations. It’s yeah, so you can apply if you’d like and the link to apply is in the show notes.

0:35:11.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s right. Which ironically is the best way to build your business in the long run is to be a great coach and give great service to your clients.

0:35:23.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I mean, people often, I would imagine people like, how does Mike not make content for over five years and still…

0:35:30.0 Mike Vacanti: Oh man.

0:35:31.8 Jordan Syatt: Have such an amazing business. It’s because it’s number one, obviously SEO and people continue to find your work that you made years ago because you deliberately made content, long form content with the intent to have people finding it forever. And also, you’re a great coach and you consistently get referrals and you have a longstanding list of clients who continue to work with you for years and years and years because you have a great service. And so I think for most people who are coaches who don’t want to be concerned with making content forever and don’t want to always be on social media, I feel like you’re the pinnacle of that. And it’s amazing that you can literally not be online, not on social media, and still have an insanely successful online coaching business solely because you’re a great coach. I think that’s what probably every really good coach wants.

0:36:17.0 Mike Vacanti: Thank you, brother. I really appreciate that. And that is, we’ve talked about this a little bit in the mentorship. I don’t know how much on the podcast, but it’s such an underrated form of maintaining your business, which is focused on lower churn rates, right? Providing a great service. So people wanna work with you for years at a time rather than weeks or months at a time. Then you’re not always trying to get new clients. When you have clients who want to work with you for the long term, it’s a lot easier and it requires a lot less effort on the marketing side aka organic reach on social media.

0:37:00.5 Jordan Syatt: Bingo.

0:37:01.8 Mike Vacanti: Okay. Dude, I saw this… We talked a lot about testosterone last week, so we don’t have to go deep on this, but I had a client send me his blood work, and I had not seen the reference ranges broken out like this before. And I don’t know if this varies from clinic to clinic or office to office or if it varies from state to state, perhaps country to country. But this has… It has it broken out the reference range broken out by age, which I thought was interesting because usually what I’m used to seeing is just 300 to 800 used to be like, I think it used to be maybe it used to be 300 to a thousand or 300 to 900, and then 300 to 800. I’ve seen some 250 to 800, but this was broken out males 18 to 30, 259 to 816, males 31 to 44, 198…

0:37:57.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh my gosh.

0:38:00.6 Mike Vacanti: To 697.

0:38:00.6 Jordan Syatt: Where is this? Where does this person live? What state?

0:38:02.2 Mike Vacanti: Arizona.

0:38:03.3 Jordan Syatt: Interesting. Okay.

0:38:05.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I hadn’t seen that. It matches the trend of reference range going down over time which is probably just looking at population data and being like, okay, average rates are X and so the reference range comes down as average population rates go down, but it really shouldn’t be the driver of the reference range.

0:38:38.8 Jordan Syatt: Is the reference range based on population or is it based on what they believe is optimal for health?

0:38:43.5 Mike Vacanti: Well, it can’t be because then why would it go down so much over a 30-year window?

0:38:48.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. That’s… I have no idea that that doesn’t make sense to me.

0:38:52.6 Mike Vacanti: Part of it has to be the fact that total levels are just getting lower.

0:38:58.3 Jordan Syatt: Which is a fact, like very clearly we’ve seen testosterone dropping significantly over the last 30 years.

0:39:02.4 Mike Vacanti: And not a good thing either. But anyway, I thought that was interesting.

0:39:07.0 Jordan Syatt: That is very interesting.

0:39:08.9 Mike Vacanti: Wanna fire up questions?

0:39:09.9 Jordan Syatt: Benefits to heel raise squats.

0:39:12.1 Mike Vacanti: Quads.

0:39:12.4 Jordan Syatt: Yep. They help with your quad. They definitely target your quads more. They can help with knee health taking your knees through a bigger range of motion, assuming you’re not loading it too heavy. They can be… Here’s where I actually don’t like them. I see a lot of people do heel elevated squats when someone doesn’t have the mobility to to do a regular squat. And so they just, all right, well, we’re only gonna do heel elevated. And it infuriates me because it’s like, well, how about we get them to learn and to be able to move properly so that they can do a squat with their heels on the ground? Don’t just give them the, you’re essentially giving them a regression and sticking with the regression forever. The ultimate would be let’s get them to actually have good enough ankle mobility, thoracic mobility, hip mobility to where they can squat deep enough with heels on the, with their heels on the ground. So it can be a good substitute or regression in the meantime. But it doesn’t mean you should always stick with that variation if you don’t have the mobility to squat deep with your heels on the ground.

0:40:16.2 Mike Vacanti: And some of those people have the mobility, they just have too much ego. So they might not have the mobility with 315 on their back but if they had 185 on their back, they would be able to squat to proper depth with their feet flat on the ground without their heels elevated. It’s just that at that higher weight, they can’t achieve that range with their feet flat on the ground.

0:40:42.0 Jordan Syatt: Bro, I know this isn’t a question, but I’m so excited that I got a reverse hyper.

0:40:46.0 Mike Vacanti: Oh, that’s amazing. Yeah. You got the Scout.

0:40:49.2 Jordan Syatt: I got the Scout. I got… So I texted Tom, Tom Barry at Westside. He essentially took over Westside Barbell after Louie passed. Tom and I started training at Westside on the same day in 2011. And he… His story is crazy. Like he was a professor at a university in Ireland and he got the opportunity to intern at Westside, sold everything, quit his job and moved from Ireland, moved from Waterford to Columbus, Ohio with nothing. He got a bicycle. He was riding his bicycle on the highway, to get to Westside, on the highway to…

0:41:29.3 Mike Vacanti: That’s a success story right there.

0:41:33.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And you know, like when people are from Ireland or Scotland and they’ve got a really strong accent, like you can’t understand a fucking word they’re saying. It’s true. Like if they have a really strong Irish or Scottish accent, it’s really difficult. And there are different Irish and Scott, definitely different Irish accents. Like…

0:41:47.9 Mike Vacanti: I’m pretty good.

0:41:49.8 Jordan Syatt: Waterford is a different one than…

0:41:50.7 Mike Vacanti: I feel like I can understand pretty well.

0:41:54.2 Jordan Syatt: Maybe. I’m sure, I’m sure you could. I’m pretty good at it too. It was really hard for the first two weeks with Tom. For the first two weeks with Tom. It was so hard and Louie had no idea what he was saying. “Jordan, what’d he say? What’d Tom say?” Like, he couldn’t fucking understand what Tom was saying. And Louie’s just like, he didn’t give a shit. He was “Jordan. Jordan. What’d Tom say?”

0:42:16.5 Mike Vacanti: That’s amazing.

0:42:17.2 Jordan Syatt: Did it right in front of Tom. Like, “what’d he say? I couldn’t understand that.” So yeah, so Tom like took over Westside after Louie passed and I texted Tom, I was like, “Hey, how do you like the Scout?” Because the Scout is, it’s like 86 pounds and it’s foldable and it takes up a relatively small amount of space. So like, as a reverse hyper, you get worried it’s gonna be wobbly, falling all over the place. I asked him and he was like, “this is the main one we use at this point.” Which is crazy because the other ones are like 1200 bucks. They’re huge. They’re super sturdy, they’re amazing. And he’s like, “we actually prefer these right now.” So I’ve wanted a reverse hyper since I trained at Westside however many years ago. That was like 13, 11 years ago now. So I’m so excited.

0:42:57.9 Mike Vacanti: How much was this one?

0:43:00.5 Jordan Syatt: It was like, it was 300 something or 400 something.

0:43:04.3 Mike Vacanti: Wow.

0:43:04.7 Jordan Syatt: No, with shipping it was 400 bucks.

0:43:05.0 Mike Vacanti: That’s a great deal.

0:43:06.8 Jordan Syatt: So it was, I think it was like under $400 for the equipment and then like with shipping it was like 450 or something.

0:43:14.4 Mike Vacanti: Great deal.

0:43:15.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Super good deal.

0:43:17.2 Mike Vacanti: Alright. We’re gonna wrap it up there. We’re jumping on this Q&A. Thank you very much for listening. We’re back next week. We appreciate you. Five star reviews. Much appreciated. If you have 45 seconds at any point today to leave a five star review…

0:43:27.6 Jordan Syatt: Right now, right now.

0:43:28.8 Mike Vacanti: That would incredible.

0:43:29.4 Jordan Syatt: Right now while you’re listening.

0:43:30.9 Mike Vacanti: Well that would be amazing. I’m not picky though. If you wanna put it on your to-do list and do it later today. Jordan and I, we have faith. You’re gonna knock out your to-do list today. So either one, if you have time, if you don’t have 45 seconds today, that’s cool. We still love you. We appreciate you. Have a great, great day. See you next week.

0:43:46.0 Jordan Syatt: See you.

0:43:46.2 Mike Vacanti: Let’s go.