Episode 219: Food Stamp Controversy, Being a “Skinny Queen,” Marriage Disputes, and More…

0:00:12.2 Mike Vacanti: Hello Jordan.

0:00:12.6 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, Michael?

0:00:13.3 Mike Vacanti: How are you, brother?

0:00:15.3 Jordan Syatt: Bro, never better.

0:00:16.3 Mike Vacanti: Backwards hat with the headphones, with the red shirt, and the nice background. You’re really dialed in here.

0:00:21.4 Jordan Syatt: I’m feeling good, man. Feeling good. First cup of coffee on the day. What are you up to?

0:00:26.6 Mike Vacanti: Just got a good workout in. Just ready to pod, you know? Got a lot of good discussion topics for today.

0:00:32.2 Jordan Syatt: I like that. Anything controversial? Polarizing?

0:00:36.4 Mike Vacanti: No, just some good, solid, salt of the Earth questions from listeners that people are really gonna enjoy.

0:00:44.6 Jordan Syatt: All right, let’s do it.

0:00:45.9 Mike Vacanti: I just deleted Twitter, like, eight minutes ago.

0:00:50.2 Jordan Syatt: How many times a month do you think you delete and then redownload Twitter?

0:00:54.9 Mike Vacanti: Depends on the month. There’s a lot of variance. The mean is relatively low, but there’s a lot of variance.

0:01:02.7 Jordan Syatt: When you delete it, in your mind, are you thinking one day you’ll bring it back, or are you like, this is the last time?

0:01:09.2 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no. I just want to, I want to create more space between me and all of that dopamine drain.

0:01:18.9 Jordan Syatt: Got it.

0:01:19.5 Mike Vacanti: Nonsense cesspool of an app.

0:01:22.1 Jordan Syatt: Why’d you delete it?

0:01:23.2 Mike Vacanti: I read four things in a row that I was like, why am I consuming this? This is literally brain rot. And then I just deleted it.

0:01:32.1 Jordan Syatt: Fair.

0:01:32.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:01:33.0 Jordan Syatt: That’s some real chewing you got going on over there.

0:01:35.1 Mike Vacanti: I know.

0:01:36.7 Jordan Syatt: That’s like real chewing you got going.

0:01:40.2 Mike Vacanti: David edited out that chewing for me. I know he did. Trying to wolf down these post workout carbs. I’m running a little late today. My fault, audience. My fault, Jordan. But we’re getting a great episode in. We’re going to…

0:01:54.3 Jordan Syatt: Audience gets it on Tuesday, no matter what. I’m the one that’s waiting.

0:02:00.2 Mike Vacanti: Technically, we end at the same time regardless, so you just get to work a little less. The audience might get a slightly shorter podcast.

0:02:07.0 Jordan Syatt: That’s true. That’s fair.

0:02:08.4 Mike Vacanti: So they get my primary apology. You get my secondary apology.

0:02:15.8 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:02:17.2 Mike Vacanti: Jordan, are you ready for this question?

0:02:18.3 Jordan Syatt: I’m super ready. What do we got?

0:02:20.1 Mike Vacanti: “Gentlemen, I love the pod. It’s all I listen to when I work out at 4:30 AM and gets me through with a smile and learning amazing things about fitness. My question is long and wordy, so I’m going to summarize a little bit, but it’s from a guy named Adam who says, my wife has seen my progress and has offhandedly mentioned that I may “Skinny Queen” when I choose a salad over a burger or when I say no to ice cream. She’s also said she needs to get her nutrition in check and lose weight because she isn’t happy with her current situation. 5 foot 4, 185 pounds. She hates tracking calories. I’ve gone as far as meal prepping her lunches and offered to track all her calories for her. It works for a few days, but she complains about how, “restrictive” it is and how stupid it is that she can’t have the things she enjoys. I have her set up on goal body weight of 150 times 12 for calories. How do I keep her motivated to want to stick to it and see that it’s really not that restrictive and get her out of the negative mindset? I love helping, but the negativity is draining.

0:03:28.4 Mike Vacanti: Again, I apologize for the long question. Hope you have a blessed day.”

0:03:32.3 Jordan Syatt: First, thanks for the kind words. That’s amazing. Dude, literally all I could hear that entire time was, skinny queen, skinny queen, skinny queen. Just as an alarm going off in my head, just getting more and more angry. That’s so not okay. It’s one thing, if your bros, if you came to my house and I was having a salad, you’re like, Jordan, you’re a skinny queen. Or you’re like, you’re a fiber guy.

0:03:56.2 Mike Vacanti: I would never say that though.

0:03:58.0 Jordan Syatt: No, I know, but, like, yeah, it’s just banter. Right? But in this situation, I don’t like it. In the same way I wouldn’t like it if he said something to her with that level of negativity. I don’t like it in a spousal arena where it’s clearly done out of negativity, not out of love and support. Right? So I don’t like that at all.

0:04:22.8 Mike Vacanti: I’m with you completely. I think it comes from a place of insecurity on her part.

0:04:28.7 Jordan Syatt: 100%, absolutely. And I mean, that’s without question. It’s her way of deflecting. And essentially, here’s what I think happens, when someone is eating food that the other person, when someone is making a nutritional choice that the other person isn’t making, then the other person will try to do whatever they can to get that person to make the nutritional choice that they want them to make so they can feel better about the nutritional choices they’re making. It’s all about making themselves feel better, so completely agree. I still don’t like a spouse doing that to a spouse. Right? I just don’t like it at all. So my combative side goes to be like, well, then you should call them the girthy king or whatever it is. No, but don’t do that. That’s just not a good strategy to take.

0:05:19.7 Mike Vacanti: Correct.

0:05:20.1 Jordan Syatt: What you want to do is you want to, number one, want to have a sit down conversation, or the next time she says like, you’re the skinny queen, I would just be like, hey, I’m going to be honest, I hate when you say that. It’s like, I hate when you say that. I’m making choices that are good for me and my health. And I know you’ve expressed that you want to make better choices as well. I would never dream of making negative comments towards you or towards what you’re eating, regardless of what direction you’re going in. So please stop doing this because it’s really upsetting to me. And then if she’s like, well, it’s not negative. It’s like, no, it is 100% negative. Like skinny queen, it’s negative. I don’t like you calling me that. Don’t call me that. Just not okay. And that I would draw a very clear boundary with that.

0:06:08.7 Jordan Syatt: As for your question, which I love, which is going towards, well, how do I actually help? How do I keep her motivated? The unfortunate truth is you can’t keep her motivated. That’s up to her, not you.

0:06:20.9 Jordan Syatt: There are things you can do to help, but the reality is that the best thing you can do is what you’re already doing, which is modeling really good behavior on your own. You’re already choosing higher quality foods, lower calorie foods, more satiating foods, nutrient dense foods. You are doing the number one thing that we would likely recommend, which is focus on yourself and improve what you can do yourself. From there, I think probably having this no bullshit conversation of I don’t like when you do this, don’t call me this. Now also, if this is something you want help with, that’s what I’m here for. That’s really where I think 80 to 85% of the benefit is going to come from. Number one, you showing her that you’re making good choices for you. And number two, making sure she’s aware that you’re there to help her. But outside of that, you can’t be there to force her. In fact, I think that would probably do more harm than good. Your job is to do exactly what you’re doing and set those boundaries and make sure she knows that when she is there, if she does want your help, you are ready and willing and able to help her.

0:07:27.7 Mike Vacanti: That’s exactly right. The best thing you can do in a spousal relationship like this is simply lead by example, and not be judgmental towards the potential “negative decisions” that she is making. So you’re there, you offer your help, you’re open for the opportunity. When she asks you a question, when she asks you for your help, when she expresses interest in why are you eating this versus this, you’re there ready and willing to explain and to help her. But you can’t force her to do anything. And trying to take on her responsibility, tracking her calories isn’t going to last. It’s not a long term solution. You’re depriving her of the skills and habits that she needs for long term success. And if she needs you to be tracking her calories and staying on top of her every single day, she’s not in a place where she’s ready to make that kind of progress.

0:08:38.2 Jordan Syatt: One thing that I’ve done with clients, and this works well, I think this will work well in this situation as well, is you could say like, hey, what do you think about doing a 30 day challenge, where for 30 days we track your calories? Because it sounds like you’re saying she tracks for four days, five days or something and then falls off. I think for many people, especially early on in the process, it can be overwhelming because there’s no end in sight, there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. It’s like, what, I’m just supposed to track every day, forever? It’s like, which, no, you don’t have to. But I think early on it can be really daunting. Whereas if you say, let’s do this for 30 days, 30 days, no bullshit, we’re both going to hit our calories, we’re both going to hit our protein every single day. No matter what. We’re doing this together for 30 days. At that point, it’s I think, more likely that she’ll be willing to do it for 30 days. I think for those 30 days, you should really be on top and really being the coach and the motivator there.

0:09:29.2 Jordan Syatt: But oftentimes what’ll happen after those 30 days is she’ll start making progress and she’ll get addicted to that.

0:09:35.6 Mike Vacanti: And be the coach and the motivator if she wants you to.

0:09:38.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:09:38.8 Mike Vacanti: If she asks you to.

0:09:40.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:09:41.0 Mike Vacanti: You can’t force that on somebody.

0:09:43.0 Jordan Syatt: Yep. Correct.

0:09:44.2 Mike Vacanti: But yes, to your point, having a light at the end of the tunnel can create more consistency for several weeks, which can be enough time to string together for her to start feeling positive changes, start seeing the scale go down, start feeling good about herself, and then want to continue that behavior.

0:10:03.1 Jordan Syatt: I’d also get other forms of measurement involved, if it’s just the scale it’s so easy to get discouraged. Especially I think for women, the fluctuations are just generally more volatile than men. And that’s a whole separate learning process. So getting the waist measurements in, getting the different measurements in clothing pictures, having other forms of progress outside of the scale will be more likely to keep her motivated for longer to actually see progress. So that’s another thing I would do.

0:10:34.3 Mike Vacanti: I love that it wasn’t even a question how to deal with being called a skinny queen. But you were like, hang on.

0:10:40.6 Jordan Syatt: I was so mad. I was so mad dude.

0:10:42.4 Mike Vacanti: Before we get into any of this.

0:10:44.9 Jordan Syatt: Because it’s a disrespectful thing to say. In the same way, if a husband said something similar like that to the wife, it’s disrespectful. It’s just, you don’t speak to a spouse like that. You don’t speak to someone you care about like that. It really upset me. I don’t like that.

0:11:00.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I’m with you.

0:11:00.0 Jordan Syatt: And again, I don’t agree with going the combative route because that’s definitely not the right way to handle it. But that was, it’s upsetting. I don’t like it.

0:11:09.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, lead by example. Be there to help when, if and when she wants your help. And there’s also something to be said, and we can wrap up this question with this. Oftentimes, almost always actually when you’re first getting started in something, and it can be anything. It can be martial arts, it can be strength training, it can be weight loss. In your first few months, first year, even first couple of years, you’re not going to garner as much interest or respect from people until you’ve made a significant amount of progress. And then those same people are going to be very interested in how you did it. Which is why continuing to lead by example and continuing to make progress yourself is going to be one of the best ways to increase the chances that she is interested and wants your help in the future.

0:12:04.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, completely agree. I got to, dude, I want to read a question. I forgot we got one on the how to become a personal trainer Instagram page, which I’ve been daily posting on.

0:12:13.7 Mike Vacanti: You’ve been doing solid over there. You’ve been doing solid.

0:12:17.7 Jordan Syatt: That’s Mike’s way of saying it hasn’t been daily, but it’s been better than it was, which is true. Okay, Jenna, @jbramsfit, “Hi Jordan and Mike, I love the podcast. I’m always excited when I wake up on Tuesdays and realize there’s a new episode. Thank you Jenna, I have a question that I’d love to hear you answer. What are some things that you do to continue to challenge/engage online coaching clients that are already extremely consistent? They nail the nutrition workouts, try the targets I set for them and just keep pushing. So I’m wondering if you have any other strategies to spice it up for them. Thanks.”

0:12:52.3 Mike Vacanti: I like the question a lot, because it comes from the place of wanting to offer the best possible service for your clients. And so any coach whose mindset is there is doing a really good job. Early on in my career, I put more pressure on myself to keep things as new and exciting and interesting as possible for all of my clients. When in reality, at a certain point fitness does become a little bit more routine and a little bit more mundane and making kind of similar healthy food choices day over day, eating a lot of the same foods, doing a lot of the same movement patterns. You’re pressing, you’re rowing, you’re hinging, you’re squatting, you’re training your core. There are only so many exercises. It’s going to get a little bit repetitive for clients who are, and correct me if I misheard any of the question, by the way, but for clients who are very consistent and doing a really good job, unless they’ve expressed like I’m getting bored of this or I’m not liking this or something doesn’t feel good or I feel like we need to change things, and you can even open that dialogue.

0:14:13.1 Mike Vacanti: You don’t necessarily need to wait for them to bring that up. But unless those types of conversations are happening, I’m not trying to change things just for the sake of changing things. I’m not trying to bring in different styles of training or weird crazy TikTok exercises just to give “variety” or spice or excitement. Denzel Washington said in Remember the Titans, we run six plays, works like Novocaine. Just give it time, it works. There’s a place for variety, but a lot more of the basics is what got that client in a place where they’re really consistent, making great progress, and is going to help them continue to do exactly what they’ve been doing.

0:15:00.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I completely agree. I think that, it’s funny, I very much relate to earlier in my career being like, okay, got to keep this spicy, got to keep them up. I got to keep them excited about it. It’s like, if they’re already crushing it, things are going really well. I do think there’s a time and a place to, like you said, open a dialogue in which maybe once a quarter, once every three or four months or so, you can say like, hey, I wouldn’t do this every week, and I wouldn’t do it every month. It’s a little bit too much, and you can, like, lose it if it’s too frequent. But maybe once every three or four months to the effect of, hey, how are you feeling with my coaching? Is there anything you think that I can improve on? Do you have any new or specific goals that you would like to focus on in your next phase of training? These types of questions, number one, will, if you’re the type of coach, especially earlier on, where you need to know that you’re doing a good job. If your client is happy with you then I think you’re doing great, keep doing what you’re doing.

0:16:01.2 Jordan Syatt: If they’re not happy, then they’ll be like, hey, I’d like it if you communicated more. Maybe they’ll say something like, I’d like a little bit more variety in my training. In which case, okay, well, then you can have that conversation around specifics. Okay, well, what specifically? Maybe, I’d like some new exercises, but they only have dumbbells. It’s like, okay, this is really fucking hard. If you’d like some new exercises, maybe either get a gym membership for a couple days of the week or invest in some new equipment. But how many different dumbbell fucking row variations are you going to do if you only have a pair of dumbbells, right? So then you can have that conversation so they can have a realistic perspective. Odds are, most people aren’t getting bored of it, though. You’re just writing more programs than they are doing a program. So you’re the one who thinks that they’re bored, when in reality they’re not at all. It’s just, you’ve written 15 programs that week, and how many dumbbell row variations did you write versus how many are they actually doing? So opening that dialogue, allowing them to express their goals, and if they say, hey, listen, I remember vividly I had one client who I had this conversation with.

0:17:00.6 Jordan Syatt: This must have been 2014, 2015. And she’s like, I really want to start doing handstands. And so just in a couple of her warmups before the training session started, I had her practicing some handstand work. And that was it. And she was crushing it, she loves it. She was already being super consistent. She was like, I just, I really want to get better at handstands. Cool. So we had some handstand work and amazing, kept working together for years. She loved it. It was super helpful. And it was also fun for me because I got to dive into handstand training and learning about that and programming for her on that front. So I think opening the dialogue once a quarter, once every trimester or so, so that you can get some feedback is the best way to go about it. And you can get real time feedback on what they’re enjoying, what they’re not enjoying, and how you can improve.

0:17:50.9 Mike Vacanti: Jordan dropping trimester on the podcast. I like it, three times a year.

0:17:55.2 Jordan Syatt: As I said it, I was like, is that right?

0:17:57.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, feels right. Yeah. Really good question, though, and clearly comes from a great place. And we appreciate you listening. Dude, what do you think about the potential for food stamps to only be used on healthy food choices or to specifically not include things like candy, soda, et cetera.

0:18:30.0 Jordan Syatt: I’m not a fan, to be honest.

0:18:31.7 Mike Vacanti: You changed your perspective in a week.

0:18:32.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:18:33.0 Mike Vacanti: I love that.

0:18:36.4 Jordan Syatt: I’m not a fan. I think it’s a slippery slope. I think it’s a slippery slope.

0:18:41.3 Mike Vacanti: What?

0:18:41.6 Jordan Syatt: Number one, who’s deciding what’s healthy and what’s not healthy? That’s number one. Then they could just decide, okay, well, then you can’t get this. You can’t get that. I don’t like the, where we’re looking at a group of people who are on government assistance for any number of reasons. And I don’t like the idea of saying, you are not allowed to get this type of food. I don’t like that. I don’t like it. I’m not a fan of it. I think it creates a dangerous precedent for further things down the line of, okay, well, if we can control what you can get with this, then we can control what you can get with X, Y and Z. So I’m not a fan of that. Now I do, to say that you were saying, I changed my perspective in a week. I understand where it’s coming from. I’m more now looking at it from the perspective of where does this lead and what precedent does it set? That’s really the major issue. And then also who’s deciding what’s healthy, what’s not healthy? Right? It’s a major, major, major confounding issue. I would rather have a program that somehow subsidizes healthier options to be more affordable and to help them get access to more of those foods.

0:20:08.6 Mike Vacanti: But who decides what healthy is there?

0:20:11.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s a great question, but I would say, like things that making, that’s a great question. But generally fruits, vegetables, minimally processed foods would be, I would prefer to have those because generally speaking, they’re like the more processed foods. Or if there’s X amount of sugar per this size or this amount of servings, then that’s going to be an issue. Or this much fat or whatever it is. And again, whoever’s deciding that, that’s a major problem. But I would like to see some type of subsidy, maybe even if it’s a subsidy for buying from a local farm. Right? You get to choose. You go to the local farm and sure, I’m sure maybe the local farm might have some candy there. Fudge, who knows whatever they’re selling, but going to…

0:21:00.4 Mike Vacanti: Fudge is delicious.

0:21:00.7 Jordan Syatt: Dude, it’s ridiculous. It’s so good. And so obviously there would be cheat codes and hacks, but who knows, maybe some type of subsidy. You go to your local farm and you have more options to buy from your local farmer, which would help stimulate the local economy, help stimulate the local farmers who are very much struggling competing with the bigger, larger industry. I mean, I think that would probably be better as opposed to just going to your chain store and limiting what foods they’re allowed to buy there, giving them more of an incentive to buy locally from more fresh food farmers. But to answer the question directly, I’m not a fan of preventing or limiting them from that. What do you think?

0:21:41.0 Mike Vacanti: Would you be a fan if… I am a fan.

0:21:43.0 Jordan Syatt: You are a fan? Okay.

0:21:44.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I don’t think that, you and I both pay over 50% effective tax rate. Well, you may not now, now that you’re in Texas, but for people who don’t know and the personal trainers know, who have their own business, but small businesses pay an extra 7.5% tax because you pay the employer and the employee side of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, et cetera. If over half of my income is going to federal plus state government to fund various things, and then somebody is using a portion of that money because that’s what it is.

0:22:29.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s what it is.

0:22:31.2 Mike Vacanti: To buy soda for themselves and their kids. I think it’s pretty easy to pick the three or four lowest hanging fruit and say, if you want to buy these special extra treats, great, but you can’t use the money from other people to buy them. Now, I hadn’t thought about your concern, which is what if they’re like, you have to buy beef tallow, but you can’t buy canola oil with them? Yes, I would be against that. But I believe the bill that got proposed specifies the foods that wouldn’t be allowed. And the lowest hanging fruit of like candy and soda is pretty straightforward.

0:23:24.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And I get it and I’m torn with it. Right.

0:23:27.5 Mike Vacanti: And by the way, over consumption of those things lead to a even bigger drain on the healthcare system.

0:23:35.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I very much understand that. And I’ve been battling with this for the last week or so since whenever we spoke about it because I’ve been going back and forth and, I’m, in this moment, I’m still sticking with what I said. And what it’s really coming from is, we pride ourselves here in America on freedom. And regardless of whatever you believe on our levels of freedom, that’s what our nation is built on freedom. And yes, we also want to help those who are in need. And generally speaking, those who are using food stamps are in need. Obviously there are ways to game the system and not everyone who’s using it is taking advantage of it inappropriately. But most people who are using it actually need it. And the way that, I know you might disagree with that. But the way that I see this is I don’t like the idea of restricting someone’s freedom, period. I just don’t like it. And if we have this government program that is designed to help people who are in need, potentially with kids who are in need, I would rather invest more money into changing how we market foods.

0:24:56.7 Jordan Syatt: Right. So maybe improving their education, restricting companies and how they can market these junk foods as health foods, that’s what I would rather do as opposed to saying, hey, you’re on this government program, you are not allowed to get X, Y or Z. That to me, in my soul feels wrong. It doesn’t feel right.

0:25:20.7 Mike Vacanti: Should they be allowed to use the money on cigarettes? Why are we restricting it to just food? Why not give them heroin?

0:25:31.8 Jordan Syatt: I think the answer to that is pretty obvious.

0:25:33.4 Mike Vacanti: And actually, some states do by the way. In California, the government gives out heroin.

0:25:40.0 Jordan Syatt: One is providing sustenance that allows you to live and one isn’t. Right? One will actually give you energy that allows you to live and one is actually killing you.

0:25:52.8 Mike Vacanti: Soda? I think soda’s killing you too. Not on the same level as hard drugs, obviously.

0:26:00.3 Jordan Syatt: No, because one is actually, like there’s a…

0:26:03.5 Mike Vacanti: One is caloric and one is not.

0:26:05.1 Jordan Syatt: Correct. One is actually giving you energy and one is not. And, obviously it’s not, I wouldn’t say it’s the energy that is optimal for optimal health. But I like, let’s look at like the worst of the worst situation. And I’ve been thinking about this a lot because of the hostages who were released from Hamas who were talking about what they were given in captivity in order to just keep them alive while starving them. And the hostages were telling these stories of how the Hamas terrorists were like, you don’t actually need that much. You could just get this much water and this much PETA a day and you’ll be able to live for five years. And it’ll be a horrible five years, but you’re going to be able to live for this long.

0:26:43.0 Jordan Syatt: And so let’s look like the worst case scenario, you’re in a horrible situation. Soda will keep someone alive for a long period of time, whereas if they only have cigarettes, like there’s only so long they’re going to last. Right? So obviously one is some level of sustenance. And I know that’s a very extreme example, but that’s where I would say I would like to see more of our money going towards not advertising towards children, and having more education around, specifically in the grocery store, wherever they’re buying the food, on what foods are going to be more beneficial for the health of them and their children as opposed to what are the easiest options.

0:27:24.0 Jordan Syatt: Now, I don’t think there’s a perfect answer answer to this because people are always going to, they’re going to choose whatever they want to choose. They’re often going to go for taste. But again, there’s something in my gut that tells me restricting people’s freedoms to do this to me seems wrong.

0:27:39.8 Mike Vacanti: I think I’ll leave it at that.

0:27:41.6 Jordan Syatt: I think it’s a great discussion. I really enjoy this discussion.

0:27:45.1 Mike Vacanti: I mean, if we talk about freedoms, then we can’t really talk about limiting companies from advertising to children, because we’re taking away a freedom of advertising, of business, of commerce.

0:27:57.0 Jordan Syatt: That’s true.

0:28:01.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. We can agree to disagree on this one. And I know that in the evidence based fitness community, which leans left, I’m definitely unpopular here. But I agree with your slippery slope argument, and I think that is probably the best counter argument here is who decides what we’re restricting? I just hope that there would, and maybe I’m naive here, but I would hope there would be enough common sense that we can pick the three to five worst food items, and take those off.

0:28:38.6 Jordan Syatt: What would those be? In your mind, what are those worst food items?

0:28:43.5 Mike Vacanti: Sugar, soda. I mean, or two. Candy and soda.

0:28:48.0 Jordan Syatt: Okay, so candy and soda. Okay.

0:28:49.9 Mike Vacanti: I’d be happy right there.

0:28:51.4 Jordan Syatt: So if you’re on food stamps, no candy.

0:28:55.7 Mike Vacanti: No, you can get candy, just not with the money given to you by the federal government.

0:29:01.3 Jordan Syatt: Got it. So you can’t buy it with your food stamps?

0:29:03.2 Mike Vacanti: You’re allowed to buy candy just like anyone else can buy candy, just not with someone else’s money.

0:29:08.3 Jordan Syatt: Yep. Okay. Yeah, man. Yeah. I would rather, here’s what I would say. I wonder if we could find a middle ground, rather than saying you’re just not allowed to buy it.

0:29:19.6 Mike Vacanti: Limit the amount?

0:29:20.3 Jordan Syatt: Limit the amount.

0:29:21.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Cool. I would be open to that. I’d be very open to that.

0:29:24.9 Jordan Syatt: You get X number of “points” or dollars.

0:29:29.5 Mike Vacanti: Your budget.

0:29:30.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You got to have a budget. This is your candy budget. This is your soda budget. This is like, I would be very okay with that, which I also understand is contradicting my freedom discussion because it’s already restricting your freedom. But I understand, I think it’s more of a middle ground, which is.

0:29:46.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it’s a compromise, which is probably what we need.

0:29:49.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:29:49.3 Mike Vacanti: In this country and world.

0:29:51.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I think that would be great. And yeah. I also think, dude, you know what also? I haven’t thought about this until this moment, but if you have an issue, if you’re gonna get a license to drive or if you have an issue, you have to take a course. So many times you have to take a course on like, for driving, you have to take driver’s ed. If you have an issue on the road, then you have to take some type of a course to fix the issue that you’ve had. I feel like if you’re going to be on one of these government programs, there should be some course that you’re required to take, for food stamps, for example. I think a budget would be great. This I your budget for this type of food, that type of food. But then also there should be some course around, number one, what foods are going to give you the most bang for your buck, for your health. So you should be required to take that course or you can’t get that food stamp, so you have to take it.

0:30:51.0 Jordan Syatt: And the other one is, I think there should be some type of course around intelligent spending. I think you should be required to, okay, you get this much money. This is how you save every month. You have a high yield savings account you can put it into. As soon as you get your paycheck, you’re going to put X percentage of your paycheck into this. You should not rent out a place that is more than this percentage of your monthly income, whatever it is like there should be, I think those two courses should be a requirement for you to get those. And that would ideally lead to at least some better spending on both finances as well as food.

0:31:36.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I’m fully with you there. And while we’re at it, let’s get those baked into the educational system as well, financial literacy and proper nutrition. That would be amazing if we were better educated as a world, as a country.

0:31:54.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that was a great discussion. I love that you brought that up.

0:31:56.6 Mike Vacanti: Well, you had texted me about it, right, like 10 days ago.

0:32:00.3 Jordan Syatt: I don’t remember.

0:32:01.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I think you were like, this would be good on the pod. I was like, all right, cool.

0:32:04.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:32:05.6 Mike Vacanti: And you were like, yeah. And you know what? We came to a compromise.

0:32:12.1 Jordan Syatt: All right.

0:32:12.7 Mike Vacanti: Got one here from Ryan. Ryan says, “Hey, Mike and Jordan, I’m gonna be honest, this could be a whole podcast. But I was wondering if you could give a rough breakdown of why a lot of gyms only offer a 50/50 split to their trainers. You two mentioned a gym offering an 85/15 split and that being a great business strategy for the gym recently.” By the way, do you remember us having that conversation?

0:32:34.9 Jordan Syatt: Just because I don’t remember it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I would trust your memory over mine.

0:32:39.5 Mike Vacanti: I usually do too, but I didn’t remember, I feel like that might have been something that you said offhandedly as like, if a gym offered 85/15.

0:32:49.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:32:50.6 Mike Vacanti: If you gave the trainer the bulk of the money, you’d have way better retention. You’d recruit more talent. It’d be a better long run strategy for the success of the gym. Am I remembering that right? That was kind of.

0:33:02.5 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:33:04.3 Mike Vacanti: So he says, “I’ve been a trainer for seven years. I have numerous testimonials, have a degree in exercise science and can’t even come close to an 85/15 split like that. I’m trying really hard to not just think it’s their greed when they have numerous fees and expenses, I can’t imagine. But then I look at a Planet Fitness who financially survives off of memberships alone. If gyms offered a guaranteed base pay with commission for personal training, or even allowed us to work up to that point, there wouldn’t be such a high turnover rate. I love this job more than anything, but I hate the pay system and how difficult the gyms make it. Thank you so much, Ryan.”

0:33:38.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I mean, it’s a great question. And to be fair, I don’t think that there was a specific gym in mind that had the 85/15 split. It was more like, I think that would be a really good idea. I think that would be smart. And if I were to open a gym, I would likely take that type of a strategy where I would overpay the trainers to give them an outrageous incentive in order to stay and to keep their clients there. So that’s number one. I think that a lot of times things are done not because it’s right, but because that’s the status quo. And so someone opens up a gym and the gym they worked at before had a 50/50 split, and so they do the 50/50 split. And so it’s just sort of, this is what’s always been done and this is what’s going to happen, not because it’s right, but because this is what they know. I think it can be very difficult to change that. And especially if you approach a gym owner and say, hey, I want to shift this, you’re essentially going to have to convince them in terms of changing what they’ve always done.

0:34:49.1 Jordan Syatt: And often, maybe in the short term, they’re going to take a hit financially, which is very difficult for them to get over. So it’s a really difficult obstacle to overcome, not impossible. But I do think that if, especially if you’re a trainer who’s not bringing that much income to a gym, then they don’t really have an incentive to meet your demands or to meet your request. But if you’ve got a lot of people at that gym and that gym’s energy is largely dependent on you, and that gym would be hurting severely if they lost you. Then you have, you’re holding the cards, like you have the advantage there. And that’s when you have much more leverage to ask for whatever you’d like. So you have to be very honest with yourself and say, all right, how much do they really want/need me? And before you go into some type of a negotiation process. But I very much believe most gyms underpay their coaches. And I wouldn’t go as to say it’s probably greed. I think it’s more just status quo, and also not understanding a long term benefit of overpaying their coaches.

0:36:07.9 Jordan Syatt: Because like you said, the turnover rate is wild in gyms. And gyms lose huge amounts of money because so many times a coach will leave and they’ll take all their clients with them regardless of whether or not they signed a non compete. And so the gym will build up a lot of clients and then they’ll lose a lot of clients, build up a lot of clients, lose a lot of clients because of this high turnover rate. You give your coaches better working hours and better pay, they’re going to stay for longer and the gym will have less turnover. So to me it’s a no brainer.

0:36:34.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, great answer. Ryan, I would hammer home the fact that because you’re not getting an 85/15 split as a trainer, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad trainer and it doesn’t say anything about you. It’s purely the economics of the gym. And I agree, Ryan, that it isn’t purely driven by greed or profit maximization. Brick and mortar gyms have very low margins, like they pay a lot in rent, you need a solid amount of space, you have pretty expensive utility bills, usually tons of equipment. Right? So that’s getting, amortized over the useful life of the equipment. It’s not easy competing with gyms like Planet Fitness or other low cost memberships. So it’s a very competitive space. I would imagine that the market settled in on whatever the current day average split between gym and trainer is based on supply and demand of labor. Right? So how many people want to be in person personal trainers and how many people need in person personal training combined with whatever threshold of profit the gym requires for the gym owner to be happy. Now, would it be a good long term strategy to pay your trainers more for better retention for the best coaches, to have more people, get more clients getting trained for more hours? I think so, yeah.

0:38:20.0 Mike Vacanti: But that means sacrificing dollars in the short term, which isn’t easy for most business owners to do and not possible for some. Depends on how memberships are. Right? If you don’t have a ton of memberships, it’s very difficult. Can’t really be operating at a loss for that long for most people depending on how your capex table looks, to use an investing term or basically how much money you have invested in the gym or who’s invested in the gym. Yeah, I guess the punchline here is it’s a cool idea, I like it, I’m into it. I don’t have experience operating a brick and mortar gym myself, so I would imagine there’s a reason that most gyms don’t do it. But look, I asked this when I was working in person in 2013, 2014, we would go to, I remember going to a conference for, like semi private training and talking about both the business, but also the strategy of 2:1, 3:1, 4:1 client to coach ratio and how to program for that and how to most effectively use a space to maximize the number of clients you can have working in a space at one time.

0:39:44.5 Mike Vacanti: And at that conference I remember asking the question because I only, I had a minimal understanding of what the average salary for trainers was and I was learning a lot while I was there. And I asked, I was like, how do you get coaches to stay when you’re only paying them this amount? And they didn’t really have an answer for me. So I agree with the premise and the question Ryan. It’d be cool to see a gym that tried this longer term strategy.

0:40:18.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I also I like the strategy of if you’re going to open a gym, and this requires the owner to really relinquish control, but you essentially open a gym and you charge the trainers rent and then they can bring their clients and do whatever, but they can bring as many clients as they want, but their rent is stable. Now the issue with that is the owner has to relinquish control because now you don’t get to control what the trainers do, they’re the ones training the clients. So you don’t say it’s your method, it’s the trainer’s method and you’re essentially just charging for them to use your space and your equipment. I like that model. I think that’s a really good model. I think when I was younger I was much more like, you got to train the way that I train. And so like, and so you’re going, this is what we’re gonna do. And now I would be like, whatever, just don’t fucking hurt anybody. And if I see you doing something stupid, then I’ll say it. But otherwise, have at it. Go have fun. If you break the equipment, then you have to pay for it.

0:41:19.0 Jordan Syatt: But that’s it. That would be, I think, a much better model for in person coaches rather than requiring them to train with your method and to do it like you also, I think it’s a better model for everybody. And then if you do that, you’re going to get so many coaches who want to bring their clients to you. You’re going to get so many, my God, I could just bring my clients to your space rather than needing to go here. And the major drawback of that, I would say is you’re not feeding people clients. Now, you could create that program. You could be like, if you have this gym, people could walk in and say, hey, I’m looking for this kind of a coach. And you could get a referral fee, like for every time, hey, someone comes in. Maybe you have a physical therapist, maybe you’ve got a strength and conditioning coach, maybe you’ve got an Olympic lifting coach, maybe you’ve got a Pilates coach, whatever it is. And hey, I’m looking for this. And then all of a sudden you can start referring people based on whatever it is that they’re looking for.

0:42:17.2 Jordan Syatt: But just as the base structure, this is the building we have, we’re just going to charge you rent. I think that’s an amazing, amazing business model.

0:42:26.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. The benefits there are, the gym doesn’t have to spend as much money on the marketing side.

0:42:31.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:42:31.8 Mike Vacanti: Because then they also can pay the, or the trainer takes home more of their average client. Whether you’re charging a fixed amount of rent per month or like a per session fee.

0:42:49.4 Jordan Syatt: Per hour, yeah.

0:42:51.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. But that is a cool model for both gym owner and I mean, it’s a great model for coaches who can bring their own clients to a gym for sure.

0:43:00.3 Jordan Syatt: And you could even if you want, with that model, depending on how big your space is and how you want to run it, you could have the people paying rent for the coaches and then you could also have it be an open gym for people who just, charge them a gym membership. Right. It’s an open gym, and that way you get business from the people who just want to work out. And you also get business from the coaches and then the coaches can be there. And if they end up getting a client from the open gym, then they’re paying you rent for that hour. That’s like the triple win.

0:43:30.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. All about utilizing space too. Right. If you have a gym and you’re struggling with memberships and you’re struggling with in house personal training and you have all this excess space at many hours of the day, you can rent it out to independent trainers and monetize that space for them to work with their clients. There’s probably something to wanting a somewhat cohesive culture. I would imagine that, I don’t know, I would have to experience it. But if you have too many wildly different types of coaches in terms of style in the same space, it’d be interesting.

0:44:14.3 Jordan Syatt: I would love that. I would love that. You’ve just got like.

0:44:18.6 Mike Vacanti: A Zumba class over here, and then this guy starting strength.

0:44:25.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:44:25.7 Mike Vacanti: Got someone doing like jump rope and a boxing workout on the other side.

0:44:29.7 Jordan Syatt: I think that’d be fun and it’d be good. I think, the fitness industry needs that. You just have like so many. Because it’s so stupid. We’re all exercising, we’re all doing stuff. But then so many people hate on the other types of exercises. How about we just all interact and just do whatever we want to do in this one place? I think it’d be fun. And then you get power lifters doing Zumba classes and Zumba people doing powerlifting.

0:44:51.3 Mike Vacanti: Would you?

0:44:52.1 Jordan Syatt: I think you would. I think, yeah. I think you’d probably get some of that.

0:44:54.2 Mike Vacanti: In a utopia, I think so. But people are so tribal with their style of training.

0:45:01.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. But I think it would start as a joke and then it would turn into like, maybe as a gym owner, you could do challenges. You could always, all right, if any of the powerlifters take five Zumba classes over the next week, then you get like a month at 50% off your membership, whatever it is. Then you get all the members hanging out. Who knows, you create some type of community there. And even if they don’t continue with it, you create some type of fun and excitement and some level of community in a community that is inherently separate.

0:45:34.1 Mike Vacanti: I like it. I like the idea. Okay, we’ll do one more quick one here. “Hi, how are you doing?” I don’t know who this one is from. I didn’t have a name with it. “I have a question that I haven’t heard you all talk about on the podcast yet. I really want to quit my regular job and switch to just personal training or even go PRN,” which I think is part time.

0:45:56.8 Jordan Syatt: As the situation demands, or as needed.

0:46:00.2 Mike Vacanti: “…PRN at my other job and focus on personal training. My biggest drawback is the benefits I’m getting at my current job. If I quit or go PRN, I’ll lose everything. I’m struggling about how to go about handling that. Do I go without benefits? Do I keep what I have and just start paying everything out of pocket? My current employer pays a huge chunk of all my benefits.”

0:46:19.8 Jordan Syatt: I mean, I think one of the most impactful things you ever said to me is don’t kill the cash cow. And this sounds like it might be killing the cash cow a little bit too early. What do you think?

0:46:33.1 Mike Vacanti: Yes, having an employer that pays a significant percentage of your health insurance is a really good thing. I would run the numbers, because one, a lot of people think their employers pay all of their health insurance and they don’t actually. There’s like a decent amount that they’re paying themselves, even if it’s only 20 or 30% of the total. And I would look at how much it would cost for you to purchase your own health insurance and see the difference between those two numbers. Might be a few hundred bucks a month, might be more than that. Depends if you have a family or if it’s just you. But I would look at that number and figure out if you can stomach that for an amount of time. And if paying out of pocket for health insurance helps, if it justifies the additional time you’ll have from quitting your job. Definitely don’t go without health insurance. That’s a bad idea. If anything, get a very high deductible, low premium health insurance, which is essentially disaster insurance, right? If you get diagnosed with something catastrophic, if you end up having to be in the hospital, cancer, et cetera, something that’s going to run you hundreds and hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars over time.

0:47:52.3 Mike Vacanti: You need insurance, but you don’t necessarily need like a $2,000 a year deductible, which is going to cost you more in monthly premiums. You can have a higher deductible, lower monthly premiums, and grind it out paying yourself.

0:48:08.6 Jordan Syatt: This is where my gut says you don’t leave your job. You keep having everything you need and you fucking grind for the next like two to four years until you build up enough money on your own to where like you don’t need this whatsoever, where you’re working until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. And because here’s my concern, my concern is people will quit their job because they think I’ll have so much more time. And then when they have all this extra time, they’re equally, if not less productive.

0:48:44.7 Mike Vacanti: That happens.

0:48:45.7 Jordan Syatt: Happens all the time. I just need more time. The more time you have, the less productive you are very often. What law is that? I know, it’s one of those laws or razors or something.

0:48:56.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. The time the task takes fits into the time you allot for the task.

0:49:04.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And this is showing my fear. Right? It’s like Mike takes a much more logical approach to it where it’s like run the numbers and then you decide. My approach is don’t risk it. Keep doing your current job, be covered and then fucking grind for a few years until you can afford it on your own and it’s not an issue anymore. And then you can leave your job and you can support yourself, no worries whatsoever. That would be my recommendation. I’m not saying that’s right, but that’s what I would do.

0:49:32.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. There’s two approaches. You make fitness your side, hustle while you work your job, maintain the benefits, maintain the paycheck and grind. That like 6:00 PM to midnight or whatever, 4:00 AM to 7:00 AM or you burn the boats. And it depends on your personality. I think it depends on whether or not you like your job or dislike your job. If you enjoy your job. Chris Gates worked in the mentorship, worked his job in education while building his online fitness business simultaneously. He liked his job, he had a family, he built simultaneously while working. I come from a background of a job that I absolutely hated. I quit because it was literally capturing my soul and that worked out for me. It’s definitely higher risk. Here’s a wild statement. It’s higher risk to quit your job. It’s not actually a wild statement. It’s an obvious statement. But for some people it makes more sense.

0:50:36.7 Jordan Syatt: That’s it.

0:50:37.2 Mike Vacanti: We got a Q and A.

0:50:38.2 Jordan Syatt: Let’s go. Thank you for everyone for listening. If you are not in the mentorship and you want help building your online fitness business, we’ll put the link in the show notes, you can apply. We would love to speak with you, see if we’re a good fit. If not, no worries. Thank you to everyone for listening. Please leave a five star review wherever you are listening. Anything you want to say, Mike?

0:50:55.3 Mike Vacanti: No, you hit them with two right hooks. I like that.

0:50:57.2 Jordan Syatt: That’s it. See you soon.

0:50:58.7 Mike Vacanti: See you.