Episode 225: You SHOULD Train Through Pain, Male and Female Beauty Standards (GROSS!), Dad Life, What We’ve Changed Our Mind On in The Last 5 Years, & More…

0:00:11.7 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

0:00:12.4 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, dad? 

0:00:14.3 Mike Vacanti: Dad. How are you, dad? 

0:00:16.8 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I’m great.

0:00:18.4 Mike Vacanti: Let’s go.

0:00:18.9 Jordan Syatt: I’m doing well.

0:00:20.6 Mike Vacanti: Girls are good? 

0:00:20.6 Jordan Syatt: Nice. Craziness. Chaotic. Everything is good. Just put the youngest one down for a nap. Oldest one is being a little terrorist, but yeah, it’s all good, man.

0:00:33.8 Mike Vacanti: Who’s she terrorizing and how is she terrorizing them? 

0:00:36.6 Jordan Syatt: The community at large.

0:00:38.9 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:00:39.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. She’s just. She’s crazy and in like all of the best, cutest ways, but also like nearly 3 years old is really incredible. Just the wildest shit. Today she threw a fit because I, dude, I had to go number two really bad. So, I had a podcast this morning and the last 15 minutes was basically me holding it. I was like, all right, I really gotta. I gotta go and get off the computer, run to the bathroom, and she sees me run out of the office and she immediately wants to, like, come hang out, which is. It’s the best thing ever. She wants to come and hang out, but I was like, I gotta go to the bathroom. I close the door and freaks out that I’m not letting her in the bathroom while I’m taking a dump. And it’s just like screaming and hitting the door. And my wife was like, no, you know, he’s using the bathroom. She’s like, I don’t care. Yeah. So, that’s it.

0:01:42.7 Mike Vacanti: That’s a lot.

0:01:43.6 Jordan Syatt: But it’s good. It’s all good stuff. How’s your little angel? 

0:01:46.8 Mike Vacanti: She’s good, bro. She’s real good. She’s a good kid. Almost three weeks old. Pretty decent sleeper. Loves to eat. Lot of diapers.

0:01:56.7 Jordan Syatt: Bulking, gaining weight.

0:01:58.2 Mike Vacanti: She is bulking. Pediatrician is very happy with her dreamer bulk that she’s on. There are no lean gains over here. It’s just dreamer bulk.

0:02:07.3 Jordan Syatt: That’s what it’s about. Putting on those rolls.

0:02:09.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s right. That’s right.

0:02:10.9 Jordan Syatt: Got that brown fat.

0:02:12.8 Mike Vacanti: All of it. All the fat. Yeah, man. Everything’s good over here. Getting in a little bit of a routine. Had a good lift this morning. I don’t have a ton to report on.

0:02:24.7 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Just another day in the dad life.

0:02:26.9 Mike Vacanti: Exactly. We got some very nice comments on the last episode. Thank you all very much for those nice comments across the different platforms.

0:02:35.4 Jordan Syatt: Bro. How great is that trend? 

0:02:37.8 Mike Vacanti: Oh, my gosh.

0:02:38.6 Jordan Syatt: Where dudes call their friends just to say, Hey, man, just calling to say goodnight. Hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. And then the father-in-law ones are really good. Oh, my gosh. I Only saw one, the one that you sent me of the father-in-law. That was so fucking funny. For anyone who doesn’t know, there’s a trend on social media now where dudes will call their friend and just be like, it’s like at night, it’s like nine or ten o’clock at night, whatever time it is. And the guy will pick up like, hello. And the dude will just be like, Hey man, just calling to say goodnight, sweet dreams. And the responses are so fucking funny.

0:03:14.6 Mike Vacanti: Very across the board responses.

0:03:16.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:03:17.7 Mike Vacanti: A wide variety of responses. Some say goodnight back and some are very taken aback by it. I mean, there was the one guy who was seven years sober.

0:03:25.8 Jordan Syatt: Some are angry.

0:03:26.4 Mike Vacanti: Some are angry.

0:03:28.1 Jordan Syatt: Some are like, What are you saying goodnight to me for, bro? Why are you doing this? You’ve never said goodnight to me ever. And then [laughter]

0:03:41.3 Mike Vacanti: I saw a good one. I should have sent you this. A guy called his father in law, his father-in-law was very Boston. And the father-in-law reacted the same way as some of those other dudes who are like pissed and confused.

0:03:56.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, like angrily? 

0:03:57.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah.

0:03:57.7 Jordan Syatt: The fuck are you calling me for? Fuck it. I’m watching the hockey game. Like, yes, yes. [laughter] Then the other ones are like, Do you need a hug? You okay? Some concerned.

0:04:11.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. It’s funny. Something I have noticed over these last several weeks is I just have way less time to mindlessly scroll the Internet. So, I don’t think I’ve been on YouTube Shorts or Instagram. I’ve been on TikTok, I don’t know, maybe 10 minutes a day. And it’s dad content. And then I see that trend and I watch that one every time I see it because it’s hilarious.

0:04:39.3 Jordan Syatt: Isn’t that crazy that it knows you want dad content because you’re not posting content? It’s just somehow it’s just figured out that you’re a dad now.

0:04:52.3 Mike Vacanti: It’s not just figured out that I’m a dad, it knows exactly where I’m at. I might have talked about this on the podcast, but it was outlining like, oh, your wife is this many weeks pregnant. I was like, oh my gosh, this is like spot on.

0:05:06.5 Jordan Syatt: Isn’t that crazy? 

0:05:07.2 Mike Vacanti: And then it was like when we were at the hospital, there was content from being at the hospital. There’s like labor content. And then after birth, it’s like after birth content and two week old baby. It’s insane, but it’s also very, I’m less scared by it than I used to be. You know, whenever we talk about our fears, I talked about the robot AI takeover. Grok has just been so useful to me that I feel like AI is now my friend instead of my enemy. That could change, but that’s where I’m at right now.

0:05:39.3 Jordan Syatt: That scared me.

0:05:41.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:05:42.0 Jordan Syatt: Well, the fact that, like, you’re not scared about Grok being your friend, it now makes me scared.

0:05:45.9 Mike Vacanti: Grok is so helpful.

0:05:47.4 Jordan Syatt: You’ve been infiltrated. Yeah. Grok is incredible. Like, legitimately incredible. I just don’t like your current talking points.

0:05:54.3 Mike Vacanti: You like when I have higher fear because then you feel better. And that was one of my very high fear points.

0:06:00.2 Jordan Syatt: So, great. Now we’re just losing fear left and right. You had nothing. You had no fear to begin with.

0:06:03.8 Mike Vacanti: I’m gaining it in other areas.

0:06:05.5 Jordan Syatt: Dad fear? 

0:06:06.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. Dad fear. Yeah.

0:06:08.0 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Good.

0:06:08.9 Mike Vacanti: But, yeah, it is wild how curated the feeds are. It’s also, I think I was in a unique position before where I had spent many years working incredibly hard and then put myself in a position where I could coast, I don’t think. You know, like, college kids or high school kids who have their summers off. Like, there are times in life where you’re meant to coast or you have the opportunity to coast if you want to. Not many people really coast from, like, 35 to 38 years old. And I think it was really bad for me, like, straight up, because the coasting just got filled with cheap dopamine. And eating crap food and consuming crap content mindlessly, unintentionally, for excessive amounts of time is very damaging on a physiological and metaphysical level. And I’m really, really happy for many reasons. But these few weeks are just different because I’m not doing that like, I was.

0:07:12.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You’ve got real purpose.

0:07:15.2 Mike Vacanti: Yes. And just something directly in front of me that I need to be doing that occupies my time.

0:07:22.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Makes total sense.

0:07:23.8 Mike Vacanti: So, anyway, we don’t have to turn this into a Why Mindless Consumption is Bad for You episode. Although I would love that. We’ll give the listener some variety today. I was wrong about CateredFit. We didn’t shout them out before.

0:07:41.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, my gosh, dude. Fucking finally. Thank you. Thank you.

0:07:46.8 Mike Vacanti: In fairness to me, and by the way, this is a meal prep company that I ragged on before, but we bleeped their name out because I didn’t want to give them bad press. And my number one critique.

0:07:58.4 Jordan Syatt: You didn’t like their breakfast.

0:08:00.6 Mike Vacanti: I didn’t like their breakfast at all. And I didn’t think the calories were right and you know, can’t win them. All right? CateredFit. Their lunches and dinners are wildly good, are healthy, like solid macros, nice variety of food, decent portions, like, not terrible portions. Some of them are 40 to 50 protein, 40 to 50 carb, 10 to 30 fat, which is a solid meal for most people and wildly convenient. During a time like any super busy time, you’re paying a slight premium, obviously. It ends up like 13 bucks a meal, something like that when you factor in shipping, depending on whether you buy 10 or 15 or 20 meals. But you don’t have to cook, so you save that time. You don’t have to go grocery shopping, so you save that time. And when in a really busy time in life, like you recommended to me, you were like, they’re just so convenient when the kid is born.

0:08:55.7 Jordan Syatt: You’re like such a fucking loser. Convenience. Fucking Jew.

0:09:01.0 Mike Vacanti: Jordan, Jordan. Why you gotta take it to that level? 

[laughter]

0:09:06.8 Jordan Syatt: ‘Cause you were laughing at my first jokes and I just kept trying to see how far I can take it.

0:09:10.5 Mike Vacanti: All right. Good job.

0:09:11.4 Jordan Syatt: That’s how, that’s my…

0:09:12.9 Mike Vacanti: You gotta get on stage. You gotta get on stage again, you’ve been on stage. Anyway, I was wrong. You were right. CateredFit is unbelievably convenient and useful during this time of life. So, good job.

0:09:27.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I’ve been using another one recently that I wouldn’t have otherwise. It’s called Fit Five. They’re really good as well.

0:09:35.9 Mike Vacanti: Is this a sponsored shout out? 

0:09:37.3 Jordan Syatt: This is not sponsored yet, but so you know how there was that woman who came at me and like, she was like, you’re a hairy Jew, da, da da, da. And then like, got in contact with the owner of the gym that she worked at, and he’s a Palestinian dude. And him and I connected deep. He owns a meal Prep company called Fit Five and he sent me some. And my wife has been shocked at how much she likes them because we tried a bunch before we got to CateredFit. CateredFit was by far the best. Agree with you don’t like the breakfast very much, not that good. They’re pretty lazy breakfast.

0:10:15.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s hard to reheat eggs.

0:10:18.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. But also, like, even their toast, though, it’s just not good, but their lunches and dinners have been great. And I thought we had found the best of the best. This guy, Paul Shunnarah is his name, he owns Fit Five. It’s really good. And it also, it seems a little bit lower fat higher protein per meal generally. So, I think that you would like that. But still, like, super, super, super good. The main critique, and he was open about it. Like, they are new to the shipping stuff. So, like he was saying they’re more likely to have issues with shipping than, like, a bigger company because he’s more local to the Atlanta area. I’m sorry, Alabama.

0:11:02.9 Mike Vacanti: These East Coast guys just think all of middle America is the same.

0:11:06.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, dude. Yep.

0:11:07.0 Mike Vacanti: These Boston and New York guys, like Alabama, Wyoming, Iowa, what? 

0:11:13.3 Jordan Syatt: But Fit Five has also been really good, and it’s not sponsored yet. Him and I are talking about.

0:11:19.5 Mike Vacanti: He’s a business. I’m not a businessman, I’m a businessman. Cool. Well, we can shout them out while it’s unsponsored. Once it’s sponsored, we’re gonna have to bleep it out because it’s just how the show operates. How’s the price? 

0:11:34.7 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know, ’cause he sent them to me for free.

0:11:38.8 Mike Vacanti: Meal prep companies, something to consider when you’re in a pinch.

0:11:41.9 Jordan Syatt: I wouldn’t have done meal prep when I was, like, in college, number one, ’cause I didn’t have the money, and number two, ’cause I was just, like, I would try, and. I had, like, 100 bucks a month for groceries, and I would go to the farmer’s market, and it was just eggs and oatmeal and vegetables is basically all I got. And also, it wasn’t about the taste. It was just like, here’s what I need to fuel my performance. And there was no enjoyment factor whatsoever.

0:12:10.2 Mike Vacanti: Performance and life. Like, even if you weren’t performing at a high level or trying to, you know, have an insane deadlift, just when you don’t have money and you’re grinding and you’re in that phase, like, calories, cheap calories for sustenance to allow you to build savings.

0:12:30.1 Jordan Syatt: The amount of oatmeal, eggs, and tomatoes I ate over those…

0:12:33.6 Mike Vacanti: You love tomatoes.

0:12:34.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude, love tomatoes. I ate so much oatmeal, eggs, and tomatoes. That was like 80% of my nutrition for years.

0:12:44.8 Mike Vacanti: Some pretty decent variety, right? You’re getting some good fats. You’re getting a solid amount of protein, getting some fiber.

0:12:50.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:12:52.1 Mike Vacanti: There’s an interesting balance in life that’s different for everyone between when you’re balancing delayed gratification with enjoyment, and most people don’t have enough delayed gratification and partake in too much enjoyment. But you can also tip the seesaw the other way and just delayed gratification your entire life away until you’re like 87 and you have $100 million and you lived on the cheap kind of Warren Buffett style your whole life. It’s an interesting balance.

0:13:28.9 Jordan Syatt: Dude, were you and I talking about how Warren Buffett has lived in the same house for like 50 or 60 years? 

0:13:36.9 Mike Vacanti: Yep, we were. And by the way, I wasn’t calling him out for too much delayed gratification.

0:13:42.1 Jordan Syatt: No, actually it’s amazing.

0:13:42.6 Mike Vacanti: It’s incredible. It’s like not giving into this materialistic consumerist society that we have.

0:13:50.5 Jordan Syatt: It’s absolutely incredible. I don’t know if we spoke about it on the podcast or not, but.

0:13:53.9 Mike Vacanti: No, just on a call.

0:13:55.2 Jordan Syatt: This guy is one of the wealthiest people in the world and just lives in the same house that he bought like 60 years ago. It’s like, oh my gosh, dude, so much respect.

0:14:05.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, absolutely. That’s very admirable.

0:14:08.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:14:09.7 Mike Vacanti: You wanted to podcast about this because it came up in conversation? 

0:14:13.3 Jordan Syatt: Uh-oh.

0:14:13.9 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know what we’re really gonna say about it, but there was a time when I wrote a guest article for someone on their website and then…

0:14:28.3 Jordan Syatt: Bro, 100% we need to talk about this. This is crazy.

0:14:30.3 Mike Vacanti: At some point during, like, peak wokeness, somewhere between 2017 and 2021, I’m not really sure when because I wasn’t checking it every day. The image at the top of the article, which used to be a picture of me because I guess wrote the article, the author of the article got swapped out for a stock photo of a random black man instead.

0:14:57.2 Jordan Syatt: Did they change your name or it still was your name, but just a black dude? 

0:15:01.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. My name was still on there but.

0:15:02.3 Jordan Syatt: That is so crazy. I mean, imagine if, like, someone wrote a book, and on the back of the book, they have like the image of the person in the book, and then the publisher was like, you know what would actually look better for us as a publishing company, is if we changed the image of the author to a different race.

0:15:20.9 Mike Vacanti: To try and score points with a group of people to like, build goodwill, because I think that’s like a better business strategy and a way not to get canceled. Crazy. Crazy.

0:15:32.0 Jordan Syatt: Do you want to call out the company that did this? 

0:15:35.0 Mike Vacanti: No, I’m offline these days. I’m chilling. I might. I can, if I ever, and I will at some point, have to be active again, it’s going to be on the email list. I’m almost certain.

0:15:54.2 Jordan Syatt: What do you mean you’re going to have to be active again? It’s news to me.

0:15:56.6 Mike Vacanti: At some point, you know, I can’t… Who knows, maybe I won’t have to. But you know, you get a. Everyone gets a string of cancels in a row. GLP1s are taking over the industry. Like, I’m probably going to have to get into action…

0:16:13.2 Jordan Syatt: Send an email out.

[laughter]

0:16:14.5 Jordan Syatt: Got hundreds of thousands of people on my email list. Might have to send a little, Hey, guys.

0:16:18.3 Mike Vacanti: Hundreds of thousands short. You might have millions at this point.

0:16:21.2 Jordan Syatt: No, you do have, don’t lie. You got hundreds of thousands on there.

0:16:24.9 Mike Vacanti: You actually might have millions. I don’t know.

0:16:27.1 Jordan Syatt: I don’t have millions. I have hundreds. I have hundreds of thousands as well. But yeah, more. But your app, dude, you’ve got Mike’s Macro’s…

0:16:35.7 Mike Vacanti: Syatt Fitness Inner Circle. Incredible. You know what? Speaking of that, I had a note and I don’t know if this will go anywhere, but I was thinking about good stress versus bad stress and how the, you know, there’s a lot of research around how we interpret stress actually impacts whether it has a positive or negative effect on our health, which is interesting. But there was a moment where and everyone in the mentorship or many people in the mentorship can relate to this. We’ve talked about this before and other coaches listening can definitely relate to this. But we’ll have times where new client signups or client cancellations are streaky, right? So, you might get four signups in a week and you weren’t even doing a launch, just happenstance. Or you might have three or four or five clients in like a one week span cancel for no reason. Not because you did anything wrong as a coach, but just because that happens sometimes. If you look at the distribution of an event over a long period of time, it’s often going to be spaced out, but you’re going to have little clumps where like, okay, four people cancel in the seven day window. And that happened recently and I felt like good stress. I felt a bit of excitement. I felt a bit of like, oh, like.

0:18:06.5 Jordan Syatt: You’re like, I’m back, baby.

0:18:09.0 Mike Vacanti: It was almost like, you know, if a few more of these happen, good. I can’t wait to make it like, I can’t wait to bounce back. It was like a real, like.

0:18:18.2 Jordan Syatt: It was like some Gary. These are the days, you know, when you and I are grinding in his basement.

0:18:22.6 Mike Vacanti: Rise like a phoenix, like, oh, you think I’m done post? Yeah. There was a degree of excitement around the prospect of having to be active again.

0:18:34.1 Jordan Syatt: And then you got like six signups and you’re like, ah, nevermind.

0:18:37.6 Mike Vacanti: No, that didn’t happen. That didn’t happen. But I did have a conversation with Grok about investment strategy, finances. Like, yeah. And I wasn’t even worried originally. The reason I brought it up was excitement. Can you relate to that feeling at all? Or is your motivation.

0:19:00.7 Jordan Syatt: Can you relate to which feeling? 

0:19:02.9 Mike Vacanti: The feeling of…

0:19:04.6 Jordan Syatt: The fear? 

0:19:05.7 Mike Vacanti: But it wasn’t. That’s why, like, I’m talking about good versus bad stress. Because often it would be in 2015, if I had a string of cancellations, I’d be scared. I’d be like, oh man, is this even going to work? What am I going to do? But I didn’t have that feeling. There was a confidence and an excitement around like, hey, watch this.

0:19:22.9 Jordan Syatt: No, I think it’s so context-specific. So, you stopped posting on social media partly because you were just tired of it and also partly because, like, you’re like, I don’t really need it anymore. Like, I’m good with where I’m at client-wise. Like, I could even have fewer clients and I’m fine. If I did that and then three, four or five years goes by and I’m like, and then I was about to make a comeback. I’d be like, these fuckers don’t even know what’s about to hit them. I’m about to come back. But I’m still out here grinding, bro. I mean, I’m still out.

0:19:56.6 Mike Vacanti: But you still get the… I’ll be like, how’s the inner circle doing? Or you’ll like bring up. You’ll be like a lot of cancellations or like things, whatever. And then is the motivating feeling always fear? Or is there ever like positivity, optimism intertwined in that motivating feeling? 

0:20:18.3 Jordan Syatt: No, it’s always fear.

0:20:19.5 Mike Vacanti: Okay. Cool. [laughter] Cool.

0:20:23.2 Jordan Syatt: I mean, obviously I love doing it and I like that people get help from it, but purely from the, not the virtuous fulfillment side, purely from the business side, fear.

0:20:35.2 Mike Vacanti: Cool.

0:20:36.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Just fear of, is this going to work? People still enjoying it? Was there something else? Am I sucking shit like that? It’s just, it’s just constant, chronic, ever present, never ceasing, always growing fear.

[laughter]

0:20:58.7 Mike Vacanti: Have you always had that? 

0:21:00.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, but I didn’t realize it until like I found a notebook. I think I shared this with you, right? 

0:21:05.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:21:06.7 Jordan Syatt: I found like a diary from when I was 8. And apparently I was talking about how in the diary I was like, I went to the dentist and my gums bled. I think I have cancer or something.

[laughter]

0:21:19.5 Mike Vacanti: Yes, yes, yes. It was like May 24, 1999. Yeah.

0:21:28.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And I was like, my gums bled when I, what must have happened like making up this story in my head, I would imagine that the dentist tried to scare me a little bit, being like, hey, you’ve got to make sure you floss because if you don’t, you can get gum disease, cancers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

0:21:50.2 Mike Vacanti: It’s crazy to tell an 8-year-old.

0:21:51.8 Jordan Syatt: That was a 90s thing to do though, for sure. Like, a dentist being like, hey, I’ll just fucking scare the shit out of this kid. And I would imagine that when I saw the blood, you know, if you don’t floss, your gums bleed.

0:22:07.2 Mike Vacanti: I’ve flossed every night for 25 years and my gums still bleed with certain hygienists.

0:22:12.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, interesting. Yeah. I’ve been great with flossing for the last like four years. So, like, it doesn’t bleed anymore, but if you don’t floss and then like you go like, you know, you’re bleeding. So, I think I saw the blood. I was like, I’ve got cancer.

0:22:26.4 Mike Vacanti: So, good answer. And yes, the fear has always been there. I meant more specifically related to, I guess, money or finances or business. But when you’re younger, you don’t really have, like, you didn’t have a business in high school, so there was probably, it was less of your focus.

0:22:47.9 Jordan Syatt: The thing with money is money was always an issue in my house. The fights around money, the fear around money, the number of times where it was like, hey, we’re probably gonna have to move. We’re not gonna, we can’t afford the house. Da, da, da. Like that, like ever present, hanging over the head, always there. So like, I think when I started, my fear of income and finance was always there. And then when I was dependent on myself, it sort of just carried over, where it was like, oh, well, now I’m the one providing. It’s like, oh, great. So now this, I’ve got that fear.

0:23:25.6 Mike Vacanti: You know what? My takeaway one takeaway I have there is, and we can cut this out if you feel like, if you don’t want it out there. But a lot of houses have money issues, like a lot of people have money issues. As a parent, just thinking forward, I feel like it would be more optimal to not have those discussions openly in front of my younger or like mid, like…

0:23:54.7 Jordan Syatt: Completely agree.

0:23:55.8 Mike Vacanti: Even if there are money issues, protect the kid from it because of the result that it could have.

0:24:02.3 Jordan Syatt: Dude, let’s keep it in. There’s no reason to disagree. I think that’s an important thing to be aware of. There are some conversations that you don’t have in front of your kids. I think, like, completely agree with that. If you’re struggling money-wise, there might be ways to discuss it, but the ways that it was done in my house, absolutely will not replicate that.

0:24:25.6 Mike Vacanti: You’re like, I’m not carrying that forward.

0:24:28.4 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no, no. I think a better strategy is teaching them about money. So for example, here’s one that I think is a really good idea. Some people are going to be mad, whatever. Halloween is a perfect time to teach about taxes. Where it’s like, okay, you go out, you get this candy. First and foremost, I’m going to check it and make sure none of it’s opened or any of that I’m going to make, you’re not eating something that someone could have done something with. That’s actually a whole separate topic. I’m also partly wondering, like, hey, you can go out, but then like, we can go pick some of your favorite candies at the store rather than you eating candy that you got at someone’s house. Like, I don’t know, it just seems weird to me as a parent at this point, unfortunately. But okay, you get this candy. Awesome. Let me teach you how taxes work. Or let me teach you. Like, let me teach you what communism is. Okay, great. It’s like, this is how much you have. And now I’m going to take X amount. Like, but I think it’s a great way to teach how taxes work.

0:25:28.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s like, okay, so you’ve made all of this. Right? I’m going to take immediately 50%. And explaining how that works. Okay, now let’s. Okay, cool. So now you have this. Now let’s talk about. Okay, so then your rent or your mortgage is, we’ll call it 15% of that. Great, so we’ll take that away. And like, I’m not saying I’m going to not let them eat it, but maybe just be like, so this is what you would get based on this system. What do you think about that? They’re probably like, I don’t like that. I worked hard for all of this candy. I went out, da, da, da, da. Okay, great. So like, this is something to keep in mind when we’re talking about income or finances or economics or whatever it is. So, I think teaching them using these lessons is really, really important. But not getting them to fear in the same way. I don’t want them to fear certain foods. I don’t want to create this fear around it. I just want it to be logical and straightforward.

0:26:25.4 Mike Vacanti: I think that’s great. I think it’s an important thing for kids to learn, especially because it’s under taught in most schools or maybe all schools. Yeah. I like that a lot.

0:26:38.9 Jordan Syatt: I had an inner circle member on my podcast. She lives in Romania. Yeah, it was Romania. And she lived under communist rule in Romania. I haven’t published the podcast yet. And she was like, you know, I’m not gonna try and do the Romanian accent. But she was like, all these people who in the west who talk about how great communism is, she was like, these people have no fucking clue what it was like to live under communist rule. She was talking all these crazy stories. She was like, the government used to shut off electricity at like 8:00PM. So, you had to get like all of your showering done, everything that had to be. And then like they would start selling milk and bread at like 2:00 in the morning when all the electricity was shut off. So like there would be huge lines outside and everyone you line up and you wait in these miles long lines and it’s like, I need to publish the podcast. It was one of the most incredible, horrifying real life testimonies of someone who lived under communist rule. Like, yeah, wild.

0:27:42.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it’s. Yes, it is wild. Especially wild. And I’m trying to be charitable to the people who are like so anti our government and want that form of government. And many of them are younger, many of them college students, et cetera. But yeah, wild.

0:28:09.6 Jordan Syatt: I hear an argument from people, oh, communism, it just hasn’t been tried or done properly yet. I’m like, oh my gosh.

0:28:19.0 Mike Vacanti: What’s funny is I also used to hear that when I don’t know if my feeds change, I’m just on the social less like, have you ever interacted with someone who you know in real life who had those positions? 

0:28:37.8 Jordan Syatt: Yes.

0:28:38.3 Mike Vacanti: Really? 

0:28:38.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It was actually, it was wild. And because you know my buddy David, the Russian David, his family came from Russia. His parents like came from Russia a few years before David was born. Actually his parents came from Russia around the time that Gary’s family came from Russia. And man, it was at my buddy Tucker’s wedding. And we were all going around introducing ourselves because we’re older now, so we have different friends and people from different places. And this young woman, she was basically being like, we were saying, hey, tell some facts about yourself and something you believe. And she was like, and I think communism is the best form, and it just hasn’t been implemented properly yet. And David, whose parents come from a communist country and having lived under it, I look at him and I was like, Are you all right? And he was like, Bro, I’m about to lose my shit. Like, these people have no idea what communism in practice actually looks like. And not to say that our government is flawless in any way, shape or form. There are pros and cons of everything. But if we’re looking at the worst atrocities, like the worst evils of humankind of human history, it’s very easily traceable to the form of government that was implemented.

0:30:04.8 Jordan Syatt: And just practically speaking, in these communist governments, it’s the most horrifying human atrocities, government. So, long story short, David was just like, Dude, I don’t know how I’m gonna handle this. And we got in a little discussion with her, and we asked her to discuss what specifically about communism, where has it been tried? What has been done? Like, how has it been? What could they do to improve it, how it’s been implemented? And she was just reciting talk, like she had no idea. She didn’t know where it had been tried. She didn’t understand practically how it worked.

0:30:37.8 Mike Vacanti: Was she a college student? Was she a professor? Was she.

0:30:40.8 Jordan Syatt: This was at my buddy Tucker’s wedding. She was probably between 28 and 32 at the time. And she was a friend of my buddy’s now wife.

0:30:54.6 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:30:55.7 Jordan Syatt: So, yeah, I don’t know how it works.

0:30:57.7 Mike Vacanti: Okay. I mean, look, where are we seeing people these days around the world want to move? Are they wanting to move to free societies or are they wanting to move to communist society? Like, are they wanting to go to North Korea? Are they, like, dying to get into North Korea to live there? Or are they sacrificing, potentially their lives, their family’s lives, their safety for a long shot to get into America? 

0:31:31.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, that’s it.

0:31:33.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. It’s almost like, we’re almost beating a strawman is how I feel. Because it’s so obvious that the people who hold those positions are wrong.

0:31:45.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. That’s a good point. That’s a good way to look at it.

0:31:47.3 Mike Vacanti: Should we fire up some Q&A.

0:31:49.0 Jordan Syatt: So this is from Amy Rudolph. Shout out Amy Rudolph. She’s amazing.

0:31:52.7 Mike Vacanti: What’s up, Amy? 

0:31:53.7 Jordan Syatt: What is the biggest thing you’ve changed your mind or stance on in the last five years? 

0:31:58.1 Mike Vacanti: Do you have anything that immediately comes to mind, Jordan? 

0:32:01.5 Jordan Syatt: You’re gonna hate this one.

0:32:01.8 Mike Vacanti: It’s okay.

0:32:02.7 Jordan Syatt: You’re absolutely gonna hate this one.

0:32:04.7 Mike Vacanti: I’m not gonna hate it that much. ‘Cause I know you. You’re setting it up like that.

0:32:07.7 Jordan Syatt: No, no, you are. You are gonna hate this one.

0:32:10.5 Mike Vacanti: Okay. Go ahead.

0:32:11.7 Jordan Syatt: I’ve reduced what I think sufficient protein is.

0:32:17.2 Mike Vacanti: Me too.

0:32:19.3 Jordan Syatt: No. You’re such a liar.

0:32:20.3 Mike Vacanti: No, I’m not. We talked about it last week.

0:32:23.4 Jordan Syatt: We did? 

0:32:23.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I told you. You were like, this is the most I’ve ever agreed with you on anything, da, da, da. I was like, I’m gonna care less about getting an optimal amount of protein because I care less about holding on to every single drop, every single half ounce of muscle mass. Look, I still… This is your answer, and I’m, like, diving in. Sorry. Continue.

0:32:44.8 Jordan Syatt: No, please. No, no. That’s it. I want.

0:32:46.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, no, no, no, you please. I’m done. I want to hear what you have to say. The ultimate P.

0:32:52.5 Jordan Syatt: I seeded my time.

0:32:53.3 Mike Vacanti: The ultimate P. You’re like, in a debate. I seeded time. I think that if your goal is to do everything possible to maximize muscle growth or retain every ounce of muscle in a deficit, and especially the latter, more than growth in a surplus, but maximize retention muscle in a deficit, I think there are absolutely benefits to 1 to 1.2 grams per pound of body weight for people who aren’t very obese, because that’s just a lot of protein and a lot of protein to lean mass ratio. But 1 to 1.2 grams per pound of body weight is going to have a benefit for retaining lean mass, especially in a deficit and especially in a large deficit compared to something like 0.5 to 0.6 grams per pound of body weight. And maybe like 1.1 and 0.85 are relatively equal. I don’t know. You get the other benefits with additional calorie expenditure via thermic effect of food. A little bit of extra satiety comes with the downside of inconvenience, comes with the upside that a lot of proteins are tiring to consume and more difficult to consume and fatiguing and help you stay in deficit that way. But by and large, because I care less about, like having 1.3 extra pounds of muscle seven years from now I’m not going to break my back, doing everything I can to maximize protein intake between now and then.

0:34:29.8 Jordan Syatt: Dude. Well said. Love that. What’s something you’ve changed your mind on? 

0:34:34.6 Mike Vacanti: You just set, you set, you gave me the softball, you threw a meatball right down the center for me.

0:34:39.8 Jordan Syatt: I have another one.

0:34:40.7 Mike Vacanti: Great.

0:34:41.1 Jordan Syatt: I have another one which I’m almost positive we didn’t discuss last week. And this is more difficult to discuss because there’s more of a spectrum here. But to put it bluntly, for the vast majority of my career I’ve said you should never work through pain, you should always work around it. And now am not a big fan of that. I think that it, number one, depends on the pain.

0:35:21.0 Mike Vacanti: Amount or type, or both? 

0:35:22.7 Jordan Syatt: Both.

0:35:23.1 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:35:23.7 Jordan Syatt: It depends on the severity of the pain and also the type of the pain. What could potentially be causing the pain, which there are many different factors here. I’m not talking about people who struggle with chronic debilitating pain because that’s very real. And I’m not talking about chronic excruciating pain. I’m also not talking about debilitating pain of someone who has like a I broke my leg type pain. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about, I’ll give you an example. This will help paint a picture better, I think. So, I’ve been working on, it’s called the tailor’s pose, often called the butterfly stretch. You know, when you sit down, palms of your feet are together, soles of your feet are together, you’re sitting upright and you press your knees down to the ground. You know I’m talking about? 

0:36:15.8 Mike Vacanti: And you have your legs spread out wide? You’re getting like a nice…

0:36:18.8 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no. Your palms, your feet are together. So, like you’re the butt, it’s the butterfly stretch.

0:36:23.4 Mike Vacanti: Oh, you’re sitting on your butt? 

0:36:25.2 Jordan Syatt: Sitting on your butt, feet together. And the stretches very like groin adductor where like you press your knees down towards the ground, right? 

0:36:35.5 Mike Vacanti: Yep, yep.

0:36:35.8 Jordan Syatt: So, I’ve been working on that and when I first tried to get back into it, I don’t know, probably about a year ago now, maybe a little bit over a year, I had, bro, the pain that I had in my right groin. I was like, it took my breath away. When I like, it wasn’t just sitting there, it was when I applied pressure down.

0:36:56.4 Mike Vacanti: With your hands? 

0:36:57.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. With hands or with light 5 pound dumbbells. But like lightly pushing, it took my fucking breath away.

0:37:04.5 Mike Vacanti: At an impressive range or just kind of like, you know? 

0:37:09.0 Jordan Syatt: I would say better than 98% of American adults who have just been sitting at a desk a lot and not moving. And they’re scrunched over and their knees are like almost pointing to the ceiling. Like it’s really bad, but not elite at all, definitely not then. And I stopped. I was in my brain, my old brain of don’t work through pain, always go around it. And I was like, just not worth it, not worth it. So, I took like six months away from doing this.

0:37:42.3 Mike Vacanti: Sorry to interrupt. Was part of you, like, because I’m only feeling this on the right and not both the right and the left, that it’s not just the pain of like the stretch, but there’s something wrong on the right side? 

0:37:54.6 Jordan Syatt: Yes. Yeah. I was like, there’s something wrong. And I was like, listen, there are other ways that I can stretch my groin and stretch this adductor without this pain. I’m gonna do that stuff. So, like six months, I didn’t do it anymore. I was like, I’m just not going to do it. And I was looking into what’s called the biopsychosocial model of pain. And I also, there was something that I didn’t like that I’m just not going to do this anymore because of this pain. I’m just not doing it anymore. There was something about it that didn’t sit right with me. So, one day I was like, you know what? Fuck it, I’m going to go back into it. I immediately, I sit down, I’m in the position again without any pressure, without any added resistance, no pain. As soon as I start pressing down, even like moderately light with my hands, the pain comes back and it’s like, oh, shit.

0:38:49.5 Jordan Syatt: This time I relax, I try and calm down. I breathe through my nose, breathe through my mouth. I apply light pressure back up into my hand, so I do some contractions with my adductor. The pain went from, immediately went from like a 10 to a 6. So, immediate pain improvements by doing the exact thing, number one, calming myself down, number two, applying some contractions and essentially telling my brain it’s okay, I’m safe. And now about six to eight months later of doing it consistently, I can put 20 pound dumbbells on each leg and my knees are about like half an inch to an inch above the ground with no, like, there is stretching pain, but no like actual pain.

0:39:38.3 Mike Vacanti: Let’s go.

0:39:38.6 Jordan Syatt: So, there’s a normal pain. And I was talking with Alec Blenis about this, and he used a really good example. So, he got a vasectomy and he was saying when he was getting prepped to get his vasectomy, where the doctor is about to fucking, like, put a needle into his ball sack. He’s, like, lying on the table and he thought that they initially did the incision or did the injection or whatever, and he, like, gasped. He was in real pain, but they were just like, cotton swabbing. They had just like, cotton swab, but he felt pain. And so this is where it’s like, pain is not just purely physical. There’s a huge mental and emotional component to pain. There’s a major, like your relationship to pain. What you perceive and how you’re perceiving it can massively influence the pain that you think you are feeling or that you are actually feeling. And so long, long, long, roundabout way of me saying, I now think that depending on the severity of the pain and the type of pain, rather than just saying, we don’t do this move anymore, how about we progressively and gradually expose you to these movements to get you to feel more safe and calm in these movements so that maybe your perception of pain reduces and becomes more realistic to what’s s happening.

0:41:00.3 Jordan Syatt: Maybe it’s not physical pain like you think it is. Maybe it could be more mental pain that you think you should be having. Maybe you’re weak in this position and that’s why your brain is giving you pain signals. So, now that’s a big thing I’ve changed my mind on and I’m still working through.

0:41:15.7 Mike Vacanti: Let’s go. That’s a great one. It sounds like you’ve also slightly changed your mind on some of the benefits that breath work can have.

0:41:24.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. We could say that.

0:41:26.8 Mike Vacanti: Very slightly, because the whole industry loved it for a while. And then the pendulum kind of swung the other way and maybe it swung back a little bit. That there are some benefits I want to add to the vasectomy story. I believe this was in one of Anna Lembke’s books. I’m not 100% sure on that, but there’s a story of a construction worker who had a steel rod get launched through his foot. Like, literally through his boot, through his foot, out the other side, 10 out of 10, pain rushed to the, ER. Long story short, basically his boot was like, a little bit too big for him, and the steel rod somehow, like, went right between his big toe and his second toe and didn’t hurt him at all. But the whole time, it’s like 10 out of 10 pain. 10 out of 10 pain. And there was a whole getting the rod out and getting his boot off, and when they finally realized he was completely fine. So, yes. What you’re saying about our perception of pain having so much to do with the level of pain we feel and our perception of pain almost being pain, like, by definition. It’s very interesting. It’s very interesting.

0:42:40.1 Jordan Syatt: Alec also brought up a really interesting point. He was like, many of us have heard of amputees having phantom pains. Like, they literally don’t have a limb, but they feel pain in the limb. It’s like, it’s. Pain is so interesting and how it can, there’s so much of it that could be mental and emotional, even if the limb isn’t fucking there, you could feel pain in the limb or like in this with the boot. It’s like you swear this thing just went through your foot, you’re in 10 out of 10 pain, but it didn’t even touch you. Like, that’s crazy.

0:43:11.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. It really is.

0:43:12.6 Jordan Syatt: So, yeah. That’s something. A big thing that I’ve changed my mind on, which is maybe we shouldn’t avoid pain. Maybe we can treat it with caution and work to progressively work through it rather than just be so scared of it. In the same way, I don’t want my kids to be scared of money. Maybe we shouldn’t be so scared of pain. Maybe we could just try and treat it a little bit more calmly and progressively work through it.

0:43:38.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Really good point. And especially to differentiate between severity, type of pain, what you’re doing when you feel the pain, like, you’re not making a blanket statement that if someone is setting a PR on their deadlift with a massively rounded lumbar and most of their deadlifting is with a neutral lumbar. And then they feel an explosive shooting pain through their back and they’re on the floor, like, don’t do it. Don’t get up and try and do another rep. Like, you really hurt yourself there. Yeah, obviously. But a lot of the pain that people experience, like what you were describing with your butterfly stretch, can be worked through and should be worked through.

0:44:26.7 Jordan Syatt: You said butterfly with such disdain, With your fucking butterfly stretch.

0:44:30.6 Mike Vacanti: Do you know why? First of all, no, I didn’t. Second of all, I couldn’t rip tailor’s pose. I couldn’t remember the name of the actual stretch. Because when I think of butterfly, I think of, like, the stretch that I did before hockey, where you’re on all fours and then you, like, let your knees go out to the side. So basically you’re in, like, a quadruped position stretching rather than sitting on your butt stretching.

0:44:55.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s the frog pose.

0:44:58.1 Mike Vacanti: Okay. Frog pose. I always thought it was butterfly, and I liked it. I like butterfly.

0:45:04.0 Jordan Syatt: You look like a frog, right? Like when, like, your hips are going towards the ground and you have, like, frog legs behind you, Right? 

0:45:09.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Technically you’re right. You are in the, yeah. You don’t look like you’re in the position of a frog.

0:45:14.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just don’t like that someone called Butterfly tailor’s pose. It’s like…

0:45:19.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Who’s Tailor? 

0:45:20.6 Jordan Syatt: What douchebag was like.

0:45:22.7 Mike Vacanti: This is me, calling this my name. Let’s take it back.

0:45:25.5 Jordan Syatt: It’s like you look like a butterfly. This is a butterfly stretch.

0:45:26.6 Mike Vacanti: Butterfly stretch. Yes.

0:45:27.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:45:29.1 Mike Vacanti: And there are other types of pain that I used to, I actually found a note. I was searching something in my notes, and I found a note from 2014 where I said something to the effect of, like, it was a very angry note. It was like, all of these, like, pussy. Like, these people want to, like, never have any pain. You’re never going to get stronger. You’re never going to build any muscle. Like, when you’re squ… Like it’s a PR squat, you’re going to feel a little, like, it’s not going to feel comfortable. You need to fight through that discomfort. And I definitely pendulumed slightly away from that at some time. There’s a happy medium between training with enough intensity that you’re making progress towards your goals while also not doing something stupid, overtraining, training through pain with bad technique, putting yourself in a position where you could seriously hurt yourself.

0:46:27.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:46:27.5 Mike Vacanti: And everyone’s happy medium is different depending on what outcomes they want. Like you have said many times, if you want to get a lead at something, you’re gonna get dinged up along the way, you’re gonna hurt yourself. Like, that’s part of the process.

0:46:38.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yep. 100%.

0:46:41.1 Mike Vacanti: Good. Good. Mind change.

0:46:42.7 Jordan Syatt: Good.

0:46:43.3 Mike Vacanti: Good. Broke your leg? Good. You can train your biceps.

0:46:46.5 Jordan Syatt: You’re in pain? Good.

0:46:47.6 Mike Vacanti: Broke your neck? Good. You can train your calves. Well. No, you can’t. Depends.

0:46:55.6 Jordan Syatt: Lost five clients? Good.

0:46:57.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, exactly.

0:46:58.5 Jordan Syatt: Make more content.

0:47:00.3 Mike Vacanti: Exactly. I have another note here. I feel like I’m beating the dad drum too hard, and I’m trying to be cognizant of that. Although Shout out Corey, who left a comment saying that we could just make this a dad fitness podcast. But something I noticed. I’m going to tie a few thoughts together. Remember in Fight Club, when Edward Norton is like, after Fight Club, the volume of everything else in life gets turned down. Like, you essentially don’t care as much about the little, you know, someone cuts you off in traffic. Someone, like, says something. You just don’t care as much after Fight Club. And this I applied to martial arts training. Like, you’re doing something so hard and so intense that the little things don’t bother you as much because you’re putting yourself through this gauntlet. Tie that with Mark Manson wrote an article in, like, 2012 or ’13, maybe ’14, about, you only have so many fucks to give. And he was behind this elderly woman checking out at the grocery store, and she had, like, a million coupons, and she was trying to use all of her coupons, and she clearly had spent, like, two full days cutting out all the coupons, planning her grocery run, doing everything. And the clerk wouldn’t accept one of the coupons, and there were like 50 of them, but one of the coupons wouldn’t get accepted for a dollar off or whatever it was.

0:48:26.9 Mike Vacanti: And she just was hysterical and was fighting, and was, like, holding up. There’s a whole line behind her and she’s just arguing her point, get your manager, et cetera. He was basically saying something to the effect of, this lady doesn’t have anything else to care about. All of her fucks are going into this like, this is what she cares about. Similarly, I have found that with more attention on my daughter and, like, me caring more about what’s going on in my home and right in front of me, I don’t care about, and it sounds bad, but I care less about things happening in the distance. I care less about something that would have pissed me off. I care…

0:49:12.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You just have perspective now.

0:49:15.3 Mike Vacanti: Perspective, yes. And my attention is elsewhere. It’s like, I have so many fucks to give, and I’m giving them to what matters most. I’m not giving them to, oh, my gosh, this guy is a fake natty and I know it. And he’s posting shirtless pictures and, like, I’m gonna call him out. I’m not thinking about, like stuff just doesn’t matter.

0:49:41.9 Jordan Syatt: Someone saying carbs make you fat. Can you believe it? 

0:49:43.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:49:43.4 Jordan Syatt: Can you believe they still believe in the insulin hypothesis? 

0:49:47.1 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:49:48.3 Jordan Syatt: Fucking idiots.

0:49:49.6 Mike Vacanti: Anything, and like arguing in comment sections, like, being right. Like, so many different things. It’s just like, whatever, whatever. Cool. All right. Think that. All right. I’m gonna continue on here.

0:50:02.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, dude. Dad life. Dad life.

0:50:05.0 Mike Vacanti: Did you know that a lot of, not a lot of. Did you know that more women than you would expect, and perhaps men, too, and I just don’t know about it, but they get their eyelids cut off as a plastic surgery.

0:50:24.7 Jordan Syatt: What? 

0:50:25.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:50:25.8 Jordan Syatt: Are you talking about eyelashes or eyelids? 

0:50:28.0 Mike Vacanti: The skin. Like, they cut the skin here.

0:50:32.1 Jordan Syatt: So, their eyes are always open.

0:50:32.7 Mike Vacanti: Maybe they only remove half the skin. They don’t take all the skin. It’s an aesthetic thing. It’s like a plastic surgery thing.

0:50:40.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, maybe they’ve got some extra skin that looks like fat or something on their eyelid? 

0:50:45.3 Mike Vacanti: The ones that I saw, no. I’m sure some people have that, and then they need the procedure, and maybe it helps them see better. But some of them looked perfectly fine and normal and were fine before, but just wanted to be more attractive. I’m really.

0:50:58.7 Jordan Syatt: I mean, I see this all the time anyway. People are like, I get. I’m getting Botox. I’m like, why the fuck are you getting Botox? Like, you don’t need. Yeah. But I still understand their eyelids. Like, you’re not saying they cut off the eyelids.

0:51:13.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. They do. No, they don’t cut it off, but they remove some of the skin between their eyelash and their eyebrow. Whatever’s going on here, like, they…

0:51:22.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, like, this little fold? 

0:51:24.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:51:25.5 Jordan Syatt: So there’s like no, it’s like a wrinkle.

0:51:28.6 Mike Vacanti: I guess.

0:51:29.2 Jordan Syatt: They remove that. Like, one wrinkle? 

0:51:30.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, maybe. Yes.

0:51:32.7 Jordan Syatt: Interesting.

0:51:33.5 Mike Vacanti: It just…

0:51:36.3 Jordan Syatt: Always coming up with new surgeries to tell people that they’re not attractive enough.

0:51:41.2 Mike Vacanti: Exactly. And, like, the nose, like. And maybe I’m getting curated on TikTok, but I’m seeing. Look, and I don’t want to balance this out with, like, you do this. Like, you do you, like, it’s your body kind of like. I genuinely feel sad for male or female people who don’t have some extreme disfiguration but who, like, just look great but want to look optimal. Like, want to be reconstructed into a Kardashian for whatever reason. I genuinely feel bad that whatever we have all done in the west has, like, led to that person feeling like they need to do that. Lips, nose, cheeks, butt, boobs. And then we, you know, it’s so common to be like, and guys, too. Like, guys do this. And yes, guys do it a little different. Guys do way less plastic surgery that I’m aware of. Guys do more drugs, more hormones, more steroids. Like, more stuff like that, which is somewhat similar, but the going under the knife over and over and over again to look a certain way, so that you feel better about yourself is, I’m genuinely not judging, and I’m sad for whatever the root cause is.

0:53:08.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I think we’re seeing more men do it now in the last few years, and my wife and I were talking about this somewhat recently because.

0:53:14.6 Mike Vacanti: Oh, teeth is the. I’m sorry to interrupt. I’m terrible. But teeth is the other one in celebrity world, just fake teeth, fake nose.

0:53:23.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh, dude, fake teeth. What are those called? 

0:53:25.7 Mike Vacanti: Veneers.

0:53:26.3 Jordan Syatt: What are the fake teeth called? Oh, my gosh, dude. I have seen some of the worst veneers. Like, there were people who had teeth that, like, I never noticed their teeth. And apparently then they come out and they’re like, my teeth have been my biggest insecurity my whole life, and now I have veneers. And I’m like, oh, you look like you’ve got a mouth full. Like, you’ve got fake teeth. Like, dude, it’s so bad. The teeth are fucking. But, yeah, lips, teeth, nose, fucking eyes. Dude, I mean, there are people who tattoo makeup on themselves so they don’t have to keep doing makeup.

0:54:05.7 Mike Vacanti: That almost sounds convenient, by the way.

0:54:07.8 Jordan Syatt: I think they do it out of convenience. But, like, also, they’re fucking tattooing makeup on themselves. Yeah. And I do think men are doing it now more than they ever have. I was talking with my wife about this ’cause she’s always been interested in fashion and da, da, da. And she was saying that for the longest time, female clothing and all of that has always been way more expensive than male clothing. But in recent years, male clothing and male cosmetology, I think I’m using the right term.

0:54:41.8 Mike Vacanti: Makeup for men? 

0:54:43.0 Jordan Syatt: Cosmetics. Yeah. It’s like, it’s booming now. It’s like a whole fucking thing.

0:54:46.1 Mike Vacanti: Really? 

0:54:47.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And, like, I would argue that males using anabolic steroids at an exponentially higher rate is basically the exact same thing. It’s like, whether male or woman injecting Botox into their skin to make their skin look a certain way, a male or woman injecting anabolic steroids to change their appearance to build bigger muscles, like, it’s the same thing.

0:55:14.6 Mike Vacanti: Maybe worse if you’re abusing them to the point there’s negative health outcomes compared to.

0:55:19.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, definitely worse for in terms of health outcomes. Like there are potential negative health outcomes from Botox, but I think more associated with anabolic steroids.

0:55:28.6 Mike Vacanti: And high dose especially.

0:55:30.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, but then like men will like I know women do this as well, but much more purport like the surgeries for hair replacement surgeries or drugs to grow their hair. Dude, I mean it’s. Both sexes do it like. But I think historically women have done more to change their appearance and recently I think we’re seeing a surge in men doing things too. I mean the recent ones, I think the craziest one I’ve ever seen is male height.

0:56:03.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Breaking bones and like.

0:56:05.7 Jordan Syatt: They break their fucking femurs and/or the lower like the shin bone. They break it and then fucking make, dude. And the negative effects that have come from that, from, dude. Wild, wild. Unbelievably painful, life altering shit just to be seen differently.

0:56:33.3 Mike Vacanti: And I want to be super clear on where I’m coming from on this, which is I actually see the people getting the surgery as the victim.

0:56:44.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I completely agree, completely agree. Yeah.

0:56:46.8 Mike Vacanti: And I don’t know all of the causes. Like you know, women’s beauty enhancement. Is it coming from decades of airbrushed, like photoshopped, like needing to look perfect, magazine cover capitalism? Yeah, maybe some. Is it coming from dudes’ beauty expectations of women? I think less because and I could be wrong there, maybe I don’t understand dudes preferences fully, but is it coming from intrasex competition among women to look a certain way similar to like you know, having like an expensive Prada bag or something? It’s not because a dude, a single woman isn’t buying a Prada bag because she thinks a dude’s going to like it. She’s doing it because, many of them are doing because they’re competing with other women on that front. I’m wondering where the motivation is coming from for the people who are getting tons and tons of surgeries.

0:57:47.9 Jordan Syatt: I think the, we’ll go to the male example. Dudes get jacked and often use steroids because they think it’s what women want, when in reality it’s actually the only other people who are really impressed by it are the dudes. So, I think men are doing that stuff because they think it will make them more attractive to women, when in reality it’s just like the men are the ones who are more impressed by it. From the female side, I think there are a smaller percentage of dudes will have a very negative impact on women and cause women to, or make women believe that they’re not attractive and lead to these doing whatever it is, like the surgeries and Botox. But I think it’s much more built around the competition between women and also based around, like, for example, how many women developed disordered eating habits because they saw what Victoria’s Secrets models look like on stage. They’re like, oh, that’s what I need to do, because that’s what the most attractive women are, so, I need to look like that. It wasn’t because men were saying, hey, you need to look like this, by and large.

0:59:02.0 Jordan Syatt: It was more because these are the women who are the most successful, the most beautiful. These are the women who are most, these are the ones that people. Yes, this is the most high status woman. So, like, I would imagine that more women developed eating disorders because of what Victoria’s Secrets models look like, as opposed to individual men saying, hey, you’re fat, you’re this. And that does happen, and it’s gross and all of that. But if we’re looking at objectively what has caused more eating disorders and what has caused more of these things, it’s other women and, and how they’re portrayed in magazines and now fitness influencers and beauty influencers and the stuff that they’re doing. And by the way, I mean, even now, you see all these dudes with full heads of hair as a bald dude, you’re like, what the fuck? Like, like, how come, like, there are way fewer bald dudes now? And you’re like, well, shit, maybe I need to do something. So, now it’s the impact of the same sex in culture who are doing all these things. So, it’s like now even in America, someone who’s been lifting for 20 years naturally looks like they, “look like they don’t even lift.”

1:00:16.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Compared to.

1:00:16.8 Jordan Syatt: It’s like, so now I must take steroids so that I look like I lift. And it’s usually what’s happening within the same sex, not based on what the other sexes is saying, what we want. It’s more like what you think is normal within the same sex, and you want to be at least normal or average.

1:00:31.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Great answer. We got a mentorship Q&A we gotta run to. This is a fun podcast. Please leave a, you know what? Mentorship sale starts now. The sale starts now. $500 off if you wanna join the fitness business mentorship the sale will last a few weeks. If you are hearing this, the sale is live. You can go to fitnessbusinessmentorship.com and apply to join the mentorship for $500 off. Jordan, give them a 60-second what is the mentorship question? 

1:01:03.2 Jordan Syatt: I had no clue this was going to happen. This was just like out of nowhere, fucking listen, you want to build your online fitness business? Apply to join the mentorship. If you want to become a better coach, if you want to learn how to actually interact with clients, you want to understand like what their needs are and what’s actually motivating them. If you want to learn what they’re struggling with and why they’re struggling and how you can interact with them like, join the mentorship or apply to join the mentorship. If you want to learn how to do better program design and learn how to actually become a better coach, that will help get more better results with your clients, apply to join the mentorship. If you want to learn how to make great social media content and speak better to people, so that you can get your content out to reach more people and get more applications for your program, apply to join the mentorship. If you want to get rich quick scheme so you can make $600,000 in the first six months of coaching, do not apply to join the mentorship.

1:01:55.4 Jordan Syatt: We don’t fucking want you yet. You need to be at a point in which this isn’t a get rich quick scheme. If you’re still in the I’m a high ticket coach, I want to make a lot of money so that I can fucking buy a fancy watch, and so that I can have a billion followers and so that people think I’m cool, you are not ready yet to join the mentorship, ’cause what will happen is you’ll apply to a join and number one will deny you if you say any of that shit. Number two is, let’s say you somehow get in, you’ll see what we have, you’ll be like, this isn’t what I want. I need something faster. I need the rapid fat loss approach to building my business and that’s not what we offer.

1:02:29.4 Jordan Syatt: So, if you want the sustainable fat loss method, if you want the how to become a great coach that helps more people make this world a better place, now you can apply to join and realistically then you’ll probably get in. But if you mention you want to be a high ticket coach, if you mention you want a billion followers, if you mention any of this shit, you’re out. You’re done. And you know what? Maybe we’ll put like a, you have at least one year before you can apply to join again. And every time you apply after that, if it’s not a year yet, you got another year immediately. All right? Like, you need time to understand, you need time to shift your views. And if you’re still in that, make a quick buck, get a billion followers. I’m going to buy followers. I’m going to say stupid horseshit just so I can make a lot of money. You’re not ready yet for the program.

1:03:15.8 Mike Vacanti: Preach. Well said. Fitnessbusinessmentorship.com apply. Have a great, great week. We’ll see you next week.