Episode 233: How to Become a Millionaire

0:00:11.7 Michael : Hello, Jordan.

0:00:12.3 Jordan : What’s up, Michael?

0:00:13.5 Michael : How you doing?

0:00:14.2 Jordan : Can you hear my kids in the back? Is that why you just asked? My door was open.

0:00:17.6 Michael : They sounded more clear and crisp than normal, so I thought maybe the door was cracked open. I love it, though. Ambient noise. Ambient noise.

0:00:27.3 Jordan : Is your door open? [chuckle]

0:00:29.1 Michael : Well, before each podcast, I like to do a little double check here. Are the right headphones aligned? Are the right mics aligned? Is audio good? And we’re diving right in. Shout out. I’ve got two shout outs here. The first shout out is for Alyssa. Alyssa is a podcast listener who expressed interest in us coming up with a full, comprehensive list of hard dopamine versus easy dopamine, referencing back to last week.

0:01:00.9 Jordan : Wow, I love that.

0:01:03.4 Michael : And so for next week… I started on a list, but next week I think we’ll have that fully ready to go. We appreciate your email, Alyssa. Second shout out…

0:01:13.9 Jordan : Alyssa knows Mike’s interests, really. That is the Mike question of this century.

0:01:18.9 Michael : She’s just interested in it also, because she also said… We said something to the… I said something to the effect of, are other people as interested in this, not being on social media, etc. The entire discussion we were having last week. She’s like, “Yes, I am as well.” Second shout out, quick shout out, our guy Scott. Scott listens to every podcast episode. He is… I’m not going to go into a lot of detail, but just not in a great place right now, but in the foreseeable future is going to be doing a lot better. And so we just want you to know we’re thinking about you, Scott, and keep grinding, baby.

0:02:00.8 Jordan : Love you, man. You got this.

0:02:02.2 Michael : Jordan, do you have your three things?

0:02:04.3 Jordan : Oh, yeah, dude. Oh, yeah.

0:02:07.2 Michael : Or do you have one concrete thing and you know you’ll come up with at least two more throughout the episode?

0:02:13.9 Jordan : That’s what I’ve got. That’s what I’ve got.

0:02:19.2 Michael : I appreciate the honesty.

0:02:20.8 Jordan : I appreciate you knowing me that well to know that’s exactly… You called my ace in the hole.

0:02:28.4 Michael : Speaking of, I got a third shout out. I don’t actually… This person doesn’t know us or the podcast, but Michael Mizrachi, the grinder, just won the main event of the World Series of Poker, which is crazy. We won’t spend a lot of time on this. Basically, he’s one of the 20 to 50 super popular poker pros from the 2003 to 2009 era.

0:02:54.5 Jordan : Oh, I don’t remember that name.

0:02:56.0 Michael : Yeah, he was on a lot of the televised stuff. The grinder was his nickname.

0:03:00.6 Jordan : Okay.

0:03:02.7 Michael : He won the main event of the World Series of Poker, which has 10,000 people in it.

0:03:07.6 Jordan : That’s crazy.

0:03:08.7 Michael : $10 million prize. People didn’t really know if one of the OG names in poker would ever win the main event just because there are so many entrants, but he was down to two big blinds. Basically, he was very close to being out of the tournament and then made an incredible comeback to win it in dramatic fashion.

0:03:33.4 Jordan : When you say he was down, was that just like in one game in particular? He was down really bad and made a huge comeback in that game, won that game, and then went on to win the rest of the tournament?

0:03:42.7 Michael : The way that poker tournaments work is you continuously play until there’s only one person left. And so there’s tables of usually nine, maybe sometimes 10, but usually nine players at a table. And everyone starts with the same number of chips. And you just play for 12 hours a day until there’s only one person left. And so with 25, somewhere between 25 and 50 people left, he lost a pot and was down to almost no chips. Yeah. And then like was all in, doubled up, was all in again, doubled up.

0:04:23.3 Jordan : So there’s not… Is it… I understand you just play 12 hours a day, but there are games going on, like you’re not all part of one giant game? There are hundreds and hundreds of games going on at the same time?

0:04:37.4 Michael : Yes. But that does… You don’t play until there’s a winner in each one.

0:04:43.1 Jordan : Oh, you play until you lose.

0:04:46.7 Michael : People move tables. Yeah.

0:04:46.8 Jordan : Oh, you can move. You can just pick up your chips and go to another table?

0:04:48.4 Michael : No, you get moved. So essentially like there’s nine people let’s pretend at our table and one person gets knocked out and… Or let’s say two people get knocked out and that’s happening at multiple other tables. One table might be down to six players. And then the tournament director is like, “Okay, this game’s breaking. You go fill this seat at this other table. You go fill the seat at this other table.”

0:05:14.1 Jordan : Oh, really! So they’d be like, “Hey, you just get up. Hey, take your chips. You’re sitting over here now.”

0:05:17.2 Michael : Yes.

0:05:17.6 Jordan : That’s tough because then you got to learn the players at that table. I feel like a lot of it is inherent, just sort of luck of the draw. It’s like, “Oh, you were doing great at this table. You were getting a read on all these players. Now you’re fucking moving. You got to go now learn all these players.” And you don’t know what hands they have.

0:05:37.2 Michael : Yeah, definitely. There is an element of that for sure. And actually, it’s funny you say that because Mizrachi had a really good table draw at the final table. He ended up like chip stacks matter, meaning if you have the most chips compared to someone with very little chips, you can dominate them in a tournament. He was to the left of the player who had the second most chips. And so he was in a very advantageous position.

0:06:04.6 Jordan : Got it. That’s really interesting. Yeah, I came up with this phrase a long time ago, “You don’t play the cards, you play the player.” I came up with that phrase myself.

0:06:13.7 Michael : You did. Was it like ’91 or ’92 in that range?

0:06:17.6 Jordan : I think it was like May 9th, ’91.

0:06:20.5 Michael : ’92. The day before you remember being on the scale, getting weighed.

0:06:27.5 Jordan : OG podcast listeners are going to remember that one. Yeah.

0:06:30.8 Michael : Do you stand by that?

0:06:32.1 Jordan : I 100% stand by that. Yes, I do.

0:06:35.0 Michael : Jordan remembers being weighed.

0:06:36.8 Jordan : I just remember hands putting me down on that baby scale and me looking up. Yeah.

0:06:41.0 Michael : But you’re being serious though.

0:06:43.6 Jordan : I’m dead serious. I vividly remember that.

0:06:46.5 Michael : Vividly.

0:06:48.0 Jordan : Vividly. There’s no vagueness. It’s a vivid flash memory of me being put down on that scale.

0:06:53.1 Michael : Wow.

0:06:54.1 Jordan : Yeah.

0:06:54.9 Michael : Which is really wild because your memory isn’t your strongest suit. So it’s almost like it all is going to that one memory.

0:07:02.9 Jordan : Yeah. And it’s… I remember just thinking like, “Man, I wonder how much I weigh.” And that’s when my relationship with food and weight cutting really started.

0:07:18.0 Michael : It really started right there on day one.

0:07:20.1 Jordan : Man, that’s super interesting. So let me ask you this. When you win the 10 million prize, which I feel like is a small prize relative to 10,000 entrants, but obviously you win 10 million. That’s great. Do you actually only get 5 million because of taxes?

0:07:34.0 Michael : Yeah.

0:07:34.8 Jordan : Oh gosh.

0:07:36.1 Michael : That’s right.

0:07:37.9 Jordan : Devastating.

0:07:39.8 Michael : If you’re a professional, you offset your wins and losses throughout the year. So it’s just… It would be like revenue for an online fitness business. Except we write off things like courses and any travel for business. We talked about this last week too. Professional gamblers can write off their losing sessions.

0:08:00.2 Jordan : Oh, so if they lost money while playing, you can say, “Hey, I lost $5,000 playing this round.”

0:08:04.0 Michael : Yeah. You have to be able to offset your wins and losses because if you just accumulated… Even a small stakes, professional poker player might make millions of dollars in a year if you add up all of the hands that they won, but then you offset that against the hands that they lost.

0:08:20.1 Jordan : So they have to track that. They have to track their wins and losses so that they can then… Is there a way like that they can have that written down to prove it? Are there…

0:08:30.7 Michael : I’m so far removed from that world. I don’t know. I’m sure there’s decent software, but they’re not actually tracking hand by hand. Online it’s easier, but in person I would imagine they just track each session, like plus 500, minus a 1,000, plus 1,200.

0:08:46.5 Jordan : Hypothetically, if he lost 10 million this in a year, he could say, “I’ve lost 10 million. I made 10 million and not have to pay anything.”

0:08:57.9 Michael : I’m almost certain that that’s right. I’m 99% sure that’s right.

0:09:01.7 Jordan : That’s crazy.

0:09:03.2 Michael : He would have to pay estimates, like on big tournament scores you have to fill out some IRS paper and you’re paying an estimate right there, but then you would get that back in a refund if you actually had $10 million…

0:09:16.7 Jordan : That’d be sickest refund ever.

0:09:21.0 Michael : $3 million tax refund. Yeah.

0:09:25.3 Jordan : Wow.

0:09:26.0 Michael : Yeah, but $10 million… So 10,000 entrance, it’s a $10,000…

0:09:31.6 Jordan : Buy-in.

0:09:32.5 Michael : Yeah.

0:09:33.3 Jordan : It’s a $10,000 buy-in?

0:09:35.1 Michael : Mm-hmm.

0:09:36.3 Jordan : Oh my gosh.

0:09:37.3 Michael : The main event of the World Series of Poker, bro.

0:09:38.5 Jordan : Wait, $10,000 just to enter the whole tournament, not just the… Just to be one of the 10,000 entrants, you pay $10,000?

0:09:47.0 Michael : Yes.

0:09:47.8 Jordan : Wow.

0:09:48.5 Michael : And it’s not exactly, so there were 9,700 entrants this year. There was like 10,200 last year.

0:09:55.8 Jordan : The chutzpah that you have to have to enter that tournament, like you’ve got to have some real money. And imagine not having real money and being like, “I’m going to enter this tournament and just put down $10,000.” Do you think there’s anybody who gets funded? “Hey, we’ll give you this money, but if you win, then you have to give us X percentage of whatever it is you win?”

0:10:14.9 Michael : 100%. Yeah. Staking, it’s called.

0:10:18.2 Jordan : Oh, interesting.

0:10:20.6 Michael : Yeah, there’s a lot of… There’s swapping. There’s, “I’ll take 5% of you, you take 5% of me. We both play the tournament.”

0:10:26.5 Jordan : Oh really?

0:10:30.8 Michael : Yeah. All like risk reduction strategies and also just gambling. So you have a piece of someone else. I might get knocked out on day one, but I had 2% of Mizrachi and he just won $10 million.

0:10:40.3 Jordan : That’s crazy. They’re gambling within the gambling. Man, that’s a different mindset.

0:10:46.9 Michael : Yeah. We’ll move on from that though. That might be boring for some people, but Jordan seemed interested.

0:10:51.9 Jordan : I’m super interested in it.

0:10:53.4 Michael : You’re one of one thing.

0:10:55.3 Jordan : Dude, so people are gonna be like, you already spoke about collagen all the time, but this is actually really interesting because the reason that I started taking collagen, I don’t know, a week in right now, Alan Aragon was pretty convincing about it. And then a couple of days after he left, a new meta-analysis came out around collagen. And he hit me up about it. And he was like, “Hey, just so you know, a new meta-analysis just came out.” Because I started to speak publicly about it on this podcast and I even mentioned it on Instagram. And he was like… The day after we recorded our podcast, this meta-analysis came out. And he was like, “You might start getting negative feedback because the meta-analysis, the authors concluded that there was no benefit from it.” So then Alan doing Alan Aragon things dives into the meta-analysis. And he found some of the wildest shit. So 23 studies. Out of the 23 studies, 21 of them found significant improvements from collagen.

0:12:06.3 Michael : Okay. Sounds good.

0:12:07.5 Jordan : But it was either 20 or 21, I forget. Either 20 or 21 saw improvements. The two or three of them… The authors essentially removed the results of those studies from their findings because of the funding of those studies. So there were potential funding biases in regard to those studies. So the authors just said, even though the results show improved results as a result of collagen, we’re going to take those out. So the only studies, there were like two or three, that saw no significant difference, that’s what they referenced. Which I was like, that’s so weird that they would include 23 studies, but then essentially remove all of the ones solely based on funding and not based on how they’re done, not based on the efficacy of the study. It was like, then why would you even include them at all?

0:13:05.8 Jordan : Why would they be included in the meta-analysis if you’re not going to actually take them seriously to begin with? So he was like… He’s trying to figure it out. He doesn’t understand what’s going on with it. And he was like… As he’s reviewing, he’s like, “Listen, obviously funding is one important component of when you’re reviewing a study, but it’s not the only thing. And just because there might be confounding variables with who’s funding it doesn’t mean that the study’s worthless. If that’s the case, then we’re going to have to get rid of a lot of research that we see across the board if you’re only going based off of who funded it.” So he was like, he’s still very pro-collagen and thinks it’s a great addition and that the research is pretty clear that there can be significant improvements from bone, skin, hair, nails, et cetera. But I thought that was super interesting. And I was like, “Why would they do that?” He’s like, “I don’t know.” He’s like, “I don’t know why they would even include them if they’re just going to remove their results.”

0:14:00.7 Michael : I’m glad you brought that up for a number of reasons. One, it’s funny that we dropped a podcast with collagen in the title right around the time that that meta-analysis came out, which may have been confusing for some people who thought it was in reference to the new meta-analysis. I’m glad you cleared it up. Yeah, you would think that if they’re not going to take the results of the study seriously based on who funded it, that they wouldn’t analyze it. It wouldn’t make sense to include that study in the meta-analysis.

0:14:32.5 Jordan : Yeah. It seems like a wasted time, waste of energy, and almost like you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Why would they even include them if all you’re going to say is, “Well, these don’t count because of the funding?” And I asked him, “Why would they do this?” He’s like, “I have no clue.”

0:14:45.9 Michael : There’s also, a higher level interesting thing going on here, which is in the fitness industry, in the last few years especially, it seems like the evidence-based community, I shouldn’t even say that, it seems like a part of the evidence-based community overweights the most recent study and lets the pendulum swing too far either direction just based on not the last 30 years of research on a topic or 20 years of research, but this one recent study or even this one recent meta-analysis of 12 studies, whatever it is, it’s like, okay, everything we used to know… And I see this a lot with the optimal bros. Everything we used to know is out the window. All of this free weight training, barbell training, calisthenics, all of the things that I did or whatever, insert individual, this optimal bro who’s talking, all of the things that I did to build my physique over 15 years look incredible, make insane progress, that’s all crap because now we know that if you really want to hit the side delt.

0:15:58.9 Michael : What you got to do is you need cuffs and you need to hold onto a lacrosse ball while you’re doing the exercise, you need to lay on your back, you need the bench angle perfect, you got to pull it over to a cable machine, but not this cable machine because that one’s not as effective, this cable machine, and you got to do your lateral raises laying down on the bench like this holding the lacrosse ball. That’s how you make optimal progress.

0:16:20.1 Jordan : Yeah. Or else it’s a waste. It’s just a waste.

0:16:22.3 Michael : Yeah. It’s a waste. Why even do it if it’s not optimal? Look, there’s another part of me that’s like, good, we should be innovating these exercises and trying to figure out what’s best, but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. We don’t need to discount everything we’ve done that might be 90% or 95% as effective just to get that extra 1%. There’s also, from a coach’s perspective and a program design perspective and a human behavior and psychology perspective and knowing your normal gen pop clients, having someone do a dumbbell lateral raise or even a single arm cable lateral raise where it’s a pretty easy setup, if it’s 95% as effective, is going to be way better for them because they’re actually going to do it compared to the variation that’s hard to get in position, requires a lot of different equipment, requires equipment that’s often in use, requires a lot of steps to get it set up. It’s like, “I’m just not going to do this. I’m just going to skip this weird move my coach programmed.”

0:17:23.3 Jordan : I’m not doing that in a public gym when it’s busy.

0:17:28.1 Michael : Yeah, and the embarrassment of it.

0:17:29.5 Jordan : Yeah, I’m not going to lie down and fucking get this cuff with a tennis ball. I have one of the cables on the dual cable stack and someone else is doing something else and I’m going to fucking put myself perpendicular to the rack. Just do a fucking lateral raise. Yes.

0:17:44.0 Michael : Yeah. And that’s one example of many.

0:17:46.7 Jordan : Yeah. Or like lat pullovers aren’t even… When they say, “It’s not even a lat exercise.” Like what the fuck, dude? It’s so obnoxious. Yeah, I completely agree.

0:17:57.0 Michael : Are you still seeing a good amount of that?

0:18:00.1 Jordan : That specific one, I haven’t seen it in a minute.

0:18:02.6 Michael : Biomechanically. I think it’s the chest.

0:18:04.9 Jordan : But you know what, I really think what we see now is based on, it’s really… It’s 99.9% driven, not based on fact or truth and more based on engagement. It’s just like whatever… People are only going to post about what is driving the most engagement, which is why we see these optimal bros posting the way that they do. Because new study came out, it’s like, “Oh, so the new study is right.” Everything else before that doesn’t count. This new study is right. What’s this new study say? So it’s basically a race to see who can read this study and come up with their own conclusions from that study as quickly as possible to then make a unique video about it. That’s what it is.

0:18:42.0 Michael : Yeah. Especially if it’s contrarian too. Yeah. So if it’s new and it’s, oh, you think bent over rows build your back? You think single arm rows build your back? You think inverted rows and pull-ups build your back? You are wrong. This is how you build your back. And it’s, yes. We see that with, outside of fitness too, contrarian, sensationalistic, fear-driven, all of these types of headlines get more eyeballs. Just too bad, which I think is a good reason either to really curate your algorithm, which no one’s really going to do. Like no one’s really…

0:19:21.6 Jordan : You can’t. Yeah.

0:19:23.4 Michael : Well, you can. Every time you go on Instagram, you can click the upper left, you can click following, and you can go chronological on people you follow. Like technically you can, but no one is.

0:19:32.3 Jordan : Because the first post they see is going to suck them right in.

0:19:34.9 Michael : Suck them right in. It’s gonna be…

0:19:34.9 Jordan : They open it up, there’s something they see like…

0:19:38.6 Michael : RFK Jr is doing something with food dyes. It’s like, rather than… And not to say that that’s like… Look, yeah, politics…

0:19:48.9 Jordan : Go off on it, yeah.

0:19:50.1 Michael : We could go off on it.

0:19:50.7 Jordan : Did you see my post on that?

0:19:51.9 Michael : I did not see your post on that.

0:19:53.3 Jordan : You didn’t see my post on the food dyes?

0:19:54.8 Michael : No.

0:19:55.2 Jordan : Oh yeah, I made a whole… I got pissed. I made a whole angry screaming post about it. And then I posted what I thought was an absolute banger of a story on it yesterday, and it got a really good response.

0:20:08.3 Michael : I definitely did not see that. But I’m thinking it’s way too random that I just brought that up, so I’m wondering if I saw it.

0:20:13.8 Jordan : No, you’re like, oh, it’s the mentalist. You just knew.

0:20:16.8 Michael : I’m not like, O’s. Are a lot of people talking about it right now?

0:20:20.9 Jordan : Yeah, it’s a pretty hot topic. And what we’re going to see, as of recording this, it hasn’t been huge yet in the fitness industry, but it will be within the next 48 hours. Trump came out and was like, “I’ve got Coca-Cola to promise that they’re going to start making Coke with real cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup like they do everywhere else.” And so that’s about to be a big thing too.

0:20:44.2 Michael : Yeah. Look, is it the most effective lever the guy could pull? Definitely not. Are there a million better things that the individual listening who wants to get healthier should do rather than switch their high fructose corn syrup sugary drink for a cane sugar sugary drink? Yeah, there’s probably more than a million better things you could do than making that swap.

0:21:10.4 Jordan : You know what my issue is?

0:21:11.5 Michael : But now I want to go contrarian because I’m like, where was all the criticism of the federal government health department in the last administration? Like, there wasn’t any.

0:21:22.6 Jordan : Well, so this is now… Listen, I completely agree with you that there was a lack of criticism there.

0:21:31.5 Michael : Or maybe I just didn’t see it. Am I right on that?

0:21:34.8 Jordan : You’re right. I didn’t see any. And to be honest, I feel like I think it’s quite frankly because they weren’t openly doing stuff that was like… I didn’t see much from the federal government under the previous administration that was like, here’s what we’re going to do to improve public health, especially like what the individuals can do. I feel like with RFK, it immediately became more sensationalized. And especially, he was out there shirtless doing pushups and shit.

0:22:11.9 Michael : It’s a great point. He’s a public figure.

0:22:14.6 Jordan : He’s a public figure, and he’s also like, he’s jacked, he’s lean, he is saying some wild fucking shit. And so it almost directed attention to him, whereas before they didn’t put much attention on it. So like that wasn’t something that people were really discussing. So it’s a valid criticism, but at the same time, I don’t like that argument from the perspective of I don’t care which administration it is, if they’re doing stupid shit, we got to call it stupid shit. It’s just like… And there was a lack of criticism, but I just think it wasn’t as forward-facing as other things. Right now, for example, in the previous administration, the majority of the criticism was around Biden’s…

0:23:06.8 Michael : Cognition.

0:23:09.9 Jordan : Cognitive abilities. It was like, is he there? That was the major thing. And then it was Biden’s cognitive ability, and then, okay, are they just lying to us about… Which they were. They were lying to us and people like very much knew that he wasn’t there, and that has became abundantly clear. Now that focus has shifted is like, “Okay, Trump is there.” But now it’s like, “Okay, what is the administration doing? Are they like… ” Essentially it’s another form of lying. What are they trying to do? How are they hurting public health? So it’s just a different focus. But my issue is that this is gonna… I don’t care if they use cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup, I don’t care. If they want to switch, that’s fine. My issue is coming from now health influencers who are being like, “Fuck yes, it’s now real sugar.” These health influencers, these people who are like saying that they’re supposed to be improving people’s health, and they’re like basically now touting Coca-Cola as a healthier drink because it has cane sugar.

0:24:16.6 Jordan : And the same thing with the artificial food colors and food dyes where it’s like, they’re like, “Yes, ice cream now is not gonna have artificial coloring in it.” And I’m like, “It’s still fucking ice cream.” And in fact, it might even be worse because now you’re telling all these people who struggle with their health and struggle with ice cream. Now they think, “Oh, I can eat more of it because it doesn’t have these artificial colors.” When it’s like the artificial color wasn’t the issue in the first place. It was that they’re eating a fuck ton of ice cream and they’re fat and they’re out of shape and their blood work is shit and they’re not exercising. And now they’re gonna increase their ice cream intake because you’re telling them that it’s healthier. Like that’s crazy.

0:24:57.1 Michael : Yeah. It’s funny, we started this by me just throwing out a random example of things that people talk about to get more engagement and politics being one of them. And now we’re literally doing it.

0:25:10.5 Jordan : Yeah, but I mean, if this is true and it’s right up… It’s in our field. It’s unhealthy people are gonna be getting unhealthier because they’re being told that now this unhealthy food is a healthier option because it doesn’t have fucking food dye in it.

0:25:25.4 Michael : Yeah. Similar to everyone talking about how incredible omega-6 fatty acids are that we talked about a while ago and how seed oils are amazing. It’s like, well, seed oils aren’t the worst thing. Yes, we had a full episode on that, but yeah. How did the post do?

0:25:49.3 Jordan : I got a lot of people really angry. I got a lot of people really upset. And then I made a follow-up post about it.

0:25:56.6 Michael : But engagement-wise?

0:25:58.8 Jordan : It did fine. It did normal. A lot of angry comments.

0:26:01.2 Michael : Because we were talking about using those things to get more attention, but it wasn’t like an outlier in that regard.

0:26:10.8 Jordan : No, it wasn’t an outlier. It was an outlier in terms of how many comments, but it wasn’t an outlier in terms of views or likes or follows or any of that.

0:26:20.0 Michael : And what is the… Because I’m genuinely, I think I was telling you we talked for like an hour before we even jumped on here. How I’m actually sticking to the no scrolling for more than five minutes and I’m very checked out of what’s going on in the world. What is the argument with the food dyes? What are people… What are the people who are anti-food artificial flavoring color… Not flavoring. But artificial coloring, whatever they’re removing, what are they saying that it’s doing? Like, it’s causing obesity, it’s causing all these health issues?

0:26:52.1 Jordan : No, they think… Number one, they’ll say it’s causing cancer. It’s actually really funny, and I’ll say him by name. I’m fine with it. Chris Elkins came on my post and he was like, “I don’t understand why you’re mad, bro. It’s a known endocrine disruptor.” And Stan Efferding, the fucking man, comes in and he was like, “It’s a known endocrine disruptor. I would love it if you could share the human studies on that with the PubMed IDs.” And immediately Chris was like, “Oh, there are no human studies on it. It’s all mice.” And he dug himself a big hole and at the end of it he was just like, “Stan, just so you know, I love you, da da da.” But they basically say it’s an endocrine disruptor, which we have no actual data on showing it within humans. They say that it causes cancer, which we have no causal evidence showing that whatsoever. And the big one that I found is that a lot of parents have been told that these colors are bad for kids with ADD, ADHD.

0:27:51.4 Jordan : The interesting thing with that one, and I’ve tried to engage a couple of parents who say this, in legitimate good faith, I’m like, “How do you know that it’s the dyes?” And they’re like, “Well, anytime my kid has one of these foods.” I’m like, “Could it be that you’re giving them fucking ice cream?” And that maybe they just get really hyped up from ice cream or can’t… If you’re giving them Skittles, maybe they’re just a kid. And when you give them sugar, they get really hyped up. Are you feeding them just food dye to test if this is that? Or is it…

0:28:26.5 Michael : Or are you giving them the, whatever, the version of the Skittles that doesn’t have the food dye?

0:28:32.1 Jordan : Yeah, like how do you know.

0:28:33.1 Michael : And like A-B testing those. Yeah.

0:28:34.3 Jordan : And then they’re like, “Well, if they don’t have those foods with the food dye in it, they’re much better.” I’m like, “Well, yeah, probably because you’re having better, higher quality foods.”

0:28:42.9 Michael : Chicken and vegetables.

0:28:43.0 Jordan : Yes, exactly.

0:28:44.1 Michael : It’d be interesting if they did a week on the Skittles with the food dye and then. Because they make these healthy versions of all these candies.

0:28:51.9 Jordan : Exactly. Yeah. But what would be really cool is if they had another parent, a different parent, distribute the candy so they didn’t know. So rather than that parent giving them the candy, like, hey, I’m going to give you both of these candies and you can give them to the kids on different days throughout this week. You don’t tell me when you give them which candy. I don’t want to know.

0:29:15.1 Michael : Or even a month. Do it for a month.

0:29:18.3 Jordan : Yeah, over a whole month. Yeah, and I don’t want to know.

0:29:20.4 Michael : And then let the parent take notes on what days the kid was crazy and what days… That would be fun. I would love that.

0:29:22.8 Jordan : That’s like a legitimate blinded study. N equals one, but a legitimate blinded study with your own kid to see like, is it the food dye or is it your perception or is it just the fucking high sugar candy or food that you’re giving them? Which my money would be on that. But those were the major ones.

0:29:40.5 Michael : This actually bleeds a little bit into what we were talking about before and we don’t need to go super in depth on this, but I might be wrong, but I’m trying to analyze myself. Part of the reason I have less interest in federal government policy around health and wellness is, I don’t know if it’s in my DNA or based on environment growing up or what it is, but I’m far more interested in the things that I can control as an individual or that my clients can control as an individual.

0:30:20.2 Jordan : Yeah, I completely agree. Yeah. Because that’s… Number one, I don’t ever want to rely on the federal government and for anything. And I don’t think, realistically, any logical person’s like, “Yeah, I would rather not rely on… ” You don’t want to rely on anybody else to get you what you need. It is a objectively better strategy to focus on what you can control. Now, obviously, there are some things that it’s great to have someone who’s backing you and supporting you in difficult times, which is really, really important for everybody in many different ways. However, we don’t want to rely on that, ever. We never want to rely solely on one entity, one person, one government. The only person, the only thing that you can control is yourself. So the vast majority of what we do should be focused on, what can I do for myself?

0:31:19.0 Jordan : And if we need help and that is available, then yes, 100%, and I think we should fight for that. But also, as coaches and educators, what I think we should be focusing on is, what can the individual do? Regardless of financial status, regardless of where you live, regardless of what you have or don’t have access to, what can you do right now to get better? And that’s even something as simple as exercise snacks, taking three to five minutes, doing grease the groove method every time you walk into the kitchen or you walk by the bathroom, whatever it is, doing something. No matter what, do something. And I would always love… In New York City, you and I spoke about this recently, going by public parks where you just saw a bunch of inner city kids who were jacked out of their fucking minds and doing the most insane calisthenics. And there were documentaries made about them being like, “I came here and it kept me off the street. It kept me off of being in gangs.” And then they build their fucking careers out of it. And they become incredible coaches and they have wonderful careers and they provide for their communities. I loved seeing those kids out on the playground. It’s like, that’s creating generational wealth and generational health.

0:32:35.3 Michael : Clips Nation, let’s go. Yes, absolutely right.

0:32:39.5 Jordan : And imagine if those kids had just been told, it doesn’t matter what you do, you have no control over anything. It’s all the government. It’s all like… Imagine you don’t do that. Just like they were discouraged from doing that because nothing you do is going to matter. It’s like, all right, well… Yeah. That’s criminal. Making people believe that they can’t accomplish something is criminal.

0:33:01.3 Michael : Well, and it’s coming from a place of wanting to even the playing field, which a lot of times it’s coming from a good place often, but practically speaking, it’s not beneficial to that kid or that person who’s in that disadvantageous position. And I gave the male height and dating example that we can talk about if you want, but like, life isn’t fair and it’d be way better if it was at least more fair and there are some things that we can do to make it a little bit more fair, but relying on any external body, such as a federal government, to completely even the playing field isn’t realistic. And for the individual, focusing on making everything else fair is going to lead to a way worse outcome than focusing on what’s within your control. Oh, you’re a short dude, so you struggle more with dating?

0:34:14.1 Jordan : Cool focus on improving your confidence. Focus on making more money. Focus on getting stronger and being in good shape, focus on… I think most guys had a phase, I assume most guys did, but a lot of guys definitely had a phase where pick up content in like the 2010-2011 timeframe was of interest. Remember the pick up artist TV show?

0:34:40.7 Michael : Of course.

0:34:41.5 Jordan : I feel like that was on when I was in college.

0:34:42.7 Michael : Oh no, I was going to say Criss Angel, but yeah, I do remember the pick up… Yeah.

0:34:48.2 Jordan : If you look mystery. Like I look for…

0:34:48.3 Michael : Yeah, mystery. Yeah. Like fashion, like I’m trying to think of things that fall under that bucket that are within the individual’s control, but doing what you can to improve the outcome you want is way better than not doing anything and complaining that the playing field should be evened out.

0:35:09.7 Jordan : Yeah. Listen, going back to the point of like, it comes from a place of good intent. Communism comes from a place of good intent and it has also led to the mass slaughter of hundreds of millions of people. It can come from a place of good intent, but practically it’s a horrific, horrific, practically implemented strategy that doesn’t work well literally anywhere.

0:35:33.3 Michael : Because equal outcomes can only… You can only arrive at equal outcomes through violence.

0:35:39.2 Jordan : Yes.

0:35:39.6 Michael : No one’s going to go there voluntarily. And so if you want to have a completely equal playing field, not even equal playing field, if you want to have equal outcomes, it needs to be enforced on a population.

0:35:51.4 Jordan : Correct. That’s exact. It has to be forcefully enacted by a governing body, which is okay now. So now they’re inherently ahead. They have a higher level of power. So it’s already not equal level playing field. And then from there, okay, cool. So they’re enforcing it, but dude, look at Venezuela right now. I have a former client who lives in Venezuela. Dude, the stories that she tells me about the government, and I have to be careful about what I say in terms of like, I can’t say her name because it’s… The government went in… And so her brother is actually a social media influencer. I’m not going to say where he lives. He lives outside of Venezuela. He escaped and he makes videos sometimes trashing the Venezuelan government. The Venezuelan government went into her home and beat the shit out of her mom.

0:36:42.0 Michael : No way.

0:36:43.2 Jordan : Yeah. Dude, they took… And by the way, there’s a separate aspect of it, but they took all the guns away from the citizens. So they can’t fight back. It’s the first thing that a tyrannical government will do is they’ll remove the weapons from society so they can’t fight back, which is another reason why the second amendment is unbelievably important. But anyway, the control that the government has over its people is total. It is totalitarian in nature in a communist government. It’s horrific. I don’t even know where I started with that or where that was coming from.

0:37:19.2 Michael : If you want equal outcomes.

0:37:20.9 Jordan : Oh. And then like, okay, so you have the government that’s in control, but then it’s like, okay, now they’re going to be people… So you have the government that is ahead, but then the regular civilians, it’s like, obviously it’s not going to equal outcome because now some are going to have higher levels of higher capabilities than others in order to do underground things, in order to fight back in the resistance. And some people are going to be wheeling and dealing and cheating and doing whatever they can and they’ll steal money and they’ll hurt people. It’s like there’s no equal outcome.

0:37:50.8 Michael : Then we’ll just balance the scale, Jordan. Then we’ll just take a little from that person and give to the person who doesn’t steal.

0:37:56.0 Jordan : It can’t work. It actually cannot work. It does not work. It’s unbelievably dangerous. I had a woman on my podcast, an inner circle member from Romania when it was under communist rule. She told me the most… This is actually crazy. She told me stories of how, it’s actually very relevant right now to New York City. She was telling me how, the government controlled the food and the government controlled the grocery stores. And so like they would decide when they opened, when they closed, what was available, what wasn’t available.

0:38:23.1 Michael : Why? Just for the audience, do you want to mention why it’s relevant for New York City?

0:38:25.9 Jordan : Yeah. Zohran Mamdani in New York City who is literally advocating for government run grocery stores, which let’s take out every communist example, whether past or present, take every example out. Do you like how the DMV is running? When you go to the DMV, do you like how that’s run? Do you think it’s quick and efficient? You get treated well and do you like how they treat you? Because that’s a government run program. Now do you want them to have control of your food supply? Do you want the government to control what you have access to, what food you can buy, the price of it? Do you want them to say, “All right, you’re only allowed to have this many eggs. You’re only allowed to buy this much milk.” Because that’s what happens. It’s like, hey, so for all fairness, this government run, this is your cost. You can only buy one carton. Oh, okay. You want to buy toilet paper here? Okay. You can only buy this one roll of toilet paper. That’s all you have access to. That’s what happens. And so Mamdani is one of the things that he’s saying he’s running for. He wants to implement government run grocery stores, which is just…

0:39:29.7 Jordan : It sounds great. It sounds amazing. “Yeah, we’re going to give to the people and it’s going to be government run and no more capitalism.” But it’s like, it’s actually horrifying when you look at the logical conclusion of it all. But this woman, who’s an inner circle member, she was a kid under communist rule in Romania. And number one, the government would turn off electricity at 5:00 PM. All electricity gone. So if you wanted to shower or anything, they would have to take the water before that happened and they would all use the same bucket of water and all the kids went first, then the wife, and then her father was the last one to be able to get in this dirty tub of water and wash himself. And then in the freezing cold winters when she was like 8, 9, 10, she would be out at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning waiting for the grocery store to open and then everyone would go in and by the time she got there, there wasn’t always guaranteed food. It was like, it starts with good intentions and it has a horrific, horrific outcome. And listen, no one in their right mind would say capitalism is all good and no one would say that there are no faults with it.

0:40:32.1 Jordan : But when you compare the two, it’s not even close. And under a capitalist economy and capitalist democracy, what it really facilitates is forward thinking and rewarding of people for innovation and for technology and for trying to forward society. And they reward them with if you take the risk to do this and you do well, then you get more money. That’s what happens. You get to reap the benefits of your risk. And if you take the risk and you don’t reap those benefits, then guess what? No one’s going to know your name. You’re not going to get that money. You’re going to lose money. And that’s the society. That’s what we live in. But this going for equal outcome is a dangerous, dangerous game that people don’t understand what it actually means.

0:41:20.4 Michael : We’re also shifting away a little bit from the health part of this, which is completely fine. But a lot of the people… Let’s talk about briefly here and then we can get into some other topics. We’re just letting this one riff all over. People who want equal outcomes financially and who are very anti-rich person, they think if they had more money and if the financial playing field was level, if everyone had the same amount of money, meaning they had more, they think they’d be happier, but they wouldn’t. And look, I’m not saying if someone’s in poverty and then gets like above the poverty line, of course, that’s going to improve your quality of life and make you happier. That’s not what I’m saying. But I’m saying someone who’s making $80,000 as an individual in the West and if they could go from that to $300,000, they wouldn’t be happier. And you and I, when we were… When I was traveling home from New York City a few days ago, we were on the phone and you had a business issue going on with…

0:42:33.9 Michael : We don’t even have to go into it, but when you have a big podcast and you have a certain guest on and some people didn’t like that guest and they get mad at you and there’s drama and there’s a lot going on behind the scenes, you’ve been working very, very hard diligently for over a decade. I don’t think people realize, and you’re one example of literally thousands, millions even, people who earn more money generally are stomaching more risk and more responsibility and more stuff that sucks to earn those extra dollars. That’s a reward of capitalism. Not always, but often working harder leads to better outcomes. And I said to you on the phone, I was like, “Dude, there is no amount of money anyone could pay me to be in the position you’re in right now, having to deal with the behind the scenes podcast guest drama.” And a lot of people who have this like, I hate people who make more than me mentality, don’t realize that they might actually have it better. Maybe they’re working a few less hours, maybe they’re chilling on their back porch, getting a little bit of sun, maybe they’re reading a book, they don’t have armies of people on the internet trying to take them down and know what that means or what that feels like or what that risk is. Like, I don’t know.

0:43:58.6 Jordan : Dude, I completely agree. And there’s a common… Going on towards like the hating the rich, I just Grokked this while you were talking. My question was, what percentage of millionaires inherited their wealth?

0:44:15.2 Michael : It’s less than 20%, right?

0:44:16.7 Jordan : It says approximately 21% of millionaires in the US received some inheritance, but only 3% inherited $1 million or more, which means that 79% of millionaires did not receive any inheritance at all. And the vast majority built their wealth through other means, such as financial discipline, consistent investing and hard work. I think that for some reason, people have this idea in their head that all millionaires or even a majority of millionaires inherited this in an unfair way…

0:44:49.3 Michael : Had it given to them.

0:44:50.7 Jordan : When it’s like, there’s a teeny tiny percentage that inherited that much whatsoever, like 3% or less in terms of a million or more. And the vast majority is they fucking work really, really, really hard. And that’s not to say other factors don’t contribute. Of course, what school system you went in and like what mentors you had available to you. And like, of course, all that matters. But the one consistent thread is they all worked really, really, really hard. And this idea of hating the rich, it’s also like, well, what’s rich? Is rich a million? Is rich $500,000? Is rich $10 million? What is your line of rich? And then how do you delineate that? And it’s like, okay, well, what if they’re donating X amount to charity or, all right, cool. Let’s say they’re rich, but then also what if they employ 500 people and they’re giving 500 people jobs and those jobs are fair paying and they give their employees health care and opportunities that like…

0:45:53.2 Jordan : And what if those employees are really happy there and they enjoy their job and they have a 40 hour work week or less and they have great work life balance, but the person who runs the company, like they don’t have work life balance. They’re working all the fucking time and they’re taking all the stress. It’s like, don’t you think the person who started it should have that ability to make more because they’re putting in more hours because they were the one that started it from the bottom up and had all that risk. I don’t know. People have this very false idea of what it means to get rich or what it means to be rich.

0:46:23.7 Michael : Yeah. You made a great point, which is that they don’t know that they think that it’s like just being handed down from generation to generation to generation. And there, we hear names, there are families like that, Vanderbilt or like Rothschild or like these very successful wealthy families. Like you said, most millionaires are first generational millionaires. 21% received some inheritance, only 3% received enough to make them a millionaire. And that matters because it means we’re living in a system where you can move within these brackets. I actually think it’s human nature too. I’m going to let you finish Grokking so I can have your attention because this is a great point.

0:47:09.9 Jordan : Yeah. I’m listening.

0:47:11.0 Michael : If you think about what causes someone to want to work hard to earn a lot, having a certain background almost makes them more likely to want or not even want, but to be the type of person who does. If you think of your typical rich kid who was given everything, whose parents were multimillionaires, like spoiled kid, doesn’t become the type of person who works to earn more. Usually they’re the type of person who spends it all on drugs and hookers and like blows. It might not be one generation away, but it might be like grandpa was the one who absolutely grinded and then dad did a pretty good job, but then grandson was the one who was completely soft. And let’s say he ends up procreating too, and his kid has a worse life because he spent it all doing XYZ thing and being a bad dude. Well, then that kid is going to have the type of childhood that is more like, “Okay, I need to be able to fend for myself.” Learning the traits that allow him to be able to go earn in his future. It’s the cliche, like strong times, weak men, weak times, hard men, you know, that little circle thing that used to go around a lot. Yeah.

0:48:31.3 Jordan : Good times create weak men, weak men create hard times, hard times create strong men. I was also looking up, because I heard Dave Ramsey talking about this study that I thought was super interesting. Teachers notoriously are underpaid, at least in the United States, but notoriously underpaid for all the shit that they do. Anyway, underpaid period, end of story. With that said, there was a study that surveyed over 10,000 millionaires. It does not provide an exact percentage of millionaires. I’m sorry. So my question was this, I said, what percentage of millionaires were school teachers? And I asked this because Dave Ramsey said a huge percentage of millionaires in the United States were actually school teachers. It brings up a really interesting point.

0:49:20.6 Jordan : So Grok said, there’s a study which surveyed over 10,000 millionaires. It does not provide an exact percentage of millionaires who are specifically school teachers. However, a report by Spectrum Group cited in Barron’s noted that teachers and other educators accounted for 14% of the nation’s 8.6 million millionaires at the time, 14%. So almost 15% of the millionaires were people who are notoriously underpaid. And at that time, the average salary was about like $61,000 a year, which means that these people, even though they don’t have massive incomes, are saving their money and investing it really well over 10, 20, 30 years. So by the time they retire, they are millionaires.

0:50:10.3 Jordan : And you’re going to tell me that 15% of these millionaires hate the rich when it’s like, you don’t even know who the rich are. Just because they drive an old beat up Toyota and wear a flannel shirt and they’re a school teacher doesn’t mean they’re not rich by your standards. Just because they don’t flaunt it doesn’t mean they’re not rich. And it doesn’t mean they didn’t work their fucking ass off for it. When you’re saying tax the rich and I hate the rich, you might be talking about people who you actually think you stand up for, but you have no idea. You have this made up concept in your head of what rich is. And you’ve got, maybe they were just fucking smart. And instead of going on lavish vacations and spending money on shit to impress people that don’t matter to them and spending it on social media and buying fancy stuff, maybe they were investing and investing and investing and investing and investing. So by the time they got to retire, they were millionaires.

0:51:01.0 Michael : Yeah. It’s a caricature of this Elon Musk or whoever the rich person who they hate is in their mind projected on anyone who’s a “millionaire”. The other thing about what you just mentioned, the other great point it brings up is most “rich people”, or we’ll just use the term millionaire. Most millionaires, people who have $1 million or more net worth are just old. That’s it. They have more years of earning and they have more time for their assets to appreciate. That’s it, period. End of story. That’s what leads to people having more money is time. Let me rephrase so that it’s true. The thing that most leads to people being millionaires is time.

0:52:00.4 Jordan : Yeah. Because it’s time and time spent saving.

0:52:00.7 Michael : Exactly. Yeah.

0:52:02.0 Jordan : Not spending your paycheck every week on shit you don’t need to impress people you don’t even like. That’s one of my favorite things Dave Ramsey does. He goes on these tirades just yelling. He’s like, “Let me make this very clear. If you spend your income, you don’t have it anymore.” He’s like, “Your income is your greatest wealth building tool. Stop spending your fucking income.” [laughter]

0:52:28.9 Michael : Hilarious. He’s got a lot of good advice and he is funny and seems like a good dude. I’m actually going to go the other way on this one because when we started making… I’m not going the other way. I’m going to show some empathy for the people who do that because I had never thought of shopping because shopping is not my issue. I’d never thought of it as an addiction. I’d never thought of it as like doom scrolling for some people is like shopping for other people. It’s like, oh, wow, if someone is like really battling with… I have more empathy for it than I previously did.

0:53:04.8 Jordan : Yeah, I get it. I have a lot of empathy for it and understanding, but I’m not even talking to the person who’s addicted to it. I’m just talking about the person who’s just not aware of what they’re doing or like they just don’t care. There’s a big difference between shopping addiction and just, hey, I’m going to buy this watch just because I want to try and attract more girls.

0:53:27.8 Michael : I have a $2,500 car payment every month because I don’t have money, but I want a Lambo.

0:53:33.6 Jordan : Yes, exactly. Yeah, I’m not even talking about the people with legitimate health issues that are an addiction based.

0:53:41.6 Michael : And by the way, you can spend your money however you want to. It’s a free country. That’s the great news. But then don’t complain about some people being millionaires if you’re not saving and investing and you’re young and you’re not taking the steps to get there as well, but instead just want redistribution.

0:54:00.6 Jordan : Yeah, 100%.

0:54:02.1 Michael : Man, I can’t believe we started with your collagen and that was the episode.

0:54:06.8 Jordan : Dude, that was one of my favorite episodes ever.

0:54:09.3 Michael : Good. Hey, if this was one of your favorite episodes ever, please leave a five-star review. Jordan and I… You might not have known this, we post every one of these episodes to YouTube. Personal Trainer Podcast is where we’re at over on YouTube. If you’d like to go check us out there. Anything else?

0:54:28.5 Jordan : No, I didn’t even need to use my two other topics. I’ll put those in my back pocket and save them for next week. That’s it. Thank you everyone for listening. We appreciate it. Hope you have a great week. Get to work. Go help people. Don’t just pontificate about problems.

0:54:45.6 Michael : That is the takeaway. You know what, let’s put a bow on this for anyone who’s making content, for any coaches out there, any personal trainers. You could make a piece of content that gets 10 times more engagement because you are in audience capture. You’re telling people what they want to hear. You’re aligning with their ideology, but there’s no practical takeaways. There’s nothing that your potential client can do to improve their life or improve their health from the post you’re making. You just know, oh, a lot of the people who follow me agree with this, and I don’t even really know what this word means, social determinism. I don’t even really know what it is, but I’m just going to talk about it vaguely because it gets engagement versus getting 5% of the engagement. The person who watches the post actually has something that they can incorporate in their life to become healthier and become better, become healthier for their family, for their children, to live longer. That’s what matters.

0:55:43.5 Jordan : Way to put a bow on it.

0:55:46.2 Michael : All that communism talk really just came full circle.

0:55:49.1 Jordan : Yeah, do something. Do something. Fucking help people. Give them practical action.

0:55:55.7 Michael : That’s right.

0:55:56.3 Jordan : Hey, here’s what you can do. I don’t care what your income is. I don’t care if you’re a billionaire. Elon should be doing more push-ups. The dude needs to get more sleep, and he needs to fucking lift more.

0:56:07.9 Michael : Yeah, tell them.

0:56:09.9 Jordan : I don’t care if you’re a billionaire. Elon, I love that you gave Starlink to Ukraine, which you get no credit for now, by the way. I love that you did that. Now, get some sleep and fucking hit the gym, dude. I don’t care. I don’t care if you’re a billionaire. I don’t care if you have next to nothing. If you’ve got nothing, do some bodyweight squats. Try and get to a pistol squat, push-ups, single arm push-ups, elevated push-ups. Do it. I don’t care. That’s one of the things I love about jiu-jitsu is you’ve got super rich people and super poor people rolling on the same mats, and it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what’s in your bank account. It doesn’t matter what job you have. You could get choked out by someone half your size who is on food stamps. It doesn’t matter. We’re all equal. 200 pounds is always 200 pounds. Fucking just go work out. Focus on what you can control.

0:57:01.3 Michael : Bang. Have a great week. We’ll see you next week.