Ep. #1151: Jordan Syatt on Achieving Holistic Health

Jordan: Death has become a much more legitimate reality in my life. It was always a legitimate reality, but it’s become something I’m much more aware of, much more cognizant of whether it’s close friends who have died or people who essentially were the pinnacles of what I used to think health was, who then have had major health issues to the point of whether it’s actual death or life altering issues, strokes, heart attacks, whatever.

And who knows if it could have been prevented by actually living a healthier life. Community is without question, it’s the number one thing, like aside from physical health, that can help determine the length of your life and also the quality of your life from the perspective of how much you really enjoy it.

Mike: Hello, I am Mike Matthews. This is Muscle for Life. Thank you for joining me today for a new interview with my friend, Jordan Syatt, who has been on the podcast a number of times. And this time, we are talking about health. And specifically, we’re talking about health in a more holistic manner than simply viewing it as body composition or even as blood biomarkers.

Thank you Which, of course, are important components of health. You can’t say you’re a healthy person if you don’t have a healthy body composition and if your blood is all messed up. However, you also can’t say that you are a holistically healthy person if you have a healthy body composition and your blood looks great.

There are more factors to consider if you’re trying to be a healthy person. to optimize your health in a 360 degree holistic manner. For example, to start with something physical, how is your mobility and flexibility? Are you deficient in either of those areas? And if so, maybe it’s not impairing your health right now, but it can lead to health problems later, and Jordan will talk about that.

How is your community? How is your ability to engage in difficult conversations and to use those for personal growth and for improving mental and emotional health and well being? How well are you dealing with stress in your life? There are many ways of dealing with stress that are healthy and many ways that are unhealthy.

And unfortunately, many more Ways that are unhealthy than healthy. And so in this interview, Jordan and I are going to be talking about these things. And in case you are not familiar with Jordan, he is a former competitive powerlifter and a renowned fitness coach and fitness industry veteran. He has a lot of in the trenches experience working firsthand.

with thousands and thousands of people over at least a decade now. And so, like many of my guests, Jordan not only has a strong grounding in the theory of the many things that he talks about, including relevant literature, he also has a lot of practical, hands on experience. And understands what works and what doesn’t.

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Thanks for having me on, man. I appreciate it. It’s always a pleasure. I wanted to get you on the show because you’ve, you commented, uh, you posted about this over on social media and I made a note of it and here we are talking about it. And, and that is, uh, that you have redefined for you what it means to be healthy.

So for a while, and, and this, and I can relate to this too. It was more about body composition. It was more about performance, how strong can you get. How jacked can you get? And, uh, uh, I don’t want to put words into your mouth, but, but maybe your idea of health outside of that was, um, lacked at least some of the dimensions that it, that it, that it, uh, has taken on now.

And so what are your thoughts now on what it means to be a healthy person and maybe how that has changed for you over the years? 

Jordan: Yeah, so I think a good place to start is probably why my view of health has changed and why it was what it used to be. And then why it’s morphed into what it’s morphing into now, which I think it boils down to two major things.

Number one is sort of who, who I was surrounded by, like the, the community, the, the industry, what everyone was talking about when I was that age, and then also what my own personal priorities and goals were. And so when I was, I don’t know. 10 years ago when I was 22, 23, 24 coming up in the industry. Um, and I was a competitive power lifter.

All I ever heard about was just strength, strength, strength, get as strong as you can. That’s all it is. Even there were sayings like my cardio is lifting weights faster, things like that. And people were not only people, when I say people, I mean. Very, very intelligent, and when I say intelligent, I’m speaking about people who have a lot of letters after their names, whether it’s certifications or actual doctors, downplaying the role of cardio, downplaying, uh, other important aspects of health, and then not to mention my own personal goals, which are, you know, as a 22 year old, 23 year old, 24 year old dude, Look good, naked, get jacked, all this stuff.

And it’s so easy for someone in that position to just be like, well, this is what health is. This is health. And, um, there, I think one of the major reasons it’s changed is because my relationship with death has changed, which is really, I think probably the, the most important reason where death has become a much.

Much more legitimate reality in my life, uh, which it was always a legitimate reality, but it’s become something I’m much more aware of, much more cognizant of whether it’s close friends who have died or other people in the industry who I looked up to, uh, who have died people who essentially were the pinnacles of what I used to think health was, who then have had.

Major health issues to the point of whether it’s actual death or life altering issues, strokes, heart attacks, whatever, and who knows if it could have been prevented by actually living a healthier life and then also having my daughter and God willing, another one on the way, it’s, uh, my own mortality. Has very much shifted my idea of what health is.

And I feel like I can’t speak for all young to mid 20 year olds, but for me, at least, It, you have, I had this air of death is something that I’ll deal with in a long, long, long, long time. You’re, you’re immortal when you’re in your 20s. Yes, it’s, it’s, it’s one of those things where it’s like, yeah, I know I’m, I’m going to die, but like, it’s going to be in a long time and early deaths are not for me.

And it’s all of a sudden where you, like, I had, I’ve had a number of close friends and colleagues pass, uh, over the last 10 years who were very strong. Very fit people, but they didn’t get their blood work taken. They didn’t have their blood work checked or they didn’t take their blood pressure regularly.

They didn’t do cardiovascular exercise. They were staying up late every single night, trying to work super, super, super, super hard, uh, abusing Adderall, just doing things in order to work and work and work and work, or in order to, uh, look fit, taking drugs, whatever it is, steroids, uh, in a, in a, uneducated in a very, uh, dangerous quantities without keeping their, uh, having doctors check on them.

It very quickly has changed my perspective of what health really is. And then also, obviously we could talk about the research and, and, and peer reviewed studies talking about health, but I don’t think it takes a genius or even diving into that stuff to really understand. You look at the oldest populations in the world.

You look at people who live healthy lives, uh, and healthy in terms of, you know, They live a long time, but also their quality of life is very high. They, they actually can, uh, it’s not like they’re just surviving, they’re actually living. They’re actually able to accomplish things into very old age. And so for me, that’s really why the shift has taken place.

Mike: And so how are you thinking about it now? Like what, what are the kind of added dimensions? So you’ve mentioned cardio a few times and that’s something I’ve also given more priority. You got the bike right behind you, man. I love it. I 

Jordan: love 

Mike: it. Do you like cycling? Um, I mean, I don’t really care. I’m just, it’s more, it’s just, it’s just exercise.

I don’t treat it like training to be fair. I mean, I do. Yeah. And, and I do. I mean, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not tracking anything related to my biking other than just making sure I’m getting my time in. Uh, but I am paying attention to the difficulty and increasing the, uh, resistance. Do you track your heart rate or no?

No, no. Okay. So it’s just, it’s just by, um, I mean, it’s RP. Yeah, exactly. And then your wattage 

Jordan: is or anything or no? No, no, I mean, Okay. You’re very much just like, you’re just, you’re intuitive cycling. 

Mike: Correct. It’s, it’s, it’s very much exercise. Just like, all right, I’m getting into, I’m getting into zone two.

And I know of course what that feels like. Right, right. You can just pay attention to your breathing to know if you’re, If you’re doing it right and air on the side of, uh, pushing a little bit harder rather than, uh, rather than, you know, going a little bit lighter and just making sure that I’m, I’m putting in my time and that works for me because I really just kind of use it as a multitask opportunity anyway.

Like if I have to make a call for work, even I’ll just tell, I’ll just tell somebody, Hey, I’m on a bike. So you’re going to, I can speak. Uh, you’re going to hear me breathing a little bit and it shouldn’t annoy you. It should be fine. And I’m not going to be like, you know, but, but that’s why, that’s why I sound like I’m doing something cause I am or, or, or make a personal call, you know, something I’m going to do anyway, or I’ll, I’ll read, uh, because I mean, high intensity stuff, you, you.

You can’t read. You can’t do that. You can’t have a magazine open. Correct. Moderate intensity. I mean, read on my phone. Uh, so I can just sit there and read as well. I’m going to do that anyway. And so that’s something that, uh, I’ve, I’ve given more priority to and, um, and then, and then less priority to weightlifting.

So I’m weightlifting three days a week and then I do cardio four days a week. Okay. And I really, there was a time actually when I was, uh, during COVID, uh, I was, uh, I I was training at home, but I was lifting five days and doing cardio seven days. Oh, wow. I would, I would like to go back to the, to the seven day.

Um, it’s just, I’m pretty busy these days and I, if I’m already spending an hour in the gym lifting, I’m just resistant to hopping on the bike for another 30 minutes. Um, even though I, I maybe could make a phone call, but if I don’t have something that I need to do, yeah, I have other things that I, that I want to do.

So, you know, but, uh, anyway, I’ve, I’ve given more priority to cardio than in the past. And, um, that’s, that’s simply just because maintaining VO two max is, is very important for me to talk about health and longevity, uh, just as maintaining muscle strength and maintaining bone density is, which, which, um, Strength training is, is great for, and you do get some cardiovascular benefits from strength training, but you’re, you’re going to get more by doing both at the same 

Jordan: time.

Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, from the, the exercise perspective, that almost covers it. The one thing that I’ve really started being, taking super seriously since. November, November, December is, is mobility, um, and I’ve always done mobility, but I’ve never taken it very seriously. Like I, I’ve always been able to touch my toes.

I’ve always been able to like, I’ve had above average mobility, um, for a very long time. I did gymnastics as a kid and so like I’ve had above average mobility, but like not nowhere near elite at all. And, um. Number one, like I’ve gotten super interested in the science of flexibility, which is just something I was, I was woefully lacking on is the understanding of how to, uh, meaningfully change your ranges.

It was something that I understood at a very early age. Very ignorant level, like very like basic, basic foundational level. And so I’ve gotten very passionate about learning that, but then also the, for looking at what happens as you age and how quickly mobility can, can be reduced a year over a year, but not only that.

It’s one of the cool things about strength is you could take someone who, we see videos of it on social media all the time. Someone 60, 70, 80, they can get strong, they can get newbie gains with strength training. And it’s pretty fucking wild. Like I love seeing the videos of, uh, I think, uh, Alan Aragon’s wife, Jenna Aragon, like her father is in her, his eighties or something.

And like in a very brief period of time, he’s gotten super freaking strong, which is incredible. And I love it. For me that with mobility, it’s much harder to actually make progress with as you age, it’s way more difficult, which is why even at our age, yes, 

Mike: it’s 

Jordan: hard and it’s annoying and it’s painful, dude, it’s unbelievably painful and that’s another interesting thing for me is.

The different types of pain that come with different types of training, whether it’s, you know, long duration zone two, or like a short duration sprint or, uh, one rep max deadlift versus a set of eight or, or 

Mike: an eight, 

Jordan: an eight rep max. Yes, exactly. Harder than that. Or, or like a 20 rep breathing squats or passively holding a stretch for 10 minutes or going like for an intense, uh, very intense 60 seconds stretch, or even like a very intense 20 seconds stretch.

Yeah, there are the different types of pain are very interesting to me and how we cope with them. But the main, one of the main reasons I really wanted to dive into mobility is because the rate at which you can improve goes down. Every year, pretty dramatically. And so the cool part is just like with strength and just like with everything, the amount it takes to gain, to make progress is significantly more than it takes to maintain it.

Uh, and generally based on the flexing, uh, flexibility research. It takes about six times longer to gain flexibility than it does to maintain it. So once you gain it, like it’s so much simpler and less time intensive. So I’m in a, in a phase right now where I’m trying to get elite levels of flexibility where, so I’m actually, I dropped my cardio to once or two times a week for like 20 to 30 minute sessions.

So I have more time for my flexibility and then. Within a year to two years, I think I’ll be able to bring it back in more, more regularly. But, um, flexibility is something that from an exercise perspective, I’ve really been focusing on more lately. And how have you been going about that? Like what specifically 

Mike: are you working on and why?

Jordan: Yeah. So, uh, There’s a couple of things. My main goals right now are the splits. So I have the front splits, the middle splits and the pancake split front splits are obvious. Your feet go front to back. Middle splits are obvious. If you go to the side, the pancake is where you’re sitting on your butt straddled, and then you can touch your chest to the ground and really very mobile, flexible, flexible.

People can touch their belly button to the ground. It’s just, it’s insane. Um, so I’m working on that. And then I’ll so 

Mike: that’s kind of where I guess you’re you’re on your knees like your your legs kind of out like a frog Am I thinking? No, no, no So 

Jordan: you’re you’re sitting on your butt sitting upright like you’re in a chair right now Okay, got it.

Now. Imagine your legs are completely out straight in front of you But then you bring them out wide so like you right rattle open 

Mike: I already had an image and I didn’t hear what you even said said, because I was thinking about, cause I work on, I have a little stretcher routine every day and I thought that’s what that was going to be, but it’s not, it’s just the simple stretch with your legs open and 

Jordan: yes, and you reach forward.

But then like, if you could get your belly button to the ground and like chest flat, that’s the pancake. Yeah. Yeah. 

Mike: I can’t do that. 

Jordan: Um, yeah. So. I’m doing some other stuff for shoulder mobility as well, but those are my main goals right now. And why? So, I mean, why did you choose those goals? Just because I really, I want to be able to do the splits super bad.

Like it wasn’t based on health. It was, it was literally just based on like to get. To the actual truth, the actual pinpoint is, I want to take a picture of myself holding my daughter doing like the Jean Claude Van Damme split with my feet on chairs and me holding my daughter. I just feel like, number one, that’d be badass, and two, I feel like she, that’s the kind of picture she would put up in her house when she’s older, and like, that would be a really cool thing for her to remember.

So, um, That like, I would just want to do the splits and I originally just wanted to do the side splits, but I’m working with this guy named Lucas Hardy from Range of Strength who’s just an absolute beast. And he, he’s like, well, let’s just do all the splits at once. And I think it helped because about two or three years ago, I tried getting into the, I tried doing the side splits, but I only did a side splits and I ended up injuring my, my medial, the medial aspect of my knee because I was just focusing so hard on a side split.

And whereas now I have, I have one day for each. So I have one day for front split, one day for side split, one day for pancakes, but that’s all I’m doing. Uh, three days of mobility is, is all I do right now. But man, when I tell you they’re intense, like it’s not just sitting down, passive stretching, like this is unbelievably like.

High levels of strength and muscle recruitment at very, at your longest end ranges, also like very slow controlled eccentrics diving into your, your, uh, end ranges as well. Very fun from a learning perspective. And it’s also even something as simple as from now, like I never used to be able to go palms to floor when I was, when I would touch the ground, uh, I would never be able to do that.

Now I can do that. Easily, like, with that, I can do it cold without warming up, palms to floor, legs straight. And every night, when I put my daughter in her crib, and I’m essentially doing a Jefferson Curl, where I’m leaning over and completely around on my back, dude, I can’t begin to tell you how good my back feels.

Like, my back hasn’t felt this good since I was in high school. Which, I, and I’m only 32. I could very easily see how, as you age, a lack of mobility, even you could have an amazing level of strength. I deadlifted four times my body weight. I don’t, I’m not weak, but I, my range was leading to a little bit of stiffness that I could very easily see compounding as I got older.

And many people listening 

Mike: have probably heard at least that, well, if you’re, if you’re lifting weights at least a few times per week, if you’re doing some sort of reasonable Press, squat, hip hinge, deadlift type movement, and you’re doing it with good form. You’re going to, you’re going to maintain all the flexibility that you need and stretching is a waste of time.

I’ve seen that claim made all the time. All the time. 

Jordan: It’s one of those things where it’s like, yeah, I mean, we could talk about even just like the idea that you, uh, if, as long as you like squat, deadlift, press, whatever, you have all the mobility you need. Well, just very simply, if we’re looking at this. In all of those movements, especially the squat and the deadlift, you’re generally keeping a neutral spine, which is how we would recommend you keep your spine when you’re lifting very heavy.

It’s how you keep yourself safe. You don’t want to route your back like a scared cat. When you’re lifting, we have a heavy barbell on your back. You’re trying to deadlift it. Most people, when they’re bending over, they’re not trying to maintain a neutral spine in life. Like, you want to move it. And I see, dude, I see this all the time where people have no spinal mobility.

Like, they can’t move through their spine. And that’s what it’s actually designed to do. And when people say, oh, I’ve got back pain or my back feels stiff, it’s like, How the fuck do you think you improve that? Like it’s not through not moving it. We need to make sure you can actually move through your spine in a healthy way.

And so, uh, that, that for me is, it’s an ignorant claim. It’s a claim that I was brought up on that when I first got in the industry, it’s like your, your, your abs are designed to resist movement. Your spine shouldn’t move at all. It’s like. We’re literally made to do this, like with that word, our spot, our spine is designed to move.

Uh, and so it doesn’t mean you should load up a Jefferson curl with 300 pounds and start trying to rep that out, but you should absolutely be training to move your body in the way it was designed and to, to move your body through full ranges of motion, not just locked into one position and load that position and say, this is all the mobility you need.

And of course, 

Mike: stretching. And that could be done in different ways. It could just be with traditional stretches or it could be yoga or, uh, or other modalities that involve stretching is just an efficient way to do that. There are some examples of exercises like a Jefferson curl, maybe some others that you could include in your, in your workouts, but you also could just.

Do some mobility work outside of your workouts. 

Jordan: Yeah, it could take 15 20 minutes. Like it doesn’t need to take a long time. The main thing that I was very surprised about and this just highlights my level of ignorance when I first started getting into it was I wasn’t aware the level of intensity that you would need to bring to mobility training.

Um, and not, there’s a difference between How much range you can access versus how much range you can control. And, and that’s where, you know, you see hypermobility and hyper flexibility where someone can access a lot of range, but they can’t control it. That’s when they end up getting injured. When you just, when you, you don’t just want to access it, but you want to be able to control it.

That’s when you need to bring strength into the flexibility training. And that for me, someone who loves strength training has been super fun. And where I’ve seen. You know how we often talk about if you want to improve your posture and not think about rounding over all the time, well, you need a strength train so that you can help stay in that position.

It’s the same thing with any mobility work, whereas if you want to maintain and control that range, you’ve got to strengthen in that area. Increased range of motion. And so, uh, yeah, I, I know we’re a little bit off topic and, but in more going into the weeds of mobility stuff, but I’ve just been so into it.

And it’s been, it’s been such a big passion of mine lately. And, um, even, you know, getting, getting people that. Are older involved doing this stuff and seeing their, their life improvements, their quality of living improvements with this with basic 10, 15, 20 minute sessions a few times a week has been very, very fun.

Mike: And for people listening who are convinced, uh, uh, as to the, the utility of this and want to learn more, you mentioned, uh, one resource or any other resources you want to share with them and then we can, we’ll move on. 

Jordan: Yeah, so I mean talk more about health stuff. So my coach is Lucas Hardy range of strength on on Instagram What I love about him aside from him being insanely flexible and mobile is he’s he’s stupid strong, man He’s jacked like the dude is jacked.

He’s lean He lifts insanely heavy and like he’ll lift insanely heavy in a split and he’ll lift insanely heavy Like it’s just it’s the best of all the worlds in which like he’s he’s just He does a lot of gymnastics work, a lot of calisthenics work, but also a lot of heavy barbell squats, deadlifts, presses, like, uh, but then we’ll do a lot of the odd lifts as well, like bent presses, and a lot of, like, Steinborn squats, he does a lot of really great stuff, and it’s just cool to see, and he’s in his I think low young forties, I believe.

And the guy moves just like an absolute animal. It’s just, he’s got kids. Um, he’s the poster poster person for what you can do. And he, he’s not a naturally flexible person. So I just can’t speak highly of him enough. I also have mobility programs in the inner circle. If you want to do that, like 15, 20 minute programs, I think those are probably the two best resources I would recommend.

Love it. I 

Mike: was going to ask his age because, uh, I’ve joked that. The 40 something year old guy who’s still even deadlifting a respectable amount of weight pain free is someone you want to learn from. Yes, yes. The 20 year old doing it, I mean, that’s fine, but they may or may not be able to teach you anything that you should be actually doing because, because they’re 20.

They’re invincible for, you know, they have that period and then we’re going to see. 

Jordan: I’ve gotten really annoyed. More annoyed that I’ve really become more of a curmudgeon as I’m getting a little bit older and having kids and stuff where it’s like I’m seeing these My morning routines from 22 year olds and like this is what you need to do And it’s like my daughter is running around like a maniac.

I got a dog who’s going all over the place I’ve got a pregnant wife. It’s like This morning, like, get the fuck out of here with your morning routine. Like get, get out of here, dude. Like it’s, it’s, and I understand, I get what it’s like to be at age and I understand, and I, but it’s, I’m fucking done with it.

So, so what’s 

Mike: your morning routine? 

Jordan: I get up and my blood pressure immediately skyrockets and I’m fucking running or it’s dude. It’s like. It’s like not, there’s no, and people like, yeah, I take some time to meditate. I’m like, really? Yeah. And then journal, make a chai latte and all, okay. For fuck’s sake, get out of 45 minute walk.

Yeah. Yeah. Dude. Oh my 

Mike: gosh. And then, and then they’ll tell you how busy they are. Yes. Yeah. I just don’t 

Jordan: have time for anything. And then they’ll make a big deal about how they’re going to the gym and they’ll be like, if you are care about it, you’ll make the time. It’s like, I mean, I agree with that, but like, Not, not based on everything I just saw from you, like you’re not making the time, like you’ve got more time than you know what to do.

Correct. 

Mike: Correct. That it is, it is ironic, uh, to, to see those types of people, uh, try to Take that, I mean, they’ll, they’ll, they’ll say it even directly to the, the parents with the newborn kids who are also trying to figure out just, I mean, they’re sleeping five hours a night on a good night and they both have to work 40 or 50 hours a week and, and, and, and they aren’t even necessarily saying that, uh, I mean, they, they want to make it work, but it really actually is a logistical there.

There’s only so much time and. Okay. So what do I do? Well, you just have to want it more. Yeah. Okay. Thanks Becky. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Uh, but, uh, but coming back to, to health, you, you had, um, we talked about mobility, which, which I, which I think was great. I think is interesting. What does, what does body composition, Look like for you just in terms of your perspective on on health and how has that changed?

Jordan: Yeah, you know I think that’s the thing that’s changed the least for me out of everything else what like outside of community and having difficult conversations and what we can talk about all that but in terms of like a physical health perspective I would say if it’s changed, it’s changed from the perspective of personally, I’m okay having a slightly higher body fat percentage, but my slightly higher body fat percentage is still like way better than the vast majority of individuals in the world.

And, I think, honestly, I’ve almost swung even a little bit further where it’s just like, I need, people need to reduce their body fat percentage. Like if they are, it’s one of like the lowest hanging fruits and one of the most important things. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve 

Mike: said this a number of times that generally speaking, less fat and more muscle means better health.

Always. Yeah, you can take that to extremes. And you can make it unhealthy, but it’s not easy. Yeah. You have to really take it to extremes. 

Jordan: Assuming you’re not abusing anabolic steroids. Yes. And, and, or any type of, of, uh, performance enhancing drugs, like. Yes. Assuming that, I mean, even outside of that, it’s very difficult to overdo it.

But, for the average individual, less, less fat, more muscle. Is going to improve not only your longevity, like how long you live, but also your quality of your life. End of story. Like it’s more people. It has to be a main focus. 

Mike: And many people, sorry to interject and then I’ll shut up, but just to follow up on that, I think many people, they don’t realize that the less fat point is true.

Even if you’re going from, let’s say athletic, let’s say you’re a dude and you’re around 15 percent and. Uh, my people might get different pictures of that. So to, to, to make it clear for people, let’s say you’re a guy and you can see maybe your upper two abs and then, and then you lose definition as you go down because the body fat kind of, uh, washes out some of that definition.

Um, some people might argue, uh, what percentage is that really, but I think generally it’s fair to say it’s about 15 percent for men and by normal standards, that’s great. You’re going to look athletic. If you have some muscle, um, you’re certainly going to look fit to go from 15 to 10. Uh, and to get been below and stay below 10, it can be done as a guy.

It’s just, you’re probably going to be very active, so you’re not going to do it like us sitting on a, on a computer most of our days. But, but even that there, there are incremental health improvements to be had, uh, to, to, to go from 15 to 10 and then just stay there more. If you can just more or less maintain that 10 percent as a guy, not to say that you have to, uh, but that is.

better for your health and longevity than maintaining 15%. Many people I’ve spoken with, they have the idea that, okay, if you’re obviously overweight or if you’re obese, sure, you need to lose some body fat. That’s good for your health. But if you’re not obviously overweight or obese, losing body fat, isn’t going to improve your health.

And that’s just 

Jordan: not true. So I think this is where once you get tool, call it like that. Even like maybe 17, 18 percent for a guy. Once we get to that range, that’s when I think more nuance comes into the discussion. And what I mean by that is if someone’s morbidly obese, they’re the nuances, very little.

It’s like, you need to lose body fat. Just stop eating food. You need to lose by like, seriously, it’s, it’s the nuances, very minimal at that point, because not only the effect of the excess body fat, but also the lifestyle factors that come with it is way more difficult to move. It’s way more difficult to exercise your confidence.

Depression is more likely like the, everything that comes with being morbidly obese is, is a huge threat to your health, mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, all of it. Once you get to, I would say, but like 18 and below like 18 and below in more nuance comes into the picture from the perspective of. Yes.

Your, your physiological health will improve going from 18 percent to 12%. There’s no question. Like, I really don’t see how there might be some variances, but your physiological health almost everybody will improve from a, for a guy from 18 percent down to like 10 to 12 percent stuff. You could just, you could just verify 

Mike: by doing.

Jordan: Yes. Super easy. Suit cholesterol, blood pressure, like everything, everything improves. What blood sugar levels, insulin. The, the, the question, the nuance now. Comes into how is it affecting other aspects of your life? Is it affecting your relationship with food? Is it affecting relationship with, with family?

Are you traveling a lot for work? Is that now getting in the way of you being able to provide who knows what is going on? That’s where I’m like, okay, for, I’ll give, I’ll give you an example. Like if I have, um, I, if I have some clients who are maintaining that 16, 17, 18%, again, talking about men and, and they’re, they hang out with their family all the time.

They’re very close knit family. They have dinner basically almost every night together and losing, going from 18 to 10 or 18 to 12 would mean that they now have to like, uh, Really, um, minimize the amount that they’re having a dinner and it would negatively affect their, the community at dinner, or it would have upset their mother if they’re cooking.

What like now I’m like, okay, that’s affecting your 

Mike: menu changes. Yes, exactly. Really work for everybody else. 

Jordan: And now the kids don’t want to eat the food because it’s not as tasty as that’s where the nuance comes in, where I’m like, is that worth it? And so for me, like, I’m probably sitting around like, I don’t know, 15, 16 percent right now, and it’s like, I know for a fact, like my, my cholesterol would be improved if I got down to 10 or 11, no question, but I’m also like, I’ve got a one and a half year old girl and a pregnant wife and we’re building a house and like, at this point, me being able to just sit down and like, not worry, even think about the food is because I come from a history of disordered eating with wrestling and all of that.

I know that if I try and get down to like a 10%, it will affect me mentally enough to the point where it’s like, that’s the stress that will come with that will be worse for my body than it will be otherwise. So I think the nuance really comes from as you get lower and lower and lower body fat percentage, but at a higher body fat.

You, you really need to lose the body fat to get to a point where I would say you’re, you’re at the, you, you’ve reached 80 percent of, of the, of the most important. That’s like by far, there is a diminishing returns. 

Mike: Correct. Of course. And for, for, People who are trying to optimize as much as they possibly can for maximum health and longevity, then that would be on the list.

Okay, let’s go from, let’s go from 15 to 10, but yes, that, that is certainly part of the, you know, 80 percent of things that you could do that are only going to provide 20 percent of the potential increases in health and longevity. Yeah, that’s exactly right. If you like what I’m doing here on the podcast, and if you want to hear my musings on mastering the inner game of getting fit so you can reach your fitness goals faster, check out my book, The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation.

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And you can find the Little Black Book of Workout Motivation on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. You had mentioned community as a, as a point of, uh, of what it means to be healthy to you. And you had mentioned a couple other points. Can you speak to some of these things that are not traditionally, uh, Associated with health, just the word generally connotes people are thinking their body, uh, maybe, maybe their mind and maybe some mental health and some emotional health.

And so this is, this is, uh, this is something that is, is more, I think, generally discussed, but it’s not just pure physical health. 

Jordan: Yes. I mean, before you even get to community, I’ll just, I’ll bring up a different one really quickly that I think. Especially in this day and age, I feel like everyone in every age, they’re always saying that, but I feel like, uh, especially now being able to have difficult conversations on a regular basis and for whatever it’s worth, a community might be a part of that.

They, I think they go hand in hand. If you have a community. You’re more likely to engage in conversations that might not only be difficult, but many conversations, but you need to have difficult conversations and with difficult conversations comes learning with, to give difficult conversations comes empathy with difficult conversations, uh, comes, comes passion, cause, uh, purpose, uh, finding, finding things, things you care about.

And so, so many wonderful things come from difficult conversations, uh, and also from having a community. And. What I see now, can you, can 

Mike: you just, just to, sorry to interject again, but can you define a, what do you mean by a difficult conversation? 

Jordan: Man, it’s, it’s a very good question because I don’t know if there’s a singular definition, but I think a simple way of, of.

Of looking at it one way and I’m sure there are many is I’ll give you two examples off the top of my head. One is having a conversation with someone that you disagree with them on, right? It may be like a, it’s a topic that you disagree on. That’s a very simple discussion, 

Mike: especially if it’s someone you live with.

Jordan: Yes. Yep. And you, and 

Mike: you know that this. This is going to be a process. This is something we have to work through. It’d be easier to just, uh, let it ignore it. You let 

Jordan: it let, well, let well enough alone. And I think, so I think, uh, something you disagree with, it could be something even, um, so you could bring it up to someone else, but it could also be, You know, you’ve been avoiding something for yourself and then you need to address it because it’s something that, you know, that needs to happen for you, not even about changing your partner or whatever, but changing for you, I think is super important, potentially even more important because it’s very, it’s important.

Not really fair to only look at what other people need to change and not like what you need to change is 

Mike: also, uh, that might be a narcissistic personality 

Jordan: disorder. There’s another phrase for that. So, uh, I think those are absolutely, it’s always, um, I think those are, are some of the more important ways to look at difficult conversations.

So yeah, I think there are so many other, other types of them as well. If you’re not having difficult conversations, another one could be simply around. For me, I’m a huge history nerd. Like I really, I love history and, uh, I’ve always loved history. But even as I get older and older and older, I dive more and more and more into it.

And, um, having difficult conversations around. Historical context around like either what things were discussing, why they happened, how they happened, and then relating them to what’s going on now. These are difficult conversations that I think make you better as an individual, make your community better when you have them together, and then eventually make society better when we’re able to have these important dialogues.

So it’s, um. I think difficult conversations and also obviously community mixes well with that community is without question. It’s the number one thing like aside from physical health that can help determine your, your, the length of your life and also the, uh, not the quality, I would say from your physical capabilities, but.

The quality of your life and the perspective of how much you really enjoy it. I mean, we can look at the research around grandparents who live closer to their grandchildren and their level of happiness and fulfillment. Uh, just a grandparent living closer to their grandchild. They’re likely to live longer.

They’re likely to have higher levels of happiness. They’re also more likely to be more fit because. Grandkids will move a lot. So like you’re moving around, you’re, you’re playing with your grandchild. It’s also a why just having worked with, 

Mike: uh, any middle aged and beyond people over the years, that, that, that’s a, that’s a common why given I want to be able to do some activity, whatever it is, play some sport or something with my, Grandson, and I don’t want to be out of breath after five 

Jordan: minutes.

Correct. So, I think those two things, community and difficult conversations, are among the most important and among the most overlooked. Has 

Mike: the difficult conversations point caused issues, though, in, in, in your community? And the reason I ask that is, in my experience, so. And this, this could be also partially my fault, the way that I’ve gone about existing.

And I’m fine. I’m fine with that. I can accept that. However, in my experience, many people don’t want to be challenged about anything, correct? They get very defensive. If you are trying to have, let’s say a difficult conversation and you’re not just trying to uh, skewer them, uh, you’re, you, you’re trying to.

Have a constructive conversation that may require some things that aren’t going to feel good, but you know, if you can work through it and then you can come through to the other end with a new understanding, you can have improved relations in my experience, though, and again, this is somebody who I’m I’m a pretty disagreeable person and I’m aware of that.

I think I’ve improved, but I’m aware I’m I’m completely aware of it. You know, I’ve, I’ve taken the big four, uh, test and I think it’s fairly, fairly accurate. Um, and do you know what your Myers Briggs is? Uh, no, I haven’t, or no, it’s the big five, right? That’s, hold on, I’m searching, my brain is just like, it’s, yeah, big five, not big four.

Big four is accounting firms. Anyway, it’s the big five, what, and, and, uh, and so Myers Briggs, I’ve not taken. I don’t think so. I’d have to actually look at my book. I would love to hear what your Myers Briggs is. I’ll, I’ll make a note. I’ll make a note if I can. If it’s easy to take online, I’ll, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Uh, take Meyers based, but anyway, as, as somebody who is extremely disagreeable or has been in the past, I, I’ve, I’ve improved, I think to some degree. 

Jordan: Can I say I do. Do you enjoy, sorry? Do you enjoy firing people? No. No, I don’t. That’s like the ultimate disagreeable where it’s like. Jordan Peterson has spoken about it where it’s like the most disagreeable person will enjoy firing someone because it’s like, well, yeah, they, they weren’t doing a good job.

Like I’m really happy to let them go. 

Mike: I, you know, I can relate to that, uh, as, as a business owner, but I don’t. So from, from that perspective in terms of the business, yes, it’s, it’s a good thing. And the business, it’s not just me. I mean, there, if I’m, if I’m talking now personally, there are a lot of people now that, that depend on.

My business or my businesses and people who are not doing a good job to whatever degree or not just imperiling my own potential survival, but a lot of other people. So from that perspective, it is absolutely the right thing to do. And I’m glad from that perspective, but from a human perspective, I’ve never enjoyed it.

Because it sucks to get fired. And I don’t, I don’t, I don’t relish imposing that on other people. So 

Jordan: you’re very disagreeable, but you still have empathy. Like there’s still like, that’s very clear that you still have that, which I, I can, I’ve always gauged that you’re a, you have a disagreeable aspect to you, but the, you’re not the furthest disagreeable.

You’re also like, there’s still a level of empathy to you and humanness there where it’s not just like. Fuck you. Like it’s it’s that’s I think it’s an interesting. I’ve always wondered. I’ve always wondered what your Myers Briggs was. So that’s why I was asking if you’d done that as well. So that’s interesting.

Mike: Yeah, I got all made a note. I’ll take it and I’ll share with you when I when I take it. Um, but, uh, so that that’s the answer to that question. And so in my experience, many people, they don’t like to be challenged. Yes. Even about just kind of what I would think as banal, not not deep seated beliefs, not trying to argue politics or religion or Things that are really tied to people’s identity, even if it’s just, um, kind of behavioral quirks or ways of, of viewing things or anyway, so there’s that.

And, and I’ve also, I’ve also just concluded that, that most people seem to not want. Advice about anything because they perceive it as meddling and they just get very defensive. So in both of these scenarios, again, where you’re, you think it would be productive to have a difficult conversation, which in the scale of difficulty, let’s say it’s your mind.

It really should not, it’s not that difficult. Like this, if we’re, if we’re going to scale from one to a hundred, this is somewhere like between one and 10, this is not a difficult conversation, but then, and again, I’m speaking personally. Right. And, and I’ve. But on the receiving end of what felt like a disproportionately negative response as if I’m going for a 90 out of 100 here, right?

Like really attacking them to the core of their, of who they are, like cutting all the way to the bone when I see it as maybe like a, a rubber band snap or something. 

Jordan: Right. Right. 

Mike: And so I’ve experienced that and then, um, and then, and then also this point, which isn’t directly related, but it just made me think of giving advice where now I just don’t, I don’t give advice unless someone explicitly asks for my opinion and my advice.

Um, unless I do have Exceptions like if it’s somebody in my life who is seriously putting themselves at risk in some way where I feel like actually morally, it would be a, it would be a moral failure for me to not say something. And I’m not going to harp on it, but I feel like I should say something because I wouldn’t want to see something really bad happen to them.

And then, um, and then know that I didn’t even try, I didn’t even say, Hey. You may not want to do that if your blood pressure is, uh, 200 over one 40 or something, you might want to go on the dash diet. I’m just saying, you know what I mean? Uh, but how has your experience been? Cause it sounds like, you know, you’ve had some personal experience, certainly along the lines of difficult conversations.

But again, my personal experience is in some ways that’s driven people away from me. And again, I’m willing to accept that maybe I didn’t go about it in the best ways and I could have been more diplomatic or maybe could have been more empathetic or something. But 

Jordan: it just 

Mike: has happened 

Jordan: to me over the years a number of times.

Man, it’s a wonderful question. These are, this is the type of conversation I would like to have more often. And like, this is right here is an example of, I think, a potentially difficult conversation, but with a positive outcome where we’re like just trying to learn. I’ll say number one, like, I don’t think anyone with difficult conversations is batting a thousand.

I think there will always be times where it goes awry and it just won’t end well. I also, I view it from a couple of perspectives. One is this from, from what you can control, what you can control is how you approach it. And for me, this is another thing I think that is probably a very beneficial mental exercise and is the strategy of how am I going to approach this in a way that will be beneficial for, for everyone, rather than just saying what I want to say, how can I structure the conversation?

And. And I think another thing is it doesn’t necessarily have to be just one conversation. It could be a series of conversations where you’re deliberately trying to figure out, okay, how can I bring it up? What can I say? I’m actually reading an amazing book right now. If you ever read split the difference by Chris Voss or sorry, never split the difference.

I have it on a list of the different genres I like to read in, but I haven’t read it yet. Never split the difference by Chris Voss is Amazing. And Mike Vacanti, we were talking about him before he, he laughs because both him and Mike call Mike’s nickname for me is, is Dale because like Dale Carnegie. Um, because like this type of conversational.

Strategy comes very naturally to me. When I read Dale Carnegie’s book, it was like, I literally, I was like, this isn’t surprising to me at all. Like this all makes sense. Like, it’s just some Mike, for example, like he’s very good with numbers. He’s a numbers guy. He gets it. Numbers make sense to me. Numbers don’t make sense.

I don’t like, I’m just terrible with math. It’s not, I’m not good at numbers with. Conversation, I’m very, that’s just, I’m, that’s my natural, that’s where I find my, my best self, the easiest self. So, Chris Voss has a lot of conversational tactics and strategies where, like, I’m listening to it and I’m like, I do that naturally.

That’s something that I, I didn’t even realize I do in terms of structuring conversations or understanding, elongating conversations. But, um, when you, um, Understand it’s going to be a difficult conversation, especially for the person you’re speaking to. It’s not just about what you’re saying. It’s how it’s being said.

Actually, literally in the chapter I was listening to today, he cited this research and I haven’t done the research on this or studied this, but it’s called, it’s called the five 38 55 rule. I think it was, uh, or like seven 38 55, where it’s like 7 percent of. How people, uh, interpret you and how they, they view you is 7 percent based off of what you say, like the actual words, 38 percent is based off of what you say, excuse me, how you say it.

And then like the remaining percent, 55, or I might’ve screwed up the numbers, but 55 percent is based off of like how you look when you say it. So like you’re smiling your hand gestures. Uh, and this was research, I think based out of UCLA, but it was very interesting to note that it’s like, oftentimes it’s not.

What you’re saying, but it’s how you’re saying it and how you appear while you’re saying it, that really makes the biggest difference. Um, and so I think being able to have real thoughts and like structures and plans when you’re doing this stuff is unbelievably beneficial for you. And then also for the other person.

It’s so funny when you say that, cause, cause it’s just 

Mike: so contrary to my hardwiring, whatever reason where I don’t need any of that. Yeah. Just, I care about what you’re saying. I don’t care how you say it to me. I don’t care how friendly you look or don’t, especially if you have a good idea. Yes. If you’re like, Hey Mike, I noticed that you’re doing this regularly and you say that you want to achieve this over here, just so you know, that’s really stupid.

And you should probably not do those things because it actually accomplishes the opposite. And if you just do these different things over here, you could probably get to your goal faster. I genuinely would be thankful. I would, I would be totally receptive to that. Or even if you didn’t have, uh, even a, a constructive, um, alternative, if you were just to say, do you ever notice that you tend to do this and it’s really annoying and it’s like, it just, it’s, it’s just, it’s just bad.

It’s just a bad character quality. I, I genuinely am okay. Somebody would say that to me and I would think about it. And if I agree, I actually would say. Yeah, you probably have a point. And even if it’s something that I, I feel like, you know, I don’t know how to change that. I wish it were otherwise. Uh, and, and I try, that’s just the way it is right now, you know, but, but that is, and that specifically has.

Uh, has caused problems for me and I believe it, I believe in 

Jordan: my communities. So like, dude, that’s so funny. But even what we were talking about before we started recording in terms of like looking at the overall population, like we were like, Oh man, like you look at. How the world is and how the majority of people are being the type of person that truly is like, listen, just tell me the fact, regardless of what you like, just, if it’s a good idea, I’ll take it.

That’s such a small percentage. You are not the norm at all. Uh, you are, you are the outlier in that situation, but you’re the very small minority of people that can really just take it and hear it at face value and not necessarily attach emotion to it. Uh, which I would imagine is really good in some ways and really bad in other ways.

It’s that, that type of, it’s great 

Mike: for, for work and it’s 

Jordan: great 

Mike: for just, just trying to accomplish things because it’s, it’s very efficient in that regard. Uh, and, uh, but it’s not, it’s not great in, in relationships and in community because I’ve upset many people over the years, sometimes the same person like my wife, uh, many times by just not, not intentionally, but by, by approaching maybe a difficult conversation, so to speak in a way that, uh, just feels natural to me.

And yes, I would be receptive to if somebody, I don’t need to be buttered up. I don’t need a preamble. Right. I mean, sure. If you can say something in a way that something I don’t have feelings and I appreciate if somebody, if somebody cares, you know, I appreciate that, but I don’t need too much of that.

Yeah. Right. Just, just give it to me. Let’s get to the point. You like to be efficient and productive. Let’s not waste time. Yes. Yeah. You can just, it’s like, yeah, it’s funny. Yeah. That’s like when. Uh, even with building this house, my wife, you know, there’s a problem that needs to be solved. Right. And, and so she’ll start going through things.

I’m like, okay, uh, Sarah, let’s just skip to the end. Like, just give me, like, let’s just, let’s what’s the end of this story, this little anecdote that needs to be solved. I, I, she’s cool about it. I’m not, I’m not obnoxious about it. She’s cool about it, but that’s that, that type of Personality quirk, and it is just kind of a quirk.

I’m not even saying it’s a great thing or it does have utility, but it also. It, it, it is, uh, it’s that, that, that, that, that sort has another edge too, that has cut me many 

Jordan: times. Yes. It’s, it’s amazing for productivity. It’s amazing for efficiency, especially in business. Like that’s. I, that’s like the ultimate character trait that you need, I think, in order to be a high level professional in business.

I think the issue often, uh, one of the, the, the other edge of that sword will, will cut you when you try and use that in relationships that really matter to you when, when you try and treat. Those relationships and conversations within those relationships, trying to be productive and efficient with those conversations when it’s like, this isn’t about productivity or efficiency, right?

It’s like there’s about 

Mike: rates of change per 

Jordan: minute of conversation.

And I think, you know, we see a lot of this, these are obviously it’s a huge generalization, but we see a lot of this between men and women, like Jen, like we see a lot, like if you, I love standup comedy because some it’s, it’s true. Like they take things in everyday life that are like, Oh my God. Yes. I relate to that.

I get that. And we see like how many standup comics, like both men and women’s, uh, standup comics talking about how it’s like, man, just like, just get to the point. Tell me what you want to say. Like, or enough, like here, like you have this story. You’re telling me all these different things that don’t matter necessarily to the end result of the story, but to her, it makes all the sense in the world and it does matter, even not necessarily from the story perspective, but from the time with you and the, the, the, that you’re listening and that you’re aware it’s the things that it’s not about the productivity or the efficiency, it’s just about.

The time spent and, and the listening, giving the 

Mike: full experience, you know, you need, you need the full context to understand how I feel about this. 

Jordan: So when we’re going back to difficult conversations with, whether it’s a spouse or whomever it’s, I think one of the major issues people will make is they try and make it a very productive and efficient conversation, which ironically makes it a very unproductive.

Inefficient conversation, because if they had been okay with taking a little bit longer in order to make it seemingly less efficient, it would actually have been resolved way more quickly and way more amicably if they spent a little bit more time showing empathy and, and structuring the conversation in a way, uh, that would be better for the other person.

Um, but again, I don’t know anyone batting a thousand in difficult conversations, but I do think it’s important to, at the very least. At the very least, not shy away from them. You don’t, I think, I think it’s important to try and seek them out, like I do try and seek them out. At the very least, if someone brings it up to you, or if you’re, there’s something staring you in the face, No.

Don’t ignore it. Like, you’ve gotta face that difficult conversation because the reality is like, I think your closest community, the people who are the most important to you in your life, They’re probably that way if for no other reason than you’ve had very difficult conversations with them like you’ve gone through difficult things with them before.

That’s like how you develop your closest knit community. The people who are lacking in community are lacking in people who they’ve had real serious conversations with. And how does that work? 

Mike: Work with difficult conversations with yourself. You had mentioned that. I’m curious you personally, how does that, how do you go about doing that in a productive manner, meaning in a manner that actually works to improve outcomes, whatever those outcomes might be without falling into the various Traps and pitfalls that like, for example, um, self criticism, many, many people have a hard time doing that with themselves without then spiraling into extreme self criticism.

Jordan: Yeah, so there are, um, There are a bunch of, of things that I try and get from the other person to let me know I’m on the right track. And it’s funny, because as I’m listening to Chris Voss, like, these are all things where I’m like, Holy shit, I’ve literally thought that before, and I’ve never, like, articulated that way.

Um, but for example, I know some people, I’m sure you’ve heard people trying to like search out a yes ladder. Like when you’re trying to go for sales, you want to get them saying yes. Get them saying yes. Get them saying yes. Uh, number one, I think it’s horse shit. I don’t like that strategy because a lot of times people will say yes, just to get you to the fuck away from them.

Um, like they’re just saying yes, yes, whatever, whatever. But they don’t actually, they’re not invested in the conversation. And I know some people, when they’re trying to have these hard conversations, they’re trying to get them to say yes, because they think it means they’re agreeing with them. And in reality, they’re just like, I’m done with you.

I will say yes, just to get you off my fucking back. Okay. Instead of trying to get a yes or, and definitely I am never looking for your right. When they say you’re right, what they’re really saying is fuck you. Like I don’t, I don’t ever, I’m not going for a, you’re right. I’m looking for a, to the effect of that’s right.

Is really what I’m, I’m trying to get. And I’m okay, cool. So I know what response I’m looking for. It doesn’t have to be that’s right, exactly. But that general theme, because once I can get to a, that’s right. Now I know, uh, they’re a little bit more invested and they’re not taking it personally, but okay. So now I can reverse engineer.

How do I get to a that’s right? Well, if I’m trying to have a conversation with someone, let’s say it’s about something that I would like them to change or something that I would like them to become more aware of. I really like to get people to, to number one. Um, I like to elicit empathy within them.

Number one, it’s a very important and the vast majority of us have it. If they don’t, you might not want that person in your community to begin with. But when, when I’m trying to elicit empathy, I will start by humanizing myself. And so. When, when I’m coming at them as, listen, this is a, this is very difficult for me to talk about because I care about you so much and I’m really worried about losing you or I’m really worried about, uh, you taking this the wrong way.

When you start with this immediately, they are like, okay, like this is, this is something that’s very difficult for them and I appreciate that they’re doing something that worries them. Uh, and, and. When you can elicit that empathy, it immediately like softens the mood a little bit, which is really nice to have from the very, very beginning.

One thing that is also a very important word is fair. I think we all have an inherent desire to both appreciate and want just what’s fair. Like whatever spare and fairness, life obviously isn’t fair, but I think we all generally would like things to be fair and fair doesn’t necessarily mean equal, but fair is fair.

Anyway, we all want general, I think inherently want fairness. So if I am having a conversation with someone, I will usually try and bring that word into the discussion. And again, this is all true. I’m not lying. It’s just like, I’m just trying to figure out ways to help get myself to the end in a way that’s going to be productive for everyone.

I’ll very often say it wouldn’t be fair to you if I didn’t bring this up. It also wouldn’t be fair to me and, and so that’s just one example, you can figure out a different way to bring fairness in, but eliciting empathy, humanizing yourself and, and bringing fairness into the discussion is, I’ve found a very, very easy and soft introduction into whatever conversation you’re having the, another tool that I’ll use is essentially getting them to live up to their To their highest expectation of themselves.

And what I mean by that is I used to do this all the time with clients. I would do this all the time with clients who are struggling with being consistent. So if I had a client who’s really struggling, um, uh, a line that I would use all the time was, listen, you seem like the kind of person who, when you say you’re going to do something, you fucking do it.

It’s a very simple line, and I feel like every single person in the world believes that about themselves, or they would like to believe that about themselves. And so that’s the line I would use with a client where it’s like, if you’re struggling with being consistent, that for me drew out a, that’s right.

They didn’t say you’re right. Like, that’s right. That is right. I am that kind of a person. And okay, cool. Now let’s dig in deeper. What can you do to be that person? How can we make changes? To get you to be that person going for. And this is the last one I’ll give here. There are so many, but the, the going for one word, anything that gives them the opportunity to give a one word answer is usually bad.

Yes. And no’s bad. They there’s no buy in. There’s no real emotional, uh, um, support. There’s no, there’s nothing there with a yes or no. And it’s usually an often a way for them to get you off their back questions that are more open ended, but really both what. And how questions are very important style questions like what and how, how to, or how can we, what can we, or what can you, these types of leading questions to get them to really dive in deep, we’ll show you how, how ready, willing, and able they are to make a change and also how, uh, how open they are to the current conversation if they’re finding ways to make it.

Very quick, blunt answers or, or curt answers, you know, maybe now isn’t a good time, or you, and one of the tools that you can use in this situation is if they seem like they’re not taking it well, very simply, and this will elicit empathy, but just be like, listen, it seems like, um, it seems like I’m upsetting you, and I specifically said I’m upsetting you, I didn’t say this is upsetting you, I am because, eliciting empathy, It seems like I’m upsetting you.

Is there anything I’m doing that, that I can change? And almost immediately be like, listen, what, what’s going on is like this, this, this, and this, and this. And then now you know exactly what you did that was upsetting them. You can apologize. Like, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I apologize for doing that.

Is it okay if I approach this from a different way? Yes. Go. Now you can actually dive in a little bit deeper. I just rattled off a bunch of different strategies very, very, very quickly. Uh, I can again, not recommend Chris Voss has never split the difference enough. Like every chapter I’m like, this is articulating everything I do naturally without me ever being able to articulate it before.

But those are ways that I’ll approach and, and continue a conversation that could be very difficult. That was great. And 

Mike: I don’t think I answered. I don’t think I asked my question properly. Great. Uh, great. Oh, sorry, man. I apologize. No, no, I think I did nothing. No, it was, it was good. It was good. Uh, and, and I mean, even like some of these things I, I basically never do.

So they go, I’m just reflecting on myself. Okay. I get that. And, uh, anyway. Um, and, and so, um, If you’re having difficult conversations with yourself that you’d mentioned that so, uh, as opposed to with others. Yeah, I’m sorry. And dealing in dealing with, um, your own weaknesses or failings or things that you feel like you should address.

I’m just curious for you personally. What does that look like? And how do you manage that without allowing it to spiral into extremely negative self talk and other, um, counterproductive and emotionally and kind of psychologically destructive thoughts 

Jordan: and behaviors? Yeah. This is where I think it just becomes incredibly important to number one, be honest.

Outrageously objective. And I think with yourself, you need to be efficient. I think it’s sort of the opposite when you’re with other people. I think efficiency and productivity is a bad way to go with yourself. You need to be efficient and productive and data driven, because it’s very easy to become emotional with yourself and have these negative spirals you need to like.

Let’s look at the objective facts, like that, like let’s objectively let’s analyze what did I actually say or what is actually going on in my life. Let’s look at the real numbers here. And that also, for whatever it’s worth, is one of the great parts about having a community because if there’s something that I’m being irrational about or I’m spiraling on, I can always go to my buddy Mike Vacanti and I can be like, hey, here’s the situation.

Tell me very truthfully and very bluntly. What did I do wrong? What do you agree? Do you disagree? Tell me why. And so I can have it with myself, but it’s also very beneficial to have a community member who can always be honest with you and you, whatever they say, you can’t get mad. You can not get mad at them.

It has to, that has to be your rule. If you’re going to ask someone’s advice and ask for someone’s input, you have to put a foot down on yourself and say, I can not get upset if they tell me the truth when I’m asking for it. That I think is, is incredibly important. 

Mike: Yeah, yeah, I think that’s a great point and I guess again reflecting on on myself that has has worked well for me personally again because it does work well if you’re if you’re just looking at your own sphere of activity and what are you trying to spend your time on and why are you trying to spend your time on that and what are you trying to do uh with your work.

Various undertakings and how are you trying to improve yourself? And so you, you can, you can benefit from that efficiency personally. 

Jordan: And I feel like that’s, you’re that kind of person and forever. It’s where the, I’m that kind of person, especially with not just my employees and my wife and everything as well, where.

If I’m doing something wrong, I make it very clear that I’m very approachable and you can just tell me exactly what I’m doing wrong and I’ll fix it like I don’t get offended by it. I just appreciate that you took if I, if I 

Mike: disagree, I’m not going to blow up. I’m just going to explain. I might argue, but I’m not going to be yelling.

I’m not gonna be yelling, but if I disagree, I will, I will say now, I also, you can change my mind. Uh, you can argue back with me, but you’re going to have to win the argument in a sense of 

Jordan: you are super disagreeable. You are. Let me, let me ask you this. I’m actually very interested and I want an objective risk, like true, true, true response here.

Yeah. If someone says something that you disagree with about you. What would your, and I know it would depend on the actual scenario, but what would your like transition sentence be like, if so, like, how would you go into disagreeing with them? Like, what would, would there just be like, you’re wrong or like, what would you say?

I want to hear this transition. It’s, it’s, it’s a rough one. It’s a 

Mike: rough one. It’s a, it’s like when you were 16, learning how to drive stick for the, for the first time, it’s probably just going to be. I disagree. Uh, and then I’m going to say what, what I think, or say that that doesn’t make any sense. Or that’s, that’s dumb.

And, uh, uh, maybe depending on the circumstances and who it is, 

Jordan: but, but, uh, do you have any like facial expressions that go with it? Uh, like, uh, like eye roll or eyebrow raise, like, is it, is there any of like, what’s your facial expression like? 

Mike: It probably ranges from, again, if the cordial response is I, I disagree and here’s why, then that would probably be pretty neutral.

And then if, if, uh, if, if we go to the other end of the spectrum of that makes absolutely no sense, what are you actually talking about? Uh, then it’s probably what you just saw.

Jordan: That’s so funny. I cannot wait to see your Myers Briggs. This is, this is like, I enjoy this with every ounce of my soul. This is just very fun for me to like hear and see, especially someone at like that. You’re someone I very, very much admire and look up to and, and, uh, I feel like I’m getting to know you even more now.

A lot of things make more sense. So that’s, this is great. I love this. 

Mike: You know, funny, just a quick, quick anecdote. So I was coaching. flag football for my son. How was, I mean, I just kind of, I, I, I offered my help as an assistant coach. Now I don’t know anything about football. I’ve never coached sports. I played sports as a kid, never, um, never coached though until flag football.

And, uh, and so it turns out the head coach, uh, didn’t know anything really about football or coaching either. So I accidentally roped myself into more work than I wanted because then I felt I felt bad for these kids. We didn’t even have a playbook. We had no structure to our practices. They had no idea what they were doing and no one else was going to do anything.

So, okay. So, I read a book on coaching flag football and put together a playbook and I don’t know anything about football either. So, I’m having to, I’m having to call friends and people who work with me who played with me. Football in high school, like, okay, can I, I bought this playbook, uh, off the internet and some of these things seem to make sense to me, but I kind of don’t know what I don’t know.

It’s not, it doesn’t have to be overly complex, but it is six on six and the kids are 11 or 12. And so there is a little bit of football that’s happening. It’s not just random little guys running into each other and that’s it. You know what I mean? So we’re, we’re going through the season. And there’s this team, uh, it’s an under armor league.

Unfortunately, they, they have no controls on age. So you had 12 year olds, quote unquote, like there was this one kid about as tall as, so I’m like six, two, he was, he was six, he was six feet tall. And, and they, uh, Yeah, they’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he’s like, he’s sixth grade or whatever. Right. And so he’s like six feet tall and athletic.

Right. So, um, of course that just broke the game. Uh, just having that one player, no ones can guard him. He would just run out and catch every ball and that was the end of it. Right. So this one team. They had, they, they had several players like that on their team. Right. And so they say they crushed everyone throughout the season, like beating every single team, 50 to zero, 60 to zero, a joke, right?

So, so we play them one time and I see this and I’m just, okay. Um, whatever. Right. But then now it’s the playoffs and we just barely make it. And our first game is this, uh, this 49ers team. And so, uh, obviously we have two choices. Yeah. One is do nothing to show up and get destroyed. That’s, that’s, that’s our first choice.

Other choices do something. And that means recruit some kids to come be on our team and play by the rules. They’re playing by like, according to the rules, their team shouldn’t exist. Okay. So if they’re not going to play by those rules, what rules are they playing by? Oh, they’re playing by rules that you can have 13, 14, 15 year olds on your team.

I mean, there was, there was another kid. He wasn’t a very good player, but he was taller than I was. I mean, the kid was like six, six, not, I’m not joking right now. He wasn’t a great player, but still he was, he was taller than I am. Right. And so, uh, so to me it was obvious, of course, we’re going to recruit kids and we’re going to try to beat them.

And then if we can knock them out, then maybe we don’t need these, these ringers, and we can just go back to playing football, even though the They weren’t the only team doing this. And obviously the, a lot of the teams in the playoffs were the ones doing this because that’s how you, that’s how you beat everybody else basically.

And so there’s a group chat, uh, with all the parents, right. And, um, I, I should have thought that this was going to cause problems, but I didn’t. And so I put in the group chat, I explained this briefly, like, Hey, so we have the 49ers, they’ve been, they’ve been cheating, quote, unquote, all season. They, you know, they’re, Team is stacked with the, and I know that a couple of these kids play, uh, high school football and Oh my gosh.

Yeah. They’re playing up at like 15 years old and now they’re coming here. I actually don’t know why these kids, I was surprised they even enjoyed it. Like just coming in, just dunking on 11 year olds. That’s fun for you. I remember playing hockey and as I got better, I never got great, but it’s just, as I got better, there was a point before I transitioned to a higher up League where I actually was kind of bored because yeah, I, I needed to play against people who are better than me.

I needed to be one of the, one of the worst players again. And then, you know, at least make it competitive at the very least. Correct. Right. And so I put in this group chat, um, basically just, here’s the scenario and I was asking the parents, do you have. And do your kids have any older siblings, uh, who play football or do you, do you know, do you know, do they have any friends who are a year or two older or not?

We don’t need to roll up with 18 year olds, but you know, 13, 14, 15 year olds like this other team and, um, and, and so there were two people. To the moms in particular, who really did not like the idea. And so my first reply to the text of them saying, 

Jordan: why, 

Mike: why, why it wouldn’t be fair to the kids for them to play and it’s David versus Goliath.

They can do it. We believe in them. I know. I know. So my first word is disagree and then, and then, and then stop. Are you serious? Continue to explain. Again, we have two options. We can get destroyed today. There is no way. This is not David versus Goliath. This is David versus God fucking Zilla. It’s not going to happen.

We are going, if we played them 1000 times in a row, we would lose 1000 times. So, so that’s, that’s our one option. And it’s also not cheating when they’ve been doing it all season. And I’m simply. Proposing that we play by the rules that they have established. I’m not the one changing the rules, they changed it.

So I’m going to play by their rules. So, right. And so that’s, that was like the gist of my disagree, disagree, disagree. And then, and then a wall of texts about why this person is an idiot. Uh, and oh my gosh. And then, and then, so, so that elicited, 

Jordan: elicited. Uh, you know, on the other end, they’re having their own chats.

We’re like, what the fuck did you just say? Yes. 

Mike: So that’s, that’s, so, so that, that elicited some hostile, uh, some, well, it was actually more like passively aggressive replies. Right. I didn’t, I didn’t achieve harmony. I didn’t achieve, I did, they didn’t agree. Um, so I, so I actually just stopped replying and I did it anyway.

Uh, and then we recruited, we recruited some kids and, uh, and, and it was fun to see, it was fun to see the, them. They were down actually for the first time in the entire season. They were down at the halftime. We were beating them because we got a quarterback who can play. We got a couple other kids who can play.

And, and they were, they were losing. And so they, they, the coaches on the other team are freaking out about how ridiculous this is. So absurd. They were complaining to the director of the league, did not care because of course the director knew exactly what they were doing. The director had been hearing about them all season long and was sick of hearing about them.

So the director thought it was hilarious what we were doing and it was great. But, but see, this is, this is what came back to haunt me. So the two moms. Who? Oh no, who, who I scorned in the, in the , in the group Text . They, one of them in particular was going apoplectic. She was, she was running around, uh, going to the director herself and, and no way.

So in the end, it’s not worth it. We can wrap up the story, but in the end, the, the moms got two of our players taken out, not by the director. By the parents who brought them, the director was telling her, yeah, you know, I think it’s fine, whatever. Uh, and, and so she knew the parents of the kids. And so we lost our quarterback and we lost one or two of our other.

Good players who showed up and then, and then of course we lost. And of course, then that 49ers team went on to destroy every other team and win and win the championship. Oh, shocker. Uh, you know, I got, she was saying like, what kind of message are we sending to our kids that you have to cheat to win? Like, No, no, it’s, it’s literally the opposite because even in the playing field, they know that the other team is cheating.

They know that that six foot tall kid who literally nobody can cover and whenever they want to score a touchdown, all they do is they just run him down the field and throw the ball up and he catches it. That kid, they know he’s not 11, 12 years old. So right. So what are we saying that we’re actually, we’re actually cheating.

Saying what, what you’re saying by not doing anything. And if they’re going to take a lesson out of this, it’s maybe going to be, maybe you should join the teams that cheat, or maybe you should just be cheating because the rules aren’t enforced. Correct. If you, if you don’t cheat, uh, you lose, maybe that’s what they’re going to get out of it.

But again, because of how I went about it, uh, that, that message, I mean, you’re like, yes, that’s perfectly logical. That’s efficient. That works. Uh, but when you lead with. Disagree. Uh, and then talk about David versus Godzilla. 

Jordan: It’s disagree, David, Godzilla, like, here’s why you’re wrong. And then like, just doing it on your own without this is like the perfect example.

That’s like, I love that. That’s amazing. But also on another note, like it’s actually. They did something really bad for their kids where it’s like, they just told them that cheating works where it’s like, okay, well, instead of cheating, how about we, we get strategic with what we’re doing and then we can figure out a way to win.

Like when we’re strategic about it, even if they’re cheating, like that’s that. I think your lesson would have been much better, but unfortunately with the way that you went about it, it, uh, it didn’t go well. Uh, 

Mike: I did not, uh, apply Chris Voss’s principles, bro. You have to read that book. It’s so good.

There’s like, I will, I will. I I’m, uh, to be honest, I don’t hold out much hope for how much of that I can internalize, but I like the challenge of trying to improve. And yeah, and it is, it actually jokes aside, um, it, it is. Uh, a personal. Failing of mine that I have consciously tried to work on and, and, and study, you 

Jordan: know, who’s 

Mike: really good at it is miles.

Jordan: That doesn’t surprise me though. Miles, like naturally does. He’s a natural though. That’s the thing. He’s a natural. It doesn’t count because that’s just who he is.

It doesn’t count. Disagree. He doesn’t disagree, but no, it’s true. It’s true. I mean, he, that he is totally a natural, not like miles. Like you can’t like it’s, he’s just one of the most likable people. It’s, I, I would, I guarantee if he read that book, he’d be like, yeah, I do that all the time. That’s just very obvious to me.

Yep. Yep. And, 

Mike: uh, for people listening miles works for. Uh, my sports attrition company works with me over at Legion and he runs our sponsorship program and it’s the perfect job for him because he’s such a like, such a likable guy. And so much of that job is, uh, is building relationships. It’s not just being efficient and, and getting the numbers right.

That’s part of it. That is part of it. But so much of it is. Being a good guy, being a likable guy and actually caring about the, the person you’re doing this transaction with and, and not just looking at them as a transaction and so on and so on. Yeah. Yeah, 

Jordan: man, dude, that’s so funny. 

Mike: I know we’ve been going for a bit and I just wanted to, I wanted to ask one more question.

Uh, if, if you still, if you have another 10 minutes, so coming back to, to health, one last thing. That I think that we should talk about and love to hear thoughts on is just coping with stress because we all have to do it. And you, um, as, as your life has gotten more complex, I’m sure that It’s also, it’s gotten more stressful and I’m just curious how that’s been for you and if you’re coping strategies, so to speak, if I had to change 

Jordan: or.

Man, it’s a really good question. Honestly, man, there’s a couple of things. I think the biggest thing, and this isn’t just for me, this is for everyone. And I always get people mad when I say this, but it’s like, number one, don’t watch the news. It’s just, it’s not good. I think it’s good advice. I’ve, 

Mike: I don’t like to be completely ignorant of what’s going on in the world.

But I’ve consciously, I wouldn’t say I ever spent a lot of time, but I would check like there are a couple news aggregator websites that I like. Yes, exactly. Yes. But I wouldn’t even do that. No, I’m saying like, I’ve even cut back on that. Yes, 

Jordan: cut back. You don’t need to check it every hour or even 

Mike: every time you open your phone, you know.

Or even multiple times per day, even. Correct. Once per day. And if you want to do that, just to understand. Is generally going on not to you’d be naive to think that you’re going to get all the facts that way. You’re not. Yes. But at least there are things that are happening and for whatever that’s worth.

And I don’t know, man, maybe you could even argue that that doesn’t how much does that really matter? Unless it somehow directly relates to maybe your work or relationships where you have to be informed or something. Otherwise, it might not even be a good use of time at all, honestly. Might be completely ignorant, I don’t know.

Jordan: I mean, there’s definitely a middle ground there for sure, but I think that not, not looking at the news, I think social media, and again, like, my business is largely run off of social media, but like, Dude, it’s, there’s no question. So like on, on, during Shabbat, like in Judaism, Friday night through Saturday is like no electronics and I’m not the best with it, but I really try and make sure that Friday night I don’t use any electronics, especially no social media and, um, dude, the, the difference in stress, like literally.

So from the moment it’s supposed to be from sunset to sunset, uh, we’ll usually have dinner before sunset. So like, from the moment we have dinner, phones down, not looking at my phone anymore, the rest of the night, at least on Friday. Okay. And, um, the moment I put my foot down, my, my, my phone down, dude, stress immediately, like feet, like melting away weight off of my shoulders.

Like almost like, Oh, thank God. I don’t need to look at social media anymore. I don’t need to be like, have my feet. I don’t need to be in this endless vortex. So I think from an immediate stress reduction perspective is like putting real foot, you’re putting your foot down and having real limits on how much time you spend on social media and news outlets.

It’s just. I think that the research that we’re going to see on this is going to be overwhelmingly clear that it’s causing unbelievable damage to people from a stress perspective. I would love to see a study that is tracking people’s cortisol and stress responses as they open and close social media.

As they scroll. Yes, dude. I would love linger on and engage with. Man. I would, I would love to see that. I’m sure they’ll come out with that soon. But, um, so I, that honestly, I think is a number one. I know everyone has different like stress reduction tips, like breathing, nasal breathing and tea and what, like, listen, I think the biggest issue, the lowest, and that’s, I think very much my eth, like my, my MO is like, let’s go for the lowest hanging fruit.

Like, let’s like, look at the, the most important things. And right now people are, are, yes, like they’re addicted, they’re addicted to their phones and they’re addicted to social media. And if you’re overly stressed, get the fuck off social media. Like that’s why I love doing podcasts. It’s why I love doing like your podcast.

I love doing my podcast. Like. Podcasts to me are, it’s long form content where you have, this is the only thing you’re looking at or watching. This is it. It’s not like over, like new, new, new, new, new. It’s just, it’s relatively low dopamine. Uh, it’s, it’s, I think it’s a way better option for people. So the people are listening.

Great. You’re doing fantastic. But I bet there are people who are both listening and looking at social media right now. Who are listening and scrolling. Get the stop scrolling. You don’t need to have, like, dude, I remember when I was a kid, we just had like one shitty TV in my house. It was like, I couldn’t imagine looking at that TV and my phone and also like another screen over there.

It’s like, where there’s so many screens all the time. Fuck put it down. Focus on where you are. No wonder you’re so stressed. 

Mike: And now it, it’s, it’s, it’s going inception level. It’s becoming fractal. Uh, I saw recently. A game that is under development or maybe it’s out or something. And so in the game, you’re a character.

It looked kind of like Minecraft. Um, and so it was like a 3d Mario kind of game, right? So it’s a platformer where you’re running around, jumping up on things and it’s, and it’s, it was 3d. And then in the game, Your, your character is holding like a game boy, like a portable, a portable game playing. No way.

Yeah, dude. And, and that, if I remember, if I’m, if my memory, if I’m seeing it right, that was a 2d platformer version of the 3d platformer and you had to play both simultaneously. Oh my gosh. You had to, you had to play the 2D platformer in the game while you’re playing the 3D Platformer. . Uh, that was, uh, that was one of those like terminal internet moments.

You’re like, okay, that’s enough internet for today, . That’s how I’m closing. I would 

Jordan: love to have been in that board meeting. They’re like, all right, what are we, here’s how we really fry these kids. . Oh my God. Yeah. Do you thought, 

Mike: you thought their attention spans were short and scattered now? Just wait, just wait until we get them on this trend.

Jordan: Uh, 

Mike: wherever they’re eventually they’re, they’re trying to play four games at once. Just,

Jordan: yeah, that’s my like major stress reduction tip, which by the way, like I struggle with it as well, but like. That I think is the lowest hanging fruit for most people right now. 

Mike: Yeah. It, it aligns with, um, just, I think a good principle for living is, uh, if you want to improve happiness, it can be hard to, to find out what really makes us happy.

Like what, what adds happiness to our, to our life? And there are some easy, easy answers, but, but it can be difficult to, to figure out. To really work that out, but what is less difficult is identifying things that are making us miserable and just doing less of those things or eliminating those things altogether to whatever degree we can that that is tends to be easier than trying to find the answer to what is going to make me happy.

Yeah, super efficient. I agree with that. Agree, agree, not 

Jordan: disagree.

Mike: Uh, well, uh, I’ve kept you for an hour and a half and, uh, I think we can wrap up. We can keep on going, but, uh, always enjoy these talks. We can. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. We can pick up on some of the other things that, uh, I wanted to get to maybe in the next one. 

Jordan: Awesome, dude. Thank you for having me on.

I appreciate it. And, uh, let me know what you, what you get on the Myers Briggs. Yeah, I got it. 

Mike: I’ve made a note. I will. And before we sign off, just so people can find you, find your work. If they’re still listening, they may want to know more about what you’re doing. You mentioned you’re on social media. Is that the best way for them to find you?

You have a website as well. Anything in 

Jordan: particular you want them to know about? Just the Jordan Siet mini podcast is, is my, my podcast, my Instagram Siet Fitness, but that’s it, man. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Thank you. 

Mike: Have you ever wondered what strength training split you should follow? What rep ranges you should work in?

How many sets you should do per workout or per week? Well, I created a free 60 second training quiz that will answer those questions for you and others, including how frequently you should train each major muscle group, which exercises you should do, what supplements you should take. consider which ones are at least worth taking and more.

To take this quiz and to get your free personalized training plan, go to muscleforlife. show muscleforlife. show slash training quiz answer the questions, and learn exactly what to do in the gym to gain more muscle and strength. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful, and if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don’t miss new episodes, and it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people.

Who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn’t like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email Mike at muscle for life. com muscle F O R life. com and let me know what I could do better or just, uh, what your thoughts are about maybe what you’d like to see me do in the future.

I read everything myself. I’m always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.