Barbell Shrugged - Gary Vhees trainer and hilarious influencer Jordan Syatt — Real Chalk #88

Episode Date: August 13, 2019

Jordan just happens to be the trainer for one of the biggest social media beasts on the planet, Gary Vhee. Not only that, but he also happens to have one of the most informative and hilarious instagrams I have ever seen in my life. He’s obviously learned a thing or two from being around someone like Gary and I am here to integrate him about all that he’s learned while simultaneously trying to catch up with him and see what he’s been up to personally these days.    We both have very similar vibes, so getting the two of us together on an episode was just a great experience and I’m excited for all to listen. Enjoy! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/rc-syatt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/ barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Ladies and gentlemen, it's Tuesday, and I'm so excited to bring you guys another episode. Well, I'm always excited. But anyway, this time, we have Gary Vee's trainer on the show. His name is Jordan Syatt, and I think a lot of you guys have followed Gary Vee at some point in your life. You've seen him all over Instagram. Now we get to see his trainer, who equally has just as much energy. His Instagram is out of control hilarious. I actually didn't follow him until recently. A friend of mine was like, hey, do you follow this guy, Jordan? And I was like, no. And I looked him up and I was like, holy shit, this guy is awesome. So I messaged him, asked him if he wanted to come out, do a podcast. He agreed. I showed him around my hood. We did a

bunch of cool stuff, drank all the coffee. If you look at his bio, it says 27th degree black belt drinking coffee. The dude's not lying. As we hung out, he literally drank like four coffees. And then we took pre-workout and worked out together. So I mean, he's that kind of dude. That's like the dudeliest dude that you want around. And if you're a dude, you want a dude like this around. Anyway, I'm ridiculous. So we sit down, I talked to Jordan about, you know, what it's like to work for Gary V, some of the things he's picked up working with Gary V, there's obviously a lot of business tips in there, a lot of social media tips in there, we talk about what Jordan really does on the reg, and talk about his life, and it's just a really great podcast with someone who's fucking awesome,

so there's really not a whole bunch more to say about the podcast, except it's fucking Jordan Syed. If you guys look at his Instagram, he's hilarious. He's a great dude. And you link him up with me, and we're going to have a great conversation. So get really, really, really excited for that. All right? So in a couple of minutes, we're going to hit it. But before we hit it, I just want to let you guys know that on jimryan.com, my personal website, that's G-Y-M-R-Y-A-N.com, you guys can pick up all of my high-intensity interval bodybuilding books that are blowing the world apart right now. My carb cycle challenge is every six weeks on there. So if you guys ever missed one, I do one every six weeks from the start date.

So the challenges are 30 days long. There's a two-week intermission, and then we start again. Now I currently added a Facebook group where I do live Q&As every single week in that group, and you are part of that group forever. It's not just for the challenge. It's something that you have forever. So you'll always be able to ask questions. I'll always be in there doing check-ins.

You guys will always have access to me. And it's something that I wish I did earlier because now it is a giant group and people are going nuts in there and helping each other out. And people are creating spreadsheets like on Excel that I don't know how to do. And like it's helping people out immensely and I'm stoked on it. On top of that, I just dropped a nine-week CrossFit program. If you guys have a CrossFit gym and you want to try out the Chalk online programming, instead of doing the online actual monthly program, you can just buy this ebook and it gives you a whole bunch of workouts that you guys can try out. Or if you're just an individual and you want to do it in your garage or whatever, that's doable as well. I'm also dropping a sweat program that's going to be similar to that.

And I have all of my kettlebell and dumbbell books and all of that stuff on there. There's so many things on there, and I'm constantly growing it. Actually, the big thing that I talked about a lot at the CrossFit Games this past week was the Dark Horse program. I met a lot of people that have been doing the Dark Horse program that was designed with me and Rich. If you guys don't know Rich, Richard Diaz, he's one of the best running coaches in the world. We put together this whole heart rate style workout that is just kind of really blowing the world apart in CrossFit for these anaerobic windows. Like all these different energy systems that you guys should be using and understanding in the type of window that you need to be good at CrossFit and not just the aerobic window. So we have people like Hinshaw that do all that really farther aerobic stuff, and we have all these different online programs,

but no one's making better cardiovascularly in that training window. This is the only program out there. And I've had people like Jared Enderton, who went to the Games last year. He's one of the big Olympic lifters now, and he's been hitting me up, and he's like, hey, I really want to do this. So we're going to fly him out. He's going to talk with Rich. We're going to bring him through the program. And I've been kind of

wanting to reach out to a bunch of other big name athletes and see how they perform on it. Because everyone right now who's been doing it has been shattering records. It's insane. So that's on there as well. It's called Dark Horse Training. I'm not going to talk a year off anymore about all the programs. You guys have heard them before, but because you listen to the show, if you use the code REALCHALK in all capital letters, R-E-A-L-C-H-A-L-K, REALCHALK, you get 25% off all of the 30-day programs. Not the Dark Horse or the Carb Cycle Challenge, but all of the other programs, you guys get 25% off. That's a really good deal. That's just for listening to the show, and it's because I love you guys, and you guys obviously love me. So you should get a discount. All right. Not a lot of people take advantage of that, but that's because they don't listen to the podcast. Even though we

have 700,000 people who download this thing every month, you'd be surprised how many people take advantage of these codes. Anyway, without any further ado, let's get into this podcast. If you guys love it, make sure you guys tag me and Jordan Syatt. Share it. We all love to see when people love the podcast. And although you guys tag me in everything all the time, please tag Jordan as well. He wants to hear all the love as well. He wants to get all the hugs. All right. So here we go in three, two, one. Let's hit it. What's up, Chalk Nation? This is your boy, Ryan Fisher. We are in my gym, CrossFit Chalk, out here in Newport Beach, California. And I'm sitting down next to somebody who is native to my part of the world, Jordan Syatt.

You guys may or may not know him, but you definitely know who he works for, Mr. Gary V. If you guys don't know Gary V, then you're not doing the whole social media thing correctly. And Jordan's been working with him for how long now? Just over three years now. Oh, wow. It's been that long. I didn't even know it was that long. It was June 1, 2016 until June 1, 2019, seven days a week, every single day for three years, and then just took a three three month sabbatical so

i had the last two months off and i'm gonna start up again on september one and then we'll go three months on three months off so i'm sure everybody's first question is like oh my god this is gary v's trainer what's it like to be with gary v let's go over like a brief brief thing of what that's like i i'm just assuming on my end i'm gonna go ahead and just take a stab that like he doesn't sleep very much i'm assuming that he probably doesn't have a lot of time to work out so they're probably quick and short and i'm assuming he doesn't really like it all that much yeah i mean if you ever watch his content you know he hates working out and i i should probably preface with this the first question i get about gary is is he actually the way he portrays himself online like is he that energetic is he that kind is he

is that he's exactly who he says he is and it's it's very powerful to be around that because so much of social media you know is fake like we know it we know it sadly i can't stand when people follow people that just like don't deserve to be followed yeah or they're like they just i can just tell they have like a secret mission that's just like not okay with my vibe it's you made a good point though like you're right it's it's lucky that we know it's fake because we can sort of weed out. And even then, like, stuff gets biased, I'm sure. But that's one of the things I like about meeting people in person who you know through social media.

I've never done a podcast over the phone. Really? I refuse. Smart. It's so much different. I mean, even our interaction right now, you're like, oh, this dude has a good podcast. He seems pretty cool, whatever. But you came out here and I, like, showed you all around. We had, like, dope conversation. It's like, you're probably oh this dude has a good podcast he seems pretty cool whatever but you came out here and i like showed you all around yeah we had like dope conversation it's like you're probably going to remember me it's like there'll be a good connection there and i feel

like that's why i did the podcast to begin with was i wanted to meet people i wanted to expand my knowledge i wanted to network and i wanted to just i wanted to get something out of every podcast that i do i don't want to just be like promoting someone or promoting myself every time. That's what, that's what I do on Instagram all day long. Or that's what I do on some other platform all day long. Like this is for me, this is for me mentally. Like I don't get to sit down and read a lot of books. I want to know what you know. I love, and it's interesting. I was texting with a buddy yesterday as I was flying here. So as I was flying here, they're like, why are you going to California? I was like, I'm doing a podcast. And they were like, you're flying to California from New York to do a podcast like they're like that's

sort of a long flight for that don't you think I was like no no you don't understand it's a very short flight when you think from the perspective of you get to meet someone that you otherwise might not have met build a relationship with them and then hopefully positively impact thousands of people from that it's like it's actually a very short flight considering the amount of impact you could possibly have. And I feel like some of the conversations we had like down by the water and stuff were pretty insightful for you and vice versa. It's like you always hear some sort of eye-opening piece. There's always some sort of little nugget in every little piece, in every little conversation with everybody. And one thing that – like the cliche is uh social media is the highlight reel

and i think a lot of times we look at that almost from the negative perspective but in another way to look at it is we only see what people allow us to see which means like so much of what i learned about you earlier today like i don't know how much of that is out there. I didn't know it. And it just – the amount of respect and admiration that I had for you completely just expanded exponentially. So being able to meet people in person, it's like – it's a blessing. Yeah, big deal. That's where social media is so helpful because some people – oh, I hate social media. You take people – you're not really spending time with people. It's like you choose.

You have the power to choose it's like you can use social media and isolate yourself or you can use social media and use it to allow you to meet more people and make more connections and so i've told several people on my podcast because they're always like oh do you answer all your dms and i say yeah not only do i answer them every single one is either a voice message or a video message that's awesome i actually don't write back and not because i want them to have that connection but because i don't it's it's it's way faster it's way faster so i always give them a voice or i give them a video and like when they get that they're like holy shit like that was dope that's incredible that's incredible i'll be like making breakfast and my hair is all fucked up my horse my voice is all horse and i'm like all right dude so uh they'll just be like dying they must

freak out and plus like i know a lot of people have their assistants or whatever answering their DMs. And it's like, it's you. And you can't fake that. Yep. It's amazing. Yeah, it's an amazing thing to get if you're a fan. And all of a sudden, you're like, oh, my God, this is dead. Exactly.

I've definitely done one before where I was like, I'm doing this right now. And I'm in my kitchen making breakfast. I may or may not be naked. And I, like, put it down to, like, my waist, and I stopped, and I was like, but you'll never know. And I did have clothes on. That's awesome. Yeah, just, like, it's funny. Yeah, it was pretty funny.

So working with Gary, what would you say are, like, probably the top, like, three things that he's taught you that you didn't maybe you already knew but it just like solidified it it was like something that helped you get really far in your career we talked about one today that helped you with your social media yep you know it's um it's interesting most people when they ask me like about the things i've learned from gary they're usually asking from the perspective of like a tactic like how to like structure your hashtags or like how to you know i want to know things that helped you grow yourself that and that's what i've taken from him like on social media gary is very clear like he doesn't talk about tactics it's much more about the principles and understanding like the emotion and the psychology behind it. And that's what I've learned.

My emotional intelligence and awareness has dramatically increased just by being around someone so positive and so optimistic. And for example, I think one thing that's massively helped me improve just as an individual. As you grow on social media, you'll get more and more people leaving mean comments leaving hateful comments like for no reason like just adam like why like why would you say something so mean or even like why would you take the time out of your day just to say something so negative and i used to get really mad and sometimes i still do get it but i used to get and then i would go after them i'd be like yo fuck you like I'd go off and then my entire day would be ruined. Like I'd be pissed. I'd be fuming because then I wasted however long arguing with them, whatever it is. And I'll never forget. I

was just in the gym with Gary one morning and he could like tell I was a little bit upset and he was like, what's going on? I was like, man, this, this dude just like commented on my post. He was like, he framed it like this. He said, have you ever left a negative or hurtful comment on someone else's post? I was like, no, literally never, which is why I don't understand why someone would do that. He's like, that's because you're a happy person in a positive place in your life. Can you imagine how sad and angry and upset someone must be to spend their time going through other people's social media accounts, leaving negative comments. That person is a very unhappy person. And when you understand that, you can actually legitimately

feel bad for that person. And when you feel bad for them, now you can, instead of responding with anger, you can respond with empathy. And I'll never forget, later that day, someone left an angry comment or something like a stupid comment, and I DMed them. I was like, hey was like hey i saw your comment just want to let you know like i don't know what's going on in your life but if you ever need anyone to talk to him i was here later that week that person well they replied first they deleted their comment they replied thank you so much i apologize that person became a client oh my god it's crazy and i think some people maybe they had a bad day they weren't thinking about it they're like ah, ah, fuck it. Let it blowing off some steam. And they don't even realize the effect that it has. But by replying with kindness and empathy, it's a real person. Sometimes you forget. You're talking to a real person on the other side of the screen. that not only just changed me from an emotional intelligence perspective, but a lot of people talk about burning out on social media. And I don't burn out anymore because I love it.

I really enjoy it. And a lot of people go on social media almost like with their shield and sword in hand, ready to fight and battle people. And that's draining when you are constantly going in there ready to fight. But when you go in there looking forward to it, and no matter what happens it's gonna like you're gonna have a good time you don't burn out from it yeah so that's pretty good i like that because it's definitely as you get as you get more of those comments it's definitely like well should i not post that then like should i do this should i do that it's very hard to keep your sights on what you really

want to accomplish and what you really want everyone to see. Because I feel like there's a lot of people out there that's like, oh, I could do this and I could do this and I could do this. And it's like I feel like I just need to stay on one path and like just, you know, have this one thing shine through. And I think you can do all the things, but it's just got to be like kind of in like the right way. Like I'm huge into adventure stuff. I love my mountain bike races that I'm doing now. I love like going climbing mountains. And I did my first mountaineering route recently where I was like all tied up and like climbing up like, you know, just gnarly peaks. And it's so, so important to me to do those things. And it's so important like what I do in the gym that it gives me the ability to go do that.

And I want to like intertwine all that. And I'll post it and it'll get like a third of the engagement of like yeah a picture of me and my shirt off doing a pull-up and i'm like well fuck like should i not post this and i've talked about it before and everyone's like no we love that stuff like just keep doing it but it's hard because everybody wants to be famous on social media right now i feel like we were actually talking about it today in my gym, me and some of my coaches. And I was like, hey, this guy Jordan is coming out, and he's the trainer of Gary Vee or whatever. He didn't know who Gary Vee was, which I thought was weird.

And then I'm like showing him Gary Vee's profile. I'm like, he's got like 7 million followers, dude. It's like pretty hard not to know him. And then he's like, well, I don't understand this social media fame. It's very niche or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, it is. But eventually, like when's the last time that you like put on the TV and you watch TV? And he was like, I don't watch TV.

I watch like Netflix or whatever. And I was like, dude, I'm telling you, social media people are going to be more famous than movie stars. They already are. There's going to be a time where you're going to be like, holy fuck, it's so-and-so. And like Rachel McAdam, my, you know, my all-time favorite crush on movies, that's the woman of my dreams. I just think she's the cutest thing ever. If you're listening to this, Rachel, I love you.

Have you seen her person? Is it just like a piece of sun just following her around everywhere? But anyway, I feel like I could go places and get stopped at at an airport just as much she does like almost you know what i mean like it's crazy crazy crazy and i have i have friends in the like the acting industry and one of them mentioned something recently that really struck a chord me he was like man it doesn't matter how good of an actor you are anymore. If you have a big following, you're getting roles. And I was like, oh my god. And I know there are people on YouTube who have big YouTube followings, big Instagram followings, whatever, who are literally getting roles in movies because they know what's going to happen.

They know if you have a big following and you announce you're in a movie, your audience is going to go fucking see that movie. Well, your audition is the videotapes that you put on every day. That's that. And just like if they see you just getting outrageous engagement, of course they'll put you in the movie. It's going to sell tickets. Yeah. It's like, why would they have someone who's a great actor but won't put people in the seats?

It's like, you see it with everything, even fighting. Like I'm a big mixed martial arts guy, fighting guy. Like you look at a lot of the best. You don't post anything about fighting. I don't. I don't post anything about fighting i i don't i don't just because like it's not it's not really my goal with my social media in terms of that would be like if i if i want to like if i go to a fight like i'll like post about it and whatever like my stories but okay on my feed it's more just like education and towards like fitness type stuff but but that sucks wouldn't

you want to post a photo you go to fight you know it's interesting because like i want to post my stuff more but i just know it won't do well so i i try not to sometimes i'm like you know what fuck it i want to put it up anyway but it's always in my stories of course i think it's it i think it depends on the on the brand that you have like for me i've more established myself as like my content is educational content like it's not necessarily about me like i don't i don't talk about my girlfriend i don't talk about really my my family very much i don't even talk about myself very much i i do more now than i used to because people ask at this point but i've always found more comfort and enjoyment on my end from teaching and so like i don't for me

posting a picture of me at a ufc fight it like i'm almost in my mind i'm like oh but i could have posted like three new ways to like improve your deadlift or something like that and like for me i get more excited to put out educational content like that i do think i have more fun posting like personal stuff vloggy stuff on my youtube for instagram when attention span is just inherently so short because it's a very instantaneous platform, when I post something, I want to make sure that it hits home. Like I really want it when people see a post,

like by the time they're done reading it, they can immediately get better in some aspect of their life, whether it's lifting, nutrition, mindset, whatever. So yeah. But in terms of like fights, you'll see sometimes the the biggest fights with the most money it's not necessarily the best fighters a lot of times it's the fighters who talk the most and who like get people riled up the most and like you'll there's some of the best fighters in the world are just not getting big title fights because they don't have a social

media presence it's so much of what we do now is influenced by whether you have an audience or not. Like McGregor. Yeah, exactly. His Instagram is murdering. It's crazy. And he literally – his whiskey company is – I'm not going to say the number because someone said it to me and I didn't check it. So I don't know if it's accurate or not. It's like getting close to a billion?

Yeah. Really? I heard upwards of that. Fuck. What I heard was upwards of three billion yeah i don't know if it's accurate and like that's why i didn't say it so like don't take my word for that it could be completely wrong you know what is that tequila company sold for a billion did it really yeah it's yeah it's crazy he got like i don't know a third of that.

A third of a billion dollars. Yeah, George Clooney is hanging out in Lake Como right now in Italy. Actually. I believe it. It's good for him. It's amazing. I mean you have a great product and people enjoy it. That's the thing is you could have – I've never – I don't drink. So like I've never had Conor McGregor's whiskey.

But if people try it and they don't like it, they're not going to get it again. I think they still will. It's Conor McGregor's whiskey. But if people try it and they don't like it, they're not going to get it again. I think they still will. It's Conor McGregor. Just because of Conor McGregor. When I think of tequila, I'm like, oh, should we get George Clooney's? I think it's cool. I love that. I do think that having an audience is – it gives you more opportunity.

But I very much believe that regardless of that, if you're not delivering on a quality, then it's not going to last. Like it might last for a little bit. But Conor, he said he's retired. He said he's not going to fight again. Oh, yeah. So it's like – Especially now if he's got – Yeah, literally made $100 million with the Floyd Mayweather fight. Now his whiskey company is crushing.

It's like why would you put yourself in a cage and get battered up if you don't have to? But that means his fame will not grow as much. And so if this whiskey, if the product wasn't good, which I don't know if it is or not, I don't think it would last very long. I think eventually it would go down. So I just don't think relying on fame necessarily is always the best bet at the expense of quality. So, I mean, I would assume because it's doing so well, at least it's like somewhat good. Yeah, I'm sure it has to be at least decent.

But, yeah, I feel the same about myself as far as competing. I have other things that are doing well now, and I'm just like, well, I don't want to keep beating the shit out of my body. Yeah. Competing across it if I don't have to anymore. That's exactly right. But, yeah. I mean, I feel like you do need to throw yourself in the fire for a little bit to be able to make those things happen. A lot of people are just underestimating sacrifice. Mm-hmm.

They just want everything now because they're seeing all these kids drive around in Lamborghinis like 20 years old. Yep. And they're like, you know, it's just such a different world. I remember you and I were talking earlier about like the dream of making $100,000 a year. And now that's – it's still a good job out there like when you look at like median household income like a hundred thousand dollars is still a good job in the nation but there's people making millions now that aren't really necessarily putting in the same amount of work i mean it's they're doing something they love it's fun for them and they just keep getting

these crazy paychecks and it's just a different world it's a different world like i almost feel like if i was in high school right now i'd graduate and be like i want to be on youtube like i don't even know dude that's what kids say like i don't i don't want to go to be a doctor like even doctors right now like i make more than a lot of doctors i know like that are around here yeah like just doing stuff i love to do every day and stuff that posting on social media yeah yeah it's amazing yeah they're it's interesting because like kids will go to gary like 12 13 14 year old kids and gary will be like gary loves watching what young kids are doing like what

they're using uh what they say like and it's interesting because like i'm with gary seven days a week so if like we're out and just sitting at lunch, he'll literally just – he'll go and look at what apps they're using and he'll just watch how they interact with each other. He's very observant like that. That's good actually because if they're using it, then it's only going to get bigger. That's why he's on TikTok right now because TikTok is a relatively new app. It's exploding. I just downloaded it. I'm probably going to start posting on it. But most people on it are's exploding like I just downloaded it I'm probably gonna start posting on it

but most people on it are 12 like 10 to 12 I believe but in 8-15 years they're gonna be the major people who are like getting big jobs now and spending it's like and that's where he is and it's not like massive engagement yet but that's what he does

he's always like trying to be ahead of the curve and maybe he'll do that with 10 different things and only one of them will play out but that one thing plays out big yeah and he can always say like i fucking told you yeah i mean instagram is one of those things for sure like i remember when i first started i didn't even think that money was ever even really a thing on there i was just like oh having a presence is a big deal but i don't think anybody ever imagined like you didn't have links in your bio you couldn't swipe up in stories like the ability to sell wasn't even there no not at all when instagram first came out it was just images

and when they did the video concept it was only 15 seconds yep at first it's it's a the cool now it's a minute and you can do swipes you can do like you could do 10 minutes yeah it's crazy and now ig tv yeah yeah that's why i don't really like the idea of investing in another platform You could do 10 minutes, I believe. It's crazy. And now IGTV. Yeah. That's why I don't really like the idea of investing in another platform because I'm like, I think no matter what happens – because Instagram and Facebook now are like – I think the three richest brands in the world are Apple is number one still, I think. Number two is Amazon, and then number three is Facebook. I'm pretty sure. So you have a company that's that big. They're like, yo, we're going to big they're like yo we're gonna figure this out and we're gonna win so like as soon as snapchat started getting big and they wouldn't sell to facebook facebook's like all right fuck you we're gonna make stories

exactly right and then all of a sudden snapchat died i mean they're still going strong for some people because just because of like certain filters but they have filters on instagram too and it's going pretty well now and then even facebook took over stories and like i just think whatever happens i think even instagram right now is like they're they they understand the whole youtube thing and that's why they came out with the igtv yep my big thing is so i don't know if i would really want to throw a lot of eggs in another basket right now so and not to say that it's not going to go to that way at some point but i think it's gonna i think in my lifetime instagram is going to be strong for a while i think it's going to be very strong but i think what a lot of people overlook and did you

use like facebook business page when it like first came out yes because i had a gym and did you know not as an athlete i did got it so what happened facebook obviously owned instagram what they did was and it was very smart when they first came, people were getting huge engagement and a lot of new followers because they were showing your posts organically to a lot of new people because they wanted people to use the platform. And then over time, and they announced it, like we're dropping organic engagement. We're dropping it. And they tell you what percentage of people will be seeing your posts organically and like now i believe they said like three percent of people will see your post organically on facebook from a business page if you're not promoting it um and that's what instagram did they're doing the exact same thing where they allow people to build very large platforms by showing it organically in

the explore feed but over time as it continues to grow and gain more power like they will drop the engagement because they want people to pay for ads which is like good for them it's your company you should like people are using your platform for free like i love that you're charging for ads because you should it's your right people so for me diversifying across different platforms is the it's basically i don't want to build my house on someone else's lawn type of thing. If I put all of my stuff on Instagram and all of a sudden they drop engagement or God forbid, my account gets hacked or whatever it is like, and not now everything was in that it's like, shoot. But if you have Instagram and you have Facebook and you have YouTube and you have

Twitter and you have podcasts, all of a sudden, like God forbid, something bad happens. There's always other areas where people can find you. I do wish that i had a bigger youtube back in the day i was doing so many cool things yeah as a kid and like i had uploaded a few of those things and they're still on there like i can go on my youtube and look back at like these old things i did like when i used to weigh like 210 when i was on the bobsled team i was doing like 38 inch box jumps 42 inch box jumps like huge box jumps and they're still on there and i'm like oh man like if i was only like a little bit bigger and i did more of this i probably would have been crushing it yeah and i like what you said earlier you were saying how it's better to start with long form content yeah and then just cut all those pieces down and then

trinkle them out into social media yeah like you can take a i know a lot of the big guys they'll take a photo from one of their YouTubes and just post that. Exactly. And it's the worst photo ever, but it gets all these crazy engagement because they're followed on YouTube. Yeah, exactly. I remember just thinking back to what I wish I had done. My biggest thing that people started to follow me for early on in probably 2013 because my big thing was my deadlift. I deadlifted four times my body weight

i did it 535 at 132 and that was like what people really like started to follow me for and like just looking back i'm like ah damn what if i just had like just video logs of my workouts leading up to that four times body weight pull and that's one of the things about youtube is it's it's easier to tell a story and almost like a TV show. Like every new video could be a new aspect of your story and like people keep going back, what's happening next, what's happening next? And you'll get generally less people will watch

than on something like Instagram. You'll have less views, but more people watching for a longer period of time. I mean, a 60 second video on YouTube, most people won't watch the whole 60 seconds. They get tired of it. They're like, I wish there was a way to skip past through the 60 seconds.

Like, relax. It's 60 seconds. But on YouTube, you can look at analytics and if you have an 18-minute video and the average watch time is 12 minutes, people are literally sitting there for 12 minutes on average watching you. That's a huge amount of investment

in how much they care about you and they want to learn more from you. I would way rather have more people watching me for 12 minutes than a bigger ego number like views on Instagram, but people are barely even consuming the content. Yep, 100%. That is crazy to think about the engagement value. Because even Gary with 7 million million he might only have a hundred thousand views on a video yep a lot of times he'll get like half a million views on a video which is really good engagement but sometimes he might only get like a hundred thousand one just because instagram decides that one metric that that i i learned from gary which

it makes a lot of sense is a lot of people focus on the view count on each video and he's like i don't care about that he's like i care about the total views across my channel every week. How many views did I get on my channel? That's why he uploads like every day. When you upload every single day, you'll probably get less views than if you upload once a week on that one video. But your total channel views will likely be way higher and you get more circulation. And so Gary's goal is like he wants to leave a legacy he wants as many people to know him and help as many people as possible so if that's his goal he doesn't care if one video goes viral he wants like way more people seeing all of his videos all of his messages so like when people only upload once or twice a week because they want

that one video to do really well it's almost like it's a very reductionist way to look at it whereas if you upload it way more frequently maybe maybe less special effects or less quality of storytelling or whatever it is and more just like raw footage of you might get less views on that video. But overall, people are going to be like seeing you every day and invested in you and you because of who you are, not because of your videographer is a great editor and can make you look really funny. Yeah, I could definitely see that for sure. because of who you are, not because of your videographer is a great editor and can make you look really funny. Yeah. I can definitely see that for sure. I think it's just interesting to see that people like yourself and Gary and people who are doing like the retweets onto Instagram. Yeah.

Yeah. And now everyone's like, I think I should get a Twitter account. And even I was thinking that and I was like, fuck, I don't want another platform. But it doesn't seem as hard as I thought originally. It sounds like you're just kind of just doing little thoughts here and there. That's all it is, and it's very cool. There's no caption either, huh? It's just one little line.

In the Instagram caption? No, in Twitter. No caption, no. It's just like you have 140 characters, and that's it. Which is, as a content creator, it's actually very cool. I know a lot of people hate it. Like I want more room. Like if you can get better at making your point more concise with fewer words.

That's how you win. That's how you win. On social media for sure. For sure. And like it's a great skill. Even a 15-second video, I guess the average view would probably be five seconds. You know what I mean? Exactly.

Like if you didn't win in that first five seconds. So if you can be very precise in words. That's what I love about Twitter is like you have 140 characters to make an impact. And the cool part about that is there's a lot of cool parts, but one of the things for me is you could do that 12 times a day. Plus, you have so many opportunities. And people don't realize this about content creation. It's a skill. You get better at it the more you do it.

Oh, yeah, for sure. The more content you make, the more you realize what people respond to, what really hits home with people, what messages. My coaches, everybody in my gym is like, I want to get better at social media. I'm like, just fucking post shit. That's it. Just do it. Like, please, God, just try. How do you get better at deadlifting?

Stop bitching about it and just fucking try. Like, Jesus. You can tell that it's a sore subject for me. I love it. It's true. It makes me so mad because I have great coaches. They could very easily do well on social media. And I don't want to just keep paying them what I pay them.

They should be making more money doing things and being knowledgeable. And you work at this gym right now that's known all over the world. Take advantage. 100%. I don't have one coach that takes advantage. Not one not even half of one you know it's so interesting it's so interesting coaches are the first ones on social media to be like if you want it you're gonna do it like and they talk to their clients like just eat your fucking fruits and vegetables like it's not that fucking hard just do it if you want it you'll do

it and then that same coach will turn around and be like, oh, man, I just want to get more followers. It's like you just told your fucking client to drink more water and eat their fruits and vegetables. Consider your posting content on Instagram. You're drinking water and eating fruits and vegetables. Just fucking do it. You tell them to meal prep on Sunday, post prep on Sunday. Get all your posts ready for the week. Stop fucking complaining and just fucking do it.

Yeah. There's the title of the show. Posting is fruits and vegetables. There's so many comparisons between fitness and business. Get a fucking shopping cart. That's it. Take the fucking stairs.

I don't batch my posts ahead of time. I don't either. You said something earlier. You book tickets last minute. I'm like – I don't either. You said something earlier. You were like – I don't – You booked tickets last minute. I'm the same exact way. And one of my buddies, Mike, Gary's old coach, he's actually coaching Gary right now.

Dude, I drive people crazy. They get really upset. They're like, how do you not know where you're going to stay tomorrow? I'm like, it stresses me out to know where I'm going to stay tomorrow. What if I don't like being here? I'm going to go somewhere else. You know what I mean? Like we were just talking about how much we hate LA. Like I'm going to go to Newport. Fuck LA. You know what I'm going to stay tomorrow. What if I don't like being here? I'm going to go somewhere else. You know what I mean? We were just

talking about how much we hate LA. I'm going to go to Newport. Fuck LA. You know what I mean? Let's place this shithole. I booked the ticket to come here the day before. I booked my hotel when I was on the plane. I was planning on staying in LA and I didn't realize it was so far away. I was like, fuck it. I'll just

stay close there. This is, I think, a very personality-driven thing. Some people are much more, they want more order, they want to be more organized and this is like, well, what's better? Should you post or should you batch your posts on Sunday ahead of time? I was like, no, for me, if I had to do that, I would feel claustrophobic and get anxiety because I have to make however many posts on Sunday. Yeah, I have to get seven of these done and the fifth and sixth ones suck.

And you saw me today on Twitter. I was like, ah, fuck it. I want to post this. And I just went on and did it right then. And like you never know what thoughts are just going to randomly come to mind. So I'd rather have the freedom to be like I'm just going to post this now because I'm passionate about this right now and I want to discuss it rather than feeling like I have to be creative at any certain moment. Like maybe I'm tired and like I don't want to create something. Like cool, I don't have to. But if you feel like you have to be creative, that's when you create pressure on yourself. It's like, listen, it's not like you're not always just going to feel creative. And, and I'm not saying don't push yourself to like try and make content. But what

I am saying is like, if you force yourself into a box of like, you have to create right now, you have to create like this many posts ahead of time. It's like, you're going to sacrifice the quality of it or you're just not going to do it. Yeah. I really don't like structure. It's very interesting because like when I was a kid, I like begged my parents to be in military school because I loved like – Really? I like discipline. Yeah. That's a good distinction to make.

I just don't like structure. Like actual structure really bothers me a lot. Does it give you anxiety? Yeah. I don't like it at all like just knowing where i have to be at a certain time is like it's kind of it's a little bit of a problem now because now i'm getting a lot more traction there's a lot of people that want to talk to me and they want to you know set up meetings or do all these things like actually just now one of the guys from the bachelorette

just texted me he's like hey i want to talk to you about some business stuff that's awesome and i'm like we'll talk tomorrow because i know today like it's not going to work out. And he's like, what time tomorrow? I'm like, I don't know yet. Text me tomorrow. Yeah. And like, that's kind of a problem. Cause I should have a time, but then all of a sudden, like someone will come in. Like, what if you just dropped in? You didn't tell me, you're like, Hey, you want to work out? I'm like, yeah, let's work out. Exactly. Yeah. So like, I would rather have that option open, which I know is completely fucked. Cause it's like, so basically you're saying no no because something better might come along. And I'm like, basically, yes.

Without being a super dick, like, yeah, something better might just come along. Probably why I'm still single. So we've got out a lot of this social media stuff, some of the takeaways from Gary Vee, which I think are great. People are definitely going to want to listen to that part of this episode and i would never want to have this without it but i think what's very interesting about you like i really want to get into you is you found who you were in a very unique way like you like to bring up all the shit that everybody's thinking about like in the most ridiculous way but you actually present it to everyone in the exact way that you think. So like I think of things something like flexible dieting.

I'm like, oh my god, here we go. We have all these fucking girls running around. I can eat donuts and I can do this and blah, blah, blah, blah. I look in the mirror and I'm still fat and I don't get it. Oh my god and oh my god. It's like, Becky, like oh my god. You know what I mean? It's like all of a sudden your post is that.

You've got the wig on. I mean I don't want to know where you bought that, but I'm assuming you made it yourself. At a sex shop right around the corner from my – A sex shop? Literally. Perfect. In Manhattan, my old apartment in the West Village, I was like, I need a wig because I bought that wig for my – my first skit with that wig on. It was when celery juice went bonkers.

And when that fucker was – and I don't talk like that. For a medical medium. skit with that wig on is when celery juice went bonkers. And when that fucker was, and I don't talk like that for a medical medium. He blocked me. He blocked me. I didn't even tag him in the post. Let's talk about this right now. I like this. You don't like him, huh? I don't know him personally.

But to have the audacity to come out and say some of the things, to say that celery juice can cure cancer are you out of your fucking mind you're gonna kill people what the fuck are you thinking yeah there are literally people who are telling their family and friends like who are going through severe illness just have just have celery juice like you're gonna don't take the medication don't go to the doctor just have celery juice like You're going to kill people. What the fuck is wrong with you? And I'm like, for me –

I just see the skin before and after. And I don't know how much of that has changed. I know there haven't – because I'll put out – I didn't know that he was telling people that celery juice is going to carry you. Dude, he said the most outrageous shit. Not to mention, first of all, he's not a doctor at all. But he put medical medium as his name, which is like, why are you putting medical in there if you's not a doctor yeah at all but he put medical medium as his name which like why are you putting medical in there if you're not a doctor if you go to his website and you

look at like the about section like the disclaimers he says not only am i not a doctor and i have no medical training i get a lot of this he's a medium like he gets his information from spirits yep and this isn't me making like go to his website it will say it in the disclaimer like he believes that he can interact with spirits who are telling him this shit, and that's how he's coming up with it. I'm like, you – you motherfucker, dude. You've done a lot of drugs. Congratulations on finding mushrooms. Or you're just so hell-bent on getting a New York Times bestseller that, like –

Which you did, I think, right? Yeah. Cellar Juice, like, the healing power of like really and if you want to look at the science of it it's like it was there's no difference between that and fucking broccoli based on the claims that he's making it's like it's not celery juice like what the fuck like yeah what it's mostly water yeah and vegetables are helping people great great congratulations we know that but i guess um i am I like, it's very rare for me to like to talk poorly about someone like this.

I don't, for me, the way that I look at what I do is my job isn't to start fires. It's to put them out. Like with like, that's why there's so much of my content is based around that. But like, man, he really, so basically like I get this wig. I got, I was like, I need a wig. So I was like, where do I get a wig? I have no idea. So I, uh, which the sex get a wig? I have no idea.

Which the sex store is kind of like the container store. There's just so many things. There's so many things there that you don't even know. And I was like, all right. So actually I called one of my friends, Kat. I was like, Kat, do you know where I could get a wig? And she was like – she gave me all these different stores and options. And then I literally was just like, wait, there's this really big sex store right around the corner from me. Let's just go in there.

And they have handcuffs and all this other stuff. And I was like, do you guys have wigs? They were like, oh corner from me. Let's just go in there. And they have handcuffs and all this other stuff. And I was like, do you guys have wigs? They were like, oh, yeah, we've got tons of wigs. And they had a ton. They had this long blonde hair one that was $19. And I was like, this is perfect. And I named her Kenzie Morgans. That's my social media influencer character.

Oh, nice. I didn't even know that. Kenzie Morgans. But, yeah, you have a way of putting those things out. I haven't gone super far back on your Instagram. But when you first started to post more i remember you telling me that gary told you to start posting three times a day yeah when you started doing that were you trying to find out who you were at that point in terms of like how you were gonna present yourself to the world and you were just posting a lot of stuff trying to figure out what hit and what didn't or were

you like all right this is what i'm gonna do and i'm just gonna nail it so when gary first told me to post three times a day i was like very nervous number one because i was like posting three times a day people are gonna get super annoyed and unfollow me for that and so which sometimes i do if it's bad content if it's bad content if it's good content there's never enough yeah which is a really important thing to remember but basically the first post and this is like you can always go back. It's like, it was December 27th, 2016. The first post I put up was a picture, a selfie of me, because I didn't have anyone, a camera guy, I didn't have anything. I put up a selfie of me with coffee, and I was like,

hey, Gary just told me to post three times a day, every day. I don't know what to say, so I'm just going to put this here and say, hey, what's up, like, how's it going? And that was actually a very transformative process for me to be able to say, like, just say what I'm thinking. You don't have to like, sometimes it's not about like creating something very clever or inspirational, just telling the truth. And I know for me, like a lot of people are like, well, I don't know what to say. And coaches specifically, I'm like, well, you tell your clients, it's not about perfection. It's about consistency.

So what if you just went on Instagram and spoke about, I don't know what to say right now, but I promised everybody I'd post every day. So here's my post just to be consistent. It's not big. It's not amazing. You might not learn anything, but this is just me being consistent.

And that's sort of what I did. So I started posting three times a day, every day. And when you do something three times a day, every day, you get better at it no matter what. Like the feedback from people, you learn what hits, you learn what doesn't. And the more you do something three times a day every day you get better at it no matter what like the feedback from people you learn what hits you learn what doesn't and the more you do it's actually fair that's it like i've heard gary say one time like someone was like is what's more important quality or quantity and he's like you need quantity to figure out what your quality is that's exact i've never heard him say that but that's exactly right and i was like i was like

well shit yeah it's a good it's a good point because like sometimes you know i'm like should i post my mountain bike picture should i do this i do that why don't you just post fucking all of it and see what hits and what doesn't and then you figure out what people like that's right even though i already know what it is that's exactly right but yeah so so over that time posting three times a day every day spending eight hours a day on instagram you start to figure out what hit and then but sort of like with training everything works until it doesn't right it's like if you just if you do high volume training it'll work for a while but then it won't then you'll have to drop the volume increase the intensity whatever so it's like if you're only doing one type of post it might work for a little bit but then it won't and then you have to change

and that's why like if you scroll through my feed you'll see like tons of different styles sometimes i focus more on video sometimes i focus more on infographics sometimes i focus more on pictures of me sometimes i focus more on tweet posts like right now i'm in the middle of this time period which tweet posts are doing very well so i'm doing a lot of rush because like engagement's really high uh it's interesting because when i look at your page it doesn't look like something i would want to follow yep in terms of as a whole. Right. Because a lot of people are like, hey, you have to have consistency throughout all of your posts and have to look this – if you're going to do black and white, they all have to do black and white if you're going to do this.

No. So that when they see a post, they're like, that's Jordan Syatt's post. And I'm like, I've never truly agreed with that because I can't tell you – I can't tell you how many times I've been like, oh, Jordan Syatt. Let me check out his page. That's exactly right. Not his post. How often are you going on someone's page and being like,

let me just look at the aesthetics. Okay, so on the right side of the page, it's only pictures of him. On the left side of the page, it's only white pictures. And in the middle, it's recipes. No one fucking cares. What they do is they look at what's on their main feed right now. For like 15 seconds. That's it.

A couple little flicks. Fucking playing Spin the Wheel. Fucking, what is that? What was that old time show? Wheel of Fortune? Wheel of Fortune, yeah. Yeah, Wheel of Fortune real quick for a couple seconds and then I'm out. That's it. Couple flicks. See, it's on my Explore page, whatever it is. That's why Big Butts, just do it.

You're like, you're playing Wheel of Fortune for like 10 seconds. You're like, whoa, Big Butt, okay. Even my own assistant, I'm like, dude, what are you doing? He's like, he'll turn his his phone around it's like some chick's boobs i'm like dude what the fuck man you there's so many better things to do and he's like i know but they're so nice i'm like i'm like dude i get it i get all right you're 23 okay i'm 33 like i've already jacked off to 333 boobs in my life i can only i only – dude, I've probably jerked off to more boobs than you've ever thought of. At this point, like with age disparity.

Yeah, you have a decade to go. Yeah. I don't know if your followers are going to like me right now. This guy is filthy. This is not what I expected. Yeah, they look him up and I'm like murdering judges on YouTube. That's so funny. That's so funny. That's so funny.

But yeah, so you start hitting that, and then when did you decide to like start maybe branching out into different forms of social? Like were you just Instagram at first? So no, basically, I mean I started my website in 2011, and that's actually how I got the job with Gary, which is basically like – He found the website. No. So here's what happened. And this is – Oh, I should ask.

Like how did you find out Gary? How did you meet Gary? It's the most Gary-esque message and I'll explain. Basically what happened, I started my website in 2011. I did not know I was starting a business. I didn't know you could make money online. I didn't know PayPal existed. I was in my college dorm room. Actually, that's not true. My website started – I was starting a business. I didn't know you could make money online. I didn't know PayPal existed. I was in my college dorm room.

Actually, that's not true. My website started – I was training at Westside Barbell. When I think it's not true, I think of my commenter. Yeah. Well, one. No, none of them. One of them. But so I was training at Westside because I hated college.

Westside Barbell? Westside Barbell. Nice. And I actually still have it. It makes sense if you have a four-time bodyweight deadlift. Well, so what happened was I was in college. I hated it. I found out that I was going to fail biology because I literally didn't know we had a project that was worth 50% of our graders.

Didn't do it. Whoa. So I go back to my dorm room and basically like I book a ticket, one-way ticket to Israel because I used to live in israel and i love it there i was going to join the idf but uh basically long story short i had emailed louis several weeks earlier being like i want to come to west side like let me train there i just want to i want to get i want to i'll clean i'll clean the floors i'll take the trash out just let me come train and louis responded like i still have. He goes, our weakest guy squats 800 pounds. What do you have to offer? And at this point, I'm like, okay, I know I have two options.

I could either be like, oh, no, I swear. Like I'll work hard. You can trust me. Or I could be more aggressive with it. So I emailed him. I was like, I don't give a fuck what your weakest guy does, what your strongest guy does. I'll outwork you and every single one of your guys in the gym. And then he called me the next day. But I didn't was an unknown number from ohio so i and i didn't know

it was him so it went to voicemail still have the voicemail on my phone i'll show it to you after we oh awesome and he was like hey jordan louis sammons from west side barbell and uh just left me like a long voicemail and being like i want you to come out and train we'll meet each other we spoke for 45 minutes the following day and then my mom and i flew out to west side for like my tryout essentially he knew your numbers too correct yeah but they weren't that big at that point in time like they were they were good for a young 21 year old 127 pound soaking wet kid but they weren't like outrageous but i think he saw like there could be something here so i went to westside with my mom and she was like this – she's probably the only Jewish mother who's ever walked into a Westside barbell.

She had no idea what she was getting into. And most people don't know what Westside is. There's no sign on the door. It's a different fucking place. It's like blood and sweat. There's no key card. You only go there if you're invited. And again, their weakest guy squats 800 pounds.

So imagine what the fuck you're walking into. So she doesn't know. We walk in. Louis comes up to us. His nose is gushing blood all over himself. He's shirtless. He's got the dog tattoo on his stomach. And he's like, you Jordan?

I was like, yep. He's like, let's go. My mom is in shock. She's the sweetest, nicest Jewish mother. She's like, what in the fuck is this? So she leaves. She just goes out and sits in the car and Louie's like, all right, you're going to start off with rack pulls. I was like, how much weight, how many sets and reps? He was like, as heavy as possible. Go until it hurts too much. And I was like, okay, so I did that. And then he

was like, all right, glute ham raises. I was like, how many weight, how much weight, how many sets and reps? He was like, as heavy as possible until it hurts too much. Go. So he did that for two days straight, as heavy as possible until it hurts too much. So he did that for two days straight, as heavy as possible until it hurts too much. Just beat me into the ground. And at the end of the two days, he was like, I'll see you over the summer. So got an apartment in Ohio. And that's the only reason I stayed in school. Otherwise, I would have went to Israel and joined the IDF. But when I was at Westside, my buddy was like, dude, you should write about what you're doing. And I was like, I don't know how to fucking start a website. So my buddy bought the website for me, bought my domain name. He's transferred it all over to me. And he was like, just write, just like write about what you're doing. I was

like, cool. So like I wrote about what I was learning about like Louie's methodology, started making YouTube videos in my training a little bit, but not with the idea of making money. I didn't know you could do it. I didn't know money. I like, it was literally just to teach people and show people what I was doing. And, um, and that's how I started writing. And then over time, people started being like, can you do my programs? And I was like, yeah, I'll do it for free. Cause again, like I didn't know you could make money. And then I remember one time this woman, she lived in Brazil. She was like, how much do you charge for online coaching? And I was sitting in my college dorm room. I was like, uh, 300 bucks for 12 weeks. Just like made it up. She was like, cool. How do I pay you? I was like, uh, and I had, I found out about PayPal. So whatever.

So, uh, basically I was writing just a ton of content, at least one, if not more articles every week. And this is long form content. So's like 2 000 word articles like it takes time to research it come up with the content i remember those days long form and i didn't know it at the time but you know oh at the at the beginning i had maybe 20 views a day on my website maybe 10 of which were my mom four of which were me and like that was it and anytime someone commented an article i still do do this, my Instagram for the first 30 minutes, anyone who comments, I respond to every single post, every single comment. But anytime someone commented, I would freak out and I would reply, give them an in-depth answer. And it turned out that one of the people who commented on my articles in 2012 ended up becoming Gary Vaynerchuk's

coach four years later or three years later. And so – and he followed my work, and he remembered me replying to him. And when his contract with Gary was up, Gary was like, who's going to coach me next? And this kid, his name was Mike Vacanti. He's one of my best friends ever. He was like, I think I know a guy. And I was living in Israel at the time because after college I graduated, and I stayed in Boston for a little bit, but then I moved to Israel. And Gary's Jewish too, right? and uh all the G's stick together and so

and so uh was this the Conti guy Jewish no no not at all he's like super blonde hair blue eyes like Norse like very but uh basically Mike reached out to me he was like you know would you want to coach Gary and I freaked out and I flew from Tel Aviv to New York for 24 hours. I coached Gary, went back to Tel Aviv, waited for a month and they're like, yeah, we want you to coach him. So then I moved from Tel Aviv to New York and started coaching Gary. But basically the only reason I got the job with Gary is because of content that I made back in 2012. And one of the cool parts about that, the specific article that Mike commented on was one of my least popular least

shared articles it was a article about how to like improve your posture while sitting at your desk so rather than sitting down like being half kneeling or whatever like three different options and he asked a question i replied and one of my least popular least shared articles me replying to a comment on that is what led me to becoming gary vaynerchuk's coach like you never know what piece of content is going to change your life forever. You just never know. And a lot of people hear that and they think virality. It's not even virality.

You just don't know who you're going to meet. I say the same thing about just interactions with people. I'm like even if you're having a bad day, you have to present the best version of yourself. Always. Because that's how I got my gym. The gym got me these other opportunities and then even the podcast. It was just always people that I had known, and whenever an opportunity came up for something,

they're like, I know a perfect person for that. I even got a phone call from someone recently. They wanted me to be on Biggest Loser as a trainer on TV. And I was like, oh, shit, I would definitely do that. That's awesome. So they called me, and I gave them a video. I'm still waiting to hear back. That's awesome.

Right now, I have no idea if I'll get it or not, but I was like, wow, someone threw my name out there. It could have been someone that did one of my programs, however, no long ago, whatever. They just said one of the producers knew who I was. And that's it. That's awesome. It's one of those things where if you're in a bad mood and you're a dick to somebody, you never feel good about it.

Nope. Ever. You were never like, yeah, that was worth it. Sometimes that's the most influential person ever imagine you're addicted to gary v and you didn't know who gary v was well actually i was talking to him near the end of the three years because there's still people like my coach didn't know who he was i i told him a story i was like we had a mutual friend who basically i when i was just starting to get the business side of things i i hired a business coach because i was like, I want to understand this better.

And it turned out to be a terrible investment. It was very expensive. I feel like those people are terrible. And it was not good. And I was really upset about it because I spent a lot of money and – Thousands, right? Oh. And it was $6,000 total at a point when, for me, that was –

That was everything. That was everything. Yeah. And I was like – actually, I took that advice from the person who bought my website for me. He was like, you should do this because like that person is really big. And I was like, okay. So I emptied my bank account and I was super upset because like I got nothing from it. And I remember when it was all over, I had written an email to that person.

It was like a training module online? No, just like one-on-one business coaching. Like over the phone or like actually in person? Yeah, over the phone. Over the phone. Yeah. But it wasn't like over the course of – it did not get what I paid for at all. And by that, I mean guidance and discussion.

And I wasn't looking for a quick fix. I was just looking for a mentor, and I wasn't looking for a quick fix. I was just looking for a mentor and it wasn't, wasn't that. But anyway, I had written out this whole email being like, Hey, listen, I just want you to know I'm really disappointed in what happened and I never sent it. But that person knows Gary very well. And I told Gary that story and he's like, if you had sent that email and that person told me about it, you would not have coached me because Gary is so big on optimism and positivity. And like it doesn't mean don't voice issues that you're having, but it does mean like what's the point of something like that? Like what good is that ever going to do?

I've never done a negative post on anything ever. Ever. Like it doesn't help anyone and it doesn't help you at all. Not even if it's true. Nothing. Yeah. It's just and and he was like i'm really glad you didn't send that email because if i had found out about it i was like i

don't want that negativity in my life it's like what you're talking about earlier like if someone doesn't bring value to your life doesn't mean like they have to be famous or be rich but like bring positive optimistic value into your life give you energy in a good way what's why are they going to be in your life and he's like and that's one of the biggest, I think one of the best lessons I've learned from him as well as a lot of people view it as like a bad thing to be selfish in terms of like being, being decisive with who you allow to take up time and space and energy within your life. It's like, it's not a bad thing to remove people from your life or seriously moderate how much time you spend with them or how much interaction you have with them if they're not allowing you to be your best version of yourself. Yeah, for sure.

I'll be 33 next month. And when I was like 30 – once I hit 32 – fuck, I can't believe I'm saying that. It just seems like I'm so old but uh once I hit 32 I was like I just like this weird switch came on in my life where I started doing everything I wanted to do and anybody who wanted to be part of it or just be my friend or talk to me my own family like I have a big family like I instantly was like if you're not adding to my life in some way, you're not providing happiness or passion or just like a positive vibe for the day. Like if you're not doing – if you're not adding anything in, you're only taking away from me. Like why haven't we talked?

Why haven't this? Why haven't that? If there's like anything like that, you're done. 100%. And it was when I was 32 where I was like I stopped caring. I was like – you know when they say old people people just like they just don't give a fuck anymore. I know why. You know what I mean?

Like you get to a point where you start knowing more people. There's more things going on. Your family gets bigger. You know, some people call you because they want something or this happens or that happens. And eventually you're just like I got to do this for me now. Like I've grinded for a really long time. It's time to enjoy this. And like it's so interesting how I've gotten to a point i'm just like you cannot be my friend yeah you cannot be

my girlfriend like i remember like all of my girlfriends hit the one year mark and i'm like i've literally never made it past a year with any of them i find out at the year mark that they no longer can add to my life and i'm like you have to go and it's the same conversation every time i'm like hey i i really like you a lot i really like you a lot. I really love you a lot, but you have to go. And it's literally like that. It's like a meeting. I've dumped three of them in this office. Really?

Oh, my God. I'm like, hey, let's sit down. They know. And I fire them from my life. It's so interesting, though. I think a lot of people end up keeping people in their life not because that person adds value but because they're they're too nervous about possibly hurting someone's feelings and in the as a result they usually end up resenting that person

which is like that's your fault yeah it's like by you being able to say hey this isn't working for me you don't stay with them an extra six months year two years four years whatever and then resent them down the line it's like no it's like we're gonna end this on a good note if like for whatever that means and you know i recently about six months ago i i had a conversation with my mom like i there's no one i love more in this world than my mom she's like same she's the most important person to me in this world she's also very negative like and i noticed that like east coast like it's so interesting like my mom's looking a pack of cigarettes as a peak when when i was younger when i was living in israel when i was in college i

would talk to my mom every day on the phone. But in the more recent years, as she got older, I noticed every conversation was just complaining and complaining about stupid stuff, like ridiculous stuff. She doesn't have anybody else to talk to, though. And so basically I was like, I noticed the conversations were getting shorter and shorter and further and further between. So it was like it was now once a week for like 20 minutes.

And then her complaining would then get to like, why aren't we talking more? So it sort of, and it was because I wasn't taking responsibility and telling her why. So eventually I got her on the phone. I was like, I need to tell you what's going on and I want to talk to you more. But in order for us to talk more, I need you to be aware of what you're talking about because I don't want to hear you complain like I just don't I love you to death but I really don't want to hear about how fucking Janice is being obnoxious like I don't care yeah I don't even know Janice type stuff you know so it's like and we got in like there was a friction at first like a little bit of an argument being like fine if you don't want to talk to me but eventually like later like we hung up and she called me back she was like i thought about like thank you for being honest enough to

tell me that and i'll be more aware of it and ever since like we talked two or three times a week now and it's much more positive and like there's still struggles but like i think a lot of times people in their head just assume that someone should know what they're doing or that someone should know that they're being annoying or someone should know that like they're not adding your life but how the fuck are they supposed to know it's your responsibility to voice what you need me my mom we're like psychiatrists for each other like i'll call my mom when i'm having a problem that i don't like know who else to talk to about yeah and then she'll do the same thing for me that's amazing she'll be like well i have to talk about this fucking thing. Like, whatever, you know. My mom curses like a fucking sailor.

It's so funny. I had her on the podcast, actually, and it was just the funniest episode ever. People loved it. Oh, yeah. It's so good. I have to have her on again. I absolutely have to. And she's my biggest fan. I've told you, in total, there's eight of us.

Yep. Brothers and sisters. And my mom's Instagram profile says, i love following my son ryan and all of his amazing crossfit friends that's awesome what about the other seven yeah i know like there's other pictures of everybody on her wall but like it's just funny that she decides to write that and like you know it's like everything that i do including this podcast she'll probably listen to it that's all she first comment. She'll comment. She'll help me on my posts. She'll be like, you know, right. Well, you can go to this website and buy this and this and that. She'll respond to people. That's amazing. Yeah. It's

amazing. Her grammar is brutal. She'll say like, I know with N-O. You know what I mean? And like spell all sorts of stuff wrong. I mean, it's pretty bad. And she's even told me, she's like, you know, I wrote the Men's Health Magazine because you really should be on the cover of something like that, you know? And I'm like, mom,

I can only imagine what that message was like. Oh my God. That's super funny. Yeah. I can only imagine. I wrote the Men's Health Magazine. Or like I, you know, I wrote to some TV show

or some famous actress that you should marry. I mean, like, dude, it's unreal. My mom, she's always said like, I mean like, dude, it's unreal. My mom, she's always said like, you know, if you ever want me to like be your assistant or answer emails for you, I was like, mom,

I love you to death. Number one is I would never, never want you to do that from the perspective of like, I don't want you to feel like you have to, like I would rather just help you in any way I can. But like, I also know my, my,

my mom definitely, but moms can be very protective of their kids. And if she saw some of the emails or like they'd be like, who the fuck do you think you are talking to my – and I was like, no, because you're just going to get mad. My mom sees negative comments all the time. She's like, oh, blah, blah. I'm like, mom, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I actually, my, my assistant, basically she was originally a client, which was, it turned out to be the best because like she knew my systems, like she, she knew everything and

she's, she's incredible. But when she first started answering some like general question emails, like if someone was a little bit rude, she would be snappy back. Yeah. And, and it was because she was so loyal to me that she'd be like, how dare you? I was like, no, no, no. Like you have to be nice always. You cannot, like, ever, ever.

Just, it's not worth it. And you don't, and Gary is saying, this is one of the best things he's always said. He's like, two things. Doing the right thing is always the right thing. And then also, no one ever regretted being the bigger person. And that, for me, was like, that was a very transformative piece of advice. Like in a moment in which you could go after somebody, even if you're,

you deserve to, even if they did something super wrong, super whatever, you will not regret taking the higher ground ever. He's so good at those little one, one liners or like one minute. He's really sticky little pieces that like, for whatever reason,

like he'll just say it. He even says them and he's like, that was good. He'll be like, DRock, I want that clip. He's like, that was really good. And like you can see when he gets into it because he'll start going

and he'll look to make sure the camera's there as he's talking. And then at the end of it, he's like, did you get that? Did you get that? It's so funny. That is funny. So right now you're at the point point what exactly is your whole job title now

are you a would you call yourself a content creator is that is that pretty much i i paid the bills for you i i'm a coach first and foremost like i got my first personal training job when i was 14 um that's my passion like that's what i love and i think like taking three months off of working with gary like what are you concentrating on in those three months? I mean I have my own business and that's really – Most people don't. I don't know much about it. People don't know this.

This is the first time I'm ever going to say this publicly. Gary doesn't pay me. Really? He did for the first three years, but it wasn't like an outrageous salary. Yeah. It's more like – and for now that we have a new deal i was like i don't want this mentor for you i don't it's just it's a way better deal than what you paid for last time i yeah but also it's like it's worth it from the environment it's it's so crazy a lot of people

like oh i would give anything to be around gary and his environment and to be in that ecosystem but i don't think they would. It's like, okay, go work for him every single day, seven days a week for a year straight for free. Don't make any money from it. They're like, I can't do that. It's like, I can. I absolutely will. Because I know for a fact that I'm going to be better for it. I'm going to be happier for it.

Everyone in my life, everyone in that ecosystem is super positive, super encouraging, super friendly, really hardworking. You can't live in that environment without getting better. Sort of like with Westside, you can't go to Westside and not get stronger. If you're lifting at Westside, you're getting stronger. Great analogy. And sort of from – Dave Tate once said something really interesting where he was like – people would be like, oh, if I could come to Westside, I'd get so strong. He'd be like, do you think if you train at Westside, you'd get stronger than if you weren't training at Westside? And they'd be like, yeah, absolutely.

And he'd be like, then train like you're at fucking Westside. That's what he would always do. He's like, don't let this idea of training at Westside. He's like, if you think you'd get stronger at Westside than where you are right now, that means you're not training hard enough. And I was like, I love that analogy. But the reality is like your environment is super, super important. And so I really want to make clear because Gary is like a father to me. He didn't say I'm not paying you.

I was like, I don't want you to pay me. I made that choice where I was like, this is more valuable to me solely from the – like he doesn't push me on his social media. It's not like he's like go follow him, go follow him. That's not the deal. The deal is I can just hang out and be there and be in the ecosystem. Cause I know for a fact that when I'm in that community, when I'm in that environment, I'm more productive, I'm happier. I'm like learning. I'm it's I'm, uh, I feel more, this might sound odd, but I feel more valuable because I'm giving more value, if that makes sense.

The more that I'm helping other people, the more purpose I have. Like that makes me really happy. Yeah. So I mean – I mean Tony Robbins always talks about like – he's like you have no money if you have no purpose. It's like there's no amount of money that will make me feel better than what I get to do on this stage. You know what I mean? And I think that that's 100% accurate.

Like as I've made more money, like my life hasn't changed really that much. And I think a lot of people hear that. I spend a little bit more money on rent, but like the things that I want to do are the same. The people I want to hang around like are kind of the same. And it's just like if I didn't have that moment where I get to walk into my gym and see all my people and like do my thing, like it would just be totally, it would be totally weird. There's no amount of money I'd want to trade for my routine. I think a lot of people hear that and they don't believe it.

Like, oh, it's easy for you to say type thing. It's very easy to say. I'm like, if you like, just because that doesn't take away from how hard I'm working. And, and I think the, the saying, love what you do. You never work a day in your life. Bullshit. Yeah. Like I literally haven't slept the last two days because I'm fucking like work till my eyes bleed. And there are definitely times where I'm like, Oh fuck. Like I'm exhausted. I'm tired. But for me, I would 10 times out of 10 rather have a job that i love so much i'm willing to give up sleep than to have a job that i hate so much i can't wait to go to sleep it's like it's what like what kind of life do you want to live i hate sleeping it feels like you're wasting time

like such a waste yeah but then i'll wake up after like a five hour sleep and i'm like i'm dead i don't have enough to do anything yeah like i slept five-hour sleep and I'm like, I'm dead. I don't have enough energy to do anything. Like I slept five hours last night and I was like, fuck. Like I don't feel 100% today, but at the same time I'm like, I got three extra hours to do some cool shit. It's true. I think a lot of people talk about balance. That's a good tweet. Fuck eight hours of sleep. Yeah.

Dude, you got to take notes on all the tweets you got to make. For sure. Fuck eight hours of sleep. That on all the tweets you gotta make for sure just fuck it i would just that would go bonkers oh for sure that would go bonkers there'd be a lot of hate more hate than love probably on that there would definitely be a lot of hate on it but the people hating on it would be the ones who are getting a lot of sleep and almost feel guilty for getting so much sleep and not working hard that'd be the people the insecure people who are like well like are you saying that you shouldn't sleep that much you don't understand like i need that like i have a chronic illness okay like relax like dude i don't even like relaxing like i literally am the person everyone who sees on instagram like i am like

doing all the things i am like all over the place i am like super energetic and like amped all the time like i fucking love everything i get to do all the time and when i get like downtime i'm like ah should go ride my bike like this sucks you know what i mean dude i don't like it i've done a lot of podcasts i've done met a lot of people never in my life have i've ever been in this situation where you're like yeah let's come let's go out let's like we're gonna show you around town i love showing people around the town talk about we want to go like mountain biking we'll go mountain bike i was like dude what the fuck i thought we were just gonna talk for an hour like i've never had that happen but it's like you talk about it on the text messages you were like i was like dude what the fuck i thought we were just gonna talk for an hour like i've never had that happen but it's like you talk about it on the text messages you were like

i was uh i don't really have a lot of time but i was like i think he i think he has time he's just kind of nervous i 100 had time i i lied twice i lied twice i'll tell you where i lied i'll tell you where i lied and it's important for me to tell it because i'm i like everybody lies but like when it's for me i like I want to make sure that I get it out. I lied twice. The first one was when we were organizing the podcast. I was super excited about it. Yeah.

And you were like, are you ever in LA? And I was like, yeah, actually I'm planning on being in LA in the next couple of weeks. And you were like, when? And I gave a large range of dates because I wanted to like hope that you were here. So I think I said like somewhere between like August 5th and 12th or something. You're like, yeah, we could do it in there. I was not, I literally only said that. I left the CrossFit Games early to come here.

Did you really? Yep. That's, thank you, man. I appreciate that. So I wanted to say an extra like day or two because it was like an after party and then like everybody was there and I was like, and I even brought my, one of my assistants with me the night before. I was like, hey, do you want to go to the CrossFit Games?

Because I knew that he would want to go. Yeah, of course. It's like a dream for him. And he's like, yeah, when do we leave? And it was 11 o'clock at night, and I was like 6 o'clock in the morning. And he's like, fuck, yes, I want to go. Just buy it. I'm like, send me your ID.

I'll see you at the airport at 530. That's awesome. That's amazing. And then when we were there, it was definitely very evident that he wanted to stay and like do more stuff. And I was like, dude, I have to go and meet with this guy. And then yeah, and now we're here. Dude, I wish you told me, man. Oh, it was fine.

So I lied about having something to do in LA. Like I literally booked a ticket just so I could come here for this and leaving tonight. The other one was like, yeah, you want to go like mountain biking and shit? And I'm like, oh, I might not have that much time. It's like I hadn't even booked my ticket yet. I definitely had time, but it was one of those things where I was like, I don't know how to respond to this, so I'm going to go. I don't know how much time I'm going to have.

And now I wish I was like, yeah, let's go mountain biking because I was like, fuck, that would have been great. But I don't have anybody on my show that I would want to be friends with. You know what I mean? It makes sense, man. I look at people's grams. It's like a vetting system. Yeah.

Smart. It's the whole networking part of it, you know? And I want to just be like – when I go to New York, I want you to be like, dude, I got some cool shit we can do. 100%. And it's like payback. And it's not that I'm looking for that, but it's like, hey, when I go to New York, I want to have a good time. Yes. And I want someone to give me like all the things to do.

Yeah. We'll get a workout with Gary. For sure. I'll bring him for a workout. I'll surprise him. We won't even tell him that you're gonna come and he'll show up and because the cool thing about with gary he hates working out he despises it he will try every single day not to work out to get out of it i shouldn't say every single day if he hears this he won't listen to it but either way not every day i'd say 70 75 the time he's really going to try to weasel his way out. Like, oh, I need sleep.

Oh, my back. It's like – but he does work very hard once he gets in there. But the cool thing is if you bring someone in who's not usually there, he gets very competitive. Like very – so sometimes we'll strategically like bring his assistant in for the workout because like as soon as somebody else is in there, you can see he wants to win. He needs to be the alpha male. He wants to win in anything he does. It doesn't matter if it's like – if it's wiffle ball or working out or – like he just – he wants to win always. And he'll change the rules of the game depending – I'll never forget this.

One time – He'll change the rules. I like that. This is one of the this is one of them he he's he's outrageously smart and super perceptive i remember one time uh one of his employees came in to work out with us um basically because he needed to be able to speak with that person but had no time in the day so he was like come work out with me in the morning and we'll talk but it turned out that that person is outraged he does crossfit really strong like a fuck he walked in i had never met him before his quads were huge i was like oh this guy fucking lifts and gary i don't think realized that he

lifted and so he didn't want the he didn't want to lose gary was very confident he was going to win because like his technique is really good he actually is very strong but as soon as he realized like he lifted he changed the entire thing. He's like, you know what? I think we should do mobility today. And Gary's really flexible, like very flexible. He congenitally lacks. Like he's surprising how flexible he is.

Yeah. I think that's where a lot of his pain stemmed from, like being like not having a lot of stability and having much more mobility than he needed. And because he knew the other guy wasn't flexible. So he was like, we're going to do mobility today instead. and i was like okay i guess we're you're the coach you're doing mobility today and just so he could win just so he could be like oh like that's hard for you oh look at that like just because you wanted like the upper hand yeah i could see that for sure that's how anybody would want to be if you're a winner type of mentality whatever you need to do to win

that's for sure so what do you see see the future being like for yourself right now? Oh, wait a second. We actually didn't see – so you said you have your own business. Yeah. What does that entail? So it used to be a lot of – I heard you say you owned a gym at one point in Boston. Yeah, so I partnered up and I co-owned a gym with a guy in Boston.

That was right around the time that my online started to pick up and I wasn't sure it was still like, it was 2012, 2013, 2013. And like, I was really young. So I was like 22 or something. I was still like the idea of having an online business and online coaching business was, I mean, Instagram wasn wasn't even really – I don't even think Instagram was around that. It was like very early on in Instagram. Like online coaching was still – people were like, what? Like what do you do? Like what does that even mean? And so it was very scary, the idea of like fully depending on myself for like my online business.

So having a brick-and-mortar one seemed a little bit safer. But as my – Brick and mortar is just so – It's brutal. I don't even know what it is anymore. It's almost like you use it for marketing. Yeah. It's like a marketing expense for other stuff maybe.

It's definitely not – and you're talking about like expenses. When your business is online, your expenses are way less than if you have a brick and mortar. And not to mention, owning a business is always stressful, but you've got to buy the equipment, you've got to fix the equipment, the plumbing in the place if there's bad weather, people aren't coming in. That was one of the things at the gym in Boston. It was the worst snowstorms in years, since the 80s. And so there were several days where nobody would come in.

And then it was our first year in business, So it's like, of course we're going to refund you. Like we don't want to, you know, it's like, even though like that wasn't in the contract, like, yeah, we're going to like refund you. Like we're operating, like not doing so well, but we're doing it just because like, we want to make sure like you're getting good service. But either way, um, as I realized that online was very viable, I left the gym and I was just fully online. And then I actually broke up with my girlfriend at that time because just not working out. She had to go. Just had to go.

Had to go. Yeah, had to go. And I moved to Israel. I just moved to Israel. I lived there for a while and I had a place. Basically, I just had a place right on the beach and I would – Is it cheaper to live there? In some senses, yes.

I've heard of that place Tel Aviv or whatever. It's beautiful. Tel Aviv is like New York City if New York City had amazing weather constantly and it was on a beach. Wow. It's amazing. It's my favorite place in the world. I would say New York City is the best city in the world, period. And I can say that very confidently. New York City is the best city in the world. I would say New York City is the best city in the world, period. And I can say that very confidently.

New York City is the best city in the world. Tel Aviv and Israel in general for me is my home. It's a different feeling. You know home is always home, but it doesn't mean it's always where you want to be type of thing. I, right now in my business and life, I want to be in New York because that's where I'm doing what I love. when i go to israel that's where i can finally relax and take some time with family but uh so my business started off just one-on-one coaching because like i'm a coach first and

foremost always like i wasn't like trying to i wasn't trying to be like a big businessman or whatever so i just do one-on-one coaching but i realized over time that i started with that too there you you can only like this is an interesting part about the online world you start to realize that you can help so many people and i was like helping one person is a blessing it's an incredible thing helping a hundred thousand people is like that now you're changing the world like and on a on a larger scale i would say helping one person is changing making an actual impact like outrageous you're making an impact in someone's day and someone's life like when you have one-on-one but you're making an impact like on the world like i mean you're leading a fucking fossilized footprint there's

there's no matter if it's one person or a hundred thousand people there's always a ripple but the ripple from the hundred thousand is much is it tsunami. Yeah. It's just way bigger. And for me, I was like, I want to do that. So I started to switch more towards, uh, like my membership. I have like an inner circle membership, which is basically the, the issues with one-on-one. It was only able to help one person at a time and it's inherently more expensive. Right. And like, not everyone can afford that. Yeah. It's more expensive and it's more time expensive for you. Exactly. So I was like I would rather have a lower cost option for people to be able to afford great training, great nutrition, group community, and get all that rather than only cater to people who can pay $300, $400, $500 a month.

So that's really where i've been shifting over the last three years and it's been amazing uh and i love it literally what i just incorporated this past year because i started my membership in 2015 and basically like it was only it was every month you get new workouts new nutrition uh the private Facebook group, all that stuff. Those private Facebook groups are so fun. They're amazing. They're super supportive and we do live Q&As in there. I'm always like, oh, Facebook, but it's like they're worth just the groups.

It's incredible. Yeah. The support and the encouragement and like – I'm always encouraging people like to go on and share their insecurities and to put them out there in the open. It's another great thing that Gary taught me is like whatever you're insecure about, it's usually the thing that you try and hide the most. But the more you're able to actually like tell people about it, the less power it has over you. So a lot of times people will come in and they'll just say like the deepest, darkest insecurities that they've never voiced before. And you see complete change in that person. Like it's incredible but what i did this in july is every member of the inner circle had a free ticket to come to austin texas and i didn't buy their like plane tickets

but like i had a two and a half day retreat and i was like it's only open to inner circle members and if you're an inner circle member you come for free like and basically like you got to buy your flight everything but like you had to buy your flight and your hotels and like there were a couple prizes where we bought the flights or paid for the hotel rooms for a few people who were really engaging and like great members of the of the community um but a lot of people would charge several hundred dollars for something like this and i was like no 100 if your member come for free that's rad it was awesome and i want to do something like that we actually held it at the on it training facility in austin texas oh been there which was so amazing like they did an incredible job and so we're already planning for next year i just love the little like cafes

yeah yeah they have great drinks and everything is actually i'm not a big fan it was uh were you just in the main gym do you see the back gym i've seen all yeah yeah the back gym's like the fighting gym yeah yeah that's i like that one a lot i was like that's what i liked but uh it's a cool space but i wasn't i i mean i feel like they should have like state-of-the-art dope equipment everywhere it's like old shitty equipment i was i was expecting i was expecting more of a variety of equipment there yeah and not to take anything away from it because like i do think it was a tremendous facility and they treated me incredibly well and i don't want to speak poorly of them because they did an amazing job no i love anything about the place too i just i expected more yeah and it's like a huge

company yeah yeah yeah and there's like cable crossovers in there from like vietnam you know what i mean like it's not exactly it's true it's not all up to date yeah there's definitely an assault bike in there that's broken it doesn't work you know what i mean like i just didn't expect that from on it yeah yeah yeah but uh so yeah that's broken. It doesn't work. You know what I mean? I just didn't expect that from on it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, that's where I'm focused right now is that. But I'm also – I've been doing a lot more speaking, which has been really fun. I saw that on your profile, motivational speaking, right? I hate – just speaking.

Or did you just write speaking? I can't remember. I personally don't write motivational speaking. I hope no one wrote motivational speaking. What do you like to speak about? Several things. So my main passion with fitness is like the psychology of it and behavior change. I originally went to college to study exercise science.

Same. But I started coaching when I was 14. Like basically I was wrestling from 8 years old until end of high school. And I wrestled at 103 my freshman year. So I beat a junior out for the varsity spot, but I had to cut from 112 to 103 pounds every week, sometimes once or twice, maybe three times a week, just because that's how the competitions work. And I didn't know how to structure my nutrition. I didn't know how to train.

103, you must have looked sickly. It was awful. And I developed eating disorders. Like, it was awful. And a lot of wrestlers struggle with this and very few talk about it because like it's not manly and like it's like just you don't hear people talk about it and a lot of times they think it's normal like that's just what you do yeah and uh but as a freshman as like 13 year old going against 17 18 year olds technically i was a great wrestler endurance wise

i was a great wrestler uh but strength wise i, I was a great wrestler. But strength-wise, I sucked compared to these older kids. It's a big difference, like just from 13 to 17 or something. So I wanted to learn how to get stronger while being able to lose weight. So I applied to this gym a couple of times over for me. they said yes like they let me come in and intern and like i cleaned the mats and i did whatever but they were also very science-based like they introduced me to dan john and pavel sotslin and eric kressy and like at 13 14 years old i'm learning from like some of the greatest coaches of all time and i didn't spend too much time with the magazines or the bullshit stuff like they they mentored me from a very young age to understand great training. So that's how, that's how it all started. I don't even know how I, why I started telling that story, but basically like that's how like I got into the industry. Oh.

And then, so what I learned was everybody, like you could have the best program in the world. You get the best design program. You could fully understand the physiology, but if someone's not following it, they're not going to see any benefit. So when I went into exercise science and I, number one, the stuff they were teaching at my school, at least was awful. It was outdated by at least 20 to 40 years. I could tell the prep. It's not that I could tell. I asked, they had never coached anybody. It was all learned from a textbook that was really old.

And they weren't up to date on the research because they were tenured professors and they didn't give a shit anymore. And this isn't to say of all professors, but I would say eight out of ten of mine were like this. I had two amazing professors. But the majority of them, they just didn't care. And they weren't up to date. And any time I would ask them, well, look at this new research. Look at this. They were like, I don't want to hear it. And they would dismiss me.

So what I ended up doing was I switched from exercise science to behavioral health psychology, which the best way for me to describe it is if you go to 10 people who all want to lose weight and in one hand you have an apple and in another hand you a donut, and you say, which one will help you lose weight best? 10 out of 10 will say the apple. But if you go to those same 10 people and you say, hey, do you want this apple or donut? They're not all going to take the apple. Despite the knowledge of knowing what's best for them, they're not doing it. And why? And that's what interested me. So I knew I was passionate about strength training and strength and conditioning, and

I was interning at Westside Barbell and I was doing all this other stuff. Like I knew I was going to study that stuff no matter what. So I didn't need a degree in exercise science to tell me that I knew what I was doing. I was like I'd way rather learn the psychology and behavioral aspect of why people are making these decisions. Why are people who've never smoked a day in their life who know you will get lung cancer from smoking and there's a skull and crossbones on the box why are people going in yeah and buying these outrageously expensive fucking death sticks why it's very like i don't even i don't mean people who are already addicted i mean for the first time they're going to buy it why why do people know that like going on a walk

is going to be better but they don't do it why do people know that like eating a salad is going to be better but they don't do it standing versus sitting yeah exactly why do you think you talk about so basically that's what i was interested in i was interested in studying the psychology of it so that's where i think a lot of my content stands out to people is the it's more than just like, I do talk about the science and physiology, but more like practically what you can do. And a lot of the negative mindset loops we get in, in regard to like why we aren't doing what we want to do, like why coaches who say they want to build a big social media aren't fucking posting. So a lot of what I talk about is habit building,

but also being more consciously aware of what you're doing inside your brain and like being able to pull yourself out of out of like your own biased body and being able to look at it objectively to call yourself on your own bullshit it was sort of like that flexible dieting video that i made with that you really liked the message was listen flexible dieting is about like being able to enjoy foods that might not be considered healthy without guilt but that does not mean to eat a fuck ton of those foods as a majority of your diet and that it's like a lot of people are really upset and it's like oh i'm not making any progress with my diet but i'm flexible dieting it's like no you're not flexible dieting you're eating like

shit and you're upset that you're not making progress because you think that you're flexible dieting. It's like we have to be very honest with ourselves. You're not. I hate the whole diet fucking word in general. I think when you want to lose weight, you should say I'm in a caloric deficit. I mean – Because I don't give a fuck what you do. If you're in a caloric deficit, you're going to lose weight.

100%. I, if you want to trade, if you want to trade some fucking carbs out for some fat or you want to trade some carbs out or fat out for some carbs, or you want to eat zero grams of protein one day and just eat fucking sugar all day or whatever you want to do, let's just make sure that you're in a caloric deficit at the end of the day. I, I could not agree more with that by like, that is, this is fact. You can't argue with science. Yeah. Like fact a hundred percent. I, and now have you seen like the diet culture stuff cropping up on Instagram?

Yeah. Man, there's a lot of talk about like diet culture and like how like – They're good or bad. They're talking about how like the word diet is bad and people don't like that. I hate that mindset for a number of reasons. A lot of people will say you shouldn't say the word diet. Diet is bad. I'm like if someone told you they were scared of carbs and like they get triggered by the thought of eating carbs, would you say, you know what? Then just don't eat carbs.

Or would you say, no, we need to progressively get you to eat carbs so that you're not scared of it because you know it's not inherently bad for you. It's like if someone is scared of something, if someone is triggered by the word diet, instead of saying, well, then just don't say the word diet, you should get them to be able to say that word without having that emotional response. This is a big issue in society. There are larger repercussions and areas in which we see this in politics and everything. But when you – it's sort of like Harry Potter. If you watch Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself.

And if you just understand basic psychology, if someone's scared of something, if someone has a fear of it, no clinical psychologist worth their salt will ever tell you, oh, you know what? Just avoid it. You want to expose yourself to it until you don't have the emotional response. And it doesn't mean just throw yourself into it but slowly and surely over time. And that's one of my biggest issues with people right now in this community being like oh don't say the word diet you're not doing a diet listen if we look at what the word diet actually means it's just what you eat that's all it is yeah it's like what you habitually that's it nutritional regimen and a lot of people like no diet means that you're that you're like trying to lose weight and like in an

unhealthy way it's like really because people can go on a diet to gain weight people can go on a diet to help people ask all the time what's your diet yeah what do you eat that's it diet isn't a bad word yeah it's just and so for me i was like if you oh i'm not sure it's also when people say uh like i don't step on the scale because i i don't like what it says it's like oh so you avoid it because you don't like what it says and i do think there's a time and a place to there's a time and a place to maybe take time away from the scale but if your response to the scale is so emotional and so it gets you so upset that it like triggers you the answer is not to avoid it the answer is to step on the scale and understand why it's fluctuating understand that just because you

gain three pounds overnight does not mean you gain three pounds of fat. Like maybe you ate a lot of salt. Maybe you ate later than usual. Maybe you haven't pooped recently. Maybe it's your period, whatever it is. Like understanding the actual science and logic of it rather than being like, oh, well, you know what? It bothers you? Just don't stand on it.

Don't poop anymore if you don't like poop. What is wrong? And from like an even larger scale perspective, what this is doing is you're essentially – when people say – don't say the word diet. It's bad. What you're doing is you're trying to control society. You're trying to control other people, which is very dangerous from the perspective of I would rather have control of myself and my emotions and my actions rather than put the onus on other people to cater to my fears. It's like, I think one of the biggest things you can do as a coach is build resiliency within your clients to where other people, what their actions do, don't cause an emotional response with you. Or one of my favorite quotes from Gary is,

allowing your emotions to dictate your actions is the greatest sign of weakness. And if you're letting other people cause such an emotional action, such an emotional response within you that you can't control your action subsequently, that's a fucking problem with you, not with them. And so for me, it's like every, that's why personal responsibility is so huge. And that's sort of like, this is one thing I talk about with speaking is like understanding that you have control over everything. And it's easier to blame society or blame other people or put blame on other people.

But when you take responsibility – and Gary says this all the time. He's like, everything is your fault. And people get really mad when he says that. That guy David Meltzer said that on my podcast too. He's like, everything is your fault. And people get so mad. You get in a car accident, it's your fault. Your fault.

No, it wasn't. Yes, it was. In some form or way, it's your fault. Your fault. No, it wasn't. Yes, it was. In some form or way, it was your fault. And it's such a powerful thing happens when you blame yourself for everything because when you blame other people, you get angry and resentful because – You don't grow. Essentially, one of the reasons like politics gets so divisive is people get so fearful is because they feel like they don't have control. Like when you don't have control over something, you get anxiety. You get so fearful it's because they feel like they don't have control right like when you don't have control over something you get anxiety you get fearful of it so when you blame other people it's very easy to get really angry and and scared because like you don't have control

over what that person is doing but when everything is your fault even if like it's technically not we'll say like let's say the the car accident was not your fault and you're super fucking pissed at that person and all this other stuff. It's like is that doing you any good? It's like listen, you know what? My fault. Like whatever because now you can blame yourself for it and now you can take action to improve. Whatever – like to focus on what you need to focus on that day.

And it doesn't mean that like technically everything is your fault. But when you take the responsibility for everything, you actually benefit yourself and other people more because you're not spending your time being angry or upset or complaining or whining or blaming. You're just like, ah, it is what it is. Shitty situation. Now what? Yep. That's it. I like that.

So I speak a lot about that. But also like when I speak with just gen pop, like I'll go into like different offices and bless you, go into different offices and speak to people who know nothing about fitness and I'll talk about calorie deficits, understanding basic macronutrients. That's more of a small scale. And then also strength training. When I come in and talk about strength training, a lot of it is

powerlifting-based deadlifting and squatting specifically because that's my specialty. So you get up there and talk about mechanics and stuff like that's my specialty um and then so you get up there and talk about like mechanics and stuff like that some mechanics less like actual mathematics because like i'm terrible at math but more just like understanding your individual body like how it works and so for me one of my favorite things to do is just call people up like let's look at your deadlift and analyze it for everybody and just do that because as you know like everyone's different like what's great technique for one person might be shitty technique for someone else so and again i'd rather teach

people how to analyze the deadlift so they can take a video of themselves and get better themselves than me just say like hey this is what it should look like without really going into the nuance of it yeah because everybody's different everyone's different even coaching classes here it's like teaching somebody a movement it might be totally different just the way that you present it to that person. Something clicks with one coach that doesn't click with another. We have five coaches here, and someone's going to say, this is my favorite coach because they say it in this way. That's exactly right.

I remember right after I graduated college, I was working at a gym before I opened mine. I'll never forget this like to preface the story a lot of people say oh if you can't hit depth in a squat you can't deep enough maybe try widening your stance or like it's a lack of core stability or whatever it is and they'll usually throw out these blanket statements like that and it's not inherently wrong but like it's not covering all of the possibilities which you can't cover every possibility in every situation yeah but i'll never forget i remember i was coaching this this one this one girl she was a soccer player an incredible athlete like an unbelievable athlete but she could

not get below like a quarter squat and she was like shaking and she and we had manual therapists come in and we had all these people come in trying to and like no mobility issues no stability issues she was strong everything and i remember like i was like i'm gonna be able to get her squat hit depth and they're like you're not dude like we no one's been able to do it and i did i was like i just went up to her and i was like i pulled her to the corner so she was out of out of everyone's way and like not feeling like everyone was watching her because i could tell she was nervous i was like are you scared of falling over she She was like, I'm petrified. I was like, I just put a box underneath her.

So she squatted the box. It was perfect depth. I'm like, that's it. She was just scared. It had nothing to do with mobility, nothing to do with stability, nothing to do with stance width. It was she was scared in her head. And so much of this has to do with us being in our own head. And so, like, it's just one example of I would rather teach people teach people how to analyze things themselves than just say like do this.

It's the different – like give a man a fish versus teach a man a fish I think. Yep. I like that a lot. Actually, my nutrition challenge that I told you that I do right now, it teaches people how to do their own numbers and how to change everything. It's perfect. Because I want people to buy it one time and it's over. And I'm like – and everyone's like, well, yeah, you're losing a bunch of money though because you're not bringing them back for like another template or something i'm like i don't give a fuck i just want to make that impact and then and then i'm good doing the right thing is always the right thing if there's

a billion people on social media and everyone bought something for a dollar you know what i mean that's still more than enough money for anybody to live on oh my god there's like i don't know why people are worried about having people come back or making a product that sucks and it breaks and they have to buy another one. It's like, you don't have to do that. If your business is based on

not giving people what they need solely so that they keep coming back to you for more, your shit's fucked. Yeah. If you're concerned about there being a lack of people who want your stuff

and so you want people to stay on longer, even though you know it's not necessarily what's in their best interest. You're fucked. You're not doing the right thing. And the worst part about it is aside from not doing the right thing for them, you don't feel good in your gut. It doesn't feel good to do that ever. And it's so interesting. Intuitively, we know the right answer. I'll get this question all the time. It's, it's one of my most popular podcasts that I did my on my podcast. What I'll

do is I'll have my inner circle members. I only talk to inner circle members. It's not other people. And like they'll basically, it's an opportunity for them to tell me what they're struggling with. And a lot of coaches will listen to it because they hear how I speak with a client and break down their issues. But this one woman recently, she was like, how many rest days – like do you need to take rest days? And anytime someone asks me that, almost always what's going on is they're not taking rest days, not because they aren't sure if you should take them, but because they're scared that if they take a rest day, they're going to get fat or that they're going to lose progress or whatever it is. And if you take that person and you say, and I would say, let's say your friend asked you

that, like your best friend said, do you need to take rest days? Like I'm working out seven days a week. What would you tell them every single time? They're like, no, you need to take rest days to recover. It's like, then why aren't you taking your own fucking advice? Yeah. And it's breaking that down. And so it's like, it's what's very interesting is in our gut we almost always

know the right answer yeah and the more we can listen to that the better we're going to be able to help ourselves and other people that rest days thing is hard as i've gotten older and like had more of these businesses and stuff like that it's like i'll just have workout days that are like 30 minutes long 20 30 minutes long it's intense or whatever but it's like 20 30 minutes and i'm like you know what i just i can't count that as a workout day. So like before I know it, I'll work out like six days, you know, like no matter what, I'll always have at least one, but I used to work out like strong for five days a week and sometimes only even four. And nobody ever believed me. They're like, dude, there's no way you look like that. And you work

out that much. I'm like, dude, you need to recover. I promise you. Yeah. But now I'm like, you know, a victim of my own thing. I'm like working out six you need to recover. I promise you. Yeah. But now I'm like a victim of my own thing. I'm like working out six or seven days a week now if I don't get a great workout in. But I also feel – and there's a couple of things here. Like number one, more and more research is coming out about if you want to work out more often every day, that's fine. But you have to manage the intensity of it. Yeah. And that's where I think what you might even overlook is in terms of being able to be aware of what your body needs is a skill, like learning how to listen to your body. Oh, I know that I can't do something for time some days.

Exactly. I'm like, nope, I can't do it. Whereas other people, they look at the program, this is what it says. This is what I need to do. And you might look at the program and be like, fuck that. Like cybernetic periodization. You can listen to your body and change it based on what it needs. And if you're training more frequently, then you have to subsequently reduce the intensity that's what a

lot of what a lot of mma fighters do a lot and like i've been training at a donahue's gym in new york like literally the best jujitsu place in the world it's incredible like at any point in time there's like four or five ufc fighters in there like rolling with you at the same time i was literally rolling next to george st pierre other day. It was unbelievable. It was crazy. But a lot of them train seven days a week, three times a day, especially as they're training for a camp or for like a big, a big competition. But they never, ever go to a point where they're like anywhere near maximal effort. It's, it's almost like you're watching them do yoga with the other person. It's so low intensity, so meticulous and deliberate. Like they're not sweating they're not

trying to break the other person it's just like let's just practice and that's like they're just practicing they're not trying to compete and this is where some people they really screw themselves over with weightlifting they're testing their max strength every time they go in they're trying to hit a personal record in everything they want to beat this for time they want to beat this for weight and every time they go in they're trying to get better and better and better and maybe when you're a newbie like you can do that but it's not for long yeah and if you keep trying to do that not only will you burn out and possibly risk hurting yourself but you'll lose the fun of it or so i know so many people who they start working out and get really involved in it and

they love it because it's like this is so fun and i love to do it but then like if they don't hit a pr like they'll cry or like they'll like too much pressure on yourself it's like what you're doing this for fun this is supposed to be fun and you're freaking out you're like getting anxiety about the workout that you used to look forward to relax and that stress is actually making you in worse shape. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. You better have taken a rest day.

A hundred percent. Yeah. So that must be fun at least to travel around and get to talk about stuff like that that you like to do. So do you do similar speakings or are they all like kind of varied and you switch it up a lot just to kind of like brush up on stuff that you want to talk about and learn? I've never given the same speech twice because the vast majority of my speaking is Q&A. Okay. Like I love – like – So even when you get booked a speaking gig, it's Q&A?

A lot of it. Oh, I like that. Because – and like I was terrible in school. I had – I was diagnosed with learning disabilities like i almost failed out of high school almost failed out of college like i was not a good student partly because i just didn't pay attention but partly because like the way that i learned it wasn't it just it was not the way that the school system is structured and it's not the school system fault it's like realistically i wasn't paying attention but regardless i fucking

hated it and i hated sitting in a class just hearing the teacher just fucking go on and on and on about like what they already planned. And like if I asked a question like we're not going to talk about that. It's like why not? And so for me, I hate the idea of going up in front of a crowd or in front of five people, whatever it is, 300 people, five people, and just having a preplanned speech that like, maybe it's good information, but they might have a question that is way more pertinent to them. And I'd rather discuss them than have a preplanned speech that maybe they can take some, I would way rather talk to that person. So a lot of my speeches and discussions are literally just back and forth with different crowd members. Like, what's your problem? What what are you struggling with let's break it down let's figure it out like live and for me it's almost like a to show how truly

confident i am in my ability as a coach because anyone can memorize something but in the moment like if like this is what one of the things i do like a coach like you can say you know everything and then you get into a class and there's 30 people that needed i need your help and if you can't help all of them like in the blink of an eye, you're not good at what you do. A lot of people online can talk – like a lot of the Instagram stuff. Fake. They don't actually know strength training. They don't know periodization. They don't know programming.

People who actually – they don't even know anything about nutrition or training and they're just selling like their trainer's training. That's exactly right. Happens all the time. All the time. And so for me to be able to show that like in real time, I can answer your questions. I can like discuss all the nuances of it. It's really important. And I do this a lot more recently because as I have grown, people call me out and say like, oh, you're wrong. Oh, this is stupid, whatever.

And I'll always be like, let's get on my podcast and have a public debate about it. I would love to have a public discussion. You can record it for yours as well, and we'll just have a discussion so everyone can hear it. I've only had one person agree to that. And basically I put out this thing basically being like sugar doesn't make you fat, and fat burners don't actually burn fat. I said that, and this guy was like, you're wrong about both of those. I was like, let's have a discussion on my podcast. He was like, great.

Went on my podcast, had a great debate, and by the end of it he was like, you're wrong about both of those. I was like, let's have a discussion on my podcast. He was like, great. Went on my podcast, had a great debate, and by the end of it, he was like, you're absolutely right. And my goal isn't necessarily to get them to say that. My goal isn't to change their mind. My goal is that people listening can really understand the nuances of it and hear the debate. If someone isn't willing to have a discussion for other people to hear, odds are they're not really that confident in what they believe. Yeah, I think that's absolutely correct. Cool. So now you are going to go back to being Gary's trainer in like what, like another month? Uh, what's August 6th today. So on September 1, I start, I'm going back to, I'm going to Israel for two weeks to visit family, introduce them to my girlfriend for the first time. Is she going to travel with you?

Yeah, she's coming with me. Yep. She's never been. No, not to Israel, but when you travel with her. No, absolutely not. No, no, no. Because you're not going to be home at all. I am in hotels and planes more than my own apartment when I travel with Gary.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If he's in Hong Kong, I'm in Hong Kong. I mean, there is one, like, wherever he is, I am. And I remember one time specifically, like, there was one like wherever he is, I am. And I remember one time specifically, like this was one of the craziest, one of the craziest trips. We went from New York to Ireland. We were in, it was a red eye. So we land, Gary got two hours. He like, we get to the hotel. Gary went and got like two hours of sleep while DRock, his film guy and I were downstairs. It was like seven in the morning, but we were like, we're in Ireland. We got to get a Guinness. So we got a Guinness at like seven in the morning.

I coached Gary. We were in Ireland for a total of eight hours. Then he went to Germany for 16 hours. Then he went to Amsterdam. Then from Amsterdam, we went to New York for less than 24 hours, then flew to LA. We're in LA for less than 24 hours, flew back to New York. And that was like just one trip. then that it's basically just I was talking to Mike who's coaching him now out of the last 40 days he was gone 32 of them just like it's brutal yeah that's gnarly I wonder how your girlfriend's gonna feel about that well so we were long distance for a long time so she lived in Atlanta and I lived in New York and so anything's better than that she's very independent cool she lived in Atlanta and I lived in New York. So anything's better than that? She's very independent.

Cool. Which is, I'm just really lucky about that because I couldn't be with someone who's like really needy and like, where are you? What are you doing?

Like, who are you with? Like, not like that. So she's really good. So now we're at this point where you're doing speaking, your Instagram's grown,

your brand's growing. What do you think you're going to be putting most of your energy into these days or do you think that you're just going to keep doing what you're doing and just kind of be like Gary and see the younger kids and see what they're looking at? For right now, my main focus is YouTube. Like putting out at least two videos a week. Mainly because –

Long-form content. I love the long-form content. And then you shorten it and post it for everywhere else. Yep. And like have those small little funny clips for Instagram or whatever. But for me, again, in terms of total watch time, I'd way rather have 100 people watching me for 10 minutes than 1,000 people barely watching me for 30 seconds.

It's the whole, I'd rather have 100 people who would die for me than 10,000 people who are meh about me. Yeah, that's a good point. So where can everybody find all this stuff? YouTube Jordan Syatt. Instagram Syatt Fitness. Just S-Y-A-T-T Fitness. And you have a website too?

Website syattfitness.com. Just Google search Jordan Syatt. It'll come right up. Well, great, man. I'm pumped on this show. We learned a lot of stuff just now. Thank you, man. This was great. I we learned a lot of stuff just now thank you man this was great

I even learned a lot of stuff actually so I'm excited thank you man thank you again for coming on thank you for flying all the way across the fucking country just to do it

thank you for leaving the CrossFit Games early sorry for lying about it no no no I was like he's gonna think I'm a weirdo if I'm just coming out you guys don't even know

I took him all over we did all sorts of stuff already so alright until next time thank you man see you guys next week