transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Welcome back to The Jordan Syatt Podcast. Before we dive into this very exciting episode, make sure you listen the whole way through. I have a quick announcement. If you're watching the video, you can see I'm sitting with my buddy Mike Vacanti. Mike, you want to say hello? Hey, y'all. Mike and I are the hosts of the How to Become a Personal Trainer podcast, which is meant for personal trainers who want to become really good at what you do. So if you want to be a better coach, learn how to help your clients get better results in a sustainable way and also learn how to build your online coaching business. I'll put the link in the show notes for the How to Become a Personal Trainer podcast. Mike and I upload every single Tuesday, and it's 100% free. We hope you like it. And now let's get into today's podcast episode. Welcome back to The Jordan Syatt Podcast. Today, we are doing another Q&A, and I'm here with the one and only Mitch. What's up, Mitch?

Speaker 2:
[00:46] Hey, what's going on? Good to see you.

Speaker 1:
[00:47] Good to see you, brother. So just for context as to doing these Q&A's versus having a guest sitting across from me, I've been horribly bad about booking new guests. When we first started over a year ago, it's been over a year, but booked out a bunch of people ahead of time, and we still have some guests planned. But I will say, I think my biggest hurdle is I don't just want to platform anyone, especially just because they have a big audience. And the number of people in the industry that I'm really excited to bring on is, it's dwindled just because we've already had so many amazing people on, so I'm not about to just invite someone else because they have a big audience. The only way that I would invite someone on who I like vehemently disagree with is if they're willing to have an open debate, and a lot of people aren't. So if you have any suggestions for great coaches, great speakers with wonderful ideas that are based in science, and even if I disagree, it's fine. Just let me know who they are. You can either DM me. If you want to send them to Tony, we'll put Tony's Instagram in the show notes so that you can DM Tony because he goes through all of them anyway for the questions. But that's why we're doing a little bit more of these Q&As. Also, they're fun. We can answer your questions directly. But I'm just not going to bring anybody on just because they have a big audience. The goal of this is not to grow the podcast for the sake of growing a podcast. The goal is to help you. And I don't want to confuse you with bringing people on just because they have ridiculous ideas just because they have a big audience. So that is why we're doing a little bit more of these.

Speaker 2:
[02:24] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[02:24] Cool?

Speaker 2:
[02:25] I think that's pretty cool.

Speaker 1:
[02:26] Should they message you or should Tony? Because you're already super busy.

Speaker 2:
[02:30] Yeah, I think let's give Tony some more work.

Speaker 1:
[02:33] Okay, we'll give Tony more work. Tony's Instagram is in the show notes. If you want to DM him, hey, here's a list of great people that you haven't brought on. So yeah, that's it. So we're going to do a Q&A. I put up a Q&A box after I was accused of being Mossad yesterday, which was amazing. It was sort of like probably the highlight of the year.

Speaker 2:
[02:52] You're getting that Israel money, right? Is it one of those things where you get like $100 every time you say the word Israel? Is that how it works?

Speaker 1:
[02:59] People, the claim is that anyone who's talking about Israel in a potentially positive light is getting $7,000 proposed.

Speaker 2:
[03:08] Wow.

Speaker 1:
[03:08] That's what the claim is. But so I'm not, unfortunately.

Speaker 2:
[03:12] I wish I could, if it were like Burger King, I would so do it.

Speaker 1:
[03:15] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[03:16] You know, because Burger King is great. That Impossible Whopper Burger King.

Speaker 1:
[03:20] That's coming from a vegan.

Speaker 2:
[03:21] I just made like $7,000. $7,000. Do you imagine?

Speaker 1:
[03:25] That'd be great. So first question, this is from Anna Claire S. Z. She said, your method of calculating calories definitely gives me way more calories per day than other sources. What are your thoughts? Really good question. It's without question, it's true. My method of calculating a calorie deficit for fat loss will give you more calories than the vast majority of other methods. Why is that? It's very deliberate. When we look at the vast majority of other methods, usually their goal is to get you to lose weight as fast as possible. And why is that? Well, typically, it's because when you lose weight super fast, you create a lot of buy-in. Like, you believe it, you trust it, this is what works. But inevitably, almost every single time, not every single time, but almost, when people lose weight super, super, super fast on very low calories, they end up gaining it all back and more. And this is the yo-yo dieting cycle that we see happen time and time and time and time again. My goal is not to get you to lose weight as fast as possible. My goal is to get you to lose weight as sustainably and as enjoyably as possible. Which essentially boils down to losing weight more slowly while eating more calories. My goal is not to get you to eat as little as possible so you lose weight as fast as possible. My goal is to get you to eat as much as possible so you can lose weight as enjoyably and sustainably as possible. Now, inevitably, a lot of people struggle with this because in their mind, they think that they need to be losing one pound at least every single week, two pounds every single week. And often, when they start a calorie deficit, they might lose one, two, three pounds in that first week, but then it slows down. And then in their mind, they think, oh, it's not working anymore. That's not the case. Just because your weight loss slows down does not mean it's not working. Just because your weight spikes up on a given day or for a few days does not mean it's not working. That's why when I look at weight loss, I track your data on a month-to-month basis. So today is what? Today is April 1st. New Inner Circle workouts go live today, April 1st. On the 1st of every month, new workouts. In the Inner Circle app, for example, we're not having you compare April 1st to April 2nd. You're not comparing April 2nd to April 3rd. You're not comparing April 1st to April 7th. You compare month to month. So your weight on April 1st, you compare to your weight on May 1st. Your weight on April 2nd, you compare to your weight on May 2nd. This does a couple of things. Number one is it allows you to view the average weight loss on a month to month basis. So a lot of people talk about an average of one pound a week. Okay, so if we're looking at that on a month to month basis, then on a monthly basis, that would be an average of about four pounds per month. I typically say an average of half a pound to one pound a week. So at the end of a month, that would be an average of two to four pounds. So it immediately broadens the scope of the view with which you're looking at this, which is great because it gives you a more realistic perspective of your progress. It also forces you to stay consistent for longer periods of time. If you're only looking at it from a day-to-day perspective, let's say April 1st to April 2nd, now you're looking at your progress on a day-to-day, maybe the scale spiked up all of a sudden, oh, I threw in the fucking towel, I'm done, I quit, didn't work. But if you know you're not allowed to compare until month to month, great, now you have a full month where you're more likely to be more consistent, which shockingly will lead to better results. So yes, my calorie calculator, my calorie calculation method absolutely gives you more calories, which leads to slower, albeit more sustainable and more enjoyable weight loss over time. So if you want my calorie calculator, it's 100% free, we'll put the link in the show notes. It will tell you exactly how many calories and how much protein to have. I might redo it because since then, my protein requirements have been updated. And so I do want to change that. It's actually lower than what I put in that calculation. And also, I would want to include fiber recommendations as well. So I might, maybe we'll redo this video, Mitch.

Speaker 2:
[07:44] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[07:45] But yeah, so, but the calorie calculation, and even the protein is really good, but just know it's a little bit higher than you need. The minimum in that video is actually, it's higher than what I recommend now. So it's just a little bit, so take that to mean you don't need to be eating as much protein as I have in that video. I think I made that in 2018 or... It's been a while since that video, so we can redo that one.

Speaker 2:
[08:06] It's been around the block.

Speaker 1:
[08:06] Yeah. That's it. Anything you want to add to that, Mitch?

Speaker 2:
[08:10] Yeah, I think one thing I really... So shameless plug for the Inner Circle app. One thing that I really liked when I was losing weight with it was that you have the tracker day in, day out, where you... I mean, it made it really easy to just put in your weight each day, and then you could see the trend over time. And I really like, in the app, how when you put your weight in, it'll have a little voice memo from either you or Susan just being like, hey, you gained a little bit, it's okay, just keep at it. And just having that encouragement when you're weighing yourself at 6 in the morning really helps to be like, okay, it's not a big deal. And I think having that tracking over time really takes the pressure off day to day of being like, oh, I'm fat today.

Speaker 1:
[08:56] Yeah, it's the voice memos were something I was really excited about because when I was doing a lot of one-on-one coaching, there are many ways to do one-on-one coaching. The two main methods are either you check in weekly with your clients, like they'll check in weekly with you, or check in daily. And I would always do daily check ins because I very quickly found out that if it's only a once a week check in, then it gives them a lot of time to sort of be on their own and to get in their own head, especially early on, whereas with daily check ins, I could give them some motivation, some feelings of comfort, knowledge. Hey, listen, your weight spiked up. It's not a big deal. Keep going. So literally just took all of those notes and put it into the app. And while creating your own app has been wildly expensive to the tune of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, I actually think it's worth it because we can do literally anything we want. It's not a white labeled app, so we can put these voice memos in and make it very behavior focused. And even with like the... When you're looking at the weight chart, if you try and look at your weight trend before you've tracked for 30 days, a pop-up will say like, you have to wait before you see your actual trend. Just because some people will be like, three days in, I want to see the trend. It's like it's only been three fucking days. So it lets them know you've got to go for at least a month before you can really see your trend over time.

Speaker 2:
[10:19] Yeah, and I think it's helpful in that you're doing something every day, you're logging every day, but you're not feeling the pressure of like, I'm not going to like what I see.

Speaker 1:
[10:29] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[10:30] Because you're just getting data.

Speaker 1:
[10:33] Yes, it's exactly right, dude. That's it.

Speaker 2:
[10:35] And then the other thing I'll say is just a note on the voice memos that you guys do. I think for a lot of people when they're in a dieting phase, they don't necessarily have a lot of support from friends, family, especially co-workers. They're like, oh, he's not eating the cookies today. And so having some kind of somebody saying something positive to you starting in the morning really helps if they're going to the office, and they're like, oh, hey, here's this guy trying to lose weight again. You know, it's like it's nice having something positive.

Speaker 1:
[11:03] I love that. Thank you for saying that. I think it's a really important point.

Speaker 2:
[11:06] Yep.

Speaker 1:
[11:07] All right, let's go. Next question. I thought this was interesting. So this is from Becca Irvin. She said, in-person trainers, why do their clients never look different or form is not corrected, etc.? This is interesting. So I have a lot to say on the topic. I will first say it's obviously not all in-person trainers, and it's not like never. There are, listen, I started my career for in-person training, and I consider myself a very good in-person trainer. And I know many wonderful, phenomenal, expert in-person trainers with extraordinary results with their clients. So we can't just blanket statement. It's never and always. With that being said, one of the things I've noticed from doing both a long time of in-person coaching and a long time of online coaching, there are unique benefits to online that you don't get with in-person. And with in-person coaching, if you're lucky as a coach, you get four hours a week, and that's very rare. Like, super rare. A teeny tiny percentage of your clients will show up for four hours a week. The vast majority may be one or two hours a week. Some three hours a week. But again, the vast majority of your clients, you see them one or two hours a week, and that's it. And you're only doing exercise. You might talk about nutrition. You might have discussions around it. But when you're purely an in-person coach, you just see them for that hour, and then they're out, and you can tell them what to do, but sort of they're left to their own devices. With online coaching, especially doing what I was just mentioning before, those like daily check-ins, you are having way more contact points with your client throughout the week, at least once a day, and oftentimes multiple times a day throughout the week. And so there were times they would email me, like, hey, I'm really struggling. My weight spiked up. I feel like I'm a failure. Cool, let's talk about it. Then later that day, hey, I'm going out to dinner. I'm not really sure what I should be doing. Do you have any advice? Yeah, sure, let's talk about it. And this is unheard of in an in-person coaching setting. And so if we're talking about changing someone's physique, obviously, yes, you might have the training covered, but the nutrition isn't. And that is at the very least equally, if not more important, in terms of physique development and training, how your body looks. So I think online coaching has an edge when it comes to nutrition and behavior change. What I will say is, from like the form and technique perspective, in-person coaching has the edge. It's not even close. In-person coaching, you have a way stronger ability, a way more effective ability to get your hands on the client, show them in person, correct what they're doing right there. It's just not even close. That doesn't mean every coach does a good job of it. It doesn't mean every coach is great at fixing someone's technique. It doesn't mean every coach really even cares about it or even necessarily knows about it. But for the coaches who do care, and there are a lot of us, the coaches who do care, who do educate themselves, who do want to learn, that it is way easier to get someone to change their technique in person than it is online. With that being said, I've been around the industry long enough to know, I'll go to a public gym and I'll see a client, someone's client doing a workout and the coach is on their phone and texting, or the coach is just sitting there, sitting down on a box, arms crossed, talking to their client as they go through pretty shitty technique and just not saying anything. And then we have to look at sort of the behavior of this, which is one of the issues or the struggles coaches have is, often early on in the coaching relationship, it's a much more coach-client relationship. But the more you work with them, it's easy to fall into the more friendship. And so then I've noticed coaches almost being worried to correct their client because they're like a friend at that point. So sometimes they'll be like, as long as you're not hurting yourself, whatever. Which is sort of, I want to say dangerous. It's not dangerous, but it's a sticky place to be in as a coach. Because even if you view them as a friend, I think it's your job to make it clear from the beginning of every session, hey, I know we're friends, now I'm your coach. Let's get to work. Just make that perspective shift right at the beginning, because oftentimes when you're just friendship, friendship, friendship, you might feel awkward correcting them, which is not good. It's your responsibility to correct them. So again, it's not an always blanket statement, never see any results, but nutrition-wise, online coaching has the edge, in-person coaching does have the edge for actual correcting mistakes and technique.

Speaker 2:
[15:53] Yeah, I've got a couple notes on this. Two things, and these are coming from the, it might not be any of your business point of view, is certainly there are trainers that aren't being good trainers, they're not correcting people on form. But one I would say, you never know someone's medical history. Someone might be working with either a previous injury or some sort of health issue, and they're having to work around to do that. And then the other thing I would say is, there are some exercises that look, no matter what, like they're bad form, if you think it's a different exercise. And so you might see somebody doing one exercise, thinking that they're trying to engage a certain thing. It may be, the purpose of it may be for something completely different, and you never know, and also it's none of your business.

Speaker 1:
[16:50] Dude, well said. That was a way better answer.

Speaker 2:
[16:55] Hot takes.

Speaker 1:
[16:55] That was a way. I love that.

Speaker 2:
[16:58] Sorry, Becca.

Speaker 1:
[17:02] OK, this one is from Crystal. She said, is it better to schedule deloads or to auto-regulate? I love this question. Let's first define what a deload is and then define what auto-regulation is. So a deload is essentially a planned period of your training in which you reduce the volume and or the intensity. In other words, you're just taking it easier, right? So it's a planned period in your training. Usually you plan it in advance, and you say, during this period of time in my training program, I'm going to go lighter, I'm not going to go as hard. And this is often done because people say that because if you train really hard for a really long period of time, then you're going to burn out, you're going to get injured, whatever. So you need to have these planned deloads. Autoregulation, however, is essentially a simple way to say is you're just listening to your body. If you're feeling tired, take it easier. If you're feeling great, like you can crush it, then go hard in the gym. I think they both have a time and a place. I lean towards autoregulation. That's like what my typical recommendation is. But there's also a time and a place for deloading. I'm going to talk about that right now, or plan deloads. And again, this is for fewer people. I typically find having a plan deload, the best population is an elite athlete. Because when you're looking at an elite athlete, very rarely are they missing training sessions. This is their job. This is what they do. They also go wildly intense in the gym. And that doesn't mean they're going crazy doing stupid shit. It means that when they're in the gym, this is their job. This is what they're getting paid money for. This is how they get sponsorships. This is their career. The intensity they bring to the gym is unlike the vast majority of everyday people. And so when you're working with a professional athlete, an Olympic athlete, their training periodization, their organization of training is planned out often months, sometimes even years in advance. If you're working with Olympic athletes, oftentimes they work backwards from the next Olympics. And that's how they plan their training, and they plan peaks, and they plan deloads, especially because it's not just Olympics. They have world championships, they have trials, they have all these different things. So their training organization is pretty fucking intense. If you want a great book on this, Periodization of Training for Sports by Tudor Bampa, amazing, amazing, amazing book, if you're interested in the science nerdy side of this stuff. I read that book when I was probably 21 or 22 for the first time, and I've used it a handful of times with very high level athletes, but the vast majority of my clients are regular everyday people, so I don't need it. But if you're interested in the nerdy side, highly recommend it, really cool. That's who planned deloads are best for. The other person who this would be really good for, and this is mainly talking to coaches, but potentially some people who are listing just the everyday person, is for the person who sort of trains like an elite athlete, but they're not. These people are fucking out of their minds in the best way possible. They train insanely hard. They're not an elite athlete. They're not a professional athlete. They're your everyday person. They've got regular jobs, regular lives, but they also have just something in their brain where they're like, I'm going to train like a fucking maniac. And for these people who feel like they need to go as hard as possible every single time, they never miss a workout, and they're just going, going, going. For these people, it's worthwhile to be like, yeah, we're going to have a planned deload every so often. Very rare. These people are not usual. They're not common. The person that comes to my mind is David Goggins.

Speaker 2:
[20:58] His rest day is a marathon.

Speaker 1:
[21:00] Which is crazy. And by the way, I mean, he's very open about his injuries. He's taken pictures of his feet that are just mutilated. He's got bone on bone in his knees. I would love to have David Goggins on the podcast. I don't really know much about him other than he just is like, stay hard. Like he's super intense.

Speaker 2:
[21:16] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[21:17] That'd be just a fun conversation.

Speaker 2:
[21:18] That'd be great.

Speaker 1:
[21:19] I highly doubt I'd be able to get him on.

Speaker 2:
[21:20] But like you guys can go for a jog together afterwards.

Speaker 1:
[21:22] Yeah, right, dude. That guy is, he's on another level. But people that you associate like with that David Goggins mentality and not just the mentality, but they don't just talk about it. They live it. It's just they're built different. They make sense to have planned deloads.

Speaker 2:
[21:38] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[21:38] The vast majority of people are not that. They're just, they're not, including me. I am not that. I don't do planned deloads because I don't train hard enough at this point in my life. I don't train consistently enough at this point in my life to be doing planned deloads. When I was an elite level power lifter, absolutely I had planned deloads. Yes, I did. And especially I would use them leading up to powerlifting competitions. I didn't miss a workout for five years at one point because powerlifting was my main thing. Now I auto-regulate. Now it's much more just like, let's see how I feel and then we'll go. The one thing that's non-negotiable is I'm going to workout. And by workout, I mean I'm going to step foot in the gym. I'm going to do something for my body. I'm going to do something for my mind. I'm going to do something for my soul. I'm going to do something, but I'm going to regulate it based on how I feel. Not necessarily based on what I've arbitrarily decided I'm supposed to do. It's not necessarily going to be like, well, last week I lifted this much, so this week I have to at least lift that if not more. That's not how it works. It's I'm going to get in there, and if I feel great, I'm going to push it. If I don't feel great, then I'll take my foot off the gas a little bit. And that's more an auto-regulation approach. One thing I don't like about planned deloads for the average everyday person, and typically what we see is a planned deload once every four weeks, once every six weeks, something like that, is if you have a planned deload and you go into the gym and you feel fucking great, like you just feel incredible, but your program tells you you have to go light, that sucks. I don't see any reason for that. If you feel great, you feel ready to crush it, and you're ready to go, you've had your caffeine, and like I'm going to hit a PR today, but your program says you have to lift 60%. It's like, well, that sucks. I'd rather go hard today. On the other hand, let's say you don't have a plan D load, and you feel like garbage, and your program says you're supposed to be hitting PRs today, but super stressful day at work, didn't get much sleep, you just feel like garbage, whatever. Well, now you're going to feel even more like shit because you're pushing yourself when for whatever reason you have all these other inputs coming in. I can't hit a PR today. I can't go super hard today. Maybe I'm time constrained today. I can't get it all in. So that's why I don't like having this super planned structure for the average everyday person. I would much rather you go just more based on how you feel. Now, the way that we do this in The Inner Circle, I sort of use like a Mossad mind trick here. Oh yeah, it's special. So basically, I don't do planned deloads. I talk about auto regulation. I talk about going by how you feel, but we do a new program every four weeks or every month. On the first of every month, today is April 1st, so the new programs are dropping today. On the first of every month, we put out three new programs. We have a four times a week, a three times a week, and a two times a week option, which by the way, I've been really excited because the two times a week have been getting so much love. For years, I didn't put the two times a week in because I was like, I just don't know if people are going to be doing this. The number of people who are like, I've switched to the two times a week, it's way more doable with my schedule. It's like, I wish I did it way earlier.

Speaker 2:
[24:44] Yeah, people are busy, man.

Speaker 1:
[24:45] Yeah, people are busy. So to have that option is just wonderful. But when you have a new program every month, every time you start a new program, number one, you're going to be more sore for that first week. The first week of that new program, your soreness is going to be the highest. And also, it's new skills, new movements, new techniques. So the first week of the new program, I say just don't go as hard as you possibly can. Just take it a little bit lighter this week. You're learning the new movements. You're going to be really sore anyway. So let's mitigate the soreness a little bit, and let's just learn the program, learn the new movements, learn the new techniques, take a little bit of a lighter week this week, and then week two, week three, week four, try and go much, much harder. This is sort of like a built-in D-load for Inner Circle members, in that the first week, they're automatically going lighter. If they feel great and they want to go heavier on a move, like let's say I have a Sumo deadlift in there, they already know how to do that, and they feel great, yeah, go heavy, that's fine. But the overall volume, the overall intensity will inherently be lighter because you're starting a new program, and you're not going to be maxing out on every single lift. So this is, it's a little bit of both, both auto regulation and a planned deload. Some people will put their planned deloads at the end of a program, so they go week one hard, week two hard, week three hard, week four deload. I don't like that method because the first week you're learning anyway, so you can't really go that hard to begin with. So I like having the first week be almost like this built in deload of you're going lighter anyway, and then week two, week three, week four, that's when you really ramp it up.

Speaker 2:
[26:14] You have a question on that just generally as a coach, because there are different people when it comes to psychology, where there are the people that go 100% until they burn out.

Speaker 1:
[26:25] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[26:25] And then there are the other people that can wake up and go, oh, today I want to push a little harder. Oh, today I don't feel very good. What would you say for those people that tend to, because I'm one of those people that it's like, I'm going to do everything exactly how I planned until one day I crash, and then it's like, I'm out for three months. As far as either not a de-load or lowering your volume, lowering kind of what you're doing, what do you recommend for people that deal with that all-or-nothing mindset?

Speaker 1:
[26:56] So from a mindset perspective, like how do we shift that?

Speaker 2:
[26:59] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[27:01] Man, I wish there was just one sentence or one phrase that I could say that would just, let's shift this.

Speaker 2:
[27:06] Don't tell me that. Solve this for me.

Speaker 1:
[27:08] Solve this problem immediately.

Speaker 2:
[27:09] Solve this for me, Jordan.

Speaker 1:
[27:11] From my perspective as a coach, the question I'll ask is, how's that working for you?

Speaker 2:
[27:17] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[27:18] It's sort of like when people say, well, in the past, I've only been able to lose weight on 800 calories a day. How's that working for you? Because you've been doing this for 20 years and you've been yo-yoing back and forth. For the person who's going hard, hard, hard until they crash and then they take three months off, how's that going? Are you as consistent as you want to be? Are you happy with your progress? No. Cool. So what change do we need to make? Maybe you need to take it a little bit easier. And it's like the only person who can make this change is you, but it's sort of, instead of me just saying, well, just stop, the question of how's that working, now you can say, all right, let's be realistic. Even if I go, but it's not to plan, that's better than not going at all. I don't know if that makes sense. It often doesn't help. It often, some people will just keep doing their own thing, but sometimes it does help. And my goal is just like, let's just put this little Mossad landmine right in your brain, just so that eventually one day it'll explode and be like, oh.

Speaker 2:
[28:19] Very violent coaching technique.

Speaker 1:
[28:23] It's just what we got to do. So there's no definitive quick fix to this, but you have to be aware of it. And then you have to say, well, what's the alternative? Either I keep doing what I'm doing and I keep not being happy with my results, or I change it and at least I'm more consistent.

Speaker 2:
[28:39] That makes sense, yeah. Because in terms of the question, when it comes to deloads versus auto-regulating, there's the side of, you know, the technical side of, if you do this, then it'll be beneficial. If you do this, it'll be beneficial. But then there's the psychology aspect to it. Some people might do better on one or the other or a different type of program.

Speaker 1:
[29:00] Yes. So speaking of psychology, I'm excited for this next question. I thought this was a really interesting one, and it's going to go into psychology, behavior change. OK, so Stephanie said, If you were in charge, what policies would you put in place for preventative health care? I love this question. And I think I'm going to give an answer that is probably different than what most people would say first. And it's based around behavior change, psychology, what people really are willing to change their behavior for. The one thing I'm going to change is, she said, if you were in charge, and oftentimes people say, well, if you were president, but we have so many checks and balances, and we've seen so many times, like, I'm going to change in charge to if you were a dictator. If you were a dictator, what policies would you put in place for preventative health care? The first thing that I'm going to focus on, and before I even say it, I'm going to ask Mitch. Mitch, in terms of, let's look at fitness marketing, okay? What do you think? I don't expect you to have the answer. If you do, it's going to be wild. What do you think is the most effective and most profitable way for a fitness marketer or a fitness coach to market their program?

Speaker 2:
[30:20] That's a really tough question.

Speaker 1:
[30:22] It's almost like too broad, so if you get it, I'll be shocked, but it's...

Speaker 2:
[30:26] It just makes me think of 8-minute abs.

Speaker 1:
[30:27] 8-minute abs, yeah. So the way that I'm... I probably phrased it poorly, but when we're looking at how can a fitness coach, someone who runs a fitness business, how can they make the most money selling their program, in my opinion, and I've seen this and I've done it, challenges.

Speaker 2:
[30:47] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[30:48] We're going to do this 30-day challenge. We're going to do this 21-day challenge. And at the end of the challenge, someone gets money.

Speaker 2:
[30:57] That sounds good. I'm ready to sign up.

Speaker 1:
[30:58] I'm ready.

Speaker 2:
[30:59] Where do I sign up?

Speaker 1:
[30:59] 30 days, money, great. I'm in. 21 days, I'm in. 12-week challenge, I'm in. And the winner gets $10,000, $5,000, whatever it is. You have first place, second place, third place. This is, bar none, the most effective way for a fitness coach to make money selling their program because you have an incentive. And keep in mind, the incentive isn't even just the results. The incentive is the money. People are incentivized by money, like it or not. They are. It's the truth. And there's nothing wrong with that. So if we know, if it's without question, that the most effective way for fitness marketers to sell their coaching is through an incentive-based challenge, my brain goes to every president, Republican, Democrat, to every congressman and woman, to every single—why the fuck aren't we providing insane incentives for preventative health care? That is my first—it's going to be— I'm going to sound like Trump. They're going to be the biggest. They're going to be very big. They're going to be—no one's ever seen them before. I would have the biggest fucking incentives to get people to move, to exercise. It's—and I know the—somewhat like— and we could talk about it, but yes, having more walkable cities, having more safe communities, yes, and these are the talking points everyone uses, and they're important. But I want incentives. And so then, all right, what are the incentives? Obviously, I think something like tax breaks for— if you can prove that you've done— you got 150 minutes of low-intensity cardio in, whatever. If you're getting a couple strength training sessions in a week, if we can have systems to prove this, great, which I think are very doable, even subsidizing something like, whether it's like fitness watches or even just tracking steps on your phone, subsidizing these things so that, cool, we can upload it into whatever, which I understand this is providing a whole host of other issues, all the health data that the governments have. I get it. I'm the dictator. This is what I'm fucking doing. You can— and you can opt out of it. You don't have to do it. But if you want it, you get it, and then you get money. And I think the first thought goes to tax breaks, but I don't even think that's enough. I don't think that's emotional enough. I think people are going to be far more motivated by like, here's a check. It's not that we're taking less money from you. It's that we're giving you this money. And one thing that I was thinking about during COVID, when these stimulus checks were coming out, I was like, okay, so you guys can do this. You can send fucking money. So let's do this for health. Let's get people incentivized to walk more. And by the way, and I'm all over the place. I know I'm like, I get super excited about this.

Speaker 2:
[33:55] Very pie in the sky, but it's great.

Speaker 1:
[33:57] Bro. So, and I get there are so many issues that I'm just completely glossing over. I'm like a second grader running for class president. Like everyone gets free cookies. Everyone, free, I get it. I get it. But I'm so passionate about this and I get really excited. The prizes should start immediately, day one, right? So here's what it could look like, just as off the top of my head. Day one, you upload your steps. You get a notification like, hey, that's, I don't know, whatever, five bucks towards your monthly total. You just earned five dollars at the end of the month. We're going to be sending to you. So like, if you hit this for the next 29 days, this is going to lead to, this is going to be deposited in your account. Your check is going to be in the mail, whatever. Are you kidding me? People are on their phones. Like these, have you seen these advertisements for like gambling video games where it's like, you can earn money just by playing this game? Have you seen these ads?

Speaker 2:
[34:53] I have, and I'm tired of getting them.

Speaker 1:
[34:55] Dude, I've never done them, but I get them all the time. And I'm like, if I'm getting them all the time, a lot of people are playing these fucking games.

Speaker 2:
[35:03] Oh yeah.

Speaker 1:
[35:04] And they're putting huge amounts of money into this marketing. So if you immediately, day one, you got your steps in, boom, congratulations, you got your steps. Here's five, that's $5. At the end of the month, you'll be getting your check. If you keep getting this, then your projected total at the end of the month is 200 bucks. Are you kidding me? It's just, it's not even close. People would be walking in their apartments getting their steps in. People would be going up and down stairs. People would be doing anything they could to get an extra 200 bucks by the end of the month.

Speaker 2:
[35:37] Yeah, I think that'd be great.

Speaker 1:
[35:38] Like that to me is the biggest no-brainer that we're just not doing. I don't get it.

Speaker 2:
[35:45] I have a perspective.

Speaker 1:
[35:46] I want it.

Speaker 2:
[35:47] I want to share my perspective. Okay, Stephanie's question, if you were in charge, what policies would you put in place for preventative health care? I'm going to take a different tack at it.

Speaker 1:
[35:56] I knew you would.

Speaker 2:
[35:57] Let's do it. You know I'm a very progressive person. When I think of preventative health care, I think of people getting treatment for their diabetes. I think of...

Speaker 1:
[36:09] Is that preventative or reactive?

Speaker 2:
[36:11] Well, the way I view it is a sick person is less likely to exercise and contribute to their better overall health. So I guess in terms of... When I think of preventative health care, I think of annual medical checkups. To have a baseline so that you know when something goes wrong, what's going wrong? Like, oh, your levels were here, now they're here. So when I read this question, what I immediately think is access to health care for everybody. And so I think of free health care for everybody that would allow people to go and have their own actual plans, more time with doctors, all the things that people generally would want. So access to their regular medications that they need so that they can be healthy, so that they feel better, so that they can do the things that are active that they would enjoy if they could.

Speaker 1:
[37:07] I completely agree in that access to health care, your doctors, is important. The solution to that I might not agree with, and that's okay. But the reason I went with incentives first is because even when we look at the people who are going to their doctors now, who are given their medication, there's a huge percentage of people who they get their medication and they don't take it.

Speaker 2:
[37:29] Yeah, that's a huge problem.

Speaker 1:
[37:31] They literally don't take their... Their research on this is astounding. All you need to do, take this pill. And they literally have it in their cover, they don't take it.

Speaker 2:
[37:43] Or they're not checking their blood sugar every day like they're supposed to. Correct. That is wild.

Speaker 1:
[37:48] They even have a CGM, continuous glucose monitor, on them, and they're ignoring it. They're not taking their medication. I have family members who have done this. I have friends and clients who have done this. I know you have people in your life who have done this.

Speaker 2:
[38:01] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[38:02] This is a very common thing. So for me, when I look at actual behavior change, I'm actually looking at what's the most effective marketing strategy that's worked.

Speaker 2:
[38:13] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[38:13] And it's fucking money. So I completely agree. It's not an either or. It's not one or the other. I think they're both really important, and we have a major health care issue. We have a major access to health care issue. We have a major education issue. These are all really important things. We have a major access to, as I mentioned earlier, like walkable places, walkable cities, safety issues.

Speaker 2:
[38:41] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[38:41] So many of those issues, this is all part of the discussion. For me, I was thinking, what's the number one thing? And so from a preventative perspective, even, for example, people go to the doctor, the doctor is like, yeah, take this medication, also you should be exercising more. It's like, well, I'm not even taking the fucking medication, so I'm also not going to be exercising. It's like, okay, well, what if I promised you at the end of the month, if you got 5,000 steps on a daily basis, what if I promise you get 200 bucks? The number of people who'd start doing it is just astronomical.

Speaker 2:
[39:11] I think that rings true for a lot of people. I think a lot of people would be more incentivized. The gamification, in a way, would really help.

Speaker 1:
[39:20] And then there's so many things we could do, whether it's creating community around it, whatever. But that's why, when I read this, I was like, okay, what is the number one thing that people are motivated by? It's money.

Speaker 2:
[39:34] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[39:35] It's like, I don't know. That, for me, would be the number one thing. And there are obviously other things. Obviously, I think a major issue, especially in America, is walkable cities, walkable areas, safe areas. You go to other countries, and it's like, oh, this is way easier and far more enjoyable to go outside and walk and have access to these things. That would also be a top priority for me.

Speaker 2:
[40:04] Yeah, I think, and there you're getting into public works. It makes me think of the suburb I grew up in near Dallas has a lake around it, but all of it is private property. Because in Dallas, we've got White Rock Lake, you can walk around it, they've got trails and stuff. But where I grew up, it's all whoever buys the house owns all the land all the way up to the shore. So you can't really walk around that way. It comes down to the local politics as well. I love the idea of making cities more walkable. When my wife and I travel, we prefer to not rent a car and to go somewhere where we can just take public transit or walk everywhere we go.

Speaker 1:
[40:50] Yeah, yeah, man. Trying to think. Obviously, we could talk about education. This one's difficult for me because we just say better education and we have more education on this stuff. And in an ideal world, yeah, I agree. Better education would be great. We should absolutely have that. However, you open Instagram for seven fucking seconds and you have people with medical credentials, the same medical credentials, saying the complete opposite things. Like one doctor says, you shouldn't be spiking your insulin, you shouldn't be having carbs. Another doctor says it's not a problem. So in an ideal world, yeah, we'd have better education from the very beginning. Practically, how the fuck do we actually get them to agree on this? How do we enforce that they're teaching it properly? And by the way, I understand I sound so hypocritical because it's like you didn't talk about any of the practical steps that you would take to get people updating their steps, their strength training, all this stuff. There's a lot of practical issues with that. I get it. I just have, I think my bias is I have more experience in actually seeing the issues with education. And I agree, we need better education and making it more available and accessible. But I just keep going back to money. It's just, it's a no-brainer to me. When I see fitness challenges doing insane amount, doing insanely well, and people joining, like I've never done this before, but I saw the challenge and I was like, I don't want to do it, I wanted the chance to win 500 bucks, I wanted the chance to win whatever it is. It's like, this as a policy would fucking crush.

Speaker 2:
[42:20] Yeah, I mean, I think that the way social media is now, it's all about grabbing attention, and I think that, yeah, like the gamification of it is something that would really incentivize people to probably move more.

Speaker 1:
[42:35] Yeah. Okay, here's an interesting one. I saw this, I was like, I don't know if I'll answer it, but I'll bite. CS. Wade said, What is your opinion of a healthy sex life? So here's my thoughts. I think people put way too much stock in what other people are doing with their sex life and comparing their life to what other people are either doing or saying they're doing. And there's actually some really interesting research around this that showed in terms of someone's happiness with their own sex life, I remember reading this for the first time, when I was blown away, when people were, when researchers were measuring people's happiness with their own sex life, it ended up that people cared more about how often they were having sex relative to their peers more than they cared about the quality of the sex that they were having with their partner, which again, this whole comparison trap, which is like everyone's, you're always comparing. So you go on social media, you see people be like, you should be having sex at least this often with your partner. I don't do anything less than this. It's like, okay, hold on. Number one, I don't believe you. Number two is, well, how is the quality of it? What's the intimacy like? What is their relationship like? It's not just sex for the sake of sex. It's let's make sure that we are overall in a really good place mentally and emotionally, and that includes sex. But my concern is that people are coming up with an arbitrary number of times per week where this is what we must meet. And then if you don't meet that, then all of a sudden you are no longer happy with your sex life because it's not the pre-prescribed number of times relative to what so-and-so said on social media or what your friends are saying they're doing. It's I'm much more concerned about what is the actual moment like with your partner, and is it enjoyable for you both as opposed to, and frequency can play a role in it. It absolutely can. Some people prefer more often, some people don't. That's fine. I think it's far more about knowing you as an individual and knowing your partner as an individual, not comparing it to what other people are saying is this is the definitive right or best number of minimums per week.

Speaker 2:
[45:09] Well, you might see, you might watch one reel on Instagram about it, and then Instagram is just gonna feed you that non-stop. I've noticed that I'll watch one pimple popping video. All pimple popping videos. But it's like it goes, oh, this must be bothering you. I'm gonna hit you in the face with it over and over again and just kind of feed into your insecurities or feed into... Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[45:36] Clearly, I'm doing something wrong. Something's wrong with our marriage, whatever it is. I don't like that. I think it's... I'm much more focused on quality as opposed to comparing to what other people are deeming as the right number of times.

Speaker 2:
[45:53] Yeah, I think for... I've been married longer than you have. Dude, you've been married for 13 years. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[45:59] Amazing wife. Shout out, Jen.

Speaker 2:
[46:00] Yeah, Jen's great. My perspective on this is that every relationship is different, and you cannot compare one relationship to another, and I think as long as you've got two consenting adults that have open communication and they're willing to compromise so that they're both happy, I think then that's great. For some people, that means no sex. For some people, that means a lot of sex. But I think for most people, it's somewhere in the middle. And I think it's important to understand that over the course of a long, healthy relationship, things are gonna ebb and flow, and being able to talk to your partner and find solutions, that can really help. So not specifically about sex, but just generally one thing that my therapist recommended for me to talk with my wife about is we do, we started having a monthly CEO meeting, where we would, I think I've told you about it, where at the beginning of the month we'd sit down, you know, it's like maybe over dinner, or we actually could pay attention to each other and weren't watching TV or working or on our phones. And it was just a couple of questions of like, how am I doing as a partner? And then I'm gonna share how I think you're doing as a partner, and then we kind of go back and forth. And then it's, what do I think should change over the next month? What do you think should change over the next month? And then you're able to have an open dialogue about it, and sometimes sex can be a part of that, of like, hey, here's where I might feel more connected to you, or here's something I want to try. I think having that open dialogue and having two partners that are willing to talk about it without getting upset, which can be a challenging thing, is just... Well, I mean, cause it can be just like, hey, I'm tired of doing the laundry, or hey, I'm tired of doing the dishes all the time. You know, being able to have that open dialogue long term, now my wife and I, we don't really have a CEO meeting every month. It's just, we've developed this pathway to be able to, on a daily basis, have more open conversations and resolve conflict before it becomes a big conflict.

Speaker 1:
[48:11] I like that.

Speaker 2:
[48:12] So that's a bigger part of it, but...

Speaker 1:
[48:14] A great progression, where at first, hey, we're gonna have this predetermined time now, this meeting, and then it just progresses into, oh, we could talk about this anytime because we've developed a strong enough relationship where it's like, we don't need this. We know that we can, if we say, hey, I need X, Y, and Z, it's not coming from a place of anger, it's not coming from a place of judgment. It's just like, we have such a strong communication that we can do it anytime.

Speaker 2:
[48:36] Well, and over time, I've learned how best to phrase and talk to my wife, and she's learned how best to talk and phrase things to me without triggering me and making me get upset, just because of the way... Sometimes, you can bring up some old memories from old relationships or from when you're a kid where it's like, oh, that makes me mad if you say it that way. But if you say it like this, then it's cool. I'll pick up my laundry, you know, like that kind of thing.

Speaker 1:
[49:02] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[49:03] So that's what I have to say about it.

Speaker 1:
[49:04] I love that. I love the monthly CEO meeting. That's a really good idea. PEDs. Oh, sorry, this is from PalPT. He said, PEDs in sport, are they rife? Are they uncommon and doesn't matter your take? So PEDs are performance enhancing drugs. And he said, are they rife? Are they common? Are they uncommon? Does it matter your take? Let's just take sports out of it. PEDs, are they common or uncommon? They are wildly common, especially in the fitness industry, never mind sports, but especially in the fitness industry. They are wildly common, far more than the average person would ever expect. And if you think about it, let's go back to what I was talking about in terms of what's the best incentive in my mind for the government to get people exercising more? It would be money. So now you have people who their career and their income in their mind is perceived in their mind that they will make more money if they look a certain way. And to be fair, there's a real argument to be made that they will. The more jacked you are, the more shredded you are, the more lean you are. The quote unquote better you look, the more opportunities you have for people to say, oh, they know something that I don't know. I want to hire them so I can look like them. So the perceived benefit of making significantly more money is often an easy enough justification to say, fuck it, I'm going to get on these things. Never mind that we can also take into consideration most, I should, I'm not going to say most, many people in the fitness industry get into the fitness industry, at least initially, because of an insecurity. They started working out, they started doing these things because they were insecure with how they were at the beginning. So it's almost like a feeder ramp of let's get people who have severe body insecurity into the personal training coaching profession. It's pretty wild. So if you have someone who's already insecure with their body, and now they get in the fitness industry, comparing themselves to other professionals in the fitness industry, and they're like, well, I don't like the way I look compared to these other professionals. Now, never mind the money aspect, but they just want to be able to be perceived by others as someone who's fit, someone who's strong, someone who knows what they're talking about. So they start taking these drugs. Never mind the professional sports world, which is also wildly prevalent, far beyond what I think the average person would ever imagine. Yes, it is unbelievably common. And if you're listening to this podcast, number one, thank you, appreciate you. It means the world to me. But odds are you're somewhat involved in the fitness world. So if you were seeing fitness content on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, whatever, and you're looking at these people and you're like, what the fuck? There is a really good chance that they are either on and or have been on in the past. I'll tell a story. I might have told this before. When I was training at Westside Barbell, I don't know if I've told you this story. When I was training at Westside Barbell, God bless Louis Simmons. May he rest in peace. Treated me like I was his son. I was there with some of the greatest power lifters of all time. And I wasn't taking anything. It was funny. One of the lifters said to me, I was about 127 pounds when I went to Westside. I think the lightest, definitely the lightest dude who trained there, but maybe the lightest, if not, one of the lightest, not the lightest people who ever trained there. And anyone who doesn't know Westside, it was the strongest gym in the world. When I was there, their weakest guy, aside from me, squatted 800 pounds. That was their chump lifter.

Speaker 2:
[52:55] Chump.

Speaker 1:
[52:55] That was their chump.

Speaker 2:
[52:56] Just 800.

Speaker 1:
[52:58] So one of the best lifters who was there at the time, he was just fucking with me. He was serious. He was not a nice guy, but he was like, when you first came here, I thought you were like a cross-country runner. Just like based on my body, on how I looked. And he was saying, he gave me this, he said, here's what you need to eat. And he gave me this insane diet plan of like 5,000 calories a day. And this guy is on so many drugs, it looks like an absolute bear, a gorilla, just like insane. You look at it, you're like, it's, it can't even describe it. And he's over 300 pounds, and he's shredded, and it's just insane.

Speaker 2:
[53:36] And that sounds like a natural physique.

Speaker 1:
[53:41] And I swear to God, I'll never forget this. And he says, as he's telling me about this diet plan and this training regimen, he goes, and people look at me and say it's the drugs. He's like, it's not the drugs. He goes, verbatim, I'm on less drugs now than I've been in my entire life, and this is how I look. And I just remember looking at him like my jaw must have been open, being like, less now. So you're still taking, by the way, and never mind, you took a fuckton before now. So, but I don't even know what less is. I don't know where your baseline is, but you're on less now. So a lot of these people who are taking these drugs, they often, they underplay how big of a role these drugs actually impact their body and their physique and their performance. And I should have started with this. I've got nothing wrong with them. I have many friends and colleagues who are on them. Loved them to death. They're amazing people. But the question being, are they common? Are they uncommon? Is it a big deal? Ridiculously common. Huge deal. Especially if they're not telling you about it and they're making it seem like you can look like they look. And they're not discussing the fact that they're on these drugs. These drugs radically change your physiology, your hormonal profile. In professional sports, one of the major benefits of it in a professional sports situation is that they can allow you to recover from injuries way more quickly. They can realistically probably prevent injuries from happening. And if a minor tweak or something happens, maybe if that would have taken you out of your sport for a week or two, maybe you can still play. It's not as bad. And then you recover way more quickly. And then never mind the performance benefits of it, of actually way more muscle, way more strength, way more power, way more speed, depending on what you're taking, your better ability to, like looking at what Lance Armstrong and a lot of those guys were taking, the ability to have higher VO2 maxes, to essentially be able to go for longer periods of time, process more oxygen. It's just the things that these drugs do are frankly remarkable. It's insane. And it's a big fucking deal. When I say it's a big deal, I say it from the perspective of, if you're comparing yourself to someone else, and you either—and you might not know that they're on, that's a big deal, because now your baseline for what you think is normal is completely outrageous. If you look at someone who's on drugs, and you're like, well, I should look like that. Number one, even if they're not on drugs, it's a ridiculous thing to say. Just to look at someone else and say, I should look like that. That's ridiculous. You shouldn't look like someone else. You have your own body, your own genetics, all that. But then to compare even further to people who are on drugs, it's actually insane. And then for me, I like, everyone knows I love history. One of my favorite things when I was in Greece, or even when you go to a museum, you look at statues of people who were like the elite, of the elite athletes of the time, hundreds and thousands of years ago. None, like they've got body fat. Like the statues have like pinchable fat. You can see in their lower belly. And these are statues. These are like made to look like, in their mind, what they thought a god would look like. And like the amount of muscle mass they have looks relatively feasible by today's standards, whereas it would be like someone who's in great shape, but like feasible. Whereas what we see now is like people shredded, ab veins, massive muscles. It's just like, what the fuck? It's the idea of what a realistically attainable physique is for someone who's not on drugs. It's just it's bastardized. So yeah, it's a really big deal.

Speaker 2:
[57:35] Well, back in the Greek times, they had more walkable cities.

Speaker 1:
[57:38] They had more walkable cities. That's right. They did. Have you been to Greece?

Speaker 2:
[57:43] No, no, I have not. I would like to go. Yeah, that would be really fun.

Speaker 1:
[57:45] It's fun.

Speaker 2:
[57:47] I have a take on this. I feel about not specifically on sports, but with performance enhancing drugs. I feel about it the same way I feel about women celebrities who get botox or surgeries. Here's how I feel about it. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. And I think the transparency of being open about what you're doing helps to not negatively affect the younger generation.

Speaker 1:
[58:15] Agreed.

Speaker 2:
[58:15] So for women upholding these Hollywood standards, there's a reason why her face looks like that, because she got a surgery, and that's okay. And her being open about what kind of treatment she got helps the younger generation go, oh, I don't have to look like that naturally. Same with younger guys now, who are maybe seeing the souped up bodybuilder dude in the gym, knowing that he's on however much test or whatever. Knowing that can help inform them and go, oh, maybe I don't need to be so disordered with my eating and I'm not using this drug that this guy's been using for the last 15 years.

Speaker 1:
[58:56] That's one of the reasons I was stoked when Serena Williams was like, yeah, I'm taking a GLP-1. I was like, thank you, thank you for saying that. This is so helpful.

Speaker 2:
[59:04] I think that anytime somebody that's in the public eye can be open about that, I think it helps to break down some of those barriers of younger people or uninformed people, not really knowing how they got that. Some people would just naturally have a really good physique, but then some people have some help.

Speaker 1:
[59:21] Yes. And then also to the opposite, so we have Serena who's openly talking about it, but then you have someone like RFK, who to my knowledge hasn't said what he's taking.

Speaker 2:
[59:31] Oh, he's all natural. All natural.

Speaker 1:
[59:35] But clearly that guy is on a lot of shit. That physique is not natural.

Speaker 2:
[59:40] I think it's the saunas, man. I think it's the saunas are doing for him.

Speaker 1:
[59:44] The saunas and the jeans. That was crazy when he went in the cold plunge with his jeans on.

Speaker 2:
[59:48] I never thought about doing pushups in the sauna. I should work on that.

Speaker 1:
[59:52] I've done that. For me, it's like, listen, especially if you're the secretary of health, right? But for a celebrity, I can understand. It's not necessarily... I want to be very careful with this. I don't think it's right to say you are required to tell everyone what you're doing.

Speaker 2:
[60:14] I agree.

Speaker 1:
[60:14] But I do think you're not required. But I do think it would be better for society as a whole if you were in the public eye. And by the way, even if you're not in the public eye, even everyday people, if we just spoke about it more, like therapy, for example.

Speaker 2:
[60:33] Yeah, great example.

Speaker 1:
[60:34] Even 10 years ago, if you said, hey, I'm going to therapy, people would be like, eesh, you know?

Speaker 2:
[60:40] What's wrong?

Speaker 1:
[60:41] Yeah, like, are you going to kill someone? Whereas now, I think mainly just because everyday people have been more and more talking about it. But to be fair, I think it started with people who were more in the public eye, people in the public eye, on social media, whatever, being like, yeah, I go to therapy. I think it's really great, which then gives a little bit more confidence to people who are not in the public eye to talk about it. But whether it starts with the celebrities or people in the public eye or everyday people just like us, saying it, just getting it out there so that it can become less stigmatizing. So yeah, I would like to see them talk about it more.

Speaker 2:
[61:20] Agreed.

Speaker 1:
[61:20] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[61:21] All right.

Speaker 1:
[61:21] This is from Melisalma. I might be mispronouncing it. Would you ever make Aliyah with your family? This is an interesting question. So making Aliyah is the term for moving to Israel. So the question is, would you ever move to Israel with your family? This is something that I think about all the time, and I think my answer will probably be surprising to the vast majority of people listening. My original plan was to always move to Israel. When I was living in Tel Aviv, and I got an incredible opportunity to coach Gary Vaynerchuk for three years. So I moved from Tel Aviv to New York City, and I coached Gary seven days a week for three years straight. So from June 1st, 2016, to June 1st, 2019, I traveled with Gary Vaynerchuk seven days a week, spent more time in airplanes and hotels than I actually did in New York City, where we were based out of. But if he was in Hong Kong, I was in Hong Kong. If he was in LA, I was in LA. If he was in Amsterdam, I was in Amsterdam. If he was in Nashville, I was in Nashville. Every week, seven days a week, no weekends, no breaks, no vacations, no nothing. And my plan was coach him for three years, and then on June 1st, in the afternoon of 2019, I'm flying back to Israel. And then my wife and I, my now-wife, we started dating during that time. And then by the end of my time coaching Gary, we were serious enough to where I was like, I can't just leave, and I can't ask her to move to Israel with me, because it was early enough where I was like, asking her to move to Israel with me would be weird. And then, but it's also, I love this woman so much, so I can't just leave right now. So she ended up moving to New York with me. And so we were living in New York City. And then as we got closer and closer, like developed a stronger relationship, got engaged, then we started to talk about making Aliyah, moving to Israel. COVID happened. And we were living in New York City, we were in the heart of New York City, like right, right. The videos I have of New York City during COVID are wild. Just like Times Square completely empty. Something I don't think really anyone's ever seen out in any other circumstance. Completely empty.

Speaker 2:
[63:46] It's like a movie.

Speaker 1:
[63:47] Like a movie, yeah, like a doomsday movie. And initially, things started to get bad in New York City. A lot of violence. It was literally someone was stabbed right outside of our apartment at three in the afternoon. One day, it was really bad. And we were like, we got to get out of here. And our first idea was, let's move to Israel. But there were a huge number of people moving to Israel during COVID. They had a massive influx, so much so that they shut down the consular in New York City. So I was trying to get in touch with them, and they're like, nope, like we're closed. We're not doing this right now. So we couldn't move to Israel. So then we knew we wanted to leave New York because it had gotten really, really bad. And fortunately, it's a blessing we can work from anywhere. So we were having a glass of wine one night, and we were thinking, what are some cool places we could go in the States? And we looked at Dallas, we looked at Denver, and we looked at Nashville. Just as like really cool places to go. We were having a glass of wine one night, and an ad popped up for an apartment in Dallas, and we were like, fuck it, let's go. We signed it, sight unseen, moved to Dallas. And always knowing like, again, it's a blessing, we could just stay there for a year and leave if we wanted to. It didn't have to be permanent. And we love it in Dallas. Like we fell in love immediately, met Mitch, just been an incredible, incredible opportunity. It's been great here. We love the people, we love the community, all of it. In terms of making Aliyah, moving to Israel, it's still something we talk about very frequently. Obviously, ever since October 7th, we weren't planning on moving at any point even before October 7th, but since then, with the wars and everything, it's been scary. And my family is there, our family is there, like the amount of time they spend in bomb shelters, it's just crazy. So now, obviously, it wouldn't be a time where like, yeah, let's bring our two daughters and my pregnant wife to go live in Israel right now. It is objectively safer right now here in the United States than it is in Israel. And I should also say I love Israel. My soul is in Israel. My heart is in Israel. I also love the United States of America. I objectively think that the United States of America is the greatest country in the world. It's not even close. The quality of life here, the freedoms that we have here, it's pretty fucking incredible. And when I travel to other countries, not just Israel, but when I've traveled, it's like I've seen it. It's like this country is uniquely extraordinary, and I absolutely love it. And we are the Jews of America are at a unique point in time in that we are seeing both on the right and the left who radical rises in anti-Semitism. And when I say anti-Semitism, I don't mean what people often poo-poo and say, oh, you're just calling anti-Semitism. I mean dramatic sharp rises in violence against Jews, not just in the US but all over the world and in the US. And my concern aside from just the attacks is it is now not, quote unquote, cool to be pro-Israel and by extension, okay with Jews on either side of the political aisle. We're seeing both the far right and the far left openly being very anti-Jewish. And this next election cycle going into 2028, the presidential election cycle, this is really what's going to be a major decider for my family. I have no idea who the Democrats are going to run. There are options, whether it's Newsom or whomever. There are other people as well. But based on the rhetoric that we see by the candidates, that they will be forced to adopt, based on what will get them votes into the White House, that's really what's going to be our deciding factor. I think JD Vance has started to pull himself away from, I would say, more towards a potential Tucker Carlson ideology. I haven't seen it from him yet, but he definitely has made it a point to not appear very pro-Israel or not overtly say he's pro-Israel. And by the way, I should say there's nothing wrong with someone who's not pro-Israel. Just because you're not pro-Israel doesn't mean you're anti-Semitic. However, more often than not, for someone who is vehemently anti-Israel, that comes with some level of anti-Semitism. But if we see on the right and on the left, in order to assume or take control of the White House, if there is a significant rise in anti-Semitic rhetoric that we're seeing from the likes of, whether it's Tucker Carlson, the likes of Zoran Mamdani, who, for example, some people are like, well, he hasn't said anything anti-Semitic. So, number one, he has, his wife has said some of the most egregious shit I've ever seen in my life. And day one of office, he removed protection from synagogues that had been in place by the prior mayor. He removed it, just unilaterally took it away. And then we're seeing attacks on synagogues nonstop. So if we're seeing rhetoric and actions taken by the highest, by during the races for the highest level of office, that is going to be potentially a real push for us to make aliyah, where then hopefully it doesn't get to that point, but then Jews would be the most safe. So I love Israel. My heart is there, my soul is there, my family is there. As of now, like I've always said, I think the United States is the greatest country in the world. There's a reason why the millions of people come here legally, never mind illegally, every single year. There is the most amount of freedom. There's the most amount of unique opportunity here. It's just extraordinary. It's legitimately a miracle that we had the United States of America. As a Jew, I am concerned for where we are going. And so, yeah, so we would, we absolutely would, if it gets to a point in which we really feel like we aren't safe here anymore, and even those in the highest levels of office are pushing more towards anti-Jewish rhetoric.

Speaker 2:
[70:39] Yeah, I have a question on that. When it comes to, so Israel has a lot of conflicts that happen in the north with Lebanon, and then, you know, there's just generally a lot of instability in the Middle East. And I have heard you say that prior to October 7th, that you felt very safe when you had been in Israel. You know, how do you weigh the, in your mind, how do you weigh the safety issue of, with Israel, you're bordered with countries that are thrown rockets in, you know, there's that type of lifestyle. Whereas here it's more extremist violence that you have to worry about, people that are anti-Semitic. And so it's like two different, in my mind, it's sort of like two different scary things. How do you weigh as a husband and as someone that's trying to keep your family safe, how do you weigh what is, what is worse?

Speaker 1:
[71:42] I mean, that's what you have to do. You have to say like, where are we, where's our best chance? The other aspect of it is, nevermind, like we could take the fear of death being killed, we'll almost like put that to the side. Also, the other thing I think about is, where are our children being raised? And I don't want them to be raised in an environment in which it is acceptable to... I don't want them to feel othered. I don't want them to feel like they have to hide who they are. I don't want to have to explain, no, like, hey, when we go here, we're going to make sure that like either the option is we're going to pretend that we're not, we're going to act like we're not, or we're just going to be very openly and put ourselves at a greater risk.

Speaker 2:
[72:36] You don't want to pretend to be Canadian?

Speaker 1:
[72:39] It's, so fear of whether it's dying from a missile, dying from an extremist attack, we'll table that. It's more just day to day life.

Speaker 2:
[72:48] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[72:49] And there's really only one place in the world in which every day you can go out and be Jewish without fear of being attacked for being Jewish. And that is Israel. That is the only place in the world where definitively, just because you're Jewish, you don't have to hide it.

Speaker 2:
[73:06] I have a question about Aaliyah, because we've talked about this before, because there's an aspect to citizenship as well.

Speaker 1:
[73:12] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[73:13] So, because if you were to, you call it making Aaliyah.

Speaker 1:
[73:17] Yes, correct.

Speaker 2:
[73:18] If you traveled with the family, you'd have the opportunity for Israeli citizenship, correct?

Speaker 1:
[73:23] We all would.

Speaker 2:
[73:24] Everybody in the family would?

Speaker 1:
[73:25] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[73:25] Okay, cool. And then for the kids, would they, isn't there like a mandatory military service of some kind?

Speaker 1:
[73:33] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[73:33] So if you did that, then the girls would? They would have to be in the military.

Speaker 1:
[73:38] They would go for a minimum of two years. Men for a minimum of three, women for a minimum of two.

Speaker 2:
[73:42] Do you view that more as an increased risk for your kids or more as an opportunity to be solidified in their identity?

Speaker 1:
[73:52] Probably both. It's a great question. Probably both. It's definitively, it's a higher risk. You're in the military. Absolutely. Whether it's now, whether it's on October 7th, there were many female soldiers who lost their lives, especially on October 7th, defending the bases that had been attacked. But it's one of those things, again, it's the day-to-day fear versus the existential fear. And so it's sort of, you're in a rock and a hard place. You've got to make a decision. And at this point, it is like we are American first and foremost, and we love America. And if we can stay here, we will. If it comes to a point in which we fear for our safety enough and for our daily quality of life. That's one of the things about America that's incredible. Daily quality of life in America is arguably the best in the world. The convenience levels, the opportunities that we have, daily quality of life that we have is that's one of the things that separates it from basically every other country. The daily quality of life in Israel is objectively more difficult right now. It's just objectively more difficult, with all the wars, with everything they're going through.

Speaker 2:
[75:18] They don't have Amazon Prime there either, do they?

Speaker 1:
[75:20] I don't think they have Amazon Prime.

Speaker 2:
[75:22] Can't get that two day delivery.

Speaker 1:
[75:25] The whole mail system is fucked, it's a problem. But if it gets to a point where daily quality of life here is just fear all the time, well, it's okay. So do we want to be scared here? Do we want to be scared there?

Speaker 2:
[75:39] Yeah, it's tough.

Speaker 1:
[75:41] It's a difficult decision. But yeah, we've absolutely thought about it. I've wanted to do it in the past. But yeah, I will tell you this next election cycle is going to be very telling for American Jews. Israel literally just did something in the last couple months. They had an entire practice day where they did a simulation where they said, something bad happened, all the world's Jews are coming here. What do we do? And they did this simulation where they did plane landings, plane after plane after plane after plane after plane, landing at Ben-Gurion Airport. Here's all the Jews, where do we keep them? How do we provide for them? Whatever it is. And so they're getting ready for it. And this is in the middle of a war. They're preparing for it. They're preparing for, God forbid, something happens, and they all want to come. What do we do? And so they're deep in preparations for this. And I think these are conversations I have all day, every day, with friends and family. And the next election cycle is going to be very telling for what at least American Jews decide to do, including us.

Speaker 2:
[76:52] Interesting.

Speaker 1:
[76:53] That's it, bro. That's it. Should we end it there?

Speaker 2:
[76:56] Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1:
[76:57] All right. Listen, thank you, everyone, for listening. We appreciate it. We hope you enjoyed the episode. If you did, please leave a five-star view on iTunes, Spotify. Give it a thumbs up on YouTube. If you haven't left a five-star view, please, please, please do. It would mean the absolute world to us. It helps the show tremendously. So a written five-star view would be amazing. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you did, I actually already said that, so I'm just going to end here. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful week. I'll talk to you soon.