In this episode, I talk to Jordan Syatt. He’s a massive Harry Potter nerd and also happens to be a world renowned strength & nutrition coach who’s trained the likes of Gary Vaynerchuck. We discuss Jordan’s pyramid of priorities, taking on responsibilities, gaining progress, and much more.
Show Notes:
(03:25) - Consistency
(12:44) - Gaining Progress
(17:05) - What is Optimal Health
(26:29) - Pyramid of Priorities
(33:59) - Taking on Responsibilities
(41:16) - Deep Human Connection
Connect with Jordan:
Website: https://www.sfinnercircle.com/
Website: https://www.syattfitness.com/
Jordan 00:00
Most people who struggle with addiction, they don't even realize until years after they've overcome the addiction, how much it really impacted their everyday life, how much that addiction impacted every decision, every thought, every relationship, every social interaction, that addiction was really driving every single waking moment of their life. And so for the people who are addicted to fitness to the point where it's just taking over every waking moment, you really have to work on getting them to understand that you're hurting your progress by not giving your body the rest that it needs.
Athan 00:42
The Doing The Work Podcast is brought to you by Strive Human Optimization, train hard, recover harder. Check them out at www.strivebastrop.com. All right, welcome to the Doing The Work Podcast. I'm your host, Athan Schindler, where I talk to people who inspire me and share those conversations with you. And I'm excited today to have Jordan Syatt on the show. Jordan, I've been probably following you on Instagram for, I don't know, three, four or five years and what I mean I'm, I'm so drawn to your content, because you're just like, no bullshit, you shoot people straight, you understand the science and you just give it to people in really digestible and understandable forms and your funniest shit. And so all of that together just makes your feed just so entertaining and useful. So I appreciate what you're doing for the world.
Jordan 01:38
Thank you, man. I appreciate that a lot. Thank you. And I'm excited to be here. And I appreciate you having me on. It means a lot to me.
Athan 01:44
Awesome. Well, so we chit chatted a little bit before this. And you're in Dallas, Texas, and I'm just outside of Austin, Texas. So we've got the Texas connection going on.
Jordan 01:53
Let's go. I love it.
Athan 01:56
For the audience, I always like to let the guests kind of like how do you like how do you like when someone asks you like, Who are you or like what you do? Like what's your which How do you describe yourself?
Jordan 02:06
Yet? Depends how long you want me to go for exactly. But I mean, I always start with a short, bald nerdy dude who likes to lift weights and do jiu jitsu like, just like I like to, I like to do fitness stuff, basically. And I like to help people who might not like doing fitness stuff, make it more accessible to them. Because the reality is, most people know they need to be doing it, even if they don't want to be doing it. So I just try and may break it down into a way that's simple, easy, and relatively fun. And I say relatively, because you know, sometimes fitness isn't fun. And the vast majority of time, you might not want to do it. But you have to, it's really important. So my goal is just to help people do it even and especially if they don't want to and incorporate it into their life in a way that is easier for them. And more realistic rather than fitness taking over their whole life. It's just a part of their life.
Athan 02:57
I love that. One of the things that I like to say to people is like if your whole life revolves around what you're doing in the gym, then you've got this thing completely backwards, you know, you should be spending your time in the gym. So you can do all these amazing things in your life. And you are saying that you are trying to make it more enjoyable for people? Or for people who don't even like it, I think it is so important, because consistency is everything. And if you're hating what you're doing, or you're miserable doing, you're probably not going to be that consistent with it.
Consistency
Jordan 03:25
That's exactly right. I mean, and so much of what people think they should be doing is they're looking for the perfect program, like the best workout, the best diet, but you just hit the nail on the head. It's all about consistency. And if you can't be consistent with something, it doesn't matter how good the program on paper is, if you're not consistent with it, then it's going to be awful. Like you're not going to get any results. I've always said that a b plus or a B minus program followed consistently is going to get you way better results than an A plus program followed inconsistently. And so for me, it's just how can I help you find a way to be consistent with it. And one of the most important things I've realized, when I was a younger coach, I made a big mistake. And a lot of coaches today see making this mistake now as they always talk about well, you've just got to enjoy the process. You've got to enjoy the process, find something you love. And I always know that when someone's saying that they haven't worked with that many clients yet. Because when you've really worked with a lot of especially general population clients, you know that not everyone's gonna love it. And that's okay, like, we can't force them to love it. And the more you say you just have to find something you love, the more they feel alienated and like they're doing something wrong. The reality is you might not love it. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. It just you have to sort of embrace that suck, get it done and do what you can do consistently. So that's three days a week of strength, and then walking on your other days. Amazing. I would rather you do that than nothing at all.
Athan 04:47
Yeah, I have some big three things that I tried to talk to my clients about. But I'm curious, do you have non-negotiable aspects of a program that just kind of have to be in there for it to be effective?
Jordan 05:01
I do, it really does depend on the person in terms of how its programmed. But there's always some type of strength training, there's always some type of movement like just walking, or like some type of cardio. And there's always some type of focus on nutrition. Also, there's always some type of focus on sleep, right. But these are very general categories. But like, so for for someone who's brand new, maybe morbidly obese, and they've been sedentary for their whole life, what I'll probably have them focusing on first is just walking, like, that'll be number one, I just want you to get steps in. And if you're going from 700 steps a day, that's your starting point, I'll try and get you to like 1500, then go from 1500 to like 3000. And my goal will be for that person, probably to get them to about 5000. Before I get them to incorporate another habit, which at that point would probably be more nutrition focused. So get them walking 5000 a day, and then I'd try and get them to incorporate more protein in their meals. And a lot of it is about adding things in as opposed to taking things out. Right. So like, if I say, you know, you aren't allowed to eat this, or you aren't allowed to do this, well, all of a sudden, that's all they want to do is that you can't eat this anymore. So instead of me taking things out, or just say we'll add in more protein, so yeah, you can still have that treat if you want, but first just eat the protein first. And oftentimes, that will fill them up more and get them more satiated to the point where maybe they don't want it anymore. And that will improve their habits as a result.
Athan 06:25
I've heard that said in some way. And I might be someone else's quote. But it was said something like, we don't stop bad habits. We replaced them with good habits. And so it sounds like exactly what you're saying. It's like, okay, if you just start plugging in that thing that's more healthy for you, you're probably going to inherently kind of stop some of the other things that aren't serving you as well.
Jordan 06:47
That's exactly right. If you look at the research around habit formation, it's much easier instead of just telling someone to stop something to take a habit and replace it with something else. And understanding that it's not usually done on the first go. And the first effort, it's usually a combination of trial and error, trial and error and practicing to make that switch until it actually does happen over the course of weeks, months or years.
Athan 07:12
I saw that a lot. So I used to be a social worker, and I worked in the field of addictions for a little while. And you see that with folks who have like, any kind of addiction, right? Like they don't like they have similar behaviors, but they kind of just replaced one that wasn't serving them so much with something like fitness or like spirituality or something like that, they just kind of like swap one for the other and it works better for them.
Jordan 07:34
I'm sure you've seen that, on a level that most people haven't, especially in coming from an addiction background. So many people when they were fortunate enough to overcome an addiction, which like, is not really discussed very much in modern day society. Like we don't dive into addiction culture, which is a real issue. But a lot of the people who are fortunate to overcome it, they go, sometimes religion will be like, they'll just go super hard into religion, sometimes they go super hard into fitness. And you see people, it's not uncommon to see someone in the gym who's just jacked out of their mind, and just and absolutely obsessed with fitness, who's really struggled with addiction in the past, and that you're exactly right. They swapped habits, and that is now their outlet. You're exactly right.
Athan 08:21
Yes. So that actually, while you were saying that it kind of makes me think a lot about how sometimes, you know, Fitness, Health, even nutrition, you name any aspect of it, there can be a point where it becomes unhealthy. You know? And do you have experience with that? Or like, do you work with people where you're I, in my world, there's sometimes some people I have to like, rein them in like, there's some people like you said, Let's just add, let's get out there. Let's do a couple things. And then some people are like, whoa, like, you can't work out seven times a day, like you can't, like Yeah, you know, you can't go that hard, or you or it's not what we mentioned, you can't be consistent. It's not sustainable.
Jordan 08:59
Yes. So I mean, I have personal history with this. And I think so basically, when you break it down, there's two different types of people and fitness just generally obviously, there's more, but generally you have the person who it's very difficult to get them to go to the gym, like to get motivated to workout is very difficult. And the idea of getting up and going to the gym is massively overwhelming and taxing emotionally for them. And the other person is the person whose idea of taking a rest day is petrifying for them. Like not going to the gym is very difficult for them to the point where it causes them anxiety, it makes them get really nervous and worried. And when I was younger, so I grew up wrestling, I started wrestling when I was eight years old. I did that all the way through high school. And that's sort of the the mindset that was ingrained within me. Also because, you know, I was just, I'm super competitive and I love doing this type of stuff. I also come from a family where I'm the only athlete and everyone else my family is morbidly obese. So I sort of have this idea in my mind where, like, I will end up like that if I don't take care of my body. So that's one of the struggles I had earlier in my career from 14 to about 22, I would work out constantly, I had real issues with food and disordered eating habits, or just like, the idea of eating anything bad was a huge issue for me mentally and emotionally. And no surprise that so much of what my content is based around now, because I realize so many people do struggle with that. So in terms of the people who just, they feel like they have to workout every day, multiple times a day, they're gonna lose all their progress, you actually sort of have to approach these two people. Similarly, the person who's struggling to get to the gym at all, and the person who's struggling take a rest day, it's similar approaches just with with sort of opposite angles here, which is like, it's sort of like horseshoe theory, where you have like two people that complete opposite ends of the spectrum, who like meet in the middle, they like meet at the same, they have the same issue or the same end goal. So for the people who really struggle, it's like, you have to really help them understand, working out two times a day, three times a day, four times a day, seven days a week. It's not only not going to help you make any more progress, it's actually going to hurt your progress, it's going to hurt your health. And I'm not even just talking about injuries and joint issues and bone issues and muscle issues which will happen. But if mental health has become a huge discussion in recent years, especially in talking about addiction, again, most people who struggled with addiction, they don't even realize until years after they've overcome the addiction, how much it really impacted their everyday life, how much that addiction impacted every decision, every thought, every relationship, every social interaction, that addiction was really driving every single waking moment of their life. And so for the people who are addicted to fitness to the point where it's just taking over every waking moment, you really have to work on getting them to understand that you're hurting your progress by not giving your body the rest that it needs.
Athan 12:02
Yeah, it's like two pieces of that, because one is like, Okay, where do you take it from here? Like, if you're working out, let's just use the three times a day thing. Like, if you want to continue to get results somehow, what are you going to do four or five times? Are you you know, are you going to go to a some sort of drug to help you or you know, like, what is it that is, you know, and beyond that, like you said, The science is clear, you break down while you're training, you rebuild and get the results during rest and recovery, you know, through your sleep through your nutrition through those off days. And if you know, some people just don't get that they just think no, no, you get better in the gym. And so the more I'm in the gym, the better I'm getting, which is just a lie.
Gaining Progress
Jordan 12:44
Yeah, you're 100%, right. And one of the things I've realized in terms of the behavior of these people who struggle with going every day, multiple times a day is when you ask them, Are you happy with your current progress? Usually, the answer is no. Like they're not happy with where they are. And what I've realized is, it's not that they're focused on getting better results by going more, it's that they think that if they go less, they will lose their current progress. They're not happy with where they are now at all. They still want to get better. But they think that if they go less, they will get fat, they will lose strength to lose their muscle definition. And even though they don't look the way they want to, in their minds, if I don't go with this much or more than I will look way worse. Because if this is how I look now, then how would I ever look better by going less? So it's, it's all done out of a fear of losing progress, rather than really trying to gain progress.
Athan 13:43
Yeah, that's funny after 24 years now of being a, you know, trainer slash coach, one of the things I've realized when I say this all the time is like, I rarely meet a client who is satisfied, you know, like, really like, oh, no, I'm good. Like this. I'm exactly where I want to be, everything is just optimized. Like, you almost never hear that. So and that's just part of the human condition, I think. But as someone who's a coach, I have to understand that and like, not feed into, like, you know, it's easy for them to say, oh, I want to work on this. And I will work on that. So like you mentioned earlier, an inexperienced coach could get sucked into that. Like, okay, let me make you happy by giving you more programs or whatnot, you know?
Jordan 14:23
Yeah, yeah, is I think one of the things that younger coaches struggle with is They're young, they're excited, and they really want to help people, but also you have to take into account that they're trying to make money, right, like this is it's a business and maybe they see other friends or other other people around their age starting to make more money or they're on social media and people are posting about how much money they make and they're on these like private jets, whatever it is, it's skewing their mentality, what's actually normal and real. And so they're like, well, if my client is saying they want more and more and more, my clients are gonna leave me and not pay me if Don't give them what they want. So instead of doing what they know is right, because of what they've studied and what the science shows, they give them inappropriate amounts of training volume and intensity, just so the client doesn't stop paying them. And that is it feeds into a very, very big problem we see in the industry.
Athan 15:16
Yeah, I think that's one of the things I love about your content, right is like I was saying, like, you have this like, no bullshit, like, you know, and like, what I love is that, like you own, you have a very clear sense of who you are, and what works. And you just like rock that and I think that that's what's the key to being like a great professional is, is like holding the line, you know, not being pleasing to people pleasing, or not telling people what they want to hear. But what I love about my military background is like, you know, when someone when I'm fucked up, I a guy in the military can just say, Hey, you're fucked up, here's why. You know, and, and I'll be like, Thank you, you know, like, I'm good, you know? And they'll just tell you and or, like, no, that's not true. This is accurate. So I and I really see that a lot in your content.
Jordan 16:03
Thank you, man. I mean, I I very much, I think it's important to say, like, so much of how I come across now is because of mistakes I made as a young coach. So I mean, I mean, I made the mistake of being a young coach and giving clients what they wanted, rather than what they needed. I made all of these mistakes. And so it's easier for me to spot it now. Because it's Oh, yeah, I did that I was stupid coach, I made stupid mistakes. And I'm still do stupid stuff. Now. I'm sure in five 710 years, I will look back on what I'm doing today and be like, God, I was such an idiot. Right. But like, that's part of growth. And so I think one of the things that I want to do is I want to be open about it and honest so that hopefully younger coaches going through it can make better decisions earlier than I did.
Athan 16:46
Yeah. Well, I love that it's clear to me that that's, that's that's strong in your messaging? Well, while we're talking about it, so one of the tenants of this show, and part of my purpose is optimal health. And so when I say the term optimal health, what is what that means to you? Or like, how, how would you describe that?
What is Optimal Health?
Jordan 17:05
Oh, man, that's, that's a tough one, right? I really do think optimal is going to change per individual. Like it's not, it's not the same for everybody. When I think about it, it's funny. Do you remember the wellness wheel? Like, did you ever see the wellness wheel? And it's like, that's sort of where my mind goes, which is sort of corny and childish, but like, it actually, when you look at the wellness wheel, I don't remember I know interpersonal and intrapersonal. And, and fit in I know, there's like all these, I think they're seven different components of it or something, right? I don't remember, either. But that's where my mind goes in terms of, generally speaking, I'd like to see a balance of everything. Where is, for example, the person who's working out four hours a day, they're not optimal health, because their mental side clearly isn't healthy. And maybe physically, they're healthy. But the mental side is driving them crazy. They don't have good health in their life, they don't have good interpersonal relationships, they don't have good interpersonal relationships. They don't have maybe, you know, work life balance. And I think balance is a separate discussion, because honestly, I'm not the biggest proponent of balance as it's been promoted throughout social media, and like 21 year old influencers, who like don't have real responsibilities, like, You need balance. It's like, here's my morning routine, it's like, great, like, you have literally nothing going on in your life. So it's very easy for you to do this. So I'm not the biggest. And also for whatever it's worth, like, if you really want to achieve something great in life, I don't think balance is realistic. I think if you really want to excel, be the best, or one of the best and something balanced is overrated, I think you have to go all in on something and really go hard on it. For someone who realistically has optimal health. They're probably not what we see, at least in the American culture of like, massively successful from like a CEO, for example, like CEO of a crazy, super, they're probably a CEO of a super high level business with 1000s of employees probably doesn't have optimal health, just to be honest, because they can't they can't optimize their health, with all of the stress and all the responsibility and all the time and all of the travel and all of the business meetings, like they probably can't. So I think in order to achieve optimal health, you need more balance. But then the question is, like, how much balance Do you want based on what you want to achieve? So that's sort of where my mind goes, and I'm all over the place. But that's what what I think about
Athan 19:32
No, I think you nailed it, because that's how I think about it, too. It's like optimal health depends on what is your goal, and can you be successful in that specific goal and are you and are you functioning, you know, and then are you and then are you you know, balanced? Like you said, it isn't possible, depending like you said, like, well, you're, for example, a five times world record holder in powerlifting. Right during that time, you were probably training a lot harder in one hour. aspect of your life and then just trying to manage the other aspects of your relationship, your spirituality, your mental health, you know, but that was optimal for what you were trying to do, as opposed to just going off the deep end on only lifting, lifting, lifting, and not trying to balance it. And so you know, some way,
Jordan 20:17
So I'm probably gonna butcher this quote, but one of my really good mentors that I had, from the time I was a young kid, said something to me, that has very much proven true, it's to the effect of out of work, sleep, family, friends, and health. Out of those five work, sleep, family, friends and health, you can only ever really choose three at any one time. And probably if you want to get really good at one, only two, right? So he said that to me when I was like 19, or 20. And I was like, going into the peak of my powerlifting career. And I was really wanting to build a name for myself in the fitness industry. And I didn't understand it, I didn't have the context or the life experience to know. Now over a decade later, I get it. And he was right. There were times when I went all in on my business. And my fitness went to shit, I lost friendships, because as a result of it, because I was so focused on that. And then, as I've gotten more focused on my own health and fitness, like other things have slowed down, or as I focus more on my wife, the things slow down on the other end. And so that's where I sort of think balance is really, it's not realistic, I don't think it is I really you have to choose what you want to focus on, and allow that to be what is most important to you and maybe allowed to incorporate the other things, but you can't expect to improve in everything. At the same time. It's just not realistic. Yeah, it's impossible.
Athan 21:41
And I heard someone on a podcast and I can't remember, I think his name was Jesse something who said the same exact thing that you just said about like, you look, you can you can provide, you can prioritize and focus on just like two or three things. So life's about trade offs, you know, and one of my values is to prioritize what matters. So what I choose to focus on, you know, might even change day to day, depending on what fires pop up or anything, but overall, you kind of have to put a stake in the ground. Say, that's what I'm marching towards. And, and get to walk in, you know, and everything you might have to say no to some things. Well, I see. Okay, so you mentioned your wife. And so I also noticed that you guys are expecting so congratulations on that. Thank you August due date, something like that. Yeah, exactly. August due date. I'm an August baby myself. So I already know, let's go. Yeah, so when's your birthday?
Jordan 22:35
August what August 6? Are you okay, got it. So ours is August 16.
Athan 22:40
Okay. Well, that's awesome. And that So speaking of what we're talking about, and prioritizing what matters and like how you're, there's trade offs in life as a successful professional, someone who's well respected in the industry, and you've clearly got things, a way of doing things. How is something like getting married? And and and and, you know, in expecting a child and things like that change what you prioritize or does it at all?
Jordan 23:09
Oh, it absolutely does. It absolutely is. does. I mean, you know, one of the reasons so I don't remember if it was, I think it was before we started recording I was telling you, we moved from New York, to Texas in April. And there were many reasons why. One of which, like I said, just in New York became a shithole during the pandemic, I just didn't want to be there anymore. The other reason is, so I knew I didn't want to raise a family in New York City. It was great in my mid 20s. And like grinding and building a business, it's the best place to be. I think if you really want to build a business, it's just like, the energy in New York is unlike and I've lived all over the world. I've lived in New York, I've lived in Israel. I've lived in Boston, I've lived in Delaware. I've traveled all over the world. I've been to Cal everywhere. The best place I've ever been to build a businesses in New York without question. But I got to a point where in my business, where I was, like, I'll say a quote that one of my one of my another mentor said to me, when I was about 24 years old, he said, Jordan, there comes a point or they were making money solves more problems, until you get to a point where making more money will cause more problems. And that hit home with me. And I'll never forget that as my buddy Pat Flynn, he said it to me when I was 2425. And there reached a point when I was living in New York when I was like, it wasn't necessarily about money, it was more actually about time spent working. And I was like, working more for the last few years has solved many problems. But if I work any more now or even try to maintain this current output, it's going to cause more problems. And I was like, I had a lot of mental and emotional stress of staying in New York because being in New York for me, there's something immediately associated with New York with work. Like it's hard for me to wake up in New York without just grind. That's what you do your New York work. work that's just like what you do. And so one of the reasons I wanted to move out of there was because that environment is difficult for me. And it's difficult for me to focus on my wife is still difficult for me to prioritize family, when work is just encompassing everything that I do there. So we wanted to leave there for that reason as well. And so, so now living in Dallas, it's just, it's amazing. I can prioritize my wife, we have breakfast, every morning, we have dinner every night, we'll go down to the gym, and we'll work out not not to do the same workouts, but we'll work out at the same time. We sit down and watch TV to get like, we spend so much more we spend like triple the amount of time together now than he did when he lived in New York. And there's so much more space here. So in New York, we had a 500 square foot apartment, but we spent so little time together. Now we have a much bigger apartment, and like she works and I work and we're all over the place. But we spend way more time together. So it's really nice that I was able to figure out, I need to put myself in an environment that fosters what I need to prioritize. So yeah, absolutely. And thinking about, you know, having a kid and all that makes me just very glad that I'm now in a position where I can make that my priority and make that happen.
Athan 26:13
Do you perceive things as like, this is kind of like a new status quo for you? Or is this like, do you see that there might be a time where you've got to like flip the switch again, and then go grind for a while, or is this kind of what you're trying to create is like your, your new, you know, status.
Pyramid of Priorities
Jordan 26:29
You know, I'm, I'm not old. But I've been around enough to know that life can throw you weird curveballs and you never know what's going to happen. So if something happens, and I need to flip the switch and grind, like, I still got that I can do it. So I would prefer not to To be honest, I would prefer like, as of right now, I'm training jiu jitsu five, six times a week, I'm working out several times a week and spending a lot of time my wife and I'm sort of coasting with my business to be frank about it. Like, I do three or three podcasts a day, usually. And it's funny, like what sounds like a lot to some people at this point. For me, it's just like, it's very little, I do three podcasts a day, some Instagram posts, and that's pretty much it, which takes about, I don't know, five to seven hours of work. But that's the light day, it used to be like, I used to take Adderall like candy because like, that's what I would do in New York to try and stay up for as long as I could to get as much work as done as possible. And I'm not bragging about that. I don't want anyone to do that. But it's the truth in order to to put out as much content as I did for so many years, I was abusing Adderall. And I don't want to do that. Like, I don't, I don't want to hurt my body. Like I want to be here. So I can be here for my wife and my kids.
Athan 27:44
Right? It goes back to that optimal piece when you start to realize, okay, there's stuff that I'm doing that I'd felt like I needed to do, but it's not helping to be a better human being. It's not being, you know, ultimately, you can't sustain that. Well. Okay, so speaking of So, again, like I like to speak to people who I know are doing like things at a high level and to try to capture like, what are some Do you have, like daily habits that you like, again, maybe their non negotiables are things that you kind of rotate through, but are there things that you like really try to get in every day to help you to perform at your highest level? They aren't necessarily your work, you know, other things supporting habits?
Jordan 28:25
Yes. So, you know, it's really changed over the years, depending on what my focus is, right. So what I want to prioritize has dictated what my daily habits were. So when I was the most productive with my business, the best daily habit I ever had, was, and I still have the journal here, I haven't done it in a while. But like, right here, I have the journal that I would use, I have like 15 of these just all around my apartment, but I have one that's still in I'm using. But every morning I would wake up in the very first thing that I would do is I would write down my daily action list, like the things I had to get done that day, which in essence looks like a to do list. But a lot of people they make a to do list and it's like 50 things. And that was I learned very quickly. That wasn't good for me. So I sort of I called it my, my like 531 or my 321 whichever one it was. And basically, the number one was the top one it was one of those like a pyramid. So the number one I called it my Do or Die priority. That was the one thing I had to do every single day no matter what that had to get done. Some days it was writing an article from our website. Some days it was getting several Instagram post on some days it was writing my client programs, whatever it was, that was the one thing that by the end of the day, I had to get that done and if nothing else got done, at least the doer die was done. Then the next one I had was my daily medication. So I had one dewart iPod I had three daily medications. And these were things that were important and needed to get done but weren't the doer dilate. They don't have to be done today. They were important and maybe I should start working on them. Maybe it was planning out content for the next couple of days. Maybe it was Doing some research like maybe I hadn't done some research and a couple days, I needed to sit down and actually read some research papers. But these were the things that three things that I had to do for my daily medication. And then I had the last set, which was the five and this was my, what I called my nap time activities. These were things that I could do instead of procrastinating. So oftentimes, it was answering client emails, answering DMS on Instagram, planning out content, easy things for me to do, I could lie on a couch, and I could do it instead of just turning on the TV. And again, like these were the things that I did when I was the most focused on my business. And it massively massively helped my productivity and my time management. So is the doer die daily medication that time activities. And that, for me was just been worked unbelievably well. But now my priority isn't my business. So I don't really do that as much anymore. But if it comes to a point where I'm like, Hey, I've got to get my shit together. I guarantee you, I'll bring that back. That's awesome.
Athan 30:54
What are any other habits that you do regularly try to do daily or regularly that really help you to be perform at your highest level.
Jordan 31:04
So for me right now, Jujitsu, I do basically every morning. So Monday through Saturday, I try and do jujitsu every single morning. That for me has been, I don't count that as my workout for like, that's not my strength training. That's just like, that's more for my mental health than anything else like and because I love it. Yes, Jujitsu for me has been such a learning experience. I look at that as as as mental health I look at that as study time I look at that, as there's so much invested in why I do jujitsu outside of the physical and health benefits of it. And so for me, one of the greatest things, and I started doing it a little over two years ago now. And one of my first coach told me something he said, when you start your day, trying to prevent someone from choking you out. Every other obstacle you face that day seems relatively insignificant. And that's completely held true. Where like, I start my day, literally yesterday, I got choked out like unconscious. So I wasn't even successful with preventing that I got a little bit too cocky. And I was like, I'm not going to tap. And then I very quickly, like guy got me in a baseball, bat choke and was not good. I literally passed out, which has only happened three times in two years. But um, basically, for me, that's my mental exercise where everything I do throughout the rest of the day, it's like, cool, I got through someone trying to kill me. I'm fine. And so that, that for me is that but for some people, maybe it doesn't have to be jujitsu, it could be working out. It could be reading a book. It could be. It could be anything. But I do think forever. It's worth there's something to waking up and doing something hard. Yeah. There's something too, getting up and forcing yourself to do something that is scary. That is difficult and challenging to start your day. I think whatever that is for you. It's very important that someone has that.
Athan 32:54
Yeah, I love that. And I'm glad you said it that way, right, getting up and doing something difficult, because that can look a lot of different ways for a lot of different people. Like for example journaling, for some people, like I have a particular journaling practice, which for me isn't as much work oriented, but it's more like kind of like dumping the craziness out of my head and getting it in some sort of, you know, put it having a place for it. And that's sometimes hard, you know, or writing myself, what I do is I write myself like a little like, letter as if I were my own coach or best friend. And like, you know, sometimes I'm hard on myself or sometimes I'm really loving of myself, but some that's hard. It's something hard. For other people, it might be a cold plunge. Right, they might be getting into a 40 degree bathtub and holding yourself in there for a few minutes. I mean, that's hard. I NC kind of like thinking like you might die of like hypothermia or something like that. You know, so it can look a lot of different ways. But I like the way that you put it. And I've never really thought about it in that way, particularly but doing something difficult and knocking that out right at the beginning of the day.
Taking on Responsibilities
Jordan 33:59
You know, I was talking about this, my buddy Mike, we've spoken about this a lot. But there's something about responsibility that makes you a better individual, where you take on a responsibility where you have to take on a load in order to like you have to bear a load on your back. You have to carry it. And for example, a lot you hear a lot of people talking about when they have a kid they completely change. Because like having the responsibility to take care of something like that bigger responsibility really put them in a position where I need to make the change for them. And I very much believe whether it's jujitsu, whether it's journaling, whether it's painting, whether it's whatever ice plunge, when you wake up with the feeling of I have a responsibility to do this. It does make you a better person when you see that responsibility through. And it allows you to become to continue to be a better person throughout your day. And when you practice that every single day. It makes you more regimented and it allows you to live up to your highest expectation of yourself.
Athan 34:59
Yeah, I agree and you just structure any kind of structure. I think people do better with some confines and some structure. You know, I've seen it time and time again people, you know, why are weekends like the hardest for a lot of people because it's that unfree unstructured time that no obligations to no responsibilities. They kind of just fall off the rails that way, you know, but if they're busy from like, seven o'clock in the morning to seven o'clock at night, you they seem to they get all their habits in and they do all the healthy things themselves because busy people get more done.
Jordan 35:31
You know, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. I don't know. Do you listen to Jordan Peterson at all?
Athan 35:36
I do. Yeah. You know, from time to time, I've listened to him quite a bit.
Jordan 35:40
Man, I love that guy. And, you know, he has a really funny clip talking about routine and, and, you know, he's just, he's such an intelligent, smart guy. I love what he says. Also, his voice is funny. You just like his mannerisms. And the way he talks. That was one amazing clip where he was like, Oh, you think you can function without a routine? Haha, good luck. Good luck with that. And he just went off talking about how important routine is I was like, I completely agree that the times when I was the most productive and the most focused is when I have a routine.
Athan 36:11
So going back to the jujitsu thing, because so I used to, I used to practice jujitsu. Also, it's been a while. But one of the things that I love about it, like you mentioned, it's not just a physical thing. In fact, I would be being an athletic physical person, like I wrestled, also, as a kid. It hurt me in in jujitsu, because, you know, you're too aggressive. You're too You're too tight. But the guys, you know, the brown belts, and the black belts, just laughing guys like me, because, you know, they're just gonna lay there, relax, and just wait for me to put my hand in the wrong place. And next thing you know, I'm armbar, or I'm choked or whatever. But But it goes back to what you were saying earlier about, I love I didn't do it in the morning. But now I wish I had because it's like, it is like a puzzle, right? It's a it's a mental game as much, it's way more mental than it is physical. And so I think that's really cool that you look at it like that. And I do recommend anyone listening. If you haven't done any type of like jujitsu, Jujitsu or submission, wrestling, or something like that. I mean, everybody, these are skills that I think everybody needs to have.
Jordan 37:14
I couldn't agree more. Yeah, for the mental aspect, the physical aspect, even just like the the confidence of being able to walk around and know that worst comes to worst, you can keep yourself safe. And I say that very deliberately. Because when you learn, and I've boxed before, I want to do my tie. I love those sports, and I think they're amazing. But you can't punch someone and not hurt them. And never mind yourself, or you can't kick someone in the head to defend yourself and not have an injury to one if not both people. When you learn jujitsu, you you have the power to choose if you hurt someone or not. Where if was, so when I say like you have the ability to keep yourself safe, worst comes to worst, you can control a situation to the point at which you aren't hurt. And the person who was attacking you wasn't hurt unless like they need to be hurt to for whatever the situation is. But sometimes, you know, we see videos online of maybe someone who has a mental disability attacking someone, and they get knocked out. And it's like, that would have been so much better if you could control them to the ground and keep them safe. Because they didn't they weren't aware of what they were doing. They were not aware of it. And by knocking them out, you cause way more damage, and there's lawsuits and all this other stuff. Whereas if you can control them, get them on the ground and keep them and yourself safe. You have that option with jujitsu, it's so it's such an important skill for people to learn.
Athan 38:37
Yeah, and that you can't say enough about having the confidence of even maybe that situation never happens to you. Right? Let's just say that you never in a situation to protect yourself. But the confidence with being able to because how many people avoid particular situations or particular areas or anything like how many how many people out of fear, just don't put themselves but having the confidence of knowing that you could take care of yourself probably serves you in way more things just than just self defense.
Jordan 39:03
100%. And yes, you bring up a good point. So there was a study, recently a study of of where psychologists and psychiatrist went into the prison system to talk to repeat violent offenders of people who are criminals and thugs and all this stuff. And they they were talking to them about who they, how they picked their targets. How they did they pick the people, they were going to rob they're going to hurt their whatever it was. And they didn't have an idea. They didn't say like, well, this is who we would choose. They just said they knew who they wouldn't choose. And the people who they would not choose were the people who walked around who were aware who had their eyes up who looked confident in themselves, whereas the people who were looking down maybe a little bit more hunched over clearly more visibly vulnerable targets. That's who they would go after and the confidence that you gained from learning Self Defense like a jujitsu like jujitsu, wrestling, whatever it is. It allows you to stand up straight. It allows you to keep your eyes forward, because you're not trying to hide any more you have the visible characteristics of someone confident in their ability to take care of themselves.
Athan 40:15
Yeah, I love that. I, I didn't know about this study that you just mentioned. But wow, what better other reason? You know, people should really learn how to defend themselves just so they're not making themselves a target. You know? So the other two tenants of this podcast are that we haven't already talked about our deep human connection, and self actualization. Neither one of those things resonates with you right now. Deep human connection, or self actualization?
Jordan 40:51
Both man, I think they're both super important. I love like, I haven't heard anyone say that. Those are such important tenants. But like, I love that you've made that such an important tenet.
Athan 41:01
Are you a newlywed? Or is are you been
Jordan 41:04
married for a while? We got married in August. So okay, new, pretty new. Okay, which
Athan 41:09
I like, you know, talking about deep human connection. You know? How is that? How has that been for you? What's the experience?
Deep Human Connection
Jordan 41:16
You know, it's funny. So it was as if we've been together. I think we're going on five years now. In May, just six, we've been together for a while. We moved in before we were married, I was just something I was like, I'm not gonna marry someone before I live with us. I want to know, this is gonna be like, so not much has changed from the perspective of our daily life. But you know, we are religious, we're Jewish. And there's, there's something that that you do before you get married, oftentimes, it'll just be the woman. But sometimes the man will do it as well. And I opted to do it, where it's something where you go into what's called a mikvah, which is basically just a bath. And you know, in Christianity, people will get baptized. And that actually comes from the Jewish the mikvah. And so when you do this whole ritual, where you go into this bath, which is a natural pool of water, and you go through this whole process, and the whole idea is that you're, when you come out of that bath, before you get married, you're you're you're cleaning yourself off, you're cleansing yourself to the point where it's like, you are going into this relationship, brand new, you're going into this brand new and everything you do going forward is going to set the tone for the relationship that you have with this person. And that was actually a very transformative moment for me in terms of how I viewed the relationship. Because it's one thing that you know, just you're with someone for a number of years, then you get married. But to look at it as like, this is a demarcation point in our relationship where it's like now something new is starting. And a new relationship is starting within a relationship that we've already had. That was very important for me. And it's and just getting married and making that lifelong commitment has been a huge stress relief. To be honest, there's just been something where it's just like, this is just nice. It's just nice to like, not be looking, you know, it's like you're done, you know, and I think a lot of guys especially they get worried about it, they're like, Wait, so this is the only person to be with and I think that's a normal and a rational and an understandable fear. But I didn't No one ever told me about how nice it feels to just be done with that. Like it just it's a very comforting, nice feeling to know that this is your person, you don't have to be looking anymore.
Athan 43:34
Yeah, and I love the ritual that you just talked about where it was like this cleansing and this starting new because one of the real challenges of any kind of relationship whether it be romantic or friendship or anything is that you you are bringing your we always bring our pasts are past into the situation, you know, you're carrying baggage and trauma support, you know, things into it, and it makes relationships hard. So I like that symbology of like, okay, we're, we're now unifying ourselves, and we're cleansing ourselves with some of that stuff. And we're moving together in the in the same direction.
Jordan 44:09
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Athan 44:11
I love that. Awesome. Well, we're, we're pretty much at the end of our time, I want to finish where I started with just a massive amount of gratitude. I learned from the content that you put out there. I learned from you today. I know people are going to learn from you. And I'm just grateful. There's people out there like you who really care enough about people to give them the real deal information and just great content.
Jordan 44:37
Thank you, man. I appreciate you. This has been a wonderful conversation. If you end up in Dallas, let me know I'd love to go grab some beers with you. And if I'm in Austin, I'll definitely let you know.
Athan 44:46
Yeah, we'll have to roll it, we'll get there roll or something if you're in town or I'll come up there and let you and that'd be amazing. That's awesome. Well, thanks again. We will put all of your social media channels there. I have your website and your Instagram. Is there any other channel that you want people To know about, we'll post
Jordan 45:02
a note that if you Google my name, you'll Jordan Syatt , my podcasts, Instagram, all that will come
Athan 45:06
up. Awesome. Okay, well pleasure to sit down and talk with you. I hope you have a great rest of your day. Appreciate you being on likewise, man. I'm so grateful that you joined us for this episode ofDoing The Work Podcast. Providing you with value is why I do this and I hope you got something out of this episode that you can put into action into your life. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please share this episode with your friends and family who are looking to level up in life. Sign up for our email list at WWW dot doing work podcast.com to receive special offers and discounts from our sponsors. subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, YouTube, Amazon and anywhere podcasts are hosted. Thanks again for joining the Doing The Work Podcast and we'll see you on the next episode.
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