Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1812: Fatherhood With Ben Greenfield

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

1812:  Fatherhood With Ben Greenfield Has he noticed any parallels in his sons’ personalities or interests to his own? (2:21) Having those interesting, yet important, discussions with your teenage children. (6:17) The challenges of unschooling. (8:54) Building non-privileged children through the Greenfield Family Playbook. (27:29) Going through the rite of passage from boyhood to manhood. (35:45) Why Ben and his wife preach conscious-based parenting. (39:42) How has he addressed pornography with his children? (43:27) Navigating and being the example of being a good man/father. (48:27) Why Ben is writing a parenting book. (53:00) The impact breathwork has been on his children. (57:08) The important habits/practices he has built into his son’s daily lives. (58:37) What worries him about future technologies? (1:03:34) Choose happiness and love. (1:10:49) Does he find his passion for fatherhood growing? (1:16:06) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Drink LMNT for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! May Promotion: MAPS Starter Bundle and MAPS Spilt 50% off! **Promo code MAYSPECIAL at checkout** Mind Pump #1340: Fatherhood, Parenting, Home Schooling & Religion with Ben & Jessa Greenfield  Mind Pump #1145: Ben Greenfield on Putting on Several Pounds of Muscle, Living a Long & High Quality Life, Ways to Slow Aging, Unschooling His Sons & MORE  Unschooling To University: Relationships matter most in a world crammed with content – Book by Judy Arnall BioCharger Subtle Energy Health Optimization Platform Soaking Worship on Spotify Build Family Legacies - Legado Family Your Brain On Porn A Porn Blocker That Actually Works || Canopy Othership App | Guided Breathwork From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life – Book by Arthur C. Brooks Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources Featured Guest/People Mentioned Ben Greenfield (@bengreenfieldfitness)  Instagram Wim Hof (@iceman_hof)  Instagram Arthur Brooks (@arthurcbrooks)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. All right, special guest today, Ben Greenfield, good friend of ours. We've had him on the show a few times. We love the guy. One of the smartest people we know in the health and fitness space, also kind of weird, but also kind of cool.

Really, really nice guy. Today's episode, we talk about fatherhood. I mean, he's got two kids. He takes it very seriously. He has unique approaches to fatherhood. And we think that there's a lot of golden nuggets in this conversation. This is actually some stuff that I learned

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and then use the code may special for the 50% off discount. All right, here comes a show. I remember when you first started getting them doing the podcast and I was like, dude, it's so cool to see them. Like, to me as a father, that would be like one of the coolest dreams is to one or two things. I feel like, because these are like two big passions of me. I love sports. So if my son gravitates towards sports, it would be very cool to be a part of that or business stuff.

I just love building business. And I think watching them do that and how their minds work and everything like that. And it's like, and so have you have you made the connections of like seeing how their minds work when it comes to business and how how parallel they are with yours or how different are they they're different because But I have focused on with them is not making all the mistakes that I made, meaning I'm not having them take like marketing classes or learn how to put up their WordPress posts or do any post editing on their audio or anything like that. I just tell them just crush the one thing that you're good at. In this case, for a podcast like cooking and making the recipes and interviewing the chefs and being like the face and the intellect behind the product and then have other people do all the rest of this stuff and I'm waste your time learning it.

Oh wow. Yeah, and so they really, they aren't, they aren't like burdened with all the behind-the-scenes stuff because I've just told them from the get-go. Pay somebody else to do that stuff, because you could learn it, but at the end of the day, you're going to pay somebody to do it anyways. Do you remember when you learned that lesson? Oh, way too long into the get, because I was a cheap skate,

operating with a spirit of scarcity, I didn't hire my first virtual assistant until I was like, eight years into the business, and I coated all my own PHP scripts for my newsletter, and I did all my own affiliate marketing, I coded all my own PHP scripts for my newsletter and I did all my own affiliate marketing. I did, you know, all my own web design and all my own editing and all my own social media for a long time, which is, it's kind of good

to learn that stuff. Probably the top reason being, you know, if you're getting screwed by somebody. Yeah, you know how to hire people. You know how to charge me $60,000? So, by the side, technically, yeah, I know how long I'm gonna take out. Yeah, exactly. I know how to hire people? You know how to charge me $60,000? Is it a website that technically can... Yeah, I know how long that takes. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, exactly. I had a hot I guess. And so, you know, I think that the cons out with the pros though, of knowing and learning and spending time doing it yourself versus just sticking to your crafts, sticking to your art, and finding somebody else to do their rest. Well, it's a modern economy, so it's so important to be so good at one specific thing and not do lots of different things.

So it takes away from that. Yeah, and then I mean, I'm not against being a Renaissance person. I think that's admirable. You know, I think it's laudable to be able to fix your car and fix your bicycle and, you know, motor lawn and all those things. But I think that when it comes to business, getting bogged down in the day. You can't scale that way.

You can't scale. And I don't consider that, I don't consider that being a Renaissance person as much as I consider that maybe kind of being stupid or being a micromanager being cheap. Yeah. Right. Because I think a Renaissance person, it's more like somebody who's out there learning how to do it. There's a passion for all of this stuff. Engaging culture, how to survive, how to build, how to fix.

But when it comes to the business aspects, I just feel like, I don't feel like knowing how to do your PPC ad buys is necessarily the best way to become a person. Well, they have a great teacher cause you have experience in that. That's why I advocate a lot for mentorship. You know, you can take classes and courses or you can go do a free internship for somebody

that is doing a great job and learn from them who have the experience. You'll learn all the, you'll cut through all the mistakes and stuff that you'll make on your own if you don't do that. Yeah, I mean, well, that's what, that's how I've structured their entire education. It's all experiential based learning with very little time spent in books or not necessarily not in classes, but even the classes are like live hands-on type of courses.

Now, your boys are 14, right? Yeah. So how is that? Okay, so I have a 16-year-old, I have a 12-year-old, so she's gonna go, she's almost a teenager. Boy, do I have a 16 year old, I have a 12 year old, so she's gonna go, she's almost a teenager. Boy, do I see the difference in having kids versus teenagers in just attitude and complexity of emotion and just conversations, how's that been for you?

You know, I haven't noticed a huge change. I mean, I was saying, it's interesting because one of them is going through puberty right now and the other one isn't. And so I feel like, you know, because like we're doing sex set, which was really interesting because I'm taking them through all the birds and the bees

and everything because I'd rather them learn all of this from me than from YouTube or Google or, you know, they're, you know, friend or some sleepover or something like that. So, I'm taking them through all of that and it's just, it's super interesting. So I something like that. So I'm taking them through all of that. And it's just, it's super interesting. So I have all these books that I'm bringing them through and Dad's Old Anatomy textbooks

and we're talking about everything from porn and relationships to masturbation to changes in girls' bodies, to changes in guys' bodies and just that soup to nuts. And it is interesting, yeah, because one of them is kind of the other developmentally. That's weird because they're twins. With why? How? Is that? I honestly don't know. I mean, it might have been the diet that one ate versus some piece of meat the other one didn't eat. I have no clue. But I don't think it's that uncommon for kids to go through at different times.

Yeah, so like, during sex out, I'm like, so have you guys had an erection yet? And Keanu, cause you're just asking all these personal questions to them and River, my son who's older, but hasn't got through puberty yet, he just looks at me like, totally confused, no clue what I'm talking about. And Terran's like, oh yeah, I read my bike.

Yeah. Slide down the banister and answer he's got all these answers. Yeah, it's awesome, dad. Yeah. Yeah. And we're talking rivers, kind of sideways glancing at him. Waiting for his turn. To get his or not.

I don't know if I want to, I don't know if I want to hold on, damn, I want to ride in my bike. That's so funny. Yeah, you know, Terran, you can smell him a little bit. He's got a little bit of the face acne. But they're, you know, they're, they're, um, yeah, they're doing great. I mean, you, you, even like the, uh, the teen beauty thing,

I had the guy from, uh, from Ollie Tora, that's Ken Care Company. He came up and, and spent a day at her house, just shooting videos with him and teaching him how to do, like, clay masks and, and all the things that I wish I didn't know. When I was a kid for, you know, not getting zits and acne and exema and all those embarrassing teenagers. It's the last time we talked you were talking about

the way you were unschooling them. And did you come across anything that was challenging? Like obviously I've heard you talk about all the positive things and it sounds like a lot of good things have happened from that. Anything that was a real challenge of going that approach. I think the challenge with unschooling is the nature of it is that it's unstructured. There's not really a plan, there's not a curriculum.

Like when I was homeschooled, we had like your math curriculum and you're reading curriculum. Like when I was homeschooled, we had like your math curriculum and your reading curriculum. It was basically like the equivalent of a traditional schooling setup, but at home, gather around the kitchen table or on the living room floor, whatever. But it was just always, you knew when you woke up, like what was going on, like I'm gonna do this course

for math and then we go through this chapter for the reading and then I've got this essay from this writing course, et cetera, et cetera. With unschooling, you know, the premise behind unschooling is you're constantly taking the temperature of what it is that a child is interested in, whether for them, guitar, jiu-jitsu, Spanish, cooking. There's this list of things that they just really enjoy to do and are super interested in. So what does that look like? You wake up in the morning and you go...

Yeah, so every time a new interest arises, so we have a weekly meeting with my sons, my wife, me, a lady who helps us to schedule everything, almost like a virtual assistant for scheduling an organization and everything, and then a local boots on the ground person who helps us with scheduling trips to the museum and driving them places and classes and things like that. And then them. And so we're all on this call together, and we're reviewing their week, we're reviewing anything new that it is that they're interested in, that has sparked their passion recently.

How it is at the previous week went. But then based on that, what we do is we'll create blocks of schooling where there'll be like a six week block that's focused on like the recent block that just finished up was really heavy on investing in finances. It was really heavy on creative writing because they're both working on some fiction stuff right now. Heavy on art and then their podcast. And we piece all this together and then surround them with books, with tutors, with classes, with activities, with local excursions that basically are all based around those passions.

But it's very Lucy Goosey because you can't just like go online and find some set done for you curriculum. There's like one book that's pretty good called Unschooling to University that kind of like lays out what a what approximately, you know, unschooling program might look like from K through 12 and then onto college. And it does talk about some little things that are important, like record keeping.

Every single day, at the end of the day, my sons have a journal of everything that they've done for that day, that they scan and electronically send to the person who keeps all the records online that would then allow them to be able to show to the Washington State School District, what is the capability than that?

Right, exactly. Or if a university ever wants to see a transcript of what they've actually done, if they decide they wanna go to university, all that's the log. So we do a lot of record keeping, but yeah, I think back to your question, what was hard about it is you kinda don't,

like at the back of your mind, there's always, you know, at least for me personally, I'm always wondering, well, are they ahead? Are they behind? Are they learning the things that they should be learning? Like am I not teaching them enough about math or science or if they have an express and interest in chemistry? Do I force that on them?

Because I know it's gonna be good for you to know later on, or do I wait until they trust? Because I know it's going to be good for you. No later on. Right. Or do I wait until they trust you? Have they done any interest in it? Have they done any like the state testing or examinations? If you to just seek like no, where that is? Not yet. Not yet. But, but, but I mean, they, they're, they're smart. They're extremely happy. They're really balanced. I mean, the home is a very pleasant place to be because they're just

engaged in what it is they love to do. There's always two half days each week where they can just wake up in the morning to whatever they want. Whether it's free time for art or free time for being outside and nature go outside to build a fort or whatever. So we sculled in a lot of like free unstructured, free creative play time. I think that's really important. What do you see? Okay. Since you do, and you already have this very kind of unstructured curriculum for them, what do they tend to gravitate towards during their free time? Do they tend to gravitate towards the things that they're already kind of school related or like, what do they do? 90% of the time, it's art.

They're super into art. They paint, they do comic books, they do murals, they do comics. They're writing a cookbook right now. It's like a graphic novel meets cookbook where all of the recipes are actual comics. They're amazing artists. They're my wife, Jessa. She's an amazing artist. I grew up super into art, watercolor, painting.

I would enter into art competitions and put my paintings in the fair. I kind of got out of painting, but both Mama and I come from very artistic, creative backgrounds, mostly musically and artistically. So both of our sons are really into that as well. Yeah, I had a friend who did this with their kid, and I would ask, because I had no idea

that this even existed back then, and I asked him, how do you teach math? Because all the stuff you listed, it wasn't math. And asked them, well, how do you teach math? Because all the stuff you listed, it wasn't math. And she said, well, he's really into cars. So when we talk about the engines, we talk about ratios, we should keep yours.

And how you figure a horsepower over torque. And like you talked about Jiu-Jitsu, you could talk about leverage and a fulcrum and how that increases leverage on this point versus that point. Chemistry, you could talk about cooking. Yeah, that's a lot of ways you could talk about leverage and a fulcrum and how that increases leverage on this point versus that point. Chemistry, you could talk about cooking. Yeah, that's a lot of ways you could do that. Is you can be very creative.

So even like Washington State has 12 key core subjects that a child must demonstrate proficiency and not to be considered like a truant. And if you don't want a social worker winding up at your door as you're submitting these records, you want to show demonstrate that they've taken certain courses. So if you think about it, like what you were alluding to, like making risotto in the kitchen could be chemistry, it could be math, total because of the measurements, it could even be if there's like an ethnic twist to it, some type of social

studies or language studies, I mean, like making a meal can satisfy like six of those curricula or building a tree fort can be math. It's also real world application physical education. Yeah, but it's a real world application. I had this back to what I was talking about earlier, you know, the tricky part is that unschooling because you don't have a set of curricula, it's difficult, especially for guy like me, I'm one of those guys who loves to see the plan, like what's the plan, what's the schedule? You know, how's it all laid out? Whereas it's a little bit more Lucy Goosey

when you're unscrewing, kind of just like wake up and you know, ask your children, what is their interest in, and then just send them out into the world. I mean, did it take a lot of, yeah, does it take a lot of thinking for you with it? Okay, let's say they decide, okay, we're gonna make risotto tonight.

And do you decide like, okay, well then we are. We're gonna learn chemistry, we're gonna do math, or do you maybe pick one subject that we're gonna focus on for that one? No, we just do it. And then what actually happens to be us with you is we'll do an activity and then they'll journal it. They'll write it all down.

And then they'll send it off to her name's Darcy, this gal who I hired a few years ago. When we first started this, who, you know, you know, does a lot of the scheduling and the spreadsheet layouts of what the curriculum block might look like, she then takes their records and says, okay, these are the subjects that did

in terms of what that activity actually satisfied. You know what I'm saying? So I don't do a lot of that. She does all that. But you know one of the biggest critiques that kids will say, and I remember saying this too, is where am I gonna use this?, where am I going to use this?

Like, where am I going to use this? And so with something like that, you're actually seeing it work in the real world. Yeah, that question never comes up because they're very rarely learning something that they're not already interested in or that they're not already engaged in in the first place. I mean, they even have a math and finances instructor

because a lot of the stuff is tutor based. Like a math and finances instructor comes over to the house a couple of times a week. Spanish instructor comes over. You know, they meet with a private jujitsu instructor, like they've got a lot of like tutors and classes, but like the math and finances guy, when he comes over, I've been very clear with him.

I'm like, I don't want anything to be non-experiential, meaning like if they're gonna learn finances, you guys are gonna all get in the car, you're gonna to drive to the bank, they're going to learn how to talk to the teller, they're going to learn what the other people and the little cubicles back behind the teller are doing, they're going to learn how to get cash out, they're going to learn the difference between the debit card and the credit card, but it's not like they're doing that from a book, they're actually at the bank, boots on the ground, you're just learning all of that. Yeah, I would say the only challenge I can see with this is it's also a good thing, but also challenges as a parent, you don't just drop your kid off. You're super involved.

Super. It's a lot more work, right? Would that be accurate to say? Yeah, that's the tricky part is you know, and I'm constantly questioning that myself is how much of this phase of my life should be all about the kids versus how much am I still building my own career and building my own business? Cause it's kind of paradoxical. Like you have children or a spouse who you're trying to prepare and provide for and that's part of the reason that you work, but then

you're also working just to be able to build your own impact, to build your brand, to build your business, et cetera. And so I do question a lot, you know, like how much time do I actually spend focused on all the schooling and the curriculum and everything versus the business. So, I don't really have a perfect answer for it, but there's a lot of engagement or a lot more engagement required to the parent. Now, primarily what I do with them is I do physical education with them, meaning that every week,

I've just got basically like four set criteria. We do kettlebells, heat, cold, and breath work. I'm convinced that like, if you got those four things as part of physical education, like you're gonna create a pretty resilient human being. Because they're learning how to move an asymmetrical object that requires a great deal of course, stability with the kettlebell.

They're learning resilience and focus and tolerance to stress in the heat. They're learning resilience and focus and tolerance to stress in the heat. They're learning nervous system regulation and more stress resilience in the cold. And then with the breath work, they're getting a really intimate relationship with how to control their physiology using their breath, you know how to train CO2 tolerance and breath hold. So every single week, they're working out with me. And you know, for example, we'll go out and we'll do like a ladder of one up to 20 kettlebell swings with pushups. And then we'll drop straight into 20 minutes of breath work in the sauna. And then

we'll just go straight into, you know, 32 degree water for three minutes to finish up in the cold. And then we'll go off and have dinner together. And so I do the physical education with them. I a lot of times we'll write out like all every Sunday night I'll write out the other things they're gonna do during the week to like sometimes I'll just be okay So this week you've got set aside from the workouts that you do with dad You've got seven one mile walk in your bare feet, right? So every day at some point during their school day They're just like taking their shoes off head and outside one mile walk and a lot of times They'll just go out and do this stuff together or I'll give them some kind of a new barbell complex to learn.

I'll show it to them and tell them, okay, you guys gotta do this two times this week, whether it's with that or on your own. And then I also do the spiritual disciplines with them each morning and in the evening. So the physical disciplines are one part that I really commit to as being a present and engaged father for. And then the spiritual disciplines, what that looks like is at about 6 a.m. So I usually get up around 4.30 or 5,

kind of get some of my own morning, stretching, foam rolling, and have some coffee. And I do a little bit of a little bit of breath work. I'll use some of my biohacks. I got this thing called a biocharger, and I'll jump up and down the trampoline. Just do it, just morning self-care. It's fun, I enjoy that. I like to wake up and called a biocharger, and I'll jump up and down the trampoline. Just, I'm mourning self-care. It's fun. I enjoy that.

I like to wake up, and I like a good hour, just to take care of myself, and wake up, and kind of have a little bit of affluence of time to approach the day. Then I get them up, and I put on some really nice music in the house. I like this channel called Soaking Worship on Spotify. It's like this perfect music. You feel like the whole home's like this channel called soaking worship on Spotify. It's like this perfect music.

You feel like the whole home's like this temple or church. It's like really nice orchestral tunes or piano music or a lot of old school hymns set to kind of like, you know, epic instrumentation. And so I put that on and that's used about 6am. So the house is quiet until then and I put that on, I'll turn on some lights. I light some candles, I burn some incense and then I call them down. And so when they come down from their bedroom, it's like they're walking into like this sacred temple, this peaceful setting in the home. And we all sit down on meditation cushions in the living room. We do a few rounds of

Wim Hof to kind of like get just charge up the body for the day, get the breath work going. As soon as we finish breath work, we go into prayer, we have a little devotional that we go through, we read some scripture, we pray some more, we continue to listen to the music, and so every morning for about 15 minutes, basically we're just doing devotions, meditation, prayer, et cetera. And then they go up to their bedroom, they get ready for the day, I got down to my office and work for a while, and then at 7.30, the whole family meets in the living room again and we do a morning meditation. And the morning meditation is all based on what it is that you're grateful for that day

or from the previous day. And we're all visualizing this and going through it and seeing it in our minds. And then we do service. We write down one person who we can pray for or help or serve that day. We do tapping so that at the end of the meditation, we're basically using like, like, neuro-linguistic programming. You kind of like tap on a certain area, like minus right over my heart right here. I set an anchor.

And the reason that we do that is because when you're in that deep state of relaxation and peace from the morning meditation, when you set an anchor, what I tell my son is anytime later on in the day where you're stressed out or where life just seems to be coming out you too fast, you can tap in that same location and it brings you back into that same state of peace that you experience during the morning meditation. And then we also do just basically like a six count in, six count breath during that meditation, you know, eyes closed, tongue resting on the roof of the mouth or tongue pressed up against the roof of the mouth.

I was just basically setting a standard at the beginning of the day. And then after we do all that, we finished typically with like the Lord's Prayer, he like our father, Art and Heaven, Hall of Be Thy Name. We do that whole prayer together. And then we all come together as a family because my wife is down there for that session as well, even though she's not there for that early morning session that we do. We all come together as a family, we do like a group hug, kind of like a team hug, team huddle, and then we have a quick meeting about what else going on that day. Who's going where, what kind of classes are happening,

what time we have in dinner, what's for dinner, who's cooking, who's pitching in here, who's pitching in there, and then we just basically, it's like, top lap and scatter, everybody just goes off and we start into our day, And you know, most of us are home. My office is at home. My wife works from the home. So we're all kind of kind of at home during the day. We see each other. But that's like the official kind of like meeting to launch the day. And then my wife, she's a total spiritual warrior. Like she, like from the time that we do that morning meditation

to about 9.30 for two hours, she goes upstairs into the bedroom and she literally has a meditation cushion that she sits on and she's up there for two hours. Just like reading and praying and meditating and journaling and just mapping out how she's gonna help people the rest of the day and then she just basically, you know, have you down to the family.

Have you ever heard the critique? Because I've seen statistics on kids that are either homeschooled or unschooled. And there's not a lot on this because they're having a bit. But although today you're seeing more and more kids or families moving this direction. And the success rates are actually phenomenal when you compare to the average kid. And the critique I've heard is that really has, it's just the parents are just way more involved. So people have said, I've heard people say this,

like, oh, the methods are whatever. It just gets the parents are way more involved. The parents are way more involved with the, I think that that could be involved, right? Part of it, but at the same time, if you look past the parental involvement, which of it, but at the same time, if you look past the parental involvement, which of course, the time that a parent spends with a child is extremely formative. And it turns to that just that child sense of safety and belonging and, you

know, being seen and heard. And also just the parent that cares so much, right? Yeah. Yeah. But I think that there are some other potential failures of something like a modern traditional public schooling system, everything from wrote memorization of facts when really we live in an era where, you know, Google and automation, artificial intelligence dictates that wrote memorization of facts is not necessarily something that's going to serve you that well versus, you know, creative thinking. Yeah, I remember I remember my teacher saying you're not going to have a calculator in your pocket all the time. Yeah. Yeah.

We do now. But I mean, you know, learning at the having to learn at the same pace as everybody in the classroom or, you know, being subjected to bullying and peer pressure and I think there's there's some other things that happen in a traditional schooling system that would dictate that above and beyond just the fact that there's more parental involvement in traditional or in unschooling or homeschooling, that there's some other things going on in a public traditional schooling setting that are just kind of like outdated.

You just name something like boy, I mean, does it ever concern you that they don't have to deal with some adversities like that, because you could make the case that there's some value to actually having to go through that and overcome it, right? So do you ever worry about that? I mean, you're never engineer it.

You hire people to show up and hire people to come in and everybody sent them out for their one mile barefoot walk and have no Billy the 17 year old you wait in there a half mile down the road to relax out of it. I'm just taking your bike. What do we learn from it? What's the day's less you know what I think that So just to relax out of it. I'm gonna stick your bike. Hey, get out. What do we learn from it? And there's less to kids.

You know what, I think that with sports, you know, being in Jiu-Jitsu and having a role against, you know, guys who are older than them are bigger than them. And, you know, having to, you know, they're playing tennis, like they said, they're doing the kettlebells and the heat and the ice and the breath work. And I think you can build resilience in other ways than just being bullied.

Here's something we've talked about a lot. I'd love to ask you this as well. I'm a first generation American. My parents were poor immigrants. Adam didn't grow up in pretty tough situation. Justin's family wasn't super wealthy. Now, we're all far more successful than our parents were. And we always talk

about like, how can we make our kids like we don't want to raise a bunch of privileged, you know, acting kids. We want to make sure that they understand the value of work and money, even though they have all this way more stuff than we did or way more opportunity than we did. You ever think about that? Like, how can I get that in my kid? What are the best ways? I do. It's the all too common regs to riches to reg scenario that we see especially, you know, in America where you can make a name for yourself. And so, you know, a man or a woman who is poor will work hard.

They'll put their nose to the grindstone, they'll chop wood, they'll carry water. And then they'll supply their child with a very privileged life. And their goal in many cases is, I want my child to be able to have the freedom without the stress of worrying financially or worrying about Maslow's hierarchy of needs to be able to go forth and just do all the things that I wish I was able to do when I was a kid, but I wasn't privileged enough to have access to some of some of some of you know,

the finer things in life or the ability to be able to just engage in a lot of creative things that I wanted to engage in because I was so worried about just surviving. Right. And so then what happens is the parent who has created wealth gives it to the child. Right. And so the child never learns the same type of work ethic that the parent who has created wealth gives it to the child. So the child never learns the same type of work ethic that the parent built, the child winds up squandering the family's wealth,

often getting into trouble, becoming a black sheep. And this is painting with a broad brush, but it happens a lot. And then the family wealth is squandered. That child has a child who then grows up in a poverty-stricken scenario, and you start the whole sequence over and over and over again. So it's like that race, it's a rich-estoric scenario.

And you look at some families, you know, not that I wouldn't necessarily agree with everything that's going on with these families, you know, politically or ethically, but you look at like the rock of fellers or the bushes or the Clintons. You see, you're like, well, how do these families get subsequently wealthier with each generation? And subsequently more successful with each generation. You almost see a riches to riches to riches type of scenario. And if you get down to your look at what a lot of these families are doing,

they've got a family constitution. They've got a family trust. They've got a family bank. They've got a family mission statement.'ve got a family bank. They've got a family mission statement. They have a set of family values. The entire family is actually run more like a business would be run. And that's something that I actually studied up on for the past couple of years because I wanted to ensure that I didn't create that scenario with my children

because by God's good that I didn't create that scenario with my children because, you know, by God's good grace is I've found success. Like, you know, I've been blessed with it, with a platform and with some good businesses. And so I could give my kids, you know, a lot in terms of saying, okay, well, I'm just gonna, you know, I'm gonna pay for your college,

I'm gonna pay for your cars, I'm gonna pay for what you need. And you guys, you know, make art and become a little, you know, creative, you know, five star Michelin chefs or whatever. I don't necessarily think that that's the best way to create character and to create work ethic, especially in, you know, in any young human being. And so, we did was a few things with probably the most notable being that of work for the past couple years to create this playbook for the Greenfield family. And the playbook has our family mission statement in it. It has all of our family values in it. It has all of our traditions in it,

meaning here's what the Greenfield family does at Christmas. Here's what we do at Easter. Here's what we do at Thanksgiving. It has all the the ritualized ceremonial comings and goings that occur at different ages for each of the children. At age eight, this is when we have the talk about, you know, sex and the birds and the bees or at age 12, this is when they go through their right of passage into adolescence. At age 14 or 15, this is when they go through their right of passage into adolescence at age 14 or 15. This is when they go through their right of passage into adulthood. Both of my sons know at age 16, that's when they quit getting money, period.

Like at that point, they are expected to take care of themselves, they're expected to pay for their own food, they're expected to buy their own car, they're expected to pay for their own college. They know already, and they've known since they were 12 years old. They're not getting a dime from me. And so they're already having to think. And I remind them about this about every month or so.

I'm like, all right guys, how's the books coming and the comic books and when my son's, he's getting an NFTs now and creating art that he's selling his NFTs on OpenC. And so they know that when they turn 16, they gotta have some sort of a foundational source of income set up for themselves because the way that the Greenfield family playbook goes is that they aren't getting a bunch of money from their parents

after the age of 16. Now the family trust distributes family wealth, especially if, if mom and I were to not be running more to die, you know, the kids get a certain amount of wealth at age 25. They get a certain amount of age 35, They get a certain amount of age 35, they get a certain amount of age 45, but any wealth that's accumulated in our trust is not distributed to them all at once,

should mom and I pass away. And the little parts of that playbook though are really, really interesting. Like we have a family logo, right? Family logo on our hats, on t-shirts, on hoodies, on family mugs, there's two giant flags outside the front door that fly the family logo, almost like a castle on each side.

The family mailbox has the family logo on it. There's a giant crest above the fireplace that's this gorgeous metal sculpture that's got the family logo, and all these stones are on the outside of it, which with each of the family symbols, every time a new grandchild or child gets added to the family, they're unique symbol.

You know, like my wife's is a seed, I'm a tree, my son Terran is a leaf, my son River is like a wave of water, well every time they have a child, or their child has a child, that new symbol gets added to interest. So what we've got going on is this, this, it's as though the Greenfield name is something that means something as far as my sons

being able to say, hey, this is what the family stands for. These are our values. These are emissions statements. When they get married and they have their own family, I'll hand them that playbook and they aren't gonna even need to remember because it's all written down there, gosh, what did dad do with us when we were 12? You know, what happened when we were 16?

How do we even make like a family constitution or family trust or family bank like all of that is already done? And so probably the best word to sum all this up would be legacy. Right. So when you're trying to avoid that rigs, to riches, to rig scenario, you were asking about, so it's like, if you intentionally and systematically create legacy, create a family playbook, look at what a lot of these great families that actually do become more and more successful

and more and more wealthy from generation to generation or doing, and you replicate that, then I think that's why you avoid that scenario. It's just that this knowledge is not that common. A lot of people don't know how to do it. There are books out there that teach us. I have no idea, I've never heard of this before. I love it.

Really. For example, the book, what would the Rockefeller's do? That teaches you how to set up your family constitution, your family bank. I mean, I've got heard of this before. I love it. Yeah, really. Like, for example, the book, what would the Rockefeller's do? That teaches you how to set up your family constitution, your family bank. I mean, I've got whole life insurance policies on my wife, on me, on both of my sons, that we do paid up additions to every month. We've got basically like four different banks that we can draw from and borrow against. You're using, using ourselves as a bank, what at the same time providing, you know, protection for us.

We just die. There's another foundation called the Lugato Family Foundation, LEGADO, and they actually specialize in working with families to set up this type of legacy-based situation where you actually do have things like a playbook and a crest and a mission statement, family values and family traditions and comings and goings. And then I think kind of hand in hand

with that is the whole right of passage thing, especially for boys, especially for boys, you know, because we don't have a biological right of passage like for a while. We don't have a biological right of passage, right? So, so, low boys don't go through a period like low girls do, you know, and a girl does have a pretty significant time of her life where she experiences that distinct transition to womanhood, either when during the onset of menstruation or when she has a child. Right. And a boy, yeah, they go through puberty.

I don't know about you guys though, but there's, like I never had a part of my boyhood where I was told, Hey, you're a man now. Yeah. You're a man. You don't have to work. You don't have to prove to the world that you're a man. You don't have to go off the new 20 years of Iron Man

triathlons as part and races and all this shit to prove to the world that you're a man. Serenal to the ins. You don't have to be a man. With a man's body, walk around with a boy's psyche and emotions because again, you didn't go through any period that was ceremonially recognized as you having transition from boyhood into manhood.

By the way, lots of cultures have these ceremonial traditions with boys, lots of cultures. Some of them are kind of like disturbing. There's some Native American tribes with it hanging that, I mean, you could read about this. Like, hanging the boys when they're 14 or 15 years old, via like meat hooks through their skin from the tribe hut and beat them with buffalo skulls,

then you let them down, they dragged skulls like from their skin, via change through the streets until they're like, skulls and then they finish up and they get their pinky cut off so they can prove that they're a warrior. I think my, my, my, my starts are getting their pinky cutoff with the, with the cut of steak that I've any time soon. But the, the right of passage, um, in the adolescence that my son's experience was four days out in the wilderness. We'll blank it.

Backpack. Knife. I, mom and I dropped them off like 90 miles away from our house and they had a couple, you know, typically the father does not, does not facilitate these ceremonies. Usually it's the uncle or a mentor because part of it is, is you're killing your parents, right? You're, you're, you're cutting the cord, right? And so that's not gonna be out there in the forest with you, but I'm also not gonna just drop them out in the middle

of Idaho, far in North Idaho, all by themselves. And so I had a couple of instructors who would like keep an eye on and make sure they were alive. Yeah, I mean, they spent four days out there. They came back. They had a ceremony. They had a fire ceremony and a speech that they gave and a gathering feast. And then they had a weekend with me where we did just a ton of talking and solo father, son time.

And at that point, like we quit calling them boys. Like we shout out to the bedroom, we don't go, hey boys come down, like they're called young men now or river and tarant or twins or whatever. But we changed our vernacular in the household. They were given a deeper sense of responsibility, they were given more chores, they started getting up earlier with dad

for things like the spiritual discipline. It was kinda like, okay, this is the next phase of life. When they're 14 now, so it would be next year, so 15 March of 2023, they'll go through the right of passage into adulthood. It'll be longer, it'll be more harrowing, it'll involve, again, more time in the wilderness. It'll probably involve a type of ego-desolving plant medicine ceremony at the end of all of that so that they can then kind of go through that whole experience of ego dissolution, and then that'll be their transition to adulthood.

And a few months later, they'll start to pay for everything that they need in life. And so- And I got to grow up wondering if they're meant. Okay, so let's say they're 16 and when your kid's just like, he's not making money. You don't give him any food? Well, I mean, look, how does that come over? I'm not gonna tell assholes that. So, so the, the thing is, um,

we don't know this yet, either. You're assuming that's either he's not gonna. Well, no, the reason why I'm asking that is I know people are wondering that because when you're dealing with 16 year olds, you know, sometimes just like, no, I'm not doing what you tell me, you know, which is a normal part of being A teenager where you want a rebel, right? That's kind of normal. Right. Right. So if my son says that, you know, I'm I'm not working And I'm not gonna make the money to pay for my own food or to pay for my room board or buy my own car or buy my own college I mean that comes down to another big part of the way that we parent, which is consequential

based parenting. Like we rarely discipline, we rarely say no in our house. There are no rules for screen time. There's no rules for porn. There's no rules for alcohol. There's no rules for gluten. There are no rules in our house. We just basically educate them really, really well on the consequences of any decision

that they might make in life and then let them deal with the natural consequences. Right, so, you know, screen time, right? They're allowed unfettered access to technology, but they do see when mom and I have downtime, we're rarely on our phones, we're playing music instruments or reading real books or outside nature or working out.

So they don't have a model of parents who are just like stuck to their phones. And furthermore, like when we have our big, you know, every night at our house is a, is a frickin party. Like 7 pm rolls around the entire family's in the kitchen. We're doing a song, we're doing a story, we're making dinner together, we're making dessert together, we're cleaning together, we're doing story time up in the bedroom, we're doing a story, we're making dinner together, we're making dessert together, we're cleaning together, we're doing story time up in the bedroom, we're doing music, we're playing board games, we're playing card games at the table. Nobody's thinking about video games or technology

or their phones because we've made so many other aspects of life, so much more fun and engaging and real compared to social media or something like that. That it's just not something that they turn to in our home. And so when it comes to something like, what's going to happen when they're 16 if they decide that they're not going to get job, they're not going to pay. Well, it just comes down to the same way we've always parented, and I will do the same thing I've always done.

I'll tell them, look, that's fine. Here's what it feels like to be hungry. Here's what it's going to feel like to eat top ramen. And I have a strong hunch after they experienced that life for a while that they'll decide that they actually do like making money paying for themselves. I read a book on that and it was like, to make it more simple, it was like, you tell your kid, where your jacket is cold outside.

I don't wanna wear my jacket. So, all right, you're not the way to jacket and then you go outside and it's cold and they're freezing. Right. And you just say, ah, you know, that sucks, buddy. It is cold. And you have to draw the line somewhere. Like if you have a two-year-old,

they're taddling towards a freaking cliff. Don't tell him, hey, the bottom of that cliff is gonna really suck. Yeah, they're spiky rocks, it's gonna hurt. So, you know, you make your decision. I know, you grab them off the edge of the cliff. They're taddling towards a hot stove. You know, you say, you don't want your kid

getting a third degree blister on that. I mean, if they do it again and again, yeah, maybe you would want to kind of let them touch the stove and notice that it's hot and they're not going to make that that decision again. So you've got to have some wisdom and prudence and discernment as a parent, but for the most part, you let them deal with the consequences of their decision.

You let them deal with any stomach issues or neural inflammation that they might experience after just going eight nuts on gluten at the birthday party. Yeah, because they also made the case. And I thought this was actually quite brilliant. They said, you know, if you don't allow them to get these mild consequences as a kid, the consequences as you get older get bigger and bigger.

Because then it becomes drunk driving or taking too many drugs or unprotected sex where it could have been stomach ache or I'm really tired because I didn't get good sleep but I still gotta go to school or, you know, like I said, I'm cold because I don't wear a jacket. It makes sense to me. It definitely makes sense to me.

Yeah, and I should clarify. I mentioned how there's like no rules for for pornography for example at our house And certainly as part of this this sexual education that I've done with them I've taught them about for example the the the dopaminergic desensitization that occurs when you are Engaged in the in the evolutionarily mismatched scenario of seeing sequences of extremely beautiful naked women over and over again. That's not something that we, from an ancestral standpoint, who even evolved to be able to

deal with, you know, it's like dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, click, click, swipe, swipe, swipe. And eventually you just become desensitized. And as I think all of us know with porn, what that typically leads to is you need more and more stimulus than you go to three sums and you go to donkeys and whatever else. And so it's kind of like that slippery slope.

Yeah, clout. And three sums. And so, yeah, three sums of donkeys. And then, I've also talked to them about how it results in objectification of women, how you can't, you know, be sitting there at night, scrolling through photos and porn in the evening, and then wake up and go interact with the members of the opposite sex, and not be thinking about that when you're talking to, you know, your girlfriends or, you know girlfriends or women that you might see,

like those images will still go through your head. I talked to them about how they would feel if that was their sister or their mom or their daughter who were thrust into that industry and basically were having to make money for themselves doing something that they didn't technically want to do, but that basically was something that they got forced into or had no time. I want to comment on what you said about the dopamine. I read a study that showed that it actually causes a similar adaptation process in the brain as drugs. So like you use a drug, you get the dopamine,

serotonin, whatever, your brain adapts and you get a smaller response requiring more drugs. And then what happens when you're off the drugs completely is regular life is depressing, right? So then they see similar effects to the brain with pornography and we it hasn't this kind of accessibility hasn't been around long enough. We're starting to see now studies though, that are starting to show some really interesting, negative effects. Some of them are like erectile dysfunction, which we never saw with the men in their 20s.

That didn't exist. Now there's tons of them, and just lots of other issues. Are you reading any other studies on these effects? Yeah, and most of that is spelled out, there's a website like yourbrainonporn.com. I think the other one is war on porn reading any other studies on these effects? And most of that is spelled out, there's a website like yourbrainunporn.com. I think the other one is Warren porn or something like that, but yeah, it does get into the neurotransmitter

desensitization that occurs. When you're just constantly flooding the receptors with the dopamine rush that happens when you're looking at photographs or videos, the body just becomes desensitized. So I have three sections in that book, indoor, on a porn, sex, and polyamory, and might take on all three. I talk about some of that science in the porn section about that desensitization that occurs.

And the reason I brought that up is back to the natural consequences thing. And back to that, well, where do you draw the line with the hot stove, with the cliff? So it turns out that like 90% of the situations in which an adolescent is exposed to porn is accidental. It's accidental. Like that for it, it's not like a kid is going online and searching for whatever, hot babe pussy or whatever. It's like, they're on some website or some YouTube video or whatever, and then it's kind of like, there's a pop-up that occurs, or a link to click, or even like a phishing email, or whatever. And you wind up accidentally on a website,

where all of a sudden there's all this imagery that, you know, for a young, innocent mind, it's all of a sudden right in their face, they don't know what to do with it a lot of times. Then they start down the rabbit hole and they click and they become intrigued because that's just the way the human brain works. So, I actually have a software protection program installed on their eye touches and on their MacBooks called Canopy and it does restrict a lot of these websites

from being able to pop up. Right, so that would be an example where, yeah, I'm using consequential based parenting, but I'm also putting up some fences, just to make sure that they're protected because I know about the accidental exposure that occurs. Yeah, like most of the time, it's not that a child

is actively seeking out. I wasn't seeking it the first time. I can't even answer it. Do you remember for you? No, I wasn't either. I remember my wife's same thing. It was just like we were just in college, like my wife, she's at the college library and all of a sudden,

like, you know, she's, it's like some advertising that pops up in a bunch of videos and then, yeah, and all of a sudden your innocence is destroyed. And then eventually, you especially as guys, like then we're like, oh wow, this world is so good. Well, speaking of which, you have two boys, okay? And you talked about them becoming men. And it seems like the, well, it's not seems like,

I think this is absolutely true. We have glorified completely remaining boys and made being a man. And I'm gonna define that for a second, but being a man is being a bad thing. In other words, boys are, you know, you make money, you're being all the chicks, you got no responsibility, you got fast cards,

you're cool, nothing tying you down, I don't need kids, because I can do whatever I want. Being a man is like responsibility, wife, family, have a job, you know, that kind of stuff. And boring. Yeah, not only boring, but it's like your life is over, that really sucks. So having boys, it's like all the media is showing them

that, you know, you watch TV, it's like dads are dumb. Dads get, you know, Homer Simpson, and the guy from the modern family, Phil, Phil Duffy, and the family guy, dad, Peter, exactly. And yeah, they're buffoons, modern dads are buffoons. Buffoons and tie down and unhappy and it sucks and it's so much better to have no responsibility.

You know, as a guy, this is what's named James Dean. Yeah, and as a guy, you know, part of the challenge is, this is true, as a man, you become more attractive, the older you get, the more money you get. So we don't have the same natural limitations, or should I say barriers that a woman may feel, and she starts to feel responsible earlier, she's like, well, I got a biology clock,

and I want to settle down, and guys are like, whoa, I'm 35 now, and more girls are interested in me. I'm making more money, and I never want to grow up, and this is so fun. How are you gonna, how do you deal with that, with your boys, and really communicate to to them like, look, looks cool, but it's not where it's at. I think a big part of it is the example that you set.

Like my sons see, when I take them to conferences or events with me, they see that I'm helping people. And I don't want to sound like narcissistic right now, but I'm just briefly, they see that I'm making impact. They see when people come up to me and hug me and tell me that they've rediscovered God or they've rediscovered their health or they've found their fitness or they've done an Iron Man triathlon or they've gotten connected with their family, their sons or a pair of their relationship with their parents.

Any of the kind of things that I talk about, my sons see that that I'm making impact, they see again, back to the legacy, the idea that you can live for something greater than the temporary pleasure that comes from sex, drugs, and rock and roll that's all too commonly glorified in our modern day and age, they see that there's more that you can live for, there's more impact that you can make. They see the joy that arises when you have like a stable, nuclear household with, you know, I've been married to my wife for 19 years and they see mom and I as like best friends and lovers and they see us going off on dates and adventures and playing tennis together and going on

hikes and, you know, going to dinners together and helping people in the local community and, and, they see in their own lives, you know, this whole concept of like the Greenfield family having a unified mission statement and a unified set of values. And so there's very little emphasis placed upon the benefits of being like your own person or not your own person, but Conorquette, will you just lay down and tell me? I'm not supposed to move. Yeah, like that free loving, almost like, yeah, it is glorified, just like the truth is it.

Well, the truth is it at one point in the life, they are gonna get to a point where maybe they even dabble in that or think about that or are tempted with that, but if you've established what you've done so well for so long, so consistently, I feel like that's what we'll always pull them back. Well, you know what, really taught me, I'll tell you what taught me that,

because I was young when I had my first kid was, I figured out, it took me a while, by the way, because I was young and I did think I was missing out when I, all of a sudden, had all responsibility when I had my first kid, but I thought to myself, I'd never trade it back. Like, yeah, but would I ever trade my kid for going back no way? And it was communicated, the way it was communicated to me was like this,

is like, you have, yes, you got more responsibility, more stress, and it's more expensive. It's also way more meaningful. And now you're going to grow, and there's way more purpose in life. Totally true. They're both, they're all totally true. Would I trade money and less stress and, well, you know, that kind of freedom for what I have now. Never, not even close. That's how I kind of had to learn it, you know, myself. That's the way I try to communicate it a little bit. Yeah, and, and, you know, I was telling you guys,

I'm working on a parenting book right now that talks about a lot of these concepts. The reason that I started writing the parenting book was a lot of people were asking me about our parenting philosophies and even some of the same questions that you guys are asking me right now. The problem is my sons are 14, who's to say they're not going to want it up in prison. They're not cooked yet, they're not going to want it up in prison. You know, and who's sagged there. They're not cooked yet. They're not out of the oven. Like they're still, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're lot of the books I've read about parenting, like I know of and know a lot of really great parents whose children have grown up and been super impactful and it started amazing organizations and charities and it changed the world.

And I had a list of about 60 different parents who I just thought were absolutely amazing. And I generated a list of 32 different questions like, how do you carve out one-on-one time with your child? How do you engage in your own self-care? How do you tackle the paradox of passing on life wisdom to your child without making them adult, you know, too early in life and stressing them out with, you know, being an adult? And so I had all these questions. And I basically just chose all these parents. I sent them all the questions. And for the past year, I parents. I sent them all the questions. And for the past year, I've been getting all the responses back.

Some parents are recording the audios and sending them back to me and I'm transcribing them or having them transcribe and then editing them. Some of them writing them down. Some of them are completing an online form that I made for the questions. But as, you know, as I'm going through this editorial phase and the book is, you know, I'm deep in the throws of it,

but it won't come out until I think this, this November ish is what I'm shooting for. But there are common book is I'm deep in the throws of it, but it won't come out until I think this this November Ish is what I'm shooting for, but there are common themes that I'm seeing over and over again That are showing me you know what kind of habits Seen to result in children who don't make the kind of mistakes that you know that we've voiced some fears about here today so Intentionally carving out one-on-one date time with each child at least on a monthly basis

is something I see over and over and over again. Oh, interesting. Family dinner is extremely, Family dinner is extremely, emphasis placed on family dinners, even to the sacrifice of things like evening team sports and things of that nature. So they're a big one.

Mom and dad, almost every single set of parents who are super impactful, they've got twice a year, up to four times a year, some type of quarterly, two to four day retreat, the parents go on, just on their own, to be able to do family planning and connect and to basically plan out everything from education to legacy, but as this carved out, a carved out getaway between husband and the wife. From a disciplinary standpoint,

very, very similar to what I was talking about earlier, a lot of consequential-based discipline, and not a lot of just like, no do this. You can't do that, but instead educating the kid on the consequences of their decisions. So I'm getting all these patterns now that are coming up and it's super interesting. I don't think all the things that you're doing necessarily are things to prevent your boys from making so much the wrong decision as much as it is to remind them what the home base looks

like I feel like, because they're gonna make their own choices at one point in their life no matter what and you won't have any control of what you say. Right. And you're right. They absolutely could end up in prison one time. They absolutely could go on a drug bender for a while. And that doesn't mean what you did failed because I still think because of how consistent

you were with raising this way, my belief would be that even if they veer off for a little while, they'll remember what that looked like. What's that saying? And they come back. Yeah, well, what's that saying is that you could carpet the whole world or you could wear pieces of carpet under your feet, like raising strong people versus trying to change and protect them from the world.

It's a possible. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I think that a big thing that I've noticed that has resulted in them having like a lot of a lot more patience and a lot less of kind of like 80d, 80h like tendencies, which technically I think is a lot of times just being a boy, you know, and you know that hey, look a squirrel type of mentality is a lot of times just being a boy, you know, and, you know, the, hey, look, a squirrel type of mentality that a lot of boys have, it kind of shocked me how impactful breathwork was. Oh, sure.

And in terms of just, and they love it. They actually asked to do breathwork. Like, we'll get towards the end of the day with that, when we're doing a breathwork session. And we go down there in the sauna, over the app that we're using right now is called other ship. And it's got like everywhere, anywhere from two up to four, like once a month, we do 16 to 90 minute

whole atrocious breath works. Wow, all three of us guys. Wait, you can hold 12-year-olds. Yeah, just lay it out on our back in the sauna. And I'm teaching them everything from like, you know, they don't know this yet, but I'm sure they'll be great at tantric sex and everything. They're doing like pelvic,

like pelvic locks and squeezes. They're doing like the long exhales and hold. The big inhales are learning how to move breath up through each of their chakras and shoot the light out at the top of their head, almost like the Kundalini energy philosophies. And I think the breath work, especially for a kid is amazing.

In terms of just giving them a really intimate relationship with how to control their physiology. And so that's something that, you know, it seems kind of trite, but I've noticed a real change and just like their mentality and the resilience from doing that. Well, you answered the question, and I was just gonna ask,

which was, you know, you're doing all these things, of course, for the future. Are there other things than just that that you're already seeing an impact on, like, oh, wow, that's working. Or, oh, wow, I can tell that was, I'm glad we're definitely doing that because you're seeing it already unfold.

Yeah, well, definitely in the breath, work like I talked about, definitely that morning spiritual time, like teaching a child about just the sacredness of their existence, the sacredness of life, the fact that we are spiritual creatures with a soul and giving them that foundation of waking up in the morning and as the very first thing they do, caring for their soul, engaging in a gratitude practice, engaging in some form of service towards their fellow human beings, learning how to speak with God, how to listen to God, how to meditate.

And I didn't talk about this when I was telling you about the morning journaling practice, but in the evening, same thing. Very last thing we do. We gather together in River and Terrence bedroom. We do typically a song. We do a story. I still read them a story every night and we're at home. I've already told them, I'm like,

as soon as you guys are sick of that telling you bedtime stories, you just tell me, and I'll stop reading you bedtime stories because I'm constantly trying to get a feel of like, God, am I just doing this for me? I was like, wish I'd freaking get out of their room already. But no, we do a bedtime story, and then we do evening meditation. And the evening meditation is the process

of self examination. I think this has been very good for them. It was very good for me too. I think this is probably one of the best things I do at the end of each day. I close my eyes, I play the entire day, like a movie and I'm like, I've only personally ever heard say do that.

I tell people about that about how I developed self-awareness was exactly that. It works, and you play, you watch yourself like a third person character going through your whole day and you're asking yourself, what good did I do, what could I have done better, like what did I fail at that I learned from, and where is I most purpose-filled today? So I evaluate my emotions of where were my highs, my lows. What made me happy and joyful in the day, what made me frustrated or down, and then unpacking those.

Like, why did that make me, why did I get upset at that person and trying to unpack and get into like the insecurity which it's normally rooted in? Exactly. And then the things that gave me joy remembering that that's something important. Make sure you build that in your life. Like, you learn a lot about yourself. It stacks as you do this. Like, every day gets better because like if you do those two questions, what good have

I done, what can I've done better and Where is the most purpose filled? Well, you learn how it is that you structure day that allows you to good for other people. You learn about things that you're doing mistakes that you're making that you really want to want to stop. Like if I for five days in a row right down there, I really wish I'd I had more time to play music today. Well, eventually, I'll get to a point where I'm just like, screw it. I don't want to write this anymore in my journal. I'm going to carve out intentional time to practice my guitar or practice piano. And then where is the most purpose filled? Well, I mean, like as far as like your eaky guy, your purpose, what gets you out of bed each day, if you're riding down each day, which activity it was that you felt most purpose filled, like where you were in the zone,

when things were really flowing, when you had a smile on your face, and time was going by fast. Like that's a clue that can teach you every single day about what it is that you were really put on this planet to do. And so it's this positive cycle. And you were talking about some of the questions

that you asked at them. That like those three questions are good. That another three that I really like, they're, what filled me with the most energy today? What drained my energy the most today? And what did I learn about myself today? I like those three questions too. And we'll kind of go back and forth.

Sometimes we'll do those three questions. Sometimes we'll do those other three. What's dope is if you practice that on a regular basis every night, you begin to be able to process that on real time. Yeah, that's what I found. Like, because to be honest, I'm not as consistent with that as I was in my like early 20s and even in my 30s, but I've done that so consistently for so many decades now

that I can see it happen now in real time because I've practiced that, practiced every single night of unpacking my day and going like, so then when those feelings arrive, I go, oh, it's one of those moments. Yeah. So you know, like, like, not at the end of the day, but during any given day, let's say, when you're engaged in a certain activity, you can check yourself and ask yourself, is this really a purpose-filled activity?

Am I just spinning my wheels or am I doing something impactful? Right. Or somebody getting me upset and getting emotional, I was like, oh, is this really what they're saying? Or is this really my own shit? Right. This is probably my own shit right now, not really that. The fact that they said something and is making me feel this way, has ain't nothing to do with them.

And so instead of reacting to that person, I'm already doing the internal work real time because I've practiced that at night for so long. Yeah, is this person draining my energy? Is this person filling me with energy? Yeah, it's a concept of just knowing myself. I think it's one of the most important practices, personally myself, I've ever practiced in my life.

Yeah, it's cool. With the quickly evolving society and technology, much faster now than it was when we were kids, do you look forward and think, is there anything that worries you with your kids and think okay How can I prepare them for this or maybe AI or VR is gonna get so good? We're gonna maybe want to you know go into technology Is there anything that you look forward and you go okay? Let's let's try to prepare. I've gotten a little bit

Where about is the metaverse? Yeah, this idea of even though I see a lot of value, for example, I took part in an online educational session in which I put on the Oculus Quest glasses. And I joined a bunch of other people for a presentation. And we were all in this room together. And the PowerPoint was on the wall, but you could like interact with it and walk up to it and then kind of go away from it and talk to some other people and the closer you got to those people, the closer their voices became, it was very realistic and a very enriched learning environment that impressed upon me the idea that when it comes to education or when it comes to being able to interact with people in a very rich environment that you might not be able

to travel all the way across the world to or be with physically, but can be as close to physical interaction digitally that there is some value in that. I could, like, for me, I would love to be able to start giving some of my Zoom presentations and my keynotes and some of the events that I do for places that I can actually get to to speak. I would love to be able to do those in a little bit more of a metaverse-esque scenario. Yeah, when we look at the ability to be able to, whatever, you know, own virtual real estate or to be able to just basically, you know, live half your life with a headset on, you know, in a digital world, almost like the matrix. And when I look at the emerging landscape of of of meta and

NFTs and digital art versus analog art and you know, just this idea that you could technically live a lot of your life tied down to technology, That's the one thing I'm a little worried about. I think it's going to be just like every other virtual existence. Every other amazing digital technology that we've seen in the past, it's going to be a tool. There's going to be addictive properties and negative side effects to it, but then there'll be very powerful ways that you can use it to wield good. Any truly powerful tool has got a good and a bad side. Any, I mean, one of the first massive, you know,

it's new for all of us. It's new for all of us, so we're nervous, we're worried, whatever, but the truth is that it's... Look, we just, we discover fire, right? Well, I mean, totally changed mankind, and now we can burn each other and wage war like never before. Nuclear power, same thing. And I think that's what makes it so dangerous is that it's going to be so revolutionary and

so impactful. But the potential for I mean, because I can't even begin to imagine what that could potentially look like for a person who wants to escape, which a lot of us want to escape. I mean, we see that with our drugs. Yeah, that's a very similar. Yeah, people want to escape and feel something different. And like this would provide them a whole new opportunity to experience like a life that they can create in a virtual setting. Right. It's pretty crazy. That's why I think we're going to be divided. I think we're going to have we're going to be split almost down the middle of people that choose to be plugged in most their life. And they choose that life because they think it's better. And then the other people that recognize that and go like, nah, the real thing.

If I had to choose between, and this is really what I'm focusing on most with my boys, an analog existence that comprises, that's comprised of like right now, they're, they're beekeeping and they're boh hunting and they're gardening and they're outside a lot and they're cooking real food. And frankly, my sons are, they're not total luttites, but they are kind of shitty yet, like technology in general. They don't have a phone. They kind of sorted out their way around their MacBooks, but mostly they're just using

for word processing. Their eye touches are mostly for them to listen to music. And one of my sons has a camera, and you get into photography, but even that, it's outdoor nature photography. They live a very analog existence. I don't think they're ever gonna really be the next Zuckerberg because of that, but I would much rather,

like I would much rather them, like not make a ton of money because they haven't really tapped into technology in the digital world and the metaverse, but like be able to provide for their families bohunting and building the house and gardening and having goats and chickens. And I just, I like the beauty and the simplicity and the dependency and the

realistic aspects of an analog existence far more than I do the idea of a digital version. Yeah. And the only thing I disagree with you on that, Adam, is I don't think it'll be down the middle. I think it'll be like 10 percent, or we'll want to be unplugged and 90 percent. Well, but I agree that there's going to be, oh, I think it'll be greater than that. To Justin's point of it being like a drug. The same, you think there's only 10% of the population that are addicted to drugs? I think there's, oh, no, no, no, I hear what you're saying. I think it's going to be like, look at obesity, for example, at some point.

Oh, you think 90 you're going to be in the metavers? Correct. Oh, shit. Oh, no, no. Okay, well then you, I wouldn't bet against you on that. Yeah. I'm saying at least half. No, I agree that there's going to be people on point. But I think it'll be majority what I do. But I also think that it I'm saying at least half. No, I'm no, I agree that there's gonna be people on point,

but I think it'll be majority what we do. But I also think that it'll sway back to what you're saying, too. Like, and maybe initially it goes 90, because everybody thinks it's safe and it's fine, and then we start to see all the unintended consequences of living in life like that. We've taken it for granted. And this is typically how we work as humans, right?

The pendulum swings, this back and forth like this. Sometimes though we gotta weigh. Yeah though, we got to weigh. Yeah, but it'll go, yeah. You're probably right. It'll go 90 at one point. I don't disagree with that. And then, but a large percentage, those people will start to evaluate

and start to see some of these consequences and family members and friends and go, oh shit, maybe we got to get out of this a little bit. And then I actually think that this, though the things that you're teaching your boys actually will come back into favor. And it will be something that people will talk more about and it'll be drawn to that. Yeah, I think so too. I really do. Maybe because it'll be counter culture. Right. Counter culture tends to be possible. That's right. Just be that solar flare

that happens in 2018. That's really forced. Make people realize who the truly valuable humans are. They forced people to realize who the truly valuable humans are. You know, the pale week easy to kill folks in their basement with a virtual reality. Headset. I know Arthur Brooks, the alien. Arthur Brooks said you didn't eat them first for sure. They'll be easy. Easy. Easy.

Easy. Easy with that billboard that 24 fitness ad when they come to lead the fat ones first. No, Arthur Brooks said like when you meet with people digitally, you get the same dopamine response as you get in real life, but you don't get the oxytocin. So you get the addictive, the bonding, but you don't get the bonding like, you know, nourishing same effect. So it's, so that's why it's like, it's like drinking ocean water to high without the bomb. Yeah. But of course, you can get intranasal oxytocin and fix that, just you know, little nasal spray. and then you get the best of both

Warp have it just came back good. Arthur Brooks is great by the way that was strength to strength that he was really good I did a a documentary or a docu series down in Salt Lake City on happiness I just finished filming it will come out in October I interviewed like 40 of the world's leading experts on happiness. You know, and man, yeah. We're happy this is actually a derived from, it was really like, I probably could, could sum the whole thing down to just basically, you know, 99.9% of the lessons that I learned

boiled down to just like this Victor Frankl Esk philosophy of you, choose happiness, right? Don't seek happiness, just see happiness in whatever scenario that you're in, rather than sitting with angst about whatever situation that you're in, whether it's traffic or stress or job or relationship or an argument or whatever, you realize that most of the emotions

that you feel attend to drag you down are emotions that you're in for. I kind of feel the same way about love. You feel the same way about love. You feel the same way about love. I feel like that's the same kind of philosophy with that. I think so many people are waiting for love or chasing love when it's like you choose to love. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

You choose to love like in a relationship, like my relationship with my wife, I think that a lot of people, they think that you are just going to have this burning, hot, romantic passion your entire life. And in many cases, you actually have to go out of your way and you have to almost generate love. Say I love you and go out of your way to love that person and and sometimes it does feel like sacrifice a little bit But yeah, but you you choose to love you almost create love

But yeah back to this this docu series Arthur was one of the people that I wound up interviewing for and his interview was just great I remember at the very very Andy said Ben it comes down to I think it was it was Seven words seven words, seven words. Most people will, though, they'll use people, the love thing, use people, love things, worship themselves. Because that's six words, right? Use people, love things, worship themselves.

When really the key to happiness is love people use things worship God Yeah, and he he finished with that kind of like a mic drop moment at the end of the interview and I just thought it was great Oh, he's I've never heard of him before and then when I interviewed him I was like oh, yeah No, he's a good friend. I talked yeah, I talked to him. I really like him. Yeah, no I think people fall in love they they for lack of better term. They fall in love with the feeling of love when it's that's not Love is an action and it's it's it's the choice, right? Yeah, it's with the feeling of love when that's not love is an action and it's the choice, right? Yeah. It's not the feeling that comes with it sometimes and it come but like all feelings come ago, but you have to choose the action. If you fall in love

with the feeling you screwed because you're going to be with someone for 20, 30, 40 or more. You may end up waiting your entire life and all you had to do was choose to do it versus yeah, thinking that it's gonna hit you over the head. Which honestly, this is how I thought that way. I thought it wasn't, I actually, I actually, I did not think it was like that. As a kid growing up, I assume that you, everyone would tell you like,

oh, you'll just know when you're in love and you fall in love and you just keep, so you have that thought process. When it's like, you know, I wasn't until my late 20s, 30s even possibly where I was like, realizing, oh my God, love is an action, it's a choice. It's something that I have to choose to do.

Yeah. Then it like completely, don't on me, you know? Totally, totally. Yeah, and I mean, gosh, like, my wife and I, we, I would say like the top things we do right now, because our relationship is magical. It's so good. Like we're just so in love, we're so bond and you know knock on

wood, we're just like yoked, spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally, everything. But first of all, we have a policy that we're able to come up to the other person and have a no judgment conversation, like total transparency, and you can just read the riot act of that person, their only responsibility is to be a sounding board, to hear everything about you that they're annoyed about or something that's really bothering them about you, and it's not an argument.

You're literally just there to listen and say, okay, thank you. If you have something against them, that's not time to bring it up. You do it, you're a layer of it. It's just basically, we know that's not time to bring it up. You do it, you layer, but it's just basically, we know that we can come to each other anytime, just be like, hey, look,

I need no judgment, zone, vent here. And then you're just able to lay it all out to that person and not have them feel as though they're gonna be offended or have to argue back or give a bunch of reasoning for why they did, it's just a chance for you to talk to the other person. And it sounds like it would be frustrating for the person who's receiving it,

which is sometimes, but for the most part, it allows us to be super transparent without the fear of the other person judging you're getting angry at you for what it is that you're expressing. So we do that, and then we pray together every night, like last thing, as soon as our heads hit the pillow, like even if it's, we're just exhausted at the end of the day. And it's just like 30 seconds,

we always pray at the end of each day. So we're kind of like yoked spiritually as well. And then between that and like the quarterly retreats that we go on and the family dinners, you know, the morning evening meditation, like we're just, it's really, really good right now. Do you find your passion for fatherhood is growing, maintaining, like, how do you feel as fatherhood? Oh, it's definitely growing. I mean, as your kids get old, they just become more fun to hang out with.

They're funny and their sense of humor gets better. And the jokes that they tell get better and they're stronger and faster and start to challenge you physically. Now when we play family tennis, they're good. They as a team can go up against mom and I. It's kind of nice because I can't remember them. It's really barely hit the ball.

Now it's fun to play with. We've invested in that skill in them. And, and it's just, yeah, there's, we just got done hiking for 10 days. We hiked five days in the Sedona and five days in the Grand Canyon, put over 90 miles in about 10 days and, and just had an amazing time together. There's hike all day by a couple of cheap sets of playing cards, play cards at night and go to sleep, wake up to the next, do the thing the next day. And yeah, yeah, no, I'm, I'm pretty happy with the family right now. Well, you're always fun to talk to you, man.

I love picking your brain, you're a great guy. Very smart, dude, very interesting. And it's good to hear the stuff about that. Yeah, I'm super pumped about the family legacy thing. I'm so gonna pick those books, totally dive into that. I think that's great. Oh, man, yeah, I'm excited for the book.

It's gonna be called, I'm gonna call it Boundless Parenting, I'm gonna build it on the Boundless series called Boundless Parenting. Oh, I can do it. Yeah, I just that's right. Oh, man. Yeah, I'm excited for the book. It's gonna be called I'm gonna call balance parenting I'll build it on the on the balance series. Oh Yeah, I just I just got the cover and are you gonna are you going to implement some of those things that you talked about with the family legacy that you learned and everything like from the rock A fellow is on your book. Yeah, oh for sure. Oh cool for sure. Not like what the guy who owns that legato foundation His name is rich Christians and he's he's one of the featured parents. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Oh, cool.

Oh, I'm excited for that. Yeah. We're gonna make matching. So, I mean, it spans a gallon, freaking Paul Chex in there with two wives, and all the way down to like, you know, Mormon genealogy, parenting, legacy people, and sole leg. So, it's, it's, it's a wide spectrum of parents.

Yeah, cool. I'm gonna go make matching leather jackets. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right on, right on, dude, always good scene. Thanks, band. Yeah, you's cool. I'm gonna go make magic with other jackets. Yeah Yeah, right on right on dude. Always good scene. Thanks, man. Yeah, I'll show you guys Thanks. Thank you for listening to mine pump if your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mine pump media dot com the RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballac, maps performance, and maps aesthetic.

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