If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, he's only one place to go. Mine are
bite up with your
hosts Sal de Stefano Adam Shaffer and Justin
Andrews in this episode of mine pump the world's top fitness health and entertainment podcast. We interview one of our very very good friends Ben Greenfield the great Ben Greenfield and his wife Jessa. We have the luxury of knowing these people.
Quite well, they're good friends of ours. We were on the Ben Greenfield podcast years ago when mine pump was in its infancy and just hit it off right out the gate. He's a very very smart guy. One of the original I said, I guess biohackers knows a lot about health and fitness but one thing that struck us was how involved him and his wife were with their children are very very involved parents and they seem to have a great family dynamic.
So we had them on the show to talk all about parenting fatherhood. We talked about homeschooling to both homeschool their children and we talked about how their religion plays a role in raising their children. Now Ben Greenfield is also an author and his book boundless talks a little bit about Parenthood. It's a great book. You can check it out at boundless book.com. And of course, you can find Ben Greenfield all over social.
Media and his podcast is the Ben Greenfield podcast. Now this particular episode is brought to you by our sponsor Z biotics. Now Z biotics is the world's only genetically modified bacteria supplements a probiotic genetically modified to literally produce a compound that breaks down the negative stuff that happens when you drink alcohol in other words you drink this before you drink alcohol and the result is you feel
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I
have zero no space for that discount. I asked you the software been I want to ask you again. Because the last time I saw you you were like a good 15 pounds of lean body mass. Smaller. Yeah, Sal sizes everybody at least you look Jack right now kiss the shirt. No, it's not stupid. It's not you know, I'm here Kyle get out of here. You are you put on some serious muscle recently it what are you doing differently? What's going on Duck it home for maps anabolic. I did I did the the Russian cutaway.
I'll start so I spent the first half of covid training for that. So a ton of cattle. How'd you like that a ton of overhead Farmers walks and snatches Turkish get-ups and I would just keep ordering heavier and heavier kettlebells. That was I love it and I want to do our KC to but they keep moving it with the the pandemic farther in the future. So every time I get excited about the snatch test again, it just gets thrown a little bit farther down the road and then I did a lot of bfr training a lot of be if our training like three
A week to failure full-body bfr training we well my kids actually got a lot of really good meat sponsors for their podcast like Del Campo and butcher box. And then this guy named Tai Lopez who partnered up with Joel salatin, he's got a farm now, so they're sending my podcast meet for that. And so we haven't taught of me. We have a ton of organ Meats. I started doing about 12 of those ancestral supplements organ capsules.
Liver kidney what else they got long they got brain. So a ton of liver and liver organ Meats kettlebells bfr training and then I'm still doing a lot of be PC and TV 500 Diana between yeah animal. Did you did it? Does it feel like your body was like craving to grow because it seemed like you should put it on. What do you feel like you were holding it back and then you know and you feel better with more muscle mass. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, well the stolen item especially going into the winter when you don't want to be cold and frail weak. I don't want to be the first one that the wolves are the Bears get and no but in all seriousness, I like to maintain a little bit of extra muscle but my all the guys my family or so lean it's hard and you do have to eat a lot really and for me probably with my one weak link by one weak link its gut I have to be careful when I'm eating a lot to really select my food, you know, like we were talking I'm doing no fodmaps. No legumes nuts.
No Prebiotic fiber is very few probiotics. So I'm pretty much doing like meat tubers fish bone broth organ meats, you know some berries still doing a little bit of like a good clean protein powder with some colostrum and things like that in the mornings. But yeah, just a lot of nutrient dense super clean food, but it is hard to eat. I imagine your sim. I mean, we have a similar bone structure similar height. I would think that you have to be north of 4500 calories to to maintain or yeah, I think 45
Good for me right now would be top. So I think I'm going like 3,500 to 4,500 real 35,000 around that I found once I start getting over this little lady next next to me right here. She just keeps shoving food in my face and just eat it like a good boy. Well, you're both obviously a picture of Health. I think you guys represent what you talked about pretty pretty darn well, so that's that's that's pretty cool. Do you notice any changes in performance because with more muscle mass because you are, you know, you know most the time. I know I've known you you like to really do things like obstacle course racing.
And you know things and yeah, is it make it more challenging because you're heavier is a strength offset that well. We were talking with the doctor this morning because we're going over to a clinic after this to get just some some work done and the doctor asked me what hurts and I pause them nothing like a I feel great because and you hit on something there. I'm not racing anymore. That's probably big part of that's a big part of the weight gain to is I went from running, you know, sometimes 20 30 miles an hour. I'm running maybe buddy bring my running right now is when I go check the mail I see.
Is run up from the mailbox. So I'm running like a mile a week right now. And then we play a little bit of family tennis. We do family tennis usually a couple of nights a week and so a lot less chronic cardio a lot less running. I was even training for a triathlon last year. So I'll less swimming a lot less cycling and just basically a lot of kettlebell and a lot of bfr. Yeah, the thing about resistance training that I like so much one of the reasons why I think it's the perfect exercise prescription for the modern for Modern Life is that it's Pro tissue, whereas lots of cardiovascular activity.
Tends to be you know, anti tissue is your body tries to become more efficient and become better at this kind of long duration High oxidative stress type of activity resistance training done properly just for longevity not saying you shouldn't do any cardiovascular activity but resistance training just it's better for longevity. You just feel better. It's a totally die feeling I think I think honestly the is simple and non complex as it sounds I think lifting heavy weights. Whoa.
Being a shit ton and then playing some sport that forces you to Sprint every once in a while is just like that's that's the perfect match. I would think I think that that's it just hits just about everything from a physiological standpoint would a hundred percent agree back to the gut health thing. I've read studies that show that athletes and hard training individuals suffer from gut health issues at a much higher rate than the average person which kind of sounds contradictory, right? You're a hard training person. You work out a lot. You're probably very health conscious really think it is. It's this like this.
- oh, I think it's I can tell you what I think it is and it's and it's paradoxical because they have found I believe it's the firmest soy to bacterial load ratio in Elite athletes tends to be more favorably oriented towards metabolic efficiency towards harnessing energy from carbohydrates more efficiently and there was even an outside magazine article. I think it was last year about whether or not people would start getting fecal microbiota transplants from Elite athletes, like get the same gut biota as an athlete but the the body
Ohm a side we know when we've known for a long time in exercise physiology that gut permeability increases when blood flow is directed away from the gut all the more so during high intensity interval training all the more so during high intensity interval training or exercise in general in the heat, right? Then this is why even like back when I was racing Iron Man years ago, I would always use colostrum. I would load with claustrum for a couple weeks going into a race just because of the research that also shows that that limits that amount of gut permeability.
Eon set to steal those Junctions furthermore. We're not going near ibuprofen or Advil or any n said during a racer after because when you combine that increase gut permeability with something that's mildly toxic to the liver and the kidneys is it's a recipe you essentially simulate rhabdo with that time and then you combine that with probably some Shock different eating behaviors to write when you're an athlete you tend to like get down on meals on a whole nother level than somebody who's just a sedentary life. Sometimes you're eating when you still have blood flow directed to your
Remedies always I mean you're encouraged to eat right after a workout. And if your you've got some systemic inflammation going on which is going to happen, especially after an intense workout. And then on top of it, you're you're consuming a quote-unquote easily digestible food like a shake which is you know, you know, it's even more it's probably even more likely to pass through your gut then solid foods. So that combination over time I feel like is the
Perfect Storm, I agree with your with your theory on that but I didn't I do notice that if I cause I'm sensitive to gut stuff my I got my gut issues something. I'm always kind of dealing with one. My training is through the roof is what I need to be the most careful. So it makes perfect. I think nearly every athlete should be on something that's going to alter the opening of the that sanyal and protein the activity that Zaman the protein that makes the gut more permeable. So, you know whether that is colostrum or or lignite or
Anything like that is going to help to keep that tight Junction closed. I think that just about any athlete should be on a really good enzyme complex, especially Friday fat or protein Rich meals and finally, they should have a giant slice of your sourdough bread, babe every night with some grass fed butter salt and honey on it. And that's that would solve all the world's woes now, I'm assuming that that's real Sour Dough. So it is the gluten is is all I guess outright what happens with its is a process somewhat
out it basically predigested.
Gluten so gluten isn't gone. It's just gone through the starter and the eats the gluten and digest it. So when you eat it, you actually don't have to do all your stomach has to do all the hard work of breaking gluten down. It's already partially broken
down. How do you how long a few if you have celiac disease? You're still going to paint the back of the toilet seat if you
have yeah, I
appreciate that note. So how long does it take to to make real sour dough at home
at least 24 hours?
Okay, so it's a
process. Yeah.
But it's mostly just waiting. Okay, it's not that hard people. I think the hardest thing is keeping it alive Mmm Yeah.
Now I know it's now what we what we talked about before you came on the show when you had told us you'd be in the area you had suggested it would be a good idea to do a podcast on Parenthood and raising children and I think you to I said guns vaccines and abortion and abortion abortion and the questionable gender of track and field athlete. Yeah.
Affiliations. No, no, no and I think you both are two of the most interesting people on this particular topic. We've been to your house just in spent the night there, you know while I didn't but I definitely there but you were there your delicious meals. So in great you were both two of the most involved parents that I've ever met with your children.
You just you're involved in almost every aspect of what's going on. You can call as helicopter. Yeah. No, that was just gonna say don't
want them to die sound very different. You guys don't feel
that way. Do you really know? You don't feel like your helicopter Mass you oh my gosh. No, I was going to say I don't feel like you if anything anti helicopter. Yeah. I don't think you know what? I mean by I'm bald as you're literally present and involved it's not you know, your kids aren't just got you know your present you're involved with the whole process. Definitely not helicopter. I see your kids having a lot of freedom to fail.
And to succeed kind of you know on their own so I think you guys are great people to talk to plus you guys home school, which I think is an interesting topic. I know right now homeschooling is exploding. Yeah. It's the fastest grows like the best way to do it right now.
Yeah, well and pain grew up when it wasn't cool. I grew up. It was
like you're hitting your time. Wish I could hit the rewind button because I would be so cool and I was home schooled in the traditional manner you by curriculum, you know back when I was home-schooled. It was the Saxon Math.
Curriculum or the Osborne books or any number of differential a Becca was not a very popular curriculum and you order typically in many cases that the same books from the same organization. So you had your math your reading or writing your logic your grammar your social studies, whatever you order that all from us born or from a beca or from Saxon or from any of these folks would then send all the books your house can work when you start a semester in college and you go to the bookstore and get your books and then you you know you go through lessons planned lesson plans with Mom and sit around the kitchen table and you know everybody
You know meet at the kitchen table at 8 and we go through all the books and occasionally, there's some kind of a group activity with other homeschoolers in the afternoon, very very traditional dyed-in-the-wool homeschooling scenario. And that is not what we do with our kids really know. I want to I want to start there actually, you know, I feel like we've gotten to know each other really well in the last photos have been three almost four years. It's been four years since four years four years and you know, I consider you a good friend of ours and I'd say the thing that I probably know the least amount is
Lie, your your childhood and like your upbringing I feel like I've gotten pieces of it through through the years, but I really liked it like dive into that your relationship with your parents what it was like when you were a kid and that I think we'll that has such a strong influence on how you parent. I think that's a great place to influence not only in the way you parent but also in the way you partner just and I have even been digging into this a little bit in terms of our relationship and the attachment theory in terms of whether you
were given a lot of attention when you were young in terms of whether you were left to fend for yourself in terms of how explain the theory to so I'm not very good at explaining attachment there and I'm going to totally bastardize it but essentially some people are born and grow up with anxious attachment where they really look to other people for verification for compliments for Words of Affirmation and for things that make them feel as though they're okay. They don't be anxious about approving. You know, Mom and Dad are giving them verbal approval.
And saying good job, you know and they grow up really digging that kind of approval almost needing it and still needing it from a partner when when they're married or they're with a partner and then there's there's another one. That's that's more of like it's almost the opposite of attachment. It's do you remember what it's called babe? It's or the opposite of anxiety avoidance. Yeah. So avoidance would be I want to be left alone. I was you know, I was maybe left to be very independent and I love my Independence and I want my Independence and
I don't want a partner who's in my face all the time, and I'm very self-sufficient and independent and that person would not necessarily be the person uses many words of affirmation and there's this whole idea of the five love languages words of affirmation or Quality Time or gifts or certain things that really mean a lot to your partner when you express those two your partner and you know, for example, I kind of skew a little bit towards anxiety attachment and Jessa kind of skews a little bit towards avoidant attachment and so in our relationship one thing that I found myself doing
For years was on were if she was okay, right like when when I'm making coffee in the kitchen, I look up and she's in the kitchen and I can't quite tell if she's smiling or if she looks like she got up and she's in a good mood. I'll be you. Okay, babe. It's like yeah, I'm okay. You sure I can't get you sure you okay
and by the end of the morning, okay, damn it and
what we've realized is that because my love language is words of affirmation if
Jessa wakes up and she says something like gosh, I'm still thinking about how great that steak was that you cook last night. Mmm, or you know that coffee smells amazing. You make such good coffee or something like that. Like I have I feel 0 need to ask her if she's okay my God, it's like that's all me projecting me on her. So I just think it's really interesting. And and so kind of a rabbit hole from what you were saying about how the way that you are raised affects the way that you parents also affects the way you interact with your with your spouse to a certain extent now we how we
How do you think the way you were raised made you skew towards that that that type of attachment, you know, I was I was kind of new to lie on this because I'm you know, my my mom. I really depended on her for approval. I really look to her for you're doing a good job. You know, you're you're good. You're great and gosh darn it people like you and I think that I look to her a lot for compliments and so I still grew up looking to women.
In my life such as my wife for those same type of compliments yet. I married someone who's very like tomboyish more and more of the avoidance there whose wouldn't wouldn't necessarily think of unless we had a conversation about it. Oh like compliment this person because for her and we were talking about this it almost feels like you
look like an authentic like inauthentic terrible, but I'm like, I I just don't like compliments do not come to my mind at all. Like I mean, it's not that I like. I don't think it it's
I don't know voicing. It just feels weird to
me. Yeah, and plus the fact that Jess and I met in well, we met in second grade Sunday school, but we really got to know each other while in college and we're very competitive. We had Triathlon she race track and field. So we've sand volleyball everything. We've always been a very competitive couple and so part of it too is like when she compliments me it's almost like it rubs against RI night tendency to compete with one another with one another and
And to try and try and one-up each other unless you like beets you arranged like you did a good job. Oh, yeah, I'm fired up. I'm worried up to being achieved your head. Right? I think a personality profile. I'm I'm achiever perfectionist. And Jessa is more people pleaser type B, and you know, one of the ways I'll compete with her is if I see her out on the porch drinking a glass of wine just like, you know lounging at whatever 6 p.m. And I come up and it's like an hour before dinner. Whatever I see her out there. You know, I I will literally say well I've got about
Our of work still and about 30 emails. I still got to finish so I'll be up from the office in about an hour. So I'll see you then. I'm going to go get some work done. I like I'll literally find myself just because we're still competitive with each other. So you guys are actually the reverse of Katrina and I very very similar so I could totally relate to the feeling on an authentic to just say compliments to say them so I actually and I love the five love languages. I
That to anybody in a relationship. I think it brought so much insight to Katrina and I and and how we navigate we've been together for 10 years. So of course, we've learned a ton about each other and I can never I can never compliment enough for her. And so I'm always trying to practice things that feel authentic and real that that provides that for her something that I've done. That's that's helped out as I just make a point I try and do this at least once a month where I get her flowers and like write a car and if I have to if I sit down
Language is receiving a gift actually gifts aren't affirmation. It's the card that
really not the flowers is like there's the message. Yeah, the
flowers of the bonus. She likes him in the house and they're pretty the card is what means everything to her. She and she would rather and this was hard for me when we first started dating. I was the shower her with gifts because that's my thing. So, I mean bought her all these nice clothes all the time because because the way that you thought was well, of course, of course, she's going to love Giggles. I love skiing. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah, not the language your partner's know and I actually
we think this is like one of the biggest things were people miss and their relationship because and in and no one is really guilty because you feel like you're trying remember when we had that that this first, you know, Paradigm shouting a moment in our relationship because she had felt like I wasn't giving her that love and I remember like
going literally last week. I just dropped like five hundred dollars on new Lulu outfits pulled a receipt right and I'm picking myself like I you know, I stopped in my day. I thought about her I went and bought her all this stuff and I
brought it home for no.
Is a no holiday, like how is that not
showing love but it took me a while to make that connection that I could do that all day long and she still not feel loved because I'm constantly speaking my language and not hers and I know Ben I think one thing that comes to mind. I realize I haven't even answered your question about my childhood yet. So but one thing that comes to mind regarding that whole idea of gifts as being a language of love is I also think that that can lead to a certain form of
of lazy parenting meaning that you know in many cases we feel as though we're doing a good job as parents if we take our kids to some expensive steak house and then you know the next day a trip to the zoo an arcade and a movie and we just try and take make every moment epic or every moment extremely extremely valuable with cash with money when in fact, I think that time and traditions Trump that big topic like
I can tell you like if you have breakfast for dinner on Tuesday night where dad makes eggs and Waffles every Tuesday night for you know, eight years of their childhood. They're gonna remember that more than any, you know, random trip to Vegas where you mu $1,000 on the whole family at dinner at a Japanese restaurant or if if they've got every single Christmas, you know, they're doing the 24-Day Advent calendar and getting a little chocolate and you know and and do a little bit of reading each morning you'll for this 24 days.
Building and building and building to Christmas every single year when they grow up and you have some about Christmas. They're probably going to talk about that tradition and that that memorable habit that's a part of you know, there's the the family then they will that one year. They got the Huffy, you know, the shiny Huffy bike that they'd always wanted. You know, I found out my kids just building things with them was everything like it, you know taking them to like I knew my son was into tetherball and so we just like his gift for Christmas.
This was all of us were going to put this together and like make it from scratch and everything and then, you know their bike ramp and all this just that vested time that everybody shares together. It makes that thing more valuable to them it has, you know, some kind of relevance and we all had an experience we shared together. It doesn't if that time is repeated and regularly scheduled. I think that's where you start to build families and Legacies and even this concept that grandparents matter because they become part of passing on those stories.
Total additions and and I think that having family family rituals and that's a huge part of our parenting like our family dinners are the other the song we sing before Sunday dinner the the type of journaling we do in the morning the type of journaling we do in the evening as a family the you know, the Bedtime Music the trips to the tennis courts, the the six different card games that we play nearly every night of the week like our kids find dependency and trust and safety in that but furthermore.
We're not raising our children raising our grandchildren. Where's our children and grandchildren the type of traditions that we instill in our children. Now, those are the things that go on and become a special Dependable part of family, no matter where, you know, if I get up rude and I got to move to a new state and get a new job or whatever. They can we count on that we can still play our Sunday Night tennis I go did you both get that growing up? I got a lot of that growing up. She did. I've learned everything about the value of tradition from my wife because my family was buried.
My family was you know Christmas morning. What do you want to do for dinner tonight? Should we get some Subway sandwiches or you know find it kind of turkey that we've got to pull the freezer no or whatever because of that were you was that just normal to you and it wasn't a big deal or did you ever go through a phase where you had animosity towards your parents because of maybe how you were raised pleasantly agnostic. Like I just I didn't even know right how big your normal until I met Jessica and I thought it was
super. Yeah. Most people here, right?
She's like, oh, we got our
annual trip to the coast. We do it this time every single year my annual trip when you actually do
this in place
or this is the color of the plates that we use on Christmas and these of this with the name tags looks like for Thanksgiving and this is the exact Easter egg hunt that we do every stand for me. Now you push back against that I am push back against it, but it was just super weird for me. Like I never an end. Oh my goodness like
I think it's interesting how I got
so lucky, you know marrying a girl who actually knew about the importance of traditions because our kids are that they're so stable at home because there's so much they can depend on every day of the week, you know, predictable environments remove a lot of fear and anxiety. So I want to hear from Justin because when you have when you have the difference at this and I know Katrina, I have this there's there's always some sort of resistance somewhere or what has been the greatest challenge for you with him because of the way he was raised that
you guys have had to work through
together, you know, it wasn't like the crew like doing the same thing at Christmas or you know Easter or whatever or having those Traditions around certain holidays. It was honestly more of the tradition in the daily routine. Oh, yeah, because like I grew up in a family my dad. He was a farmer he raised cattle. He came home 5 o'clock every night. We had dinner at six o'clock. Everybody came together and then we enjoyed maybe a half-hour TV show with popcorn, you know.
There is always tradition built in to the day and so for very very
long then she married me where I'm like, I'm on a plane to Abu Dhabi to race a triathlon was back working, you know, 10 to noon 3 to 5 8 to 11 p.m. At a gym and then, you know coming home trying to build an online business till 2 a.m. It is it all over the map because I grew up with a dad who literally would hold the same job for like a year and then go start a new company and then sell
uh that and like buy a franchise and then, you know go and buy some old ambulances and start to do, you know ambulance eating it like my dad was all over the map. So she grew up in a very dependable traditional consistent farmer type of environment. Where as I grew up with with, you know, a dad who's just all over the map in terms of Entrepreneurship. Mmm, so that that was it that was a different cuz I could I could see how the annual Traditions it's like. We're barely understandable have been can be like, yeah. Okay fine. We will do this with the day-to-day had it been like
It's like this is what I do in the morning. This is what we do at night is when I could see how that would be, you know conducting a long time and now like I can like the data's not feel right unless we have our family dinner with our card game with me playing ukulele or a guitar to the boys afterwards with our you know, we do self-examination and and purpose at the end of the day. So at the end of the day we say in our journals what good have I done today? And what could I have done better today? So we learn from both our successes and our failures and what is one way that I lived out my life.
Purpose because we I've taught my children from a very early age to have a strong purpose statement to have their ikki guide have their plan DaVita the thing that rips them out of bed in the morning that gives them a lens through which they see a lot of the boxes that they might be checking during the day, you know in the in the end ultimately. How is this helping you to fulfill your purpose? And then in the morning same thing we right now we meet as a family out in the sun on the deck. We've got a five minute meditation app that we go through called abide. That walks us through like a little verse from
Rapture in a prayer then we all write down one thing. We're grateful for and one person we can pray for or help that day and all these little things they rub me the wrong way at first. I just to me it felt like being just like an old fuddy-duddy TV show family from the 50s or early Leave it to Beaver and now like it it is the most magical part of the day these little trailer request any specific songs for me now like some AC/DC
everything
A
little bit of plants but they're they're they're really into Epic movie soundtracks, which I can't blow out. But in order to I took him into the into a recording studio for our Christmas gift for Mom and they really like the greatest showman, which has a lot of really epic. All right, we recorded a whole album for Mom recording studio. And then they also really like like super heart felt like praise and worship songs because of the very the very end like praise and worship so they usually like
Kind of stuff or sometimes. I just like an old-school. Ham like amazing. Well, so I'm listening to all this by the way, it sounds it sounds amazing and you know speaking to true to these these rituals or traditions. This is how cultures are created and you know, one thing about about humans is when you look at things that last for thousands and thousands of years, that's because we've found significant value in otherwise, it wouldn't last right? This is part of evolution. Now peace out people who are into science who understand evolution.
Even from a biological standpoint sense. You also need to understand Evolution from a cultural and practical sense and behaviors and practices and cultures. We often take them for granted because they've been around for thousands of years and we tend to look at them by. Well, that's stupid. Why do we have to do it? That way? Everybody's been doing it so long, let's maybe we even view it as oppressive or whatever. But the reality is it exists because humans have found it tremendously valuable and oftentimes in ways that you don't even fully understand because it's been around for so
long.
Long, but as I'm listening to this, I think again what you guys are doing is extremely valuable. I also know that you have two 12 year old boys. They're about to become teenagers. Yeah, and like all kids. I'm sure they give some pushback sometimes that mean I don't think there's any perfect person out there. Let alone perfect kid. What do you do when your kid says I don't want to do this. What are what is it that they give pleasure? Like, how do you handle that?
Well, first of all, and I think maybe it was when we recorded in Tahoe. We talked a little bit about on one of the previous podcast that we recorded together about this idea of love and logic style parenting. Yeah, educating your children on the consequences of their decision than as much as possible allowing them to make the decision. Am I going to eat gluten? Am I going to you know, look at pornography. Am I going to you know, smoke a cigarette, you know any of these things you teach your children about the impact on
Brain, the impact on the body the potential societal implications and then you let them make the decision and deal with the consequences right? Maybe you know poor performance at school the next day because they punished, you know, three cupcakes at their friend's birthday party. I'd rather them learn that way then we say no cupcakes and then feel like I actually took a whole course. It's there's a have a free course right now online love and logic and the one of the things that they say on that so powerful. So they give the example. Here's an example. You're going out. You're going out somewhere. It's cold.
You and your you tell your kid? Hey, make sure you grab your jacket. I don't want to wear a jacket. Right? So the old-school way would be like get your jacket put it on you're going to the love and logic way would be like, okay, don't worry. Then when you go out in the freezing and there's oh my God, it's cold you empathize with them like right now, right? Yeah that really sucks or whatever. It's cool and they learn from that and the way that they sell it which I think is brilliant is if they learn those lessons now than they don't learn they don't have to learn the hard way later on when it's like getting drunk driving or you know things that have real serious consequences.
So yeah, I and you and take the course. I really think it's valuable. It is in there are two other considerations here with this style of parenting a it only works. If you're a really good example, right you you can't you can't you can't tell your kids so you can use the phone and the television and the video game platform is much as you'd like, you know might hurt your eyes a little bit you might not sleep that well tonight. But if you say that and then every night after work your plopped in front of Netflix for two hours, then that's what your kids are.
Going to have is a good like in the green field house with there's downtime 90% of the time. I'm holding a musical instrument or have a book in my face, right? I am not on my phone. I'm not playing a video game. I'm not parked in front of a screen. So when my kids have downtime like their go-to thought pattern is not where's my iTouch or I'm going to go go hunt down some photos and you to my MacBook then the other thing and this is new for me is that I think that sometimes that side of parenting can lead almost too much to you wanting your kids to like you, you know, where's Jordan Peterson would
A don't do things that would make your kids dislike. Your don't do things. I'll make your kids hate you sometimes I think we can take that in into far the opposite direction. I don't want my child to ever feel as though they were deprived or as they as though. I told them they had to do something because we use this whole love and logic don't ever make your kids angry type of approach but you know, for example, you know, I have decided that even though for the longest time. I've been riding out little workouts for River and tear.
Learn to do, you know so you guys got to do 60 pound sandbag one time around the obstacle course, and and you do this three times this week or your workout. Today is five. Goblet squats five push-ups dead. Hang for Max time. You're gonna do five rounds of that. I was not being a good father. I was not being a good leader. I was not being a good King in terms of basically me almost parenting through checkboxes and and give him my kids little assignments that they could or could not do but great. If you've done it versus me, literally.
Bringing them out with me and sacrificing, you know my podcast time or audiobook time or my favorite Spotify artist time to just go inside my own head for a workout instead take them with me and have them suffer in a way that they kind of sort of don't watch stuff for you can tell along with me because let's face it. I think a 5 a.m. Paper route. Like I had when I was a kid, like if my parents would have told me that all you could or could not do that's up to you. But because they said you need a job and we have a paper job. So go work make money.
I think that's character building. And so I think that you sometimes have to get to a point where you are telling you you put your foot down you're saying yo, there's gonna be good for you. Let's go out to the garage where I sweat for a half hour. It's not it's not do you want to come with me? It's we're going out
we're going and also it's just coming alongside. You're kidding doing something with them rather that yeah that versus telling them because it's not you're sacrificing your time, which is a display of Love towards that person and so really I think in all of this
Love has to be seen it everything that you do for your child because they won't have trust for you. If you aren't displaying that to them regularly, right? Well, that's that's in putting them to bed and not just saying goodnight. See you in the morning. It's putting him to bed, you know, making sure they have everything they need and maybe they need that prayer or that song that were that ritual. Oh my gosh. It's literally just like taking taking your time and giving to
them I 100% agree. So what do you do when your kid like you have an example of time when your
When your boys was like I don't want to do that journaling today. We're not going to do it or I don't care about that right now or
whatever. I don't I don't feel like I've ever and this sounds crazy to pull a few out. We have don't receive a lot of pushback from her boys in that way. I haven't seen that.
Well, we don't mean they're not they're not perfect like like, you know, because they are there unschooling the each other on little MacBook and sometimes they'll have like they take one course called Mathnasium where they have an online math tutor and sometimes they've got little homework assignments and you know, I was fighting with
In frequency at I walk into them and you could tell they were switching browser windows really
fast like show that they were here on top
where my mind goes is. I can tell them. Hey, you're you're hiding something from down and take your computer away from week you're grounded. But what I said to both of them into several conversations because sometimes you want to be careful not to embarrass one kid in front of the other make one feel like, you know, they're wrong the other eye so I took him aside and I said look,
I'm not stupid. I can tell when I walk into the room when you're in your computer and your quickly switching browser windows that you're doing something that you feel might not be the best use of your time or that I might disapprove of I told them look I don't care. It's your time. It's your life. It's up to you whether it whether or not you want to waste your life or squander your education or spend time on some silly cartoon website versus applying yourself and doing what it is. It's going to make you a better person in the moment, but my one request is that you not hide it from me.
You don't have to be embarrassed. If you have a certain website, you're visiting the you want to visit go for it. Do it. Just don't feel like you have to hide it from me because you're not gonna get in trouble. All you're doing is you're ruining your own life. And that's up to you. Just please don't hide it from me. Alright, so those are the type of conversations that Lockhart went Cartoon Network is ruining my
life. Well,
so here's the other thing too that sometimes I worry about not my my son is about to turn 15. My daughter's 10. So, you know kind of close in age
To your boys and obviously I'm a fitness and health person. Right and I've seen this before I've seen this before where I had a family member whose dad was an herbalist and super into health and whatnot. And the in the kids had to eat everything was healthy. They didn't get all the processed foods that everybody got never, you know, when it was their birthday. They didn't get the normal cake. They got the you know, the the super crunchy, you know, whatever cake with no sugar and what ended up happening to both of them is the second they got out of the
The house they went super far I could ever know Steve. I like
so the ride cracker for their birthday.
Yeah, the winds super far in the opposite direction. And so sometimes I get or so. I've also seen where parents are super into fitness to where the kid maybe feels like it's a bit tyrannical and so they have this bad relationship with Fitness and then when they get out of house and they're on their own, I never want to work out type of you. What do you do to ensure that either that doesn't happen or if it does happen that they end up coming back to
You know the right thing. Well, I don't know. Here's my feelings on that is my own personal Journey myself is my parents didn't force Fitness or food or anything on me really and I was allowed to come to that in my own time. Now, I think my parents instilled in me like an understanding of this is good for you. This is not good for you. You should maybe be active or not sedentary, you know, they instilled those virtues in me, but they didn't
this them upon me and so I I call it we're not raising dogs were raising Spiritual Beings, you know, you're not raising your kids to do this and Obey and this and that you're raising them to make to have a spirit and be able to make a decision and and and have virtue and so to me, I really feel that if you are teaching our kid anything if it's not done in the heart of London, they don't understand that you love them. And that's why you're teaching this to them is because you care about
Them then it's going to have is going to kind of hit tin and just bounce
off. I think I think the the Independence that comes with adolescents which were of course increasingly going to experience as our kids grow into teenager Hood dictates that a child will want to do the opposite of what their parent is doing to assert their own independence. That's just the way that things are and so I fully expect and I'm fully prepared for River and Taryn to be the anti gym rat or the person who prides himself upon Maybe.
Having a little bit of Pooch and being a member of the chess club and playing a lot of piano just because Dad is son Fitness and I wanted like yeah, that's not cool. Why not? Not that I'm saying that adolescents. I think sometimes it's uses as a crutch for or an excuse to go into full Rebellion, but I think some amount of asserting one's Independence and sometimes a certain ones independence by trying to do the opposite what their parent may have done is understandable, but for me personally, like I think that you always kind of
That prodigal son asked moment where you where you come back and you realize the value like my dad used to give me books that I absolutely did not want to read. I mean like Christian apologetics and sermons by CS Lewis. Just all this stuff. I just like want I want to read this just like, you know, the way I think about as a teenager's Jesus freak drivel and you know, just as this random religious philosophy like I want to be reading about, you know, maybe like I loved fantasy fiction and I love space fiction. I got that's the kind of stuff. I wanted to read
but now coming full circle like when I've got down time and I feel like I really want to feed my spirit and feed my soul and challenge myself intellectually. I mean, that's what I'm reading. I'm reading a John Piper and see us Louis and Doug Wilson and all these deep logical philosophical books on religious on religion or on apologetics and all of a sudden like. Oh geez. I'm doing exactly what my dad just took me took me 30 years to see the value in that but you know, all of a sudden like, I'm actually I'm growing my spiritual muscles now. I understand came down.
Yeah, but I came to that place. So I think it was you show your kids what's important and then a certain point you just you know, you trust God that they're going to if you if you expose them to the right type of things eventually make the right decisions, even though they'll probably go in through that independence got to be the hardest thing to do as a parent that's got to be the hardest thing because you you know, what they're going to do you see the pitfalls and just gotta let them do it and that's really really
hard. But you know, what's really cool is I've seen my parents go through that and see there.
Daughter take really hard nose Dives and do really stupid crap. How did you
Rebel? That's a Rebelle.
I wasn't really I I can't I like to Teeter on the edge, but I never fully plunge down by marrying me. Yeah, I basically did any of your guys is now did any of you
guys have siblings that Rebel there went the complete opposite like did you guys think I'm out of magic? I mean everybody's got a little bit of a block.
There's a black sheep in Every Family absolutely, but
What I what I was saying is I'm like, I got to witness my parents walk through that and go through the fire of that. I lived through that with them. And so to see that they're how they reacted to that and how they walked through that it was just honestly with a lot of faith in a lot of prayer and that's all you can do at that point because they are their own person and at some point you do have to let them you got to let him go and just you know,
yeah. Well get you gotta let him go rest
promises. Basically,
here's what I think.
Here's why I think that idea like what are they say 99% of the time you're going to spend with your child is done with by the time they're 18. So you better just make every minute count and you live live every moment with your kid is if you're going to be on your deathbed that night and everything everything has to be epic. You know, I think that that's a flat it's based on a flawed theory. If you have built up Traditions, if you have built up rituals, if you have built up an environment where parents are honored and grandparents are honored and and children are
Then you create a scenario where when your kids are 18. They want to keep coming back for more when they when they flown The Nest they've started their own family. They still want to keep coming back to their original family or including their parents and their extended family and their rituals and routines and traditions because the entire family is built upon these deep-rooted traditions. And so, you know, I think that even though a lot of kids are going to have times when they go their own way. Our job as parents is to create this safe nest full of
Ins and habits and rituals and routines and dependency and trust that just makes them want to keep coming back for more as they age and then take you when you're old as a parent into their home because I think that's that's another big issue with parenting with the value of parents and with the honor of being a father and a mother right now and culture is a we hide away old people we hide away old people because we don't want to care for him. We don't want to get the time. We don't want to give the attention and then and I mean,
Is probably this probably delves into the politics that I know you guys love to talk about so much. We kill a whole bunch of little people. Mmm like yeah want 40 million of them. Mmm. And so when we say, okay we care about babies, but you know, there's there's several tens of millions that were there were willing to kill for convenience's sake each year and then we care about parents when they get old and it's inconvenient you got like change their diaper and they stink a little bit. We're going to hide them away. Right? So I think on both ends of the spectrum there are some issues that cause us to
A certain extent to devalue parents. Well, do you value each? Well, there's one I'll move away from the third rail there a little bit but I'll move to one that's little bit let much less of a third rail, but sometimes is also I think is a big one is that I think fatherhood has been totally devalued in modern
societies. We just had this conversation
again, you look you watch TV shows and how they display the father of modern family, right? He's an idiot. He's a bumbling whatever he doesn't really do much. He has no values. He's like the gesture
He's a clown and and so so here's what I think the problem is and we run into a lot of this like in the health space anti-aging longevity Peter Pan. Syndrome Ram. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna be a boy and have fun and go to you know, like time I think for me I'm gonna go to Spartan races and triathlons and and get the, you know stem cell injections in my dick and do all this like cowboy and Peter Pan. I'm gonna be a boy forever type of shit when in fact living like that having all the biohacking toy.
Boys having the workouts, you know being being the buddy because you really want your kids to like you and then the clown and the jester not that there can't be some light playful aspect of being a father but I think too many dads are not freaking like kings true leaders father's strong rocks that the family can depend upon and another part of that too is just, you know, welfare parenting right so many single parent households with mothers government steps in and takes the role of father. So dad's a lot of times they don't even need to be in
Dad, right because somebody else is gonna give well in a lot of boys running around. Yeah and a lot and a lot of the old, you know cultures. I talked earlier about how things exist for thousands of years often times because we find lots of value when you go to the a lot of these old cultures. It's a it's almost like a way to brag when you're a father with a lot of kids like when men talk to each other. So how many kids you have I have three kids. Well I have for like wow, you know, that's awesome. Whatever. It's the opposite in our culture. If you are, you know, you tell it
Got a buddy of yours that you have three kids and they'll respond was like, oh my God. That sucks. Yeah. Well, well, I'm going to know I got my Corvette and you know, I get to bang hot chicks all time. And that sucks that you have to you know, do that kind of stuff and they laugh about whatever it's crazy that we don't prize that anymore. And by the way, you can disagree all you want. The statistics are clear their Crystal Clear children raised without fathers are many many times more likely to end up in all the terrible situations everything from prison to
We used to Suicide. We are in a there's it's like a pandemic of fatherless societies that it's really really sad. And in this this comes because you were asking about my childhood. My father was somewhat absent meaning he was not a very high quality time, you know, lots of hugs type of daddy, you know, he was off running businesses starting businesses very he's naturally quiet naturally introspective naturally good at being an introvert and you know kind of off doing his own thing like I tend to be pulled towards
His father was the same way. We're always locked away in the office always working or using work as an escape. So coming down to me and this idea of you're not raising your children. You're raising your grandchildren. I have come to the realization very strong way over the past year or so that if I don't break that cycle if I continue to co-parent through checkboxes, whatever, you know River and Tara he hears work out as this is that Dad's headed out to LA for 8 days. I'll be back and check in on you guys and make sure everything's going well and if
I am if I am not a fully present father if I am not a leader if I'm not the king of my household then it's it's going to show my children the example of the father that a Greenfield father is and then they go forth and do probably something very similar to what I did marry really strong woman, you know, because just as an amazingly strong woman, she's super, you know, independent self-sufficient even a little bit of that avoidance syndrome versus the
it syndrome that I have so she can operate on her own just fine and is very easy for me to let her wear the pants in the family to let her be the leader and so I can be a little boy, you know off, you know, pulling on the speedo to go swim in Hawaii in a triathlon. Well, she's at home holding down the fort and you know, the question I have increasingly been asking myself is is that what a Greenfield father should be known for should a Greenfield father be known for being the playful little boy off having great adventures married to a really strong woman. So the kids are taken care of at home or should a Greenfield father be a leader be a
In be someone who really takes their children under their wings and trains them and spend quality time with them and sometimes has them suffer along with him and really really teaches them how to be a man and I would say that I think the latter is far more valuable than your kids liking you because you're just like the clown around the house. That's a that's a very powerful realization now have you found moments recently where you were about to take off and go do something and then you stopped yourself and you go cancel your flight or canceled your
up and said I'm staying home. I mean have you had moments like that and this last year where because you're right when you have something so deep that it's Generations your father your grandfather. That shit's so deeply rooted that that's always going to be default for you. It's hard to be aware of and I'ma I had the same similar type of thing is to go bury myself into work. And so I have to always kind of check back in like is this me kind of running away without even realizing I'm running away and you know, can I pass on this dude? I didn't have to cancel a thing because because God bless covid that it all flows.
What I
have done one big change I have made is and this has been really remarkable and weighs just transfer my whole week my approach to work my personal productivity my approach to procrastination. My approach to prioritization is Sundays are full on Family Day me no calls. No no work. No. Oh, you know we missed a call on Monday. Let's just shove this one into Sunday you got time this weekend. I'll ping you this week. I don't find myself sometimes on Sunday three or four phone calls playing some catch.
Ketchup work, you know just getting things done sure. Now knowing that Sunday is coming. That's a full-on family day. It really gives me hyper-focus every other day of the week and then when Sunday's roll around not that I'm not spending quality time with my kids every day, but that's been transformative to have that one day where the it is nothing but family and Faith focused. I love that now, you've mentioned spirituality and Faith a few times and I've been on my own and I've been public about my own research.
In spiritual journey, I used to be very atheist and then I became agnostic and more recently now been pulled to the the Christian religion quite a bit and I've learned quite a bit of and there was a moment that I read Justin Adam myself and Doug were invited to listen to Bishop Baron and Arthur Brooks speak and it was one of the most Arthur Brooks is a very I don't know if you know who Arthur Brooks Houck a speaker very very powerful effective. Actually one of the most genuine nice people I've ever met in my entire life. He's one of those people you meet.
Once in a while that you immediately feel their paws their energy and you want to give them a hug just a great guy and he said something so powerful that literally Justin Adam and myself and Doug looked at it looked at each other and looked away quickly because all of us were all emotional we're all on the verge of tears. I love you. He said something very powerful and he said about the power of going to church with your children as a father and he said something I'll never forget. He said here you are if you're a good father. I'm paraphrasing. He says much better.
Here you are a good father your children. See you as the most powerful person in the world. If you do a good job in your good parent your children, look at you as the ultimate role model and it's not a totally not an unusual for a kid, especially young kid to think that their dad. You're the strongest person ever is the strongest most powerful most whatever you're in it, which is not a bad thing. You're the protector of the family or you know, so they think I remember thinking that about my dad and he says to go to church to see the
Powerful man in your life bend the knee and and and in praise and give great and give you know to someone else basically saying I am this one things servitor this God's servant. He said what a powerful message all of us at they're like, yeah. What a very what a powerful thing to show your child, you know, the perfect the the perfect example of a father and a son
Is God and Jesus and a perfect example of something that father's can aspire to is to be as great a father as God. And so when when you are a good father or you're a powerful father your leader in your home, you're absolutely right. And and you show your kids that you still get down on bended knee that there's still something that you fear. There's still something honor. There's still something you have a great deal of reverence around and
It is this the this Creator this greater power this absolute truth. I think that that also shows kids that there's even a there's even a greater Rock. There's even a greater foundation and honestly, I just think the whole idea that there is an absolute truth that there is absolute morality, you know, in my opinion that that that's part of the strong fabric that knits cultures together and and
well your foundation is
solid morality from unraveling. Yes shakeable. You have to you have to have that the
Very idea of this country when it started and there was a period of Time When anybody could come here is a matter who you are where you came from. You could come you were welcome. And you think to yourself? How did that work? You got all these different people and I've heard people say, oh they were all Europeans. They're all the same with stupidest thing. I've heard in my life because they've been at two world wars with each other. They were very different Germans Italians Irish, you know, they were all very very very different. They all came. How did they all get along? They all had a underlying appreciation?
Acton belief in Liberty and freedom. So this is how they all got along so that when you say this absolute morality, the only way different people can ever work together and still be very different is if they have one they have this common thread of something and that's what this absolute Morales is why when morality is subjective and not objective you run into a lot of different problems, but the question I want to ask you about your you you're very spiritual you've mentioned, you know, Jesus and God.
So obviously very strong Christian, but you're also very analytical objective scientific minded individual. So aside from the specifics that you find in Christianity and in your religion from a objective scientific standpoint, what are the values of having a spiritual practice or a belief system are their values because these days it seems like that. There's constantly people are saying there's no value in that it's silly its
It's make-believe. Why do we even do it? Obviously, it's existed in every culture relative. Yeah, every culture forever has had some kind of a strong beliefs of so there's obviously value but what it from that standpoint what are the vat like, why is that important to have right? Well, there's two things to consider here. The first is when when you're talking about science and reducing everything to scientism. If you want to call it everything must be proven there. There must be a reason for everything if you trace everything back.
To its to its ultimate origin everything must be explainable and it's very difficult to be a respected Authority in a field of something like Fitness or nutrition, you know as kind of like shallow Sciences as those films might be considered to be and to make to make statements that you want to be respected for. When at the same time you have admitted that there comes a certain point or when you've traced something back from tissue to sell to
Adam to your molecule the Quark to proton to electron and Neo stripped everything down to its tiniest tiniest component, you know, the tiniest little threat of existence you will get to a point where you can either say, well, you know, we're going to keep on digging because we're going to figure out what came before this and what came before this and what came before this we could eventually explain away everything be a science or you get to a certain point where you throw up your hands and you say
I don't know. It's magic something something something they'd like some higher power that I don't understand made this and I'm just going to have the faith that that happened and and resist the even the mild arrogance that I might be able to explain away everything in the universe and that's tricky to be involved in a field that depends upon science at the same time essentially say the equivalent of yeah, I Believe In Unicorns and berries and fairy tales and Magic, but I'd rather live in a world.
of magic where there's deep hope that there's a story written for your life that there's a big guy upstairs watching out for a buddy that this entire universe around us in all the Wonder of it from you know from from you know, smoked clams and and cannabis to you know to sourdough bread and a good red wine to psilocybin and and dumbbells never like these are all wonderful wonderful works of creation that we can simply enjoy and not
Not necessarily feel that there's an extreme need to have to explain away via science. And so that's that's one part part of really the difficulty is getting to the point where you just say. Yeah, I believe in faith. I believe in magic. So, you know so judge me for it and then the other part of it when it comes to the value of this, you know, we know there's a lot of data out there about how people who who are churchgoers tend to have reduced all cause risk of mortality. Oh, maybe that's the community. Maybe it's the tiny thimble full glass of hormetic inducing red wine.
Every Sunday who who knows but we know that for a fact we know that gratitude lowers blood pressure improve sleep increases empathy increases self-control. We know that this self-examination practice increases the amount of actual productivity and impact that you make with your life. We know that having a purpose statement actually is associated with higher profile of mood State scores and greater happiness. When you go down the list of all the spiritual disciplines and you read wonderful books by guys like Richard Foster and David Wallace on all the spiritual disciplines.
Gratitude service Community worship Solitude purpose in life silence abstinence. Yeah, that's a big absence everything you wind up with this list of things that ultimately have deep physical and physiological and psychological which these people cannot face right?
It's not because they had a scientific right and all of them are even
fasting right fasting did not originate from science it originated from
Gin, and it was a spiritualist for spiritual health not for physical health, right? That's what it was for. You know, it's funny when so for me what kind of got me, you know to move in this direction as a few different things, but well one of them were some of the ideas that seem to work so well or not obvious, for example, the idea that and this comes from religion the idea that all people have are born with inalienable rights, which is you know, it's in our founding what a weird radical
Easy idea totally not obvious for most of human history were kings and queens and peasants and slaves and nobody is that Noble who would come up with such an insane thing from a reasonable logical standpoint. You can look around at people and observe and obviously that's not true. We're all so different were all some people are born this way. So but so where did that come from and it came from religion so that that was one of the things that helped me move in that direction that that that is that is the gospel, right? God sent his son to die so that the
in and all the shame and all this sin and and all the shit that we are born with and that we create and that we live with every single day could be taken upon the back of the extreme suffering and pain literally a god from the sky came down to take on and it says very clearly in the Bible, which I considered to be a source of absolute truth that that was not just done for like the Jews not just done for the Gentiles not just done for the Asians not
Done for the South Americans every single person, right the the grocer the slave the Freeport you name it?
Everybody is on equal ground when it comes to all of us and it's entirely not obvious and reasonable to think that anybody would come up with that especially anybody with any kind of power. Why would you give away so it's very interesting to
me held an act of
humility. And now I understand that is improve that there's a supernatural God I get that but boy the the pragmatic how pragmatic it is how effective it is and helping create, you know societies that we value boys.
That crazy the other part is this is that you know first let's talk about science for a second quantum physics is Magic. Yeah, exactly like about yeah. Listen, I kinda is the Observer effects. It's unexplainable. It's comical but let's talk about science for a second science is I can I can easily make the argument that it's one of the most valuable powerful. The scientific method has got to be one the most powerful tools that we've ever come up with but here's the problem with science. You mentioned scientists scientists. Mmm it
Has no morality. It's not supposed to science doesn't work. If you apply a morality to it's supposed to be purely objective. But if you don't have people who have an idea of morality within themselves, here's what science turns into it turns into not should I but can I use this possible like, okay, let's let's let's hybrid humans with gorillas to see how strong they can get let's create. Let's have children out of the womb because that's convenient lets you know, what all demon monkey embryo, you know.
Eugenics Eugenics is an idea such a terrible idea right that we need to get rid of the genetically bad people to have a perfect race from a scientific standpoint objective for the collective makes perfect ones once science becomes absolute truth. You you are on a very slippery slope towards an absence of morality because there is no consideration of whether something is right or wrong. Just whether something is true or false and what's really interesting is a book that I recently read.
Read it was when we were in actually it was when the boys and I were in Dubai. I think I was reading this book on the plane and I I sent you this book just and I'm forgetting it's about how every single culture has this this one great God in the sky who actually is this source of Truth. And is this this source of right and wrong many many cultures have no idea who Jesus was a gospel sacrifice any of that stuff, but they know like there's this one God who has created a
And like a deep truth and morality that goes beyond as can
drop your nuts. I can't remember. I can't
remember the name of the book is but essentially what it comes down to is there is head knowing and there is heart knowing head knowing is science or like I know whether something is true or false I can use reasoning I can use logic I can explain away the observer effect by may be talking about how like particles would interact with the photon and there's got to be a way to explain this and then heart knowing is basically just I just
No, because I know I know that I should not walk up on the street to the person holding a wonderful aromatic loaf of sourdough bread. Hold a gun to their head pull the trigger and walk away with their bread because I wanted it and then felt right to me like everybody knows in their heart. Like that's the hard. No, you know, even you may not be able to explain but you know deep down inside because you could try to explain what you could say. Oh you did because that makes you happy and that's an in and you know morality comes what makes you happy, but did it make the other person?
Here's what you're here's an interesting thought experiment experiment along those lines. It's like you asked somebody if you could go back in time and kill Hitler when he was a baby. Would you do it and some people might say well, yeah, I would save lots of people really think about it. He's not Hitler yet, right? He's a baby. He hasn't done anything yet. So your heart knows that would actually be wrong, even though theoretically I could prevent all this other, you know stuff from happening. It's wisdoms. Also, very unrealistic scenario never actually writing, but you okay so so
So obvious so Fitness is my expertise. So I like to take things to Fitness because that's what I understand the most I would say and there's a lot of wisdom and fitness and I'll explain oftentimes. So we do episodes called Claus right where people ask us questions and we answer those questions and there's a question that pops up all the time which is if scientist invented a pill that made you fit lean and healthy regardless of what you ate and what you did. Would that be a good thing now for somebody who's been
Who's took this seriously understood this study this work with people for well over two decades. I have developed a level of wisdom with Fitness that is beyond the you know, you get fit you build muscle you burn body fat. And so when I hear that, I understand that yeah, you'll get people who are lean, you know more muscle mobile and that kind of stuff but they're not going to get the True
Value that you're value is empty.
Now that the value is in the discipline and the abstinence and the journey journey, not the destination. It's
always the journey and so that's something that's totally different from the the reason in the logic is the science would say the pill would solve everybody's problem. But here's here's another example, you have people who seem to have everything that you think that you would want from a logical standpoint money power sex drugs Fame and their suicide rate is through the roof. What does that tell you? I would take that pill gay leaves it was on top of a mountain. I had to climb up the mountain more to get the pill I'll take it exactly. So I want to I want to take a
Left turn here or whatever turn here and ask you a little bit about homeschooling. I know you guys are big homes first. Let's talk about Jesse's shirt. Did you watch Tiger King?
That's okay. That's okay. I had to point that out obviously seen a couple of exotic.
You don't know it's a total waste your time. So you mentioned unschooling which is a form of home. So I had friends who were big in the homeschooling world and when I started training,
Them they were that's how I met them and I was very skeptical when they would tell me about what they did. They were unschoolers and I thought oh boy. I hope their kid doesn't turn out whatever. Anyway, he turned out to be one of the best young men I've ever met. I thought he would be lazy and he did all he just could play video games all day. Now. This kid is entrepreneur start his own podcast. He's become a personal trainer. He's a go-getter very very balanced well-adjusted young man o friend. She's depressed. Yeah.
That's not right. Yeah, right. That's a
No-No. There's a lot of confusion and a lot of myth around or just incorrect knowledge or information around homeschooling and along those lines homeschool is exploded not just recently because it covid but over the last 10 years. It's exploded a lot first off. Why do you think that is why do you think more and more parents and it's growing exponentially this is real now. In fact that the public school system is actually quite
worried about the fact that more and more people are homeschooling. Why do you think it's exploded so much and then I do want to get into unschooling and what that
means because I actually I've posed this question to one of my girlfriends whose kids are in public school and I during all of this stuff in recent laws that have been passed passed in Washington, and I said to her I was like and I said don't take this as a fensive, but I was like, how do you feel dropping your kid off at the state every day?
And allowing them to pour themselves into your child rather than you pouring yourself into your child. Like that's a really honest question and I wasn't trying to be offensive or rude, but and say that you're doing it wrong. I just really want to pour my values and my yeah my values into my child rather than allowing the state to pour their values into the all over children. I think
that is
It's good that a parent would want to be with their kids more and want more quality
time with your kids more
spouse or want to values want to be able to instill more of their families values into their children, but I think that the human psychology of someone else being able to educate a child and you could drop them off and go to work and fulfill your nozzles hierarchy. Will somebody else says the work actually would make homeschooling a less popular notion. And so I think the reason that homeschooling has become
some more popular is multifactorial but a big one is technology. Yeah, make cities remote working. Yes, like the ease of being able to find information find teachers fine tutors have that be scalable and affordable has made it so that you can homeschool anyone anywhere in the world and you can you can I mean compared to even what you could do 20 years ago have an amazing amazing education for every child and then I think that when you pair that with a little bit of social unrest, you know increasing School violence,
increasing bowling increasing amounts of depression and loneliness and Suicidal Tendencies among children who are simply in an EFT up social environment in many cases in public school or even some cases in private school type of situation dictates that I think a lot of parents are aware that a school might not be the best place a Traditional School might be the best place for the kids to be during the day and as that awareness grows what I've seen
seen are I've seen a growth of homeschooling but I've seen this real shift towards the notion of creative free play AKA unschooling AKA find out what your kids passions and interests are find out what makes them truly excited what they really want to study what they're truly interested in then surround them with as many arts and crafts and tutors and computer programs and games and activities and museum tickets and everything that they would need to be able to pursue that passion and then step back and just lightly guy.
Then you'll make sure they've got a you've got somebody to drive them to the place. They want to be driven to and they've got some cooking class or make sure that they know how to log in to the computer for some class. They want to take online so lightly guide them and and then just surround them and then the other important part of unschooling and this is very similar to that love and logic approach why I like using love and logic but also discipline so unschool, but also realize there are certain skills that your child is going to highly benefit from having experienced in life that they might not know about yet when they're six or eight.
Or 10 years old. You'll Neva revoke on great modern day thinker and philosopher. I love a lot of the work that he does. He says there's essentially five key tools that a child needs to be able to excel in no matter what career that they go into and those are Reading Writing, right? So so being able to consume information at an efficient Pace writing be able to express thought clearly on written in written form on paper or via keyboard arithmetic being able to just do basic figuring whether it's geometry or building or
Working or anything that involves basic math skills, and then finally logic or computer programming, right which are technically synonymous right like logic / computer programming and then rhetoric / persuasion. If you can weave in sales Reading Writing Math logic / persuasion and or logic / computer programming and rhetoric / persuasion, then your child is really going to be set for life. And so we we have 12 core subjects that Washington State requires us to
Show that our child has checked the box for you know, like they did chemistry this week. Well, you sure they learned how to make a ravioli, right and that counts as kitchen chemistry social class for those chemistry, but then I'm also very careful to ensure that even if they there's some weeks they don't want to take their online Mathnasium class. They probably would not be doing logic puzzles right now. If Dad wasn't paying them five bucks every time they successfully completed a really hard logic puzzle in this logic book that I got for them. So there are certain little things. I nudged them towards that I know they aren't super interested in but that are going to serve them well in life and then
Everything else is weekly family meeting what you guys passion about. What do you want to learn one local assistant who helps to drive them around and get them to different activities one virtual assistant who kind of helps us keep track of all their different passions and interests and you know, which block of the are we going to kind of focus on whatever Woodworking and which block of the year we're going to focus on building the tree fort and which block are we going to do more Wilderness survival and plant foraging and we just keep a running list of all the things they're interested in than we've those in throughout the year and it's scary.
Three because there is no model. There is no proven model. There's no one right way to do it here in there and you want you almost want like a set pattern habit or routine because that's what we all grew up with with schooling. Once you realize it doesn't have to be that way and that kids actually learn really well through this concept of free creative play. So that's what works really so essentially unschooling is no real structure no curriculum career and you know, here's the thing. Here's my argument and supported what you're saying. I'm glad you explained that and you did it. So well.
Modern society is a lot of specialization you go to work and you're probably really good at a couple things and that's how modern society works. You don't need to know everything or lots of little things. You kind of need to be really good at one thing. And for anybody who's I mean anybody who has kids, you know when your kid is into something like when my boy was four years old, you know, he loved Thomas the Train the train set the little trains and there's like, I don't know 300 figurines.
Maybe thousands right? And so I saw that he was really into it and he build the trains so I bought him he might he had to have at least a hundred and something trains. He knew every single name everything at four years old every there were two trains that were twins. I could not tell the difference. He could took me days to figure out how he was doing it and you know, it was it was the direction the eyebrows were slightly off on one of the other and it's because he was into it, you know, the like little tiny sponges. So what are you seeing unfolding with your
Right. Now, what are you noticing are you can you do you guys feel like you can kind of predict what they're going to be into or what they're going to do when they get older by now.
Well even saying what they want to do since they were three or four they
both love art and writing they they love cooking. They have a cooking podcast and even even above like cooking and food crap. They like to create art. Both of their purpose statements are based around inspiring people to Joy and adventure with their art
And with their writing River does a little bit more of the writing Taryn does a little bit more of the art and they really want to do a lot more publishing of their own books. They want to live in Moscow Idaho 90 minutes from our house for all their nieces and nephews reside and they want to live down there and make books and kind of have like a little coffee shop at the run during the day and then write books, you know in the evening or in their off time and that's what they want to do right now is you beep authors and own a coffee shop which you know, that that might change a year from now they
Want to be professional tennis players? Yeah. Yeah, you never know. But you just you sit back and you just let them pursue their passions and resist the urge to push them towards the stuff that you really thought. He got out because living vicariously through your children is so easy.
It's powerful. What are you? How are you
guys teaching them finances right now? They've got these books called the Tuttle twin books that are a little bit more of kind of a Libertarian conservative.
Approach to the economy and the finances they go through each month with their actually there once a week right now with their their podcast producer and manager the financials. You know, what they're bringing in from each affiliate what percentage the Affiliates are great. They go grocery shopping with Mom with our assistant to help manage things like, you know, Finding deals and finding discount same thing on Amazon. They leave the tip when we go to restaurants never playing card games, you know, they're in charge of keeping track of the you know, the
The numbers and the digits and
it's great cause it's all real life. I mean, this is all stuff that you're in have to deal
with. Yeah. So you got do you guys allow them to be buy whatever they want freely or how does that work for them saving and spending so
anytime pretty big saver.
So they're they're big into same. But again, we are to like we're just not like we drive a Toyota Highlander and you know Dodge pickup and we don't live very fancy flashy like your flashy lifestyle, you know, this shirt cost me 10 bucks from the thrift store and just makes our
Sure, and like we lived pretty simple. And so I think they just they never really grown up being spendthrifts. We don't live with the spirit of scarcity. But we also just were not spent. We don't spend a lot of money on random items but the understanding in our house is that if it's related to education, especially in the book no questions asked I will buy it for them. I will provide them anything that really fuels something that they want to learn about something they're passionate about if it's a Nerf gun if it's a Lego toy or whatever then what they do is they send to
My assistant Marge who does a lot of our shopping what they would like and that, you know, there'll email addresses. She finds the best deal and she comes back and tells us how much it is then they decide if they want to get it if they do she then transfers from their bank accounts where all their affiliate income from their podcast goes where you know, any any money that they make, you know gifts that they get for their birthday or Christmas or whatever and she'll do a transfer and so they know that when they bought that it gets transferred it goes Its purchase using our Amazon account, but then the transfer occurs from their account into our so they're covering
And they have the freedom to I mean if they decide to go on a crazy Addiction of Nerf guns and buy them every day, they technically could with their own money. They could they could they could do whatever they want with their own money but again like because they see Mom, I mean they they see me spending it. This is almost too much. They'll see me spending 10 minutes deliberating over, you know, which double a batteries to get on Amazon because one packs like two dollars cheaper, so we're pretty aware of spending in our home. So I think they're pretty used to just the the value of
Of saving / investing. I've been taking them through any investing courses or anything like that yet. But hmm. That's awesome. One thing that I've heard from people in. This one's actually quite a disturbing comment. I'll get on home schooling is they'll say things like well, there's a lot of parents out there that are really bad. The kids shouldn't be, you know, the parents a lot of parents shouldn't School their kids and they should go and to me this is always a such a disturbing thing to hear because
Of course, there's bad parents out there. But if you added it all up and you did the math and study, I would trust a parent raising their kid over the state raising your kid mainly because parents or usually care about their kids or Co-op or or collect in the order homeschooling group. Like there are ways that a parents can be involved in their children's education and they don't have the heart of a teacher or their frankly a shitty teacher like there are ways that you can homeschool
around school.
Not
be just as
wonderful teacher for arts for crafts or gardening but she's not going to teach the kids calculus or science because she didn't she learn that stuff and colleges have a passion for it. So that's a big part is whatever your kids are interested in you find the person that's gonna be the best job teaching that it might not be you and that's okay. So a little speculation. Do you how do you think what do you think is going to happen with the current education model now that formal education that the cost of it is with been exploding four years far faster.
Faster than inflation schools are now, you know, either shutting down kids can't go there. So kids are at home or you have to go to school and you have to wear a mask and do this whole thing which would be very anxiety-inducing. I'm sure and children. They don't know what's going on or you have schools that are saying hey like Harvard for example said next year all online. Oh, by the way, it's still 50 thousand dollars a year in tuition were not changing the cost speculating moving forward. Do you think that we're witnessing the beginning of the end of the way that
Pool has been administered because of all these stresses now and then of course technology making it so inexpensive to transmit and receive information. What do you what do you see moving forward with that? I personally think a hundred years from now, we're gonna look back and laugh at about the past 60 years or so of Education that we've tried to hang onto the threads of that is all based off the Agricultural Revolution and the design of factory workers and in it's laughable. I really don't anticipate that most
model sticking around much longer and who knows we might be in the time right now during the covid pandemic where it's a full-on lightbulb moment and people really do realize oh shit. I was paying $50,000 to go to Harvard and they've just admitted that everything that I'm getting from there. I could literally be doing from a beach in Thailand for well while simultaneously running a server for
significantly less.
Yeah crazy. Well, you guys are you're always a great guest bent and I loved having you on Jessa think yeah this
Is great you guys are both very very good people. I love hearing about how you guys are at home and how everything's going on. And I wish you guys continued blessings and success with with everything. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for thanks for letting us emerge from our little hole
see people. Well, you know, you're always welcome in Iraq. That's
always welcome on our pockets. It's like it's like a direct flight. Yeah. Excellent. He's gotta get you guys up to Spokane sometime. Where do we do first?
All right guys, thanks. All right. Thanks
guys.
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