Guys Who Are Crappy At Making Friends, Why Spanking Can Suck, The Pain & Lessons Of Divorce, Deer Hunting Camps With Boys & Much More (Boundless Parenting Book Series)

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life.

Podcast, hurt people, hurt people. And the body keeps the score. And so because of those things, we tend to carry a lot of things from childhood, from our own wounds, growing up. Our parents, they do the very best that they can, and as parents, we do the very best we can with the tools that we have, but we're all flawed in some way, and we all have issues that we're dealing with that kind of put us on autopilot that we don't even know if. And so because of that, there's a lot of things that happen where we just kind of go through the motions just because that's what we saw modeled for us.

Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show.

I'm pretty excited because today I get to interview one of my buddies. He's an entrepreneur, he's a product designer, he's in the health industry, he's a podcaster, he's an angel investor. And he just has a lot of passions that kind of overlap with some of mine, like the great outdoors and nature and hunting, which we've had a chance to do together in sports and good food and conversations and connections and even family. This guy was actually featured or is featured in my upcoming parenting book, Boundless Parenting. He's got a chapter in there where he talks about his approach as a father and how he deals with screaming kids and raising kids in a healthy way and kind of swimming upstream in the way that he does. He's the co founder and CEO of a company that I actually really like. I like it so much, I actually invested in it when they launched. It's called Wellness. You know what, Seth? I still can't pronounce the name of it. Wellness. Wellness.

Wellness.

Wellness. Yeah. It's wellness with an E, you guys. W E, L, L, N E, S S E. He is also the co founder of WellnessMama.com, which is this big natural living blog and podcast for women and for moms, or mamas, as the name implies. And then he recently sent me this sweet knife. Well, we got to talk about the knife a little bit too, Seth, because he's got this company called Rewild Gear, which is doing, like, knives and fire starters and cookware. It's actually pretty, pretty cool deal. And we'll talk about that a little bit, too. So anyway, Seth has six kids. He's a father of six. He's not doorsman, He's a Hunter. He's a skier and of course, in the. Into. Into baseball and football and lives in Florida. You know, after interviewing him for my book, which features a whole bunch of parents who I just wanted to kind of like, I wanted to get inside their heads and pick their brains and, you know, and Seth is. You know, they've homeschooled their kids. There's six of them. I've hung around him and his kids, and I'm impressed with what he does. And so I wanted to talk about f family and parenting and fatherhood, but also dig into some of other Seth's passions, because I think you'll find them pretty intriguing. So, Seth, welcome to the show, dude.

Thanks, Ben. Excited to be here?

Yeah. Yeah. I think the most we ever hung out, actually, was when we were hunting in. We were on Kona in Hawaii. Remember that?

That was so much fun. I mean, that was a blast.

Yeah. But since then, you've got this. I mean, we can jump into this right away and get this out of the way. This whole, like, for example, you sent me this knife, this gasper knife. That's crazy. It's got this weird kind of super steel in it that I hadn't heard of before, and this kind of grip. That's really interesting. What's the deal with this knife?

Yeah. So the concept for rewild gear, that is something that myself and my brothers conceptualized many years ago, probably a decade ago, just sitting around a campfire drinking bourbon and comparing knives and just equipment in general. We've always been gearheads, so my motto is quality over quantity. And so I'll buy multiple different items just to test out and see what works and what's the best and what works for me. So we just kind of had this idea of there wasn't really a great knife that we love that really met our criteria. So when Covid happened, we kind of had this idea about starting a knife company or just an outdoor equipment company in general. Then when Covid happened, it's like, there's no time like the present. And the one thing that people can still do with all the lockdowns and crap is get outside, go camping, backpacking, hunting.

I thought you were going to say stab each other.

Well, I mean, I guess you could do that too, but that wasn't really what we were thinking. So we're like, why don't we push forward with this idea? And so we spent well over a year just designing the knife, both our own sketches and ideas, and then working with an industrial designer to really get the Specs down. And we created what I think is one of the very best general all around camping and hunting knives on the market. Not to get too nerdy about it, but we use a Super Steel called S35VN, which really marries the best of all the different steel qualities. The hardness, the lack of corrosion, like the corrosive resistance of it, how easy it is to sharpen, and how long it'll retain an edge. So S35EN really does a great job of that.

How often, and this is, this is probably a total surprise. People who tune into a fatherhood podcast and a family podcast and now they're learning about knives. But how often do you sharpen yours? Because, you know, you sent it to me, I've already field dressed one animal with it and I only had to, you know, I've got this little. It's like a portable field knife sharpener. I only sharpen it once. But how often do you sharpen yours?

It really depends on how often you're using it. It should bone out and handle an elk without being sharpened. I mean, you might need to touch it up just a little bit. Since I primarily hunt on the east coast. It's with a lot of white tail and, you know, we'll go through a whole whitetail or two without needing to sharpen it, no problem. Once you're getting into bigger animals, it's a lot more. And so you might need to touch it up here or there. But if you're using it just like around camp, for general camp tools, cutting food, vegetables, some meat, maybe whittling some sticks, or creating tender kindling, it's going to last a little longer than just repeated usage, like skinning out an animal.

Yeah. And obviously, like, you're an entrepreneur, you're a businessman, you've got this other company we can talk about as well, the wellness. I noticed you've got like grills, utensils, firelight bellows, powerballs, like for you stepping back and opening the kimono a little bit. From a business standpoint, are you and your bros just like finding really great products and then having. Having them made for you and then just, Just fulfilling?

No. So all of the designs are really our own with, with the exception of a couple of them. The knife was totally our design and we have those made in Michigan. The grill is our own design or utensil, the same thing. Because there's so many products on the market. And anytime I go into a, into a market or just in business in general, I want to figure out how can we differentiate what can we do that's better than what's already out there? Because if something is already on the market that I can purchase, that they do a really good job, then why would I want to enter that if I don't have a differentiating factor? I want to create value.

Besides just your logo on it.

Exactly. Yeah. I have no desire to do that. So all the products that we created and we currently have available, they're all ones that we were able to differentiate in some way and they all are kind of very minimalistic and things that you need to just get in the great outdoors and spend. Spend time with family, with friends, and just disconnecting from all the technology that we're inundated with every day.

Yeah, yeah. Do you have your kids involved with that one at all, with that business, the rewild business?

A little bit. I mean, they've helped with some of the photography, just some of the images, testing out the gear. So not as much as I'd like, but they are doing some.

Yeah, yeah. Well, there's kind of like some tax implications as well. I mean, I have a financial team that seems to do a pretty good job with all these different loopholes. And there's a certain extent to which your children can work for your business and be paid, like be on payroll. And there's actually some pretty good tax avenue. Not that you want to just pop out kids. I'm sure that's not why you had six kids, Seth, save on taxes. But it is interesting. There's some advantages besides just the mentoring and the learning and the self actualization aspect that makes having your kids work for you a pretty good idea. I want to talk a little bit about, about your fatherhood. And really we can just get painful and vulnerable and gritty from the get go. Because one of the things that really stood out to me in your chapter on parenting was I had a question in there about books and systems and models and resources that you found pretty indispensable or helpful in your own parenting. And your reply was kind of unique because you got into deep therapy work that you did on yourself to understand your childhood and how you were raised and all sorts of stuff like demartini method collapses and somatic body work, stuff I didn't know about. So we've got a little bit of time, but can you get into that what got you down that path and what some of those things are that you did?

Yeah. So currently finalizing divorce right now, and that's been the most painful and challenging thing that I've ever gone through.

Yeah. With Katie, who's actually the Wellness Mama. And it was interesting for me, too. I mean, just to be vulnerable myself when I reached out to you guys, just because you're both amazing parents and your kids are standouts and you're juggling a lot of them, but you're doing a good job. I actually didn't know that you guys were getting divorced. And then both of you kind of submitted your replies for the book. And it was a little bit awkward for me at first. I'm like, wait, I was going to have them be a couple? And now they're two separate chapters in the book. But it actually turned out to be interesting because none of us are perfect. And now I've got these couple of chapters from people who are actually going through a breakup during the time that the submissions were coming in. And so you each have your unique perspective. But anyway, so people are probably familiar with Katie, the Wellness Mama, your previous wife. But go ahead.

Yeah. So, you know, the past couple years have been the most challenging of my life, just going through that breakup and that identity around marriage and the businesses that we built together and who we are, who we were as a couple and just the family unit. And so as part of that and accepting my responsibility in the breakdown of the relationship, I did an extreme deep dive just on myself in all types of different therapies and modalities, everything from plant medicine to somatic body work to breath work and sauna and cold plunge and ketamine assisted therapy, and just so many different modalities. You mentioned Dr. John Demartini collapse, which was absolutely fascinating. That got into a lot of root things from childhood, because hurt people, hurt people, and the body keeps the score. And so because of those things, we tend to carry a lot of things from childhood, from our own wounds, growing up. Our parents, they do the very best that they can. And as parents, we do the very best we can with the tools that we have. But we're all flawed in some way and we all have issues that we're dealing with that kind of put us on autopilot that we don't even know. We don't even realize that we're running a software program that we didn't create, that we didn't implement into the hardware of our brain, into our entire operating system of our body. And so because of that, there's a lot of things that happen where we just kind of go through the motions just because that's what we saw modeled for us. And so throughout this breakup, I Realized that there was a lot of things about myself that I needed to work on in order to become a better person, to become a better man eventually, maybe a better husband again one day, and especially to become a better father. Because there were so many things that I was not doing that I needed to do, things that I was doing that I wanted to change. For example, just yelling too much, not being as patient as I needed to. And a lot of these things were just on autopilot from how I was raised as a kid. So I had go down this really deep self journey, which I'm still on, but I'm coming out the other side of it and implementing and integrating all those things that I've learned.

What is the John demartini one? The method, I think you call the collapse method, something like that.

Yeah. So I did a deep dive, like a two day intensive with a practitioner in Denver almost a year ago. And what that is, Dr. John Demartini, he is, I believe he's a psychologist and he has courses and events and all kinds of things like that. But his method is you take. Take something that causes you stress or that tends to trigger you, and it might be seen as like a negative. So then you flip it on its head and look at the positive. And so you go do this deep dive on what is the positive sides of it. So basically it collapses down that negative association and then you do it the opposite. So you look at something that you see as a positive and you look at the flip side of that kind of the shadow side, what is the negative, and you collapse that as well. So it reduces the charge. So you don't have this really high or this really low surrounding anything. So it levels you out a lot. And it helps you to work through some of those things that you either see as a positive or negative. Because there's a yin and a yang to everything that kind of masculine, feminine, good, bad. There's a lot of gray in so many areas. And we tend to associate things as one extreme or another at times. So it's really good to kind of break those down. So you're not so tied into that story.

Is this the one that's also called the quantum collapse?

I haven't heard that term, but it's possible.

All right, and do you do this as a daily practice or like you alluded to, do you have to go somewhere for a couple days and go through this whole process?

I did. I went through a practitioner, his name is Will Etheridge. And I met him doing some plant medicine ceremonies. And he did a couple processes with me during that that was very helpful. And so I began working with him almost a year ago and we did a two day deep dive intensive on this and really delved into my own psyche and upbringing and just childhood, how I was raised. And it was really, really beneficial. I noticed a lot of results from that as far as just my own orientation surrounding just different areas of my life and how I would react to certain situations and things that were triggering me.

I'll hunt down a link to it because I know Dr. Demartini has a website, but for anybody listening in, I'll just link to everything Seth and I talk about. If you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com SethSpiers BenGreenGreenfieldLife.com Seth S P E A R S Because I think that's really interesting, I'm going to actually try to learn a little bit more about it. I typically will go when somebody brings something up that I find intriguing, I'll go type it in the search box. I use a podcast player called Castbox and it lets you search like not only the topic and the title and the keywords for each podcast, but it will go in and actually search the audio itself. Like it's an audio search engine so you can hear whenever a certain phrase is brought up. And that's often my method for researching something. I'll just go download a bunch of podcasts on it and kind of take a deep dive when I'm going on walks and stuff. So nice demartini thing sounds interesting, but it's something I've been thinking about a little bit recently. Seth, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. We seem to live in this era where men are, for better or worse, increasingly aware that the decisions that we make, the way that we parent, the way that we interact with our spouse, or the way that we don't interact with them is often influenced by our upbringing and by the way our father and mother parented us, or perhaps trauma that we went through, or the way that we were treated in school or what we were given an impression in terms of the way that the world might value us based on the way that we hold ourselves and who we are, or not authentically or inauthentically. And so this awareness seems to be something that a lot of men who are woke, not in a political sense of the word, but kind of like woke in a self awareness sense of the word are aware of. Yet it also seems like sometimes guys use that as an excuse not to take Radical responsibility. What I mean by that is they'll blame their father wounds or their mother wounds or trauma and basically create this scenario where they're doing anything but saying, hey, I've just been a shitty person and I'm going to change. And instead they almost say, well, I'm this way, but I'm this way because my mom did this, or I'm this way because my dad did this. How do you tackle the idea of taking radical responsibility, which I think a lot of guys will admit is a good idea and not blame shifting, but also recognizing the fact that the way you act is a little bit of a product of your upbringing or your nurturing.

That's a great question. And that kind of goes back to the nature versus nurture debate, which has the biggest influence. And I think there's a little bit of both. And I've seen this even in my own life. I have definitely had that victim mentality over the years. Well, where it's like because I was homeschooled, I shorter than the average just because of how I was raised or the way I was disciplined. And just a lot that I've thrown in life where I would use that as an excuse. And part of that it takes a lot of just deep work and digging into your own psyche and why. And being self aware is really important. But it's not just being self aware if you don't do anything with that. You first have to observe it, realize it, and then make a change because of it. And that's hard. I mean, that's really damn hard, Ben. Just because you see these things and you don't like them and yet you feel controlled by them at times. So it's a process of just observing it and not trying to judge it, taking a look at it and saying, how can I change this? Or this is what I'm triggered by, or this is how I'm reacting and what can I do to maybe just tweak it a little bit so it's not a 180 degree shift, but maybe it's just a 45 degree shift. So it's just a slight change so that the next time something comes up that triggers you, you can just tweak your response and then from there you can see that and tweak it a little bit more. So I don't think there is a perfect solution for people just because we're all so different and everyone acts, looks, works differently. What works for you may not work for me, but I think it's versus just becoming aware of it and not letting that victim mentality take over and just taking ownership for it in the best we can. And we're all going to fail at times, but it's getting back on your horse even though you've gotten thrown off and just continuing down. My formula for success over the years has been to do the right things long enough consistently, and that's been very helpful in business.

And in a lot of different areas of life. And so I've just kind of been applying that to this self discovery journey as well.

Yeah, for me. And by the way, you are pretty short. Same. I can only say that because I also am a fellow homeschooled nerd full of my own failures and shortcomings, both physically, mentally, emotionally and beyond. But I think that where guys get stuck, and I'm curious if you'd agree or disagree with me on this, is they'll identify that they have some kind of a, whatever you want to call it, a personality disorder or shortcoming or a habit that isn't serving them, as the saying goes, and they'll determine that there was a nurturing aspect of that or like something that happened in the way that they were parented or their education or the way that they were disciplined or something along those lines. And then they'll identify with that but not let it go, not change. Like basically say, hey, this is who I am, accept me as who I am and I'm going to be working on this. I'm going to be working on this with the 18 different self help methods for the next 20 years and never actually change because for some reason there seems to be a stick at some point where the identity is not actually released, where a guy doesn't just say, yeah, I'm not that person anymore and I moved on.

For me, this is very relevant to a recent Facebook post that I made that I guess nobody saw. Unless you're one of my friends on Facebook and maybe I'll share it publicly at some point on some of these spiritually oriented blog posts that I do. But it was basically I am not that great at being a friend to other men. I engage in shallow conversations and I'll hide in a crowd and escape when the conversation turns to deep things and pretend to be busy with things that I make up that are supposed to be important, that draw me away from a conversation. But it's really just a form of escapism for me. I'm really good at being busy and escaping being a good friend, being a deep friend and having long and meaningful conversations and what I wrote on Facebook was, hey, I identified this about myself. And for me, it was recently when I had a bunch of guys over at my house for a mastermind. I'm like, dude, I didn't really get in deep with many of these guys. Instead I just rushed around because I got to go make steaks for this or I got to go take care of this guy is doing this. And at the end of the Facebook post, I said, but you know what, I could list all sorts of reasons, like father wounds, mother wounds, the way that my dad treated me, or the way that I had friends growing up, but ultimately none of that matters. I just made a commitment today to not be that person anymore. There, boom, I'm done, I'm moving on. And for some reason, it seems like it's difficult for guys to get to that point where they just release it all and move on and just say, hey, I'm not that person anymore. Deal with it. I'm new now. And then for me, I guess being a Christian, a big part of it for me is I'll just pray that God would turn me into a new person. Kind of like lay it all out at the foot of the cross and move on. And I realize that's perhaps maybe unfair for people who don't have faith based practice or something, but that's how I deal with it. And I feel like a lot of guys just need to say, hey, that's not me anymore and that's behind. Let's move on and quit blaming or identifying with that particular tendency.

That's really interesting. And I think for some people that can work, those that are extremely disciplined and they can make that radical choice, and then that's it, they're done. You're probably one of those, Ben, where just because you're so rigorous and disciplined in your life, and that can be great and amazing, but for many, that doesn't work. I've got a friend who basically self identifies as a personality test. So I had a conversation with him, this was many years ago, where he's like, I'm an introvert, so I've got to go introvert now. I'm like, I didn't even know that introverting was a verb, but whatever. And my response to him was, you're not a personality test. So just because that's the test you came out on, whether that's human design or Gene Keys or Myers Briggs or whatever it is, doesn't matter. Okay? That might be your predisposition based on that nature, nurture aspect. But we can all change and it's becoming self aware and realizing those things and then making those changes over time because some of them that are so ingrained that we've done for so long, it takes a lot of work to overcome that. And I'll give you an example. So for me, I grew up in a large family. I was the oldest of six kids and lower middle class. And there was always enough food on the table, but there wasn't enough food on the table. A lot of carbs, a lot of that's so healthy food. And my parents did the best they could with the resources that they had. But as far as the good stuff, the meat, the protein, whatever, there wasn't enough. So I had this idea and mentality growing up that I don't have enough food. I have to eat everything that's on my plate because they're starving kids in Africa. And you always have to clear your plate and if you don't eat it tonight, then you're going to eat it for breakfast tomorrow. And so I've taken that attitude with me throughout my life and that's not actually healthy because if it's food that you don't enjoy, it's not healthy for you. There's no need to clear your plate or to finish it. And that's been a struggle and something that I still work on and I've overcome a lot of that. But it's still something that I continue to struggle with at times and have to work on just because I hate wasting, which I mean inevitably is a good thing. But at times it's okay not to finish at all.

I have a similar tendency, Seth, but for me it all comes down to the freezer. I'm just like, you know what, I'm just going to freeze it. I have so many bags in the freezer, just like random crap. I don't even know what it is anymore. Because I threw it in the freezer.

Yeah, exactly. And then eventually that's going to get freeze a burn and go to waste. The outcome is the same, but I mean it is similar. The other thing I'd say there is just the kind of the example that you were talking about as far as connecting my quick two cents, whatever it's worth is it sounds like a little bit of a fear of intimacy with other men. And where that comes from, who knows?

That or conflict avoidance disorder, which I think I heard a phrase once that went something like that. And I'm like, oh, maybe I just have conflict avoidance disorder disorder.

Sure. And yeah, it's that a lot of times that does go back to how we were raised and how we. How our parents handled conflict, how our siblings did and how we were taught to do that. And you know, a lot of people say, I'm going to pray about it, that's going to fix it. But for me, I've seen that be an excuse and a crutch for so many people over the years where it's almost like a cop out instead of actually taking action on something because, you know, prayer is not really actual action. It's a passive thing. And yeah, that can help, potentially can. But as far as increasing your faith and belief and such. But at the end of the day, it's what we do. We have to actually take action on something if we really want to change and not just hope that it's going to change based on a wish and a prayer.

Yeah, interesting. Do you think that demartini collapse method would fit in with any of this type of work when it comes to leaving things like that behind?

Yeah, I think it can for sure. It definitely was helpful for me in a number of aspects just surrounding relationships and just both, you know, romantically and parent, child and in so many areas surrounding all of that.

Yeah. Yeah. As far as the divorce goes, is it still awkward with the kids or painful with the kids? What are the conversations like? I realize that's a big question, but I'm just curious.

It's been very challenging. One of the things that broke up my relationship was the communication or the lack thereof. I'm an open book and want to talk about everything, and I so value clear and open communication. And unfortunately, Katie is very different in how she communicates. And it's not entirely her fault. It's how she was raised. She grew up in a home with two parents that had like 80% hearing loss. So they communicated differently. And, you know, her family is also conflict avoidant and people pleasers. So you mix all those together with how she was raised. And then my family, which was this big, loud Italian family where you don't go to bed if there's a fight, you're fighting it out until it's done with. And so there were so many things, resentment built up over the years that I didn't even know there were issues because she either was not able to communicate what I needed to know or just because she didn't know how to communicate to me or didn't want to until things just blew up and blew over. And so for me, as far as the parenting side goes, unfortunately My children, they tend to be a little bit more like her and not want to communicate as much like I want to talk about everything. Let's get it out in the open and you have questions, come and talk to me, like if you're hurting and just ask them. And so. And it could also be the different dynamic of the father relationship versus the mother relationship where I probably do talk to her more than they do me. But that has been tough. That really has been a challenge just to try to have those tough conversations with them and just, you know, ask them how they're feeling, what are they doing, what do they need from me? And so it just takes time and more, one on one attention to get them to open up and just feel comfortable. And I see that when I have extended time with them where we're able to really drop in and just connect more.

There were two books that I think my wife and I got lucky, or blessed as the case may be, that we read early on in our relationship or relatively early on in our relationship. And one was Radical Honesty. I think Brad Blanton wrote that book. And then this other one that kind of flies on the Rail, I think is fantastic. It's a Christian book. I think it's applicable to anyone whether you're faith based or not. It's an essay on relationships or essays on relationships. It's called how to Be Free From Bitterness. And the book basically goes into what happens when you don't talk things out and how bitterness just festers in the soul. And you know, this just having a little bit of a background in alternative health and the idea and Chinese traditional medicine about how bitterness and unsettled anger and things like that and an inability to be able to communicate your feelings, especially with someone you love, can result in stuff just building up inside the body. Even like bone cancer, for example. In traditional medicine, Chinese traditional medicine is one thing that's associated with anger or bitterness or just not having talked out things that you instead just let settle down inside you. I think in couples that can really be an issue. I think it's pretty common. I mean, I'm no relationship expert, but I feel like couples who don't intentionally carve out the time to lay all the cards out on the table on a regular basis and share everything, they will end up fighting a little bit of an uphill battle. And like in our house, it's our mission statement on the wall. We have the Greenfield family mission statement. A big, big part of that is radical honesty and radical transparency. Our family crest hanging by the fireplace one part of it. There's like roots from a tree that go down into. Into this kind of blue clearish glass that's on the bottom of the crest. And that glass represents radical honesty and transparency. Our kids know they can come and talk to us about anything at any time. My wife and I know we can approach each other about anything at any time. We're not going to be judged or embarrassed about talking about it. And then of course, and I'm sure you've become familiar with this type of practice, Seth, this idea of going off on quarterly retreats to just talk things out. Or with some couples, they'll do MDMA therapy, which is almost like truth serum, where you sit and just talk with your spouse for hours and it's impossible to tell a lie or anything like that in that type of situation. Or even just regularly scheduled date nights. My wife and I have one tomorrow night and we just show up and we're just staring at each other for an hour talking. And a lot of times I'm more organized than she is, so I'll have a bunch of stuff written down on a notepad that I've built up over the week that I want to talk about. And she's just kind of more loosey goosey with it. But yeah, this idea of radical honesty and transparency and just like nipping bitterness in the bud I think is crucial for relationships.

Yeah, I 100% agree. And it's really easy to look back in hindsight and say I should have done this or I should have done that or I wish this been differently or that would have. But at the end of the day, everything happens for a reason and we where we're supposed to be just because there is a lesson to learn. And while this whole process over the past couple years has been the most heart wrenching and challenging experience of my life, I'm a completely different person. Like I've actually learned to love myself and trust myself in so many different capacities, which I'd never done before. And you know, I think that's a process and you're never fully, fully healed, you're never fully done probably until we're dead. And you know, if we don't learn it all in this lifetime, then maybe we have to learn it in the next, you know, who knows? But I think it's just all part of that journey that is life of just growing and evolving and spending time with those we love and care about and taking that time and making it a priority. And you know, I wish that I would have done more of that.

Yeah, well, you know, it's, it's something I think a lot of people can learn from and they're learning lessons that you took away from on a podcast like this. So at least it's, it's helping people in some respect. And I'm keeping you guys in my thoughts, thoughts and prayers as well. So I want to talk about some other stuff too though, that you feature in the chapter. There was a question about traditions and habits and routines and rituals that you formed with your children. All the parents in the book got this question and you had one about a yearly ritual that involves deer camp and rifle season back in Kentucky. Tell me about that and how you grew up with that and how you incorporate it with your own sons.

Yes, this is one of my favorite Topics. Back in 2014, I purchased a piece of property back in Kentucky where I'm from and where we were living at the time. You know, it was 55 acres and it was this just beautiful piece of wooded property that backs onto a river that I had spent a lot of time on as a kid, as a teenager and in college, where me and my brothers and my sister, we would kayak and canoe and fish and just, you know, goof around on this river. And so I had seen this property for sale many years before that when I was living in Tennessee at the time. And it had gone up for sale, but I didn't have the capital for it. And so I just kind of put it out of mine and then fast forward a few years. We had moved back to Kentucky where I'm from and saw this property. It wasn't for sale, but it had never actually sold. And so I reached out to the owner and asked me if he was interested in selling it and he said yes. And you know, I had been hunting for a few years already. I didn't grow up hunting. There were guns in the house and weapons and you know, I'm the oldest of six kids, five boys and one girl. So we were always had weapons and playing around and just goofing off and stuff like that, but never actively hunting. So I think it was after college when I first started and just hunting at some friends property and things like that and I really enjoyed it. I love the concept of actually harvesting my own food. And so when this property came available, I purchased it and then I built a cabin on it. Just a small completely off grid cabin with lofts and, and Korean war cots to sleep on and no electricity, no running water, an outhouse to use and So I told my brothers, I'm like, let's do a deer camp, the opening of rifle season. Why don't we get together? We'll go hunt, we'll bring our sons, we'll eat meat, and we'll just tell stories around the fire, because that's what we had done growing up, like, when we're camping or hiking or whatever. And so it became this thing where every November, it's usually the second Saturday in November is the opening of rifle season for white tailed deer in Kentucky. And we all get together, my brothers, our sons, our father, and we just. We have an amazing time. It's like, it's better than Christmas to me. I look forward to this all year round. And it's just that anticipation and expectation of the opening, opening day, opening morning, where we're sitting in a deer stand or a blind, we're freezing our ass off, and, you know, drinking hot coffee and just the opportunity to watch nature wake up and potentially see a huge buck come through or, you know, a large doe or whatever. And what's been a really amazing experience for me, just those. Those relationships that are solidified, that are increased. But helping my father shoot his first deer, my son shoot his first deer, all my brothers, them shooting their first, and one of my good friends. And that was just incredibly meaningful for me because I've enjoyed hunting so much over the years, but I got to share that with people that I love and care about. So. And that was just an amazing experience over the years doing that. So this is a tradition that we've just developed for our sons, just as like a father son thing, because that happened throughout history where the hunter gatherer mentality, or really the hunter mentality, where the elders of the tribe or the fathers, they would take their sons out or the young men and teach them the ways, teach them how to procure food for their family, for their tribe.

Yeah, you're obviously preaching to the choir. But I have to emphasize that for guys out there with sons. And I realize, like, not every guy's a hunter. And a lot of people listen to this podcast for ethical or other reasons. Some don't even eat meat. But there's something about that primal act of hunting. The most bonding times I've ever had with my sons, off the top of my head at least, besides the fact that every morning my sons and I gather in the living room at 6am and we put on really nice music and we burn incense and we read the Bible and we read a devotional and we pray together. And those are enormously meaningful because I cry and I break down and I lay it all just total bare soul in front of God. My sons get to see that. And I sometimes even question like, gosh, am I being too vulnerable in front of my sons, like showing too much weakness? Dad's sitting here, I mean, like four hours ago, like 6:00am this morning I was crying because I was just super overloaded with stuff and I was overwhelmed. And I'm on my knees asking God for help. And my sons are just kind of sitting there wide eyed, watching dad happy and content because they've just got this nice little day where they wake up and do what they want. They don't have all the responsibilities, the home and the bills and all the crap. I have to deal with crap in a good way. It's all blessings, but it's good problems, but it's a lot of stuff just flying at me. And so I'll sit there and I'll cry and they see that and it's very bonding for us. And that's more of a daily checkpoint in addition to the little meditations that we do as a family in the morning and in the evening. But as far as long bonding experiences and epic adventures, there's nothing that compares to going out in the woods and surviving and being cold and being hot and being hungry and walking for long distances and having your backpack make your shoulders or your low back tired. And then sitting for eight hours totally bored out of your mind without a, a phone or a book, just staring off into the woods. And then occasionally I'll just say something like, hey, are there any girls that you like? And there's just like little things like that that pop up during those down times that, I don't know, there's something about that process. And then of course, as you alluded to Seth, once you actually harvest an animal and you're field dressing it together and you're biting in the meat together over a campfire, bringing something home to mom. And there's something about walking in the door, even though mom could obviously just go, go to Costco and buy a steak. But you walk in there and you got meat for mom to cook and prepare for the family. And it's a really cool experience, this idea of going hunting with your sons. I would challenge any dad who's listening in who hasn't looked into that. Or even a wilderness survival camp. There's this organization called Twin Eagles that we work with up here in Idaho and I've had guys from all over the country come in and do that after hearing about it on the podcast. And the Father Son Wilderness survival camps are absolutely amazing. With this guy, Tim Corcoran, up in North Idaho, this idea of nature, hunting, survival, men and sons hanging out together, I don't think there's anything that compares.

I totally agree. And it's definitely the highlight of my year. Just spending time off grid in the wilderness with my sons. It's just an amazing experience, and they've really learned to love it and enjoy it maybe as much as me. I don't know. Maybe not quite, but. Yeah, but that's been great.

Yeah. And obviously we don't want to leave the girls behind.

I think. I don't have girls. You do. So tell me about how you connect with your girls.

Great question. So that's been a little bit more of a challenge for me over the years. And then during COVID when all the lockdowns and everything happened, living in Florida, I'm about five miles from the beach, so we had. Being on the Gulf coast, there's not great surf. However, we had quite a few storms and swells that would come through. So me and my daughters, we actually picked up surfing here in the Florida Panhandle. And so we would go out multiple times that summer. And whenever there was a foot wave or higher, we'd go out and surf. And, you know, for anybody that is a surfer, you know, there's a lot of time spent just sitting on a board, just waiting for a wave. And so I just had some amazing conversations with my daughters during this time when we'd be out there just watching the swells come in and waiting for a set that we could actually ride. And that brought us closer than anything that I've done with them. Very similar to with the boys taking them hunting. So it's been. And you know, the younger ones, they're too young to serve, so that doesn't work quite so well for them. But the older ones, they love it. They really enjoy it, and just kind of. It's an adrenaline rush and it's an activity. And I think it's really important for fathers to have shared activities with their kids and not just being there. I mean, that's great. You need that support and someone just to be there. But to actually take the time and the initiative to go out and actually have those shared activities, because those are bonding things. When I look over the years, my favorite times with my own father is when we had shared activities. And I think that's the same for my kids. For the younger ones, usually it's more like, I'll take them to, like, the trampoline park, or we'll go just get a hot chocolate or something and, like a muffin or whatever and just kind of sit there and just let them try to. Let them open up and ask them questions and vice versa. So with six kids, it's challenging just because trying to get everyone to do the same thing is incredibly hard. For example, the other night I was like, hey, you guys, you want to watch a movie? And they're like, yes. And so we put on a movie, and, like, three of them sat there and watched. The other ones didn't want to. And so that's always the challenge to find the time or the activity that everyone wants to do. So. And I'm still trying to figure out where that balance is and how to do it best.

Yeah, I mean, even. Even as with a much smaller family, you know, with two. Two kids, it is tough sometimes to get everybody on the same page for activities. And sometimes we'll just put options out there. Like, I'll say, okay, you guys want to go to dinner tonight? You want to go play tennis? You know, go play pickleball, or stay home and play dinner games, you know, for example, and. Or, you know, we'll. We'll go pick out a bunch of games, because a lot of times everybody's not on the same page, but we'll take out, like, three different games and flip coins or play Rochambeau to see which game we're going to play at dinner. There's creative ways to go about it. But I think the other thing that a lot of parents who are exhausted at the end of the day should probably realize, because I didn't really think about this until I started doing it, sometimes you don't have to spend a ton of energy dragging out the Monopoly board or figuring out some fun activity. I'll sometimes grab my sons, just be like, hey, it's the end of the day. I'm going to go read a book in the sauna. Anybody else want to go read a book in the sauna with me?

Right.

And it's just kind of like doing what you kind of want to do anyways for relaxation, but you're taking your kids along. Sometimes I'll just go for a walk. But I mean, like a quiet walk or a walk where I just want to listen to music, and I'll just tell my son to be like, hey, I'm gonna go for a walk. You want to come with me? And it's not like a walk and talk with dad. It's just like, come hang out and do what I'm doing anyways. And I think some parents put pressure on themselves that it has to be some epic adventure with full time and presence and yeah, like, especially full presence is important, but sometimes your kid can just kind of like be with you while you're doing what you'd be doing anyways.

Yeah, for sure. And that's something that I need to work on more and just to become better at that because like you said, you know, I tend to put pressure on myself to want to do these epic things with them and then just finding the time to do that and just balancing it all with so many, that does make it challenging. But. Yeah, but I think it's also a leadership thing as far as just taking that initiative, like you said to, to let's go for a walk or I'm going to go for a walk, you want to join me? And just putting the ball in their court. If they want to, they can. If they don't rather play with friends or read a book by themselves or whatever, then that's possible too. In the past, I've gotten into this. I don't want to call it a habit, but my default was, I would suggest an activity they didn't want to. Then I would get like, oh, well, woe is me. They don't want to hang out, so I guess there is no relationship whatever. And so I'm going to go do, do my thing and just leave them. But sometimes instead of looking at it like that, they're happy where they are, they're content, they're playing with friends or playing with their siblings or whatever. And so as long as they just know that they're safe, they're secure and that I'm around and just letting it be that. And if they want something, they'll come and ask and I'll offer. And then if they don't accept, that's fine and just not take it personally, but just realize that's where they're at.

Discipline is something that comes up over and over again in the book as related to what we were talking about earlier. Right. Sometimes the way that you discipline and your children can stick with them for their whole lives as far as the way they discipline their own children or just the way that they feel about perhaps whether they were traumatized or listened to or whether there was love involved. And in my question about discipline, again, which all the parents in the book got, you were very raw and open and vulnerable in a lot of your Questions. You admitted that you were overly authoritative and you were raised, learned that yelling and spanking were good methods of discipline. It's kind of similar to the way that I was raised to a certain extent. Not so much yelling, but definitely a lot of spanking. Tell me about how you evolved as far as your disciplinary style and what worked for you.

It's evolved a lot over the years. I mean, I was raised in a very disciplined, authoritarian house where if you disobeyed, you were getting spanked, or if you talk back, you were getting soap in your mouth, or as I got older or grounded. And honestly, a lot of these things, it was way over the top. And, you know, when I first started having kids, I kind of adopted that same mentality where, okay, I turned out okay, so this is what you do. And I really, really regret that because every child is different and some are more sensitive than others. What works for one will not necessarily work for the other. And maybe a spanking will work for some children. The others will take it so personally that that's not good. And you know, my philosophy around it is I don't think that spanking is ever good anymore. Just because if the parent is the first, this is how children see love, love and acceptance. And it's their first worldview of their ultimate caretaker. And so if they're seeing this imbalance or this dichotomy of they love me, but then they're physically hitting me, what does that teach them? Them? What does that teach them about love? What does that teach them about acceptance? They love me unless I do this, then I actually get physically hit. So when you take a step back and look at it like that and completely take our ego out of it as parents, which is incredibly challenging. I mean, there's my daughter, number five. She is incredibly strong willed. I mean, she will cut off her nose to spider face for no reason other than just to get away or just because a thought enters her head. And as a parent, that is very hard. Who I'm also strong willed, and yet it takes all my willpower not to just lash out and just because I said so, you have to do this or that or spank her or whatever. And that's something that I'm still learning and she's been an amazing teacher for that. As hard as it is, just because the kids are all so different in trying to, trying to discipline them and raise them differently based on their personality and what works for one and doesn't work for another, and that's, that's so hard. So I think it's constantly growing and evolving and just trying to really sit with them where they are. Because all my children, they're incredibly good children. I mean, they're not bad kids by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, they're not crazy rebellious. Not like I was as far as pushing the limits, just because. And I think it also goes back to the parenting. If I don't set hard and fast rules on so many things like never lie, but as far as, like, if they want to know something, I'll tell them. It wasn't how my parents were. This is the rules, this is why. But they couldn't l logically back up the reason for that. And with my personality, I'm okay with the rule if I understand it, but if you can't back it up, why that's there logically, then hell no, not going to follow it. So for my own kids, it's like, look, if you can logically explain to me why you don't like that or why it's not a rule, why it's not good, then okay, we'll change it. So having that relationship with them and that honesty and transparency I think has been very helpful in raising them so that they kind of to follow guidelines that we've set.

I never swore off spanking and I will still not say that there's not a time and a place for.

As proverbs in the Bible would say, spare the rod, spoil the child. I think that sometimes some elements of physical discomfort can send a pretty strong message, especially if a child or a grown adult is engaged in something that's that's going to harm them a lot more than that corporate punishment is going to offer in terms of short term discomfort or pain. That being said, when we adopted, which we pretty much did from a very early age with our children after reading the book Love and Logic, a consequential based parenting style from a disciplinary standpoint, meaning it's very, very rare that we will ever give a flat no without tons of reasons, tons of education. Here's what gluten does to your body. Here's what porn does to your brain. Here's what alcohol does to your liver. Here's what marijuana does to your memory. Anything like that. We are very open and transparent again with our children about the consequences of any decision that they may make. And then we've adopted the habit of simply stepping back and letting them deal with the consequences of, of their decision. You had a crappy day of school and you didn't do well on a test and you stayed up late last night and you were watching screens or you ate the wrong meal before bed or whatever, deal with it. But what I'm not going to do is hold your face down to your dinner plate and threaten you with the spanking if you don't finish your asparagus. No, you get to deal with the biological blowback of inadequate nutrient availability for your body and how that affects your body the next day. But it takes time to do that. It takes time to educate a child with love. And a lot of parents, I think, often because they're raised this way, again, not to blame, just the way they are and something that can totally be changed. They know that loud words and spankings or some kind of pain affect some type of immediate reaction. And it's fast and it doesn't take a lot of time. It doesn't take a lot of effort and it doesn't take a lot of smoke coming out your ears trying to figure out how you're going to explain something to a six year old. Whereas the consequential paced parenting from a disciplinary standpoint takes more time and effort and knowledge. But man, the payoff is such that I think in our sons at least, who are 14, I can count on one hand the number of times I've actually had to spank them. And they're not like shitty little kids. It's not like they're poorly behaved because they weren't spanked. It's just that I didn't really have to very much at all because of the way that we educated them, you know?

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I feel like corporal punishment is lazy parenting because it's easy. I mean, yeah, you don't want to hit your kid. And like, we can rationalize, oh, this hurts me more than it hurts you. That's the line that I heard from my parents growing up. But it's like, come on, it really is lazy. And a lot of people, they'll use that line in Proverbs. But to me that comes from an era that was very authoritarian in it's a different era, it's not where we are now. And while there's things we can learn from that, I think we are in a higher state of consciousness now where we look at the long term effects and what is this doing? We're not in that same patriarchal society where the rules were different based on the gender. So because of that, it's just been my philosophy to have those conversations with them and have those consequences. And a lot of that I picked up from you, Ben, when we stayed at your house many years ago, I think it was in 2017, and we had some really good.

I forgot about that. That's right.

Yeah. Just about parenting and kind of having those conversations, whether that's about drugs or sex or whatever. And so we actually adopted a lot of those ideas, and that's been very beneficial. And my kids have made really smart decisions, especially like around food and what's healthy and what's not. And while I always try to provide the healthiest food possible in our own home, when they're outside of the home, they have the opportunity to eat sugar and junk food and whatever, but they understand that they don't feel good. And an example of this. So my oldest son, he's had some bowel gut issues and stuff that he's been working through via diet. And so he's had to be on a pretty strict diet for, I think, six months now. And he knows that when he goes off of it, then he just doesn't feel as good. Almost like irritable bowel type stuff. But he's learned and has been very disciplined with it. It. With exception. But then that's a teaching moment as well. And so I don't have to step in and say, why are you doing this? It's, you know, don't do that. I need to make the decision. At the end of the day, we want to raise children to be amazing adults, and not just to do what we say, why we say it, but to actually, we're trying to raise adults, not children.

You have a saying at the end that is kind of related to discipline. It's not the very end of your chapter, but I did have like the classic billboard statement on there, right? Like, like the one message for parents that you would put on a billboard. And your message, I'll say it to you just in case you don't have it memorized. Seth, was, listen to your child more than you speak and ask your child what they need from you. Listen to your child more than you speak and ask your child what they need from you.

Yeah.

What do you mean by that exactly? I mean, it's kind of obvious what you mean by it, but I'm curious if you have an example or why you chose that specific phrase.

I think this goes back to doing a lot of deep work on myself, and my parents never asked me what I needed. They told me what they thought I needed. They raised me based on their own biases, by religion, by how they were raised, but they never asked me if that was right for me. It was a one size fits all, black and white approach. And that doesn't work. And while some of my success and my motivation and work ethic and internal drive comes from that, it comes from a place of hurt and of a place of not enough and trying to prove myself and not from a place of love and motivation based on how I was raised. And I don't want to pass that on to my own children. Even though I've been guilty of following some of those same courses of action, some of those same habits. That's something that I'm constantly trying to work through and improve upon because I want to be a teacher for my children, but I want. They're also a great teacher for me. I want to learn from them. Because children have so much wisdom. Because when they come out of the womb, they're like a fresh set of eyes and soul that hasn't been corrupted by the world. They don't have these biases that we do based on culture and society and religion and parents and everything. So they look at things from a different perspective. They're just intrinsically curious. And to be able to go back and see the world through a fresh set of eyes like that is just amazing.

So.

So I want to ask them what they need and they can tell me so that I can help to give that to them and not just try to force my own ideas and beliefs on them. And I've definitely been guilty of that over the years. As an example, I really wanted my sons to play team sports. I wanted them to just play baseball and football and basketball and everything. And my oldest did for a couple of years, and then he just. He got tired of and didn't want to. And this goes back to my own.

Trauma, which can make you feel guilty as a parent, by the way, because that's happened to me too. And I. And I'm like, my kids aren't playing basketball and baseball and football like the other kids. What's going to happen here?

Yeah. And for me is because this is wild, because as a kid growing up, the only thing I ever wanted my father to do was play sports with me. And he wasn't that into sports, and he didn't. So I vowed when I was a father that I would play sports with my kids and be there for their teams and things like that. And then they didn't want to. And so that was really hard. And that hit. My ego is like, is there something wrong with me? What am I doing wrong? Or what's wrong with them or something. And what I've had to realize is that we're all so different and I can't force my values on, on them. I have to love and accept them for who they are, where they are, and if they have other interests, then that's fine and just be accepting of those and help them to, to evolve those and learn from it and they can do great things. As an example there, my oldest son, he started a chess club at the library. I mean, this was his own initiative. And I was not something that I would ever do or I was ever even that interested in, but I was super proud of him taking that initiative to go and start that. It's all part of just listening to our children and trying to understand where they are, what makes them tick, what do they enjoy, and helping to foster a curiosity and a love of learning and just creative and critical thinking in all areas of life so that we can just be better parents and have a great relationship with them over the course of a lifetime.

We kind of only scratched the surface of a ton of the stuff that you wrote in the chapter. Again, not to scratch an open wound. I think it'll be interesting for people to compare a lot of your replies to Katie's replies. And you both brought a lot to the table when it came to what you shared in the book. And both had your unique perspectives, which I think were just. They're fantastic. And I mean, I think that the one thing that I really, really appreciate about you, Seth, and your chapter and the way that you're parenting is just this idea of bringing your kids along on the adventure and educating them along the way and doing so fearlessly in a way that, as you've just described, might not involve teaching team sports and everybody else is doing, but involves really wanting the best for your kids and paying attention to them and as you say, listening to them more than you speak and asking them what they need from you. And so despite you being a very, very short man, five steps, not that short.

We call vertically challenged.

I'm just giving you a hard time, you dwarf Viking, you.

So anyways, for folks listening in and obviously all of Seth's supplies are going to be in the book when it comes out@boundlessparentingbook.com everything that we've talked about today I'll put at BenGreenfieldLife.com SethSpiers S P E A R S.

I'm going to link to Seth's Rewild Gear website. He gave me a 10% discount on that if you use my special link. And so I'll put that in the show notes. And then also, like I mentioned, I invested in the oral and hair and skincare natural products company that Seth and Katie founded. I eat my own dog food, you guys. If you walk into my shower, if you walk into my bathroom, it's all the wellness stuff. And you know, the shampoos, the conditioners, the deodorant, new deodorant is pretty cool. There's all sorts of stuff. The toothpaste also is amazing. Anyways, I just use their whole suite of products because it just fricking works. So I've got discounts on that wellness stuff too. And you can go to the shownotes@bengreenfieldlife.com SethSpiers and they'll hook you up with that. And then if you have questions for Seth, if there's just like stuff that left out, if you disagree with stuff and you have your own things to add and you're like, you guys shouldn't even brought up spanking, you bastards. Anything like that, just go to BenGreenfieldLife.com SethSpiers and I love to see the conversation continue on and see questions that you guys have. And occasionally, if you get lucky, I can even finagle the guests into jumping in and replying to a few of them. So Again, that's@BenGreenfieldLife.com Seth Spears. Seth, our conversation just now made me really wish we could go hunting again together. So I'll have to get you in one sometime.

Definitely, Definitely.

Yeah, yeah. Hidden Hawaii in March, man. Maybe I'll talk to you later on about it.

Yeah, it'll be great.

Cool. All right, folks, I'm Ben Greenfield, along with the great Seth Spears signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com have an amazing week.

More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh, entertaining, well informed, and often outside the box approach to discovering the health and happiness and hope that we all crave. So I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode today. And if you liked it or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel, wherever that might be. And just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much. Means a lot.