Personal Freedom, Social Media Addiction, Farming, Structured Water, Personal Productivity & More With Ben Greenfield & Kyle Kingsbury.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life Podcast, it's just been so cool to really tap into and understand what it means to brand a family almost the same way you brand a business.

What I put into the earth enhances its ability to put back into me. That is a two way street. And that's something that I've really come to terms with through plant medicine, journeys.

And different alchemy, that Jesus was sent by God to become a human being and to die as a deity. And also give us the opportunity to essentially lay all of our burdens at the foot of the cross.

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

Yeah, I had a nice, nice DSLR and the battery would go like 90 minutes, and then after like, two, maybe three podcasts, it dropped to like 40 minutes, and the would just turn off. I couldn't see the red light go off or anything like that. And I got new batteries, same deal.

And it wouldn't.

You can't plug it in and keep it powered from a regular power source. It only batteries. There's some way to rig it. But I was like, this is just. It's a lovely camera. We can use it for family photos and nature and all that good stuff, you know, like a. I don't know, single lens removal. Digital single lens removal. Okay, so it's like a nice camera where you.

Yeah, my son got one of those for. For. What did he get it for? He got it for his birthday and we just went to the Grand Canyon.

He was awesome.

Amazing photos.

We went to the Grand Canyon last year. First time I lived. I mean, I went to ASU and lived in Arizona for seven years. Never went once.

It's gorgeous, the Grand Canyon. So I was gonna take him to Kauai because I like Kauai. And we're gonna do a little family vacation down there. And there's a little. A farm called Kauai Pharmacy. I've had that guy who runs it, Doug, on my podcast before. Oh, my gosh. He grows like, tulsi and nori and spilanthes and comfrey and all these superfoods on, like, four acres. It's crazy what he's done. And I still want to take my sons there because he told me they could work as farmhands for a few months just to learn how to grow superfoods and turn them into tinctures and oils and salves and powders.

Lay the land.

Yeah, yeah. You know, do do some surfing and stuff. But they were like, not super duper. You know, you can tell when your kids are like kind of sort of into something but not totally on board. It's like that. And then we're. I took them out to waffles because I take them out to waffles a couple of times a month. Little place in Spokane called People's Waffles. Do these really good, like gluten free, farm to table, you know, Thai waffles and peanut butter and bananas and everything. So I'm like, well, you guys think about going to the Grand Canyon. And their eyes just lit up and they're like, yes. Even during that time we're going to go to Kauai. And they're like, yeah. So during the Grand Canyon and dude, we burned up trails. We did this. We just got back like a week ago. We were doing like 8 to 10 miles a day.

Oh, that's so good.

It's steep, rugged hiking. Like, we didn't go rafting because it took like a year and a half to get off the rafting wait list. But talk about the creator revealing himself to you through nature. It is pretty nuts.

And I'm like a total new Earther. So for me, when I'm in the Grand Canyon and I just see little things, like all the little fossil records of the little arthropods or whatever they call them that are supposed to be scattered across millions of years, all the footprints are pointed in the same direction, traveling at a rapid pace, all of them, as though some cataclysmic event just causes massive migration of them all at once. Or there's like fossil records of dinosaurs and they're in the sedimentation that is supposed to be separated one by a million years, another by 3 million years or whatever. But the dinosaurs giving birth with the baby coming out of it in a different layer of soil, indicating that either A, it took the dinosaur like 4 million years to have a baby, or B, some cataclysmic event occurred while that dinosaur was in mid birth that caused it to become fossilized in those remains. So it's kind of a cool opportunity for me to show my son some of my own beliefs about creationism and why I actually think that it was created by intelligent design over the course of like six days. And then a massive cataclysmic flood caused something like the Grand Canyon. But anyway, I don't even remember how we got on the topic of the Grand Canyon anyways.

We were talking cameras for a second.

Oh yeah. So my son Brought his camera. My son brought his camera.

Oh, yeah, that's a great place to do it. I got this shitty. Not shitty. A nice handheld camera that's probably, you know, mid tier, just so I could start throwing videos back up. For a while there, I was having quite a few taken off YouTube and I was like, it's. It's actually pointless.

Yeah.

To fight an uphill battle, but I'm going to start an Odyssey account, which is one of the first video providers that's built on blockchain, so it can never be taken down. And it's pretty much like the video version of what Zion is to social media and having a direct contact with people that you own, nobody else owns. So I'm pretty pumped about both of those.

And is it similar to Zion in that if you wanted to, let's say, monetize the videos, you could do so via a crypto donation type thing?

Sure, if they have that embedded yet. But they're. They. They just do video and it. It looks awesome. It's clean. You know, it's like. It's like you're coming to an app. Obviously, Zion has a lot of kinks to still work out, and I know.

Because I'm trying to get on Zion and. And it's kind of a waiting game, but I'm. I'm kind of like, signed up and ready to be on that platform.

Well, I'll push. I'll push, no question. Yeah, yeah, we'll get that sorted.

Yeah, I think it's all like, set up.

Hell yeah. Version two is coming out soon, but, yeah, we went to grand.

It doesn't matter now, though. Cause Twitter's all decentralized and owned by Elon, so it's free game on Twitter now.

That sounds great. And actually that was one of the places where I could recover in like, February of 2019. 2020. February 2020. Right before shit hit the fan, I quit all my social media accounts. I was like, fuck this, I can't stand it.

All of them.

And deleted them permanently. And Twitter was one that actually recovered, which is nice. Not a huge following, but 35,000 people is nice to recover.

Did you delete of just the angst of trolling and online bullying and people making fun of what you say? Or just kind of like the angst that occurs when you open up your computer or your phone and there's just vitriol? Or was it because of the censorship piece?

Well, it was pre censorship. This is pre lockdowns, pre people starting to speak their mind about their thoughts on the equation and the weighing of, you know, science getting taken off. Like, you know, the think tank at Stanford getting deleted off YouTube, things like that. So it was before that. A big portion of it was the angst around that. You know, people say they would never say to my face or your face, face to face. You know, so that was. That was one. One. I know one aspect. And I know you've taken mountains of heap online as well, and Twitter is.

One of the worst. I don't know why. What happens. This is what I've observed. You'll have an icon who a lot of people look up to. So this icon has all their groupies, right? And then you say something that directly contradicts or somehow rubs that icon's philosophy the wrong way. Then all those people jump in. A lot of times, the icon, the guru, whatever. They're not the person spewing the vitriol, but all their hench people, they come to their venerated Twitter icons defense and start just tweeting right and left. Everything from like, I want to kill your children, which I got when I posted about vaccinations, to.

People begging Elon Musk recently. This happened last week to ban me from Twitter. Like, why is this guy still on Twitter? Because I tweeted something about calories in, calories out, and the faulty part of that equation. And someone literally wanted to get me kicked off of Twitter for that. Because we all know that's highly offensive to have debate about a relatively meaningless, in the scheme of the whole universe, discussion about calories. Right, Right. Yeah. Pick your. Pick your battles.

Yeah. That really does show, kind of. I mean, there's. Sebastian Junger talked about it on Rogan's. You know, that. That when World War II hit and all the people in London, like, literally had buildings fucking being blown up, had to band together. They had to feed each other. They helped each other survive. How meaningful existence became under those circumstances, because they were broug back into tribe. Yeah, they were brought back into meaning.

Yeah.

Without that, you know, and hopefully it doesn't take bombs overhead, but without that, people are consistently searching for something to provide meaning if they don't have, you know, a spiritual understanding. And thanks to scientism, you know, that's a big part of that. And guys like Richard Dawkins and. And I think people are really just grasping at straws, trying to figure themselves out. And that's where you get somebody who's just willing to bash you for fucking hours on end.

Yeah. I mean, meaning can be. And I was having a Discussion about this. Yesterday I did a walking podcast with a guy who's local to here, Ronnie Landis, and we were talking about addiction and he was talking about the addiction that many people have to struggle and to drama in their lives. And then we got into addiction to social media, to pornography, to relationships, to nicotine, to caffeine. The list goes on and on and situation. It really is attempting to fill a God shaped hole in your soul with every last nook and cranny of the universe that you can hunt down to throw into it until you either A, die or B, discover the fulfillment that can be achieved when you fill a God shaped hole with God.

I'm reading a book right now by Dallas Willard called Renovated. It's about kind of like renovating the soul. And I think it's in that book there's a line that when, when guys go to porn, they're seeking God, right. They're just basically, that's just another example of the angst within the soul that you're like, this ought to fill. This ought to fill it. But nothing actually fills it until you get to that point where you find the spiritual fulfillment.

It's interesting that you bring up the porn thing because in the search for God in Kingwear, Magician, Lover, I'm sure you've read that book, they talked about one of the shadow aspects of the lover is the Don Juan archetype who's constantly. Yeah. Searching for God or the divine goddess through every woman he can get. And, and, but each woman doesn't fulfill because each woman is not the totality.

Right, right.

And so, so the search continues. No one is ever enough. The cup is never full.

Yeah, it's, it's an interesting.

It'S an interesting conundrum because yes, you can use things like sex and juicy ribeye steak and a glass of Bordeaux and.

Anything else that's beautiful in creation as a replacement for God. It's something you become attached to, but then on the flip side, you can use it to find God and experience God. So sex could be a crutch for you that you are basically addicted to as a way to fill that hole in your soul that's seeking God as a craving. Or sex can be a way to experience the beauty and wonder and bliss of creation. And just like my trip to the Grand Canyon, be like, oh, this is God speaking to me in this moment of pure bliss. So it can kind of work both ways.

Yeah, yeah. Many paths leave up the mountain.

Yeah. I can't get too far in this conversation though, without Asking you about your farm. Yeah. Because I've heard rumors, but you and I haven't talked about this at all. We were going to talk about it before we turn the mics on and I'm like, turn. Turn the microphones on film.

Yeah, we had, you know, pretty much, you know, Aubrey and I have been in Fit for service from the jump. He invited me on with, with Godsey and Caitlin to be full time coaches. And we're in our fourth year now, so we've really seen a lot of changes. But when 2020 came about, even before, even when I was still subscribing to this thing being the bubonic plague, you know, the Black Death and really, you know, being on my.

To.

Buying a lot of what I was seeing from TV and mainstream. Right.

I had a spray bottle by my mailbox that I would spray all the mail down with before I walked up the driveway.

Yeah. Even when, even when I was a part of that narrative. Fit for service lives and dies on face to face interaction. It lives and dies on our events that we throw and, you know, there's a lot we can accomplish through zoom and through coaching people online and, you know, all this as well. But something is lost when we're not able to gather in that size of a group. Right.

150 to 200 people, quite literally. There is a significant loss of oxytocin, particularly, I think if you could stack up everything, electromagnetic heart signals and brainwave signals and pupillary interactions. I think it's oxytocin. That's the one thing. It's this missing hormonal component from a neuroendocrine standpoint that's, that's absent in digital interactions largely.

Yeah. And you just, you know, there's so much of that, but also the, the thinking about, you know, Junger's work and rites of passage and things like that. We don't offer plant medicines or anything at these events, but we do offer transformational experiences like holotropic breathwork from some of the best guides, aesthetic dance, different things that, that feel uncomfortable. But as you go through that together, you have your brothers and sisters in arms and that's incredibly bonding. That's what's formed our community. And so it was like we had, you know, Aubrey had that ranch in Sedona, still has it. It's about 50 acres.

Okay. And yeah, I've been out there. The spirit ranch.

Yeah. It's incredible.

Yeah.

We had to keep postponing our summer event until finally we went to Nevada and Tahoe, which Was awesome. For many people, it was the first time they hugged anyone the entire year. In August of 2020. October rolled around for our final event in Sedona. And, you know, Arizona was pretty cool about things there throughout the. The shenanigans. And they still allowed people to attend, you know, maskless and whatnot. But they still had a cap at 20 people at these businesses. So we retrofitted the backyard and built, you know, two giant teepees that connected, kind of like a burning man set. And Puranghi played live music for the first time the entire year in October for 150 people, you know, to do aesthetic dance and to come. And, you know, the great speakers we brought in for that event were exceptional. But really.

Can I. Can I interrupt you real quick? Explain ecstatic dance to me?

Ecstatic dance. I mean, to me it is.

The benefit of ecstatic dance is pushing through discomfort. And everyone has it.

Right?

I mean, Paul Check, who's a buddy of ours, always says, like, you know, with the old. One of the old sayings someone would ask a person who is ill, is, when did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing?

Yeah, yeah, right.

I know that.

And I think there's a third one. Is it dreaming? I think dreaming. Dan, when did you stop doing those three activities? Dreaming, dancing and singing? Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, kids. You've got kids. When you watch kids dance, there's no stickiness, there's no weirdness, there's no self consciousness. There's no, oh, what does somebody else do? They just move their body until puberty. Yeah, the way the music moves them.

Right.

And. And that can be lost. And it can be lost through puberty, can be lost through culture. It can be lost through a number of things. But. But the act of doing that, especially in a sea of people that you're just getting to know, that is not maybe a rite of passage, but it is something that pushes our boundaries and what we think is possible. And when we crack that code, it doesn't mean we look like Breakdancer or something like that or Michael Jackson. It just means that we find our flow and reconnect ourselves to our bodies. And in that experience, it's priceless, because that in and of itself changes the way we carry ourselves going forward. It changes the way we interact with the opposite sex. It change. Or the same sex, for that matter, changes the way we operate not just in the bedroom, but in the boardroom. Every. How we carry ourselves changes when we've moved ourselves through these. These sticking points.

Yeah.

You could Call them energetic blockages. You could call it all the, you know, mental emotional constructs. There's a million ways to explain that thing, but it's in just like psychedelics, you know, you can talk about it. It's not the same thing as going through it.

Yeah, it reminds me a little bit. I want to get back to the story Fit for Service and the evolution of this form. But the ecstatic dance and the effects that you're describing remind me of a few things. First of all, if you read that book Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, this idea of shaking or trembling as a way.

To relieve stress, to kind of like de load the sympathetic nervous system. That's actually. I don't know if you've done much of the Tai chi shaking where you're just. Hopefully I won't be out of the camera doing this, but where you're just like this. But I'll take a deep breath in.

And do that for like six or seven minutes in the morning. Or if I've been stressed, if I've gone through something where I feel like my sympathetic nervous system is charged up and it kind of gives a similar feeling to what you'd get if you were just dancing around like nobody was watching. So I think there's a definite stress relieving component. Very similar to the shaking or the trembling one might do to shake off trauma.

Yeah.

And then the other thing that's interesting is that even though I've never really thought of it as ecstatic dance, now that you're describing it, it probably does fall into the same category is we meditate as a family every morning and every evening. But the morning session is typically about 7:30, 7, 45 or so. I gather the whole family together. It's our coming together officially to begin the day. And we sit on the ground and we do our gratitude practice, we do a practice of service, we do breath work, we do tapping and we do the Lord's Prayer and then we gather for a big hug afterwards. And then like a team huddle, you know, what's going on today? Who's making this for dinner? What class ends at this time? When are we going to come together in the evening? Any special announcements? It's like little family gathering, which I actually find to be critical part for me as a father, as a so called head of the household, to be able to actually keep everything organized each day. And then it repeats in the evening. Same thing in the evening. It's meditation. But when the meditation and the prayer ends, it's okay, what's going on in the morning? What do we need to be ready for? So it's a very good way to kind of like keep organization and keep the family from just being like ships passing in the night. But one or two times a week, I'll just choose an amazing song. And for me, it's usually some of these newer contemporary praise and worship type of stations, like A Hillsong or Elevation worship or there are great songs like Waymaker and so Will I and the Blessing and the Doxology. They're typically about five to seven minutes, and I'll bring everybody down. My sons will come down from the bedroom with their journals, and I'll be like, you guys don't need your journals today. And their faces just break out and smile because they know what's about to happen. And I put the little Bluetooth speaker on and I put on a song, and we just dance like crazy for the first five to seven minutes of the day, you know, turning loops around the kitchen table and I'm picking up mom and throwing over my shoulder, you know, twirling around. And so we do that a couple of times a week. So it reminds me a lot when you describe it of our little family, you know, ecstatic, if you want to call that dance sessions in the morning.

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. And same thing with the tai chi or Kundalini shaking, you know, like there's.

Yeah.

At least the first song, song and a half of any ecstatic dance that we do. I'm literally just doing that. I'm bouncing up and down. I'm shaking out the kinks.

Right. I'm stretching them kind of like right before the drop happens when you're at it. Yeah.

Usually song three is going to hit.

So that's my warm up. But, you know, I was in Aubry's ear the whole time through lockdowns because Texas was, you know, we still went through it here initially. And then over time, Texas became a freer and freer state.

Florida as well, you know, so we were looking at places in Texas and Florida to potentially purchase and.

You know, 20, 21 stuff continued, you know, in different states, but didn't hear and, you know, no one died. We didn't have. I mean, I shouldn't say no one died, but it's not like, you know, Texas fell off the map from all the people dying. And, you know, we kept looking and Aubrey for a long time had, you know, his own vision of what, you know, a truly a true medicine space would look like, you know, and for me I wanted food sovereignty. I wanted to be able to grow our own food. I didn't want to worry if grocery stores were going to close or if I needed a vax pass to get into, you know, Whole Foods. And certainly with supply chain issues and the rising cost of food, it's like we got to be in the game, we got to become. I heard a guy, Ice age farmer, on one of his YouTube videos say that for the people to do well, we're going to need to become producers. And that may look different for some people. Doesn't mean becoming a giant corporation. It just means producing more than you consume.

I mean it's honestly from a technical standpoint, it's very similar to a guy like Cal Newport will write about be a creator, not a consumer. Or at least skew the balance of your life more towards creation than consuming. And that's a pretty good way to live because it means at the end of the day you've contributed that.

Cal Newport was the second reason I got off social media. I read digital minimalism and I was like, man, I'm out. And it is a great way to connect with people. But anywho, there was food sovereignty. There was, you know, having a true healing center and then, you know, I wanted it in our backyard. So we searched for a while and we ended up finding a spot about 30 minutes south of the airport. Really easy to get to. It's 85 mile an hour freeway heading there because Tesla's coming to town not far from it. And it's been, it's been incredible. You know, it's 118 acres. You know, we had seen biggest little farm and a lot of these things. Buddies with Force of Nature and the guys at Rome Ranch. So I've been plugged in and you know, Paul the OG was wearing, you know, I love dirt shirts and I love the soil shirts, you know, way back in the day. So I had always been mindful of that.

But you mean Paul. Paul check. Yeah.

You know, the adage as above so below, when you really understand that it's, you know, what I put in to the soil, what I put into the earth, enhances its ability to put back into me.

Yes.

You know, and that is a two way street. And that's something that I've really, really come to terms with through plant medicine journeys and different alchemy. But you know, we didn't want to bite off more than we could chew. We didn't make the whole thing Biggest little farm. I think that's 200 acres, really. We've left a lot of open space. We're trimming trees and opening up the land so the grasses can come back. We're going to bring in exotic animals to hunt and also to heal the land. And, you know, with that, we've got game, fences. Eisenstein didn't like, you know, the fact that we put in big fences, but it's a part of the deal to keep exotic game. And then we have about a 9, 8.

What exotic game are we talking about here? The reason I ask is I had a conversation, I think this was actually on a podcast that I had this conversation with Jordan Rubin, who's kind of an old school guy from the nutrition supplements industry owned Garden of Life Nutrition. He's very well known for healing himself of. I think it was Crohn's or colitis. Using nutritional protocols. Has kind of a Christian flavor to his work. He's got like the maker's diet out of the Bible, very similar to, I think, the diet that the prophet Daniel ate in the Old Testament. He's full of interesting ideas, but he's done something very similar to what you were describing in Missouri. And he said that he did a lot of research about this. And it turns out that for sustainable milk and meat, water buffalo and yak instead of cows and then ducks instead of chickens are his go tos.

That's interesting.

And it's something I'm thinking about because I didn't talk to you about this or tell you this yet, but I'm moving down to 12 acres in Idaho. I'm relocating.

Oh, phenomenal.

North Idaho. Moving a little deeper into the backwoods. And I've got. Whereas right now I live in a forest that's on a plain. And so I will likely put, you know, water buffalo or yak. Yeah, water buffalo, helicopter pad. We'll see. Absolutely. But yeah, so. So. So for you, what exotic game are you.

We're gonna do the. The biggest herd will be black buck from India. The taste, they have a flavor profile like access deer.

Beautiful.

They are a bit better at intelligent grazing, so they're not going to eat all the way down to the root. Mesquite would just grow up in its place. Like you've experienced hunting in Hawaii.

Yeah, yeah.

That's no fun. And we want to regenerate grasses and obviously store more into the ground. So I think they're going to be phenomenal. They'll be the. The largest herd in numbers, but they're one of the smallest. Yeah, we're going to carry so that we can have more of them and still be in right relation with the biomass per acreage.

Yeah.

And then red stag, which is one of the most beautiful animals I've ever seen.

Yeah.

I went on a secret hunt with Monsel in a town called Hunt, Texas.

Oh, yeah.

A year or two ago. Two years ago. And we were two hours west and they had everything, had elk, bison, red stag, black buck, ibex like you named every. Every kind of animal was there.

I've hunted in a similar location in Texas and seen all those. It's just kind of confusing sometimes when you hunt in Texas, because if you're with a guide, you're constantly asking, can I shoot that? Do I have a tag for that? Is that legal? I don't even. How do red stags taste?

I think they're phenomenal. But they look. I mean, man, it looked like Harry Potter's Patronus.

Oh, yeah.

You know, and we could see anything. We weren't hunting, of course, was like at 20 yards. But I kept running into this. This giant red stag. It was incredible. And, you know, huge rack and just one of the most beautiful things that I've ever seen. And that's like a Grand Canyon experience. I'm looking at that, you know, intelligent design of this beautiful animal. And just breathtake, you know, just. I'm staring at it in awe. So we'll have. We'll start with six and let that herd grow. And maybe we'll do some trading for different genetics with some local people. We've got quite a few exotic farms in the area, and the final one is going to be gemsbok, and they can get pretty big. They're from West Africa.

Gimsbach.

Yeah.

I don't think I've seen a gimsbug.

They have the. The males have horns that look like. Like a unicorn horn. There's two of them. They're like spears, straight up spiral.

Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about. Matter of fact, I have a. I. I didn't realize. I think there's another name for gimsbuck.

They're from ibex, I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Ibex. Because we have a mount in our. By our fireplace in the living room that one of my wife's friends gave to her. That's. That's like a ibex mount, you know, kind of like. Gosh, what do you call it when the. It's just the skull.

Euro.

Yeah. Euro mount.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's incredible.

Jeez. And so you can raise These, they.

Can get up to £500.

And you'll be able to hunt them as well.

And we won't. We won't really touch them for the first few years. We're just gonna actually, end of this month, we're gonna have them delivered. We're gonna let them get accustomed to the land. It is a small plot, you know, for. For hunters out there that are like, that's not fair game. That's just harvesting, right? It is 118 acres. And yes, it is for harvesting like it is for our own food. It's not, you know, a challenging hunt. It's not like going with bows to lanai or Molokai. That's a different. That's a different game.

Yeah.

This was literally to help restore the ecosystem of the land and heal the soil and for us to eat, you know, and have really high quality nutrition in our diet.

So are you gonna live out there?

Yeah, we're building the house. It's under construction right now. So that's. That's how I've talked my way into that. You know, I was in Aubrey's ear for a couple years about the importance of having this not just for fit for service, but, you know, looking at where the world's at right now and the demolition of modern society, it became, you know, I mean, you're a father, you think about these things a little bit more than most people do because you got little ones. And we've got, you know, Wolfie came 4th of July in 2020, you know, smack dab in the middle of the most craziest time in recorded history and. Or at least in modern history.

Right. And she's gonna have amazing eye facial recognition built in technology. Spending the first several months of her life seeing fewer faces than the average human. Huh.

Well, thankfully we were here, so, like, yeah, we didn't pay attention to any of that. She got to see everybody and be held and loved on and we weren't, you know. Yeah, there was no concern with her. So it was like, yeah, everybody come over, get to hold the little girl and play with her. So. But yeah, having all that in mind, you know, was really the impetus for this. And I, And I told Aubrey, you know, I really want to be caretaker of the land and I want to live there full time and I want to raise my kids on the land. I want to send them out of the house with a big dog and not worry about where they are. They can have a walkie talkie if they need help or get stuck somewhere. And the land is just incredible. You know, we've got three massive ponds. We'll be putting in another one. There's big mouth bass in one and bluegill in another. We might be adding catfish. We've really been working on this nine acre plot that we have fenced in and protected and working with Chad Johnson, who I had on the podcast. He's a brilliant permaculturist who was understudy to Sep Holzer and traveled the world with this guy, you know, really picking his brain to learn it from him. And he accelerated. He was one of the best in, in Sepp's classes. So set really took him under his wing.

Chad Johnson.

Chad Johnson.

Does he live down here?

He's in. He's off the i35 like we are. He's one exit away from Canada. He's northern, Northern Minnesota. That's what drew me in, you know, because a lot of people learn permaculture in Costa Rica and it's not apples to apples.

No.

The fact that he's dealing with serious cold, that's worse than ours. I know he can. You know, the things he's put in.

You want, you want somebody local? I've got, I've got a guy up north in Idaho who I'm working with, local for the development of the food forest that we're putting in around this new home that, that we're building in. It's actually in Biola, Idaho, which is not a city, it's a. They call it a community. I don't know when a community becomes a city, but I think it's like, you know, gosh, about 150, 200 people, little town hall, no gas station, no grocery store, like, nothing. Just some homes and farms. But the, the home that we're building, despite you really feeling like you're off grid, this is kind of like my home in Spokane. If you can, you can be out on the highway in two minutes and into Moscow, Idaho within like 10 minutes, which is a big university town. Oh, cool. So. So it's kind of just like a perfect little setting.

Yeah. So you're in the cuts, but you're.

Also planting all the trees right now for tree cover. And then the whole home. We'll do kind of like I did the home in Spokane, like, you know, metal shielded Cat 7 Ethernet cables fed through the whole home. We'll use, we use moonwood, which is naturally like an emf, kind of like almost like a Faraday is BL blocking technology, mold resistant, low VOC wood. We'll work in all the natural lighting, the hepa, air filtration, the negative ions. I'm getting the guys from Egypt to come out and do a full biogeometry analysis of the land. Probably working with a guy named Brian Johnson, who I was talking with the other day as one of the main builders, or at least a consultant on the project, because he does kind of like, from the ground up, building biology analyses of homes just in terms of the materials, the wood, the lighting, the insulation, know, the air filtration, just, you know, soup to nuts, all the things that. That are important. So. So I'm stoked.

Yeah. Try to recommend in Spokane. Yeah, It's a great feeling to have. Yeah, Chad's. Chad's running that. We've. We've got the food forest in. You know, we're just finishing off 500 slips of sweet potatoes, yams, different potatoes, but we've got. Oh, wow, 400 trees in the ground all set up with line irrigation coming from that main pond on a solar pump. We've got 60 different grapevines, tons of BlackBerry and raspberry, and different. Different perennials that are in the ground. And then, like I said, you know, with the. The main calorie. Calorically dense foods that we're gonna be bringing in are the starches. That'll be root vegetables. And then we're building out a root cellar right next to my house that's gonna be pretty massive. And, you know, we'll. We'll be able to store, I don't know, probably 50 refrigerators worth of food down there. Here.

Oh, wow.

Wow. Yeah.

That's great.

Proper setup.

Yeah. Are. Are you gonna do anything regarding the water? You guys doing, like, a well? Are you bringing it from the ponds or.

I have a douser coming in next week. Look at places to. To put the. Well.

It's fun to watch a douser work.

I actually wanted to pick your brain because I think it's your dad's company that does or your brother.

Well, it's my dad, my dad and my brother now. And that's what we did. Our land. We had douser come up and they walk along with the rock rod. And a lot of people think it's witchcraft. I think it's more electromagnetic rotation when you get over the place where the water's actually at.

And it was kind of funny because he came up and he did the dousing walking. I just followed him around because I was curious and followed him around. Follow him around about 10 acres, and he finally gets to a spot, and the rod that he's holding kind of rotates this way and that. And I don't know how to read it, but apparently it told him the. This is the spot he put his foot down. He said, drill right here, you'll be good to go. Sure enough, I have no clue if we would have drilled 10ft away if we also would have been good to go. But regardless, he found us a good well. And so then of course well water can still have anything from herbicide and pesticide runoff to bacterial iron to manganese, to all sorts of stuff that could wind up accumulating in your system. So then you do water analysis of the actual well water. And in our case we had high levels of iron. So I got like a really good iron filtration system. It's like a hydrogen peroxide based iron filtration system that's special built for iron, just so I don't freaking get hemochromatosis from drinking water at home. And then it passes through the water filter that my dad makes. And what he does is he imports all his parts from Tel Aviv, where they've got a lot of really good water filtration technology in Israel because they've had to manage to get a lot of drinkable, potable water in an area where there's really not much water naturally. And so he brings these filters in and technically I think their main whole house filter right now is a double carbon block, which is essentially the equivalent of a reverse osmosis in terms of what it'll filter out. But then post carbon block, it passes through a vortices like a series of all these glass beads and minerals that structures the water. And then the only thing that you're missing out on, and I think you're probably aware of this, is just the remineralization. After all that filtering, it's a good idea to put some extra salts back in.

Yeah. The thing that drew me to it was the fact that it restructures the water after the fact, you know, and that was something that's not typical. We have like, I think an Aquasana filter on our home right now in Austin. And it, you know, it does the job. I think. I got on a lemma structuring water stick. He was on Paul's podcast. Phenomenal. But I wanted to talk about.

A lot of people still raise an eyebrow at the structuring of the water.

What I can tell you subjectively is it tastes better. I feel more hydrated when I'm drinking it. I've even been using those vessel or Vivo new urine strips. A lot of companies are coming out with these urine strip technologies that'll tell you everything from, from ketones to glucose to hydration status to specific gravity to bilirubin. Like, everything in your urine was kind of cool. You pee on a stick and then you take a picture of it with your phone, and then it spits out on the app what things you're high or low from the photo. It's kind of cool. It's an interesting technology.

Two companies I know of that are doing are Vessel and Vivo V I. V O. O is, I think, how it's spelled. And with the structuring of the water, I'm able to maintain really, really good hydration status. It tastes better. I feel better when I drink it. The idea is that theoretically, when there is a greater amount of hydrogen oxygen bonding as would occur in structured water, very similar to the experiments done by Gerald Pollack up at Washington, there's a lowered amount of friction or resistance to water traveling through a vessel because you'll form a positive zone called an exclusion zone on the outside, a negatively charged zone on the inside. And so the positive charge on the outside essentially causes water to crawl through a vessel, almost like electrically, especially when exposed to photons of light. And so in an ideal scenario, you drink structured water and then use something like infrared light technology or sunlight to enhance that water's ability to be able to seep into tissue. And the only thing is, and I always name this, is that I feel better. It kind of makes sense to me theoretically. But there's not any really great clinical studies on the health effects of structured water like there have been with the health effects of, say, like deuterium depleted water or hydrogenated water. But I. So I. And I don't. I don't really use the. Are you familiar with the DDW concept, deuterium depleted water?

Yeah, I got into that a little bit a couple years back in Paleo effects.

Yeah, it's just a heavier isotope that tends to displace some of the metabolic machinery in the mitochondria that dictates that if you drink water that's lower in deuterium, that you're going to be healthier metabolically. And you would find high levels of deuterium in produce that's been sprayed with herbicides and pesticides in a dietary context, that's higher carbohydrate instead of higher fat, because when you burn fat, you generate water as a byproduct of that. And the water that you generate is naturally deuterium depleted. And so the idea with the DDW is you can like buy and drink DDW or you could just like eat organic produce, avoid herbicides and pesticides and the like. And then and eat a slightly higher fat and lower carb. And so that considering the price of DDW because you gotta like hyper freeze the water and then warm it back up and go goes through this special process like nobody's got a way to really scale. I think a bottle of it's like six to eight bucks, which is prohibitively expensive. And then the hydrogen, that's simple. I mean with the hydrogen you just get a hydrogen water generator like an under the sink or hydrogen tablets and add that to the structured water. And so for me, when I wake up in the morning, It's a giant 32 ounce Mason glass jar with the structured water. And I'll put like three or four hydrogen tablets in. And then I use the Quinton minerals, which is I think one of the best mineral sources out there. And then a couple of scoops of this stuff.

Somewhat recent find of mine is called Adrenal Cocktail by Jigsaw Health. And it's just like boatload of minerals and vitamin C. So I just start off the day topping everything up. But back to your question about the water filtration. Yeah. For a setup like you're talking about, it would be like the Greenfield Naturals whole house double carbon block system with the structured water unit added to it. That's exactly what I have.

Cool. Hell yeah.

Yeah. But then you would still want to pay attention to anything else that might be in the well water because sometimes you got to have like 2, 3 filtration setups depending on what you have out there.

And do they does your family part.

What kind of poisons are in Black Buck piss? You never know.

Do if there was like a particular issue like iron or something like that, would they have the ability to custom do something like you?

Probably not.

Okay.

No. You'd probably talk to a local water person who would filter out the iron. And then once that, once all the filtration is set up and done, that's when at the final stage you would pass it through a system like, like my dad's. It's kind of interesting though, like you go visit his. You know, one of the reasons I'm moving to Idaho is to be closer to my parents because, you know, getting old and my father will actually be living on the property that I'm going to build on in Idaho because their entire water filter production facility is right there. On the corner of that property. And if you go into the. Into the kind of like the main warehouse where they make all the filters and everything, you go to the very, very back. That's where it gets kind of woo. Because my dad's an Eastern Orthodox Christian and his state's very interesting. He's got like a whole chapel and all these saints all over the place and candles and he prays like a hundred times a day. It's like full on Eastern Orthodox. And in the room in the back of the warehouse where the water filters are ready for their final packaging and shipping, he's got this special bucket with holy water in it. It's like the water from. Are you familiar with Lourdes, France, where people will bathe in this water? I remember Wayne Dyer talking about that miraculous healing experiences. It's actually on my bucket list to go there because I'm very, very curious about this water. And so he'll put a little bit like a few drops of this water into the water filter before it ships the entire room back there where their package.

It'S surrounded on the wall with icons of all these saints and it's like this holy room. It's kind of similar to. You've talked to Dr. Nick from Essential Oil Wizardry before, right? He's told me. I haven't been to his production facility, but he talks about how you got to pass a profile of mood state score before you go in. So there's only positive energy around the essential oils and stripping them out, any exposure to emf. And it's kind of like that with the water filters. And.

Of course, as a man of faith, it's easier for me to believe in this, but I do think there's something about the positive energy and the frequencies that the filters are exposed to before they finally get out and hit the streets.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. You might know if there's any science on it. Again, it's funny because I do. Like, it's. It's great if there is, because then you can say, ah, here, check out this reference. This reference, this reference. But if there's not, I don't need someone to tell me, you know, I don't need a double blind study on ayahuasca's efforts.

No, it's back to scientism.

Yeah.

You were talking about in many cases that can strip the sacredness out of an experience if you try to prove it. Because in many cases, some of the most sacred and spiritual things that exist at this point in our ability to be able to detect quantum effects are invisible and undetectable. And so when you look at things like quantum energy or the observer effect or anything like that, it absolutely changes based on the observer effect. If you do figure out a way to look at it, it might change it anyways. You might not be seeing what you expect to see. So yeah, there are definitely things that do not need to be proven by double blinded clinical research studies.

No doubt. Well, let's, let's, let's, let's follow this path. I like the thread that we're heading right now. You've been on a, kind of on a tear, you know, with, with books. You've been churning out a bunch. You had one I wanted to get you on for prior to the one that you just came out with. Correct.

Two spiritual titles. Those are the ones you're referring to?

Yeah, two spiritual titles. And then I wrote Soul. Yes, Fit Soul.

And then I wrote Endure.

So when I was out at Paul's for his 60th birthday last year, I saw the Fit Soul and I was like, oh yeah, I got to get Ben on for that.

Yeah.

And then now you've got the Endure.

Endure was a sequel that actually what I'm really excited right now is I'm working on a parenting book, which I can, I can tell you about later on if you want. But Fit Soul, you know, I, I, I had kind of like this, this would have been like 2020ish. I kind of had a little bit of existential angst about what I was, my path in life and what I was delivering to my audience. Lots of biohacking and longevity, anti aging and six pack abs and whatever things that back to what we were talking about with a God shaped hole are interesting, but ultimately not the true source of fulfillment that we all crave. Good. Even the scriptures say that physical training is of some benefit, but it's not, it's not the ultimate goal in life. And I went and talked to actually a pastor who I really respect about this, a guy named Doug Wilson. And Doug was like, well, you know, if you're trying to give your audience, your podcast listeners and your readers something that's a little bit more fulfilling, something that you found to be more fulfilling than just fitness. For me, in three words, basically, faith and family. Those are really two things that make me way happier and way more fulfilled than all the fitness and longevity stuff I spent so many years preaching as the pure message. He said, well, why don't you just write your testimonial talk about how you went full circle. From being born in a Christian home to just pursuing everything the world has to offer over and over again, and then coming back full circle and realizing, oh, at the end of the day, like, all I need is God. And the most important thing for me to focus on is not my business or my body, but my family. So I started writing this little testimony I was going to give away for free on my website, and it turned into a book because I'm kind of shitty at stopping writing once I start. That's one thing.

For some reason, I love to write and I write a lot of stuff. So I wrote this book and it's essentially, it talks about.

My own journey and the lack of fulfillment found in physical, fleshly, carnal pursuits and how to build up the fit soul, so to speak, the spiritual armor that's necessary, from prayer to meditation, to devotions, to silence to solitude, to journaling to all of these spiritual disciplines that help you to build your spiritual fitness in the same way that kettlebells might build physical fitness, or.

Learning a new instrument might build mental fitness. So I wrote that book and then I had a lot of kind of leftover material and other things I wanted to write about. So then a few months ago, I finished up another book called Endure. That, as the name implies, is more about spiritual stamina, but specifically it's about all my own temptations and struggles and how I've dealt with porn and sex and polyamory and food addiction and OCD like tendencies. Just like all this stuff that I've had to deal with myself. And honestly, for me, when I have a problem, one of the ways that I tackle it is I write about it almost like therapeutically. And so both of these books, Fit Soul and Endure, they're kind of like my own therapy. But I figure, you know, if there are certain things that helped me, then maybe they'll help some other people who are struggling with the same things.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's always. I love that. I mean, that's kind of. It's not in writing, but that is effectively what I've made my job to be in. Fit for Service is whatever I'm passionate about, whatever I'm drawn to, are the things that I'm going to first embody and try on for size as a guinea pig, but then secondarily give back to anybody who, who's a part of the program. Because it's, it's, it's one thing to.

Run it through the, the rational side of the mind and come to terms with it. It's another thing to actually live that experience and walk the walk. And there's so much that we can gather from not just our successes, but our failures, you know, if you want to call them that. Right. The bumps in the road that really are deliverables to people, you know, and, and that's, that's a great, great place to take your ride. And that brought up for me one of the ways in which Paul looks at the art. Paul Check looks at the arc of a life. So you start with the child archetype. Then you go into the warrior archetype, which is usually around adolescence. It's where you push back against your parents, teacher society. Potentially not all kids do that. And then you step into the king archetype. And again, not everyone does this, or the queen archetype, which is where you become like a master of your trade. You're singularly focused, focused on fluid intelligence, becoming good at what you do, making money, solving the riddles of the game that we're in. And then at a certain point you realize that's not enough. You know, midlife crisis usually happen around then. And if you have acquired enough wisdom through life experience, then that's the thing you give back. It's not just, you know, share your money with the poor, that's awesome. But it's, it's really about becoming the wise elder, which is the final archetype. And not, not everyone's done that, you know, I think a lot of people get sold on the material world and, you know, bust their ass doing it, you know, and it's not, there's no blame there. It's just like, I mean, I feel it's a shitty feeling to really think, like to imagine myself living a life like that and not having something to share, you know, and that he becomes that person would become an older, not an elder, you know, somebody who's a grumpy old man effectively, rather than the wise teacher.

Sometimes I wonder if the failure to develop that mentorship mentality of crystallized intelligence.

Is.

That entire process, I think is a little bit aggravated by our modern assumptions and views and activities that surround death. Right. Meaning that as you age, you're shoved into hospice or you're hidden away, or there's this grasping at straws. I don't want to sound hypocritical saying this, being a guy who's been in the longevity and the anti aging sector, but I think you can get to a certain transhumanistic point where you're all of a sudden just trying to Live as long as possible, because death is shameful and death is something to be feared. And death is not a portal to a more blissful experience in eternity afterwards, but is instead just the end of the road. And I think that when you approach death in that manner, that inevitably a little bit of the respect and honor of elders get sucked out of society because they're just old and becoming useless and no longer contributory reproductive members of society. Right? They don't have sperm. They don't, well, maybe they have a little bit of sperm left over. They definitely don't have eggs. And so it's just time to gently shove them aside and make room for the next younger generation. When in fact, I mean, I don't know about you, but I want to be frickin sitting at my castle when I'm 80 with 12 grandchildren gathered around my feet, teaching them and mentoring.

And also being honored by them. I mean, part of my reason, like I said, for moving back to Idaho, is because something deep in my soul is gnawing at me to honor my parents and to actually.

Give them a place of honor and veneration with age rather than just, they're getting old, game over. So I think part of it is our thoughts around debt. And then I think part of it too is legacy. And this is, like I mentioned writing this parenting book.

The sense of legacy that I witness in these parents that I'm interviewing for this book because I don't know if my sons are going to end up in prison. They're 14 years old now. I've certainly likely not.

We don't know.

They're not fully done being raised. That cake is not yet cooked and out of the oven. And so I don't, I don't profess to be a parent who knows it all, but I know a lot of parents who have produced remarkable and impactful children. And so I created a list, like 32 different questions, like, what kept you awake at night? What do you regret as a parent? What's a message you would put on a billboard for parents? What unique, outside the box educational approaches did you use? What did you do when you disagreed with your spouse about something? How did you overcome the angst that occurs when you wanted to pass wisdom onto your child but you didn't want to, to adult them too early? All these different questions that I wonder about that I wish I didn't know when I was a parent. I just sent them out to all these people who I know who are really, really good parents with good kids. And so I'VE got like a thousand pages of replies and transcripts and everything that I'm just weaving through. And there's all sorts of common threads. Family dinners, one on one, scheduled intentional dates for the husband and the wife. Typically quarterly or at least a couple times a year. Some kind of a family planning retreat. Consequential based parenting rather than disciplinary based parenting. Educating your child on the natural consequences and as much as possible, letting them deal with those consequences.

A whole list of habits that seem to repeatedly pop up. Another one is like some carving out of a space for radical honesty and radical transparency. In a non judgment zone, when disagreements arise between a parent and a child or between the spouse, I mean, you can go and have a no judgment zone conversation with that person, be radically transparent, radically honest with them. And that's just kind of like an unwritten rule in the home to allow bitterness not to set in and kind of like fester within the relationship. Probably one of the most obvious patterns that you see though is this idea of rituals and routines and traditions and rites of passages and legacy based activities that can be passed down to the next generation and that can make the next generation feel proud to have the last name that you have. And I think that one of the things I am most excited about right now and most proud of is like, Kyle, if you were to come up to our house, it's been years since you've been there, but you pull up the driveway, two giant flags flying, the Greenfield family logo right outside the door. Massive, like $20,000 metal sculptured crest above the fireplace. It's our entire family crest and logo. You know, I'm not a guy who's, I'm a cheapskate. I don't spend money on expensive art. So this for me was like biting the bullet. And.

Oh my gosh, I'm so glad I did it. It's just there's this enormous sense of legacy. Everything down to the little symbols carved in each of the rocks that surround this shield crest.

Are hidden. And every time a new child or a new grandchild is added to the family, their symbol will get embedded in this stones. This crest gets passed down generationally. Our mission statement, the Greenfield family mission statement is prominently displayed on the living room wall. Everything we stand for, all of our values, we're content, no matter our circumstances. We love God. Our family mission is to help people find the same love and joy and peace that we've discovered. You know, we care for other people in the community, just like everything that we value as a family. That's like the creed, like the Greenfield family creed. We got hats, we got hoodies, we got mugs, we got laptop stickers for Christmas. I'm making, like, wine bottles with the Greenfield family crest on them and chocolate bars, the embossed Greenfield family logo, and the little steak brandish when I cook steaks that I can brand the Greenfield family logo on. And this all culminates in an actual Greenfield family playbook, right? Here's what we do with the kids when they're eight. Here's what we do when they're 12 and they have their first rite of passage into adolescence. Here's when the rite of passage into adulthood. OCC here's when they stopped getting any money, age 16, from mom and dad. No more money after that point. Here's the point at which no Greenfield children are allowed to be living in the home, right? And so at age 18, Greenfield men do not live in. And so this is not just for my sons. This is for my son's sons and my son's son's sons. They'll build on that playbook as we go. But this idea of, like, systematically and intentionally planning out legacy, important to avoid the all too common rags to riches to rags scenario that you see a lot when, you know, let's say somebody like you, you're successful, you're making money, got a farm, and, you know, Bear grows up and, you know, I don't think you're going to be doing this with him, but, you know, you give him everything he needs in life, right? And he's set and he's comfortable, and maybe you're like, I'm just going to give him all this money and take care of him. Maybe he'll just not have a worry in the world. He can go up and find the cure for cancer, be a great artist. And I think I kind of get that mentality that parents have, but I think the cons outweigh the pros versus actually having.

This legacy and this creation of independence that's passed on to future generations and not just giving them a silver spoon, but giving them kind of like a structure to work with to make their own success in life. And so when all this comes together, it's like, my kids, they're proud to be a green family. They know what it means to be a Greenfield that, you know, we. We can go out to dinner and, you know, we're like the cheesiest family on the planet. We're wearing, like, our Greenfield family logo hoodies and our Greenfield family hats, all four of us. Right.

The same.

You know, Jess's is, is red and Taryn's is green and Rivers is blue and mine is black. So the different colors. But it's, it's just been so cool to really tap into and understand what it means to brand a family almost we. Same way you brand a business. And it's just so cool to see my sons taking pride in being a Greenfield. You know, when they slap that Greenfield family logo hat on, like, my heart just swells with pride. And I think that what happens is as each generation successfully builds or successively builds on that playbook, it's like generationally.

Each family that occurs after me will become better, more impactful, able to carry more wealth into the future generation so that that wealth can then be dispersed via the family trust into the different charities and foundations. My sons are launching their first nonprofit this year, meaning that any proceeds that they make, you know, at age 14 from their little cooking video business will start to go towards charity and towards nonprofit. And then, you know, their kids will start a non profit when they're probably close to 8 to 10 years old. Because we're working that into the playbooks. We didn't really think about having the kids start a non profit until this year. But all these things that you can just weave in, it's. I'm just, I'm shocked. I didn't know a lot of this growing up. It kind of makes sense to me because a lot of, a lot of people just don't think about this stuff. But man, and that's one reason I'm talking about on this podcast. I'm like, I wish more families would do this because I think that societal stability starts in the household and starts with actually like a nuclear family household.

And I think that if America had families who were taking pride in their last name, honoring their elders, honoring their father and mother, back to how we started this conversation and honoring death and also honoring birth and life and taking pride in your last name. I think that that's part of what we need to make this country great and resilient and not have a bunch of generation zers walking around ashamed to be an American or ashamed to be a part of the family that they were born into, you know?

Yeah, that's a big one of. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Douglas Murray. He was on Rogan's a few times.

He wrote the Madness of Crowds and they just recently came out with the War on the West. And I've been, I've been chewing on that one it's actually keeping me awake at night. It's not. It's like I usually listen to audible, you know, after I put the kids down.

Yeah.

And, yeah, it's. It's. It's something I should chew on during the day to optimize sleep. But it. It's just a brilliantly articulated, you know, true telling of what's happening in the world and. And really what's at stake, not just in America, but in the west in general, you know, in modern culture. And, you know, many of the things that you're. You're mentioning right now are just. Let's keep stirring and stirring and stirring because really, there is that. There is an attack on the nuclear family. There's an attack on mother and father. There is an attack on. On race, you know, where. Where somehow. Somehow people got the idea that to end racism, you need more racism. Like, it's. It's. It's mind blowing to say that this is the playbook that's being.

Yes.

You know. You know what'll get rid of racism? Racism. Yeah, let's start that in school.

No, actually, I want to make sure that doesn't go over people's heads. Can you explain what you mean by that? With the attempt to cure racism with racism? What's that mean? Exactly.

Right. So that's speaking to critical race theory, and he dives into this pretty deep in madness of crowds, but much, much deeper in the war in the West. And in critical race theory, you're basically teaching young children that because you're white, you are born racist. You know, and this. This flies in the face. And really, he alludes so beautifully to the great thinkers and people that we've learned from throughout the years. It flies in the face of what Martin Luther King Jr. Was dreaming. It flies in the face of that.

Yeah.

You know, it flies in the face of his hopes. It flies in the face of the.

The.

The turn that we've taken because Martin.

Luther King basically parted part of his speech, which, embarrassingly enough, I don't have memorized. He talks about how he dreams of a future where you aren't judged by the color of your skin. And here we are telling white people that they should be judged by the color of their skin. That's what you're saying.

Yeah. And that they're born inherently almost like an AA person is taught you have a genetic default that doesn't allow you to drink alcohol.

Right.

That you effectively have been born racist. That it is in you. And, you know, it's just implanting guilt and shame. And not only is it not true, I mean.

It'S worse than not true. It's destabilizing. And it's happening in all levels of school. It's not happening at every school, but it is happening in quite a few. You know, even. Even the Waldorf here in Austin, Texas has started to employ some of this ideology. University level is where this stuff was introduced and it's trickled all the way down. But we don't just see it in California and New York. I mean, if it's happening in Texas, obviously Austin's always been a blue city, but it has spread. It spread fairly rapidly. This ideology. And you know, the way that Douglas Murray puts it is just. It is. It's a breath of fresh air to understand that it can, you know, because he's pulling in so much more. You know, he's pulling in actual history. He's comparing things and comparing what the time was like at the time certain things happened and not giving anything a pass. Right. Like our country's littered with a past that's not. Not the most fair, but exploring and what the rest of the world was like at that time. Exploring what people were like, what. What the whole thing was like. I mean, he really paints such a broader perspective of our history, of the history of the west, and then dives deeply into today's ailments.

Yeah, it's interesting because I've always been a guy who has thought that you should take pride in who you are. And sometimes that does include the color of your skin. You shouldn't be judged by the color of your skin, but you should take pride in that. And you should even acknowledge the difference not only between the races, but between the sexes. In the same way that I don't think it should be shameful to say that men don't have a vagina and they can't have babies. That should not be a shameful statement. That's kind of like the sky is blue and gravity exists. And then there are other statements that are kind of loosey goosey and may seem stereotypical, but that I don't think should be offensive to people. Like for me to say something like, you're Indian. You probably have a better chance of being better at mathematics than I am because that's the way your brain is fired up, or you're black. There's probably a pretty good chance you could dunk a basketball better than I could dunk a basketball because your muscle fiber composition based on your genetic history is higher in fast twitch muscle fibers that are non oxidative type 2. And there's certain things that people are, certain gifts people are given. Like I'm good at writing, I'm shitty at art, right. And that's not something for me to be ashamed of. It's just like, this is the skills I've been given. This is the body I was born with. This is the genetics I was born with.

God made an elephant different than a platypus. Different from a giraffe. God made a Native American different than an African different than a Caucasian. I just don't understand why we have to, why we have to feel like that. Shameful.

Where there's a drive towards homogenization.

Yeah.

You know, and that's really what I got Douglas coming on here hopefully next month. But it's this drive towards homogenization is not a celebration of our differences. It is, you know, in terms like equity get thrown around a lot. You know, it's about leveling the playing field in a way. You know, Jordan Peterson's been talking about this for a very long time. You know, it's not new, right. This has been this, this trickle down effect from university downwards. Been happening for some time now. And really, you know, as with anything, even with COVID right, Like we should be able to talk about this. We should be able to have a conversation about this and, and really just iron out all details, all possibilities. But a big, a big piece of the weaponry that's being harnessed is. No, you can't say that. You can't even talk about it. You can't mention there's a difference. They don't exist. The only difference that exists is that you were born racist. Right. And that's really what CRT is all about. And white fragility and all these books that have come out in the last few years that, you know, they're not leaving much wiggle room for conscious conversations around these things.

Yeah, yeah. I think there's a little bit of a rift that's developing. And you know, what I take hope in is the fact that we do have voices now that are easier to amplify than voices that we had in the past before. You'd need a whole studio and millions of dollars worth of cameras and audience and contracts and a television network to be able to disseminate information that either educates or inspires people. And now you and I sitting here right now with what do we have, like maybe 300 bucks worth of equipment and we can reach the same number of people in a very nimble and independent fashion. And so I think everything from you talking on your public platform about the farm and about sustainable ag and about alternative forms of education, to me talking about legacy and tapping into the importance of your. Of your spiritual fitness.

And more thoughts on freedom. I just think that.

We'Re in a pretty good situation in terms of the ability to at least still be able to speak freely. And I feel like there's a lot of people doing it.

It certainly helps with the Twitter requirement.

Elon Musk seems pretty good, I have to admit.

I'm not upset about that. One of the questions I had for you, you know, being where you're at now, and of course, you know, it was years ago that I was at your house and really got to spend time with you and your family. And I've always cherished that you welcomed me in, you know, to really get to know you and your family. And that's a welcome back any time.

Even though I got about a year before that, that home.

Make it out for the new one.

Yeah, make it out to the Idaho one.

I want, I want our little girl wolf to appreciate it, you know, I want her to remember and to know that experience too. But I've seen your trajectory and I know you know where your heart stands with God and you've written these two books. In light of everything that's going on, you know, with the conversation we just started here and with, you know, the things that we see in the world, how much of the Book of Revelation has come up for you? Is it something that you're just like, yeah, maybe not yet, or. Or is it something where you're really drawing on that?

Yeah, I'm glad you call it the Book of Revelation. I know a lot of Christians who call it the Book of Revelations. It's actually singular. It's Revelation. So you did your homework. Good job.

So I'm a post millennialist. I don't necessarily believe that the alternative view is incorrect. I just have yet to be convinced that it is postmillennialism. What this means is that that whole story of Revelation, the trial, the tribulation, the persecution, the foretelling of.

Destruction and death, the fall of the city of Jerusalem.

The coming of the Antichrist. I believe that all of that was, was a prophetic prediction of.

The fall of Jerusalem, the rise of the Roman Empire, the early day persecution of Christians, and that by around 70 AD, most of what is written in the Book of Revelation already happened. And that as we're told in the Bible, that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will continue to cover the earth as the waters cover, cover the sea until the peace and love and joy and ultimate core message of Jesus Christ has been able to penetrate into the depths of the Amazon and the far reaches of Africa and the fringe sections of the Orient and all across, you know, the Americas and Europe and beyond. I believe that we are in a stage right now where that's happening with some speed bumps and with, you know, with. With some curve balls. But ultimately, if you were to graph it, it's like life in the world is getting a little bit better and a little bit better every year until eventually it culminates in the new heaven and the new Earth being essentially becoming a replacement for the sin and the turmoil and the struggle that we face right now on this old Earth. And I think that we will. I do think we'll get to a point where if Jesus was a deity and the reason that Jesus was sent by God to Earth to become a human being and to die as a deity and to conquer death and sin and also give us the opportunity to believe in that and to essentially lay all of our burdens at the foot of the cross. The reason that all that happened, the Bible says this was because God so loved the world that he gave his son to be able to save all of the turmoil that was caused by essentially, Satan and Adam and Eve. At the very dawn of time, we now have this extension of life that's been given to us. And that message is now penetrating all throughout the universe. And things are going to get better and better and better. And then eventually Jesus, as he promised, will come back and the entire Earth. I don't think he's going to get nuked. I think it's going to get just almost like, gosh, like in Chronicles of Narnia in the seventh book, when they arrive in Narnia, and all of a sudden Narnia is perfect. I think it'll be like that. It'll be like the earth that God made and called good. He doesn't want a nuke. It's perfect. And that means that everything from, you know, your dog to your. Your state to your trees in your backyard, to possibly, I don't know, it could be like a garden city type of scenario. That word is bandied about. That phrase is bandied about a few places in the Bible. I mean, it could be a massive technological garden city that's perfect with no sin and no pollution and everything's perfect, and we live forever. And life is amazing in the way that it was originally intended. To be. I don't think we go to hell in a hand basket before that happens happens. I think things just get better and better and better and better. And also having that type of view, which again is called post millennialism, also means that you never really get to the point where you just throw up your hands in despair and say, oh, things are getting, what's the purpose? I'm just going to go hold myself up and survive until I die and the world's going to hell in a handbask anyways. Instead it's like, no, the world's getting better and better. And I have every chance, every day I wake up to contribute to that happening in my own case and by my own beliefs by just spreading the message of the love of Jesus Christ and how to attempt every day by the grace of God to attain that same mentality that Jesus lived with and demonstrated. And so essentially that means that my purpose in life is to basically love God, love other people, and share the good news far and wide until I die.

Yeah, when I was a kid I'd see like WWJD and I kind of laughed about it because I didn't have a.

Real understanding of the Christ, you know, like, what would Jesus do? And I would ask that myself, things like that. But in, you know, in my growth and understanding spiritually, it's truly, it's the embodiment, right? It's this embodiment piece and how do I embody the divine, right. And that, that is something that, that I ask myself often, you know, how do I actually embody that? And another, another great quote that gets tossed around is what would love do now? Yeah, that's, that's really just a powerful, you know, regardless of faith or religion, whatever, regardless of background, what would love do?

Right.

And that's, that's been a really good guidepost for me. I've rabbit holed so much stuff that's, that's, you know, it could be flat out conspiracy super dark to, you know, kind of run of the mill. Hey, we don't know what's going to happen down here to mainstream stuff that just really doesn't seem like, like we're heading there.

Yeah.

And it's, you know, it's been confusing to say the least. And I certainly have my takes on stuff. One of the things that's helped me is, is if I, if I can set the table to where I cover these bases for my kids from a food standpoint, from, from a security standpoint, then I can go back into the delivery of Love the delivery of seeking and finding and harmonizing what I can in the world. And I think that's been a big piece for me. That prior to kind of having those ducks in a row, having a little extra in the pantry, things like that, that just always something running like a background app.

And I think that the best place that you can put your energy, like I was alluding to earlier, is your family, your children, equipping your children, loving your children, caring for your wife and thinking in a very legacy and generational manner. And then you've still got some energy left over to love the rest of the world. But I think I made the mistake of thinking it was going to be sexy and big and impactful to build my platform in a manner that allowed me to, to shepherd a whole bunch of people and to love the entire world and get my message out there when I should have been, especially early on, putting more of that energy into reading the book of virtues to my sons at night and starting our family meditation even earlier on in their lives and prioritizing the spiritual intertwining between my wife and I even more. And now that I've built a that all up and the family foundation is there, I feel as though I've got momentum. I feel as though I've got like this endless gas tank and power boosters attached to me to be able to go out and slay the dragons, to do my job. It's like you, you build the castle, you set everything up at home, you make that just perfect, you know, honest and transparent relationships and a home full of love and the legacy based activities I was talking about earlier. And then at that point, you know, once you've set all that up, then you go out and you start slaying dragons. I think a lot of guys especially do it in reverse order. They're like, I'll make the money, make my platform and build the world and touch the world and then I'll come back and make sure that the family's okay. It's actually the opposite. I think if everybody did that, then we'd see a lot more stability. Just societally.

Yeah. A lot of people that are big in the finance game think of their legacy as how much money they leave their kids. Trust.

Yeah.

Not, not in how they raise their kids, how much time they spent with their kids and, and what that gift is. You know, as you're going through this, it reminds me of our friend Anahata out in Sedona.

I just saw her. We, well, we went to the Grand Canyon but we also went to Sedona.

Awesome.

We had a. We had a barbecue party at Anahata. She's so great.

Anahata stuff.

Yeah.

You know, she talks a lot about the. The archetype of Archangel Michael. You know, often depicted with the left hand, the chalice raised in the right hand with the sword, you know, and the sword is down and the chalice is raised. But that is to connect to the divine, to fill that cup first, and then from there, you can wield the sword of truth and discernment. And, you know, whether it's slaying the dragon or any of those things, the activities built in the home are the thing that fills you. That's the thing that fills me. That's what makes life worth it. And then as my cup spilling over, that's the deliverable. I'm taking to people that you're taking to people. And I think that's. That is really the order of operations. Fill your cup first with love, with family, with purpose, and then bring that out.

Yeah. And there's a little bit of.

I think that a lot of folks should be aware of this, a lot of parents that hear this and that resonate with the concept of legacy.

There's a temptation.

Because I've had this temptation to think, well, I didn't do it quite right. My time is over, but at least I got these kids, and I can basically help them to become the person that I wanted to be. I think that you risk that cop out when you start to place a lot of energy into building your family. I think that you still have to acknowledge back to this idea of crystallized intelligence, that you yourself are still a great mentor, you're still a great teacher. I mean, freaking 40 years old. It's going to be the best, most exciting 40 years of your life. Like, I want to write at least 20 books by the time I'm 80. I want to continue to contribute. I want to continue to be impactful and not basically give myself that excuse that, well, I brought these children into the world and I've learned a lot of mistakes. And so. So I really don't need to go out there and put my neck on the line and work hard. I'm just gonna put all my energy into the family. I'm not saying that, like, I think that you can build a family. And again, like I said, that is the rocket fuel that then allows you to be your most impactful self. Because, I mean, really, like, I'm increasingly convinced that life kind of like, begins when you're 40 as far as impact is concerned. Like I just feel like it's takes that long at least to build the wisdom and the body of knowledge and to make all the stupid mistakes and then finally be able to come out to the world with more than just the Maslow's hierarchies type of stuff, you know, because, you know, as I started a supplements company, got the bars and the coffee and wrote books about biohacking and fitness and all that. Super helpful to people, but not as helpful as the stuff that I want to do in between now and 80.

Excellent work on the Kion essential aminos by the way. They're the best tasting in the game.

Have you tried the new mango and the watermelon flavors?

I've not tried that.

Oh my.

I rock the berry multiple times a day.

Dude, they're just like, they're freaking Swiss army now. I mean because like everything from like post workout fasting, pre sleep, post plant medicine, I mean it's one of the best things for rebuilding your HTP levels. I mean like it, it's crazy. I literally feel guilty about how many scoops of that stuff I go through.

I'm playing through it. It's really good.

Yeah, I basically I live when I travel on like Kean aminos and keto bricks.

Oh yeah. I couldn't, I couldn't, I didn't, I couldn't dig the keto bricks. But I don't want to dive too.

Far into that chocolate peanut butter flavor. Damn salty.

I wasn't picking up, you know, trophy kids from, from the talk of legacy. You know, for people who haven't seen trophy kids, it's an excellent documentary that Mark and Chris Bell did, which is a sad fact of modern society.

People.

You know, it's to put it in the way that you did where like hey, maybe you tried and you didn't quite get there and then you saw Tiger woods. Dad did it a certain way. So you're going to invest everything into that.

That'S driving your kids in the direction you want them to go as opposed to giving them the tools and connecting with them. And I'm obviously experience that at your home. But everything that you're talking about with that legacy is a completely different scenario than saying you're going to be the best at X, Y and Z because that's what I want you to do. You know, it's let's get together and let's understand these things that really are going to be the guideposts for you in life when things get rough. And the things that you can lean on. I don't care if my, I prefer if my son never fought professionally or my daughter. But they're both in martial arts because that strengthens them from the inside out.

It's such a good point because.

This is something I've thought about a lot. Like we prioritize family dinners and like that, morning and evening meditation and some kind of like weird woo stuff that we do as a family. Or at least it might be considered to be outside the box and unordinary. And an inevitable consequence of that is that my sons aren't doing as many team sports as some of their friends. They're not at basketball practice at night, they're at home playing freaking, you know, uno at the dinner table with dad and mom.

Yeah, they've been playing tennis since they were two. They've been rolling since they were four, like. And you know, they have certain activities that they do, but I can almost guarantee you that they're not going to be the star quarterback. They're probably not going to be professional athletes. We've placed our energy elsewhere and kind of swam upstream against the great American dream of your child being the standout athlete getting the college scholarship. I would much rather my kids be like toga and sandal wearing prophets just walking across the land spreading a message of hope and love and peace and joy than throwing a leather sphere around a gridiron. And I don't necessarily think that that's for everybody, but that's the path that I've chosen to not push my children into. But I've at least I've set up the scenario for them to prioritize love and relationships and spreading a good message of God's love around the world than being engaged in what might be considered to be more carnal and fleshly pursuits. I think that you can be, you can be in a certain sense, like almost the way I describe myself, like a Christian hedonist who enjoys all aspects of God's creation, who loves sports, who loves playing tennis in the backyard and soaking up the sunshine and making an amazing meal and enjoying it with the family and mind blowing sex and climbing big mountains and hunting with the bow and all these things that are of this world. At the same time. I think that you can, you can almost look at something like a Renaissance man or woman or a pro athlete and think that that's the bee's knees, like, like that's the ultimate goal when it's really not. And that can reflect itself in the way that you raise your Children, meaning that, yeah, they. They are going to be a little bit weird if you've decided that, you know, that that impact on the planet for the sake of love is going to be greater than, like, the. The professional scholarship for sports or something like that. It's. It's always been something I've thought about, like, gosh, my kids gonna ask me, like, when they're 18, like, dad, how come. How come you didn't put some basketball like, every fall? Because, you know, like, that's what our friends all play. Or, you know, like, dad, I don't. Like, I'm not very good at soccer. Why didn't I. And I play that growing up? So I sometimes wonder. It's still an angst for me. At the back of my mind, it's like, oh, did I spend too much time with us journaling and meditating and hiking together and being a family and not enough time just throwing them out into the AAU or whatever?

Well, one of my favorite parenting books is a book by Gabor Mate and his son. And I think another.

I don't know if he's a therapist or a PhD, but. But.

In hold on to your kids, they talk about that, the family bond as the proper attachment strategy to have. And when it's not there, that's when kids seek it out in gangs or in coaches or in other father figures or the more the merrier in terms of positive male role models. But the true bond, if it's in the home, it maps out way better in every aspect of life than if that bond is lost at the home and it's made elsewhere. And that is what leads to addiction and a whole host of other things. Right. Gabber is famous for saying that at the root of all addiction is trauma. One of the main pieces of trauma is, did we have a healthy attachment in our upbringing? Right. Was that healthy? And I think the delivery of that is one of the most critical pieces in parenting, however it gets delivered.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he also says that the trauma is ultimately a disconnection from your true self. And I went through that, especially being homeschooled, and wanted to prove to the world that I was normal and I was cool. I spent a lot of time doing bodybuilding and Ironman triathlons and Spartan races. All these things to prove to the world that I was cool, that I was tough, that I was resilient, that I was a man. Some of that was not going through rite of passage. Some of it was wanting to prove to the world that I was somebody Who I really to wanted wasn't at my core. And it's interesting.

How easy it is to fall into that trap, how easy it is to be the person who you think the world expects you to be rather than your true authentic self. But I think you're familiar with the article by the palliative care practitioner Bonnie Ware. The five regress of the dying spent more time with old friends. I wish I'd worked less, I wish I'd showed my true emotions more. I think the fourth is I wish I'd chosen to be happy. And then the last one is I wish I'd been my true authentic self rather than who the world expects me to be. You know, and when you, it's so simple. Like when you hear what people say on their deathbed, it's like, well it's right there, it's right in your face, like this is how to live. Like choose to be happy, show your true emotions, stay in touch with your old friends, play more and work less or at least have more of a light hearted approach to work and be your true authentic self.

Do you, I mean that is, that is like solid gold. Do you have any regrets about the path you chose to go there? Because.

To me those experiences that I've had from football was such. I was so attached to that, that as an identity stand, from an identity standpoint that when it ended after asu, I mean that was. I took a massive hit and thankfully I was able to find fighting to continue that chase and dream and outlet. And fighting led me to my boxing coach who got me into plant medicines and Native American sweat lodges and really a lot of the old indigenous teachings that started to change the way that I operated and felt in the world in many ways connected, connected me to my true self. Surely along the road you've had different avenues that maybe were not in the right direction overall but were the thing that led you to who you are right now.

Look, God draws straight with crooked lines, right? You never know the path. I have a mantra, me and my wife together. Mantras, no regrets, only great friends. Anything that happens we're grateful for. Yeah. If we sin literally, meaning missing the mark, then that's something to be sorrowful about, to maybe repent about, to change path about. But when it comes to the big picture, the forest for the trees, the actual path that's gotten me to where I AM now, the 20 years of fitness and biohacking and now I've got this enormous platform of people who listen to me. Well, I mean it's the perfect place to be, because I have all these lessons that I've learned. And when I'm at the gym or at some biohacking conference, I'm about to go over to London to do this biohacking. So it's like, people are searching. People are searching. And I think that I'm probably more equipped, based on my history, to help those people who are searching than, say, like, the person who's just had this pristine, comfortable, perfect existence, fully connected to God their entire life. Like, I envy that person. That's wonderful. It's wonderful if you don't have to make all the mistakes and mess up. But I think that sometimes making all the mistakes and messing up, I mean, gosh, look at the Apostle Paul in the Bible who was responsible for essentially spreading the message of Jesus's love and hope and peace and this message of salvation to, you know, to the Mediterranean and beyond. I mean, with his message even penetrating to the Orient and in Africa and up into Europe. And the dude was a freaking, like, terrorist. Like, he was literally just going around killing Christians, like, stoning them, just, like, bury them in the ground, throwing rocks at their heads. And that was his life. Was he, like, I'm a Christian killer. That's what I do? And, I mean, look what happened to him. He was transformed. He got struck by light, had this experience on the road to Damascus, and all of a sudden became one of the people who blessed this planet more than anybody else who's ever existed. And so, yeah, I mean, sometimes God puts you through some pretty shitty stuff to equip you to be able to be that person who can really help people in a big way. So, no. No regrets.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, where can people find you? You got your podcast, you got your website. That's always, like, one of my most useful places to search. Questions answered.

I know, it's funny. As I've been writing for so long, it's like I think I've tackled every topic under the sun on there. But that's just that I've recently rebranded a BenGreenfieldLife.com instead of BenGreenfieldFitness.com just to allow me to not be painted in the fitness corner. So, yeah, it's benreafieldlife.com and.

Why don't you share your URL as well, just so that.

Well, I'll send people to fit4service.com.

Yeah, I still got to make it down to one of those events, by the way.

You'll love it, brother.

Yeah, because I, like, I've seen little bits here and there, but I've never actually been down.

So yeah, some of the breath work practitioners that we've been using in the past few has been this couple from New Zealand, Lucas and Hela. And they will blow your mind. Like.

They'Re absolutely incredible.

I'm in. I would totally come and do something like that.

Beautiful brother. Yeah, it's been awesome getting to reconnect with you.

You too, Kyle. Amen. Okay, so you've probably heard about peptides. There's like 7,000 different kinds of peptides, which are these short strings of amino acids. And scientists, dentists, naturopaths and doctors have been using peptides now to treat a whole bunch of different complex chronic illnesses, protect against cognitive decline. I've used them for muscle gain, for fat loss, for healing up injuries faster, for gut issues. They're even really good for anti aging and longevity. Many people even use different kinds of intranasal peptides for, for like a, like a smart drug. They use injectable peptides to get lean super fast. There are so many uses for peptides and the fact is it can be kind of confusing what to use, how to use it, etc. So my friend, six time former podcast guest, Dr. Matthew Cook, who is brilliant, one of the world's leading experts in peptides, has put together a peptide summit with me and several dozen other leading experts in the field of peptide therapy and regenerative medicine to basically teach you, you how to biohack your body using peptides. It's gonna be a pretty cool summit. The first seven days are all virtual. You have full access to all the different interviews they're gonna give, a bunch of free bonuses, whole bunch of cool stuff. And anyways, if you've always been curious about peptides, you will turn yourself into a total peptide ninja going through this course. Go to BenGreenfieldLife.com peptidesummit BenGreenfieldLife.com P E P T I D E E Summit S U M M I T Check it out. It is coming up pretty soon. May 17th through May 24th. Hey, just a few days left to get ready to meet me over in London at the Health Optimization Summit, one of the world's biggest, grandest biohacking events. And if you're interested in staying fit or healthy or just defying aging, learning a ton. This thing is amazing. Not only can you get a VIP ticket where you get to join me and the rest of the speaker for this exclusive super fun dinner, but in addition to that, there's 35 different game changing health speakers, a huge expo floor where you get to try out things like, you know, biocharger, the HAP B, the power plate, the Aqua True, the X3 bar. Everything's there. You go to summit.healthoptimization.com they're weird over there in Britain so they use the s summit.health optimization.com use code BEN that gets you 20% off our regular ticket or VIP Ticket Summit. Comment.healthoptimization.com and use code Ben.

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.