QA 463: The Ben & Jessa Greenfield AMA: Top Relationship & Marriage Tips, How Jessa Deals With Ben’s Crazy Biohacks, Dealing With An Imperfect Day & Much More!

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

Podcast, one of our Greenfield family values is unconditional love and radical transparency. And for me, like, those are two keys for conflict resolution, meaning you must feel as though you are in a safe place, and there is this written or unwritten rule that you can be radically transparent and not judged harshly for that. And B, everything gets covered in unconditional love, meaning there is no sin or shortcoming or argument too great that you cannot simply, at the end of it, say, you know what? Let's put this behind us. I love you. This isn't even worth fighting over. I'm sorry for anything I did. And then usually the other person winds up saying, I'm sorry for anything I did. And it seems like almost every conflict we have winds up with some semblance of us not 100% sure, like who is right, who is wrong, or. Or not really caring so much about counting that as much as saying, hey, our relationship, our children, us, what God has called us to, it's all way more important than this silly thing that we happen to be fighting over. I love you. Let's forget about this and move on. Fitness, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization, spirituality.

And a whole lot more.

Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life Show. Are you ready to hack your life well? So let's do this.

Well, folks, this should be an interesting episode. Say hello, Jessa.

Hey, everybody.

Hello, Jessa.

So, you know, I occasionally just to set a scene here for you who are listening in no video for today's podcast, because my wife and I are actually on a walk.

I look like crap.

Yeah, we're on a walk right now, and she looks like crap. Apparently.

We have increasingly been getting some requests from people who want to hear a little bit about Jessa. Jessa, Jessa, Jessa. It's all about Jessa. People just won't shut up about Jessa. That is weird to me. But actually, Jessa and I are. We're actually down at a retreat that we've been helping teach at in Napa Valley called Couples Collective, where a bunch of couples come together and we taught a workshop on legacy and education and our spiritual practices. You know, how to have a healthy body, healthy mind, healthy spirit, healthy marriage, healthy family. By the way, we're walking right in.

The middle of the road.

Should we move over? We'll move over just so you guys don't have to hear our horrific screams as we're struck by a golf cart here in Napa Valley.

It is possible here, too.

It is highly possible. It's basically a glorified retirement community.

I think we're in.

Yes.

So anyways, we're here at this retreat, and it's a Sunday afternoon. We thought, well, gosh, we should just go ahead and answer some of these questions that have come in from Twitter and Instagram, and I guess it's X, not Twitter now.

We've never was on it, never been on it.

People have not tweeted us questions, but they've X'd us questions and Facebook.

And the like. So, anyways, we figured we'd just hop on the horn and reply to some of your burning questions for Jessa and I as a couple. As a couple. Although some questions are distinctly oriented towards you, Jessa. I know. So here we go. I figured we'd kick things off with a little bit of, I don't know, I suppose, humor and a common thread that seemed to pop up in some of the questions. So you ready for this, babe?

I'm ready.

Okay, so we got questions about. Drumroll, please. Hold on. Let me make sure I look at myself and that I look okay for answering this question. Asking you this question. Okay. Narcissism. Narcissism. EAA Insights asked Jessa, what's the most narcissistic thing Ben has done? And Jeffrey asks, what makes you two any more knowledgeable than the average couple? And specifically, how does your wife handle all the narcissism? Oh, my gosh, Jessa, do you know what narcissism is?

I do. I know what narcissism is, and I hate this question. Isn't it, like, I actually woke up hating this?

How would you define narcissism?

Somebody who largely cannot see themselves ever being wrong in so doing, Turning things on others to twist things to make things go their way.

We have totally different definitions of narcissism.

What do you think a narcissism is?

I've always thought narcissism was.

An excessive interest in or admiration of one's physical appearance. Oh, like obsession with one's.

I think it can be both. I think that can be. Definitely play into it.

Guy Narcissus who stood and stared at himself in the pool at his own reflection.

I don't think that was him.

And eventually fell in and died.

I know which one. It's a Greek tragedy.

I know what you're talking about. I've bastardized some Greek tragedy. But anyways. And you defined it as what?

Again, it's someone who sees themselves as correct or right and has, like, this incapability of seeing themselves as wrong. Therefore, they end up twisting a lot of things that people say on them to make them be right all the time.

Oh, my definition of narcissism is definitely more correct than yours.

Well, now I want to know what it really is.

All right, so.

You know, I'd love to hear your take on this. Admittedly, I do know I am a fitness influencer. I take my shirt off on the Instagrams and flex. I have been a bodybuilder. I definitely spent a lot of time in spandex as an Ironman triathlete. I wake up some days and look at my week and know that I have some kind of a photo shoot where I got to have my shirt off. And so I will work out or like, pay attention to how I eat. But I don't know if that makes me a narcissist. So how do you deal with all my narcissism?

I don't. I don't think you're a narcissist. I don't. I think, you know, that you're attractive, that you're a good looking person.

Oh, thanks. Yeah.

And I mean, I don't think I'm ugly either. So does that make me a narcissist? I don't know. I don't think you're a narcissist. I think you've struggled with tendencies of that in the past and by the grace of God, you no longer struggle with that as intensely as you used to.

But I don't sit here and dwell upon the things that I think you've done that are narcissistic. Because I don't believe in dwelling in the past. I believe looking to the future and looking in hope.

Well, that's really good to hear. Do you want to hear my take on this?

Yes, I do.

Because it's for years and years now I will get comments like, hey, enough already with the shirtless photos and the duck lip selfies and, you know, the staring pensively off into space with the blue steel. And you're going to laugh at this, possibly whether you're listening or whether you're my wife, but go and talk to my mom. From the time I was a boy, from the time I was a baby, my parents couldn't even keep a diaper on me. I have rarely been clothed. I have some kind of rare Flintstone gene, I suppose, but they used to clothespin with like a dozen clothes, pin my diaper, my onesie, everything on me. They'd come into the room two hours later and I would be buck naked just laying there in my crib. As a boy, I just ran all over the neighborhood and nothing but my shorty shorts. Just never really cared for just like a lot of breeze, the concept of clothing. I still hate shopping for clothes. And really, you know, if I wasn't married to you, Jess, I'd probably be even more naked most of the time. And furthermore, if you look at every single picture of me from the time I was a tiny baby up until now, most of them are indeed some version of Duck Lips or Blue Steel. And unfortunately there's a lot of flexing.

In some of your older pictures.

There is a lot of flexing. But again, I was a bodybuilder and I do fall into the category of someone who is kind of sort of paid to flex on social media sometimes. And so I think, like, to me I seem to have this built in genetic dislike for wearing clothing in general. Some facial configuration that just automatically goes Duck Lips or Blue Steel when someone take a picture of me. And finally, yeah, I'm in fitness, so I flex sometimes to display a workout or an exercise or you know, or some biohacking muscle gaining supplement.

Insert something here. I'm just going to. I'm not gonna.

No, I'm right, you're right. We've already established whatever I say is right.

Like I am a background person and it's probably largely why many people have not heard a lot of podcasts from me and don't hear a lot from me. And so anybody who like has to be in front of the camera like you're such as yourself. It makes me a little uncomfortable, like. Cause I personally just don't understand it. Like I can't wrap my head around doing that or needing to do that because I am largely afraid of it to some extent. So which is. That could be other people too.

Yeah, it's kind of interesting because for me, I've always loved theater. Being on stage, doing goofy little videos with me and my brothers, producing things that people would watch or listen to. Creating art not for the sake of art itself, but so, so that I could hang it at the fair or in an art competition. I've kind of always really liked public facing displays of skill or Persona or entertainment or education or the like. Again, like, I like the stage, but I don't think that makes me a narcissist. Gosh darn it, I'm right about that.

And I prefer not to be seen most of the time.

Yes. And look, we both do clay masks, we both do eye Moisturizer to get rid of bags under the eyes. We both work out. We both take care of our skin. I don't know about you, but sometimes I even pay attention to the clothing I'm wearing when we're on vacation or in a hot locale.

I think I actually pay attention to that more than you do.

Asymmetrical tan line.

I don't care about that, but I.

Don'T think it's narcissistic. So anything else you want to say when people say, what's the most narcissistic thing Ben has ever done? Or, how do you deal with all my narcissism?

I, like I said, it's not something that I sit and dwell on a lot. So I honestly don't even have an example. I'm sure everyone's, like, shocked by that. Maybe. I don't know. I just don't think about it.

Well, it used to rub you the wrong way. When I would do cheeky shots on.

Instagram, I was just like, well, basically, I was of the opinion. I had to deal with all my girlfriends being like, yeah, I had to breeze through the Instagram because Ben's backside was, you know, And I'm like, okay, not everybody wants to see your bare body.

You know, when I got into that, when I would do, like, butt shots and talk about a butt workout, because I used to be. I used to hang out a lot with one of my good buddies who's a real personality on Instagram named Hunter McIntyre, and he used to do butt shots. And then I kind of got into, like, oh, you know what? He's getting a lot of traction on his butt shots. I should do a few butt shots.

Yeah, but it's not for everyone, and not everybody wants to see it.

Yeah, well, you asked for it, so there you go. All right, so narcissism. Pipe in on the show notes if you want to, which are going to be@BenGreenfieldLife.com Bengesa2023 that's BenGreenfieldLife.com Bengessa2023 but, yeah, I'm going to deny the narcissism. All right, so shall we get into some more serious topics here? All right. How do you overcome major differences with each other and still stay connected? And by the way, just in case it's the first time anyone has tuned in, Jess and I have known each other for 39 years, have been married for almost 21 years, and I would say we feel like we're pretty emotionally, spiritually, and physically Connected, intertwined, and, you know, a strong married couple, I suppose. Knock on wood.

Yep.

By God's grace.

By God's grace, exactly.

So how do we deal with conflict, basically, is the question, how do we overcome major differences or conflict?

Well, it's really funny because we just. I. We had something come up a couple of weeks ago, and it was probably the most explosive I've probably ever been in my life.

Was it that argument when I was right?

No, I think you actually ended up saying, you're right to me.

Or you.

Are able to see. So in your words, how do we deal with it? How do we deal with conflict?

Okay, well, I have my own personal style, and you have your personal style. I grew up in a household where I never saw my parents argue. We knew they argue. We just never saw it.

Yeah.

So I never had it behind closed doors. Yeah. I never had it displayed to me in a positive way. I never had it displayed to me in a negative way. I just knew that things got resolved, and I have no idea how they got resolved, you know?

So for me, largely, and I would say most of my siblings as well, are avoiders.

Avoiders, yes. Do you mean like the attachment versus avoidant personality style where. Because I feel like I was raised needing verification and approval, so maybe I'm a narcissist.

No.

But for me, it's like I'm the part of our relationship, the spouse who's always asking, hey, are you okay? Is everything okay? And that makes me mad at you. Are you all right? You're like, what's wrong with me? As you're asking me what's wrong with me.

Exactly. Which is making me mad now.

Anyways, back to the attachment style.

But no, it's not an attachment style. It's an arguing. I feel like it's a way of arguing or not arguing. And it's conflict makes me so uncomfortable that I would rather never have to deal with it. And so when we do get into a disagreement or an argument, or whatever you want to call it, a lot of times I will just go pretty silent. And I think you've experienced this where. And because I'm also very fearful of my words. I'm fearful of hurting somebody or. Or saying something wrong or having to. Or saying something that I might have to apologize for later. So I'm. I get pretty quiet, and then.

Which drives me nuts, by the way, because all I want is for the conflict to be resolved. I mean, I know there's, like, that Bible verse that says, never let the sun go down on your anger. I don't think that's meant to be taken literally. I think what it actually means is just, like, don't be angry for a long period of time without trying to set things right yet. I don't like going to bed or even just, like, going through a day feeling like there's something between us, right?

And then there's me, who needs. I'm also a processor. I'm like, I need to understand what my feelings are, because in the heat of the moment, I don't think I have a real understanding of what we're arguing about or if I'm actually right or any of those things. And so. Or even if it matters if I'm right, or maybe we just need to come together, you know, Actually, I think that's generally it most of the time. I always tell my boys, it's not about being right. It's about making things right.

That's a really powerful statement. It's not about being right. It's about making things right. And I think that when you step back and look at what we call our Greenfield family Constitution, meaning we have one living document that has our Greenfield family Thanksgiving and Christmas traditions. You know, what we do in the morning for our morning family huddle and family devotional to our family dinnertime habits and dinnertime routines, to the pieces of the Bible that we memorize, to the times that our sons have their rite of passage into adolescence, rite of passage into adulthood, to how the family crest works, to the family bank and the contact details for everyone who runs the family wealth management, to how we put together our family trust. It's all in there. But part of the mission statement is basically that we. One of our Greenfield family values is unconditional love and radical transparency. And for me, like, those are two keys for conflict resolution. Meaning you must feel as though you are in a safe place, and there is this written or unwritten rule that you can be radically transparent and not judged harshly for that. And B, everything gets covered in unconditional love, meaning there is no sin or shortcoming or argument too great that you cannot simply at the end of it, say, you know what? Let's put this behind us. I love you. This isn't even worth fighting over. I'm sorry for anything I did. And then usually the other person winds up saying, I'm sorry for anything I did. And it's basically this idea of covering.

It's like, put your swords down.

Yeah, it's First Corinthians 13 in the Bible says love covers all love. Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And it really, for me, comes down to. With your spouse having, again, a written or unwritten rule of radical honesty and radical transparency, no matter what. A no judgment zone where you can say anything that's on your mind and know it's not going to be lorded over you or held over you. Paired with the idea that at the end of the day, if you really love someone and you cover everything with just a phrase like I love you or I love you too much for this to come between us, let's put it behind us. This isn't worth it. It seems like almost every conflict we have winds up with some semblance of us not 100% sure, like who is right, who is wrong, or not really caring so much about counting that as much as saying, hey, our relationship, our children, us, what God has called us to, it's all way more important than this silly thing that we happen to be fighting over. I love you. Let's forget about this and move on.

Yeah. And then one more thing that I feel like I think is come up, especially like recently, is if you're gonna ask a question like, how are you? Or are you okay? You have to be willing to receive an answer that you may not like, that might. Yes, yes. And I just.

Sometimes I think I'm not okay because you left your underwear on the floor for the 20th time.

You have to be okay with. Yeah. I mean, if you're gonna ask the question, just be prepared.

Yeah, yeah. And understanding.

Not an unleashing, but just being like, okay, please accept what I just said and don't turn it on me. Or, you know. Yeah, yeah.

This came up actually in one of the sessions this week was. Some people are raised, like I was talking about earlier, in a situation which they must earn love or at least feel as though they must earn love from their parents by constantly seeking approval. And that's an attachment style personality in which someone's constantly wanting to ask, hey, do I look okay? Are you okay? How do you feel? What's wrong with you? Etc. Whereas the avoidant personality is like, hey, I'm independent, I'm on my own. Leave me alone, I've got this figured out. Please quit asking me if I'm okay. And because there's a yin and yang, opposites attract type of magnetic arrangement of the universe, in many, many cases, an avoidant spouse is married to an attachment spouse. And unless you're aware of that and you're able to identify, hey, I'm asking this person if they're okay because frankly, I'm seeking approval for something or I'm not listening to my spouse say, am I okay? Or understanding their concern and their need to be more of a people pleaser than I am. And I'm just avoiding them. And that's rubbing them the wrong way. But if you're aware of that, I think that's really the key step because then you can identify it and nip it in the bud.

It is. And it's. I mean, we've had bad communication styles and bad argument styles and all of that. And I'm like, I feel like.

This. It's interesting because the more you're aware of it, but the more that you exercise it too, the better that you get out. And I'm saying being arguing all the time. But I'm just saying don't be afraid of the moments when they do come up.

Yeah.

Because it is an opportunity to exercise your muscle. Just. Yeah, it's an opportunity. So I've actually been grateful, especially the last year of just being able to. To have a discussion, an argument, a heated discussion without.

Getting too hung up on my opinion and being able to be flexible with you and come to a nice solution.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I wouldn't be able to do that if I didn't know how to. If I hadn't. If I don't exercise it.

And kind of related to this, Brisk asks, what emotional regulation techniques do you employ in the moment to avoid escalation of conflict? I think that one really resonates with me because I'm not an angry guy. At least I'm pretty sure I'm right about that. I don't tend to be a guy. I get. He did well, I'm getting there. I am not the kind of guy who's like punching walls, like steam coming out the ears. Like that cartoon where you see the face get red and the sound of the tea kettle and the steam is pouring out of the lobes. However, and I think stereotyping a bit here, men tend to, just based on testosterone alone, err towards anger and heated, passionate emotions that one would identify as anger during a conflict. I think sometimes women tend to be very good at verbal abuse, bitterness, biting comments and sarcasm. Men tend to be more based on strength, anger and rage. Right. And those are just the way that painting with a broad brush. A lot of men and women are wired up ever so occasionally. And Jesse, you know this. Like, you'll see my pupils dilate and I'll start, you can See this? The tea kettle noises start to start to come out. Let's go this way. And.

I will actually, actually hold on. Let's go this way. Sorry, you guys. We're navigating as we're talking. We don't really know where we're at right now. We're in some random neighborhood in Napa. So anyways.

I have found myself in the past doing everything from cathartic rushing out into the gym and like, hopping on the air dyne and hammering away on the bike to somehow channel that rage to punching something to slamming a door, not punching you, but just like punching something, slamming a door, to burying my face in a pillow and screaming. And trust me, none of that seems to work for me as well as what I have found to be the ultimate solution. I go outside, I open the door, I start walking, and I pour my heart out to God and I pray and I say, you know, God, I don't understand why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling. I don't understand why she can't freaking be right and understand what I'm saying. God, like, I just need your help. I don't know what to do. I don't know what I'm going to say when I go back and talk to her. But for me, I have settled finally, after more than 40 years of life, the strategy of praying while walking, praying while moving, because when you're angry, it does help to move. Praying while moving, for me is the number one key for emotional management during conflict resolution. Yes, that means walking away from an argument that you may want to finish. But I think it's better to walk away from an argument, Walk, pray, get cooled down, get guidance from, you know, higher power God, and then come back and engage. That's how I do it.

I would say I'm pretty similar.

And I'm just gonna put this in here because, like, people who do get explosive and yell or what, or, you know, just lose it, you lose credibility when that happens. And, I mean, you just look like a loose cannon. And that's been my perception when that has happened in the past with you is I'm like, wow, he's losing it. And I really don't have any respect for you in that moment. And so, yeah, getting angry just really doesn't do a lot for your case.

I will normally, like I said, I go quiet. And it is on purpose because there's a lot I want to say. And I will go quiet because like I said earlier, I don't want to have to go back and apologize for words.

And I don't want to perpetuate the argument because I feel like when you just unleash your tongue and just say whatever's in there, it's not really generally in a spirit of helping the problem or solving the problem. It is more, I just want to hurt you. I want to make you pain. I want you. Make you feel pain. Because you made me feel pain.

Yeah.

And it just perpetuates an argument and nothing is resolved. Or you have. You all say a lot of really hurtful things, resolve it eventually, and then you have a whole lot of repairing to do afterwards. So I will get pretty quiet.

I've said this in some of our arguments. I'm like, I don't agree. And I was like, but I need time to think about this. And I will go. And like you, I will go, like sometimes on a hike or I'll just start doing mundane housework. So I can just think.

You always say that. I'm like, if she's cleaning the house, she must be angry.

Leave her alone. She's cleaning. Just let her do her thing. And do not get in the way of that freight train.

Yeah. Because I really do. It takes me some time to even understand my own emotions in the heat of the moment. And also I'm like, most of the time, we're both wrong to some degree, and most of the time, we're right to some degree. And so it's like finding the ownership of where I am maybe in error and being able to own up to that and then being like, to you, here's where I feel like maybe I'm.

Right.

But I'm like, generally, most of the time you're both in error.

I realize there's an elephant in the room here. You might be listening, and you might not have a prayer life. You might not have a religious or a spiritual practice. You might not have a relationship to God. But yet we'd be remiss not to just share the way that we do things because we are Christians. And I think that actually helps quite a bit when it comes to the intrinsic religiosity that some type of spiritual practice can provide that allows you to have that convenience of knowing you can speak to a higher power, knowing there's a greater purpose for your life, knowing when you're down or you're afraid or you can't sleep at night, you can pray or you can read an uplifting section of scripture that's been inspired by the breath and the mind of God. And so there certainly Is that. And I will acknowledge that. I know not everyone has that, but, man, it's a game changer. And so the next question was.

A spiritual one again. How have you guys built your spiritual lives together? And what practices have been the most helpful? Well, I'll address that right there. But the first thing that I should say is that whenever Jess and I have conflict or an argument or we are in the process of resolution, it always culminates in both of us holding hands and holding each other and praying together. That's usually at the end. That's usually after we've gotten to the point of, oh, hey, this is too much of.

Too much of a silly issue for us to be allowing it to come between us and destroy everything that we hold dear and everything that we've built.

Be out of communion with each other and be out of communion with God.

And the bitterness and the anger and the heartache that this is going to produce. And then we come before God and we both. We'll apologize to each other. We'll say, I'm sorry to God. We'll ask for God's forgiveness and love to cover the situation. And the reason I said this ties beautifully into the next question is, even though Jess and I have one on one retreats that we'll go on where we'll do planning and vision, planning and life planning, regularly scheduled, one on one dates that must be calendared, and family meetings like a morning family huddle, morning family devotions, evening family song, family prayers, family dinners. We pray every single night. The last thing that we do when our heads hit the pillow. And the reason that I think that that's probably the most powerful thing that we do for our relationship. And especially as Kelise asked, John Calese asked, how have you built your spiritual lives together and what practices have been most helpful? That's the top of the totem pole. Again, back to what I think you said, Jessa. It's really hard to pray together when something's still between you. And it's really hard to, like, come before God at the end of the day and not have set everything right between you and your spouse.

So to me, there's a scripture to that. It says, how can you hate your brother whom you've seen and love God who you have not seen? It's like, so how can you hate somebody standing in front of you.

Yeah.

And talk to a God who you say you love?

Yeah. The Bible is so sexist. The Bible is so sexist. It says brother, but it means brother and sister. Yeah.

Brother means sister.

Written in different cultural times. Usually if you said man and men and women and brother meant brother and sister. But the idea is that if you adopt this habit of systematically praying every single night, it's just magical. The fruits that pour forth into your life and how good it feels to find fall asleep being able to bring your cares and your worries aloud verbally to God, allowing your spouse to hear that. Praying to God about the visions that you each have for each other's lives. Praying to God about your children and your hopes and dreams and wishes for them. Praying to God about a move or about a family member who has health issues or about yourself with health issues or whatever. A lot of times you'll find yourself like, at least this is the case for me. I'll be praying and at the same time realizing as I'm praying, oh, these are things that it's really good that Jess is aware of hearing me pour out my heart to God. Because it lets you hear what's on my heart.

Yeah, it gives me insight into what's going on between your ears and in your heart and all those things. So it's like, it's very revealing.

Right. And I think the key here is you're praying to a loving father who's got open arms for you. And it's like you're resting your head in God's lap and just saying, oh, God, here's. Here's what's on my mind after today. And it kind of is a little bit of a sneaky way to squeeze in some of what you'll find many philosophers and great thinkers and achievers do at the end of the day. And that's self examination because when you're praying, you're often examining yourself, your motives, your day. And it's almost like an end of day summary with an end of day summary with God, basically.

Well, and just to circle back to that question, like, how do you. How do we start our spiritual practice? That's just one part of our spiritual practice. But for me personally, I started my own practice first and.

Really saw the fruits of it and really wanted to bring that to my family. And I'm and Ben similarly. Like when I was praying a lot and just seeing the benefits of it.

You mean by yourself in the morning, by the way, just you're listening. So you know, Jess is like in the bedroom with earplugs in and her Bible and a devotional for like 40 to 60 minutes every morning, usually after we have our family devotion, sometimes before. And so she's had that practice for way longer than even we've had our praying as a couple together at the end of the day. Practice.

Yeah. But just seeing, like, the benefit of that and actually seeing the Lord work and move and answer prayers, and.

I. I just was like, how. What. What a tremendous gift. How could I not share this with my husband, with my children? And so then, you know, when Ben was. When you were struggling with, like, even praying or reading the Bible, I'd be like, you need to pray. You need to read the word of God. And I'm telling you, you're. It's going to be amazing. It's going to be amazing, and it's gonna bless you. And, you know, you started doing those practices, and. Am I right?

You are right. Thank you, babe. Like Jessa. Jessa really stuck with me through thick and thin. Even when I was a real stinker of a husband, she kept praying for me. She stayed committed to me. And eventually I learned what is now my big five priority. First is God and my spiritual habits. So that's first thing in the morning. Devotions, prayer, Bible reading. Second is my spouse making sure that everything is right with her and she's set for the day and that anything that's come between us is that there's nothing between us. Third is the children and the family bringing the family together for our morning family huddle and devotions, where we're reading, we're praying, we're talking about the day. Everything from, you know, who's making what for dinner to, you know, what time's jiu jitsu to, you know, where's everybody playing tennis to, you know, what's the book report that we're working on today? And then, of course, we have our evening routines as well, as a family. But then comes my health, my workout, taking care of my body. And then finally, fifth, after God, spouse, family, and health, comes business. And that priority has just been a huge.

I mean, you gotta put on. You gotta put on your life vest first. You've gotta make sure that you're spiritually sound before you start telling people how to be spiritually sound.

Yeah, I put on my life vest and my oxygen mask and my helmet and my breastplate. Any birds or anything else, Am I rollerblading shin pads?

Okay, so basically, long story short is it's praying at the end of each day. I think that's the greatest spiritual habit that we have that keeps us yoked spiritually, which is interesting because Jessa and I have different learning styles. Jess is more, I guess you can say Jessa, like how you would describe your learning style?

I'm a very experiential, hands on dyslexic. Basically, I'm dyslexic. So it's. Reading is very. It's really interesting because actually reading the Bible is not difficult for me. It's the only book I've ever found.

You're the third dyslexic person I've talked to who can't read any books except the Bible. And when they open the Bible, they can read it.

It just opens up and I don't.

It's crazy. It's like magic. Yeah, it's crazy.

So I am normally an audio learner or visual, and if I can actually touch and do, then it's very. It's solidified in my mind.

Yeah. So we don't go through a lot of books together. Jess and I don't. We've tried and usually it's a failure because I read like a book a day and Jess reads like a book a year. Maybe a little faster than that, but I'm slow. Yeah. So anyways, we find that for us it's more like prayer, talking dates. But we don't do a lot of, like, book studies and things like that together.

I haven't done some in the past.

But yes, we have the same devotion that we go through each morning as a family. Right now it's called New Morning Mercies. Fantastic little devotional. But we don't go through. We just have different learning styles and we've grown to accept that, which is fine. Which kind of, I think, is a good lead into some questions. More about, like, I guess we're back to maybe a little bit narcissistic esque type of questions. Jessa, have Ben's biohacking extremes ever been a point of contention for the relationship? Or have you ever tried to talk Ben out of some kind of biohacking experiment?

The point of contention for me is there's a lot of gadgets.

And taking care of those things and sorting those things. That is probably my biggest contention point in it.

Can I pin a scene for folks every day at our house? Usually somewhere between six to 12 boxes of random like, gadgets, gear, biohacking technologies, etcetera, all pile up at the front door, all for me to test, put through the ringer research, and then ultimately recommend or not recommend to my audience based on what I've tested. And as a result, the house is one constant. Like what some might consider to be a treasure trove or others might consider to be A trash heap of like biohacking equipment and tool and gears and light sound devices and mini trampolines that people are tripping over. And so, yeah, there's a lot around, but have you ever found me doing something that you're like, oh, this is dangerous, I need to talk him out of it?

Not necessarily biohacking. I think the one thing that I really had, like felt very convicted to.

Talk to you about, which was really hard for me, I think, you know, this was getting the COVID vaccine. I was very, very, very, very against that. And I really, really believed that God was telling me to.

Tell you not to do it for a lot of reasons.

Yeah, I should give the background story to that. So there's a lot of reasons. There was a very, a very high end and quite interesting to me, at least speaking opportunity at a certain location that required me to be vaccinated, to attend and to speak. And at the time, one of my go to advisors on the topic of vaccinations was my dear friend and a multi time podcast guest, Dr. Matthew Cook. And Matt, despite since that time saying he was pretty much just like wrong about vaccines and now sees mostly vaccine injured patients in his clinic. And he said this on my podcast instead of COVID patients. He had me convinced that with the proper peptide protocol, the proper detoxification protocol and the right vaccine that we could potentially get me vaccinated and mitigate a lot of the damage and God knows, like, since. And I've seen so many people have strokes and heart attacks and blood vessel damage and, you know, spike protein accumulation. Look like we're not, we're not. It's not a news flash for anybody. That for some people, that can be a very risky thing. But I remember, like I was telling Jessa, hey, babe, this is going to be fine. I'm going to be fine. I got all the tools and the biohacks and the supplements to help me with, you know, any issues. And you just kept telling me, no, no, no, I got a bad feeling about this, don't do it well.

And it didn't come from like a health perspective. I was actually very against it, but because to me.

So the people who get vaccine, the only ones that are gonna be able to take care of it are wealthy people who can afford peptides and do all these things. And that's the, that's like the message. That's the message you're gonna send to people, because that's really not okay. And then I had a lot of other issues with it. I just Think the whole COVID vaccine was pushed into. You get this or you lose your job. You get this or we're going to shame you until you get it. You get this. I mean, to. To me, it was all spirit of the devil.

Thanks for just getting this podcast banned. Banned. So many trigger words just now.

Well, it's true.

But, yeah, there's a lot of really good points there. Although I would say vaccination is definitely a biohack. It's like hacking your biology to potentially cause the immune system to produce some kind of antibody or to get the existence of some kind of antibody inside of your body.

It wasn't that I didn't think you could take care of it or that. Like. Like, that was not my issue with it. It was more of a moral issue.

Yeah, moral issue and public facing issue. If I do it, a lot of other people who might not be able or have the knowledge to do all the things I was gonna do to mitigate the potential damage would not have access to that and still go out and do it. So, yeah, I would say that. That's funny you bring that up. Cause I would say that's the biggest one, too, that I could think of. I can't really think of any other experiments I've done where you were just like. Even when I got stem cells injected into my dick, you were just like.

Girls get that in their vagina. I mean, it's half. People do it a lot the time. And I'm not saying because people do it all the time. That makes it safe and fine.

But I'm like, yeah. Didn't you get stem cells in your clitoris?

Yes.

Was it stem cells?

I do.

Yeah, you did. You did prp, too, and it was amazing. See, Jess is a biohacker, and it was awesome. Yeah, she biohacks. Her package hurt.

Hell, but it was great.

I remember you saying it did hurt. I can only imagine. Okay, so, Jessa, I imagine with all of the different supplements, machines, et cetera, coming to the house for Ben. Speak of the devil. It can get overwhelming. But which of the ones have you tried that have stuck with you in terms of protocols you've learned from me or my audience or the people I work with that have made your life better?

I'm a very simple person. And there are a few biohacks that I do use. To me, it's kind of funny because a lot of them seem very traditional, like, have been done by societies since the dawn of time. And I'm like, so they're not really.

Biohacks they're just helping living.

We just rediscovered old wisdom.

So, okay, I'm an artist by, by nature and I'm a very free flowing person. And so a lot of times when I see the biohacking world and the all of that, it's just so there's so much rigidity and you have to do it every day, you have to do this, you know, and it's just, it's just rigid and I can't, I'm not naturally that way. So I've only hung onto a couple.

Of things and I think what you're getting at is that a lot of biohackers tend to be control freaks who have a very rigid schedule and routine that they refuse to break. Whether it be the 9pm bedtime or the 6am sun gazing or the 1pm peptide injection. And if it doesn't happen, their head explodes.

One of the things I've said to you before is I'm like, well, while you're busy living forever, I'm busy living.

Busy trying to live forever.

Yeah.

Spending all of the years that you're getting added to your life. Getting years added to your life.

Yeah. And, and so, so some of the ones that I have hung on to is I love to sauna, I do a lot of hot yoga just for the same reasons. I like the detoxification, I like the infrared supplements. I will take supplements if I understand why I'm taking them. And that requires somebody to explain that.

Supplements that are just like hell yeses in your protocol right now.

Definitely minerals.

But even since then I've had to learn exactly what my dosage looks like because I don't think it looks like everybody else's.

And you use more transdermal than oral, right?

Yes, because that gives me a lot.

Of stomach, like transdermal magnesium.

So I like. Once I understood why we're taking minerals, especially as a slight, thin woman who has a mom with osteoporosis and a lot of other things, I'm like, minerals have. And trace minerals have become really important to me.

And then, let's see here, what's another one?

Like what about hormones?

I'm just busting into that world and.

Are there any that make you feel really good?

I started taking a little testosterone and I like the like mental clarity that comes with that. You know, everyone said that you're gonna feel a boost in physical, but I've never really lacked in that.

And that's like you use like. Is that the like a cream?

It's a cream. And that was because of your. What you said to me. Because when you get the injection, you get like a jump in estrogen.

Big, big bolus and a big conversion to estrogen. Same in men.

Yeah, yeah. And so I was like, well, I definitely don't want that. I try to avoid that.

So.

So, yeah, hormones. But that's new.

What about progesterone and dhea?

No, progesterone's one I'm trying to figure out because for me, and nobody's been able to explain this one to me yet, I think we'll find something. But I get crazy UTIs if I take progesterone.

Yeah, that's pretty common. It depends on the. We're looking at one called simply progesterone right now, which Dr. Mercola uses and recommends instead of a few others. But then, of course, there's. I use transdermal progesterone when I'm really anxious at night and I need a release of gamma. It's a gamma aminobutyric acid inhibitory neurotransmitter precursor. And trans neural progesterone for anxious men or children or women can be good. And you do.

But I've done transdermal and certain brands have given me UTIs. I've done the oral, and those have given me UTIs. The only ones that haven't are bioidentical ones.

And that's really the only one. And I have to take a pretty small amount.

And do you follow any type of specific diet? No, she's not kidding. There's a girl who will eat, like, lettuce and ketchup one day as her only food and, like a rib eye steak the next day. And then, I don't know, like.

You don't really do a lot of the smoothies and the supplements, but yeah, she does not follow diet, you guys. At all. It's interesting. It's interesting how different we are in terms of our approach to systematic supplementation. Diet. Jess is very loosey goosey. I think I've talked about this before on a podcast, kind of like the Shoemaker's Wife Wears no Shoes. And I'm pretty dialed in. But Jess's. I would say my optics are that you're doing more testing and you're getting things more dialed in as you age.

Yeah, yeah, I am. And it's just. And I. Well, I mean, I saw my mom go through menopause and she turned into a psycho. And I remember. I remember that moment. I was like, I have to figure this crap out before it happens to Me, because I was. It was so awful, and it affected everybody. And I was like, I don't want my family to feel like they have to walk on eggshells.

Yeah.

And go through 10 years of hot flashes. And, you know, I was just like. It just. It looked terrible. It was terrible.

Yeah.

I love my mom, everybody. It's just, you know, do you see.

In the same bed. Do you sleep in the same bed? And how does that affect your sleep quality? Well, yes, first of all, yes, we sleep on an amazing bed. I was actually getting guilty when I interviewed Katie Bowman, who bragged about how her and her husband just stretch out some sheepskins on the floor and sleep on the hard floor. I know. I think the liver isn't the liver king who sleeps on, like, wooden slats.

I don't care.

I get the idea of making your body hard, but, gosh, I like a nice, soft, plush bed. So we. We. We use an intellibed. I'm. Why? Did I say intellibed? Yeah, no, we used to use an intelled. We use the essentia now. I don't know why. I just had a brain fart. Sorry. Essentia. We use the essentia because it has, like, the built in cooling technology and the EMF blocking technology, and it doesn't have a bunch of WI fi on it, like an eight sleep or whatever. So we do sleep in the same bed. How do you feel about that?

Honey, I'm going to be real honest with you. I sleep better sometimes when you're not.

In the bed, and I sleep horrifically when I'm not sleeping in the bed. I have a sleeping style that basically involves me draping my entire body over Jessa and then drifting away to sleep with, like, this is my cry. My leg pretzeled around her.

Yeah.

You know, I'm really okay with that, like, starting out. But, you know, it's funny. Cause sometimes I feel like I'm so mean to you in the middle of the night, but you're so asleep, you don't even know.

I'll wake up when she's hitting me or punching and then just gently fall back asleep. But, you know, for example, we had the chilipad for a while, which allows for you to customize the sleep temperature on either partner's side. That kind of broke and the company started to go out of business. So then we switched to something called the bedjet, which we're experimenting with now, which uses, like, cooled air, like an air conditioning unit for the bed, but seems to make the entire bed really cold.

Freezing.

So we're still trying to dial in the best way to use that. In addition, I sometimes will use a gravity blanket on me that's not on Jessa. But ultimately, I think that if you look at data, this is interesting. On sleep, the number one reason that people have fitful sleep is because their partner has fitful sleep or their partner is bothering them during sleep. However, I also feel like the snuggling, the pillow talk, the praying, the need to not switch beds after you've done all of that, waking up in the morning and having that snuggle to me, I will gladly trade poor sleep or at least slightly poorer sleep the rest of my life to be able to sleep in the same bed with my wife.

I would definitely agree with that.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so how about this? We got some organizational questions. So I've looked at your schedules. How do you manage to fit it all in?

I don't know how you've seen my schedule, because I've never put that out there.

Would it be fair to say that I tend to be a little bit more organized on my schedule than you? Oh, your.

Well, yeah, I think we already talked about that. In the biohacking stuff, I'm like, you have to be. I am not that person. So I. I choose not to. I opt out to some of it.

I have shared my own organizational system with Jessa, and then I just let her do her own thing. So what I mean by that is that I have notes, the iOS notes, synced across all of my devices, and I use that as my dream catcher to keep a clear head. So anytime anything comes into my head, call this person, get this item, shop for this, ask this person a podcast question. I write it down in there. And then three times per day, breakfast, lunch, and before dinner, I transfer anything in there onto my actual calendar. I use something called busycal. Organize it, structure it, make sure everything that's randomly come into my head during the day is transferred from notes straight into a calendaring system, and then everything's in front of me. And on Sunday evenings, I sit down, I look at my entire schedule, and I map out everything from the workouts to making sure I know which podcast guest is when to, you know, if I have any other appointments. I lay it all out, and I do, like, a deep dive for about 10 to 15 minutes every Sunday. So I know almost by heart that week's schedule. And it's pretty rigorous, it's pretty scheduled, much to the chagrin of anybody who asked me if I can hop on a Last minute phone call and tell them I got one eight weeks from now. But I am pretty dialed in. That's the only way I get done. Everything I get done is I protect my time very wisely. And almost everything has to be scheduled and has to be categorized and I keep that notes, document. So I always have a clear head.

Yeah. And for me, like, a lot of my stuff is like, okay, you have to have two hours of some kind of physical activity in the day and maybe an hour of some kind of creativity. And these are the supplements that I have to. Because I know myself, since I'm a very fluid person, I will not do it or sometimes will forget it. Like my vitamins. I have to. Every Sunday I get out my little granny pill thing.

I've seen that. I spilled the whole thing on the floor a few times.

Yeah, I know, I know. And then I was all messed up. And then I. So every Sunday I fill that thing out to make sure that I have everything dosed out for the week and otherwise I won't do it. And it has to be in a certain place and I have to do it first thing in the morning or I'll never do it. So I like. I think even though, like, being fluid is really has its strengths, it has its weaknesses as well. And I have to have a little bit of structure. It's loose structure, but it's there.

Yeah. And I guess one thing that I'll share is like, I hack my environment, meaning that I have a certain place in the house. I do certain things, like guitars at the end of the dining room table. Podcasts are in the office, devotions are in the Zen den. I hack my systems, meaning everything from the 10 minute guitar lesson a day, to the exact same devotional every single morning, to the same prayer every day, to all of these different habits that I engage in. There's a system behind every one. From the workouts, to the spiritual practices, to the requirement to read two chapters from a book each night before I go to bed, et cetera. So I hack my environment, I hack my system. Then the final thing I hack is my purpose or my why. Meaning, like anything I'm doing, I have to ask myself, why? Why am I interviewing this podcast guest? What is the purpose of this? Why am I practicing my guitar? What is the purpose of this? Why am I reading my book? What is the purpose of this book? And by deeply knowing my purpose and why, having a certain environment in which certain activities take place, and then having a system, meaning knowing what you're going to do when you walk into the gym, when you pick up the guitar, when you pick up the book, when you make the podcast microphone hot, you are able to accomplish a lot. So those are three things that I do that I think are helpful.

Yeah, I mean that's great. That's a lot. I don't, I have, like I said, mine's very loose.

Your type B. I'm.

Exactly. Now, what about is that a better answer for people?

This might be the last question we have a chance for, but someone says, how do you contribute to your marriage considered as an economic partnership because you're self employed? How do you divide up the economics or the bookkeeping in your personal or business lives?

Yeah, I don't fully understand that question, so you're going to have to explain that one to me.

What's your involvement with our money and our bank?

I spend it. No skin.

I knew it was coming. You do the eyebrow thing. I don't understand.

I guess, I mean, in a lot of ways I take what you bring in and I turn it into something physical and beautiful like our home, like our food, like the clothes we wear, like everything.

Do you do any bookkeeping?

No.

Do you do any checkbook balance?

We have? No, no, no, no, no.

She doesn't do anything you guys like? No, I'm not, I'm not kidding. Like, I have always been the person who dialogues with and has conversations with and organizes the conversation between our accountant, our wealth management team, shout out to way too wealth, who manages our finances and our family bank and our life insurance policies, my CFO Joe at Ben Greenfield Life, and any other financial discussions that take place with my supplements company, our supplements company, Kion, with the fried pickle gaming company that my sons and I have now. I, because I tend to be a little bit more organized and scheduled, as we've already established, usually have the optics on that. And then Jess and I just have really clear communication. So every month at the end of the month, I sit down, I go through all of our books, all of our spreadsheets, all of our expenses and our income and then it's on an Excel spreadsheet. And I will tag Jess if I have comments. I'll be like, what's this $472 expense at the gas station? Or whatever, like something that filling up our diesel truck these days, something that I need insight on. But Jess is right. Like she specializes in taking my work and taking what I bring in as far as money and turning that around and like making the home beautiful and inspiring and Comfortable place to be and going out and engaging in hospitality and ministry and, you know, making sure that the right food is in the house. And she dialogues a lot with, like, our yard people and our house manager. And so she's kind of like boots on the ground household manager. But I do a lot of the financial management.

Yeah. And I mean, to be really honest with you, I grew up in extremely frugal home, and that's never going to differ. Like, I will go to the reservation to buy the cheap gas. I will make things like, we do not live.

I'm a very frugal, an ostentatious life. So as a matter of fact, you know, so probably no surprise, like, you know, I've. I've built up a little bit of, like, we're not like, filthy rich, but I've built up, like, a fitness empire. I've got a supplements company. You know, I've written some books. And so we have what I would consider to be a good income. But we, like, drive all of our cars into the ground for, like, 20 years, barely spend any money on fancy clothing, eat as inexpensively as possible, all real, whole natural food, and rarely, like, will eat processed foods. The thing we spend the most money on is once in a while we go out to a nice restaurant, we enjoy good food. Yeah, we, when we travel, I learned this from another financial manager named Garrett Gunderson. Don't, like, save up and go on vacation. And while you're on vacation, be like, well, we spent all our money on the plane ticket in the hotel, so now we're just going to sit in our hotel room and eat cheap food on vacation. Like, splurge when you're on vacation and actually enjoy it, because those are extreme experiences you'll never forget. And so restaurants and when we're traveling, like, going out and doing a few things that probably cost more than what we do if we were at home, which I think is acceptable. And then finally, our home, we like to have a home in which we can entertain people, bring people in for big dinners, be hospitable. And we use our home as a place of ministry. So even this new home we're building in Idaho, like, it's the most expensive thing I've ever bought in my life. But at the same time, that is going to be an icon passed down through the Greenfield family for generations, that is used for ministry, for hospitality, for fork to farm dinners, or farm to fork dinners, for, you know, being with the family, for, you know, for taking care of our parents. So, yeah, I am a fan of spending money on experiences on restaurants and on your home. And those would be probably the areas where we splurge, if we splurge on anything.

Yes.

Yep. Yeah, well we, we sailed through most of these questions. You know, if you guys like this, you can get the show notes@bengreenfieldlife.com bengessa2023 we just decided we'd go on a walk and answer all these questions for you. And if you like this style of format and you like to hear from Jessa, pop into the comments. Let us know. BenGreenfieldLife.com Ben Jessa 2023 and we will. We'll answer your questions and comments and we read them all and it's just fun to be able to hop on with you babe and do a podcast with my best friend and my lover. Give me a kiss. That was a hot microphone kiss. All right, you guys, thanks for listening in. Until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield.

Jessa Greenfield, signing out from Ben Green.

Wow. We did that like we were pros. BenGreenfieldLife.com have an amazing week.

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