How To Build Your Legacy, Bond Your Family With Traditions, Rituals & Routines, Rites Of Passage & Much More With Rich Christiansen of Legado Family Founder.

On this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

If you don't know what your values are, even though the Bloods and the Crips have values, but what's your family values? I believe every son must kill their father. I just want it in the form of basketball games or Frisbee golf. And that's really stupid. Throwing thousands of years of wisdom and tradition away is not a good idea. But we do need to selectively extract the values that are not serving our families well.

Away help, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show. Well, when it comes to passing on important family values and beliefs and legacy to future generations. Generations, I believe, and I've said this on podcasts before, that family traditions are this powerful legacy building and family bonding tool in any parents and family's toolbox. Like traditions and habits and rituals and routines. These are kind of like the glue that sticks and the threads that bind and the clasps that hold a family together through the best and worst of times. And I recently in a podcast that I did with my whole family and I'll link to that in the show. Notes for this podcast, we recently worked with a guy named Rich Christiansen. Rich has a company called Legado L E G A D O and he specializes in helping families not just identify their core values, but create everything from like memorabilia and traditions and rituals and routines and comings and goings based around all those values. So we worked with Rich last, well, several months ago and kind of in the past several months leading up to this podcast. And as a result, like, we have a Greenfield Family Playbook, which is a special guide that we can pass on to all of our future generations where our values and our traditions are listed. We have a family mission statement. We just. I'm super stoked about this because I got the final design and the video and the photos of it today, this morning, just a couple hours ago, we have this giant family crest that's going to hang above our fireplace. We have our family mission statement posted in our living room and in the dining room. We have like hats and shirts and mugs and stickers with our family logo on them. We've got like spirit animals and colors for each member of our family is really cool. And if you're not already weaving things like traditions and rituals and routines and an emphasis on legacy into your own family, whether you have a family or planning on having a family, I encourage you to do it or to start down the road of doing it. You know, Preferably with the help of a professional because I thought I could do all this on my own. Then I met Rich and I was like, holy cow, I'm an amateur. And he has taught me a ton. So I decided I wanted to get Rich on my podcast. And Rich is not just a big family and legacy guy, he's a super successful entrepreneur, like in the business world. He has founded and Co founded 51 different businesses in technology and SEO and real estate and imports, exports and online sales and lead gen. And I think he even has a business based around worm poop which maybe we can talk about more on this show because who doesn't want to know more about a business based on worm poop? He's written books, ton of books, including the Bootstrap Business, a step by step business survival guide. He wrote a really good book that I enjoyed called the Zigzag Principle. He co wrote a book with his sons which is called Toes Turn Purple, which is actually really good. It's about raising teenagers that are confident and happy and stand out and are self actualized and impactful. And what Rich does now is exactly what I've just been describing. He upgrades families relationships through this special program called Legato. So we're going to talk all about this. Rich has five sons and a daughter that they sponsor from Nepal. He's got eight beautiful grandchildren. And after spending a few days with Rich at his cabin in Utah, I can tell you right now he's the real deal. So all the shownotes for everything we talk about today you can find@bengreenfieldfitness.com legato podcast that's L E G A D O Legado Podcast. L E G A D O Rich, welcome to the show, man.

Man, it's great to visit with you Ben. I just, what a delight to spend a few minutes with you. And I just got to tell you, you're like one of the craziest implementers I've ever seen. Just what a privilege to get to know you, River, Taryn and Jessa and just thanks for letting me share this most important message with your audience.

Well, I think when you say craziest implementer, what you mean by that is that I am stubborn and relentless and I tend to ruminate on tasks. So I just, I try to, pardon the expression, get shit done in a timely and Thor fashion. And so just so those of you listening in know, you know, you, you leave your work with Rich with all sorts of assignments, you know, like, like working on the family mission statement and the Crest and the logos. And I just, I have had so much fun diving into all of this along with my family. So. So the implementation piece on this has just been absolutely bonding for us as a family, really special for me, and, and I think it would be really cool to just hear how this kind of evolved, Rich, because, like, I've been in business branding workshops before and when we went and worked with you, and I know you work with people physically one on one, and you also work with families like online and via your online programs, it felt like a business branding workshop that had been kind of adjusted and evolved to be a family branding workshop instead. So I'm curious how this all came to evolve for you, going from being a business guy to a family branding expert.

Well, I think he articulated pretty darn well, actually what happened. But the reality is I never intended to share this framework, this Legato family framework that we've outlined, Ben. And then a couple of three years ago, I just had a profoundly deep spiritual experience where I just knew that I had to do it. The reality of the situation is this didn't happen three or four years ago. I've been working on this content now the last couple of three years ago, but it actually happened some 27 years ago when my wife and I, we were married, had $500, a Dodge Colt that had been totaled three times, our weekly food budget was $13 a week, and we lived on potatoes and love.

I was going to say I would have chosen rice and beans, but potatoes and love sounds pretty good too.

Well, yeah, it rhymes pretty good. But we hit a point where I was starting to have some breaks in my career ban. It became very apparent that we're going to do pretty well financially. And at what point early in my career I was earning more than my father and my father in law combined. It was apparent we were going to have success. And it scared the tar out of us, Ben, so much that we actually moved to a very poor neighborhood. And our plan was to never tell our kids had money because one of our key values is we didn't want our kids to grow up entitled. We saw so many individuals with wealth that were just decimating their family. And so my wife and I, stupid answer as it was to move to a poor neighborhood and just live very humbly. And we got about two or three years into that exercise and had a dear friend that came to me and says, rich, this is the stupidest thing we've ever heard of. If you don't manage to completely destroy your children, let's say you play this out successfully, which you won't be able to, but there'll be 40, 45, you're going to pass away, there's going to be a bunch of wealth. And if you don't destroy your children, you'll most certainly destroy your grandchildren.

What were you doing that they thought would destroy your children or your grandchildren? You mean just like the way that you guys were living your life?

Well, we were living very humbly. We weren't telling our children we had wealth, we weren't building a platform to manage the wealth, we were just hiding it. And so they weren't getting the skills. And he was dead. Straight up. Right, Ben? So that actually spawned a very, very interesting sequence of events of me going and looking for a model. How do I entrench these key values that my wife and I had of non entitlement, of hard work, ethic, of bonding family, of not, you know, being entitled and all these things? And what we discovered then was a ton of financial models. I found a bunch of really interesting financial models, but I couldn't find anything that deeply entrenched values into the family. So true to all entrepreneurs, I created my own dang model and then was very, very secretive about it. My wife and I formulated this model that we'll share with you today. So that was the starting of it and we put this infrastructure in place and began raising our sons and family. And in all honesty, it exceeded any of my wildest imaginations.

It's crazy because you hear about this stuff, you hear about everything from family trust to a family constitution to the idea of a mission statement. Or maybe you see some people walking around whatever, Walmart and they happen to have designed a family logo. But you know, it seemed to me, at least it seemed kind of loosey goosey until I met you and started working with you and had it all systematized and laid out, you know, in a really well organized binder and via all the exercises that you brought me and my family through. But before we kind of, kind of explain, you know, what the actual steps are and how to structure building legacy and weaving it into your family. You said something a few minutes ago that I wanted to ask you about. You said that wealth can decimate a family, I think is the way that you phrased it. What do you mean we say wealth could decimate a family?

Well, I think it's an accelerant to fuel the cracks. And I think that if you're not careful and you stop producing value as a family, then it can spawn to death. And destruction of family. And tragically I get to see a fair amount of it now in this new role of helping families rebuild. I mean, you hear that wealth will only last within three generations, the family destroyed. I don't think that's true, Ben. I don't think that has to be the case.

You mean like rags to riches to rags, like that whole deal of self entitled kids. So you said they quit producing value. So basically your kids get wealth, you pass it on to them. Maybe you don't even have a family trust where you're kind of maybe bleeding out the family wealth over a very long period of time so the children can learn to use it responsibly. Or maybe you're not willing any wealth to your, to your kids at all. But basically that this idea that you know, like, like if I'm a successful entrepreneur and my kids grow up super comfortable and able to afford anything, then their own work ethic and their own, I guess, incentive to develop their own wealth is going to be hampered or at least has a very high likelihood of being hampered.

That's very well articulated. I would add two other things though because I think actually investment into dark things, putting money into dark things actually lowers the energy and lowers the contribution of the wealth also. And you know, so many people talk about it's oh, the kids didn't get it. But I think oftentimes kids of wealthy families, they'll intentionally go and lose it because they know it's not serving their family well. It's been surprising to me how many billionaires I've talked to and they make the comment that the wealth did not serve our family well. I think in some ways you almost have a death to then have a rebirth to climb back out of that destructive cycle. And I think that that's the primary thing that Legado is about, Ben, is it doesn't have to be that way. We can operate. I love, although I'm not Buddhist, I'm devout Christian, but I love the concept of the Buddhist principle of operating in the middle way within balance and harmony and stop going to these extremes of lean early startup entrepreneurship that then drops into excessive wealth, that then drops into abuses and taking advantage of indigenous situations and just then having to have a death that occurs. And tragically, oftentimes wealth can lead to that if it's not handled properly. So I really think that what this can do, this Legato family or these type of concepts is normalize tipping over that out of balance infinity symbol and putting in the middle way. So there's Balance in personal development and health, which you talk a lot about, mental, physical, spiritual health that then fuels the family within balance, that then fuels business and then that wealth fuels it. And we operate in flow rather than these dropping off a cliff, rags to riches in three generation nightmare that we've got ourselves into.

Yeah. What did you mean when you said putting money into dark things?

Well, I think I truthfully believe investing in just dark things. Tobacco is a great example of it. In what world does that serve? Well, you can get a great return on investment, but at what point you're fueling investing. I think it's part of the reasons why some wealthy individuals get the end of their life. Part of it's wanting to not mess their family up. But part of it is also just wanting to restore some of the damage that's been done. We can invest in dark things and crazy and hooty. Fluty as that sounds, I think it carries negative energy.

No, I totally agree. I mean, our family's 2022 New Year's resolution is to basically not purchase any products for our house that were used. Meaning like food products or beauty products or personal home products or anything that was derived from research on aborted human babies. Right. And that's more of a commission or an omission than a commission. Right. We're not only not investing in companies like cigarette companies, for example, but now we're also basically not going to be using any Pepsi products because Pepsi developed a lot of this stuff on fetal cell lines from aborted human babies or Nestle or Crafts or Cadbury or even a lot of the vaccines and there's a ton of medications as well. And it's gonna be kind of a pain in the butt during 2022. But the way I view this, and it's kind of relevant to the entire discussion, is not only this idea that how we live our days is how we live our lives. And so little purchases here and there each day that might support unethical companies or things that your family might not agree with from a family value standpoint eventually winds up being the way that you live your entire life. And furthermore, I told my wife this yesterday, I'm like, yeah, this is going to be a big pain in the butt to like not use any Pepsi or Nestle or craft products at all and just like, you know, go through our pantry and start to audit everything. But we have to decide at what point we say, okay, the buck stops here. Like, because if we don't do this as parents, then our kids are never going to do it, and their kids are never going to do it. And eventually the cycle just continues. But at some point, if a couple of parents that in one generation say, okay, we're gonna start, whatever, meditating in the morning as a family and praying together, the whole family starts doing that. And then my kids start doing that with their kids, and all their kids start doing that with all their kids and thinking about this concept. Andand I think you and I were even throwing around this idea when I was down there in Utah with you. The way you raise your children is the way you raise your grandchildren, right? Or you're not raising your children, you're raising your grandchildren, right?

The fruits bear generationally, the most valuable thing we pass on, and I know everyone says this, but who really does it is our values. It's not our money. I love the Iroquois nation. I have a dear friend named Scott Ford that kind of clued me up on this. But the Iroquois Nation have this concept of seven generations looking three generations back of the impact that they had, looking at where you stand. And then any decision you make, look three generations forward, seven generations perspective rather than immediate, quick little consumer buy now. And I think that this settles right on the very stability of if you don't know what your values are, you know what your values are. Most people know in business, we know what it is in university, you know, football clubs, you know, a basketball team, Geez, even all the Bloods and the Crips have values. But what's your family values? Until you do that, until you really clearly understand what are your values and then how can make any decision, how can you brand anything? I think that, Ben, that's really where it has to start. So many people are so excited. Oh, I want to crest. Oh, I want to do a logo. Oh, I want to do a family mission statement. But until you put the effort in to define exactly and clearly and articulate understand what your values are, and then, Ben, equally, what values are not serving your family well? In our family, we use guilt and shame like peanut butter for generations to get any desired behavior. Guess what? We've carefully and surgically extracted guilt and shame. So every family has that, whether it's scarcity or whether it's whatever it is, carefully extracting those values that don't serve you well, rather than throwing the whole caboodle away like so many, you know, millennials are doing. That's really stupid. Throwing thousands of years of wisdom and tradition away is not a good idea. But we do need to selectively extract the values that are not serving our families well away.

So if it starts with values, and I remember being at your cabin there in Utah and that was like one of the first things we did. But refresh my memory and tell my audience, like, where do you even start identifying family values? Like, how's the process go?

Yeah, we actually kind of run through. It's what I've been doing the last couple, three years. A bunch of exercises with some great ways to look at is look what your ancestors did for who are the people in your life that you really respect and honor and want to look up to? Well, when you combined as your family or non traditional family, what were the things that just popped out? Immediately we have this little word cloud of all the different values. And then we had, if you recall, Ben, you and Jess, as well as the boys, go circle the key values. And that was a great starting point. And then it's just a matter of collating and vetting until you get values that really deeply resolve with what you stand for.

Yeah, that was the trickiest part because you gave us like a binder to work with. And I know that people who go through your workshop, they get this big binder and there's so many values in there. There's got to be like 300 values, you know, in alphabetical order to choose from. It's like, dude, all these are good. We love all these values. But like we wound up with. I've actually got them hanging on my wall here. We got faith, love, creativity, intelligence, honesty, joy, gratitude, endurance and interdependence. Like, those were the key values that we wound up really honing in on as being the ones that we wanted to stick with as a family. And those were the values that we wound up kind of weaving into our mission statement and into our family logo and into our crest eventually. But basically it sounds like what you're saying is first just step back and look at family history and what your own family seems to really prize as values or tendencies or characteristics within the household.

Yeah, that's exactly right. And Ben, you did such a beautiful job. That is very self evident. Like creativity was one of your key values. Isn't in our family, thank heavens. Some of my drawings would not be very good. But we have passion and we have righteousness, we have adventure. And so if you attempt to copy someone else's values, how stupid is that? I think self articulate and understanding very clearly what your values are has to be the starting point. You're right. It's hard work. I think through this process that I've kind of collated. We've made it a lot easier. So there is starting points, because it's a lot to just, you know, jump up and say, hey, what are your top 10 values? But you have to start with values. If you don't start with values, when you get to create a symbol, what does it really mean? You know, anything that endures, whether it's a religious institution, whether it's educational institution, whether it's a government, they always start with values. And so similarly, we as a family, we've got to get really clear on what our values are.

Yeah. And granted, like, a lot of our values, like those major values, I listed other values, we wove into those. Like, I wrote us, like, as we went through and we wrote all of our values, I think we're using just like markers on your window there at the cabin, I started to figure out which values were kind of like sub values of our main values, like. Like love. So we had other values like sacrifice and service and generosity and stewardship. But we decided, you know what, those all fall under the category of love. So as long as love is woven into our mission statement and our family crest and our family logo, that's going to cover a lot of those other values. I feel like we should have written down or paid attention to. So I actually wrote a sentence as we created each value. Like, for love, I wrote, we value sacrifice, service, generosity, stewardship, and sharing, all that God has gracefully loaned to us. We care for our women as queens of our household, and we believe that love and forgiveness covers all. Or for, like, you know, for other values, there was, like, perseverance and strength and dependability, and we didn't list any of those as our core values yet. Under our main family value of endurance, I wrote, we prize perseverance and strength in body, mind, and spirit. We are dependable leaders. We stick through thick and thin. We stand by our word, and we let our yes be yes and our no be no. And so, you know, I think that even though you might have hundreds of values to start off with, and this was helpful for me, kind of that mental frame set of recognizing that a lot of values kind of like, fall under what you might identify as major values, as kind of like sub values, if that makes sense.

Yeah. And you just articulated so well, by the way, everyone, what he was reading there is once you have those values, you do create a mission statement. And so you were reading those frame mission statements of what your family stands for. And I recall as river and Taryn were, there they also threw in some really fun words. And I really believe strongly that, you know, is the core of the family unit, which is you and Jessa. You need to establish those. I encourage people 8 to 10 just key core values. And that doesn't mean it has to stop there because you can embed all these others, but you can then have your family bold on. I'm holding up our little word cloud here. You can't see it on the podcast, but my son Tim, he added goofy, and my son Nathan added classy. And Matthew added navigation. And great. We put that down as part of the word cloud to additionally express. But you've got to start with 8 to 10 core key values. Obviously, non entitlement was a key one for my wife and I, and that's what drove a lot of this early discussion and early story. That jump started this whole little fandangle, if you will.

Yeah, yeah. And that whole idea of non entitlement that reminds me of something really cool that I think probably is going to allow us to rabbit hole a little bit here. But the concept of non entitlement is something that you've actually woven into these key comings and goings for each age of your children. And this idea of having specific ages at which you've identified, you're going to have key conversations or key adventures or key, what you call comings and goings or defining events, I think is really cool. And I think it's so cool and was one of my favorite parts of the whole process that I would love to talk a little bit more about that and maybe have you walk through what you do with each of your own kids at a specific age. Because I think it's super cool.

No, love to do that, Ben. Yeah, it does get a lot of attention. So can I just fly by quickly what the model is and then we'll dig deep into that one. Can I just, in like one minute, fly the key components?

Let's do it. Go through it.

Okay. So you get your values on your platform, you stabilize. Then you throw away the yucky values. Then on top of that, you plant logos and symbols and spirit animals and colors. So everyone in the family manifests and shows up and you know your position and your crest, the big crest. You did so symbology. Then you have the doctrine, family mission statement, family mantra, family slogan. You have all this verbal kind of rules or guidance systems of how you behave and operate. Then the third one is actually traditions, cadences of quick tradition. Like we both have family prayer. You do that beautiful meditative practice with your family that I enjoyed participating in. And then very sacred, special traditions that are rare and unique that deeply bond the family together. And then the fourth one, the one you reference is what we're calling life defining events, or they're really rites of passage, which was a lost art. And that's the fourth one that maybe we'll rat hole into. And then the last one is just the structural piece of putting it all together, like family banking, family constitution. You know, how you build the structure so the wealth endures, supporting the values. And that's the framework, platform of values. And then those five pillars planted on top of it.

I love it. And by the way, the whole like family constitution, family bank, wealth management piece, that's like a whole different ball game. We probably won't spend a lot of time on that on this podcast, but you mentioned Scott Ford, who you graciously connected me to after I worked with you, and he's actually kind of coming on board as our family's wealth manager, which, which I'm super excited about. We're kicking that off for 2022 and he's going to help us out with, even though we've had a family trust for a while at revamping the family trust and developing the family constitution and the whole wealth management, family banking side of things. So I'm super excited about that. Back to the Greenfield family defining events. We've developed what we're going to do at age 8 and age 12 and age 13 and 14, 15, 16, et cetera, etc, but, but for, for illustrative purposes, I'd love to hear you talk about, like what, what you've done with each of your kids at specific ages.

Yeah, thanks for asking that. This is really a fun one. And this was the part that we never intended to share, but it was yielding such fruit that people always wanted to talk about it. So when our kids turned eight, my wife and I decided to take them on an eight is great date. We take them, let them pick the place of dinner, which was something terribly awful. Well, most of the time. But then we'd go to a private location and after that we would open the dialogue of discussion and never end it. Of sex, of technology, of bullying, all the pitfalls that teenagers seem to follow into. We just had the open dialogue and discussion that was just completely open. The result being when my kids, you know, they hit their puberty and had their first wet dream, it was just open discussion dialogue, very private and very careful, but started and opened that dialogue at 8. 8 is great date was the first. And I think that's a critical age because that's when cognitive function shifts, you know, to childhood of making conscious choice.

Okay, got it. So. So at 8 years old that's where you have the kind of like the ask me anything all cards on the table discussion with the child where and I actually talked with you about this when we were out there working with you. I think that you mentioned how you'll take your 8 year old child once they're ready for that type of discussion out somewhere and just have this dedicated one on one time for them. And I love this idea. And one thing that I thought about and I commented to you was that it doesn't mean that there won't be questions that your kid asks about the birds and the bees or sex or masturbation or any question that a young growing human might have about the more delicate or, or touchy subjects of life that they're curious about. But basically you identify and systematically, formally, almost ceremonially weave in an actual time, an actual age, an actual date, an actual location where all those things that inevitably maybe your kid didn't ask about yet and you feel needs to be addressed or something that didn't come up yet in their life that needs to be addressed. You've actually carved out intentional time for that to happen.

Deliberate, intentional, no scarcity, no fear, no hiding from it. You know, eight, that's pretty young age to do it. But I mean it's actually the proper age because I think that most of the time by parents they call it's now the time. It's probably like a year or two. They've probably already heard and seen things. So I just loved being able to control the narrative right on the frame. And I have to give a lot of the credit to this to my beautiful wife. Wife. She's a registered nurse and grew up on a dairy farm. And boy, she just went there. I mean I'm blushing half the time. My wife just, she went downtown Leroy Brown. She went there all the way.

Yeah, for me it was, it was, it was dad, dad's old anatomy textbooks. You know, just going through everything, just you know, hardcore. Here's, here's exactly what everything looks like. Here's, here's the hole this one goes in. Here's the hole that you don't put stuff in and you know, just the whole discussion and I guess a pun intended with whole there. But basically, yeah, that idea of open communication at age 8. And I would imagine every parent is going to know their kid and know if maybe at age 8 they're not ready. Or maybe at age 7 you're already realizing that their friends are talking to them about porn or sex or masturbation or something. So maybe you got to have that discussion earlier. But yeah, that idea of controlling the narrative and ensuring that your child's initial education involves into subjects like sex, for example, isn't something they first learn from, say YouTube or the website they happen to stumble upon and go down the rabbit hole of when they're supposed to be researching stuff for school. Which unfortunately is how a lot of kids discover that stuff these days. It's not intentional, it's accidental. But then they get sucked down and all of a sudden they're learning about that stuff from sources other than you that might be presenting it in a manner that isn't the healthiest way to present it. I even have an app installed on all of our computers and devices. It's called Kan Great because it allows a kid to be able to really be able to explore the Internet and all the wonders that the Internet has. But it does a really, really good job at also controlling what they may either intentionally or accidentally see that could kind of shape their mindset early in life in a manner that could be detrimental. So age 8 is open communication. Then what comes next?

Age 12 was what we called the non entitlement trip. And keeping in mind I had five boys, all boys, so I didn't have young women. But I alone would take my sons on a three week trip and it was typically to a third world country. The first week we would go explore and have a grand adventure. We'd ride, we'd ride the camels or climb on the Great Wall of China or go to the Pokemon center or go see the Taj Mahal. Just have a blowout life adventure that these kids were looking forward to. The time they could even talk, knowing they're going to do it with. The first week we have the adventure in deeply bond. The second week we would go into a Mother Teresa orphanage or we'd go into Kathmandu and hold the little rescued girls that had been rescued out of like hundred thousand little girls that have been rescued out of sexual slavery or even killed and their organs being harvested for India and China. Just horrific. And just hold those little girls, touch humanity on a deep level and see the plight of humanity at 12 years old. So the second week we would touch humanity deeply. And the third week, traveling home, we would talk the context of what it meant to be a Christianson man. And again knowing what our values were. It was protecting, providing and providing safe space for women and fixing a lot of stuff. So that then become the metaphor of what it meant to be a man or a Christiansen man. So I'd go on a trip and my son would say, providing dad, providing dad or the lawnmower's broken. They'd say fixing dad, fixing dad. But we had a framework at that point. I mean, ask me, Ben, how much entitlement's been in my sons. Ask me, zero. Squatter. And having seen river and Terran, we already know the outcome of that one by setting these values early. At that point, 12 is such a critical age where you enter puberty and start to become a man or a woman. And so setting that context and again controlling the narrative, not allowing someone else's values to impose it upon you, but us controlling the narrative of the framework of what we valued and setting proper context on life. So that was our 12 year old trip, non entitlement.

And it's not as though you aren't weaving into because you know, we do this with our kids, you don't. You weave non entitlement into just your daily life as a family. Whether it's when you go out to a restaurant at night and there's leftover food on the table and you box it, going out and finding some homeless people to give it to before you go home. And you know, I tell my kids this is great, we get to go on a postprandural stroll to control our blood sugar and also give people food that we would have wound up taking home and having with breakfast with scrambled eggs, but somebody else is going to get a nice warm meal tonight instead, or going on a Sunday evening and cooking dinner for someone in church and bringing that out to them and delivering it to them. It's not as though the age 12 non entitlement adventure or journey or trip or rite of passage is something that is a once in a lifetime occurrence. But again, you dedicate intentionally that time, age 12, boom. It's time, son or daughter for this non entitlement trip.

I think that these rites of passage or life defining events, it just so deeply cements, it cannot be undone. I saw what you did with river and Tenant. I saw how you meditated and your gratitude, prayers and I saw the interaction. So you had the values already and we're operating on this paradigm. You're just not doing it without a structure. I'd argue now you're using the structure of values. Your symbology supports it now, your doctrine supports it, your tradition support it. And Life defining events cements it so stinking solid, you just can't undo it.

Okay, so we've got age 12, non entitlement. At age 8, you have the open communication. What about the next kind of defining event?

14. 14 was the next one for us. And again, everyone's got to pick their own. But for us, it's, we wanted private victories, not public victories. I wanted, I wish you could see me now because I'm reaching to my chest and just bursting it out. But we want the power inside going out rather than external. The LODs of man coming in that permeate that. Then you get your image defined on the external events. So at age 14, each one of my sons have climbed a major world mountain peak. We've had three stare up the throat of Mount Everest. We've had Mont Blanc, we've had Kilimanjaro. And those young men go to the top of the mountain. I mean, there's no pain like the exquisite pain over 16,000ft. Those young men go up the mountain as boys bawling. My youngest son passed out three times going up count Kilimanjaro and guess who caught him? That would be me. But they come down, man. So private victories, not public victories. And I can do hard things. I can do hard things in private without the world watching me and not having to get the lots of me, man.

Yeah, for our sons at age we, we did it at age 13, but basically it was a rite of passage into adolescence. And then we worked with Tim Corcoran, who's been a previous podcast guest of mine with Twin Eagles Wilderness School, where my sons do wilderness survival camps and we do father son camps together out there in North Idaho. But they also facilitate rites of passage into adolescence and rites of passage into adulthood. So when my sons were 13, they prepared for several months. They went out into the wilderness. Backpack, wool blanket, knife. They had solo time in the wilderness. Native American sweat lodge, a fire ceremony in which they gave their coming of age speech. Post ceremony gathering feast where family and friends came. And my sons, in the format of a traditional Native American rite of passage, gave out gifts to each member of the family and friends who came to their coming of age party. But that idea of going out and facing their fears and being in a state of ego dissolution in the wilderness was how we wound up doing the age 13 and 14 kind of courage adventure. And then when they're 15, they'll do this again. But it will be a rite of passage into adulthood where it will be a longer period of time in the wilderness and a little bit more of an intensive journey, so to speak.

So.

So we've got courage at around age 13 to 14.

And again, knowing river and Taren, I mean, how much fear do you have of them going forward into the dark? I mean, that develops such courage to go, I mean, what, 12 year old? And people say, man, you really do that. That's so hard. And it's like, well, easy, harder, hard, easy. Because it just. You're never going to have issues with river and Terran and so many of the stupid things that teenagers get caught up because they know how to go out in the wilderness and survive on their own in the dark. And I mean, most of you haven't met Reverend Taran. I'm very fortunate to have done it. But these young men, I mean, oh, my heavens, I don't have enough words to describe the gravity of these amazing young men and the maturity to their souls based on your rite of passage.

Yeah. And granted, I'm a little bit biased, but I think that part of it too, like, it doesn't have to necessarily be wilderness survival, so to speak, as much as, for example, what you've illustrated, Rich, it can be climbing a mountain with your parents. It can be doing anything that allows you to face your fears and develop that courage at a young age. And I just love weaving that concept into those early teenage years. Now, what about the next milestone?

I'm going to jump to that before I got a comment on that. My biggest fear as I go through this is people think they've got to do what we did, or me or you or whoever else. Please don't do that. I beg you, don't do that. You got to get your values and build this around what you're valuing. Otherwise you're just supporting something you really don't want to pop up in the first place. So it's just vital that you pick your values before you engage.

This stuff makes sense.

Okay, 16. 16 is when my sons take accountability for their own future and they basically shake my hand. Now, I'm a hardcore entrepreneur. And so in our home, we're talking not about the sports scores, we're talking about how to dissect markets and structure companies. And so we had a little bit of a cheat code here. But my sons commit to me that they won't ask for anything anymore. I help them build a business. And from that point forward, my sons pay for our family vacations. Yes, they pay for family vacations and family dinner. They pay for their own college. They pay for their own mission service. They pay for their car when they get done. And Ben, you're aware of it, but my three oldest sons all built million dollar businesses when they were in high school.

This might be a little bit of a, I think you called it a rat hole. I'm go with a cuter animal and call it a rabbit hole. But how is it, tell me about one of these businesses that your children launched and how you actually fostered the development of them being able to freaking pay for their own college, which in many cases is unheard of these days. And so is a teenager having a million dollar business. So tell me a little bit more about that.

So I guess the first comment I'd make is everyone has opportunities available to binge their sons into this stuff. If you're a chiropractor, there's things that are taking place that you can actually have your kids get into and enable it. And yes, the reality is I did cheat code it. And I bet my kids have been building businesses since they were like kids. My, my youngest son had built like seven or eight of them. He had his college admission paid for by the age of 9 years old and so he didn't want to build another business. Actually this studio I'm in, that was his project. As an 18 year old kid he was charging a couple hundred dollars an hour to look like 40 year olds to do studio stuff. The concept is to get a life skill. So I think that as parents we do get to hand hold that and bring that along. And so yeah, I did. I was involved and engaged. I think you'd asked me what one of them was. Is that what you were asking then or. Yeah.

What is one of these businesses that, that your children started?

Boy, I could go through a whole bunch of them. The first one was how to tie it. Well, not the first one, but one of the many was how to tie a tie. We were doing keyword research and realized that the four most how to typed in the world was how to tie a necktie. And it wasn't that terribly competitive. So my sons gathered their resources. I required them to pay for it with their own money and build a website on how to tie neckties. They ended up ranking number like two in the world on how to tie a necktie which yielded 30,000 page views a day. Another was just simply arbitraging coupons. Right in the middle of the crash of like 2008, 9, 10, they started building little coupon websites, pizza coupons and milk coupons and all sorts of coupons would drive traffic to those websites and then people would come in to get the coupon. They would partner with Living Social or Groupon and take them out for five bucks a lead. So it was just basically a five buck machine. And that one. Yeah, that one did a little too well, which does present its own set of problems. I'll tell you, when your high school student is making more than the superintendent, the principal and half the faculty combined, that creates a whole new sticky wicket that probably is for another project.

The result, you do teach your kids about wealth management. Like I think you use like a jar concept from an early age.

Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. We have them divided into four and in all transparency. I didn't have entitlement problems with my kids, but some of their friends that were working for the company, they got a little bit too fancy pants. So at one point we decided it that the company is not maintained when they turn 18, the business gets killed, head cut off, shut down and donate all the excess resources back to charity. Typically the first one that they went to when they were 12. So that they have to be their own man. They don't live off of that and they start over. So yeah, I kind of hit three threads there. But interesting reality is the very thing we wanted to avoid, we could have created. And I'm a strong believer. I want my sons to be their own man. I want them to be my peer. I believe every son must kill their father. Blah. I just want it in the form of basketball games or frisbee golf or something. Not in the form of a business. Show that they're equal man. Every son has the need to show their man, hey, I'm my own man. And I think it's tremendous damage. And again, my value, my opinion, but I want my sons to walk in the door and hug me and kiss me and want to play Minecraft with me and, and be my peer. I don't want to have my thumb over them when they're 21, 25, 30, 35. That can happen with wealth if you're not careful.

Yeah. You know, this idea of a business that, that a child or an adolescent builds that can somewhat be informed by seeing what their own parents have done is often underemphasized because we no longer live in an era where, let's say a son might accompany his father to work, where he would help his father whatever, you know, know shoe horses or blacksmith, a sword or you know, the type of things that children used to go and accompany their Parents on to learn a vocation. Because now the world is at your fingertips. You can be anything you want to be. You're often in school all day, you know, learning from an outdated educational system based on building little factory workers. But that's not really relevant to, say, carrying on the family name or carrying on the family business. And regardless of whether or not your kid is going to work in the family business, this idea of bringing your child to work with you or carving out again, intentional time. Because I do this once a month. Each one of my sons gets to just follow me around for the day. And they can have, you know, they can have a comic book or something else to read and sit in the background while Dad's, you know, recording a podcast or whatever. So they're just kind of listening in. Or maybe they're going to help me record a few podcast commercials or. Or they're gonna help me do research for a client who I'm gonna help on the phone, then walk along behind me on the farm road behind the house while I'm talking to the client. But basically, I really don't care if my kids wind up being, whatever, podcasters or personal trainers or, you know, the type of thing that I have done and built my business on. But being able to just go with dad to work and shadow dad at work, I think it's something that a lot of parents don't weave in. Cause it's weird. It's not accepted. Like, who shows up to the office with their kid just so their kid can learn. And it is something that I think is undervalued. I mean, I just got booked to be the host of a, like. Like an online docu series. And as part of the agreement for that, for. For me to go and record all these interviews with people and, you know, sit there in front of the camera, et cetera. I said, okay, on. On at least two of these trips to record this. I want my kids to be able to come with me to sit in the background to listen to dad interview all these people, to soak it up, to see how the cameras work, to see how the audio works, works, and to just go with dad to work. And, you know, and my sons have actually launched a cooking podcast. They've got a food podcast, you know, Shameless plug and quick shout out to gogreenfields.com, their show. But they learned a lot of that just from watching dad tool around the kitchen shooting some video about a superfood smoothie or whatever.

Why would we not cheat code? It why does it have to be weird? It's weird that we don't do that. Why would we not take the skills and the insight, let our kids be who they are, the very best version of themselves. But why wouldn't we pass on the greatest insights? That was exactly the comment I was going to make. You cheat coded it. River and Taren have their own cooking podcast. And how powerful is that? You've actually done it much younger than I did. And I don't think so many people actually say, oh wow, million dollar business. That's crazy. But you know what? There's not one of you out there, not one person listening there, does not have the opportunity to plug their kids in on something that's being learned or done or exposed to and help them, help them kind of make their own way and take accountability. I think irresponsible thing to do is leave them in front of a TV with an attendant for 24 hours and then when they're 18, say, good luck with that kid, good luck with that. Go buy your own toilet paper and toothpaste. That's what's weird to me.

Exactly. And for us for that age, 15, 16 ish capability focus. What we're planning on is because my sons are currently on track to probably be done with high school by the time they're around 15 and there's a little liberal arts institution called New St. Andrews College that they want to attend in Moscow, Idaho down here. And I'm not that bullish on university education, but I do think that a well constructed liberal arts education, which a child learns things like rhetoric and logic and persuasiveness and foreign languages and reading and writing and expressing one's thoughts clearly and being able to speak, etc. I think that can serve a child well no matter what career they wind up going into. So I'm totally cool if they want to go get a liberal arts education. But in between high school and their liberal arts education for their adventure and capability is going to be in addition to their rite of passage into adulthood that they'll do out in the wilderness. They're going to do a gap year where they can go hike the Pacific Crest Trail, do a backpacking trip of, of Europe with hostels and hitchhike, you know, all self supported, all paid for by the moon, you know, the so called gap year. And it's going to include some element of service and we're still in discussion about how they're going to weave service and helping others out, you know, whether it's building a Church or a school somewhere or whatever. But we definitely have planned that. Age 15 to 16, focus on capability and be able to take care of oneself. So we've got age 8, the open communication. Age 12 is non entitlement. Age 13 to 14 ish courage. Age 15 to 16 ish capability. Then what comes after that?

18 years old, shut down the business, give all back to charity and go serve for two years learning a foreign language and serving humanity in a very deep, meaningful, impactful way. That simple. And quite frankly, it's the hardest of all the rites of passage to see our kids go off and have to live incredibly humbly and basically get their own footing on humanity, Humanity. And it's that simple.

Truly, truly cutting the cord. And you know, we had a lot of family discussions as we learned from you, we didn't, you know, the trick here for those listening is, you know, you don't have to replicate exactly what Rich is doing or what I'm doing, but just being able to think in this way about the ages of your family and weave this in somehow is important. So for us, what we've decided is Indeed at age 18, if they're not already fully financially self supported, supported, that's the age at which they no longer get any money from mom and dad for anything, for a car, for college, for business vocation. It is all self supported starting at age 18. No ifs, ands or buts. And in addition to that, we've decided that if for some reason either of them, unless there's some serious health condition or random incident like that going on, that they, any of the 18 year old males who happen to be living in our house at age 18 must move out of the house at that point. They do not live with mom and dad when they're 18, period. And I don't imagine they would be anyways, but we've decided that that's the point at which they need to be fully independent. So that's what we've kind of woven into age 18 for when that arrives. And gosh, it's kind of scary. Five years.

It's terrifying. But how courageous is it that you do that? Because it sets context with them, that they'll prepare and take control and plan their own lives. Life. And they will, they'll kill their own father in a beautiful, harmonious way rather than seizing them. I mean, I have zero fear that River Terran will ever end up as serial killers living in your basement. My kids. Yeesh. I mean, you know how amazing it is that my sons now Take me to lunch. Oh my heavens. It's amazing to have my kids take control of their. My 28 year old son just sold his second company. How much do I have to worry about my sons now?

That's what I love about this is, it's like a lot of people will say, oh, you gotta mess up your kids. But I mean like your kids are amazing. Like they're way ahead as humans and accomplishing things that I think we've sadly settled with the idea that human beings at the age of 25 or 28 or whatever are still often just getting done drinking beer in college and your sons are selling a business they started when they were, when they were teenagers or have already sold a business when they were teenagers. And so again, this is stuff that actually fleshes itself out and demonstrably produces fruits for a family.

Demonstrably. Demonstrably. Demonstrably. My kids come back from that two years of serving humanity. They're not 23, 25, they're not backpacking through Europe, smoking weed and just hanging out and seeing what they can get there. Man, they come back 40 years old, contributing, meaningful, impactful, and bringing me grandbabies that are beautiful and the only thing that gives me more. I was so hesitant to share any of this until I started seeing how my kids were raising my grandbabies. Grandkids, they're lapping us three times.

Yep, exactly. And I think that's, that's the idea is every generation in, in small steps and even leaps and bounds gets gradually better so that each generation becomes more impactful rather than again that that rags to riches to rags story. That, that is so much more common now. There's, there was one other that kind of surprised me because obviously your kids aren't really kids anymore when you do this. But, but you have another thing that you wove in that I went to wound up borrowing from and weaving into our own family playbook. Tell me about the last defining event.

Yeah, this one is actually an interesting one. It's kind of apology blended with the charter when my sons are now young adults, so they're 23, 24, I take them to a level four security prison and we spend two days in the level four security prison with oftentimes individuals who even taken life or been in gangs and really live tough lives with the context of this. Son, none of us want to be held accountable for the worst things that we've done. You don't want to be, I don't want to be. We all deserve second chances. And most of These individuals never had even a first chance. And so the plight of humanity coupled with this apology. It's my generation that dorked all this up. Misogyny is running rapid. Divisiveness in politics, abuse of the environment, the big social problems. And I'm sorry my generation messed it up. Now it's your responsibility to go fix a lot of these hot messes that my generation created. And so touching humanity on a visceral level and seeing some of those tricky situations where you have incarcerated individuals that oftentimes never even had a first chance.

That idea of going out and really, really in a very explicit and remarkable manner, being given a chance to understand forgiveness and grace. And I don't know what it's going to look like for our family, but I want to do something like you've done. I want to do a prison visit or even a church build or a school build, whether in our community or even in a different city or different state or different country. But I really want to do that with my own sons as well. When they're around that age. That whole idea of, of contribution and understanding, forgiveness and grace that when paired with, for example, that non entitlement trip that occurred over a decade earlier at age 12, I think is just wonderful in terms of a human going into the ladder 3/4 of their life with a real awareness of the fact that so many people are in need, so many people need help, and so many people need forgiveness. And again, systematically weaving that in I just think is so, so cool. So I'm hoping that people are kind of getting an idea of just a tiny flavor of what this type of legato work actually looks like. And I did want to ask you here shortly, like how people can actually do this, whether it's like an online program they do or whether they work with you physically on site. But before we do that, is there any other kind of key tradition or ritual routine? You have so many. I mean, you spent three days with us and there must be been a million stories. But in terms of maybe something that hasn't been brought up yet, are there any other, like key traditions or rituals or routines that you just think are so cool? You think would be really beneficial for my audience to hear about, to give them their own ideas?

You know, I think maybe just two really quickly. The first is getting a cadence, a frequent cadence of something that gives comfort us as human beings. We love like kind of our tradition. Tradition. We love our traditions. And so if you can get a cadences. I know even I was deeply touched. Ben As I saw your prayer and meditative practice with your family daily, how much comfort and nerve settling does that give? And so I think this concept of getting the daily touchstone, it can be really fun. It doesn't have to be even really hard. But the concept of asking, what's the peach in the pit of the day? What was the good thing and the bad thing every day? And just getting in that little cadence of doing that would be something that's so healing and so powerful. I now got to insert one other. And if I really could, quickly too. Is there's so many individuals I type to say, I've got estrangement, I've already got, you know, I've already got my kids kind of at odds or whatever else. And. And is it too late for me? And it's like, oh, heavens no, actually, whoa. It can be so healing. So the. The tip I'd give you in that situation is, is take an interest in whatever your kids doing if they're in. My fourth son was so into Pokemon, I wasn't so much, but guess who played? I'm like a level 39 Pokemon Go trainer, so take an interest if they're into. My second son wanted to be McJagger, so he was playing the guitar like crazy. So enable and move it towards rather than resist and try bringing our kids to our thing, go do what they're doing and take an interest in what they're doing. It'll shock you what happens as they come back to you and then want to take an interest in your. So often we get that. So it's like, I love to use the analogy, we got this beautiful big cup of water, and a hairball, a snotball drops into the water. And what most of us try doing is pick, pick, pick, pick at it. And then the water gets all gross and disgusting, and all we have to do is just take and pour more love, more water, more love, more water. And most of the time, it just kind of naturally floats out. So, man, if we just pour a little bit more love in and take interest in, particularly teenagers, you can cheat coded every time with taking interest what they're doing and cook their favorite meals.

I love it. Well, you guys even have that little song that you sing. What's the song? The Johnny Appleseed song that you. You would.

Oh, the Lord's been good to me oh, the Lord's been good to me thank the Lord, forgive me. Thank you for singing with me.

Yeah, but that's like. That's like a song that you. You guys Go out, like, every evening and sing that song as the sun sets. And again, like a lot of people, people think that kind of stuff is silly, but kids thrive like my sons. They thrive on our dinnertime games. They thrive on our story time after dinner. They're 13 years old. Their feet are almost as big as mine, you know, and yet they still. They crave that bedtime story, you know? I asked them, I'm like, do you guys get tired of dad reading you a bedtime story? Is it, like. I was very straightforward with them. I said, is this something that you're just doing now with me? Because, you know, dad wants to read a story. Do you guys really want to hear the story? They're like, we want to hear the story. We want to hear the story. So I told him, okay, look, guys, when we get to the point where you guys don't want to hear the bedtime story anymore because you feel like Dad's just reading it, but you'd rather be reading your own book or whatever, you just tell me. But whether you're 14 or 30 years old, I'll read bedtime stories to you until you tell me to stop. And in the morning meditation and the journaling and the evening meditation, journaling. Kids just thrive on this type of systematic tradition and ritual and routine, whether it's a holiday or whether it's an everyday. And so when you go out on your porch and you sing the Johnny Appleseed God's Been Good to Me song to the sunset, I just know how much that means to your kids and how much it meant to my kids to see.

Oh, hey.

Other families have these weird things that they do at certain times of the day, but it's so, so good for families. I think more families need that type of tradition woven in.

Every family does it. It's just. Are you being deliberate and thoughtful about it? Because if not, you're passing junk along. And I mean, hit it. I mean, what does it mean to river and Taran that, you know, that they're a fox or a bear or how they're showing up and the color they are? I mean, that spirit animal thing lit them up, man. I watched their eyes go as big as saucers as they got to dry draw their little spirit animal. And I think that's the only real thing we hadn't talked about. I do want to mention is this, man. Do you have a family symbol? Do you have a family logo? Your business does. Your favorite sports team does. The United States has one. Your college has one. One. I mean, but I mean, the Bloods have one, the Bloods and the Crips have symbols and colors and you don't stand a freaking chance. I mean, if you knew half the logos and brands that you were wearing, you'd vomit. You'd right now. You'd wretch over this podcast knowing what their values are. So the power of just getting logo and symbology to bond you together. I got this beautiful logo that's so meaningful. And my little three year old granddaughter, well, my two year old grandson, Grandson, when they touch the chickens after we pick the eggs, they want to sit there and touch Everly, Everly, oh, Samuel, Samuel, Uncle Nathan. They know right where they fit. And so Ben, just so important. I just. If you take nothing else out of that, just these last little key hints of, you know, get a family symbol, get really deliberate on your logos and for heaven's sakes, plant your values and you're going to be just, you know, miles ahead. And families on all out of salt right now, families, non traditional families and tribes are just getting their head handed them and it's because we're not doing this basic stuff.

That was the fun part. The spirit animal identification and each of our unique logos and symbols and shapes. And then you hooked us up with Jacob, who we've been working with for the past two months for this glorious crest that's going to hang above our fireplace. And our mission statement, which I mentioned in the introduction, is framed and posted in our living room and in our dining room and we got our family logo on our freaking mailbox and on coffee mugs in the kitchen and, and on our T shirts and on our hats and we even have a special secret places in the crest. We're on little tiny rocks. Each symbol of our family is each of the individual family members symbol is pictured. And every time a new family member, like one of my grandchildren is added to the family, their little symbol will get added to that crest. There's all these cool little artistic things too that are just so much fun. And I'll tell you what, if you're listening in and you go to the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com Legatopod podcast L E G A D O Podcast. I'll not only link to, you know, Rich's Legato family foundation and all of his books and everything, but I'll, I'll throw in some cool photos there so you guys can see some photos of what our family logo looks like, what our family crest looks like, what our mission statement looks like to maybe get your own wheels turning Rich. How can people, if they wanted to hook up with you and just have all this systematized and work with you to do this? Like what are the options for people to do that?

It's really simple. It's just go to Legado Family L E G a d o family.com and there's even some great free resources in their band that they can start with. I think we actually have in the resources page we have a cheat sheet for this life defining events and if you do want to engage we'd just love to get to know you and have impact. This it really is, it's the most important thought leadership I've created to this point in my life life and I'm just so excited to see what does to families. But there are multiple ways you can engage. There's a digital online program that walks you through, there's digital online with coaching groups. There will be a couple of key events and in rare, rare situations I'm willing to actually do similar to what I did to Ben, do a personal event. So there are multiple plug in options for you. And I just, I swear man, this rocks your family like you can't even believe.

Yeah, well it's pretty cool and I know I'll hunt it down and put it in the show notes @Ben Greenfield fitness.com legatopodcast we have like a special discount code for you guys and some extra goodies thrown in. So if you go to the show notes I'll link to all of Rich's legacy building stuff there as well. And I have to recommend for any of you business folks out there, read Rich's book the Zigzag Principle as well. And if you have adolescents or kids who are interested in starting a business, his Toes Turn Purple book is really good too. So check all that out. And then I'll probably do a follow up podcast for those of you listening in about the whole wealth management piece of this because like I mentioned, I'm going to be working with Scott Ford, who Rich hooked me up with and I will likely at some point during 2022 interview him and chat a little bit more about the wealth management piece. But in the meantime, Rich, I think we've probably filled people's heads with plenty of ideas and resources to get started on their own legacy building as a family. So. So I want to thank you for coming on the show today and sharing all this with us.

And Ben, just such love and respect for you and Jessa and River and Taryn and just how much. I honor you man. I said earlier you implement, you really do, but you actually are living it and it's just such an honor to get to count you as a friend and just know any way I can support you brother, I'm here for you.

I appreciate that. And again, the shownotes are at BenGreenfieldFitness.com Legatopod podcast L E G A D O Podcast and until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Rich Kristensen signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing week. In compliance with the FTC guidelines, please assume the following about links and posts on this site. Most of the links going to products are often affiliate links, of which I receive a small commission from sales of certain items, but the price is the same. Same for you, and sometimes I even get to share a unique and somewhat significant discount with you. In some cases, I might also be an investor in a company I mention. I'm the founder, for example, of Kion llc, the makers of Kion branded supplements and products, which I talk about quite a bit. Regardless of the relationship, if I post or talk about an affiliate link to a product, it is indeed something I personally use, support, and with full authenticity and transparency recommend. In good conscience, I personally vet each and every product that I talk about. My first priority is providing valuable information and resources to you that help you positively optimize your mind, body and spirit. And I'll only ever link to products or resources, affiliate or otherwise, that fit within this purpose. So there's your fancy legal disclaimer. Sam.