The Lost Art of Storytelling, Why We Should Love Mondays as Much as Fridays, Why You Need a Health Coach and More with Made to Thrive Founder Steve Stavs.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life Podcast. But because we all of a sudden love God so much, back to what I was saying earlier, that we have no choice but to be able to love him through obeying his commandments and living a remarkable life, community on this.

Side of eternity for you to serve with your purpose. Because we want people to sustain their transformation if they don't have those things in place. But actually it's motivated by love and a calling and a purpose that every single person's been given.

Consuming Netflix, consuming food, and never actually creating. You're missing out on a big, big part of what it means to be a true authentic. Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show. Hey, what's up, everybody? The interview that you're about to hear is with a new friend that I made when visiting the Health Optimization Summit in London. As a matter of fact, I'm recording this introduction for you while in the back of a taxi cab on the way to Heathrow to fly back home. But Steven Severow runs a podcast called the Made to Thrive Podcast. The show notes for everything you're about to hear are going to be at BenGreenfieldLife.com MadameToThrive he's from Johannesburg, South Africa. He's a health and wellness coach. We had a fantastic discussion. I think you're really going to enjoy it. It was very wide ranging. And of course, we were walking around the park for this one. As you know, I'm prone to do these and talking on the podcast and so you'll, you'll hear the sounds of nature. So that's free. You're welcome. All right, here we are. I'm here with Steve Stavs. Walking through London, baby. Walking through London. So if we get hit by a double decker bus or a trolley, folks that know what's up on this podcast, we're actually, we're hunting down a nice little park here to record. Yeah, Regents Park. Yeah, we already Talked for like 5 minutes. Actually deleted it. That's what happens when you go on a walk with a microphone. But, but Steve, this is actually kind of your rodeo. This is your podcast. You met at this health optimization summit here in London. Fantastic event. Over 2,000 people and a bunch of vendors and an expo and people running around with injections and IVs and portable little cryotherapy and laser light setups, and it's quite, quite the event. But you and I met, you got a podcast you want to chat and I told you if you could put on your walking shoes and keep up with me, we could do it.

So here we are. Well, after 11 comrades and 40,000 kilometers.

Over the last 28 years. That's right, yeah. You've run the Comrades marathon, which, by the way, describe to people what Comrades is for.

It's a 56 mile endurance race. It's the most popular ultra endurance race. You get about 25,000 people on the race line. And you know, the best about Comrades is it brings South Africa, Africans in the world together at levels of playing fields. It's not about the equipment you've got, but really a camaraderie of note where you can come together. And the most grueling races. You know, I think Tim Noakes and just his involvement with the Comrades and.

Tim Noakes, Yeah, he used to be a podcast guest. I've interviewed him a few times. I think he actually mentioned the Comrades because I think he did some work with some of the athletes there. It's. It's not something I think you'll be able to talk me into anytime soon, Steve.

Maybe one of your boys.

You know, at least I know you can make it through a podcast walk.

So cool. So, after 23 years of practice, what I've noticed is people often just make changes in their lifestyles because they're either suffering with some type of disease or pain. You know, just a chronic area that they're not happy with, whether it's sleep, whether it's weight. And so they make these changes, but six months, nine months later, all the things they put in place, they've dropped and they've regained the weight. You know, in fact, the research generally shows that people regain the weight within five years. 80 to 95% of people regain the weight that they've lost. So to sustain change and transform your life over the long period is not an easy task. And at the health of maybe, or.

Maybe they're pursuing a weight that's not actually their homeostatic weight. That's the other thing too. Like, there's a little variable there where, like, you know, people could try to lose weight but not realize they're healthy, fertile homeostatic weights like 180. And they're pushing to get to the COVID model of a magazine, 160. And it's like, well, actually, you're not even naturally supposed to be at that weight. So sometimes that's the thing too. But I get what you're saying. I'm just playing devil's advocate.

No, no, sure, absolutely. But whether it comes to, you know, weight loss, whether it comes to a new eating plan, whether it comes to improving your sleep or sleep hygiene, people battle to maintain their transformation. And I didn't see any internal. External drivers that people mentioned, you know, that they got all the tools, they got all the hacks, but actually, what drives you to make those changes in the morning? What drives you to make those changes in the evening? And so I want to look at the internal drivers in terms of what helps people sustain their transformation. And really, something that I want to. A story that I want to share with you is 26th of March is the first day of lockdown. Okay, I'm going to work because I'm essential services, not a car in the road. There's no one. And as I get into the practice and the line, the patients are being lined up, I feel this fear, this force, this electromagnetic field. And it was so real because uncertainty, instability in people's lives was just so evident. And I think you're a big believer in electromagnetic fields and biomagnetic fields, but it's something that was so evident. And fear. Fear can drive you. Fear can just oppress you. Fear can sort of immobilize you. So can we harness fear? Can we harness love to sustain the transformation? Because I think it's the emotions that often help us drive that, you know, momentum in our lives. So tell me, Ben Greenfield, what is your greatest fear?

My greatest fear? I don't know. I never really think about it that much, to be honest with you. That's kind of. Kind of. You know, it's interesting because I obviously fear God, you know, because I'm a Christian, and, you know, I fear displeasing the Creator, and I fear not living out my purpose in life in the way that I'm supposed to. And I fear that, you know, I might be prioritizing the wrong things or not being as impactful as I should be. That's not really a fear like a shark attack, you know, fear of heights or fear of snakes type of fear. But certainly I fear God, and I fear that I might not be living up to God's expectations of me. That would be one thing. And then as far as, like, physical fears on this planet, I mean, like, if there's anything, I kind of fear being out of control, you know, like, tumbling through space, like, you know, somersaulting and jumping from high cliffs and things like that. I sometimes struggle a little bit with the body awareness piece beside that, but really, yeah, there's not a Whole lot I'm afraid of. Why do you ask, good sir?

Because I think most people are often fear based in terms of their motivation. And they're not calling it purpose based. You know, you asked a question at the summit in your first lecture, why do we do all this stuff? Most people say just to feel good, but we've got a purpose, we've got meaning that we want to establish. And so if that's our driving force is if purpose and meaning and love to change the world and inspire and transform people's lives is our motivating factor, then we're going to look after our brain, we're going to look after our mind, we're going to look after our body, we're going to do the things like movement and sleep hygiene because we want to transform and change the world. Not out of fear of disease, not out of fear when you're struggling with a condition, not out of fear that you'll get Alzheimer's because your parents had Alzheimer's. But actually it's motivated by love and a calling and a purpose that every single person's been given. I think that's the uniqueness.

Yeah. Do you think that's because fear is kind of like not a strong enough motivator compared to having a purpose and a why? Like eventually your own willpower or lack of willpower winds up overriding the fear that might have driven you to want something. Whereas if your desire for something is driven by a deep purpose and a deep why or a deep love, then you're a lot more likely to stick with a habit.

Well, I think fear has got such a low frequency and I think what it does, it actually causes contraction in your body, both emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

Yeah.

I think eventually what happens is you talk about homeostasis and all these biochemical processes that happen in the body, I think they stop working. And eventually what happens doesn't matter how much you're using fear to motivate yourself, you end up just in another disease pattern. And I think of Chinese medicine, it just finds another avenue, it finds another way. If you're fear based and your foundation of your soul is fear based, there's only so much you're going to be able to do. And the root is to ensure that you've got a foundation of your why, of your purpose and in your meaning.

Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of the idea that a lot of people are like, well, to be a good person, I'm highly driven because I fear going to hell. Right. I fear being punished yeah. And a lot of people will ask me like, oh well, how do you, like, make the right choices, do good things, you know, stay a Christian, which I am, follow the Ten Commandments, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And it's really something I don't do. It's not my willpower. What happens is once you decide that you love God, the only thing that your heart truly and authentically wants to do is obey God. Right? Absolutely. And if it's driven by this fact that oh my gosh, I love my Creator in this universe and the people also that were created in it so much, there's nothing I want to do except make the right choices. Whereas the opposite factor saying, well, I just don't want to go to hell, so I'm going to try to do good things. That never really pans out because it's not driven by a deep love, it's driven by a deep fear.

Yeah. And that's right. And you know, I think people realistically now in Africa and beyond, is that just think about the first day of lockdown. What are the feelings? What are the thoughts? You know, the thoughts, the language of the mind, the feelings of the language of the body. What did you experience? Because the research shows that anxiety has gone up by like 350% in the last two years in Africa and beyond. That's a huge statistic, you know, to put out there. Just signed this corporate deal with one of the biggest banks in South Africa and five out of the 10 of this executive team had to take long leave. That's over three months because of burnout and adrenal fatigue and tiredness and autoimmune. So it's definitely impacting people. And we're seeing a lot of post traumatic stress disorder rather than post traumatic growth, which is really what we want people to embrace when they go through suffering. So think about what happened to you on that first day of lockdown. How did you feel? What were your thoughts? What was going through your mind with regards to your future, where you're at peace? I mean, what price did you put on internal things?

I was spraying down the mail with like, you know, a cleaning solution, disinfectant. When I'd go down to the mailbox to get the mail. That's how, that's how fearful I was of a rampant zombie apocalyptic infection invading my household. Until, until I realized there all the requirements for, for being mass and proceeding with caution seem to disappear anytime a mass riot or a protest seemed to want to take place. And that was when I kind of started to scratch my head a little bit and wonder if it really was as bad as it was being woken up to be.

Yeah, exactly. So I want to. We've discussed purpose and why being, I think, probably the most internal, important internal driver with regards to, you know, putting all the hacks in place, changing your lifestyles, improving your nutrition, your movement. But I want to talk about community, and I want. I don't know if you know this word called ubuntu, but it's an African word. Ubuntu? Yeah.

Oh, Ubuntu. I think I've heard of that before. I use it. How you spell that?

U, B, U, N, T, U. Yeah, yeah.

I've either seen it in writing or I've heard it before. Both.

Yeah. It's really about. It's an African sort of understanding of community, of closeness, of compassion and empathy. And if you directly translate it, it really means I am, because we are. And so you really can't be healthy on your own. People have individualized their health and their wellness. You can only really be healthy and truly whole within a community perspective. And think of Nelson Mandela, the community that surrounded him, and his why. And his purpose is something that was able to take him through 27 years of prison and come out with no resentment, bitterness, anger, or hatred. Here we have a man who went through just ostracization. He went to university, he couldn't find work, and eventually he made a stand. And in the stand, through his community and his purpose were the two greatest drivers. You know, he gave up a lot of his freedom so that he could go into prison to make a stand against a wider part of government that had taken away all their rights, that had really taken all the opportunities. You couldn't go to a beach. It was just for white people. You couldn't go to a public toilet, it was just for white people. You couldn't go to university, it was just for white people. But here's a man who knew his purpose. He had a man who knew his why, and he had a close community to commune in unity. That's the word, community. It's to commune in unity with others that understand your why and come around you and surround you.

Yeah, I never thought about the root word of. Is that really what community means? Community. Oh, wow, that's interesting.

All right, so let's talk about your closest community. Because my closest community is the Trinitarian God. My second closest community is my family and the people that I really love. The third is friends. The other is a coach. The other is a mentor and then the general populace. So these circles of community are so important with regards to us sustaining transformation because they become the internal drivers. Just think of your boys, you do think for your boys, think of your wife, how important it is to serve them with your why. But if they weren't there and you want to island by yourself, very difficult place to sustain transformation or key lifestyle habits.

Yeah. So is there a question hidden in there?

So, well, let's unpack it. How important is community and purpose, you know, with regards to. Well, especially community, because I think that becomes another driver in terms of helping people sustain transformation.

Yeah, I mean, you just said it yourself, community is important. I don't think anybody's going to deny that community and love and relationships are important and that they're connected to your purpose and your why. So yeah, I would totally agree with you.

But I think the point I'm trying to make is if you focus on those two foundations, purpose and community, I think they become the reasons why you're going to continue the biohacking, you're going to continue things. And I think of the 5 and 6.

Yeah, because obviously if you're equipping yourself with your goals for fitness or nutrition or a better body or better brain or whatever, with the goal of being able to love other people more fully, obviously the only driver that's going to exist to be able to do that is if you have other people who are the avatars in your life. You can think of who you actually are equipping yourself to be there for, whether it is your close knit family or friendship, your neighborhood or larger community. And so yeah, I agree that you have to have a community in order to be driven by the sense of community. And if you do have that, then yeah, I think if your purpose or your why, and I tell my sons this, like whatever your purpose or your why is, you know, create art or you're going to make music, or you're going to write books, or you're going to teach people, or you're going to engineer new creations. It all has to be driven through the lens of how am I going to love as many other people as possible with this purpose, with this why? And then once you've decided, okay, here's my purpose and I love God and love other people with that purpose, then obviously you gotta have people to be able to love.

I mean, there's one thing that stands out is, you know, there was one thing that was not good in the garden. There was one thing that God said Was not good. And he said it's not good for man to be alone. Was he alone? He actually had a trinitarian God surrounding him. But he still said it's not good. That's why he created women.

And a lot of animals.

And a lot of animals. But even when he had the animals, he still said it's not good for man to be alone. So there we have an example of how important it is to have a community on this side of eternity for you to serve with your purpose. So those are the two things that we focus on at Mateys. Right. Why? Because we want people to sustain their transformation. If they don't have those things in place, they're hacks in their heads.

What'd you call it? Made to Thrive?

Made to Thrive, Yeah.

What's Made to Thrive?

That's the company that sort of does the empowerment for all the products. We've got eight consultants online. They help us with sustained transformation. So Steve Stavs fits in a company of eight other consultants.

Okay, gotcha. Kind of like a health consulting company. So at Bait to Thrive, these are the type of things you teach people?

Absolutely. That's the foundation. And then let's put fear, anxiety, overwhelm, panic, with regards into the next pillar at Made to Thrive, which is environment. How important is your environment, your external environment with regards to your light and anxiety, obviously related to sleep, but what are the key sort of environmental factors that would help people who are already struggling with fear or anxiety or trepidation or overwhelm or ruminating the whole time? What would you say in terms of environment?

Are you asking me, like, what elements of the environment would facilitate success?

Well, would facilitate helping someone who's got an overactive mind or an anxious mind, you know. So what I'm saying is if someone looks at the big picture, they look at their purpose. That's where we start. We look at their community. We were born from community through community. And for community, we look at purpose, and then we look at environment or sleep or nutrition. How does that impact the mind? How does that impact your thoughts? How does that impact your feelings? Because that's the next pillar that we would want to move on to if we're taking someone through a process.

Yeah, yeah. Well, when you say the environment, what are you referring to exactly? Because there's a lot of elements of environment. Air, light, water, electricity, food, movement, they all impact it. I mean, we could unpack any of.

Those, but, you know, radiation and light and that and high.

So, for example, exposure to non native electricity can open up calcium channels on the cell membrane allow for an influx of calcium into the cell. You get a little bit of a thrown off depolarization gradient across the cell membrane. You know, slightly more positive charge on the inside than should necessarily be there. And so that can limit metabolic activity, including metabolic activity in neural tissue, which when combined with some of the ionizing or non ionizing radiation that you might be getting exposed to from such devices like a WI fi router, for example, you kind of get a recipe for a little bit of brain fog. And obviously, as anybody knows, when you're a little bit brain fogged, it's much, much more difficult to have the right amount of resistance to decision making fatigue or to making the right choices. So yeah, I think something as simple as the presence or absence of non native electricity can have a direct impact on your motivation levels, which is why I think it's kind of funny. You know, besides the bedroom with all the devices and gadgets, one of the places people get bombarded with a ton of EMF and dirty electricity is the gym. If you think about all the treadmills, all the devices, all the cardio equipment, everything, you know, it's all got WI fi and Bluetooth and everything else built in. So I think some people even go to the gym and walk out feeling crappy, not because they got their butt kicked physically, but because they got their butt kicked electrically.

Yeah, so that's radiation. Good.

What about light?

So there's a lot of studies in terms of causing anxiety and depression, especially at night from Bluetooth. So blue light and green light, that affects melatonin. Melatonin affects obviously your quality of sleep. Yeah, that's going to make you more anxious, that's going to make you feel more stressed.

Yeah, potentially. Blue light is fantastic for circadian rhythmicity. As much sunlight, blue light exposure, screen exposure, you know, as long as you're allowing for eye break so you're so your eyes aren't strained constantly looking at an object that's close to you. But all of these elements of blue light that sometimes I think get unfairly vilified by all the biohackers who want to wear their red tinted blue light blocking glasses all day long. It's one of those things where you want all of that type of lighting in order to remain alert and in order to have an optimized circadian rhythm. The flicker in the lighting, as you alluded to, and the fluorescence of the lighting, the temperature of the lighting and even the condescens of the lighting can be important. Like I'm a big fan of either OLED lighting or natural incandescent lighting instead of normal LED lighting due to the amount of flicker like that low level retinal irritation that can occur during the day and you know, back to the idea behind purpose and motivation, can leave you a little bit drained, can leave you a little bit kind of brain foggy. And so I think, you know, blasting yourself with lots of bright light or early in the morning, making sure your lighting environment as much as possible is incandescent lighting or OLED lighting. And then of course, as you touched on, reducing the amount of blue light you're exposed to later on in the evening. I don't think that's a secret. Most people know that's important now to turn the whole house into kind of a red cave. I've been, I was talking about this in my talk, a red headlamp, you know, whenever I'm walking around at night just to make sure that I'm not getting exposed to much blue light. That's a great, great little cheapo investment to get a red light. But yeah, I mean, lighting is another one. It's really interesting. Even the monitor, right, like the flicker and the temperature, the monitor, you know, there's some monitor companies like ISO or BenQ that make monitors that are eye friendly. There's software of course, like Iris or getflux which can help out quite a bit as well. And again, I think you're probably preaching to the choir telling people that sleep is important. And of course I've covered many times on my own podcast, you know, things about the lighting, the temperature, the, the, the, the presence or absence of sound, how much business or business like activities you do in the bedroom, all, all that stuff can be impactful. But you know, I think also, you know, some people who may have a job or working environment or a family situation which they're unable to sleep, sometimes almost placebo themselves or nocebo themselves into thinking that they're not going to have a good day if they've got five or six hours of sleep and they think they're supposed to get seven to nine. The fact is like, you know, I think that you can actually function on lower amounts of sleep more. It's almost a disservice to people that sleep is made to be so important and shoved so far towards the top of the totem pole now that people get into a self defeating style of thinking when they don't get enough sleep. When I don't get enough sleep, I tell myself, hey, this is Practice. This is a training day. This is a chance for me to push through fatigue, for me to train my brain, for me to engage in more perseverance and endurance. I know that even if I'm low on sleep, if I can duck away for anywhere from even as short as five and up to 45 minutes of meditation or yoga nidra or napping or some type of a biohack like a brain tap or a nucalm or a sensate, I can literally achieve what's close to an extra full hour and a half long sleep cycle just by using one of these devices to basically get a whole bunch of rest in a short period of time. So yeah, I think sleep is important, but I also think people shouldn't beat themselves up too much if they're not getting a ton of nighttime sleep. You can still be highly productive. I mean, I tell my kids that a lot of the world's greatest leaders, they actually are tired a lot of the time because they're shorting their sleep so they can make maximum impact. And I think you draw a line or you have to draw a line between optimizing your health so you can help other people, you know, putting your own oxygen mask on first. Yeah, but not being that person who's just so interested in living to 160 years old and crushing your health optimization that you sleep nine hours a night and honestly don't get as much done as you probably could if you, if you'd shorten it up a little bit.

I want to move on to self quantification. But before we do that, but let's look at the ancestral practices because a little six year old and you know, she's living mainly through the pandemic and she used to run around in the beginning, really struggling to see the virus where the virus was. And obviously they were talking about it at school. But we used five ancestral practices and possibly we can speak about that. You know, being storytelling. She loves stories and telling stories is just a really amazing way to just decrease her anxiety and help her sort of process what's going on. And then dance. My wife's a Zumba instructor her, so dancing really helped her. And specific music tracks and worship songs and gospel tracks, music and then arts and crafts. So she did a lot of painting using pottery and then the last one, the, the, the procuring of food or the gathering of food and the preparing of food and then the cooking of food and then eating together as a community. There's definitely a change in the field and the biomagnetic field of eating together and celebrating food together as an ancestral practice. So maybe walk us through those five ancestral practices that are very common in African cultures.

You want me to walk you through your model? Okay, well, I don't have it memorized. You're gonna have to tell me each one.

I think it's important because I think you do know them and maybe you do them without thinking.

What's the first one?

Storytelling.

Yeah, storytelling. It's interesting. It reminds me of this idea that when you look at, like the death rate or death age of postmenopausal women, you often see it in societies where the mother or the grandmother or the woman is giving a more matriarchal and respected, honored and venerable role in society. That those women actually wind up living longer despite, from an evolutionary standpoint, them no longer being, quote, useful, unquote, because they're no longer fertile. But you take a matriarch and you transform her into a storyteller, into the person who passes on knowledge. And all of a sudden that develops this purpose, this why it keeps that person existing for a longer period of time in a way that that's contributory. Now, I think that if you were to ask me what one of my parts of my job is, you know, my favorite part of my job is that I am a little bit of an order or a storyteller, right? I package up information, I'm high on input. I turn around and I figure out a way to present that to people in a story like format, whether a podcast or a book or an article that makes their lives better. And I also, of course, love to just tell stories and write stories that are fiction based. That's something I've always loved to do. But human beings, not only do we thrive on the idea of sharing information, passing on wisdom via stories, but we also have woven into us this connection to the idea that life is a story. Life is almost like the hero's journey, where you have the. They were called out of the ordinary world to achieve something greater and to go on and to somehow do something for the world that pushes them outside their comfort zone. I mean, that's a story that resonates with so many people. That's why a lot of famous Hollywood flicks like Rocky or Star wars or Frozen are all built around this concept of the hero's journey story. But sharing stories, engaging in experiences, and then having those stories in your memory bank to rely upon during dinners, during car rides, during chats with the family. I mean, I don't know about you but besides playing games together as a family at night, one of the most common things that we do is we tell each other stories about what happened to us that day. Or sometimes the children will bring up something that they experienced that day, and mom and dad will pull a memory from our memory banks of childhood and share funny stories about, oh, here's, you know, how dad used to run around with my little homemade bow and arrow and homemade spear in the forest. My dog Bruno the boxer, and, you know, chase after imaginary enemies. And, you know, and I had a little chicken named Delbino who would tool around after us was a blind white chicken. And, you know, you tell these stories and the kids love it. But it's a way to relive experiences, to relive life. And it's very interesting because in many cases, from a storytelling standpoint, accessing past memories is a way of processing, you know, anything traumatic or problematic or something troubling that might have been associated with that memory. And so this idea of telling stories also allows you to just process life a little bit better. And you know, that that can be even down to something as simple as experiencing the same neurotransmitters and chemicals and hormones that were released in the time you were experiencing that, that, that, that story or that trauma, they get released again. I mean, even, you know, slipping to the positive upside, away from trauma, even something like a gratitude practice, right? So a gratitude practice, when you visualize what it was that you were grateful for, you actually get that same chemical surge that occurred when that moment first happened to you. And I mean, it can be something as simple as a love making session with your spouse the night before that you're reimagining and writing down in gratefulness the morning after. Or it can be a wonderful, beautiful hike in the sunshine that you did with your family the day prior, or just the, you know, a hug from a child and their soft skin against your face in the morning. When you write that down and you visualize it and you dwell upon it and you breathe into your heart center, there's actually a shift that occurs biochemically that simulates what you experienced before. So, yeah, there's a lot of elements of storytelling that I think dictate that, you know, in an era of short form social media and constant distractibility and the inability to be able to sit down and weave a story, it's, it's a little bit sad. And I think people should actually learn to make stories, to memorize stories, to visualize stories, and to tell stories a lot better.

For sure. And I've got a practical example, you know, if I just think of my daughter just with that little anxiety that she's had over the pandemic, telling her story about where I was anxious and I had fear and what did I do and who did I trust and who was my foundation? And she's like looking up to dad and saying, well, dad also felt like that, well, what did he do? And so I think that's really, really important. You know, I know you're writing a parenting book, but storytelling being one of the most important to, like, help guide and lead and help your children.

Yeah. It's also important for legacy, too. I mean, that's part of the Greenfield family playbook, is that we have traditions around Christmas, around Thanksgiving, around Easter, around certain elemental times of a child's upbringing at 8 years old, 12 years old, 16 years old, certain elements of the family value and the family crest. And basically that is the story of the Greenfield family. Even our family trust and our family constitution, our family bank, it's all built around telling the Greenfield story. And so it gives the children a sense of identity. And when a child has a sense of identity, that also gives them a sense of purpose, it gives them a sense of pride. And I was even having an interesting discussion last night at dinner with a friend who was explaining to me that he feels that the, like the recent school shootings that seem to be occurring with increasing frequency in America are interesting because, you know, I was unaware of this. I thought, well, gosh, you know, it's got part of. It's got to be not just our access to guns, but our access to guns paired with our access to heavily violent Hollywood flicks and video games and entertainment that desensitizes us to violence. And there's a wonderful author, I forget his last name, his website's Killology, where he talks about, you know, how even the military will use these type of first person shooter games to desensitize someone to death and to violence. And I. And I thought, well, gosh, that's the problem in America. But then when you look at countries like Sweden would be example, also some access to guns. I believe that's the country that he was using. Example. There might have been another country as well, some access to guns, also similar access to violence. But the differentiating characteristic between the two is a sense of national pride and identity that a child or a young person is able to identify with. They get a little bit less disconnected or independent angst, as a child in America might feel, and thus they're less likely to do something like a school shooting. But then if you think about it, even in a country like America, if we are a genetic melting pot, and you're never going to have a sense that's quite as concrete and strong of national identity as you might in another country. If a family is doing a good job building legacy, building tradition, building family values, then the child grows up feeling as though they actually are in a safe, interdependent, cooperative environment where not only are stories told, but where there's a sense of pride that keeps that child from wanting to grow up and just like, you know, go AWOL, you know, school with a gun. And so. So, yeah, I think it is interesting to think about it. I think there's. There's many, many elements of story that are so important for our happiness and our health.

I think just finishing this off now is. There's a. I think it's A.J. phillips, I don't know if you've ever seen in the art of communication. And he talks about just the different hormonal processes when you tell a story that if you tell a story and you just build up to dopamine and they've measured, like dopamine at a certain part, and then you connect with someone from a vulnerability perspective and oxytocin released. And then when you make someone laugh, which is what you're really, really good at in terms of your keynote, you release these endorphins, and it's this journey that through storytelling where there's these neurotransmitters that are released and this engages people. And I really believe it starts breaking open this hard shell where people don't really see the revelation. And when they see it and they grab hold of it and they believe it, and then they act on it and become a lifestyle, it's often through stories. And I just think about the Health Optimization Summit. There was a lot of information, but when someone said a story and when someone shared their heart, oxytocin was relief. And I think that's crucially important.

It's the reason that, you know, if, let's say you're trying to raise money for a village in a third world country that's underprivileged, and you pull out statistics and say, hey, there's 10,000 children in this country who are hungry, who are starving, who are malnourished, who are dehydrated, who need clean water, and who are unhealthy. And you compare that to displaying a photo of, like, one little girl and you Say this little girl's name is Sarah and she lives with her parents, you know, whatever, Philip and Juanice. And look at her skin conditions close up of her face, and her eyes are sunken and swollen and she only gets to eat the equivalent of a piece of bread and a little bit of rice each day. And this little girl needs your help. Well, that story resonates far, far more deeply with people than does that individual statistics. So, yeah, I use examples and use stories for many things in life. And it's. Human beings are just. We're wired up to connect deeply to stories.

Let's run through music, let's run through dance, you know, possibly arts and crafts. How important is for those practices with regards to, you know, healing and helping people with transformation and becoming whole?

Yeah, well, that's all. You know, it's very similar to the quote that I gave by Nikola Tesla in my keynote on Saturday, that we're light beings or energy beings, we're frequency beings, we're vibrational beings. And many of these activities, such as music and sound and dancing and clapping and whistling and percussion, they actually allow us to, not only to be able to communicate with each other, but they allow our bodies to receive many of these healing vibratory frequencies and energy. Certainly there's lymph fluid circulating, certainly there's people and relationships and smiling and laughter and love, and even telling stories through many of these forms of art. But then there's also the vibratory frequency component that can be incredibly healing, especially related to music and to sound. But photons of light are also something that can stimulate our mitochondria, that can stimulate our neural tissue, that can, can cause for ATP release and can also shift our emotive state. I mean, and you've seen this with like, you know, light, sound, brain stimulators, like the brain tap was one that was at the conference. And that can actually shift your state into one of happiness or one of love, one of better recovery. Well, what else are photons of light? Photons of light would include not just sunshine, but it would include something you brought up as we got into this topic of music and the arts. It would be art, coloring, painting, watercolor, you know, looking at art, making, art, drawing. You know, there's another thing that's very therapeutic to a human being, not only because of the interaction with particles of light and colors, but also because it allows you to dissociate from your troubles a little bit better. It's very difficult for the mind to shift out of a flow state when you Have a paintbrush and you're looking at perhaps something that, that you're drawing, you know, such as a still, and you're coloring it in like there's. It's one of the reasons why art can be so therapeutic for stress and such a wonderful stress relieving activity. Very similar to playing a musical instrument or reading a book of fiction. It takes your mind to a different place, puts you in this state of flow. And I would argue that human beings were designed to be creators, designed to be creators, to contribute, to not just be consumers, but to create. I always ask myself that each day, am I creating more than I'm consuming? And this act of creation, whether it's creating art or creating music, or creating food, or creating a story, these are all things that deeply connect us to our purpose and our why as a human being. If your work is consumptive. Right. You're just, let's say, going to a 9 to 5 job, consuming Netflix, consuming social media, consuming food, and never actually creating. You're missing out on a big, big part of what it means to be a true authentic human being.

Absolutely. And I think this is what I want to sort of link it to sustaining your transformation is can we use these ancestral practices when we're having those days where we don't feel energetically strong, we're lacking the motivation because these have been ancestral practices. And I want to move on to the last one of gathering of food, preparing it, cooking it together. Because there's a lot of people that will do it on their own. But something happens from a different perspective. When you cook together, you prepare that food.

Yeah.

Think of the hunters that used to, they used to hunt together. They weren't an island on themselves. And that community of coming together and preparing that food. I think there's a lot of healing and it can help people with regards to continuing this transformation.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because you know us just coming off of this biohacking summit where there's a lot of people who are, who are mildly orthorexic about their diet. Right. They not only are they very, very picky about their food, but food is viewed as a chemical, as a functional fuel. Right. There's even this term now in the nutrition is like functional food. And this idea that food is meant to just be a bunch of biochemicals and particles that we consume to achieve a certain mental or physical state. And furthermore, many people are afraid of food because there's so much of this bandied about, this idea of food being Just this functional chemical fuel that they're afraid. In the same way that if you pull up to the gas station and you don't have a diesel vehicle and you put diesel in your car and people are checking the gas pump, make sure I put the right kind of gas in the car. People are like that with food sometimes, which I think has its time and its place. Especially if you're engaged in something like human performance or you're trying to lose weight or build muscle dramatically as a bodybuilder or something like that. But ultimately, aside from a few cases where you do have to be very, very strict about your diet because you've chosen something performance related that requires you to be very strict about your diet, we often view food as this isolated fuel, when in fact food is a much, much bigger part of life and you've brought that up. So food is something people gather around. Food is something that nourishes us not just physically and mentally, but also spiritually. The difference between a fresh bed of St. Salad that's been recently harvested from a garden and exposed to a multitude of biophotons of light and bacteria and fungi from the soil is far, far different than a snack pack of kale chips that you grab from the convenience store that you're eating and stuffing into your face while you're driving 60 miles an hour down the highway on a commute to work versus enjoying that lovely salad with your family in a parasympathetic state, seated at a table, blessing the food, having emotions of love, peace and joy emanating over that food, choosing for each meal for that food to actually be an experience. Not just a physical experience and mental experience again, but a spiritual experience. And you know, a lot of people simply view food as too much of a chemical substance and not enough as a potentially, you know, life changing part of beauty and story and existence. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm actually, I'm highly cognizant whenever I eat, unless I'm really truly on the fly. Like at the expo yesterday, it's just go, go, go, go, go. And I might grab a little piece of beef jerky here and there. And yeah, that's, that's functional food. But you know, 80 to 90% of my meals are actually planned out so that they are an experience and that they're actually either with people or, or something new or there's a deep prayer session before a meal and then a celebration of my dialogue with God after I've done that, jumping into the meal. So yeah, there's, there's a lot when it comes to food that I think especially in the health industry, we neglect because we're just too focused on it being this functional fuel.

Brilliant. So in terms of should people out there that are listening to this, they've got anxiety, they got depression, they're really struggling. Embrace those five ancestral practices first before they start doing that. Blood tears are looking there hrv. So their sleep scores because I think we're just starting to use a lot of the tech which has its place. But like I think a lot of people will become orthorexic because they're looking at the numbers instead of what have been people doing for generations.

Yeah.

Look at prayer and look at meditation. That's another area in terms of, you know, really restoring the soul and ensuring that you can live out your. Why?

Yeah, in, in my opinion, I, I, I don't think that it's asking too much to be able to pull off both to be able to say, well I'm going to quantify and I'm going to track my sleep and I'm going to track my hrv. I'm going to track some, maybe some blood and saliva metrics, but simultaneously I'm going to focus on a lot of these ancestral practices. I don't think there's any reason you can't combine ancestral wisdom and modern science. The two are not incompatible. It's just a matter of a lot of people realizing the deeper, almost sacredness of some of these five core principles you brought up, like storytelling and your environment and your relationship with food or art or music or creativity, understanding that these feed the soul. Right. I would consider them to almost fall into the same category as another thing that I think people neglect the spiritual disciplines. Right. So prayer, silence, solitude, meditation, worship, singing, fasting, you know, a lot of these are soul feeding type of activities. And I think that the other activities that come from science, the rational, logical elements of science, such as weight training or the type of nutrition or your macronutrient ratio or the supplements or different biohacking modalities, these are all feeding the body or the brain. And I see no reason why you can't open up your refrigerator of health optimization and have access to all the tools. It's just that I think in part of this is due to the, the ease of commercialization of a lot of the biohacks and the fitness and the nutrition principles and the diet books and the cookbooks, etc. That that makes that stuff a little bit more, it causes it to permeate into health culture a little bit more than some of these things that are free, easily accessible, not quite as sexy, but far more transformative, despite not being monetized, can pull off. And that would be like the spiritual disciplines, the fasting, the meditation, and some of the things you brought up, the storytelling, music, the creativity, et cetera. So I personally say, why not have both.

Yeah. Let's talk about possibly if, you know, you're putting both in place and maybe you want to just touch on what are the most important markets from a biohacking perspective. Is it HRV? Is it oxidative stress like your HSCRP? Is it your T3 to reverse T3 ratio? Is it your GGT? Let's look at some of those markers, but then move us into a place of how important it is to have an accountability partner, whether it's a health coach, which we do.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're asking two part questions. That's a podcasting. No, no, let's not get too into the weeds here because those are two totally different things.

Sure. Well, okay, let's talk about what's the most important biohacking markers with regards to stress? Anxiety, you know, okay. Really struggle.

Oh, yeah, that, that's, that's simple. So let's say, because there's obviously a lot of companies out there like, you know, Inside Tracker or Wellness FX or, you know, doctor's data, and, you know, many, many functional medicine docs now are running some pretty comprehensive testing protocols. They can be expensive, they can be complex. It can sometimes be confusing if you don't have someone to interpret your data. But I think that the most important things to track, if you're going to track anything, number one would be a regular test of inflammatory levels. Hscrp, cytokines, creatine kinase, fibrinogen, homocysteine. A lot of these markers that would indicate whether your body is or is not chronically inflamed. Okay. So I would say that one super important next one would be glycemic variability. How often is your blood glucose fluctuating during the day? Very achievable via either a continuous blood glucose monitor or via just like, you know, one of these test strips from the average drugstore that will allow you to look at what you're eating and say, okay, how much is this food or this pattern, this lifestyle habit, this hack, etc. Affecting my blood sugar? How long is the blood sugar staying elevated? Right. Because the transient elevation oftentimes is not a big deal. And then how stable is it throughout the day. And what's the average blood glucose? Right. On average, is it relatively low? Well, hopefully. And then in addition to the inflammation and the blood glucose, heart rate variability because it's so easy to measure. Now, so many tools, you know, such as the, or the whoop or this new company, Honu Health, they're doing a good job, but basically this idea of being able to monitor your nervous system readiness and preparedness if correlates so much to things like potential for infection, illness, injury, autoimmune issues, it's kind of like a catch all for many, many issues for people. And if it's constantly low, that can give you clues that you may need to do further testing. Okay, is there a food in my diet I'm allergic to that I'm frequently consuming? Do I have some type of a thyroid or a hormonal issue that would dictate that I need to go do a little bit deeper digging via blood test or a urine test? And so I think the HRV can give you clues to decide whether or not you need to either adjust something dramatically or go test something to see why the HRV is low. And then I think that the other two things that are super important to track would just be sleep quality and sleep metrics. But that should be painted in the light of what I said earlier, that you don't want to be obsessive over the data, but you want to be aware of the data and understand if there are certain things that you're doing, such as, you know, say, the type of book you might read at night or what you do or do not eat for dinner that's affecting your sleep. You can make very, very simple changes that will improve the quality of the sleep. And then the last one be just activity levels. I think, you know, speak of the devil. As we're, you know, walking, as we're doing this podcast, I think that people should be getting 10 to 15,000 steps a day. And I tell people this, and a lot of folks will go to a really hard workout at the beginning of the day, like a really hard CrossFit workout. Or they'll be at the gym for an hour and they'll say, oh, I'm highly physically active, but their step count might be three to 4,000 steps a day because they almost use that activity session early in the day as an excuse to kind of sit on their butt the rest of the day. And so I think that you got to be hyper aware of just. I would much, much rather somebody never go to the gym and just like Walk a lot, have a little kettlebell on the floor of their office. They lift every once in a while, sprinkle in some push ups and pull ups here and there, etc than I would somebody go to the gym every day but not have a natural, physically active lifestyle. Which also of course, the nature of a natural, physically active lifestyle. What does it do? It forces you outdoors, right? You're getting sunshine, you're getting fresh air, you're getting nature bathing. You know, ideally those 10,000 or 15,000 steps, unless you're complete masochist, are not all achieved on a treadmill, you know.

Yeah, great. So that's the biohacking markers, which is incredible. Let's talk about the importance of a health coach to help you walk alongside you and just really like help you be accountable in the process of your transformation so you don't feel so alone or you don't have guilt or shame if you drop off the bus.

Yeah, well, I mean, you're talking to a guy who's a little bit jaded. So I don't have a mentor. I rarely work with a coach. I mostly go to the gym by myself. Total lone wolf. But I'm highly, I've just always been intrinsically motivated to move into, eat healthy. Like, I think part of it is, is education. Like, I just, I know so much having spent so much time in this sector that I just, I. It's hard, you know, it's kind of like people are like, man, do you ever get tempted by that big basket of french fries that comes out the restaurant? Like, well, no, I don't because I almost like, know too much. I've seen too many clogged up arteries and seen too much inflammation. And it's like, for me, it's not even attractive to be like, Santa, aren't you tempted by that giant pile of steaming dog poop somebody brought to the table? It's like, well, no, I just, I just know that is crappy for you. So, like, I don't. I'm not even tempted. And so I think about the average person.

Yeah, right, right.

But that's what I'm getting at, so. So that's why I say I'm jaded. But the average person. Yeah, I mean, not only is accountability important, but I find one of the number one things that keeps people from taking actions. They don't know what to do.

Right.

My goal for all my clients, you know, because I write out training plans and nutrition plans for people, my goal is for them to wake up in the morning and have zero guesswork about what stretches do I do today? What's my workout today, what's my cardio today? Which biohacking modalities do I do today? What are my options for breakfast, what are my options for lunch, what are my options for dinner? What are the foods that are amazing for me, what are the foods I should avoid, which supplements from all the 20 different bottles in my cupboard, what do I take and when. And once that education is in place, sometimes that's the barrier to achieving success is sometimes it might not be that that person doesn't have a strong purpose or why that we talked about earlier, but that person just might have a large amount of decision making fatigue. And I think that's one of the best parts about a health coach. Whether it's nutrition or fitness or a trainer or physician or whatever else is, it eliminates a lot of that decision making fatigue. And then if you pair that and this would be, you know, like I have an app that I'm on called Ladders, right. And Ladders is an online fitness training app but it's got a community, it's got a whole chat room, it's got a whole board behind it. I'm shooting motivational videos with people each week. They're having chats in the, in the group chat around the workouts. And so this idea that hey, somebody else out there is, is hurting even if I'm by myself in the gym, somebody else across the globe who I talked to earlier this morning, they're doing the same 50 burpees that I'm doing and then they're going over to the bike and somebody else is right even if they're not right there with you. This idea of being in a group and being a part of the something bigger, being a part of a tribe is very similar to storytelling, something that people naturally just feed on.

Yeah, I hear that. And I think I'm going to challenge you and press you a little bit because I mean the greatest athletes in the world have often got coaches and they miss something. You know, I think got the knees over toes guy. Possibly if you had a coach they would have seen you a bit earlier. Maybe that would helped your knee. Maybe you would have. You know, we all got scotomas and that. So you know, is it possible even as sometimes what happened? Don't they call it the Dunning Kruger effect that when you're in immersed as an expert sometimes you don't see things?

Yeah, exactly. And that's Kruger effects is basically it's the assumption that you know more about any given topic than you actually do. And so, yeah, you're, you're right that, that I might do better if I had a health coach, if I had a mentor. It hasn't. Obviously, my life isn't total crap right now, because I don't. But it's not something that I've ever really had. I guess the best way to describe it is like the time or the motivation to mess around with. You know, I go to people for advice sometimes, but like, I write out all my own workouts, I, I create my own diet, you know, I, I take care of my own, you know, injuries. And so, see, a lot of this stuff is stuff I just manage myself. But I realize also I'm kind of an anomaly in that sense.

Absolutely. And look, we're coming to the end of the show and I think there's a lot of people that are struggling mentally and just, you know, just in fact, of just waking up, you know, made to thrive. We've got a little acronym we're trying to get across called tgim. Thank God it's Monday, because people have TGIF and they're waiting for weekends, they're waiting for holidays, and they just want to move into pleasure. So maybe you want to expand on the thought that people think this life is really hedonic and it's really dopamine based that, you know, it's not about embracing suffering and going through the hard times. And, you know, often those times bring contentment and fulfillment. So possibly it's a perspective change, you know, and thought change and an attitude change, what this life's about. Because we really want to get to a place where you're enjoying Mondays as much as you enjoy Fridays and you celebrate Mondays as much as you enjoy Friday.

I know, it's kind of funny. I love Mondays now. I take a Sabbath. I go so easy on Sunday that by the time Monday rolls around, it's kind of like an athlete they give a recovery day to and they're just ready to go crush the gym the next morning. Whereas if they don't have that recovery day, they're still going to go to the gym, but they're a little bit stale. And so I'm like that with Monday. So Sundays is a total rest. I'm with family all day. I'm relaxing, I'm honoring the Sabbath. By the time Monday rolls around, I'm like, you can't keep me out of bed. I'm jumping out of bed, leaping out of bed. But even in the absence of the consideration of the Day before being a full rest day. There's also this idea that I have a deep connection to my purpose and to my why. And I'm very self actualized in my work. And specifically I've identified how my work can help other people. How can your work deliver to the world something that the world is asking for? And how can you do so using your unique skill set? And you know, there's great books. Probably one of my favorites right now is called Ikigai 2.0. It's kind of like a guidebook for finding your purpose in life. And then that's the last one that me and my sons went through because we're always going through purpose finding books. Or at least I intentionally make it a point to bring them through something related to purpose at least once a year because we're always reading books together. And the Sikiguy 2.0 workbook we went through, it allowed us to even more deeply connect to our strengths, finder assessment, our natural abilities that we're good at, what it is that we want to deliver to the world, the mechanisms or the platforms or the avenues via which we want to deliver that. And so, yeah, I think that it's not just about having a purpose statement or why, like whatever I want to, I want to, I want to make art that makes people laugh and smile. You know, that's a great why or purpose. But then you got to also ask yourself, okay, how is it that people actually want that delivered? How am I going to deliver it? What's the commercialization part of that flywheel? Not just, not just the content part of the flywheel. And so, yeah, I mean it does, does require some planning and structuring out of your purpose and your why statement. Once you do that. Yeah, yeah, TGIM can definitely set in a lot more effectively.

Yeah, I think, doesn't it go against the sort of the American dream that life's going to be just filled with pleasures and the white picket fence and the holiday home in Florida and the boat.

Yeah, no, I'm, I'm a fan of the combination between the puritanical work ethic of hard work, nose to the grindstone, chop wood and carry water. But at the end of every day, we play hard, right? We work hard, we play hard. At the end of every week we rest super duper hard. I think you have to pair a certain amount of nose to the grindstone hard work ethic with almost this concept of what I call Christian hedonism where you're basically appreciating the fact that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. The very best thing we can do with our lives, as the author of Ecclesiastes in the Bible writes, is to do our hard work to the very best of our abilities, to put our hand to our work with all of our might, and then to sit back and enjoy the blessings, the food, the drink, and the lifestyle that results as part of that hard work. So, yeah, it's both. And that doesn't mean that you fear the hard work. That doesn't mean you do it with a frowny poopy face, but it means that the hard work is embraced along with the rest. And you're able to embrace the hard work because back to the beginning of our podcast, it's contextualized with a deep purpose and a why based on loving other people and loving God.

Brilliant. And that's a popper quote that I love and I've written to John Piper about Eudaimonia. It's this Christian hedism and this Christian eudaimonia, and Eudaimonia there, which is the Greek there. It's contentment, it's fulfillment, it's getting up, serving others. It's not about the quick dopamine, and it is about the quick dopamine. We want the dopamine from a motivation and a reward, but we want the oxytocin, we want the serotonin. We want those neurotransmitters that come in with regards to contentment. They come in with sacrifice that often come in when we're suffering and we're going through a hard time and we overcome that. So I want to add to that Eudaimonia or ethnemonia, which is the Greek plus Christian hedonism, and I think that combination is really powerful.

Yeah, yeah. Word, brother. Well, this has been quite the walk. Cool.

So let's have a message of hope from Ben Greenfield, because I really feel that people are really struggling just mentally and emotionally. There's a lot of despair, depression's up, anxiety's up by like 350% over the African continent just because many people have been impoverished by the pandemic, been isolated. Isolated as well. There's been a real struggle, and crime back home has been. It's been really very tough because just people are really struggling from financial aspects. So give a message of hope to those people in Africa and beyond. Because we're growing in the U.S. but, yeah, give us that message.

Yeah, we as humans. And Jamie Wheel talks about this a little bit in his book Recapture the Rapture. We're kind of like hardwired to be waiting for the next disaster, to be assuming that the world is going to hell in a hand basket and perhaps some, some God or some leader or some tribe is going to save us. But really, in the end, disaster is looming and the only thing that we can hope for is the eventual Rapture. And while I do think as a Christian that, you know, there will be a time when Jesus returns and we're all caught up into heaven, I also am what's called a post millennialist. What that means is that I believe the world is getting better and better. I believe death has been conquered. I believe sin has been conquered. I believe Satan has been bound. I believe that when Jesus died on the cross, the world became a brand new place and a new kingdom was ushered in. Not a kingdom that requires us to follow special rules or to. Or to sacrifice animals or to do all these crazy things to allow ourselves to become sanctified or saved, but instead a kingdom that resides in our hearts. An ability to be able to speak with God each day. An ability to be able to be anointed with the Holy Spirit. An ability to be able to lay down our burden at the foot of the cross, believe in the name of Jesus, and then go forth and live an amazing life. Not because we're all of a sudden able to, but because we all of a sudden love God so much. Back to what I was saying earlier, that we have no choice but to be able to love him through obeying his commandments and living a remarkable life. And because of that, because of this new era that we live in, the world is going to get better and better. The knowledge of the glory of the Lord and this message of salvation will eventually cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. So you don't have to despair that some Covid or monkeypox or, you know, new world order or anything like that is going to. To destroy life as we know it. Or that there's going to be some, you know, some massive solar flare that wipes out the entire planet and we go back to the Dark Ages. These kind of things, they're over with, okay? They're not going to happen. The whole, you know, telling of the destruction of the world, that was the, you know, in the Bible, that's the foretelling of the destruction of Jerusalem. It's not a foretelling of, like, our life getting worse and worse and worse. No, we live in a magical, beautiful area. Death has been bound or magical beautiful era. Death has been bound. Satan has been bound. Free. Salvation is accessible to all with something as simple as believing on the name of Jesus Christ. And because of that, anybody in the entire world, no matter what situation that they're in, has the greatest hope ever imaginable and the full promise of love and eternal life, no matter who they are or what they've done.

Amen. And can't add anything to that. Incredible. Just sharing the gospel and sharing the good news and just let the audience know in terms of where they can find you, where they can connect with you. You've got an incredible podcast. It's my favorite podcast out there in terms of health and performance and where people can just engage with you.

Oh, yeah, sure. I'm@BenGreenfieldLife.com if you search my name, you probably find my social media accounts and everything. But yeah, BenGreenfieldLife.com is where all my books, my. My podcast, all that stuff is. And I'm honored that you had this chat with me, Steve. This is great.

Brilliant. And I just declare favor and blessing over you, over the Greenfield home, over your boys that would live out the calling that God's given them, that they would glorify the king of kings and delight in him as they go along the journey. And your wife, too. I know that your wife is probably a coach that speaks into your life, and she just reflects the things that you need to grow in and you need to strengthen in. So I'm grateful for your family and who you are, and you've been an inspiration to people in Africa. So thank you so much.

Awesome. Well, thanks, man. Hopefully I'll make it down there sometime to visit South Africa and say hello to everybody there. We'll. We'll do something someday, I'm sure.

Absolutely.

All right, folks, well, if this winds up on my website, it's going to be@BenGreenfieldLife.com Made to Thrive. That's BenGreenfieldLife.com Made To Thrive. And Steve, let's go figure out how to get out of the park.

Absolutely. Thanks for inviting me.

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