The Wake-Up Lounge, Italian Dinner Feasts, Travel As Education, "FU" University & Other Massively Important Parenting Principles (Boundless Parenting Book Series)

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

Podcast, I encourage all people think, use your own mind, your own judgment. But it doesn't mean you can't learn from other people. You can't improve on your life or your parenting by learning from other people. But never subjugate your own views or your own values because some expert told you that you should do it a different way.

Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show. Well folks, I'm pretty stoked about today's show because I have some of my dear friends on the call with me. This couple is actually featured in my upcoming Boundless Parent parenting book because, well, gosh, you're going to hear about something that I was first impressed with when I met them and that was this concept that they described to me as we were chatting about childhood and habits and comings and goings as parents. And they were talking about this thing called a wake up lounge. And I was just like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. And I still do something like it today with my family. In terms of, you may have heard, if you're listening in, how I will wake up and I'll burn incense and I'll put on some nice music and then I'll call the boys down and we'll sit and we'll meditate and we'll talk and we'll hug and we sing a song together and sometimes dance as a family. Well, I got a lot of the ideas for that from the couple who you are about to hear me interview. Their names are Patrick and Lori Giantempo. And Patrick, you may have seen him run before. He gets out there on a lot of videos. He's the host of several documentaries that you may have seen, but he's known as kind of like a philosopher entrepreneur. He's the co founder and the host for a company called Revealed Films, which is the company that produces these docu series like Gosh Psychedelics, Revealed, Covid Revealed, Christ Revealed, and a whole bunch of other ones that I'll link to in the show notes if you want to check those out. He's also a practicing chiropractor. I've been adjusted by him at his home before. And he's not only a talented chiropractic doctor, but he has also gone so far as to give testimony to Congress and to the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine. He has a TEDx talk called Unleashing the Power of Philosophy. And he's Just a man after my own heart and a really, really great guy. And I would say one of the few people that outshines him, of course, is his significant other, Laurie, which I'm sorry, Patrick. It always happens to me. People think I'm cool. Then they meet my wife.

They say the truth hurts, but in this case it doesn't.

That's right. So Laurie is kind of Patrick's partner in crime. She's the co founder of Action Potential holdings, where she helps guide and co create projects that align with her values that impact the world. And she's the director of the Jen Temple Family foundation, which is a nonprofit devoted to personal and global healing. She has in the past been pretty involved with Dispenza and the Dispenza meditation retreats. And we'll get a chance to talk about how they wove meditation into their parenting as well. So a ton that we can talk about and remember they're featured in the book. So if you guys are like, gosh, we barely even felt the surface got scratched and what the Jin temples do and how they raise their kids, don't worry, they're in the book. It'll be@boundlessparentingbook.com so you can take a deep, deep dive into Patrick and Laurie if you just want to stalk them even more. After you hear this episode, all of the shownotes are going to be at BenGreenfieldLife.com Gentempo G E N T M P O BenGreenfieldLife.com GenteMpo Patrick and Laurie, welcome.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you.

And incidentally, just for a quick clarification, we'll work on friends and family, but I don't formally have a chiropractic practice anymore, so nobody should be trying to find out where to see me.

Everybody's just trying to like set down the phone now as they were dialing or I suppose, Googling Patrick Gentempo Cairo where to try okay, so I already alluded to this, so we'll just jump right in because honestly, this was super intriguing to me and I want to hear about your kids and where they're at right now because I know they're kind of grown up, but just a quick introduction of where you're at in terms of how many kids you have, how old they are and what they do, and then jump straight into that idea of the wake up lounge. Just because that was the first thing when I was talking with you guys about parenting that was like, holy cow, this is amazing. So go ahead.

We have a total of three kids. Our oldest, 25, is from a previous marriage for me, but was part of our raising him since he was a young child. And we also have a 21 year old at the time of this recording, 21 year old girl and an 18 year old boy. As far as the Wake Up Lounge is concerned, that's really Lori's conception. She's the one who thought about that, created that and developed it into our family's lives. So I'm gonna let her talk about that.

Yeah, it's funny because what inspired it was this feeling of dread morning after morning, after hurrying the kids to grab projects, lunches, homework, get in the car, race to school and drop them off. And then as soon as I got out of the car, I would feel this moment of sadness, like it was wasted. And then I'm watching them walk into the school with all these kids ready to face the world and I just felt like, gosh, they don't seem set up right?

You mean like, like some kind of like a touch point early in the day?

Yeah, like their hearts are full, they're ready, they're strong, they're feeling confident instead of, you know, survival mode. Survival mode versus like a coherent energy about them.

Yeah, it's a physiologic, you know, what's their physiologic disposition? You know, are they in defense physiology? Because, you know, you kind of pop out of bed last minute and, you know, are racing to get everything together and get out the door and get to school or, you know, when entrepreneurs learn this, you know, they talk about, you know, when the morning, when the day. Right, so that's got it. That's even more especially true for children in our mind.

Yeah, I agree. And like I mentioned, it's something that we thrive on now at our house that morning coming together. And it's almost like a bookend, right. We have our morning coming together that involves all of us sitting on the floor doing our spiritual disciplines journal, chatting about what's coming up in the day. Often we sing a song. Sometimes if I feel like the energy needs a little bit of a boost, I'll put on anywhere from a 8 to 10 minute long, typically a spiritual kind of a churchy song. Clap your hands, praise the Lord, and we'll be dancing around the kitchen table. And then in the evening, after dinner, after we've cleaned up and kind of gotten ready for bed, we do something similar. In the evening, we gather, we meditate. And it also involves conversations about the day and what to expect, et cetera. But I'd love to hear a little bit more details about what your guys has actually looked like. Like what you do with your kids when you get them up in the morning for that touch point.

It's similar to what you described. For me, I always light incense because for me there's a morning ritual I have that I bless my home with my energy and I light that incense with intention that we're all blessed for that day. We turn on the appropriate soft toned music, we light the fire and then when everyone gathers we kind of just get cozy and sit around and actually we don't do this as much anymore. I'll get into that. But then I would take a special drink order like it's a matcha or a chai or whatever they're having. So it makes it more like they're kind of ordering up to at the lounge. And then it's just, you know, some mornings it's not a lot of talking. The whole point of it for us is quiet really and just easing into the day, not driving a process or anything like that. But I do remember times we would talk about affirmations and start to create those for them or help them create their own. So it's a great time for that. As far as best practices go, it's. It doesn't need to be necessarily more than 30 minutes of. It's a matter of just getting up earlier, getting things ready earlier and then just allowing that 30 minutes or more. What's become for us now it's just Patrick and I mostly in the lounge now. Our 18 year old is still there, but Patrick and I like to sit there for almost two hours some mornings. But that's kind of the basics.

You mean when you sit there for two hours, are you talking? Are you just like sipping tea?

We are. It's actually become more ceremonial for us. We're doing some breath work together as a couple. It depends on what's going on in our life. Sometimes that's kind of a quiet time too. And sometimes there's things we're talking through. Mostly it's spiritual philosophy time for us together.

Yeah, it's almost like I think you described it in the book as creating an environment of peace and harmony. And to me it feels like the kids, when they wake up, they really begin to depend on that and rely upon it and just feel very special. I'm sure a lot of people listening have experienced Christmas morning with the footy pajamas and the stockings and maybe the hot chocolate and the smell of peppermint or whatever else but just imagine that every morning. What if you were a kid and you could wake up every morning and you knew that when you went downstairs or upstairs or wherever the family gathered in the morning, that it could be like that. It's just magical.

What I like about it is that it anchors in a bias. Meaning that I think our bodies anticipate the day, our bodies anticipate what life is going to be or what it might bring us. And once you have a bias of waking up in the morning and easing into the day in this way, which is in my mind really a spiritual practice. The days that that doesn't happen, you crave going back to this as compared to getting addicted to the chemicals of stress every morning and waking up. And then when suddenly you have a peaceful morning, you're almost like going through a withdrawal, wondering, you know, what's wrong, how come I'm not feeling the tension of the morning that I should be feeling typically. And we don't have to get into. I think everybody would know that's listening to this. The health implications of that long term, the biological implications of what happens to a body when it biases one way versus the other, when it habituates that one of our premises around this is the importance of environments and how environments can shape you, shape your life, shape your experience of life, and then shape also your interactions with, with other people, in this case your family. So, you know, with Lori, she's really, I mean, even when we travel, she goes into a hotel room, the first thing, the incense is out, candles are every other. Probably shouldn't say that because you're not allowed to really light this stuff in hotel rooms. And you know, when you create an environment, it can change everything. And that's what this does as a ritual for our family.

Yeah, it's funny you say about the hotels because since we started doing this with our kids, I mean, you guys know, like I travel a lot and a lot of times I'm traveling solo. Now when I go into a hotel, I intentionally. One of the first things I do is start to set it up for the next morning so that I know when I wake up. And a lot of times I've got a devotional or something I travel with and I sit cross legged on the floor of the hotel. But I travel now with incense sticks, with essential oil. I don't necessarily burn sage and smoke out the hotel room, but I've taken this routine on the road and again, not even when my family's with me, just solo. And there's something about waking up. It's just as though you were primal, human. I don't know, sleeping in a cave and you hear the birds song and the sun shining through the cave. It's almost like this sacred time in the morning that presents itself to you, that if you're willing to resist the phones and jumping right into the fray and the work and the school and everything else that you guys saw that your kids were getting exposed to, and you drop them off at school and they hadn't had this in the morning, it sets up this beautiful, beautiful way to start the day. And I think, and I would imagine you'd agree with me. Perhaps most importantly, you're teaching your kids when you adopt a practice like this, to actually prioritize their spirits and their souls and their bodies and their mind before they jump into the business of the day.

Totally, 100%. And now two of the three kids are out of the house. So it's interesting to watch when they go out on their own as young adults where that leads and the impact it has. And you can definitely see how they are setting up their lives on their own as adults and the impact this has had or the positive impact that this has had.

Yeah, like, our daughter just moved into an apartment with her boyfriend last year, and sure enough, she. You know, I didn't say a word or ask or anything, but just going to look at their apartment, she had the incense, the candles, you know, all the things. So it was cool.

Nice. Just don't tell my kids about the drink thing, because we didn't start doing that. And they're. They're super foodies. And they're going to be ordering orange mocha frappuccinos with cinnamon sprinkles on top, and that's going to add another 20 minutes to our wake up morning. So the wake up lounge is, I know, one part of several of kind of what I would say, the traditions and the habits and the rituals and routines that really leapt out to me from your chapter in the book, and I'd like to talk about a few others, but I actually want to backpedal a little bit because one of the things that really made an impression upon me when I was reading about your unique parenting approach was you kind of had three main things. And I don't know if this is influenced by your background in philosophy or whatever, Patrick, but you list premises, values, and purpose. Premises, values, and purpose is that being kind of like the compass that guided you over your parenting years. And I would love to hear a little bit more about well, I'd love to hear about all three of them, whichever one you choose as the highest priority to put first. But tell me more about the premises, the values and the purpose.

Well, the three are actually related to each other. And you're right, it comes from my work as a. Call me a practical philosopher or applied philosopher, where I use the branches of philosophy to sort through my thinking and understanding and then try to create a non contradictory or congruent way to approach whatever it is in life. So whether it's a business, whether it's our parenting, whether it's our health and fitness, you name any category of life. And we have premises, values and purpose that, that surround it. So when we became parents, you know, it was clear to me that we needed to take this approach towards life and apply it to our parenting. And it was quite revelatory as far as, you know, when you start to sit down and sort these things out saying, you know, what, what are my premises? What do I believe? You know, what am I operating from? You know, what are my values when it comes to this particular subject and what's my purpose? And there is a little bit of a sequence to this, but those three things are related.

Okay, so when you say the word premises, I'm kind of nodding my head like I kind of sort of know what that is. But how would you define premise and what were some of the main premises that you guys wove into your parenting?

So a premise is a belief element that is driving your choices and actions, whether you know it or not. We all have them, and they come mostly from our mother's fathers, teachers and preachers. We've picked them up along the way unwittingly. And for the vast majority of people, they don't take the time to really consciously either choose their premises or assess their premises. And they can be very debilitating, like, don't bite off more than you can chew, don't be something you're not. I mean, there's so many things we've heard along the way that gets integrated into our subconscious that are driving us and we don't even know that they're there. So it's important, I think, to become consciously aware of what premises or views of reality that you hold. And once they're identified, to make sure that you're living consistently with them. Some of them are, like I said, things that maybe you picked up in a book, maybe things you picked up from a mentor. One of our first premises came from, My mentor was Dr. Nathaniel Brandon, who was Ayn Rand's intellectual heir, which is what got me into philosophy. And what he said was, and I don't know if this was his original thought, but he was the one who gave it to me. He said no child was ever made good by telling them how bad they are. It just struck me as a truth, a fundamental truth. And we decided that we were going to consciously parent based on that particular premise. And there's other ones that we can get into if you want me to share them.

So one was no child was ever made good by telling them how bad they are. And that makes sense. I assume that you're talking about focusing on the positive and highlighting the good decisions that they make in life rather than beating them up for the bad decisions. But yeah, you had, I think, gosh, more than half a dozen different premises. And I'd love to hear a few of the others that I suppose you would. I don't know, like Jordan Peterson has his 12 rules for life. You know, are these kind of like your guys little rules for parenting?

Yeah, these are the premises mean these, these are our view of reality. Saying these are truths when it comes to parenting that we need to be aware of. And yeah, so similar to what you're saying about Jordan Peterson. So you know, just quickly, I'll just do a quick lightning roundup. One of the best things parents can do for their children is love each other. And so the quick riff on that, and Laurie was really the champion of this, is that a lot of times parents will lose their relationship for the kids. They divide and conquer, they get busy and next thing you know, their relationship really isn't very connected, very deep, very nurturing, very loving. And so we consciously had to choose time away from our kids to continue to connect, making sure date nights were a ritual every week and several other practices that would support that particular premise.

Yeah, and I might interrupt you as you go through a few of these premises, but I think another really important part of that, and I didn't witness this so much in my own parents, I just kind of assumed that everything was okay. And actually my parents got divorced later on in life when I was a teenager and I found out then that going on behind the scenes, they just never really had much in the way of dates and one on one time. And there wasn't a lot of public displays of affection to us kids or anything like that. We just always kind of assume mom and dad are mom and dad and they're in love with each other and having a great time. And now my wife and I, same As it sounds like you guys did, we intentionally make sure that our kids see us nuzzling each other, kissing, going on dates, doing all the things that people deeply in love do. And I think it does display the essences of a good relationship, but I think also kind of like that wake up, lounge the kids just as though they're safe because their parents are in love, their parents are in union, their parents are bonded. It's almost like they feel like they have a little bit more of a rock and a fortress to depend upon.

That's true. And you really can't fake this. So it's like you can't fake it. So the best advice here is really put your relationship as a priority and work on it if it's troubled.

Yeah. The next premise is kind of similar. What we're saying is children learn more by example than by words. And I think it's just very important that they're always watching you. They're always learning. They're always seeing what you do. And you can try to tell them that they need to work out, they need to be in shape, they need to eat healthy, whatever it might be. But when they see you doing it, and that's their entire experience on an ongoing basis, I believe that that ingrains even more as far as what their behaviors are, what kind of thoughts and behaviors are anchored into them. So. So we try to lead by example as parents, and that was something that we were very conscious of.

Yeah. You know what's crazy, by the way, Patrick, is. I went through and ran some stats on some of the repetitive themes, some of the common threads throughout this book and this concept. And a lot of times, and I knew these parents hadn't necessarily all talked to each other and scheme this out. This concept of more is caught than taught. That phrase was actually used by three different parenting couples who I don't think even knew each other was repeated. It was like 70% of the parents in the book at some point said, essentially, your kids watch you, and they pay more attention to what you do than what you say. I think one of the best examples of this is just like the phone, right. Or screen time or whatever. I know when I glance at my. Let's say we're out at dinner with another family, and I'm kind of doing that glance at your phone underneath the table, kind of down by your chair type of thing. And I see that sideways glance from my kids. I know that all they're thinking is, oh, wait, dad tells us to be fully present, engage in conversation, and make eye contact, but it's okay for me to be looking at my phone during a dinner out with friends.

That's a perfect example of what we're saying here. And there's a deeper root to that Nathaniel Brandon would teach. And this is where contradictions, this whole concept of contradictions can lead to destruction. It's like if you sit with your kid and you tell them, hey, listen, Johnny, you always should tell the truth. You shouldn't lie, it's not good character lie, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then 10 minutes later, there's somebody at the door that's ringing looking for you. And the kid answers the door and says, oh, so and so's here. Or somebody calls on the phone, so and so's here. And the response of the parent is, tell them I'm not here telling the kid to lie for you. If you just told them that they're supposed to have integrity and not do that. So there's thousands of examp examples of that. But I can tell you that kids, especially in the younger ages, maybe don't point out contradictions in their parents behavior or lack of integrity, but they are for sure seeing it and it's leaving an impression.

And it actually goes just a little bit deeper than that with mirror neurons. So their, their bodies have cells that are actually mirroring everything we're doing all the time.

Yeah, that's a really good point. And I mean like another example would be, you know, exercise. Like I will assign my kids workouts. I don't necessarily do all their workouts with them, but man, oh man, when they see me heading out the door to the gym, I know that they're not thinking, dad told me I need to do 100 push ups today, but look at him sitting around, not moving. So anytime I have the opportunity, even if it's just a pomodoro break, because I'll stop after a half hour work and do 100 jumping jacks. I will literally walk out my office because I work from home, go upstairs, go buy their room by the hallway, by their room, do the 100 jumping jacks, and then in a loud voice announce something like, hey, I'm doing my pomodoro break. And then I'll go back downstairs just because I know that that goes way farther than me telling them to stop every once in a while. Do some push ups during your homeschooling, guys.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a great practice. To not only think that it's important that you do it, but to put it on display when it's practical to do so so they can see it. I think that's great.

Yeah, yeah. I know another one of your premises was how a child starts their day is critical, which we obviously just kind of established with that wake up Lounge, for example. But what about the family rituals? One that was another one that stood.

Out to me, I could tell you. And I don't know, everybody's at a different place in their parenting. Again, we're getting close to being empty nesters. But what I can tell you is that these rituals stick, meaning they, at this age, you know, as young adults, still talk about and want to engage in the rituals. For an example, you know, I grew up in an Italian household. Italian family, Italian. So we had Italian Sunday. Right. And so the smells in the house, of the sauce cooking and, you know, creating the antibody, there's this whole thing that comes together where the. Where the kids have their whole life been immersed in that ritual. And then when we lived around parents, relatives, etc. We'd gather with other Italians that we're related to and have these Sunday experiences, which I had when I was a kid. So we brought that into the house. So they still. They come over for Sunday, you know, Italian dinner. We still get together. There's a music playlist that we have. And, you know, it's just one example of a ritual that bonds them or anchors them to a happy childhood. And, you know, I have to tell you that the greatest opportunity that an adult has to be happy is having a happy childhood.

Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, like, that whole concept, this was another common thread. It wasn't necessarily every week, but some kind of dinner gathering on a regular basis. I mean, in our house, it's basically besides tonight, Wednesday nights on the day we're recording this, which is the night my sons go to youth group and my wife and I stay home and play Scrabble, which is a fantastic ritual. We have these glorious family dinners every night. I think I've talked with you guys about this before, but it comes up over and over again. I think what you kind of mentioned, this has come up a couple times regarding even something as seemingly insignificant as the smell and the aroma of food and that being tied via the olfactory receptors into this sense of belongingness and love. And that whole concept of, like, you guys know, when you walk into grandma's house and all of a sudden you smell whatever. And my grandma was Italian too, Patrick. She'll appreciate this eggplant parmesan or some fantastic Italian meal. That she's cooking up. It's a lot more than just smelling the food and salivating. It's like this. It's emotions that wash over you from years and years of grandma and giving her a hug and feeling that belonging in her home. And so food goes a long, long way. Again, it seems kind of like silly and insignificant, but as far as something that kids love to gather around and as a way to make life special for a kid growing up, that concept of some type of dinner gathering, I think is just as important as like that morning wake up lounge.

Yeah. And there's another one we would do which was family dinners for us were really basically every night, except for if we were on our date or we were having dinner with friends, which we were pretty picky about with that with because of family time. But just having a day of the week where the kids could choose what to have or where to go, like Monday night. And you just rotate that choice between each kid because it just involves them more in the experience.

Yeah, they had their favorite restaurants and it started out, you know, Monday nights was we all go out to dinner, you know, as a family, and they. And they'd argue over, you know, where they wanted to go. I want to go here, I want to go there. So finally we just said we're going to rotate the decision every, you know, every Monday it's the next person's turn to choose. And they still remember that from when they were young kids, how fun it was to go out Mondays and whose turn was it to pick the restaurant. So these things seem sort of inconsequential or maybe cute or trite, but the reality is they've got long, lingering effects on these kids into adulthood.

Regarding the dinners, did you guys ever do the one on ones? What I mean by that is we'll schedule times during the month. Typically this is. We're really doing once a month now because we have some family dates out and about on this town. But once a month, I'll take one son to one restaurant and Jess will take the other son to another restaurant. Or sometimes we'll both go to the same restaurant, but I'll call ahead and request tables in separate areas of the restaurant. So we do these one on one dates because the conversations with the kids are way different one on one versus when they're with their other siblings. But did you guys do much in terms of the one on one time?

We actually not only did it as a rhythm in our life, so it was another of those rituals. But. But we still do it. I mean, at this point, even more important now than ever and very meaningful. So, yeah, when my kids were little kids, we'd have some. Yeah, we'd take them out to dinner like a daddy, daughter, date or. And sometimes it was a whole day with one kid just spending the day. And fortunately, as an entrepreneur, I had a lot of control over my schedule. So I had the flexibility to say I'm booking out Wednesday and I'm going into the city with my daughter for the day.

And sometimes it was a trip trip for a couple days.

Of course, the million dollar question I got to ask you guys, since you're ahead of me with a 24 year old, a 20 year old and a 17 year old, are you still paying for the meals or do the kids break out the credit card now?

Well, they offer to. We let them pay. Coffee and tea and things like that. But not usually dinners. Not yet.

Yeah, and DeLorean's point, they actually do offer, but at this point it's still sort of like the tradition. I'm taking them out and we sit and I'm sure there's going to be a shift at some point where they're taking me out.

But they do take grandma out. They're allowed to pay for grandma's meals.

Yeah. All right. So this next premise may rabbit hole a little bit, I sense, but you have one about education. Tell me the education premise.

We traveled a lot, so we have a few premises around this. But what we came to the conclusion, this one is that the most important education a child gets is outside of school, not inside of the it. Institutionalized. And yes, we're maverick thinkers in many respects, and this is one of the areas. But our point of view is that institutionalized education doesn't really set kids up for success for the most part. You can certainly name exceptions. But if they're going to be fully aware, fully conscious, fully actualized humans and adults, we felt the best education that we could give them was outside of schools, the schools where they went to learn the basic stuff. But we took them around the world, different cultures, different languages, different foods, different things they see visually and start to learn about the world as a whole and then can start to contemplate what their place in it might be.

We would align that with what they would be learning in school, so that was helpful, or a language they were learning. We would also make sure that we would give them some money, like local money, and give them the opportunity to exchange money. And that's an entryway into the conversations about the Economy or money or whatever's happening in that place Now.

When I interviewed our mutual friends, John and Missy Butcher, they talked about how their kids went to public school. And I think Missy had to, like, go in and make special requests to be able to pull the kids out during times when they normally would have been required to be in school to get the family out to travel. And eventually, I think she actually had pretty good blessing for most of the school, the teachers and the principals to be able to do that because they saw how their kids were evolving so much from that travel. Were you guys kids public school and you kind of run into the same thing?

Yeah, that's correct. About Missy. We've been friends with them for, gosh, our daughters, our sons are two weeks apart, so 20 years.

A lot of our world travel was with them.

Yeah. So, yeah, I learned a lot from Missy in terms of how to go about that. And it was easier once we moved to Park City because somehow they're wired differently here than New Jersey. But it's an issue. It's a real issue, and they don't take kindly to it. But I think ultimately, in the end, we ended up. The kids ended up not wanting to be in school anyway, so we had to shift completely out of the school system.

Our basic history on this is that we've done private schools, we've done public schools, and we've done homeschool. We did it all. And, you know, it's kind of like, you know, there's a season for everything. And there was a time when we weren't really feeling great about the public schools, so we put them into rather expensive private schools, and they spent some years there. But then we felt like, okay, that wasn't quite right for them. And we moved and we moved to Park City and the different school systems, we put them in public school here. But my friend Richard Rossi said something, because we're really laboring over, do we homeschool them now? They basically called, and this was. I think the Butcher kids instigated this in our kids, because we just got back from Australia. They're like, hey, we want to go to Freedom University, meaning homeschool, which was FU for short.

I've never heard that before. That's great.

That's where our kids have a degree from.

Our kids are graduates of fu.

Oh, my gosh. I'm going to tell my kids that tonight at dinner, by the way.

So anyway, what happened was. And we were kind of laboring because, of course, apparently, sweatshirts, one saying, geez, you know, if My kids come out of school and then, you know, can they go to college? And, you know, does it limit their choices? And, you know, if we homeschool them, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And. But our gut, our instincts were telling us, you know, it's just, you know, I'm looking at what's happening to them and it's, it's adverse. It's not, it's not supportive. And Richard, Rusty, who's a friend of mine, not. Who does big education programs for high performing, you know, high school kids and gets them on varying career tracks. And I said, let me give him a call. And I'm thinking, you know, he's kind of more conservative, traditional. And when I called him up and said, you know, we're kind of weighing this decision out and pulling the kids back out, they're in high school and eighth grade, like, I think daughter was a sophomore. My youngest son was 8th grade. My oldest was already in college at that point. And he said, well, first of all, I congratulate you for even considering it and thinking about it. Second, I did homeschool, you know, my kids for a couple of years, which I was shocked when I heard that. He said, but third. Third, here's how I make the decision. The most important thing a kid needs to develop in their life is self confidence. And the question you have to answer is, when they go to school every day, is their self confidence being built or is it being destroyed? And if their self confidence is built because they thrive in that type of an educational environment and can perform well, then great, they're in the right place. If they can't perform well in that particular. My daughter's dyslexic. My son's got pretty serious add. They just don't. They learn different, differently. And if they. So if they're not. If their self confidence is getting injured by showing up to school every day, then take them out. And it was that conversation where we said, that's it. They're going to fu. They're out. So we homeschooled them for those final years of their education, and I'm certain that it was a really good decision.

Hey, has Richard Rossi ever written a book that you would recommend on education or anything else? Because I'm not that familiar with them. But if people wanted to learn, learn more about Richard, what would be the best way to do that?

No, I don't think he's written a book. His company is called Da Vinci Education, I believe.

Okay.

And like I said, Laurie and I have been There we helped him. So like he'll have 5,000 kids in a room. He's got Nobel laureates and all these amazing high level academic and scholarly people that are there to present to these kids. It's a very impressive thing. And for these kids it's, it's perfect because these are the kids who get 4.0 scores and 3.8 scores as far as their GPAs and are applying to Ivy League schools and so on. But my kids simply just were not academics. They're brilliant. Our premise around this is that every person has some genius in them. It's discovering what that genius is, that's the trick and what's important. And for our kids, kids academic prowess is not their genius, but they have other forms of genius that are very impressive and it's just a matter of fostering that and not getting their self confidence destroyed because you're trying to make them learn in a way that's not equipped for them.

When you say other forms of genius, do you mean art?

No, genius in terms of what is their passion, their gift for the world, what were they born to do that they're good at?

Their superpower, in essence, what is something that they have uncommonly great ability at doing? My daughter is an artist, she's a singer, songwriter, and she's extraordinarily gifted in that respect. But she's not going to be gifted if you throw her in a calculus class.

Yeah, that's kind of what I meant. Basically, kids who are wired up for maybe art, creativity, et cetera, who may not be academic, who may not thrive with a university based education. It seems like there's still that, that almost like that stereotype that, yeah, you're going to be able to make art and your job's going to be flipping burgers to actually make money, that type of thing.

Yeah, and that's my definition of hell.

I mean you really have to reverse the entire equation or program that has been written for children. This is what you do. This is you go to school, you become what you're going to do to make money, to go out into the world. And it's like, no, start first with what are they passionate about, what are they like, what are they good at? And then reverse engineer the whole thing.

This is where we go back to philosophy and premises. You know, our premise is that every human being has special gifts and every human being has a purpose in this world. And usually a good clue to what that purpose is, is what are you good at? You, God wouldn't give you a Purpose and make you not good at it. So where your strengths lie, typically is where that innate purpose resides. And the goal and the work is to uncover that, figure out what that is, find it and then develop it and then put your gift into world. And that's the way that you earn your living. Not doing something that destroys your spirit every single day.

Yeah, that makes sense. There's actually a really good book, by the way. It's called one of the better books on purpose and passion and marrying that with some type of a career or service to the world. It's called Ikiguy 2.0. I found it as this really cool free downloadable workbook on a website I follow called Slow Slow CO S L O W W C O. So if anybody's listening and they want kind of like a. A systematic way, I took my sons through it over the course of about six weeks. This idea of identifying what is you're passionate about. And we took some skills finding tests and things like that. So that's a great resource for that. But when it comes to the commercialization or I suppose the boots on the ground, well, how do I actually feed myself using this skill? My sons are. They're really creative artists. They're not very entrepreneurial and driven like I am in that respect. And that's something that's kind of been difficult for me is trying to help them visualize. Okay, how are you going to take these amazing artistic skills that you have in painting and writing fiction and creating art and actually somehow monetize that in case in point. Just yesterday they were working on their Threadless account. Speaking of John Butcher again, he introduced them to this website called Threadless, where you can take your art and begin to make everything from skateboards to shoes to posters to coffee mugs, et cetera, out of it. But. But for you guys, it sounds like you had artistic children. I guess it's kind of a selfish question. How did you foster them actually thinking about how they were going to, I guess more or less. This sounds kind of gimmicky, but make money out of their art, I guess, is what I'm asking.

I think there's an understanding and sort of attention that life presents when you're faced with saying I have to become self responsible, I have to learn to make money, take care of myself, not be dependent on other people. And simultaneously I have to find my passion and see if I can translate that passion into the way that I make money. And there's phases of that. And sometimes kids get it younger, sometimes it takes A long time. So if I just ran the table here on our kids real quick. The 25 year old has a degree from college in finance and economics, dual major. He has a passion about stock analysis and he's really good at it, he's talented at it and something that he doesn't have to be encouraged to think about. He can't help himself. So what did he do? Well, he can't come out of college and suddenly get a job as an analyst and support stuff, but he's working at a bank, so he's working in the industry and in the meantime he works on his Instagram account, friendly stock picks and, and he gets on there and this is where he gets to express his passion. And little by little, as he gets better at it, learns it more, et cetera, I think eventually it will become his way of supporting himself in life. But in the meantime he's got a job that's sort of relevant but not directly his passion and is developing how to make a living in his passion. My daughter, she found something I think was great. So she's a singer, songwriter, extraordinarily gifted. I mean the songs that she's been writing since she was in her 12, 13 years old are still I think, phenomenal songs. And we help support that by having musical instruments around and the ability to record and so on and getting her into a studio and creating music but she can't support herself on that. But she has another passion which I think probably came from us a little bit, which is coffee. And she is a really highly trained barista. She loves working with coffee, explaining coffee enters competitions as a barista for latte art and all that kind of stuff. So she's paying her bills, making a living completely independent of us by working as a barista and continues to pursue her music. So she knows that music is her life and career but doing coffee is something that she has a passion around. In the meantime, our 18 year old homeschooled just know finished his home school, high school. He's got a passion, you know, right now he's, and he's, you know, he's, he's kind of searching it out but his main thing was that he, he thinks he's interested in the markets and in trading and rather than paying college tuition, we put him into a day trading course which he's actually in right now. He loves it, he's up every morning, he's, he's, he's training on, he's learning to day trade, he's actually trading him, you know, Trading small amounts right now to get his C level legs. And right now that's the direction he's headed. You know, he's 18. That could change, obviously, but right now that's, that's what he's learning and what he's passionate about. So, you know, it's, it's, it's fortunate if at younger ages you can figure that out. Some people maybe don't figure that out till they're in their 30s.

But what's critical is the frame that you raise them in that frame to ask the question, how do you want to live your life? And they see us and the way they live and they are now recognizing as they become adults. Wow, you guys, guys really love your life and you, you're good at what you do. And so they're interested in that. So from, from a young age, just keeping engaged in what they're good at, what they're passionate about, and having them start to build their day in their life around how they want to feel. What are the kinds of things that they can do that bring that good feeling and visualizing. Right, visualizing a future that brings them the life and the job opportunities that they want to step into.

Yeah. And related to your daughter Antoinette's love for coffee. I mean, she's always going to have a job if she knows how to make magic with the most popular drug on the face of the planet.

Talking about opening a coffee shop because of that.

So yeah, it is kind of funny because that's exactly what my sons talk about. And like I grew up with a dad as a gourmet coffee roaster. My brother and my dad used to go to the barista competitions where you flip the espresso anyways though, so I'm intimately familiar with the love for coffee. And it's a big thing in our house too. And my sons, they actually want the things they've listed that they're super interested in doing is opening up an art studio coffee shop. So I wouldn't mind that I have a place to hang out in my happy place.

Exactly. And incidentally, you wonder how much influence you have. I love music. I love rock and roll. It's a passion of mine. And passion is one thing, but I'm really not that talented. We have guitars and amp and piano and drums. Everything, you know, in this house they always have set up. And you know, if I. So now it has to be a hobby because I just don't. It's not like a God given gift I have, it's just something I enjoy Doing that I'm not particularly good at. But my daughter, on the other hand, you know, sitting in my lap when I play piano with her on my lap and singing songs to her, she has a gift. So for her it's turned into a career. But coffee also, you know, being coffee geeks, you know, we have a whole setup. You know, we fresh grind every morning, we source beans from all over the world. You know, we do that whole thing and that's a part of that morning lounge, you know, that wake up lounge, That's a part of the ceremony that gets the lounge started. Not that we give it to our kids when they're young, but for us. And we made them other drinks, but. So you never know how much of that wears off and they just find the passion or how much of it was innate in them. I don't know. My other two kids, you know, are indifferent to coffee mostly, but my daughter found a love of it, so it's just finding what that is.

Yeah. And I seem to recall you and I, I'm pretty sure that we broke out the band at a random restaurant in Park City City one evening where there was a piano and a guitar. And I remember when I visited your house once, I was like.

That was actually a lot of fun. And I was actually extraordinarily impressed with your guitar playing. In sync.

I'm working on it. I'm working on it. I know we were just in Nashville. I'm actually heading back down to Nashville to cut an album pretty soon in the whole the praise and worship music genre, so. So I'm still working on it. Okay, so another question related to education. You had your kids, I don't know if all of them, maybe it was just one of them, but you had them read Atlas Shrugged, which is over. That's over a thousand pages, I think. I've never read the whole thing. But tell me why on earth you would have had your kid read Atlas Shrugged?

Yeah, it's a 1100 page book. It was published in 1957. It is still in publication today. After all these years, most people look at kind of as a. They almost wonder if Rand, Ayn Rand, the author, was some type of a clairvoyant and. No, she just knew how to think and understood premises and how they play out. And Reader's Digest in their survey found that it was the second most influential book in the world after the Bible. Number one was the Bible. Number two was Atlas Shrugged, ironically. And I've read it probably at least 11 times over the years. And the Reason is that to me, it is a breathtaking, extraordinary view of the application of philosophy in life and what that can do to the world as far as how individuals live their life, what happens in society, etc. It is just this epic novel that once you read it and understand it, they call it philosophic, where it's a fictional story where philosophy is expressed. You know, it's just an achievement to finish that book. And it's the book that has had the biggest impact on me. As a matter of fact, when Laurie and I met, you know, I gave her a copy to read and it was almost my vetting process. I wanted to see how she responded to the book and that would tell me if we were right for each other. And it turned out rather well. But so I figured if it worked for my wife, it would work for my kids too. No, just kidding. But it's an achievement to finish that book and actually understand or digest it. And so I just said, hey, I'm going to put a prize on this. If you can read the book and then pass an oral exam with me, you get 500 bucks. So our oldest kid had done that. Read it, we had a conversation and it really helped shape his thinking and gave him confidence in his thinking. My daughter has started, she's not through it all yet. And my 18 year old, I think he'll get in gear at some point with it also. So I don't force them to raise read it, but I try to incentivize them to do so. And by doing so, I think it can have a massively positive impact on their life.

Quick, practical question. The oral exam that you mentioned in the book, and I know you also give them that $500 award, but I'm constantly going through a book with my sons. What we do is I assign a book for the month and we tend to do one to two chapters each night before dinner. So every night we gather. The whole family knows 7pm we're in the kitchen at that point. The people who have been assigned to a certain dish at dinner during our morning gathering actually have already kind of started into their dish, prepared it. But then at seven we meet to review the chapter or chapters of the book that we're going through as a family. Typically it's like a five to ten minute discussion. And then for the bigger books that I know are super meaningful, what I'll have at the end of the month is a paid book report where they can have the discussions with dad in the evening, but then if they complete the Book report at the end of the month, they'll typically get paid. Usually it's like 100, $200 dollars around in that range. When you're doing something like an oral exam with your kids, you just kind of like asking them questions about what they read in the book or did you have any type of formal structure to the way that you have them do an oral exam about the book?

Yeah, I use the term exam. It's not like I'm grading. And at the end it just basically tells me, did they read it number one? And number two, did they capture the essence of what was communicated? So it's just a discussion, which I have them mostly read I'll prompt with questions. It's more like an oral interview. I'm interviewing them about the book, and I want to see if they can. If they understood it, if they could communicate it. And if they did, then I know they read it and they did what they were supposed to do.

Yeah. Okay, got it. There are a couple other premises that you list that appear within the book, and I'm going to leave people with a little bit of a cliffhanger as far as a few of the additional premises because. Because I would be remiss not to bring up the topic of meditation during the time that we have. I know, Laurie, that you've been pretty involved with Dr. Joe Dispenza, and I'm curious how you guys wove that or other forms of meditation into your parenting.

You're correct that that's my background. And I think it began with ourself. Right. It always begins with us personally. So Patrick and I each building our own meditation practice was key. My son even reminded me of a time that he got really angry when he was really. And told me he was going to go run away. And. And then he came back to see if I was, you know, upset or, you know, whatever. And I was in my room meditating, which just made me laugh. It's just a solid way as a parent to keep sanity, other than red wine, which we called patience in a bottle. But it's. It's really how we build our whole life. We build our whole life now around the principles we've learned through meditation. And specifically, Joe Dispens is one of our favorite favorites in terms of really creating the space in the mind, soul, body to, you know, have the coherent brain and heart to live your life from. So bringing that into parenting meant, and has meant we become the person who is centered and can listen to them and can be natural in the way that we are as a human so that they can observe that. Right. And have this beautiful relationship as they get older. We have teenagers who don't want us to leave town still. They want to hang out with us all the time. Our teenage years weren't a stress. And as they become young adults, I can say I love my relationship with each kid. And I think it's based in the fact that meditation has been such a huge part of our life.

Now, when it comes to the practicalities of meditation, I'm kind of curious how you actually do that. Did you take your kids to an actual retreat after which they'd keep on practicing certain elements of what they learned there on a daily basis? Or did you have some other approach?

Yeah, yeah. So in this case, we did do a seven day week long Dispenza meditation retreat, which at the time I was working at, or volunteering, whatever you want to call it, assisting. And my kids came with me. We all went as a family, but. And there was. So actually my daughter's done more than one. But yeah, that's how you do it. In our case, they came to the event, they had the experience and we're in the energy of. And that seven days for our daughter especially was transformative because she was able to, and I think it was in a very specific walking meditation that he had them doing that she was able to really see her future as a singer. And she saw some of her issues with anxiety were able to come up and she was able to. There was a great, beautiful space between her and her anxiety and she could see that she could make choices in her life around this. And there were many other things she got. But in our case it was. And then also just teaching them how to bring that practice into their life. So our daughter does meditate. I can't say that our sons do. I think our oldest has definitely tried and trying and the 18 year old, not so much. But he is really working on manifesting and his mindset and starting his day the right way. So we're getting there.

Now as far as the Joe Dispenza retreats, if people were interested in bringing one of their kids to something like that, is there an age range that you think is appropriate?

He does a specific kids event. Everything's on his website. So the kids event I think is really, you know, highly recommended in terms of the week long. I've seen young kids there, gosh, I think seven or eight. I mean, as long as they can sit still, listen, pay attention and do meditation, they can go And I've seen these kids out on the walking meditations with their headphones on, and they're just as, you know, I'm in tears. Years seeing their, you know, their commitment to walking through this with. With a thousand other adults, it's beautiful. And he honors. He really honors children.

That's really cool. I've been interested in taking my wife to one. Yeah, I hadn't thought about taking my sons, but it's kind of, like, on my radar. I've wanted to go to one ever since you guys have been telling me about them, but maybe I'll just make it a family event. I don't know. You think that'd be appropriate to bring like. Like Jessa and my Sons, who are 14 now?

Absolutely. Because then you come home as a family, you're transformed. Transformation happens because it's seven days long. You can't not leave a different person. And so if you're changed, that's one thing, and that's great. But to have the whole family go in and come home with that energy between you, it's beautiful.

Okay, cool. I'm adding that to the list. I always take notes about calls to action, post podcasts. I always wind up every week interviewing a few people a week with a whole checklist of stuff to look into. So thank you. I was kind of remiss to ask this question. It's probably the last thing I'm going to cover with you guys. But there is a part of the book where you say, don't subjugate your inner knowing to external experts who don't know you, your values, or your child. The reason I was a little bit nervous to bring this up was because obviously we're talking about a book on parenting in which you're reading about external experts who don't know you, your values, or your child, and trying to get information from. From them. So tell me about that. And if there was a specific scenario or example from your own parenting in which that really fleshed itself out.

And I'm hoping to. Your point about the book and our chapter, at least, is that we're giving ideas and suggestions. In other words, we're saying it's important to have premises. We're not telling you what your premises should be. We're saying it's important to have values, but we're not telling you what value values you should have. And to me, the whole point is with education and raising children, so on is our premise around this is we want to teach them how to think, not what to think. That's what I think this is really about. There are so many self styled experts out there who have agendas. I mean, I'm horrified quite frankly with some of the things I'm seeing today and some school boards, how they get together and what they're trying. They have an agenda for these children as if. And there's a battle right now between saying are these students to be brought up by the state or are they to be brought up by the parents? And are the parents supposed to have the influence over how these kids are brought up? There's fundamental principles, philosophical principles at play here that are serious, serious and significant. And one of the things that I get concerned about is when a parent substitutes their own judgment, their own innate connection and instinct that they have for their child to an expert. You know, and I feel the same way incidentally about going to a doctor and going, you know, it's like you have to know, you know, we have a health philosophy, a certain way we approach things. So we know when we're getting recommendations that are consistent with our philosophy or they're in contradiction to our philosophy. Doesn't mean we don't need help or support, doesn't mean that we're not looking for it. But I've got to start with who are we? What are our values? That's why it goes all the way back. If I know our values, our purpose and our premises now I can read a book like your book, Ben on this. I can go through it and I can see the things that I relate to that would be supportive and help me and advance me in my agenda as a person. And I can also look at the old things and say that one's not for me. Doesn't mean they're bad, doesn't mean they're wrong. It's just not for me. And this is critical. So we need ideas, we need stimulation, we need books, we need the collective wisdom of people who have had experiences, have applied what they've done in their life and now can share their success and failures. Incidentally, I many times learn a lot more from people's failures than and their successes. So they can share all that and then I can take from that. But I am the responsible party. I don't subjugate my judgment for somebody else's. That's what it means to be self responsible. So you can tell I'm a bit passionate about that as a particular point of view. I encourage all people think, use your own mind, your own judgment. But it doesn't mean you can't learn from other people. You can't improve on your life or your parents parenting by learning from other people. But never subjugate your own views or your own values because some expert told you that you should do it a different way.

And I would only add to that feel, think and feel. Feel your own intuition as a person and teach your kid to feel their intuition. It's what's natural. How does nature occur around us? Look outside. There's no straight lines in nature. How does a tree lose its leaves? It's just trusting a little bit the process of being a human and really being able to use your heart to guide you in decisions and not becoming a program.

Yeah, it's interesting because this book has advice obviously from 30 different parents and there's parents do different things from a nutrition standpoint, from a sleep standpoint, from a discipline standpoint, from an education standpoint, for travel, you name it. But what I've doing been telling people as I'm getting close to releasing this book is just read it. Pick from the best of the best. Sit with what resonates with you. Because if you try to pick up every last parent's habits and weave them all into your own parenting routine, a you're going to have no time left in the day and B you're going to be pulling your hair out trying to squeeze in, I don't know. Brian Johnson, Liver King's morning kettlebell workout that he does with his kids. To Joe Decent as wrestler coming over to train your kids at 4am in the morning to the Gentempo's Wake Lounge. You can't do it all, but you want to choose the stuff that resonates with you and then definitely read the common threads. Because in the common threads you come across a lot of the stuff that's similar to your guys premises. More is caught than taught. Prioritize family dinners, schedule one on one dates and make them intentional, be present at the dinner table, et cetera, et cetera. There are certain things nutrition. It's no matter what diet in all these blue zone hotspots and areas of centenarians that you look at that there are common threads. You eat together. Typically almost no vegetable oils, very low levels of starches and added sugars, food that's as close to nature as possible, some type of tea or coffee or highly tannic or polyphenol rich drink consumed on a daily basis. So it's like no matter whether you're following the macronutrient ratios or whatever else, there's certain key threads that you follow and so if you approach your parenting recipe, your parenting cookbook like that, then I think it's a really good way to go. And. And you guys contributed a great deal of wisdom to this book. So I guess I just want to end by saying thank you for your contribution, and I can't wait to unleash your wisdom upon the world here.

Thanks, Ben. I'm really glad you're doing this because I think it's overwhelming to be a parent, and I think we have to watch out for perfectionism and trying to have perfect kids and us be perfect parents, it's just not realistic. So I think it's great, your style and approach for doing this. And thanks for me having.

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of important topics that you cover, and I don't know that there's a more important topic than parenting. It literally, you know, the responsibility. Hey, if we screw up our own lives, it's one thing, but, you know, we screw up the lives of other people, that becomes a problem. And people who are willing to engage in and take seriously the concept of parenting, but at the same time have a lot of fun. It should be the most fun thing you ever do in your life, quite frankly. But understand that it is important. And I have to say that I didn't have the opportunity. Like, there were books on parenting, some things we had references to, but nobody put together something comprehensive like this that didn't come from an academic, you know, an ivory tower scholar, but literally real parents in the real world, living it every day. I think this book is going to be revelatory and should have a massively positive impact. So, number one, thank you for including us. And number two, congratulations. It's quite an epic effort you put into this.

Awesome. Well, the show notes for today are at BenGreenfieldLife.com GentleEmpo G E N T E M P O. So BenGreenfieldLife.com GentEmpo the books at BoundlessParentingBook.com Patrick Laurie, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Thanks for having us.

All right, folks, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Patrick and Lori. Jen Tempo from BenGreenfieldLife.com, have an amazing week. All right, this is cool, but you want to pay attention because it's coming up right around the Corner on Friday, December 2nd. You're going to get a chance to join me and some really powerful healing physicians down in Sarasota, Florida. This is a live event, goes from 8am to 5pm I'll be there, my friend. And A brilliant former podcast guest, the Doctor Strange of Medicine, Medicine Dr. John Laurence is going to be there. HBOT USA, Dr. Jason and Melissa Saunders are going to be there with their hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Brian Richards of Saunaspace, Harry Paul, one of John's friends, who I recently met, who's also an amazing healer for an event that's super unique. It's all based around the elements Earth, fire, air and water, with a ton of treatments and technologies and modalities and very unique biohacks that you're going to get exposed to during the entire event. Basically what I mean by that is when it comes to air, you're going to learn about hyperbaric oxygen and ozone and air filtration. Everything you need to know to upgrade your air when it comes to Earth. Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy, earthing, grounding, a host of other ways that you can use the power of the planet to enhance your health, your sleep, your recovery, your muscle gain, your fat loss, a lot more water. You'll learn about proper water filtration, how, how to upgrade your water, hydrogenated water, structured water, basically soup to nuts. Everything you need to know about water and how to apply it in your home, in your office and your life. And then finally, fire is a fun one. Lots of cryotherapy, a little bit of ice too. Breath work, inner fire practices, a ton of stuff when it comes to introducing the element of fire into your life. So this event is super unique. John and I have been working on it behind, behind the scenes and it has come together amazingly. There's even a VIP experience. If you sign up for the VIP experience, you could come two days early or stay a few days after the event. And basically you will get all the medical protocols customized by Dr. John and his staff. If you claim one of those 10 VIP spots that'll include like IV methylene blue laser treatments, John's really unique Bliss release, which is basically an endonasal adjustment, which is essential, essentially like a chiropractic adjustment through your nose for your entire skull, which if you've had TBI or concussion or allergies or things like that in the past, it totally reboots that entire system. There's going to also be ozone treatments, Myers IV cocktails, exosome treatments, IV laser, access to a CVAC machine, and John's entire facility is going to be at your beck and call if you got one of the VIP tickets. And then we're also probably going to have have a little bit of a party later on in the evening after this event. The whole thing is going to be a pinch. Me, I'm dreaming full on cutting edge of biohacking experience and I'm just now letting the world know about it. So spots are going to fill up pretty fast. Space is limited, but if you want to get in now, here's how you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com Elements Event Event that's BenGreenfieldLife.com Elements-Event it's in Sarasota, Florida. Again, it's all day Friday, December 2nd. I would come in early and stay after if you just want to try out all the crazy modalities there. You know, I don't know how fast those VIP tickets are going to sell out, but either way this thing is going to be absolutely amazing. I just can't wait. Like I'm pinching myself. Can't wait to be on the plane to head down there and do this. So check it out. Ben Greenfield Life Elements Event and I'll see you there. I hope. 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.