2643: Six Data-Backed Reasons Why Becoming a Father is a Hack & More (Listener Coaching)

22:45Adam Schafer:happens i thought about that oh yeah it's like you're even if you're out uh a night out someone's watching the kids they put them to bed and you're hanging out and you're like i'm like i don't want to get too messed up what if something happens in the middle of the night keep your wits about you That's right. Next up is the stronger social connections. A 2016 study in social science and medicine found that fathers developed stronger social networks through involvement in child-related activities like school events and sports. Fathers reported a 25 % increase in social interactions compared to childless men.

23:16Adam Schafer:This is especially true for men. We become hermits easily. A man becomes a, when you look at a man without kids, without a wife, especially, they very easily slip into not interacting with a lot of people yeah we go straight into provider mode yeah or or even if you don't have especially if you don't have a wife you're just not as you get older you become more and more and more isolated this tends to happen to men when you have children uh you're meeting other parents they're in school or they're friends with other kids you're meeting other people with kids you're you're you're putting yourself out there for the sake of your child, which increases social connections and social connections, uh, is a key, uh, predictor of health, overall health, uh, overall wellness and happiness.

24:04Adam Schafer:And it's these days, especially it's something that can be easily lost because of technology. It's very easy to get everything you need and do everything you need without really being around a lot of people. Having kids encourages that. Like if you have a kid in sports, you're going to meet other people because of that sport, just that alone.

24:23Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I mean, so I'm admittedly a father or a man that is not out there seeking new male partnership relationships, right? I'm not like, oh, I need another friend or I'm not actively trying to do that. But I'm also in the same breath, the dad who is like, oh, my son is becoming good friends with this. I want to meet the parents. Yeah, right. You know what I'm saying? This kid is hanging out with my kid all the time. They've become best friends. Well, I want to see what their mom and dad are like. So Katrina and I will hang out with the parents. And I would never do that. I would never go hang out with some random parents just to build more relationships.

24:58Sal Di Stefano:I would make a million excuses why, no matter what the studies say about health. But because I have a kid, I look through that lens. Totally. It's like, I want to know who my son is calling his best friend, the values that the parents have, what they're teaching their kid. Because I know that kid is going to end up influencing as much, maybe more, of my son and his behaviors than even I can. And if that's true, then I need to make sure that these parents are somewhat aligned with similar values as we have.

25:25Adam Schafer:Yeah, and then finally, I think this is the best one. There's an increased sense of purpose and life satisfaction. And there's lots of studies on this, but there was one study done by the American Sociological Association found that 70 % of fathers felt their life had greater meaning after having children. This is a big one, right? Like if your sense of purpose is just you versus when you have kids, it is a big difference. You ask any dad who cares about their kids, uh, about their, their, their purpose and meaning in life. And part of that answer is probably going to include their children. It's an automatic sense of purpose.

26:05Adam Schafer:Sometimes this can push us in the wrong direction, by the way, which I think a lot of, I think men need coaching sometimes from other, um, well-established fathers, because sometimes you know what this looks like for a man oh my god i have kids i gotta work five times as much now i have such a strong sense of purpose i need to just work my ass off by the way the data on this is interesting uh men the highest earning uh category of people in modern societies are married men with children gee i wonder why because you have a very strong sense of purpose driven yeah that's uh that's a hundred percent so there's this very nihilistic view that some

26:40Sal Di Stefano:people hold of that were this, you know, irrelevant little speck on this rock spinning through the universe. And one day we're going to die and a handful of people will show up to our funeral and then a month will go by and no one will ever speak of you. And, and, and there's a lot of, a lot of people that, that, that think from that perspective and believe that. And I like to think that there's a part of you that lives on through your children. And there's, there's there is a bit of of me that gets carried on forever through my son and hopefully my son's son and myself like and if and i play a big role in that if i influence him in a positive way and give him all of me and my knowledge then he's all of me and some and he carries that on and to me that's legacy that's real legacy is like i've taken what what i everything i did over whatever time frame I'm on this spinning rock.

27:35Sal Di Stefano:I put that into this thing that shares my genetics, and then it's going to go past it on. That is the closest thing to living on beyond our death. And I think that to not see that or realize it or appreciate that, I think it's crazy. I think that's one of the coolest things to... I mean, I know mine's only six right now, but as you start to see their personalities unfold and you see little specks of yourself in them you're like oh man that's that's cool you know you get and and can i help help develop that or maybe help show him where that could go the wrong way and like and like you get to play that role and so a part of you kind of lives on forever if done correctly now the other side of this is

28:18Adam Schafer:uh you have less time less money and it's hard yeah it's hard it's hard but i'm a now that i'm again i'm speaking to men right now uh if you don't do something amazing that'll change your life that's one of the best things you could do because it's hard then you're a pussy because uh like everything worth anything in life is hard nothing that is super easy uh is in the same category so of course it's hard it's the greatest one of the greatest things you'll ever do and it's hard and yes you're signing up for that uh that challenge but it's totally worth it and it is yes and again i want to tell guys like you're going to become a dad it's going to challenge

28:57Sal Di Stefano:you like yeah i want to i want to i want to push back a little bit on the time and money thing a little bit and and where i mean i want to push back is that i do think that's what's perceived is that oh all this time i won't have and all this money it costs to have a kid i would it's similar to like i mean you could make the same argument with getting married right it's another person that you have to is dependent on you but um as a married man with a kid i i am a better version of myself i think i'm a far more successful version so i think i have significantly more money uh than i would have had all by myself without a kid having a partner having a child uh costs more money independent of itself but because it gives me a greater purpose i've i've reaped more

29:46Adam Schafer:benefits sure that's why i said the wealthiest men right and then the time argument uh done a

29:53Sal Di Stefano:lot of cool things before i had a kid in my 20s in my early 30s right a lot of cool things that have created neat memories in my head none of them come close to comparing to the memories that i already have with my kid it's only been six years right it's only been six years so the time uh that that you may you think you lose out on or that you trade for other things guess what ends up being far more valuable and greater to you anyways no that's great you know earlier we were talking

30:19Adam Schafer:about how technology can make it so easy to stay isolated. Doug, I would love for you to look up a statistic on tech addiction, if there's a definition for it, and if people are seeking help for it. And this is just on the heels of that one study that showed that people who are using AI regularly are actually losing. Their IQ is dropping. Yeah, their brains are becoming atrophied. In fact, there's some studies that suggest that the brain shrinks in certain areas, like muscle, that's getting weaker and atrophying. And so I'm wondering how aware people are about tech addiction and what that does.

30:57Adam Schafer:And what does that say up there? How do they define it? It's a compulsive and excessive use of technology, including the internet, social media, online gambling, and other digital devices that leads to negative consequences in a person's life. It's characterized by a loss of control over technology use, despite negative impacts on relationships, work, school, or mental and physical health. Is there a stat on like what percentage

31:18Sal Di Stefano:of people report so sal wouldn't wouldn't the same thing be shown in a study if you took a group of 100 people that um for say i don't know whatever period of time you want their study to run for uh one group always uses a calculator the other group always does long form math i would imagine the ones that don't go long form and use the calculator their brain atrophies somewhat and the ones that do challenge their brain in that way yeah so no that's a great question so and the reason why i bring that up is because that's how people are going to view this is like of course um i no longer of course it atrophies who cares the ai is handling it for me i don't just like we like how is that any different than a calculator so i'll give you i'll give you the

32:08Adam Schafer:example because it's a great that's a great way how much are you willing to give up yeah it's it's such a great way to position it. So I don't, we'll use muscle and physical ability. I don't think we should go back to a time when we were breaking rocks and washing things by hand and, you know, being everything's so physical. GPS and all that. It's, I think that that, I think there was like some of the, get rid of some of that. Right. I think, but we've gone so far in the, in the, we don't do anything physical now that to the point now where we're, we're having all these detrimental effects from lack of activity.

32:41Adam Schafer:to the point where you have to schedule activity. So I think some stuff makes sense, but I think what these AI studies are showing is that we do everything through AI, which is what AI promises to do. Now we're going to have actual cognitive decline, actual -

32:57Sal Di Stefano:But let's stay here with that, the direction you're going, okay? Because from our perspective and our age that we grew up in, that makes logical sense. Like, oh, let's not go back to breaking rocks and do - But I mean, I can imagine if I was somebody who was born in the 30s or like that, I might make the argument like, why not? You're doing something productive with your hands. Like at least that energy, you go to a gym and lift a bunch of iron for no reason just to look a certain way. And I would say, you take that same energy, you could go build a house, Sal. You could go, you know. And they would have a good point.

33:29Adam Schafer:The best comparison I would have would be the Amish. Are the Amish healthier and happier than the average person? Yes. They are. Yeah. Statistically, they are. So I don't, so, so yeah, dude, they are, but now where, how far do you want to go with this? I think that we're going to see downstream effects that we can't even predict. Yeah, the concern is there's so many things you can offload now with the potential of AI as opposed to like having like certain things like I could drive more effectively because I know where I'm going because now like, you know, the GPS takes me where I need to go. And it's like a convenience thing, but I could still challenge myself in so many ways.

34:11You just have to think. Where AI is coming in is it's like it's taking over a lot. Outsource everything.

34:17Sal Di Stefano:You're going to outsource everything. Yeah. So, okay. So my reason why I keep going back to like bringing it way back is because I don't think it's any different. And the only difference is the speed at which we see fat, depression, and everything rise. That's it. It's going to be the same thing. The only difference is people will get fatter faster, they'll get sicker faster, and they'll get more depressed faster. So we've already been seeing it.

34:44Adam Schafer:Yeah, because the Industrial Revolution took decades.

34:46Sal Di Stefano:Right. Yeah, we're looking at like. And so we've been atrophying for decades too. It's just going to move exponentially faster. We will be sicker, more depressed, and fatter faster than what we did for the previous decades. But the same thing. It is the same thing. And the same argument could be made from a guy who was born in the 30s going like, you assholes go to a gym and lift weights. That's ridiculous to me. It's pushing us into Wally. I could totally see coming from that perspective as a man who grew up in the 30s, watching a bunch of men in the 2000s go to a gym. My grandfather said that.

35:21Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. He's like, why go do that? Go build a fence for your neighbor.

35:26Adam Schafer:My grandfather, I'll never forget. He visited from Sicily, never left the island. And he came to Sicily and he saw me working out in the backyard and laughing so hard. He's like, why are you lifting things and putting it down? He's like, I used to do that. I used to work. That's what I used to do. Exactly.

35:39Sal Di Stefano:And a really good argument, because I know you like using the stats on happiness. You know, you could say that, and you know this for doing for others. Imagine if you took, okay, your five hours or seven hours a week that you put into lifting weights in the gym to building something physical for other people. Yeah. What would that do for our society? What would that do for your personal health? What would do that for your physical health? Oh, yeah, yeah.

36:03Adam Schafer:I mean. It could, it could. But, you know, again, I think it's an interesting conversation, but I don't think we've ever seen anything like this just because of the speed. The speed, that's it. So look at the stats up there. 26 okay almost 20 27 percent of the global population has a smartphone addiction holy cow that's more than a quarter that's a more than a quarter 14 percent of people have an internet addiction according to a study published in science direct.com additionally 31 percent this is this is uh that's a lot of people of u.s adults report being online almost constantly holy cow 57 of americans admit to being addicted to their phones and i wonder how many people seek uh help with that uh probably not many right are there they're probably it's got to be a growing

36:53Sal Di Stefano:field well there's also what there's also the these growing things like i i mean did you guys ever hear about when we were kids these uh retreats these black blackout retreats and like you know dark retreat like that's a thing now and that's a growing thing like it's it would never existed now it's popular ayahuasca trips are popular now it's but all these things have been around forever but they're becoming popular for these reasons yeah there's more and more people although a small number but more and more people are really nature cleansing yeah yes yeah there's a lot of this stuff that's happened i just saw one of my friends uh that's a big social media influencer you know she posted like i'm taking a break on the internet for the next you know month or whatever that see you later like that you're starting to see that happen more and more

37:33Adam Schafer:well so there is more awareness it's the reason why like you know you think to yourself like why would you ever go camping like you're gonna go out you're gonna sleep with no ac no air heating you're gonna it's so hard and then typically when you come back from camping you're like that was awesome i'm so refreshed it's just disconnecting yeah from all the stuff there's something inside of us that kind of needs it but that the reason why i brought up the tech addiction is i was i was you know we're talking we're going to talk about or mention rock recovery center uh a little bit this is our our friends that have a rehab facility uh that offers scholarship to one of our listeners and viewers, uh, where you go there and you get, I think it's five months of rehab help.

38:11Adam Schafer:And I looked up the 10 reasons why people go, uh, to rehab. Like what are the main reasons you guys want to guess the main reasons why people go to rehab? The easiest, the first one obviously is, uh, substance abuse, right? I go there for substance abuse, but there's other reasons too. Mental health disorders is one. So many people go there to address co-occurring mental health issues that are often alongside substance use. So they go in there with mental health issues and they're, they're, they're using the drugs or whatever to try to self-medicate. Then another one, here's one of the biggest reasons, legal or court mandated requirements.

38:50Adam Schafer:Duh. Where the court's like, listen, you've had three DUIs. You're going to go rehab. then family or social pressure pressure is another one uh whereas family says if you don't go we're gonna cut ourselves out you're not you're gonna have to go then there's health complications from addiction job or career consequences um behavioral addictions sometimes non-substance and financial and social uh stability and another one is relapse people are like i tried quitting a million times I need professional help type of deal. Really interesting. I wonder if -

39:25Sal Di Stefano:I bet you will. I mean -

39:27Adam Schafer:Of course you will. AI addiction rehab. It's only going to get worse.

39:30Sal Di Stefano:It's only going to get worse. That's what I think. Yeah, I don't disagree with that argument at all. I actually really don't think it is that much different than what we've seen. We're seeing at such a fast rate because of what AI can do. But we've already been watching this happen over decades. And to me, that's the example is like, we're going to have to choose hard. And that's hard to do. No pun intended.

39:55Adam Schafer:Easy, have everything you think you want, or hard and unpredictable. Yeah, that's what it's going to look like.

40:00Sal Di Stefano:I mean, look how hard it is for the percentage of population to choose to go to the gym and choose to do hard physical activity. I know. And we know the benefits. And we know how crazy the benefits are. And so this will be no different. This will be no different. It'll be really hard to convince a good portion of the society that -

40:22Adam Schafer:Do you guys think that fitness and health, for lack of a better term, fanatics, are going to be the ones that are more likely - For sure. To disconnect? For sure. Absolutely. Because they're health-minded.

40:32Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. I agree. And they've already connected those dots.

40:36Adam Schafer:Yeah.

40:37Sal Di Stefano:And they already have the discipline. Yeah. And they're already used to - They're already choosing hard. They've already chose to do physical labor to take care of their bodies. once they really make the connection of the mental health side with the tech and everything like that i agree yeah they're they're more likely the first ones you know you brought up ai justin sent me that

40:54Adam Schafer:this video uh over the weekend on how some people are already worshiping my god yeah tell me so they're already kind of making it yes so there's i don't exactly know the groups uh where this is happening but there's been a lot of reports of people actually starting to worship it because they're getting all these answers. And then every day they wake up and they ask it questions, just like they'd be praying or they'd be dealing with things. Wow, of course. Yeah. And so it serves a lot of those functions of, you know, if you're perceiving God as this like a genie or this thing that's like - Just gives you what you do.

41:30Yeah, just gives you like answers, you know, for what's going on. And so it just seemed like, wow, that was an inevitability. Yeah, your anti-cross theory gets stronger and stronger. I agree with it. I didn't want it to come to fruition. But yeah, it is looking like it's making steps.

41:50Adam Schafer:Do you guys know who Stephen Meyer is? That name sounds familiar. So he's like intellectual who for the last, I'd say, 20 years, he's been the guy arguing for intelligent design. Yes. And what he does is he debates and discusses with astrophysics and science and biology on why it's more likely that there is a God that there isn't. I watched this video that he did, this talk that he did, and I was somewhat familiar with this, but he broke it down. So before the 1920s, right around the 1920s, most scientists thought that the universe was everlasting and infinite. That was the belief. Like it's an everlasting forever universe.

42:41Adam Schafer:And then Hubble, I believe, was one of the first to be able to observe that there were other galaxies. Because initially it was like this is the only galaxy, and then after that it's just space forever and it's been around forever. then they were able to observe light coming from these galaxies and they were able to discern accurately that everything's expanding and moving away from us so they were like okay if we rewind time back far enough that means everything was all in this one point and came out of yeah and then and then that and i didn't realize this he had all these quotes from uh these scientists who were atheists and they were angry with this answer they were like this doesn't make me feel good this sounds a lot like uh theology and creation i don't like this and they continue to try to find loopholes around it uh to try to make themselves you know feel better you know what i would love in uh i remember when we first connected with bishop baron and um and i asked him in the interview too it was like his thoughts around ai he couldn't answer because i think back then too it's like that's a huge can of worms and like unforeseen ways that it's going to develop and but at this point now to get a lot of the religious community and to really think these thoughts about like you know people if people are going to be stepping over here and like using it uh for spiritual needs like what like what does that look like with with structured religion and and then ai being like an option well here's what's interesting i asked ai and other and you can ask i've seen people post about this you ask it with all of the available evidence and data is it more probable that there is an intelligent designer or more probable that there isn't and you know what ai says it's more probable that there is so ai will actually well yeah and you saw the the guy with the highest iq uh yeah he also says a lot of inflammatory shit okay yeah I follow him on Instagram, bro.

44:42Adam Schafer:Oh my God. He's got a little arrogant. Yeah. Have you seen some of his stuff? I have. Oh yeah, bro. Yeah, so. Okay. But check out this quote that Stephen Meyer shared. This was from Robert Jastrow, who's an astronomer. For the scientist who has lived by his faith and the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance. He is about to conquer the highest peak. As he pulls himself over that final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. I thought that was so cool. What a great discussion. If you like this kind of stuff, you've got to find this guy, Stephen Meyer, and he breaks things down pretty well.

45:21Adam Schafer:Yeah, and he kind of deduces things, so it's really interesting.

45:24Sal Di Stefano:On a lighter note, I'll tell you guys a story last night. So it was Max's birthday, and you guys obviously have heard my, um you know the how we've allowed him to you know eat sweets as he's gotten older and things like that and so it's his birthday and we got him a cake and and this year this is i think this is the first year we got him a normal cake right so all the all the dyes and yeah no no i mean like the first oh yeah i you know it's a good question it still was a blue like a traditional cake or still make it a healthy cake it was blueberry chiffon chiffon's pretty light and you know use whipped cream still on the lighter side but before that they've always been homemade katrina makes all the natural ones made out of banana and stuff like that so it's next level yeah so this is like the the next level and i and i also now have you know allowed there's been moments of times where i don't regulate all right let's go have some cake with that and so i let him have a big piece of cake or whatever and dude we're sitting there it's did he eat the whole thing yeah yeah he ate it um what do you say while he was eating it i mean you could tell it was a lot

46:29Adam Schafer:for him because he's not it's overwhelming well and then like and then we're building legos like

46:33Sal Di Stefano:five minutes later and he's like farting like just and i'm like and i'm looking i'm like bro i'm like those are and he's like yeah daddy i'm i'm older now so my farts are are are worse i'm like oh i said do you think maybe it might have been the cake that daddy let you have no no no it's because i'm getting older because i'm a man yeah yeah so so that was i can't blame you it's kind of true so that was uh that was like in the early evening before bed then it's time for bed and uh this has never happened before so it's so funny it's i'm sure it's all connected to the cake so katrina and i put him down and uh we decided to lay lay in bed we're gonna watch a movie and we just got comfortable and we're laying that just started the movie or whatever and he comes busting through the door i gotta poop announces it to us if i'd never done that before i just bust through the the bedroom door i gotta poop yeah and it's like well go buddy go so he runs in the bathroom have you guys ever heard me tell you his funny do you guys remember me telling you what when he goes to poop what he does no with the flashlight and all that stuff yeah yeah so my son has this thing about pooping in the dark he has to have his flashlight he wants

47:40Adam Schafer:it completely dark he wants his privacy so i'm laughing because you ever have one of those poops like you ate some food and you're like you just need to turn the lights down and just take your shirt off take your shirt off you don't want to look at it he just dude that is him he gets

47:56Sal Di Stefano:he gets completely naked he takes his clothes off yes bro he takes his clothes off he turns off the light I seal them right now I mean it is like a 40 minute ordeal and you just and you go check on him and you'll just be sitting in there and looking at the ceiling and looking at the light and playing with the toilet paper that's hilarious but he does that right so here he is he's obviously got to go he goes rushing in there and he's got to poop and then I'm laying in the bed and we kind of did some remodeling the house. We actually have these like, we have one, two, three, four, we have five lights, which is in our bathroom.

48:27Sal Di Stefano:And so I'm watching him having to go like, and he's trying all the lights to get the dimmest light setting. And I have all adjustable on all those things. And so he's doing the closet light and I'm watching him like, just you could see his brain working, like trying to get the right lighting. Yeah, he's looking at the right ambience. I'm like, bro, go poop. Make magic. Just go. Yes, dude. He come busting in because he's got to go so bad. But then he's like, there's too many options for the light here.

48:52Adam Schafer:He is a man, bro. That's a guy thing, bro. You're going to have a ride.

48:56Sal Di Stefano:I said, I got to share this with the guys. I said, this is so funny to watch. I was sitting there watching him fumble with each one of the lights and adjust to the right way. Oh, that's too much light. Oh, that's not enough. And it's like, oh my God, dude.

49:07Adam Schafer:You know it's one of those poops when you take your shirt off. Oh, yeah.

49:11Sal Di Stefano:I just got to chill. See, that's the thing that's fun and interesting about raising a kid is I don't know where he gets that. That's not a me. That's natural. Yeah, it is. Like, what made this kid decide he wants to get naked when he goes poop and he wants to be all alone in the dark? That's like, that was all him.

49:30Adam Schafer:Yeah, they do learn things from me, too. Like, my kid, I mean, I make jokes out of farts all the time. So, which was a super mistake. Like, I should have never done this. so now my four-year-old he thinks it's awesome and he loves to run to us and hit us he just with a fart and he's done this before he sat on his mom was laying down i bet you get the dirty oh dude that right he sat on her head and farted and i'm like and i i turned my head hard as a laugh yes dude because that's like you don't fart on your mom's head what's wrong with you that's terrible like that'll you know what i mean like when i was going to got me beat you know but he did i had to turn my head real quick and i had to like gather myself before i went and Talk to him and discipline him a little bit.

50:10Adam Schafer:It's my fault. It's all my fault.

50:14Sal Di Stefano:Everyone's been talking and commenting about his Emperor Palpatine costume that he wanted to be for his villain's birthday. We did a villain birthday party and he wanted to be Emperor Palpatine. Now the funniest part about this with my son is I can't even get him to watch Return of the... He won't even watch... It's too scary. It's too scary to watch that character. But he wants to be it. And the only reason why he's made that connection is because he'll watch the Lego version of star wars so the lego version is really yeah they a lot more tame yeah way more tame it's comedy but you get an idea of who the bad characters are who the good characters and they put a funny spin on even the bad guys like you know like in there palpatine and count dooku and all the bad guys they're kind of funny and they do funny stuff and so he really wanted to be emperor palpatine and everyone's like oh my god he's into dark characters like this i'm like yeah but he won't watch them you won't even watch the real one you know dude i gotta say so i think

51:07Adam Schafer:it's awesome different topic it is awesome by the different topic i uh i bought more bitcoin today and not a lot but i bought more and there's two reasons why one is a stat that i'm about to read to you two because adam said to you and he i got the magic yeah this is always works everybody ladies and gentlemen listen okay when adam says something's a good buy but refuses to buy himself historically run 100 success and it's worked for me every single time yeah because i'm like are you gonna buy some he's like no buy it so anyway look at the stat as of 2025 this was shared to me by my brother and i have a thread with my brother and a bunch of my cousins and they're all in that they all this is what they do for a living they're all investing are they gonna show you the uh the

51:49Sal Di Stefano:every four year trend or whatever i've seen all that okay and that's all cool and interesting

51:54Adam Schafer:yeah but this right here statistic made me go oh yes and yes i know that the government that banks are going to start using it, regulating it. That's a plus, right? As of 2025, only 6.8 % of the global population has invested in cryptocurrencies. That's it. Less than 10%. So that doubles, which is nothing. That's 13 % of people. The value is going to go through the roof if it just doubles. So the room for growth on something like Bitcoin is... So I got that stat and I was convinced I'm going to buy a little bit more. Then I came and told Adam. Adam's like, for sure get Bitcoin. I'm like, are you going to get something?

52:32Adam Schafer:He's like, no. I'm like, don't. I literally got on my phone. Now I'm doubling down. Tripling, quadripling. So anyway, but they think it's going to go to a million. Yeah, yeah, that's the prediction. It's at 100 and what?

52:42Sal Di Stefano:And it's because, again, because there's a finite amount. Yeah. And I mean, I believe that with anything. You look at coastal real estate. you look at very special spec cars i mean almost anything that someone else may not think is is considered an asset if there is a scarce amount of it and enough people want that thing it is absolutely an asset and so yeah there's only so many of those and to your point if only six percent of the population and that's saying total cryptocurrencies i ain't saying six percent

53:17Adam Schafer:own bitcoin that's right so you know there's over 68 that are it's in bitcoin okay so half yep yep so yeah so bitcoin's the biggest one obviously that's definitely better than the nft thing you know it's funny dude i was thinking about this the other day and like some of the like hustles that we've experienced just in on our own like being here in the silicon valley and like what we've seen people get into and then it's just totally flopped like you remember the whole domain hustle yes when that came out everybody's buying up all the dot com domains Yeah. Because you could sell them. The same thing as NFT.

53:49You know what I did?

53:50Sal Di Stefano:Okay, so if you were speaking of that, I totally remember this. I bought into it. We were personal trainers, and I remember people getting money and funding because they had a dot-com. Because they owned dog.com. People were just giving them money to build a business around that because they're like, oh, in the future. Oh, you own that? Oh, it's going to be huge. Yeah, you will own. It's nothing. Yeah, it means absolutely nothing.

54:14Adam Schafer:That bubble popped. I bought into it, by the way. I bought, so at the time, if you bought a domain, at some point the company's going to want that name, they'll buy it from you, right? That was the whole thing. Yeah. And this was during the time when marijuana became medically legal in California, and it looked like it was going to become legalized at some point. So I had bought like 10 domains that were weed-related. Oh, weed-related. They've since expired. But I thought to myself, like, I'm going to just buy a bunch. Somebody's going to approach me. Someone's going to want, you know, weedoyourdour.com.

54:42Adam Schafer:I think it was one of them and stuff like that. I did StarWarsMerch.com. I own that, dude. You still own it? I thought it was so brilliant. You still own it? No. That might have actually been a good one, dude. Yeah, it might have, but no, they didn't want it. Give me this, go round it. Yeah, exactly. They're not going to need that. Speaking of business, we should talk about our new trainer podcast.

55:04Sal Di Stefano:Oh, our Elite Trainer podcast.

55:05Adam Schafer:That we're going to be launching on what next? Is it the 14th? Well, this is live.

55:10Sal Di Stefano:It's live now, right, Doug?

55:11Adam Schafer:That is correct. It's officially live. Okay, so it's Elite Trainer podcast is the name of it, hosted by our head trainer, Kyle, who's running the whole department here. Yeah. And the first episodes, he's interviewed us already. Has everybody been on already so far? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Twice. Yeah, so you've been on twice. Today I'm going to do my second one. Yeah, yeah, so he's - And this is all trainer-focused. It's all specifically for trainers.

55:34Sal Di Stefano:And I mean, I obviously haven't sat in on your guys', but from what I'm getting, and Doug has also been on it too. so from what i'm getting is you know kyle is really interviewing each of us individually for and really giving uh both the listener peering in what we all kind of do for the business in a sense and our strengths and so you know you get a little bit of all that and it's all related to make you a better better trainer a better better business operator so and the idea is i mean as this

56:01Adam Schafer:continues it's going to keep going will be to have other top trainers on other top fitness professionals talking about all the stuff that would benefit a trainer everything from nutrition to biomechanics anatomy business social media how to expand and scale how to use uh your you know different programs and systems uh it's going to be what it's what it's all about so it's exciting

56:26Sal Di Stefano:elite trainer podcast so yeah and honestly uh for the audience you know even if they're not like this is i mean our opportunity just to shout out support because we know when you launch a podcast podcast the first eight weeks uh gives you the opportunity to rank against other new podcast this will be completely separate new podcast right separate from this one and so any support that we can get from uh you guys download the episodes listen to it and if it and all i asked if it was helpful and you liked it leave a review and share it that's it i mean that is the best way you can help support kyle and our team that is trying to create a whole community around serving and helping trainers specifically.

57:08Sal Di Stefano:And so anybody who's listening right now, the best way you can support is that, is go give it a listen. If it was valuable to you, leave a review and share it with someone else. And that is the best way to help us grow that thing.

57:21Adam Schafer:Element is an electrolyte powder that you add to your water. It tastes amazing. There's no sugar, no artificial sweeteners. Check this out. It has the right amount of sodium. Most electrolyte powders don't have enough sodium to really make a difference. LMNT has 1 ,000 milligrams per serving to help you in those sweaty workouts for better pumps. It's especially valuable for those of you on low-carb diets. Low-carb dieters often notice brain fog or they hit a wall, and it's often because they need more sodium. Go check out Element. Go to drinklmnt.com forward slash mind pump. You can get a free sample pack of their most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase.

58:00Adam Schafer:Back to the show. First question is from TheFrancescaMarie. I keep seeing female fitness influencers show off their flat stomachs and basketball-sized booties while telling social media how this look is attainable. But is it really? I have always noticed with my own body, when my waist becomes more snatched, my glutes begin to shrink. So how can I or anyone else achieve that basketball-sized booty while attaining a flat stomach at the very same time? It's a good question. It is a good question. Snatched, by the way, Doug, because earlier off, is that a real, like, snatched means your waist gets tight.

58:40Adam Schafer:Oh, got it. My daughter actually told me this. I want to snatch waist. Oh, my God. Okay, so I've actually never heard that either. So this is actually a great question. Now, I'm going to first address fitness, female fitness influencers. Their advice is terribly, it's terribly, it's typically terrible. So I wouldn't listen to them for most things. So when they're like, this is attainable, look at me. It's like, attainable for who? They represent a very small percentage of people. Plus the way they live is probably not the way you would want to live. Nonetheless, getting leaner means you get leaner everywhere.

59:14Adam Schafer:What do I mean by that? So you want to lean midsection, which means you're getting lean. Although your glutes are a muscle, there's also some body fat on them. And so you're going to get a smaller butt if you get leaner. Also, if you want a bigger butt and you're trying to build it through building muscle, trying to do so while getting leaner, good luck. You either build or you get leaner. Now, can you do both at the same time? In some cases you can. It's a very slow process. More achievable in the very beginning when you start building some muscle and burning body fat at the same time. But later on, you decide, do I want to build or do I want to get leaner?

59:49Adam Schafer:trying to do both is like trying to drive in two different directions and you end up moving

59:54Sal Di Stefano:nowhere a much better strategy is you have periods of time in the year where you are heavily focused on building and growing your butt where you are living in a calorie surplus you're lifting heavy weight you're doing all the right exercises and you're growing that ass you're not really worried that the waste is not shrinking in that moment because you're in a calorie surplus and you're building then you go on a cut and you shrink down and yes inevitably when you shrink down the butt will probably shrink down a little bit with it but every time you do that you should be able to grow your butt exponentially more and then shrink the waist back down to the that's have some muscle left over yeah and so but it's a it's a process this isn't a a one-time program you follow for three or six months and you get that look the uh if if this is speaking to the the women that have achieved this that aren't genetically gifted because some women are just i mean i've had girlfriends before that they put body fat on and it goes right to their butt and boobs it just they're blessed that was right where it went uh and then when they lost weight it only shrank in their way so there's genetic just like there are genetic anomalies in men that they touch weights and muscle comes on them so there's genetic anomalies on both sexes but then there's also women who didn't have glutes really or small butts and didn't and had a waist and then over time and grew this basketball-sized butt and still have a small waist.

1:01:18Sal Di Stefano:But that didn't happen overnight. It happened. It didn't happen at the same time either. Yeah, it happened in years of building those glutes, then cutting down, then building those glutes, then cutting down, then building those glutes. And do that for some years, and I'll show you some bodies that have been radically changed. I've done it. I've done it for many female clients, but over time. It's not at the same time, and it's not a quick thing, especially when you don't have the beautiful genetics that just bless you in this direction. Next question is from Zemeca72. How often should I change my routine?

1:01:54Should it be a complete overhaul or just change specific exercises?

1:01:59Adam Schafer:Okay. So I think it's probably a good idea to change some of the variables in your workout probably every few months. It's a good idea to stay where you're at, if it's working, especially for long enough to reap the benefits, like changing too often, too frequently. Uh, you're, you're not able to really reap all the benefits of each exercise or what you're doing because you're not giving your body a chance to really get good at those things. Um, later on, I mean, you're super advanced and you've been training for so long. You can change up exercises more frequently because you can move well and you can reap the benefits of a squat very easily or a deadlift very easily.

1:02:35Adam Schafer:But, uh, that takes a while. Uh, For most people, it's like three months. Typically three months. Stay where you're at and then change a couple variables. It could be the exercises or the reps. It could be the tempo. That's the best way to do it. Yeah, and you don't need to be super drastic. That's cool. You can do drastic changes. But when you do drastic changes, what you run into are programming issues. When you're following good programming, all the pieces fit well together. so if you look at our programs uh the rep ranges sets exercise order it all works together so if you're following maps anabolic and then you switch to a completely different program like maps performance the pieces fit together the program is good but if you took and tried to mix and match you start messing up the formula uh sometimes oftentimes and you don't get nearly as good a benefit so typically it's like every every few months you want to change a variable um and and for most people keep it to one or two variables.

1:03:32Adam Schafer:If you change a completely different program, make sure it's a program that has some, some backing and some science. And specificity still wins. And so it's like you have a specific type of training you love and, and your body does well with it. Like that's going to be the majority of your training. And then you're going to, you know, go through periods where you're interrupting that. Or, you know, for me, I'm always conscious of if I'm backloading my squats quite a bit, I haven't done, you know, front loaded squats. Like there's certain exercises I want to weave in and incorporate and make sure that, you know, some of these compensations don't happen because I'm too focused on getting strong in just certain areas.

1:04:11And so, you know, just kind of switching up the variables like Sal's talking about as well is probably the easiest way to do that. So it doesn't have to be so drastic.

1:04:20Sal Di Stefano:It's really hard to answer this question and not shamelessly plug our business. Of course. I mean, if you have to ask this question, then there's two ways that you could easily solve this or figure this out. Because answering this vaguely, we're going to go. I mean, that person could listen to all the great advice you just got, and I'd still be lost on what to do. Sure. Because it's not specific, right? But I could also invest$150 and get like three of our programs, since we always have sales running on them all the time, anywhere. And now you have like nine months. Yeah, they get nine months of examples.

1:04:54Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. to literally follow and copy if you like. And that's a great way to learn. Or if you've got more time and don't want to spend the money, you can go back and listen to every episode that we've ever done where we break down a program and share it and launch it and learn that way. So, I mean, go the free route or go that route is the best way. Or you hire a trainer. I mean, that's the best route. I mean, that's expensive, right? So I'm talking about very inexpensive is invest in two or three programs and you're going to learn a lot of this yourself. Or if you don't have any money, then go back and listen to the episodes where we dive into each one of those programs.

1:05:26Sal Di Stefano:You know, if you have the money and you really want to learn, yeah, go get a professional and stuff like that. But, you know, I think we tend to overcomplicate and oversimplify programming. It tends to be in one end or the other. As trainers, sometimes we overcomplicate in the sense that we make it sound like it's so difficult. Nobody can do it. So people are like, oh, fuck, I'm not going to do anything. but then we oversimplify it because then we're like if you just do these couple things you're going to be great well yeah you will that'll change that'll get most people really healthy you just do these handful of things but the real art of changing your programming up and it's like writing code for somebody you know it's like uh i don't know how to do that so i'm probably going to hire somebody to teach me or show me or i'm going to spend the time learning and the return I'll get on that as exponential.

1:06:16Next question is from AGNMT35. Are belt squats as beneficial as barbell squats?

1:06:24Adam Schafer:You know, I got to say, belt squats were not a thing for a long time. Now I use them quite a bit. I love them. They're different though, than a barbell squat. A barbell squat is loading everything. You wouldn't say it's

1:06:35Sal Di Stefano:as beneficial, would you? I wouldn't. No. No. No. It's great, but it's not as beneficial.

1:06:41Adam Schafer:Yeah, like a belt squat so what a belt squat does the belt is around your waist the it's typically attached to a cable that pulls down between your legs and it takes out most of the body it's just a lower body exercise now i like it better than other leg only exercises because you're standing upright great range of motion it's a good fundamental kind of human movement it's great for mobility for people who have a challenge with you know deep squats but you've you've taken out the entire upper body that you'll get from a barbell squat where you're balancing a bar, you're holding it with your hands.

1:07:12Adam Schafer:Which has lots of value. Which has lots of value. Your low back and your core is more activated and involved. I mean, a barbell squat's going to make you stronger, faster, and improve performance, give you better results than a belt squat. Whereas a belt squat is like legs only.

1:07:26Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, belt squat is more valuable than a leg press. It's less valuable than a barbell squat. So, I mean, it's great. It's still a great movement to have. But if you were considering never doing barbell squats again and you're only going to do belt squats, well, you are missing out on more value. You'd be far better off never belt squatting and always barbell squatting because you're going to get all the benefits from the belt squat in the barbell squat and some versus the other way around.

1:07:51Adam Schafer:I mean, that's being said, I love belt squats for mobility. If you struggle with getting down deep in your squat, you could practice with the belt. It pulls you down by the hips, kind of forces you into a deeper squat. It can improve mobility. I didn't have access to this as a trainer. If I were training clients today, this would be one of my staple movements to help people with mobility in their hips and their ankles who maybe can't do a barbell squat properly. But I wouldn't stop trying to get them to barbell squat. I definitely wouldn't stop barbell squatting, though. Next question is from JLara34.

1:08:28What's the best workout plan for an overweight new dad? Math 15.

1:08:33Sal Di Stefano:Easy. For sure. Very easy. I think we could have called that new dad program.

1:08:37Adam Schafer:I mean, you could have. Yeah. It's so great because you're doing two exercises a day, six days a week. There's two versions of it. One of them is with a suspension trainer, makes it as convenient as possible. The other version of it, it's in the same program, by the way. So it's Math 15, comes with two versions. The other version is barbell and dumbbell version. And it's 15, maybe 20 minutes a day that you do it. So it fits your schedule. It's great strength training. the the total volume is great for getting results getting stronger it's minimalist too so if you're

1:09:12Sal Di Stefano:getting beat up on the sleep area you're not over taxing yourself so exactly i mean you combine that

1:09:17Adam Schafer:with like just kind of trying to walk throughout the day you're going to reap a majority of the benefits you'll get from strain training with a program like that there's a reason why it's our height one of our highest rated most popular it's one of the most popular programs that people get referred to get because people follow it and it's just incredible results. And the total volume in it would be equivalent to like two full body workouts at the gym. It's just spread out in a way where it makes it super convenient, easy to follow. And if you miss one workout, it's not that big of a deal because you did, you know, five other workouts during the week.

1:09:50Adam Schafer:Look, if you like our show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at mind pump. Justin, I'm at mind pump to Stefano and Adam is at mind pump. Thank you for listening to mind pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, and MAPS Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs.

1:10:27With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support. And until next time, this is Mind Pump. Hey, Chicagoland. The Wayfair store is in your neighborhood at Edens Plaza and Wilmette.

1:11:10Finally, you can feel the fabric, sit on the sectionals, and even open the refrigerators. Plus, our in-store designers will help you bring it all together with free one-on-one design support for any project on any budget. Yep, we said free. Oh, and did we mention the cafe? So what are you waiting for? Come see all that's in store. Visit the Wayfair store today at Edens Plaza and Wilmette.