Ben Greenfield: Build a Thriving Business Without Sacrificing Your Health | Health and Wellness | YAPClassic

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28:45And as you're talking, I'm realizing, oh my God, I have so much to improve. Like right now I'm in grind mode, building my companies. I'm in an apartment building on the 18th floor. It's hard for me to get outside. I don't get to see sunlight. And I'm just thinking there's probably so many people like me who are in this stage of their life where they're in cities working really hard, either working from home or in an office. And they just don't have access to what you have access to. You built your life around this, right? So what can we do? You mentioned some things already, but what are some key things that we can do if we're kind of in this mode of our life where we've got to be working a lot of the time sitting behind a computer in an office and so on?

29:29Yeah. So first of all, a mindset shift. And of course, as you've probably heard from the ancient Chinese proverb, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago or today. So don't beat yourself up thinking, I haven't been doing this stuff, I'm screwed. You can start right away. So don't lose heart or feel regret about the fact that maybe you haven't set up your lifestyle in a way that's natural or ancestral or weave some of these concepts in. So that's the first thing. The second thing is I've built my own business a lot more slowly than many of my peers, several of whom make a lot more money and have even developed financial freedom and independence more quickly than I have.

30:11Many of those same individuals are not happy because they don't have their health. Many of them are divorced or estranged from family. And they don't even have the knowledge to be able to take care of themselves because they've put business on such a pedestal and they've put achieving financial freedom so that you can have the time to do all these other things you want to do, like focus on health on a pedestal. And paradoxically, you get to the point where you've made the money and had the career, but you're sick and unhealthy and don't have access to the knowledge or the practices or the routines that you need.

30:50You know, there's another saying that a human being reaches a certain stage in life where they would pay anything for good health or their health becomes a top priority because you can make money, but you can't make time and you can't make health. And so I think what's important here and what I'm getting at is I've intentionally built my business much more slowly because my business is my fifth order of priority in life. I have five key priorities in life and business is fifth. And my priorities in life are number one, God. So I care for my spirit. I care for my soul. And I take care of my union to God by the very first thing when I get up in the morning, being gratitude journaling, prayer, reading the Bible, talking to God, and feeding and caring for and working out the one part of the human existence that I believe will go on for eternity, for better or worse, and that in many people is shriveled and trunk up and uncared for and neglected.

31:50And so God is the first priority of the day. And the next priority is my connection to my wife because let's say you do have children. Well, if you prioritize your children over your lover or your spouse, then you're really not going to be able to show up for your children as a couple and you're not gonna be able to build like the legacy and the generational wealth that I think a lot of people have lost sight of. We have an entire Greenfield family constitution, hundreds of pages of documentation about traditions and legacy and routines and rituals and family insurance policies and family banking and the family crest and mission statement and values.

32:32It's almost like an entire business branding book for the family. And if I didn't have a good relationship with my wife, we considered ourselves to be just staying together for the kids, or we were kind of like settling on the idea that I think a lot of couples settle on, that if that person really doesn't fit the bill for you, eventually you can just divorce them and move on and find somebody more compatible with you and your beliefs and your values, whatever. But instead, my wife and I are very committed to each other. One-on-one dates, praying at night every night before we go to bed, working on the Greenfield Family Constitution, and staying connected so that we can be there for our children, which are number three.

33:10So number three is the kids, right? Because your children are your legacy. Your children are how you're going to go on and live on and impact the world in an exponential way. If your children and your family are unhappy, it's very difficult to be happy and successful and fulfilled with your job. And so children are number three. If you don't have a spouse, if you don't have children, then I would say that you You can substitute community, neighbors, friends for that same commitment and that same focus, again, over and above business. Human beings were built for relationships. We see a host of issues pop up when we're lonely and when we're over-focused on work.

33:50And that human touch is something that's far more important than business. And as, I mean, as any like 110 year old gin chugging, cigarette smoking, you know, Sardinian grandma would attest to relationships and the fact that that grandma is surrounded by people she loves. And it's a community that's very focused on community and relationships. The relationship part and your family's even more important than health. So again, like I have my personal spiritual time and then I gather my family for a family huddle every morning and we meditate together and we do breath work and we read the Bible and we pray and we all come together as a family for a family touch point each morning.

34:31When my kids are gone at camp or whatever, my wife and I do that together. So God is first, then family, you know, first spouse, then children. Fourth priority is health, right? So the health comes after taking care of your spirit and taking care of your relationships. So after I've done all that, after the family huddle, then I go hit the gym. And I'm an entrepreneur, okay? I love my business. I love making money. I love impacting the world. I love fulfilling my life's purpose. And even though I'm in the freaking fitness industry, every bone in my body wants to go take care of the emails and start the podcast and create the content and build the business and get the income streams going.

35:11The whole time I'm in the gym, I'm like, guys, I'm like, I should be at the office right now. But I do it because I've seen a lot of my friends, especially as I grow old now, I'm 42 years old. I've seen a lot of them build their businesses. And then they'll do the Facebook post where they're like, yeah, I'm 30 pounds overweight and I'm sick and I don't feel good about my body. And it's time to start working on my body. But man, it's so much easier when you don't let yourself slide in the first place and you prioritize taking care of your health before you get into the office for the day. Because for most entrepreneurs and business builders, eating the frog is not opening up your email inbox.

35:51Most of us love that dopaminergic surge of like starting in the emails and starting the checklist for the day. For most of us, eating the frog, doing the hard thing first is journaling, meditation, prayer, gratitude, family time, family devotion, family huddles, working out, and the business will always be there. And frankly, you know, and there's a guy who is featured in my book, Boundless Parenting, who told me this when we were sitting at dinner one night, he's actually one of the parents featured in Boundless Parenting, Chad Johnson. He's a father of 11, Ironman triathlete, big mountain skier, amazing guy.

36:28He said, Ben, your business will eat you alive. Like the emails will never stop coming. Zero inbox will never be a reality, only occasionally at different points throughout the day or the week. There will always be work to do. There will always be lists to check. There will always be opportunities. There will always be more money to make. And if you let your business eat you alive, it will. But if you focus on God, your spouse, your family and children, and your health first, then the business will not only come about and happen and you're still going to have plenty of hours in the day. But at the end of the day, the money that you make and the business that you build will be more fulfilling for you because you will have a happy family at home to enjoy dinner with each night and hang out with, and you won't have that angst of having forsaken relationships to build your business.

37:15Your body will thank you because it feels good, and you can actually go out and go on adventures, golfing and tennis and pickleball and wake surfing and all the things that you should be able to do with the money that you're making. And then business is like the icing on the cake. But if you're not fulfilled in those other areas of life, If the business is always going to be unfulfilling and you'll be overworked. So it's just a change in perspective, right? I know it's a long answer to your question, but it's a change in the priorities that you make. And if you make a change in those priorities, then, you know, the business will take care of itself.

37:49But yeah, it does really what it comes down to is habits, rituals, and routines set up starting in the morning that allow you to care for your spirit and care for your body and care for your relationships before you care for your business. And that's the mindset that you got to start with. That was so good, Ben. And, you know, this is one of my favorite conversations that I've had all year because I feel like it's such a fresh perspective that nobody's talking enough about. And I know that a lot of my listeners like me are just hustling, hustling, hustling. And we don't often have somebody come on here and tell us that business should be our fifth priority.

38:22That's really rare for us to hear. I do want to talk about boundless parenting ties in a lot with what you were just talking about. But before we do that, there's a couple more biohacking things I want to get clarity on. And one of them is cold showers and cold thermogenesis and the impact that that has on our sleep and our cognition and something that you call leaky brain syndrome, or a lot of people call it that, I think. Leaky brain syndrome is about like the blood brain barrier. Can you explain that to us a little bit and break that down? First of all, you know, I showed you that that one cold tub.

38:57That's the one I keep it like 33 degrees. That one's called the Merazco. This is the one that I was in this morning, just swimming underwater laps. So this is like an endless pool that I have in my pool house out in the backyard. I just, I don't put ice in it, but I just don't keep it warm. So this one's at about like 45 degrees. It fluctuates based on the season. That over there is the hot tub. So I can go back and forth from the cold pool to the hot tub. But I'm a huge fan of cold. I raced Ironman triathlon for 12 years. I did races all over the planet and I was doing cold thermogenesis before I even knew the benefits of it.

39:31I'd get out of the water freezing and I'd feel great and my mental willpower would be higher the rest of the day and it was pain killing and it was mood boosting. But I didn't realize until I actually started to study up the science of it for my book Boundless how big of an impact it has on the release of feel-good chemicals, on decreased inflammation, on the conversion of metabolically inactive white adipose tissue into metabolically active brown fat that you have to make to generate heat to warm yourself back up, decreasing in risk of certain brain diseases based on what you described, the fact that it can allow for almost like a sealing of the blood-brain barrier, allowing less toxins and metals and inflammatory compounds to cross over into neuronal tissue, very similar to how a good night of sleep could help with that.

40:24Or very similar to how proper mineral intake, particularly magnesium can help with that. Fish oil can help with that. Well, it turns out that cold, specifically, the process of getting the head and neck and face cold is fantastic for brain function. So huge variety benefits. A lot of people will, Ben, I don't have like a cold tub like that or a cold pool. Well, cold showers work. Here's a little hack for you. When I travel and I'm in a hotel room and the water isn't cold enough, because let's say I'm in Florida or another warm area, you can just get your ice bucket from the hotel room and or the plastic bag for the laundry that's in the shower.

41:04You can fill it with ice from the ice bucket down the hallway and just hang that when you're taking your shower and you can get the iciest, coldest shower imaginable. You can even do this when you travel, but there are so many benefits of cold. A lot of people don't talk about what you were mentioning, the fact that it helps with your brain function as well. But yeah, even me, I've been doing it for years and years. I don't relish the cold. I don't get in there and I'm like, yes, I'm in the cold now. This feels fantastic. I kind of hate it. It hurts. And it's really uncomfortable. And you never want to do it.

41:35And especially the moment when you're standing there half naked next to the cold waiting to get in, it sucks. And that feeling never goes away. But if it was easy, I don't think the payoff would be as high And even if you're in there for just 30 seconds, as soon as you get out, you're on top of the world. You feel great. And it pairs like turkey and cranberries with things like breath work and a sauna practice and a workout. And so nearly 365 days a year, I'm in a cold pool or a cold tub or a river or a lake or an ocean or taking a cold shower. and not that I think this is like the best goal for everybody, but I maintain about six to 8 % body fat year round.

42:16And it's not because I diet. I eat like a horse. I eat like 4 ,000 calories a day. But a big part of that is due to the fact that my metabolism is screaming high because nearly every day of the year in a fasted state, I get myself cold, even if it's just for like one or two minutes. Sometimes it's a little longer, But cold is amazing for metabolism and for body composition as well. And would you say that we should get cold in the morning or the night or both? Does it matter? Well, if you wake up fasted and you do some type of a cold therapy session, your body will burn fat to generate heat. And so doing some type of like a fasted morning cold shower, as a matter of fact, in Boundless, I talk about my strike, stroll, shiver strategy, where if you want to lose fat really fast, you get up in the morning in a fasted state.

43:08You do 20 to 40 minutes of aerobic conversational cardio, just like a walk in the sunshine or walk in the dog or ride your bike to the coffee shop or whatever. And then you finish with one to five minutes of cold. And that mobilizes fat like crazy. But morning cold is good also because it gives you that endorphin release. It has a little bit of a stress resilience promoting effect where what I mean by hard things feel easier after you've been in the cold, very similar to how a morning workout can help with stress later on in the day. Now, I talk a lot about sleep hygiene in the book and there are different components of sleep hygiene.

43:45Like you want a dark room and you don't want your body to associate the bed with stress or work. So you don't work on your laptop in bed. You don't keep business books by the bedside. You want a silent room, meaning wax earplugs or slip-in earplugs or some type of ambient sound like white noise. And then you want a cold room because the body heals better at night when you sleep. You sleep more deeply when you're not hot. This is why you should avoid a hard workout or a heavy or spicy meal about three hours prior to bedtime. This is why a lot of people use the 8 Sleep or the Chili Pad to keep their bodies cool while they're asleep.

44:22Whenever I check into a hotel room or in my house, I'm selecting anywhere from 64 to 66 degrees Fahrenheit for the ambient sleeping temperature. There's even hacks like you can wear wool socks when you go to bed and that paradoxically cools the rest of the body. I talk about a lot of these cooling strategies in the book, but interestingly, it turns out that in the evening, like a slightly cold or lukewarm shower is best because if you do a really cold soak or cryotherapy chamber, even though it'll make you cold, the endorphin release that you get from that, the excitatory neurotransmitter release will paradoxically promote wakefulness.

45:02And so it's like really cold in the morning is better. And then kind of sort of cold in the evening is better. And there's no reason you couldn't do both. Like a lot of times since I'm playing tennis or pickleball or doing something fun with my kids in the evening before dinner, a lot of times like right before dinner, I'm just getting into a lukewarm shower or even jumping into the hot tub and letting the ambient air cool me off, which kind of cools you a little bit. But in the evening, I'll do like kind of cold and in the morning, really cold. And the general rule for sleeping temperature is that like when you get into bed or you take off your clothes to get in the bed, you want to feel like a mild cognitive resistance because it's just a little bit cold, but it's not freezing, shivering cold.

45:44It's just like, okay, this is going to take me a few minutes to warm up or snuggle up with my husband or wife or lay in bed and get warmed up a little bit. But if you're like shivering, hyper cold, that's too much physiological excitement before bed. So it just kind of depends on how cold we're talking. Yeah. And it probably also depends like if you run really like I know women run really cold. So I feel like my cold going to bed is warmer than your cold going to bed, you know? Not my wife. My wife's a freaking furnace. She's so hot. Like a lot of times, like I'll get sometimes I'm cold, I'll snuggle up to her and I'll just be like warm within a couple of minutes.

46:19But yeah, you're right. In general, women tend to sometimes have a little bit lower thyroid activity. I actually interviewed this doctor. She's called the Thyroid Fixer Doctor on my podcast. This is fresh in my mind because that podcast came out like three days ago. Her name is Dr. Amy Horniman. And she talked about this little known molecule called T2. It's not what you find in thyroid medications. It's different. She has a supplement. I think it's called Thyroid Fixer that has it in there. But if you're a woman and you run cold, you should get your thyroid values checked. And if it's low, it appears out of all the different ways to fix it, that T2, which kind of flies under the radar and not a lot of people know about, is a really good way to naturally restore thyroid activity without having to take like a medication.

47:05I have to look into that. Okay, one more question on biohacking stuff, and then we're going to get into boundless parenting. So you mentioned breathing before, and oxygen is really important to humans, But one of the counterintuitive things that I learned from you is that carbon dioxide can actually be a good thing when it comes to healthy breathing. So talk to us about CO2 levels, mouth taping, different breathing techniques. Yeah, it's so true what you say down to the point where there's a certain carbon dioxide inhalation apparatus called a carbagen that they'll use in people who have high amounts of stress or depression because it appears that breathing in carbon dioxide or having naturally elevated levels of carbon dioxide is helpful for a wide range of mental functions and psychological states and also induces a little bit of stress resilience.

47:56Now, there's a law of diminishing returns. A lot of people who eat a very acidic diet, way too many inflammatory foods, etc., or even just exercise and produce too much lactic acid from excessive hard exercise, they produce a lot of CO2, like too much CO2, and that can tend to cause a little bit of an acidic state in the body. but at the same time if you look at breath work most forms of breath work one of the reasons they work so well is you're getting high levels of co2 and high levels of oxygen simultaneously and kind of dropping back and forth between them but you know if you look at a wim hof protocol or pranayama breath work or any of these popular forms of excitatory breath work in many cases is you're retaining CO2 and oxygen simultaneously.

48:47And the high amounts of CO2 can actually help with the oxygen delivery to your tissue. So you almost reach this hyper-oxygenated state. There's a lot of breathwork apps out there that can assist with this. Two of my favorites, there's one called Othership. It's fantastic. It's got like two-minute sessions, five-minute sessions, all the way to like super deep, like holotropic, get high on your own supply type of like 90 minute breathwork sessions. There's some couple sessions in there. You know, my wife and I will sometimes do a breathwork session. It's almost like foreplay. You can do a 20 or 30 minute breathwork session as a couple where, you know, I'm breathing into her, she's breathing into me and you can like sit cross legged in bed.

49:28And it's this entire choreographed breath routine and music. I've done breathwork for free diving and spearfishing and, you know, Wim Hof style cold exposure with my sons who are 15 now who I've had in breath work since they were six years old, just because it's such a good way to know how to control your body's stress response and create nervous system resilience. And then another form of breath work that's really good is there's another app called the Breath Source. And the Breath Source lets you choose from different instructors whose courses you're going to take or whose breath work sessions that you want to follow.

50:01I am actually a featured instructor in that app. And I've got 10 different breathwork sessions. And mine are very religious or spiritual in nature, meaning it's like the Jesus prayer or focusing on certain passages of the Bible as you breathe through a really hardcore routine. And so for people who want that morning spiritual routine, that's another example of breathwork that you can use for that. And then back to the biohacking thing, if you want to get super crazy, there's this machine that I love. It's called the Brain Tap. And it's a light and sound stimulation machine. And I'm one of those guys who's like not hypnotizable, never have been.

50:40But this is the one thing that will get me into a deep hypnotic trance. And there's like 300 different tracks on there for relaxation, for focus, for pain relief, but some of them are breathwork. And when you pair the breathwork sessions in that machine to the light and the sound stimulation, I mean, I know a lot of people learn to plant medicine these days, you know, psilocybin, LSD, ayahuasca, whatever. The thing is, you got to recover from that type of stuff. Like it kind of drains the body and you got to replenish with SAMI and glutathione and, you know, dedicate days to it. This is like, oh, at lunch, you know, in the middle of the day, you can literally flip it on and get into that.

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56:15So the brain tap is super cool for kind of like biohacking breathwork. So cool. I feel like I need to listen to this again and again and just like get all the little nuggets that you're sharing. You're giving us so much insight. So let's move on to your latest book. It's called Boundless Parenting. First off, what does this Boundless Parenting mean? Why the title? Well, it's kind of like my shtick. It's my brand. So I have the Boundless Biohacking book. I have the Boundless Cookbook. Boundless Kitchen is coming out soon. And then there's Boundless Parenting. And Boundless Parenting was my desire.

56:53I've been asked for a long time to write a parenting book. And I was kind of self-conscious about it because I'm not a proven model. I've got 15-year-old sons. And who's to say they're not going to wind up in prison for three years or I'm going to turn out to be a parental failure or whatever. There are certain things I know about, like how to form a legacy and a constitution and how to set up the insurance policies for the family and create the family mission statement and the family values and key educational concepts and you know the comings and goings and traditions that you create around Christmas and Thanksgiving and when a child is 8 and 12 and 15 and how to set up rites of passages you know and all these things that I talk about in my chapter of the book and that my wife talks about in her chapter the book.

57:36But at the same time, I know a lot of really fantastic entrepreneurs and people who have amazing children who have already grown up and started super impactful businesses and trusts and foundations of their own. So I kind of use the Tim Ferriss tools of Titans or tribe of mentors type of approach where I found the most amazing parents on the planet who I actually know and who I've conversed with and whose children I've hung out with. And I sent them each the same list of 32 questions like, what keeps you awake at night when it comes to parenting? Or what were the foundational educational principles via which you educated your children?

58:12Or did you ever worry that your children were going to be weird based on your unique role as a parent entrepreneur? And how did you deal with that? And so I got about 30 or so parents to reply and create this anthology of about 700 pages of deep parenting wisdom and also had them record their audio of the chapter. So the audio book's super interactive and fun. But there were repeated themes that came up throughout that book that were really interesting based on each parent's response to the same set of 32 questions. Like for example, nearly every parent interview, it was freaky, nearly every parent interviewed had some semblance of the phrase, more is caught than taught.

58:55meaning you can talk to your kids till they're blue in the face about screen time or about drugs or about alcohol or about relationships or about working out or anything but if they don't see you mirroring and living out what it is that you're telling to them it will fall on deaf ears so more is caught than taught like you know for example if i tell my kids that digital screen time is not conducive to the same type of deep relationship building as analog face-to-face interactions. But then I've got my phone hidden by my chair at the dinner table and five times during dinner, I'm checking it or there's a ding or I'm like, wait, there's this one thing, this one email I'm expecting.

59:39You guys just hang on. I got to check this real quick. This is important for work. A, not only are your kids going to see that and simulate it, but B, you're not just teaching your children, you're teaching your children's children. This is another concept that came up repeatedly in the book from parents. And so just imagine, by that little action that you're taking each night of making your phone a priority over family, or at least giving the perception that there's something really important on your phone that cannot wait till after dinner, you're basically creating about 100 great-grandchildren who are all gonna be hanging out on their phone during dinner, not talking with people, not engaging in eye-to-eye interaction, getting the type of leaky gut syndrome and poor nutrient absorption that occurs when you're interacting with technology at the same time that you're feeding yourself.

1:00:25And it's not just like you checking the phone at dinner and justifying that to yourself because it's important. It's literally you equipping generations after you to be addicted to their phone during the time that they could be most connected to family, like during family dinners, which is also important because that's another common theme. Nearly every parent who had a really deep connected, thriving family, prioritize family dinners. In some cases to the point where like their kids didn't play certain sports or do certain activities because it was more important for the family to be together and thriving and connected at the end of the day compared to having the traditional American family or westernized family where everybody spread to the four corners of the planet all day.

1:01:08They're like ships passing in the night and there is nothing like what, For example, we have in our home, which is a morning family huddle. And then in the evening at 7 p.m., we all gather and we make dinner together. We play board games and card games and play music and have bedtime rituals. And we have this complete, amazingly connected family unit who's happy, who's laughing, who's thriving. And it's literally just me and my wife and our sons. And every night at our house is like a freaking party. We're playing backyard games and card games and board games and cooking and singing. And so you see elements that are common threads within the book, like more is caught than taught.

1:01:48You're not just teaching your children. You're teaching your children's children and beyond. Family dinners and family traditions and having family touch points that are systematized and calendared and scheduled in both the morning and the evening are really important. And then probably if I could name one other common thread, most of the parents had some sort of unique take on education. And it doesn't mean that they all homeschooled or unschooled or private schooled their kids, but even the ones who had their kids at a public school, at a public institution, there's like three different parents who said they would just go and pull their kids from school to go travel the world at random intervals throughout the year.

1:02:26The teachers and the school system were not in charge. The parents knew that they were in charge. They called the shots. And yeah, even though they outsourced much of the education to a public institution, they were still very active as parents and considered their role as parents to still be educators. Who's the guy who runs the Domino Project? Seth Godin. I really like his take on this. I think I heard him say during a TED Talk or something like that, like, even if your kids are going to a private or public school, your job as a parent to de-educate slash educate school slash unschool them starts the minute they walk in the door.

1:03:03So that means that what they learn about the world, their worldview, their habits, their rituals, their routine, business, entrepreneurship, those lessons are going to be far more valuable attained from you than they are from the standard education model, which is basically fabricated from a German industrial model of making factory workers who all learn at the same pace, put round pegs and round holes, square pegs and square holes, learn to memorize rote facts. and pass tests and do homework. Whereas the worker of the future, the impactful human being of the future needs to be able to creatively adapt on the fly to their position being constantly replaced by autonomous work and AI and robots.

1:03:48They need to be someone who's able to write effectively, express thoughts effectively, create engineering prompts for AI effectively, and engage in a lot of creative left and right hemispheric thinking patterns that are far different than the left brain-shipped memorization and almost like walk in a straight line, follow the rules, paint inside the boundaries type of rules that kids tend to be, I don't want to use a strong word as indoctrinated, but they tend to be very, very saturated in those principles in a traditional school setting. Whereas you want a free-thinking, free-spirited, young, creative, resilient individual who is able to look at a problem and tackle it without being able to Google it or look at the workbook or look at the manual.

1:04:38And instead, he used to think on their own two feet and think creatively. And most of the parents in the book were creating children like that based on educational principles that put their children in situations where they needed to think resiliently and creatively on the fly. And a perfect example is that's like travel, like traveling the world or traveling the country or traveling the state or the city with a child is a perfect way to create that kind of resiliency. And so as you're talking about children and education, I learned that you actually didn't homeschool your kids from the start.

1:05:10And you talked about this term unschooling a bunch of times during this interview. So what is unschooling and why did you decide to eventually homeschool your kids? Yeah, I homeschooled my kids traditionally using like traditional curriculum up until second grade. and then I started to slip into this mindset of thinking well this is not systematized as well as it should be my wife's kind of dyslexic she doesn't have the heart of a teacher I've got a lot of stuff I need to be doing during the day that dictates that I can't be sitting around you know immersed in books with them all day which was my initial impression of what homeschooling was supposed to be so in second grade I put them into a really good private school you know like the school that all the rich kids go to and the super smart geeky kids and the sons and daughters of the local Microsoft employees and whatever.

1:06:01So it must be a good school, right? And during the three years they were in that school up until fifth grade, not only did I, through my podcast and through a lot of reading, learn a lot about the way the educational system is currently built to create the type of scenario I just described. Kids who really can't think on their own two feet or solve problems on their own and who primarily just like are able to memorize facts, take tests and do homework. But I also discovered that the amount of peer pressure, bullying, inability to be their authentic true self and loads of homework that isn't necessarily related to their passions, interests and desires dictates that at about the age of 13, the social enjoyment that kids derive from school begins to be outweighed and outpaced by the dissatisfaction from homework, bullying, forced inauthenticity, and lack of time to be able to delve into things that the kids are really passionate about.

1:07:03And so when my sons were in fifth grade at 11 years old, I took them out to dinner and I said, look, you guys don't have to go back to sixth grade. Here's what I'll do. You tell me, and we'll figure this out over the next month, the things that you really, truly passion that you care about, which for them is like writing fiction, reading, painting, making art, designing card games and board games. and we have a father-son gaming company now called Fried Pickle Games where we do this. Plant foraging, wilderness survival, animal tracking, bird language, tennis, jiu-jitsu, right? There's all these things that they loved that they just weren't able to do because they were freaking sitting there like learning math tables and memorizing facts and doing homework.

1:07:53And so I said, look, I don't wanna force this on you guys. It's your choice. I want you to be self-actualized individuals, but I will, if you tell me your passions and interests and desires, surround you with as many activities and experiences and travel and tools and games and tutors and online classes and everything you need to pursue the things that you're really passionate about and interested in and have a deep desire to learn. And then you don't have to go to school. Like your schooling will be life. And you know what their number one, number one question, number one concern was even right there at dinner that night?

1:08:33Maybe they wouldn't have friends. Yeah. But dad, what about my friends? What about my friends? And look, if you think about it, it's pretty silly that we've decided as a society that the only way for a child to be with friends or make friends is for you to dress them up and send them off to an institution each day where, yeah, they're going to be with friends, but they're also going to be in a learning environment that is potentially completely opposite to what it is that they're truly passionate about or even your own values as a family or as a parent, not to mention the bullying, the peer pressure, etc.

1:09:08So they took me up on the idea and their days are freaking magical now. They're off playing. I think they just left with mom to go play tennis. they're outside most of the day they're they're cooking you know they ran their own podcast and cooking channel as soon as they got out of school they they started up a podcast and a cooking channel and we're doing restaurant reviews and interviews with chefs you know they've both written since i took them out of school both of them have written two fantasy fiction novels they are now co-ceos of a father-son card game and board game company they're in their sixth year of wilderness survival.

1:09:47They're like advanced wilderness survival experts now. One is studying bird language, animal tracking. I mean, they can literally get dropped in a helicopter in the middle of nowhere and survive. They bow hunt, they field dress, they cook amazing luxury meals. And all of that is because we decided, you know what? They should be immersed in the things that they're passionate about. And yes, there are certain things that a young human being may not be passionate about, that they may not know is going to serve them later on in life, that I think you still want to go out of your way to immerse them in.

1:10:20Like this would come down to basically the idea of a classical education or even Naval Ravikant in the Almanac of Naval talks about this. Like every human being is poised to thrive in just about any working or life environment. If they have a good working knowledge of and understanding of math and how to work with figures, reading and being able to digest information at a pretty rapid pace, writing, being able to clearly express one's thoughts, preferably in long form, not necessarily just tweets and emoticons and TikTok, logic or computer programming, which for us is game design and gameplay.

1:10:57Fantastic way to teach logic flow and programming sequences through game design and gameplay. And then rhetoric or speaking. And so both of my sons are in speech and debate. We have a lot of rhetoric games around the table. We do a lot of arguing in our family, which is fantastic. I take them through a chapter of a book every day. And many of our books are based on rhetoric, apologetics, speaking, et cetera. So math, reading, writing, programming, your logic, and rhetoric or persuasion. We're also going through Chris Voss's book on negotiation right now, for example. If you can equip your child with those five skills and then unleash them to, at that point pursue all the other things they're passionate about.

1:11:39That's basically the definition of unschooling. And based on what's called the cone of learning, the best way for a child to learn their passions and interests and desires is not necessarily books. It's documentaries, it's life experiences, it's conversations, it's field trips, it's travel, it's museums. So we don't avoid books, but books are just one small part of their curriculum and their education. And so that's unschooling. Yeah, they're not in prison yet. It seems to be working out okay. They're happy. They're self-actualized and they're loving life, but they're also learning and they're fantastic boys.

1:12:19I'm biased, but I think they're fantastic. Yeah, I mean, it seems like you've done a great job. They've already accomplished a lot of things and they're only 15 years old. My last question for Boundless Parenting is really about these routines and traditions that you were talking about. You brought up a family constitution a bunch of times that I'd love for you to just walk us through what that is, what we should put in it. And then, of course, I highly recommend that everybody go grab Boundless Parenting if you have kids. Yeah, I detail this heavily in Boundless Parenting, but we worked with a company called Legato Family Foundation to learn legacy building for the family.

1:12:59and then we also work with a foundation called Way to Wealth as our family office and family bankers. And so the family constitution is a living document that starts off with our family values and our family mission statement. Think of this the same way as you would build a business branding document. You want the business values, the business mission statement, and then from there, as a matter of fact, the guy who runs the Legato Family Foundation, Rich Christensen, who's in my book. He started off as a business branding expert and realized that families needed to be branded with documentation and playbooks very similar to businesses, not in a cold, heartless way, but in a way that allows for traditions and legacies to be passed on and for elements of what the family holds dear to be visualized and systematized.

1:13:47So from the values and the mission statement, which we spent several days talking about and forming as a family, as a unit. We then went on to create the family crest. Each family member has our own logo. We have our family spirit animals. We have our traditions. Here's everything down to like, here's what we do for Thanksgiving. Here's the meal we have together on Christmas Eve. Here's the movies we watch on Christmas Eve while we have that meal. Here's when the boys have their rite of passage into the wilderness. Here's when they have their rite of passage into adulthood. childhood here's the age at which we have the birds and the bees sex talk here's when the kids go on their first uh service trip to go help someone in another country like everything is laid out all the way down to you know here's how we start up each whole life insurance policy with paid up additions for each child here's the numbers for all the family bankers here is each i mean our kids have their obituaries written their end of life planning their memorial service plan like that's all in the book so everything is in there i mean i'm standing outside my house right now.

1:14:50There's our family flag on the front door. My wife is the seed. My son, River, is the water. My son, Taryn, is the leaf. I'm the tree. If I go inside, hanging above the fireplace right here is the Greenfield family crest. See, you can see the family crest. It's even got the family logo in the middle of it with the tree and the water and the leaf and the seed. Same as the family flag. It's got everything we hold dear as a family. And I mean, look, the family logo is on my computer. It's kind of cool because once you have a family logo, you can put it on all sorts of different stuff. Like if I go out on the back patio, see the throw pillows, those have the family logo on them.

1:15:34We have the family pepper grinder with the family logo on the pepper grinder all the way down to here's my, I'll show you my favorite. Check this out. The family pickleball paddles with the family logo on the pickleball paddles. So it's kind of cool because it creates a real good sense of identity and belonging for the kids in the family. It allows you to teach your children and keep top of mind what it is that your family holds dear. My wife made this, this is the family mission statement, the same that's in the family Constitution, but it's just like handwritten on the wall. And so it essentially, just like a business, kind of systematizes and organizes the concept of having a family goal, family values, a family mission statement, like a playbook for how a Greenfield family goes.

1:16:27And so when my sons are married, they'll get that playbook. They'll be able to use this stuff for their family. They'll be able to pass it on to their family. I mean, that crest I showed you even has little hidden logos in the stone. So every time a new grandchild or great grandchild is added to the family, their logo gets embedded in that stone to be able to just continue to build this deep sense of legacy. So that, and I think this is probably the most important part. You don't as a family create a rags to riches to rags scenario where generational wealth is created and then it's wasted by the next line down because that second generation didn't have a deep sense of belonging and legacy and connection to what it is that the family is building, that the family holds dear, nor a sense of connection to the family wealth, the family bank, and the family legacy as a whole.

1:17:16Well, Ben, this conversation was so eye-opening. I feel like you gave me so many ideas that I've just never heard before. And I'm sure it's the same for all of my listeners. So I end my show with two last questions that I ask all my guests that we do something fun with at the end of the year. So the first one is, what is one actionable thing that our young and profiterers can do today to become more profitable tomorrow. And this can do with anything. It doesn't have to do with the topic of today's episode. One thing that you can do. I mean, I know I named a lot of stuff on this episode, but if I could throw one thing in there, I guess it would be this.

1:17:54And I realize this might isolate some people who might be listening who aren't married, but my wife and I have been married for 22 years. And one of our keys to success is the very last thing we do at the very end of the day as we hold each other in bed and we're falling asleep is we pray together. And I think that's important because it's very difficult to do something sacred and spiritual like prayer at the end of the day. If there's anything between you, any inauthenticity, any lies, any lack of transparency, anything like that. So I think one key to relationship success with the person who you love is every single day, even if it's short, do something spiritual with that person, whether it's a prayer or gratitude journaling or something that brings you together in a spiritual, sacred way.

1:18:38And so that's what I would recommend. And I'm sorry to all you single people out there. I didn't give you a lick of advice just now. It's okay. And what is your secret to profiting in life? And this goes beyond just financial success. Yeah, I mean, obviously the order of priority, God, family, health, and business is important. But I think that the energy that you give and the extent to which you serve the world comes back to you. I have this journal I created called the Spiritual Disciplines Journal. And there's a question at the beginning of the day. And the question is this, who is one person who I can pray for or help or serve this day?

1:19:14Who is one person I can pray for or help or serve this day? And that act of your beginning of the day affirmation, not being about you, not being I'm good, I'm great, I'm wonderful. And gosh darn it, people like me. It's instead speaking into what you can do for the rest of the world. And if you serve other people and you systematize the process of serving other people, and that might be a phone call, it might be going out of your way to help that person, it might be text messaging them, it might be sending them a nice note, whatever the case may be, that one act of service every single day will be something that you give that comes back to you tenfold the rest of your life.

1:19:51So I would say the beginning every single day by planning an act of service for that day is one of the best ways that you can create a profitable and fulfilling life. I totally agree. That's a great piece of advice. And where can everybody learn from you and everything that you do? BenGreenfootlife.com is my website. I got a podcast there. I got my articles there. You can find my books. So that's usually the best place. And on social media, I'm not hard to find, but I don't even remember what my handles are. So I'm sure you can hunt me down though. I'll put it down in the show notes for everybody and make it super easy.

1:20:24Ben, thank you so much for your time today. It was awesome. I really appreciate you. Cool. Thanks, Holla. I appreciate you too.