May 21, 2022

https://BenGreenfieldLife.com/podcast/kyle-kingsbury-podcast/  

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:01:25] Podcast Sponsors

[00:03:31] Ben and Kyle's favorite travel spots

[00:08:55] Addictions and the darks side of social media

[00:15:01] Why Kyle felt compelled to form an in-person educational farm

[00:26:29] Exotic game and personal sovereignty

[00:28:48] Podcast Sponsors

[00:33:36] cont. Exotic game and personal sovereignty

[00:40:41] Why Ben is a fan of structured water

[00:51:17] Ben's recent content production tear

[00:55:27] Important takeaways from Ben's parenting book

[01:07:24] What we really need to make America great again

[01:16:35] How much of the Book of Revelation has actually taken place?

[01:23:00] How to leave a lasting legacy beyond your life

[01:36:08] Regrets held by Ben from his life adventures

[01:40:07] Kyle Kingsbury

[01:40:38] Upcoming Events

[01:43:16] End of Podcast

Ben:  My name is Ben Greenfield. And, on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life podcast.

It's just been so cool to really tap into and understand what it means to brand a family, same way you'd brand a business.

Kyle:  What I put into the earth enhances its ability to put back into me.

That is a two-way street. And, that's something that I've really come to terms with through plant medicine journeys and different alchemy.

Ben:  That Jesus was sent by God to become a human being and to die as a deity and also give us the opportunity to essentially lay all of our burdens at the foot of the cross.

Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show.

Alright, I got the chance to sit down in Austin, Texas with my buddy, amazing gentleman, Kyle Kingsbury. We had a great chat. You're going to absolutely dig it. All the shownotes for everything you're about to hear, you can find at BenGreenfieldLife.com/KyleandBen. That's BenGreenfieldLife.com/KyleandBen, K-Y-L-E-A-N-D-B-E-N. I Hope you enjoyed today's show. Again, go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/KyleandBen if you want all the shownotes.

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Kyle:  Yeah, I had a nice DSLR and the battery would go 90 minutes. And then, after maybe three podcasts, it dropped to 40 minutes and the shit would just turn off, I couldn't see the red light go off or anything like that. And, I got new batteries, same deal and you can't plug it in and keep it powered from a regular power source, only batteries. There's some way to rig it, but it's a lovely camera. We can use it for family photos and nature and all that good stuff.

Ben:  What's a DSLR?

Kyle:  I don't know. Digital single-lens removal.

Ben:  Okay.

Kyle:  So, it's a nice camera where you can change your lens.

Ben:  Yeah. My son got one of those. What did he get it for? He got it for his birthday. And, we just went to the Grand Canyon.

Kyle:  Oh, awesome.

Ben:  Amazing photos.

Kyle:  We went to the Grand Canyon last year first time. I mean, I went to ASU and lived in Arizona for seven years, never went once. It's gorgeous.

Ben:  So, I was going to take him to Kauai because I like Kauai and we're going to do a little family vacation down there and there's little farm called Kauai Farmacy. I've had that guy who runs it, Doug, on my podcast before. Oh, my gosh, he grows tulsi, and nori, and spilanthes, and comfrey, and all these superfoods on 4 acres. It's crazy what he's done. And, I still want to take my sons there because he told me they could work his farm hands for a few months just to learn how to grow super foods and turn them into tinctures, and oils, and salves, and powders and whatnot —

Kyle:  Lay the land. Yeah.

Ben:  Yeah, and do some surfing and stuff. But, they were not super-duper. You can tell when your kids are into something, but not totally on board. It was like that. And then, I took him out to waffles because I took him out to waffles a couple of times a month. Little place in Spokane called People's Waffles that do these really good gluten-free farm-to-table, Thai waffles, and peanut butter, and bananas, everything. So, I'm like, “Well, you guys seem going to the Grand Canyon.” And, their eyes just lit up and they're like, “Yes.” Even during that time we're going to go to Kauai, they're like, “Yeah.” So, during the Grand Canyon, and dude, we burned up trails. We just got back a week ago. We're doing 8 to 10 miles a day.

Kyle:  Oh, that's so good. It's steep rugged hiking. We didn't go rafting because it took a year and a half to get off the rafting wait list. But, talk about the creator revealing himself to you through nature, it is pretty nuts. And, I'm a total new earther. So, for me, when I'm in the Grand Canyon and I just see little things like all the little fossil records of the little arthropods or whatever they call them that are supposed to be scattered across millions of years. All the footprints are pointed in the same direction traveling at a rapid pace, all of them as though some cataclysmic event just causes massive migration of them all at once. Or, there's fossil records of dinosaurs and they're in the sedimentation that is supposed to be separated one by a million years and another by 3 million years or whatever. But, the dinosaurs giving birth with the baby coming out of it in a different layer of soil indicating that either, A, it took the dinosaur 4 million years to have a baby, or B, some cataclysmic event occurred while that dinosaur was in mid birth that caused it to become fossilized in those remains. So, it's kind of a kind of a cool opportunity for me to show my son some of my own beliefs about creationism and why I actually think that it was created by intelligent design over the course of 6 days and then a massive cataclysmic flood caused something like the Grand Canyon.

But anyway, I don't remember how we got on the topic of the Grand Canyon. Anyways though —

Kyle:  We're talking cameras for a second.

Ben:  Oh, yeah. So, my son brought his camera. My son brought his camera at the Grand Canyon.

Kyle:  Oh, yeah. That's a great place to do it. I got this shitty, not shitty, nice handheld camera that's probably mid-tier just so I could start throwing videos back up. For a while there, I was having quite a few taken off YouTube and I was like, “It's actually pointless to fight an uphill battle, but I'm going to start an Odysee account,” which is one of the first video providers that's built on blockchain. So, it can never be taken down and it's pretty much the video version of what Zion is to social media. And, having a direct contact with people that you own, nobody else owns. So, I'm pretty pumped about both of those like, alright —

Ben:  And, is it similar to Zion and that if you wanted to, let's say, monetize the videos, you could do so via a crypto donation type of protocol?

Kyle:  I'm not sure if they have that embedded yet, but they just do video and it looks awesome. It's clean. Obviously, Zion has a lot of kinks to still work out and —

Ben:  I know because I'm trying to get on Zion and it's a waiting game, but I'm signed up and ready to be on that platform.

Kyle:  I'll push them on. No question. We'll get that sorted —

Ben:  Yeah, I think it's all setup.

Kyle:  Oh, yeah, version two is coming out soon. But, yeah, we went to Grand Canyon —

Ben:  Doesn't matter now though because Twitter is decentralized and owned by Elon, so it's free game on Twitter now.

Kyle:  That sounds great. And, actually, that was one of the places where I could recover. In February of 2019-2020, February 2020, right before shit hit the fan, I quit all my social media accounts. It's like, “[BLEEP] this. I can't stand it, all of them” and deleted them permanently. And, Twitter was one that actually recovered, which is nice. It's not a huge following, but 35,000 people is nice to recover.

Ben:  Did you delete them because of just the angst of trolling and online bullying and people making fun of what you say or just the angst that occurs when you open up your computer or your phone and there's just vitriol? Or, was it because of the censorship piece?

Kyle:  Well, it was pre-censorship, these pre-lockdowns, pre people starting to speak their mind about their thoughts on the equation and the wing of science getting taken off, the think tank at Stanford getting deleted off YouTube. Things like that. So, it was before that. A big portion of it was the angst around that people say shit they would never say to my face or your face face-to-face. So, that was one aspect. And, I know you've taken [BLEEP] mountains of heap online as well.

Ben:  And, Twitter is one of the worst. I don't know why. This is what I've observed. You'll have an icon who a lot of people look up to. So, this icon has all their groupies, and then you say something that directly contradicts or somehow rubs that icon's philosophy the wrong way, then all those people jump in. A lot of times the icon, the guru, or whatever, they're not the person spewing the vitriol, but all their hench people, they come to their venerated Twitter icon's defense and start just tweeting right and left everything from like, “I want to kill your children,” which I got when I posted about vaccinations to people begging Elon Musk recently. This happened last week to ban me from Twitter. Like, “Why is this guy still on Twitter?” Because I tweeted something about calories in, calories out, and the faulty part of that equation, and someone literally wanted to get me kicked off of Twitter for that because we all know that's highly offensive to have a debate about a relatively meaningless in the scheme of the whole universe discussion about calories. Pick your battles.

Kyle:  Yeah, that really does show — I mean, there's Sebastian Junger talked about it on Rogan's that when World War II hit and all the people in London literally had buildings being blown up had to band together. They had to feed each other. They helped each other survive. How meaningful existence became under those circumstances because they were brought back into tribe. They were brought up in the meaning.

Ben:  Yeah.

Kyle:  Without that, and hopefully it doesn't take bombs overhead, but without that, people are consistently searching for something to provide meaning if they don't have a spiritual understanding. And, thanks to scientism, that's a big part of that, and guys like Richard Dawkins. And, I think people are really just grasping at straws trying to figure themselves out. And, that's where you get somebody who's just willing to bash you for hours on end.

Ben:  Yeah. I mean, meaning can be, and I was having a discussion about this. Yesterday I did a walking podcast with a guy who's local here, Ronnie Landis, and we were talking about addiction. And, he was talking about the addiction that many people have to struggle and to drama in their lives. And then, we got into addiction to social media, to pornography, to relationships, to nicotine, the caffeine. The list goes on and on. And, in every situation, it really is attempting to fill God-shaped hole in your soul with every last nook and cranny of the universe that you can hunt down to throw into it until you either, A, die, or B, discover the fulfillment that can be achieved when you fill a God-shaped hole with God.

And, I'm reading a book right now by Dallas Willard called “Renovated” about renovating the soul. And, I think it's in that book there. There's a line that even when guys go to porn, they're seeking God. Basically, that's just another example of the angst within the soul. They're like, “Oh, this ought to fill. This ought to fill it,” but nothing actually fills it until you get to that point where you find the spiritual fulfillment.

Kyle:  It's interesting that you bring up the porn thing because in the search for God and “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover,” I'm sure you've read that book. They talked about one of the shadow aspects of the lovers, the Don Juan archetype who's constantly —

Ben:  Don Juan archetype.

Kyle:  Yeah, searching for God or the divine goddess through every woman he can get. But, each woman doesn't fulfill because each woman is not the totality. And so, the search continues. No one is ever enough, the cup is never full.

Ben:  Yeah. It's an interesting conundrum because, yes, you can use things like sex, and juicy ribeye steak, and a glass of Bordeaux, and anything else that's beautiful in creation as a replacement for God, is something you become attached to. But then on the flip side, you can use it to find God and experience God. So, sex could be a crutch for you that you are basically addicted to as a way to fill that hole in your soul that's seeking God as a craving or sex can be a way to experience the beauty and wonder and bliss of creation, and just like my trip to the Grand Canyon, be like, “Oh, this is God speaking to me in this moment of pure bliss.” So, it can kind of work both ways.

Kyle:  Yeah, yeah, many paths live up the mountain.

Ben: Yeah. I can't get too far in this conversation though without asking you about your farm because I've heard rumors, but you and I haven't talked about this at all, we're going to talk about before we turn the mics on and I'm like, “Turn the microphones off.”

Kyle:  Yeah. Aubrey and I have been in Fit for Service from the jump. He invited me on with Godsey and Caitlyn to be full-time coaches. And, we're in our fourth year now, so we've really seen a lot of changes. But, when 2020 came about, even when I was still subscribing to this thing being the bubonic plague, the Black Death and really being on my toes and buying a lot of what I was seeing from TV and mainstream —

Ben:  I understand, I had a spray bottle by mailbox that I would spray all the mail down with before I walked up the driveway.

Kyle:  Yeah. Even when I was a part of that narrative, Fit for Service lives and dies on face-to-face interaction. It lives and dies on our events that we throw. And, there's a lot we can accomplish through Zoom and through coaching people online and you know all this as well. But, something is lost when we're not able to gather in that size of a group, 150 to 200 people.

Ben:  Quite literally. There is a significant loss of oxytocin particularly. If you could stack up everything electromagnetic heart signals and brainwave signals and pupillary interactions, I think it's oxytocin. That's the one thing. It's like this missing hormonal component from a neuroendocrine standpoint that's absent in digital interactions largely.

Kyle:  Yeah. There's so much of that but also thinking about younger's work and rites of passage and things like that, we don't offer plant medicines or anything at these events but we do offer transformational experiences like holotropic breathwork from some of the best guides, aesthetic dance, different things that feel uncomfortable. But, as you go through that together, you have your brothers and sisters in arms. And, that's incredibly bonding. That's what's formed our community. And so, Aubrey had that ranch in Sedona still has it, it's about 50 acres and —

Ben:  Yeah, I've been out there, the spirit ranch.

Kyle:  Spirit Ranch, yeah, it's incredible.

We had to keep postponing our summer event until finally we went to Nevada and Tahoe, which was awesome for many people was the first time they hugged anyone the entire year in August of 2020. October rolled around for our final event in Sedona, and Arizona was pretty cool about things there throughout the shenanigans and they still allowed people to attend masculists and whatnot but they still had a cap at 20 people at these businesses. So, we retrofitted the backyard and built two giant teepees that connected a burning man set and [00:17:45] _____ played live music for the first time the entire year in October for 150 people. They do ecstatic dance. And, the great speakers we brought in for that event were exceptional but really —

Ben:  Can I interrupt you real quick? Explain ecstatic dance to me.

Kyle:  Ecstatic dance, I mean, to me, the benefit of ecstatic dance is pushing through discomfort and everyone has it. I mean, Paul Chek is a buddy of ours always says one of the old sayings, someone would ask a person who is ill is, “When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing?”

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. There's a third one. Is it dreaming?

Kyle:  Mm-hmm.

Ben:  When did you stop doing those three activities: dreaming, dancing, and singing?

Kyle:  Yeah. And, kids, you've got kids. When you watch kids dance, there's no stickiness, there's no self-consciousness, there's no “Oh, what does somebody else do?” they just move their body —

Ben:  Until puberty, yeah.

Kyle:  — the way the music moves them. And, that can be lost and it can be lost your puberty, can be lost your culture, can be lost through a number of things. But, the act of doing that, especially in a sea of people that you're just getting to know, that is maybe a rite of passage, but it is something that pushes our boundaries and what we think is possible. And, when we crack that code, it doesn't mean we look like a break-dancer or something like that or Michael Jackson, it just means that we find our flow and reconnect ourselves to our bodies. And, in that experience, it's priceless because that in and of itself changes the way we carry ourselves going forward, it changes the way we interact with the opposite sex or the same sex for that matter. It changes the way we operate not just in the bedroom but in the boardroom. How we carry ourselves changes when we've moved ourselves through these sticking points.

Ben:  Yeah.

Kyle:  You call them energetic blockages. You could call it all the mental-emotional constructs. There's a million ways to explain that thing, but it's in just psychedelics, you can talk about it. It's not the same thing as going through it.

Ben:  Yeah, it reminds me a little bit. I want to get back to the story Fit for Service and the evolution of this farm. But, the ecstatic dance and the effects that you're describing remind me of a few things. First of all, if you if you read that book, “Zebras Don't Get Ulcers,” this idea of shaking or trembling as a way to relieve stress to deload the sympathetic nervous system. Then, that's actually, I don't know if you've done much of the tai chi shaking, hopefully, I won't be out of the camera doing this, but where you're just like this. But, I'll take a deep breath in [breathing] and do that for six or seven minutes in the morning. Or, if I've been stressed, if I've gone through something where I feel my sympathetic nervous system is charged up and it gives a similar feeling to what you'd get if you were just dancing around, nobody was watching. So, I think there's a definite stress-relieving component very similar to the shaking or the trembling one might do to shake off trauma.

Kyle:  Yeah.

Ben:  And then, the other thing that's interesting is that even though I've never really thought of it as ecstatic dance now that you're describing it, it probably does fall into the same category is we meditate as a family every morning and every evening. But, the morning sessions, typically about 7:30, 7:45 or so, I gather the whole family together, it's our coming together officially to begin the day. And, we sit on the ground and we do our gratitude practice, we do a practice of service, we do breathwork, we do tapping and we do the Lord's Prayer and then we gather for a big hug afterwards and then a team huddle; “What's going on today, who's making this for dinner, what class ends at this time, when are we going to come together in the evening, any special announcements.” It's a little family gathering, which I actually find to be a critical part, for me, as a father, as a so-called head of the household to be able to actually keep everything organized each day, and then it repeats in the evening. Same thing in the evening, it's meditation. But, when the meditation and the prayer ends, it's, okay, “What's going on in the morning? What do we need to be ready for?”

So, it's a very good way to keep organization and keep the family from just being ships passing the night. But, one or two times a week, I'll just choose an amazing song. And, for me, it's usually some of these newer contemporary praise and worship type of stations like Hillsong or Elevation Worship. And, there are great songs like Way Maker, and So Will I, and then The Blessing, and The Doxology. They're typically about five to seven minutes. And, my sons will come down from the bedroom with their journals and I'll be like, “You guys don't need your journals today.” And, their faces just break out and smile because they know what's about to happen, and I put the little Bluetooth speaker on and I put on a song and we just dance like crazy for the first five to seven minutes of the day, turning loops around the kitchen table. And, I'm picking up mom and throwing over my shoulder, twirling around. And so, we do that a couple of times a week. So, it reminds me a lot when you describe it of our little family ecstatic, if you want to call that dance sessions.

Kyle:  Yeah, that's exactly what it is. And, same thing with the tai chi or kundalini shaking, at least the first song, song and a half of any ecstatic dance that we do, I'm literally just doing that. I'm bouncing up and down. I'm shaking out the kinks. I'm stretching. I'm mobile —

Ben:  Kind of like right before the drop happens when you're [00:23:17] ____.

Kyle:  Yeah. Usually, song three is going to hit, so —

So, that's my warm up. But, I was in Aubrey's ear the whole time through lockdowns because we still went through it here initially. And then, over time, Texas became a freer and freer state. Florida as well. So, we were looking at places in Texas and Florida to potentially purchase. And, 2021, stuff continued in different states but didn't hear and no one died. I mean, I shouldn't say no one died, but it's not Texas fell off the map from all the people dying and we kept looking and Aubrey for a long time had his own vision of what a true medicine space would look like. And, for me, I wanted food sovereignty, I wanted to be able to grow our own food, I didn't want to worry if grocery stores were going to close or if I needed a vax pass to get into Whole Foods. And, certainly, with supply chain issues and the rising cost of food, it's like, we got to be in the game, we got to become — I heard a guy ice age farmer on one of his YouTube videos say that, “For the people to do well, we're going to need to become producers.” And, that may look different for some people, it doesn't mean becoming a giant corporation, it just means producing more than you consume. And —

Ben:  Yeah. I mean, it's honestly from a technical standpoint, it's very similar to a guy like Cal Newport, be a creator not a consumer, or at least skew the balance of your life more towards creation than consuming. And, that's a pretty good way to live because it means at the end of the day, you've contributed.

Kyle:  That Cal Newport was the second reason I got off social media. I read “Digital Minimalism” and I was like, “Man, I'm out.” And, it is a great way to connect with people. But, any who there was food sovereignty, there was having a true healing center. And then, I wanted it in our backyard, so we searched for a while and we ended up finding a spot about 30 minutes south of the airport. Really easy to get to. It's 85-mile an hour freeway heading there because Tesla's coming to town not far from it. And, it's been incredible. It's 118 acres. We had seen biggest little farm, and a lot of these things, and bodies with force of nature, and the guys at Roam Ranch. So, I've been plugged in and Paul, the OG, was wearing “I love dirt shirts” and “I love the soil shirts” way back in the day. So, I'd always been mindful of that, but —

Ben:  You mean Paul Chek?

Kyle:  Paul Chek. Yeah. The adage as above so below when you really understand that, it's what I put in to the soil, what I put into the earth enhances its ability to put back into me.

Ben:  Yes.

Kyle:  And, that is a two-way street. And, that's something that I've really, really come to terms with through plant medicine journeys and different alchemy. But, we didn't want to bite off more than we could chew, we didn't make the whole thing biggest little farm. I think that's 200 acres. Really, we have left a lot of open space, we're trimming trees and opening up the land so the grasses can come back. We're going to bring in exotic animals to hunt and also to heal the land. And, with that, we've got game fences. Eisenstein didn't like the fact that we put in big fences but it's a part of the deal to keep exotic game and then we have about a —

Ben:  What kind of exotic game are we talking about? The reason I ask is I had a conversation. I think this was actually on a podcast that I had this conversation with Jordan Rubin who's old school guy from the nutrition supplements industry on Garden of Life nutrition. He's very well known for healing himself of I think it was Crohn's or colitis using nutritional protocols, has a Christian flavor to his work. He's got “The Maker's Diet,” the Bible, very similar to I think the diet that the prophet Daniel ate in the Old Testament. He's full of interesting ideas, but he's done something very similar to what you're describing in Missouri. And, he said that he did a lot of research about this and it turns out that for sustainable milk and meat, water buffalo and yak instead of cows, and then ducks instead of chickens are his go-tos.

Kyle:  That's interesting.

Ben:  And, it's something I'm thinking about because I didn't talk to you about this or tell you this yet, but I'm moving down to 12 acres in Idaho. I'm relocating to North Idaho. Moving a little deeper into the backwoods. Whereas right now, I live in a forest. That's on a plane. And so, I will likely put water buffalo or yak or maybe just a helicopter pad. We'll see.

Kyle:  Absolutely.

Ben:  But, yeah. So, for you, what exotic game are you —

Kyle:  Biggest herd will be black buck from India. They have a flavor profile like axis deer.

Ben:  Beautiful animal. Yeah.

Kyle:  They are a bit better at intelligent grazing. So, they're not going to eat all the way down to the root. Mesquite would just grow up in its place like you've experienced hunting in Hawaii.

Ben:  Yeah.

Kyle:  That's no fun. And, we want to regenerate grasses and obviously store more into the ground. So, I think they're going to be phenomenal. They'll be the largest herd in numbers, but they're one of the smallest that we're going to carry so that we can have more of them and still be in relation with the biomass per acreage. And then, red stag, which is one of the most beautiful animals I've ever seen, I went on a secret hunt with Mansal in a town called Hunt Texas two years ago. And, we were two hours west and they had elk, bison, red stag, black buck, ibex, you name every animal is there.

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I'm honestly shocked. Every time I see a bodybuilder or so-called fitness influencer or anyone really promoting these things called BCAAs, branched-chain amino acids, aside from the fact that BCAAs contain only three of the nine essential amino acids that your body needs, BCAAs can cause all sorts of issues like messing with your serotonin levels, depleting B vitamins, deleteriously affecting your blood sugar. They're fancy expensive flavored water. They're known as a good money maker in the nutrition industry, but they're not that great. So, it's starting to catch on now in the industry that essential amino acids are the way to go instead. 

There's a reason that essential amino acids, when I go out to dinner with my friends, just out to dinner with one of my friends the other day and he's like, “Dude, my body just won't stop responding to these things.” You take some pre-workout, post-workout before bed when he's fasted, when the gut's not feeling right, it's the cleanest most bioavailable form of protein, period.

Some people, like the serious athletes, they're taking 40 to 60 grams of this stuff a day and dominating, 10 to 20 grams a day, even 5 grams a day makes a huge difference. If you haven't even experimented with or tried EAAs yet, you are totally missing out. It's so simple, it's so easy, and everybody's body responds to them because it's just amino acids. There's no crazy stuff that it might work for you, it might not, it's just they work. And, there's so much research behind them, it's silly to not throw them in pre-workout, post-workout, before you go to bed if you're fasted. I go through so many canisters of these things. It's nuts and they're good, they're the Swiss army knife of supplements. I can tell you that right now.

20% off though, you get 20% off of these things. You go to getKION.com, getK-I-O-N.com/BenGreenfield. That will give you that special discount for your first-time purchase, and it's got a lime flavor, we got a berry flavor. They taste amazing. They perform wonderfully. So, Kion Aminos, getK-I-O-N.com/BenGreenfield.

Hey, you ever heard of the Ice Barrel? The Ice Barrel is an ice tub that's got a sleek design. It's got a compact footprint. It makes it super easy to experience the benefits of cold therapy come from the comfort of your own home or backyard or basement. And, it's very simple, it's not expensive, it's very affordable, easy to use, and that just allows you to get all the benefits of cold thermogenesis, but without having to break the bank and in a very simple and easy form. It looks nice. It's black. It's sleek. It actually is something that doesn't annoy my wife despite it being on the back patio out by my office. And, I'm going to give you 125 bucks off of it. So, you go to IceBarrel.com/Ben, I-C-E-B-A-R-R-E-L.com/Ben and check it out, the brand-new ice barrel. Get colder and feel better.

I've hunted in a similar location in Texas. And, seeing all those, it's confusing sometimes when you hunt in Texas because if you're with a guide, you're constantly asking, “Can I shoot that? Do I have a tag for that? Is that legal?” How do red stag taste?

Kyle:  I think they're phenomenal. It looked Harry Potter's Patronus.

Ben:  Oh, yeah, yeah.

Kyle:  And, we could see anything we weren't hunting, of course, was at 20 yards. But, I kept running into this giant red stag. It was incredible. And, a huge rack and just one of the most beautiful things that I've ever seen and that's a Grand Canyon experience. I'm looking at the intelligent design of this beautiful animal and just breath take, just I'm staring at it in awe. So, we'll start with six and let that herd grow, and maybe we'll do some trading for different genetics with some local people. We've got quite a few exotic farms in the area. And, the final one is going to be gemsbok. And, they can get pretty big. They're from West Africa.

Ben:  Gemsbok.

Kyle:  Yeah. It's —

Ben:  I don't think I've seen a gemsbok.

Kyle:  The males have horns that look like a unicorn horn. There's two of them. They're spears, straight up spirals.

Ben:  Yeah. I know what you're talking about. A matter of fact, I think there's another name for gemsbok.

Kyle:  They're from ibex, I think.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah, ibex because we have a mount by our fireplace in the living room that one of my wife's friends gave to her that's like ibex mount. Gosh, what do you call it when the — it's just the skull.

Kyle:  Euro.

Ben:  Yeah, euro mount. Yeah, yeah.

Kyle:  Yeah, it's incredible. They can get up to 500 pounds.

Ben:  And, you'll be able to hunt them as well?

Kyle:  Mm-hmm. And, we won't really touch them for the first few years, we're just going to — actually, end of this month, we're going to have them delivered. We're going to let them get accustomed to the land. It is a small plot for hunters out there that are like, “That's not fair game, that's just harvesting.” It is 118 acres. And, yes, it is for harvesting, it is for our own food, it's not a challenging hunt, it's not going with bows to Lanai or Molokai, that's a different game.

Ben:  Yeah.

Kyle:  This is literally to help restore the ecosystem of the land and heal the soil and for us to eat and have really high-quality nutrition in our diet. So —

Ben:  Are you going to live out there?

Kyle:  Yeah, we're building the house. It's under construction right now. So, that's how I've talked my way into that. I was in Aubrey's ear for a couple years about the importance of having this, not just for Fit for Service, but looking at where the world's at right now and the demolition of modern society. I mean, you're a father, you think about these things a little bit more than most people do because you got little ones. Wolfie came 4th of July in 2020, smack dab in the middle of the most craziest time in recorded history or at least in modern history. And —

Ben:  Right. She's going to have amazing eye facial recognition built-in technology spending the first several months of her life seeing fewer faces than the average human.

Kyle:  Well, thankfully we were here. So, we didn't pay attention to any of that. She got to see everybody and be held and loved on. There was no concern with her. So, it was like, “Yeah, everybody come over, get to hold the little girl and play her.” But, yeah, having all that in mind was really the impetus for this. And, I told Aubrey, I really want to be caretaker of the land and I want to live there full-time and I want to raise my kids on the land. I want to send them out of the house with a big dog and not worry about where they are. They can have a walkie-talkie if they need help or get stuck somewhere. And, the land is just incredible. We've got three massive ponds. We'll be putting in another one. There's big mouth bass in one and bluegill and another. We might be adding catfish. We've really been working on this 9-acre plot that we have fenced in and protected. And, working with Chad Johnson who I had on the podcast. He's a brilliant permaculturist who was understudy to Sepp Holzer and traveled the world with this guy really picking his brain to learn it from him and he accelerated. He was one of the best in Sepp's classes. So, Sepp took him under his wing.

Ben:  Chad Johnson.

Kyle:  Chad Johnson.

Ben:  Does he live down here?

Kyle:  He's off the I-35 like we are. He's one exit away from Canada.

Ben:  Got you.

Kyle:  So, he's northern, northern Minnesota. That's what drew me in because a lot of people learn permaculture in Costa Rica and it's not apples to apples.

Ben:  No.

Kyle:  The fact that he's dealing with serious cold that's worse than ours, I know the things he's put —

Ben:  Yeah, you want somebody local. I've got a guy up north in Idaho who I'm working with local for the development of the food forest that we're putting in around this new home that we're building. It's actually in Viola, Idaho, which is not a city, they call it a community. I don't know when a community becomes a city, but I think it's, gosh, about 150, 200 people, a little town hall, no gas station, no grocery store, nothing, just some homes and farms. But, the home that we're building despite you really feeling you're off-grid, this is kind of my home in Spokane. You can be out on the highway in two minutes and into Moscow, Idaho within 10 minutes, which is a big university town.

Kyle:  Oh, cool.

Ben:  So, it's just a perfect little setting.

Kyle:  Yeah. So, you're in the cuts, but you're also —

Ben:  On and plant all the trees right now from tree cover. And then, the whole home, we'll do like I did the home in Spokane metal shielded Cat7 ethernet cables fed through the whole home. We use moon wood, which is naturally an EMF, almost a Faraday-ish blocking technology mold resistant, low VOC wood, will work in all the natural lighting, the HEPA air filtration, the negative ions. I'm getting the guys from Egypt to come out and do a full bio geometry analysis of the land.

Kyle:  Phenomenal.

Ben:  We're working with a guy named Brian Hoyer I was talking about the other day as one of the main builders or at least a consultant on the project because he does from the ground up building biology analyses of homes just in terms of the materials, the wood, the lighting, the insulation, the air filtration, just soup to nuts, all the things that that are important. So, I'm stoked.

Kyle:  Yeah, it's a good feeling.

Ben:  Just got to try to recreate that in Spokane. Yeah.

Kyle:  It's a great feeling to have.

Yeah, Chad's running that. We've got the food forest in. We're just finishing off 500 slips of sweet potatoes, yams, different potatoes, but we've got 400 trees in the ground all set up with line irrigation coming from that main pond on a solar pump. We've got 60 different grapevines, tons of blackberry and raspberry and different perennials that are in the ground. And then, like I said, with the main calorically dense foods that we're going to be bringing in are the starches that'll be root vegetables. And then, we're building out a root cellar right next to my house that's going to be pretty massive. And, we'll be able to store, I don't know, probably 50 refrigerators worth of food down there here around.

Ben:  Oh, wow. That's great. That'd be cool.

Kyle:  Proper setup.

Ben:  Yeah. Are you going to do anything regarding the water? You guys doing a well? Are you bringing it from the ponds?

Kyle:  I have a douser coming in next week to look at places to put the well —

Ben:  It's fun to watch a douser work.

Kyle:  I actually wanted to pick your brain because I think it's your dad's company that does or your brother —

Ben:  Yeah. Well, it's my dad. My dad and my brother now. And, that's what we did our line. We had a douser come up and they walk along with the rod, and a lot of people think it's witchcraft. I think, it's more electromagnetic rotation when you get over the place where the water is actually at. And, it was funny because he came up and he did the dousing. I just followed him around because I was curious and follow him around, follow him around about 10 acres and he finally gets to a spot. And, the rod that he's holding rotates this way and that, and I don't know how to read it. But apparently, I told him this is the spot, put his foot down, he said, “Drill right here, you'll be good to go.” Sure enough. I have no clue if we would drill 10 feet away. If we also, would have been good to go but regardless, he found us a good well. And so, then of course, well water can still have anything from herbicide and pesticide runoff to bacterial iron, to manganese, to all sorts of stuff that could wind up accumulating in your system. So then, you do water analysis of the actual well water. And, in our case, we had high levels of iron. So, I got a really good iron filtration system. It's a hydrogen peroxide-based iron filtration system that's special built for iron just so I don't fricking get hemochromatosis from drinking water at home. And then, it passes through the water filter that my dad makes. And, what he does is he imports all his parts from Tel Aviv where they've got a lot of really good water filtration technology in Israel because they've had to manage to get a lot of drinkable potable water in an area where there's really not much water naturally. And so, he brings these filters in. And, technically I think their main whole house filter right now is a double carbon block, which is essentially equivalent of a reverse osmosis in terms of what will filter out. But then, post-carbon block, it passes through vortices, a series of all these glass beads and minerals that structures the water. And then, the only thing that you're missing out on and I think you're probably aware of this is just the remineralization after all that filtering. It's good idea to put some extra salts back in.

Kyle:  Yeah, the thing that drew me to it was the fact that it restructures the water after the fact. And, that's something that's not typical. We have, I think, an Aquasana filter on our home right now in Austin. And, it does the job. I think I got on a lemma structuring water stick on Paul's podcast —

Ben:  Yeah. And, a lot of people still raise an eyebrow at the structuring of the water. What I can tell you subjectively is it tastes better. I feel more hydrated when I'm drinking it. I've even been using those Vessel or Vivoo new urine strips. A lot of companies are coming out with these urine strip technologies that'll tell you everything from ketones to glucose, to hydration status, to specific gravity, to bilirubin. Everything in your urine was cool. You pee on a stick and then you take a picture of it with your phone and then it spits out on the app, what things you're high or low.

Kyle:  From the photo?

Ben:  Yeah.

Kyle:  Cool tech.

Ben:  It's kind of cool. It's an interesting technology. Yeah. Two companies I know of, they're doing Vessel and Vivoo, V-I-V-O-O is, I think, how it's spelled. And, with the structuring of the water, I'm able to maintain really, really good hydration status. It tastes better. I feel better when I drink it. The idea is that theoretically when there is a greater amount of hydrogen-oxygen bonding as would occur in structured water very similar to the experiments done by Gerald Pollack up at Washington, there's a lowered amount of friction or resistance to water traveling through a vessel because you'll form a positive zone called an exclusion zone on the outside, a negatively charged zone on the inside. And so, the positive charge on the outside essentially causes water to crawl through a vessel almost electrically especially when exposed to photons of light. And so, in an ideal scenario, you drink structured water and then use something like infrared light technology or sunlight to enhance that water's ability to be able to seep into tissue.

And, the only thing is and I always name this is that I feel better, it makes sense to me theoretically, but there's not any really great clinical studies on the health effects of structured water like there have been with the health effects of say deuterium depleted water or hydrogenated water. Are you familiar with the DDW concept deuterium depleted water?

Kyle:  Yeah, I got to know that a little bit couple years back in PaleoFX.

Ben:  Yeah. It's just a heavier isotope that tends to displace some of the metabolic machinery in the mitochondria that dictates that if you drink water that's lower in deuterium that you're going to be healthier metabolically and you would find high levels of deuterium in produce that's been sprayed with herbicides and pesticides in a dietary context that's higher carbohydrate instead of higher fat because when you burn fat, you generate water as a byproduct of that. And, the water that you generate is naturally deuterium depleted. And so, the idea with the DDW is you can buy and drink DDW, or you could just eat organic produce, avoid herbicides and pesticides and the like, and eat a slightly higher fat and lower carb. 

And so, considering the price of DDW because you got to hyper freeze the water and then warm it back up and go through this special process, nobody's got a way to really scale, I think, a bottle of 6 to 8 bucks, which is prohibitively expensive. And then, the hydrogen, that's simple. I mean, with the hydrogen, you just get a hydrogen water generator and under the sink or hydrogen tablets and add that to the structured water. And so, for me when I wake up in the morning, it's a giant 32-ounce Mason glass jar with the structured water. And, I'll put three or four hydrogen tablets in and then I use the Quinton minerals, which is I think one of the best mineral sources out there, and then a couple of scoops of this stuff, somewhat recent finimize called Adrenal Cocktail by Jigsaw Health and it's just boatload of minerals and vitamin C. so, I just start off the day topping everything up.

But, back to your question about the water filtration, yeah, for a setup like you're talking about, it would be the Greenfield Naturals whole house double carbon block system with the structured water unit added to it. That's exactly what I have.

Kyle:  Cool. Oh, yeah.

Ben:  Yeah. But then, you would still want to pay attention to anything else that might be in the well water because sometimes you got to have two, three filtration setups depending what you have out there.

Kyle:  Does your family participate in all that kind of stuff —

Ben:  What kind of poisons are in black buck piss, you never know.

Kyle:  Dude, if there was a particular issue like iron or something like that, would they have the ability to custom do something like, yeah?

Ben:  Probably not. 

Kyle:  Okay.

Ben:  No, you'd probably talk to a local water person who would filter out the iron. And then, once all their filtration is set up and done, that's when at the final stage you would pass it through a system like my dad's. It's interesting though. One of the reasons I'm moving to Idaho is to be closer to my parents because they're getting old. And, my father will actually be living on the property that I'm going to build on in Idaho because their entire water filter production facility is right there on the corner of that property. And, if you go into the main warehouse where they make all the filters and everything, you go to the very, very back. That's where it gets woo because my dad's a eastern orthodox Christian and his state's very interesting, he's got a whole chapel, and all these saints all over the place and candles. And, he prays a hundred times a day. It's full-on, eastern orthodox. And, in the room, in the back of the warehouse where the water filters are ready for their final packaging and shipping, he's got this special bucket with holy water in it. It's the water from — are you familiar with Lourdes, France where people will bathe in this water and have miraculous healing experiences?

Kyle:  I remember Wayne Dyer talking about that.

Ben:  It's actually on my bucket list to go there because I'm very, very curious about this water. And so, he'll put a little bit a few drops of this water into the water filter before it ships the entire room back there where their package is surrounded on the wall with icons of all these saints and it's this holy room. You've talked to Dr. Nick from Essential Oil Wizardry before, right? 

Kyle:  Yeah.

Ben:  He's told me I haven't been to his production facility but he talks about how you got to pass a profile of mood state score before you go in. And so, there's only positive energy around the essential oils and stripping them out of any exposure to EMF. And, it's like that with the water filters. And, I, of course, as a man of faith, it's easier for me to believe in this, but I do think there's something about the positive energy and the frequencies that the filters are exposed to before they finally get out and hit the streets.

Kyle:  Yeah. I mean, I don't know. You might know if there's any science on it. Again, it's funny because it's great if there is because then you can say, yeah, here, check out this reference, this reference, this reference. But, if there's not, I don't need someone to tell me, I don't need a double-blind study on ayahuasca's efficacy.

Ben:  No, it's back to scientism that you were talking about. In many cases, that can strip the sacredness out of an experience if you try to prove it because in many cases some of the most sacred and spiritual things that exist at this point in our ability to be able to detect quantum effects are invisible and undetectable. And so, when you look at things like quantum energy or the observer effect or anything like that, it absolutely changes. Based on the observer effect, if you do figure out a way to look at it might change it anyways, you might not be seeing what you expect to see. So, yeah, there are definitely things that do not need to be proven by double-blinded clinical research studies.

Kyle:  No doubt.

Well, let's follow this path. I like the thread that we're heading right now. You've been on a tear with books. You've been churning out a bunch. You had one I wanted to get you on for prior to the one that you just came out with, correct?

Ben:  Two spiritual titles, those are the ones you're referring to?

Kyle:  Yeah, the two spiritual titles and then —

Ben:  I wrote “Fit Soul.”

Kyle:  Yes, “Fit Soul.”

Ben:  And, I wrote “Endure.” 

Kyle:  So, when I was at Paul's for his 60th birthday last year, I saw the “Fit Soul” and I was like, “Oh, I got to get Ben on for that.” And then, now, you've got the “Endure.”

Ben:  “Endure.” It was a sequel that actually I'm really excited right now is I'm working on a parenting book, which I can tell you about later on if you want. But, “Fit Soul,” this would have been 2020-ish, I had a little bit of existential angst about what my path in life and what I was delivering to my audience, lots of biohacking and longevity, anti-aging, and six-pack abs, and whatever, things that back to what we were talking about with a God-shaped hole are interesting but ultimately not the true source of fulfillment that we all crave. Good, even the Scriptures say that physical training is of some benefit but it's not the ultimate goal in life. And, I went to talk to actually a pastor who I really respect about this, a guy named Doug Wilson. And, Doug was like, “Well, if you're trying to give your audience, podcast listeners and your readers something that's a little bit more fulfilling, something that you've found to be more fulfilling than just fitness,” for me, in three words basically faith and family, those are really two things that make me way happier and way more fulfilled than all the fitness and longevity stuff I spent so many years preaching as the pure message. He said, “Well, why don't you just write your testimonial, talk about how you went full circle from being born in a Christian home to just pursuing everything the world has to offer over and over again and then coming back full circle and realizing, “Oh, at the end of the day, all I need is God. And, the most important thing for me to focus on is not my business or my body but my family.”

So, I started writing this little testimony I was going to give away for free on my website and turn into a book because I'm shitty at stopping writing once I started. That's one thing that for some reason I love to write and I write a lot of stuff. So, I wrote this book and it talks about my own journey and the lack of fulfillment found in physical fleshly carnal pursuits and how to build up the “Fit Soul” so to speak, the spiritual armor that's necessary from prayer to meditation, to devotions, to silence, to solitude, to journaling, to all of these spiritual disciplines that help you to build your spiritual fitness in the same way that kettlebells might build physical fitness or learning a new instrument might build mental fitness. So, I wrote that book and then I had a lot of leftover material and other things I wanted to write about.

So then, a few months ago, I finished up another book called “Endure” that as the name implies is more about spiritual stamina but specifically it's about all my own temptations, and struggles, and how I've dealt with porn and sex, and polyamory, and food addiction, and OCD-like tendencies. Just all this stuff that I've had to deal with myself. And, honestly for me, when I have a problem, one of the ways that I tackle it is I write about it, almost therapeutically. And so, both of these books “Fit Soul” and “Endure,” they're my own therapy. But, I figure, if there are certain things that helped me, then maybe they'll help some other people who are struggling with the same things.

Kyle:  Yeah, absolutely. I love that. I mean, it's not in writing but that is effectively what I've made my job to be in Fit for Service is whatever I'm passionate about, whatever I'm drawn to are the things that I'm going to first embody and try on for size as a guinea pig, but then secondarily, give back to anybody who's a part of the program because it's one thing to run it through the rational side of the mind and come to terms with it. It's another thing to actually live that experience and walk the walk. And, there's so much that we can gather from not just our successes but our failures if you want to call them that, the bumps in the road that really are deliverables to people. And, that's a great place to take your writing.

And, that brought up for me one of the ways in which Paul Chek looks at the arc of a life. So, you start with the child archetype, then you go into the warrior archetype, which is usually around adolescence, it's where you push back against your parents-teachers society, potentially. Not all kids do that. And then, you step into the king archetype, and again, not everyone does this or the queen archetype, which is where you become a master of your trade. You're singularly focused on fluid intelligence becoming good at what you do, making money, solving the riddles of the game that we're in.

Ben:  Yeah.

Kyle:  And then, at a certain point, you realize, that's not enough. Midlife crisis usually happen around then. And, if you have acquired enough wisdom through life experience, then that's the thing you give back, it's not just share your money with the poor, that's awesome, but it's really about becoming the wise elder, which is the final archetype. And, not everyone's done that. I think a lot of people get sold on the material world and bust their ass doing it. And, there's no blame there, I mean I feel it's a shitty feeling to imagine myself living a life like that not having something to share, and that person would become an older, not an elder, somebody who's a grumpy old man effectively rather than the wise teacher.

Ben:  Sometimes I wonder if the failure to develop that mentorship mentality of crystallized intelligence is — that entire process I think is a little bit aggravated by our modern assumptions and views and activities that surround death. Meaning that as you age, you're shoved into hospice or you're hidden away or there's this grasping at straws. I don't want to sound hypocritical saying this, being a guy who's been in the longevity in the anti-aging sector, but I think you can get to a certain transhumanistic point where you're all of a sudden just trying to live as long as possible because death is shameful, and death is something to be feared, and death is not a portal to a more blissful experience in eternity afterwards but is instead just the end of the road. And, I think that when you approach death in that manner that inevitably a little bit of the respect and honor of elders gets sucked out of society because they're just old and becoming useless and no longer contributory reproductive members of society. They don't have sperm. Well, maybe they have a little bit of sperm left over, they definitely don't have eggs and so it's just time to gently shove them aside and make room for the next younger generation when in fact. I mean, I don't know about you but I want to be freaking sitting at my castle when I'm 80 with 12 grandchildren gather around my feet teaching them and mentoring them, and also being honored by them. I mean, part of my reason, like I said, for moving back to Idaho is because something deep in my soul is gnawing at me to honor my parents and to give them a place of honor and veneration with age rather than just they're old, game over.

So, I think part of it is our thoughts are on death. And then, I think part of it too is legacy. Like I mentioned, writing this parenting book, the sense of legacy that I witness in these parents that I'm interviewing for this book because I don't know if my sons are going to end up in prison, they're 14 years old now. I've certainly —

Kyle:  Likely not, but we don't know.

Ben:  They're not fully done being raised. That cake is not yet cooked and out of the oven, and so I don't profess to be a parent who knows it all but I know a lot of parents who have produced remarkable and impactful children. And so, I created a list, 32 different questions, like what kept you awake at night, what do you regret as a parent, what's a message you would put on a billboard for parents, what unique outside the box educational approaches did you use, what did you do when you disagreed with your spouse about something, how did you overcome the angst that occurs when you wanted to pass wisdom on to your child but you didn't want to adult them too early. All these different questions that I wonder about that I wish I didn't know when I was a parent, I just sent them out to all these people who I know who are really, really good parents with good kids. And so, I've got a thousand pages of replies and transcripts and everything that I'm just weaving through. And, there's all sorts of common threads, family dinners, one-on-one scheduled intentional dates for the husband and the wife typically quarterly or at least a couple times a year, some kind of a family planning retreat, consequential-based parenting rather than disciplinary-based parenting, educating your child on the natural consequences and as much as possible letting them deal with those consequences, a whole list of habits that seem to repeatedly pop up.

And, another one is some carving out of a space for radical honesty and radical transparency in a non-judgment zone when disagreements arise between a parent and a child or between the spouse. I mean, you can go and have a no judgment's own conversation with that person be radically transparent, radically honest with them, and that's just kind of an unwritten rule in the home to allow bitterness not to set in and fester within the relationships.

Probably one of the most obvious patterns that you see though is this idea of rituals, and routines, and traditions, and rites of passages, and legacy-based activities that can be passed down to the next generation, and that can make the next generation feel proud to have the last name that you have. And, I think that one of the things I am most excited about right now and I'm most proud of is, Kyle, if you were to come up to our house, it's been years since you've been there, but you pull up the driveway, it's two giant flags flying the Greenfield family logo right outside the door, massive, $20,000 metal sculptured crest above the fireplace. It's our entire family crest and logo. I'm a cheapskate. I don't spend money on expensive art. So, this for me was a bullet. And, oh my gosh, I'm so glad I did it. It's just this enormous sense of legacy. Everything down to the little symbols carved in each of the rocks that surround this shield crest are hidden. And, every time a new child or a new grandchild is added to the family, their symbol will get embedded in the stones, this crest gets passed down generationally. Our mission statement, the Greenfield family mission statement is prominently displayed on the living room wall. Everything we stand for, all of our values, we're content no matter our circumstances. We love God. Our family mission is to help people find the same love and joy and peace that we've discovered. We care for other people in the community. Just everything that we value as a family, that's the creed, the Greenfield family creed. We got hats. We got hoodies. We got mugs. We got laptop stickers. For Christmas, I'm making wine bottles with the Greenfield family crest on them and chocolate bars, the embossed Greenfield family logo, and the little steak brandish when I cook steaks that I can brand the Greenfield family logo on. And, this all culminates in an actual Greenfield family playbook.

Here's what we do with the kids when they're eight. Here's what we do when they're 12 and they have their first rite of passage into adolescence. Here's when the rite of passage into adulthood occurs. Here's when they stopped getting any money, age 16 from mom and dad. No more money after that point. Here's the point which no Greenfield children are allowed to be living in the home. And so, at age 18, Greenfield men do not live in — and so, this is not just for my sons, this is for my sons' sons and my sons' son' sons. They'll build on that playbook as we go. But, this idea of systematically and intentionally planning out legacy is important to avoid the all-too-common rags to riches to rag scenario that you see a lot when, let's say somebody like you, you're successful, you're making money, you got farm and bear grows up, and I don't think you're going to be doing this with him but you give him everything he needs in life. He's set and he's comfortable and maybe like, so you can give him all this money and take care of him, maybe he'll just not have a worry in the world and go up and find the cure for cancer, be a great artist. And, I think I get that mentality that parents have, but I think the cons outweigh the pros versus actually having this legacy and this creation of independence that's passed on to future generations and not just giving them a silver spoon but giving them a structure to work with to make their own success in life.

And so, when all this comes together, my kids, they're proud to be a Greenfield, they know what it means to be a Greenfield that we can go out to dinner and we're the cheesiest family on the planet, we're wearing our Greenfield family logo hoodies and our Greenfield family hats, all four of us. Jessa's is red, and Terran is green, and River is blue, and mine is black, so the different colors. But, it's just been so cool to really tap into and understand what it means to brand a family, almost say we brand a business. And, it's just so cool to see my sons taking pride in being a Greenfield. When they slap that Greenfield family logo hat on, my heart just swells with pride. And, I think that what happens is as each generation successfully builds or successively builds on that playbook, it's generationally each family that occurs after me will become better, more impactful, able to carry more wealth into the future generation so that that wealth can then be dispersed via the family trust, the different charities and foundations. My sons are launching their first non-profit this year. Meaning that any proceeds that they make at age 14 from the little cooking video business will start to go towards charity and towards non-profit. And then, their kids will start a non-profit when they're probably close to 8 to 10 years old because we're working that into the playbooks. We didn't really think about having the kids start a non-profit until this year. But, all these things that you can just weave in, I'm shocked I didn't know a lot of this growing up. It makes sense to me because a lot of people just don't think about this stuff.

And, that's one reason I'm talking about on this podcast, I'm like, “I wish more families would do this because I think that societal stability starts in the household and starts with actually a nuclear family household. And, I think that if America had families who were taking pride in their last name honoring their elders, honoring their father and mother back to how we started this conversation, and honoring death, and also honoring birth and life and taking pride in your last name, I think that that's part of what we need to make this country great and resilient and not have a bunch of generation's ears walking around ashamed to be an American or ashamed to be a part of the family that they were born into.

Kyle:  Yeah, that's a big one. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Douglas Murray. He was on Rogan's a few times. He wrote “The Madness of Crowds.” And, they just recently came out with “The War on the West.” And, I've been chewing on that one. It's actually keeping me awake at night. I usually listen to audible after I put the kids down. And, yeah, it's something I should chew on during the day to optimize sleep, but it's just a brilliantly articulated true telling of what's happening in the world and really what's at stake, not just in America but in the west in general, in modern culture. And, many of the things that you're mentioning right now are just, let's keep stirring and staring and stirring because really there is that, there is an attack on the nuclear family, there is an attack on mother and father, there is an attack on race where somehow people got the idea that to end racism, you need more racism. It's mind-blowing to say that this is the playbook that's being used. We want to get rid of racism, racism.

Ben:  Yeah.

Kyle:  Let's start that in school. So —

Ben:  Now, actually, I want to make sure that doesn't go over people's heads. Can you explain what you mean by that with the attempt to cure racism with racism? What's that mean exactly?

Kyle:  Right. So, that's speaking to critical race theory. And, he dives into this pretty deep in “Madness of Crowds” but much, much deeper in “The War in the West.” And, in critical race theory, you're basically teaching young children that because you're white, you are born racist and this flies in the face. And really, he alludes so beautifully to the great thinkers and people that we've learned from throughout the years. It flies in the face of what Martin Luther King Jr. was dreaming. It flies in the face of that.

Ben:  Yeah.

Kyle:  It flies in the face of his hopes. It flies in the face of the turn that we've taken —

Ben:  Because Martin Luther King basically part of his speech, which embarrassingly enough I don't have memorized, he talks about how he dreams of a future where you aren't judged by the color of your skin. And, here we are telling White people that they should be judged by the color of their skin. That's what you're saying?

Kyle:  Yeah, and that they're born inherently almost an AAA person is taught. You have a genetic default that doesn't allow you to drink alcohol, that you effectively have been born racist that it is in you, and it's just implanting guilt and shame. And, not only is it not true, I mean, it's worse than not true, it's destabilizing and it's happening in all levels of school. It's not happening at every school, but it is happening in quite a few. Even the Waldorf here in Austin, Texas has started to employ some of this ideology. University level is where this stuff was introduced and it's trickled all the way down, but we don't just see it in California, in New York. I mean, if it's happening in Texas, obviously Austin's always been a blue city, but it has spread, it spread fairly rapidly this ideology. And, the way that Douglas Murray puts it, it's a breath of fresh air to understand that it can because he's pulling in so much more, he's pulling in actual history, he's comparing things and comparing what the time was like at the time certain things happened, and not giving anything a pass like our country's littered with.

Ben:  Yeah.

Kyle:  A past that's not the most fair but exploring and what the rest of the world was like at that time, exploring what people were like, what the whole thing was like. I mean, he really paints such a broader perspective of our history, the history of the west, and then dives deeply into today's ailments.

Ben:  Yeah. It's interesting because I've always been a guy who has thought that you should take pride in who you are. And, sometimes that does include the color of your skin. You should be judged by the color of your skin, but you should take pride in that. And, you should even acknowledge the difference not only between the races but between the sexes in the same way that I don't think it should be shameful to say that men don't have a vagina and they can't have babies. That should not be a shameful statement. That's the sky is blue and gravity exists. And then, there are other statements that are loosey-goosey and may seem stereotypical but that I don't think should be offensive to people. For me to say something like you're Indian, you probably have a better chance of being better at mathematics than I am because that's the way your brain is fired up or your Black is probably pretty good chance you could dunk a basketball better than I could dunk a basketball because your muscle fiber composition based on your genetic history is higher in fast-twitch muscle fibers that are non-oxidative type 2. And, there's certain gifts people are given like I'm good at writing, I'm shitty at art. And, that's not something for me to be ashamed of, it's just this is the skills I've been given, this is the body I was born with, this is the genetics I was born with. God made an elephant different than a platypus different from a giraffe. God made a Native American different than African, different than a Caucasian. I just don't understand why we have to feel that's shameful.

Kyle:  There's a drive towards homogenization. I got Douglas coming on here hopefully next month. But, this drive towards homogenization is not a celebration of our differences, it is in terms equity get thrown around a lot. It's about leveling the playing field in a way — Jordan Peterson's been talking about this for a very long time. It's not new. This has been this trickle-down effect from university downwards been happening for some time now. And, really, as with anything, even with COVID, we should be able to talk about this, we should be able to have a conversation about this, and really just iron out all details, all possibilities. But, a big piece of the weaponry that's being harnessed is, no, you can't say that, you can't even talk about, it you can't mention there's a difference. They don't exist. The only difference that exists is that you were born racist. And, that's really what CRT is all about and White fragility and all these books that have come out in the last few years that they're not leaving much wiggle room or conscious conversations around these things.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. I think there's a little bit of a rift that's developing. And, what I take hope in is the fact that we do have voices now that are easier to amplify than voices that we had in the past. Before, you'd need a whole studio and millions, dollars-worth of cameras, and an audience, and contracts, and a television network to be able to disseminate information that either educates or inspires people. And now, you and I sitting here right now with what do we have, maybe 300 bucks worth of equipment and we can reach the same number of people in a very nimble and independent fashion. And so, I think everything from you talking on your public platform about the farm and about sustainable egg and about alternative forms of education to me talking about legacy and tapping into the importance of your spiritual fitness and more thoughts on freedom, I just think that we're in a pretty good situation in terms of the ability to at least still be able to speak freely. And, I feel there's a lot of people doing it.

Kyle:  It certainly helps with the Twitter requirement.

Ben:  Elon Musk seems pretty good. I have to admit. Yeah.

Kyle:  Yeah, I'm not upset about that.

One of the questions I had for you being where you're at now and, of course, it was years ago that I was at your house and really got to spend time with you and your family, and I've always cherished that you welcomed me in to really get to know you and your family. And, that's —

Ben:  Welcome back any time even though it got about a year before that at home staying in the past.

Kyle:  Maybe we'll make it out for the new one.

Ben:  Yeah, make it out to the Idaho one.

Kyle:  I want our little girl, Wolf, to appreciate it. I want her to remember and to know that experience too.

But, I've seen your trajectory and I know where your heart stands with God, and you've written these two books. In light of everything that's going on with the conversation we just started here and with the things that we see in the world, how much of the Book of Revelation has come up for you? Is it something that you're just like, “Yeah, maybe not yet,” or is it something where you're really drawing on?

Ben:  Yeah. I'm glad you called the Book of Revelation, and a lot of Christians who call the Book of Revelations, it's actually singular, it's Revelation. So, you did your homework. Good job.

Yeah. So, I'm a post-millennialist. I don't necessarily believe that the alternative view is incorrect, I just have yet to be convinced that it is post-millennialism. What this means is that that whole story of revelation, trial, tribulation, the persecution, the foretelling of destruction and death, the fall of the City of Jerusalem, the coming of the anti-Christ, I believe that all of that was a was a prophetic prediction of the fall of Jerusalem, the rise of the Roman Empire, the early day persecution of Christians, and that by around 70 A.D. most of what is written in the Book of Revelation already happened. And, that as we're told in the Bible that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will continue to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea until the peace, and love, and joy, and ultimate core message of Jesus Christ has been able to penetrate into the depths of the Amazon, in the far reaches of Africa, and the fringe sections of the orient, and all across the Americas and Europe and beyond. I believe that we are in a stage right now where that's happening. With some speed bumps and with some curveballs, but ultimately if you were to graph it, it's life in the world is getting a little bit better and a little bit better every year until eventually, it culminates in the new heaven and the new earth being essentially becoming a replacement for the sin and turmoil and the struggle that we face right now on this old earth. And, I think that we will. 

I do think we'll get to a point where if Jesus was a deity and the reason that Jesus was sent by God to Earth to become a human being and to die as a deity and to conquer death and sin and also give us the opportunity to believe in that and to essentially lay all of our burdens at the foot of the cross, the reason that all that happened and the Bible says this was because God so loved the world that He gave His Son to be able to save all of the turmoil that was caused by essentially, Satan and Adam and Eve at the very dawn of time. And so, we now have this extension of life that's been given to us and that message is now penetrating all throughout the universe and things are going to get better and better and better. And then, eventually, Jesus, as He promised, will come back in the entire Earth. I don't think he's going to get nuked. I think he's going to get just almost, gosh, in “Chronicles of Narnia” in the seventh book when they arrive in Narnia and all of a sudden Narnia is perfect. I think it'll be like that. It'll be like the Earth that God made and called good. He doesn't want a nuke, it's perfect. And, that means that everything from your dog to your steak, to your trees in your backyard, to possibly, I don't know, it could be a garden city type of scenario that word is bandied about, that phrase is bandied about a few places in the Bible. I mean, it could be a massive technological garden city that's perfect with no sin and no pollution and everything's perfect and we live forever. And, life is amazing in the way that it was originally intended to be. I don't think we'd go to hell in a handbasket before that happens. I think things just get better and better and better and better.

And also, having that type of view which again is called post-millennialism also means that you never really get to the point where you just throw up your hands in despair and say, “Oh, things are good.” What's the purpose? I'm just going to go hold myself up and survive until I die and the world's going to hell in a handbasket anyways instead. It's like, “No, the world's getting better and better and I have every chance every day I wake up to contribute to that happening in my own case and by my own beliefs by just spreading the message of the love of Jesus Christ and how to how to attempt every day by the grace of God to attain that same mentality that Jesus lived with and demonstrated.” And so, essentially that means that my purpose in life is to basically love God, love other people and share the good news far and wide until I die.

Kyle:  Yeah. When I was a kid, I'd see WWJD and I kind of laughed about it because I didn't have a real understanding of the Christ, whatever. I was like, “What would Jesus do?” And, I would ask that myself, things like that, but in my growth and understanding spiritually, truly it's the embodiment, it's this embodiment piece, and how do I embody the divine. And, that is something that I ask myself often. How do I actually embody that? And, another great quote that gets tossed around is, “What would love do now?” That's really just a powerful regardless of faith or religion, whatever, regardless of background. What would love do right now? And, that's been a really good guide post for me. I've rabbit holed so much stuff. It could be flat-out conspiracy super dark to kind of run in the middle. Hey, we don't know what's going to happen down here to mainstream stuff that just really doesn't seem like we're here in there.

Ben:  Yeah.

Kyle:  And, it's been confusing to say the least and I certainly have my takes on stuff.

One of the things that's helped me is if I can set the table to where I cover these bases for my kids from a food standpoint, from a security standpoint, then I can go back into the delivery of love, the delivery of seeking and finding and harmonizing what I can in the world. I think that's been a big piece for me that that prior to kind of having those ducks in a row, having a little extra in the pantry, things like that that there were just always something running like a background app.

Ben:  Yeah. And, I think that the best place that you can put your energy like I was alluding to earlier is your family, your children, equipping your children, loving your children, caring for your wife, and thinking in a very legacy and generational manner. And then, you've still got some energy left over to love the rest the world, but I think I made the mistake of thinking it was going to be sexy and big and impactful to build my platform in a manner that allowed me to shepherd a whole bunch of people and to love the entire world and get my message out there when I should have been, especially early on putting more of that energy into reading the Book of Virtues to my sons at night, and starting our family meditation even earlier on in their lives, and prioritizing the spiritual intertwining between my wife and I even more.

And, now that I've built that all up and the family foundation is there, I feel as though I've got momentum. I feel as though I've got this endless gas tank and power boosters attached to me to be able to go out and slay the dragons to do my job. It's like you build the castle, you set everything up at home, you make that just perfect honest and transparent relationships, and a home full of love, and the legacy-based activities I was talking about earlier. And then, at that point, once you set all that up, then you go out and you start slaying dragons. I think a lot of guys especially do it in reverse order.

Kyle:  Yeah.

Ben:  I want to make the money, make my platform, build the world and touch the world, and then I'll come back and make sure that the family is okay. It's actually the opposite. I think if everybody did that, then we'd see a lot more stability just societally.

Kyle:  Yeah. It's a lot of people that are big in the finance game think of their legacy as how much money they leave in their kids' trust, not in how they raise their kids, how much time they spent with their kids, and what that gift is.

Ben:  Yeah.

Kyle:  As you're going through this, it reminds me of our friend Anahata out in Sedona.

Ben:  I just saw her. We went to the Grand Canyon, but we also went to Sedona.

Kyle:  Awesome.

Ben:  We had a barbecue party at Anahata's house —

Kyle:  She's so great on a hot stuff.

Ben:  Yeah.

Kyle:  She talks a lot about the archetype of archangel Michael, you often depicted with the left hand the chalice raised and the right hand with the sword. And, the sword is down and the chalice is raised, but that is to connect to the divine, to fill that cup first. And then, from there, you can wield the sort of truth and discernment. And, whether it's slaying the dragon or any of those things, the activities built in the home are the thing that fills you. That's the thing that fills me. That's what makes life worth it. And then, as my cup spilling over, that's the deliverable I'm taking to people that you're taking to people. And, that is really the order of operations, fill your cup first with love, with family, with purpose, and then bring that out.

Ben:  Yeah. And, there's a little bit of, I think that a lot of folks should be aware, there's a lot of parents that hear this and that resonate with the concept of legacy. There's a temptation because I've had this temptation to think, well, I didn't do it quite right. My time is over but at least I got these kids and I can basically help them to become the person that I wanted to be. I think that you risk that cup out when you start to place a lot of energy into building your family. I think that you still have to acknowledge back to this idea of crystallized intelligence that you yourself are still a great mentor. You're still a great teacher. I mean, freaking 40 years old. I mean, it's going to be the best most exciting 40 years of your life. I want to write at least 20 books by the time I'm 80. I want to continue to contribute. I want to continue to be impactful and not basically give myself that excuse that, “Well, I brought these children into the world and I've learned a lot of mistakes. And so, I really don't need to go out there and put my neck on the line and work hard, I'm just going to put all my energy into the family.” I'm not saying that. I think that you can build a family, and again, like I said, that is the rocket fuel that then allows you to be your most impactful self because I mean, really, I'm increasingly convinced that life kind of begins when you're 40 as far as impact is concerned. I just feel it takes that long at least to build the wisdom and the body of knowledge and to make all the stupid mistakes, and then finally be able to come out to the world with more than just the Maslow's hierarchies type of stuff. Because as I started supplements company, had the bars and coffee, and wrote books about biohacking and fitness, and all that super helpful to people, but not as helpful as the stuff that I want to do in between now and 80.

Kyle:  Excellent work on the Kion Essential Aminos, by the way. They're the best tasting in the game.

Ben:  Have you tried the new mango and the watermelon flavors?

Kyle:  I've not tried that.

Ben:  Oh, my goodness.

Kyle:  I've rocked the berry multiple times a day.

Ben:  Dude, they're freaking Swiss army. I mean, because everything from post-workout, fasting, pre-sleep, post-plant medicine, I mean, it's one of the best things for rebuilding your HTP levels. I mean, it's crazy. I literally feel guilty about how many scoops of that stuff I go through every day.

Kyle:  It's really good.

Ben:  Yeah. Basically, I live when I travel on Kion Aminos and Keto Bricks.

Kyle:  Oh, yeah. I couldn't dig the keto bricks, but I don't want to dive too far into that —

Ben:  It grew on me, the chocolate peanut butter flavor is pretty good.

Kyle:  I wasn't picking up “Trophy Kids” from the talk of legacy. For people who haven't seen “Trophy Kids,” it's an excellent documentary that Mark and Chris Bell did, which is a sad fact of modern society. It's to put it in the way that you did where, hey, maybe you tried and you didn't quite get there, and then you saw Tiger Woods' dad did it a certain way so you're going to invest everything into that. That's driving your kids in the direction you want them to go as opposed to giving them the tools and connecting with them. And, I've obviously experienced that at your home, but everything that you're talking about with that legacy is a completely different scenario than saying you're going to be the best at x, y, and z because that's what I want you to do. Let's get together and let's understand these things that really are going to be the guideposts for you in life when things get rough and the things that you can lean on. I prefer if my son never fought professionally or my daughter, but they're both in martial arts because that strengthens them from the inside out.

Ben:  It's such a good point because this is something I've thought about a lot. We prioritize family dinners and that morning and evening meditation and some kind of weird woo stuff that we do as a family or at least it might be considered to be outside the box and then ordinary. And, an inevitable consequence of that is that my sons aren't doing as many team sports as some of their friends. They're not at basketball practice at night, they're at home playing freaking Uno at the dinner table with dad and mom. Yeah, they've been playing tennis since they were two. They've been rolling since they were four. And, they have certain activities that they do, but I can almost guarantee you that they're not going to be the star quarterback, they're probably not going to be professional athletes. We've placed our energy elsewhere and kind of swam upstream against the great American dream of your child being a standout athlete getting the college scholarship. I would much rather my kids be toga and sandal-wearing prophets just walking across the land spreading a message of hope, and love, and peace, and joy than throwing a leather sphere around a gridiron. And, I don't necessarily think that that's for everybody, but that's the path that I've chosen to not push my children into but I've at least I've set up the scenario for them to prioritize love and relationships and spreading a good message of God's love around the world than being engaged in what might be considered to be more carnal and fleshly pursuits. 

I think that you can be in a certain sense almost the way I describe myself, a Christian hedonist who enjoys all aspects of God's creation, who loves sports, who loves playing tennis in the backyard and soaking up the sunshine and making an amazing meal and enjoying it with the family, and mind-blowing sex, and climbing big mountains and hunting with the bow, and all these things that are of this world. At the same time, I think that you can almost look at something like a renaissance man or woman or a pro athlete and think that that's the bee's knees like that's the ultimate goal when it's really not. And, that can reflect itself in the way that you raise your children. Meaning that, yeah, they are going to be a little bit weird if you've decided that impact on the planet for the sake of love is going to be greater than the professional scholarship for sports or something like that. It's always been something I've thought about, I'm like, “Gosh, are my kids going to ask me when they're 18” like “Dad, how come you didn't put us some basketball every fall because that's what our friends all played?” Or, “Dad, I'm not very good at soccer, why didn't I play that growing up?” And so, I sometimes wonder. It's still an angst for me in the back of my mind it's like, “Oh, did I spend too much time with us journaling, and meditating, and hiking together, and being a family and not enough time just throwing them out into the AAU or whatever?”

Kyle:  Well, one of my favorite parenting books is a book by Gabor Mate and his son. And, I think another, I don't know if he's a therapist or a PhD, but in hold on to your kids, they talk about that that family bond as the proper attachment strategy to have. And, when it's not there, that's when kids seek it out in gangs, or in coaches, or in other father figures, or the more the merrier in terms of positive male role models. But, the true bond, if it's in the home, it maps out way better in every aspect of life than if that bond is lost at the home and it's made elsewhere. And, that is what leads to addiction and a whole host of other things. And, Gabor is famous for saying that the root of all addiction is trauma.

Ben:  Yeah.

Kyle:  One of the main pieces of trauma is, did we have a healthy attachment in our upbringing? Was that healthy? And, I think the delivery of that is one of the most critical pieces in parenting however it gets delivered.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, he also says that the trauma is ultimately a disconnection from your true self. And, I went through that especially being homeschooled and wanted to prove to the world that I was normal and I was cool. I spent a lot of time doing bodybuilding and Ironman triathlons and Spartan races, all these things to prove to the world that I was cool, that I was tough, that I was resilient, that I was a man. Some of that was not going through rite of passage, some of it was wanting to prove to the world that I was somebody who I really wasn't at my core. And, it's interesting how easy it is to fall into that trap, how easy it is to be the person who you think the world expects you to be rather than your true authentic self. But, I think you're familiar with the article by the palliative care practitioner Bonnie Ware, the “Five Regrets of the Dying.”

Kyle:  Yeah.

Ben:  I wish I'd spent more time with old friends. I wish I'd worked less. I wish I'd showed my true emotions more. I think the fourth is I wish I'd chosen to be happy. And then, the last one is I wish I'd been my true authentic self rather than who the world expects me to be. It's so simple. When you hear what people say on their deathbed, it's right there, it's right in your face. This is how to live. Choose to be happy. Show your true emotions. Stay in touch with your old friends. Play more and work less or at least have more of a lighthearted approach to work and be your true authentic self.

Kyle:  I mean that is solid gold. Do you have any regrets about the path you chose to go there? Because to me, those experiences that I've had from football was I was so attached to that from an identity standpoint that when it ended after ASU, I mean I took a massive hit. And, thankfully, I was able to find fighting to continue that chase and dream and outlet. And, fighting led me to my boxing coach who got me into plant medicines and native American sweat lodges, and really a lot of the old indigenous teachings that started to change the way that I operated and felt in the world in many ways connected me to my true self.

Surely along the road you've had different avenues that maybe were not in the right direction overall but were the thing that led you to who you are right now.

Ben:  Look, God draws straight with crooked lines. You never know the path. I have a mantra, me and my wife together, mantras, “No regrets, only gratefulness.” Anything that happens we're grateful for. Yeah, if we sin, literally meaning missing the mark, then that's something to be sorrowful about, to repent about, to change path about. But, when it comes to the big picture, the force for the trees, the actual path that's gotten me to where I am now, the 20 years of fitness and biohacking, and now, I've got this enormous platform of people who listen to me. Well, I mean, it's the perfect place to be because I have all these lessons that I've learned. And, when I'm at the gym or at some biohacking conference, I'm about to go over to London to do this biohacking. So, it's like, people are searching, people are searching, and I think that I'm probably more equipped based on my history to help those people who are searching than say the person who's just had this pristine comfortable perfect existence fully connected to God their entire life. I envy that person. That's wonderful. It's wonderful if you don't have to make all the mistakes and mess up, but I think that sometimes making all the mistakes and messing up. 

I mean, gosh, look at the Apostle Paul in the bible who was responsible for essentially spreading the message of Jesus's love and hope and peace and this message of salvation to the Mediterranean and beyond. I mean, with his message even penetrating the orients, and in Africa, and up into Europe. And, the dude was a freaking terrorist. He was literally just going around killing Christians, stoning them, just bury them in the ground throwing rocks at their heads. And, that was his life, was like, “I'm a Christian killer, that's what I do.” And, I mean look what happened to him, he was transformed, he got struck by light, had this experience on the road to Damascus and all of a sudden became one of the people who blessed this planet more than anybody else who's ever existed. And so, yeah. I mean, sometimes God put you through some pretty shitty stuff to equip you to be able to be that person who can really help people in a big way. No regrets.

Kyle:  Yeah, absolutely.

Well, where can people find you? You got your podcast. You got your website that's always one of my most useful places to search if I want to get some questions answered.

Ben:  I know it's funny. As I've been writing for so long, I think I've tackled every topic under the sun on there. But, that's just that. I've recently rebranded the BenGreenfieldLife.com instead of BenGreenfieldFitness.com just to allow me to not be painted in the fitness corner. So, yeah, it's BenGreenfieldLife.com.

And, why don't you share your URL as well just so that —

Kyle:  Well, I will send people to FitforService.com. Yeah —

Ben:  FitforService.com. I still got to make it down to one of those events by the way.

Kyle:  You'll love it, brother.

Ben:  Yeah. I've seen little bits here and there but I've never actually been down.

Kyle:  Yeah. Some of the breathwork practitioners that we've been using in the past few has been this couple from New Zealand, Lukis and Helle, and they will blow your mind. They're absolutely incredible.

Ben:  I'm in. I would totally come and do something like that.

Kyle:  Beautiful brother.

Ben:  Yeah.

Kyle:  It's been awesome getting reconnected.

Ben:  Cool. You too, Kyle. Oh, man.

Okay. So, you've probably heard about peptides. There's 7,000 different kinds of peptides, which are these short strings of amino acids. And, scientists, naturopaths and doctors have been using peptides now to treat a whole bunch of different complex chronic illnesses, protect against cognitive decline. I've used them for muscle gain, for fat loss, for healing up injuries faster, for gut issues. They're even really good for anti-aging and longevity. Many people even use different kinds of intranasal peptides for a smart drug. They use injectable peptides to get lean super-fast. There are so many uses for peptides. And, the fact is it can be kind of confusing, what to use, how to use it, et cetera.

So, my friend, six-time former podcast guest Dr. Matthew Cook who's brilliant, one of the world's leading experts in peptides, has put together a Peptide Summit with me and several dozen other leading experts in the field of peptide therapy and regenerative medicine to basically teach you how to biohack your body using peptides. It's going to be a pretty cool summit. The first seven days are all virtual. You have full access to all the different interviews. They're going to give a bunch of free bonuses, a whole bunch of cool stuff. And, anyways, if you've always been curious about peptides, you will turn yourself into a total peptide ninja going through this course.

Go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/PeptideSummit. BenGreenfieldLife.com/P-E-P-T-I-D-E summit, S-U-M-M-I-T. Check it out. It is coming up pretty soon, May 17th through May 24th.

Hey, just a few days left to get ready to meet me over in London at the Health Optimisation Summit, one of the world's biggest grandest biohacking events. And, if you're interested in staying fit or healthy or just defying aging, learning a ton, this thing is amazing. Not only can you get a VIP ticket where you get to join me and the rest of the speaker for this exclusive super fun dinner, but in addition to that, there's 35 different game-changing health speakers, a huge expo flow where you get to try out things like BioCharger, the Hapbee, the Power Plate, the AquaTru, the X3 Bar, everything's there. You go to Summit.HealthOptimisation.com. They're weird over there in Britain so they use the s, Summit.HealthOptimisation.com. Use code BEN. That gives you 20% off our regular ticket or VIP ticket. Summit.HealthOptimisation.com and use code BEN.

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

 

 

My friend Kyle Kingsbury is the host of the Kyle Kingsbury Podcast and a Master Coach for the Fit For Service app.

Through his podcast and Fit For Service, Kyle teaches people how to enhance their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual practices.

Kyle is a former football player (Arizona State) and mixed martial artist who fought professionally for eight years (UFC six years). While fighting at the highest level he became fascinated with all things diet, performance, and recovery related. Since retiring, Kyle's focus has shifted to learning more about longevity, plant medicines, and inner peace.

The Fit For Service app is a place to learn, be inspired, transform, and connect with other people. The guiding principle is simple: practice vulnerability and serve yourself by serving others. The app is a platform for discussion groups, houses a library of content unavailable to the public, and provides members with access to guided meditations and breathwork, binaural beats, ecstatic dance playlists, and other exclusive media. As a Master Coach, Kyle offers unique digital knowledge and support to members.

Kyle Kingsbury has previously appeared on the podcast in the following episodes:

• Biohacked Superfood Smoothies, Healing Wounds Faster, Advanced Hypoxic Training Tactics, Hormesis & More With Kyle Kingsbury.
• Smart Drugs, Nootropics, Microdosing With Psychedelics, Enhancing Deep Sleep, Rites Of Passage & Much More With Kyle Kingsbury Of Onnit.

Recently, Kyle and I had a great chat in Austin, Texas about social media, cultivating a positive relationship with the earth, structured water, parenting, and much more.

In this conversation with Kyle Kingsbury, you'll discover:

-Ben and Kyle's favorite travel spots…04:19

• Kauai Farmacy (use code GREENFIELD15 to save 15%)
• Podcasts with Doug Wolkon:
  • Crazy Superfoods You’ve Never Heard Of, The Little-Known Libido-Enhancing Berry, Remineralizing Your Body With Lubricating Plant Oils & More With Kuaui Farmacy’s Doug Wolkon.
  • Ancient Healing Secrets, Tinctures, Salves, Hydrosols & Teas, Permaculture Tips & Much More From A Little-Known Superfood Farm In Hawaii.
• People's Waffle in Spokane
• Creator revealing Himself through nature
• Odysee video platform operated on the blockchain
• Zion video platform

-Addictions and the dark side of social media…08:57

• Kyle shut down all social media in 2020, but recently recovered Twitter
• People search for meaning via social media exchanges
• Podcast with Ronnie Landis on addiction:
  • The Addiction Free Lifestyle: How To Break Free From Nicotine, Caffeine, Drugs, Porn, Masturbation, Alcohol, Serial Relationships & Much More With Ronnie Landis.
• Renovated: God, Dallas Willard, and the Church That Transforms by Jim Wilder
• King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore

-Why Kyle felt compelled to form an in-person educational farm…15:01

• Something is lost when we're not able to gather in groups
• Loss of oxytocin
• Ecstatic dance (pushing through discomfort)
  • Dancing
  • Singing
  • Dreaming
• Podcast with Paul Chek:
  • BioGeometry Protection Of Your Home, Plant Medicine, Parenting, Stacking Rocks, Stages Of Human Consciousness & More With Paul Chek.
• Fit for Service
• Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky
• Ben's morning family routine
  • Meditation
  • Scripture reading
  • Gratitude
  • Breathwork
  • Tapping
  • Prayer
• Podcast with Will Ahmed:
  • A Day In The Life Of Ben Greenfield: Ben’s Exact Morning, Afternoon & Evening Routines.
• Podcast on Kundalini yoga:
  • Kundalini Yoga, Cannabidiol, Psilocybin Mushrooms & More With Dr. Somer Nicole & James Radina.
• Produce more than you consume
• Cal Newport books

• Podcast with Jordan Rubin:
  • Ducks Vs. Chickens, Yaks Vs. Cows, Eating Locusts, Unique Permaculture Practices, Bible-Based Eating & More With Jordan Rubin.
• Jordan Rubin's books
• Podcast with Charles Eisenstein:
  • The Most Important Book About Money I’ve Ever Read – Sacred Economics: Money, Gift & Society in the Age of Transition With Charles Eisenstein.
• Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein
• Use a small parcel of land (~120 acres) for self-sustainment, not game hunting
• Kyle's podcast with Chad Johnson
• Podcast with Brian Hoyer, EMF specialist:
  • Hunting Down EMF In Your Office, Bedroom, Gym & Beyond: Is Your Home’s “Dirty Electricity” Wrecking Your Sleep, Your Recovery, Your Health & More? The Official Ben Greenfield & Brian Hoyer Low-EMF Home How-To.
• Shielded Healing (use code BEN to save $100 off any assessment)

-Why Ben is a fan of structured water…40:41

• Water well dowsing
• Greenfield Naturals
• Vessel and Vivoo apps (use code BEN30 to save 30% on the Vivoo)
• Lowered friction when oxygen and hydrogen bond; increased hydration
• Podcasts on Deuterium Depleted Water:
  • Deuterium Demystified: Everything You Need To Know About Deuterium Depleted Water (DDW), How To Lower Deuterium & Much More!
  • Water & Water Filtration: Everything You Need To Know About Water Filters, Alkaline Water, Structured Water, Hydrogen-Rich Water, Deuterium Depleted Water & Much More!
• Water and Wellness hydrogen water and Quinton
• Adrenal Cocktail by Jigsaw Health
• Essential Oil Wizardry
• Podcasts with Dr. Nick Berry
  • The Wizard Of Essential Oils Strikes Again: The Hidden & Magical World Of Little-Known Plant Extracts For Digestion, Relaxation, Libido, Immunity & Much More!
• Strip an experience of its sacredness if you try to “prove” it

-Ben's recent content production tear…51:18

• Endure by Ben Greenfield
• Fit Soul by Ben Greenfield
• Boundless Parenting
• Podcast with Doug Wilson:
  • Devoured By Cannabis: Weed, Liberty, Legalization (& Whether Christians Should Smoke Marijuana) With Pastor Doug Wilson.
• Focus on your own journey, put it in words to make your book
• Tackle problems by writing about them

-Important takeaways from Ben's parenting book…55:29

• Life Arc
• Honor thy father and mother (elder wisdom)
• Sense of legacy
• Common traits like
  • Family dinners
  • Consequential parenting
  • No judgment environment
• Routines and rituals to come of age (rite of passage)
• Family crest, logo, mission statement
• Family playbook (for generations, not just the immediate children)

-What we really need to make America great again…1:07:24

• Societal stability begins in the household
• The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray
• The War on the West by Douglas Murray
• Fighting racism with racism (you're racist because you're born a certain skin color)
• Celebrate differences between races, genders, etc.
• Embrace modern tech that enables one to reach an audience on the cheap

-How much of the Book of Revelation has actually taken place?…1:16:36

• Ben is a “post-millennialist”
• Fall of Jerusalem, rise of the Roman Empire was mostly concluded by 70 A.D.
• We get progressively better until new heaven and new earth arrives
• Garden City
• What Would Love Do Now?

-How to leave a lasting legacy beyond your life…1:23:04

• Take care of the basics, then focus on legacy
• Care for wife and children first, then lead others with what you've learned
• Don't think it's too late to build a legacy
• Life begins at 40 when it comes to making an impact
• Kion Aminos
• Keto bricks
• Trophy Kids documentary
• Drive children where you want them to go, vs. identifying gifts and guiding accordingly
• Gabor Maté
• True bond is in the home
• Root of all addiction is trauma
• Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware
  1. I wish I'd spent more time with old friends
  2. I wish I'd worked less
  3. I wish I'd showed my true emotions more
  4. I wish I'd chosen to be happy
  5. I wish I'd shown my true authentic self

-Regrets held by Ben from his life adventures…1:36:12

• God draws with crooked lines
• No regrets

-Kyle Kingsbury…1:40:07

• Podcast
• Fit for Service

-And much more…

-Upcoming Events:

• Health Optimization Summit! Use code BEN for 20% off (May 22-29, 2022). 
• Keep up on Ben's LIVE appearances by following bengreenfieldlife.com/calendar

Resources mentioned in this episode:

– Kyle Kingsbury:

• Podcast
• Fit for Service
• Onnit (use code BEN to save 10% on food and supplements)
• Biohacked Superfood Smoothies, Healing Wounds Faster, Advanced Hypoxic Training Tactics, Hormesis & More With Kyle Kingsbury.
• Smart Drugs, Nootropics, Microdosing With Psychedelics, Enhancing Deep Sleep, Rites Of Passage & Much More With Kyle Kingsbury Of Onnit.

– Podcasts:

• The Addiction Free Lifestyle: How To Break Free From Nicotine, Caffeine, Drugs, Porn, Masturbation, Alcohol, Serial Relationships & Much More With Ronnie Landis.
• BioGeometry Protection Of Your Home, Plant Medicine, Parenting, Stacking Rocks, Stages Of Human Consciousness & More With Paul Chek.
• A Day In The Life Of Ben Greenfield: Ben’s Exact Morning, Afternoon & Evening Routines.
• Kundalini Yoga, Cannabidiol, Psilocybin Mushrooms & More With Dr. Somer Nicole & James Radina.
• Ducks Vs. Chickens, Yaks Vs. Cows, Eating Locusts, Unique Permaculture Practices, Bible-Based Eating & More With Jordan Rubin.
• The Most Important Book About Money I’ve Ever Read – Sacred Economics: Money, Gift & Society in the Age of Transition With Charles Eisenstein.
• Hunting Down EMF In Your Office, Bedroom, Gym & Beyond: Is Your Home’s “Dirty Electricity” Wrecking Your Sleep, Your Recovery, Your Health & More? The Official Ben Greenfield & Brian Hoyer Low-EMF Home How-To.
• Deuterium Demystified: Everything You Need To Know About Deuterium Depleted Water (DDW), How To Lower Deuterium & Much More!
• Water & Water Filtration: Everything You Need To Know About Water Filters, Alkaline Water, Structured Water, Hydrogen-Rich Water, Deuterium Depleted Water & Much More!
• The Wizard Of Essential Oils Strikes Again: The Hidden & Magical World Of Little-Known Plant Extracts For Digestion, Relaxation, Libido, Immunity & Much More!
• Devoured By Cannabis: Weed, Liberty, Legalization (& Whether Christians Should Smoke Marijuana) With Pastor Doug Wilson.

– Books:

• Renovated: God, Dallas Willard, and the Church That Transforms by Jim Wilder
• King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore
• Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky
• Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein
• Endure by Ben Greenfield
• Fit Soul by Ben Greenfield
• Boundless Parenting by Ben Greenfield
• The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray
• The War on the West by Douglas Murray
• Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware

– Other Resources:

• Kauai Farmacy (use code GREENFIELD15 to save 15%)
• Kion Aminos
• Keto bricks
• Water and Wellness Hydrogen Water
• Quinton
• Adrenal Cocktail
• Essential Oil Wizardry
• Greenfield Naturals
• Shielded Healing (use code BEN to save $100 off any assessment)
• People's Waffle in Spokane
• Odysee
• Zion
• Vessel
• Vivoo (use code BEN30 to save 30% on the vivoo)
• Life Arc
• Water Well Dowsing
• Trophy Kids Documentary

Episode sponsors:

–Inside Tracker: Created by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics, Inside Tracker analyzes your blood, DNA, and fitness tracking data to identify where you’re optimized—and where you’re not. (01:26)

–JOOVV: After using the Joovv for close to 2 years, it's the only light therapy device I'd ever recommend. Give it a try: you won't be disappointed. For a limited time, Joovv wants to hook you up with an exclusive discount on your first order. Just apply code BEN to your qualifying order. (02:24)

–Hapbee: Hapbee’s smart, wearable technology goes beyond monitoring your body, and actually impacts how you feel. Try it now risk-free and get $100 off 90-Day Free Trial of our all-access subscription to the Hapbee Signals catalog. (28:49)

–Kion Aminos: Building blocks for muscle recovery, reduced cravings, better cognition, immunity, and more. (30:46)

–Ice Barrel: With its sleek design and compact footprint, Ice Barrel, allows you to experience the benefits of cold therapy from the convenience of your home. (32:40)