Welcome to Sheboygan County government working for you. My name is Adam Payne county administrator and co-host of this program with chairman Tom Wagner and Every month as you know, we strive to focus on a different department department head Programs and services going on in county government and today We're real pleased to have our court commissioner with us. Mr. Ryan O'Rourke welcome Ryan Thank you How long now has it been that you've been our court commissioner a little under three years now a little under three years So the honeymoon periods over I guess Ryan followed Rebecca Purseck now judge Rebecca Purseck Who was our court commissioner for a number of years and prior to that it was Terry Burke? So I've had the pleasure of working with some good ones and Ryan has continued Continued that stellar track record and without question It's never dull in the court commissioners area with everything that you You have to work with and the people that you address each and every day So set the stage for us a little bit, please. Tell us just a little bit about yourself and and the role of court commissioner but myself I went to law school in Madison and Went to work as a prosecutor shortly after that in Marathon County and here in Sheboygan for three years then I moved into Doing Government work for the counties specifically Manitowoc The focus on child protection work And then I came back here and shortly after returning here. They took on the role of court commissioner. So As far as what the court commissioner does our office is a supplemental office to the circuit courts. We take on a lot of the I don't want to call routine but Entry-level things that the circuit court would otherwise have to do to help the court system function more smoothly and process cases faster And to you they may feel routine, but I'm sure the people in front of you don't necessarily feel that way So what's the difference between a court commissioner and a circuit court judge? What type of cases are you handling and you know, how does that what's routine versus? What are the circuit court judges take on sure well? We're just we're an offshoot of the circuit court judges we By statute we're only authorized to handle certain types of hearings where the circuit court judges handle pretty much everything that Happens at the county level For example in family law cases divorces we handle the temporary orders at the beginning And we'll handle Divorces finalizing them if they're agreed upon and stipulated, but if there's a trial There's motions if there's discovery that's the circuit court's job and we're not authorized to do those things So we handle the same types of cases. It's just what Part or type of the case that they're in or stage that they're at as to whether or not we're authorized to handle that and here in Shabuigan the judges have pretty much Authorize us to do everything that's allowed under the statute for the most part So unlike Situation with a divorce and I think what the ads are or the percentages about 50% of people get divorced or they're abouts How many of these divorce cases are you handling or your office handling versus ultimately go on to a circuit court judge? I don't know that I could give you an accurate number if If the people need a temporary order we handle it right Not everybody needs a request a temporary order what that is is an order that Kind of sets the tone and the parameters of what's going to happen with the divorce is ongoing As far as some of the issues related to children finances things of that nature And if they agree upon all the issues then they have their divorce finalized in front of us But it's the home what those numbers are compared to how many divorce cases never cross our desk I'd have to know how many that I don't know that exact number. Yeah, no, that's fine. That's fine but you use the word earlier routine and From my point of view not being a court commissioner or a judge, but I can't imagine the challenge and the Just the experience that you have to draw from the demeanor you need to show when you're working with Couples that are going through a divorce children involved Have to imagine that can get pretty emotionally charged at times and be challenging to to work through Well, it can be you get you get used to it from a professional perspective and If anything is a challenge, it's setting the tone in the courtroom and making sure that Well, it may be difficult for people and emotional. It is a courtroom setting. They need to control themselves There's rules to be followed They may not always like what's going on, but they have to respect it and follow it. No, that's more. It's more of a challenge to Set the tone with that respect than it is for to process it personally At some point it's another case right treated seriously, but it's never personal as I think about My time getting to know a judge Rebecca Pursick both as family court commissioner now As a judge and you the last three years you both certainly have an even keel professional demeanor which which serves you well So with that said what does it take what qualifications does one need to be a court commissioner? well, you have to have a law degree first and then There's not a specific set of qualifications like there's for a judge I don't think there's any minimum age that you have to have practiced for a certain amount of time That might either be three or five years I don't remember exactly which one it is when I by the time I came into this job I was well past that so I don't know that I was paying that close of attention and you have to have earned The respect of the judges who make the decision as to who is going to be the court commissioner, so So the court commissioner's office is one of 19 departments and I suppose some of our viewers might think oh boy How big is this department just how big is the court commissioner's department? Three three three. It's one of our smallest probably along with veteran services and And I don't know who else it's certainly one of our smallest but with big responsibilities What's the the primary mission of the of the office then to assist the circuit courts? help cases process through the system faster and smoothly and I Don't want to say get people the results they want but at least get their cases heard in a fair and efficient manner And when you say three of you and it's my final question before I turn it over to the chairman What's the role of these three individuals? Obviously you what does each employee do? Sure, we have an assistant court commissioner Her main focus is on small claims cases And then she also serves a research role for the circuit court judges And as is a backup to me and some of the other types of cases when necessary and then we have a paralegal who Basically functions as our office manager Excellent. Thank you, Ryan. Tom. Thank you, Adam You talked a little bit about this I think with divorces and small claims. What are their kind of cases? Does your Commissioner's office handle. Sure. There's it's across the board We'll start with Mondays In the mornings, we're always doing Mental health hearings initial probable cost hearings for those for mental health commitments or Guardianships and protective placement hearings for adults and need of decision-makers or protective placement and then Every day we're doing bond hearings and initial appearances in criminal cases for people who are held in custody And let's see moving on to Tuesdays we routinely handle paternity hearings initial hearings on cases where Children are born and there's not a marriage or an acknowledgement of paternity at the time of the birth So the child support agency usually brings an action to establish who the father is and set orders and Rules in place for that and so we handle those We handle initial appearances on traffic forfeitures We do weddings We do the temporary orders and the divorces and the stipulated divorces like I've talked about I'm sure I'm leaving out a bunch of stuff. That's quite a bit. Yeah So it is so I understand it some cases you take from beginning to end and in other cases You take along the way and you may then stop at some point because of something you you may have known That's as far as you could go or Sure, we can handle cases from beginning to end for example You know, it depends it's not just the type of case, but it depends on what happens with the case Right, for example, we may have the first paternity hearing and everybody comes in fathers established. They agree to everything and For the next 18 years They never need to come back to court because they can work through things themselves other cases Even if everything's agreed upon two years from then things will have changed They'll need to come back to court may go to the circuit court and may come to us it depends so Typically we are in and out of cases. I would say is the best way to put it. Okay. Yeah It's about how many cases do you process it here? Well, the numbers are on the county's website in our annual report. I could Give you the numbers, but they're probably pretty dry. I would say it's in the thousands Once you add in all the initial appearance and bond hearings we do in criminal cases But not all those cases are start to finish. It's it's we have a hearing or two associated with the case Okay, I know you said, you know, you don't see cases as routine and it's certainly not this say the people involved are now routine But what do you find the most interesting or the most rewarding maybe? I'd say the most interesting are usually the mental health cases the most rewarding Now it's hard to call a case rewarding from a court official perspective because your job isn't to seek a reward or To feel vindicated or validated by your job is to take the facts apply the law And make the best decision It's not it's it's dissimilar to when you're working as an attorney and winning a case and producing the right result feels like a reward As a court official, you're supposed to be a little more detached. I don't know that I'd call any of them particularly rewarding the cases that I feel the most Pressure and I would say would be cases related to child child protection and looking out for what's best for for children that find themselves caught up in the system Well, we'll switch to something maybe a little more positive that maybe could be rewarding is when you marry people and You know, you do this at the courthouse or on site or exactly how does that occur? Well, if they're getting married by the court commissioner's office, we do it on site at the courtroom We usually do them Friday afternoon at 3 o'clock and they're fairly short weddings They're 15 minute time slots so we don't do elaborate ceremonies But yeah, if they want an off-site wedding, there's a list of court officials that I think they can get from the county clerk's office That will come out and do the wedding on on site if it's not at the courthouse And so is there a charge for getting married in in your courtroom? It's $40 to rent the courtroom for that 15 minute time period And I understand your department also mediates divorces, which obviously is the other end of that Please could you tell us a little bit about your mediation program? Sure. We have a mediation program. It's divorces or Anytime there's minor children involved in a legal relationship. In other words paternity actions You don't necessarily have a divorce because they may never have been married, but we'll still mediate those Anytime you have custody and physical placement disputes between parents of the children and sometimes even grandparents can get involved in that under the right circumstances They can get either court ordered to mediation or they can come in and apply for mediation and they will send them to a Mediator that we contract with we have five currently and they're professional counselors in the community We're probably one of the only counties that uses exclusively counselors a lot of places will use attorneys to And then the mediator will try and help them work through their issues and Reach a solution that works for both parties Meteor is not really there to decide what's right or wrong But just help the parties work through their issues if it's even possible to come to a compromise And then if they reach an agreement and the judge is willing to approve the agreement they have their new court order If they don't reach an agreement then they have to go through the court more formal court system and trying to resolve their disputes Thank you Follow-up question on the if they reach an agreement then the judge approves that are there ever any instances where a Couple will reach an agreement, but the judge Won't approve it Judges like to respect the wishes of the parties for the most part But yeah, I've seen a couple times where judges have rejected the agreement It can be something as as technical as that the language in the agreement doesn't match what's required under the law Or it could be that the judge really doesn't believe this agreement is what's in the best interest of the child That was too one-sided or something It's usually because the judge has some background information about one of the parents that might meet might create a situation Where they don't believe the child's in a safe environment. Yeah interesting typically they're they're approved So you went into the role of public service and I understand that your family is Very engaged in public service as well.  You know, she's going to have an investor What's funny that you asked that she's gonna have an investor to your ceremony soon Which is though official ceremony where she gets sworn in and puts on her robe And I'm probably gonna have to talk about that and I've been thinking about what I'm going to say and And the story I've been thinking about telling is I'm a Bit of a smart Alec sometimes and and after I started work as the court commissioner. It was weird to me Technically people don't have to do this But when you walk into the courtroom people stand right and they call you your honor So I'm gonna call you judge even though technically that's wrong too And I thought well, this is really weird, but when I got home, maybe I can use this so I walked into the room and My kids and my wife just kind of looked at me like, you know, you're supposed to stand when I walk Because by rights you do stand for Well, congratulations to you and your family I think it's incredibly honorable work and and I'll go back to the the question Tom posed to you You know as you said you you can't it's not about picking sides or hoping for one Ruling or another But obviously you wouldn't be doing this kind of work if you didn't take some satisfaction from it I mean what what drives you? What's what's motivated you to become a court commissioner? That's a good question. I can tell you what motivated me early on in my work as a prosecutor and To be a child protection attorney and that was to try and produce the right result in the courtroom as I saw as I saw it at least It's those jobs are rare in the fact that You don't have a client necessarily your job is to go into the courtroom and represent the interests of the public and try and produce The best result for for the public and not representing any individual interest and as a court commissioner, it's a similar role in that you're still a public servant and You still have a Tremendous amount of discretion To still try and produce a result That benefits not only the all the parties involved but is Beneficial to the community as a whole in the health of the community But you are somewhat constrained sometimes by by the law as to whether that Result necessarily fits with what the law allows you to do so There's a little more Trying to think of how to phrase this right There's a little more constraint not not that there isn't in those other positions either because you still have to follow the law You can't just run around do whatever you want You know what I forgot what you Got through all this well what what drives me what drives you what gives you satisfaction? I think Judge Persick put it best when she described the job is even if even if your decision isn't perfect often You're taking people's lives who are in chaos and at least providing them some order and structure into those lives So they can move forward That's a pretty good summary of What we do and What drives us to do what we do is you take disputes and and you try and resolve them according to the law and Hopefully that whether it's the result they wanted that gives them some peace of mind to move forward and know what What the structure is ahead of them that they have to deal with? I mean it's a profession definitely to be respected because there's so much Responsibility and as you said you're you're impacting lives and and often in a very significant way so as you think about the court system and your Experience with it both as a prosecutor and I was a court commissioner and looking forward Where do you see? That we have opportunities for improvement or that or there are challenges coming our way that we need to make sure we prepare for Opportunities for improvement are all around as far as clarifying laws and You know everybody has their own personal opinion is the way laws should be written or improved Personally, I think child protection laws could be improved greatly Mental health laws could be improved greatly, but I'm not a legislator. That's not really my job Is to take the law and apply it not to this you know write it or decide what it is So there's tremendous room for improvement, but that's not necessarily my My role not that the court system can't approve efficiency on its own As far as challenges in the future, I think that's again driven by the legislature There's always the challenge of New laws new mandates being placed upon the judicial system and the correctional system You know increasing mandatory minimums All these things that drive the workload up higher and higher and higher and those aren't always Funded or thought through how people are going to pay for right and the workload increases and increases and increases and then Sometimes the quality then decreases as a result because people can only do so much Right, I don't really feel that pressure in our office necessarily, but I've seen it in the Just under 20 years. I've worked in the criminal justice system for district attorney's office and child protection systems just being overloaded and And not properly staffed. Yeah, Joel Armanski as you know was go ahead. I was just gonna ask I Get it with the circuit court But in your situation if one of the parties doesn't Agree with your decision which can happen. Obviously, I would assume who do they appeal to or what is there? What is the situation in that regard? It would typically be the circuit court. They go to this court There's a process called the de novo hearing for most of the things we do that Yeah, make them just file a de novo request with the judge and the judge will hold a brand new hearing No, that's not everything and a lot of the stuff we do is is more procedural in nature than an actual evidentiary hearing But if it's an evidentiary hearing where we're making findings and issuing rulings Then yeah, the de novo hearing is the process. Okay going back to the challenges and And you know as you said, there's only so much time in the day and the caseloads have gone up and ideal Joe DeCecco was always Requesting additional resources from the state because our state prosecutors are all state funded so they rely on state resources and and Joe was good about beating the drum wasn't necessary very successful in garnering additional state resources nor have most counties and now we have Joe Lermansky who also has been beating that drum and Had some success or the state legislature had a bill where they were going to provide more prosecutors more funding for prosecutors ultimately that did not reach the governor's desk and And the county board stepped up and provided a part-time district attorney position Who has been very helpful in helping with foster children placement, but you know to your point of challenges I know that Joel just just this week shared with me that The turnover in the off office open positions growing caseload It's it's challenging. It's very challenging and of course that's going to have a trickle effect on the entire court system Is it not it? Well, and it's it's not just prosecutors. It's public defenders. It's the pay rate public defenders are provided for Private attorneys who take public defender cases. I think I read an article the other day that it's the lowest or second lowest in the nation It's social workers It's it's pressure on on everybody, you know and sometimes by investing in the system You can actually save money and and the county Prosecutors a perfect example because my understanding that is it's focused on Child protection cases and achieving permanence for those children and if you do that You move them out of the foster care system, which is a huge cost upon the county So by actually funding the resources necessary to move those cases through and get them done You're actually saving the money right very glad you brought that up because that was one of the critical points of why it was Passed by the county board and with a little long-term thinking that yes You're going to put some money up front, but in the long run. You'll be saving money and frankly pretty quickly And it's not and the benefits go beyond money to exactly when you human terms take all those children and get and give them some permanence to their lives While the outcomes aren't guaranteed the outcome is likely to be a lot more positive in those situations. Yeah, I know he's He's interested in seeing the county board do more invest more in this area And I think the board's going to be very empathetic to that though at the same time We have one-size-fits-all state-imposed levy caps and there are other needs whether it's mental illness or the opioid crisis or law Enforcement or staffing a detention center or whatever it may be but I was just reading this week, you know the article about the Winnebago facility the state facility which Appears to have some real challenges with staffing and level of care and And you know there's been a there's been so much emphasis at the state level about holding the line or reducing taxes But are we doing it to a point? Where we're not providing the care or we're not making the right investment so it ends up being more expensive Regardless transportation system is an excellent example the county board stepped here to appear to take care of our transportation system At the state level they continue to let it deteriorate and it's going to be a hack of a lot more expensive down the road to repair Well, I appreciate some of the insight that you've shared with our viewers today about the court commissioner's office Again, I appreciate the work that you do Ryan and your staff and you may be a small office But you have a big impact on the lives of people in this community and what days that that you generally have the weddings Is that Thursday or Friday Friday and the people that I see occasionally coming and going in the parking lot And the smiles on their faces and you know from from a to z you're involved in so many different things And we appreciate your work. Thank you. They are the happiest people. I see you going into the courthouse Yes Well, thank you Ryan or family court commissioner been with us now for about three years Ryan if anyone has further questions if they see this and want to ask a question about your department or I suppose going to the Website is a good opportunity to get in information as well, but any recommendation there I know you can't give legal advice obviously, but if people have questions about your department, what do they call? Well, we have a Mainline I couldn't tell you the phone number off the top of my head But it's on the website and the paralegal would answer that and she could give out any information Or if you contact our county clerk's office, they can always refer you to any of the 19 departments and make sure you get the information You need well again, Ryan. Thank you for joining us. Thank you And thank you for joining us We appreciate your time and hope you got a little insight about one of our 19 departments next month Jim to beast will be here our Director of Building Services and Jim has had his hands full. We recently built our new Transportation complex consolidating three facilities into one going to have an open house on June 15th So we encourage you to come out It's open to the public and Jim will be here next month to talk about not only the transportation complex But some other buildings and work that's being done in the county. So until then have a good summer We'll see you next month and hope to see you on June 15th. Thank you


Congratulations, you're listening to Mind Pump the World's number one fitness health and entertainment. You did it, you guys! Now in this episode we answer fitness and health questions that our audience asked us, but the way we open the episode was with an introductory portion where we talk about our lives and current events. We talk about some studies. Today's episode, the intro, is 37 minutes long after that we get into answering the fitness questions. Let me give you a breakdown of the whole podcast. So we open up by talking about the fact that my wife is trying lots of natural methods to try to induce labor. As of the recording of this podcast, no baby yet. So we're anticipating. Then Adam talks about his night at home without wife and kid and he brought out the bong and got emotional, so good times. Then we talk about a podcast that we listen to on economics and the future of kind of what's going on where you should invest your money. That was a great conversation. Then we talk about how the 49ers are now working with Juve Red Lights to improve the recovery of their athletes. I also brought up a study that shows that using red light therapy twice a week through ultrasound shows that collagen density dramatically improves. This stuff really works. It does improve your skin health, the firmness of your skin. It also helps with recovery. No joke, ladies and gentlemen, this stuff is legit. More reasons why the Niners are number one. Juve is a company we work with, so we have a discount for you. If you want to get your own home red light, go to juve.com. That's J-O-O-V-V.com forward slash mind pump. Then use the code mind pump. Every order of $500 or more will get a free Maps Prime program. Then we talked about some of the new flavors from Magic Spoon.  Tastes like the ones you ate when you were a kid, except there's no sugar and it's high in protein. It's got way protein in it. It's good stuff.  Just go to magicspoon.com forward slash mind pump and then use the code mind pump for the mind pump hookup. By the way, new flavors are in apple cinnamon and salted caramel. That's really delicious. Oh my god. Then we answered fitness questions. Here's the first one. This person wants to know what we think about plyometrics and how you can incorporate them into their routine. The next question. Do deadlifts give you a thicker midsection? The third question was is it really necessary to take one day off a week from your workouts? And the final question. They have a nephew that's seven years old who want to start working out. Like where is a good place to start? What are good exercises and routines that we can recommend for kids? Also, we're in November, which means we have a holiday promotion. So right now we're running a ultimate at home bundle. Okay. So these are two amazing workout programs that could be done at home that help you build muscle, boost your metabolism, burn body fat, improve your strength. Just get much sexier essentially. The first program is maps anywhere. All you need are resistance bands and a stick. Great workout. The next one is maps suspension. All you need are suspension trainers. Both of them are full body workouts. Both of them normally cost a lot more than the promotional rate. In fact, normally you can pay well over $200 for both programs. Right now get both for $99.99. Hold on a second. Actually, there's more. We're actually throwing in one more program for free maps hit. So maps hit is a high intensity interval training program designed to burn a lot of body fat. It's a calorie burner. So one more time, you get maps anywhere, map suspension, and maps hit all total for the price of $99.99. Pay one time and you get all three programs. Here's how you sign up. Go to mapsnovember.com. That's maps, M-A-P-S, November.com. And it's t-shirt time.  You know it's my favorite time of the week. We have two winners. One for Apple Podcasts and one for Facebook. The Apple Podcasts winner is Mark Bakara. And for Facebook, Beth Miller. Both of you are winners. Send the name I just read to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com. Include your shirt size and your shipping address. And we'll get that shirt right out to you. Winning is Baby DeStefano going to happen or what, bro? I know. What's going on here? Oh, man, it's a little, so as of the recording of this podcast. Don't overcook it, you know? I know. As of the recording of the podcast, we are now 11 days past the due date. Wow. Yeah, so, and you know, we're trying to do this at home. And the law says you can't do this at home if it's two weeks past. So 14, so you're three days right now away from not being able to do it at home. Yes. So Jessica has been given some, some natural options to help trigger this to go along. Yeah. What'd you see? Would you say canola oil or some? No, no, no, no. What do they do? Castor oil. Castor oil. Let's see. But that's not what they put in race cars. No. No. Castor oil. No. Is it castor oil? Castor oil. Oh, castor oil. I knew I was close, right, Doug? Castors from some type of bean. Yeah. Thank God it's not you here. Thank God. Is it the garage? I heard castor oil. Oh, yeah. This made the baby come out. I feel like it would work, too. No.  So what castor oil is, really interesting, right? It's a laxative, and it's, there's something in castor oil that attaches to the receptors in your intestines that cause them to contract, and there's similar receptors in the uterus. So when you take it, it causes contractions, and then that can set off the. Sort of the catalyst for it all. The process, right? But we're not there yet. There is one other, she's going to be so mad, I'm going to share this, but there is one other, there's one thing that they told her to try first. What's that? Enema. Oh, really? Yeah. So you do an enema. So has she done it yet? Yeah, she did it, she did it this morning. And so. Did you guys have some fun with it? What? Wow.  No, this doesn't sound fun. What's going on here? I don't know. How do you have fun with it? I don't know how kinky and weird you are. That's not weird, bro. You're going to turn it into some sort of foreplay, I thought. Hey, babe. I mean, that's the only way I can think. I put some champagne. Otherwise, how do you keep a straight face when you're doing something like that? I didn't do it. She didn't, you know. Oh, she didn't want to help? No, no. Self-applied. Yeah. Hey, babe, I put some champagne in the enema bottle. She watched a big Greenfield video. Yeah, no. So what that does is it stimulates intestinal contractions and then that can set off labor. So she's doing that first. That didn't work? Well, you wait 24 hours. Oh. Yeah, so you. So that was last night or this morning? This morning. So she did that. Now, how did you find out she was doing this? Did you walk in and be like, honey, or did she tell you I'm going in to go do this? What's all this? No, we're all, we're on the phone with the midwife and we're talking with her. Oh, so this is like a group chat zoom call over enema? Yeah. No, not watching. Okay, now bend over and slowly insert. Now, the instructions are on the bottle. Actually, when you buy the box, it shows the positions to get in. One of them is on your side. I've seen this. But the other one is like your doggie style, but with your head hella low. So your butt's up in the air.   Now, do you use, is there like, I mean, I have no idea about this. So it's like a funnel and a tube or something?  Oh, so I didn't open the box and look at it, but I guess it's something we fill up with the saline water. So it's like a funnel, right? It's not a funnel.  I think it's like a squeeze thing. Oh, yeah. And then there's a long tube. Like a douche is what it looks like. I guess. And then there's a long tube with a little end of it nozzle that's self-lubricated. That's what the box said.  The tube comes lubricated already? That's what the box said. I don't know. That's weird. No astroglide or anything like that? No, no. I mean, that's smart, you know, if you ask me, that's the capitalism right there. Yeah, wow. You would, would you much rather buy the self-lubricated one or the one you have to lubricate? I get, I don't know. I don't know if I trust like somebody else lubricating the thing before I do. Maybe, you think there's people? Yeah. Whoops, didn't get enough on this one. That should be fine. Yeah, right? You're like, oh, this is really dry. You're spitting on the amp? Yeah. No, so what you do is you fill your, this is how an NMO works, right? You add water. It's just to help people who are constipated. And then you wait. And then when you feel like, this is what the box says, when you feel the urge to evacuate, yes.  I feel like that's just going to happen. Yeah. Whether you like it or not. Now, you seem to know some stuff about, as I'm talking, I see you nodding. I do. I had to do one one time. What? Yeah. You didn't tell us about this. Of course you didn't. Of course I wouldn't tell you about this. Like private stuff. He saved it for the public podcast. Yeah. I just figured like, you know, all the rest of millions of people will know that. Yes, good to say. We'll tell your boys to tell a million people, like a guy. Come on. When did you do this? Yeah. I think it was back when I was having issues with my adrenals and they, I don't know if it was that or was I was having some kind of like, Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.  This is because, I don't remember. You just let some doctor say. He prescribed it to me. Hey, that's where, no, where we're at. Yeah. It's weird to me.  No questions? No, like, uh. Yeah, I could, no, that's why, because we had something to do, the prostate, all that kind of stuff, like they were checking, dude, this, there was an issue. Okay. So I don't call my medical. That's like the engine you went in the trunk. It doesn't make no sense. Why, what does that have to do with your prostate? The prostate, that's how they get to the prostate.   So I don't know. So in light, in light. Well, that's a lot. You should try it. It's serious. So here's the deal. Adam knows muscles. The rest of the body is anatomy. He has no idea. Yeah. It's like. Prostate. Inner workings of things. Isn't that your shoulder? I don't know. No, dude. That's not where it's at. No, when they check your prostate, they, you're gonna hit 40 soon. And you are gonna get at some point. So I already got mine done. You're gonna get a good luck.  Just what happens. Wow. What, when do I get this? This was back to my store. I told you guys this with that guy. He was like from Turkey. And he had these huge hairy fingers. I was like really upset about this. I was like, isn't there a nurse or something? And he was the only one on staff. And he just like, just invaded me. I just picture this. Oh, this big Hungarian guy. He was like, sausage fingers. And the worst part was like, he was like acting like, oh God, like he was all disgusted. I'm like, I'm like, at least like, give me some courtesy here. You know, like, make me feel good about myself. Make me feel good, like, greedy or something. What do you want him to tell you? Like, you get a great backside.  Like, I don't know. Not like, like, like looking away. He did that.  Be professional about this. He's like, I've only been a doctor for two years. I was mechanic and construction worker.  Back then my insurance wasn't that great. Let's go put that out. Yeah, no, you're gonna have to go through that, Adam. Actually, did you know that, so the receptors that cause the prostate to enlarge are the same receptors in the scalp that cause hair loss? So, yep. So, you may be at higher risk for prostate. I like how you brought that around to my hair loss. Yeah, you might have a little finger in there. I got a good doctor recommendation. Figure out what's happening. Yeah, so anyway, so she did that. And now we're gonna wait and see what happens. Yeah, fingers crossed.  Lots of fingers. I got some of the dad stuff for you. I want to ask you guys. So last night, so Katrina's up in Tahoe. I'm home. Last night was a home alone night for me, which is awesome. I haven't had that in a long time. Eating Cheetos. I did have a burger. So I ordered a burger. I even, you know what I did that I haven't done forever? I went and like went into my storage and stuff and got the bong out. I haven't like took a bong.  You still had a bong? I did. Yeah, of course I have a bong.  Yeah, I mean, it's stored away though. Like I haven't used it in years, right? So, but I was like, you know what? You just hit the bong? Yeah, that's old school. People still do that. You know what made me think about it? I was like, I may not be able to do this for another 20 years or whatever dad. They're taking advantage of this. You still had to use the bong. Yeah, so I went in and just, you imagine your son's a teenager and he walks in. Oh, opens the door. I forgot something mom opens the door. Dad's hitting a bong. Yeah. Well, that's why I figured, okay, this is like one of the few times I might have an opportunity to do this. Now, did it just blast you? Well, I didn't go crazy. You know what I'm saying? I wasn't trying to get totally ripped by myself, but I was like, you know, I was setting the mood for the night. I'm like, I got my incense burning, the music playing. I'm getting ready for your Costco size movie. Mad of lube. Yeah. Whoa, dude. I was alone too last night. We'll get to your night in a minute, but what I actually was very innocent what I'm going to share with you guys is I'm setting the table like it was bad. It wasn't like that, but I'm just, this is what I'm doing, right? And the reason why I brought that up because I don't know if it was the weed that made me emotional or what, but I'm watching this new show on Netflix.  Listen, listen, listen, Linda. Listen, listen, listen. So I watched Barbarian. Have you guys seen that on Netflix yet? Oh, I haven't seen that. Is it good? Yeah. It's a new series, right? So, and it looked really interesting. It was very much so a show that Katrina and I would not watch with me. So that's what I always try and choose. I mean, if I'm going through like, if it's my night to pick and she's got no say, what am I watching? So Barbarian was the show. And it's, it's obviously done somewhere else because they got the, you know, the lips not matching up with subtitles. Yeah. No, no, no, no subtitles. There's no subtitles. It's like, it's done somewhere else. Another place. It was dubbed. He's like, yeah, dubbed. The lips didn't match the words. What's that called, Sal? So I'm watching this, right? And it gets to a scene. This is weird from here. This isn't, I've never experienced this. And there's a scene where the barbarian, like Rome comes in and is invading these little small villages and they're the villages of barbarians.   And so, and I'm watching and they have this scene where the dad gives his like, you know, eight month old or year old son to them. And I had never, like, I've seen movies like that that have situations like this. It wasn't the first time I'd seen something like this.  It's different now. I had to turn it off. It was so true.  And I got angry and it was like, it just ruined my night. I had to change the movie because it was so... How about the candles turn to the lights? And I couldn't figure out, was it because... Try and explain that to your single buddies. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I've tried before. Yeah, it's impossible. It was a weird, it was a weird new feeling that I had never experienced watching a movie like that. And I don't know if maybe the scene was so long and drawn out or they so emotional because they just, you know, showing the dad and hymns. But boy, it just ruined the show for me. Yeah, yeah. I couldn't get into it because of that. It's because you could relate to the guy, the father who had to give up a son because now you have a son. The first time that happened to me, my son was, I don't know how old he was, six months old. He was a baby, maybe a year old. And we're sitting on the couch together and I got my little boy, you know, sitting, I'm a new dad. And I'm like, oh, Finding Nemo. Let's watch Finding Nemo. It's a freaking animated movie. And when he loses, when the dad, Marlon, loses Nemo in the ocean and the guy, the fisherman scoops him up, I'm like, oh, yeah. Immediate pain and panic. Oh, I'm like, I start like almost crying and I'm like, I remember I did the same thing. I paused it and my son's looking at me like, why did you pause?  Like, because you have this, so this- What would I do if the Romans came? Right, well, the father is like the head of the village, right? So he's got hundreds of people he's responsible for and this is like, it was a peace offering and treaty by giving his son. And so, and it did allow peace for the next 20, 30 years between their village and the Romans. And so- So it's like, don't give my son and everybody dies. Yeah, exactly.   Or do I literally- Burn the villages. Part with my son and allow that. And boy, I just, I was like, I couldn't come to grips with what I would do.  Who's ruining my mood, dude? It's so, it's so true, dude. You have kids, you're, you're immediate. That's what I mean. You know what I always say? Like your, your vulnerability is apparent. Like before you were a parent, you had no vulnerability. You were, you were untouchable. You don't realize it. You think you're not untouchable.  You know what I'm saying? I don't, I didn't even think twice before. Dude, I remember exactly. So you guys remember the movie 300, of course, right? And I watched that before.  And I was like, oh, like, and that one got me. And it like, in a totally different way. So totally, like, yeah. I just got, that was a new, that was a very new experience for me for sure. I just got the chills and almost started crying right now. All right, there's the button now. You know, it's speaking of which, this function on Facebook, I don't know if you go through this, Justin, or even you, Doug, Facebook will show you random like flashback photos. So like 10 years ago, do, you know, eight years ago, and I just got one. It was eight years ago. It was my son and my daughter at one of my son's soccer games.  And that's not even sad. That's just an old picture. Yeah. You know, and I see them when you were little. Oh gosh. Yeah. I had one of those with Ethan.   Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You had to stuff that down. You had to keep the feelings away. Keep it away from you. I totally had it just in a moment too, where I was like, I'm by my, I'm like, stuff that down was exactly how I felt last year. I was like, I can't, by myself. I'm a professional at that. I'm trying to figure out how to not do that anymore.  I'm sitting here all by myself. Crying in the living room like, oh my God. You're calling Katrina. Can you come home? Oh my God. I don't want to be alone anymore. Oh my God. That was so new to me. I was not ready for that. Yeah. That's because you love your kid, man. Well, I mean, yeah, right? I hope so. I hope that's all that means, but that was different for sure. So that's, it'll be interesting now as like more things like that unfold how that I probably experienced before and never thought twice about that. I just had a mini like feeling of a panic attack last night because I'm getting so close to having another baby. And I'm just, and I'm thinking about my kids and I'm realizing like I just hit the reset button. Yeah. Like I got another one. Oh my God. And all the challenges and the vulnerability and I'm like, I'm adding another one to the mix. And you know, I had to calm myself down. Like, you know, because at the end of the day, it's the most, I mean, at least for me, it's the most valuable, meaningful thing I've ever experienced ever.   Oh, I watched that. Did you watch that too? Economist? Yes. Yes, I did. Justin, did you get a chance to watch part of it? Yeah, I didn't, I didn't make it all the way through but I watched like at least half of it. Did you fall asleep? Yeah, too much. I love that stuff. I knew you would. I know you guys love it. I, I appreciate it. But I don't get into as much. Well, what I loved about his conversation was there was, there was two different times in there where the interviewer tried to take him in a direction that was, he asked him a question that seemed political and he called him out and said like, no, that's not economics. That's politics. That has nothing to do with that. And then, so I really appreciate listening to a very non-biased opinion on our economy. Like it's, one of the hardest things to do is to not, like if you tune into a CNN or Fox News and they have an economist on there, he's always, his messaging is aligned with the network and aligned with a political message. So it's like, you know, or then you even hear other guys that like if they sell gold or something and they're, they're going to scare you into what could potentially happen. So, you know, so always it's hard to find somebody that I feel gives you really good data that's not skewed to make you fear and go in one direction. Yeah. Well, a couple takeaways that I thought were interesting. The one part where he mentioned income inequality, I had not even considered it. Very cool part. Yeah. He said, you know, he goes, as societies become more advanced, one reason why income inequality will always become larger is because if you are highly skilled in a modern society, the amount of productivity that you can produce is vastly higher than it was 50 years ago when you were educated and had skills and compared to somebody who wasn't as educated or as much skills. So like today you can be, and this is just efficiency. This is why the, this is why the economy grows and wealth grows. You don't realize how efficient you are, but when you're working at your computer, at your desk and you're highly skilled and specific on what you do, your, the productivity that you're producing is tremendous. It's absolutely tremendous. So when you compare that person to an entry-level worker, it's just vastly, it's light years ahead. And then of course, when you are wealthy, your money, if it grows at the same rate as somebody who's not wealthy, you still make significantly more. For example, $100,000 growing at 10%, is the same percent. If you grow $100,000 at 10% versus $10,000 at 10%, both grow at the same percentage, but you got way more money at 10% and $100,000. It's just a larger number. So you add those two things up. The other thing that he said that was really interesting was how all these, all the money that they're injecting into the economy through quantitative easing, right? That's what they call it, where they're just basically printing money to make things more, what they would say liquid. That is, we are going to see inflation and it's mainly going to be asset inflation. Asset inflation. So like stocks and houses, we're already seeing this. So I really, that was a paradigm shattering moment for me because up until hearing him talk about this, that has been one of the things that I think, I've always been really fearful of and concerned, right?  And then when you look at history too with all fiat money, how it's destroyed, that there's this big fear around, oh my God, we do, we infuse $2 trillion into our economy. That's God, I just destroy the dollar. But when he brought into perspective, what, you know, and he actually predicts, we're going to bring it all the way up to $8 trillion. So right now we're at $2 trillion, they're trying to pass another $2 trillion. He believes by the end of next year we'll do another $2 trillion. So he's saying that it will be $8 trillion in debt, which this sounds like, oh my God. And I brought up that statistic the other day of 22% of the money in circulation right now in the United States was printed this year.   But when he talked about what that was in perspective to the GDP and what percentage of that and what our- Total wealth creation, all that stuff. Yeah, it's 1%. Even $8 trillion is 1% of the GDP every year and what that will increase- It wasn't GDP, it was another number he used, but he was talking about total production. Aside from GDP. And I can't remember what number he used, but it was like $800 trillion. Yeah, yeah. And so the amount, and then that's not even what it would increase the yearly payment back. Yeah, because the interest rates are so low. So I mean, this all sounds kind of whatever. But really what this means is that money is going to be cheap to borrow for probably a long time. And what ends up happening is you start to see prices go up of certain things. And he made a really good point that it's going to be assets. So if you're listening and you want to kind of like figure out how to either invest your money or protect it, one way to kind of do this is to invest in assets, like properties, for example, because those values will go up a lot. That was another thing that I also would that- I really love this interview. I actually listened to it twice because I liked it so much. I've been holding off on purchasing our own home, although we're doing investment properties so that I haven't purchased on it. And one of my fears is just where the Bay Area is at. It just seems impossible. It's like, there's no way these values can continue to go up. But listening to him talk and explain that it's almost inevitable that it's going to, it has to. Because here's the deal. The one thing about the going $8 trillion in debt, yeah, we have the money, yeah, we're fine. No, it's not going to kill the dollar. It's not even that big of a deal. But somebody and something has to pay. Like the money has to go somewhere inflation's inevitable. It's just a matter of, do we see the dollar just collapse or do we see things like asset inflation and who is going to pay for that back? Like who's going to get taxed for it? And that's where the political stuff happens. Why things take so long to get passed because you have the conservatives and you have the liberals going, no, we don't want them to pay. We don't want these people to pay. And so that's where all the- So about who pays, yeah. Yeah, it's all who pays. It's not whether we should do it or we shouldn't do it. Which is interesting to me because that's the argument I feel like we've been presented most of the time is like, should we or should we not do it? And doing it's just going to absolutely kill the dollar and it's going to be so bad, but it's really not about that. It's yes we should, yes we can, and yes we will. It's after it's all said and done, who's going to pay the price for the inflation? Did he get into cryptocurrency at all? I didn't get that far, okay. No, he didn't. But I'll tell you what, one, I wish they did this. I wish it was mandatory learning in high school that you learn basic investment, basic interest rates and how to buy a house and what loans mean, because that really hurts people. It would help our whole society if everybody was educated in that direction. It would, totally. And you know, it's, I'm trying to use an analogy I can't think of. Okay, you know what it reminds me of? Okay, when we did our YouTube channel, the Mind Pump YouTube channel, getting to the first 10,000 subscribers was a grind. Then getting to the first 100,000 was a really hard grind. And then it accelerated after that, right? So it's like when you're dealing with your own wealth or money, that initial, like getting started and kind of building, that takes a long time. But then as it starts to build momentum, it happens faster and faster and faster. And it's definitely one of those things where it's better to think about it when you're young than when you're old. Like the difference of investing five years earlier versus five years later turns into millions of dollars. It's all because of the, you brought this up the other day, the narrative that we've been told that, you know, getting buying your own, getting a job, right?  It's like the ideal situation. And it's really not. I mean, I wish I understood that in my early 20s when I first was making money and starting to start saving, that, you know, locking myself into a big mortgage and putting a down payment on a house is not necessarily the best investment for my money. And if I were to have taken that money and invested it smarter when I was younger, where it would be at today. And I think you're right, Sal. Like it's always blown my mind that there's not a lot that was spent on this. I think like self-awareness and economics are two things that just are not taught to young people enough. And those two things I think have absolutely changed who I am, the success that I've had as a person, as an individual, both financially and personally. And those things came way later in life for me. I had to go read it myself and go figure it out where it was never taught to me. It also influences your politics, which is a big factor. But it's hard for me to have conversations because the lack of education with, you know, economics. Oh, no. If you want to be able to look behind the curtain when you're with politics, understand economics, then it's much easier to see what's actually being done. Apple samples. Yeah, what's actually being done and what's not being done and what's being said. It makes a really big difference. But it really goes even this far. It's like once you understand and think about, all you have to do really is just switch the way you think and think, what am I getting for this money that I'm spending? Like what am I getting in return? So if you think to yourself, okay, I, every morning I spend $5 on a Starbucks coffee. Okay. What do I get in return? Well, I get this coffee that I like, right? And that's costing me $150 a month. What if I didn't spend $150 a month on coffee? What could I get for that money? And you can do it this way. You can think, what can I get for $150? What can I get for $300? That's two months worth of savings. What can I get for that whole year? And what's the value? And it can be as simple as this. Like if I save that much for a year, that might be able to pay for, you know, a small vacation. Is one vacation more valuable to me than having a Starbucks every morning where I can make coffee at home and save that $150? So it's really that mindset. That's all it is. That was the only thing I disagreed with him was, and I know you did too, because you sent me a text after you watched it, it was the first thing you said to me. And I'm like, that's so funny, because that's the one thing that I didn't agree with either, which, you know, he predicted everything that was going to happen right now, except for the rise in single family homes. He just didn't think that with all the unemployment and everything, that there was no way that single home prices were going to, there's not going to be enough people that I wanted to buy. But what he attributes that to is what I disagree with. He attributes that to the- Unintended savings. Involuntary savings. Or that, yeah. Involuntary savings, meaning that these last four to six months, lots of Americans were planning on Disney trips and going on their vacations to Europe. And so they saved all this extra money. And so they had this extra money when it came time around right now to potentially buy a house. And because interest rates are so low, they said, oh, instead of, we didn't spend any of that money on traveling, so now let's buy a house. I don't know if most people, at least most people that I know, sure. I wouldn't make that big of an impact. Yeah, exactly. So at least in my- So we'd leap. At least here, right? So where we live and the friends that I have, and I have too, so there was definitely involuntary saving for me. I don't know about you guys, but I didn't spend a lot of money in the last four to five months. I saved more than what I would have been able to because I'm normally traveling and doing things, but not enough to sway me over like, oh, now I'm good. But I also recognize that that's where- That's my circle. I'm in the Bay Area. So two vacations canceled is not enough for you to have down payment. But maybe somebody in the Midwest, who every year goes to Europe or does something like that, that's an extra 10 or 20,000. 100,000 dollar house, what do you need, 20 grand? Right. So maybe. Yeah, so maybe the rest of the United States, but I felt like for us, I was like, that can't be true. But yeah, it's that mindset, right? It's a whole mindset. What am I getting for this? What kind of value am I getting in return? I want to buy a nice car. Is that something that I'm going to get a lot of value in? Or do I not really care? And would I prefer to take this money and spend it in other places? And I think if we think that way, we'll make better, healthier decisions. And then of course, the side effect of that is the market starts to reflect. I just think it's crazy that he's claiming that we're going to see an asset run the same way that we saw after 07, so like 0809 with that. So we'll see stock market continue to go up. Yeah, he says that stocks, housing, all that is going to wear, office space, all those things are going to, once we kind of, and he said, what he can't predict is when, right? He thinks for sure, all of next year, we won't be back to completely normal. He says it won't be until we're moving into 2022 before he thinks we're going to be fully recovered. Probably because, I don't know if you guys are watching right now with the coronavirus, it's spiking again, right? Predictably, it's predictably spiking again. So I'm sure we're going to, and in Europe right now, they're starting to talk about lockdowns again. And people are like, no. Yeah, wasn't he telling you to pay attention to the stadiums and how full they were, not to see where we were in terms of our economy? Yeah, he said that, which I think is a great indicator, right? Like you're 70,000 fans in an NFL game or whatever like that. And when you see everybody in there and what- And you know, people are more comfortable. That's what he means by that is this, is that even as the economy starts to open back up, even as we get a vaccine, even as we start to get better treatments for all this, there's still going to be a lag time when everybody feels really comfortable about it. Like the storm will have to have passed for some time before everybody comes back to normal. I mean, even myself, I'm definitely not somebody who is as afraid of this situation we're in as some of my friends are, but it doesn't mean I still don't take a bunch of precaution. I'm not going to the movie theater. I'm not going to events that are enclosed. And back to the other day, for the first time in almost a year, I went to the mall and it was just a weird experience. I haven't done something like that. And I was doing it specifically because we have Katrina's birthday coming up, so I wanted to go there. Otherwise, I wouldn't be there. And so there's going to be a lot of that. There's going to be a lot of people that are going to choose not to go to games because they don't need to go to games right now. And so as you start to see society get more comfortable with that, and when it's filled back up again, he says that that will be our indicator that it's back to normal, and then we'll see everything start to really miss a lot of things. Now, there's a wrench in that too, which is, and they were talking about this, the World Health Organization was talking about this, that people are having like virus fatigue. And I don't mean virus fatigue, like they got sick and they're tired, but rather they're fatigued with the fear. With the precaution. With the precaution. Yeah, so a lot of people are like, I don't care what happens right now. I don't want to go back and do the lockdowns and stuff. And they're finding it hard. I know in Italy, there were protests because the cases went way down. Italy had some of the strictest lockdowns. Now the cases are spiking like crazy. And people are like, I don't, nope, we're not going to go through with this anymore.  Did you see Juve signed with the Niners? I did see that. I was super excited. I was like, on the Niners, I actually saw them post about it on Instagram. And I got like excited to comment it on there. But they have, they're the first NFL team to actually adopt Juve red light as a valid recovery in therapy. And so they have it all set up.  There it is right there. Look at that. It's so badass. Dude, okay. So it legit works. I know it sounds crazy. Oh, you wouldn't see an NFL team doing it if it didn't. Yeah, they're always on cutting edge stuff, right? It for, no, it for real works. In fact, there was a study. I'm going to pull it up here. So they did a study. So all the studies so far that I've seen on, on something like skin, right? People will use red light therapy. They'll do it two days a week or three days a week. And a dramatic, a big majority of them will say that they noticed significant changes in their skin or the scientists will say their skin looks a lot better. But it's all, I mean, that sounds very subjective, right? My skin looks better. Your skin looks better. So they did one study where they actually tested the density of collagen. So they did a study. It's they used ultra sonography. They did an ultrasound and they measured the density of collagen in someone's skin. So they had a bunch of people do red light therapy, like the juve, two days a week. So they didn't even use it every single day, two days a week. And there was a significant increase in collagen density in the skin. So it legit, it legit works. So things for like stretch marks, scars, wrinkles, and then as it goes in deeper in the body, it improves recovery, which is why you see athletes using that stuff more and more. I'm so proud of them, I'm so proud of the partners that we've decided to work with. It's really cool right now. It feels good to see them get like this stuff, right? Like when you talk about, we've been with Juve now for over two and a half, three years now. So I remember when we first met them and we learned all about it. So it was very cool to see, we were the first podcast. They were like their first advertising. They weren't even doing any advertising when we first linked up with them to see what they're doing, what Viori's doing, what Felix Gray is doing. Like magic spoon. I was going to bring them up on my night by myself. I got to like treat, have a treat. And it was like nice because I could just go grab a bowl and sit and watch, I watched a Deadpool 2 and I was eating some blueberry. But I saw, I got an email, they have two new flavors. You guys even know about these? Dude, yeah, they did another poll. And I guess that they concluded that people really wanted to see if they could have apple cinnamon and salted caramel. Ooh, salted caramel. Oh my God, I was like, I started drooling.  Hey, I just went the bong. Yeah, yeah. So you were still watching TV with a big bowl of cereal.  I was feeling it too. That's hilarious. Things we do when these devices are gone. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That is so funny. I actually didn't have it last night, but I mean, I also got filled up on a burger. I haven't had burger and fries in a long time. So I was filled up on it. But I mean, the last time we talked about Magic Spoon, I'm still blown away by the macro breakdown when you eat the whole box. By no, by the way, I'm not recommending. I can't find somebody who doesn't like it. It's crazy. No, I haven't met anybody who hasn't either. So you're eating the whole box, huh? No, that's in one time, dude. So I'm not, okay, I don't want to promote that, right? So I don't think that is. 770 calories. 770 calories in like, what was it? 77? 71 grams of protein, something like that. Now, where did you get your burger from? Five guys. Oh, it's always five guys. No, no, always. I mean, if I, so in and out doesn't deliver on DoorDash, or else I would do in and out, but in and out doesn't do that.   There's a, did you? Yeah. Did you? There's one over by the mall. The one over by the mall. What does that look like? One over by the mall. That's amazing. Over by Valley Fair. Is it, is it? Off of West, off of, God, I can leave the street right now. I think that's the place that we always go. Yeah, that's the one that's well. So there's a dish called Lomo Soltaldo. Do you have, is that the one you get? Is that that like the steak and potatoes? So there's like steak, there's French fries, rice, and this like, My favorite dish. Just like brown sauce. So, so good. But it's like comfort food, dude. Yeah. So we had that last night. Oh, it's good. Fall food. Oh, bro, I crushed. Did you have it delivered or did you go there? No, they were closed. So I found another, so we actually, so here's the deal. Okay. Pregnant wife had a craving. So we drove an hour away and went up to Redwood City. That's right. You're bound to that. Your family is dead.  Almost, right? So Redwood City. So it took us like 40-something minutes. Oh my God. And we had some, some of the last time. That's hilarious. You know what? I actually haven't even asked you about her. Is she had any weird, real cravings? Is she doing something? You know, let me try and think right now. She was crazy with the oranges. Okay. So here's a weird one. So she'd never, I didn't know this about her.  Never had Kiwi. So she was sitting there one day. This was like, I want to say a month and a half or two months ago. She said she was at home and she just got a craving. This is what's weird about it. I love Kiwis. For Kiwis, but she's never had them before. So she was at home, had a craving for Kiwis. Had to drive to Whole Foods and buy. Did she see a commercial or anything? Or this was just like a random thought. It's so weird that her brain literally said to her, this food you've never had before is what you crave. That is so strange. Yeah, it is bizarre. That's how the oranges kind of work for Katrina. I've never seen Katrina eat an orange. But at least she's tasted an orange. Right, right, of course. It's not that foreign to her. So she went to the store and bought Kiwi, like the sliced Kiwis at Whole Foods. Yeah, so good. And it totally hit the craving and then she'd eat them every day basically since, which I thought was very, very, very strange. Never ate them before. So that's wild. First question is from Kai Lovecraft. What do you think about plyometrics? How can I incorporate plyometrics and functional training into my routine? This is right after geometry and algebra. I know it sounds also like a supplement. I was terrible at this. I'm taking a lot of plyometrics and they're big. Yeah, no, you know what's funny? My mind has changed a little bit on this relatively recently talking to our good friend, Joe DeFranco. And of course, like anything, right? And this makes perfect sense. Like anything, there's varying degrees of how you can apply it and how hard you do it, right? So like if someone says, what do you think about heavy lifting? Well, heavy lifting is all relative. It depends on the person who's doing it and what the context is. And what might be heavy for my grandmother is obviously going to be very light for me, but challenging the body that way is there's going to be benefits. Same thing with plyometrics. And what he said to me was, which rang totally true, is if you stop training a particular skill, you'll eventually lose that skill. Now, I've experienced that myself. You don't use it, you lose it. I have. I've experienced it myself where I go to the park and I'm playing Frisbee with my kid and I go to jump and twist. And I feel like I'm not moving like I think I could. And it's because I haven't trained jumping or twisting or those types of explosive movements. So plyometrics, from a health standpoint, training them appropriately and properly is to be able to maintain that kind of movement.  Plyometrics helps you maintain that ability. Now, from an advanced point of view, plyometrics improves explosive power and plyometrics activate fast twitch muscle fibers better than almost any other form of training. Now, why is that important? Well, fast twitch muscle fibers are the muscle fibers that grow and build. And so if you're just interested in overall fitness and want to build muscle, so long as it's done appropriately, plyometrics will send a very loud and different signal to the muscles to build and grow. Well, it's also about maintaining abilities. I know that not everybody wants to be an athlete. Not everybody wants to be able to move super explosively and sprint on command or slow down really efficiently and effectively and change directions. But you can take elements of that to your average person and really benefit their lifestyle substantially. So like you give examples of when you're reaching back for a car really quickly to brace something or something falls from a shelf and you have to react super aggressively. And if your body doesn't recognize how to react in a situation like that, this is just one of those instances where you will suffer the consequences of that. The body is going to have to adjust and react how it's going to adjust. And a lot of times it will get injured as a result because you're neglecting this side of training, which is definitely a component. The other thing to plyometrics to consider, this is one of those where it's at the pinnacle of your training in terms of what attributes you're trying to achieve. And so I look at it as this is sort of like a testing grounds. Even if it's just like your average person that's been training their way up the rungs to get to a certain point where now if you move explosively, you have to put in all that groundwork to be able to stabilize and get your body under control as quickly as you're able to explosively move into that position. So it's a good test as well. I've always thought that plyometrics belong in programming. I just think that they've been poorly done. That's all. Yeah, no one does them right. Yeah, I definitely think they belong in, I think they belong in somewhat in everybody's routine. And when you don't, I mean, I experienced, I think I've shared on this podcast at least once or twice, the story of me jumping out of the back of my bed or my truck. That was the first kind of rude awakening for myself that, oh, wow, I've really neglected this type of training. I did a lot of it in my 20s. And even like into my early 30s, right before competing, competing really, I became so focused on aesthetics that I completely eliminated plyometrics in my training. It wasn't a goal. It wasn't a focus of mine. And I really didn't see the consequences of that until that day. Like it hadn't registered. I hadn't had a moment or a time. I wasn't playing basketball at the time. I hadn't done anything explosively. That was the first time I had called on my body to do something that I believed I could easily do. And I jumped down from the truck and I was fine. But boy, it felt like somebody took a baseball bat to my knees. And I was like, whoa. And I was like, well, this is what I get. When was the last time, Adam, you did a jump off of a box or jump up to a box? And when I thought about it, I was like, man, it's been five, six years since I've done something like that. And that inspired me to get back into incorporating it into my training. Now, it doesn't mean that my training also turns into this explosive, plyometric, circuit-based, lifting routine all the time. It just means like, hey, I need to have some jump boxes in there or where you step down from a jump box and work on the deceleration of the squat or the jump or some sort of explosive lateral movements with the tube or something like that. Because you don't want, like Justin alluded to, you don't want to lose it. If you don't want to lose those abilities on things that you may do in real life, then yeah, then it belongs to the program. I just, we need to talk about how it's poorly programmed. And the way it's poorly programmed most commonly is people do it to fatigue. And that's not the idea. The idea is that you want to be able to be comfortable just to give the analogy of reaching back to the car real quick or something falling off a shelf and then being able to react. So when you do that, you don't do that 15 repetitions or 30 repetitions. Like you do that one time. You know, it happens and then you have to be able to do it. So that's how you should emulate it in your training. One to three reps. And there should be plenty of rest in between and it's all about the movement of it. And then there's prerequisites before you do that.  That should be the first and foremost. You should be able to step up onto a box with good technique, good stability, good form, good control. And then the progression of that is the ability to be able to jump up onto the box with good form. And then when you finally get to that place where you're jumping up on the box, you don't need to be doing 10 to 15 reps in a circuit-based type of routine or with low rest periods. You do three to five jump boxes and you rest in between every rep and you'd be very meticulous about how you move and how you land and how you take off. And that's where the emphasis is put when you put it into your program. So yes, I think plyometrics, functional training belongs in everybody's routine no matter the age, but the way you apply it into there really depends on their level. Have they done the prerequisites to get to that point? And then to make sure, if you're somebody who is not an athlete and it's not a high priority, that you just intermittently introduce it into your routine enough that you don't lose it. Like that's the two common mistakes that I see when you see people talking about or utilizing plyometrics. Next question is from Lisa J. Kennedy, 75. Do deadlifts give you a thicker midsection? I love doing them and have gained a great deal of strength in my back from them. However, as a female, I worry that my midsection is thicker as a result. This is another one of these myths that are out there.  This one really makes me upset. So first of all, you don't want to look at the extreme top lifters of any sport and look at their physique and judge their physique and say, oh, that's why their physique necessarily looks that way. First off, people who can deadlift ungodly amounts of weight naturally probably already have thicker weights, okay? And eat tons of... Yeah, many of them may be on anabolic steroids. There's lots of muscle being built. Here's the deal. If you want a smaller waist, get leaner. Even if you develop the muscles around your waist, you're not going to develop a much thicker waist. You might get, I don't know, a couple centimeters of thickness around in terms of lean muscle around the waist, but you're going to peer leaner and more sculpted. This myth makes me upset because people tend to neglect training the muscles around the core like the obliques because they're afraid they're going to get a thicker waist. And what ends up happening is they lose function. They lose strength. And the truth is, if you're lean, your waist is going to be small.  I think this is like... I think of when I was competing, like we're constantly focusing on building like my shoulders and the width of my back to give this illusion that my waist is smaller, even though my waist wasn't technically really shrinking. So if you are training the obliques, your training exercises that may even thicken, like who cares if it puts on a quarter inch on your waist, but puts three inches on the width of your back. The ratio, when you look in the mirror or somebody else looks at you, will look as if your waist is smaller and it'll look more shapely too. Man, adding a half inch to your waist of muscle is a lot by the way. People don't realize that doesn't happen. Those are exaggerated numbers. It's very, very unlikely you would even do that. But I'm saying even if you did do that, it's a lot easier to add that width to the top of your body to the tops of your shoulder caps and the width of your back. So as long as that ratio either stays the same or it increases because you've built your back up and your shoulders, it's going to give the illusion of your waist being even tiny or small. I also think there's a point to address here about training with and without the belt. Sal, you talk a lot about training with a belt. You train your core and midsection to do something different than what you do if you train without a belt.    If you always wear a belt when you deadlift, you actually train the core to push out. So if you are concerned about your waist looking smaller, staying tighter, staying in, that's a suggestion I would have also is don't deadlift with the belt all the time. Deadlift without a belt. Teach and train your TVA to draw in and actually shrink your waist versus using a belt where you're pushing your waist out against the belt. Yeah, this is an interesting one because it keeps getting perpetuated. Even like, I'll hear this even from Courtney sometimes about like, you know, doing something too often that will promote like a boxier kind of look that I've heard this is a common concern with a lot of females that I've trained even. And it's again, to the point that you're not going to be building, it's really difficult to build like a substantial amount of size, you know, in your core to begin with. Most of the ways that you're going to train your core are going to be to brace. And so everything's like working its way to protect and it's essential for you to work in that area to have that function because if you're still working out, that's really what's protecting you and that's what's keeping everything moving forward in the right direction long term. So to neglect that area, you're going to run into all kinds of problems down the road. And honestly, like there's, there are different styles of training that will produce different looks, right? So I know you guys speak to this a lot more from the aesthetic side in terms of being able to focus on bringing up and developing other muscles to then sort of balance the overall aesthetic to provide, you know, whatever that sort of v-taper or whatever you guys call it kind of look, you know, they're going for, it's just a problem because this has created a market for like corsets and for all these like really horrible yeah ideas that people are still gravitating towards that because it's, you know, they're not considering the body as a whole. It's silly. It's silly.  Oftentimes female clients would say they want to develop their hamstrings and their glutes. They'd like well-developed lower backs. So if you want to stand up tall in a bikini, not just have good glutes, but have that nice lower back where you see the indentation come in a little bit, that's deadlifts. I've never trained any female ever who got really good at deadlifts, who came back at me and said, I don't like the way my body looks. They've all fallen in love with the deadlift. So this is so silly to me. This is a myth perpetuated by extreme bodybuilding in which case I would not take much of their advice because it doesn't apply to most people. In fact, it's unhealthy advice. For most people, men and women. It's even bad for bodybuilding. I used to scoff at all my peers that thought this way. I deadlifted all the way up to competition day. And to your point about the back, I mean, your erector spinae looks kind of like abs on your back. So doing things like deadlifting gives you this great definition. It creates those canals and that little dip. So even if it added, again, a quarter inch to your waist, you'll have this illusion of it dipping in and being more aesthetically pleasing. So don't eliminate that exercise and fear of adding a little bit to your waist. That's a ridiculous notion that's been, I think, been perpetuated way too long. Yeah, I think they're canals. Is it canals or canals? Let's go with canals. What did I say? What did I say? Canals. Canals. Canals. Canals. Canals. Canals. Canals. Canals. It's like pilau, pilau. I got my lisp in going on over here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Put that in the library. Next question is from GD Pena. Is it truly necessary to take one rest day a week? For instance, how about alternating between full body strength days and cardio? No, it's not necessary to take one day off a week. It is necessary to modify your intensity and activity to allow your body to rest and recover. However, under most circumstances, your body recovers better when it's active than if you're just sitting around laying in bed. Now this was, you know, I believe this, the opposite to be true when I was younger, because I thought, Oh, I have to like totally rest so my muscles can recover. So I would like have this crazy hard workout. And then I come home and sit on the couch purposely and be like, don't move. Let the muscles build. Let them grow. Yeah, it doesn't work. In fact, not being active can hamper recovery and can cause the opposite to happen. When you don't move, you're sending a signal to your body that says, we don't need muscle. We don't need strength. We don't need fitness. But you do need to modify your intensity. You can't train super hard all the time. Of course, this depends on the individual and their fitness level and their recovery, but you can't push your body to its limits all the time day in and day out because you will run into problems. But you can totally be active every day. In fact, I feel my best and I recover my best when I'm active every single day. What does that look like for me? Typically three heavy workouts a week, two lighter workouts a week, and then two days a week where I'm doing things like walking and hiking and maybe mobility work and playing with my kids at the park and that kind of stuff. But I don't have necessarily days where I'm like no activity, no exercise I need to recover. Netflix. Unless I've really overdone it and I feel like I'm on the verge of getting ill, in which case I will not do anything. I love the idea of going to the gym seven days a week. Not just because I think I felt my best during those times too. And I'm not right now, by the way. And I'm also not nowhere near the best shape of my life right now. I think that for the mental reason, for creating a good habit, I like to teach clients this. Like just you make, you carve an hour out a day that is your day to work on yourself. That's just it. But to Sal's point, you modify the intensity. Doesn't working out or exercising for your health or for overall performance, whatever you're looking for, doesn't have to look like hammering the weights every single time to the gym. Like you said, three to four days of a good, intense workout is more than enough. And then doing cardio on the off days or mobility or taking a hike or doing yoga and working inward. Like I like the idea of teaching clients to have that five to seven days where they just, they know, hey, every day at this time for this hour, I carve that out for my time to go to my gym or work out of my garage, wherever you do it at. And you just modify it based off of what you've been doing. If you had a real heavy lifting day the day before, well, okay, well then today do more mobility, stretching or cardio type activity and then go back to a heavy lifting day. I like that. And I've found, I've had the most success that way and I found my clients that I encourage to go to the gym that often have a lot of success. Now that's not to be said that you can't only train, you know, you could train two days a week and only train two days a week and build a decent physique. If you have very good discipline with your eating and your calorie balance, you could build decent amount of muscle. You can burn decent amount of fat. And shape a decent body, only going to the gym two times a week. But I think that it's more consistent and you get more bang for your buck, just getting in the habit and the routine of always having that hour of exercise just changing and modifying it. Yeah, like Sal kind of said in the beginning about working out really hard and then having to dedicate like a whole day of just rest and not movement. Like I used to run by that, especially on the weekends, which is then going to leave me open to, you know, the weekends you make decisions where you're going to eat a bit more calories, you're not paying attention to all these things, you're resting, right? So this is where all the magic happens, where you're building muscle, but it took me to the point where I would get to Monday's workout and I would have zero motivation. I did not want to move and I had to overcome every week, I had to overcome this sort of block that I put in front of me in terms of being able to now generate that type of momentum to produce a better workout again and then repeat the cycle all over again. It wasn't until I realized, I mean, I just got to keep moving and do lighter amounts and even if that means scaling my workout back a bit of intensity-wise and then moving again the second day and not doing quite what I did the first day, my body just felt better, I was more energized, I felt more recovery and it's just a way better strategy than to really hammering the body and then like resting completely. Totally, four moderate intensity workouts is better than two super high intensity workouts if you're on a long-term basis. That's just true, right? Daily activity is best, but you've got to moderate the intensity so that your body can handle it. Next question is from Kat Il Est. My nephew is seven and is showing interest in weightlifting. Where is a good place to start? What exercises or routines would you recommend? Gymnastics, that's right. At seven years old, what you're looking to develop is coordination and body awareness and they can get it with weights. It's going to be really, really hard. Here's a problem with weights in seven. I've trained kids that are real young. I've even trained kids as young as seven or eight years old and it's literally 10 minutes. That's about as long as you can keep their attention. And it turns into games, which gymnastics is a lot of. When you see seven-year-olds engage in gymnastics, it's games, it's tumbling, it's fun, plus they're maneuvering their own bodies and they're getting more body awareness. Weights will help do that as well, but it doesn't do it nearly as well as gymnastics will, especially not for a seven-year-old. And trying to get a seven-year-old to handle a weight above their head, it's not going to work. It's hard to find dumbbells small enough. It just doesn't work as well. Typically with weights, I start around 12 or 13, but before that, it's like, it's body weight stuff. Lunges and squats and push-ups and tumbling and handstands and planks and. Climbing. Climbing is great. Games where they're. Balancing.   So I can train him straight up. We're going to do exercises. Sometimes with her, I got to trick her a little bit. So what I did with her is I had her come out. She's like, I don't want to work out. I'm like, no problem. You don't need to work out. Just hang out with us. And then I got the physio ball down and I said, hey, I bet you can't sit on this and balance without your feet touching the floor. She's like, yeah, I can. I said, I bet you can. If you do it for 30 seconds, I'll give you 20 bucks. So she for literally 45 minutes, she sat on the physio ball and tried to balance. About 45 minutes later, she stops and she goes, my core is really sore. She goes, did you trick me into working out? No, you're just playing. Gymnastics does a really, really good job of doing this for young kids. I definitely, that's 100%. And that's why I enrolled my kids in a parkour and gymnastic. And it's just so good for them to learn how their body moves, how to adjust, how to react when they're opposing all these different forces from different angles. I think that's just essential to build off of that body awareness because then they're in their body. And you can really teach them now how to utilize and shuttle the right amount of force in certain directions so they're efficient in what they're doing with their body. And one thing that I do apply with my kids that we talk about all the time on the show is to provide opportunities for them when they see something that they just see like a pull-up bar or they see hanging rings like in my house and they just go and do a pull-up. Maybe it's one. Maybe it's three, but it's always there. And every time they walk past it, they do it. And it's been really fascinating to watch. My oldest now can do like 10 pull-ups in a row. He could even barely do one. Yeah. And it's those concepts when you talk about it, it works. And it works with young kids like that. It doesn't have to be complicated. You don't have to teach them all the mechanics of the perfect squat just yet, especially at seven. And you can model that for them. So they start to watch dad or mom do these exercises. But honestly, it's providing the environment and the structure for them to express their body the way it needs to. And they learn for themselves, which then promotes excitement and energy towards building on that. So I hated training kids. So I'll tell you what not to do. So the things not to do, the mistakes that I made early on trying to train young kids. So even though I say with tongue-in-cheek that I hated training kids, I trained a lot of kids. And I didn't enjoy it a lot at the beginning because I think I over-complicated the process. I was trying to get these kids to focus, to Sal's point, for 60 minutes of a workout, you know what I'm saying? Or to Justin's point, I was really trying to get them to do a squat perfect or a bicep curl perfect and really get them to understand the form and hold their body there. And I would get frustrated because they would get impatient with it. They wouldn't like doing it. And it just felt like I was wasting their time and my time. And I think when I kind of let go of all of that and stopped looking at the way I would train a beginner client and training kids is different. And just if I could get them to do stuff that I would know would promote good body awareness, good strength, good balance. So I started doing different things.  And my niece was eight-year-old niece. And then I have a nephew who's 13. And she has the ability to sit down in a squat really well. And so we were all sitting in my squat and scroll position. And I was with her and I was like, can you get down here with me? And she's like, okay, so she can do it. And then I'm like, okay, can you kick your leg out from down here? And so then I would have her and she'd fall over a couple of times. And she'd almost be like, and she kept practicing it, then she could get it. And I got her to be able to do that. I said, okay, can you now take one leg while you're balancing and then bring it back in? And then now switch to the other leg. And then I was like, so we messed around with that. That took like 10, 15 minutes for her to get that down. Then she got that down and said, okay, now can you kick the leg out, balance, and stand up from that position? And then it took us another 10 to 15 minutes for her to get that. Before you know it, her and I are fooling around for 30 minutes trying to do an exercise. Meanwhile, working on her stability, working on her strength, is overall going to make her better at squatting. And she's having fun. We're playing with it, we're enjoying it. When I started thinking more like that, right? And I think, Sal, you've alluded to one that I've done similar. I didn't use pencils, but I think you've used a pencil one where you throw a bunch of pencils on the ground and you try and see how many can they pick up without tipping over or falling over? Can they get all 25 or 30 pencils on the ground? Yeah, while balancing on one leg. While balancing on one leg. And then you make them switch the other side, which you'll see there'll be a discrepancy. Most kids right away will have one side they have good stability on, the other side they won't so much. And so playing games like that or having them jump to a single leg balance, right? Jump from one spot and then try and balance on one leg. So doing exercises and movements like that body weight push-ups and like Justin alluded to pull-ups, or even just hangs, how long can you hang for? Grabbing rings or grabbing a bar and I bet you can't hold this for 30 seconds. If you can, I'll give you this or I'll challenge you to that.  And you said it perfect. I think Sal said this that, you know, gymnastics. I'm for sure, I think two years old is when I can first enroll Max in that. And 100%, I will put them in gymnastics just because I think just for that reason, it's not that I hope that it becomes some, you know, major gymnast one day. I just, I understand that that's probably one of the best things that you could take a kid through to lay the foundation for any and all other sports pursuits, including weightlifting. Totally. Look, Mind Pump is recorded on video as well as audio. Come check us out on YouTube, Mind Pump podcast. Also, come check us out on Instagram. You gotta check out Doug. He does a lot of behind the scenes stuff. So if you want to learn about podcasting or see what kind of socks Adam wears when we podcast, check him out. Go to Doug's Instagram page, Mind Pump Doug. You can also find your hosts on Instagram. You can find me at Mind Pump Sal, Adam at Mind Pump Adam and Justin at Mind Pump Justin. Yeah. And so I'm taking the task and doing the whole thing and I'm working in the bank and I found myself half the time I was in the bank talking to people about fitness, talking to people about nutrition, giving people workouts, my coworkers, the people coming into the bank. Like this is what I was talking about.