In this episode of Mind Pump, we answer questions asked by people like you. So in this episode, we answered four questions, but the way we opened the episode was with current event talk. We talked about studies that we've read on Facebook or other media outlets, and we talk about our lives and stuff that's going on. So here's what we talked about in this episode. We start out by talking about Adam's holiday workouts or lack thereof. I was, we were wondering why he was looking. They don't exist. He doesn't look like a fitness guy anymore because he's not working out. Then we talked about the bathroom remodeling that's happening here at the Mind Pump headquarters and why, and it's putting dust everywhere. We're covered in dust and I'm hoping that none of us get any terrible effects from it. I talked about a movie, a classic movie that I finally watched for the first time, Dirty Dancing, what a great movie. It was pretty good. Where have you been? Yeah, we talked about the holidays and all of the charged political conversations that happened for us. I'm sure you can relate. So much fun. I brought up the myth of easier. So why we think some things are easier, but in fact they're much harder. That's why we call it a myth. I talked about terpenes. Terpenes are found in many, many plants.  The citrus smell from lemons comes from a terpene called liminal. And you can find these terpenes in the hemp plant in cannabis plant. And how I talked about how studies are showing that terpenes are part of the entourage effect. This is when you have cannabinoids in combination with terpenes and how that's far more effective than just taking isolated cannabinoids like CBD. Now our favorite company that has hemp oil is NED. And the hemp oil that they make is full spectrum, meaning it has all the cannabinoids, including CBD. And all the terpenes. And all the terpenes. So that's why people write in and say that the results they get from NED are for better than when they've used other types of CBD products. Now NED is one of our sponsors.  Then Adam brought up his protocol for preventing colds and flu. He's been using elderberry, zinc, and OrganiFy's immunity. Now OrganiFy is a company that we work with. They produce organic supplements, including green juice, red juice, which is good for energy. They have a gold juice for before bed. They have protein powders that are non-dairy, all organic. And of course they make the immunity that Adam talked about, which is supposed to help the body boost up its immunity so you don't get sick. Now we have a massive discount for our listeners.  Then we got into the fitness questions. The first question was, how can stairs be used to lift the glutes? So this person wants to know how they can use stairs to work out to get their butt to sit higher on their back. The next question, this person wants to know, look, if I'm already healthy and feeling good, how do I know if adding a green supplement is doing me any benefit? So we talk about that. The next question, this person is a 19-year-old college student trying to save money and they're struggling on whether or not it's worth buying organic or grass-fed. So we talk about the hierarchy of priorities that you should look at when you go and buy your groceries. Get a freezer. And eventually we did talk about organic high-quality meats. We do work with a company that provides that to their door for phenomenal prices. It's ButcherBox. You've probably heard of them before. We have a huge discount though.  Yeah. The final question was, this person wants to know, how do you know if you're suffering from upper cross syndrome?  It's basically how everybody looks nowadays because we work on computers and we're always on our cell phones. So we talk about what it looks like. We talk about how to solve it and what some of the side effects are of having upper cross syndrome. Also, if you're listening to this episode when it's being released, right? When it's being released, you are lucky because these are the final hours for the MAPS aesthetic end of the year 50% off sale. Now MAPS aesthetic is a full workout program that was inspired by bikini competitors, bodybuilders and physique competitors. So it's a program designed to dramatically impact and improve your visual aesthetics, how you look. Again, it's 50% off. Here's how you get the discount. Go to mapsblack.com and use the code black50, B-L-A-C-K-5-0, no space for the discount. Dude, I've been terrible with my workouts this last week and a half. Oh my goodness. Your workouts have been terrible? Well, I mean, they've been non-existent right now. I was on such a roll. Oh, that makes sense.  I was like, it looks terrible. Oh God, don't do that.  I don't know what that is. That's the average.  You know what they're averaging? Some people lose weight. They're averaging the people that are starving in third world countries. Oh, that's terrible. That's what they're doing. They're averaging those people out with all the people that gain all the weight. Oh, you only gain like one or two pounds. Because I'm like, I don't know, dude. I don't work out. So I miss like, I don't know. I think I'm on, realistically I think I've only missed about six or seven days straight. Which for me, that's a lot. Like if I miss a whole week with not a single workout, that's a big deal. So I think I'm coming up on a week right now. So you think that worldwide, the average person gains one or two pounds over the holidays, but America's keeping that average up? Yeah, America's pushing eight to 12 pounds, but because we've got third world countries that are losing weight over the holidays, it's averaged out. So I'm convinced that's what it is. Dude, going a week without working out for me just feels, forget the lack of fitness. I just don't, it's like my meditation. I need it. I need that. I can find other things to replace that during the, because here's the thing, part of me too. I'm just not physical if I don't work out. There's nothing I do other than work and how that's physical. Part of me, I'm very aware too that we are borderline the other side, right? Like we can be neurotic about exercise. That's part of, we talk about that, our insecurities drove it. So I'm very careful to what I say to myself that why I have to work out. Like I'm healthy, right? You know what I'm saying? I know I'm there. So missing seven days of working out during the holidays to enjoy Christmas cookies and have drinks with my family and oh baby, soften up a bit.  Well no, what I mean by that is like, if I don't, other than exercise, I'm not active. I don't have anything in my day that makes me active. Well, I find that that's funny because if I'm not working out, like I'll find ways for me to go outside and like do things. Me too. Like I will go out and like actually that's when I do most the physical labor.  I'm like building something. Like I don't know, my body just feels like, ah, I have to do something. So I'm good about that too, right? So if I, like in this week, I haven't done that, but I've gone for hour plus walks where I put like a book in and I listen to it or take Macs or you know, we played like three hours of ping pong yesterday. So I'll still be moving, right? Like I can't, Yes, I don't move at all. Because I get what you're saying. If I actually just sat on a couch and just laid around and drank an eight for two or three days straight, like no. I can't do that, man. Yeah, it's like impossible. I can't just sit for that long. It just drives me crazy. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. If I don't work out, I literally will not do any physical activity. Yeah. And it just feels terrible. Look at Doug's trying to tighten the cleaning so he's not on the video camera. I was like, wait, what's Sal talking about? He's talking right now.  That was sneaky, Doug.  You don't care what's all right. The dust that came into this, everything from the bathrooms, and we have the doors closed, but there's a fine... Can we say we're remodeling the bathrooms right now? Yeah, why would we go there? Well, I mean, can we take credit for it? I feel like we can take credit for it. I feel like we're gonna pay for it whether we like it or not. Yeah, exactly. It's our idea. But there's a thin layer of fine dust on everything from it. And it makes you want... Sheetrock dust? It gets in everything. So, you know, it's funny. When I walk in, the smell reminds me of when I'd go to work with my dad because it's that common construction kind of smell. Now, do you guys ever wonder if... I would love to see the statistics on construction workers and things like lung cancer. Do you guys think that they suffer more from those types of things? Respiratory disease? I think that there are studies on that. Yeah, there have to be, right? It's got to be ramifications. Yeah, no, look it up. I think I've seen that before. Yeah, because you're breathing in this fine dust. You know what's supposed to be really bad is the insulation and stuff like that, right? That's supposed to be really bad. Isbestos? Well, yeah. We've known that for a while. The old methods, yeah. No, that's the... Condemn your house. That's the popcorn sealing stuff, but you can just like regular insulation because of how thin and fine it is. I think that's really bad. I got a question about isbestos. So, you're saying the popcorn sealing. So, when we were kids, a lot of the... Because you don't see it anymore, right? The ceilings were that popcorn stuff? Yeah. That itself was isbestos? Yeah. So, when I was a kid and me and my cousin would go on... Scrape it off. And we'd fucking... We'd make it snow in the room. So bad, dude. Was that what we were doing? So bad. We were giving ourselves isbestos in our lungs? Yes. No way. That's like the worst you could do. Absolutely. That's why you gotta be very careful. It's long-term exposure, though. So, it's not like, you know... Yeah, but if you're breathing it's bad.  It's there.  That's what we did, dude. We had bunk bed and we'd get on the top bunk and we'd stand on it and we'd go... Oh, no. ...with our hands and laugh. Ha, ha, ha. Yeah. And just make it snow everywhere. And, you know, moms would be like, ah, you make a mess.  Just... Yeah, that's saying. Oh, man. Yeah, because I heard too, even like people that live near airports, like they're... They're breathing... Like whatever's in the air is like so toxic. Like they're finding that from the jet fuel. Yeah, there's a certain proximity of like a mileage from... Yeah, it's the dust also from the freeways, but also, yeah, the jet fuel actually is like super toxic. Well, now when you work around dust and stuff, don't they have like laws that require you to wear certain types of masks or whatever? I think so. I think they're getting better at that. So my dad grew up obviously doing this kind of work in Sicily. Nobody wore a mask. He's like, a mask. What's that for? Who cares? Yeah, of course, yeah. Yeah. And then when he got a little older, you know, he would just put on like a gardening, you know, like that's supposed to help. I told you guys, like I seriously would go on these long vacations with my family and we had this truck that like, we would sit in the back with the cover over it and it was right next to the gasoline tank and we would breathe gasoline fumes for hours. Dad, I love that.  I remember it vividly, I was like, oh man, it's just like, I got a really bad headache. My dad's like, I feel so bad for that, you know? Is this one because you'd ride in the back of the truck? Yeah, you ride in the back. You're just huffing fumes.  I was probably like, high as hell, too. Just like, walking all over it. I'm having fun. Yeah, it's back when nobody cared if you wore a seatbelt. Oh, they didn't know. They didn't know, you know? Like, nobody knew. No, I sat on my mom's lap in the front seat. Oh, really?   Yeah, I would break her, you know, I would break her fall. You're the buffer though.  Oh, my God, dude. The baby airbag. Yeah, baby airbag. It's a new thing. Sal didn't make it, but his mom did. Terrible. Dude, I watched an old movie for the very first time a couple of days ago. What's that? So Jessica has always, always talks about dirty dancing.  Patrick Swayze. Have you never seen it? No, I've never seen it. You've never seen Dirty Dancing? No, so here's the story. I thought I had seen Dirty Dancing. I thought I knew the movie. You watched the Kevin Bacon one, Footloose. No, no, no, no, no. I love that, I actually love Footloose. Everybody cut loose. Yeah, that's one of my favorites. Yeah, no, so she's like, oh, Dirty Dancing, one of my favorite movies when I was growing up, it's such a great movie, this and that, and she's like, please watch it with me.  Anyway, there's a show on Netflix called, it's about the movies that made us. Made the eight, yeah, yeah, yeah. Something like that. Old movies, like classics, but it talks about all about how they were made and whatever. So one night we were hanging out and, you know, poor Jessica, every time we watch TV, I control what's on the TV. So I'm like, all right, I'm gonna put on something that I think she'll wanna watch. So I said, let's watch this about the making of Dirty Dancing. Kind of interesting for me about one of our favorite movies. So as we're watching it, very interesting, I'm realizing I've never seen Dirty Dancing. Really? Yeah, I've seen enough clips of it to- To think you did? Yes. I know our memory is so, like, flawed. I've never seen it, I've seen- I've done that before too. I've seen pieces of it, you know? Like, so I thought I watched it, but then as I'm watching the making of it, I'm like, oh, what, that happened? That's the story? She's like, yeah, it's not just about dancing. There's this and that and the other. I was raised by a woman and had two sisters, so I've watched it probably 30 times for sure, yeah. Anyway, it's a pretty good movie. Did you guys practice the move afterwards? No. I can't move like that. Patrick Swayze's take you dead, dude, man. He can move. He actually really could, right? He actually has- He danced for years and did it at a very high level before he became- Right, so he doesn't, that's not an extra. He's the one who's dancing. No, so the story goes that when they were looking for actors to play the role, they loved his look, but on his, I don't know what it's called, resume or whatever for actors, it said, will not dance. So they didn't- So they didn't pick him at first, but they loved the way he looked so much. So then they dug deeper because they couldn't find anybody and they found out that he had a very extensive dance background. But the reason why he didn't dance, he didn't want to dance as an actor is because he played football in high school and busted his knee and it just hurt his knee too much. So as an actor, he said, I don't want to dance. And up until this point, he was in The Outsiders, great movie, one of my favorite movies. Red Dawn, another great movie with him. Which by the way- My favorite was Road House by the way. Road House? I don't know if he did that before or after Dirty Dancing. Right around the same time.  He was like a Texas boy, super intense. All five, five of them? Five, 10. No. Yeah, he's five, 10. Is he really five, 10? Yeah, he's short. Oh, I thought he was, no, I thought he was five, five is what I said. I thought he was really short. Really? Yeah. Are you sure about that? 100%. Yeah, they said it in there? No, you know why? Because I was having this argument. Oh yeah, because she's like, no, he's not. He's taller. You said he was taller. He's a pretty fit dude. They're talking about him being taller. You're like, yeah, he's five, four, of course. And I'm like, he's only five, five. He's just like, no, he's not. That's what I was like, yeah. And then I'm like, wait a minute, he played high school football. I'm like, but then again, this is probably back in the 70s, so the standards were just high. Well, most actors we found out are pretty short, so. It's true. No, I didn't know he was five. I actually thought he was, in fact, I thought he was one of those guys like, who's the other one that's super short and they shoot all his camera angles from down to up. Tom Cruise probably. Yeah, there's a, you know, they do that for a lot of these guys, right? They shoot it from down up on them or they actually literally have. They have a stand on stuff. Yeah, stand on stuff when they're like talking to another, like a female character that's got four inches on them. Well, Tom Cruise, when he was married to Nicole Kidman. She's like way taller than him. She's like three inches taller or whatever. They were together, they were in that movie. What's that movie? Far and Away. Yeah, I knew, you'd know that. He's with her in Days of Thunder too, right? By the way, in Far and Away, the one fighter that beat him was the Italian fighter, right? Look at that, the Italian fighter stuff. Give us another try. Put me in the ring. Conor McGregor. That's all I gotta say. Every time he talks about it, it reminds me of the Eddie Murphy standup where he does the whole, the Italian watches Rocky and then thinks he's a badass instantly afterwards. He gets like the gloves. He keeps those juju beats right there, Mooli. Terrible. So he's bouncing a ball. No, that was a great movie. Far and Away was a phenomenal movie. Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, and then The Outsiders, I just mentioned that. When's the last time you guys watched that? If, I mean, we watched that in school because you read the book and everything and you watched the movie but I think I watched it later on too. It's just a good movie overall. The Outsiders had more. There was a lot of famous actors in there. Huge A-list actors. Didn't a lot of them get their start that one? Yes. But before they were all master. Right, right, that's how they got their start. Yes. Breakfast Club. There's a couple of movies like that where there was a ton of big actors. I'm gonna look up the actors in The Outsiders because... Right now, who is in there that is memorable besides Patrick Swayze? No, there was, here, I'll read them off to you. The actors in there were, it was Matt Dillon. That's who it was, yes. Ralph Maccio was in there. Rob Lowe was in there. There was Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, all in the same movie. All before they became... Tom Cruise? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, Tom Cruise was, oh, Emilio Estevez. He was like a background character, yeah. He was, and then I think Emilio Estevez was, what was his name, Soto Pop? Uh-huh, uh-huh. Soto Pop was in there? Yeah. Anyway. Young Guns was one of my favorite movies, with Emilio Estevez. I love that movie. That's a good movie, isn't it? That's a great movie. That's a great movie. Yeah, he's Billy the Kid in that. Now, I thought that was historical when I was a kid. I thought that's actually what happened. Yeah, yeah. Now, it took some liberties with that one. Just a little bit. They combined all the old, blessed, you know, dudes all, yeah, hanging out together, you know. Anyway, Billy the Kid's an interesting story. Do you guys know much about him? Not a lot, like just from... I know the Hollywood version, but yeah, I don't really know the true background. Neither do I, I was hoping one of you guys... Okay, I was going to say, you got some knowledge to throw, because... They have a new documentary on him, but it got terrible reviews, so I didn't watch it. I actually was just clicking. I was going through this. You started me on it, Justin, because you brought up Willow. Oh, yeah. And I tried to convince Katrina. And so I went to that section of like, I forget what they call it, and... It's like nostalgia, or out of the vault. Yeah, it was something like that, where Willow was at, and I was going through other ones, and Young Guns, and then I clicked on Young Guns. Like, oh, I wanted to watch this. Couldn't get Katrina convinced to watch Willow or Young Guns. And that led me to a new documentary that was on Billy the Kid, but the reviews are terrible. Katrina, now you guys like this, because Katrina gets mad at her, she gives me a hard time for this. Like, if something is rated, and it gets less than 50%, I will not watch it. And she's like, that is so weird that you do that. Why don't you make up your own mind and watch it? And I'm like, because 10,000 people looked at this. You don't want to waste your time. Yeah, and more than half of them said it was terrible. So why don't... It's almost always right. Yes. I've never... It's very accurate. Okay, the only time where it's wrong, here's where it's wrong.  It challenges ideas.   So if I kind of know what the theme of the movie is, and I know that, I'm like, okay, it's gonna have a little bit of a conservative slide to it. But it's probably a good movie, and it got 60%. Like, it's probably a lot better. Honey, let's watch America is great. It's got 47%. Like, look at the title. America's great. Yeah, yeah, but look at that. I'm pretty sure that's why they said it wasn't good.  I had a hilarious conversation with my brother, and like, it was super, super political, but it was all about Star Wars. What? How was it political about Star Wars?  Yeah, pretty much.  Why am I even talking about it? And he just was cornering me, you know? It was like, bombarding me. Tell your brother you're like that. But you know what's funny about it is like, and again, this kind of like took me back to why it was so like, I'm all about Star Wars was because when we were kids, like, we went to the Grand Canyon, we saw it for the first time when we were really little and it had a huge impact on us. And I forgot that it had such a huge impact on my brother, too.  Like he, he went all in on it. And so it's like, he's read all the accessory books, like all the different directions they've taken it, like all this stuff. And I forgot all that. And so I'm talking to him and he's like, you know, like reciting all these different authors that have taken it this way.  But at the same time, like, you know, like it's, it's pessimist versus optimist. And that was like the, the stalemate that we had. Cause we, so it's interesting. Now, do you guys share similar, cause you guys grew in the same household and I know you grew up kind of conservative. Do you guys share similar political views or are you guys opposing? Like, yeah, so that's, it's funny. He's a teacher, isn't he? Yeah, he's a teacher. So he's, yeah, so you can guess what he is. Yeah, so he's different than me. You know, politically. And so it's like, that's, that's the underlying thing. So is he, is he, is he for, is he for the empire or what? Is it, is that what he is? He's for free stuff. That's hilarious. Yeah, everybody gets a lightsaber. Yeah. I was like, no, let's, let's not do that. You know, let's, let's keep it in the Skywalker family. You know, let's speak, let's be rational about this.   See, I avoid you. Yeah, the opposing, but actually. I'm gonna go do something outside. As soon as I say the word actually, everybody's like, ah, there I go. Here he goes. He's gonna tell you why you're wrong. I shared, I shared that, oh my God, the post or the message that Justin Brink sent to us, Dr. Brink, that he sent to us.  It was funny. And so I copied and pasted it and I put it on my family thread. And I rubbed like two of my family members the wrong way. Really? What was bad about that? Just, oh. We're just making fun of the like, don't offend anybody. Yeah, yeah. That's all it was. Yeah, no, it was totally, I thought it was completely fair play and funny. Like, and here's the thing, why I brought this up because it's interesting that we're here at this time.  And I'm like, it was a joke, first of all. You know, it wasn't like we were talking politics. It's not even a political. It's, I know. Well, it is. It starts off with two my, my Democrat neighbors, two my Republican neighbors. Well, I mean, but that's, it's covering everybody though. Yeah, I know, but it's a little bit. It's here at the end of the day, it's funny, right? And what it reminds me of, and I thought about this today because I have a buddy of mine. Do you guys, did you guys see the post that I did about a Dak Prescott, the Cologne? No. The meme that I did. Oh, so it was making fun of Dak Prescott, which is the quarterback to the team that I'm a fan of. And I got roasted from one of my other best friends who's a diehard Cowboys fan.  Because I go, because it's funny. But you teamed, dude. Right, right.  You're not, you're not loyal, you know what I'm saying? I'm like, dude, why can I, why can I still have fun and make fun of them too? Cause I think it's hilarious. It's a hilarious meme. And it's at my expense, considering I'm a fan. So I get it, right? But I'm okay with that. I feel the same way. The way people are like that with sports, they get the same way with politics. And what I was giving my cousin a hard time about is the answer is not shut it all down and don't have a conversation about it. It's be okay with it. It's okay. It's okay to tease and have fun. Where it gets, where it goes bad is when people get angry about it. When you get defensive and then you feel like you identify with one side or the other so much that you can't look at a meme or you can't look at a joke and laugh at it, you feel you need to defend it. And that to me, that's a problem today. Yeah, see for me, because I try to stay as objective as possible and I can typically find something wrong with either side, depending on the subject that people typically have a tough time guessing. And I've had this happen, guessing with what my position is. So there'll be a discussion going on and we'll talk about, you know, whatever. And I'll have my opinion. And then they'll be like, yes, also you voted for so-and-so, right? And the other person's like, no, no, no. He definitely voted for so-and-so, but actually you're both wrong. Because they can't guess, but I have family members that you don't want to bring up politics at all because they go, it's too much. It's too intense. Automatically they turn into- That's really unfortunate. And you were the first person to tell me, I didn't know this. Like when you talked about how the role of the jester, right, for the kings and the importance of that. And I think about that today. Like, and then that probably evolved into, you know, political cartoons, which then probably evolved into like stand-up comedians. And, you know, like we talked about what Bill Burr was talking about. And you could almost feel that the climate's going to shift and change by what the comedians are talking about. Because it's gotten so ridiculous that there's irony and comedy in it that you're hearing it now. And I think that plays a huge role in keeping the balance, this balancing the scales out. It releases the pressure. Yeah, it takes a little bit out of it. And it's so needed. Cause yeah, if you can't challenge your own ideas and kind of make fun of it and see it from other angles, then, you know, it's really not that valid. Like you're just too emotionally driven and you're too attached to that. And you need to be challenged. I think laughter exists for that exact reason. Evolutionarily speaking, I think it specifically exists to break tension. Yeah. I was really disappointed in my family, the two that, I mean, the threat has like 10 or 11 of us, 10, I think 10 of us on it. And, you know, two of them were, you know, sour about it. Oh, it's not, it's like, come on. First of all, it's not a big political discussion. It was a funny post that I shared with you guys. Everybody else thought it was hilarious. You felt the need to get all sensitive about it. And I just think that's really funny. And I don't think that's the answer. The answer is not, don't say anything. Let's be so, she was making a point of, you know, maybe we should just be open to more people's opinions and views on things and be more tolerant. I'm like, okay, that's fine. I'm not saying you can't be tolerant to it, but you can also laugh at it. You can laugh at yourself. You can laugh at either side.  It's like, you know, you can either choose not to contribute to it and to get offended by it, like to identify with it.  Even the people that you like a lot, you're not gonna like everything about them. It's okay to not like certain things, but then also realize that that doesn't mean you hate the person. You know what I'm saying? There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, we had a big discussion over the holidays over what I would call the myth of easier. So we were talking about, I was talking to a family member and they were talking about how much easier it is to not worry about the nutrition that you have, you know, not worry about the food that you put in your mouth, how much easier it is to not go to the gym or schedule time for exercise, how it's just easier to just kind of coast and not worry about those things. And the argument that I made was that that's a myth. It's actually a myth that those things are easier because it's actually much harder to be unhealthy. I was gonna say it's, I wouldn't think it's easier. Well, that's the thing. I think people, because it requires structure and discipline, they equate that to, it's harder. But the reality is good health and the discipline that goes into it is easier than the consequences of bad health. Being in poor health, obese, diabetes, chronic pain. I think what it gives, what I would have contributed to that conversation is that I think what contributes to that is how distracted we are today. Therefore it feels like it's easy to just not do it because you're distracted with other things where 50, 60 years ago, you would just be sitting there being doing nothing, right? Where we can easily pick up a phone or watch them stream a movie or do something to distract us and not make us think about things, right? Think about my current health state. Think about what I'm not doing because I'm always doing something now because we got so much, it's so easy to do. Well, think about it. Avoiding things always seems easier. And then it keeps stacking up on you. And when you realize you just had to address it and you could have tackled that thing before it got bigger and bigger and bigger, it would have been way easier for you to do that. Well, think about this way, right? Like in order to become financially secure and let's say successful, that requires study, discipline, hard work, showing up every day, performing well. And yes, that's all hard work. That's all requires lots of discipline. But how much harder is it to have zero financial stability or to be in poverty? For lack of doing those types of things, see what I'm saying? That's why I call it the myth of easier. The reality is the road that you think, the road towards better health and all that stuff may look like it's more difficult because it requires discipline and structure, but the reality is that's the easy road. The hard road, I mean, poor health is hard. Super hard, it's tough, it's way more expensive.  It's actually cheap to eat healthy when you compare the savings in terms of productivity and your health and type of stuff. Oh, I think there's lots of examples of that within fitness too. Like I think about ignoring all the mobility work and corrective work and stretching I should have been doing for years.  It then took all this hardcore dedication to get back to a place where I could squat really deep. I didn't have bursitis in my hips, my low back pain was gone, but what's great now, and what I've made sure of is that maintaining that is actually really easy. As long as I make sure I do a few things every single week that keep me mobile and capable to do that position, I should never lose it, where I ignored it for so long that when I finally did address it, it became this huge daunting task. Well, part of the challenge is when people or they've done studies on this, when they give people the option of like, how far do you think you'll be in five years or 10 years? We tend to be overly optimistic the further the dates go out. So like, do you think you'll be at this position in 10 years and people are definitely yes. You say something like next week, people are much more pessimistic. So when we're doing that in our minds in terms of like, okay, I gotta make it to the gym three days a week, I gotta eat healthy or whatever, that's all immediate. And so we think to ourselves, I'll be fine in five years, I'll take care of it much later on. But the reality is it's much more difficult. It's much, the truth is the easier path is the one that means that you have discipline and that you're doing the things that are contributing to positive health and to positive changes in your life. It's far more difficult to not do those things. Even though it feels immediately, it's like it's easier. Like, oh, I get to relax and not work out or I don't need to worry about my nutrition and just eat whatever I want. The reality is that's the more difficult and challenging path. And so that's why I think if you look at what you want, what do I want? I want good health, I want stable family, I want good financial security. Think of all the things you need to do to get there and then think to yourself, oh, that's real hard. But wait a minute, let me weigh it against the opposing side. Poor health, poor financial stability. What does that look like? Okay, now I can see which one the easier choice is. You see what I'm saying? Was this a conversation with your family or Jessica's family? No, it was one of my cousins we were just talking about this. Yeah, we were just talking about how, and they agreed once I was able to explain myself, they agreed because they were trying to say how much hard work it takes to maintain health and fitness. And I said, no, I think discipline, yes, and consistency, yes, I said, but it's actually easy in comparison to the alternative. And then I made my argument. I think maintaining a healthy weight and eating healthy and being healthy, that is relatively easy. I think trying to do things like shaping the body or performance gains, things like that is what that takes. Well, you could take it even further, sure. Right, but to just have good balance, I think that we've over-complicated it. I think people think, I remember my buddies when I first was really getting into fitness and they'd always asked me, what are you gonna do when you get older?  Spend two hours in the gym every day, who's gonna do that?  I don't do that now, why would I do that? I think people think that in order to have this physique that you have to be in the gym for hours and hours and hours and make crazy amounts of sacrifice, I think it's just having a better balance. And more importantly, I think it's more so just being very self-aware when you wanna go down this rabbit hole of bad eating and being lazy and not moving, like that can compound really fast. And I think that's what happens to a lot of people is, and they stay distracted, they don't pay attention to the slippery slope of not moving all day long, drinking, eating bad, that one day, two day before you know it, three, four weeks in a row of over-consuming 500 to 1,000 calories and not exercising. Well, yeah, fuck, that's, you are gonna do some damage, but if you make a conscious effort that to try and get in the gym two to three times a week, when you're not in the gym, be aware that you're not moving as much, you're not training, so probably reduce your caloric intake a little bit. When you do eat, try and target the things that are most nutritious for your body. You know, there's some really basic rules that if most people were to follow them would stay relatively healthy with very little effort. They would, they would. That's what we're trying to do, right? We're trying to teach people kinda how to do that. I was also reading about the, you guys have heard me talk about the entourage effect. You know, in regards to cannabinoids and how they work better together. I haven't explained the full, really the gist of the entire thing, because I've only referred to cannabinoids, but the entourage effect in studies also refers to the other things that come along with cannabinoids from the cannabis or hemp plant. Specifically, they're talking about cannabinoids and terpenes and terpenoids. So do you know what terpenes are? I've never heard of terpenoids, but I've heard of terpenes. So terpenes are what give plants the smell and the flavor, and they don't just exist in cannabis and hemp plants. They also exist in other plants. Regular flowers.  This is what they use for like all your oils and your smell good stuff that you plug into the wall. Yeah, like pine, okay, so like pineene. Pineene is a, it gives you a pine aroma. That's a terpene. There's, mercy is another one. There's tons of them that they've, limonene, that's the one that gives it like a citrus. What's interesting to me about where you're going right now is that, so I've known about that for a long time, but we're starting to find out more and more information about how those play like role too. They do. Other than just the smell and the flavor. No, they play a big role. So they're finding that, that the terpenes are one of the main reasons why some strains of cannabis will make you feel, even though the THC and the CBD and other cannabinoids are similar, why one may make you feel one way and the other one may make you feel a different way. Even though the cannabinoids are almost the same, it's the terpene differences. It's why some smell. Different combos you can actually put in a formula that has a different effect. Yes. And it's not just, it's just the, it's the whole package. So if you have like a strain of cannabis that smells like a, you know, skunk or whatever, it's the combination of the terpenes that give it that smell, plus the cannabinoids that are in there and other things that, that's what they call the entourage effect. So, you know, like, we work with Ned, right? You ever open the bottle and smell the Ned? It smells like it's from a plant. You could smell that because they keep the whole, the whole plant extract is in there. They don't take anything out. So it's not like some companies will produce like CBD oils or other cannabinoid type supplements, but either A, it's just CBD or B, it's just cannabinoids that are put in the oil. And then it's devoid of a lot of that smell. Yeah, it's devoid of all of the other things that make up the entourage effect. So I was just reading our article on terpenes themselves and new studies are coming out showing just how important they are. And they've identified that the terpenes contribute to anti-inflammatory properties. Oh, interesting. Pain relief, antibacterial properties, anti-fungal properties. Some of them assist with muscle spasms. Others may help with depression, anxiety, insomnia, and even stress. So I think it's far more complex. Do you think because it works kind of like a, like a regulator for so many things, right?  And that's kind of help. I don't think it'll go that far. I don't think there's an, I don't think there should be a, you know, like a recommended daily allowance. I think it'll still be used on a, you know, as needed type of basis as a way to, I don't know if I necessarily believe, maybe some people should take it every day, but I think it's gonna be more probably advertised and use more as a, as needed basis.  But the entourage effect, the studies are clear that if you look this up yourself, look up the entourage effect with cannabinoids and terpenes and you'll see what the studies show far, far more efficacious than isolated cannabinoids. Well, since we're breaking down science and we're doing commercials right now for Organifize Commercial today, I actually had a question for you in regards to their immunity boost. So I know that you've told me before, like the ideal thing for me to do, like when I feel like a cold coming. So I felt like my, my throat was kind of sore. It was like kicking up. And the first thing I did was go do the immune boost. And then the other thing that you always tell me to do is the elderberry, right? They say that right this time.  You always say Edelberry. I know. So the elderberry and that. And I couldn't find that. But then when I was, I was reading the back of the immune boost from Organify and it actually has zinc in there already. And isn't that what I'm searching for when I take the elderberry? No, no, no. They combo that and the throat lozenges. No, that's right. But yeah, you can get it by itself. That's not the main thing that I'm. No, so elderberry itself has. Oh, so it's not the zinc. I thought it was the zinc that was in the elderberry that was so. Zinc is another thing. Now zinc does not come in elderberry. Elderberry is a fruit that doesn't, it doesn't contain any zinc. Wait, what are the, the Sambuca ones that have. Those are, those are lozenges and they put zinc and elderberry together. So, okay. So I was confused. I was under the impression that the, cause when I look at the back of the, the Sambuca or whatever it is, elderberry, the majority of it, of it is the zinc. And so I thought the zinc was what the main benefit I was getting. Both. So elderberry itself is antiviral. So it's actually one of the few natural things. That actually works. It actually has clinical study to show that it reduces the severity and duration of influenza, which is obviously you guys know the flu is a terrible nasty virus. So elderberries quite effective against it in comparison to other natural remedies. Zinc in studies has been shown to prevent viral loads from increasing, in particular the rhinovirus, the cold. So zinc is good for when you have a cold. High levels of vitamin C is mixed. There's some studies that show that it helps. Other studies that show that it doesn't do anything. Anecdotally speaking, you know, I seem to do well when I'm getting a cold to take high doses of. I feel the same way. Of vitamin C. Low levels of vitamin D, probably definitely will reduce your immune system's ability to fight off infection. So they'll have some vitamin D in there as well. I was just saying, their immune boost has got all those things in it. You've got all that stuff in there. Yeah, the only thing, I don't think it, it doesn't have the elderberry though. It doesn't have elderberry in it. So I should take the elderberry with that immune boost and that's like the, anything else I should add to it. I mean, it's cold season right now. So I figured people would get a lot of value from this. This was something that hit me just recently and I was like scrambling in my house to make sure I put together. And I'm fine. Like I totally didn't get anything even though I felt like something was coming on. And it's because I do that because I doubled up on the immune boost. I took two of them and then one day and then I ended up tracking down the zinc lozenges. But then I looked at the back of the label and I was like, oh, that's already in here. So I don't need to take the zinc lozenges. All I need to take is the immune and then elderberry has its own value. Yeah, you could buy elderberry by itself. You could buy either in syrup form or like gummies or whatever and it's just all by itself with no zinc in it. Oh, okay. I have bought the gummies before. Yeah, a good strategy. This is just my own. So this is me combining what I've seen in certain studies and putting them together. So this is, I didn't read any studies on this particular protocol. But this is what I've done is where I'll do the immune boost just because that has the immunity from Organifi because it just has everything in there. Elderberry and sauna. And then make sure I get a good night's sleep. And lots of water. It lots of water. But yeah, sauna is good too because the sauna raises your internal core temperature kind of simulates a fever. It's like an artificial fever. And that stimulates your immune system to put out more, you know, basically boost the levels of compounds in your own natural body that fight infections and viruses. Interesting, I'll have to do that. And I don't recommend doing it when you're already sick. I don't think it's a good idea to go in there when you have a fever. Right, right. That might be, that might last very long. It's trying to catch your, I tell you when I'm good about it, like you have that, because everybody, not everybody, most of the time you feel this like little scratch in the back of your throat or notice a sneeze or a sniffle early. And if you're really good about it, and I've noticed this, if I get on it and I do those things, sometimes one, I won't even get it. Or what I've noticed is if I do still get sick, it's way quicker. Like I'm over it a lot faster than- Here's another thing too that you might want to consider is a lot of times people will get a sinus infection or a secondary infection after having a cold. So they'll get a cold. And then because a cold causes you to get congestion and build up of mucus that then the cold goes away, but because the cold caused that build up, then they'll get a secondary sinus infection. So it's like, I had a cold, cold kind of went away, boom. Now I have a sinus infection. Yeah, remnants. Yeah, so, pseudofed and mucinex. Those are pharmaceuticals, but pseudofed and mucinex might help prevent that because they clear out all the mucus and prevent you from producing a lot of it so that you don't get those secondary type infections. So that's another thing that I've done. That's my own, by the way, my own protocol. Don't, there's no scientific- So I said it, I'm doing it. That's it. Ambassador Health. First question is from Gimmie Cashews. How can stairs be used to lift the glutes for someone who lives in a multi-level setting? I thought this was a funny question. To lift the glutes? Yeah, so obviously trying to work her butt. And I think the reason why I picked this question is because how often do you guys see people on the stair master? And then they do that like flutter kick behind them? Yes, the glute kick behind them. And a lot of them do it because it works the glutes, right? And when you take big steps like that, the butt's being stretched out, you are stepping up your body weight. So there is some glute work that's happening, but I think that, I know a lot of people that that's their glute work is doing the stair masters. That's their theory is, oh, I wanna work my butt, so I do the stair master every day for my cardio. And I just wanted to answer this question because I think this is a type of question that is from people that believe this. And I think that's something that we haven't talked about in a long time and should dispel that. It'll build, you're doing high reps, cardio, stair master, walking upstairs. It'll build your glutes more than nothing will, okay? So in comparison to being sedentary, you'll build a little bit of glutes. In comparison to resistance training though, it's there's no comparison. It's nil. And you also gotta think if you're doing cardio or you're burning extra calories and if you're trying to diet at the same time, the likelihood that you're gonna get much or any growth at all in the butt is very unlikely because you gotta also remember too, and I think this is a mistake that people make when talking about the butt, very common that I get a client, especially my female clients that want to lose body fat but they also want to build their butt. And- Build muscle, essentially. Exactly. And that's the point I'm making, is that those are conflicting goals and it's better to focus on one or the other at a time.  You're in a caloric deficit. Your body is catabolic, meaning that we're breaking down. And so to be breaking down by being in a low calorie and doing exercise and expecting your butt to grow, especially doing things that are definitely on the very probably bottom of the list of things that help the butt grow, just highly unlikely. Yeah, it's too many reps too. It's just too many reps. You're gonna build stamina.  So you may be wondering, why would building stamina and endurance in a muscle not contribute to a lot of muscle gain or shape or size? Now, first off, when we're comparing it to doing nothing, you will get a little bit of muscle and shape and size in comparison to being totally sedentary, a little bit. But when you're comparing it to resistance training where you're training for eight reps or 12 reps and using heavy weight, that doesn't even come close. And here's why. High repetition, stamina, endurance means that your muscles need to be as efficient as possible. They need to be able to move over and over and over again for high repetitions without burning a lot of energy. That means the muscles can't be too big. They can't be too big. They need to be smaller. And because the high repetition type activity doesn't require a lot of force generation, you're not, you know, when you're climbing stairs, it's not like every stairs.  You need a lot of recruitment there. Yeah, so it's just low level muscle contractions that are done frequently in a lot. And you just need efficient, it's like getting a small engine for your car. You need something that's efficient. I want to put it in a perspective for someone too that does this, because I know this happens, okay? You could do the stair master five days a week for an hour at a time in pursuit of hoping it's going to build your butt. And you could put that up head to head against somebody who squats twice a week for four sets of 10 reps of a weight that's. Which is like 30 minutes, 20 minutes. Right, yeah, four sets of 10 reps. You could get that done in 15 minutes, right? Doing that just twice a week.  Plus you're taking it through the full range of motion, you know, that way, which you're just never going to get that type of range of motion doing the stairs. Yeah, no, okay, here's how you can use your stairs to build your butt if you want to maximize that. I would say take, first of all, skip steps. So go up every other steps. You have a deeper range of motion. Hold some weight, maybe put on a heavy backpack or just do real controlled slow reps and do maybe 10 steps for each leg. So 20 total steps, just right about there. And keep the intensity high. Meaning if you did that and it's easy, maybe hold onto some weight, put on a backpack, something that gives you some resistance. So you could skip each step and get that full range of motion come up, take the next step come up. After you've done your 20 total steps, rest for about 45 seconds to a minute and a half, then go back down the stairs and then do it again and do like five, maybe six sets of that. Treat it as resistance training. Treat it as lifting weights. Not cardio. Not cardio, not the, you're not doing 100 steps up and down every single, which there's nothing wrong with that. You're gonna get some fitness from it. You'll get some endurance and some stamina. But when it comes to building muscles, it's not gonna do much. Yeah, I would just hold weights and step up on a box, you know? Like you're much more effective. Yeah, but it's funny how quickly your body adapts to this, you know, I have family that lives in Sicily and a lot of the way the houses work over there is you live on a, like on a floor. So they'll have a building and each floor is a different, you know, is like one or two different apartments or whatever.   Every day they go grocery shopping.  And they're not buffed and muscular and all that stuff. Obviously fit and healthy. So it's not bad for you. It's just it ain't gonna be a great muscle builder of the glutes unless you add resistance and treat it like you're lifting weights. Next question is from Kai M. McClure. If someone is already healthy and feels good, how can you tell that the addition of a green supplement is working? Well, it depends on what you mean by feels good, right? And like there's a lot of different things that might make somebody feel good. Like a feeling good is what? You have good energy because that's definitely an indicator, right? So energy level, sleep, stamina, scan, hair, stool, all these things you get benefits from getting enough vitamins and nutrients on a regular basis.  But that's really rare that I have somebody who's kind of hitting it out the park on all those line items. There's normally somewhere that someone's missing and for me with clients, the biggest indicator of not getting enough greens and fiber is normally from clients that notice it from their stool. So stool is normally the first place that I notice that is off. They're just, they're either not shitting regular or when they do shit, it's constipation or it's not consistent. And those people are- You shouldn't struggle, that's the big one. You should not struggle when you go to the bathroom. It's funny when I say that to, when I've said that in the past to clients, I've gotten the weirdest looks because people think that you're supposed to. You gotta fight it out. No, people literally, what do you mean you're not supposed to struggle? That's how you poop, right? You sit on the toilet and you're like, gotta kind of push it out. It's like, no, no, no, that's not, it should be okay. Like you should- You should just plop out. You should feel really nice. Yeah, you shouldn't feel like you're going to war or whatever every time you go to the bathroom. Wait, no, here's the thing with certain supplements. Okay, some supplements, you gauge them by their acute effects. So like caffeine is an example. You take caffeine 30 to 60 minutes. You feel it. If you feel nothing, maybe what you're taking doesn't have any caffeine in it and you're bought something that's, you know, that's bunk or whatever. Other supplements, they are not, you're not going to necessarily notice an acute effect. It's more cumulative over time. Now that may be difficult for you to identify. You know, okay, I've been taking this green supplement for, you know, two months and I think I feel good, but I don't know if it's the green, here's how you know, stop taking it. Yeah. So take it for, you know, 30 to 60 days, you could do like, Organify their green juice is a good example. Take that for 30 to 60 days, take it every day, you know, one serving or whatever every other day. Everything feels good, you know, everything seems okay. Then stop cold turkey and see if you notice any differences. And I've done that with certain supplements where I'm like, you know, you're making me, you know, feeling any better. And then I'll stop totally and be like, Oh yeah, I was getting some benefits. And to the point that it accumulates, the same thing will happen when you cut cold turkey.  Oh wow, I don't have energy. Pay attention over the course of the next week or two of not having it because it's going to take some time for you to not be getting those nutrients before you probably start to see it being expressed through the body, whether it be through energy or stool, which are the two energy and stool or the probably the top two, although they can't. Skin is a big one. Skin, skin and hair also, but I think the easiest for people to measure, unless you have skin issues like I do, like when I'm, when I'm at a balance. That's your main signal. Yeah, like for me, because I have psoriasis, like man, when I fall off my vitamin D like supplement, it is very obvious to me. It's not even a question. And it does. It takes about a week or so of falling off of it and not taking it consistently. Then all of a sudden my psoriasis is nasty. If you have pretty good skin already, skin might not be the best indicator. So it really just depends on the person on how it will express itself. But like Sal said, I mean, you be consistent with it for a while. And this is like, this is how I teach people to do anything, right? Anything that you're doing, even things like cardio and exercise. Like, you know, do something consistently, pay attention, and then stop doing it and be consistent with not doing it for a while and pay attention to the difference. That's how you measure and decide if something is doing. So here's how I use supplements like a green supplement. The way I use green supplements is I'll take them. And if I feel really good taking them, then it means I'm not eating enough vegetables. That's how I use it. So it's like, if I take them and I notice nothing, then that means that my vegetable intake is pretty good. Well, traveling is a big revealer of that for me a lot of times, because that's when vegetables- That's when vegetables- You really have to seek vegetables, you know, when you're eating out all the time. And then you totally notice that.  Thanks, Justin. Yeah. Next question is from Chandler Dessenberger. As a 19-year-old college student who is trying to save money, I'm struggling with whether it's worth it to buy organic grass-fed groceries. There's a hierarchy of things you should prioritize when you're buying food.  So those are the top most important things. So try to hit your caloric intake and try to hit your macronutrient intake goals, proteins, fats, carbohydrates. The second thing I would say is to avoid heavily processed foods. Now it's not because heavily processed foods are inherently bad, although for the most case, heavily processed foods tend to be less healthy for you than whole natural foods. But the reason why I'm telling you to avoid them is because they make you overeat. This is just unequivocal. This is 100% proven.   And that, right there, combats the most important thing I just said which was calories and macros. So if you handle those three things right there, calories, macros, avoid heavily processed foods, you are doing pretty damn good. Then I would go, next I would go to organic and food quality and that kind of stuff. But you gotta tackle those first things first because what you don't wanna do is what I've had clients do where they're like, they wanna lose 40 pounds and they tell me, but Sal, I eat organic, everything.   You're gonna suffer from negative health effects from that regardless of how organic or grass fed it is. Somebody posted a, not only a hierarchy of what you just listened, but also a hierarchy of organic foods. For example, if it's like an avocado, which has got a thick skin that you don't eat. Or a banana. Right, or a banana.  It's open and exposed. And I gotta find who had, I thought it was maybe Max or somebody who posted this post, but I'd seen it and I thought that was really valuable to somebody asking this question because if you are trying to decide and you're trying to save every buck you can because you're a college student, I understand that. Plus, CSAs are cheap.  You know, it's gonna last you like a couple of weeks. That's like super cheap. It's all in just the planning of it. Your CSA, what? The CSA is like a local farm that you can come and deliver it to you. It's really not expensive at all. And then if you get the rest, if you do something like a butcher box or something where it's like, you know, you can sort of plan it out. It just takes more planning, but you can really keep the cost way low these days. You know what though? Let's think about this for a second. You got a college student saying I need to save money. I wanna know if it's whatever. Here's a deal, okay? You're probably buying alcohol or you're probably eating out. It's not expensive at all to buy rice, which is cheap. Yeah, everything in bulk, dude. You could buy organic chicken breasts and chicken thighs, which are cheap. You could buy vegetables. You can buy vegetables pretty damn cheap if you get frozen organic vegetables. And by the way, frozen is not bad. Frozen's fine. It's actually good. In fact, I prefer frozen because I throw away less of them than when I buy fresh because then they go bad.  Chicken, organic in bulk, rice, there's your starches in your car, potatoes. Potatoes are the cheapest food on earth. There's your starch right there. So when people say I'm trying to save money, it's like, okay, if I look at what you're spending, you're probably eating out, you're probably buying a burrito or a sandwich or whatever. The reality is you'll save more money if you go to the store, buy those things in bulk and prepare them. The investment's really like the freezer. You gotta make sure you got a really good freezer. You could stock up with it. And then anything to grill it with, like the George Farman grill or something. If you have that, you're pretty, pretty safe. I actually lived on that when I was in college. I mean, the George Farman saved me. Yeah, I mean, even steak, you can get sometimes bulk prices on steak. Well, like Justin said, butcher box is super reasonable. Yeah, when you look at what you're paying for grass fed, if you were to buy that in the grocery store, it would cost you more money.  So I get my chicken thighs and my beef all come from them. And I go through that. And so that's, it's not that much more money at all.  Be honest, when you look at people who are like, oh, it's too expensive and you look at the money they spend on food.  You make a list and yeah, compare and contrast. Because you're going to be real surprised.  How much money could you save if you did that? I mean, incredible. Next question is from One Fit GMA. How do you know if you're suffering from upper cross syndrome? Oh, okay, so. You are. So this is a good, no, I like the way this is. Are you falling to the ground? I like the way this is written because suffering is the operative word here. Now, upper cross syndrome looks like rolled forward shoulders, head that kind of jets forward. It's a very visible posture. Yeah, that's what upper cross syndrome looks like. Suffering from upper cross syndrome, though, is a little bit different because there's posture deviations and differences in individuals. Like what is good posture for one person? Might be not good for another person. All that depends on is can you move? Are you mobile? Do you have pain? Can you reach straight up above your head?  Can you, when you do movements and exercises, does your neck hurt? Are you tight? Yeah, you're always straining your neck. Yeah, if you don't have any pain, you feel good, you're super mobile, and you can do lots of different things and you're not weak or whatever. Well, that's the key term that you just said right there is your mobile. And you may not be suffering to your point where you have neck pain, back pain, or issues like that. And this is why we created Maps Prime. In Maps Prime, the Zone 1 test that you take at home will point this out for you. And to address the point that you're making right now, Sal, which is you kind of just went right over it, but I think is important, is do you have the proper mobility and range of motion that you should have in your shoulders? Which is normally where if you have upper cross syndrome and you don't have pain going on and you're not quote unquote suffering from it, you may be fine from that aspect, but have horrific shoulder mobility. And that's probably the most common area. In other words, you'll eventually suffer. Right. Yeah, at the same point you'll start to suffer. Right, it may not be causing issues now, but it inevitably will eventually cause issues. And the reason why I said right away that you have it, almost everybody has upper cross syndrome to an extent. And that's just because we do everything in front of us. You don't do anything behind you. We drive, we write, we do things, we eat. We do everything in this forward position.  Everybody has to do something to plan to address it, to counter the effects of upper cross syndrome because it is so part of our everyday experience and reaching for things like you said and doing all these everyday activities. You have to create a plan for exercising in order to be able to support your body in better posture and everybody should think in that direction. Yeah, well a lot of people too, they have chronic pain, minor chronic pain that they've had for so long. They don't even know. Yeah, so it's like, do you suffer from upper cross syndrome? You know, I feel fine. Like, okay, does your neck ever get tight? Oh yeah, yeah, by the end of the day, my neck gets tight. Yeah, headaches. Do you get headaches, like tension headaches? Like, yeah, those kind of bother me or whatever. Yeah, just take an exaggeration, I'm fine. How do you feel when you throw a frisbee around or a baseball? Oh, my shoulder starts to hurt and it's kind of sore. It's like a kink. Yeah, so you got to ask, and this by the way, this is so common, like as a trainer when I would do assessment and I would always ask, like, do you have any areas of pain or immobility? And almost always they would say, no, no, I have no pain. I feel good. Then you take them through all the way. Then I would take them through. I would say- Then you get halfway. Then I would go piece by piece. I'd be like, okay, no pain. Shoulders, do your shoulders ever bother you? Do you ever have any pain? Oh yeah, sometimes. What about your neck? Well, sometimes, how about your knees? Well, my knee, my left knee, that one gets kind of- Wait a second. I thought you were fine. When it rains, this one really, you know. I didn't want to bring it up. Yeah, so I mean, if you have really bad upper cross syndrome, you probably have tight neck. Your neck probably gets real tight. A lot of tension in your upper trap, kind of neck area. You might get tension headaches. And you may notice shoulder problems when you try to play conventional sports, like throwing a baseball or throwing a Frisbee or maybe you reached up to grab something and then your shoulder kind of felt a little tweak. Those are common problems. Or just tightness in the upper back. Those are common problems. Here's a real easy without you having to go get maps prime and do it like put your back against a wall and see if you can put your hands all the way up above your head touching the wall. Very few people do that.   Lift your arms above your head. Straight up.    It's just, I mean, we're all so rounded forward that we've lost that ability to do that. And how good that feels when you can achieve it. Oh yeah, oh man, it's like, that's what everybody always expresses once they go through that, is just like this new feeling. Your body almost rewards you when it's stacked properly and you're in good posture. Totally. And with that, go to mindpumpfree.com and download all of our resources and guides. They're all totally free. We have all kinds of stuff there from burning body fat, building muscle, targeted body part guides. So like ones for legs and arms and your midsection. Again, it's at mindpumpfree.com. You can also find the three of us on Instagram. You can find Justin at Mind Pump. Justin, me at Mind Pump Salon. Adam at Mind Pump. Adam.


Yeah, okay. Let's start. Yeah. Hi everyone. I am so happy to be here. We're both so happy to be here. I know I'm speaking. Amazing. Thank you so much, everybody. Yeah. So I think now is a great time to start. But wait, let's do a selfie. Right now? Let's do it. Let's do it right now. All right. All right. Come on. It's a beautiful audience over here. It's a beautiful day to begin. Let's do a quick selfie. So we can do it. Everybody make some noise. Come on. No, it can start. Okay. Now I feel ready. All right. So it's a good time to start talking about the terrifying migration to Kubernetes. And I am sure that when I say terrifying migration, all you can think of is failing apps and nodes crushing and pod errors and developers running around aimlessly. And what else? Crazy. And 10,000 tickets and PD alerts all over, right? It's pretty crazy days for sure. And all of this may sound unreal, right? Or at least it sounds like these are not your problems. It's not our problems. Obviously not our problems. Well, wait. I think it's a good time for you to present yourself. All right. Cool. So good morning, everybody. And thank you for joining us today. My name is Batel Zoran. I'm working at JFrog as a developer advocate in the last six and a half years before that I was a developer. And I love to talk about security and DevSecOps. And my amazing colleague today, Mae, will introduce herself. Yeah. I am Mae Baseron. I'm DevOps at Forder. And I am currently leading the migrations of 420 services to Kubernetes. And I'm a Sworn Star Wars fan. I don't know if everyone noticed that I have R2D2 heals. That's amazing. I don't suffer for nothing. Clap. Come on, clap, clap. Give it up for the R2D2 heals. Thank you so much. All right. So now I want to take you all to a great journey to a far, far away land where we have Silicon Valley. And in Silicon Valley, we are going to talk about a small company or medium sized company named Pipe Piper. Pipe Piper is a compression, is a file compression company. And as such, they have a lot of data to mess with. They have a lot of heavy lifting to do. And they needed to go on scale. Now, Pipe Piper? I mean, yeah. Yeah. We promise that we will talk about Kubernetes migrations. And we are going to do that. We're going to talk about the Kubernetes migrations at Pipe Piper. So over here, you can see the two DevOps from Pipe Piper. We have Dinesh and Richard. And what they're doing is they're planning the migrations to Kubernetes. They started by planning the infrastructure. And the way that the infrastructure goes at Pipe Piper is that the configuration and the provisioning of the cloud resources is actually done by the developers. And it is done by using a Python DSL. So they take this Python code and they generate some cloud formation templates. And this is how they define the cloud resources. So those DevOps guys, they decided to use the same Python code in order to generate the Kubernetes manifest. And that was the time to start the migrations. All right. So let's talk about the migration. And let's meet Monika. So Monika is a backend developer at Pipe Piper. And she got a sprint task to migrate the API gateway service to Kubernetes, which sounds pretty simple, right? She already have everything she need. And it's labeled. We have two days' work. What can go wrong? So two days for migration. First migration? Totally legit. Pretty legit. All right. So she started to learn a bit more about Kubernetes. She opened the official documentation. She read a lot about Kubernetes. And then she figured out that it's written in YAML. She expected for Python, right? They have their code DSL. And yeah, she decided that she can't do that. It's too hard. And you know what? Seven tickets, 14 days, a thousand coffee mugs, Brazilian questions to the DevOps. And you don't want to know what it looked like when the DevOps got Brazilian questions. I'm at lunch. Sorry. Don't bother me. That's how it looked. And she was still not done. It was horrible for her. Not. I wasn't there. No, no, no. Yeah, it's not our problem. It did not happen to us. And if we want to talk about what was the problem, then we can say, oh, it was the fact that they used an in-house tool, right? Wrong. Because there are a lot of companies who use in-house tools, and they don't experience these issues. And I think that if I want to put it more precisely, then we can say that the problem was the knowledge gap. And how do you know that you have a knowledge gap? It's when... Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Oh, my God. I tried to look at them. You're so serious.  Yeah, it's terrifying migration, you know? Thinking about the knowledge gap. So how do you know if you have a knowledge gap? It's when you expect the developers to do something, but you don't provide enough information for them to be able to do so. So was that the end of the problems? Not really. So it seems like everything was good. They celebrate. They have a great company, all ends. And then suddenly they got speedy alerts. Like everybody here loves, right? So they got some errors. But wait, wait. A second before that, a few hours, they just had some great, great issues. Just another slide, please. So they already migrate everything. They were so shorted. Everything working perfectly. So they decided to remove the old migration, right? Why do they need to pay for it? Everything works so good that they don't need this old EC2 thing, right? So they have their Kubernetes environments and tons of PD alerts. In the middle of the company, all ends, they took their laptops, started to debug everything and see what all of these 500 errors. So let's go back one step and talk a bit about the environment. So it looks pretty simple, right? We have our Kubernetes application, we have our bucket, S3 bucket, and we have our database. And everything should work perfectly because they just copy the configuration from the old environment. They still have their security rules. They still have pretty similar S3 bucket and databases. So when one thing was missing, actually, they already have their security rules, their firewall rules, and it seems like everything should work perfectly because the test did a bit and the services was running. But whenever we're talking about thousands of services, it's a bit more complicated. In some cases, it's really worked perfectly and sporadically, actually. It's working, right? And it seems like it's good. But in some cases, we got 500 errors from the database. So we couldn't connect to the database. The application won't run. And after one hour and a half, something like that, maybe even two hours in the middle of the company, all ends, they figured out that the firewall in the IRC rule was blocking some of the cases. And therefore, they can connect to the database. They fix it after talking to the amazing security team. But still, it's taking time, right? So the problem here is actually to unknown the unknowns. Sometimes it won't work. We don't know why. We don't know. Even if you test it, something could go wrong. And we'll talk about it later. Right. Yeah. So I want to say that there was another problem. But I think that there were many other problems to be honest for them. Again, we're still talking about this fight by per company. Not us. Definitely. Not me, not you, not you. It's not for you. So now the next thing that I want to share, like the next problem that they had was they just wanted to do a very basic day two operation, which is to upgrade the Kubernetes version. And once they started to do so, they started experiencing errors. One by one, everything was going down and going crazy. And you know, if I will just take you to the point of it, the problem was lack of configuration. Oops. Yeah. I, okay. Not to know that it wasn't the problem, but actually it was. The problem was that they had lack of configuration. They didn't have a configuration for order of termination or lack of pod disruption budget. Now I already showed you this slide because I wanted to say that this is the problem, the lack of configuration. But again, that's not really the problem. Because sometimes if you do have a problem of lack of configuration, it still does not mean that you will experience all of these errors or you can come back from them very quickly. So what does it mean if it wasn't the problem that they had like lack of configuration? The problem was very simply that they were not ready. That's it. That's the issue. All of those things that we've been talking about, it's for us to show you how that fact that they were not ready affected production. Yeah, that's it. That's it. So I want to say that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but actually there are three lights at the end of the tunnel. Three lights. Come on. Let's look like a light. Okay. It's firecrackers, but still it's kind of a light. Let me show you. Let me show the light at the end of the tunnel. Let's talk about the first light. So the first thing that you want to do is you want to have mindset migration. What it means is that you want to first overcome the knowledge gap that your developers have. And in order to do that, you need to understand that documentation is crucial. So you have to prioritize it accordingly. You need to provide with the information that you want your developers to know. And the next thing that you want to remember is that communication is key to success. And you want to invest time and effort in communication channels. And when I say communication channels, I am not talking about creating more Slack channels. I think we have too many. I can't see Slack anymore. So I'm not talking about adding more Slack channels. What I'm saying is this, if you decide to start doing Kubernetes migrations, what you need to do is first to set up a meeting which is just for Kubernetes information. Just to set up the field to allow the developers to ask questions, to allow them raise concerns. And then you also want to do a separate meeting for discovery session. You want to sit with your developers and go over their systems to figure out what it is that they need in order to be up and running on production. Because it is very different than running on VMs. So the second one is not just production ready. We need to be migration ready. And it's much more than just be ready for migrate. So we need to plan and configure the rollback set. First of all, what will happen in case that something goes wrong, right? We need to make sure that we can trust our environment, but we still can roll back to another environment in case that something happened like we saw in PipePiper, right? It's never happened to us. And the second one is hybrid mode, right? We always need to make sure that our customers, our developers, or anybody that's using our platforms is up and running and can work with the tools that we provide them. And we have everything we need in case that something goes wrong, right? So the last thing that we want to share is that you want to plan what happens, what happens when we get to shore. Now, let me tell you a little story.  And you decide to take a boat on, you know, to get to that New York with that relocation idea. And you plan everything about this cruise. You plan how you go up on that ship. You plan which room you're going to be in.  But you don't plan anything for when you get to New York. So nothing. You don't plan about where you're going to live. You don't care about the school for your kids. You don't care about even a job. And this is what it is. If you're only thinking about the migration themselves when you think about the Kubernetes migration. If you don't think about the day two operations, it's just like not planning what happens when you get to shore. So one of the things that I want to think, there are many things to plan for day two operations. But I think two of the most important things that I've experienced was having an infrastructure testing environment. And I'm not talking about just testing for the developers to test their services, also for testing infrastructure. If you want to change configurations, if you want to upgrade versions, you need to have an infrastructure testing environment. That is so crucial. I cannot even say that enough. I know I've said it three times. But okay, I think it's time to move on to the next one. And now I want to say that upgrades and breaking changes, that's another thing that you want to get yourself ready for. You want to think about breaking changes, what it's going to look like from the developer's side. Can they not take those breaking changes? Do they have to upgrade their versions? All of these things are things that you need to think about before you do them. Definitely before. So because it's never happened to you, right? My lips are sealed. But what I'm going to say is this. There are many things that you want to consider when you're doing Kubernetes migration. And I think that we can definitely do a talk about each and every one of those three points that I've just discussed. As you've seen this infrastructure testing environment, just that I can stand here on stage for 40 minutes, tell you all about it, how to do it, how it worked eventually, and how it saved my life. But we don't have time for that because our talk is almost over. So I think we have just enough time to say big thank you. You are amazing. You are amazing. We love being here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.