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

Summary

Podcast Summary: Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
Episode 2643: Six Data-Backed Reasons Why Becoming a Father is a Hack & More (Listener Coaching)
Release Date: July 18, 2025

In Episode 2643 of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth, hosts Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, and producer Doug Egge delve into the profound impacts of fatherhood on men's health and well-being. The episode primarily explores six data-backed reasons why becoming a father can be a transformative "hack" for enhancing mental and physical health, alongside addressing listener questions and engaging in broader discussions about current societal issues like technology addiction.

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1. Improved Mental Health and Reduced Depression Risk

Primary Discussion:
Adam introduces a pivotal study from the American Journal of Men's Health (2015), highlighting that fatherhood is associated with reduced depressive symptoms in men. Actively engaged fathers report lower depression rates compared to their childless counterparts, attributing this to a stronger sense of purpose derived from caregiving roles (02:35).

Notable Insights:
Justin shares personal anecdotes about daily moments with his child that foster gratitude and joy, reinforcing the study's findings:

"Kids just will. He'll randomly come over and just touch me and be like daddy, I love you." (03:22)

Adam and Doug emphasize that fatherhood shifts focus from self to others, reducing self-centered thoughts that often contribute to depression:

"You're now focused on someone else rather than just always on yourself." (04:55)

2. Increased Longevity

Primary Discussion:
A 2017 study from the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health is cited, revealing that men who become fathers tend to live longer than those who remain childless. The study notes an average increase of two years in life expectancy, especially among men with multiple children (10:36).

Notable Insights:
Justin theorizes that fatherhood instills a built-in purpose, preventing midlife crises often triggered by retirement or loss of career focus:

"Having kids builds in that purpose." (11:05)

Adam adds that responsibilities towards children motivate men to adopt healthier lifestyles to remain present for their families:

"I have to take care of myself better." (12:06)

3. Enhanced Brain Function and Neuroplasticity

Primary Discussion:
Referencing a 2020 study from Cerebral Cortex, Adam explains that fatherhood induces neuroplastic changes in the brain, particularly enhancing areas responsible for decision-making and emotional regulation. Fathers exhibit increased neural connectivity compared to non-fathers (14:03).

Notable Insights:
Justin discusses how parenting necessitates advanced executive functions, requiring multitasking and deeper emotional processing:

"I'm now processing things differently than I ever had to before." (14:33)

Doug likens parenting to continuous brain training, presenting constant challenges that stimulate cognitive growth:

"It's like it's a constant growth pattern." (15:19)

4. Lower Risk of Substance Abuse

Primary Discussion:
A 2018 study from Drug and Alcohol Dependence indicates that men who become fathers are significantly less likely to engage in substance abuse, including a 30% reduction in heavy drinking among new fathers (19:11).

Notable Insights:
Justin explains that fathers often reduce or modify substance use to set a positive example for their children:

"They smoke weed when the kids aren't around. That's me." (20:22)

Adam underscores the desire to avoid negative role modeling, as fathers aim to present a responsible image to their children:

"I don't want him to see me." (20:28)

5. Stronger Social Connections

Primary Discussion:
A 2016 study in Social Science and Medicine reveals that fathers develop stronger social networks through involvement in child-related activities, leading to a 25% increase in social interactions compared to childless men (22:00).

Notable Insights:
Justin highlights that fatherhood encourages men to engage with other parents, fostering community and reducing isolation:

"We're meeting other parents... which increases social connections." (22:02)

Adam emphasizes that social connections are crucial for overall health and happiness, especially in an age where technology often leads to isolation:

"Having kids encourages you to connect with people." (22:52)

6. Increased Sense of Purpose and Life Satisfaction

Primary Discussion:
Drawing on a study by the American Sociological Association, Adam shares that 70% of fathers feel their lives have greater meaning post-fatherhood. The sense of purpose derived from raising children contributes significantly to life satisfaction (25:07).

Notable Insights:
Justin reflects on the concept of legacy, expressing that fatherhood allows a part of oneself to live on through children:

"There's a part of you that lives on through your children." (26:46)

Adam reinforces this by discussing how a purposeful life drives men to achieve more, evident in higher earning rates among married men with children:

"Men, the highest earning category... have a strong sense of purpose." (25:07)

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Additional Discussions

Technology Addiction and Cognitive Decline

The hosts transitioned into a discussion about the rising issue of technology addiction, citing alarming statistics such as:

• 27% of the global population has a smartphone addiction.
• 14% have an internet addiction.
• 57% of Americans admit to being addicted to their phones (34:41).

Adam draws parallels between physical muscle atrophy from inactivity and cognitive decline due to over-reliance on technology:

"The brain shrinks in certain areas... like muscle that's getting weaker." (31:27)

Justin warns about the rapid acceleration of these issues in the AI era, suggesting that while the problems have existed, their impact is now exponentially greater.

Listener Coaching Questions

1. Flat Stomach and Large Glutes:
   Question from Francesca Marie (56:31):
   "How can I or anyone else achieve a basketball-sized booty while attaining a flat stomach at the same time?"

   Hosts' Response:
   Adam explains the challenge of simultaneously building muscle and losing fat, emphasizing that genetic factors play a significant role. He recommends focusing on one goal at a time—either bulking to enhance glutes or cutting to flatten the stomach—and cycling between these phases over time:

   "You either build or you get leaner. Trying to do both is like trying to drive in two different directions." (58:25)

   Justin adds that gradual, sustained efforts yield better results, and highlights the importance of consistent training and nutritional strategies:

   "It's a process, not a one-time program." (59:23)

2. Changing Workout Routines:
   Question from Zemecka72 (60:18):
   "How often should I change my routine? Should it be a complete overhaul or just change specific exercises?"

   Hosts' Response:
   Adam recommends altering workout variables every three months, such as changing exercises, rep ranges, or tempos, to allow the body to adapt and continue progressing:

   "Typically three months. Stay where you're at and then change a couple variables." (61:17)

   Justin advises investing in structured programs or hiring a trainer for personalized guidance, emphasizing the exponential benefits of following a well-designed plan:

   "Invest in two or three programs and you're going to learn a lot." (63:20)

3. Belt Squats vs. Barbell Squats:
   Question from Agnmt35 (64:53):
   "Are belt squats as beneficial as barbell squats?"

   Hosts' Response:
   Adam clarifies that while belt squats are beneficial for lower body strength and mobility, they don't engage the upper body and core to the same extent as barbell squats. Therefore, barbell squats offer more comprehensive benefits:

   "A barbell squat is going to make you stronger, faster and improve performance... whereas a belt squat is like legs only." (65:09)

   Justin concurs, suggesting that belt squats are superior to leg presses but not a substitute for barbell squats:

   "Belt squat is more valuable than a leg press. It's less valuable than a barbell squat." (66:01)

4. Best Workout Plan for an Overweight New Dad:
   Question from Jay Laura, 34 (67:01):
   "What's the best workout plan for an overweight new dad?"

   Hosts' Response:
   Adam recommends the Maps15 program, designed with flexibility and efficiency in mind, allowing new dads to engage in strength training with just two exercises a day, six days a week. The program offers variations accommodating suspension trainers or traditional dumbbell/barbell equipment, making it accessible and manageable:

   "It's 15, maybe 20 minutes a day... it's super convenient and easy to follow." (67:40)

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Closing Remarks and Promotions

Towards the end of the episode, the hosts briefly discuss their Elite Trainer Podcast, a new initiative aimed at helping personal trainers enhance their skills and business acumen. They encourage listeners to support the launch by subscribing, leaving reviews, and sharing with peers.

Additionally, Sal promotes the RGB Super Bundle, a comprehensive fitness program bundle designed to transform one's physique and performance, offering a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Final Note from Sal:

"If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family." (55:21)

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Key Takeaways

• Fatherhood as a Health Booster: Becoming a father provides significant mental health benefits, including reduced depression, increased longevity, enhanced brain function, lower substance abuse risk, stronger social connections, and a heightened sense of purpose.

• Lifestyle and Behavioral Changes: The responsibilities and emotional connections inherent in fatherhood naturally encourage healthier lifestyles and cognitive engagement, mitigating risks associated with technology addiction and isolation.

• Fitness Insights: Balancing muscle building and fat loss requires strategic planning, often facilitated by phased training programs. Additionally, while alternative exercises like belt squats offer benefits, traditional barbell squats remain unparalleled for comprehensive strength and performance gains.

• Support and Resources: Mind Pump continues to expand its offerings to support both general listeners and specialized audiences like personal trainers, emphasizing the importance of community and structured guidance in achieving fitness and health goals.

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For more insights and expert advice on health, fitness, and personal development, tune into future episodes of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth.

Transcript

[Sal Destefano]

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.

[Adam Schaefer]

Mind Pump. Mind Pump.

[Sal Destefano]

With your hosts, Sal Destefano, Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews.

[Adam Schaefer]

You just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. You just found Mind Pump. In today's episode, we answered listeners questions. People went to Instagram and posted a question at mindput Media. We picked four of them, but we didn't answer them until we finished the intro. Today's intro was 52 minutes long. In the intro, we talk about fitness, science, talk about fatherhood, current events, studies. It's a great time. Now. This episode is brought to you by a sponsor, Rock Recovery Center. If you or a loved one is struggling with addiction, check this out. Go to rockrecoverycenter.com mindpump they're gonna give away a 60 day scholarship for free and everybody gets a free consultation. You'll get help, you'll get advice for free on what you can do to break the chains of addiction. Again, it's rockrecoverycenter.com mindpump Also, we have a brand new podcast coming out. It's for trainers only. It's the elite trainer podcast. It is out. Go check it out. You can find it anywhere. You can find podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, iTunes. Everybody go over there. Help us rank in those early days so more trainers can find. It helps trainers become better personal trainers. We also have a sale this month on some workout programs, maps, split in the Anabolic Metabolism bundle of programs. All of that is 50% off. Just head over to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code july50 for that discount. Back to the show. Hey, dads, you want to unlock a happier, sharper, longer life? Tune in for six data backed reasons why becoming a father is a hack, why it can improve your life, why you should probably do it. Let's get into it.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yes. I looked up data and I'd like to go through this in each of these reasons. And again, they're backed by a lot of, a lot of actual studies. I'd like to go through them and then we can kind of go through our own experiences and talk about if we actually experienced some of this. So the first one was improved mental health and reduced depression risk. In fact, I'll bring up what the study says around this. One of the best studies. So there was a 2015 study that was in the American Journal of Men's Health and it found that fatherhood reduced depressive symptoms in men, particularly when actively engaged in parenting fathers reported lower rates of depression compared to childless men with stronger sense of purpose linked to caregiving roles.

[Justin Andrews]

So this reminds me of what you've shared, you've been sharing recently on the podcast that I think is such a great hack which is practicing these constant check ins throughout the day where you do your gratitude practice. Stay with me here. This is where I see this. The same thing is one of the most amazing things that you get when having a child that maybe you didn't anticipate, or at least I didn't anticipate is all these random moments in a day where he does things that either make you so proud or fill your heart with so much joy. Like just the, I mean kids just will. He'll randomly come over and just touch me and be like daddy, I love you.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And. And just shows you that need as, as humans even though we're these grown men who, you know, don't cry, don't need but yet how much how good that feels to have another being say that about you. And then the feeling that gives you real hard to have a bad day. Real hard to feel sorry for yourself or be down on yourself in a moment like that. And so I think if you're to the point of the study, if you're a very active dad with your child, then you get these unbelievable rewarding moments sprinkled throughout the day all the time. And I think that has to play a massive role.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, I agree. If I think to the most joyful moments I've had this week or this year or the last five years, majority of them involve my children. And they're little things. Right. They're little things like what you said, like you're my favorite, you're my best friend or I love you.

[Justin Andrews]

When I grow up, I want to be just like my dad.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Or you know. What are you drawing a picture of, buddy? Oh, this is me. I'm just like you or stuff like that. You know, and it's like boy, boy, is that amazing. And then you know, it comes to mental health and depression and this is true for men and women. It's especially true for men. Being too self focused.

[Doug]

Yes.

[Adam Schaefer]

Is actually one of the main reasons that you. Or causes of depression. Yeah. It being old like just constantly thinking about yourself. I can't think of me out of.

[Doug]

That all the time, bro.

[Adam Schaefer]

I can't think of aside from my faith. Right. I can't think of something that didn't make me. That made me as other focused as being a dad. Like that's immediate. Like, if you care and you want to be there and you love your kid, you immediately realize you're not the center of this whole thing. And you want, and you're focused now on someone else rather than just always on yourself. That's for mental health. That's true.

[Doug]

You could look at it kind of like a conscience. Like I have like an extra conscience, you know, just. I'm just aware of what I'm doing and how it's affecting, you know, people that I really care about. And like, I know it's, I know it's definitely going to trickle down. They're going to pick up on it because they're sponges. And it's even just like through my own experience, it's going to improve my own behaviors. And way I'm. I'm addressing life.

[Adam Schaefer]

Here's a simple one. I, I, I, okay, I They're holidays. Holidays. When you're a kid, certain holidays are so fun. Then when you're an adult, like, whatever. Then when you have kids, they're the most fun. Like Halloween, Easter, like, you know, even things like Valentine's Day, like, it could be so fun when you have kids. Whereas when you're an adult, it's like, okay, cool, you know, Halloween, I'm gonna party again. Like, I'm over it. You know, type of deal or whatever. You get to experience all this kind of cool stuff or having your kid, like ride a bike. Well, it's for the first time or, you know, all that stuff.

[Doug]

You know, it's attributed a lot of it to play because. And I know Jordan Peterson talks about this a lot now, but like, it, it pulls you back in. It's like, and, and what really does that anymore as an adult like you, it's really hard to find opportunities for play, bro.

[Adam Schaefer]

I was at the creek. I go to the, every, every week now. We go to the, the nearby park and there's a, like a creek. And I used to love doing this as a kid. I think a lot of boys love doing this. When you're little, throwing rocks in the creek. So fun, right? You just throw a rock, try to hit something, skip rocks all day. I never did that as a grown man by myself. That's just, I don't know. I just never went to a creek as a grown man and start throwing rocks in there. I think it'd be kind of weird. But now my son and my kids are doing it. I'm doing it again. Yeah. And it's like super fun. And again, the data on this by the way, the reason why it's such an important topic is people are having less and less and less kids. Part of the reason is I think that what is advertised are the challenges. Yeah. And what's not advertised? The benefits. Because it used to be not that long ago that a man's pride was, how many children can you support? How many, you know?

[Doug]

Well, I like that we bring it up because it really isn't getting promoted. It's the opposite, you know, that we're always, you know, receiving. And there's another way to, you know, to do this. And I think that it's great to at least put it out there. Like there's. There's a lot of value and reward from having kids.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, and to speak more to what you touched on with. One of the hallmarks of depression is the hyper focus on yourself. Right. And the comparing of you to others and just like, so focused on you. I mean, we had a caller recently that called in that was battling with that. And it was one of the points that you made was like, you know, be careful with how much you focus on everything that you're doing and find something else to help and work towards. And that will. And I can't be. At least, I don't think I'm alone in this feeling that one of the biggest things that I noticed with having Max that I didn't know until afterwards was up until that point in my life, I would have said. I did say that I loved a lot of things. I love my mom, I love my dad, I love my sister. I love my friends. I love my job. I love a lot of things. I love my dogs. I loved a lot of things and said those things, but in not more than myself.

[Adam Schaefer]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, if it came down to sacrificing.

[Adam Schaefer]

Myself and you might have even said.

[Justin Andrews]

That, I would have said that. That's what I mean. Like, I. I think I. I would have even said, oh, yeah, I love my mom or my. My wife moment. But when you finally do truly love something more than yourself, it's very, you know, it.

[Adam Schaefer]

It's clear.

[Justin Andrews]

It's very clear.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, it is.

[Justin Andrews]

And so that at that moment, for like, oh, wow, yes, I do love all those things, and they mean so much to me. And I would do a lot for all those things I said and still. But I actually didn't love it more than myself until I felt that love for a child. Like, that shifted it completely.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know, what's interesting about that is obviously because you're the mother of your child, Cares for him, does all these things. You saw her give birth to him, you love her more.

[Justin Andrews]

Gave me a way deeper for her. Hunter.

[Adam Schaefer]

Isn't that amazing?

[Justin Andrews]

Hunter?

[Adam Schaefer]

All the stuff in a lot.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't know if that's in your list or not, but the, the power of, of how it can grow a marriage too because now all of a sudden you have this thing that for the first time in your life you truly love more than yourself. Right? Truly, truly love more than yourself. And then that thing is taken care of by something else that you love. It just. It grows both of those exponentially. And that, that the power of that is. And the reward and the joy that comes from that is. Is consistent. It's a consistent. And I feel the more I pour in and give to it, the more reward I get back.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know what's funny about that? You know what's funny about what you're saying? Not to go off on taking a left here, but when somebody genuinely loves your kids, even if they're an annoying person and you don't really like them before for whatever reason, you can't help but like them. When they love your kids and you see them love your kids now, you like them. Even if before you know, there's family members and friends that I'm like, I don't really like that person. Not for any particular reason. It's not my favorite people. Whatever. Then you see them love on your kid. You're like, I like you a lot because you love this. This thing that I value so much.

[Justin Andrews]

For sure.

[Adam Schaefer]

Pretty amazing. All right, next is increased longevity. Here's the. Here's a study. A 2017 study from the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health showed that men who became fathers live longer than their childless counterparts. There was one study that found that there was a two year increase in life expectancy, especially for those with multiple children.

[Justin Andrews]

So when you go through these. Yeah I. I'd like Justin and I can. Is to try and guess why.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, like why do you think.

[Adam Schaefer]

Men with fought with children live longer?

[Justin Andrews]

Built in purpose. Yeah, of course I think it's built in and it's. And we know this for a minute see it through. We know this from other studies. One of the fastest way to. To that you see men decline as this is both men and women, but men in particular decline is when they. They retire, they lose their purpose when they had a very clear purpose for 30, 40 years. Go to that job, get the money, provide for the family. Like that gave you purpose. Then you Lose that which so many people work towards thinking that it's going to get better. And in fact life doesn't get better. It's in fact a lot of men go through that midlife crisis and don't know what to do next because that gave. And so having kids builds in that purpose.

[Adam Schaefer]

Well, I, yeah, and I think I know this, right? You'll have men who'd be like, man, I gotta stop drinking so much or I gotta watch my diet or I gotta move more. Why I'm a dad, I can't, like I gotta, I gotta take care of myself better.

[Justin Andrews]

I want to see my grandkids for my kid.

[Adam Schaefer]

Now of course someone listening is like, well I know a lot of dads are. Yeah, of course I'm talking generally speaking though, the data shows this. Generally speaking, a man who gets older without children, without that lives less long, they're more risky. They don't care for themselves in the same way because it's only about them. When you're weighing out my own pleasure versus nothing else, well, I'm just going to go for my own pleasure when it's my own pleasure versus I want to stick around for my kids. You love your kids. That's a strong motivation. Plus you have this social support, right? When you have children, as your children get older, here's what happens. This is me right now. So I'm a middle aged man with parents now who are older and they have personal training and there's certain things that they do with their diet because you know why their kids, me and my other siblings want to see mom and dad be healthy. So now they have that social support where we're trying to encourage them to be healthier. And that's another thing too. Like you get old and, and you don't have children, you know, oh boy, that can be really difficult. Who's going to care for you? Who's going to be there for you as you get older? But yeah, the data on this shows, and this is especially true for men by the way. Men can be very self focused and do a lot of things that aren't so healthy for them. But when they have children it tends to change that. Next is enhanced brain function and neuroplasticity. Check out this study. 2020 study in the cerebral cortex, it's a magazine or called Cerebral Cortex revealed that fatherhood induces neuroplastic changes in the brain, particularly in areas like the prefrontal cortex which governs decision making and emotional regulation. Fathers showed increased neural connectivity compared to non fathers. All Right. Why do you think that is? Why do you think your brain becomes more plastic? You have more connection to the part of the brain that does executive function.

[Justin Andrews]

Also very obvious to me. It's the, the. I mean, when Katrina and I even have a conversation or make a decision, we no longer just think about, oh, this is what we want to do. We also think of like, oh, how do we need to communicate this to him so he understands correctly and we don't negatively impact him. So the executive functioning or the brain that goes, I've got to think three, five layers deep before I just make this move is activated. I like, especially if you want to be a good dad, right. If I'm, if I'm inspired.

[Adam Schaefer]

If you care, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

If I'm inspired to be a good parent and I want my kids to turn out right, I don't just react. I. And maybe old version of me who's. I only suffer the consequences of being an asshole. I only suffer the consequences of having a short temper. I only suffer the consequences, but I no longer only suffer from those consequences. So I now process things different than I ever had to do before, which I imagine challenges my brain in a way.

[Doug]

More challenges, more variables, more obstacles to kind of work through which challenges the brain just like anything else. Like this is like to me it's, it just seems like provides that type of stimulus for growth. Right. So it's like it's, it because it's constant. You don't, it's, it's not a job.

[Justin Andrews]

That you're just going to walk away from.

[Doug]

You know, it's not something that like, you know, I, you know, I work on this, but then I come home and like this is like a constant growth pattern that, you know, you're, you're training your brain to, to solve and problem solve, but also too to just get ahead of it.

[Adam Schaefer]

The body and the brain with the brain include is included in the body. So talk about strength training. Do your muscles grow and get stronger without a challenge or stress? No, no, you can't build muscle. It doesn't happen unless you challenge your muscle. And the less you challenge your muscle, the weaker they get used as a deterrent. That's right. Yes. Yes, you're right. So, so why do you have so much neuroplasticity when you become a dad? It's hard. It's hard. You got to grow. You are. If you care and love, your force is the issue. You are going to grow because you're going to have an infant. Then you're going to Have a toddler, then you're going to have a young child, then you have an adolescent, then you have a teenager, then you have a kid in their 20s, and then you might become a grandparent. And so all of that requires growth. It requires you become wiser and smarter, and you can think of things differently than if you were just you. Yeah. Doing your thing all the time, which requires very little type of growth. Now, could you induce this growth in other ways? Of course you could. But I'll challenge somebody to say, find something you care about as much as you would care about your own child, because that's the only, Only fair comparison.

[Justin Andrews]

Also find something that, because you're right, someone could, Somebody with a lot of discipline and consistency could say, I'm going to read and grow and do these things every day. But the, the beauty of the child is built in. Yeah, I don't have a choice. Every day it's going to wake up and present me with new challenges, and I'm gonna.

[Adam Schaefer]

You get to choose the challenge.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I, I don't, I don't. Like, I'm not actively carving out an hour a day I'm gonna read this book. You know, it's like, it's. And some days I decide I want to take that off. Like, you don't get that. You don't get that luxury of I'm gonna take it off. Which for growth, it's a great, It's a great thing. It forces, it forces that growth and even things that are. Like I shared recently, I love sharing the things that I did wrong and what I'm trying to get better about. I love the, the neuroscience around a child's brain development and how I can be better about the way I communicate something. You know, and I, I recently caught myself doing something that wasn't ideal. An example was, you know, when he's struggling to find his words, me saying, use your words. And I had no idea that I'm prompting him to wait for your. Wait for my prompt to then do that, which then is in. In. In inducing him to go back to the cry, the wine, or the behavior before, which I should be just giving him the answer of, say this. And then that's how he gets whatever he wants. And so, I mean, that's. That you would never be thinking that many layers deep in a normal day if, if it wasn't being presented to me like that.

[Adam Schaefer]

And again, again, the reason why this is so powerful for this type of growth, and we're talking specifically about the brain, is because you care so much about them. That's one of the main reasons. So you could go and attempt this without children, but that would mean for an effective comparison, it would have to be something that you cared about.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay. Because there are people like this.

[Doug]

Sleep and breathing.

[Adam Schaefer]

Look, I'm not gonna say there aren't people like this. There are studies that show that people who find this incredible deep passion. It's typically, it's religious. Typically it's a monk or somebody that's in this volunteer mission that really believes in what they're doing that will find something similar. But if you're like, yeah, I'm gonna go do crossword puzzles, I'm gonna work, I'm gonna go, you know, study things. Not the same. It's not even close. And back to what you said about the, the unpredictable challenge of it. There's. Who's more resilient physically? The guy that goes to the gym with a structured workout, still strong, still buildings muscle, or the guy that works out in physical labor with unpredictable stuff and does that for decades. I, I'm gonna tell you right now, I lift weights all the time. A blue collar worker who goes out and makes it happen. It's unpredictable. Will work me under the table.

[Justin Andrews]

Another way to say it too, is that who would be more dangerous or better? The guy who practices the martial art every day and skills and never fights or the guy that's in a fight every day? You know what I'm saying? Like, that's the, that's the one you worry about. That's the one who's in the fight every day.

[Adam Schaefer]

Next is lower risk of substance abuse. So 2018 study in drug and alcohol dependence found that men who became fathers are far less likely to engage in substance abuse, including alcohol and drug use, compared to non fathers. There was also a 30% reduction in heavy drinking among new fathers. Again, it's like you are now thinking about someone else.

[Justin Andrews]

Monkey see, monkey do, right? So I'd imagine even the, even the father that may not be on top of a lot of things realizes that, hey, the things I do, my son's probably going to model, my daughter's going to model. Therefore, I should probably nip some of these things in the butt or be at the very least aware of it, because there's a very good chance they'll go down the scenario.

[Adam Schaefer]

I know people who regularly, for example. I'll give an example. I know people who smoke weed regularly. They had kids, they reduced their use, and they smoke weed when the kids aren't around. Yeah, that's me. Because they don't want the kids to see them.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, that's me. That's me. I make a very conscious effort that he can't even smell that smell.

[Adam Schaefer]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, if I'm going to partake in something like that.

[Adam Schaefer]

Because you don't want him to do it.

[Justin Andrews]

And again, they're coming, they're coming time in high school. And that'll be a conversation. And I'm not anti weed, obviously, but I also don't want to promote that either. So it's like I, I go through lots of lengths to make sure that if I'm going to partake in something like that, that. And I'm going to delay how long we have that conversation. I don't want him at the age of seven going, daddy, what's that smell? And then I got to figure that out. You know what I'm saying? Like, not a good time.

[Doug]

Yeah, I mean, it's all modeling and it's also like you want to be present. You, you don't want to escape and have these things where it's like, okay, well, like, what if something happens while you're in this state of like you're inebriated, you know, and then you're caught with your pants down. Like, that's a horrible idea.

[Adam Schaefer]

Have you ever thought about that? That happens.

[Doug]

I thought about that all the time.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh yeah. It's like you're. Even if you're out a night out, someone's watching the kids, they put them to bed and you're hanging out and you're like, I'm like, I don't want to get too messed up. What if something happens in the middle of night? That's right. Next up is the stronger social connections. A 2016 study in Social science and medicine found that fathers develop stronger social networks through involvement in child related activities like school events and sports. Fathers reported a 25% increase in social interactions compared to childless men. This is especially true for men. We become hermits easily. A man becomes her. When you look at a man without kids, without a wife especially, they very easily slip into not interacting with a lot of people.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, we go straight into provider mode.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Or even if you don't have. Especially if you don't have a wife, you're just not. As you get older, you become more and more and more isolated. This tends to happen to men. When you have children, you're meeting other parents, they're in school or they're friends with other kids. You're meeting other people with kids. You're putting yourself out there for the sake of your child, which increases social connections. And social connections is a key predictor of health. Overall health. Overall wellness and happiness. And it's. These days especially, it's something that can be easily lost because of technology. It's very easy to get everything you need and do everything you need without really being around a lot of people. Having kids encourages that. Like, if you have a kid in sports, you're gonna meet other people because of that sport. Just that alone.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. I mean, I. So I'm admittedly a father or a man that is not out there seeking new male partnership relationships. Right. I'm not like, oh, I need another friend, or I'm not actively trying to do that. But I'm also in the same breath, the dad who is like, oh, my son is becoming good friends with this. I want to meet the parents.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, Right.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm saying I want. This kid is hanging out with my kid all the time. They're become. They've become best friends. Well, I want to see what their mom and dad are like. So Katrina and I will hang out with the parents. Like, that's just. And that. And I would never do that. I would never go hang out with some random parents just to build more relationships. I just don't. I would. I would make a million excuses. Why not do it? No matter what the studies say about health, but because I have a kid, I look through that lens totally. It's like, I want to know who my son is calling his best friend. The values that the parents have, what they're teaching their kid. Because I know that kid is going to end up influencing as much, maybe more of my son and his behaviors than even I can. And if that's true, then I need to make sure that these parents are somewhat aligned with similar values as we have.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. And then finally, I think this is the best one. There's an increased sense of purpose and life satisfaction. And there's lots of studies on this. But there was one study done by the American Sociological association association found a 70% a father's felt their life had greater meaning after having children. This is a big one, right? Like, if your sense of purpose is just you versus when you have kids, it is a big difference. You ask any dad who cares about their kids, about their purpose and meaning in life, and part of that answer is probably going to include their children. It's an automatic sense of purpose. Sometimes this can push us in the wrong direction. By the way, which I think a lot of. I think men need coaching sometimes from other well established fathers. Because sometimes. You know what this looks like for a man? Oh my God, I have kids. I got to work five times as much now. I have such a strong sense of purpose, I need to just work my ass off. By the way, the data on this is interesting. Men, the highest earning category of people in modern societies are married men with children. A gee, I wonder why. Because you have a very strong sense of purpose driven. That's, that's 100%.

[Justin Andrews]

So there's this very nihilistic view that some people hold of that were this, you know, irrelevant little speck on this rock spinning through the universe and one day we're going to die and a handful of people will show up to our funeral and then a month will go by and no one will ever speak of you. And, and there's a lot of, a lot of people that, that think from that perspective and believe that. And I like to think that there's a part of you that lives on through your children and there's, there's, there is a bit of, of me that gets carried on forever through my son and hopefully my son's son and my son like. And if, and I play a big role in that. If I influence him in a positive way and give him all of me and my knowledge, then he's all of me and some. And he carries that on. And to me, that's legacy. That's real legacy is like I've taken what, what I, everything I did over whatever time frame, I'm on this, on this spinning rock. I put that into this thing that shares my genetics and then it's going to go pass it on like that is the closest thing to living on beyond our death. And I think that to not see that or realize it or appreciate that, I think it's crazy. I think that's one of the coolest things to. I mean, as I know mine's only six right now, but as you start to see their personalities unfold and you see little specks of yourself in them, you're like, oh man, that's, that's cool. You know, you get. And, and can I help, help develop that or maybe help show him where that could go the wrong way? And like, and like, you get to play that role. And so a part of you kind of lives on forever if done correctly.

[Adam Schaefer]

Now the other side of this is you have less time, less money. And it's hard. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard. But I'm a. Now that I'm Getting. I'm speaking to men right now. If you don't do something amazing, that'll change your life. That's one of the best things you could do. Because it's hard, then you're a pussy. Because everything worth anything in life is hard. Nothing that is super easy is in the same category. So of course it's hard. It's the greatest, one of the greatest things you'll ever do, and it's hard. And yes, you're signing up for that, that challenge, but it's totally worth it. And it is. Yes. And again, I want to tell guys, like, you're going to become a dad. It's going to challenge you.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, I want to. I want to. I want to push back a little bit on the time and money thing a little bit. And where, I mean, I want to push back is that I do think that's what's perceived is that, oh, all this time I won't have. And all this money it costs to have a kid. I would. It's similar to, like, I mean, you could make the same argument with getting married. Right. It's like another person that you have to. Is dependent on you. But as a married man with a kid, I. I am a better version of myself. I think I'm a far more successful version. So I think I have significantly more money than I would have had all by myself without a kid. Having a. A partner, Having a child costs more money independent of itself. But because it gives me a greater purpose, I've reaped more benefits.

[Adam Schaefer]

Sure. That's why I said the wealthiest men are dad.

[Justin Andrews]

And then the time argument. Done a lot of cool things before I had a kid in my 20s, in my early 30s. Right. A lot of cool things that have created neat memories in my head. None of them come close to comparing to the memories that I already have with my kids.

[Adam Schaefer]

It's only been six years. Right?

[Justin Andrews]

It's only been six years. So the time that you may you think you lose out on or that you trade for other things, guess what? Ends up being far more valuable and greater to you anyways.

[Adam Schaefer]

No, that's great. You know, earlier we were talking about how technology can make it so easy to stay isolated. Doug, I would love for you to look up a statistic on tech addiction. If there's a definition for it and if people are seeking help for it. And this is just on the heels of that one study that showed that people who are using AI regularly.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

They're actually losing.

[Doug]

Their IQ is dropping.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Their brains are Becoming atrophied. In fact, there's some studies that suggest that the brain shrinks in certain areas like muscle that's getting weaker and atrophying. And so I'm wondering how aware people are about tech addiction and what that does and what does that say up there? How do they define it? It's a compulsive and excessive use of technology, including the Internet, social media, online gambling and other digital devices that leads to negative consequences in a person's life. It's characterized by a loss of control over technology use despite negative impacts. Relationships, work, school or mental and physical health does. Is there a stat on like what percentage of people report so Sal. Wouldn't.

[Justin Andrews]

Wouldn't the same thing be shown in a study if you took a group of 100 people that for say, I don't know, whatever period of time you want the study to run for. One group always uses a calculator. The other group always does long form math. I would imagine the ones that don't go long form and use the calculator, their brain atrophies somewhat and the ones that do challenge their brain in that way.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. So no, that's a great question.

[Justin Andrews]

So. And the reason why I bring that up is because that's how people are going to view this is like of course I no longer. Of course it atrophies. Who cares? The AI is handling it for me. I don't just like we like how is that any different than a calculator?

[Adam Schaefer]

So I'll give you the example because that's a great way to.

[Doug]

How much are you willing to give up?

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, it's such a great way to position it. So I don't. We'll use muscle and physical ability. I don't think we should go back to a time when we were breaking rocks and washing things by hand and you know, being everything's so physical, GPS and all that.

[Justin Andrews]

It's.

[Adam Schaefer]

I think that, that I think there was like some of. Get rid of some of that. Right. I think but we've gone so far in the, in the. We don't do anything physical now that to the point now where we're having all these detrimental effects from lack of activity. The point we have to schedule activity. Yeah. So I think some stuff makes sense. But I think what, what these AI studies are showing is that we do everything through AI which is what AI promises to do got to keep now we're going to have actual cognitive decline. Actual.

[Justin Andrews]

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

[Adam Schaefer]

You know, and they would have a good point. That's the best comparison I would have would be the Amish. Are the Amish healthier and happier than the average person? Yes, they are.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, they are.

[Adam Schaefer]

So I don't. So. So, yeah, dude, they are. But now where. How far do you want to go? Right. With this? I think that we're going to see downstream effects that we can't even predict, I guess. Yeah.

[Doug]

The concern is there's so many things you can offload now with the potential of AI as opposed to, like, having, like, certain things. Like, I could drive more effectively because I know where I'm going. Because now, like, you know, GPS takes me where I need to go, and it's like a convenience thing. But I could still challenge myself in so many ways.

[Adam Schaefer]

You still have to think where AI.

[Doug]

Is coming in is. It's like, it's taking over a lot.

[Justin Andrews]

Outsource everything. You're gonna outsource everything?

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

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

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Because the Industrial Revolution took decades, right? Yeah. We're looking at, like.

[Justin Andrews]

And so we've been. We've been atrophy. Atrophying for decades, too. It's just going to move exponentially faster. We will be sicker, more depressed, and fatter faster than what we did for the previous decades. But the same thing. It is the same thing. And the same argument could be made from a guy who was born in the 30s going, like, you go to a gym and lift Weights. That's ridiculous.

[Doug]

Pushing us into walls.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, I could totally see coming from that perspective, like, as. As a man who grew up in the 30s watching a bunch of men in the 2000s go to a gym.

[Adam Schaefer]

My grandfather said that. My grandfather came.

[Justin Andrews]

He's like, why? Why? Why? Go do that. Go build a fence. Go build a fence for your neighbor.

[Adam Schaefer]

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

[Justin Andrews]

Exactly. And. And a really good argument, because I know you like using the stats on happiness. You could say that. And you know, this for doing for others. Imagine if you took, okay, your five hours or seven hours a week that you put into lifting weights in the gym to building something physical for other people.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

What would that do for our society? What would do that for your personal health? What would do that for your physical?

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, it could.

[Adam Schaefer]

It could. But, you know, again, I think it's an interesting conversation, but I don't think we've ever seen anything like this just because of the speed.

[Justin Andrews]

Speed. That's it.

[Adam Schaefer]

So look at the stats up there. 26. Okay. Almost 20, 27% of the global population has a smartphone addiction. Holy cow. That's more than a quarter. That's more than a quarter. 14% of people have an Internet addiction, according to a study published in ScienceDirect.com Additionally, 31%. This is. This is. That's a lot of people of US adults report being online almost constantly. Holy cow. 57% of Americans admit to being addicted to their phones. I wonder how many people seek help with that. Probably not many, right? Are there? There Probably. It's got to be a growing few.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, there's also. Well, there's also these growing things. I mean, did you guys ever hear about when we were kids, these retreats, these black blackout retreats and, like, you know, dark retreat? Like, that's a thing now. And that's a growing thing. Like, it's. It would never existed. Now it's popular. Iosca trips are popular now. It's. But all these things have been around forever. But they're becoming popular for these reasons is more and more people, although a small number, but more and more people.

[Doug]

Are realizing nature cleansing.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. There's a lot of this stuff that's happened. I just saw one of my friends that's a big social media influencer. You know, she posted like I'm taking a break on the Internet for the next, you know, month or whatever that see you later like that you're starting to see that happen more and more. Well, so there is more awareness.

[Adam Schaefer]

It's the reason why like I, you know, you think to yourself like why would you ever go camping? Like you're gonna go out, you're gonna sleep with no ac, nowhere heating, you're gonna, it's so hard. And then typically when you come back from camping you're like, that was awesome. I'm so refreshed. It's just disconnecting.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

From all the stuff. There's something inside of us that kind of needs that. But that. The reason why I brought up the tech addiction is I was, I was, you know, we're talking, we're going to talk about or mentioned Rock Recovery Center a little bit. This is our friends that have a rehab facility that offer a scholarship to one of our listeners and viewers where you go there and you get, I think it's five months of rehab help. And I looked up the 10 reasons why people go to rehab. Like what are the main reasons? You guys want to guess the main reasons why people go to rehab the easiest? The first one obviously is substance abuse. Right? I go there for substance abuse. But there's other reasons too. Mental health disorders is one. So many people go there to address co occurring mental health issues that are often alongside substance use. So they go in there with mental health issues and they're, they're, they're using the drugs or whatever to try to self medicate. Then another one, here's one of the biggest reasons legal or court mandated requirements, duh. Where the court's like, listen, you've had three DUIs, you're going to go rehab. Then family or social pressure pressure is another one. Whereas family says if you don't go, we're going to cut ourselves out and you're going to have to go. Then there's health complications from addiction, job or career consequences, behavioral addictions, sometimes non substance and financial and social stability. And another one is relapse. People are like, I tried quitting a million times. I need, I need professional help, you know, type of deal. Really interesting. I wonder if you're gonna see.

[Justin Andrews]

I bet you will.

[Adam Schaefer]

I mean, you know, of course you will. AI addiction worse.

[Justin Andrews]

It's only gonna get worse.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's what I think.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I don't disagree with that.

[Adam Schaefer]

Argument at all.

[Justin Andrews]

I, I actually really don't think it is that much different than what we've seen. We've just, we're seeing it at such a fast rate because what AI can do. But we've already been watching this happen over decades and to me that's the, the example is like we're going to have to choose hard. And that's hard to do. You know, no pun intended.

[Adam Schaefer]

I mean easy have everything you think you want or hard and unpredictable. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

That's what it's like. I mean look how hard it is to, for what the percentage of population to choose to go to the gym and choose to do hard physical activity.

[Adam Schaefer]

And, and, and we know the benefits.

[Justin Andrews]

Know how crazy the benefits are and yet. And so this will be no different. This will be no different. It'll be really hard to convince a, A, a good portion of the society that.

[Adam Schaefer]

Do you guys think that fitness and health, for lack of a better term fanatics are going to be the ones that are more likely to disconnect for sure. AB because they're health minded.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

I agree.

[Justin Andrews]

And they've already connected those dots.

[Adam Schaefer]

They already have the discipline. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And they're already used to, they're already choosing hard. They've already chose to do physical labor to take care of their bodies. Once they really make the connection of the mental health side with the tech and everything like that, they'll be the first ones.

[Adam Schaefer]

I agree.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. They're, they're more likely the first ones.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know, you brought up AI Justin sent me that, this video over the weekend on how some people are already worshiping.

[Doug]

My God.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. AI, tell me. So they're already kind of making it.

[Doug]

Yeah. So there's, I don't exactly know the groups where this is happening, but there's been a lot of reports of people actually starting to worship it because they're getting all these answers and then every day they wake up and they ask it questions. Just like they'd be praying or they'd be doing things.

[Justin Andrews]

Of course. Yeah.

[Doug]

And so, and it serves a lot of those functions of, you know, if you're perceiving God as this like genie or this thing that's like just gives.

[Adam Schaefer]

You what you need. Yeah.

[Doug]

Just gives you like answers, you know. For what, for what's going on. And so it, it just seemed like, wow, that's, that was an inevitability.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Your antichrist theory gets stronger and stronger.

[Doug]

I agree with it to come to fruition. But yeah, it is looking like it's, it's Making steps.

[Adam Schaefer]

Do you guys know who Stefan Meyer is?

[Justin Andrews]

That name sounds familiar.

[Adam Schaefer]

So he's like, intellectual who speak for the last, I'd say 20 years he's been the guy arguing the. For intelligent Design. Yes. And what he does is he debates and discusses with. With. With astrophysics and science and biology on why it's more likely that there is a God, that there isn't. I watched this video that he did this talk that he did, and I was. I was somewhat familiar with this, but he broke it down. And before the 1920s, most. The. The. Or right around the 1920s, most scientists thought that the universe was everlasting and infinite. That was the. That was the belief. Like this. It's an everlasting forever universe. And then Hubble, I believe, was one of the first to be able to observe that there were other galaxies. Because initially it was like, this is the only galaxy. And then after that, it's just space forever. And it's been around forever. Yeah. Then they would be able to observe light coming from these galaxies and they were able to discern accurately that everything's expanding and moving away from us. So they were like, okay, if we rewind time back far enough, that means everything was all in this one point and came out of. And I didn't realize this. He had all these quotes from these scientists who were atheists and they were angry with this answer. They were like, this doesn't make me feel good. This sounds a lot like theology and creation. I don't like this. And they continue to try to find loopholes around it to try to make themselves, you know, feel better.

[Doug]

You know what I would love in. I remember when we first connected with Bishop Barron and I asked him in the interview too, I was like, his thoughts around AI he couldn't answer. Because I think back then too, it's like, that's a huge can of worms and like, unforeseen ways that it's going to develop. And. But at this point now, to get a lot of the religious community to really think these thoughts about, like, you know, people. If people are going to be stepping over here and like, using it for spiritual needs, like what? Like what. What does that look like with. With structured religion and. And then AI being like, an option.

[Adam Schaefer]

Well, here's what's interesting. I asked AI and other. And you can ask. I've seen people post about this. You ask it with all of the available evidence and data, is it more probable that there is an intelligent designer or more probable that there isn't? And you Know what? AI says it's more probable that there is. So AI will actually.

[Doug]

Well, yeah, and you saw the. The guy with the highest IQ reporting.

[Adam Schaefer]

He also says a lot of inflammatory shit. Okay. Yeah, I follow him on Instagram, bro. Oh, my God. He's got a little arrogant.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Have you seen some of his stuff? I have. Oh, yeah, bro.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

So. Okay, but check out this quote that the. That Stefan Meyer shared. This was from Robert Jastrow, who's an astronomer. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance. He is about to conquer the highest peak. As he pulls himself over that final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. I thought that was so cool. Yeah. What a great. What a great discussion. If you're. Yeah. If you're like. If you like this kind of stuff, you got to find this guy, Stephen Meyer, and he. He breaks things down pretty well to check him out. Yeah. And he. And he kind of deduces things, so it's. It's really interesting.

[Justin Andrews]

On a lighter note, I tell you guys a story last night. So it was Max's birthday, and, you know, you. You guys have obviously have heard my. You know, the. How we've allowed him to, you know, eat sweets as he's gotten older and things like that. And so it's his birthday, and we got him a cake, and. And this year, this is a. I think this is the first year we got him a normal cake. Right.

[Adam Schaefer]

So all the. All the dyes and.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, no, no, I mean, like, the first. Oh, yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

I.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, it's a good question. It still was a.

[Adam Schaefer]

Was it like a traditional cake or still making a healthy cake?

[Justin Andrews]

It was blueberry chiffon. Chiffon's pretty light, and, you know, they use whipped cream.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay.

[Justin Andrews]

So still on the lighter side. But before that, they've always been homemade. Katrina makes all the natural ones made out of banana and stuff like that.

[Adam Schaefer]

So. So it's next level. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So this is like the. The next level. And I. And I also now have, you know, allowed. There's been moments in times where I don't regulate and. All right, let's go have some cake with that. And so I let him have a big piece of cake or whatever, and, dude, we're sitting there. It's.

[Adam Schaefer]

Did he eat the whole thing?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah, he ate it.

[Adam Schaefer]

What do you say? While he was eating it?

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, you could tell it was a lot for him, you know, because he's not.

[Adam Schaefer]

It's overwhelming.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, and then, like. And then we're building Legos like five minutes later, and he's like farting, like, just. And I'm like. And I'm looking. I'm like, bro. I'm like, those are. And he's like, yeah, Daddy, I'm. I'm older now, so my farts are.

[Adam Schaefer]

Are.

[Justin Andrews]

Are worse.

[Adam Schaefer]

I'm like, oh.

[Justin Andrews]

I said, do you think maybe it might have been the cake that daddy let you have? No, no, no. It's because I'm getting older.

[Adam Schaefer]

I'm a man.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

So.

[Justin Andrews]

So that was.

[Adam Schaefer]

I can't believe that's kind of true.

[Justin Andrews]

So that was. That was like in the early evening before bed. Then it's time for bed. And this has never happened before. So it's so funny. It's. I'm sure it's all connected. Okay. So Katrina and I put him down and we decided to lay. Lay in bed. We're going to watch a movie and we just got comfortable and we're laying. That just started the movie or whatever. And he comes busting through the door. I got a poop. Announces it to us. That had never done that before. I just bust through the. The bedroom door. I got a poop. Yeah. And it's like, well, go, buddy, go. So he runs in the bathroom. Have you guys ever heard me tell you his funny? Do you guys remember me telling you what. When he goes to poop, what he does?

[Adam Schaefer]

No.

[Justin Andrews]

With the flashlight and all that stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. So my son has this thing about pooping in the dark. He has to have his flashlight. He wants it completely dark. He wants his privacy.

[Adam Schaefer]

So I'm laughing because you ever have one of those poops, like you ate some food and you're like, you just need to turn the lights down and just take your shirt off. Take your shirt off.

[Doug]

You don't want to look at it.

[Justin Andrews]

You just flush out of it. He gets completely naked.

[Adam Schaefer]

He turns his clothes off.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes, bro. He takes his clothes off. He turns off the lights.

[Adam Schaefer]

I feel him right now.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, it is like a 40 minute ordeal. And you just. And you go check on him and you'll just be sitting in there and looking at the ceiling and looking at the light and playing with the toilet paper.

[Adam Schaefer]

It's hilarious.

[Justin Andrews]

But he does that, right? So here he is. He's obviously got to go. He goes rushing in there and he's got to poop. And then I'm laying in the bed and we Kind of did some remodeling the house. We actually have these, like, we have 1, 2, 3, 4. We have five light switches in our bathroom. And so I'm watching him having to go like. And he's trying all the lights to get the dimmest light setting. And I have all adjustable on all those things. And so he's doing the closet light. And I'm watching him, like, just. You could see his brain working, like, trying to get the right lighting so.

[Adam Schaefer]

We get the right ambience, bro.

[Justin Andrews]

Go poop magic. Yes, dude. He come busting formula. He's got to go so bad. But then he's like, there's too many options for the light here.

[Adam Schaefer]

He is a man. That's a guy thing, bro.

[Justin Andrews]

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

[Adam Schaefer]

You know, it's one of those poops when you take your shirt off. I don't.

[Justin Andrews]

See, that's the thing that was fun and interesting about raising a kid is I don't know where he gets that. That's not a me.

[Adam Schaefer]

It's natural.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, it is. Like, what made this kid decide he wants to get naked when he goes poop and he wants to be all alone in the dark? Yeah, that's like. That was. That was all him.

[Adam Schaefer]

I. Yeah, they do learn things from you too. That like, my, like my kid, I mean, I make jokes out of farts all the time. So my now, which was. It was super mistake. Like, I should have never done this. So now my four year old, he thinks it's awesome. And he loves to run to us and hit us. He just. With a fart. And he'd done this before. He sat on his. His mom was laying down.

[Justin Andrews]

I bet you get the dirty.

[Adam Schaefer]

He sat on her head and farted. And I'm like. And I turned my head.

[Justin Andrews]

Hard not to laugh.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yes, dude. Because that's like, you don't fart on your mom's head. What's wrong with you? That's terrible like that. You know what I mean? When I was a cow, he got me beat, you know, but he did. I had to turn in my head real quick and I had to, like, gather myself before I went and, you know, talk to him and discipline him a little bit. But I mean, yeah, it's my fault.

[Justin Andrews]

It's all my fault, you know, that he. So everyone's been talking and commenting about his Emperor Palpatine costume that he wanted to be for his villain's birthday. We did a villain birthday party and he wanted to be Emperor Palpatine. Now the funniest part about this with my son is I can't even get him to watch Return. He can't even. He won't even watch.

[Adam Schaefer]

Scary.

[Justin Andrews]

It's too scary. It's too scary to watch that character. But he wants to be. And the only reason why he's made that connection is because he'll watch the LEGO version of Star Wars. So the LEGO version is really. Yeah, yeah. Way more tame. It's comedy. But you get an idea of who the bad characters are, who the good characters and they put a funny spin on even the bad guys. Like, you know, like in there, Palpatine and Count Dooku and all the bad guys, they're kind of funny and they do funny stuff. And so he really wanted to be Emperor Palpatine. And everyone's like, oh my God, he's into dark characters like this. I'm like, yeah, but he won't watch them. He won't even watch the real one.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know, dude, I gotta say so.

[Doug]

I think it's awesome.

[Adam Schaefer]

Different topic. It is awesome, by the way. Different topic. I. I bought more bitcoin today and not a lot, but I bought more. And there's two reasons why. One is a stat that I'm about to read to you.

[Justin Andrews]

Two, because Adam said you and he.

[Adam Schaefer]

I got the magic. Yeah, yeah. This is always works. Everybody, ladies and gentlemen, listen, okay? When Adam says something's a good buy but refuses to buy himself, historically run 100% success. And it's worked for me every single time. I'm like, are you going to buy some? He's like, no, buy it. So anyway, look at the stat as of 2025. This was shared to me by my brother and I have a thread with my brother and a bunch of my cousins and they're all in the old this what they do for a living. They're all invest.

[Justin Andrews]

Are they going to show you the, the every four year trend?

[Adam Schaefer]

I've seen all that.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay.

[Adam Schaefer]

And that's all cool and interesting.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

But this right here statistic made me go, oh yes. And yes, I know that the government, that banks are going to start using it, regulating it. That's a plus. Right? As of 2025, only 6.8% of the global population has invested in cryptocurrencies. That's it. Wow. Less than 10%. So that doubles. Which is nothing. That's 13% of people. The value is going to go through the roof if it just doubles.

[Justin Andrews]

Wow.

[Adam Schaefer]

So the room for growth on something like bitcoin is. So I got that stat and I was convinced I'm gonna buy a little bit more. Then I came and told Adam. Adam's like, for sure get, you know, bitcoin. Like, are you gonna get somebody's like, no, like, don't. I literally got on my phone, doubling down, tripling, quadrupling. So anyway. But they think it's gonna go to a million.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah. That's the prediction. And it's because, again, because it. There's a finite amount.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And I mean, I believe that with anything you look at coastal real estate, you look at. Yeah. You can only have very special spec cars. I mean, almost anything that someone else may not think is. Is considered an asset. If there is a scarce amount of it and. And enough people want that thing, it is absolutely an asset. And so, yeah, there's only so many of those. And to your point, if only 6% of the population. And that's saying total cryptocurrencies. I'm saying 6% own Bitcoin.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's right. So, you know, there's over 68% that are. It's in bitcoin.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay. So, yeah, so, yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

So bitcoin's the biggest one. Obviously.

[Doug]

That's definitely better than the NFT thing.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, it's funny, dude.

[Doug]

I was thinking about this the other day and like some of the, like, hustles that we've experienced just in our. On our own, like being here in the Silicon Valley and like what we've seen people get into and then it's just totally flopped. Like, you remember the whole domain hustle.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

When that came out, everybody's buying up everyone buying all the dot com main. Yeah, yeah.

[Doug]

Because you could sell them the same thing as nft.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know what I.

[Justin Andrews]

There was. Okay, so if. If you. I'm speaking to that. I totally remember this because I bought into it. We were personal trainers and I remember people getting money and funding because they had a dot com. Because they owned dog.com they were getting. People were just giving them like money to build a business around that because.

[Adam Schaefer]

They'Re like, oh, when you. That huge.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. You will own nothing. Yeah. It means. Absolutely.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's that bubble pop. I bought into it, by the way. I bought. So at the time, if you bought a domain at some point, a company's Gonna want that name. They'll buy it from you. Right? That was the whole thing. Yeah. And this was during the time when marijuana became medically legal in California and it looked like it was gonna become legalized at some point. So I had bought like 10 domains that were weed related. They've since expired. But I thought to myself, like, I'm gonna just buy a bunch.

[Doug]

Somebody's gonna approach me.

[Adam Schaefer]

Someone's gonna want, you know, wedoyourdoor.com I think was one of them and stuff like that.

[Doug]

So I did, I did star wars merch.com. it was so brilliant.

[Adam Schaefer]

You still own it? No. That might have actually been a good one, dude.

[Doug]

Yeah, it might have.

[Adam Schaefer]

But no, they didn't want it.

[Justin Andrews]

Give me.

[Adam Schaefer]

Just go around it.

[Doug]

Yeah, it's like they're not gonna like, need that.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Speaking of business, we should talk about our new trainer podcast.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, our lead trainer podcast that we're.

[Adam Schaefer]

Going to be launching on what Next is the 14th?

[Justin Andrews]

Well, this is live. It's live now, right, Doug?

[Sal Destefano]

That is correct.

[Justin Andrews]

It's officially live.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay, so it's Elite Trainer Podcast is the name of it. Hosted by our head trainer, Kyle, who's gonna, who's running the whole department here.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

And the first episodes he's interviewed us already. Has everybody been on already so far?

[Justin Andrews]

Twice.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. So you've been on twice today. I'm gonna do my second one.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah. So he's.

[Adam Schaefer]

And this is all trainer focus. It's all specifically for trainers.

[Justin Andrews]

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

[Adam Schaefer]

And the idea is, I mean, this just continues because it's going to keep going will be to have other top trainers on other top fitness professionals talking about all the stuff that would benefit a trainer. Everything from nutrition to biomechanics, anatomy, business, social media, how to expand and scale, how to use your, you know, different programs and systems. It's going to be what it's. What it's all about. So it's exciting. Elite Trainer Podcast.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. And honestly for the audience, you know, even if they're not like, this is I mean our opportunity just to shout out support because we know when you launch a podcast, the first eight weeks gives you the opportunity to rank against other new pod. This will be a completely separate new podcast, right, separate from this one. And so any support that we can.

[Adam Schaefer]

Get from you guys, download the episodes.

[Justin Andrews]

Listen to it, and if it and all I asked if it was helpful and you liked it, leave a review and share it. That's it. I mean that is the best way you can help support Kyle and our team that is trying to create a whole community around serving and helping trainers specifically. And so anybody who's listening right now, the best way you can support is that is go give it a listen. If it was valuable to you, leave a review and share it with someone else. And that is the best way to help us grow that thing.

[Adam Schaefer]

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[Sal Destefano]

First question is from the Francesca Marie. I keep seeing female fitness influencers show off their flat stomachs and basketball sized booties while telling social media how this look is attainable.

[Adam Schaefer]

But.

[Sal Destefano]

But is it really? I have always noticed with my own body, when my waist becomes more snatched, my glutes begin to shrink. So how can I or anyone else achieve that basketball size booty while attaining a flat stomach at the very same time?

[Adam Schaefer]

It's a good question.

[Justin Andrews]

It is a good question.

[Adam Schaefer]

Snatched, by the way, Doug, because earlier off Barry's like, what is that? A real snatched means your waist gets tight.

[Doug]

Oh, got it.

[Adam Schaefer]

My daughter actually told me this. I want to snatch waist. Oh my God.

[Doug]

Okay, so she never heard that either.

[Adam Schaefer]

So this is it. So this is actually a great question. Now I'm gonna first address fitness. Female fitness influencers. Their advice is terribly. It's terrible. It's typically terrible. So I wouldn't listen to them for most things.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

So when they're like, this is attainable look at me. It's like attainable for who they represent a very small percentage of people. Plus the way they live is probably not the way you would want to live. Nonetheless, getting leaner means you get leaner everywhere. What do I mean by that? So you want a lean midsection, which means you're getting lean. Although your glutes are a muscle, there's also some body fat on them. And so you're going to get a smaller butt if you get leaner. Also, if you want a bigger butt and you're trying to build it through building muscle, trying to do so while getting leaner, good luck. You either build or you get leaner. Now, can you do both at the same time? In some cases you can. It's a very slow process, more achievable in the very beginning when you start building some muscle and burning body fat at the same time. But later on you decide, do I want to build or do I want to get leaner? Trying to do both is like trying to drive in two different directions and you end up moving nowhere.

[Justin Andrews]

A much better strategy is you have periods of time in the year where you are heavily focused on building and growing your butt. Where you are living in a calorie surplus, you're lifting heavy weight, you're doing all the right exercises and you're growing that ass. You're not really worried that the waist is not shrinking that moment because you're in a calorie surplus and you're building. Then you go on a cut and you shrink down. And yes, inevitably when you shrink down, the butt will probably shrink down a little bit with it. But every time you do that, you should be able to grow your butt exponentially more and then shrink the waist back down to the, that have some muscle left over. Yeah. And so, but it's a, it's a process. This isn't a one time program you follow for three or six months and you get that look, the if, if this is speaking to the, the women that have achieved this that aren't genetically gifted. Because some women are just, I mean, I've had girlfriends before that they put body fat on and it goes right to their butt and boobs.

[Adam Schaefer]

It just, they're blessed.

[Justin Andrews]

That was right where it went. And then when they lost weight, it only shrank in their way. So there's genetic, just like there are genetic anomalies in men that they touch weights and muscle comes on them. So there's genetic anomalies on both sexes. But then there was also women who didn't have glutes really or small butts and did and had a waist and then over time grew this basketball sized butt and still have a small waist. But that didn't happen overnight. It happened.

[Adam Schaefer]

It didn't happen at the same time.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, it happened. Years of building those glutes, then cutting down, then building those glutes, then cutting down, then building those glutes and do that for some years and I'll show you some bodies that have been radically changed. I've done it, I've done it for many female clients. But over time it's not at the same time and it's not a quick thing. Especially when you don't have the beautiful genetics that just bless you in this direction.

[Sal Destefano]

Next question is from zemecka72. How often should I change my routine? Should it be a complete overhaul or just change change specific exercises?

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay, so I think it's probably a good idea to change some of the variables in your workout probably every few months. It's a good idea to stay where you're at if it's working, especially for long enough to reap the benefits. Like changing too often, too frequently. You're not able to really reap all the benefits of each exercise or what you're doing because you're not giving your body a chance to really get good at those things later on. I mean, you're super advanced and you've been training for so long. You can change up exercises more frequently because you can move well and you could reap the benefits of a squat very easily or a deadlift very easily, but that takes a while. For most people it's like three months. Typically three months. Stay where you're at and then change a couple variables. It could be the exercises or the reps, it could be the tempo.

[Doug]

That's the best way to do it.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. And you don't need to be super drastic. That's cool. You can do drastic changes. But when you do drastic changes, what you run into are programming issues. Okay. When you're following good programming, all the pieces fit well together. So if you look at our programs, the rep, ranges, sets, exercise order, it all works together. So if you're following maps anabolic and then you switch to a completely different program like Maps performance, the pieces fit together, the program is good. But if you took and tried to mix and match, you start messing up the formula sometimes, oftentimes and you don't get nearly as good a benefit. So typically it's like every, every few months you want to change a variable and for most people, keep it to one or two variables. If you change a completely different program, make sure it's a program that has some, some backing and some science specificity still wins.

[Doug]

And so if like you have a specific type of training you like love and, and your body does well with it, like that's going to be the majority of your training and then you're going to, you know, go through periods where you're interrupting that or you know, for me, I'm always conscious of if I'm backloading my squats quite a bit and I haven't done, you know, front loaded squats. Like there's certain exercises I want to weave in and incorporate and make sure that, you know, some of these compensations don't happen because I'm too focused on getting strong in just certain areas. So you know, just, just kind of switching up the variables like Sal's talking about as well is probably the easiest way to do that. So it doesn't have to be so drastic.

[Justin Andrews]

It's really hard to answer this question and not shamelessly plug our business. Of course, I mean if you, if you have to ask this question, then there's two ways that you could easily solve this or figure this out. Because answering this vaguely, we're going to go, we can, I mean that person could listen to all the great advice you just got and I'd still be lost on what to do. Sure. Because it's not specific. Right. But I could also invest the 150 bucks and get like three of our programs since we always have sales running on them all the time anywhere.

[Adam Schaefer]

And now you have like nine months.

[Justin Andrews]

Nine months of examples to literally follow and copy if you like. And like that's a great way to learn. Or if you got more time and don't want to spend the money, you can go back and listen to every episode that we've ever done where we, we break down a program and share it and launch it and learn that way. So I mean, go the free route or go that route is the best.

[Adam Schaefer]

Or you hire a trainer.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean that's, I mean that's expensive.

[Adam Schaefer]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

So I'm talking about very inexpensive is invest in two or three programs and you're going to learn a lot of this yourself. Or if you don't have any money, then go back and listen to the episodes where we, we dive into each one of those programs. You know, if you have the money, then yeah. And you really want to learn. Yeah, go get a professional and stuff like that. But you know, the I think we over, we. We tend to over complicate and oversimplify program like it's, it tends to be in one end or the other either. As trainers sometimes we, we over complicate in the sense that we like, we make it sound like it's so difficult, nobody could do it. So people are like, oh, I'm not gonna do anything. But then we oversimplify it because then we're like, if you just do these couple things, you're gonna be great. Well, yeah, you will. That'll change. That'll get most people really healthy. You just do these handfuls of things. But the real art of changing your programming up and it's like writing code for somebody. You know, it's like, I don't know how to do that. So I'm probably going to hire somebody to teach me or show me or I'm going to spend the time learning and the return I'll get on that is exponential.

[Sal Destefano]

Next Question is from agnmt35. Are belt squats as beneficial as barbell squats?

[Adam Schaefer]

You know, I gotta say, belt squats were not a thing for, for a long time. Now I use them quite a bit. I love them. They're different though. A barbell squat is loading.

[Justin Andrews]

You wouldn't say it's as beneficial, would you?

[Adam Schaefer]

I wouldn't, no, no, no, no. Because it's great.

[Justin Andrews]

It's great. But it's not as. Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Like a belt squat. So what a belt squat does, the belt is around your waist. The. It's typically attached to a cable that pulls down between your legs and it takes out most of the body. It's just a lower body exercise. Now I like it better than other leg only exercises because you're standing upright. Great range of motion. It's a good fundamental kind of human movement. It's great for mobility for people who have a challenge with, you know, deep squats. But you've, you've taken out the entire upper body that you'll get from a barbell squat. Where you're balancing a bar, you're holding it with your hands, which has lots of value. Which has lots of value. Your low back and your core is more activated and involved. I mean a barbell squat is going to make you stronger, stronger, faster and improve performance. Give you better results than a belt squat. Yeah. Whereas a belt squat is like legs only.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Belt squat is more valuable than a leg press. It's less valuable than a barbell squat.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So if, I mean it's great. Still great to have. But if you Are like considering never doing barbell squats again and you're only going to do belt squats, well, you are missing out on more value. You'd be far better off never bar or belt squatting and always barbell squatting because you're going to get all the benefits from the belt squat in the barbell squat and some versus the other.

[Adam Schaefer]

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

[Sal Destefano]

Next question is From Jay Laura, 34. What's the best workout plan for an overweight New dad?

[Adam Schaefer]

Matthew 15. Easy, for sure. Very easy.

[Justin Andrews]

I think we could have called that like new dad program.

[Adam Schaefer]

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

[Justin Andrews]

It's minimalist too. So if you're getting beat up on the sleep area, you're not overtaxing yourself, so.

[Adam Schaefer]

Exactly. I mean, you combine that with like just kind of trying to walk throughout the day, you're going to reap a majority of the benefits you'll get from strength training with a program like that. There's a reason why it's our high, one of our highest rated, most popular. It's one of the most popular programs that people get referred to to get because people follow it and it's just incredible results. And the total volume in it would be equivalent to like two full body workouts at the gym. It's just spread out in a way where it makes it super convenient, easy to follow, and if you miss one workout, it's not that big of a deal because you did, you know, five other workouts during the week. Look, if you like our show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at mindpumpjustin, I'm at Mind Pump distefano and Adam is at Mind Pump Out.

[Sal Destefano]

Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically, improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB super [e-mail] the RGB Super Bundle includes Maps, Anabolic Maps, Performance and Maps Aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos. The RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now. Plus other valuable free [e-mail] if you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on itunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.