: Hey, this is Dirt, your executive producer for The Aggressive Life. I have some big news. On June 6th, we'll be releasing our 200th episode of The Aggressive Life with Brian Tome. 200 episodes! Freaking amazing! It's a huge milestone. We want to feature the most important piece of our Aggressive Life family in that episode. And that's you! We want to know, what's your favorite episode of all time? How has the aggressive life influenced you? Has it made you make any big decisions? Do you have a burning question for Brian that you need him to answer? Leave us your voice on the aggressive life voicemail and it just might show up in our 200th episode special. You can go to bryantome.com slash your voice for the number and all the details. bryantome.com slash your voice to get your voice on an upcoming episode of the aggressive life. Now, let's get to today's show. Welcome to the Aggressive Life. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, which is like, Dirt gives me talking points to help me. Like you're reading things from the Environmental Protection Agency? Really? Like they put out like weekly emails on the state of dirt and you just want to read or something? I have to know. I have to know what's the latest with Dirt. That's right. Gosh. The average American spends 93% of their life indoors. which leaves 7% of our lives outside the confines of our homes, office buildings, and automobiles. You know, that's not a lot of time. For most Americans that translates to 30 minutes or less a day. For some of us, that number is a lot, lot lower. Ginny Yerich thinks and knows that's a problem and she's doing something about it. She's the founder of the global 1000 hours outside movement. She preaches the power of getting out and into the world in a world where we track nearly everything from fantasy football teams to our steps each day, the budgets, the frequent flyer miles. She's pushing people back to track outside hours. Her ambitious goal, it's an aggressive goal, it's a thousand hours a year. Wow, that's a little less than three hours a day. And you might be saying. Oh no, I don't, I can't do it. I don't like the outside. I go outside and there's mosquitoes and there's, and there's poison ivy and there's, I don't know, and then who knows? It could rain. It could be awful. You're going to have a lot of excuses not to do or actually not to listen today. I encourage you to do that. There's a lot today. You're not going to be able to apply. It's not you. Jenny is a stay at home mom. There's not a lot of stay at home moms or stay at home parents. She's someone who homeschools. There's not a lot of people who do that, actually growing people who do, more and more people in our country. But, you know, I would think the minority of us in the rest of life are homeschoolers. Maybe, maybe not. There's a lot of things that she's learned, that she's doing that might not be you. Do not check out today. Don't think this doesn't apply to you today. I promise you there's something here for you and you're gonna hear something that I think could be helpful to you. It might even be life transforming, at least that's what she thinks. I'll see. I'll push on her. She's gone after it. We're going to get her insights. We're going to get her thoughts. We're going to get her research. We're going to get her convictions. All the things around spending time outside for your health, for our health. She believes it reduces stress, anxiety, lower cortisol levels, reducing muscle tension. Good stuff. She's going to push us out from under our fluorescent lights today. Welcome to the Aggressive Life. Jenny, you're it! This is fantastic. I'm so thrilled to be here and honored. Thank you for asking me and can't wait to chat. Well, I'm, I'm excited about this. This is, this was podcast where I'm looking forward to, but I think I'm doing well in this, but probably not. Like three hours a day. I I'm real outdoors. Yeah. I'm sure if you, I know for sure if you average out the amount of time I'm outside over the year, whether it's on my motorcycle, I do a couple few weeks of elk hiking. Not elk hunting, because I never freaking see anything. I just hike around, look for them. Elk hiking out west. I do overland. I probably camp. This year I'm going to sleep, I would say, at least 60 nights in a tent this year. So I'm outside, but man, three hours a day, average days, I'm probably only walking from my house to my car. So am I a loser? No, not at all, because that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get outside for 1,000 hours over the course of a year. in an effort to bring back balance between real life and virtual life. And it really stemmed out of it didn't stem out of the stats. It's 10. It stemmed out of my failure as a mother. You know, when I had young kids, I was drowning. It was so awful. You know, I don't know. I struggle with it. I was not good at it. They're crying all the time. We had three under three. And I had a friend who told me about this British educator. from the 1800s. So I don't know, I don't know why we're listening to people from back then, but she was into it and her name is Charlotte Mason. She was kind of like this philosopher and her works are still used a lot today in regards to education. And she said that kids should be outside for four to six hours a day whenever the weather is tolerable. And I just remember thinking that was outlandish. Who has time like that? Who's doing, no one's doing that. But we tried it and this friend of mine kind of gave a little push. She said, well, let's give it a shot. And we met at this park. It was over a decade ago from nine in the morning to one in the afternoon, four hours had toddlers had babies. And it was, I say it was the best day of my life because it was the first good day I had as a mom. And I wanted to love being a mom. and I was just really struggling and that outside time turned it around for me. So it stems from there. The stats came later where I started to find out that kids are only outside for four to seven minutes a day on average, four to seven minutes, free play outside, but four to seven hours on screens. So this goal of getting outside for a thousand hours in a year, it solves a lot of modern day parenting problems and just gives a lot of answers in a simple way. This is a really fascinating discussion. We just started, but I'm already, my mind's kind of popping off. I am really concerned as is everyone concerned and really confused over how mental illness has just shot up. I'm a pastor by day and I've been doing this gig for decades and you know, the last 15 years, are deviant to the mean. It's just not normal. It's like people are catching bipolar, like they catch flu, anxiety, depression. I mean, these are very, and I keep racking myself going, what is this? I don't understand. Is it just the word diagnosing people who weren't diagnosed before? I think that's part of it. No, I don't think so. I think it's, I think things have changed. You know what they say? Well, what has it? The year 2012. So I read a lot. I read a book by Thomas Kirsting called Disconnected, and he was a, Kind of like you like dealing with people. He was in the schools, right? He was a counselor and dealing with families. And so same as you, like decades of experience. And he said in 2012 was the very first year that students started to come in and get diagnosed with ADHD as teenagers. So he said, look, this diagnosis has been around for a long time, but it never got diagnosed in high school. Always got diagnosed in elementary schools, first time. Then he said, all of a sudden, all these kids are coming in with anxiety. And he said, never had that before. Now half my caseload are kids with anxiety, 2012. Jean Twenge, who is this PhD, she writes about generational change. She talks about 2012, this pivotal year. Well, what happened is half the population had iPhones by then and it just continued to go. So it's really big changes. You're seeing it, we're all seeing it. It is actually happening where our life satisfaction has gone down because we are... You're spending too much time on something that does not give fulfillment. And it's really hard to break away from for all of us, all of us, kids to adults everywhere in between. It's hard to break away from it. And you have to be, I think really intentional in order to have that full life that we're all looking for. We all know about the evils of cell phones and the evils of social media. And I use the term evil lightly because I use my cell phone a lot and I use social media a lot. I'm not saying those things are inherently evil, but we're pretty convinced that those things, the way we're using them, are not healthy for us. They're dividing us as a society. It's making us less able to have conversations with people. I mean, those are what it is. But what you're saying, I think what you're saying is something I've not considered before. Are you saying that it's not that we're on social media and not that we're on our phones that are necessarily a problem? It's that those things... are making us less likely to be outside? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, they're taking time away from everything, everything that makes us feel fulfilled. So relationships, this is an illusion of relationships. They're not these relationships where someone's coming by your side and you're having a hard time. And it seems like, and that's, I think the problem is it's this illusion. So relationships are suffering and kids are just in their bedrooms. That's the prevailing thing. And they're not supposed to be, they're supposed to be out, they're supposed to be interacting with people, they're supposed to be having eye contact, they're supposed to be falling down, they're supposed to be trying things, they're supposed to be overcoming all of these things that we are meant to do as humans. And we've lost that because so much of that time and too much of that time is going towards screens. They're meant to be breaking bones. Yes. You know, I mean, I haven't seen your statistics on this, but I've got to think, that the number of stitches and broken bones in emergency rooms is not what it was 30, 40 years ago. You know what I mean? Right, because they're not outside. They're not doing anything. Right, right. You don't do it stuff hanging on the couch and doing Xbox. You do it stuff where you're building tree houses two stories up on limbs that shouldn't have a piece of wood nailed to them. You do those things when you're. riding your bike, no hands. You do those things when you're riding down a grass hill on a one-speed Roadmaster bike, you crash in the pavement. You do those things. I'm just talking about some of the things that I did before first grade that sent me there. That's the stuff that happens, but kids are having that today. And this is not a, oh, kids of our age are just not as tough as I was. No, I'm saying this as a, maybe as a morning, a M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G person who's older going, I think we're taking those things away from our kids. I think we're taking away- We're stealing their time. We're stealing their time. We are. This is the only childhood that they get and this is where they develop grit. This is where they develop resilience. This is where their brains develop. So there is this really cool statistic, Brian. I think you'll like this one. You can do this with your wife. So there's a statistic that says as we get older, as we age, if we don't want to develop dementia and Alzheimer's, that you can protect yourself as a 76% is the statistic. that if you dance regularly as you get older, if you dance regularly, you will reduce your risk for Alzheimer's and dementia by 76%. And the point is, is that when we engage in complex movements, different complex movements, increasingly complex movements, all of the wiring in our brain, it's connecting, it's doing all these things, it's enhancing and protecting the way our brains function. So if you think about childhood, all the things that you just said, screaming down the hill on your bike, all these things. The child is wired biologically to do those things. They're gonna roll down the hill, they're gonna swing, they're gonna go higher, they're gonna climb higher as they grow, and that is helping their cognition. And so we've got kids that are missing out on that. They're missing out on the emotional benefits of when we just go outside and we get to relax and let it all go, all the physical aspects. You know, this is an interesting thing. Our eyes, when we're inside, so right now, I'm inside. My eyes are contracted. It's called the ciliary ring. It's right around the eye. It's always contracted when you're in a short range of distance. It's even contracted when you're sleeping. The only time your eye ever relaxes is when you have a long range of field for your vision. So it only happens when you go outside. Our eyes only relax. Well, myopia, shortsightedness, is on the rise just like the mental health crisis. I mean, it's affecting our vision. They say 50% of our population will be short-sighted by 2050, and it's just exploded because kids are inside, they're on the screens, they're not letting those eyes relax. So there's even spiritually, I actually think, dear pastor, I think this is a church problem. I think that God has given to us an array of spiritual principles shown through nature, shown through His creation, and we're missing them. Consider the lilies of the field, right? Well, how can you consider the lilies of the field if you're inside? And I think God has given to us all of these spiritual principles that we can walk alongside our kids and show in the creation, you reap what you sow, right? You're not gonna plant this apple seed and get an orange, and that's what I want my kids to know. So I think it's a spiritual problem too, that we're not outside in what God has made. You're talking like you know something about this stuff. You're talking like you actually care. You're talking like you have passion. You're talking like you're actually educated. I think it's a thing. I think we miss things sometimes in the church that are right there. And all of these, what a- cool God that we serve, right? That he would say, look, you know, these principles, man, that's kind of tricky for a kid, but I'm gonna give you this chick that you can take an egg and everyone has access to an egg and an egg will turn into a chicken 21 days if you have an incubator. We should be doing this in all of our children's programs. 21 days, you got an egg, you fry it up for breakfast. Every day you have a scrambled eggs. But if you put it in this incubator, if it's one that's, you know, a fertilized egg or whatever. In 21 days, you have an animal, this cute little fluffy chick. The old is gone, the new has come. I like the one that says, if you keep it. That you then kill and eat. That's awesome. Sure, sure. Or you keep it as a pet. You give it to a local farmer. I don't know. You know there's that risk. Who then kills and eats it, yes. Sure, sure. Or keeps it to lay eggs, you know. So I don't know. I think that's a cool thing, too. I like the one that says, if you cast your bread upon the water, it will return to you in several days or whatever. It's in Proverbs. It's like, well, that doesn't make any sense. Have you ever thrown bread in the water to feed the ducks? I was like, that doesn't return to you. It disintegrates. It gets eaten. But we'd be generous. We'd throw our things out there and know that it's going to come back another way. I don't know. I just think there's so much to it. Yeah, we've got some grandkids. Lib and I do. Our kids are older out, and they've got their own homes and all that stuff. So we're starting to have grandkids now. And when they come over, one of the things they like to do is I like to go down to the creek that's on the other side of the road of our house and pick up rocks, throw rocks, jump in water, all that stuff. And my wife always takes them down there. And they love it. And I love that she takes them down there. Like, good. Because that's the stuff I want to do. And I think I realized when thinking about that, I go, I think that's part of our issue is taking kids or ourselves, take out the kids out of the parenting thing. ourselves outside is more difficult, more unpredictable than just sitting on my couch and streaming Netflix. You know, I got to clean up mud, I got to clean up water, I got to this and that, and we're probably hurting ourselves. It's a lot of work. And I used to think, this is what I used to think, Brian, I used to be annoyed because my, so my father-in-law is a pastor and he grew up in the sixties and he lived on this street where there's a bunch of Catholic families, huge families. And he said within the first, I don't know, 10 houses of either side on his street, that there was like 78 kids or something like that. And so there's all these kids right on the street, right in the neighborhood. And so the moms would just shoo them out. I mean, I remember growing up that we had a neighbor that the mom would lock the door. All summer she had four kids and they'd be outside all summer. I don't know how she fed them. I don't quite know what was going on there. What is she doing? Is she cleaning? I don't know. But that was sort of the cultural norm. Well, now there's no kids out. And so as a parent, it's on you. It's on your wife. We have to do it. And for a long time, I was really annoyed about that. Like this is annoying. If I would have just been, you know, I was just a parent 20 years ago. But you know what I think? I think that we need it more than ever too as adults. And so what it really is, is it is a life-changing thing for me as much as it is for our kids. It's as much as they have to struggle with screens and screens that are available 24 seven. It wasn't like that when I was a kid. They were cultural boundaries. The cartoon stopped at noon on Saturday morning. I remember Sunday, every Sunday I wanted to watch TV and all that was on was WWF. And I so badly wanted to like WWF because I wanted to watch TV, but I didn't. So you had to find something to do. It was sort of built into the culture and the society. Well, now that's not there. We have no boundaries. And so it's up to us as individual families to create this for our kids. And on one hand, it seems annoying, but then on another hand, This is saving us, I think. This has really enhanced my own life too, in the process of being intentional about keeping balance in childhood for our children. Yeah, I like the focus you have on kids. I think that's really, really good. I'm not thinking about this from a kid standpoint, because again, I don't have kids anymore that I'm responsible for. I'm just thinking about it from the standpoint of my own personal health, my own personal creativity. Just this morning, I was looking in the mirror, getting ready to go out for the day. And I went, man, bags on these eyes, they just keep getting bigger, lower, and darker. What is going on here? And I flashed back to a scene that was on my, I think I put on my Instagram a couple years ago, with me holding a little fish. I went fishing, I had this itty bitty fish, and I was holding out in front of me and all excited. And I had no bags under my eyes, none. And I thought about that a lot, like why, why did I not have any bags? Was it because I had a week of no stress? I was camping with my wife and was it because I was outside? I'm at my inside and at my office and under the fluorescent lights, is that creating the bags under my eyes? When I'm outside, do I relax more? I don't know what it is. I just know that when I'm outside for extended periods of time, people tell me I look younger. Wow. What's the science behind that? Isn't that interesting? Wow, there's sleep science for sure. So when you go outside and you go outside, especially in the morning, that morning sun resets your circadian rhythm. So your body rhythms, they account for a hundred, at least a hundred different bodily functions. So you have to get out in the morning. You get out in the morning and that sunlight hits your eyes and it goes right to your brain and it releases a serotonin. So you feel good. You get out in the morning. It helps you feel good. And then at night that serotonin turns into melatonin and it helps you sleep. So I think we've all had experiences where we've been camping, we've been outside for a long period of the day and we feel exhausted at the end. And that's what's happened. That's really how we're supposed to feel is that light is a guide for our body. That morning light, that bright light, it wakes you up. You got this hot noonday sun, it's giving you energy. And then you know what changes to- purples and blues and that's a sign it's a signal for your body to slow down and to start to enter into that rest period and So I do think that when we're outside for extended periods throughout the day then that's helping I probably body functions We don't even know exists, but at least a hundred are attributed to that circadian rhythm. So it's helping your body orchestrate better There's a lot to it and a lot that I don't know. I mean, I'm continually learning new things. It is really miraculous So you're part of the circadian rhythm cult that wants me to go to bed as soon as it's dark outside and wake up as soon as the sun comes up. I don't do that. But it is. Okay. Okay. I was liking about everything you said and that's going to be one of those weirdos. I got the bags under my eyes. It's hard. But I do think that we do try and get outside in the morning to help to reset that, to help wake our bodies up. And that's a little goal of ours that we try as our family. We're not perfect with it. Not perfect with any of it. And I think that is a cool thing about a goal is that it doesn't have to be perfect in order to be a win. So, you know, we're aiming to get outside for a thousand hours. You know, there's people that get outside for 2,000 hours. There's people that get outside for 400 hours. But I always say, even if you fail, you win. Because those 400 hours are doing so much for your entire health, mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, all of it, cognitive. And you're also building these foundational memories, either for yourself or with your family, that no one can take those away. And so it's a win no matter how far you get. And you know the coolest thing that people say to me, this is my favorite thing, because I get a lot of messages. This is a really simple concept. It's not super easy to implement, but the concept is simple. And people will send messages and they'll say, I would have missed this moment if not for this challenge. I would have missed this moment if not for this challenge. And that's my favorite thing to get. because people are saying, oh, you know what? I went out in the back porch and we had dinner there because I thought, well, it was nice out. We're just gonna do dinner outside. We're gonna try and get more hours. And we saw some deer or just like these different little things that enhance life in bigger ways than it would seem. And so we're just getting all these little bright spots in our weeks, in our days, in our months. I went on a bike trip, a motorcycle trip with my son recently. We do what's called adventure riding, where are you? get on dirt, get out in nature. And you just, when it's time to camp, you just stop and camp. And this time was just he and I. Normally we're out with like anywhere from four to seven guys, and when you got four to seven guys, it's a nonstop party. Like every night around the campfire is, you know, partying hardy and laughing and one-upping each other. And it's like that for seven days or whatever it is. And it's great, it's wonderful. This time was just he and I. You don't have the energy of just, hey, I got an audience, let me tell you a joke. You're not building off of each other's lines. When it's just two of you, you're just kind of in the rhythm of the day. And I did notice that, man, we went to bed early. We just, early. The sun went down not too long after that. We were in bed. And then of course you got sunlight that's coming through your tent. There's no blinds. Comes through the tent and you wake up. And it did make me wonder, like, am I just staying too tight to my preferable rhythm of when I go to bed, when I get up? I don't know, maybe there's something to the circadian rhythm called, I don't know. I just know you're onto something here, you're onto something that we're out of touch with the way that every, every human being from the beginning of time, say, for the last hundred years has lived. Every single one. This is how we've lived. I'm big into camping and people are like always poopoo. Oh, my idea of camping is, you know, going to Days Inn and having to walk down the street for ice or something like that. Oh, it's so funny, I haven't heard that before. But I like to say those things. You realize you're weird. Like nobody in all of human history could ever claim to have never slept outside. Nobody in all of human history has not developed the ability to poop in the woods. Like everybody, I mean, every, every, everybody. And this might not be something that's, something you wear with a badge of honor. It could actually be part of our anxiety, depression, our antagonistic tendencies towards one another. That's what you're saying, right? It's contributing to a lot of it. It's because we're like in this comfortable. position all the time. I read Michael Easter's got a book, The Comfort Crisis, which is a great book. Yes, we've had him on. He's fantastic. Yeah, he's so fantastic. But this is not how we're meant to be. We're meant to experience discomfort. We're meant to overcome. We're meant to do hard things and to feel afterward. We're meant to fail and to adjust. We're meant to do all of those things and we're not doing them because the screen is pacifying. And I think one of the things that's really cool too about nature in relation to the screen is that, You know, we're wired for new things. We're wired for novelty. We're wired for the monarch that's emerging from the chrysalis. We're wired for those things. And these screen manufacturers, man, they have capitalized on that hardwired need that we have as humans. And so I got that infinite scroll, and there's always something new. If you get on your phone, there is always something new. But nature does the same thing. It changes with the seasons. It changes every day with the weather. So it's out there. Our needs can be met through conversation, through relationship. And I looked at your Instagram, you are really adventurous. I saw tons of things that you were doing, it's super cool. Oh, you're so kind. Thank you. Thank you. Well, it's not to fulfill a brand, it's because of who I've become and I haven't always been that way either. I had my renaissance probably when I was about age 33 or something like that, came out of it. can be just very, very fulfilling. So I'm finding this really, really great. One of the things I think that bothers me that people do, it doesn't bother me that they do it. I'm just never going to do it. Let me put it that way. We all know about the gamification of America. And if you build an organization, if you can gamify it, someone will play along and you'll get better numbers. airplanes have figured this out, airlines. Let's gamify it, frequent flyer miles. Look at your status, see where the bar is on stuff. And then Fitbit comes along and Apple Watch gets into it. Your calories, this, that gamify it. And I have friends that have gotten really good shape and they feel like if they can't track on their watch, it doesn't count. And you know what, that good for you. It's working for you, great, great, great. That doesn't work for me. I don't wanna do that. But I'll tell you what would be fascinating. is if we could figure out how to gamify being outside. That would be interesting if you could figure out how to just look at my watch and figure out, ooh, ooh, I'm under my goal of X amount of time outside in the sun or outside. Yeah, well, if you have an app that comes with badges. It's a number one lifestyle app. It's actually was the top paid app in all of the apps in the app store. all of the apps. It's just me and my husband over here. Not knowing what we're doing. But yeah, over the holidays, it was a top paid app of all paid apps on all of Apple in the app store. But it just comes with badges. It's got a timer feature and you get badges here and there. And so I mean, that's as far as we've gone with it. So you go, you go into the app though, and you got to say, I'm outside, hit a little play button. There's a little timer on there. Yeah. I'm saying it'd be great. That's awesome. Well done, Jenny. I'm saying it'd be really awesome. if Apple would buy your concept and stick it into their watch to when Apple, when you go outside, the watch is, oh, here we go, outside, outside. And you can see how much time you're outside. That would be pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, if it was on the Apple Watch. But yeah, we do have an app, and it's pretty awesome. It's got a journal feature, and people are asking about it forever. But that's what we have with those tracker sheets that we have. And Caleb is saying his wife has one. So on our website. we have these tracker sheets and you're coloring in is a thousand spaces and there's all these different designs. One of them looks like a log slice. One of them looks like just all these array of things. They're really cool. One's flower petals and you're coloring in an hour for each time you're outside. Well, some people say I'm not doing that. I would never do that. It's too cumbersome. Well, that's fine. The whole point is actually awareness. That's a big point. But for the people that do do it, it gives you something to celebrate in sort of the doldrums of life. We get into these rhythms and just as the same. day after day, but oh wait, we had 100 hours. So people will make like these, they'll take a sticks and turn it into 100 or I saw some dad, he did 100 hours outside ceremony with his kids. And I think like we have to celebrate real living. We have to remember this next generation, they have no experience with a screen free existence, none. We do, we're the last, we're the last. You know, they say we're the last and the first. The last two have had some experiences where, look, there's nothing to watch because WWF's on. There's no kids programming. But the first then to enter into this screen-based world. And so we're celebrating and then they're just giving each other high fives as community. And I think it's modeling. I think we need a toolbox for how to deal with this onsite of screens. And obviously it's changing. I mean, you can't really. you know that it's changing. They always say, oh, it's a screen. The, the technology doubles every year. It's this exponential growth. And then, like, well, what could really change? And then they come out with AI. So, you know, it's going to be a thing that that we grapple with for the rest of our lives, I think. And so you got to have a toolbox, I think. So give us some easy layups here. I've got kids cause you're specializing on that. You're, you're, you're a mother. you're specializing with kids, how this affects kids. I'm thinking about it for us adults, but you're really nailing right now in the podcast with kids, which is great. Give us some like layup bank shots. Do this. Yes, okay. Do this. Call your friends. Call your friends. And you know, my dad does this. My dad keeps track of his hours. We have a private Facebook group. It's got 130,000 people in it. So there are people from all walks of life. It is not just parents, but okay, what are you gonna do? You're gonna call a friend. I think that's the most important thing. Call a friend and say, we're going to the park from this time to this time. We're gonna go on a short hike from this time to this time. And what's important to know for children is that it can take a while for them to develop their play scheme up to 45 minutes. So sometimes you go out with kids and I'm bored. I got nothing to do. What do you have to do? I know you have to wait through it. You have to deal. You have to just like take a deep breath and say, it's okay that you're bored. and I trust you're gonna find something to do, you just be repetitive with it, you know? But they do, they end up finding things to do and you know, when they play with other kids, think about the social skills. You know, did you do that as a kid? Like, I don't know, we had a baseball, like a ragtag baseball field by our house growing up and it's like, you gotta go and there's six kids this time, there's four kids, you gotta figure out rules. Who's gonna be the, someone's gonna pitch the whole game, someone's, this is the, you know, these are our boundaries and so kids are learning. So many social skills that translate for their whole life to the boardroom. How do you be aggressive but not too aggressive, right? How do you have your voice heard but don't turn everyone else off? Because kids are intrinsically motivated. They wanna play, so they don't want everybody to cry and go home because they're being too bossy. So they're finding that balance. So, you know, I mean, take your meal outside, take your homework outside, take your book outside. That... full spectrum light, like if you say you're sitting under fluorescent lights, that's like a bunch of like there's green light and orange light and it's like all these spikes of light. But when you go outside, it's full spectrum wave. It's good for your health. So I mean, those are some some easy slam dunks right off the beginning. You know, longer term is plan a camping trip. You know, when you go on your vacation, look for some places through Google Maps or through all trails where you can take a hike. and use part of your vacation time to get your family outside. But you just want to find what's near you. If you live in the city, if you live in the country, there's pros and cons to both. Find neighbors that you can play with if you live in a neighborhood. And you just start scheduling it in. I think otherwise our time just kind of flushes down the toilet. Yeah. Having the most successful paid app on Apple is pretty impressive. That's pretty cool. Yeah, it was cool. It was really cool. But you're talking, yeah, very cool. but you're talking here, you're just spewing information, great insights. Where did you pick these things up? Have you had a specific study season where you studied this? Has this been something that's always been of interest to you? Tell us about that. It's a good question. So I told you, it really stems out of failure. The whole thing, it wasn't like I was some outdoor advocate. And in fact, I don't like going outside. And neither do my kids. I like being outside. I like being outside once I'm there. But that effort of getting outside and leaving the comfort of the home and packing up the things that you need to do and leaving your phone behind or the other things. But getting outside changed my motherhood. Because when I went outside for that first time from nine to one, it was the first good day I had as a mom because the kids just played. And I was with a friend and we were able to have a conversation and we had a picnic and the kids ran around. and we all felt refreshed when we left. And so I changed my lifestyle immediately. You know, I was doing like 45 minute library program, 45 minute swim, 45 minute music and mom, and it was awful because it was so much output for very little reward. And I would just be exhausted all the time. And so we went outside and I felt like it's like mother nature is this extra mother. It's an extra set of hands. It's someone that's gonna keep the kids occupied. So it changed my life just for my own mental sanity at the beginning. And then I started to come across books. I mean, I've probably read 200, 250 books about the power of nature for all of us, for kids, for adults. But I started with a book called How to Raise a Wild Child by Dr. Scott Sampson, who is a PBS dinosaur train guy. And that's where I found that statistic about kids are outside for four to seven minutes, but on screens for four to seven hours. every day. I mean, we're just imbalanced. We're not anti-screen. Like our kids have iPads, you know, but we're imbalanced. And so here's why I keep reading. It's hard. It's hard. My kids ask to be on their screens all the time and they always have a reason. It's like, oh, so and so can FaceTime right now. And normally they can't or so and so can play video games. And I haven't talked to them in one week or my friend moved and there's always like, we have these boundaries. We try to. But there's always kids are so good at security and for ourselves too. I'm like, okay, well, I'm only gonna work for these. But then someone emails and you got this. And so if we can fill our time with what we wanna fill it with first and leave the leftover time for screens and know that, look, some things are gonna slide. Like I could probably be doing way more than what we're doing. And some things slide and some things slip. But the main goal is to say, look, I wanna live a full life. I wanna model to my kids a full life. Like I don't want them to think like adult life is lame. Right. You know, that's a big thing. I want them to think adult life is full and vibrant. So, uh, I just continued to read. I'm, I just got a new book called move. I've got books all, you can't see my bookshelves behind me. You got a book called move. You got a book called move. Move. It was an author by the name of Brian Tome. Is that yours? You bought, you have my book. Come on. Are you serious? I think so. Oh, that was it. Get out of here. That's the one I'm taking. We're leaving for conferences tomorrow. And I was like, I need some new books to get. Is it blue? Darn it. It's not. It's black. Oh, I should have stopped right there. I would have felt so good about myself. I would have felt so good about myself if you had bought my book. OK, I got this one. It's called Built to Move. Yours? Oh. That's a stupid ass book. You don't want to read that one. Caleb, you got to edit it out, make it sound better. That's very funny. Today's podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens. It's a product I use every day. I started taking AG1 because I don't watch my diet too closely, but I know that I'm getting all the vitamins, minerals and nutrients I can, as well as hydrating with 12 ounces of water right off the bat at the beginning of the day. One scoop of AG1 has got 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, whole food source, superfoods, probiotics and adaptogens. And it doesn't taste like it. It actually tastes great. AG1 is a micro habit with big benefits. For less than $3 a day, you can take care of your health and invest in your future. It's recommended by professional athletes, health experts, and me. So make it easy. Athletic Greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune supporting vitamin D and five free travel packets with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com. Again, that's athleticgreens.com slash aggressive life to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutrition insurance. So go get you some and let's get back to the show. You've got a new book coming up. I think it's, I think you're already giving us some of these, some of these concepts, but I'll just give you, give you the opportunity to, again, I just, I love the title. It's the title is, it comes out in November, until the street lights come on, how a return to play brightens our present and prepares kids for an uncertain future. Give us a 30,000 foot view of that book. Oh, come on. Isn't that what we want? We want a better today and a better tomorrow. And my actually, let me cut you off. I just want to, before you answer, stay there. I just want to cut off people who might want to leave right now. Because when it comes to parenting, a lot of us just aren't parents. And that's OK. You're getting something here that's for all of us. I'm not a parent anymore either with little kids. But then some of us might be going, well, I'm. I'm dual income working. Well, we don't have a stay at home parent that can just take off for four hours a day. This isn't relevant to me. You may not be able to do that, but there's something irrelevant. So please do not compare your life to mine or Jenny's. Just here's the overall concept and figure out how to improve your life. That's why it's called the aggressive life. It's not called the perfect life. It's called the aggressive life. Like take a step in the position and the direction you want to go. So let's hear all the rest of this through those lens. Go, Jenny. Yeah, no, but I think that's a really important concept because people ask that a lot. And we have people, like I said, in that Facebook group and people that tag, there's like hashtag 1000 hours outside. There's hundreds of thousands of people and they are in different walks of life. Like I said, they're doing it with their dog. They're elderly, but they really want to get their sunshine. They're doing it as a generational family. They're dual income, and all they have is a little bit of time on the weekends and a little bit of time in the evenings. But you know what? They grab their kid from school and they go to the park for 45 minutes afterward. They're fighting for increased recess time. I mean, there's so many things that you can do to enhance. And like you said, it doesn't have to be perfect. So the book is about a better today and a better tomorrow. And I think that's what we're all looking for, right? There's a lot of things that we're looking for. I think sometimes we think we have to sacrifice today in order for tomorrow to be better. But I believe that a full life today is what prepares us for tomorrow and especially for our kids. Our world is changing rapidly. I read this book by Neil Postman. It's from the 80s. He said change changed, change changed. Things used to change. People would have a job for 30 years and then the skill sets would change and there'd be a new job. Now they say that coming out of college, you're going to have. Four different jobs, four different jobs in the first decade, four. So that's not only four skillsets to learn, but that's four groups of people. Think about the interpersonal skills that you would need for that, right? Coming in new colleagues, where are we learning these things? We're not learning that in front of a screen, none of it. We're learning when we're out in community, when we're out with people, no matter what age you are, no matter if you have kids or not, the way that we sharpen those skills and the way that we grow as people. is through experience, is through relationship. And so if we want to prepare ourselves for tomorrow, we have to be living real life and not just be in the virtual world. And so that's for us and our kids. And the coolest thing is that it makes our today better too. We don't have to sacrifice today. And I think a lot of people sacrifice today. Oh, they got my kids and they gotta be in this and I got them in tuba and they gotta be in French and they're gonna do it. So they can get in the Ivy league school. It's like, no, no, if they're full, if they have a. full, vibrant life. They will be ready for whatever is supposed to come for them. And I believe, you know, we have our kids come how they come. We come how we come, with our bent, with our personality, with the things that we're passionate about. So give them a full life, live a full life, and know that that is enough. Yeah, the idea of change is a really prescient one. It could be that also the anxiety and stress and all that stuff is because of our high rate of change. not only am I tapping into all of humanity's history has been outside, pooping in the woods and camping or killing something or planting something or down their knees tilling something, whatever you're thinking about. It's not just that, but things aren't changing other than the weather. It's somewhat stable. I like to stream things. I binge things. And one of the things I've binged recently are all Viking things. I watched the first, you ever seen the Viking ones? Vikings or Valhalla. No, okay, so yeah, I like it. So have you seen Vikings or Valhalla on Netflix, Dirk? I haven't seen them, no. Okay, so it's really good. The first show was, I don't know, five, six seasons. It got a little old, but it was good. Then Valhalla came out a couple years later, and it's actually set 100 years later from the original one, 100 years or so later. And I watched this, like, the very first, in the very first minutes of watching it, I'm going, what, 100 years has passed? It looks exactly the same. And I thought, well, yeah, that's the way it always was. In fact, 1700 looked exactly like 1600, which looked exactly like 1500, which looked exactly like 1400, 1300, 1200, 1100. I mean, there was like no change, none. And now you go back 100 years. Or as we talk about the iPhone, you go back 15 years. Or now with chat GPT, you go back to what that's going to mean. Just two years, the change and the rapidity, you just can't keep up. When I go outside, things slow down. And I'm just like everybody else, because the same rules for shelter and gathering water and everything else. Yeah, and you let your mind go. So it gives you time to be creative. Austin Kleon has some really cool books about that. But. We have to have this downtime. Austin Klingon? Austin Klingon? Cleon. What a loser name that is. Cogs are Klingon. Oh my gosh. That guy should be very happy he didn't go to middle school with me. Austin Klingon. I said it too fast. It's Cleon. It's K-L-E-O-N. OK, well he would be Klingon for me. Yeah, I'm sure. Absolutely. Everybody who has a junior high person like me calls him Klingon. Absolutely. His whole life. Oh, goodness. Cleon, moron, I don't know, something like that. Anyway, let's go back to your book, because you talk about play as well. I'm a big, big play fan. And I think that you're really helping crystallize this for me. Again, it's not that the iPhone or smartphones has anthrax on it, and it's making us stupid. It's not that screens are. you know, injecting us with a stupid gene. It's that those things might be keeping us away from things that actually give us life, like being outside or literal actual playing. If you're listening to this podcast right now, Dr. Stuart Brown. I've been trying to find you. Dirt and I have been after you. Ever heard of Dr. Stuart Brown? Jenny, have you heard of him? I've got his book. I've got his book. It's a great one. You do? Yeah. Oh my gosh. I'm going to have your book too. You will when I give it to you because I know you're not going to buy it. I'm going to buy it. No, I'm going to give it to you. So we've been trying to get him. He founded the National Institute for Play. He rocked my world. about 15 years ago with what play was. And I had zero play in my life 15, 20 years ago. None, zero rocked my world, changed, literally changed my life. And we've been trying to get him on this podcast. He's either died, he's senile or he hates my guts. I'm not sure what it is, cause he just won't respond. So Dr. Stuart Brown, or if anyone knows Dr. Stuart Brown, Brian Tome likes you. That's great. You know what I'm... I love that. You can see your Instagram is so playful. And I think it will be, this is scary. Chad GPT is gonna wipe out an entire set of careers because it's doing all that writing. I mean, if you, and it's phenomenal at it. And so this is what's happening. A technology does that. It changes things. It wipes out careers. People have to adjust. And I think that it is through play and through downtime and through boredom and through frustration and through overcoming that we gain that. confidence, but then we also just gain that flexibility in our mind to be able to adjust at this rapid rate and to be successful and not to be just drown in it. Now, I've started to experiment with chat GPT just last couple of days. Sorry, Dirt, future doesn't look very good for you. Turn that off right now. Well, Dirt's interviewing people. People are interviewing him, looking at other jobs, like, OK, maybe I'll replace Dirt before he takes another job. Just leaves me. Get out of here. No, not true. Not true. It's never going to do what you do. It is. And I've just been having some fun with it recently. But yeah, things constantly change. They're always going to change. And it's really... Great to be reminded there are some things that don't change that is being outside. And maybe that is why our kids are, they just are, they're less resilient than they used to be. They just are. I'm not saying they're weenie boys and girls. I'm just saying the mental health statistics show that very, very clearly, correct? It's mental health and it's physical health. So there's a book called Balanced in Barefoot by, she's a pediatric occupational therapist. So she's doing occupational therapy services for kids. and she has been for a long time. Her name is Angela Hanscom. So her book is Balanced and Barefoot. And she also echoes that kids all the way through childhood should have at least three hours of outdoor play a day, more for when they're younger, but all the way through the teen years, including the teenagers. But she says that what kind of twisted, changed things for her to get her attention was that she said all of a sudden the wait list for therapy services was like a year long. way that you can't even get in, that it just exploded. And she said, it's really not all of it, but a lot of it stems back from the fact that the kids are not, they're not getting dirty. They're not touching things. They're not experiencing the wind in their face, that kind of thing. And that's what we're meant to do. Michael Easter talks about that in his book, which you've had him on, it's great about the healthiest people in the world. You'll love this dirt or the dirtiest people. Remember that? Amen. Yeah, these people, they don't, they don't shower. They're not thinking exactly. They're stronger. They have, they have more immunities, all that stuff. And we just, we can't, most of us can't imagine not having a shower and brand new clean clothes every day. And again, part of the reason why we're weaker when you when you're outside, you just can't do that. Oh, I'm when I'm camping, when I'm motorcycling, when I'm overlanding, I wear the same underwear and the same pants and socks. for a week, I know that's mind blowing to people. You can do it and your balls don't fall off, seriously. It's, you can do it and maybe that's why Harley ever goes sick, I don't know. I got sick, what was that, a month ago. Yeah, you're like never sick. All the team was shocked, they thought like the second coming of Christ was coming. BT's sick? He's sick? He said, what's happening? What's going on? Oh no, oh this is. This is really refreshing. All right, let's talk lightning round. Jenny, this is where I give you a topic and you have to answer it as quick as lightning. I don't know if you're ever outside long enough to actually see lightning, but you've got to actually wakow, answer wakow. Like the lightning flashes you see on your Netflix show because I know you've never outside to see lightning itself. But wakow. You answer quick, like one or two cents. Are you ready for the lightning round? I'm ready. I'm ready. It's all right, Jenny. Jenny Yertz, here we go. The outdoor pursuit that you're personally most into right now. Oh goodness, I'm already behind. No, no, no, no, you can take your time thinking. It's just you can't, you just can't blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, the answer has to be sure, yes. Okay, I'm pursuing getting outside for 1,000 hours outside this year. That's a weenie. That's not good. No, that sucks. Like, do what? What is the thing you're going to do more than the other thing in that thousand hours? This is what I love to do the most. I love to tube down rivers, and I might be going with my daughter on a rafting trip down Desolation Canyon in Utah, in Moab, later this year. So that's on the books, and it will be the coolest thing ever with my 13-year-old. So we're trying to work that out. That's awesome. Tubing down rivers and just lying in your pee as you go down the river. That's wonderful. There's nothing better. Nice and warm. Okay. Piece of clothing or gear that's most important for you when you're outside. Water bottle. Top there. You got to have your water bottle. I don't think you need much to go outside. There's food, water. I don't think much else matters. Backpack. to put it in. Best advice you've ever gotten related to being outside. Okay, here we go. This isn't gonna fit with your audience. All right, a tablecloth makes a party. So I love if I have extra space. This is not going to fit at all. What do you mean? This is what it is. Why does this not fit? Don't put me in a box. Don't put me in a box. Are you going to bring a tablecloth on your next motorbike? No, I'm not. No, no, no. I'm going to eat where the grasshoppers lie. But no, but that doesn't mean it's not a good idea. Listen, I'm telling you, if you can pack a tablecloth into your bag, if you've got space for it, and when you get outside and you throw that on your picnic table, it changes the whole ambiance. It's my favorite. Interesting. Yeah, I could see that. Okay. Most aggressive mistake you've made and what you've learned from it. Ooh, I wrote a book. I got contacted by a publishing company to write a book. And then it wasn't the book I wanted to write. So they said, we want you to write a nature book with nature crafts. I was like, okay, well, I'm not good at writing. I'm not good at crafts. And I had to do the photography. I'm not good at photography, but I did it anyway, because I want to model to my kids real life things. I want to get those experiences for myself. I want to do hard things. I did the whole book. The whole thing, Brian, I got it done, sent it in. The editor said, good job. Sent me the first chapter, it's all laid out beautiful. And the very next day they canceled it because of COVID. Changed all of the marketing and the money and all that. And I was embarrassed and humiliated. But then we ended up self-publishing it. I'm gonna show you here what it looks like because it is a beautiful book. It's been out for a little while, but it looks like this. It's all these activities. I did all the photography. That's cool. And here's the cool story, Brian. So because we self-published it, we ordered them ourselves. I got them in the mail like months and months and months earlier than we would have otherwise, because I think those companies print in China. And I got the books in my hand on April 29th. This was in 2021. And on April 30th, I was on The Today Show. And so it just worked out so cool. I think... It was something that was out of my comfort zone and truly was a failure, it got canceled. But then turned out to be a really cool thing. Well, it was, I don't know how to call it a failure. I would call it definitely a blow to the ego. The failure though was that publishing industry not seeing that that was the window of time where everyone wanted to go outside. This is the only bummer about this podcast is I'm encouraging more people to go outside and it's gonna be more crowded for me. When I started doing adventure motorcycling, Uh, nobody, nobody, we could stop anywhere, anytime of day and never saw another soul ever, ever, ever, ever. Not the case anymore. There's jeeps everywhere. There's overlanders everywhere and, um, uh, a mix about it. It's good for you folks way to get way to beat the matrix that has you inside, but also, gosh, there's a lot less great campsites that are easily accessible for me. So that, I mean, that was brilliant stroke of genius on your part. You just fell right into the whole COVID be outside thing. Had a great resource. That's awesome. That was cool. I think things happen like that a lot. Jenny, is there anything I should be talking to you about or you want to talk about that I haven't asked you yet? I think we covered it all. I think this has been a cool experience for me to talk with a pastor because I do feel that there is this spiritual component to it and a really cool thing that could be woven into the church as a way to. help anyone to understand spiritual concepts. And so that was what I was kind of most excited to talk with you about, but there's so much to it. Well, most pastors, I mean, let me double check my statement here. Yeah, I would say most, not all obviously, but most. Most pastors were drawn to the occupation for the academic side of things. They like the learning, they like the studying, they like the reading, they like the desire and thought of being an author someday, they most identified with a professor that they knew, and all those things are generally indoors. And so most, which by the way, there's a study out, oh gosh, was it 15 years ago that the average pastor of his age bracket? tests way lower on testosterone than other men who are in other jobs. And so is that we have lower tests? No, seriously. Wait, can I tell you something? So there's a study out and I'm going to get the statistics wrong. I'm going to send them to you. I'm going to send you the article. It's a study that for men, this is for men, if you get sun, this is going to fit. If you get sun on your chest or your back, it increases your testosterone, something like 200%. Oh, okay. But let me keep going because you said the word. So I'm saying the word. Yeah. Yeah. If you get the sun on your balls, it increases by 400% your testosterone. Come on, get out of here. There you go. Honey, I know what I'm doing. I know what we're doing. We go home tonight. Caleb, do not have this be the clip that goes on the internet. 400% sun on your balls. So that means you got to be like lying down in the fetal position with your knees over your head on your back to get the sun on it. Do you know what? I've seen people stand out and they, they lean over. I've not seen it. I've not actually seen it, but I don't know. The sunburn because the sun generally doesn't get down there, you know. And I don't think you need much. I don't think it has to be much, but I tell you what, this is the thing because I've got boys, they're teenagers, and I used to have them wear those swim shirts all the time. And that's like the thing you wear those rash guards. And I was like, we're done with that. They need to get sun on their chest and their back. And that's as far as we've gone. Put some band-aids on your nipples if they start rubbing on your floaties. Yeah, right. Completely right. But back to my thing, I think the, so I think most pastors are just not They're just not outdoor oriented at all. And that's why the churches that we have look the way they do. And maybe that's why pastor burnout and pastor dropout is higher than any other occupation right now. Maybe, I mean, there's a whole train of thought with it. Yeah, I mean, I can see it. Cause when I looked at your stuff and I'm like, all the things that you're doing, it seemed out of the box. And I was like, this is super cool. This is a vibrant person who is a pastor, but also is... really enhancing his own life for the things that he likes. You can just immediately see it. So I think that's pretty uncommon. Jenny, I didn't have you on the podcast to make me feel good about myself, but I'm glad you are. Thank you very much. That's awesome. I think it's super cool. Jenny, this is- I think the church is important. It's got to be a vibrant place that, you know, talks about all sorts of things. Amen. Jenny, this has just really been fantastic. You're one of the easiest conversations I've ever had, one of the most joyful people I've ever had in the podcast, and some of the most insightful things that you're just dropping truth bombs left and right. People are gonna wanna know more about you, find out more about you, follow you, whatever, whatever, whatever, give us an advertisement for yourself. We're gonna find you what to do, yeah. I am the least creative person that you'll ever meet. So everything is the same. This is 1000hoursoutside.com. The app is called The 1000 Hours Outside. I've got the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. I have three of my four books are called 1000 Hours Outside, which is ridiculous. I don't even know how that happened, but look it, I'll show you. I've got this one. And then I had an activity book that came out with DK Publishing in December. Her book is called 1000 Hours. It says 1000 Hours. I keep forgetting what the name is then. Oh, what thousand hours? Oh, what's the name of the podcast? Oh, 1000 hours. What's the name of the book? Oh, a 1000 hours. What's the goal? Oh, 1000 hours. Okay. So what you're saying here is a thousand hours. Am I hearing that right? Yeah. Yeah. But the new book has a new name until the streetlights come on. Pre-sales really help authors and they help keep out the content that you want to read. And so that's coming out in November until the street lights come on. It's available anywhere books are sold already out for pre-sale it's gonna be a fantastic book. And you'll think about it, you know, when you see your street lights, like, look, people use it. This is just a society was like this. So that's what we got. We got really cool free things on our website, like those tracker sheets, a kickoff pack, 52 hiking prompts. So, you know, we talk about like, hey, how do we get into this? Here's some different ideas, you know, bake a batch of warm muffins and go on a hike. You know, take some hot chocolate in the winter, different things about inclement weather and all sorts of stuff on our website. So we're kind of all over the place. And on Instagram, Facebook, we got a Facebook group with 130,000 people from all over the globe, places I've never even heard of. And it's this real encouraging, vibrant, uplifting place. That's fantastic. Jenny, thanks for giving us your time. Thanks for pouring into us. Hey folks. A lot of ideas here. I don't know what you're going to do. I don't know if you're going to do a thousand hours. I don't know if you're going to change the things you do with your kids. I don't know if you're going to experiment with camping. I don't know if you're going to sun your balls outside or your ovaries. I don't know what you're going to do, but look, look, look, it's called the aggressive thought life. It's not called the interesting thoughts life. This is not an interesting thought. We put Jenny on because she wanted to push us. And we wanted to maybe beat back the anxiety, depression, listlessness, lifelessness that's happening in our caged lives. Right. So take something here and just try it. Don't apply all of it. Just do something here and try it different. Thank you, Jenny. Great having you with us. Thank you, BT. I can't wait to read your book. All right. We'll see you next time. Hey, thanks for listening. For all things aggressive living, why don't you head over to bryantome.com, find my new book, Move, A Guide to Get Up and Go Forward, as well as articles and much, much more. And no matter where you listen to podcasts, why don't you take a second and leave us a rating, leave us a review. It really, really helps us drive new listeners to show we wanna help as many people as possible, just like we may have helped you, we wanna help others. So why don't you help us out. And if you want to connect, find me on Instagram at Brian Tome. Aggressive Life with Brian Tome is a production of Crossroads Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.