Stronger Through Stress with Matt Soule

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Stress in our life is guaranteed, right?

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So, uh, there's no avoiding it for good or bad.

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So we might as well learn to leverage key pathways.

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And if we can do that, man, everything transforms.

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All of a sudden, uh, we can use it, you know, our daily stress, we can flip it to daily strength.

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That's a much more ideal.

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Welcome to The Wayfinder Show with Luis Hernandez, where guests discuss the why and how of making changes that lead them down a more authentic path or allow them to level up in some area of their life.

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Our goal is to dig deep and provide not only knowledge, but actionable advice to help you get from where you are to where you want to be.

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Come join us and find the way to your dream life.

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Welcome back to the Wayfinder show.

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I'm your host, Louis Hernandez.

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And today I'm here with Matt Sowell.

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Matt is a U.

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S.

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based author, speaker, and stress management expert.

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He's a level three Wim Hof method instructor and a lead trainer who has over 15 years of experience helping thousands master stress to enhance performance and health.

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Can't we all use that right now?

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He's also the author of Stronger Through Stress.

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Matt also directs Shun jo Martial arts and leads workshops worldwide.

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Matt, welcome to The Wayfinder Show.

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Luis, thank you so much for having me.

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I'm really happy to be here.

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Yeah, I'm glad to have you here.

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So you have a great topic.

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I mean, we all go through stress, right?

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And so, I thought the name of your book was interesting because you're not trying to dispel stress or anything.

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You're actually saying, hey, you know let's get stronger through stress.

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Can you Talk about that.

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Yeah, I think it really speaks to sort of this underlying idea that stress in our life is guaranteed, right?

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So there's no avoiding it, for good or bad.

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So we might as well learn to leverage key pathways.

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And if we can do that, man, everything transforms.

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All of the sudden, we can use it, our daily stress, we can flip it to daily strength.

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That's a much more ideal, you know, part of our life rather than, man, this is always just breaking me down.

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Stress is harmful and, and having that mindset around it because it really will break him down, you know, if, if that's your approach to it and if you don't take proper steps to address the difficulties like stress, we know the stress exacerbates, you know, any preexisting condition, whether.

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We're talking about health condition, mental health stuff, whatever it might be, stress is gonna, it could impact that negatively, or we can flip it around and we can find certain ways to say, all right, I'm going to train within this domain and actually use different parts of stress that are known to be beneficial, and it can stem a lot of the bad stuff.

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It can help our mindset and our daily living turns into much more We're going to talk about a lot of Happiness, strength, joy, peace, you know, name the thing, making more money because we've got a clearer mind, we can approach our problem set better with better, you know, better logic, all this kind of stuff.

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So, really, I, I just want to flip stress on its head and say, let's get into the good stuff so that we can get rid of the bad.

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Yeah, yeah, I love that.

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You know, what comes to mind, to me with that, Subject is just I'm a long distance runner and oftentimes we talk about with long distance running to improve, we, we have to, you know, we do about 80 percent of our running at a very easy pace, but then the other 20 percent is we make sure we stress it, right?

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That's our running workouts.

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We really push hard at different different running muscles, right?

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And that over time by, right.

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Creating that strength, you get faster or stronger, right?

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And I think that applies to just about anything in life, right?

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If we look back at all the stresses we've had in the past, it made us who we are now and made us stronger.

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Yeah, and Luis, you speak to a very important principle, and that's the 80 20 idea, right?

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You can imagine that if you did your long distance running with your hard workout for 100 percent of the time, Well, you'd have a single workout, you know, or maybe a very infrequent workout because you'd be so sore or possibly injured or any number of other things like it's not sustainable over a long arc, but taking that 80 20 approach where you're 80 percent just building base and being solid within within the run and then really pushing hard for 20 percent to gain those positive adaptations is really sort of a platform of what I apply in virtually all stress tools.

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So you just nailed it.

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Okay.

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as far as that's concerned.

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And I think when people sort of view stress, whether it's physical stress, mental stress, emotional stress, whatever it might be, they can take that same sort of idea, this idea that 80 percent of the time we need to find this managed space.

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And so if the cumulative stresses in our life are really stacking up, then we need to find a way to pare that down to the extent possible, or really try to eliminate unnecessary stressors out of our life so that we can concentrate on the things that we didn't choose.

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Right, that we can't choose.

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And so, that way we can take that 80 percent and maintain much better.

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And then in the training aspect where we're really pushing, finding 20%.

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And I'll give you a concrete example because I think it's really helpful.

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I had a student not that long ago, a client.

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She was a Microsoft.

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Executive leader.

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So she's leading a team at Microsoft and she was just getting inundated with work stress.

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Very common thing for many of us, right?

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And that's a lot of mental stuff because she's trying to navigate complex deals and projects and all of that kind of thing and managing a team of people, which always has its own stressors.

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And she wasn't having time to get enough physical outlet.

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That was one issue.

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And she started to notice that she was becoming chronically fatigued as a result of that.

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Mental drain and that emotional drain without a physical outlet and it got to the point where she was fearing having a physical outlet for For the fact that she she thought my gosh This is going to tank my whole system If I try to go and engage in some kind of physical exercise or anything like that we'll add to one more cumulative factor that Her mother ended up getting sick and she had to become the primary caregiver for the mother So now you've got that stress load and when you have that cumulative What do you do there?

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So she was really looking for a thing where how do I get the physical outlet that I need to stress my body?

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Well, to be able to sleep to recover and to get out of this chronic fatigue without exhausting myself.

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Well, I had her come to do some cold training and breath work.

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Right?

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So cold training just means getting into uncomfortably cold water.

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And I typically do that through guidance at usually after helping somebody build a base for a week or two with more mild cold temperatures.

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I'll put them into ice baths or something along those lines or take them out to nature settings and get them into water as cold as maybe 45, you know, 40 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit is pretty typical for first timers.

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And she was really worried about that.

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Nevertheless, I had her come down.

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She went through the process and she called me that night or the next day.

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I'm sorry.

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She called me the next day and told me that that night she had had the best sleep she'd had in months, that she felt restored on a, on a way that she hadn't experienced for weeks and weeks.

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And she said, I had more energy to tackle the day.

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I had a better, clearer mind.

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Was happy because it was the type of physical practice that didn't exhaust her but boosted and taps into a lot of her her body's natural healing capabilities, right?

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So it's that kind of counterintuitive thing that we can find.

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Okay, what's the right model of stress that we need to include?

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To help address the stuff we can't choose, right?

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Or the stuff that is just happenstance in our life that's causing a lot of cumulative stress.

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So those are the kind of approaches that I tend to like to take.

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And that training approach, if you will, is about that 20%.

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And then the 80 percent is trying to find that nice even rhythm within your day to day routine.

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And, and so that really speaks to reframing your baseline of stress.

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How do we, what do we perceive as a stressor in the first place?

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If I'm not, if I'm always in a comfort zone, for example, Luis, then everything stresses me out.

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The little things that my kids do are going to stress me completely.

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Anything that goes unexpected in my environment is going to give me a lot of stress.

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Any unknown or, or that kind of thing is going to cause a big stress.

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The phone call that I receive that, You know, a bill wasn't paid properly or something, everything becomes a big deal.

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Or, we can train in a way that allows us to reframe the baseline of what actually gets us stressed in the first place.

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And then, ah, when the kids are doing that, it's no big deal.

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Right?

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We can address that and steer them in the right direction, or it just doesn't even phase us.

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And so that's really what I try to do.

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Take that 80 20 approach and really try to find those physical outlets that combine a mental and emotional piece.

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That allows us to reframe baseline and then actually get out of stress, harney, harness the body's natural ability to heal and recover.

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Yeah.

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Why?

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Why is it that cold therapy is so effective with that?

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Well, it taps into a lot of different things.

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One is our body.

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Our bodies are made for a little bit of stress to build resilience.

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And if we use like a wind analogy with a plant, this is a really good example.

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So if a plant doesn't have any wind, it doesn't have any reason to build strong roots, right?

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So you can imagine like when they did the first biosphere, remember when they, they built an artificial environment, this is probably 20, 25 years ago that they did this project in the phase one of that project.

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They planted everything.

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In perfect soil, they've got the right amount of sun, they've got all these different elements that they thought would make this project grow really well.

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And what happened?

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Well, everything died.

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Nothing had strong roots.

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I said, why?

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What's going on with this?

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Well, in phase two, they added wind.

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And when you add wind, all of a sudden the roots became strong, right?

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They needed a necessary stressor in order to build strength and resilience and to flourish, right?

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So it's not just the other positive inputs like the sun that they need, of course like soil, the need, of course, but it's also the stressor.

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Humans are no different.

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We need a certain amount of stress.

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In order to be happy, in order to grow strong roots, in order to develop resilience.

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I think the key is to really strike at the right balance of it, right?

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Too little and you're not going to develop strength.

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Too much and it's going to break the body down.

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So really, what's the sweet spot?

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How can we dial in that sweet spot?

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And so I've got basically four principles and five tools that I use to approach that and help people determine What the right dose of stress, if you will, right?

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Trying to, trying to titrate.

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What is that right dose?

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And so, if we speak to cold therapy, well, one of the easiest doses is determining how long you should stay in, right?

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That's the duration.

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And the other piece is how cold.

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And the colder that the water is, the less you want to stay in.

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But you know, if you, if you find that right balance, well, then it's going to tap into a lot of things.

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It's going to tap into building cardiovascular health, right?

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Exposing ourselves to those temperature fluctuations.

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Our cardiovascular system has to work harder in a positive way.

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Not too dissimilar from your running, right?

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When you're running, you're stressing your body.

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And if you're doing it at the appropriate duration and intensity, then your body comes back stronger.

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That heart is stronger as a result the vascular system's ability to narrow and widen vessels is improved, blood circulation is improved, hormone composition is balanced.

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So there's a lot of different things that happen within that domain in the physica.

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when you go do those kind of exercises, and the cold is one of those.

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And what's unique about the cold and heat, that's the other side of the coin, is that it taps into these other types of proteins in the body that help repair damaged cells.

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Right.

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So there's all this reparation that's happening on the cellular level for cold.

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Now, when you expose yourself to those extreme temperatures you'll get better blood flow as a rebound effect for the cold side.

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So I don't know if you're like me when I, I was always an athlete and I grew up in the, in the Southwest here where it's hot.

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It's, it's high desert.

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You know, we've got plenty of warm temperatures and it gets cold in the winter as well.

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But in any case, I always found that I had poor circulation in my hands and feet.

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That didn't make any sense to me.

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I'm like, why?

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I'm an athlete.

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Like, I, I shouldn't have poor circulation in my hands and feet and have this cold happening all the time, but I did.

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And so I had this like inherent aversion to the cold.

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I didn't like it.

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I thought it was pretty terrible.

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Well, fast forward, once I started to cold train and exposing myself to these greater temperature fluctuations, all of a sudden, all of that improved.

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I haven't had cold hands and feet and I can't remember how long, you know, it's like, yeah, it's, it's.

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Whereas for the first half of my life, despite being an athlete, I was always struggling with proper circulation.

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And so it's interesting in terms of how specifically things like the cold, And, you know, sauna as well, help to promote these other adaptations that we don't necessarily get from other exercises.

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So what would be as a, as a beginner, what would be a good way to approach exposing yourself to cold?

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I always like to say, like, well, I'll say two things.

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One is There is some surprising things about how quickly our bodies can adapt to these new things, these new stressors, right?

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I always thought, gosh, you know, it's going to take weeks and months or maybe years to be able to adapt to something like, like, you know, exposing yourself to really cold temperatures.

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And actually with the right You can be in a matter of days, right?

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So that's, that's first off.

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And the key there, Luis, is that we want to make sure that we're not overdoing it because the body will develop sort of a really negative response to it.

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If we go back to almost that 80 20 rule, we can think about, you know, for every five events in our life.

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We need four of them to be pretty positive to want to continue an exercise.

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That's that's 80 percent Basically, we need 80 of positive results in order to sustain something typically and so The cold is hard.

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So what I really encourage people to do is, right now, we're going into winter, at least for the northern hemisphere here, go ahead and step into a cold shower and just turn it uncomfortably cold.

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Start gradually, right?

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And try to do it by, you know, flip that dial, let the water run all over your body, and just concentrate on breathing slow.

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As that stressor is, is happening, because it's going to take the body a little bit of time to adapt.

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Part of that adaptation, what happens, is that the vessels in your peripheral body, the peripheral shell, if you will, they start to narrow in order to reroute blood to the core.

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And that'll help, you know, keep the organs warm, stabilize blood pressure, and do a number of other things that are positive.

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And so that process, that stress, Adaptation, it takes a little bit, you know?

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And so, go into the shower and expect that that's going to happen for 20 to 40 seconds.

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And if you can just breathe easy with that for that amount of time, afterward, just flip it back to warm.

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Try that for 20 to 40 seconds for two or three days.

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And then gradually increase the cold or increase the time.

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And you just work like that over the course of a week or two, and you'll have built a great base.

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And sometimes people just like to maintain that.

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Yeah.

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You know, there's a a guy that I taught up in Seattle and he called me recently said, you know, I think I'm the, a person that's probably your longest.

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Running student that's maintained their cold showers every day since you've been, since you taught me.

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I said, well, how long has that been?

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Well, you know, cause a lot of people drop off their training.

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Of course, they start really excited.

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They feel really good.

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They're getting positive results, but you know, life gets in the way from time to time.

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And he had mentioned that he had been going, I think now five years since he came to that workshop.

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So that was 2017.

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No longer than that.

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Goodness, probably six or almost seven years.

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That he's been going with those cold showers and that's pretty remarkable considering every day He's been taking he's like I just keep continuing it because I feel so great and he sits at a desk as a tech person So he's spending long hours sitting down and not having an opportunity to get a great deal of exercise But the cold practice has helped maintain his metabolism helped him Maintain a good cardiovascular system and a number of other things and just it's got great mental health So it's a very simple thing if you just include it with the showers to begin.

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It doesn't have to be complicated.

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Yeah, you know, I've actually struggled more with cold showers than with actually just dipping into, you know, and sitting in cold water.

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For a while I used to, there was a time in my life when I was really ramping up my mileage and intensity, and so I would, it would feel great to just go and sit in a cold creek somewhere, and I'd replicate it by just having ice baths and just sitting in them.

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But the shower one, when it's just coming over your head in the cold, I just always struggled with that one.

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But you know, I, I do recognize the benefits.

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So you, you sleep, you're not the first.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, it's the shower.

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Yeah.

00:18:39.019 --> 00:18:40.429
You'll get the best sleep of your life.

00:18:40.769 --> 00:18:50.179
Yeah, the shock when you first step into the cold is, is a bit, but it really just takes like a few seconds before it actually starts to feel somewhat good for some strange reason.

00:18:50.249 --> 00:18:55.009
I mean, I'd sit there and read a book for like a half an hour in an ice bath and it was pretty cool.

00:18:55.288 --> 00:19:00.459
As long as it was below my chest, it could be great depending on how cold it is, right?

00:19:00.769 --> 00:19:07.769
Depending on how cold, because I mean, that ice bath could kick the water down into the sixties or if you get enough ice in the colder.

00:19:08.888 --> 00:19:09.999
Water is really cold.

00:19:09.999 --> 00:19:13.058
It could be in the 50s or 40s or even 30s, right?

00:19:13.058 --> 00:19:18.959
So depending on how how cold that that ice bath is will really determine how long you want to stay there, right?

00:19:18.959 --> 00:19:20.919
But what you mentioned you feel great.

00:19:20.929 --> 00:19:22.638
Yeah, you get this giant spike of dopamine.

00:19:22.898 --> 00:19:23.689
That feels good.

00:19:23.689 --> 00:19:33.858
You get these release of endorphins That feels good and it sustains with you for hours in the day, you know, providing that the water was sufficiently cold, which is basically under 64 degrees.

00:19:36.068 --> 00:19:39.118
If you start getting under that, you're going to get a lot of big benefits from it.

00:19:39.128 --> 00:19:43.058
So like, wow, that's pretty, it's pretty fantastic.

00:19:43.614 --> 00:19:47.743
And, and what you mention, I think it's funny because you're not the first to say the cold showers are the worst.

00:19:47.743 --> 00:19:54.044
So for the folks that are listening, if you just get into the cold shower, you try that for a couple of days and you say, that is miserable.

00:19:54.874 --> 00:19:56.824
Try a cold water immersion.

00:19:57.084 --> 00:19:59.733
Try a cold bath because I'll tell you two things.

00:19:59.733 --> 00:20:07.203
One, if you've got the cold water from the shower hitting you constantly, you can't build up a little thermal layer that's insulative and it can.

00:20:08.023 --> 00:20:11.384
Be constantly disruptive and annoying, you know, for some people.

00:20:12.023 --> 00:20:31.804
And so sitting in the bath, you get to find this calmness, the body builds up this small insulative layer, and it kind of contains you and it feels very, very meditative and peaceful, but there's definitely pluses and minuses depending on if you go, you know, full immersion or in a shower, but I always try to give people very accessible things so that they don't feel like they've got to take any.

00:20:32.433 --> 00:20:33.044
extra step.

00:20:33.284 --> 00:20:37.753
Most of us take a shower every day, so flipping the dial in there is pretty easy to get started.

00:20:38.233 --> 00:20:39.134
But I would agree with you.

00:20:39.314 --> 00:20:42.243
And going out to nature, if you can do that, that's even better.

00:20:42.314 --> 00:20:44.794
You know, that's, that's the ideal setting at some point.

00:20:45.124 --> 00:20:52.324
It's just helpful to build a base at first because it can be quite challenging and you never want to go out into nature and, you know, bite off more than you can chew.

00:20:53.064 --> 00:20:53.403
Right.

00:20:53.453 --> 00:20:59.784
Yeah, we're lucky here in Colorado where, you know, we have so many great creeks with that cold mountain water coming down.

00:20:59.784 --> 00:21:05.584
Just sitting in that in a hot summer day after doing some, some kind of workout feels really good, actually.

00:21:06.683 --> 00:21:08.294
The The, the run and plunge.

00:21:08.614 --> 00:21:09.074
That's it.

00:21:09.324 --> 00:21:09.773
That's it.

00:21:10.153 --> 00:21:16.903
What About the coldness, I'm assuming you shouldn't get below 32 degrees, is that right?

00:21:17.784 --> 00:21:20.253
Well, I mean it can be quite intense.

00:21:20.263 --> 00:21:25.663
It's hard to get below 32 too much because water will freeze at 32 degrees.

00:21:25.664 --> 00:21:26.423
Will freeze, that's what I figured.

00:21:26.453 --> 00:21:27.443
Unless it's moving.

00:21:28.134 --> 00:21:49.054
Yep, yep, so at 32 it starts to freeze and, you know, if you're in, say, way up north and, you know, in the sea and seawater, you might be able to get below that, right, because salt will prevent it from freezing, or you can be in certain rivers if the water's moving, it can be a little bit below 32.

00:21:49.463 --> 00:21:56.479
Some people have tried to hack their ice baths where they dump in a bunch of The salt to try to lower the temperature and do it that way.

00:21:56.798 --> 00:22:00.739
But really these are, it's not terribly necessary to go that cold, right?

00:22:01.038 --> 00:22:08.199
My, my freezer tub, I keep it at roughly 39 to 43.

00:22:08.493 --> 00:22:36.163
Most of the year and that's plenty cold and I take people to the coldest settings in the world So once a year, I take people to a beautiful trip in Alaska, for example, and we have an incredible experience I teach people how to Get into those rivers and and lakes and we cut holes in the ice and dip in there and we do sauna and we do Shirtless hikes and shorts, you know in the rainforest where it's just you know, snowing cotton sized Snowballs on us and it's epic.

00:22:36.203 --> 00:22:44.595
It's it's just incredible but most of the water there, I mean, about the coldest water we've had is probably around 29 or 30, right?

00:22:44.654 --> 00:22:47.065
So it's just not going to get that much colder.

00:22:47.694 --> 00:22:49.855
What's crazy sometimes is with the air.

00:22:49.855 --> 00:22:55.464
So one year we had it to where the coldest year we ever had was negative 29 Fahrenheit.

00:22:55.734 --> 00:22:57.805
I mean, that is just brutal cold.

00:22:58.204 --> 00:23:00.775
And we were just playing like polar bears there, right?

00:23:00.775 --> 00:23:08.680
Because we had the right The right methodology, we're, we're of course exploring and being adventurous, but understanding where the safe limits are.

00:23:09.019 --> 00:23:12.630
We have saunas that we pack on site so that we can do contrast.

00:23:13.029 --> 00:23:16.579
It's a blast and in that case That freezing water luis.

00:23:16.589 --> 00:23:26.869
It looks like steam man steam billows off the water because it's so cold outside Now I know you guys got some cold weather in colorado I've spent a lot of time up there as well.

00:23:26.869 --> 00:23:28.890
But you know, it could just be another world.

00:23:28.890 --> 00:23:30.144
So Yeah.

00:23:30.365 --> 00:23:30.634
Wow.

00:23:30.664 --> 00:23:31.944
Lots of good stuff to do there.

00:23:32.875 --> 00:23:33.325
Okay.

00:23:33.714 --> 00:23:35.984
What about let's talk about Wim Hof a little bit.

00:23:36.414 --> 00:23:38.295
So, let's start at a high level.

00:23:38.295 --> 00:23:38.974
What is Wim Hof?

00:23:38.974 --> 00:23:39.275
Sure.

00:23:39.775 --> 00:23:43.994
So Wim Hof is a person and he's from the Netherlands.

00:23:44.035 --> 00:23:46.744
He's from the Amsterdam area basically, just outside.

00:23:47.345 --> 00:24:18.234
And he basically through his own personal I would just say exploration and development in terms of different yogic practices and mountain climbing and any number of endeavors that he pursued throughout his life developed A combination of mindset exercises, breathing exercises, and cold exposure training that eventually they, his sort of system, his family, built into a method.

00:24:18.275 --> 00:24:19.634
And they call it the Wim Hof Method.

00:24:19.674 --> 00:24:20.444
So that's what it is.

00:24:20.444 --> 00:24:22.355
It's just a combination of those three things.

00:24:22.404 --> 00:24:24.775
You know, a positive mindset or a growth mindset.

00:24:25.045 --> 00:24:28.105
In other words, trying to get rid of some of our limiting beliefs.

00:24:28.605 --> 00:24:33.348
A series of breathing exercises that help stimulate the body to upregulate it.

00:24:34.190 --> 00:24:52.160
prepare for cold exposures or other stressful endeavors, or the other side of the breathing for that, specifically like if we're going to go into cold water, is learning how to breathe slow amidst the stress so that we can find balance and harmony in that difficulty.

00:24:52.720 --> 00:25:07.424
And then the third part, of course, is that Cold, cold water that we got to get out of the comfort zone, right, that we've, that we can do more than we think we can and that we need this positive stress in order to be healthy, strong and happy.

00:25:07.845 --> 00:25:10.154
So that's the Wim Hof Method in a nutshell.

00:25:10.865 --> 00:25:18.234
And it blew up, you know, when I first did it, we were back in, I was part of the first group of US instructors.

00:25:18.414 --> 00:25:34.295
Nobody had hardly heard of it, you know, Wim Hof at that time was just an extreme daredevil doing things like running half marathon, you know, and bare feet at the polar circle, you know, crazy stuff like that, or you know, exposing himself.

00:25:34.295 --> 00:25:36.815
He had the longest exposure to ice.

00:25:37.345 --> 00:25:42.805
You know, which was at that time, you know, close to two hours when it was early on.

00:25:42.944 --> 00:25:49.164
Eventually he broke two hours, and then somebody recently just broke that record, longest ice exposure at something like four hours.

00:25:49.184 --> 00:25:54.565
So he's inspired just the whole litany of people to take on a lot of these world records that he initially set.

00:25:55.105 --> 00:26:05.785
But that was his bid at the beginning, but then he started to codify this and get it out to the people in terms of how we can use natural elements to build a lot of strength in the body.

00:26:06.055 --> 00:26:18.894
And so, I was very inspired by this in my own personal case because I was dealing with a pretty powerful injury that was just causing a lot of pain and inflammation in my body.

00:26:19.704 --> 00:26:26.615
And going through this process, I was able to eliminate that inflammation restore the body, and I feel stronger.

00:26:27.744 --> 00:26:31.315
In my 40s, I'm, I'm 46 at this point, I started in my.

00:26:31.454 --> 00:26:35.654
I feel way better than I did a decade ago.

00:26:35.714 --> 00:26:36.974
Way better, way stronger.

00:26:37.184 --> 00:26:38.894
I can train my martial arts more frequently.

00:26:38.894 --> 00:26:40.055
I recover faster.

00:26:40.464 --> 00:26:41.875
I mean, just everything is better.

00:26:42.224 --> 00:26:46.795
It's been a really phenomenal and very simple method to practice.

00:26:47.744 --> 00:26:48.055
Wow.

00:26:49.069 --> 00:26:49.859
Well, that's inspiring.

00:26:49.890 --> 00:26:53.799
First of all, we're almost the same age and you look a lot younger than I do.

00:26:53.799 --> 00:26:55.779
So this clearly you're doing something, right?

00:26:56.329 --> 00:26:59.450
I'm trying to do the Benjamin button routine or be turned the clock backward.

00:26:59.859 --> 00:27:00.250
Yeah.

00:27:01.259 --> 00:27:02.970
Try to get, try to get younger every year.

00:27:03.609 --> 00:27:12.210
You know, one of the things I'll tell you a quick story about the power of the Wim Hof method, because one of the things that's always surprising to me as I, I'm a teacher's trainer for this.

00:27:13.684 --> 00:27:18.355
So I've trained, I think something like seven, 750 instructors worldwide at this point.

00:27:19.664 --> 00:27:23.904
And my last group, I had about 70 instructors just a few weeks ago in Poland.

00:27:24.164 --> 00:27:27.505
I was out there training the new, new crop of incoming instructors.

00:27:27.825 --> 00:27:42.099
And one of the things that I'm always fascinated by and continually surprised by is these powerful stories of What people have been able to do to restore health using something as simple as those three things, right?

00:27:42.099 --> 00:27:45.480
The cold, the breathing exercises, and a growth mindset.

00:27:46.579 --> 00:27:53.420
And so I had this one student instructor, she's training to be an instructor, her name was Simone, and she had a fascinating story.

00:27:53.430 --> 00:27:59.529
She in her 20s developed some kind of disease that was undiagnosed.

00:27:59.539 --> 00:28:00.720
They couldn't figure it out.

00:28:03.019 --> 00:28:06.319
That ended up causing organ failure.

00:28:06.440 --> 00:28:12.259
So multiple organs were failing and her dad being a surgeon couldn't figure it out.

00:28:12.309 --> 00:28:13.759
He's taking her to every doctor.

00:28:13.779 --> 00:28:18.039
They're trying to figure all this stuff and they're not making any progress.

00:28:19.265 --> 00:28:25.214
Well, they got to the point where they just started isolating her and trying to figure out how to manage this as best they could.

00:28:25.214 --> 00:28:27.944
And there was basically crisis management constantly.

00:28:28.434 --> 00:28:34.664
And it's when COVID came around, it became a really big issue because being exposed to anything for her, she had to be on all these.

00:28:34.789 --> 00:28:40.980
For medications and stuff, just so that her organs didn't continue to attack themselves and fail, as I understood it.

00:28:41.380 --> 00:28:47.269
And so, what they did is they isolated her, and she's in the middle of nowhere, near the Baltic Sea.

00:28:47.809 --> 00:29:05.914
And her mom, not a doctor, was like, I read about this Wim Hof method about cold water being help being helpful and maybe even helpful for autoimmune stuff and all these different Testimonials about people getting healthy again using cold water and Simone.

00:29:06.164 --> 00:29:12.115
She tells me she's like I just thought she was crazy You know, I'm not gonna listen to mom cold water is gonna help me.

00:29:12.154 --> 00:29:12.835
Nothing's helped me.

00:29:12.865 --> 00:29:14.315
That's insane Right?

00:29:14.615 --> 00:29:15.305
That's so dumb.

00:29:15.974 --> 00:29:23.184
But, she's sitting there and she's so bored because she's isolated, you know, she's just there alone, she can't be around anybody she's in the middle of nowhere.

00:29:23.934 --> 00:29:29.505
And she's got the Baltic Sea not that far away so she finally one day just says Fine.

00:29:30.194 --> 00:29:33.805
I'm gonna go do it just to prove to my mother that it's total BS.

00:29:34.575 --> 00:29:36.984
She goes out The door that day.

00:29:36.984 --> 00:29:37.954
She walks down.

00:29:37.954 --> 00:29:45.654
It's about, I don't know, something like 100 yards or 200 yards away from the house there and the Baltic Sea is freezing, right?

00:29:45.664 --> 00:29:46.555
It's a winter day.

00:29:46.555 --> 00:29:47.704
The wind is whipping.

00:29:47.714 --> 00:29:49.325
She can hardly just stand it.

00:29:49.325 --> 00:29:50.974
She's already cold and miserable.

00:29:51.095 --> 00:29:53.194
She's uncomfortable and in pain constantly.

00:29:53.494 --> 00:29:54.505
Her health is failing.

00:29:54.505 --> 00:29:55.744
She's got bags under her eyes.

00:29:55.924 --> 00:29:57.714
You know, she's having a hard time.

00:29:58.444 --> 00:30:04.115
She takes off her clothes right there and just goes into the sea and sits down for a minute in the cold bites.

00:30:04.115 --> 00:30:04.174
Thanks.

00:30:04.539 --> 00:30:12.950
And it hurts, and she hates it, and she's cursing her mother, saying I knew this wasn't gonna do anything.

00:30:13.400 --> 00:30:22.430
It's not going to work and she gets out and when she gets out, she starts to realize, oh, actually I've got a little bit better mood, but she's still kind of miserable.

00:30:22.430 --> 00:30:23.559
The wind is still hitting her.

00:30:23.690 --> 00:30:35.329
She picks up her clothes, she wraps them around her and she makes it all the way back to her house and by the time she does that, just a couple hundred meters, she's exhausted and she goes in and she falls asleep.

00:30:35.815 --> 00:30:40.015
And she gets a really good sleep and she's kind of mixed and ambivalent.

00:30:40.015 --> 00:30:44.644
She's not sure because she had this one part where it was misery and this other part where she felt a little bit good.

00:30:44.964 --> 00:30:51.055
And so she tried it again and she started to build a practice of every day going out to the sea to do these short exposures.

00:30:52.394 --> 00:31:00.615
And in a short time, she starts to go into remission and she's getting better and better and better.

00:31:00.615 --> 00:31:11.940
When she showed up to my training, this training that I was holding in Poland, She had gone, basically, she's got bad days, she's got good days, but overall, she is doing amazing.

00:31:11.950 --> 00:31:26.779
I watched her do 10 minute ice bath exposures, hike for miles play, dance, all the things that you'd want to do, even though she's got this extremely rare condition that would otherwise be debilitating, right?

00:31:27.549 --> 00:31:28.460
That's phenomenal.

00:31:28.460 --> 00:31:30.660
And she knows exactly where her body's at.

00:31:30.660 --> 00:31:31.569
She's able to manage her.

00:31:33.015 --> 00:31:34.234
Energy system better.

00:31:34.434 --> 00:31:36.394
She's able to be around family again.

00:31:36.625 --> 00:31:45.154
Name the thing, like huge positive results, even for something that that's, that's that debilitating can be transformed in certain cases.

00:31:45.154 --> 00:31:47.744
So that possibility and I see those possibilities.

00:31:47.744 --> 00:31:49.625
She's, she's not an end of one.

00:31:49.634 --> 00:31:51.444
She's not only a one person that I've seen.

00:31:51.825 --> 00:31:55.144
Come back from those levels of challenges.

00:31:55.394 --> 00:31:59.654
I've, I've trained a lot of people that tell me these remarkable stories.

00:31:59.664 --> 00:32:07.994
So, I'm always inspired and continually surprised by what a simple practice can hold for us through consistency.

00:32:08.134 --> 00:32:12.535
And of course, eventually, she developed that growth mindset and a positivity around the practice.

00:32:12.734 --> 00:32:13.694
She didn't start there.

00:32:13.944 --> 00:32:15.265
But she got there, right?

00:32:15.384 --> 00:32:20.924
And that's not uncommon if you're dealing with stuff where you're like, nothing's worked, you know, this is where I need to be.

00:32:22.095 --> 00:32:22.414
Yeah.

00:32:22.434 --> 00:32:22.714
Wow.

00:32:22.714 --> 00:32:24.035
That's a remarkable story.

00:32:24.694 --> 00:32:26.494
Also shows that mother knows best, right?

00:32:26.505 --> 00:32:30.454
She should have listened from the get go to her mom.

00:32:30.835 --> 00:32:30.994
Yeah.

00:32:31.404 --> 00:32:31.664
Yeah.

00:32:31.674 --> 00:32:33.005
This case, that's right.

00:32:33.174 --> 00:32:33.654
That's right.

00:32:34.194 --> 00:32:34.525
Yeah.

00:32:35.144 --> 00:32:35.815
Wow.

00:32:35.865 --> 00:32:40.765
So I'm wondering if in your practice, do you, so there's the, the practical.

00:32:43.190 --> 00:32:52.000
Practices, right, which is the cold therapy and the breathing, but the growth mindset piece is, is something you got to work at.

00:32:52.670 --> 00:33:06.750
I can see how it comes along with it, but do you help, you know, with some of the things that aren't as tangible, like a growth mindset, does that follow everything else, or does it go hand in hand, or how do you go about getting people to develop that?

00:33:06.750 --> 00:33:06.920
I do.

00:33:07.900 --> 00:33:09.500
I really focus on mindsets.

00:33:09.509 --> 00:33:14.420
So to me, the Best mindset is the one that's most appropriate for a situation.

00:33:15.079 --> 00:33:23.569
And just starting with a growth mindset, especially around practices that are challenging and difficult, is a really essential starting place.

00:33:24.190 --> 00:33:30.990
When I started this practice, for example, I had a very strong limiting belief about our ability to adapt to cold.

00:33:31.210 --> 00:33:32.099
I hated the cold.

00:33:32.454 --> 00:33:33.724
I was always good in the heat.

00:33:33.884 --> 00:33:36.315
I could go out to the desert for hours.

00:33:36.565 --> 00:33:40.414
Even if I didn't have water or anything like that, I could do saunas.

00:33:40.414 --> 00:33:45.394
I could do just about any heat ceremony that you wanted and I would be fine.

00:33:45.694 --> 00:33:46.815
But I hated the cold.

00:33:47.085 --> 00:33:51.444
I used to dress with all of the technical gear when I'd go skiing and I'd be miserable.

00:33:51.444 --> 00:33:55.684
I'd stop halfway through and, you know, put, run my hands under warm water.

00:33:55.835 --> 00:33:57.964
You know, in a ski during the ski day.

00:33:58.244 --> 00:34:03.244
I just, I really struggled with it and I, I was convinced.

00:34:03.519 --> 00:34:05.930
That actually we couldn't adapt to the cold.

00:34:05.940 --> 00:34:06.509
Not all of us.

00:34:06.519 --> 00:34:07.650
Some were built for the heat.

00:34:07.809 --> 00:34:08.780
Some were built for the cold.

00:34:08.800 --> 00:34:17.539
Those crazy guys that you see in Minnesota with their shirts off drinking beer, you know, at the football games, they were a different type of breed.

00:34:17.579 --> 00:34:19.300
I was the person that could adapt to the heat.

00:34:19.309 --> 00:34:20.769
So that was my limiting belief.

00:34:20.880 --> 00:34:22.909
I didn't have a growth mindset around that practice.

00:34:23.489 --> 00:34:26.050
And of course I was wrong, right?

00:34:26.050 --> 00:34:28.309
And so finding out we're wrong is okay.

00:34:28.309 --> 00:34:29.539
Sometimes it's the most.

00:34:29.800 --> 00:34:32.599
beautiful and powerful thing that we can experience in life.

00:34:32.599 --> 00:34:40.510
And so one of the ways to start with developing a growth mindset is just write down four or five things that you believe to be true.

00:34:41.119 --> 00:34:43.570
And ask yourself, are those things actually true?

00:34:43.570 --> 00:34:48.579
Are they, especially if there's something that's holding you back from an experience, right?

00:34:48.800 --> 00:34:50.579
Or if you're dealing with some kind of challenge.

00:34:51.039 --> 00:35:07.570
But I do focus a lot on growth mindset and other mindsets to leverage perception properly in order to find balance, like using, say, recovery as a healthy mindset for for continued stress exposures.

00:35:08.190 --> 00:35:08.429
Right?

00:35:08.429 --> 00:35:15.099
I'm all about challenging ourselves and pushing limits and breaking limits and doing a lot of extraordinary things.

00:35:15.380 --> 00:35:24.039
But if that is your only focus and you're constantly writing a knife's edge, that mindset is probably going to get you injured or, or maybe worse, right?

00:35:24.469 --> 00:35:29.940
That's sick, injured, or dead, you know, those, those are usually the outcomes if you're constantly writing the knife's edge.

00:35:29.940 --> 00:35:33.030
And so there's a better mindset that could be appropriate, right?

00:35:34.449 --> 00:35:43.159
Using recovery so that you can continually push and then when those rare times and you're saying I'm gonna put all of my energy To accomplish this one thing.

00:35:43.519 --> 00:36:02.105
All right, you know, it's gonna take everything and so you orient the mindset around that And so I carry people through any series of exercises when I help training When I help train people and and help them orient what's the most adaptive and powerful mindset within this because it will absolutely affect the outcome.

00:36:02.824 --> 00:36:15.304
Luis, there's one bit of perception that I think would be helpful for, for your listeners just to understand sort of the power of, of our mind, because we hear about the power of the mind, but sometimes seeing a very tangible result is helpful for people.

00:36:15.905 --> 00:36:16.934
There's a doctor.

00:36:19.034 --> 00:36:21.255
that focuses on mindset.

00:36:21.505 --> 00:36:23.804
That's actually her primary focus.

00:36:23.925 --> 00:36:51.784
And what she did is she did a series of experiments and one of which was simply What people believed house housekeepers what they believed about their about their work and their health and so basically what they did is they took a group of housekeepers and they said for you what you do as far as like changing sheets you know Washing the linens, trucking all around, cleaning the rooms, all this kind of stuff.

00:36:52.034 --> 00:36:53.505
That's exercise for you.

00:36:54.304 --> 00:36:57.545
And they took another group and they just used them as the control.

00:36:57.554 --> 00:36:58.545
They didn't tell them anything.

00:36:58.545 --> 00:37:01.065
They just let them go about their regular job.

00:37:01.315 --> 00:37:03.355
And they tested all the blood markers for people.

00:37:03.505 --> 00:37:04.804
They tested, you know, what their blood.

00:37:05.610 --> 00:37:12.159
pressure was, their weight composition so, you know, strong metrics that they can actually verify data.

00:37:12.190 --> 00:37:15.739
And then they also ask them subjective metrics like, how do you feel about your body?

00:37:15.800 --> 00:37:17.170
How do you feel about your confidence?

00:37:17.239 --> 00:37:18.719
How's your energy levels in the day?

00:37:18.889 --> 00:37:20.260
All of those kind of things as well.

00:37:21.054 --> 00:37:23.144
And at the end of 30 days, what did they notice?

00:37:23.835 --> 00:37:37.954
Well, the people that perceived that their job was exercise, actually lost weight, felt better about their body, reduced their blood pressure, they had all of these positive outcomes simply by believing what they did.

00:37:38.804 --> 00:37:43.150
There's another study that this doctor did as well, and Dr.

00:37:43.150 --> 00:37:44.840
Crumb, Dr.

00:37:44.840 --> 00:37:49.599
Aaliyah Crumb is her first name if anybody wants to, or full name rather, if anybody wants to look it up.

00:37:50.070 --> 00:37:54.110
But they took another group and they fed them milkshakes, right?

00:37:54.110 --> 00:37:57.579
So they took a group, they fed them two different types of milkshakes.

00:37:57.869 --> 00:38:00.420
The first milkshake, they told them this one is healthy.

00:38:00.780 --> 00:38:03.840
It's got all of the right nutrients and all this kind of thing.

00:38:04.210 --> 00:38:23.550
And Then, a short time later, they, a few days later I think, after they took all the metrics down, blood markers and different things, and then they gave them the same milkshake, but they just simply told them that it was decadent, and it's high in sugar and fat and all this kind of stuff.

00:38:23.690 --> 00:38:27.905
It was the exact same ingredients in both cases to the same people.

00:38:27.905 --> 00:38:30.804
Well, it changed hormones by 300x.

00:38:31.664 --> 00:38:31.885
Right?

00:38:31.885 --> 00:38:35.405
300 per three I'm sorry, three X results.

00:38:35.414 --> 00:38:38.394
So, you know, that's a huge deal.

00:38:38.405 --> 00:38:43.844
300 percent is a lot of change simply by what we believe to be true.

00:38:44.054 --> 00:38:44.894
Same ingredients.

00:38:45.405 --> 00:38:46.215
Same everything.

00:38:46.675 --> 00:38:48.375
And so how does this affect?

00:38:48.375 --> 00:38:49.965
Well, it affects all kinds of things.

00:38:50.445 --> 00:38:52.204
One of the things that we've seen by Dr.

00:38:52.204 --> 00:38:58.264
McConnickle, for example, Kelly McConnickle, she's another person that focuses specifically in stress research.

00:38:58.505 --> 00:39:08.815
And what she noticed is the, the data around how wide or narrow somebody's vascular system is just by how they perceive stress.

00:39:09.344 --> 00:39:15.210
So if I perceive it to Be a positive, a challenge, right?

00:39:15.210 --> 00:39:23.130
Something that I can rise to and overcome potentially, then I have, my vessels are wider, my blood pressure is lower, right?

00:39:23.130 --> 00:39:25.190
So I get a more healthy response.

00:39:25.530 --> 00:39:31.824
If I believe that stress is negative or bad for me, then my nest, my vessels.

00:39:31.965 --> 00:39:38.795
Narrow, and my heart has to work harder, my, there's more stress negative stress on, on the vessel walls.

00:39:39.605 --> 00:39:45.945
And so, we end up getting a negative result, a negative health outcome based on that.

00:39:46.474 --> 00:39:51.284
So these are very real things, this mindset in our life, and how it affects our physical bodies.

00:39:51.445 --> 00:39:54.534
Every moment of every day, how we show up makes a difference.

00:39:54.824 --> 00:40:00.105
Whether we welcome something and say, Yeah, that's gonna be hard, but I can do it, right?

00:40:00.554 --> 00:40:19.724
Versus, Having those limiting beliefs that take us out, that say, well, I've got a limited mindset, I'm not capable, I've got all this doubt, there's no way I could do it, I'm terrible, whatever negativity that we tend to stir in our lives, that has a very real impact both, you know, psychologically, of course, but also physically.

00:40:20.025 --> 00:40:23.295
So, let's flip the script and go for the more powerful side.

00:40:23.565 --> 00:40:43.335
So that becomes a big part of my training with people, is really laying down both the scientific studies that support those ends, and then just very practical hands on practices that you can do on a daily basis to start to reorient or expose yourself in healthy ways to develop that strength and resilience and variation in adaptive mindsets over time.

00:40:44.385 --> 00:40:44.755
Yeah.

00:40:45.324 --> 00:40:54.215
Wow, that's really powerful, to just See, you know, the same ingredients and how your body responds differently just by based on your belief.

00:40:54.215 --> 00:41:05.030
I mean, that's amazing And I think that applies almost anywhere, you know, I'm curious Excuse me What Shanzhou Martial Arts is.

00:41:06.099 --> 00:41:06.320
Sure.

00:41:06.329 --> 00:41:06.980
Did I say that right?

00:41:07.739 --> 00:41:08.570
I mean, pretty close.

00:41:10.469 --> 00:41:13.039
We call it Chunzhou, because it's a little bit easier.

00:41:13.280 --> 00:41:18.539
If you were really to go back and say it properly, I'm sure I'd even butcher it like that, but it'd be Tsun.

00:41:18.949 --> 00:41:20.480
You know, that T S, Tsunzhou.

00:41:20.800 --> 00:41:21.010
Okay.

00:41:21.010 --> 00:41:22.239
But yeah, we're close enough.

00:41:23.320 --> 00:41:37.780
What it is, it's a martial art that was developed in Seattle, Washington about 45 years ago at this point, and it focuses on, you know, self defense and making the most of what every individual has.

00:41:38.280 --> 00:41:47.510
And so our sort of very quick lineage in history starts with Bruce Lee when he came over in the 1950s into Seattle, Washington.

00:41:47.960 --> 00:42:01.570
And when he came over, he had brought over a style sort of modified Wing Chun and started cross training with a variety of local martial artists, people that had backgrounds in Judo as well as Western style boxing.

00:42:01.889 --> 00:42:07.250
Well, one of those boxing guys, he actually Was a heavyweight champion in the Air Force.

00:42:07.260 --> 00:42:08.400
His name was James DeMille.

00:42:08.860 --> 00:42:41.920
Well, his experience, he was a really good fighter and Bruce showed him up and so he wanted to learn everything he could from Bruce so he did and he took that and adapted his boxing in footwork and in different things and added a lot of what Bruce taught him and carried forward with a system called Wing Chun Do and the person that created Chunjo, my system, was John Bial and John Bial was a black belt under James in Seattle there, and for 40 years, he just continued to develop this art.

00:42:41.949 --> 00:42:45.760
And about 15 years ago, I took over the school and have been running it ever since.

00:42:46.489 --> 00:42:48.320
And so that was a very powerful thing.

00:42:48.320 --> 00:42:56.045
Martial arts for me was, was one of the most essential pieces to overcome some of childhood difficulties with exposure to domestic violence.

00:42:57.514 --> 00:43:01.804
Violence and bullying and a lot of things that happened to my youth.

00:43:02.284 --> 00:43:13.994
And I was looking for a positive outlet to, to get past that, you know, to develop that physical prowess and confidence and connection and peace and calm and all the things and martial arts was.

00:43:14.309 --> 00:43:16.769
The best thing that I found, it was remarkable.

00:43:17.099 --> 00:43:20.909
And so I was always looking for a quality martial art that I could really invest in.

00:43:20.909 --> 00:43:30.239
And some things I got exposed to were a little bit too the physicality was good, but it didn't have that emotional or, or psychological component I really wanted.

00:43:30.840 --> 00:43:32.730
And others were a little too esoteric.

00:43:32.789 --> 00:43:39.050
I had, I got some value in terms of meditations, or some of the spiritual aspects, but it didn't have enough martial quality.

00:43:39.380 --> 00:43:46.199
But when I found Chunjo in 2009, 2000, well, no, it was before that, maybe 2008 I was hooked.

00:43:46.610 --> 00:44:00.675
It had this beautiful balance of, you know, really high quality martial art, and also really respected the body in terms of, you know, developing all aspects of, of the human, Entirely.

00:44:00.675 --> 00:44:05.304
So, we do daily meditation there it's just a brief beginning and end.

00:44:05.474 --> 00:44:13.184
We focus on different parts of the breath and the nervous system development, strength, speed, power.

00:44:13.644 --> 00:44:16.534
We do grappling, striking, kicking, it's got everything in it.

00:44:16.804 --> 00:44:18.885
And it's a very cohesive and beautiful system.

00:44:18.894 --> 00:44:24.394
So I've been trying to share that with people as much as possible for as many years as I can.

00:44:24.945 --> 00:44:25.565
Yeah, neat.

00:44:25.855 --> 00:44:26.855
Sounds like a beautiful art.

00:44:28.014 --> 00:44:33.224
So Matt, on that note we're going to switch over to our world famous Wayfinder 4.

00:44:33.505 --> 00:44:34.155
Let's do it.

00:44:34.235 --> 00:44:34.594
Let's do it.

00:44:34.594 --> 00:44:34.974
All right.

00:44:35.394 --> 00:44:36.644
So give us a hack.

00:44:37.025 --> 00:44:39.244
Something you use every day to cheat life with.

00:44:41.014 --> 00:44:42.144
Can't say cold therapy.

00:44:42.184 --> 00:44:44.280
One of the things that I, What's that now?

00:44:44.280 --> 00:44:46.360
I can't take cold therapy of breathing.

00:44:46.480 --> 00:44:46.860
Breathing.

00:44:47.500 --> 00:44:48.199
No, fair enough.

00:44:48.210 --> 00:44:49.590
I would just say habit stacking.

00:44:50.210 --> 00:44:56.760
You know, habit stacking and giving yourself a very specific reason to train both in the short term and long term.

00:44:57.849 --> 00:45:02.110
So those two things leverage more than anything because our lives are super busy.

00:45:02.655 --> 00:45:02.985
Right?

00:45:02.985 --> 00:45:04.364
So, I want to stack habits.

00:45:04.375 --> 00:45:08.204
So, if I want to start something new, I stack it to something I already do.

00:45:08.335 --> 00:45:09.684
I just pair it right together.

00:45:09.704 --> 00:45:14.954
And I do it at that time, every time, and it makes it a lot easier with that association.

00:45:15.425 --> 00:45:17.474
I also give myself a reason to train.

00:45:17.474 --> 00:45:22.605
So, every three months, I train on a seasonal basis, different tools that I use.

00:45:22.675 --> 00:45:28.315
And I try to figure out, alright, what is the thing that scares me the most or some kind of challenge that I'd like to meet?

00:45:28.585 --> 00:45:32.565
And I'm, that's a goal that I'll accomplish within that three month time.

00:45:33.085 --> 00:45:36.014
And so that gives me a reason to stay on track during that season.

00:45:36.554 --> 00:45:38.635
So those are two things that I find very, very helpful.

00:45:39.025 --> 00:45:40.554
What is a big goal you're working on now?

00:45:41.054 --> 00:45:48.635
Right now I'm working on rolling out a new program actually for for cold and breathing and online things.

00:45:48.635 --> 00:45:55.184
So right now I'm really invested in, in highly specific protocols.

00:45:55.485 --> 00:45:59.175
So developing all of those protocols for specific adaptations for people.

00:45:59.485 --> 00:46:00.445
How can they get the best?

00:46:01.505 --> 00:46:03.204
So that's the, a big piece that I'm working on.

00:46:03.934 --> 00:46:04.344
Excellent.

00:46:05.014 --> 00:46:06.195
What about a favorite?

00:46:06.465 --> 00:46:09.215
Could be a show, activity, podcast.

00:46:09.215 --> 00:46:09.885
For sure.

00:46:10.184 --> 00:46:10.445
Yeah.

00:46:10.485 --> 00:46:15.605
The most a fun book that I just read was Tripped by Norman Oler.

00:46:15.664 --> 00:46:20.724
And he's tracing the history of psychedelics, specifically around LSD.

00:46:21.364 --> 00:46:25.914
And it was a fascinating read and really taps into a lot.

00:46:25.965 --> 00:46:30.324
If you want to think about the psychedelic experiences, like a very strong.

00:46:30.590 --> 00:46:31.340
stressor.

00:46:31.530 --> 00:46:34.929
That's a, an excellent analogy because of how it works in the brain.

00:46:35.409 --> 00:46:37.349
And so I'm always fascinated by psychedelics.

00:46:37.400 --> 00:46:40.210
Of course, they're coming up in our current society in a big way.

00:46:40.719 --> 00:46:44.019
And you know, there's, they're not all good and they're not all bad.

00:46:44.030 --> 00:46:47.179
And finding that balance I think is really helpful in tracing.

00:46:48.139 --> 00:46:49.690
The history was fascinating.

00:46:49.690 --> 00:46:51.030
So that was a excellent book.

00:46:51.670 --> 00:46:51.889
Yeah.

00:46:51.889 --> 00:46:57.510
A perennial favorite, a perennial favorite of mine is Zen and the Japanese culture by Suzuki.

00:46:57.840 --> 00:46:59.039
Phenomenal book.

00:46:59.139 --> 00:46:59.789
Phenomenal.

00:47:00.289 --> 00:47:04.099
It's a fairly long read, but it's broken into really powerful sections.

00:47:04.130 --> 00:47:09.050
And it's just absolutely amazing because for one, Suzuki is an incredible writer.

00:47:09.079 --> 00:47:10.019
So let's just start there.

00:47:10.019 --> 00:47:15.940
But number two, it traces samurai culture, mindset, zen meditation practices.

00:47:16.199 --> 00:47:17.619
Wonderful stories.

00:47:17.639 --> 00:47:18.869
It's just filled with everything.

00:47:18.909 --> 00:47:21.719
It's, it's one of my all time, I always return to it.

00:47:21.900 --> 00:47:23.820
Every year I'll at least read a few pages.

00:47:24.059 --> 00:47:31.780
I've read the book many times, but I'll just read a few pages here and there and I'm, I can pick it up and turn it to almost any page and be fascinated.

00:47:32.280 --> 00:47:33.704
And so it's a really good one.

00:47:34.844 --> 00:47:36.664
Wow, yeah, that one sounds really interesting.

00:47:37.264 --> 00:47:38.375
I'm going to have to pick that one up.

00:47:38.375 --> 00:47:41.025
I'm fascinated by everything with Japanese culture now.

00:47:41.025 --> 00:47:43.864
So They've got a lot going for them.

00:47:44.605 --> 00:47:45.175
They really do.

00:47:45.175 --> 00:47:49.494
We just went for the first time earlier this year and just absolutely fell in love.

00:47:49.664 --> 00:47:50.684
Yeah, it was incredible.

00:47:50.764 --> 00:47:51.304
Have you been?

00:47:52.644 --> 00:47:55.244
I have, but for a very short time, just through the airport.

00:47:55.264 --> 00:47:59.585
But most of my authors I love there, you know, and I spend so much time traveling.

00:47:59.835 --> 00:48:03.284
It's a shame I haven't spent more time, but actually I'm taking my daughter there this summer.

00:48:03.284 --> 00:48:04.485
That's going to be our summer travel.

00:48:04.795 --> 00:48:05.594
Oh, nice.

00:48:05.655 --> 00:48:05.905
Very good.

00:48:05.905 --> 00:48:08.434
You know you say that about the authors.

00:48:08.465 --> 00:48:14.255
It's funny, my favorite running book of all time, I don't remember the author's name, but he's Japanese.

00:48:14.264 --> 00:48:16.045
He's a very famous Japanese author.

00:48:16.355 --> 00:48:22.409
But his book was It was called What I Think About When I Think About Running.

00:48:22.469 --> 00:48:22.769
Ah.

00:48:23.090 --> 00:48:23.880
Yeah, Murakami.

00:48:24.179 --> 00:48:24.639
Yeah.

00:48:24.690 --> 00:48:24.869
Yeah.

00:48:25.210 --> 00:48:26.460
It's an incredibly captivating.

00:48:26.460 --> 00:48:27.380
He's one of my favorite authors.

00:48:28.219 --> 00:48:28.699
Yeah.

00:48:29.429 --> 00:48:30.320
Yeah, great book.

00:48:30.599 --> 00:48:31.400
Yeah, great book.

00:48:31.489 --> 00:48:32.329
It's so funny.

00:48:32.380 --> 00:48:36.250
Like, it's, you know, it's almost like the Seinfeld of running book, right?

00:48:36.460 --> 00:48:38.070
Like, just a book about nothing but for running.

00:48:38.480 --> 00:48:40.179
But it's so captivating, you know.

00:48:40.690 --> 00:48:43.559
I've had a lot of people read it who aren't runners too, and they just love it.

00:48:44.380 --> 00:48:45.500
It's a wonderful read.

00:48:45.500 --> 00:48:46.789
And Murakami's a great writer.

00:48:46.920 --> 00:48:47.440
I love him.

00:48:47.619 --> 00:48:48.510
He's, he's wonderful.

00:48:49.625 --> 00:48:52.114
So, what about a piece of advice for your younger self?

00:48:53.954 --> 00:49:00.070
You know, I think what I would have told my younger self is specifically around education.

00:49:00.070 --> 00:49:10.530
So I ended up doing a degree in college and so forth, but I started off doing pre med and I went away from it because I didn't feel like I could have the focus and discipline to really get it done.

00:49:11.219 --> 00:49:16.329
And I would have told my younger self Just buckle down and do it.

00:49:16.329 --> 00:49:22.920
It's worth the effort because what I've had to do over the last 15 years is basically do that degree on my own.

00:49:23.199 --> 00:49:27.300
And I could have done it in four years instead of 15 that I just focused.

00:49:27.530 --> 00:49:28.670
I was interested.

00:49:29.139 --> 00:49:30.349
I really loved it.

00:49:30.590 --> 00:49:35.010
So if there's something that's meaningful to you in life, just do it.

00:49:35.019 --> 00:49:38.650
Even if it requires, there's a great deal of effort, focus, and discipline.

00:49:40.764 --> 00:49:41.644
It's worth it.

00:49:41.815 --> 00:49:56.905
The other things that you're sacrificing for the thing that that kind of stuff are probably not worth it So I would tell myself buckle down get that done and really pursue it regardless of how difficult it is It's worth it to you Yeah, that's so smart.

00:49:56.925 --> 00:50:03.625
The so many of those things when we're in, you, when we're young, we just think, yeah, that, that is too difficult, too much, takes too much discipline.

00:50:04.065 --> 00:50:08.324
And now that we're older, we look back and we're like, man, that was like the perfect time to do it.

00:50:08.525 --> 00:50:13.635
It really wasn't nearly as much effort to make up for, you know you can just knock it out.

00:50:14.144 --> 00:50:16.135
And now it's really hard.

00:50:16.135 --> 00:50:22.614
Yeah, because it's hard because you get to, to my age, I've got a daughter, I got a family, I've got work, I've got businesses.

00:50:23.034 --> 00:50:23.835
I, now I have to.

00:50:26.670 --> 00:50:33.980
It and all of this other stuff on top of that, whereas then I just could have focused on that, you know, sort of in a fraction of the time to really get done.

00:50:34.349 --> 00:50:34.710
Yeah.

00:50:36.070 --> 00:50:40.969
What about last one you can choose between a big opportunity or a limiting belief?

00:50:43.250 --> 00:50:43.619
Yeah.

00:50:43.619 --> 00:50:48.710
So I think I've already told you a little bit about a lot of my limiting belief was around the cold.

00:50:48.769 --> 00:50:50.039
That really broke me open.

00:50:50.039 --> 00:50:51.789
So that's not really a great one.

00:50:52.019 --> 00:50:53.739
The other piece might be opportunity.

00:50:53.789 --> 00:50:56.820
I did mention Alaska, but I'll tell you that's the biggest stop.

00:50:58.289 --> 00:50:59.849
opportunity that I offer each year.

00:51:00.329 --> 00:51:01.739
It's coming up in February.

00:51:01.800 --> 00:51:08.719
I invite anybody who thinks they're adventurous and wants to try something, even if you're brand new.

00:51:09.010 --> 00:51:17.119
I've had people that literally, that was their first cold exposure, they come to the most epic setting and they transform inside of just a couple of days.

00:51:17.219 --> 00:51:26.139
A story that I absolutely love, this guy Joe, he showed up day one we've, you know, worked through all the Practices, the prep and everything.

00:51:26.210 --> 00:51:29.500
Day one, he only got up to his waist in the water and that was fine.

00:51:29.510 --> 00:51:31.400
He felt like, all right, I did it.

00:51:31.800 --> 00:51:36.530
Day two, he was able to submerge himself in an ice hole and pop out.

00:51:36.769 --> 00:51:41.329
Day three, he's back flipping into a waterfall area, you know, swimming like a polar bear.

00:51:41.929 --> 00:51:47.599
And so if you've got the right steps and you're willing to be adventurous and patient in a short time, you.

00:51:48.469 --> 00:51:49.969
And have the adventure of your life.

00:51:50.219 --> 00:51:53.750
So come join me in wild Alaska, February five through nine.

00:51:54.539 --> 00:51:55.030
Wow.

00:51:55.210 --> 00:51:55.650
Okay.

00:51:55.650 --> 00:52:01.340
I mean I can I can think of a lot worse things than hanging out in Alaska So that sounds like fun.

00:52:01.340 --> 00:52:01.519
Yeah.

00:52:01.519 --> 00:52:01.719
Yeah.

00:52:01.760 --> 00:52:02.559
Have you i'm curious.

00:52:02.559 --> 00:52:06.659
Have you done antarctica antarctica?

00:52:06.730 --> 00:52:21.744
No, i've been north of sweden into the lapland right north north of the arctic like way up in the arctic there but south I have not been to the to the southern continent before That's on the list though.

00:52:22.284 --> 00:52:22.724
I bet.

00:52:24.394 --> 00:52:25.054
Okay, great.

00:52:25.054 --> 00:52:33.324
Well, if people want to know a little bit more about you Matt, maybe your experiences that you offer, your coaching, training, how can they go about that?

00:52:37.204 --> 00:52:39.255
The best place to find me is MattSoul.

00:52:39.985 --> 00:52:40.394
com.

00:52:40.425 --> 00:52:42.005
That's M A T T.

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S O U L E dot com.

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So that's got everything, you can get my free newsletter, you can become a free member on that site, it'll get, get you my stress newsletter where I give you stories and links to all kinds of good information around how to balance your, your health and stress and leverage it for your benefit.

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You can also access all the trainings and different things I've got going on.

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And of course, I'm on social media everywhere at MattSoulSR5.

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So you can find me anywhere on X, Instagram, you know, et cetera.

00:53:17.369 --> 00:53:17.820
Excellent.

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SR5.

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MattSoulSR5.

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Very good.

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Well, thank you so much for being on the Wayfinder show, Matt.

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The work you're doing is it's pretty inspiring.

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Why don't we check out that Alaska trip and maybe I'll do it one of these days.

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Sounds like fun.

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Luis, I'd love to have you and thank you so much for the opportunity to spend some time with you and your listeners.

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Thank you.

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We hope you've enjoyed The Wayfinder Show.

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If you got value from this episode, please take a few seconds to leave us a 5 star rating and review.

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This will allow us to help more people find their way to live more authentic and exciting lives.

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We'll catch you on the next episode.