Conquer Your Mind with Wim Hof | Jim Kwik

Welcome back, Kwik Brain. So here's your question of the day: How do you conquer your mind for greater happiness, strength, and health? I mean, that's really the question. Everybody wants to be able to access those things, and we have a very special guest here today, Wim Hof. Thanks for being here, buddy.

Thanks.

It's good to see you.

Thanks, Jim. It's Jim, huh?

Yeah, it is Jim.

Jim, and this is Wim.

Wim. Jim and Wim. I like that. There we go. That's the show right there.

Right on.

You know, we— I first interviewed you, um, it was 5 years ago in Boston. We were speaking at our mutual friend Tony's event right outside of Harvard, and I have this picture of us together doing our— your exercise. And it was really amazing, and it's wonderful to follow your career. the past 5 years because it's just people getting turned on to the power of breath and the power of cold. So I wanted to start— all our viewers, our listeners, they're really excited about the potential of the mind. That's what this show really is all about, breaking limits. And I feel like it's not even just the, the moon and the stars. It's like we are our own limit. And you've done some extraordinary things in your life, so many world records that you have broken. What are some of those that we could talk about here, just to give people an idea who's not familiar with your work?

Through the power of the will and intention, I thought to do things thought of impossible.

Yeah.

And like climbing Mount Everest in your shorts.

In your shorts.

First zone on Mount Everest in shorts and losing the way. Losing the way. Losing the way. Because I had— I found myself suddenly in a whiteout. In a whiteout, it means snow everywhere and there is no path there. It's only snow and ice and it's white. And there was no Sherpa, no guide, no— you're gone, you're lost. But there I found Myself, surprisingly very confident, swift, good in my body while being in those extremes. Wim has learned to harness his powers to test the limits of what flesh and blood can stand. In recent years, Wim has achieved some of the most remarkable feats of human endurance. In 2005, Wim squared off with the bitter cold of Finland by running a half marathon barefoot in the snow. He is the first person to attempt such a feat in the Arctic Circle. 3 months later, he climbed the slopes of Mount Everest wearing only shorts to a stunning altitude of 22,500 feet. The mind, if you know how to control it, you know how to control the extremes coming to you, not making you paranoid or full of anxiety, you are able to tap in and to find even the way where nothing is visible. 3 hours later, I found myself in an advanced base camp at 20,000 feet, received by Tibetans who saw a man in shorts coming out of the snow. It must be the Yeti.

Right.

Or the snowman or the Iceman. But actually, it's the power of the mind which led me intuitively to the right place. And I felt it so good that physically, it's not only that your intuition is able to lead you, but you are able to maintain control while being exposed to less than half the oxygen And the cold, being in shorts, where? So if you are able to do that and to find yourself, then we are able to do a whole lot more in the world.

You know, we talked about a lot of the research that's been done on our show, that we've discovered more about the human brain, the human body, more in the probably the past 10 years than the previous 1,000 years combined. And what we found is we're grossly underestimating our own capabilities. you know, our own potential. And so what we seek in this show, living examples, because I believe the life we live are the lessons we teach.

Mm-hmm.

Like, you're an inspiring example through the life you live. And some people who are listening to this might be like, Jim, like, I don't want to climb Mount Everest in my shorts and under those kind of circumstances. But when we take outstanding examples like yourself, everybody has things going on in their environment, you know, that creates stresses on them. Maybe not as severe as being that, you know, 20,000+ feet up in the air with very little oxygen on those whiteout conditions, but people have their— they're dealing with things with their clients, they're dealing with things with family troubles, they're dealing with extra— all this external stuff.

That is all stress.

Right.

What I learned is how to find— I was looking at disease in the world, war, stress and tension and this and that. I thought, I don't want to be part of that. out of that. There must be more, and I felt there was more. And I learned with my own mind, following my intuition, a way into the control, deeper control of myself.

Hmm.

And I found it through 26 world records, many more challenges in the extremes. Finally, I come to terms with the universities showing in brain scans that we actually have a capability within our own brain. And we just published that, Brain Over Body, it's called. And these professors, they say, after looking at the results of what you have done in the brain scan, thought of impossible to access in areas of the brain thought of inaccessible by humans, Right now, we have broken those borders, those limits, that knowledge, and changing the paradigm, we are able to battle stress in any way with the power of our own mind. By consciously tapping in from the prefrontal cortex into the PAG, periaqueductal gray hemisphere, part of the reptilian brain, the brainstem, the most primitive thought of inaccessible by humans. Now, while I was in the brain scan, robustly activating that at will.

Hmm.

So the question is, are we able to go into 100% power of our own brain, the seat of the mind? We are. I went into the deepest, I activated it while being stressfully exposed to ice water on the skin. And normally you cannot do nothing. There's no breathing in the brain scan. You cannot move. It's nothing. Only you can use the power of your own brain, of your mind. And it showed I was making the skin temperature not going down while being exposed to ice water.

Hmm.

So then they looked inside the brain. And then they saw on the surface the thinking brain, the prefrontal cortex, the conscious brain, our thought-thinking brain, go into the deepest part of the brain and robustly activating. So if you are able to go into the deepest, then you have done them all. You can go anywhere. And that is now the question. We are on the threshold. of the power of the mind being accessible for every human in the world. When the first time people broke the record by going below 10 seconds, the next year 15 people could do it. It's morphology.

Hmm.

We are connected. We only need to have this conviction now and this belief based on Hey guys, you are able to take over the power of your own brain. It's here. Just invest into that and not invest into not being able to do that.

Right, 'cause a lot of people, they fight for their limitations. They're like, oh, I'm too old, or this has this genetic factor. And if you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them, right? If you argue for your limits, they're yours. So you're saying that anybody, regardless of their age, their background, their career, their education level, their financial situation, their gender, history, IQ. This is available for everybody.

Yes. And in the end, it is to lead up to the purpose of life.

Right.

Which is our beautiful soul, which is eternal and indestructible. We become immortal by understanding through the power of our own brain to connect with the soul. And because that sounds like hippie bullshit, that's why I go through science.

Right.

I take the brain surgeons, I take the neurologists, the immunologists, the biochemical professors, and hey, I challenge any scientist in the world, prove me wrong.

Yeah.

I think that we are here on this earth To prove that the soul is able to go through our conscious brain and become manifested. And that is the core. If we stay at the core, we grow into it. But no, this world is about, you got to serve the system. You got to serve the system who creates wars and stress and diseases and thinks that it is normal and we cannot do anything. No, we can do all. We can bring peace and power to ourselves to become happy, strong, and healthy. And with that, the purpose of our lives, the soul itself.

And love.

And that is love, right? That is love. And love without fear, because fear is only there where there is no power of your own mind. We are able to become happy, What else do you want?

Right.

You don't want 6 cars or 10 houses and so many other things to compensate the loss of your security.

And scarcity.

Because you are happy.

Because you feel whole, because also you have— you're healthy and you're strong, you're vibrant also as well.

Yes.

So you're not, you're not trying to necessarily have to take from somebody else or put anybody else down.

If you have eaten, you are not hungry anymore. If you are happy, you don't seek for compensation. You're there and you emanate love.

So what I love about you is you're a living example. It's not necessarily about walking in your underwear out in the Arctic Circle for people listening to it. It's like, but if somebody could do that, what else can they do?

I can tell you, the first study I did, which was a very revolutionary one, is what I showed that the autonomic nervous system can be influenced. deeply. With that, the innate capacity of the adaptive immune system at will and the endocrine system. Immune system is related to health, hormonal system, endocrine system to happiness and to painkilling hormones. It's all inside.

Right.

So that study we did 6 years ago and we went up a mountain.

Yeah.

Because that's— I found the answers in nature because they were not in the books. So the first study I did, I did with the aid of climbing a mountain outside because then if you expose yourself in extremes in nature, then the deepest of your physiology comes within your consciousness. control. 4 days later, after climbing the mountain, we produced all the results which revolutionized medicine, showing that we are able to tap into the autonomic nervous system, get a bacteria injected, and being able to control that.

Well, talk about what that— what you did, that study.

Yes. So they got— they were 16,134 people were exposed to a bacteria in a controlled experiment. It's called the endotoxemia experiment, the model. It's injecting a dead bacteria and your immune system severely is going to react upon it.

Mm-hmm.

You become fever, full of fever all over, agony of the body, vomiting, headaches. and uncontrolled shivering because you have no control over the inflammation.

Right.

And inflammatory markers in the body. And then I trained these people. So 16,134 people all become sick. And then suddenly 100% score within 18 people, 12 randomly chosen, being injected with the same, all Okay, all 100% score. Okay, suppressed the inflammation within the body caused by the bacteria injected. There we changed the way science is looking to the perspective of the human capacity of the power of the mind, both with the breathing, being able to defy a bacteria, Right. or to activate a deeper physiology And with that, we changed medical science.

That's amazing.

That's 6 years ago. Now, this world—

And you're not suggesting people at home experiment and inject bacteria?

No, no, no, not at all. Don't do it. Just take a cold shower. A cold shower a day keeps the doctor away. And even the doctor is doing it nowadays because it works. It's training the vascular system. Take a cold— you take a hot one, but you take also a cold one. 30 seconds to begin with, to learn to optimize our vascular condition, which is 3 times the world's circumference. It's between 60,000 and 100,000, depends on the physiology of a person, kilometers long.

That's amazing.

No, miles long. And that is very big. And it all contains little muscles, and they are trained by going into the cold.

Hmm.

And then the heartbeat goes down 20, 25 beats a minute, so there is no stress anymore. And the nutrients, minerals, and oxygen gets to all the cells. Then you get a lot of energy, and you train your vascular channeling. And vascular channeling is the life force. Oxygen comes in, The transportation system is okay. Everything is going to be okay.

That's astonishing. When I when I interviewed you five years ago, I started doing the cold showers every morning. Most popular episode that we have in our show is my morning routine, and we always get people commenting on cold showers because they love everything else. But the cold showers is difficult. Where do people start with that? Do you recommend? They don't have to do like a ten minutes in the beginning.

No, no, no, no. Thirty seconds at the most. Don't go shockingly around with your physiology, with your body. No, no shocking. It's just 30 seconds cold, and know that you are able to use the power of your mind. What we are going to do is firsthand optimize your vascular system. Okay. And you do that through breathing. Okay. Mindful breathing. You're gonna go in the cold, and who is in control? That is you. Because in the end, it is the mind who's going to control all the hormonal system to be able, in adrenaline, to withstand the cold. With withstanding the cold coming in as a negative influence, Feeling in charge, in command. You are connected to the deepest of your brain. So bring in, make your body alkaline. Once the pH level is right, you are in command. You say, I'm gonna have a good time. And my vascular system has had a great training, and my mind is in control. You got that?

Nice.

And I wish you to have a good time in the bath. Long breaths when you go in. We just showed in this study that we have a power in our mind which is able to control what is happening in our body. It's called interoceptive focus. And you learn, you can learn that right away. If you are convinced, if your house is on fire, you run fast. You don't need no nothing, no trigger.

Right.

So that is a control of the adrenaline, and it's empowered by the adrenal axis. And it's moved inside of our brain. So if you learn to go into that part of the brain, you learn not only to go into the cold shower, you learn the power of your brain, of your mind, to learn to control. Once you learn to control to go into the cold shower, the cold is only a mirror for you, and it's good for your vascular system.

It's a teacher.

But the mind is being exercised. And that mind is then very much more able to oppose stress in daily life, in your business meetings, in your deadlines, in this and that, because it's all about the physiology connected to the brain. You are in control.

That's amazing. So after you do your breathing in the morning, what would be next in a perfect world for people watching this? I like the cold.

I like the cold. I also like the heat. I like the love of my woman and my children, and the animals, and see what I'm gonna do that day. What positive damage I'm gonna inflict into the universe.

Positive damage you're gonna inflict, I like that. And so you do the cold, like a cold bath?

Yes, I got a swimming pool and I live in the Netherlands. In the wintertime it's always cold. So every day you can find me in the swimming pool.

So somebody who's watching this who doesn't have that big pool, but then They could graduate from doing a cold shower to—

Cold shower, same thing.

To an ice bath.

Yes.

So what would that entail?

When I had no means, no money, I was still doing my— in the wintertime, we got these natural bodies of water, lakes, and I just run to the lake and go into it. I get the whole lake for myself because nobody was in there. Every day. And it's amazing, the stillness of emotion. Anybody can do this. Anybody. My oldest student right now is 97 years.

97?

And she loves doing this, and she is only doing this for 1 year now. How about that? There is no restriction in optimizing your vascular system and the control from the brain down into the body. And vice versa. There is no limit. There is no limit to our brain because the soul is our source.

And you're a living example of that. You know, everyone calls you the Iceman, but when I think about you, I also see like an iceberg because iceberg is like you see what's on the tip, but there's so much that goes on in the depth.

That's a nice one, man.

That other people don't really— that they're not conscious of.

That's a Jim Kwik philosophy image.

But that's what success is, right? People ever see— they see the nice part up on that's on top, but they don't see what goes on, the hard work or the sacrifice, the practice. Yes, the deep work.

Yes, I'm a man on a mission.

You are.

I want to bring love into this world this time, not like hippie shit and this and that and flower power. Real strong through the power of the mind, and everybody has it.

Yeah. How would you like to be remembered? How would you like to? You know, we talk about memory and being unforgettable. That a life is worth living. It's worth. It's worth remembering, right?

And maybe like a crazy, lovable guy.

Crazy, lovable.

Who changed science altogether.

Well, you're definitely doing that.

That's what we do.

All right, Wim. How do people stay in touch with you?

I got a website.

Okay.

And everything is on there. Wim Hof is my name.

Yes, it is.

Method.

Okay, and on social media?

On social media as well, but I have— I never do that. It's my son and my family, my children do that.

Well, I would highly recommend people go there because you have a lot of great information there. We'll put all this in the show notes. What I would challenge everyone to do is to take a screenshot of this video that you're watching right now, or this podcast, take a screenshot, tag Wim, tag myself, because if you want to learn something really fast, Teach it to somebody else. When you learn with the intention of teaching. So what I want you to do is take a screenshot, tag Wim, tag myself, and put your big aha. What's your big lesson that you got out of this session? And then as always, I'll repost some of our favorite. Wim, thank you for being not only a force of nature but also a force for good.

Ah, so good. Thank you. We are doing it again. together, and together we are so much stronger.