The Pursuit of Adventure: A Quest for Passion, Purpose, and the Ultimate Thrill with Mike Prince

Here's what I want you to try, Travis. Turn the music off and sit in it. Just as you say, keep your eyes open and be in it. And it's like that relates to so many things we do in our lives, right? People are working out at the gym. This one drives me nuts. Pet peeve alert here. But you know, sitting there on their phones when your benefits there are so minimized, when you're not actually present to what you're doing versus thinking about what muscles you're working and you're moving, that goes to eating food.

Hey, I'm Joe Fear and welcome to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. This is where we talk all all about building businesses so they give you the freedom and fuel for your life. I'm not here to help you build a billion dollar business, but I am here to help you create a business with systems that work for you so you can make more money than you need just by working part time. You know, I was a chronic Hustle.

Mode kind of guy and I want.

To share my experiences and mentors I've met along the way to help you reframe things to be the most effective as an entrepreneur. I wish I had this guidance and.

Insight when I was younger.

So that's what I'm doing here for you. Please share and enj.

Yo yo.

Today on the episode I have my buddy Mike Prince on the podcast. He is actually business partners with my other friend who you probably heard on the podcast recently named Trevor Turnbull. These guys are putting together some really amazing people. There's also a retreat in Costa Rica in late April.

You're invited to it as well.

There's still a handful of spots, so go check it out@ extremelyconscious.com retreat to get all the details there. And the reason why I brought Mike on is partially because he's been leading this group and I'm in this, this.

Group with what, 10 other men or.

So, doing a bunch of daily actions, these micro things that are really shifting a bunch inside of me. I just recorded a solo episode that you might have listened to as well about that.

And Mike here, he's been a pioneer.

In flyboarding, which is extreme sport. It's something that you probably have seen over a body of water somewhere near you.

Well, he's going to describe what he.

Did in that space.

He built a whole franchise business in that space.

He also now manages a bunch of sales folks, runs a whole team there.

And he's building his extremely conscious brand.

So check that out at extremely conscious Dot Com. And if you want to get to the retreat, all the details there. Extremely conscious.com experience gets you there. And in this episode, Mike's going to break down this journey from extreme sports to debilitating disease to where he's at now and all the different tools like meditation, breath work, and cold exposure and some other things. So you're gonna love this episode if you're into this. So have an open mind and check out this episode. And towards the end, we're gonna do a little breathwork session as well, so it's gonna get fun. All right, Enjoy the episode. See you there. All right, Mike, we're here. We're rolling. Had your partner on here not that long ago, Trev.

Yes.

Trevor Turnbull. So it's great to have you here, man.

Thank you. It's great to be here. I've really been looking forward to this.

Yeah, I know. And we've been chatting about it. You're. So I guess just to put some context to this conversation and those listening. Mike Prince, I mean, you are the one. You and Trevor Turnbull have put this awesome group together under the brand of extremely conscious. And, you know, there's. What, a group of. I don't know how many of us there are.

15Ish?

Or maybe it's.

Yeah, there's.

Right.

Just over 10 of us and amazing group of humans, you know, group of men that are. Are doing the work in terms of looking to. To have it all in life and how we do that and. Yeah, that's how Trev and I originally met each other. Really?

Well, yeah, you were what, neighbors? And then you decided, hey, there's. There's something that we're all noticing in ourselves as. As men. And, you know, I've chatted a lot about that on this podcast. Not always focusing just on men, but just in. Yeah, almost like a lot of folks who are listening are around our age range. You know, it's kind of like there's this. There's a lot of shifts happening in our life and a lot of realizations of ourselves and obviously responsibilities, business, that whole balance of everything. So, yeah, you guys are basically bringing men together to do some really. I mean, it's like, it's kind of seemingly simple stuff, but it's also completely changing everything.

Totally. It's been amazing to see and to think about, as you say, like, it is. There's not. You know, we haven't come up with a formula that is revolutionary or anything, but what we've looked at is. Is the foundational pieces of. In our journeys individually and then when we came together of you know, what was really helping us amplify in our daily lives and bring us more energy and you know, helping us sleep better and really just feel calm, cool and collected as we go through our. The chaos of our lives of both having two kids under six and you know, having multiple businesses and then exploring this whole new world that where we want to create some amazing things in.

Yeah.

And introducing it to other guys, you.

Know and, and it's foreign, you know to a lot of, a lot of men, a lot of people in general. It's just everyone. It's. Yeah. These simple actions which we'll get into and we chatted about a bit in the episode I did with Trevor, you know, the micro actions. Probably by the time this goes out I'll have a solo episode out where it kind of like dove deep into my own actions and realizations through things and yeah. So if you guys listening, curious. That's what we're really pertaining to here and talking about.

Hey, I wanted to paus this and give a quick thanks to my friend Greg Merrilies and his team at Studio One Design. They're the ones that built my website over@hustleandflowchart.com I couldn't be happier. They nailed it. It looks so professional. They basically read my mind on the vision and they executed it beautifully. I now have a perfect offer to display. It looks super clean. I've already been getting a lot of people asking all about it and I've been referring everybody to Studio One. So they actually put together quiz for you if you're looking to optimize your current website or build a new one as a full quiz that gives you a ton of results on how to improve and optimize what you're doing. So go complete that quiz@studio1design.com Joe that is studio the number one design.com Joe. It'll give you a free report after you finish that quiz. He's also given away some cool bonuses. So go check it out at studio1designdesign.com.

Joe Mike, I want to go back and, and talk about you and like what you're made of, you know, because I'm going to learn a lot as well and then everything here that we could share, you know, and then we'll kind of get into what we're doing right now as well. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know exactly where to start but like where. Because I know you're doing stuff in sales. You're crushing it there. You have a big Old team, but, like, you've done professional sports as well, so extreme stuff.

Yeah, yeah. It's funny those worlds actually intertwined, believe it or not, because my corporate job is in sales, and I'm now in a role. But let's go back 10 years. I was in a sales role, and it's payment processing. And so I was helping somebody set up their website. And, you know, he was setting up for this sport called flyboarding, which I'd never seen before. And so I simply said, we'll take care of this piece, but let's meet up for a coffee. I want to learn more about this and cross that kind of professional boundary a little bit. But was so intrigued, I couldn't help it. And honestly, that spark spawned a part of my journey, that part of my life that was incredible. I did sales at first forum, but then I flew to the first ever competition in Qatar in the Middle east, and I saw what was happening there, and I just. It was a spark. And I said, I have to get involved in this piece, and took out a $12,000 loan and traveled the US a little bit to check out other people's locations. But then I started my own location here, which is. Exists till today. We're going into our 9th summer, 9th or 10th of teaching people how to flyboard. And I started that to fund so I could go across the. And compete and do shows. And, you know, definitely came across some very interesting times of where I get a phone call, and I remember one, they're like, can you leave for a show in two days? We need you to fly to Turkmenistan. It's the president's birthday. And at the time, I was just like, of course I'll get on a plane. Like, let's go. Let's do this. And it was one of the most interesting trips to this day in my life that, you know, they flew us first class. We had people waiting at the airport to pick us up. We had a house on. On this. It was just this imaginary world almost that was wild and then sent us back economy after they paid us.

Did they really? Oh, yeah.

That was the joke.

Yeah.

They wanted us well rested, get there, treated us so well, and I'm like, see you later.

You did your part. Well, flyboarding, I mean, that's just so. I've seen it. I've seen people in San Diego, in the bay, do it, and in Cancun. And I remember seeing some people do it, and it's. How would you describe it? I'm like. I'm looking at a picture of it, but I don't.

Yeah, sorry, great question. Because a lot of people. A lot, yeah, Many people have tried it now, but a lot of people aren't even familiar. So it is the one where you have the jets attached to your feet by wakeboard boots, essentially, and then it's by an 80 foot hose. It's attached to a high pressure sea doo. So all of that pressure that normally fires a sea doo across the water is now at your feet and you're kind of essentially like a rocket man. So in competitions, you know, we just took it to acrobats essentially by leveraging that power and then massive dives and back dives and anything we could do to get creative with it, we were, you know, there was no rule book or guidebook, trick book when we started it, so was literally sharing videos on the Internet and people looking at it being like, whoa. So and so in Thailand did this and this guy in San Diego did this. And we would try to recreate. We'd meet at competitions and see who had learned those tricks.

Ah, okay, that's interesting. It's like almost like skateboarding when it was just beginning. It's like totally. No one had names for tricks and everybody was looking at no Internet then either. So different times.

Yeah, yeah. It was the point where we had to submit trick cards for qualification rounds and we would have to explain it, what it was to the judge because it was new.

You rate me on my tricks?

Exactly.

Yeah.

Like so had you.

So you made a business out of it and you traveled everywhere. So. And you're nine years in now. I mean, you're. This is interesting. And I had no clue, man. So I guess what, Where'd you go with it? Like, because you took it professionally, obviously you're getting paid and traveling everywhere.

Yeah, it was amazing. We had sponsors at the time. I helped co found the first Canadian team called Team Can Fly with a partner of mine, Brody in Alberta. And we had a group of. Geez, seven or eight of us. And then we started to bring in some Americans as well. And even though it was an individual sport, it was kind of like we started to create this social media buzz and this to try to get sponsors and be able to afford to go on all these competitions. And it was amazing. And I. So my last competition was now five years ago, it was 2018 in Australia. And that's for the bulk of us actually. It just kind of fizzled out. Competition slowed down now. There's a lot of guys still doing shows, some really cool stuff. But Business wise it's not an easy business because as you can see we still have explain it to people to these days. So we had at one point a franchise model. We had eight locations across bc, Manitoba and Alberta. And now there's one mine. It came and went within a few years. To be honest, Pandemic didn't help I'm.

Sure with getting out and doing stuff.

Yeah, that was a tough time for sure. It was actually pre that it was more guys thought it was cool. It was a lot of dudes jumping in with some extra money saying oh I want to do this business. If I buy the stuff, they will come. It's not like no, you still got to market, you still got to open.

A Google page, know what you're doing.

You know, like actually take it seriously. Yeah.

So it was an amazing, amazing chapter. But you know, it's interesting to. It taught me a ton for sure so much to, to reflect on. But it's, it's certainly a time that now I see as well as honestly I was living a very ego driven life. How so? Well, it was one of the coolest things happening right. When everybody hears about it, it was just this, this hype and made you feel so good and you know, you had all, all the feels because you were doing some, something really cool and getting to travel and so there was a lot of that and there was a deep brotherhood which was real and amazing and there was injuries behind it all. It was just kind of like hype on social media and it wasn't really what was going on with all of us. Right. Sure there was some real pains and stuff and real conversations you can never take away from all that. But yeah, it just pushed me in a different direction of trying to become well Personas we put on. Right. Which is the social media Persona. But then I wasn't really exploring who I really was or relationships deeper in my life at that time. It was more so just driving to be this cool person which a lot of us easily get attached to when we get that opportunity.

And they're surrounded by those people too. So it kind of compounds I guess Totally, totally.

There's no regrets in the journey at all. It was incredible. But it just had a different chapter in my life now where I love having families come to our location and I don't run it anymore. But when I go down and spend a day or two there over the summer, it's amazing to see that families can learn with kids and the parents and have fun. That part's still beautiful. But do I need to go to the biggest stage I can find and try to put on a show because it's cool. No, not really.

Been there, done that.

Yeah, there's still a piece of my. My heart that fires me up about that for sure. The adrenaline, the presence as well. You know, I look at it differently now of when I was 80ft up on. You know, there's nothing else in the. In the world I'm thinking of at that moment. So there was a beauty in it as well that really brought presence to my life for sure. Because you had to be in flow when you're doing a trick set or something. You had to be.

But, well, when you're doing that too, like if you're 80ft up and. Because it makes a lot of sense, like with what you're saying, it's. It's flow with like anything. I mean, any kind of sport that really gets you in there. It could even be music, like playing a guitar. It's like you break some of that flow. Or if you're shooting a gun, you know, rifle, archery, whatever. It's like you need that focus. And I'm sure there's principles you were going by. Totally.

There's different elements, right. We had a remote as well, so we had no driver on the sea doo. So you have to be in sync with a few elements of your remote. That's, you know, basically the throttle of the sea doo. And then there was component called hose management, which is like you've got 80ft of hose. If you loop it the wrong way, a you can, you know. Oh, man. There was a bad incidence where people's femurs got snapped and then hose wrapping around and. Yeah, yeah, that's one. Or like, if you spin it a funny way and it wraps the sea doo flips the sea do over. That's your power source. You're falling from 60ft, you're landing. There's broken ribs on sea do. So there's different elements. So you totally had to be in. In. In flow for sure to learn those things like the back of your hand. And then. Then there was times, of course, you get out of your run and you're like, I pulled that off. I did do that. You'd have to watch the video to, you know, remind yourself that, like, yeah, you just got in a cool state.

But yeah, that's cool, man. I'm always fascinate and like for. Yeah. Myself, like, that's where I. I. Flow is just interesting. Like, we. I've chatted a lot about it on this podcast had a whole bunch of people, experts on, who talked about flow. And like, yeah, there's all these different. It's almost like a high that you get into. Like runners high is one of them. Like, I used to get that. I feel like it wears away sometimes, you know, or maybe it's just you get too creative and out of your flow. You try to start experimenting and then that can lead to maybe more resistance or possible injury in your case. You're not following, following the book or following at least what you know is. Is good for you in the moment.

Yeah. And as humans, we over complicate things always. Right. So there you go. Totally trying to push it a little bit further. Sometimes it's not needed. You know, you stay in that flow and that's was exactly as it should have been.

So, you know, I know you've been doing sales for a while and like Trevor. So now folks probably have heard of Trevor Turnbull. He's been on the podcast three times now. I think it is. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, was there. There was some bromance. Obviously you guys lived by each other, but like, how did that all happen? Because you guys are creating some cool stuff now that are, I feel like, is timely for a lot of men and.

Totally. Yeah, that, that, you know, honestly, it was two guys in the neighborhood that we truly, when we look back at it and we believe we manifested one another.

Right.

We were both looking for a different relationship in our lives that was in the form of another man, you know, and creating more in our lives and challenging each other. And so we started with the typical head nods and, you know, saying what's up? As he passed my house because our mailbox is right in front of my house. So he'd come with his two boys and say, oh, he's got two young kids. I don't know anybody in the neighborhood. So there'd be a bit of a conscious effort there, but that happened four or five times. And then finally it was, you know, should go play a game of tennis. And then we did that. And then while we're playing tennis, he talks about how he's moved his family to Costa Rica. He's an online marketer. And I. My bells were going off. Okay, this guy's up to some stuff that interests me and that I can really relate to. I wanted to move my family somewhere like that. I want to learn how to just exist online and be able to travel and live from wherever I can. So we got into these deeper conversations and then it was, you know, challenges with Our. With our kids and relationships with our wives. And once we crossed that border of getting into those type of conversations, it just got more real. Right. And yeah, we had a bros weekend away where I was like, trev, can you. Do you think you can get away? We'll do some E. F1. We'll do some hiking. Well, we actually, like, stayed at a resort 20 minutes away. It's pretty funny.

But that change of environment a little bit to shift.

Yeah. And literally, as we. I was like, let's do some breath work on when we get to the top of the hike. This view's amazing. And we did that and we came out of that. And literally the conversation is the one that's on our website because Trev is Trev and he records everything. And I remember at the time being like, are you really recording this? Come on. We're having a good heart to heart. But it is. It's, you know, it's amazing and it's beautiful. And I'm grateful for him and all that.

He.

He captures all that stuff. That's his genius. And. But yeah, we had that conversation on the mountaintop of saying, like, there's got to be more men out there like this that, you know, have been caught in the grind. And that's what we both were.

We were.

We've always been very successful in our. Our corporate and sales and entrepreneurial lives, but both missing a component, a heart component. Truly being like I was, you know, it was my. My birthday or my wife's or kid's birthday or events, and I just wasn't feeling excitement, and I couldn't pinpoint why. I really couldn't. And I was probably picking up a drink too often. Not to the point it affected my life, but that was the dangerous part. It was just casual one or two. And so when we started to get into these conversations of the. The tools that we were both playing with and breath work and cold exposure and, you know, things like that, eating better, working out these foundational pieces and challenging each other a little bit, we started to feel the difference in what we're creating. And again, it was, who else is out there that. That's looking for this? We should do a retreat. And that's, you know, what spawned the first one. With absolutely zero experience between the two of us saying, let's go for it and see what happens? Yeah. Because our. Our motto has always been, with all of this work, you know what, we would do it. Even if nobody arrived, even if nobody showed up, we would be doing this work. And so if we can inspire a few people along the way, that's a beaut thing. That's a win.

Yeah. And all that video you mentioned of you guys on the mountain, I watched it and yeah, it's. I didn't think it was planned. It didn't look planned, but it was genuine, which is the best part of it, you know. And so over@extremely conscious.com, definitely go check it out and you can see, I mean, there's a lot of videos. Actually that site looks pretty sweet. So, like, it gives a good explanation too, of your vision. And I mean, you guys have done a lot and the fact that that was your first event, you guys, like, produce the hell out of it. Like, it look great. Obviously you guys have a lot of background in marketing and putting stuff together and making things actually sell and look great, but at the same time, that's for a purpose that I know I've noticed in myself. Yeah. I think I even put this in the. In the chat last night is like the last few years for me definitely were a lot of like, have tos. It feels like a lot of stressors, a lot of different things happening. And really wasn't until the last handful of months. And then in the group that we're in now that you put together, it feels a lot more in flow all the time and less have tos. Like, it's more.

Yeah.

Present and being open and honestly just genuine with myself first. Not feeling like everything's I have to or it's a push, you know, you can't really push flow. Anyway, that was kind of like one of my things. I'm like, oh, yeah, duh. Can't control that shit.

Totally. That's exactly it. We all have, you know, so much going on and it's. I love that you bring that up because there's so many guys in the group as well that have logical minds. Right. But a lot of the words that we use are. Are beyond logic. You know, you need to have faith to surrendering to the universe. Right. But these are things that we see are very real once we actually learn to embrace them. And we're leaning into the process because as you say, right. I'm. I'm the same. Like, I don't get stressed anymore. I have probably more going on in my life than I've ever had in my entire life. And I'm able to accomplish more because of another concept. We talk about expanding time. Right. And that's really allowing ourselves to be in flow when we're doing a certain thing. But at the same time, we're not stressing about all these have to's and in turn, we're very, very present when it comes to time with our kids still and time with our. Our partners. And we're not perfect. You know, we still, we hear in the chat we. Everybody has their off days and that's normal. And if we didn't, heck, life would be boring, wouldn't it?

Probably not human. You're some kind of alie elon or something and.

Yeah, I wish I had his mind.

Yeah, I don't know. That's a good way. Never.

Touche. Let's be careful what you wish for, I think.

Yeah, but you're right then. I mean that's where it's. It's the emotional. I don't know if it's even the. It's like the conscious side. I'll just say this like I'm reading a book right now based off of Nico in our group called Driven. And I haven't mentioned this on the podcast. I actually don't even know the author's name name, but it's called Driven. I think it's a red cover. I'll link it in the show notes. Absolutely phenomenal. It's blowing my mind. I don't think it's made for everyone, but it's definitely. I think it's for most entrepreneurs and people who are seeking a better situation in general for themselves and others. And there's just some aha. Moments where it's. It's just describes like how I feel internally in times when I'm pushing or stacking too much of my plate, really expecting too much of myself or others. And it's.

I don't.

I just. I felt like. Because it describes a lot of the non logical stuff that we can describe. Like you can't really describe a lot of it, but I feel like it actually puts it really well in words, at least for the personality type of a lot of us, I would say that are here on this podcast and listening.

Yeah, I just ordered that actually as well. I think it's Michael Brackenmore.

That sounds right. Yeah. All the way from Meditations. But it's like it's slightly different approaches than what we would like. I was doing stuff a little slightly off off. Whereas rather like, you know, meditate with your eyes closed and it was like more like. No, meditate with your eyes open and focus on something and like feel your anxiety and your twitchiness or whatever your, your drive to go. Like look around but like be calm in the Chaos, quote, unquote chaos. But yeah, for a lot of us, yeah, we want to keep doing something to progress, and usually that's not the case. So it's like chill that thing consciously, whatever that foundation is.

Well, you nailed it, right? The entrepreneurial brain is that we want to always be doing something. We want to constantly be onto the next thing, and we want to see results right away. Of course, it's learning meditation. And to slow down was one of the hardest things I ever did of having, you know, that however many years in sales in the journey saying, no, we got to do more to produce more to, you know, X equals Y. Like there's only one equation versus it's not true. You know, we become so much more. We can produce more. So quality over quantity when we slow down and, you know, that lack of focus that we actually have when we're jumping from one thing to the next to the next, we dilute our. That quality that we're bringing to anything instead of slowing down and focusing and spending the proper time and yeah. Then moving to the next thing. But it's. Meditation is not easy. You know, the biggest thing is people try to define it and put it, oh, if I don't sit there and get quiet right away, then I'm not doing it right. And then we judge ourselves. And then you go down that rabbit hole. It's like, no, it's a practice. Just like going to the gym and flexing.

Yeah.

You're not. You're not jacked in three times. Going to the gym, you're not going to have silence and sitting down three times. Like, keep doing it, keep showing up. And that's journaling. That's anything we do. Right? It's. There's a reason they're called practices.

Yeah, man. And that's where the book was saying, and I would agree with. This is like with meditation, it's like you start and goes with anything. Journaling, too. But it's like, it's almost like the anxiety or this pressure rises even more because it's like awareness is coming up. You're like, oh, yeah, I do have all these crazy thoughts around. Or my body is twitchy because I'm uncomfortable just sitting in one place for two minutes, even looking at something or with my eyes closed, whatever. Play with it all. But yeah, that's where I think a lot of people bail out. Same with breath work, too.

I mean, it's all meditated creative big time. Right. It's all the. All the resistance that comes up at any of those stages. And it's like, as you say, and allow those things to come into your space, observe them, and then they'll. They'll move on. But when we create that stress around them, then it's. Then it's the immediate judgment. And breath work. Yeah. Is no different. It is. It is awkward as hell. And there's a reason it's called breath work is because it is work. You know, I've been doing that now for a year and a bit, and it still is. If I want to sit down and do three rounds of breath, it doesn't come naturally. You know, we can translate that to getting in the cold. I'm sure you can relate, right? As much as we love the result every time after we get out, getting into it or being in it is never easy.

Dude, it's been a practice. I already did mine today. Cold shower. It's been colder in San Diego, so luckily the water piping in is colder. But, like, during the summer, I'm gonna feel like I'm cheating here. You know, it's just not as cold. But, dude, that's like. I want to chat about a couple things with you, because breath work, you facilitate some awesome sessions and feels like you've been doing it for a very long time. The way that you. You move through the sessions and. And just activates a different. Because I do a lot of breath work, I've done a lot of WIM HOF stuff. I did that this morning as well. It's usually. That's my hack to, like, do WIM HOF and then jump into the shower. Yes. Done that with plunges too. It just makes it. Well, it makes it easier, but I feel like the. The effect is better mentally and physically as well, but cold. I'll just say this really fast. And I noticed that if, like, in a cold shower, for instance, breath work before helps. And. And I'm. I'm curious of your perspective and process here. But also in the shower, what I've been experimenting with is with my eyes open, not closed in, like. Yeah. And this goes back to that book where it's like, hold on.

Be aware of, like, where you're at.

And actually what you're doing. And, like, except I'm gonna col. Right now it's cold, as I don't want to necessarily be in this thing, but I'm gonna do it and I'm safe. And I'm actually freaking loving it because, like, now, a month and a half in, it's just an automatic. Every day I'm gonna pop on at the end of the shower.

Yes.

Two minutes of burn.

Oh, man. It's. It's. I literally have a conversation with myself now. I can't have a regular shower. It doesn't happen because every time. And I'm sure you do the exact same thing, you get to that point. I'm like. I go through conversation in my head. I'm like, am I gonna have a good day or a great day? And I know the answer. What do you want to have? And if I turn that. If I turn that dial, I know I'm. Boom, I'm awake. And away we go. But I love that you brought one piece up there. It's just like being in it, right? Because I brought this. This is one thing I actually challenged Trev on when I first introduced him to the. The cold, cold dipping. It's just like, yeah, I always plug my tunes in and I always do this. And I said, okay, well, here's what I want you to try. Travis, turn the music off and sit in it. Just as you say, keep your eyes open and be in it. And it's like, that relates to so many things we do in our lives. Right. People are working out at the gym. This one drives me nuts. Pet peeve alert here. But, you know, sitting there on their phones when your benefits there are so minimized, when you're not actually present to what you're doing versus thinking about what muscles you're working and you're moving, that goes to eating food. If you don't have a connection with your food and you're sitting there just lost in even a book or. Or on your phone again. You know, your body's not digesting the food as well.

True.

It's not taking in the nutrients as well. It's where you just get lost in this. This move, move, move world of how can we just. Even in the great things that. The good things that are very good for us, how can we just distract ourselves from what we're doing that's good for us. Right. And. Or multitasking? And so I love that you bring that up because it's such a good reminder for us in all the little things that we do to be there and how valuable that is. It's presence, you know, in whatever we. It's.

I feel like there's something going on in us as well. Maybe it's a subconscious, like the book calls it. And I keep referencing this book. It's so hot in my mind, driven. But it's like we have this elephant, basically, that's like the Unconscious thing that just keeps us moving. It's like when we're driving. Unconsciously, something's in control.

Yeah.

So there is this unconscious element, but it also controls or it affects like the monkey minds and. And it says there's an emotional monkey and a logical monkey and basically they're all kind of playing together, but the elephant's really in control. But once you tame or maybe bring consciousness to that elephant through this kind of stuff we're talking about and being aware then that like fight or flight just kind of. It goes away because there's no threat. We are safe and that's what we want. And yeah, it's exposure to cold and breath work, I feel like, are some of the best tools for it. You're crushing it, man. I want to chat more about it, like your perspective of, I guess maybe breath work and because I want to.

I want to hear more of like.

Your process and maybe some things people can try here.

Totally, totally. And I'll tell you, I'll rewind a little bit. So breathwork came into my life. A friend of mine's program that I was introduced to, and he'll be a facilitator at our retreat, actually. Ken McDougall coming up. He's. He's such a powerful human. And so I did his program. I learned about breath work just in introductory, and it just made me feel. I've had a crazy party life in the university days, and I've done. Done many things like other people have, but I was higher in that breath work than I've ever been in anything else. And not in an addictive, like, party way, in a beautiful spiritual way when I did his first transformational breathwork experience. And it was from that moment that I really felt something and it started to bounce me back to feeling again for these regular events in my life. Fast forward a few months. I had some things going wrong, some health issues. I was actually bit by a ticket. I have Lyme disease and I'll go through it quick. But I, you know, lost 50 pounds, did the antibiotic route. I was frail. I was just not in a great place, you know, went in a dark place because I couldn't even lift up my. My kids without being in pain. I was crying through the night, trying to sleep, you know, and just felt very powerless. And it wasn't until I started to dive further on the spiritual stuff, playing with breath work, that I really started to heal. Heal. I can heal myself. I said, I have to take this into my own hands. Antibiotics are just ripping my Body apart and it was not the path. And that's when the breath really became special for me. And you know, I realized the power in it and the healing power that we as humans have for ourselves when we choose these tools between our mind and our breath. And so that's when I knew I wanted to devote big piece of my path to it. And that's, you know, it's now it's from any, any before I got on with you, you know, I did a round of breath because I was just like the chaos of the morning. My boy ran back in here five minutes before saying, daddy, I don't want to go to school today. And I said, oh bud, you got to get to the truck. You got it right. One dog scratching at the door. Two minutes after that, all of that. So the breath is so powerful in, you know, resetting our nervous system, calming us down, in getting us focused, in charging us up for things, in healing trauma in paired with visualization manifesting success and performance in athletics. And that's why it fires me up as I, you know, I love the healing aspect and, and helping people heal from trauma, but I also love the performance piece of helping people visualize and really see what they're capable of and then bringing it to life. But it's seeing those things and feeling it before you even do it. And so that's what fires me up about it. And some simple ones that people can get started on. I always find the easiest, if you're not familiar with it, is simply called box breathing. So if you envision a square, essentially it's just four seconds of a breath in and then a four second hold across and then a four second release and then a four second hold on the bottom and back into your breath in. So that's one of the simplest ones to start playing with the breath again. It's. It's bringing presence into our daily lives. Right. If we have a busy day and we're in it, we're in Call to call zoom call to zoom call email to step side for and do that for four minutes. Is intentionally right. Is is bringing presence back into your today and I guarantee you'll go back in your next meeting zoned in.

True. Yeah.

So that's, that's the magic of breath. It's just when you choose to breathe intentionally and you remind yourself a few times a day, it can really truly elevate your life. I could go on and on about chronic illness and mental illness and all of those things in the beauty of anxiety variety and helping Those pieces but you know, so it's from anybody just looking to get presence to people that are really looking for. For help. It's a tool that we all have for free.

That's. I love Wim Hof's. He has a shirt but his quote and sorry for all y' all that don't like cussing. I know I already said it earlier but his. His favorite. My favorite saying of Wim Hof is breathe.

Just you have. We all have it.

And if you're ever feeling stress, anxiety, whatever, just need to charge up because a lot of this like meditation, it could be to chill out but at the same time it's almost like breath helps you chill because like whim for instance, his wife killed herself. Like that was the whole thing that got him on this track of breath work and cold exposure. So he obviously had to chill out the demons and the chaos in his life as I've done with my dad. My dad also killed himself and talked about that on this podcast. I'll talk about it it more but it's like these techniques I've used and yeah, it's like a chill the nervous system and then it's also a ramp it up to be focused and it's not like you go crazy everywhere in chaos, but it's actually like this almost like you focus all that energy in and yeah, there's no better thing tool.

No, we all have the primal beings inside of us, right? The fight or flight, the constant movement, the. So it. It really allows us to calm the fight, you know. And yeah, there's still an energetic aspect to it it. But we're focused and so it's such a beautiful tool and practice.

Well, I want to shout out before we get the cold exposure because I'm very curious. You have way more experience in that than I do. And most people will just have this kind of stigma maybe with cold or just freaked out. But for the breath work, I know@extremely conscious.com I'll just shout out like go to that site because there's free breath work at the top. It just says just breathe and the experience. So you mentioned the retreat and I'm going to be there. I've. I've talked about that in some other episodes and I'm sure there's a little like little blurt shout out but definitely like go check it out the Experience page in Costa Rica because that's kind of like all this stuff is lumped up into that five day event. So yeah man. And curious. Go click that.

Go check it out gonna be an incredibly powerful five days. Yeah, we've got some amazing facilitators, including the one I just spoke to. Then Trev and I will be co. Facilitating. And then we have some amazing humans that are going to be there already that have stepped forward.

Forward. Yeah. I'm stoked, man. I'm freaked out in a lot of ways because there's like jumping off of big waterfalls and Yeah, I haven't done.

That stuff, but I love it.

I want all the, all the beautiful things you'd expect, like some cool excursions, jumping off of waterfalls, facing fear, surfing, really getting into nature. But then, then there's deep stuff. The work that we do is, you know, it's, it's men that are ready to be accountable for where they're at in their, their lives and where they want to go. And that takes looking at ourselves and that takes being vulnerable and having conversations with other men, which a lot of the time are strangers. Right. But that's the beauty of what we create. And it's not just about the five days. It's about the integration afterwards. And truly, you know, for those of us that have already been doing the work beforehand, we've got this peak experience. But then we're going to integrate for a month all together virtually afterwards as well. So it truly is going to be a transformational experience for everybody in the involved. And so I'm, I'm popped. We are talk. Trev and I talk a couple hours a day on it.

Yeah, I know. And the fact that you, you pulled off some great stuff in the first one without, you know, that event ever happening before. And now this is round two. Costa Rica. Yeah. Extremely conscious.com experience will get you there to that page. Mike, I want to talk about the cold now. And because this is the thing that most people, they're like, all right, I could do breath work, I could do that stuff. I can meditate, but I want to get in a cold, like plunge. Not even a cold shower. But yeah, yeah, walk us through. Like, what the hell is it? Like, what's your process?

And yeah, the cold is again, such a powerful tool that we all have at our disposal, whether it's a simple shower or whether it's, you know, like I did is I went to the feed store and bought $150 horse trough and said, no, I want to commit to this. And I remember my first plunge. So I had read a book, it's called what Doesn't Kill you. And so it's about putting our bodies intentionally through stressors. You know, for the stress response and when we do that intentionally, how beneficial it is for us, taking us to the brink of, you know, the danger zone with temperatures and everything, and how it's great for us. And then Wim was a big piece of that. So when I first got my trough, I was like, okay, I want to do this. This seems good. But I was getting back into working out. So it was. You know, we've always heard of athletes in recovery and stuff too. But I'll tell you real quick because it was funny. It was. It had to been. I remember we had roofers on our roof. Yeah, it must have been March, because there was still snow in the backyard. And so I filled the tub, chucked a bunch of snow in it too, and that the tap was freezing, the hose was freezing. And I remember plugging headphones in and these roofers over here. I'm like, I gotta do it anyways. I'm gonna keep making uses if I don't do it. And I plugged in headphones. It was freezing cold. I jumped it. And I was actually in there for eight minutes, which I don't even do today. Yeah. So I. But I got in this. This. This almost like a meditative zone too. And I got out and I was feeling incredible. And it was. For me, literally, it was. Was a point of no return. It was just a light bulb that I was like, this is amazing. And then, of course, I wanted to learn more, so I started doing it more often and doing some research on it to learn the science behind it. And it's just been a tool ever since. I do it every single day now for I don't know how long. There's. I'm sure there's a couple gaps in there when I'm really tired and telling myself some story that I shouldn't do it. But it's a reset, you know? Know, it completely resets our nervous system. So anytime I'm even midday feeling stressed, I'll be like, I know the one tool I gotta do. Two tools, breath and cold, that, you know, will always fix me up or at least get me in a zone that I can make sense of myself. But for me, on a regular basis, it's either in the morning or it's in the evening. And it's just, you know, about two minutes, two to four minutes, I go in and get in the zone and I don't use music. Once in a. Once in a while, it's nice, but otherwise it's. It's just facing that discomfort comfort. And how I always refer to it in the. If I do it in the morning, it's kind of like this is going to be the hardest thing I do all day, you know. And it's. It's funny, once you consistently get into discomfort, it makes other things in your life easier. It does. When we intentionally choose to put ourselves out of our comfort zone, right. When we face these other tough things, I'm like, I've been in 1 degree water this morning. That was terrible. I can do this. You know, and it's so, it's. It builds that resiliency as well. Dwell of the. The strength of the mind beyond all the physiological effects that it actually does do to your body. You know, when you let your body warm up naturally, it also builds what in our body, which is called brown fat, which is really, really great. It helps. I mean, if you're looking at weight loss, it helps weight loss because your, your body's constantly trying to warm itself up for hours later. Then there's an energy gain that's amazing. Like if you do it in the morning. Morning, yeah, you're on fire. You just be conscious of it at the time. But hours into your day and you'll be like, whoa, I'm still buzzing from that. I feel pretty good. And so any which way you look at it, it's beneficial, you know. And from then there's those with anxiety and facing that piece, it's just like it helps create presence. Initially, there's that fight or flight again. You get in there, you know, the first couple times, right. And every time I turn that tap. Now if it's a shower, it's that shallow breath. But again you go to tying these things in and control the breath and you win.

Right.

It's just get to that. Those deep breaths. Know that, you know, once you get through, there's always different thresholds in the cold or walls, right. And the first one is always a fight or flight. First 30 seconds of I need to get the out of here. And then, then it's the next at whatever time that is for you. But it's. Again it kicks in. It's like, okay, I'm good, I should get out. But you get through that and it gets longer and it's just. So it's a game you can really start to play with yourself. It's just magical once you get into it.

I like that you say that. Yeah. It is phases and I've never like, I think about it in the moment, you know, because now I'm being very, very Aware of these things because it's just repetition, you know, now what, 45 some odd days into doing a daily cold shower. Like, I've never been consistent like that ever. The breath, I have been more. I mean, not this consistent, but. And I'll, I'll break down the micro habit. Not. Yeah, well, yeah. All these little micro things in that solo episode. So go back, back and check that out and you'll know what I'm talking about here in terms of the daily habits. But yeah, like I, that's what I remember is right initially now it's getting easier, but the breath is usually the first thing to go. And that's the case whenever we're anxious, whenever we're nervous. Yeah. Speaking. I mean, could be for folks doing podcasts or like I've been recording one of my clients is a fertility clinic and interviewing doctors and getting them on camera. And I'm noticing how, how foreign it is to just put a camera in someone's face and speak normally.

Totally.

But the breath, and that's actually part of the coaching is like, all right, let's just all breathe here really quick. And like the box breathing technique will just. That, that could bring it back to center. And I feel like in the cold, it's like the extreme like all that heightened. And if you can control your breath and your mind in the cold.

Yes.

Think about everything else, man. You're kind of unstuck.

It is. That's what's so neat. It's that transferable tool. Right. You refer back to it. You can control in that hyper state. Then you learn to leverage the breath and as you say, your daily, daily practice, you know, for those that are speakers before they go on stage or before you sit down and record a podcast or before you. I've actually on. On my podcast Life, it's. I do it with every guest at the beginning now it's we take three breath. Just three breaths together. Just cool to arrive because we know everybody has, you know, busy, busy lives and days. And when we sit down for chats, it's. It's trial trying to make sure we're really here.

Yeah, that's good call, man. Let's. Let's wrap this puppy up and maybe we wrap it up with some breaths so we can leave people with.

Oh, I love it.

Kind of seal everything in and that let's. Yeah, let's mention the retreat and like, so check out extremelyconscious.com and to get to the retreat, it's extremely conscious dot com experience.

Yes. It's coming up, April 24th to the 28th. And I know we shared some of the things, but it's everything for peak experiences. We've got a red seal doing all the meals, who is also an amazing man that'll be joining all the. All the experiences. So a lot of our facilitators are, are taking part as well. They're bringing their gifts, which makes it so powerful. But we do have 12 spots left, so, you know, if, if this all resonates with you, reach out with questions, jump on the site, reach out to us. We're always up for a call or, or any questions.

Right on, man. And you'll be doing some future ones if the timing doesn't work out. I know one in Canada and I'm sure further events. Yes.

Muskoka, Ontario, coming in the fall. So that'll be a whole different ball game.

Oh yeah. That'll be different than Costa Rica for sure.

Yeah.

I don't know either way.

So I'm gonna find out in Costa Rica to start. Cool, Mike. Well, anything else before we wrap it up with a. A few breaths and all y' all listening can. Can definitely join in.

Should no. Appreciate it. Such a pleasure to be on and, and share some of what we have going on. And we're on Instagram as well at Extremely Conscious or my personal is just at the Conscious Creator Coach. And we're always sharing a bunch of fun stuff on there. But yeah, let's. Let's get centered together. Let's just do 10 conscious breath with a nice hold at the end because I know we don't have a ton of time, but that'll. That'd be good. So we're just gonna go in through the nose and out through the mouth. And if you are not driving and you're sitting down, let's close down our eyes and just settle in our chairs for a moment. And as we breathe in a seconds here, I want you to visualize the breath coming in through your nose, going into your lungs, and then expelling out. We breathe in beautiful oxygen. We breathe out carbon dioxide. So we're going to breathe in 3, 2, 1.

Nice big breath in through the nose, out through the mouth. Do no pause at the bottom, no pause at the top.

You more here.

On the next exhale. Let's just hold for even 10 seconds.

Beautiful. Blow the rest of the year out. One more big inhale to an exhale.

Yeah.

Well, thank you, brother. This was such a pleasure to be a part of and appreciate you. Love you tons. And it was. It's awesome to be on here, man.

Appreciate your brother. Much love as well. And I'm happy for you to show up. I'm, like, feeling like. See that. That little reset right there?

I'm like, totally. A little bit of zen.

Yeah. Yes. Appreciate you, Mike. And. And thank you, everyone, for listening and trying that out with us. We'll see you next time.

Yes. Cheers, guys.

All right.

All right.

That's what I got for you today. And remember, it's not all about living to work. It's all about working to live if you need to do the work. But, you know, work can be fun, and it should be feeling for your life. So if you enjoyed what you just heard, if you got some nuggets of wisdom that you want to share or you're just noodling on right now, please go tell others. The way that people find this show and how you can help others get their aha moments is through word of mouth. So if it is telling your friend, telling your family, send an email to your list, writing a review or whatever it might be. Everything helps. So thank you so much for listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, and I will see you next time.