1043 Wim Hof: Master Your Breath to Live Happier & Defend Against Disease w/“The Iceman”

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This is episode number 1043 with New York Times bestselling author and the Ice Man, Wim Hof.

Use food well, and it's Madison. Use food wrong, it kills you. I mean, the food problem in the world, could be solved through this, what I'm going to tell you right now.

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Sadhguru once said, Only when you explore the ecstasy of simply being, where even to breathe is a distraction, can you call yourself complete. And the Dalai Lama said, Everything we require is already there within our mind. My guest today is my good friend Wim Hof. He's a Dutch extreme athlete named the Iceman by breaking a number of records related to cold exposure including climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in shorts, running a half marathon above the Arctic Circle barefoot and standing in a container while covered with ice cubes for almost 2 hours. Wim is convinced that everyone can tap into their inner potential and has made it his mission to share what he's learned with the rest of the world. I'm always fascinated by our conversations and his wisdom, and I know that this interview will help you in a massive way. I got to spend about five days with him earlier this year in Poland and it was life changing and eye opening. In this episode we discuss why you need to be mindful of your breathing as well as your diet, how to use our minds to heat our bodies in the cold and cool our bodies in the heat. This is crazy that our bodies can do this with our mind. The three skills that everyone should learn to live happier, a quick and simple technique for anxiety and stress and why it's so effective, the dangers of avoiding pain in your life. Why our society struggles so much with addiction. We talk about Wim Hof's personal diet and philosophy on food and so much more. If you're enjoying this, make sure to share this with a friend, lewishouse.com/1043 for all the show notes and everything else about this episode. Or just copy and paste the link where you're listening to this on your favorite podcast app and text a friend, post it on social media, and make sure to tag me and Wim Hof. as well. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Wim Hof. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. We have got my dear friend Wim Hof in the house. Wim, how you doing, man?

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Louis?

I'm so excited, man. You've been on the show a number of times now. For those that don't know who you are, you are a Dutch extreme athlete and you got the nickname the Iceman by breaking all these crazy records to cold exposure. And I got to go to Poland with you earlier this year before the pandemic. It was kind of the last thing that anyone really did in person. And we got to have this incredible five-day experience with you. I brought 13 guys over from the US and Canada. Incredible time. We all bonded, opened up in a big way. And the thing I want to talk about first, which we mentioned before we jumped on here, is trauma and your work, the Wim Hof Method and what you do really helps people break down the trauma so that they can open up and live a freer life. And this is something that you experienced with your previous wife. You dealt with a lot of traumatic events as an adult with your wife who passed away. How important in your mind is it in healing trauma from the past in order to set ourselves free?

Yeah, exactly. So when I lost my wife in '95, and that was because they called her schizophrenic and a psychic disorder and mental disorder and bipolar and manic-depressed, but they could not heal her with all the pills, all the medicines, all the injections, all the therapy, It just went downhill and I had a family with her, but I saw the darkness growing, growing, growing, growing. I was helpless. I was helpless. I could not do anything while looking at the love of my life slipping out of my existence, of my presence, my being as a father of four children with her, meant to be all my life with her. And there she was, she kissed the children goodbye before she jumped from eight stories down. And that was a beautiful woman, very alive, but the darkness was too big and the psychiatry could not do anything. So I was left behind. and had four children, had very little money. And what do you gotta do? You gotta jump on the train of every day. You gotta create, survive for your kids. But then the cold, cold water makes your mind still. You remember when we were in the cold water, we had kind of fun. But if you do that on your own, in freezing water, you are like silent. You don't picnic. You cannot feel your grief or other emotions then survive. Survival is what I did. And going into the water made my mind, grieving mind, still. That was an opportunity for my body to relax. and to heal, find healing. And this I kept on doing because it worked so well. So I got a lot of energy out of it. Because once the pressure is out, you can jump around and do it all. The grief is gone, the misery is gone, the depression is gone. You feel for the first time with an absolute control within yourself. Because if you feel you just go back to the cold water and this is gone and there you are. So that's what my kids needed at that time. They needed a father who was the father and the mother, who had energy and space for everybody and everything. And I got so much energy out of that and then because I found a way how to take care of deep emotional trauma, I began to do more and more and more television came in and they said, what this man is doing is amazing. He's going under the ice and he's swimming under the ice. He's running marathons beyond the polar circle. Let's test him out on the Mount Everest in shorts. Let's do this, let's do that. Television. Really, it's crazy. They challenge you more and more and more. But I had learned how to deal with my emotional trauma. The cold did it.

I feel like a lot of people are dealing with emotional trauma more and more right now with the pandemic and just everything that's happening. A lot more people are feeling symptoms of depression, grief, trauma, anxiety. Do you think They should start with the Wim Hof method if they're feeling that and they've never tried it, or is it too dangerous to get started if you're in a dark place?

Good question. Good question. Do I think we are doing the studies right now? One in Detroit on bipolar people, and they have success. And now one in San Francisco on depression. and the DNA. And then I gotta say, it's a depression, it's getting a depression if you do this. If you do this method, which is a simple method, accessible for free, it's there. We develop a free app for that. And every month we pay a lot of money to develop better accessibility, et cetera. It's all for free. You don't need anything of me, of my company. You just go and take on the free app and you will see it is very effective against depression and inflammation. Boom, there it is.

If people expose themselves to cold or do the breathing technique, the Wim Hof breathing technique, how long until people start to experience change or how we will...

Directly. Directly.

Directly.

Instantly, within a half hour. And I say to the people in favor for... or just skip to talking, do it. Do it once. And if it doesn't work, then you can call me a liar, but you will say otherwise. because I'm sure of that.

How important is it to focus on eating healthy and having nutritious foods in your life while doing the Wim Hof breathing or cold therapy? Is it enough to do the breathing and the cold therapy and eat poorly and still be okay or do you really need to eat well also while you're doing this?

No, food needs to be food. You know, food in our society is so much processed. There are chemicals which our physiology is not able to handle. So it takes a lot of energy for our cell biological processes to get rid of the additives of the oxidation, the numbers, the E numbers, whatever they make. they put into the food, it's not food. So first of all, let food be food. That's number one. Then two, very important in the times when we had to look for our food, we got alerted within our bodies and mind. Our eyes became bigger, we became more alert. Where is food? Hey, I gotta go, then that's upon your mind. Your mind is being alerted through the sensation inside your body. Your body is talking to you. It says, food, food, food, food. Oh yeah, where is it?

And.

When you do that, then you appreciate food. Then you value food. It's spiritual. It's knowing that you gotta do something for your food. Nowadays, we can go to restaurants. I mean, I don't know with the lockdown, it's artificial, but you can get anything just following your mind. They think, I need breakfast, I need lunch, I need dinner, I need something in between. It's all in the mind. But people do not feel anymore when they need food. They are no longer talking to their body, and the body is no longer talking. to them. And then comes the problem. The alienation from yourself is the alienation into food and it doesn't give the right nutrition. So you keep on eating. Obesity is a big problem because people just do not know what food is anymore. The connection is gone. What I say to those people, Okay, let food be food. That's one, two, feel that you have, that you need food. Feel it. Just once a day, it will come naturally. Wait until this feeling of food appetite is really coming. Because what happens at the same time, simultaneous, you get a neurological revision of the body. Once you become more alert, that's the revision of the whole neurology of your body. That is spirituality at the same time. It's all, it's life. Food is life. Let life be food.

When did you fully feel like you had command over your mindset and over your mind? Was it after years of practicing this cold therapy and healing the past? Was it pretty quickly when you started doing this? When did you feel like you have full command over your mind. And what was the thing that switched that? Or do you feel like you don't have that yet?

Yes. No, I. I got it. I got it. The thing is, in the beginning, when I was young, I was looking for the meaning of life. And I can tell you, I skip a lot of stories now, but I found it in the cold. Because the cold shows you who you are and what you are. In an instant. If you go into the cold water, it's like, yeah, that's you. That's you. The life force itself here, shattered. Be in control, in peace, in power. Because this is nature talking to you. There are no words. That's being. Pure being. So I found that when I was 17, going into the cold, I was floating in the cold, playing a little bit with the thin layer of ice. I felt the power inside. I knew this is it. This was something more deeper and something I was looking for through debate, philosophies, religions, traditions, languages, esoteric disciplines, karate, yoga, all those things. I did, but it did not give me that feeling which the cold gave me instantly.

Wow.

Because that's it. And so from there, doing it on regular, like 25 years on my own, because I was the crazy man for others. But I just felt good going in, coming out, I felt alive. Always had plenty of energy. so when my wife died in the suicide, then I knew how to return to my inner self to make sense again inside myself. And now, more than ever, at that moment, I needed it to survive with my kids and create a new nest of warmth, of sense, of purpose. And it did it.

Wow. So I heard you say that you are seeking the meaning of life, the purpose of your life through all these other activities, yoga, karate, meditation, philosophy, all these different things, but you didn't find it. Maybe you found some truths, but you didn't find the full truth. So now, what is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of life in your mind?

Wow. It's the light itself. It's now I can explain it because I talk with immunologists, I talk with professors, I talk with the top researchers in the world with the top psychiatrists. I work with them. I'm a drop out of school. I can only work with them because I got something of value for them to investigate, to go past what we thought is possible. and I'm on that train right now. And I'm showing new ways. First of all, in 2014, we showed with the endotoxemia that we suddenly, in 200 years of medical history and science, are actually able, proven by evidence-based research, that we are able at will to influence deeply into the autonomic nervous system, the immune system, which is very important now.

So for people that don't know what you did, just remind people that you injected a disease in your body.

Yes. Exactly.

Then you just affect the breathing.

This is, yes, exactly. People have to understand this.

What did they put in your body? What was the bacteria?

That's an E. Coli bacteria. E. Coli bacteria is a very severe, strong bacteria, can kill you. And it is within a controlled experimental model, being used on 16,134 people, all becoming sick between three to six hours. It's controlled. And then I came, and I did not became sick. And then they said, but you are the ice man, and that's why you are the exception that confirms the rule. And I said, no, no, no, no, no. I am one of the twins, identical twins, and my brother is not able to do that, and I'm able to do that. How do you explain that? Oh, yeah, I don't know. I don't know the doctors and the professors. And then I said them, Give me a group of people and within a couple of days, like us in Poland, what we did, I did that with a group of people in Poland and going bare-chested upon a mountain on day four in freezing temperatures, being exposed to the elements of nature, and then suddenly four days later they were all in the hospital. taking the injection of E. Coli bacteria and all the 12, 100% score, suppressed the inflammation which is caused by the E. Coli bacteria. That was for the first time in medical science. Wow. And Louis, the thing what is going on right now, and I dare to say this because we got the data to prove it, A damaging factor of COVID-19 is inflammation, is interleukins, number one, number six, number eight, and number 11. Interleukins are the inflammatory markers. It's part of the cytokine storm, so called. That's the damaging factor of COVID-19. And we showed within a quarter of an hour, 100% score, all the 12 of them, how to bring down those inflammatory markers within a quarter of hour. So why are they not talking? They only talk about mouth gaps and social distancing and economic lockdowns. They don't talk about how to boost personally, individually, every person in the world, evidence-based.

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How to boost your own immune system, which could be much more than is done or known right now. We got the evidence. We publish in the best papers of the world. So why not use it?

Yeah, I interviewed Andrew Huberman. I'm not sure if you know about him.

Yeah, I know, I know. I worked with him.

Yeah, and he verified the validity of this research experiment and agrees with it and thinks that, you know, it's very valid in the whole experiment as a neuroscientist and is a big proponent of breathing, of mastering your breath, of mastering the neurology in your brain and connecting it to your body so that you can boost your immune system as well and have more power over your mind. What happens to our confidence, our belief in ourself when we train our minds to overcome sickness and disease?

Your confidence naturally will be boosted. Like right now, there's fear mongery going on. Anxiety is the result. Why not give people the tools, natural tools, for them to be able to sense an absolute sense of control within that boosts the confidence more than ever before thought possible? People have lost confidence. They've lost this connection. The government is no longer able to control normal health. within the society. It's like bigger than a war going on. 200,000 casualties, deaths in a war. I mean, that's war, what is going on right now. And those people through tools within themselves would be able to bring down the inflammation. And because we have shown this already, and we know the damaging factor So it should be out in the open and I can challenge any doctor or professor within a half hour, you will see the results.

Can someone say they get sick, whether it's coronavirus or some other sickness, they get a cold, they get, well, their immune system is weak and they catch something, is it possible to transform your immunity and boost your immune system When it's already weak, when you have coronavirus, when you have some other sickness, is it possible to get healthy when you're there? Or is this more a preventative thing to do the method when you're feeling good so that you don't get sick? Can it be for when you are sick?

I tell you this, in New York recently, they did research bringing people with severe COVID-19, who were bound to die beyond help. They brought them into controlled hypothermia. Controlled hypothermia in Celsius 34.5 degrees. That's a little slight, slightly down the normal core body temperature. They kept them there for two days, 48 hours. and they survived. Not only they healed, they reversed the disease. Really? Yes. So people who are in severe COVID-19, they suffer from pneumonic oedema. And then it's very difficult to use the power of the lungs because they are damaged. But I tell you this, people who start having symptoms of coronavirus, they are very able to suppress it in the beginning. So mind about this. This is not a challenge, this is not just philosophy. This is data based that you are able in the beginning, when the symptoms begin of COVID to bring it down with these specific breathing exercises. You bring down effectively within a quarter of our, the inflammatory markers. Wow. What is there?

Can you give a 60-second demonstration of breathing technique? If someone feels anxiety, stress, overwhelm, fear, all this happening in the world right now, and they're not sick yet, but they feel the sickness of the mind. What's a 60-second practice that you would get them to do right in that moment?

It's almost ridiculous how simple it is. Here it comes. The gravity is there, guys. You really suffer from those symptoms. The stress, the anxiety, the fear, the flu-like being, the cold, the redeemed immune system, the weakened immune system. You feel all that? Do this. You sit down fully there the way nature meant it to be, relaxed and here. And now you're going to go and take the life force in, which is the breath. You take it fully in, you use your belly and you use your chest to take it fully in and let it go. And you do it once again and your mind is not out there It's in with the breath. Because the symptoms are signals. They say, you, got to go in. You got to go in. There is something going on inside. Okay, then go inside with your mind. And once again, Keep on going. You keep on going and I can explain what's happening. Right now what's happening with Lewis, he is blowing off the carbon dioxide, which is the acidity. That is the breathing trigger. He is blowing it off. The body becomes very alkaline. What happens when your immune system is deregulated? depression, or gut depression and inflammation is there. That means that acidity is too long at present and the stress is deregulating our systems. Now we're making it alkaline. Suddenly we get a hold. Through the adrenal axis we get a hold. You can feel it because you become tranquil. You become okay. Why? Because you are the alchemist. You are changing the biochemistry right now. We did this in the university and the professors and the doctors were all astounded. They saw the monitors. Wow, the alkalinity is going up, heart rate is going down, the inflammation is going down. It's amazing what is happening. so we keep on doing this. You become lightheaded, lume in the body is logical, carbon dioxide goes out, alkalinity is coming in and it goes as deep as the lymphatic system. And in the lymphatic system, once it is cleansed through this deep breathing, the white cells come, the white cells, the lymphocytes, the neutrophils, they come alive because the Garbage is gone, the life comes back. And that is the immune system. The specific immune system takes down the intruder in the core at the beginning. That is what is happening now. And this is the way we trick and the mind and the body. Beautifully, so simple. And why not do it when it is so simple? because it has been proven by science. And our message, our difficulty, our task is to bring this simply to the people, that the gravity they're in is fully there and the power is there. It's effective and accessible. There we are. That's what we do. We bring people tools to battle their anxiety, inflammation, mood regulation, overall a bad feeling, you don't know where it is. I was talking with Aubrey Marcus about fibromyalgia, something the doctors don't know where it is. They take an Advil, they say. No, I say it's within you. It's related to biochemistry and you are able to change that biochemistry within 30 of these deep Breaths. And then what happens is amazing. You take one last breath in, you blow it off, and you hold. You stop breathing after exhalation. And if you do this one, two, three rounds, you're able to stay three minutes without air in the lungs. That means you are going deeply within. You are changing it all. The brain stem comes alive, the survival comes alive, then the adrenal axis, boom, reset of the body. Amazing. This is what the professors say. This can battle autoimmune diseases. This is a transformational technique that will change mental health care. I've been in those universities, there, there, there. and it's all fundamental change and you are at the command.

Let's put a hypothetical scenario for a second. Let's say you're living in the heat and you don't have access to a cold shower or cold water and you don't remember the breathing technique. Hypothetical question. You're in heat and you're not breathing this way.

I got it.

What can we do with our mind?

Ah, here it comes.

What can we do with our thoughts?

Yes.

Transform anxiety, depression, overwhelm. Or do we need to be physically in our body with breath and with cold to really accelerate this?

You don't need it. Don't say nobody because I ruined my business now. The thing is, there is more than meets the eye. The last study I did was just by thought, just using the thought in brain scans, having cold water coming to my skin and make my skin temperature without motion, without muscle traction, without deep breathing, just by thinking the skin temperature not going down. That is stress. Cold water.

So wait, you had cold water come on to you and you kept the temperature warm on your body?

Yes.

So how did you, what was your thought process?

Exactly. Now that is the answer for the person who cannot do breathing techniques and cannot go.

In the water.

And he is lost in the in the desert somewhere. Yeah.

Okay, so how do we do this?

Can you cool Valley?

Can you cool yourself from heat and also warm yourself in the cold, or is it only from cold to hot?

No, it's a. After. I'm not a runner, but I did a marathon Beyond the Polar Circle in mid January in shorts. I did that. And then I thought, hey, man, I did it in cold. so I must be in control of the cold, which is temperature. So let's test if I'm able to take on a thermal stress of the heat, which is temperature. And half a year later, I was in the desert without drinking, and I did the marathon.

No way.

In the desert?

With no water?

No water, no water. And then the beautiful thing, because there was present a doctor, physiologist who measured me completely up while I was running, et cetera. And he saw that my core body temperature in the cold remained the same and in the heat remained the same.

So when you mean core body temperature, is this inside the skin, not on the surface?

Yes, inside the liver, lungs, heart, and brain functioning was just in the right temperature.

Are you able to heat up the external skin on ice?

I tell you, in New York, in front of 300 people, a thermal imaging camera was put on my hand. And I wasn't aware if I was able to warm up my hand, They just asked me randomly, can you warm up your hands just by thinking? I said, what the heck? I just tried it. I don't know. But I did it. I did it within a minute, 12 degrees up.

Oh my, what? You went up in temperature.

Yes, that is the power of the mind.

So what do you think about When you're in extreme heat, extreme cold to lower or higher the temperature so you're not freezing or so exhausted of heat exhaustion, what is your mind going through in that process?

That is confidence. Confidence in the power of your own mind. That connects through the power of intention and it puts its will in command in your side of your brain over your body. And this is now the new science in Detroit shown. It's called top down regulation. That's why they say transformational technique that will change mental health care. And Lewis, the importance of this podcast, this interview, this coming together to explain that the gravity is endorsed by science that we are able to regulate our mood no matter what.

How do we take command of our mind in those extreme hot, cold, anxious moments? Again, if you don't have the breathing technique, you don't have running, you don't have the therapy, what do you do in your mind then to warm something up with your hands? What are your problems?

I tell you this.

What do you say to yourself in your mind?

It's like when you are in love, you don't think. You fly. You got enormous power to go from A to B, to the object of your love, you go, nothing can stop you. We have to learn to love life. Then nothing will stop you. We are built to overcome any obstacle in our life to realize the beauty of our mind and soul. It's there. And I found it out because I had to. I lost my wife. I lost the emotion. I lost the purpose. I lost the love of my life. I was heartbroken to the bottom of the bottom of the bottom. And I learned to stand up and to find out what is not in the books. What is not what they teach us in our schools. And we got to teach our children, the new generations, how to become happy, strong and healthy. How to be in control of life. How to love life as the greatest thing that is. Because when you need it, you will appreciate it so much. And then you know what is God. what is presence, what is divine. You know it all. You know the purpose of life. It's not production and bridges and it's beautiful to make all these things, but man, it's time that we get even with our divinity, with the presence of what we call God. And it's for every human the same thing. It's being able to guarantee happiness, strength, and health for our children. Let's experience that beyond any doubt.

So break it down for me. When you're running in the desert or you're in the polar ice caps running or you're putting your hand on ice, do you not think then and you more feel life, feel love, is that what you're telling me, that you experience joy and that joy regulates your temperature or what is that thought process for that three minutes with your hand on the ice? Are you Going to a happy place in your mind? Are you thinking about your family? What is that thing you're doing?

Every time where you go into a cold shower and you go into discomfort, you learn to deal with the stress mechanisms inside the brain. And when you really need them, then you know how to connect and make yourself from the inside from the outside you don't see anything. But from the inside, suddenly you become very strong because you are regulating the hormones, the adrenal axis. And the adrenal axis is able to get you in an altered consciousness and physical power. And then you are more than what we think we are. That is logical only. Only we never go into discomfort So we don't know when something happens, when the happens or when an accident happens, or something very severe or war situations. We haven't trained for that. So going into the cold, I tell everybody the cold and then the ice water, really, it brings you into natural condition of the mind to deal with stress and pain.

How important is it then? I mean, I love that you're saying this because my entire life, I have tried to put myself under controlled pain, controlled embarrassment, controlled physical pain, not to where I hurt myself, but a controlled sense of discomfort, not feeling good. I don't like this moment, but it's painful enough because I'm going to grow past that so that when pain comes my way, I can handle it emotionally, emotional resilience. How important is it for us to desire pain in a controlled manner on a daily basis? Or is it something we do once in a while that will help us? Should it be daily or once in a while?

I think it is very addictive. I'm not talking sadomasochism, but I'm talking this. Right now there is a crisis in the world. with pain and painkillers. People don't know how to deal with that. That is a, and I've shown now recently in a brain scans how to tap into the pain center, which is the endocannabinoid system within our brain. It's in the brainstem, the deepest part of our brain. We don't no longer know how to deal with it. So how much pain do you have to endure to neurologically connect with the pain center in order to bring pain through activation of opioids to a controlled level? Amen. You will feel it naturally. It's once again one of those things they should teach people, pupils, our kids, This in school controlled. It's not about pain as we know it, like negative. Pain is a signal that you do not have the right connection yet. But part of the power of the mind is learning how to alleviate our own pain. Because painful situations will come in life and you better are prepared.

You gotta be ready.

We know how. Yeah.

What would you say are three skills you wish you would have had earlier in your life growing up? And what three skills do you think everyone should learn to master to live a happier, stronger, healthier life? What skills?

Exactly that. Happiness, the skill of being happiness, and to be able to guarantee it, is the control over the hormonal system. We showed that in the university, how to tap into the endocrine system, the hormonal system. That is happiness. You know, when you are depressed, you get a lack of dopamine and serotonin, deregulation. Now you are in control of that, so you bring it in balance. So there is no depression anymore. There is balance and the pressure is back on. That is happiness. You become very happy if you are able to regulate your own mood and able to face difficult situations flawlessly. You become happy and you pass it on to others. You're healing others and that comes and blesses your soul and that makes us very happy. Healing others makes us very happy. That is one. Two, the strength the strength is the ability to generate energy and to stay in control in any situation where dealing with impact. Now, the court to me showed me how to bring up energy continuously to be able to sit for hours in ice, to sit easily for an hour in ice water and be okay with that. that is the control of the energy management inside because it needs combustive and you do that at will. It's not the body who does it, it's your will. You're the neurotransmitters of your will activating the endocannabinoid system, the adrenal axis, and then suddenly, no pain, you feel euphoric and you got all the energy. that is power. So that is energy, power, strength, that is. And then you got health, health, the ability to tap into the immune system on all the three levels. There are three levels and two levels were thought in medical science impossible to access. And now I know how to do it and I showed it in scientific trials, medical trials. So it is beyond speculation. If I go back to the purpose of life, which I was looking for when I was a young kid, then I would have given that kid who is so anxiously requesting, asking from the heart, what is the meaning of life? I see war, I see depression, I see cruelty, I see pollution, What is the meaning of life? It is happiness, strength and health and healing others through your being healthy, strong and happy.

It's hard to heal others if you're not happy, strong and healthy.

Exactly.

You can't heal someone else when you're depressed, weak and sick.

There it is. Because in the end you pass on, you transmit your energy and if that energy flows, you You make people flow in their energy again, and then they are de-blocked. When they say they are de-blocked, then disease comes on. Being at ease or disease. And disease is being blocked. The energy doesn't run right. There is wrong chemistry going on, and people don't know how to solve it. Then if you got a saint somebody, healthy, very energetic, there! And then he is able to touch you and then this social distancing is really not good. Because people need to touch each other. It's neurology. It's neurology. Oxytocin comes in. Oxytocin makes the blood flow go in and then the blood flow is nice and okay. Love is the answer.

What do you think happens to us when we distance ourselves from others?

When we distance them, they had studies on mice. Mice have a 20% possibility to have breast cancer. And then.

With distancing from other mice?

No, no, no. It's always there in mice.

In general, in general.

But if you put mice together, then it stays benign. But if you separate them and have them live on their own, it becomes like 80%.

Really?

Yes. What happens inside is that the biochemistry, it needs others. We are social beings, not for nothing. We are social beings growing from millions of years and now they begin to artificially keep us from each other. That is not good. It's against nature. It will cause deficiencies, depression, hormonal deregulation, et cetera. Too much things are happening here and it's not good.

You talked about willpower of the mind for a second a little bit ago. It seems like a lot of people in general have a weak willpower. There's a piece of candy, they eat the candy, there's a distraction. They take the phone to distraction, they binge watch TV, they do the thing that doesn't support their life in improving, doesn't support them in their relationship, their health, their happiness. We get distracted easily in general. How do we create more willpower of the mind? With all the distractions we have going on, how do we create more willpower?

I tell them, Use your phone, eat all you want, drink all you want, etc. But go into the cold shower. Because you need to will. You need to exercise your will before you go into the cold shower. And when you go into the cold shower and take on the stress and control it, then suddenly you feel so much more energy. You don't need the compensation anymore. You don't need that bar, snickers bar, and the beer, and the telephone, and all this. You don't need it because you feel good. We fundamentally do not feel well enough to not seek compensation. So when you go into a cold shower, you learn to handle angiomite, but also create a lot more energy through exercising the vascular system, the cardiovascular system. It's not for nothing that the cardiovascular related diseases is still killer number one in the Western world. And that is of not going into stress, not going into cold. wearing clothes all the time. So the system inside the physiology weakens. It's logical. And then you have to compensate for that loss. And you don't know how, I tell you. The cold exercising is able to invigorate our energy processes so much we just feel great. I always say get high on your own supply.

Get high on life.

Yeah, high on life, yeah.

Why do you think we get so addicted to other substances, whether it be, you know, things we eat, things we smoke, addicted to watching things, addicted to whatever, why do we become addicted to things to make us feel good? Why can't we just feel good without those addictions?

Because our minds in our society, which is based on money, and selling is being bombarded through advertising. If you take this beer, you are in heaven. If you take this smoke, you are so great with yourself. If you have six cars, then that's better than five cars. You are the master. And if you have ten houses, then why do you live, man? We are built to be unconditionally Okay, we have to go back to the core. We over-abstracted our systemized, money-making ways of living, and we are actually not dependent on them. And I say all the technology, all the systems, it's all great because it's part of the creative power of the mind. But let's not forget that we actually do not need it to the amount which is now happening and get back and then you become even wealthier because then you are not overwhelmed, you're not sucked out there. You are yourself and enjoying everything so much more.

Yeah, I love this. you mentioned that you're an identical twin, right?

Yes.

What does being an identical twin due to your identity, Wim Hof's identity, and have you ever felt like you didn't have your own individual life growing up because you're an identical twin?

I'm quite different of my identical twin, and that's because of my lifestyle. Yeah, man, that's, he is a truck driver, international truck driver. I can't do what he is doing because he's sitting for like eight hours a day. Now he's doing cold swimming and everything.

That's great.

He's doing it now and he feels great with it. But I thought, man, it's like Zen, what you are doing. You're just sitting, handling that big wheel. There you go, through the countries of Europe, and you're venturing, you go from A to B. You are for days gone from home, from your children and your wife. You are just a soltero on your own, a a a hermit on the road. That's what you do. I think I respect you, man, but I am too flamboyant. I want to change all the time. I want to make music. I want to talk. I want to be. with my ridiculously cute little son and with my wife and with everybody and in my garden.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm curious. So you never felt, you always felt like you had your own identity, your own life. You never felt like you guys were sharing a life or anything, right?

Man, you're a guy. Since we were born, that's besides the nine months we were together completely in the same fluid. And since we were born, we slept always together until 17 years.

No way.

We slept with the arms over each other.

In the same bed.

In the same bed. You slept in the same bed with.

Your brother for 17 years.

17 years, man. This was like we lived into whom for 17 years and nine months. That was. And then when we got into girlfriends, then it became, hey, let's split. We got a split, man.

The girls were never in the bed with you.

No, no, not together.

What was that like? What was that like after the 17th year of always. being next to someone, laying next to someone, your brother, your identical twin, and then separating. What did that do to your identity?

It was really very natural. Very natural. We were beginning to have a mind of our own and develop on our own. And yes, I think the magic of being so intimately together, It's absolutely beyond any sex or any things or thoughts of that nature. We always slept together, we sang together. It was magic.

That's beautiful.

It was just magic. Yeah, it was beautiful.

Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you spent another 10 years together?

I'm getting back to him. He's getting back to me.

Really?

When I was 17, I went with him on a bike from Amsterdam. Say, like, you go from Los Angeles to Boulder on a bike.

Yeah, yeah. Wow. Motorcycle?

Yeah, no, no. Bicycle.

Bicycle.

Yeah, yeah. I had no money for motorcycles. No, just bicycle, old bicycles, my secondhand bicycles. And we used the bags which normally you use for bringing the newspaper around, we used that to put everything inside. So we had very little money, but such a pleasure to go from the Netherlands, which is a colder state, colder country, through Belgium, then through France, into Spain, into the direction to Africa with a bicycle that is completely different than going in a car. In a car, it's like a television. But when you go on a bike.

You experience life every moment.

Yes. And you gotta do the effort so you're charging up the battery. That was a spiritual journey when I was 17. I did that with him. And I don't know what happened because I wanted to know what is my spirit and all. and it happened. It happened in that journey that I found enlightenment, that I found. And it was not like all the time. It was just these insights which you cannot read inside the books. Even if it are the books of big philosophers and gurus, you have to write your own book. And the book every day is a page. It's blank and you've got to get out of your consciousness, find the words, and make the poetry of life. That's what I did then. And then I found it. And then I got back again to the Netherlands. Then I lost it again.

Why'd you lose it?

I don't know. You alter your consciousness. But this is the big question. We are, I think this in primary school, we have to teach our children to, what is happiness, the hormonal system, what is health, the immune system, and what is strength, that is the energy management within yourself, within control. We have to teach that because I was not aware of that. I just got this real wanting and then suddenly it's, wow! Wow, wow, I'm wise, I know everything, now I know it, now I can talk, and all that, epiphanies, one after the other. They came, and then you lose it again, because I had no real control.

Control.

It was just there, boom, suddenly spontaneous.

And.

It stayed three weeks like a beam of light. like a wave. And then when it was gone, it was gone again. But I never forget it. And now I am on the hunt to get it fully within control, to show it through science, and to share it with the world. That's what we do right now.

Love this. You've got people know the Wim Hof method. They know the cold therapy and the breathing. what is the Wim Hof diet? What is it that you eat most of the time on a day-to-day basis? Do you kind of eat whatever you want or are you a specific type of eater with your diet?

Yeah, I'm vegetarian. That's one. And it's no meat.

No meat.

No meat. No meat. And, yeah, simply that it has its reasons. But for your health, I say, don't eat too much. Feel your hunger, feel your appetite. Then you appreciate not only your food a whole lot better, it will become a whole lot better because your whole system is ready to receive the food. When you are hungry, your system is ready to take it on. The enzymes, the cellular processes, they are all awake, screaming, yeah, here, come, come. Oh, beautiful! Oh, so nice! Then you are witnessing a feast and you are in it. That should be food every day. Then it becomes spiritual. Physical spirituality is food. So, and besides of that, food should not be food should be food. So not all the chemistry, the additives inside. Just watch a little. Be conscious what you get in because it's gonna be you.

What's it? That's true. Your food becomes who you are. What's the day-to-day look like for meals? When do you eat? Do you eat a little in the morning? Do you wait to eat? Do you fast? Are you eating mostly vegetables? What are you eating?

I really, if I take breakfast, then I feel stuffed. So I don't take breakfast. At lunch, no, I take it maybe at three o'clock or something now. But for years, like 20 years, I only ate once a day at six o'clock after six o'clock p.m. in the afternoon is when I really felt the appetite, agonizing, beautiful appetite in side and then the food comes, you attack. You don't think you are coming. It's great. And that I learned that makes you sharper. It revises your neurology, the neurology inside. If we go back in the time of the pre-historics, the wheat or super supermarkets or you know, food stores, etc. It was not that you had to look for it. And the driving force for that was your hunger, your appetite. So you became sharper in your eyes, you saw more, you lived more. And then when you find it, you have gratitude directly. No words, it's all spiritual. And we have lost that spirituality. because it's all the mind. It's bombarded with the advertisement. Eat your hot dog here, the McDonald's there. This is food, it makes you go and have it. And what? Is it, do I feel that I need it? Or does my mind say that I have to take that? Because it's now convenient and I'm between two working schedules meetings. Let me take it now. But you don't really feel it. And this keeps on piling up, piling up. It's alienation that creeps in. It's a different being than the simplicity of your being as being simple here and now, unconditionally there, with all the clear answers coming naturally every day.

Yeah, there's so many, I've interviewed so many scientists and researchers. and doctors on the power of fasting for periods of time, eating less, having less food to help you get rid of inflammation, to help you live longer, to help you have more clarity. I've done four days of no food, just water and coffee, and felt more clear and focused and had a lot of energy.

There you are.

There you are. I think it all depends. It all depends on your lifestyle. Obviously, if you're training for an hour or two a day, then you're going to need some more food and some but to delay eating, I think is a powerful thing as opposed to overeating or eating all the time. Again, it comes back to finding instances in your day-to-day life to delay gratification, to cause a little discomfort or some pain in a controlled setting. I'm not saying you need to starve yourself forever, but control pain every day with your food. There you go.

Right. Totally right. This is the new dimension in science going to be. And that is what we are doing right now with the research in San Francisco on the DNA through showing that hormetic exercise. That is what you were talking about, about delaying pleasure, delaying whatever. You know, it could be in sports, you do more, or you look for a certain kind of stress and you do it consciously. And that makes the body alert, very alert. And then systems become more efficient. And with food, it is so that they did research on mice. that mice live two times longer when they are restricted in their diet, two times longer because the body becomes more efficient. Food can be a killer. That's it. Use food well and it's medicine. Use food well and you get a lot more energy. Use food wrong, It kills you. You become obese, you become weak, vulnerable. It doesn't make you satisfied. It doesn't, it's not part of your pleasure of life. So why choose food and take it in unconsciously like, I have to eat, I have to eat. It's nothing, it's blubber.

Yeah, it's like we eat it for momentary pleasure but it causes long-term pain.

Exactly.

Whereas if we create momentary pain, we have long-term health and pleasure.

Exactly. Well said. Wow.

Dr. David Sinclair who I've had on a couple of times as well, he's one of the leading scientists out of Harvard who does a lot of this research on mice and giving them food and all these tests. he might have been the one who actually did that test.

Yes.

But he talks about that. If you really want to cure cancer, I mean, cure diseases, eliminate inflammation and get rid of all the junk in your body, eat less, eat better. How many calories do you think you eat a day? So you eat like around three o'clock and then maybe a dinner or sometimes once a day or.

Yeah, sometimes no dinner at all. You know, I just feel how much I need and I will absolutely not overeat. How much calories? How much calories are say sometimes I just eat four slices of good full corn bread with a big mound of butter and peanut butter on top. Yeah, love it.

Yeah, there you go. That's all you'll eat. What will you drink throughout the day? Do you drink a lot of water? Do you drink tea? Do you drink coffee, matcha? What do you drink?

Yeah, I like coffee in the morning. Oh yeah, and then water. Water is great. And yeah, I take it. But I have to say, water, liquids and all, all great. But breathing consciously is really food. Now this is another aspect. I mean, the food problem in the world, could be solved through this, what I'm going to tell you right now. Deep breathing, deeper conscious breathing influences the mitochondrial aerobic dissimilation. Aerobic is oxygen. Dissimilation is the process of oxygen getting into the energy factories in the cell, the mitochondria, and it creates molecules, ATP, adenocarcinoma, trypophosphate, whatever it is, it is molecules, it's energy. Now listen, cancer lives anaerobically. Anaerobically we are able to produce two molecules. When we get aerobic dissimilation, we can multiply the amount of energy with 19 times. 19 times. So 38 instead of two molecules, 38 molecules. If you breathe the right way, you are able to increase through conscious oxygen bringing in the amount of energy through molecules like 19 times. This should be researched because it doesn't cost money to make food, to make molecules. Food equals energy. Deep right breathing also equals energy.

So what I'm hearing you say is that We could, if we breathe better, we could have more energy and we don't need as much food.

And you know how crazy this can go. There are people, they call themselves breatharians.

Okay.

And they don't even need to eat anymore.

No way. Come on.

You have to get a breatharian on your podcast.

I've never heard of it. I've never heard of this. So, wait a minute.

Look it up, look it up.

You can breathe and cure hunger.

There it is. There it is.

Yeah, you have to eat eventually, right? You can't just go with... Yeah, I.

Mean, it's going to be cut like a hundred times the amount of what you eat normally.

Wow.

And thrive well. That is possible.

Breathe Arians.

Yeah, Breathe Arians.

Breathe Arians. Okay, I'm making a note of this.

Just look it up.

You know any breatharians?

I get the signs on it.

Okay.

Because this, you know, one and one is two. If we are able to show that breathing better consciously makes great amounts of energy, thus the food intake can go down with, say, 50%. Amen. We saved the world.

So, when we breathe, just so I'm aware of this, when we do 10 to 15 minutes of Wim Hof breathing or any type of deep breathing like this, what does that do to our mitochondria? It multiplies the mitochondria.

It multiplies the ATP, the molecules. The energy factories begin to become more effective. Thus, they create more molecules. And when we have disimulation.

And when we have more molecules or more energy, we don't need as much food. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

That is the logic. Yes.

Because food is to bring us more energy throughout the day.

Yes. And you know what? And, and, and in a lot of cases, food is, is a lot of in the food. So we eat food to get more energy, but then a whole lot, whole chunk of that energy. is needed to get rid of the additives. So in the end, we create a deficit of nutrients and vitamins for the body. Those are very crucial things because we do it every day. Yeah.

So the body, the digestion system is working harder to process the bad foods as opposed to processing the good foods to go to where it needs to go throughout the body.

Yes, and it takes quite a chunk of energy to process it. It's like garbage coming in. Yeah, you need to get rid of it. So that energy is lost and food should be energy. Now it is plus garbage, then part of that food is going to be a junk, big junk, is going to be used to get rid of the garbage. And besides of that, it is a long-term It is of no good to get the wrong chemicals inside. It's like poison. You got to deal with the poison. Yeah.

Okay. Well, there's the Wim Hof Diet. That's the next book in the future. I'm curious, you're known for mindset, you're known for breathing, you're known for body challenges, helping get rid of sickness and anxiety and stress and overwhelm. You're known for these things. Yes. I'm curious of your thoughts about relationships, something you're not as well known for. I know you in a more intimate way, but what have you learned from the breathing cold therapy that helps you in intimate relationships? You've had obviously challenging past with wife with mental health challenges who committed suicide. What have you learned now through this practice to help you Fortify intimacy with your wife, your partner, and also fortify with your family, your kids, and friends.

Amazing, yeah, beautiful. Relationships, as I said in the beginning, you need touch. It's oxytocin. But sometimes people get something in between. And that when something gets in between, then you don't touch as much and you begin something in the mind gets out and it's like distance. And that distance in the mind. Yes, in the mind, through the biochemistry insight. And that what I say, if you do these breathing exercises, you get rid of the wrong things in your biochemistry. I tell everybody, do the breathing, you become the alchemist. Not only the alchemist, it's good for your relationship because you get rid of that what makes the distance go. This is in an unseen terrain. It's a vibrational, but when you are blocked within yourself, you're not able to get your energy over the right way. And sensitively, you can't see it, but it's there. And you are in distance, you are in your mind. and you keep on making these loops in the mind instead of just breaking it. I come here, darling, I love you so much. And your wife or your partner knows if you are bullshitting, yes or no?

So what do you do when one of your kids is angry at you? Dad, I don't like you when you did this. Or your wife or your partner is mad that you didn't do something. What do you do to overcome that?

Yes. If I go into the cold water, then this worrying about that is over. It's too cold.

You can't think about the stress.

Yes, you can't think about that stress. You're dealing with distress. And that makes you go away of that what you are feeding. And then it becomes smaller and suddenly, oh, I love her so much. Because your energy is fully within yourself, clean, nice, dear. We are loving beings if it comes to us unconditionally. We are unconditional beings who are in love with it all. But then comes the sh*t, then comes the stress, and we don't know how to deal with it. And you are guilty, you are guilty, you are guilty, etc. Now we got to solve our blockages inside, and the cold really knows how to cut off whatever you got inside, and you got to be there. And the breathing the breathing exercises, they are very good to regulate. I mean, you become very shallow in your breathing if you are angry, if you are blocked. When you are anxious, you are like shallow. But when you get into the deep breathing, you break the loop. And the loop is inside the head. And that in mind, it's neurology. If you go into deep breathing, suddenly goes into deeper parts of the brain. There is the feeling and there is the being. Just being, no words, just being. And you feed it with blood flow, doing deep breathing. Thus you break the loop and then your wife knows it. Your partner will know it because they feel. They know you every inch of your body and your mind. So You can't bullsh*t nobody. Cleanse yourself and you are open for love once again.

Do you have any mantras that you deal with? Let's say you're traveling and you're not able to access the cold water in the moment. When there's a stressful moment that comes up or your wife is angry or whatever, or your ego gets the best of you and you're shallow, what's Wim Hof's mantra to get back to whole? happy, strong, healthy.

Yes, this is interesting. I think the power of the mind, which I'm showing right now in these studies, which is able to defy external stress just by using the mind, that I think little children in good traditions of where religion, God has a place, Then before they go to bed, they ask God subtly in a prayer tomorrow that it is going to be beautiful and nice and great. That is the power of mantra. That's the power of the subtle power of the intention. That is the power of the mind. We lost that. We get in too much TV. too much iPhones, too much this, too much that. Where is the prayer again? The prayer now is no longer related as the church teaches us because we got so many religions, so many differences. So I got to the neurology inside the brain scans and I found a universal way to tap into the power of the mind. the subtle power of the mind, the power of our intention. And if that is once again working within us, then nobody wants to do evil things. But people get frustrated. They don't know how to get out. And they. You are guilty and you and this and that. No, once you become subtly in command through your own mind. over your own body, then that is what I wish everybody to do again. That is my mantra every day. So when I go in an aeroplane, I always have a little prayer. I say: Tuum ubrum, altarum. That is Latin, because I got something with Latin. And it says: God, spread your wings and bring me safe to the other side.

Wow, that's cool.

And most of the times I'm clapping when we landed and nobody is clapping anymore. It's amazing when you go up in the air, you come down and everybody should clap, not for the pilot only, but for being safely on the ground, because it's magic.

It is magic. Could you imagine a hundred years ago seeing something flying with hundreds of people in the sky? You think we were crazy.

Sorcerers, witches, bend them on the stake.

Exactly. So, what's a daily mantra for you? Something you think of first thing in the morning throughout the day when you're going through a stressful moment. Is there something you say to yourself, a phrase over and over again?

In the morning, just rise and make friends with the day. Make friends with your wife, with your children, with everybody, and make sure you do it. You feel it and they reciprocate, you know, that it comes back and that you feel it. If you do that, you've got the best foundation for the day.

What do you think is your highest priority in life? Highest, if you could rank them, the top three to five priorities for you on a daily basis. What are those?

First of all, bring love in your family. Absolutely. That is the greatest. Then bring love in the rest of the world. Heal the world. Believe your good ideals. Always stick to your belief. Invest neurologically in that what you think is good, because we are built to be good. And then we are built to be successful. That's the way we are built. The way we are schooled is different. But we are built by the laws of nature, by birthright, to be happy, strong and healthy. So let's be good, remain good, Forever and do we do not even need the belief? It works that way. Or you better believe it. You invest in something that has a much greater outcome than your investment. It's there. This is what I do on daily basis. And besides, over at all, stay simple, stay humble, change the world. Yeah. Oh good.

What are some key ways to create more joy in our lives? I feel like you do this in a beautiful way, but what would you say are things that the world should be doing more to create more joy?

Just breathe. Breathe. Take the cold shower and make sure you are in command over your happiness, your strength and your health. If you've got that, because it's physically there and you connect with that, then you are able to pass it on to everybody. A happy man is not longing for anything. He is there. He doesn't go to war. He doesn't create chaos. He creates radiance of love and energy for everybody and mostly even for himself. I mean, it's almost egotistic because you've got to feel so good. If you heal others, I feel so damn good. Every time when I see that people come from dark places and they tell me, Man, I burst into tears of happiness. That's what I want.

What are ways we can love ourselves more? I feel like self-love is something we should all be doing because the more we love ourselves, the more confidence and love we give to other people, the more we can heal people. How do you fill yourself up with love.

You know, good exercise during the day makes you feel really proud, body awareness, deep body awareness that you are there and you went fully, I say, die once a day. Because the life comes fully there. And if I go and I don't feel it, If I don't feel control, man, you can fight me in the barrel, full of water, full of ice, for an hour. And that's not penitence, it is, I want to be in control over my physiology by my mind. I want to love myself and the rest of the world. Of course, if I'm not in control, then who and what is in control? Yeah.

What are we in control of?

Over our happiness, strength and health. Boom. And that is the endocrine system, the immune system, and our energy processes. It's all there. Actually, we are in control by letting go. This is what I say to the people. Learn to control the mind is learning how to let go. Because the body is one with the mind, with the brain. It's one. And the body knows how to solve extreme impact of stress anytime. But you have to learn to let go. Don't stick with the ego, with the shallow thoughts of yours. There is much more than meets the eye. It is the subconscious, the autonomic nervous system. It's your destiny. and it's calling for you and you just have to play, go along with the ride and enjoy it.

Why do you think we hold on to ego so much?

Because that's the quest of life. We have to go past our thoughts and if we learn to heal others and just to love others, then we will transcend our ego. That is what it teaches. What our reality wants, what our soul wants, is pure, pure love. Imagine when you were in love with the partner coming into your life, man, what is happening! That's your soul!

You!

Soul is happening and you love it. And the other one, the partner, has the same thing. and then we get creations like Little Children and all. But yeah, that's the way it is. It's the light. We are the light. And then light comes. But we can create light more in us by healing others and increase it. It's not that it becomes bigger in ourselves. We become maybe famous and all. But the light really is not bigger than 20 years ago when nobody knew who I was. It's not bigger. It is just I'm doing what I should do. And that feels so great, deeply inside, that I have no fear of dying. Because when I die, my soul is blessed. Man, it's the way. And I want to show that now. in science, in the DNA, in the ancestry, the ancestral genetical codes. This is my next book going to be to get back into nativeness. The nativeness is in harmony, being in a harmony with nature outside. And that is in love with what provides all the goods for us for free. Yeah. And not abuse it and exploit it. and this is the way relationships should go as well, because we are all part of the same garden of Eden.

Absolutely, I agree on that. I'm curious, Wim, what's the challenge you have yet to conquer? You've done so many different extreme challenges for your body, your mind. Is there a challenge you look at that is your Everest, that is your like, I've never climbed this, I've never done this thing. Are you still trying to tackle these challenges or has it evolved into something else now?

Mostly it has evolved into something else but physically I'm 61 and now every year I was thinking at my birthday I want to do you know one minute more when I'm 62. It's 62 minutes when I'm 73, 73 minutes, when I'm 96, 96 minutes. But then I thought, no, I can't do that. I can't do that already. That's not difficult. You know, the oldest participant right now in this method is 98 years old.

Wow.

Man, beat that.

So.

What I want is within my life, Show my Mount Everest, my modern Mount Everest, is to bring happiness, strength, and health to the soul. The soul where it belongs within our consciousness, within our experience every day. I want to bring love as it is, no longer a mellow yellow kind of experience. Strong love, strong love full of strength, very tender.

What's the greatest fear for you that you've yet to conquer or embrace?

I think the greatest fear, if you are a father, is with your children. And yeah, and the rest, it's flourishing now. It's flourishing. My life is flourishing and it has come from belief. When I had nothing, like very little money and a lot of stress and all, I still was happy because I was able to go into the cold and to the breathing and the exercising and that made me feel great without the aid of external compensation as we talked in the beginning. So what is, I forgot the question.

Greatest fear you've yet to conquer or overcome?

I'm sorry, I ain't got no fears no more. That it is.

That's good, man.

The fear, you know, I was just talking about the fear. When you are happy, you have no fear. When you are in love, you have no fear. You just want to do what you are feeling. You go and there is no fear. You overtake everything because the power of the mind is related to the love which you experience, then suddenly everything in the brain is of usage of you to serve you to get to the other side. So then fear has no place. Fear is a signal that something is wrong inside. And we have to listen to the signal, internalize and solve the matter. It could be an emotional fear, mental fear, physical fear. It could be viral, bacterial, spiritual. It doesn't matter. It's all fear. And the brain, the mind knows. It gives a signal, don't kill the messenger. Go and follow the messenger. And then ask, what is the problem? Get this connection deeply within, like with the food. talk to you. Your body is talking to you and you are not listening. The fear is beautiful. It is a. Is a very sensitive messenger. It comes in all its fear. It comes to you. Please listen to me. No, don't kill me. Bam. Bam. You go down. No, I follow you, okay? Where are you? Oh, of course. That's internalization. That is meditation. Yeah. That way, through the breath, we are able to go with the mind into deeper tissue. Because the breath is like water. It goes everywhere. When we go into deeper breathing, it goes deeper in the tissue. There could be the blockage, the inhibition. there the fear started and then you are able to solve because we are the alchemists, all of us.

So you don't fear death anymore. How old would you love to live towards?

I live as long as I will accomplish my task is to bring love to the world.

Are you trying to extend your life as long as possible?

Are you... I will outlive everybody. There's no problem about that. I feel so alive and I am really, I am in control. I am in control and I will show in the DNA how to lengthen the telomeres responsible for the span of our life, the cell division. I am doing that now. In December we get the results. So I'm actually on top of it. this is it. First I make a study of something and then I'm gonna do it.

There you go. I love that. What are you. A couple final questions for you, Liam. What are you most proud of about your kids?

They are all working with me now.

All of them.

Yeah, I mean, the four.

The four.

The biggest ones. 37, 35, 34 and 32. they're all working with me.

That's pretty cool.

Yes. When I went to the primary school to get them, I always of them, a dad act normal. Because in winter time, I'm winter with my shorts to the school and, you know, the. And doing handstands and splits on the. On the courtyard while the. These people waiting on the side for the children. smoking cigarettes, saying, Look at that guy, he's crazy! you! know? So I had to act normal. Now, my daughters who are graduates, they are doing the WIM Half Method as an instructor. Wow! They love it! So completely changed. Of course, that makes me proud.

Wow.

And I just love it. And I also teach them, be humble, simple, but very confident within you. You are able to heal so many people. Do it.

Go. That's beautiful.

Yeah.

And what's the thing you admire about your wife the most?

My wife right now, oh, everything. She knows more of me than me myself. so I want her around. Where is this? Where is this? Did you see this? Do you know how the computer works? Yeah, I'm helpless without her. You know, not really, but it makes life so much more quality. It gives me so much more love, so much more. This nest warmth, it's ridiculous. It's so beautiful. I don't need to travel. I don't need to climb mountains, et cetera. I want to stay in my garden. And now I got a new project. And the new project is I want to make an interactive garden. And with that, I will show that we are as humans, we all have gardens. For those who have gardens, we are able to experience the depth of our physiology mentally and physically in our garden. I recently now I made a project with rocks, 100 tons of rocks, piled it up to four meters high almost, and you can jump into the cold pool. That means you become aware when you jump in and you gotta make the decision. That's the hormetic stress.

Yeah, delayed gratification.

Delayed gratification. That it is. And at that moment it's really there. And then you jump and you feel great because we are more than we understand of ourselves. And the cold water is able to open up everything. So I want to make an interactive garden where the flowers are beautiful, but. And the. And the sensations, the experiences go really to the primordial depth itself.

Yeah, man.

That's my new thing. Because I don't want to go away of my wife anymore. I want to stay home.

You're too comfortable. Yeah.

If I get too comfortable, you know what I'm doing? I get into the barrel. Not for the wine, but for the icy water.

Exactly.

And when I'm back on. I'm back on.

Well, where am I? I'm very grateful for you and I'm very appreciative that we got to spend time together before the madness of the world happened back in January in Poland. I feel like it was a great experience for all of us to prepare us for what has come over the last nine months and what is to come. And hopefully in the next year or two years, I can see you again and you'll either be here in LA and we'll do some ice therapy in the cold water or I'll be in Berlin or somewhere. So hopefully I can do it again in the future. You've got a book out, Wim Hof Method. Finally, I feel like everyone's written books about you and now you finally have your own book which breaks down a lot of this stuff about breathing, cold, mindset, science, health, performance. We've got your story in here, your spiritual awakening, but a lot of great stuff if you just want to get started. Maybe you're not. ready to dive in yet to the breathing and the cold. This would be the place to start so you can learn more about it. I highly recommend getting this book. I've endorsed it on the back as well. And get the.

Thank you.

Of course.

Yeah.

And get the. If people download the free app, it's gonna be a game changer for them to get started with their breathing. This is a simple way to get started. I love this app. Whim is guiding you. He's coaching you. He's supporting you through this. you can do it for 10 minutes, five minutes and get started. And you truly feel a physiological difference and you feel better within minutes, moments of doing the breathing. So, download the app. It's called the Wim Hof Method app. I think you can get it for free on the App Store. Get the book. It's online, it's on Wim's site or anywhere you buy books, Amazon, stuff like that. And, when Wim opens up more workshops in the future, When we're allowed to do stuff, sign up for one. Go to your site. Are you just wimhof.com? Are you wimhofmethod.com? Where can they go? Yes.

Wimhofmethod.com.

Go there and get on the wait list for when the world opens up and you can go do an experience in Poland with Wim. It's an incredible time. You'll climb a mountain with no clothes on except for shorts, four and a half hours. You'll do cold therapy, you'll meditate, you'll do a lot of great stuff. Check it out. Also, follow Wim on social media. He's active over on social media, got great content to remind you about who you are, why you're deserving of love and why you're deserving of a happy, strong life. Wim, are there any final thoughts, my friend? I'm really grateful for you. I'm always appreciative of our time together, but do you have any final thoughts?

Yes, I have to appreciate your school of greatness. Because it is greatness what you show through your. You're a handsome man. Big man. I know you. You're much bigger than I am. But we are all. We both live for the greatness of our spirits and the love. And we are sharing this within the world. And every day we do it again and again. And we stand up, we rise again. and we are shining lights together. For that, I thank you. Of course, my man.

Well, I appreciate you. Very grateful for you. If you guys enjoyed this, make sure to share with a friend. Make sure to post it on stories, on social media. Let Wim know that you enjoyed this as well and your favorite part. Again, get his book, Wim Hof Method. It's gonna help you a big time in your life. Wim, you're a rockstar, my man. I appreciate you and love you very much, my friend. My friend, thank you so much for listening to this episode. Make sure to share with your friends. if you found it valuable in any way. Continue to spread the message of greatness forward. We are creating content here to help people transform their lives, improve their life with tools, inspiration, strategies and practical advice to help them grow every single day. And you play a huge part in helping spread this message out there. So just copy and paste the link wherever you're listening to this right now and text to a few friends, post it on social media, put it in a WhatsApp group chat, whatever you got to do, share it out or use the link lewishouse.com/1043 and tag myself Lewis Howes and Wim Hof over on social media as well. And if this is your first time here, welcome to the family of School of Greatness. Please click that subscribe button right now on Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating and review that really helps us spread the message to more people anytime someone leaves a review anytime someone rates and every time someone clicks that subscribe button. So please do that right now. And if you want more inspirational messages from me to your phone every single week, join our texting list. Just text me the word podcast to 614-350-3960 right now and you'll be updated with inspirational quotes and messages from me every single week. And I want to leave you with a quote from Rhonda Byrne Burn, who we recently had on, was the creator of the Secret. And if you haven't listened to this episode yet, make sure to check it out. She said, love and gratitude can part seas, move mountains and create miracles. And love and gratitude can dissolve any disease. I'm so grateful for you today for showing up in a big way in your life, for chasing your dreams, for going after what you want, for being a good person to the people around you. And if no one has told you lately, you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. I'm so blessed that you're here today, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.