Master the Cold & Take Back Control of Your Life w/ Paul Koepnick

This is Waterworld episode 27 My name is John Mendez and I am your host. Welcome to walk to wealth, where I motivate and inspire people new to the world of personal finance by letting you all in behind the scenes of someone who's still on his way. Thank you for tuning into today's episode. For all my new listeners. Welcome. I'm glad that you're here. I'm glad that you can make it for all the oh geez in the building. Welcome back home. Thank you for all the loyalty and all the support. In today's episode, we have Paul cap Nick. He is known for successfully completing over 600 consecutive Immersions in Lake Michigan in order to pass 800 days, he's went about 750 time and for anyone that may not know that some really cold water. He was a featured speaker and presenter at the 2022 National Alliance on Mental Illness. He has completed advanced study in a Wim Hof Method and went on to develop advanced breathing mindset and adaptation techniques with doctors from around the country. His background is in biology, veterinary medicine and Infectious Disease Control and transmission. He is passionate about blending and teaching Eastern, and Western medicine and philosophy and talks all about leaning in to what is bothering you most so that you can then succeed. His story is amazing. You guys are in for a very special treat, make sure to stick it out to the end. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the walk to wealth podcast. If you're tuning in on YouTube, make sure to like so I can continue getting amazing guests like the one I have today. And make sure to subscribe and hit that notification bell icon so that you can never miss a beat. If you're tuning in from one of the podcast directories. Make sure to leave a five star review if you're loving the podcast. And I have a very special guest with me, Paul, Paul, for anyone that may not know you tell us your elevator pitch. You know, who are you? What do you do?

Sure, yeah, my name is Paul Kamnik. You might know me. I have the record for the most cold water submergence in Lake Michigan with 600 consecutive days going in. Well, what I do is I coach high performers, highly motivated people to elevate their life, to destroy self limiting beliefs, and lean into discomfort. And I use body mind, breath and cold to manufacture are amazing, to manifest amazing and amazing lives and amazing businesses and all walks of life.

And that's amazing. And, you know, it hasn't always been amazing, you had the opportunity to kind of hear a little bit more about your story when we first met. But you know, for the listeners, you tell us a little bit about your walk 12 You know, what was it like before you got into all of this.

And I, you know, I come from a small town in Wisconsin, Elkhorn, Wisconsin is by Lake Geneva. And, you know, they're, you know, I was kind of a sheltered kind of lived this entitled, athlete life. And I was really driven but really motivated by this external validation. That's where I found all my value of my friends and my family and how I felt love really, in my life was through all this external validation and how I performed. And so I used that, you know, going forward. And I and I was actually in medical school. And I was in my last year of medical school, and the pressure and the competition just started weighing down on me and my mental health started to decline very, very, very quickly. And so I started having this mental health crisis. And I ended up just breaking down and self sabotaging. And six months before my graduation, I failed out. And I left in this just uproar of self sabotage and, and just destroying everything. Made it because I didn't feel like I deserved it or the pressure is too much, or it's just my mental health has just taken this huge downward spiral, which I thought, you know, at that moment, I thought that, Hey, maybe I can change all of it again. And but it started getting worse because I was so elevated up here and what the idea that I thought about myself and the pressure from my family, the pressure that I thought my family was putting on me right? And so I started going deeper and deeper down because I started having this identity identity crisis. I was my whole identity was stuck in this image of what I was supposed to be and so mental health went way down had identity crisis, nervous breakdown, tried to get help, and actually threw me into this really massive manic Episode. And in this manic episode, I ended up destroying every relationship that I had. I was hurting a lot of people, my family, my relationships, my friends, and I ended up getting arrested, I was getting in trouble. And it drove me deep, further and further down into mental illness and struggle. To the point where I was homeless, I had nothing, I had no one. And I was living out of my car. And in my darkest days, I wanted to end my life. And my biggest mistake of during this episode, ended up actually kind of getting publicly shared nationally. And it was, it was this moment in my life where, like that this was my new identity. This was the story I was telling myself, like, I'm not this person anymore. And I'm this failure. I'm this

low class citizen, right?

The shame, the embarrassment, and it wasn't even me, but having it broadcast to everyone, and having my story told for me. And my deepest, darkest moment of my life just took me down to such a deep level where I didn't want to live anywhere, I had nothing, I had absolutely nothing. And, at this moment, this pivotal moment, I was actually living in a campground in Madison, Wisconsin. And my darkest time, I'm like, You know what, I'm just gonna take a shower. And this was like an October, about this is about six, seven years ago. And the showers at this campground where they didn't have any water heaters. And so I went into the shower, and it was cold. And after that shower, I'm like, You know what, maybe I can wait till tomorrow, right, maybe I'll just stick it out one more day. And one day just kept kind of rolling. And to the point where I started getting back on my feet a little bit, I started feeling better, like something changed in me in that moment with that shower. And I just started kind of putting back together the pieces. Until eventually I moved to Milwaukee. And I started going into Lake Michigan every single day and I was working, I got a menial job doing some handyman work. And I'm like I wanted I was again I was going to a big dip depression I wasn't fulfilled, I'm like, this isn't my purpose isn't what I meant to be here on this earth for. And I just started getting really depressed anxiety, panic attacks PTSD, from what I went through, like still trying to deal with that stuff. And so I, one day, I'm like, You know what, I'm just gonna go all in. And I'm gonna manifest and create the life that I want to live. And what I envision it and I'm going to use cold water as the vehicle as the portal to get me there. So I started going into to Lake Michigan every single day, not trying to count days just doing it for me, and for my own health. And after six months of doing that, everything changed. So I got, I went from this menial, I went from homeless to this menial job to becoming an executive of have one of Wisconsin's biggest property management firms, running 60 employees working with you know, going to work and seeing the CEO of the Green Bay Packers, and you know, just like, out of nowhere, right, and just being, you know, doing this thing that was better than leaning into this discomfort that I was going through and facing it. It kind of changed everything. As I got there. Things started happening where all of a sudden, you know, I wanted this high level job and to be important, right? And then once I got there, it changed. I'm like, I don't really want this, right. And so now, two months ago, two and a half months ago, I left it and I left it to start again. And because I'm like this was all an experiment, could I do this, and then I if I can do it once I can do it again. And so now it's starting off from zero and building up, to be able to coach these methods that I've been doing in my own life, to teach as to other people who are motivated to go out and wanting to change their life wanting to overcome their self limiting beliefs. And to, you know, create a better business, be a better parent, be a better have a better relationship, you know, be just a better human being and know within and now it's like within these last two months, I've almost gotten back to the level of, of the pay that I was getting in this big executive job, being able to coach this and give this to others, all the secrets that I've learned?

That's amazing. Yeah. And so, to let you know, we went, we went over a lot in your story, let's unpack, you know, what's the one decision, I guess that, you know, kind of helped you to become successful because you were successful already kind of with the sports and in the medical school, then hit rock bottom, boom, you're at the you're not nothing again, then went up right to top executive, again, super successful and boom, you started off, you're, you're, you know, into coaching and developing your own brand. And then it's like, you're already in like, almost two and a half, three months now, finding the similar levels of success, like, you know, from, you know, Rock Bottom to top to bottom to top again, almost, essentially, it's like, you know, what's, what decisions did you make? Or if there's one or a couple that, you know, allowed you to propel forward when you were at your lowest of the lows?

Yeah, exactly. And I think the biggest decision that I made or the choices that I make is not running away from my problems from my past from the uncomfortableness and that's something that I learned about going into the cold water every single day was you have to face who you are. And you have to find this discomfort, this comfort zone, and you have to lean into it. And when you lean into it, and go past it, then things start opening up. And you're not afraid to go and do that in in the real world, or in the societal world that we live in. It develops this instinct in you to, to face what challenges aren't right in front of your face. And instead of covering them up, just owning it. And my biggest problem is, was my story, when I was going through my darkest time, the story that I was telling myself was that I was worthless, I was nothing, I couldn't do anything, I'm never going to be successful. And this is it. And I'm done. Right. And when that story started changing to know, I am going to, I'm going to be this I am why not me? I think the the biggest thing is I started asking myself, What if I know David Goggins says this a lot in his stuff. And I think a lot of successful people come to this pivotal moment in their life, where they ask themselves, what if? What if? It's possible for me to do this? What if I did, like I can be successful? What if it all works out? And I started believing in those types of those types of words, instead of believing the story? That was right in front of me? Yes, it's reality, I'm still dealing with a lot of the fallout from the past that the trust and rebuilding those relationships, but that doesn't change my, my focus now of what if I could do more? What if everything works out? What if? What if these big dreams that are in my head, what if I could do them? And then that's where I'm leaning to, and that's where I'm putting my actions is in those, those belief systems? Because if I go into the other side of, you know, the worst case, what if it doesn't work out? Well, now we're thinking, a sense of lack, where it's gonna keep you limited, you're limiting yourself, everything that you're doing is limiting yourself, and what if on the other side is everything is possible. And when everything is possible, like you'll, you'll be surprised on what you can accomplish. And when you have that inner strength to, and that discipline that you that you develop, you know, you'd become kind of fearless, you kind of become kind of bulletproof, to where the peaks and valleys don't matter, right, the success and the failure. Like that's all just a story that we tell ourselves, this is a success. This is a failure, I believe, like whether it was my corporate job, or what I went through in my story. Those are lessons that I learned that make me better for this next, this next phase, this next chapter in my life, because I'm still right rewriting my story. And this next story is all me. And it's I'm like, Just wait and see what I'm going to do. And that's what's going to drive me up is because I don't need to listen to anything else. I don't see my corporate leaving my corporate job as a failure. I see it as I got what I needed from it. And it was time to move on to the next chapter.

I definitely loved a lot of the points you mentioned one of which was like, in my head to use a kind of a metaphor it's like with the whole What if versus the what if it fails mindset. It's like you're on the first floor of a home and what if mindset is you looking up and seeing no roof? And then what if it doesn't work? Is you looking down in a basement and seeing no bottom? It's like a bottomless pit. So it's like you're there. In the first floor is like, which stairs? Do you want to go? You want to go up or you want to go down? Because neither of them ever stopped? It's kind of essentially it was kind of what you're saying with that. What was what if not, I wanted to unpack too, a little bit, because a lot of people that are listening and either starting a journey or a little early on into it. How does one get over that? You know, I guess they're counterintuitive. It's almost like an oxymoron with the, you know, leaning into discomfort, like, I want better for myself. So I'm going to make my life worse for myself in the short term, like, how does one get over that? Because it doesn't really make sense. When you look at it at face value, I'm gonna make my life better by intentionally throwing myself into things that suck, you know? So how does one get over that

you can't think of things that I'm doing this and it's gonna suck, right? It's all about perspective, you have to believe that what you're doing that's uncomfortable is what is you're gonna get a benefit out of it, it's going to propel you into growth, it's going to propel you into motivation and success. Right. So usually, the mindset that you have to take or the the shift you have to start going into is that the things that are fearful that things that are uncomfortable, are the things that are guiding you on to your journey in your path. Those are the hints and those are the the lessons that the universe or whatever you believe is throwing at you and saying you need to do these things. Because once you get past them is everything. But if you keep running away from it, you're not gonna get it. So it's not like this is gonna suck, and I'm gonna get through it. No, no, this is an opportunity. This is an opportunity to, to push past and break through those limitations. And so it's it's seen that, and this was this was shown in a in a Nobel Peace Prize study, right? And all these discomfort, these uncomfortable things are stresses, right? They're stressful to us. And it's the difference between a distress as a stress that's negative and makes us sick and things like that. And you stress, a stress that makes us grow and makes us successful. And the only difference is your willingness to, to experience it. Because with success. Your willingness, your success depends on your willingness to experience the opposite. So the most successful people out there, the entrepreneurs, they're successful, because they were willing to experience what being Baroque felt like. Because when you're going through the successful journey, you're going to feel broke, but in actuality, you're gaining wealth. Right? So when you're working out, you have to feel you have to be willing to feel weak, but you're actually gaining strength. Right? So you have to be willing to experience the opposite of what you're looking after. And that's really uncomfortable. So if you're willing to go into those uncomfortable situations, you just frame shift it into. I might be experiencing this uncomfortableness. But I know that I'm getting this on the other side.

Right? Yeah, that's a good advice. One thing I found myself kind of jokingly, but I also kind of seriously, is that I always say that. I'm rich. And my bank account doesn't show it yet. Exactly. It just, it's just not there yet. But it's come it's on its way. And another thing to kind of pivot back to what you said earlier about the whole, like, idea of writing out the chapters of your life. I feel like we're all authors. And this book of life, I guess. And we're kind of writing the script as to which way you want to take it in a book and has multiple endings. So depending on how you read, like, right, each chapter is where you end up and to continue on the game, David Goggins on, he says, something that I find pretty interesting, is he mentioned that his whole idea is that when he dies, he thinks he thinks that he's going to have like an interview, are not with God, and He wants the interviewer to be like, Hey, this is what you could have been. And when he's at that, you know, that, that interview for, you know, he him to go there and crush, you know, every expectation, that was an issue, like, you know, thought of him to do the things that were impossible and not plan a he wants to push himself that hard. And therefore, I think that's an amazing way to go about, you know, thinking about it as well. It's like, you know, what, if you broke every expectation that, you know, was that was set for you, you know, what, have you ever sought to do this and, you know, you get to the end of the role wherever, you know, you believe you end up and it's like, well, I did so much more than I was either as opposed to a beat that was possible, because I just pushed myself and went that extra mile, I genuinely feel to that, you know, I feel like once you're of age to make conscious decisions, everything else that happens to you in life, from that point on, is on you. And there's no one else to blame.

Going back to that that author analogy. You are the author, you are the director, you are the producer of your story of your script. And if you don't like the way that your show or your movie or your story is going, you have the ability to say cut, I'm rewriting it, right. So a lot of us sit back and we watch our own lives, like, passively and saying, I don't like this is all happening, and I don't like it. And not realizing that you have the ability to stop it at any moment, and rewrite, whatever you want it to redirect to reproduce, and bring something new, bringing in new people bring in new lighting, bring in, you know, all these different things that make up your life, we have the ability to stop it at any moment and change it.

Yeah. And to stick with the, you know, the whole authoring thing, I feel like a lot of people my age, when they break, first enter into the entrepreneurial world, especially when they don't have a mentor or someone to guide them. The story that they're writing is, I have to work every single hour of the day. And, you know, I have to sacrifice everything, and work as much as I can whenever I can, as long as my eyes are open, and if I can't open my eyes take you know, a shot of five hour energy to keep them open a little bit longer and just work work work. And like it's, you know, what's your thoughts that people out there that you know, trying to write that story?

I, a lot of gurus and business coaches out there are gonna get mad at this. But I think mindset is dead. And I think mindset is bullshit. And I think grind culture is bullshit. I think hustle culture is bullshit. Because it's theirs one factor in this whole situation with grind culture, and hustle culture that's actually keeping you from being successful. Because you can change your thoughts all that you want. But if you don't believe in, in what you're doing, and that you are this person, or this, you know, this success or whatever you're doing, like, let's say it's real estate agent, if I'm like, I'm gonna wholesale real estate, and I don't see myself my identity with being a real estate investor. It doesn't matter how much I'm working, because my mind and my beliefs are always going to be in contrast, and it's always going to be limited in you. It's always gonna be like, No, you're not, you're bullshit. Like, you're not this. So why are you doing this, and you're gonna keep working harder and harder, but you're gonna keep denying yourself success, because you don't believe in yourself. And you don't believe that you are that real estate investor, you don't look it, you don't act it you don't, you can fake it all you want. But if you don't believe it in your insight in your core, then you're never going to get there. So before you even go into mindset and grind, you have to have this total belief system into who you are, and what you do, and why you're doing it. Right. And it has to coincide. Because then then everything kind of that it becomes easy, the grind becomes less of a grind.

And yeah, so yeah, definitely, with all the noise, I know, that we have with social media and advertisements and everything and all the pressures that we have, you know, from, you know, family members and friends and society and everything, it's very hard to find time, I believe when you can just sit down and think especially because most people don't practice you know, any form of, you know, breathing or meditation or anything like that. So, a lot of these people are grinding away, and never have the time to, you know, step out of it to even have that awareness to know that their beliefs and their, you know, their hustle and mindset aren't in in unison. So how does one once they already you know, stomp their foot on the gas. You know, how did they you know, find a way to get away from the driver's seat for a quick second are stopped at a stoplight really quickly, to even get the awareness to know that they're not in alignment.

This is all about becoming self aware, self aware of your, your patterns, your behaviors, why you do the things that you do and why you're voiding it 95% of what we do is subconscious. Only 5% of what we do is active, conscious thought and willpower. So we have all the His processes and all these behavior patterns that are keeping us in a direction or keeping us out of doing things out being successful. So taking time to actually write down and understand what you're doing on every minute of the day, and I had this happen to me, and this is this is my reaction to it and, and then kind of looking above yourself looking down on yourself and be like, Why did I make that decision? Why did I have that reaction, and then just being conscious of it, and identifying like, oh, I don't like that, or that wasn't good, or this was keeping me back, then you can start kind of reevaluating, and strategizing to become more efficient in optimizing what you're doing with your life. And you're gonna see, the number one thing that most entrepreneurs and really successful people do is they track every single thing that they do everyday, they everything that they do is intentional. Like they're not doing anything by the seat of their pants. Everything has been mapped out and is pre planned. And now just listen to Rob Dyrdek. And how he optimizes his life. And you know, he has his vision, he, he builds it in his mind, he practices it, he schedules everything out to that half hour. And then if it doesn't work, He just tries to optimize it. Or if it does work, he even optimizes even further, how can I be more efficient. And that's how they're able to do so much in such a small amount of time. So it looks like they're grinding and grinding. Yes, they work very hard, but it's very intentional work. So it's really, it's because they know who they are and who they aren't, what they're good at, and what they're not good at Gary Vee will tell you a list of the things that he sucks. And he's like, I'm just not going to do those things, right. That's why he hires up people. But it's because he's optimizing. And he's gotten to the level where he's able to optimize. So if you just be able, knowing what you're doing in your productivity throughout your day, and in your patterns and your behaviors, and just seeing it for what they are, and then just slowly start optimizing it is going to help you with your productivity, it's going to help you be able to be more efficient with when you're going fast.

Yeah, definitely, I think, something I learned from the other Gary, Gary Keller, founder of Keller Williams, another very successful guy. And he was saying that you have to one of the most six, like core disciplines is like, you have to commit to self mastery and self mastery, whether it is that's like your actual self, but like self mastery in your designated career path. You know, if you commit to being, you know, mastering that, you know, career path, then you have to throw in the Pareto distribution, because within that career, you know, career path, there's things that you have to do. And there's things that you need to do, for example, with real estate, right, you know, the main five things I'm using real estate, because I'm an agent, obviously, is, you know, as you know, lead, generate lead, convert, you know, set appointments, negotiate contracts, and then roleplay are like the five core tasks that every agent needs to do. And then I still got to post on my social media, I still gotta make flyers, I still got to do open houses, and this and that, and stuff like that. But so as you commit to self mastery, you'll get so good at what you do, that people will start to gravitate around you to then leverage out those other things to know because they know that you're so good at what you do that they need you to focus on those few certain things. And they'll handle the rest. That way, you don't have to worry, which then goes into the idea of optimizing that you were talking about. As you commit to self mastery you optimize because you're mastering optimization is part of mastery. And then you become so locked in when you're locked in that the hours you put in, equate to weeks or months that other people put in. And so that allows you to then free up your time because you're did everything that you have to do in such a short amount of time. The rest of the day, you can goof off. I mean you could continue working if you so choose, but you can go golfing go in my case basketball, or you know, football once my ankle heals back up. And so you know, you could do whatever you'd like once you optimize and master whatever craft or career path you end up going down.

And if you if it's that self mastery, that's the most important. It's because most people when they have a goal, and you talk about any successful person, they'll tell you this, that the money isn't the goal. If the money is the goal, you're you're doing it wrong Self Mastery wrong. When you become a master money becomes the byproduct Right, don't make money, the goal, make the goal mastery. And the money becomes the byproduct of that mastery, because you're utilizing all that you're optimizing, you're becoming more efficient, and then it just starts flowing. And it's because you have laid this foundation of skill set and dedication and self discipline. And you're doing these things every single day optimizing them, and then the success becomes the byproduct, not the goal. So goal should always be self mastery.

Yeah, there's another I had the opportunity. There's a author that I had, and one of the mastermind groups that I'm in the guy who hosts the mastermind, he brought an author in, and she was talking about, and he I forget, but they were talking about Africa is how I forget, but they're talking about pretty much successes in a win. Right? And so, um, no, no, when sorry, success is helping others win. That's how I went, there we go. And if you want to become successful, it's you know, how many people you know, can you also help, you know, win in their thing. So back to Gary Keller. He's created two billionaires within his company. And then tons of Millionaire Real Estate Agents, and other millionaires with the entire, you know, company, which is now International, and stuff like that. And he's helped so many people when, that it's obvious why he's a billionaire. And

that, and that all goes back to an old ancient wisdom of the more you give, the more you receive, and it's kind of gets modified a little bit. And to put it into terms that make it more relatable. Money flows, success flows, and it's like a wave, it comes in and it goes out. But the more that you give, the more capacity that you have to create, or that you create, to be able to receive. So the more money that you give out, the more capacity you are able to receive, then you see receive a lot, you push a lot out, and you're able to receive more, you'll see a lot of that of you, the more that you help people, the more that you make other people successful, the more success that you end up getting, you just become a vessel for success and a conduit of it, because it's going to take care of you as well, that's a law of abundance as a law of attraction. But having that flow, and helping people

for sure. There's another like, so growing up, I never was really expressive. I didn't know how to articulate my thoughts as well as I can now. And so one thing I did was added resonated with song lyrics. And one of my favorite lines from Drake, who's also my favorite rapper was, I wish you would learn to love people and use things and not the other way around. And I bring it up while we're talking on this topic, because people hear that oh, the more you give, the more you receive, and then they give for selfish reasons, and that the feast the entire purpose, you do that, and that you know, because the whole you know, receiving things become non void, once you give for the wrong reason, so So you have to also keep that in mind. Yes, you will, you know, the more you get, the more you receive, but then is also how much you're giving. Because once people find out why you gave, so that might rub the wrong people the wrong way. And then everything comes tumbling down. as well.

I forget what book that I read this out over who I was listening to. But the money that you have, isn't actually your money, it's just chosen you to hold on to it for a little bit. Right. So like, if you think about going to the store, and you got some cash in your pocket, that cash was always meant to buy that thing that you needed, right. And it's actually an investment back into everything else into the system into the source. But by utilizing the money and using it as a tool and an energy, then you can kind of start understanding that like this money is going out, but it's gonna come and it's gonna go find some friends, and it's gonna come back into me. And so finding that, that flow of unselfishly don't hold on to it. And that's a big thing that I talked about into in cold water, right, the more control like when you're going into cold water. Yeah, it's freezing. And a lot. A lot of the times when I take people out and I coach people in this, the harder that they fight the cold and try to control the colder that they get in the worst time that they have. And the moment when they realize that when you give away that control, is when all the control comes your body starts shifting and the control comes back into their life. So the more control that you give away, the more control you actually get. And it's the same thing with money. It's the same thing with love. It's the same thing with within relationships in business, the more that you whatever you're seeking, that's what you have to put in the giveaway. And that's what you're going to receive tenfold.

Yeah, there's, um, this. But before we come back to topic, a cold water, there's this one thing I remember from, from philosophy in college while still in before I left. There's one thing that I forget if it's if it's Taoism, or, you know, Buddhist philosophy, but it was pretty much saying that there's four kinds of rulers, right. And the very best rule that you can be, is the ruler from the Chateau that doesn't impose his will, actively, but other people carry out their will and think that they're carrying out their own, but doesn't do an activity. And that's the whole idea of like, in, you know, the less control you try to force onto people, the more control kinda, you actually end up getting, because you let go, and because you like, oil comes back, but like to get back to get back to the water. Because like, I can understand a lot of things but can't understand the idea of Willem de Kooning as a cold water. So, you know, how does one do that I take ice baths before for football, I hated them. Not a pleasant experience. So you know, how does one actually get into water and give up control? Like, how does that make? You know, how's that possible?

And how does it work? And how is it? How's it making our lives better? Right? And yeah, a lot of multitude of reasons why cold water works physical, mental, emotional, but the biggest one that I think is the biggest benefit is that your whole life, how you interact with people, what you're triggered by, is controlled by your nervous system, subconsciously, right? It's you something triggers you, you, it triggers your, your nervous system, you have this emotional response. And then, you know, some people, they yell, they scream, or they get scared, or they retreat. Right, we have these responses. And it's, it's the backbone of our behavior. And what cold water does is that it we can retrain our stress response, consciously. And that's the mental, that's the mental side of it. So the number one cause of, of illness in this in this world that the thing that links everything up, whether it's heart attacks, smoking, addiction, obesity, is relying on one thing, and that's emotional stress. A study just came out and said that emotional stress was the leading cause of cardiac events in the world. And what I do is I put you into a deliberate a wheeling full fight or flight state, a high stress, and I teach you how to adapt to it using breath work. And when you're able to adapt to the stress, your body doesn't know the difference between physical stress and emotional stress. So if you can teach yourself how to adapt to this physical stresses, high physical stress, and then all of a sudden, you come into an emotional stress in your everyday life, it's going to naturally and automatically start to change the way your nervous system reacts to stress, any type of stress. So it says man, it's not magic, like this is backed by science and and with breath work. But it's it's magic. Because all of a sudden, you'd start doing this taking a cold shower every single day. Going into an ice bath every day, you're training yourself with your conscious brain to reprogram an evolutionary subconscious process. That's unheard of. But it's I've seen it change hundreds of people's lives, because they're not reacting to the stress in their life anymore. And when that's the leading cause of everything, you can just extrapolate from that like all the benefits that it can have with anxiety with depression with with with over eating with addiction and recovery. I was I did a big retreat with one of the top addicts addiction and recovery. life coaches out there right now and how use you can use the cold water to help get past it by going and lean into that discomfort. And then you get this multitude of physical effects from it. So you get a 250% increase in dopamine that lasts anywhere from like four to eight hours. Dopamine is the motivating drug. It's the it's helps with happiness with mood You're getting 560% increase in norepinephrine, another I think adrenaline right adrenaline, right? It's but it's the good adrenaline that is used to focus your mind to clarify it to help, it's when people with depression have are lacking. And then this, this adrenaline release actually stops the metabolism in our prefrontal cortex. And it's called transient hypofrontality. Where, when you go into this fight or flight state, your prefrontal cortex, that's where all you're running thoughts, your worry lies, your anxiety lives, your panic lives. And when you when you go into water, it stops that part of your brain instantly. And so, all of a sudden, your mind is clear. And you don't have any racing thoughts. It's like going into the woods and seeing a bear come in front of your face, it's going to eat your face off. And then are you thinking about your mortgage? Are you thinking about your bills? Are you thinking about you know, someone that texting you back in your cell phone or how many followers you have on Tik Tok? No, you're, you're like, there's a goddamn bear in front of me, and I gotta get out of here, right? So it puts you into this force meditative state where you're in the moment. And there you can actually start working, it gets you into a subconscious place where now you can start actually changing these belief patterns. But you're utilizing and optimizing all this physiology in a very short amount of time, to propel you into a new level of, of your life, right to performance up peak state. And that's what I do is I get people into a peak performance state mentally, physically, emotionally, so that they can start rewiring themselves.

So like long story short, you pretty much train superhumans, essentially, like the Captain America movie just got a whole bunch of Captain America's running around.

And that's where he's going is this, this is where it's going. You know, I, I Harry Styles just posted a picture on Instagram of him going in an ice bath In on Tour, like this, this isn't something that is just like a fad. This is it's because it's it's getting people results for mental health, for physical peak performance for mental peak performance for actual artists performance. Like, in a very short amount of time, and people are just doing this all the time. And it's just this is one of the top trending new modalities of wellness, spirituality, and peak performance professionally, to elevate you in, whether it's business or sports or lifting or, or music. So it's, it's it, it puts you into the state.

Yeah, I was gonna ask too, so like what, you know, everything, you sometimes it's better for some people more than others. I know, like for intermittent fasting, I know it's better for you know, men just because of how like physiologically, you know, they're made up or whatever other physiological response to it, I think it has like, better for your metabolism than it is for a woman or something like that. So like for, you know, the Coldwater immersion stuff is there like, you know, benefits that are similar for both men and woman or it's like,

the metabolism is the same for men and women with men, you get a little bit more of the testosterone production, which is beneficial for you know, performance in lifting and just general health, with testosterone. For women in the metabolism, it. What happens is that when you do this consistently, and your body starts being accustom to cold environments, anticipating cold environments, and exposure, it starts shifting your fat production from white and yellow fat into brown fat, which is the brown fats, the baby fat that gets rapidly metabolized to keep you warm, right. So when you do a cold water immersion, you're burning, or it's it's an increase of 350% increase in in metabolism. And that's from that's for anybody. And that was in a study done where they're, they're using people and putting them in ice water for for a prolonged period of time and measuring these processes. And they found that 350% increase in metabolism, and you know, and I tracked it with my aura ring, and it was, I think I burned 120 calories by sitting in the water for five minutes. Rarely, right? And because you have to warm yourself up your body, you're bringing down your core temperature, so it makes sense that your body's now has to heat itself back up so it's starting to burn A lot of calories to try to hit yourself back up. So it makes complete sense of why it's increasing your metabolism. Right?

Yeah, makes a lot of sense. And so, you know, for anyone, you know, they got all this good information. And you know, they're still yet to put it. And they might be a little skeptical, how can I start changing the kind of their outlook and their framework to be more accepting and receptive of disinformation of cold water? You have cold water or just anything in life? Just a urine tight, like overall outlook on life?

Man, that's a that's a good question. I think I think it all determined on a lot of things that I started going to so I say, face it and embrace it, like you have to start looking at your life and your struggle. As it's something that I call the golden decision, right, and I came up with this. I don't know if I came up with this, but it's something that I use, and I just started calling it the golden decision. But basically, we all have one decision that we have to make in life, that we have to learn how to make it life. And because somewhere, sometime in our lives, we are going to be thrown into the furnace of pain and suffering, it's inevitable, it's what's going to happen, we're all going to be going through that at some point in our life. But just like we melt down gold, to purify it, and let the impurities rise up to the surface, when it's burning, we do the same thing with ourselves in our pain or in our struggle and our discomfort. And our hurt is that it's it's this opportunity for all of these things in our past and all of our impurities of ourselves to be coming up to the surface. And what that what you do with the things that come up with the pain and the grief and the emotional stuff that you've repressed the trauma, what you choose to do with that, ultimately determines your future. And the decision that comes in is what I call the golden decision is is you either can ignore it, and blame other people and avoid it with using drugs, alcohol, TV, food, and all that stuff's gonna go right back down. And you're gonna, you're gonna keep the cycle of pain and suffering starting all over again. And you're just going to continue doing that for the rest of your life. Or you can make the choice to become accountable, become a responsibility for those things, those those failures, those mistakes, those flaws in us, and finally, start doing the work to clean out that stuff. Because once he's cleaned it all out, that's when you start to live in this golden reality, this golden life that you envision, and that's full of bliss and joy and peace and love. And that's where that success lies. But we all have to make that decision, are we going to run away from it? Or are we finally going to face it and embrace it and get through it?

Yeah, that's amazing. And so like, I just started kind of getting closer to wrapping up, you know, what's the one call to action you say, for anyone that's kind of listening, anyone in the audience out there that made it here today and what's your, you know, would be your call to action? And then what can I do right now.

I think the big call to action, if you want to get into cold water immersion or breath work is one take set a reminder on your phone twice a day, to just do LSD breathing is long, slow and deep. We all breathe shallow and through our mouths, and it's keeping us activated in the stress level. And we remind ourselves throughout the day, to take long, slow deep breaths, it's really going to start shifting that stress response. And if you're getting into cold water, I'm just gonna give you a few tips on how you can start your morning off amazing by taking a cold shower. And all you have to do is go into a shower, you can start at warm and for the last 30 seconds, I want you to turn it cold and cold enough to where your body's like whoa, that's really cold. And then I just want you to breathe through it for 30 seconds by using a long, slow exhale. So just with pursed lips just and just sit in it and breathe through the discomfort and tell your body you know, do it for 30 seconds, one day, do it for a minute, then the next day, see if you can increase it. But just sitting there until your body starts to kind of relax and calm down and you're gonna feel this huge sense of accomplishment. It's going to put you in a peak activation state. You're going to be more motivated and more capable to going and grinding and putting in that Oregon taking on more stress in your life.

Okay, that's amazing. And I'm definitely going to try this as soon as starting tomorrow. So where can people find you? If anyone wants to get a hold of you, they're super interested in you know, mana find you we'll reach out to you get more involved into what you have to offer, you know, where can they find you and get in touch with you there,

I would go to like and follow at at cold water effect on Instagram, that's where I'm most active. We're doing a complete rehaul with the website, but you can go there as well, www dot cold water effect.com We've got a lot of really cool things coming up. But if you DM me, I get, I get back to everyone who gives me a message if you're interested in learning more. But the things that are coming up are really exciting.

And that's amazing. That will all be in the show notes for anyone that's interested. So if you didn't catch it, you don't have to worry about replaying it is all in the show notes there.

We want to go over some of the things that I that are coming up.

Oh, yeah, yeah, what do you have up in the works?

Right? So I've got a few different things. So I do transformational breath work. We're putting together live virtual breathwork classes where you really get into breathing, and it's an hour long, it's intense, it is filled with music and binaural beats and it really gets you in a deep state of consciousness to look out for that. I'm also taking on clients for coaching right now, for my 45 to thrive a 45 day intensive Coldwater immersion breathwork and one on one coaching from me on how to manifest and create the life that you envisioned in 45 days. And we've seen some amazing results with with musicians and photographers, and business people just just, you know, I had one guy who tripled his income in 45 days is revenue and of his of his business and just getting to these next levels and getting to peak performance. So if you want more information on 45, thrive, contact me. If you just want to have a quick phone call to see if it's good. I'm doing free consultations to see if we can meet up and you can find that all on Instagram, and on the website.

Alright, and now for one of my favorite parts of the interview. The final four questions that we have for every guest that happens to come on to the show. The first one being is what is the most impactful lesson you learned in life

most impactful I think it was it was the other day, I was talking to my buddy who's a venture capitalist and I was kind of struggling, I'm like, I'm never gonna get to this level. And he said, Why not you? Why not you? If you could, that was that changed everything for me and got me to a whole nother level. And I started thinking why not me? Why not me?

And what is the most admirable trait a person can have?

I think accountability and honesty is is that the best one just because they're the ones that I always want to work with. They are the leaders that that take responsibility and accountability for everything that they do in life good and bad. And that's something that I look up to is can you own up to your mistakes? And then I think can you make them better

if you wanted to change someone's life have one book What would you recommend

thinking grow rich

that's my personal favorite book. I haven't read anything that comes close to the like a mine of like mindset shifts and golden nuggets in gyms and that book was like, it's like every sentence was like crafted in gold. Like essentially,

that's a good starting out one. Like there's some there's some ones that go deeper and one that books based off of that I've gotten into that does those are but they're pretty, they're pretty intense. But no thinking grow rich. I think if you can get into that, that mindset, your life will change for sure.

And then the final question that we have for this interview is what is the legacy that you're trying to leave behind?

Man I just got a got a little bit of chills there. The legacy I want to leave behind is If I can leave this world, leaving one person's life for the better, and impacting them to live a happy and fulfilled life, that success for me, that's all I need. And if I can just change one person's life, how I made them feel, and how they treat others. That's it.

That is an amazing legacy to leave behind. Paul, it was a wonderful time on the show, I'm super glad to have gotten you on and I'm super glad that I was able to get in touch with you and you were able to make it. And, you know, I've know the viewers are gonna take away a ton. I know I did. A lot of especially once you got into the nuts and bolts of it, we started to get into, you know, the actual, like, you know, like, the scientific II stuff out, it's like, oh, shoot brain was just getting blown away. So I'm definitely gonna have to rewatch this episode, myself. Because there's some ways you throw around like the neuro epinephrine and all this other stuff that you were kind of losing me a little bit because it was just like so in depth and like, good. I'm definitely have to go back and rewatch it.

I appreciate you having me on here. And yeah, check out the stuff that I have it kind of I got resources for you to get some more scientific and I'm an I'm a big science and medicine nerd. So I like I like hacking. That's that's so yeah, but I appreciate you having me on here. This was a blast. And I'm excited. All right. See you soon, man. All right. See, I thank you.

Thank you guys for tuning into today's episode. Again. I'm your host, John Mendez. You can find me at John Mendez underscore realtor and at walk to wealth on Instagram. Please make sure to subscribe and leave a review. If you're loving the podcast so far. New episodes are released every Sunday. I look forward to seeing you guys on next episode. Take care