Discomfort Zone: Cold Therapy for Emotional Resilience: Full Transcript

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the cold is one of the greatest surrendering tools that are out there it will get you to surrender or you'll just stop doing it how do you get your heart rate down how do you calm yourself into this experience there's no other option there CU it'll ruin your immune system it'll ruin your nervous system Ryan dwey is the co-founder and CEO of plunge generating over $ 100 million in Revenue

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the number of people that have gotten into cold water we've expanded into the sauna space and what that's doing for people yeah yeah so man I could put uh there's like business culture uh internal business they're all different things but when you founded Capital floats there's no way this was online for you you had no freaking idea that this was going to blow it wasn't like you were trying to hop on a trend and be

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on our app we see how often people are plunging we know how many commercial plunges are out there and what they're facilitating a day so it's is it a perfect number are we off by you know you if you're close that's a hell of a lot of people it's I think it's even conservative so across the world so like literally every continent people are plunging uh yeah I mean there's almost yeah and that's I'm talking our physical

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movements start out really pure and really awesome I don't think people are inherently evil maybe a fraction of a percentage but then when I think about technology giving people the tools it also takes away their capacity of choice because their prefrontal cortex gets shut down and they're just trying to escape a marriage or a life they hate so therefore they sit online and consume

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kind of I'm going to talk about it and he's like kind of engaging his community and they're all talking about Muscle Recovery and there's a lot of like opinions about Muscle Recovery and Cal plunging all when you should do it should you do it before you work out should you do it two hours after whatever it's kind of to me getting we're getting lost in the sauce there I am so excited for him because I will

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I'd be curious I I am curious obviously cold plunge is a big one what are other things that you stack your day on right yeah okay well we're going to pingpong this one man CU this is fun like when I so from what I know of you you have a connection to God right and it may not be a bearded guy in the sky it's not like it's a different version of Ryan up there with a beard like you have a connection to a higher power yes of some

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in sweat I got all the blood to my skin then I go on the cold plunge because that's giving me all that lymphatic drainage it's just pushing it's shunting all that blood to my internal organs and when I'm in the plunge I can actually feel my breath cooling as I breathe it out it's such a trip you guys if you've never cold plunge before like this is your invitation because it's not just a biohacking thing then what I do is

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what that momentum is first how you feel yeah second like mostly how you feel and then what you do afterward is going to be like you're going to smile you're going to laugh you're going to be more focused you're going to have energy it puts into the Forefront what is the most important thing like when I get out of a cold plunge things that I went in with um I'm being resentful I'm frustrated I'm I'm annoyed like all

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you know mark from Georgia is getting his unit and I like I'll go out and I'll visualize like oh Mark's gonna get a cold plunge and then you know it's like you describing your morning I will go create that into oh Mark's gonna do his men's groups now and he's gonna have the cold plunge there yeah and he's gonna have some guy then that third degree Ripple of Mark's friend that was struggling with his like that's when I

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have to be honest with yourself like the like there's no better that's why I love capitalism the market is so brutally honest and there are very few things in this world that are that brutally honest and the scoreboard shows that into how you do as a company what the world says about you have we done it perfect absolutely not we've improved had to get honest feedback critical feedback had to make adjustments but I think business

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do them all you're going to meet yourself in all of them totally and I think they each one will show its own maybe a different lens for you to look at it through that can be the right way for me to receive it like sometimes my partner might be giving me this feedback but I'm not willing to receive it from her yeah but business like you said it shows up and it it's the same thing but I'm not oh I'm willing to be on like

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would you plug into that when we look at mental health and and really moving the needle not just like hearsay or what you think might happen like 45 million people is a big database that's a lot of people plunging what else what what else what's one more thing you'd put into that I mean this one's a lot more complicated to get to and it takes a deeper dive but I've really especially over the last probably year yeah two

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in Spain I moved back to the US and got involved in Major League Soccer cuz I thought that was my purpose and that's what it was it got me out of bed every day and I wanted to go create this sport that I thought was a startup in the United States of bringing people together of all backgrounds and celebrating and cheering and hugg like that was at that point in my life that was the thing then floating became oh

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life come from either one actually all three but there's some kind of mysterious we're going to go deep man cuz I like to go deep there's some kind of mysterious God element or karmic element or even dharmic element that make people like yourself or anybody else in those other two lanes whether you have a parent that supports you that wants you to get a safe job or that doesn't care

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a belonging toward something and love like truly like I am loved like I am my parents left me the end of the day the world comes down my I my parents love me like I to me that's the RO like if I you were infused those things like that's the rocket fuel where it becomes I think it's still so much to be like life is messy life is unknown life is complicated it could be a lot of different things I just think if you

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it hadn't aired yet cuz it aired later in Spring of 22 I mean I was very nervous I also prepared I felt put on a lot of preparation for it I also felt again goes back to some confidence that I had like you you've put in the work to get here like yeah plunge is what's on the main stage but like you've done other businesses you've grinded you've you felt like you've been an entrepreneur like you've you know I was

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was a Tony Robbins move yeah yeah Unleash the Power I've yet to go to one of those I I love all these conferences because they're doing exactly what you and I are saying man they're bringing people physically together totally and see this is the part to Circle back to mental health this is the part about mental health that really gets to be known depression and anxiety cannot be healed in

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come I've entered community and been the Newbie and been very uncomfortable and if people weren't kind to me I probably would have left and so it's like just us you know probably a lot of healthy spiritually fit people here like your community when you see a newbie there it's like your it's your responsibility to Shepherd them in and at least let them feel comfortable enough to stay there this is great I don't know if you

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like what you do behind closed doors it's it's a great tool for I think for men like we're talking about men cold plunging it's like men we haven't developed how to surrender very well in our life that's more of a woman like women have developed that over time in a better way than we have and cold plunging like you said these tough guys that wanna the tough guy video of like I'm gonna suffer

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big win for you there's a win there but we're talking consistently you have this at your house you're doing this every single day you anyone that does it consistently you want to know how I know they do it consistently they don't tell you how long or what their temperature is because it's not important anymore because it's their own personal Journey it's when someone that's just did it you

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up and actually be inspiring to someone else like I I talked to you I was asking you about your relationship like I like to go deep whatever that's who I am I don't shy away from it because I want to feel somebody's essence you how are they managing all the five sides of themselves because then I can really trust the advice they give yeah and so when I talk to you and I ask you questions okay here's a fit man he's in

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morning my neck and body were so bad like just from stress and not doing the tools you know I'm opening this holistic health spiritual Wellness Center and I'm not doing anything that goes a part of it I was giving off smells of my body that my family was like dude and I'm like I wearing deodorant and it was just like stress mechanism beyond belief so that was a time that was like you know once that business opened I went full

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for me it's as it's like did I like did the wind stop me in my tracks you know something like that where it's like oh man like do I have enough of those signals showing up have I cried recently like those are kind of things that and again maybe I'm over indexing laughing or something you know but like am I checking in with those am I feeling like that stuff that's I guess my barometer is it like a true framework like

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a it's just like an honesty to what the moment's calling for yes and this this feels like maturity it feels like maturity and it can only be lived through life experience like no knock to Young 20-year - olds I was one once remember those days man your early 20s uh I look at a lot of that generation and there's some really cool um markers of improvement like I don't know if you've seen the research about um young

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meaningful and replace it with something so loving like a cold plune or a walk I wonder if you've had these conversations in your circles there's I mean you're in a lot of events you have 45 million people that have done C this conversation has to have come up for you the Habit change from something that hurts to something that heals yeah I think cold plunging first you got to make the

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myself get in the environments that you think you just where you want to be don't think you deserve to be there don't like that is it the only goal is just being can you get in that environment and be of some value to that environment it will all take care of itself we are creatures of habit We rise up to the level or sink down to the level that we are around that's just how it works like none of us you can be a

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have a saying in the like that's the [__] that fires me up and just gets like you know but to see those families they're clear that that we are we're making and they did a lot of work those families to get to a spot where they're ready to make that type of commitment well I want to talk to the other side of the coin because everything you're saying to me makes perfect sense I mean look I came from welfare which means

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you how's your heart how's your body then in my trusted space to share with you how I'm feeling oh my God how many different life changes could come from just that one question yet we're so scared to ask it it's so simple how you feeling yep it's so simple yet we shy away from it because to ask the question means we would have to ask it to ourselves yeah we have to ask it to ourselves we have to be comfortable with

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is but that's doesn't exist and as you get you know I think as experience comes you oh this can be so many different things but if you're just on like kind of grew up in like a default normal boredom anger like these are just your that's a normal thing that's how like that's what it is when someone you can accept like oh this is uh I don't have to feel this way like that's just a that that's what I'm

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2030 it's this question like you said of Truth and I love it because when the real truth comes it can be hard to feel and hard to hear but the the way that traditional like K through 12 happens is that you spend your entire day doing stuff disconnecting you from how you feel you just do it because you need to get an A + because you have to go to this iy leak school so that your mom and dad are happy so that one day you'll be a

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of that do you see this happening what I'm creating right here I mean this is the world that I would want my so my partner she she is a the it's a guide at an alternative school it's called Acton it's actually launched out of Austin here they're one of the I think hundreds of locations around the country now so we're very like it's life we don't have kids but we you know this is this alternative pathway in education

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years from now like looking at first the structures and you know new operation systems that come but also what is the fruit of this you know like what is these brand new humans that are going through a whole new way of developing as a younger human like what we you know what's the human potential that's the greatest asset we have what what do we build as a world from there pretty exciting so how long has she been doing

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okay there's a process it's the exciting thing in entrepreneurship there's a process broken in education right now we're all pretty clear on that the greatest stuff gets invented during those moments when people especially if you take something like a child and a parent investing in their child like there's no bigger energy that comes from it it's like what is education going to become the system's

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said these are the moments where the coolest stuff happens coolest stuff right in the most crunchy uncomfortable what the [__] do we do next totally it's going to take a lot of responsibility you know you're going to have to the way that we were thought it was going to be or how the world we thought was going to look a certain way like that's evolving and changing and this is like the moments like you know it's where to be

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Plunge in every high school in America and have that be an emotional intelligence course and a sematic course the reason that you probably haven't been able to do that is because the Department of Education in my opinion and the systems that are here want people to be order takers and cogs and wheels once you start getting people in their bodies young kids in their bodies The Narrative shifts completely and the

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person is like one of the things that gives me the most inspiration and hope love what he's up to but that's like a model that we're building he actually saw it from the Forefront of like oh I'm not here to like get my kids to recover better so they can train more it was literally no this is an emotional intelligence tool an emotional regulation tool that's a huge front you talk about like

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see my dad do it eventually they're probably going to start joining you at some point and you know it's like that is you talk about that's how you can get in front of habit stacking where it's like you don't have to go break the chains it's just like oh this is put in from day one that that that's another one of those exciting ones of like that neural wiring of whatever that looks like and what that you know who your

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practical for young kids and families that are financially strapped and the way I think we do this is by taking all the subsidization that's happening like I don't know if you're aware of this but Lunchables craft hes just got pulled from schools did you hear about this I I didn't hear that specifically no listen so people y'all are hearing this in 2025 but last year in 2024 um craft hindes realized that because of consumer

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the money it's so simple in my mind right it's so simple if I I do think there is that opportunity from the educ because the dollars are like you said the dollars are there're they're being spent it's like you talked about let's excuse act in there is a private school parents you have to pay to be in it but every we pay tax dollars for our kids to go to public like there are dollars that Associated per kid I pay taxes for kids

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and Whole Foods that's not the conversation I'm wanting to have what I'm saying is to piggy back on your comment earlier about how you are a proponent of capitalism I think people have been so wounded because capitalism has been used in a way that really was just a win or take all type thing what I'm talking about is meritocracy and that's what vaynerchuck talks about a lot again I'm not claiming that the

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is brutal like there it's like nature that's what attracts me to it like the lion don't care if as us sitting there that's a cute creature and it rips the head off of the gazelle like there's no emotion attached to that like that is the market is that to its own degree and so I think there's something I really respect and I think is beautiful about that it's very Universal to me like that that makes

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ground you didn't necessarily walk that path but still coming from floating going into plunge and scaling and growing there had to have been so many opportunities where you could have said we'll cut some Corners here I'll sacrifice my Integrity there nobody's going to know except for me when I put my head on the pillow you know those moments of of solitude and truth that only we have in silence

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someone it's like we're not cutting a corner but when we like have that core value that we can like put in the middle of the table and we all can be very honest to it and there's different levels of how that comes to us but if we could all say we're doing the right thing right now this is a win-win for everyone that's involved you know makes makes the decision - making a lot easier yeah so

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thought through but again we just have a process that can take out of because sometimes business you got to make some hard badass decisions that you that voice can show up and be like dude just cut this little corner right here yeah that's exactly what I'm asking and and to me it's again I'm human anything that we've seen another human do I am fully capable of doing that I'm not above that no one is and I don't care what any we

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than you were 5 minutes ago definitely 15 years ago you were a different guy for sure totally so the way in which we can check in on this is actually really beneficial and I think God Universe brings us challenges to make us check in what's been the biggest challenge in growing plunge where you really had to check in and go huh we're going to change and here's why and here's the new value what's one of those moments for

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chance to be anonymous give feedback and we get our scoring and then I go through with our head of HR and people in culture I do monthly department head meetings on everyone's scor where your department stacked up the good the bad the ugly really it's no one's in trouble we're just trying to understand like how do we get better but I do this with our p & l I sit down with every department head to go over your budget you see

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a business have transferred to you and your lady yeah in certain ways it has I think we're we're like really good it's funny we've spent like a year we haven't got them down yet we're really trying to develop our values and we have like this list but we haven't gotten our core values as a family yet um so it's a process we're in right now

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interesting right in roommate situations or definitely in intimacy because you really get to know somebody by you know Seth Goden one of my favorite quotes he goes you don't know if you can work with somebody until you work with them yep yep and it's so true it's like really slow to hire and then very quick to fire yep because people are always showing you through their behavior who they are yep and I find that in Intimate

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then am I the best at going d z i I haven't seen that in my life yet I'm I'm good at A to B couple steps into the journey but then there's people that can like we that are way better operators in me that can you know take something even bigger plunge has been enough of a space that I can go scratch my itch on all the things that has kept me in the game of working on this still with a focus and tenacity

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that conversation I can guarantee you the company will be successful we go be value in that conversation it will all work out so I get focused there um I get focused around you know product development and what we get a release there and change and becoming the biggest contrast company in the world and focusing on these kind of ancient rituals with modern technology and how do we bring that to the Forefront of

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cunch company yeah so those were the starting spots like very quickly that becomes life gets real business is growing yeah business is things are coming at you quick customers you got a service employees you need to hire systems you need to build growth I've got to speed up my growth process to keep this on the rails you know that that was all through this journey to now what is

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have to go rip all this up and go you know I had no money I had to go find people to give me money I like it wasn't like it was just like that was the greatest challenge because there was no momentum in my life to go be an entrepreneur and you know plunge of what we've solved and the challenges we faced are probably anyone would look on paper that they were so much more than what it was to

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my last leg getting that thing open so it's the starting of the snowball is the hardest it's it's starting momentum like I think it's stepen cvy he has the flywheel effect starting the flywheel is the hardest part but once it's in momentum it becomes easier and people look at you and go oh well he's spinning that flywheel so easily he's 45 million people doing plunges like that's so easy but they don't know the capital floats

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to hot and cold therapy so your first question what like biologically what's surprised you like whether it's the aspects of brown fat or metabolism what scientifically biologically has fascinated you the most and then also just as a soul as a spiritual being what's fascinated you the most about this entire preventative care hot cold therapy world like there's just fundamental truths that I think are out

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cocktail and that energy lift like it's one of my best feeling I didn't foresee that going to our events when we're bringing people together and we're C plunging son like it's one of my favorite things in the world like it's there's very few things that I've felt like this is what it's all about and so you know what the science is there I'm sure huberman can let us know of what that means on a you know connection

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yourself that's at the core of everything we've talked about today how do we love ourselves more what are the practices and things that we can do to actually be that loving person and lovable and how do we do it in a way where it's fun that's that's what lights you up that's what lights us up is being in community around the fire doing stuff together that's why my team and I had such an amazing time in our Retreat