Modern recovery is crowded with promises. The useful practices are usually quieter: breathe with attention, meet heat or cold with respect, and let the nervous system learn from a clear signal.
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Our business has never been ice baths. We've never done an ice bath workshop. The cold is part of the methodology. The breath work, the ice bath, the mindset training, these are all ways to allow us to control our nervous system. So, that's the whole goal of the Wim Hof method. Dunking the head while your body is [music] in the ice bath and holding your breath doesn't give any additional benefits. It's just pure risk. It's actually the initial cold shock which then triggers the benefits and gives all the health benefits people talk about. In terms of a business, it's probably the worst type of business because we're training people who don't need to ever [music] come back to us again. And so, then if they never come back and they go somewhere else or they do it at home, they know how to do it safely. But, also people come back for the aspect of the community. All right. So, I am here with the founder of Breath Inspired, Stuart Wilson. Thank you so much for joining me. Yeah. So, I understand Stu that you are the first and only level two officially certified Wim Hof instructor in Thailand. Is that correct? That's one of the things, yeah. So, that's a big deal. Uh I guess it's all it's called advanced instructor now. I used to be the only one. Can't say that anymore. My wife, Kam, is also an instructor. That is a certification and qualification in one specific modality, what we teach. Well, let's dig deeper into that. First, let's give a kind of introduction about like Breath Inspired. Yeah. Right? You're the co-founder along with your wife, Kam. Yeah. Right? But, just give a brief introduction. What is Breath Inspired? What is it all about? What What does this company do? So, Breath Inspired is an organization, our organization, where we offer science-backed breath work protocols, retreats, training, uh experiences to enhance health, well-being. Good explanation. Um well, so this brings up I think why I invited you onto the podcast. I've seen Breath Inspired, I've
podcast. I've seen Breath Inspired, I've seen you uh all over the place over the last few years since I've been here, right? I'd actually been really interested in uh cold water immersion and ice bat baths and whatnot, but I realized that I only was kind of hitting the tip of the iceberg. I really didn't uh understand what it is that you did. So, the first thing you mentioned, you focused on breath work. And can you give an explanation of that? Like, what's the difference between just going to an ice bath Mhm. versus understanding breath work? Yeah. Um thing is, the um cold water immersion, contrast therapy, or ice baths, that's been practiced for hundreds if not thousands of years. You know, it's popular in Scandinavian countries. Wim Hof was the one who popularized it, modern um and you know, brought it to the forefront in modern times. The Wim Hof method also contains a breathing protocol to simplify it, allows the cold water immersion or the ice bathing or cold exposure, it allows you to get more benefits from just doing an ice bath on its own. What we teach with the method is that we teach people how to do uh ice bathing, cold water immersion correctly, safely, and to get the maximum benefit. So, yeah, even if you've never done the training before and you go to places doing ice bath and cold water immersion, you're going to get some benefits, but there's ways to enhance that. Yeah, that's what we teach, yeah, and that's was very eye-opening to me, to be honest. I really did not understand the connection between breath work and an ice bath. Is that typical? Uh it is, but I think it's uh you've got to make the distinction of like breath work and then ice bath. When you do cold water immersion or an ice bath, you have to control your breathing, you know, one for safety and to be able to go in the cold correctly. Uh so, there's breath control while you're in the ice. I don't like to call that breath work because people tend to think that you should be hyperventilating or doing these
hyperventilating or doing these uh weird techniques in the water, which you know from doing the training, you don't do that. In the ice, we breathe controlled and steady. The breath work side of it is what we do lying down in the classroom. And then, the studies show that when you do the Wim Hof breathing technique and then go in in the ice, you get more benefits from just going in the cold separately. It works synergistic together. However, you can still do an ice bath like you were doing and notice benefits like um lower inflammation and you found that it also helped you to de-stress. But, when we teach uh the Wim Hof method and the other things we do, we really dive deep into what's actually going on in the body, what's going on in the mind, and how breathing protocols, breathing techniques can enhance that. Mhm. Well, let's rewind a little bit cuz I think we're going to dig deeper into the science, but I actually want to talk more about your background because this is not something you've been doing uh from the start. I I want to talk about that contrast between what you were doing before and how you actually got into this industry. Can you explain that background? Yeah. So, to keep it simple, I was working in the financial industry. I've been working in it for many years. So, I guess you would call it a high-stress career. But, I didn't think that was bad. I'm a stress head anyway. I love it. I was bald by the age of 18. That gives you some idea of how much of a stress head I am. I get drawn to stressful things. I'm a skydiver. I've done hundreds of skydives. Pretty extreme sports. Um snow boarding, done the biggest wing jumps in the world, traveled the world doing that. So, I like that high adrenaline stress environment. But, what happened was it was not a To To be clear, I didn't really understand what was happening, but looking back, I now know it was burnout. So, I'm living in Dubai and from the outside it looks like I have an amazing lifestyle, great career, doing cool stuff. But, then I realized
But, then I realized I actually didn't feel any happier doing this uh than I as opposed to when I was a university student and had no money. I quit my job, took a break from my job, went traveling. And so, I'm 49 years old now. This is when I was 34, 35. And I heard about ayahuasca. And the reason it appealed to me, I didn't know anything about it, was a podcast I listened to. They were talking about how it can help people with um mental problems or such. And I assumed that was my issue. And so, I went down that route. Wow. So, this ayahuasca, it I mean, ex - explain that to people that haven't experienced it. What was that first experience like for you? Yeah. Okay. So, before I talk about my experience, just know that ayahuasca, a plant medicine, it's a brew that comes from the Amazon jungle and it's got really popular and well-known now. But, I would like to say it's a tool, it's a modality which has its place. Uh for me, it was a good tool to get the ball rolling, but for others it might not be. And I also want to make it clear, it wasn't ayahuasca that fixed anything. I'll explain that in a moment. So, I went to the Amazon jungle. What the whole process did for me doing these ayahuasca ceremonies was it didn't fix a problem, it just allowed me to realize the gap that was already there. And the gap for me where was losing I lost somehow lost connection with how I truly feel. So, yeah, I achieved a lot financially and I guess successful in business, whatever, had a cool lifestyle. But, in the pursuit of that, I lost really what made me feel happy and joy and give me the, you know, the passion. But, for me, the ayahuasca experience really did have a powerful powerful effect. Okay. And then, how does that then relate to what you're doing today? Yeah. So, because
you're doing today? Yeah. So, because and I I understood then that um I had this this gap. And by the way, I did five ayahuasca ceremonies. Apparently, that's a lot. I had no idea at the time. Never taken psychedelics. Never really knew much about it all. Never done meditation. So, I didn't really understand that type of thing, what was going on. But, in the whole experience in the group and the facilitators and the shamans, you know, they sort of help you to uh process everything. So, I remember saying to the group, "How can I maintain this like open-mindedness?" And to to put it in a simple way, for me, the whole ceremonies and the time in the jungle was like an emotional reset, emotional and mental reset. So, it gave me clarity on my mind. It put things in order. So, when I was mentioning to the group, "How can I maintain this when I go back to my normal life?" I think it's highly illegal to be drinking ayahuasca every weekend in Dubai or whatever. And you don't want to drink that, right? So, it was one of the uh participants there who's a friend. He said, "Why don't you not do the Wim Hof method and breath work and things?" And that sort of appealed to me straight away because of my extreme sports background. And I thought Wim Hof was a stunt man. I didn't really know much. And I thought, "Well, that appeals to me, you know, it seems stressful. I'm in." So, I um So, that's when I got into and signed up and went on the first Wim Hof method winter expedition in Poland. Wow. So, what was that first experience for you there? Yeah. To be honest, when I got there and I think day one we went in out in the snow in bare feet and then we got in the freezing river. I was thinking, "What the hell am I doing?" You know, I've gone from one extreme to the other and and I didn't really understand it. But, what what happened was when we did the first breath work session with Wim, and it was only a
session with Wim, and it was only a short session, maybe 25 minutes. I remember coming around from that thinking, "Oh my god, this has that same for me that has the same sort of reset type feeling that I got from the plant medicine." And it appealed to me because it was me doing it. You know, I didn't rely on anyone else to give me something. It wasn't an external substance. It wasn't an external thing getting done to me. It was me generating that. So, that's what sent me down the path. Not seeking out more experiences. What sent me down the path was trying to understand more of why breathing exercises or breathing certain ways can have these very powerful effects mentally and physically. Mhm. Well, I think when you mention Ayahuasca and breath work, I do think some people think woo-woo. Some people think fad, right? Especially the ice bath portion, right? It's like, "Oh, that's just a fad. A bunch of Silicon Valley guys are taking Ayahuasca or buying an ice bath for their office." Is it a fad? Well, when I first did Ayahuasca and I was telling my family and friends what I'm doing, my brother thought I'd gone lost my mind because I mean, now we know a lot about it and there's documentaries coming out explaining how we, you know, what it's actually doing to us. But back then, there wasn't really much talk about it. So, yeah, I think it just started getting talked a lot about, you know, in Silicon Valley and things like that. So, there was like blogs popping up. So, all I know for me, it really worked to discover something internally. Then when I got into breath work, exactly. That's exactly I've always avoided spiritual stuff or retreats and yoga retreats. My wife's a yoga teacher. I've always avoided that because I just thought it was all woo-woo. And what I liked about Wim Hof method
And what I liked about Wim Hof method was it science-backed and it had a bunch of science studies with Wim Hof already. And since been practicing it and teaching it more and more scientists coming out. I mean, Andrew Huberman is talking a lot about the benefits of breath work and cold exposure and things like that. So, it did appeal, it did seem woo-woo, but that's one of the reasons I wanted to learn it because my goal was to teach people like me who would never do this stuff. You know, who think it's woo-woo. And that And that's one of the reasons we teach it in the way we do as well. Yeah, so there is a part of the workshop cuz again, full transparency, I came to a workshop and like I said before, it was not at all what I expected. A part of that workshop, if you don't mind divulging this, but there was a portion that you talked about kind of the sine waves or the wavelengths where people live, right? And I think that you were saying you're on that high end where it's not the high frequency, but it's essentially on the higher end of the spectrum where it's high stress that you're then used to. Mhm. And there's people on the very low end of the spectrum that are more like maybe they're depressed, right? And they don't have that high frequency of going from highs to lows. Maybe they're staying within that wavelength almost. And I'm curious if you can explain that a little bit more cuz I didn't do a great job explaining it, but where were you on that spectrum? And then, you know, how is that different than some other individuals? Yeah, so that part of the presentation was something I researched and added it to the whole workshop book which we took you through. Basically, we have a bandwidth. We have a window of tolerance how much stress we can handle in a day. And everyone's different. People talk about de-stressing and, you know, stress is all bad, but we need both sides. So, stress, you can think of it as sympathetic sympathetic uh part of your nervous system which is action, stress, whatever you want to call it. And then the parasympathetic side is the relaxing, the down regulation. A healthy person should be able to move between the two.
should be able to move between the two. So, when you wake up in the morning, you're in a a relaxed state, parasympathetic state, but if you've got to get up and get your kids, you don't want to stay in a You want to get your kids ready for school. You don't want to stay in a parasympathetic state. You want to move into action. So, our nervous system moves towards stress. But then, we need the ability to move back. What a lot of entrepreneurs, business people like you teach, come across, they are constantly in this sympathetic dominant state. So, they're always in an action state which does allow us to achieve a lot. We can have goals, you know, we can do a lot of things. But if we stay up there too long, so we stay in the sympathetic dominant state, what happens? You lose the ability to then come back down into the parasympathetic state. What that means in practical terms is you end up working, pushing yourself, achieving a lot, but if you stay there in You are saying talks about this and how the brain works. Then you never shift down regulate into a parasympathetic state and that state is when we feel the joys of our labor. You know, so you can push, but then you lose sort of track what you're doing it for. You know? So, this is why it's talked a lot about in Silicon Valley and tech industries because they figured that out. You know, you need to be able to shift states. And actually doing so, there's a lot of neuroscience talk now that stepping back from this drive and trying to achieve things and goals actually give you a wider perspective of your problems or your issues or the things you want to achieve. And then when you go back into that state, you're more aligned with what you truly wanted want to do. So, that understanding of the shift between stress or sympathetic and then coming down into parasympathetic state, a healthy nervous system is being able to to on demand shift in them states. So, I know you're You've got a a little kids.
know you're You've got a a little kids. Maybe not you, but I know many other people when they're with their kid, they're always thinking about work. When they're with their family, they think about work. And when they're working, they're working hard, but they think they wish they were there the child or the family. We want to be able to do that on demand. And what really appealed to me with the breath work is it's trainable. We can train our nervous system to do that. And who doesn't want to be able to work hard and achieve a lot, but also without sacrificing things they're working hard for like family and friends and just general health. Mhm. That makes sense. Yeah, it does. I And I'll again, I'll reinforce that what you described as always being on, that's definitely what I fell into. And I have a couple young children and I try to be very present for them when I'm with them, but to your point, what you just described, I am always on and there's this feeling of never slow down, right? You make some momentum, you want to keep going and there's never a pause. And I realized that when it comes to emotion, you know, I'm not very emotional. It's what's the next thing I have to do? What's the next thing? And it It's like you're on this flywheel. Just like, you know, in entrepreneurship, you almost want to get out of the the being a cog in a machine. So, you say I'm going to do my own thing, but then you create your own machine and then you're always working on the next iteration of that machine. And so, there's just not an off button. There's not a pause. There's not a get perspective. Yeah. And I think some people might, to your point, everyone's different and some people might be able to take a nice holiday. Yeah. But yeah, even when I take holidays, every time that I'm on holiday, I'm thinking about, "Oh my gosh, I need to integrate that into my business." Or, "Oh my gosh, I need to talk to somebody about that." And But when I actually did the breath work, that was the first I had to have been years that I felt the emotion that I felt. I It was mind-blowing to me that that's something that you can do yourself. Yeah. Right? It's something to your point that it's in your control. You don't need to take a drug. Yeah. You don't need to take something from the outside. I've always been
from the outside. I've always been against the whole, "Do I need a cigarette to survive? Do I need a, you know, a vape? Do I need a a pill?" I've always disliked that because you're now dependent on something. But the idea that you can do something in your own home, yourself, without an expense, Yeah. it's incredible, yeah, right? Exactly. And I I And that's what hooked me. In terms of a business, it's probably the worst type of business because we're training people who don't need to ever come back to us again. Which I think that's great. And I I could talk later about what things we do offer which people rejoin us off. But that was the whole idea. Can I teach something that people can take away as a tool was going to enhance their life. Not only enhance their own life, but people around them. So, what you're talking about having goals and achievements you're always on. We know from neurosciences been talked a lot about. We have regions of our brains or more specifically networks. And one of them is called the default mode network. The default mode Have you ever heard of this? I haven't. So, the default mode network is we need it. It becomes more active when we're daydreaming. Or more specifically, it becomes more active when we're planning. Or we are Another term used is running simulations of what life is or what the future's going to be and what it means. So, you self-referencing and things like that. It's great for business because when you've got time, you might just sit down or you're on in a taxi or on the train or whatever. You sit back and you start thinking, "Okay, I'm going to have this meeting. I've got this idea then I'm going to get back to the office and do this." So, you're running simulations of life. That really helps to achieve goals, but it's not living life. It's running simulations of life. And then what happens, you can get stuck there. So that's how people achieve a lot because networks of the brain are always on. Studies show that people who meditate uh
Studies show that people who meditate uh or do other types of modalities, what actually happens is the default mode network quietens and that's when they feel the joys of all the hard work. With breathwork, it's it's another modality which is very fast-acting which allows people to shift state quickly. However, some people can do that through meditation. My my wife can. You know, she you know, was she's Buddhist and she can meditate for hours, no problem. But a lot of people can't and a lot of different types of people can't, especially in the business industry, business world, entrepreneurship. People are constantly on, default network's on. So then they lose connection to actually the here and now and the whole reason they're doing it. And also, one of the things I learned from researching and doing all these qualifications was what's really interesting is empathy for others is determined by your depth of feeling. So in other words, if you're always in this default mode network and you're always running simulations and then effectively use lose connection to your own emotional state, you can't have empathy for others or you have less empathy for others because you're not allowing yourself to feel this depth of um emotions. Does that make sense? I mean, there's some wild studies where the they were looking at women who had Botox. And what they did from the studies was discover that when you have Botox, especially around the eye region, because that person can't make these micro muscle uh movements to mirror someone else's emotions, they have less empathy. That reminds me a lot of how I've heard if you want to be happy, you have to smile because there's that level of it's something comes from that, right? Your body feels it and you are now more likely to stay happy. It's it's really hard to stay angry if you force yourself to smile. And so when you're
yourself to smile. And so when you're mentioning these these micro eye movements, it sounds similar to that. Yeah. I mean, Tony Robbins talks about this all the time. He says you know, he talks about how in his talks, a depressed person comes over in a slouch chair and they're like, "Tony, I'm so depressed." And the first thing he tells them is to stand up straight, shoulders back, look up and smile. And then, do you feel more or less depressed cuz your physical body will feed back into your nervous system and determine your emotional state. So all these things uh are tools and ways we can change our state into what we want to what how we want to be. But the first thing is knowing what state you're in. And some people are in this sympathetic dominant state too long that they even don't know they're stressed. Chronic stress. And we know from studies that that can lead to um physical uh ailments and health issues. That's where the ice bath comes in cuz the ice bath really makes you know what stress is. And then we learn how to then control our response through the training that we do in the workshop, which you've already been to. So that definitely brings me to the business cuz I want to learn more about how you made the transition cuz based on what you shared, you experienced this. And then you wanted to make sure others could experience what you experienced and that turned into a business. But you also alluded to the fact that it's not the best business when it comes to profit because it's this level of you're teaching people tools that they can use and they can use some of them themselves and they don't need to come to you every time. And I want to reinforce that because the person who introduced us, his name is Robin and Robin came here in the early days, is that right? Yeah, came to our uh studio I think about six or seven years ago. Right, at least six. So so years ago and he came here, but my understanding is he doesn't come every weekend. Mhm. Right? Um and he's mentioned to me before, you know, that he has some of
before, you know, that he has some of these tools and he will do this at home. When I asked him, "Are you going to do an ice bath? How often do you come?" Um you know, he comes still cuz of course he gets tons of value from it, but he does some of this at home. And I think he even does something we can talk about more, which is maybe um putting well, it's the breathwork, but it's also uh just putting your hands in in a tub of ice, right? Um or whatever you have at home and he leverages that. So I I think it just reinforces that you're not trying to get people hooked on your business in a way that maybe some might. Yeah. Uh it sounds a little bit more like you want to teach them the tools and if they choose to come back and they choose to get the value out of being here in person, they can do that, but they have the option. Yes, exactly. So uh just touching on that. So we have the the training where people can come and they can go away and they have these tools that they can use themselves, right? Or even if they go to other places which have ice baths, at least they know how to do it safely and effectively. Uh so that's we know there's uh clients, customers like that and I like that because they've got some value from us. What we offer uh additionally where people return is other breathing modalities, other breathwork modalities. So you were talking about the Wim Hof method there. But also, people come back for the aspect of the community. So yes, you can do it at home. It's great to maintain that practice. But then the other side is the community aspect where people come along and they're doing different environment, they're around people who know the training and then they get sort of a different feeling from it. There's a different effect from group sessions as opposed on your own. Exactly the same as a yoga class. There's a difference between practicing yoga in your living room as opposed to going to a a yoga class. You know, we have a teacher and other participants. So it's not unusual such you know, there's apps where you can learn yoga at home, but still people still go to classes. So that that's the sort of the business model, if you like. Um but the
business model, if you like. Um but the reason um I wanted to turn this into a business, there was actually no plan originally. I just wanted to help people and it's still the underpinning of everything we do. We never add something, we never do things if I believe or feel that it's not going to help people. So when we first launched these in-person classes was in Cam's yoga studio. People really resonated with it and kept on coming back. Then we went through all the COVID thing, opening, closing. And during that period, uh Cam had already been doing the Wim Hof method breathing technique, which I taught her. I'm already an instructor at this point, of course. And during COVID, she started feeling depressed and afraid. And you've met Cam, she's bubbly and smiley like most Thai people are anyway. And she was really struggling. So I said to her, "Why don't you not try the ice bath aside the things? We know how this can help mentally and the neurochemistry what's going on." And she did. So uh to be honest with you, I thought she was going to get out and scream and give me a slap. But she used to shiver watching me do an ice bath. I've done ice baths every day for many, many years, thousands of ice baths. But Cam started doing it regular and she did it every day, 100 days in a row and I was taking photographs and videos of her doing it, I put it on social media. That alone got 60, 70 people booked for when we next opened plus many, many followers. If you see me getting in an ice bath, it doesn't look impressive. It looks like I should be living in the islands of Scotland anyway, you know, in a cool country. But seeing a Thai person, that actually started getting a lot of Thai people interested. I know we're going to talk about this cross-culture stuff. And then when we did reopen and my other things I had going on financially ended cuz of COVID, then we sort of made the commitment to, you know, do this properly as a business together. What's
properly as a business together. What's interesting about it to me, too, is the environment you do it in because I have seen, you know, I'm not saying it's bad, but there are hotels that might offer it. There's other businesses that might tack it on as almost an extra. But again, it seems more central because if I look at this environment, right? We have some ice baths behind this, we have um you know, a sauna, we have these options here, but it's in a whole. Yeah. And having it in a house where you can sit down on a couch, where you can hang out, it just seems very homey as opposed to this like I said, almost a spreadsheet oriented business. It's like, "How can we turn people through?" I'll give another comparison. Um my kids go to Taekwondo and I know some Taekwondo studios or yoga studios or whatever they may be, they kind of want to optimize for the space. And they always say, "Let's get this crew in, let's get them out, let's get to the next one." That's not at all this environment. I don't see people waiting in line saying, "Oh yeah, you know, we need to use this space." You you seem to kind of make it six-hour events or an evening event. It seems way more like a community and it sounds like that was purposeful. Yeah, that 100% is purposeful and um I understand businesses need to get the numbers in. I completely understand that. But uh the approach we took, it's it is an experience, but it's also training as well. So that's why we got that elongated type uh class where we, as you know, we put food on, you know, help yourself with a buffet-style stuff, drinks. They can communicate, you know, chat and communicate with each other. They feel free to hang around later. But six hours sounds long. As you know, we mix it up between a chunk of theory followed by practice, theory, practice. So it's not six hours of me talking even [snorts] though I could do that. So we're talking about the Wim Hof Method workshops now. Just also be aware that people are scared as well. You have a lot of people who know they're going to be doing ice baths, so they're very scared, uh very nervous. So, you come in you come and sit down in the classroom
you come and sit down in the classroom area, I guess. Again, very homely. Then, we introduce people, people introduce themselves. It helps to get some understanding of their level and why they're here. And also, we've got to be aware as well that customers come, clients come from someone's been given uh the ticket for a birthday present. They listen to a podcast and they want to know what it's about. Or some people have health issues that they want to address. So, everyone has to fill out a health questionnaire, very important for breath work, very important for any cold exposure. That's one of the things we we have to do and should be done whenever what anyone's doing any cold exposure. So, everyone does that, so we know everyone can do it. Then, we take them through basic intro. And then, we get them to feel the cold exposure for the first time and we do that by putting their hands in the ice. That first step, I can see in 90% of people's eyes that they regret booking the workshop cuz it's pur - it's purposely difficult and it gives people some uh some understanding of the intensity and things that can go on. Then, they come and sit back down, a bit more theory, some bit more practice. And then, we give them some simple tools and we teach them why they work. And that's when we talk about the stress levels and uh you know, the sine wave you mentioned. Then, they come and do it again. And then, the second time they put their hands in the ice, nearly everyone does it the first time. Uh did you you do it Yeah, I think I did all right the first time. Again, I had had some history with with cold water and so, I was kind of like, "Oh, I can do this." But I have to admit, I had that uh that feeling of oh, I'm not going to be the first one to get my hands out of the water, right? I But it was hard. And to that point, even someone who had done it before, I still felt very cold and I was like, uh let me how hold how long can I hold them in here? Who's who's going to take them out first? I was doing that the first time. But to your point, after teaching, you
But to your point, after teaching, you taught more of the theory and I came back to it, um it was night and day different. Yeah. And that's not even uh teaching you how to control your breathing and stuff all the breath work side of things. So, after that, we have a break. So, everyone's eating and chatting and that normally like cracks open this closed sort of um behavior from everyone. Now, they sat talking. That's great. Then, we come back and then, we go into the theory and the science of the breathing exercises, what it's actually doing. And then, everyone comes and lies down and we take them through a breath work session. We guide people. First of all, making sure everyone's safe, understands what's going on, types of sensations and things they can have in the body and the mind. All this, everyone's safe. You know, using all our musical equipment to get this environment feel. And most people, I would say more than the other way around, people come for the ice bath. But then, they experience the breath work side of it and that's what blows them away. Same experience what I had when I got into this. What what's good to understand is the cold exposure, the ice bath, is a tool uh used in a way for the benefits what we know through the Wim Hof Method. The breath work is a tool. So, our business has never been ice baths. We've never done an ice bath workshop. The cold is part of uh the methodology, right? Uh then, we all go outside and we, you know, do the big ice bath outside. We put 1, 000 We used 2, 000 kg of ice. We never [snorts] reuse ice. Everything's fresh for that workshop. Uh then, we've got a hot tub and we've got a sauna. Then, we go out there and people uh finish off doing the ice and then, they enjoy the sauna and the hot tub. Uh so, that's the structure of it. Um and then, when we get returning uh customers or clients, seems it seems weird me even saying clients cuz most of them are tending to friends now. You know, the people who come regular.
people who come regular. When they come again, they come to what we call the community sessions where there's no theory cuz everyone knows what to do. And then, we go straight into the breath work and the cold exposure. So, that's the Wim Hof side of things plus the community sessions. Yeah, I And again, I have to admit, my my exposure to this was from the perspective of I've done ice baths before. I want to know how I why I would pay money to come Well, number one, why I would spend 6 hours. And then, number two, why I would pay money for it because I can get it for X number of baht. And I'm not the only one because I've talked to some friends that I was trying to encourage and I think that it's really hard to understand it until you've experienced it because I think it's very easy to say, "Well, okay, that costs this much, right?" And then, "Oh, let me search around for ice bath Bangkok or something." And then, you say, "Oh, they're 300 baht for the ice bath." And and you're it's apples and oranges. Like, it's just so drastically different. But I'm curious, is that a common thing that you've hear heard where people are looking at that price and price shopping and basically saying, "Wait, you're more expensive than them. You might just have these big margins and you're just, you know, woo-woo or just trying to inflate rates." Not having any understanding what the workshop is all about. Yeah, exactly. And some people said, "Oh, there's Cuz when we started doing this in 2018, 2019, no there was nowhere in Thailand you could do ice baths workshops. The majority of these places you see popping up, the majority of them have come to us and then, you know, they've then gone on to make their own ice bath place, which is great. I actually I don't see them as competition at all because we've never ever done ice bath only workshops. We've never done that. Uh that's not our thing. The There's nothing inherently special about a container with ice in. It's the whole mythology, the whole reasoning behind and and what it can do for the body and mind. What I do like about people being able to do ice baths easier because it
to do ice baths easier because it things open up closer to where they live or is cheaper is because it gives the pe - uh people the first step or the first insight into cold exposure. What we found as more and more of these places pop up and more people do it, a lot of them end up coming to us anyway cuz they want to learn more. And that's great. I like that and then, they can go away and continue the practice. And what they're going to know when they do come, if they're already practicing doing ice bath, they're going to know the safety and the things to be aware of. So, yeah, and like I said, most people think even not just us about the Wim Hof Method general as a whole, people think it's all about the ice bath, the cold exposure. But it's not. That's really just like a side thing to the main training. Now, to your point about marketing and getting information out there, we purposely do not outline everything that goes on in the workshop. There's a few reasons about the buying effect. The pricing guidelines are set by the Wim Hof Method company. So, we have to charge a certain amount. So, we add value by extending the workshop, deep understanding, food and drink, things like that. So, we're trying to add value, not cut into what we should be pricing things at. So, that's the main one. But when people come and they see how much we teach people and what's involved and the other aspects, everyone leaves understanding that oh, the ice bath is not the main thing. You know, to simplify it, the breath work, the ice bath, the mindset training, these are all ways to allow us to control our nervous system, control our mind. So, that's the whole goal of the Wim Hof Method and that's why the training is so uh so long or so in-depth. You say long again and it's all relative. I mean, yes, it does take time. Yes, you do have to say, "Do I have these 6 hours to do this session?" But it went by very quickly for me.
But it went by very quickly for me. Yeah. Can definitely say uh and I like too that you're mentioning that everyone's at different levels. And I noticed too that it's different people, some of which might be traveling here, traveling to Bangkok, others like business owners, um you know, like myself, but also some of my friends that have come through here, right? And uh it just seems like different levels, different motivations. But I love, like you just said, the rationale behind why you set things up because you have to get all those people eased into it, it sounds like. Because they might not know quite what they're getting. Yeah. And and also, because um the Wim Hof Method and studies showing about the benefits health-wise, there's a lot of people that come to us who have health conditions, who are looking for the Wim Hof Method to improve their health or deal with some symptoms of a disease or disorder. We've even had doctors in Thai hospitals send their patients to us. So, if you think about our workshop, which is open for people, you can have a mix. You can have people who are on holiday. You're going to have people who've just heard about it the day before. Then, you've got people here who are hoping it can give them some uh help in helping with some uh health condition. So, we've got a So, that's why we structure the workshop step by step, make sure everyone's on the same wavelength. And also, what I've seen personally myself and other places around the world is there's something that goes on about There's something that happens when people are around ice baths. They tend to go crazy. You know, they're like throwing ice at each other, they're doing dangerous stuff, they're, you know, messing around. And our model, our business or where we operate, we avoid that. So, uh we avoid spectacle. So, we're not interested in that. Doesn't mean it's not a great time, especially the community sessions, uh but that's, you know, we have uh safety rules first, safety for the participant more than anything. And the whole training is how can we maximize the health benefits
maximize the health benefits or minimize or completely remove any risks, and then give them the knowledge, so then if they never come back and they go somewhere else or they do it at home, they know how to do it safely. Right. Now, that makes perfect sense. I again I'll I'll reinforce that when I was here, everyone was very well-behaved because they were eased into it. Whereas I can imagine if you're just you're on holiday or something and you're like, "Oh, that place has an ice bath." You know, you're going to have people trying to have competitions how long they can stay in. You're going to have them kind of doing all that, whereas this is I wouldn't call it more serious it because it's not like it was boring and serious, but it's uh there's a method to it. It's methodical, it's structured, um and as you pointed I understand safety is is a key to all that. Yeah. Speaking of which, uh dunking head into water. Do you have Yeah, what's your feeling on this? Yeah, so um so, talking about ice bath popping up in hotels and people doing at home or little businesses popping up, I think it's great. It gives more people awareness of this type of tool that's out there, the health benefits. I just hope that all these places are doing it safely um and know what they're doing. What I found is that people are seeing podcasts uh listen to podcasts, are seeing posts on social media, and then thinking they know what they're doing. And then we're regurgitating that incorrect information, appearing as some sort of knowledgeable uh facilitator around this. I have seen some very dangerous stuff going on, and that does worry me. So, when we do an ice bath cold exposure, we're looking for health benefits. So, again we want to maximize the health benefits and remove all risks. Dunking the head while your body's in the ice bath and holding your breath one doesn't give any additional benefits. It's just pure risk. So, there are studies showing that holding breath under uh very cold water, you can get something called the autonomic nervous system clash, which can give you a heart arrhythmia or stop your heart. And there's some horror stories around the
there's some horror stories around the world where people have uh got injuries or even passed away from this type of stuff. Um duration in the ice bath as well. Very uh we get this often. People say, "Oh, I do this long in an ice bath and I do this." And they compete with each other. Again, if people are safe, I I tend not to diss that, you know, especially these sort of community type places where it's more of a spectacle. As long as people safe, you know, that's the main point. However, when we look at the studies, you don't need long in the ice bath. It's actually the initial cold shock, which then triggers the benefits and gives all the health benefits people talk about. So, duration going in longer is sort of pointless, plus the longer you stay in the ice, the risks start to increase. So, what we do in our training, we explain that. So, we've had people come to us say, "Oh, I do 5, 10, 15 minutes at home." Then they come to us learn um the science behind it, what's proven, then they go back home and practice and they do it correctly. I think that's great. However, we do train people to go longer, but that's for specific things. That's not for everyday health and wellness, that's for specific goals. So, yeah, dunking the head under the ice, I mean, there's only one benefit, I think, it looks cool on Instagram or something. Don't do that. If we're looking for maximum health benefits, minimizing the risks, you shouldn't be doing that. What about having a spotter and having other people cuz you mentioned, you know, as long as there's a community around it, that could be positive as long as people are being safe, but then do you have any feelings I think you'd mentioned that when you do your ice baths, you have Cam around or vice versa, is that correct? Mhm. Yeah, the um so, the idea of having someone uh keeping an eye on you is because things can happen to someone's body, someone's mind, even if they've done hundreds of ice baths already and never had a problem. Sometimes people when they get the cold shock in the
when they get the cold shock in the body, their limbs, the body doesn't operate correctly when the mind wants their arms to move. So, I've seen it myself in other places and a couple of times here where someone's in the ice, when it's finished and it's time to get out, they can't physically move. So, we always advise have someone near you to keep you safe. However, I I do understand that's a bit difficult, you know, like if you're doing it at home. So, whatever way you can minimize the risks and make sure that if something does go wrong, you're going to be safe. That also highlight problems with some businesses where they have ice baths in a private room. And they don't have people checking on them. If you have a client going in who's maybe thinking about competing, they don't know exactly what to do, they're trying to they think uh the length of the ice bath is important, then you run the risk of someone injuring themselves in these private enclosed spaces. So, in our workshops in the community sessions, we're always here keeping an eye on people. Um so, again, it just comes back down to safety and thinking about things uh if something did go wrong. Mhm. You know, I do want to talk a little bit about the other companies that offer this sort of thing because to your point some of them can be good, right? Some of them can be risky, right? But it's each different things and you're not competing with some of these other businesses that are just pitching ice bath or cold water immersion cuz that's not what you do. However, um one thing that I found pretty unique about the session that I attended here was the fact that it's you and Cam working together. Yeah. Right? And if like my experience of that, and I've shared this with other people and they said the same thing, is that having you lead the session and having Cam in the session as well was something I think that other companies probably can't replicate because it was very interesting how you all worked together. And I want to dig deeper into that later on about how you were able to run a business with your wife, but uh but anyway, I just wanted
wife, but uh but anyway, I just wanted to share that and I'm curious if you've gotten feedback where having your energy and her energy together, right? It was kind of like the feminine and the masculine, it was like you all leading workshop together was like just very unique. right? Cuz she was walking around like helping with the the rhythm um and and you were kind of guiding it from the front of the room, but I don't know, I'm curious, have you heard positive feedback about that Yeah. um it works really good during breath work sessions as well having this different uh this tone and what I'm doing and what Cam's doing. Yeah, we have a lot of comments with that. But it also even just a very practical point, you're going [snorts] to be coming to a space where you're going to be getting in your swimwear. Mhm. So, having a man and a woman uh there with a mixed group, you know, it's going to help the females feel comfortable in a group in their bikini and vice versa. So, it it works well for that. And not only I think it works great and we have comments all the time about our workshop having myself and Cam, but Cam being Thai as well. And we, you know, Thai's a great um understanding of English. So, in an English workshop, which we alternate between Thai and English, we tweak, we get Thai people joining. So, Cam's always there to translate. She's also there to translate my northern English into normal English. Um but that's all of um when it makes people feel safe and you get in that cultural mix of understanding and what other people are, you know, thinking about or worried about. So, yeah, we have that common quite a lot. Yeah, [snorts] so that again is something I think would be difficult to replicate, but there's also copycats, right? And intellectual property is something that's very interesting here. Um you know, I I think everyone has their own way of doing something and who knows, some people might like it here, some people might like it somewhere else, but what I think is a line that's really tough to cross is when people copy what you're providing. And I'm wondering if you've experienced that
wondering if you've experienced that where individuals were coming here, then trying to essentially hack their way to the top and say, "I'm going to copy what they're doing here." Copy, paste over there, but they might not have the foundation. Has that happened to you before? Oh, yeah, but um I think it's important to say about copycats and, you know, there's other businesses what offer what we do, but there is no other business in Thailand that offer what we do. So, we're the only certified Wim Hof Method instructors, and that's just one modality. And like I said, we've never offered an ice bath facility. We're not interested in that. Um other people, other companies have set up, you know, cold exposure places, and there's some bigger companies setting up now who've got branches in different countries. Um You know, and the term ice bath is very popular. Most of the time it's a cold plunge, but they use the ice bath for the marketing side of things. These places popping up doing it, again, like I said previously, I think it's great cuz it allows more people to become aware, and that lower price point of of doing it is again it opens it up. The difference is really, you know, a lot of places are doing it not very hygienic. They're just recycling, they just keep topping up the ice. Again, it's not hygienic. Um they're also allowing things to be done a bit uncontrolled or dangerous practices, but if if places are safe and hygienic, that's great. I think it's amazing, you know, that's just one aspect of the things we teach. The more things that can come out, the more exposure about the benefits of cold exposure and sauna, I think that's a net positive. Talking about intellectual property and copying, oh my god. There's some of the stuff we've experienced and gone through over the years is mind-blowing. Early on, I say about I think it's about 2020, we even had someone um um let's say saying negative things about
let's say saying negative things about us on social media platforms and you know, lies and things like that. That was an issue and there's laws in Thailand about that. So, we had that problem. We've also had people straight up recording me. And I saw Instagram post this about a year ago. I saw an Instagram reel and it had me speaking in the background. I thought that's interesting. I've never been there. So, they were just playing my recording. I've also had five-star hotels, resorts and retreats using our image, using our photo graphs here to promote their new offerings. It just seems to be pretty rife in Thailand. Now, and the intellectual property thing it's the Wim Hof method brand very strict with their branding one for safety and making sure that anyone that uses it they know what they're doing. There's a lot of people infringing on the Wim Hof method trademarks and copyright stuff. Luckily, we don't have to deal with that because the Wim Hof method company deal with that and they've got global trademark and copyright rules in all for certain terms and names. But, I'm surprised how many people do it and how many people do it willingly. And I'm also surprised as well that when people do learn new things from us and then they start talking about it they never really give us a little bit of love back. They never tell us that they learned from us. Which I'm not sure what that's about because um where I come from and the way I've done business all my life, I think that's a positive. If I've learned something from you, Scott, and that changed uh give benefit or opened up new doorways, I would give you credit. I We have clients who've turned into friends here who just chatting to them have given me insights into business or um NLP stuff or uh some other training and I've credited them.
other training and I've credited them. I think that lacks a bit over here. I think I'm not sure if it's just Thailand or Asia, but this crediting each other from learning things I think it's a bit lacking. And here if I was a business coming to Thailand um from overseas and setting up here, I would from the very start make sure all the IP trademarks and copyrights are in place because it will happen. Yes, it definitely will. Uh yeah. I'm sorry you had to go through all that because it is interesting that people number one they're not crediting you, but number two they just they don't even know that these companies might not even have that knowledge that you have. And as you said, it's so important to have the foundational knowledge to actually go through the courses and be certified. Right? It's not just a matter of look I took a workshop one time and now I can do it myself or now I can promote it, right? I think people like to take those shortcuts a little too often. Yeah, and the only the the thing worries me more is things like ice baths, cold exposure and breath work do have uh inherent potential dangers. Especially ice baths and always very popular. Uh it can uh it does have um risks. Also, the breath work side of things has risks, you know, especially when people are doing So, there's loads of breath work modalities. There's so many techniques out there. Some of them can be used for trauma release. Now, if you go to a one of these uh trauma release breath work sessions and that starts mobilizing some deep traumas where you need an experienced trained therapist or trauma-informed person and it's not in place, that can cause problems. Um so, my concern is just health and safety for everyone. That's what I would love. That's what I would like to see the standard being raised. And there are some hotels and resorts and retreats who've contacted us about helping them to raise the safety standards and understand things more.
standards and understand things more. Um so, it's not so much about um copying then affects our business. It's more about copying and then putting customers and clients at risk. That's my concern more than anything. I think if more people get to feel and taste the benefits of breath work and cold exposure and the other things we do I think [snorts] that's great as long as it's done safely and and correctly. There's no difference from someone going to a a private personal trainer and then learning maybe some sort of training protocol which is really good at enhancing squat strength, leaving that and then claiming you've created it. It happens all the time in the fitness industry. Nutrition as well, it's the same. So, it doesn't surprise me. Uh it just surprises me how often it's done over here. You know? Yes. Uh and you probably come across this. I know I've spoke to other business owners that have had this problem for a long time. Um so, yeah. But, it is a concern, but from my point of view it's more about health and safety for clients. Yes. And a point that you made as well in the past off camera was about how breath work might seem innocent. It might seem people might think relaxing when they hear breath work. But, is the Wim Hof method is it a relaxing breath work where you're just going to, you know, fall asleep or is it something different? Yeah, so the Wim Hof method uh we can talk about that. There's other breathing techniques. So, the Wim Hof method breathing technique is also another stressor. So, it's dosing our nervous system with a controlled amount of stress. That's why you've got to be careful using them types of breathing techniques because it can trigger panic attacks and other deeper things. Um so, again and I think the whole issue uh what we're trying to get people to understand um is the cost of ice is so cheap in Thailand. So, the cost of entry into this market
So, the cost of entry into this market is very low. Breathing is completely free. You know, so very low cost and I think that's why it tends to get jumped on pretty quickly because there's no cost. Like, if you had to do an ice bath um and you had to buy a hundred thousand dollar machine there's going to be less people copying, right? Or every time you taught breath work, you had to buy a really expensive system it's going to be less people. But, because there's near zero cost of entry, that's why it tends to get abused a little bit. Yeah, and I think you know, in the stuff you come across other businesses, the things that tend to have little cost to get in and replicate people tend to do that. Right. Of course. Then let's focus on the business side of this, right? So, um I'd love to hear I I know you already mentioned why you got into this. Uh did you think that you'd start a business or did it just come naturally because you were so interested in this? Yeah, you know, like when I've I've done podcasts and interviews about business, I think oh my god, like should I claim that I had some master plan all along and that's why I do this. I had some sort of foundational underpinnings of what I want to do. First of all, it was to help people and [snorts] originally it was to help people like me. People who wouldn't even look in these types of things cuz they think it's woo-woo. Uh that also uh determined how we teach it. So, it's science-based being able to reference it to things that are proven. However, it does open up things which are not proven yet by science. Uh so, there was never going to there was never original plan to be a full-time business. COVID helped to uh uh push me push us to take the risk of turning it into a full-time business. Um yeah, and that's where it sort of came from. So, we do have some rules that have continued uh to direct how we do things, how we grow, if we grow, what we offer.
how we grow, if we grow, what we offer. Uh and that all comes from um I'm not sure if you talk much about when you, you know, talking about business, but we also only do things that we're going to enjoy doing. So, we do turn down a lot of things. I don't want to get into anything that I'm not going to enjoy. And we turn down um you know, collaboration as seems very popular in Thailand and Asia. We've turned down so many of them. We've sort of been semi-burnt by things that happened in the past where it ended up being a negative for us. Um I know Tim Ferriss, you know, um read his book when he was selling his brain supplement and he talked about he had so many distributors and it did he applied the 80 / 20 rule and he really panicked cutting a big one of his biggest distributors out, but that was giving the most headaches. And that allowed him to enjoy his business more, but he did lose a lot of orders. But, because he enjoyed it more, he could apply more energy to benefiting his clients already. So, it's sort of that sort of idea. It's like, do I want to do this? Yes, it could get bigger exposure. Yeah, it could, you know, some collaboration, maybe we offer more workshops or whatever. But then I look at it I think, well, the client's getting a worse experience and I don't think I'm going to enjoy it. So, that's what I tend to work on as well. Now, what is it like working with your wife? It's an absolute nightmare. No, I'm joking. So, we So, you know Cam, you know my backstory. Cam is a complete opposite to me. I if I'm left to my own devices without doing things I teach, I'll default into stress and this default mode network planning. And Cam is completely opposite being Thai, being Buddhist. She knows how to bring me back into the present moment and really enjoy what we're doing. So, personally that for just my life not just working together has been
life not just working together has been you know, has changed my life, you know, for the better. In terms of business, it's great because Cam's Thai, so she needs to speak to agencies, government, legal stuff, accountants. She deals with all that. Um but also gives me insights into marketing as well. Like things we, you know, that doesn't quite resonate with Thais, Thai people or Asian general. So, it's not that we have designated roles. It's that both of our background and experiences and our cultural differences then we come together to the best way possible. If I was trying to do it all myself with no Thai partner, with no Thai wife, I think that, you know, could be quite challenging. I know that's what one of the services you offer. I know that, you know, specialist. So, yeah, for me it's everything's a net positive. Now, with working together and building this business, it sounds like you want to build a business and keep building and growing a business that you want to be in that you want to be part of. You don't want it to grow to the point that you're not enjoying it. So, I definitely get that. What do you then think you might grow into if you want to grow? Cuz of course you're very successful where you are and I'm just kind of curious where do you think this might go or do you think it's kind of keep keep it going and just kind of doing what you're doing? Yeah, I I my default mode network side of my brain that likes to plan and run simulations of what it could be and, you know, things for the future. I tend to, I know we talked about this off camera, the whole world of apps and online stuff. I think the market is a bit saturated. But I do think there's a use of this uh a blend of the two where in person training, retreats, experiences with then some sort of app or online system what can continue the training or keep people involved in a community type way but part of, you know, the overall
but part of, you know, the overall service offering. Uh so, there's definitely that's in the pipeline. The um expansion on retreats and experiences like we did late last year, we went to Mongolia. Um we did a Wim Hof expedition there. We took a a bunch of our well-trained clients and we were in, you know, minus 29 to minus 35 degrees and we did stuff there. So, there's definitely more of that. There's we've also looked into things like satellite offices or satellite studios or people trained by us and we were in the process of doing that already. But everything we do uh I know we talked about this earlier. So, when Steve Jobs came back to Apple, he cut away all these peripherals and though some of the things were good, but he he removed all the smaller products and services and then he relaunched the iMac. And then from then on anything he added, anything they added had to be complementary to the ecosystem and make sense. So, we uh we don't follow trends. That's a big thing I'm into. I don't follow trends. I take any business step very slowly because things can change quick and I want to make sure that any additional service we add, any additional training, it's done correctly uh and that also applies to any expansion things as well. Yes. Now, you mentioned community a few times. I can't help but think that people have been behind their computers as you were in the past in finance, right? We're behind our computers, we're slouching down, right? We're not feeling good about ourselves and we're or maybe we think we're feeling good because we're getting rewards, but then, you know, you have all the the negative side effects that come along with that. And I'm wondering, do you see that there might be this shift where people are now trying to get more in physical space, trying to find a local community, trying to go to more brick and mortars as opposed to buying everything online? Do you think that that's a shift or do
Do you think that that's a shift or do you think it's a pendulum is maybe going back in the other direction because when I see the community of people here, it seems like this is something that people really enjoy. Being around people in in meat space, right? What is your thought on that? Yeah, 100% I think so, there's, you know, lots of articles and talk about this social wellness movement. You know, and anytime there's a movement it can go crazy like I've seen uh raves in saunas and, you know, like crazy stuff. I I mean I I don't even um I don't even talk negative about these things because if someone if people find benefit from that and it improves their life, great. You know, it's not the type of thing I want to get into. But one of the reasons we structured our services and what we offer uh being an expat and knowing a lot of expats, you know, I've got some friends here who've been here 30 plus years. I came here when I was 27 with a friend who used to live here. So, I met expats who were you were living here then. And what I discovered in speaking to people, if you're an expat, especially a guy, and you want to meet people, other expats, and you're not into going to the gym, I mean that's a great place to meet people or Muay Thai or martial arts, whatever. If you're not into that, one of the only places you can meet fellow expats is in the bar drinking. You know, that's not good, right? You know, we need some other way to, you know, build a community. So, or it could be part of a community. And that's where, you know, the British Chamber of Commerce and the British Club and things like that are really good. So, one of the things I wanted to do is and then that comes to this space as well being more like a home. I wanted it to be a place you could come for hours where it you getting healthy, makes you feel good, and you can make new friends or build a community. And that's that is I guess the, you
And that's that is I guess the, you know, one of the driving forces why we continue to do this. You know, the transformations we've seen with people from health health-wise, just for joy in the life, you know, the feedback has been, you know, like amazing and I feel we feel honored to be able to offer this type of stuff. And, you know, the way I'm talking now you can tell it's more than just offering a facility to get in an ice bath or a sauna. It's more than that to us and I think our I feel that our customers and clients know that as well. Yeah, I I like the distinction. I know you're saying there's a benefit of chambers. I totally agree. I love the some of the chamber events, but I think sometimes some of the quote networking events end up being more of, you know, here's my business card. And I a lot of my friends here will have their communities which are outside of that. And so they might be motorcycle racing or they might be racketball or pickleball or whatever it may be. But the idea is that that's where they have some really good conversations and build, you know, really good relationships. Sometimes they even do, and I'm not trying to take things always back to business, but sometimes they do end up turning into business relationships because you're not there for business relationship. It's the side effect, right? Or you're not there to say I'm going to go to that community event to make friends, but it's the side effect of enjoying other people's companies. Does that resonate with you? 100% and I'm you know, this is something we're going to launch hopefully soon. It's just a men's meet up session where we do breath work or maybe includes ice baths or whatever because the so just uh looking at the Wim Hof method alone, since 2019, we have taught over 4, 000 people the Wim Hof method. That's not including the other breath work modalities and training we do. That doesn't include corporate events and team building exercise. So, we've seen a lot of people. We've had people coming to us from day one, six, seven years. Ravin was one of them. Uh we've had people move countries and every time they pass through come and
every time they pass through come and see us. And we constantly get feedback. I personally get feedback. People say, "Oh, you made, you know, my life so much better since coming here. Feel physically healthier. I feel happier. I've met some friends." And what's actually interesting in this place is that people have got business from coming here where they've, you know, "Oh my god, I didn't realize you came." Or, you know, we have everyone from CEOs to, you know, students. We have a mix of everyone and that's what one of the things I like about what we do. So many different types of people come. So, the communities can turn into business. But one of the reasons it works is because breath work and the cold exposure and sauna, it makes you release feel good neurotransmitters. So, instead of relying on drinking or smoking, people have a shift in state. They feel good. People tend to be more open and connect with each other. You know, the world of breath work, if you told me 20 years ago I'd be teaching this, I'd be like, "What the hell are you talking about?" Um the cold exposure exposure type thing. When we uh launched this, if you like, we didn't overwhelm people by giving this huge catalog of everything we can teach them. Again, going back to Apple, you know, they only add things when it's right and it complements the ecosystem. We've had people come to us six, seven years ago who've never done any breath work. They come to us to a Wim Hof workshop. They've done cold exposure, never done breath work. And five, six years later, they're signing up for seven to 10 day breath work retreat. So, it's building trust with our customers, clients, they know they can trust us. We know we can trust them. And because then we've offered something new or something additional, they want to experience it. Even if they don't really know about it, but now our service is additional thing, they they trust us to, you know, take part. You know, and it's really good actually seeing that, you
really good actually seeing that, you know, what do you call it? The customer uh you know, feedback and Yeah. the customer's journey. Okay, now taking people from this to here. And now they And that's what we, I know I mentioned before about the 1, 000 true fans, the Kevin Kelly, the 1, 000 true fans idea. Well, and that's actually one of the underpinnings of our business model. We're not trying to be this global, you know, business offering everything's online and trying to get as many clients as one, which a lot of these other places in Thailand who are offering the ice bath stuff. They're working more on a numbers game. I'm not really interested in that. I want to, you know, have, you know, give clients deep understanding of what's going on. And then mainly to be able to pass the tools to them that they can use without us or without anywhere else. Yeah, that's that's sort of the uh underpinnings of how we want to operate go from from the beginning and going forward. Yeah, and I'm not sure how intentional you were about that referral network, but I certainly could see it work intentional or not because again, Robin I had mentioned introducing us, then I'm bringing in some of my friends who are in in businesses, right? And I Jan is one of them and and shout out to Jan. He came and then after he experienced the workshop, he then asked the staff to experience the workshop. And then when I was at another workshop one of his staff brought her boyfriend along with, you know, this sort of thing. And now when I'm at an event, they're bringing that up, right? And his staff are saying, "Oh, I was at the workshop with you. Oh, you need to bring your wife next time." It's one of those things that it's just funny once you've experienced it, you now have those true fans Yeah. that are promoting it. So, that's what I want to focus on that business side of, you know, that's a case that I would recommend business owners if they haven't thought about their referral networks or things like that. That's something they need to take away from this is that there's ways to set that up in a way that it can help spread the word not in a artificial way but in a natural way cuz when people have a good
natural way cuz when people have a good experience, they want to share Yeah. But I'm curious if there's any other recommendations or things that you think have worked for your business that you think some business owners don't don't capitalize on. Yeah, so you're saying about the referral type stuff, you know, our sophisticated way of saying it. But um so our marketing or what we put out there, there's a combination between um education in our marketing um as well as what we offer. But we purposely hold back on what we say in our marketing and our website because some things you just have to experience, like you've already said. That also helps with the referral aspect. They were saying, "Oh, it was more than I thought it was going to be. Oh, I learned, you know, things I didn't know I was going to learn or experience." And because of that, then they tend to talk about it. Uh so I guess in terms of other businesses is adding value, which you may not promote as being a a value. Um but that added benefit, that added value you give, people want to talk about that. You know, it could be as simple as customer service or um ease of purchasing something. There's so many ways you can add value, you know, Tony Tony Robbins talks about this a lot. Um but I always had confidence in that because it was bound to happen. You know, people have a powerful experience and the amount of details we we want to give people and help people, I I was very confident that people are going to share that and they want other people to experience it as well. Now, what about Thailand specifically? Are there any things that were particularly difficult about either starting a business in Thailand or operating a business in Thailand or anything that was surprising to you, maybe even a positive way um about Thailand? Yeah, when we were, you know, looking at all this,
we were, you know, looking at all this, so originally one of my ideas was to go the digital route. So, be based in Thailand and that's when we spoke to the BOI and the benefits of going that route, but then I realized we need in person classes, you know, and we venue and stuff. And another thought was about renting spaces as well, not having a dedicated base. Um that threw some issues. So, for us the difficulty was just understanding about employing a non-Thai. You know, all the rules around that. Does make it easier being married to a Thai person, so we do get some benefits from that, but it's still complicated, you know, still things you've got to make sure in place one to be a legitimate business, secondly, make sure I'm working correctly under the correct work permit and have the matching visa and all that. But linked to that, what was really surprising, what made it easier is those companies which will do that for you. Mhm. So, even and they will explain it as well. They don't just do it and you're in the dark. You can get advice and help from customers who will do the full process or just give you pointers or do certain sections as well. So, I think that was a uh a really like when when I've had friends contact me and thinking about starting businesses here and they say, "I've read this page and and it got updated six months ago and things have changed." And I just say, "Reach out to some of these agents, you know, cuz that's their job, they keep on top of things." And and my experience is has been great. Yeah. What's the favorite part of what you do today and what's your least favorite part? Favorite part is I just love what I do. And because I love what I do, that's sort of removes all the sort of business worry behind stuff. If I was going to be brutally honest, I really don't care about the financial side of things. You're probably like, "Oh my god, I don't want to listen to this on a business podcast or video." But I think
business podcast or video." But I think because of that, it makes working in the business so much easier. And I have a solid underpinning of what we do is to ultimately help people. And cuz it helped me and I want to share that. Um so the easiest is that, just doing what we're doing and seeing how what we are helping people, the feedback and And I've always said to Kam and explained cuz she does worry about certain things. I'm not in this, we're not following hype, we were doing this before people really understood it. We're not following trends and longevity proves your business in the end, right? You know, if you can be around a long time and continuing to offer what you do and and maintaining the standards and things like that. That makes me happy. I love it, you know. My degree is in design, industrial design, so the the creative aspect behind it I really love and I love doing what I do. The negative behind it is currently we are an in person business. When we go on holiday, then we don't make money. We don't do it. And it's so funny, we have clients who who know we're going to go away. Like we've just come back from Mexico, I get invited to be a speaker at the 20th year of the breath festival in Cabo, Mexico. That's Dan Brul, one of my mentors and and one of his students and teachers. Um a lot of our regular clients who come every Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays, Sundays, they were like, "Oh my god, what are we going to do? Can we climb over the wall? Can you give us the details for ordering the ice and things like that?" So, when we do go away, it's it it's That's a bad side of it because one, I want to carry on offering what we do to our regular clients, but then also the the business side of things obviously takes a hit. So, I guess that's the negative side of
So, I guess that's the negative side of things. Do you see yourself doing this for another 20 years? To be honest, I see doing this till I drop dead. Sounds weird that the some It sounds super simple when you talk about breathing, you know, I tell my older brother, he's like, "You pay this much to go on a to learn how to breathe? You know, are you crazy?" But when you're in this and the the depth we want to go into and what we offer, there's so much to learn, there's so much to understand, there's so much for me to to try and do and then offer that to clients. Like this there's certain things I've done with breath work and things that are the modality modalities which have not resonated with me, so I don't offer it. But it's, you know, it's been an experience for me as well. I can honestly see me doing this forever. One of the reasons, I'm going back to the our business model, I think we talked about this before, we purposely made our business siloed. So, we're just in this breath work sector, if you like. We don't want to offer things which don't complement breath work. We could, there's so many things we could do. Um we purposely stick to this siloed container of sticking with breath work and everything that complements it because I think the future is not a business that can offer everything at a lower level. I think the future is people want to seek out the experts or the services or the business that have the depth of knowledge and understanding which other places don't. Because with social media and how easy it is to get shallow amounts of information, there's so many places out there, not just in our industry, wellness industry, or whatever you want to call it, other businesses that have a shallow understanding of information cuz it's so easy to get and then build businesses around that. Mhm. Uh I think the future and the successful businesses businesses are the
successful businesses businesses are the ones that have the depth and breadth of understanding. I think that's the future. I be wrong, but I think that's the way it's going with marketing. I think that's going with um technology. I think it's going with especially the wellness industry. Mhm. Now, you've you've built this business in Thailand, right? You've You have some roots here now, right? Uh how do you feel about Thailand uh after being here for so many years? And how do you think of the future of Thailand? Are you positive about it? You think things are heading in the good direction or um are are you seeing some challenges? Well, I've lived in a bunch of different countries, Dubai one of them. I've lived in different cities in the UK. Um lived in different countries in Europe. And Thailand's is the place that only ever felt like home. Um other places never did. And that's probably why I sort of started setting roots here, you know, with Kam. Uh in and to be honest, when I travel and go different places, there's not many, if any, that I want to stay longer as opposed to come back to Thailand. And what I particularly like about Bangkok, and I've lived in, you know, some of the major cities around the world, is Bangkok is unique because it's design-your - own lifestyle. If you want a high-end luxury lifestyle, you can do it. If you want the partying lifestyle, you can do it. If you want the holistic wellness side of things or meditation type things, you can do that. So, that's what's unique about uh Bangkok. And even though my wife, Kam, she's from the north, she loves living in Bangkok. We always when we do travel or we go and do events in Phuket and the islands, we like it, but we always can't wait to come back to Bangkok. What I also like about about Bangkok is that you've got people who live here, the expat community, and you also have a large uh
community, and you also have a large uh tourism as well. So, in terms of business operations, we get these waves of um the the tourist type customers, but then we know when it's not tourist season, we continue to get customers and allows us to build a community. One of the concerns as from a business point of view, if you were on these islands, the community is not going to be a long-lasting because majority of them are going to be people who are just on holiday. So, yeah, I I see us being here long-term uh and continuing doing what we do. Now, you speak with some business owners, whether they became friends of yours cuz they come here often or or not, but uh I'm curious, are there any common mistakes that you see business owners make? From what I've picked up on over the years, it does seem that maybe not employing the right people or maybe in some instances rely on relying more on non-Thais, which adds additional costs and things. You know, and that's one of the things I've discovered living in Thailand and in Bangkok, that it does seem that there's sort of this maybe not as much now uh with the younger generation, but maybe in the past there seems to be this default belief that anyone outside of Thailand is better than a Thai person. Like for for example, the yoga uh classes. And I've been to yoga retreats with with Kam and yoga studios. And they'll have like guest um non-Thai yoga teachers. And this this just one example that I've experienced. And these classes have this big buzz around it and people want to come, but then the the Thai uh teachers, who in my opinion and from Kam's opinion as well, who are amazing, don't tend to get that uh sort of hype and then followers. And uh and from what I understand, it's that people default thinking a non-Thai person is better in some way.
person is better in some way. From my experience and the people we have working for us, I have never had a problem finding a Thai person who can do exactly, if not more, than I want. So, yeah, so that that actually blows my mind. You know, and I think it's great. And that's one of the things we always do as a business is everything we do is to help Thai people as well as, of course, expats and non-Thai people. But and that's where Kam comes in. She knows what's needed or what people are looking for, what people people want. Yeah. It's a great point. It reminds me a lot of when you were saying how Bangkok has or Thailand has a place for everyone. There's different things. You can have the high-class lifestyle, whatever. Well, it's the same sort of thing, I think, with people is that some people might have hired someone who wasn't good, whether that be a foreigner or a Thai, and then they overgeneralize not realizing that they've just only maybe found people in the certain area or in the certain network. They haven't actually explored and realized there's a ton of talent. You have to know where to look for it. Yeah. You know, I see in terms of marketing, I see some of you know, those I can I think of one client who's who's uh been here and she does she posts her adventures on social media. And the editing and the time or the skill she puts into it just for herself. And even [snorts] her Instagram and social media are locked, so it's not even open to the public. It's just for her friends. I see that and go, "Oh my god, that is like that's high-level content creation that she's just doing as a passion." So, uh yeah, I think it's great. And that's if we do expand um like in-person stuff in the you know, satellite venues or uh instructors or facilitators, my priority would be to get Thai staff, Thai people. One because they already have a deep understanding of things like, you know, meditation and uh you know, spirituality and things which can come into play with what we do. So,
can come into play with what we do. So, yeah, I think it's great. Yeah. Is there anything that we didn't discuss that you wish we had? Yeah, I just want to clarify my my um the way I feel about what others assume are competitors. So, if we look at the gym world, right? So, you've got CrossFit dedicated gyms. You've got gyms that, you know, maybe just dedicated to Hyrox, which is a big thing at the moment. Then you've got sort of the overall maybe lifestyle gyms you'd call like Virgin Active and Fitness First. And then you've got dedicated places which I love like the Muscle Factories. I don't know if you know much about them. And Bart, the owner, he's I love his content, what he puts out there. It's no frills. It's straight to the point. And he he's the way he markets himself and lets the gym facility uh do the marketing for him. Yeah. Uh you know exactly what you get. I tend to like and appreciate these specialist businesses. And that's what we are. Now, does these other gyms, does the CrossFit gyms worry and think Virgin Active or Fitness First is a competitor? Okay, even though it's same industry, they might have very similar equipment. They might certainly have the same type of qualified staff, but because differentiated in what they're specialist in or what they're experts in, um it's sort of not a worry. The people who love Virgin Active, who go to, you know, they have multitude of classes, Pilates, exercise. That's awesome. Dancing the other day, you know, that's the gym we go to. Um CrossFit gyms are not worried about that. Uh in fact, like what my point was earlier, the people that uh care about health and fitness uh going to help people to discover CrossFit gyms or Muscle Factory. You know, someone who goes Virgin Active, who then gets really into the bodybuilding or powerlifting side, they're looking for the next level, they would go to Bart's Muscle
level, they would go to Bart's Muscle Factory. And that's the way I see what we are. We are we've avoided looking like this high-end expensive wellness thing. In fact, I want to avoid that completely because we're giving uh customers tools that they don't ever need us. So, we don't try to dress things up. But these other places and hotels and gyms and other venues popping up offering cold exposure and ice baths and sauna, I think is a net gain for everyone. Mainly for the clients as long as it's the the safety is at the forefront. So, I think that's what I'd like to clarify and um like I said from day one, we're called Breath Inspired. We're not called Ice Bath Inspired. Uh the longevity for us is breath work training, coaching development, the things we do like um Wim Hof stuff, Oxygen Advantage, which is sports performance. Uh we train some of the top CrossFit athletes in Asia with that. Uh we also do instructor training with that. So, you want to be an instructor in Oxygen Advantage. I'm the only master instructor in Asia. So, we do that as well. Then we've got guest speakers such as Dan Brule, Uh they call him the Bruce Lee of breath work. So, we purposely stick to what we want to teach without diluting our service offering and and I don't even like to think of competitors because if we have 1, 000 true fans and what we do and we're changing people's lives for the better, I don't really worry about what other businesses are doing. I just worry more about the health and safety of clients. Absolutely. Well, Stew, I really appreciate the time today. I I'd love if you could just share if people want to learn more about Breath Inspired or connect with you, where should they go? Yeah, so the the best way to find those, you know, you can go to breathinspired. com.
breathinspired. com. The bottom of the page we've got the our line link so you can message us online. We're on Facebook, on Instagram. So, that's the best way to reach out. On the website as well, we have a listing of all our events, special events and our regular stuff. But if you have any questions about what we do or how we can help, I'm apt to help you as well and even corporate training, team building, you brought a team of people. We don't really promote that at the moment just because we're so busy. So, reach out if if something we've said or we do sort of resonates or you're just curious, let us know. Go on our website, it's got a contact form there and message us through any social media. Awesome. Yeah, thank you so much for the time. Really do appreciate it. Yeah. Me, too. Cheers.
Transcript auto-generated by YouTube. Verbatim — duplicates intentionally preserved.
In this conversation from Made it in Thailand 🇹🇭, the subject is breath and cold exposure as a practical route into resilience. The language may change from teacher to teacher, but the deeper pattern is consistent: controlled stress, followed by integration, creates adaptation.
High performance fails when the nervous system loses access to recovery. This is the first layer. The body responds to deliberate inputs through circulation, respiration, neurochemistry, and immune signaling. When the dose is appropriate, the experience becomes information rather than punishment.
Breathwork and cold exposure can train the switch between activation and downregulation. In plain language, the practice gives the system something specific to respond to. Cold can sharpen attention. Heat can soften guarded tissue and support cardiovascular load. Breath can shift the rhythm of the autonomic nervous system.
A holiday rarely repairs a system that has forgotten how to come down. That is why the best protocols feel both structured and humane. You are not chasing intensity for its own sake. You are teaching your body to move between effort and ease with less resistance.
The pause is part of the performance.
Resilience is operational: it depends on environment, cadence, and daily practice. A good session has boundaries. It asks for attention before ambition: enough heat to open, enough cold to clarify, enough breath to return, and enough recovery to absorb the signal.
Start with a dose you can repeat without bracing against it.
Pair intensity with a longer exhale, quiet attention, and a deliberate finish.
Track the after-effect: clarity, sleep, soreness, mood, and energy matter more than spectacle.
The strongest message is simple: your body is trainable. Recovery is not passive. With the right signal, repeated patiently, resilience becomes a practice you can feel.
