Order of Man

00:00:00.000 In general, I think it would be safe to assume that we as a people have become weak.

00:00:04.480 The average man or woman seems to be more likely to face obesity, autoimmune disease,

00:00:10.060 and basically an overall reduction in happiness and fulfillment. And as we continue

00:00:13.640 to seek a life of ease and comfort, it is becoming painfully obvious to me that our quest for

00:00:20.420 perpetual comfort might be the very thing that will kill us. My guest today, New York Times

00:00:26.440 bestselling author Scott Carney, shares with us how to introduce environmental stressors into our

00:00:31.560 life, how to build up more resilience, and the strategies he uses for making himself a stronger

00:00:36.920 human being. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart

00:00:42.780 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time. You are not

00:00:48.660 easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is who you are.

00:00:55.500 This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:01:00.600 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler,

00:01:05.200 and I am the host and the founder of this podcast, The Order of Man. I hope that you guys had a great

00:01:10.420 weekend. I know I certainly did. I was able to connect with a lot of people and rejuvenate.

00:01:14.240 Just get back at it, which I'm doing now. I hope you're back at it as well. I hope that you are better

00:01:18.120 off this week than you were last, and I hope it's due in some small sliver, some small way.

00:01:24.440 Part of that has to do with you listening in to this podcast, The Order of Man podcast,

00:01:28.900 and hopefully we're helping you in your life. That's what we're all about. We want you to become

00:01:32.420 a better man. We want you to lead your family. We want you to lead in your community. Basically,

00:01:38.140 I want you to have the type of life that I believe you and me, each and every one of us as men,

00:01:43.360 has been called to lead. We're doing that right now on this podcast. If you've been with us for

00:01:47.760 any amount of time, you know that we're bringing in the world's most successful men. We talk with

00:01:52.280 them. We extract their lessons, extract the things they know, and then we bring them straight to you.

00:01:57.720 If you've been with us for a short period of time, or if this is your first episode that you've ever

00:02:01.560 listened to of this podcast, now you know what we're all about. If you are looking for the notes

00:02:06.040 and the details, including a link for the book that I'm going to talk with you about today,

00:02:10.100 you can check that out at orderofman.com slash 102 as in episode 102. If you are looking to connect

00:02:18.380 with some other like-minded men, 23,000 guys, that's mind-boggling. That's staggering to me,

00:02:22.860 but 23,000 men to be exact, you can do that in our closed Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups

00:02:28.460 slash orderofman. And last but not least, if you really want to take this thing up a notch,

00:02:34.840 you're serious about being a better man, you can join us in our exclusive mastermind,

00:02:39.580 the Iron Council, which can be done at orderofman.com slash Iron Council. And a quick announcement,

00:02:44.600 our live event. I know some of you have heard of this before. I want to make sure I give you

00:02:48.260 another reminder. April 27th and 30th this year, 2017. I'm going to give you some more details a

00:02:54.260 little bit later during the show, but for now, know that it will change your life and you can get

00:02:59.140 the details on that at orderofman.com slash Uprising. Gentlemen, I have got a great one lined up for you

00:03:04.360 today. We always do. I've got a New York Times bestselling author, Mr. Scott Carney on the show.

00:03:09.580 I came across Scott's work while I was connecting with another podcast alumni, Scott Keneally with

00:03:15.420 Rise of the Sufferfest. But Scott Carney just wrote a book titled What Doesn't Kill Us. I read the

00:03:21.060 premise of the book, which is how Scott used Wim Hof's methods. And I know a lot of you guys are

00:03:25.580 familiar with Wim Hof's work to improve his level of health. And I knew that this is someone I needed

00:03:30.860 to have on the show. What I like most about Scott's work is that he is an investigative journalist

00:03:36.300 by trade, but he set out to expose Wim Hof as a fraud. He talks about that and how rather than

00:03:42.040 exposing him, he ended up reaping the benefits of his work to lose weight, build up mental resiliency

00:03:48.260 using what both of them call environmental stressors and environmental training. In the meantime, guys,

00:03:54.600 he also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in shorts and he completed the tough guy, which is one of the

00:04:00.760 world's most difficult and also coldest obstacle course races in the world. And he's here to talk

00:04:05.860 with us about how he did it. Scott, what's going on, brother? Thanks for joining me on the show

00:04:10.960 today. It's going to be a lot of fun. Thank you for having me. It is going to be a lot of fun. I've

00:04:14.800 read your book and, uh, you know, I ate this thing up and I actually shared with a lot of the audience,

00:04:19.100 my audience and the guys that follow us, uh, your book and told them to go out and purchase this

00:04:23.400 because it was actually a really fascinating read and there's a lot of eyeopening, uh, information.

00:04:28.020 So tell me the premise really quickly so we can have some context for the discussion today about

00:04:32.120 the book. What doesn't kill us? So the, the general premise is that the environment is important and

00:04:39.380 the, the, the spaces that you live in give you all sorts of signals through temperature and air

00:04:46.380 pressure and, uh, just general stresses that the body can get. Uh, those things are important and they,

00:04:53.420 they inform the way your body functions. Uh, and, and even more importantly than that,

00:04:59.920 the world that many of us live in this sort of homeostatic constant 72 degrees, no matter if it's

00:05:05.760 a blizzard outside or a scorching hot summer day, uh, we live in this perpetual state of comfort and

00:05:15.480 homeostasis. And that is not good for us. Uh, we, we, we emerged over the course of 200,000 years

00:05:23.380 of human evolution. And in that time, we always had changes going on and those changes had impacts

00:05:28.760 on our body. And that when we have factored out environmental stresses, uh, we start getting

00:05:34.460 weaker, we start getting sick and we don't express our full human potential. Is this relatively new

00:05:41.380 information? Because one of the things you talk about, and I agree with this is that most of the

00:05:45.400 health industry focuses primarily on diet and exercise yet here you are. And of course,

00:05:51.960 Wim Hof talking about this third component that seems to be overlooked. I'm not sure if it's not

00:05:56.660 that, that people aren't aware of it or it's just not an importance to people.

00:06:01.160 I think that in the past, we certainly have thought about the environment, uh, as an important part of,

00:06:08.140 of human health. I mean, I don't know if you, you know, if you think back to like the 1800s,

00:06:13.180 right. And there was like tuberculosis epidemics and things like that. People would say, Oh, you

00:06:16.920 have to go get in the mountains to go, go help because that cool mountain air will, will help

00:06:21.480 you. I actually don't know if that's true. I don't know if cool mountain air will help tuberculosis,

00:06:24.940 but there was this idea that the environment that you inhabit impacts your health dramatically.

00:06:32.180 Now in the last, let's say 40 or 50 years of, of a sort of pharmaceutical development and this idea

00:06:37.560 of tweaking the internal mechanisms of your body through drugs, uh, or, you know, vitamins or

00:06:43.980 nutrition, uh, this, the, this larger idea of the space you inhabit is less important where we're

00:06:49.820 almost entirely focused on our inner space and not the outer space, uh, around our body. And so

00:06:55.820 that, that idea had disappeared from our sort of, uh, dominant conversation, uh, uh, has proven great

00:07:06.500 for me, right? Because I'm saying, trying to bring it back, right? I'm trying to tell you. And, and the

00:07:11.060 fact that these ideas are coming back into human consciousness now is great for me. Like it, it's

00:07:17.400 great for anyone who says, look, the, the environment is important. And that when you start engaging with

00:07:23.860 the environment and, and realizing that it has a profound impact on your health, it produces biological

00:07:30.080 changes very, very rapidly. And, and for the most part, a very beneficial ways.

00:07:36.720 What's the, what's the reasoning in your mind, or maybe you've even done some research on this,

00:07:41.040 why we as a society have shifted away from this third component of environmental training.

00:07:46.160 Is it monetarily driven because diet and exercise, it can produce money for other people. I mean,

00:07:51.380 what, what's the reasoning that we've shifted away from that?

00:07:54.080 I think it's just this desire for comfort that we have, you know, um, you know, United States

00:07:59.200 was the, was the, the country that invented the lazy boy, right? This is sort of ultra comfortable

00:08:04.460 thing. And, and I think that we prioritize this idea of, of, of inherent safety around us and inherent

00:08:13.840 comfort as that is the ideal. And hell it's, it's alluring, isn't it? Right. That you can go from a

00:08:21.300 brutal outside temperature, come inside, flick a switch. All of a sudden you're in 70 degrees.

00:08:25.620 That is alluring. And it, and our desire for that is ingrained in our biology, right? We have this

00:08:31.040 desire for comfort because in our ancient past and not even that ancient past, but, but comfort was

00:08:38.740 never a norm. It was always this idea, Hey, it would be nice to be a little more comfortable, but Hey,

00:08:42.920 I still need to go across this desert or I still need to live in this little, you know, damp hovel.

00:08:47.460 And, and, and, and it was never sort of perfectly attenuated, but our ability now to produce

00:08:53.840 technology, uh, technological solutions, uh, to this idea of comfort is just so easy. And it's so

00:09:01.940 available that now we have to seek out what, what we consider suffering in order to have a natural

00:09:08.380 oscillations, uh, to our biology, which is the rise of the suffer fest, which I know, I think you're

00:09:13.740 friends with, uh, Scott Keneally, who we've had on the show. And of course I've been involved with

00:09:17.740 obstacle course racing between Spartan races and things like, and I know you have too, which I'm,

00:09:21.940 I'm, I am looking forward to getting into that a little bit as well.

00:09:24.740 Yeah. I mean, it's, it's this fundamental human thing, like to be human, to be an animal means to

00:09:31.580 overcome the challenges of our environment. Like that is a, a, a basic property of being a biological

00:09:37.300 entity. Uh, and the fact that that is not as big of a challenge now because we're so smart, because

00:09:44.060 we're so in control, uh, of our environment that, that it's, it's not letting us express or even

00:09:52.820 become, uh, robust. I mean, it's, it's almost crazy when, when, when someone hears what I've done

00:10:00.000 in the course of this book is I climbed up most of the way up to Kilimanjaro to a place called

00:10:04.620 Gilman's point, which is about 18,500 feet in 28 hours, wearing basically a bathing suit the whole

00:10:12.260 time as the temperature, you know, swept down to negative 30 degrees. That sounds insane, right?

00:10:18.960 Right. Yeah. It does to me for sure.

00:10:20.860 But it's something that my body and I'm not an athlete, right? I am not nothing special from a

00:10:27.260 physical perspective. I'm a journalist. I'm a, I got a rights words. I have a sense of adventure,

00:10:31.640 I guess. That's my, that's my talent. Uh, but getting up to the top of that mountain,

00:10:37.480 I was really just using and activating a hidden human biology that we all have the potential to

00:10:43.380 access, you know, you know, over the course of human evolution, when we have to go encounter a

00:10:49.240 radical change, let's say there's a blizzard coming, right? And it, and it's going to be a

00:10:54.100 difficult challenge to get through the animals and the humans that are not able to change their

00:10:59.180 physiology rapidly to adapt to that environment are the ones who did not pass on their genes. 0.82

00:11:03.880 And we are the, you know, if you're alive today, it's because your ancestors were badasses. 0.92

00:11:08.720 Sure. Yeah. Survival of the fittest essentially. 0.94

00:11:11.340 Yeah. And, and, you know, and, and, you know, we've been evolving since about 3 billion years ago.

00:11:16.160 That's when life sort of emerges on the planet from, you know, you start getting complex life.

00:11:21.120 Every iteration of that, every biological being had to deal with the environment.

00:11:25.860 Like that was, that was their main role invite, deal with the environment and pass on your genes.

00:11:30.600 And we are this, the, the result of that. And we are finally attuned to be able to, to do this.

00:11:37.520 And, and all it takes to reinvigorate that hidden biology is to get out there and start introducing

00:11:43.960 changes to take it. I take a cold shower every day. I do this, this breathing method that stresses my

00:11:49.940 sort of my gasp reflex. You know, I, I sort of hold my breath for an incredibly long period of

00:11:55.780 time every morning. And by adding these stressors, it actually has this beneficial effects throughout,

00:12:03.280 you know, my whole body. Yeah. And I'm really excited to get into this and I want to have

00:12:07.080 you a conversation specifically about the breathing because I actually practice some of the exercises

00:12:11.080 that you had talked about in the book. But before I get to that, I want to ask you something that

00:12:16.480 has been on my mind. And I think it's easy for, and I've even caught myself saying this,

00:12:21.060 that, you know, technology has made us weaker. We're a weak people in general. But then I look,

00:12:25.460 you know, we just got, we had the super bowl yesterday and I look at these athletes and there's

00:12:30.440 no doubt in my mind that these are elite athletes. They're strong, they're big, they're fast. And I

00:12:36.540 don't know how they stack up to our ancestors, but I question, are we really weaker or are we stronger

00:12:42.480 because of the technological advances that we have? And are those athletes, the exception rather

00:12:47.020 than the rule? Well, it's not one thing or the other, right? I mean, we all have the biology to

00:12:53.660 that our ancestors had. It's, it's, it's the question of nature versus nurture, right? While

00:12:59.840 one of the, these elite athletes are hardcore training, right? They're doing a lot of stuff.

00:13:04.460 They are really delving into their biology. And I have no doubt that those guys, right? The Tom

00:13:10.480 Brady's of the world and whatnot would be a pretty darn good match for our, for our ancestors, right?

00:13:16.840 I mean, they have all the benefits of both nurturing their bodies along the way because

00:13:21.700 they started being athletes probably at a very young age, right? And these are probably the five

00:13:26.680 year old kids are out there on the soccer field, right? And, and they're stressing themselves and

00:13:31.180 their biologies are able to express themselves. But what I'm talking about is the average American,

00:13:37.080 right? Not the, our elite special forces units who, you know, go through their own thing,

00:13:41.640 but, you know, we have this exploding obesity epidemic in the United States, right? Exploding.

00:13:46.980 We have diabetes. It's through the roof. We have autoimmune illnesses that are crazy. And for every,

00:13:52.000 you know, elite athlete, there's 50,000, you know, ordinary people, right? Who, who struggle,

00:13:59.920 uh, uh, with their environment because they're so comfortable.

00:14:02.960 Yeah. And, and it's fascinating to me that you set out from what I can tell to debunk the myth

00:14:08.900 that Wim Hof had claimed that he can actually control his body and, and reduce some of these

00:14:14.820 illnesses that we see generally in society today. Yeah. I thought he was a charlatan, honestly. Uh,

00:14:20.360 when this started, uh, you know, my investigative career, you know, I never expected to write a sports

00:14:26.780 book, right? I, this never occurred to me. I was an investigative journalist. My first book was

00:14:31.220 about organ trafficking. My second book was the dark side of the meditative path where I

00:14:36.420 explored the stories of people who were on spiritual quests and those quests ended tragically,

00:14:43.040 either in their deaths or another person's death or going into an insane asylum. Um, these sort of,

00:14:48.940 that pursuit for divinity is very close to madness. And when I learned about Wim, sorry,

00:14:57.120 let me go backwards a second. When we talk about that, that, that desire for something greater than

00:15:01.680 yourself is you're often looking for superpowers, right? You're looking for stuff to become something

00:15:05.800 great, uh, and, and almost magical. And a lot of gurus will take advantage of, of their flocks by

00:15:13.800 making these outlandish claims that have no ability, you know, that there's no way to duplicate such as

00:15:19.960 like levitating or walking through walls. And, and there's a whole spiritual contingent that looks at

00:15:24.900 this stuff. Uh, or to another extent, just even promising heaven, you know, that is one of the

00:15:30.060 ways that ISIS shows up, you know? So, so there's this sort of spirituality and madness thing that I

00:15:35.080 was examining for many, many years, almost 10 years. When I heard about Wim, his claims were very

00:15:41.280 similar. He was claiming to be able to sit in the snow for just epic amounts of time and control his

00:15:47.820 immune system. And that not only was he been able to demonstrate those things because he had,

00:15:52.840 I knew he had done a lot of these things, but when he started saying he could teach you to do it and

00:15:58.380 not only that, but teach you quickly, it sounded like a get rich quick scheme. It sounded like he

00:16:02.800 was trying to like milk some money out of his followers. So when I went out to see him, I was

00:16:08.280 totally ready to just write another story. I was writing for playboy at the time. Uh, I was going

00:16:12.680 to write another story about this more charlatan guru and then go on with my investigative life,

00:16:17.000 but it didn't work out that way. I met Wim and within a matter of days, I'm like lying in the

00:16:23.820 snow in the middle of the Polish winter. This is the winter that stops the Nazi army. This is the 0.76

00:16:29.240 winter that stops, uh, that, that, that stopped Napoleon in his tracks. And I'm out here in a

00:16:35.040 bathing suit, rolling around in the snow, feeling warm. Uh, it was just so shocking and so quick that I

00:16:40.420 knew that, that, that there was something legitimate to it. Yeah. I mean, I really liked,

00:16:45.400 I like what you say about the, the, the inability to duplicate some of these results versus your

00:16:51.320 experience where you are. He is teaching those results. Cause you talk about in the book, super

00:16:56.520 testers and maybe these anomalies of people that for whatever reason, their, uh, biology or physiology

00:17:02.940 is made in a way that allows them to accomplish these things, but they are experiencing results over

00:17:07.640 and over and over again. Talk to me about maybe some of the tactics, uh, that you have personally

00:17:13.600 adapted in your life that have helped you realize that this isn't a fraud, that this is actually

00:17:18.820 legitimate thing. So I have a, uh, you know, a 15 minute workout routine that I, that I do every

00:17:25.320 day. And I think this is what you're getting at, um, where I do a breathing routine, which is the

00:17:30.780 Wim Hof method breathing, which is, looks a lot like hyperventilation. So it's like deep, rapid breaths.

00:17:36.060 It sounds a little like this. And I do like 30 of those breaths. And then I let all the air out of

00:17:44.560 my lungs and I hold my breath until I get to that point where I absolutely have to gasp. And then I'll,

00:17:50.160 and then I'll repeat that and do three or four rounds of it. And every time I do a round, I can,

00:17:54.960 I can hold my breath an extra minute. Uh, so by the end of this routine, I'm doing three minutes of

00:18:01.720 holding my breath, uh, which is, you know, there's a sort of a body hack that goes to this,

00:18:06.460 which is blowing off CO2 from your system, uh, has tricks your body for where it's gas point is.

00:18:12.040 But the effects are that you're able to do longer bouts of exertion, uh, or longer bouts of holding

00:18:18.460 your breath. And then at the end of that, I'll do pushups without breathing. And when I started this,

00:18:22.940 I could do about 20 pushups, you know, nothing special at all. Um, and after just 15 minutes of

00:18:28.260 learning the breathing, I could do 40, uh, and, and my, and with 40 without breathing with my lungs,

00:18:33.600 totally empty of air. It was, it's shocking. It's really cool. Well, I can tell you just to

00:18:38.000 interrupt you before you move on to the next one here is I actually practiced this. I was gone this

00:18:42.620 weekend and I decided to practice as best I could some of your breathing techniques that you talk about

00:18:47.620 in the book. And I did this on the plane, but I obviously I couldn't do it to the degree you just

00:18:52.080 shared with me because people would look at me weird, but I did it as best I could. And the first time I

00:18:57.920 did it, I was able to hold my breath for a minute. And, and by then I was just, I was exhausted.

00:19:03.260 I had to, I had to grasp for air. The second time after the controlled hyperventilating that you talk

00:19:08.400 about, I was able to hold my breath for an additional 30 seconds just after doing it for

00:19:13.360 one time. And I'm sure I didn't do it even as good as I could have had I been alone.

00:19:18.420 Sure. Well, I mean, I mean, you can always do this in the middle of the plane. They'll look at

00:19:22.080 you weird, but you know, hell you'll hold your breath for three minutes.

00:19:24.340 That's right. Exactly. Exactly. So you've got the, so you talk about the breathing, 0.97

00:19:29.860 you talk about the pushups, uh, and I haven't done the pushup exercise yet, but I will do that.

00:19:33.980 Tell me, tell me what else you have in this 15 minute exercise.

00:19:37.220 Uh, I mean, that's really it. It's 50, it's 15 minutes of breathing and then pushups at the end.

00:19:41.340 And then, and then whenever I take my shower in the day, depending on what my workout routine is,

00:19:46.800 uh, you start off with a hot shower and at the last minute or so minute or two, you turn it all the

00:19:52.120 way cold and, and the colder it is, the better. And in that moment where that, that cold water is

00:19:59.040 going down on you, you have to relax into it. So the natural human response is fight or flight. You

00:20:05.620 get, you get very tense, you get, you know, and you're trying to warm yourself with that, that,

00:20:10.420 that muscle activity, right? What you're actually trying to do with this method is like you get

00:20:14.520 into that stressful situation and then you just relax and let it wash over you. And you're,

00:20:19.120 and you tell your body to essentially find a different way to heat itself and also not worry

00:20:25.840 so much about what is ultimately not a very dangerous, stressful situation, right? Cold

00:20:30.700 water ain't going to kill anybody. Right. Not in your shower. Not immediately. Right. Of course.

00:20:35.940 Yeah. I mean, really not. I mean, you, you should try to kill yourself with a cold shower. It's

00:20:39.960 going to be a lot of hard work. Sure. Sure.

00:20:42.500 Gentlemen, we are getting close on giving you the last reminder for the uprising. It looks like

00:20:49.180 we're near capacity, which I'm excited about. But if you're on the fence about attending, now is the

00:20:53.740 time to get off of that fence and go register. This is our three and a half day experience in

00:20:58.160 the mountains of Southern Utah. This is an experience designed to test you mentally, physically,

00:21:04.440 emotionally. And I can tell you that based on last year's event, we did just that. We're going to do

00:21:08.800 it again. And we're going to add some new features to this as well. There's a lot of men running around

00:21:12.600 feeling stuck, feeling as if they're in a rut. And it is my goal to help you get out of that rut

00:21:17.060 however we can. So if you feel that way, or even if you feel like you've reached a plateau in your

00:21:21.820 relationship or your health, your business, any area of life, guys, it is time to shake things up.

00:21:27.540 So you're going to be learning from me and some other incredible men, including a Navy SEAL. And at the

00:21:32.800 end of the day, you're going to walk away from the event with a new sense of clarity and confidence

00:21:38.120 and purpose to tackle your biggest objectives in life. And if you don't know what those are,

00:21:44.320 we're going to help you figure that out. So head to order a man.com slash uprising to claim your spot. 0.90

00:21:48.500 Again, do it quickly. We are going to sell out soon. Again, that's order a man.com slash uprising.

00:21:53.140 And now let me get back to my interview and conversation with Scott.

00:21:58.340 Yeah, no, I've liked what you're talking about. I mean, what you're talking about from my perspective

00:22:02.000 is just intentionality, because I think there's a lot of things that the body does. You talk about

00:22:05.860 sneezing, for example, and there's a lot of things that the body does just automatically. And you're

00:22:09.680 using your mind to turn some of these things off in order for the mind to focus on maybe a more

00:22:16.680 effective and efficient way of doing things. Exactly. Is that, is that our body runs on this

00:22:22.940 sort of this autonomic programming that we don't have much access into, you know, you know, you can't

00:22:28.480 really control your heartbeat. Right. For instance, I mean, there are ways to get there, but it's,

00:22:33.640 but it's, but it's pretty hard to go do that. But then there's systems like your breathing

00:22:38.100 where I can hold my breath right now. But if I stop thinking about it, it'll just go on autopilot.

00:22:43.660 And what a lot of the training is, is trying to modulate what you do have conscious control

00:22:50.340 over in order to activate unconscious responses in the body. And one great one to, for an example is,

00:22:57.260 is vasoconstriction. So you have about 60,000 miles of tubing in your body that carries blood

00:23:03.720 here and there in the arteries, which are the, the, the tubes that leave your heart, you know,

00:23:09.280 and travel away from your heart. Those are lined with smooth muscle and whose role is to constrict

00:23:17.720 in, in a case of in two cases. One, if, if someone cuts off your leg with a sword, right,

00:23:23.120 you don't bleed out. You know, this is why, this is why soldiers lose their legs and live is that

00:23:29.820 because when, when that leg gets cut off, the vein, the arteries will clench and, and stop the flow of

00:23:37.040 blood to the, to the extremity. And that's how people have survived. So that's a very useful skill

00:23:42.200 to have. Um, but a more useful one, one that we use, uh, usually regularly, evolutionarily we use

00:23:50.440 regularly is when it gets cold, the arteries in your hands and your extremities, uh, will constrict

00:23:55.620 and keep the blood in your core to preserve your core temperature and keep you alive, uh, sacrificing

00:24:02.180 dexterity and possibly in case of very extreme cases, the, the extremities themselves.

00:24:08.060 Right. Makes sense. Of course.

00:24:10.640 So now think about this. You have like 30,000 miles of muscles along these, in this arterial pathways.

00:24:16.500 And the only way we ever can exercise them is to get cold. Cause I can't just think my hand

00:24:22.800 to constrict, right? I can't just consciously constrict it. The only way I can actually restrict

00:24:26.860 it is by getting into a cold environment and having that environment trigger vasoconstriction.

00:24:33.220 And for evolutionarily, when we're, we, where we emerged from this 200,000 years of human evolution,

00:24:39.100 vasoconstriction was a normal thing to do. We would just never had to be under conscious control

00:24:43.440 because you get into a cold environment and it would just go and would just happen. And, and there

00:24:49.040 would be enough variations during the, you know, the week or the month that you're hanging out doing

00:24:53.480 your prehistoric thing, uh, that, that those, that system would get exercise. But now here again,

00:24:59.660 we're living in comfort all the time and those muscles are weak. They are there. You have a weak

00:25:05.880 circulatory system. You can even have a six pack and, you know, totally gym bodied up. But if you never

00:25:12.220 get uncomfortable, you never put yourself in a cold shower, never walk around in the snow or do

00:25:15.960 like the things that a human might do that, that whole system is weak. And, and, and it leads to,

00:25:21.680 to, you know, cardiac illnesses, circulatory illnesses, uh, you know, all sorts of problems.

00:25:27.700 Yeah. This is fascinating because I've often caught myself asking, you know, our, our ancestors

00:25:31.940 trekking across the plains that are the tundra in sub freezing temperatures and asking myself,

00:25:38.120 how is that even possible? And it sounds like based on what you're saying in the work that

00:25:42.180 Wim Hof is doing, that it's possible through controlled, uh, the ability to control and

00:25:47.860 maybe not control, but the ability to exercise and strengthen the muscles that you're talking

00:25:51.940 about here. Yeah. I mean, it's that it was also metabolic tissues that will get, um, stronger the

00:25:57.660 more, um, the more you exercise them. So, you know, uh, we have this thing called Brown adipose

00:26:03.420 tissue or Brown fat that every baby is born with. And in order to survive babies, their

00:26:10.240 first challenge in life is keeping a body temperature up and they have a very high surface

00:26:15.600 area to mass ratio, which means they lose heat very quickly. But at the same time, they

00:26:21.140 don't have developed muscles or digestive systems or even a great circulatory system. So they

00:26:26.000 don't have an obvious way to heat themselves. So, you know, you and I heat ourselves through

00:26:31.500 our digestion, through our circulation, through these, the movement of our muscles. And that's

00:26:35.760 how we maintain 98.6 babies don't have that option. So what they're born instead with are

00:26:41.600 rolls of fat, which, you know, you can obviously see, and, uh, this other tissue called Brown

00:26:47.320 adipose tissue or Brown fat. And what this, the role of that tissue is, is to suck white fat from

00:26:53.920 the baby, those baby rolls and burn it directly for heat energy. And that's how you and I survived

00:26:59.660 the first years of our life until we started moving and exercising ourselves. Now, what's

00:27:04.960 really interesting is that until 2007, you know, the American scientists had no clue that

00:27:11.880 Brown fat even existed in adults. They just thought it wasn't around. Uh, and, and I'm

00:27:17.440 not going to tell the whole story because it's a little bit long, but they did an MRI or something

00:27:21.760 like that. If I remember correctly. Yeah. Through P E T C T scan. That's right. Uh, but, but

00:27:26.540 they found that, that, uh, Brown fat actually does exist in, in adult humans, just not in

00:27:33.040 great quantities for adult humans who are never exposed to environmental variation. So

00:27:38.700 if you find like an indigenous person who has minimal technology available to them, or even 1.00

00:27:44.600 just a very poor person who has to deal with like a homeless person would have, would have

00:27:48.840 a lot of, of, of sort of existing metabolic tissues in their body, um, because they need

00:27:54.940 it to survive. And here's my, one of my favorite stories and I like recounting it, uh, when the

00:28:01.180 pilgrims, so these Puritans from England landed in Cape Cod or Plymouth, uh, you know, what

00:28:08.500 16, whatever they, uh, didn't see anybody at first and they were living in their little cold

00:28:14.500 stone cottages and, and, you know, trying to, to make a go of it. And the first person

00:28:20.280 they meet is this character named Samoset and he, he's an Algonquin Indian and he walks

00:28:26.960 up to them in the middle of like March. So pretty darn cold, right? Sure. And he's wearing

00:28:33.000 a loincloth and that's it. He just shows up and this is the original account. You can

00:28:36.920 look this up. This is on Google or whatever. He shows up in a loincloth, walks up to them

00:28:40.700 and says, welcome, welcome Englishman. Do you have any beer? That's funny, which, which

00:28:47.540 is hilarious. A, that he knows English to that. He totally misread the Puritans because

00:28:51.760 they didn't have any beer. Right. And then the Puritans response was, oh my God, you need

00:28:56.760 a coat. And then they gave him a coat and he's like, gee, thanks for the coat. But the, the

00:29:01.340 natives in that, in that area, the, the indigenous people in Northeast America would condition

00:29:06.760 their children by putting their children in snow banks, um, you know, in their infancy

00:29:11.560 to generate their heat building properties throughout their whole life. So that come

00:29:17.160 March in the 1600s and this, these frigid days, they were totally comfortable in almost

00:29:22.240 no clothing. And it's, it's a, just a human ability that comes through nurture.

00:29:26.600 You know, it's funny as I watched a video, oh, it must've been two or three weeks. It was

00:29:31.020 before I, I was introduced to your research and I think it's in Russia where they would

00:29:37.060 literally, these, these school children, elementary school children were out rolling around in

00:29:41.560 the snow and they would do that every day and then come in and do their studies. And, and

00:29:44.700 I think it was to ward off illness and disease and they're having success with this.

00:29:50.260 Yeah, they totally are. It's a, it's a viral video on Facebook. Anyone can just Google that

00:29:55.040 up. But, uh, you know, there's a ice bath tradition in Russia that goes back two or 300

00:29:59.320 years, uh, where, you know, in these cold Russian winters, people realize that, that by getting

00:30:06.260 cold and giving them short term exposure to sort of extreme cold invigorates their body

00:30:12.620 to be able to resist the elements in general. Um, you know, and there's sort of a difference

00:30:16.880 between slow cold and fast cold. I'm realizing, you know, the, the immediate response to, you

00:30:23.460 know, jumping into like ice water is this fight or flight response and that invigorates

00:30:27.540 your nervous system. But if you were to live in ice water for a long period of time, like, you know,

00:30:33.300 three hours or something, you're going to die of hypothermia. But so, so there's this, there's

00:30:37.860 this modulating point where at first your body kicks in extra energy and does extra stuff. And

00:30:43.100 then the cold can still certainly grind you down, but you start building up resistance. And, you know,

00:30:48.760 wind can stay in ice water for about 90 minutes, which would kill most people, which would kill

00:30:53.600 the most unconditioned people. Yeah. So outside of being a endurance athlete or an elite, excuse me,

00:31:00.500 an elite athlete, like we have talked about, uh, is the practical application of this type of

00:31:05.020 environmental training to ward off illness and to live maybe a more healthy lifestyle? Is there,

00:31:11.180 is there other things beyond that? Or am I understanding that correctly?

00:31:14.080 Well, it's one to ward off illness in particular, uh, autoimmune illnesses. Uh, you know,

00:31:21.500 these things where your body attacks itself and it's, it's not immediately logical for why that

00:31:27.720 works like that, but you know, we have to go back to evolution to understand it, but we always had

00:31:32.980 variation in our temperatures and that, and those variations are powered by the sympathetic nervous

00:31:40.540 system. Like that's how we, we adapted through the sympathetic nervous system, which is also linked

00:31:45.560 to our immune system. And, and as we, you know, and this immune system is, is this sort of predator

00:31:53.440 in our body, right? It's searching around for bacteria to eat, viruses to defeat and that sort of

00:31:59.080 thing. And it's got macrophages and killer T cells and neutrophils and all these like different types of,

00:32:04.620 of, uh, cellular bodies. But in the world that we live in with so few stimuli for the immune system,

00:32:12.760 uh, and, and, and the sympathetic nervous system, one of the reasons why we, why the immune system

00:32:18.860 will occasionally attack itself either through Crohn's disease or arthritis or lupus or various

00:32:24.600 conditions is that that predator is, has nothing to do. It's essentially bored, right? And, and yet it's

00:32:32.640 still a predator. So it starts attacking your joints or attacking your digestive tract or whatever else.

00:32:37.180 And by reintroducing variations, you're essentially giving that predator a chew toy.

00:32:43.780 Now I'm using metaphors. I mean, I think a scientist can break this out in another way, but

00:32:48.440 it's pretty fascinating because when I was researching the book, I meet a bunch of people

00:32:53.220 with Crohn's disease and arthritis who are able to literally reverse their conditions because they're

00:32:59.560 using, uh, environmental stimulus to treat themselves. And it's, it's amazing. It certainly

00:33:04.580 needs more scientific research to sort of bolster and back it up, but it's fascinating to get into

00:33:10.240 that. So, so, you know, you're saying who benefits from this, right? It's people who have illnesses who

00:33:16.220 want to get better. It's people who just want to live a sort of a well-rounded life, sort of general

00:33:21.700 health. Um, also in athletes are really, really keen on it because it mixes very, very well with

00:33:29.020 something called high intensity interval training where, you know, you, you, you prep your breathing

00:33:35.200 and then do a really high level of exertion. And you can actually do a lot more of that exertion.

00:33:41.500 You know, it's like with the pushups where I could do, do 20 normally. Then I did this breathing. I did

00:33:45.500 40. Well, if you mix that with high intensity training, you sort of really supercharge your

00:33:50.220 workout, um, with the potential of passing out. Well, and I imagine too, that, um, anybody listening

00:33:59.240 who might be a quote unquote survivalist might also be interested in this type of training because

00:34:05.080 this just brings it to a whole nother level. Sure. Well, I mean, I would think that the survivalists,

00:34:10.040 if they're, if they're really keen on it, are already doing a lot of this. That's true. Right.

00:34:13.300 I mean, if you're out there in the weather, you don't need to read the book to, to get out there and,

00:34:19.500 you know, start having your body do its things. Right. Uh, although you have to read the book

00:34:23.560 because it's a great book. You do. And both of us recommend that you do. And your times recommends

00:34:27.640 that you do as well. Exactly. But, but, you know, essentially like, like what I'm shedding a light

00:34:33.620 on is, is these are what things that humans used to do. And you should still be doing some of these

00:34:38.260 things because it's, it's not bad to experience the full range of, of human physiology and, and getting

00:34:45.960 outside. Like one, one of the people that, one of the groups that I sort of highlighted

00:34:49.460 in the book is this group called the November project, which I think is a fantastic, um,

00:34:54.420 athletic group. And what they, what they do is they have these like what they call tribes and

00:34:58.640 basically every American city. And they do workouts at like pretty early in the morning,

00:35:04.500 like seven 30 in the morning. And they make a pact to come every day, rain or shine, and they're

00:35:10.020 going to work out outside. And even though they're not thinking about this in terms of the evolutionary

00:35:16.620 potential that I'm highlighting in the book, just being out there every day puts their body

00:35:21.080 in touch with the seasonal variations of their area. And, and those seasonal variations trigger

00:35:27.400 biological processes to get the body ready for that seasonal change. Uh, and it's so it's just

00:35:34.160 an awesome that this thing was out there and, and, you know, anyone can get out there and they can,

00:35:37.760 they can start looking at their environment as an opportunity to train their physiology.

00:35:42.280 So I guess this leads to the question because we talk about breathing, 15 minute breathing,

00:35:46.360 pushup exercise, those types of things, cold showers, maybe a little bit of exercise here.

00:35:49.640 Is that enough to reap the type of benefits that you're talking about? Because the things that you

00:35:53.560 did were intensive and the majority of people aren't going to do those types of things. Is it enough

00:35:59.040 for some of these others that you've talked about?

00:36:01.420 It is. And that's the, that's the super cool thing is that, so I ran a study while I was doing this

00:36:06.600 project where I tested my metabolism before I did the training. So I was like, I did nothing for

00:36:13.120 like, I think 30 days or 40 days beforehand. I tested my physiology then. And then I tested after

00:36:18.460 six months of doing this every day. And in the meantime, I didn't do any additional workouts that

00:36:24.820 I wasn't doing already. Uh, so I, I think I would do about three workouts, um, a week and these are not

00:36:31.380 super intense. I would like run three miles around a lake around my, uh, near my house or I'd go

00:36:36.180 swimming for like an hour, like nothing at all, uh, extreme. And I didn't change anything else other

00:36:41.400 than adding the breathing routine and the cold showers. And, you know, occasionally if there was

00:36:45.540 like a cold lake to jump in, I'll just do it. Cause I think it's fun. Just doing that. Uh, I was able

00:36:51.280 to accomplish pretty crazy feats. Like I did, you know, a couple obstacle course races and in my shorts,

00:36:57.660 even though, despite like snow and like cripplingly cold weather. And I climbed to Mount Kilimanjaro.

00:37:02.300 Yeah. Including the, uh, the tough guy is one of the ones that you did, right? Which is Scott

00:37:06.040 talked about that quite a bit. I think he just, did he just race that? I think he just raced,

00:37:10.120 uh, he did. He did. And he didn't finish this time. He said it was too cold. Oh, wow. Yeah. So he

00:37:15.140 needs some of this training. It sounds like. Yeah. I talked to, I talked to him about that a lot.

00:37:19.540 Are there any surprises? Let me, uh, let me, uh, the end of this is that, so I tested my metabolism

00:37:26.900 before and after and just adding this cold stuff, just adding the breathing stuff. I went from

00:37:31.520 somebody who primarily burned carbohydrates, uh, during workouts to someone who burned primarily

00:37:37.780 fat during workouts, which is a huge benefit. And it's something that endurance athletes prize

00:37:44.500 because it fat is more reliable, uh, fuel source for sort of longer exertions, but I'd only done it

00:37:50.060 done like a 15 minute change a day. And when I talked to the physiologist in debt in Boulder,

00:37:55.240 who was studying me, he said that it was as if I had added seven hours of working out

00:37:59.920 to my routine, uh, every day, uh, sorry, every week, every weekend, uh, which is huge. Cause

00:38:06.720 I only added about, you know, what, like an hour and 30 minutes or whatever. Right. So that,

00:38:11.320 that was like a, like a really efficient thing. And I think that it's the perspective of the

00:38:15.640 environment, which, which really, uh, supercharged that and made it possible. So yeah, if you want

00:38:21.180 to, you know, get fit and sort of lose weight, cold is a great way to do that. Um, to, to become

00:38:26.820 a better endurance runner, cold is a great way to do that. This breathing is a great way to do that.

00:38:30.860 I love it. I love it. And it's very practical and it sounds like it's very easy for people to

00:38:34.620 implement. Obviously they can take it above and beyond, but that's a good starting point. It

00:38:37.920 sounds like. So as we, as we wind up, and I know we could talk about this a lot more because I was

00:38:42.480 spellbound and fascinated by the book and the research that you did. I do want to ask you a couple

00:38:46.440 additional questions. The first one, which I prepared you for a little bit

00:38:49.380 was what does it mean to be a man? For me, what I believe being a man is, is being responsible for

00:38:56.560 yourself and the people around you and to be able to step up to the challenges in life. And

00:39:06.660 I know for myself where, where I feel like I made the transition between being a boy and being a man

00:39:13.520 probably happened when I was in college and I went abroad on like an abroad program. And I lived in

00:39:20.780 India for a year where everything was a challenge. And I was, I was forcing myself to learn new things

00:39:27.000 all the time. And then in doing that, I realized I was capable of, of enduring a lot of suffering and

00:39:33.420 of, of, of, of figuring out challenges for myself. And I think that's what separates sort of the child

00:39:39.880 from the adult. Yeah. And obviously something that your work is going to help a lot of guys

00:39:44.980 become more of, and obviously fulfill that, that role and that responsibility that you talk about.

00:39:50.040 So with that said, what is the best way to connect with you, learn about what you're doing? And of

00:39:53.920 course, by the book as well. Well, uh, you know, the books on Amazon and bookstores everywhere,

00:39:58.360 we've got a great audio book that I recorded myself and it's, uh, you know, everyone says it's,

00:40:02.960 it's pretty cool. You can actually do your workouts while listening to me. Maybe that's inspiring.

00:40:06.860 Yeah, sure. Uh, there are also, you know, I've got the Facebook thing. I got the Twitter thing,

00:40:13.080 the Instagram thing, you know, a little bit of Googling and you'll find me. Uh, and I've got a

00:40:17.760 website, scottcarney.com. So, oh, and the book has a website. What doesn't kill us is the book's

00:40:22.920 name. So wherever that shows up on Facebook, uh, you will find it. Excellent. We'll make sure.

00:40:28.540 That's right. Well, we'll make sure we link everything up so the guys can find that pretty easy.

00:40:32.460 Like I said, uh, really fascinated by your work and, uh, the, the fact that you actually went out

00:40:36.860 and did it. And that's what I've got to tell you. I admire about you is that I think there's a lot

00:40:40.420 of people who could sit the sidelines and, and research this stuff and, and try to prove either

00:40:44.580 the hypothesis, correct or incorrect, whatever it may be. But I admire the fact that you went out and

00:40:49.400 you pushed your body, you learned something new and you actually got out and did it. So I got to tell

00:40:53.240 you, I appreciate you. And I thank you for being on the show today. Thanks for having me on. This

00:40:56.580 is going to be a lot of fun. There it is guys. Such a great conversation with Scott Carney. If

00:41:01.680 you haven't already go out, I know some of you have already, but if you haven't go out

00:41:05.520 by this book, I devoured it. I've started implementing some of its teachings in my life.

00:41:09.880 You will not be disappointed. Again, just a quick reminder about our second live event,

00:41:14.100 the uprising. We are going to sell out of these spots. I told you last week, we only had one or two

00:41:18.660 spots left. Those have been filled, but I did open it up for a few additional spots. I want to see you

00:41:23.780 there. I want to see you succeed. At the end of the day, we're going to be completing some challenges,

00:41:28.240 some tactics, some activities that are going to help you get exactly what you need to get that

00:41:33.900 clarity and that purpose in your life. You can learn more and claim that spot at orderofman.com

00:41:39.140 slash uprising. I'm going to look forward to talk with you on Friday for our Friday field notes. But

00:41:43.660 until then, remember, take action and become the man you were meant to be. Thank you for listening

00:41:48.280 to the Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man

00:41:53.140 you were meant to be. We invite you to join the Order at orderofman.com.

102： What Doesn't Kill Us ｜ Scott Carney

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