Latest / Callum Walker | Figuring It Out / Episode #2: The Controversial Method that Eliminates Anxiety and Unleashes Your Full Potential

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Episode #2: The Controversial Method that Eliminates Anxiety and Unleashes Your Full Potential · Callum Walker | Figuring It Out

• 0:03
  Callum Walker: If fear is the only thing stopping us from achieving our dreams and we only fear what we don't understand, then the antidote to fear
• 0:10
  Callum Walker: is knowledge. All we have to do is find out who has the knowledge that we need to conquer our fears and achieve our entrepreneurial dreams. My name is Callum Walker, and welcome to the podcast that will help you figure it out and conquer this lonely entrepreneurial journey. So I have been experimenting with cold water therapy, actually, the past past ten weeks now. Look.
• 0:36
  I'm gonna be honest. To begin with, I was incredibly skeptical. Why was I incredibly skeptical? Because well, actually, partly, I remember reading research papers when I was at uni around cold water therapy and ice baths for recovery. And I remember one of the lectures that I was attending, the professor was saying that, you know, there's no real evidence that in the long term it can enhance recovery.
• 0:58
  So I guess I was always incredibly skeptical around it because everything I'd read had not really shown that there'd be long term benefits to recovery because a lot of the studies that are out there very much showcase that in the short term, yes, you can get a decrease in inflammation, but in the long term, that can then actually impair your ability to build muscle, recover, and all that sort of stuff. So I'd always be very, against it. And then also, yeah, you know, I saw Wim Hof everywhere, and I was just like, this guy's fucking nuts. Like, he's basically saying that cold water and cold water therapy just saves the day and solves everything. But I'm gonna be honest, the more and more I've kinda gone into the world, the more and more I've been working myself, the more and more I've read, the more and more I've realized that the majority is most of the time wrong.
• 1:49
  And then actually, it's the 1%. It's the crazy people who are actually doing all of the things that are actually right. Wow. Hold on. I went through this bit of an echo.
• 1:57
  Based the crazy people, the outliers, who are, like, shouting from the hills saying, honestly, do this, do this, do this, do this, and the ones that are ignored who are actually the people who are doing the right stuff. And I think that I've certainly fallen victim to this of being incredibly arrogant sometimes of, oh, I actually know it all. And I'm just gonna dismiss things because I don't because I don't know everything about it. I'm just gonna dismiss it. So, you know, and it's like, you know, a client come to me and be like, you know, what do think of this?
• 2:30
  Comes in. Hey. Cool. What do you think of this? What do think of that?
• 2:34
  And I'd be like, no. No. No. No. It's a waste of time.
• 2:36
  Pointless. And then the reason why I would do that, like, I didn't actually know the answer. So the problem was it actually threatened my identity, so I actually knew nothing about it. So it's like people used to come to me going, you know, I see all these people doing, like, cold showers and all this sort of stuff. What do you Like, no.
• 2:49
  Waste of time. Pointless. I knew nothing about it apart from some research papers that I'd read about ten years ago. Well, I finished uni fuck. Yeah.
• 2:56
  When I started uni ten years ago, wow. That makes me feel odd. You know? So I just shoot it down because it threatened my identity. It almost, like, made me yeah.
• 3:11
  It put me in a position where I'd be like, shit. I don't know the answer to this. I'm gonna look stupid. But I've really adopted an attitude of humility, and I think that as a coach or even entrepreneur or whatever, if you can, you know, really kinda adopt a mentality of humility that I don't know all the answers, that maybe before I go straight to, like, having a judgment on something and shooting it down, I'm actually gonna, first of all, look it up. Second of all, you know, actually go into detail and find out whether it's actually whether it works or not and actually try it out on myself.
• 3:48
  And this is what I've kinda done with the cold water stuff that I am you know, I just the thing is I saw a lot of people who I very much respect doing it. And I know Tony Robbins has been talking about this for years about how he starts his day off with, you know, a cold plunge. And and I was like, sure. There there has to be something to this. I'm just gonna go and give it a go.
• 4:10
  So I've been doing it for, what, ten weeks now? And I'll be honest. So I did it, like, right at the start of the year. And I I think I lasted about five seconds. Not the first time I said that?
• 4:24
  Yeah. I lasted about five seconds. I remember I was in the I was in the cold shower. It's freezing cold. I turned it off five seconds.
• 4:34
  And I was like, and and my partner was just like, what the fuck are you doing? Why are you such a baby? I can hear you from downstairs. I live in a three story house. That's not impressive, by the way.
• 4:46
  It's just just how it is. And yeah. So I was just, like, screaming like that. But, anyway, so the first time I did it, I said, this is awful. I'm not doing it again.
• 4:57
  I'll do it again. But I was like, no, look, I made a commitment. I'm gonna do it. So I made this commitment and I did it, you know, five seconds then. And I realized the mistake I made.
• 5:07
  The mistake that I made was that I turned it super, super cold straight away. I should have just like weaned myself in. So I started doing it fifteen seconds, thirty seconds at a minute. And I'm gonna be honest. I was like, shit.
• 5:20
  Like, I feel so good after this. And, yeah, I think look. I've noticed three key benefits. I'll tell you the thing that I haven't noticed. I can't say I've necessarily noticed the difference in my recovery physically.
• 5:41
  I haven't really noticed that I feel any different physically in the sense of that, like, soreness between training sessions. But then I also put that down to the fact that I do sleep really well. I eat I eat very well. I'm in a very, very low carb diet, very anti inflammatory anyway. I'm also trained for quite some time anyway, like, you know, the last, what, ten years.
• 6:03
  So I don't necessarily struggle with Dom's a lot. So I haven't really noticed that. But what have I noticed? I think the thing that, like, Tony Robbins talks about, change of state, that's been huge. It's interesting because I was listening to him on a podcast with Tim Tim Ferriss.
• 6:23
  And Tim Ferriss, great podcast called the Tim Ferriss Show. Tim Ferriss was talking about how was basically asking, like, Tony, do you ever get in, a creative flung funk, like a slump? What do you do? And he's like, no. That never happens to me.
• 6:41
  So what you mean is it doesn't happen to me because I never let it happen to me that if I'm in that sort of situation, I change my state physiologically. So, like, you know, I change my physiology and that then, like, resparks the creativity, which I really agree with that, like, you know, that I can potentially die you know, a previous me if I've, you know, experienced like that creativity block. So you know when you're like, you know, you're trying to, you know, you're trying to write some content or you're trying to create something on your website or whatever, and and it's just not coming to you. And I would try and push and push and push and push and push through. But then what I always did that I found to be really beneficial was I'd go for a walk.
• 7:22
  So I'd come here. I'd get a little bit of some more creativity, and and it'd respark everything. And he said that that's what he uses cold showers for and that that cold plunge that it very much, like, awakens his physiology, changes his state, and it has a huge impact. I've definitely noticed that 100% that it's allowed me to, like I do in between clients, done in the morning, really to just change my state and get me into that sort of activated state. And I've definitely noticed that that, like, when I'm in it and when I come out of it, I feel activated.
• 7:57
  That's the only way I can really say it. I'm not gonna go too crazy into the physiology because I don't think it's really necessary, but I've certainly found the yeah, the change of state's been amazing and just feeling that sense of activation a 100%. So I would definitely recommend it if you're if you're in a place where you're like, yeah, I'm really struggling with creativity. I really struggled to break up the day, all that sort of stuff. Just hopping in for like even thirty seconds, change everything.
• 8:32
  Secondly, you know, there's a lot of reports on like how cold water therapy can potentially improve depression, anxiety, all that sort of stuff. And I think that comes in two parts. And I'm, and I really started to read this through Wim Hof's book where he was talking about that, that improved circulation that you get off the back of cold water therapy, can really improve the transportation of nutrients, oxygen, everything, and to areas of the brain that might previously have been potentially like closed off to this sort of stuff. And, and that does make sense to me. But I think also when I'm, when I'm in there, what do I focus on?
• 9:17
  My breathing. I do these like breathing exercises, like all that sort of stuff. And, and yeah, that's, but that's a form of mindfulness. So I don't know whether the benefits of it are directly attributed to the cold water or focusing on my breath, but I've definitely noticed an enhancement in presence, an enhancement of new clarity of thought and a decrease in anxiety 100%. But I don't know whether that's the cold water or the breathing exercises, But to be honest, I don't really care.
• 9:51
  But I also do think that, you know, it makes sense to me that I'm I'm massive, massive on just in general, we need to get back to being human. And I think being in cold water is being human because I think about it that, like, in in real world times, we'd wash ourselves. Yeah. But, like, we wouldn't wash ourselves in a hot bath. Like, where am I getting hot water?
• 10:14
  Where am I being exposed to it? Like, unless I actually would find, like, you know, a hot spring or anything like that. I'm not really gonna be exposed to that sort of stuff. So, you know, really look at what is the water that we would actually be exposed to. All right, Siri.
• 10:34
  And the water be exposed to be cold water. So I think that is part and parcel of what we were supposed to be exposed to, but like in the modern society, we're not exposed to that anymore. Naturally, because we're not exposed to it, we become very weak to it, but also maybe we've missed out on a lot of the benefits that we would have actually received from what we're programmed to be doing. So I think that has a huge part of it. You know, it's part of that getting back to being human and clearly there must be like unexplored benefits that we're missing out on for being in this modern created world.
• 11:08
  But I think the biggest thing, and I put this on my newsletter the other day, biggest thing that I've really noticed, and I'm I'm huge on this, do one thing every day that scares you. Yeah. And the more and more you do something, the more and more you become accustomed to it and the more and more it then becomes ingrained in you. Yeah. And there's not a day that goes by that I'm like, well, I'm really excited to get in that cold water.
• 11:36
  Like, it's fucking scary. Like, it's scary. But like by doing it, I'm subconsciously going, right, okay, feeling that fear and I'm doing it anyway. And subconsciously by doing that over and over and over and over again, that just reinforces my own mindset of, right. Even if something scares the shit out of me, going to do it anyway.
• 11:58
  And what's amazing is what's on the other side of that fear, something positive. Like I feel amazing after doing it. So yeah, so I'm what ten weeks in, I found it super, super beneficial. I'm definitely gonna continue it. I'm working up the courage to get in an ice bath.
• 12:16
  I think I'm kind of nearly there because and Wim Hof was talking about it in his book that like your exposure to the cold is gonna get easier and easier and easier. I certainly, I don't know whether it's just my water temperature is not really good, but I certainly don't feel as cold in the water. I'm able to stay in it for as long as possible. So I felt like I'm kind of moving up towards being able to just jump in cold water, But I think, from a physical recovery perspective, I'm not sure. I'm not sold.
• 12:47
  I haven't noticed a difference, but from a entrepreneurial side of things, from enhancing cognitive performance, yeah, solved in. Definitely something I'm going to continue. And remember that like, you know, for us as entrepreneurs, as coaches, business owners, experts, whatever you want to call yourself, We are the product. Yeah, we are the product. So, you know, I work with a lot of online coaches, personal trainers, whatever.
• 13:16
  They're not buying personal training. They're not buying They're not buying online coaching. They're buying you. My clients buy me. So if they're buying me, I want to make me the best version that I could possibly be because the better I can be, the more likely that they're going to actually want to work with me, the better the result that they're going to get from me And the more that I can then deliver to them and I can change their lives.
• 13:41
  So I think that that is huge for you to be able to go, right. Okay. What are all of the things that I can just do to improve myself on a daily basis? And I was talking to my partner about this yesterday, we went for a walk and, and basically said, you know what? I've been I'm following the mindset off right.
• 13:59
  Is this going to improve the quality of my life? Is this going to make me happier? And by adopting that sort of mentality, I've been able to make a lot better decisions. So decisions I'm like, right, okay, by doing X, is that actually going to improve the quality of my life or not? The answer is no, don't do it.
• 14:17
  If the answer is yes, do it. So yes, that's my experience. Have an amazing day. Catch you later. And remember every single one of your clients got you just one new client to build your business.