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For Veterans by Veterans. Discover and execute on the most important mission of your life. Join host, Mike Bledsoe, as he delves into transformative journeys, exploring the challenges and triumphs of transitioning from military to civilian life. Through compelling stories and expert insights, we uncover the keys to personal growth, resilience, and purposeful living.
Mike Bledsoe (00:00)
Welcome to the Mission After podcast where we help veterans discover and execute on the most important mission of their lives. I'm your host Mike Bledsoe and today's guest is Craig Mayville, a five -year Marine Corps veteran and CEO of Botten Cold Plunge. Craig has over 11 years of experience in military aviation maintenance and exotic car maintenance, and he now focuses on enhancing wellness through cold plunge technology. He will share insights on his transition from military service
the benefits of cold therapy and his journey in building a successful business. Before we dig in, I want to tell you about our new free community at themissionafter .org. In addition to meeting like valued veterans, we're also creating a library of free courses. Some of what we've gotten in there right now is a breathwork course, a micro dosing guide, and a list of upcoming retreats we're hosting and co -hosting. And there's a lot more in the works as well. So come join us at themissionafter .org.
Now let's get in a conversation with Craig Maybill.
Mike Bledsoe (00:57)
We got Craig Mayville here and we met about a decade ago, almost a decade ago in Encinitas, California. And I had just moved to town and I was running into a lot of vegans. And when I met Craig, he invited me to his bacon party. And you were like an oasis in the desert of
And so I appreciate that initial invite that kicked off a friendship that's lasted this long. And we're going to get into talking about cold tubs and the benefits of cold exposure therapy that is getting in cold water and what you're up to with your business building out the premiere.
a cold tub experience. So we'll get into all that. So people know to stick around. But yeah, you're a veteran and you served in the Marine Corps and yeah, what was your experience like in the Marine Corps and the process of getting out? Because I know from just the time we've hung out, it wasn't all rainbows and
Yeah, it's, you know, the Marine Corps is like that. not necessarily rainbows and unicorns all the time, but, all in all, especially looking back at it now, and I've been out since end of six. So coming up on 20 years, I, I couldn't have been in a better, squadron, you know, unit on a better aircraft. I'm, just so extremely, grateful for where I ended up there. And,
I was of course, as you know, CH -53 helicopter crew chief and in the Marine Corps, that's where you're a mechanic as well. Other branches, you're either aircrew or you're a mechanic. You're both in the Marine Corps. But it was an interesting experience to become like intimately involved and connected with, if you will, an aircraft that I had known about and been interested in for years prior going into the Marine Corps. was actually
Part of the reason that I had chosen that specifically was I watched the documentary of the rescue of Scott O 'Grady, was an F, I'm sorry, an Air Force, I don't know if he was an F -15 or F -16 pilot, but shot down in Serbia. think it was, been many years since I've seen that, but I think he was shot down in Serbia and it ended up
a CH -53 that came in and did the rescue and Scott Feaster was the crew chief on there, big old guy who they had interviewed and all that. And I was just like, well, that's pretty fucking cool that he got to do that. yeah, mean, the reasons I didn't re -enlist, one of the biggest things is just the uncertainty that lifestyle brings to your life is I know that nobody else in the Marine Corps
outside of the air wing likes the guys in the air wing. But, you know, for us, every day was a life or death thing, because even if you're just flying, you know, just training, it's you could still fall out of the sky. You know, your your inspection of the aircraft before you go flying and your actions, you know, in the aircraft, you know, can mean life or death. And so it was interesting to be.
so young and experiencing such a high level of accountability. And I had amazing leaders around me, you know, who I gravitated toward to try to absorb as much as I could from them. yeah, just a phenomenal experience looking back at it. But yeah, you know, when it's, what was it? think it was 40 maintenance hours per flight hour that that aircraft actually needed to stay in the sky. There's a CH -53 Delta. That's the sixth plate, of course, for the 53 guys out there.
That's the two engine, six blade straight tail, 53 versus the Echo, which is the more current one. And now, of course, the Kilo is out, the newest variation. But yeah, labor intensive and a lot of weekends sunken into that. then again, all worth it in the long run. But yeah, that's made you decide to get out? You said that uncertainty is
Sounds like maybe it was encroaching on your ability to have a personal life. was encroaching. Absolutely. You know, you hoped for only a 10 hour day, you know, a regular day in that sphere. But I mean, there could be an aircraft that comes back at four o 'clock and say, you know, before I was a supervisor, you know, the day crew supervisor might say, okay, well, this, this aircraft needs an engine change. So all of us are going to stay. So all of a sudden you've got 30 to
you know, mechanics and crew chiefs in our flight line shop that are staying for one job that requires about six people. so, I mean, part of it too, I understand was learning and getting to watch, you know, and familiarize with this. you know, lots of weekends worked, and whatnot. Funny too, we thought we were going to get a four day weekend for Christmas. think it was five or something like that. And, so.
we get called into the shops or like, everybody's like, losing my, language I'm trying to use here, but it was like, Hey, everybody come into the shop in like 10 minutes. And we're like, okay, cool. We're probably gonna be told like, you know, get all the tools accounted for in the next couple hours or something like that. And then we'll head out of here for the weekend. And it's like, Hey, we might be going to Djibouti in Africa, you know, really soon. So we're going to have Christmas off and that's it, or, you know, something like
Yeah. so it was those sorts of things. And, and again, being in, in my early twenties, it's, it's, you know, the benefit of hindsight, you can see the value of doing a lot of that stuff. Whereas, you know, when you're living it, you know, at that age without a whole lot of other exposure, you know, in life, it's, it can be a quite a drag. Yeah. They, well, it's interesting that that would never happen to civilian sector because you'd have to pay for all those people to stand around and watch.
So there's a level of exposure that you got. I think that's one thing that happens in the military is we get a high level of exposure to... We got way more hours of exposure to certain things that just don't happen in civilian sector. And so there's a benefit to that, but there's also the cost. So it sounds like you're through with the cost. You got out of the Marine Corps. What did you do after that? Did you go home? Did you go to college? What was the deal?
so the deal after that was, moved to San Diego. was originally lived in Southern California and my dad was in the Marine Corps. I was less than a year old when he got out. so I grew up in Michigan where my parents are originally from, but they had moved back to San Diego. we had gone to San Diego a couple of times for vacation. I was in high school, so they were hooked on that idea. so yeah, right after that moved there, which was great because it opened
you know, right away a door for me to go work on this CH -53 as a mechanic, as a civilian contractor. so basically, you know, fit right into that. and I'm super grateful too, because having talked to more guys in the veteran community here recently, not everybody gets veteran exposure after they got out. Whereas for me, it was, you know, for nearly seven years of my life, that, that was still the lifestyle that I was living. just being around veterans all the
And, was around about 15 years. I lived in San Diego and I mean, it's your perfect example. just use, you just meet veterans there. You know, it's an easy, easy to stay plugged into that community there. but, did some college as I transitioned out of that, I just kind of got tired of, working on the aircraft and didn't really want to go like the federal employee route.
Let's see, sort of felt like I was spinning my wheels and back in high school doing that. I love education and learning. I don't think schooling as we know it is, is typically a very great means of doing that. So it just felt like it was not practically applicable for me. kind of mixed around with a few different things. it seems like we got introduced because I was doing the veteran transitions podcast at the time at, the old, CrossFit Lucadia there in Encinitas.
And
What else worked on some exotic cars for a while it was a good time did some metal fabrication like building roll cages for race cars and whatnot And then got into BMW sales, which really was a very interesting experience which I realized that Just moving into you know, being an entrepreneur now where sales is going to be, you know a big portion of what I'm doing it wasn't necessarily that
BMW sales that I excelled at, but I, learned so much during that process around about four years that I did it. That, I was studying things that I otherwise would not have learned about to me, probably one of the most valuable tools that I came across was a Chris Voss's book, never split the difference. You know, former, lead hostage negotiator with the FBI, who talks about, tactical empathy and, how do
speak to people so that you can, so that they're encouraged to continue to give you more information. And, you know, so you can just better understand what their needs are. you know, in that sales experience or even just in a, in a relationship, you know, in general encounter with, somebody, so I'm super grateful, for having gone through that. It almost feels like, and it was only within the last year and a half getting into the cold plunge thing.
that I realized that I sort of had like an up and down success, you know, type thing with the BMW sales, because as much as I've liked cars around, you know, through the years, and even growing up, like my dad, worked at a BMW dealership was always something that I liked, but it didn't have that truly life impacting, a fact that I've recognized that cold plunge had.
So I think like on a spiritual level, it's like, okay, we don't want you to get too comfortable here and make too much money and have too much of a good time at it because this isn't what you were meant to do. You know, selling cars to people isn't going to genuinely give you a lot of fulfillment here. So, yeah, you sold me two cars too. Well, I bought one and one I bought is sitting right outside the house right now.
Yeah. It seems like Tacoma you're you're pretty big fan of that thing, huh? Dude. Yeah. I reached out to you and I said, I'm looking for a mid -sized truck that can go off road and I'm looking for an adventure vehicle. And I think I had some idea of what I wanted and you go, no, no, no, this is what you want. You told me this is what you want. And I'm like, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of a car guy. Like I've worked on cars. He's that classic cars.
I enjoyed them, I appreciate them, but I'm not a complete and total nerd on them. And then like you yourself who has this background as a helicopter maintenance guy, like, of course you're going to know which vehicle is going to hold up the best. What can I put through hell and is going to continue to work? sure enough, yeah, I bought the Tacoma off you at the dealership and
It's my 13th vehicle I've ever owned and it is my favorite vehicle I've ever owned. it's, I'm going to, it's only got 124 ,000 miles on it. I'm going to keep driving it until whenever. So yeah, I appreciate that. the, so you did BMW sales. They're like, it wasn't quite, you learned a lot. You weren't quite passionate. One of the things I recognize from hanging out with you is
I think you're a naturally good salesperson. You love to talk. You love to be curious about other people. You like to get into other people's and play with them. And I think that's just a huge advantage in that. That's a talent you have. And then you start developing into a strength. You got into that book. You also introduced me to another book on sales, The Greatest Salesman in the World.
I bought so many copies and sent them to my friends. So it's become like the most, one of the most gifted books that I've given to people who are in entrepreneurship. I'm like, you got to read this book, read Profit First and then read The Greatest Salesman in the World and then read Attraction. If you read those three books, the fourth one would be Ready Fire Aim. If you read those four books, you're going to have such a huge head start in entrepreneurship.
by just reading those and I got one of those from you. So appreciate that one. spent, I did that book verbatim. It's got exercises in it and it takes 10 months to get through the book. it's a, you know, less than hundred pages, I believe. So really valuable, really cool. You know, you think you're going to be reading about sales tactics and you're actually, it's more of like a spiritual.
journey through the process of just how to be a good person and how to build up value in the world so that people want to buy from you. highly recommend that book as well. So, you did BMW sales for a while. I know that when we met, you weren't quite in the BMW sales yet. You had gotten into that, but you were both like dealing with some health issues and then it sounded like there was like maybe some stress in your life and you had started some microdosing.
around that time. don't know who gave you those microdoses, but they're probably a pretty good dude. Sounds like it's giving away giving it away just a little bit. Yeah, tell us a little bit about like your health journey there. I mean, it sounds like your health journey led you into the cold plunge, but there's a lot of things you've done before you got to the cold therapy. Yeah, the
The health journey that started in my like mid to late twenties. And what I would have to tie everything back to is my prolonged exposure over the 11 to 12 years of working on aircraft because hydraulic fluid, know, aircraft fuel, oils, sealants, you know, you name it, greases and everything. I mean, you literally, you get the stuff on your head, you know, as it's dripping on you working in the aircraft.
I mean, you can have your arms and hands soaked in it sometimes. Literally people get it, you know, they're covered in it just depending on the type of work you're doing. So the exposure is pretty constant in that work, not to mention, you know, breathing the exhaust fumes from the engines and all that. looking back at it as funny as it is, as much as I went through with that, it was all blessings in disguise because of what it led me to.
Any number of skin issues that I had through the years, muscle and joint pain. And I'm, not talking about, course, like, you know, my arm, I went to the gym, you know, I'm a little bit sore or whatever I'm talking about, like waking up two or three nights a week. Like my arm hurts. Like, I don't know what the hell is going on here. luckily I knew some friends at the time who were getting into the sort of the paleo scene. so I learned a tremendous amount from, Rob Wolf and did kind of,
like an increasingly narrowed, paleo, you know, way of eating for, I don't know, probably 12 years or something like that. Cause I was noticing, okay, I've got eczema on my hand, you know, couldn't straighten my fingers, whatever. Cause the eczema was so bad that my skin would crack like, okay, what, what am I eating here that is doing this? And just for whatever reason I got on that page rather than, you know, going to a doctor.
I was like, let me just try to figure this out. Luckily down the road, was early 2021. I went to a place in Encinitas that did what's called a bio scan. And I've, I've gotten two of my other, you know, 53 buddies to do this. And they pretty much popped for all the same stuff that I did. It's basically like 10 pages of you've got this, this and that. what is it like contaminants and you, know, toxic stuff and you, go through like heavy metals.
chemicals, pesticides, mold, fungus, petroleum products, all that stuff. And, you know, kind of ran the gamut with that. one thing to notice here. Well, I'm also going to have an expert on chemical exposure here soon on the show, so everyone can look out for that. But when you're talking about mold, someone might go, well, you don't like what does mold have to do with, you know, being exposed to these chemicals
it really just turns into a cascade effect. Like if your immune system gets suppressed or depressed by exposure to some things, it makes you more susceptible to other things. I think a lot of times people will think about their health in this very isolationist perspective of like, I've got a symptom. There's got to be a single cause for this symptom. And it's like, it's not really how it works. It's you get exposed to one thing and then that leads to five.
making you susceptible to five other things. Like I can, I know I can walk into and sleep in a house that's got mold, then it doesn't bother me. But other people who are way more sensitive because they were exposed to something else and now they're, now they have a high sensitivity to something like mold. So just something that to plant the seed out there in people's minds of it's not always a direct cause and effect. There's
One thing can lead to a dozen other things. Yeah, that's a great point. And it seems like that's kind of what happened to me over time is, you know, probably about 11 years of being in San Diego. lived, you know, as you know, probably about a mile and a half, you know, straight shot from the coast there. So it's kind of a high, you know, high mold environment there in a house that was about 100 years old. The bacon cottage you visited many times. And yeah, I mean,
These all manifested basically in like autoimmune conditions in me. And, of course the collapse lung had my right lung collapsed two times in 2010. I was, I think for Christmas 2010, I was in the hospital. had a surgery for that. I was in there for seven days for that. and my doctors are asking me like, do you smoke or did you have any chest trauma or, know, whatever? And I'm like, no, but I'm exposed to all these.
chemicals and fumes and all this stuff, you know, for all these years. so yeah, this stuff. you get any VA claims for that? I didn't, to me, it's trying to deal with the VA. kind of tried to go through that process like two or three different times. I was almost just like so frustrated with it that I was just like, you know what? I'm not even going to like, try to be around these people because it just felt, my last attempt was, last year, it just felt
This is such an incompetent system that I don't even want to be around this type of energy. Like I just want to like move on and forget about it and do my thing. By the way, we're in conversations. The mission after is in conversations with a new company that's launching for VA claims that's going to make it much easier for these types of things. So another thing for people to be on the lookout for.
is if you're in the community, we're going to be introducing that, where you're not going to be working. You don't have to directly interact with the VA yourself. that'll be a, there's already some companies out there that do that kind of stuff, but these guys are doing it right. know a lot of companies, very transactional. They're going to be much more on the relational side, which is I think what veterans are looking for is interacting with people who really care about their health.
and trying to get solutions versus just trying to milk a system. It seems like that'll be a big help because it seems like we all typically experience the fact that the VA is looking for reasons not to give us a disability rating other than zero, of course. So yeah, it'd be interesting to have advocates for us all in that way. So you were dealing with the collapse long, you had
panels come back show that you been exposed to all these different things. The doctors are scratching their heads and and you decided to say, screw it. I'm just going to handle this myself. You went down the paleo diet route and then, yeah, what happened after that? What are all the things that you tried? So let's see. Yeah, tell us, tell us the things that worked, because I don't know if we need to hear about all the things that didn't work. Yeah.
the things that did, did work. of course, I'll, I'll just preface all of this that I've realized through this whole experience and now of 14 to 15 years is that everything we're told about diet is the exact opposite of what's true. Red meat is supposed to be the most unhealthy thing for us. It's the single most healthy thing for us. so I'll just put that out there for now, but basically, red meat's been phenomenal. I pretty much gotten rid of, white meat entirely.
not that I necessarily have a problem with it, but for example, just kind of heard some weird things about pork and if it seems, seems funny, you know, formerly, course, you know, my name while nickname a while back was bacon Jesus. got me the shirt with the, the cross on it here that had bacon Jesus. he used to have longer hair. Yeah. but,
Let's see. So getting rid of vegetables was massive. As funny as that sounds, a lot out of the sort of histamine issues and stuff that I had, because I had awful hives about three years ago. And I'm talking about like thinking I was going to go fucking crazy hives. Like I'm probably a third of my body legs swollen so much that my dress pants would fit like leggings and you know, could barely sleep at night. And I don't know that I've ever had a skin condition that was that bad.
but anyway, yeah, fruit, eggs, raw dairy, you know, those are the things that I eat these days, primarily, and, probably two pounds of beef a day, sometimes more. But, the, thing too, that I did in conjunction with getting that bio scan early 2021 is you go through like an eight day cleanse and it's kind of supposed to get rid of some stuff and sort of jumpstart, you know, certain processes in your body.
And the great thing too is that this cleanse is, it's specific to what you have in your body. so it's not just like, here's a standard cleanse that we give everybody do this. And, that's supposed to work. mean, they even had me remove the, mercury fillings that I had in my teeth. And when I realized that, cause it was in my early thirties around the time that I met you, that I thought, man, my kind of like short to medium term memory is like really.
You know, it's kind of scary. was losing it. and, and after I had those removed and I went through this, cleanse process, like my memory was much sharper and I'm like, Holy crap. Like a couple of times I was like nearly in tears because I had such a turn, you know, in the other direction. Another thing I had, it's a little gross, but for the entire time I lived in San Diego, I had this sort of like nasal drip thing where it was just like, like a leaky
was, I was always, you know, like wiping my nose and everything. It's like, I'm sure as I'm, know, in BMW sales, people are like, probably like, is this guy doing like cocaine or, you know, what's going on here? Wolf of Wall Street over here. Yeah. Right. Doing bumps in the back in between sales. Right. Yeah. In a suit and yeah. Doing that. Talkative. Yeah. It's got a lot of energy. Yeah.
One of the big turning points to after that was beginning of 2022. My buddy, Trevor Mertens, who owns a couple of bump coffee shops there in that's need this area. He said, dude, you got to do this Paul Saladino thing. It's the animal based, meat, eggs, raw dairy, fruit, honey, you know, get rid of vegetables. And I'm like, it still felt like dialing off the deep end a little bit, even though I had made so many changes, switching fruit and getting rid of vegetables.
And he said, I got to say this too, especially for all the guys out there. He said, and if you're going to supplement with one thing, then supplement with a bull testicle supplement, which by the way, I've probably gotten 40 to 45 buddies now over the, you know, the last two and a half years or whatever to take that. And, that's phenomenal. But, well, you'd recommended it to a professional athlete at one point you were telling me the story.
that you recommend to a professional athlete and he goes, I got to check with, know, to make sure I'm not breaking any rules and basically came back and said he wasn't allowed to do it. That's how you know it works. It works. Absolutely. If you saw it as like, nah, you can't do that. Then it's like, okay. And funny too. It's just an animal organ. Yeah. And they've literally outlawed it by that, which is crazy. I told him, well, it looks like you got to retire.
But yeah, getting rid of the vegetables is crazy. It sounds like I used to get like inside of my elbows because I like dried fruit. I'd get a little ivy, you know, they're kind of red spots on both sides. And yeah, once the vegetables went away, that was gone. Getting rid of seed oils was massive. I haven't touched sunscreen in like five years. And of course, as you gradually built up to it, you you can get a good tan
be out in sun for hours without having to worry For those of you who aren't watching, he's blonde hair, blue eyed. But I'm that way as well. I've had a love hate relationship with the sun until I learned some of these as well. Clean up your diet and be smart about your sun exposure and you can actually get to where you can spend a couple hours and direct sunlight. It's not a big deal anymore, which is not how I lived as a child. It was constant sunscreen
And yeah, if I was going to be out in the sun, now it's a totally different story. And I even had, I think probably around the time that I was 11 or 12, even a day that I had sunscreen on, I got second degree burns like on my nose and front of my cheeks and everything from a sunburn. Yeah. So yeah, no issues with it anymore. Get out in the sun. It's good for you people. Yeah.
Yeah. So, okay. So those are the dietary changes you made and up until like 2021, you've been very carnivore ish. I call it the bear diet. I don't think I'm the one that coined that, but the bear diet is basically like meat, berries and honey. You what would a bear eat? And yeah, I always feel good when I'm on that train. So you've been living that lifestyle and then yeah, we got you in a cold plunge or cold therapy.
I know we say cold plunge sometimes and there's a company called that something called cold tubs. But, really it was the whole process, you know, when you start listening to say Joe Rogan, especially these days, it seems like an every podcast or every other podcast he's on, he's talking about, cold therapy and,
So it was that, know, Andrew Huberman, just these different people who were talking about this. And I had been in cold water, you know, a number of times over the last handful of years, just kind of dip in and, you know, dip out, just to challenge yourself and do it. And so once I moved up here to Montana a couple of years ago, in the fall, I had gone in a river, you know, locally, like, cool, I'll do this. And then it was actually a buddy. Funny enough, I got to mention Trevor again, who owns Bump Coffee.
he got all of his employees to do a three minute ice bath, course, 70, 75 degrees there in San Diego when they were doing it. but I was like, man, if all these people can do this, like I can, I can do this. So I actually started by, doing like snow baths, just laying back in the snow. And I'll tell you like starting that the first time, like it, it burns. It's such an intense, like burn, you know, stinging, pain
First time I did it, I went maybe 45 seconds and I got in my truck and started driving away. was like, man, I can't attempt this and not do the three minutes. So I went right back, laid in there for three minutes, did that for maybe a couple of weeks or something. And then, tried Flathead Lake. So Flathead Lake, you're right by Lake Tahoe, you know, massive Lake Flathead Lake here in Northwest Montana is like 30 miles top to bottom. I think it's the biggest Lake West, the Mississippi.
so it was January 30th, 2023. I went in there. The water was 34 degrees. this whole lake doesn't freeze over, but there were, you know, was ice in some spots and I don't know the temperatures like high twenties, 30 degrees or something like that. Only made it 30 seconds the first time. And this is part of the, one of the things that I learned with, doing a cold exposure is if you only go like in Andrew Huberman has actually heard about this.
If you go part way and you kind of stay there for too long and then you submerge yourself, you're likely to get like headaches or feeling weird in some other way on top of the cold water. and that happened for me. So I kind of pause like maybe mid thigh and then went in and on top of the panic breathing, which of course is going to happen your first time for the most part. my head was pounding and there was nobody like a shouting distance. I was at a boat launch.
you know, nobody else is around and I'm like, okay, like this feels dangerous. So I ended up getting out a week or so later. had probably was dangerous. It was absolutely. It was legitimately dead. Yeah. Don't cold plunge in a lake or a river or a stream by yourself. Yeah. If you pass out, it's not going to be good. Yeah. so in that next week or so I had recruited some people at the gym that I was going to,
in big fork Montana. And the first time we went, was two other, from Marines who had gone and then another couple, weren't in the military, but five of us went, we all did three minutes together. And I remember saying these people, it's like, hell, if you guys can torture yourselves like this, like I can do this. You know, it's not that big of a deal. And, for a month or so we were going once every week, Saturday mornings, and it would, it was between say four and six of us every time. And I thought we would get maybe
around 10 of us and that would be it. And once I started going daily, I was actually doing some jujitsu and kind of tweaked my elbow and I was like, when it hit me what I needed to do to go and relieve the pain in my elbow, I was like, fuck. I was like, okay, I'll go do this. And then for whatever reason, and I was making a social media at the time for it, I was like, you know, if we as a group, even if it's just one person have the accountability of one person is going in a
then it's probably going to snowball and other people are gonna, it's gonna get into people's heads. So anyway, over time it just, turned into its own community and it caught me way off guard that it happened like that. I mean, somebody would go one time, they would go to, know, we're always doing it in the morning. They'd go to work and then they'd come right back the next day and say,
people were asking me like, why I was in such a good mood and why I was so energetic and all this. And they were like, I cold plunged with these people this morning and it was amazing. You know, I feel great. So it was that effect that people were telling, their relatives, their significant others, their coworkers, friends, all of this. And it's people just started inviting other people. And in this valley here that we live in, it's about 45 minutes top to bottom.
I don't know, maybe 50 ,000 people in the valley year round. And for whatever reason, the word spreads fast here. If you're something good in the community, in the community here and including other people in it, I've never seen anything like it where people, they want to tell other people, you know, what's going on. so it seems like that's how it took off that, mid April, again, only two or so months, two and a half months into doing this, we had 62 people in the water.
This was the day that we were featured in one of the local newspapers. You know, 75 people there in total, like moms and babies on the, yeah, on the shore, know, cheering dad on and stuff like that. ages, age wise, you know, from like six to 70 or something like that. So literally, you know, there's little, there's a family of little jujitsu killers here. There are four boys from like, I don't know, six or seven to 12 years old or something like
They were involved in it, you know, with mom and dad and what reminds me, mom, scale named Lindsay, she'd never gone to the gym prior to doing this. Well, for whatever reason, this is one of the things that I saw too, that, cold therapy has this way of sort of helping us look at the decisions that we're making in life. And what happened for her is she decided to start going to the gym and start working out. And now she's
way into powerlifting. She's sort of getting into like local, you know, powerlifting competitions and stuff like that. Like she just messaged me about it in last month or something like that. And like, you know, I didn't do the cold therapy with you guys, like, I don't know what, you know, if, I would even be doing this these days. So, you know, other things that I heard people say was, know, for whatever reason, people just wanted to come to me and tell me about this. Cause I was primarily the one, you know, promoting it and doing all the social media.
You know, one gal who was in her thirties, she's like, this is changing my life. another other guy who's about 50 married father of two said, this saved my life. Another guy, about 50 married father of four said it saved his marriage. And the re and he said, the reason that it did that for him is he said he was able to sit in the emotional discomfort when a certain, know, certain tops of topics would come up with his wife and set his ego aside and
be okay and be calm in the discomfort because the cold water had taught him how to do that. And when, when I was hearing things about this from people, like, this is amazing. And I've got something here that I've got to run with and literally for, I don't know, a month or something like that. didn't matter to me about, you know, comfortable dwellings
You know, part of the reason for me to move to Montana here was the adventure and all that. So I was literally, you know, just camping in my forerunner, just to keep my costs low and just going around. Literally there's a black black rifle coffee kind of in the center of the valley here in Kalispell. I would literally go and, you know, recruit people there at the gym, whatever. If you just looked like you had it in you, I would just go up and make conversation and say, you got to come out and join us for this thing. so a lot of people did it and,
It was Memorial Day weekend last year, a brand ambassador from one of the top cold tub brands out there reached out to me he's like, Hey man, I love that you made a community. Never heard from the guy before. He's like, I love that you made a community out of this. And you know, is there any way that I can put this company in touch with you? And I was like, sure. I didn't know what, I don't know what was going to come of that, but anyway, we,
I got a text from them just a short while later and they were like, Hey, can we hop on a call, you know, this weekend or something like that? And I'm like, sure. So, we did that and I had the idea of, taking this mobile for people, putting these on a trailer, both the cold tubs and a sauna and just getting it in front of people, who otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to do it, you know, be it because they're in a warm climate or they don't have the financial means.
You know, to go to some of these studios and stuff like that and do it. Cause I seen that, okay, people need to have, and this is the thing too, is I didn't know it was going to happen. And a lot of these people here didn't know it was going to happen. They sort of needed this and they didn't know it, especially in these kinds of wild times, especially that we've experienced in the last four to five years, you know, so much up and down and people isolating and politically people are at each other's throats and all that sort of stuff.
just the, the amazing benefits that came out of it for people, sense of community, you know, we had, sometimes like 18 to 20 year old women showing up and then, you know, the bulk of the people are there is, you know, 30 to 45 year old guys. And those women recognize that I can go there and feel comfortable with these guys. Like every, everybody was supportive of each other. I didn't need
let anybody know, Hey, you got to tamp your behavior down. isn't a dating club or anything like that. just was. Everybody was encouraging of each other, welcoming of each other. You could literally show up for your first day there. Didn't matter who you were, what your age range was, what your physical ability was. You could go there and talk to anybody and anybody would be like, Hey, what's your name? You know, like, glad to meet you. And, Denver, the co -owner of the, black rifle coffee here too, was he was giving us free coffee.
you know, for all that. people had, you know, a little bit of a way to stay warm. for that we ended up getting a massive donation of shorts, from a company owned by a former Marine. that became sort of the, the sort of unofficial uniform is literally. You could, you could go anywhere in the valley here. If people had this particular brand of shorts, any number of, you know, 12 or 15 patterns or something like
You knew that they were a part of this group and it's what's the name of the brand? It's tack hunt fish. Tack hunt fish. Yeah. Yep. All one word tack hunt fish and phenomenal shorts. Great fit. They dry fast, super flexible. And the name of that group, the social media is it's at flathead Valley cold plunge. Also flathead Valley is the area that we live in and
Yeah, pretty wild. It's literally like, I don't even know everybody who I see in those shorts and I'll just be like, Hey, where'd you get those shorts? Like, I, you know, I went, I went in the water with, know, this is that person and they gave me a pair of shorts and it's like, that's cool, man. So I'm like fight club. So like you start this thing and then you, and then there's people at fight club. You're like, don't even recognize this person. First rule of fight club. Don't talk about fight club. Right. Talking. Yeah.
It seems funny because those references, like those were coming up because of what it meant to, there was sort of a core of men who were going there routinely and we would go into the sauna, you know, after we were done. And it was just like, we were, you know, the sense of community automatically, you had friends, you know, who you could rely on, you know, in different ways, because you could see,
I guess this is one of the things that's kind of we're noticing subconsciously is it's like this guy is calm under concentrated stress and he's there and supportive every day. he's accountable, you know, all these things. for, know, these things that sort of men, think in particular looking for and other men out there, you just recognize that these guys had it in some way. we had a lot of jujitsu guys from,
up here and it's just wild anyway. So it just, led me to, I ended up, going back to the company that I got, linked up with, I installed and, delivered their units all over the country for just about a year. That was phenomenal. Cause as you mentioned, you know, it, it put me in front of professional athletes. Laird Hamilton and Gabby Reese was the first house, you know, their house in Malibu. delivered one of these
They got like 25 people there. They're doing their XPT, you know, pool training with a bunch of people there. Aaron Rogers was at the house. Taylor Morgan, who you connected me with, you know, I reached out to him and I was like, cause I knew he was in the area at the time. I was like, Hey dude, can you come and help me install this thing? Like, I'm not sure how many people I'm going to need for this. And so he was there right away. he and, Luca Padua who is, Laird Hamilton's like protege.
big wave surfer, Luca was super helpful with us. he and, Taylor were doing like a workout together for a while and it was just like phenomenal. So yeah, you know, ton of driving and all that, but a tremendous amount of, connection with people over those months. I mean, people of all ages, you know, some were residential setups, some were commercial. so I got to see, okay, how are these?
studios and whatnot, how are they building their, their location out? Some people are even like consulting me, Hey, what do you think we should do for this and that? And it's like, I'm just the guy here to install it, but sure. I'll help you, you know, based on what I've seen and you know, the relationships that came out of that, because for whatever reason, people who do the cold exposure, there seems to be something about them. And this is where I would sort of relate it to, what it gives you and sort of how people respond after
is it's a little bit similar to say, using psychedelics, whether it's microdosing or macrodosing is you get a better connection to yourself. I think it sort of helps us slow down and become more present in life because you're forced into it. When you're in that freezing water, you've really got to dig in and, know that you're going to be secure in yourself and you can make it through that struggle. So you learn more about yourself in that period.
Anyway, I just thought it's like everybody I meet is cool. Like sure. Some people are more, more particular than others. That's fine. Everybody's got their own standard, you know, for things, but it was just
kind of bizarre to me that like everybody was so cool because maybe they weren't so much so, you know, in the BMW car sales world, some people a little more difficult, you know, to deal with. mean, there's, there's so many memes out there about BMW owners. Yeah. You don't have to look very far to know what I'm talking about. And I've owned one before. like, you know, maybe I'm one those people to some degree, No, not at all. Okay. Good.
You're not putting an badge on a car that's not an or something like that. I know that's of the big things with that one. Is that a thing? That's a thing. You know, taking up two parking spots for one car. You know, of course, that's a that's a common one.
But yeah, that's a, that's funny, serious plunge crew is different. It is different. yeah, that's where, you know, the, was actually starting last summer that company had asked me, Hey, you know, do you have anybody in Southern California? Cause they'd known that I would live in San Diego for a long time. Do you have anybody there who can help us do, some service on these, know, for some clients that already have them in that area. And I was like, sure. So a couple of my buddies,
George and Sam, who I'd worked with starting in 2007, both guys who I looked up tremendously, I consider them perhaps the two most knowledgeable and experienced guys on the aircraft that I used to work on. They had both gone out and done some work on these. And we noticed over time too, being the mechanically inclined guys that we were, that we are, we're like, man, there's
there are really some things that this, company can do to, make things simpler, more reliable and things like that. So we tried to share, feedback with them and, you know, it sort of seemed like they were kind of set in their ways and it's like, cool. All right. We, we tried, you know, if they ask in the future, happy to share that. But, over time, just so much feedback had come around and I'm talking from, across multiple different brands, you know,
people who, again, whether residential or commercial, they'd had different brands and they're sharing their experience with those people still, after I've been gone from that company now for, I don't know, four or five months, they still call me and ask maintenance questions because I'm the one they know because I installed their unit and I tell them, hey, look, I don't work for the company anymore. I started my own thing, but I'm still happy to help you sort out whatever thing you need. And if I can't help you do it, I'll connect you, say with the production manager.
at that company, but, yeah. So long story short, I met another guy, Pete and he's in New Jersey, not too far from, New York city. had a delivery one day in, Germantown, New York way out in the country. They're beautiful area, beautiful house. And I was using TaskRabbit all around the country. So TaskRabbit, if you don't know is it's an app where basically if you need anything blue collar done from
moving, or say installing furniture, know, electrical, I'm sorry, like electronics, you know, any number of kind of household tasks and stuff like that. You know, these people put themselves up on there. And so the one guy who I picked to help me with this thing, he had charged the most I'd ever paid on that before. And I was like, well, he's got the, you know, he's got a five star review. Like he's got to be good. So he came out with me and did that
It's funny because this guy was the most, the client we were installing for, he was the most particular client we'd ever had. And that company was even like, you know, good luck with this guy. And it's like, let's, let's see, like, you know, it can't be that bad anyway. Like we're, we're just chatting with him. He was one of the most pleasant people I'd ever come across, doing this and conversation was phenomenal as we were setting this thing up, you know, and he's kind of there just, you know, interacting with us
first had us in for like coffee or tea or whatever. So we're hanging out for like 30 minutes, you know, with this guy first. And after, you know, as we're kind of wrapping up with the tub, he's like, well, Hey, you know, can I cook you guys dinner or something like that? So we literally hung out at this guy's house for like five hours, you know, installed the tub for maybe two. And so it was just so interesting. because this guy is already in the health and wellness space as an investor
So was so interesting that we just kind of you know, sat there and listened to him because it just seemed like we were learning so much from him. Long story short, again, that was Pete, you know, who was there with me, who now is my co -founder and friend, you know, with my company that we ended up making. we sort of realized, you know, around that time that it's
Okay. We need to launch something here and this industry has done a phenomenal job over let's say the last five years of basically inventing itself. as we know, Jason Stoffer, you know, formerly with, Morosco founder of that company. he basically started it out and a lot of other companies, you know, took the risk and jumped in and, but again, myself and George and Sam teaming up and George now is one of my,
partners and co -founders with the company too, we're just like, it's not going to be hard to make something, you know, of higher quality because we were looking at, okay, well it's the components that need, you know, upgrading. Say, if you've got a, brand it is, a lot of these are, they're, they're good at the commercial. I'm sorry. They're good at the residential setting where you're having minimal, you know, people going through a day. But once you start to throw, you know, a couple dozen,
30, 40 people at these things a day, it's no fault of the components. They're just not built to keep up with this, you know, for technology. When I'm in Austin, I go to Kuya, which is basically a biohacking spa. And there's three coal tubs there. And I got to go early because if I go late, it has a hard time getting under 45 degrees. But if I go early, they might be hanging out around 37 degrees.
and shit, man, each one of those tubs has got to have 50 people plus going through it every day and maintaining those. Like it's, it's a, know the owners, it's a job. I think it's the biggest headache of the, of the entire operation. They've got other things. have float tanks and sauna and, and, IV,
therapy and they're doing some ketamine therapy and all sorts of other stuff. And it seems like the cold tubs is like one of the biggest headaches as the whole operation. Yeah. And when we were down in Austin there recently, we went there and got some IVs, but we were asking about, how are your, how are your cold tubs performing here? And, know, I'm particularly mentioned one that they had custom built, you know, not by any particular company, but they're like, yeah, you know, we got
leaks and this and that, you know, stuff going on and some frustrations and, know, the on it gym, you know, right there next door, super high volume gym. They've got three tubs there. And the day that I went, you know, they start them out at 36, 37 degrees, just like Kuya. And by the time I went in, I don't know, 12, 12, 30 or whatever, you know, in the afternoon, everything was between like 55 and 58 degrees. Yeah. and you know, these things just can't keep up.
where George and I were coming from, it's just like, let's just overbuild this stuff. Let's put in the top quality American made components that we can find, you know, do the research to really shell out what's going to be the best here. And that's what we're going for with our company. And really it's like the commercial, all the headaches, you know, as you mentioned that the people are going through in this, in these commercial spaces out there, that's where we realized it's like, look, these people need to be served much better.
Because if you look at this from a business owner's perspective, if you have to drain, whether you've got one or three tubs or whatever it is, if you have to drain and refill these things every single day, you know, that's approximately 20 minutes. And when you add up 20 minutes over the course of a month, you know, how much money are you paying somebody to maintain this thing when hypothetically it could be drained like maybe once every two weeks. You know, we've got a tub that's about a six person unit, maybe around 500 gallons and
Quarter Lane, Idaho, beautiful community there called Gaza Ranch. And they don't drain anything, but once every two weeks and it's outside. they said their biggest struggle is actually the debris falling in from the trees. And they said, they probably drain it a little more frequently than need be, but it just goes to show that like, look, if you, you know, it's just, for example, if you need to pull, you know, a big trailer, save 25 ,000 pounds.
which is the job for say, you know, an F three 50 or something like that, a Ford F three 50. And, you're trying to do it with a Toyota Prius. The Prius just doesn't have, you know, the Prius does its job. I'm not a Prius guy, of course, but the Prius does its job of being a fuel efficient car extremely well, but don't expect that to be able to tow the 25 ,000 pounds. It's just not built that way. So again, that's what
going for and just want to be of service to the people who are out there. And it's funny how it happened to just hearing the feedback and it's like, okay, we need to offer something better for these folks. that's a big lesson. Entrepreneurship is like something that I've always, I think the most successful businesses are always when you're out in the world and you notice that there's complaints or you notice that something could be done
And there's been several times in my entrepreneurial journey, coming on 17 years of entrepreneurship myself, every business I've started, I was looking out at the landscape and going, nobody, why is anybody doing this yet? And that's always the signal of, well, we should do it. Like if it's something I'm passionate about, it's mine to pick up and it's mine to do. Looking around and just complaining doesn't do anything.
Just do it. Just come out and do it better. I mean, who better to like build these things than these than these helicopter mechanics who like everything was a life and death situation. Like everything had to be perfect every single time. The level of precision was high. The dedication to inspecting things to be perfect. If you. know, we as veterans have
that experience of attention to detail. Well, at least some of us. I mean, you bring that level of attention to detail into a product. Holy shit, like you can, you can become the best very easily. And the alternative there too, that actually reminds me is there's a
wellness spa we've gotten linked up with here recently, who we actually got connected with because she was reaching out to the owners of different spas around the country to say, what brand do you have? And do you suggest it or something else? through one of those owners, the owner of the spa we got connected with, she got connected, you know, referred to us by the owner of one of these and said that I wouldn't recommend, you know, the brand that I have.
as crazy as it sounds, the woman who we're talking to right now, her tub has cost her not in the purchase price, but about, I'm not going to give away the brand or the exact price point or whatever, because it might kind of point to a specific brand, but she has lost about eight to nine times worth.
of the cost of that tub in lost business. my gosh. So it's, she could have bought approximately 10 of these tubs for the cost that she's actually had to incur because of this thing, because components breaking down, sending the wrong components. it actually leaked and caused another $6 ,000 worth of damage to her facility. And I've looked like this is a, this is a high end place. I'm not going to give the location away because that's going to, that's going
pinpoint who this is, but it's like, that's insane. And she's complaining to me about like the customer service. She's like, yeah, we're kind of borderline with the warranty and everything. And they're kind of trying to back out of that. it's like, guys, it's like, you can't do that. And over time, people are going to hear about it. I don't care how much money you make, you know, in the first place, but over time, if the quality of your product,
And the quality of your customer service is not actually up to snuff to me. And this is just for me personally, you're not acting with integrity. If you're not following through all the way, improving the product, following through on, look, even if something did break, we're going to take care of it for you just like that as quick as we can. and, and bringing the customer service there, it's just, I don't know that that's the thing, you know, for whatever reason, it just so happens
You know, we're passionate about the quality side of things and also passionate about the customer service side of things. That's an amazing thing that Pete brings to the table here is he's installed for a specific brand for around five years. So he has a high end moving company. You know, he's, he's had, you know, professional athletes and executives and stuff like that as his clients who love to have him come back because he's discreet as the day is long. He's careful with their stuff. He's very presentable.
we're fortunate enough to be able to say that he was a shirtless model for Abercrombie and Finch. So that's just an added bonus. So he'll be one of our models, of course. But you know, it's like, there's, for some of us, and I know this is the case for you, there's something so satisfying about when your clients are so happy with your product that, you know, they,
They love you for it. They praise you for it. They're telling their friends, coworkers, family, whatever. Hey, look, you whenever you're the guy who shows up in their head as soon as the opportunity to do so happens. hey, you got to move. Hey, you got to call my guy, Pete. So anyway, it's as far as I'm concerned, and I'm pointing to my partners in this, I've found the best guys I possibly could have with
knowledge in the field in this company and other applicable spaces, for this. So it might sound self -serving, but as far as I'm concerned, I've got the best team for this. So tell us more about the company, like exactly what are you doing? You're, I mean, you went from plunging in a lake that's 33 degrees building a community there, which led to working in the cold tub industry to seeing that things could be done a better way.
And you could have just stopped there, but you decided, hey, I'm going to launch this company. Tell us about the company. So Vaten Cold Plunge. I've actually got the shirt on right here. it's V -T -T -E -N, which is just water in Swedish. We wanted something that was reminiscent of cold or water or mountains or something like that. And Scandinavian just seems like a good fit. For example, Viori.
Some people say it's just mountain and finish, but it's such a catchy brand name. They've got very good branding and their logo and all that sort of stuff. the whole idea that we're going for with this is we want to exceed everybody's expectations with what they expect of the cold tub industry. we're basically going
primarily for the commercial space again, because we saw that there's such a massive need for an improvement in that space. We're even doing a buyback to make it easier, you know, because these things are big, they're difficult to move around in some sort of, you know, situations, they're delicate. And also, you know, we can basically alleviate the need for somebody to actually sell it, you know, for example, a car.
That's why people are willing to accept a little bit less money if they're trading in a car, because it's like, cool, I'm just done. I just drive it in. You take it. You pay me a decent amount of money for it. And I drive off with a new car that I want. And it's just, you you, wipe your hands and you're, done. and then we're going to resell those, you know, we're going to do in a few different options of refurbished or add our components to them or, you know, whatever the options are with that, whatever our clients want with that,
yeah, our product is we basically to us, the, the phrase commercial grade is a little, overused, but that's basically what we're going for. And we want, bespoke solutions for everybody. So I, I use this phrase, solutions, you know, to the shortcomings of this industry is, you know, whether somebody wants a nice hardwood, if it's going to be in a situation where wood is going to hold up over
We'll do that if they want. We use Raptor lining. It's like a spray and truck bed liner holds up super well to the abuse of say a commercial application being outdoors. We even have through our sister company, Sway Industries, which is what's where we're running our shop space from. Sway Industries is a high -end materials R &D company
Basically what they do though is because their car guys and motorcycle guys, their first project was a half million dollar wide body carbon fiber kit for a McLaren 720S. And what they also did is modified the cars that made somewhere around a thousand horsepower. You know, this is a car already that costs say $300 ,000. They put a $500 ,000, you know, eight inches wider than stock, you know, body kit on it.
So there's options that we have with them through carbon fiber, 3D printing and all that, that just, provides materials for us that nobody else is using. They even have, they helped to build a carbon fiber with gold flake infused with the company who came up with the idea. And they're the only vendor who has access to this because it's a patented technology.
Sway is the only company who can use this. If you want to check out their stuff, SWAE industries. And to plug the mission after you made that connection through the community. I did through mission after as funny as it is. Yeah. Paul was talking about them. He is funny enough. He's been to that space. He's met those guys there. He's like, dude, they've got multiple buildings there. That's all, you know, kind of industrial sort of, you know, commercial type space, like going.
go and say, hey, know, check them out, see if they got any space for you. And so I just literally walked in there the next day or something like that. And, they're, they're a marketing guy, Dakota's in the office and I'm like, Hey, I'm, I'm setting out to build like the world's best, you know, cold tub business. I, know, just checking to see, sounds like you guys have some, you know, space for rent here. And he was like, yeah, okay. I'll be right back. So he goes and gets, Trevin, you know, one of the partners there
Trevon walks me around their whole facility there. And when I talk about the facility there, I'm talking about everything is nice. They literally have these buildings built specifically for what they're doing. You go back into their display area and immediately you're hit with like, here's a Ferrari, here's a Lamborghini, here's another Lamborghini with their carbon fiber and gold flake body kit on it. Here's a Land Rover that's fixed up for this. Here's a Porsche Cayenne that's fixed up for this other thing. And it's just like you're inundated
exotic cars and just high -end everything and then you know walking through there they're showing me things they can do with 3d printing things they can do with 3d metal printing i didn't even know that was a thing and i'm like you know later that night i'm like laying in bed like holy crap nobody's touched any of this type of technology in this space so if we want to build somebody let's say they want
a frame that is not going to be susceptible to any of the issues that wood comes up against. For example, if wood's exposed to moisture over time, it's gonna split, issues are gonna happen, it's gonna get moldy and whatnot. Well, if somebody wants a 3D printed frame, okay, cool, we'll do that. You want carbon fiber? Cool, we'll do that. You want a 3D printed metal logo or your name on it or whatever it is? Cool, yeah, we'll do that too.
It's just been wild that it's just another example of so many things that have fallen into place. It just makes me realize that the way things happen are not an accident. know, all the things leading up to the introduction of this business. And, you know, as we move forward, other people falling into place at the right time, for example, sway came through for us the Friday
And of course you made this connection for us to go to the Eleko facility in May and June, just a few months ago here, to go support the International Powerlifting 2024 Bench Worlds, largest international powerlifting federation event there's ever been, 1200 athletes. And I just knew, you know, cause you were like, Hey, I'll connect you if you can commit to getting these tubs there. And I'm
Well, what better opportunity do we have, you know, than to go and do this? did it, got to like, is the, Laco is the premium brand and strength and conditioning equipment in the whole world based out of Sweden. And, there, there, there the equipment you see in the Olympics. go into half those, the soccer teams, professional soccer teams, strength and conditioning gyms. It's a Laco same with like college football
pro football here in the States and like it just there. You're not going to run into their gear very often in a commercial gym. But if you go somewhere where they're dropping some major coin on their athletes, that's Laco. And it seems to that a place to launch your premium cold tub then alongside the premium strength and conditioning company out there. And it was a great exposure for us as well
immerse ourselves in their product. And we got to use their equipment and everything. it's just like, people don't pay for weight with a Laco. They pay for everything being premium. Even the experience of say, the cable machines and whatnot, the bearings just have, the reduced friction that they have in the bearings, the materials they use, all the touch points and all that kind of stuff. It's just
and the actual details and in the building of everything that they've done. It's just a completely different level. So it's like, saw it a Laco barbell. I bought in a Laco barbell years ago because I knew that I would only have to buy one the rest of my life and give it to my kids. And didn't they, didn't they invent the standard barbell? They invented the modern barbell. Yeah. They invented it. huh. Yeah. Yeah. The, the knurling on it, that the grip on the barbell.
The fact that it spins. So they invented the grip and the spin. Funny, I've got a whole documentary on it. If you look up Barbell Shrugged A Laco and you look for something we produced, I want to say it was in like 2015 or 2016. We actually flew to Sweden, went through the whole production process. We also did a cold plunge in the ocean there. So yeah, I did a whole.
I got like a, I think a two part, I believe it's a two part documentary we did with them. So if you want to go look that up, there's a lot of stuff that Barbell Shrugged, which is a company I used to run. We did a lot of stuff. They've done some stuff with O 'Laco since then. So you might not run into the video that I did, but if you look up, if you're looking at like the years 2015, 2016, when that video posted, you'll be able to check it out. It was really cool. But they invented the knurling based off of
The Sweden's Sweden's national dish is the waffle and they had been making waffle makers in their in their factory. so they used the waffle iron design to make the knurling for the barbell. So waffle iron inspired waffles, inspired the barbell. So they're they're actually connected.
Huh. Yeah. Wild house stuff to totally unrelated things. Yeah. Came together there. They are related. Apparently they are. you know, was one, one great thing for us too, as, as a new brand and getting further confirmation that look again, a Laco is not selling weight. They're selling a totally different experience for the person who is really going to appreciate all the details they go into. it confirmed for us that it's
There's a market for this as long as we can execute this properly. And I can't believe I haven't mentioned symmetry sauna out of quarter lane as well. my buddy, Seth horse there, funny enough, another, cold therapy guy who was getting people to go into Lake quarter lane, winter, 2022, 23, found them on Instagram, met up with him literally on the way to meet with the guys at the company I worked for, grab some coffee.
And he's like, Hey man, just keep me posted on what you're up to. Well, he linked me up just around this past Christmas with symmetry sauna. so I went and met them around, that time. And I'm like, I got this idea, you know, to, do a business, with this and they were another company that showed us as well, because they were doing high -end saunas and primarily custom is kind of their specialty. I just realized
If they'll do this stuff that I didn't even know was getting done in the sauna space, then again, it's further confirmation that what we want to do will be marketable as well. It's going to be the same type of clientele. They've been phenomenal, you know, very encouraging and supportive along the way as well. So much appreciated there. Funny enough, they've got the scale Heather there. Carnivore has had all kinds of health issues and she's healing herself through that former Marine.
so just a really cool, group of people, you know, I just get excited, you know, every time I get to go and see them, I go see them every, every so often they're only a few hours away from me. but been in their saunas, you know, sat in there with, the ownership team there and, really cool, company as well. they've even installed a sauna for a friend that I met along the road, near, Nashville. he's over the
you know about that and
Let's see, one thing that I realized too along the way is I was installing at a gentleman's house in Dallas and multimillion dollar beautiful home. He had a bathroom in the house transformed over into his little contrast studio in there. So he had a built -in sauna that the contractor did a phenomenal job on there. He had a red light therapy bed and then a plunge.
tub that is not the brand plunge, but a, cold therapy tub that was custom to fill this 60 by 100 inch space there. So they, the company built a box that was big enough to fill that space, you know, wall to wall, into there. And I realized, cause he's, the contractor there said he spent about a half million dollars just in that room. And as I was looking, So
Yeah. as I was looking at the red light therapy bed, that was well over a hundred thousand dollars to me, looked like a CT scan machine. It was white. I'm not going to mention any brands. It was just white. looked sterile, like it belonged in a doctor's office. And it's like, well, he easily would have paid double if it just matched the amazing wood, you know, that he has in this room, because it was sticking out like a sore thumb, everything else matched. then there's that thing. And it's
The day that I met him, he's maybe mid thirties or something like that. he was closed. He had closed with his business partner on a business jet, purchasing a business jet. And I'm like, okay, this is, this is the type of client right here. As long as it's the best thing out there, he will buy it. Doesn't really give a crap, you know what the price is. and I've been in touch with that contractor there and, something might be coming of that.
Anyway, it showed us that, okay, people will pay a ton of money for these things if they see the value, if it offers them an experience that doesn't just deliver cold water because we're not about that for people. We don't need to necessarily sell the benefits of cold water. Our clients are the people who are already educated about it. They are sold on it. Maybe they've even had something before and they're just like, you know what? This thing isn't quite doing it for me.
Hey, here's this other really nice option out there that I heard of saw whatever it is. I want a different experience like that. It's maybe the evolution of a sauna owner as well. Somebody first bought a sauna, maybe it's five to $10 ,000 and they're like, you know, I could spend 10 times as much and really have an amazing sauna and invite some friends into. it's one of the things that I've seen as well. A sauna is whether it's at a home or in a gym or whatever.
It spurs conversation, even the pro athlete who we referenced earlier, he was saying every time he wants to talk to his business partner, he invites them over to go in the sauna. So they have their business talks in there. So there's just something about this, these contrast therapy modalities that spur creativity, they spur connection, a sense of community and all these things. So I don't even know exactly all of what it is, but there's something magical to
And I think the part of it is, is when you suffer together with somebody, it's just like what we've all experienced in the military. People refer to the camaraderie, the brotherhood, you know, the experience in the military and know if we can't ever recreate that, but we can certainly, brings, you know, recreate some of that experience, you know, with other people around us when they do these things. So,
That's what we're going for with the brand. Just try to build as beautiful stuff as we can. You know, another thing too, having been in the exotic car world for a while, seeing how to me, one of my biggest motivations as far as a brand goes is Singer. So Singer makes, they started out in particular with one generation of air -cooled Porsche 911 that people love because of its, all the characteristics
is specific to that car. And they took it and say, you could buy a nice version of that car for say, 50 to $100 ,000. Well, they started out charging like $350 ,000, because they basically pulled it all apart. They made it 100 % custom, you know, from the ground up, and use of carbon fiber and all kinds of exotic materials, the engine is entirely different and you know, rebuilt. And that was
maybe 10 or 11 years ago where I was exposed to that brand. And now they've built cars that are like millions of dollars because they know that the people out there who just want to sink their, their teeth into their hands into whatever it is, they really want to get, as far into a level of quality, and attention to detail as they can. Those people are going to spend the money.
If it's a $3 ,000 for a car that gets you to the, you know, any, any one of your destinations, just as reliably as a $20 ,000 car, they're going to go for that thing that costs them $3 million because it's just such a work of art. So we're not going to charge $3 million anytime soon. but again, just further, further confirmation that type of,
client is out there looking for these things. And the thing that really struck me too about that first video is that in their shop, this was in LA, they spray painted on the wall in cursive. Some about it being cursive stood out to me too. Everything is important. And it's like, that speaks to me. You know, that's why I've driven predominantly Toyota and Lexus cars, you know, all through these years. That's why when I was looking at, you know, some of these exotic cars, Ferrari in particular,
And it's like, you can see that it's hand -built and that Giuseppe and whoever else put this car together. Maybe they wanted to call it a short day that day. Maybe they just kind of, as my buddy Mike Santoro, our design consultant, he's been in that design world and everything. And he owns a Ferrari we put through some car shows and whatnot. He's like, yeah, they just left that stuff to the interns.
Like not everything in a Ferrari is crazy as it sounds to say is done as well as possible as well as it possibly could be. and that's what we're going for. So I'll stop beating the dead horse there. I just love it. you know, you're offering a high end, solution in an industry where it sounds like there's a gap there, right? There's a lot of low end. There's a lot of like low and medium.
level cold therapy tubs, but there's nothing on the high end. So you're like, there's the opportunity. I'm going to take it. And you're also doing some things for veterans as well. So I imagine some veterans are listening to this and going like, well, I don't know if I can get one of those. You know, I think a lot of value of what you brought to the show so far is your health journey and your journey through this entrepreneurial journey of identifying where you're uniquely positioned.
in order to offer something to the world. But you're also doing something for veterans as well. Tell us about that. For veterans, yeah. We got through Paul again. got connected the other day with, it was actually, he just, all he did was screenshot a Facebook post from Cameron Kush, who literally lives two hours away from me in Missoula, Montana. Myself being in Whitefish, Montana
that, Jay Fain, otherwise known as Jay limp, who used to work for a black rifle coffee at, a corporate level. they were, they were looking for a, a cold tub company that would donate one to him. so Jay is literally, he has a leg that is amputated at the hip. so he lives in Kansas city and he's got a, a horse trough that he has to keep filled with ice every day in his sweet spot.
is 38 degrees in that. So if anybody's ever had to fill a tub with ice, you know that to get to 38 degrees, it's not a bowl of ice and you're all set. It's you're putting quite a bit in there, especially in a warm climate like Kansas City. So what I thought when I saw that is like, we'll do it. And it's like, you know, we're still looking for some funding as well in our company. It's like, well, we can do this. We can do both at the same
So I'll set up a GoFundMe. I'll say, hey, look, our target here is $250 ,000. And for every $25 ,000 that is donated to us, we will build and donate a custom cold plunge, custom cold tub for a veteran in need out there. So Jay is going to be our first recipient on that. And I realize that some people might say, every $25 ,000, it's like, OK, well, the product is more expensive than that. So it's not like we're trying to make a huge
profit on this doing it is we want to grow the ability for cold exposure in the veteran community specifically for people in need. And when I say in need, I'm not just talking about people who monetarily need the help. I'm talking about if you've got an injury that this helps with, if there's a mental health aspect. And I would say we can all attest to the mental health benefits of
or whatever the case may be. You haven't had exposure to it before. You've got the money, but you know, your nearest, say, studio that has this is too far away. Live in a small town or something like that. Cool. Like these are the types of people we want to hear from. And I want to have a basically a lineup of knowing who after Jay is going to be second, third and fourth, you know, down the
I've got a guy, I've got a buddy, his name is Mike. He lives over near Phoenix and he suffered a back injury while he was in the Marine Corps and he's tried everything. I mean, he's been in and out of the VA and all sorts of stuff. I'd to add him to the list. The only thing that helps is cold therapy. The only thing and he's like an hour away from, he lives like an hour away from anywhere where he can do
so, yeah, I mean, I've seen it with my own eyes of, know, it's like, can't, I can't walk without a cane unless I got into a cold tub the last couple of days. Now I can walk without a cane. You know, that that's how that works. Yeah. So he's number two. Anybody you say needs one. I'll just take that as the gospel and go for it. So number two, we need just number three here.
I was say, us talking too about those mental health benefits. a lot of people when they, I think this is one of the sort of traps, whether it's any kind of health -wise, is people are like, well, what do the studies say? What about this, this and that? And it's almost like the studies are fine and that all helps, that supports what we're up to here. But again,
the mental health benefits that we've recognized that we've had within ourselves and that we've seen in other people out there and heard of from other people out there. Those to me, the sort of intangible benefits are really where it's at because anytime I hear somebody say, well, after 11 minutes a week, it's diminishing returns. And it's like, guys, have you ever done this daily every single morning with a community? You need to tell
that when somebody goes and does this for three minutes and they know that every single day, as long as the water is cold, they have a community to go and do this. You don't have to wait until after work and, you know, dread every minute of work and then just say, I just want to go and have some drinks with some friends tonight. And that's your way to unwind. You start your day again in our situation, start your day with a community in such a way that it's like the rest of your day is just easier to where, you know, one of my buddies here, army veteran,
He said, dude, like all the problems I thought that I have, like, just kind of put everything into perspective. Like nothing seems like a big deal anymore. The sort of resilience that it builds up within us. Obviously anybody who went in the military has a, me on average, a higher level of resilience than people without military experience. Of course, there plenty of exceptions to that,
It's things like that. It's people getting more connected to themselves. It's people who get motivated to go to the gym for the first time. It's people who know I've got a community. It's people who know, Hey, every Saturday morning, I'm going to get into the sauna with these guys. And basically we just hit record on the phone and it's like a Joe Rogan podcast, you know, for 45 minutes as we're thawing out, you know, in the sauna every week. it's, things like that that come from it. it's, it's your friend who hasn't found anything else.
but cold therapy that allows him to walk without a cane. Those are the real success stories. that again, unfortunately they're not going to come out of a lab, you know, somewhere it's like, this is the word of mouth. the real, anecdotal, you know, experiences that people are passing along that are the most important as far as I, what I would say. Absolutely. Absolutely. And usually people are pointing out a study there. They're measuring one specific marker
Yeah, you may get diminishing returns for that one specific marker, but there's a hundred other benefits that aren't included in that study. there's always outliers. I've worked in research before. There's always outliers. So much so that you're an outlier in something. And so it's always important. In the biohacking community, there's a saying, is N equals
which is, and N is the number of subjects, and N equals one means that there's only one subject and it's you. And you're also the scientist. You're the one conducting the study. Check, try it out for yourself. Looking at research is beneficial for sure, but that's the starting point. That's where you go, this might be good for me. Let me give it a shot. Creatine is good for most people if they were to supplement with creatine for better cognitive function.
maintaining muscle, but not for everybody. Some people it doesn't really have the effect and it changes over time as well. you got to keep paying attention to seeing if something is continuing to benefit you or is a detriment to you. yeah, that's something I like to pass on to people. like, studies are great, but give it a shot and pay attention. There's too many people who are relying on these studies to make decisions
in lieu of just paying attention to what's going on for themselves. And it's that practicing awareness that's key to maintaining your health over time, mental and physical.
Yeah, was, you know, one of the things that I noticed too, we were doing, with this, our, cold therapy community up here. we were doing, weekly, cookouts and as we would, you know, have a fire and everything at night. It just occurred to me that as I would just hang out and just listen to everybody, the, the depth of the conversation that was happening from week to week to week.
It was literally like everybody was getting to know themselves better and therefore they were relating to other people on a, on a deeper level. So it was just like, these people are literally becoming more conscious because they continue to do this stuff is sort of hippie dippy as I would have thought, you know, that, you know, expanding your consciousness was say a decade ago now looking at it. It's like, having done the psychedelics and these things, it literally is one of these pieces that,
I would argue needs to be plugged in for people. I'm yet to hear of anybody, you know, it seems like the most, the biggest pushback I've ever gotten from somebody is like, I'm going to have a heart attack. it's like, probably the opposite. It's like, sure. Be, be responsible about deciding to go into the water because it is a shock. It's serious. But yeah, I would just argue that in some way, whether somebody puts their hands in cold water, cause we've even seen now too.
And the studies that if you put your hands in cold water or hang on to, you know, something cold, it has performance benefits in the gym and whatnot. I'm sure there are other, you know, benefits to that as well. And, the exposure to uncomfortable things, be it heat, cold, emotional discomfort, all that. What is it? Andrew Huberman and David Goggins were talking about, a little while ago, but there's literally a portion of your brain.
that becomes enlarged whenever you do something that you don't want to do. So it's not just, hey, I'm gonna impress my buddies. I'm gonna outdo this or that person. It's like, sure, maybe that's a good time, but in the end, you're getting so many benefits from it. It's just like how now in terms of say weightlifting and things like that, people are now speaking a whole lot more in terms of
man, my head's so much clearer. It keeps me sane on a daily basis. The brain effects, the psychological effects, this is where that conversation is turning. It's not just, I can bench 315 now, so I'm tougher than you. So it's just interesting how it seems like with people like Joe Rogan, Andrew
Aubrey Marcus, Ben Greenfield, all these people out there who have been talking about this stuff for so long. It's really starting to take hold. You know, yourself as well. I've learned so much through the years from listening to Barbell Shrugged and whatnot. It's just pieces that needed to be plugged in. And luckily with the internet and these technologies, it's at everybody's fingertips now. Whereas say 20 years ago, before there was a podcast,
that anybody could just go and plug in and listen to. It was more or less just word of mouth, or you had to go and read articles or something like that. Yeah, that makes me think about the difference between nations and ignorance. You the difference?
I'm not sure. Nations is when you have yet to be given the information you like. You just you just don't know because you weren't exposed to it. And then there's ignorance. And ignorance is when you have been presented with information, but you've chosen to ignore it. And so we used to have nations, but now we have ignorance.
because all the information is at your fingertips. And if you you choose, if you just go, if you just have an emotional reaction to hearing something and you reject the information, you have now proven to be ignorant. So I can't fault somebody for being nation, but you can for being ignorant. The information is out there, but a lot of people may hear what you're saying and go, yeah, I just don't want to do it. I just don't want to deal with it. It's like, well, now you're practicing ignorance. You're ignoring.
the information. yeah, that just brought that to me with, you know, the age of information. it's it's now our job to yeah, there's a lot of information out there that is not true or is counter or trying to lead people away from what's true. But part of the process is being able to practice your own discernment about the information coming
and finding people that have good track records to listen to. Listen to people with good track record. Check the track record. All right? And so there's a lot of people out there talking. And the people that are giving the most attention do not necessarily have the best track records. So you got to pay attention to that as well. So let's wrap this bad boy up. Where can people find you? Where can they find Voughton? Yeah, on the website
Vatencoldplunge .com, it's V -A -T -T -E -N coldplunge .com. On social media, it's at Vatencoldplunge, that's Instagram. We're also on YouTube, I think it's also at Vatencoldplunge. Let's see, we're now on Twitter, I'm sorry, not Twitter. X, not X, what's the TikTok?
TikTok. I'm just trying to make something go viral on there. That's really the, I'm not presenting the company in the most professional light there. I'm just trying to make something go viral on there. But yeah, all of that stuff is still a work in progress. But those are the places right now. If you want to check out my page, it's craig .mayville.
-A -Y -V -I -L -L -E is my last name. All I do though is yell at people about eating more red meat and getting into cold water and not putting sunscreen on and supplementing with bull testicles. That one's good to me. That's why I follow. I'm here for the show. Keep entertaining us. Yeah. got to shake people a little bit sometimes and get their attention. That's right. That's right.
All right, Craig, appreciate you dropping in. Love having this show. you sure, look, if you're in the market for a cold plunge, if you're in the market for a cold tub, go check out Voughton. At least get them a follow, support them however you can. If you know anybody that's up to donate, make sure to go over to check out the opportunity to donate over there and come check out the mission after too. Craig's over there stirring up stuff inside
free community. Love the accountability there at Mission After as well after Paul posted that, something about that yesterday on the school community there. I changed my evening routine last night and switching into changing the morning routine as well. So it's always good to have the other people to help you hold yourself accountable to that. So, it's a very welcoming community.
Right on Craig. Thanks for joining us today. Talk to you soon. Bye Mike. Love you man. See
Mike Bledsoe (1:37:25)
I hope you enjoyed this show. Sounds like you did since you stuck around all the way to the end. Make sure to go over to themissionafter .org, check out the free community. We have free courses going in there. We have one on microdosing, have one on breath work. We have a list of retreats that are coming up that are specific to veterans. I'm be creating an entrepreneurship course. And if you want to jump in there and jump into the community thread and just suggest what you'd like to see, I know some stuff that could go in there for you or
I have a really good network of people who are experts in different things. So anything you're looking for, I encourage you jump into the community. You can do it over at themissionafter .org. Get in there, make your request, shop it up with some of the other vets in there, and have a good time. I'll see you over