How a $7 Million NYC Bathhouse Is Redefining Wellness — Othership CEO Robbie Bent
“Cold plunges and saunas rewired my brain—and they’ll change yours.”
Here's a conversation with Robbie Bent, my podcast guest this week on That One Time with Adam Metwally.
Robbie Bent is the CEO and co-founder of OtherShip. A former investment banker who rebooted his life with just $60 to his name, he’s built OtherShip into a multi-million-dollar wellness community blending cold plunges, saunas, and five-star hospitality.
Below are some of the key concepts we explored in the episode:
Increase your resilience: 11 minutes of cold plunges per week sustains elevated dopamine levels.
Boost longevity: 80 minutes of sauna per week at 180°F cuts Alzheimer’s risk by up to 66%.
Forge real connections: group heat-and-cold therapy reduces social anxiety and accelerates friendship building.
Timestamps:
00:00 The Power of Cold Plunges and Saunas
04:43 Robbie’s Journey: From Finance to Wellness
15:54 Transformative Cold Plunge and Sauna Stories
23:28 The Science Behind Heat and Cold Therapy
31:58 Cold Plunges and Women’s Health
35:13 Cold Plunge Timing and Exercise
42:24 The Concept of Third Places
49:35 Navigating Hospitality Challenges
59:00 Financial Realities of Building in New York
1:01:33 Personal Milestones and Community Impact
1:07:24 The Importance of Connection and Community
1:09:13 Future Aspirations and Community Building
1:12:57 Rethinking Healthcare Spaces
1:13:59 Reflections on Life’s Meaning
It’s up on YouTube, Spotify, X and everywhere else.
✌🏼 SUPPORT THE PODCAST BY PURCHASING PRODUCTS WE LOVE:
💧 Vitadrop — Healthy Hydration & Vitamins (Sleep / Hydration / Focus & Collagen) — Use the code ‘TOT’ to get 25% off your purchase @ https://www.vitadrop.com.au/TOT
👟 Vivobarefoot — My favourite barefoot shoes that I wear everyday — Use the code ‘TOT’ for 20% off @ www.[vivobarefoot.com/](https://vivobarefoot.com/)
🥗 Blueprint — Longevity supplements and meal solutions by Bryan Johnson — Use the code ‘TOT’ for 10% off your purchase @ [friends.bryanjohnson.com/TOT](https://friends.bryanjohnson.com/TOT)
📖 5 Minute Journal — My favourite daily gratitude journal — Use the code ‘TOT10’ for 10% off @ https://www.intelligentchange.com/?rf...
📝 Notion — My favourite note taking app I use for my business and personal life everyday — Use the code ‘TOT’ to support the podcast @ https://affiliate.notion.so/TOT
😴 Hostage Tape — A sleep mouth tape I use every night — Use code for 10% off @ https://www.hostagetape.com/products/buy?snowball=ADAM90598
🐄 Carnivore Aurelius Collagen — Collagen I use daily — Use code ‘TOT’ for 10% off @ https://www.carnivoreaurelius.com/TOT
👓 Blue Light Glasses — Glasses I wear every night — Use code ‘TOT’ for 10% off @ [www.blockbluelight.com.au/?ref=TOT](https://www.blockbluelight.com.au/?ref=TOT)
📵 Opal — Blocking iPhone app app I use daily - Follow the link to support the podcast @ www.[applink.opal.so/invite-friend?rc=EA66X&rId=AIriLLeGL0Nofh8MOpdNLEwgEF53&rNme=Admet](https://applink.opal.so/invite-friend?rc=EA66X&rId=AIriLLeGL0Nofh8MOpdNLEwgEF53&rNme=Admet)
Here’s the full transcript:
Speaker 2 (00:00.302)
Welcome to that one time with Adam Metwally, the podcast conversing the pillars of health, wealth, art and wisdom for all your holistic hustles out there. I’m here with Robbie Bent, CEO and co-founder of OtherShip and we’re at the Beautiful Music for a While studio. Robbie, welcome to the podcast.
you
So, Robbie, first question for you is there’s a cold plunge in sauna on every influencer’s Instagram story these days, but most people are either winging it or they’re overdoing it and completely missing the point. So I want to set the record straight with you. What is the right way to use ice baths and saunas if you actually want to improve your mental health, energy, resilience and physiology?
I mean, super hot take. It’s like, just, I mean, I’ll give you what you should do physiologically, but super hot take is like, ignore that stuff, listen to your body and do it with friends. Like the number one thing you can do is just go do it in a group instead of going out to a bar. You know, fantastic way to connect and like, that’s it. Just go show up, go in the sauna until you get too hot, jump in the cold plunge, take two deep breaths, come out, be with a group of friends and hang out and tell jokes and laugh after. There’s so much and that is, I think, what is important.
what is bringing health that people underestimate is just like being in a group of people laughing, conversing, connecting, and the real power of these things, like creating dopamine, neuro-epinephrine rush, any social anxiety and insecurity sort of fades away and so creates this like platform to really connect, especially with strangers or people you don’t know as well. So I that’s most important is just using it as a social tool. Now, if you want to optimize your health benefits, there’s a million discussions about these, as you mentioned, from like every health and wellness.
Speaker 1 (01:38.786)
podcaster, but the like, you know, kind of rule of thumb is about 80 minutes of sauna per week around 180 degrees and 11 minutes of plunging per week. Call it like around 40 degrees.
Yeah, so could you do that in one session?
Probably better. More sessions are better, but you can. Like, four 20-minute saunas, you could do it no problem. two, I personally think that’s too much of an ice bath for sessions, depending on the temperature. But if you’re on 40 degrees, two to three minutes is great. And so I would do that a couple of times, try to do maybe two ice baths session at two minutes each. So you’re like four minutes in, and you do that twice a week, and that’s pretty good. Yeah.
Great. What are the benefits that you found in health?
Like for me, I was mentioning just struggling with addiction. And so was just having a cool place at night to go. But it increases your sustained levels of dopamine. So everything else, coffee, cigarettes, cocaine, you’re like pumping the dopamine, pumping the dopamine, your phone, shopping, gambling. And you just need more and more. And so it’s ruining your baseline ability to be happy, basically, without more and more stimulation. And so the ice bath is spiking your dopamine. But they found sustained levels of dopamine growing over time.
Speaker 2 (02:24.066)
dopamine.
Speaker 1 (02:47.032)
So it’s really good for repatterning addiction. And people aren’t talking about this a lot, but we see a lot of people who used to struggle with drugs coming into other ship and using cold plunges and finding this is a fantastic sobriety tool. So for me, it was really like having something to do in a group at night that was healthy. That’s like the number one wellness hack for me personally.
It’s a healthy high that you feel.
Exactly. Hi. So is that. And then there’s also like most people when they’re going out are reaching for alcohol because it’s a stress reducer, anxiety reliever. And so if we’re in a group at a networking event like, know, fucking shoot me in the face now and I want to talk to a whole bunch of strangers, what are they thinking of me? This is weird. I don’t know. Like most people feel uncomfortable. And so you go into, you reach for alcohol, you know, you have two drinks, the fear receptors in the brain reduce, you feel good. So you can do the same thing here. And it actually sets you up.
in a way to connect in a much more vulnerable state of excitement. And so we found it’s the best platform for allowing people to make friends.
Yeah, definitely. And potentially date as well.
Speaker 1 (03:49.272)
Yeah. Yeah. We have singles nights at other ship, and they’ve been pretty successful. And both friendship, we call it. And then we have lovership, which is like a party of singles. That’s funny. And so they’ll have ice baths, and there’ll be, you know, there’s eight. And you’ll be partnered, and you do 30 seconds and we’ll ask a question. So you do 30 seconds together, come out, both answer the question over two minutes. Then you shift, and you do it with a new person. And you end up doing eight 30 second ice baths, answering eight questions, meeting eight new people. And it’s been like extremely successful.
That’s so fun. mean, I came for the first time to other ship through a friend’s brand. Absolutely loved it. So yeah, really, really enjoyed the work you do. So it’s great to have you on. am wondering about your story a little bit more. So you have a really, really interesting arc that’s got you here. So why don’t we dig into
the context of the early years of your life that will allow us to understand you and how we got to this point.
Yeah, absolutely. Any particular time or just go? Yeah, I guess I think I always really liked, I think I felt insecure. always really liked to be in groups. It was super fun for me. So I’d play sports. I’d go out. liked to go out and party. Even from like grade six, I would like to be, think because of insecurity, like the center of attention. I would feel, if I knew the answer at school, I’d put up my hand. I’d want to be picked. I’d want to be seen. And to be seen made me.
from the start.
Speaker 1 (05:18.552)
feel good and make me feel more confident, make me feel more loved. So there’s something there about not being seen when I’m younger and then having to do something to earn that. And so as a result, I would love to go out and be around people and feel cool, perceived as cool. And so to do that, I thought I needed money. And to do that, thought I needed to be successful. And so I have nice clothes, this kind of stuff. So in high school, I worked really hard. I got into business school, and I was like, I can just be rich. That’s it. And my dad worked in business. And so he worked really hard.
Eastern European background was like, if you don’t work hard, you’re going to be homeless. so my parents pushed me to skip a grade when I was younger. And they really pushed me to go to university and work hard. And so that’s always been ingrained in me of like, I need to be successful so that I’m worthy of love. And so I have a deep ambition and drive to achieve.
And so I started my career in finance. I worked in investment banking. I didn’t even know what that was. It was just like the most competitive thing in university where people were like, oh, this pays the most and this is what the smartest kids do. So I was like, fuck that. I’m going get one of these jobs. I never made the tier one investment bank. was in a tier two, three. And I would have nightmares about the job interviews. And then at the firm, somebody threw a stapler at me once. I’m like, you had sleep under my desk. Really hardcore work environment 20 years ago now.
That firm I worked at, I ended up going to Hedge Fund and doing some investing. And I was really interested, but I just wasn’t motivated by the people I worked with. I looked and a lot of people, family life was tough, people drinking a lot, not that healthy. I was just kind of looking at like 22, was like, is this really for me? And the firm I worked imploded in the credit crisis, I live in LA, so no finance jobs. And I was like, okay, well, I’m gonna do a startup.
That seems easy. There’s Guy Mark Zuckerberg, who’s my age, maybe slightly older. Facebook is exploding. was the first time, like, when I graduated university, it wasn’t clear that you could do a startup as a college kid. Like, it was really new. And so all of a sudden, that’s possible. And I was like, fuck, this can be easier than banking. Like, it’s not going to be as much work. I can do this. Partnered with technical co-founder, ended up raising money, built something kind of like a Google Fi.
Speaker 1 (07:30.79)
was a SIM card, yeah. was a SIM card you put on your phone. It would overlay your SIM. then depending on where you would go, like, hey, you’re from the US. You come to Canada. Grant you a Roger SIM card. All in the back end, you wouldn’t pay roaming fees. Over four years, was cool. It was great. Because at the time, roaming was like, you know, you’d have like a, if you’re using your phone for business, it’d be like $1,000 bill. And so we had this like man in the middle approach where you would travel, you would use it, you’d get a text and say, hey, you just saved $900 on that phone call. people would, we would just give it to.
Whatever I did.
Speaker 1 (07:59.81)
ultra rich angel investors when they were traveling, wanted to use their phone. They’re like, oh, this is great. So we were able to raise money from that. But we just weren’t able to make it like a consumer grade product. Like two out of 10 would break when you put them in the phone. You would travel to France and the network wouldn’t work and we didn’t have a direct connection. And so people would complain. It just wasn’t quite good enough. then roaming prices declined.
expanded.
Exactly. something that used to be $1,000 a trip is now maybe $50 a trip. It’s just kind of automated. And so over a four-year period, we spent all this money, hired a lot of I made so many mistakes there, which we can talk about. But that business ended up failing. And so the first thing I had just, hey, I’m going to try and make money. Didn’t work out for me. Then it was like, I’m going to do this because it’s a good business opportunity. I didn’t give a shit about roaming. It was like, yeah, can make money here. And then it failed. And I remember like,
I had spent, I had an OK salary there, and I had some savings from finance, and I burned through them all. And I was overspending on my car, my apartment, going out a lot. So I wanted to feel cool. And I had like $60 in my bank account. I remember seeing that number. And I remember I had this old car, and I
I didn’t even have like suitcases. put all my stuff in plastic bags to like move out. And I struggled with drugs and alcohol at the time. And I just remember like driving out of Toronto feeling like so defeated to the house I grew up with in Guelph. And I just like living in my parents basement and taking these like plastic bags. My only belongings in the basement having like 60 bucks. And then having to ask them like, hey, you don’t want to go for dinner with some friends in Toronto. Can I borrow money from you at 30 years old? And it was just super embarrassing, especially because at that time, most important thing to me was like,
Speaker 1 (09:38.338)
being, that’s what I patterned my life on. was like, want to be successful at work hard as judged by like how much money I have and what kind of things I have. So it was a fucking really tough.
Sounds like it. It’s funny like failing at something you don’t even want to do. Such a big kicker.
But the learning is just like, you never really fail because all of, you know, at the time I was like, OK, I’m 30-ish. I’m not an engineer. I’m not really a salesperson. I’m not a designer. I’m not in finance. Like, what are my skills? Like, I don’t have any skills. And that’s what I thought. I was literally like, I don’t have any skills. And really, though, all those experiences like, train me how to raise money, how to hire people, how to build a team, how to negotiate, how to tell if somebody’s bullshitting.
how to quickly solve problems in a very scrappy way. So all that work, and then even in finance, that taught me how to think about valuations for a business, how to negotiate when we’re raising funds, how to tell a story to investors, how to look through a P &L. And so was actually just building up a skill set over 10 years that has served me super well now. So it’s like you kind of never really fail. You’re just learning until you succeed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
I mean, as long as you keep going, stop you. That’s the Founders podcast. It’s pretty clear on that. We were talking about in the rapid fire and how the Founders podcast was a really has been a really good tool that you’ve used to just keep pushing forward in a tough environment. So let’s talk about that for a little bit longer.
Speaker 1 (10:53.934)
Then you failed. Then you failed.
Speaker 1 (11:11.694)
Yeah, just think if you think about somebody building a business over a 50-year career, right? Like how many learnings they have. And then that learning, takes a documentary or biography maker, I don’t know, 2,000 hours or 5,000 hours to make that artwork. And then it takes you 40 hours to read it. And then David will go through that and condense that into like 40 minutes or 50 minutes or one hour. And then he’ll edit it down so there’s not even, he does his own editing. And so edit it down so there’s not even a missed word there. So you’re getting like,
the learnings of the best entrepreneurs to ever walk the planet across all industries and even some that are 150 years old in your brain. then you’re not only learning one, you’re learning the lessons of all of them that are the same. And what you find across these 400 people is there’s just so many similarities, commonalities. And so just help me as a framework for how I’m thinking. One really interesting thing is just being in the details. And I’m so in the details, to the point of you might call it a micromanager.
Like, I’m caring if I go in, like, what is the song playing? How did the front desk greet you? What is the email receipt look like? What does the sandwich board on the front desk look like? What is the name of our class? Even, like, my wife runs our social and our marketing, and she’s my co-founder and head of brand. And, like, we will look at Instagram posts together, each caption. And, like, change the language on that caption. And it seems like you’re fucking anal. Like, why are you doing this? And then I hear on founders, like, that’s what Steve Jobs does. That’s what the guy from Raising Canes does. It’s like,
There was real founders do that shit. And so it made me realize that, be in the details. Be anal. Like, you can delegate things, but care about your product. And so that’s like a learning. No coach or anything told me that. And there’s probably 10 of those if we dig in of what I’ve learned from that podcast.
Yeah, one of them that I really keep thinking about because I started off my career in events and I was pretty tight with money, like really, really tight. Came from a scarcity place and being in a small city and having some success in a small city. Very, very, very tight. Like I got a reputation pretty quickly for just being like a hard ball and difficult to deal with. Like nice, but I would push for deals that, you know, would constantly have feedback of.
Speaker 2 (13:26.496)
we’ve never taken a prize like that. But then they’d say yes. So it would confuse me. And it’s bit me in the ass a little bit because I got this reputation and then when easier people to deal with with more money to spend came along, they were the preferences. So I had to be the top of the top. I to be at the absolute top of my game if I wanted to play like be tight. And then I went through this whole little journey of maybe I’m wrong, blah, blah, blah. Maybe it’s the wrong way.
And then I lost a quarter of a million dollars trying to run festivals. So I’ve gone back to the drawing board again and listened to that podcast a bunch of times. And there’s a very big commonality of being extremely frugal. Very, very big commonality. And so now I’m going back to potentially being type of maybe a little bit more relationship focused, but frugal on the important things that don’t necessarily hurt.
relationships. think that’s the fine line I’ve found and founders has really helped me to get that framework of thinking too.
You have to be, especially when you start. so that company, Romali, I mentioned, we raised like $20 million and just like burned it all. That’s a problem in the South. we people flying first class places. And just like all of a sudden, you have this money, you’re doing all these things. then, know, other ship was literally like an ice bath we built by hand in my backyard. No permit, free for people to come, WhatsApp group, no brand, no name.
And to name it, put a Google Doc together and asked 40 people what they should name it. And we decided on Inward. And then we spent $25 on a logo joy and just had a little back end mind body platform. So to get it set up was like nothing. Then we built the first version of our garage ourselves for sub $80,000 with our own hands. so I’m a firm believer until you know what you’re doing. You just need to be very careful with every dollar. I’ll still look at these little.
Speaker 1 (15:19.406)
tiny expenses and will, you know, like I’m in New York, I’m sleeping on people’s couches. I can personally afford to, but I just like, I like to push it and it’s hard to hold the team accountable when you’re not like living those same values. so, you know, Jeff Bezos at Amazon, like the desks were just made out of like these wood doors, you know? And so if he is maintaining frugality to a company of that size, of course, it’s important.
Yeah, definitely. Well, I want to jump back again to the cold plunge and sauna stuff. What’s an example of a story that the cold plunge and sauna combination has had on someone’s life in the positive? It could be yours. It could be somebody else’s. It could be both.
Man, I’ve seen the craziest, like, you know, done meditation retreats, psychedelic medicine retreats. I’ve seen people come and say like, hey, you know, I couldn’t leave my house. Like I had so much anxiety from COVID that I literally couldn’t leave my, I would get afraid. You know, I remember when COVID was hitting and it was like, don’t leave and don’t see anybody and like, we’re all gonna die. exactly. And like people who are like, hey, I would like an Uber eats, I wouldn’t go to the door.
to even meet someone because I was so scared and then like sanitize the food before I touched it. And there was that person when we had the garage was able to start coming inward alone using an app and coming to use a cold plunge and sauna repatterned her fear. So she could come go back out in society. I’ve seen like at least 50 people addicted to drugs and alcohol that are like sober. We had somebody do a wedding proposal two weeks ago.
people that met at other ship and like actually legitimately about married and we they did their proposal in the space like in the tier
Speaker 1 (16:55.374)
But funny enough, my wife and I got engaged in the sauna with a ring was in one of those ice balls. She was giving me a massage and it melted in her hand. so it was our first day. was big crash. so I think from stories of also people coming to Toronto, York, hey, I didn’t know anybody. And I’ve met like six friends here. Like we have this WhatsApp group. And people will share, hey, I can’t go today. Does anyone want my pass? Or like.
it’s up.
Speaker 1 (17:22.478)
I’m going to organize a dinner. People are organizing other ship escape rooms before the other ship session. And they’ll go together in the community to this escape room with each other. 22 visits. we call that our, I think it’s important to have like your own naming when you’re building your brand, build your own world. And so we call, know, customers are called journeyers and then journeyers that have come 22 times are called ship heads. And then they get invited to this like community. And I think that’s like really important for creating friendships.
getting this wassup crew.
Speaker 2 (17:49.548)
Yeah, great. I love it. Well, let’s talk about your personal experience with cold plunge and sauna. You touched on the addiction and you’ve touched on how it’s impacted a lot of people with addiction. I personally have had a lot of positive impact with the cold plunge and sauna. I during COVID started doing ocean swims with some friends that turned into getting a bucket of ice on the beach during COVID with three of us that became five that became 20.
It became 40 and a guy’s running a business off the back of it. Yeah, I’m a big fan, a big fan of the work. And I had a little one in my home back in Australia. You got a chest freezer and we insulated it. And every morning I committed to myself during the worst period of time business-wise that I’ve ever had that I would get up and I would go into that thing and I’d sit in that thing for two minutes. And I remember lying, staring at the roof every morning and being like,
I have to get up and I have to do this thing and I would get in there and I would hate my life for two minutes and then I get out and be like, that’s going to be the hardest thing I’ve had to deal with today. So I’d love to hear your experience with the cold plungers, the saunas, this whole space and what actually happened.
Yeah, use it for a number of different things. So like what you mentioned, fantastic. mean, how I was exposed to it was our first date I kind of mentioned. And so I was struggling with drugs and alcohol, lived in Israel, which we talked about.
went and actually tried ayahuasca for the first time. I was in Peru, came back and was pretty committed to being sober, told all my friends I never want to drink again, don’t offer me alcohol. And there was this girl, we’ve been talking, really liked her. She matched me like, hey, I was listening to Rhonda Patrick. I heard about these cold plunges. I know you don’t drink. Let’s do something at night. So we searched for where to find a cold plunge in Toronto. This is 2017. So it’s like eight years ago, maybe 2016. Nine years ago.
Speaker 1 (19:45.838)
and we found a Russian bath house on the outskirts of town. So we drove like 40 minutes outside of town. There’s a sauna, a cold plunge. It was the first time, I didn’t really know what you’re supposed to do, how you do it. There’s no guidance. It’s just a Russian bath house. And we got in, no phone, ended up having dinner at the bath house and have like the greatest conversation. Usually first dates, like, I’m trying to impress this person. What do I say? What should I talk about? I’m nervous. I go to alcohol. It was an amazing first date. Despite being in bathing suits, felt so comfortable and safe.
And that became a ritual for us every single week because I wasn’t drinking, I didn’t want to be around alcohol. we’d go and, you know, we lived in Berlin, we lived in San Francisco, we’d be going to these bath houses and it became like, this is the thing we do socially with both like romantically as a date and then with friends. And so same thing like Friday night, we’d grab a group of 10 people, make a little WhatsApp group, go to different bath houses. And then every time, no matter how dingy the bath house or all the bath house would wake up the next morning, feel fucking awesome. The conversations would be great. So that’s like one use case is like,
know, connections, so I call it dating, hanging out with friends in like a really nice environment. Then I like got pretty addicted to the cold plunge in a healthy way and was doing it every day. And so a couple of things I found was I’ve done a lot of meditation and like meditations are struggle for many people. like, I’m sitting here and nothing’s happening. What’s supposed to be happening. And so when you get in the cold plunge, there’s such a spike in neuroopereprenorphine. You’re like, it’s a neurotransmitter responsible for like mood, attention, vigilance. You feel like I am.
alive, I’m here. And you have to really focus on your breathing and let go. And through that letting go, you’re completely present. So if you’re struggling, you mentioned when the times were hardest. And what happens is instead of your mind running loops of I’m not good enough, this is never going to work, I have all these to-do lists, you get in there, and that all goes away. And you’re completely present. And so for lot of people who have these crazy thought loops, surprisingly, it’s like an emotional wellness business. But the customer is very much a corporate professional.
who’s like burnt out and who’s like A type and who’s just thinking all the time. like, can’t relax in my own body. For New York, it’s probably the best city in the world that we could have opened something like this. And so that person goes in the plunge and it’s like, everything I have to do today is gone for a few minutes. This is like pure relaxation. So that’s another use case that’s fantastic. And then, you you mentioned like resilience. So I would go in there. We own a few restaurants and during COVID we’re like, okay, our restaurants are gone. We’re toast. This is so stressful. We’re also trying to open a bath house like prior.
Speaker 1 (22:06.126)
Okay, this is two years of research. Yeah, so was gonna be called Vine Street, same partners, but before other ship, was just going to be like a really cool traditional bath house, but like upscale version, similar to like bath house in New York. Towel waving, all that kind of stuff. And then before we open, while we were researching, we were like, oh, let’s just do this ice bath in the backyard. It’d be a good way to build a community, it’d be really cool. And that, if we had never done that, we never would have gone forward with the experience, because COVID would have.
or other ship bath house, different concept.
Speaker 1 (22:36.174)
crushed us and so COVID’s hitting. We have these people who are coming to the garage and every day I would just go in there and feel better. My partner was like fully leveraged, you own five, six quick servers, restaurants, bunch of nightclubs. And he was just like, I’m like, I’ve signed all these leases, I have all this debt, we’re gonna be finished. And he would go in every day. And so think when you’re dealing with like pretty intense fear, it’s awesome for like building resilience. So the physical stuff, I get sick less for sure, but it’s not as much.
for me, like I don’t care about fine, maybe my inflammation is lower. I don’t care about that. I don’t care about the recovery. It’s just like, how do I feel mentally? And I think in like two minutes, there’s nothing you can do in the world that can make you feel that way. And so either whether it’s connection, resilience, or just like getting a bit of space, making you feel alive, I think that’s why I’m able to.
Yeah, nice. have also started to dig into the sauna side of things, especially with, you Huberman stuff saying 20 minutes, whatever it is, 20 minutes, four times a day is really good. So I just started trying my best. I haven’t done it in a little while because I haven’t found a place that’s nearby that I like. Where do you live? I’m in downtown Brooklyn right now. So it’s not...
Speaker 2 (23:53.486)
But hopefully I’ll be back in Manhattan sooner rather than later.
I had like a bunch of passes for you to go anyways, just so can, when you’re around here, you can go.
Thank you, thank you. So the sauna’s been interesting because I do know much about Ayurveda by any chance. basically there’s like different body types, like a cool body type, a hot body type, and somewhere in the middle. I can’t remember the details, but I’m just a very hot person. So I found that heat agitates me, and I get really pissed off. If I’m like overheated, I’m like shitty. And then I force myself to do the saunas, and it’s in a weird way tempered my mood.
naturally. So now I can sit in these really uncomfortable, longer time situations and be fine. That just agitation is just dissipated. So that’s been a really interesting alternative resilience component for the saunas. And the microplastics thing that everyone’s talking about, apparently saunas are amazing to help detox that. And lifespan, that’s right, right? There’s a huge jump in the lowering of
cardiovascular disease. Do you know much about this?
Speaker 1 (25:05.558)
So you’re just working out your cardiovascular system. So you’re dilating and contracting your blood vessels. So when you’re dilating your vessels, your heart, it’s easier to pump plasma through the body. And so as a result, it’s like a exercise mimetic, they call it. So it’s very similar to exercising. You’re raising your heart rate. You’re improving your heart’s ability and strength. And so as a result, you reduce cardiovascular disease significantly, which is like the number one killer in North America.
You’re For what? You’re just sitting in a room that’s warm with a mate.
Well, you’re putting your body under stress, right? And so similar to what you’re doing in exercise. And it’s just easier to do. Like, 9 PM after a long work day, if you’re like, hey, man, let’s go do a Barry’s Bootcamp. It’s fuck that. But if someone’s like, let’s go in a sauna. Every time, like I went today at 7 AM, and I was just like, if it was a workout, I’d be like, fuck, I’m so tired. But I was like, can’t wait. As soon as I get there, I’m just going to lay down and relax. It’s so relaxing. So just for your mental state, your state of safety, it’s amazing. There’s other benefits, too, that are
I’m sure as they do more studies will come out. it’s like, I think it’s like 60 % reduction in Alzheimer’s. Oh, wow. Yeah, crazy. So they think you’re creating these heat shock proteins with help to, I’m going to butcher. Something along those lines that like, yeah, big reduction in Alzheimer’s. There’s increase in longevity genes, like one’s called FOX03. So how much of this is true? I don’t know. I’m just relaying what like Andrew Hooperman and Rhonda Patrick and these people say.
Say it.
Speaker 2 (26:15.006)
the brain or something.
Speaker 2 (26:29.294)
mean, they do this for a living, I’m sure that relative.
Exactly. So there’s no doctor, know, one, there’s no added value for saying, like, hey, cold plunges are healthy. They’re not like supplements, you know? And so people, like, literally every single one of the best doctors in the world, the best performance doctor is for athletes, like every single person. It’s kind of like, you know, 20 years ago, maybe people aren’t exercising as much. There’s like a Gold’s Gym and like weightlifting’s not as popular. Now if you’re like, hey, exercise, the jury’s out. It’s like, no, it’s not. It’s exercise. It’s it’s kind of the same. And I’m pretty sure.
this thing’s been being done since the beginning of time. That’s right.
Yeah, yeah, that’s right. I was going to say on that note, regular saunas associated with increase, significant decrease of risk of Alzheimer’s disease, strongest evidence from a large long-term finished study, two to three times a week, 20 22 % lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, four to seven times a week, 65 to 66 % compared to the once per week group. That’s kind of crazy.
I mean, it’s like all, like there’s many more studies and stats and it’s tough because not a lot of people are funding these studies. There’s not any money. There’s no drug to be made around them. So there’s some, but it’s just like, I know when I go, I feel amazing. I’ve been doing it for like nine or 10 years, three to four times a week minimum. If I miss one, start to get like, I crave it. And there’s nothing else in my life I use with that frequency. And I’ll use it like to do a meeting. I’ll use it as a date. And so I just could see a world.
Speaker 1 (27:57.998)
It kind of reminds me of coffee when there was just Folgers, then Starbucks comes out. It’s like, my god, are you worried about coffee competition? And like, no, there’s room for like a million coffee brands and one on every street. I think the same will be. I think this will be something that a huge percent of the population, like more so than exercise, because it’s actually easier and more social. It’s like we had on Thursday night, Blondish DJed at other shows.
I’m friends with some people in the management team.
fucking insane. But the vibe of the space was crazy. And everyone’s sober. And it ends at midnight. You go home and you have a great sleep. So we partnered with Daybreaker. And we’re doing eight of these heat waves throughout the rest of the year. So two months. happy. Yeah, absolutely, man. So you DJ at our space. that’s all I want to say. But I do think things are changing. And the way people socialize will be more in this context. And so you think of how many bars there are in New York. There’s one on every street.
I should have come.
Speaker 2 (28:43.256)
Go to bed, Alec.
Speaker 1 (28:54.69)
how many coffee shops there are. I’m pretty, like, I think the science is here. The professionals talking about it are here, but it still takes, probably take another 10 years to like really penetrate society. But like, I’ve never been more sure of something just because of how much I use it.
Yeah, I mean, I like to think of the idea of the older the problem, the older solution, so the older the solution and people have been doing this shit for a really long time, like a really, really long time, like you said, dunking themselves in the Arctic and sitting in these hectic, you know, the Russian bathhouses have been around for a long time.
In Greek, like before Christ, BCE, like Greek soldiers would use this for training. They’d go in cold water. it’s like, know, Socrates would do this. It’s like the beginning of time.
Yeah. And these things, as much as you want to, you know, shit on people like to shit on like ancient history these days, I think there’s a lot of value in things that have stood the test of time. of what it is, there’s, there’s got to be some positive merit to whatever stood the test of time for thousands of years, because we would not share, we’re very memetic and we would not share things that aren’t valuable to individuals in whatever way. I think that the studies are just catching up.
It’s little side note before we get back into the the cold plunge sauna component, but a similar feeling personally for meditation. So I think we’ve had every reason why not as much not as intense as yours. But I started meditating when I was 22, 23. I started doing it like 10 minutes a day and I didn’t think about it in any positive light because I couldn’t.
Speaker 2 (30:34.454)
see or feel it. But over time, things began to really shift in my brain and the way interacted with the world and the things I felt. then 10 years later, now the studies are coming out. But you kind of feel it. And you have to just go with what feels right. And I think the way we approach studies and the double-blind placebo, all that sort of stuff, is slow and cumbersome and expensive. And it doesn’t
It takes a long time to catch up, but it seems like a lot of this stuff does end up catching up eventually. So I put that in that bucket for sure. So I did a bit of a Q and A before this and pretty much every single person that responded was a girl asking are cold plungers and saunas good for women? What do I do here? What’s the framework? And before we jump into this, I did a podcast with a lady named Holly Sinclair. She focuses on
women’s health, couples getting pregnant without IVF, natural cycles, all that sort of stuff. And she was okay with saunas, but not a big fan of cold plunges outside of certain specific periods in the cycle. So I’d love to hear your thoughts from what you know, what you’ve experienced with the people you’ve worked with and try and put this to bed for the people that are listening.
So firstly, I’m not a doctor. I’m not trying to like quote papers. I just know we have the largest cold plunge community in the world. Multi-hundred thousand people. Probably the most cold plunges in a commercial setting. I’d call it like 0 to 4 degrees, 36 to 40 degrees at that temperature. Tons. This post went viral by this exercise.
Dr. Stacey Simms saying women shouldn’t cold plunge under 50 degrees. like people in our, there’s like a kind of a feedback from Andrew Huberman saying, it doesn’t matter if you’re a woman or man, it’s about your specific body, which I agreed with, because obviously like some people like it colder, some people don’t. And so the response from our community was pretty insane with a lot of people saying like, hey, I love the feeling of the dopamine and arpanephrine, that feeling of being alive that comes at like two degrees. And so we always say to others, say, this is an ego place. If people are like in there for six minutes, we’ll tell them to get out.
Speaker 1 (32:55.854)
I don’t even look at your time. We’ll guide for up to two minutes in a class. But if you just want to put your hands in, totally fine. So I think the number one thing is just listen to your body. How do you feel? If during your cycle you feel like, definitely our guides will say, our female guides will say it’s harder during that period. I did some research on it using Chachi PT deep research just to of see what came up. And there wasn’t any study saying it was negative. There was some studies saying that some women experienced cramping during the time. But there wasn’t anything that said it was negative. And then this other thing was saying like,
women, it increases their stress hormones too much. And then when you looked into studies, that wasn’t true either. And so there’s this woman, Dr. Susanna Soberg, who’s like the leading kind of cold plunge. She has a program called The Thermalist. And she kind of refuted that saying that’s not true. The actual stress hormones that you’re like triggering are healthy for you.
During certain points of the cycle.
So there’s not a lot of evidence that suggests there’s any danger. However, women in other ship often say it’s harder to do the colder plunges during that time. So they might avoid or use some of the warmer plunges. have different temperatures. So in New York, we’re going from 38 to kind of 48 degrees. And so on those days, it’s maybe, you put your feet in. So there’s literally no science that a cold plunge that I’ve seen. So if you’re listening and you have some papers, send them over. But I haven’t seen a single paper saying a cold plunge is bad for you.
I haven’t seen a paper saying that at a cold plunge at four degrees is negative. I’ve seen people say like, oh, you only need 50 to get the benefits. Great. OK, so those are some of the benefits. But it doesn’t mean it’s bad for you to go colder. That’s kind of where I’m at on it. It’s just like, look, I haven’t seen any evidence that’s definitive. There’s definitely definitive evidence is good for you. In my personal experience, the colder it is, the stronger the norepinephrine effect. So the stronger that feeling of being alive.
Speaker 1 (34:44.79)
I don’t want that every time. I personally go in the warm tub a lot at other ships. And then just like listen to your body. so literally like go in and close your eyes and like when you feel good, get out. And I think if you follow that, good to go anytime.
Yeah. Yeah. What about eating and exercising and when best to say eat and not go in the cold plunge because of digestive issues and exercising and then stopping inflammation and not being able to build muscle. know there’s yeah.
That is definitely real as I wouldn’t for a weight training day where you’re trying to promote muscle growth. So, you know, you’re doing deadlifts or squats or girls or whatever you’re doing weights with the goal to grow your muscles. It will blunt the hypertrophy effect. So if you’re at your gym, you don’t want to cold plunge after a weight training day. However, if you’re running or cycling or doing something that’s more cardiovascular or even zone two, perfect for recovery. So just like if you’re trying to exactly, you don’t want to go
really build muscle.
I’d say like four to six hours. So you could do morning.
Speaker 2 (35:45.934)
cold plunge sauna and then work out afterwards, the rest of the day or?
Yeah, absolutely. And so I also learned this technique from Devin Levesque at his space, Sweet Honey Farms, which I love. Yeah, I love it. It’s so beautiful. It’s crazy. That’s my dream. The reverse commute as self-driving cars come, think, will be huge, where you mostly work from home, but then two days a week you work from out of the city, and you commute out of the city. So this idea called- heard of the concept? Yeah, it’s a new concept. I mean, maybe I coined it. I don’t know. We were talking. It’s like, what Sweet Honey Farms is. And I’m like, dude, this is like, you live in Manhattan,
why would you go to work in a building downtown? Like I would live downtown so I can go to plays, be around people, but for work, I’d rather commute out of the city, into nature, do my like exercise, cold plunge, farm to table, food, have my work day and do that like twice a week. Cause I think right now you’re finding like two to three days a week in office is like optimal. And so if you have a job at a startup or something, of course I’d want that time to be in nature. So think especially as transportation gets cheaper, so.
with electric cars and autonomous vehicles, transportation will effectively go to zero. So if you’re able to go out to something half an hour outside of New York, I think this reverse commute idea where you’re commuting into nature and out of the city will become pretty big. So that’s something. So I was there working out with him and they’re all super fit. I’m like 41. The first thing they start in They start in the sauna and they’re like, OK, we’re to do 20 push-ups on the minute.
I’ve never heard of it before.
Speaker 2 (37:13.57)
GJ
Speaker 1 (37:18.798)
like every minute and I was like, how many minutes? They’re just crushing, like my buddies there who just ran like 125 miles or kilometers or something and I was just like, holy shit. So I’m doing pushups, but like he will use a sauna to get warm pre-workout, which is awesome. And then I like to pop a plunge just right before I start working out. Two minute plunge and then go right into the workout. And I found I can work out like 30 to 40 % harder.
It’s a 20 minute sauna, two minute call.
Even like 10 minutes on it, just get the muscles warm, two minute plunge, then a workout, then a sauna after to end. And so the sauna has been shown to like boost growth hormone pretty significantly, great for recovery. So I really love to end with like a super long sauna and maybe like a little bit of stretching, let the nervous system calm down. So it’s like sauna a little bit, ice plunge, workout, sauna. And I think that’s like a really nice combo.
What’s the longest you can spend in a cold plunge before it becomes a problem?
I’ve heard like kind of, mean, I forget where this number came from. It might’ve been from this group Morosco Forge, but it was sort of the number floating around was that about 17 minutes to get hypothermia. And that’s if you’re freaking out. So like you’re in the water and you’re kind of like moving around and you’re not holding your breath. You’re not relaxing. And so about 17 minutes, like serious hypothermia sets in. If you’re in a cold plunge, I’ve done 10 minutes before. Now, like whenever started, it was like, cool, how can I push myself? And now I don’t even use the timer. Like I’ll just go in. I don’t think there’s any additional benefit.
Speaker 1 (38:45.87)
especially at the temperatures we’re talking, one minute, two minute, three minute, doesn’t matter. I think just go in and look at it as a mental practice, like what feels good. But around like those temps, like anything over four or five minutes, your hands and feet will like legitimately start to burn. And so you will feel it way before it’s dangerous. Like by six, seven minutes, it’s quite painful. And it’s not actually dangerous until like that 17 minute mark. I’ve.
There has been some danger of people doing breath work, their breath near cold water and passing out and dying. There’s been a couple of those. And now there has to be signage that says, don’t hold your breath underwater. And our tubs are only 28 inches for that particular reason. But yeah, I don’t think it’s dangerous, really legitimately dangerous at any time in an indoor environment. And your body will feel it before. And it will tell you, hey, it’s time to get out.
Point isn’t to be a hero and push through max. It’s not needed.
Yeah, we’re going back to when we started doing it, it was me and some friends and then we just really started, we really started to push it. So we’d sit there and we’d do like intense Wim Hof on the beach and then we’d all get in the, in the cold plunge. And, the longest I ever went was 22 minutes and that was, it was
Yeah, that’s hard. It’s hard to get. hard to work.
Speaker 2 (40:05.57)
Hours and hours. And I’m like, you know what? I don’t ever have to do that again. I’ve done it. Yeah. Yeah. So now I, now I don’t even go in for longer than two, three minutes. don’t feel the need. Like I, I hit my ego level and I was like, I’m good. Like I know where I can get to. It’s a funny story, but it was a long time. was, it was, it was, it look, it was a beautiful day. were on the beach.
22 minutes is a
Speaker 2 (40:32.29)
there was music playing, like I’m just staring at the horizon and I’m just sitting and I’m like gonna see how long I can sit for. then eventually I was like, okay, it’s really starting to hurt. It’s starting to really become everything. like it. Well, that’s the other thing. I think I listened to a human podcast about this and he was talking about the dopamine benefits and he mentioned something along the lines of the waves of stress. you know, you keep going through the waves of stress. So,
sense.
Speaker 2 (41:01.582)
I found the most ideal way to approach it lately after just to get it done is sit in it for as long as possible until, well, never leave until that first wave ends. be a minute, might be two minutes, two and a half. And then at least you’re kind of like, all right, I’m good. Just quickly though, I love doing this podcast. If it’s positively impacted you in some way and you would like to support us, please subscribe by subscribing.
It allows us to build a much bigger base of listeners, which results in better guests, better production, and a better show overall. Alternatively, please take a look at the affiliate links of the products that I use and love in the comments below and consider purchasing using those links. They’ll give you a discount and they’ll also provide the podcast a small kickback. These are two very easy ways for you to support us as we continue to grow the podcast.
that we absolutely love doing. Thank you for your support and I’m back to the episode. Before we wrap up, there’s a couple of things I’d love to talk to you about. You mentioned third places and I’ve heard this pop up a few more times. So let’s talk about third places and what this means to you and maybe even explore some of the lack of community issues that are around the modern world and how third places might help.
Yeah, so think there’s a third place, which we’ll talk about like why, but I also think there’s like a fourth place. There’s nobody talking about it. Kind of like a fourth place almost with something that like church fulfilled. Yeah. And so if you think of like connection now, so let’s talk about why like third places are. So it’s a place that’s not your work and not your home. And so it’s a space that you connect with other humans that is like your third spot. So everybody has a home. Everybody has traditionally had a home, had work, and then they’d have a third place. A lot of times like Starbucks.
What is the third place?
Speaker 1 (42:53.954)
was built on this model that you’d have this neighborhood coffee shop that you would go to. And was the third place that you spent the most time outside of working home. And it’s not like a gym that you go to by yourself. It’s a place where you go where there’s other human beings that you know and connect with frequently. So it’s really like a place to gather with the like-minded community. And there’s been like an assault on third places. you call like, now you might not even have a second place. You may work from home. You may Uber eat and eat from home. And it’s just like a world of first places. It’s just like your fucking home.
way less people doing religious activities. In COVID, things dropped off a cliff. What do you think the number of average close friends a US person has? you like- Two? Three? It’s .8. Which means that most people don’t even have one close friend. And so then there’s the rise of social media, which has benefits, but also really the way it’s affecting your dopamine. I don’t think we’re supposed to live like that.
You take like a society 50 years ago where you’d be seeing people at work, you’d be going out and eating like in the neighborhood often around like significantly more people, you’re having like close real connection and that’s changed. And so the third spaces have become, well, first and second spaces, the second space has been destroyed, the third space like doesn’t exist. So where are places that we can hang out and connect and like how do we create more of them? And then beyond connection, I think there’s like this idea of
Force-based, which is an idea of a place to process emotions in a group where you’re seen by others and you have a place to be vulnerable and share and like be witnessed. And so like that kind of happens in therapy. Most people don’t have access therapy. happens in traditional cultures. Like the sweat lodge was like exactly this kind of place. It would happen in church. So, you know, it might be a place where you can go and like say, Hey, I need help with this. Like I go to this church and I don’t think super religious, but I love this church.
called C3 and they have people that will pray for you. I don’t even necessarily really believe in God or Jesus or any denomination, but if I go and I just am there and I’m just like, hey, what is something that you’re struggling with that you want someone to pray for? like pray, can be whatever you want, but like you go up and I tell you, hey man, I’m really struggling with like work stress. And you’re like, I’m gonna send you some good thoughts. Like that’s fucking amazing. So where’s the fourth place where that can happen? That’s not like religiously dogmatic. And it’s just kind of like a place where like,
Speaker 1 (45:19.054)
You can say something, people can see you and that something is something vulnerable and emotional and you can like kind of get it off your chest and be witnessed in a group, which is like group therapy is, group therapy is often more successful than individual therapy, but it’s hard to like, where do you do group therapy that feels inspiring? So that was like a lot of the inspiration behind OtherShip was like creating a space to process emotions in a group. And so we’re calling that a force space. It’s not just a place to connect and gather. It’s a place to like be seen and share. I think that’s like the real magic and something that like most people aren’t onto.
yet but will be.
Yeah, it’s an interesting idea. I did notice that with some of the classes when I went, there was some opportunities to open up and share. And I think it’s challenging to do that in normal environments. But the fact that you’ve just dunked yourself into a cold thing of water and you put yourself through some stressful situations, the combination of shared challenge, even if you don’t know the person, makes you feel connected, which makes you feel like you can open up a bit more. So I do see that.
That’s awesome. It’s again, creates the platform to like do that. Like if you just said, hey, let’s all go sit in a room and share like our tough time today, like that’s like literally zero. like, nobody will do that. But the thing is I do men’s work and I’ve done a lot of these groups. And there’s a magic moment, just like whole plunging of sharing something and being seen by others and having people hold space for you. Like that moment itself does something in your body and mind that feels amazing. And so I’d always be like, I don’t want to share. I want to go in the night, share.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:45.23)
and have someone see it, it’s like, wow, man, it feels like you’re going through X. It’s like, whoa, there’s something really special there. So that secret moment is almost as important as the, the Hot and Cold is kind of just a platform to get to that moment. And I think if you’re like struggling with loneliness, that feeling of, even if you’re not the one sharing, if you see someone share something that’s like, I’m really dealing with imposter syndrome at work and I, you know, I feel not confident or I’m going through a really bad breakup. You see people being human, like there is nowhere to watch people be human beings.
right now, life, that doesn’t happen. I think it’s like. But that’s not real. It might happen, but that’s not like, and even then it’s not like, that’s like, oh, like we’re infatuated and in love. Like just makes me feel like a human being to hear people struggling and telling you about that. so just, life has like so many ups and downs. Being able to feel all emotions makes it so rich and full. Yeah, so I just think it’s.
married at first sight or something.
Speaker 2 (47:26.85)
Really feeling it,
Speaker 2 (47:41.644)
No, that’s good. I am currently reading slash slash something to the body keeps a score and it talks a lot about this being a disability that I hold space for people and just understanding and how impactful it is on the levels of reaction from trauma. So it all kind of aligns with one another.
Well, that’s in the Cold Plunge and sauna also create this feeling of safety and put you into a state of feeling good so you’re able to process and feel some of these more challenging emotions. And so some of our classes have like very deep emotional themes with like challenging moments of like, know, forgiveness and acceptance. And so we’re using a lot of like getting you into your body to feel those emotions in a safe space and then share about them. So a lot of the classes are designed with processes that come from like body keeps the score.
Yeah, great. That’s a great book. I’m still learning. You spoke about Vipassana being a very impactful component of your life. I did a Vipassana in 2022 and it was also a really impactful thing. And we don’t necessarily have time to dig into it this time, maybe another time. I liked what I loved about Vipassana for anyone that doesn’t know what it is. It’s a 10 day silent meditation.
retreat where you do what 12 hours a day, you’re up at 4.30, it’s the whole thing. But I love that it was non-dogmatic. It was, they said constantly, no religion, none of it, just this is what this is. And that was, it opens up the doors to so many other people. So I think that’s really important, especially with how polarizing the world is these days. And everyone has these religions, be it your political beliefs, be your actual religion, be your community.
Trying to find ways that bring people together and create shared challenges and create abilities to open up regardless of who you are is going to be very helpful for us as a society moving forward.
Speaker 1 (49:35.374)
We really try to be very careful with our language and to stay away from anything too spiritual. Even like a term like chakra or energy that might not align with some people. The goal is to make this as accessible to anyone. If you want to have a spiritual experience, great, you have it. But like we’re just talking about emotions, which are universal. And so everyone feels anger and gratitude and acceptance. It just makes it more approachable to like a much wider audience, which I think is very important.
Yeah, people shut off very quickly. The moment you hear, I sometimes be like, I hear a shocker coming from somebody. I’m like, God, here we fucking go. But I’m like extremely spiritual as well. if I’m doing that, imagine just normal Joe Blow from finance.
Yeah, exactly.
But is that what does it even mean to be spiritual? You know, is it just like, I’m really in touch with my emotions.
I think it’s an understanding and appreciation of the esoteric and things that don’t necessarily make sense in front of you that have a big impact in your world. think that’s what being spiritual is.
Speaker 1 (50:26.414)
Even using that language can get through to an engineer or a lawyer or a banker. And so it’s all like, what kind of language are you using? And so when we do silly things, they have a point. So we do a lot of tapping. And the tapping is to move blood flow and lymph. And so it’s a big difference if I say to you, hey, we’re about to do this tapping to move blood flow and lymph. Or if I say, hey, we’re about to do a primal scream with the idea that you’re ready to release emotion versus just do some tapping and scream. And people are like, what is this creepy thing? But they want to know. There’s a research.
some science, there’s like a why. And I think we’re really trying to make sure that’s included. So it is approachable to people who like need this stuff the most. But your point also about church in general, like, you what do we need? I think somebody should build and like, kind of want to do this after, but like, I was just imagining if it’s not dogmatic, like, you know, you have a sermon where someone’s talking about gratitude, how to be a good person, telling stories from their life. There’s like the opportunity not to pray, but to say what you’re struggling with and have people send you.
good wishes, there’s like amazing music, there’s like a little latte and bone broth bar when you come in. it feels cool, like you’re almost at kind of like a place like this, like it’s churchy, but it’s just not about God, you know? It’s more about like being a good person.
and the founder writes a book.
Speaker 2 (51:48.29)
in some strange way and then the book gets taken
It’s like Tony Robbins, example, incredible experience. Have you been to any So I haven’t done it live. done the virtual. just did. Amazing.
back from Date with Destiny in December. It was a lot. We can talk about it off it, but it was a lot. Very, very, very intense experiences that I’ve never felt before. And that dude is just, he’s an enigma. He’s on a whole other level when it comes to just like energetically in person.
But then it ends. And so why can’t that happen weekly, where you kind of go on like a Sunday morning and you’re with a crew and it’s like good conversation. You learn a little bit. You have like a great, some kind of nutrient food and like it’s a good vibe. And like kind of a new age church that’s just not religious. I feel that will be a thing and I’m pretty excited about it.
We need to talk off air about this. Look, wrapping up, want to jump into just a couple of general philosophical thoughts about your life and the way you view the world and then we’ll finish up. So what is the biggest thing over the last two years you’ve changed your mind on?
Speaker 1 (52:52.686)
So we have an experience that’s meant to be five-star hospitality. And traditionally, wellness, spas, gyms, they’re like, spas are better, but gyms are kind of like the lowest common denominator for hospitality, whereas like, I’d put restaurants at like almost the highest. So we really wanted to bring this feeling of like, this is your home. This should feel like your home.
And to deliver that is extremely challenging. Like we’re open at 5 a.m. We can sometimes have 700, 800 people a day. There’s not a ton of people working. It’s open till midnight. It’s almost open 24 hours a day when you factor in cleaning. It’s a very hard experience to deliver. We want you to have a transformational experience where you might be crying and you feel safe and everything is perfect. And so that requires, there’s a level of emotion required for the journeyers, but for the staff,
there’s a level of expectation for like detail and excellence. And that has been like hard to match. And I think when I was starting, I was coming more from a place of scarcity of like this experience matters so much to me, which it does. And I would kind of lose my mind when we’d have negative feedback because I just care so much. And I wanted to say in like every detail, you know, like I mentioned before, like if the smell isn’t perfect, I would just care so much. And I just felt like it was in my bones.
is tied into it.
Speaker 1 (54:06.382)
Like, I get all the negative feedback autumn emailed to me when it’s below a certain score. Like, people get anonymous surveys to leave score, and I look at the score. And of course, when you’re busy on a weekend day in the winter, it’s like, I’ll get seven on my Saturday, and I’ll just be fuming. And so I think I’ve just shifted from now that the space is open, we’re making money. We really went through some tough times last year running out of funding. so I think I’ve just shifted the importance.
concept.
Speaker 1 (54:36.782)
Like it is important that the employees are happy and really bought into what we’re doing. Yeah, so that thing I’m saying, even hiring, which is like, do we act when something is out of place? And is it like, traditionally chefs and restaurants have been insane to hold their standards. And just, maybe there’s a better way. And so I’m pretty intense. I really care about the experience that we want to deliver. And so this idea of being kind has started to become more a part of my practice.
issue.
Speaker 1 (55:06.35)
or hoping, aspiring.
What’s an example of that right now?
There was a person that came in on the weekend. was like sort of rude to staff and will always like side with our staff. But one of our managers sent them like a really rude message. And in those situations, like you never want to be rude to the guests. If they’re inappropriate, the best thing is just to not deal with them again. And so it’s just like, hey, thanks for coming. You don’t need to tell them like all the reasons why they’re wrong. And the manager wrote them.
know, five reasons why they’re wrong and like what they said wasn’t fair. And it’s like a whole argument. And I think in the past, I would have like called her and said, hey, like, we don’t do this. This isn’t hospitality. And this time I was just like, know what happened? And hey, I called her and just said, hey, like, you know, here’s an example of like how we could have dealt with this. What do you think? It’s just getting, like, it used to be like, hey, we’re going bankrupt. I don’t know if this is going to work. Everyone needs to be on all the time. And if there was a mess up,
like my life is over. That’s what it felt like. And now it’s feeling more like, hey, we’re established. It’s working. Let’s keep people motivated and not burnt out.
Speaker 2 (56:12.828)
also helps, hey, it really helps.
Yeah, like last year we had, you know, zero dollars construction workers walking off the site, like people like, we’re not going to finish the job. We couldn’t pay them. Yeah. We couldn’t get open. We couldn’t get our permits. It was like really fucking tough. And so then on that mode, every single thing that’s going around feels like it’s, it’s a company.
The small things
It’s just different. I have a little bit more space this year. I was vaping and drinking ton of coffee all last year, really pushing it. And then I stopped that this year. And so I’ve just been a lot more healthy.
Yep. Yeah, damn. I mean, I think it’s one of those things where it’s like, we chose this life.
Speaker 1 (56:50.582)
Yeah, I saw a good quote about it. It’s like, hey, you said you’re hungry. And then when the food comes, you don’t want to eat. Yeah, I asked for it. And we’re going fast for a reason, because we want to build something impactful and huge and amazing. But sometimes it’s scary. It’s like as much as my nervous system can handle. And then it gets to a point where you can handle more. And so you kind of like, OK, it’s too much, too much. Build my strength a bit. I can handle more. And then it expands again. And so it’s kind of like one of the best.
Consciousness practices is just building something hard with like friends. It’s a really amazing practice.
Yeah, nice. What’s the kindest thing that anyone’s ever done for you?
I think one really cool one is that, I don’t know if it’s kind, he also was self-serving to some degree. But our main investor in our first round really pushed me to take money. And he kind of came in and said, we had one open in Toronto. It was a lifestyle business. And he went. And was just like, there’s nothing like this in the US. are well-positioned to make this into something. How much you care, it’s amazing. You should go for it. And I was just like, no, we’re having fun. And he’s like, look.
You.
Speaker 1 (57:59.234)
I’ll give you the money to do this. He gave us a lot of money and like really good terms and allowed us to open in New York and without him, know, like once the idea is out there, it’s out there and it becomes pretty obvious that like, wow, this is like a really good idea and people like really love it. And so doing that and taking that money, he was very prescient and how fast we’d have to go. Because there’s like people.
the idea in different places. I think executing this is very challenging. But because he gave us that money and we started and we just signed those three leads, that once we built so much momentum and we’re like the first to launch this concept in New York, kind of the biggest city in the world. And so it’s a big first mover advantage. I think him believing in us and like kind of forcing me to do that, whether it’s kind or not, it really changed the trajectory of my life pretty significantly.
Yeah. Can you see where it goes in 10 years? Yeah. Well, what, of curiosity, what does it cost to put a place like that together? Cause it’s very well done. It’s very high end. seems like every little touch point has been considered and, it’s not a big space at the same time. It’s
Yeah, so I mean, do you think? How many is a couple? Two. Seven.
I would say a couple of mil.
Speaker 2 (59:07.15)
How do you make your money back?
Yeah, two million you can’t even build a yoga studio in New York. Like you literally can’t build anything in New York for two million dollars. Like it’s like so expensive to build here.
That P &L must be ridiculous.
Yeah, does well. mean, it’s not going to be the most profitable unit, but it will do well. And it’s a good business.
Fuck.
Speaker 1 (59:31.478)
Like that, that’s why you don’t see these on every corner, because they’re just really expensive to build. Yeah. And then like, that’s not a huge space. So there’s other bath houses that are multiples of that to build around the city. And it’s just fucking hard. Like to go and take that kind of risk. Like I know others who are trying to build what we’ve done and they’re looking at numbers in our first step. our first unit that we built was $2 million. And then people think, it’s in Toronto, but it was a very small unit. It was during COVID. It was four years ago prior to inflation. And so a lot of people were like,
and even harder to manage.
Speaker 1 (01:00:01.358)
They raised $2 million to build this. And they’re not, or they’re failing right away. And so it’s because it costs way more. so it’s to sign these leases. He also had to put up usually $700,000, $800,000 security deposit, get all the permitting, all that kind of stuff. So it’s just a big risk to take, think.
I guess, I guess how long does a time period, how long does that renovation last? So can you do that amortize out across like 10 years before you have.
We’re looking for 10 years and then two five-year extensions, so we’re hoping when we build these that they’re like 20-year units.
Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s fine. I mean, as long as you, as long as you were around for 20 years and you amortize across 20 years, it kind of works out. Yeah. Well, I didn’t expect that. It’s a big number. And I’ve seen some other places that are even crazier. I only imagine how much, how do these even make it make sense? I wonder that’s
They may want it. If you can get it open, can do volumes in New York.
Speaker 2 (01:01:01.068)
Maybe because I’m from a small city, don’t actually understand the level of volume that you can do in.
Some of these spas that are on the outskirts of cities that are do over 100 million in sales for like a single single building. Yeah, like 3,000 people a day
Yeah, it’s crazy. But those, again, also cost like $50 million to build. And so it’s like, how do you get that money, the permitting? mean, if you’re doing that. It can take five years to build one of those projects. Maybe it’ll be longer.
Interesting. Yeah, cool. The more you know. I feel like you’re going to I’m going to know the answer to this, but what is the most beautiful thing you’ve created?
I think on my 40th birthday this year, like my 30th birthday, I did drugs the whole night and then I of woke up to go out for a cigarette and there was a surprise party and my parents were there and I just felt like such a piece of shit, hadn’t slept. And that was like a low moment. And this year for my 40th birthday, my wife was like, hey, we’re just going to pick something up at other ship. And I went and it was like probably 250 people there. My family, friends, they were all there. And then Michael Fender sang me a song.
Speaker 2 (01:01:59.884)
Different song this time.
Like he, yeah, he, not, not like the song someone else, like he wrote a song and sang it about me in front of like the whole group in the sauna. It was like, I can’t remember, but it was just saying like, well, one was like, you’re the most inspirational man I’ve ever met. And so it was a love song, like man to man. And so I’ve just never seen like another man say these kinds of things about.
of the words.
Speaker 1 (01:02:22.542)
somebody in public like that. And so it was like a ballad. Like it was really good. It’s like, you’re made of stardust. It was really cool. And he belted out. He’s a really good singer. And so that was just being there and then like having my whole family there and looking at like, holy shit, like we’re in Flatiron with this like epic space. We got it open. People are here. This is fucking crazy. Like what did you, I used to listen to like, know, Jay-Z in high school and like you’re like.
New York and these kind of songs. it’s like, well, this is like New York. So it just feels to put something on the map here feels like the most craziest thing I’ve made. It’s pretty cool.
What book have you gifted people the most?
So I don’t like gift them any books. I always listen to that. I’m like, wow, how smart are all these people? They’re like gifting books to everyone. I wonder how many people are actually doing that. I’m not sure. Like, are you gifting people books? Yes. Yes? What do you gift both books?
Okay. Why don’t we reframe it? What book?
Speaker 2 (01:03:11.982)
The Way of the Superior Man is a book that I’ve gifted a lot. Yeah.
Cool, OK, you did it. If I have to recommend, so I read, like I’m working all day. And like at night, I just read a lot. I read fiction, love. I’ve read like 1,000 sci-fi and fantasy books, just crush them. I love storytelling and stories. Even the nerdiest books. if I’m like, hey, what is the best series? It’s a series like Red Rising, have you heard of it? Space opera.
real good one.
Speaker 2 (01:03:47.064)
Thanks.
It’s like a story like Star Wars that happens in like a world of like many planets across like a universe basically with like space travel and like drama. And that’s called space opera. The series is called Red Rising. And it’s called the space opera. So like big worlds, Star Wars is like a space opera. Yeah, yeah. Incredible book. So it’s like seven parts, six are out. Book five and six like I legitimately cried. It like the best, like the best battle scenes. It’s like so, I love like these like worlds.
that are built and getting lost. Red Rising. And then I love stuff about near term science fiction of things that could happen in the future. There’s this book called Nexus. It’s a trilogy. And they take these nanobots, which people think, what’s the guy’s name? Ricker as well. Ricker as well thinks in 10 years, you’ll be able to drink these nanobots that will come into your brain. You’ll be able to upload your consciousness. He’s the guy who predicted the singularity. And he’s saying 20 years ago, now with LLAs, we’re on track for this.
So this book is written by a Microsoft futurist and it’s based on technologies that could exist. And so it’s a future where you basically drink this cocktail that’s almost like psychedelic. it allows you to talk mind to mind, communicate mind to mind with people. So a mother and her child in the womb, there’s groups of hundreds of meditators that will go and will combine their minds to meditate together. And it’s just like the concept of how much suffering would be taken away from the world if you knew exactly how I felt and what that would be like.
really fucking cool, like thinking that thought exercise. And so that book, it’s got AI in it, it’s got, it’s, it’s, and it’s a thriller. It’s an action thriller also. So it was really good stuff. That’s just like a enjoyment.
Speaker 2 (01:05:28.366)
I’m just thinking about what my brain would sound like. It’d be like da da da da da da.
It’s like a song, song playing on Lou for the...
You could see what my brain was like. You could feel into other people’s brains or experiences. And so you could live a day in the life of somebody else. would be really interesting.
Well, I mean, a lot of the problems in the world come from, I feel like, our emotions that we feel and our lack of our language being able to actually communicate them effectively. Yeah, exactly. Because it’s a very crude way of communicating a very vast landscape of emotion.
Well, you also you feel like your way is the way and it’s just. It’s I don’t think we realize how much our conditioning has changed us versus each person. It’s like, you’re a human, I’m a human. And no, I’m sure our day to day and thought process are like a million times. It’s probably such a different experience. Emotions probably the same, but like what triggers in a thought pattern is probably completely different. And so to understand that, I think would create a lot of empathy and be really interesting.
Speaker 2 (01:06:05.366)
You
Speaker 2 (01:06:27.81)
find that fascinating. I have a fascinating example around that. When you look at other people’s Instagram and TikTok feeds and you realize how different of a world they are in compared to what you are in. And it’s their world and they think that is the world and it’s the opposite. A lot of times completely different. Yeah.
And even those people are the people are using Instagram and TikTok. There’s like worlds of people that like don’t care for that and like completely differently.
Well, it’s just a very good way to clearly articulate this fact of a different world because there’s an algorithm that is catered towards your what it thinks is going to be the most interesting thing for you and your the subset of people that are like you. Yeah, that’s a wild rabbit hole to start going down. So wrapping up, what’s one lesson you hope everyone can take from this conversation?
Just the importance of like hanging out with people and something I heard recently from maybe Tim Ferriss was just like, know, the best longevity hack is just two slow dinners with friends a week. And I think I was like, you know, chicken breast in my pocket, like in a bag, like measuring my macros, doing four hour morning routines and like the longevity and all this stuff. Like I listened to it, I’m into it. But at the end of the day, like...
I gave away my whole last decade working. So when I was 30 and my company failed, was just like, I’m going to work so hard every day until I get successful. And so it’s like, I want say gave it away, but I spent, I sacrificed a lot. Like, I listened to like thousands of podcasts and business books and networking discussions and just like spent all my time thinking about work. Or like morning routines and optimizing and all that stuff. And just now I’m kind of going back to what I cared about in high school. just think, yeah, like dinner, we have a two and a half year old.
Speaker 1 (01:08:17.102)
And so I spent a lot of time at home. And so now like going out for a dinner with friends, just like, it sounds so easy. Maybe it’s just like so part of everyone’s life, but for me, like it’s just so enjoyable. And so think it’s like one thing to remember is just like, go out for, if you’re feeling shitty, like go out for a dinner with a friend and have a good conversation.
Yeah, I remember seeing something on Twitter that was basically saying that a lot of the times just to actually get yourself out of depression, just get out of the house as much as possible. And it kind of helps if you’re just doing shit. You don’t have time to think about being depressed. And I think as much as you might hate Trump as an example, he
He’s like, I remember listening to him say something along the lines of like, I can’t get depressed. I’m so busy. I’m trying to get depressed. He’s just like, don’t do more. And then you won’t be, you won’t be depressed because you don’t have time to think about you think about other things.
I think if you’re building stuff, just feels good.
What are you excited about that you’d like to let the listeners in on at the moment?
Speaker 1 (01:09:13.229)
So I’ve been thinking a lot lately. I mean, we have a couple of major goals. One is to create a space to inspire people to have fun without alcohol. And then two, to help people process emotions. And then three is to help people make new friends. And so what we have now is sort of our first version of that. And I’ve just been thinking about what this could look like in 10 years and getting really excited. Like last year, was like, we’re going to die. We’re not going to make it. my god. And now it’s like, it’s all going. How do we expand again?
How do I make my life more miserable?
Yes, but just the design phase is so exciting. And so I was just imagining a mix of kind of like, are you familiar with Hoffman process?
I know of it, I haven’t done anything with it. Did you go to one of them?
Amazing. Like, yeah. A million percent. Like, would put it on the same impact levels as Vipassana, not even more. Potentially, yeah. So like, six days? Seven days, I think. It’s like a group. It’s kind of like the Vipassana of group therapy. Interesting. So it’s like 10 hours a day, very strenuous, a lot of physicality, cool exercises. But what you get when you come back is awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:10:22.03)
I do think there’s an opportunity to design something like that for a younger generation. And so I think like Outskirts, mega $50 million bath house meets retreat center, meets Hoffman. And so ideally, we’re going to build many, many, many units in New York. We funnel our customers to this retreat where you go to learn something, stay. There’s a bathing center that people can go day to day. So I really want to build this mega epic thing in nature that’s kind of a mixture of Hoffman, Canyon Ranch, and a
bath house, bathing environment for like deep work.
Is that a 10 year down the line thing you think?
I think, I mean, to get the money and do the construction, probably take five years. And I think we’re too small now. But I think over the next five years, we’ll probably build seven more, 10 more units for sure. And that’ll put us at like 15 units. And so I think at that point, we can start. We have the juice to do something like that. And I think we’d.
I it’s a mean dollar build. I think so. It depends. Maybe you start small and buy a site where you can do it in stages and stuff. And even how I would start now, knowing what I know about entrepreneurship, is let’s just see if we can fill a retreat, someone else’s retreat locally. And let’s get the retreat popping. And let’s do 1,000 people through retreats in Hudson Valley at other places and see, and then eventually build my own. the excitement of how do you build this community in New York around this space and how people go even deeper in different ways is like,
Speaker 1 (01:11:46.616)
That’s really exciting.
Yeah, the community is a really hard part. Wow, sounds good. I have been thinking about this idea and I’m probably never going to do it because it’s not my expertise, but creating a hospital that is less sterile and more focused on, you know, really healthy farm to table food and outdoor time and grounding and healing people through more.
holistic mechanisms, but also having a world class medical grade, medical grade solutions involved as well.
I hate the hospital. don’t understand why they chose the lighting and the materials. It feels like strange design choice. Why wouldn’t you know? The lighting specifically makes you feel like, am I here? It’s not pleasurable. Make it feel inspiring and nice. I just don’t get it. So I don’t think it’s a cost thing. Tone of bulb is not different. You would make it.
I don’t understand, to be honest. It feels when I go in, I’m like, this is something that was designed 50 years ago that doesn’t take into account that people want to be well when they’re here.
Speaker 2 (01:12:57.838)
Yeah, I mean, there’s two schools of thought. You can go down the route of they actually don’t want you to be well, or that they didn’t understand, or they did understand and they wanted to, you know, the fluorescent lights want to keep the doctors awake so that they do better work because they’re alert. That could be a reasonable outcome for it. But I don’t know about people thinking about this.
Yeah. I like when I go into places they feel inspiring. Yeah. Such a big difference. Gemini workout, places I eat, like this space where I want to do podcasts, it feels like it feels nice. It feels like it makes you feel better. I think spaces have a big impact on mood and ambition and all these different things. So it’s really nice to be in. I think your idea is phenomenal. So you should do it.
one of many. start with the other one we can talk about off here. And where can people find you if they’re interested?
Just on Instagram, Robbie Bent, LinkedIn, that’s my name. ship is just other ship.
Great. Great. And my last question to wrap this up, what’s the meaning of life?
Speaker 1 (01:13:59.662)
My best moments recently have just been with my son, like, looking at him. And I watch him, like, smile and laugh. And it’s just, like, super simple to, like, makes things forget. It makes me, like, feel, like, joy. And so I don’t know. I’m not smart enough to say what meaning of life is. But I just know that, like, that moment with my son feels, really right to experience as a human.
Nice. Thank you, Robbie. Appreciate you. Cool. And if you’ve enjoyed this episode, please go to YouTube, search that one time with Adam Metwally, click Subscribe, like the video and leave us a comment.
