Building Community, Plant medicine, and Cold Exposure. with Robert Bent

Discover the wonders of guided meditation through ice baths, Community, plant medicine, and more...Learn from the master and understand how this process improves "quality of life." Meditate and ease your worries while building meaningful connections and community through Robbie's new Biohacking model coming to a US city near you!

What is Robbie Working on?

Inward Bathhouse: We've built a modern bathhouse (sauna/ice baths) with beautiful aesthetic and guided facilitation. We are now building a V2 with a 40 person sauna with guided classes and performances (things like breathwork, sound baths, and stretching), ice baths, and a tea room. This is a healthy social experience that is a substitute for bars/restaurants. We've proven that mental fitness can be cool and accessible.

Inward Breathwork: A digital product to help you on your mental health journey when at home. Our focus is on accessibility, and a tool where it's easier and more fun to build a habit than meditation.

Inward Community -- We've built a thriving digital community to find your tribe to join you at the physical spaces, join for breathwork sessions at home and continue your health and wellness journey.

Episode Highlights

2:22 Getting to know Robbie Bent better
3:12 How Robbie filled the void in his life
4:42 What made Robbie change his life?
13:41 The beginning of the ice bath concept
16:33 How it turned into a coaching session with a huge community
23:56 The breathing app and its launch date
35:17 The main goal of ice bath meditation
38:51 Letting go of trauma

UPGRADE YOUR WELLNESS

Marion Institute BioMed Course: biologicalmedicine.org
Code: beautifullybroken

Silver Biotics Wound Healing Gel: https://bit.ly/3JnxyDD
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LightPathLED https://lightpathled.com/?afmc=BEAUTIFULLYBROKEN
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STEMREGEN: https://www.stemregen.co/products/stemregen/?afmc=beautifullybroken
Code: beautifullybroken

Flowpresso 3-in-1 technology: (https://calendly.com/freddiekimmel/flowpresso-one-on-one-discovery)

Medical grade Ozone Therapy: https://lddy.no/1djnh
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AquaCure Machine + Molecular Hydrogen
Website:https://eagle-research.com?ref=24931
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DIY Home Cold Plunge Experience: [https://www.penguinchillers.com/?rstr=6757]

CONNECT WITH FREDDIE

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (00:00.174)
That to me is something I deeply care about. It's exciting to me. So it's not hard for me to get excited about it and then have charisma. And so when you have charisma, because you're authentic, it becomes much easier to build community, right? So the first thing I'd say, if you're like trying to build your community is find something you're authentically excited about. Because then it's likely you're going to find other people who are excited about that. So that's the first step.

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (00:26.786)
Welcome to the Beautifully Broken Podcast. I'm your host, Freddie Kimmel, and on the show we explore the survivor's journey. Practitioners making a difference and the therapeutic treatments and transformational technology that allow the body to heal itself. Witness the inspiration we gain by navigating the human experience with grace, humility, and a healthy dose of mistakes. Because part of being human is being beautifully broken.

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (00:59.413)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the beautifully broken podcast. We are here with a very special guest from North of the border. I'm here with Robbie Bent. Robbie, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Freddie. I appreciate your time. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to have you here. I was really thankful. We had scheduled a while ago and then I went through my viral experience. I had to take a couple of weeks off and then I

I got to go to Upgrade Labs conference in Orlando. So a lot of stuff has happened. But what that's allowed me to do is listen to a bunch of your podcasts and to digest some of the content you're creating and really, really be excited about this podcast because I hate to put you on the pedestal here, but I'm going to anyway. How you're showing up in the world and what you're doing in a very selfless way and what you're creating. think it's the most important thing in the world right now. And that is not only

talking about health and wellness and vitality and mental health, but you're building it in a way that works in my experience. just big tip of the hat to you. And if we met in an elevator, this is my new favorite way to start the podcast. If we met in an elevator and we didn't know each other and I was like, Hey, my name's Freddie Kimmel. I do a podcast and I work with technology. What would you say you do? How do you introduce yourself?

that's such a long story. So the first would be, it would be like via a question. The interesting question would be like, are you finding meaning in your life? And so that's one where you're like, okay, this is weird. This is a stranger in the elevator. What's he talking about? But if you actually stop and think it's like, am I finding meaning? Do I have belonging? Am I experiencing? like does my life have purpose? Do I have community? So we're trying to create.

a way for people to find more meaning in their life through both physiological change and these experiences that inspire a belonging community. So I can talk about the experiences, but at the end of the day, really trying to help people find more meaning. you tell me about a time in your life where you felt like that was devoid, like where that was absent? Yeah, absolutely. I think for me,

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (03:16.593)
from an early age, there was this goal to feel love, feel validation, feel success. All those things come from a lack of self-love, which many high achievers have this idea that like, Oh, I need to achieve something to have self-worth. And so, you know, in high school was I want to get good grades, go to a good university and universities. I want to get a good job. want to make money. I want to have nice things. I want to succeed. I want to feel successful. want to feel worthy of, you know, respect from others and love from others. And so.

When you're chasing all these things, it makes it really difficult to find meaning because it doesn't come from achievements many times. And so a lot of my life, you know, let's say high school, university, early career was really devoid. was focused on making money, filling my life with like material goods, trying to earn like love and respect from parents and friends. And I struggled as a result of that.

first company I had failed, which was a huge challenge for me. And then, you know, I struggled with addiction also. And so all these things were like trying to fill this hole of like lack of self-worth, lack of meaning. How has that person changed from then to now the person who is trying to fill this, this never-ending void as people do with sex and drugs and how are you different today? So think a lot happened, you know, I was

lucky in some ways, unlucky in others. And so unlucky in that pushing these things really hard led to, mentioned the failure of my first company led to addiction problems. You know, I was living in my parents' struggling, right? And because of that, sort of forced change. And so in that forced change, I got into meditation, psychedelic medicines, and then through those breath work,

a hot cold, bunch of this biohacking stuff that you had mentioned at first. And through those things really found who I was, you know, and found like, why wasn't I providing love to myself? And where are these addictions coming from? And so those tools really helped me to become first aware of my emotions. So I wasn't even aware of these things, this like drive desire to work super hard. You know, you mentioned sex and drugs and I wasn't even aware of like why I was

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (05:37.263)
doing that, it just seemed like, this is, this is what you do. And not understanding when I was like frustrated or embarrassed or, you know, seeking. so, meditation as a practice really helped to just understand my own emotions and know when they were coming up, what they felt like in my body. And to kind of give me a sense of ability to like step back from them. I'm a big believer that people, we work in degrees, like it's like shades of color, right? So it's not that like the seeker

from Robbie has gone forever. You know, there's, gotta be some degree of that that still serve you, right? Absolutely. And so what I'm, what I'm doing now, you know, so we've built a mobile app for breath work. And if you're struggling to get into meditation, which most of my friends were when I was trying to teach them for many years, we're like, can we make this easier, a little more fun, more exciting, more like a fitness class. And so we built this app to help people who have struggled to meditate, to find.

more energy to better deal with anxiety, to better fall asleep, just to, again, find more meaning in their life. And then these physical spaces and the physical spaces are like a healthy place to hang out and socialize, which doesn't really exist. So 45 person sauna, four ice baths, classes, you know, maybe hypnosis class in the sauna, breath work class in the sauna, and then a tea room where, people can hang out. So these spaces are again, to help find more

meaning and they're in a way that people can understand if they struggle with those things before. Yeah, I like that idea. You you framing the tea room and the group hypnosis and the hot sauna 45 person. It sounds like a place like you'd want to go hang out. It's funny. I was just at upgrade the upgrade conference in Orlando. So everybody there, Dr. Mercola, Dave Asprey, all the cold coaches, Morosco, Forge, all these great technologies of Asper machine.

people really bringing innovative technologies into the space that can really help the body move along and healing. And a big missing piece for me at this conference was like, where's the fiber holding all this together? And I'm aware because I've had the privilege of having a lot of these technologies and red light therapies and know, all this ozone machines in my home. I understand the hollow nature of getting

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (08:01.207)
some piece of technology home, you open it up and it does what it does. But at the end of the day, you're left without the magic of the person who maybe moved you into the sale. Maybe you're left alone without the Zoom community call in which you were engaging with other people using it. there's this missing piece. for me, I saw this conference and all the stuff everybody was talking about, it's great stuff, but there wasn't a methodology at this

convention to tie it all together. And that's sort of, that's, mean, not sort of it. It is what you're talking about on your platform. It's creating some type of a web or a network that it's going to be so fun for people that they have no choice but to continue. Yeah. And I think people are busy, right? And so if you wake up, you've got your morning routine, your journal, your meditation apps, you know, your, your juvlide, your assault bike, your exercise, your float. lot of these things are done single player and that's great, but

you know, your single player work daytime is limited and everybody is overwhelmed and packed. What is not limited or people have is social time at night. And oftentimes the social time is where you do damage to the body. So it's going out to a restaurant, having drinks, going to a party. So what if you could replace that social fun time with something that was still fun, but was healthy. And that's like everything we're building is around that concept of, can we make these things fun?

community-driven, exciting. And it just results because I struggled with alcohol and drugs. And so I couldn't be at a bar. I couldn't be at a restaurant. And there was nowhere else for me to go. And 10 years ago, psychedelic medicines, meditation, biohacking, these were people that listened to Tim Ferriss and Ben Greenfield. These were very, very fringe. And now there's a large enough group to make a community for these people in any city, but where is the community space they want to hang out? And I love Upgrade Labs. I love Float Studios.

go to these things, but they're single player. the aspect we're cashing in on or trying to like get out there is that like health can be fun and it can be something you do in the evening to replace your social time to make it more healthy. Yeah. You know, what comes up for me is something I always loved. It's ingrained in my psyche, the sound of Sunday football, like having Sunday football on it. Like my dad was there, we'd get pizza and wings, you know, we need crap food.

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (10:24.22)
Of course, there'd be lots of beer out and everybody be getting drunk watching football. like just the energy in the room I've associated to that sound is a backdrop or a landscape with like relaxation. Like if I have football on, but now it's like I sit in my Sunday living room and it's sad because I don't want to be drinking beers. And I can't go watch the game at the bar because everybody's drunk and the quality conversation is very low. Right. But I ask myself that question all the time.

like where's my community and how do I build this? Cause I don't want to always go be like, let's go get on the Carol bike and do some like hyperventilation of pure oxygen. mean, sometimes you just want to go be with other people and you want it to have this sense of like we're doing so we're building community relationships and having a good time. So yeah, please tell us a little bit more about what you're doing and like maybe some details on how you're doing it. So the first thing was

I kind of mentioned, alluded to this tough time in my life where I was looking for change, right? And so the change started with the Vipassana meditation retreat. And then through there, learned about psychedelic medicines, got into that. Can you just say for people at home, like what is a Vipassana meditation? If nobody knows, I just, know there's all types of medications and durations, but I'd love to, for you to explain that a little bit.

Absolutely. So it's a lineage of meditation that dates back to the Buddha, the way Buddha taught meditation. There's no real spiritual side associated with it. It's just a technique, which was really beautiful for me and everything around it is donation based. So we started in, I think the eighties and through only donations, there's now 200 centers worldwide. And to do this technique, it's started with a 10 day retreat. And for many people, they're like, Whoa, 10 days, that sounds insane, but it's actually the best way.

to learn meditation. And you can think of meditation like a skill. It's kind of like playing basketball or an instrument where if you pick up a guitar, you're not going to be able to play a song. so instead of meditating kind of 10 minutes a day on Headspace or Calm, which is the standard, you can go and do two years of meditation within 10 days. And so you go on this silent retreat. It's quite disciplined. It's 10 hours a day. It's completely silent to the point of not even looking in the other participants' eyes. So not even acknowledging other people. You're so in your own

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (12:43.474)
mind state. And you get up every day at 4 30, you meditate for 10 hours per day. And because it's so intense, it generates real change. You can get to a space that would take years to get to and kind of, it gives you a sense of, wow, this is a really powerful technique. And so once you've done that retreat, once you know the space it can take you to. And so when you start to waiver, people get busy, they stop meditating. You at least know like, there's, there's something here that's really valuable that's worth pursuing. So it's a, it's an amazing,

form of meditation where you focus on your breath and then body scans for a long period of time. it's, it's phenomenal experience. Wow. 10 days. It sounds intimidating, but also when you said the word or the phrase, when you framed it as two years of meditation in a short time, it's like, man, that would change. That would, always think I'm like, my God, that would change the world. Can you imagine if you had to do a 10 day Vipassana before you took office and in the political field?

I, would be fantastic. So I think any of these experiences that change emotional state, they're really, you know, going back to what I said before, they help you find meaning. They move your brain state from this fight or flight, which we're always in, which is great for executing, right? It's our, it's our brain thinking like, what do I need to do? This could be dangerous. I have all these tasks into the parasympathetic rest and digest state of nervous system where we find connection, meaning.

It's sort of the state we're meant to live in, but it's more difficult now than ever because of cell phones and how much inbound we get and how overwhelmed everybody is. you know, psychedelic medicines, Vipassana, dark retreat is another example. There's these wild peak experiences you can do to help shut down a thinking mind, move you into your body, move you into that rest and digest state, and as a result, help you find more meaning. And so this kind of goes back into my story. So after this,

footpaths and retreats and these ayahuasca retreats I went on. It really changed my life to the point where I was sober after for almost six years now. joined the... Congratulations. Thank you. And I joined the Ethereum ecosystem really early and was very, very lucky to be along for that wild ride. And all of a sudden I felt in my life success and like self-love worthiness. I met my wife at the same time. And so I was really pumped about these peak experiences, meditations, psychedelic medicines, but struggled to teach people.

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (15:06.024)
because they're hard and they're challenging and there's a lot of fear and resistance. so, you know, people listening like 10 days, that's crazy. I could never do that. And so I kind of got dismayed a little like, wow, I know these things work. They've made me so happy. I found more meaning in my life. I'm more present. I'm enjoying loving connection more, just like the little things are so much more enjoyable than they were. How do I teach this to people? And so we started trying to create other peak experiences that could do kind of give you a moment in time look into wow.

there's something here that's important that I should focus on and kind of open the door into the realm of mindfulness. So be that like first wedge. And what we found was that the ice bath. And so when you get into ice, which for two minute commitment, it's there's still resistance and some fear, but it's a lot easier than a 10 day retreat, right? And then it's accessible. There's not, there's not a huge cost to it, but when you get in an ice bath,

neuroepinephrine, the neurotransmitter responsible for mood, attention, vigilance, spikes. Your mind says, Hey, this could be dangerous. So I should be aware. And as a result, you're in a physiological meditative slash flow state where your worries, your anxiety, your concerns, all that stuff fades away and you're present. And so we had this ice bath in my backyard and we would just invite neighbors and you we grew a community over a summer to 200 people. And I would see

lawyers, bankers, accountants. Yeah. Let's go back to that 200 people over a summer. Yeah. So just, you know, people would come, they would... A lot of people, this is a couple of years ago. And so funny enough, the Morosco Forge team, who you mentioned, actually flew up here and built the first ice bath with me. It was right when they started out and I reached out to them saying like, hey, I an ice bath, but I can't really afford to have it shipped up here. You know, would you guys be down to come to Toronto? And so they actually, I flew them up here. They stayed with me for four days and we built

our first ice bath together, which was really, really cool. And during the first night when they were here, we had a bunch of people over to like do the ice bath, test it out. And people were scared. So we're like, I wonder, we've got these samples and we these essential oils. Let's combine all this stuff and like teach them a special way to deal with, know, and surrender to the fear of the experience. And so that's when we started doing ice bath coaching. And of course,

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (17:20.892)
Everybody's taking videos of the samples and the essential oils and like the whole prep for the experience, posting it on Instagram. We're getting messages like, yo, that's really cool. I want to come. so every night my wife and my friends and I for entire summer just hosted people in the backyard. We'd have a campfire. We would explain the science of, you know, the longevity benefits of the cold. And then we would talk about how to reprogram your subconscious mind in the ice and that flow state. And then we would guide people through a four, you two to four minute experience.

And they would come out and then, you know, it so popular that I would just like look outside and there'd be people in my backyard, like hanging out midday while I'm having a coffee just in the ice bath, which was really cool. And then as it got cold out, it was like, okay, what are we going to do next? Because I live in Toronto, Canada, and there's a pretty wild winter. And so for people who can see behind me, it was our prototype space we built and it was my garage. And we actually just converted it into a space with sauna, ice bath, tea lounge, kind of a mini.

version of the space I had mentioned to you earlier. And then just through word of mouth, that grew to a 2000 person community and 20 to 30 people coming a day for these experiences. It's such a common question because people ask me how to do this all the time. know, I very similarly, wherever I've been, I've built community. It just happens. I'm like, yeah, come over, come use the amp coil, come get in the sauna, come get in the ice bath, like come. And so even in Austin, I've only been here four months, but on Sunday,

I pull out everything, all the machines, the devices, the brain tap, the lights, blah, blah, blah. And people just, have about eight to nine people in my apartment. But because of that, I have like a crew in Austin. I've only been here, I didn't know anybody, nobody in Austin. And I have like really good friends now because the magnet of wanting to be present and wanting to be present in my body has attracted like the right type of person.

I made really good friends who were like, are you okay? How can we help? know, people were bringing me food when I had COVID. It was like, quote unquote, air quote, strangers. I've only known these people a couple months, but everybody checking in all the time. So it's been really, I'd love if you had tips for people, cause I would say it happens naturally, but you've built a massive community in a short amount of time in Toronto where you're like, someone could argue, be like, well, the weather's not nice here. I'm like, Robbie's in Toronto.

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (19:43.326)
So what would your big tips be to generating a community? Cause I always tell people they'll write me on the social or, or the mess of the podcast. I wish I had money to buy all the devices and the tech that you have. So that's stopping me from doing this. I would love to hear what you would tell somebody to build community and how they would go about it. Well, I think we go back to that question you mentioned of like, when was a time when you were devoid of meaning, right? And when you know,

Like to me, charisma is really just authenticity. And so I can tell when you talk about the amp coil and these devices and going to the Bulletproof Conference, like you love it, right? So it's clear. And it's like, well, what's this guy talking about? It's cool because it's your authentic truth. And so for people who listening, the question is like, what do they authentically want? Where is that meaning? And for me,

psychedelic medicines, hot, cold, biohacking, meditation, this stuff saved my life, changed my life completely to the point where I'm now successful, married, have my own business. it was like, okay, this is something I deeply care about. when I talk about getting in a 45-person sauna or for this amazing class, we're putting essential oils on the stove and waving towels and it's complete dark and everybody's yelling and that to me is something I deeply...

care about, it's exciting to me. So it's not hard for me to get excited about it and then have charisma. And so when you have charisma, because you're authentic, it becomes much easier to build community, right? So the first thing I'd say, if you're like trying to build your community is find something you're authentically excited about, because then it's likely you're going to find other people who are excited about that. So that's the first step. Authenticity, number one. Yeah, exactly. Authenticity, because that means you are going to be more excited. Step two would be

have some type of an event that's interesting and iterate on it. And so for us, it wasn't like the new space we're building, massive build out 3000 square feet, know, architect construction team, whole deal, full staff. And it could have been, well, my dream is to build this. And so it's going to take so much work. I'm never going to get to it. But instead for us, it was, okay, let's just put an ice bath in the backyard and invite five people. Very low overhead. These guys from Moscow came up.

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (21:53.169)
Yeah. Right. And so, you know, have a barrel with ice or go buy ice at a buck 50. Exactly. And, and the other thing is like, if we didn't do that during COVID, there's no way we would have had the confidence to open a space like middle of COVID, we signed the lease. And the only reason we had the confidence is because we had this space where like hundreds of people are coming every week and it kind of gave us the, yeah, like people love this. They're going to come. And so it's like, start small and test. So

have a community night, put it on meetup, invite five people. And usually the first one is going to suck, right? Because you've never done it before. It's new. You don't know what to say. What's your script and like, you're going to be nervous. And so start small test and that will give you confidence as to what to change. So another example, you know, I mentioned we've built an app to make it easy to get into breath work. And the whole idea was if you're struggling to meditate, here's an easier, funner version of meditation as an onboarding. And so we started with

Zoom classes during COVID for breathwork. And 20 people, then 50 people, then 100 people, we're just doing them for free. Then a bunch of people are joining. So they're like, oh, I really love this. have recordings? Like, oh, maybe we could record some of this stuff. So we buy the proper equipment. Super, not like great, but the software we needed to mix and some video equipment. And we start filming the videos, putting them on YouTube. Then we used a course platform. And so Bootstrap, the course platform, which didn't cost us any money. And we had...

kind of 20 to 30 classes and people start to buy the course and they're like, Oh, we want more. So, you know, all of a sudden we've made 200 classes and it's one of the largest libraries of breathwork content. And then people are like, Oh, we want an app. So now we're, uh, we have a few thousand customers and people are paying for it. And so it's like, okay, let's build an app. And so I think a lot of people get lost in exactly like you said, you know, I can't follow my dream now. There's too many steps.

I would say find what you're authentically passionate about and then take small steps but get started. Because when you get started and are working with the customer, it's going to make you excited. When I see someone's face when they get out of the ice bath, I'm like, holy shit, this is insane. There's something here. Yeah, that's so powerful. That's so powerful. So what are you looking at for launch dates, accessibility to the app where people could start using this? So we are launching the app and the idea with the app was like...

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (24:08.465)
physical spaces are really expensive to build. So it's going to take a long time to get into every city. So could we provide something now that makes meditation more accessible, that helps you take control. We call it shifting your emotional state. So it just helps you take control like, I need energy or Hey, I want to reduce anxiety. So you can either ramp up your nervous system or slow it down. And so that was the idea behind the app was just really simple, easy, four minute, five minute, eight minute breathwork sessions each day that were like really exciting with custom music. And so

The app itself we've been working on for the last year and the content is amazing. So like you want to fall asleep quickly. You want to get up and like prime yourself for a pitch for, you know, your day at work for like your afternoon slump, like boom, it's there in your hands. And so that is going to launch in mid October. So about four weeks from now and people can find it on our website and we'll put a link in the show.

And then the space we've been working on for two years. So was the ice bath and the garage. And now we've rented a beautiful space in Toronto or about 70 % done in our construction. So December 1st is the goal for opening. And then we have a goal to actually, and I haven't even announced this publicly, but tour Austin and open our second location in Austin sometime end of next year. So I'll be in Austin, Q1 starting the tour spaces to open as our first US location. That's amazing. What a victory, man.

How does that make you feel when you're seeing some of this stuff coming in the material? It's really cool. still feel this like seeker. You we mentioned that before and there's that part of me that's like, oh, I want to be recognized. I want to build this thing. I want to build this big thing. I want to have tons of locations. I want to be successful. And so there is an ego piece in it. And that's kind of my work because it makes me really happy is and like now I feel I'm overwhelmed because I'm always

trying to sell, trying to get the message out, hiring. It's like so much. And even though this is something I love more than anything, it's, hard. And so there's like this balance of maintaining, remembering that it's just fun. And even if it was only one location, it would still be fun and valuable. So I feel really good and exciting that my dreams are starting to come true. You know, like getting to meet health heroes of mine that, know, we've only, I've been listening to their podcasts for years and it's like, tell me about what you're doing. And that feels really, really good.

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (26:24.871)
But then what I'm struggling with is just remembering to have balance and like, don't need to chase this so hard as well. So it's been really interesting where dreams are coming true, but at the same time, you can push those too far as well. Hi friends. I hope you're loving this show. Let's take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. One of the consistent bio hacks in my home is red light therapy or photo biomodulation. If you want to sound fancy at a dinner party. Now red lights have been clinically shown.

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The inventor and founder Scott Kennedy is a true gem of a human being and stands behind every light that he sells. This is a beautifully broken podcast stamp of approval, five stars. Now let's get back to the show. I want to track back for a little bit and it might not sound like biohacking, but you mentioned you were lucky enough to start on the Ethereum network and get involved with some cryptocurrencies. Now this is something that like

I run a commercial on my podcast for the Celsius Network, which I do my banking. They support me in my banking endeavors. Alex Machinsky, and I'm a big fan. I've had some calls with Charles Hoskinson, and we talked about Cardano and how we could almost tokenize or gamify health. And I wondered how has crypto changed your life or how does that still fit into the piece? Maybe it doesn't fit in anymore. Where are you at with that? Because it's something I'm fascinated by.

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (28:47.117)
So it changed my life just because I was involved so early and a friend of mine is one of the biggest crypto investors in the world. And he had just said, we went to business school together. He's one of my best friends and he was just saying, after our first Iowaski experience, we did together. said, Hey, you know, I'm in San Francisco. I'm investing in all these companies. lot of them have never, you know, it's their first time founders. They could use some help. You want to come out here and check it out. And so thought, okay, this is cool. And so moved up to San Francisco.

just met with all these teams, like the smartest people, professors from the best schools, undergrad kids that had dropped out, and the passion. It's another one of these things where you're talking about building community and following authenticity. these people were just, this was, know, Ethereum was maybe six, seven bucks at the time. So it wasn't clear that you could make money doing this. So it's people that were just so pumped about the values around decentralization, what crypto could do to institutions. And just interested in the tech, like, wow, this is so exciting. Like I can literally transfer.

a million dollars of value from my computer with no intermediary. Like that's crazy. And so people were so excited that it kind of caught me. And I'm like, wow, this is cool. And so I joined and all of a sudden, you know, I'd felt, I mentioned like a failure before because my previous tech company had failed and I was in Toronto and all of a sudden I'm like in the thick of it in San Francisco. It kind of always my dream and like talking to these amazing VCs and developers from all these big companies and going to meetups. And I just felt so excited. And then that

role became, you know, role at Ethereum, helping the ecosystem grow, going to all these conferences around the world, living in Berlin and a whole bunch of, you know, San Fran and New York, a whole bunch of different places and being around these really smart people. And so I kind of went in my own mind from a failure to perceived like, wow, I'm actually good at this. And then crypto itself exploded like Ethereum went from, you know, six bucks to 4,000 at one point this year. And I was around all these really, really smart people and these ideas I saw being built.

in front of me. you know, when I first started Ethereum, there was nothing built on top of it. And all of a sudden you're seeing prediction markets, DeFi and NFTs and stuff that were just ideas. So was so cool. It really, what will be the next internet, the internet of value, allowing for like instant value creation and all these different types of primitives being there from a really early stage and seeing that happen was so cool. then financially I was really fortunate as well.

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (31:06.829)
And the only reason I left is because I started doing this on the side, like the ice bath I mentioned, it was just a little side hustle, same as the garage space. And it was like, this is really cool. And I just saw the impact it was having on my local community. And so I never had thought there'd be 2000 people, 3000 people doing these experiences with me that like our team created. And that just felt, I felt more connected.

to the people, especially a lot of people were struggling with addiction and were sober and were sending me nice messages over Christmas. So at some point I just decided to move into this full time. Incredible. Yeah. I see there being a connection to the health and wellness space that hasn't quite been established yet between decentralized currency and our markets. I'm not sure what it is yet, but like I said, had had a meeting with Charles Hoskinson who worked on Ethereum and we were talking about

How do you, because my experience with chronic illnesses, a barrier in my head, maybe it's not real, was always the money. There were treatments I wanted to do. I wanted to do stem cell injections. I wanted to go meet with oxygen specialists who had a certain level of hyperbaric experience with a hard tank. Well, that's not accessible to me. It was out of way out of range. You know, I could go get sessions or rent one and it's, it still felt like

The puppet master was up here manipulating the strings because I wanted access to things that I just couldn't afford. And so I always saw myself spending money. I'm like, I'm giving it away. I'm giving it away, giving it away. And when I started to work in the crypto space, what I saw was like, there's a level where because of the structure of the value system, that some of it, you can live off your interest. There's great interest to be made in some of those platforms like Celsius network.

or like I'm my own bank. So if I wanted to take a loan from myself to go invest in something a year later, I'm just paying myself back as opposed to me going to chase and these incredible interest rates. I still feel like there's something there that it's just not, you know, it's there, it's usable. But as you know, sometimes crypto can be like, I'm like transferring this to like some weird wallet to another wallet to jump onto another platform. And do I lose my codes? And it's like, it's scary.

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (33:28.091)
There's nobody to be like, I screwed up. Can I get my money back? Like you could lose anyways. We won't go into that, but I feel like there's bandwidth there in our health and wellness that has yet to be discovered. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. Yeah, I think Chris, what it will allow, for example, for you to raise funds to like test some of these things, crypto possibly a much easier.

less friction avenue to do that. Even just to raise money, there's this new platform called Mirror, which is quite cool. And it allows communities to raise money together in a pretty seamless way that you couldn't do any other way. think allowing groups or communities to manage funds together, like for example, there might be an easy way for a whole bunch of people in the Austin biohacking community to put up some money into a collective that the collective then manages to build your own center.

And there would be no way now if everybody wanted to put in 10 grand to do that, it would be like super cumbersome. And so by funding that you could also give everyone an NFT, which showed like they were one of the OG funders and maybe that NFT gives them access to the space. And, you know, if they didn't want it anymore, they could also sell it. So there's all kinds of cool rights and like friction free ways to do things. And stuff you mentioned on your show is just communities and like

remote healthy living. so I think you'll have a lot of these communities over the next 10 years living and managing resources together in a new way. yeah, in that way, there's a lot for crypto to do for health and wellness and almost any business in general. Beautiful. Yeah. Thank you for those inspired ideas. I'm definitely going to act on some of those things. And then, you're kind of envisioning this back to your center, like the community experience, you're seeing this come to Boston. And then is that

the end game, do you see more cities? Do you see multiple locations of your center? Yeah. So the main goal is to help people find meaning. And for 80 % of people, they don't have a mindfulness practice right now. And so those 80 % of people, there's no way for them to shut down their mind and deal with anxiety. so a lot of the stuff that exists now, it's not that accessible. what is the first step? So we're trying to have this big impact. And one of the businesses I really like

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (35:40.655)
or took inspiration from is soul cycle. And I like it because it was the first boutique fitness studio experience. so prior to that, going to the gym was like gold gym. was bodybuilders, professional athletes, and it was more difficult for the average person. It was more intimidating. And then you have something like soul cycle comes along, which ushered in all these boutique fitness studio experiences, rumble.

you know, Legree, Solid Core, there's just an enormous amount. And fitness became something that instead of for professional athletes, it was for everybody. was community based. It was this fun, like new thing. And I think there's a similar opportunity to do that for mental health. So right now, if you're working on your mental health, it's either, yeah, I'm using like five minute journal or like some type of an app, but I'm doing it single player, as you mentioned, or I'm going to a therapist and a therapist means I have to admit that

there's something wrong with me, which is challenging to have to find a stranger and like open up to them. And three, it's expensive. So there'd be as phenomenal, but it's difficult from an accessibility standpoint. So there's a huge group of people with no practices that are maybe not struggling, but that could find more meaning. And so the goal is to build these things, launch them and give it kind of an in-between where you're coming to the space. You're coming because it's fun. There's amazing music. It looks cool. It smells good. You're in the sauna. You're watching somebody.

wave a towel. It's like really exciting. It you feel great. It's good for your health. But then, you know, in the ice bath, you learn about your subconscious beliefs or you learn about getting into flow state. And it's kind of this in between where it's not therapy. It's not single player at home, but it does help you find more meaning helps with your mental health. And so to do that, I see us building like a soul cycle model where we have one in every city and it's that onboarding into a healthier life. Yeah. You know, back to the ice baths, it.

you said having it bring you into a level of awareness. it's, was really interesting for me to watch pretty consistently the difference between men and women, like get into ice and see these like big like muscle, like rip 12 pack guys get in there like, and then see like women who had never been in a bath, maybe not like the craziest like workout cross and just like get in and like, you know, that's something I've learned from watching people in the ice is women have a different pain threshold.

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (37:58.295)
It's just different. so I love that. It's just such a simple tool. And there's so many aspects of mental health that are involved in there as we peel away layers of witnessing the human experience. I love that that's part of your guy's methodology or the special sauce. The other thing you mentioned with therapy, it's like, what's the quality of the therapist you get? What's that? There's so many different types of therapy. Some are so ineffective. Some are good.

But from my experience, it is so powerful in community when we can share these experiences like plant medicine and the reintegration. I'd love to hear your take and maybe you can give us some science because maybe there's some people hearing this be like, this guy basically told me to like sit nice and go do drugs. You know, so can we go into a little bit of the science and validity around plant medicine and how that could help with someone with depression or addiction? Yes. So plant medicine specifically? Yeah.

So this isn't advice. So I'll preface by saying there are contraindications and issues for people with mental health disorders. However, some of the studies that have been done on psilocybin for depression have seen it be like four times more effective than any other pharmaceutical and lasting effects, you know, six months, one year later. they're from a science perspective, there are a ton of results on psilocybin for addiction, smoking,

cessation, end of life issues, depression in a similar way, not plant medicine, but, another psychedelic ketamine has been showing again, amazing results for treatment resistant depression, depression, OCD, and then MDMA for PTSD. So this isn't qualitative opinion. are research studies done by places like John Hopkins, UCSF. There's been a lot of money and more money being put into extremely effective.

research. So there's not really any question at this stage that these things are effective. think how specifically they work is somewhat unclear. There's research again happening there, but initially they had thought it was a part of your brain called the default mode network. It's sort of the part of the mind that controls the executive function. And so if you think of your brain as a computer, you're taking in sights, sounds, emotions, and over time, like a computer, your body and brain react. And so you imagine

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (40:21.181)
somebody made fun of you in school for public speaking. That's something that then sticks in your brain, that emotion. I want to avoid that. And as a result, you you become shy or introverted potentially. Right. And so this is happening all the time with all the inputs that are happening to you. You're developing responses and your brain acts like a program that way. So by the time you're older, 25, 30, 40, your brain is more rigid. You have the same responses, the same thought patterns. And so what I found personally,

with psilocybin use, with ayahuasca use, that part of the brain, the default mode network, research has shown it to shut down. So the part of your mind controlling the like, I'm 36, I'm, you know, a male, I'm an aggressive person. I love soccer. I eat Italian food. There's all these things about you that you think make up your personality are actually not real. And so it's one thing to think like, okay, I get it. But what the psychedelic medicines do, shut down that part of your brain. And as a result, you can feel it and you feel,

these are constructs I've put up like a house. And so all of sudden you feel what it feels like to just be connected, to be in the present moment, to be connected to others that were all the same. You feel connected to love, other emotions that are stuck in the body. So I think the shutting down of the default network allows for new neural pathways, allows for behavioral change. It also allows for the processing of emotions and stored traumas. So that's another thing we can get into, but I'll stop there. We can double click on any of those items.

No, it's very helpful. That's always been my belief system. I think I heard Tim Ferriss say this example once. It's like, you can think of your brain as this snow-covered mountain and you've gone sledding down all these different pathways and you develop ruts. And then doing plant medicine is like two feet of fresh snow. So it's just taking all those pathways that your brain is moving through because it's a path of least resistance or you've fired and wired that way. And it's allowing you to make a new, you you kind of have a soft

soft reboot, at least in my experience, that's what it's been for me. over the... It's so funny. I don't think I've said this on the podcast before. Personally, I've been microdosing mushrooms. I've been taking a very, very, very, very low dose of psilocybin every two to three days called a stamens stack. it has other nutritional elements in there like some niacin and some vitamins. what I notice is...

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (42:45.061)
There's less inhibition for me to get stuck in looping thoughts. I feel like there's a little more creativity. feel like I, I do feel like a mildly happier, but you know, it's, not all the time. not every day. It's like every two or three days, but I do feel like I'm in a way I'm like breaking the pattern of being me a little bit. I know we could go into that for a while too. It's like, what is, you know, it's like, what is reality? I'd love to hear your answer. What do you think reality is Robbie?

Okay. So an easier way, that's a deep question. don't know that I have a good answer to it, but I would just say one framework I like is there's the thinking mind where everything's happening. It's through perception. And so it's, have to do this. I'm this type of person. And then there's the, it's called the being mind or the body. so any experience that can help you get into your body and out of the thinking mind, I think is extremely helpful.

And so hundreds of years ago, an average human life there, you know, there's no television, no cell phone. Most of the day you're bored. You're breathing. Maybe you're hunting or eating or building. Nowadays you're on the entire time. So you're just in that fight or flight state almost the entire day. You're drinking your coffee or reading your phone. You know, if you're not checking your phone, it's like something on social media. If it's not that it's your computer, it's your email. So you're just, just always on. And when you're always on, you're always thinking.

And so for me, find, and this doesn't mean what reality is, but I find being in that mode, what really helps is 10 minutes of breath work, two minutes of ice bath. Maybe it's a micro dose. Like you mentioned, maybe it's a, maybe it's a macro dose. Maybe it's a weekend in nature without my phone. And for me, I'm always drawn to extreme. So, you know, this year I actually did a eight day dark retreat where I lived in a cave and complete darkness, just to kind of see what it was like when there's no stimulation. But so I think things that help you find.

balance feel into your body. Maybe it's playing an instrument, maybe it's playing a sport, maybe it's going for a walk. Maybe it's hugging your dog or your partner or your kids, you know? So it's just reality to me is moving away from the thinking mind, which is happening somewhere. Who knows where these thoughts just come and go into something that you're doing with your, you connected to your body in like real space. love that. It's hard not to cue my brain because you have ice behind you.

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (45:09.117)
But I keep looking at those chunks of ice and I'm like, ice is so beautiful and it's so simple because you're not going to go anywhere. But that experience, especially in something like the forge that was like this week, upgrade labs was sitting at 32 degrees. Where are you going to run from? You can go ahead and panic about the experience of being in an extreme cold, but unless you go back to the breath, you're not going to last long in that ice. And it's

such a wonderful talk about being overstimulated, right? You're at a tech show with like passionate speakers and thought leaders and people and your friends of like-minded individuals. That ice bath in the morning was a great reset. And usually most days there was a line. There was a line to get in the forge and they had two ice baths there, out of 2000 people. I was impressed that people were voluntarily moving to that place of bringing their body back into just

the ultimate state of presence. It's really cool. And then what can you do in that state of presence? So one thing on that, if you're like, why should I take an ice bath? And so you're forcing your body into a fight or flight state. And what's cool about that is, you know, imagine through your normal day, you might feel anger, guilt, shame, fear. You can't really train for those. Like when you're angry, it's too late, right? So how do I react? And so in the ice bath, it's a daily emotional training. Like you feel the fight or flight come on. You feel that need to

hyperventilate towards a sensation and through your breath, you can surrender and you let go. And when you practice that every day, you start to notice, here's anger. And instead of reacting and yelling, there's like a gap and you can kind of breathe through it. And so, you know, it's not just ice for health. It's ice for like mental and emotional training. And then, okay, not just that, but like I'm now quiet. I'm present. Hmm. Maybe I'm going to bring to mind a feeling I want to cultivate more of and give my subconscious mind some evidence. So I'm to do subconscious.

reprogramming because I'm in a flow state. Maybe we're going to put two people in the ice bath and cause we're both so present, we're going to do an eye gaze to connect. Maybe we're going to do some type of vocal toning or howling. Something we like to do is have people get to a shivering state by going in, out, in, out, in, out, laying on the ground in a trauma release pose and just shaking out any emotions that are coming up. And it sounds silly, but there's actually a lot of scientific evidence around shivering, shaking, uh, and somatic release. So

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (47:32.74)
Just really cool when you go one layer deeper, like, yes, there's absolutely science around the longevity and health benefits. And David Sinclair has written a book and where he says, you know, hot, cold, one of the best things you can do for longevity. But outside of that, there's a ton of mental stuff you can do and not too many people are talking about that yet. So that's what we're trying to bring is like, you're coming for the ice bath, but then, whoa, I'm in a two minute flow state. Like wasn't expecting that. So I think there's some cool stuff from that too.

Yeah, come for the ice, stay for the awareness. It's a good t-shirt. That's really good. Really good. We might make that. You can take that. Take that. That's yours. That's yours. Well, Robbie, it's been an hour. I want to be mindful of time, but I also want to ask, how can people that listen to this episode support you and your community? Yeah, I think the call to action is just if you resonated with like, hey, I'm feeling overwhelmed, a bit devoid. My day feels the same every day. You know, I've struggled with meditation. I've heard about this stuff.

There is an easier way and there's a way this stuff can be fun. And so if that resonated with you, check out our app. There's a free trial. I will put a link below and, you know, test it out. Try out some of this breath work and in 10 minutes you can learn just like the ice bath to change your state. And so, you know, have hope that from a mental standpoint, there are ways to find more meaning and to feel better. Yeah, that's beautiful. then because we're the beautifully broken podcast, I want to hear your answer to this. don't ask anybody anymore. What does it mean to you to be beautifully broken?

I think everybody is broken in ways just because life is hard. Like we all have to battle our own minds. And even in the most lucky life that you would consider, they faced rejection, anxiety, pain, self doubt. And so to be beautifully broken is to realize that you are broken and that's okay. And that's what makes it beautiful is that it's part of human experience to be broken. And so by accepting that you then don't have to be

Perfect, you can just live because that's like life is broken. And then an additional bonus question, because we're in a world right now where it seems like one of our greatest challenges is the divided nature of society. If you could just talk to all people on planet earth for one minute, what would you offer people as a way to come together? That's a tough one. I think if the entire, I mean, that's like a kind of cop out answer, but I was going to say literally like people need.

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (49:56.065)
the bazooka now it's like where we're at. And so it's what could change state significantly, right? Like what can get people out of their thinking habits we mentioned. And I would have to say it's likely for that one time psychedelic experience to help you like feel that we're all the same. I mentioned before our egos create uniqueness. and when those egos dissolve, you realize that humans are the same and you find more compassion. So actually let me rephrase instead of a psychedelic experience, just anything that can help

shift you into the parasympathetic state. So breath were cold. Any of these items that are going to help you into that state? Cause in that state of less stress, we find more meaning, more love, more connection. And so if everybody knew how to move into that state at will, I think we would have a happier world. love that. And in the state of less stress, we find more meaning, love and connection. That's a really powerful spot to go out.

Robbie, are you on any social media handles or anything where people can find you? Yes. On Twitter, we build everything in public. So we're always sharing what's going on with our businesses at Robbiebent1. And then on Instagram, I'm at Robbiebent. Wonderful. Well, I can't wait to meet in person. And hopefully, I'll see you down here in Austin and we'll be able to collaborate and build and explore amplifying this community.

Absolutely. I'm excited when we come to Austin, we'll have you be one of those first members with the NFT and the whole thing. I'm in, man. I'm in. Thank you so much for being a guest on the Beautifully Broken Podcast. It was truly a pleasure. Thanks, Freddie. Yes, sir. Thank you so much. Does anybody think that these health upgrades sound expensive? They can be an investment. But after truly learning how money works, the inflationary nature of our fiat currency, combined with the fact that big banks charged... Are you ready for this?

34 billion to the poorest members of society. I knew I was ready for a shift. In my opinion, money is energy. And I've seen too many scenarios which compromised health is attached to financial distress. The energy is not flowing. And to break that cycle, it's going to take a new level of thinking to come up with a different result. Enter Celsius Network. This is my bank that's not a bank. Celsius is a place to store cryptocurrency safely

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (52:18.127)
and get an incredible return on your stored wealth. They share up to 80 % of the revenue with the users, not the board of trustees, so you can earn up to 17.78 % APY distributed weekly. I'd like to see a bank beat that. So what does that look like? Every Monday, I get a direct deposit. The money I've earned is a reward for joining the community on my beautifully designed app with this high-end customer interface.

I've made over $2,600 by joining Celsius in just over 9 months. I've never made that in the history of time through my old, air-quote, big bank. So they have 0 % in withdrawal fees, over 500,000 users and 10 billion in assets that are insured. And you can also use your crypto or borrow dollars or stable coins with loans starting at just 1%.

That's correct, you can borrow from yourself and keep your own money and pay it back over the next six months to a year. Say it with me, financial freedom is back on the market. So check out the link in the show notes to join Celsius. I've got a special offer to earn $30 in stable coins by joining the community. Please don't take this as financial advice and everything I offer is an opportunity to do your own research and make the best choice for your abundance.

Let the green energy flow so you can do more good in the world.

Freddie Kimmel and Robert Bent (53:50.541)
My friends, you made it to the end of the podcast and here we are in season three. I think our relationship is developing into something really special. So there are two ways to support this show. The first is by joining my membership program at buymeacoffee.com forward slash freddysetgo. Here you'll get early access to all the podcasts, bonus episodes, video clips.

Discounted coaching and free webinars with thought leaders in the wellness and transformational technology industry. It's a chance to take your listening experience and put it into action. The second way is to support the podcast through freddyseco.com and download the beautifully broken buyer's guide. This is my new ebook, which is a collection of transformational technology, supplements and courses that have worked for me, my clients and my family.

These are things that I found to be incredibly helpful in my healing journey, and I put them all in one book. Most of them, most of them offer significant discounts just by clicking the link or using the discount code. And please know they don't cost you anything extra. And at the same time, they support the podcast through affiliations. My heart thanks you for tuning in. I'm so glad you're here with us. If you've enjoyed today's show, head over to Apple podcasts and leave a five star review.

And if you want to connect with me directly, I'm on Instagram at freddysetgo or buymeacoffee.com forward slash freddysetgo. Last message from my vast team of lawyers that I pay a lot of money for. The information on this podcast is for educational purposes only. By listening, you agree not to use the information found here as medical advice to treat any medical condition in yourself your family members or others. Always consult your own physician for any medical issues that you may be having challenges with. That's it for today. Our closing, the world is changing. We need you at your very best. So take the steps today to always be upgrading. Remember, while life is pain, putting the fractured pieces back together is a beautiful process. I love ya. I'm your host, Freddie Kimmel. Namaste.