Artwork for podcast Power Movers
Erik Berglihn: How a Brain Injury Taught This Norwegian Entrepreneur to Stop Wasting Energy on What Doesn't Matter
Episode 4618th February 2026 • Power Movers • Roy Castleman
00:00:00 00:50:03

Share Episode

Shownotes

EPISODE OVERVIEW

Duration: Approximately 48 minutes

Best For: Trapped entrepreneurs who spend all their energy on things that drain them and none on what actually matters

Key Outcome: Listeners will understand how to redirect their energy toward what moves them forward and begin building a life where business success does not come at the cost of health, relationships, or presence

He built multiple thriving businesses. Then a car crushed him on the pavement and doctors said he was 70% disabled.


THE BOTTOM LINE

You are exhausted. Not from the work itself, but from the weight of carrying everything. The emails at 5am. The decisions only you can make. The nagging feeling that you have built something that now owns you. Erik Berglihn knows this trap intimately. After being run over by a car and told he would need painkillers for life, he chose a different path. Through breathwork, cold exposure, and mental practices, he rebuilt himself. Then he went further. He restored an abandoned mountain farm into an award-winning destination. He created a kids island programme serving 500 children each summer. He launched a distillery that won silver in London. The thing is, none of this came from working harder. It came from working differently. From refusing to spend energy on negative thoughts that lead nowhere. From understanding that most business owners know more about their mobile phones than their own bodies. This episode is not about doing more. It is about directing your energy toward what actually creates the life you wanted when you started this whole thing.


WHY THIS EPISODE MATTERS TO YOU


You will discover why spending energy on negative outcomes guarantees you will never escape the trap you have built, and what to focus on instead


You will learn how Erik built multiple successful ventures after a devastating injury by refusing to engage with what could go wrong


You will understand how reconnecting with nature and your own body can restore the clarity and energy you have been missing for years


You will see the real cost of staying disconnected from yourself, your health, and your family while chasing growth that never satisfies


KEY INSIGHTS YOU CAN IMPLEMENT TODAY


Erik explains that negative thoughts require 4 to 6 positive ones to counterbalance them. The trapped entrepreneur who dwells on problems, complaints, and worst-case scenarios is draining the very energy needed to escape. The consequence of shifting focus to what could go right is that you actually have the mental fuel to pursue it.


When your team member or partner consistently fails at something, expecting different results is a waste of your limited energy. Erik learned to stop being surprised by patterns that repeat. The thing is, accepting reality does not mean accepting defeat. It means directing your energy toward solutions rather than frustration.


Most business owners are electrically unbalanced from spending entire days on concrete floors in trainers, surrounded by screens. Even a few minutes barefoot on grass each day can neutralise this. The consequence is more energy, better sleep, and clearer thinking without any complex protocol.


Erik sold his kids island programme not as a summer camp, but as good conscience for working parents. He positioned his offer around what people desperately wanted to feel, not what he was technically providing. Trapped entrepreneurs often undersell because they describe features rather than transformations.


One afternoon per month, Erik runs a programme just for men. No agenda beyond connection, challenge, and growth. The highest suicide rates in Norway and globally are among men who feel isolated despite outward success. Creating space for genuine connection is not a luxury. It is survival.


GOLDEN QUOTES WORTH REMEMBERING


"If you are into neuroscience and how things work, you see that negative things are important for us not to get killed too fast. But since negative is so fundamental, you need 4, 5, 6 positive things to weigh out a negative. Bringing too much effort on the negative will bring you nowhere." - Erik Berglihn


"I don't sell it as a summer camp. I sell it so that parents who have to work can have a good conscience. I'm the good guy. I'm selling them great stuff for the kids so they can stay at work and the kids come home totally exhausted, having the greatest days of their lives." - Erik Berglihn


"Many people know more about their mobile phone than they do about their body or brain." - Erik Berglihn


"One day where I'm not outside a couple of hours is a badly spent day." - Erik Berglihn


"It's not the greatest product that wins. It's the guys that communicate the best." - Erik Berglihn


QUICK NAVIGATION FOR BUSY LEADERS


00:00 - Introduction: Meeting Erik and his remarkable range of ventures

03:45 - The Mindset Shift: Why focusing on what could go right changes everything

08:20 - The Accident: Being run over and told he was 70% disabled

12:30 - The Recovery: Using breathwork and mental practices to rebuild

18:15 - The Kids Island: How selling good conscience created a thriving social enterprise

24:40 - The Mountain Project: Turning an abandoned farm into an award-winning destination

32:10 - Energy and Nature: Why most business owners are electrically unbalanced

38:45 - The Future Programme: A 12-month reconnection journey for trapped entrepreneurs

44:30 - Men's Health: Why isolation is killing successful business owners

47:00 - Conclusion: How to connect with Erik and take the first step


GUEST SPOTLIGHT


Name: Erik Berglihn

Bio: Erik is a Norwegian entrepreneur who has built an extraordinary portfolio of ventures including an award-winning distillery, a glamping destination, a gourmet restaurant, and a kids island programme serving 500 children each summer. After recovering from a devastating car accident through Wim Hof Method practices and mental training, he now helps business owners reconnect with nature and themselves through immersive experiences in Norway.


Connect with Erik:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erik-berglihn-b4252a13/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erikberglihn/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/erik.berglihn.5


YOUR NEXT ACTIONS

This Week: Spend 10 minutes barefoot on grass each day. Notice what shifts in your energy and clarity. This costs nothing and requires no planning.

This Month: Identify three things you consistently complain about or expect to change that never do. Write them down. Decide to stop spending energy on them.

This Quarter: Book one experience that takes you completely off grid, away from your phone, and into nature. Not a holiday. A challenge that reconnects you with yourself.


EPISODE RESOURCES

Wim Hof Method - breathwork and cold exposure training mentioned throughout

Danish Department of Health Science - mindfulness and pain management programme Erik completed

Norwegian Meal Competition - the biennial awards where Erik's products have won recognition


━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

READY TO ESCAPE THE TRAP?


Take the Freedom Score Quiz: https://scoreapp.atpbos.com/

Discover how trapped you are in your business and get your personalised roadmap to freedom in under 5 minutes.


Book a Free Strategy Session: https://www.atpbos.com/contact

Let's discuss how to build a business that works WITHOUT you.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━


CONNECT WITH YOUR HOST, ROY CASTLEMAN


Roy is the founder of All The Power Limited and creator of Elevate360, a business coaching system for entrepreneurs ready to scale without burnout. As a certified Wim Hof Method Instructor and the UK's first certified BOS UP coach, Roy combines AI automation, wellness practices, and business operating systems to help trapped entrepreneurs reclaim their freedom.


Website: www.atpbos.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roycastleman/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@allthepowerltd

Transcripts

Speaker:

Here today with my good friend Eric and what a

2

:

pleasure it is to have him here. Eric is in

3

:

Norway where it's currently all dark and he is an

4

:

entrepreneur of some massive skill set. Eric has

5

:

a so many things that he's doing at the moment

6

:

that I'll try and give it some justice here. Eric

7

:

has a distillery, he has a glamping place, he has

8

:

a restaurant, I might say award winning distillery. He has

9

:

an island project where he helps young kid every young

10

:

kids, 300 kids, 500 kids each summer and so many

11

:

other projects. So I'll hand over to Eric and just

12

:

say thank you very much for joining us and I'm

13

:

looking forward to diving in and discussing some of these

14

:

things. But more at this new project which is quite

15

:

exciting. Thank you. Thank you. Good to be here. Yeah.

16

:

So let's just first maybe you can do a little

17

:

bit more just to some of those things I've spoken

18

:

about. I know you were also doing the rewilding program

19

:

for. For fish and so tell us a little bit

20

:

about Eric. I grew up in the late 60s, beginning

21

:

of the 70s and I have this very clear mindset

22

:

about not to be an adult, not to be a

23

:

grown up. I love it ever. And. And when we

24

:

were in Norway we had just one TV channel and

25

:

we have all these influence from America and movies and

26

:

films and stuff. And the only guys I think was

27

:

any kind of interesting to become was a

28

:

native American riding around at the prairie and doing all

29

:

this wild stuff. So that was me. And when everyone

30

:

else was to into football or sports I was more

31

:

into spending time outside. So my mom told me that

32

:

from about 2, 3 years of age it was just

33

:

to open the door in the morning and then hopefully

34

:

the kids came back in the evening. We have a

35

:

free upbringing in a way which was good. And from

36

:

there on I played around with a lot of different

37

:

projects and at one time I thought I should become

38

:

serious and take a good education and I took some

39

:

of it. But it's. It's a lot of trial and

40

:

error. But always look at the addis as

41

:

a way of what could possibly go

42

:

right, what could possibly be a good outcome and

43

:

not. I had some which was not so good but

44

:

it's. I think it's all about the mindset and it's

45

:

about not spending too much time on negative thoughts. Because

46

:

if you are into neurod science, brain science and stuff

47

:

and you dig into this neuroscience and how things works

48

:

and connected and stuff then you see that negative things

49

:

is important for us not to get killed too fast.

50

:

But at the same time, since negative is so fundamentally.

51

:

It brings. It says that you need 4, 5, 6

52

:

positive things to weigh out a negative. Yeah. So

53

:

bringing too much effort on the negative will. That's my

54

:

opinion, will bring you nowhere. I agree entirely.

55

:

The. So much of my formative life, the entire world

56

:

tried to bring me down to the negative and I

57

:

always go back to the positive. And it's real skill

58

:

set trying to avoid all the noise and all the

59

:

things out there. I don't watch tv. Tv, I don't

60

:

watch the news. I just. Yeah. What I consume with

61

:

my eyes, with my ears, that's just so powerful into

62

:

what I become and what I. My view on the

63

:

world now. We met. Yeah. Through the WIM HOF method.

64

:

You're a WIM HOF instructor as well. And this is

65

:

such a powerful method. I think we both got so

66

:

much out of it. And there's a bit of a

67

:

story around that in terms of you also had a

68

:

substantial accident that left you with the world telling you

69

:

you couldn't and you said no I can. So tell

70

:

us a bit about that. Yeah, it was as I

71

:

didn't say so much about. I did. I've been working

72

:

with a lot of great projects over the years. I

73

:

restored five old buildings at a deserted island, made a

74

:

gourmet hotel, small one getting high end customers from

75

:

all over the world coming in their private shoppers and

76

:

things. Actually it was owned by the city but they

77

:

didn't care. The crown princess came and when she wanted

78

:

it. Of course it was a little bit of turmoil

79

:

there because I didn't want to give it to her.

80

:

But then. Okay. And I worked with projects that people

81

:

said ah, this is not going to be a good

82

:

project. And that was the stand up paddleboards. And I

83

:

said, you guys, that was in 2006. You guys, you're

84

:

all wrong. You don't understand it. You can. You. You

85

:

don't have perspective so you don't look. Have some visions.

86

:

And then of course in 2000 and which it was

87

:

11 to 1011, I had a big car accident. So

88

:

I was run over by a car. I was on

89

:

my bike on the pavement. I was side of the

90

:

road so everything should be safe. But the car managed

91

:

to hit me quite hard. So I got some really

92

:

chronic pain. A lot of things was broken. And then

93

:

I got permanent brain injury which gives me

94

:

a lot of headaches, nausea, difficult to concentrate and eats

95

:

up your energy. And I was laying around at the

96

:

sofa. The medical guys said There was like 70% disabled

97

:

and I could be treated with painkillers. And

98

:

then I knew that, okay, if I'm going that way,

99

:

I'm going to be a drug, drug addict really real

100

:

soon and feeling sorry for myself and laying around and

101

:

then kids would keep a distance, my wife would move

102

:

out, my house would be sold and things would not

103

:

go as planned. So I thought, okay, I have to

104

:

do something. So actually I find. I was searching the

105

:

Internet and I found a program at the Danish Department

106

:

of Health Science and Health. And I went on that

107

:

and they had a lot of focusing on meditational practices.

108

:

Very much of this mindfulness focus, how to help to

109

:

kind of rewire your. The way you feel about pain

110

:

and how your brain acts, actually perceives pain and

111

:

how you can change the outcome. With training

112

:

for not one week, but actually a couple of years.

113

:

So after about two years doing that and things got

114

:

really well and had continued to do that. I also

115

:

was looking in, into the breathing and a little bit

116

:

too cold. I found Wim Hof and the guys and

117

:

then I joined in and the first kind of instructor

118

:

event thing we had up in the mountains in Poland,

119

:

it was cold, wild and cold. And the funny

120

:

thing was that we teamed up, we teamed up with

121

:

other guys and the other guy, he was a guy

122

:

from, I think it was from some desert early area

123

:

in America and he was really skinny. So

124

:

when things started to get really cold, I have to

125

:

give him all my down gear, everything I packed to

126

:

keep warm. And I would say that after the third

127

:

dip that one day and we have to just be

128

:

in the woods to keep warm in wet shorts and

129

:

nothing else, snow. And after the third times in the

130

:

water and I think every time we went in the

131

:

water it was like something between eight and 10 minutes

132

:

because you go out and all the others come out

133

:

and then you go in again then. And I have

134

:

to say I, I thought my balls would just break.

135

:

For sure. I thought it just shattered like glass. Oh,

136

:

Jesus. But we, we went through it and, and kept

137

:

on doing a lot of breathing exercises, mental practices and

138

:

yeah, ran just for speed ahead. Yeah, it's

139

:

amazing, it's so amazing the power of the body and

140

:

the mind that we, we are not aware of. I

141

:

always say I was 49 years old when I learned

142

:

how to breathe. And it just astounds me to this

143

:

day that we don't teach this in clot, in schools.

144

:

We don't teach us to youngsters, we don't. There's so

145

:

much resistance to these things. That are essentially free, that

146

:

are our birthright, that we can hold is free. Especially

147

:

in Norway. Especially. Yeah. I, I made a. I have

148

:

this couple of different schools I have been working with,

149

:

joining in, just doing. And I ask them because I

150

:

worked with a lot of troubled kids before and then

151

:

I said, okay, can I design a program for you

152

:

guys? And we did. And now the headmaster is now

153

:

asking if we could do it again. And one funny

154

:

thing was that they have. Of course every school has

155

:

this one or two kids that everyone hates and everyone

156

:

gets sick if they have to work with them and

157

:

blah, blah, blah. The funny thing is that I don't

158

:

understand why people are not prepared. Yeah.

159

:

If you know that your partner is totally

160

:

out of it when it comes to certain things, you

161

:

can be very irritated, angry and you can keep

162

:

on doing that for a century and maybe it's not

163

:

going to happen anything and it's not going to change.

164

:

And every time you are tired because he or she.

165

:

I'm getting exhausted because you don't blah, blah, blah, blah.

166

:

And they. But after a couple of while, a couple

167

:

of times, you should expect that this is how it

168

:

is. He's not able, she's not able. This is not

169

:

going to happen. So why do I expect something that's

170

:

not going to happen? It's God's going to tear you

171

:

down, eats your energy and it takes away all the

172

:

kindness and love and all the things you get angry.

173

:

And I just said it. That's totally waste

174

:

of energy. Yep. It will never bring you forward. And

175

:

I think that's a lot of the things that I

176

:

work with doing my project. Use your energy wisely,

177

:

not think about should I do this, should I do

178

:

this? But when I do stuff for me, after we

179

:

went to these courses, learning breathing, I did a lot

180

:

of mental practices and got back in shape or kind

181

:

of a sort of mental shape. And then I think

182

:

so many people are wasting time and energy in things

183

:

that doesn't matter. Yeah, agreed. Think about worrying to be

184

:

worried about something. It's not going to help you anywhere.

185

:

It's not going to change the outcome. It's not going

186

:

to do anything. Good for you. So I think I,

187

:

I spent. That doesn't mean I don't care, but I

188

:

just spend more energy on what things could be, could

189

:

become. And I think my projects are going full

190

:

speed ahead because I only spent or I'm

191

:

guess I'm trained more in this, but I spent my

192

:

energy on things that kind of work better. I

193

:

don't look back and Say, oh, I don't. I try

194

:

to not do the same mistakes again and again, but

195

:

at the same time to use this breathing, to use

196

:

the cold, to use mental practices and to have a

197

:

positive mindset that will bring you a lot of

198

:

the things you want. I love this. I love the

199

:

concept of energy because we do spend our energy incorrectly.

200

:

I know if I get up in the morning, I

201

:

do my morning routine properly, I have more energy for

202

:

the day. And what the breathing does for me is

203

:

it actually clears off the emotional baggage from the day

204

:

before. Yeah. So it does that. What the ice does

205

:

for me, it actually gives me a real boost of

206

:

energy. It gives me the dopamine that I need. It

207

:

makes me me see that I can do a difficult

208

:

thing because every day it's still difficult. Every time I

209

:

get in the ice, it's still difficult. The meditation helps

210

:

me with just opening up to what's actually really what

211

:

I'm struggling with today. So having this means that I

212

:

can focus the energy for today on today. And when

213

:

I focus the energy for today on today, I don't

214

:

give the energy away to tomorrow, worrying about things that

215

:

haven't happened yet. And I don't give it away to

216

:

yesterday. Being depressed about things I can't change anymore. I

217

:

just focus on today. The outcome is so much better.

218

:

Yeah. That's why I think I. I've done or I

219

:

still have involved in quite a lot of projects. I

220

:

today I come from. It's about 100km away in a

221

:

city where a river. When we're working on trying to

222

:

restore it. And then there's a couple of guys who

223

:

want to. And there's always this one guy who don't

224

:

want to and then use. And then I tried to

225

:

was it find a middle way. But I have. About

226

:

15 years ago I was looking into this. I thought

227

:

that kids were inactive and not so capable.

228

:

And since my kids have been out at the islands

229

:

learning stuff from early age into skiing, climbing, whatever. Even

230

:

my daughter, she's an authority. She said, dad, you learned

231

:

us too much. The only thing I don't know how

232

:

to do is welding. That's the only thing I don't

233

:

know. But all the kids I made, all the guys,

234

:

they can't do anything. They don't know anything about how

235

:

to make this and how to do and how to

236

:

carpentry and whatever. And then you learn with everything. Well,

237

:

I thought, I love it. I just, I think it's

238

:

great. But I thought all these kids that. That should

239

:

learn more. They should Be more capable. Yeah. And then

240

:

I made the island project, the kid island project. And

241

:

everyone said, oh, it's not going to be a good

242

:

thing. And I said maybe. And then say I

243

:

want to do this as a special social entrepreneurship. And

244

:

at that time everyone thought that social entrepreneurship was about

245

:

applying for fund from the government. And I said it's

246

:

not about that. It's to run a balanced business when

247

:

you get the rich people to pay for the poor

248

:

ones and then you use your energy in a good

249

:

way so that everyone is quite happy. So what I

250

:

did was I presented it as the kid Ion was

251

:

a summer concept, five days a week at daytime. And

252

:

I didn't sell sell it as a summer camp. I

253

:

sold it so that parents that have to work can

254

:

have a good conscience. Yeah, good plan. Yeah. So

255

:

I sell good conscience. I'm the good guy. So I'm

256

:

selling them great stuff for the kids so that they

257

:

can stay at work and the kids could come home

258

:

totally exhausted, having the greatest days of their lives and

259

:

everything was good. And their parents must love you for

260

:

that. They do, they do. And the thing is that

261

:

I only sell 80% of the spots and

262

:

that covers the the whole thing. And there is 20%

263

:

of the restoring spots are given away not to announced

264

:

poor people, but together with schools and social teachers and

265

:

others in the area, they find the kids that need

266

:

it. Yeah. So everyone gets a ticket. So now when

267

:

they come together the first day, they are just in

268

:

their, what should I say? A life west and shorts.

269

:

No phones are allowed and. And everyone is just equal.

270

:

So if you're a millionaire kid from this area of

271

:

the city, or you are totally the opposite from the

272

:

other, no one cares. So I put that together. And

273

:

then we also have this other project because in Norway

274

:

it's. If you're in foster care, your foster kid, your

275

:

foster parents, can they have the right to have a

276

:

couple of weeks of vacation from you. So if you

277

:

are 16, live in foster care, life is not great.

278

:

And then your foster family said, oh you, we are

279

:

going to send you somewhere because we want to have

280

:

vacation from you. That's not a good thing. So instead

281

:

I said, we make a special summer job. We incorporate

282

:

these kids into our team of people work, we make

283

:

them assistants, we put them into course and training before.

284

:

And instead of you guys, since you live so far

285

:

ahead, then when you're working with us, you have to

286

:

live at the on the island. So then we don't

287

:

have any problems with being sent away or some shitty

288

:

place that you hate. But you getting a job, you're

289

:

working together with great people, you're getting full salary and

290

:

you get references and you get everything. So lift them

291

:

up. And the thing is that this is not hard.

292

:

This is effing easy to do. Just if you want

293

:

to be a little bit, show a little bit of

294

:

kindness, be a little bit flexible. Works like a dream.

295

:

I'm going to say something because it's not hard for

296

:

you, Eric. And this is the joy of the entrepreneurial.

297

:

Yeah. One thing I've learned is that when I see

298

:

things as easy. Yeah. And then I just have this

299

:

total. Why can't everybody just do this? It's because there

300

:

isn't the vision, because there isn't the drive, because there

301

:

isn't the tenacity that's required to make it work. Once

302

:

you have this vision, you need to push forward. And

303

:

I'm gonna, I'm gonna change now slightly because we can

304

:

talk literally for hours about all the projects that you've

305

:

got. I want to come back to the, the feeling

306

:

that you have the understanding that you have about nature

307

:

and our connection to nature which the modern world is

308

:

really not giving us correctly. Because I'm really inspired by

309

:

your future project of taking people that are high performing

310

:

business owners that are owning companies that are stuck in

311

:

a job that's really taking a lot of the time

312

:

and energy and they don't see, to use a phrase,

313

:

the word for the trees. You've had, you have so

314

:

much experience with the kids. You've had so much experience

315

:

with other people as well through the WIM HOF method

316

:

and bringing people together and just showing them the power

317

:

of nature. So let's talk to that for a bit.

318

:

Yeah. As I went in the woods from early age

319

:

and then hopefully came out in a way. But for

320

:

me, one day where I'm not outside a couple

321

:

of hours is a badly spent day. I have, I

322

:

think from early age this kind of some kind of

323

:

link that says to me a little bit unconsciously that

324

:

get the outside. And I have been taking or been

325

:

asked a lot of times to bring clients out and

326

:

people have come from all over the world and now

327

:

trying to make a little bit more systematic. But the

328

:

thing is everything is energy, everything is vibrations. And then

329

:

if you spend too much time inside, I

330

:

think the energy becomes less vibrant and more kind of

331

:

dead. Not giving you, it's not keeping the momentum.

332

:

And I see that many times when people know more

333

:

about their mobile phone than they do about their body

334

:

or brain. Yeah. And Then we know after

335

:

scientists have tested and we see on the YouTube and

336

:

Facebook that everything is energy. We see that special devices

337

:

put on tree give sounds or flowers. We see that

338

:

a bumblebee would. The flowers that the bumblebee

339

:

gets, their nectar has had one positive and one negative

340

:

way of signaling. So when it's full, it has one

341

:

signal and then when it's empty, it's got another one.

342

:

But most people don't pay attention, so

343

:

they look always for something else. It's

344

:

always searching for the solution but never looking inside. Yeah.

345

:

And then I think for me it's when I just

346

:

put some electrical, sometimes devices on people and I say

347

:

that, okay, if you're on your feet, walking on concrete

348

:

floors with your sneakers, every day you are getting bad.

349

:

Electrical energies are piling up. So only to go

350

:

a few minutes outside on the lawn every day would

351

:

neutralize that will give you way better energy. We know

352

:

that everything around us is alive. And to go outside

353

:

and be able to sit down there and then just

354

:

think that. Now sometimes people have been asking, oh, so

355

:

what you got to do today? And I said, oh,

356

:

I'm going to concentrate. I'm doing absolutely nothing. Yep. Yeah.

357

:

And the thing, the funny thing, my mountain project, from

358

:

the old saying, all the stories and so on, the

359

:

story said that my. My farm, little farm up there,

360

:

that's that it was described for 6, 700 years as

361

:

being the gateway between the worlds. Okay. And then

362

:

I don't know if this is true, but it's like

363

:

when I'm sitting there by the river and just trying

364

:

to be. It's always something in the corner of

365

:

the eye. Not a negative thing, but it's something. It

366

:

feels some kind of energy. It's some kind of. I

367

:

don't get it. Right, but it's good stuff. But it's

368

:

when you pay more attention to the things around you,

369

:

I think you get more aligned with yourself, you get

370

:

more happy, you are more relaxed. I went to the

371

:

doctor last week. I tried to go once a year.

372

:

Haven't been there for 10 years. I haven't had the

373

:

time. Yeah, I know that one. Yeah, but. And

374

:

then he said, ah, blood pressure, perfect. No medication. No.

375

:

And you're almost 60. Yeah. And then your pulse is

376

:

50. Yeah. Was that possible? And I said,

377

:

how is it possible that everyone else got sickness eating

378

:

pills and doing all that? Everyone should be like me.

379

:

Yeah. So I think to be outside, to grasp the

380

:

nature, to don't always look at the time, so you

381

:

actually go out at night, see the Stars feel the

382

:

wind. Especially in the spring when this. All the flowers

383

:

come, you smell it and you step outside and sometimes

384

:

even your comfort zone. And I think you get from.

385

:

Feel that it's more rich. Yeah. And you don't

386

:

focus so much about everything. That's not okay. Because

387

:

it was like when I had my accident, or it

388

:

wasn't an accident, it was a guy driving over me.

389

:

So I. I don't think he'd done it on purpose,

390

:

but it was. It was not me doing something. But

391

:

what happened is that. Okay. I had to leave my

392

:

work. I had to say goodbye to a lot of

393

:

stuff. I had to sell my house in the Pyrenees,

394

:

which I made from an old winery. And I had

395

:

to let go. But it's sometimes just

396

:

get away. Instead of thinking about all that and think

397

:

about what's unjust and shouldn't be and unfortunate, it's

398

:

just come outside and be present. Can

399

:

I ask you something with that accident? I had my

400

:

big accident as well where I was run over by

401

:

a drunken driver. And I honestly see that accident as

402

:

one of the best things that happened to me in

403

:

my life. Yeah. Yeah. That

404

:

just allowed me to live in the moment. It allowed

405

:

me to do everything I wanted to do instead of

406

:

putting it off to tomorrow. And allowed me to appreciate

407

:

that the worst possible thing you can die with is

408

:

regret for things you haven't done. That's true. That's true.

409

:

And I think that. I think life, it's full of

410

:

opportunities. And the thing also is that my

411

:

mountain project, if I were to ask my parents or

412

:

my brothers or in a family, they would. I would

413

:

say what could possibly go wrong? And they would mention

414

:

a lot of stuff. Sure. But

415

:

then if I say what could possibly go right by

416

:

then and they don't know so much. And the thing

417

:

was that we rebuild or we restored an old mountain

418

:

farm which no one cared about for 50 or 60

419

:

or 70 years. And now I think it's the most.

420

:

At least in the Norway sense, it's the most rewarded

421

:

place, both from UK and other countries. We actually.

422

:

We took a lot of things that people consider as

423

:

a weed. You know, they want to put poison on

424

:

it and get rid of it. And we put those

425

:

things doing special processes and we deliver it to the

426

:

Norwegian meal, which is a huge competition, which is every

427

:

second year. Yeah. And it's like a Norwegian Oscars into

428

:

food and drinks. Yeah. And. And we won first. And

429

:

I made gin. Never done it before. And of course

430

:

I would training and courses and stuff. And then we

431

:

Have a silver medal in London this year, which is

432

:

a good start, I would say. And then. Very good

433

:

start. Yeah. And one late evening, for about five years

434

:

ago, very late evening, alcohol was involved.

435

:

And next morning my friend called and said, did we

436

:

buy a hotel last night? And

437

:

I said, no, we didn't buy the hotel, but we

438

:

decided that we should build a distillery. And

439

:

that was four or five years ago. And now we

440

:

have this two big wooden buildings, the one log buildings.

441

:

The one is one of them is from the 16th

442

:

century, which contains the distillery, 17 meter long, 8 meter

443

:

high. And yeah, we put it together and then we

444

:

have another one which we haven't finished yet, but now

445

:

we have a working distillery. And then I'm going off

446

:

this weekend and making a great batch which I want

447

:

to try to sell for the Norwegian market next year.

448

:

And we just play around and sometimes. Yeah, I think

449

:

that it's so important that people hear you and hear

450

:

your stories because the inspiration for everybody here is if

451

:

you bring the right positive energy into your company. We

452

:

go out in the world as entrepreneurs and we see

453

:

a problem in the world and we try and fix

454

:

that problem. Yeah, that's what drives us. That's what gives

455

:

us energy to push us forward. And as you. Yeah,

456

:

you show us and you demonstrate in what you do

457

:

each thing that you've been passionate about, if you just

458

:

bring the right energy, if you just bring this commitment

459

:

to understanding that things aren't always going to go well.

460

:

And that's fine because that's the nature of how we

461

:

learn. Right. We don't learn if they go all the

462

:

time. You can't learn this stuff in books. You've got

463

:

to go out and try it. You've got to be

464

:

not sitting there regretting, if only I had that idea

465

:

five years ago. And now somebody's making millions. And it's

466

:

not because of the idea. It's because they decided to

467

:

step, step and go. They decided to get off their

468

:

reins and go and try and be prepared to fail

469

:

a little bit and be prepared to learn and be

470

:

prepared to understand their own power. It was like a

471

:

couple of weeks ago, that was funny. I was asked

472

:

by a gun of guys, a bunch of guys, to

473

:

have some inspirational talk. Yep. And I did. I said,

474

:

oh, sure could do that. And then it was in

475

:

the church and. And no worries about that. I grew

476

:

up with a very kind of Christianity all around and

477

:

stuff, but. And then I stopped to. To talk about

478

:

inspiration and everything. And then I said, a lot of

479

:

the time it's about paying attention. And I told about.

480

:

I was 9, 18, 19. I went to America, everyone

481

:

California. And then all the money ran out. And then

482

:

I said, then I got a job. And I said,

483

:

Jesus, how did you get the job? And I said,

484

:

I put an ad in Los Angeles Times telling about

485

:

a 18 year old Norwegian with driver's license could to

486

:

be a handy guy. And I got about 85 answers.

487

:

84 from single wives or single mothers. Oh,

488

:

maybe not. And then this last one from, from a

489

:

lawyer. And he used to be the lawyer for the

490

:

family Marcos on the Philippines. So he was loaded and

491

:

he wanted a little bit of rock and roll. So

492

:

when I sat in his big Rolls Royce and he

493

:

said, here's the keys, jump in. And I was like

494

:

18. What the. What I did. And then the test

495

:

actually was I was driving down 101 alongside Malibu with

496

:

he and the other guys in the back seat. And

497

:

I said, okay, now the final test comes. And the

498

:

test was if I could roll them joints by driving

499

:

this car was in the back seat. Amazing.

500

:

And I was, okay, I did that. I could do

501

:

everything. And I worked there for about six months. There

502

:

was a lot of crazy things happening. And then I

503

:

thought, oh, maybe not too much of this, but I

504

:

think it's about paying attention. I introduced bungee jumping to

505

:

Norway, or I guess I was the first in Scandinavia.

506

:

And it was because a friend of mine showed me

507

:

a picture that was from somewhere outside

508

:

Australia, somewhere out on some of the islands when some

509

:

of these locals were jumping off the platforms and doing

510

:

this. And we can do that. And then I put

511

:

together some gear. I did a lot of climbing before

512

:

and we found a bridge jump off worked pretty well.

513

:

A little bit thin, I guess my body got two

514

:

centimeters longer. And then after getting adjusted and then next

515

:

week 100 people was on the bridge wanting to, to

516

:

jump. Wow. And then I thought, ah, then we're going

517

:

to rearrange. So within the next week I was going

518

:

from jumping off a bridge for about five pounds to

519

:

this late 80s, beginning of the 90s, late 80s. So

520

:

I went from five pounds jumping off a bridge to

521

:

50 pounds working jumping off a mobile crane. And

522

:

we made the concept not like an Ike, which said

523

:

just do it. We have big T shirts. But I

524

:

just did it. Yeah. And the business was

525

:

all over Norway. I. I have never earned so much

526

:

money on such short time ever. And it was kind

527

:

of people where it was about this sensation. It was

528

:

this feeling, it was this solution of something, all this

529

:

comfort and all, all, everything and they want to challenge

530

:

and. But at the same time they want to feel

531

:

safe. It wasn't that safe, but okay, that was. But

532

:

I think what we do as entrepreneurs, it, we give

533

:

good solutions. And if the solution is so

534

:

good that you actually feel almost a chill or you

535

:

get this, yes, this is it, then you have a

536

:

great product. But you don't get to that point without

537

:

training. And I think people forget to train, they

538

:

forget to test, they forget to develop. They are entrepreneurs.

539

:

We have a product that we think is great. So

540

:

everyone else in the whole world should also think it's

541

:

great. But it's not the greatest product that wins. It's

542

:

the greatest. The guys that communicate the best. So that

543

:

was why when everyone told me that the kid project

544

:

was not a good thing and I said, look about

545

:

that. We'll, we'll have a look and see who's right

546

:

or wrong. And also up in the mountains we went

547

:

for a fairly not so good concept. And

548

:

we'd done this before also at the island before. We

549

:

had to stay one night at our places up in

550

:

the mountains. There was like £100 something a night

551

:

about now the prices, people, a lot of people do

552

:

book come in and they pay as a storing fee.

553

:

They pay about €400 a night. Yeah. And

554

:

then food and drinks is extra. But you've taken, but

555

:

sometimes you've taken it on a journey. Right. You have

556

:

an initial concept. You put the concept out there. You,

557

:

in order for you to understand it works, you go

558

:

through that process of learning. You then understand how you

559

:

can make it better and how you can make it

560

:

better and how the whole thing can appeal to the

561

:

audience you're appealing to and you get to a balance

562

:

point. Yeah. And I see you that will probably become,

563

:

I mean you've just had two big articles and big,

564

:

big reporters coming across and yeah, I see that going

565

:

up to the thousand pound a night kind of place

566

:

or whatever, there's this connection coming as we go. We

567

:

go into this AI era and we'll talk a little

568

:

bit about that before we go into this AI era.

569

:

And the biggest single pain point I have with AI

570

:

is that it doesn't. People aren't looking at as a

571

:

way to give them time back and to be more

572

:

human, to get out into nature to undo the things

573

:

they love to do. This is what it should be

574

:

about. We've come up through this entire evolution of where

575

:

we are and now we have something that can give

576

:

us five, six, seven hours back a day. Yeah. And

577

:

then we don't want to use that to do the

578

:

same thing again. Excuse me, we want to use that.

579

:

This was like I do sometimes I have a little

580

:

bit extra time and then I write some articles for

581

:

the newspaper and I write about things that I think

582

:

about or evaluate a little bit. And then I had

583

:

an article I sent on Sunday, which came into the

584

:

biggest regional newspaper today. This morning. I didn't know, but

585

:

I just sent him in and I said, maybe this

586

:

is something. And then they said, great story. And then

587

:

I brought about sustainability because I think that most

588

:

companies and people are more interested in the batch of

589

:

sustainability than actually do sustainable things. Right? Yeah. And

590

:

they use 99 of all the money on. All on

591

:

concepts. That makes them maybe a little bit more. Less

592

:

pollution, maybe a little bit, but no actually impact. Yeah.

593

:

And then I also said, you guys, do you actually

594

:

believe that the UN sustainability and all the science and

595

:

measurement, do you believe in it? Do you think it's

596

:

true? And every businessman say, oh, yeah, we think so.

597

:

And then I say, so how can you guys still

598

:

run after uncontrolled growth when

599

:

UN says that your country has used up all your

600

:

energy or resources long before the year is gone and

601

:

you still talk about growth, you still talk about more

602

:

and more. Maybe you should actually do what

603

:

you say you believe in, try to make a more

604

:

balanced way. Yeah, yeah. Because if everyone is

605

:

asking for more salary, everything is going to be more

606

:

expensive. If everyone starts to say, we actually are fine,

607

:

it's okay. And then you, you can have a little

608

:

bit less pressure on economics. You can have more time

609

:

to say, but actually now we are 75% more productive

610

:

than maybe we were, I don't know, in the 70s

611

:

or 80s or whatever, when we have to use the

612

:

typewriter and everything. And then maybe

613

:

you can take half your time together with your family.

614

:

Maybe you can get, you know, get to know your

615

:

kids. Maybe you still can think

616

:

your wife is great, not just by a nagging or

617

:

anything. Maybe you can lower your shoulders. Not

618

:

getting so many kind of illnesses and sickness and stressed

619

:

out. Maybe you don't have to pay for all these

620

:

hours at the therapist. Maybe you can just go to

621

:

Norway instead. Amazing. Amazing. And I, yeah, I,

622

:

as I said, I've been to Norway a lot of

623

:

times now. I love the general approach, you know, I

624

:

love the way that everybody's got a little shed out

625

:

in the countryside that they go to. There's a real,

626

:

that we as a society, we can learn a lot

627

:

from Norway. And as a, as an entrepreneur society, I

628

:

Think we can learn so much more from the method

629

:

that you're bringing into this and this concept of connection

630

:

connecting you back with nature so that you can get

631

:

away from the stress and so that you can actually

632

:

learn a bit more about yourself. So I want to

633

:

just end this by asking you to give an idea.

634

:

We're still formulating, we're still going through the initial stages.

635

:

You've done a lot of this with people already. But

636

:

give an idea of what your future project for this

637

:

is going to look like. I'm building a system that's

638

:

a 12 months program slowly progressing, ending

639

:

in a trip to Norway I'm now working on with

640

:

two companies in the Netherlands, big businesses on week incentive

641

:

trips for teams. And we are, I'm

642

:

calling it into the Wild or the beach mountain concept

643

:

or we're working on titles on that. But it's a

644

:

little bit of getting out in different environments and

645

:

have some very nice exotic challenges in the island where

646

:

I have a rowing boat which it's not a Viking

647

:

ship, but it takes 14 people. Wow. And some

648

:

years ago we rode, we went all the way to

649

:

Oslo in that boat. And you can easily do a

650

:

mountain crossing to Denmark. But I don't think most people

651

:

have challenges with rowing in tune. So we keep it.

652

:

Or we have this, a deserted lighthouse which, which says

653

:

to be spooks out there or ghosts and stuff. It's

654

:

a little bit exotic but it's all the way as

655

:

far out in the ocean that you can. So we

656

:

go out there for a day or two. I put

657

:

them with wetsuits on. We, we put our own, we

658

:

pick our own food with oysters and big crabs. Go

659

:

back on shore up in the mountains, have some luxury

660

:

and then into the mountains again with more kind of

661

:

off grid, no cell phone coverage. Making everything from the

662

:

ground up. You're not getting matches. You have to learn

663

:

how to do without. Wow. And you have to put

664

:

up a tent, working a team. You have to skin

665

:

your fish which is from the lake if you're lucky

666

:

and then if you've caught one. So I want to

667

:

challenge people in a way which also challenged their

668

:

feelings a bit and more on a fundamental area and

669

:

get them a little bit more connected to themselves. So

670

:

reconnections from every day and mobile phones and all that

671

:

stress and then taking them down to what nature is

672

:

and, and take them off the path. And then this

673

:

is my plan is to have a one year concept

674

:

where you every month get small tasks which are not

675

:

so difficult. It's not, it's like when people. There's a

676

:

lot of people in the world who have been eating

677

:

everything they should to become ill. Yeah. Or fat or

678

:

out of tune or things like that. So the thing

679

:

to make a real change, you have to do changes

680

:

on several levels. It's not if you're a troubled kid

681

:

and they send you to the shrink and maybe you

682

:

have all these troubles because you don't have good eating

683

:

patterns, you don't sleep well, you don't have good people

684

:

taking care of you. But they want the shrink to

685

:

talk you into. To wellness. But

686

:

I think we need another approach where we actually doing

687

:

something for your brain, we're doing something for your body.

688

:

We prepare you. And that's what Wim Hof has done

689

:

with cold kind of learning techniques to prepare you for

690

:

challenges. And then when you are prepared, you can

691

:

do the challenges in a good way and grow. Yeah.

692

:

And that's what I would like to. And then of

693

:

course I would like people to like to show them

694

:

Norway and all these beautiful places and also get connected.

695

:

I have a little program, I have a little program

696

:

on my free time one one afternoon a month for

697

:

men. And that's only for men. It's not for ladies.

698

:

And we said this is just for guys. And a

699

:

lot of guys are feeling troubled. They feel alone,

700

:

they feel outside society. In Norway, the highest

701

:

death rate, people taking their own life is among men.

702

:

Yeah. Worldwide it's a. Yeah. Suicide

703

:

amongst men. This is society. Even if we love women

704

:

and say women, blah, blah, blah. The thing is that

705

:

it's not in tune, it's not balanced. Yeah. So what

706

:

I'm trying to do. And now I'm trying out my

707

:

theories and my methods on groups of guys. And

708

:

I do it as one, one once a month. And

709

:

we have Men's Health, which I talk to them. We

710

:

had the last Monday we had Everyday Gourmet. Yeah.

711

:

And all these guys, they were. This is the ingredients.

712

:

Jesus. The only thing I can make is cook water

713

:

and make associates. This is it. And then. Yeah. Where's

714

:

the recipe? We don't have one. Where's this? Oh, don't

715

:

you have to work in team and I think challenge

716

:

people, then you grow. Yeah. 100. So what an amazing

717

:

concept. Amazing way forward. I think we're definitely going to

718

:

have you back on here as we go through this

719

:

journey of building out this new entrepreneurial journey for you.

720

:

Thank you. What does that look like? So how can

721

:

people get all of you? What's the best way to

722

:

get hold of you and I'll put the contact details

723

:

for you below as well. Oh, I have a email,

724

:

which I sent you. And then. And just send me

725

:

a mail and then I respond fairly quickly if I'm

726

:

not outside or in our distillery at the moment making

727

:

gin. Actually, for next year, we have this product with

728

:

a sailship that only goes in the Arctics. So we

729

:

need a big barrel, which is going to be shipped

730

:

out to that ship and just sail in the Arctics

731

:

for a year before we're getting it back. So think

732

:

of doing. It's about being open. If you are open,

733

:

if you're relaxed, the world comes to you 100%.

734

:

Eric, thank you so much for joining us and for

735

:

sharing. It's been a pleasure talking to you and we'll

736

:

speak again soon. Thank you very much. Right.

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube