In this first episode of the Viking Academy Podcast, I share why I created the Viking Academy and what it means to live like a modern Viking. Ready to explore?

Questions I answer in this episode:

• Why I create the Viking Academy
• What does the Viking Academy do?
• How you can get involved 

Episode Transcript:

Erik Solbakken: Everyone, welcome to the Viking Academy Podcast. I am your host, Erik the Viking Solbakken. I wanted to give you a little rundown of three questions that I have. People ask me why I made the Viking Academy. First of all is why did you do it? What does it do? And how can I be involved? So I'm gonna address those three questions in order here. So why did I create the Viking Academy? I created the Viking Academy to tackle one of the world's biggest questions. It's a timeless question. It's been around since humans ever landed on the planet. The big questions are why are we here? What's our purpose? Who are we? All these Deep philosophical and practical questions that help us traverse what's going on in life. So that's why I started with the Viking Academy, because I found for my own life that I started to see some patterns emerge as I've been growing older and experiencing life. And what's been the biggest aha moment for me lately is that I realized the universe had a plan for me from the beginning. There's been signs in my childhood, there's been signs during my adolescence, during my, some would say my childish adult life. I've gone through a whole bunch of personal traumas, and I'll get into all of those in the podcast, and I'll be sharing openly and honestly my journey in this. But ultimately, I've found that when I've embraced my exploration nature, my mindset of being the Viking that I always was when I was a little kid. They used to call me that back in grade school. Erik, I was the Viking, I was the Norwegian. I was full of piss and vinegar, ready to take on the world. And then something happened, it got crushed, and I ended up going into finance and conforming myself to be what I thought others wanted me to be. And then eventually I had a very big personal breakdown through my alcoholism. My world collapsed around me, and then I had to start searching and finding out who the hell this Erik guy is and how does he fit in the world. And I've started to piece it all together, and I found that when I've been an explorat- an exploratory human, when I've been that warrior Viking looking to explore and find out what this whole life is about, I realized I distilled it down into three things. There's three dimensions to being human. It's the mind, the body, and the spirit. And I believe the ancient Vikings really encapsulated that in its finest form. They were physical beings, men and women. You had the Valkyrie, you had the shield maidens, you had the men warriors. Like, they're all warriors. They were very strong in their minds. They created the longship, they created new ways of exploring the world, that was technologically advanced at the time. And the third thing, which is I think the pivot, which is the foundation of the Vikings, is that they were really strong in their spirit. They were so connected to their spirit that they weren't afraid to die. They really, they wanted to die with a sword in their hand, so they lived fully and completely. And I finally realized this is that embrace. And so this comes to the second question I was saying, what does the Viking Academy do? So the Viking Academy, to me, is a combination of taking the approach to life that the ancient Vikings had. So go from the ancient and combine it with the present day- humans search for meaning. And when we put those two together, we can take the ancient teachings from the past and combine it with our present-day dilemmas that we're going through, trying to figure out who we are and why we're here. And when you put those two together, you have this beautiful alchemy moment where I realize that being a spiritual warrior and really searching yourself and exploring those three dimensions is what unlocks the, the portal to your soul, I call it. You unleash who you are, and then you start to see why you're here. I'm starting to really understand the reason why my life has gone the way it has, and it's culminated to this point where I needed to start the Viking Academy. And I had consulted the Book of Runes. Again, my spiritual journey on this about the Book of Runes is something that I've been doing the. For those of you watching the video, you'll be able to see me holding the, the book up. And I consulted the Runes on my spiritual side and to connect with my ancient ancestry. But I realize that you don't have to have Norwegian ancestory, or an ancest- ancestry, there I go stumbling over my words, to be able to have that Viking warrior spirit. To just go, "Let's lean into life. Let's really look and find out what the hell is going on here. Let's figure out how we fit into the picture." How does the Viking Academy work? What I'm doing on this podcast is I'm interviewing the world's top thought leaders in the, what I call the three dimensions of life, the mind, the body, and the spirit. And so we're gonna be interviewing, having great conversations with people who are, experts in the mind, experts in the body, experts in the spirit. And if I'm lucky, we can spread out into all three of those areas and find out from our guests on the podcast what other areas we can explore ourselves. So that's the other thing I really wanted to highlight to you in this this platform that I'm building is that I'm a fellow traveler. I'm a fellow explorer with you. I wanna be able to say I'm like your Sherpa. I say, "I've been up to this part. Let's- I'll come back down and I'll bring some of you with me," but then there's gonna be some other areas where we're all gonna be exploring together. And, and the, the big thing I want you to take away from this podcast and this platform is to explore. Be curious. Go look and explore and find out what resonates with you. We're gonna naturally talk about things in the spiritual realm. We're gonna be talking about the different religions in the world. I'm not gonna be pushing one or the other on you. This is for you to explore and find out what resonates with you. Like, I've recently found that my Viking heritage and connecting with the gods, with the ancient Vikings' way of speaking to the gods and connecting to their spirit through the runes, the Viking runes, has been incredibly helpful for me. And also in my quest for staying sober, it's one of the underpinnings, the foundations of the AA program is God couldn't wood if He were saw it. So if you seek this higher power, you can stay sober, and so far so good. It's working. And so for me what I wanna do is share that with you. And I thought what would be fun here on this first podcast is that I'm just gonna, I'm gonna quickly take one of the runes out of here and I'm gonna ask the gods right now just to tell me what they want me to share with you. I'm gonna take out one of these runes and see what it tells me to look, what are we looking for. And we have a rune here, it's called initiation. Initiation, one oh- page 103 on this Book of Runes, and it's called Perth, 103. So let's go to 103 and see what that says on this first podcast. And here we go. Initiation, something hidden, a secret matter. Perth, that's the Viking rune. Sorry, I'm gonna hold this up for those of you watching the video there. There's the rune right there. And it says it's a heretic or mystery rune pointing to that which is beyond our frail, manipulative powers. Perth is on the side of heaven, the unknowable, and the associations with the phoenix, that mystical bird which consumes itself in fire and then rises from its own ashes. Its ways are secret and hidden. Powerful forces of change are h- at work here, yet what is achieved not easily or readily shared. After all, becoming whole, the means of it is in a profound secret. So that's not the whole reading here, but I'm just gonna go through that, and this is quite something- Nothing less than a renewal of your spirit is at stake when you draw this rune. So what we're talking about here, and what I'm seeing the gods telling us, is that you're going to become whole. As you become a seeker, as you start exploring these three dimensions of being human, as you join us in the Viking Academy, you are going to find a way to become whole, but there will be secrets out there. So you have to be, you have to be a seeker, you have to be an explorer, and that's what this is all about. The other thing I just wanted to add to you, in this introductory, podcast, is that there's another way for you to join, be part of the Viking Academy, is go to vikingacademy.com and join the membership. Become one of the tribe. Join your people that are also wanting to explore and figure out who they are and what their purpose is. And you'll find on the website, too, I've created the Viking Academy rune. It's a call signal for the Viking warriors, for us to be s- explorers, experiencing life to its fullest, and just to embrace who you are. That's, one final thing I wanna share with you, is I know for a fact that you were made for a reason. You were made for a purpose. You are here to experience something. You are here to contribute to this world. So for me, the Viking Academy stands for taking complete ownership of your own life, for you to constantly improve yourself and your tribe, and for you to make your mark on the world. There's a reason why you're here. You're here to make a mark on the world, you're here to improve yourself and your tribe, and you're here to take complete ownership of your life. And if these things resonate with you, then the Viking Academy is just right for you. And on the website, like I said, there's other, there's other resources. There will be a membership. We'll all be there for you. But for now, the Viking Academy podcast is what I have here for you for free. So the last thing I wanna leave you with is to consider embracing your inner Viking and joining me as we explore the three dimensions of being human. And with that, let's go explore. Thanks for listening to the Viking Academy podcast. Make sure to leave us your honest feedback by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify, and hit subscribe so you never miss an episode.