What if looking back on your year could help you see yourself more clearly, and step forward with intention?

In this special year-end episode, I step into the mic solo to reflect on 2025: the first full year of the Viking Academy Podcast. Across 26 conversations with thinkers, healers, entrepreneurs, and explorers, a powerful theme emerged: true growth happens when we explore the mind, body, and spirit together.

This episode isn’t a highlight reel, it’s a guided reflection. I revisit the insights that shaped me most this year, share what challenged my thinking, and invite you to pause and reflect on your own journey through 2025. Along the way, I offer simple questions, practices, and a grounding ritual to help you integrate what you’ve lived, not just intellectually, but experientially.

This is about wholeness, not hacks.
Integration, not optimization.
And remembering that the joy is in the exploration itself.

Topics We Explore:

• The unifying theme behind every Viking Academy conversation in 2025
• Exploring mind, body, and spirit as an integrated whole
• Lessons from fitness, neuroscience, art, technology, and spirituality
• Why quality beats quantity in growth, training, and life
• How stories, myths, and identity shape who we become
• The power of reflection, writing, and intentional self-inquiry
• Questions to help you close 2025 with clarity and open 2026 with purpose

Learn More about The Viking Academy: https://www.vikingacademy.com

Episode Transcript:

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Viking Academy podcast. Now today's podcast is going to be a little different. It's just me on this one. Now before you go, well I'm turning this thing off. I don't want to listen to Eric. Bear with me for a . I'm actually going to go and do a review of 2025. Um I did a summary and I looked back on all the episodes. We did 26 episodes in 2025. And it's really exciting because this is the first full year of episodes that we've that I've done.

Um, and uh, reflecting back on the year, it's been quite the ride. And um, I'm going to I'm going to cover off a bunch of highlights from the year. And we're going to cover off the areas of mind, body, and spirit. And at the end of each one, and I recommend you do this, grab a piece of paper, and a pen right now because I'm actually going to get you to think about what's happened to your life in 2025 when it has to do specifically with the mind, body, and spirit. and what our podcast guests had shared with us.

Um, some incredible insights for me. Uh, it's been quite a journey so far. The Viking Academy is just getting started. So, if you haven't joined, I highly recommend you join the Viking Academy. It's totally free and go to the Vikingacademy.com and become a member. And one other thing I want to just put at the front end of this this um podcast, I really would appreciate some feedback. So, send me an email, join the Viking Academy, contact me there, leave a message on whatever podcast platform you're listening to.

We're on YouTube, we're on Spotify and Apple. Um, but let me know a little bit more. But let's get into the recap of 2025 and see what it brought us in terms of this incredible um treasure trove of podcast guests that I had the pleasure and the honor to interview over 2025. So there we go. Without further ado, let's go explore. Okay, as promised, let's do this 2025 and review. So, um, I went back and looked at all of the episode that we had done in 2025 and, uh, came up with this kind of overarching theme, um, that was completely in alignment with the Viking Academy, you know, is that, you know, I think we're the only species on the planet that doesn't know why we're here.

Like really, like everything else knows what it's doing, but humans, we don't. But that that's where I think lies the actual fun. that lies the discovery because you know and and I've tried to simplify it down with the Viking Academy ethos and saying let's explore our mind, our body and our spirit. And the more I explore those three areas of me of Eric, the more I start to discover what my unique ability or what my unique cont value contribution is to the world and how I fit into the big picture.

Um, and it gives me energy and gives me passion and gives me purpose. And now all of a sudden I'm like, "Yeah, I want to go more. I want to learn more. I want to keep growing. I want to I I just want to keep exploring." And so, um, and and these podcast guests that I've had have been absolutely fantastic. And, um, you know, one of the things that really surprised me this year was people coming to me out of the woodwork. They would just contact me and say, "Hey, we want to I want to be on your podcast." Uh Dr.

Bill was one of the last ones I did and he he just reached out to me and I was like, "Wow, this is crazy." And this has been happening more and more. It's almost like I'm becoming attuned and in alignment or I'm the law of attraction is starting to happen and and people are starting to gather around the Viking Academy. So, I'm really excited to see what's going to happen in 2026 for the Viking Academy, but more importantly for you as the listener and hopefully a member of the Viking Academy to continue to explore yourself um and enjoy this this uh this crazy ride.

Okay, so let me let me go into this. So, I've got a bunch of notes here that I've written down. And what we're going to do is I'm going to kind of block this off into three areas and do this little intro first. And then I'm going to go into the body. And then at the end of it, I'm going to give you a couple spur questions. So, um, like I did in the intro, I said, you know, I recommend maybe getting a piece of paper out because there's nothing like actually taking your thoughts and writing it out on a piece of paper.

As you write things out, you will actually solidify the action from the thought that you've created. So, it's like the next stage, I guess, of creation is the first one is the thought, the one is the writing it out, the third one's actually doing something. So, um, highly recommend you do that. I'm going to give you a couple spur questions and then at the end I'm going to give you a couple of uh practices that you can use for yourself at the end that can encompass all three, the mind, the body, and the spirit.

So, um here, you know, let's let's get kind of diving into this. Um and and just one more thing before I I I kind of dive into the specifics. One thing that I did notice also as an overarching theme was, you know, the world's full of tactics and strategies and do this and you become a millionaire and do this and you become enlightened and do this and you become everything's wonderful and there'll be rainbows and unicorns and you'll be, you know, out gold out of your ass, right?

Well, it it's this it hasn't been so much getting strategies and tips here. It's more of a integrated wholeness, I guess, is what I'm trying to get to. like there everything in the mind, the body and spirit, they're all connected. Everything is connected. It's a wholeness. So, it's more of a try and get a specific strategy to achieve something as opposed to stepping into who you are as part of the grand picture, the big picture of life. And that to me is kind of the biggest takeaway that I took from 2025 was that these are all integrated pieces that all fit together. and I fit into that puzzle and you fit into that puzzle, but we the the the joy is in finding out how we fit into that puzzle.

So instead of trying to find a shortcut or a a a quick quick fix and a quick win to just solve all your problems, which by the way will never never happen. Um just enjoy the ride. And for me that's been very challenging because I'm a very goal oriented person. I need goals to strive for. But soon as I achieve those goals, I want to move on to the next thing. So that would be my last kind of comment on that. So let's dive into um the body.

Okay. And so we had specifically we had um Andrei Yakovenko and Alexander Heyne. There were a couple of podcast guests there that really kind of brought in a few of these key highlights that I want to point for you. Is the first one here is that um if we remember this back from Andre um what he said is that quality over quantity in training. So, we're going to talk about the body right now. So, when you're talking about taking care of the body, it's about the quality over the quantity.

So, remember he was the the the intense fitness training guy where he was like this impact training where you can go in and get a full body workout in like 40 minutes and you don't need to do more than that more than once or twice a week, which kind of boggled my mind. But again, it it it it's about the effort, the the focus and the attention on the task at hand that you're doing. And so for me, I started to go, you know, that's quite true because um there's a law called the Parkinson's law.

And the Parkinson's law says that um a task will use up the time that you all lot to it. Okay. So what happens is if all of a sudden I wrote a book and I'm going to be writing another one. I'm thinking about writing one for the Viking Academy. Actually, I shouldn't say I'm thinking. It is in prog progress. It's in the funnel. I'm going to probably start it in Q2. It'll be the Viking Academy book. But if I give myself a year or two years to write a book, that's how long it'll take.

If I tell myself I need to write the book in the next month, that's how long it'll take. I think about that too for exercise. It's like when you actually limit yourself and you actually create more purpose and intensity, you actually get a better result from it. And that's something I took away from it. Um the other thing that kind of walked away in this these three I want to kind of highlight three kind of key points on each one of these areas on the mind, body and spirit.

So on the body the first one is quality over quantity. The one is how tuning your body like when you have muscle fatigue u you're losing breath and you're and and and failure say muscle failure it's it can actually become a spiritual practice of presence being present as opposed to just having a workout. So you can actually integrate it into your spirit as well is like be completely present with your body while you're working out. And that was another one of the messages that definitely came out and and and then integrating the last one and this is with Alexander Heynes if you remember him he was he was integrating ancient medicine with modern medicine.

It's like if we integrate the ancient medicine and the modern medicine together and move beyond this all or nothing thinking to saying oh it's all about western medicine it's all about eastern medicine. Well it's for me I really I I've been working on this all or nothing uh mindset. Put the two together and just go it's everything. It's all of it. It's all connected. So instead of saying well modern medicine is good and ancient is bad or and eastern is bad or or vice versa just go it's both let's take the best of both worlds and integrate them together and um so that those are the three things quality over quantity how to tune your body into becoming a spiritual practice when you're working out and integrating uh the ancient and the modern medicine to help us heal our body.

So now here's a couple questions that I just want to leave with you is that for in 2025 two questions is the first one is where did you ignore your body this year? So I'm I'm saying this to myself. Okay, where did I ignore my body this year? What did I what did I ignore but I kind of knew intuitively I should have focused on. So I'm going to leave that with you. You know for me I would say um my working out it was not consistent in 2025.

Let's be I'll be honest with you. Okay. Um, now I've done some really good work, especially with um I've been working on lately the um doing intermittent fasting has done a huge results to my to my weight. But actually working on my physical strength and uh working out at the gym and and getting that physical for me that's where I ignored my body a little bit too much this year. And that for me is an intention for 2026. I want to get back on that horse and start being a little more intentional with with my physical training with the physical body and the muscle mass.

I want to build it up, especially because I saw my son the other day. He's 20. Jake's uh 23 now. Um and uh the boy is ripped. You should see his pipes. It's pretty good. Jake, if you're listening, yes, I was impressed by your pipes and I'm actually motivated by it. So, dad's going to have to pick up the pipe machine and uh work on his his muscles. So, that's the first question. And then the question I'm going to ask you, so where did you ignore your body last year?

And the question is, where did you actually honor your body like a sacred ally? And this this question I really like because where did I actually honor my body? So it's like a sacred ally. So in other words, for me that becomes uh a detachment from the body. The body is not me, but it's something that is my sacred ally and I re revere it. So like actually having more reverence for the body and saying I'm going to take care of this vessel, this meat sack, this this holy vessel that's actually carrying my spirit in it and actually actually honor it.

So in the last year, where did you honor your body um as a sacred ally and I like that um that framing around that. So that was um that's what I got out of the body from from this year. Um let's move on to the mind. So, um, in the mind we we had, uh, some, again, so many great guests, and I'm picking out just a handful here that I I remember, um, and that I've highlighted on, but there were just so many great guests. But, so if you're any a guest and you don't hear me mention, you don't get pissed because you're incredible as well.

It's just I've got I had 26 episodes to pick from. Okay. So, what I did is I was I I focus in on um, André Brisson. He did the ADHD. We had him I had him on a couple times. uh Gina Mollicone Long which she integrated science and spirituality. Um I'm really looking forward to seeing where Gina where you're taking uh things when you go to she's in Oxford now uh doing a PhD on some crazy stuff where she's trying to match and bring that that that across um and then uh using uh and then also Erik Horbacz and he if you remember he had Corvia AI where he used um personal songs and AI to write your own song.

So here's the thing is the three points that three highlights that I want to bring from from the mind that I picked up from um last season on the Viking Academy podcast is number one is that a neurodivergence is an actual advantage and this is something that Andre pointed out. Now, you don't have to specifically have ADHD to apply this to yourself, but I love how he took what he thought was his kryptonite and he turned it into his superpower, which is his ADHD. And he goes, "No, actually, you can take this and actually you can take what you already are and who you are wired, naturally wired." Because obviously, you know, Andre didn't pick ADHD.

It picked him. But he said once he built a system around his true wiring instead of masking it over, in other words, embracing who he truly was, that's when things started to take off for him. And uh he's doing incredible work in the ADHD space, especially for entrepreneurs. Um uh the Impulsive Thinker podcast is fantastic. I've been on it a couple times. And so, um, think about this for yourself is that who you are, embrace who you are, and work with what you've been given. So, work with your gifts that been given to you because that's what you're here to actually experience, right?

You you're here to experience you. Um, the that I've often said to people that's shows you exactly how much the creator loves you. Whether you call it God, Alibaba, Buddha, Brahma, baby Jesus, I don't care. It doesn't matter. It's a personal thing to each one of us. But call it spirit, guide, creator, whatever doesn't take the take the comment or the the concept that resonates best with you and use that when I'm talking about this. But this is how much God loves you is he just gave you you.

That's it. You are there's no other person before or after in this in time that will ever experience you. That was the gift that we all received is actually being our being us. And I think that is the most incredible mindset to have and because then you realize that everything you get is just for you. That's your gift. That was God's gift to you is you. And so um Andre really highlighted that around taking what we think are these hindrances or we things that we're not happy with and we're angry with God or the creator or our parents because we inherited it from them which is complete because our parents inherited it from the next person.

So, how could they even possibly have any control over how their genetic makeup was and it's just passed down, right? But embracing who you are and instead of fighting it. So, I loved how he did that. Um, the other one uh is the myth of being broken. And so this is the kind of concept and this is in in terms of not so much what you've inherited but what your how your subconscious programming has created emotional patterns and hypnosis like states that shape our behavior and that was Gina Mikoni long brought this in and she was really like well what's the pattern what's the programming that's actually created the way you act today and she's like and she's I love how she's passionate yet dispassionate about the why She just wants to know, well, this is this is the way it is.

She's very much the isness person. I like that. Gina is like an isness. This is the way it is. So, how do we deal with it? How do we deal with our patterning and our mental states and go, what is the programming that I'm thinking about that I want to change so I have a different result? And this is what I do a lot. Oh, actually, this is the only thing I do when I go to strategic coach. I'm actually one of their associate coaches now.

So, not only do I do go to strategic coach uh to be coached by Dan Sullivan, he is my coach um to change my thinking when I'm the coach and I'm coaching other entrepreneurs, I'm helping them rewire and reframe their thinking so that you get a different result. So, when you think about see what I did there, that was a pun. When you think about your life, your experience of life is directly proportionate to how you think about it. End of stop. Done. Doesn't matter what kind of life you're experiencing.

If your mindset is experiencing good things, you will experience a good life. If your mindset is experiencing or thinking bad things, you're going to experience a bad life. Um, Man's Search for Meaning, uh, The Holocaust Survivor, as it's Victor Frankle, I believe, was the, um, was the, uh, author of that one. I haven't read that one yet. Someone told me about it again lately, and I got to pick that one up and read it. Changes the way you think about life will change your experience. Dr.

Wayne Dyer talks about this. When you change the way you look at the world, the world that you look at changes. So, it's all about your mindset. And Gina brought that back into focus for me on the podcast, which is like, what is my programming? What is the thinking that was in there that I need to rewire going forward? And then the third one, which was a total shocker, that was a surprise. Erik Horbacz, by the way, Erik spells his name correctly, by the way. It's with a K, so I'm very happy about that.

Um he used uh using art and technology to uh as mirrors for your mind and catalyst for healing. So with that he they had Corvia Corvia C O R V I A AI's personal song. So if you remember the episode he actually says you can go in and you write about yourself and talk to it and it will create a song about you. So, it actually uses art and technology to actually help you have a song that helps you heal. And they've shown it to actually heal you heal your your mind and your body by listening to the song.

I haven't done it yet. Um, but it's incredible when you think about it that I already know from experience that art completely heals my soul and my mind and my body. I play in a heavy metal band called Rain Down. So, if you haven't seen it, go to raindown.rocks and Rain Down down. Rockros. Um, we played uh this huge festival in September, uh, Rifflandia. I played for 8,000 people. We play in the bars all the time. Um, we've got a whole bunch of shows coming up in 2026.

We play 80s heavy metal, which is my favorite music of all time. Um, and and it absolutely clears my mind when I'm in that artistic creative zone and I'm playing music. And so, but Eric took it to a different level, which integrating technology, and I love technology, and it technology as a tool is fantastic, but don't use it as a crutch. Um, but when you take the the technology and the art and you put it together, and it works as a as a healing tool for the body, it actually heals the body.

And so, here's the last three things. So, let's go kind of highlight on the body. Sorry, on the mind. I'm on the mind. The three things that I I highlighted from the from the year is that neurodivergence is an advantage. So embrace who you are and work with it, not against it. Number two is you're the myth about being broken. You're not broken. We've just been programmed, right? And that's it's a program, mental programming that we can actually rewire. So it's about being being uh intentional about rewiring it.

Just accepting the isness of it, but we can rewire it and change it. And then the third thing is using art and technology to actually uh heal the mind and a catal and and catalyst for healing the mind. And it's a mirror into the mind. That was the other thing that Eric said. It's it's a mirror into your mind. So which is really cool. And actually the more I'm talking about this, I really should go check out this Corvia AI personal songs. It's a little bit harder for me because I want to actually create my own music.

So maybe I need to do that. I'm going to spend a little more time in my music. And and again, I get them something out of every podcast and I'm talking I'm the only one on this podcast talking and I'm getting stuff out of the things that I'm talking about. So that that's why I love this. So here's the thing. Here's the questions again. We got two questions for you. Okay, I have two questions for you that I want you to think about. Um is that the first one is what story did you finally stop telling yourself this year?

Okay, what story did you finally stop telling yourself this year? Right? And so for me, what was the story that I finally stopped telling myself this year? And and I'd have to think about that one. I would think that I think there's a lot of personal self-worth issues that I have. And that I think I stopped telling myself the story that I'm not worthy, right? And that I started to step into who I was. And that's the whole purpose of the Viking Academy. I'm finally stepping and embracing my Viking heritage and who I am as a Viking. and I'm loud and I'm and I'm passionate and I'm starting to embrace this and so I've I've stopped telling myself the story that I that I don't that I'm worthy and I can be myself.

And so for me that's what I'm stepping into. So the first thing that's the first question I want you to ask yourself is what story did you finally stop telling yourself this year? And then the thing which is really interesting is what new identity or narrative did you dare to try on this year. So in other words, what was the what is the story that you stopped telling yourself and what is the new narrative in the new story you told yourself which is really kind of cool.

And so for me again that comes back to the Viking. I actually told myself this new that this is the new narrative or the new identity I took on but it was always me which is kind of wild because it was always there. So it's like kind of an uncovering. So but these are the two questions I want to kind of leave you with is um what story did you finally stop telling yourself this year and what new identity or narrative did you try on? Okay.

And again, when you're listening to the podcast, just give it a quick little stop if you want to and take some time to write these out. And I highly recommend this. You might want to go back and listen to the podcast again, but go back in and write these things down and take the time to think about them. Um, because that's what I find in strategic coach and what seems to be the wellspring of all awesome things for me is we take time to think about our thinking.

And if you stop and actually spend time on these areas exploring them, right, we're bringing explorers, you will uncover all sorts of um discoveries that will totally shock and delight you. I guarantee you that. Okay, so then let's move on to the last area of review for 2025, which is the spirit side, which was like, holy oh this one knocked my socks off. Okay. Um, I could have every single guest that I had on this was took it to a new level, a new level of understanding and perspective.

Um, there's been a bunch of stuff that's happened even since the last podcast that I I if I went into it, it would take quite a few hours, but things are changing very quickly and dramatically in the spiritual I want to I don't want to call it a spiritual space because it's it's all spirit. It's all part of this. It's spirit, mind, body, and spirit. It's all connected. It's all one. But here's the thing I want to highlight on the spirit for 2025 that we had.

And so there's kind of three areas. One was Odin's round table, which I had this great conversation with Niki Hughes, uh Tammy Grantham, and Denise Grahams. That was awesome. The Vik the Odin's round table. Highly recommend you go back and listen to that one. There was Peter Fae which on mythic work and then quantum vision with Chad and Stell brain explosion for me on that one. Uh brain explosion but let's just kind of highlight the key lessons that I I wanted to reflect on for this year is that um is and this was uh you know Peter Fae's mythic work and it was really kind of cool because like Peter was just way out there again.

He was another guy that just reached out to me. It was fantastic. He talks about seeing your life as a myth or and I I kind of sometimes reframe it as look at your life as a story like what is the story and but he looked at as a myth in terms of the world tree the rainbow bridge and each person's song as a map for their unfolding and it's kind of cool if you think it as a quest or a myth or a journey that your whole life is this story that can be told.

Like you think about it, you're going to live this lifestyle, this lifetime, and then it's going to be a story that's told to others. And he he really reframed that for me in terms of thinking of it as a it's a really cool novel or a story. What's the story of Eric? And and for yourselves, think about that. Go, what's the story of you? What would be the story of you if you could actually go back and and and pace it out? Now, Peter went into like a much deeper realm in terms of past lives and connected with the spirits and and I remember even in the podcast he lost me a bunch of times because I was trying to keep up to where he was what he was talking about.

He has a totally different understanding and an experience perspective than I could keep up with. But it was awesome to listen to him and I could understand it but not fully grasp it if that makes sense. Um so that was the first one seeing your life as a myth and a story which is really cool. Um the thing um would be and this was from Odin's round table is collective shifts and we were talking about resurfacing trauma frequency changes and choosing to evolve rather than staying in low states.

So, this was in the the Odin's round table um with Tammy, Denise, and Nikki, and it was like we all have a choice. And I love the idea. I love knowing that I can choose because so many times in life, and I see this when I'm working with people um in all of my different businesses and my coaching world is that people when they the minute you feel like you don't have a choice, you go despondent. you get depressed, you get angry, all those things. It's because choice is a creative act.

You get to choose. You get to choose what you want to do and who you want to be and how you want to express yourself. You actually have a ton of choice. Now, within that, there's limitations. I mean, clearly, you know, uh I, you know, I'm 6'2. I can't all of a sudden want to be 10 feet tall, right? 10 feet tall and bulletproof. Well, give me some booze and I probably feel like I'm 10 feet tall and bulletproof, which is a bad thing. But so there are limitations physically around us.

But within that we have a ton of choice. And I love this fact that saying we can actually choose to upgrade ourselves. We can choose to evolve. We can choose to explore. It's all in alignment with the Viking Academy ethos being an explorer. So exploring yourself and going you know we're not you're not alone. And that I think that's the other thing I want to highlight from this point is that it's a collective shift. And this is why I like the thought of creating the Viking Academy uh membership and creating a movement of explorers and warriors and shield maidens and just coming together as a group because when we do it together, we realize we're all in this together.

And so it's not just the traumas and the the the frequency changes that are happening individually. It's all happening as a collective. And um so but there's a choice. So, you get to choose. And I've had a lot of conversations with some people that are very tapped into the spiritual realm, other dimensional beings. And they keep talking about 2026, 27 is going to be the time when we're going to have first contact. We're going to start finally contacting with with whatever you want to call it.

You want to say contact with the aliens, interdimensional beings, whatever it is. You know, here comes the little green men. Um, but that's being it's it's I find it really exciting actually for me. I I'm kind like this is really cool. Um, because it will open up our worlds and but you get we get I think the thing that came out of it is that you get to choose whether or not you want to stay in the old way of thinking or if you want to grow and evolve and personally I want to grow and evolve and continually change my thinking and enjoy the ride because it's so much fun.

So there was a thing and then the third one and this is where my bl brain exploded and um it was the podcast I had with Chad Jenkins and Stelios Nikolakakis Dr. Nick and I did two individual podcasts with both of them separately, but the one I did with them combined was all about quantum vision. And this again kind of took science, the quantum world and what we understand about the quantum realm and spirituality and all of a sudden I saw this meshing. And the big thing that was really cool about this is I saw this connectivity between all of it.

And Chad's comment was you can take emotion as a frequency, okay, and to determine what's possible. So you remember about quantum vision, Chad said that those that can see possibilities have quantum vision. But then taking that quantum vision and actually making it a reality is you need to collapse that possibility which is in the quantum realm which is he said everything exists everywhere all at once. to take that vision and seeing what the possibility is which is one of the things that exists but not at this dimension you have to collapse it down into this reality.

So collapsing it down into this dimension and if you think about it from from a spiritual perspective and even religious it's like God is everything or everything is all here all abundance is all available to us at any point in time. It's just having enough consciousness to be able to see it and to be able to bring it into this reality. But it all exists everywhere. And the teachings of Jesus was completely in alignment with what we were talking about. Um, and a lot of other spiritual teachings are all pointing to the same thing.

But with when Chad and and and Stell started talking about this and bringing it all together, I was like, "Holy crap. This is what entrepreneurs do. We see possibilities and we want to create this cuz I I always see these possibilities how we can make things better and I'm like I want to create that and then I get frustrated because I can't bring it into this reality but I can see it. I can see in my mind I can see it working. I can see all the parts connecting together.

Beautiful harmony almost like a beautiful song. But the frustration for me is making it into a reality. And I think if you're an entrepreneur you totally understand what I'm talking about. You have a vision for the future and you're trying to bring it into the present. Chad and Stell talked about how that is actually done. In our podcast, they actually talked about how to take that and collapse it into this. And it's all about frequency and emotion and being in alignment with flow, which is again all in alignment with every spiritual teaching.

And then from the quantum realm and our understanding of quantum physics is that particles appear and disappear everywhere all the time. So it's coming in and out of existence which then brings this into which quantum realm is the item or the thing that we're looking at in we need to collapse it in and bring it into this one. So again I'm still trying to integrate that podcast and if you are too um I don't blame you because it was quite a big one to kind of digest.

So those are the three things. So let's go back into those three. It says number one see your life as a myth. Okay, as a story very cool make it a epic adventure. Number two is the collective shifts and it's a choice to either grow or stay in the old paradigm in the old model. And the third one was emotion and frequency determines what possibilities are available and what you bring down into this dimension and what you actually manifest into this world. So here we go. here.

Grab your piece of paper again. Two questions. Okay. Um, first one, if this year, if 2025 were a chapter in your myth or your story, what would its title be? Like what would the title be in this chapter? Right? So, for 2025 for you, so just take a little bit of time and think about that. What would your chap if this was a chapter in your story, because that's all it is, one year. What would the title be? And for me, um, geez, that's a tough one actually.

You notice that I haven't I hadn't even prepared on all of this stuff because I wanted to walk through and explore it with you. And that's what I like to do on all the podcasts is actually explore the topics at the same time with you with the podcast guest. So that's what I'm doing here as well. So if my was a chapter, um I think discovery is probably one of the would be discovery would be my chapter for this year. Um I was going to say exploration, but it doesn't feel it doesn't resonate right.

I'm not I'm trying to follow what Chad talked about, get to that emotional frequency. I think discovery is the big one is discovering my purpose and the Viking Academy for me is being that purpose. I love doing the podcasts. I love exploring. Um it's so much fun uh finding out who I am and why I'm here and what I'm here to do and that's what I want to share it with you as well. So for me it would be discovery. Um number two, here's the question.

All right. Um what dragon did you face or refuse to face in 2025? Okay. So what fear or what dragon did you face or did you refuse to face in 2025? And again, I think this is going to take me a bit of time to think about this, but um hm what dragon did I face? I I think I well okay I'll I'll put it this way. I think the dragon that I faced was fear of rejection. Um for me that's a big thing is that actually being me was I remember being a kid I would stand up and I would scream yell and loud and go this is what we're going to do.

Let's go follow me. And sometimes people would fall and other times they would laugh and I I'd fall on my face and something would happen. They go, "See, I told you, Eric, you couldn't do it." So, I've got a lot of childhood trauma from that. Um, again, that word trauma sometimes it it's different levels of trauma, like we have real trauma, like extreme trauma, and then you have emotional trauma, but it's all stuff. So, we call it trapped energy. I would like to reframe it as that.

I still have some trapped energy in around there of actually standing up and and being myself, being me. And being in the Viking Academy for myself has actually been my step out of going facing that dragon and going, you know what? it. I'm going to talk about spirituality. I'm going to talk about the body. I'm going to talk about the mind. I'm going to talk about the ethos of the Viking Academy. Um because I've had a bunch of people say to me and honest, they've gone, "Eric, I've listened to some of those podcasts and man, uh you're off in a limb, man.

Where are you going? You're not making any sense. you're not staying in the real world. And I'm like, oh, thanks for that. And and it actually didn't impact me because I'm like, well, you know what? it. I'm going to go explore everything and I'm going to be myself. So, for me, that's that would be mine. o, for you again, what dragons did you face or did you refuse to face? And I'm going to have to think about what I refuse to face. I'm going to do a little more reflection on that.

So, um, so there you go. There's the there's my reflection on 2025 and the the mind or the body, the mind, and the spirit. And then so I kind of want to leave you with um I said I would leave you with a with a ritual. Now I I shared this ritual in the Viking Academy. Again, if you're not a member, go join. It's free. Absolutely free. Um I do Viking shot videos every other week in between podcasts, which I share a whole bunch of resources and ideas and and reflections on what I'm exploring and what you can explore.

And um and it's lots of fun. We're going to build that out a little bit more in 2026. I'm not 100% sure what it's going to look like, but I know I want to keep growing it and I want to increase the membership. So, uh, go join, get your friends to join if they're interested. Um, but here's the thing that I covered off inside there is I talked about my my morning ritual. And I said I wanted to give you kind of a a simple a ritual that I use.

And it's I call it the Viking rise ritual. And so I take Viking and I take every letter and then I I I use I do a word for it and then I follow through on that. And so this is what I do for myself. So I take the word Viking and I go V. V is for vigilance. And which means that I need to be constantly on point, which is being intentional, which is being vigilant and saying this is purposeful. I'm going to do this.

So every morning I wake up, I go Viking rise. Okay, sit up. Be vigilant. Okay. Number two, invocation. Invocation, which is I invite the spirits and whatever I'm connected to and whatever it feels that moves me. Sometimes I get up in the morning, I say, "Morning God. Thanks for the morning. Please guide my thinking. Sometimes I'll talk to Odin. Sometimes I'll talk to Thor. Sometimes I'll talk to the spirit world." It doesn't matter. I'm inviting in the bigger experience into me. And whatever you call it, you can just decide.

But I invocate and I bring it into me. So it makes me Should we call it right-sized? Because I realize that egoically I think, "Oh, I'm going to do it all myself." But I'm not. I'm not making my body run, so I'm not making the birds sing and I'm not making the trees breathe. So there's other forces at at work here. It's the entire universe. So it puts me in the right size going, I'm going to invite the spirits and whatever deities or god or whatever I'm feeling at that time to come and join me in the in the morning ritual.

Then number three is knowledge. K is for knowledge. So v i k knowledge. And then what I do is I do a read. I do readings every morning. And the ones that I've been reading lately is I do a daily reflections. And that's for me that's that's my uh recovery literature that I read. So I read that every morning. I've been reading one paragraph and just one from Marcus Aurelius uh meditations and that is about all you need because it's packed with stoic philosophy and incredible wisdom and inadvertently what I read in my daily reflections and that one is just com combined together it's beautiful and then I've added a third one that I do a reading on and I'll read maybe a couple pages is spiritual economics one of my favorite books that I've read so far that I've been reading so far.

So, but I I do that. I take those three and I do the readings on those. Again, sets the mind up. So, I've done vigilance, invocation, knowledge. Then I go to I, which is inspiration. Now, be honest. This I haven't done a very good job of this, but I'm going to work on it for 2026 is inspiration. I talk this is inspiration, which is being quiet and meditating and allowing some inspiration to come in. And inspiration from Latin is inspir which it comes from the the spirit mind, the higher conscious, subconscious, whatever you want to call it.

But being still and meditating for even a short period of time just to allow in the knowledge and the wisdom from that is a greater knowledge, a higher power into my life. I haven't been good about that lately. I'd send I'm realizing it as I'm walking through this with you guys going ah soulback and you've missed that and I have but you know what all progress starts by telling the truth so that's the truth but when I do spend some time just even even a minute just being quiet and breathing and just allowing that in man it just centers me just completely grounds me and centers me then I go to N okay in Viking N is nutrition so every morning I get up and I take my daily vitamins and my AG1.

And AG1 is a fantastic supplement. It's also I mentioned it in the Viking Academy uh membership site as well. Um there's no affiliation with AG1 and me. I just love it because it gives me all these nutrients and what I need first thing in the morning. And then what I've been doing is actually intermittent fasting. So I've have nothing to I try and stop eating around or 8 7 or 8 at night. And then I don't eat anything until the next day. So, I'm trying to I'm trying to do a 16:8 is roughly what I'm trying to get at. 168.

It's made a huge difference to me, but I'll just But that nutrient I still need those nutrients. I want them in the morning. So, I have nutrition and however that works for you. And I and again, I'm just sharing this with you so you can decide if you want to try it. So, try the Viking rise ritual. So, N is nutrition. And then G is for growth. And G means I want to get physically active. I want to physically move my body. So, I've got a ritual where I do sit-ups and push-ups and bridges and squats that I do.

I try and again I have not done a good job of being consistent on this. I'm being completely honest, but trying to do that every single day and then on top of that, I'll still go and do the gym. Again, another thing that I want to focus on in 2026, but that is just a framework for me. And so this I'm just giving you this as a ritual that you can use and call it Viking. So vigilance, invocation, knowledge, inspiration, nutrition, and growth. And so um you know for me uh before we fire off into 2026 here um I just want to leave you with one last thought is that um you know what would you like from your life in 2026? like what do you really really want to achieve and be for me I'm so focused on getting the Viking Academy uh membership site up and running and this movement of explorers and and warriors to really change the shall we call it the consciousness of those who want to join us.

Again, I'm not trying to force anybody in on this at all because I'm stubborn. If you tried to force me to do something, I'd not do it because that's the way I am. And so, I'm not going to force that on anybody else. But I want to invitation to those who want to join join us here at the Viking Academy and do what I call the three things, three E, which is embrace your inner Viking, explore your three dimensions of mind, body, and spirit, and experience the joy of self-discovery.

And I think I truly believe every single one of us was put on the planet for a reason. We're the only species that doesn't know why we're here. But that's the fun. That's the adventure. That's the excitement. And so for 2026, I'm going to keep exploring. I hope you keep exploring with me. If you have any friends that or family or acquaintances that want to come and join us, tell them about the Viking Academy. Tell them about the membership site. Um, we're going to keep growing, keep expanding because ultimately, you know, we're putting the time in anyways.

Why not have fun while we're doing it? So, for me, 2026 is going to be a year of fun and exploration and discovery. And I hope you join me on that quest. Again, 2025 was awesome. First full year of podcast for the Viking Academy. Woohoo! 2026, here we come. Let's go get it. 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.