Barbell Shrugged - Brian Muka: Harnessing Fear, Wim Hof, and Starting Your Day With A Challenge — The Bledsoe Show #124

Episode Date: March 8, 2019

Brian Muka (@brian_muka) helps people turn fear into a superpower. Brian believes that this overlooked powerful source of energy is the key to getting more done, saying yes to the right things and no to the wrong, and when harnessed can result in more impact and income. Brian teaches the tools of masters to keep fear small and manageable and helps people get to know fear to turn into fuel, focus and ultimately a friend.   Advice from Brian: Do something every day that scares you because your life expands proportionally to your ability to harness fear.   In this episode we talk about how Brian harnesses fear, his experience working as an EOD, night skydiving, Whim Hof breathing, how utilizing breath saved Brian’s life, why you should start your day with a challenge, Brian’s relationship with fear, the need for self care, Brian’s upcoming book, the most terrifying thing Brian has ever done, and much more.   Enjoy! -Mike   Episode Breakdown:   ⚡️0-10: Mike and Brian’s friendship, the health benefits of kombo, how Brian helps people harness fear, and Brian's experience of diving into fear (military, ultra marathons, EOD) ⚡️11-20: Brian’s experience as an EOD and working with the secret service, night skydiving, why “sucking it up” isn’t a good way to handle fear, the Whim Hof method, how breathing saved Brian’s life, ⚡️21-30: High stakes meditation, how ice baths challenge your safety, why your breathing is compromising your immune system, train harder than you have to fight, and the different types of breathwork ⚡️31-40: How singing and humming can teach you how to breathe, the critical aspects of downregulation, and a disclaimer on doing upregulating breathwork ⚡️ 41-50: Why environment matters when doing breathwork, the benefits of breathwork for autoimmune disease, utilizing breathwork to enhance meditation, why you should start your day with a challenge, and Brian’s new book ⚡️51-60: Brian’s relationship with fear, the power of a good therapist, why you always have a choice, the two key takeaways from Viktor Frankl's book, Man’s Search for Meaning, the need for self care, and the most terrifying thing Brian has ever done ⚡️61-68: More details on Brian’s upcoming book, if you’re not dealing with fear then what are you doing?, being grateful for what you have while you continue to chase what you want, the practice of gratitude, and where to find Brian --------------------------------------------------- Show notes: https://shruggedcollective.com/tbs-muka --------------------------------------------------- Please support our sponors: @organifi - www.organifi.com/shrugged to save 20%   ► Travel thru Europe with us on the  Shrugged Voyage, more info here: https://www.theshruggedvoyage.com/ ► What is the Shrugged Collective?  Click below for more info: https://youtu.be/iUELlwmn57o ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

I'm down in Costa Rica today, and if you're watching my Instagram, then you know I'm getting into some cutting-edge health nut stuff. Always trying new stuff to get me dialed in. I hope you're entertained. Today's show is with a good friend of mine, Brian Mucha, the Fear Sherpa, a former bomb technician in the Navy. We get into cold therapy, breath, mindset, jumping out of planes in the dark, and poisoning

ourselves with Amazonian tree frogs, and taking big risks to get big results. And if you listen to the Strong Coach podcast on Monday, then you heard Mark England and me talk about our new Enlifted program dropping very soon. Get early access by going to enlifted.me slash shrugged. That's enlifted.me slash shrugged. That's enlifted.me slash shrugged. Before we get into this show, please go check out our sponsor. Organifi is a company and has a line of products I've used for over a year and personally endorse. They have products for morning, afternoon, evening, and to get you recovered after your workouts. Made from high quality ingredients

that keep your body balanced and harmonized to run optimally. I use their green drinks in the morning to start the day with a high level of nutrients, the red drink before workouts for energy, and the gold tea at night to help me rest and recover. It's the Organifi Rainbow. Go to Organifi.com slash shrug to save 20% on your order today. That's Organifi.com slash shrug to save 20% on your order today. That's Organifi.com slash shrug. Now for a conversation with the Fear Sherpa.

Enjoy the show. All right, we're here in Tahoe. It is the end of February and there is more snow on the ground than I've ever seen before in person. And as we drove in, it felt a lot like a Christmas movie. I came in and not only that, but we're staying in the four-story mansion-type situation. How I end up in these situations, I know not, and I enjoy every bit of it. It seems like every time I turn the corner, I'm in an epic place hanging out with epic individuals, and this week is no different.

And today I'm sitting here with the Fear Sherpa, Brian Mucha, and today we're going to be getting into it. Well, we'll get into fear, of course, and then we're going to be covering mindset, breath, and ice, and your personal story as well, which I think a lot of people are going to really, really appreciate. Former military, and I know that a lot of former military or people who have thought about it listen to this show.

So really excited to dig in. We've hung out, is this time number third or fourth time? Third time? This is our third trip together. Yeah. Fourth trip, actually. We met one year ago.

We've hung out four times in one year. Not bad. Considering you live on the west coast. As much as I move around, it's unusual to be hanging out with people as frequently as we have. And I've really enjoyed getting to know you. Likewise, Mike.

We met under similar circumstances one year ago. We were doing Combo, spelled with a K, K-A-M-B-O. And we did a show last year talking about the frog medicine. So if you want to go back and listen to that, I do not remember the episode number, but if you look up the Bledsoe Show and Combo, you will get an insight into what we're up to this weekend again. So this is the second annual Combo Gathering.

And a quick summary is what we do is we burn holes in our skin and then we drop frog venom, this frog from the Amazon. Put that in perspective, nothing in the Amazon fucks with that frog. Nothing in the Amazon fucks with the frog. And we burn our skin and put it on. So that's what we do for fun. There are a lot of positive health benefits. And, in fact, a lot of pharmaceutical companies are trying to figure out how to distill down, to figure out these compounds to help people out. But we say, fuck it, we'll take all of it. And it's an uncomfortable process, but the results are incredible.

And they differ from person to person. And time to time. And time to time, too. That's right. Each experience is a little bit different. And so, you know, I've sat, I've done combo a total of nine times now. I've had nine ceremonies over the last two years. How many times have you done it now?

I think I'm at nine as well. You're at nine as well. You're really quiet. I'm going to fix this mic. There we go. We're good there. All right. Yeah, you're good there.

These mics are making me troublesome. So you're in the business of being a fear sherpa. What does that mean? Have you ever heard the expression just overcome your fear? Yeah. People say that they throw that out all the time, right? Yeah. My whole take on that is

that's a complete waste of energy. So I teach people how to harness fear. Gotcha. Until yesterday, actually, before you and I were talking, I would tell you that there's two emotions, love and fear, and you share with me there's only one, and that's fear. Oh, man. Oh, man, this is going to fuck with people.

Yeah, so what do you think about that? We had a conversation last night. I was talking about everything being born out of one thing. Out of one thing. I'm still in the two-thing camp, and in the way that my model is set up i help people walk through scary doors um scary mountains and uh get back to the love side of things you know where the bliss is so in every situation the worry the doubt the anxiety um the terrible inner monologue is the worst before we start to move.

And then once we start moving, the anxiety goes away. And on the other side of every scary door I've ever gone through, there's always truth, bliss, exhilaration. And the only way to get to those things is to walk through that door yourself. So that's what I do. I guide people through those life transitions. So, uh, can you tell us a bit about some of your own experiences with fear that when it would have been these transformative experiences where fear presented itself and you said, I'm going to go into it instead of run away from it. Yeah. So, uh, out of college, uh, I selected as a special operations officer in the United States Navy. I was a bomb technician, a platoon commander.

Man, I wanted to be a Navy SEAL. And I remember looking at the EOD guys, the bomb guys, and I was like, those fuckers are extra crazy. Extra crazy. Because there's something about disarming bombs and then setting other bombs off with other bombs in order to create safety. But you have to get close to an explosive to do that. You have to run towards it. You have to run towards a thing that's going to fucking blow you up. What made you want to do that?

I had a mentor in college, Sean Simmons. And I used to get on my bike and just ride 50 miles. I woke up one morning. I was like, I'm going to do a, I'm going to do a triathlon and not just any triathlon. Like I'm going to do a half Ironman. Yeah. So that's what I did. Wow. And so he invited me to this EOD style PT and twice a week he'd beat the shit out of us. And I really liked it. Yeah. You're a sick fucker. Just like most people listening to this show. Yeah. Yeah. Masochist. Yeah.

Initially, I joined Navy ROTC. I wanted to learn how to run the nuclear reactor on submarines. Spent 28 days on the USS Olympia. Quickly cured that. Turns out I like the sunlight. Yeah. And it's crazy, like living in a clock. So that next year, I would train a lot

with the EOD guys at Debt Earl in New Jersey. I was the first ROTC midshipman to go on an EOD cruise that was usually reserved for the

Naval Academy. It was two weeks. And I found I found my home. We jumped out of helicopters. I got to blow up flare pods

from F-14s. I mean, awesome. The James Bond lifestyle. I got home from that trip. I lit every single candle in church that helicopters uh got to blow up flare pods from f-14s i mean awesome the james bond lifestyle i got home from that trip i lit every single candle in church and just begged god lord please if this is possible help me help me make selection and i would yeah yeah what was um what was there was there a point i mean so So you did make selection. You went through the process.

What was – was there a most terrifying moment in that career? Or was it simply making the choice to do it? That was scary. That was a big fear, the fear of fully committing to something. And, you know, it was every bit of two years. You know, I ate, slept slept and breathed EOD. I needed great grades. I need to be top of my class. And I need to be really fit. And it was all consuming. I think a lot of people are half in on a lot of things. And if it wasn't for Sean

saying, you know, you should come join this and then let me help you with the plan um i find that in my client work um to do really extraordinary things you know picture somebody climbing a rock face on belay it takes somebody knowing that that person's got them on the other side of the rope right yeah and then also a really good map yeah and sean you know did both of those things for me. He believed in me before I did. And that changed the whole course of my life. Yeah. Can you give us some highlights from the EOD career? Sure.

Yeah, one of the coolest things, we got to work with Secret Service quite often. I remember a day at Lincoln Center, Obama was coming in, and it was my job to clear the outside of the parking structure. And, you know, those, like, retractable pillars. I was checking each one of those. I'm like, hey, can you guys operate this? He said, no, it's locked. Okay, when was the last time maintenance was done?

Three days ago. Okay, I can't call that clear until I see it work. So I refused to clear it. The head of the Secret Service came over and said, Lieutenant, you know, I need you to say this is good. I'm like, all right, well, it's not. You know, we didn't clear it. We get some dogs over here. And he goes, listen, sir, if you don't get this clear, I'm going to be out of a job. And I'm like, well, if we're wrong, you and I are both out of a job. He's like, what do you need? I'm like, I need you to move the presidential motorcade

over 30 feet to the other side of the road. The way the blast will form, I think we'll be safe on this side. So I got to direct the presidential motorcade. A couple feet, that was pretty badass. I spent three weeks in San Diego learning how to fall out of airplanes. That was one of the scariest things I ever did. And a lot of my material that I teach my clients, I learned night skydiving.

Night skydiving. As if skydiving by itself was not terrifying enough. Doing it in the dark. And with a weapon, O2 mask, and your rucksack. How high are you jumping from? We're jumping from 12,500 feet. And with the rig, with the ruck, the weapon, and the O2, you're working the entire time

to try and stay stable. It's not fun. It's not fun. It's like, please, Lord. The whole time is a prayer. Open the canopy, and then I'll worry about how to land later. And the first night jump came in, flared where I thought the ground was. I was still, I misjudged it.

My feet hit the ground, like, twice as fast as I thought I was going to. That's not good. Combat rolled and like ran it out. My buddy next to me is like, wow, you landed that? I'm like, yeah. He's like, why is your pack trail dirty? I'm like, well, there's a combat roll in the middle. Skydiving was incredible.

Time in the wind tunnel was awesome. I remember on my birthday, think i turned uh 24 we were we're doing maneuvers at fort pickett on night vision goggles flew in in a helicopter on patrol and i'm like i'm finally here that's how i spent my birthday with my men you know that's cool that was really awesome that's cool do you do any uh cool diving stuff? Cool diving. I don't know. It was all working diving. I've heard stories.

I've got a buddy who talked about night dives and just being underwater for hours just trying to go from point A to point B. We spent a lot of time underneath ships. Yeah. Looking for limping mines and those things. So your flashlight with like 12 inches of fizz, hoping you don't see anything weird. Yeah. Hoping you don't see anything weird. Like sharks or, you know. It's probably too late though.

Yeah. Once you see it. Yeah. Yeah. I had a. It's still, Mike, to this day, like every time like I have like a, says the fear Sherpa, right? And that's not lost on me. Every time my goggle strap flicks past my eye, I'm day, every time I have a, says the fear Sherpa, right? That's not lost on me.

Every time my goggle strap flicks past my eye, Mike, that's a shark. Of course. Of course. What were some of the ways that you dealt with fear back then? Was it something you just like suck it up and be tough? No, no, no. So that's part of the reason why i don't teach overcoming fear right gotcha it's i think it's foolish i think fear can really be a great coach um it tells you

to pay attention you know it's it's kind of like when you're on the beach and it's beautiful and then the wind changes you start to see the dark clouds you start to smell the moisture the wind picks up that's what i think fear is it lets lets you know, hey man, time to pay attention. Something isn't right. And so no, so I don't believe in sucking it up. In fact, I was listening to Wim Hof a couple of weeks ago. He's on the Ben Greenfield podcast and he was talking about overcoming the cold. And he was like, you just suck it up. He was like, no, that's how you die. You become the cold. You become the fear. So when I was in high school, I was on stage a lot,

vocal performance, I played the trumpet. I was Tony in West Side Story. And I was on stage a lot. And that stage fright would just grip me. I think that being on stage and speaking in front of people is people are more terrified of that than death. That's right. That's some type of stat or something?

Well, Seinfeld talks about people would rather be in the box at the funeral than doing the eulogy. Yeah. That's how that fear is. Shit. Yeah. So one of the things I learned in high school was when I would get that feeling, I learned I could write a different story. And instead of like, oh my God, I'm so nervous.

Holy shit, I'm so excited. And then I would smile. Could this be the feeling I get before I do something awesome? Yeah. So a lot of what I learned on stage applied to the night skydives. Yeah. Yep. So you talk about Wim Hof.

You're one of Wim Hof's students. I am. I'm a student. Yep. Certified master's instructor. Yeah. Yeah. And you took us,

you've taken me on a couple of breathwork journeys, a few, a handful at this point. And man, you're really fucking good at it. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate that. I love leading that you have uh the way that you teach breathing mechanics i think a lot of people who even if you if your if your sole focus is in performance like athletic performance i think so much gets left on

the table from uh not breathing well you know 100. And so one of the things I really appreciated as we went through some breath work this morning is you were really telling us to find new pockets of breath in our body. In the same way that people can get more mobility to get a deeper squat, we can get more mobility in our rib cage and diaphragm and pelvis to get more air. And as you can imagine, getting more air in could be very beneficial to your performance.

And your flexibility. And flexibility. You know, you taught me actually the last time we got back from Sedona, and then I listened to the podcast you and Mark did, and if I can't easily breathe in the position, I don't own the position yet. That's right, yeah. And so when the breath is working really, really well, the body allows itself to find

new pockets, positions, those things. Yeah. So I know for myself, breath and fear are very interlinked. I've got a great story for you about that very thing. Let's do it. So we finished free fall school, right? So 25 jumps, five of which were at night, I think. Just really proud to be done that school.

You know, kind of a badge of honor. Get your gold jump wings as a result of that. You know, EOD guys went through with the SEALs, and just a really cool sort of badge of honor. And so the next day, we had some time before we were flying home, and so we were going to go do some civilian jumps. So this is important to the story. So the military free-for-all rig has the ripcord in the front.

The sport rig has the drug chute in the bottom. That will come in handy later. So we've got to do these conversion jumps. So you jump out of the airplane. You touch where the reserve is, uh, where the, where the drug shoot is. And, you know, so the instructor sees you, you know, you know that you can, you can do this. So that's your conversion jump. And then, uh, you know, we got to, we got to play the rest of the day. So, uh, one of the jumps, there was seven of us. Uh, we're all in the door. So the count is lean out of the door looking down two and a half miles.

Back into the airplane. And in the third one, release. And you slide down. And now the seven of us are falling together. We're flying over top of each other. We're spinning. We're touching hands. It's Peter Pan in the sky.

It might be the most rad thing I've ever done at that point in my life. That sounds awesome. In San Diego, you know, you have the mountains in the distance. Yeah. So we do that to 6,000 feet. At 6,000 feet, check the altitude. Track away. I'm going to track for 1,000 feet.

Make sure I have some distance so I don't open my parachute into somebody who's falling right into you. I'm doing 90 miles an hour faster or slower than I am that's a good way to take yourself out of the gene pool yeah so at 5,000 feet I check my airspace check check check the altitude I go to reach for the ripcord and I missed so I checked again I missed the So I checked again, and I missed. And the third time I looked down,

I'm like, where the fuck is the ripcord? And then I went like this. You're in a civilian rig, dummy. It's in the bottom, and I threw the chute at 2,700 feet. At 1,700 feet, in 10 seconds, the reserve chute would have fired. I didn't have to think about taking that breath, Mike,

because I train the breath so much. That's the first step for me in anything, is that really high-quality, calming breath. And if you can learn that and it becomes such an instinct, it'll save your life. How do you train that to be an instinct? Because I think a lot of people get caught up in a moment and stopping to go oh I'm gonna breathe is not the first thing that comes to mind yeah I'm not sure I think um you know

looking back on situations you're like man I should have took a took a single breath there helps and then it gets closer and closer to the in the moment when it just becomes ingrained like part of the consciousness yeah so 10 seconds, I would have had the reserve shoot out and my main canopy out, and that one breath probably saved my life. Yeah. I mean, if the reserve comes out, what, at 1,700 feet, is that just like, it's just going to slow you down enough

to survive, or? No, you could still fly the reserve, but the problem is I had my main canopy out. Or I didn't have, what I was worried about is, so at 1,700 feet, the Cypress would explosively fire the reserve. And it's a smaller canopy. You can still fly and flare it. But if I had thrown the chute at exactly the same time that the reserve came out, I would have had two canopies above me. And then that's a clusterfuck.

Yeah, I could see that being a problem. And probably not allowed to come back and skydive at skydive san diego no no you are unsafe yeah man i just i need to take a breath there you go yeah there you go all right so uh i know the last time we hung out there was, you were talking about the three pillars. You were talking about breath, ice, and mindset. Yes. And so, I mean, we're talking about breath a little bit here but how do all these three work together yeah I find or do they not I mean are these just like three things that are good to develop on their own I think they tie into each other depending on what you need yeah so I've been

going through a lot of life transition recently and I find that there is a place of repose in the breath you know so when I do my sets of 30 or 40 or 50 breaths with those long breath retentions in between there's no worry there you know it's a place of peace I think also in the the long exhale in the last one you know when you're in the ice you're getting your skin burnt you, when you're dealing with pain. My buddy Brian Berry, he had a kidney addition. I can't

even say a replacement. I don't know if you guys know this. If you get an additional kidney, they don't take the other two out. He has some aftermarket body parts. He's got three kidneys. He has three kidneys and a new piece of liver. His chest is cut into what looks like a Mercedes logo. And he pulled me aside the other day.

He's like, you helped me out so much. I'm like, Brian, what are you talking about? He goes, that nice, long, calming breath was one of the only ways I could get my pain under control. And I'm finding that it's not just physical pain, but also the emotional stuff too. The breath is amazing. Yeah. And so then, you know, taking the breath into the ice, high-stakes meditation. If you ever struggle with finding calm, you know, in your overactive monkey mind, hop into an ice bath.

The only thing you can concentrate on is surviving that ice bath. It's not the future. It's not the past, right? So the worry, anxiety, addiction, all that stuff is gone. You know, you go right back to the reptile brain. I've had folks that struggle with depression, anxiety, and panic attacks write a new ending to their panic attack as a result of this training. So it's really neat how it all ties into each other. How often are you doing the ice? Once a week, I'll do an ice bath. The past couple weeks, I've been sick. So if I'm sick, I don't do the cold therapy. So the thing about the ice bath, I remember doing

some ice baths when I was competing as an athlete. And I would fill up a tub and I would get three, four or five bags of ice and I would drop in the bathtub. And by the time, it was cold. It was an ice bath. But when I got introduced to the Wim Hof style of ice bath, completely different story. It's a different world. It's like, all right, we're going to get a horse drop, and we're going to fill the motherfucker with ice. Yeah. It's like 100 pounds of ice.

There's going to be a little bit of water in there, like an ice slurry. Yeah. And you're going to put your head under it. Yeah, and you're going to put your head under it. Yeah, and you're going to put your head under it. There's a whole other – There's a whole new world with head under ice baths. That's true. Yeah.

That was one of the scariest things I did with Brandon. Okay. You know, sitting in the ice – you know, I've done dozens and dozens of ice baths at that point. He's like, put your head under it. I'm like, what? Yeah. So putting the head under, counting to 15 15 seconds and coming back up um while i'm

under i'm calm and then when my head comes out it's like yeah and then i catch somebody's eyes and they smile at me and i remember that i'm safe and then the next thing i concentrate on is the so what's happening in the eyes is there's... It feels like you're not safe. It challenges your safety. It does, yeah. And so I think people walk around all the time

not feeling safe. And they're breathing short. Oh, yeah. So that's huge. On the airplane the other day, I'm sure you've been around mouth breathers. It's such – it steals so much. Mouth breathers have been referenced more than once on this show. Right on.

So when the breathing isn't right, it taxes the cardiovascular system to make up for lack of calm. Adrenaline is produced. We practiced that today. So the shoulders start to go. Right? So adrenaline is pumping. That turns the immune system off. It's a whole system shut down

because the nose is... So if you're breathing short, if you're not getting full breaths, your immune system is being compromised. It is. Okay. You're in the fight or flight. Yeah.

So if you're running from a saber to tiger, you're not going to try and fight the flu in that moment. Your resources are going towards survival. Correct. Yeah. And your immune system operating really well is really not necessary if you're trying to survive something right now. Right.

And people are living in this survival mode. Yeah. Constantly. It's such a shame. Yep. Yeah. So anyway, It's such a shame. Yep. Yeah. So anyway, so, you know, over the past year, you know, really practicing with head under and trying to get the 20 seconds it takes me to find calm to like eight.

And so now, you know, as a bomb technician, some of the other crazy stuff I've done in my life, when shit hits the fan, the world slows down for me. And in the past, my vision becomes very tunneled. But because I practice so much with that adrenaline shot, I'm used to it. There was two car accidents this past year. Tunnel vision's a thing. I think most people have been, if you've been in any, like,

I remember there was a couple types of training I did in the Navy where they would tell us, yeah, watch out for the tunnel vision. They would describe it. And I'm like, I got this. Next thing I know, I'm fucking getting tunnel vision. I was like, oh, that shit is real. Everything closes in. And next thing you know, getting shot or something from the side. And it's like you didn't even know, passed by a door that you didn't even realize was there because you had tunnel vision

right so that's one of the things i talk about i don't care if you're jumping out of airplanes clearing rooms getting ready to speak before a workout right right at the three two one go moment there's space for a breath yeah And that really helps with tunnel vision. So what I was telling you, so there's two car accidents because I train so much in that adrenaline response. World slows down, I see more. And that's the difference between life and death. It is.

So yeah, so trying to train harder, you know, train harder than you have to fight is the whole idea. That's been ingrained in us for a long time. So doing the ice bath has real-world carryover into when panic hits. There's not many things I encounter in my everyday life that are more uncomfortable than the ice bath. Right. Very rare.

Very rare do I get to that point where I'm like, ice bath is not as bad as this. Right. Yeah. Can you tell us about – so one of the things that we did this weekend is we did different types of breath work. We did breath work that would down-regulate us. That would incite the parasympathetic nervous system. And then we did breath work that up-regulated us

that caused that adrenaline dump. And then we can talk about how to use that to access a different state. But can you tell us about what is the difference? What kind of breathing causes down regulation that allows us to get into rest, digest, breathe, and what kind of breath work gets us into a state where we're ready to attack or to really take on and even what happened we had this conversation this weekend is um as we talked about early in the show is we're intentionally putting some frog venom in our bodies and so there's a bit of a an allergic reaction that

happens uh face can swell different and and it's like you and it's like an allergic reaction. But you've been playing around with even being able to control that. Turn that off. Turn that off with some of the breathing techniques that involve adrenaline. Yes. So can you walk us through, because I think a lot of people probably don't need help up-regulating, probably need more help downregulating. Can you describe to us how to use breath to relax and chill the fuck out?

And then we can talk about how to ramp it up. Yeah, I'd love to. So, you know, the biggest tool that we have for calm is our nose. So, you know, a really good nose breath. So nose on the way in and breathing through the diaphragm. I'm going to talk about the adrenaline as a contrast. So when I'm panicked, I breathe like this. I'm gasping and my shoulders are moving up and down. Shoulders moving up and down. Very shallow. Yeah, I was having some, well, some joint issues, shoulders and hips.

And the first time I had someone that really knew what the fuck they were talking about, they go, take a breath for me. You know, I was seeing different chiropractors, physical therapists, all this stuff, trying to figure out what was wrong with me. And this one guy goes, just take a breath for me real quick. And I take a really deep breath. And he goes, your shoulders are moving up and down. And he goes, well, that, yeah, your core is not activating.

Shit's getting fucked up. Every time you take a deep breath, if that's how you're doing it, then that's where your problem's at. And then I worked with him for a while. And then I started getting hip to the idea of like oh if you're pumping your shoulders if your shoulders are moving them down that's actually can create like up regulation which is yep and then i and then i realized i'm doing it all the time i'm in a meeting i'm in a phone call um maybe i'm podcasting and i take a deep breath

and my shoulders rise i'm like oh i'm fucking stressing myself out with with the way i might i mechanically breathe. You're adding to the turbulence you're flying through. Yeah. Right? So that's another thing that I do with fear Sherpa is how do you remove the self-imposed drag, right? And so if you're mouth-shoulder breathing, you're rapidly increasing

your amount of stress. So the opposite to that then is to keep your shoulders down, right? And, you know, if you're listening along, put your hand on your diaphragm on your belly button. Breathe through your nose. And then try to move your hand away from your spine. If you're laying down, try to make your hand go up. And then nice and slow. The longer you can exhale, the more calm that you'll find. And also the longer you exhale,

the more pain you can release. One of the best things that we can do as humans is sing in a choir because we're breathing at the same time, which creates intimacy. And then we're expelling air for a very long period of time. And then you get all that sound resonance happening at the same time. That's one of the most calming things you get all that sound resonance happening at the same time. That's one of the most calming things you can do as a human being. That is really interesting. Yeah. I haven't done a lot of singing in the last 20 years of my life.

Missing out, Mike. Every once in a while I do. Yeah. Yeah, I'm self-conscious about it, about my voice. Everybody should sing, brother. Yeah. And I've been thinking more the last couple years about the vagus nerve and singing and that vibration. And I've connected some dots around that.

I go, wow, creating that vibration in myself can be really soothing in a lot of ways. And I never thought about what you just brought up, which is really fascinating, which is when you're singing, you're taking a quick breath in, and it's a long, controlled exhale out. And I know that with box breathing, yeah, if you design your box breathing to be a longer exhale out, it's down-regulating. So it makes sense that you have a down-regulating breath pattern plus the vibration from, I mean, you're working the muscles and they're vibrating.

Yes. And you can target different chakras based on sound pitch. Interesting. Each chakra has a different pitch i think i'm just nailing one chakra i got that one pitch that's that one you got that one nailed yeah just just one yeah i gotta i i i've been uh it's been on my list for about a year and a half my friend she, she started taking voice lessons. Nice. And she was talking about how she was doing it so she could be a better speaker. And it wasn't even about singing. It was about speaking on stage. And I go, oh, fuck. I'm a professional speaker.

So I put it on my list of things to do, and I have yet to do it. And I'm getting even more inspired now. It's an instrument you get to take with you anywhere. Yeah. Damn. Just keep on selling it, man. I come from a musical family. Growing up, we were the Von Mucca family.

The Von Mucca family. Instead of the Von Trapp family. Yeah, there's always music in our house. One of the other things I want to share with your athletes, right? So in the long exhale, if you were to hum, so climbing Mount Hood with Wim Hof this past year, he does a very sort of a different breath in high altitude, and it's the half exhale and two little sips on the way in.

Really good for altitude. The other thing he does too is hold. So it's a full, it's like a double inhale? It's a nose breath, right? And what we want with the nose breathing is to create some nitric oxide. That's such a powerful basal dilator. It opens up the lungs. Yeah, people are taking supplements for that.

All you got to do is breathe different. You do. And I'll get into that in just a second. But as we were talking about singing, humming is so good for that. I do hum. It makes nitric oxide. I hum when I work out a lot. And I didn't know why I was doing it, but it felt good.

I just felt my nose open a little bit more as a result of just that little bit. Okay. That's so good, like right before bed, to do a couple rounds of that. Humming. Humming is great, yeah. And then also, this is in Wim Hof, the oxygen advantage I'm a huge fan of as well. Yeah. So one breath in, let it out empty lung

hold and just let the CO2 get air hungry and then maybe hold it for five more seconds as CO2 comes up nitric oxide comes with it so on the oxygen advantage like before bed I'll do like six rounds of this if I'm really trying to get some

really calm sleep so So one breath in. And then just let that out. You hum it all the way out? Sometimes. Sometimes if I'm especially clogged. But the long breath hold, building CO2, builds nitric oxide. So exhale, hold. Exhale, hold.

Empty lungs. Get air hungry. Wait five more seconds. And then massive breath in through the nose. And then pinch the nose and squeeze that behind your ears. And then that will dilate all of your sinus cavities, back of your throat, your lungs. Interesting. Sounds like it's a great recovery tool. It is. Really good before workouts, too. Okay. Open everything up, get primed, you know, to really do a good oxygen-CO2 exchange. Yeah.

We also did some, this morning we did some massage on our diaphragm and just rib cage and things like that to help create more space for breathing. I'm actually, we breathe two days in a row now and I'm a little sore. Really? Like I got worked. No, I mean, we did a lot of stuff this week. We did some light movement.

We did heavy breath work and then we did combo so it's hard to say. We're doing all the things, guys. Yeah, we're just stacking shit over here. Yeah, stacks on stacks. Experimentation.

I don't know if anyone's mixing these things together yet but we've done it now. Yeah, we're just stacking shit over here. Stacks on stacks. Experimentation. I don't know if anyone's mixing these things together yet, but we've done it now. Yeah. And yeah, I noticed that I've got more space. And I've done breathwork before, so I think it's the combination of the two. I think we hit something magical this weekend by combining the breathwork with the combo. I think so too. Yeah. Especially in the order that we did it in.

Yeah. You know, priming the body. You know, we did some of the shoulder mouth breathing to make some of that neural adrenaline. Okay, so let's cover the down regulation first. Sure. And before, I want to cover that so people don't get things mixed up here. So the critical things with the down regulatingregulating are breathe through the nose.

Yep. Long exhale. Like 10 seconds or more. The longer you can exhale, the more calm you'll find. And the more pain you can release. Okay. So if you're experiencing pain, this is a great way to get through it. It is, yeah. this is a great way to get through it it is so if you ever stub your toe or um my friend brian

mckenzie who is a big breath guy yeah he fucking broke his neck last year and he said that when he came to he went straight to his breath and he felt like it really saved his ass in that instant. Yeah. Because otherwise he freaked out. And freaking out doesn't help when you've got a broken neck. Here's the other thing too, guys. So this is really important to remember. Pain and fear travel the same pathway in the body.

So if we can reduce fear, we can reduce pain. And the breath is pivotal to both of those things. Got it. Okay. Alright, let's go into upregulation. So downregulation is great and it's fun and it makes me smile and I'm relaxed. But doing what

we're about to talk about, this shit is amazing. It's a powerful tool. Gets you high. So, a little disclaimer. Okay, yeah, do the disclaimer. So, I've done this where I've woken up looking up at my desk,

clutching the sink in my bathroom, and one time I was driving, and it was a long 10 seconds before I could see again. So, before you do any of this, if you pass out, be in a place where you can't hurt yourself. So that means don't do this underwater. Don't do this while riding a bike or a motorcycle while driving. Just respect the medicine.

So what you're talking about, what we're talking about is creating neuroadrenaline first. And then there's some debate about making DMT, releasing DMT in the body. Yeah. And you're suggesting we do this lying down. I suggest just lying down someplace where you can't hurt yourself. Yeah. Right on. In a safe place with your friends.

Yeah. You know, doing this with people you love in sync gets you to a place you can't get to by yourself. Yeah. Even if you do exactly the same breath protocol place you can't get to by yourself. Yeah. Even if you do exactly the same breath protocol, you'll have a better experience with your friends. Yeah, I've tried to do this kind of stuff on my – well, I have done this kind of stuff on my own. It's good. But doing it in a group like this morning – It's better.

Oh, shit, man. I blasted off this morning. You did. All right. Can you describe to everyone how to make this one happen? So the critical move here is breathing through the mouth and gasping. So mouth and shoulders up. So you're going to intentionally pull your shoulders up.

You're like pumping with your shoulders. You are. And so the analogy that I use is kind of like a cobra making venom. That's how we're making adrenaline. Got it. Yep. We were snakes once. Once upon a time.

So you get that pumping, like 30 breaths going. Or more. Or more. As you get more used to it, you've got to go much longer. Got it. What you guys did today with the three rounds, 30 by 30 by 30. Should we tell everyone exactly how to do it? Or is this sacred information?

These are trade secrets. These are trade secrets. I don't want people to abuse it. This is actually a problem. I won't tell people who this was, but somebody wrote a book, and they listed off some breath work, and they suggested that you do it in the ice, and then they had to basically get a reprint of some books.

Yeah. Because it was like, don't do this shit in the ice. Yes, people do do this shit in the ice. People do some of these breathwork techniques. However, you don't want to do some of these things all the time. Right. You want to be safe when you're doing it. You want to have friends with you, buddies with you, and stuff like that.

So it's physiologically safe. Is that correct? It is, yes. But it's not, you know, you may not be physically safe if you were to pass out. The environment matters, right? And so, you know, if you lose control of your body, you know, you want to be in a safe environment for that. Yeah, so what you were talking about this morning, we basically pumped,

we dumped a ton of adrenaline into our body. We did. And what are the benefits of dumping it, having it? And you talked about cortisol, too. You talked about cortisol converting to adrenaline. There's no, we didn't make any cortisol. Okay. So ordinarily, when the caustic cocktail hits, you know, that adrenaline cortisol hit happens in real life,

you get the cortisol along with it, which is not... Cortisol has its place, certainly, as a hormone, but massive doses of that isn't great. What we're doing is just making neuroadrenaline with the breath, which is lovely.

Really no side effects to that. I guess you could do it too often. Adrenal fatigue could be a thing, right? Gotcha. So respect it. For me, Sundays, you know, that's how I spend time with God,

you know, in my breath work. So that's about the right frequency, I think. Much more than that becomes a bit of an abuse. And, you know, respect the medicine is what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. So the benefits of doing the

adrenaline was so the neuroadrenaline is amazing for autoimmune disease okay um so we can get in the ice as well these two things are tied together so with the breath work that way and autoimmune diseases adrenaline can shut that off uh one of the guys that I went to my certification with got attacked by a swarm of bees, starting to lose vision, was scared that he wasn't going to be able to call 911, going into full-on anaphylactic shock. The only thing he could do was... and squeezing that, making adrenaline,

and he was able to bring himself back. That's one of the experiments I've been doing with Cambo, the same type of thing, to let the neuroadrenaline denature some of the allergic reaction part of the Cambo experience. Yeah, I've been doing, like I said before, I've done Cambo nine times in the last two years, and before we had the conversation, I would have never even thought that I could control the venom in my veins having the physical impact it's having with my breath.

Yes. And then you said something about it, and I go, that makes perfect sense. So think about how that works in the body, right? So there's a bit of adrenaline that gets produced certainly adrenaline cortisol that happens uh in the ice bath so i don't know how much of that is you know from the breath how much is this from the cold um but we know uh that white blood cell counts are elevated for six days after ice baths and typically we're doing breath and ice together so that magic combination of the two

especially in the winter time really can help ward off illness. And then this has become a really amazing add-on. So you're doing breath work a couple times a week and you're doing... I do it every single morning. You're doing breath work every day. Not the adrenaline type, the down-regulating kind.

No, at least three rounds. 30, 40, 50 breaths, and then that calm period of empty lung breath holding, and then I'll roll into 10 or 15 minutes worth of meditation. And I can't wait to do that in the morning. Yeah, anyone who is like, oh, I have a hard time sitting and meditating, do the breath work first and then sit. So easy. It is.

And even the breath work counts as meditation. For sure. When you're fully present, feeling the air go through your nose, filling up your lungs, the top of your head, and then back out, that's all mindfulness.

That all counts. Yeah. I like that. Mike Bledsoe looks like Dr. Evil right now. He's petting. That all counts. Yeah. I like that. Mike Bledsoe looks like Dr. Evil right now. He's petting this beautiful kitty cat. There's this white cat that just jumped up in my lap. There's animals in this house.

I don't normally have animals. Oh, my God. Some of them are human. This cat feels so good. It's just hanging out. Bledsoe's having a moment. I'm having a moment. Oh, it's purring. It's down-regulating moment. I'm having a moment. Oh, this it's purring. It's down regulating right here in my lap.

Nice rest. Digest. That's right. Read. Hopefully it doesn't try to breed with me. Uh, so, Oh man.

Um, we talked about mindset a bit, but is there anything around mindset that, that like, yeah. So let me touch on that for a second. So one of the practices that I do in the mornings when I go to get in the shower, I'll get my electric toothbrush, two minutes. I turn the water to cold, and I'll brush my teeth for two minutes in the cold.

And so sort of like the Admiral McRaven, make your bed. Sort of like make your mind. So if the first thing you do in the morning is challenging, you get through your cold shower, the rest of the day is easier. I like that. I like that. And there's a huge physiological change in the cold, right? So better than coffee. The cold on the back. You're right, man. Everyone wants to do the coffee. It tastes so the back. You're right, man.

Coffee tastes so fucking good. It's so comforting. I'm taking a break for two months from caffeine right now. Better man than me. I'm going to replace this with breath and cold showers. There's testosterone that's made

in the cold shower. I've heard that. I've heard that's made in the cold shower. Yeah, I've heard that. Yeah. I've heard that. That's what I need. I need more boners. I mean, don't we all? Can't be.

What could go wrong? Oh, my God. So, you're working on a book. I am. Yeah. Yeah, it's my story as a bomb technician. So you're working on a book I am Yeah It's my story as a bomb technician I talk a little bit about Fear in the moment

Some of the cool shit I got to do But mostly it's about I didn't have long term fear handled Worry, doubt Terrible inner monologue So you have fear And then you have long term fear Yeah there's the in the moment stuff and then there's the long-term.

So you had the in-the-moment stuff handled. I had that down, yeah. I would agree there's a lot of people out there that are in the same boat. There's like this, I know I had this going for myself, this mental toughness conversation. Like, I'm a bad motherfucker. I can handle anything you put me in a cage with somebody let's go sure you uh like whatever like even even you know like i

wanted to experience like combat situations and stuff but talk about the long-term fear yeah so you know i'm sure some of folks, some of you guys listening can identify with maybe feeling like an imposter. I beat the odds to become a special operations officer. I sat around the table with these snake eaters, people who really did the shit. And I never really believed that I belonged there. And so the way I showed up, kind of like sharks smelling blood, smelling weakness. Yeah. And yeah, I went through some stuff and I never really had anybody come after me before.

My tactic has always been to kill people with kindness. That looks like weakness in special operations community. Yeah. And yeah, so my biggest fear, not being good enough, being found out as an imposter, even though I went through all the training, I earned my spot. I manifested at the end of my special operations career. And so that was my avalanche. And that was also the birth of Fear Sherpa, creating a guidebook for myself initially and then for others. Well, how'd that happen?

You said you created, like you manifested. Yeah, I was worried all the time. My anxiety, I had physical anxiety, worried about not being good enough. You know, I showed up in a way that appeared weak, and that did not inspire confidence. You know, so, yeah February, eight years ago, my commanding officer called me into his office.

He said, Brian, I've lost a lot of sleep over this, but you're not the man to take your team to Afghanistan. I didn't fuck up on anything. I just didn't inspire confidence with the way that I showed up to my relationship with fear, which looked like anxiety, self-doubt, terrible inner monologue. Yeah. Yeah. What have you done since then to clean that up?

Uh, a lot. Um, you know, so I started working with this amazing therapist, Talia Gershon. Uh, she'd be, she would become my adopted Jewish auntie. Um, and, uh, I remember working through all this grief and sorrow of losing what I thought to be my dream job. Yeah. And I started writing about it. And I read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. And in that book, there's two things that I always carry.

There's a space between stimulus and response. And it's in this space that we have our only freedom, and it's our freedom to choose. I to choose what i do next right and so i use that to apply to fear and anxiety and doubt depression and all those things i get to choose what i do next in every single instance the first step is the breath and then from there i built other tools like a kind question hey what's one little thing i can do to make the situation better? You know, what do you want me to learn in this situation? What do you need me to do?

So I would describe these things to Talia. And one day she looked at me, she goes, where are you getting this stuff from? This is how I'm metabolizing my grief. You know, this is how I'm working through it. She goes, I've been in therapy for 30 years. I've never seen this before. Keep going, kid. You've got something. So that was the inception of

Fear Sherman. Nice. Yeah. The second thing about Victor Frank, I said two things. The second thing is suffering is never in vain if you can find meaning. And when we find meaning, it just becomes pain.

And so what I learned was this whole experience, this really, really dark time of my life, was the teacher. Yeah, I find there's a quote, or quote, a statement of suffering is when you're in an argument with reality. It's true. And, yeah, that makes me, when you said if you make meaning of the suffering, you're creating your reality from moment to moment. And if you create the reality by making meaning of the suffering,

it then just diminishes the pain only. Right. I like that approach. That's pretty cool. When you do track workouts or you do Fran or what have you you could call it suffering or you could just enjoy the training

stimulus which manifests as just pain I'm taking that analogy into the inner adventure it's neat to be able to take the outer adventure stuff from skydiving and being a bomb tech to the inner journey. Yeah.

What's the scariest thing that's happened recently? On December 19th, I told my wife that I want to get divorced. Yeah. I'm going to go our separate ways. Scariest thing I've ever done. Yeah. I imagine that's a lot of people listening know what that's like or are putting off knowing what that's like. It's, uh, I thought about it for a very long time. In fact, last year

when we were in Sedona, that was my intention, uh, you know, for our retreat was what do I do with my marriage? Yeah. And really dug into it. And, uh, you know. I love her. I'm grateful for her. She's become such an amazing teacher to me. A lot of pain in that teaching. It's just interesting how it all unfolds. And what's really neat, it's beyond neat.

It's this sort of divine unfolding. The first avalanche, I created all these tools to help myself and other people following me. Starting in December, using my tools that I created. My uncle made this analogy. You were the chef, and now you get to eat your food. Yeah. So in the moment, I'm able to pick what do I need.

Do I need breath? Do I need to go outside? Do I need to call Mike Bledsoe and vent? to pick what do I need. Do I need breath? Do I need to go outside? Do I need to call Mike Bledsoe and vent? What do I need? Really listen to that. Really do the self-care. A couple weeks ago, I was in Virginia Beach for some work, and I skipped yoga for three days.

And ever since announcing that, I've done breath work every single day, meditated every day, and then starting just before New Year's, Ashtanga yoga. I missed yoga for three days. I had a full-on panic attack. So if you're going through life-changing things, anxiety is high, depression is high, the self-care is the answer. You know, sometimes that's the answer. Sometimes that's going floating, sometimes that's doing breath work,

ice bath, you pick. You're going through one of the biggest life transitions, the most traumatic things that you can go through. I mean, I think it's really cool that you have these tools and that

you're able to, you're teaching them to these tools and that you're able to, you're teaching them to other people, but you're able to bring them in your own life. And I think this is really good for people to hear and they're going, oh, the worst thing that could have happened to me already happened. It's like, no, no, there is something else that's going to be fucking terrifying. And I know for my, I know for myself, I can, I can look, it seems like every two to three years, I've got some fucking crazy thing that comes up in my life where I'm just like, what the fuck? I got to deal with this shit. And I'm, and I deal with it, but it's stressful. There's a lot of fear. Loss of sleep happens.

It's very, very common. And it's, for me, I know that I forget very quickly that another one's probably going to be around the corner. I'm like, woo, handled that one. I'm good. I'm good. You know, like, I was like, the rest of my life, that was the hardest one I've had to do yet. Man, life is interesting because it builds and it builds. One of my favorite quotes is from Greg Lamond.

He's talking about cycling, but really the parallels for life. It doesn't get any easier, only faster. So I look back on all these things, right? So jumping on airplanes at night, confronting my demons, leaving what I thought to be my dream job, working in a contracting job, teaching army captains and lieutenants how to do what I did as a Navy officer, as a failed Navy officer, right? Medical sales, leaving medical sales to do fear-sharp a full time. Each time, the thing that I learned...

I mean, you quit your corporate gig. How long ago was that? In June? It was not even a year ago. Right. And then, and then you're going to get, I forgot about that.

The divorce thing kind of overshadowed that, right? Those are in parallel. And they were doing the things, you say they're in parallel, it was like, you were making a major life shift, and they were impacting each other? They were impacting each other. Yeah. It added extra pressure to this, you say they're in parallel. It was like you were making a major life shift and they were impacting each other.

They were impacting each other. Yeah. It added extra pressure to this, you know, already stressful situation. Yeah. But what I'm saying is at each stage, the skills that I learned, you know, transitioning out of the Navy, you know, I used the contracting job and the contracting into medical sales. Right. And each one is uncomfortable. It's an uncomfortable expansion, but they build on each other, right?

So even though the mountain's higher and the velocity's faster, you're more prepared for it, right? And this is something I was noodling with the other day. In all of those painful experiences, you said every two years it shows up. I just said two years it's probably more frequently than that i get one like once a year and this year it's been two major life things but but there are teachers yeah right so if we can learn anything from this you know the setbacks you know there's a napoleon hill quote that i love and every setback find a seed of equal

or greater success right that's the challenge is to take the suffering and just turn it into pain and then and then really turn it into your teacher you know really distilling down to these two questions what do you want me to learn here doesn't matter how you got there right I'll take out all the worry all the self-criticism all it doesn't matter and in fact i believe it's part of the path you know i decided that i wanted to be the fear sherpa right just you know as you wanted to lead your mission in those things so of course these things come up

to not to test us but really to forge our light and turn us into the men and women that we're supposed to be it's not a punishment. Yeah. That changes everything. I dig that. I dig that. I imagine a lot of people need to hear that. And that touched a lot of people. Well, it's very full circle for me.

Because if you're in the avalanche, you know, as I was, every single time, you know, the look on your face as you just said that, like it makes more sense to me that I had to earn that. Yeah. You know, I didn't read that from a book. It was earned. Right. You know, and so if you're going through that,

one of the best ways to change the suffering and it's just pain, think of somebody who you're going to help with this. As you go through this, there's a certain level of courage that happens in going through scary things. But there's also a certain level of courage in showing up for somebody. They're going through something scary.

You're there for them without judgment. Just loving them. Most people that haven't been through an avalanche like that, they can't do that. It's too painful to watch. Throw some dirt in it, you're going to be fine, get back out there. That's not the courage, right?

And so if you're going through that and you can detach and sort of write this out for somebody coming after you or maybe to yourself five years ago, you're finding meaning in it. It's a really valuable skill to be able to show it for folks like that. Yeah. Yeah, I've had some stuff come up recently in working with my coach. And one of the questions that he helped me reframe my situation is, what do you think all this is preparing you for?

It's a great question. And I was like, oh, thank you for asking that question. I don't even know what the fucking answer is, but it feels good to realize, oh, yeah, it may feel like this is the last moment, but in five years I'll look back and this will be no big deal. In fact, I'll be so happy it happened. Yeah.

What did you learn? Yeah. And then who can you show up and share that with? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. What's the name of your book? Have you named it yet? The working title, and I'm 98% sure this is what the title's going to be,

Your Forgotten Superpower, Taming Your Fear to Thrive. And it's the story in detail, along with the tools and some of my outer adventures teaching the inner lessons and how to apply what I've learned in the military and sales and these things to these universal lessons about how fear can be a coach. It can be a North Star. It really can highlight for you, for me. If you're scared of it,

it's probably pretty important. And fear's the only thing that gets smaller as you run at it and larger as you run away from it. Oh, shit.

You're right. You're right. I'm dealing with fear all the time. Aren't we all? Yeah. And you should be. This is a fun topic.

So, like, if you're not dealing with fear, what are you doing? Right? Being a little bitch. That cat's cute in your lap. Yeah. Yeah, you know. And me too, man. You know, I don't always win the fear game.

You know, it's sort of like wrestling with a bull. Like some days you win and, you know, some days you learn to fight another day. I've taken some months off before. I've taken months off from doing like heavy lifting around fear. Yeah. And, yeah, so it's not constant. I've taken some intentional time off. I'm like, I'm not doing any,

I'm not pushing any boundaries. Yeah. I'm just going to fucking chill out with what I have. Because I mean, have you heard people say that? Like, what do you think about the phrase, why aren't you just happy with what you have? I hear that. And I think that gets said by people who are uncomfortable around people who are really getting after it. Really challenging status quo.

And maybe there's some wisdom in it, but it's a two-part thing for me. I'm grateful for what I have as I continue to chase what I want. Yeah. Those two things. I think also one of my favorite Edison quotes, show me a thoroughly contented man and I will show you a failure. So there's this part, like constructive discontentment, you're obsessed with finding mastery or your spiritual path or you and I aren't pursuing enlightenment. No.

No. I'm avoiding it. Right. I'm terrified that it's... I don't want it. It's like... No, I'm not going to talk about that. But that whole path, right?

Yeah. Virtuosity, mastery, anything. It's hard. It's never done. right? Yeah. Virtuosity, mastery, anything. It's hard. It's never done, right? So how do you find joy in that steep, heavy climb and lifting,

right? And really, you know, when fear shows up, if we can say thank you for whatever the thing is for fear, it's the switch.

So if I'm experiencing gratitude, and I'll tell you a story. as I skydive, skydiving scares the shit out of me. That's part of the reason it's part of my So if I'm experiencing gratitude, and I'll tell you a story. So as I skydive, skydiving scares the shit out of me. That's part of the reason. It's part of my courage practice, right? It's like an ice bath.

I don't love the ice bath in the first eight seconds. Me neither. A minute into it, you can find joy and bliss. Your body's making serotonin. Your body feels good. You're reducing inflammation, which is preventing illness,

helping with recovery, all those things. The parallels with the skydive. So as the plane starts to take off, I'm practicing my smile because the nervousness feels the same as excitement. The difference is my smile. So I choose excitement. And then as the plane gets higher, I really think about, well, I'm really going to jump out of this thing.

I start to say thank you for things. I look out of the window. God, thank you for this beautiful earth. Thank you for this body that is well trained enough to be able to do this by myself. If I'm experiencing gratitude, I can't experience fear. I want to jump out of a plane

with you. Done. I've never done it. Oh, yeah? I don't know how I've avoided it it's fucking strange you know it's time for you and I to go skydiving Mike yeah I have to come see you in Encinitas

yeah let's go jump in San Diego that would be that would be very very full circle for me that's where military free fall school is yeah yeah let's do it

done alright where can people find you Instagram very full circle for me. That's where military free fall school is. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it. Done. All right. Where can people find you? Instagram, Fear Sherpa, LinkedIn, Brian Mucha. You're the first person on this show

to reference LinkedIn, by the way. Right on. I work with sales people. You know what though? I keep on thinking, maybe I should be more active on LinkedIn. I did pay someone to write a professional profile for me, though.

Yeah, right on, man. And then I don't even touch it. Gotcha. Yeah, LinkedIn's been good for me. I do corporate training. There's probably tons of people using it. I'm the one getting left out. That's what I'm saying.

All right, so LinkedIn, where do they find you on LinkedIn? Just look me up, Brian Mucha. Brian Mucha. Yep. And Instagram. Anything else? Those are the two. Awesome.

Fear Sherpa, IG. Fear Sherpa on the IG. Yep. On the grams. And if you were paying attention to my Instagram, you would have seen old Brian here in a beautiful apron cooking us dinner. Oh, and he's also wearing

this amazing robe. He looks like he's out of a fucking, some fantasy movie or some shit. It's beautiful.

It's awesome. That's what we do here on retreats. Yep. All right, folks, thanks for joining us today, and we will talk next

week. Don't forget to breathe. Do shit that scares you. Do shit that scares you. Do shit that scares you. All right, folks, go to iTunes, Stitcher, wherever you're listening. Give us a five-star review, positive comments. This helps us reach more people and get early access to the program Enlifted. Go to enlifted.me slash shrugged to get on the list so we can notify you when we drop that new program that I built with Mr. Mark England. And go support our sponsor, Organifi.com slash shrugged. You'll save 20% on your Organifi rainbow today.