Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 190. Suffering is The Door to Personal Growth

Episode Date: June 22, 2021

Of course, we all want to live in bliss, but pain and suffering is what makes us human. It's suffering that is the great equalizer in life, yet it's a necessary access point to reach the next stage of our human evolution. In today's Inside Look, Bedros Keuilian takes a deep dive with the one and only, Akshay Nanavati, author of Fearvana. His purpose is to help people find, live, and fall in love with their worthy struggle. Whether it's running a marathon, building a business, writing a book, raising a child, or playing chess, you must give all of yourself. Don’t miss this amazing conversation. "Coming out of the Marines is when I started to look for other ways to suffer. Other ways to explore how far we can test the human spirit. So, outdoor sports became my playground." -Akshay Nanavati  Show Highlights: 2:00 The pursuit of suffering and moments that trigger big decisions 7:18 Descending into a dark place and joining the Marine Corp.  10:50 The purity of pain and discovering who you are 14:35 The importance of self-discovery and evolving to a new "self" 19:30 Building a brand around what you love and strategic alliances  24:36 Fear being the access point to nirvana and a life of bliss 27:14 Monetizing digital information products and navigating new ideas 32:46 Planning for the future and taking your brand to the next level 36:19 Working backward to find your passion and stretching your limits 41:13 Finding a tribe to evolve with you and losing some along the way 46:55 Editing people out of your life and taking life to the extreme Connect with Akshay Nanavati: https://fearvana.com/ https://www.facebook.com/AkshayNanavatiFan/ https://twitter.com/fearvanalife https://www.youtube.com/c/fearvana https://www.instagram.com/fearvana/ Connect with Bedros Keuilian:   Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bedroskeuilian/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/bedroskeuilian/ Youtube https://www.youtube.com/user/KeuilianInc Twitter https://twitter.com/bedroskeuilian LinkedIn

When you're in the purity of pain, it's so all-consuming that it breaks everything down about who you think you are and reveals something else. And the deeper you go into the darkness, the greater you'll find the light. Hey, friends, I'm excited to introduce you to my dear friend, Akshay Nanavadi, on the Empire Show today because this is an inside look. And today we're going to talk to Akshay, who, like me, as an immigrant, and unlike me, has served this country in the U.S. military. and he's got just a fascinating story and author of a fantastic book, Fiorvana. Akshay, welcome to the show, man. Thank you, brother.

Appreciate you. Yeah, so we were texting, I don't know, maybe three, four weeks ago, you were like, hey, B, looking forward to coming out there, but just want to let you know I'm about to, or I'm going to Alaska, I'm about to climb a mountain. Tell us how that climb went. Yes, I went to go climb to Nali,

the tallest mountain in North America. It was an epic journey, but we did not make the summit because the storms were, gnarly, brutal storms. I mean, it was very, very intense out there. We got to high camp, and, you know, which is we actually passed the toughest part of the climb, which is the move from Camp 3 to High Camp at 17,000 feet, but woke up the, I mean, the whole night, the tent was like being battered by the wind up there. Well, I saw the videos that you showed me

there, and it was just, I mean, it was intense. That had to be like 40, 50, a mile an hour winds easily, right? Yeah. And that, like, at high camp is not a place you want to be. Yeah. Especially moving towards a summit. So, you know, you got to, this nature of mountaineering, the weather, the mountain's always in. control. You go out there to experience it and hopefully you've done stuff like this before. I've done a lot of stuff like this. Where you're really challenging yourself and stepping way out of your comfort zone. And in fact, when you and I met, I think it was a Dan Fleischman and Joel Marion's $100 million mastermind. When we met, I remember you telling me about all the different

ways you like to go about challenging yourself. How did that begin? You know, the pursuit of that suffering began when I joined the Marines. So before this lived a great life. Parents were, could not have asked for better parents, gave me a blessed life. I was born in India, as he said, you know, I was an immigrant, moved from India to Singapore and then to the U.S. at the age of 13. Gotcha. So soon after moving, I got very heavily into drugs, into alcohol. I used to cut myself.

I still have these scars on my arm that you could see, burn myself. And very, in like this very dark world. And I watched the movie Black Hawk Down. Have you ever seen that movie? Yep. that movie was the trigger that changed my life. Watching that movie, and I don't know if you remember that scene when Gary Gordon and Randy Sugar, the two soldiers,

they were in the chopper, and they volunteered to go to the ground knowing that thousands of armed enemy personnel are headed to the down Black Hawk. It was a second Black Hawk that crashed, and they volunteered to go down there anyway to set up a defensive perimeter. Both of them died,

but Michael Durant, the man that they died protecting, is still alive today because of their actions. And watching that just triggered something in me. You know, it made me questioned this very selfish, worthless, meaningless life I was living. I'd been blessed with so much and I was doing nothing with it at the time. And almost overnight, stopped doing drugs, decided to join the Marines. And it took me about a year and a half to join because I have a blood disorder that two doctors told me would kill me in boot camp. So I had to sort of fight my way in,

I had to get a medical waiver. And honestly, if it wasn't post-9-11, I would not have gotten in because I also have like flat feet, scoliosis. I'm a genetic mess. Actually, it's interesting that you say that. So pre-9-11, when I attempted to join the Marine Corps, my flat feet is what prevented me back in 1994. And they actually took my friend Dave, I won't say his last name, good dude. He was just like he's like five foot tall by five foot wide. And they took him and they're like, you've got flat feet. I'm like, I'm fine with it. Like I'm good. They're like, no, no, no. But with him, they're like, he just needs to lose weight. And they started giving him B-12 or B-6 shots. And he lost a substantial amount of weight where he met the BMI index.

Yeah. And he went off and I was like, crap, man. That's ridiculous. Right? So it's funny. So post 9-11, they kind of loosened the... Totally. Because here's a young kid wanting to go Marine Corps infantry.

Yeah. Like, there's no way I would have gotten in with my flat feet scoliosis and this blood disorder pre, like before 9-11. So managed to get in, fight my way in. And that's when I started to learn the beauty of suffering. You know, the beauty of it... Because obviously, Marine Corps training was hard. Yeah.

And I wasn't super fit at the time. I'd just gotten out of doing like a year and a half of... so obviously I wasn't in the great shape, but I thrived mentally. I graduated, infantry school was honored, graduating my platoon, and then coming out of the Marines is when I started to look for other ways to suffer, other ways to explore how far we can test the human spirit.

And outdoor sports became my playground. Everything, like you name it, cross-country skiing, rock climbing, skydiving, mountain climbing, fracturing four bones in three months from skydiving and rock climbing. Like nature became my playground to explore myself and the true limitlessness of the soul. There was a suffering,

not necessarily the broken bones, but suffering as an adversity and hardship by doing difficult stuff. Doing difficult stuff, yeah. Like, well, I got into ultra running a little later. And obviously then, you know, just the Marines was hard. Marine training was always miserable. Embrace the suck is like the fundamental mantra in the Marines.

But that's how I started to seek that out and really embrace it. But, you know, and then after, in 2007, so three years after enlisting, I was deployed to Iraq as an infantry non-commissioned officer. So one of my jobs in Iraq was to walk, in front of our vehicles looking for bombs before they could be used to kill me and my fellow Marines. How did that go for you? It was...

Well, because you're going to have. You're here. Thankfully, but, you know, obviously it was a fairly dangerous job because if somebody was going to get blown up, guess who would be. Right. But at this point, I had developed a comfort with fear, and I developed a comfort with navigating adversity. So I thrived out there. I mean, I... In all honesty, you know, when I went out there, I didn't expect to come back alive. I went out there. This is not a healthy mindset at all, but I had lost a friend before I went to Iraq. We had joined the same unit together, and we did everything together. We trained together. We wanted to go to war together. So we volunteered multiple times to go out there.

Twice the Marines told us we were going, and last minute they canceled it. And one summer, while I was vacationing in India, he finally found a unit to go with, and he was killed out there. Wow. Because he was a good Marine, he was promoted to corporal, and he was placed in a seat that was hit with an IED. And so what happened, I really, I struggled with that immensely. I mean, to this day, it shows up from time to time. But because when we trained together, you know, I might have beat him by like one point in the rifle range or two seconds on a run, barely. You know, we were the same kind of Marine. So in my mind, I always had this feeling that I should have gone out there to get that promotion, not because it was better than him,

but because I wanted to be in that seat where he was sitting so he could have come back home to his family. So when I finally got my chance to go, it was like if I have to, again, this is not like a healthy mindset but if I have to go I'd rather be me than somebody else so when it was that job it was like sweet like I'll take it you know and I didn't expect to come back alive how did your parents do with the idea of you joining the Marine Corps they struggled with it understandably you know this was post 9-11 yeah so here I am Indian I wasn't even a US citizen at the time I was a green car holder so joining a country that wasn't my country fighting a war that was in my war and almost certainly I would have gone to war which I obviously I did

But they were also in a really hard place because on the one hand, they see their kid. They didn't know to the extent that I was descending down this path of drugs. Like, I lost two friends to drug addiction. Got it. So you were doing good at hiding it, meaning? I was hiding it. From them. From them. What about the cutting and self-reliation?

Like, now they know, because obviously I'm no longer that way. I did get caught smoking weed in school. I was a dumb ass. I got caught doing everything. So I got caught, but they didn't know how far I was into it, like doing, you know, just you name it, the drug, anything I could find. and lost two friends to it and was like literally could have,

that was heading down that path. But being that I got caught doing everything, like stealing in school, drugs, alcohol, this, that, and the other thing, they were like on the one hand, they see this kid descending into a dark path. On the other, they see that now I'm joining the military. So they're kind of this between a rock and a hard place. They struggled with it.

They really struggled with it. And, you know, even when I was in Iraq, like, it's so much harder for the family back home than it is for us out there. We're in the mess. Like, we're in the sun. So we get to deal with it. It consumes our consciousness.

Back home is always the unknown. So now they're very proud of me. They're very proud of who it made me. I mean, being a Marine is one of the proudest things of my life. And serving in that brotherhood, you know. But initially it was very hard. And as you come to the United States, what prompted the immigration to the United States for you guys? My dad's job is why we moved around a lot.

My dad worked for, well, he worked for 3M for 27 years. So he started, like with 3M India started. He was one of the first employees in 3M India, kind of worked his way up the ranks, and then 15, 20 years later, he ran 3M India. He was the managing director for 3M India. So we moved around a lot because of his job. Got it.

And that ended up kind of being the reason that you guys moved to the United States. And then I moved to Minneapolis, and then after that I went on my own way. But they moved to Israel and then back to India. No kidding. Yeah. So they moved around a lot. He was running 3M Israel and 3M India.

So just moved around. Where do they live now? I'm curious. Back in India, in Bangalore. Okay. Yeah. I'm actually heading there tomorrow. Yeah.

Okay. Are you really? Yeah. Okay. I'm there for a few weeks. Gotcha. And so you spend this time in the Marine Corps and it's clear why, at least to me it's very clear why it attracted you. You know, it's hard.

There's the fear of the unknown. There's some kind of suffering and risk taking involved. I imagine that the drugs and the self-mutilation was some level of suffering that you were putting yourself through. Have you figured out what it is that triggers this need for suffering in you? You know, at the time when I was doing the drugs, obviously there was a very unhealthy way to channel this.

At a young age, I realized, when I was a kid in Bangalore, I used to play rugby, and when we'd get cut, I would love the cut. It was like a battle wound, right? Like, I got cut up. And so there was something, in me that I never fully understood or channeled until only recently about seeking when you go

through pain, there's a purity to it. It's all consuming. It sheds the masks we wear, whatever masks we put on about the facade in this human condition when we meet people. And when you're in the purity of pain, it's so all consuming that it breaks everything down about who you think you are and reveals something else. And the deeper you go into the darkness, the greater you'll find the light. So you have, like now I say you have to because you do, like in my experience, you have to experience suffering to truly know the essence of the human spirit of what you're capable of and what the human animal is capable of. And really to whatever God means to you to understand divinity, I mean, there's a reason why I believe they say there's no atheist in

foxholes. Because when you go, when you're in hell, when you taste the edge of life and death, when you're in the darkness, like the absolute darkness, you will find something that you can't find anywhere else and you have to go there. I mean, that's one of the draws like why I wanted to join the Marines was, you know, like you said, the challenge. But when you, like war is this experience where you taste the extremes of the human condition. You see the absolute worst, the horrors of war, people doing awful things to each other, but you see the absolute best. People sacrificing their lives for each other, jumping on grenades for each other. And only on those edges can you experience that. And that's the draw now. Like the way I see

It is like replicating war without the horrors of war. Sure. But that's one of the big draws to the Marines, too, was serving an institution where the good of the group matters more than the individual. So I also think one of the draws of suffering is that it builds a level of camaraderie that you cannot build unless, like when you suffer together. I mean, you get this with what you do, right? The modern and night project, exactly. I mean, you suffer together. You come together.

It builds a camaraderie. And so I love that experience. I didn't fully get it again at the time, right? Like drugs in this way became a, there was no virtue in this pain. There was nothing to it. It was not with conscious awareness, there was no virtue to it. Drugs became a vehicle to push myself to the extreme, but obviously it was extremely unhealthy. And thankfully, I got out before I easily could have gone to.

And I'm glad you brought that up because, you know, oftentimes I'll quote some stuff that we share in the project on social media, like suffering will introduce you to your highest self. Yeah. Suffering will introduce you to your purest self. like a lot of, we've all seen it. And I'm not here to knock anybody and I'm not going to mention any names. We've all seen it where people are beating their chest on social media.

But then they get in a ring with someone, whether it's on the mats like jujitsu or they put on boxing gloves. And the first time they get hit or first time they get put in some kind of an uncomfortable position, an arm bar, some kind of a chokehold, they completely changed. There weren't that guy who was beating their chest and talking crap. And it's like, holy crap. The masks came off, right?

On the flip side, in that suffering, if that person chooses to stay and what we call maintain their greens, stay calm under pressure, under chaos, and choose to remember what their coach taught them, et cetera, you begin to meet your highest self. And holy crap, if under this level of pressure, I'm willing to do and resort back to my training and get out of this chokehold, okay, you know, chin down and wedge the fingers in there and create a breathing gap. And all of a sudden you realize what more you're capable of when there's not chaos around you. It's like the glass ceiling, the limiting glass ceiling, is raised. And so what I'm hearing you say is while you were, I guess you started off doing this unhealthy suffering, but you quickly realized that, hey, there's this higher level of suffering that can happen where I'm going to meet my truest and highest self. Can I ask how old you are? 36.

So at 36 now, how well do you feel? feel you know yourself. The reason I ask is because you kind of dropped the term human animal, which makes me wonder if you've read Joseph Campbell's writings. I have. You have? Yeah. Okay. Okay. I'm a big fan of Joseph Campbell. Yeah. And I imagine you've done a lot of the self-work then. Absolutely. You feel you really know yourself now? You know, there's, as you know, of course, there's always more to discover. But I have gone, like one of the more intense things I've done among many, but I did a darkness retreat where I spent seven days in pitch darkness, silence, and isolation. 24-7 darkness.

So unlike my more physical endeavors, this, you're practicing pure stillness. And when you're in complete darkness, you have nowhere external to go. Like right now, let's say in a silent place, there's those silent retreats that a lot of people do the Vipasana, those 10-day silent retreats,

you're still seeing. So I can still look at a wall and say, that's a wall, this is a plant. So my mind has somewhere external to go. In darkness, you have nowhere external to go. So you're forced to go within. And that's a very intense and beautiful and profound journey.

So as a result of that and all these things that I've done, I feel very blessed to say that I have explored the, like, I've explored myself very deeply. And I think I know myself well, but I'm at a point now where I'm looking, because what got you here won't get you there, wherever there is. So now I'm training for things that I've never been done before. I'm hoping, I'm like not hoping, I will build this massive empire while training for expeditions. Each one of these can be a full-time job, right? building a business, as you all, of course, know, and training for expeditions that are never done. Each one can be a full-time job. Now, if I stay trapped in the paradigms and the constructs that have built me into who I am today, I will never be able to do something that's never been

done before. So, therefore, the point that I'm making is to know yourself, you also have to be willing to let go and destroy everything you think you know about yourself in order to create new constructs about yourself, about the human animal, about the human condition, about the world, right? because your beliefs have worked up to this point. Like, I'm blessed to be in a good spot. I feel like I've achieved a good amount in my life. But now, where are those same paradigms limiting me? You know what I mean?

Yep. So I've explored myself, but I'm now finding new ways to shatter what I think I know in order to evolve to a new self. Sure. And I think that journey is relentless, right? Yeah, you're right. Not only is that journey relentless, but it's ongoing in that if we had another 100 years to live. I always kind of think to myself that if mom and dad gave me the right genetics

and if my environment allows and then my mindset, my attitude, my diet, nutrition, sleep, et cetera, all line up, I'll probably eke out 100 years on this planet of healthy living, not like slowly deteriorating and ending up in a diaper and, you know, for the last 10 years of my life. Yeah. And I really believe that and I really believe those thoughts end up manifesting into the reality. Well, if I had another hundred years, and another hundred years after that, I would still keep peeling the onions of self-discovery. And, you know, who is the consciousness that I am? And discover that. And so, interestingly enough, my wife and I were hiking the other day, and this beautiful snake, about a five-foot snake slithered right across our path.

And it stopped. We're just kind of looking at it. It's got this beautiful kind of tan. brown pattern on it. And I was like, wow, I wonder if it's like, if it's getting ready to shed because you can tell like the skin was starting to maybe bubble up a little bit, right? As I got to thinking, I'm like, you know,

bad thing is going to shed its skin and have new skin underneath and probably shed again and shed again. And each time we shed the old skin, the human animal. Yeah. And that human being or consciousness comes closer to the where we get to have better understanding and that's why I operate that way. That's why I think that way.

This is why I interact with friends and family and this is why my trust issues are come from and this is why loyalty issues. Loyalty is such an important thing to me. And it's so neat because we need to shed our own skin as well in terms of dying to our old ways. Yeah. As a good old J.C. Joseph Campbell says. So to that point, how do you, because the Empire Show is about building empires and business, and, of course, self-discovering, self-betterment.

Dude, you know, there's people who literally get sponsored to do what you do so that they can just train and condition and recover full-time. Yet you're also an entrepreneur. Yeah. How do you even balance all that? You know, I chose, when I first started getting into this stuff, I had pondered getting into the sponsored athlete route. I chose not to, not that there's a right, raw, good, bad, but I chose not to because there's a

lot of broke sponsored athletes. Sure. A lot of sponsored athletes. And they have to do what's kind of what they have to. But they have to kind of play the game of sponsorships. The sponsor kind of controls in some way, you know. And then when they speak, like one of my sponsored athlete friends told me, every time he speaks, he has to mention all the sponsors.

And I was like, I don't want to do that route. So I'm going to build myself, build a business, build a brand around what I do that will allow me to then kind of fund. Because these are very expensive. As I was telling you, you know, my Antarctica expedition this year is $120,000. dollars, you know, so very expensive. So I'm going to build myself. So how I manage it is, I mean, the fundamental thing is partnering with people who are smarter than you, surrounding yourself with people who are smarter than you. I am, my skill set work,

like where I shine is, I am very good at enduring suffering. I'm pretty damn good. I would argue some of the best in the world. But most other things I don't know much about, I'm not the smartest entrepreneur by any stretch of the imagination, you know. So where can I partner with people to build alliances that allow, like, allow me to free up my time to train 20 hours a week. Even with my training, I'm about to start working with the top dog in the sort of polar expedition and mountaineering coach, because I don't, I mean, I know enough about fitness that has gotten me where I'm at, but for what I'm now training for, I need to not just, it's not just mindless suffering, I need to train really smart. So same thing with business.

I have blessed with incredibly smart, very successful entrepreneur friends who guide me, who help me, you know, every arm of what we're building with FIrvana is all partnerships. So we're launching a if you're on a clothing line, a partner with people who know what they're doing, supplement line, partner with people who know what they're doing. So creating effective partnerships and surrounding yourself with smarter people than yourself is, I mean, that's where we met, right, at that event where I was like arguably the dumbest entrepreneur in that room, you know, the noob compared to most of those people. They were incredibly successful.

I was a total noob, but that's like, that's where you learn. You've got to be willing to put yourself in situations where you feel stupid. And I felt stupid in that room, you know, but that's how I grow. So partnering people allows me to look at, constantly looking at, and it's an ever-evolving thing where where are those points of leverage where I can say, okay, this I don't need to be doing anymore. Here's where I can outsource. Here's where I can move the needle so I can then focus on this, you know?

And like my main forte is adventure exploration. Like if I had to label myself one category, it'd be adventurer, explorer, not entrepreneur. So I want to, I want to build kind of like what Richard Branson did is the model. Like he was the brand, he was the face of the brand, right? He has nothing to do with most of the virgin brands, but he built a brand around himself and this identity, and then he licenses the name. So that's kind of the model I want to follow to build the Fiervana Empire,

the Fiervana brand, because I also believe it's solving one of the greatest problems in the human condition, which is our negative relationship to suffering. You know, because if you think about it, if we develop a positive relationship with any kind of suffering, fear, pain, stress, anxiety, struggle, guilt, whatever the struggles of life, if we develop a positive relationship to it, inevitably, we live a happier life.

We live a more blissful life. And ultimately, what is it we seek, right? You can put whatever words you want to it, happiness, fulfillment, inner peace. That's what we seek, right? Some flavor of that. And so what fear of honor is doing is helping people reframe their relationship to suffering so we can say, even when I go through the pains of life, whether it's a pain that's been handed upon me or a pain I choose to seek, I can smile in the face of it.

I can enjoy it. I can fall in love with it. Tell me about fear of Bono. Like, how did you come up with what is now effectively the movement? And you were kind enough to give me your book. Love it. But how do you come up with the name and how do you describe the movement and all the different, you know, from apparel to supplements

and all the different ways you're impacting? So the name I did not come up with, my ex-wife did. I had been living this lifestyle, you know, like pursuing fear, seeking it. and we were trying to crystallize it. And when she said it, I was like, that is gold. Like, that was awesome. We bought 20 different domain names, you know? Because it was so I can say with no ego that I thought when I heard it was like,

this is awesome, you know? And she coined this name of this idea that we were living. Because I at this point, so when it came up, like I had just gotten out of, to kind of bring it back a little bit. When I came back from the war, I struggled. I was diagnosed with PTSD, struggled with depression, heavy drinking. At a point in my life that I was downing a bottle of vodka at night. This would go on for days on end until I got to a point where I was seconds away from picking up a knife and slitting my wrists after one of these five-day binge sessions.

So when I hit rock bottom, that's when I started my climb out of that abyss. And it wasn't like a smooth, easy climb. It was a, you know, crawling, fighting your way from it. I slipped again, all of that. Got to the other. When I finally kind of really felt I was in a good space healed, I wanted to share everything I had learned, you know. And I remember meeting Jack Canfield, the author of The Chicken Soup of the Soul series, and I asked him, what would you do? differently if you could go back in your career. He said, I would have written my book sooner.

So I was like, all right, this would be a good time to share everything I've learned because obviously I'm not the only person who suffered. I had lost two junior Marines to suicide, and people with a veteran or not, everybody suffers, of course. And so how can I share what I'm learning to help people reframe this? So I was like, all right, let me write a book. And originally I was going to call it the other side of fear. But that kind of sounds like a rather personal development book, right? And so, Shruti, my ex-wife coined Fear Vana and that was gold. And the way now I describe it is the idea of it is that fear and nirvana are two seemingly contradictory ideas, right? People demonize fear all the time.

I mean, how many times do you hear be fearless? Don't be scared. You know, fear is, people hear the word fear and don't think of it as something positive. And that was what we wanted to combat, whether it be fear, stress, anxiety, pain, suffering, struggle. Any of these words don't conjure up positivity. The essence of it was, okay, look, no matter how much I tell people fear is not bad, the word is still going to have an imprint in our subconscious. So we need to create a new one, right?

So Fearvana became the essence to combat this demonization of fear to say that, look, fear and Nirvana are not in fact opposites, but they're complementary. Like fear is not the antithesis of Nirvana, but the access point to it. And so the fundamental essence of what we do is to help people develop a positive relationship to suffering of any kind, fear, struggle, all of it, develop positive relationship so they can find, live, and love their worthy struggle. Let me just before you go on, because I think, you said it's so matter of factly, our audience may have missed it.

Fear is the access point, the entryway, the doorway, to nirvana. To bliss. Absolutely. To bliss, to happiness. And someone might go, well, wait, tell me more. How can that be? I would challenge them by saying the things that scare you the most, once you've done them, have given you the greatest joy when you've accomplished that, right?

The easiest would be, well, I'm afraid to jump out of an airplane and parachute down. It's scary. I have fear and you do it. And the level of bliss and happiness and accomplishment you feel when you're now embracing the dirt, you know, like, oh, my God, that was amazing. Launching a business. Having a child, I mean, it's so scared to go, I'm going to get married and have a child and start a family. And when you do it, you're like, holy cow, I get to raise and love and guide this beautiful little package, right? Like the bliss from that is massive.

So it is indeed, fear is the access point to nirvana, to bliss and happiness. And you're so well spoken and you speak so eloquently, I didn't want that point to be missed. I think that is truly the gem out of this episode here. So in terms of your business, how do you partner with people? Like give an example of how you start monetizing FIrvana so that you can go and hire a coach and get the gear and invest the time. and the food and the training and the recovery. To be able to, right? I mean, recovery is huge to be able to, especially as you get older, you're 36.

At 46 when you're doing this, at 56 when you're doing this, the recovery gets more expensive. As someone who's 46, I can tell you that. But I love it. Because that has a level of suffering that you're like, okay, okay, this is different. My body's telling me something. What is it telling me? And you listen to it.

But give me an example of how you've monetized Fervana in whatever category you want so that our audience can go, okay, that's, That's something I could do as well. Yeah. So, you know, initially when I started, I was just pure one-on-one coaching. That was the- What were you coaching people in? Sort of a life coaching type thing. Yeah.

Reach your potential or your goals in life. Different people from all walks really different from deep mental health struggles to, you know, people who are higher end, like peak performance, you know, so kind of the spectrum. Because I had been blessed to live that spectrum, right? So I was drawing people in, whether it be I'm on the edge of sort of, you know, darkness, PTSD, depression, mental health struggles, too. I'm now at the cusp of mastery at my craft, and I'm looking for that next edge, you know. But like life and sort of peak performance type coaching, completely stopped that because I didn't want one-on-one coaching, as you know, is only so scalable.

So I started selling digital information products. We have digital information products around sort of the fear of on ethos. Right now, the monthly membership program called the Fear Chasers Alliance. So building sort of recurring revenue engines, you know, and monthly membership where I do live sort of group trainings. things like that. Right now, that's what we're, that's what the main focus is that digital realm. And where we're launching this year is we, and I also have a nonprofit, the Fiervana Foundation. Obviously, I don't make money off it. It's a nonprofit. And like all the, all the proceeds from the book go to the nonprofit. So we fund, we do beautiful work supporting former child soldiers to survivors of sex trafficking, like really beautiful work that I'm blessed to be an honor to be a part of.

But as far as making money right now, it's primarily the digital realm. And this year, we're expanding to the sort of physical realm with the supple. line and the clothing line that we're launching this year. And I have partners, as I said, who've, in fact, Kevin, I met at the, at 100MME, who was like a master at e-commerce and clothing. So he's built, you know, multi-seven figures, if not eight-figure brands in clothing. So I'm blessed with, again, great friends and now friends, in fact, I'm meeting him tomorrow, who helped me find, figure out how to navigate this new terrain, you know? Same thing with, like, even with, like, with the artist.

I mean, the guy who draws this. He's a legend. Like, he's actually with my rack made in boot camp, and Marine Corps Boot Camp. camp. No kidding. And now I partner with him. He's an incredible artist. And so we find, even the supplement guy with him met through a friend. And like we partner, he's, we, you know, have an equity partnership in our, in our brand where he basically formulas, creates these custom formulas, brand, like everything. And my job where I'm, I'm still not at the point where I can completely sort of disappear off the face of the earth for three, you know, for months

to go ski cross Antarctica, but I'm working, again, I'm learning. Like, as you know, when you build a business, there's so many arms things you don't know. You kind of navigate it one step ahead of time and ideally learn from people who are further along the path than myself, like you and Craig, you know, like I follow you all and learn so much in that realm because that's like I'm so new to it still, you know. But that's kind of how we've monetized so far. That's gotten me into a good spot where I can now afford to even like, I mean, the Denali, three weeks in the wilderness and Denali that I just came back from,

that's the longest of spelling the wilderness since 2012 when I spent a month skied across Greenland. So in that time, I went through my kind of low, bottomed out after Greenland. and then started focusing on the business. During many expeditions here and there, like I did a couple of week-long trips in Norway, but now it was only at a point where I could at least disappear for three weeks off the grid

and still, you know, things are going. How did it feel for you to, you know, since 2012 was the last time you disappeared for a stretch of time. Yeah. I mean, that was some time ago, gosh, 11 years. Exactly. Exactly. Right?

So how did it feel to go away for three weeks, you know, climb Mount Donali, come back and look at your business and go, holy crap, it's still there, it's functioning, everything's okay. It's surreal, right? It's so surreal to be able to be in that spot. Like, I feel very grateful and blessed now. There's still work to be done for sure that Denali was three weeks

relatively short compared to, like, in November, I'm going to, I'm going to be in Antarctica for two months. So that's even longer. So I definitely, like, now I'm grooming somebody to kind of take over as a COO and really run operations. So I have five months to get to that point. Sure. That, like, I can disappear for two months and be good to go.

you know. So here's a great lesson for all of you that are watching and listening to this, to this episode. Something that I get asked often by my coaching clients is, you know, dude, I've built the systems. I feel I'm no longer working in the business. I'm working on the business. But how do I know that I've got enough systems and processes in place to open up a second, third, fourth, whatever, restaurant, dental practice, gym, whatever the thing is that they do? I'm like, oh, it's simple. Go away for three to four weeks. Just go away. Like, really? I'm like, I've gone to three or four week vacation. And one of two things happened.

One, they're like, dude, I feel super confident. I can do that and they go away and, you know, they come back and like, dude, nothing fell apart or yeah, I, okay, a few things fell apart, but it's fixable, found some cracks in the foundation. The other thing that happens is, hell no, I'm not going away, which means that there are things that they just didn't want to address. Yeah. Maybe there's like a bad employee or a process.

They just don't want to touch because they're not excited about selling or marketing or follow-up or whatever the thing is. Yeah. But I'm like, dude, well, there it is. So telling someone to go away for three to four weeks is either going to show you the problems or show you the opportunity that you have. Absolutely. Yeah.

So good for you for doing that. So you're going from digital now to the physical world in terms of supplements and apparel line. Yeah. What's next for Fiervana as you look forward like the next five, ten years? The big thing, sort of the flagship thing that we want to build when eventually getting into kind of the tech startup world is, building a platform that I'm going to call Fearvana Journeys. The idea is, is to build a virtual world that interacts with the real world that, you remember,

you remember when that Pokemon Go thing came out? Yes. Like, so kind of like using augmented reality and kind of a video game, so I have friends in gamification who are masters of their craft to create this game, but unlike like Pokemon Go where you're just finding eggs or some stupid shit, you're actually like, you're the character in your game, and your life is the game. So we want to create this, like using Fervana methodologies, using these guys, and these guys, to, and I don't know anything about tech startup. Again, I have friends who are way smarter

than me in this, but post, I'm right now focusing on building like one, getting the brand to like kind of the next level. We're on that cusp of that tipping point, you know, where it's really like there, there. And so, and I want to focus on for the next two years on an expedition that I'm training for. Once that expedition is done in 2022, that's when we want until then, just keep building the brand, you know, keep building the revenue, keep getting the name out there further. and then I'm going to start building this Fearvana Journey's platform. And that I see as the flagship thing. There's honestly nothing like it out there.

Like a video game that interacts with the real world, but you're the character in your own video game. So it's not like... And your life is the video game. Your life is the video game. Wow. But so the idea is, like, I mean, that's what I was saying earlier. It's like Fearvana is about helping you find, live and love your worthy struggle.

And this will be the tool to help you do that. So I call it your worthy struggle. Your worthy struggle is your path. Right. Like, I don't, not that passion is a bad thing. Obviously, it's great to have passion for what you do. But often when you say follow your passion, it conveys the idea that life is sunshine and rainbows and unicorns.

If you do what you love, you'll never do a day of work in your life. And I think that's a nonsense. I love what I do, but there are days where it's fucking work. Like, it's hard, you know. And so the idea is, and that's why I call you a worthy struggle. Like the struggle worthy of who you are and who you want to be. It doesn't have to be climbing mountains or running ultramarathons or even building a business. It could be, I want to be a school teacher.

Then be the best in the world of that, you know, like, whatever your struggle is. Because the, like, why I call it a struggle is because the real question to be ask whenever you're finding out what that is, is not which passion do I want to follow, but which struggle am I willing to endure? Because you're going to retreat and surrender to the lowest, like, denominator, right? Like the chain is as strong as the weak, it's link. So you're going to fall to the struggle. You're going to fall to what you have, what you're willing to endure.

And so at any crossroads in life, like work this job I hate, start a business, either path is going to be a struggle. Any crossroads, you name it in relationship, anything, there's going to be a struggle. So the question is, which struggle are you willing to endure? And what I want to do is help people find, live and love that and create this sort of game that will help people turn their life into this sort of video game. And again, I'm blessed with way smarter friends to help me build that. You know, funny that you say this. So at the beginning of the episode, you talked about the Marine Corps ethos and kind of the saying there, which is, embrace the suck, right?

Like just go all in and find the bliss in that. It's really what you're looking to do. because all of life is chaos with brief moments of bliss and happiness. And if you could just find the joy, the bliss, the opportunities, the just a fulfillment in that chaos, like you could really do magical things. Yeah. 100 years or so that you have on this planet.

Yeah. Purpose. How does someone find their purpose? So, great question. You know, so the way, the way kind of help people start is start looking at the things you don't want. It's a little easier to know what we don't want. Like, it's very easy for somebody to say,

I want nothing to do with climbing Denali or something like that. So start by looking at things you don't want. And the framework you want to look at is work backwards from the future, not forward to the present. So if I say, okay, let's just look five years. What's my lifestyle look like, right? So let me start, here's the things I don't want. You know, some people might say I don't want to travel.

I want to stay at home with the family. Cool. Again, there's no right wrong, right? Our game here that we're playing is what's our path, what's going to trigger our neurochemicals, to experience bliss. So once we start things we don't want, start looking at things we do want, okay? Start building this out, getting like extremely clear on it. Once you do that, start looking at people who are, look around you, look for references of people who are creating that. Who has

that? And then once you start seeing that, start looking at, okay, can I get that that way? So what I mean by is you want to start, like, I'm all about stretching the limits of the impossible, obviously, but you want to be somewhat realistic. Like, I could look at, let's say, LeBron James and say, that dude's living a lifestyle I want, I'm never going to go into the NBA right now, it'd be stupid for me to try, right? They're just like, I'm 36, like, so you want to, like, take some degree of pragmatism about where I am and then also be willing to stretch the impossible, right? There's a duality that play there that both can coexist. So I can say, okay, LeBron James has a lifestyle, but you know what, that path's not for me. There's entrepreneurs,

like, okay, Bezos has lived in a certain life. These other guys are living a certain life. That's kind of, I think I can do that path. Cool. Now let me figure out who, once I figure out who's doing it, how do they think? What are they, what have they done? How are they doing it? You know, when we follow from mentors, it's not just about how they did what they did and what they did, but the great thing to start asking is what are their belief systems? Because you will find out, like entrepreneurs like you, they think they have a different belief about business. Like if I ask you a question, what do you believe about business? Your answer will almost certainly be something positive, you know?

Like, you can, like, yeah. Well, it's what I do. It's treated as a hobby. It's something, yeah. But if you ask somebody else who's never built, it might be, they might say things like, I believe a business is hard, it's scary, it's impossible. It's like, so their belief systems about. things will be different. So how do they think?

Once I have a sense of a path, then I start embarking upon it. Now, you're never going to know, as you know, you're never going to know all the steps. So you can say, okay, look, I'm going to choose this worthy struggle, right?

This is my worthy struggle. I know I will suffer. I have a sense of the suffering. One of the things I also like to do when I work with people is write down. Like, this path, these are some of the struggles I will have to endure.

You might not know all of them yet. Great. But here's some of struggles I know I'll have to endure. Am I willing to endure it? Almost as a self-check. Like, write down what you know you'll likely endure and go, am I willing to endure that?

Am I willing to endure it, right? So, I mean, even for me, like choosing to be the sort of an entrepreneur slash adventure is very different than a sponsored athlete, right? So this requires its own set of struggles. Am I willing to endure it? Obviously, now I've chosen that path. Once you do it, then go ham down that road.

Like, obsess. Let it consume your soul. Live it, breathe it. Is it an obsession bad? Obsession is, I know, love it. I know that obsession sometimes as a demonized, like the word is demonized. It is the most beautiful thing in the world.

world to be absolutely obsessed about your craft, to the point that it consumes your very soul. Like you wake up, you breathe it, you live it. And it doesn't even have to be necessarily the specific thing. Like one thing I love doing, like for me, for example, is I have a philosophy statement, a mission statement. So just like companies out of, right? So get clear. What's your philosophy about life?

So my philosophy is the path to inner peace is the pursuit of a worthy inner war. So that's my philosophy of what I believe life is about. So how do we find that inner peace to pursue our own word? inner war. Call your inner struggle, right? Like, what's your worthy struggle? So my war is this, right? Like, I go to war with myself every day, whether it be running, building the business, I'm going to war with myself. Ultimately, it's not about whoever else. It's not about the mound. I'm fighting me. I'm going to battle with myself. And so that's my philosophy statement. So every day, it's like, am I living that philosophy? So by crystallizing your philosophy,

by crystallizing your mission, by crystallizing your vision, your, crystallize your values. Like, as an example, I had to make a really tough decision on Denali whether to take this drug for a high-altitude pulmonary edema, which was your lungs fill up with fluid. And I used my value system to guide that decision. Like, my fundamental value for Fear of Ana and myself is self-transcendence so that others may live. That's what it's all about, the number one value. So once I have that crystallized, I use that to make decisions. So once you get clear on all this stuff, then you obsess about it. I know here's my path.

And look, obviously, things are never going to go exactly as you wind up. Denali didn't, life doesn't. But then you adapt. You know, you might go, like when I joined the Marines, I wanted to go career Marines. That changed. Do I have any regrets? Was it a waste of time? Absolutely not.

You know, like, it was something I'm damn proud of. And it shaped me into the person I've become today. So the path changed, but that led me to what I do now. So go ham on that path and recognize that you're going to suffer, right? You're going to struggle on that path. And then you keep pursuing it. You obsess about it because obsession, like, consumes you. the most beautiful way.

Like, I know you asked that question for she's facetiously, like, is it bad? But it's so beautiful because it consumes you. Like, how beautiful is it to wake up, like, feeling alive that this is who I am? Sure. This is what I live for? So what about the people, what about the people around you that say, you know, gee, you just seem so obsessive. You seem so overly consumed with what you're doing. How do you handle the people, deal with the people that are, I don't want to.

want to say they're hating because that's their path. Like if someone wants balance, I'll always say I don't have balance in my life. I have a work life mix. And I love that. Yeah. When I try and find balance in fact a long time ago, my wife's like, hey, let's go to the beach. You could read a book and you can kind of dig your toes into the sand. The idea that sounded really fucking awesome, dude. And so she's laying next to me. I got my toes on the sand. I'm laying down. I'm reading a book. Like, I don't even know five minutes that tick by. I was like, hey, and I'm going to go into the water and just fight the waves. I'm just going to fight the waves. And she goes, why? I'm like, I just can't do this. I like books on audio. I need to be driving.

I need to be doing multiple things at any given time where I feel the sense of accomplishment. I drove to a destination while learning new stuff, while seeing new things as I'm driving. And I realized something about myself that that was relaxation for me, just battling the waves, getting exhausted, and the waves were the bear in my life. And I was battling the inner dragon. Am I willing to go deeper into the water and deal with bigger waves and get sucked underneath? And that gave me a sense of accomplishment when I came out and exhaustion where it's like, you know what? I bet that person who's like snoring, sitting like laying down on the sand has that same level of like bliss that I do after battling that wave. Just two different experiences at the beach.

And so how do you deal with people like that and how could someone deal with people who don't share the same values? You know, it's horror because I think it's more, it's rarer to find that level of obsession than it is. And again, it's not a right, wrong thing. Like if that's what you seek, the balance cool. Right, right. But you're going to lose some relationships along the way. I have. The people who stick around, they get you.

My own family thinks I'm out of my fucking mind with what I do, right? So most people do. My friends are like, dude, you're nuts. Like when I put, what do you do for fun? Like, I drag tires. I run for 12 hours, you know? I suffer. So you're going to have people think you're out of your mind, but you're also going to find a tribe.

Like my community now, they're obsessive in their own way, you know. And so I think as you grow as you evolve, your community evolves with you. And then you get to start surrounding yourself with people because when you live at that wavelength, whatever it may be, whatever you seek, right? Again, whether it's like on that obsessive path, you find other obsessives. That's what led me to 100 enemy. That's why I'm sitting here with you, right? You're clearly, we have that similar wavelength. I couldn't sit on the beach just like you.

I'd find that go running for 12 hours something, you know? So you find your community, and it may be rarer, and you may lose some people along the way, but the people you will gain as a result will more than like, and I don't know, I say they make up for it, but it's profound the people you'll find in your tribe. And you always have like your family might think, and you have to be willing to recognize that, like you said earlier, and it's a really important point, that everybody operates from their own paradigm of the world. So your family will tell you things that you may completely disagree with, but they're like if they're caring, they're telling you from a place,

of love. They just don't get you. Right now my family's been like, look, you do whatever you do you. We love you for it, but you do you. So the ones who really get it, they'll stick around. They may think you're out of your mind, but they'll be there for you anyway, you know? Yeah. And that was one of the greatest things. And I think that was a really neat way to answer it, to say that it's okay to move on from people in your life who don't share the same value and may not understand. Because look, there's people in my life who necessarily don't share my same work ethic. One of them is my dear friend Chanta. I've known it for 25 years. He works for the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandise. He fixes their laptops and I go, whenever I text him randomly,

I'm like, hey man, what are I doing right now? He goes, well, my job is a fix. Smackbooks, but MacBooks never break, so I'm just like chilling like a villain. I could not chill like a villain, bro. I just can't, right? But he surfs five days a week. I love him to pieces. And in the Summertime, he and I are surfing all the time in the mornings, and I'll go, hey, Chantan, I'm going surfing. He's like, but the waves are no good today. I'm like, but I've scheduled surfing into my calendar. So it's flat, but I'll be the guy paddling, and you want to be the guy paddling next to me, and he'll just laugh because he goes surfing when the waves are good. I surf when it's scheduled. You're just a little bitized. Right, exactly. I'm systematized. He's not, and so,

yet he totally knows my kooky ways. And so he'll, he saw like the other day on social media, I'm starting a new new software company and I was like, hey, this is the unsexy part of a software company. It was our conference room upstairs. There's 12 of us in there. Papers all over the conference table. You know, something on the projector screen, all types of energy drinks sitting out for everyone. And we're like on our 10th hour and Ed came in and took a picture.

But oftentimes people just see the, you know, FitBody logo, the BK logo, this logo, the project logo. Well, before it never becomes the logo hits the Inc. 500 list. An entrepreneur fastest growing 500 list, whatever, it's there. In a conference room where we're talking about. how do we get the millions, who's gonna be in charge, what are the tough conversations to have, and what seats are empty that we need to fill. And that's not sexy, but I thrive off that.

Yet I know that Chanta would never want anything to do with that, and he would just be like, why would anyone do this? Yet he would benefit from the software that we create, right? And so that's very okay. But then I've got other people in my life who are like, dude, you're a different person, I don't know you. And through the help of my therapist, I was able to,

edit them out of my life. It's a great tool that Kevin, Kevin Downey, my therapist, taught me, he goes, it's okay to edit people out of your life or to have edited conversations with those people where if they go, hey, what are you doing now? To tell them I'm starting a new business is just going to be like, wait, you got five already. What's the benefit of a sixth? Like, they don't get it. Whereas like, you've done all the crazy wacky shit. Like, why now, like, whatever trek across Greenland or wherever the next thing is going to be? Because you must, you have to, There's no choice. Otherwise, you'll probably fall into some deep depression and anxiety.

If I stopped working, because financially I can. But if I stopped working, the next thing would be self-sabotage, a dark place. Everyone was like, why is Baderos so, like, depressed and anxious, et cetera? Because this is my zone of genius where I thrive, man. And so anyway, for me, I found that I could either edit people out of my life or hang with people who understand, but they don't have to necessarily embrace that life. Yeah, it's like similar. Yeah, I have friends who think I'm out of my mind if we're running for 24 hours or something, right?

He'll never do that, but they're like, cool, you know. So before we wrap this up, man, what is the, and I'm not going to say what's the craziest thing that you've done, not necessarily through your lens, because your lens is a little jaded. Right, because, I mean, you're extreme, you're extreme. And I love that, I respect that. Like, I recognize that.

But through the lens of, you know, the regular person, And what are the top three extreme or crazy things that you've done that either was via endurance, in terms of maybe temperature suffering, whatever it was? Yeah, yeah. You know, skiing across Greenland, we spent 28 days dragging 190-pound sled for 350 miles and minus 40 degrees. That ranks up there. What was in the sled? There was 1905 pounds.

Like all your food for 32 days worth of food and supplies, fuel, your tent. So it's everything to survive in that environment because it's fully self-supported. for a month, essentially. And the storms were so intense that the following year after my crossing, a British explorer was killed in one of those storms. So brutal storms that battered the tent. And where polar exploration shines

is it is an exercise in pure... Like, I've experienced a great deal in my life and nothing compares to the level of suffering in polar exploration. It is mentally, spiritually, and physically pure suffering. So, like in Greenland, for example, every day you wake up, like I'm like Denali, every day

there's a new environment when you're moving from Camp 1 to Camp 2 or Camp 2 to Camp 3. The views are different. In Greenland, every day is empty white nothingness. 12 hours of empty white nothingness, and you're just skiing into that. And you have to be mentally still. 28 days? We had 32 days worth of food, yeah, but 28 days when we were out there.

Yeah. Yeah. So that ranks up there. I'm trying to think like what I did. When the COVID thing first hit, I wanted to show people like, okay, look, we can still push ourselves. We don't need to be at the effect of this circumstance. So I did a 50 mile run around a cul-de-sac. A thousand loops just going mind-numbing all night.

around this like 0.05 mile cul-de-sac. And three weeks later, I did a 24-hour run after that. So some of those runs rank up there as well. Did you, I'm just curious, and I'll tell you why. Did you change directions halfway through? So every hour I would do a quick nutrition break, and then I would like, yeah, switch the cul-de-sac directions. The reason I ask, so my father-in-law, my wife's dad,

he's a doctor, he's a physician, and he had a patient who was major OCD, and she was diabetic. And so she comes to the office. She was overweight. And so he was like, you know what? We could really cure this diabetes if you lose the weight. It's simple enough.

And she's like, okay, what do I need to do? He's like, just exercise, get tennis shoes and start walking. Well, they live in Seattle. Lots of rain, right? And not everybody wants to go out and run and move in the rain. So she took the doctor's orders. And so she straps on her tennis shoes. And she walks around.

the coffee table every single day like for miles at a time right in one direction and so three months later she comes to visit the doctor my father-in-law and holy smokes like your numbers are great your blood sugar numbers are fantastic you've lost weight you look great she's like i got this massive pain in my hips right one side and he can't figure it out then he looks at her shoes and they're just like worn out like in one way right he's He's like, what, what, sometimes with those are connected. What happened? What were you doing to lose this weight?

I know you, like, where were you running, exercising? Oh, just around my coffee table in the house, right? He's like, okay, switch directions every day. Every other day, just switch directions. And that was the cure because she just goes OCD and just went to one. That's what that's why I switched. I knew that one side would trigger more if I'm just going. So those were, yeah, those were a couple of them.

And then, you know, other than the darkness retreat, which was pretty intense. Like one of the ones, I don't know if it's the most crazies, but definitely one of the most beautiful experiences was right before I did the darkness retreat, I did a, we were going to Liberia in West Africa to do like a sort of two weeks of humanitarian work and filming a documentary out there. And as one does, I decided to run across the country before the documentary started to raise funds to build school. So I did a seven-day run, about a marathon a day for one week. And what made it intense was not just the running marathon a day a week. I was doing it in a country that had been through Ebola, brutal civil war, intense, like, intense poverty, running through a country I'd never been through before. I didn't know anybody. And I mean, I stood out like I don't look like everybody in Liberia. You know, so, I mean, it was a profoundly beautiful experience. Just as one quick example was, you know, the first day these two kids started running with me and we were starting chatting. And like one kid wanted to go to medical school, the other wanted to go to vocational training school. They lived in a tiny village in this like middle of nowhere, Liberia. And the odds of that happening were, damn near zero. And it just was so, like, as I was running, the rest, you know, just, like, what's the

difference with me and that kid? I was born where I was born. As a result, I was blessed with a million times more opportunities. And he happened to be born in a country where one of the kids had lost his father to the war and living with the other kid because his mother had run off. And born in, like, hell, you know, and you know, because I know a little bit about your story. And it just was a very humbling experience to see that, like, that size. I've been blessed to see a lot of it in poverty in India, working with leper colonies,

working like survives as sex trafficking to former child soldiers and stuff. And being in war, of course, as well. So that was really profound experience to get that. And then you add the seven days of running in miserable heat. So the intensity of all of that combined was really profound. Actually, I got to tell you, brother, you definitely have taken suffering to a whole new level in terms of being also able to articulate the beauty. that it creates inhumanity.

Like, you know, we'll look at David Goggins and we see that he just does incredible shit, right? Like 4,000 pull-ups in 24 hours or whatever. And, you know, the mileage that he covers. And he's just so profound in the way he explains about constantly beating yourself down to build yourself up. But in terms of explaining, articulating

that how suffering really helps your consciousness shine and you get to meet this higher level of person, I haven't met anyone who can articulate that and draw that word picture out as clearly as you. And so you are a gifted man. Thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you. Where can our audience find you and learn more about FIrvana and maybe even start, maybe embracing some of these journeys and challenges themselves?

The book, Fearvana is on Amazon and audible, Kindle, paperback. And as I mentioned, all the proceeds go to the nonprofit Fairvana Foundation. And then you can find me at fearvana.com as well. Right on, man. Well, thank you so much for joining. us on the show today. Appreciate you. Guys and gals, do me a favor. And again, Fiervana is the book. You can find it on Amazon. And it's high time that you start suffering and finding the higher level of who you are and what you're meant to do on this planet. Thank you so much for watching this episode.

Listening to this episode, as always, be sure to leave us a five-star review on the podcast platforms and as well as take a screenshot and tag both Akshay and myself on your social media platforms. We'll see you later.