Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ? - Daniel Packard: His Journey to Ending Anxiety

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

In this episode of 'Why Not Me, Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide,' host Tony Mantor welcomes Daniel Packard, a UC Berkeley-trained mechanical engineer and founder of Permanent Anxiety Solutions. Packard shares his journey from battling severe anxiety to developing a groundbreaking six-week nervous system reset program with a 90% success rate. They discuss the program's unique approach to targeting the root cause of anxiety and other mental health struggles, emphasizing a holistic, engineering-based method to bring permanent relief. The conversation also covers the challenges in the personal development and mental health industries and how Packard's system stands out by offering results-based payment. Listeners are encouraged to visit Packard's website for a free training to experience the effectiveness of the program firsthand. Meet Daniel Packard: From Anxiety to Innovation The Journey to Permanent Anxiety Solutions Understanding the Improvement Industrial Complex Engineering a Solution: The Birth of Inner Engineering The Science Behind the Program Marketing and Skepticism Simplifying the Problem: Fear as the Root Cause The Nervous System and Emotional Nutrients Conclusion and Final Thoughts INTRO/OUTRO: T. Wild Mantor Music BMI The content on Why Not Me: Embracing Autism amd Mental Health Worldwide, including discussions on mental health, autism, and related topics, is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not reflect those of the podcast, its hosts, or affiliates.Why Not Me is not a medical or mental health professional and does not endorse or verify the accuracy, efficacy, safety of any treatments, programs, or advice discussed.Listeners should consult qualified healthcare professionals, such as licensed therapists, psychologists, or physicians, before making decisions about mental health or autism- related care.Reliance on this podcast's contents is at the listener's own risk. Why Not Me is not liable for any outcomes, financial or otherwise, resulting from actions taken based on the information provided. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Why Not Me, embracing autism and mental health worldwide, hosted by Tony Mature. Broadcasting from the heart of Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests share their raw, howful stories. Some will spark laughter, others will move you to tears. These real-life journeys inspire, connect, and remind you that. you're never alone. We're igniting a global movement to empower everyone to make a lasting difference by fostering deep awareness, unwavering acceptance, and profound understanding of autism and mental health. Tune in, be inspired, and join us in transforming the world one story at a time.

Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me embracing autism and mental health. Worldwide. Joining us today is Daniel Packard, a UC Berkeley-trained mechanical engineer and founder of permanent anxiety solutions. After battling severe anxiety himself, he spent eight years researching a groundbreaking system that tackles anxiety at its root, your nervous system. With a 90% success rate and a unique, no change, no charge guarantee, his six-week nervous System Reset Program is redefining how we overcome fear and anxiety for good.

He's here to tell us his story. So before we dive into our episode, we'll be back with an uninterrupted show right after a word from our sponsors. Thanks for coming on. You're welcome. If you would, let's give our audience a little insight to what it is that you do. I want to tell a story that will explain it best. Is that okay?

Yeah, okay. I had a client who reached out to us recently who struggling with anxiety, mental health, some trauma, some depression, some procrastination, self-doubt. She had tried a lot of things to solve it. She'd gone to therapy. She'd read books. She's gone to retreat. She'd done apps. Nothing really worked.

She found out about what we're doing and we helped her be free of it quickly. The part that stood out to me is she said, you know, because I don't have a solution, I feel stuck. I feel like it's my fault, like I'm broken. And I interrupted her. I said, you're not broken. There's nothing wrong with you. It's not your fault. What I told her was this.

I want your audience to really understand this is the personal development, mental health, spiritual industry. It's a trillion dollar a year industry, trillion with a teeth. What we saw was from our research is that it wasn't solving what people are struggling with. It was managing it, but it was never solving it. And that this industry, I call it the improvement industrial complex, has a real results issue. Okay. Can you expand on that?

What we do is we get people results. And by results, I mean permanent results, fast results, and easy results. The power of that is that when you have solved the anxiety, when you've solved the trauma, when you are free of the self-doubt and the low confidence, it unlocks you to fulfill your potential, to be the best you, and to have the happiest life. Yeah, that's great. So you have this one person come to you and she had her issues. I'm sure you have others as well.

how do you treat the others compared to how you treated this lady? Is there a different approach for the others? So the short answer is no, because of my story and how I ended up here. Do you mind if I tell us another story? No, that's great. It'll make much more sense how we're able to help people and why we don't customize things to each person and why that actually works better depending on how you do it.

My company's passion, it's results in solutions, and the reason it matters to me is because when I was younger, my dad, who is an engineer and a physicist, he basically said, you don't always know who to trust and you don't always know who knows what they're talking about. He said, it's the person that gets results. He said, results matter. I always stuck with me, this idea that results matter, because they do. That's what people need is results. I was a little inventor as a kid, and I loved innovating things and inventing things that got results. So I went to engineering school to learn how to be properly trained, how to engineer things and test and prototype until you get something

to build results. So I was very skilled, talented, and trained to make machines that work and get results. The problem is I didn't know how to make life work. Among other things, I stayed in an abusive relationship way too long. And when I came out of it, my anxiety was through the roof. I had complex PTSD. My self-confidence was in the toilet. Procrastination, people, everything got worse. And I went looking for help. And I went to therapists, coaches and gurus. And I read the books. And I download the apps and I meditated. And after 10 years and 100 grand, Tony, I was still doing it. I still had it. It was so painful because I thought, I felt stuck. I felt broken. I felt like am I trapped here forever? And I was pissed. And I kind of looked up to the heavens,

whoever's up there. And I was pissed. I said, you know, what do you want for me? What do you want for me? I know this is a test. I'm trying to pass the test, but what's the test? And I was just being rhetorically pissed. I just wanted a vent. But I got this sort of divine download, which reminded me what my dad said when I was a kid, which is results matter. And I realized that this improvement industrial complex doesn't get people good results. So I guess the next question is, what did you do from there? I'm an engineer. I know how to get results. So I started an engineering company, an inner engineering company, to see, could we reverse engineer one process for everybody that would work for everybody such that if you worked the steps, you would get the result? And the result would be that it would address the root cause of what you're struggling with, and you would be free of it. So doing all this, what kind of time frame was you looking at? So eight years, a million dollars in research. We worked with 3,000 people all over the world. We now have an online, online, automated program where anybody, regardless of what you're struggling with, a set of tools, instructions, and a whole program that addresses the root cause quickly and what you're struggling

with, anxiety, self-doubt, people pleasing, low confidence, overwhelm, goes away and stays away. Wow, that sounds great. What kind of results were you seeing? It's at a 90% success rate. That's what we're most excited about. If you try it, you won't fail because people have tried things and they fail and they feel worse about themselves. And the beauty is it's one program that works. for pretty much everybody. And that's why we're getting into schools and prisons. I'm working with the Swedish government because it's one program that's simple.

It works for everybody. That sounds like a great thing that you've got going. Now, you spend all the time getting it ready. You've got it marketed a little bit. But how are you marketing it? How is it getting out there? How are people finding out about what you're doing because it takes more than just word of mouth in these days?

I mean, it's a really good question because when we first, started to get the results, that we had something that was healing the root cause in a matter of weeks. We thought this is just going to spread like wildfire. This is what everyone's looking for is a solution, a simple solution. And this is important to understand. We don't charge people at the beginning of working with us. We only charge you at the end when what you're struggling with, anxiety, stuff that is gone. You pay at the end when it works. And we thought this guarantee is going to catch on and we're going to help millions. And we didn't. Did you have any idea why it didn't work that way? I didn't know why. Started doing research. My marketing team started doing research. We just realized because people have tried so many things that haven't solved anything, because this industry frees on people in pain, people are way too skeptical and not trusting. So the good news is we innovated something, but anytime something is innovative, people are doubtful. And so traditional marketing just was not working because people just thought it was too good to be true. And so what has worked is these podcasts, because I can tell the story of where I,

I was and where I am now. I used to have anxiety, PTSD, and it's just gone. Gone, Tony. And that's remarkable. We get to tell that we built this company to solve things. And then also I share with your audience how it's possible our approach and why it's different and why people can be free of things quickly. We tried so many things.

And the one thing was the podcast because it gives me more time to help people understand that they don't have to live like this if they don't want to. Yeah, that's definitely a great start. Now, here's something you brought up. I think that it's something that definitely needs to be discussed. You mentioned that there are so many people out there that are trying to get everyone's dollar, and that's why they don't trust them.

What do you say to the skeptics? You're going to always have those naysayers that say, oh, I tried it, it didn't work, it's a scam, blah, blah, blah. What do you say to them? It's their perception, it's their reality, and it's what they believe. So how do you gain their trust? to show them what you're doing is helping. I mean, that's been what we've been working on.

Here's a bunch of answers. So first of all, there's two ways that we try to reach people and build trust. The first is, and I'll mention this later, I'm going to send your audience to my website to download a free training called Pathway to Permanent Results. At no charge, you can understand our model and understand it more deeply, and you can apply one of the techniques that we develop

so that you can see for yourself whether it works or not. You'll get a result. You will feel it for. yourself and so we build trust by saying look try it and see if it works for you it's to show people they can feel something in their body so that's one way that we build trust as we say look before we take your money go try it see for yourself and the other way that we build trust is again i come on here people see the passion they see that i really care about people and we don't want people to fail and then the other is look people are going to be skeptical they've been burned so many times by so many

people so many people over promising and under delivering so you should be skeptical if i didn't see the results every day, meaning I wake up completely calm and tranquil after a life of anxiety and trauma, and I didn't see the data on our clients every day. I would not believe what we do. Come on. Like a solution in six weeks. So be skeptical. The reason we only charge people at the end when they get results is two reasons. One is my dad said results matter, meaning if you can't help people, you shouldn't charge people. A mechanic doesn't charge you unless they can fix your car. Most industries that get results, they charge you for results. But the improved industrial complex, they just take your money. whether they get you a result or not, and I am ethically opposed to that.

Yeah, that's good. So what is the other reason? Can you expand on that? The other reason we charge at the end is to lower the risk because people are going to be skeptical. And we say, fine, be skeptical. Try it. If it doesn't work, you don't pay. If it does work, you get to be happier and healthier for the rest of your life.

So that's been the best ways to address skepticism. But honestly, it's like one in a thousand, even if people believe that the program can work. And I've had people say, I believe the program can work. I see what you do. I see that could work. But I feel broken. Like, I don't trust me. I think I'm too broken to be fixed.

So there's not just skepticism about us. There's skepticism. Can they really change? And when you've had something your whole life, you're skeptical. So it takes real courage to try one more thing, one more time. And so the people that we work with are skeptical, but they're curious and they have courage. And they want to be happy or bad enough that they're willing to take a risk.

Yeah. I can understand that. That does make sense. So with a lot of companies, they're always evolving. they're always creating new products. What's your day-to-day look like? What's on the horizon? So there's two things.

One is we're a scientist. We are always improving the program to be simpler, get the high success rate. It's nine out of ten right now, which is for this industry huge, and it's six weeks, which is incredibly fast, but we love efficiency.

So we continue to collect data. I have a gentleman on my team where has a master's in data science from Michigan. He tabulates the client data. As you go through our program, tracking your results. You're measuring psychometrics in our app. So we can see how you're doing, A, that proves to us and you that you got results in our program, but also it allows us to optimize and improve the program. So part of us is we're still tweaking. We always want to make it better.

And then the other half is giving talks and going on podcasts to get the word out. Yeah, that sounds good. Now, how did you design this? You said you went through 10 years of struggles yourself. Then you started looking into it on what you could do to help. What was the catalyst that helped you create the design so you could put this program together where it could not only help yourself, but help others as well? So the catalyst was two things. One, well, three things. One, it was my own pain. I didn't want to live like this forever. And I saw that this industry wasn't innovating. It's the same regurgitated concepts over and over and over again. It's antiquated technology. You know, concepts in modern psychology showed up in Greece around 3,000 years ago.

A lot of personal development concepts showed up in India and Greece and Dallas philosophy like 3,000 years old. Modern psychology is 100 years old and it hasn't innovated. It's the same repackaged concepts. They're good concepts. They're valuable, but there's no innovation. And so we wanted to innovate. That was one catalyst, innovation to solve my own pain, but the pain of others.

And then the catalyst was, let's approach this like engineers, not let's learn a bunch of concepts and rehash them. let's start from scratch. So the first thing that we did was we simplified things. We saw that when you struggle, it's really not easy. It's very complicated to know what you have, what it is, what should I do? Is it my ego? Is it my past?

Isn't my hormones? Isn't my trauma? Should I jump in an ice bucket? Should I walk on cold? Should I quiet my ego or awaken the giant from within? Should I do breath? Like, it's complicated. And at best, it just manages the symptoms.

So it's very confusing. And we said, if you really understand, something, you should be able to simplify it. You know, Newton took all of motion on planet Earth, got it down to three laws. Einstein takes this complicated thing, theory of relativity, gets it down to one equation. So we said, what if we could simplify this as engineers? Because if we can simplify it, we're going to get a better result. Okay, that makes sense.

Now, what did you find out from there? The first big simplification was that we saw what wasn't working, which is that we are taught that we usually have multiple problems, meaning I have procrastination, I have anxiety, I've got trauma, I have overwhelm, I have low confidence. We're taught we have multiple problems, and we're usually taught that these are problems of the mind. Cognitive behavioral therapy works in cognition. Spirituality says quiet the ego, which is in the mind, mental health. It has the word mental right in there. So we're taught we have multiple problems of the mind. But we said, if that's true, why isn't this getting better results?

Anxiety is on the rise. It's up 8% this year alone. Life satisfaction score is down 3% each year. Overall happiness index is down about 2% per year. If we have problems of the mind, why are we getting such bad results? And what we discovered is that we do not have multiple problems of the mind. First of all, we have multiple symptoms of one singular thing, which is fear. Can you expand your thought process on that?

Many things that we struggle with are actually symptoms of fear. So, for instance, you could say you procrastinate or you could say you have a fear of starting and finishing things. You could say you're a perfectionist or you could say you have a fear of making a mistake. You could say you have self-doubt. You have a fear of being authentic. You could say you have anxiety or you could say you have a lot of fear. You could say you have PTSD or you could say you have a lot of fear panic attacks.

That's just a lot of fear. So we saw that underneath that what people were struggling with was at the symptom level. And that's one of the reasons that people can't solve things is because they're sent to the symptom level. And we saw that fear was the root cause. So you know a lot about health and how to be happier. Does it at least make sense that a lot of what we're told we have or a disorder might sometimes be symptoms of fear? Does that make sense to you? Yeah, I definitely can see that.

I'm not a doctor, but I can see where fear can create anxiety. It can make you apprehensive about doing things. That totally makes sense. Yeah. So right away, I want to tell your audience, part of the reason they're not able to solve things is because this well-intentioned industry sent you to the wrong location, told you you had a lot of problems and really you have symptoms and so you weren't sent to the root cause. And if you don't go to the root cause, best you can do is manage it.

And that's why people spend all this money and time managing, but it never goes away because they're never sent to the root cause. Your audience doesn't need me to tell you that fear is a problem. That's not a news flash. But when you look at how people approach fear, it's overcome fear. the fear, reframe the fear, don't let the fear affect you so much. And that's fine for managing things, but it's not a solution. And engineers, we said, can we solve fear? To solve it, we needed to know where it was coming from. Again, we're told fear is a problem with the mind. But we said,

if this is true, why aren't we getting better results? What the research showed is that fear does not originate in the mind. Fear, the major source of limiting fear, is located and starts and is fueled in the body. If you're feeling anxious, do you say, I think anxious or I feel anxious? Oh, definitely. I feel anxious. Yeah. Do people say, I think fear or I feel fear? Yeah, it's definitely a feeling for sure. Yeah. And where do you feel it? Chest, heart, throat, stomach, gut. Do those sound like mind words or body words? Yeah. I mean, that makes total sense. If you feel fear, anxiety, whatever it might be, is a nervous feeling. Exactly. And one thing it affects, is the mind. If you feel fear, your mind thinks there's a problem and we'll start saying

scary thoughts, which then keep you stuck in a loop. It's also the way we're wired. We are wired that our body feels things first, and then your mind is a little computer to kind of get the body what it needs to stay alive. You feel hunger in the body first. You sense it. Then the mind tries to go get food. So for reasons, I'll explain your fear in the body first, the mind thinks there's a problem because it sees the fear, but there's no tiger anymore. So then the mind says, I'm not good enough. What's wrong with me? What do people think about me? I'm broken. What about finances? What about health? Then you get stuck in a loop. If you want to manage fear, you go to the mind. You can manage fear in the mind. But the solution is in the body. After living a life of anxiety,

PTSD, self-doubt, overwhelm for 10 years, I've been chill as a cucumber. I wake up every morning in a default calm because I use our tools and I've never done any work on my mind. So I want to tell your audience, part of the reason you don't have a solution and you keep repeating these patterns is the experts, well, well-intentioned, sent you to the wrong location, to the mind, which is the symptom level, and they didn't address you to the root cause. I want your audience to know, you are not broken. There is nothing wrong with you. You were just sent to the wrong place. But if you go to the right location, you get much better results. Okay, hypothetically, they go through your course, everything's going good, then all of a sudden emotions come back. It can be anxiety,

It can be depression. It can be fear. It can be anything. How do you handle that? So what we're doing, because we're going to the root cause, essentially we're creating a solid foundation. Think of emotional pain like physical pain. And imagine, we don't have to imagine, but metaphorically, you have a tooth. And if a tooth is healthy, you can apply pressure to the tooth and you'll feel pressure.

You'll feel life pushing on you. Challenge you. If the tooth is strong, all you feel is pressure. It's about a two out of ten to three out of ten. However, if the tooth is not solid and strong and fragile, the same pressure. You don't just feel pressure two out of ten. You feel a spike, which we call pain. And it's that spike people are feeling.

So I'll explain to your audience the system in the body that regulates fear that's basically malfunctioning and is fragile. Normally now when life pushes on your audience and challenge, their system isn't solid and they spike. Instead of a two out of ten, they feel eight out of ten, nine out of ten, ten out of ten. And very scary and very limiting. We strengthen your system such that when life challenges you, you might feel it. You might be scared, but you're much more solid and you just feel pressure. A little bit of stress, maybe two out of ten.

I have a client who came to us who has a very challenging job, very crazy family, job, entrepreneur. There's a lot going on. Constantly anxious, she was. Panic attacks and burnout. She came to us. She used our system, and her system is now strong and resurgence. same family, same job, same challenges, but instead of feeling eight out of ten stress and panic and trauma for about five hours a day, she feels about two out of ten for about six minutes a day.

So that's how we approach these things. Yes, you will react. The amount you react goes dramatically down and it's a permanent change because we've strengthened your system and it can handle things better. Okay, great. So in closing, tell the audience a little bit about what you think is most important that they take out of what you're trying to do and what you're doing with your company? We're not the first ones to come up and understand that the body is a major contributor to our experience. There's a famous book called Body Keeps the Score. Gabour Matte works on the body. Even breathwork calms the body, but it's temporary. So even if you know that fear is originating in the body or is a large part of it, we didn't know why. Why is the body so fragile? So this was

the big key discovery that we saw that nobody else was seeing, which is what I want people to know. Essentially, your nervous system is the system in your body that regulates fear. It's got the word nervous right in there. That should have been a clue to everybody that fear is not mental health. It's body health because there's a system in the body called the nervous system. Every system in the body, for the most part, needs certain nutrients. Your body needs water. It needs vitamin C, vitamin D. It needs electrolytes. It needs sleep. It needs nutrients to run properly. If a system doesn't get proper nutrients that malfunctions. And we said, well, wait a minute, maybe the nervous system is malfunctioning, not because of the outside or the past. Maybe it's not getting proper nutrients. Now,

I don't mean vitamins or physical nutrients. I mean emotional nutrients. And what we saw, what was creating so much of the fear and people at the root cause was that the nervous system wasn't getting proper emotional nutrients because we were never taught how to do it. So the nervous system is malfunctioning. And basically, your fear switch, which should be going on and off, is now stuck in the on position. And it's sort of creating all this fear that's creating all these symptoms, the anxiety, a lot of the trauma, a lot of the overwhelm, a lot of the self-doubt. I want people to know that every part of your body needs nutrients. But there's this one system which controls fear also needs nutrients.

And if you don't get it the nutrients, it's going to malfunction. You're going to have a life of extra fear and struggle. So what I want people to know is your anxiety is not a psychological issue. It's a nutrient issue, which is a huge new way of looking at it. The reason it's so powerful is because, We know if you don't get something nutrients, it's going to malfunction. And it can malfunction your whole life. But if you just get a system the nutrients it needs,

the problem can go away in a matter of weeks. So that's the most important thing I want people to know. Underneath, a lot of what you're struggling with is fear. It's coming from the body. It's linked to the nervous system. You are never taught to give the nervous system proper nutrients. And so your fear switch is stuck in the opposition, making life really hard.

But I want to give your audience hope that we've developed a system that makes it easy to get your body nutrients. And when you do that, the fear switch turns off. When the fear switch turns off, the anxiety goes away and stays away. A lot of the trauma feeling goes away, stays away. The self-doubt goes away and the confidence goes up. And what that gives people access to, Tony. And this is what it's about. You just get to be happier. You have more energy. You have more focus. You get to be the person that you want to be. Yeah, that sounds great. If you would, give them a little more information and your website so they can

find you. Now, I know what I'm saying sounds great, but your audience is very skeptical. They should be. So like do not take my word for it. See for yourself. I hope what I've shared with you at least has your audience maybe curious to see if this might work for them. And if you're at least curious to see and want proof that this will work, you just go to Daniel Packer.com. You'll see for free, no charge. You get our free training, which we spent years developing pathway to permanent results, where you can learn about the nutrients that your nervous system needs, that you were never taught to give yourself.

And then you're going to give yourself one of those nutrients. And when you do it, you will start to feel noticeably noticeable. calmer. You'll have a result that'll prove to you that this can possibly work for you. That's what I would share. Okay. Well, this has been a great conversation, great information. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and join us today. Thank you for having me. Thank you for all you do to help people in pain in a meaningful way. You're using your gifts to help people in pain, live better lives, and hopefully so I am. So it was nice to collaborate with you. And I hope we reach some people today. Yes, it's been my pleasure. Thanks again.

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