00:00:00] The Venture Podcast with Lambros Photios.
[00:00:06] I’m joined by a gentleman called Akshay Nanavati, who is the author of a book called Vivants on the Revolutionary Science of How to Turn Fear into Health, Wealth and Happiness. Now, this individual who is an entrepreneur now didn’t start with the typical path that most of us did. He’s a United States Marine veteran speaker. He’s an ultra right. And obviously, as you know, now an author and entrepreneur. But he served in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom and he was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after overcoming drug addiction, despite two doctors suggesting boot camp could kill him because of a blood disorder. He enlisted in the Marines. Fast forward. And now he’s an entrepreneur building an empire. It’s an absolute pleasure to have you. Thanks so much for joining me.
[00:00:53] Thank you for having me, man.
[00:00:54] It was Flager, so I can’t do that story any justice. I think it’s an incredible journey. But how do you guard from. How do you go from enlisting in the Marines to entrepreneurship?
[00:01:04] Yeah. You know, it was quite a journey when I listen to Marines. I wanted to my plan was to go career military. I was not planning on Bill like no no plans to ever think about starting a business or anything like that. I had just come out of that world of drug addiction. I’d lost two friends that lifestyle. And joining the Marines was my way of now like transforming that mentality, that way of life, channeling the extreme mindset that was once challenged drugs into the Marines, into service, into life. I wanted to go special forces and go to military. But after deploying to Iraq in 2007, you know, I came out and I struggle with coming back into this world. So I tried volunteering to go back to war again, every chance I could go back to Afghanistan, go back to Iraq. Just wanted to go back to war. And again, still no idea of what I wanted to do with my life. I just wanted to go back into a conflict zone. Now, this point, wars were ending. So I’m like, okay, what do I do now? So my plan was I was going to I went to journalism school. I got my masters in journalism because I wanted to become a combat photographer. So once again, I just wanted to go into the extremes of the human condition and explore those edges. No desire to even think about starting a business. But what happened was I met my wife at the time, so I was like a combat photographer is not exactly conducive to a family lifestyle. Right. Let me figure this out. Now what? So I ended up getting a corporate job for a year and a half just to, like, put food on the table and not not be off. My other plan, if not a combat photographer, was to go be a mountain bum and become like a climb in the mountains of the Himalayans, you know, so none of those are conducive to a family lifestyle. So I got a corporate job. Absolutely hated it. So I was like, all right, I got to figure out another way where I can run, you know, like run my own life on my own, my time. You know, I have the freedom to do that. And so that was the that was when it was finally the sort of the seed of entrepreneurship was planted. So you don’t much, much later on, wasn’t one of those kids who knew knew I wanted to start a business or even had the inklings of entrepreneurship at a young age. Right. Like, no idea what I was doing stumbled my way into when I first got started, I got started in as a one on one life coach because I had started getting into the personal development realm from when I got out of drugs and joined the Marines, because that’s what kind of planted the seed to study mastery, to figure out, OK, how do I keep pushing myself? How do I keep testing myself, how do I keep growing? So other than even when I join the Marines, I would go mountain climbing, cave diving, skydiving, rock climbing, finding ways to test myself, which was a sort of a natural progression then to getting into personal development. And that got translated into life coaching. And now it’s a different beast from there. But that’s kind of how I got started in it.
[00:03:31] Yeah. Got it. I mean, as you said earlier, you love pushing the mines to it’s through. It’s I guess it’s an absolute limits. How is it that has it that you’ve tried to channel that into into entrepreneurship? I think it’s going to preclude that. I think that I think that entrepreneurship can be a struggle. I think that I think that people can really push themselves to the limits. But at the same time, I look at what you’ve what you’ve done in a previous career, in a previous life.
[00:04:00] And I would challenge that. That’s much more extreme than entrepreneurship.
[00:04:06] Well, now I push myself in multiple ways other than entrepreneurship for sure, because, I mean, today I’m an ultra runner. So I do think I just few weeks ago in the quarantine, I ran 50 miles around a cul de sac point zero five miles an hour. I was going like a thousand loops around the cul de sac. Last year, I spent seven days in a darkish retreat, seven days in pitch darkness, silence and isolation just to go deep within and confront the confront the challenge of stillness and see what shows up. So I’m always looking for new ways to explore the my perceived limitations and ultimately keep shattering them. Right. Keep pushing those edges. Keep pushing those edges. And entrepreneurship was just another vehicle to do that. And in all honesty, sometimes it’s way more challenging than like serving in war is it’s simple when all you have to worry about is living and dying. And so there’s this strange kind of simplicity to that purpose where entrepreneurship is not that simple. You know, you could put something out in the marketplace having done your research. I mean, like Study Cup, the writing done this. This. Danniella other thing. And you still don’t know how it’s gonna play out. Whereas as an ultra runner, I know if I suffer enough, if I put like I guarantee the outcome, I’m just going to suffer enough and I’ll get to the end result. I’ll get them 50 miles, my 60 miles, I’m 80 miles. Whatever the target, no matter how much pain they got to go to, I just had to put one step in front of each other. So there’s a simplicity to it. Entrepreneurship on the road is wavy, right? You put it out there, you make a mistake. It doesn’t pan out. Now you’ve got to. You’ve got to pivot. You’ve got to tweak. And so it’s not as simple and clear cut. So in many ways, I’ve struggled more with it. And sometimes I like even when I’m writing my book. I used to avoid writing and go running marathons.
[00:05:39] I’d be like, I’m going to go, you know, I don’t want to write right now. Just go. And then I would justify to myself that I’m still working to this day, man. Like I struggle. I would almost certainly any day of the week be out there rather climbing a mountain, going back into a war zone. And I have to wrestle with that. Sometimes it’s dark, the desire to go back into these spaces. But I have to wrestle with that and stay focused that, you know, your job right now is to sit on in front, stare into the computer screen for the next to whatever, five, six, seven, eight hours. And that’s my war. Like, the way I frame it now is this is my war, because ultimately the battle I’m fighting is still in service of somebody like what I do with their vonna is helping people navigate the struggles of life. And and and I have to I have to transcend my own stuff, transcend my own thoughts to stay focused on this fight on this war. Is it matters.
[00:06:23] Yeah, got it. Which is worse because, I mean, most people obviously wouldn’t have gone down the path you did. But I think what you’ve got into you know, you speak about just running 50 miles just as as a way of exercising during quarantine. I think most most people, I think, wouldn’t have explored those limitations of their own minds. You know, when you do goes to the when did you go to those depths? When you do go to those places, what does that teach you about the resilience of the brain? And what you’re really capable of?
[00:06:55] Yeah. I mean, it ultimately shows you we are far more capable than what we think we are. You know, we are we whenever we’re on the cusp, like a we’re breaking down and everything seen as terrible, you can push 50, 80 times harder than that way, more than you think you are.
[00:07:10] I mean, I’m not designed to be a runner. I have flat feet. I had scoliosis. I have a blood disorder, as you said, the two doctors trying to kill me. Can I have another disorder, though? My delie, my esophagus are worn out so my body can absorb nutrients very well. So I am not genetically engineered to be a runner. I am far from it. And so I transcend that and learning the art of suffering. That’s what it is. It teaches you how to suffer. It applies in every other area of my life. And that’s how I’ve been able to build a business. And it’s thriving right now, even in the quarantine, because I learn how to suffer. Now, the suffering again is different, like what I was talking about right in the suffering and running a simple. So it’s an immediate return environment versus a delayed return environment. So the human brain is designed for immediate return. Like the archaic environment, you know, when we were threatened with saber tooth tigers, whatever immediate return. There’s a stressor and it’s acute and then it disappears. When I’m running, it’s immediate return. I suffer. I get there with with entrepreneurship. You can work all I can put my book. I put my heart and soul into my book. I have no idea. I mean, I can do I can do all the things I need to do, study marketing. I still don’t know how many books will sell. How much of an impact will it make? Right. So there’s a delayed return you to all this effort and you’re not getting the payoff right away. And that that makes it a different battle. So now you have to frame it. And what I’ve learned is over time was by no means perfect at this initially was I was always kind of this person seeking the immediate return. Right. Like going into extreme places, war zones, mountains, polar ice caps, cave diving, ultra running, all these extreme environments where life is simple and the suffering is immediate and the payoff is immediate. So I had to apply the lessons from that and translate it into entrepreneurship, which was a unique battle, you know, unique challenge at first. And now I’ve found a way to do it. And thankfully, now it’s going well. But the challenge it ultimately taught me was the ability to suffer, like no matter what I did. I don’t know when I’ll build my billion dollar Fairborn empire, but I know I’m either gonna die or it’s going to get done. Like, that’s it. There’s no other option, you know. So I know I will suffer as much as it takes to get to the result.
[00:09:02] Yeah. Do you think. Do you think the suffering has ever been a drawback? Like, do you think that. Oh, again, I’ll give some context. So I think that I think that so I’ve been I’ve been on the entrepreneurial journey myself for about five years now. And I think for the first three to three and a half years, I was quite young. I was still learning, had mentors who were teaching me and all that sort of thing. But I think what the problem was, was brought at the start. I was taught about the importance of resilience and pushing yourself to the limit. And what I found and it’s it’s been said that I’ve realized very recently, I mean, within the past, like two, three weeks since birth, I wish I knew this five years ago. I’ve realized that that you can. That during those first three years, despite the fact that I was pushing myself to the absolute limits of what I thought I was capable of at the same time. I think the problem the problem that I discovered was that I was doing the wrong things. As in, I was not being 100 percent pragmatic with where I was putting my time. And I believe now, in retrospect, a lot of time was wasted. Now, a great lesson learned through that experience, I don’t look back at those three years and think, you know, I should have done that. You know, that was absolutely terrible of me. What am I thinking? I should have gone, gone and sought proper education around this. But but it does make me feel like you can put in the struggle in the wrong direction. Absolutely. So I don’t I mean, I don’t love the idea of kind of a I love the idea of the struggle. I love the feeling of the struggle. I’ve fallen in love with that feeling. But, yeah, I think there’s an important facet to identifying with the smartest way to allocate your time is. Absolutely. How is it how is it that you go about doing that?
[00:10:42] Yeah, I mean I hundred percent agree. It’s not just working hard or suffering for the sake of suffering. You’ve got to work smart too. Right. So how do you do that to your point? Like I have mentors in every context, find people who are further along the path than you are and fall and see what they’re doing. How are they doing it? What are they doing? How are they thinking about it? What’s their mental models of the war? What’s their belief systems? So I have a mentor who’s built 250 million dollar companies in Silicon Valley guiding me. I have no clue how to do what I wanted to do. You know what? Building this empire. I have no clue how to do it. So I’m I’m following from people who are further along the path of me and learning from them. So I’m working smart as well as working hard, you know, and that’s an even with writing a book. I mean, I didn’t know how to write a good book. So I study from authors. I didn’t know how to market a book. So I studied about book marketing, you know, and you’re going to make mistakes along the way. But at least you’re working smart. So I’m always looking for who has done what you wanted to do and then following their path.
[00:11:30] Yeah. What would you say is the most important, like the single most important skill?
[00:11:34] If you had to narrow down to one just to succeed at anything really, but entrepreneurship in particular, to develop a positive relationship to the experience of suffering, however, it shows up whether it shows up as fear, stress, anxiety, pain, struggle to develop a positive relationship to that. The fundamental the biggest flaw in the human condition is our negative relationship to suffering and pain. Often when I do speeches around the world, I’ll start to talk with showing words like fear, pain, stress, anxiety, suffering, adversity, struggle and ask people how many of you think of this as a positive word. And you can do this talk in any corner of the globe. Nobody thinks of these as positive words. That is the biggest problem, the human condition. Think about it, because it’s not just me I made up. There’s a great lot of research accountability to this. If you learn how to like the lingo I use to “suffer, well.” If you learn how to smile in the face of suffering, like think about. Inevitably your life is going to be more blissful. You’re going to experience greater meaning, greater joy, greater purpose on the journey, because it doesn’t matter whether life punches you in the face. It doesn’t matter whether you’re seeking out a worthy challenge, like building a business, running a marathon, writing a book, whatever it may be. You will learn to enjoy the struggle because ultimately it’s not about the result. It’s not about building a business that makes a million dollars or whatever the number is. It’s about the experience because everybody’s got their own path. Right.
[00:12:46] And we all have to find what makes us what gives us meaning, what gives us a fulfilling and meaningful and purposeful life. And so the path to doing that is developing a positive relationship to the suffering, to the pain. And then everything becomes more enjoyable, including the song.
[00:13:01] Yep. Yep. One one thing that I’ve found is is really important with entrepreneurship as it is to build some healthy habits. I know you’ve got a bit of a bit of thought process around habits as well. Can you share with us a bit? Kind of. I guess, I guess your lens on on habits and the habits you can and cannot ignore.
[00:13:19] Yeah. You know, I think the so it’s definitely habit. So it’s about the duality, willpower and habits like the seemingly there the opposite options. A will and habits both have their place. So I’m big on habits and systematizing. I’m a big systems thinker. I have systems for everything I do. So a morning routine is a checklist. My day follows assistant my morning, my meal is the exact same, my dinner is the exact same. I follow a system and a checklist for everything. So that way when you systematize when you build a habit, you save your cognitive and your physical energy for the battle at hand. When I’m writing copy, when I’m running Ultra’s, all those things require energy. Right? Coffee-table or physical energy. And so I want to save my energy for the task at hand. And I don’t waste that mental energy thinking about what do I make for breakfast today. Right. What do I make for lunch. It’s all systematize. What do I do with my morning routine? I don’t have to worry about. I just follow a system. So definitely building habits around that. So you save your cognitive energy for the fight. And ultimately, though, the most important habit to develop is the habit of willpower. And it’s kind of paradoxical because willpower is not a habit. Now, a lot of people will say things like, oh, you know, if you just develop habits. Everything. I’ve seen a lot of stuff out there that if you have habits, then things will become easy. And that’s absolute nonsense. Like in order to develop any habit, it starts with conscious energy first. No matter what the habit. Even if it’s something small. The example that’s often heard in the behavior chain and habit kind of world is if I want to floss my teeth, what do I do right? I’ll put floss next to my toothbrush. And that because I’m brushing my teeth anyway. So now it makes it automatic. My floss is next to my toothbrush. Granted, you can do there’s a lot of technical things that you can do like that, like little techniques and tactics you can do. But that conscious desire, it always starts with conscious desire, which is an act of will. I’m going to put my floss there. Right. Like that. That’s a small example. But it’s always going to start with an active will. And if you try to surrender to the fact that it’s going to. Be easy. You’re setting up for failure. Because once a habit becomes normalized, you don’t want to become accustomed to that habit and stay static. You’re now going to have to evolve to the next self. You’re going to have to do something new. If not everything, once it becomes habits, once it becomes habitual, in order to evolve, you’re going to have to shatter that habit and do something else, because what got you here won’t get you there. Wherever there is so your constant, you’re constantly going to have to shatter a habit or build a new habit in order to seek that next evolution, the next awakening. And that means the willpower. That means suffering.
[00:15:34] Yeah, fair enough. One thing that you mentioned that’s really, really interesting is, is the importance of making sure that when you when you eat the importance of habits is ultimately so that you don’t need to make these decisions in real time. You don’t need to decide what you’re going to eat for lunch halfway through your work. Yeah. You don’t need to work out what your morning routine looks like, because that is you’re saying you’re effectively saying that his energy that you’re putting into that decision making process, that is that is energy depleted from the real decisions like the important decisions in life.
[00:16:03] Exactly. I don’t want to waste energy. I don’t want to think about it. I just wanted to be automated as much as possible so I can save that energy for the for the real work. For the struggle at hand. Yeah. Because there will that struggle is gonna be hard.
[00:16:14] You’ve spoken about the parts of five steps scientific formula you’ve come up with to overcome any obstacle and and and triple your odds of getting results. Can you tell us a bit about that?
[00:16:24] Sure. Yeah. It’s a great tool to overcome mental barriers, emotional challenges and also to build habits. So here’s what it is. Make it easy. Remember, it’s L and O p so l starting with the L is label. Label the emotion. Label the emotion, the feeling you’re going through at the time. So that when you go through an obstacle is what you do. I’ll give an example. I worked with a guy who every time he would sit down to write on his computer, he would get severe anxiety. So we’d go through this process, label the anxiety in neuroscience has shown that when you label the emotion, it reduces activity, in the emotional part of your brain and increases activity in the part of your brain and related to focus and awareness. So now I’m labeling, instead of trying to make the anxiety go away, we just label it “man, I’m feeling anxious, I’m feeling anxious,and the second part of the “L” is language. So you shift your body language. So instead of sitting here, slouching your back feeling depressed. You shift your body language. You sit tall and you feel you feel stronger. Now, there was research about that, but the research is kind of just broken. But nonetheless, it just kind of makes sense of, you know what I mean? Like, if I’m sitting tall and feeling strong, it just makes sense that I’m going to feel stronger.
[00:17:24] So shift your body language label and language. The second part is the M meaning. What is the meaning you have created to the event that’s causing the emotion? And this is also really important: what is the meaning you’re creating for the emotion itself? Because here’s the thing. We don’t control most of what happens in our brain. Like this. This gentleman I was working with his brain had learned to say writing on a computer equals anxiety. That was a pattern beyond his control. Everybody that he worked with before me was trying to get rid of the anxiety. I said, right now you don’t control that. The problem was not the anxiety. The problem was he made the anxiety mean he was weak. He was pathetic. He was like a piece of shit. What’s wrong with me? That was kind of his inner dialog because of the anxiety. So that was a meaning. He had created anxiety. So right now, the M step, we’re just getting clear: what’s the meaning to the emotion and to the external stimuli, because he had also created a meaning that nobody would want to read his writing. That’s why he’d feel anxious. Right. So right now, we’re just getting clear. What’s the meaning? Next step is n this is kind of key and is what you’re saying. It’s not me, it’s my brain. This is everything. We often identify with our emotions, our thoughts, our feelings. But like the key thing, if there’s one takeaway somebody listening to this is you’re not your thoughts, you’re not your feelings, you’re not your experiences.
[00:18:32] You’re the thinker of your thoughts, the feeler of your feelings and the experiencer of your experiences.
[00:18:38] There is a space between what shows up in our brain, most of which we do not control — neuroscientist has proven this — and who we are outside of it.
[00:18:45] So instead of saying I am depressed or I am struggling with PTSD, I’ll say my brain feels depression, my brain feels anxiety, like I’m disidentifying from that emotion, from that thought. So that’s what the end is always. You opt for a new meaning. So choosing a new meaning. So the new meaning in this case, this example, it shows a new meaning that people were actually enjoys writing because he had been tremendously successful earlier in his career, like work with the Pentagon, all kinds of stuff. And more importantly, I would argue, as you’re choosing a new meaning to the anxiety. So instead of saying the anxiety means he’s a piece of shit for feeling anxious, for writing a computer, the anxiety suddenly means, you know what? I’m feeling anxious because I care about my message. Like I was terrified writing a book on fear. And now one can make it mean I’m weak. But to me, that fear meant because I cared enough about my message. I was scared of writing a bad book. So we shift the meaning to the emotion and reframe it. And then finally, P p is purpose and preemptive strikes. So you take some action in line with that higher purpose.
[00:19:40] So in this case with this gentleman, ordinarily his pattern was: ‘sit on the computer, feel anxiety, like visceral anxiety, sweaty arms, sweaty palms, all that kind of stuff. And then he would go watch TV, right. Like silence, the mind just numbing in TV. So we would say, just sit down and write for two minutes. Just two minutes. You know, nothing comes out. Just type two minutes. Then five minutes and 10 minutes. So what we’re doing is we’re building new brain patterns. And the second part of the piece, preemptive strikes, where you preemptively prepare for obstacles, you know, will show up. So every time he knew what he said on the beta, he’d know this would this would happen. He knew he’d feel this. So he would prepare right down. I’m going to go through the elementary tool, like write down in detail. What am I going to do? How am I going to prepare for this obstacle? And researchers showed they did this study with elderly patients who are recovering from knee and hip replacement surgery when they would write down in detail what they’re going to do ahead of time, like at five p.m., I’m going to go for a walk, you know, and write down in detail those people who did that recover three times faster than those who did not. And just sort of, you know, went about it as it comes up. So that’s what preemptive strikes is, writing down in detail. A roadmap, a plan to navigate obstacles, you know, will show up. And like systematically using this tool has been a game changer for me and many other people I’ve worked with as well.
[00:20:49] And so do you find that this this is suddenly not medical advice for those listening? Do you find that this has helped you to U.N., to those that you’ve kind of mentor to work past? A lot of those, I guess, psychologically Steitz anxiety, depression that come with really pushing yourself to the limit?
[00:21:05] Absolutely. Yeah. You know, because I still go through low moments. I mean, I’m a human being, right? I still go through intense, low moments. You know, by using this, you can find you can transcend. You’re not you can not. The point of this is you don’t get caught up in it. You start to decided to fi from the from the feeling, from the thought and from the experience and realize that that’s not who you are. You can choose outside of it. And if you do it over and over and over and over again, you’re building new brain pattern. So. I mean, I’ve worked with veterans who struggle with anger issues, people with anxiety disorder, people, depression, even with addiction and tools like this and other stuff, you know, that we do. We we work together as has helped them transcend their brain patterns and realize that we’re not that brain.
[00:21:44] Yeah, I get lost. I’m I’m eager to speak to you about Archos is the is the spirituality side. The you know, the the importance of making sure. Like, obviously it’s important to from a from a psychological perspective to make sure that you’re you’re well grounded and that you’re prepared for what’s ahead. And you have these processes in place, whether it be forming habits or making sure that you have that formula to overcome overcome challenges. I think there’s a there’s a spiritual element to it all as well. I know this is an area that you’ve delved into quite, quite heavily in your own research. How is spirituality tied into it? I say this because I think that I think that there are two sorts of what we’ve spoken about thus far. One is speaking about the kind of the physical side of things, as in the deficient the physical struggle that you’ve kind of put yourself through on what that’s teaching. What that’s taught you. Sorry about resilience, then. We’ve spoken a bit about the kind of psychological side spirituality fits in that that nice kind of it has its own kind of, you know, section where it is quite, quite separate from the rest, but also brings it altogether. Yeah. Talk to us a bit about the importance of spirituality in the process.
[00:22:52] Yeah. I think, you know, the spiritual path is everything. I think some people are consciously pursuing it more than others. But ultimately, we are all meaning seeking creatures. Right? Like, we’re seeking some meaning for that existential purpose. And why are we here on Earth? And I think spirituality is the recognition of the oneness of all that is. Like, I’ve always had a hard time, like how do you define what it is, what spirituality is? And I don’t. There’s no one, at least the way I see it, as a one right definition. We all have our own. But the recognition of the oneness of all that is like, why do anything? Why does it matter?
[00:23:22] What, what, what? Why are we here? What’s you know, what’s this thing? This body that like how does it transcend just us as individuals? And so the spiritual path, I think is essential to whether I’m building a business, running a running a marathon. It’s about creating alignment of mind bodies. Creating alignment of mind, body spirit with the mission with others. You know, sir, like when I’m climbing mountains, you feel. And I feel a deep connection with the land, with the people that I’m on, with the mountain that I’m on when I’m building a business. And I get a message from a reader about how it helped them transform their life. You know, you feel the spiritual connection with you, your mission, your work and the people you’re serving. And I think transcending the. It’s easy to get caught up as an entrepreneur in the day to day grind to stuff. Right. And pausing from time to time to transcend the day to day grind. And recognizing why we are on this path brings the spiritual purpose back to it. You know, so I still I meditate every day. I often and again, like a human being, I get caught up in it when I’m caught up in the grind. But I’m always bringing it back to remind myself of the why that mission transcends me. Like, I think the essence of the spiritual path is about self transcendence. You know, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs says that self actualization is the highest need. Right. And Victor Frankl, who favor books of all time, wrote Men Search for Meaning. He says that self actualization is a side effect of self transcendence. And I believe that self transcendence is the essence of a life well lived. And that’s that’s what spirituality is.
[00:24:46] Yeah. I think we can get so caught up, though, in the day to day. And I think that when you are get constantly grinding and you do go you do go to that kind of very negative place spirit, be driven by, you know, depression, anxiety.
[00:24:59] I think that what can happen is you can lose track of that. Why how is it that you kind of keep that why in check and keep that kind of grander purpose constantly there when sometimes against your own will it disappears from your thoughts because you become so clouded by this negativity?
[00:25:18] Yeah, I so I have what am I probably the most powerful tools for transformation here that I created?
[00:25:23] I call it the Spirit Armory. It’s a little note here. Literally the Spirit Armory. Like that’s what’s written on the title here. And I write down like some consoli looking at this like statements I have with a mission and a vision. I have these statements with my affirmation. It is like me, two statements. I learned this from an Olympic gold medal winning athlete, Lanny Bashan. Were you write down. It is like me to be a certain way. You know, I have what I called the Akshay legend characteristic. So literally on the first page here, it says, transcend this present self into this self every day. And the auction legend. So if she was perfect, I’m not perfect. Nobody’s perfect. But if there was a perfect version of me, what would be the characteristics, the virtues, the ideals of that auction? And so I’m constantly reminding myself, who am I? Who do I want to be? Who do I want to stand for? And so I go through my low moments and there’s nothing wrong with that. The goal is not to eliminate low moments. I mean, I love being in the darkness of it. Like, there is value in engaging your demons, engaging in the darkness. It’s not about eliminating them. It’s about learning how to use them as fuel. But this reminds me of what why it all matters. You know, and you can have all kinds of different tools, like sometimes just reading a book review, like a review from somebody who wrote a book review on Amazon knowing that it’s making an impact. Or when I get I get messages to readers all the time or students my programs, and knowing that it’s making an impact, it helps me transcend myself. So many different tools. Doing my morning meditation every morning and after my meditation, I read my It is like me two statements. And I also read a Medal of Honor citation. A Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in United States military. And like what those guys did, the active courage, the inhuman levels of courage to transcend themselves and sacrifice their lives for somebody else. It constantly reminds me of why I’m in this fight, why this war matters.
[00:27:02] Yeah, awesome, and a great, great finishing note there, actually. Thanks so much for your time. For those who are interested, make sure that you check out the book. As I said at the site, it’s called Phee Vonna The Revolutionary Signs of How to Turn Fear into Health, Wealth and Happiness. And check out his Web site at FEV on a dot com auction. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you, brother. Appreciate you.
[00:27:38] The venture podcast with Lambros Photios.
