Episode 117 – Akshay Nanavati: Fearvana – How To Use Fear As Fuel

Casanova Brooks:

What’s up DreamNation we are back again with another episode, and I’m excited about this one, because we’re going to learn one of the biggest skills that you can in life. And that is embracing fear. And this is something that we all deal with. It doesn’t matter your level of success. Everyone has some type of fear.

Everyone has. Something that they’re trying to overcome. And so we have one of the world’s biggest experts when it comes to embracing fear without further ado. Help me welcome my friend, mr. Akshay Nanavati to the show, actually, you want to go ahead and say what’s up to DreamNation.

Akshay Nanavati:

What’s going on, DreamNation?. Thank you for having me, honored to be here!

Casanova Brooks:

Man, it’s a pleasure to have you on here now. I always like to make sure we give the proper introduction. And I say all the time that I think of us as entrepreneurs as just like super heroes. And why is because we’re constantly putting on a cape, we’re trying to fly around the world and solve problems, whether that be ours or other peoples and.

I think that you have been someone that’s been all around the world had been featured in any publications, Forbes, inc. Fast Company Entrepreneur. It’s been an amazing journey for you, but I always like to take it back before all of the thousands of people that you help, tens of thousands of people. Let’s take it back to when you were just a young boy and tell me who is Akshay. Nanavati.

Akshay Nanavati:

Yeah, you don’t. When I was young, I was born in India. So I lived in, but Bombay Bangalore, then Singapore moved to Austin at 13 years old, so I’ve moved around a lot. And so when I was young, I was not one of those people who, you know, when they’re seven years old selling lemonade stand kind of thing.

Like I was not a born entrepreneur. I had no clue what I wanted to be, who I wanted to be, what my path was very lost, like kind of because all the Mo and I take responsibility, but, you know, as a young child, you’re very impressionable. To the external environment. So I moved around a ton from all these places and I moved to the US when I was 13.

And it was moving. It was soon after moving here that I kind of got into a really dark space, got heavily into drugs, heavily into alcohol. I used to cut myself, burn myself. I still have these scars on my arm, just in this really, really, really dark world. Lost two friends to that lifestyle was, heading down that path myself.

And that coming out of that is what kind of led me to everything I am now, because coming out of that world is when I joined the Marines, I overcame, I overcame, like I have a blood disorder that two doctors told me would kill me in Marine Corps bootcamp. So I had to kind of fight my way into the Marines cause I don’t have, I’m gonna have scoliosis.

I have flat feet. I got all kinds of genetic flaws that I was blessed with, that I have to kind of overcome to fight my way into the Marines. And through that is when I started to find and really become, you know, to your point about the entrepreneur being super hero. Like they come in the Marines, I learn how to suffer.

I learned how to struggle. I learned how to engage fear. I learned how to confront my own demons in battle and keep fighting forward. And that’s what ultimately led me to who I am now obviously had some few kinks in the way, but that was the starting point,

Casanova Brooks:

Man. I love it. I love how you’ve been able to overcome.

Talk to me about. What was your biggest struggle looking back at it? Cause you’ve obviously now had an incredible journey and you’ve been able to help a lot of people, but it wasn’t all roses, just like you said, and you had a lot of kinks and a lot of flaws. What was that biggest struggle that you can look back on and say, wow, this, this was something that it really took me a while to overcome.

Akshay Nanavati:

You know, when I came. So after joining the Marines, I was deployed to Iraq as an infantry noncommissioned officer, had some pretty intense, I mean, it’s a war zone, so life is intense out there. One of my jobs was actually to walk in front of our vehicles.

Looking for bombs before they could be used to kill me and my fellow Marines. Wow. Pretty intense job out there. Yeah. You learn how to confront fear. You learn how to thrive in the face of adversity, right. It was a warzone for seven months. But like that was not the hardest by any stretch of the imagination. I was, I was, I mean, I was volunteering to go to Iraq.

I was waiting for it. So when I got out there, I was done like, it’s my time to bring it. You know, this is, this is what I’ve been waiting for. But the toughest battle was after coming back home. When I came back home, I had lost a friend of mine in the war before I even left. I lost a couple of junior Marines to suicide after the war and just coming back, I felt like I hadn’t, I hadn’t suffered enough.

I hadn’t done enough to earn my place on this planet. I mean, I didn’t get shot in the war. I didn’t lose anything. so why, why do I get to come back? Why do I get to be happy? Why do I get to be alive? You know? And so I, I kept volunteering to go back to war. I was like, send me back to Iraq, send me back to Afghanistan, send me somewhere.

I just want to go back. I couldn’t handle life in this “normal world”, you know? And, and so the demons started to rise soon after, like, at this point I had stopped doing drugs. I stopped drugs since high school, but the alcohol, like I was drinking, you know, as a college student, you don’t think if it is a problem, you know, partying in weekends, whatever.

It got to a point that, I mean, over the years, I got to a point that it would be, I would be drinking like a bottle of vodka a day. I mean, just drinking till I pass out, waking up and then drinking again for five, six days on end until literally my body could not take it anymore. And one morning after like five days of this binge drinking session, I just, I was about to walk over to my kitchen, pick up a knife and slit my wrists.

Cause I just thought this will never end. And that was like rock bottom. That was kind of rock bottom for me to be in that space that I actually was seconds away from, even from taking my own life, you know? And even this is a thought that entered my mind shocked me. So that’s when I really started to know that something had to change.

You know, I mean, at this point I have been during the drinking thing, but every time I would go through five 60 days, I would then sober up and be like, all right, I’m good. Now, you know, I’m gonna, so I’m gonna, I’m going to stay clean and then maybe go for a few weeks and then boom, fall right back into the tea.

You know, that was the hardest, hardest part truth. Be told though I did break my sobriety after that as well. So, you know, I went through a journey. It wasn’t a smooth climb out of the abyss. It wasn’t like one. Aha. I don’t like a lot of that stuff when they’re like one aha moment in life magic. We changed it.

So how it works, you got to fight in the battle is relentless man. So I, I did, you know, I changed, I sobered up. but then like I went through a really challenging divorce a couple of years ago now. Yeah. About two years ago now. And that was really hard and I ended up breaking my sobriety again. And when I break, like everything I do, yeah.

I do pretty hard. So when I, when I drink, I drink hard. When I run, I run hard, but you know, So I broke again, but, thankfully I went into some deeper spaces to really figure out what’s going on within and now, I mean, I could not be in a better space, mind, body, spirit, business, everything. So been a journey, man.

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah, absolutely. It sounds like it. And I want to dive into that a little bit more if you don’t mind.

Akshay Nanavati:

Absolutely.

Casanova Brooks:

The first thing I want to know is, as you are, you know, going through this deep, deep depression, what is your environment? Because a lot of people, and there’s the two parts of this, a lot of people, they are going through that same deep, deep depression, and for whatever reason, but they say, okay, well, if he had someone that could.

basically pick him out of that or he had a big enough why or whatever, that’s what he had. So did you have that, did you have, was your wife by your side at this time? What was your environment? Basically, a lot of other people were drinking, so it felt easy to drown your sorrows in this pain.

Akshay Nanavati:

Great question.

You know, for me, my triggers were never being around other people. Like I could, even when I sobered up, I didn’t, even when I, when I broke, like I could be around a room with everybody drinking, not 1%, not even 0.1% desire to drink. My trigger was being alone. So my demons were always being alone. So even when I was married and I was drinking, what would happen is my Wife had always been the kinda person to go to bed early. I’m always, I was always like a late, like when I wrote my book, I would write at night, you know, so what happened is she’d go to bed and then while we were hanging out at this point, I’d be, you know, while we’re drinking together, drink a few beers.

But under my closet, I would hide the bottle of vodka in the bathroom, you know, hiding these bottles everywhere. And then when she go to bed, that’s when I really started drinking heavy, you know? And, and then, or she traveled to India to visit family. Then I would just go. All out, you know? And so I have positive environment in that when I, when I started the change, like after hitting that really rock bottom, I didn’t tell my wife at the time that where like where my mind was, I was just like a shame.

You know, they felt too much shame, too much embarrassment to tell her that. Later on. Eventually I did. I just told her where I was going through when I slipped back out. So that moment, and then, so, you know, that was, it was kind of, I had, thankfully, like she was very sweet, supportive. She was a loving person, really cared about me.

And, and a lot of it though, had to be like me going within and confronting my own demons. Cause what, when we’re doing those things, when we’re struggling with depression, with alcoholism, you know, it’s hard to know your why at that moment when you’re in the pit. And this was something I, when I, when I now work with others is when you’re deep in the pit, you don’t want to hear about how awesome life is for all these other people.

It’s not inspirational. It only makes you feel worse about yourself. Right. And that’s, and I, and I get, like, I get like people who come to me now as a, Hey, I saw in my, if my daughter, whatever, they’re struggling with, this, that the other thing, how do I help them? And they try to help them by sharing these inspirational stories.

But at that moment, it doesn’t help. It just makes you feel worse about yourself, you know? And this was this interesting thing. So at that point, I didn’t really have a why I just had to. Climb out. Like if you look at zero being I’m on the verge of suicide, 10 being, you know, master of life, everything great.

When you’re going from zero to three is very different than going from three to seven, which is different from going from seven to nine. You know? So from that zero place, I just had to. Disassociate myself with the patterns in my brain. I had to learn to become okay with my demons. So I’ll, I’ll give you an example.

What I mean by that? So when I, when I came back, I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. Okay. Now I had symptoms. Like I was jumpy with loud noises. I did not like that being in crowds. So like I hated going to New York city cause crowds were, you know, hypervigilant. I felt survivor’s guilt.

Now all these things people told me were symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. Right. But as I started researching, what I learned was these were very normal human responses to war. I mean, I, my brain, I spent seven months in a war zone where my brain learned to say loud noises, equal death. So obviously I was hyper alert, alert.

It wasn’t a disorder. It was a normal human response to an experience like war. So by removing the word disorder, I certainly started to say, you know what? There’s nothing wrong with me. These are normal human responses. I got to go into these spaces. I got to become okay with it. Instead of fighting my demons, instead of like acknowledging my survivor’s guilt, you know, not trying to run away from it.

So for a long time, actually, I had a picture of my friend that I lost in the war up on my wall. And it said this should have been you, earn this life.

Casanova Brooks:

Wow.

Akshay Nanavati:

That’s an intense thing to look at.

Casanova Brooks:

Absolutely

Akshay Nanavati:

Very intense thing to look at. But the point is, everybody kept telling me we don’t feel guilty like rationally.

I get it. You can go to war, you can’t control who lives and dies and war, right? It’s the nature of war rationally. I get it. But emotionally it doesn’t change the fact that the guilt is there. So everybody said, don’t feel guilty. Don’t feel guilty. And I get it. It was coming from a place of love. But the reality is that guilt is a normal expression of love.

So instead I learned to reframe my guilt. I learned to make my demons work for me instead of trying to run away from them. And that’s what the whole ethos of Fearvana is, it’s to fall in love with our demons to fall in love with suffering, to fall in love with pain, to fall in love with fear, because they’re not bad.

They’re not the enemy, but we live in a world that demonizes it. Right. We said, stress is bad. Anxiety’s bad, be fearless. Don’t like overcome fear. It’s like, no, man. These things are part of life. What you do with it. That matters. Exactly. Exactly.

Casanova Brooks:

Got it, man. I love it. Now, at what point do you feel like.

Because now you’re going through so many different things and you’re trying to embrace it. At what point did you feel like that you were in that stage of seven to 10 where you were like, “listen, I got this” because for a lot of people, they don’t really know if they’re in a relapse, they have so much uncertainty that’s going on.

I don’t know how to recognize is the best way to put it where they are in their journey. Was there any moment that you said, wow, I did just a conquer or accomplish this? I got it.

Akshay Nanavati:

Yeah. You know, when I started, when I first was in that low space and just coming out first, I had to. Confront my demons. I had to disassociate myself from my brain patterns.

And this is really important because when we’re in that space, you know, we start to say things like I am depressed, I have depression, or I have PTSD. It becomes our self identity and that’s the big fall, because then we see that that becomes who we are. Like I was the suicidal alcoholic. That’s why I never liked to say and look, if it works for some people using that label, I’m an alcoholic.

Great. Like I know AA does that. I never said that I’m not going to label myself that like I’m an alcoholic. What I learned to do was disassociate myself from my emotions. So once I started doing that, now I can start getting from a zero to three, zero to four and say, okay, cool. I’m better now, now what? So that’s when I started writing the book.

So suddenly now you start getting clear on your why, right? So ultimately at the, at the core forces of human behavior is the need to avoid pain and the desire to gain pleasure. That’s at the core of everything we do right now, the need to avoid pain is a stronger force. We’re going to do more psychologically.

To avoid pain than to gain pleasure. A lot of research on this stuff that are fascinating studies. So when you’re in pain first, you just got to get out of pain, like, forget about looking at pleasure. Right. I just needed to get out of that. So just associating myself started. And then when I said, okay, you know what, I’m figuring some stuff out because I was delving deep into neuroscience, psychology spirituality into personal development and sort of learning my own pattern, learning how. We how human beings, how we can confront suffering.

And so my why then became writing this book, sharing my message of Fearvana. Cause obviously I’m not the only person who suffered everybody’s navigating our demons in our own way. And what I came to realize that was that most people, how we approach mental health, how we approach suffering and pain is deeply flawed.

And so I had to share what I was learning. Like I’m not a trained psychologist been like that, but I would argue, I’ve read more than enough books, not to mention how I’ve experienced it too. Like. To validate that. And so that’s what I did. I had to start sharing. And then once I started sharing, it wrote the book, you know, then, then, then I start now you have a, why you have something to move forward to, you know, something to aim for.

And soon it started becoming better and better and you build patterns over time. And like I said, you know, then I broke my sobriety. So I was like, all right, something’s still missing. What ways of, what do I gotta do? So I, I, again, the person I am and I do everything to the extreme. So what I did to go deep within is I spent seven days in a darkness retreat.

After I broke my sobriety. I went into a darkness retreat because I was like, something’s still missing. So I need to go deep within. And so I spent seven days, 24/7 in pitch, dark, nothing to do, nowhere to go nowhere outside myself to run and just to go with them. And so going inside, I found some new answers as to what the might have been as to who, who, like, why I was still struggling with certain areas.

Now, today I’m in a damn good space, but does that mean my low moments don’t hit me? No, they still hit me. Like they still hit me, but today I’m in such a good space that when it hits me, I can immediately say cool. Like, I’m say I am not my brain. I literally sound like a crazy person. If somebody there was cameras watching me, I look like I’m out of my mind because I’m talking to my brain, like.

I’m saying to my brain, “look, I am not you. I don’t care what you do” because, and that’s the thing that’s so disassociating right now. I’ve built that skill over time. It took skill like anything, you have to train it, right? You have to master that skill. Otherwise it feels real. So like one of the most important things I always share when I, when I share these concepts with people is that we are not our thoughts.

We are not our feelings. We are not our experiences. We are the thinker of our thoughts, the feeler of our feelings and the experiencer of our experiences. So there is a space between what is and who we choose to be outside of what is right now. Like some thought could enter my mind. Some demon could enter my mind.

I’m like, cool, great. You’re not defining me. I’m not, you know, I don’t care what shows up here. I know who I am. I know what my path is. I know what my mission is. And that’s what defines it.

Casanova Brooks:

Man. I love it. And that’s huge because a lot of the times we do get that so caught up in our feelings and that obviously affects the way that we respond to so many things.

And I often say there’s one of the great stories of the Kings, the great King and his horse. And basically it talks about who knows what’s good or what’s bad. Right. A lot of the times we just attach emotion to something. And if you change your perspective, change the lens on something. It can be looked at as a good thing as a positive.

And so for you, as you’ve experienced this journey, one of the things that I think about a lot of the times is people right now, they have so much fear and that fear then turns into regret. Was there ever a time that you really had to propel because you regretted not doing something right. That could have been a positive, like starting a business or something else that then you looked at it and you say, I regret this decision because I allowed fear to basically, overtake my mindset.

Was there ever a time like that for you? Did regret ever have anything to do with it or was it really just getting out of that painful spot?

Akshay Nanavati:

Oh, great question. You know, like I don’t now, like I’ve already obviously made some mistakes in my life, I’ve been far from perfect. Right. But I don’t have any regrets per se like the one regret I always feel is that I wish I had gone to war earlier with my friend.

Cause there was a whole thing. Like I didn’t end up going until three years after joining the Marines. And there was some factors that came in play, but nothing I can do now to change it. So now I look at what’s my war. Now, like, what’s my fight now. So in terms of using, fear and regret, like when I was writing my book, for example, well, you know, procrastination came up, writing, writing a book is freaking hard.

There were days where I would like, I would go run a marathon to just avoid writing my book, do anything to avoid the writing. So I was, I was, it took me a little while. I mean, other than procrastination, that was obviously a lot of research that went into, I read like hundreds of books. It was also very cathartic, like confronting my own demons while writing my book.

But. Navigating like tapping into fear as fuel. Like, I mean, that’s what I was doing. That’s what finally led, to finish my book, it was imagining myself dying, never having shared my message. And that to me was more scary then the fear of writing the book, because there is fear writing a book. I mean, when writing, I mean, I was already writing a book on fear, but it was scary.

I’m scared. Is it going to be bad? Is it going to like, are people going to hate it or he’s going to, am I going to get that dreaded one star review on Amazon? Is nobody going to buy it? What are people gonna think? All that stuff, you know, but that’s the thing, both fears, the fear of the thing you are pursuing and the fear of inaction have their place.

And you’ve got to consciously with awareness, this like tap into both, fears, you know, what if I don’t take it? Yeah. What does that mean? And I like imagining myself dying, never having shared my message. Was terrifying like today to this day, I’m scared of death and I hold onto it. I have a picture up on my living room of the tombstone when my friend died.

And it said you will die soon. So every day I’m like reminding myself that death is coming, you better be right. You better be ready. You know that you as like me talking to myself better, be ready, that death is coming. So you are you going to put in the work? And it’s not like live everyday? Like it’s your last, because I think that’s nonsense because if it was like working on a business, it’s hard, you know, I would sometimes I would rather not do that if day with my last day, but.

It’s more staying present that death is coming. So you need to put in the work, like, imagine if you had not imagined, if you died, never hadn’t shared this message. So that fear allowed me to write my book and then also engaging the fear of what if I write a bad book. Right. So I always like to say that fear propels you to prepare.

If you engage a fear. You can use it as a source of preparation. Okay. So I’m scared of writing a bad book. What do I do? What’s the worst case scenario what’s going to happen? How do I prepare for that worst case scenario? Because I was scared. I studied from authors who had written great books, authors, Jack Canfield, the “Chicken Soup For The Soul” author, you know, study from him.

How did you write a better book as a result? I must’ve trashed. I mean, I kid you not over a hundred thousand words worth of work. Which is a lot of months worth of work. As a result, I wrote a book that now I’m truly proud of. I know it’s making a positive difference. I’ve gotten enough feedback endorsed from the Dalai Lama, stuff like that.

But because I was scared, my fear allowed me to write a better book. If I wasn’t scared, I would have just. Wrote something and put it out there. You know, my fear allowed me and same thing with my business. I’m terrified and bitten where I’m going with my business. I’m terrified in most things I do like running ultra-marathons a few weeks ago, I ran 50 miles around a cul-de-sac in my neighborhood, even before doing it.

I was like terrified because I knew it’s going to be a miserable ordeal. Right. You know, going into darkness. Everything I do is absolutely terrifying, but that’s, what’s makes it so worthwhile. And so I engage the fear and recognize at this point, I’m very well trained in fear. You know, I’ve done it over many years.

I do a lot of crazy things, a lot of intense things. So when it shows up, I’m not unfamiliar with it. I’m very used to it. I’m like, cool. It’s it’s there, you know, got it. But I know that if I don’t take action where that’s going to get me.

Casanova Brooks:

I love it. Talk to me about, cause something that keeps coming up in my mind is the fact of how you correlate fear with discipline.

Because I feel like for you, you’ve been able to, to be very disciplined, not only was suppressing those small voices in your mindset, but also with understanding for a lot of people. If they’re going through some type of deep depression to try to go into somewhere for even three days of a dark place.

Right. And cutting everything off, a lot of people don’t have that discipline. Do you feel like it was only the military that gave you that because that helped build your foundation? Or do you feel like somebody else can develop that discipline? No matter where they are right now in life,

Akshay Nanavati:

Anybody can absolutely develop it.

Like, in fact, when I came out of the military, it was another, it was almost another extreme. And this happens to a lot of people, the military. Because you’ve come out of such a discipline structured life that you want to take a 180º now. Screw discipine,. I’m just going to do all, you know, I don’t want to have a wake up, then I’m going to go all out and the other extreme and I did, I mean, the drinking everything, right?

So it had to be cultivated over time. So you start very small, like wherever you’re at start. I mean, I wasn’t this kind of person doing this when I was a kid, I was terrified of Ferris wheels. Let alone the things I do now, like a Ferris wheel, which is absurd, right. That’s not scared, but I was terrible side of everything.

So it took a while to get here. So you can absolutely cultivate it. And the way you do that, you know, start small and you want to start creating, essentially thinking about it, think about it this way, like creating rules in your life to follow so that when you. When you follow these rules, you don’t have to exercise cognitive or physical energy.

So what I mean by that, again, example, I have a morning routine that I follow. That’s just the checklist on my phone. It’s a checklist. I just follow it. I don’t have to think. I just follow the checklist. I wake up at the same time, go to bed at the same time. My morning meal is the same meal. So as much as possible, and this is why you see people like a Zuckerberg or Barack Obama, they wear the same suits and stuff like that.

Cause they don’t want to. Think about what they have to, where they call it, like decision fatigue, right? So you, every, every area of my life, as much as possible, I create systems. I create structures, I create rules. Then I just follow it. I don’t have to think I just follow it. And so that way I’m saving my energy for the battle.

Like the work requires cognitive energy when I’m copyrighting or something like that, that takes a lot of cognitive. So I want to save my energy, my fuel for the fight ahead, whether it be the writing on my computer or going on a run, that requires physical energy.

you know, the harder things. So starting point if you’re, if you’re starting off with a completely undisciplined, you know, start somewhere, get a morning routine. Right. Is that, you know, just, just start. And then from there, you’ll take it to the next step. I used to struggle with sleep for a long time, for multiple reasons stuff from the war just had been like a struggle with insomnia.

So my sleep pattern was all kinds of messed up for a long time and only then I have to track this. So one thing at a time I would always look at, okay, what’s the one gap to fix. And this is, this is really key, is always be, always be focusing on one gap at a time. And it’s important. Like there’s a, it’s not a bad thing to have problems.

Good. It’s a good thing to have problems. Cause all growth is ultimately two things. Find the problem, fix the problem, find what’s working and do more of it. All growth is those two things. So every single time I’m looking for, what’s the one problem to fix. What’s the one problem to fix. What’s the one problem to fix and progress is not the elimination of problems.

Progress is the creation of new problems. So don’t, don’t look for that moment where problems will magically end. People think that right? They think when I get there, when I get the million dollars, when I get the relationship, when I get the house and then my problems be gone, it will not be gone. I’m not telling you that right now, it will not be gone.

And that’s not a bleak message. It’s an encouraging message. If you develop a positive relationship to problems, Because it’s only on the, it’s only in the battle for overcoming a problem that you attain the next stage of your growth. If life was all sunshine and rainbows, you’re never going to grow. You know what I mean?

You’ve got to go into the problem. You’ve got to go into the fight to attain that next group. So always be looking for that problem to look for the next awakening.

Casanova Brooks:

At what point did you really start to go after your dreams? Cause you talked about writing this book, you’ve talked about running these marathons, things like that.

And so it seems like you always had these dreams. At what point did you really start to go after your dream? And was there something that pushed you to say, listen, not only am I going to get out of the pain, not only am I not going to live status quo, but I’m going to reach for something to try to impact millions of lives.

Akshay Nanavati:

It’s only been like about two, three years now that I’ve been this clear on my path for a long time, you know, after joining the Marines, I was, I was, I climbed mountains. I was across polar icecaps, skydiving, scuba diving. I was planning on becoming like a sponsored ad. At one point I wanted to go career Marines.

That kind of plan changed. And I was planning on becoming a sponsored athlete, that kind of plan changed. I was going to go become a war journalist. That plan changed when I went my wife, you know, that’s not exactly conducive to a healthy relationship being a war journalist. So I kind of was constantly figuring out what do I want to do?

Where do I want to go? And then when I met my wife, you know, I was trying to get a more normal job I just did. So I’m not off.

And going into war zones and stuff. And that’s what led me deep into personal development healing myself. So when I, when I started coming into the Pat, like the idea of Fearvana wrote that book, that’s when soon I was like, all right, yo, this is it. Because I live that message. And I love it.

Like, I love going to do intense things. Like seeing it again, I still do it or not. You know, like I said, running ultra marathon and all this kind of stuff, seeing and polarized gaps. And I love helping people navigate suffering. Like if my mission is to inspire, empower, and train our human family to trasncend suffering.

In order to live their own personal legend. So that’s kind of what I want to do. So after writing the book, and even then I still wasn’t extremely clear what it was then too. Then, then after the book that started to pave the way to get clarity on now, it’s like, now I know exactly what I’m doing and what I’m doing now is.

The goal is to build this massive global Fearvana empire, if you will, kind of what, like Richard Branson built with Virgin, like the Virgin empire, but I’m like Virgin. I’m not looking to necessarily get into like mobile or airplane or stuff like that, staying in the space of wellbeing. So we’re talking about creating like a Fearvana Academy.

Fearvana Fitness, Fearvana Festivals, you’re going to retreat. I have my own nonprofit called a Fearvana Foundation. We’re launching. the Fearvana clothing Fearvana Foods, a whole ecosystem to help people master their mind, body, spirit and their craft. And that only got clear after like writing Fearvana.

So to anybody listening, you know, some people have that, they know their answer. Like I have one friend who knew she wanted to be a grand master at chess when she’s seven years old, you know, like some people have that. And that’s great if you got it awesome. If you don’t, it’s also okay. Take a step forward.

It’s like when you’re driving through fog, you know, when you’re driving through fog, you can’t see one mile down the road, but as you go further and further, the fog starts to clear you keep going and then it’s fall starts to clear. And now it’s like, okay, now I know everything. I mean, it could not be more clear now, but it took a long time to get here.

You know what I mean?

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah, no, I loved that. And that was what I wanted to get to because for so many people, they, they want to have that clarity up front and obviously that’s become mainstreamed now. Right? Like the number one thing you gotta do is you got to have complete clarity. Well, for a lot of people, they don’t know because they haven’t experienced a lot of things.

Like you said, you were doing all these other things. So not only did it teach you what you loved, but it taught you what you didn’t love. And ultimately it was able to be like, okay, if I look back on my last Five to seven years of journey. Here’s all the things that I did that really made me not necessarily happy, but made me come alive.

Right. And here’s the things that really took away from that. That almost propelled me back into that downstate where I didn’t want to be. So if I could focus on more, the things that make me come alive and let’s write that out on a piece of paper, let’s draw that out on a white board. Now, maybe we could see.

A common denominator and we can develop a framework around that and then create a message and a mission statement around that. And so I love it because that’s what you did. And you didn’t say, Oh, I knew this when I was 12 years old, but this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to have this whole system. So I think that that’s so powerful.

Talk to me about relationships, because you said that you’ve done a lot on your own, but was there ever a time that like you feel like you would not have gotten through outside of maybe your marriage at that time, was there ever a mentor, was there a mastermind or something like that, that you were able to tap into that really helped to propel you and get you to this point?

Akshay Nanavati:

Yeah. A hundred percent. I mean, you know, yeah, yeah. Ultimately if we fight the battles with them, but having that support structure is a game changer. I mean, I’ve had mentors from, like I mentioned Jack Canfield. It was a huge mentor of mine navigating my own stuff. Also helped me with right with the book process, writing, like, you know, how to, how to write a better book.

So I’ll always, I’m always looking to partner with people. Always finding I to this day, I have a business mentor. This dudes built like $250 million companies in Silicon Valley. Brilliant at what he does. So he’s helping me build what, I don’t know how to build an empire, man. I have no clue. You know, he he’s helping me do that.

I have a partner who’s drawing the, the, the art for the Fearvana clothing line. I have a partner who is we’re launching it. You mean like Fearvana podcast. I have another partner who is, who’s helping the create the gamification platform we’re creating for the Fearvana journey’s platform.

So I’m a big into partnering with people. Cause I mean, success is a team sport. Nobody does it alone. So always be looking for who can, how can I partner with somebody who’s way smarter than me at what they do. Like if you look at even Branson, Richard Branson has done this brilliantly with Virgin.

Like he’s the face of the brand. He’s out there doing crazy stuff. He’s this awesome personality. But most of Virgin, he doesn’t own, he doesn’t like he licenses the name. So that’s kind of the model I want to follow being this dude, doing crazy shit all over the world. You know, I like doing what I love and then being the face of the brand.

Cause I love doing this kind of thing. Being on podcasts with you, you know, talking. Being the face, doing these crazy things and then partnering with people who are way smarter than me at what they do to help ultimately reach more people. So I constantly have mentors constantly have partners like to this day, you know, from, from the get go buddies of mine in the Marines who helped me get through hard times, always, you know, it’s always about doing things together.

Casanova Brooks:

Talk to me about though, you mentioned some really big names of people that you’ve had in particular, Jack Canfield.

And I’m a huge fan of Jack Canfield. The Success Principles is one of the books that I read that really helped to formulate in my mindset that anything was possible. And what’s funny is, we’ve been looking at trying to bring Jack Canfield was on the show, but that’s for a whole nother conversation.

But my question to you is. Many people would love to have a mentor, maybe on the same level, maybe not just Jack Canfield, but somebody like that. How do you approach someone like that? Is there a strategic way that you would say that someone can go out and get somebody of that magnitude?

Akshay Nanavati:

You know, the one, the sort of the most obvious ways invest in their programs and services.

Like that’s the most obvious. Right. Okay. Let’s so let’s say you can’t like, that’s what Jack I did. And it was a hard stretch, but I did. And then, you know, connected, but I have other mentors that I haven’t invested in their stuff, you know? So another way is, is. Is reaching out to people asking a simple question, shoot a personal video for them.

Like that’s shooting personal videos for people has been a game changer. That’s how I got an endorsement from the Dalai Lama from people like Keith Ferrazzi, Marshall Goldsmith, like New York times bestselling authors, you know, Seth Godin, many amazing people who I admire, who made a huge impact in my life.

I shot him a personal video, sharing my story and just asking him like, you know, so shoot a personal video for somebody. Or reach out to them because people, if they’re out there, like someone like needs them, like we want to help others. We want to help. Now, granted, everybody has a limitation, but if you reach out, ask a question and they say something to you, go do it, go do it.

This is like the number one thing is be so, and I love this quote from Steve Martin and then Cal Newport wrote a book about it. “Be so good. They can’t ignore you” “be so good. They can not ignore you” when you do that. People will start to come on board people. Like I didn’t start off with this platform.

Now, like you said, you’ve heard me on some show saw me on media, but when I started off, I mean, I had just come out of the verge of suicide, no platform, nothing unknown, man. I’m like, no. Even when I reached out to the Dalai Lama, I thought. Well, my, like, I was a nobody, like why, why would he endorse my book?

Nobody knew my name at this point, you know? So, but you start somewhere, so reach out to one person. It doesn’t have to be like the most famous whoever in your field, off the bat, or reach out to somebody who is one step ahead of you. Once you get there, then connect with them, learn some stuff. They reached out to them, buddy, two steps ahead of you show that you are going to take action.

It’s easy to like reach out, but the hard part is the taking the action. You got to go out there and prove that you are worthy of that off that mentorship. Like the guy who’s supporting me. The guy who’s supporting me. I mean, he’s just a mentor. I’m not like I’d never hired a service.

He actually read Fearvana invited me to go speak at one of his high end luxury retreats that he did in Hawaii. Loved like what I’m doing with Nirvana. And I asked him, I was like, can you mentor me? He’s like, dude, I would be, I would love to, it would be an honor. So now we do once one call every two weeks because he read Fearvana, saw that I’m living this message saw that I’m out there fighting. He deemed me worthy of his time to mentor. You know what I mean?

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah, man. I love it. And the reason why I wanted to ask that is because that’s the big word that everybody’s talking about nowadays. Right? It starts, people would love to have Gary V mentor them, all these big names.

Right. But then people struggle with figuring out how do I stand out? In a world where everybody’s trying to fit in. And I feel like just like you, I don’t have it of a platform. Right. I don’t have anything to bring to the table and I don’t have any money to invest into their programs. So it’s like, and I love that approach that you said is like, just ask them a question.

And I first heard about this, which is a couple years ago when I read Tim Ferriss’s “The Four Hour Work Week”. Yeah, right. And he talks about that. Like make it a challenge, embrace the fear of trying to go get someone that’s way bigger than you could have ever imagined. And just ask them a question. You can’t go in with the pitch off the top, just like you, but just bring something to say, Hey, here’s how you changed my life.

I’ve read your book. I’ve done a blog post that’s about it. I’ve made a podcast post about, I made a YouTube video about it. These are all the ways that you’ve had an impact on me.

I would like to go deeper in this and I would love to get your perspective on X, Y or Z. Would you be. One willing to come on his show and just share it or two, can you just give me an answer?

And I would love to maybe, you know, piggyback off of that. And a lot of the times, just like you said, so many people, they want to help like you and I, right. I don’t. I tell people all the time when they ask about the podcast, I’ve not gotten $1. One sponsorship from this podcast. I have bootstrapped my way and yes, just like you said, in the beginning of the episode, a lot of that could be on me.

Right. Because I haven’t went out and asked for it, but I’m having a lot of fun with it. I’ve been, felt the real need or anything to try to go out there and get all these sponsors right now. I just love being able to give back to my tribe in the way that I’m doing it. Will it change down the line maybe, but right now I’m having a lot of fun.

And so adding that value. is, is amazing. I love that you brought that up, man.

Akshay Nanavati:

Yeah, yeah, no, I love that. And I loved your point about like, yeah. Show them how they’ve made an impact in your life. Like the videos I shoot. I tell them how they specifically made an impact in my life, you know? And that makes, it makes a big difference because I don’t care who you are.

We all like to be acknowledged. Like we live in a very under acknowledged world,you know? People don’t say, thank you enough. I was one of my friends told me that I can’t remember I heard this, but like that Oprah, even after. You know, because when she had the book club, anybody, she promotes, they blow up.

Right, right. She said something about somebody had heard somewhere. She rarely, if ever got a thank you. Can you imagine that? Like, like they don’t acknowledge gratitude. And so just say it’s, as I say to somebody, thank you. I mean, right. We don’t acknowledge ourselves enough. We don’t acknowledge others enough.

We generally live in a very under acknowledged world. So just thanks somebody. I mean, even with the, with the media that I got, a lot of times I would reach out to a journal, just be like, dude, thank you for this article. Like this article was awesome. I really appreciate what you do, what you’re doing. And it, it takes work to write an article like, and told them howhow appreciative they were.

Oh, just the beginning that thank you. And then often that led to a relationship often, then they were like, Hey, can I write about you? I’m like, yeah, well done. And you know, I’m not saying it started off with that intention, but the point is just staying at, thank you. Makes a difference.

Casanova Brooks:

Right? I love it.

You’re dropping so much now you and many people need to hear that those are the things that get overlooked, right? We all want the end result,

Akshay Nanavati:

Oh Yeah,

Casanova Brooks:

But the hard work that discipline and what I ultimately, I heard a lot of creating the habits. That’s right. Just like you said, with that moment, morning routine, if you can create a habit of just one small thing, it snowballs into momentum, which at the end of the day, once you just keep going and going, like when people run marathons and obviously you could speak a lot more to this, but when you run 50 miles for you to think in the beginning, I’m going to run it.

Yeah. The miles is a lot of fear. There’s a lot of anxiety. There’s a lot of like, Just, I don’t even want to do this.

But then you start out and you’re not thinking about 50 miles. You’re thinking, okay, I gotta run a block. Let me run another three blocks. Okay. Now I’ve just passed them out now just past seven miles.

And before you know, it, it’s hard to quit because you built that momentum. And now you’re at mile 37 and you’re like, okay, now I only got 13 miles left.

How could I quit on myself?

Akshay Nanavati:

Exactly momentum momentum creates mastery, man, to be, you got to build that moment and demand. It is hard. You’re going to go through low moments.

Sometimes you’re going to go through moments where, not this work now, which you got to keep fighting. That’s why you got to fall in love with the process of the fight. Not just the result, like fall in love with the battle, fall in love with the process, you know, and it’s, and it’s far from easy. Nobody’s like, don’t pretend nobody’s anybody.

And there is a lot of stuff out there promising the easy way. It’ll just be magical sometime, but it’s not easy. And that’s not a bad thing though. It’s the old, it’s the greater, the struggle, the greater the reward, you know, the best things I’ve done in my life were brutally hard, brutally hard.

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah. But when you invest your time, your energy, even your money into it, you have that much more of an appreciation for it.

Right? Like through this again, I tell people all the time with this podcast, like I never thought. In the beginning, I didn’t think, Oh, I’m going to do 150 episodes, 250 episodes. And I’m not there yet, but I started out with just one episode, but now I have so much more appreciation of it was. So when people ask me about podcasts, I’m like, yeah, you gotta go a long journey.

Like I’ve been doing this for over a year now. And not many people on the show that have been doing it for three years, four years, five years, six years. And so you have an appreciation, there’s somebody out there right now, that’s listening. They’re inspired, you know, maybe they are dealing with something right now that is PTSD, like, right.

but they have that little voice in their head and that little voice in their head says that they’re not strong enough. They’re not smart enough or maybe they just don’t have enough resources. Tell me, what is the one thing that you would say to that person to get them to just take

action

Akshay Nanavati:

It’s a reframing that little voice in your head from saying that, okay, I’m not, I’m not good enough, right.

Or whatever it may be. I’m not good enough at XYZ. Is okay. Cool. I’m not good enough yet. So I always like to say there’s such thing as good or bad or strong or weak. We always say, I’m bad at this. I’m weak at this. I suck at this instead say, you know what? I’m just untrained. So it’s not good or bad or stronger, weak.

It’s only trained or untrained. So if you say, you know what, I’m not good at. let’s say somebody wants to write a book. Right. I I’ve never written a book. I’m not good enough. I don’t know how to write a book. Okay, cool. I’m just untrained. I’m untrained at writing. When you do that, when you reframe it to untrained.

Now it’s about training. Now you start putting it in a growth mindset. There’s a lot of things I am far from like, I’m “weak” at, but I’m just saying like, even for example, squats, right? Yeah. Like I have a gym up at one point. I just, my, I have a gym right there because I spend more time running.

So I don’t do enough squats So my squats are not the strongest as it could be. So instead of saying, you know what, I suck at this and beat myself up. I’m just untrained. Cool. Well, I’m on training. What do I gotta do? I gotta go train. And then when, then whatever the thing is, then train, take one step, find somebody else.

Who’s done it. Find what they’ve doing. Take, one step, like find out how they did it. Write one page. If that’s your thing, you know, whatever, like whatever the thing is, go do that one thing, take one step. And it’s going to be hard, but you’ve got like, if there’s one. Fundamental thing. The most important skill to master is to develop a positive relationship to the experience of struggle, to develop a positive relationship to suffering.

Like in my Fearvana world, I say suffer well to learn how to suffer well like suffer with a smile on your face. Because that’s the thing, you could hear a podcast, you could read a book, it’s gonna provide a spark, you might get inspired, but nothing is going to take away from the fact that you’re going to have to get onto the battlefield.

And you’re going to have to suffer. Nothing can take away you can’t. Nobody can do those things for you. You know, I think it was Jim Rohn. Somebody said, nobody can do your pushups for you. Right. You can get the spark, but you got to go do those pushups. Right. So you got to go do it and, and take those small steps and frame it in your mind as okay.

Cool. Like whatever the voice is there, if you feel that negative voice, remember, you’re not that voice.

Quick story about that too.

Casanova Brooks:

Go ahead. I’m loving it.

Akshay Nanavati:

When I, when I reached out to the Dalai Lama, right? Like I, again, I was unknown. Right. And so it took me five months to build a relationship with a particular monk in the, in the office there.

And every time I reached out. I didn’t get an email back two weeks, three weeks. I don’t get an email back. So in my mind, I’m like, you know, shit, they hate me. They probably think my book is garbage. Why would they write to me? Who am I all that good stuff? We all familiar with the right bed and that inner voice of self doubt.

And I said, all right, cool. That voice is there, but I don’t have to be defined by that voice. Let me follow up anyway, let me check in anyway, because that stuff, when stuff like, as a small example, when somebody doesn’t write, like, let’s say you re, you reached out to somebody who’s a mentor. They don’t write you back in our mind.

We think they probably hate us. They’re ignored. It’s 99.9, nine, 9% of the time. It’s new ever that they’re just busy, whatever. Like it’s got nothing to do with you, but we do that. Like it’s a cognitive bias. We, we spotlight effect, right. Everything is about us and it’s normal, but it’s not. So you just have to recognize that thought is there don’t be defined if it don’t be defined by it and then keep training.

Step forward anyway, and don’t let that voice to find you.

Casanova Brooks:

Wow. So tell us, how did it play out? So you, cause I want to know the rest. Yeah.

Akshay Nanavati:

So I kept writing kept writing, and even when I first just on the even coming back before that, when I first had the idea, cause Fearvana is a very spiritual concept. So I thought, you know, who’s a sort of spiritual leader to kind of validate this, to give, endorse this concept, it’s the Dalai Lama.

And then immediately I was like, there’s no way, like who am I? And I kind of shut that thought down. Yeah. And then later on, so, and so, because people often ask me, how did you make it happen? And I’ll say, “I asked” and they’re like, “huh, I never thought to ask”, you know what I mean? Like I never thought that and I get it cause I was about to not ask.

And then I was like, all right, you know, what’s, what’s the worst that could happen if I asked them, they say, no, the result is I’m exactly where I was was anyway. So who cares? What’s the worst? So I reached out, I shot a personal video of connected to like one month, another month or three months or three months later finally found the right person, built a relationship with five, five, six months going through this, navigating the doubt.

And then finally, after five, six months of building a relationship with this particular monk there, he wrote me back and he said, Word for word, considering everything you’ve been through in your genuine desire to serve, press your case. And when he said that a few, like a few weeks later, whatever, I ended up getting a beautiful, a letter in the mail with his holiness, a seal and a signature and the Dalai Lama.

I ended up writing the foreword for my book. I didn’t even ask for a Foreword. I just asked for a one line endorsement and he wrote the foreword of my book, which I mean, personally, just on a personal level, it’s just so humbling. Just a huge honor, obviously, just spiritually fulfilling for me and obviously on a marketing level for the book.

Game changer, game changer. And so, I mean, but I had to ask, I had to fight my thoughts. It wasn’t a smooth ride. It took a lot to make that happen. And it’s been, it’s allowed me to help more people because not only through the book, but even the profits are all going to charity. So we’re helping a lot of people through that, you know?

Casanova Brooks:

Man. That’s so dope. And I’ll tell you, and I’ll tell you off the air. I don’t want to spoil it for anybody, but you definitely just inspired me, to go reach out to somebody who yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And I’ll be honest. for me, even having you on the show, like we’ve always reached for the stars. Right. And people who look at this and they say, man, you’ve had really big name guests on the show. But even from day one, I tell people all the time, like that was what my mindset was. I had no, like I wanted the.

Best of the best of the best. I wanted the Akshays to come on the show, because if you, again, if I were to reach down, if I didn’t set my goals to 10 X, right, then I’ll never know what I can achieve. And the amount of people that we’ve already gotten to say yes, just like you. I mean, it’s ridiculous. And it’s just really fun because you, know, that this world is all about relationships.

And if you’re doing it the right way, and if you’re authentic, eventually it will all play out in your favor. Will there be losses? Absolutely. Will people just say no? Absolutely. But then that just means that those people weren’t meant for you anyway. Right. And it’s okay because there’s 7 billion people,

Akshay Nanavati:

Right.

Casanova Brooks:

Even a hundred. I was going to tell, you know, there’s, there is a hundred thousand other people who are just as valuable and would love to build a relationship with them. The last question that I have, and I’m excited to hear your answer on this one is what does having a dream mean to you?

Akshay Nanavati:

Wow. Beautiful question. I think having a dream gives your life meaning it gives purpose to this existence on our planet. You know, I don’t think we are born with inherent meaning we create it over time. Like there’s no, to me, there’s no inherent self defined. There’s a self that must be created. We created in this battle that I keep talking about the relentless battle ground of life.

And so having a dream gives you a reason to wake up in the morning. It gives meaning to this, to this existence, to the purpose, to the things we do. And it gives it. It gives meaning to the suffering as well. And I think this is probably the best, the best way to answer it is that, you know, in, in life, we look at like, especially in modern Western culture, we talk about the pursuit of happiness, right?

Pursuit of happiness, isn’t the bill of rights or whatever. And I think that’s a deeply flawed concept because when you pursue happiness, then suffering becomes a barrier on the way to that happiness. But if you pursue meaning, if you pursue, in my words, I call it a worthy struggle. Like that’s your path.

If you pursue your dream, if you pursue a meaning, pursue a worthy struggle, and suffering is no longer an impediment, it’s no longer a barrier to the thing that you’re attaining. It’s a part of the journey. It’s a part of the adventure. When I have my dream, I don’t expect suffering to go away because I, in fact, not only do I not expect it to go away, I seek it.

Like nobody’s running 50 miles around a dam called the sack. If you’re not expecting to it, you know what I mean? So you seek it and building a business, you know, it’s nothing easy about it. So having the dream makes everything worthwhile. It gives meaning to the suffering. It gives me the pain. It gives me the joy.

It gives meaning to all of it. So it’s not about pursuing happiness. It’s about pursuing that dream, pursue meaning pursuing your worthy struggle. And that’s what makes this grand adventure all worthwhile through the highs and the lows.

Casanova Brooks:

Man. I love it. I love that. You said that well for anybody out there that wants to stay connected with you, and I’m sure there’s going to be thousands and tens of thousands as this episode is continuously watched.

And it definitely is one of my favorite episodes that I’ve done.

Akshay Nanavati:

Thank you, my friend,

Casanova Brooks:

where can they find you at.

Akshay Nanavati:

you can find me at fearvana.com. It’s f e a r v a n a dot com. And the book is available on Amazon and audible Kindle paperback. And as I mentioned, all the profits go to charity. We supported some beautiful causes like these young girls who are victims of sex trafficking in India to former child soldiers in West Africa to some beautiful, powerful causes.

So all the profits go to charity as well.

Casanova Brooks:

Definitely. Well, I’ll be grabbing me a copy. You can bet that, but thank you again, my brother, it has been a phenomenal experience. We look forward to watching your growth, your journey, listening to your podcast and learning so much more wisdom from you in the future.

And hopefully we look forward to getting you back on the show again, which I know that the second conversation will be that much better than the first. So thank you again. And remember DreamNation in the dream we trust, but just as he said, we must. Embrace the fear and take action. Otherwise it will only merely be a fantasy.

We’ll catch you on the next one.