Nimai Delgado ON: Transforming Your Financial Future with Strategic Actions & Unlocking the Power of Nutritional Excellence

that same mission. Today's guest is going to help us do just that. I'm talking about a dear friend of mine who I've been getting to know over the last few years. We've known each other in different incarnations, which

I'll explain as the podcast goes through. But for those of you who don't know him, Nimai del Gardo was raised as a vegetarian by virtue of his spiritual beliefs and has actually never eaten me in his life, Nimai became the world's first vegan IFBB professional bodybuilder p proving that you don't need animal products to be an elite athlete.

Nimai is a motivational speaker and shares his story all over the world to bring awareness to the many benefits of a plant based lifestyle and the importance of exercising our bodies and our compassion. Nimai has also founded vegg Nutrition and All Natural Supplement Company and Veganfitness dot Com, where he has coached thousands of clients, along with a handful of phenomenal celebrities and athletes doing their best while being plant based. Please welcome to the show, Nimai del Gada, Nimai.

It's great to have you here.

You know, we have a big community here who wants to be healthier, who wants to be happier. Let's start with right now, Like, what makes you feel happy and healthy right now today?

day has to throw at me. So, I mean, once you find that, then it really does allow you to like live in that healthy space to where you can show up and handle anything really.

red light, and I'll just sit and just breathe. And it's not perfect every morning. This is what I don't want to preach or come on here and talk about, is perfection. I really am not a perfect person, and I want to really, first and foremost make that clearer because it's not perfect. But the days that I do show up, I show up to the degree that I can. So sometimes that's twenty minutes. Sometimes that's longer, sometimes it's

even five. And for me, that tone of really setting the tone for the rest of my day with intention, with that piece of just tapping into whatever my body needs that morning and then letting that dictate how I operate for the rest of the day.

to start your day. It also helps with skin if somebody has some skin issues there too, so and it's also just nice to it provides a little bit of heat too, so it can just like provide that nice ambient lighting in the morning when it's still dark outside, to just start your day with a little bit less of this like bright white light.

I think people often think that when someone comes on a podcast or they talk about something, that they've nailed it and their life works like clockwork, and they wake up at the same time every day and they meditate for the same amount of time. And that's amazing if that's true for you, and it happens, but it rarely does.

I wanted to go backwards into your life today. Obviously, you've, you know, famously known for being in the documentary Games and that was exec produced by James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan, Lewis Hamilton, and you know people that you know well as well, and that's incredible to see how far plant based lifestyle Vegan lifestyle athletic ability has come. I guess my question is do you feel that you at this stage before we go back kind of what

do you feel you prove to yourself? Like when I read things like you've never read to me and that you know you don't need animal products to be an elite athlete. Is that something you set out to do. Is that something that was important to you, or is that something that kind of has just happened in society as something that interests people.

with compassion. So by virtue of trying to follow that, it leads me to make the choice to not consume

animal products. And when I was raised vegetarian, I grew up in Mississippi, and there weren't too many vegetarians in Mississippi, and I would constantly get questioned and asked about my spiritual beliefs whenever I was younger and I didn't have the vernacular or the language to really explain myself, so I tended to become more withdrawn or just a little bit more avoidant whenever people would ask me that question.

And it really wasn't until my later years, when I was mid twenties, when I leaned into that part of myself and started to really embrace and own my belief in being proud of that belief And that's what ultimately led me to finding my purpose because people started to ask me once I I started winning bodybuilding competitions, they started to ask me, how are you doing this? And the question that I once avoided so much about why I was vegetarian now became this really interesting topic for

people that wanted to learn more from it. So I started sharing more online and then just naturally fell into this place where I was teaching people, which was really exciting for me.

those values. We go the other way. I know so many people that grew up with certain values, especially when they're spiritual based, that kids end up going the other way where they're like, well, I don't want anything to do with that because it doesn't even make any sense because parents never explained to them why you do that or it's important, so they don't know why what do you think stopped you from like going the other way, and just like being like, well, no one in Mississippi

gets it, so why am I bothering to do this?

for them or be around them. And I think that just really stuck with me because I grew up on a cow farm, and I had such close proximity to animals that I had such a deep connection with them, and I think fundamentally I understood that in order for meat to end up on my plate, an animal would have to suffer or be killed, and I just didn't want to contribute with that. I just never felt aligned in my body and I was doing just fine without it.

So I continuously heard people tell me that, if you know, I need meat to be big and strong, I need meat to grow up for protein, for all the other nutrients. And here I was, you know, fairly athletic even as a kid, just living this experience, and I just knew in my heart that I didn't need it. So I just continue to go by feeling and really just stop hearing what other people told me I needed, and just like really started tuning into what I felt like was right for me.

is everyone's so unique and so different. What nutrients did you have to be more proactive to find as someone who's vegan and be more thoughtful about Let's start there first.

concerned myself with an amount of protein. I just ate what my parents would provide me with, and that was like lentils, you know, pastas things that naturally contain protein, but it doesn't have animal protein. So that is the biggest kind of conversation that I normally have on a daily basis is where.

So protein. The other big one is B twelve. So B twelve is a micronutrient that you know, we don't naturally get in our diet based off the sterile nature of the way that we grow our crops. We used to get it from soil and streams of water. So now most B twelve is supplemented and even given to animals, So people that consume animal products are getting supplement in B twelve that are fed to the animal, so you're getting it secondhand. So it's not just a vegan issue

at this point in time. It's a general population issue that people I believe up to forty percent of the population has suboptimal levels of B twelve, so supplementing with that is a wise choice just to kind of ensure that. And then the other one's iron I mean, that's another big one for anybody that has potentially anemia or anything like that. But there are plenty of vegetables that provide

more than enough iron. It's just about really understanding how to eat and consume a diverse amount of vegetables in your diet that will cover these nutritional gaps. And it all boils down to education first and foremost.

differently had I known what I know now. I think I would have done things more gradually and been more aware of things like B twelve and Omega threes and these kind of things that an iron and so many other things. I still would have made the decision to become plant based. I feel far more energetic today, I feel far more my immunity is far stronger today, Like I feel much better being plant based, without a doubt.

I just wish I made my journey towards it a lot easier, and so I'm very mindful now where it was, like I went from the literally being vegetarian to plant based, like literally overnight.

where I was born and raised. And it was really quite unique because it was a community, like I remember calling all of the mothers in the community mother because we would go to the temple, we would go around the farm, we had cows, we had our own garden. Everybody had a role in the community and it was

really beautiful now that I look back at it. Before when I was younger and I started to integrate into the more traditional Southern culture because I went to public school, that brought about a lot of challenges for me because it was like I was living in this bubble and then venturing out into the other world.

being from India, and much of the culture that I grew up with in that community were Indian, so I kind of felt like an outcast within the community and then felt like an outcast outside of that community as well. So it was very difficult for me to find my own identity. So I got very good at observing other people and really just having compassion for different forms of life without judging, because I knew what it was like to be judged growing up.

that sounds like a really healthy mindset. The second part of my question was that how did that impact your ambitions and goals and what you wanted to do will be because you're getting exposed to these two very different worlds. You have the public school academic world and then you have this private life of spirituality. Like, how did that impact what you wanted to do with your life? Yeah?

So I was always good at math, I was always good at sciences. I preferred math and science over English and literature because there was a definitive answer, and I really appreciated that, and so I pursued engineering. My grandpa I was a pilot for many years, and he used to bring me to the airports, and I was always fascinated with aeronautics, with planes, and so my original intention

was to become an aeronautical engineer. And when I went to college, there was no degree for that, so I switched to the next best thing, which was mechanical engineering. So I got my degree in mechanical engineering. But what's interesting, though, is that I never really felt a strong connection to it.

It was purely coming from the place of what position or what career can I have that's going to provide that security, that financial stability, because I didn't want to be in the position that I witnessed growing up so much.

realize why am I pursuing this? That maybe that was only because you didn't have money growing up, and then you're pursued shifting. But when was that moment where you were like, I don't think this is what I really want to do.

care of my family now. And the first day in the job, I realized that I was like, this is not what I want to do, Like I'm going to have to do this for the next forty years and then retire, Like I quickly saw the timeline of what my life was going to be like. And that feeling is not a great feeling, because I had just dedicated five years to getting my degree and had an incredible

amount of debt and I just stuck through it. You know, I lived with that for five years before I finally built up enough courage to leave that career and pursue

something that was more meaningful for me. But it took me five years of really suffering with that and living with that to finally create enough discomfort for me to be like, you know what, this money is not everything, and I really feel like I have a deeper purpose and I feel like I can make a greater impact in the world and be of better service to people by leaning into this thing that I had been doing on the side, which was basically teaching people how to be vegan and in shape.

so many times that art and design wouldn't make money. Yeah, and so I was like, oh, yeah, you've got to make a smart decision. And then I became a monk anyway on top of all of it, so so it all went out of the window. But a lot of people feel that way where they have something that's calling them, something that's pulling them towards it, but then they push it away because something feels more realistic or something else feels like the right thing to do. And it's amazing

that you noticed it on day one. And I've created now a new methodology. And I'm repeating this because I hope I remember to use it again and again and again, and there are times when I remember it. There are times when I wish I remembered it. But I came up with a methodology of how I make decisions because I found that money was always such a tempting, tantalizing

thing or whatever. That's one of those. But I think there are so many things in the world that are just so attractive and lucrative that they distract us from what we truly want. And so I cram up with something that I call ESM and the E stands for energy. So the first thing I ask is does this give me energy? Does this person give me energy? Does this project give me energy? Does the work energize me? Do I want to bring my energy to this?

it's not sustainable. So is there strategy behind this? Is there an effective method behind this, a system, a process that I can get behind and that my energy will be directed? Clearly, I think a lot of the time you feel like, oh, the energy is amazing and very la thing as well, and it's like like the energy is really good, but then it just kind of goes splat right, like it's just everywhere. So like, is my

energy directed? If the answer is yes, then I go to the M, which stands for money, and it's does this make commercial sense? Does this make sense financially? Does it make And so money is an important part of my methodology. It's just the third most important metric. And I only get to ask that question if I go through the first two. And that stops you from doing things just for something. At the end, I love that, and at least it's helped me.

something I looked forward to. I looked for reasons to leave. I was constantly distracted about the other life that I had wanted for myself.

what I'm doing. But I did it just on the side, for free, because it brought me that much joy and fulfillment, just for myself. And once I started to see the ripple and the curiosity from other people and thoughts to myself, wow, I can really make a difference in somebody's life just by sharing how I'm living. And that's when I really found the conviction to say, you know what, this is something that I want to pursue, even if it doesn't

make sense logically. I'm going to listen to my heart for once, because I've been listening to my brain this entire time. I'm going to drop in and listen to my heart and what my gut is telling me. My gut is telling me to pursue this, to follow this.

Not because I didn't I didn't know anyone who didn't do any of those things, apart from obviously if people were teachers, or if people you know, my my my uncle owned a grocery store and things like that, like a local grocer, small local grocery store and so things like that, but I didn't have context over you could be something else, and therefore was those three things. And I never liked medicine, I never liked law, and so I had to do business and because art and design

wasn't a career. So I get that, and I think a lot of people lived that way and feel that way. And I also think today we've created a culture where it's like you have to be an entrepreneur, and that I disagree with two Like, I don't think doing what you love means doing it as an entrepreneur. I think

there are phenomenally talented people who work inside organizations. And when you think about some of the CEOs of the biggest companies today, they didn't found them, like sind the Peach I see of Google, or Tim Cook, who CEO of Apple, Like they didn't build those companies, and they became so successful within an organization that they run. And so I do think that we're also living at that other extreme now where it's like you have to quit

your job and do something you love. And I'm like, well, that doesn't make sense either, Like maybe some people are going to find what they love inside a career and inside a workplace, and I think both need to be bandaged. So we went from like you have to work an amazing job as an engineer and do something you hate and get paid, and now it's like you have to quit everything and do what you love. And it's like, well,

there's a spectrum there. Definitely, I want to know how you survived the five years because I love that answer that you knew it on the first day, but you had to survive and suffer for five years. I think that's very, very real because you're in your head trying to figure that out, Like how did you deal and cope with those five years? Did you adopt bad habits? What did you do? Because I think oftentimes that's when people turn to like different things. I don't know if

you did, but yeah, what did you do? And then how did you finally get out? Yeah?

I really do love training. I love the art of learning how this this vessel works and how I can really optimize the movements and how it feels, and and just really sink into the process of developing my physical self. And what I learned in that process was how many benefits mentally there are as well, because it requires discipline, it requires sacrifice, it requires intention and attention to detail.

So that's where I really found enjoyment was really in the process of learning how to develop my physical self. And as far as dealing with you know, the five years I had thought about quitting, I mean I also am a realist and knew that I had to provide for myself and I would also be giving up a very good opportunity and didn't have the clarity of what that next thing would be. And all the while I was doing this other thing. It was right in front

of me the whole time. But I needed to really find that path, like I needed the contrast of doing something that I didn't like doing, because that gave me the clarity to find something that I really did. So I don't regret anything in my life that was painful or challenging, because it's really shaped who I am today and given me the opportunity to have the clarity to pursue the things that really resonate with me.

this other thing on the side. I have a friend that well, she used to be working at a company and she was stressed and hated it in the same sense as you do did, but she loved presenting. And so then she joined a company where she's a public speaking coach and she goes back to the company she's work out and teach public speaking, like teaches communication, not just public speaking, but teachers communication, teachers negotiation, teaches people's skills,

and she's so much happier doing it. And I love seeing those stories where people have the courage to figure out the switch. But it sounds like you were doing a lot in your evenings and weekends to build this other route and build this other path. When you made the switch over, did it feel like, because I'm guessing when you first did it, were you able to replace your salary completely? No? Right, that's yeah, that's my friend.

She's it's taken a three years to replace her salary that she made before, but she's doing good now.

reach as many people as possible. So I partnered up with a software engineer and we decided to build a whole platform of how can I really systemize delivering the content, teaching people how to lift providing educational content, and then also the meal planning, which is the most important part whenever people are trying to get is figuring out what to eat. So we developed a whole algorithm and a whole platform to be able to serve thousands of clients at a time, and it took months of planning. I

wasn't making any money. I was just kind of siphoning away all my savings. And what's what's really interesting is that first week, whenever we launched our very first program and very first offer, I made more in a week than I made in a year as an engineer. And that that was the moment for me that I was like, Wow, this is very possible for me to continue to pursue. And obviously that's that's my experience, but it takes that level of planning and really having an approach that is,

you know, risk averse. You know, I'm not suggesting for anybody to go quit their job. I think that having a plan of action and having a timeline makes the most sense for you to not put yourself in a compromising position. So that's the way that I did it, and it's it's panned out very, very well because it's given me the space to still work with so many people and still get to do what I love and be so focused on in the business, just working in the business, if that makes sense.

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First of all, growing up in a spiritual community made you vegetarian, made you have a hymns, made you appreciate life forms, Like that's a useful experience, even if at that time you felt alone and disconnected from the people you're around. Then you go off and you study engineering, which again you're like, I don't want to be an engineer, but you're engineering skills are the ones that you use

to launch your passion. Yeah, and then it's like you discover what you love doing, which is working out, and now what you do is mixing compassion, working out and engineering, And I love that idea that encouraging people to collect passions and curate their passion, and that's how you create your passion, is that you're constantly collecting experiences and then you're bringing them together rather than like I found this one thing and everything before this was a waste of time.

And even in my journey I feel the same way. It's like I loved art and design growing up, which has massively impacted my career today because I look at everything through the lens of art and design. And then I was fortunately great at economics and good at understanding business, and then behavioral science and that was that's obviously been

very useful in my life today. And then obviously I fell in love with philosophy, and I fell in love with teaching, and I fell in love with mentorship, and I fell in love with the wisdom that I learned from the monks. And now my life is all three of those things put together. And I wouldn't trade any

of those experiences. So if anyone's in a bad place right now, or and anyone's in a hard place right now where they don't enjoy what they do, or they feel they studied the wrong thing at university or college or whatever it is, none of that's wasted because you're just collecting experiences that will be useful if you look at it that way in what you're building. And that isn't a mindset, that's just true that any skill you learn right now is going to be useful. Yeah.

or the perspective to transcend them. So when I look back at my childhood, although it was had its moments of beauty and so much beauty in my life, there was also so much challenge and strife as well, And I see those moments now as what really shaped me and primed me for what I'm doing today, because once, at one point the thing that I was most ashamed of is the thing that I really lead with now.

So just remembering that in any time of challenge, that this is teaching you something and in some time maybe you can't see it right there, but you are the beneficiary of this challenging moment and it will allow you to keep growing. It's like, you know, there's so many parallels between the gym and life. You know. It's like you're under the bar at doing squats and it's very, very uncomfortable. You want it to stop, you want to drop the weight. You're like, no more, I can't handle

any more. And then you push through and on the other side of that you develop the strength and the resilience and your body adapts and you grow so that you can handle that plus some the next time. So that's that's the way that I really tried to approach any challenge these days is like, Okay, bring it on. I accept the challenge because I called this experience into my life so I could transcend it.

how unhealthy it was. But during when the movies, I think it was zac Efron recently it was like, you know, he talked about the Baywatch movie and it's obviously when you watch that movie, liked that looks incredible. Yeah, and he did, and then you know, he was on TV shows at the time. But then I think he came out recently he was talking about how unhealthy it was, how he didn't feel great about it. And I think a lot of men talk about that afterwards as one.

Women of course talk about it, but I feel like it's great when a couple of men start opening up about how even though they look great and every guy wanted to look like them, it wasn't healthy. But for you, how how has that journey been for you? And I'm intrigued to I've never asked you this before.

even if it's masked through other things. So that was that was a big journey for me because originally when I got into it, I had that reason, and then the more I did it, the more I really started to do it because I loved it and didn't train because I didn't like myself or the thought of if I'm out of shape, nobody will like me or I won't like myself, and started shifting and reframing that too.

I really love taking care of myself because I feel good when I do, and That's what really led me to lean into it and to continue to discover ways in which I could just develop myself further. And then somebody actually suggested it to me in the gym one time. They said, hey, there's a show coming up locally and you should do it. You look great, and I was like, yeah, right, you could not pay me to do that, And then I thought about it. I was like, you know, I

don't have anything else going on. This could be some new challenge, something exciting. I did it and ended up winning the first show that I competed in. So obviously when you excel at something, it motivates you even further.

that much more fulfillment. And I see the difference that it's making, and maybe they might be complete strangers to me, but it's nice to know that people are out there listening.

And that's when I continued and eventually became pro. Eventually did that for a few years, but then afterwards I got wrapped up in the identity of like being a bodybuilder, and that's when I started to recognize that, hey, maybe this isn't for me anymore because I'm attaching so much of who I am to what I look like, and that doesn't feel good anymore. So that's when I decided to step away from the sport altogether and just retire in twenty eighteen.

and I enjoy it. Talk to me a bit about that journey, because I think that's the hardest part of that journey, is like going from like I do this because I want the validation for myself and others, and I want to protect you know, the younger me too, I'm actually going to do this because I like feeling better, Like walk me through some of the steps there, because I feel like, yeah, that feels like a long, long journey.

pressure to be this person. And at the time, my following was continuously rising as my popularity grew and the really just the exposure to people's comments and things that they had to say about me. I started to notice how much it was affecting me and specifically focusing on negativity, and I was like, why am I really focusing on this and allowing it to really disrupt my internal state?

And that's when I started to get real with myself and saying, oh, because I am seeking this validation and it means so much to me, and when people think highly of me, and when they don't, it really affects me mentally. So that's when I started to take a step back to more self reflection and say, maybe I'm not doing this for the right reasons anymore, and I should explore that.

it's natural for it to get distorted. That's always going to happen to any of us because we're not perfect. Because we're not we haven't got everything figured out. And so I'll realize that, oh, maybe I did kind of go too far this way, and then I'll see if I have the ability to come back, and sometimes I

do and sometimes I don't. And so it sounds like you went through that same process of you know, can I do this again for the right reasons when you were doing it at its peak and you had people coming up to you talking to you about compassion and plant based life and veganism, Like did people notice that? Were they aware of that? And then what would they say to you? Like what was people's reactions? I'm just intrigue.

They don't believe it's possible. So to see somebody doing it and competing at the highest level, it brought its own pressures to me because people, especially the vegan movement, tended to pedestalize me and use me as this poster boy, this example for somebody who could do this, which I enjoyed and then also equally didn't enjoy because I would be thrown into arguments online and people would just use me as this example where I just opened up my

phone and just see all these comments of people arguing

back and forth. And again, my goal was to never be polarizing online or it was to inspire the people that really wanted to live this way, so that also played a huge impact into reassessing what kind of message I'm putting out there, and to really again just lead, lead with compassion and show that you can coexist with people who have different views on life, different perspectives than you, where were often more times more common than we are different.

So that's that's another reason why I felt like bodybuilding is a sport of comparison. It's me literally lined up to another person and comparing the two, and I always approached that sport with it's always just me versus me. I could never control what anybody else was doing outside of you know that experience. It is like you step on stage, It's not me versus these other guys. It's

just me versus who I was yesterday. But that's really when I wanted to step away from the sport so I could continue to focus on the thing that I originally wanted to do, which was to help serve people in my highest capacity, which is when I started coaching after I left bodybuilding.

served others anymore. I let go of my corporate career because it didn't serve me or serve others anymore. I let go of the first content I created. We don't make content like that anymore because it didn't serve me or serve others anymore. And it's like we've evolved in so many ways, and I often think that we keep putting time you've done something on a pedestal as opposed to time you stopped doing things that didn't make sense

to you anymore. And so even hearing that from your perspective, and it's like, we did this bodybuilding, achieved so much, and then I had to leave it behind in order to move into coaching. And you know, in the coaching space, you've worked with some incredible people and you don't have

to name anyone or whatever you feel comfortable with. But in the idea of like, when you're coaching someone or anyone who's thinking about becoming a coach or thinking about becoming a trainer or a guide, a teacher in any capacity, what are the things that have been really important that you've learned through coaching other people who are high performers.

things that they really want to do. So when I coach, and you know this from working with me, is that I like to talk a lot during our sessions and hear what your experience is like, because oftentimes language reveals so much about how we think, and ironically, the way that we view ourselves has a huge impact in the way that we show up for or are our physical health.

So as I'm training people, it's almost like I don't want to call it therapy, but it's just a really deep conversation where I learn about my clients on a level that allows them to see what kind of capable, powerful person they are, and then once they recognize it themselves, then they start to show up and believe it themselves.

And I'd be like, nine times out of ten after a session, I'd be lying on my bed just trying to recover because I'd love the coolness of my bed. Yeah, and I just sit there and just like take it in because it was so high intensity in a good way. But at the same time, I also broke through a lot of mental blocks I had around what I believed, around what my body could do or you know what I believed my body was capable of, Like we were able to dial back and start slower and build up again.

And I think you were so great at doing that. Like I think it's so beautiful. As I'm a coach too, and I think when I'm being coached, I really appreciate it when someone makes me feel like I can get there and that it's okay that I'm slower or that it's taking time. I'm already going through all the self judgment and self criticism. The last thing I need is for someone else to criticize me too, and to have someone who's supporting you along that journey. I really felt

love with you. I've always felt that with you through our friendship, but I also felt it very much in that time. And I think those are such great skills for all relationships, actually, not just for coaching, but if you're teaching your partner something, if you're teaching a child something,

if you're teaching a parent something. If we could be more supportive and notice the goodness in them, and notice the attempt and notice the positive attitude that person have and the fact that they showed up, that person is going to feel inspired. But if we criticize them the first time they fumble, or judge them the second time they make a mistake, or point out to them how much better everyone else that we train is. That doesn't

help anyone. And I at one point I had one of my clients took me to play golf with him, and I don't play golf, and I've never played golf before that day, and I had a coach at the center we went to, and the coach was incredible, very patient, very professional, you know, very there for me. I was only there for a day, so only got a day of coaching. But by the end of the day, I was half decent. I was okay, and I could do something. And when I came back to LA because we were

traveling together. But when I came back to LA, I tried to look for a golf coach here because I really got it. I was like, oh, this could be a cool thing to do, and maybe it'd be fun to get into it with Radi. And I took Radi with me, and I got a coach who'd supposedly worked with like some of the best, the best and all the rest of it. And I couldn't take a shot without him. Correcting me every second, and it almost became really draining and tiring because I was like, I need

to hit like ten shots to then be corrected. But if I'm corrected in every half a swing, it's really hard for me to like find my flow. And I felt so criticized and judged and everything that I kind of never saw him again after like see him a couple of times, and it just showed me that being a coach is really tough. Being a student is really tough. But often I think we wrongly coach our friends and family, and that's where I find the coaching conversation will be

most interesting. Even if you're not a coach in your career, how you try and teach things to your family, your friends, your kids, your parents goes a long way. I wanted to hear your thoughts on that.

going to go over their head. So I really love starting with the fundamentals of helping people make those small incremental changes that compound to be big, big difference in their physical health. But not just their physical health, but like the way that they believe they have the confidence in themselves that they can achieve the things that they want to. So, like you said, sometimes people are their

own worst critics. And having compassion towards yourself whenever you're learning something is a skill and it's not something that we exercise very much. So I really try to help my clients also exercise that muscle of can you be compassionate with yourself? Yes, you may be not where you want to be. Maybe you're a bit out of shape, that's okay. The difference that you have now is you have the awareness that you want to do something about it. You don't have to judge yourself for the mistakes that

you made. All of that process was or all of those decisions were coming from a place that maybe you didn't have the awareness to you, maybe you didn't have the skill set too, maybe to have the resources too. But now moving forward, you have the support too, and you first, have to be kind with yourself. Yeah, first

and foremost. So if you feel guilty or if you feel ashamed of allowing yourself to get to this point, just know that, yes, you were always accountable for what we do, but there's no need to belittle yourself or beat yourself up about it. It's like I'd like to use this example with my clients. If you were to hand a child a calculus problem and tell them to solve it, and they weren't able to solve it, would you yell at them or scream at them, or tell

them how stupid they are or how incapable they are. No, they just don't have the awareness to solve that problem. And that is the same kind of thinking that you could apply towards yourself. Like, you would be gentle with them, you would be kind with them, you would be supportive, you would ask them what they need to help get them to that place. So that's the way that I like to teach my clients to think about themselves, so that the next time they show up and they say, hey,

you know what, I slipped up. But slipping up and giving up are two totally different things. So it's okay to slip up failure is part of the formula for success. So you learn, you make mistakes, you get better, you make more advanced mistakes, and then you get better. So that's the formula I like to teach my clients as well.

completely inner mastery that you're actually working on. And I often think about me as someone who I love playing sports. I've never really loved working out. But that's the part that I can get behind, is that ultimately it's in a mastery that I'm working on, even if working out is my favorite thing, even though I do do it because I've realized it's value and benefit, but that ultimately it's in a mastery that I'm trying to get through it.

expect them to, then your motivation will tank. So finding that intrinsic motivation of not just looking a certain way in the mirror or seeing a certain number on the scale, or being able to squat a thousand pounds or anything like that, but really being intrinsically motivated by the feeling

that you're looking to achieve by doing this. So showing up for yourself, going to the gym and just remembering or just thinking about the feeling that you would get once you have that internal freedom within your body, the comfort of what it would feel like to just wake up and feel good, just feel good in your skin, and feel capable of handling whatever life throws at you because you have been consistently training and showing up in

this way. So I really try to preach just focus on the process and if you can really find a way to enjoy the process, to make it fun, to make it exciting. Like, fitness is not just about going to the gym. There's many different forms of fitness. So if you don't like training or you don't like lifting weights in the gym, like, you could do tennis, or you could play soccer. You could go hiking, you could

go biking, you could go paddle boarding. There's so many different things that once you find the enjoyment of it, then you're more likely to keep doing it.

took the time to reflect and then shift. That's like a common thread I find in people who are happier, healthier, and more healed is that they weren't smarter, They weren't better. They weren't And this applies to me too. It's like, you didn't It's not that you were above anyone, and it's not that you were below. It's not that you were ahead or behind. It's that The only difference is you took the time to reflect and shift your life

according to your reflection. And I find that today we do a lot of thinking and overthinking, and thinking and overthinking is where you just let the same thought go over and over and over again. But reflecting is asking yourself, is this the right thought? Is this thought useful? Is this the thought that I want to play again and again and again. The answer is no, let me shift my behavior so that I can have a different thought, or let me plant a new thought so that it

can shift my behavior. And so I see that through your journey, and it's just I hope that this conversation encourages you to listen to your friends, listen to people around you, to make time and space for reflection, because even reflecting with you today, it's amazing to see how many similarities there are, even though we do very different things or have achieved very different things externally, but there's so many similarities in how we had to pivot and shift.

I find the most inspiration. So creating the space for whatever that looks like for you to really tap into the deepest part of yourself that brings you the most fulfillment and most join and most clarity about who do you want to be, what type of person do you want to show up as, what type of life do you want to have? And are you living in alignment with those those thoughts or are you living incongruently with that? And that disparity between the two is signified by how

you feel about it. So you're always being shown and being guided by your feelings. So learn to tap into the good feelings and what feels right and what feels true for you and then just continue to follow that.

there with the intention of mastering the repetition. If you can master the repetition of any movement, then you will see so much faster results than anything else.

I think this was one of those conversations where, you know, we learned so much about so many things we go through all the time, things like pivoting your career, things like knowing when to quit things like how to process your early experiences and turn them into something else, and then ultimately, how do you find what you love and live in that way and totally create a life around what you love and what you believe in, whether that's loving your workout or loving your career. And so I

hope this episode guides you closer towards that direction. I hope this episode moves you in that direction, towards your greatest gifts and your greatest potential. And I want to say a big thank you to Nima for spending his time with us today. Thank you so much. Man. That was amazing and it's so good for me to sit and learn more about your story. And I hope a lot of people are going to come and learn from me and grow in so many different ways.