Akshay Nanavati

what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest today is a Nanavati and explorer, volunteer firefighter,

former US Marine and master's graduate in journalism. He has been mountaineering all over the world, glacier caving in Nepal, skydiving, ice diving, cave diving, scuba diving, and spent one month dragging a one nine pounds sled three fifty miles across the second largest ice cap in the world. His current project is to run across every country in the world.

His website is called Exists to Living and uses the principles of human psychology and neuroscience and a greater understanding of how we function as human beings to help you master your mind, body, heart, spirit and business. Before we get started, many of a regular listeners may know that Eric also does some personal coaching for people who would like a little more of a one on one experience

with the one you feed. We thought, rather than Eric explaining what he does again on this episode, we would play you one of the testimonials from one of his clients. I kind of lacked that motivation at times, and I know that when confronted with a difficult decision, a difficult situation, a lot of the times I just do what's easiest. He helps me a lot, and kind of motivating means structuring my time and yeah, and helps me get a job.

And here's the interview with Acu Nanabati. Hi, Actually, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. A real pleasure to be here. I'm excited to have you on and talk about your I guess I've heard people refer to things as big, hairy, audacious goals, and you're certainly would fall into that category. But first, let's start with the parable. Our show is called The One You Feed, and it's based on the parable of two wolves,

where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like read and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second, and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins?

And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah, I absolutely love that parable. I've heard it some time ago, and I think what that parable means to me. It really expresses the fundamental concept of a free will, or actually, in actuality, the lack of it, and ultimately the two brains that we have. So I'll kind of explain what I mean by that.

You know, we have our conscious brain and the subconscious brain. So the way I describe it is the human brain and the animal brain, and the animal brain responds to the world around us, and it we don't control what that response. First is neurosciences, neuroscientists have actually shown that they can predict up to seven even up to seven and ten seconds that the brain registers information before an

action is actually taken. And now, because our brain is not trained to handle life in the modern world, we respond with in in ways that we're not that that that don't ultimately serve us. And this is essentially the evil wolf. Because the brain is not trained for a world where were essentially survival is not a concern. We create things that trigger our brain in the same way

uh saber to tiger or an explosion might. So with with this concept, the our brain, our and our brains interability to respond to the to the environment, and the way that serves us that becomes the evil wolf and the good wolf is our ability to control that. That's where we have the highest point of control, essentially, where we can direct our human brain our consciousness to then respond to an interpret the meaning of our animal brains response.

So let's say I get scared of the situation. I can choose how I respond to that fear, and that's the good wolf. So to me, that parable means it's really the how how. The ultimate form of formula for success in life is seizing control of our consciousness to regain and reshape the way our brain responds to our environment, which is ultimately that evil wolf. You have set a goal of um, not just visiting every country in the world, but running across every country in the world. So, UM,

tell me a little bit about that. Sure, Yeah, that's uh, that's my big, heodacious goal. Uh. The goal kind of came about because I noticed, as I was getting involved in my business, I stopped doing what fulfilled me, which was outdoor adventure, pushing my mind and body through limits,

serving humanity in a bigger way. So I decided to come up with something that would, essentially, like I said, give that good wolf direction for the rest of my life, seezed control of my consciousness and allow me to do the things that I really enjoy, which is traveling, exploring my own potential, engaging humanity, engaging different cultures, and serving humanity and that's how this came about. And and now

I've already started. I've run across eight countries. The goal is to essentially show the world that no matter where we're from, no matter what our race, no matter what our religion, we're all the same. We go through the same forms of suffering. We all have these two wolves, right, we all go through the same suffering in the same joy and by doing that, ultimately hoping to shed some

of the inhumanity that exists in the world. I was in the Marines and I served in Iraq, so I've got to, you know, got to kind of taste some of that, and I want to, Uh, I want to put an end to that. I want to help people, you know. I think if when we stop seeing differences in each other and we see us as one, then we can we can work together for the common good. That's kind of the inspiration behind the project, and running is my is my kind of art form to do that.

And so where how far are you along in your your goal with what countries have you run across? Uh? At this point, I'm fairly early. I've crossed eight so far. The idea that the inspiration for this project just came actually mid last year or early to mid last year. So I've run across eight. The biggest one is Greenland, where I spent a month on the ice cap, dragging a nine pounds sled forty miles and temperatures as low as minus forty degrees. That was the most challenging one

so far. And then I've started off with smaller ones. I've done fifty five miles across Luxembourg, thirty three across a Singapore, twenty eight across Andorra, twenty eight across Barbados, and twenty across Malta. And there's the thing one or two smaller ones in there as well. So I'm at eight right now. That's eight more than either Chris or I have done. I think we're we I think I drove my car part way across town. Uh the other

day Chris Chris a eight pieces. Um. Now that's uh, that is a UM that is quite I'm sure you hear this all the time. Quite a quite a goal. But what I thought was really interesting about your goal, and um, you know, on this show we talk an awful lot about the idea of breaking things down into smaller steps, about starting where you are and starting with what you have and what I What I love about the way you approached this was that you just said, Okay,

i'm gonna go. I'm gonna this is my goal, I'm gonna go do it, and I'm gonna start with what

I'm able to do. And so you started I think in Singapore, which is where your parents were, and it was it was a it was a you know, I think thirty three miles, which is not a reasonable distance to me, but it's a distance that's you know, in the realm of possibility, and you just kind of started there and you're kind of going after some of the ones that are um smaller because you know, logistic clear it product, it's less challenge, it's there's a lot of

different reasons, but you're building momentum and getting experience. And I really like that approach of of starting, you know where you can, because you could say, well, I'm gonna wait and do America first, but you might be planning and getting to that stage for years instead of just going after a few things you can get done and and and getting moving exactly exactly. It's it's as you mentioned, the logistically, it's even more challenging sometimes in the actual run.

So part of the reason for starting small is one to build up my own endurance and to just to learn how to manage this. I mean, when I went to Europe, I was supposed to run seven countries. Instead I only did five because I made a few mistakes and logistical planning. So you know, you learned kind of through the process, and I'm just I mean, the nature of this journey, you kind of have to take it

one step at a time. Their moments. Sometimes when I'll get real excited, I'll get on Google Maps and start planning countries and I'm like, there's a lot of countries in the world, and some of them are pretty big, so it becomes kind of scary, and I'm like, can I really do this? So you really have to break it down one step at a time, take it one one one step at time, and ultimately I don't know when I'll succeed or even if I will, But to me, it's really more about the journey than it is about

the destination. And that's really what life is, right, Yeah, it as absolutely isn't. That wisdom of one step at a time or or one day at a time is is so profound because very often it's it's so easy to get overwhelmed with the thought of, you know, the thought of how many miles you have to run to run across every country in the world. But really all you gotta do is do the next one exactly exactly.

So that's why I just break it down one step at a time, one country at a time, and and not worrying about the Russias and United States and Canada's just yet. Yeah China, yeah, China too. So you are working on a book. You and I were talking before the interview, and you are kind of putting the finishing touches on the on the first draft of it. Can you tell me a little bit about your book? Yes,

of course. My book is called The Other Side of Fear, and really what it references is this concept what I call fear of Vanna, and it's very similar to the idea if the two Wolves, in the sense that we have you know, with the two wolves, it shows that the evil wolf is is it's still a part of us, right, It's not something we can just get rid of. It's part of who we are, as the Grandfather illustrates. And in this concept of fear of Vanna. What it shows

is how to seemingly opposed forces. This is fear and nirvana are in actuality one and the same. They work together, and we can use both these forces to achieve a fulfillment and pique performance. So what this book does is breaking you know. As I mentioned at the start of conversation about the parable, it uses the concept of free

will and using neuroscience. It uses a lot of neuroscience and psychology to describe this concept of fear of Vanna and how we can use it to ultimately embrace our fears and do something with it, because fear, for example, constantly has a negative reputation. And I noticed everything I've ever done in my life that was ultimately worthwhile was prefaced by fear, and I had to learn how to

manage that, how to move through it. And so that's why my wife actually came up with the terminology, which I fell in love with, and now is kind of defining this idea of fear of Ana and how we can and the way I actually define it is a state of unity and bliss without fear has only achieved through immersion in fear, and the book is essentially that concept, describing it, how to achieve it, and how to overcome our brains lack of free will, our brains inherent state

of chaos, and all those evil wolves. So we can keep feeding the good wolf. Can you, um, maybe share a concept or two from the book of maybe some of a couple of the key points that I know you're gonna take a whole book to uh to lay it all out, but just you know, a couple of couple of small things that maybe we could give you the listeners to think about. Sure, of course, one of the fundamental concepts is in this book is this. It's

a spiritual concept as well. But the Budda says that we are all plagued by two darts, and the first dart is the one that we have no control of. So this is either our brain's initial response to our situation or it's an event itself, and the real problem is a second dart. So, for example, let's say I stub my toe against the door. The first start is the pain. My my toe hurts, there's nothing I can

do about it. The second dart is when I start things, start saying things like I am stupid, I the door is stupid, this house is designed badly, and I start kind of blaming myself or blaming the world. So that's what this book is all about, is acknowledging and letting go of those first starts by seizing self awareness and releasing that. And I'll give you a quick quick story too to explain this. So I'm not sure if you saw this in my thing in my in my blog

or not. But when I came back from Iraq, the v A diagnosed me with PTSD, and I struggled with many of the traditional symptoms of PTSD. You know, I jumped when there's loud noises, I didn't like crowds, I struggled uh, I struggled with feelings of guilt, I struggled with sleeping. And when with the A diagnosed me with PTSD, I thought, Okay, you know what's wrong with me, and

I have this mental disorder. And through learning more and more about the human brain and how it works, I realized that my brain's response to these to this experience like war in Iraq, was a very normal and natural response. It doesn't equate to a disorder. So all these things were happening with me were just these first starts to a situation as as as intense and as trump as you know, as as intense as war. And what I could do was reshape the meaning. I had to that.

So I realized that the guilt. For example, I lost a very close friend in Iraq and I always felt to this day, I feel guilty that I wish should have been me and said of him. And ultimately I reframed the meaning by using you, by by feeding the good wolf, which I called a human brain. This is where you see consciousness, you know, the ability to be aware of our essentially say, I'm not just talking to you right now, Eric, but I'm aware of from talking

to you right That's consciousness, that's our awareness. So by seizing awareness, I was able to reframe the guilt and tell myself that the guilt is a good thing. If I'm still guilty that I'm alive and my friend was not, then let me use this guilt to do something meaningful

with my life. And that's how we that's how this whole book is essentially seizing control of consciousness to then not let these evil wolf or not let our animal brain run the show, because you know, there's I mean, I've heard some of fair their interviews and many of the people say similar concepts about how when the animal brain runs the show and when subconsciousness takes over we it intends to be chaotic, it tends to be negative.

There's psychology calls the negativity bias. So we really have to to just to gain self awareness ultimately step outside of that negativity. And now back to AX. Give some other examples of maybe common fears that we have and how we then use those. It sounds like you're talking about using your fear in a positive way. M yeah, And actually, you know when when the when we when our brain goes through the experience of fear, anxiety, and stress.

There I use those three similarly because they all have essentially the same neurological process. It actually, if we when we learn how to use it, actually releases a lot of chemicals that make us stronger, that make an experience very blissful and peaceful, which is why I do things like go cave diving, climb mountains and things like that because I feel terrified and then it makes me it makes me feel peaceful. So I'll give you another example. And actually, this is one of the tools that I

created that I work with. When I work with my clients. I call it the element O piece cycle, and this cycle really helps you essentially step outside of your brain to train it to serve you. So the first step in that cycle is a label and language. So this is when you label the emotion. And I had a client I worked with who every time he sat on the computer would get anxiety. He would feel terrified that that you know that that essentially for his writing. So

I had en labeled it, Okay, this is anxiety. The next step is shift your body language. And Amy Cutty has a great Ted talk where she talks about the power pose and how that shifts our biology as well as our internal physiology and what the effect that has. So we labeled little emotion and then we shift our

body language by labor a little emotion it automatically. Neuroscience has shown that it actually activates parts of the consciousness and and disactive deactivates parts of that part of the brains, the subconsciousness. So the next step is m This is when we attribute. We we ask ourselves what is the meaning we've created to this experience that leads to this emotion. So for my client, it was that people are not going to enjoy my writing. People are gonna think it's

garbage and so ultimately lead to anxiety. The end step is where I think it's a really revolutionary. Part of the process is where you tell yourself it's not me, it's my brain. So you you separate yourself again, you say, this is not me having anxiety, it's my brain stuck in a pattern as a result of habits, preconditioned forces, and all the years have been building these patterns, essentially ingraining these highways in the brain. So you say, this is not me, this is my brain. The O part

is where you opt for a new meaning. So even if you don't subconsciously believe it yet, you can say that you know people will like my writing, and he was actually very successful in a prior life that you know, I've I've I've worked with the Pentagon, I'm very successful. People are gonna enjoy my writing. So you create a new meaning and in time this will start implanting into your subconscious. And the final part is p where you choose in line with your higher purpose and you take

pre emptive strikes. So the choosing in line is taking an action in with your higher purpose. So that is ultimately sitting down and write, even if it's for just five minutes. And what that does is it's literally changing the physical structure of your brain. You're rewiring your brain. And preemptive strikes is when you preemptively prepare for obstacles you know will show up. So he knows that when he gets the computer he will feel anxiety or he would run off the TV. So maybe you hide the

TV remote so you don't have that escape. So you preemptively prepare for things and and conditions you know that will that will hold you back. So this cycle, the element o P cycle, goes through a kind of step by step formula to ultimately help you reshape and step out side you of your brain to then regain control of your consciousness and ultimately rewire your brain. Excellent, that's a very UM. I like that L M N O

PE because I can remember it. Yeah, exactly. I think Chris only got to M though in the alphabet, so he's gonna only get part of that. But it'll help, it'll help. Nonetheless. Nonetheless, one of your one of your blog articles, you talk about UM three bars that keep you imprisoned by the fear of failure UM, the negativity bias, the availability heuristic and the chaotic mind. Can you walk

us through that? Sure, of course. So we touched on briefly the negativity bias and what that is is basically how our brain, as I was mentioning, how our brain is conditioned for a survival world. So the way you think about it is imagine our a cake and ancestors living in you know, the sort of the natural world. If they don't pay attention to the saber two tiger around the corner, they don't live to get food the next day. But if they miss a sunset, no big deal, right,

We're still all around. So our brain is essentially trained to focus on the world. Reason the danger is because they keep us alive. But and in today's world that doesn't really serve us because we don't have those dangers. So now we just find and create them, and and working in conjunction with the chaotic brain, we essentially because neuroscientists have shown that the brain is a natural state of chaos, and you can think about it from if you try to meditate what happens right your your brain.

It's it's hard to settle in on one on one thing. Our brain naturally goes all over the place and working with the with the negative negativity bias, what happens is that it it ultimately navigates to the negative point, right, and that's that's obviously not a good thing. So those are two of the forces. And in my book, I forget actually which one is the availability heuristic, because I I really I reframed it in my book, and that's

kind of been uh, top of my consciousness. But and I talked about a few other cognitive biases essentially how our brain works, and and and the way that what happens in all these cognitive biases is our brain is finding ways to simplify a complex world, in a complex world that we're not essentially trained for. So I think the availability heuristic what I actually now called top of mind rule. Yeah, that's that's what it is. Is where we we we look to what is first on top

of the mind. So when we surround ourselves with the media, like turn on the news, what happens we only see negative things bombarding us. That that those negativity for those negative forces become a top of our mind. And that's how we believe the world to be. So working with all these forces, a chaotic mind, the top of mind rule and the negativity bias. We ultimately just focus on negative and we and that's well, that's what makes it hard, so hard to feed that good wolf, and that's what

makes that evil wolf ultimately dominate our consciousness. I was talking the other day about something similar to the you know, the availability heuristic, but the um human principle of we sort of tend to believe what we hear by default. Now then our conscious mind can kick in and and and start to question some of that. And how how part of the challenge a lot of us run into is when we get stressed or tired or all those things.

Is that, to your point, those cognitive biases kick right in because the brain is looking for the simplest approach and uh. And so that that ability to kind of go back to trying to to think those things through a little bit more is always, um a very helpful thing to do, but often difficult to remember to do

exactly exactly. I mean. Nobel Prize psychologist Daniel Kanem on great book he wrote, Thinking Fast and Slow, he says that the human brain is a is lazy And that's exactly what you said, that it ultimately retreat to all these easier forces, and when our cognitive biases take over, that's when that evil wolf gets continues to get foot fed. Right.

The interesting thing about that book I found though, and I'm curious, um your your perspective on it, is he is he talks about sort of that that fast brain, um or the more chaotic animal brain, the one that that that but also very powerful brain, right, the one that allows us to walk without thinking about it, um, and then sort of that conscious brain or the faster brain. And he really lays out the value of both of

those brains in in different things. And a lot of what you're talking about is really emphasizing that that conscious brain. How what do you think the role of the the unconscious brain is or are there ways to harness its

strengths instead of kind of always going against it? Of course, I think the ultimately the goal is this is sort of the fundamental thesis of my whole book is ultimately the goal is to use our conscious brain to then reshape our subconscious brain, because like you said, we can't having the conscious brain be active is extremely burdensome. We wouldn't we won't be able to function. We can't. I mean just that talking to you or walking sitting in front of my computer. I don't want to have to

think about that. I want to be able to do it just automatically and unfast. And that subconscious brain is fast, it's quick. It reacts to the world around us. But we want to shape it in a way that serves us, and that's where habits come in. So essentially, the way I mean to summarize it in more traditional terminology is you want to use willpower, which is consciousness, to then reshape habits because willpower is an exhaustible muscle. So that's

that's why habits are so portant. You want to train your brain and something like the lement O P cycle where I mentioned the last step preemptive strikes, and I'll give you a quick example of how I did that. One day I knew I was I had said it in my schedule to go for a run, for a five mile run, but I hadn't slept much the night before. As I mentioned, I used to struggle with sleep issues

and I had two client calls. So I work through my client calls and I knew that my subconscious brain because it's gonna respond to my emotional need for which I was fatigued it would retreat into into wanting to go to bed after my client call. So what I did was before my client call, I put on my running shoes, I put on a heart rate monitor, I sat with my iPod around my arm, fully ready to

go for my run. And by the time my client call um ended, I made it as psychologically easy as possible to step out the door and go for a run, and slowly, by doing these kind of things, I make it a habit, and then ultimately I don't have to think about it anymore, and my sort of that subconscious animal brain can just react. It just says, okay, I'm

just gonna go for a run. So I really think the subonscious brain is vital to the process, and ultimately we have to use the conscious one to to shape the subconscious one in a manner that serves us as opposed to in a manner that is just on autopilot and doesn't sir, we seem to have had a bunch of interviews recently that have really been nailing this idea home of the power of habits and routine in conserving that that cognitive budget so that you can use it

on things like um, you know, the things that's supposed to and and taking you know, for me, taking as much of the moment to moment decision making out of certain things is really powerful because it does if I don't. If I don't, if I don't have a plan a lot of times for things, then I'll spend all my time thinking about what I should do. Like you know, the great example for me is going to the gym. I'm so much better when I know when I'm going

and exactly what I'm gonna do. If it's more like I'm going to go to the gym sometimes today, Oh that can you know. I may eventually make it, but I'll have spent you know, at least an hour contemplating when am I going to go and what am I going to do when I get there? And and those very simple things can be very profound in allowing us to be more effective exactly exactly like exactly what you're saying.

You want to make it a psychologically easy and sort of not let your brain retreat in wondering what to do. And that's why when you create a schedule, when you have clarity of purpose, and that's ultimately what led to my whole run around the world. I wanted something to a long term, lifelong project to just to give order to my consciousness essentially and give myself that direction so I always have something to focus on for the rest of my life and then it's just a matter if.

And it just makes it that much easier to then have a desire sort of a why to then go out for the go out for a run, or go training, or write my book, or build my nonprofit foundation, all of those various things that I'm doing in in partnership with the run. Well, I think that should certainly take you the rest of your life, certainly exact and it's definitely a lifelong project. Tell me a little bit about

your nonprofit foundation. Sure, I call it the fear Vanna Foundation, based on again that concept of fear Vanna and the nonprofit foundation is essentially my change making arm of my run around the world. So, for example, later this year, ideally I was supposed to do last year. Again, it just it's not going to all pan out as as planned. But I want to run across Rwanda and there's an organization I'm working with I'm partnering without there called Create

Global Healing. They do fantastic work where they help genocide survivors heal from their trauma and then ultimately create economic sustainability and fulfillment from that. So when I when I run across a Rwanda, for example, and as my run continues to build more publicity, I want to then help this organization not just in terms of fundraising, but also in terms of getting on the ground and doing the work.

So long term, the way I see it is we build partnerships with various nonprofits throughout the world, and as this this run kind of keeps growing and growing in the in the publicity for it, everything gets funneled into my nonprofit. And the way the way they have arranged it is that of proceeds will go towards the cause and the partner. The nonprofits we partner with they handle their administrative costs on their own. So even my book, for example, of my proceeds will go towards a nonprofit.

So that's really my main passion is using the Run to serve the world, and the nonprofit foundation acts as that change making ARM acts as a service arm to to the Run. Ultimately, that's awesome. Yeah, I'm very very excited about it. It's kind of just being built. We just gotta finished applying for the five of one C three that should be that should be ready within the next eight weeks, and then the website and all of that. So it's all moving forward very very nicely. So we're

near the end of our time. But I wanted to wrap up with, UM, I want to ask you about You've got something a guide that you call the driving force of all human behavior, and it's about asking yourself some of the right questions, um, because you know, the questions we ask ourselves shape our action. Can you give me an example of, um, what do you mean by the driving force of all human behavior? And what are

a couple of maybe key questions that we could start with? Sure? Sure, So the driving forces all human behavior are essentially the desire to avoid pain and the need to avoid pain and the desire to gain pleasure. And when you really think about it, ultimately everything we do boils if you kind of break it down and dig deep to the reasons behind it, boil down to those those two forces.

So when we ask ourselves questions, you know, when why these kind of self defeating things, we can we can ask ourselves questions that allow us to use these forces to our benefit. So for example, when I came when I came back to struggle with PTSD, I struggled with alcohol addiction as well, So you know asking myself questions like, Okay, what is this going to do for me long term? So essentially driving in the pain? If this what is the pain in this? How will this serve me? How

will this um how will this make me? Make me? Allow me to run across the world? What is that? What is a long term consequence if I continue like this? So these are questions that are looking for pain points. So then ultimately, you know, drive away from that because it's also been shown that we will do more to avoid pain than we will to gain pleasure, and then ultimately asking us questions because I think Tony Robbins talks about this how all thought is an essentially a response

to a question. So right now, even if you're agreeing with me or just agreeing with me, it's because your brain is subconsciously asking is that is that right? Is that wrong? Right? Or if I have to drive and I do I need to take a left? Do I need to care right? We're constantly asking these questions and our brain has to respond to it. So we can just again take proactively take control of this experience and ask ourselves, Okay, what is the value in doing this

run around the world? How can I use it to serve the world. How does it make me a better person? What's the pleasure I can gain from it? And essentially so questions too then to to look for the pain point and look for the pleasure point, and then use both those forces collectively, because one one I think it's great if use one, or you know one or the other, but I think it's even more powerful if we use both.

So right now, that's what keeps me away from that that sort of evil wolf of alcohol or drugs is seizing the pain point, acknowledging and remembering that pain point and remembering like, do I ever want to go back to that place? What was that place like for me? What was that dark place like? And then remembering it

so I never want to be back there. So that's again drive using those two forces to drive your life forward and create UH to ultimately in service of the goals that you want to UH that you want to achieve in your life. Excellent, Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. I know you're busy with a lot of things going on, so I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a real pleasure and

I really enjoyed our conversation. Eric. Yeah, and best of luck in all of your running. And if you're heading across the US and you're in Ohio, let us know and we will. We can, we can help out, absolutely, we'll do. Thank you so much. All right, take care of a great evening to Eric. All right, bye, have a good one. Bye bye.