Akshay Nanavati is an entrepreneur, a high performance athlete, and a global thought leader. He overcame drug addiction, alcoholism and a bout of depression so intense that it sent him to the brink of suicide. In a fleeting moment, Akshay made a life changing decision to flip his life upside down. He has since built a global business, run ultramarathons, climbed mountains in the Himalayas, skied 350 miles across the world’s second largest icecap and fought as a U.S. marine in Iraq. He also wrote the book on FEAR - a book he entitled Fearvana which was so inspiring that the Dalai Lama himself, wrote the introduction. Akshay is now on a mission to run across every country in the world to raise awareness of his concept of Fearvana. He is scheduled to run an 11 day marathon across Liberia this October.
Contact Info
Company: Fearvana
Website: www.Fearvana.com
Email: Akshay@Fearvana.com
Instagram: @fearvana
Twitter: @fearvanalife
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Existing2Living
Book: Fearvana: The Revolutionary Science of How to Turn Fear into Health, Wealth and Happiness by Akshay Nanavati
Most Influential Person
Jack Canfield
Effect on Emotions
Oh, mindfulness has been a game changer. It's allowed me to be with my emotions and transcend them.
One quick story is in relationship to survivor's guilt. I struggled with survivor's guilt when I came back from the war. I lost a friend. I let that guilt consume me in many dark ways through alcohol and all these kinds of things that drove me to some dark places.
I felt I didn't deserve to be here; I didn't deserve to be alive. But now my guilt is an ally. I still feel it. I have a picture of my friend that says on the wall and it says, this should have been you. You earned this life.
So mindfulness has allowed me to be with that guilt and be okay with it and channel it to something useful.
Thoughts on Breathing
I'm starting to get much more proactive, you know, through yoga and through my running because I'm really working on it a lot more.
I also recently learned from my friend about the Wim Hof breathing method, Wim Hof, The Iceman. So it's starting to get much more proactive.
Before that it was just really through deep breath and meditation, but it's definitely something I'm working on now. Enhancing to take my running and my life to the next level.
My nutritionist friend Anthony, he had studied with Wim Hof, so he taught me a little bit about the Wim Hof breathing method and I mean on my second try, I held my breath for I think two to two and a half minutes. I'm not somebody who could do that. Like for some people it might be nothing, but for me I was never able to do that. Like that was not good at that.
But just through this technique, I was blown away by how long I was able to hold my breath on my second try of doing it.
Suggested Resources
Book: Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Love, Happiness, and Wisdom by Rick Hanson
Book: Fearvana: The Revolutionary Science of How to Turn Fear into Health, Wealth and Happiness by Akshay Nanavati
App: The timer on my phone
Bullying Story
This story is kind of awful. I'm not proud of it. But there was this one kid in Singapore, he was this little Indian kid and I used to kind of tease him a lot on the playing field. It was nothing serious, you know.
But one day it got pretty serious. We were in the class and I essentially was the leader of this outfit where I got every kid in class; boys and girls, even the girls to get up and essentially punch this kid.
The poor kid was obviously helpless, I mean, this is the entire class. He left the class crying. I still pretty vividly remember it.
The whole class got in trouble, but they knew that I was the leader of this little band of bullies. I was suspended from school for a few days.
Needless to say, my mom wasn't too proud of me. I wasn't too proud of it as well, but that was the one that stands out because that one was pretty awful to subject a kid to.
So I actually apologized to this