Hello, world.

Welcome to discover your talent, do what you love, number 587.

I'm your host, Don Hutchison.

Every Monday and Wednesday, I interview someone from around the world

who's discovered their talents to do work they love to create a life of success, satisfaction,

and freedom. On Fridays, I interview a well-known expert from the fields of personal or business

development who share experiences, tools, and insights to help our

listeners along their journeys. I'm delighted to bring you our featured expert, Akshay Nanavati.

Welcome, Akshay. Thank you so much for having them in the show, Don.

Yeah, thank you. It's our pleasure.

Akshenevante is a Marine Corps veteran, author, speaker, and entrepreneur.

Through his new book, FIrvana, and his coaching programs, he draws on his expertise around understanding fear.

He's dedicated his life to helping people reframe fear so they can accomplish their goals and live limitless lifestyle.

Well, Akshay, today's topic, how to turn fear, stress, and anxiety into allies.

Certainly right in your sweet spot, it's the topic of your book.

So set the stage for our listeners and take it away.

Sure.

So the biggest problem here is that fear is often perceived as a negative emotion, right? When you hear the word, people don't think if it is positive. And inevitably, fear is the number one barrier that stops people from getting where they want to be in life, because it's the brain's natural response to risk. Anytime you enter the unknown, your brain responds with fear. And through all my research and my life experience, I've come to learn that fear can actually be our greatest ally when we learn how to harness it. So that's kind of the problem that everybody faces, because if you want more in life, if you want to be more, if you want more, you're going to have to do something differently. And inevitably, that means engaging your fears. And that's what led to this book, because I see it as the most primal emotion and the number one thing to address to help

others be successful. Yeah, it's that amygdala, the alligator brain that's been with us since we

started standing upright, right? Exactly, exactly. That amygdala is that fear center of the brain,

that how we respond anytime we enter an unknown environment or unknown experience.

We want to talk about the principle. That's the main point of this particular expert interview. But take just a minute and tell us what led up to you deciding it was time for you to write this book. It actually was inspired after I hit some of my low moments. So as you mentioned, I was a Marine Corps veteran. When I got back, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. And then I struggled with alcoholism to the point that I thought about taking my own life. And through all of that, I realized with that moment hit, I realized something needed to change. So really, in my search to kind of heal my own brain from post-traumatic stress disorder, it led me to this understanding of fear of stress and anxiety. And I pair of the three because neurologically, they're very much the same.

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