From Everest to Inner Peace: Lessons from Extreme Expeditions. Martyn Williams & Samia Bano

What does climbing #Everest teach about mastering your mind?

Listen to this episode to find out!

Martyn Williams, who has led expeditions from the #NorthPole to the #SouthPole and is now an #ExecutiveCoach, shares #practicaltools to #managestress, #regulateyournervoussystem, and perform at #yourbest —no matter the situation!

Make sure you listen all the way to the end to discover the key Martin reveals about how #fear shows up in unexpected ways—and a simple technique to shift from anxiety to action in seconds. And a lot more.

Connect with Martyn now at:

www.enlighteningadventures.com

http://insightsfromtheedge.wordpress.com

https://www.facebook.com/Martyn.Williams.bliss

https://www.facebook.com/EnlighteningAdventures

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdejd72MJ1g

To Book your Free HAPPINESS 101 EXPLORATION CALL with Samia, click: https://my.timetrade.com/book/JX9XJ

#MindsetShift #PersonalGrowth #MentalHealthAwareness #SelfDevelopment #EmotionalIntelligence #PeakPerformance #OvercomeFear #InnerPeace #Mindfulness #SelfMastery #SuccessMindset #HumanPotential #PositiveMindset #Resilience #GrowthMindset #LifePurpose #SelfAwareness #MentalStrength #MotivationDaily #TransformYourLife #ConsciousLiving #HighPerformance #InnerWork #PsychologyOfSuccess #FearToFreedom #liveyourbestlife

Here's the audio version of this episode:

Transcript Automatically Generated

Hello, Salaam, Shalom, Namaste, Sat Sri Akal, Aloha, Holah, Ciao, Bonjour, Buna, Privet, Mabuhay, and Dzień Dobry…

It's really, really good to be with you again. And I know you'll be so happy of joining us today because we have a very cool guest with us, and that is Martin Williams, who is an executive coach.

And I'm going to invite him in just a moment to tell us more about that. But before that, welcome, Martin.

Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

I'm so happy to have you. I'm so excited to learn from you today. Please tell us more about who you are and what you do.

Okay. So for many years, I led expeditions around the world, you know, to mountaineering, canoeing, kayak, to the most extreme places, North Pole, South Pole, Everest. And on that journey, I encountered all sorts of wild conditions.

And so then I was looking, what is human performance? So then some of those executives I was guiding, you know, millionaires and billionaires came to me and said, well, could you coach me? So I started a coaching business and now we run a coaching business.

And I really, but the topics you speak about here are of extreme interest to me. You know, so I think there's a lot of similarities between how I approach life, my life experience and your life experience, and then what we can offer to the world from that place, you know?

Yeah, yes. You know, when you talk about having led these expeditions to such, I mean, like to most of us feels extreme, right? Like, oh my gosh, going to an expedition to the North Pole or the South Pole, et cetera.

And it made me really think a little bit about even just like the mindset that it takes to come to a conclusion that I'm going to engage in this kind of activity that maybe only a handful of people in the world have even attempted to do.

Interesting, yes.

Tell me a little bit more about that. Yeah.

Okay. So I really see it as a curiosity of what is possible. And so I know entrepreneurs have this same thing often.

In life, we all have what is possible. But I guess for me, it was blank spaces on the map I was always curious about. So a blank area on the map, I wanted to know what was there, and then how do I get there?

What do I need to get there? Then it follows a whole plethora of things about the skills, et cetera, et cetera. And I realized that every time I did that, I also became slightly more comfortable in a wilder environment.

And I guess that's a metaphor for life, is that the more we become comfortable in different environments, the more life unfolds for us, the more we see more possibilities for ourselves, because again, just like, think of reading, right? So we start out with a very thin book or with big letters, and we get comfortable with that, then we automatically graduate to the next step. It's not necessarily the teacher tells us, but we typically want to move to the next step, right?

And so I was doing something similar, but on a big scale with nature.

So curiosity was a huge driving factor, huh? I don't know if I have ever felt that much. I mean, I guess in my own way, there are things that I'm really curious about.

Like for me, a lot of it has been focused around mental health and how to take control of my mental health, how to improve my mental health. And that's sort of like where I have channeled my curiosity since I was very young, actually, and consistently through my life, now that I think about it. But like for me, that curiosity seemed to be, at least in my early life, to be driven by a need.

Like I had an intense need because I was traumatized as a child. And so I felt very out of control of my mental health and my life in general. And so I felt driven to try and find some solutions for me.

But I'm wondering if there was something else besides the curiosity that was driving you. \

Great. It's a great question. And the way I see this is that for me, for instance, I was the youngest of three brothers and my two other brothers were good at the main sports, you know.

And so when I discovered that I was good at this exploring of nature and rock climbing and things like that, it became my niche. And so one could say that I became an explorer through psychological dysfunction, right? And the way I see this in terms of just about everybody on the planet, because in my own work, I've come across, you know, say people who are super good negotiators.

When you track it back, it was a survival mechanism in early childhood. They would negotiate between them, their mother and father when there was friction, right? So, you know, psychologists talk about this as being a winning formula.

They came up with a winning formula coming from survival. In order for my family to be at peace, my parents to be at peace, I have to negotiate. So I become good at it.

Now, now I'm good at it. Let me apply it in more situations. It's almost like the default.

Then they become, and so the same with comedians. There's a lot of research that says, often comedians came from families where comedy was the way of feeling secure. They could turn a bizarre situation, make it comedic, and the tension was reduced.

Again, it was often a survival mechanism. As I mentioned at the beginning, I've worked with some billionaires and millionaires. Some of them, when I've looked at their lives, I've looked and said, wow, this is actually a what you know, here we have this pinnacle of supposedly pinnacle of Western success, right?

To be that wealthy. But if we look at their lives, they're often quite dysfunctional in that they came up at early age. I need more money to feel comfortable.

I have to get more. So they came up with all these ways of doing it, which they're still running that pattern in their 50s and 60s. Meanwhile, they have hardly, the health is poor, all these other things, which if we look at it holistically, holistically are not there.

So I totally see how you're coming from a survival place, and I have to figure this out. So there is curiosity in there, but I was a survival writer.

Yeah.

And it depends on the level of the survivor. So yours was an urgent survival, mine was more a psychological survival. I want to be recognized by my family.

Yeah. I mean, thankfully for me also, it was not urgent in terms of like physical survival. I was physically saved by a large after the initial trauma.

But the psychological safety did not... Like I continue to struggle with that well, well into, I would say even into my 30s, even until very recently, I would say, because it's like you don't realize how many different manifestations fear takes. And, you know, so you think you're doing something because, I mean, you have all these different reasons, you give yourself of wanting success and achievement and recognition and this and that.

And like for me, I was also, like I would say, like by the time I was in my mid 20s, certainly I was more focused on, okay, yeah, you know, I have to make a career and succeed and this and that. And so I wasn't constantly thinking about it from a survival perspective, at least not consciously, but like for me, as I continued my inner healing and my journey and my like deeper dive into mental health, I realized that for me a lot of even my drive for achievement and so forth, there was like some fear behind it, you know, and it was just manifesting in so many different ways.

Yes, again, as I chat with people, I really see that we have multiple methods to hide our fears, you know, to cover them up so we don't have to face them, you know. So I'll give you an example, having done all this very physical stuff, right? So you think, well, he's probably fearless.

But there's one project I was doing where I needed to raise money and I never raised money before. And so my friends gave me, you know, very valuable contacts, you know, people who could absolutely fund this project. And I'd go into my office to make the phone call.

I'd look at the phone and fear would overwhelm me. My hands would get sweaty, my stomach, my tummy would churn, my heart would palpitate. So I'd go off and I'd plan what I knew, you know, like the food, cold weather food.

I knew all about cold weather food and how many calories and how much fat and stuff, right? And so I'd do that, but the project wasn't going anywhere. So eventually I realized if I want this project to go somewhere, I have to face this fear.

So what am I going to do? And so I ended up coming up with, well, let me create a visualization of the project finished. And it was involving young people.

It was a big journey and they were going to be at the South Pole. So let me see this young people, eight young people from around the world at the South Pole. And they're all yahooing, right?

So when I close my eyes and did that, my energy, the fear would fade away, I'd get all excited. And as soon as I got a high level of excitement, that's probably about a minute, I'd reach out, grab the phone and make the call, right? But, well, there's two problems.

First of all, I was now on the phone, highly excited, so I would blurt out stuff, and it wouldn't make sense. So, and then secondly, the next day I'd walk back in the office and the fear was there. I always thought the fear would disappear, but no, no, no, the fear is there.

So again, I'd have to go, oh, I need to use my technique again, and just, but I got so that I could change, I could go from fear to excitement in about 30 seconds, if I worked at it, you know? Using visualization to change my body chemistry.

Yes. So, what you just said about that experience of, you know, you got super energized, excited, and then, but then the next day when you came back to the office, the fear was there again. Did that part of it change over time in terms of as you used this technique of the visualization and upping your energy, using it as you did it more and more over time?

Did the underlying fear sort of reduce, go away? What happened there?

You know, what happened with me is that it definitely reduced, and now it's way reduced. And I see though that as I work with people, I see that depending on our inner space, that fear is big for us or are non-existent. So, you know, so within a day, I can have where my inner space is clear and calm and relaxed.

If somebody says to me, hey, pick up the phone and phone somebody important, I'll go, oh yeah, sure. At another time, if my inner space is all disturbed and jumbled, somebody says the same thing to me, and I'll be going, no, no, no, not right now. That's not possible in this moment.

Yeah. I realize that how we interact with the outer world varies a lot depending on our inner space.

Yes. That is so true. That is so true.

And another sort of take from all these expeditions is that I realize really there's... So imagine, for instance, you've committed to going to Sceeto, the South Pole. And every day the landscape is the same and it's...

You're traveling into a wind, the temperatures are minus 10, and there's a slight headwind, right? And so you're out there. And so the mind...

It's just you and the mind for 10 hours, right? So the mind can do four things. It can go into...

It can go into complaint, which is, how did I choose this silly trip? You know, what the heck am I doing here? My hands are cold, my feet are cold, you know, blah, blah, blah, right?

Just complaint. Or it can go into daydream, which is, oh, I wish I was somewhere else. I wish I was back on a beach in Hawaii or on the… in Southern California or whatever. Or it can go into being present with what is, and all it is, is snow, right? Snow and sunlight or snow and cloud.

But when we're present with what is, the snow is gorgeous. You know, the light reflecting off it, a thousand different little shivers and shimmers. And so...

And then the other one is then, or we can go into a more creative space, is what, you know, I'd love to share this with, you know, we can go into creativity. And what I realized is that, out of each one of those four things, they affected my physical performance. Here I am trucking along doing, you know, three miles an hour or so.

So as I went into complaint, my performance dropped down. If I went into daydream, my performance was better than complaint, but not, you know, not optimal. When I was present, my performance was good.

When I went into creative, my performance had a bounce in it. My step had a bounce in it, you know. And so I realized there's four things we can do with our mind at any moment on a daily basis, you know?

Yeah. But tell me a little bit more about the creative part of things, because and how and like what about it is it that ends up giving you that extra bounce even beyond like being present in the moment? Because like a lot of times, like for me, the goal is to be present in the moment.

Well, and to focus. Well, interesting. But before I start thinking about my own thing, I want to hear from you.

You make me think so much, which I love. So please tell me more.

Okay. So I agree with you that being in the moment is what's so important. And the creative typically comes up as a bubbling idea, a bubbling energy, which has excitement with it.

Then as we start following the creation, though, the creative can get into the more mundane steps, right? So having had the initial spur to creativity, then is the actualization of it, which can have more mundane steps. And that's when we get into the more mundane steps, and that's when we can get out of the moment again.

Because in the more mundane steps, now we're trucking across Antarctica, and we can either go into blame or daydream, right? Which reduces the performance. So the act itself can have different motivations, but the space that we have in the act often determines the outcome and also our enjoyment of the event.

So I'll give you another example.

Yeah.

So having set the goal of, say, getting to the South Pole, if, for instance, the weather turns bad, and the storm comes in and we don't get there, then our response, we can go into, we can feel completely fulfilled or we can be disappointed, right? Right. And so from my perspective, the difference between feeling completely fulfilled and disappointed is typically how much we were present in the moment during the event.

So if we're present in the moment all the time for those 50 days and we fail, we go, I had a great time, right? If in those 50 days we've been looking forward to the wish of getting there and we're focused on our desire, when we get there, we're going to be disappointed.

Right.

So what we do on the journey, the space we inhabit on the journey, determines the outcome.

Yes. For some reason, you made me think about fasting. Actually, I was watching this.

I was babysitting.

Yeah. Okay.

And so we had this video on, it was supposed to teach kids about fasting. So it was for Muslim kids. So for those of our listeners who may not be familiar, for practicing Muslims during the month of Ramadan, which is one of the months in the Muslim calendar, we fast every day from dawn to sunset, which means we don't eat, we don't drink.

And that's the physical level fast. And then at a mental and emotional level, we are encouraged to regulate our emotions, so that we are behaving kindly and compassionately and so forth. And so this video was aiming to teach kids about fasting.

And of course, for our little kids, especially the younger kids, the experience of going hungry and thirsty can be new. I mean, assuming they're coming from well-off families and they haven't had to go hungry and thirsty. It's just like a new experience.

And it's like, what do I do? I'm, you know, you can get really obsessed about the not being able to eat and drink. And I thought what they did in the video was really clever, because when the kids were complaining about feeling hungry and thirsty, the dad came along and he was like, hey, come play with me.

And then they got busy playing.

And in that busyness of play, they forgot to come play.

Yes. Yeah. Actually, it's interesting because, you know, typically when we mention fasting to people who don't fast, they think how horrific.

And so as I've chatted with various Muslim people, I've heard consistently, oh, actually, you know, it's a beautiful experience, especially in the latter half of the period of fasting, they're reporting that those thoughts don't occur to them. They're just actually having a beautiful time. So again, it ties in with my comment about the mind noise.

I guess it's, from my perspective, if we look at that as like a case study in mind, it's important to understand it's the mind noise that takes it out of the game. Yeah, right. So it's the mind noise that will wreck the experience.

So just to, you know, it's whether you're fasting or tricking across Antarctica, it's the mind noise that will wreck the experience.

That's right. That's right. And so that's where I was like thinking about.

So in my experience, like staying in the moment is so critically important because generally when we are not doing so well, whether it's stress or worry or any negative emotion that we're experiencing, we're generally not in the moment. We are either in the past or in the future. And so, like for me, grounding ourselves in the present moment is extremely, extremely important.

But then when we think about being in the moment, I did realize that, like you mentioned, creativity giving the boost. And like for me, the teaching is to focus on gratitude. Like what do we have to be grateful for in the moment?

And that gives the big boost. So it's because you could be like, okay, I'm in the moment, but then you start focusing on everything that you judge to be wrong or problematic in the moment. So then that doesn't help so much.

But so I can see, like if you go into creativity, that's a sort of definitely a very positive, high-energy state to be in.

Oh, interesting. No, you see, I tie it back into in the moment, in the, from my perspective, when we're in the moment, we're the observer of ourselves. We're either silent, right?

In which case, or we're the observer of ourselves. And so we're the observer of the part of us that gets irritated. Oh, there's that irritated voice, right?

And that's cropping up. And so, you know, as we go on this journey of mental health, I really see that if we can observe ourselves from a beautiful place, a non-judgmental place, then we start unlocking the patterns that keep the behaviors in place.

Yes. You know, you're so on point with that. And the thing is, though, that the non-judgment does not come naturally to most of us, if any of us, actually.

And I remember one time, very specifically, I was actually leading a workshop where my goal was to teach people about mindfulness. And, you know, mindfulness by definition is a two-part phenomena or process, or I'm losing the proper word. But there's two parts to mindfulness.

One is the being present in the moment, and, you know, so you are observing to being the observer. And the second part is actually the non-judgmental observer. And what I found when I was leading the workshop is I was like asking people about, hey, what do you think mindfulness is about?

And everyone got that, oh, we're supposed to be an observer. But pretty much everyone was missing the insight about the fact that we are to be the non-judgmental observer.

You know, and I agree totally that that's the that's the essence of it is that it's it's witnessing the behavior, right? Witnessing the behavior and being and being kind about the behavior. And so just as we spoke earlier, if we look at it from the perspective of of, you know, survival and then winning formula as an example.

So when we as the as the non-judgmental observer, even if say we're someone who gets angry, then if the non-gentle, if the person can stay in the non-judgment, and they can look and say, oh, now it's my winning formula running the show. I'm responding from survival. You know, this is not my essence.

This is just my, this, this, unfortunately, this is in my cellular memory, you know, literally because it is, it's in, you know, we're like Pavlov's dogs and then suddenly happens and boom, the anger comes up, right? And so, but it's not our essential essence. It's just a part of our cellular memory.

So the more we can compartmentalize, oh, my cellular memory is acting out, right? The more we bring kindness towards our cellular memory and we don't beat up our cellular memory, right?

Yes. And the really beautiful thing about it is that when you don't start beating yourself up or that cellular memory that you have, it just allows it to go away. It comes and then it goes away.

Yeah. And as I work with people, I do see them, especially some of these patterns. And anger, I think, is a very good one to talk about because at first, often people were saying to me, well, you know, I was unable to catch the trigger.

You know, I just can't, I just, it's just boom. It's, I'm in full scale volcanic eruption from zero, you know? I'm calm one second, boom, the next, right?

And the more, but the more they start taking the time to be the observer of it from a gentle place, the more they start noticing cracks in the, you know, they'll find, start finding gaps. And it may take a while, may take even six months. But after six months, you know, they might be saying to their partner, Oh, you know, a month ago, that would have triggered me.

But now I'm actually able to laugh at myself, you know, the anger is coming up and I can, all the frustration is building, but I can laugh at it and it's fading away again, you know?

So, yeah, yeah, I mean, gosh, I wish more people realized that the emotions, I mean, I never invalidate any emotion. It's always there for a reason and it's there for a good reason. But to realize and recognize that the emotion is pretty much always coming up in response to the way that we are thinking or the way that we are acting.

And so if we could be aware of what we are thinking that's causing that emotion, or how we are acting that's causing that emotion to come up, then, I mean, that's really the key to us being able to, if we wanted to feel something different, then we can choose to think something different or do something different. And so allow ourselves to feel something different without suppressing our emotions or all of that.

Yeah, I see that from, again, from my own experience, I'll relate one more experience then. So Mount Everest is the highest peak in the world, and I wanted to go there for many years. Finally, some clients came to me and said, we would like you to guide us on Mount Everest because we climbed with you elsewhere, we trust you.

So I then assembled a team. So there were three guides and we had lots of Sherpas and Porters. So the three guides are really in charge of the logistics.

We're not literally physically guiding each client, we're setting up a logistics system. So some of the clients have success. Then it's said to me, after we have success, you're welcome to have your attempt.

So I had this face going towards the summit or early evening and now it gets dark on me, and I'm going up this face and all of a sudden, I developed diarrhea and dangling off a rope. It's a very awkward precarious position. But anyway, I reassemble myself.

I'm determined to go on, go a bit higher. It happens again, but I'm still determined to go on, so go a bit higher. Then finally, I start to vomit as well.

At that point in time, I stop and sit down on the snow and look around, and all of a sudden, I see where I am. It's a beautiful night, the peaks are totally gorgeous, the stars are out, the moon is out. What comes out of me is not frustration, but just ecstasy.

I start yahooing, right? So here I am on my own, way up there and I'm yahooing, and it didn't go into disappointment. And so that started me on this whole thing of what happened in that moment.

But I went into ecstasy, not disappointment. And so, even all the way down the mountain, I was doing the same thing. I was yahooing and I came back to my tent and my buddies were saying, oh, you must be so disappointed.

I'm saying, no, I'm not. So that got me looking at this whole idea of how perception influences our emotions, et cetera, et cetera. And I saw as I did some research and I see that when we're watching, say, a sporting game, we're going hooray, we're switching from high emotion to low emotion in the blink of an eye.

Yeah.

And so as I start to work with people, I realize now that in certain situations, and I'll give you an example, we can flip from one emotion to another very easily. Yeah. So the example I'm going to give you is, somebody say driving to work in LA, downtown LA, five days a week, one day a week the traffic's bad, they get stuck in traffic and they complain and they get frustrated and blah, blah, blah, right?

They chat to a friend and the friend says, well, what are your options? Have you ever thought of learning Spanish or listening to music? The person goes, oh, I could.

Now, the unconscious pattern which was going to act out for the next 20 years was then to be frustrated in traffic. Typically, the person says, well, I'm frustrated every time I get into it. They come up with these bold negative statements, right?

I'm frustrated every time I get stuck in the traffic. Now, just with one shift by looking at it from different lens, shifting perspective, no, I learned Spanish when I'm stuck in traffic, I'm going to have a good time. So sometimes, if we look at the unconscious pattern of whatever the emotion is and go, oh, what are my alternatives?

In the blink of an eye, we can flip it over. Other times, we might go, oh, I'm always angry when this happens. And so I'm going to start working on it.

It may take, you know, like six months, but by saying, okay, my pattern is not locked in place. I can let me change perspective, let me use tools, let me bring in help, let me bring in support. I can absolutely shift this pattern.

I have within me the ability to shift this pattern. All I need is the willingness and the resources, right?

Yes, you're so right about that. A lot of times people don't realize that they have the ability to create change in whatever the circumstances where they're feeling stuck and unhappy. And so just to even realize that, oh, I can create change, that can be so empowering and so freeing.

Yes, yeah. And that's what, ideally, that's what friends are for, right? Is to help us with that recognition, you know?

And just as, you know, as you mentioned about, you know, your Muslim culture, within the Muslim culture, everybody now, it sounds like just about everybody goes through this period of fasting, you know, in actually a beautiful state, right? So you all support each other and you all create, you create accountability, you help, you have these various tools that create a, you know, the ability for millions of people to handle something very difficult with ease.

Yes. You know, the community aspect is so important. I've noticed even from when I was young that it's much harder to fast on your own.

Like, there are some Muslims who will fast throughout the year and by and large, they end up doing it on their own because there's very few people. Because it's not required. Like, if you're practicing Muslim, the only time you're required to fast, that is if you're physically okay to do it, is during the month of Ramadan.

So any other time of the year, anyone who does it, they're choosing to do it like totally of their own. I mean, you know, it's basically there. It's an optional thing that they're choosing to do.

And so a lot of times, they also end up doing it on their own. And there were some times when I thought to give it a try to do the optional fasting. And I just found that it was a lot more challenging.

Not that it can't be done. And certainly you can get used to doing it. And then, you know, everything's fine.

But it's definitely at a number of levels, challenging, more challenging to do it on your own than when you are doing it in community because of exactly the kind of reasons that you said, you have that greater sense of accountability and support and the discipline around it comes so much easier because you're just, it's like something everyone around you is doing.

Yes, yeah. And I see this applying totally to mental health too. And that, you know, we have friends, we have relationships, that I see that, you know, the whole idea of us, even, let's take back to that angry person again, the more they're in communication with what triggers their anger, how they're noticing it changing, ideally with a partner or even a couple of people, then on almost like a daily basis, oh, today I noticed I was really bad today, but we can almost laugh at it, you know, my anger was just so bad today, then tomorrow it's like, oh, I was a, even use a numerical scale, you know, I was a, you know, this came up on what I responded in a three, I shrugged it off in two minutes, right?

And the more we speak about that, the more we see that we are malleable, that our personalities are malleable, that we can change, we're not fixed in, this is how I am, you know?

Yes, yes. And talking about it also helps in terms of, I mean, depending on what it is that you're dealing with, but like for me, I had a huge anger issue because of being traumatized. But I went through this whole phase where I was very, very angry.

And I actually, on the one hand, was angry, but on the other hand, I also felt a strong sense of shame around having that anger because, you know, like the, like I'm supposed to be a Muslim, a peaceful person, you know, practicing peace, living peace. And here I am, you know, full of anger. And so I felt a certain level of shame about it and like, oh, I'm just no good.

I can't even, you know, like be a good Muslim. And it's just, the shame did not help at all. It just makes everything worse.

But once I was able to start talking about it in terms of, okay, I'm working through this. I'm going to try and improve this about myself. And then actually talking about it with someone, for the most part was my sister.

It actually really helped. And like, because also the other thing my sister did was that she would celebrate the progress that I made when I was able to report to her that, hey, I didn't get triggered this time or I got less triggered. And I was able to recover from feeling that anger a lot sooner.

And I actually kept track of, I started keeping track of, like, how long it took me to normalize. And when I first started, it used to be, like, weeks. Like, a single incident could push me into, like, a really angry state.

And then I couldn't stop thinking about it. And for weeks, I couldn't normalize. Not to say that I was constantly in an extremely high state, but yes, but it was like this thing that kept running in the back of my mind sometimes for weeks.

And so then when that period got down to days, I was like, okay, hey, this time I got over it in four days and then two days and then one day and then, oh, I got over it in an hour. But, you know, to get that, to get that celebration moment with my sister was like part of like what made it really fun also. Because then it felt more like almost like a game of like, okay, a game of self-improvement that we're, that I'm playing.

Yeah, I think that's, I think that's, that's totally great. That's often how I work with people is using, you're using a scale. You know, some other realizations about, about using a scale is that one person recently came to me and said, you know, and said, you know, my life has been suffering for, you know, for 20 years because of X, you know, X, Y, Z.

So I was asking, well, you know, how on a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you in this moment? And the person said, well, I'm a 7. So I said, so between now and the next time we chat, just check in with yourself a few times because, you know, you say, you know, you've been at a 2 for the last, you know, the last 15 years.

Let's just see how that number shows up in real life. Next time we chatted, she said, well, you know, I was volunteering, tearing with a group. I was a 10 and I went out for supper with a friend.

I was a 10. And so the stories we tell ourselves create our reality, right? So this person had been saying, I've been a 2, you know, for years.

But then when she in the moment, they would check in, the score was different. Then the next question was, well, in that moment, what would it take to move from a 7 to an 8 or 9? And because I've asked this question lots of times, people will, quite often the response is, oh, actually, you know what?

I can do that right now.

Yeah.

All you need to do is take a breath, relax my shoulders, and I'm going to move, you know?

Right. Yes. I actually really love measuring my mental, emotional states, like different emotions and so forth.

It's so helpful. I don't know who. I think it's actually a, it's not that someone said it.

It's actually a principle in physics that measurement changes behavior.

Oh, yes.

You know? And it's just that they're taught, generally when you learn this about this idea in the context of a physics class, you know, then you are applying it and understanding it in the context of how our physical universe works. But it's actually also true at a mental, emotional, psychological level, is that observation changes behavior.

So it's so, and so then it becomes like, okay, what are some better ways of engaging in observation that better in terms of helping create change in the way that I want, you know, and so when you are able to sort of measure, have a way to measure your states and how you are doing, it can help you like, like for me to know that, oh, it used to sometimes take weeks for me to get over that angry incident in my head. Now I can do it in an hour or some, you know, or whatever, that just helps like really with, with, you know, both realizing the immense progress I've made, but also a sense of, okay, I can go further and get even better. And you know, and it's just also, I think more fun.

Yes, no, I agree totally. After doing all these expeditions and starting, I then went off to India and actually became a Hindu monk for 10 years.

Oh wow.

And you know, did meditations and all sorts of wild things there. And I really, I saw that, you know, we are the creators of our lives and we can manipulate the fabric of our lives. And we can, you know, all these, these, you know, these various aspects of ourselves, we can play with, we can, and you know, and gamifying it as you spoke about is super important, you know, making it a game so that we are, you know, because, you know, yeah, we can, we're both the creators, but also we're the observers of our humanity, you know?

And when we observe our humanity with compassion, then we're kind of with ourselves and with others.

Yeah. You know, I want to, the question that's popping to my mind now is, what do you think is the purpose of life?

Oh, I mean, for me, it's to, it's to radiate, you know, experience joy, radiate joy and bliss. Really, I think that that's, and so having, you know, because having done all these extreme expeditions, you know, I have a whole pile of accolades, you know, I've done all these sort of things and worked with billionaires, et cetera, et cetera. And I've been involved in environmental projects, which as you spoke about, there was a lot of anger and things like this.

And so, you know, are they changing the world or, so my conclusion from my life experience is that we change the world from our internal space, because we change our internal space, not change our outer space, which then changes the world, right? So by having a clear and beautiful internal space, then we tend to do things in the outer world that are kind and compassionate, which then influences the world.

So, yeah, I loved your answer about purpose of life. Because, you know, like for me, I've also spent a lot of my life just questioning, what even is the point of life, of living? Because especially like when I was in my traumatized and depressed state, I couldn't see a point to life.

Like, I didn't see anything that we do that like if you didn't do, I mean, other than the fact that like if you value life, then you have to eat, you need to, you know, maybe sleep and protect yourself from physical danger. So there are some things you have to do if you value life. But I was like, why even value life and why do anything at all?

Like, and so even if I value my life, it's like, why do I value my life? What's the point of living? So, you know, there are all these things that people do and they get busy with and not just busy with, but we get so invested and I mean, just so caught up and, you know, like in whatever our life is that we are living.

And even though we may be miserable living that life, it's making us seriously unhappy. But we continue to live it, we continue to live it. And I'm like, why?

Why? Even, why? It just, it was like...

Yeah, I totally get it. And I think I'll boil it down. I'll give you my, this is my version of the story, okay?

So, so what? The mind can produce a lot of negativity, right? And psychologists say that 80% of our thoughts are negative, 20% are positive, right?

So when we tip over to the 85%, then all of a sudden life become, literally becomes bleak, right? Looking through the lens at 85% and you move to 90% becomes even bleaker, right? But meanwhile, what we're doing is, somehow or other, we're charging the wrong thoughts, right?

We're just, we're feeding the wrong thoughts. And, and I know it's super difficult to get out of, because it seems like just, you know, no way out of the loop, right? And so, but as, as we do start to come out of the loop, then as, you know, again, from my time in India, I saw that as we reduce the negative thoughts, then the visibility of the more creative and positive thoughts gets higher.

So now we're seeing life, it's like the mud is clearing off the lens over our eyes, and now the light is coming brighter and brighter, till eventually, you know, it's, hey, life is, you know, life is beautiful, and I can be, you know, looking at a garbage can, and full of garbage and go, oh, you know, life is beautiful, isn't this beautiful? My thoughts don't go to the smell or whatever, you know what I mean? So, it was a, this lens is, we can look through, and on the ultimate level, there are choice, but on the other level, there are programming, and there are life circumstance, right?

And so, we have to be super kind with ourselves about our life circumstance and understand our perception. You know, our perception is not necessarily the be all and end all, you know? It's our perception in this moment.

Yeah, so the reason I was also asking this question about the purpose of life is, because you have set really like goals to achieve things and do things in your life that, you know, like to other people seem very extreme and you have helped so many other people live out these amazing, almost like impossible seeming life goals for many people. So first of all, people have like come to the point where they're like, I have this idea that I'll do it, and then they commit to it, and then actually do it. And so I just keep coming back to, for me, the question of like, well, especially if you're going to go all the way and actually commit to it and actually do it, it's like, what is the fuel that sustains you through it?

Because if you don't have a clear purpose for why you are doing that, I mean, I can imagine that, you know, you would just fizzle out and be like, I give up, turn back, you know? And so like, I really appreciate your insight into like, what can fuel us to stay committed, to striving for these goals, even when they seem really big or extreme or impossible to other people, and maybe even to ourselves, to a part of ourselves, but we still want to do it.

Yeah, I mean, and I do see that, the aspect of vision, you know, so sometimes, you know, we could get an intuitive hit, this is super important for me, right? And the mind tends to discount those, but often, from my perspective, those are calls from our being. You know, it's a call from our being to do this thing.

So even if it's illogical, irrational, and supposedly wasteful, you know, just our being, you know, just follow and things will unfold. So often I see that, so there's a line between intuition and vision that is important to connect with and to follow. And, you know, I was doing some research on this recently, and apparently, you know, the average, you know, person says they follow intuition something like 60% of the time.

You ask successful CEOs, and they're saying, I follow my intuition 85% of the time, right? So following intuition leads to business success, right? Our success in life, if you take that metric.

And so I do see it's that even when we're struggling, to keep on asking, well, you know, what truly motivates me?

Yeah.

And then a guide can be the heart, too, you know? So it can be, you know, in some cases, it's, well, my heart is painful, so let me heal the pain in my heart. That's, that, you know, that in and of itself is a beautiful thing right there.

Just to, that's, you know, that can be the beginning of a massive transformation, just that one piece, right? I'm just, my heart feels sore, I want to heal it. What, you know, show me, you know?

And then, then from my perspective, events transpire to bring, you know, to bring the solutions, you know? The friend appears, you know, the circumstance, all things appear, you know?

Yeah. Oh, gosh. Martin, I'm having so much fun talking to you and I have like about 10 more questions, at least, that I want to ask you.

And we are running out of time. Gosh, do you have any last thoughts for right now?

Yeah, sure. So my last thoughts would be, check your perceptions and can you, especially if the perceptions are to do around anger or frustration or upset, and just ask, is there another way I can perceive this that's more helpful to me? And what are my options?

And even let me check with other people. What's my possibility in this moment? You know?

Yes, that is a wonderful thought for us to wrap up on. My last reminder to you is to please make sure you check the show notes, because we will be dropping Martin's links in there. And that way you can connect with him and continue to learn with him.

And yeah, until we meet again, I just wish you lots and lots of peace and joy.

Great. Thanks so much.