A former US Marine, ultramarathoner, and entrepreneur, Akshay Nanavati isn’t scared of a problem. His newest quest is one for the report books — he’s amongst lower than 50 individuals who have controlled to effectively ski up the treacherous Axel Heiberg glacier in Antarctica. Regardless of the lengthy months of coaching in relative isolation and just about dropping a finger or two to frostbite, Nanavati plans to proceed his exploration of the South Pole.
Nanavati’s key is a philosophy he calls ‘Fearvana’ — the concept worry, rigidity and anxiousness “aren’t your enemy” and will as a substitute be remodeled into “your biggest allies” for luck. Nanavati’s ‘fearvana’ epiphany got here after years of fight — a painful bout of Publish Nerve-racking Tension Dysfunction when he returned house after a seven-month deployment in Iraq, in addition to a struggle with melancholy and habit.
He started his strategy of therapeutic via learning neuroscience, psychology and spirituality, he wrote in a piece of writing printed on entrepreneur.com. “To start with, I simply sought after a roadmap out of the abyss. However in that three-year adventure, I started a better quest to determine how we will be able to all reside happier and extra significant lives. That seek led me to the concept that of Fearvana,” he defined.
One of the vital first stumbling blocks he overcame used to be survivor’s guilt. Whilst he survived the challenge in Iraq, a lot of his fellow squaddies weren’t somewhat as lucky. He has {a photograph} of his buddy who died in Iraq up on his wall with the phrases ‘This will have to were you, earn this lifestyles’ beneath. “As a substitute of preventing my guilt, I harnessed it. I advised myself since I’m nonetheless alive, let me do one thing significant with this lifestyles and honor my buddy. That helped me sober up and concentrate on giving price to the sector. Guilt is now my biggest best friend,” he wrote.
Regardless of a variety of bodily boundaries, together with a blood dysfunction that transports much less oxygen via his frame, in November 2021, he launched into a ski commute up the Axel Heilberg glacier in Antarctica, following within the footsteps of Roald Amundsen, the primary individual to succeed in the South Pole. Nanavati and his group reached the highest of Axel Heiberg Glacier, precisely 110 years to the day that Roald Amundsen set foot at the South Pole.
“My first phrases after we landed in Antarctica have been I’m in Antarctica (with nice pleasure)… I’m house (with a deep sense of calm and realizing),” he wrote in a weblog publish. “Where is unreal. I think so privileged to be right here and to revel in all of this.”
He paperwork his adventure and his tryst with overcoming worry in his e-book ‘Fearvana’.
