Embracing Fear for Greater Confidence and Courage | with Vash Tomanec

Michael: Hey, what's up Unbroken Nation! Hope that you're doing well wherever you are in the world today. Very excited to be back with you with another episode with my friend, Vash Tomanec. What is up my brother? How are you today?

Vash: I'm doing amazing. It's 9:30 PM here in the Czech Republic, so I'm excited to finish my week strong with you.

Michael: Man, I love that. I love the willingness to show up and it's funny because you and I have this really fascinating conversation leading up to this moment, and there are so many people who I know are going to resonate with your story, with your journey to be able to look at some of the things that you've been through and know that they're not alone, that's a big part of why I wanted to have you on the show today. But as we jump in, the first thing I wanna know is, tell me something about your past that I would need to know to understand who you are today.

Vash: Definitely that I was the guy who was addicted to computer games when I was growing up, and that definitely kind of could impacted my journey completely because I know that always, our life is determined by the decisions we make. And I sometimes look back and I ask myself, what if, what if I continue the journey of playing computer games all day? You know, not really doing much for myself, not really going after my goals where could I be today? So that's the moment that I look back and I'm like, man, one decision, and I wouldn't be sitting here.

Michael: Yeah, I resonate with that a lot actually. And I think that, you know, things like video games especially, really anything that we use to numb ourself or to hide are things that we do just because of facing the difficulty of the present moment can often feel overwhelming. You know, looking at that being, and you know this too, when you see some research around gaming in countries like South Korea and Japan and China, like people are playing, like literally dying, playing video games, you know, they're losing their families, their money, they're going into massive debt, but it's not the video games and obviously that's not the conversation we're having today. It's just that thing that we find that helps us feel better about life, even though it's actually taking away from us. So, as you go back, you look at that, you know, for me as a kid when I got heavy into gaming, it was like, I'm running, right? What do you think that you were either trying to avoid or stay away from or keep a barrier from? Was it were your goals too big? Were they too scary? Like what was happening in your life in that period?

Vash: Yeah, I believe people who do these things is just to escape the reality, right? Because in the virtual game you can be anyone, and I tell people that the life is the best virtual game because you can literally be anyone and achieve anything here in life. But back then I was escaping and the main thing I was escaping was fear Michael, it was fear of being rejected by potential customers, it was fear of not being good enough, you know what if I'm just in this imposer guy, you know, I had fear of how good my English is because English is not my first language, and when I started, it wasn't good at all, and this fear was just so overwhelming, so crippling, that it was easier to play video games. It was easier to get the dopamine from that way rather than going after my goals and kind of facing rejection or facing potential failure.

Michael: Yeah. Well, you know, it's that funny thing you mentioned dopamine, and it's like we're all having this biological experience, right? We're all chasing the fillings that are good and trying to avoid the fillings that are negative, right? Or maybe indifferent. And I think one of the very difficult parts of it is like we sit here and we look at our lives and it's like, I wanna reach these goals, I wanna create success. I want to have whatever that thing is ‘cuz obviously it's different for everyone. Like your definition of success and my definition of success are two vastly different things, right? But when you're facing that reality, you know, because English is your second language. You have fear about your goals and your ambitions. You have a lot of reasons why you shouldn't be successful or you shouldn't have the life that you want to have. How do you find the space to be like, I need this, I want this, I'm going to earn it like what is the transition from kind of being in your way to creating the life that you have now?

Vash: Yes. For me there was like big switching point or turning point, you know, to take you a little bit back. So, I'm from the Czech Republic, nobody in my family is an entrepreneur, Czech Republic is not the wealthiest country, so I've never been exposed to wealth, I've never been exposed to entrepreneurship, and I decided to go to University in England. So, I was kind of away from my home, away from my back, then my girlfriend. So, I was very lonely and I was having this dream that one day I want to have my own business, I want to just go after the goals I had in my mind but these fears were crippling me. But then came a point where I was delivering food for Uber Eats, that's my last job, and I believe that's what makes my store interesting because I hadn't had any experience, I wasn't born rich or these things. So, for me it was the turning point happened when I was delivering food every day on my bike and then I met few people who are in their thirties, forties, and I just saw Michael, how they're suffering because they couldn't provide for their families what they wanted, they couldn't spend as much time as they wanted with them. They couldn't take them to nice holidays. They couldn't buy them what they wanted. And I just saw the pain in their eyes and in that moment, it was like somebody just burned fire inside of me and it was almost like, no, something needs to change right now. And almost this quote unquote painful moment showed me, okay, the reality I live right now, or the future I could create if I continue this way is not funny, it's not nice, it's not something I want to have. And that's the moment I decided to make a change and almost at the beginning, my motivation was Spain, which was I never want to sit on the bike ever again and deliver food and be this quote unquote loser, honestly. And that's when I started finally taking action, despite the fears, despite the English, despite the limitations, I just went all the way now.

Michael: Yeah. You know, growing up, was that something that you would do? Because I'm always trying to find out whether or not those moments, we can kind of predict when we're younger and what I mean by that is I think about multiple opportunities I had whether it be as a kid or as a teenager even in my early twenties to actually take control of my life and to just not do it. Right. And so I'm curious, were there other moments in your life leading up to now where you did have the opportunity to change and you just didn't do it?

Vash: Yeah, I believe there are multiple, especially when I was finishing high school. I could already start my own business, I already had a few ideas, but again, the fear seems bigger almost the pain of losing was bigger than the desire of getting something.

Michael: I wanna go into that real quick. The pain of losing, what does that mean?

Vash: It was almost like, what other people will think of me almost like, oh, what if it won't work? What if people will make fun of myself? It's so crazy now looking back how much I just gave importance what other people think of me, how I look, how I speak, what I say, what I don't say, and I know that I'm not alone in this, I know so many people are being unfortunately stopped by just what other people think of them even though these people probably worry what other people think of themselves, so they don't even give that much damn about them. So, I think just this rejection, potential rejection potential, just what other people will think of me were higher in a way than what I could create. So, I will just go through the comfortable life and I will just say, I would postpone it for later. I would say, oh, it's not good time. Now you finish high school. Let's go university. And until the pain of kind of staying where I was got bigger, that's the point when I really made a shift or started to make the shift.

Michael: Yeah. You know, it's funny because people constantly wait for the right time. You know, people will always be looking for the reason counting something down, looking for opportunity, saying this is the gonna be the day. This will be the day I'm going to get help, I'm going to get a coach or a mentor. This will be the day I'm going to try the business, or break up with the relationship like whatever that thing is. And the more that I get deep into just understanding life is, it's just about this present moment, right? The past is over. Like there's nothing we can do about it. But the future, it hasn't happened yet. I don't even know what we're gonna talk about in 30 seconds, you know what I mean? And it's like, right now, here we are together, but people are so terrified of this moment and they lack gratitude, they lack self-awareness, they lack the understanding like this is it. It's not the cars and the clothes and the houses, but there's also something about, you know, like you mentioned, like you didn't grow up rich, you didn't grow up wealthy. I would argue the vast majority of the people listening to this show did not. And many of us come through this tremendous amount of childhood trauma, tremendous amount of abuse, neglect, heartbreak, devastation, and it's like, you feel the fear, you feel the pain, you feel the need to create change, but so many people still often will not. What do you think is one of the first things that people need to do to face their fear?

Vash: Yes. This is such a great question because any time we start feeling something difficult, the human nature is to escape and everybody has different escapes. Maybe somebody start feeling fear, they go on social media, somebody start feeling fear, they go play sport, somebody start feeling fear instead of facing the fear, he will go towards Netflix. So, the human tendency is to escape the moment. You know, the human tendency is, okay, this situation triggered fear, I don't want to feel it so let me do something else. Let me distract myself so I don't need to kind of sit with it, but almost the biggest, biggest thing I can share with the listener is I urge you to sit with the feeling because it seems so scary, it seems so scary, but the moment you sit with it, it's like a crying baby, all it wants is attention. And once you give it the attention, it stops crying, and that's the easiest metaphor I can give. So almost when I start feeling fear, I start feeling overwhelmed, I start feeling stress, what I do, Michael, instead of escaping to Netflix as I did, even unfortunately to porn as I used to do, what I do instead is basically I just sit with it like I had a baby, I would just be breathing deeply into my belly. I would just kind of listen, whatever is coming, whatever needs to be felt I feel it. And almost sometimes after a minute, after five minutes, the feeling go away and what comes is almost like a courage. And this is what I do now anytime I feel fear, and I urge you everybody to do that. And I tell people that if you fight fear, it will fight back what you resist, persist. So I want you make your fear friend because fear is great like if you go to some strange alley in the evening, you better feel fear so you don't go there. But we have now, 99% of our fears are irrational. Meaning you are afraid what other people will think of you, you're afraid of getting, no, you're afraid of losing something, which is not even that important. So, these are irrational fears, but I don't want to fight them because they both fight back. What I do instead, when I start feeling fear, I do what I describe, plus I say the small sentence that always helps, and I just say, “Hey, fear, welcome back.” I've thank you for coming back. Thank you for protecting me. I know you have my best interest at heart and you just try to serve me. But this situation, I've got this. So just go sit on the bench and watch me how I will pull it off. And even though it might sound funny, if you do it, I guarantee that you will pursue whatever it is with more confidence with more courage. Then if you start escaping the fear and you won't kind of face it front off.

Michael: That level of discomfort that we feel is necessary for growth. Right. And I think that we'd be hard pressed to sit here and give everybody the five steps because at this point, we're, you know, over 600 episodes of this show we've talked about all the way someone's changed their life. What I'm curious about, and because I know your story, I wanna go deeper into something, because you and I had this really fascinating conversation about heartbreak and there is something about the journey of heartbreak and loss, especially in relationships that can actually elicit a tremendous amount of fear in this way that keeps people stuck where you're talking about 20 years later, they're still stuck, they haven't moved on, they haven't gone another date, they haven't pursued their dreams, they haven't pursued their ambitions. The pain of that moment of stuckness has produced so much fear that now they're paralyzed and what you just said, in an analytical sense, makes a lot of sense, right? Because you're sitting here, you're looking at it, you're like, okay, cool, thanks, fear, go sit on the bench. I got it, blah, blah, blah. But there's also the reality, right? And I know that you had this, this massive, massive heartbreak, and I want you to talk about that because I think it's important because I don't want people to perceive you as, oh, this guy faces his fear, so life is good. It's like, yes, and this dude's been through some shit also.

Vash: Yes, a hundred percent. Because I believe, as you said, Michael, so many people get caught up in the story and you meet them 20 years later and they're still caught up in the story. And what I believe the story gives them excuse from changing because yes, change is difficult. Change is scary. Why? Because it's unknown. Any change is unknown. And if you, we look at evolution. If I have two paths, one is no one is unknown, of course I'm going to choose the known path because that's dangerous. So, from evolution, change is always uncomfortable. Change is always scary. That's why people make excuses or create, in this case, stories to excuse themselves from changing. So, they use the old relationship, the old job, the old boss, the old trauma as an excuse from changing and what was it for me was this. Imagine that I'm living like kind of 2000 miles away from back then my girlfriend studying. So every time I'm leaving here to go back to University, I'm like seeing her crying, I want to cry, and I'm like, man, I want to make this business work so I can have this freedom to be with her, provide for her the life I want. So that was giving me fire fuel as well. So, I'm working on my business, I'm consistent, I'm getting no after, no after, no after, no. And then what start happening? I start getting, yes, I start achieving my goals. I start becoming really, really close to my goals and I achieve them and the moment I achieve my biggest goal, we break up. So in that moment, I know what could happen, in that moment I could connect the moment I get successful, something bad happens and I could sabotage my success. And now we wouldn't have this conversation because I would be in a very different position. So that was for me, it was like such a challenge back then because I was pursuing something so badly to give or create life for both of us and the moment I hit it, we break. So, in that moment, I was devastated, I was like I failed the tendency that was the worst I failed the tendency to sabotage. I failed the tendency to start, stop doing the actions that made me successful. I stopped doing the behaviors or the habits that got me where I was, and I felt a tendency, and that was the moment that I had to make a decision that I need to change this, I cannot use the story. I cannot use the past to determine my future. I know Michael, if I didn't do certain things, I wouldn't be here today because I would probably feel so much sorry for myself, blame her or blame just circumstances, and as a result, I would be victim and then I would be in different position.

Michael: Where does that come from for you? For me, you know, having, whether it be in a relationship or a business partnership or family, you know, I've had those moments. I have self-sabotaged better than anyone you can imagine. I've destroyed businesses, relationships, friendships, careers, my own health, my wealth, I've put myself in so many dire circumstances because of not being able to recognize it. And I think so much of it is self-awareness. Right. And the willingness, like you said, to sit in it, but in the sitting in it like this is where it gets tricky because like you said, if you would've went a different path, you might not be here. And I think that most people, when they get into that space of self-awareness, maybe for the first time they're sitting in meditation or maybe they're starting in a journal, they have a coach, they have a therapist. I think by default, most people start with beating themselves up with saying, this is my fault. I'm a loser. I suck. This always happens to me. But you talk about that as a paradigm shift. You're looking at your life and going, actually, I don't want to self-sabotage this time, I don't want to destroy this. How do you actually get to that place and what did that look like for you? What were you personally doing to avoid going back down that path again?

Vash: Yes. For me, the biggest thing was meditation, why? Not because I got enlightened. No. I use meditation to just in a simplest form, to observe my thoughts and almost create space between, we could see the awareness or the observer, quote unquote, and the thoughts I was generating. And the meditation allows me always to create a space. So, when the fault started happening, why did she do it to me? Or, oh, I could do this differently. Oh, I did. I observe it. A lot of people chase the faults they make them bigger. So the fault begins. Why did she do it? And now, the voice start to have some arguments in the head, right? Like, yeah, I don't know why she did it. Maybe I could do this differently. Oh, if I could go back, I will do this. And the whole head is going kind of crazy and your downward spiral going down because you're just get making it bigger and bigger and you're feeling worse and worse. But what I did instead, when the thought arises, I only observe it like a passing car. I just let it pass. What happened for five minutes, it was good, another thought I would let it pass, but what was happening, I was basically creating a space for meditation between me or the observer we could say, and the thoughts that were being generated. And I decided not to encourage those limiting thoughts because that's how people drive themselves crazy. It's not a situation that happens. It is your thoughts about the situation because when I met my few current girlfriend, what did I say? Oh, I'm so happy I broke with the past one because this one is much better. So, we always then look back usually on the situation and we are happy it happened, but in that moment it's harder to do, of course. But basically, the situation I tell people is neutral because there could be five people observing the same situation, and one guy could say, that's amazing, that's a blessing. One guy could say, that's a disaster. One guy could be totally neutral. Situation is neutral. What's not neutral is head talking about it, but I realize that the head could talk, but I don't need to encourage it. I don't need to put energy in it. And that helped me tremendously to just observe how crazy faults the mind was generated. And I'm the guy who can decide not to invest energy in them.

Michael: That space of like making meaning is the place where I think people succeed and then they fail because in that space is where you get to determine, it's exactly what you're saying like you have the ability to determine how you feel about this situation. And the meaning that you apply to that situation, whether it's about, I mean, it could be anything, man. It could be about spending money. It could be about investing in yourself. It could be about quitting the job. It could be about a heartbreak. It could be about the thing that happened in third grade. It's like, okay, how you interpret these moments and how you make these decisions those are actually going to create a framework of meaning making that in the future you'll look back upon and will use as your reference as a point of reference for how you to continue to make decisions. So, if today you're making decisions out of fear, out of loss, out of lack, out of stuckness, out of not believing in yourself, I can promise you in eight years you'll be doing the same exact thing and it will not be different because you have not yet allotted yourself the space of success, of abundance, of hope, of fulfillment, of joy. And it's like, you know, you look at the world, I was having a conversation with someone the other day. And they said to me, you know, I don't think I wanna have children because the world is so bad. It's so dark, it's so evil. And I was like, I think we actually probably live in the safest time in history. But I think part of the problem is that the information that we're bringing in every single day is indoctrinating us into this belief the world is bad. I'm not saying people don't do things that are horrible because they do. I mean, that's why I created Think Unbroken, I want to give people the space to understand the horrible things don't have to control them, but I think what starts to happen is now they're in this place, they're visioning, they're understanding, they're watching, and then they'll start to have a change in their life for a day, for a week, for three months, whether it's, you know, they quit smoking, they quit playing the video games, they quit watching porn all the time, they start getting outta debt, like whatever, and then boom, they sabotage themselves again. One of the things that I know has brought you success and again, success for you, not success for me or anyone listening, but the thing that you were seeking is consistency and commitment. And I want to talk about like how that actually makes your life better cuz those two words scare people.

Vash: Yes. A hundred percent. And I would quickly want to go what you just mentioned, because that was a huge point with the beliefs because I believe in this case that beliefs are like a glasses we see through, right? You can see it as a big problem, which will make you feel discouraged you will take less action, or you can see there's a challenge to grow and as a result you will take bigger action and you will of course get bigger results. So, our beliefs are just had such an influence on our perception, how we perceive the world because if I, let's say every time I go on a vacation, a client leaves me, sooner or later I will start believing that I can't go to vacations, you know? And people will create this, what entirely new world, just based on some false belief. So, I just wanted to kind of mention that because there was a huge point you've made. And regarding the commitment and consistency, big words, because the difference is between are you interested or are you committed? A lot of people I speak with, they're just interested in having nice house, nice car, great family, they're interested in having their own business, but meaning being interested is you do the bare minimum. You just do few things. You try, you know the best word to describe it. I will try. Trying never works. You either do it or don't. Trying is the worst thing you can do. And commitment to me, I do whatever it takes, if there is an obstacle I will go over, I will go under, I will go around it, whatever it takes to make it happen. And that happened to me going back to the Uber Eats days when I met these older guys not making the money they wanted to make and not having the life they wanted to have and that was for me that the moment I stopped being just interested and I became committed. And when you have these moments and all of us have them, when you have bigger realization, maybe we watch a documentary, maybe we listen a podcast and all of a sudden there's almost like opening, like there is like this window when we are like, let's make a change. And in that moment, we need to commit to something to make the change reality to make the change permanent, so what did I do back then? I committed for the next 90 days. There are three things I will do every single day no matter what that I believe will get me closer to the goal I had in mind. One of them will, I will record 10 personalized videos to potential customers, I will study sales for two hours to become really good at communication, English selling and lastly, I would visualize for 15 minutes that my goal is reality. And even though some days I had to catch fight, I had to wake up at 3:00 AM to record the videos, I would do whatever it takes and to help with commitment. I tell people it's good to have reward. Let's say if you go to gym for a whole month, if you stick to your diet for a longer period of time, what is the reward, but also what is the punishment? Because a lot of people don't have punishment. And as a result, it's easy to quit, it's 9:00 PM They're kind of tired so they said, I will do it tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes next week. But if you had something that you're a little scared of so, for us with currently with my business partner, we would go on social media and say, Hey, we are losers, we coach one thing and do the opposite. So that's the last thing I want to record that's I would never do that so even if it was midnight and I still had to do some of these tasks I committed to, I will do them. So, I tell people, have a reward have a punishment, and ideally have accountable to partner because it's easy to skip if it's just you. If you are in your room, kind of all alone. But it's different ball game if you have a friend that holds you accountable, that together you're on that journey. So that was the commitment part.

And second part is the consistency, which is huge I call myself Mr. Consistent because whatever I start, I'm consistent because consistency yields the results. It's not, you go to gym twice and you're fit for life. The people who are fit, you know, they go to gym at least few times a week. You know it. And the same was with me. So, for 63 days, I sent 630 videos, I recorded 630 videos and you know what I got? Nothing. No clients, no meetings, no money, no near being closer to my goal. And what would happen, virtually, everybody would give up. They would say it doesn't work. They would say, yeah, the videos don’t work. I'm not meant for this. I told you it's not going to work. But I knew Michael that deep down, I just knew that my time is coming. I knew that every video was making me better and I knew that I'm going to be rewarded, so I didn't give up. I was consistent. I believe in consistency, and I believe that consistency activate is what I call holistic effect. Lot of people think that progress happened linearly. So, let's just say you put a goal of losing six pounds, 10 pounds, so you believe, okay, after 30 days, I should lose two pounds after 60 days, I should lose this. It could be applied to an area. But usually what happens, you go to gym for a month or two and you don't see any progress. But then almost towards, let's say the 60, 70, 80 days, the progress started to happen so much faster and people look at you as like, whoa, you've made such a progress. But it seems overnight, but it wasn't, it was consistent effort. The same was for me, my goal was to hit $10,000 a month with my business for 63 days, I'm in zero. So, nothing people would expect to be a 2K 5K by then. So they get discouraged and they would quit because they weren't there. But I knew the power of consistency and all of a sudden, they 63 boom and in the next 27 days, I hit the $10,000 mark.

Michael: Yeah. And that's what it's about, right? Consistency is this thing that people don't understand because we crave instant gratification. Going back to your point about dopamine and video games, it was like you could sit there and play video games all day long and you're gonna feel like, all the dopamine in the world's gonna flow through you, but then it's gonna be, you need more than video games and then it's gonna be whatever it is, porn. Okay, cool. Now it's video games and porn. Now that's not enough. Okay, cool. Now it's video games and porn and driving a hundred miles an hour on the highway. Okay, cool. Now it's all of those things and it's like you're ratcheting up the level of dopamine that you have to hit just to get back to a normalized baseline. And one of the hardest things about these shifts in these transitions, people don't understand this biological experience that we're having that leads down this path.

I interviewed Dr. Anna Lemke, who's one of the leading researchers on the human brain and addiction. She wrote a book called Dopamine Nation and she talks about this very thing that the thing that we seek the most in the world is pleasure. We seek it, we will do anything for it, but unfortunately, many times like we've talked about, like that pleasure reward system that we're filling is actually taking away. I would be willing to bet that you like your life a lot more today than you liked your life before, but there's a chasm that has to be crossed, right? There's this gap. So, there's you today, but there's you in the past, and that gap is the difficulty of the growth like that's the process, that's the change. People ask me this all the time, when I was 350 pounds, I smoked two packs a day, I drank myself to sleep, I partied, I was in $50,000 in debt, my life was a disaster, I can promise you, dude, I am so much more happy today. Right. But it was commitment, consistency. I use a third word connection. And it was about putting myself in a position to literally, like, I don't have a better way to phrase it. I would force myself into discomfort. I would sit in it, I would look at it and go, what is the thing that I know I need to do? Okay. It's Don't smoke a cigarette right now. F*ck. I really want a cigarette right now. Right. Because I'm now programmed, I'm wired. I am, I'm addicted, the dopamine, the serotonin, the epinephrine that come, I'm like, give it to me, give it all to me. And I remember the moment I quit smoking forever, I was like, what if I stopped looking at this as I'm losing this habit, I'm losing this thing that makes me feel good, bullsh*t, right? And I go, what do I actually get by quitting this? Well, I get to be healthier. I get to reduce my risk of cancer. I get to have people actually wanna kiss me cuz my breath doesn't smell like sh*t. Right? And so, it's like sometimes you have to remember, you have to seek the positive. To get the positive like I truly believe, you do have to go into pain. You have to go into suffering. Now, look, suffering by its definition means to be in discomfort. Suffering doesn't necessarily mean a physical, mental, or emotional torment. It just means how do you do the, sometimes suffering is not smoking the cigarette. Right. But also, sometimes suffering is how are you going to go into the deepest depths of your soul to figure out who you are? I know a handful of people in my life who have done the thing I'm about to ask you about arguably, it is one of the most intense things a human being can ever do I've done it, but not at the scale to which you have, and so I want you to talk about the change in your life that came from your seven-day darkness meditation?

Vash: Yes. That's such a great question because yes, exactly as you said, it's what do you link pleasure to, right? So, if you totally link, pleasure to playing video games, lying on a couch, it'll be hard to go and enjoy reading a book or enjoy a challenge because you are getting this pleasure from these different sources. And especially nowadays, we are so connected I run free businesses, so I'm basically online, not the whole day, but basically every day, let's say. So, I decided, because I'm very interested in meditation, very interested in basically going within, because I believe there is a lot of answers that come from it, there is a lot of wisdom within all of us. So, I decided to commit to seven days darknet retreat. And again, what did I feel? I felt scary. Because I was never seven days offline, I was never seven days in complete darkness, and I was doing it with no food, and I've never fasted more than two days. So, all of a sudden, I was fasting seven days, complete darkness, nobody there with me, no devices, no light. And so, what happened is, is was life changing these seven days because first of all, I realized that phone, social media is just easy escape. I wasn't craving it at all. I wasn't like, oh my goodness, I wish I could go on Instagram, it was just easy escape that we go to because we don't know how to sit with ourselves.

So, the moment a friend goes to that, we grab unconsciously the phone, do some random stuff, and then the friend comes back because we can't even spend a minute with ourselves. And a lot of people throw away the concepts self-love, and I tell them, how can you love yourself if you don't spend time with yourself? You know, because imagine that I started dating a girl and I told her, Hey, by the way, we'll spend five minutes a day together. We are not going to have incredible relationship and that's how most people, they might say, oh, but I was with myself but there was TV, there was computer, there was your phone, so you've never spent time with in your energy maybe reflecting, maybe pondering between, maybe just being present. And so, in the darkness, I had the time to spend time with myself to get to know myself. Truly knowing my desires, knowing maybe vices, you know, knowing what drives me, what doesn't drive me, what I enjoy, what I don't enjoy. And it was such a deep, deep journey.

And I realized this, Michael, because I was meditating, God, I was so happy. I might, the fault that arises was if I can be happy in a completely dark room, I don't see anything, I don't taste anything. Then once I walk away, it's like a Disneyland, like there is so much to experience in this world. There is so much to see. And since then, I started to really embody more gratitude for every moment, for every conversation, for every person I meet because we live in this beautiful world where we can be anyone, we can have anything, we can become anyone. But so many people book themself in this limited life and they just know, okay, one's a year vacation, I have these free friends, this is possible, this is not possible and they live in this book even though there is this a huge space, huge world we can experience. And that was probably one of the biggest takeaway.

And then last one was also, realizing, coming back to what you mentioned at the beginning is on paper last year, I live incredible life. I traveled 22 countries. I created a lot of impact. I visited a lot of places, met a lot of cool people on paper, incredible life, but in reality, it wasn't because I was on vacation a –thinking about vacation b – I was at vacation thinking about work. I was meeting with some amazing people, but I was thinking what I need to do tomorrow. So, I was always with my head, few days, few weeks, few months ahead. So I was never present fully, fully experiencing the dinner, fully experiencing the exchange with the person, never fully experiencing the new country. And that's what I believe is missing for many people is really true experiencing the moment right now, ‘cuz that's all we have. Nobody knows if we cross or if we wake up tomorrow honestly, nobody knows. But when I look back, I realize I live incredible life on paper, but not in a reality and that was something that in that moment I made a decision to change.

Michael: Yeah. I love that. I was in there's a place here outside of Las Vegas, a few hours in California called Joshua Tree, Nashville Park. It's a desert. There's nothing out there. You don't get cell phone service. You're gone from the world. It's like you could die out there, like, for real, because there's nothing. And I'm out there with some friends and we are just present the whole time, it's almost impossible not to be like, I didn't even bring a book with me. like, even though I love reading I was like, I'm gonna show up for this. I did bring my journal, that's an important part of my life but outside of that, no phones, no books, nothing. And we were just there together, being in life, exploring the desert, walking around, climbing on rocks, doing all these things, and it's like, how do you bring that into your every day? How do you show up and be able to live life every day where you are here? Because the here and the now, this is life. Like this is the moment. It's not those things of the past. It's not those things of the future. And I know that there's a discomfort in the present because people will leverage it and they'll go, well, my body doesn't look like theirs and my car isn't like theirs and my money isn't like theirs and this and that. Going back to where we started this conversation about the fear of judgment of other people.

--- So, obviously you and I, we know a lot of the same people, especially in the entrepreneurial space. We know a lot of the same people in the personal development space. We know each other and it's like everyone, I don't give a sh*t who they are, it's like all of these people are still looking at other people they're trying to make their lives better, but the thing that they don't do, is they don't compare. Instead, what I find that the most successful people do, even if you factor out business and entrepreneurship, if you focused in, put in relationship, put in health, put in wealth, put in career, put in friendships, like put in whatever words you want to put in there. The thing that all of the most successful people that I know have in common is they do not compare, but instead they look at it as inspiration. And so, I'm curious, how do you start to shift that for yourself to let go of the shame, the guilt, the judgment of other people, and instead of saying, I don't have this, I can't have this, this is for them. Say, I'm actually inspired by this. I want that. I see the potential. What is the shift there? Is that mainly in visualization? Is that in connection? How do you get there?

Vash: Yes. First, because I struggle with a lot, especially through social media you open your feet. I was 23 years old and you see private just guys in Lamborghinis, the guys making millions, and you're this broke student and almost the gap seems so big, that it discourages you. Let's say if I am broke and somebody's making $2,000 a month, I might get inspired back then because it's more achievable. But the thing is, I believe that most people there is such a bad gap between the life they have and comparing to somebody who is million miles away from them. And for me, I had to make it ridiculous to compare, I almost, I told myself, Vash comparing yourself to others is stupid. I just really said it's stupid because nobody had the same upbringing, nobody had the same parents, nobody had the same experiences, nobody had the same friend groups, nobody had the same amount of money as you did when you started, so it's stupid. I make it so ridiculous that I said it's like comparing what is faster, your car or iPhone. You can't compare these two things and the same as here because you compare two things that have nothing in common. So, the only person who have something in common with you is who you. So, the only body I compare myself nowadays is me. Meaning if I'm better this year than last year, I'm winning. If I'm better in whatever area I'm focusing on this month than last month, I'm winning. The only time I ponder and think about myself what to change is when I'm worse than I was. And that's got kind of something I really focus on. And then when I made it so ridiculous, it was easier to kind of not compare myself and I started to use this phrase, which I say, if he could do it, I could do it too. So, I use it as a confirmation it's possible. It's like the four-minute mile with Roger Bannister once he did the first time, four-minute mile, many many people started breaking the four-minute mile as well because they saw he did it. So it's possible. So I rather use it like evidence for new belief, because belief needs evidence. So, my belief is, let's say it's possible to fly private jets. And now I look at all the people saying he could do it; he could do it, he could do it. If they could do it, I can do it too. And that's how I shifted it from comparing, feeling discouraged, rather feeling inspired what's possible and what I can personally do.

Michael: I love that. I wanna go into visualization as we start to head off here, because I think that this is such an important element. Three years ago, now I won an investment from Grant Cardone and I was speaking in front of a group of 10,000 people. It was gigantic, right? And after I had dozens of people be like, how did you do that? How did you do that? And I was like, I already saw it. I saw it. I saw it 10,000 times. I saw it in every little extra moment of the day. I saw it in my practice. I saw it in my meditation. I saw it by putting myself in the room, filling the filling, smelling the smells, getting, and most importantly, them saying, you won. Visualization might actually be the number one thing that has changed my life, and so I'm curious for you breakdown, visualization, the practice and the impact that it's had in your life?

Vash: A hundred percent. And I give it so much importance because I believe when you set a goal, it's something you've never done before. So, let's just say you set a goal to speak in front of 10,000 people, you've never done it before. So unless you have evidence, you're not going to believe it's possible because you don't have any evidence and because you don't believe it's possible, you are not going to take much action towards it. But a lot of people don't know when you visualize the brain and body doesn't know the difference, if you visualize it, if you're truly present or if it's truly happening.

So the listener, even after this podcast, can close his eyes, get present, and start visualizing. He's standing at the top of a skyscraper looking down. And all of a sudden, his palms will start sweating. His heart will start beating faster even though he's sitting in his living room. The visualization is that powerful.

So what did I do? I'm broke, Uber Eats guy. And I set a goal of $10,000 a month. I've never had that money. I've never earned that money, so I didn't believe it's possible. But what I started to do every day, I would visualize waking up in the morning, checking my bank account, seeing their $10,000 running to my kitchen, shouting, mom, dad, I didn't and we started celebrating together.

And the most important part is to bring the emotion. So I feel it. I would felt it with detail. If we are opening champagne that I'm driving the car I wanted, I feel the breeze in my hair, all of these things, I make it so detailed like a movie scene and what started to happen, I after two, three weeks, I started to believe that I'm already making that sort of money, and once I started believe I'm making that sort of money, I started to take bigger actions. I started to feel more confident. I started to believe in myself more. And the same is for anything if. I wanted to now, let's say speak in 9,000 people, I would start visualizing it as you did in detail and as a result, I would maybe feel more confident to message certain people if I can speak at their conferences, or I would hold my body differently because I would feel like I'm already this guy.

So, visualization and hands down, the single most important tool anybody can use. That's why every Olympic team use visualization. They know it, but in business, not that many people are using it yet or in personal situations even somebody might be afraid to speak up, uh, or to speak to strange girls or woman they would love to speak to, you could visualize it, over and over again feeling the fear, but doing it anyway feeling the fear doing it anyway. And then after few repetitions what will happen it'll be easier to approach strange woman and just speak to them.

Michael: Yeah. And that applies to everything. I mean, dating, relationships, career, family, friends, you know, visualization because again, your brain doesn't know truth from fiction. It's like, why would you not want to create the greatest opportunity possible in front of you? But again as much of this conversation has been, it's like, are you willing to step into the discomfort of the unknown, my friend, this has been an incredible conversation. Before I ask you my last question, tell everyone where they can find you.

Vash: Yes. First of all, thank you for having me, Michael. So, if anybody has any question, just find me either on Instagram where I'm Vash Tomanec, or the same way I'm on YouTube, and same way I'm on LinkedIn, so that's how people can connect with me.

Michael: Amazing. And guys, go to thinkunbrokenpodcast.com to find out more about Vash and the show notes thinkunbrokenpodcast.com. My friend, my last question for you, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Vash: To me it means this, you can put any challenge in front of me. You put in front of me any difficulty, but I will become stronger because of it. So, at the end of the day, I will thank you. So to me that's unbroken, it's the mentality that nothing is going to stop me because I know that everything that is happening for me that is put in front of me is for my benefit. Even though in the moment it doesn't seem like I will use it to my advantage, ‘cuz I truly believe that we've been put here to kind of see where our ceiling is, to maximize our potential. And I believe we wouldn't maximize our potential if we gave up on the first obstacle or few things that could break us.

Michael: Could not say it better myself. Thank you so much for being here, my friend. Unbroken Nation. Thank you for listening.

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