#120: Hello my brother.
If you're like me, your biggest fear is living out the definition of hell:
At the end of your life, the man that you became, meets the man you could have become.
The one thing standing in the way of you living out your fullest potential: fear.
Today's guest – Ben Aldridge – shares his story of how crippling anxiety and acute panic attacks threatened to derail his life.
Until he decided to design the Year of Adversity – befriending and facing his fears through the tackling of 43 challenges that he designed himself that shattered his self-imposed limitations and blew the ceiling off of what he previously thought his potential to be.
Here's here to help you do the same.
Ben went from living a safe, small, uninspiring life…
…to becoming Jason Bourne.
Who is Ben Aldridge
- During Ben's Year of Adversity he learned how to pick locks, solve a Rubik's cube in under a minute, memorize a deck of cards after seeing it only once
- He's taken ice baths and swam in the British sea during winter, he's eaten repulsive insects and learned how to have a conversation in Japanese…all in one year.
- Ben is now the author of How to Be Comfortable Being Uncomfortable: 43 Weird and Wonderful Ways to Build a Strong and Resilient Mindset
- Ben is a full time guitar teacher and executed these 43 challenges in his spare time
- Hell, during quarantine Ben has already climbed the equivalent of Mount Everest in his apartment staircase (which took 2,000 trips up and down) and run a backyard marathon in his 26 foot long garden, which took over 4,000 shuttles
In this Episode
- How to listen to your fear and anxiety, and allow it to direct you to deepen your strength and courage…not to cling to safety
- How the philosophies of Stoicism, Buddhism, Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Fixed/Growth Mindsets were essential to him having the tools necessary to execute these 43 challenges
- How Ben brainstormed and ultimately chose these 43 challenges
- How to brainstorm and design your own challenges
- Why your "anti-bucket list" is a great place to start
Resources
Book: How to be Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable
Instagram: @DoThingsThatChallengeYou
Ben's Workshop: MindBodySpirit Well Being Festival
Website: https://www.benaldridge.com/
The 43 Challenges
- Embrace the cold
- Learn a language
- Complete a long-distance walk
- Memorize a deck of cards
- Acupuncture
- Run a race
- Solve a Rubik's cube
- Climb a mountain
- Become an early riser
- Wales' longest train station
- Sleep in a bivvy bag
- No painkillers
- Pick a lock
- Eat something unfamiliar
- Complete an obstacle course
- Meditate
- Fold an origami crane
- Public speaking
- Read a technical book
- Make exercise harder
- Fight a fear
- Whistle with your fingers
- Fasting
- alk to a stranger
- Beep test
- Driving skills
- Summon adrenaline
- Queue unnecessarily
- Learn a difficult yoga pose
- Cook a new dish
- Complete a triathlon
- Get naked
- Try a new sport
- Juggle three balls
- Induce vertigo
- Upgrade your diet
- Skip like Rocky
- Digital fasting
- Learn a magic trick
- HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training)
- Sleep on the floor
- Have an outrageous clothes day
- Via ferrata
