IE167 Jake Heilbrunn: Mental Health Transformed: How to Replace Anxiety With Purpose

In this week’s episode, Amrit interviews Jake Heilbrunn, an international TEDx speaker, best-selling author, host of Curious with Jake Heilbrunn Podcast and Head of Partnerships at Conscious Counsel.

Purpose consists of the central motivating aims of your life. It is the reason why you get up in the morning. Purpose can guide your life decisions, influence behavior, shape goals, offer a sense of direction, and create meaning. Purpose can heal. Purpose can heal anxiety and so much more.

Jake and Amrit talk about Jake’s anxiety healing journey, his path towards self-discovery and purpose, and his greatest lessons learned along the way.

At the age of seventeen, Jake started university and began to break out with hives, rashes all over his body and soon after with anxiety. He was on a path of pressure, a path based on expectations of others, a path where he certainly was not happy and was causing more pain than good.

Jake wanted to change. He wanted to pursue his dreams. He felt the urge to experience another way of life, a journey of self-discovery. At the age of 18, he took courage and made the hard decision to leave college. He bought a one way ticket to Guatemala where he spent months backpacking through Central America all alone, without a phone and three words of spanish.

He wanted to know who he was, what he was capable of and needed to pave his own trail. He listened to his inner voice following his intuition, trusting his instincts that things were going to work out.

Jake’s body was telling him something, something in him wasn’t aligned. Taking this new path, not only helped him recover from the rash, but also helped him figure out who he was, unrevealing all the opportunities that have led his life to where he is today. He also discovered the importance of having courage and following it and how important it is to trust yourself. 

Furthermore, Amrit and Jake dive deep into a raw conversation about Jake getting this lesson twice but in a different way.

A couple of years later, Jake’s life was knocked over. He was hit by Lyme disease. For almost ten months in severe pain and suffering, he had to be in bed. This impacted his entrepreneurial life, having to bow out from the company he co-created from 0 to $2.5M in revenue in just 2 years, his personal and his love life as well. Jake felt completely shut down and all alone.

Listening to people who have been through the same chronic disease, surfing the ocean, and being in flow with the waves and every single moment, have helped Jake on his healing journey. 

This extremely challenging disease helped him discover his hypesensitive energy and learn how to be hyper aligned with saying no and letting go. 

Jake affirms that the journey towards recovery was about learning to listen. He strongly believes his journey here on earth is intuition and that the universe talks to us in many different ways. It appears with a whisper but if you don't pay attention every time it will appear with more and more force.

In this chapter of Inspired Evolution you will learn how to heal anxiety and depression through purpose, learn how to take courage to do things you believe are right by following your intuition, discover the beauty of peace by letting things go and discover that in darkness there is always hope.

“I say to myself: How can I be the most aligned with the thing that sets my soul on fire? Because that is the medicine for the world!”

“When you pursue something that you choose, even if it is scary, it makes problems less haunting”

About Jake Heilbrunn:

At the age of nineteen, Jake Heilbrunn published 'Off the Beaten Trail', a memoir that has been described as the young dude version of 'Eat Pray Love' fused with a modern-day 'Into the Wild'....but with a happy ending ;) The book became #1 on Amazon in 2 categories, has over 50 5-star reviews, and has gained the attention of multiple NYT best-selling authors, including Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup of the Soul founder, 500+ Million copies sold), The San Diego Union-Tribune, Psychology Today, and various other media outlets.

He is a passionate TEDx speaker, who has spoken to 15,000+ people across 6 countries, to audiences ranging from High School assemblies, Universities like USC, corporations like REMAX and organizations like NAMI. When Jake speaks, his intention is to inspire people to replace anxiety with passion, find what makes them tick, feel at peace with their mental health journey and live purposefully.

In 2017, Jake co-founded and built The Idea Collective with his business partner, Taylor Conroy. From scratch, they grew the company from 0 to $2.5M in revenue in 2 years and helped over 200 purpose-driven leaders share their messages with the world, landing talks at TED, TEDx, Fortune 500 companies, Universities and features in Goalcast, Forbes, ABC & Entrepreneur. They helped speakers clarify their message, land their stage, deliver their message and spread it online to elevate their mission and purpose

Overnight, on October 17th, 2019, Jakes’s life turned upside-down. Lyme Disease hit him like a train. Bedridden in extreme pain, and unable to work, he stepped down from the company and parted ways with his business partner, no longer fit to work. The next 10 months were the hardest and darkest of his life. He produced a film, 'Waves of Healing,' on his story going through Lyme Disease and the healing power of the ocean and surfing. While he is still on this healing journey and has a long way to go, he is happy to have made tremendous progress and is at least functional again.

Jake is the host of the podcast "Curious with Jake Heilbrunn" where he interviews fascinating entrepreneurs, authors, healers, musicians and pro athletes. He loves diving deep with people who inspire him, learning their triumphs, dark moments, failures, successes, lessons and the juicy stuff that can’t be seen on social media.

Tune In: 

Welcome Jake Heilbrunn to the Inspired Evolution!: (00:00:00)

Where replacing anxiety with purpose came from:(02:00)

“The dark can lead you to your own hero’s journey”

Stress symptoms notifying non-alignment:(06:10)

“Looking back I understand my body was saying something was wrong”

Challenging bits pointing to the right direction:(08:37)

“Know when to say no and let go”

About recalibrating a mindset: changing paths to deal with anxiety and then getting knocked with Lyme disease:(15:57)

“The inability to relax opened me up to what the lyme presented”

Intuition as a gift brought from healing journey:(22:13)

“Intuition guides you to your highest invest and joy”

The process of labelling Jake’s anxiety:(24:43)

“Take time and make space to uncover layers on top of you that are not you”

What called Jake in going to Guatemala:(29:09) 

“Experience something drastically different to figure out who you are”

Taking the courage to follow intuition:(32:17)

“Take the courage to do what you believe is right”

About pivotal moments:(37:26)

“The unknown for whatever reason is so much harder to choose”

About the challenges worth to take a different path:(39:20)

“Pursuing things that you choose, even if scary, makes problems less haunting”

The importance of service to others and how it helps Jake:(43:01)

“Don't ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive and do that”

Jake Heilbrunn’s book and film:

• “Off the Beaten Trail: A Young Man’s Soul-Searching Journey Through Central America” book by Jake Heilbrunn: https://amz.run/4Ox2 - “a book that every young man should read. It will inspire you and it will empower you to follow your heart and live the life of your dreams” - Jack Canfield. Author of Chicken Soup for the Soul® and The Success Principles
• “Waves of Healing” movie by Jake Heilbrunn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp7EZpB6YZw - Healing Lyme Disease through the power of the ocean and surfing

Mentioned resources:

• Conscious Counsel: https://consciouscounsel.ca/ 
• The Idea Collective: https://thepurposecollective.clickfunnels.com/optin32871680 
• TED program and TEDx: https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization 
• “When the body says no: The cost of hidden stress” book by Gabor Mate: https://amz.run/4Oip  - Mentioned in timestamp (06:10)
• Steven Kotler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Kotler - Mentioned in timestamp (08:37) - Someone who went through the same experience as Jake and talks about how surfing and flow states healed him - An inspiration for Jake when struck by the disease
• Jake Heilbrunn’s TEDx talk on How to replace anxiety with purpose on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crUusAyzPxo 
• Jordan Younger, The Balanced Blonde: https://www.thebalancedblonde.com/about/ - Blogger mentioned in timestamp (22:13)
• Quote: “People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” by Tich Nhat Hank - Mentioned in timestamp (37:26)
• “Art of impossible: A peak performance primer” book by Steven Kotler:  https://amz.run/4OyJ - Mentioned in timestamp (39:20) - A conversation around decisions taken by autonomy and intrinsic motivation 
• “Big Magic: Creative living beyond fear” book by Elizabeth Gilbert: https://amz.run/4On8 - Mentioned in timestamp (43:01) - 

Connect with Jake Heilbrunn:

• Website: https://www.jakeheilbrunn.com/ 
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jake.heilbrunn 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jakeheilbrunn/ 
• Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQGJ5QXyG50w0YThtA3zjjQ
• Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/curious-with-jake-heilbrunn/id1479197026 
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakeheilbrunn/ 
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/jake_heilbrunn 

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