Courageous Ones

Sofia Supichaya explains why many of the goals you are chasing were handed to you, and how to find the one that is yours, in a conversation on reinventing your life, manifestation and the book Reality Transurfing. Sofia has lived in seven countries, moved from engineering to commercial photography, marketing and real estate, and is building her life in Koh Samui, Thailand.

In this conversation:

Fitness coach Anik explains why your obsession is the way out of the lonely chapter, and how losing his father at 13 became the reason he trains, coaches and shows up every day. Anik lives in Ireland, runs his coaching business Infinite, and went from childhood asthma attacks to nine half marathons.

In this conversation:

Buddhist monk and physician Dr. Barry Kerzin explains why the thought that you are not good enough never started with you, and what to tell yourself when it comes back. Barry has lived in Dharamsala since 1989, took his monastic vows from the Dalai Lama, and works with Google DeepMind on bringing compassion into AI.

In this conversation

What can Buddhism and neuroscience teach us about finding more peace in our minds?

In this episode of Courageous Ones, I sit down with Tenzing Dolma Sherpa to explore meditation, compassion and how we respond to everyday life.

Tenzing shares her journey from growing up in a Tibetan Buddhist family to studying neuroscience and Tibetan Studies. We talk about her experience on a silent retreat, bringing mindfulness into a busy day, and practising kindness towards ourselves and people we find difficult.

As someone who grew up Tibetan, I was curious about both the...

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Sometimes, believing in yourself means continuing even when nothing seems to be working.

In this episode of Courageous Ones, I'm joined by Tenzin Dhondup, a Tibetan actor based in Los Angeles whose work includes Four Rivers, Six Ranges and My Sweet Pala.

Tenzin shares his journey from growing...

Anik is a fitness coach, creator and the person behind Infinite. In his fourth conversation on Courageous Ones, we talk about what happens when you stop waiting to feel confident and start giving yourself evidence that you can actually follow through.

We get into putting yourself out there, dealing with rejection, following your curiosity, building self-belief through repetition, and how you change when you consistently show up for yourself.

We also talk about social media and attention, visualization, meditation, stress, burnout and why the “perfect time” to start usually never arrives.

The bigger idea...

Yassin Mahhou returns to Courageous Ones for a fourth conversation. He is the founder of Mahhou Solutions and a co-founder of the Jonge Ondernemers podcast, and he is still pursuing the goal he shared in his first appearance: becoming a millionaire before 25.

This episode is not really about the number. Yassin explains why the goal matters because of the person the process can make him. We talk about breaking big goals into measurable actions, making hard business decisions, facing rejection, finding exceptional people, adjusting when growth is slower than expected and learning to think from first principles.<...

Harsh Pandorwala is a content creator, entrepreneur and new father who has spent more than five years building online, travelling the world and learning what happens when your work becomes tied to public opinion. He and his wife went from starting a travel page with around a hundred early followers to rapid growth, while Harsh also experienced the less visible side of creating online: burnout, dopamine-driven validation and the pressure to keep performing.

In this conversation, we talk about meditation and presence, focusing on what is actually in your control, the psychological cost of chasing virality, audience...

David Green is a filmmaker, storyteller and lifelong traveler whose experiences across different cultures have shaped the way he thinks about life, relationships, creativity and himself.

In this conversation, we explore what solo travel taught David about humanity, his experience studying yoga and meditation in India, learning to sit with yourself, protecting your time and energy, forgiveness, friendship, relationships, fear of judgment and becoming more intentional about how you live.

We also talk about what filmmaking taught him about being present, why some of his favorite memories were never captured on camera, his thoughts on...

Tenzin Tsering, also known as Tenzoni, is a Tibetan-Filipino Canadian artist and illustrator. In this episode, we have an honest conversation about creativity, identity, courage, and what happens when the thing you love also becomes your profession.

Tenzin shares how growing up surrounded by Filipino and Tibetan art shaped her creative path, why art became a way for her to connect with her culture, and the fear that can come with putting your work out into the world. We talk about creative blocks, perfectionism, The Artist’s Way, morning pages, digital versus physical art, flow states, and le...

Amin Alamdari is back on the podcast, almost two years after our first conversation.

A lot has changed since then. In this episode, we talk honestly about what happens when the excitement of chasing your goals wears off and you’re left with the reality of actually building the life you wanted.

Amin opens up about almost quitting entrepreneurship, questioning his definition of success, losing relationships along the way, and feeling deeply lonely while living in Bali, a place that from the outside looked like paradise.

We also talk about ambition and burnout, le...

Jamyang Dorjee Chakrishar is a Tibetan calligrapher, artist and cultural preservationist whose life has moved between public service, spiritual practice and art.

After building a respected career in the Sikkim government, he made the difficult decision to leave behind comfort, status and a much higher salary to serve the Tibetan administration in Dharamsala. Years later, he helped bring Tibetan calligraphy to the world stage by creating a 165-metre calligraphy scroll.

But what stayed with me most from this conversation was not the world record. It was the way Jamyang speaks about writing as meditation, focus...

Doina is a singer, marketing coach, and creator from Moldova, now living in Bali. She helps people build a personal brand without losing who they are.

She grew up in a house of teachers, reading twenty pages a day from the age of six and learning discipline before she learned anything else. She started singing to stand out from her sister, competed on X Factor at 17 and The Voice at 19, and then spent close to ten years shrinking herself to fit in. In this episode, she opens up about what that did to her and how she...

In this episode, Tenzin sits down with Yassin Mahhou for a long and honest conversation about ambition, entrepreneurship, discipline, burnout and the pressure to succeed.

Yassin shares what it is like to build Mahhou Solutions while working multiple jobs and helping grow the Jonge Ondernemers Podcast. They discuss co-foundership, choosing priorities, why hard workers seem to get luckier and why not every hour spent working is a productive hour.

The conversation also explores why nobody cares about you as much as you think, how to handle judgment and failure, the difference between motivation, discipline and...

Anik is a fitness coach in Ireland and co-founder of Infinite, a coaching brand he built with his best friend. He breaks down creatine dosage, training splits, and the CNS fatigue most people mistake for ordinary tiredness.

The conversation turns personal. Anik talks about the jobs he hated before fitness, the identity shift that came from staying consistent, and why the fear of judgment never fully goes away. You build the muscle to act anyway instead.

By the end, you get his view on building a brand people trust, the promise-keeping habit behind real change...

Lhamo left Tibet as a child, moved to India, then made her way to France for university. She studied medicine, dropped it, switched to business, graduated, and then did something most people in her position wouldn't consider: opened a Tibetan restaurant in Paris with her mom.

This episode goes into what it's like to build a life in a country whose language you don't speak, the moment she realized her academic success was partly an illusion, and why she chose a path she knew wasn't her dream just because it was the right thing to do right...

Corey Downey is an actor based in New Jersey. This conversation goes into self-worth, purpose, sexual alchemy, and what it means to fight for love, not as a concept, but as a daily practice.

Corey grew up watching his younger sister Charlotte spend 75% of her life in hospital. Born with special needs, she survived 15 years through two open heart surgeries, dialysis, and every form of medical support imaginable. She never stopped smiling. That shaped everything about how Corey moves through the world.

We talk about why men who are down bad are asking the wrong...

Anas grew up cutting hair in his garage in Montreal, then booked a one way flight to Dubai with no connections and built Backalive Barbershop into one of the busiest barbershops in the city by posting the whole journey on TikTok. Now he is building software that lets barbershop owners talk to their own data using AI. We get into the failed move to LA, the pivot to Dubai, and going from three barbers to seven in a matter of months.

We talk about curiosity as the skill that compounds over a lifetime, why knowledge means nothing...

Amber De Muyt is a Belgian fashion model, founder of Monique Models, and Europe scout for Respect Models Belgium. In this episode she talks about landing in China on a modeling contract, getting told to lose weight on day one, spending two months working hard, then getting sent home anyway.

We go into the two years she spent not eating carbs out of fear, the first agent she signed with who told her she could not run because her legs would get too big, and how she used a lawyer to walk away from that contract. She...

Tenzin Yeshi is a Tibetan-American actor, writer, and director from Queens, New York. He's the founder of Six Realms Production and his latest film Free Tea Bed is on Apple TV. In this episode, we get into what it took to follow a creative path with no roadmap, why he believes making bad work is the only way forward, and how a late-night conversation about Tibetan identity became the seed for his short film You Tibetan.

We go through how he dropped pre-med at City College to pursue acting, what the Meisner Technique changed in him, and...

Yassin Mahhou is a young entrepreneur based in Belgium building a web development and audio-visual marketing business while co-founding Young Entrepreneurs, a podcast and community for young people building their own path. This is his second time on Courageous Ones.

He hit his first online income milestone and felt almost nothing. We talk about why that happens, why the goal line keeps moving, and what it means to track progress when you are early in the game. The conversation covers enjoying the process without forcing it, dealing with dark stretches, and a concept Yassine came up with...

Nils Rydsmo is a 20-year-old Swedish creator in the men's health and hormones space who is currently serving in the Swedish Armed Forces. We met playing chess at Sam's Farm café in Canggu, Bali, became friends over a couple of weeks, crossed paths again in Chiang Mai, and this is the first time we sat down properly to talk.

The episode covers what military service does to your mind, the difference between discipline and self-discipline, why going through hard experiences raises your baseline so ordinary life feels easier, and the misogi concept. Nils also shares a sharp t...

Amy Lindsay is a photographer, videographer, and creative director from Scotland who spent four years in London building a career across the creative industry. She worked with brands like Hypebeast, directed music videos, and freelanced across fashion and music. In late 2024 she decided to travel. She ended up in Chiang Mai, Thailand, found Dang Muay Thai, got a job there, and never went back.

In this episode, Amy and Tenzin talk about what it actually costs to leave a career that was working, how she started Muay Thai with zero experience in Australia and is now fighting...

Noah Williams is an 18-year-old content creator and founder from Oregon. He completed his first 50K ultra marathon at 15 with almost no training, becoming one of the youngest finishers in the world. He is now building PlayR, a basketball app to make pickup games accessible to everyone.

This conversation covers smile maxxing, morning routines, delusional confidence, and what it looks like to build a startup in your first year of college. At 16, Noah lost his biggest role model to a sudden heart attack. A week before that, he went through a breakup. He talks about that period...

Tenzin Kelsang is a Tibetan cinematographer and colorist based in Mumbai who has spent five years working his way into the Indian film industry, shooting music videos, short films, and commercial projects while building his craft from the ground up.

We talk about what it's actually like being a Tibetan in Bollywood, how he learned to stop saying yes to everything and nearly burned out doing it, and why he eventually stopped editing his own work to protect his creative energy. Tenzin breaks down color grading, guerrilla shooting, and the real difference between beginners who overthink and...

Jinsel is the founder of KHOE, a Tibetan streetwear brand based in Delhi rooted in Tibetan art, symbols, and silhouettes. He spent three years in a corporate IT job before quitting to build something of his own, starting with almost nothing and learning everything from sewing to manufacturing on the way.

We talk about why he chose fashion as a vehicle for cultural preservation, how he survived months of zero sales without giving up, and what it actually means to have a USP when you're building a brand from scratch. Jinsel also breaks down the content creation...

Lopsang Soepa is a Tibetan comic artist and muralist from Arunachal Pradesh who left college to pursue art, moved to Bangalore to train, and is now working on an eight-part comic series rooted in Tibetan folk tales and Buddhist stories. He also paints murals in Dharamshala's Mcleod Ganj, turning forgotten alleyways into conversations about Tibetan history and culture.

We talk about why he started the comics, what it took to finally release an imperfect first issue, and the chaos of working with Indian print factories while juggling commissions, murals, and language courses in Nepal. Lopsang is honest...

Aniq Malu is a fitness coach and endurance athlete based in Ireland who went from barely running 1km to training friends for half marathons. He lost his dad at a young age, grew up with a single mother, and has been doing the hard work of proving that little boy wrong ever since.

We talk about the valley of despair, why most dreams die in the middle and not at the start, and what it actually means to be persistent versus just busy. Aniq breaks down why intrinsic motivation is the only thing that keeps you going...

Sonam Dendup is a Bhutanese introvert who spent 25 years living on autopilot before deciding to do something hard. He started a clothing brand rooted in Tibetan Buddhism and Bhutanese cultural heritage, designing pieces inspired by the mask dances, temple motifs, and stories he grew up with.

We talk about what it actually takes to start something when you overthink everything, how introverts can use their sensitivity as a strength, and why keeping promises to yourself is the only way to build real confidence. Sonam shares how stacking small evidence, one kept promise at a time, changed his...

Mouad Bennali is a cybersecurity specialist from Morocco who has spent the last few years building a deep understanding of AI, automating his own workflows, and teaching his growing audience how to actually use AI properly. He runs a weekly Substack newsletter sharing what he learns as he goes.

We get into why 90% of people are using AI wrong, the difference between thinking with AI versus thinking for you, and which tools are actually worth paying for. Mouad breaks down how he starts every morning with a custom automation that scrapes trending AI news tailored to his...

Daniel Cuttle is a 21-year-old British content creator and boxer building his YouTube channel around fighting, self-belief, and living life on his own terms. He got lucky-dip selected to fight in a KSI video, refused to stop, and walked away with no prize money and a story worth telling.

We get into what fighting actually teaches you about handling stress, why he thinks every man should step in a ring at least once, and how he went from burnout to outsourcing his editing and scaling his output. Daniel also shares his $5 million affirmation, his take on manifestation...

Joachim Badejoh is a growth partner and digital nomad who has been running his agency remotely for five years, helping e-commerce brands and online coaches scale through ads and full-funnel optimization. He's also a new dad figuring out what location freedom looks like with a family.

We talk about the real cost of shiny object syndrome, what 18 months of severe anxiety taught him about letting go, and why the thing that was always working was right in front of him the whole time. Joachim also opens up about his recent ADHD diagnosis and how finally understanding his...

Tenzin Jangchup grew up as a Tibetan refugee in Manali, India, moved to Belgium as a teenager, and went on to fly with Qatar Airways for three years across 50+ countries. He's now the owner of Amma Tibetan Mom's Kitchen in Bruges, a restaurant built around authentic Tibetan food, family, and the immigrant story behind it all.

We talk about what it actually took to get the Qatar Airways job, what traveling that much does to the way you see people, and why he chose to open a Tibetan restaurant when everyone told him it wouldn't make money.<...

Dominic is a biohacker and digital nomad living at Network School, a "society as a service" experiment built by Balaji Srinivasan on an island next to Singapore. We get into what it's actually like to live there, why he left Europe, and how the community is built around aligned people, shared meals, and no decision fatigue.

We go deep on biohacking. Dominic walks through his microbiome experiment, growing Lactobacillus reuteri at home in a yogurt maker and drinking it daily for gut health and mood. We cover omega-3, vitamin D dosing based on blood tests, and why...

Aniq spent 10 years going to the gym with nothing to show for it. Inconsistent, stuck in cycles, starting on Monday and quitting by Friday. Then he got a coach. Nine months later, everything changed — his body, his energy, his mindset, and eventually his whole direction in life.

Now he coaches others through the same process. This conversation is about what discipline actually looks like when the motivation runs out.

We get into:

Why adherence — not the perfect program — is the only word that matters in fitness How going all in from zero is the fa...

Yassin is 22 years old, studying the hardest master's specialization he could choose, building apps on the side, learning Japanese without a translator, and praying twice every single day for two things: to become a multi-millionaire before 25, and to figure out how before the end of this semester.

This is one of the most honest conversations on the show. Yassin doesn't perform. He thinks out loud.

We get into:

Why he grew up feeling less than everyone around him — and how that became the root of everything How Japan changed him at a cellular le...

Standly grew up in Cameroon. He moved to Cyprus, then back to Cameroon, then to Belgium — alone, no family nearby, working an 11-hour student job, editing videos at midnight, going to the gym before anyone else is awake.

He started his content creation journey the day Tenzin told him: if you want to make me happy, just record one video today. He did it that night. This conversation is about what happened after.

We get into:

Why he started his self-improvement journey after a breakup and a difficult period with his documents in Be...

Samm grew up on an island in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, where his grandfather taught him to farm, the fishermen gave free fish to anyone who helped, and the ocean was 150 meters from the front door. That upbringing shaped everything.

In his late twenties, a doctor told his family he wouldn't survive. They didn't tell him. He found out six years later. By then, he had already rebuilt his life from the ground up — through farming, community, and a philosophy he lives by to this day: kindness will win.

This is one of the most human co...

Pjotr grew up in Amsterdam feeling like the black sheep. While his friends were partying and smoking weed, he was working out, reading, and building something. He started posting his transformation online, people responded, and a business was born.

He's 22 years old and already coaching entrepreneurs on fat loss, muscle gain, and the mindset behind both.

We get into:

Why he felt like he never belonged growing up — and how that became his biggest strength How his morning routine of ice baths, sunlight, breathwork, and meditation sets him up every single day Why he...

Sofia grew up in Thailand, got into the hardest high school in the country, earned a full scholarship to study aerospace engineering in South Korea, landed a job in Milan, moved to Los Angeles with nothing but ambition, and helped grow a shoe company from $1,000 a day to $1 million a day — before it sold for $2.5 billion.

She describes herself in three words: entrepreneur mind, athlete body, artist soul. This conversation earns all three.

We get into:

Why she turned down USC and moved to South Korea on a full scholarship instead How a fa...