In this episode Juan Pablo Quiñonez, winner of the ninth season of the survival TV series ‘Alone,’ shares his unique approach to wilderness survival, resilience, and embracing adversity. Raised in Guadalajara, Mexico, and trained with the French Foreign Legion, Juan Pablo discusses his journey from a love for nature to surviving solo for 78 days in the subarctic lands of Labrador. The conversation delves into his strategic decisions during the show, such as fasting and drinking unboiled water, and the broader philosophies of resilience, leadership, and the interconnectedness of life. Juan Pablo also talks about his current project, starting a homestead, and his upcoming book that explores the meta-crisis facing our civilization.
Episode Highlights:
07:03 Survival Challenges and Strategies
32:12 The Illusion of Goals and Fulfillment
33:43 The Importance of Process Over Goals
41:28 Compassion and Empathy in Survival
50:18 Navigating Complex Problems with Love
Juan Pablo Quiñonez is a survival specialist and outdoor professional with over 10 years of experience in outdoor recreation and survival. He holds a Bachelor of Applied Ecotourism and Outdoor Leadership.
His outdoor and survival experiences include backpacking the entire Pacific Crest Trail (2650 mi) in 99 days; paddling over 1,500 miles during numerous whitewater and flatwater trips (including the Hayes River to Hudson Bay); living for six months in the wild with his partner, Jennifer Ford, foraging to complement their semi-starvation rations; and spending 100 days foraging in solitude during the boreal winter (supported only by small rations); and being a participant in Season 9 of the hit survival series Alone.
He is the author of Thrive: Long-Term Wilderness Survival Guide
You can learn more here: jpquinonez.com
Episode Transcript:
00:32
Acta Non Verba is a Latin phrase that means actions, not words. If you want to know what somebody truly believes, don’t listen to their words, instead observe their actions. I’m Marcus Aurelius Anderson, and my guest today truly embodies that phrase. Juan Pablo Quinonez is a neurodivergent
01:03
Mettizo Latino that’s been ruminating for over a decade on the predicaments of modernity and civilization He was the winner of the ninth season of the survival TV series alone And if you haven’t seen it by all means go check it out Just an incredible series and his performance was tremendous After surviving solo for 78 days in the subarctic lands of Labrador He literally wrote the book on long-term survival, which I highly recommend for everybody is thrive
01:30
Long-term wilderness survival guides, skills, tips, and gear for living on the land. So this is not based on something that he saw on YouTube. He actually lived this and he’s given you the secrets there. His areas of expertise are resilience, metacrisis, polycrisis, collapse, and wilderness survival. Juan Pablo, man, thank you so much for taking the time. This has been a long time coming and I appreciate you spending time with us today. How are you doing, my friend? Yeah, thank you very much, Marcus, for the opportunity.
01:59
Just immediately I feel a really good vibe with these conversations. Yeah, I do too. It’s not fair because I’ve seen so much footage of you, so I feel like I know who you are. But this is the first time we’re connecting, so to speak, on a video. And as I told you before we hit record, my wife and I were just, you were like our front runner from the beginning. It was like, man, I hope this guy does it. So it’s fantastic. But when people see your name and they hear your accent.
02:29
You don’t really sound like you’re from Labrador, Canada. No, I was born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico. I lived there for 19 years and then started moving around. What made you want to move around? So in Mexico, most of my childhood was next to a forest. And, and I, I caught somehow the like adventure bug.
02:58
I would always want to go and spend time in nature. And I was fascinated by survival and TV shows, like Stevie Wynn and just catch snakes and lizards and things like that. So somehow I saw always myself as like a warrior and adventure type of guy. And one of the first things I did was I had a two way plane ticket and
03:27
flew to France to join the French foreign religion. And I did basic training there and became an opportunist in the DCM rep. But then I realized that that was not what I wanted at the time. So I decided to turn careers, I guess. So after that, I went to Canada.
03:57
because earlier, like I, I’ve had the privilege to have an exchange in high school where I spent like a semester in a university in Canada. So like I looked at the website of that university and then I saw a career that I did that really resonated with me.
04:23
So I decided to go study there and I studied ecotourism and outdoor leadership. So it’s like one of the best careers you can have in Univerter cities. A lot of fun, like lots of camping and mountaineering and backpacking and things like that canoeing. So it really, it’s just like basically a love affair with like adventure in nature and just continuing from there. Yeah, that’s incredible. I, I remember.
04:53
being in nature a little bit when I was younger. I’m 52, I’m an old man, but I never had the same connection to it as quickly as you did. And it sounds like sometimes if we’re blessed to kind of find that thing at an early age and we’re able to just maintain it, even you where you had this sort of love, this affinity, and then you did the French foreign legion thing to see what adventure looked like. And you’re like, the adventure component of wilderness is what I want, not just this adventure of.
05:24
getting yelled at, doing pushups, jumping out of airplanes and doing things like that. So was there any hesitation because there’s a lot of people listening to us now that, first of all, they don’t have that big thing that they really want to do. And plus they’re probably on their phone or on the internet all the time. So they’re distracted all the time. So they never have that time for introspection to find out what means something to them. But for you, you just looked up Canada and you were like, this is what I want to do.
05:53
You just went for it. Was there any trepidation on your part to do that? I guess I’ve always had a, a willingness to get out of my comfort zone and just jump into the adventure. And I don’t know if this is a more recent thing in my life, but I feel like most of the time I may jump into things without like being thinking them too, too much. Not, not in a way that it’s impulsive, but in a way of like, I’m not.
06:22
my mind is not being in that future where, oh, I’m going to be in this position. So I’m not getting anxious about that thing in the future or, or second guessing it or whatever. I’m just like, right now I’m here. Then I’m going to be there. And once I’m there, I’m going to be there. Yeah. So yeah, I just jumped. I was familiar with Canada, so I loved it like just the wilderness here is amazing.
06:50
Yeah, the nature, it’s just breathtaking. So yeah, there was no much hesitation coming here. And right away I was like, yeah, this place is amazing and I wanna be here. I love that. And so for those that haven’t seen Alone, it is an intense, you’re by yourself, you get 10 items and you’re out in the elements, you’re out in some of the most brutal environment out there. What got you to wanna be on there? And did you think that
07:19
this was something that would be an adventure or did you say, you know, I think I can win this thing. Was any of that in your mind when you tried to sign up for it or put in your application? So before, actually, before going into university, I, I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, which is 2,610 miles, I believe. Wow. And goes from, from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. And just like,
07:49
goes through many beautiful places in the United States. So that was one of my first long-term trips. And it took 99 days. And then after university, I started to do long canoe trips. My wife, Jennifer, at the time she wasn’t my wife, but she had this dream of doing a paddle in this river. So…
08:18
We did that trip that was like 25 days long. We had to learn on the go basically to do remote trips with a white water component. So it’s like very challenging and it’s risky. I’m definitely outside our comfort zone at the time. So after that, we went into the forest for six months.
08:47
with basically the equipment that we had taken on that other canoe trip and like six buckets full of dry food. So enough to not starve to death, but also not enough that we can just sit back and relax and just make it a camping trip. So after that experience taught me a lot about wilderness survival, obviously.
09:17
It was very difficult. Lots of lessons were learned. Lots of insights about ourselves and about civilization. And then after that, I decided that I also wanted to, because basically here in Canada, there’s basically two seasons. It’s like, it’s the summer and it’s the winter. Like those are the extremes. And…
09:48
I wanted to have an experience in the winter. So I decided to do a hundred day trip solo because my partner, I wish my partner came with me, but she wasn’t going for it. So, okay. That’s a long time. Yeah. And in the winter. So, and the winters here are no joke. Yeah. So I decided to go on these.
10:14
trip and almost same strategy, like what I call semi-starvation rations. And I snowshoot in with pulling a sled and stay in the wilderness, like far away from anyone else. No rescue team for a hundred days, just surviving and having those experiences.
10:43
I saw the show alone. Actually before going into my winter trip, I already was aware that there was this reality TV show or survival. So I had applied and then I applied after the trip because I wasn’t seeking the experience. Although I did wanna go on an adventure like that without Rations as a backup.
11:13
But obviously it’s a little bit more hardcore because it’s very difficult to do it by yourself. It’s kind of much better if you have a safety team which could extract you. So for me, that seemed like a good thing. That like it was suitable to do the alone stuff. And I really, really wanted to win. So I thought I had a big chance of winning and I, yeah.
11:41
I thought I had what it takes and with a couple, with a little bit of luck, I could do it, I think. So you’d already put yourself through many adversity trials by fire to get to that place. And I love that you have that idea of 100 days because even for what happened to you in your mind, you’re thinking about 100 days. I remember you saying those things, you know, mentally that’s where you were at. So if it’s less than 100 days, you’re golden. And if it is 100 days or even further, hey, you’re already here. You’ve already endured it.
12:12
Why not just see if he can go a few more days, right? Yeah. So I love the fact that you did it. You did survival your way. We talk about caloric expenditure and time and energy. And you did some things that were the first thing that you didn’t do, which kind of blew my mind, was you just got water right out of the lake. And you just started sipping it. And you said, yeah, I’ve been doing this for a while, and my stomach’s strong.
12:41
When did you start doing that and how did you kind of walk yourself into being able to just drink water right from a wild source that may or may not have some sort of parasites in it that may make a bad trip for you? Yeah. I think as a kid, I probably had quite a few bouts of like getting sick from water, I think. And not just from water, but as like hygiene and stuff.
13:08
like that. I remember very early, like a baby or just a toddler, just having that stuff. So to me, there wasn’t any fear anymore about that stuff because I lived through all those stuff as a kid. And in Mexico, if you eat street food, you always know that it can be like a gamble. But it’s not a big deal, honestly, in Mexico, that kind of stuff.
13:38
I come from a culture that I guess is less risk averse than the culture here in Canada and in the United States. And I’m not saying one is better than the other, but it’s just, it’s good to have both perspectives. And from my career, I’ve learned on the risk management side of things that you always have to think about the risk reward equation. Not always think about it, but it’s good to think about that.
14:07
especially in survival and see what the benefits are, what the risks are. And it’s very situational context. And in that moment, I thought, you know what, it’s better to go with the risk and get the benefit of not having to boil my water and not having to worry about these. And just trusting my body too. I think that’s powerful. Like just having that trust of, you know what, I think even though I may not be as strong in this situation, I think.
14:36
I have enough strength in my body that it will be able to deal with it. I think that’s the beauty and the power of resilience, self-fortitude, strength. And I think it’s important because, as you’re saying, when we get stronger, when we have resilience, it emboldens us to be able to do these other things. Because we know that if we fall down, we can pick ourselves up, or it may be uncomfortable, but it doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. But what else does it do? It builds this self-knowledge, this self-awareness.
15:05
And now it helps us. Now, if I’m strong, I can help somebody else that’s fallen down. Now, if I’m resilient, my demonstration of resilience empowers them. It’s like an example of leadership, right? Financially, if I’m financially strong and I’m wise, I can help somebody else who’s in a predicament, whether it be family, friends, or whatever it is. So resilience is never a weakness, but we have to understand how to temper it in these other aspects of our lives as well. Yeah.
15:34
Yeah, I think people just see it as a one-dimensional thing. They don’t see all the other aspects that go with it. And I think that your experience absolutely gives you a lot of insights to all these other facets, to how powerful it can be in these other areas. It’s always a balance and a dance. It’s always fluid. So there’s this saying, there’s no rules in survival. There’s no hard rules.
16:02
guiding principles, but there’s not such thing as a rigid rule. So it’s important to know that and that likely transfers to many other areas. And like you said, now that emboldened you because you didn’t have to drink, you didn’t have to worry about boiling your water. You only lit a fire, I believe, once or twice during the entire season. And the last one was because you had to get some water boiled because they had the med check that was coming in. You’re like, I got to get hydrated.
16:32
I did boil water whenever, sorry, I used fires to cook and boil water, but like very, very occasionally. I know that fires can be very comforting, especially in the cold, like very, very comforting. But then you just buy the fire and you’re basically just feeding that comfort.
17:02
spot and just staying in that comfort spot. So it’s like a, it’s a tricky situation. And I think if you have the ability, like in that case, I have really good clothing and just very well experienced in cold conditions. So I just knew that it wasn’t really necessary to have the fire. So less, less work cutting firewood and
17:31
I didn’t have to deal with that temptation of being in the comfort zone there. I like that perspective. Like you said, that comfort almost weakens us because if you’ve been in the cold and you’ve been warm, when you have to go back into the cold again, it feels that much more like a slap in the face. It’s like, oh my God, it’s really cold now. Well, if you were just used to it and you were in it the whole time, it wouldn’t feel as dramatic. But when you had the warmth of that fire and then you have to get out in the morning, it’s like, oh man, it’s cold as hell out here. Yeah, it’s pretty amazing.
18:00
If you are really used to the cold, like there’s physiological changes that make you more able to deal with it, like especially like the hands, you get more circulation. Yeah, it’s nicer to be just, let’s just be permanently in the cold and just get completely adapted instead of half adapted to it. And going back and forth just, yeah, I think it’s an alternative but wide approach.
18:29
Yeah, when you’re going back and forth, your pain is self-chosen, you’re doing it, and now just making it hard on yourself every time. And that comes to that third point that you did, which near the end, you know, everything had frozen over and getting food was hard. And so you made this intellectual leap and you said, okay, I could try to, you know, take in a few calories, 500 calories here, 500 calories there, but that’s going to literally just make me hungry. It’s going to mess my blood sugar up.
18:57
So you just made the conscious decision to say, so I’m going to just drink a lot of water and fast and stay warm. And that was around, that was around day 50 something. Is that right? I don’t know which day it was. I was gonna say, yeah. It’s all a blur, but what happened was that at one point in time, like I had a lot of fish suddenly. Like I fished a few fish and.
19:26
Now in hindsight, it’s easier to understand what was going on. Maybe at the time it’s not that easy, but I had a lot of fish and because of that, like feast, famine cycle, it kind of like messed up with my stomach. And just like, I just had this intuition of, you know, what, after these features, take it easy, like, why don’t you try fasting? Because, and yeah, of course that the lack of
19:56
availability of food was a huge component of that. But it was this whole situation that conspired into me just following my intuition of, you know what, this might be the time too fast, even though it goes counter to what most people do. And your ego might say, oh no, you’re just going to, people will say that you’re giving up.
20:24
you’re not doing the things that you should be doing, but I was able to put my ego to the side a little bit and just be like, okay.
20:38
The task is this, the task is staying as long as I can. What is more appropriate according to this task? And then I just did it, like just know what I wanna do or whatever, but just do what it’s according, appropriate. So I responded to this situation and the perspective of making it fast instead of, yeah, I’m gonna catch a squirrel here, I’m gonna catch a grouse there.
21:06
but I’m gonna spend a lot of effort into doing that. At the same time, that perspective of this is a decision, it’s in my hands, I can choose when to stop this fast. In a way, it was empowering. It’s not a victim mentality, it’s more of a, this is what I can do and it seems appropriate and I’m following my intuition and my reasoning. So I think it’s good.
21:35
I think it took like tremendous courage to follow that. There are times in our lives I think it will reflect that we’ll know what the right thing is or maybe we’ll have an insight that you had which again it sounds counterintuitive but when you trust yourself enough, you believe in yourself enough and you have this resilience you’re like this is what I’m going to do. But I think a lot of people don’t have the courage to follow through when it really counts and they talk themselves out of it. And then…
22:04
Because of that, they lose huge opportunities. And for you, just saying this is what I’m going to do, making the decision and committing to it, a lot of times in life, it seems like all the decisions are hard, no matter what we choose. But I have found that once I make a decision and I don’t give myself any other choice, that becomes the right decision simply because I’m giving it 100%. There’s no other way around it. And that gives me that belief. And all of a sudden,
22:33
In hindsight, we look back and it’s like, that was the right decision at that moment because I was able to believe in it, believe in myself and push through. And that’s what I saw in you doing that. It was pretty incredible to see. Yeah. It kind of is like that decision was, it’s kind of like you, you can leave your life second guessing. The thing is, we’ll never be sure about anything. Like truly, truly sure if you’re honest with yourself.
23:03
There’s always, I think, it’s never 100%. It’s 99.99%, no? And you can live your life just with regret and second guessing, or it can be simpler to just, big decisions might be just, okay, this is what I feel at the time, this is what I believe, and just going into it. And in hindsight, it’s likely gonna be that
23:34
That was perhaps the only thing you could do. Like you were doing the best and why stab yourself again with regrets or second guessing? Yeah, it’s hard enough to make the decision. Why beat ourselves up after the fact and the process? Because like you said, even stuff that is 99% about to happen, there’s still that 1% that it may not. And if we just beat ourselves up for the rest of our lives, what happens? Now we lose resilience. Now we’re a victim.
24:00
Now we’re afraid to take any sort of challenge, any kind of thing to get us out of our comfort zone. And then we live this life of quiet desperation. Would you say that this is the most difficult, like would you say that this challenge was the biggest adversity that you ever faced in your life? Well, it’s interesting because things make a lot of sense. Like if my goal is to win and I really feel on it.
24:26
There’s no, like, yeah, the situation is pretty straightforward. It’s a very simple task in a way. It’s, it’s, it’s difficult, but it’s, it’s straightforward. It’s just do these, stay as long as you can. But I think when I spent six months in the bush, I think that was a little bit harder because there wasn’t this straightforward component. There was, I mean, we just talked about it, but there’s a little bit of doubt there.
24:56
is because then why are you doing this? Like it’s not as easy to say, oh, well I’m doing this because I may win this show. It’s like, no, I’m doing this for growth, to learn about myself and to learn about nature. But it’s very hard to keep that objective. So there’s more doubt. So I think…
25:26
that component that it wasn’t that straightforward. I think that that was more difficult. I love that you kind of talked about the idea of the money is nice, but that’s not why you were on the show. You were looking at this as a challenge for yourself. Maybe in some ways it kind of demonstrate to yourself that you could do this, kind of be at this level, this caliber. And then the other powerful thing is you got to show other people, just like you’re saying.
25:54
Hey, if you want to go a different direction, you can. If you don’t want to make a fire, you can. If you want to drink water right out of the lake, go ahead. If you’ve done the work to get there, you don’t have to follow what everybody else says. And I think that that’s what, again, that’s what gave you that advantage. That’s what separated you from everyone else. I can only imagine how many thousands and thousands of calories you saved by not going out. Like you said, even if you go out and hunt a grouse or a squirrel or get a fish,
26:24
the amount of calories, the amount of time, you’re field dressing that thing, now you have to make a fire, now you have to cook it. So like you said, the net benefit to risk, so to speak, you’re like, no, I’m okay. And I think that that’s powerful. So a lot of people now may be going through hardship, something that they’re facing that’s hard. When you’re in that place and you’re facing something that’s difficult, like the most difficult thing you’ve had to face and you have doubt.
26:50
What’s going on? Like, what is your internal narrative? What’s the conversation like in your head? How do you keep yourself going? What do you say to yourself to keep moving forward? What advice would you give them to kind of keep going if they’re facing something that’s the most difficult thing they’ve ever faced, maybe? So, yeah, it’s hard because I think that I might overlap, but right now, I’m not saying this is the most difficult that I’m doing, but right now I’m doing something difficult because…
27:20
I’m trying to start a homestead. So basically we bought a piece of land that’s completely wild and just cut some trees, put a tiny house, build some cabin, build a workshop. And ideally we want to start a community, which if you’re honest about what this means, it’s difficult, especially right now it’s just my wife and I.
27:50
So there’s a lot of challenge and I think it’s important to know why you’re doing things. Like knowing your why. And if you’re doing things for other people without taking yourself into consideration, I think that is just going to burn you out. I think there needs to be a you component and another component.
28:20
they go together. So it’s very important to know that. I think if you focus on outcomes, if you want something because it’s gonna lead you lead to something else, to a benefit or whatever, I think that is not the most solid ground to be in. It might be better to be accepting of what you’re doing and to, or to just enjoy it, do what you’re doing.
28:49
do beyond outcomes just for either the enjoyment or because it’s an expression of who you are. So I think that that kind of that is a good guiding force when you’re going through difficult times. I don’t know how much I want to go into like tips and practical stuff. I mean your books full of them if that’s what people are looking for right? They get this. And for real like you.
29:17
It’s all in there like from the beginning from gear understanding the topography everything so I mean whatever tips you have That’s fine, but we can go whatever you want to wherever direction you want to go with us one thing that we’re talking about it’s like Not being afraid of going your own ways Like there I wasn’t I wasn’t afraid of not having a fire just because everyone else and alone have had fires Like most of the time right, but I wasn’t aware
29:47
afraid of doing things my own way and…
29:51
I think we live in a time where it’s important to listen to ourselves and not just listen to others or to the outer world, but to balance it with an inner component, an introspection and knowing of yourself and how you function. I don’t know where I was going to go with that.
30:21
I think I understand where you’re going with it. And I think also, there’s no better place to be able to hear what you really believe or what your intuition is than when you’re away from cell phones and Wi-Fi and you’re in nature because all the facades and all the stuff that we thought was important, that doesn’t really matter when you’re out there and you’re cold or you’re trying to figure out do I fast now or do I just try to get some more food?
30:50
I think in today’s society, there’s not enough hardship that people embrace. And because they don’t go try to embrace something that makes them grow, if they don’t try to embrace something that makes them grow that’s outside of their comfort zone, as you were saying, there’s no way for them to get better. If we go back and we look, any hardship that we’ve had, even if it sucks at the time, on the other side of it, we look back and we say,
31:17
Like if you hadn’t done all the things you had done, you wouldn’t be the man that I’m speaking to now. You wouldn’t have had the courage and belief in yourself to drink water like that, that you don’t need a fire, that you can fast if you decide to. And if you wanna get food after that, you can. I mean, those things were counterintuitive, but yet you understood who you were. And back to your idea of having that you component and somebody else, how many times do we see it where somebody will work really hard?
31:43
And they’ll claim they’re doing it for their partner, their wife, their kids, their family, their business, because they have that end goal in mind, but then it’s not for them. And sometimes that creates like this resentment, this friction, right? And now you’re like, I’m doing this for everybody else, but nobody else cares that I’m going through this hardship. Is that kind of what you’re talking about? Yeah. The resentment part was like completely what resonated.
32:12
you can have these goals for other people. And then you, through the challenges and the hardships, you’re just cultivating resentment. Or if it’s for a goal, there’s this idea that the goal is going to bring you happiness, or it’s going to bring you contentment or whatever fulfillment. But that might not be the case.
32:41
It may not be the goal that you’re really looking for. But it can be a blessing sometimes to get those goals fulfilled. And then you realize, like, home, this is not really what I was looking for. And I feel like in my life, I’ve had that a lot of, like, I’m working hard for something, and I achieve it. And then I’m like, well, this is not.
33:09
what I’m looking for or this is not what I thought it was going to be. She’s yeah, the grass is always greener on the other side. Like, and I feel maybe many people might not get their goals fulfilled. And then they’re like, oh, once, once I get it, I think things are going to be better or whatever. And to an extent it’s true, but they saw it partially true. Yeah. In my case, I think I’ve had so many goals that I fulfilled and I’m like,
33:38
I’m being blessed to realize like, yeah, sometimes like just going for goals is not, it’s like, it’s a hard lesson to learn. But I feel like I’ve learned it. Yeah, we think that at the other side of the goal or making this amount of money or doing whatever that goal is for us, we think that’s going to change us from the person that we are and that now whatever problems or resentment or frictions we have in our life will be gone. But just like you’re saying, the process is everything.
34:07
The process of what you did to get prepared to be on a loan was everything. The process of this trusting yourself mentally, listening to what’s really true and not lying to yourself to make yourself be comfortable was everything. Again, to see you doing it in real time in a very austere environment. That’s why it really, what you did really resonated with me because I could tell that you weren’t trying to, again, even with the fire mentality,
34:36
man, it’s better to just, if you’re going to be cold, it’s better to just stay cold. If you’re going to fast, it’s better to just be in that place. Going back and forth creates unnecessary pain every time and you have to just keep experiencing it the whole time. And so I think that in today’s society, we are going from, you know, dopamine hits on social media to, you know, this food that’s not good for me because it gives me this, the sugar high or whatever it is, but that’s fleeting at best. And then we end up feeling
35:07
worse when we’re done with it. If we could actually just be honest about what would it fulfill me. I can’t tell you how many people I know that have big businesses that have this huge goal and they make it and now they feel empty or that wasn’t what they wanted. And so in their mind, well, I have to double what that was. It’s like, why don’t you step back and say, what the hell do you feel empty about? What would make you excited? What would give you something that we actually drive you? There was no like dollar figure attached to it.
35:37
And I think that a lot of people are afraid to even trust themselves enough to consider that. Yeah, I completely agree with what you’re saying. And so, as we were saying before, we were talking about your first book was tremendous, but you’re working on the second book right now. What are the reflections that you’re having with it as you’re continuing to start kind of unpack this material? And why is this resilience that we have so important, not just for us, but…
36:06
for the rest of the world to get stronger, to heal, to be able to be in this place where we can move forward in a way that’s sustainable, if you will. Yeah, after writing that book, I’ve just been just trying to connect to my intuition, to myself, the world around me. And then I had this calling, I have this calling where I am being attracted to
36:34
respond to the situation that’s happening. I see big shifts coming in the horizon, like economical, ecological, social, very challenging. So that’s why I feel that Brazilians is so important because it’s already very important right now, but I feel it’s gonna be increasingly important.
37:03
as we move forward. So I guess the way we connect this with their leadership and resilience here is that like survival is all about individual person making it out. And once you look what it takes to be prepared and to be resilient as a person, then you realize that it doesn’t end there. There’s no resilience as a person. There’s resilience as a group.
37:32
So like true resilience is more broad, it’s more holistic. So just thinking about that, I cannot think about, oh, I just wanna be resilient, I’m gonna have my own homestead and be self-sufficient. I think it’s important for sure, I don’t wanna minimize that. But I think that that is just but a component of a larger group and without that larger outer
38:02
component, then it’s not true resilience. It’s not being honest to yourself. And I think that the way we respond to these challenges, it is key to have inner work alongside outer work, because I cannot just start, how do I make the world more resilient without first going inside me and
38:32
knowing what takes me, sorry, what makes me tick, what, who I am, what is my place in this world. So writing this book, I’ve just followed my intuition. I’ve just like, let myself just be free to explore many areas and I did some inner work as part of the book. So I think I…
38:58
I did research and then I tried to distill some of the insights from many perspectives. And I think that a very, very powerful insight is the insight of intervening. People think that, my thing sometimes that we can be in a vacuum, like we can have self-sufficiency for instance. But the reality is that…
39:27
There’s no such thing as an individual. Everything is interconnected. And we’re completely interdependent with the sun, with the water, with the air, with each other. And that’s so obvious when you’re in an environment like alone. You cannot allow yourself to be sick or break a leg in that environment because you’re
39:57
So that’s why you cannot exist as an individual really in the long term. And like operating from that interbeing mindset, then you can start to understand how karma operates. So I see if everything is interrelated and my thoughts, my speech, my actions, they spread my who I am. That just gets, there’s an interplay of.
40:27
of me with the outer world. So if you explore that concept that we are completely interrelated and then you start to follow in karma, you realize that like, basically, we are co-creating reality all the time. I think it’s very important to realize this stuff because in survival there’s this awareness that you have to have. You have to be aware of the situation because
40:55
If you’re not paying attention, you are going to miss important clues that may make your situation much worse or might be for your benefit. So you have to have full awareness of stuff. And part of that awareness is realizing all these things that the things that we are doing have consequences. There’s reactions. There’s an interplay all the time. And I think when you start to understand these…
41:24
then you can really gain compassion. I think that compassion arises from being able to understand how things are interrelated and how being able to have a deep empathy, which to me, deep empathy is like being able to put yourself into the shoes of someone else and then just really, really understanding where you’re coming from.
41:53
and how they got there and what are the things acting in that individual. So all these things I think are very, very important to have like this insights and practices are important to have as we go into these more difficult situation. So yeah, I’m just sharing these insights because it’s what I’ve been researching and learning.
42:21
I’m dealing, I’m trying to address a bit of the meta crisis, which is, it’s kind of like this conjunction of crisis that are reinforcing each other in many aspects, like economic, ecological, social, et cetera. So I’m trying to have a holistic approach and I feel it’s very important to have this inner component.
42:49
I think many people feel like their brains inside a body, like the body is the vehicle and you’re just the brain. And to me this is easy to see because I was that, like totally. I believe I’m neurodivergent. I believe I’m autistic. I do not have a certificate.
43:18
say that and in in autism most artists that are like older they didn’t get diagnosed as a kid they understand that most likely if you research enough you can tell like let’s say 80 percent accuracy that you are autistic so I think I’m autistic and I’ve been that extreme of just being my brain mind over body kind of person and
43:48
And sometimes when you’re in those extremes, it’s easier to realize, oh, this is not the case. So I think a lot of problems that we have right now are due to people not being able to connect with their emotions, their bodies, their pain, their grief. And again, this ties into awareness. If you’re not aware of your own sensations, your own emotions, then you’re not seeing the full picture, I think. You’re missing important clues.
44:19
And in survival, it’s funny because I remember before going into alone, talking to some other contestant and I was like, in some ways you have to.
44:33
to let go of your ego when you’re in a survival situation, because you just have to go with the flow. Basically, you would respond to the circumstances. But at the same time, you cannot just let go of the ego, because if you’re in the snow, you’re not just one with the universe. You’re gonna be one with the universe, like in 30 minutes, you know? Yes.
45:03
So it’s a balance. So I realized that in some ways to do this inner work and respond to these bigger challenges, we have to, in a way, dethrone the ego because right now it’s just at the apex of the pyramid in most of us. And if we can put it in its appropriate place, because we will never get rid of it. That’s part of us. But…
45:30
I see it like the mind, the thinking mind, the grasping mind is, it’s but another aspect of us. It’s kind of like a tool and if we just let the tool rule of our lives, it’s not a very good idea. So I feel it’s good to balance it with intuition, with like being in the body and and I think a lot of problems are just because we are we are letting the ego just rule us. I think to address this
46:00
To be more resilient, we have to look at our individual shadows and our collective shadows. So, like, our… What is not in our focal awareness, our unconscious. So, really look at what we project when we accuse someone, when we judge someone. What is what we’re projecting that says stuff about ourselves. I think this is a very important part of healing.
46:30
And what we’re not aware of collectively, like all the ways in which the beliefs of people are interacting with other people. So it’s basically, our society is basically a cult of egos, many cults of many egos. So we have to realize this shadow if we wanna really heal as individuals and as a collective.
47:00
And then as another part of that inner work, I see expanding this sense of who we are because most of us, we just see for a long time, I’m just seeing that, oh, my world, my experience is just about me.
47:22
And once you really like start seeing that we are all interconnected and you see that mother is the boss and when you see that we’re basically in an interplay with everyone else. So you cannot just say that you are
47:48
You are just you because you are the breath, the air you breathe, you are the food you eat. You are the things you watch, you are the things you read. So you’re your interactions with everyone else. And I think a big component is getting out of that. I’m just me and going into, I’m something bigger than just me. Personally, I like to see myself of us.
48:18
as just a part of the world, as part of life and as part of all living beings. So the beauty of the ego is that it’s quite malleable actually. So it’s not what you want it to be. Like it can be something else. It doesn’t have to be static. It doesn’t have to be this or that. So that’s nice about it. And
48:45
Some people say like, oh, you should do inner work and then outer work, or, or you should do it at the same time. I think both is fine. I think that we are seeing lots of things. We’re not having a correct diagnosis of what is the, the root cause of what’s going on. Um, I think we, we like to reduce problems into like easy, simple solutions. And I think that that’s like, um,
49:13
when you see that there’s an easy solution for a problem that is quite large, I think that is, uh, that should be like a warning sign of that’s probably just a mental trap because problems right now are, are quite complex. And in fact, that, that reducing problems into simple variables, like that is
49:41
That is part of the problem. That is a big part of the problem. That is like, like the ego is just, oh, if you did these, this is cause and effect. And, and reality is not like that. It’s not simple to isolate a cause, isolate an effect. The variables like it’s quite complex. There’s so many variables and many of the problems are about complex systems.
50:11
So it’s a little bit unpredictable to know how to interact with them. So in this environment where things are a little bit complex, I believe that the best thing to do is to be true to what we bring up uniquely, because each of us has different nature and nurture.
50:42
we all have something to contribute. It’s not all bad. It’s not all good either, but we wanna highlight that good, that benefit that we can give. So I see a lot of influences in ourselves, in myself that are misguided. And I think the task is to be able to detach a little bit. And it’s kind of like,
51:13
that thinking brain, that what should happen, what we should do, that’s a little bit how things should be. I think that is a little bit of that obstacle to like that we need to remove so that what we truly bring in can shine through. Because in this book, I’m dealing with a very complex situation.
51:42
I’m trying to think, okay, how do you navigate this landscape? And many people have brought up that a good navigation aid is to try to act from love rather than from fear.
52:02
A nice exercise that I’ve learned a long time ago is like, every time we act or think or speak, we’re feeding a certain wolf, like there’s the love wolf and there’s the fear wolf. And which wolf do you want to have like a more stronger by your side, the love or the fear one. And sometimes when I’m in a situation or when I have to choose, when I’m…
52:31
I’m second guessing or I don’t know where to go. I try to be more conscious of these and choose love rather than fear. Because if you operate from fear, it is very likely that your actions are going to not be for the common good.
53:02
reality. They’re not helping the world be a better place, I don’t think. Most of the time. And either if you’re operating with, there’s no guarantees in life, or like if you operate from love, it’s all going to be good. But it’s more likely that for the common good, it’s more likely that it’s going to be what we all want to be. So another one that I’ve…
53:31
research is beauty. And obviously I’m talking about deep beauty, genuine beauty, not superficial. And again, what my actions, what my saying, my thinking is feeding this more beautiful world or is making the world more ugly. And these things are not intellectual. And I think that’s a big clue. It’s not about…
54:01
They’re not very ego-based. It’s more about a more holistic approach to interacting with life. And the other one that I like to be grounded is in the life force. I see in the world like a force that is a nothing. I don’t know how to call it, but it’s kind of like a void, a force of the void, a force of the nothingness.
54:31
And it’s not that it’s not the opposite of life. But I see this force and it’s the force that makes people renounce life. It’s the force that is making people choose, basically regretting being part of life. You know, it’s a dark force. And I think that life is…
55:00
a mystery. Life is like marvelous. Like, there’s just no way to understand or no need really of why there is life, how did it came to be. Like, this is all beyond any of our grasp. And it is a miracle. Like, we don’t need to look into space. We don’t need to look into stories.
55:30
Like just reality itself is a miracle and we’re not looking at it. We’re not seeing, um, the marvels. And you think it’s time to, to start living in the real world and see what, what truly matters. Yeah. Some other things that I was thinking about for, for letting that, I think to, to get the ego out of, out of its throne. I think it’s good to.
56:02
act beyond outcomes, to tap into joy, into doing things with, if not joy, at least an acceptance and a peace. That, yeah, you’re doing things for its own sake. And it’s a very hard concept because we’re so used to goal setting and outcomes. But I think that
56:31
many of the things we’re dealing with arise from that outcome mindset. And to get out of our own way, I think that’s how we get out of our own way. To wrap this all up about the inner and outer work, it’s like, this is all about just being more conscious that we all are creating, are co-creating our reality every day, every moment.
56:59
And we have to be just more conscious of that because we are directing the world. And we don’t know how exactly, but we are. We are all co-creating these realities. So it’s all, all it comes down to is just being aware of, you know what, you’re in this world, you’re co-creating it. You want it to make it more beautiful or ugly. And it does take work.
57:29
but it’s what we need right now. I agree with all that. I love all of that. There’s so many powerful points in it. And like you say, if we’re going to choose something that’s beauty, something that’s love from this place, oftentimes that’s going to be a harder path too. The easy path is usually self-centered. It’s usually not based out of love. It’s based out of fear or anger or what can I get? It’s not something beautiful. But if we condition ourselves to go for what’s convenient.
57:59
or what’s comfortable or what’s easy, that leads us down a certain path. Like you were saying too, we shouldn’t be surprised when we see adversity on the path, we should be surprised when we don’t. Because if the path in front of me is well maintained and kept, I don’t want to go down that path. I know that it’s not going to lead where I want to go. And like you said, having that acceptance, that radical acceptance, that gives us peace. And embracing that radical acceptance and that peace is what gives us joy.
58:29
Yes, it’s going to be hard, but I’m joyful because I know that secondary and tertiary response from that creates this karma, creates this co-creates this existence that we have. And now that makes your wife better, that makes your community better. And that slowly ebbs out everywhere else. If we take responsibility for every action, every breath, everything that we do and say, what I’m about to say or what I’m about to do or what I’m about to eat is either going to make.
58:58
the immediate world around me better or worse, it makes us make better decisions in my mind. But if we had this idea of, well, you know, I would do that. I know that’s what I should do, but I’m not going to do that right now because I’m too busy or I’m too stressed out or I’m too tired. And I think that’s the beauty of having that physical resilience. Because as you say, when we dethrone the ego and say, listen, if I have to do this thing, it doesn’t like nature is, you said that nature is neutral in here, which I love.
59:27
And that’s the truth. Like it doesn’t give a damn about our opinion. There are neither like rewards. There are not like punishments. There were simply repercussions to our, our actions or lack thereof in preparation. And when we take that into consideration for the rest of our life, it makes us take more accountability of who we are, what we’re doing. And now instead of chasing this, like you said, this goal, those are important. I understand that. But if all we face is that goal, all we’re thinking about.
59:56
Okay, did I get closer or not? Well, how did I feel as a human today? Did I feel love? Did I feel compassion? Because as you’re saying this inner work, if I go through hardship and somebody’s compassionate to me and that empathy comes through, that makes me wanna give it to other people. But if I’m going through hardship and people are just like, well, figure it out. It’s my decision at that point, like you said, with this inner work, that’s that person’s shadow projecting onto me.
01:00:24
But I still get to decide how I want to conduct myself in the face of this adversity. And the way I conduct myself in the face of adversity is an indication of how I will do everything else in my life. And I think dethroning the ego is what allows us to be able to see those realities, get out of our own head. We’re not that important. Everything else around us is important. How am I contributing to that? How am I making the place better? And if I’m not, maybe step back and say, why? What do I need to do?
01:00:51
What would have to be true for me to be able to do this thing? Or what worse has to happen before I start taking action? Maybe that’s what some people need. They need kind of that back against the wall mentality. Having no other choice. When there’s no other choice, the choice is simple, right? And sometimes that’s what we need. Yeah. Maybe that’s where I am. It’s like there’s no other choice. So the choice is simple. I think I know too much.
01:01:20
I think you’re navigating it well. I like that you talk about this idea of understanding, like in nature. Like I live in Oklahoma, so there’s tornadoes here all the time. So I have to have awareness. I don’t live in fear of it. But I have to be aware of it. If I just pick my fingers on my ears and say, la, la, la, la, when I can see a twister coming at me, that may give me short-term fulfillment or happiness. But in the long term, it’s going to not lead to what I want it to lead to. So.
01:01:51
It’s this ability in nature. What is it? There’s no real balance. It’s more about adapting well. It’s seamlessly adapting fluidly, seeing the truth of this reality, even if it’s not what I want and saying, well, this is the way it is like with you. Well, it’s snowing. Hey, it’s cold. Hey, you know, this is freezing over. You can sit there and, you know, like complain and play the victim about this isn’t fair and it’s not supposed to be this hard and blah, blah, blah. Nature doesn’t care about that. What are you gonna do now?
01:02:23
Yeah, it’s like in survival, like the more, and this is with any topic, but when survival, it’s so easy to see, once you start to go deep into each aspect, then you realize that, oh wow, there’s so much of these is transferable to so many other aspects of her life. And in survival, you can’t afford to be like, oh, this snake bit me.
01:02:52
It’s probably a good snake or whatever. Like you cannot detach from reality if you want to stay long alive. You have to really… It’s a balance because you have to see as much as you can reality for what it is. And at the same time, you may need to maintain some sort of hope.
01:03:19
Um, the things are going to be okay or that you’re going to win or whatever, but you cannot let yourself be blinded by, by what you want because.
01:03:34
You might think, oh, I’m going to, I’m winning these, I’m winning these or whatever, but reality might be very different. Like your nature’s kicking your butt. Um, yeah, it’s so important to have these, these awareness and just.
01:03:50
We’re all filtering reality through our own lenses, our own upbringing or education, the ideas of what we want.
01:04:03
So it’s important to be able to dial it down and see.
01:04:09
without those ideas. Because if you can’t do that in a survival situation, you can’t really navigate well. If your map is all, it’s too old, for instance, and things have changed in the landscape. But this is just not survival. This is right here, right now. We are going through big shifts and we need to all
01:04:40
as many people as can. Let me rephrase that. Yeah, this is a situation that requires all of us to try to contribute. I absolutely agree. Juan Pablo, I could talk to you forever. We’ve talked a while now and I’ve loved the conversation very deep. Lots of powerful insights. I want to be respectful of your time. Where can people go?
01:05:09
to find the book Thrive, can they go to your website? Where would you direct people if they want to learn more about the things that we’re talking about today and all these aspects? Yeah.
01:05:22
I think to buy my book, the best place would be Amazon. And my website is like my name and it’s hard to spell. Yeah. And we’ll put all that in the show notes so people don’t have to worry about that too. Yeah. And they can follow you on Instagram and LinkedIn as well. Is that correct? Yeah, I have Instagram. That’s mainly the only social media that I use. Yeah.
01:05:49
I love because you’re always showing like the updates on the homestead. And I remember when you just kind of had just, this is the plot. This is what we got, you know, bare bones, it’s rugged. Here’s how we go. And then all of a sudden to see the progress is tremendous. And thank you for choosing to use your experience as a way to try to make the world a better place and to show it’s like.
01:06:14
that creates that resonance. And so the more that we can do this, the more that we can see how impactful our, and the repercussions of what our actions are, it makes us be hopefully more selective about it, hopefully not selfish. And I think that that’s what we need to, like you said, as we move forward, when we go through adversity, that’s when you need compassion and empathy the most, but that’s also when it’s the hardest to give, whether to other people or even to ourselves sometimes, right?
01:06:44
Yeah, for sure. It is hard. It is a balance. Absolutely. Well, I’d love to have you on in the future when the second book is getting closer to coming to fruition as well. Thank you very much, Marcos. I really enjoyed the interview and you’re very good at this for sure. Well, thank you. You make it easy. You’re an incredible person. You’ve got a huge depth and breadth to you. And that makes having a conversation like this easy.
01:07:14
You don’t have to make stuff up or come up with ideas. It just kind of happens. And that’s where the power’s at. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of Acta Non Verba.rcle to get exclusive content, news, and information. Until next time, remember, talk is cheap. Live your life based on actions, not words.
