Origin's
The stories of our lives often define us. Listen to these interviews and learn how and why people navigate their lives.
Origin's
Exploring Happiness Beyond Societal Expectations with Nick Bijlani
Nick Bijlani's journey from a thriving weight management clinic to founding the Noah Pangea Project is nothing short of transformative. Join us as Nick shares how his academic foundation in kinesiology at the University of Michigan and his work with diabetic individuals initially shaped his career. However, it wasn't long before he felt the tug of a deeper calling—one that prioritized empathy and self-acceptance over financial gain. Through personal anecdotes, Nick reveals how his quest for understanding his true purpose led him to embrace the nuances of humanity, forever altering his personal and professional trajectory.
Have societal expectations ever made you question your path to happiness? Listen in as we discuss how stepping away from roles that confine us can lead to genuine fulfillment. Drawing inspiration from a modern-day sadhu's journey, we explore the balance between life's extremes and the profound insights that come from embracing both joy and suffering. Nick offers a fresh perspective on finding happiness, underscoring the importance of equilibrium and the mindful celebration of personal milestones. This episode invites you to rethink your path and discover a more harmonious state of being.
Hey friends, this is Brian Grenadier from the Origins podcast, and I'm here with my very good friend, nick Bijlani, who's also the founder of the Noah Pangea Project, and his story is unique because he's somebody who had a very traditional upbringing and background and went to college and all that good stuff and then, after being in the world the way he, you know, like the normal person does for a long time, he decided to take a sharp left turn and go down a whole nother path, and I think his story is fascinating and I really would like to introduce you to him, and this is my friend, nick.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me, Brian. I'm excited to be on the show here.
Speaker 1:My pleasure.
Speaker 2:Share anything from my journey, from my life experiences, that can be of any benefit to anybody listening. Like you said, I lived many lives, we could say, in the ways of contemporary lifestyles and contemporary lifestyle choices, to lots of the offbeat lifestyle choices, and whether that be lifestyle choices that include ways of eating, ways of eating, ways of being, ways of operating in the world and all these different contexts. I've done not at all, but I've done a lot of it. So I'm happy to be here and happy to share anything that can be of benefit to anyone.
Speaker 1:Awesome, so you went to was it U of M or Michigan State?
Speaker 2:U of M. I went to U of M.
Speaker 1:And you got a four-year degree in what?
Speaker 2:I got a four-year degree in kinesiology, so that's actually a study of kinetic movement. It's an interesting study. Typically it's a pre-med degree that a lot of people go into. I went into it as pre-med, pre-ysical therapy and also just because it's um, it's it's based a little bit more on holistic wellness. So the concept of kinesiology is it's a little bit different.
Speaker 2:Um, I used to be a big and I'm sure we will get into these discussions in the future, if not later today but I used to be a big proponent on a holistic medicine and, um well-being. I've stepped away from that a little bit just due to some more recent learnings and some more recent realizations and understanding our humanity and our balance in a little bit of different degree. Um, however, previously to the, the study of kinesiology was kind of, we could say, driven by, uh, underground, um introspection into self-wellness, we could say so it was kind of the. The study of how to optimize our humanity is what I used to call it, how to optimize the being that we are. Got it. Penis is kind of up that degree rather than up a slightly more traditional pre-medical or medical constitute, got it.
Speaker 1:And then you had that degree, you graduated and you worked as a nutritionalist, correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I worked um. After I graduated I actually opened up a weight management clinic and that was um. It's based on wellness but the basis of it was weight management. It was um, primarily helping endocrin-based patients or diabetic patients who were having trouble with any type of weight issues, since weight issues seem to be chronically linked, in a sense, to individuals who obviously tend to have type 2 diabetes but have diabetes in general. Nutrition is such a big part for a lot of them and kind of runs their life. General nutrition is such a big part for a lot of them and kind of runs their life. So what I was able to do is able to implement exercise programs and nutritional programs with them to begin their journey per se on lifestyle improvement, but also as a career pathway. That was my little, we could say step into what someone may want to call the real world or the career-focused we could say archetype. So that was my first kind of step into career focus. We could say.
Speaker 1:Got it. So then you did that. For how many years? Roughly?
Speaker 2:So I did that for about three years. I did that for three years at a very, very successful practice. It took off. It did really really well. I really enjoyed helping people more than just the fact of weight loss or changing their body physiologically, but helping them come to the awareness of kind of being happy with themselves in some sort of way and finding some sort of regulatory mechanism of self-acceptance that they came to do the journey, mechanism of self-acceptance that they came to do the journey. Yet um, at that point in my life, you know, I was still understanding my own basis. We could say of you know what was driving me to do the work that I did. So, um, interesting on both ends, but uh, definitely, you know um was able to see the benefit that it was providing and others, you know, enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:Got it and then you took a hard left turn, or hard right turn, or a hard turn, whatever you want to call it. And what happened? What was the sort of the beginning steps on this? Path towards wanting to understand and learn more about yourself and your purpose and your and your and your reason for being here.
Speaker 2:Definitely, definitely, so definitely big turn mindset wise in the context of um, how I looked at life and how I perceived um humanity and perceived life in general. I've always been very empathic and very sensitive. So, um, my belief system is we all are, as human beings, no one, no one's necessarily an asshole. In a sense, we can, we can, we can act like one at moments, but that's a moment, um, so the context of it is is that, you know, for me a big thing was is that initially, I was so successful financially that the financial draw and being young and having such financial success was so appealing to me, so appealing to me especially since it kind of hit some fine family dynamics as well, of kind of being able to, you know, prove myself not only in the world but, you know, through a successful family lineage and certain business and economic endeavors. So I was able to kind of give that sense of proof of look, I made it, I've got this huge business, I've got this you know empire that I could run and, you know, whatever it may be. However, luckily, going through that period of my life, I was dating a girl at the time and I've always been very interested since a very, very young age in my we could call from a scientific perspective, we call it like a psycho-emotional system.
Speaker 2:Psychosomatics would be the exact term that would be used, and that's typically a term that's used to discuss how the emotional body interacts with the gross physical body.
Speaker 2:So it's basically how your physical body is. I mean, it's almost like if you look at the context of kinesiology and now we link you know science into it a little bit more, it's almost like saying, like how all the subtle hormonal changes that are occurring at intracellular levels in the body are affecting you moment to moment, got it? It was kind of like that study has been a part of me since I was a child. I would just look at it psychosomatic in the sense of emotional. So I mean, we can call sensation through the physical body so many different things. Somebody could call, you know, the buzzing or tightness in their chest buzzing or tightness in their chest. Somebody else would call it anxiety. It just depends on the social group that you're working with. But again, the effect, cause and effect, the basis of it, the expression of it, will be very similar, we could say, based on each individual who is, let's say, holding on to or experiencing that sensation or that feeling got it, so you wanted to, so you were always interested in.
Speaker 1:Are my feelings creating my reality? Is my reality creating my feelings? How does my physical body fit into that?
Speaker 2:you know, even, even, even a little more simple than that. It was almost just like how do I feel better?
Speaker 2:ah um, it was actually. It's almost like I haven't been sick my whole life. I wouldn't say I've been sick, but I would say I've been sick. You know, in a way, and the way that I'd say I've been sick is that, um, one trapped in our own bubbles. We're only, you know, used to our own relative perspective on life. So we really see life based on our own experiences and based on what we've been through. And it's really really tough, and I'd say it's, you know, it's godly in a way, for us to be able to truly place our self in another's shoes, just because of the fact that when we do that, we can realize at a very deep level what and how someone is being impacted and the fact that they can be very different than you like. Not everybody is cut. We were all, let's say, sharing the basis of our humanity. But we're all, though we're cut from the same mold, we're all shaped in different ways. We can move that way. So, from that perspective of it, you know, it led me to the point of understanding that there there is something off with um, with me, in some way, and by something off it wasn't necessarily something off with me in a sense of something that would be considered weird or different, depending on the opinion, but, um, something, something off, basically meaning like something inside that didn't feel right. Yeah, there's always, we could say, the inner seeker, um, seeking. There's like.
Speaker 2:Some people call it state of consciousness, some people call it state of awareness, some people will call it, you know, euphoria, some people call it state of consciousness, some people call it state of awareness, some people will call it, you know, euphoria, some people call it happy. You know, um, especially in our modern times, we see the word happy. Right, people are seeking happiness. We could say so in in that realm of it. I could say that I've always been seeking the word that we would want to. Usually, I mean, we'd term it Happy, is a very simple yet very, you know, complex word, but I think that that'd be the best word to use is, you know, I've been seeking that's the state of just being happy, just in general, um, since being a very little child. So that's been something that's been the driving perspective behind. You know all, all the choices we could say I've made in my life. But, um, that extrapolates a little bit more as we go into it got it, so you're seeking happiness.
Speaker 1:You're aware that there's a little bit more as we go into it. Got it, so you were seeking happiness. You're aware that there's a familial background and expectations. You're aware that there is societal expectations. You're aware that there is energy and chemicals and hormones and all kinds of things inside the body and and all these coming together to try to create happiness. But but you weren't finding it. So what'd you do?
Speaker 2:yes, yes, that's exactly it. So it's like, um, I, I did initially what, what I thought I was supposed to do, which is the. You know, I ran the route of saying, you know, I'm gonna open a business, I'm gonna be be a successful american in a sense. So, growing up, and you know, in a culture where the regard at the time of my upbringing was success, was defined as you go to college, you get a degree and you get a job with that degree. And in my family it went a little bit further to the point of you get a job where you have a sense of control. So you know, that was kind of the, the, the lineage upbringing, of upbringing that I was kind of, um, I was kind of, uh, supported by through my life is a word I would use. So I was really supported by that upbringing of being successful in that way, and I was able to achieve that level of success through the weight management clinic in the sense of. I mean playfully, you know, I'll look at, I'll share the aspects of life that were present, but playfully at the time, like I was with the girl that I was making, like, oh, like, ok, I might settle down with her. You know I'm making over six figures a year right now. So I'm, you know, financially doing really well, especially for my age bracket. I've got this whole business team behind me. That's, you know, willing to back me if I was looking to do a big expansion project because of the success of the clinic. So I had that kind of going.
Speaker 2:So I kind of checked all the superficially. I was very, you know I don't want to say that you need a word superficially, but I was already into bodybuilding at that time. So I had, uh, modeling perspectives and things like that. So I had, if we look at the, the average american um checklist. Besides the, the origin of fame we could say in the sense of the grandiosity of fame, um, you know, I was, I was living the American dream, got it. It was famous enough to the point where, you know, everybody in the area knew me, at least, you know, from the business itself and, um, from these other perspectives. So it kind of checked off all the boxes of, you know, winning the, the, the, the game in a way. Yeah, like you said, the wrench was still kind of inside where it's still felt like, but I'm still not happy.
Speaker 1:Right, something was still missing, yeah, so then you stepped away from all of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'll shorten the intermediate section of it to help with just some of the simplicity of it which I'm happy to go into in detail in the future clinic and then completely stepping away from it. I went through a life transformative process where I, you know, I started yoga, I started meditating, I started reading about things that were different than what I traditionally would look at we could say even and I started noticing. So I started noticing different cultures, different ways of being. I started noticing that people didn't all share or see life in the same perspective, that I was seeing it and sharing it at that moment and that really opened my eyes because all of a sudden, I realized I could be anything that really opened my eyes because all of a sudden I realized I could be anything, because the shame of my sense of humanity that I had at the time suddenly got erased just with the awareness of.
Speaker 2:You know, there's so many people out there in so many different cultures, in so many different ways of being that we can be and express in so many different ways. It's just um, traditionally, especially in modern america, and um to some degree, you know, western europe, and in asia we see the, the stereotypical uh, um upbringing of, um, you know, getting some sort of a degree and getting a job, money from that job being the ideal of happiness rather than actually the inner workings of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sort of the male archetype of. You know, these are the roles, this is your, this is your, this is your menu of options, you know for the male in our society, and choose from the menu and at the end you're, you're supposed to be happy then, yeah, that's, that's that's actually a great way of putting it. I really like it, it's a good sales tool, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love how you use the word menu. It's exactly that. It's that you know the menu is kind of given to you to an extent and you will play with it, because I really like this example. The menu is given to you to an extent and you're at a fancy restaurant where you might feel a little bit nervous asking the chef to shift some of the menu choices. So typically what you do is you end up conforming to the point of saying you know I'll go with that one, it's probably really good, Right, and you know it's not bad. It's never bad, it's just it's not good enough.
Speaker 1:Right, and for you it was so not good enough, or at least your desire to be more evolved and find that happiness was enough to make you go. All right, I'm going to make a shift now. Yeah, and then you made that shift, you went through some transformative stuff and we can save that for another. That's a three hour talk, just on itself, absolutely. Definitely, and it's now been. How long have you now been on this sort of journey, this new path?
Speaker 2:You know it's so interesting, brian, and I know that you know you and I share a background with it too, just because I've known you for a couple of years now, for some time now actually, but I would say so I started seeking the concept of happiness, I would say seven to eight years ago, while I continued with the work that I did, which is, you know, what we could discuss is how I, you know, did so many different um things in the process of seeking happiness that it just bled into the practice itself because, um, once, it's almost like once, one becomes aware of how to help generate or create a sense of symbiosity or some of, uh, of of balance, or of of peace, of love, of, you know, whatever word you want to use in the world, when someone touches that place, the nature of our being is we, we, we we enjoy sharing it, got it Because it's just it's just going to happen, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I sort of see you as like a modern day sadhu. You know and and, and only in the sense of you put yourself through some extreme stuff, or what our society would call extreme, to get to a point where you shed I don't know the weight of that societal requirement. You toss the menu aside, essentially, and now you're here. So what is it you feel you're ready to share through your experience? What do you want people to know, or what could they come to you with? You know, what problems could they come to you with, and you can say, all right, well, look, I have some ideas for you based upon what I know.
Speaker 1:So, and I'm basing this on, it's kind of like the Buddhist story, in a way, where you know, he left the palace, he was suffering, he went to the forest to do these extreme practices. He realized you know what. It doesn't have to be extreme all the time. There's a middle way here and I'm going to sit under this tree until I figure it out. He figures it out and he starts to share and his first lesson is life is suffering, but there's a path that will. There's causes to suffering and there's a path that will lead you out of suffering and I feel like you've done steps, all those steps, and now you're at. Okay, I can teach people how to do this, or at least I can teach you how to be happier because I've now found happiness, definitely because I understood suffering something like that, definitely, definitely, so you phrase it really well.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's a huge compliment to give somebody too. So I really appreciate the compliment of uh, of you. Um, I, like I said, I know you have a lot more detail on my life than we've shared. You know, as we in in this segment, that we're talking through. Yeah, but just knowing me, knowing my background, you know I really appreciate you sharing that um and I'll make the comments on it.
Speaker 2:That's, you know, spot on in the sense of um living in the extreme of things, and I and I and I can dive into that so deeply because we get so caught up in trying to find moderation and sometimes we actually realize that it's the extremes that let us have the experience to a certain level that we can actually then be done with the experience, rather than it be a tack.
Speaker 2:That's kind of like, you know, it's like the guy who is, um, he's smoking cigarettes and he's smoking two a day and he's, you know, cutting down and doing well. Well, the reality is he might actually do better and I know it sounds really weird, but I mean he might actually do better if he's just, like you know, quote, unquote, eff it in a sense, and I'm just going to go ahead and smoke 10 packs a day. And he goes ahead and he just starts, you know, chain smoking. He may realize within a day or two, very quickly, that that feeling or craving has burnt out. It's not something, he's not looking for. The cigarette all of a sudden, the cigarette. It's like I actually don't even feel like doing it yeah, so you did that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so essentially not with cigarettes, but essentially essentially yes essentially that's the path that I ended up taking was um, after the path of restriction. We could say again, I and I feel like this is relatively common um miriam, the buddhist story and a lot of spiritual seekers, stories in the sense of um stereotypically. You know, I learned what I learned very quickly and a lot of our ancient teachings are based on minimalism and based on you know certain um. Based on minimalism and based on you know certain um practices. We could say. So what I did is I immediately went to okay, I'm going to go as minimal as I can go and do all the certain practices that I'm learning and just integrate them in the way that I integrate them, and I did that for years and it worked really well. Because, um, well, I can't really share that because because that's another long story, because it's part of the path you could say right, but it worked well and you and you.
Speaker 1:You're now at the other end of all of that yes, yeah, yeah and that's the bottom line is and now you're here now, so you, you know. They say that people who have certain attainments, you know they can go and live in a monastery and just sort of be happy and sit on a park bench like eckhart tolle for three years and just kind of be there. At some point they want to teach it and share what they've learned and hope that other people can glean some kernels of wisdom from it to enhance their lives. And that's where you are.
Speaker 2:So you got it. You got it exactly. So it's kind of like I've teetered with the extremes of it and I personally feel like I have found a sense of balance within myself and that's such a big statement to make.
Speaker 1:So to make a self-statement of that I realize how cocky that may sound- yeah, it sounds like a big ego statement Like look at me, everyone, I'm the next, whatever, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm happy.
Speaker 1:And that just gets people killed. So we don't want that.
Speaker 2:We're happy people. Yeah, yeah, pretty. So to me, the reality of it is like I mean, I'll sit I in in a direct way of saying it. I'm not gonna lie. So the direct thing is that, yes, I found what I've, what I've been seeking. So I've, by finding what I have been seeking, I've done that through maintaining and going through such extremes of life to the point that they've come together to form a balance. And this balance that I've found is what I