Ascending to the Top with Arsalan Al Hashimi

“The 10 pillars of life mastery is all about living consciously and sustainably, being conscious of all the pillars of your life, and not leaving anything behind. Because as soon as you leave these things behind, you start stressing yourself out,” explains Arsalan Al Hashimi, high performance master coach, serial entrepreneur, former professional athlete, and host of the Chronic Stress to Joy podcast. Today, he discusses his ascension method for learning and applying the 10 pillars of life mastery.

High achiever types tend to push themselves to achieve at a very high level, which often leads to developing chronic stress. Arsalan himself burned out after running his last IronMan and realized he needed to make a change. As soon as he began dedicating himself to the pursuit of improving his health and reducing stress, he found that the result was more joy each day. Type A people tend to believe that if they keep pushing themselves they will finally be happy when they reach the top, but then they get to that pinnacle and find themselves more stressed than ever. Arsalan reverse engineered his 10 pillars of mastery and ascension method from his own experiences with chronic stress, focusing on teaching others how to live more consciously and sustainably.

If you’re a high achiever constantly pushing yourself to the next highest peak, you’re likely to experience a lot of stress throughout your life. While some stress can be a good thing, chronic stress can cause a lot of issues, including contributing to physical and mental health conditions. To add more joy back into your life, you will need to surrender the need to force yourself into achieving more and more. Accept things as they come and let go of the stressors that keep joy at bay.

• “The whole name, high performance master coach, was to attract my ideal client. But in reality, my ulterior motive is to spread more joy in the world.” (7:09-7:20 | Arsalan)
• “We've been promised so much joy when we get to the pinnacle, and now I'm here, and I'm more stressed out than ever.” (9:19-9:26 | Arsalan)
• “If it doesn't bring me joy, I will not do it. If I have to do it, I pass it on to somebody that enjoys it.” (12:10-12:17 | Arsalan)
• “I took all the steps I needed to kind of fight off chronic stress and come back to health. And then I realized that the result was more joy every day the more I worked on myself.” (15:50-16:03 | Arsalan)
• “The 10 pillars of life mastery is all about living consciously and sustainably, being conscious of all the pillars of your life and not leaving anything behind. Because as soon as you leave these things behind, you start stressing yourself out.” (16:11-16:24 | Arsalan)
• “We're all only 5% conscious. And if the 95%, there's a program in there that's working against your growth, against your intentions to be the best version of yourself, it doesn't matter what you do, you will always hit a wall.” (16:56-17:13 | Arsalan
• “If you calculate your life as a collection of choices and actually just spend a moment thinking about your choice, rather than quickly acting on it, the totality of your life can look very, very differently, and a lot less stressful.” (42:48-43:02 | Arsalan)