What if everything you know about burnout is wrong... and your nervous system is the real hijacker?

Former Navy bomb disposal technician Brian Muka reveals the shocking truth about executive burnout, nervous system dysregulation, and trauma recovery that's sabotaging high-performing leaders worldwide.

After experiencing what he calls "the avalanche" losing his military career trajectory in Iraq Brian discovered why leadership burnout, chronic stress, and emotional exhaustion have nothing to do with workload and everything to do with nervous system hijacking .

This episode covers:
• Burnout recovery strategies for overwhelmed executives and entrepreneurs
• PTSD healing techniques including Wim Hof breathwork and cold therapy
• Nervous system regulation methods for high-stress professionals
• Leadership trauma and why successful people crash and burn
• Military transition challenges and finding purpose after service
• Emotional intelligence training for stress management
• Fear management techniques and Brian's "Muka's Law" principle
• Mental health recovery from suicidal ideation to thriving
• Workplace stress solutions and breaking the white-knuckle leadership cycle
• Spiritual awakening and soul-aligned business practices

Keywords: stress management, anxiety relief, leadership development, mental health awareness, trauma therapy, mindfulness practices, resilience training, emotional regulation, peak performance, burnout prevention

Brian's journey from military service member struggling with combat trauma to becoming "The Freedom Sherpa" proves that personal development, nervous system healing, and authentic leadership can transform your relationship with fear, stress, and success.

Perfect for: CEOs, entrepreneurs, military veterans, healthcare workers, first responders, executives, and anyone experiencing chronic stress, leadership fatigue, or high-achiever burnout .

Connect with Brian: LinkedIn | Freedom Sherpa | Nervous system coaching | Leadership consulting

Chapters

• 0:00 Meeting Brian Mooka
• 1:55 Mucha's Law of Fear
• 2:30 The Military Avalanche Begins
• 5:15 Journey After Service
• 6:35 Origins of Unworthiness
• 11:59 Marriage and Important Life Lessons
• 14:15 Confronting the Darkest Moments

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Rice Meal. I'm your host, baz Borsa. I'm joined today with a marvelous human being. He's becoming a friend and also a business partner in the future. His name is Brian and I'm going to ask him to pronounce his second name because I'm terrible with people's names and I don't want to mess it up. Brian, please tell people your name, who you are and what you do in the world. Let's introduce world.

Speaker 2: 0:27

Awesome, brian Muka, at your humble service. What I do in the world, my favorite thing to help people awaken their latent gifts, spiritual gifts, leadership gifts, those types of things. It's hard-earned. Through Jonah the whale, I ran from it. I had the belly of the beast until I couldn't anymore. When life got turned around, I'm like hogging out of the boat. It's here for me. It's been this grand surrender experiment First the end of one experiments for me, and then with my Tai Chi Gong master, ajit. I told him what I do. He goes cool. The thing you came to learn on earth is the thing you get to teach. We'll talk a little bit about my avalanche. I wrote a book about it and how to be with people during the grand life reset. I refer to it as the avalanche loss of limb, loss of job, loss of relationship, those types of things, and what a gift that is. Invisibility is a big part. How can I find gratitude for the discomfort? There's treasure in there, so that's what I help people find.

Speaker 1: 1:32

I love that, bro, and that's a different view on what most people in the world have, because a lot of people go oh my god, this is happening to me. World is falling apart, this is going on, this is going on. They do what 99% falling apart, this is going on, this is going on. And they do what 99% of everybody else in the world do is stack their problems, then they compound, and then they have a nervous breakdown and get disease, et cetera.

Speaker 2: 1:56

Yeah, if I'd be so bold, I want to share Mucha's Law with you. The Parkinson's Law is the size of the deadline. Expands to the deadline You've heard that before, I'm sure because law is fear. Expands to the size container. I allow. It therefore keeps your small and useful or war in there.

Speaker 1: 2:13

Yeah on the journey to where you are. It wasn't always like that. Can I take you back to where the actual avalanche, or just before the avalanche happened, as you so eloquently put it? What were you doing? What was your life?

Speaker 2: 2:31

like Airs on fire back then. This is back in 2008. My first combat at the planet. I took a team to Iraq. My chief father was dying of cancer and I knew I needed to send him home so he could be with his dad. I couldn't bear the thought of Aaron losing his life. Distracted, cutting wires and IEDs, and I knew that as soon as I made that decision my career was going to get really hard. I used my senior enlisted advisor. As I look back in, my career was going to get really hard. I used my senior enlisted advisor. As I look back in time, I fell on my sword in that. I've got my fair share of fuck-ups and junior officer stuff.

Speaker 2: 3:13

Four weeks later, I was reassigned to night watch while my friends got to operate Do cool guy, explosive wardens, disposal, bomb technician stuff with some really advanced special forces guys. I was doing PowerPoint slides, so I got the worst of that. Saturdays was a down day tempo-wise, so I got the mornings off. I'd go running. I was training for a marathon. When I got back to the States in May, I was on a 20-mile run, camp Spiker. I remember feeling my toes over the edge of the hardball and the desert sand just on the other side. I just stayed in the desert for a really long time. I thought I'd come back it was 12 minutes, real long and then I heard God's voice. I have a special mission for you. I turned around and there was a pallet of water right behind me. Didn't notice it was there, grabbed the leader, brought it home and it was interesting. I go to church every Saturday and it was neat just being like 350 miles away from where these Bible verses were coming from in the New Testament. That started the avalanche. I got another team Two. Before we deployed, my boss, chris, called me into his office. I knew what this was. I was still unprepared. Brian, I've lost a lot of sleep over this. You're not the man to take a team to Afghanistan. That was our ranger mission, the most dangerous job that we Afghanistan. That was our ranger mission, the most dangerous job that we had. He was right. I forgot that. I'm Brian Mooka. That started my journey.

Speaker 2: 4:46

I spent another nine months in the Navy, got to work with Talia Gershon. She was our mental health professional. She became my life coach. When I got off the Jewish army, I did a year of contract work working with lieutenants and captains in the army that were bomb technicians. The mantra was like do it better than I did. Guys, here's all the mistakes I made. Don't make this. I made a great course. I spent six years in medical sales Pretty unfulfilling. I liked the challenge of it. At first I went to sales for the year. As soon as I did that, I something else. And then you're looking at this something next, the freedom sherpa, teaching people how to fear really unworthiness, like I call unworthiness in my book young turn fear. I didn't have a word for it yet and it's part of the amnesia that I learned from my dad, and so now some people come here to learn unconditional love. I I came to learn what unworthiness meant and what to do about it thank you for sharing that, bro, that unworthiness you were feeling back then.

Speaker 1: 5:42

there's a lot of people new and their listeners are going. I can relate, obviously, different scenarios, different situations, but it's one of the main challenges people have while learning who they are, their purpose, their role, the world. Where did it come from, in your own words, where did the unworthiness start? Because it wasn't in the forces, it wasn't in the military.

Speaker 2: 6:05

It must have been way back, but even before that, I grew up in New Jersey, so in the great state of New Jersey they serve you gas. My dad's awesome. He was an NLP practitioner, like in the 80s, like before. It was cool. I'd go to these things and I mean, robert, I don't know NLP Like the water. I learned to swim in Great relationship. Let me tell you a quick story, please.

Speaker 2: 6:27

When I was eight, my dad and I would go to baseball back and forth. He was a track star. He ran a sub 30, 10k, like fantastic, and he wanted to play baseball with me. He didn't play sports, didn't ball the ball. So we're throwing the ball around one day and he was doing this thing where he would catch the ball over a shear I'm 8 for this and he's a doctor. Alright, dr John Mooka. Dad, what are you doing? I don't want to get in front of the ball, like why not? Why don't want to get in front of the ball? Like why not? Why don't we get hit by it?

Speaker 2: 7:00

And eight-year-old Brian said to my dad don't be stupid, that's what you have reactions for. And he's the kind of guy that could hear that he started getting in front of the ball. He tells us in his master blackout course his son was teaching me how to get in front of my fears from the beginning. So we have that. And then also, when he would order gas, his voice would change. He would change the way that he was around other men. I learned that I needed to change myself around other men, especially on my classmates in Catholic school. I didn't know who I was, so I tried to fit in and then that just made it worse. It was like merciless, because you were not authentically you.

Speaker 1: 7:43

Without being authentic in who you are.

Speaker 2: 7:46

I can relate to. I had no idea who I was. None, I'm whoever you want me to be. I wanted to make my dad proud. Military is great because I still got to be creative in the special operations community and then there was still enough structure for me Like, oh, this is next in my career, I guess I'll just do that. That's how I got married. A little sense of things, oh, that's a good story.

Speaker 1: 8:09

Wait, you want to hear this? Come on, please. I love this.

Speaker 2: 8:13

This is great. So my 22nd birthday, we're in Philadelphia, my friends from Drexel and UPenn. We did ROTC together. I had a really great crew of men and women. We did crazy shit at the beach, like we drive to Atlantic City in the wintertime and do cold water torture. I have a picture somewhere underneath my tongue my core temperature 90.2 degrees Dumb and fun at the same time. I had some military.

Speaker 2: 8:36

So first half, we're hanging out having drinks. There's a name of the place Saying everybody know what we were there for. We were going to meet a beautiful woman. I danced with this girl and I was done, went over to the bar I met. This lady had ordered two double Jack and Cokes. Right, I grabbed one. I was like you're hilarious, I'm taken, but all of my friends are single. So I walked over the prettiest one Her name is Jessica and eventually she would become my wife Spent a lot of our time apart, so it was a lot of like honeymoon stuff.

Speaker 2: 9:08

I'm getting ready to go to dive school winter dive class in Florida. I have no idea what I'm in store for. Like it's Florida, it's going to be warm. No, it's not. It's going to be really cold and you're going to have to earn your wetsuits. Good thing I grew up surfing in New Jersey.

Speaker 2: 9:22

Anyway, my dad's brother his name is Ron there was a joke in Jess's family that he was gay and so he'd wear these pastel-y shirts. He was a musician, soft handshake, he's great, like. He's so funny, great guy, spent a lot of time with him camping and those things. The point is I look up to him and he's like she's great. Yeah, I know she's beautiful, she's smart, she makes good money. Like Brian, I don't think you can do better. Worst reason to ever get married is I don't think you can do better, said my uncle had been single for 30 years. She is now my illustrious practice wife. She was a powerful teacher and, yeah, she was with me through the deployments. She was with me through my medical sales career and then this mission cost me marriage. I was finally authentic.

Speaker 1: 10:15

That's what I was about to say. It didn't cost you anything. It was making you aware of who you were supposed to become, yeah, like deliberation is actually what I would like. I'm so happy that you're aware now, because a lot of other people are going through a relationship breakdown, separations. We've all been there and we've all lost people for various reasons, but what strikes me the most is people like you. You learn from it and you ascend.

Speaker 2: 10:47

So learning from it's cool. And then Jocko Willock has this like oh, didn't get the promotion that you wanted. Good Acceptance is much higher than Hawkins' power versus force. Skill, skip Wright, to thank you. There's so many times I've thanked Jessica for being abused as a child. She doesn't have any childhood memories. It was like the whole universe conspired to teach me this lesson of you're a powerful empath. She agreed to be a strong narcissistic tendency personally, to then teach you to choose yourself first time ever. Like I deserve more really gripping the earth, deciding. I deserve more in that and I have so much gratitude for that whole process. It's it's as if before we had this incarnation. Hey, will you do this for me? This is going to be a great sacrifice too.

Speaker 1: 11:41

It's considerably more powerful that you're aware. Do you have a conversation? Are you friends now, or are you just not speaking?

Speaker 2: 11:50

No, she has access to the whole mainframe. She knows exactly what to say to stick a knife, knife it, turn it and get what she wants. If I probably could now, just don't have a desire.

Speaker 1: 12:00

Some people are able to stay at the friendship level. Some people are not, for various reasons. I was asking because people who teach us the best, most poignant lessons often are only with us for a period of time. Before we move on to part two, can you tell the list of one of the worst, most memorable places you went to before the Ascension started? When was your darkest moment? Well, the darkest would you be willing to?

Speaker 2: 12:31

share At that time running Iraq, when I really considered the world in the desert and never come back. That was darkest. I got to revisit it a lot, the feeling I don't mean the decision and just the compassion that it built. Really careful not to say he committed suicide, it's not a crime. He chose death by suicide. If I may address your audience, if you're ever talking with someone who's considering control or deleting their life, commit suicide is a really harsh way to judge that Most people will clam up after that. So the language around it is really powerful.

Speaker 2: 13:09

I trained with Wim Hof, became a master certified Wim Hof instructor, the ice bath hustle. I trained with Wim Hof, became a master certified Wim Hof instructor, the ice bath hustle. I would take a snorkel and go on the surface of the water. I'd open my eyes in the black Rubbermaid to remind myself what it was like to be at 150 feet of seawater, the handheld sonar, disconnected from Earth's atmosphere, as a bomb-disposable diver. That was the most terror I'd ever felt. I was reminded of it. I would train with it and then I did some sound frequency stuff and some light therapy. The next time I did it after the sound frequency stuff. I loved it. It wasn't the nothing anymore, and when I realized it was actually appearing inside of me, the things that I was afraid of in me were no longer there.

Speaker 1: 13:58

Yes, and that is so powerful, and this is why I love these conversations. I know they're difficult for a lot of people, but it gives relatability to others. This is what this podcast does, and it's about other people learning from different people's experiences because they can relate to it, and what we're going to go into next is the rise from the storm, so you're going to come up, breathe for a moment my audience. Go and check out brian. Go and check out Freedom Sherpa and check out what he's doing. Connect with him on LinkedIn, share the video, subscribe. You will change someone's life by doing this. This podcast is Russ Mnuchin. This is Brian Mooka, and I will see you in a few days in part two of this episode with Brian.

Speaker 2: 14:55

Thank you for listening to my story. There's value in being seen on the other side of this, so I just, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for listening to my story.

Speaker 1: 15:05

Thank you, brian. Your story is awesome. I want to know the people's in different ways and that's why I like doing this, because it can be used as a powerful tool to relate to you, getting them to know who you are. Behind what they see today, there's always a mask behind the brand. For my listeners, please share, subscribe, do yourself a favor and check out Brian. See you in part two of whatever episode this is. See you soon.