Courageous Ones

Anik is a fitness coach in Ireland and co-founder of Infinite, a coaching brand he built with his best friend. He breaks down creatine dosage, training splits, and the CNS fatigue most people mistake for ordinary tiredness. The conversation turns personal. Anik talks about the jobs he hated before fitness, the identity shift that came from staying consistent, and why the fear of judgment never ful...

Lhamo left Tibet as a child, moved to India, then made her way to France for university. She studied medicine, dropped it, switched to business, graduated, and then did something most people in her position wouldn't consider: opened a Tibetan restaurant in Paris with her mom. This episode goes into what it's like to build a life in a country whose language you don't speak, the moment she realized...

Corey Downey is an actor based in New Jersey. This conversation goes into self-worth, purpose, sexual alchemy, and what it means to fight for love, not as a concept, but as a daily practice. Corey grew up watching his younger sister Charlotte spend 75% of her life in hospital. Born with special needs, she survived 15 years through two open heart surgeries, dialysis, and every form of medical suppo...

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

Amber De Muyt is a Belgian fashion model, founder of Monique Models, and Europe scout for Respect Models Belgium. In this episode she talks about landing in China on a modeling contract, getting told to lose weight on day one, spending two months working hard, then getting sent home anyway. We go into the two years she spent not eating carbs out of fear, the first agent she signed with who told he...

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

Yassin Mahhou is a young entrepreneur based in Belgium building a web development and audio-visual marketing business while co-founding Young Entrepreneurs, a podcast and community for young people building their own path. This is his second time on Courageous Ones. He hit his first online income milestone and felt almost nothing. We talk about why that happens, why the goal line keeps moving, and...

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

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

Noah Williams is an 18-year-old content creator and founder from Oregon. He completed his first 50K ultra marathon at 15 with almost no training, becoming one of the youngest finishers in the world. He is now building PlayR, a basketball app to make pickup games accessible to everyone. This conversation covers smile maxxing, morning routines, delusional confidence, and what it looks like to build...

Tenzin Kelsang is a Tibetan cinematographer and colorist based in Mumbai who has spent five years working his way into the Indian film industry, shooting music videos, short films, and commercial projects while building his craft from the ground up. We talk about what it's actually like being a Tibetan in Bollywood, how he learned to stop saying yes to everything and nearly burned out doing it, an...

Jinsel is the founder of KHOE, a Tibetan streetwear brand based in Delhi rooted in Tibetan art, symbols, and silhouettes. He spent three years in a corporate IT job before quitting to build something of his own, starting with almost nothing and learning everything from sewing to manufacturing on the way. We talk about why he chose fashion as a vehicle for cultural preservation, how he survived mon...

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

Aniq Malu is a fitness coach and endurance athlete based in Ireland who went from barely running 1km to training friends for half marathons. He lost his dad at a young age, grew up with a single mother, and has been doing the hard work of proving that little boy wrong ever since. We talk about the valley of despair, why most dreams die in the middle and not at the start, and what it actually means...

Sonam Dendup is a Bhutanese introvert who spent 25 years living on autopilot before deciding to do something hard. He started a clothing brand rooted in Tibetan Buddhism and Bhutanese cultural heritage, designing pieces inspired by the mask dances, temple motifs, and stories he grew up with. We talk about what it actually takes to start something when you overthink everything, how introverts can u...

Mouad Bennali is a cybersecurity specialist from Morocco who has spent the last few years building a deep understanding of AI, automating his own workflows, and teaching his growing audience how to actually use AI properly. He runs a weekly Substack newsletter sharing what he learns as he goes. We get into why 90% of people are using AI wrong, the difference between thinking with AI versus thinkin...

Daniel Cuttle is a 21-year-old British content creator and boxer building his YouTube channel around fighting, self-belief, and living life on his own terms. He got lucky-dip selected to fight in a KSI video, refused to stop, and walked away with no prize money and a story worth telling. We get into what fighting actually teaches you about handling stress, why he thinks every man should step in a...

Joachim Badejoh is a growth partner and digital nomad who has been running his agency remotely for five years, helping e-commerce brands and online coaches scale through ads and full-funnel optimization. He's also a new dad figuring out what location freedom looks like with a family. We talk about the real cost of shiny object syndrome, what 18 months of severe anxiety taught him about letting go,...

Tenzin Jangchup grew up as a Tibetan refugee in Manali, India, moved to Belgium as a teenager, and went on to fly with Qatar Airways for three years across 50+ countries. He's now the owner of Amma Tibetan Mom's Kitchen in Bruges, a restaurant built around authentic Tibetan food, family, and the immigrant story behind it all. We talk about what it actually took to get the Qatar Airways job, what t...

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

Aniq spent 10 years going to the gym with nothing to show for it. Inconsistent, stuck in cycles, starting on Monday and quitting by Friday. Then he got a coach. Nine months later, everything changed — his body, his energy, his mindset, and eventually his whole direction in life. Now he coaches others through the same process. This conversation is about what discipline actually looks like when the...

Yassin is 22 years old, studying the hardest master's specialization he could choose, building apps on the side, learning Japanese without a translator, and praying twice every single day for two things: to become a multi-millionaire before 25, and to figure out how before the end of this semester. This is one of the most honest conversations on the show. Yassin doesn't perform. He thinks out loud...

Standly grew up in Cameroon. He moved to Cyprus, then back to Cameroon, then to Belgium — alone, no family nearby, working an 11-hour student job, editing videos at midnight, going to the gym before anyone else is awake. He started his content creation journey the day Tenzin told him: if you want to make me happy, just record one video today. He did it that night. This conversation is about what h...

Samm grew up on an island in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, where his grandfather taught him to farm, the fishermen gave free fish to anyone who helped, and the ocean was 150 meters from the front door. That upbringing shaped everything. In his late twenties, a doctor told his family he wouldn't survive. They didn't tell him. He found out six years later. By then, he had already rebuilt his life from...

Pjotr grew up in Amsterdam feeling like the black sheep. While his friends were partying and smoking weed, he was working out, reading, and building something. He started posting his transformation online, people responded, and a business was born. He's 22 years old and already coaching entrepreneurs on fat loss, muscle gain, and the mindset behind both. We get into: Why he felt like he never belo...