Staring Death in the Face — The Wake-Up Call That Changed Everything

My guest today is Andrew Han Doza, known to many of you guys as Doza, a man who was forced to confront his own mortality and come out the other side of completely transformed human. Because sometimes it takes a moment that shakes you to your absolute core, to wake you up to the life you're always meant to live. Today in this episode, Doza opens up about that health scare that completely changed everything, the fear, the clarity abroad, and how that single pivotal moment became their catalyst for a life built on abundance, intention, and relentless growth. This one is raw, it's real, and I promise you guys it's going to hit home. So get comfortable, open your mind, and let's get stuck into the Fitness and Lifestyle podcast. Welcome to the Fitness and Lifestyle podcast. I'm your host Danny Kennedy, and I'm here to help you become the very best version of yourself. Brother, you had at 40, had a significant shift in probably perspective of your life, and a major life event that I would assume drastically changed things, which we're going to talk about. Yeah. What I'm curious to understand is a bit more about the version of you prior to that. And now looking back and reflecting on that version of yourself, should you change sooner? I was completely fine, and that was the problem. Yeah. I think the biggest realization was, yeah, 40 years old on a Wednesday morning, and I had a thousand mornings just like this. It felt like every other morning at my favourite cafe, 750, working on my laptop, and I had a heart attack. Working on a business I fucking hated, my business. And I wasn't burnt out. I didn't have those symptoms. I wasn't walking around saying I'm burnt out, I'm exhausted, or whatever. I was just what I later realized was I was fine. Then I had 15 minutes on the clock. I was in the operating table. I was in pain, freezing because the blood had stopped because I was 100% locked. So I was in pain, freezing, and there was so much noise. Like I was overstimulated because the doctors and nurses, everyone was fucking shattering me, brother fucking, the beeping, the lights, the machines. It was like, it still triggers me. Like if there's a construction site or sharp sounds, like it still sends me a bit. And the doctor was like, we've got 15 minutes to get into this and operate. Otherwise, you're having a stemmy. The symptom of a stemmy is a dead body. We need to get in there. So we're going to count back from 10. Yep. 10. And I had just enough time and just enough to admit myself and make my self an agreement. Because what I really liked that moment was, doesn't matter how many fucking zeroes are in the bank account. I know you've had a lot of wealth of guests on this thing. It doesn't fucking matter. How many zeroes are in the bank account? The range over out the front didn't fucking matter. The boat I had at home didn't fucking matter. All that mattered for me in that fucking moment where I was the first time in my life I felt like I surrendered. Yep. Was, did I live a life that mattered? Okay. Did I actually live a life that fucking mattered? And split second thoughts like, who would even be out my funeral? What would the fucking song be? What would Michelle tell the kids? Like that? And then so, that's the absolute fucking thing. Yeah. So the deal I made with myself was if I get out of this, alive, things were going to be different in the sequel. So if you talk about perspective shifts, I think I actually died on that table. Because remember I was. You go death? What? No, 100% you go death. But I was cold, noisy and in pain. The mask comes over my head, goes back from 10, 10, 9, 8, black. Yep. At some point I woke up, not in pain anymore. Not cold anymore. And it was silent. And then I faded back to black. And then I woke up in the ward, pinned to the table and I said, your job is to keep your head on map for the next three days. And I just looked at the foot of my bed and saw these seven people in a white coat, look like they're looking at a fucking ghost. As I was wrong and I said, Mr. Handos, you should not be alive. So, you know, I made a decision. This little welfare officer her name was Wendy. She came and sat on my desk. I should have come and sat on the bed and said, now Andrew, this is going to be really half you. Physically, you will repair. But like mentally it's going to be a journey. And she wasn't wrong. But I said to Wendy, I said, Wendy, I'm going to make this the best fucking thing that's happened for me, not to me. And I think that language shift right from the start. I was like, Wendy, I'm in the fucking sequel now. Yep. Like, I want to design things differently. The level of appreciation for life has just gone through the roof. Did people wind just about the e-box on the road or whatever? It's like, come on man, like I'm alive. My question for you, right? And because I'm sure even when you look back at, let's say the old self, you know, you realize this too. There will be many people listening to this podcast right now that I've just listened to your story. You're like, wow, that's hectic, right? That's full on. And they still won't change. Still won't change. If you were able to articulate a question or an exercise for yourself 10, 15, 20 years before that happened, that you think would actually have driven change? What would it be? If today was your last day, like if you literally just died, but you had an opportunity to design your sequel, what would be different? What would your rules be? What would your non-negotiable's be? What would be on your bucket list? Do you know the number one reason? There's a book about the five regrets of the dying. The number one reason. It was written by an Australian palliative nurse, right? She asked people like, right at the end of their fucking lives, what do you regret? The number one, do you know what the number one reason was? Number one reason. The number one regret of the dying. Do you know what it was? Worked too much. I didn't leave my life. I didn't leave my fucking life. I lived someone else's life. It wasn't my authentic life, like my aligned life, whatever it is, right? So fucking do the opposite of that. Design your life. That's what I did first. Right? Like recovering at the hospital and then when I got home, there was around Christmas time. I didn't even know, I was as that fucking nun dude. You'd think like surviving a need-eth experience, your life would look like a fucking film clip from Fleur Rider or something. Jetske's and Champagne and strippers everywhere. I cried nonstop for 14 days. I didn't know what I was crying. But in that, somewhere along there is like I designed this sequel, dude. If you're a sequel, if the way you design your sequel is here and to the way you're living right now, you know, and if you then change it, do something about it. If you find yourself saying things like, "I just, I want to just cash in my phone." Four weeks of annual leave so I can escape this thing and like just escape from reality. Like fine actually stands for feeling I need to escape. I think fine is worse than burnout. We know what to do with burnout. If someone says I'm burnt out, we know what to do. But fine is like the pinnacle for people. Yeah. And it doesn't drive it. It doesn't drive change. There's something called the region beta paradox, right? Which is a psychological phenomenon. We basically, we won't do anything about fine. You know? It's a broken leg, but a needle will put up with a needle. Yep. We say fuck fine. The rebuild, the sequel. What I've noticed from watching your content, I've loved, we've just recorded your show today and I've thoroughly loved our time hanging out today and I'm already excited to connect further in the future. What I've really enjoyed about watching your content and what I can really tell from afar is how Ankit in you are to your standards for your life across the board from just as a man, but also as a business owner and the impact that you want to have. I'm curious as to what you let go of and what needed to be removed. When you did that stock take of the prequel, what did you have to let go of? First one was playing small. I grew up Asian family, I'm half Asian and it was all about being humble, not showing off all that sort of stuff and how to, you know, great upbringing, single mum, like so work ethic of a single mum, that's where I get out from, my mum's my hero, but it was about being humble and I think some of that translated into just playing small. So to obviously talk about my content which I appreciate, I was late to it dude. Yeah. I was a private account for some fucking reason, I didn't even know. So I didn't want to talk about what we were doing, it was just kind of work, right? So I let go of playing small, I let go of this notion of I wasn't good enough, all that in pasta syndrome that I see. still, you know, I better sleep last night, dude. You know, it's just exciting about jumping on your pod because, you know, I looked at your guest list and fucking chat myself. So what have I got to give to your crowd like you listen as I want to make sure I give value so much? Yeah, but I'll let go of all that shit and then lean into you already mentioned the word. The biggest thing that came to me when I woke up in my bed and whenever I left the room and I just sat with my thoughts and just going, how the fuck did I end up here? I didn't die for a reason. That's what they kept saying. Like they were like, medically, you're not supposed to be here. So, they're like, figure it out. And I think it was because like, impact is the word. Yeah. That's what drives me every morning. Like the numbers, the business 10x since then by the way. And I'll get to that. So, so, so, yeah, like we so on the so personally, I'll let go of imposter syndrome, not good enough, play small, now gives a fuck dude, who the fuck are you? Yep. From a business perspective, what I've like literally left behind, I fired some clients. Yep. On the on the morning of my third operation, I've got three stents in there now, right? 10 tablets keep me alive every day. On the third morning, on the morning after my third operation, Dr. Walks in, it was pitch black and he goes, Mr. Endows, we found that we fixed it. You're fixed. And I was like, so fucking happy. Again, breaking into tears. I'll call my business partner. The general time it was, I know it was black outside though, working up a Benny, grab soap, meet me at the Orclub this Friday, we're gonna make some decisions about the business. Knowing Benny, he would have shatting himself, right? And they'll get down to the Orclub and get, all right, open up laptop, list of all the clients, we're just gonna go one by one and we're gonna like traffic light them. Yep. The green ones we love and we want to keep them. The orange ones or the yellow ones, we're gonna have like a chap with them, we're going in, you know, a new direction and the red ones we're going to bless and release. Cause we're gonna have a different business now. That business was designed to fucking kill me. Yep. It was designed to kill me. And on the outside, everyone was like, those are the revenue fuck. You pumping, you're killing it, range over like the whole thing. I fucking hated it. Yep. Like I fucking hated it. And so, redesigned the business from the ground up, right, and said, fuck it, my ball, my rules, you know, driven like it's cool, if you were a ball, it was if it was your ball, we played with a lunch, it was your rules. So I was like, we're going in this, this way, right, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it this way, we're gonna do it that way. So we sat there and like between the three of us called 20 30 clients. And blessed and released it, like we actually fired them from the business. And it wasn't like a toxic, these were like conversations that was like a release for all of us. financially, it was a fucking suicide dude, like my business almost died when I almost died. We went back, I had to inject 250,000 out with back into the business to make sure everyone else was getting paid. All I was in therapy on the side lines, trying to figure out the rest of it. Yeah. So we designed the business and I designed a redesign my life. Yeah. Right. Who do we want to hang out with? Who actually is a plus in our life and who's a minus? Yeah. Got rid of all the shudds. Yep. We should shoot it. It's fucked the shudds. If it's not a fuck yes, it's a no bro. 100% man. So I only want to do what only we can do. And like, you know, once we started, and that's all that all of everything that I've just said is alignment remembering the number one together that dying. Like a fucking diet. So I get to fucking choose how we do this now. Yep. Turns out, like that was 2022 December, we're 2026 now. Yep. Like I'll look around this room, cross table from a legend like yourself, doing the impact that we're doing at the moment. Like I can't believe I get to live this life. Yeah. Now, I want to ask you, right? And you you talk about artifacts. There's a book in front of you. This is a vision book. So I since then, like so this is the sequel where that one's called Empire 28. The first one we did was called a low heart 25. Yep. I released this vision for my company in June of 2022, the first one, a low heart 25, the six months later, I went down six months on the sideline. And the how we got a right. So if I explain what happened, maybe you can fill in the gaps. I'm like, what actually fucking happened? Because I can't I actually can't explain how some of this stuff comes true. But launching this in June 2022 had no right to believe that that would happen. No right, right? The first book, not that book. That December six months later, I died pretty much. Six months on the sideline, heavy therapy. Business was like operating on fucking fumes. So you can essentially wipe out one of the three exactly right? So we had two years to do what we probably had no right to do in three. And then like I didn't want to talk about Hawaii. But in the meantime, like I started wearing Hawaiian sunscreen, I bought a fucking dog named Duke, my kids like I'm half Asian, my wasmol sees our kids look like everybody, Moana. I didn't want to talk about it. But for some reason, in the last six months of the first chapter, like of the first book, everything started happening. And everything was coming true, culminating to the top of that volcano, which is the first image in that first opening spread, where it all happened. Like I, and there was 30 clients behind us. Now I didn't have 30 clients when I wrote that first book, Danny. Yep. Being up there, like typical, like I know, and be guy, but I'm a fucking cry. So real man, I could cry. So when get to the top of that volcano, we all burst into tears and we're like, how the fuck do we pull that off? But it was so it just, it also felt like this was just the start. Now, tell me my story, like what actually you told me, like what actually fucking happened? Yeah. I think there's two elements to this, right? First and foremost, you said that six months prior to the heart attack, you're already laid it out. Yeah, right? You already laid that out. Yeah. I think that there, now again, this is just my opinion, right? Yeah. That heart attack was almost a, hey, all well and good that you've got these desires, but the way that you're the way that you are and the way that you're going right now, that's not happening. Really? That is not happening, right? And so as you kind of mentioned, this is the redo. It's like, hey, these things that you've written down, you've gotten clear on what these desires are because they mean something to you, right? And if they really mean something to you, then you'll show up and be the person like we spoke about earlier, you show up and embody the future self now to the point where whatever your experience in your reality right now may not suggest in any way, shape or form that these things are going to happen. Right? And as you said, even down to that last six months. But the shift that you had within side of you post heart attack is conviction. It's conviction of like the life that you're going to live the man you're going to be the standard you're going to operate from and the moment that someone decides with conviction, right? It's fucking game. Like that, that's where everything shifts because if you really think about when people decide to change or when they decide what it is that they want, they're really not deciding. I think you said something about these before, what was it? Information without implementation is mental massification. Yes. Yeah, I love that. So people are deciding they're coming up with an idea that sounds good. But there's no conviction. This is the tickle. Yeah. And that same thing comes up again and again, just like everyone's new year's resolutions, right? I mean, as it was just fucking change the date at the top, we keep the same. Yeah, yeah. Right? But it's a conviction. It's like from that moment forward, there was nothing that was going to change the way that you showed up for your life based off the the sequel. Right? And so you mentioned something else really interesting before, you know, buying Hawaiian sunscreen, all these little bits and pieces. Yeah. Right? That's embodiment. Is that what it is? It's embodiment to shift in frequency. Right? It's a shift in frequency to the point where it's I want to something something something you kind of said before as well, right about and I was listening to something on the way here this morning around. It's very important to have very clear desires and intentions and outcomes that we're building towards, right? But then it's almost like you then want to detach from that once you understand what the what the embodiment looks like or what the process looks like or what the journey looks like, you then almost detach from the end goal. Right? Because this bit in between is what allows for that to become a reality. But the more we fixate on that, the more we're reaffirming one that we don't have it, to that that's on a pedestal and we're below it. And so we're always working towards it. Whereas when we shift and even you know, you mentioned before about you you wake up each day and you're the driving factor is impact like, but the byproduct of all of that is all of these these great things that probably once upon a time was the pedestal. Right? But now it's not. Now you see yourself as an equal to it. And it's actually just a byproduct of what matters. And that's in between. And so when we're talking about embodiment and a shift in frequency, it's almost like we've detached from whether or not. the desire is going to happen. It's not a matter of if it's a matter of when. And sometimes I think this is perfect, like having these specific timelines to build towards and whatnot as well. But I think for a lot of people, when they actually let go of the when and the how, and they decide, how can I become the person now that would already have that outcome? How can I become the person now that it would make sense that outcome would happen for them? And as you go through that process of embodying that and showing up as that person day in, day out, you almost kind of forget about the fact that you're not there because you eventually get to the point where, like I said to you before, when it happens, nothing really changes, right? And so that moment, like this picture in this book of that moment, it's almost like that was always going to happen. Yeah, fuck. That was always going to happen. But for you being there, all that does is just anchor down even further into the conviction of, like you said, I get to decide what this looks like. And there is no fucking pain small. Like, like we spoke about before, the evidence that we are experiencing is a byproduct of our beliefs. It's a result of our beliefs. And so anyone listening to this at the moment, it's like make that decision, what do you want? And go fucking be desired, but there's a big difference between having an idea and something that sounds sexy and sounds cool. And there's a big difference between that and deciding. Because the moment you decided, this was never a question of whether or not it was going to happen. Like this was always going to happen. All of this was always going to happen because you decided with conviction. Much like that didn't even happen, like that happened for you twice. Yeah. And you know what, I actually know, having once, probably once. You have them once. Because when you put the book together at the beginning, there wasn't, I know, obviously I'm just given my opinion, I don't know. But I don't think there was conviction. The second time round. Not the same way that it was like. There was conviction. Because, fuck. And the beauty of this is every time we then realize these new realities and the reality starts to work its way to us. We're now feeding off that evidence. We're feeding off that and going, well, six months before this happened, didn't look like it was going to happen, didn't feel like it was about to happen as quickly as it did. And then your experience is quantum leap where it's like on paper, it makes no fucking sense. It makes no sense. And so from that moment onwards, you start deciding it doesn't need to make sense. It doesn't need to make sense. No. And when you stop looking for it to make sense, and you start to allow life to happen, and this is the beauty, you know, something I think about often is like, some of the greatest things that I've experienced, and when these things have all kind of come together, there was not one fucking thing before, and the suggested was about to happen. And so on the days and the weeks where shit feels hard, and it feels like it's even sometimes moving in the wrong direction, or it's just like, you have the level of questioning whether or not it's going to happen, or why you're doing what you're doing. Like, in those moments now, I'm like, yeah, this is it. It's like, I explain it like a damn wall. You're on the outside of a damn wall, and the water's rising every single day, because you're investing in that, you're putting the money, you're putting the water in there, it's rising. You can't see shit. You can't walk away when the water's just there, because if you keep showing up, keep showing up eventually, it all just breaks through, right? But it never looked like it was about to, and you had no idea when it was going to. And it only does if you keep showing up. Just keep looking. I trigger that thing, and that vision might be 16 times a day. - Yeah, yeah, well, that's what I wanted to, that's one of the things I wanted to ask you. Like, on a day today, I feel like, man, we're gonna have to have part two, three, four, five to this conversation that we have to. On a day-to-day basis, I said before that, from the outside in what I've observed is how I can get into your standards and the reason the way you want to embody. What are the non-negotiables look like for you personally, daily, that allow you to show up the way that you do? So, I look at, so I, three-year vision, that's where it starts, that book that you're looking at, Empire 28, right? We will be, like I've already written the final saying, where we're gonna be on a chilly November night in Manhattan looking south at 10 million people, which are the same amount of people that we're gonna be impacting every single year. Now, so that's where we're gonna be. The second part of that is, in Hawaii, when I announced this with the team, we changed everything. So, our identities became new for this sequel. I asked the team to meet me out the front of the hotel at five o'clock, and I was gonna take them for a walk across the road for a surprise. Now, there's a shop in the States called Lid, so you get hats, right? So, I took them all in and I said, "Pick a fuckin' New York hat." So, they all picked a hat. And I said to the staff, I needed extra staff here, 'cause we were gonna get hats embroidered. So, we all got a new identity for this next season. And you couldn't come up with your own. The team came up with the identities for each other. So, they handed me chief, was my identity, so we got that embroidered on the hat. Haley looks after myself and like the rest of the team, that's Haley, this is my guy over here, and there's like five, six other names of the people that were with us on that trip. So, identity, like I've gotta become the chief. I feel like the first season was just me being born. I was like a rebirth. And now I've gotta become the chief. I've got the general, my business partner's the general, and it just flows through the business. So, we start with that identity, but not from that. Not just that, like you know my trainer. I called him and I got home and said, "All right, Kate, I'm gonna make you look like a chief." So, my training plan has actually been, what I eat has shifted. So, I was almost like method acting into this. We got matching tats. My clients got matching tats with us. It's fucking nuts. So, then every single day, so then I do this thing. So, that's the three-year vision book. Now, I'll break that down into a roadmap, 'cause I'm not fucking Oprah, and I'm sitting around looking at a vision wall. I'll break that down into a full blueprint. What I'm gonna achieve by when, and the rewards I'm gonna unlock. So, I've got my four identities that I'm moving into over the next three years. One's a work one, one's a personal one, one's me as a family person, and one is more of a wealth one. Then what the standards need to be, 'cause we all rise, like we don't rise to our goals, we fall to our standards, shout out to James Cleary, Tommy Habits. Then I figure out what 12 things need to happen in the next 12 months, three per identity, four identities. That's 12. That's called the power 12. That is a wallpaper sitting on my phone right now. So, every time I look at my fucking phone to face IDN, which is every minute and times a day, I'm looking at this fucking power 12. It's so good. I hate to make one from my office at home, so I'm looking at every single day when I sit down and do my deep work, I'm looking at this fucking thing. Then it's like milestones along the way, and then it rewards that it unlocks. So, that's a full roadmap. I've done this with over 2,000 times. Fucking change their life. My power 12, and then ends up every single week. I do a self-reflection, takes 20 minutes on a Sunday. The time it takes for you to drink it, I like an ice-long black for me. I call that separation Sunday. Yep. So, anyone can do this. People that aren't even my clients are doing this now. I love that. 'Cause they come to my Instagram, hey.dozer. And actually, if you go to hey.dozer on Instagram, message me Sunday, I'll just give you the training and the template. So, that is my sort of four-part system. There's a fifth part, which is three times a year, I take myself away for a solo CEO retreat that my clients are now doing. Yeah, beautiful. That's the very first time I came up with the first book, was I took myself away to a solo retreat. Yep. It was a lot less elegant before it was like, fuck this. Yeah. Frustrated, un-clean, annoyed at everyone, and came home with the first book, pretty much. I've got more questions for you. By the way, we've got a new team song, Empire State of Mind. Oh, fuck it. All our passwords are in part 28, everyone knows now. Like, everything changed, dude. Like, we fucking move into this new season. That's embodiment. And I dand it in. And I dand it in. What do you mean? I want to ask you, now, I know you said you've got all this map out, so there may not be other gentlemen. I don't have the house. I've got none of the house. No, the house. I've not. That doesn't matter yet. If one of these was to happen within 12 months from now, not the three years, which one would it be? And whether or not you have an answer for this right now or not, I want you to think about what would need to happen, what would need to change in order for that to happen in 12 months instead of three? Fuck. And the reason I asked this is, you know, we talked about conviction before. And as humans, as we elevate and grow and evolve and shift these frequencies, it's almost like there's an element of us, the subconscious that's almost like patting ourselves in the back of like, we've grown, we've changed, we've elevated. So then I challenge that of Goamwell. How do we make that the baseline? And how do we then elevate from there? Do you have any answer? I do. Probably the 100 Eagles. Yep. So Eagles is the name of our higher level. Yep. Room. Probably 100 Eagles. And what would need to be true? Probably stop being pushed. He's fantastic. I love it. It's good. Well, what days are today? 20.26. Cool. Oh my God, what are you going to say? So about 20.25th March next year. That's that's a reality, right? Yeah. Mark it. We're going to fucking goose bumps. We're going to do a pot brother. We're going to do a pot on this date next year to celebrate. Ready? Still appreciate your brother. As I said, we are undoubtedly going to have part 2345 to this. I really love spending time with you today, man. And I feel really, really inspired and you're just doing such a great job, man. I appreciate it. And you said before, what am I going to bring? What am I going to offer to the pot brother? You brought so much. You brought so much here. You are in the top echelon of the guests that we've had on this show. So I appreciate your time, man. Thank you, dude. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Let's do around too, hey.