The Fearless Path: What a Movie Stuntman's Spiritual Awakening Can Teach You about Success

By Curtis Rivers

Have you somehow lost direction and drifted off-course? Are you finding that despite your best efforts, personal success and career fulfilment elude you? Follow the author on an amazing trek in mysterious eastern mountains and find the keys to help you turn your life round, moving from restriction to freedom and abundance.

Curtis Rivers is a "Law of Attraction" expert who has harnessed his fears to clear the path towards his goals and unlimited success. His expertise evolved from his days as a top Hollywood Movie Stuntman where Curtis has bypassed fear to win a Screen Actors Guild award, gain prestigious inclusion into the Hollywood Stuntmens Hall of Fame, and break two Guinness World Records. He now delivers powerful presentations that change the way people think, helping them to smash through fear and transform their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
• Release date: Oct 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781844097715

Curtis Rivers

Curtis Rivers is an expert in goal achievement and dealing with the fears that hold people back. During his 20 years as a top Hollywood Movie Stuntman, he smashed Guinness World Records, received an award from the Screen Actors Guild, and prestigious inclusion into The Hollywood Stuntmen's Hall of Fame.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

— LAO TZU (C. 4TH CENTURY BC )

Open

This book was written with the sole purpose of unlocking the powerful potential stored deep within you. It contains in its pages the little known knowledge passed down through the misty corridors of time, by the select few.

Now it is your turn to be initiated into these compelling truths.

The fact that you are reading this page means you’ve attracted this information to you; whether you know that to be true or not, I assure you it is. All will become clear very soon, I promise.

The story you are about to read is just that—a story. Although a large proportion of the book is autobiographical, I’d like to make it clear that the canvas I paint my words upon is largely fictional. I have used a dramatic licence to condense many hours of real life conversation into single paragraphs, or several days of discussions into a single afternoon. Likewise, some events are told out of sequence and the names of people and places are altered in the interest of privacy.

Read it as a fictional story based on real events and awakenings, a tale written in such a way that many great truths have been carved into it. Like the mason’s marks etched into solid rock, I hope this method will preserve the key messages of this book for many years to come.

The following story describes a fantastic journey of discovery, as I ascend a mystical mountain. The secret knowledge delivered on this magical trek came to me quite by chance.

At least, I didn’t consciously set off on that fateful day in October looking for some spiritually life changing experience. Yet a life altering, paradigm shifting experience is exactly what I got.

By sharing my adventure with you, and by passing on the amazing things I discovered, I know that you too will be able to transform your life. The reality is, when you reached for this book a moment ago, you already began that journey.

On that autumn day, I was overseas to trek up a mountain that I had always dreamed of ascending, ever since I had read about it in a dusty bookshop as a small child. I’m not speaking of Everest, nor of K2 or the Matterhorn, but a mystical mountain off the usual tourist trail.

As well as writing this book in story form to convey important wisdom to you, I’ve also written it in layers, and dropped in the odd clue here and there, just for fun.

There are clues hidden on many degrees in my multi-layered book.

Some will speak fully to your conscious mind; others will creep into your subconscious region. Some messages will not enter your mind until you’re reading this book for the second time, or third—to be frank, it’s been written in that way just for you!

Sometimes you might enjoy other parts of this book without realizing all along that perplexing codes were aptly encoding some amazing knowledge within!

Sound a bit farfetched? Not possible? I will promise you that it is. Better still, I will now go straight ahead to prove it to you. Let’s look carefully over this page for example. Quite ordinary, wouldn’t you say? Worry not – it gets better! So, are you still not aware that right here and now, this minute, you are reading hidden code? Well you are! So go ahead and count the twenty-five letters to witness the code, from the words There are clues hidden... above. A short message will slowly appear before your eyes. Go ahead and read it! Start by carefully counting the letter ‘T’ as ‘one’, then you draw around every twenty-fifth hidden letter in the sentence. You’ll get ‘y’ first, and ‘o’ next, so circle these and count another twenty-five letters to circle the next one – and so on and so forth.

Did you get the message? Or did you decide to skip that bit and come back to it later? I thought so. That’s why I dropped it in there, just to see if you were a ‘doer’ or a ‘when I get around to it’ type of person!

Did you consider doing the exercise, but had no pen or pencil close by? Again, not really a valid excuse, as I’m sure you could find one if you really wanted to!

OK, you don’t have to do the exercise if you don’t want to, but having a pencil and paper close by is going to become extremely useful as you read this book over the next seven days.

If you did the counting and the circling of letters, you’ll believe me now about the multi-layered, hidden and hypnotic writing within this book. You’ll be starting to realize that this book might just be the one you’ve been looking for. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the journey.

Still regretting not having a pencil handy? OK, for those without pencils, the hidden message was a quote by the late, great, Sir Winston Churchill, who uncovered some of the truths shared in this book during his own travels and studies. I’ll highlight every twenty-fifth letter here for you:

There are clues hidden on many degrees in my multi-layered book. Some will speak fully to your conscious mind; others will creep into your subconscious region. Some messages will not enter your mind until you’re reading this book for the second time, or third – to be frank, it’s been written in that way just for you!

Sometimes you might enjoy other parts of this book without realising all along that perplexing codes were aptly encoding some amazing knowledge within.

Sound a bit farfetched? Not possible? I will promise you that it is. Better still, I will now go straight ahead to prove it to you. Let’s look carefully over this page for example. Quite ordinary, wouldn’t you say? Worry not – it gets better! So are you still not aware that right here and now, this minute, you are reading hidden code? Well – you are! So go ahead and count the twenty-five letters to witness the code, from the words "There are clues hidden…" above. A short message will slowly appear before your eyes! Go ahead and read it! Start by carefully counting the letter ‘T’ as ‘one’, then you draw around every twenty-fifth hidden letter in the sentence. You’ll get ‘y’ first, and ‘o’ next, so circle these and count another twenty-five letters to circle the next one – and so on and so forth.

You create your own universe as you go along.

Sir Winston Churchill knew a great secret! Many of history’s most eminent high-achieving heroes knew the same coveted fact. It’s just one of a number of truths that I’m going to happily share with you over the next seven days or so—hidden gems that are exceptionally powerful and life altering. Trust me; you’re going to cherish this book!

Why seven days? Well, after arriving at the foot of this sacred mountain, my own journey took just seven days.

From setting off to reaching the summit, seven days. Each day ended at a very special place, and it is the sacred and magical knowledge that was shared with me during this amazing trek that I wish to share with you.

I recommend that you read just one chapter a day—seven chapters, seven days—so you can soak up and process the information in the same way that I did in the story you’re about to read.

Beyond that, there will be exercises you’ll want to return to as the information settles in. It is my sincere hope that you will come back to this book often, as you slowly begin to see your life change beyond all recognition.

Mine has. All I did was apply these simple lessons. Once I share my story, you will be able to apply those same lessons to your own life, and follow in the footsteps of some of the greatest people ever to walk this fabulous planet.

Let us begin, then, early one sunny morning, by a low, crumbling wall at the edge of a remote village, as I await the arrival of my mountain guide.

CHAPTER ONE

To believe in the things you can see and can touch is no belief at all; but to believe in the unseen is both a triumph and a blessing.

— ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1809–1865)

Believe

Iput my weight on the crumbling wall and almost fell right through. A quick scramble to my feet and a cursory glance around to establish my stumble had gone unseen, and I returned my gaze to the end of the track where I expected my guide to appear.

He was late, which wasn’t a great start, and I felt really ill, which was worse. That’s why I’d tried to rest against the wall—I had a banging headache, a chesty cough, and a streaming nose.

How could this be happening? I kept myself really fit; it was part of my job.

I had earned my living up until this point as a television and movie stuntman, or ‘stunt performer’. Even in those quiet times between bookings, I had to maintain a good level of physical strength and agility. One way I did this was by walking and trekking.

Bored senseless by the routine plodding on the gym’s jogging machines and the monotonous climbing on cross trainers, I swapped the view of plasma screens for the open vistas of the countryside and never looked back.

I walk four or five miles a day now, every day when it’s at all possible, early in the morning before showering. I burn more calories on my one-hour daily walk than I ever did on those machines, and I use the time to reflect and plan the day ahead.

This explains how I came to be in this mystical place by the crumbling wall, but doesn’t yet explain why I was alone.

Going It Alone

I wished my wife were with me to see this. I often thought about her; she’d missed so many spectacular experiences. But she simply didn’t want to go.

Her love for adventure had been challenged just before the kids came along, when one of my backpack adventures across Egypt backfired. She had food poisoning, sunburn, and far too much attention from the locals who kept grabbing her long blonde hair. The arduous night train to Cairo was the final straw. Even riding camels to the Great Pyramids at sunrise proved too little, too late. She wanted to hide for the remainder of the trip, which she did in a cosy little hotel on an island in the river Nile, just upstream from the wonderful city of Luxor. I cycled from our base to visit nearby temples and to practise my Egyptian (I learned to speak Egyptian Arabic before my first trip to Egypt) while she lay by the pool. I loved it. Unfortunately, she didn’t.

In order to satisfy my own desire to see the world I had to rely on the occasional overseas stunt job. The Count of Monte Cristo, for example, took me to Ireland, Malta and Comino. I doubled for the Count, played by Jim Caviezel, performing some riding and underwater sequences. I also returned to Malta a few years later to work with Sir David Jason on Ghostboat. There were other opportunities, like a commercial filmed in Turkey and a Viking movie in Iceland, but the international trips were few and far between.

Family vacations we mainly took in England while the children were young. Although I loved these holidays, I found it more and more difficult to hide my growing frustrations from my wife. I had such a burning desire to see all of the wonders that the world had to offer! After tolerating my moaning for some time, she eventually relented.

I had her blessing to travel alone. Fantastic!

So it was that I took my family to the sunny English coastlines of Cornwall and Devon, or perhaps to the French Riviera once a year, but I also left a couple of weeks free every year to have an adventure of my own.

Mr Rivers!

An antique Jeep ground to a halt in front of me, belching plumes of acrid fumes from its rear end.

This can’t be the guide, I thought of the large, rotund man, sweating profusely behind the wheel.

I’m sorry for the delay, he said, and explained that the guide intended for my trip had gone astray, but he’d been lucky enough to source another guide locally.

I wasn’t impressed at all.

My headache was getting worse, not helped by the stress of having to wait so long, only to find someone, somewhere, had screwed up. I accepted the big guy’s apology and asked where this ‘local’ guide was. The driver pointed to a field a short distance away, where someone stood motionless against a backdrop of lush green mountains, framed by a deep blue sky.

A Chance Encounter

I squeezed through a gap in the wall and began to ascend the steep dirt track that led to my new travelling partner, who was making adjustments to his load.

As I approached, I was surprised to find that this small man, about five feet six inches tall, was not local at all; he looked European, and I became slightly apprehensive on realizing he was a lot older than me.

I needn’t have worried. As I got within twenty feet of this man, his face lit up like a child walking into a room full of Christmas presents. His white, wispy beard contrasted starkly with his leathery, sunned skin.

Welcome, he said, in the gentlest voice I had ever heard. His English was excellent, and his tone reminded me of Albus Dumbledore in the first Harry Potter movies, played by the late, great Richard Harris. (I was fortunate enough to appear in a Harry Potter film myself; I played a Death Eater in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Unfortunately, by that time Richard Harris had shed his mortal coil, to be replaced, rather well I think, by Michael Gambon.)

I knew right away that I was in the presence of an Englishman who had fallen in love with this place during an expedition, many years previously. I suddenly felt at ease, with a nervous excitement for what adventure might unfold over the coming days.

I have been looking forward to this very much, he continued, which I found odd because he’d only just been chosen to lead me up the mountain, according to the chap in the Jeep. He spoke in whispers that made me hang on to his every word, punctuating his sentences with loud, passionate phrases, always followed by a broad smile.

He looked so intensely into my eyes when he spoke that I felt he was looking into my soul and me into his. There was an air of timelessness in his gaze that is difficult to explain, except to say that for a guy who was probably in his sixties, his eyes seemed to be one hundred years old.

His dark green jacket seemed oddly out of place, more suited to an English country pheasant shoot than a mountain ascent. This chap was ‘old school’ in the extreme: sturdy boots with a couple of pairs of long woollen socks, the outer turned over the boot, the inner pulled up to just below the knee, where a thick pair of old olive trousers were tucked. The jacket almost covered a light brown woollen scarf that was too long and protruded from the bottom of the coat.

Come, he said. Let us begin this journey.

The Journey Begins

His pace was slow and deliberate up the first grassy foothill. A welltrodden path eased me into the walk. The relatively flat ground began to slowly increase in steepness, while the path began to twist up the hill like a python hunting its prey.

It must have been the nerves that kept me talking incessantly for that first hour of our trek. I was essentially a very shy and private person—the kind of person to feel awkward at parties, the sort you’d find pretending to be interested in the CDs or hanging out by the buffet table.

My burning legs breathed a sigh of relief as we reached the top of the first high foothill and began a steady descent into the lush valley below. A beautiful lake at the bottom of the slope caused me to wonder if this new guide was taking me on a different route to the one I’d arranged with the travel company. There was certainly no mention of a lake in my detailed itinerary.

The guide hadn’t said much at all to me so far, which is probably why I was sweating and out of breath, while he looked as fresh as the mountain air that whispered up from the lake and cooled my moist brow.

I’m sorry, I said. I was feeling quite unwell when we met and I didn’t get your name?

Pierce, said the guide without turning around, but the locals call me Harry. I prefer Pierce.

As in Brosnan? I replied, a little surprised.

The guide stopped, and turned around with a frown.

Indeed, I suppose exactly as in Brosnan.

He paused, and inhaled as if he was going to add something, but instead placed an index finger against his lips, turned, and continued his descent towards the lake, which was now drawing near.

I considered telling him that I’d had a few scenes with Pierce Brosnan in the Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies, or telling him how I’d been asked to double Pierce in an underwater scene in the same movie, but somehow, I figured he’d be largely unimpressed. There was something about him that made me feel he’d been to a lot of places and achieved an awful lot.

Much to my surprise, on our arrival at the lake, he made his way to a small boat tied up at a tiny makeshift jetty.

I was confused as to why we were getting into a boat, but before I could ask him he’d taken up the oars, pushed off, and sped from the shore like a Cambridge Blue!

Oh, I said. Listen, I’m happy to row. It’s just a cold I’ve picked up.

Thank you, he replied, as I began to cough and hold my chest. But do you know which way we are going?

Er, no.

Good, he said with a warm smile. Then it is settled.

With that, he picked up the pace, seeming to delight in the strength and fitness he was demonstrating from a man much older than I.

Ahead of us the towering mountain grew taller and taller as we crossed the lake.

Wow! I remarked. It looks a heck of a lot bigger in real life.

The patient guide smiled, as he eased off the rowing, lifting the oars out of the cold water.

Yes, indeed, he said, looking down at his boots. With his head held low, his deep eyes flicked up to engage mine. If you think that little foothill is high, wait until you see the actual mountain beyond it!

He silently placed the oars back into the water, and pulled hard to continue our crossing. I sighted a long thin boat to our starboard side (that’s the right hand side for those of you who prefer to stay on dry land).

It was the first time I’d seen a boat like that—wide enough for four people to sit side by side, yet long enough to fit dozens of people if required. Like a Viking longboat, its bow and stern lifted from the lake and curved upwards, yet in place of the mast and sails, a small tented canopy was held aloft by four wooden poles. It looked like a garden gazebo stuck in the middle of a small longboat.

Pierce explained that it was a local fishing boat, and indeed as we drew closer I could see the nets being dragged in by children. One of the nets got snagged on an oar. The children didn’t seem fazed by this; in fact they seemed to find it quite amusing. Some adults scolded the children as their catch began to slip back into the waters, and ran from the stern to help. The boat rocked from side to side, suddenly looking quite unstable. Pierce stopped rowing and pointed as the boat groaned and a couple of children fell from the side and into the cold lake. Then it lurched back and capsized completely!

My heart raced as I began to unzip my jacket, instinct preparing me to dive straight in and save anyone I could. However, before I could get my arm out of my jacket, Pierce let out an enormous belly laugh.

Both the children and the adults were smiling and