Building “Antifragile” minds and bodies: Mr Bhutan’s new journey in transforming lives through physical and mental wellbeing

2026-01-25 - 21:07

From dominating body building championships to being a writer and also a self-improvement coach, Tshering Dorji alias ‘Mr Bhutan’ returns not as a bodybuilder, but as a mentor for helping people build stronger bodies and resilient minds through mental and physical exercises. Growing up as a kid who was determined to distinguish himself from the rest, Tshering Dorji had recognized the pattern to success and always set his eyes to greatness early on. Stepping into bodybuilding stardom, he says he went on to become a Health and Fitness writer. Even today, he is the only one. He said, “After winning my first Mr Bhutan title, I immediately called Kuensel and told them I want to write about Health and Fitness. I used to write Health and Fitness content, and then my writings gradually transformed into Health and Happiness. Now, wherever I go, I try to share the value of Health and Happiness.” Situated at the heart of the town, Antifragile Temple stands as a unique establishment for physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing. The place is firmly rooted in ideas of simplicity, sanctity, and holistic self-improvement. “A space, a community dedicated to building Antifragile minds and bodies and a deep understanding of the world around us with the hopes that someday students lead to becoming independent and contributing citizens of the planet.” Entering the temple, one is immediately greeted with the Antifragile Temple logo imbued with deep and symbolic meaning. A silhouette of the Buddha created with a collection of beautifully arranged stones and pebbles with the letter ‘A’ inscribed on it, to distinguish its uniqueness. The Buddha is symbolic of the teachings of the mind. The contrasting stones, (not to be confused with the philosophy of Yin and Yang), each tell a story and carry a special significance to the temple. At the corner of the temple lies a symbolic art piece called ‘Hell and Heaven’. The art shows a world where people live with locked elbows over a dining table, a metaphor of chaos and peaceful coexistence (Hell and Heaven) among humans when they help or blame each other, in two canvases. Antifragile Education is a program that will enhance physical and mental capacities through three core pillars in this education. The first pillar is the physical. This includes engagement in physical exercise but goes deeper into nutrition. Mr Bhutan, Tshering Dorji mentions it is for achieving “a healthy, painfree, flexible, and an immune body. The emphasis is more towards building healthier bodies and wellbeing, and not for sporting endeavors or aesthetics.” The second pillar is the Mind. The second pillar consists of the “10 books for life” particularly handpicked by Mr Bhutan himself after reading, studying and writing extensive blogs on them and having applied most of the values in his own life. He said, “These books are meant to be read in a hierarchical order, and based on its importance and its level of understanding and simplicity. The main objective of this is to enable students to read these books, to understand them, and to practically apply it in their own lives. I believe this is my mission. If they can apply it with their lives, then they can expand and interpret more towards these guiding values in building better lives. These books serve as a tool to build and create various expressions for their lives.” The third pillar includes activities such as seminars and discussions that will be hosted in the Antifragile Temple occasionally. It is meant to open students’ minds through discussion and engagement where there will be discussions on how students are currently navigating with the program and feedback sessions on applying tips to their lives. The project is the culmination of 6 years of dedicated effort in creating a place for people to transform their lives. “After 2016, I couldn’t push my body further anymore and so I asked myself, what next? Then the next frontier became the mind and so, I spent many hours studying, reading on different topics such as philosophy, psychology, wellness, and religion and to extract the essence of my life and my understanding of wellness, to simplify it to the greatest extent and apply it to day to day life. This place is an expression of making it easier. An environment and community to share and garner these values, even in my absence. A place for individuals to internalize these values and even build on it to improve lives and they begin with realising that Health and Happiness are of foremost importance,” Tshering Dorji said. His motive for establishing Antifragile Temple stemmed from his innate sense for helping people realise the truths of life. He further said, “I asked myself, how can I help humanity understand that the path that they are walking is very disrupted? If we are talking numbers then factors such as GDP and life expectancy have improved exponentially over the years compared to the 1960s but in terms of welfare, it has significantly declined. Diabetes and heart diseases are rising. Mental health is deteriorating and issues such as depression and anxiety are worsening. It is being treated more with medicine and not behavioural and lifestyle changes.” Like any other endeavors, his mission was also met with curricular and financial challenges. “The biggest challenges in building Antifragile Temple were the tasks of simplification and being able to express everything I know in experience but in words to people around me. I had to simplify it to make it understandable for the masses. That is one,” Tshering said. He added, “Dreams with empty pockets are empty dreams. We faced some difficulties in raising capital, and pooling resources to fuel the vision of Antifragile Temple and so that it thrives on the testing phase, without compromising the values of the Temple. These two were the main challenges.” Mr Bhutan said name itself carries meaning that is deeply engraved in his life, mission, and purpose. “Why Temple? Because I wanted it to be a special and a sacred place for the students to connect and to respect this as a place for worship. Like any other chorten or church, a place of worship,” he said. He said the temple is built on respect and a sense of helping each other. “You don’t wear shoes in a temple, you don’t make a temple dirty. It’s the same here. The religion here is self-improvement,” Mr Bhutan said. “‘Antifragile’ is a word coined by one of my favourite authors called Nassim Taleb. He gave me a word for the way I was always living and that’s why I thought it would be perfect for this place. Antifragile is something that grows under pressure, like how micro muscle fibres need to tear in order to grow,” he pointed out. He said, “At Antifragile Temple we enable students to embrace antifragility into our minds and our lives. About what we can learn from adversities and how we can apply those lessons to our lives. We help our students nurture Antifragile minds and bodies.” Tshering Dorji hopes to expand the temple in other dzongkhags as well, and said, “All the money we raise here will go into giving exceptional salaries to our trainers, budget for a rainy day fund, and saving for our next temple.”