Ziva Health founder turns personal experiment in fear, resilience and physical limits, into championship victory
LOS ALTOS, Calif.: Indian health-tech entrepreneur and Ziva Health CEO Parveen Panwar spends much of his professional life thinking about how people can take a more active role in their health. This weekend, he found himself testing that philosophy in an unexpected place: on a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competition mat.
After months of quietly attending early-morning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes while running Ziva Health, Panwar entered his first competition and walked away with a gold medal.
But for Panwar, the more meaningful part of the experience happened before the match even began.
“When I looked across the mat, I felt real fear,” Panwar said. “My opponent had won gold before and looked much tougher and stronger than me. For a moment, my mind was already telling me what was going to happen. That was when everything I believe about mindset and resilience stopped being theory.”
Instead of allowing the fear to dictate the outcome, Panwar focused on controlling his breathing, trusting his training and staying present. He went on to win and capture gold.
The victory was particularly meaningful because Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was far outside Panwar’s traditional comfort zone. His background had been centered more around yoga, breathwork, fitness and wellness than combat sports. Training brought bruised ribs, sore legs and the unfamiliar experience of repeatedly being put in uncomfortable positions and having to remain calm enough to respond.
“It’s easy to talk about resilience when you’re comfortable,” Panwar said. “It is very different when someone is physically putting you under pressure and your brain is telling you to panic or quit. You learn very quickly that being uncomfortable doesn’t always mean you need to stop.”
The experience also reflects a philosophy behind Ziva Health, the health technology company Panwar leads. Ziva is developing a continuous-care platform designed to connect health data, patient behavior and care teams so meaningful changes in a person’s health can be recognized and acted on rather than viewed as isolated moments.
Panwar believes technology can help people understand their health, but information alone is rarely enough. What people do consistently – their behaviors, decisions and ability to respond to challenges ultimately matters.
“As we get older, we start creating rules about what our bodies can do, what we should try and what might be too difficult,” Panwar said. “Sometimes those limits are real. But sometimes they’re simply stories we’ve repeated long enough to believe. The only way to know the difference is to challenge them.”
For an entrepreneur accustomed to building companies, the experience offered a different definition of progress: showing up as a beginner, being willing to struggle and discovering that improvement can happen well outside the areas where someone already feels successful.
Panwar says the gold medal is not the end of the experiment. He plans to continue Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training while leading Ziva Health.
“The medal is something I’ll remember,” he said. “But what matters more to me is proving that we can continue learning difficult things, facing fear and expanding what we believe we’re capable of.”
About Ziva Health: Ziva Health is a health technology company building a continuous-care platform designed to turn ongoing health signals into meaningful action. The platform connects health data, patient behavior and care teams to help identify important changes over time and support more proactive, personalized care.
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