260: Mark Divine - How To Create An Unbeatable Mind

WEBVTT
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You've got to challenge yourself to prove to yourself that
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you're capable of 20 times more. And you've got to
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challenge yourself in a big way. So, you know, every
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day we find something challenging to do. Every week, something
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a little bit more challenging. Every month, a little bit
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more challenging. Every quarter, even more challenging than once a
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year to every 18 months. A real doozy.
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This episode is brought to you by Gusto.
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just go to gusto.com slash leader. That's G-U-S-T-O dot com
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slash leader.
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Welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk.
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Thanks so much for being here. It is Mindful Monday.
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Text LEARNERS to 44222 in order to join thousands of
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other fellow learning leaders from all.
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Over the world. Text LEARNERS to 44222.
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Now, on to tonight's featured leader. It's with the great
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Mark Devine, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal
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bestseller of multiple books. He ranked the number one trainee
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of SEAL BUDS class number 171. He served nine years
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on active duty and 11 years as a reserve SEAL,
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retiring as a commander in 2011. He's since become a
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world-class entrepreneur. He founded NavySEALS.com, among other things.
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This was incredible. A few of the topics we got into,
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why everyone, including you, should go to therapy. Then the
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power of visualization and Mark's response.
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To people who are skeptical of this. Then what happened
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when Mark wrote an obituary for himself and why you
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should do this too. Ladies and gentlemen, there's so much.
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It's wide-ranging. It's deep. It's really good.
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It's Mark Devine. All right, Mark Devine, thanks so much
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for being here. I'm honored to have you on the
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Learning Leader Show.
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Welcome. Welcome.
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Ryan, thank you very much for having me.
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It's an honor. I, um, I'm very curious.
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I've been looking forward to this one for a while and, uh,
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given your life and everything that you've accomplished, as well
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as the people that you've spent a great deal of
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time around, I'm really curious to learn from you. What
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have you found to be the commonalities among leaders who
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have sustained excellence over an extended period of time?
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Yeah, that's such an excellent question. Um, You know, the
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answer like jumps right out of me. Leaders who have
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sustained excellence in leadership tend to be people who have
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practices around excellence or achieving and maintaining excellence in their
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personal life. And I would say that these practices include
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physical training, maintaining optimal health. So those would be practices
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and rituals around optimizing sleep, optimizing physical training and homeostatic
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balance through stress management. And then mental development, so patterns
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of excellence around mental development or mental health would include
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things like meditation, time in nature, learning new things and
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kind of stretching the boundaries of your mind and also
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reducing stress. the potential for, you know, getting stuck in
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your biases and whatnot. So constant, you know, approach to learning, reading,
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growing mentally. And then the third and crucial is emotional health.
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You know, when I think of the top leaders that
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I know, they're ones that aren't afraid of going to therapy.
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They're the ones that are really always working on their
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relationships and realizing that ultimately relating with other human beings is,
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is largely an emotional thing. And so they're, they have
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practices of excellence around that. And of course, spiritual, like they,
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the spiritual aspect keeps humility at the forefront. You know,
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they're doing something, they're doing what they do for a
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higher sense of power, purpose and power. And it's not
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really about ego or achievement for, you know, those kind
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of lower level things, which helps them stay energized and
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really focused. And I'll say the last thing is that
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Those who have sustained excellence are always willing to challenge
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themselves and to risk a little bit, right? So they're
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constantly growing. They've learned that human beings grow through challenge
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and so they don't shy from it. Wow.
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That was just off the cuff, man. That was awesome.
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So I appreciate that.
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I'm really thinking about that one where– You mentioned therapy,
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and this just popped in my mind. I've hired a
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coach to help me write, specifically a book, Mark, because
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I realized that I need And it's funny, so we're
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talking through every, the introduction and all the chapters. And
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these feel to me, and I've told her this, these
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feel to me like these deep therapy sessions, but they're
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so helpful.
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And I haven't gone to.
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Like a real therapy, but this is almost my version
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of it.
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So how do you practice this in your life?
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Well, it started when I married a therapist, you know,
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so it kind of happened by default.
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Yep.
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Unbeknownst to me. Anyways. And then I've had a number
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of therapists working on kind of different things. And just
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like finding a good business coach, it does take time
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to find the right fit. I look at therapy almost
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the same as a writing coach or a leadership coach
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or a success coach or life coach, whatever you want
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to call it. There's coaches in every domain popping up
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all over the place. And so the therapist really is
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your emotional coach. Now, most people have a different view.
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They think, oh, you know, when you're broke or your
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relationship breaks down or your marriage is failing, that's the
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time to go to a therapist as like a Hail
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Mary to try to save things. And a lot of men, especially,
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they think it's like taboo. I have a completely different viewpoint.
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I think therapy is preventative maintenance. It helps you do
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the deep self-awareness and introspection because, you know, largely we're
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inside the bottle. We can't read the label of our
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own lives and we need a little bit of external
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support and help from an expert who can, you know,
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see our, our, you know, see our bullshit, you know,
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and listen to our bullshit that we're telling about ourselves.
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You know, we live with, we live a bunch of stories, right?
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And sometimes those stories are, are solid and empowering like
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yours and, and a lot of your listeners. And sometimes
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those stories are just complete BS and we need to
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be called out on them. And that's what a good
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therapist will do.
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I like that.
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So that's how I do it, you know, frequently. And
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then if I ever, you know, get really stuck or,
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or some, you know, some past issue just kind of
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bubbles up and it's a recurring pattern. Then, you know,
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I'll get that kind of like little nod from my wife, like, okay,
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it's time. And I'm like, okay, all right. So place
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the call. And there's a few more sessions. It can
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be routine. It can be, you know, episodic, like checkup
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from the neck up every once a month. It's kind
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of what I do now. Or you can marry a
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therapist that always works too.
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How did you meet your wife?
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Well, I finished Navy SEAL training in 1991. It feels
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like yesterday because it was such an intense experience. And
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I moved next door to my future wife in Coronado, California,
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which is where the Navy SEAL training base is. And
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we struck up a friendship first. And then, of course,
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that turned romantic later on, four years later after a
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couple world tours, I should say.
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Were you a patient of hers?
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Not at all. No? No.
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We just literally shared a back deck, and I took
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note of this very attractive woman who was living next
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door to me.
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Nice.
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I love that story. Okay, Mark, so there's so much
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to get to. What I thought of right there, though,
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was you said it's a preventative measure, and what it
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makes me think of when I read your work as
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well as that specific phrase you just said is that
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The people who sustain excellence are proactive in the way
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that they operate.
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They're proactive with everything.
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Including something that others may view as something that's a
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more reactive thing. Uh-oh, things are going bad. I better
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talk to someone. And they're saying, no, things are going well.
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I want them to continue going well and go even better,
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so I'm going to invest in someone to help me.
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Correct. You know, a good– a lot of people are,
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and I know you are, I saw the term mindfulness
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on your website. You know, a lot of people are
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getting into kind of meditation, mindfulness, and they think, okay,
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this is going to make me a better leader because
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I'll be more self-aware and more mindful. Of course, that term,
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you know, is pretty broad, but, and I've got some
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different ideas on that we could talk about later, but, um,
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Generally speaking, mindfulness comes from the spiritual traditions, yoga and
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Buddhism generally, or Zen, and it was ported over here
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to the United States. You can look at that as
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a success tool or an evolutionary skill that everybody can
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and ultimately should or will do some form of to
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really help connect people. at a much deeper level spiritually
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with other human beings. And then, you know, ultimately with
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all reality. Now that's where I'm going with this, Ryan,
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is that you could, you could meditate like for 20 years,
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become an advanced monk, you know, be a highly successful CEO.
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And if you're an asshole, when you start, you're just
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going to be a bigger asshole. And you're done. Because
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if you don't do the emotional development and you see
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this all the time with people who are really, really
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advanced in their careers or the highest levels and they're
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doing all these things, but they're not paying attention to
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their baggage, their emotional baggage. And it just starts to
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grow and grow. And the patterns get more deeply rutted
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until all of a sudden they just torch, you know,
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torch their career or their relationships. So I look at
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them as like hand in glove. You got to do
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the spiritual work and the meditative work will help evolve you.
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It'll evolve your consciousness. You know, imagine on a scale
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you're going upwards and getting more advanced or more evolved.
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And the emotional development is dragging you back or the
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lack of emotional development is dragging you back down. And
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so you kind of like root out and clear up
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your past, which allows you to free up and grow
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toward your highest and best self in the future. Does
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that make any sense?
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Yeah, there's a lot there. And I think part of
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this is I want to get to your personal story
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and how it relates to everything you're talking about, because
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I think that.
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Will bring it home.
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First, why did you decide to become a Navy SEAL?
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Well, it actually kind of relates to what we were
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just talking about. I was 21, had just graduated from
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Colgate University with an econ degree. A bunch of my
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friends and I had gotten these jobs down in New
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York City where we were going to go to NYU
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and get our MBAs there and work for these big
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eight accounting firms. Now, they recruited from like Colgate and
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Williams and Amherst and Yale and Harvard and And it
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was a big cohort. The idea was that they were
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going to create a much more well-rounded partner at the
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accounting and consulting firms, those who weren't just bean counters.
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And I had no accounting background at Colgate. So I
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went to this program, got my master's in business administration,
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my MBA, became a certified public accountant. I was working
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for Cooper's and Libran, which is now PricewaterhouseCoopers.com. At any rate,
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early in my time down in New York, like literally
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within three months of landing in New York City in Manhattan,
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I started training in Zen meditation. And it was through
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a martial arts program. But, you know, I like to
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say that my the grandmaster was a Zen master masquerading
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as a karate instructor. And so he taught us Zen.
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We sat in meditation every day during before and after class,
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and then these long sessions on Thursday nights, weekend retreats
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at the Zen Mountain Monastery. So here's this 21, 22-year-old
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kid who's on the path to white-collar success and wealth,
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doing all the right things. And I'm sitting on this
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bench meditating with these monks, and my brain is changing.
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We know now through neuroplasticity, which is certainly not a
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word that anyone knew about back then. This is 1986.
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My brain is changing really fast. You know, it's still
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developing to be fair, but now it's developing in new ways.
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And it was the first time in my life that
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I had a structured program of self-inquiry and looking within. Whereas,
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you know, most of our lives, especially in the West here,
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everything's focused outward, you know? And so what happened, I'll
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try to shorten this up a little bit. What happened
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was my, as my mind was changing and I was
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learning to look in I didn't like what was happening
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in the outer world like I just found out that
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the story I was living was a complete misfit for
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me I was really miserable as a CPA I didn't
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see myself I couldn't I couldn't visualize my future in
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business or white collar or back of the family business
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which was kind of the path that was laid out
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for me So that whole story, which had been planted
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in me, was wrong. And I noticed that because of meditation.
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I never would have taken the time to really figure
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that out until some midlife crisis hit me at 45
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if I hadn't started meditating when I was 21. And
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so that, you know, that required, you know, some serious
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emotional check in.
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Right.
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Like it was a little scary to think that I
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had totally screwed up and gone down this wrong path.
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And and then if not that, then what what am
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I going to do? Right. And so I just doubled
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down on my training and kept meditating and contemplating and
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visualizing what it could be. And and all of a
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sudden it took like a year and a half of
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this work.
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Right.
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And it's not simple, quick work. I all of a
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sudden had these huge insights and breakthroughs. And it's almost
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like I had cracked open a door or a window,
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you know, to my inner self or my soul. And
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all of a sudden I was able to see clearly
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that I was meant to be a warrior and that,
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you know, that I was a warrior and a leader
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and that I wasn't going to fulfill that, you know,
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that deep energetic drive. You know, you might call it
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a karmic energy or my soul driving me that direction.
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I wouldn't have been able to fulfill it in the
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current path I was on. And so I started to
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explore that. And that's when I came upon the Navy SEALs,
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and that's what really, really sparked my interest. Within a
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couple of years after that, I was graduating from SEAL training.
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And you go through it, and I think I've had
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a number of SEALs, and most people understand, or they
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don't understand, but at least we know of the intense...
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training that it takes to just to become a seal,
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let alone the things that you do after, after you
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become one, did your mind or did your thoughts, did you,
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did you waver ever in the middle of that and say,
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maybe I'm not meant to be a warrior and maybe
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I'm not as much of a leader as I thought,
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because what we're doing here is really hard and I
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don't like it. I mean, I'm curious of your mindset
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while going through it.
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Yes.
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That's a great question. I often tell this story about
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my first day of training. The very first evolution, the
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evolution is what the SEALs call each event. I think
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it's because we're meant to evolve through that. I'm not
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really sure what the origin of that word is. But anyways,
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the first evolution was a couple hour total beach beatdown
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with every instructor in the center. And it was just brutal.
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But it was a beautiful day and it was on
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the beach in Coronado, California. And, you know, we were
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doing thousands of flutter kicks and push-ups and running in
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and out of the surf zone and climbing the ropes.
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And it was just brutal physically. And on one of
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these in and out of the ocean, they call it
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hit the surf sessions, and then you roll around on
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the beach and make yourself a little … They call
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it a sugar cookie, which is, you know, sand goes
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in places that you didn't even know you had places.
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It's extremely uncomfortable. And then you're running with sand and
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it's chafing you and you're bleeding and everything. It's kind
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of torture. Anyways, I was having fun.
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Right.
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Because my perspective was I could be back in New
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York sitting at a desk right now and I'm on
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the beach. you know, getting paid to work out the
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sun's out. I'm like, this is pretty cool. And the
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instructor says, hit the surf. I jump up to hit
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the surf. I look around for my training buddy who
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I went through officer Canada school with. This guy was
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a total stud, uh, wanted to be a Navy SEAL
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for longer than I did. And he was running in
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the other direction and he ran to the bell and,
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and rang the bell, which signifies a quick. And I
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asked him later, what happened? And he said, I couldn't
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figure out in that moment why I was there. But
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for three years, he was telling himself he wanted to
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be a SEAL. But as soon as the shit got
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really hard, he couldn't remember. He couldn't figure out why
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he wanted to be there. He didn't know his why.
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And for me, the reason I knew my why and
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I didn't waver, I didn't waver at all throughout SEAL
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training was because I had visualized it. For literally two
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years after I kind of came to that, you know,
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back to the Zen bench thing, after I came to
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that conclusion that I was misfit as a CPA and
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that I really was meant to be a warrior and
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then I'd settled on the SEALs, it's not like I
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just snapped my fingers and got into the SEALs. It
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literally took me a year and a half to work
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my way into an offer to go to the SEAL training.
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And every day during that time frame, Ryan, I visualized
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myself going through SEAL training and graduating and being completely
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healthy and dominating it. And you understand the power of visualization,
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I'm sure. But for me, this was hammered home big
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time when I was 24 doing this because I had
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something happen, which was extraordinary. Every day for 20 minutes,
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I would sit on my bench, I would do my breathing,
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I would do my Zen, and then I would visualize
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at the end. I'd visualize myself, like I said, completing
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SEAL training, even getting my SEAL emblem, we call it
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the trident, pinned on me. And about nine months into
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this practice, I had a shift, like a subtle shift.
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And I can only describe it as a sense of
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total certainty that I was going to be a Navy SEAL.
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The wish had gone away. The hope, you know, any
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type of anxiety about whether I make it or not
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had gone away, completely washed away. I had 100% certainty
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that I would be a Navy SEAL. And then when
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I showed up at SEAL training, that certainty was right
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there with me. And it was as if I'd kind
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of been there before. And so I call that winning
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in my mind. I won in my mind through that
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arduous practice. And there's a Sun Tzu quote that states
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that victorious warriors win in their mind first and then
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go to battle while the losers go to battle hoping
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to win. Wow. Okay.
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So there's a lot there.
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And one of the things I like to do, Mark,
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throughout is when we hear incredible stories and good practices
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is to figure out how we implement the execute into
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our daily lives. Most people listening, as well as myself,
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we are not Navy SEALs and we are not going
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to become Navy SEALs. We hold them in highest regard,
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honor them. You're American heroes for those of us listening
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in the States. But how does this relate or how
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would you relate that story or that practice to somebody
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who is currently 34 years old, working at a big company,
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is a mid-level manager, has aspirations to maybe be the
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CEO or start their own business? What advice do you
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give to them based upon that story and those practices
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that you use to become a Navy SEAL?
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You bet. I would take it back to your first question.
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Make it a practice of excellence so that you can
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sustain that excellence to achieve your goal. Now, in order
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for this to work. you have to be visualizing something
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that's deeply meaningful, inspiring, and aligned with your purpose or
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your calling in life.
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Right.
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I don't know if this would work. It probably would,
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but I've never really tried it. I wouldn't waste my time.
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I should say trying it on just something really mundane
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or like a, just a promotion or something like that.
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Deeply, deeply care about is what you're saying.
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Right. Like, so if you're like, to your point, if
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you're 34 and you're in a career and, And you
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deeply desire to be an entrepreneur running your own successful
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high tech startup, but you really don't know how to
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get there. Well, of course, you're going to do the
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research and you're going to meet people. You're going to
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do all that. But the personal practice of excellence is
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a daily visualization where you see yourself succeeding, just like
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I saw myself succeeding as a SEAL. That was a big, audacious,
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risky proposition for me to turn my back on my
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MBA and my CPA and all that experience and all
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that money to take literally a $ 500 a month paycheck
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and You know, going through the training and, you know,
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like you said, very, very few people make it through
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SEAL training. I was the honor man or number one
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graduate of my class out of 185. We had 19
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of us finish. And I was the honor man is
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because I largely believe it's because of this practice of visualization. So,
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you know, anyone listening here, you got to have something
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in your vision. Right. That's, you know, three to five
425
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years out. That is that is really, really passionate to you.
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Really important to you. It might be a total career change,
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a launch of a new business, you know, starting a
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new division, creating a family, finding a spouse, spouse, something
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like that, you know, finishing your Ph.D. or getting it.
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And then visualize that as a completion, like you're done
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with it. You can even have a calendar date in
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your visualization. You see yourself maybe doing the final stages
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and completing it. And you have to see yourself as
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the type of person who's worthy of achieving that. And
435
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you may not feel that today. You may feel there's
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a pretty big gap between who you are now and
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the type of person you need to be that person.
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So you visualize yourself as that person. And then what
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happens is every day as you visualize and then you
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take action, that gap closes. And then all of a
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sudden in your mind and your emotional state, you'll notice
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that you've become that person well before you It actually happens.
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And that gives you just an amazing confidence and momentum.
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And then you experience these synchronicities as well. You know,
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doors start to open. Challenges just kind of fall down
446
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in front of you.
447
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Mark, what do you say to people who are skeptical
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of this, of visualization, of seeing it? I picture Jason
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Day before he's about to hit a golf shot, and
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there are certainly many others.
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I've used these practices when I played football.
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The way I use visualization, and this may be wrong,
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but I'm curious to see what you think as an
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expert on this. To me, I visualize and say, look,
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all I have to do is execute my responsibility, my job.
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I don't need to necessarily think about the defense and
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the other 10 guys. What is my responsibility?
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And then it brought this sense of calm and ease
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over me to say, it's really not that bad. You
460
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know what I mean?
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Like, I don't know if that, if that's the right
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way to do it, but that's how it was helpful
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to me that I felt like this visualization of like
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execute my responsibility, do my job to the best of
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my ability. And then, and then literally envision certain plays
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happening to play action, fake that, you know, looking to
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safety off and then hitting my receiver for a long touchdown,
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like things like that were things that I visualized to
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help me be successful playing football.
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But, but I'm curious to get your thoughts on this.
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Well, there's a lot to unpack here. Um, First, for
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the skeptics, you know, you can't I can't tell you
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you're going to believe something until you experience it. So
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give it a try. And it's OK to be skeptical. But,
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you know, prove it to yourself. Having said that. Um,
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research is out, right? When I was doing this, it
477
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was on a hope and a prayer and I proved
478
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it to myself and, and several different domains, you know,
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also in the sports domain, I had a very powerful
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experience of visualization, really improving my performance like you. And
481
00:24:44.009 --> 00:24:46.190
then this seal experience and I've used it, you know,
482
00:24:46.349 --> 00:24:48.990
I use it constantly now. But the research is out.
483
00:24:49.210 --> 00:24:53.039
There's some really classic studies. One they did on basketball players.
484
00:24:53.099 --> 00:24:56.299
They had three groups, kind of the control group who
485
00:24:56.319 --> 00:24:59.839
did nothing, the group that did actual free throws, and
486
00:24:59.880 --> 00:25:01.740
then the group that just visualized free throws. And the
487
00:25:01.779 --> 00:25:05.339
one that had the best improvement after the study was
488
00:25:05.380 --> 00:25:08.309
done were those who visualized the free throws. And the
489
00:25:08.349 --> 00:25:10.930
reason for that is you can have perfect practice only
490
00:25:10.970 --> 00:25:13.609
in one place, and that's in your mind. You can
491
00:25:13.630 --> 00:25:16.250
never have perfect practice on the field or, you know,
492
00:25:17.259 --> 00:25:19.559
in any other domain. It's just in your mind. And
493
00:25:19.740 --> 00:25:25.700
you're greasing the groove bio, you know, neurobiologically, I guess
494
00:25:25.759 --> 00:25:27.200
is probably not the right word, but you get the
495
00:25:27.240 --> 00:25:30.680
picture through visualization because there's a subtle effect, you know,
496
00:25:30.700 --> 00:25:34.910
it's having a subtle effect on your body-mind system. So
497
00:25:35.089 --> 00:25:37.869
the research is out. Then the other thing I would
498
00:25:37.910 --> 00:25:41.450
say is if Navy SEALs are using it, you know,
499
00:25:41.569 --> 00:25:44.750
if top athletes are using it, if astronauts are using it,
500
00:25:45.529 --> 00:25:49.200
And if top CEOs of Fortune 100 companies are using it,
501
00:25:49.279 --> 00:25:50.940
then why not you, right?
502
00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:51.660
Why not you?
503
00:25:51.960 --> 00:25:54.259
What type of people do you work with personally, one-on-one
504
00:25:54.279 --> 00:25:56.079
or in group settings to help them do this?
505
00:25:56.779 --> 00:25:59.980
Well, it's probably similar to your audience who's listening. We
506
00:26:00.019 --> 00:26:03.720
have entrepreneurs and executives and business owners. And then we
507
00:26:03.769 --> 00:26:08.750
have top athletes working with sports teams like the Flyers
508
00:26:08.789 --> 00:26:13.509
and the Rams and also high schools and football clubs.
509
00:26:14.799 --> 00:26:19.900
programs mostly, but also hockey and whatnot. And then, um, warriors,
510
00:26:20.059 --> 00:26:23.029
you know, folks who want to be spec ops generally,
511
00:26:23.069 --> 00:26:25.670
that's where we really, really cut our teeth on this.
512
00:26:25.730 --> 00:26:30.990
Starting back in 2006, 2007 was training seals, training, uh,
513
00:26:31.049 --> 00:26:33.869
special forces and not just us, but all allied countries.
514
00:26:34.369 --> 00:26:36.210
You know, that was through my business seal fit, right?
515
00:26:36.230 --> 00:26:40.119
So we were trying to bring these skills to teach ancient,
516
00:26:40.740 --> 00:26:43.309
ancient techniques to, you know, the modern warrior to try
517
00:26:43.329 --> 00:26:45.309
to make them better. So they kind of gotten lost
518
00:26:45.349 --> 00:26:46.130
in the Western culture.
519
00:26:46.730 --> 00:26:49.829
So, so speaking of some of your, your previous work, uh,
520
00:26:49.890 --> 00:26:52.910
the way of the seal, you have a fifth anniversary
521
00:26:53.410 --> 00:26:57.069
edition coming out soon where there's, there's new material as
522
00:26:57.150 --> 00:26:58.410
part of it. So what are some of the new
523
00:26:58.470 --> 00:27:01.779
things that you added to, to this, uh, this great book?
524
00:27:02.859 --> 00:27:03.059
Yeah.
525
00:27:03.079 --> 00:27:03.859
Thanks for mentioning that.
526
00:27:03.880 --> 00:27:04.000
Yeah.
527
00:27:04.019 --> 00:27:05.210
The way of the seal I wrote in 2012, uh,
528
00:27:06.950 --> 00:27:09.910
And what's interesting about it is it's getting more and
529
00:27:09.950 --> 00:27:14.670
more relevant, right? So the publisher was Reader's Digest came
530
00:27:14.710 --> 00:27:16.730
and said, we'd like to do a fifth anniversary edition
531
00:27:16.759 --> 00:27:18.400
because the book is actually more relevant now than it
532
00:27:18.440 --> 00:27:23.759
was back in 2012 when we launched it or 2013.
533
00:27:23.759 --> 00:27:26.599
So I added two new chapters and I revised it
534
00:27:26.619 --> 00:27:28.460
and updated it. And it was really neat to be
535
00:27:28.500 --> 00:27:31.670
able to go back and revisit a book because usually
536
00:27:31.750 --> 00:27:34.309
once they're done, they're done. So I added a chapter
537
00:27:34.390 --> 00:27:38.259
called Leading in Accelerating Times. And then a second chapter
538
00:27:38.319 --> 00:27:40.920
called Secrets to Building an Elite Team, both things that
539
00:27:41.099 --> 00:27:44.519
SEALs know a lot about. So the Accelerating Times chapter
540
00:27:44.559 --> 00:27:47.259
is really about this idea of VUCA. It's an acronym
541
00:27:47.599 --> 00:27:52.670
for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. And what my assertion
542
00:27:52.730 --> 00:27:56.630
is is that SEALs and spec ops are masters at
543
00:27:56.670 --> 00:28:00.789
dealing with VUCA environments because the modern battlefield in particular
544
00:28:00.990 --> 00:28:04.559
is a very volatile and uncertain and complex and ambiguous environment.
545
00:28:05.480 --> 00:28:08.079
But the business world is starting to look that way,
546
00:28:08.519 --> 00:28:11.529
and leaders need to start thinking like a SEAL team
547
00:28:12.029 --> 00:28:16.609
in combat because things are starting to happen really fast.
548
00:28:16.750 --> 00:28:20.990
Change is almost– the pace of change is crushing. And
549
00:28:21.690 --> 00:28:25.569
it's creating a lot of uncertainty and confusion in the marketplace.
550
00:28:26.150 --> 00:28:29.690
And you could have your business completely trumped or obsolete
551
00:28:29.730 --> 00:28:33.630
within three to five years. And there's estimates that over
552
00:28:33.630 --> 00:28:36.230
50% of the Fortune 500 will be obsolete in the
553
00:28:36.279 --> 00:28:38.880
next five years. So how do you think and act
554
00:28:38.920 --> 00:28:41.599
like this? And that's really what the whole book is about.
555
00:28:42.220 --> 00:28:44.660
It's this notion that as leaders, we've got to begin
556
00:28:44.740 --> 00:28:49.259
to expand our consciousness, expand our awareness, deepen our concentration
557
00:28:49.299 --> 00:28:54.130
and focus. get clarity around the really important things so
558
00:28:54.150 --> 00:28:55.529
that you can let the little things just kind of
559
00:28:55.569 --> 00:28:58.150
work themselves out. You don't have to control all the
560
00:28:58.230 --> 00:29:00.269
externals like you did in the old days. The planning
561
00:29:00.289 --> 00:29:04.750
processes become very rapid. And, you know, using decision models
562
00:29:04.789 --> 00:29:08.069
and tools to do super fast, rapid planning, what I
563
00:29:08.109 --> 00:29:12.500
call fast twitch iteration, you know, becoming greatly decentralized, you know,
564
00:29:12.519 --> 00:29:15.400
like like the blockchain industry industry is allowing us to
565
00:29:15.440 --> 00:29:20.039
think of decentralization with trust and certainty, which is very,
566
00:29:20.079 --> 00:29:22.440
very cool because that's going to help us deal with VUCA.
567
00:29:23.579 --> 00:29:25.299
We had that in the SEALs. We had a high
568
00:29:25.339 --> 00:29:29.029
degree of decentralization. The tactical operator in the field was
569
00:29:29.109 --> 00:29:33.170
making decisions that were at a very high level for
570
00:29:33.490 --> 00:29:37.079
conventional military units. You know, they're acting almost like, you know,
571
00:29:37.220 --> 00:29:40.859
this small, the lowest enlisted guy was acting like a colonel,
572
00:29:40.880 --> 00:29:42.220
you know what I mean, in terms of the decisions
573
00:29:42.279 --> 00:29:45.420
he was empowered to make. And not, you know, not
574
00:29:45.460 --> 00:29:49.470
being afraid of risk, but actually learning to embrace risk
575
00:29:49.490 --> 00:29:54.440
and And learning to move toward failure, seeking the lessons
576
00:29:54.519 --> 00:29:59.680
that are resident in that process, right? So like SEALs,
577
00:29:59.799 --> 00:30:03.400
we're not afraid of failure. We embrace it. We don't
578
00:30:03.619 --> 00:30:06.529
mind failure. that stuff happening because we've always got a
579
00:30:06.609 --> 00:30:09.269
plan B and a plan C and we know that
580
00:30:09.309 --> 00:30:11.529
no plan survives contact with the enemy. So we've got
581
00:30:11.549 --> 00:30:14.299
to fail forward to, you know, to the, to the
582
00:30:14.319 --> 00:30:16.690
mission success. So we have a vision for what that
583
00:30:16.759 --> 00:30:20.220
success looks like, but the plan is very, very flexible.
584
00:30:20.240 --> 00:30:23.480
In fact, the Marines are called Semper Fidelis, which means
585
00:30:23.519 --> 00:30:26.980
always faithful. The SEALs, we use the term Semper Gumby,
586
00:30:27.180 --> 00:30:30.140
which means always flexible. So that's, that's the way the
587
00:30:30.200 --> 00:30:31.900
modern leader has to start thinking.
588
00:30:31.920 --> 00:30:34.119
One of the things you wrote about in there that
589
00:30:34.240 --> 00:30:38.190
I My brother and I talk about this quite a bit.
590
00:30:38.690 --> 00:30:41.549
Principle four is do today what others won't. Find your
591
00:30:42.009 --> 00:30:46.410
20x factor. How does that relate to the typical person
592
00:30:46.450 --> 00:30:50.170
who may be listening in their working world of doing
593
00:30:50.190 --> 00:30:51.430
today what others won't?
594
00:30:52.710 --> 00:30:54.130
Yeah, well, there's a lot of folks who come to
595
00:30:54.170 --> 00:30:57.619
our training at SealFit that they're really inspired by this principle.
596
00:30:58.720 --> 00:31:02.269
Generally speaking, our society has, you know, has weakened us
597
00:31:02.329 --> 00:31:05.750
because it's kind of, in every instance, veered us away
598
00:31:05.809 --> 00:31:10.400
from hard, from challenge, right? You know, the level of comfort,
599
00:31:11.059 --> 00:31:16.180
the level of security and wealth and, you know, Everything's
600
00:31:16.460 --> 00:31:20.069
just gotten easy from the simplest things. When I grew up,
601
00:31:20.309 --> 00:31:22.890
my mom used to garden with a friend, and this
602
00:31:22.930 --> 00:31:25.390
shared garden was hard work. It was really hard work,
603
00:31:26.210 --> 00:31:28.779
and yet it also fed us just an amazing amount
604
00:31:28.799 --> 00:31:31.980
of nutrients. But when all of a sudden food became
605
00:31:32.019 --> 00:31:34.759
more readily available in the supermarket, they stopped doing it.
606
00:31:35.480 --> 00:31:37.930
You know, part of her wish is she just kept
607
00:31:37.970 --> 00:31:40.609
gardening because it's such great exercise. And, you know, you
608
00:31:40.650 --> 00:31:43.009
get really close to the earth that way. So some
609
00:31:43.029 --> 00:31:45.210
of that's coming back today. It's a great example. When
610
00:31:45.259 --> 00:31:46.720
I was growing up, I used to go out and
611
00:31:46.779 --> 00:31:49.539
bale hay for hours at a time and, you know,
612
00:31:49.640 --> 00:31:51.339
work on my friend's farm. And it was just really
613
00:31:51.380 --> 00:31:53.900
hard work. And so I got really comfortable with hard
614
00:31:53.940 --> 00:31:56.930
work and I sought to challenge myself both through athletics
615
00:31:56.990 --> 00:31:59.829
and through personal challenges. And then that's one of the
616
00:31:59.849 --> 00:32:02.390
reasons why the SEALs were attractive and SEAL training was
617
00:32:02.430 --> 00:32:07.069
enjoyable to me because I really knew that challenge led
618
00:32:07.130 --> 00:32:10.500
to growth and that the warriors choose the severest schools,
619
00:32:11.039 --> 00:32:13.819
you know, for the most intense growth, which leads to
620
00:32:13.859 --> 00:32:16.799
the greatest confidence, you know, when you go into combat.
621
00:32:17.630 --> 00:32:20.369
So this 20X principle, I learned it at Hell Week.
622
00:32:20.390 --> 00:32:22.680
So the hardest, most intense period of SEAL training is
623
00:32:22.720 --> 00:32:26.589
called Hell Week. It's six days of nonstop around-the-clock training,
624
00:32:26.630 --> 00:32:29.420
no sleep. And I had an instructor, you know, at
625
00:32:29.440 --> 00:32:32.049
the beginning of Hell Week, it was on a Sunday,
626
00:32:32.650 --> 00:32:34.430
I had walked over the berm to look at the
627
00:32:34.529 --> 00:32:37.650
ocean and do some meditation, which, you know, was uncommon.
628
00:32:38.269 --> 00:32:40.950
Even to this day, it's uncommon to see a SEAL
629
00:32:41.109 --> 00:32:44.250
meditating or a trainee meditating, although I imagine it's happening
630
00:32:44.269 --> 00:32:46.869
more and more often. And an instructor came by and
631
00:32:46.890 --> 00:32:48.829
he was watching me. And when I got up to
632
00:32:48.869 --> 00:32:51.230
walk back, he goes, he smiled at me. He goes, hey,
633
00:32:51.630 --> 00:32:53.910
don't worry, Divine, you're capable of 20 times more than
634
00:32:53.930 --> 00:32:57.640
you think you are. And I was like, maybe, that's interesting.
635
00:32:58.160 --> 00:33:01.240
And during Hell Week, I found that as time went on,
636
00:33:01.279 --> 00:33:04.680
like day three, Wednesday, I was exhausted, right? No sleep,
637
00:33:04.700 --> 00:33:06.680
around the clock training. And all of a sudden, I
638
00:33:06.769 --> 00:33:09.829
started to get more alert and I started to get stronger.
639
00:33:10.289 --> 00:33:12.890
And by Thursday, I started to put muscle mass on,
640
00:33:13.430 --> 00:33:16.890
which was contrary to any kind of conventional belief. You know,
641
00:33:16.950 --> 00:33:19.869
here I am, like my body seems, should be completely
642
00:33:19.910 --> 00:33:22.250
broken down. I should be looking like a POW. And
643
00:33:22.269 --> 00:33:26.250
I'm building muscle mass, right? And I haven't been, I've
644
00:33:26.269 --> 00:33:29.089
been awake for five days. It's amazing. It was such
645
00:33:29.130 --> 00:33:32.000
a huge lesson that your body will adapt to the
646
00:33:32.099 --> 00:33:36.019
new reality. If you allow it time and your, if
647
00:33:36.059 --> 00:33:38.420
your mind tells it, okay, this is the new reality,
648
00:33:38.640 --> 00:33:42.900
start getting in line. So, um, It's something I bring
649
00:33:42.940 --> 00:33:46.519
into my training with with my athletes, warriors and executives.
650
00:33:46.539 --> 00:33:48.970
It's like you've got to challenge yourself to prove to
651
00:33:49.009 --> 00:33:52.289
yourself that you're capable of 20 times more. And you've
652
00:33:52.309 --> 00:33:55.369
got to challenge yourself in a big way. So, you know,
653
00:33:55.509 --> 00:33:58.549
every day we find something challenging to do every week,
654
00:33:58.589 --> 00:34:01.009
something a little bit more challenging every month, a little
655
00:34:01.029 --> 00:34:04.140
bit more challenging every quarter, even more challenging than once
656
00:34:04.200 --> 00:34:07.720
a year to every 18 months. A real doozy, right?
657
00:34:07.819 --> 00:34:10.440
We're spooling up for one of those doozies this weekend.
658
00:34:10.480 --> 00:34:13.760
We call it Kokoro Camp. It's our version of Hell Week.
659
00:34:13.800 --> 00:34:18.260
It's 50, 50, five zero hours of nonstop physical, mental,
660
00:34:18.280 --> 00:34:21.849
emotional training. So we've got to get you signed up
661
00:34:21.869 --> 00:34:22.789
for that one, right?
662
00:34:23.070 --> 00:34:24.610
Whoa, 50 straight. How many people do that?
663
00:34:25.949 --> 00:34:27.389
Yeah, we have a few hundred a year.
664
00:34:27.409 --> 00:34:29.949
So people are paying you for you to do this
665
00:34:29.989 --> 00:34:31.210
type of destruction to them.
666
00:34:32.300 --> 00:34:33.239
Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it?
667
00:34:33.440 --> 00:34:35.079
That is an awesome business model, Mark.
668
00:34:35.099 --> 00:34:38.679
I love it. It's a great business model. No, that's
669
00:34:38.719 --> 00:34:39.780
really cool, though.
670
00:34:40.030 --> 00:34:44.050
The outcomes are incredible. The people who graduate Kokoro, they
671
00:34:44.150 --> 00:34:47.989
have this kind of experience of life before Kokoro and
672
00:34:48.030 --> 00:34:51.980
life after is really different. They're more present. They're more aware.
673
00:34:52.000 --> 00:34:56.599
They're more confident. They're better listeners. They claim to be
674
00:34:56.840 --> 00:35:00.059
better fathers or mothers. Not everyone makes it through. Our
675
00:35:00.679 --> 00:35:04.309
last camp, we had one graduate. Out of the 30
676
00:35:04.309 --> 00:35:06.409
or so who signed up, you know, it's hard work.
677
00:35:06.909 --> 00:35:09.809
That's a little atypical. This is an Irishman, you know,
678
00:35:09.849 --> 00:35:13.570
who is just, you know, unbreakable. But it's hard training,
679
00:35:13.610 --> 00:35:17.099
but it's extraordinary. Even in trying it, you find your
680
00:35:17.500 --> 00:35:20.960
20X because you expose the gaps in your preparedness and
681
00:35:20.980 --> 00:35:23.820
your body and your mind. Usually it's mental and emotional
682
00:35:23.860 --> 00:35:27.929
reasons that people quit. You know, it's not physical. Yeah.
683
00:35:27.969 --> 00:35:31.590
It sounds like that Irishman had an unbeatable mind, as
684
00:35:31.630 --> 00:35:35.090
you might say. Something else from unbeatable mind that I
685
00:35:35.650 --> 00:35:39.369
really wanted to ask you about, not to get too
686
00:35:39.429 --> 00:35:42.110
deep here, but you write about, and I like the
687
00:35:42.150 --> 00:35:43.449
thought of doing this, and I want to hear about
688
00:35:43.469 --> 00:35:47.230
you talk about it more. There's a writing exercise where people...
689
00:35:47.840 --> 00:35:52.650
write their own personal obituary and basically what would be written.
690
00:35:53.170 --> 00:35:55.760
And can you talk to me more about this exercise
691
00:35:55.780 --> 00:35:57.710
and why it's beneficial for us to do it?
692
00:35:58.860 --> 00:35:59.179
Sure.
693
00:35:59.519 --> 00:36:02.130
And I'll tie it into our conversation earlier about visualization.
694
00:36:03.130 --> 00:36:05.429
I believe that we're all put on this planet for
695
00:36:05.530 --> 00:36:06.000
a reason.
696
00:36:06.179 --> 00:36:06.420
Right.
697
00:36:07.079 --> 00:36:09.019
You know, I'm a big studier of yoga and the
698
00:36:09.059 --> 00:36:11.139
martial arts. So Zen led me to yoga and I've
699
00:36:11.159 --> 00:36:13.570
been doing it since I was 21. And, you know,
700
00:36:13.610 --> 00:36:15.829
in yoga, they say you have this thing called Dharma,
701
00:36:15.869 --> 00:36:18.670
which is your duty. And it's it's something that you
702
00:36:18.750 --> 00:36:20.409
have to find in your life or you're never going
703
00:36:20.429 --> 00:36:22.710
to have peace of mind. For me to be a
704
00:36:22.769 --> 00:36:25.050
warrior and a leader of warriors was my duty and
705
00:36:25.090 --> 00:36:29.239
now as a teacher of these principles. So I'm completely aligned.
706
00:36:29.300 --> 00:36:32.480
I'm very humbled and grateful that I found that early
707
00:36:32.500 --> 00:36:35.739
in my life. If I had stayed as a CPA
708
00:36:35.800 --> 00:36:37.719
or gone back to the family business, I would have
709
00:36:37.739 --> 00:36:41.349
been completely off target and I would have been unhappy
710
00:36:41.369 --> 00:36:43.510
and I wouldn't have been able to be the person
711
00:36:43.590 --> 00:36:46.789
I am today. That's at least my story or my
712
00:36:46.849 --> 00:36:50.690
belief system. And there's a lot of there's a lot
713
00:36:50.730 --> 00:36:53.909
of value in that as well, because it, it, it
714
00:36:54.210 --> 00:36:59.269
requires you or inspires you to do the deep self-awareness work. And,
715
00:36:59.289 --> 00:37:03.150
you know, all this spiritual traditions, including even the ancient
716
00:37:03.230 --> 00:37:05.309
Stoics and the word traditions say, that's one of the
717
00:37:05.369 --> 00:37:09.590
most important things, you know, know thyself, right. Is what
718
00:37:09.610 --> 00:37:16.239
the Greeks said. So this idea of, um, Being able
719
00:37:16.280 --> 00:37:19.659
to visualize something powerful means you have to that thing
720
00:37:19.739 --> 00:37:24.639
should be aligned with or directly related to That thing
721
00:37:24.699 --> 00:37:27.030
or that aspect of your being that you're trying to
722
00:37:27.190 --> 00:37:30.130
move toward you're trying to become your Dharma or your
723
00:37:30.190 --> 00:37:34.409
duty so in order to you know to Visualize and
724
00:37:34.429 --> 00:37:37.289
to move forward powerfully in life. We've got to do
725
00:37:37.349 --> 00:37:41.900
this self-awareness exercises to really uncover that so gets back
726
00:37:42.139 --> 00:37:44.360
gets me back to your question and What I say
727
00:37:44.380 --> 00:37:48.119
is you need to like derive a clarity around your
728
00:37:48.219 --> 00:37:52.659
purpose and a passionate way that you can fulfill that purpose. Because,
729
00:37:52.739 --> 00:37:54.900
you know, my purpose as a warrior and a leader
730
00:37:54.980 --> 00:37:58.219
could have been fulfilled in multiple different ways. So I
731
00:37:58.260 --> 00:37:59.719
had to really line it up with things that I
732
00:37:59.739 --> 00:38:01.760
was passionate about. And that's what led me to the SEALs.
733
00:38:02.239 --> 00:38:04.679
And then also be in alignment with the principles that
734
00:38:04.760 --> 00:38:05.639
guide your behavior.
735
00:38:05.949 --> 00:38:06.119
Right.
736
00:38:06.530 --> 00:38:09.809
Everyone's got a different set of principles and that's helped
737
00:38:09.909 --> 00:38:12.460
helps them know where they stand in life. If you
738
00:38:12.480 --> 00:38:15.340
don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything, right? So
739
00:38:16.739 --> 00:38:19.619
the exercises, one of the many exercises that I have
740
00:38:19.639 --> 00:38:24.789
my clients do is to write their obituary from the
741
00:38:24.829 --> 00:38:28.610
perspective of like a best friend. And so this requires
742
00:38:28.630 --> 00:38:32.389
them to visualize their life and to think very deeply
743
00:38:32.469 --> 00:38:35.710
about what is it that's really important? What do I
744
00:38:35.769 --> 00:38:39.150
want people to say about me on my deathbed? There's
745
00:38:39.170 --> 00:38:42.690
a really, you've probably heard this really famous story about, um,
746
00:38:43.809 --> 00:38:45.829
Alfred Nobel. I think it was Alfred is his first name,
747
00:38:45.849 --> 00:38:49.090
but it was Nobel, the Nobel peace prize guy. Well,
748
00:38:49.130 --> 00:38:52.409
he had a twin brother and his twin brother passed
749
00:38:52.449 --> 00:38:55.630
away and a journalist wrote an obituary and it was
750
00:38:55.710 --> 00:38:58.050
just utterly, and he mixed the two up. So he
751
00:38:58.090 --> 00:39:01.030
wrote an obituary for Alfred Nobel, but it was supposed
752
00:39:01.050 --> 00:39:02.670
to be for his brother. He didn't know they were twins.
753
00:39:03.349 --> 00:39:07.300
And he just wrote this scathing obituary about how Nobel
754
00:39:07.380 --> 00:39:11.300
had been the inventor or the modern, you know, creator
755
00:39:11.460 --> 00:39:15.070
of dynamite and that, you know, the introduction of dynamite
756
00:39:15.119 --> 00:39:18.510
into the military led to like this massive destruction in
757
00:39:18.550 --> 00:39:21.789
World War I and millions of deaths. And so Alfred
758
00:39:21.829 --> 00:39:24.809
Nobel had the, you know, misfortune of being able to
759
00:39:24.869 --> 00:39:28.730
read his own obituary and he was just mortified. And
760
00:39:28.829 --> 00:39:32.260
so he completely... changed his life. He had a vision
761
00:39:32.340 --> 00:39:36.880
of what his life was becoming in this early kind
762
00:39:36.900 --> 00:39:40.579
of snapshot obituary. And so he completely and radically changed
763
00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:44.260
right then and there. And he created the Nobel Peace
764
00:39:44.320 --> 00:39:47.000
Prize and dedicated the rest of his life to peace.
765
00:39:48.070 --> 00:39:51.699
So I think that's a powerful story and it's a
766
00:39:51.719 --> 00:39:55.119
powerful practice to visualize the end, not in a morbid way,
767
00:39:55.159 --> 00:39:58.820
but like, okay, you've done well. You've done it right.
768
00:39:59.280 --> 00:40:01.820
You've fulfilled your God-given purpose for being on this planet.
769
00:40:02.219 --> 00:40:04.929
You've served, you know, whoever you're meant to serve in
770
00:40:04.949 --> 00:40:05.809
a very powerful way.
771
00:40:07.630 --> 00:40:08.170
Good job.
772
00:40:08.769 --> 00:40:11.349
What was that like? What did that look like, you know?
773
00:40:12.750 --> 00:40:15.590
And so this requires you to use deep reflection and
774
00:40:15.730 --> 00:40:21.309
visualization and a little bit of humility because we're not saying, hey,
775
00:40:22.150 --> 00:40:26.530
I've got a billion dollars in the bank and I've
776
00:40:26.570 --> 00:40:28.840
got all these girlfriends and everyone loves me. It's not
777
00:40:28.860 --> 00:40:32.320
about that. It's about how did you impact the world positively.
778
00:40:33.440 --> 00:40:37.260
You mentioned a word in there about teaching and being
779
00:40:37.280 --> 00:40:39.780
a teacher. And one of the other aspects of what
780
00:40:39.820 --> 00:40:44.710
you've written about is kind of a progression. And the
781
00:40:44.769 --> 00:40:48.849
master approach is to train for 10 years and then
782
00:40:48.949 --> 00:40:51.000
teach for 10 years. And then only then you can
783
00:40:51.039 --> 00:40:54.119
begin to teach teachers. And I'm curious how this works,
784
00:40:54.159 --> 00:40:57.260
if I would relate this to sports. And I think
785
00:40:57.300 --> 00:41:01.349
about somebody like Brad Stevens of the Boston Celtics, or
786
00:41:01.409 --> 00:41:05.010
even Bill Belichick, these guys were not professional players themselves.
787
00:41:05.070 --> 00:41:09.960
So their training I may be perceived as being different
788
00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.380
because they didn't do what the people that they're coaching did,
789
00:41:14.860 --> 00:41:17.519
yet they're world class at it. Just to name a couple,
790
00:41:17.559 --> 00:41:20.599
there are many. I'm curious of your thoughts of that
791
00:41:20.599 --> 00:41:24.039
10 years and 10 years to become a master, how
792
00:41:24.059 --> 00:41:27.050
that applies to maybe them as well as others in
793
00:41:27.070 --> 00:41:27.760
the business world.
794
00:41:29.510 --> 00:41:32.150
Well, in that scenario, I think it's easy to confuse
795
00:41:32.289 --> 00:41:37.090
coaching with athleticism. They're very different skills. And some of
796
00:41:37.110 --> 00:41:40.780
the best coaches were not the best athletes. And so
797
00:41:40.840 --> 00:41:45.940
the best coaches did follow this path. They observed and
798
00:41:46.159 --> 00:41:49.929
studied coaching. Then they did it. They did it at
799
00:41:49.969 --> 00:41:52.849
various different levels all the way up until they were
800
00:41:52.949 --> 00:41:56.070
so masterful that they were winning. Then they were teaching
801
00:41:56.690 --> 00:41:59.389
and mentoring their staff to do it at that level,
802
00:41:59.429 --> 00:42:03.119
which then helped the whole team and organization develop that
803
00:42:03.159 --> 00:42:07.659
expertise and mastery. The teams that win, it's a multifaceted
804
00:42:08.400 --> 00:42:11.219
level of mastery. It's individual mastery, it's team mastery, and
805
00:42:11.260 --> 00:42:15.369
it's organizational mastery. So I think that, you know, first
806
00:42:15.389 --> 00:42:18.349
of all, let's be clear when you read something like
807
00:42:18.369 --> 00:42:20.409
if you if you purchase the way the seal fifth
808
00:42:20.449 --> 00:42:23.349
anniversary edition and you read it. you know, reading it
809
00:42:23.409 --> 00:42:26.369
or hearing something, you know, you're going to retain maybe
810
00:42:26.369 --> 00:42:30.280
10 to 20 percent of it. That's not deep learning.
811
00:42:30.780 --> 00:42:33.119
But then if you take the principles that you read
812
00:42:33.179 --> 00:42:36.079
about and let's say you choose three that inspire you,
813
00:42:36.539 --> 00:42:40.039
like my box breathing and visualization and maybe this, you know,
814
00:42:40.199 --> 00:42:43.139
developing your personal ethos like we just talked about and
815
00:42:43.179 --> 00:42:46.420
you start doing it and you work it individually and
816
00:42:46.460 --> 00:42:48.590
all of a sudden you start to experience the benefit
817
00:42:48.610 --> 00:42:50.889
of that and you continue to practice that and you
818
00:42:50.909 --> 00:42:53.269
do it for a long period of time. all of
819
00:42:53.309 --> 00:42:55.460
a sudden you develop kind of a mastery about it,
820
00:42:55.510 --> 00:42:57.570
but you're not going to achieve the highest level of
821
00:42:57.590 --> 00:43:00.480
mastery until you then turn around and start, you know,
822
00:43:00.539 --> 00:43:04.219
teaching it or showing the way to other people. Right.
823
00:43:04.239 --> 00:43:07.300
And so that's, that's where you're going to end up really,
824
00:43:07.360 --> 00:43:11.099
really owning it right where the, the information, you know,
825
00:43:11.239 --> 00:43:15.289
flows out of you with the effortless perfection. You know,
826
00:43:15.309 --> 00:43:19.369
there's a Japanese term called Shibumi means effortless perfection. That's
827
00:43:19.409 --> 00:43:25.110
when we find flow. That's when, um, It looks absolutely
828
00:43:26.369 --> 00:43:29.969
easy to other people even though nobody else can do it.
829
00:43:30.710 --> 00:43:33.769
I just read a story yesterday. I'm really always reading
830
00:43:34.130 --> 00:43:38.289
about yoga or Taoism. I just love some of these
831
00:43:38.349 --> 00:43:42.949
ancient books and those concepts. There was an old practice
832
00:43:42.989 --> 00:43:47.230
done by these ancient kind of Taoist kung fu masters
833
00:43:48.409 --> 00:43:52.869
to kind of demonstrate and test their mastery. And they
834
00:43:52.889 --> 00:43:56.179
would fight on a four foot by four foot table
835
00:43:57.099 --> 00:44:00.940
that had overturned teacups on it. And the two masters
836
00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:03.659
would jump up effortlessly on the table and immediately begin
837
00:44:03.699 --> 00:44:07.000
to fight, standing and moving on these teacups. And they
838
00:44:07.019 --> 00:44:09.949
couldn't fall off or they couldn't break a teacup. That
839
00:44:09.989 --> 00:44:13.750
would demonstrate, you know, complete failure and kind of shame.
840
00:44:14.469 --> 00:44:16.550
And so they'd be juking and jiving, you know, on
841
00:44:16.789 --> 00:44:22.000
dancing around these teacups. And often these duels ended up
842
00:44:22.300 --> 00:44:25.360
in a draw, right? Because the masters were just that good.
843
00:44:26.239 --> 00:44:29.480
That's incredible, isn't it? That's a lifetime of effort.
844
00:44:30.800 --> 00:44:35.269
Yeah, I love your aspect, the way you respond to
845
00:44:36.269 --> 00:44:39.289
going deep on specific topics that move you. Because I
846
00:44:39.550 --> 00:44:41.909
truly believe that that's the way to go about this
847
00:44:42.170 --> 00:44:45.960
from a learning perspective. Cal Newport talks about deep work, right?
848
00:44:46.079 --> 00:44:51.719
This focusing on... a specific principle and going deep on that.
849
00:44:52.420 --> 00:44:55.300
And then one of the exercises I've actually done is,
850
00:44:55.460 --> 00:44:58.199
is ask people if they had to give just like
851
00:44:58.219 --> 00:45:01.619
a 15 to 20 minute talk on a topic that
852
00:45:01.639 --> 00:45:04.230
they feel like they've mastered, could they get up and
853
00:45:04.269 --> 00:45:07.469
do it immediately? And I think the quickest way to
854
00:45:07.530 --> 00:45:10.949
reinforce what you've learned is then to teach it to others.
855
00:45:10.969 --> 00:45:13.769
And it can, it can, Help reinforce that learning and
856
00:45:13.829 --> 00:45:15.650
create more learning when you're forced to be in a
857
00:45:15.670 --> 00:45:18.349
position to teach. Think about any time someone's asked you
858
00:45:18.369 --> 00:45:20.170
to say, okay, you have a week and you're going
859
00:45:20.190 --> 00:45:22.630
to give a presentation on this specific topic. And you
860
00:45:22.670 --> 00:45:25.989
may be passionate about the topic, but your deep learning
861
00:45:26.030 --> 00:45:29.170
comes throughout that preparation of getting ready for a big
862
00:45:29.230 --> 00:45:29.929
moment in your life.
863
00:45:29.949 --> 00:45:33.380
Right, right. Yeah, I love that. I mean, we live
864
00:45:33.420 --> 00:45:35.960
in a very distracted world. We have so many options.
865
00:45:35.980 --> 00:45:38.380
There's so many options when it comes to, you know,
866
00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:41.639
personal excellence and, you know, hacking. And, you know, I'm
867
00:45:41.659 --> 00:45:43.730
not a big fan of the whole hacking movement. I think,
868
00:45:43.789 --> 00:45:46.389
you know, it kind of it goes back to what
869
00:45:46.409 --> 00:45:49.670
we were talking about, this impression that everything's easy. You know,
870
00:45:49.690 --> 00:45:52.969
just take a nootropic and put a muse on your
871
00:45:52.989 --> 00:45:54.409
head and all of a sudden, you know, you're going
872
00:45:54.429 --> 00:45:55.429
to perform better.
873
00:45:55.449 --> 00:45:55.809
Yeah.
874
00:45:56.429 --> 00:45:56.610
No.
875
00:45:56.670 --> 00:46:01.159
You know what? Meditation takes a little sustained practice and discipline,
876
00:46:01.440 --> 00:46:05.219
daily discipline. So does optimizing your physical and emotional health.
877
00:46:05.900 --> 00:46:07.940
You know, so one of the things I think that
878
00:46:07.960 --> 00:46:11.989
we could benefit from is, you know, in alignment with
879
00:46:12.030 --> 00:46:16.489
Kel Newport's work, deep work. is to simplify our lives
880
00:46:16.570 --> 00:46:20.409
and to start making very deliberate choices to get rid
881
00:46:20.449 --> 00:46:23.130
of things and to focus, I call it covering down,
882
00:46:23.170 --> 00:46:26.809
cover down on a much narrower range of things that
883
00:46:26.829 --> 00:46:30.480
we want to be really, really good at. It reminds
884
00:46:30.500 --> 00:46:35.699
me of Miyamari Musashi's work. He said that you can
885
00:46:35.760 --> 00:46:38.719
learn 100,000 sword strikes and do each of them once,
886
00:46:39.360 --> 00:46:42.469
or you can take one sword strike and do it 100,000 times.
887
00:46:42.929 --> 00:46:44.449
And which one do you think is going to lead
888
00:46:44.469 --> 00:46:47.869
to mastery, right? The second approach. And so when it
889
00:46:47.929 --> 00:46:51.309
comes to, you know, doing work like I describe in
890
00:46:51.329 --> 00:46:54.170
the way of the seal, which is really a personal
891
00:46:54.289 --> 00:46:56.849
excellence program toward mastery so that you can serve more
892
00:46:56.909 --> 00:46:59.849
powerfully as a leader. There are many paths, but there's
893
00:46:59.909 --> 00:47:04.809
only one mountaintop that's right. You know, one destination. And
894
00:47:04.849 --> 00:47:07.989
so you can't take all the paths. You can't try
895
00:47:08.110 --> 00:47:08.789
all the things.
896
00:47:08.869 --> 00:47:09.070
Right.
897
00:47:09.090 --> 00:47:12.449
You know, you can't practice yoga and Tai Chi and
898
00:47:12.469 --> 00:47:18.179
Qigong and jujitsu and CrossFit, you know. And be a
899
00:47:18.239 --> 00:47:21.380
runner and a swimmer and a, you know, kayaker. And
900
00:47:21.539 --> 00:47:23.210
you know what I mean? You just can't do it all.
901
00:47:23.389 --> 00:47:26.030
You have to really choose one or two things that
902
00:47:26.050 --> 00:47:28.510
you love to do. And so figuring out what those
903
00:47:28.550 --> 00:47:30.500
things are that you love to do, that's the tricky part.
904
00:47:31.670 --> 00:47:35.110
As you've said, success is defined by choice and small
905
00:47:35.190 --> 00:47:37.699
choices make a difference between good and excellent.
906
00:47:37.739 --> 00:47:39.800
It's every day, the.
907
00:47:39.320 --> 00:47:44.019
Consistency of it, the compound effect, as Darren Hardy might say,
908
00:47:44.099 --> 00:47:46.380
that that is in parallel to I think what you're
909
00:47:46.420 --> 00:47:50.449
talking about is that brick by brick by brick consistently
910
00:47:50.489 --> 00:47:53.110
doing it every single day is the path towards excellence.
911
00:47:54.219 --> 00:47:56.969
Absolutely. If you want to be uncommon, do the common
912
00:47:57.030 --> 00:47:58.289
things uncommonly well.
913
00:47:58.670 --> 00:48:00.130
I love it, Mark. This is great, man.
914
00:48:01.210 --> 00:48:04.349
I could talk to you forever and I really appreciate
915
00:48:04.429 --> 00:48:07.550
your investment here. I love your work and I thank
916
00:48:07.570 --> 00:48:10.659
you for your service to this great country. I'm very
917
00:48:10.719 --> 00:48:13.820
appreciative of it, man. Where would you send my listeners
918
00:48:13.880 --> 00:48:15.179
to learn more about you online?
919
00:48:17.210 --> 00:48:20.429
Well, if anyone was inspired by the physical training program
920
00:48:20.469 --> 00:48:22.630
we have, it's called SEAL Fit. Our website has an
921
00:48:22.989 --> 00:48:28.179
enormous repository of really cool free information and videos. It's
922
00:48:28.199 --> 00:48:33.380
called SEAL Fit, like Navy SEAL, but just S-E-A-L-F-I-T dot com. Also,
923
00:48:33.840 --> 00:48:35.969
all my books are kind of linked there. And then
924
00:48:36.030 --> 00:48:40.570
the executive leadership development program or the entrepreneurial development program
925
00:48:40.590 --> 00:48:43.449
is called Unbeatable Mind. I also have a book called
926
00:48:43.489 --> 00:48:46.849
Unbeatable Mind. It's available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
927
00:48:47.150 --> 00:48:51.019
And unbeatablemind.com will take you to the training page. that
928
00:48:51.059 --> 00:48:53.260
we offer there. So those are probably the two best
929
00:48:53.719 --> 00:48:55.900
digital resources. Of course, we can be found on Facebook
930
00:48:55.920 --> 00:48:58.219
and Twitter and all those social handles as well.
931
00:48:58.679 --> 00:48:58.960
Awesome.
932
00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:01.480
Well, I love it, Mark, and I definitely want to
933
00:49:01.940 --> 00:49:05.599
continue our dialogue as we both progress. It's been a
934
00:49:05.659 --> 00:49:07.719
lot of fun reading your work and then getting to
935
00:49:07.969 --> 00:49:09.530
talk directly with you about.
936
00:49:09.349 --> 00:49:12.289
It, man. Indeed. I really appreciate it, Ryan. It's been
937
00:49:12.309 --> 00:49:14.449
a lot of fun. I look forward to more.
938
00:49:14.730 --> 00:49:15.510
All right. Thanks, Mark.
939
00:49:16.849 --> 00:49:17.489
You bet. Take care.
940
00:49:19.530 --> 00:49:22.050
A true honor for me to speak with Mark Devine.
941
00:49:22.090 --> 00:49:25.340
That one was enlightening. I really enjoyed it.
942
00:49:25.389 --> 00:49:26.710
Got a lot out of it. I hope you did
943
00:49:26.750 --> 00:49:27.010
as well.
944
00:49:27.050 --> 00:49:29.010
So big thank you to Mark for joining me and
945
00:49:29.130 --> 00:49:33.010
thank you for listening and for your support.
946
00:49:33.489 --> 00:49:33.980
I love it.
947
00:49:34.030 --> 00:49:36.800
If you would write a review, subscribe and rate the
948
00:49:36.860 --> 00:49:41.940
show on iTunes, Apple Podcasts. That's write a review, subscribe
949
00:49:41.980 --> 00:49:44.880
and rate it. Hopefully five stars on iTunes, Apple Podcasts
950
00:49:44.900 --> 00:49:47.539
really helps spread the message all over the world. Thanks
951
00:49:47.699 --> 00:49:50.780
again for giving me The opportunity to do this and
952
00:49:51.179 --> 00:49:55.079
continuing to support it, I love it. I will be
953
00:49:55.119 --> 00:49:56.619
back next week.
954
00:49:56.940 --> 00:50:01.460
Can't wait. This episode is brought to you by Gusto.
955
00:50:01.739 --> 00:50:06.250
Gusto is making payroll, benefits, and HR easy for small businesses.
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Modern technology does the heavy lifting so it's easy to
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get things right. PCMag and Fit Small Business have called
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Gusto the best payroll for small businesses. Gusto saves you time.
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72% of customers spend less than five minutes to run payroll.
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Don't believe it?
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Just Google them. People love Gusto. How often do you
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actually love your payroll provider? Most small businesses don't have
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an HR expert, but you don't need one to use Gusto.
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With great software and great service, you can focus on
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your business, not payroll and paperwork. And to help support
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The Learning Leader Show, Gusto is offering our listeners an
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exclusive limited time deal. Sign up today and you'll get
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three months free once you run your first payroll. Just
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go to gusto.com slash leader. That's G-U-S-T-O dot com slash leader.