Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 180. The Mindset of a Warrior

Episode Date: February 22, 2021

To become a warrior and inspire others to lead, one must first develop themselves. In today's Inside Look episode, Bedros speaks with Mark Divine, founder of SEALFFIT, the host of the Unbeatable Mind podcast, NYT Best Selling author, speaker, entrepreneur, and professor.  Mark has dedicated his life to the development of human performance and leadership in others. He shares his journey to becoming a Navy SEAL, the benefits of meditation, the power of visualization, how every day offers a lifetime of learning, and so much more. Here's what you don't want to miss:  3:00 Mark's path to joining the SEAL Team and how endurance sports propelled him forward  6:05 Mark’s first career in the family business as a CPA and how he knew it wasn't his true calling 8:30 His first introduction to karate and meeting his first true mentor 11:50 the importance of "killing his ego" and ultimately turning his back on the family business 13:26 How to slow down, stop trying to do so much, find time every day, and look for answers 17:00 The skillset it takes to build "mind-power" and the concentration required to stay focused 18:58 How the unconditioned mind will always struggle to accomplish worthy things in life 20:18 Why mindful mediation is so hard for most people yet is the most profound thing one can do 21:22 How to reach mindful awareness in your thoughts and emotions through a metacognitive shift 22:28 How to open up your right brain activity and become a thinker 26:00 How opening your heart through meditation will provide the answers you seek 27:17 The moment Mark realized he was meant to be a warrior and his first encounter with the Navy SEALS 29:50 How adding visualization to his daily meditation took things to the next level 33:45 Mark's most powerful tool that he uses during meditation to reach his "higher self" 35:39 How to use visualization to let go of the negativity that might trigger limiting believes in yourself  39:30 How tracing the root cause of problems through recapitulation can help heal old wounds  43:20 The mindset of a warrior and the importance of living like every day is your last day 46:30 How writing a letter to your younger self can turn shame, rage, and confusion into wins 50:37 The elements of outstanding leadership and what it takes to get a team to follow you Connect with Mark Divine: Unbeatablemind.com https://unbeatablemind.com/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/realmarkdivine/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/UnbeatableMindAcademy/

First, you've got to concentrate your mind, and then you can quiet your mind. Right? And so when I say sit and do nothing, but I really mean to sit and just breathe. Hey, welcome to The Empire Show. My name is Bedros Kulian, and this is an inside look. Today we have someone really awesome with us, retired and Navy SEAL commander, Mr. Mark Devine. Welcome to the show, sir. Yes, sir. Good to see you, man. Likewise. Thank you for coming out to H. first of all. It's my pleasure. And, you know, San Diego and Chino Hills are probably an hour and a half apart, but depending on California traffic, it could be four hours apart. So I appreciate you making that track down here.

You and I met through a mutual friend, Shane, and he introduced us because I needed some understanding into a situation that took place during the project. And you were kind enough to have explained To shed some understanding. Yes. It was a very, very unique. Yeah, we won't go there. Yeah, we won't go deep into that, but it was a very unique situation.

There only a small handful of people have had that experience, and I appreciate you guiding me through that. But that said, just hit it off with you, man. And so, you know, I... So here's a guy, ladies and gentlemen, who I sent him stakes just as a thank you for spending time with me on the phone.

He gets the stakes, and then he responds with the text message, am I coming to your house, or are you coming to my house, for us to have the steaks together. Keep in mind, I probably sent, no joke, about 600 steaks to 600 people over the last five years through DeBragha. And no one's offered that. So I was like, dude, come on down. I'd rather, I'll eat the steaks with you. So it was a great experience. And we had a lot of belly laughs. So then the corollary to that story is when I got

home after our dinner, I was like, I'm going to order some more of the sticks are so darn delicious. And I'd walk under the website. And I'm like, holy shit. These things are expensive. expensive. They're not cheap. Yeah, they're not cheap. So, yeah, you've got good taste, man. Yeah, thanks, man. And look, I'm not sponsored by DeBragas. The show's not sponsored by DeBragas. It should be,

yeah. So DeBragas, if you're paying attention, hook me up with some discounts. And hooked me up as a commission stakes. Right, exactly, and send this guy some commission stakes. But that said, you've done, you've done so much. And, you know, from Sealfit to your best-selling books. And

the way, when I look at you, and what Mark Devine has done with my outside eyes, you are a developer of humans, of human performance, beyond leadership. And so I thought that would be a great place to start doing this deep dive. And like all people who develop humans, they first start by developing themselves. So what was the path that led you into the teams? Yeah, that's a great, great question. You know, kind of like you, Bedros, I think,

I'm a great experimenter, and I don't like to experiment on other people unless I've tried it myself. Sure. And so I started experimenting first with, you know, endurance sports and, you know, like, long time in the wilderness using the terrain of my childhood, which is upstate New York. Yeah. And so I had 6,000 or 6 million acres in the Adirang Park to play in. Whoa. And so I was like, that's, I never heard of rucking before. but I used to go out with a backpack alone.

Before rucking was rucking. Yeah, before rucking. And this is when I was, you know, 16, 17 and come back, you know, 15 hours later after having someone to the couple peaks and run down them and, you know what I mean? Yeah. Dehydrated as heck. And, you know, okay, that's not going to work. I need to bring some food along here. Next time food water.

Right. And, you know, if I'm going to run down a mountain in these craggy, you know, ador rounding mountains, then I need to like wrap my knees and take care of my joints. and you know, so, and I just love the experience of that endorphin rush and also, most importantly, related to kind of me becoming a seal. What would happen to my mind when I push you all the resistance of all the pain and the suffering of, you know, moving really fast under load and all of a sudden just breaking through to that rarefied territory, right?

Some of it's, you know, there's a biochemical. aspect there's an emotional aspect and then there's this kind of spiritual aspect of it didn't know what that was but it felt good total long flow state periods yeah and then like I would get to some destination and peak and I'd look out over the Adironics and it's just stunningly beautiful and I'm sitting up there alone you know got my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I would drop into what I now call meditation all this is happening in my 17 to you know like 20 year old period during that time I go to Colgate University become a competitive swimmer, getting to triathlon.

So I was, you know, just really experimenting with all these different physical modalities and strength training and whatnot. Anyway, everything took a shift when I went to New York after college and started my first career as a certified public accountant. Oh, boy. Yeah. How do you go from, like, summoning to sitting behind the desk, man? I always got to be careful because you never know how many wonderful CPAs were listening.

Great humans. Great humans. Like, I, I kid you not. I would rather go back through seal training than try to sit for that darn CPA exam again. Sure. Oh, man. Like, what a pain. Did you pass the first time?

It took me four tries. Did it? Okay. Four tries. I pass, well, New York, whatever. We could spend 20 minutes talking about this useless stuff. I was just curious. CPA exam excited.

It took me four times. I've heard of it's hard. I know nothing about it. I was just curious. I wasn't destined to be a CPA, but it was a great first career. You know, the whole idea was I'm going to go back and run the family business someday. It's upstate New York. I was kind of groomed for that. That's what the divine boys do. It's multi-generational. Story, story, story, story baked into me

from birth. So I'm following the little, I'm a good little drummer. Sure. You know, doing the stuff I'm supposed to do. Never really examining myself. Now, you would think that all those long hikes and all the time and flow that I'd be examining myself. No, I was just loving the experience. Okay, I was just about to ask that. Right. So it's one thing to be an athlete and to enjoy or to be a business owner to enjoy the thrill of the quest. It's another thing to do deep self-introspective work. They're both valuable. One's internally focused, the other's externally focus.

So I'll get to where I'm going with this. So I'm in New York now and I'm going to school part-time at night. I'm working full-time during the day for Cooper's and Libran, now Pricewaterhouse, Coopers. I get up early in the morning to go do my run. And then at lunchtime, I go to the gym. I do my hit workout. This is in the 80s, you know, mid-80s. And then I had a two-hour block of time between when they said,

okay, check, you're done here at work, because we know you got school at 7.30 at NYU. And so I'm like, great, two hours. There's another training block. So I got to find something to fit in there. Sure. Didn't want to go back to the gym, wasn't ready to take another run.

I'm like, what am I going to do? And one day I was walking by down 23rd Street, and I was living on 22nd. I passed this second floor of this building. I hear all this noise coming out, like screams and shouts, and I'm like, what the hell's going on in there? And I'm standing under this big flag. And I'll look up, and it's got a lotus flower on it.

And it says, world headquarters, Sato Karate. Had you done any kind of martial arts? Never. No. No exposure to it, except for my freshman roommate at college. You took up Shodokhan Karate. And that's a whole kind of cool story to himself. So I'm intrigued.

I go upstairs. And I'm like, what is this? And there at the far end of the floor is this, you know, five foot seven Japanese guy built like a tank, right? And he's barking out or, da, da, da, da, da. And they're like, oh, man, like, that's a real deal. And then all of a sudden he cracks a joke and he starts laughing like a school kid. You know what I mean? And everyone's cackling with him.

And there's all these black belts, everyone from first degree to six degree black belts. Sure. From the tri-state area. I was like, this is wild. Like, who is this guy? So I signed up on the spot. It turns out, Mr. Nakamura, Grandmaster, had started this style of karate. He was the head instructor for a really worldwide style called Kiyokokoschai.

Kiyokokokensha. I can't even say it. Okay. The founder of that style named Masayama was famous for chopping the horn off of a charging bull with his hand. That's pretty hardcore. That's hardcore, right? So this is real deal. Nakamura was famous for the Thai kickboxer,

which challenged the entire martial arts world in 63. He said they're the preeminent martial art. Come challenge us. And the only people that take them up were three Japanese, Nakamura being one of them. And two of them won. Nakamura and another guy. And they had like a ticker tape parade.

Anyway, I could talk forever about this guy, my first true mentor. So I joined. It turns out that, Nakamura is a Zen master. What is a Zen master? He teaches Zen meditation, but he's a practitioner of Zen meditation, and he integrated Zen into this martial art.

So we had a Zen class every Thursday night where we sat in meditation for an hour, and he taught you Zen. And then we would sit for about five minutes before and after every class. And then we would take these long weekend retreats at the Zen Mountain Monastery in Woodstock, New York. Now, mind you, there is only a very, very, very, very small percentage of the students really took to the Zen. I was one of them and maybe 10 other black belts and I was a white belt. Because everyone was too busy or they didn't get it or it wasn't for them.

And this is, again, in the 80s. I'm guessing you got it because you had already experienced something similar to it. There was something about Zen that reminded me of the bliss that I experienced alone in the wilderness on these long endurance kind of events. and sitting on top of the mountain. So I was like, this is, and I remember that experience. And so very quickly after starting Zen, I started to have those experiences again, but I'm just sitting there. Not doing nothing.

Right. And I was like, wow. And then, again, this is because I wasn't focused outward trying to get somewhere, and I'm just sitting. When all the dust started to settle in my mind, I started to experience things that were different that I never experienced as an athlete, never experienced out in the wilderness. I experienced insights. I experienced, like, emotional releases. I experienced dread. I experienced dread that I was missing something important.

Like, the most important thing. Oh, shoot. Right? Like, I was doing the wrong thing. I was missing my calling. Oh, shoot. You know, this is like the dread that people usually find after they've got the Lamborghini

and they've got the beautiful house and the beautiful wife and they wake up and they're 55 years old and they're like, this is not my beautiful house, this is not my good life. How did I get here, right? So what do they call that? A midlife crisis? You had a midlife crisis in your 20s? 21, 22.

How do you handle that? Like, what do you do? I'm scared. I mean, because I was investing so much on this path. And to change from that path, I had to kill my ego, but I also had to turn my back and my family. How was that experience? Because so many of our audience, so many people in general,

our audience or not, they have been told and conditioned by family with the best of intentions. Of course. That, you know, whether the family business or go be a doctor, go be a lawyer, like in the Armenian culture, it's all about go be a doctor, go be a lawyer, because that's where money is. And at some point, they realized that this was a miserable path. So how do you break out of that? How do you tell your family this? It takes great courage, you know, for, and to be fair, Bedris, you know, as well as I do,

Not everyone does it. Not everyone can do it. Most don't. Most don't, right? But I believe, unless that is your path, which it could very well be. Sure. Probably not, though. Unless that's exactly your path, that if you don't do that, then you lead that life of quiet desperation that Emerson talks about, right? And Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. And I was living in unexamined life until I sat down and slowed down and stilled my mind and started to ask. better questions. Like if I'm experienced dread about this, if I feel like that's not the right calling, me as a CPA, kidding me? Or even being back to the family business, I look back now, I'm like, I'd be a tenth of the man I am today. Sure. I'd be living in quiet, desperate. I'd probably be a raging alcoholic too. Sure to cope. To cope, right? Exactly. And so the answer to your question is, and this is kind of like an antidote to what what's going on today is to slow the F down, stop trying to do so much, and find time every day. This isn't a once in a while, oh, I'll find time, you know, when I go on that retreat.

It's an everyday thing to find time, and you don't have to call a meditation, and you don't have to sit on a bench or, you know, in some sort of lotus position. You just sit in your chair and wait for what? Wait for answers. Now, that's because everyone's say, well, I can't meditate because I sit and I'm thinking, I'm thinking, okay, it's just, don't worry about it. Just sit and let the thinking settle down. Now, there's a lot of tools I have now to shortcut that settling process. Box breathing is probably the biggest secret weapon we have.

Can you explain that for a moment? Sure. Now, the reason this worked for me is because of my martial arts training, they, you know, Nakamor taught me that breathing, that breathing through your nose and breathing in certain patterns has an effect in your mind. And so when we sat in Zen meditation, he had a slower breathing down, through the nose, into these nice long loops. Ten count in, ten count out. And later on, for my students who are Navy SEALs, I said,

okay, we're going to shorten that up and we're going to add holds to it. Nakamura didn't do anything with that breath hold. Because what I noticed in experimenting with that, and then later on I learned through yoga, is that, you know, first you move the energy into your body and you energize when you inhale. And then you, when you exhale, you release toxin. You release emotional energy. You dehydrate. You know, there's all sorts of things.

But you also, you also relax. So the inhale is energizing. The exhale is relaxing. The inhale hold is stings. stimulating your mind, right? And so whatever thought is in there is going to get charged up. It's going to get a little brighter. And the exhale hold is probably your closest opportunity to face death

because of the, all of a sudden I'm taking away my source of life force. And it's the time or the moment because of that, that your mind is the most still, because it's like going, wait, what's happening here? what's happening here. And so you have a lot going on here. We don't have time to get into the physiology, breathing, and all that. So what I do is I started doing this practice where all as I did was this pattern of breathing,

where I inhale for five counts, hold my breath for five counts, exhale for five counts, box pattern, box pattern. Got it. And then just discreetly hook my mind onto that. And I learned that through Zen training because that's basically, you know, and Zen is hard for a lot of people, Because what they say in this practice and what box breathing does when you do it this way is you're going to concentrate on just that, just that. But then your mind is going to wander and you're going to split your attention or you're going to just forget about that and you're going to go all over here and off to the races again. But the more you practice, the more you come back to their breath, the longer you can hold your attention on just that.

And the less frequent your mind will then spin off into some drama, right? and the quicker you can bring it back to hook it back to the breath. And so these are really important skills. First, concentration. Attention control on one thing, being able to concentrate on it for longer and learning period times, which builds mind power. It's kind of like, you know, barbell. Sure.

Concentration is barbell training for your brain because you build mind power, the ability to focus on one thing for a long period of time and to penetrate it deeply without distraction. You know, it's funny you say something about concentration. Now more than ever in history, I think we've lost the ability to focus and concentrate. We're all over the place. We're getting our dings in our houses. Exactly. We're conditioned by all these devices.

Yesterday, you know the TV show, Homeland. I'm familiar with it. I used to love that. Yeah. So I think the first season was in 2011. So when I watched it with the wife back in the day, when my kids were small, it was one of those things where, wow, great show. We love it. We're going to keep watching it.

Now, here we are 2020 or 2021. And we recently watched Game of Thrones with our kids now that they're 15 and 13, and we fast forward through all the nudity. That's a whole funny story. I'll tell you when we're done with this. It was a shit show. But, you know, Andrew had his finger on the remote the whole time. And I just freaks out and starts squawking and screaming.

And Andrew pretends like he doesn't know how to fast forward. So he'll switch button. I don't know. So he'll let the boob hang on the screen for an extra period of time. Anyways, I love that kid. So I was like, hey guys, why don't we start watching Homeland? Like one episode of Homeland every night. What I didn't realize is how quickly the modern day shows cut scenes.

Right. And then just 2011, man. That's like 10 years ago. Right? Yeah. And Andrew's like, and Chloe. They're like, holy crap, these scenes go on forever. I'm like, you think that's something?

Watch something from the 90s or the 80s. But it was the ability to concentrate. Right. And Andrew, I saw him. He just started reaching for his form. I'm like, boy, put that down. He's like, but the scenes going on. forever I'm like just pay attention and the ability to yeah it's it changes your brain right so

again it's not doesn't make anyone bad it's just it's the conditioning but the problem with the unconditioned mind that can't concentrate is it's very hard to to accomplish really worthy things if you can't focus on them for long enough to get them done yeah an important work in the world important work of building your business and and and changing the world requires deep deep concentration So this skill, not only does it give you the capacity to lead you inward to discover the truth about yourself, but also gives you the capacity to radically focus outwardly to accomplish what you want once you figure out what the inside tells you what that is. And so they work together, a hand in the glove. And concentration is the bridge between being a distracted individual, just kind of like following the drummer or the commercial story or whatever the political story, whatever,

story is trying to influence you and take you away from being a fully autonomous human being to being a robot. Concentration then allows you to look at all that and say no, no, no, no, no, but also look inward. Turn the flashlight inward and say, yes, that's what I am and that's what I want to bring to the world. But if you try to go, and this is why mindfulness meditation is so hard for people is because, you know, when I said just sit and quiet your mind, I was kind of like being only partly serious because first you've got to concentrate your mind and then you can quiet your mind right and so when I say sit and do nothing but I really mean to sit and just breathe breathe but that seems like doing nothing for most people but it's profound

this most profound thing you could do true just breathe and then over time this takes a while for some people depending upon you know like if they got a lot of physical training and they've learned you know, some concentration skills, then maybe two to three months, they're ready to move on. Their mind is they get it. They get all the calming effect, the de-stressing effect,

the arousal control effect of the breath, plus their mind gets much more concentrated and less distracted. Then we can go into the mindful awareness where now we kind of let your, take your foot off the gaspid a little bit. So you're still breathing, you're still aware of the box,

but then you create this metacognitive distance between you and your thoughts and emotions. What's the value in that? Well, you begin to see... Metacognitive distance? Medacognitive. So it's almost like imagine your brain is a hard drive. Yeah.

It's like splitting it into two. One of you is watching and the other you is thinking and behaving and having emotions and whatnot. And so the watcher is always watching and always evaluating. Hey, how'd that go? Is this really serving me anymore? There's a belief system in this that, you know, I need to validate. Is that my belief system? Or am I parroting my parents, you know, or some religion or something?

And so this metacognitive shift puts you kind of in the driver's seat. But it's still, Bedros is still from, how do we say this well? It's still from mind. It's still from kind of thinking mind. But one way to look at this is more like right brain looking at left brain. Sure. Right brain is about context. Like what's the context of what's going on here? Left brain is linear. Do this. Cause, effect, rational. But most people are stuck in rational. That's how they think. That's how we're taught in schools. Right. That's how we're conditioned.

So the practice of concentration and also things like bilateral movement, alternate nostril breathing, helps you open up that right brain. And then that's where you started, you can start to seat your awareness in there and take perspective on the thinker. This is incredibly valuable because you're looking for the big patterns that aren't serving you. One of the big patterns that didn't serve me was the whole choice that I'd chosen to take in my life. Now there's no bigger pattern. Right. That's a big deal.

And when I had that metacognitive shift and I'm looking at all the decisions I made and everything and I'm thinking and I'm feeling into that, I'm like, that's not right for me. Then I had to ask, well, if not that, then why? And this led me to the third phase. Now, this came upon me quite by surprise because here I'm doing concentration training and I'm doing what I now call mindful awareness and after every training session, I'm journaling and I wake up in the morning and I do my own version of this for 20 minutes every morning and I'm making great progress.

And I found after about a year of training that somewhere during my meditation sessions, not every time, but some time when, you know, stunting the stars and Venus was in retrodrated. Sure, everything aligned perfectly. I would literally just disappear into some, you know, place of unknowingness. As in like, I would lose my sense of time. Okay. I would lose my sense of self. I would forget who I was.

Would you have like an out-of-body experience? No, not so much like I wasn't floating anywhere. I wasn't like traveling to Armenia and checking out, you know. The goats. The goats. The goats. It's a little bit goats, man. Nothing else.

Borett. No, it's a different country. Close. I've got so many jokes I want to crack, but so many of my Armenian followers are going to bust my balls about it. So I'm just not going to crack it. I did see the picture, though. Right. Right.

Let's move on. Let's move on. Let's move on. This is what I mean. This guy comes to my house the first time. We're eating steak and we're just belly laughing like this the whole time. All right. So let's move on.

Third phase, man. Third phase. It wasn't as mystical as I've tried, you know, maybe you make it out to be. Like I wasn't levitating or anything like that. But I would just like... But when you forget who you are. Yeah, I would just forget everything. And then...

And so, you know, at first I thought, did I just fall asleep? And I was like, no, I wasn't sleeping. Because I did that early on. Right. I'm like... Yeah, I know the difference. I was not sleeping. But I would...

When I would come out of these places, at first, You know, it wasn't always clear to me, but I would bring something back. Uh-huh. Like a gift. And the gift was a sense of knowingness that I now call direct perception. And that direct perception is like coming from your spirit or it's coming from some source that you don't know that you know. Your higher self. Yeah.

You're higher self. I call that the witnessing self. So you have the process is learn how to concentrate your mind, turn that flashlight inward, create this metacognitive split. which is right brain looking your left brain. Keep training, keep training, keep training, boom, you drop even out of right brain. And now you're just in whole mind where your mind is not your body, it's not up here,

it's all around you, and information is passing freely, and your spiritual side, your spirit self, your witness, your higher self, is able to be heard. And that's where really the deepest conversations with ourselves take place. That's where they take place. is what I found. Right. Right. And so you can do this in a number of ways, like, you know, through prayer, having

conversation with your higher self, with your spiritual self, or with an intermediary, you know, like Jesus or God, or whatever you want to call it, that's a powerful way to do it. But if you're, if you're really distracted and if your mind is cluttered, and if you're, if you're asking from ego because you want something in return, there's a lot of reasons why that doesn't really work very well. But if you open your heart and you sit in silence and in prayer, which is different than meditation, it's just a different form of meditation. And you connect to that aspect of yourself, you get answers. But you have to also be willing to listen to those answers and to be still enough to hear them.

Because they don't come like in thunderous claps, you know, like you're seeing the movies, you know, where someone speaks or whispers in your ear. It's a sense of knowingness. Or it's an image that pops in your head. And so I was getting imagery and a sense of knowingness that I was meant to be a warrior, not a CPA. I'm not saying there aren't warrior CPAs. There certainly are, but it wasn't my path. I was meant to be a warrior doing kind of gritty stuff

and leading individuals in really challenging situations. I had never heard of the Navy Seals. But as soon as I started to get that imagery, that sensation, that feeling, and I was juxtaposing about that, guess what happened? Synchronicity. So one night I'm walking home from work

and I passed this Navy recruiting office and there's this big poster on the window and it says, be someone special across the top. and it's got pictures of Navy SEALs doing really cool. And I was just like transfixed. I'm like, that's it. That's like when the universe speaks to you, right? The universe is speaking to me.

Like, that's it. You know, and it's hilarious. You walk and you're like, hey. Well, they were close, but I had to go back, you know. And I went to the, I was like, well, you know, I'm going to have an MBA, CPA. You know, I'm not going to quit that. I'll finish all that. Let me, you know, my mind is back into rational mode.

And I go in there and the, I go in the recruiter's office and it's an enlisted recruiter. And they're like, sign here. Like, wait, wait, right. Can we talk about this? Just talk about this. First off, I have a couple questions. Yeah. Can I see the movie about the SEALs?

Oh, you don't want to be a SEAL? What am I signing there? First, you go in the Navy, and then you volunteer for the SEALs. I'm like, that sounds a little sketchy to me. You know, I'm not sure I want to risk that. Is that the route they were trying to take you? Yeah. Okay.

Go spend some time on a boat? Nowadays, right. Right, exactly. Nowadays, you can actually go straight into the SEALs. And they said, those guys are crazy anyway. You know, they're much snake eaters. You know, obviously these recruiters had had some, you know, experiences with seals. And there weren't that many seals back then.

You know, they were like five or six hundred. And they're still secret. And they weren't writing books. Right, right. Right. And so I was like, well, you know, I got a master's degree coming. And I think I'll go talk to the officers. And I'm like, oh, man, you're going to blow it.

Those guys are a bunch of cake eaters. You do not want to be an officer. And I'm like, okay, well, let me talk to them at least. So I go to the officer's recruiter and Nick Philipone's. guy, super good guy. And he's like, hmm, why do you want to be a seal? He said, do you know anything about them? They said, nope, but I want to learn. I see the poster. I want to be someone special. I want to be someone special. Because I thought about it. Right. Yeah. A lot of thought into this. And he's like, I don't know, man. He goes, you don't have,

you know, you probably have a better chance of becoming an astronaut. Like statistically, they take one or two guys from the civilian world every year because most of them come the Naval Academy. officers, right? It take 20 guys a year. Yeah. And I was like, well, I want to try. I don't want to try. I said, I want to do this.

I think this is right for me. So he's okay. So we put in an application and I kept training. I kept training, I kept training, and I added visualization to my practice because I had a really powerful experience with visualization when I was in college. My swim coach was an early pioneer,

like really working us with visualization. I had a really cool experience and I said, visualization is something that I could use to practice becoming a seal. How did you use that? So here's my prize. So this is like, I call this winning in the mind before you step put in the battlefield.

There comes to some sunsuit quote. Yeah. Victorious warriors win in their mind, then go to war, everyone else goes to war, hoping to win, something like that. So my morning routine then, it's evolved a bit, but it's not that different. I wake up and do a little movement,

drinks my water, get ready to go, you know, Work out the kinks, open up the chakras, so to speak. Then I sit and I begin my box breathing practice. First is just arousal control. Just breathe, just calm down. Clear the mind, settle everything down. Get into that kind of high alpha, low beta state. Then I move into concentration, like deep concentration,

but I used to do this for like 15, 20 minutes. Now I just need a few rounds to really sharpen my mind. And then I go into that meditation, that cognitive, not cognitive, but that mindful awareness where I'm looking for any, patterns, anything come up? Is there anything that need to process, you know, how things gone? What's going on? You're really checking in with yourself. That's right, yeah. You're checking in with all aspects. Checking with the cognition. What's going on in my mind? Anything, what's, what are the, you know, any little roadblocks, any challenges, what's going on in my day? You know, what's

trailing me? What's going to be? What are my issues that are floating around in my brain? Okay, if everything's good, then I kind of shut that down. Also scan the emotional body, all good. And then that, once I'm done with that, so now I'm like 10 to 15 minutes into it, I literally just let go of everything, all efforting. It's almost like you're done with the work. I put the kettlebell down and you're just like, you know how I'm crossfit? You still lay in that white, sweat angel? Which in seal fit, we were like, dude, you lay down on the floor. Someone's going to kill you, you know what I mean? As soon as you're done work and now, you get up and you look around and you're ready for the next fire fight, right? You don't ever lay down. But it feels like that, where you just let go of all efforting. And you just, sit and softly breathe, and you almost shift it where you feel like you're being breathed by the universe

instead of your, I got to breathe. Just let it all soften. Release the grip on the rational mind. Release the grip, and then just let spirit take over. You almost drop your awareness into your heart and just let spirit take over. And so what you're doing here is listening. You're listening for spirit's guidance. And if you have any questions, any unanswered questions are a thing that's troubling you that's a good time to like ask how do you ask that question well you just softly ask it to yourself the more you can just allow it to be the question as opposed to like get back into your rational mind and think it or like you know read your journal this is the question so it's something that you've been pondering right so just sit with the question sit with yourself and see what comes up

Maxwell Maltz calls this the theater of the mind before I had learned meditation and really asking the higher self in the book Psycho-Cybernetics. I remember that, yeah. Maxwell Maltz calls it the theater of the mind where you have a problem, a challenge, a conundrum, and you kind of think about it as you, he would say, as you go to sleep and your subconscious mind is processing it. Sure, that's right. Really the more effective way, as we know now, is you could create. that state you don't have to do it the night before when they fall asleep you can direct the process you can direct the process well said exactly gone that's cool well you know honestly why you said that really this is an important distinction now one of the most

powerful tools that I do when I do this because I've had a lot of practice is I have a conversation with my higher self so instead of just asking I actually have a mental representation of my higher self and I have a conversation and then I allow my higher self to answer myself. It's extremely powerful. Like the answers that I get from my higher self are very different than what my rational mind thought before I asked that question. So anyways, I'm trying to get to your question because this is the way my brain works. You know, sometimes it's kind of a, you know, secured this route. We're getting there. We're good. We're good. Keep going. Fascinating journey. Once I get done with all

this, this is kind of the meditation phase. And then I go into the visualization, visualization, which I consider different. Visualization can be used in meditation. It's more appropriate to say it's like a concentration tool. Like practice visualization to get better at a skill is a concentration exercise. Whereas when I talk about meditation with my clients, it's like either mindful awareness, which is what mindfulness meditation sort of is,

but we're very specific about how to do that. Or pure meditation, which is where you're asking for insight. and you're just looking for answers. But visualization is something different. Now, visualization, there's the practice sports piece that a lot of people know about. Very, very effective.

Everybody should be doing it for performance, right? Then there's the using imagery connected to memory to revisit past experiences and re-contextualize and repower them with new emotions to let go of regrets and let go of negative emotional baggage that's holding you back. Because everything from your so-called past that has a negative attachment to it or negative association or negative memory is slowing you down.

It's taking energy away from your ability to be in the present and to be productive. Sure. Because anything from your past that has a negative association or that you've anchored in a negative way becomes modern day a limiting belief. That's right. limiting belief or limiting feeling, which then triggers a limiting belief. So how do you go back in visualization? Is there an example that you can give me where you can go back and kind of redefine that experience?

So we call it recapitulation. Recapitulation. In fact, that term I got from that I love studying just what did the ancients do because there's so much wisdom there. They weren't distracted with the internet and Facebook back then, you know, thousand years ago. And so I've learned from the yogis and the ancient martial artists and Tibetan Buddhists and the ancient Toltecs and the Apache. And I've studied all these fascinated by them. The Toltecs had a process called recapitulation that they required their young budding warriors to be to go through. So you weren't admitted into the warrior club.

Sure. So maybe back then it was like 16 years old you had to do this. so, maybe even younger, I don't know, but the process was, you go out in the wilderness alone. It's like their year-long kind of like trial by fire. If you don't make it back, oh, well, the tiger got you. But if you make it back, and you've done this recapitulation, welcome to the club. Almost a right of passion. It's a right of passions, right?

It's a right of passions, right? So this right of passion was powerful, year-long, alone in the woods, and the one thing that they had to do besides survive and hone their skills, was they had to recapitulate their life day by day back to birth. That meant every single day they had to, let's say, I have to start, okay, I go back to yesterday in my mind and I relive it from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed. And in my memory, I go through every single event and I ask, was I honorable in this moment? Did I come from a place of love or was it fear? What could have I done different or better to be a better person in that moment?

Sure. And any time you come upon an action that you took or a thought you had or a way that you were in the world yesterday, you pause. And you say, if the answer is I could have done better, or I wish I hadn't done that, or I have a regretter on that, you pause. And you redo it. You see yourself doing it differently. and then you inject new energy into that and the positive belief. And then you go back and see the way you did it and you like gray it out and you make it small, inconsequential in your mind's eye.

And then you attach forgiveness and acceptance as meaning to that instead of regret. You see, so that's an example. Now, in our lives, I don't like with my clients, they don't ask them to recapitulate every day back to birth. You know what I mean? They fire me in a moment. Like whatever. you can't do that.

It's a hell of a quiet retention tool, though, huh? Part of the linking of mindful awareness is you can, you know, these patterns that show up. Yeah. They have their roots way, way back, even epigenetic. And so what we do is we go back and we're like, oh, wow, you know, let's use one in my life, you know, that I've been very open about in the last couple of years. You know, I tried to be the perfect person all the way, you know, and then I was like, screw that. was alcohol, right? Because alcohol ran through both of my families for multiple generations, and it was not pretty, you know. And so it tripped me a little up in the Navy where I had to step back

and, you know, metacognically look at that and go, oh, wow, that could be a problem, you know, so get that under control. And so let's say there's an issue with alcohol. So you go back and you're like, but you're ignoring it, you know, right? Because you're like, I'm fine, I'm a high performer. You know, how many high performers are in the world who are overdue with alcohol? overdo it with other stimulants drugs drugs drugs sex food yeah yeah it's called being human yeah so you go back and like wow you know what i i i really did something i didn't like didn't appreciate or hurt somebody and what was the alcohol i overdid it and i was drunk at the time and then there's oh yeah there it was again and then i have a holy shtr whole string of these situations hmm what's the

cause of that instead of beating yourself up and just saying i or would go to a a or trying this boom and bust if I quit drinking and then I'll send them all back in. Never going to work. It's deprivation doesn't work because it brings negative attention to the problem and that just makes it worse. So one of the profound answers is to go traces all the way back to the root cause. And the root cause is going to be something like your father was an alcoholic, didn't give you the love you needed.

He was using the alcohol to cover up a wound from the love that he didn't get. Sure. And so then you start using alcohol to cover up the love that you're not getting, the wound from the love that you're not getting. And to be aware of that and to acknowledge that and then to begin to heal that. And you can do it alone. It's just hard work.

It's better to do it with a therapist or with someone who's qualified in that, that type of deep work. But just going down this path and beginning the practice of using imagery in this path of recapitulation and then what you do is you go further and further into your past just like the toltex did but it might take you years now that's different than winning in your mind it's sort of the same but that's like winning your winning your past it's winning your past right which of what you're about right which brings you more presence and more energy and and you're not dragging those kettlebells of regret into your next action that's a great that's a great metaphor so now you're

clearing that up and then simultaneously the wind in your mind drill. So like the recapitulation, the way I do this is that's an evening practice, starting with the day, you know, how'd I do today? And eventually, here's the beautiful thing. Like, Bedros, if you can clear up all that crap from your past, then you've got a clean slate every day. All you've got to worry about is how do I do today? And you're always going to screw up. Nobody's perfect. So then you just have to go back and like, how do, oh, look, I did pretty good, then, boy, I could have done better there. Recapitulate, clean it up, make amends if you have to, and that could be like, oh, man,

let me just call this person, send a text, or I'm going to make a note, and tomorrow I'm going to call bedros say, dude, I'm sorry, I didn't bring more stakes up, dude. I didn't know there were stepbrushes. You had to go pull some out of your stash. Could think I have a backup fridge. Exactly. That was that fun night. That was just so fun.

So that's the beautiful thing about recapitch because then it becomes it real time. Yeah, yeah. You know, I want to come back to visualization for winning your mind, but Nakamura taught me something profound, many profound things. Well, one of them was this, because he used to have like little Zen lectures after the Zen, and he had a chalkboard. And, you know, he'd sit there and write his kanji, like, squeak, squeak, and we're sitting there watching, you know, squeak. And then he would write what it meant underneath. and one of them was one day, one lifetime. What does that mean?

Well, he explained it to us. He said that a warrior lives every day with the mindset that, A, it could be his last or hers, and so every action had to be very, very thought through and precise, and I don't mean like, go out and have a back of an alien because it's your last day. No, it's like every thought, every word, everything on my to-do list, this is the most important because if this is my last day

then I want to make sure I do the right things and I do things right really cool because then that orientation has really helped me be like okay what's the most important thing today I got to spend my time training and I got to spend my time with my wife and my kid because if this is the last day and I don't do that

I'm screwed right and I want to spend time with my spirit and you know my faith do all that good now I can move on what's the most important thing for me in my business? Well, I want to work on my relationships and build my team so that they can accomplish the mission. And together, everyone's clear about the mission.

Well, that's my most important job as a CEO, isn't it? It's not this endless task list of doing. It's the being stuff in the team. One, maybe two or three important tasks there. And then I can start to work on the other stuff that's urgent but not as important. Right. So that's really powerful, you know. And that's one day, one lifetime.

Oh, the other thing, so that's the answer. If today's your last, make it count. The other piece of this was kind of the flip side of that is every day has the opportunity for a lifetime of learning. Because there's nothing you're going to find tomorrow that doesn't exist today. There's nothing you're going to find three years from now that doesn't exist today or 10 years from now or 100 years from now. Everything you need.

everything there is known to humanity and the entire cosmos exists today so be present and look for it don't always be here or there

or here or there and miss the truth of what is right in front of you it's profound which is today which is right now right like this so so there's this evening ritual which provides the bookend in the evening where you look back and make sure today was really good.

And you clean up any regrets. And then you go to bed and ask those questions, you know, like Cypress CyberS Cybernetics. So use that time wisely, your sleep cycle. But then in the morning, let's say next morning, that's the bookend to start the day. So in the start, we win in our mind before we step in the battlefield. At the end of the day, we've already been to battle. We recapitulate and we learn and grow. my first experience with recapitulation was with dr kevin downing he's out here in braya about nine years ago

let's having these severe anxiety attacks it just came out of nowhere and i thought well they put me on xanax and after about two three weeks of that i was like listen this thing's got me numb i'm drooling on the side of my mouth like i've got no creativity like it just numbed me yeah okay i didn't have were you on zanx when i came over that night That's what the drool was. I was wondering why he kept mopping up after me. I didn't want to say anything. So after about three weeks of Xanax, I went to the doctor.

I'm like, hey, listen, this isn't going to work. I've got no creativity and work. I've got no desire ambition. Sucking the life. Yeah, yeah. He goes, well, you might have to do what most men don't want to do. I'm like, what's that? He goes, who work with the therapist.

I was like, all right. Yeah, yeah, the Pucker factor set in, right? But he referred me to someone who was horrible, but thankfully, through my research, I found Dr. Kevin Downing, and where I thought we were going to work on my source of anxiety and panic attacks, we worked through that in four weeks, done, check. On the fourth week, as I'm like, hey, doc, see you later, I'm done, appreciate the help. You know, he taught me a few things like action alleviates anxiety, and anxiety is anticipation of future pain and halt, hungry, angry, lonely, tired is going to trigger my anxiety.

We really worked together on that stuff. On week before, I'm like, hey, man, I'm going to be. good. I feel good. He goes, one thing before you leave, Bedros, how was your relationship with your family, with your parents growing up? I'm like, oh, it was fine, you know, coming from a communist family. My dad slapped me around here and there, but what happened to me in Armenia was even worse than the slaps that he gave me, right? Like, the beatings he gave me. For some reason, in four weeks, he had built such rapport with me that I forfeited that information. And he goes, what happened? And I just bawled and started crying. That led the next 16 months every Monday in

therapy session with him talking through what happened to me between the ages of four and six where I was molested by two older boys. And one of the most profound things he had me do was to write a letter to myself, that younger self. Yeah. And he gave me the first sentence, which was in Armenia between the ages of four and six, I was molested by two older boys. But today I'm dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. And it gave me the opportunity to go back as he taught me and to reframe what happened. That's a rich situation. Exactly. Beautiful process. And he put words to my feelings.

And writing letters is just an expression, one way to express. You can express with letters, written letters. You can express it verbally. You can express physically, like getting it out of your system. Yeah. I went to a training called the Hoffman process, which is all about recapitulating early childhood trauma. It sounds like this guy was trained in the same process.

It seems like, man, I got to tell you, it was so neat. And the thing that you told me that you stuck with me, you said, all of a sudden it becomes gray or it becomes small. And what he... He charges it. Yes. What he helped me identify was I was walking around and feeling shame, rage, and confusion. Shame, like I'm so embarrassed this happened to me, no one can know.

Confusion, like, did I invite this to happen in some way? Why me? And then, of course, the rage, like, how could this happen to me? Why didn't anyone stop it? Didn't anyone know? And so the way he described, he goes, in your life, there's three big mountains that you're always dealing with. Shame, rage, and confusion. And let's just make them into little bumps.

in your timeline of life which is really what you said let's make them gray and go away right and it was the most liberating feeling and i use that process now i guess which is now journaling and writing to myself and recapitulating things and reframing past whatever regrets failures into wins which then gives me more competency and confidence which creates that competence confidence, Luke, to have more wins moving forward. It's such a powerful thing, man. And these are the things like we always talk about on the show, marketing funnels and best ads to run and how to increase the cart value of a purchase. This is a true thing that really creates that impact of growth, that massive growth. So I'll finish this conversation off with

one thing, which is leading a team. And it doesn't matter if it's a fire team of seals or leading in business, you've done both. What are some two or three great elements of leadership that everyone should adopt? Yeah, well, let's link it to everything we just talked about, especially what you just said. We have, if we have a big mission in life, we have to be the person worthy of fulfilling that mission. And if you prove to your team that you're worthy of bringing a big mission to the table, a big vision, a big mission, man, they'll follow you anywhere. Now, what does it mean to be worthy?

It means to be doing the work like this. It doesn't mean, I'm bedjurious, I'm awesome. I'm the founder, fit, body, boom, camp by the fastest growing, you know, franchise in the world, and here's my vision. We're going to attend 10 exit, and you guys were all going to follow me, we're going to be, we're going to kick ass. You're going to earn a ton of money. Chirp, chirp, chirp, right?

right? No, it's like, hey guys, what do you think? You know, by the way, you can believe what just happened to me yesterday. This was profound. Like, I totally screwed up, but, you know, there was a real silver lining to that because the person that I hurt, you know, was, you know, when I apologize it, I learned that they were this person and guess what? They're going to be another franchisee or something like that. Yeah. I mean, like transparency. Yeah. You know, careful transparency. I'm not saying being, you know, like all tears every time you show up every day because your team will start to get a little tired of that. Sure, they're going to think you're hysterical. Yeah, you need the emotional control, but you also need the emotional awareness

and the, I hate the term vulnerability, but that's a good term, and Bernan Brown has done great work. So I use the term authenticity. The seals get a little prickly when you say be vulnerable. When Spiney Saints get to walk. No, be authentic. They didn't teach you that in seal training, vulnerability? There's a vulnerability classroom over there, guys, how come nobody's in? Yeah, why's it? Yeah. So authentic.

This is like the biggest, most important tip for leaders is your team sees through your bullshit. Like we're inside the bottle. We don't read our own label. We show up with our perfectionism and our righteousness and thinking we have to all, that we have all the answers, or that we have to have all the answers, or that our way is the highway.

And your team is sitting back. And every time you come with one of those little judgment bombs, It just chips away at their engagement and it chips away at their enthusiasm and then they're just doing the job for the money. And you look at studies on engagement, you know, it's like 40% of most people's workforce or so are disengaged.

Disengage. And so the best way to counter that is to be worthy of the mission, of the big vision. And so that means to show up as a real person, take the masks off, show up as part of the team. You know, to me, like in the Cs, seals, we say everyone's a leader and everyone's a follower and it's always changing. It's like a furball. You never know. Even though I'm accountable, as an owner, you're accountable,

and the buck will stop with you. And if things don't work out, it's your problem. And you take responsibility, even if it's very clear that Joey over there screwed up. You know, like, it's on me. But when I show up with the team, none of that matters. Sometimes I'm leading things if I'm the right person to lead it. And sometimes Joey or Sally over there is leading something. either with their expertise because they got the most energy or they got the best idea. And everyone's always leading and following, leading and following, leading and following. And so it becomes this really dynamic mix with all sorts of energizing ideas popping up from the strangest quarters. And the team that operates at that level has a geometric, we call 20x performance over the average team that is just coming and doing a job and more thinking linearly.

like check, check, check, process task, process task. The elite teams where the leader has taken off the mass and says, let's figure this out together. Let's all sink up and make sure that we're all resonating the same wavelength, both in the imagery of what we know where we're going to go and what the boundaries for success look like and what we're boundaries for how we're supposed to behave and not behave and then go autonomously conquer this thing.

not top down, not top down data driven. I mean, you know what the data, but I'm saying it's not the hierarchy world anymore. It's like a hive mind. The team is the new leader. The team is the new leader these days. Yeah. And which really circles back to the beginning of our conversation here, because the only way the guy or gal at the top, who the buck stops with,

is going to be, using your favorite word, vulnerable or authentic, enough to have the confidence to go, hey, listen, I realize that I may not be the subject matter expert here. So I'm going to be a follower as Sally leads. The only way that guy or gal is going to get there is by doing all of that self-doing the work in the beginning. So you brought us in a perfect circle, and I appreciate you for that. If our viewers and listeners want to connect with you, reach out to you, you have so many great books, where is the place to start? My website is Mark Devine.com. It's spelled D-I-V-I-N-E.

And our training, we have two training companies. One is Unbeatable Mind, which is really the scope of what we're talking about here. Like this full integrated development. We call it vertical development for leaders and teams, and we train leaders with their teams. It's pretty unique. And by vertical development, I mean we're evolving character and conscious doing this kind of work. So then you can go do the work of your business work. That's Unbeatablemind.com.

And then SealFit is our fitness mental physical training business that a lot of people have heard about. And I'm really taking a new whack at that to rebuild it for the kind of. That's a legendary program, man. Rebuild it for the current generation because it's about 15 years old now. And Instagram at Real Mark Devine. People love either two of books of mine are a good place to start. One is Unbeatle-Mind, which is my self-published book. I think that's the one to start with.

Yeah, that's the other one. The Way of the Seal. Also a great book. Which is more of a Navy SEAL take on, you know, kick assery. Yeah. Which actually I listened to Wave the Seal first many years ago, well, a couple years ago. And then Unbeatable Mind just followed. Wait, that was self-published?

Unbeatable Mind? I didn't know that. And I'm turning that in a series. I'm working on the sequel to that and it's called Uncommon. So it'll be kind of like, I wrote Unbeal Mind in 2012. And so it actually started during the pandemic. I wish it was calling it Unbele Mind Pandemic Edition. Yeah.

And then I realized that I've changed so much since 2012 that it was going to be an entirely new look, a new book. So Uncommon will come out later this year, I hope, early next year. Well, listen, thank you for spending time with us on the show and really pouring into our audience. I really appreciate that. Guys and gals, here's what I want you to do as you're watching or listening to this episode. I want you to take a screenshot and be sure to tag Mark Devine and myself on it as you share it in your stories. And, of course, if you got value from this episode, and I know, know you did, please be sure to go to iTunes and leave us a five-star review and I would greatly

appreciate it. And as always, don't forget to tell your mama. We'll see you later.