Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Mark Divine on the Mental Game of Getting Fit

Episode Date: May 7, 2015

In this podcast I interview bestselling author and creator of SEALFIT Mark Divine and we talk about overcoming mental inertia, keeping a mental edge over the long term, getting back on track after falling off the wagon, and more... MARK'S WEBSITE: http://sealfit.com/ ARTICLES RELATED TO THIS VIDEO: How to Prevent and Recover From Workout Injuries: http://www.muscleforlife.com/how-to-prevent-and-recover-from-workout-injuries/ Warning: You’re Making Life Harder by Not Using Mini-Habits: http://www.muscleforlife.com/mini-habits/ Workout Motivation: The Power of Habit: http://www.muscleforlife.com/workout-motivation-part-1-the-power-of-habit/ Get Workout Motivation: 7 Ways to Get Fired Up: http://www.muscleforlife.com/workout-motivation/ Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, it's Mike, and this podcast is brought to you by my books. Seriously, though, it actually is. I make my living as a writer, so as long as I keep selling books, I can keep writing articles over at Muscle for Life and Legion and recording podcasts and videos like this and all that fun stuff. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger if you're a guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger if you're a girl. Now, these books, they basically teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build

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Now, as you probably know, I'm not a fan of the supplement industry. I mean, I've wasted who knows how many thousands of dollars over the years on worthless supplements that really do nothing. And I've always had trouble finding products that I actually thought were worth buying and recommending. And well, basically I had been complaining about this for years and I decided to finally do something about it and start making my own products. And not just any products, but really the exact products that I myself have always wanted. So a few of the things that make my supplements unique are one, they're a hundred percent naturally sweetened and flavored. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer-reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because on our website, we explain why we've chosen each ingredient and we also cite

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about my supplements at www.legionathletics.com. And if you like what you see and you want to buy something, use the coupon code podcast, P O D C A S T, and you'll save 10% on your order. All right. Thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast, and let's get to the show. Hey, it's Mike, and this is an interview that I did with Mark Devine, who is a New York Times bestselling author of several books and who was a Navy SEAL for 11 years. He retired in 2011 as a commander,

and along the way he founded NavySEALs.com, which is a website for gear and kind of information about the SEALs. He's also the founder of SEAL Fit, which is an interesting, I could say it's an exercise program, but it's a bit more than that. It's more about a lifestyle. He kind of takes the, maybe the fitness aspect of CrossFit type of workouts and then combines it with his own kind of unique views on mental toughness and discipline and drive and determination. And a lot of the, I guess you could say, the kind of classic virtues that we aspire to or that we admire and we kind of aspire to develop in ourselves. And Mark's a very interesting guy.

He's lived a very interesting life. He's lived a very interesting life. He's seen a lot of stuff, experienced a lot of stuff. So I really enjoy getting his take on overcoming obstacles in life and what it takes to really be effective and what it takes to not just build a body but build a good life. So let's get to the interview. I think you're going to like him. All right.

Hey, Mark. Thanks again for coming by. I had you on the podcast. That went over really well. So I appreciate you taking the time to to the interview. I think you're going to like him. All right. Hey, Mark. Thanks again for coming by. I had you on the podcast. That went over really well, so I appreciate you taking the time to do the interview. You bet, Mike. My pleasure. Yeah. All right, so let's just jump right into it.

So part of getting fit is not so much the know-how. A lot of people know what they have to do. You've got to control what you're eating, and you've got to exercise regularly and so forth. lot of people know what they have to do. You know, you got to control what you're eating and you got to exercise regularly and so forth. But, but, uh, you know, kind of the idea of making a long-term kind of what, what can appear to be like a radical change of lifestyle is a bit intimidating to many people when they're first getting into, uh, you know, fitness, especially depending on where they're starting with their bodies, the bigger picture can be kind of overwhelming and can make it hard to start. Uh, what are, what are some strategies that picture can be kind of overwhelming and can make it hard to start.

What are some strategies that you like for kind of overcoming that initial, you know, inertia almost where you're trying to push against what it feels like? Sure. Well, I think a lot of it has to do with just, you know, how you frame the discussion, right, internally. And, you know, keep in mind, I think for everyone listening, that nothing of value comes without some sort of resistance right even a plane taking off is pushing against the wind until it gets up to a certain speed and and you know the forces of gravity are overcome it's very similar with training right so you're going to meet resistance, and to just appreciate that resistance,

appreciate the strength and the confidence that you're gaining day by day, but not to get frustrated because shortly down the road that resistance starts to level off, and then you begin to cruise, right? I'm sure you experienced that, Matt. Now, you know, then you cruise and you plateau, and then you're going to have to, like, push harder, meet more resistance to break through to another level. So a lot of it has to do with framing it in terms of understanding, you know, the process of trying to develop a new training regimen or a new program. You're going to have to expect that resistance and just to push against

it a little bit. And then the second thing is to, you know, this is really my philosophy that we espouse at SealFit, is that training, you know, is as important to you in life as eating and sleeping. And those three, training, eating, and sleeping, provide the foundation for excellence in life. If any one of them are, you know, are weak, then it's like, you's like a three-legged stool that's got one of its legs broken and you will fall over. You will be less than you can be. Let's put it that way. So just to elevate in your own mind in terms of how you think about training, how you plan your schedule, the people you hang out with, the books you read, that training your body, mind, spirit is every bit as important

as waking up in the morning and putting food in your body and going to bed at night and recovering and getting a nice restful sleep. Yeah, no, I think the airplane metaphor is great. It gives a good little package of that. That is kind of how it is. In the beginning, it's very tough to get up in the air. Then once you're up and going, it's much easier to stay there. And then it's also, I totally agree on the point of making your training as important as everything else,

and you're eating and you're resting. And, you know, I think part of getting there is you have to do it. It's hard to, you can't really, Don't waste too much time thinking about it because the experience is so much different than how you might think it's going to be. I love that. It's so true. You got to get out of your own way by getting out of your head and just starting. Everybody experiences some resistance when they enter a workout. You have a a long-term resistance that you've got to fight against, but even the day-to-day resistance, it's just like, oh, God, I'm fatigued, or maybe I just woke up and I'm not quite ready for this.

But all you've got to do is start moving your body. And so what I like to do, and I try to teach people, is start with the finest movements. And so we start with the breath. We start by deep breathing. And that is a physical action that really starts to charge your body up. And, you know, it kind of clears your mind of all the crap and like, I don't really want to do this. And I'm not sure I can, you know, I'm ready for this. And it's going to be hard. And your mind just gets clear of all that stuff. And then we

start with light range of motion drills, which, you know, start to work your joints and get the blood flowing and get the synovial fluid flowing. And then we start to do a little bit more dynamic. And then next thing you know, we're into the workout and everyone's having a great old time. Oh, by the way, it really, really helps to train with a partner or with a team. And that's a big thing we push for with SealFit is to find a training team, some accountability partners, and you just go at it together because it's so much more fun and you get further faster when you have that accountability of the team.

Yeah. No, I totally agree. I've went long periods working out alone and then I've been long periods working out with one person or multiple people. And I'm fine working out alone. I'm still going to do it, but it's definitely more enjoyable with more people. That's cool. I'm fine working out alone. I'm still going to do it, but it's definitely more enjoyable with more people. And then even to your other point there, I ran across it in a blog post somewhere. I was reading, I don't know, just kind of jumping through different blogs. And there's this concept I ended up writing about it called mini habits, which speak to what you were talking about before with just starting with simple little things.

But that's a viable approach to really anything in life is you want to start working out. Well, don't overwhelm yourself with that you're going to have to be in the gym so many hours every week and you have to do it for the rest of your life and blah, blah, blah. Just start with doing 10 push-ups a day. Just that. Just do 10 push-ups a day until that feels comfortable, until you know that you're never going to miss your 10 push-ups a day. And then maybe you make that 50 a day. And then maybe you get in the gym one day a week and then maybe and by building like that you know these little mini habits that you can build up it can become you can really you know change your entire lifestyle without uh without getting

beaten into uh without like running into the brick wall of resistance that just smashes your face in you know yeah no that's that's exactly. That's a classic technique of mental toughness. We have four primary techniques for developing mental toughness, which we call the big four, and one of them is micro goals, to chunk it down into these really bite-sized chunks. But all those chunks have to be linked to the broader goal, right? Yes. Otherwise, you could be chunking goals and spinning in circles, you know?

So you've got to ensure that you have a big vision of where you want to go, and then you chunk it down into these little tiny bites that are actually pretty easy to accomplish, and you feel good about it, and they develop momentum. And pretty soon, you look back and you're like, holy cow, I'm three-quarters of the way to that major goal, and it was easy because I just took this one little bite at a time. Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's a powerful way to approach things. You, the listeners, certain people are maybe better in the beginning at taking on bigger chunks than others, but it doesn't matter how small you have to start. Make it work for you if you feel you can take on a

little bit more. If you could start with 50 push-ups a day, then start there. No, totally. I was talking to someone, and they work with clients who haven't done any physical activity in a long period of time. And so, you know, what he said was, okay, what we're going to do is you're going to get off your butt, and you're going to walk outside to the edge of the, you know, curb. And then if you decide then to turn around and walk back in, that's a victory. Chances are you're going to turn left and walk down the street to the next block.

At that point, you can decide to turn around and come back in, but you may continue. Don't think, I don't want to go for a walk. Just walk out to the curb. That was awesome. I like that a lot. Once you're out there, you're like, shit, I might as well

go another 20 feet. Yeah, totally. I ran across that same kind of concept in this mini-hab thing. We're like, do something for 10 minutes. It doesn't matter how much, but at the end of the 10 minutes,

if you don't want to do it anymore, fine, don't do it. But just give it 10 minutes and chances are when you're 10 minutes in, you're going to be like, ah, it's not that bad. I might as well do some more.

Exactly. Yeah. So that's getting started and that's kind of, you know, that's the beginning. Um, and then there's kind of staying the course, uh, which is a different challenge and requires a bit of grit and mental toughness like you were talking about because yeah, sometimes things go smoothly. And if we're talking about training, that means that your workouts are, you know, you're, you're making progress, you're feeling good, you're no, no injuries, no, or not even necessarily injuries, no nagging problems. Everything is just rolling. And then sometimes things are not going so well for, you know, whatever random type of things that can happen. What do you find kind of helps you keep that mental edge and just, uh, moving through the tough spots and, and, and, you know, just being there for the long term? Sure.

Well, it helps to condition your mind for the long term. And what I mean by that is to really take an active role in training your mind to be optimistic, to have a positive relationship with the work that you're performing that's getting you closer to the target, to surround yourself with people who are helping you, right, and you're helping them. So you're serving their needs, but they're serving your needs by keeping you on target and motivating you when you feel down and you're not quite up to the task or whatnot. motivating you when you feel down and you're not quite up to the task or whatnot. And so that's what we do at Seelfit is we try to train those things rather than just talk about them as a platitude. We say, okay, we're going to train your mind to be optimistic and positive. And we do that through visualization. We do that through a process that I call positivity.

And we do that through harmonizing your autonomic nervous system through breath control and those three things right there actually they encapsulate the other three of the big four skills of mental toughness and resiliency and they work together right like a you know a conductor you know conducting a musical orchestra. Can you give us a couple examples of what are some type of mental drills that a person could do? Sure. Okay, so when I teach this, I say the bridge into mental control is the breath.

If you're in a shitstorm workout or a firefight or something like that, if you're a warrior, there's really only one thing that you can control and that's your breath. And when you're in control of your breath, then you can control your mind and your emotions. Every emotion is linked to your breath, a breath pattern, and your mental thoughts are actually linked to your breath pattern. So if you're, you know, if you're feeling chaotic and you're breathing through your mouth with short, choppy breaths, then you're going to continue to feel chaotic and your mind's going to be out of control. As soon as you notice that, first of all, we train to be able to immediately notice our breath patterns and come back to it like a really deep nostril breath.

And that deep nostril breath then immediately starts to take control of our nervous system. So if we lengthen our exhale, we trigger our parasympathetic nervous system, which calms ourselves down. If we want to charge up, then we're going to do more like intense inhales, and we're going to hold our breath a little bit, and we're going to do shorter exhales. That'll charge ourselves up. But ultimately, you know, what I teach initially is just to do a really balanced breath. I call it box breathing.

It's a ratio of 1, 1, 1, 1. What I mean by that is you inhale to, let's say, a 4 count, whichever you, you know. The count really depends upon your capacity to breathe, what we call threshold. And so for me, I'll do a breath capacity training or a ratio of 1, 1, 1, 1, where I'll inhale for a 10 count, hold my breath for a 10 count, exhale for a 10 count, and hold my breath for a 10 count. Most beginners will start with 4 or 3, something like that. And then that ratio of the inhale, the hold, the exhale, and the exhale hold being the same balances the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. It balances the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system.

And if you imagine, you know, again, back to the, you know, if you've been training this and then all of a sudden you're in this firefight, again, metaphorically speaking for most of the listeners, but for, you know, the spec ops guys and military guys, that's very real. You come back to this breath pattern. Now, if you're winded, you're not going to do the holds or they're going to be very short, like inhale, just short hold, and then exhale, short hold. And so the ratio will not matter as much, but what it'll do is it'll trigger that same response to balance the nervous system. And also, it provides kind of like a micro-meditation. You know, most meditations are actually concentration training in that you're actually focusing on something, whereas ultimately true meditation is not focusing on anything. You're just absorbed in presence or there's different ways to describe it.

So what it becomes is a concentration tool where your mind collapses to concentrate on the breathing. Now, you're still aware of everything that's going on. The Navy SEAL is still aware of where the danger is coming from. He's scanning, looking for targets. But because he's got that deep, controlled breathing, his mind is able to radically focus on the breath. It's kind of like the hook.

It's holding it there, holding the attention, and then he can focus on the target. So that's the first step is the breath. And it's super, super powerful. And if you just practice that alone, you know, you'd have extraordinary results. So then what we do is we link the breath to positivity. So, you know, you could start getting your mind or your breathing under control, but your mind could be like, holy shit, you know, I'm fucked. You know, I'm going to die. You know, we're outnumbered

10 to 1. You know, your mind could be like having this crazy defeatist dialogue. Right. They call it feeding the fear wolf. And so the breath, because you start to control your mind, you're able to witness the dialogue. And then you immediately interdict all that negative talk, all that negative and fear-based language, and you redirect it to positive and powerful language. And it has a very dramatic energetic effect on your body i have this saying that negativity destroys performance and it's so true and literally you vibrate at a lower level

your performance starts to degrade and you literally think yourself into failure you know yeah so we got to think of anybody that's played competitive sports has experienced that for sure for sure yeah absolutely and and some people naturally do it based upon, like, the dialogue that happened in their family, you know, if their parents were really positive. But, you know, some people fight against it because they're their own worst nightmare because they grew up with really negative environment, negative people, negative programming. And so, you know, if you're in that category, then this is something you absolutely must, you know, train out of you, and you do it through the repetition of practice, just like shooting hoops.

You've got to practice thinking positively. And then the imagery really is closely linked because when we speak to ourselves, we also trigger emotions and imagery. And it can happen the other way around. An emotion can trigger an image and then a thought, or an image can trigger a thought and then an emotion. So they're really like, you know, three-headed, you know, beast. Yeah, all associated.

You've got to be a pair of them all, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, no, I like that. So that could be like, you know, bringing it down to the person that is, let's say they blew their diet or something like that, or they missed a couple workouts or whatever, and they start getting that negative thought, and then maybe they start feeling anxious about, like, they don't want to quit or whatever. Then that's a simple thing they can do is get their breathing under control

and just, I guess in a sense, almost force themselves to just think more positively. Right. We have some drills. So the box breathing is a drill for positivity. We call it what dog are you feeding drill. So we say, okay, listen, just set your alarm to ring every hour. And on the hour when it rings, just stop what you're doing and just check in and say, okay, am I, you know, what's going through my mind? Is it positive? Does it feel positive? Is it, is it negative? You know, am I engaged in

fear-based thinking or gossip or, you know, anything that's negative? Does it feel negative? Is it pulling me down energetically? And if so, then you go through that process of, okay, stop, stop that, you know, called an interdiction statement. You stand up, take a few deep breaths, do some jumping jacks, smile because your body gets in the game and gets more positive or more energized. You're going to feel better about yourself. Then you start talking to yourself. Easy day, I got this. Piece of cake, we're going to crush this or I'm a good person and that was just a minor setback. I've got this. We're going to crush it. Whatever dialogue works for you.

And then what I'd like to do is I like to kind of – my insurance policy is to lock that new mental state in with like a jingle or a Jody or a mantra. And what I used in SEAL training 20 some odd years ago, I still use to this day and I say it hundreds of times a day. And it's feeling good, looking good. I ought to be in Hollywood. Feeling good, looking good, ought to be in Hollywood. And so, you know, I can have a dialogue like this, and that is going, you know, playing in my background mind, you know, kind of like a little record. Yeah. And it just keeps my mind from, you know, going into negative territory, because it's a meaningful statement to me, you know?

Yes, totally. I like that. You know, so we're rolling along now and, uh, in, you know, getting, getting over the little ups and downs and, but then there are inevitably just people being human or whatever. They're the inevitable, just slip ups where completely fall off the wagon, let's say on a, on a diet or, you know, or an injury happens. Uh, so then you can't train the way you want to train for a couple of months or couple weeks or whatever it is. That stuff, I mean, the listener is just saying to the listener, you can expect, I don't think you necessarily can say that you should expect injury, but you're going to have, you know, not everything is going to be perfect all the time. You are going to end up, you know, grossly overeating at some point for a little bit, and you're going to be like, well,

you're going to gain two pounds of fat or something you didn't want to gain or you're going to deal with little muscle strains or nagging things that are going to get in the way and kind of be annoying. So that's not really the point, but the point is kind of like what happens next? What to do in response? So like what do you find? I mean, you kind of talked about this a little bit, but is there anything else that you can share?

And what helps you from, because you start, it's avoiding that slippery slope effect of, well, fuck it. I already, you know, what the hell? I already ate, I already overate one day, so I might as well do it again. I might as well do it again. Or I already missed one workout. I guess I'll just miss two more, you know, avoiding that. So you can just get back on track, put that stuff behind you and just get rolling again. Yeah. Well, there again well there's a ton here that we can talk about but first of all failure is an event it's not you, it's not a person and in fact we don't grow without failure

it's such an important concept to get is that the only way for us to grow and develop is to fail our way forward and to learn how to do it as fast as possible so SEALs run toward the sound of gunfire and they trip and fall and they realize, okay, that direction is not going to work. So we'll run toward the sound of gunfire in a slightly different direction. We fail all the time, but those little minor failures we learn from.

We become learning machines. And so we're constantly learning how not to do things, how to do things better, until we literally fail our way toward overwhelming success. It's a radical concept. And we have this saying in the seals that failure is not an option. And a lot of people misunderstand it because they think, oh, yeah, we're perfectionists. We can't fail. That's the opposite.

What we mean is that because we're so comfortable with risk and with pushing the envelope and redlining things that we're always failing. But we look at that failure as just another way to learn how to do it a little bit better. And we employ what we call the OODA loop. And so this is really cool for your listeners. So as you drive towards success, you receive a setback, right? Let's say it's a minor injury. Every time we have a minor injury or any type of injury in our SEALFA training, we expect the athlete to show up the next day and to train. But we're going to obviously modify the workout. There's things you can do practically with any injury unless it's seriously debilitating.

And then we'll put you on a training plan to get healthy really quickly, right? But, you know, the bottom line is that failure is just a simple event that provided valuable information on how you need to adjust your training plan or, you know, some way you were moving improperly or you were not being very aware and, you know, you dropped a kettlebell on your foot or something like that, you know. So it's something you're not going to do again. So we learn from it. So the OODA loop is an acronym for observe, orient, decide, enact. So you observe what happened.

You observe your new situation. Like, let's say I got injured. I had a, you know, I broke my wrist. This happened to me a few years ago. I broke my wrist on a box jump because I wasn't really paying attention. And when it came down, I slipped off the box and smacked my hand on the cement. And so I observed, you know, very quickly that it was broken. I observed that, you know, I wasn't going to be able to use my left hand.

The next day, you know, I went and got an x-ray. And sure enough, it was broken. So I took care of that immediate triage. And then I started to reorient myself. So the second O is to orient myself to the new situation. And so my orientation said, okay, broken hand, that means my left hand is out of the game. But what can I do with one hand? Well, shit, I can do one-hand burpees.

I can still row. You know, I can work on my one-hand pull-ups. I can do a lot of snatches. I'm going to be a little unbalanced while this left arm, you know, heals, but I'm still going to train. I did the same thing years ago. I fractured my wrist playing football, and it was the same. And I'm like, well, my training is going to be a little bit goofy, but I'm going to keep going. Keep going, and you heal so much faster.

You heal at least twice as fast, I think, when you keep going, because you're in the game mentally, and you're feeling good. You're moving the blood, and you're basically – My cast didn't smell too good, though. Yeah, I'm kidding. Yeah, neither did mine, but it didn't matter, right? So that's the OODA loop. Then you decide, you know, you make a decision.

How am I going to alter my training plan? Okay, I'm going to do these three things. I'm not going to do those ten. And then you make that decision and then you act on it. That's the OODA loop. And it's super powerful because it allows you to really overcome the setbacks very quickly, which is really the essence of resiliency. It's like to fall down seven times, get up eight with a smile on your face

because every time you experience that setback, you observe what happened. You learn from it. You reorient yourself to the new reality. You'd make a new decision that's powerful and forceful is going to move you closer to your target. And then you act and then you just keep on rolling forward until you hit the next point of resistance. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. resistance. Yeah, I like that. Then it lets you disassociate the emotion of failing and

push through that quickly and stick to the positive, which is, well, you can keep on moving in the right direction. Maybe be a little bit slower. Maybe you have to take a detour, but at least you're moving as opposed to now you're stopped. Then you're really going to get taken over by the

negative of it all. Absolutely. Yeah. One last thing really going to get taken over by the negative of it all. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. One last thing I wanted to get your wisdom on is, so, you know, when it comes to getting and staying healthy and fit, the ultimate goal is, I think, to, you know, I guess kind of approach that state of flow, I guess psychologists would call it, right? Kind of where you're energized and you're focused on your goals and you're fully kind of enjoying the process. And I guess even come back to like you were saying, there's a bit of a presence there where you are not overwhelmed by the bigger picture.

You're not worried about your past failures. You're just in it and you're going. And based on your story of how you became an AVCL, I suspect you know a bit of something about reaching that type of state. And I wanted to get your input on it. Well, a flow state will happen naturally when you're highly trained in a skill. Let's say you're a bodybuilder or you're into strength training and you're highly trained at the movements of strength training. And you're in terrific shape and you put in thousands of hours. And so what happens when you're that trained in something is when you actually perform the act

and you're pushing the envelope, let's say you're going for a new PR or a new benchmark, and so you set the target slightly above your last effort, meaning you're shooting for something you haven't attained before. So it collapses your focus to like everything you've got is going into this effort. And your mind like literally shuts out all other activity. It brings all that training to bear. So you're acting with an instinctual, and you're reaching for that goal. And in those moments of effort, whether it's extraordinary effort on a playing field or going for new PR on a bench press, you click into this altered state of reality that we call the flow state where you feel this extraordinary kind of peace.

Time seems to kind of come under your control or slow down. And everything just seems to flow out of you perfectly. The Japanese have a word called shibumi, which is effortless perfection. And that's really a great word to kind of describe this feeling. So, you know, what I like to teach in my Seal Fit and Unbeatable Mind programs is that if we make the skill that we perfect our own accelerated learning, then we can learn to activate this flow state at will. We don't have to just hope it shows up at the moment of need in the act. So what I mean by that, instead of spending, you will spend thousands of hours doing something you love to do, some sort of

skill, but what we like to do is spend thousands of hours on the skill of basically our own mastery. And so that's why what we do is we train every day, not just to be physically strong, but to

be mentally alert and focused, emotionally controlled, and to be able to access the depth and range of our emotions, to be intuitively present, and to tap into our willpower or our warrior spirit. And we train these things together every day. And when you train in an integrated fashion like that, where look at your whole mind-body system, mind-body-spirit system as one whole that can't be separated into its parts, then all of a sudden you start to unlock this accelerated growth. And you begin to be able to manipulate reality so that you can access this flow state very quickly. And the big four skills that I referenced earlier really become the tools that you just immediately click back into the breath, positivity, the visualization and the micro goals and you become radically focused in the present moment and you enter that flow state. It's very cool. It takes some training,

but I have folks who have been working with me, they experience this with just like two to three months of training. Yeah, I can relate to that for sure, that a lot of the, there are almost subconscious lessons that you're going to learn if you are training regularly and you are approaching it with that, in the way that you're talking about. You're going to learn certain things. It's going to affect you subconsciously,

whether you like it or not. Absolutely. And you're going to be taking that into other areas of your life when you want to go tackle something else. You know what it's like to do something with 100 percent focus on it, 100 percent intention with, you know, an intention to get somewhere. Right. And yeah, I can definitely relate to that. That word is so good because, you know, what what most people focus on is the attention, is the object of where your attention is focused. And intention is that internal focus. And so when you merge intention and attention, that's when you merge subject and object. And that's when you experience

that flow where there's no separation between you, the doer, and the doing with basically a thought. You know what I mean? Totally. Thought isn't interrupting that. So it feels merged. And that's what that flow state feels like. It feels like you're just doing. You're not thinking about doing and then doing.

You're just doing. And it's flowing out of you. Yeah. And with that, yeah, absolutely. With that comes a lot of, then you build up self-confidence where you can do it in the gym, and then you see you can do it somewhere else in your life, and then all the sudden things that maybe seemed completely ridiculous or audacious to you in the past now seem you start to instinctively start breaking those down in the same way of like,

well, actually, how could you go about that? You could break it all down here. You could get started on that. So it's definitely one of the cool things. That's how you can write two books in six months, and I wrote three books in one year, and we can run multiple businesses and stuff like that. That's because we treat our own selves as a lifelong project of mastery,

and so we're able to be able to stay radically focused and accomplish a lot more, and everyone's got this skill. You just got to practice it. Yeah, I totally agree. All right, awesome. Well, those were the big things I wanted to cover. So tell me, what's on your plate these days? I want the listeners to know a bit about what you're doing and what you have coming up.

Well, I'm totally excited for 2015. So we've got a lot of momentum with SealFit. We've got a lot of new events coming out. The events that I'm really excited about is our three-day academy where we bring people out to SealFit for three days. And it's really an entry-level academy, but it doesn't mean it's easy. I didn't stretch the imagination. It just means we don't have the same performance standards as, like,

our other end of the spectrum, which is the Kokoro Camp, our nonstop Hell Week simulation. So we've got a lot more of those three-day academies. We've got five Kokoro Camps coming. We've got a bunch of 20X events rolling out, which are essentially 12-hour crucible training events. And all these are really designed to help you explore your the vast potential that we've been talking about in this show you know and then um i'm excited to kind of relaunch the next um version or iteration of my unbeatable mind book um and just finished writing it and so i'm going to relaunch that in january nice and i'm writing a new book called warrior yoga

which is the integrated training from the yoga perspective that I teach the SEALs and the special ops candidates. So that's, Macmillan is publishing that. It'll be due out in either the end of next year

or January of 2016. So lots going on, you know, really fun stuff. Yeah, awesome. And people can find you and your work at, I guess your main website would be sealfit.com and then undebeatablemind.com.

Those are your two websites, right? Those are the two. And, you know, sealfit.com is the more exciting one. We've got tons and tons of videos and great content there. And Undebeatable Mind is our online training academy, which, you know, if someone's really interested in learning the skills of mental toughness, emotional resiliency, and developing warrior spirit, then just enrolling in the online Unveiled Mind Academy is an amazing experience. And I have about 1,500 to 2,000 people enrolled, and they love it.

And it's a 12-month program. It follows on into advanced training after that, but the core is this 12-month program. You get lessons every month, and the lessons are rich in content. There's a Word document that I've written with each one and then videos and audio and it kind of ties all the philosophy of Unbeatable Mind and I introduced my book together into a training program that is integrative in nature and works on the physical, mental, emotional, intuitional and spiritual aspects of yourself and to develop self-mastery and service essentially as the model. It's very, very cool. Yeah, that is very cool.

Okay, awesome. Well, thanks a lot for taking the time, Mark. I appreciate it. And you, the listener, definitely go check out Mark's stuff. I recommended his books on my website. That's how I came across him originally and I like, obviously, interesting dude, has a lot of insight

and very cool. So go check his stuff out. Thanks, Mike. of insight and a very cool. So go check his stuff out. Thanks Mike. It's been a pleasure. Yeah. Hey, it's Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two, um, where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also head over to my website at www.muscleforlife.com where you'll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you'll also find a bunch of different articles that I've written. I release a new one almost every day. Actually, I release kind of four to six new articles a week.

And you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at muscleforlife.com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.