Show notes
Are you looking for a BLUEPRINT on how to develop an UNBEATABLE MINDSET?
Then this episode is a MUST LISTEN!
My guest today is none other than Mark Divine — a New York Times best-selling author, leadership expert, entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and retired U.S. Navy SEAL Commander. He is also the founder and CEO of SEALFIT and Unbeatable Mind and hosts the highly-rated weekly podcast, The Unbeatable Mind with Mark Divine.
Mark's story is incredibly inspiring because he not only made it through BUD/S, at 26 he graduated as the Honor Man (#1-ranked) of class 170. Perhaps even more striking was that his entire original boat crew graduated with him that day. The odds of that happening by chance are literally one in a million.
Mark then served for twenty years (9 active duty and 11 reserves) leading his team on reconnaissance, training and classified missions in 45 different countries throughout Asia and the Middle East.
He now shares the same secrets to entrepreneurs, executives and teams through his books, speaking, award winning podcast, and world-renowned leadership and team events.
Get ready to have your mind blown with the facts that Mark and I will be discussing about his story, meditation, human experiences, mindfulness, discipline and how to develop an unshakeable mindset.
Quick overview on Mark Divine’s story:
After college, Mark was a typical guy trying to make a lot of money and make a mark in the world. He got his MBA at Stern School of Business, he was a Certified Public Accountant working toward shifting over to becoming an investment bank or trader or hedge fund guy.
Just like others, Mark had an early life crisis. He had that kind of existential experience of “What the eff am I doing in this corporate world in the suit and tie, chasing money when none of that really means anything to me?”
And his paradigm was meditation. He was very fortunate. It's incredible for him.
When he looks back, he was introduced to Zen meditation at 20 years old, through his martial arts teacher, which was literally the month or two after he went to New York City from Colgate to start his professional career. Because his teacher was so serious about the value of Zen training, to complement the martial arts training and Yin and Yang, his teacher had them meditate for five minutes before and five minutes after every class. And they had a Zen class for 45 minutes on Thursday nights. A small group of them were really dedicated to that. And then they used to go to the Zen Mountain Monastery in Woodstock, New York for long weekends to sit with Zen monks. And Mark felt so good after a few months of wrestling. It just calmed his mind, and he started to feel really good. And so he decided to commit to a daily practice every morning. And it's never wavered since then even while he was in the SEALs. So every morning I would sit, meditate for 20 minutes, I had these profound shifts.
Then, as a 20 to 23 year old kid, his brain was still really developing fast. So the fact that he was meditating meant that he was affecting how his brain was developing. The outcome of that was for him to have those really, really cool moments of just great clarity and insight at a young age where he could see that he was on the wrong path. He sees that the stories that he had been kind of fed through my family, the way they dialogue through the culture, through everything were leading him down a common path, but it just wasn't his path. It wasn't who marked what’s meant to be for him.
So when he started asking questions to his higher self or spirit, he started to get answers about what he’s supposed to be doing or who he is. And it was leading him in the message that he was a warrior, he was meant to be a warrior, he was meant to serve and lead others, and do some grizzly warrior things. He hadn't even heard of the SEALs at that time. But that insight that he was meant to be a warrior is what led him to stumble across the Navy recruiting office. That's where Mark learned about the SEALs because he saw a poster there with guys doing cool SEAL things on it. And that just cracked right open. He was like, “That's it right there!”
That was a synchronicity moment. Mark knew that was it.
So in November of 1989. He got his MBA in the mail. Because he had to go extra, he went an extra year to finish it because he was doing night school. He got an MBA certificate, and got his Certified Public Accountant certificate. He earned my first degree black belt. And then he was on a bus to Officer Candidate School in the Navy.
And the lesson that he learned was: “Follow your passion and purpose, or else you're gonna be miserable.”
What does Mark love most about living on the beach?
One of the main practices of being in nature itself is a spiritual practice, because we really just start to resonate and vibrate at the level of the earth, which is the alpha state.
Mark gets that experience -- being in the water and having ionization on the water and the grounding effect. And the ocean effect immediately puts him in that alpha state.
When he meditates, he has both open and closed meditation practices. The open eye meditation practice is done with a wide angle vision or broad gaze.
Left Brain vs. Right Brain
The left brain is trained and refined the egoic structures of the brain and the concentration power of the mind is trained with a focused gaze.
The right brain is really about context, pattern recognition, spontaneity, and those types of things.
Learn more about these as Mark explains its roles in a person’s meditation process!
What are some of the top tactics that Mark learned that the everyday listener can adapt to develop the unbeatable mindset?
Every individual must be in service to something bigger than themselves.
In order to serve well, you've got to relentlessly train yourself to evolve yourself to become your best version physically, mentally, emotionally, intuitively, and spiritually, so that you can serve powerfully starting with serving your family.
A training is a thoughtful, disciplined approach to training the whole body, mind, and spirit system. The whole person along those five mountains that I address — physical, mental, emotional, intuitional and spiritual. So in order to do that, we're going to exercise, move things, move weight, move our bodies, move energy. And we need to do it with the right mindset, the right attitude, the right breath, posture, and breathing skills, the effective use of energy management, both to accrue energy and to prevent energy from leaving us unawares, and to recover effectively.
We always know why we're training and what specifically we're trying to focus on or improve if we have a gap. And we elevate this training to the same level of importance as eating and sleeping, so that you don't ever miss it.
How was Mark able to calm himself spiritually, mentally, and emotionally during times of adversity?
For Mark, it really is just an understanding of the nature of human experience. He studies his own life. And he studies humanity through spiritual texts, and through great books, and by observing very closely what happens. It's like Socrates says, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” It's pretty harsh, but Mark agrees with it.
Mark has a wonderful explanation about these and more, so you better listen and take notes of each and everything he said in this episode!
Connect with Mark:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markdivine/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sealfit
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sealfit
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/RealMarkDivine/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ustacticalsd
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unbeatable-mind-podcast-with-mark-divine/id955637330
Connect with Doug
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