The Mark Divine Show

Latest Episodes:

Everyone is an Entrepreneur with the Right Tools Feb 14, 2023

Show notes

Mark speaks with Danny Warshay. From Brown University, Danny is Professor and Executive Director at the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship at Brown.

He leads thought provoking workshops on entrepreneurship and creativity around the world.

He began his entrepreneurial pursuits while an undergrad at Brown when he was a member of a software startup team company called ClearView, which then was later acquired by Apple.

Then he co-founded and sold companies and fields ranging from software to advanced materials, consumer products, and the media.

Danny has created a road map for entrepreneurs with his new book See, Solve, Scale: How anyone can turn an unsolved problem into a breakthrough success.

Key Takeaways:

Entrepreneurship is a Learned Skill: It is a myth that entrepreneurship is something you're born with. It is something that anybody can learn. There are fundamental principles for every entrepreneur to follow and find success in their endeavor.

Diverse Teams Matter: It is statistically proven that if a founding team is diverse and inclusive at the start of founding a company, they will be more successful. This means that everyone is asked and allowed to show up as their true selves.

Ikigai: Live a life with purpose and meaning. This is a Japanese philosophy that is rooted in being clear that every decision, action, and plan is part of your life’s purpose.

See, Solve, and Skill: Seeing a problem, finding a solution, and creating a product or service for the initial problem are part of the entrepreneurial equation. It is also important to know what you are good at and make sure you love your pursuits.

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True North and Authentic Leadership (with Bill George) Feb 07, 2023

Show notes

Mark speaks with Bill George. Bill George is executive fellow at Harvard Business School (HBS), where he has taught leadership since 2004. He is the author of: Emerging Leader Edition of True North, Discover Your True North and The Discover Your True North Fieldbook, Authentic Leadership, True North, Finding Your True North, 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis and True North Groups. He was chair and CEO of Medtronic, the world’s leading medical technology company. He has served as a director of Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, Novartis, Target, the Mayo Clinic, and World Economic Forum USA. He has been named one of the Top 25 Business Leaders of the Past 25 Years by PBS, Executive of the Year by Academy of Management, and Director of the Year by National Association of Corporate Directors.

Key Takeaways:

True North Leadership: True North Leadership is about leaders understanding that it is important to have meaning in what they choose to do as a profession. Leader’s are encouraged to travel a path of self discovery and knowing your authentic self.

It’s Alright to Disagree: Know your beliefs and values. It is alright and helps us evolve when we respectfully can discuss our different opinions and views on complex topics.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: DEI has to be more about statistics and checklist for a company. People need to know they belong and are valued. They also need to feel included in the conversations and heard. This takes leaders to get out of their offices and into the field with employees.

Get Outside of Your Culture: When you travel and work outside your home country you become the minority. This allows you to examine yourself from new perspectives that teaches you about communication, values, and relationships.

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Endless Possibilities with NeuroHacking - with James Schmachtenberger Jan 31, 2023

Show notes

Today, Commander Divine speaks with James Schmachtenberger, CEO and co-founder of the Neuro Hacker Collective. Neuro Hacker is dedicated to cutting edge research to provide supplements for brain, body, and emotional health and well being. James has been an entrepreneur since the age of 17, with businesses that were diverse yet always focused on being in service to the health and well being of humanity.

Key Takeaways:

Longevity: There are cells in our body called senescence cells. These cells are healthy cells that continue to divide and reproduce until they start to die, which is called apoptosis.These cells then affect other cells to begin to die in the body. Research is starting to show that we can stop this from happening, and therefore increase quality and length of life.

Successful Path for Meditation: Because our bodies are in a hyper-aroused state due to modern living. Inoreder to have a more beneficial and enjoyable meditation practice it is important to prime yourself through journaling, exercise, and breathwork before sitting to meditate.

Corruption in Politics: Large Companies invest in having highly intelligent and well trained professionals to surround congress people in order to make sure that the policies passed favor their needs. The system is corrupt and needs to change so people going into politics with the best intentions are not corrupted.

Rethinking Education: Traditional ways of educating are good for some learning. However, as more research is being done there is proof that there is a better way. This way is educating children through their interests and teaching them how to think and explore to gain knowledge and information.

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Fortifying and Empowered Leadership Jan 24, 2023

Show notes

Mark speaks with Dr. Richard Winters. Richard Winters is a practicing emergency physician and executive coach at Mayo Clinic.

As director of Leadership Development for the Mayo Clinic Care Network.

He facilitates retreats and delivers programs that train leaders at healthcare organizations worldwide.

He has served as managing partner of a democratic physician group, chair of emergency medicine, president of an 800-physician medical staff, and CEO/founder of a managed care startup.

He recently released his book called: You're the Leader, Now What? Lessons from Mayo Clinic.

Key Takeaways:

GROW Model for Coaching: Coaching is a hugely helpful skill for leaders and managers in the world of work. The GROW model, which stands for Goals, Reality, Options, and Will, is a wonderful tool for coaching and setting clear guidelines for yourself to gain momentum and traction toward your goals.

Expert's Role: Experts are a powerful resource when there is a unique issue that is specific in nature. As a leader, there are many situations where you or your team may know what to do. However, if there is an out-of- the-box need or want, calling in an expert can be one of the best ways to learn and develop both horizontally and vertically.

Immunity to Change: Finding out what you as an individual and or your organization are making assumptions about and then testing if the assumptions have validity allows growth and change. Often there are assumptions being made in communications or direction due to unconscious bias. Understanding that we all have blind spots, leaders need to constantly investigate what assumptions are being made and test them for validity.

Different Types of Leaders: There are leaders that are great in chaos and making decisions when things are rapidly changing. Then there are leaders who are wonderful at reaching out to colleagues to discuss and collaborate on changes that need to be made. The best type of leader can do both. However, it is not often you find the two qualities in one person.

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Living Happy and Avoiding Burnout Jan 17, 2023

Show notes

Mark speaks with Jennifer Moss, an award-winning writer, international speaker, and workplace culture strategist with clients ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Her work has inspired leaders to take a look at how they create, model, and manage work-life balance for themselves and their employees. Her most recent book, The Burnout Epidemic, was named 10 Best New Management Books for 2022 by Thinkers50 and shortlisted for the 2021 Outstanding Works of Literature Award.

Key Takeaways:

Saying No for the Bigger Yes: It is essential to learn how to say no to things that are not in alignment with our values and goals. To be honest with ourselves and others by expressing our no from a place of clarity of what our bigger yes is.

Invisible Pressure: When leaders/bosses email employees on off-work hours, it creates invisible pressure. Because so many companies have shifted to remote work, leaders need to be aware of this invisible pressure and model proper work-life balance. Also, recognizing that due to employee gender, race, sexual orientation, and other factors, by not having awareness regarding emails, meetings, and conversations, leaders can sometimes unconsciously create a culture of inequity.

The Difference Between Technical and Adaptive problems: Leaders need to look at the difference between psychoemotional issues, the work culture they create, and mental health as separate from systematic issues. As a leader, you can understand that you are not a mental health professional. However, it is your responsibility to be the conduit for your employees so that they have the resources for mental health. This means putting systems in place for the adaptive problems and recognizing they are separate variables to be addressed.

Are we Mating or Meeting: How the brain registers our interaction with others on zoom or other online meeting platforms is important to recognize. Because we are not seeing the whole person and are able to gauge the eyes, our brain is registering the interaction from an animal instinct of mating or fighting. This is problematic in ways that create defensive and aggressive behaviors that would not happen if you were meeting in person with your people.

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The Necessity of Connection and Relationships in War (with Scott Mann) Jan 10, 2023

Show notes

Mark speaks with Scott Mann. Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Scott Mann is a former U.S. Army Green Beret with tours all over the world,, including Colombia, Iraq, and multiple tours in Afghanistan. He is a warrior storyteller and the founder of Rooftop Leadership,, where he shares the rapport-building skills he learned in Special Forces to help today’s leaders make better human connections in high-stakes, low-trust engagements. Scott helps organizations gain a better understanding of their internal culture while exposing the potential for conflict that exists when trust has deteriorated. His recent book, Operation Pineapple Express, was an instant New York Times best seller.

Key Takeaways:

Leadership: The dynamics of leadership are changing. The old ways of one charismatic leader who knows what to do are shifting to groups of individuals, all understanding that they can lead together more effectively when there is a common vision and goal, mutual understanding, and collaboration.

Mental Clarity and Calm: The most powerful tool anyone can access in times of duress is mental clarity. When you allow your mind to settle and you take time to pause, it allows you to access your intuition and a deeper knowing of what to do.

Humans and Connection: The ability to make connections and build relationships across borders is a core component that stabilizes and secures stability and freedom in this country (The United States of America).

Veteran’s Voices: The mental health crisis in the U.S. veteran population is rising. It is important to listen to and support this population.

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Your New Year Jan 03, 2023

Show notes

Is it Complicated or is it Complex? Dr. Jennifer Garvey Berger. Dec 27, 2022

Show notes

Mark speaks with Dr. Jennifer Garvey Berger. Dr. Garvey helps CEOs unleash their teams' and organizations' complexity genius.

She is the co-founder and CEO of Cultivating Leadership, where they blend deep theoretical knowledge with a driving quest for practical ways to make leaders' lives better. She coaches CEOs and their executive teams and designs and teaches high-end leadership programs.

She has written three highly acclaimed books on leadership and complexity. Jennifer's newly released book, Unleash Your Complexity Genius: growing your inner capacity to lead.

Dr. Garvey lives in the French countryside, where she bought a house with 11 friends. Putting her expertise and insights into complexity and leadership, they live in a community while focusing on what works and developing more of that while letting go of what doesn’t. Jennifer is a coach for CEOs and various high-functioning teams, helping them unleash the power of the collective and how they can all thrive as individuals while working toward common goals. One of the fundamental questions Dr. Berger asks is how do we recognize the complexity and then work with it and harness it in some ways to create the lives we want to lead.

Key Takeaways:

Looking at Patterns to Inform Actions: When we acknowledge that complexity exists within our relationships and the external world, we can lead with that awareness. One of the ways to enact positive change is to notice the patterns are working and focus on how to do more of that, as well as noticing any patterns that don’t work and leading our way through complexity together.

Working with Complexity, Not Against It: It is essential to ask how we can work with complexity instead of against it. Using the metaphor of a wave, You can’t jump in a wave without getting wet. With the knowledge of the wetness of the wave, then you can ask, how do I work with the waves and do something cool with what's here? This makes any complex problem a different task and, in many ways, much simpler. We need to recognize complexity, work with it, and harness it in some ways to create the lives we want to lead.

Looking at Complexity as a Collective: To address complexities such as environmental concerns, human rights, and global politics it is important to recognize how we, as a collective, function. Once we can see the complexity within the collective, we can start to address how we as a collective can function better and better over time. In relationships, organizations, and communities, it is important to create the conditions for people to build strong bonds and trust one another. When people are bonded and trust each other, they can activate those things that make humans awesome at addressing and acting towards and within complexity.

Leadership and Environment: A leader’s job is to amplify the conditions where people can be diverse, individual, imperfect, creative, and energized in the workplace. Leadership is recognizing the individuals and cultivating something unique that each person brings to the group.

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Eco-Psychology and the Evolution of Humanity (with Loraine Van Tuyl) Dec 20, 2022

Show notes

Mark speaks with Dr. Loraine Van Tuyl an eco-psychologist who specializes in helping people understand the multidimmensional aspects of their mind,body, and hearts.

Dr. Van Tuyl is an author, speaker, and guide who has worked with high power leaders, stressed out CEO’s, empaths, and experts of all kinds.

Her books include The Amazon Wisdom Keeper, and her self-help book and Soul Authority: Liberatory Tools to Heal from Oppressive Patterns and Restore Trust in Your Heart Compass.

Key Takeaways:

Positive Change is Happening: There is a collective awakening happening and there are many more positive shifts happening both individually and socially.

Eco-Psychology: Leaning into the ancient teachings of earth, fire, water, and air is a great way to understand our psychology better. We can learn how to find balance if we know which elements are dominant in our system as well as which ones are out of balance.

Trees Teach us about our own Nervous System: Spending time with nature and connecting to its teachings can help us unravel trauma and learn how to find our natural relaxed state centered in the parasympathetic nervous system.

Countering Epidemic Narcism by Teaching People to Lead with Heart First: Connecting to your sacred truth, and personal and soul boundaries you can then lead with your heart. Once you have got the heart informing the mind and actions then it counters the epidemic narcissism that we can all do in this modern world. Getting our ego mind informed by the heart is vital to living in alignment with your soul authority.

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The Misconception of Mental Toughness (with Steve Magness) Dec 13, 2022

Show notes

Mark speaks with Steve Magness, author of Do Hard Things; why we get resilience wrong, and the surprising science of real toughness. Steve is also the co-author of The Best Selling Peak Performance and The Passion Paradox.

In his coaching practice, he has worked with executives, entrepreneurs, and athletes on performance and mental skills. He served as a consultant and mental development for professional sports teams, some of the top teams in the world, and his writing has appeared in Outside, Runner's World, Forbes, Sports Illustrated, Men's Health, and others.

Steve ran a 4.01 mile, which was the fastest in the country at the time, and the sixth fastest in US history today

Steve believes that everyone has a unique limit regarding personal performance. He encourages his clients to explore those limits by training Steve specializes in cross-domain thinking, weaving together ideas from athletics, business, and psychology to better understand performance in all aspects of life.

Key Takeaways:

Integration is Key: When training for Peak Performance it is important to train all 5 Mountains. The Body, Mind, Emotions, Intuition, and Spirit. The foundational physical or mental movements of any sport or boardroom must be trained daily. Knowing your inner landscape is important to perform at the top. To do this you must have a healthy body and know your mind.

How to Find the Middle Path: Put yourself in challenging situations. Do this when you are centered and healthy. This way you can find a new edge of navigating discomfort and chaos. If you don’t perform at your best in the challenging situation you have consciously put yourself in, you now have new information about where you need to train to get closer to the limit of your capabilities. There is no failure, just learning, and growth.

Mental Toughness is Learning to Relax: Mental Toughness is not about Grit and muscling through an event. The best athletes and most successful entrepreneurs have learned how to relax and engage in narrow and big-picture focus in intense and high-stress moments.
Utilize your Intuition: In our society, we are taught to lead with mind and practical information. Getting in tune with how intuition can inform the next action is important. That is what flow state is; a combination of knowledge, experience, and intuition all coming together to inform each subtle and gross action.

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