110: The Unbeatable Mind: Unlock Your Superhuman Powers – with Mark Divine

“Oftentimes, the quiet, humble person turns out to be the best leader. If you’re an asshole, you’re letting your team down.”  

Mark Divine is an expert in elite performance, mental toughness, and leadership development for teams. His renowned SEALFIT and Unbeatable Mind training programs have transformed tens of thousands from all walks of life, helping everyday leaders optimize their full potential in life. Mark’s own leadership skills were initially honed in the Navy SEALs, where he was Honor Man (#1 graduate) of his BUDS class while leading his entire boat crew to success (which has never been repeated). 

He later built several successful businesses, two of which have scaled into 8 figures. Mark’s work addresses integration and training of the whole body-mind-spirit system in his approach he calls the ‘Five Mountains’ – emphasizing physical, mental, emotional, intuitional, and spiritual development – which he created and tested on over a thousand special operations candidates worldwide, generating a 90% success rate for SEAL trainees using this program. 

Mark teaches this unique warrior-leader philosophy to executives, corporate leaders, elite sports teams, and entrepreneurs with a mission to lead 100 million people to the path of integrated five-mountain development by 2045.

In this podcast, we cover: 

• Mark’s unique warrior-leader philosophy for executives, elite sports teams and entrepreneurs
• How to be a warrior-leader in today’s complex world
• Mark’s unique approach to meditation and mindfulness 
• The importance of “variety” for accelerating your personal growth
• The two components to an unbeatable mind
• How to tap into your “archetypal drive” or “soul calling” 
• Morning and bedtime routines – their importance and what you can do at those times to develop the unbeatable mind. 

There is no “I” in Seal Team

At age 24, Mark was working as a CPA while studying for his MBA. During his meditation sessions at this time, Mark discovered his true essence was to be a warrior. That is when Mark applied to be a Navy Seal, beginning his journey into developing an unbeatable mind. 

As a Navy Seal, Mark developed many habits and picked up many insights. One insight he shares on this podcast is the importance of team building to achieve success. Mark quickly noticed the new Seal recruits who were  self-centered, had big egos or had a hard time working with others did not last long in the Seal program. Mark says there are no “Seal individuals,” no Navy Seals individualists. “The seals are called ‘seal teams’ for a reason.”

If someone’s ego is too big to allow others to lead, or if they think they’re supposed to be the alpha dog all the time–those recruits wash out quickly. It doesn’t matter if they grew up as the leader of their class, the high school quarterback or whatever the case may be— if the recruit was arrogant and refused to follow, they were out of the Seals. 

In the Navy Seals, everything is done through the team and leading a team, according to Mark, is about unlocking the vast potential of each team member, when you are the de facto leader. This principle applies to the corporate world as well.  

“Nothing important is done without a team.” — Mark Divine

Linear thinking or a win/lose mentality does not foster growth in a person.

Mark points out the importance of multi-dimensionality, also called a multi-perspective or non-linear thinking. This is crucial as the world does not work in a linear fashion Complexity is not linear. Instead, complexity works on the butterfly effect. 

Mark has developed an enormous amount of tools and practices to help individuals and teams hone, practice, and grow a multi-dimensional thought process. These principles were rarely taught in the past, which is why our world is experiencing environmental challenges today. Leaders of yesterday did not think multidimensionally—they did not consider how their decisions would impact the world. 

You can begin to see how this mindset integrates with Mark’s focus on teams in effective leadership. Multidimensional thinking and team building go together hand in glove. 

Mark Devine is a deep guy, and has a lot of wisdom to share. We have only scratched the surface here, as the journey to become a warrior-leader is a growth process, and most people do not know where to begin. Mark is here to help. This is an opportunity to accelerate your personal growth in every area of life—physically, mentally and spiritually. Mark covers all the bases. Be sure to listen in. Don’t miss this episode! 

Episode Resources: 
Personal website: https://markdivine.com 
Navy Seal Fitness & Training Program: https://sealfit.com 
Unbeatable Mind training: https://unbeatablemind.com 
Mark Divine on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markdivine/ 
Facebook: https://facebook.com/TheMarkDivine/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/realmarkdivine/ 
Amazon Author Page: https://amazon.com/Mark-Divine/ 
Books by Dr. David R. Hawkins: https://veritaspub.com 

Read The Episode Transcript:

Wade Lightheart: Good morning. Good evening. And good afternoon. It's Wade T Lightheart from BiOptimizers with another edition of the Awesome Health Show. And today we are pumped and excited because we are going to be talking to none other than Mark Devine, who is an expert in elite performance, mental toughness and leadership development for teams, his renowned SEALFIT and unbeatable mind training programs have transformed tens of thousands from all walks of life. Helping everyday leaders optimize their full potential in life Mark's own leadership skills were initially honed in the Navy seals where he was honor, man, that's a number one graduate of his buds class while leading his entire boat crew to success, which has never been repeated.

 Wade Lightheart: Now, of course, he went on to build several businesses afterwards, too, which have, have scaled to eight figures. Mark's work addresses, integration, and training of whole body mind, spirit systems and approach. He calls five mountains, emphasizing physical, mental, emotional intuitional, and spiritual development, which he created and tested on over thousand special operations candidates worldwide generating a 90% success rate for seal trainees using the sport, excuse me, this program. So Mark teaches this unique warrior leader, philosophy to executives, corporate leaders, elite sports teams, and entrepreneurs with a mission to lead 100 million people to the path of integrated five mountain development by 2045. And today we're going to talk about developing or forging, which I love that word and unbeatable mind leadership leading with emotional power and the way of the seal overcoming in times of adversity. There's never been a time. I think in civilian history, certainly in my age right now, where we need to address this and what I'm so delighted to have you on the show with is right now, I think there's a lot of people kind of expecting other people to step up or take over or take control of this kind of unusual circumstance we're in a world and you've taken some time to address some of these issues with us.
 Wade Lightheart:So welcome to the show.

 Mark Divine: Wade Thanks. We're going to need to find a shorter bio by the way.

 Wade Lightheart: Hahaha Well, you know, I'm, I've been fascinated particularly. I'm learning a little bit more about the whole seal culture largely in part, because of the success of Jocko Willink and how his book extreme ownership, which is one of the components that we've integrated into our company philosophy, which has had remarkable effects as a concept and an idea. Can you share with us how your seal training kind of translated both into the business and your, your training and what you teach today? Like how, how did that kind of come through? Like how much of it was from the seals and how much of it was maybe aspects that were missing maybe from what your career was there?

 Mark Divine: Oh man, that's a really good question. In a sense, but it's pretty broad. So I'll just, you know, I'll cherry pick a few things. Seals, you know, the seals are called the seal teams for a reason. They're not the seal individuals, right? It's not the US Navy seal individuals. So one of the first and most proud for things I learned in seal teams is that everything, every, everything that we do gets done through and with the team and individuals whose ego is too big to allow others to lead or to or think that they're supposed to be the alpha dog, you know, and you would expect that from seals and a lot of people end up getting washed out really quickly because they're the alpha dog or the, you know, they're used to being the star quarterback on their high school football team or whatever they were used to being the all-star and always having the last day and always being in charge, you know, the arrogant ones they get washed out within the first week.

 Mark Divine: And oftentimes, you know, the quiet, humble guy who you would never expect to be a seal is the honor man of the class, or, you know, is, is, is, ends up being the best leader. So I learned that leadership is not what it looks like on the surface. Everything is done through the team and leading the team is really about unlocking the vast potential of each of the team members, if you were the defacto leader. And I noticed that the best teams looked like they had no leader. And so I've really worked to kind of embody that in my leadership of corporate teams. And it's been difficult because the seals have a huge advantage over, you know, organizational teams because they have, you know, billions of dollars put into this, this brand and this culture and this recruitment and this incredibly arduous selection process.

 Mark Divine: So the people who ended up actually on your team are the best of the best and their, their egos have been largely tamped down. And, and they're great teammates cause they just spent several years, you know, learning that skill. So in the corporate world, you know, I got my ass handed to me a few times just expecting that others would act that way or would have some, you know, we'd had that level of, of Teamability and loyalty and trust and that's not true. And so I've learned that in the corporate world, in order to get anywhere close to that, you've got to train people, right? You've got to bring them along and you've got to prove to them like you were talking about before we started that extreme ownership of all your behaviors, all your thoughts, all your decisions, everything you do, how you show up every day, if you show up, hung over, you're letting your team down, right?

 Mark Divine: If you show up with a lack of sleep and out of shape, you're letting your team down. If you're an asshole, you're letting your team down. Everything you do is going to be projected into that team is going to affect the team's performance, whether you're the leader or just the lowest guy or woman on the totem pole. And so you know, this is one of the things that we really work hard with our clients on is that everybody's important. Everybody's got to work hard every day. I'm being the best version of themselves and then bringing that best version of themselves to the team without trying to be, you know, I'm not saying being the perfect version because the perfect version is the least best version of yourself. So we obliterate perfectionism, judgmentalism and righteousness and show up as whole-hearted authentic, admitting our weaknesses and owning our strengths and being a good teammate.

 Mark Divine: It's really that simple, but it's very, very hard to achieve, right? Until everyone's really bought into that. And then all of a sudden you see this massive potential being unlocked and teams just, just conquering. It doesn't matter, you know, something COVID all right, we'll say that we got this. You know what I mean? The mindset is bringing on what's the next challenge, right? Is this all you got? Right? Because there's so much potential that is unlocked. It's not, you know, arithmetic is geometric, right. If you've got an eight or a 10 person team, everyone firing at this level, I'm talking about the leaderless team where everybody's a leader and everybody's a teammate simultaneously. The team is leading the way itself. The collective consciousness who likes unstoppable unbeatable is the term we use,

 Wade Lightheart: Which is you talk about the unbeatable line. That was a great description. And I think something, I think that's really lacking in a lot of the corporate structure. There's this kind of 1950s version that you climb to the C suite right and you sit there overlooking the, the, the vision and you earn the corner window view. Right, right, right. Exactly. And in today's world, oftentimes too, I think the trajectory and the rise and fall of different media channels and marketing channels or business channels is one thing. But also as the individual faces may be changes in their career or it's, it's a much more complex world than maybe that worldview was in 1950

 Mark Divine: Time. In fact, let's drill into that a little bit. The 1950s, the world was complicated, but complicated was understandable. Complicated is like a, you know, a machine or a bureaucratic system. And that was the, that was the leadership and management. Thinking back then, and a lot of the best leadership manager thinking back then it actually came from the traditional military and like TQL and TQM and you know, six Sigma and all that stuff. And it, and it was meant to be able to understand and deal with a complicated system, but that system was linear and it was understandable. And it was Navajo Qubole with planning with, you know a methodology, you know, they had relentless execution of data and processes. That world is gone right way. It is totally G O N E gone. Yup So now we're working in a world that is complex.

 Mark Divine: And the difference between complexity and complication is that complexity is not understandable by a human mind. You can't map it out, right? A complex system is completely not understandable, except for maybe by the most advanced quantum computers. And even they're just estimating because it's an unknown. What comes out of complexity is unknown. And so you have to make guesses. You have to, you have to trust your intuition. You have to use the soft skills that the seals use because every situation we operated in was complex. We didn't know because the enemy gets to say, the weather gets to say, right, everything has a say on your plan. And we had no, no plan survives contact with the enemy. And so within that complex environment, we had to have a really clear vision of what our, what our desired outcome was and what our acceptable boundaries for that outcome. There was no precise win, right?

 Wade Lightheart: Because things get very complicated, right? Whether (Exactly) it's physicians, they they've made alterations, you find there's more bad guys, right? Guys get hurt. Whatever who knows.

 Mark Divine: There could be a hundred things that go wrong. You expect at least half of them to go wrong. Right? You may get to the target and the wrong guys there, but you may roll up some guy who it turns out value, okay, that's a win. You may get to the target and find out that the right guys there, but he's already dead. Okay, fine. That's a win. Right? You may get to the target and find the nobody's there. And yet you gather some valuable intelligence. That's a win you may get to the target. And the only thing that you have left from that op is learning some valuable lessons along the way. And nobody's there and you walk home empty handed, that's a win, right? We used to have a saying, there's no such thing as failure or failure is not an option. And that didn't mean that you couldn't fail.

 Mark Divine: It meant but you couldn't really fail. If the only thing, the only way to fail us to quit, you know, everything is us a win. If you can take, if you learn how to learn and contextualize from it. And that's, that's another way to deal with complexity is like, you don't have any like very specific defined outcomes. You don't get expectation hangovers because you have no expectations. You don't know what's going to come. So you just keep on failing forward, fast, as fast as you can, and getting faster and better at failing until you get to some acceptable form of victory. One of the

 Wade Lightheart: Things I think is fascinating and I would suspect this is something that's very valuable. I think Tony Robbins outlines is there's two different basic psychologies, the need for certainty and the need for uncertainty. And obviously in a, in a seal unit, you're dealing with high levels of certainty about the competence of each individual in their characteristics and abilities I would imagine, and how they interact with the team. But you're dealing with incredibly uncertain situation.

 Mark Divine: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think he says the need for certainty or the need for variety. Yes. Those two are often in conflict, right? Yes. And so seals love, in fact, that defines pretty much a Navy seal Navy seals are risk takers. Yes. They have a extremely high bias for risks. So they're comfortable with uncertainty. And part of the reason they're comfortable with certain uncertainty is because of the way that they've learned to train their mind. And that is never get comfortable. They never want to be comfortable. Right. And so every day they're finding a way they're finding a new discomfort zone because I learned that nothing grows in the comfort zone. So you have to, (beautiful say) the growth is in the discomfort zone. So they're okay with risk. So that, that crosses out, you know the need for certainty for Navy seals. And I think everybody needs to be in that category.

 Mark Divine: There there's really nothing. You can be certain of, except that if you wake up, you have control over a few things, your breath, how you think and what you put your attention on, right? Nothing outside of you, you can control. And so everything outside is uncertain. The certainty lies within your, your only locus control was your breath, your thoughts, and where you put your attention. And maybe as you get a little bit more talented, your emotions as well. The second part is variety seals, absolutely crave variety, right? You put a seal at a desk in a corporate job, right. And they'll probably last about 24 hours. They'll be like this, screw this, right. They cause they've learned that variety leads to even more growth because you know, the type of variety that we go after and go for is variety of challenges. You know, like if I'm going to I'm going to learn how to jump.

 Mark Divine: I'm going to learn how to dive. I'm going to learn how to shoot every gun that's ever been made under the sun. I'm gonna learn how to drive every vehicle that's ever been produced. And I might even make one of my own or modify the vehicles, right? I need to learn how to fly. I need to learn how to fly a submarine. You know, we call it flying a drive a submarine. I need to learn how to fricking boogie board my way into a beach on a black dog boogie board. I need to, you know, learn how to snow ski. If I'm going to go operate in Russia or, you know, the Arctic, you know, and, and then I need to not just learn the basics. I need to learn how to do it really well. So I don't let my team down. I might need to learn a language or another language and the culture of this country, I mean I'm operating.

 Mark Divine: And we operate in, Oh, by the way, tens or twenties or 30 cultures, you know, throughout the course of our career. So we're always changing jobs. We're always learning new skills. And we just learned that, that, that type of variety combined with challenge leads to accelerating growth, right? Because there's this thing, you know, like Carol Dweck talked about growth mindset versus fixed mindset. Okay. So sales are obviously not fixed mindset. Everyone who's listening to this podcast is probably, is not likely in a fixed mindset category because they're interested in growth, but there's a difference between growth. That just happens by listening to podcasts and by being interested in things and reading a book here and there and the growth that happens when you try an enormous number of new, challenging things, you know, year in and year out, year over year. And that leads to this explosive growth.

 Mark Divine: It's even hard to quantify. Like I've seen people that come to seal training where I thought there's no way this guy is going to make it. He's a total dunce. He makes it, I see him 20 years later and they've got a PhD. They've got, you know, they've been around the world three times. I've driven every vehicle. Like I said, they've jumped out of airplanes at 40,000 feet. They've met prime ministers and they married the princess and I'm like, wow, I never saw that coming. And I've seen that time and time and time again. And it's one of the things that, again, I really, really try to, or what we try to encourage our clients, especially in our high-end coaching programs that unreal mine is you got to have lots of variety and challenge and just watch that spark like this intense accelerating growth, and then just ride it, you know, and enjoy it. It's powerful.

 Wade Lightheart: I think this is such an that's by the way, that was an extraordinary illustration of the psychology in component. And obviously this probably carries into your brand unbeatable mind, and I'm sitting there thinking as an ordinary civilian running a company. Wow. If I had every person on my team or in my house or in my group that had that kind of psychology, well, geez, 12 people, you could pretty much take over a country and extinct. So, so let's small enough one, YEAH we might need a few more of its, like kind or something, right? Yeah right yeah Let's talk about that. Unbeatable mind. And, and, and as in an ordinary civilian who hasn't had the benefit of going through that training, but yet can cultivate that in approach to their life. I can see instantaneously. I think anybody listened to that says, well, wow. If I could, if I got excited about everything that was complicated or challenging or difficult, or didn't know what to do, and then I get to that point where those things aren't intimidating.

 Wade Lightheart: They're in fact, there, there seems to be a, there must be a point where you go from, I don't know if I can do this. This seems like a lot. I can't get myself out of bed to like, there's a flip point. I would imagine that people go through where all of a sudden that is what they crave and and and they become emboldened by the the more complex of a more difficult or the newest challenge. E hmm Is that what the unbeatable mind is? You're cultivating? Is there, is there, am I getting it right? That's that's Or can you explain that?
 Mark Divine: That definitely Um yes. In a sense, right. So unbeatable mind has like, at its broadest philosophical sense has two components. One is to master the interior to unlock your massive potential. When we say you're 20 times more, you have 20 times more potential than you think you have. And once you tap into that, then there's 20 times that, and then 20 times that it's like virtually unlimited, if not unlimited, it requires a certain set of skills to tap into that. And that was the, you know, the origin of unbeatable mind was to really define those skills, to codify them, to test them through trial and error with Navy seal and special ops candidates. And that's how the whole unbeatable mind program came about because I, I started these long, hhese 30 day warrior monk live in academies where we would train seal candidates from zero dark 30, sometimes around the clock for 30 days straight.

 Mark Divine: We had one day off and out of that came three books, three entire online training programs. And, and literally the entire Navy seals have adopted, you know a chunk of the training that we evolved out of that the mental training, the unbeatable mind training. So the seal fit part is a full, is a full on business that started as SealFit. The, the, the, the, the training that we did called the SEALFIT operator workouts are like unparalleled in their kickassery. And they're hard. That book is a New York times bestseller that came out of those early days of, of all that training. The second piece was the unbeaten mind. There's another best-selling book called unbeatable mind and our online training and our corporate training, our leadership training, all evolved out of that. And the third is called Kokoro yoga, or it's our, it's our warrior yoga program, which is really an integration of, of like CrossFit martial arts and traditional yoga, combined with breathing meditation and visualization.

 Mark Divine: So that's really, really powerful movement practice. And that was kind of our recovery. And one of the ways that we trained some of the inner skills now back to your question, the skills that I had to codify for unbeatable mind were initially to help these kids, these young men, and now young women tap into that potential of the inner demand, because I learned through seal training. It was nobody, you know, everybody was fit, right. It didn't matter. It was all the mind and emotions and your clarity about purpose. So I didn't really have to do a lot of work on the clarity of purpose and how you're going to serve in the world with seal candidates. Cause they were going to be Navy seals in their minds, right. That was their purpose. Right. But when I started training civilians, that's when the second part came out is like, once you tap your 20 X potential, what are you going to do?

 Mark Divine: Just make more money, right? Go, Exactly, go conquer more women or men, you know, what is, what are you going to do with it? And what I realized, and I found in my own life is that the more you grow with the unbeatable mind principles, the more you are driven to serve because you evolve along, you know, the classic developmental stages of evolution. You, you move beyond the ego, beyond your sense of ethnographic. You know, my team versus your team, my country, versus your team into this. One of my mentors, Ken Wilbur calls the world centric kind of orientation, eventually even cosmos centric. We're all, all beings are important to you and you're, you feel connected to them and not disconnected, which leads to, you know, a sense of separation and and conflict, which is why we see so much conflict in the world today is because most people are operating out of the egocentric, disconnected, separated sense of self.

 Mark Divine: So you naturally grow through these stages. And so I started working with corporate leaders and entrepreneurs, and and they're all starting to tap into this energy. And they're like, how can I serve? And I said, okay, we need to develop. We need to help you figure out what is, you know, what it is you're meant to do actually, besides just be a CEO or just be a leader, or just sell this product. There's something in you. That's like this archetypal drive. And this soul calling that is unique to you as unique to everyone, we've got to help you find that. And that's what I found sitting on the Zen bench. I tell that story in my book, the way the seal, when I was a CPA, I was an MBA getting my MBA, working as a CPA, 23, 24 years old. And I had taken up meditation at 21 and it was revealed to me, you know, that I was meant to be a warrior.

 Mark Divine: And that the way I was meant to do that because of my unique passions and my, my epidem genetic, you know, kind of upbringing was to be a military operator, a special operator. And that's when I learned about the seals, I didn't know anything about the seals in 1983, 84, they weren't movies and TV shows about the seals, right? No nada. And it was secret. So that's a really cool story, but you know, so back to my question or back to my soliloquy here, mastering the internal domain for what so that you can serve powerfully in the world, how serve as a world centric leader, where your actions have an impact at a

 Mark Divine: Global level, and they do no harm at a global level

 Mark Divine: That requires multidimensional perspective, taking systems, thinking, complexity, theory, understanding chaos, there, understanding the ramifications of your decisions as a leader, both on your team, internally focused as well as externally and how it ripples out across the world. And again, imagine if everyone thought this way, a hundred years ago, 50 years ago, even 20 years ago, we wouldn't be in the position we are environmentally or, you know, with, with, you know, the trade systems that are so lopsided and, you know, everything, that's just really good,

 Wade Lightheart: But that is most about, you know, ego agronomists, or I take, I win you lose. I win you lose

 Mark Divine: Linear thinking, extraction, mentality win, lose mentality, not thinking, you know, multidimensionally multi perspectively. And also non-linearly because the world doesn't work in a linear fashion. Complexity is not linear, right? It's the butterfly effect, right? So yes, my decision in the boardroom here, if I'm shell oil or if I'm Blackwater or BlackRock or Amazon or Apple or Facebook affects things across the world. So we got to think very, very, very carefully about our impact, our footprint and how we can have a world centric impact. And we can, we can still make a lot of money, but we want to be good and do good while we make good money. So that became the second part of unbeatable mind. And over the years, we've developed an enormous amount of tools and practices to help individuals and teams. Because again, no back to my first leadership lesson, nothing important is done without a team. So these tools work equally well when done collectively as a team, the internal tools and the impact tools. So we, and they kind of go together like you, it's not like we spend six months on one, you know, the internal tools and then six months on the external tools, they work hand in glove. It's like the, you know, I think the yin yang symbol is a great example, right? One side is dark and one side is light, but it's, they're, they're have kind of an interesting little S curve, right. And the light

 Wade Lightheart: And And a dot of each darkness right darkness in the light and the dark that's right, exactly. Because that's right. They cause they're kind of like, they're talking about a little bit of polarity,

 Mark Divine: Unless you're right on the line and an unbeatable mind, someone who's been practicing it for years, they operated that Razor's edge on the line between the light and the dark between action and inaction between mastery and potential mastery, potential and mastery of performance, potential being internally driven, performance, being externally driven. They co-arise that's mastery

 Mark Divine: Meaning.

 Mark Divine: In the moment of decision, I'm a hundred percent tapped into my, my spiritual center. The decision that is making is flowing from that, not from my ego, it's spontaneous wisdom, and it will have a positive ripple effect on the world because it's, you know, the energy is vibrating at a very high level. It's coming from love. It's coming from truth and it's coming from wisdom. It's not coming from, I need to be right. I need to, when I need to dominate, this is better for the bottom line, right. Or I'm acting out of some projection or judgmentalism or righteousness, or I'm being codependently reactionary to some narcissist, right. Something like that, which are actually very common. I mean, most communication is some version of what I just said there in that last little piece, anyways, that's the ideal. It's not easy to get to. It could take a lifetime. Probably never happened for most people, but working toward it is the gr is the goal. And unreal mind is a path kind of like a martial art as a path. It's a path to tapping into the highest and best version of yourself potentially. And then expressing that in service so that you can make a positive impact in the world. That's right. For you, that's unique to you that nobody else can do in this planet.

 Wade Lightheart: It brings up a thought because I've been meditating now for 20 years and I've read many stories of mystics and kind of the Eastern model of training. And a lot of what's interesting is a lot of the spiritual draining involves physical and mental discipline at an that's right at, at what most Westerners would say is completely unreasonable and it's borderline abuse.

 Mark Divine: There's a reason for that. And I've tapped into a lot of that right through the martial arts and I've studied. And in Jitsu, San SU Kung Fu I'm now Brown belt in Akido. Cause I that's a crazy hard art to learn. Beautiful. It's not really a martial arts. They aren't a piece. I was like the anti martial art karate of course yoga, Ashtanga yoga is ballbuster. I never got past a second series out of say series, right? It's like impossible. You gotta be the skinny little beam to be able to do all the movements, right. There's a reason for that. And it's, it's, it's one of the reasons that Navy seals tap into that accelerated growth, right? And here it is, your body is your mind. And so if you don't perfect, your body work toward perfecting your body and understanding every little aspect, every little nook and cranny, every little emotion, every little stored energy, every weight

 Mark Divine: Move back forward around in circles, upside

 Mark Divine: Down every single plane and understanding how the breath works with all those movements and how the breath moves your brain, mind, your thinking, mind, how the breath moves your emotional mind, how the breath opens up your heart mind and your gut, your biome, mind, and your entire nervous system. So we in the Yogi said it best you purify, strengthen, and integrate mind into body. And that's the only way to experience whole mind. And even the, even the ancient Greeks got that, right. Yes. They understood through gymnastics gym. That's what gymnastics was. Hmm hmm And so we've kind of gotten away from that in the Western world because we like to partition everything in our sciences that way. And academia is that way. We, you know, we physical fitness is over here and, you know, academic is like the realm of the mental, but that's just like tiny, tiny, tiny bit of developing the mind and forget about the emotions that's when you're broken right then.

 Mark Divine: Oh yeah. Maybe you go see a therapist or something. Right. And spirituality is a church. Well, no, that's not really. I mean, it can be, but so they're all meant to be together. It's like a Rorschach nesting doll, right. At the outer level, there's the physical. And then there's the mental and the personality. And that, you know, that's like the koshas from the yoga tradition you're probably familiar with, or at least similar to that. And then you get into the intuitive and the spiritual at the very center. So you got to work from the outside to get to the spirit at the center, and then you bring it back out like it enlivens, enlightens your entire body. And that becomes your mind, you think, from the whole body

 Wade Lightheart: As it's so eloquently put in some summation of, I think of what a lot of people are kind of read in a philosophical ideal, are they kind of full kind of theme through a movie? You know, you know, the master and the student and me, you know, that kind of thing. Those are so awesome, by the way, I've I've always been fascinated with them.

 Mark Divine: And everyone thinks it's just some fantasy, but I, you know, I'm like you, I have read every book that I get my hands on, around yoga, the older, the better. And I tend to be a believer, right? When I read about Baba G and some of the shit that Yogananda talks about having seen. And when I hear about, you know, the martial artists who is 250 years old, or nobody really knew how old he was, but he lived in the woods because he couldn't be around people because they were too negative. And it's just like living on mostly air and just eating, you know, a few food. He knows exactly what to eat at what time of day, at what time of season.

 Mark Divine: And I'm like, I think that's possible. And now, you know, medicine is starting to look at aging as a disease. And they're like, there's no reason that this human body should age and that they're talking about. I just read a fascinating book called lifespan from a Harvard, you know, one of the F at the forefront, this guy named Sinclair is at the forefront of every movement. This is famous and glare David. Yeah. I want to get him on my podcast. And you know, we're at the edge. Like you're younger than I am. I think a little bit probably you know, no question that you'll live to 130 or 40 or 50, because you're, you're healthy and you're you're fit. And you train, you do all the blue zone stuff already. So do I, I'm 57. I expect to live to 150 to 60 or 80, you know, something like that. But because we're going to have science on our side, but mainly I look at it from the yoga perspective. If you can take in more energy every day, then you give out and you can retrain with your mind, your epigenetics to turn off the aging, right. And the turn on the longevity genes.

 Mark Divine: And you believe that you can live a long time. I think you live a long time right now, not all the yogas did. And I think that there's probably part of that. There's part of this that says, if your spirit says, it's okay to live a long time, you will correct in the future. But if you're meant to have a four year life, and then suddenly, you know, a lightning bolt hits you, you're going to have a four year old life and lightning bolts gonna hit you. You know what I mean? So, so this conversation doesn't mean that everybody's going to be able to do this. I think we also all have kind of a trajectory. And even the Yogi said that you have a, you have a clock, but at the mastery level, you can manipulate that clock.

 Wade Lightheart: I believe that's true. I, I have read through Dr. David Hawkins O I love Hawkins and his, his map of consciousness. And I used to go to these events. Did you really? Oh yeah.

 Mark Divine: I wish I'd met him when he was alive. He was one of my he's one of my mentors, but yeah,

 Wade Lightheart: I've never met him. One of the most remarkable beings I've ever met. In fact, when I first saw him the energy field coming off him was like light permeating through your whole body. I believe it. And I went through a series of systematic questions with him to kind of work out a big spiritual moment. I had to say that for another time. But one of the things that he said in regards to longevity is when one hits a certain level of consciousness then there's an invitation to leave the body because the world doesn't serve the evolution of the soul at that point. However, if one transcends that and remains here, it is because of some karmic need, which interestingly enough is some sort of service That's right to mankind itself, right? And oftentimes this is where you have the, the truly realized master that spreads forth its teachings. And, you know, historically can think of at the highest levels of Buddha or Jesus or a Christian or something like that who had achieved the maximum capacity that the nervous system can handle on this plane of existence and their being thoughts and processes have permeated now through cultures for thousands of years, we don't really think about that, That's right. But it's true. Right? so going back to cause this, this kind of stuff I just get really jazzed on and someone who embraces it and takes people through the practical applications, because it's not enough to

 Wade Lightheart: Watch him read

 Wade Lightheart: A book, go to a meditation class. Okay. There's, there's, there's certain feedback loops I would say, is required in order for you to actually get an accurate gauge of where you are on that spectrum. In time Yeah. And also someone that can help identify those areas where you need to overcome the flat spots. Cause there's a unique thing that happens when I try to share this with people. It's like, there's, everybody has areas where they, they really suck. And it's, it's a real big awareness to realize where you do suck, but there's kind of like this intermediary stage where you don't know that you suck, you just are totally oblivious to how bad you are in an even worse un unconscious unconscious incompetence. Right Yeah Yeah. And so developing this unbeatable mind, which sounds extremely attractive. I must say that, I'm sure you're going to get signups for this immediately because I'm like, don't like, yeah, this is, this is like us though.

 Wade Lightheart: Can you walk me through maybe just an overview of what it looks like to kind of, you know, involve yourself in your coaching and talk about the unbeatable minor, cultivating this and developers, because if there's ever been a time in the world that people need to develop an unbeatable mind, Yeah this is the time right now, right now people are challenged their process. And I believe that there's only like the wave of chaos we've we just (just started) saw, we just saw the rising, we have that this wave hasn't broke onto the shores of reality, not even close, I agree with you. I'm doing the, I'm kind of doing the math as I see the businesses close and I see the debt's going up in these crazy ideas. I'm like, Yeah Yeah. Oh, okay, we're headed for a big wave here yet inside of that, you know centropy and entropy, which are different aspects. There needs to be a collapse of what doesn't work in order for the entropy for a new That's Right. Complex right. Organizing. But in order to do that, this Razor's edge, which is really developing the unbeatable mind that you can handle the uncertainty, handle the chaos and unlock that that that really the superhuman powers that lie dormant within all of

 New Speaker: Us. Right. What does

 Wade Lightheart: That process look for? Like for people to engage in and to participate in Right and say, you know what, I need an unbeatable mind. I need to develop this. What do I need to do?

 Mark Divine: First of all, you know, unless you've been meditating for 20 years, or if you've done no meditating, or if you're just dinking around with it, then you need to start a practice, a daily practice. You need to step into the light side of the yin yang symbol and begin a daily practice to curate the quality, quantity, and directionality of your thoughts. And then to begin to disengage from the thoughts and emotions and to reck you know, we call that witnessing to begin to recognize the deeper aspect of your being that eternal nature. This is doable, right? It's doable. And so we recommend, or we require, I should say, you're not really doing unbeatable mind, you know, and to be on mind, first of all, there's a path. It requires work. We're not offering like some supplement that is supposed to change you immediately into an unbeatable person, no magic beans with this program.

 Mark Divine: There's no magic beans. There's no red pill, right? I don't, I don't have the red pill for you. The red pill is the work. And so the work is the practice. The practice is what you do when you wake up in the morning. The most there's two as to practice two primary practice times when you wake up and when you go to bed in the morning, ritual in the evening, ritual in the morning, ritual, there's a lot involved, but the primary practice we call a stacked practice and we call it the box breathing continuum because it's, it's bracketed with this breathing practice that we developed called box breathing. Now it's nothing new. It's just, it's just pranayama in a, you know, in a four-part five count pattern, five count inhale, five count hold five, count exhale, five count hold each count being about a second. So we're talking about three breaths per minute.

 Mark Divine: Now the first part of this practice is arousal control. So you're doing nothing, but this is not the whole morning ritual by the way, cause there's other aspects of it, but everyone's got their piece of the morning, ritual, journaling, positivity, you know, some movement. We we encourage all of that. I'm talking specifically about the secret weapon that is going to get you evolving fast, you know, Hawkin style first back to the body we need to de-stress the body. There's the long-term de-stressing, which is why this has to be a daily practice. If we miss a day, big problem, right? Cause you're gonna overload stress. You're gonna, and you're going to be taking two steps backwards. We take on a ton of stress every day. It needs to be, you need to de-stress that? Get your body and brain back into balance. So the first five minutes I recommend of this practice is just breathing for arousal control five, count in through your nose. Five, count out five count, hold five, count out five count hold. And as you know, and most listeners know by now. But when I was teaching this in 2006, nobody knew this stuff that triggers the person's nervous system by massaging the vagus nerve by, you know, all this stuff. And so you're, you're releasing all the fear-based neuro-transmitters and replacing with the rest and the courage based neuro-transmitters and you're calming down. So this sets the stage for the second phase of the practice. The second phase, which I recommend five to 10

 Wade Lightheart: Minutes is

 Mark Divine: Concentration and attention control. So this is where now, instead of just breathing and saying, ma'am, I'm feeling better, I'm getting de-stressed. Now we take our mind and we, and we radically focus it on the box pattern. And I recommend to my folks, if you're a visual person, or if you're not visual practice, visually skills, visualization skills by visualizing the box pattern in your mind with your eyes closed, as you're breathing it, that becomes your becomes your focus of attention. So your attention control is to control your attention to be on that box pattern. The concentration training is to hold your attention on that box pattern in imagery for as long as possible.

 Mark Divine: The third skill that comes out of that is the redirect, because you will wonder, you will split your attention and start thinking again, right? We know this from mindfulness, but this isn't mindfulness. This is very different. This is attention control, concentration and redirection redirection part is when your mind stops, starts thinking, unlike mindful awareness where you're just kind of like, Oh, there there's a thought interesting. Maybe I'll label it. You say, no, that's not what I'm doing right now. And you snap back to the box. So you're training one. The ability to control my attention, where I'm putting my attention on the box pattern, you're actually training your visualization skills too, to the duration and the intensity that I can hold my attention on that box pattern. The more you practice, the more you're able to concentrate, the more powerful your concentration comes. This is really important for later on. And then three, your ability to notice when your attention has split and to bring it back really quickly, which is a redirection or re-attention gaining skill, which is really important again for any executive or leader listening to this. So that's part two. We train that everyday after the body has been calmed down through the de-stressing of the arousal control

 Mark Divine: Now,

 Mark Divine: The third part, we call mindful awareness, which is very similar to mindfulness, but people practice mindfulness in different ways. And you know, it's a little bit cloogy right? Just like meditation is a word that's been kind of corrupted by the West because nobody knows really what it means. Same with mindfulness. So he says in mindful awareness, and that is the mindfully aware. So let me back up at phase three, let's say 15 minutes into this practice. You let go of that concentration. You let it go. You take your foot off the gas pedal. You relax, you expand out a little bit and now you're going to let content arise. You remember Hawkins talks about context versus content. Yes. So now what happens because you've deepened the powers of concentration. Now what you do is you, you create this metacognitive shift. We're now you're, you're turning that concentration on.

 Mark Divine: You're just watching the thoughts, but you're not because you've practiced this redirection. You're now not connected to the thoughts. You're not merged correct with the thoughts correct that that just content arising in a sentence of contents, arising, you know, and the metaphors I love Hawkins and other spiritual leaders use is like in that state, you are the ocean. And the thoughts are like waves kind of rimming on the surface and emotions are waves bringing up or, you know, your witnessing self is the mountain. And the thoughts are like the clouds drifting by in the sky. They're not, you're not the clouds. You're not wrapped up and there's no drama there. Oh, look at that thought, Oh, there's another one. Interesting. I'll look at that emotion over there. And then it drifts on by you don't grab it. You don't like less. So it and ride it like a horse.

 Mark Divine: You know what I mean? Correct. So you just watch, and this is the long-term benefit of this pattern is the decoupling from the egoic mind. You're not your thoughts anymore. You're not your emotions. You're beyond that. You're something beyond that. And you start to get curious about that. Like w if I'm not that, then who am I, which brings to mind Ramana Maharshi is famous meditation. Who am I? You can't, you know, if you, if you ask who am I from ego, you know, from thoughts and emotion you get, I am Mark divine, Navy seal, MBA, CPA, bad-ass mother effer. You know what I mean? I could kill you with one pinky.

 Speaker 7: That's and you'll die. That's that's ego.

 Mark Divine: But when I ask, who am I from? From the witness? I'm like, wow, I'm not all that. That's just story. You know, that's just story and experiences. That's not who I am. I'm something much deeper. And so then we do what the tower is called, turn that light around. So you've got this flashlight of awareness that you're, you're using. Just kind of examine your thoughts and emotions. And Oh, by the way, this is where you start to recognize patterns that aren't serving you. This one skill is so important for leaders because you're like, Oh, look at that pattern over there. That's based upon fear. That's based on some childhood trauma or that's whatever it's not serving me. So I've got to find some replacement for those, which is another skill we teach them to be on mine. So that's an outcome of this third part of the practice. But the fourth part is where we make the money. This is where we get into Hawkins level, truth, wisdom, and love. It's where we turn that flashlight around.

 Mark Divine: And we look at pure awareness itself. We look at that as the truth as the big eye versus the little eye, have my ego. Yes. And that becomes an, but if you go straight there, this is why people fail. They don't know what the hell you're talking about in meditation. Because if you try to go straight there, you end up in fantasy or you end up with grandiosity. And this happens with like Kundalini or people who have a peak experience in Iowaska and suddenly think that they're God, or, you know, they've got it all figured out, right? You go to the end

 Wade Lightheart: Without earning the right to get there,

 Mark Divine: Correct. They call it a spiritual bypass. Yeah. Kriya, yoga. A lot of people have had these great experiences and all the great spiritual teachers warn against getting stuck in bliss or getting stuck in the light because that's not it that's not.

 Wade Lightheart: Yeah. The potangeles I think identified the supernatural powers that can kind of come and learn as obstacles. The cities are obstacles, right? The city water. It's not, it's an obstacle, but Jesus did it for a reason, but most people don't get addicted to it. If you are doing that, some people are like, what the hell are you guys talking about? But it's, it's interesting that so many people get into meditation or getting to a spiritual path or using various concoctions to kind of have alternative experiences or different aspects of consciousness. And yet they mistake. They make that mistake. It's an, it's an E the mind is always trying to grand on something as me as I am it's right

 Mark Divine: In mind will always, always try to co-opt your, your experience. The ego will, co-opt it.

 Wade Lightheart: And so what you're saying in, in, in the cultivation of the beating of Mo the unbeatable mind, if I heard you is to first redefined what mind and me and I is, right. Second, be aware of how those currents are running through your awareness perspective, and then ultimately turning the light down, Right you got it reversing that into, right.

 Mark Divine: Just assembling the ego and then developing the skill of concentration so that you can turn that concentration on your inner reality, and then discovered pure awareness. The pure context that Hawkins was talking about now, here's the funny thing is everyone thinks you want more and more advanced techniques that's enough, right? This practice is enough because eventually that, that turnaround stabilizes and they call that awakening and awakening is when you there's two stages of awakening. First is just recognition that your awareness and your contextual self is vaster and more more the real you then your ego self, but then the ego self you know evolves out of that. Just like you can't, you can't separate the waves from the ocean. It's not, we're not saying you and I are both not saying that the waves are bad, that thoughts are bad, that emotions are bad. No, we're just saying that that's not who you are in its totality.

 Mark Divine: This is a very, very small aspect of who you are. And you can, you can actually really decide how big the waves are and how long they run. And, and you know, how well, you know, maybe not how wet they are, but you know, their, their form and stuff like that. If, when you get good at developing the skills, correct, what we're saying is that, do you want to be the ocean or that puny little wave, right? If you want an unbeatable mind, you gotta be the ocean because that's where your unbelievable vast power comes from the vast power that allows you to dominate any crisis. Any challenge, no matter how painful, how much sufferings about it's, it's inconsequential,

 Wade Lightheart: Right? Because these are, these are just waves. This is just the wave of it's just the way is this the way in of lack, this is just the way,

 Mark Divine: Right. And it'll be gone right now. COVID the wave, you know, seems like a long time, but you know, two years is not a long time. A hundred years is not a long time. It's not right. The wave of some emotional challenge that we're having is not a long time. The wave of, you know, dealing with someone's death or your own death. That's hard. But when you have an unbeatable mind, you recognize that that's just a phase, right? Right. The spiritual juices are beautiful. Talking about that. Like birth and death are just phases. They're not the end, or the beginning, even

 Wade Lightheart: Which mindful of our time. But I think that is ultimately the fear at the end of, of the fear loop, if you will, and then I'll die, That's right which, which is inevitable reality for all of us, right? I mean, everybody acts like they're going to live forever. No one, no one's going to,

 Mark Divine: Not even with all the longevity stuff is happening and you probably don't, you probably don't want to, you know what I mean? It's like, we're not meant to live forever. We're meant to live long enough to fulfill our purpose, which is longer than most people are living today. I think.

 Wade Lightheart: So within that statement is someone as you know, gone through the things it's not just a concept, you were, I'm sure engaged in situations where your quote unquote untimely death was a very real possibility at any given moment, for sure.

 Mark Divine: And this many times.

 Wade Lightheart: And I think if we can lead them, leave on this, cause I wanna be mindful of your time, but like,

 Mark Divine: We're just getting warmed up. So we'll I know do this again, right? Yeah. You were

 Wade Lightheart: Definitely bringing you back cause it's so good.

 Wade Lightheart: What is it

 Wade Lightheart: Like to fully embrace that in a way while maintaining your operational components so that you're literally charging towards this with full awareness, full concentrations and full acceptance yet doing everything you can to ensure it doesn't happen at simultaneously.

 Mark Divine: Can you Razor's edge of Raiser's edge Raiser's edge? Well, you know, this is where the, you know, the, the, the, the Epic, you know, warrior saga really helps kind of articulate it. The, in the warrior archetype, the warrior lives one day is if it's an entire lifetime, because it can be the last and the warrior wakes up in the morning, everything, everything, every thought, every word, and every action is calculated and precise because the Warrior's preparing for death because this could be the last day. Every action I take, every decision I make, the way I communicate with my family and my loved ones and my team, the attention and the power of concentration that I give to my most important task is intense because this could be my last day. We call that principle one day, one life. And even Buddha said, you can find enlightenment in a single breath if you're paying close enough attention.

 Mark Divine: So the Warrior's always seeking enlightenment in the next breath and always expecting death in the next breath. And that philosophy, that way of life is extraordinary because that's riding that risers, that Razor's edge of the yin and yang, where you're a hundred percent engaged in witnessing every moment. The thoughts and emotions are not have no say over how you're responding to the next situation you're in total control. And in that control, you're able to be very precise in the choices that you make, about what to do, what to say, what to think, what to feel and how to be in, whatever it is that you're meant to do in that day. Now, if we're fortunate enough to close our eyes in the evening, after that day, then we have an opportunity to do it over again. The next day. Beautiful,

 Wade Lightheart: Beautifully said can you share where I I want? We'll, we'll going to bring you back. We're just getting started. I feel can you share where people can reach out, connect with you, find out about the unbeatable mind, the projects SURE that you're involved in, everything that you're offering. This has just been one of the absolute best interviews I've ever done. And I want to spend the more and more and more it's been blessed. Yeah,

 Mark Divine: I really enjoyed it too. You got some great. Yeah. We got a lot of, a lot of common interests. Thank you. My website, which is undergoing an overhaul right now, personal one is Mark divine.com and divine is spelled D I V I N. Some people try to do the DEA thing, but it's D I V I N E and um unbeatable mind is unbeatable mind.com all one word. And that's kind of like, that's my corporation, Mark divine is where I talk about my books and my podcast. And the speaking engagements. The podcast is called unbeatable mind, or Mark divine. You can do either search on Apple or Google play or wherever you get podcasts. We have some amazing guests on our podcast too, and it's a lot of fun. We should get you on our podcast and have Phil pick up this conversation.

 Wade Lightheart: Love it. Love to do that anytime. Yeah, let's do that. 

 Mark Divine: If you're really interested in the physical, mental training of SEALFIT, we still run our events, even though COVID shut us down last year, where we're planning on, like, I'm getting mad. COVID shutters down,

 Mark Divine: Actually California, governor Newsome shut us down.

 Mark Divine: Covid had nothing to do with it actually. YES So we're getting back on track in March. We're going to have our 1224 and 50 hour events, which are kind of hell week models, simulations. So that's sealfit.com. And my Instagram is at Mark divine. No, I'm sorry. At real Mark divine. I don't really, I don't do Facebook, even though the stuff from Instagram gets face posted to Facebook and I don't do Twitter. I think social media is a 10 tenticle beast. You know, as, as I say,

 Wade Lightheart: It's a Trap it's a trap it's a trap, really every time I look at my phone and social media, I'm going, Oh man, am I doing this again?

 Mark Divine: I have my team do that stuff. So if you're getting a response, you think it's me. I apologize. It's not, but if you DM me, then my team sends me a text and says, Hey, you know, so-and-so DMed me DMed. You want to ask this question to that? I respond to them by texting they'll post it. So I am kind of doing it. But that keeps me out of the distraction hole. You know what I mean? Constantly being on my phone, trying to play catch up on Instagram. BUEATIFUL I'm very protective of my time. I don't do anything before 11 besides train and write and think beautiful. I love, you know, and if it's not a hell, yes, it's a no, that's the way I've gotten in my life is just likes too too important. Like I said, live in that one day when life you've got to be very, very discreet with how you use your time. And this has been a good use of my time. So thank you. Thank you very much Wade.

 Wade Lightheart: It's it's been an honor to have you on here. I know our, everybody wants you back. I want you back 5,000 hours. So Everybody hope you enjoyed this podcast.

 Wade Lightheart: None other than Mark Divine do check out the unbeatable mine. I think it's something that everybody needs to calculate to incorporate the meditation techniques. Some of the philosophy had in someone that's been there, done that lived it and continues to do so today. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Wade. We'll talk soon.