Mark Divine
Appearances
The Action Catalyst
Cut For Time: How to Sell Door To Door Like a SEAL
You walk up to the door and the first thing you're doing is you're breathing deep in a deep cyclical pattern. And you've trained yourself to do this through our box breathing. Deep cycle, four count in, four count out. Or four count in, hold briefly to a count of two and four count out. That's the first skill. While you're doing that breathing, you're saying to yourself, easy day. I got this.
The Action Catalyst
Cut For Time: How to Sell Door To Door Like a SEAL
Now, what's happening on the other side is because, you know, essentially we're talking about energy transfer here. If you show up at that door full of fear saying, I'm not sure I'm going to get this or I'll never get this or gosh, I've only closed one today and I need whatever it is in your head and in your body, they're going to feel. It's transferred and they're going to project that back.
The Action Catalyst
Cut For Time: How to Sell Door To Door Like a SEAL
They're going to project that fear back. They're going to project that no back to you and you're toast, right? You've lost before you even had an opportunity. But if you show up doing everything that I just explained because you've trained to do it, right? It's not a cognitive thing. It's an actually, you know, this is a very visceral process.
The Action Catalyst
Cut For Time: How to Sell Door To Door Like a SEAL
Then, you know, what you're going to get on the other side is an energetic synchronization and you're nine times, 10 times more likely to close the deal.
The Action Catalyst
Cut For Time: How to Sell Door To Door Like a SEAL
I'm going to nail this one. This is a piece of cake. This guy's going to love me, whatever. Find your own dialogue. It's got to be your words and it's got to be meaningful. And then the, you know, when you train this every day, the emotions line up. So you feel energetically like a winner, like you're, you're going to get this sale.
The Action Catalyst
Cut For Time: How to Sell Door To Door Like a SEAL
Now, you know, in a practical sense, you're not going to get them all, but you're going to get this one, right? Then connected to that, again, because you practice this every day, is an image of you closing this deal, of you as your best self, confident, poised, positively energized, adding value to whoever is going to open that door so that this situation is a win-win situation.
The Action Catalyst
Cut For Time: How to Sell Door To Door Like a SEAL
And it is beneficial to all involved that you show up on this doorstep, knock on or ring the doorbell and that whoever answers, their life is enriched with your presence. You have that image, right? You believe it. And then your task is to open that door, smile and add value to this person, right?
The Action Catalyst
Cut For Time: How to Sell Door To Door Like a SEAL
And in the process of adding value to educate them about the books that I'm selling or whatever it is that I'm selling, right? When they offer an objective, your next task is to, you know, with a positive and very graceful and humble way to overcome an objective, not to be a slippery salesperson, not to, you know, to be a human being, to be authentic.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
There's always something, you know, whether it's physical or mental, because that's the human condition. Every day of your life, there's going to be something that doesn't go well or right. There's going to be something that's negative. There's going to be some discomfort and most people will seize upon that and focus on that.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
You know, so one of the classic ones that I have is this is an easy day. I got this. Piece of cake. This is an easy day. I got this piece of cake. I'm feeling good and I'm looking good. I ought to be in Hollywood. And so then your internal dialogue, this takes over and starts to drown out any of that other dialoguing. And then you begin to, you know, this ties into the third skill.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
Yeah, sure. You know, most people have heard of Hell Week. Hell Week is the one week during the nine months of SEAL, you know, in-doc training or basic training called BUDS and then SQT. And so it was one week that's kind of famous and that's the week called Hell Week where we train from, you know, Sunday afternoon until Friday, the following Friday around the clock without any sleep.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
The third skill is imaging. So that includes visualization, image projection in terms of the future, what, you know, desired outcomes, you know, because if you can see the win in your mind, then you can achieve the win if you believe it and act forcefully on it, right? And that comes straight from Sun Tzu. The victorious warrior wins in his mind first and then enters the battle.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And so the combination of the second skill, which is maintaining and developing and maintaining a positive direction and a positive routine and a positive emotional pattern associated with your thought. So, this is, you know, requires like training the brain, training the mind to act this way all the time, especially when the challenges appear.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
This then connects to your ability to see yourself succeeding in those challenges, see yourself dominating in those challenging environments. being able to maintain a clear picture of the wind in spite of the dark night of the soul moments that might come over you or the team and, you know, you can connect back to that image of the wind and go, oh yeah, that's it, that's why I'm here, right?
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And so, this goes, I mean, there's so many subtle skills that are involved. How we use our eyes is important. So, if I'm, you know, if I need to lift the log up and put it on my other shoulder, then I shift my mind and my gaze into a very practical, this is my one task right here, right now. I look at the log. I coordinate the movements with my team.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
We breathe together and hoist it up on the command and lower it over. And that's the only thing I'm doing and thinking of in that moment. But then let's say right when that's done and we're like, I've got a little relief. It's on the other shoulder now.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
and we're going to take another 100 paces or so, then I soften my gaze and my gaze, you know, my eyes literally go from, you know, pupil style and I'm focused on a task and I'm outwardly focused to where my eyes go really soft and almost like they go wide and like I'm using my peripheral vision. And in that state, your mind will soften and it's almost like, you know, just letting go and
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
and turning inward and in that inward, even though my eyes are open, I have access to my imagery and I can go back and check in with it or the images there for me. Does that make sense? So, again, this is the tools are how do we use our mind effectively? Our minds are so much more powerful when we learn how to use them, right?
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And so, we've been trained here in the West to really dominantly be focused on our cognition, our rational mind, our thinking, right? And then if you're creative, they say, oh, yeah, you're creative. So you're using that right brand and you have creative powers. The reality is we all have the capacity to think better and to avoid our cognitive bias. So that's a skill that we have to train for.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And we also have the capacity to release that, to literally put that area of our mind, that active area of our mind to rest, like to turn the dial down significantly so that you can open up to what I call direct perception, perceiving things just the way they are right now without having to judge or analyze or anything. And a massive amount of information flows in with that.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
The fourth skill, by the way, is... Task orientation. But if you show up doing everything that I just explained because you've trained to do it, right? It's not a cognitive thing. It's an actually, you know, this is a very visceral process. Then, you know, what you're going to get on the other side is an energetic synchronization.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
Actually, they give us four hours just to mess with us on Thursday, but So it's kind of legendary, you know, and it really is, it's multi-purposed, but I would say the dominant purpose is to teach those that make it through it that they're capable of practically anything that they put their mind to.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, the mental, I mean, essentially the human being has a body, the mind and spirit. If all you focus on is a body, you're going to be a one dimensional being. The body follows the mind. You know, we learned that in the SEAL training as a tenant of what I teach at SEAL Fit. The body follows the mind.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And so, you could be physically fit and still fail at a sporting event if your mind is not conditioned properly. You could be the most talented athlete, you know, and we see this over and over again and still fail. You might win one or two times but you're going to fail if your mind isn't conditioned right. So, really the mind is... is the preeminent. Everything flows from the mind.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And then behind the mind is the spirit and knows beyond the scope of this conversation. But I could almost make that same statement that once you connect with a spirit, with your spirit, then everything flows from that. And the mind becomes even more refined and finely tuned with universal principles. And that's when like your ultimate power comes out. So you're truly at your most
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
complete fullest self when body, mind and spirit are all aligned and working together, you know? I mean, SEALs who are aligned like that and everyone's operating that way, you know, they literally are shaping their enemy's minds.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
You know, SEALs shape their enemy's mind with their violence of action and offensive mindset, you know, because everyone is thinking, we got this, we are running toward the sound of gunfire, we're going to dominate this battle, we're going to, you know, take it to the enemy, whatever. Everyone's thinking that way.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And like I said, at a very subtle level, that breeds fear in the enemy and the way we act and the way we think and the way we show up on the battlefield breeds fear in the enemy. Now, they may not even know it, but it happens, right? And that's why they, you know, their actions and reactions are going to be weaker than ours.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
In Vietnam, the Vietnamese NVA used to call the SEALs devils with green faces because just the way they get, you know, the operators back then would show up in the middle of the jungle, you know, out of nowhere and their faces were painted because they were, you know, they were using camouflage and they learned how to stalk and to be completely silent as they moved through the jungle.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And they would literally just show up and wreak havoc on the enemy and then disappear. And that's what I mean. Like that's an energetic, that's a, you know, obviously there's practical skills, but it's also a mindset that the SEALs had that, hey, we're going to be devils of green faces and we're going to scare the, you know what, out of the enemy. And they won practically every altercation.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
Well, I think you said that if someone's interested in these principles, then there's two books that I have out that are, you know, kind of cover down on them. One is... Probably the first one to read is unbeatable mind where I introduced these principles. And then second is called the way of the seal. Both are great books for, I hear, um, for, for learning these principles.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
The reason I use the 20X term is because as I was preparing myself for my own Hell Week, you know, I kind of, I had some unique rituals. My teammates were all sitting and messing with their gear and, you know, we had this big tent set up so I didn't have any buds and they're kind of like, anxiously awaiting what we call breakout, which is the start.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And then if, um, you want to find me on the web seal fit, all one word, S E A L F I T.com has a ton of, uh, content, a ton of, you know, free resources. And we've got some great video training and, and that's where all our events, stuff like that.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
Yeah, it's the first skill I alluded to earlier, box breathing. And, you know, if this is the only thing that someone gets out of this podcast of yours, then it's time well spent.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And so that is simply to begin a daily practice of breathing where you breathe through your nose, your nostrils, with your mouth closed and ideally your eyes closed and just sit in a chair, straight spine, and you're going to inhale to a count of four or five. Hold your breath for a count of five. Exhale for a count of five. Hold your breath for a count of five.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
So you're breathing in a box or a square pattern. And to do this, a minimum of five minutes, but ideally for 20 minutes a day. Best time is probably first thing in the morning when you wake up. This is not meditation, although it has the precursor to meditation because it's got the physiological benefits of resetting your nervous system, bleeding off stress and clarifying your mind.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
I learned and I taught that, you know, we accept and be not attached to what happens to us and we take control of what's happening in our mind.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And so literally you're going to detox your mind and get your mind really focused. And then the secondary benefit is it's a concentration practice. A lot of people fail with meditation. Because the preparatory practice for meditation is concentration. And so, we need to learn how to concentrate on this one thing. And that box breathing pattern is that one thing.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And so, this practice in itself, I've got, you know, surgeons who use it for surgery, you know, during their surgery. And of course, Navy SEALs practice this, you know, variations of this. And all sorts of people have found, you know, great benefit from it. So, I would start there.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And I had kind of wandered off over the berm and just sat and looked at the ocean and just began my breathing and kind of meditation practice, what I now call winning in my mind before the battle. And as I was sitting there, one of the instructors came up to me and he kind of smiled.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
He looked at me and I don't know what was going through his head, but he must've been thinking, okay, this guy is a little bit different And he's doing something different and I get it. And he came to me and he goes, Mark, you got nothing to worry about because you're capable 20 times more than you think you are. Have fun.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
You know, basically have fun with this one because he knew for some reason that I was going to make it through. And when the training started, you know, again, the first like five, 50 some odd hours are the hardest. Cause that's the, like the new reality of this, your life circumstances setting in your body is all of a sudden saying, I am exhausted. I haven't slept. I'm freezing cold. I'm chafed.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
I'm bleeding. You know, I'm just ache all over the place, but your mind says, okay, that's all fine and good, but you're not quitting. you got three and a half more days. And so, that was what was going through my mind. In the meantime, my teammates were quitting left and right. You know, we started my class with 185 students, all, you know, highly qualified super studs.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
By the time we got to hell week, we were probably down to like 120 or something like that. And then, By the end of 50 hours a hella week, we're down to like 60. They're just dropping like flies. And I was just telling myself, can't quit. Just keep going one front in front of the other, you know, words to that effect. My body started to get stronger.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
So, you know, after days without sleep, you know, around the clock physical training, most people conventional wisdom would be that you'd be breaking down and, you know, you'd be almost catatonic. And my body started to build muscle mass. And it started to get stronger and I started to get more alert.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And I was still probably, you know, if you were to give me some sort of test, I would probably have, you know, failed any higher cognitive functions or skills, you know. But I was able to stay focused on the tasks that they were giving to me and to stay focused on my team and to, you know, to drive through. And I was getting stronger and feeling stronger.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And so, that was really profound to me because I realized, you know, afterwards that that instructor was right. Like I truly was... capable 20 times more than I thought and how we proved it to me.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And so that's become kind of a central tenet of my teaching today is that, you know, you are capable 20 times more and then 20 times again, but you got to prove it to yourself in order to believe it at a really gut heart level. You know, I mean, it's not a cognitive thing. You can't just think yourself that you're capable that much more because that's not enough.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
You know, you've got to know it deeply. Yeah.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
You know, the evolutions, they call every event an evolution. The evolutions range from anywhere from, you know, a couple hours to like six or eight hours long. And they had us doing, you know, seal-like stuff, but not super complicated. Like we weren't... Jumping out of helicopters with, you know, live ammunition and bursting down doors because this, you know, wasn't the purpose of the training.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
Training was to attrite those people who weren't mentally tough or emotionally resilient and couldn't be good teammates and to prove those of us who were mentally tough, emotionally resilient and good teammates that we were capable of freaking anything.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
So the types of things we were doing, like one evolution was to take our 350-pound logs and, you know, to take them on like a 10-mile journey, right? Carrying them over our heads and on our shoulders without putting them down. And so that was, you know, interesting challenge to say the least in the soft sand. Another was to paddle our little rubber boats. They're called IBS.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
I'm not even sure what that acronym was, but we called it Itty Bitty Ship. Okay. Yeah. Little rubber bows. And there were seven of us and we had to paddle these itty bitty ships around Coronado Island in San Diego at night. And that was, I think, on like Wednesday night or something of Hell Week and everybody was hallucinating, including myself.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
You know, it's like two in the morning and we're just stroke, stroke, stroke. And the guy in front of me, literally his paddle slipped out of his hand and started floating past me and I grabbed it and his arms kept moving. You know, he kept stroking. Yeah. So, I took the paddle, I just smacked him over the head with it and said, hey, dummy, here's your paddle. He's like, holy cow.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
I didn't even know I lost that thing. A little bit, you know, longer, a little bit further along, I saw this massive wave well up in front of me and I'm like, water, water. That's what we used to say, you know, when we go through surf passage and a huge wave came up. And so, I ducked down and everyone looks at me like, what are you doing? I said, duck, water.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And then I look up and there was nothing there. I'm like, so your mind, you know, our mind, the body first goes and then the mind goes. And that's kind of the whole point here is that the mind starts to play tricks on you. And it's your cognitive mind, which is, you know, the reality is fraying. And the structures that you used to hang on to is real are starting to shift and to fray.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And so, you can't rely on that anymore. And so, that was a great lesson for me too. I was like, I can't I can't rely on the way my mind, the way I used to perceive my mind working because it's not working that way for me under stress. It's not working right under stress.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
Yeah. I mean, that's the Holy Grail. So, in the seals, it's just through these intense experiences that you like crack open your body-mind system and reorganize it in ways that I don't even think anyone really understands. I don't even think the seals understand it. They just know it works. That's why they'll never give up Hell Week. They've had so many...
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
you know, kind of peacetime attempts to get rid of the whole week program. Cause they think it's kind of inhumane and, you know, then they can maybe too hard. And, you know, there have been people who've died in the training and stuff, but very rare actually. And they're from natural causes. Like, you know, someone dies of a heart attack or they,
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
They have an accident and they drown, but no one's died from exhaustion that I'm aware of in Hell Week. So anyways, what I'm saying is the SEALs just, that the training is just brilliant and it's evolved over, you know, 60 years to really prepare SEALs for the most rigorous challenges, missions, and environments in the world.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And to believe that anything's possible, to believe that they can accomplish any mission. And so, you know, you look at the success rate of the SEALs and it kind of bears it out that that's a pretty effective training method. So, they don't want to mess with it.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
But I don't think they really understand beyond kind of like the combat effectiveness and some of the work that David Grossman has done with his understanding about how to condition a warrior for the rigors of combat. I think that's all like philosophy and research and it's really interesting.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
But I don't think they understand what's happening at an emotional, even quasi-spiritual level or metaphysical level. And also with regard to the brain and the mind and the nervous system and how all those things are reorganizing through neuroplasticity and also epigenetics so that seals are kind of like turning on and off different genes. And I would say...
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
If there was a warrior gene, then the SEALs have learned how to turn that on in a big way to where you get activities like, you know what, I'm willing to lay my life down for my teammate. You don't see that very often in modern world. That is a very much of a warrior gene that's been turned on where you put yourself, you know, your teammates so far above yourself.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And that's one of the reasons that the training is so effective because nothing gets done alone as a SEAL. That's why we call the SEAL teams. And when you have an individual, let's say, take Mark Devine, who knows that he's capable of 20 times more, and then you put him with a team of 14 others in a platoon or maybe 35 others in a troop or 40 others in the troop, and every one of those individuals
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
knows that they're capable of 20 times more and they're all watching each other's back and care about each other and know that each other is absolutely essential to getting the mission done, then you get an effect that's not like 20 times, but like 20 times, 20 times, 20 times, 20 times. You know what I mean? Just multiply it by a number of people. It's an enormous geometric effect.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
Yeah, that's a great question because you're right. Not everyone is going to go through SEAL training, nor would you want to, frankly, because it sucks.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
So, I kind of spent the balance of my, you know, the last 15 years trying to figure out how do you train, not that same experience, even though, you know, through my seal fit program, we have recreated the Hell Week experience and it has an incredible effect and civilians can go through it. But through my unbeatable mind training, I looked at it and said, okay, so, what's happening?
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And I tried to understand what is happening at a mind and a body and a spirit and nervous system level. Yeah. And can I kind of parse out those different elements and train them? And so I began doing that with SEAL candidates back in 2007, 2008, because I started training SEAL candidates.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
I wanted to help them succeed the way I did in SEAL training and to have a better career and be more focused and make better decisions in battle and to avoid PTSD and all those things.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And so I began to draw more or kind of like I would say equal parts from my Navy SEAL days with my yoga and martial arts training because I realized that the Eastern practices had a lot of tools and they were a developmental path for accessing greater power, almost 20x power and developing internal potential. Right. and integrating and being able to use your mind in a unique way or a better way.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And this is lacking in the West. There really isn't any developmental models that I'm aware of that didn't come from either the martial arts or yoga. There was some understanding of it philosophically through integral theory and transpersonal psychology and stuff like that, but there weren't any practices or paths, if you know what I mean, in the traditional sense.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And so, I looked at my own martial arts training and my own, I went deep into yoga and into teach, I've been to multiple teacher trainings. and was even developing our own yoga to teach to SEALs, which I, you know, had to really simplify and chunk it out into drills and discard any woo-woo, you know what I mean? I took the foo out of the Kung Fu and took the woo-woo out of the yoga to teach it.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And so, I came up with these skills. I call them – well, they line sort of with what the SEALs call the big four. But there's more than four, but the biggest and most powerful ones are – First is to develop control over your breath and to use your breath as a center post of your training, right? Because the breath is what will lead you to being in physiological control of your body.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And so the studies have now verified the power of breath control for stress management, stress release, and for triggering the parasympathetic nervous system to bleed off stress. So it's really, really healthy for you and healthy for your nervous system. But beyond that, The breath is a way to stay focused because after all, the brain is a organ of the body.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And when your body is calmer, your brain is calmer. I mean, it's experienced subjectively as literally a lower brain, you know, cycle rate and you kind of an alpha beta when you're really calm. And it's healthier, right? And you're detoxing when you breathe deeply and cyclically and, you know, you don't have the choppy patterns associated with anxious emotional states.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
So, the breath control is that first skill that I started teaching the SEAL candidates and that alone, and I call the practice box breathing, that alone had a profound impact on their ability to focus and remain clear in the heat of battle and that type of thing.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And then I said, okay, so once I'm physiologically and physically in control and I'm clear headed and able to focus, then it's about creating the conditions in my mind so that I can stay focused on the right thing at the right time, stay focused on my teammates and stay focused on a positive outcome. Whereas, you know, the common individual will seize upon
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
you know, some, something that that's going wrong. And that could be like, I'm suffering because this sucks. Or, um, you know, I'm, I'm in pain or my, my back hurts, or I can't do this because it's too hard. I can't lift this 300 pound log up anymore.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
There, there's always something, you know, whether it's physical or mental or something really practical, some challenge or crisis in your life, there's always something, right? Cause that's the human condition every day.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
of your life there's going to be something that doesn't go well or right there's going to be something that's negative there's going to be some discomfort and most people will seize upon that and focus on that and then of course that which you focus on tends to grow or to you know it attracts energy to it and so um i i learned and i taught these seals that you know we we accept
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
and be not attached to what happens to us and we take control in a positive sense of what's happening in our mind, in both our rational mind as well as our emotional mind. And so we maintain a really positive energetic attitude and mindset. I call this positivity. The trained mind, as soon as that resistance is experienced, will begin to dialogue in a way that generates power instead of weakness.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: How Navy Seals Create an Unbeatable Mind, with Mark Divine (Military, Mindset, Business, Motivation)
And so when that log starts to rub the shoulder or starts to get hard, you know, instead of saying, holy cow, I don't think I can do this, or man, this thing's heavy, or how long do we have to do this? Another three hours. You basically shift that to some sort of powerful statement That you also associate with an energetic and emotional state.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Hell Week
Most people have heard of Hell Week. Hell Week is the one week during the nine months of SEAL, you know, in-doc training or basic training called BUDS and then SQT. And so, there's one week that's kind of famous and that's the week called Hell Week where we train from, you know, Sunday afternoon until Friday, the following Friday around the clock without any sleep.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Hell Week
I'm bleeding. You know, I just ache all over the place. But your mind says, OK, that's all fine and good. But you're not quitting. you got three and a half more days. And so, that was what was going through my mind. In the meantime, my teammates were quitting left and right. You know, we started my class with 185 students, all, you know, highly qualified super studs.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Hell Week
By the time we got to hell week, we were probably down to like 120 or something like that. And then, By the end of 50 hours a hell of a week, we were down to like 60. So, they're just dropping like flies. And I was just telling myself, can't quit. Just keep going one front in front of the other, you know, words to that effect. My body started to get stronger.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Hell Week
So, you know, after days without sleep, you know, around the clock physical training, most people conventional wisdom would be that you'd be breaking down and, you know, you'd be almost catatonic. And my body started to build muscle mass. And it started to get stronger and I started to get more alert.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Hell Week
And I was still probably, you know, if you were to give me some sort of test, I would probably have, you know, failed any higher cognitive functions or skills, you know. But I was able to stay focused on the tasks that they were giving to me and to stay focused on my team and to, you know, to drive through. And I was getting stronger and feeling stronger.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Hell Week
And so, that was really profound to me because I realized, you know, afterwards that that instructor was right. Like I truly was...
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Hell Week
capable 20 times more than i thought and hell we proved it to me and so that's become kind of essential tenet of my my teaching today is that you know you are capable 20 times more and then 20 times again but you got to prove it to yourself in order to believe it at a really gut heart level you know i mean it's not a cognitive thing you can't just think yourself that you're capable that much more because that's that's not enough you know you've got to you've got to know it deeply
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Hell Week
Actually, they give us four hours just to mess with us on Thursday, but... So, it's kind of legendary, you know, and it really is, it's multi-purposed, but I would say the dominant purpose is to teach those that make it through it that they're capable of practically anything that they put their mind to. As I was preparing myself for my own Hell Week, you know, I kind of, I had some unique rituals.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Hell Week
So in the seals, it's just through these intense experiences that you like crack open your body mind system and reorganize it in ways that I don't even think anyone really understands. I don't even think the seals understand it. They just know it works.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Hell Week
My teammates were all sitting and messing with their gear and, you know, we had this big tent set up outside of Bud's and they're kind of like, anxiously awaiting what we call breakout, which is the start.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Hell Week
And I had kind of wandered off over the berm and just sat and looked at the ocean and just began my breathing and kind of meditation practice, what I now call winning in my mind before the battle. And as I was sitting there, one of the instructors came up to me and he kind of smiled.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Hell Week
He looked at me and I don't know what was going through his head, but he must've been thinking, okay, this guy is a little bit different And he's doing something different and I get it. And he came to me and he goes, Mark, you got nothing to worry about because you're capable 20 times more than you think you are. Have fun.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Hell Week
You know, basically have fun with this one because he knew for some reason that I was going to make it through. And when the training started, you know, again, the first like five, 50 some odd hours are the hardest because that's the like the new reality of this. Your life circumstances setting in your body is all of a sudden saying, I am exhausted. I haven't slept. I'm freezing cold. I'm chafed.