Heroic Chat with Mark Divine: Cultivating the Four Skills

Hey Heroes. Today's episode features a mastery level chat with one of our friends and world class experts sharing how they show up as the best version of themselves. This heroic chat with Brian was recorded live in front of a virtual audience of heroic community members and coaches. To learn more about this series as well as how you can join Brian's daily live coaching sessions at 1:01pm Central Time. Plus get access to a ton more to help you move from theory to to practice to mastery and express the best, most heroic version of yourself. Head to Heroic US today and if you like this episode, please leave a positive review and hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. Now, here's your host, Brian Johnson.

Heroes, it is 1:01pm Central Time, which can only mean one thing. It is day one. Thrilled to be here with you today. Thrilled to have a dear friend of mine, big supporter of heroic here with us today, Commander Mark Devine. How are you sir?

Oh yeah, it's good to see you. Brian who.

Yeah, it is. Great to see you brother. Let me say hi. I like to say everybody's names on my first screen. Kimmy, Heidi, Carlene, Sheila, Michael. Great to see you, Michael. Alex, Daniella, Amy, Aki. Always great to see you all. Glenn, Zoom, User, Damiano. Rob, Patrick, John, Robin. Rob, Lori. Great to see you. Lori Minardo. And first screen, Lisa. Thanks for being here today. We're going to chat with. I was telling Mark in the little prelude here that I had my wise elders on three of my. I'm all about threes, my big three wise elders. We started of course with Phil Stutz, beloved spiritual father. And then John Mackey, who's been my deepest inspiration, business wise. And then William Damon, Stanford professor, leading scholar on purpose and moral development. Then I wanted to bring in not my wise elders, but my wise brothers. So Cal Newport, taking me to the next level with deep work, deep living. Talbin Shahar, leading scientist on the science of flourishing. And Mark Devine. Mark Devine has been my deepest inspiration and motivation and kind of guide on mental toughness. I can vividly remember reading your book, Mark. Unbeatable mind. Almost exactly 10 years ago. I just blown up a version of our business. Things were not looking good to say the least. Like I gotta get strong here. And I literally can remember reading it in my office. I'm on the, you know, upstairs. I got this like futon in my office. Amazon, Kindle, right? And I'm like, damn, so good. I so need this. It was literally goosebumps. Just, just exactly what I Needed transformed my life. Somehow we became connected, maybe through an interview. Consider you a brother. Appreciate your deep support. Mark's a big investor in heroic. And of course, in our app, we have. I was telling Mark, too, that I had fun searching for you by using the keyword divine, which is fantastic for so many reasons. We've referenced divine in 43 plus ones. I guess 80, 90% of those are you. And then of course, we have the three books on which I have done Notes. If you haven't read the notes, check them out. Unbeatable Mind, the Way of the SEAL and Staring down the Wolf. They're all fantastic if you want to go to the next level. Mental toughness. Unbeatable Mind is a must read in my mind. It remains my favorite book in the subject. We've covered a lot. Mark's got a lot of stuff going on@unbeatablemind.com markdivine.com etc. But you know, as I was prepping, one of the things that most inspired me, that I wanted to make sure we touched on is the fact that as you went on your hero's journey and you realized that Wall street wasn't for you. And we'll talk about it a little bit, I'm sure, 25 years old, you're leaving that, making good money, but, you know, you're capable of more. You want to give back. You go join the Navy and go for, you know, becoming a SEAL. So Class 170, if my notes were correct. And you know, it's impressive that you're the honor man, right? It's impressive that out of 185 absolute studs who started that training, 19 of them made it through. And you were the honor man, which is recognized as well. What exactly what it sounds like. But what most impressed me and blew me away. And I didn't know this until I did. The note on one of the books is that every single guy and I have goosebumps. I say this. Every single guy on your boat Crew. And again, SEALs go through this training. Aspiring SEALs go through training and boat crews. Mark was the leader of his boat crew. All seven of the guys on Mark's boat made it through. Out of 185 people, only 19 made it through. And all seven of the guys on your boat made it through. That, to me, struck me most powerfully as the man that you are and the man that I admire, you know, and one of the things I want to talk to you about today is how what'd you do, you know, and help Us make sure that everyone on our boat crews are getting through, you know, and not ringing the bell and not giving it up. So. Just was so moved as I was prepping. Appreciate you.

Your.

Your influence is in so many aspects about every aspect of my life. I love you. I appreciate you, and I'm thrilled to connect with you here today and share your wisdom with our community, man.

It's an honor to be here, Brian. I love you too, brother. And I love your community. Her work's awesome. More often. Exactly.

Let's go. All right, so then, one of the things that Mark and I talked about before, I've had Phil Stutz lead a meditation. Oh, no, Phil didn't. John Mackey and tall Ben Shahar led a meditation at the end. But I realized, let's start with one of Mark's meditations. I'm watching Chris Hemsworth's Limitless right now. Right. And he just went through and did the box breathing in his first episode. I'm thinking of you, of course. So I was hoping that you could lead us through a box breath meditation to ground, invite the best, most heroic versions of ourselves to the party, and then we can get to work.

Absolutely. And I should probably. Can I frame it up a little bit before we do the practice?

Please do.

So everybody I know, everyone in this community has. Does some form of practice, obviously, because we're talking about going from theory to practice to mastery. What we've found, and I found, starting with training young Navy SEAL warriors, is that it's difficult to go right into a mindfulness practice or some sort of, you know, stillness or silence practice. And it's because as Westerners, Americans in particular, but Westerners, we are pretty much stuck in a state of hyperarousal. Our bodies are really generally out of balance, even if we feel like they're in balance. And so, of course, you know, you guys are big fans of staying fit, right? And getting your physical body in shape. But one of the things we also need to do is get our brain back into homeostatic balance and be able to regulate our brain waves and to be able to clarify our thinking. All of these are preparatory requirements to do any type of real, deep, deep work. Deep work, and I mean in the form of meditation, to be able to get to a mindful awareness state or a state of witnessing or even be able to turn the attention inward deeply and to find awareness itself, which is that that aspect of your being that is just aware of your actual consciousness of the content as well as the consciousness, and that is really Kind of mastery level stuff. And the problem with most, the way meditation is taught mostly in this country or in the Western world, is to go like from zero to hero, jump right into mindfulness, or jump right into non dual awareness meditation. And. Or it's just a rough substitute for some sort of concentration training. So all visualized or guided meditations are really concentration training, which is, which is good. But what's. What you can do with breath training is you can begin to immediately stack a number of very important preparatory skills into one practice. The first skill that we need to develop is called arousal control. So this is like Mark 1 motto training to Navy Seals when I started teaching them was to control their arousal response so they didn't react with fight or flight and get into that kind of state of, of hyper arousal in a crisis. In Navy SEAL training, every moment's a crisis, and in combat, every moment's crisis. So you could downregulate your nervous system, rewire your nervous system to turn back on the, you know, the parasympathetic, because it's basically, it's atrophied. And in our culture, because of the constant rapid stimulation and hyperarousal that's going on, so box breathing, which is just a slow diaphragmatic breathing with a hold on the inhale and the exhale, it triggers that arousal control because it's massaging the vagus nerve, it's stimulating this parasympathetic response, and it's basically greasing the groove to reopen up that pathway. Recent research has come out showing that those pathways really do actually freeze. And the sympathetic gets frozen open and the parasympathetic gets frozen shut. And so the neurotransmitters do not activate. And so we compensate with aggressive exercise, we compensate with coffee, we compensate with alcohol and other stimulants just to feel kind of like imbalance is because we're in a state of hyperarousal. So arousal control really is the first basic fundamental reason that we do box breathing and is to get ourselves back into homeostatic balance, which then you begin to regulate your brain waves easier just with a thought and with, you know, a few quick breaths. And then that allows us to do the second requirement, which is attention control and concentration, which are two sides of the same practice. Right. So being able to control your attention, to put it where you want to put it, and then to be able to hold your attention there for as long as you need to. And that's really similar to, you know, how do we get prepared how do we prepare our minds for doing the deep work that Kill Newport talks about well, we need attention, control and we need concentration. But it's difficult to get there if we're out of control from an arousal standpoint, from, you know, homeostatic balance. So box breathing is a stacked practice that initially and immediately brings great benefit in those three categories, which are could easily be considered three different practices. But we build it all into one practice. From there, the more experienced practitioner can then once they. Once you downregulate your nervous system, once you capture your attention and hook it to the breathing pattern, and once you develop the concentration power to stay on that for a long period of time, then we can begin to do what I call the metacognitive separation. It's like splitting your brain into two hard drives. And this is where we create what I call simultaneous mind, where you are on one side of your brain. You're setting up shop as the watcher. I call it the sentinel in my book, the Way of the Seal. And you're. And you're actually simultaneously watching the content that's arising in terms of the thoughts and emotions. And you begin to become very sensitive to the fact that. That a lot of that content is not positive. Right. Or it's a reactionary pattern that has been conditioned in you often from a very young age. And so this is often where we begin to see that the whole construct for how we've organized our lives has been conditioned or trained into us. And now that we've separated from that and we're watching it and we recognize that we're not those thoughts and emotions. We are actually more like, you know, we're like a mountain and a mountain of just pure awareness. And those thoughts and. And emotions are like clouds drifting by. Then you get to begin to curate the quality of those thoughts and emotions and you begin to deconstruct those thoughts that aren't serving you and build a whole entirely new identity around what will serve you and help you in the future. You know, I could go on and on, but I think it'd be good just to get into the practice. But all of that is really so Box breathing is much more than just a simple breathing practice. You have all the benefits of a traditional breath awareness practice, but we also are developing attention control, concentration and that simultaneous mind. So lots of good stuff there. Brian. It's awesome.

You just gave us a micro masterclass on the power of many things. Bless you. Perfect context.

Let's do the practice and we'll just do maybe like 10 rounds. And what I'll do is you just go into a state of open awareness. You know, all. So all learning happens at a whole mind level. Right. Just knowing something, capturing the knowledge intellectually. Right. The theory is really first level, and you don't know anything until you can actually experience it and recreate that experience and have a sense of understanding around it that is beyond the intellectual. So when we want, when we try to learn something new, we just want to go in a state of receptive awareness, which means we soften our gaze. Right? You soften your gaze is like using your peripheral vision. And you can do that with your eyes open or eyes closed. And that's allowing information to flow into your eyes as opposed to focusing your eyes, which is actually sending information out or energy out of your eyes. So you soften your gaze and you imagine your mind just, just releasing the grip. So I like to use the vision of your typical, you know, gripping mind. You're grasping, trying to understand your thinking. That's your fist closed, you're gripping and it actually has a certain energy and you can just release that. It's like opening the hand and the palm and you're releasing the grip and you feel this open expansiveness and this receptivity. And then you can take that receptivity and begin to drop it into your heart region and just begin to embody the experience. So another way to think of this is you want to shift your perspective from you as an observer listening to these words to just this being an experience. Words are happening, Listening is happening. There's no you that's doing anything. This is all just happening. And so now we're going to bring our awareness to our breathing. With our mouth closed, we'll breathe through the nostrils. It's very important to breathe through the nostrils. With this practice, we'll just bring our awareness of the breath. And you feel the breath and you watch it with that inner eye. You watch it just coming in through the nostrils, up and over the sinus cavities, stimulating the nadis, stimulating the mind down into the lungs through the larynx. And you feel the muscles of your chest. You feel the diaphragm, you feel the lungs expanding. And when you exhale, you feel the diaphragm pressing your out, the muscles moving again, stomach pressing in the air going out through the nostrils. And with that inner eye, you're just watching this closely. You may also see some colors, some stimulating like white light type colors as you inhale. And that energy, oxygen, life force stimulates the brain you might feel your heart softening and opening as that chi prana flows in, stimulating, bringing fresh oxygen, life force flowing throughout your body. You watch every moment discreetly. That is your attention. You put your attention on the breath and you watch it as if your life depended on it, because it does. You watch it coming in and you watch it going out. And you're slowing your breath down to five. Counts this pattern. Five count in, five count out. Six breaths per minute. Ideal breathing pattern for heart rate variability, for homeostatic balance, for clarity of thought. Good. We're going to synchronize together and start our box breathing. So when I say one, we will exhale. Three. Two. One. Exhale. Inhale. 2, 3, 4, 5. Now hold your breath with a lifting sensation. Don't clamp down, creating any back pressure. Keep it soft, open, expansive. Watch that inhale. Hold. Now exhaling. 1, 2. Through the nose. 3. Belly pressing in 4 and 5. And hold your breath. Just experience the sacred silence. Inhale, Hold. Relaxing, massaging the vagus nerve, triggering that parasympathetic response. Exhaling, calm, relaxed, grounding.

Hold.

Keep your mind hooked on the breathing. Inhale, your attention there. Hold. And you're going to really put effort into holding your attention there. That's where you develop the concentration power. That staying power takes effort. Exhale. You willfully keep your mind there. And if it gets distracted, it's okay. You just bring it back and hold your breath. Inhale. Follow that breath. Every microsecond, every nuance. Hold your mind focused on that experience of that breath. Hold. Expansive awareness, stimulation, exhaling, grounding, detoxifying, settling in and whole. Inhale, Hold. And exhale. Stay focused. Keep your attention on the breathing again. Every little nuance, every nook and cranny of that exhale until you get to the bottom and you hold. And you're just investigating the nature of this hold. What do you experience in that stillness? Inhale. Training your mind to move away from the attachment to thoughts and emotions.

Hold.

Through the balancing clarifying of the mind and through the concentration power. Exhale. Our mind develops the capacity to shift its attention inward and set up that mindful, metacognitive, simultaneous mind hold. Do three more rounds. Inhale. You can begin to walk a witnessing mind over into the right hemisphere of your brain. Set up shop, hold. And just look across the expanse and watch yourself doing the box breathing. Exhale. Watch any thoughts and emotions. Watch yourself hearing these words. Experience that spacious awareness that is always present. Hold. Before, during and after the thinking happens. You are not your thoughts. You Are not this body. You are so much more. Inhale, Hold. You will learn to live from that perspective. Graceful, non attachment, passionate engagement without getting drawn into the dramas. Exhaling, Hold. Calm, relaxed, but poised. Ready to act effectively, efficiently, and with the right action. When necessary. Inhale, Hold. But when no action is required, you can see that clearly. And you conserve your energy and you wait for the knowingness, for the spontaneity to act. Exhaling. And hold. Releasing the holds. Now just a few more rounds to clear. Inhale, Exhaling. Calm, relaxed, alert, focused. Inhale, Exhale. And inhale. Exhale. As you come back in the zoom room, just take a moment to just experience, you know, whatever difference you know might have in your mind, right in your body, mind system. You feel calmer. Do you feel a little bit of clarity? Do you feel that expansive awareness that I was talking about? Because it's there. It's ever present. It's just part of. It's part of who we are. It's just we don't often take time to connect with that and notice it. Thanks, Brian.

Thank you, Mark. My goodness, that was so good. I'm chuckling because how many of you expected a former Navy SEAL commander to lead us in a meditation of such spiritual power? We got feedback from John Mackey's talk that I had no idea he was that spiritual, that he was that driven by love. I'm like, well, you know, the great ones are especially the ones that have impacted the me the most. So such a beautiful way to connect with you and your work and your essence. Thank you. Bless you for helping us connect. I'm excited about that. I was brought back to the time you led Alexandra and I years ago in Ojai in a similar meditation of just. Oh, it was one of my favorites. So one of the reasons I was excited to do it if I wanted people to experience that, there's so many other things that I get excited about, having your leadership in that. So bless you. Thank you. Let's talk about what you just did for us, I feel, is at least part of the answer of what allowed you to lead your boat crew and have all seven of you finish when 90% of the total number of people who started didn't. Can you tell us about that and tell us how what you think led to that leadership outcome with your team and also just obviously how we can embody that same commitment to something bigger than ourselves in our lives?

Absolutely. So, yeah, I'll try to not tell a super long story here because I know we're limited on time. And I tell this story in my book, the Way of the Seal. But, you know, I grew up in a small town in upstate New York. Literally 375 people. I don't know if you knew that, Brian.

Small. That's impressive. Well done.

And. And like a lot of people, my family was dynamic. You know, lots of energy, lots of chaos, you know, a little violence, a lot of alcohol. So I found it. I found solace by getting out of the house and being in nature. And that's one of the things that led me to being an endurance athlete, actually. Actually. And I was, you know, had a lot of time in the Adirondack Mountains, where I would just run the trails and up and down the mountains and in and out on the lake. Became an excellent swimmer. That led to a competitive athletic career, Colgate University, competitive swimming, rowing, triathlons. A lot of that was just for me to, you know, kind of feel good about myself because there's a lot of chaos and a lot of abuse going on in my family. So I didn't really understand that. And I didn't know about therapy back then since obviously, therapy has been very helpful. But one of the beautiful benefits of living in that environment was a. There's really not much, you know, that. That physically could harm me besides, you know, an accident or, like, you know, coming across a bear in the woods. And so that's one of the great gifts of growing up in a family like that or with a father like that, you know, is that you become pretty damn tough. Right? And I think that once I got over the victim is victim, you know, kind of aspect of that childhood experience, I started to really appreciate that. Right. And that served me very well in SEAL training, you know, and I have some of these. These incredibly intense SEAL instructors who are masterful at getting under your skin and scaring the bejesus out of you. And I remember just looking at them, Brian, and being like, dude, you got nothing on my dad. And then this is where I'm going to go to kind of link to, like, how did this experience make me a leader? Well, that just made me physically tough, like I could gut through things. But I realized that there was way more to effective leadership and teaming than just that kind of outer, kind of rigid side of mental toughness. That's actually pretty easy. It was the comfort level, being alone in nature. That was my first really, you know, experience with meditation without knowing what meditation was, never having heard the word. And I had extraordinary experiences, you know, as a 17 or 18 year old kid alone, you know, 12, 15, 18 hours, you know, hiking up to the top of the mountain, and I would sit down and have my little peanut butter jelly sandwich, and I would just go into these incredible flow states. And again, I didn't know anything about the science or anything, but it was just this incredibly surrendering experience. My mind was exhausted, my body was exhausted, and just to be able to surrender to the beautiful scenery and just the stillness of the mountains, and that was such an extraordinary experience that I remember thinking, well, I've got to figure out how to find this right more often. And so I would actually try to. When I started doing my competitive swimming, I was a competitive swimmer in high school. And then at Colgate, you know, some of you probably on this call, have done competitive swimming. It's really kind of a grind, right? And you're just back and forth in the pool, back and forth, 4, 5, 6,000 meters a day. And so I would try to. I would use my mind to find that same experience of stillness and kind of rapture that I found in nature. And it took some time, but with that intentionality where I would. I developed, you know, a mantra. And, you know, there's breath control happening, right with swimming, you know, your inhale, hold, exhale, right? So there is a form of practice. There's a. There's a very distinct practice that you can turn any sport into. And I learned to do that kind of just quite by accident. So I turned my swimming, and then I got into rowing. I turned it into a mental development practice where I was trying to clear my mind, I was using the breath, I was using a mantra. And. And I would get to these states of just really, really present moment awareness. And in those moments of just pure presence, I just felt all this energy surging through me, and I felt really blissful. And my performance went through the roof, by the way. And when any time that I got into my head and I didn't do that, then my performance really suffered. So graduated from Colgate University. And this is where, you know, my. My family of origin, all the training, all the conditioning of my youth is of course, you know, we open our eyes as a child. We're just a blank slate, tabula rasa. It's like a. Like an unformed piece of clay. And we immediately start to get conditioned by language, by our families, by our peers, by church, by, you know, education, everything. And that conditioning then leads to what you call yourself. You, right? So Mark had an identity based on all that conditioning. So that identity led me into Business, because my family was a business family, Brian. You know, we're, you know, we have 120-year-old company that has been in the family since, you know, 18, like 80 something. And of course I was expected to come back and lead a part of that family business, if not the whole thing. And so Divines were business people, we weren't academics that was poo pooed. We certainly weren't military people, we weren't blue collar. Right. We were. The only other potentially acceptable career path for me was the medical profession because my mom, my mom kind of respected that. But no, it was going to be business. So I just kind of followed that conditioning and got, I got a job with Coopers and Lyman and they sent me to NYU to get my master's in accounting and then my mba. And this is going to be a great career, kind of jump off point. So I'm in Manhattan, I'm getting my MBA at NYU Stern School of Business. I'm, you know, training for the cpa, which I have to get to keep this job they give me. Basically once I got the master's accounting, then I could sit for the CPA exam. And, and so the idea was four years in, I would have my MBA and CPA and I was going to be making a ton of money. And then I'd probably either stay at Cooper's or maybe head off into trading or investment banking, you know, doing the typical moneyed path.

Right, let's go. Yeah.

So because I was an athlete and part of me, like at a more of a soul level, just knew that I was going to be physically fit for my entire life. Like I wasn't going to ever look like the pasty plumpy people that I saw in suits in New York City. Right. And including in my own firm. I said there's no way that I don't think the human body, that even at 21 years old, I said the human body doesn't need to decay like that. Right? With, with, with a little effort every day, you know, it can stay strong. It'll change, but it can stay strong and fit. And said, that's going to be me. So I think that's pointing to that I must have been a yogi in a past life or something because I was so drawn to that philosophy, right. That you can take, and I very much influenced now by, through the yoga and my martial arts, but that you can maintain this body and actually improve it over time and keep it alive for as long as you need or want. Takes a lot of mental discipline to do that, right? It's all in the mind. And then you, of course, the mind moves the body. So I decided that I was going to keep the body fit. I wasn't going to, you know, become one of those unhealthy, you know, whatever middle aged people that I saw there. So I would run every morning and after running I would, I would do some version of just contemplation. I haven't really learned how to meditate yet, but I, I had all those skills from, from the nature and swimming. And then at lunchtime, you know, my peers would go have a high carb lunch. I would go to the gym and bang out what I now know as a high intensity interval training workout. Right? Back then it was like I would take whatever gear I could find, got to grab some dumbbells, grab the bench press, press and like, like rope it off basically with my attitude, right? And then I would just start banging stuff out and I just. Awesome. 30, 35 minute workout. Go back to the office sweating just like you were before, before we went on live here. It was awesome, right? Anyway, so this story I knew was going to go long, but it's so cool. I wanted to do something in between when Cooper's would let me off at night and when I went to school. I had to be down at NYU at 7:30 and that was down at the World Trade Center. So I had like a two, two and a half hour window and I was like, what am I going to do in this window? So I've already gone to the gym, I've already done a run, I don't really have time to go row or do anything fancy. And so I was pondering that and I stumbled across this martial arts Studio on 23rd Street. While I was having these thoughts over the course of a week or so. And I remember just being struck at first by the sounds and it went up and I went into the studio and I saw who became my first hero. This Japanese man, it's about 45 at the time and he was a grandmaster. He was the founder of the style of karate. And so I immediately started training with this guy. He was extraordinary. And there was something very different about this individual. Just about the way he showed up, how he carried himself, his spontaneity, his awareness, his humor, everything about him was just so different. I was like, wow, whatever that is, I want to, I want that, right? I want to experience that. So I found out what that was a few weeks later when I stayed to watch the black belt class and I saw that after the class, a bunch of individuals were bringing these little wooden benches into this little corner and turning the lights down and they lit a candle. And I said, what are these guys doing? He said, oh, this is the Zen class. Zen? What's that? And they said, well, you get. Go. Go to check out a book, of course, before the Internet, go check out a book called Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by this guy named Suzuki, and you'll learn all about Zen. And so I did, and I absorbed this book, and I was blown away. I was like, holy cow. Like, I don't think I understood a word I read, but I was still, like, super inspired that. That, like, you can actually train your mind and you can, and you can achieve all these different states and do these extraordinary things. Like, that really rang true to me. So I asked Nakamura if I could start in that class, and I did. So I started the practice of Zen when I was 21 years old, and it radically transformed my life, Brian. So in the four years that I was in Manhattan and I started Zen that very first year, you know, I literally changed, dramatically changed the structure of my brain and completely deconstructed that story that I had been, you know, led to believe was me from birth. And it was sitting on that bench when I started asking better questions about who I am, why I'm on this planet, what am I supposed to be doing, right? If that's not it, then what is it? Then I started to get answers, right. This is why I like to say that, you know, if you really want clarity around your purpose, then just stop everything and sit in stillness. And the answer ultimately and eventually will reveal itself to you, because it's all on the inside. And that's what I learned on that bench, that. That your entire world, outer world, is a construct, a projection of your inner world. And if you can deconstruct the inner world that you thought you were and you're not happy with it, then you can reconstruct and create an entirely new inner world. And it'll show up. It'll present itself in the outer world. And so I started to get the sense that I was meant to be a warrior. And anytime you get this, this. This purpose, finding energy coming to you, it's always archetypal. It's never has to do with, like, doing or something objective in the physical world. Like, what I mean by that is when I was sitting on that bench, I didn't have the idea that I was going to be a Navy seal. I had the feeling that I was meant to be a warrior, and yet I didn't experience any kind of warrior ness in my life as a cpa. I'm not saying that you couldn't find it there. I just didn't see it there, and I certainly didn't see it back working for my family business. So I started asking, well, if I meant to be a warrior, how. How is that going to show up? And again, just like things normally happen with synchronicity, when you start asking the right questions and you start aligning with your truth, capital T, truth, then the universe steps in to help you. And I walked home from school or from work another night, and I stumbled across Navy recruiting office. And I saw a poster on the. On the window. And sitting. The poster had a title, be someone special. I was like, yeah, I kind of want to be someone special. And the poster was of the Navy seals. And it didn't say anything about the seals, right? Just to be. You know, it's like the sizzle on the stake. They just want to draw people like me in, and then they want to just slam them in the Navy, and that's what they tried to do. So I went to see that recruiter. I said, you know, what is that, that thing on the poster? Who are those guys? And they're like, oh, yeah, you don't want to know about them. You know, they're super secretive. They only allow, like, one person in a year. And they're a bunch of, you know, a bunch of crazy people. It's like, what you really want to do is go into the nuclear submarine force or, you know what I mean? I'm like, no, no, you don't get it. I'm doing that, right? I'm doing that. They tried like heck to determine, and finally I got an officer recruiter to put in a package and. And. And the rest is history there, right? And I've talked for a little while, but I didn't answer your question. So I want to get to. That was all framing it up. When I went to SEAL training, there was something demonstrably different about me. I couldn't quite put my finger on it at first, but I realized that the meditation, the. Combined with the experience of me being deeply aware of my breath and being able to control my breath and the capacity to manage my internal dialogue through the mantra practice that I had, as well as through the capacity of mindfulness that developed over the four years that I studied my practice Zen. And the attention control that I had, the ability to radically control my attention and hold it exactly where I needed to hold it and to be able to simultaneously pan out and be able to grab the big picture, the context of what was going on. All these skills were developed in me, quite unbeknownst to me, but they became obvious when I started in that high intensity SEAL training environment where like it was constant crisis. And in that constant crisis, all these other individuals, like you said, 184 other individuals, super fit, extremely intelligent, some of them world class athletes, Olympians, you know, top, top of their class, they did not have any, anything to give them the control over their interior, right? Everything that they had done was all exterior. And so their mind was always focused exterior, looking for answers outside of themselves. And when the shit hits the fan, they're running along like chickens with their head cut off. And they were easy picking for the instructors to get into their, into their head and to, you know, into their emotional, you know, find out what was, what was their emotional trigger and, and the reactionary behavior and how they're going to, you know, implode under pressure. Because like I said, you know, when you, when you're a Navy SEAL instructor and you've been a seal for 10 years and you put thousands of students through training, there's nothing you haven't seen. You know, every nuance of human behavior and you know, how to get someone to quit really quickly, even if they're an Olympic athlete, it's crazy. But they couldn't do it to me because there was like a five mile long gap of distance between them and what was going on in my mind because of all of that control that I developed. So I started to see this right away, guys quitting the very first day of training. This guy I trained with at, at Officer Canada School named Bill, this guy was a stud. Like he could run circles around me. He out pt'd me, you know, he was just gung ho guy from another really elite university in the west or the East Coast. And the very first training session, you know, you can imagine, like the very first training session in the first day of SEAL training is going to be a doozy, right? And lasts for hours and hours and it's just, it's just insane. And about a third of the way through this thing, you know, one of our instructors was Zinke, who's now Congressman Zinke. And this guy is like 6 foot 5 Adonis, you know, this massive blonde haired, you know, classic Navy SEAL type. And he finally just turns to us and he goes, hit the surf. And I turn around, I run to the Surf to get back in this, you know, wet and sandy and. And I look up for Bill and he's running the other way. Very first evolution on the first day, like on the outside, we were both the same. We both went to good colleges, we were both athletes, we both wanted this. But he's running to ring the bell and I'm running to the ocean, having a good time, thinking, thank God this has started, right? This is exciting. So we literally lost like 20 people that first day. And then we get a little bit further on and we get to Hell Week. And Hell week is six days of non stop training around the clock, no sleep. And the class is already down to about 90 people out of the 185. These people just lacking the mental discipline, right, to stay the course. Lacking the emotional control and the resiliency and basically just being out of control in their minds. Physical studs. They had all the physical skills but didn't mean much. So in Hell week is when I really had to get serious with my, my boat crew. Right up until Hell Week, you know, I was just kind of feeling my way and my boat crew was kind of. I think I was leading by example, but I was still like, I wasn't really putting my attention on them because everything was so new. And I was just wondering, okay, is there, is there a trick here that I'm missing? Because like I'm having fun and everyone else is quitting, right? So I'm like, what is this? And so I said, well, I might as well have fun with my boat crew, right? I might as well help them have fun. So in Hell week and starting in hell week, the very first day, I started to teach them, right, Some of these skills that I learned. So we, we started box breathing together and we developed a mantra, right to my. I told him, here's my mantra, right? We're going to say this together and you're going to say it in your head. And you know what it is, Brian, right?

Looking good, feeling good. We should be in Hollywood. Let's go. What are you talking about? Let's go.

Ought to be in Hollywood, right? And so we quickly learned the power of positive thought. You know, thinking backed by the feeling that we are going to crush it, right? And so we constantly talked about how we're crushing this, right? And we practically won every kind of timed evolution. And we had this very positive, I now call that feeding the courage wolf. We had this very positive attitude as a team because we learned that those who were not positive and who allowed the fear wolf to take hold quickly lost the bubble. And that's. Now, I know that's very deliberately. I'm not deliberately. But you have a very demonstrable drop in your energy when you start thinking negatively and get into that negative emotional state. Your vibrational energy goes down, literally. You start weakening yourself. You start bleeding off all of your motivation and all of your energy. And so you've got to maintain that really positive mindset. But to do that, well, you also have to be in control, physiologically and psychologically. And that's where the breathing comes in. And so I taught them this with these skills I call the big four skills. First off, we always got to maintain your breath. So we're going to learn to breathe through your nose, even while we're running, even if you know as much as possible, develop this capacity to do this deep diaphragmatic breathing. And then when we're at rest, we're going to box breathe. And then built on top of that, that keeps your mind in a state of kind of receptivity and balance. Then we're going to insert our mantras and we're going to insert our positive dialogue, and we're going to talk positively amongst ourselves. And if any one of us starts to go negative, it's your job to take care of that and to bring them back up. It's our job as a team. But if you're the first one to notice. And so I said first. First order of business is take your eyes off yourself. We'll put them on our team. Because if I'm. If I'm watching out for you, then I know I've got six people watching out for me, and that's going to make me stronger. So I'm going to care about you more than me, right? I'm going to take care of your gear, right? I'm going to be the first one to start cleaning. And I was the officer. Most of the other officers just let their enlisted guys do some of the dirty work. Take out the trash, you know, clean the boats, clean the gear. And I was always the first one to do that stuff because I was taking care of my guides and taking care of the team. And I said, we're all committed to get through this together. So what we started to do, and these are like the hallmarks of an elite team, is we built incredible trust. And on top of that trust was this great respect for each other because we knew we had each other's back. And we were practicing these skills of developing internal emotional and psychological control, box breathing, feeding The Courage Wolf.

Hey, hero. Have you heard the news about Brian's book? Activate your heroic potential head to Heroic Us Book to learn more and get your copy, as well as check out exclusive content and bonuses. That's heroic U.S. book. Now back to today's episode.

And then the third skill, and this is one of the most important, is the imagery works. Like, I had to get them to see what the outcome ultimately looked like for them and for us as a boat crew. And so we began to talk about what it would look like to win together. And we developed a vision for our success as a team. And we talked about that. And then that imagery became part of our dialogue too. Is like, remember the win, guys. Remember what victory looks like. It looks like all of us standing together after Hell Week. It looks like us getting secured early because we crushed it. It looks like us standing there on graduation day and every one of us getting a trident and having a big hug. That's what it looks like. And so what happens is that imagery then becomes like it's creating a memory of a future, of a desired future. So instead of obsessing about something that didn't go well in the past, we shift attention and develop this new memory of this desired future.

Right?

And you practice that memory. So we practice it and practice and practice it. And sure enough, it started to feel more and more real. And we did get secured early on Hell Week. Right. And so we're sitting there in dry clothes, you know, out on the beach, watching the rest of the class get hammered. And. And we're just like, wow, this stuff really works. And the fourth skill, you know, this is just breaking it down. And just. Even though you've got this big panoramic vision, you know what the vision looks like in six months, nine months, or a year, you don't dwell on that. You actually just focus on what's in front of you right now. And I called those micro goals. We're just going to. First of all, all you got is today. I learned that from Nakamura. One day, one lifetime. You've only got today, so that's your target. Worry about tomorrow. Certainly don't worry about what happened yesterday. The only easy day was yesterday, as our saying. So let's just focus on today. Now, where are the big hurdles today? Oh, we got our obstacle course. Oh, we've got this five mile time run. Good. We're going to really radically focus on those and make sure that we're ready for those and that this speaks to, like, how do you moderate your energy so that the critical junctures, you bring your best a game to and then in the gaps you do some recovery work. And so we organized ourselves so that we had that kind of, that effort. Surrender, Stirrus Sukha, you know, I know now from the yoga community. So we would bring it when we had to, but then we would actually hold back and, and do some recovery and some stretching and breathing and we didn't need to, you know, hype ourselves out like everyone else when the instructors weren't looking or when, you know, we had a class. Like, we took time to recover and that was really powerful. So that one day, one lifetime, but then in an actual event itself that was like, game on. And it was going to be extraordinarily challenging. You know, it's like if you go out on a 14 mile timed run and if you're thinking, oh my God, I got 14 miles to go or 13 miles to go, and I'm barely in this now, I've got 12 miles to go. You know, your motivation just gets destroyed, so you've got to flip it and you got to look at just, you know, what is the shortest arc to victory. And so for us, you know, mile time run or 14 mile time run, it would be like, I'm going to literally choose that mile marker up there or whatever that beach marker was, however far there was, and we're just going to get to there. And so our, we would hang together on those long runs as a boat group when we could. Shorter runs didn't make as much sense because we had different paces and we would just go for that target and then we just go for the next one. And by linking these micro goals to the overall vision and objective where you're going, then you develop great momentum, power, right? So you can get like 30% of the way there and you've got all this momentum because you just stacked up all these little wins along the way, which brings great confidence. So there's a lot there. Those four skills though, the breath control, the positive mindset, and feeding the courage Wolf. Maintaining that and watching that and being very vigilant about that, and then practicing the win in your mind with imagery and then radically focusing on the task right in front of you and not getting overwhelmed by the totality of what you've taken on. It's an incredibly valuable set of tools. And I introduced those in the book. Unbelievable mind. You know, we teach Navy seals. I just kind of stopped here when I got out of the seals. I really wanted to like, try to codify everything that, that I learned and you know, not just in training and teaching my team, but you know, later on. And so I became pretty passionate about learning everything I could about performance and you know, just like you, Brian, just like devouring everything I could and, and, and yoga and continuing my martial arts training and try to integrate, you know, figure out, well, how does this science of mental development and em whole person development work? And so I started training and I started training seals in these 30 day academies and then in shorter bursts and we still do that to this day. And 90% of them get through SEAL training and it's these four skills, it's internalizing these skills as practices. This is why like I love your philosophies. They now teach these skills at SEAL training because of the success of our SEAL FIT program in this unbelievable mind philosophy. But they still kind of get it wrong because they're teaching it as a theory and I was teaching it as a practice and this big difference, right? Because a theory doesn't work if you don't practice it. So we practice these skills every day. And that's the thing. Once you practice them and they start to groove in there and that's where you get to the idea of mastery. The mastery is never a destination. There's no there there. Mastery is just the internalization of the practice. So you don't have to think about it. It just becomes part of who you are.

And there are a choir of angels singing behind me. But continue.

Anyways, I'll kind of like pause there because I could.

You have a hard stop in six minutes, right? You got a flight you got to catch, is that right?

Oh my God. I thought we were just getting warmed up.

It was like we are getting warmed up. We're gonna have to bring you back. But I could confirm, right, you got a trip you got to get to. So we got to get you to the airport on time.

I have 10 or 15 minutes for sure.

Okay, cool. Just so much there. So much that I'll tell you what, the four aspects and I didn't take notes. So. Michael, I'm looking forward to you giving me those. Obviously we talk about them throughout and we got them in the notes and stuff. But what I felt and I got emotional hearing you and feeling you. And I know I wasn't alone on this because I was kind of looking down. It was your love. I mean it was the true. The hero is the protector. And so you cultivating a culture of love and you having the ferocity of the warrior monk committed to something bigger than yourself. As a young man before you enter the training, and then that being the true fuel of your power and your team's power, like literally, that brought me to near tears of, oh, that's. This is it. And then, you know, the hero has strength for two. Their secret weapon is love, and they're willing to do the hard work to have that strength for two, for something bigger than themselves. And I just feel like you just embodied and expressed every single thing that I've tried to capture in my own life and to be in a example of, in my own idiosyncratic way and what I encourage our community to be and to do. And then when we show up in those crucible moments, and yours could be planned for, and some of those moments in our lives can be planned for, but most can't be. And even when we went on our hikes in Ojai, you're wearing your boots, you have situational awareness. You're a sheepdog, you know, all day, every day, you're there protecting all the time. And you earn your tried and error every day. You're prepared. Every single day is your first day of SEAL training. It's your Super Bowl. And it's that. That true commitment to the path, to the practice that you just so beautifully captured and just feel really grateful to have had that experience with our community as such a powerful demonstration so we can all go do what we need to do.

So I could just comment. I think it's so important. The point you bring up, especially for men, is the emotional work. You know, you've heard of our five mountains. So we develop an integrated whole person. Develops in an integrated whole person way, right? That's an imperative, right? Our culture has separated us into and split off different aspects of ourselves. And even, you know, in a simplest way, like you think of, like dragging your body to the gym to work out, and you drag your body and mind to church on Sunday, and you call that your spiritual, you know, domain. And most people, especially men, don't even touch the emotional. I know I'm not speaking to people who are afraid of that here, but, you know, generally in our culture, most men don't touch emotional development. And what they're doing is leaving the biggest part of their potential in storage. Right? So developing yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, intuitionally, and spiritually, those are our five mountains. Then that brings all of those things back together. And what happens is you get this, this. This explosive growth. And that growth is. Is not just cognitive, but it's. It's experienced in a holistic manner. To include opening of the heart. You know, it's kind of like, you know, the yogis would say, jnana yogi is the path of meditation. Bhakti yogi is the path of the heart. Just pure devotion. Devotion to what? Devotion to your team, devotion to a higher power, devotion to your family. But it's something not you. So the heart work is what gets you out of the identity of me as the doer and, and the world's just revolving around me, right? So it begins to soften and break down the egoic structures and brings great humility and grace. And that opening then is experienced as greater compassion and care and concern for all beings. So it's not like I started and I thought, well, I've got to work on my heart or I've got to do some loving kindness meditation or something like those work. Obviously there are practices, but what I found is it was a natural outgrowth of integrated development, of whole person development. Can't not be. And it's so important because we're so stuck in our heads in the West. And when you're stuck in your head, you're really feeding the fear wolf because your brain, the mind, the head mind. You know, I like to think of these as different mind centers or brains. So you have the heart and the biome, the gut and then brain head. But if you just use your head, then generally you're going to be trapped in kind of negativity and you're going to be identifying with your thoughts and you, you, you lose a lot of your potential or you trap a lot of your potential. So you've got to combine. In fact, that's why we use that term kokoro that you're familiar with our, our 50 hour non stop event at Seal Fit. It's called Kokoro. And that means to merge your heart and your head into your actions, which also means kind of whole mind or holistic living. Anyways, I just wanted to bring that up. You got to combine the joni with the bhakti yoga and you do that through this integrated development. In my opinion, at least it works. That's what we do at Unbeatable Mind. It's powerful stuff. There's other ways to do it, like heroics. You've got your own models and paths.

Dude, I got you. He says humbly. We got a lot of crossover too. So check out all of Mark's work at Unbeatable Mind. He is his own coach program. I know many of our coaches have gone through yours and vice versa. So there's such a beautiful complementariness. And this is why we're soul brothers. Brother. We're going to need to do two parts here, by the way, so we're going to need to invite you back if you're up to it, so we can go even more deeply into your practices. So much we can talk about there. We're going to leave it there for now. And then you mentioned one of your heroes. Who else comes to mind when I ask you who your heroes are?

Well, Nakamura was. He's kind of the first mentor, guide, living hero that I have. And interestingly enough, besides you, you're a hero as well. Thank you. My team, right? Both my SEAL team teammates and my current team, they're my heroes. I don't really have any notable individual that I look to for heroic guidance or anything like that. I really look to the team. I have a saying that the team is a new leader. The problems that we need solved are not solvable by any individual. It really is the team and the team, when this is the whole essence of my book, Staring down the Wolf, is how does a leader get the heck out of their own way so they stop being the drag on the team, you know, because their leaders are taught the way it's taught in our society is that the leader, the appointed one or the elevated one or the founder, has to have all the answers and has to show up as perfect. And you know what I mean? And generally what they do is they're dropping these kettlebells of negative energy or blocking forces on their team. So the team will always stoop to the lowest common denominator. And oftentimes that's the leader or the leader doesn't have the courage to remove the blockage in the team, right? Because maybe. Because it's going to be some sort of a challenge to do that, right? Culturally, right. There might be. They won't have those difficult conversations. And so anyways, my point is the team is my hero. And I mean, there are other people that inspire me, but I don't think, you know, I think you put those in another category. You know, like, I do have individuals that are historical figures that I, you know, have in my kind of my mind gym, my. My mental team. So Jesus, we've talked about this. Jesus won the Spartan King. Leonidas, right, has been a great inspiration. And I have an Apache Scout I call Grandfather, based upon Tom Brown's grandfather and his legend. And they are always with me or I can call them in and they're my team. Similar to Napoleon Hill talking about with his, you know, his board of advisors or your legends behind you. And it's important to have those individuals and they'll support you, you know, if you ask them to.

So I just got to say that, and we've talked about this in different contexts, but, you know, Deepak talks about, you know, think of your heroes, think of your heroes, meditate on them and reflect on the qualities that they embody, that you aspire to embody more. And even just, you know, we're now, whatever, an hour and a minute into our time together, like you literally just described in your story of how you strive to show up in the context of that one particular crucible period of time, the perfect integration, integration of if Jesus and Leonidas were coming together in that moment. So to see you embodying those ideals that you aspire to embody humbly, but using those archetypes, as you said, as guides and as opportunities and as, you know, the guiding star to which we can point our soul force and life force is just such a cool thing to witness in the context of the arc of our chat today. So what's your little bullet round now with what you do? And I know a little bit about how you start your day and end your day, but give us your, you know, we're all about masterpiece days. As you know, your day starts the night before with what we call your PM bookend. Then you got your AM bookend. What's your current AM kind of masterpiece day look like?

So my morning ritual starts, you know, between 5:30 and 6 and, you know, has a number of elements which all because of the, the long period of practice all just kind of show up. So I don't need to run through a checklist or. It starts with what I call the first words, right? So the minute. Well, and also it starts with this immediate recognition or even kind of. It used to be verbal and now it's just a knowingness where I don't, when I wake up, I don't have the sensation that I'm waking up to the world, but I have the sensation that the world is waking up to me. And that gives me complete control over how I create the experience. And so the first words then are, how do I want this experience of this world is waking up to me to go? And I'm going to curate that immediately with the quality of my words. So I immediately start with my gratitude with the experience of awesomeness that this day is going to be. And then that leads. So that's before I even get out of bed. And I immediately start my deep diaphragmatic breathing and my box breathing at that point. And I just curate that world and begin to experience the awesomeness. And then of course I'll use the restroom. I'll drink a 12 ounce glass of water with gratitude. And then I'll come and sit and my wife and I. This is one of the most powerful parts of our morning rituals. We do it together. I always think of it if a couple that can practice together, right. Will develop extraordinary intimacy and love. And relational practice is one of the most powerful ways to develop as a human being and to create that bhakti heart opening. So Sandy and I do our morning ritual together. We just was sitting in our bed. We have a place overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Pretty blessed, I know. And then I've got a bunch of little things we go through. I'll go through my ethos and revisit my vision, long term vision and also vision for the year. So again, practicing that future memory until it's real. And of course I'll go through a little bit more gratitude. And then we do some readings together. So two of my favorite teachers. One is Jesus, but through the Course in Miracles. So many of you are familiar with the Course in Miracles, just a phenomenal resource supposedly channeled from Jesus. If you believe that through women. I think I forget her name off the top of my head. 1970. But it's powerful practice of forgiveness. And so we read that. And then I also my other teacher who's, you know, not alive is a yogi sage named Nazar Gadda Maharaj, extraordinary enlightened master. And so. And there's a book that, that is actually a book of his conversations that he have with other seekers who have come, came to India and this. And so every two or three pages is like a conversation. And so you can read them all in little setting. It's an incredible book. It's called I Am that. So we'll read a passage of that and then we will do our meditation. So up into this, you know, box, breathing, reflective, journaling, gratitude, you know, the contemplation. All of those are consider to be meditative practicing themselves. But I don't consider it to be meditation because meditation is radically inward focused, whereas every one of those still has an outward flow of energy to it. So the meditation is. I've gotten to the point where I don't need any, I don't do anything. It's a complete surrender, just absolute surrender of any identity, any sense of Mark doing anything or Mark Even being this body and just, just completely experiencing the expansive pure awareness, the outpouring of perfect brilliant stillness and, and that lasts. I mean sometimes we like we could stay here all day long, but then we got to get up and go. So usually it's about 20 minutes. Then we'll have a smoothie and the smoothie, you know, intermittent fasting. So now we're getting to be about 8 o'.

Clock.

So we'll have, I'll just have a few sips of the smoothie and I kind of finish it up by 11ish. And then we come down to my training center in Encinitas and we do 20 minutes of yoga and then we do a high intensity interval workout and then we hop in the sauna and I jump in the cold pool. And so I do that every morning during the weekdays and I don't take any appointments until 10:00am Pacific Time because that's, I call that whole practice winning in my mind before stepping foot in the battlefield, which is Sun Tzu. Quote Sun Tzu said, victorious winners win in their mind before they go to battle. All that is go to battle hoping to win. So all of you who have a morning ritual that's powerful like that, it is one of the most important things you do. Yes, the evening rituals are critical too. Like they, they work together like hand in glove. But the morning rituals, what sets your day up and by setting your day up, you're setting your life up because you're doing it every day. And like you could, you, there's just nothing you could do to me or say to me to get me to not do that or to change that routine.

The way I like to say is you couldn't pay me to not do, you know, the things that I choose to do. So beautiful. You and John Mackey have a lot in common as well. Number of times you mentioned gratitude, he too encouraged us and reads from the course of miracles. Every morning it's been a deep, deep. Yeah, yeah, it's super cool to feel the parallels there. The number of times you use the word gratitude is just so great, so much there. So then we got to get you out. Give me, let's assume that for energy, work and love. You know, our big three. Right. So the whole thing of a good life comes down, down to essentially work and love. But you got to get your energy dialed in so you can show up powerfully in your work and love. And of course when you do it right, there's no difference between your work and your love. Let's assume for the moment, that box breathing is our number one tip for energy. And then going to work and love. Number one thing that's been most life changing for you in your work and in your love and relationships. How would you frame that for work?

It's just making sure I'm always in alignment with that. That sense of archetypal purpose. Right. Started out younger as be a warrior, you know, like a physical warrior, a fighter to serve and protect. And then it evolved where the warrior began to take a back seat to the teacher and now the warrior is taking the backseat to the to something else else. Call it the warrior sage or you know, similar to some of your archetypal discussions about being a CEO philosopher scholar. So to be always in alignment. And so every day I ask am I, you know, is what is. Is what I'm working on today is what I'm doing in alignment with my purpose and vision. And then you know, similar to what Kel says, if it's not, then say no. In service to the higher yes. Right, Say no. So I'm always learning and refining my no because I was taught to say no. Most people aren't. I was brought up to be pretty codependent in that chaotic household. And so saying no wasn't something I learned now still a practice for me. Say no. And then as far as love, it's to always to deconstruct Mark as the most important thing in the universe. Right. It's not every. Everybody is everybody. Everything is one thing experienced in infinite diversity. And so just maintaining and holding on to that energy that everybody, everything, you know, is Satchit Ananda and Mark is just a bunch of ideas, a bunch of concepts that has been done more for me, for love than anything, I think. And then the next probably best thing is waking up and practicing with my wife.

Oh, sweet, beautiful. That's the perfect place for us to wrap it up. Would you be open to giving us a 32nd second bookend version of our breath so we can reconnect to our best selves community. If you would like to connect with one another afterwards, Nat will help connect you. Mark, thanks for going so long. That 32nd bookend would be cherished.

Yeah. Back to your breath. So soften your gaze. Take a couple deep inhales. Feel the energy. Remember this is not just oxygen, it's life force. It is the outflowing and the inflowing of everythingness that you are part of the rich texture of this awesome life that we live. Being experienced moment to moment. Bring your mind and just Follow that breath with gratitude. Gratitude for this incredible opportunity, this precious human gift, this life. Begin to bring your attention to the awesome energy, the life force, the beingness, the bliss. Know that that is your true self. All the dramas, all the seeming trials and tribulations slip away. You bring your awareness into your heart, into your being, and just accept your awesomeness. Thank you, Brian.

Bless you, brother. Who are you? Mark. Have a great rest of the day.

You too. Take care, guys. See you.

Wow. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Brian. Yeah, I don't know how it gets much better than that, folks. That was beautiful. Bless you, Geba. If you can connect everybody, that'd be fantastic. Michael, send me the. The notes that you took on this. We've got a treasure trove of plus ones coming soon. I wanted to be present and not take notes knowing that you were doing it. I want to emphasize a lot of things, or briefly, a few things before we connect you. All the deep love and the deep spiritual connection that people you wouldn't expect that from is such a beautiful representation of the truly heroic in their own idiosyncratic ways. Look at Phil, look at John, look at Professor Damon, look at Cal and Tall. And then Mark. It's just such a beautiful demonstration. But his absolute love, I mean, there's no other way to describe it, is just incredibly touching. I don't even have words to capture, but Michael, what do you got?

That was phenomenal. I'm glad you called out the similarities between John Mackey and Mark Divine, like in their stories and the way they show up and in their. In their mornings. Right, the intentionality in their mornings and what they, what they prioritize. The chat was blowing up with awesomeness the entire time. I already took some of the quotes and dropped them into the, into the Today screen. So we've got, we've got a refresh set of quotes on today's. Some of the awesomeness that, that he dropped on us today. And I'm really glad he went along with the story of that boat crew. That was just such, such a. When you actually sit with that statistic that, you know, out of 185 people, only 19 graduate, but all seven of Mark's boat did. That's just, just extraordinary. And to feel the, the power of heroism. And when I'm looking out for you, that means six people are looking out for me. And how do we serve one another? And to take that and to be excited to implement that for myself, for our team, just, just to the next level. We're already doing so many of those things. But to hear him share that story from the beginning was so powerful.

And then. Yeah, absolutely. And then the fact that he had done the hard work to be in a position to lead, you know, and that he felt something different in his own presence, and everyone in his presence felt it. And I got to go to my. Tomorrow we'll talk about my notes from a chat with Phil. But ruthless discipline. Phil was talking about where now I am at a point. He says there's absolutely no compromise. It's a moral obligation now to be that rigorous and disciplined and fierce. The way he framed it was even more powerful than the way that I just did. But Mark was worthy of that leadership position was actually believable because he had done the work and then he could transform it to his team. But it wasn't even. I mean, the practices were huge, but it was who he was being. And that presence that I keep on encouraging you to cultivate because that is the number one most important thing we can ever do. And that requires and demands a ferocious amount of hard work. But the fuel for that is love. And the outcome and expression of that is love. But, yeah, those stats are just insane. When I was prepping today, I'm like that. That is truly a remarkable thing. And I agree that going along on that was just the absolute right way to go. We wound up getting through the main bullet points here. We'll definitely bring Mark back. He's a good one. Bless you all. Let's transition to a connection. Geva, I think that you had started to do so I'm not sure if you're taking the lead today. Looks like I got a head shake from that. Please. Bless you all. Nat, give up, Michael. Appreciate you. And then I. I see this group. This is our team. You know, this is our. I mean, again, I've said it from the beginning. I get to hang out. What am I doing right now? Am I working or am I playing? It feels like a lot of boat driven by just pure, absolute love. So bless you all. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow and day one. Let's go. Actually, you know what? I'm going to use a little bit of Mark. I'm going to end and this. 51, 20, 51. This is the vision. This is why I'm here right now. This is why we are here right now. And Michael will continue our conversation about how often we repeat the vision and how often we are coming back to that together and with the team. But 51, 20, 51. And again, I got two tattoos below my 51, 2051, which is 101 in a million. So I see it, I feel it and when I step back and I let Michael on the team do what they need to do, which is important, you know, marketing and business stuff and kind of catching up to me and where we are, I go deep and I read and I think and I reflect on it even more deeply. I can see a million people in our community with the sole force of one on one. A million people with the sole force of one on one. We've got full body goosebumps. I mean, that is, that's a billion, you know, virtuous acts a year. All of us going out, aspiring to do what Mark did and why I wanted him to bring that story to life was imagine our boat cruise. If each of us can impact 5, 7, 10, 50, some of us will be 5,000, 50,000, 500,000. 5 million people. We will literally fundamentally change the world. So that's just something Michael, that I, you know, you and I haven't connected much in the last 48, 72 hours. We've just been so excited to reconnect, feel that power and feel that we need you to be the one on the crew that's doing the hard work, that's lifting people up in your community, that's lifting us up when we need to be lifted up and to get out of ourselves, to get out of that self centered focus on how we're feeling in any given moment and to recommit to everything that we are so fiercely committed to being, coming and serving. Bless you all. I'm gonna go hop in that cold punch now that Mark talked about and can't wait to see you tomorrow. Yeah, we'll wrap it up with that geba. Go get it.

Hey, hero. We hope you enjoyed this heroic chat to learn more about this series as well as how you can join Brian's daily live coaching sessions at 1:01pm Central Time. Plus get access to a ton more to help you move from theory to practice to mastery and express the best, most heroic version of yourself. Head to Heroic us today and if you liked this episode, please leave a positive review and hit the subscribe button on your platform of choice. Have a fantastic day.