Episode Details

Are you looking for a BLUEPRINT on how to develop an UNBEATABLE MINDSET? 

Then this episode is a MUST LISTEN! 

My guest today is none other than Mark Divine — a New York Times best-selling author, leadership expert, entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and retired U.S. Navy SEAL Commander. He is also the founder and CEO of SEALFIT and Unbeatable Mind and hosts the highly-rated weekly podcast, The Unbeatable Mind with Mark Divine.

Mark's story is incredibly inspiring because he not only made it through BUD/S, at 26 he graduated as the Honor Man (#1-ranked) of class 170. Perhaps even more striking was that his entire original boat crew graduated with him that day. The odds of that happening by chance are literally one in a million.

Mark then served for twenty years (9 active duty and 11 reserves) leading his team on reconnaissance, training and classified missions in 45 different countries throughout Asia and the Middle East.

He now shares the same secrets to entrepreneurs, executives and teams through his books, speaking, award winning podcast, and world-renowned leadership and team events.

Get ready to have your mind blown with the facts that Mark and I will be discussing about his story, meditation, human experiences, mindfulness, discipline and how to develop an unshakeable mindset.

Quick overview on Mark Divine’s story:

After college, Mark was a typical guy trying to make a lot of money and make a mark in the world. He got his MBA at Stern School of Business, he was a Certified Public Accountant working toward shifting over to becoming an investment bank or trader or hedge fund guy.

Just like others, Mark had an early life crisis. He had that kind of existential experience of “What the eff am I doing in this corporate world in the suit and tie, chasing money when none of that really means anything to me?” 

And his paradigm was meditation. He was very fortunate. It's incredible for him. 

When he looks back, he was introduced to Zen meditation at 20 years old, through his martial arts teacher, which was literally the month or two after he went to New York City from Colgate to start his professional career. Because his teacher was so serious about the value of Zen training, to complement the martial arts training and Yin and Yang, his teacher had them meditate for five minutes before and five minutes after every class. And they had a Zen class for 45 minutes on Thursday nights. A small group of them were really dedicated to that. And then they used to go to the Zen Mountain Monastery in Woodstock, New York for long weekends to sit with Zen monks. And Mark felt so good after a few months of wrestling. It just calmed his mind, and he started to feel really good. And so he decided to commit to a daily practice every morning. And it's never wavered since then even while he was in the SEALs. So every morning I would sit, meditate for 20 minutes, I had these profound shifts.

Then, as a 20 to 23 year old kid, his brain was still really developing fast. So the fact that he was meditating meant that he was affecting how his brain was developing. The outcome of that was for him to have those really, really cool moments of just great clarity and insight at a young age where he could see that he was on the wrong path. He sees that the stories that he had been kind of fed through my family, the way they dialogue through the culture, through everything were leading him down a common path, but it just wasn't his path. It wasn't who marked what’s meant to be for him. 

So when he started asking questions to his higher self or spirit, he started to get answers about what he’s supposed to be doing or who he is. And it was leading him in the message that he was a warrior, he was meant to be a warrior, he was meant to serve and lead others,