Speaker 1: This is Conversationous with Olivia Jade in My Heart Radio podcast.
Speaker 1: Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of Conversations. I
Speaker 1: am so excited today we have an amazing former Navy
Speaker 1: seal coming on the podcast, and this feels very unexpected
Speaker 1: for me as a guest. I did not think I
Speaker 1: would ever be able to have the opportunity to talk
Speaker 1: to somebody who's been through so much and I want
Speaker 1: to share his stories with you guys. I want to
Speaker 1: learn about him. So please let's welcome Mark Divine. Hello, Mark,
Speaker 1: Hello Olivia, nice to meet you. I'm Olivia. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on the podcast. My pleasure. I
Speaker 1: was just saying while I was doing like a little
Speaker 1: intro that I don't think I've ever talked to a
Speaker 1: former Navy seal before, so I'm very excited about this.
Speaker 1: And for those that don't know you, I feel like
Speaker 1: my audience might not be aware of who you are.
Speaker 1: So maybe you could give like a little background and
Speaker 1: how you got into, you know, being in this position
Speaker 1: that you've been in these past years and um, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then we can just really dive into it. It
Speaker 1: sounds great. I'll try to keep it short because I'm
Speaker 1: a little older than you. I don't know. Yeah, so, um,
Speaker 1: being a seal is actually my second career, my first career.
Speaker 1: And then this relates to actually the topic or the
Speaker 1: subject of your podcast Second Chances. You know, I followed
Speaker 1: all my all the right things, you know, the right
Speaker 1: things my parents wanted me to do, the culture, you know,
Speaker 1: went to great college called Colgate. After Colgate University, I
Speaker 1: went down in New York to UM to work and
Speaker 1: also to go to school and m b A at
Speaker 1: n y U. So within two, you know, two and
Speaker 1: a half years, I had an m b A and
Speaker 1: a c p A. And I was working on Wall
Speaker 1: Street and I was off to the races. Right, Pretty cool, right,
Speaker 1: except I was miserable. I literally hated my job. I
Speaker 1: hated myself for not be passionate I guess about life,
Speaker 1: and I was miserable, you know, as I was looking
Speaker 1: at life like everything started to get gray. And remember
Speaker 1: telling my dad I was at a wedding and he
Speaker 1: was like, what's wrong with you? And I said, no,
Speaker 1: I'm just not happy. And at least I had this
Speaker 1: self awareness to say that. What saved me Olivia was UM.
Speaker 1: I found meditation at twenty one years old. All right,
Speaker 1: this is I found meditation through a zen master who
Speaker 1: was my martial arts instructor, and I spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time. I loved it because it gave me a
Speaker 1: reprieve from, you know, kind of the self imposed suffering
Speaker 1: I was experienced trying to be something that I wasn't
Speaker 1: as a white collar professional, as I wasn't interested really
Speaker 1: or passionate about money. I really wanted to do something
Speaker 1: interesting and important, but I just didn't know what and
Speaker 1: I thought that was what I was supposed to do
Speaker 1: because that was the story I was living. But meditation
Speaker 1: changed my brain, changed the way I thought, gave me
Speaker 1: new insights, new perspectives, and literally showed me kind of
Speaker 1: like my soul's calling, which was to be a warrior.
Speaker 1: And as soon as I accepted that, Olivia, I actually
Speaker 1: literally had a synchrono synchronicity experience where I I learned
Speaker 1: about the Navy Seals just by walking past the Navy
Speaker 1: recruiter's office and there was a big poster on the
Speaker 1: window that said be someone special and it had you know,
Speaker 1: cool guys happening, you know what I mean. Not sure
Speaker 1: you'd be interested, but a lot of your male listeners
Speaker 1: will be like, yeah, I know what, cool guys. And
Speaker 1: I was just smitten by this idea and it and
Speaker 1: so right there, right this notion that I was going
Speaker 1: to be a warrior. I meant to be a warrior.
Speaker 1: This disconnect with what I was actually doing and then
Speaker 1: suddenly seeing what's possible, and I had this major kind
Speaker 1: of paradigm shift. It took a little while for me
Speaker 1: to grow the cohones to actually go for it, but
Speaker 1: that's a whole another story. So I joined the Seals
Speaker 1: at went through UM class one seven zero was onnor Man.
Speaker 1: Remember one graduate. With my class, we had five hardcore
Speaker 1: warriors and only UM nineteen of us graduated and I
Speaker 1: was number one graduate. And then I had an amazing
Speaker 1: twenty year career as a Seal ten active duty, ten reserve.
Speaker 1: But a lot of my combat experience came as a reservist,
Speaker 1: and that led me to UM kind of where I am.
Speaker 1: I'm you know, huge experience UM formative there, you know,
Speaker 1: traveling the fifty or sixty different countries and wow. But anyways,
Speaker 1: I could go into more detail, but I don't want
Speaker 1: to bore you. No, this isn't boring. That's why you're
Speaker 1: on the podcast. We want to know. But can I
Speaker 1: actually ask you something about meditation because this is a
Speaker 1: little bit of like a personal question, But I really
Speaker 1: wanted to get into meditating for a long time and
Speaker 1: firm like maybe from like a like a beginner's standpoint,
Speaker 1: what is like what's the first step? And then do
Speaker 1: you think if you hadn't had done meditation and found
Speaker 1: that you would not have probably gotten into the I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have even considered it, and I certainly wouldn't have
Speaker 1: done as well l as I did meditation. I think
Speaker 1: is the master skill. Uh, And it's it's the number
Speaker 1: one skill that we need to our tool that we
Speaker 1: need to use to develop our minds to deal with
Speaker 1: the you know, the exponential age which we're in. As
Speaker 1: you're aware like your your generation will be the leaders
Speaker 1: um and in the way your minds have been trained
Speaker 1: is is not it's not going to be able to
Speaker 1: cope with what's coming because this it was traged the
Speaker 1: same way the train, the same way my mind was
Speaker 1: to be trained. Until I found meditation. We cannot face
Speaker 1: and we cannot handle the explosive change that's happening with
Speaker 1: just you know, school knowledge right with information, we're out
Speaker 1: of the information age, We're in the conceptual age. So
Speaker 1: what we need is basically massive creativity and spontaneity and
Speaker 1: intuitiveness and and the ability to conceive of new things.
Speaker 1: That that is found through meditation and creative endeavors, you know,
Speaker 1: like what you're doing here. And so you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not a big fan of traditional education anymore. I know
Speaker 1: it's great to have the credentials that I have, but
Speaker 1: I haven't touched my m b A and I haven't
Speaker 1: touched my b A. I don't use anything that I learned.
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't regret doing that training. I
Speaker 1: just I just don't think it's it's um relevant for
Speaker 1: the age that we're in, and there's new ways of learning.
Speaker 1: So back to your question, Meditation for me its the
Speaker 1: science of mental development beyond just downloading knowledge. Like to
Speaker 1: teach you in school, meditation is not just calming your
Speaker 1: body or just about the health benefits. It is about
Speaker 1: training your mind to expand your ability to perceive more,
Speaker 1: to to understand why you exist and why you do
Speaker 1: what you do, and to and to make better decisions.
Speaker 1: And then also to teach you how to UM control
Speaker 1: your attention and maintain radical concentration so you can you know,
Speaker 1: accomplish a worthy mission or worthy goal. How do you
Speaker 1: start that? Like, what's the Because for me, when I
Speaker 1: think of meditation, I think of like sitting in silence
Speaker 1: and like not letting my brain wander and trying to
Speaker 1: focus on I guess nothing. Essentially, I feel like that's
Speaker 1: like that maybe like a misconception that is, that's not wrong.
Speaker 1: But UM, there are there are several skills that are
Speaker 1: trained with meditation. This is one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: people struggled with It's not really explained or taught very well.
Speaker 1: The skill that you just described trains concentration, and it's
Speaker 1: UM it's important UM to learn concentration so that you
Speaker 1: can control that attention. So that's a skill. It's also
Speaker 1: important to develop mindful awareness of what patterns and um
Speaker 1: background you know, that have that have conditioned your current
Speaker 1: life or the story that you're living, so that you
Speaker 1: can rewrite the script of your life. And assuming it's
Speaker 1: not written properly, because I don't want to make that assumption,
Speaker 1: but for many people the script that they're living out
Speaker 1: is conditioned by their family and by their culture and religion,
Speaker 1: and it's not going to serve of them very well ultimately.
Speaker 1: And so mindfulness training helps us become aware of the
Speaker 1: background of why we do what we do with the context.
Speaker 1: So that's important. And you see, my business is called
Speaker 1: unbautiful mind so we we teach these things. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So anyways, most people really flail and have trouble when
Speaker 1: they start meditation, especially younger individuals like yourself, because there
Speaker 1: really is a progression. Just like you know, are you
Speaker 1: an athlete? I know most of the people listen to
Speaker 1: have some athletic skills. Imagine you do as well, right,
Speaker 1: I actually am. Yeah, I'm pretty athletic. I one Athlete
Speaker 1: of the Year when I was twelve. That's the only
Speaker 1: flex I have. Yeah. So, so what's your sport? I
Speaker 1: used to play basketball and soccer and volleyball when I
Speaker 1: was younger. Okay, well let's choose soccer. Right. So when
Speaker 1: you started soccer, when you first saw a soccer ball
Speaker 1: or someone you know toss it to you, your parents
Speaker 1: bought it for you. You didn't just go out and
Speaker 1: suddenly play like pelee, right or some master. You know,
Speaker 1: you literally had to learn how to dribble that ball.
Speaker 1: You have to learn the rules of the game. You
Speaker 1: have to learn how to kick, you have to learn
Speaker 1: how to run with the ball. There's all sorts of
Speaker 1: skills that you had to work with and and you
Speaker 1: learn those skills in what we would call a crawl
Speaker 1: walk run manner. That's how we would say it in
Speaker 1: the Seals. You you work like first you it's baby steps.
Speaker 1: What are the real fundamental basics? Well, meditation is very similar, right,
Speaker 1: and so jumping into mindfulness meditation is like going from
Speaker 1: zero to hero. And so there's fundamental things that you
Speaker 1: need to do to your brain and your mind and
Speaker 1: your body to be able to even have the capacity
Speaker 1: to sit and meditate. So what I teach is basically
Speaker 1: a breathing technique that de stresses the body and calms
Speaker 1: the mind. I call box breathing, and that is like
Speaker 1: someone just handing you the soccer ball and teaching how
Speaker 1: to dribble it. It's it's really basic training, but it's
Speaker 1: even hard for h Yeah, and I've been teaching that
Speaker 1: since two thousand seven. I think I was the first
Speaker 1: person to actually call it box breath and teach it.
Speaker 1: And so it's like that's how you start. And if
Speaker 1: I were to, you know, if you were my client,
Speaker 1: I would say, okay, Olivia, we're gonna just sit down
Speaker 1: and we'renna close our eyes and we're an inhale for
Speaker 1: five seconds, and we'll hold our breath for five seconds,
Speaker 1: and then when exhale for five seconds, and then when
Speaker 1: to hold our breath on the exhale for five seconds,
Speaker 1: and initially for the first you know, three months, we're
Speaker 1: not going to really worry about what our brain is
Speaker 1: doing or what our mind is doing. We're just holding
Speaker 1: our attention on keeping that pattern going, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: do it for a minimum five minutes up to twenty
Speaker 1: minutes a day. Ideally it's twenty minutes a day. This
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons this practice alone was probably
Speaker 1: why it was so successful in silk trending, because I
Speaker 1: was always calm and and my and the instructors are
Speaker 1: like masters at causing chaos and fear, and I was
Speaker 1: always really calm because I had trained this practice. Were
Speaker 1: you ever in a like a real life situation where
Speaker 1: you had to like, like, let's say you're in the seal,
Speaker 1: something insane is happening. Do you could you have time
Speaker 1: to take a moment and like start doing this. It
Speaker 1: is the master skill for everything, so once you train it,
Speaker 1: Like one example is I was in UM. I was
Speaker 1: jumping out of an airplane, UM with a yeah and UM.
Speaker 1: And it was at night. This is a static line jump,
Speaker 1: not a free fall jump, so I didn't have as
Speaker 1: much you know, control over the canopy. Like it's not
Speaker 1: very nimble the static line, and so I UM. But
Speaker 1: it was second off the deck or off the ramp
Speaker 1: of the helicopter. And it was a beautiful night, so
Speaker 1: I was actually taking in the sceniories, like the moon
Speaker 1: was out. It was just stunning. It was in the
Speaker 1: desert of California, was training, and suddenly I saw the
Speaker 1: first jumper coming right towards me. Now he should have
Speaker 1: been way away from me, but he somehow did a
Speaker 1: full three sixty and was coming right toward me. And
Speaker 1: our procedures are you know, if someone's gonna come at
Speaker 1: you and you're gonna have a mid our cllision, then
Speaker 1: each of you pull your right toggle, which is like
Speaker 1: steering to the right. Well I pulled my right and
Speaker 1: he pulled his left, and he collided with me. And
Speaker 1: so we were only about nine feet high at that
Speaker 1: point in time. So he collides in my parachute just disappears.
Speaker 1: It folds up into a ball, right, and I start
Speaker 1: plumbing to the earth right picking up speed, and I
Speaker 1: have about eight seconds to live. And immediately I started
Speaker 1: box breathing, like immediately, because I had trained it, I
Speaker 1: didn't go into fear. I didn't freak out. It just
Speaker 1: started inhale hold exhale hold, and I did like one
Speaker 1: cycle and my calmp my head went calm, and I
Speaker 1: all my um safety precautions you know, flooded back to
Speaker 1: me that we had trained, you know. And so I
Speaker 1: looked up and I grabbed my rises and I started
Speaker 1: shaking it and nothing happened. And I knew I didn't
Speaker 1: have time to do that again. So I punched my
Speaker 1: reserve or pulled the ripcord and punchment reserve, threw it
Speaker 1: out shook, that didn't catch any on. Boxed breathing, still calm.
Speaker 1: I'm down to like two d three feet. I look
Speaker 1: back up, I grabbed my risers and I'm just breathing,
Speaker 1: and I had this sensation that you know, this isn't
Speaker 1: my time, Like this was so calm, yeah, and so
Speaker 1: um clear, and I felt like I had all the
Speaker 1: time in the world. It's one of the things that
Speaker 1: meditation and breathing does is it gets you really present
Speaker 1: and present moment. You feel like you have all this time.
Speaker 1: So I shook the risers again and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden poof, you know, like fifty ft above the ground,
Speaker 1: they caught air and I landed and I landed like
Speaker 1: a ton of potatoes, you know, sacotatoes, and the miracle,
Speaker 1: I didn't break any bonds. But that's an exact so
Speaker 1: many examples like that that, um, you know, it got
Speaker 1: me really fascinated with kind of this idea of, you
Speaker 1: know what, what's possible with the mind? You know, can
Speaker 1: you slow time down really like like you see movies
Speaker 1: with the ninja advanced martial arts, or can you speed
Speaker 1: it up? And I believe that you can. I believe
Speaker 1: that the human being has just this vast potential and
Speaker 1: when you train your mind. But if you don't train
Speaker 1: your mind, then you just end up being kind of
Speaker 1: common and a victim or buffeted by you know, everybody
Speaker 1: else's needs for you. So that's really important to train yourself.
Speaker 1: If you're not training yourself in the world's training you on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so interesting too because I'm such a big believer
Speaker 1: and everything you're talking about, Like I think, the like
Speaker 1: the power we hold and the control we have over
Speaker 1: our own selves is like insane to me. I was
Speaker 1: reading this book called a New Earth. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've read it, Yeah, but it kind of reminds
Speaker 1: me a lot of what you're saying, and I think
Speaker 1: it is just like I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: go to a different place where they're like I have
Speaker 1: to like freak out about this or they I feel
Speaker 1: like we don't take the time as humans to realize
Speaker 1: that we do have control over situations. So just like
Speaker 1: hearing you speak about this is like inspiring for me.
Speaker 1: Who I'm not jumping out of airplanes or putting my
Speaker 1: life in risk every day, but still there's something to
Speaker 1: be taken away from it. When you were in the Seals,
Speaker 1: what did you learn like the most about teamwork? And
Speaker 1: is it it's one of those things you know when
Speaker 1: you're in that probably you can't do it alone. I
Speaker 1: would assume they call it the Seal teams for a reason,
Speaker 1: not the Seal individuals. Um nothing great is accomplished alone.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, you need a team. You know, even
Speaker 1: your podcast, you've got a team running. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: being everything on your own. I've got a podcast, It's crazy.
Speaker 1: I've got like eight people in work and the Seals um.
Speaker 1: First off, I learned that it's it's a little bit counterintuitive,
Speaker 1: but you have to place as much emphasis and care
Speaker 1: as much about your teammates as you care about yourself.
Speaker 1: And you know, as you place emphasis on yourself. That's
Speaker 1: not common for a lot of people. Most people put all,
Speaker 1: you know, all their attention on theirselves because they're in
Speaker 1: that egoic stage of development. And then they show up
Speaker 1: for the team and put out a little bit or
Speaker 1: some but they don't put it out for the teammate.
Speaker 1: They put it out so that they don't screw up orusly,
Speaker 1: they look you know, they look good, or they don't
Speaker 1: let their teammate down. With the Seals, we learned that literally,
Speaker 1: our teammates are radically important to us and we can't
Speaker 1: accomplish the mission without them, and we will. Literally we
Speaker 1: have such an incredible deep respect and trust and love
Speaker 1: for them that we're willing to die for them. I
Speaker 1: mean that's the incredible level of teaming. Most people only
Speaker 1: experience that, like if you're a mother and a child
Speaker 1: or a father and a child. You know, just to
Speaker 1: wrap up, what's like one? I know that obviously meditation
Speaker 1: we've talked about for a second is very important too,
Speaker 1: But what's one life skill you think you could give
Speaker 1: to somebody or in your program that you've created, UM,
Speaker 1: which what's it called Unbeatable Mind? Is there? Well, your company,
Speaker 1: beautiful Unbeautable Mind is our training. We've got to this
Speaker 1: new UM, a new program coming out in March called
Speaker 1: Unbuild Mind for the Exponential Age? Is this all online? Like?
Speaker 1: Could could any human sign up online? Anybody can do this? UM?
Speaker 1: You don't have to come to a live event for that.
Speaker 1: We we love our live events because that's where we
Speaker 1: really go deep and do the immersive and bodied work.
Speaker 1: But this program, because especially since Covid, I realized the
Speaker 1: only way we're going to reach more people is to
Speaker 1: do virtual training, and so we shifted. UM we're in
Speaker 1: a virtual company just like most companies now. And so
Speaker 1: this program is eight weeks long and in it I
Speaker 1: teach how to develop what I call the five minds
Speaker 1: of unbeatable mind, the body mind, the contextual mind, the
Speaker 1: strategic mind, the extended mind, and the integrated mind. And
Speaker 1: each one of these minds that we all have when
Speaker 1: they're together, it's just your whole mind. But each one
Speaker 1: of these has a unique way to train at unique
Speaker 1: tools to train. Right. Um, probably the most profound is
Speaker 1: what we've already talked about, box breathing. Right, So if
Speaker 1: everyone just started there, but you turned box breathing into
Speaker 1: a stacked practice. Stacked practices when you combine different elements
Speaker 1: of training into a singular training session. So if you
Speaker 1: did twenty minutes of box breathing. The way that I
Speaker 1: do it and I teach it to my advanced students
Speaker 1: is to start out just like I told you. Just
Speaker 1: start out just breathing, just following that pattern, and that
Speaker 1: calms your body and your brain down. It literally really
Speaker 1: slows down the brain waves into an alpha low bay
Speaker 1: to hi alpha state, which is conducive for for learning
Speaker 1: and and opening up to whole mine your heart and
Speaker 1: your biome. And then we um then we lock onto
Speaker 1: the box and we visual eyes the box, or we
Speaker 1: we insite a mantra, right, And so that then takes
Speaker 1: the training the breathwork into a concentration practice which deepens
Speaker 1: our ability to control our attention seals called the attention control.
Speaker 1: And so then we learn how to really focus. We
Speaker 1: learned how to declutter, We learned how to clear our mind,
Speaker 1: which is where you started and said that's hard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is hard, but you start with just calming the body.
Speaker 1: And then we start by focusing radically on just one
Speaker 1: thing without worrying about when your mind wanders off, you
Speaker 1: just bring it back when you recognize that. So that deepens,
Speaker 1: lengthens your ability to concentrate in terms of duration, and
Speaker 1: it gives you makes you less distractable, so you can
Speaker 1: hold your attention. And so that I would do that
Speaker 1: for the second five minutes. Then the third five minutes,
Speaker 1: I do the mindful awareness where I just release the
Speaker 1: gas pedal on the concentration, which means I'm not efforting
Speaker 1: as much, relaxing my effort. But I create a meta
Speaker 1: cognitive shift where I put my awareness in one side
Speaker 1: of my brain and my right hemisphere, and I pretend
Speaker 1: this is a little bit pretend, but you imagine that
Speaker 1: you're watching the thinker. So the left hemisphere of your
Speaker 1: brain is more the the strategic thinking mind with the
Speaker 1: right hemisphere is your contextual mind. And so you create
Speaker 1: this meta cognitive shift where you just start to watch
Speaker 1: passively the thoughts that arise in your mind. And this
Speaker 1: begins to give you the sense of I am not
Speaker 1: my thoughts, and yet I can observe my thoughts and
Speaker 1: emotions as they arise and fall, and so you you
Speaker 1: you gain great um separation from the whipp saws of
Speaker 1: your thoughts and the dramas. And it also creates that
Speaker 1: space so you can become non reactionary and instead pause
Speaker 1: and the seals we use the acronym p B T A.
Speaker 1: You pause, you breathe. That would be then you think,
Speaker 1: and thinking is like analyzing the quality of the thoughts
Speaker 1: and what's happening, and then you act as opposed to
Speaker 1: just acting. So that's the third scale and then the
Speaker 1: four skill. It's it's in two parts. One is to
Speaker 1: stop efforting whatsoever and to turn inward, meaning when I'm
Speaker 1: watching my thoughts, I'm literally still forward focused looking for thoughts.
Speaker 1: Turning inward means you literally turn your awareness around and
Speaker 1: you look for awareness itself, and over time you find
Speaker 1: that aspect of yourself that is just aware of being alive,
Speaker 1: beyond thoughts and emotion, even beyond space and time and
Speaker 1: um that practice right there is what I just described
Speaker 1: is like um holy grail for developing the whole mind thinking.
Speaker 1: And whole mind thinking, I think is essentially where we
Speaker 1: need to go as humanity because it connects the heart
Speaker 1: and the gut with the head, and we are allowed
Speaker 1: allows ourselves to use all of that thinking passive, even
Speaker 1: our our body and the energetic field around our body
Speaker 1: as part of our you know thing? Can you know? Being?
Speaker 1: Are thinking? Right? We just have so much more information
Speaker 1: to so many more tools available so we make better decisions. Wow.
Speaker 1: I will definitely take a lot away from this interview.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on my podcast and
Speaker 1: sharing your story and sharing all the amazing things that
Speaker 1: you know over the years. I promise right now I
Speaker 1: will definitely be trying to get into meditation after this.
Speaker 1: I feel very inspired. Thank you. There is no try.
Speaker 1: That's what Yoda said, do not period. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I hope I get to chat to you soon in
Speaker 1: the future at some point. If you ever want to
Speaker 1: come back with more stories, You're always welcomed. I love
Speaker 1: to love too, and if anyone wants to know about
Speaker 1: that training, they just go to my personal website, Mark
Speaker 1: Divine dot com and will help you perfect. Great. Do
Speaker 1: you have social media that people can follow you on?
Speaker 1: I feel like that's really what Instagram is at Real
Speaker 1: Mark Divine. Facebook's at Real Mark Divine. Twitter is Mark Divine,
Speaker 1: So do I v I I need you to can
Speaker 1: google that. But thank you so much, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: thank you. It's nice to meet you. Good luck for everything,
Speaker 1: nice to meet you to thank you you as well.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Hi