Mark Divine, How to Achieve Peak Performance in Business and in Life – InnovaBuzz 383

Mark Divine, SEALFIT and The Unbeatable Mind

In this episode, I’m really excited to have as my guest, Mark Divine. Mark is the founder and leader of several highly successful enterprises including SEALFIT (Physical and mental training), Unbeatable Mind, LLC (Executive Mastery Development), NavySEALs.com, and USCrossFit. He also co-founded the Coronado Brewing Company in Coronado, CA.

Mark is an expert in human performance as it is displayed in mental toughness, leadership, and physical readiness. His work is based on an integral warrior-leader model that he developed and tested on over a thousand special operations candidates worldwide. The integrated training, which involves physical, mental, emotional, intuitional, and spiritual training, has resulted in over a 90% success rate for the Spec Ops candidates. It is now taught to executives and corporate teams, tops sports teams, top athletes, professionals, first responders and warriors from all walks of life.

Mark’s other professional experience includes 20 years as a Navy SEAL officer, retiring as a Commander in 2011. Also 4 years as a CPA with PriceWaterhouseCoopers prior to his joining the Navy. He served as Adjunct Professor of Leadership at the University of San Diego and has authored four books: “The Way of the SEAL”, “8 Weeks to SEALFIT”, “Kokoro Yoga”, “Unbeatable Mind” and the “SEALFIT Training Guide.”

In our discussion, Mark talked to me about:

• How we can call up peak performance as an “on-demand” state
• Being radically service and mission focused
• Building relationships with transformation, rather than transaction

Chad Cooper in episode 318 introduced us to Mark.

Listen to the podcast to find out more.

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Show Notes from this episode with Mark of Divine of SEALFIT and The Unbeatable Mind

Key points and takeaways from this episode include:

• Navy SEALS training is designed to facilitate elite individual and team performance.
• Meditation is not simple work. To do it well takes practice and discipline. You have to do it every day.
• Content is our thoughts and emotions. Context is the feeling of where those thoughts and emotions are coming from that enables us to recognise patterns.
• Once you know what you don’t like, what you don’t want, and what you aren’t meant for, it opens up possibilities for what you are really meant for and what you do like.
• Meditation, concentration, mindfulness, journaling, contemplation, and visualisation are all tools that can serve to really help us tap into our unlimited potential and maintain peak performance as an on-demand thing.
• Connecting with others at a deeper level enables you to unlock the full potential of your team, as well as serve and impact the world in a more powerful way that is uniquely yours. 
• You have to have a powerful WHY behind your actions that is driven by a need to make an impact in the world. You need to be clear about your capabilities, your worthiness, and what you need to do to make an impact.

• The Four Domains of Peak Performance:
  1. Field of potential – you can 20x your potential by connecting to your higher self and disassociating yourself from false-self stories. You can create an entirely new story for your life that is 20x more powerful, and one that you truly believe in, which includes a vision of your future.
  2. The realm of performance – caring for the body through exercise, effective movement, breathing properly, good sleep, and recovery, as well as spending time in nature and with other human beings. All these things are foundational. If your body is out of balance, your brain is also out of balance. There is no way you can achieve peak performance if you don’t take care of all these things.
  3. Connection – Nothing brilliant is ever created alone. If you want to 20x your impact, you have to do it through a team.
  4. Being of service and mission-focused – You have to train your ability to focus on the one right thing at the right time. This radical focus when combined with a bigger vision for how you can impact the world, leads to a serious commitment, that is your WHY. If you have a massive WHY behind your vision and you’re starting with that WHY to fuel up your vision, you can move mountains.

• Stop leading from a place of ego. If you want to be a leader and inspire a team, you have to stop thinking that you are always right and that your vision is what everyone needs to align with.
• It is all about the team. Step out of your ego and merge with your team as a team mate. The vision and mission should be about the team. Every information should be shared with the team.

• The Four Big Skills to Ensure Peak Performance:
  1. Breath control – practice boxed breathing every day. It allows you to bleed off all the stress that you build up throughout your life and completely balance your body and brain. 
  2. Attention control – the ability to curate the quality of your thinking with razor-sharp refinement. Eradicate any negative thoughts in your head as they start arising and lead them to something that is positive and productive for where you are going. 
  3. Imagery – envision yourself as an absolute winner and at your peak performance every day. 
  4. Micro-goals – focus on one thing at a time and nothing else. Be clear about what you need to focus on and chunk it down to the smallest possible task that you can do.

• People crave deeper connections where there is real transformation and not just a transaction. 
• A team has far more capacity to perform and get things done than any individual who is transactional and is just taking care of his own needs. 
• With a team, the mission always comes first, your teammates come second, and you come third. You have to organise things in that order where your needs are not the most important things. Take care of your teammates first before taking care of your needs. 
• There are two wolves that vie for your attention, the wolf of fear that resides in your head and the wolf of courage that resides in your heart. The wolf that you feed the most will win. Feeding your fear leads to the wolf of fear dominating you and the only way to overcome that is to stare down that wolf and say NO. Feed the wolf of courage with positive dialogues. Overcome your fear and open up your heart through compassionate communication, meditation, caring about others and the environment, and having a service mindset. 

The Buzz – Our Innovation Round

Here are Mark’s answers to the questions of our innovation round. Listen to the conversation to get the full scoop.

1. #1 thing to be more innovative – Deep diaphragmatic breathing (boxed breathing). It opens up your content and contextual mind that needs to work together in order for you to become innovative. The whole notion of creativity is to use your whole thinking and the door to that is breath work. Breath is the bridge between the body, mind, and spirit.
2. Best thing for new ideas – Reading and writing.
3. Favourite tool for innovation – Boxed breathing and reading perennial tradition books.
4. Keep project/client on track – Meet them where they’re at by actively listening to them and asking really good questions. Constantly bring them back to their most important target. Help them simplify the clutter in their minds by always going to back to the basics and focus on the things they need to work on.
5. Differentiate – Get over yourself and focus on other people. Everyone is trying to be seen. If you turn that around and start seeing other people, that is when you can really stand out.

To Be a Leader

Start a daily practice of boxed breathing. It will change your life.

Reach Out

You can reach out and thank Mark through his website. 

Suggested Guest

Mark suggested we have a conversation with Brian Johnson, Author of A Philosopher’s Notes. So Brian, keep an eye on your inbox for an invitation from us to the InnovaBuzz podcast, courtesy of Mark Divine.

Links

• Website – Mark Divine
• Website  – SEALFIT
• Website – The Unbeatable Mind
• Podcast
• YouTube
• Twitter – @MarkDivine
• Linkedin
• Facebook
• Instagram

Books

• Staring Down the Wolf: 7 Leadership Commitments That Forge Elite Teams
• Unbeatable Mind: Forge Resiliency and Mental Toughness to Succeed at an Elite Level
• The Way of the SEAL: Think like an Elite Warrior to Lead and Succeed
• 8 Weeks to SEALFIT: A Navy SEAL’s Guide to Unconventional Training for Physical and Mental Toughness

Cool Things About Mark

• He graduated as Honor Man (#1-ranked trainee) of SEAL BUD/S class number 170.
• He’s a black belt in Seido Karate and Goju Ryu Karate.
• He’s a certified Ashtanga Yoga Teacher.

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