The Art of Manliness - The 5 Mountains of Personal Development

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.380 The journey of personal development of becoming a more excellent and extraordinary individual

00:00:15.620 can sometimes seem a little abstract. That's why it's helpful to imagine as Mark Devine does,

00:00:20.720 as a set of five metaphorical mounds to scale. Mark is a retired Navy SEAL commander,

00:00:25.320 a professor of leadership, a yogi, the creator of fitness and mindset programs like SEAL Fit and

00:00:30.520 Unbeatable Mind, and an author. He combines his two decades of military service with his study

00:00:35.320 of martial arts and Zen meditation to create the holistic warrior monk development philosophy

00:00:39.700 that informs his work, including his latest book, Uncommon, Simple Principles for an Extraordinary

00:00:45.020 Life. Today on the show, Mark acts as a guide to the topography of the five mounds of personal

00:00:49.840 development and the daily practices that will help you summit them. We talk about why mastering

00:00:54.240 the physical mountain comes first and climbing the intuitional mountain comes fourth, the Navy

00:00:58.620 SEAL breathing practice that will help you develop your metacognition, how the Japanese concept of

00:01:02.760 ikigai can help you find your purpose in life, and much more. After the show is over, check out our

00:01:07.260 show notes at awim.is slash five mountains. All right, Mark Devine, welcome back to the show.

00:01:22.920 So, Brett's super stoked to be on The Art of Manliness.

00:01:26.800 Well, yeah, the last time we had you on was over 10 years ago.

00:01:29.620 Right.

00:01:30.240 It's been a while.

00:01:31.260 A lot's happened in 10 years, huh?

00:01:32.600 A lot has happened in 10 years, and I want to catch up with what you've been doing.

00:01:35.940 So, you got a new book out called Uncommon. What's your aim with this book? Like, what are

00:01:39.780 you trying to do with this book, and how does it pick up where you left off with some of your other

00:01:44.060 things you've written about, like the way of the SEAL and things like that?

00:01:47.380 Yeah, so really, it's kind of a sequel to Unbeatable Mind. Unbeatable Mind is kind of

00:01:53.120 the whole training philosophy, more like a personal memoir, but it introduced the whole

00:01:58.180 integrated, vertical, accelerated development that I've been now teaching since 2006, starting

00:02:03.500 with SEAL Fit and then Unbeatable Mind, the program. And in there, in that program, I kind

00:02:08.480 of lay out how, first of all, we have the potential to become self-evolutionary, meaning we can take

00:02:15.280 control of our growth, and we can accelerate it if we do certain things. And that the idea of kind

00:02:21.040 of that self-mastery, that personal mastery, is actually really important and motivating. And

00:02:25.760 I found it through, obviously, martial arts and being a Navy SEAL and through Zen and meditation,

00:02:31.780 but there's many different paths to that. But in Unbeatable Mind, I laid out the whole philosophy,

00:02:38.020 and I introduced this idea of the five mountains, which are the five developmental areas that we

00:02:42.560 really need to take control of and then begin to access greater capacity. But we do it in a way

00:02:48.460 that is integrated, meaning it's like the typical Westerner is taught that the body is something you

00:02:54.380 drag to the gym, and it's just about health or looking good in a bathing suit or bodybuilding.

00:02:58.880 And the mind, well, that's really just what it is. And it's really a function of the brain. And we

00:03:04.480 have education, and we have certificates and podcasts, but that's the extent of mind training.

00:03:09.200 And the emotions, forget about it. Most guys don't even go there. But emotional development

00:03:13.560 is something that happens when you break down. Intuition isn't even talked about. And spiritual

00:03:18.300 life is really about your beliefs. And all these are kind of like separate aspects of your life.

00:03:23.540 They're not brought together into an integrated whole. So the experience of the typical Westerner 0.99

00:03:28.060 is common, and it's one of kind of separation. You're separated from yourself, you're separated from

00:03:33.300 others. These different aspects of yourself, which I call the five mountains, physical,

00:03:36.520 mental, emotional, intuitional, and spiritual, are also separate. And inevitably, that leads to

00:03:42.140 suboptimal performance. It leads to burnout. It leads to that quiet life of desperation that

00:03:47.800 Thoreau talks about, because you're not tapping into your full potential and living a life of purpose.

00:03:52.940 Okay. So this is all about holistic personal development. Because I think you're right. I think

00:03:56.520 a lot of times when particularly guys in the West approach self-improvement, they just think,

00:04:00.980 well, I'm going to get fit. And they might do really well there. They're working out every day,

00:04:06.600 increasing their PRs, but other areas of their life are suffering as a consequence of that.

00:04:12.340 That's right. It's one-dimensional. And they say, well, I'm going to be fit. And then, of course,

00:04:16.800 there's tons and tons of folks out there, especially like my Navy SEAL peers are saying,

00:04:21.020 be hard, right? Just be hard. Go harder. Suck it up, buttercup. And there's times to be hard,

00:04:28.920 but there's times to be soft, right? You have to have that balance of the yin and the yang,

00:04:33.220 the hard and the soft. And yet the soft isn't taught. And most guys are like, eh, that's going

00:04:39.080 to make me weak. Uh-uh. Like when I used to train Navy SEAL candidates, which we still do, but I had a

00:04:46.420 training center in Encinitas for 10 years and we trained them every day. We used to talk about,

00:04:50.720 you know, if the tsunami comes, which is every day in Bud's SEAL training, would you rather be

00:04:54.820 the mighty oak or the reed? And they're like, well, you know, some would say the mighty oak.

00:05:00.000 And I said, no, the mighty oak is going to get washed away by the tsunami, but the reed is just

00:05:03.360 going to lay down and then bounce right back up. It's resilient. So the point we would teach him is

00:05:07.460 that neither one is right or wrong. You want to develop both. You want to be the mighty oak when you need

00:05:12.340 to be in the reed when you need to be. And in order to do that, you need to develop

00:05:16.000 both aspects, the hard and the soft, the yin and the yang. And the soft is found in the inner

00:05:21.940 domain. So the physical mountain, you can develop the oak, develop your body to be strong and

00:05:26.280 resilient, but you also have to develop that flexibility and the durability through exercises

00:05:31.100 like yoga and, you know, core development and that type of stuff. It's, you know, you know,

00:05:35.680 you need to do, but most people don't do it. But then the real soft side is found through the

00:05:39.880 mental, emotional, intuitive, and spiritual development where you're really tapping into, you know,

00:05:44.540 the inner power and insight and the sense of knowingness of when to kind of lay down your

00:05:50.700 sword and, you know, lay down and let the tsunami wash over you so you can jump back into the fight.

00:05:58.040 So you mentioned there, you have spent your career post-serving in the SEALs. Training would-be

00:06:04.700 Navy SEALs to get ready for buds, but you've also shifted to other types of personal development

00:06:10.320 coaching. Right. I'm curious in your experience with working with individuals who say they want

00:06:16.780 to make a change in their life, they want to improve themselves, but don't. Like, what have you

00:06:22.180 found? Like, what keeps people from making those changes they say they want in their lives?

00:06:27.140 There's a lot of obstacles. Fear, right, is one. So there's this desire, but then there is this fear

00:06:34.380 of failure. There's fear of change. There's a fear of the unknown. And you can even take it deeper

00:06:41.020 that there's these underlying condition patterns that are fear-based or negative-based that keep

00:06:47.160 coming up and tend to torpedo your efforts. So there's so many people, and you've seen this,

00:06:52.940 I'm sure, with your programs. You know, people will start and they'll be all gung-ho, but then

00:06:57.100 they meet an obstacle. And there's always obstacles out there, right? But they haven't learned that the

00:07:03.300 obstacle is the way, as Ryan Holiday would say. And so when that obstacle comes and they feel some

00:07:07.620 shame come up or some guilt that they screwed up, or they feel some judgment from others, they

00:07:12.540 immediately activate this kind of shame-based, fear-conditioned thinking. And they say, well,

00:07:18.580 I'm not worthy for this, or I'm not good enough, or this isn't for me, right? This program isn't right

00:07:23.300 for me. And then they quit. And then the energy of like, oh, but I want to improve comes back up.

00:07:28.400 And so they look for the next shiny thing. They go to another program, and then they repeat this

00:07:32.800 pattern over and over. And so people bounce around from program to program, and then they

00:07:36.780 torpedo themselves because of this underlying, unaddressed shadow self side, which is also the

00:07:42.960 work of the emotional mountain in the book. That's one of the major obstacles. The other one is people

00:07:47.900 lack patience in our society that we've been taught that everything is supposed to be easy and quick.

00:07:55.380 And as you know, and most of your listeners know that when it comes to development,

00:07:59.420 patience is the virtue. And especially when it comes to the development of the inner domain,

00:08:05.120 it's not like tracking your deadlifts. You know what I mean? You can't really point toward the

00:08:09.920 development until after it's happened. And you maybe have some evidence from someone like your

00:08:14.240 wife or your significant other coming to you and say, man, something's really different.

00:08:17.360 And you're like, oh, really? I guess you're right. It's very subtle until it's not,

00:08:22.540 right? And so people start meditating, or they start a breath practice, or whatever it is,

00:08:27.360 and they get into it. And maybe they get healthier because we've got a physical health component,

00:08:32.440 fitness, et cetera. But the inner domain stuff, it's just hard to see. And so then they develop

00:08:37.780 this sense of uncertainty, like they doubt the program really works. And so when they start

00:08:42.480 doubting, then they stop adhering to the discipline daily practice. And then they have evidence,

00:08:47.820 they begin to see evidence that it doesn't work because the real juice in any developmental program

00:08:53.480 is doing daily work. This even relates to physical development. It would be useless to go to the

00:08:59.800 gym once a week and do all your weight training in two hours once a week. I mean, it would have some

00:09:05.340 benefits, but you're likely to get injured. You're not going to make that much progress.

00:09:09.120 Same thing with the work of mental, emotional, intuitive, and spiritual development. It's a daily

00:09:14.140 practice. And you can build it in different parts of your day, morning ritual, evening ritual,

00:09:18.640 and then kind of throughout your day, even the way you train physically can become an integrated

00:09:22.920 practice. And so people will think, well, I'm going to do all that work on the weekend. And it

00:09:28.460 doesn't work that way. So they lose faith, so to speak, that it works because they're not doing the

00:09:34.240 work. Those are some of the key obstacles. Yeah. So fear, the lack of patience. We also talk about

00:09:40.300 other things. It's just people have reasons like, well, I can't make the change I want because I just

00:09:45.760 don't have the time or I don't have the money. But you talk about, look, self-improvement are

00:09:50.800 these things you want to do to improve yourself. It's nothing fancy. You can do this in just 30

00:09:56.240 minutes a day. It doesn't take that long. And I know when people say, oh, I just don't have the

00:10:00.620 time to work out or I don't have the time to do this sort of personal work, whether it's managing

00:10:05.120 my stress. And I just like, man, you don't have the time to not take the time. I agree with that.

00:10:09.840 Right. Because eventually it's going to bite you. And eventually you're going to have to stop

00:10:12.520 and you're going to have to take care of the situation, whether you have a health scare

00:10:16.920 and you're going to spend time at the hospital or just time at the doctor office, or you have some

00:10:23.040 sort of marital problem because you didn't take the time to get your anger under control. You're 0.98

00:10:28.860 going to be spending a lot of time. So eventually you're going to have to pay the fiddler, might as

00:10:32.720 well pay it on your terms instead of fate's terms. Yeah. Those, those two obstacles are, are

00:10:37.580 nonsensical time and money. First of all, the most profound practices are free.

00:10:41.980 Like I have never, I've seen someone charge for breath training, but breath practice is

00:10:46.860 free and you can learn it from a free video and the breath, you know, doing breath practice

00:10:51.420 like our box breathing training every day is a profound practice that crosses all five

00:10:55.960 mountains and will integrate you just if that's all you did, that would be enough as if you

00:11:00.020 did it every day with awareness for 20 to 30 minutes. You don't need a gym. You know,

00:11:04.320 I'm a big proponent of austere training, working outside, working with a team, working

00:11:08.260 with cool tools that fit in the trunk of your car, like sandbags and weight vests.

00:11:12.500 And so physical training is free, except for the cost of maybe a couple of tools and pair

00:11:16.360 of shorts and water bottle. You don't need a fancy gym membership. You don't need a yoga

00:11:20.780 studio membership, any of that stuff because all the, you just need a few tools, simple,

00:11:25.280 the better. And then you just need to do them every day. And meditation is free.

00:11:29.140 And then back to the time, like you said, you know, you've got 30 minutes when you wake up in

00:11:34.580 the morning because you're filling this 30 minutes with something. And generally speaking,

00:11:38.200 it's not going to be conducive to your growth, right? You wake up and you immediately start

00:11:43.160 engaging, you know, obsessive thinking, you're checking your email or you're reading the news.

00:11:47.840 None of that's really going to lead you where you want to go. So, so all you got to do is just take

00:11:52.760 that 30 minutes, which you're doing something else unproductive and just shift and ritualize a very

00:11:58.440 productive morning routine, morning ritual. And that alone could be a game changer.

00:12:02.280 Well, let's talk about these metaphorical mountains that you've developed for personal

00:12:07.500 development. And the first mountain is physicality, which is all about our physical health.

00:12:12.240 Why did you start there?

00:12:14.520 Well, my experience, and I'm a lifetime martial artist and also obviously, you know, a Navy seal

00:12:19.920 and also a yogi, the physical body. So first of all, the body and the mind are not separate.

00:12:26.460 So when you're training the body, you're training your mind. And so you're already beginning to work

00:12:30.820 on the mental mountain. And we know that like all of those of us who are involved in competitive

00:12:35.280 sports and endurance athletics, like there's a definite aspect of it that is training your mind

00:12:41.040 for concentration, for attention, for awareness, situational awareness, for even opening up the

00:12:47.600 heart mind, especially with team sports, especially in the seals, you know, that really had a profound

00:12:51.840 effect on me to open up my heart and to really learn different ways to love human beings.

00:12:56.280 You know, the idea of laying your life down for your teammates is just an act of supreme

00:13:02.240 love. So physical development is training your mind. Let's start there. Now, secondly,

00:13:07.660 if you're physically unhealthy or diseased or drugged up, then your brain, which is part of

00:13:14.280 your body is physically unhealthy and is going to be suboptimal. So if we want to do mental development

00:13:20.940 work and emotional development and intuitive, if we want to evolve and grow, we've got to start

00:13:25.820 with the body and get the body really healthy because of the body healthy, the brain's going

00:13:30.060 to be healthy, the brain's healthy, the mind's going to be healthy, and you're going to have

00:13:33.400 the capacity to do the work on the other mountains. At a very simplest level, you'll be less distracted

00:13:40.380 and distractible. You'll be able to sit comfortably in meditation or mindfulness or box breathing

00:13:46.140 without agitation, without the discomfort. You're going to have more clarity because of the

00:13:52.280 electrochemical balance in your body, your homeostatic balance, and all the stress will have been bled

00:13:57.940 off through the physical training. And also at a very practical level, some of those obstacles we

00:14:03.900 talked about, another obstacle is that your body is not healthy or you're injured. And that becomes

00:14:09.920 a real big distraction for you, which captures your mind. And so you're not thinking about meditation

00:14:15.520 and yoga if you're injured or if you're sick, right? And so I think this is really important because

00:14:22.000 our, again, our culture is, is working against us in most of these areas, right? It's working against

00:14:27.600 us in health. The typical sad American diet, standard American diet is an unhealthy diet, right? So you

00:14:33.180 don't want to prescribe to that. Most of the food that's sold barcoded and packaged is unhealthy for

00:14:37.640 us. So we want to get back to like really simple principle-based fueling our body, eating when we're

00:14:45.720 hungry, learning to fast and intermittent fast, eating really close to the earth foods, whole foods

00:14:50.640 and high quality foods. And also, you know, learn to move your body every day, both through different

00:14:56.580 forms of exercise and somatic practices and get out in nature. Like I said, be outside every day because

00:15:02.940 we're not separate from nature. We need to be in nature and there's profound motivation and mood

00:15:09.200 and both emotional and physical benefits for being outside. We want to have a community of practice

00:15:13.740 training with a team of people who are dedicated to our success and not trying to beat us all the

00:15:18.180 time. So, you know, those are some of the things that we do to get healthy. It's simple. You don't

00:15:23.420 have to overcomplicate it. Even when it comes to physical training, everything you need is really free.

00:15:28.460 You can get some tremendous workouts, programs, even chat GPT will gin them up for you. The point

00:15:33.900 is just to get out and do it and to be consistent with your practice, figure it out, you know, and

00:15:39.200 make it as important, you know, the physical training and these exercise, you know, the nutrition

00:15:43.420 make that all like a practice for optimizing the bodies and the brains so that you can really go

00:15:50.680 deeper and deeper to plumb the depths of the mental, emotional, intuitive and spiritual mountains

00:15:55.440 so that you can tap into this raw potential that you have. We, you know, in SEALFIT, we call it 20X.

00:16:00.520 You're capable of 20 times more than you think you are, but that capability is found on the inside.

00:16:04.940 It's found in your field of potential and you're hiding it from yourself through your distractions,

00:16:09.520 your addictions and through this outer focus and even through an unhealthy body.

00:16:13.660 I want to dig deeper on this idea of exercising, having a physical practice outside in nature and with

00:16:19.200 other people. You're really big on this. What does that look like? What do you do? And what are some

00:16:24.520 things that our listeners could do to incorporate this? Yeah. I mean, fun stuff like exercise should

00:16:31.160 feel like play, like it should be really joyful. So one way is that it's really joyful is variety.

00:16:36.620 I never do the same workout, rarely do the same workout twice. And if I do, it's because it's a

00:16:40.780 really effective one. It's fun. And I just like, okay, this is a staple. Many people work, train harder.

00:16:46.400 They think they need to train longer and you don't like I trained 20 minutes a day. I took 20 minutes of

00:16:51.740 physical of high intensity with weight training and also 20 minutes of yoga. And so 40 minutes is

00:16:58.860 pretty much all that I need. And the maintenance, you know, it's like a flywheel. All you do is just

00:17:03.380 spin it every day. And once your body gets up to that like ideal fitness, you don't need to put in

00:17:08.040 countless hours unless you're training for something specific like the seals or, you know, to do some

00:17:12.380 big event type thing. Then that's specific training. I'm talking about optimized performance,

00:17:17.300 generalized training. You know, I train outside every day unless it's like pouring rain, but even

00:17:22.760 if it's light rain, it just feels really good. And I train with a team. Right now my team is my wife,

00:17:27.480 but I've always trained with a team, you know, starting with SEAL teams and then in my SEAL fit

00:17:31.240 program. And it just, there's something about it because you learn to take your eyes off yourself

00:17:35.960 and put it on your teammate and make sure that everything is safe and you're not trying to beat

00:17:40.540 them. A little healthy competition is good, but you know, it should be coopetition, you know,

00:17:45.060 it's not your ego. So training outdoors has a benefit emotionally. Like I said, it affects your

00:17:50.480 mood. There's something about being connected in nature that makes you feel connected to yourself

00:17:55.720 and it helps you develop more situational awareness and a feeling of connection, which then allows you

00:18:02.440 to be more connected to yourself and to others. So there's a deep emotional kind of spillover effect

00:18:07.780 there. And then training with a team or even a significant other has incredible emotional

00:18:13.580 amount and benefits. Like Sandy and I, my wife and I have been training together for several years

00:18:18.040 now. And I kind of, I wish we had done it way sooner. And what an incredible experience it's

00:18:23.000 been for our relationship. And I say a couple of the trains together flourishes together. So by

00:18:28.920 training together, again, you're moving away from this just being a physical exercise by taking it

00:18:34.160 outside. Now it is a mental and emotional and even a spiritual kind of developmental practice

00:18:39.660 and simplicity, right? As I said, lots of variety, but simplicity. I mean, the tools that I use, I still

00:18:46.040 use a barbell here and there, but mostly it's sandbag, kettlebell, weight vest, a lot of body weight. I

00:18:52.940 still have a rowing machine, so that's good only because I don't love running anymore much. I've done

00:18:58.340 a lot of running in my life, so it doesn't serve me anymore. But I do a lot of rucking and rowing and

00:19:04.000 we put it all together. You know, every day I was like, okay, what does the body need? Oh, okay. So we're going to do

00:19:08.260 four rounds. We'll do 500 meter row, 10 bench wrists, you know, 20 kettlebell swings, 30 sit-ups,

00:19:14.900 and we'll do that. We'll do, you know, four rounds of that or five rounds of that. It takes

00:19:19.220 for 20 minutes and it's a phenomenal workout. You know, stuff like that. You know, go to a park,

00:19:23.580 take your weight vest into the wilderness, take your sandbag. So there's some of the principles.

00:19:27.880 Be simple, get outside, make it fun, play, do it with other people, but do it every day.

00:19:33.500 Yeah. No, if listeners who are wanting to find something like that, have you heard of

00:19:38.900 F3 Nation? I have, yes. Yeah, so we've had the guys who started it on the podcast a while back

00:19:44.980 ago, but for those who aren't familiar, it's all around the world. There's these boot camps,

00:19:50.020 they're free to go, they're geared towards men, they're in the morning, usually before work,

00:19:55.660 we're at like 536, and they have like these free body weight boot camps outside with other guys.

00:20:03.980 So if you're looking for that, I like the idea of fitness where it's holistic, where you're trying

00:20:08.220 to also not only nurture the body, but also the soul by being outside and with other people,

00:20:13.660 check out f3nation.com. You can find a location near you, because I'm sure there is one.

00:20:18.380 That's killer. Yeah. We're going to take a quick break for a word from our sponsors.

00:20:22.840 Yeah.

00:20:25.660 And now back to the show. Let's talk about that second mountain, and that's the mental

00:20:31.820 mountain. And this is all about developing what you call metacognition. For those who aren't

00:20:37.520 familiar with this idea, what is metacognition? Sure. Well, that's like the first step in the

00:20:42.940 mental mountain. Metacognition is the capacity to think about your thinking, which requires you

00:20:48.100 develop the capacity to be able to watch your thinking, to be able to look at it. So the basic

00:20:54.800 level of metacognition is like journaling where you're like, okay, what was my thought process

00:20:59.280 there? And was it effective? What were the results? What could I have done different? It's like a

00:21:04.240 personal debrief, but you're thinking about your thinking. And a lot of people do that and they do

00:21:08.260 it well. But the mental mountain training for us is to develop the capacity to do that in real time.

00:21:13.940 And I call that simultaneous mind, where you're cultivating your witnessing capacity,

00:21:19.420 your contextual awareness, where you can begin to experience your thoughts, emotions, and things

00:21:26.220 that are happening to you as if from a distance. Like you've partitioned the hard drive of your mind

00:21:30.840 and you set up as the watcher. I call it the sentinel in my book, The Way of the Seal. And you're

00:21:35.400 looking across to the left hemisphere of your mind, which is the content awareness. And you're actually

00:21:39.940 able to see your thoughts coming and going. But there's a space between them, which gives you your

00:21:44.680 power back. Because instead of just being merged with your thinking in a reactionary mode, you now

00:21:50.420 have this space to be able to observe that thought and to orient yourself to it like the OODA loop and

00:21:56.400 say, do I want to jump on board the bandwagon or do I want to just let that one go? And then you

00:22:01.680 choose wisely. And so this is the beginning of development of discernment and wisdom. And so the path to get

00:22:07.480 there is through training your mind really to narrow its focus. So that's attention control

00:22:13.740 and concentration training. And we use the box breathing practice for that. So box breathing has

00:22:17.820 this first fundamental layer is arousal control, you know, bleeding off stress, triggering the

00:22:23.160 parasympathetic nervous system, all that kind of benefits that come from that deep diaphragmatic

00:22:26.340 breathing. But because you're breathing in that box pattern and you're counting the reps,

00:22:30.660 counting the, you know, the, you know, five seconds in, five seconds hold, five seconds out,

00:22:34.480 five seconds old, or you're holding your attention there and you're able to hold your attention on

00:22:38.880 that pattern for longer and longer periods of time. And that develops concentration. So you have

00:22:43.020 arousal control, attention control and concentration. So what this does is it gathers up the energy of a

00:22:47.200 mind that has been conditioned to be very distracted. You know, that kind of bouncing ball thinking

00:22:51.840 pattern, that monkey mind that they talk about in the Eastern traditions. And so you're, you're able to

00:22:57.560 begin to focus your energy more. And then when you begin to work on this witnessing awareness,

00:23:03.360 it'll happen automatically, but we try to spur it on to facilitate it's happening quicker through our

00:23:09.140 practices at Unveal Mind. And so that, what we have you do is kind of set up that watcher

00:23:13.760 metaphorically in your mind, like we simulate it. And the more you do that, the more that simulations

00:23:21.000 kind of dissolves and it becomes a real experience of witnessing. And first it's intermittent,

00:23:27.400 like you have to practice it and then you kind of slide back into merge with your thoughts.

00:23:30.920 And then over time you then crack open a small space that stays there. It's permanent. And then

00:23:38.160 the practice basically widens that space, that space between you as the observer, the witness

00:23:43.060 and the thoughts that are happening. This is a profound practice. It's not, you know,

00:23:47.140 it has great benefits obviously for relationships because, you know, you have the ability to kind of

00:23:51.900 like intercept yourself when you go right into reactionary mode, when you get triggered,

00:23:56.240 has great benefit for dealing with any kind of crisis because you become the calm center in the

00:24:02.680 storm and you're able to navigate your team through it because you're non-reactionary.

00:24:06.900 And it's got great benefits in terms of overall peace of mind and contentment because you become

00:24:12.200 much less attached to the outcomes because you see those stories, those dramas of life, those things

00:24:16.840 that play out and you see, you begin to see that they play out over and over and over the same ones.

00:24:21.140 And you're like, Oh my God, look at that. I used to be just swept up in now that, and now I can see

00:24:26.140 it for what it is. And you can start to de-energize the negative patterns and, and replace it with,

00:24:31.920 you know, things that are positive and productive. And you become, life gets really simple and you

00:24:36.760 become very like aware of what to say no to and what to say yes to. And you stop like getting

00:24:43.340 tangled in things that you shouldn't be getting entangled in. So that's what the mental mountain is

00:24:48.060 about. It's not just packing more content into your head. It's actually moving away from

00:24:52.440 needing that content toward developing wisdom. Okay. So for this, the daily practice is that

00:24:58.320 box breathing, correct? That's going to help you start being able to harness your-

00:25:03.360 Right. Box breathing is the way in breath. Breath is the bridge between the body and the mind and the

00:25:07.920 spirit. So like I said, at a fundamental level, box breathing is a physiological practice. You are

00:25:12.820 slowing down your breathing. You're retraining yourself to breathe six breaths per minute,

00:25:16.840 which is five seconds in, five seconds out. Call that the tactical breath. And it brings great,

00:25:22.520 great physiological, psychological, emotional benefits and health benefits. But because you're

00:25:27.920 breathing that pattern, you're also training that attention control and concentration. So now

00:25:32.700 the box breathing is bridging between the physiological, the psychological, you're training the

00:25:37.000 mind. Then we layer on the box breathing. The way we teach it is like a stacked practice. So,

00:25:41.700 so now you're deliberately training the attention control and the concentration while you're doing the

00:25:45.820 breathing practice. And then you add in the mindful awareness witnessing. So there's like four things

00:25:51.660 now, arousal control, attention control, concentration, and witnessing. And that's developing that

00:25:55.820 metacognitive capability to be separate from the thoughts and emotions. At the end of our box breathing

00:26:01.600 practice, then we do a visualization practice. And so now we're training our mind's natural capacity to

00:26:07.960 imagine or fantasize. And we're getting rid of the fantasies. And we're using our imagination to create

00:26:13.680 a future reality in our mind that is based upon an emergent concept of who we are and why we're on

00:26:20.960 this plane, why we're on this planet, our calling. That's that spiritual mountain I talk about, that

00:26:26.020 sense of like, what is our purpose? Why are we here? What are we going to do about it? Then you create a

00:26:30.520 vision of that. And after your practice every morning, you evoke that vision and you add energy

00:26:35.940 to it. And so what you're doing there in a future state is you're creating a memory of your desired

00:26:40.460 future. It's very powerful. So instead of like worrying about the future or catastrophizing,

00:26:45.620 like you actually remember who you really are and why you're on this planet and what you're

00:26:50.180 supposed to do about it. And that becomes like a steady companion. It's always there for you to

00:26:54.540 remind you, especially in the stressful times. Okay. So you wake up, you could do the box breathing

00:26:58.980 for five minutes after the box breathing. 20 minutes, I recommend. 20 minutes. Yeah. I think you

00:27:03.780 said start off with five minutes, work your way up to 20 minutes. Right. Minimum of five minutes. You can

00:27:07.880 get a lot of the arousal control benefits. So a lot of people, Brett, they need to do this kind of in

00:27:13.080 sequence as opposed to like all in one practice because they're just not ready for it. They're

00:27:18.060 physically and mentally, they just need to focus on their health. You know, all the things we talked

00:27:22.540 about in the physical mountain and then just box breathe for five minutes for the arousal control

00:27:25.680 and just start bleeding off all that excess stress. Everyone's in hyper arousal in the West.

00:27:30.780 You know, we're overcommitted. We're stressed. We're rushing from here and there. The time

00:27:34.040 commitments are crazy. And all of that is mind generated fantasy that's causing an enormous

00:27:39.220 amount of stress. So the box breathing, it basically re-energizes the parasympathetic

00:27:45.820 pathway because it gets atrophied. You're always stuck in this sympathetic nervous system response

00:27:50.900 and you overcompensate with tons of coffee or alcohol or, you know, working out like a madman.

00:27:56.180 So we want to down regulate and that takes some time. Then as you extend those box breathing

00:28:01.340 sessions, that will allow you to exercise that focus and attention and concentration.

00:28:06.300 Right. Exactly. And so when you're ready, you extend the box breathing session to 10,

00:28:10.940 20 minutes. Then you turn it into attention control, concentration training. You work on

00:28:15.560 that for a while until your mind gets really, it's like sharpening that saw, you know, that's

00:28:19.460 your one sword cut that Musashi talks about. Just sharpen that saw until your mind is really

00:28:23.940 sharp, really focused, less distractible. You can hold your attention on the box pattern

00:28:28.300 without distraction for over 60, 70% of the time. Then you're ready to move on to the mindful

00:28:33.980 awareness, which is like setting up shop as the witness and beginning to cultivate the process of

00:28:40.220 separating from your thoughts. It may have already started happening because this, like I said earlier,

00:28:44.520 will naturally open up as part of this practice. But that's what happened to me with my Zen practice.

00:28:49.140 Zen practice was really a concentration practice. I started at 21, four years before I went in the

00:28:54.200 Seals. And as my mind became more and more sharp and able to concentrate, then quite naturally that

00:29:00.520 witnessing capacity began to open up. I can't explain exactly why, but I think that it's just

00:29:05.600 decreasing the clutter, you know, like the concept of no mind or, you know, taming the ego or taming

00:29:12.080 the monkey mind. It makes sense now because as you concentrate your energy into that one's thought

00:29:16.440 stream, just focusing on the box pattern, all those other thoughts that are distracting you that you

00:29:21.360 thought were so important that you thought were you, they begin to settle down and you realize it.

00:29:25.760 Wow. You're, you're still here. You're completely aware, but there's no thoughts in my field of

00:29:30.240 awareness, except for this pattern of breath. And then when you drop that off, you're like,

00:29:34.480 wow, I'm still here and I'm not even doing that. But then all of a sudden you're like, wait,

00:29:37.920 I'm thinking there's a thought, but then you're like, wait, that thought is happening. It's not who I am.

00:29:43.080 I'm this field of awareness. I am the ground of being, which this thought is arising.

00:29:47.000 It's a profound shift in your whole like mental makeup, which like I said, is like a turning

00:29:53.760 point in life. And then after that, you can do a visualization practice. And people might be hearing

00:29:58.180 this and be like, visualization sounds pretty hokey, but you use this as a, you were a collegiate

00:30:02.260 swimmer and use this as a seal too. Visualization is a crucial skill. You know, the body mind doesn't

00:30:09.320 really differentiate between things you visualize and things you participate in or see. And so it's the

00:30:14.940 only place where you can have perfect practice is in your mind's eye and it'll have a profound

00:30:18.740 benefit. So it's good to visualize important physical activities, you know, sporting events,

00:30:23.560 but we can also, if you're not involved in that, or even if you are, but it's important to note that

00:30:28.920 visualization can also be used for this idea of becoming who you really meant to be. So many of us

00:30:34.720 are living those lives of quiet desperation or we're trapped in these bodies where we're like, God,

00:30:38.120 I wish, I think I could be a lot healthier, better looking, lose this weight, be stronger. Yes,

00:30:43.940 you can, but you got to be able to see it first in your mind's eye. And it has to be the right

00:30:48.780 things too, Brett. You can't be fantastical about it, right? You're not going to just visualize

00:30:52.100 being Superman or superwoman and have it happen. It's got to be right for you.

00:30:56.600 I can see you doing a visualization practice for whenever you're in a situation where your kids

00:31:01.900 are just being crazy and they're just annoying you. And instead of doing your typical grumpy,

00:31:08.640 annoyed, tense dad routine, you visualize yourself being like, okay, how do I want to be in that

00:31:13.480 situation? Yes. Or this could be at work too, when you're in a high intense negotiation where

00:31:19.940 you're dealing with a difficult employee, visualize yourself, like how do I want to act in that

00:31:25.200 situation? Right. And you do that like the morning ritual, we call that winning in your mind before

00:31:30.680 you step foot in the battleground of your day. So you dirt dive the day. Dirt dive is a term we use

00:31:35.120 in the seals to like, we would mentally visualize and do all of our missions in our mind. And the dirt

00:31:41.780 dive came from the diving missions. Like we would literally visualize it and walk the dive. You're

00:31:46.540 spending four hours underwater. You're not coming up and peeking and taking bearings like you're

00:31:51.200 underwater. And so you got to know in your mind, you run the whole thing in your mind. Well, same

00:31:55.740 thing. You can dirt dive your day. Like you're talking about, you see yourself being present and

00:31:59.660 positive with your kids, not getting triggered and reactionary, not sitting in your phone, checking your

00:32:04.480 email. You visualize yourself being there for them. Same thing with your important meetings and

00:32:09.460 whatnot. And invariably those interactions go much smoother because your body mind has already

00:32:15.780 set the expectation that it's going to be a positive and productive situation. And the more you do that,

00:32:21.320 then the more those become like the new normal. But you can also visualize like this, like I'm saying

00:32:27.300 this future me, we call it the future self, sometimes future me, which is like a sometime in the

00:32:31.980 future. It doesn't really matter, but it's like, it's like the ideal version of yourself. Most people

00:32:37.160 never tap into this, but it's the ideal version of yourself. Your perfect health, perfectly fit,

00:32:41.620 radiating youthful vitality, and completely a hundred percent aligned with your purpose and

00:32:46.440 calling while you kind of came through this, you know, to this plane to like, to grow and to learn

00:32:51.360 and to evolve. And your loved ones are healthy and thriving around you. And whatever way you engage

00:32:57.960 with the world, whatever your mission is, is radically successful. And you evoke this image and

00:33:02.480 you add energy to it. So it's very similar to like, instead of dirt diving your day,

00:33:05.800 you're dirt diving your life. Oh, so that's the second mountain, the mental part of yourself.

00:33:11.000 The third mountain is the emotional mountain. And what's interesting, I think some of the

00:33:15.020 practices we've already talked about, the physicality and doing the box breathing and

00:33:19.440 getting your mental game, you know, on track, that can go a long way in helping you climb this

00:33:25.100 emotional mountain. Because as we've been talking about, our emotions are connected to our mind.

00:33:30.300 Because, you know, sometimes the emotions we experience are because of the thoughts we have.

00:33:34.120 We learned that from cognitive behavioral therapy. But then also our bodies can cause 0.81

00:33:40.060 our emotions to get out of whack. So just by exercising regularly, doing box breathing,

00:33:45.300 doing this sort of things, it can go a long way to help regulate our emotions. But what other

00:33:49.660 practices do you recommend people doing so they get a handle on their emotions? So their emotions

00:33:54.360 are, it's not about stifling emotions, because emotions is what drives us, but how we can guide

00:34:00.420 our emotions to take us to where we want to go.

00:34:03.960 Yes, that's great. So emotions and intuition are just different aspects of the mind. But,

00:34:09.900 you know, I felt it's helpful to kind of like parse them out, because there are different practices.

00:34:13.900 And there's different language around, especially the emotional mountain that you can benefit from,

00:34:18.780 like the field of therapy and psychology. So in the mental mountain, physical mental mountain,

00:34:24.100 we learn emotional control. And I think a lot of people think, a lot of guys especially think,

00:34:28.540 oh, yeah, I've developed that emotional control. I'm in control. And it's helpful to be in control,

00:34:35.480 so you don't torpedo certain situations, or you look weak in the middle of a crisis and those things.

00:34:40.660 And so that's great. It's a valuable skill. But it's part of it. It's kind of like the oak part.

00:34:45.180 Remember how I talked about the oak and the reed? You want to be strong in the face of a crisis.

00:34:50.660 But you don't want to be unaware of emotional patterns that are actually harming the team,

00:34:56.600 or harming you. And a lot of times when we'd stop at the physical and mental and we develop that

00:35:01.500 emotional control, then we think we're squared away, when in fact, you're the one that's actually

00:35:05.700 the limiting factor, because of some sort of pattern. And it could be really overt or could

00:35:09.880 be subtle. But the recurring pattern based upon some sort of childhood trauma, or some traumatic

00:35:14.780 event in your life, and it's unresolved. And at the time it happened, usually in early childhood,

00:35:21.280 these things happen, you know, you didn't have the skillful means to be able to process that

00:35:25.120 situation, the energy in a way that was like, you know, led to like forgiveness and to letting

00:35:31.700 the energy flow. And so the energy gets trapped. And the mind will associate certain feelings to

00:35:38.040 that as well as thoughts that get triggered when that emotional pattern gets triggered.

00:35:42.800 So these thoughts and emotions are really closely aligned because they're born from the same energy.

00:35:47.680 So for me, the emotional mountain work is really about developing the capacity to go back in your

00:35:53.180 history. We call it recapitulation and to go back and to re-engage those situations that cause the

00:36:02.640 pattern to begin with, to release that energy and to recontextualize it and to let go that you're

00:36:08.540 holding onto, to forgive yourself and forgive others. It takes a lot of courage. This is why,

00:36:13.440 again, a lot of, I kind of harp on men. You need to be doing this emotional work because otherwise

00:36:16.820 you're limiting yourself. You will get, you get stuck. You can have great strides in your physical and

00:36:21.200 mental, but then you get stuck because these patterns just keep coming back. It's like you're

00:36:25.820 dragging a whole bag of hand grenades behind you and they just are spilling out. And so this is what

00:36:31.420 my book, Staring Down the Wolf was. It's like, you got to stare down the fear wolf and release all

00:36:35.900 these negative patterns that you have. And it takes courage. But once you begin to experience the joy and

00:36:42.300 the release of letting go of some of that stuff, then it becomes very motivating. You're like, oh, this is

00:36:47.800 just part of my development. This is the next step of my development. It doesn't mean I'm a bad person

00:36:52.100 or I'm a weak person or I'm a, I'm mushy for doing this emotional work. It's just, this is actually

00:36:56.940 critical so that I can show up as a whole person. And I'm not the one that's the limiting factor on the

00:37:01.620 team. You know, oftentimes the leader is the one who lacks the trust and respect because they're trying

00:37:08.140 to show up as the one who has the answers and is perfect or is in charge. And, and everyone knows that

00:37:13.000 they're not perfect and they're not always in charge. They don't have all the answers, but when

00:37:17.280 they see the leader doesn't admit that to himself, then it shuts down the conversation.

00:37:21.420 So yeah, in the book you provide how to go through this recapitulation practice. So you can sort of

00:37:26.720 get out of that loop you're in. Journaling can be another tool in this. And I imagine if things are

00:37:31.720 really bad, like therapy, you might need to see a professional counselor to help you work.

00:37:35.440 Look at a therapist as a coach, right? You have a fitness coach. Oftentimes you'll get a nutrition

00:37:41.760 coach. You might even have a cognitive coach, like an executive coach who can help you think

00:37:46.260 about your thinking and makes better decisions. Why not have an emotional coach? And some of them

00:37:51.820 are very good. Okay. The fourth mountain is the intuitional mountain. I'm sure a lot of listeners,

00:37:58.100 typically our listeners are mostly guys. They go, intuition, what the heck is it? How do you define

00:38:03.460 intuition and what role did intuition play in your career as a SEAL? Extremely important role.

00:38:09.260 Intuition for me is knowing something without knowing how or why you know it. There's several

00:38:14.480 forms of it. First, we have that gut intuition. We now know that your gut, your biome, and the

00:38:20.360 enteric nervous system is part of your brain system. It has neurological processing. It's got neurons.

00:38:26.240 And so you are actually communicating with your biome with the millions of bugs down there.

00:38:31.420 And for some reason, they have access to information that your brain doesn't. And they're

00:38:35.820 trying to communicate that to you. The reason intuition mountain is fourth and not third or

00:38:40.080 second is it's generally not accessible to you if your body's out of shape and it's not healthy

00:38:45.660 because your mind is captured at the outer level of the dis-ease, that imbalance. And it's generally

00:38:53.340 not going to be accessible to you if your mind is racing around and completely distracted and you're

00:38:58.620 constantly absorbed in distractions. TV, you know, YouTube, email, text, this, that, and the other

00:39:04.400 thing. Too busy, right? So you're not going to be able to tap on your intuition. So you got to train

00:39:09.060 your mind to be less distractible and to do the things we talked about in the mental mind. And it's not

00:39:13.000 going to be accessible to you if you have all these emotional patterns that are like, you know,

00:39:18.560 klaxons screaming at you every day. So you got to do the emotional work to let go and bleed off and

00:39:25.460 to release that emotional energy, which is so loud, I guess, or the feeling sensations overwhelm

00:39:31.900 any kind of the subtle feelings that you need to be able to feel into or experience from the

00:39:37.340 intuitive mountain, from your gut and then from your heart. So by doing the work of the first three

00:39:41.880 mountains, your intuitive side actually kind of naturally opens up. But then there's things that

00:39:46.640 we can do to facilitate it, to speed up that process. One is to trust your gut, so to speak,

00:39:51.760 to trust your heart, to be able to listen carefully and quietly to the messages and then act on them,

00:39:58.360 to believe it, to not override it with your fear mind or your rational mind. Because most people

00:40:04.220 override it and then they don't trust it. In silence, back to our time in nature, everything we've talked

00:40:09.320 about has a spillover effect. Like the training we talked about in the first mountain, all will affect

00:40:13.980 all five mountains, as I mentioned. We have to just parse them out so that we are clear about what's

00:40:18.760 happening and then we can accelerate the journey by adding some training. But time and nature and

00:40:24.180 stillness really is probably the best thing for developing that intuitive insight. So you have

00:40:29.760 the gut. The gut's instinctual intelligence really is about avoiding danger or moving toward opportunity.

00:40:36.560 It's very kind of basic level survival. And it's experienced more as like a tug or a feeling in your

00:40:43.280 belly. Or anytime there's a danger, it's felt like a contraction. Or like I had an experience in the

00:40:49.780 SEALs where I was walking up to a firing range to do some shooting and I felt the word stop. I felt

00:40:56.860 into my gut and it almost felt like a hand on my shoulder. And I just stopped in my tracks. And the

00:41:02.580 instant I stopped, a teammate of mine had an accidental discharge behind me and the bullet like whizzed by

00:41:08.900 me. I felt the wind of the bullet by my right ear. If I had taken the next step, it would have gone in the

00:41:12.560 back of my head. So that was the gut's intuition saying, you know, stop or else we're all going to

00:41:18.300 die. Right? It's intense. The second source of intuition is your heart. So the heart also has

00:41:26.320 neurological processing capacity. It's got neurons. It's got an incredible range of experience. Like

00:41:32.040 the heart's energy can be experienced from across the room. Whereas the mind, the brain's energy is

00:41:36.660 trapped behind the cranium. And so it doesn't, you can't really feel the force of it outside. It doesn't

00:41:41.740 project well except through the eyes. So the heart, when you learn to open up and sit and rest with

00:41:47.080 your heart and to really feel into the heart, that's the source of real empathy. Like what other

00:41:53.000 human beings are feeling, even thinking. And then also what you're emitting, right? You get very

00:41:58.580 sensitive to the fact that if you're all agitated and you're closed down, then guess what? You're

00:42:03.280 setting the conditions with those around you for them to be agitated and also to feel your

00:42:07.980 closed downness. And so you're going to shut conversation down. So you listen to that and

00:42:12.800 you feel into that and you maintain an open heart and begin to really also sense what other people

00:42:18.200 are feeling and how they're doing. And so then you can attune to that. You begin to take their

00:42:22.300 perspective and ask better questions and maybe not push as hard or just really kind of be a better

00:42:28.780 leader, a better person. So that's that heart intuition, which is empathy, compassion, wisdom.

00:42:34.860 Then the third intuition is really does come from the brain and it comes through a process of

00:42:40.500 relaxing the mind to be opening up to what the yoga tradition calls direct perception, perceiving

00:42:46.620 information or knowingness that is beyond knowledge. So it's not content. It comes from this witnessing

00:42:53.260 awareness that we talked about earlier, where you suddenly just know something and you don't really have

00:42:58.540 any reason to know it or understanding how you know it, but you know it. And that's profound.

00:43:03.440 Like for me, that's why I think sitting in silence and these practices are the most important thing,

00:43:08.220 but we shouldn't waste time not doing it because all of my good ideas come from that direct perception

00:43:12.260 these days. That's where all the insights come from. So that intuition I call insight, seeing within.

00:43:17.640 It's so very important. Again, it's so hidden from most people because they just don't trust it.

00:43:21.420 They think it's woo-woo. But again, you're dealing with such a limited range of perceptual capacity.

00:43:28.140 By training, through training the mind, the emotions and your intuition, you can open that

00:43:32.760 aperture. So you begin to see and experience far more. You know, we already know the brain takes in

00:43:38.260 like vastly more information than it can process or is willing to process. Anything that is unusual or

00:43:45.260 can't be categorized, it literally just gets blocked or the gap just gets filled in. Most people wouldn't

00:43:50.540 believe it, but a lot of things that they see are just like painted in by the brain. It's not really

00:43:55.280 there. The Apache scouts knew this in their, in the way they would scout and track, you know,

00:44:00.240 like they would literally, they call the hiding in plain sight. They knew where to stand because

00:44:04.260 they knew that the Western mind, the way it was trained would look at that, take that information

00:44:08.220 in. And if they were standing next to the tree, they would just see the tree. Or if they're standing

00:44:12.320 looking like a rock, they would just see a rock, but they're actually looking at a human being.

00:44:15.900 But the mind just says, no, it's not a human being, it's a rock. And so it paints a rock there.

00:44:20.260 So that's incredible. So through this training and development process, you can open up your

00:44:27.060 aperture. So you're taking in and perceiving more information. And when you do that, it's

00:44:31.260 suddenly you're like, oh, I get it now. This is real. This is real. I've had, I had teammates and

00:44:37.080 myself who had profound experiences in the military and the SEALs, all of it in the realm of intuition,

00:44:42.240 like intuiting where IEDs were going to be planted or going off and being right about it most of the

00:44:49.200 time. Intuiting, you know, whether you're going to be safe or not. I have a master chief friend who

00:44:54.280 was at Moser for Reef, which they're trying to rescue the CIA guy named Nicky Spain. And he was

00:44:58.800 with a special forces team and they were pinned down. And this guy just had this intuitive hit that

00:45:03.140 it was his time. He needed to get up and, you know, basically take care of this himself. So here's

00:45:07.560 the SEAL just like gets up in the midst of this firefight and starts navigating and just taking

00:45:13.000 out the enemy left and right. And Lily fights his way into the compound, like destroys the enemy. 0.99

00:45:19.040 And he describes the experience as this incredible intuitive moment where time slowed down and he

00:45:25.100 could just see, literally see the bullets leaving the muzzles of the rifles. He can navigate around 0.97

00:45:30.800 them. He could see which targets were the ones right ones to take out. And everything happened in

00:45:35.560 this super slow motion. And that was all because he had developed this incredible intuitive capacity

00:45:40.580 to be able to perceive in this manner. Because, you know, the mind is really, it creates the

00:45:45.600 construct of time and space. The body experiences space, the mind experiences time. So as you develop

00:45:50.860 these skills and open up the aperture of your mind, then you have a different relationship to time and

00:45:56.000 space. So that's really what the intuitive mountain is all about. It's like getting yourself to where

00:46:00.940 your whole experience of life is much more ephemeral. You really start to move beyond just like hard

00:46:07.560 physical materialism to like, you start to experience the metaphysical and the psychic realms. And you

00:46:13.240 have these experiences that are just profound. And you see that, you know, it's always been that way.

00:46:18.720 You just kind of hid it from yourself.

00:46:21.040 Okay. To climb that intuition mountain, continue your meditative practices. The other important thing I got

00:46:26.860 from there, make time for silence. You don't have to constantly be consuming new information.

00:46:31.700 Just let yourself work with the stuff you already got. And then when you have one of those intuitive

00:46:36.500 moments, act on it.

00:46:38.720 Act on it. Trust it.

00:46:39.820 Trust it. Let's start with the final mountain, which is the spiritual mountain. And I liked how you

00:46:43.460 talked about this Japanese idea. I'm going to butcher how you say, Ikigai.

00:46:48.840 Ikigai.

00:46:49.560 Yeah. Tell us about Ikigai and how that can help us climb the spiritual mountain of our lives.

00:46:53.120 It's a profound idea. I've been teaching for years that you can uncover your purpose. I talked

00:46:59.160 about it as a calling earlier, but it's inside. It's like part of that heart intuition. It's the

00:47:04.300 primal urge that brought you into this place. It's not about a job or a career. It's about

00:47:10.240 this archetypal energy. So for me, it was warrior, now teacher, warrior leader and teacher, kind of the

00:47:15.480 dominant archetypal energies, which are my purpose. My purpose is here to fulfill that energy and to learn

00:47:21.100 and grow. So everyone has that. So we want to do these practices to be able to sit in silence,

00:47:27.980 be able to allow that to be revealed to us. That still quiet voice that you're like, oh yeah,

00:47:33.520 that's it. But then of course, it's not enough. Our world needs us. Our team, our family needs us.

00:47:39.300 So I'm not advocating that people become all like foo-foo spiritual and then suddenly become really

00:47:45.180 aloof away from the world or apart from the world or go to an ashram or a Zen monastery. 0.62

00:47:49.360 I mean, there are a select few who maybe that's right for, but no, for most of us,

00:47:54.140 like we need to be engaged in the world. So this is all about showing up as a whole person,

00:47:58.440 whole mind, not split mind. And to be able to show up in a way that is like in complete alignment,

00:48:04.980 like that future vision self I described, it's in complete alignment with your calling

00:48:08.680 and your hair is on fire because you're doing what you're passionate about. You're in alignment

00:48:12.260 with your principles. But then the question is, okay, so if I know all that, what am I going to do

00:48:16.820 about it? What's my mission? That's where Ikigai comes in because the model says, okay,

00:48:21.380 given all that stuff I just talked about, you know why you're on this planet, you know what

00:48:24.980 you're passionate about, you know what your principles are. Now, what does the world need

00:48:29.040 and how do your skills align with what the world needs? Great. That's another layer to think about

00:48:33.820 and reflect on in general. And then what can you get paid for, right? Because a lot of people

00:48:39.640 struggle with this when they're trying to work through transformation. They're like, yeah,

00:48:42.200 but I'm really passionate about, you know, gardening and being outside and everything,

00:48:45.980 but I don't, you know, there's no career there or I'm, I'm walking away from banking. I don't know

00:48:49.980 how I could do that. And so Ikigai kind of helps us with a model to like really align our calling with

00:48:57.400 meaningful work in the world in service. The whole idea of like, for me, spirituality,

00:49:03.240 the spiritual mind is not about religion or dogma. Again, it's about getting the mind to do a phase

00:49:09.760 shift away from just, you know, thinking with the ego, merge with your thoughts to suddenly being,

00:49:14.860 oh, I see that I'm actually spirit having a human existence. So the spiritual mountain for us is to

00:49:21.160 kind of deeply embody that idea of I'm spirit having this human existence and making sure that

00:49:26.400 the reason you came out of this planet, you're fulfilling, you're embodying it. You're fulfilling

00:49:31.280 it. You're not accruing any more negative karma. You're getting the lessons that you need. And in order

00:49:36.200 to get the lessons that you need, you need to be doing what you're meant to do or else you're going

00:49:39.720 to miss the boat. That was the whole purpose of the Bhagavad Gita's and the story of Arjuna and

00:49:44.400 Krishna. Arjuna was a warrior, but he didn't want to go fight his brothers and his cousins who were

00:49:49.700 the opposing force who were claiming the kingdom. And he was having a moment like, I don't want to

00:49:55.100 fight. And, you know, most people in our society will say, well, he's evolved, right? He's practicing

00:49:58.760 ahimsa or peace. But Krishna, who was his charioteer who represented God, you know, had a little

00:50:03.900 slap down with him and said, listen, Arjuna, you have to fight because that's your Dharma. That's why

00:50:09.600 you came into this world. And if you don't do it, then you're going to accrue negative karma and

00:50:14.400 you're going to bring great suffering to yourself. And you'll have to come back and repeat this whole

00:50:17.700 thing. So that fifth mountain spiritual mountain is all about living a life on purpose in service

00:50:25.080 in a way that only you are meant to do on this planet.

00:50:29.200 And so the practice for this is just taking time to actually think about those things. I think that's

00:50:33.840 hard for a lot of guys. They're just so busy with life, work, family. They don't make time for that.

00:50:38.540 Well, sit, sit with them is probably best. And then think about it. Yeah. If you're just thinking,

00:50:43.580 then you're using the wrong side of your brain, the wrong faculty. It's okay to do some thinking

00:50:48.200 and we start there, you know, with like, what is my archetype? And there's like the Enneagram and,

00:50:53.520 you know, Jungian archetypes. You can start looking at those. You can look at the arc of your life and

00:50:57.200 be like, oh yeah. You know, like in my early twenties, I was getting my MBA, CPA working as a,

00:51:02.820 you know, in public accounting finance. But while I was sitting on the, on that meditation bench

00:51:08.160 on the Zen bench, you know, after a year or so of training, I started to keep, get these feelings,

00:51:12.620 these sensations, these intuitive hits that I was meant to be a warrior. And so, so that created

00:51:17.360 this disconnect. Now with that information, I could start contemplating like, oh, that's interesting.

00:51:22.600 If I'm meant to be a warrior, why am I in finance? That's not a warriorly path. And so you start to ask

00:51:28.320 better questions, but it wouldn't have happened if I had just started thinking because I'd be wrapped up

00:51:32.900 in coulda, shoulda, wouldas, and judgment, you know, and what people are going to think if I do

00:51:37.320 something different. And I don't know what to do. It's different. So I think sitting in silence and

00:51:41.360 allowing the developing the capacity to be still, still of your thoughts, still of your emotions,

00:51:46.580 to be able to feel those intuitive messages of your, of your gut and your heart, especially in

00:51:51.620 this case. But you can't be quiet if you don't have the physical, mental, emotional, and intuitive

00:51:55.780 skills to be able to like sit in quiet and be able to listen to the messages that tell you,

00:52:00.440 this is my calling. And what will be revealed to you is this sense of how you're supposed to show

00:52:06.700 up in the world. So everything we've talked about really like the, it's hard to say, like there are

00:52:12.520 practices, like we have a practice in the spiritual mountain around like visualizing yourself at the

00:52:18.320 end of your life, writing your own epitaph from the perspective of a best friend, you know, looking

00:52:23.740 back at your life as if you're at the end and saying, well, how did I live? How did I do? And it could be

00:52:28.600 very revealing stuff like that. Also visualizing your future self, which I talked about first that

00:52:34.580 starts out kind of as a imagination, but eventually you start getting information again, from your

00:52:39.820 subconscious or from your intuitive realm that starts to fill in some holes and gaps and it just

00:52:45.120 begins to shift. So those are great practices. And then that, that metacognition and contemplation

00:52:50.180 about like where you think you need and want to be and what you're supposed to be doing based

00:52:55.520 upon your growing clarity of your purpose and principles and passions versus kind of what

00:53:01.320 you're doing right now and how you've lived in the past. And that, that can lead to some great

00:53:05.500 insights. Well, Mark, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn

00:53:08.960 more about the book and your work? The website readuncommon.com will still have, we've got some

00:53:13.500 cool bonuses. We've got some discounts on gear and supplements as well as a real cool journal.

00:53:20.100 And, and also I'm going to do a group training for folks who order from that site. So it's

00:53:25.400 readuncommon.com. People can find, find me at my website, markdivine.com or email me at info

00:53:31.280 at markdivine.com. On social media, I'm at real Mark Devine. Last name's spelled D-I-V-I-N-E.

00:53:36.640 Thanks so much, Brett, for doing this. This is really enjoyable. Thank you.

00:53:39.980 Thanks, Mark. It's been a pleasure.

00:53:42.080 My guest today is Mark Devine. He's the author of the book Uncommon. It's available on amazon.com

00:53:46.480 bookstores everywhere. You can find more information about his work at his website,

00:53:49.500 markdivine.com. Also check out our show notes at awim.is slash five mountains,

00:53:54.020 where you find links to resources. We delve deeper into this topic.

00:54:03.880 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AWIM podcast. Make sure to check out our website at

00:54:07.920 artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives. And while you're there, sign up for

00:54:11.580 our newsletter. We've got a daily option and a weekly option. They're both free.

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00:54:22.300 that a lot. If you've done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend

00:54:26.240 or family member who you think gets something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued

00:54:29.980 support. And until next time, it's Brett McKay reminding you to listen to the AWIM podcast,

00:54:33.520 but put what you've heard into action.

00:54:44.720 Thank you.

00:54:50.220 Thanks, everybody.

00:54:50.560 See you next time.

The Art of Manliness - July 17, 2024

The 5 Mountains of Personal Development

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