The 5 Mountains of Personal Development
Episode Stats
Summary
Mark is a retired Navy SEAL commander, a professor of leadership, a yogi, the creator of fitness and mindset programs like SEAL Fit and Unbeatable Mind, and an author. He combines his two decades of military service with his study of martial arts and Zen meditation to create the holistic warrior monk development philosophy that informs his work, including his latest book, Uncommon: Simple Principles for an Extraordinary Life.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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The journey of personal development of becoming a more excellent and extraordinary individual
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can sometimes seem a little abstract. That's why it's helpful to imagine as Mark Devine does,
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as a set of five metaphorical mounds to scale. Mark is a retired Navy SEAL commander,
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a professor of leadership, a yogi, the creator of fitness and mindset programs like SEAL Fit and
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Unbeatable Mind, and an author. He combines his two decades of military service with his study
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of martial arts and Zen meditation to create the holistic warrior monk development philosophy
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that informs his work, including his latest book, Uncommon, Simple Principles for an Extraordinary
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Life. Today on the show, Mark acts as a guide to the topography of the five mounds of personal
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development and the daily practices that will help you summit them. We talk about why mastering
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the physical mountain comes first and climbing the intuitional mountain comes fourth, the Navy
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SEAL breathing practice that will help you develop your metacognition, how the Japanese concept of
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ikigai can help you find your purpose in life, and much more. After the show is over, check out our
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show notes at awim.is slash five mountains. All right, Mark Devine, welcome back to the show.
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So, Brett's super stoked to be on The Art of Manliness.
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Well, yeah, the last time we had you on was over 10 years ago.
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A lot has happened in 10 years, and I want to catch up with what you've been doing.
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So, you got a new book out called Uncommon. What's your aim with this book? Like, what are
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you trying to do with this book, and how does it pick up where you left off with some of your other
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things you've written about, like the way of the SEAL and things like that?
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Yeah, so really, it's kind of a sequel to Unbeatable Mind. Unbeatable Mind is kind of
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the whole training philosophy, more like a personal memoir, but it introduced the whole
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integrated, vertical, accelerated development that I've been now teaching since 2006, starting
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with SEAL Fit and then Unbeatable Mind, the program. And in there, in that program, I kind
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of lay out how, first of all, we have the potential to become self-evolutionary, meaning we can take
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control of our growth, and we can accelerate it if we do certain things. And that the idea of kind
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of that self-mastery, that personal mastery, is actually really important and motivating. And
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I found it through, obviously, martial arts and being a Navy SEAL and through Zen and meditation,
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but there's many different paths to that. But in Unbeatable Mind, I laid out the whole philosophy,
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and I introduced this idea of the five mountains, which are the five developmental areas that we
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really need to take control of and then begin to access greater capacity. But we do it in a way
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that is integrated, meaning it's like the typical Westerner is taught that the body is something you
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drag to the gym, and it's just about health or looking good in a bathing suit or bodybuilding.
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And the mind, well, that's really just what it is. And it's really a function of the brain. And we
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have education, and we have certificates and podcasts, but that's the extent of mind training.
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And the emotions, forget about it. Most guys don't even go there. But emotional development
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is something that happens when you break down. Intuition isn't even talked about. And spiritual
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life is really about your beliefs. And all these are kind of like separate aspects of your life.
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They're not brought together into an integrated whole. So the experience of the typical Westerner
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is common, and it's one of kind of separation. You're separated from yourself, you're separated from
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others. These different aspects of yourself, which I call the five mountains, physical,
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mental, emotional, intuitional, and spiritual, are also separate. And inevitably, that leads to
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suboptimal performance. It leads to burnout. It leads to that quiet life of desperation that
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Thoreau talks about, because you're not tapping into your full potential and living a life of purpose.
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Okay. So this is all about holistic personal development. Because I think you're right. I think
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a lot of times when particularly guys in the West approach self-improvement, they just think,
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well, I'm going to get fit. And they might do really well there. They're working out every day,
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increasing their PRs, but other areas of their life are suffering as a consequence of that.
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That's right. It's one-dimensional. And they say, well, I'm going to be fit. And then, of course,
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there's tons and tons of folks out there, especially like my Navy SEAL peers are saying,
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be hard, right? Just be hard. Go harder. Suck it up, buttercup. And there's times to be hard,
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but there's times to be soft, right? You have to have that balance of the yin and the yang,
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the hard and the soft. And yet the soft isn't taught. And most guys are like, eh, that's going
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to make me weak. Uh-uh. Like when I used to train Navy SEAL candidates, which we still do, but I had a
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training center in Encinitas for 10 years and we trained them every day. We used to talk about,
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you know, if the tsunami comes, which is every day in Bud's SEAL training, would you rather be
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the mighty oak or the reed? And they're like, well, you know, some would say the mighty oak.
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And I said, no, the mighty oak is going to get washed away by the tsunami, but the reed is just
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going to lay down and then bounce right back up. It's resilient. So the point we would teach him is
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that neither one is right or wrong. You want to develop both. You want to be the mighty oak when you need
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to be in the reed when you need to be. And in order to do that, you need to develop
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both aspects, the hard and the soft, the yin and the yang. And the soft is found in the inner
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domain. So the physical mountain, you can develop the oak, develop your body to be strong and
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resilient, but you also have to develop that flexibility and the durability through exercises
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like yoga and, you know, core development and that type of stuff. It's, you know, you know,
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you need to do, but most people don't do it. But then the real soft side is found through the
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mental, emotional, intuitive, and spiritual development where you're really tapping into, you know,
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the inner power and insight and the sense of knowingness of when to kind of lay down your
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sword and, you know, lay down and let the tsunami wash over you so you can jump back into the fight.
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So you mentioned there, you have spent your career post-serving in the SEALs. Training would-be
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Navy SEALs to get ready for buds, but you've also shifted to other types of personal development
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coaching. Right. I'm curious in your experience with working with individuals who say they want
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to make a change in their life, they want to improve themselves, but don't. Like, what have you
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found? Like, what keeps people from making those changes they say they want in their lives?
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There's a lot of obstacles. Fear, right, is one. So there's this desire, but then there is this fear
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of failure. There's fear of change. There's a fear of the unknown. And you can even take it deeper
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that there's these underlying condition patterns that are fear-based or negative-based that keep
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coming up and tend to torpedo your efforts. So there's so many people, and you've seen this,
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I'm sure, with your programs. You know, people will start and they'll be all gung-ho, but then
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they meet an obstacle. And there's always obstacles out there, right? But they haven't learned that the
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obstacle is the way, as Ryan Holiday would say. And so when that obstacle comes and they feel some
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shame come up or some guilt that they screwed up, or they feel some judgment from others, they
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immediately activate this kind of shame-based, fear-conditioned thinking. And they say, well,
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I'm not worthy for this, or I'm not good enough, or this isn't for me, right? This program isn't right
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for me. And then they quit. And then the energy of like, oh, but I want to improve comes back up.
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And so they look for the next shiny thing. They go to another program, and then they repeat this
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pattern over and over. And so people bounce around from program to program, and then they
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torpedo themselves because of this underlying, unaddressed shadow self side, which is also the
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work of the emotional mountain in the book. That's one of the major obstacles. The other one is people
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lack patience in our society that we've been taught that everything is supposed to be easy and quick.
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And as you know, and most of your listeners know that when it comes to development,
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patience is the virtue. And especially when it comes to the development of the inner domain,
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it's not like tracking your deadlifts. You know what I mean? You can't really point toward the
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development until after it's happened. And you maybe have some evidence from someone like your
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wife or your significant other coming to you and say, man, something's really different.
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And you're like, oh, really? I guess you're right. It's very subtle until it's not,
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right? And so people start meditating, or they start a breath practice, or whatever it is,
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and they get into it. And maybe they get healthier because we've got a physical health component,
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fitness, et cetera. But the inner domain stuff, it's just hard to see. And so then they develop
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this sense of uncertainty, like they doubt the program really works. And so when they start
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doubting, then they stop adhering to the discipline daily practice. And then they have evidence,
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they begin to see evidence that it doesn't work because the real juice in any developmental program
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is doing daily work. This even relates to physical development. It would be useless to go to the
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gym once a week and do all your weight training in two hours once a week. I mean, it would have some
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benefits, but you're likely to get injured. You're not going to make that much progress.
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Same thing with the work of mental, emotional, intuitive, and spiritual development. It's a daily
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practice. And you can build it in different parts of your day, morning ritual, evening ritual,
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and then kind of throughout your day, even the way you train physically can become an integrated
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practice. And so people will think, well, I'm going to do all that work on the weekend. And it
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doesn't work that way. So they lose faith, so to speak, that it works because they're not doing the
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work. Those are some of the key obstacles. Yeah. So fear, the lack of patience. We also talk about
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other things. It's just people have reasons like, well, I can't make the change I want because I just
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don't have the time or I don't have the money. But you talk about, look, self-improvement are
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these things you want to do to improve yourself. It's nothing fancy. You can do this in just 30
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minutes a day. It doesn't take that long. And I know when people say, oh, I just don't have the
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time to work out or I don't have the time to do this sort of personal work, whether it's managing
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my stress. And I just like, man, you don't have the time to not take the time. I agree with that.
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Right. Because eventually it's going to bite you. And eventually you're going to have to stop
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and you're going to have to take care of the situation, whether you have a health scare
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and you're going to spend time at the hospital or just time at the doctor office, or you have some
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sort of marital problem because you didn't take the time to get your anger under control. You're
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going to be spending a lot of time. So eventually you're going to have to pay the fiddler, might as
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well pay it on your terms instead of fate's terms. Yeah. Those, those two obstacles are, are
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nonsensical time and money. First of all, the most profound practices are free.
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Like I have never, I've seen someone charge for breath training, but breath practice is
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free and you can learn it from a free video and the breath, you know, doing breath practice
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like our box breathing training every day is a profound practice that crosses all five
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mountains and will integrate you just if that's all you did, that would be enough as if you
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did it every day with awareness for 20 to 30 minutes. You don't need a gym. You know,
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I'm a big proponent of austere training, working outside, working with a team, working
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with cool tools that fit in the trunk of your car, like sandbags and weight vests.
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And so physical training is free, except for the cost of maybe a couple of tools and pair
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of shorts and water bottle. You don't need a fancy gym membership. You don't need a yoga
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studio membership, any of that stuff because all the, you just need a few tools, simple,
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the better. And then you just need to do them every day. And meditation is free.
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And then back to the time, like you said, you know, you've got 30 minutes when you wake up in
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the morning because you're filling this 30 minutes with something. And generally speaking,
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it's not going to be conducive to your growth, right? You wake up and you immediately start
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engaging, you know, obsessive thinking, you're checking your email or you're reading the news.
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None of that's really going to lead you where you want to go. So, so all you got to do is just take
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that 30 minutes, which you're doing something else unproductive and just shift and ritualize a very
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productive morning routine, morning ritual. And that alone could be a game changer.
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Well, let's talk about these metaphorical mountains that you've developed for personal
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development. And the first mountain is physicality, which is all about our physical health.
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Well, my experience, and I'm a lifetime martial artist and also obviously, you know, a Navy seal
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and also a yogi, the physical body. So first of all, the body and the mind are not separate.
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So when you're training the body, you're training your mind. And so you're already beginning to work
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on the mental mountain. And we know that like all of those of us who are involved in competitive
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sports and endurance athletics, like there's a definite aspect of it that is training your mind
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for concentration, for attention, for awareness, situational awareness, for even opening up the
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heart mind, especially with team sports, especially in the seals, you know, that really had a profound
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effect on me to open up my heart and to really learn different ways to love human beings.
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You know, the idea of laying your life down for your teammates is just an act of supreme
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love. So physical development is training your mind. Let's start there. Now, secondly,
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if you're physically unhealthy or diseased or drugged up, then your brain, which is part of
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your body is physically unhealthy and is going to be suboptimal. So if we want to do mental development
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work and emotional development and intuitive, if we want to evolve and grow, we've got to start
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with the body and get the body really healthy because of the body healthy, the brain's going
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to be healthy, the brain's healthy, the mind's going to be healthy, and you're going to have
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the capacity to do the work on the other mountains. At a very simplest level, you'll be less distracted
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and distractible. You'll be able to sit comfortably in meditation or mindfulness or box breathing
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without agitation, without the discomfort. You're going to have more clarity because of the
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electrochemical balance in your body, your homeostatic balance, and all the stress will have been bled
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off through the physical training. And also at a very practical level, some of those obstacles we
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talked about, another obstacle is that your body is not healthy or you're injured. And that becomes
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a real big distraction for you, which captures your mind. And so you're not thinking about meditation
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and yoga if you're injured or if you're sick, right? And so I think this is really important because
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our, again, our culture is, is working against us in most of these areas, right? It's working against
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us in health. The typical sad American diet, standard American diet is an unhealthy diet, right? So you
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don't want to prescribe to that. Most of the food that's sold barcoded and packaged is unhealthy for
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us. So we want to get back to like really simple principle-based fueling our body, eating when we're
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hungry, learning to fast and intermittent fast, eating really close to the earth foods, whole foods
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and high quality foods. And also, you know, learn to move your body every day, both through different
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forms of exercise and somatic practices and get out in nature. Like I said, be outside every day because
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we're not separate from nature. We need to be in nature and there's profound motivation and mood
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and both emotional and physical benefits for being outside. We want to have a community of practice
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training with a team of people who are dedicated to our success and not trying to beat us all the
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time. So, you know, those are some of the things that we do to get healthy. It's simple. You don't
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have to overcomplicate it. Even when it comes to physical training, everything you need is really free.
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You can get some tremendous workouts, programs, even chat GPT will gin them up for you. The point
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is just to get out and do it and to be consistent with your practice, figure it out, you know, and
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make it as important, you know, the physical training and these exercise, you know, the nutrition
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make that all like a practice for optimizing the bodies and the brains so that you can really go
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deeper and deeper to plumb the depths of the mental, emotional, intuitive and spiritual mountains
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so that you can tap into this raw potential that you have. We, you know, in SEALFIT, we call it 20X.
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You're capable of 20 times more than you think you are, but that capability is found on the inside.
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It's found in your field of potential and you're hiding it from yourself through your distractions,
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your addictions and through this outer focus and even through an unhealthy body.
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I want to dig deeper on this idea of exercising, having a physical practice outside in nature and with
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other people. You're really big on this. What does that look like? What do you do? And what are some
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things that our listeners could do to incorporate this? Yeah. I mean, fun stuff like exercise should
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feel like play, like it should be really joyful. So one way is that it's really joyful is variety.
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I never do the same workout, rarely do the same workout twice. And if I do, it's because it's a
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really effective one. It's fun. And I just like, okay, this is a staple. Many people work, train harder.
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They think they need to train longer and you don't like I trained 20 minutes a day. I took 20 minutes of
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physical of high intensity with weight training and also 20 minutes of yoga. And so 40 minutes is
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pretty much all that I need. And the maintenance, you know, it's like a flywheel. All you do is just
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spin it every day. And once your body gets up to that like ideal fitness, you don't need to put in
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countless hours unless you're training for something specific like the seals or, you know, to do some
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big event type thing. Then that's specific training. I'm talking about optimized performance,
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generalized training. You know, I train outside every day unless it's like pouring rain, but even
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if it's light rain, it just feels really good. And I train with a team. Right now my team is my wife,
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but I've always trained with a team, you know, starting with SEAL teams and then in my SEAL fit
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program. And it just, there's something about it because you learn to take your eyes off yourself
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and put it on your teammate and make sure that everything is safe and you're not trying to beat
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them. A little healthy competition is good, but you know, it should be coopetition, you know,
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it's not your ego. So training outdoors has a benefit emotionally. Like I said, it affects your
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mood. There's something about being connected in nature that makes you feel connected to yourself
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and it helps you develop more situational awareness and a feeling of connection, which then allows you
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to be more connected to yourself and to others. So there's a deep emotional kind of spillover effect
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there. And then training with a team or even a significant other has incredible emotional
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amount and benefits. Like Sandy and I, my wife and I have been training together for several years
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now. And I kind of, I wish we had done it way sooner. And what an incredible experience it's
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been for our relationship. And I say a couple of the trains together flourishes together. So by
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training together, again, you're moving away from this just being a physical exercise by taking it
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outside. Now it is a mental and emotional and even a spiritual kind of developmental practice
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and simplicity, right? As I said, lots of variety, but simplicity. I mean, the tools that I use, I still
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use a barbell here and there, but mostly it's sandbag, kettlebell, weight vest, a lot of body weight. I
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still have a rowing machine, so that's good only because I don't love running anymore much. I've done
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a lot of running in my life, so it doesn't serve me anymore. But I do a lot of rucking and rowing and
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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
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four rounds. We'll do 500 meter row, 10 bench wrists, you know, 20 kettlebell swings, 30 sit-ups,
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and we'll do that. We'll do, you know, four rounds of that or five rounds of that. It takes
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for 20 minutes and it's a phenomenal workout. You know, stuff like that. You know, go to a park,
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take your weight vest into the wilderness, take your sandbag. So there's some of the principles.
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Be simple, get outside, make it fun, play, do it with other people, but do it every day.
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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
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ago, but for those who aren't familiar, it's all around the world. There's these boot camps,
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they're free to go, they're geared towards men, they're in the morning, usually before work,
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we're at like 536, and they have like these free body weight boot camps outside with other guys.
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So if you're looking for that, I like the idea of fitness where it's holistic, where you're trying
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to also not only nurture the body, but also the soul by being outside and with other people,
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check out f3nation.com. You can find a location near you, because I'm sure there is one.
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That's killer. Yeah. We're going to take a quick break for a word from our sponsors.
00:20:25.660
And now back to the show. Let's talk about that second mountain, and that's the mental
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mountain. And this is all about developing what you call metacognition. For those who aren't
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familiar with this idea, what is metacognition? Sure. Well, that's like the first step in the
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mental mountain. Metacognition is the capacity to think about your thinking, which requires you
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develop the capacity to be able to watch your thinking, to be able to look at it. So the basic
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level of metacognition is like journaling where you're like, okay, what was my thought process
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there? And was it effective? What were the results? What could I have done different? It's like a
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personal debrief, but you're thinking about your thinking. And a lot of people do that and they do
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it well. But the mental mountain training for us is to develop the capacity to do that in real time.
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And I call that simultaneous mind, where you're cultivating your witnessing capacity,
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your contextual awareness, where you can begin to experience your thoughts, emotions, and things
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that are happening to you as if from a distance. Like you've partitioned the hard drive of your mind
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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
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.
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
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.
00:46:21.040
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
00:46:39.820
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.
00:46:49.560
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.
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.
00:53:42.080
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
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00:54:14.720
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00:54:22.300
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00:54:26.240
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00:54:29.980
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