Mark Divine

The principles of Unbeatable Mind are not about being hard-core but rather about how to perform at your peak in any domain, whether you are a mom, dad, SEAL, student or CPA.

He taught me that to live an uncommon life, one needs to learn uncommon disciplines.

First you must choose to control your mind and turn it toward success.

Stress and success are defined by choice, and it is the small choices, not the big ones, that make the difference between good and excellent.

Negativity destroys performance in the short term and precludes success and happiness in the long term.

To be disciplined is literally to be a disciple to something larger than you.

Philosophers of all ages have noted that goodness comes from aligning with universal laws/beliefs, while the potential for weakness, even evil, comes from moral relativism.

The word Kokoro has Japanese origin and means to merge one’s heart and mind in action... Kokoro can also be described as positive willpower, a non-quitting spirit, and is associated with your spiritual development.

Getting to the terrain of elite performers requires that you learn to tap into the 90 percent of your mental power that lies beyond the rational, thinking part of your mind.

Remain content with where you are while executing a simple strategy for getting to where you want to go.

A virtue is a value that you have habituated until it becomes a character trait.

The Trident marks you as someone special, a rare modern-day Spartan who trains harder, works smarter, and is courageous in the face of all challenges. To me, it also represents the Way of the SEAL, a mind-set and attitude that allows the wearer to be victorious on both the inner and outer fields of life’s battles. Let me teach you how you can earn your own Trident now.

Today my purpose is ‘to attain self-mastery and let truth, wisdom, and love flow through me. To be an inspiration for others through my example and teaching, facilitating personal and global transformation in the process.

If you want to perform at the top 0.1 percent in your chosen arena, you must draw on your tool kit for remaining front-sight focused and embracing the suck in order to make excellence a habit.

It takes discipline to focus only on high-value targets instead of giving in to the temptation of the low-hanging fruit life serves up daily.

Before you can take control of your mind, you must first calm it down. The fastest way to calm your mind, along with your body, is through slow and controlled deep breathing.

We must define our comfort zone, and then get the heck out of it! The 20X factor is all about embracing a personal culture of mighty effort.

When we live in full awareness of our stand, then we can face fear with courage. Fear is natural, something to be faced and understood, not to be avoided. Finding the courage to act in the presence of fear is the Way of the SEAL.

To become the best version of yourself possible, you must suck it up and do the work!

Your stand will answer the question ‘What would I do?’ and your purpose will answer the question ‘Why am I here?’

A warrior is someone who is committed to mastering oneself at all levels, who develops the courage to do the right thing for yourself, others, and community.

No plan will survive VUCA, so to navigate it intact, you have to be clear about why you’re doing what you’re doing each step of the way. Otherwise, you’ll lose respect quickly. Communicate to the team that ultimate victory won’t look anything like what you originally thought, and that is okay.

To end separation from others, we must first end it in ourselves. We must stare down the fear wolf, wake up to our innate goodness and connection to one another, and reach the integrated fifth plateau of development. So, yeah, the fate of humanity does depend upon you. And me. The way to global wholeness is to first become whole ourselves.

After the first two days and nights with no sleep, my class settled into a new normal—constant performance pressure, intense exhaustion, and plodding to the next meal. I was relying 100 percent on the mental skills I had learned in my Zen work—using breath control and positive self-talk, visualizing success, and maintaining presence. And I collapsed time to focus on micro-goals as the instructors advised. Those skills were money, and many students didn’t have them.

A positive mindset and emotional state are crucial for adaptability. After all, it is easy to be all rainbows and roses when things are going well. ‘Everyone wants to be a frogman on a sunny day,’ was how the SEAL instructors put it. But bring on the shit and let’s see how attitude changes, shall we? The power of optimism and a positive mindset cannot be overstated.

Be aware that your ego will try to trick you to think you have ‘made it.’ It’s good to remember, as Gertrude Stein put it, that there’s no there there—you are always in the process of becoming.

In order to be courageous, you must do courageous things.

In the new battleground, the internal terrain of emotional power and mindset is where the creative energy to win will come from. Those require new developmental models to effectively deal with the rapid change and uncertainty. After the cold war, the US Army War College coined the acronym for the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of the world—VUCA—which has gained some familiarity in executive suites since. To win the mission in VUCA, leaders will need a next-generation compass, one that helps them to navigate the peaks and valleys of emotional, moral, and spiritual strength.

A central theme of this book is that your team is your primary mechanism for growth as a leader. Individuals who commit to grow together and work toward a common mission will achieve greatness together.

Areté is love in action.

We can’t do life alone, not to the level of greatness and self-mastery that our true self knows is possible.

Microsoft’s co-founder Paul Allen once said: ‘Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast, or a bridge player.’

Bottom line: If you want to be uncommon and serve in a unique way, you must see what you desire, and then practice in your mind. Your desired future depends on this.

Leadership capacity is directly proportional to your authenticity and ability to respond to unpredictable events.

The human brain is roughly 2 percent of total body mass but uses 20 percent of the body’s available energy to operate. Think about that. Twenty percent of your nutritional intake is used to fuel 2 percent of your body! And the quality of that nutrition has a huge impact on the functioning of the brain. This should be motivation enough to think carefully about what fuel to put into the body’s fuel tank.

Mastering your mental mountain is achieved through disciplined practice. Period.

But please also be playful, avoid expectation hangovers, and don’t be so serious that you compromise your health or become a drag to others. Don’t try to be Mr. or Mrs. Perfect. A perfect human and perfect results don’t exist. There is only perfect intention with imperfect effort built upon the desire to get better and be more whole. And the road to getting both of those is a wild one!

The courage loop creates a self-reinforcing spiral of success where you experience the reality of your 20X potential, setting the stage for daily emotional resilience that will last a lifetime.

I believe it is utterly imperative to find your calling... and take a stand to fulfill it or suffer life with that faint ache in your heart and that nagging feeling in your guts. Henry David Thoreau said that most people live lives of quiet desperation. That is common...but that is not you.

Nelson Mandela was seventy-two when he was released from prison and seventy-six when he became president. Colonel Sanders first started franchising Kentucky Fried Chicken when he was sixty-five. If you’re not dead, doing something new is not impossible. And if you’re not near-dead, what are you waiting for?