0:00
People have asked me before, were you ever in a situation where you were really afraid, like in combat or something? And I answer them quite
0:05
honestly, no. What makes a Navy Seal not normal?
0:11
One of the biggest reasons why guys like us don’t suffer from anxiety is because
0:17
what is paramilitary? You’re talking about operations that are that are less overt, usually done
0:22
secretly in areas that perhaps the public isn’t as much aware of. That would be the vanilla definition of that.
0:29
to go any more precise, I’d be concerned about saying too much. The sacrifice
0:34
that our military families make is as big than the actual member because
0:39
they’re the ones who have to sit home and hold the bag. Courage is impossible in the absence of fear. You can have a
0:45
group of Navy Seals in a gunfight with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan who are in that moment feeling less fear than the
0:51
8-year-old who just has to step in front of the class and introduce himself. Fear is entirely subjective to the human being. If you gave people one piece of
0:59
advice, they want to become tougher. What would that piece of advice be? That’s a great question and I would say
1:05
I would say uh
1:13
Rich Shivini, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m really excited. Uh you and I are friends. You came, you spoke at our
1:20
event, and you floored everyone as a former commander Navy Seal. Yeah. Thank you. It was a great event.
1:26
great people. So, what makes a Navy Seal not normal? That’s a great question and I would say
1:32
I would say probably only a couple things. Um, because we are after all human beings and uh I I always try I
1:38
always endeavor my whole endeavor is to take the seals off the pedestal so I can translate what we actually do. But I think what makes us not normal i.e.
1:45
allows us to get through the the selection course is our ability to manage our our autonomic arousal, our
1:51
state, and the ability to compartmentalize in in a way that allows for performance under just extreme chaos
1:58
and duress. In those moments of extreme chaos and duress, we don’t get more excited, we actually get calmer. And I
2:04
think that’s that’s one of the elements that allows someone to even make it through training. And that just
2:10
translates and and the profession itself hyperdevelops that ability. So, so I think there’s one key thing. I think
2:16
that’s what makes Seals not normal. I, you know, I live with one, so I would uh And he’s not normal just like all of us.
2:22
No, it’s it’s quite frankly pretty annoying. I uh think to myself, could you please get stressed out about this?
2:29
Who’s the best? Yeah. you know, and I I it’s funny because I I in the prep for this, I saw
2:34
I watched a couple of the clips you sent and I saw that one guy talking about the difference between SEALs and Delta and
2:40
CIA uh paramilitary and and and and I he wasn’t, you know, he certainly had some
2:45
nuances. He was he wasn’t wrong about things, but I think he was not um specific enough because comparing them
2:51
is like comparing apples and oranges and bananas. They all all of the elements have different specialties and and
2:57
really you can’t even compare SEALs holistically to Delta because not all
3:03
SEALs if you’re going to compare Delta to anybody compared to SEAL team six which is specific command that’s that’s
3:08
at Delta’s level. So uh with a specific mission. So but all this to say I think SEALs are the their their medals their
3:16
mission essential tasks are such that the it’s direct action it’s waterborne operations that that comes with it a a
3:24
very unique skill set and attribute set to be able to deal and live in and out
3:29
of the water. Uh, I think the army guys, you know, we could just talk about Delta. Those guys are
3:35
And Delta is a And the question is who is the best CIA, Delta or SEALs? I’m
3:41
the best at what? That’s the thing. If you say best at at waterornne operations, it’s SEALs. Hands down. If
3:47
the best at airline aircraft takedown and hostage rescue style stuff with airlines, it’s Delta. If it’s uh if it’s
3:54
the best at paramilitary operations, it’s CIA. I think the mistake people make when they think special operations
3:59
is that everybody’s kind of all the same but just different military services. Uh
4:05
but the unique and and the the most special thing about the special operations is that every unit comes with
4:12
it a specialty. Green Brays are awesome at their their primary duty is fit, foreign internal defense. No one does
4:18
that. What is their primary duty? Foreign internal defense. Basically going in and training other uh units or
4:24
insurgents to uh to carry out missions. So they do it better than anybody else. Uh the Rangers, their primary mission is
4:29
airfield takedowns, mass mass level style takedowns that no one does it better than them. So uh the SEALs is all
4:36
waterborne. No one takes down ships the same way seals do. Um or gets girls or gets girls. Well, of course I will I
4:42
will concede that that in recent years Seals have won the popularity contest. Um now that’s not I mean it certainly
4:49
has to do with the missions that were very public, but also the the fact that yes, many of us do write books. Uh, and
4:54
although my books aren’t seal books, there are many seal books out there. And so, uh, so yeah, I will concede that
4:59
when it comes to the Hollywood stuff, we are we are well deserving of all the all the [ __ ] we get from from the other
5:05
units. So, that’s that’s really funny. Um, it you
5:10
make a really good point at the best at what. And again, the joke is and of course I’m married to a seal, so I can
5:16
make these uh jokes. The guys are knuckle draggers. Yeah. meaning not
5:21
highly intelligent but really the muscle. The reality is these are highly
5:28
intelligent guys. When I went through SEAL training and and anybody the audience probably knows
5:34
enough about it but Navy Seals holistically as a force only a small percentage are officers and that you
5:40
know so I was an officer that’s a very small percentage. So out of the entire force maybe only 10% are officers. The
5:46
rest most Navy Seals are enlisted guys. When I went through BUDS, almost half of
5:52
the enlisted guys in my BUDS class had college degrees. So, we’re not So, I I
5:57
don’t like the the misnomer. Certainly, we have knuckle draggers in the in the community, but but there was a rocket
6:02
scient there was an enlisted guy who had studied rocket science. Again, how do you measure intelligence? What does intelligence look like in in the in the
6:09
CIA paramilitary vein? Intelligence looks like one thing. Um, you put a guy underwater having to
6:15
navigate to a target and do stuff. That’s a whole another level of intelligence. I think the the nuances
6:21
are funny, of course, and um and we could say the same thing about Marines or or the Army. There’s certainly a a
6:27
nice amount of material inside of which we can all tease each other, but uh but the generalizations I don’t I don’t
6:32
agree with at all. What is paramilitary? Well, paramilitary is really those operations that uh that
6:38
are conducted outside of your regular US military
6:43
I won’t say purview, but certainly um overtness. Um you’re talking about operations that are that are less overt,
6:50
usually done secretly and usually done in in areas that perhaps the public
6:55
isn’t as much aware of. That would be the vanilla definition of that. to go any more precise, I’d be concerned about
7:02
saying too much. But it’s it’s just those things we don’t we don’t talk about as much. Uh and it’s uh it’s
7:08
usually in the shadows, I guess. Yeah. Which those kind of operations seem to
7:13
be necessary. They are necessary. And by the way, a lot of the spec ops units do at least some version of that uh to some degree.
7:20
Certainly the certainly as you go up the chain CIA probably the you know is the the premier but uh but spec spec ops is
7:27
is about at least an element of that. What paramilitary is not is what we were
7:33
doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those were were overt special operations missions that were completely kind of
7:40
the expectation of what guys like us needed to do. So guys like us there is a reality of
7:47
deployment. Yeah. And there is the amazing Hollywood story of what the
7:55
SEALs do, what the CIA does, what the Deltas do, but there is a dark side.
8:03
Mhm. And I’d love to know how that affects you psychologically.
8:09
There’s there’s many ways it affects us. And I think I think there’s also a difference there. You came into the
8:15
community at a time as I lived the community where deployments were very
8:20
kinetic and so to deploy meant you were going overseas and you were you were going to be conducting combat
8:26
operations. Period. End of story. Um I joined the teams in 1996. The first 5 years of my career I did a couple
8:32
deployments. We did nothing. You know we just deployed bas basically deploy for presence. It’s called deploying for
8:38
presence where you’re just sitting somewhere waiting to be to have something happen. Um, most deployments
8:45
outside of our combat time, outside of the war are like that. That still comes with it a uh an element of uniqueness
8:53
and stress because you have to leave your family and you don’t know what’s going on and you have to get used to this idea that you’re going to be gone
8:59
for this long and your family has to get used to that idea that you’re going to be gone for that long. So that in of itself carries a level of stress and um
9:08
hardship that I think when we when we thank our service members for their service whether they’re a Navy Seal or
9:14
whether they’re an admin person I think part of the joint combined sacrifice is the fact that we’re asking folks to
9:21
leave their families for long periods of time so that they can go do things in places um whether they’re actually
9:27
conducting combat operations or supporting them but being away from their family. That’s part of the that’s one of the biggest sacrifices. The
9:33
combat deployments add add on to that this concern and worry that man you know
9:40
my my family member is is going out and they are going to be in the thick of it actually. And so again, I think that
9:47
carries, and you can probably attest to this, that carries more stress and anxiety for the homeront than it does
9:52
the actual operator uh because of the way just we for us, it’s work, and we don’t worry about we don’t worry
9:58
ourselves over that stuff. But the family, they they they suffer quite a bit. I wanted to take a moment to let you
10:04
know about something new we’ve created. It’s called Forever Strong Insider, and
10:09
it’s the premium subscription to the Dr. Gabrielle Lion Show. As a Forever Strong
10:14
insider, every week you’ll get ad free episodes, written summaries with key
10:20
takeaways to help you retain the most important insights from the show, a community Q&A segment where you can
10:26
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10:32
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10:38
Go to forever.supcast.com. Let’s keep getting stronger together. I
10:45
married Shane. He was still so my husband for those of you who are new to listening or watching on YouTube. He uh
10:51
served 10 years as a SEAL. He went in after 9/11. He was very inspired and
10:57
felt like he needed to do something. When we got married, he was stateside.
11:02
He was actually um teaching at the schoolhouse. So, I want to be careful about what I say and how I say it, but
11:08
he was teaching trauma for special operations trauma medicine. Yeah. Working extremely long hours, was doing
11:15
night school before going to medical school. I was alone and pregnant in New York City. I did the majority of
11:23
the pregnancy alone and living in a small studio apartment, traveling on the subway. It was uh an
11:30
interesting experience. And as I was going through my first pregnancy, I’m thinking, you know, thank God he’s not deployed.
11:35
Yeah. But it’s it is not easy. There was no one to rub my feet there to get me food.
11:41
And you bring up a great point because my wife talks about it, too. It’s like there’s there’s sometimes, especially with the seals gaining popularity,
11:46
there’s a there’s a romanticization that comes a lot with maybe a lot of women. It’s like, oo, Navy Seal. And you, as my
11:54
wife will say, no, no, it’s no picnic. Uh, and the reason is because even when we’re at home, we’re working non-stop.
12:00
we’re going away for training. We’re we’re not as present as you can be. And
12:05
so I think that also comes with it this idea that, you know, it’s um there’s
12:11
nothing wrong. It’s it’s a tough it’s a tough job. It’s a tough business. It’s a it’s a complete commitment. And so when you’re at home, you’re training and that
12:18
training often keeps you you know, you can’t it’s hard to train for night operations during the day. So guess what
12:24
that means? That means you’re doing a lot of training after dark, which means you’re getting home late. Um, and in
12:30
Shane’s case, that type of trauma training. I mean, that that, you know, he was doing things in the city there that had to, it required him to be out
12:37
at night because that’s where a lot of the stuff goes down. And so, uh, and so the sacrifice that our military families
12:44
make is as big, um, if not more so, than
12:50
the actual member because they’re the ones who have to sit home and hold the bag and and wonder and and keep their
12:57
mouth shut and not and be okay with not talking every day. Um, and uh, and
13:02
that’s, by the way, that’s one of the secrets, you know, when you’re on deployment. My wife and I figured out real fast even though we had the luxury
13:08
of being able to talk on the phone. Um, calling every day was a mistake because a it you it set up an expectation. And
13:16
by the way, if if something happens or if you’re delayed or something something random and you don’t make that call, guess what’s happening at home? There’s
13:22
wonder, there’s there’s doubt, there’s there’s worry. Um, plus it actually extends the deployment because you’re just you’re just your horizons. We’ll
13:28
talk about moving horizons, but your horizons are just going dayto-day versus versus anything else. So, so our secret
13:33
was, you know, don’t talk every day. Maybe talk once a week and um email once in a while, but uh but and and make it
13:40
somewhat random. Make the relationship and the connection somewhat random is what I heard you say. Yeah.
13:45
Totally the opposite of what we would think of maintaining a healthy marriage. Yeah. Yeah.
13:51
Yeah. Um, how does one in your position,
13:57
someone who trains up mentally, right, if we were to frame this up for the listener and also the women listening
14:04
and the guys because guys want to be tough. Yes. You know, we open this with what makes a Navy Seal not normal.
14:10
And the reality is you guys aren’t normal. And I don’t want to bunch you in with quote the guys, but the reality is
14:17
there are certain attributes, and you talk about this in your first book, that allow someone to be successful. And one
14:23
of those attributes from being with, you know, Shane for the last seven or so
14:29
years is the things that make a close connected marriage don’t necessarily exist with a quote
14:37
team guy. Right. Right. Empathy being one of those. empathy.
14:42
Empathy, but being able to emotionally engage. And what do I mean by
14:48
emotionally engage? From my experience, and I I I really want to hear your perspective on this, a healthy marriage
14:55
requires a close connection and an ability to breach the emotional
15:00
perimeter. Yeah. Yeah. But by nature and while Shane is extremely loving and caring,
15:08
there would be definitely a lack of if I’m stressed or having anxiety about
15:15
this or how this business is going, what about that? It doesn’t even register, right? Yeah. The shared the shared
15:20
empathy. So So part of Okay, so part of what Kristen and I we’ve been married 24 years. So she we got married in 2001. So
15:28
uh I was only a SEAL for 5 years. So we lived the war together, raised two boys. Um and so part of what we have explored
15:35
as we went through it and then since then is that first thing is we have to really learn and understand this idea of
15:41
appreciation for each other. That appreciation can be garnered in many different ways. But one of those ways is
15:47
in the absence, you know. And so we began to frame the absence in a different way. Instead of, and she was
15:54
very good at this, and you know, if she were here, she’d tell you, she she had to really tell herself like explicitly.
16:01
Instead of being pissed off at him for not being here, why don’t I reframe it
16:06
and say, “Hey, I’m he’s away. I’m I’m I I get to do all this, but also I
16:12
appreciate we we the absence we we really hammered home this absence makes the heart grow fonder type thing. Um
16:18
because honestly we would towards the end of deployment get get to this position where coming home was like I
16:25
mean I remember having the excitement of of a kid on Christmas morning. I you know the the only way I could replicate my replicate my feeling as a kid on
16:31
Christmas Eve was coming home from deployment because that that absence piece um in terms of the way we relate
16:39
as partners when we’re together. I think that’s a willingness for each person to
16:46
understand and see each other for who they are and for each partner to grow and move a little bit move the line a
16:52
little bit. Shane has had to become at least a little bit more empathetic and I’m sure he has. you’ve had to come off
16:58
of that. You’ve had to be okay with a lack of that to a certain degree as have Kristen and I. And so, and so I think um
17:06
we have to recognize that marriage, whether it’s seal marriage or any marriage, you know, if you want to go
17:11
the long haul, you have to recognize that and and understand and appreciate the fact that we are going to change as
17:16
human beings. One of the things that always gets me when I hear about couples getting divorced is when they say
17:22
something like, “Well, he’s not the same person I married 10 years ago or she’s not the same person.” I was like, “No
17:28
shit.” You know, I mean, we’re Chris and I was, you know, 28 and she was 29 or something. We absolutely not the same
17:34
person. And for good that, you know, that’s that’s for that’s a good thing. But we have evolved together. Um, her
17:40
attributes, her her personality, everything about her has moved has helped me move the line and become better. I’ve become more empathetic as
17:47
I’ve as I’ve grown older, as I’ve Well, I mean, first of all, kids helps, you know, kids help. That’s hilarious.
17:55
I mean, good stories opposite. Kristen and I, we when we first got married, we went to see Finding Nemo and
18:01
um and I remember us watching the movie and it’s a great movie. I mean, Pixar does a great job and I remember her just sobbing at the she was just crying at
18:07
the end. I was like, “Wow, that’s that’s a that’s an interesting reaction.” I was, of course, moved. I thought it was a cool movie, but I wasn’t emotionally
18:13
moved. Um, and then I had kids and I watched it again and suddenly they’re tears. Now I’m I’m older and I I joke
18:19
with some of my older uh team even team guy friends like I’ll sometimes watch commercials and you know now part of
18:25
that is my empathy has moved. Part of that I think is is when you go through such a um such a and I say traumatic but
18:33
such a really visceral experience when you when you live a war and you lose friends and you see and and there’s a
18:40
lot of things that happen. I think I think that our our natural tendency to
18:45
compartmentalize those feelings, my buddy and I call it, we get we get these empathy these bursts, these empathy
18:51
bursts where you’re sitting there, you’re watching a commercial, and suddenly you’re you’re emotionally moved. You’re where the hell did that
18:57
come from? Well, I think part of it is yes, your empathy has changed, but also part of it is you’re you’re releasing
19:02
things that might be pent up a little bit. So, all this to say, I know I’ve I’ve drifted a little bit, but I think I think a real understanding of each other
19:10
and a true love of each other’s soul allows for that evolution to take place.
19:16
Um, and yeah, it’s frustrating. I mean, it’s still frustrating to you and Shane get frustrated. Kristen and I get frustrated. It’s going to happen.
19:22
No, I never get frustrated with him. Liar. But it, you know, there’s challenges.
19:29
challenges with deployment, challenges with training, and you’re on a very
19:34
noble mission in my opinion, which is why I’m so grateful to have you sitting here talking. And what I believe your
19:41
mission is is to really make the world better and understand you’re very cerebral to understand how we can live
19:49
in a very uncertain world with more steadiness. Yeah, that is absolutely and and one of the
19:54
things I recognized um just in the profession was that we as SEALs had the
20:00
ability to do this. We had the ability to move through uncertainty, challenge and stress fairly deafly. And I began to
20:06
wonder how and why. And as I began to think about it and research it and and
20:11
learn more about it, both the practical tools and the neuroscience, I recognized that this was not limited to Navy Seals.
20:18
This is actually human stuff. And that’s what drives me. Once you start putting science behind stuff, you start realizing, oh, this is not Navy Seal,
20:24
this is human. And then once it’s human, you can teach people, you can show people, you can remind people.
20:30
Ultimately, I think the uh the one of my main drive two main drivers for this content that is one, help people deal
20:37
with uncertainty, challenge, and stress when it hits you without warning. That’s always going to happen. Um, and that’s great if we can march, if we can have
20:43
some confidence that when something happens, I’ll be okay. I think in fact that’s true confidence to know hey whatever goes on I’ll I’ll handle it you
20:51
know but the the more important thing in my mind and the more the thing that drives me more is is by understanding
20:58
these tools and these practices you can more deliberately step into challenge uncertainty. You can deliberately cross
21:04
that line that comfort line because all of our growth all of our discovery all of our evolution it happens outside of
21:11
our comfort zone. And if we are unwilling to step outside of our comfort zone we will not grow we will not discover. we will not evolve and uh and
21:17
we will not even explore our potential because our potential lies outside our comfort zone as well. So so the ability
21:22
to make a deliberate choice to step outside your comfort zone by because you have the confidence in these in this
21:28
content these tools is really what drives me because that’s really what’s accelerating human potential and I love
21:34
that. Have you seen that happen? Yes. Yeah. I’ve seen that happen on many and it go I get I get a lot of feedback
21:40
from folks who read the book or get the content. Which book attributes or masters of both? I mean the attributes really was
21:46
the feedback I got was really more of an exploration of self which I love. I I know so so much more about myself and
21:52
why I do the things they do and my teammates and why they do the things they do. So that’s and that continues to be a a driving for that book. Uh the
21:59
masters uncertainty book I’ve gotten feedback and the cool thing is fe feedback from all ages, all genders. Uh
22:05
people saying hey this has really helped me deal with X or Y or what’s going on. And that’s a myriad of things that I
22:12
hear and that’s I love that because or or you also I also hear I’ve actually been doing this all along but now I know
22:19
exactly what I’m doing. I can talk I can I can explain what I’m doing which also really jazzes me because once you can
22:24
explain it you can again teach it to others. You can show it to others and you can replicate it and you can practice it. So so that’s what’s been
22:30
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22:37
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22:42
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22:50
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22:55
hormones shift, breastfeeding demands, you know, all those things. All of these life transitions, you probably need more
23:01
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drinklnt.com/dion. Stay hydrated. Stay strong and as
24:05
Gogggins would say, stay hard. I took your attributes test. I would recommend anyone listening to take the attributes
24:12
test. In fact, everyone has taken the attributes test on my team except for Matt, the producer, videographer over
24:20
here, has not taken the test. I was shocked to see my number one attribute.
24:27
I can’t remember which one was. Humility. Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me at all. Yeah, I was surprised by my top attributes
24:34
and then thinking about the the team and then comparing it to my husband’s and
24:40
what I learned was there’s different compatibility at work versus at home, but the person isn’t the
24:47
same. Yes. So, so what’s interesting about the attributes and if someone takes like just like your your one through 41
24:54
attributes ranked from your first your top all the way down to your bottom. Couple things that’s interesting is first of all that uh it has nothing to
25:00
do with the scores you know so the scores just help with the ranking it and and and what it also highlights is that you are we are in absence of none of
25:07
these attributes we have all of them so you have your I can’t remember what your 41st was but uh but your your 41st you
25:14
have it’s just you prioritize all the other attributes before that up you know ahead of that list is how you act
25:21
without thinking that’s you at your most raw what we’re constantly doing in everyday life with our attribute utes
25:27
when there’s not a lot of uncertainty, challenge, and stress or even minimal is we’re dialing up or dialing down those attributes very deliberately. So, we are
25:34
going into an environment and if you’re low on patience, you’re deliberately dialing up your patience. Or if you’re
25:40
high on So, one of my one of my friends, team guy, his number one was humor. Not surprising. I said, “Do you have to
25:46
sometimes dial down your humor because of the situation?” He’s like, “Oh, yes, all the time.” Because the joke I want to tell is completely inappropriate.
25:52
Right? So, he’s he’s deliberately dialing down his attribute. We do this when we’re able to consciously do it. It
25:58
doesn’t happen as easily or if at all at our most raw. So I So the the cool thing about the attributes is just shows you
26:04
who you are at your most raw. Then it gives you an idea of how and when you’re dialing these up or dialing down. That’s what aids in anybody’s ability to
26:11
perform better. You know, in we recently we were in Coronado for vacation.
26:16
First week off. I just missed it by the way. You did? You were in Cornado, too? I was there last week. So yeah. Okay. It was we were at the hotel Dell.
26:23
Yeah. I had to stay there. I have. Yes. Nice. And they have a new training facility
26:29
and we were there. Buds was not happening at the time. So BUDS is that
26:35
selection process. Can you tell us a little bit about Buds and the follow-up
26:40
question is athleticism? Yeah. Athleticism isn’t the biggest predictor
26:46
if someone can become a Navy Seal or not. I want to know why. Yes. Uh so first buds basic underwater
26:51
demolition/ceal training is where regular Navy guys females are allowed but none have made it through yet uh go
26:58
to become Navy SEALs. Um about an 85% attrition rate roughly on average.
27:04
How many people typically go through? So typically like my class for example and this is a typical number start with
27:09
170 we graduated 35. So that’s typical numbers. Okay. um 6 months long um and
27:14
has the has it’s it’s all it all sucks but the infamous hell week is is week five where that’s where you get the most
27:19
quitters that’s where you start on a Sunday you go all the way till that following Friday during which you um you
27:25
only sleep for about 2 hours the entire week so you’re constantly on the on the go I was with Robert and he was saying that
27:31
actually they tell you guys they let you sleep but I don’t know if you
27:37
if you register if it registers or uh he said that he wakes him up after 5 minutes. Yeah, that’s right. And then people think that they’re
27:43
sleeping. Yes. Oh, yeah. That’s But that’s part of the hell of hell week. Okay. Okay. No, that just sounds like having a newborn. But
27:49
yeah. So, no, it’s true. Yeah. There a whole whole separate whole whole separate hell few months that goes on
27:55
when when one has a newborn. So, um why does athleticism not is not why is
28:00
athleticism not a predictor of success? It’s because um athleticism on its own
28:06
is is a very certain endeavor. Um whether it be sport, whether it be just working out. Um those who are very um
28:14
well and and I would say athleticism also has to do with your ability to the
28:19
aptitude you have in sports. Okay. I was never I never considered myself an athlete. I played lacrosse in high
28:24
school. I never considered myself an athlete. I was okay at lacrosse. I think athleticism has to do with your ability
28:30
to kind of conduct you yourself in the sports environment. Um it also has to do with being in shape. But I think even
28:36
being in shape is not a single predictor because that act of getting into super
28:42
shape and being super fit is again a very certain act. I mean you have to be it has to be you have to be disciplined.
28:48
You have to go to the gym every day. You have to work out every day. Uh you have to you have to do the thing every day.
28:53
Buds is and the other thing I’ll I’ll say is is a lot of athletes um when they’re especially in collegiate
28:59
athletes athletics the the goal is always to be hitting the field at 100%.
29:06
And and an athlete will do everything in his or her power to get themselves to 100% so that they can hit the field at
29:12
their best. Okay. Everything about buds is we’re going to take you to zero and what do you got at zero? And so it is it
29:20
becomes, hey, we’re going to make you do so many push-ups that you can’t do anymore. You can barely move. What do
29:25
you have? And so they they almost mitigate the athleticism to see where your mind goes. So BUDS is a mental
29:31
endeavor. Um this is why you have sometimes division one athletes going to Buds and quitting within the first week.
29:37
Meanwhile, the the kid from the farm who’s done nothing um in terms of sport and flies through because it’s a mental
29:44
thing. So, so BUDS is designed to test your mental capacity. Now, you have to
29:51
be in shape to be able to do what they’re asking you to do. So, so you have to still be in shape enough to do the thing, but um but rest assured, it’s
29:58
not about it’s not about the physical, it’s about the mental. Do you have to be taken to zero in
30:04
everyday life to see what you’re made of? No, not at all. Uh you uh should you be?
30:10
No, I wouldn’t say you should. I think I think if there’s first well first of all we are all as human beings taken to zero
30:17
in different ways some some extraordinarily traumatic which I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy others
30:23
people just throw themselves into a Spartan race or something like that or go to buds um so there’s different ways
30:28
you can get to zero I would say a couple things first of all you don’t have to get all the way to zero you have to you
30:34
have to you have to really be willing to stretch yourself and move outside your comfort zone to a degree that you feel
30:41
like oh Actually, I just accomplished something. You’ll know it. You’ll know when you go outside your comfort zone and you make it through. Um, so
30:46
I don’t know if that’s true. Well, I I think it is because you get a dopamine reward for it every time. Um, when you when you do something really
30:53
hard, and again, hard is subjective to the individual. I mean, you know, hard for a person who’s been sedentary their whole life might be I’m going to walk up
31:00
the 10 flights of stairs instead of take the elevator. For you and I, that’s like, oh, I mean, I could run up 10 flights of stairs, but that’s hard for
31:06
them. And so, when they accomplish that, they’re going to feel the reward. You and I might not feel the reward, but they will. And so I think we have to be
31:12
always cognizant of the subjectivity of what hard is and encourage people to do
31:18
hard things. Getting in the ice bath for me is hard every single time. That’s why did you do a winter hall week or summer?
31:24
I Yeah, it was November, so it was winter. Yeah, it was not January, but it was still cold. Um, it was considered in that in that zone. Getting the ice back
31:30
is bath is hard. Every single time I do it, I don’t want to do it. I dread it. I just don’t like it. That’s that’s still
31:36
something hard. Same thing when I do my my I do you you know Virginia Beach but I do my sprints with my weight fest up
31:42
Mount Trashmore that uh that big hill. I dread that too but I do it because it’s hard. So so I think we need to encourage
31:50
ourselves to push because we know you know the anterior mids singulate cortex
31:55
that’s the part of the brain that they’ve discovered that neuroscientists realize that when it’s it’s activated when you do hard things you do things
32:01
you don’t want to do it’s activated and it in fact grows the more you do that. And that’s been linked to a the ability
32:08
to do hard things more frequently and b what’s really cool it’s been linked to longevity. So you actually the more you
32:14
the more you tickle that part of your brain the longer you live. So so it’s not only good for us as human beings to
32:21
do hard things. It’s uh in terms of just a day-to-day life. It’s good just for your longevity to do hard things. And so
32:28
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and of course their gummies which are incredible. Physically hard things, there is a beginning and an end.
34:01
Yes. Sprinting. Yeah. Ice baths, you name it. Mentally hard
34:06
things that seems like that’s much more difficult to push. I’ll give you an example. I thought that doing a book
34:14
launch would be hard or writing a book and doing all the things that come with it. And in retrospect, I think, well,
34:21
was that hard or speaking in front of thousands of people, is is that hard?
34:26
And I find myself and maybe you can relate. If I find myself questioning, is that really hard
34:32
or where is the edge? And how am I stretching myself? I find that if it is
34:38
mental, it’s much more challenging to pull that lever. Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree.
34:44
Uh because that’s where everything starts. And I will I will concede that we can work out in a way that adds the
34:49
mental piece to it. Um but this is also why we need to take advantage of the
34:55
lives we live. We are as human beings subjecting ourselves and life is subjecting us to uncertainty, challenge
35:03
and stress all the time. hard stuff all the time. It’s our job to recognize that and don’t mope and don’t complain and
35:10
don’t brush it off like it’s something you want to forget. Understand it, live it, feel it, and learn from it. And I
35:17
give me an example. Ju just take marriage as an example. I mean, Kristen and I I mean, we get in healthy marriage, married couples get
35:23
into arguments. Those are hard. Those things suck. Those it sucks when you’re in it. um an ability to recognize that
35:30
in the moment or at least sometimes it’s tough in the moment but certainly as soon after the moment as possible as hey
35:35
this is a challenge let’s step let’s lean into that and let’s make sure we make it work that’s recognizing hard
35:43
stuff the delayed or canceled flights during travel those are hard things that you have to work through these are these
35:49
are what I call little tragedies that are allowing us to practice our horizon
35:56
shifting practice our resilience muscles in these little moments um uh so that we
36:01
get good when the [ __ ] happens that we haven’t we haven’t anticipated or the really big bad stuff happens. But all of us, every single one of us as human
36:07
beings can tell at least at least one or two or three stories throughout their
36:13
lives where man that was a shitty time. And it’s it’s incumbent on us if we
36:19
didn’t do it back then to look back at those and ask ourselves, okay, what did I do? How did I perform? How did I
36:24
behave? What can I learn? so that the next shitty thing that happens, you can actually start stepping through with
36:30
more confidence. Would you say it’s about mastering those little tragedies? It’s it’s about mastering the tools that
36:37
get you through those little tragedies, which now we get into. So So one of the biggest things that that inhibits our
36:43
performance is fear. Um because fear is this, you know, again, it’s this motion that it tickles the amydala. It gets our
36:49
autonomic arousal uh um engaged. Our brain begins to do weird things as as
36:55
our autonomic arousal goes up. Our frontal lobe, the decision-making part of our brain begins to actually start taking a backseat to our liyic brain,
37:01
which is the emotional part of our brain. And in the extreme cases, amigdula hijack or autonomic overload,
37:07
we are um it’s a case where that that frontal lobe has taken a complete backseat and we are in limbic
37:13
decision-making. In other words, we’re acting without thinking. This this stuff comes in very handy when we’re jumping out of the way of the moving train or
37:19
running from the bear. In most scenarios in life, we want to actually engage our frontal lobe so we can decide we can
37:25
actually move through and decide that. So you you know Andrew Huberman and I are good friends. We we met each other
37:30
after as soon as I got out of the Navy. We did a lot of work together on this. He was still running his fear lab. And so what we did together, we started
37:36
studying fear. He was studying fear kind of from a neuroscientific level. And we began to kind of explore what guys like
37:41
Navy Seals do to actually step through this. One of the things we we hypothesized is that fear is in fact a
37:47
combination of two factors. It’s a combination of uncertainty plus anxiety. When you have either one of those,
37:53
without the other, you don’t necessarily have fear. So, you can be anxious without being uncertain. That might mean, I’m going to give a presentation
37:59
next week. Um, I know the presentation. I know the people I’m giving it to at work, so I’m a little anxious, but
38:05
there’s no uncertainty there. There’s no fear. You can be uncertain without being anxious. Well, that’s You can be uncertain without being
38:12
without being anxious. That’s every kid on Christmas Eve. Okay? So, there’s no fear there. When you combine the two, that’s when you start to get fear. And
38:18
so the strategy for move, and that’s the type of uncertainty we’re talking about, by the way. We’re talking about the uncertainty that adds anxiety that
38:24
equals fear. None of us have any concern about the uncertainty about Christmas Eve. Okay? The way we begin to move
38:30
through that is we buy down either the uncertainty or the anxiety or both. All right? And so buying down uncertainty is
38:37
a very specific set of tools that I talk about in the book. And this this means what it what it what it looks to do is
38:44
it looks to generate certainty in an unknown and certain environment. You you anchor on something and generate
38:49
immediate certainty. What do I mean by that? In any environment, our brain is always trying to figure out what’s going on. Our our brain seeks certainty. So
38:56
it’s trying to figure out what’s going on. Um most of the time in an environment it’s it’s through three
39:02
factors, three distinct factors. Duration, how long this is going to last. Pathway, what’s my route in, out,
39:07
or through? And then outcome, what’s the end state here? If we are an absence of one or more of those, we start to feel
39:13
that that uncertainty rise of often anxiety comes with it. Let’s take uh we’ll just take um illness as an
39:20
example. Uh strep throat is an illness we all know. There’s actually an antibiotic you can take for strep throat. If we get strep throat, we are
39:27
only in absence of one of the three. We have the pathway that’s antibiotic. We have the outcome. I’m going to get
39:32
better. What we don’t necessarily have is duration because antibiotics might work a little bit faster on you than they do for me. So we’re an absence of
39:38
one. Our uncertainty level is mild. Now let’s talk about the flu. Also a known illness. Um nowadays in today’s society,
39:45
most people recover from the flu. They don’t die from the flu. However, when we have the flu, we are in an absence of
39:51
two factors. We know the outcome. We’re going to get better. But there’s no known thing you can take for the flu. So
39:57
there’s no known pathway. There’s a lot of people who have ideas, but there’s no codified way. So we’re in absence of
40:02
pathway or we’re in absence of duration. anxieties or or uncertainty level is moderate. Now, let’s uh imagine a
40:09
disease shows up, no one’s ever seen before, starts spreading across the planet. Some people are dying, some
40:14
people aren’t dying, no known vaccine. We don’t know how long it’s going to be doing this. Enter 2020. This is how why
40:20
in when CO hit, all of us were feeling the way we felt because we were in absence of all three of these. All this
40:27
process we call I call moving horizons does is it basically allows you to pick
40:32
something and ask yourself what do I know? What kind of control? Pick something to anchor on and in essence
40:38
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amazing and it will not break the bank. An example during seal training would be this. And people can relate to this even
41:59
if they’re working out. But seal training was during hell week you run around with those big heavy boats on your head all the time. It was 3:00 in
42:05
the morning. We’re running with these things. We’re all miserable. We’re on the beach next to a sandm. And I remember saying to myself, you know
42:10
what? I’m just going to focus on getting to the end of this sandm. Now what I did in that moment inadvertently is I picked
42:17
a horizon and in essence created a DPO duration pathway outcome. Duration from now until end of sandburnm pathway from
42:22
here to end of sandburnm outcome end of sandburn. And what I also did in that moment is I immediately engaged my
42:28
dopamine system to to start endeavoring or start going moving forward in that goal. And then I also created a reward
42:35
at the end that gave me a dopamine hit when I got it. Which then allowed me to once I hit that horizon ask the question
42:41
again. Okay, now what do I know and what kind of control? I pick a new horizon. Now this horizon shifting is basically
42:47
generating certainty out of uncertainty. But the horizon shifting, the horizon picking is subjective to the individual
42:54
and the intensity of the environment. And it’s constantly moving. It’s not always the same thing. Freezing in the surf zone, which we talked about winter
43:00
hell week, you know, surf torture. I’ve never heard the Yeah. I mean, it’s awful. I remember freezing the surf zone and I’d say my
43:06
horizon at the time was I’m going to count five waves. Sometimes my horizon was I’m going to make it to the next meal. sometimes my horizon was I was
43:12
going to you know run to the end of Sandber. It’s all based on the subjectivity because what you’re doing in essence is you’re manipulating your
43:18
own dopamine reward system and dopamine as we know not just a reward chemical. It’s a motivation chemical. We can’t we
43:24
don’t even get out of bed without dopamine in our system. And so if we pick a horizon what we’re doing is we’re
43:30
engaging our dopamine system. However, the reason why it’s subjective in terms of how far or how short that horizon is
43:36
because if we pick a horizon that’s too far, we won’t have enough dopamine to get to the end of it. Would that be, for example, somebody
43:43
wants to lose weight and they pick a time frame that is 8 weeks away?
43:48
Yeah. Or or they say, “I’m going to I’m going to lose 30 lbs in 8 weeks.” Okay. That is too far of a horizon. Well,
43:57
again, it’s subjective to the person. It might not be, but in in most cases, that’d be too far of a horizon. But I’ll give you a more visceral example than
44:02
anybody you can can imagine cuz I just talked about hell week. A classic example is thinking about Friday of hell
44:08
week on Monday. We always have a saying in buds. If you think about Friday on Monday, you’re not going to make it. And in fact, they started doing exit
44:13
interviews for for guys who quit. It was probably 10 12 years ago now. And I’m
44:18
glad they did. But but as they interviewed these guys and just say, “Hey, what happened?” Nine times out of
44:24
10, the story was the same. It’s like we were doing, we had been doing X. We were still doing X. I couldn’t imagine doing
44:30
X for the next five days, right? They could not shorten their horizon. Now, what’s interesting is every single one
44:37
of us human beings have done this at some level. Most of us who work out do it all the time. Um, we don’t go into a
44:44
workout and say and think about the entirety of the workout. We say, “What am I what am I focusing? I’m going to do this muscle. I’m going to do this
44:50
exercise. I’m going to do this set.” We we we break it down into horizons. by manipulating our dopamine system in the
44:55
in that way. If we pick a a horizon that’s too far, we run out. By the way, if you quit anything, it’s because
45:01
you’ve run out of dopamine. You you picked that if you quit anything. Yeah, you’ve run out of dopamine. You’ve picked a horizon that’s too far. Um if
45:07
you pick a horizon that’s too close, then you won’t register the reward. It won’t feel like anything and you’ll know
45:12
it. You’ll know it both both ways, which is What do you mean too too close? So, in other words, um if I um if for
45:18
Okay, here’s a great example. U and I’ll I’ll just I’ll just reference a guy I talk about in the book. There was a guy who I met at a conference. He walked up
45:24
to me. He he introduced himself. He said he was an ultrarunner. And I his name was George. And I said, “Uh, that’s
45:30
cool. I mean, how did you get into ultra running?” Because I think it’s insane. I would never run 100 miles. 100 miles. Um, and he said, “You would, you might
45:36
not believe this, but I used to be 300 lb or something like that.” I said, “You got to tell me that story.” He’s like, “Well, I was frustrated. I was so
45:43
frustrated one day with my weight and my health that I decided that I was going to I was going to run a marathon, you
45:48
know.” I said, “Okay, what’d you do?” He said, “Well, the first thing I did is I went home and I got online and I ordered
45:53
running shoes and I and those came.” And when those came, I said, “Okay, tomorrow morning I’m going to put on my running shoes,” which is what he did.
46:00
Next morning, he said, “I’m going to put on my running shoes. I’m going to walk to the front door,” which is what he did. Next morning, he walked to the mailbox. Next morning, he walked to the
46:06
end of the street and slowly went up went up and up. Now, if you and I, cuz we’re we’re we work out. We’re athletic.
46:11
If you and I decided, I I try to run twice a week. If we took a break from running for 3 months and we said, “We’re
46:16
going to start running again. tomorrow I’m going to put on my shoes and walk to the mailbox. That’s not going to be enough of a horizon for us. It’s very
46:22
subjective. We won’t register the reward. It has to be something bigger. So, so too small, it’s just not going to
46:28
be big enough and you’ll know it because you’re just like, that didn’t feel like anything. Too big, you’ll know it because you’re you’re going to feel like
46:33
you want to quit. The good thing is we can modulate. If you feel like you picked a horizon that’s too far and you’re in the middle of it,
46:39
break it down a little bit. When I’m running my hills at Trashmore, it’s about a I would say about a 80 to 100
46:45
yard run uphill. And I started I started just practicing or just doing this just
46:50
to see what what it felt like. I said, “You know what? I’m going to I’m going to pick a horizon that’s um 10 steps up the hill.” I realized that was too small
46:56
for me. I realized my best horizon is actually the top of the hill. Now, for other people, it might be halfway up the
47:02
hill and then go um if we’re doing um sets at a gym, sometimes we’ll we’ll be
47:08
doing sets and we’ll we’ll want to do 12 and we’ll do six and it’s like, “Okay,
47:14
just six more.” What we’ve done there is we’ve just we’ve adjusted our horizon in that moment. We’ve picked another
47:19
horizon, a different focus point. So, so we can adjust these constantly just to get us through and it’s all subjective to the individual.
47:25
It seems that if we go through life consciously, yeah, a lot of us I mean I can just speak for
47:31
myself. I don’t think about Well, I do now think about the horizons, but I I believe that many people are
47:38
walking around with my mom used to call it free floating anxiety. Yeah. Yeah. Have Have you heard of that? I haven’t.
47:43
But it sounds uh Well, I will say it is fascinating sitting with you and just watching my
47:49
husband. He’s not anxious. I I think to myself, “Hey, man, I think you should be anxious about this. You
47:55
have no idea what you’re doing.” Or, “What about this? What about that?” And it’s really interesting to watch an
48:04
individual go through life without anxiety. Yeah. Yeah. It is completely different
48:10
than an individual trying the amount of energy to navigate life with this idea
48:16
of of just anxiety. What would you tell someone who is walking around just feeling anxious?
48:23
Yeah. And has not doesn’t have a reason as to why which which I think that’s a lot of people.
48:28
That’s a lot of people. There’s there’s two two things. And now we’re talking about we’ve we talked about buying down uncertainty. Now we have to talk about
48:34
buying down anxiety. The first thing I’ll mention is that there are anxiety causes stress in the system which causes
48:41
again our autonomic arousal to go up. One of the ways we there are physiological ways we can actually
48:46
manage our stress. Okay? And there’s breathing techniques, breathing tools, visual tools which we can talk about. So that’s one way to do this. However, what
48:53
I’ll say this, one of the biggest reasons why guys like us don’t suffer from anxiety is because we completely
49:00
reframe anxiety. Anxiety is quite literally fiction. Anxiety is always
49:06
about what might happen. It’s always in the future. Now the past is history and the future is fiction. Then now the the
49:11
effects of anxiety, the stress that’s that’s the result of anxiety is completely present. That’s the present physiological. Is it though?
49:17
Well, yeah, because it’s creating stress in our system. So that’s very present. But but what seals never do is worry
49:22
about [ __ ] they can’t control. Now, it does not preclude proper planning. Of
49:28
course, I mean, we’re going to plan and say, you know, on a mission, we’ll say, well, but we don’t over plan. We’ll say, “Hey, these three things are the biggest
49:34
things that might happen. Let’s plan for those.” We have we’ll put that on the shelf. That way, we’ve we’ve mitigated the uncertainty window because we’ve
49:40
planned for those. Other than that, we’re like, “Hey, what happen whatever happens, we’ll figure it out along the way.” We do not worry about things that
49:47
are in the future. We anchor ourselves to the present moment and we we let that anchoring take away any anxiety. So the
49:54
key again the stress that is the result of anxiety can be overwhelming and in
49:59
those cases we have to employ I would encourage everybody to employ those physiological tools and those visual
50:05
tools meaning what you talk about in the book open gaze size so open open gaze is just soft gaze
50:12
right if you’re looking at a if you if you pick a point on the wall and you’re looking at a point and then you suddenly stop looking at the point you just
50:17
soften your gaze I don’t know I’m still stressed out when I tried that one okay well so so feel feel how it works
50:23
for I know when I started public speaking, which is not comfortable for me at all, I’d get up on stage and I immediately just open my gaze. Instead
50:28
of staring at one thing, I’d kind of look to the back of room and open my gaze. That helps. It’s not as powerful
50:33
as the as the respiratory tools. One of the most powerful respiratory tools, the physiological sigh. That’s the deep
50:39
breath in all the way to the top. Top it off and then a slow and controlled
50:45
exhale out. Okay? That actually has been proven to really In fact, we do this when we’re going to sleep. We’ve we’ve
50:50
heard our our pets do this, by the way. Our dogs do this all the time. It actually begins to calm you. It it and what what by calming you, it’s bringing
50:56
down bringing down that autonomic arousal and re-engaging your frontal lobe. That’s really important because
51:02
you cannot start picking horizons until you re-engage your frontal lobe. What’s very cool is you can combine the two
51:09
quite immediately. Anybody who’s really feeling stressed and anxious in a moment can say, you know what, my first horizon, take 10 breaths. That’s their
51:15
first. Yeah. And they can they can actually combine the two. But what you’re doing is you’re anchoring into the present. Once you begin to do that,
51:21
once you can control that and you can begin to move horizons, fear goes away. And I say that, you know, you might you
51:26
might put it on a shelf, but I remember, you know, people have asked me before, have you were you ever in a situation
51:32
where you were really afraid, like in combat or something, and I answer them quite honestly, no. But the answer is
51:38
not coming from a place of arrogance or bravado. The answer is is literally because in those moments when they
51:44
happened, all of us were so focused on what we needed to do in the moment that we didn’t worry about anything else. It
51:49
was just step by step by step. So much so that it was quite often that after
51:55
everything was done, maybe we were home from the op, all the reports, I was back in my hooch by myself, I’d think back
52:00
and then the the fear would hit like, “Holy [ __ ] that was close.” And I get all the physiological responses, but it
52:06
much better to get it there than, you know, lighter. And that that’s also can be the seeds of PTSD as well, by the
52:12
way, which is a whole another issue. But but the idea is if we are actively
52:18
picking horizons through a moment, we are actually mitigating uncertainty because we are mitigating anxiety because we’re not focused on what could
52:25
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53:41
Another example of this, I was with a buddy of our I was actually having lunch with a couple of buddies who we were all in in um in Red Squadron together and
53:48
some of the jumping profiles which people don’t know what Red Squadron is. Yeah, that’s one of the squadrons at Dev Group that we that we’re part of. So,
53:54
but one of the things we we do some insane uh skydiving profiles. So, we do HiHo operations, high altitude at high
53:59
opponent operations where you jump out of the plane, you go up to about 20,000 ft, 22,000 ft. You jump out of the plane
54:05
at 22,000 ft and you count to four and you open your parachute. So, you’re at about 20,000 ft and you’re flying to an
54:10
unknown DZ, which is literally a DZ that no one’s reconed before. We just looked at the map and said that looks like a
54:16
clear spot, but you don’t know. Um, you land there and then you then you start your mission. You could control the target, all that stuff. And then, of
54:22
course, you’re at 20,000 ft. So, your night vision, oxygen, all that stuff. Very um intense and and um
54:30
multiple pieces about an oper for an operation like this. Well, we were talking we were having lunch. We were talking about one of these ops. It was a
54:36
huge op, very serious target. Hey ho. And my buddy says, he says, “You know what’s funny? When that ramp opened up,
54:43
there’s only one thing I’m thinking.” And we’re like, “What?” He’s like, “Nail the exit.” And he’s absolutely right
54:48
because if you don’t nail the exit, if you don’t get a stable body position, your parachute’s not going to open properly. And they have a whole host of
54:54
problems. So, First Horizon with all that in front of us, every single one of us are like, “Nail the exit. Once you
54:59
nail the exit, pull my parachute. Once I get my parachute out, get on a heading. Right? It’s just step by step by step.
55:05
And so anybody who suffers from anxiety should start to a reframe it. It’s all fiction. It hasn’t happened yet. So
55:11
you’re you’re literally worrying about something that hasn’t happened. And begin to anchor themselves in the present by using this moving horizons
55:17
process. And they will find themselves able to start stepping through more effectively. This is what guys like
55:23
Shane and I do without thinking. That’s exactly right. I don’t see him think through this process. It is just
55:30
an immediate reaction. Yeah. And that you think people can get there? Oh yes. Yeah. We just practice on the
55:35
small stuff, you know. Practice on the small stuff. Start looking at some of the things that cause you. So doing hard
55:40
things or causing anything that causes stress or or or or hardship, practice
55:46
with that. Working out’s a great place. So even though working out is not an uncertain environment, you can practice it during working out. You know, you can
55:52
practice it during physical endeavors. You can practice it even making a at work if you have to do you have a
55:58
thousand things just say you know what I’m going to focus on this I’m going to do email for 10 minutes that’s my horizon right now I’m going to block out
56:03
everything else that’s my horizon you can practice this so that you start working through it and you’ll find yourself a more productive but b the
56:10
anxiety will will start to mitigate what about this idea of identity where does identity fall
56:16
in this scope so in the book I break down the idea the the the process or the kind of the
56:22
mastering uncertainty method comes comes in two parts. Part one is this idea of managing our own physiology and
56:28
neurology. What I just talked about, the good news is every single human being has the ability to do this. We’re all
56:34
it’s it’s it’s ubiquitous in terms of our ability to move horizons and and manage our physiology. The second part
56:41
deals with what we individually bring into uncertainty. Okay? Because we all are different types of automobiles. Some
56:47
of us are Jeeps, some of us are SUVs, some of us are Ferraris, maybe a Prius. Maybe a Prius. And no judgment because the Prius can do things that the Ferrari
56:53
can’t do. And the Ferrari can do things the Prius can’t do. But don’t agree. Yeah, that’s like be comfortable. Well, well, but the idea But the idea is
57:00
the idea is uh understand what vehicle you are because you are bringing you are
57:05
bringing something unique into whatever environment. This is what we do with teams when we put teams through this attribute stuff is we we we allow them
57:12
to understand all the different types of vehicles on the team and how they mesh together because sometimes a Prius is what’s needed to be up front. Sometimes
57:19
it’s a Ferrari that needs to be up, sometimes it’s a Jeep. So all this to say we all have very unique individual
57:24
profiles that we bring into uncertainty. Attributes is one of those. So understanding attributes is is important. Identity is another huge one
57:31
because identity is this idea that we all as human beings are a collection of I ams. Now anything we put after the
57:39
words I am is I I always I always say I am are the two most powerful words in
57:45
the human language because anything we can put after that those two words we begin to behave towards. It forms an
57:50
identity. But we are all a collection of different I ams. Um we collect them over a lifetime of experience. Some are
57:57
benign, some are pretty powerful. I went to this high school. I played lacrosse. Um I’m a husband and father. Uh I’m a
58:04
Navy Seal. I’m a Metallica fan. Okay. Whatever those I ams are, they all come with them certain rules and conditions
58:11
and and uh and boundaries inside of which you behave to behave towards that identity. In uncertainty, challenge and
58:17
stress, we will behave towards whatever identity we we are prioritizing in that moment. Okay. So, so in combat overseas,
58:25
of course, my priority identity was husband was a Navy Seal. Just as powerful an identity for me has always
58:30
been husband, father. Okay. But in combat, Navy Seal was priority. Now, sometimes the target would change and
58:35
we’d have to take care of maybe some civilians. Husband and father identity would come to the four. Okay. But but
58:41
understanding which identities we have and what they’re doing to our behavior actually is massively important. An
58:47
example of this going the wrong way. Um we’ve all heard the story of the avid sports fan who beats the [ __ ] out of
58:54
another sports fan, okay? And gets in trouble and suddenly standing in front of the judge and the judge is like, “What the hell were you thinking?” That
58:59
person’s like, “I I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just doing.” Now, what happened in that moment was that person in that moment was prioritizing
59:06
that identity to a to a negative degree. But it’s subconscious. It’s well it’s subconscious if you let
59:11
it be subconscious. The reason why I bring it up in the book is because we can actually gain control of this by
59:17
understanding what identities we’re bringing to the table. If this person we just talked about had understood or or
59:22
thought about the fact that he also had an identity of professional businessman maybe husband father said you know what
59:28
as a professional businessman as husband father maybe I won’t behave this way. I’m going to prioritize a different
59:33
identity. So, so the power and the the utility of understanding a our
59:39
identities, the list allows us to bring to the four the ones we need to in the
59:44
moment. Discard the ones we don’t um or not bring to the four or I would say even discard. There might be identities
59:50
if we go through the list because there’s a lot there’s we have a lot. Okay. Um but go through the list and there might be ones that you know what
59:55
this doesn’t apply to me anymore. You know, Navy Seal is a huge one and Shane would agree with me. You know, Navy
1:00:01
Seals it’s not like the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps is once a Marine, always a Marine. And the Marine Corps does a fantastic job of of solidifying
1:00:08
that identity. You can talk to 90year-old men who still refer to themselves as Gunny Sergeant. Okay? Not
1:00:14
the same in the SEAL teams. Seal Teams has earned your Trident every day. As soon as you take that Trident off, you are no longer a Navy Seal. Shane and I
1:00:20
are former Navy Seals. Now, that comes with it a whole host of different behaviors, different identities, but but
1:00:27
part of the vacuum that a lot of guys feel when they leave the SEAL teams is because they they’ve been holding on.
1:00:33
It’s they’ve been holding on to that identity and no longer exists for And you were a commander. That’s different. What how what is that?
1:00:39
Well, that was just that means I was an officer. I was So, in other words, I was in charge of teams. Um, and I was in
1:00:44
charge of a SEAL command, too. So, I was commanding officer of a team as well. So, how does that work? They’re all really
1:00:50
alpha types. I loved it because uh because a in in
1:00:56
any type of leadership uh there’s or there’s so much that goes into that but but there’s often and I talked to many
1:01:02
civilian leaders there’s often sometimes a problem of just motivating your people. Okay, I never had to motivate my
1:01:09
people, right? For me, my biggest job was holding people back in some cases and providing them the environment to really excel. Now that kind of holding
1:01:16
back can be sometimes a difficult challenge. But I think um I’m a I’m a big collaborator. Collaboration is you
1:01:22
know collaborative is one of my high attributes. And so to be able to work with such
1:01:28
high performing individuals um and and just watch them and and and give them
1:01:34
the space because it was my job to really create an environment inside of which they could do everything they needed to do. Create the space. That was
1:01:39
where I felt my job was to watch them be able to succeed and and do that was not
1:01:45
only just a thrill but also one of the greatest things I’ve I’ve experienced. Yeah. Do you find that because you guys did
1:01:52
such hard things together that it created a bond? Yes. So here’s another good thing about hard stuff. Uh and this is something
1:01:58
Huber and I talked about. Um when when we when we learn anything um experience
1:02:04
anything uh we create a neural connection in our brain. Okay. And what happens is we create that neural connection that neural network and then
1:02:10
that that connection begins to mileinate as we repeat that. So if we’re learning something and we and we repeat it over
1:02:16
and over again that that network begins to or that connection begins to mileinate which is like a substance that goes around this con like coaxial cable
1:02:23
once that’s fully mileinated what mean what that means is that that connection that the energy is going immediately. In
1:02:29
other words you don’t have to think about what you’re doing anymore. So so just take driving a stick shift car. When we first learn how to drive a stick
1:02:35
stick shift car, we’re thinking about it every, you know, everything we’re thinking about those those connections are new and they’re not mileinated very
1:02:42
well. As we do it over and over again and we achieve unconscious competence, that means those connections have been
1:02:47
mileinated fully. We can do it without thinking. Neuroscience has proven that that whole process, the connective
1:02:53
process and the mileination process can in fact increase hundred to a thousand times sometimes if three things are
1:03:00
present in the environment. Those three things are intensity, novelty, and focus. This is exactly why being told a
1:03:07
stove is hot is different than touching a hot stove because touching a hot stove involves all three of those. You will
1:03:12
never touch a hot stove again. Why do I say that? It’s because the reason why we find that relationships strengthen often
1:03:17
times. You said intensity, novelty, and and focus. So this this environment is
1:03:23
very intense. It’s novel. It’s somewhat new. And then it’s I’m I’m deeply focused. This is why we learn more from
1:03:29
our mistakes than we do our accomplishments. Because whenever we fail or make mistakes, those three things are absolutely predominant. Not
1:03:37
as much when we succeed. There’s there’s a difference there. It’s also why when we fail together as groups, it creates
1:03:42
these bonds because we’re actually we’re actually creating these networks at the same time.
1:03:47
People do people have to experience the same level of failure? No, I don’t think so. I mean everything’s subjective and it’s really
1:03:53
whatever feels I mean so you know again you for you and I as you in doing what we’ve done failing at something we might
1:04:00
be like ah that’s not a big deal where someone else who has never experienced that is a huge deal for them that’s why I’m always I’m emotion is a very
1:04:07
subjective thing so I always have to be we always have to be cognizant of what other people consider hard uh because
1:04:13
it’s it’s a it’s real to them so having been through life and death situations and again this goes back to
1:04:20
um what it takes to become a seal and seals are not normal and I and I I truly
1:04:26
do believe that there’s a certain level that can be trained up but there is there is what I believe and
1:04:33
I I don’t know if this is true a particular set of attributes not
1:04:39
skills right but a particular set of attributes that when stress uncertainty and chaos arise
1:04:47
these individuals have an ability to perform. Yeah. Which brings me to you. You’ve been in
1:04:53
very austere environments. You’ve done really hard things and now you were living a civilian life
1:04:59
in order to maintain a certain level and happiness is not the right
1:05:05
word. I agree. Happiness is fleeting and you don’t want it all the time. Yeah. Right. Uh satisfaction, fulfillment.
1:05:11
Okay. There you go. You have now set the bar extremely high. Mhm. How do you put yourself in an
1:05:19
environment where you have to or will give you that same feeling?
1:05:24
Uh well, it’s it’s not going to be the same feeling. First off, get used to that. Okay? And my buddies and I talk about that. It’s not the same feeling.
1:05:30
However, um you can it’s a different feeling and it’s just as serious. Listen, I I wrote a book and began a
1:05:36
business with my wife. I mean, we I I work we she and I work for no one. We work for ourselves and we’re building a
1:05:42
business together. That is and we have two kids. We have one kid in college and one getting ready to go. So, so these
1:05:47
are, you know, speaking in front of crowds, you know, that’s easy for you now. It’s easy for me now, but it’s only
1:05:53
because I I I inoculated myself to do it. So, but now what do you do? I I continue to build a business. You
1:05:58
know, we and we pivot the business. We we we ask ourselves what’s the next what’s the next level that we need to
1:06:04
do? Parenting, regardless of the age, is a is a stressful endeavor because you’re
1:06:10
constantly asking yourself, what do I do? Am I doing it right? How do I accomplish this? Staying married for,
1:06:15
you know, 24 years and and onward, you know, is is But you get what I’m saying. There’s a level of this book. So, Masters of
1:06:22
Uncertainty. Look how well worn this is. Yeah. I actually travel with this book. That, by the way, I I wrote it small
1:06:28
just so people would. So, I love it. And it’s, you know, I I mark in it and uh so I’m never giving this
1:06:35
book away. Also, it has writing and marking. I signed that, right? Of course you did.
1:06:40
Yes. I would be very upset if I uh lost it. But there is a level of stress,
1:06:47
uncertainty and chaos. And then people become people like you become really
1:06:52
good at managing life. Yeah. In order to grow and there’s business
1:06:58
growth, but I’m talking about putting yourself and again I look at Shane,
1:07:04
it’s very hard for he for him to be in a situation where it’s pushing him. I mean, the guy is running marathons now.
1:07:10
Yeah. While he’s working 120 hours a week, but for someone like you, and I also I’m asking this because I I think about for
1:07:16
myself, there’s being busy and working hard, and then there’s really pushing yourself
1:07:23
to the edge. For example, for me, I am a mom of two kids. I don’t have full-time help. I just wrote my second book. I’m
1:07:32
podcasting. I’m doing these things. But when I reflect and I say, “Okay, is this really hard or is this
1:07:40
requiring me to be diligent and focused, how do you put yourself in a position where you’re functioning at that edge?”
1:07:47
Well, first of all, don’t mitigate the things you’re doing as not being hard. You’re just processing them in a way
1:07:52
that you say to yourself, “Oh, was that hard?” You just you have learned to process Shane what he’s doing. He is
1:07:58
still sh he’s moving horizons and and when he’s running these long races or doing what he’s doing, he might be
1:08:03
moving about very minute levels which means he’s exercising this muscle constantly. It’s really not about the
1:08:08
thing. It’s about are you exercising the muscle? That’s what you’re do. And whatever endeavor we’re trying to do,
1:08:14
whatever next phase, we are constantly I’m constantly exercis.
1:08:21
So I always say, you know, Kristen and I were talking about this the other day is I always say I I always endeavor to be
1:08:27
massively grateful but never satisfied. That’s what I always want to I want to be. I want to be and I am I’m very
1:08:33
grateful for everything, you know, everything that we’ve done, everything accomplished, everything up till now, massively grateful. Right. I but I want
1:08:39
to maintain a at least a small level of dissatisfaction so that I’m always looking to the next horizon. What’s the
1:08:44
next place we can go? What’s the next um goal we want to accomplish? So, so yeah, getting out of the Navy was okay, how
1:08:50
can we can I first of all function? I don’t can I get a job which I did. Um then okay, can I write a book? You know,
1:08:56
and then can we build a business? Um now that’s that’s the current endeavor to include a second book. Can I write a
1:09:02
second book? That’s the current endeavor. I don’t know what the next endeavor will be 5 to 10 years from now.
1:09:08
I’m going to I’m going to focus on this horizon and then once that horizon’s to a position where like okay actually this
1:09:14
this feels good. What’s my next pivot? But what I can guarantee is I will always pivot. There will always be
1:09:19
something I’m pivoting to so that I’m challenging myself in some way. Um again
1:09:24
we ask where we get this stuff. My dad is 80. Both my parents they’re divorced but they’re both very tough people. As
1:09:31
where did you grow up? Uh Connecticut. Yeah. And my dad’s a lawyer. He’s a he’s 85 right? 85 84. It
1:09:36
was two years ago. Two about two years ago. So it was 82 83. And he it was January and he sent us he’d been a
1:09:43
lawyer at a at a law firm there in the town we grew up um for 40 years. And uh
1:09:48
he wrote us an email. The kids, you know, I have I have three siblings and said uh you have a twin, one twin and then an older sister and a
1:09:55
younger brother. He wrote us an email and said uh hey kids, I just want to let you know everything changes. um you know the the
1:10:00
law firm has realized uh and he was a partner for a while but then he kind of stepped back doing a little bit less. He
1:10:06
said the the law firm has has discovered that it can no longer sustain itself to
1:10:11
a to a reasonable financial model. So it’s so after a 100-y old law firm so after 100 years it’s closing its doors.
1:10:16
He said but no worries I’ve already interviewed at three other law firms and I’ve decided to take a job at this one law firm I’m going to start in a week.
1:10:23
So he’s he’s an 82year-old man and he’s going and he started a new
1:10:28
job at a new law firm. Now he he’s at this law firm. He loves He said, “I’m surrounded by young people who are, you
1:10:34
know, teaching me things. I’m able to mentor them to a degree. There’s other people.” He said, “I’m learning a lot. He’s active.” He said, he said, “Rich, I
1:10:39
wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t want.” He loves the law. He loves doing what he does. This is what I’m talking about. If we are not staying
1:10:46
active, if we’re not picking the next horizons, we’re not picking the next goal, then we’re going to just wilt. And
1:10:51
so, I don’t plan to do that. Um the idea that winners are calm under pressure and
1:10:58
I say winners loosely, but are there top one or two attributes that people that
1:11:04
are very successful have? Yes. Uh I’m going to I’m going to give you the the um kind of soft answer, but
1:11:13
the but it’s probably the best answer, but then I’ll give you more specificity. The soft answer, which is the best answer, is the answer is yes, but I
1:11:19
don’t know which ones they are because it’s completely it’s completely subjective to whatever environment they’re in. The the super successful
1:11:26
accountant, the attributes for that person are different than the super successful Navy Seal, than the super
1:11:31
successful teacher or nurse, whatever that is. Now, all that said, I think that the if I were to if you put a gun
1:11:38
to my head and said, “Hey, what are the really important?” Yes. Well, um I would say
1:11:43
compartmentalization is one. Compartmentalization is the attribute that that allows for moving horizons. Totally. And and so and so so Navy Seals
1:11:50
for the guys who make it through Buds, we all show up to the beaches of Buds on day one with a level of this. We have to
1:11:56
because we’re not going to make it through the first day. Um and it just gets hyperdeveloped, right? The guys who don’t make it through BUDS, they just
1:12:02
didn’t show up with as much. So compartmentalization is compartmentalization is one. Courage is another. And by courage I mean again we
1:12:09
have to understand courage is the ability to step into our fear. When we get afraid our amigul
1:12:16
amydala gets tickled. We are offered two choices. Those two choices are fight or flight right fee or they’ve they’ve
1:12:23
determined that the freeze one is just an oscillation between the two. But it’s those two choices are actually separate
1:12:28
switches in the brain. So if we choose to flee it’s one switch. If we choose to fight it’s another switch. I.e. step into our fear. That fear that that step
1:12:35
in switch is a card. It’s known as the courage switch. So we have no access to that courage switch unless we have fear
1:12:41
present. We have no access to courage unless we have fear present. Right? Which is which tells us something
1:12:48
neurologically that we’ve all heard philosophically which is courage is impossible in the absence of fear. You
1:12:53
do not have courage in the absence of fear. You can’t. All this to say fear is entirely subjective to the human being.
1:12:59
You can have a group of Navy Seals in a gunfight with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan who are in that moment feeling less fear
1:13:05
than the 8-year-old who just has to step in front of the class and introduce themselves. Okay? So, it’s subjective.
1:13:11
So, you can be a generally anxious person, but every day and all day, you’re consistently stepping into your
1:13:16
fear. You’re consistently stepping into your discomfort. Your courage level is really high. You could be someone who does crazy [ __ ] right? And you’re not
1:13:23
accessing that courage. I don’t know if you’ve seen the I’m sure you have seen the um the documentary Free Solo, Alex
1:13:30
Honold, right? Uh now insane. I mean, free free climbing the stuff. I get sweaty palms when I watch it.
1:13:35
They looked at his brain. They recognized that his amydala doesn’t get tickled like normal people’s, right? It takes a while for his amydala to get
1:13:42
tickled. I.e. he’s not accessing that courage switch the same way other people are. Now, I’m saying I’m not saying Alex
1:13:47
is not courageous, but he’s not accessing the switch the same way someone else is. I see. Yeah. It takes less courage for
1:13:53
him. It doesn’t it in some cases it doesn’t take any courage for him because he’s not feeling the fear. He doesn’t get courage. None of us get courage
1:13:59
until we feel fear. So courage as an attribute is your ability to consistently and habitually step into
1:14:06
your discomfort and fear. I think that’s a very important attribute for all successful people. So do you have to follow that up with
1:14:13
mental reframing? For example, some individuals will go through their life. I don’t know if you know this, but I
1:14:18
trained in psychiatry for two years. I remember you saying that. Yeah. And you’ll see people go through the same
1:14:24
process and not necessarily move the needle. Yeah. With their anxiety. Yeah. And I think looking at the tools in this
1:14:31
book going back, had I known and I’m sure that you’ve got um moments
1:14:36
where if you could take what you learned now to go back, maybe those guys wouldn’t have failed out of buds.
1:14:42
Yeah. But you probably, you know, and just thinking about the brain, the brain becomes wired to do a
1:14:48
certain thing. brain may become particularly accustomed to that level of
1:14:53
anxiety that even if you that they almost don’t seem to get
1:14:59
better at managing it. It is they wake up, they feel anxiety and then they go
1:15:05
to bed and they because they’ve now anchored this neurology. Yeah, you bring up a great point. And this is this, by the way, has everything
1:15:11
to do with dopamine and the dopamine reward we get from it’s not it’s really the it’s really the um it’s not just the
1:15:18
anxiety, it’s what the anxiety pushes them to do or feel. I have my my nie uh
1:15:24
my cousin, she now lives in Virginia Beach. She does social work. She’s a wonderful human being and she helps
1:15:29
people with homeless homeless people find housing and she’s been in this work for years. But she was telling me a very
1:15:34
interesting story. which is there’s some cases where they have someone who’s been homeless for years and they finally get
1:15:39
this person in a house and after 5 days the person ditches and is back on the street.
1:15:44
Yes. And one of the reasons is because these people have developed this this
1:15:50
addiction almost to the the idea of and the process of getting up and figuring
1:15:55
it out all day. There’s it’s just not exciting enough. They don’t get that dopamine reward. So I think I think sometimes we can get trapped in this
1:16:02
moment or phase where our anxiety is actually giving us the dopamine that’s
1:16:08
actually driving us. And so we just have to again is that bad or good? I think it’s again that’s subjective. We have to decide is that actually progressing our
1:16:15
lives or it’s a tough way to live. It might get the I would agree. I certainly certainly um physically because because with that
1:16:21
stress that comes from that anxiety comes cortisol and all the the the um the bad neurobiology if kind of used in
1:16:28
extensive in for extensive periods. So so I’d say um I would say it’s much better if you can start to practice this
1:16:35
these tools and mitigate anxiety by these tools versus lean on
1:16:41
anxiety for the actual rush itself. If you gave people one piece of advice, if
1:16:46
they’re thinking about this and they want to become tougher, what would that piece of advice be?
1:16:53
Practice doing hard things. Do hard things because because you will because that anterior mids singulate cortex will
1:17:00
actually grow. You’ll tickle it. It’ll grow. It’ll get you will find yourself able to do harder things more
1:17:06
frequently. you will add to the to the to the the years on your life and you will start to gain confidence because as
1:17:13
you use these tools all masters of uncertainty do is we use these tools without thinking. We default to this
1:17:18
stuff. You’ll appreciate this. I I might have told you the story at one point but but in you know there in Virginia Beach we’ve lived there for 22 years and we’ve
1:17:26
been in the same house and across the street there’s a seal down the road to the left there’s a seal or used to be and down the road to the right there’s a
1:17:32
seal. And my wife once said she said I’m so glad these guys are in the neighborhood. And I said why? She said, “Because if something happened and I
1:17:38
needed them, I could go to them and you weren’t around. I could go to them and they’d act like you act.” I said, “What do you mean?” Because
1:17:44
every time the [ __ ] hits the fan, all you guys do is you stop. You just stop. You calm down. You start problem solving. All we’re doing is we’re moving
1:17:50
horizons. We start moving horizons without thinking about it. We just like, “Okay, what’s what do I focus on? This, this, this.” We just start stepping
1:17:55
through the process. So, so mastering this this stuff is really about getting to the point where you’re doing it without thinking. And like I said, it’ll
1:18:01
a allow you to do better when uncertainty hits without warning, but more importantly, it’ll give you the
1:18:06
confidence to start stepping deliberately into your discomfort and starting to really explore your potential. Well, Rich Deini, I love this book,
1:18:14
Masters of Uncertainty. I highly recommend everybody get this and also get your attributes book. This was uh
1:18:20
before I knew you personally. I love that book and I am just a huge supporter of the attributes book and the test.
1:18:28
You’re really doing some great work. incredibly articulate and I just I’m really grateful. Thank you. Wow. Thank you for your support. Thank
1:18:33
you for being such a great friend because uh it’s it’s a great journey and it’s nice to be nice to have great friends along the journey. So, thank
1:18:38
you.