Unbeatable Mind: Recent Episodes
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Today, Commander Divine speaks with James Clear (@JamesClear), the best-selling author of Atomic Habits (which has sold over 5 million copies). James discusses his process for writing and content...
The post James Clear: How to Grow Good Ideas and Position Yourself for Success appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Today, Commander Divine speaks with humanitarian, leadership expert, and best-selling author Robin Sharma (@RobinSharma). Robin’s father was a rotarian and brought his children up with strong values of humility...
The post Robin Sharma: How to Be World-Class without Hustling appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Today, Commander Divine speaks with psychologist and human performance expert, Dr. Nate Zinsser (@DocZinsser). Dr. Zinsser has coached cadets at West Point for the past 30 years. He’s also...
The post Nate Zinsser: Taking Control of Your Story appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Today, Commander Divine is joined by his friend, Amy Jurkowitz, to answer questions from his followers on Facebook Live, as well as questions submitted prior to the livestream. Mark...
The post Mark Divine: Hanging Out With Mark AMA appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Today, Mark Divine speaks with Jimmy, Jake, and Jordan DeCicco (@drinksupercoffee), founders of the healthy coffee brand, Super Coffee. All under the age of 30, these young entrepreneurs began...
The post The DeCicco Brothers: Super Brothers Make Super Coffee appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Today, Mark Divine speaks with his friend Tom McCarthy (@thetommccarthy1) and uncovers how Tom helps people overcome their perceived limits to push through to greatness. Tom shares his own...
The post Tom McCarthy: Breaking Through Your Perceived Limits appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Today, Mark Divine speaks with endurance athlete and co-founder of Rewire Fitness, Sun Sachs (@rewire_app), about overcoming childhood trauma through physical training in extreme sports, and the lessons he...
The post Sun Sachs: Holistic Resilience appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Today, Commander Divine speaks with Ayelet Fishbach, PhD, (@ayeletfishbach) a social psychologist who focuses on the science of motivation. Dr. Fishbach speaks about how to set goals that are enforced...
The post Ayelet Fishbach: Harnessing the Power of Motivation appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Today, Commander Divine speaks with Dr. Fleet Maull about his early days as a spiritual seeker who lived a compartmentalized life—which included meditation and mindfulness, but also substance abuse and...
The post Dr. Fleet Maull: The Importance of an Ethical Foundation appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Commander Divine speaks with Eric Rogers (@thereal_ericrogers) about how he learned to face the pain of his childhood trauma and overcome his self-destructive habits. Eric shares that drugs kept him...
The post Eric Rogers: Facing Pain Head On appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Today, Commander Divine reflects on 2021, and speaks about the problems many have faced with mental and physical health, being derailed from goals, and feeling stuck. He shares how we...
The post Mark Divine: Stepping into 2022 with Integrity and Courage appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Mark Divine speaks with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (@drgabriellelyon) about her muscle-centric approach to medicine, why obesity is a secondary problem, and how resistance training, high quality protein, and sleep are...
The post Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: A Muscle-Centric Approach to Longevity appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Commander Mark Divine speaks with Tim Grover about his drive for success as a first generation American, his career training elite athletes, and how we can all develop a winning...
The post Tim Grover: Infinite Steps to Keep Winning appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Today, Commander Divine is joined by his friend Amy Jurkowitz, who reads listener questions posted to the @realmarkdivine Instagram account. Mark shares his perspective on important issues from breathwork and...
The post Q & A with Mark Divine appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Today, Commander Divine talks to Brian Johnson about creating heroic technology to build a more virtuous world. Brian Johnson (@optimize_brian) is the creator of Optimize and the Founder + CEΦ...
The post Brian Johnson: Creating a Hero’s Journey appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Today, Mark Divine speaks about the challenges we face going into a new age of exponential growth from our rapidly evolving technologically-based society. This era, known as The Conceptual Age, calls for a new type of leadership. Divine asserts that veterans have the skills and mindset we need in the leaders of this Conceptual Age.
Key Takeaways:
- The conceptual age is an age of global interdependence and exponential growth. It demands leaders who not only do things right, but also do the right thing for the planet and its inhabitants. Leaders in the conceptual age must develop a radical team focus, where the team itself becomes the leader.
- Leadership Theory had its origins in the military. Over time, as our society evolved, leadership styles shifted from a hierarchical production focused style to a servant-leader style that focused more on the well-being of employees.
- While the servant-leader was crucial in the information age, today our technology continues to grow exponentially and our society has shifted to a global economy, thus we find ourselves in the conceptual age.
- Veterans have the opportunity to play an important role as leaders in our communities. Military training, especially special ops training, instills key skills, such as flexibility, creativity, problem-solving, the ability to see multiple perspectives, and the ability to form teams with a shared vision.
- Our veterans face many challenges upon re-entering civilian life. Trauma is only one small part of the equation. Veterans struggle with the loss of their teams, uniformity, structured lives, and having a mission to focus on. Veterans are a national treasure and should be given a new role, and new missions that utilize their unique skill-set to create teams of individuals that work together seamlessly and efficiently.
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Transcript Mark Divine 0:02
Hey folks, welcome back. This is your host Mark divine with the unbeatable podcast. Thank you for joining me today. Who Yeah, today I want to talk about the changing face of leadership, the evolution of leadership, and how it intersects with the military and our veteran population. So hang in there with this gonna be very interesting and, and valuable.
So many people may be aware of this, but they haven’t thought about this directly. But much of leadership theory came out of the military in the 50s. So the military had a lot of experience, especially coming out of World War Two, in organizing the efforts of large groups of people to accomplish a mission. It makes sense, right. And so when business was organizing to ramp up productivity at a grand scale, actually, this started before World War Two started back around World War One and afterward, with Frederick Taylor, and Henry Ford, ramping up production for their automobile companies. And then it continued throughout the 50s, and 60s, as what you know, what we call the Industrial Age flourish. And so in the industrial age, leadership, and management were were largely considered the same thing. Leadership became effective management. And Management Science became how you organize for effective production of labor, or organized labor for production, effective production of goods. And so it was largely about doing the right things in the right manner and doing efficiently and effectively. And there was this belief that even though it was complicated to do, so that leadership and management were largely a cause and effect, linear function, if you did these certain things, and you did the more and more efficiently, then you would get better and better results. And so we got things like total quality of leadership management by walking around. And this differentiation between leadership as a position and management as a process. Well, that worked for a while, but just like everything in life, the external world changes. And then it precipitates changes in our thinking and the way we organize our mental models. And you know, what was working stops working, and we have to figure out something new. So the internet came along, the internet connected the world, and allowed for disintermediation. And some decentralization even though that’s one full pendulum back the other direction. But in the early days, it was true. And so we went from the age of the industry, industrial age into the age of information being the dominant feature. And so we needed to organize the world’s information. That’s what Google took on. And we need to learn how to mobilize labor, not for just production, but for innovation, and to harness the data of this information. And so this idea of leaders who do things right, shifted to this idea that leaders are the ones that do the right thing while they’re doing things, right. So they needed to have both sides of the equation. And we saw what happened in the information age, when leaders didn’t do the right thing. We saw notorious disasters. You know, like, for instance, British Petroleum, the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, CEO of British Petroleum Hazleton didn’t even come to the scene. And when he did, he was cavalier about it. And it took several weeks for British Petroleum to finally fire him. Don’t fact check me on this, by the way, because I don’t have the dates or anything, right. But I remember this very clearly and thinking, wow, that is a leader that probably did a lot of things, right. But he didn’t do the right thing, in this case. And then we had Enron and we had all the, you know, the Wall Street fallout that you know, with Drexel, and then with Lehman Brothers, it’s unbelievable. So the age of information, which required that leaders do the right thing, cause people say, Okay, we need to add a moral equivalent to our leadership, we need to learn how to really empower and bring employees and staff and stakeholders into the conversation. And so out of this came ideas such as transformational leadership, George McGregor, burns, servant leadership, emotionally intelligent leadership from Greenleaf and others. And so then these became kind of the norm, right. And so you have great examples like Southwest Airlines and Herb Kelleher, deploying servant leadership, where everybody who was leading the organization was in it to serve the customers and serve the employees and whatnot. And it worked really well. Now, no, in this age and early age, and up until recently, probably up until 2010 2011, when this model really was still working was the main model for leadership. Things were still relatively sanguine when it comes to compared to I should say how things are today with the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity that existed kind of largely under the covers. We saw a real kind of canary in the coal mine incident with the 2008 crash. I said, Okay, this rendering a new normal, but pretty much everyone just thought well We’ll just get through this and things will go back, which is usually what happens in a crisis like that will go back to the old way, and it never did. And so we entered the information age, without people even realizing it into what’s now being called the conceptual age. So the conceptual age is the age where things are too, moving too fast. We have exponential technologies, causing exponential change in the business world business cycles that used to take 20 or 30 years to play out of being played out in two to three years now. It’s insane. And it’s accelerating Moore’s law, the time of doubling the speed is having. I don’t know exactly how to say that law. But it’s incredible. And all these confluence of the technologies are starting to converge come together. Artificial Intelligence, 3d printing, the Internet of Things. Five G. Wireless, virtual reality. Augmented reality, metaverse. Just think about that. It’s insane in robotics, of course. So it’s impossible for leaders to keep up themselves with the pace of this change. And what worked in the information age is stopped working now. And everyone’s stuck. We see this in our unbeatable program. When we train corporations and leaders, they’re like, Okay, well, we really spent a lot of time developing the skills for the Information Age. We’re servant leaders, we’re transmission leaders, we got all this down, but it’s not working. So what is it about this new conceptual age, about leadership, that’s going to be the next thing. So what I say about that is, the main skills that are going to be absolutely necessary in the age of conception is creativity, a radical team focus, radical team focus where the team becomes the leader, instead of the individual leaders, the individual leader can, can be in charge, they’ll take the hit if things go bad, and they are in the big bucks for that. But their job is to unlock the mindset of the exponential mindset of the team, not to think they’ve got all the ideas, then teams need to develop a team focus where they become a team of teams, which is a term coined by a military peer, General Stanley McChrystal. And he had early examples of how this would work. When he organized the efforts of special ops forces in Afghanistan, when he realized that the Information Age passed them by and the networks of empowered teams of the enemy were stomping his special ops troops, which were operating from information age, stovepipe, bureaucratic mental models, instructional models. So he had to break all those down and create what he called Team of Teams, where teams of empowered individuals who really were very clear about the vision and mission and the boundaries for success, were able to work autonomously, and to speed up their decision making radically, to outpace the decision making of the enemy. And so that’s going to be important for all businesses in the future. Because the battlefield of business looks a lot like that battlefield that McChrystal dealt with in Afghanistan. Another thing that’s going to be extraordinarily valuable, is what’s not been called a global mindset. The global mindset is the ability of an individual to work seamlessly across borders, to be comfortable in different cultures and working with different languages even and to take multiple perspectives, and to be inclusive. So the positive aspects of DNI initiatives, diversity, equity inclusion are going to need to be second nature for global leaders, and organizations will embed that and research has shown definitively that diverse and inclusive environments outperform and diverse and non inclusive environments. So global mindset. And this becomes, again, a mental model, it becomes second nature, it’s not strategy, there are strategies. And there are structural things we do for Dei, I’m talking more about what happens on the inside of an individual who is working in a global organization in any organization now is global, even if you’re a small 12 to 15 person organization like unbeatable. We have coaches and clients in over 30 countries, you don’t have to have an office and over, you know, 30 or 40 countries anymore, because we’re all virtual. So you have to have a global mindset. So more on this, this is going to be a fascinating subject. I’m I went back to get my doctorate simply to study this and to really go deep on this. And I’m going to be working on trying to ferret out how do you develop what I call an exponential mindset, which is inclusive of a creative mindset, innovation mindset, an adaptive mindset, an emotionally mature and aware mindset, global mindset. And it takes all of those aspects of a leader of leadership skill, transformational growth, all that. And it 20x Is it much like a Zen master who’s attained Satori, we want to develop leaders who attained that kind of exponential mindset which is akin to the old world view of enlightenment of a spiritual master. So we’re going to democratize leadership enlightenment, let’s just say that and it’s going to be amazing. It’s also going to be absolutely necessary for us to deal with what’s coming with AI and robotics in particular. And the chaos and confusion created by the forces of negativity, which strive to confuse, and to create fear and to separate us, and to keep us from tapping our full potential as individuals and as global population. Okay, so how does this all now relate to veterans? Well, let me talk a little bit about vets. And also a little bit about what we’re doing for vets here at ours, nonprofit called the courage foundation. So veterans are, I think, the golden nugget that everyone is ignoring when it comes to leadership and organizational effectiveness. According to department labor, 200,000, military vets transition off active duty and reserve force back into civilian life every year, get that 200,000. And guess what everyone treats these individuals as broken? Well, they are not damaged goods. As our former Secretary of Defense and four star General Mattis says we are not damaged goods. In fact, we hold the key to leading in the conceptual age. Why is that? Well, when you lead in the most intense and chaotic environments in the world, where a team focus, a mission, focus, situational awareness, global mindset is absolutely critical, then you tend to develop those skills, you bake them into your psyche, you don’t even know they’re being developed. And these are skills that we all need to develop and learn. And these military veterans can lead us military veterans have incredible situational awareness when you’re in combat. And you know that any moment someone could be taking a beat on you a sniper or our mortar round, or roadside bomb, you tend to become extremely intuitive and extremely aware, your right brain comes online, that contextual awareness, and you begin to sense and feel things that the average person doesn’t feel. Now, those skills will diminish when you’re outside of their environment. But once they go online, you can keep them online with just a little bit of training. And vets can teach us how to do that. And we do that same training through our sister company SEAL Fit, we call leading under fire. If you want to learn some of these skills, then check out our website at unbeatable mind calm or SEAL Fit TOCOM. And, you know, come to one of our events next year, we’ll teach you situational awareness. The next skill that’s incredibly valuable in the age of concepts or conceptual age is rapid planning and iterative operations, rapid planning and iterative operations. So rapid planning is I’ve talked a lot a lot about this in the context of my work with the way the seal is, it’s the ability to plan very, very fast with an 80% solution, knowing what’s important and what’s not important, knowing what can become SOP or standard operating procedure and what needs to be customized for every operation and also training for failure. So that you know that 80% is good enough because no plan survives contact with reality anyhow. So let’s get out the door and activate the OODA loop. So we can observe, orient, make a decision and enact. And in that way, you take all these small micro actions on your way to success and you learn on the fly. That’s iterative execution. So planning, rapid planning and iterative execution go hand in glove. and military leaders know how to do this military veterans know how to do this specially special operators can tell you what workout shorts have come a long way since I wore those old UDT shorts at SEAL training. So I’m proud to have 10,000 as a sponsor of this podcast, their training shorts, and other apparel, our fan tastic I’ve been wearing their seven inch tactical short, which is a combination of durability, mobility, and versatility all built in a super comfortable workout short that was designed and tested with the help of over 50 Special Operators who put it to the test, rocking, swimming, lifting all around beating it up, and so they produce this fantastic training short. I’ve also got their universe short, which is great for more of a CrossFit style interval training, which is super versatile, super comfortable. At any rate, what I love about 10,000 also is their ethos. They’ve got a stoic dedication to continuous improvement every day faster everyday, stronger everyday better than yesterday. They don’t believe in overnight success. Cure alls. quick fixes are shortcuts, but works in progress and the value of failing, dusting off and getting back up when they fall down. 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Who Yeah. So we’re conditioned and accustomed to thrive in VUCA, to expect volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, and not have to have it be like a big showstopper. Part and parcel with that is, military veterans are extremely adaptable, they’re able to recover very quickly from a setback. For instance, if a mortar round comes in, or you’re ambushed, you know, you’re going to get off the axe, get out of the danger zone, you’re going to return fire, you’re going to clean up the mess, you’re going to deal with compassionately with any wounded. Hopefully, that doesn’t happen. And then guess what you carry on with a mission, or you move on to the next objective, you’re adaptable. So think about that, in terms of how valuable that is for your business, and how to learn that resilience and adaptability almost are hand in glove. I mentioned this earlier, but veterans are extraordinarily mission focused. In fact, that’s one of the challenges they face when they leave service is that you don’t have a mission anymore. It’s almost like without a mission, why am I here? They need a mission. So you give them a mission. And boy, will they be loyal to the end to complete that mission. They’re all in all the time offensive mindset, that energy is infectious. And what else about mission that they know is that a mission a it can change and evolve, the end state can look different than you think it might in the beginning. So they’re comfortable with that. They understand that a mission needs to be communicated relentlessly and it needs to be clear in the minds of all teammates. So we talk about the mission all the time, we brief it, we brief changes, we dirt dive it, which means mentally rehearse it, leaders talk about the mission and the vision all the time, so that there’s no confusion in your team’s mind your staffs mind, what is our mission? Everyone knows, would it be nice to have some military veterans in your organization who are that way? Another really important skill for the conceptual age is that they’re all leaders and followers. There’s no big egos in the civilian world. You know, you almost get your ego reinforced through success as an entrepreneur or business leader, your resume building up the ladder, right, you’re building your capital, so to speak, not financial capital, but though you’re building that as well, which often promotes the ego. But military vets, they don’t care about the money because it’s a meritocracy. What they care about is the team and the mission. So mission first team second. So they’re radically focused on the team, which means they are both leaders and followers. At any moment, they could be the leader. And the next moment, they’re a follower. So they’re not hung up on positional authority, or expert authority, their expertise is going to be used. And if they’re not the most expert, then they can support the most expert person. And oftentimes, it’s the best idea comes from the new guy, or the least expert, one, I just created a new word, because they’re looking at it from a different perspective. And their voice is heard credibly valuable skills. Here’s another one, persistence, military vets don’t quit. They never, ever quit. That’s in the seal code. They’re persistent. They keep going, overcome one obstacle, and then another, and another is knock them down until there’s nothing to stand in your way. What a valuable skill, something we don’t see much in our world. Another is their patient, and Compassionate. Think about that, when you watch Friends of yours, get injured or die. I mean, the compassion that is trained into or crews, I should say, into the military veteran is incredible. I have friends who’ve been to 3040 funerals. Compassion is one of the core skills in my opinion that leaders need to develop in the conceptual age. And how do you be a good teammate? And how do you become a team of teams? And how do you serve your teammates? And how do you be authentic? If you can’t develop compassion by opening your heart and getting out of your head? Feed the courage Wolf, which is in your heart? Starve the fear Wolf, which is in your head? And patients? I can’t tell you, you know, military life is like 23 hours and 30 minutes of waiting around, and then 30 minutes of sheer terror. So yeah, we know patients. And so not only can we move fast and be agile and adapt on the fly, at the same time, we’re not belly aching when we have to sit around and wait for something to develop to our patient. We’d like to see things come to fruition over time, and we’re okay with that. Another incredibly important skill is creative problem solving. You know that TV show MacGyver was based upon the Navy SEAL ILS is just kind of a metaphorical character. And that’s because we were taught to solve problems with whatever it was that we had a little rigorous tape 550 cord, a buckle here and there, whatever. We created a couple industries out of this. My friend Mike Noll from Blackhawk created the tactical backpack industry, as a parachute rigger. He had to sew a lot and he’d started sewing his own gear and he made his own backpacks. And he made his own web belts and he made everything and guys said, Hey, can you make that for me and, and then he had a little cottage industry going then he got off seal, team three left the service and he started Blackhawk, and, man, I think he sold that for a billion dollars incredible, and spawned countless spin offs. Were creative problem solvers. Look at my friend Randy Hetrick who created TRX. Now, when we used to go out on ships, Randy would, again going to his riggers would have them sew up some straps, kind of like the old yoga hanging straps, they used to do hanging yoga. And he used these to do push ups and pull ups and dips while they’re out on a boat. Because you know, there’s only so many push ups and sit ups you can do on the deck, which is got that really nasty kind of thick, sharp, no skid paint, I guess it’s called, at any rate, so he created that innovative, he saw a need for and he created another will be if it’s not already a billion dollar industry, military vets are very, very creative. They’re used to solving problems with limited resources, using whatever is available. That’s an important skill for us in the age of concepts. And lastly, I’m going to come back to this idea of a global mindset. You know, I was in 56 different countries. And I learned that everyone on the inside has the same fears and aspirations and desires, regardless of what the skin color, or the shape of the eyes, or the language coming out of someone’s mouth was, yes, there’s different cultures, and we can learn from every culture and embrace them. And we can disdain the nasty effects of certain cultures, including our and we can honor the beautiful aspects of each culture. But the important point is to learn that if you’re in that culture, and that’s normal to you, that doesn’t make you a bad person, you know, so let’s learn from each other. Let’s recognize the sameness, appreciate the differences, and come together to solve global commons issues and challenges. That’s probably a whole nother discussion what those are, and how we do that. I’m not going to go into that now. But the point is, military veterans, military people have a global mindset. So already, they’ve got one of the most important attributes for leadership in the 2020s and beyond. So, you know, my thoughts on leading in the conceptual age, what skills would be important, and why 200,000 veterans a year, our prime to help us all move into that into that leadership model. Now, let me tell you about the challenges vets have. And one of the reasons why they’re not seen as the leaders that they are. And it’s a mistake, one of the hardest parts of military service, as you know, is transitioning, coming home, getting out of that intense culture, that uniformed culture, where you’re developing those skills and qualities that I just described. And then you come back, you take the uniform off, you give up your paycheck, you give up your team, you give up your mission, and you don’t get much in the terms of any transition skills training, although that’s changing. And suddenly you’re sitting at home going, Okay, what next? And someone says, go get a job. Okay, well, great, you know, what am I going to do? So, the military, special operators tend to do really well as a general rule, because, you know, we’re trained a different way, in a sense, we’re more entrepreneurial, we have a lot more autonomy, but a lot of military vets who still have all those other skills that I talked about, they don’t have those, that leg up, and there’s nobody there to help them. Well, there is no I don’t mean to tell you about. Furthermore, there’s some reconditioning that needs to happen because of the stress and the the mental and physical challenges that a lot of vets face, especially if you’ve been in combat, post traumatic stress symptoms, TBI or traumatic brain injury, sometimes permanent disabilities. Also I mentioned already loss of their team must have their structure ie the uniform this the paychecks, you know, the rules, the regs that gets comfortable becomes part of what I call the background of obviousness. They don’t know it’s there until it’s missing, they lose their purpose and mission. Furthermore, on the flip side of that, when they get into the civilian world, you know, they haven’t been in it, at least for a long time. And so they’re unfamiliar with the written rule or the unwritten rules. And they don’t necessarily even know how to build a resume. They don’t have the interview skills. They may not have the perceived right education, even though their education and their skills are much more valuable. Like I said, in my opinion, as leaders, and oftentimes their family is broken. I can’t tell you how many times you know ahead, my teammates come home to a family that had left them, drain their bank account or Whatever. And it was devastating. So you see that quite a bit. Because the toll that all that time away takes on the family is devastating.
We’ve all come to rely on a bunch of gadgets these days, and some are better than others. I’m excited to have ultimate ears as a sponsor of this podcast, because they produce a gadget that I actually really like. And it’s called the fits true wireless earbuds. These things are awesome, because they’re custom fit, meaning through a way that they heat it up within your ear, the rubber actually conforms to your inner ear, so they fit really well. And that’s the challenge I’ve had with earbuds they don’t fit in my small years. But these do. The other thing I love is the fact that you get a ton of listening time on these things. They claim over 20 hours with the charging case. That means you can just stick them back in the case and recharge them and up to eight hours without the charging case. You know, I haven’t had to use them that long. But I’ve never had an issue with these things dying on me and I use them to listen to audiobooks and podcasts. And generally when I’m on the go because I can move with them and they don’t fall on my ears which is kind of nice. These are perfect for listening to your favorite shows podcasts, audiobooks, just like I do, and they’re engineered to provide a full warm sound and what they call a tight punchy low end. Anyways, they’re great, the great sound great fit, and you don’t have always charged about. Also I like if you try them that try the FITS and you don’t love them as much as I do. They have a 30 day money back guarantee, plus the free shipping free returns and a one year warranty worth checking out for a limited time you can get 15% off your pair of ultimate years fits true wireless earbuds at u e.com. That’s easy to remember u e comm forward slash fits fit s and use the promo code unbeatable when you checkout to get 15% off. Again you eat comm forward slash Fitz use the code unbeatable Huya. Thanks ultimate ears. So veterans struggled to make that transition home. Mark my words. They’re not damaged goods. They’re a national treasure. And one of the challenges they face is they get home and people pity them and marginalize them. And this is a huge disservice. huge disservice. If you see a vet, thank them for the service and ask them what their mission is do not pity them do not marginalize them do not think they’re broken. They are a national treasure. There’s only so much that the VA and the DOD can do fortunately, many VSOs or veteran service organizations have stood up founded by veterans like myself to fill the gap. And to help these vets transition and become leaders in the conceptual age. Because we know how valuable these individuals are. And we know they’re not broken, we know that just need some fundamental skills. And then they’ll accelerate as leaders, our organizations called the courage Foundation. And we have partnered with 10 other veteran service organizations that are focused on post service empowerment and reintegration. We’re going to provide assistance to the vets before any situation caused by the mental and physical health issues that they dealt with or the loss of team structure, purpose and mission worsens, and leads to what we see in the stereotypical veterans situation. Alcoholism, addiction, homelessness, depression, suicide, these are big problems, we want to solve them. Some of you remember or may have heard that we created an initiative called burpees for vets where I challenged anyone who was paying attention to what I was doing in may have been you. So thank you, I challenge people to do 22 million burpees with me and raise money and awareness for vets and it took us a year and a half to do this. Many of you did 100 And more than 100,000 burpees with me in a year. So I did 100 120,000 burpees. A little bit more than that. And I think I raised like over $30,000 myself, the organization burpees for vets courage Foundation, we raised over $300,000 We broke two world records. One individual broke the world record for most number of burpees in 12 hours as an individual and then myself two other guys in three women. Ironically, all of us yoga instructors as well as pretty fit individuals. We destroyed I should say the world record for most number of burpees done in 24 hours by a mixed gender team, the old records 14,000 And something we did 36,393 burpees in 24 hours. By the way, Guinness is still digging out from COVID in the heavens certified that but I’m claiming a world record here and now and Guinness Get your act together please. Alright, so this year though, we decided to resurrect the burpees for Best Buy into a viral social media campaign. I’m recording this on November 10 2021. And on November 11 Tomorrow, which is Veterans Day, we’re running a SEAL Fit event for For veterans, for burpees for vets, we’ve got 20 Plus individuals coming from SpecOps candidates to firefighters, law enforcement and some influencers. And it’s going to be filmed by NBC LX live, live coverage begins at 9am. The event begins at 7am and runs for six hours. So it’s essentially a short version of our Kokoro Camp. And all the participants are in it for free, they don’t pay anything. And in the middle, we’re going to do the burpees for vets initiative. Now, this is an initiative that you can do on your own and it’s running all month long, and it might even extend beyond November. Information can be found at burpees for vets.com burpees. For vets.com. In here’s all it entails is, you go to burpees. For vets.com. You make a donation for $11. That’s it $11. And then what you’ll do is just do a Levin seconds of burpees and film yourself. So film yourself doing 11 seconds of burpees is probably like six, that’s all I got with a full burpee you can also modify with plank burpees. Or you can do if you can’t do a burpee, you can do squats, you can do anything. The point is to engage everybody, you can do jumping jacks, or pushups, etc. Then the main point is you take that video and at the end of it, you challenge three people that you know, and choose some folks who’ve got some followers, right? Challenge three people you know, post a video to your Instagram or Facebook or Tik Tok or whatever twitter whatever account you prefer, LinkedIn, YouTube are all of them. And hashtag those three individual challenging them to do the challenge. Now, you know, let’s talk about compounding. So those three do it and do past a three now you know, we have the three plus threes, whatever that is 910 1112 plus me 13. people donating $11 and doing the burpees. And then on from there, right. And you’ve heard, you know, if you double A penny every day, how much money do you have? At the end of 30 days? It’s $1.6 million. So can you imagine us having 1.6 million people doing burpees and donating $11? Can you imagine what we can do for vets? If we raise 1011 12 $15 million? Just $11 at a time? Why do we want to do this? Is it worth 11 seconds? Or let’s just say let’s call it a minute, because it will take you a little bit of time to post it? Is it worth a minute of your time and $11 to transform a broken system for transitioning our heroes treasures for leadership of our country in the age of concepts and VUCA is it worth one minute of your time. And you can imagine what would happen if we can raise 10 million or more dollars and how we can help an entire generation of vets become the leaders that they deserve to be. So hope to see you there. Burpees for vets.com feed courage.org Courage foundation. You can check out the live stream if you learn about it in time. And as always, we really appreciate your support. I appreciate you for listening to the unbeatable podcast and stay focused and be unbeatable. See you next time. Bye
The post Mark Divine: Leadership in the Conceptual Age appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Today, Commander Divine talks to Brett Miller about his research on Parkinson’s Disease, and his holistic approach to treatment of the disease at his gym 110 Fitness.
Brett (@millerpdwellness) is a U.S. Army veteran. He served as a combat medic trainer for special operations and oversaw the construction and development of the DEPMEDS for the United States Army. Brett is passionate about adaptive fitness and inspiring the best in everyone he meets. The mission of his practice is to set a new standard for the world in the “fight back” against Parkinson’s Disease through holistic and fitness based approaches. He also is determined to break down all barriers for adults and children limited by disease or disability by sharing his exceptional mental and physical training and conditioning experience.
Key Takeaways:
- We can learn a lot about who we are when we face a life-threatening experience and endure trauma—Brett’s early childhood experiences compelled him to become an Army medic and continue a life dedicated to helping others.
Warning signs of intense PTSD are often first picked up by friends and family. Brett encourages those close to veterans to be vigilant about watching for those signs including withdrawing from socialization, acting more closed off than usual and uncharacteristically quiet. * Over 6 million people worldwide are affected by Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s research is advancing understanding of the disease. Early detection is key, and with most types of Parkinson’s, severe symptoms can be staved off and minimized with the proper treatment. Researchers are still searching for a cure. * The OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act), a four-step approach to decision-making that has the ability to improve decisiveness, time management and overall organization. It focuses on filtering available information, putting it in context and quickly making the most appropriate decision while also understanding that changes can be made as more data becomes available. * A holistic, varied approach to wellness is key to managing, and in some cases overcoming, any type of physical or mental illness—Brett’s work with patients includes the basic cornerstones of health: nutrition, exercise, sleep, and hydration. His patients practice movement and mindfulness in numerous ways, including shadow boxing, HIIT workouts, water training, rope climbing, tai chi, qigong, yoga, art therapy, drumming, and ballroom dancing.
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Transcript Brett Miller 0:02
Albania was ramping up, they rebelled against their government. When we were heading out to the capital of Tirana, when we then were being pursued by what I can only assume as rebels. And for those you out there all you military folks and stuff, you know, the only thing that’s going to happen there is you’re either going to be executed, put up for ransom, or you’re going to be tortured.
Mark Divine 0:26
And decided today to have Brett Miller as my guest on the unbeatable mind podcast. Brett is a fellow veteran like me, US Army,
I use medic there. He’s owner of 110 fitness, which is the largest wellness center in the world for people with Parkinson’s disease, which is near and dear to my heart, because my father in law suffer from that. And I saw the devastating effects of that. He’s an author of a terrific book called, it’s a beautiful day to save lives. But he partnered with Michael J. Fox Foundation and a bunch of universities really trying to figure out how to heal Parkinson’s and to delay the onset as well as to mitigate the symptoms. So ordinary interview, anyone who’s dealing with that, or Has anyone in the family, then you’re going to want to listen to this podcast. That’s the guy also talks about his experiences in Macedonia, at the height of the ethnic cleansing over there in Bosnia 9697, you basically got chased and hunted. So at any rate, check out the podcast. It’s definitely worth your time. And thank you for listening to my pockets.
Brett so stoked to have you here. And thanks for coming on the podcast twice.
Brett Miller 1:36
Yeah, thank you so much for having me again, humbled and stoked to myself to be a part of this. I got to double dip here.
Mark Divine 1:44
Yeah, no, it was a perfect. So that first conversation was a warm up. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. So how things going back here in the East Coast, you’re in Boston, right?
Brett Miller 1:53
Good. Yeah, we’re just outside Boston, about 2025 miles south heading towards Cape Cod, and Plymouth, most people familiar with that geography, we’re busier than ever, you know, we’re just starting to come out of the smoke from COVID-19. And we’re grinding and we’re back at it. You know, we consider ourselves the special operations of Parkinson’s wellness here. Any programming that you can ever think of any research program, any of the giant foundations that you think of like the Michael J. Fox Foundation, that Davis Finney Foundation, we do research for all those folks, as well as some of the big hospitals here in Boston, as well as some of the hospitals all across the country. So we’re jammin and we like it like that?
Mark Divine 2:32
Yeah, I’m sure you do. I want to come back to that and learn more about the work you’re doing there. But let’s get into Brad a little bit. First, let’s talk about kind of your early influences and what led you into the army and what that experience is like, and how did you get so passionate about wellness and all that? So let’s go backwards?
Brett Miller 2:49
Sure, yeah. You know, I brought up by a single mom for part of my life, you know, my mom worked. My brother and I were home alone, for most of the time, we were not with my grandfather. And, you know, we had a pretty simple childhood. And, you know, I was an overweight kid, really not into fitness not doing much. I used to fight a lot. When I was in school. I protected the kids from the bullies. And that was kind of my mantra when I was in elementary school and into junior high. And then I recognized the fact that I had to buckle down and get some good grades if I wanted to go anywhere in my life. And, you know, my mom was remarried to my dad, who I consider my dad, who was a First Marine Division Marine, he ran a tight ship. And he whipped us into shape and made us respectful young men. And I had a grandfather also who was in the same PT boat as John Kennedy. They were great friends. They lived in Nantasket, which is over here in the Boston area. They were very good friends for many years. And so we had a really great military background in history and my family. My brother then went on, he’s four years older than me to be a lifer in the 10th Mountain Division. Who are, you know, from there it was, you know, what did I want to do? When I graduated from high school, and I joined the army, I wanted to be a medic. And I knew that right out of the gate, from some experiences that I have that you’ll read about in my book that led me up until that time, and I wanted to be a soldier. But I also wanted to help people. And that was a perfect combination for me. Four days later of graduating high school, I found myself in boot camp in Fort Dix, New Jersey, as you know, you know, the struggle is real at that point in time. It’s quite a reality shock. And, you know, I just, you know, moved up through the ranks, I knew that I wanted to continue this process
Mark Divine 4:35
that, you know, I don’t want to just gloss over the experiences that showed you that you were meant to be or you perceived, you’re meant to be in the healing, you know, medical profession. So you were part of an opportunity to save someone’s life, if I recall, right. Yes, as many times, so let’s talk about those. And why do you think that was? What happened from when
Brett Miller 4:56
I was young? Yeah. So my whole book is based on situations where I’m finding myself or the universe is finding for me places to be to rescue people or to save people’s lives. And as a young man starting out at the age of six, my brother fell through the ice and the cranberry bogs that we lived in. And he went under, but he went through and he was floating across. So I was unable to pull him through the ice right back out, and is what seemed a very long period of time, you know, he was under and coming up and hitting his head up against the ice, and I was trying to reach down, I thought I was going in the drink, too. Clearly, I’m still here. So we were able to get out. That was the first situation where I was presented with that type of sort of emergency care,
Unknown Speaker 5:43
if you will. Did he like come upon an opening? Or how did you get him out?
Unknown Speaker 5:48
He came back into the opening that he originally had gone into. And again, we had no business being there. We were throwing rocks into the ice, and he slipped and went in the drink. But fortunately, like I said, we’re still Well, both of us, it sort of rolled into that for me, you know, at the age of seven, I was caught in an undertow with a young friend of mine who didn’t know how to swim well. And he was drugged into the ocean, I couldn’t find him. And then I finally found them and pulling them out of the water. I mean, and these situations kept happening for me as a young person, as you’ll read in my book. And that’s sort of, you know, the gateway, I think, for me to recognize that my destiny was to be a medic and to help people.
Mark Divine 6:28
So you, you went in the Army with that intention? Got through boot camp, and infantry school, right. And then you went to did you go right to medic school after that?
Brett Miller 6:36
Correct? Yes. Specialty school for medic. Yeah, San Antonio Fort Sam Houston.
Mark Divine 6:40
Okay. And tell us about some of the experiences you had in the army. Did you go to war? What was that like?
Brett Miller 6:45
So I write in my book about two chapters. I’m very humble and who I was as a soldier. But, you know, I talked about a couple, a couple of things that I thought the world should know about. And one of those things was, I was split from my team and was actually picked up by what’s called the European Command, or what we call EUCOM for the joint contact team program, when the whole Bosnian conflict had occurred. And I was really high speed. And like I said, I thrived on being a really great medic. And I was pulled out of my team and brought out there and sort of pretty much just kind of put into this gigantic mess for those of you out there that are unaware of the massacre of sub Bronica that occurred in 1995. There were 8000 children and men who were chased into the woods and murdered in two days, the whole form of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia was real and alive, there were about 1.3 million refugees, that all military branches from different parts of the world, were trying to move all these people to Tuzla airport and to different places where there were refugee camps to get them to places of safety. So Sweden, Germany, Albania, all these other countries were participating. And my job was in Macedonia, I was sent to scope J, Macedonia, and I was put in charge of trying to triage injured and people who had been displaced from their families with the military in scope J. And they live in very archaic, comparative to the United States, their hospitals are stainless steel bowls with not the cleanest type of atmosphere, a lot of homeless children, people still with, you know, amputations from other landmine issues. And so it was just this giant, chaotic situation where it started weighing itself pretty heavy for me, where I was, you know, striving to take all of this in while I was trying to work and be the best medic, I could, you know, thank God for the Dayton piece of code that sort of slowed that down, but postwar Macedonia was a disaster. So I write about that in my book leading up to one of my next missions, again, I was by myself and was trying to be a part of a humanitarian operation through NATO. You know, I was in a NATO Humvee being escorted across the borders into Albania, where we were tracked down by some rebels. For those you again, historically, in 1997, you know, Albania was ramping up, they rebelled against their government, there was a lot of tumultuous sensation there already, when we were heading out to the Capitol a Tarana. When we then were being pursued by what I can only assume as rebels. And for those of you out there, all you military folks and stuff, you know, the only thing that’s going to happen there is you’re either going to be executed, put up for ransom, or you’re going to be tortured. And I knew that was a fact and again, on these humanitarian missions, you know, no weapons, you’re not allowed to carry those things. Again, I was a combat medic,
Mark Divine 9:38
they didn’t care that you are un at this point, you’re just summon an opportunity for them to extract either Revengeance or get some money.
Brett Miller 9:46
Yeah. And, you know, for all you out there, you know, the Geneva Convention is an interesting convention. You know, the United States adheres to that, but that’s not true in other countries, and that’s real. Luckily for me, I’m going to leave it to the book because, uh, you know, I’m alive and I’m here and I am well But that was probably the tipping point for me, that kind of led into my discharge from the military and then also into a lot of human issues that, you know, PTSD and things of that nature. Okay,
Unknown Speaker 10:12
So let’s talk about that you transition. That was a fairly traumatic event, you escaped with your life, obviously. And let’s talk about your journey back home reintegration into, you know, civil life and dealing with like a lot of vets do most vets the trauma of that reintegration and posttraumatic stress, and how did you handle that? What were some of the key inflection points that would be interesting and valuable for the listeners?
Unknown Speaker 10:37
Yeah, one of them was, you know, actually talking to some of my team members about the guilt that I was experiencing about leaving, because I just couldn’t get my act together. When I got home, you know, I had a lot of busyness in my head, if you will. And I was stuffing it down, I think, for years at that point. But I had a lot of fear that I was unaware of a lot of guilt of leaving, because I had been with these six men, you know, who are the finest men I know, in my life. So there was a lot of guilt. When I left, I went into my civilian world, I was able to go to college and finish up my degree and become a physical therapist. And life was good for me for a very long time until I got married, and started having children. And then I always tell people, I was like a lion in a cage. One day I woke up and I was pacing back and forth, thinking that it was going to be better than this. I was angry, I was isolating myself, there was all kinds of turbulence in my body. I just, I knew something was wrong. And I was thinking at the same time, I should be grateful for everything that I have. And so I was test that went down a very slippery slope, very quick mark for me, and like a lot of soldiers, you know, now they’re doing such a better job at transitioning people with liaisons and such. But you know, in 1998, that wasn’t really the case. And so I found myself using alcohol, to control my emotions and using anxiety medication, to control my emotions, and spiraling, spiraling, spiraling. I was working, I had money, I own two homes, I had cars, but I had nothing. You know, I was just not identifying with myself to the point where, you know, everybody has a turn back point right? Where you’re feel that sensation of wanting to quit, I’m sure you have that probably in buds and you know, a lot of other people in this world where you get the turning point where you know that if you stop at that point, there is no guarantee that nothing will ever come for me. It was a pistol down my throat was sitting in a car on the side of the road, getting ready to blow my brains out. Wow. That’s where it took me and a couple of years really quick.
Mark Divine 12:45
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I think well let’s just talk about this in the broader context. Now that you know and we know a little bit more about what happens in to veterans and others who are exposing themselves to TBI and to that kind of trauma. It doesn’t always show up. You know right away you would think it does, but it’s often You know, insidiously slow. And from what I’ve learned a lot of it has to do with massive hormonal imbalances, right? You’re just not producing the right happy hormones, which means you’re producing the stress hormones. And you know, the relentlessness of that day in and day out suddenly is sending more and more out of balance, that your moods, your attitude, your optimism, your whole world starts to close in, right?
Brett Miller 15:24
You’re overdosed on cortisol. I mean, the cortisol levels are probably through the roof, right? Your adrenaline, you’re thinking you’re still somewhere, but you’re not there. And, you know, you’re looking for the exits in church, you’re looking for the exits and buildings, you’re looking at humans and judging them based on how they look, you know, it’s character assassination, I call it, it’s a scary place to be
Unknown Speaker 15:43
And so what can we say to vets or anybody especially, this is not just vets like, people suffering from the trauma COVID can have this kind of imbalance and start to creep up on and that’s one of the reasons we’re seeing the great resignation. What are the warning signs? And what can we do to really interrupt this earlier than putting a frickin gun in your mouth? And asking yourself the question?
Brett Miller 16:05
Well, one of the things is, you know, if you are a friend, or you’re a family member of a veteran, or somebody who you know, that may have had some issues with PTSD, or like you said, traumatic brain injury, concussion, you want to watch for obviously, you know, isolation techniques, where people start to move themselves away from socialization crowds, and also just watching their behavior when you’re with them. Are they quiet? Are they not really open about their feelings? You know, those are the some of the things that I noticed, primarily is that people start to isolate and withdraw from society. And it’s hard with COVID, right, because people are withdrawing from society, because it COVID At this point. So again, I go back to the buddy checks, you know, I still call my team members, you know, how you doing every couple months, you know, and we get together every once in a while, but we’re kind of spread across the country. But you know, it’s, you really got to be keen about that. And if you’re somebody who’s actually suffering, and I know this is hard, but it saved my life, and I waited 40 some odd years to do it was you got to ask for help. And it can be a friend, it can be a family member, you’ve got to ask for help. Because like you said, it’s so insidious, and occurs so quickly, that you find yourself standing on top of the bridge faster than you ever thought you would, thinking that you don’t have a purpose, and you have a huge purpose, you know? So that’s my biggest thing. I always tell people, you got to ask for help. Don’t wait, ask for help.
Mark Divine 17:27
So how did you find out, we left us for you, you know, pointing a gun down your throat, what happened next, to suddenly change?
Brett Miller 17:34
So my phone rang.
Unknown Speaker 17:36
Thank God, divine intervention there.
Unknown Speaker 17:39
I talk about my faith and about divine intervention and universal given gifts. And we can talk about that. But my phone rang. And it was my friend Paul, who was at an AA meeting, looking for me, his words to me, and I’ll never forget them was you never have to do this again. And you never have to be alone again. Just walk through the door and come have a cup of coffee is what he said to me. And supernatural selection. I don’t know. But it was enough from that day, February 10. That I never picked up a drink again in my life. And it’s been over 12 years for me.
Mark Divine 18:16
Was that an instantaneous thing? Or was it the 12 step process itself and the whole kind of community of a that really cemented?
Brett Miller 18:24
It was a process and it’s a lot of work, you know, hitting your knees every day when you wake up, doing the work, journaling, meditating, exercising, hydrating, eating? Well, I mean, the whole gamut, Mark, you know, and I still follow that to this day, because I also can still see when I start to veer off a little bit from who Bret Miller is. And the other thing that I always like to tell people is, if you don’t know what to do, and you can’t ask for help, go help somebody else. And that is huge. And that’s part of that a vertical to Yeah, reaching out and Exactly. Call stepping. Sure. So it’s a huge process. It doesn’t happen like that, you know, is it a, you know, a spiritual awakening? I’m sure it is. But then there’s work to be done just like anything in life.
Mark Divine 19:10
It’s a practice, it’s a daily practice. I want to ask you something, because I’ve been studying and reading a lot about how research on psychedelics is really, and I’ve had a lot of experience with that. And SEALs who have experience complete transformation, the cyber silan and other remedies, let’s say natural. And I also think there’s research around the benefit for Parkinson’s and other mental disease. So have you ever experienced that or is it something that you’ve researched or have an article?
Brett Miller 19:41
Yes, clearly, you know, the world is, most people know about the use of CBD. And we use something that’s a little bit different than that here at one time fitness. It’s called CBG Canada journal, and that’s an extract that’s a little bit different than your CBD. And we use it for sleep, and we use it for pain management. So why do people with Parkinson’s disease have terrible, terrible time sleeping. And so we use that product, we also use some of the Rabban SOPs and things of that nature. But again, I use a straight up organic form of all of those things that I get from a guy up in Oregon over your way, who has a veteran run organic hemp farm, because there’s a lot of chemicals in those products if you’re buying them off the shelf. The other thing that we have, which is an actual FDA approved medication mark is there was a PhD guy up in Vermont, who was using LSD, and looking at the extracts from that and which neurotransmitters that the LSD was affecting. And he was able to, instead of sort of the technique that most people use is kind of like a spray and pray you hit all the neurotransmitters in hopes that your tremor goes away or your dyskinesia goes away, they were able to use the LSD and find out the exact receptors that cause some of these things in Parkinson’s, and they made a medication to then just address the Wonder receptor. That is the cause for the dopamine cells to utilize for different parts of Parkinson’s.
Unknown Speaker 21:08
Has there been any work with psilocybin and micro dosing? In terms of its impact on Parkinson’s? I know that they’re doing that with regards to posttraumatic stress. And yes, and so this has been shown to have a really positive impact on addiction, especially smoking and alcohol. But I imagine it has an effect on Parkinson’s as well. I mean, it will be shown to
Brett Miller 21:25
you would think so at this point, right now, they are not a lot of the technology. And the science right now is leading to genetic issues. And so they’re doing a lot with the CRISPR techniques with gene editing, and things of that nature. I just came off of a huge research roundtable in New York City with the Fox Foundation, and a lot of it is we know that there’s three genes that are responsible for Parkinson’s, we think there’s about 52. So the scientists are looking for that and ways to figure out how they can either interrupt genetic protein folding or what we call genetic editing, we can actually change the DNA structure. So how do you get
Mark Divine 22:01
interested in Well, first you started your gym, but did you start to focus on Parkinson patients or did that just kind of evolved? And how did that evolve?
Unknown Speaker 22:07
So I started it for Parkinson’s and then it evolved into an all inclusive, our primary purpose is Parkinson’s. We’re the largest in the world, but we actually do programming for disabled vets, disabled youth, disabled adults, people with TBI concussion. I have all kinds of neuro technology programs that I use here. We also do programming for women who’ve been affected by domestic violence. So it’s kind of like a niche program for very specific disorders, diseases, abilities, disabilities. So I was working in the boxing world, professional boxing, I’ve trained professional fighters, Olympic fighters. And one of the things that came out of ironically from boxing was that if you train someone without the contact as a professional fighter, they found that Parkinson’s symptoms started to decrease. And this happened about 12 years ago. A lot of people jumped on them,
Mark Divine 22:57
training them for boxing but training a Parkinson’s patient with a kind of bilateral visit for boxing shadowbox.
Brett Miller 23:04
Yeah, yeah, as if they’re boxing. So network battle ropes, speed bag, heavy bag, double index, anything, you would train like a professional fighter, minus the contact clearly. Yeah, in any event, I jumped on that bandwagon because I was a physical therapist working in professional fighting. So I had like the best of both worlds. I started a very, very small program as an aside from my other business five years ago, and we moved within a year we started out with two people, we had about 50 people in about three months, and I needed a bigger space. And nowadays, we see about 200 people a week that come through our facility here with Parkinson’s disease,
Unknown Speaker 23:40
pre pandemic, so you get a protocol of exercise, you know, this boxing protocols, nutrition CBG, the whole work right by it.
Brett Miller 23:49
Yeah, you know, I preach a lot that you talk about, you know, this total health. So it’s nutrition, hydration, unfortunately, there is some medication that people have to take. But then we do anything from yoga, mindful meditation. So we encompass the mental, spiritual, physical components. So all three of those things, and we find the speaking of I know, you’re familiar with the OODA Loop, I use the OODA loop for Parkinson’s folks. In other words, they look at what works for them, and they document all this stuff, so that if something else happens, they can then loop back and say, oh, yeah, back in June of 2018. This is what worked for that. And I need to go back to that. So that’s what we do here. We try to get people on a recipe for themselves, because they’re all snowflakes. Every single one of them has something that just tweaks out a little bit different. And so we put that all together and figure out you know, what is it going to be that works for you. So, I mean, we do drumming, ballroom dancing. I do boxing, underwater. So I do a program on the wall in the water. So anything you could ever think of. We do all that at the gym or do you just prescribe it? No, everything is done here in the facility. We have Reiki massage. We have a full art workshop we paint, we sculpt We all pottery Yeah, so much
Mark Divine 25:01
more than the gym? Why do you still call it 110 Fitness when it’s so much more?
Brett Miller 25:05
So 110 Fitness actually has a military reference to it. So my team we used to use the word 110 is like a verb you like, can you 110 That? Or? Hey, 110 you want to get that for me? And so this space is actually dedicated to my military team.
Mark Divine 25:18
Got it makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Do you have any idea what causes Parkinson’s? I mean, I hear that as they use this set, it was genetic. What’s the background of Parkinson’s? And is there hope to cure it?
Brett Miller 25:29
Yes, there is a lot of hope to cure it. And again, let me just step back mark, and just tell you this. So there’s about 3% of the people in our country, are veterans with Parkinson’s disease, which the economic burden is about $1.6 billion for the VA to care for these people a year. So there is a drive for a cure at this point in time, obviously, that’s very, very big. The biggest Foundation, like I talked about Michael J. Fox Foundation, you know, their drive, they’ve raised a billion dollars in 20 years, and their focus is cure cure cure. What they’re finding is that there is we never thought it was a genetic issue. But now we know that it’s a large genetic issue, probably like 90% genetics. The other issue that we know about, especially because of veterans is that there’s some environmental exposure component, that is the trigger that then put somebody into that movement disorder, Parkinson’s, agent, orange burn pits, in the case of Cherry Hill, the dry cleaning vents, that were venting into the barracks, the water issue they had there. So some sort of like pesticide or some sort of like fertilizer. So there’s about three, like I said, there’s three genes that we know of like gap one, and lurk two, they call it L, rk to gene that. If you have that, and you have that activity that’s increased, again, everything goes back to the gut, right? So we’re finding it in the gut, and then it goes through the blood brain barrier via the vagus nerve or through your blood, what we’re trying to do is to figure out how many other genes are responsible? And is there a way that we can stop the gene from transferring up? So we’re doing genetic testing now with families of people with Parkinson’s, so that we can kind of include them in the studies to then see if, if I have that gene? What if I don’t get Parkinson’s? Or will I always so there’s a lot of questions out there, but a lot of it’s headed in the direction of genetics, and autoimmune or immunology disorders. It’s fascinating. I could go on.
Mark Divine 27:29
Yeah, no, it’s best. So the CRISPR stuff is basically gene editing or trying to change the expression of the genes correct. And then the rest of the work is really about slowing down and tamping the side effects right of Parkinson’s.
Brett Miller 27:41
The best thing we can do right now is manage the symptoms but we know with high intensity interval training exercise, that we’re able to do that along with a some people are on medication, some people are not, but with the right medications, we can almost make you appear as if you don’t have Parkinson’s disease.
Mark Divine 28:00
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Now with Michael Fox, is he doing those types of therapies or is it you know, you have to be kind of Yong, when you get into this, like, is he doing high intensity training and all that kind of stuff?
Brett Miller 30:04
He is yes, as best he can. He’s had some recent medical things that have set him back. He had a terrible fall. And he also had a cancerous tumor in his spinal canal. So he’s been setback. I saw him two weeks ago. He’s doing phenomenal. Outside of his speech, his walking is much better than when I last saw him, really. But I also know that he is also using I do research for companies all over the world that use different wearable devices that help with like tremor. And so I know that he’s been playing around with some of those as well. You know, he’s got first dibs at everything. Right. And of course, he’s a great guy.
Mark Divine 30:38
I think he’s my age, right? Gotta be like, 58 or 60. Yeah,
Brett Miller 30:41
yeah, he’s had Parkinson’s for like, almost 30 years.
Mark Divine 30:44
And what’s the prognosis for longevity for someone that’s advanced Parkinson’s,
Brett Miller 30:49
it depends when you’re diagnosed. Yeah, if you’re a young onset, and you walk through my doors, I am very grateful to have you because early and often is the key. You got to get diagnosed early. And then you have to exercise often. And if we do that, some people have withheld or kept themselves at the same level that they had 10 years ago, through high intensity exercise and medication. So it really depends. And then there’s without getting into detail, there are also multiple different atypical forms of Parkinson’s. Some of them are extremely aggressive. And your prognosis from diagnosis is five to eight years and you’re dead. Oh, Ma. So there’s other forms of extremely aggressive types of Parkinson’s called PSP, or MSA, multiple systems atrophy, progressive Supranuclear palsy. So there’s these other forms that are just if you’re diagnosed? It’s a death sentence. Yeah, scary.
Mark Divine 31:39
It’s such valuable work. I mean, I really honor that you’re doing that I wish I had known about it when my father in law was going through these issues of quality of life for them. We tried to get them to do stuff, but like Tai Chi and Qigong, you might when you really needed to do more burpees and
Brett Miller 31:53
boxing, absolutely. Well, we do both. So you know, we do Qigong, and we do Tai Chi, but then you’re doing burpees. And we have our, the Fenway Spartan, which is coming up this week, on Sunday, we have 30, people with Parkinson’s doing the Fenway sprint with us, we have you know, climbing ropes here, you name it, we have a spear throwing, we have a climbing walls for people to jump over. So we swim, you know, we train as we fight, like I said, with the special operations here, we train as we fight, and we climb walls, and we climb ropes, and this is what’s expected of you. And just because you have Parkinson’s disease does not mean that you cannot do this, get back up and try again, let’s go. There’s a lot of tough love here. But there’s a reason why we are who we are, and why we’re doing what we’re doing.
Mark Divine 32:33
So as you look forward, what’s right, like in 10 years, what’s your future,
Brett Miller 32:39
Brett’s future is to keep doing what he’s doing, I am in the process of developing multiple other sites across the country, that’s my goal is to have a 110 fitness that’s available to someone like your father in law that’s available to somebody who’s out in the outskirts of Arkansas, so that they have ability, we created an app, it’s the first ever wellness app for Parkinson’s during COVID. So we have 18 categories, similar to what we do here. And so we’re offering that out to people as well, we gave it out free for a year during the COVID. And now we’re charging for it just to make back some of the money that it costs. They’re very expensive. So we’re hoping to do that. I want to still dig into the research and continue to do more and more research here, we’re already doing a lot, the biggest thing I want to do is, you know, my biggest thing that I always preach to people and, you know, comes from the Bible, and you know, too much is given much is required. And for me it’s to continue, from my own health, from what I came from, is to continue to give back on a daily basis in the truest form of humanity, which is helping other people. And in order for me to stay where I am with my own mental health. That’s what I have to do. And so that’s what I’m going to try to do for the next 10 years. What’s your vision for the future of this country and
Mark Divine 33:54
What’s your vision for the future of this country and of humanity?
Brett Miller 33:56
Well, I’m an optimist mark. My vision for the future. I would also say my hope for the future as well is and I believe that hope has a lot of strength is that as you know, the energy, and I know you feel this, I’m very much like you you’re very much like me, but this energy that you feel this chaos every day when you get up and you know, I don’t watch TV. I don’t listen to the news, but I feel energy from the earth. I have to process that because I’m an empath, right. And so, I know that better days are coming for all of us. And I feel like that that people are going to start to come down from this COVID craziness that we’re going to start to get reorganized and reengaged and refocused in our communities. But again, we need people like you and people like myself, we’re making differences within ourselves to then offer that to other people. And one by one, right. We become a circle of compassion. Right? And so there’s no exclusion there. I truly believe that’s where we’re headed. Because I think we’ve tipped so far. That It’s time to come back. And I think the younger generations, you know, I have a daughter who’s 16. And she’s amazing. And she has great focus on where she thinks this world should be. And I believe that there are a lot of people like her that are 16, looking at all the different problems that we have, whether it’s economical, or whether it’s racial injustice, or whether it’s the planet, you know,
Mark Divine 35:23
awesome, thanks for sharing that. And I really your vision, our vision, and and your mind is 100 million people in that circle of compassion or vibrating, universal love level, that are all vibrating right off of each other. Yeah, optimizing the sameness and so the separation, meeting with pieces of violence, the earth and healing the earth and all their actions, you know, so there’s basic expressions of that. Absolutely squeal that when we scale that, then.
Brett Miller 35:48
Yeah, just as an aside, one of the things that we do, we do drumming circles here, which I’m sure you’ve probably experienced, are extremely powerful. And we have a labyrinth that we put out on the floor, that’s gigantic, it covers our entire floor, and we walk the labyrinth while we drum. And one of the things I do is I use tuning forks, to the universal parts of the ohm, and bang them off. And then we actually run up to the top and down along people’s heads to try to bring them back to that. I’m a big vibration guy, that neutral position of the universal arm to kind of neutralize your brain.
Mark Divine 36:22
And it works, because that’s cool. Yeah, yeah,
Brett Miller 36:26
it’s awesome. Yeah, yeah, try it. It’s like 750 hertz.
Mark Divine 36:31
So how do people find you and what’s the name of your app, so people can search for that?
Brett Miller 36:35
Sure, the app is 110 Fitness. So the number 110 Fitness just like you see behind me here, you can find me multiple ways on the web at 110 fitness.org. Obviously, email B. Miller at 110 fitness.org. Nice. And my book is available on Amazon. It’s a beautiful day to save lives. And also, you can actually go to it’s a beautiful day to save lives.com and you can order the book direct.
Mark Divine 37:00
I love that title, by the way. Smile, and you got some great stories in there. So thanks for doing that.
Brett Miller 37:07
Yeah, thank you for reading it. Have to get into Boston someday and come see our facility.
Mark Divine 37:12
I would love to do that. When I’m out there be fantastic. Yeah, when flights are a little cheaper. And you know, this is kind of funny aside, but I was reading about a new concept. Executive Jet. That is like, one quarter of the cost of the current way to travel privately, is like $320 An hour versus while the $1,400 an hour. Wow. It’s shaped like a cylinder more like a cigar and super like. That’s the way I’m going to get back east in the future. Because I am so tired of commercial travel is literally one of the most negative experiences you know, and I feel completely drained when I do it.
Brett Miller 37:48
It is it’s draining. It’s exhausting. Yeah,
Mark Divine 37:50
I guess the best thing would be to beat me up but always soon, a little bit before somebody material I step into a box. Get me a tightness here at GM. Dr.
Unknown Speaker 38:05
Brett, thanks so much for your time. Thanks for your service. And all you do for those who are suffering with Parkinson’s. And that’s you know, because medic stress and Parkinson’s is really important work.
Brett Miller 38:14
Thank you for having me. It’s been an honor. Thanks for doing this podcast.
Thank you for having me again. Super. Appreciate it. Yeah. All right, my friend.
Mark Divine 38:26
All right. That’s the end of my podcast, folks.
I’m always humbled when I meet someone like Brett, who has dedicated his life to serving the underserved, disadvantaged in this case, people who are suffering from Parkinson’s, debilitating issue. So you can learn about him at 110 fitness.org. His book is great, beautiful day to save lives. Great title. If you have someone in your family, who is suffering, then get his app, small price to pay to take some of the daily actions that can really help moderate and reverse some of the symptoms too much is given much is required. So take that to heart because everyone listening to this much has been given. No question. So much is going to be required to us as this world transforms from our positive, abundant, authentic and compassionate world. So next time, this is Mark.
The post Brett Miller: Disruptive Training to Overcome Symptoms of Disease or Disability appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Today, Commander Divine talks to Dr. Amishi Jha about her work as a neuroscientist, her studies on mindfulness training, and her recent book Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day.
Dr. Amishi Jha (@amishijha) is a professor of psychology at the University of Miami. She serves as the Director of Contemplative Neuroscience for the Mindfulness Research and Practice Initiative, which she co-founded in 2010. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California–Davis and postdoctoral training at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center at Duke University. Dr. Jha’s work has been featured at NATO, the World Economic Forum, and The Pentagon. She has received coverage in The New York Times, NPR, TIME, Forbes and more.
Key Takeaways:
- Neuroplasticity, the ability for our brains to change and grow new neurons, is possible at any age. When our minds are functioning at their peak, we have full control of three types of attention that Dr. Amishi describes.
- Taking a bird’s eye view allows us to observe where our attention is. Focus is going to wander, but through practice we are able to bring the “flashlight” back to where we want it.
- Multi-tasking is a myth. Our brains are able to switch quickly between tasks, but that depletes energy. Sometimes it is a necessary part of life, but mono-tasking is much more efficient, and should be the goal whenever possible.
- Mindfulness training is transformative. Changes in brain activity are visible in functional MRis, but it’s important to remember that just as changes in the body take time, changes in the brain take time. In Dr. Amishi Jah’s studies, she saw results beginning after four weeks of training.
Love the Unbeatable Mind Podcast? Click here to subscribe on iTunes. We’d love your feedback, please leave a rating and review. The post A Bird’s Eye View: Using Meta-Awareness to Observe Your Attention appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Today, Commander Divine talks to Commander Hiner about their shared experiences, the impact of stress, teamwork and how leading in a time of stress changes your leadership style.
Lieutenant Commander Ed Hiner (@edhiner) was a Training and Readiness Officer in charge of basic and advanced combat training for Seal Teams, Ed designed the most elite organization on earth. On this episode, Commander Mark Divine and Commander Ed Hiner talk about the ways SEAL training and active duty have shaped them and how their skills translate to entrepreneurial ventures, as well as philanthropy. Ed discusses why Team toughness wins the day and the importance of creating a space where everyone is involved, feels ownership of the process and from that a shared vision is formed. He discusses how a collective/shared vision decreases anxiety. Ed also talks about how fear can be a motivator and how important it is to eradicate the debilitating effects of fear.
Key Takeaways:
- Team toughness wins the day.
- Fear can be a motivator, and rumination is the enemy of action.
- Getting back to basics often helps even the most complex situations.
- Break your relationship with excuses and create accountability.
Love the Unbeatable Mind Podcast? Click here to subscribe on iTunes. We’d love your feedback, please leave a rating and review. The post Team Toughness Wins the Day appeared first on Unbeatable Mind.
Today Mark is talking with Leonard Perlmutter (@AMImeditation), founder and director of the American Meditation Institute. He is also the author of several books on yoga and meditation, most recently Your Conscience: The Key to Unlock Limitless Wisdom and Creativity and Solve All of Life’s Challenges. Leonard and Mark talk about meditation, yoga, wisdom, karma, and the ego.
Hear how:
- Everything starts with the mind—it’s our most powerful tool
- Multitasking is impossible—we are not as energetic or creative without the freedom to redirect our attention to our conscious
- Within each of us is an ocean of consciousness and with that resides our intuitive library of wisdom—the super conscious portion of our mind
- The ego is not always wrong—but there is a distinct downside to it
Listen to this episode and grasp the way to find the wisdom within you—so you can be guided in this VUCA world.
Love the Unbeatable Mind Podcast? Click here to subscribe on iTunes. We’d love your feedback, please leave a rating and review. Transcript Hello folks. Welcome back. This is Mark Divine with the Unbeatable Mind podcast. Super-stoked to have you here today. I very much appreciate your time and attention, and I thank you for that.
And I thank you for all of you who have rated the podcast, and if you haven’t, it’s very helpful when you rate the podcast – especially on iTunes or amazon – because other like-minded people can find the podcast that way, so thank you for that.
A couple quick announcements, welcome my new podcast producer Jason Sanderson. Jason lives over in Prague, of all places, but he’s a British citizen. He does the audio production for a couple other really high profile podcasts, so you’ll be noticing some changes starting with this episode and we’re really going to up-level my commitment, up-level this podcast…
And we’re going to be changing the name from the Unbeatable Mind podcast to what I call the Fifth Plateau podcast. And we’ll be talking a lot about that today with my guest, but the fifth plateau is the level of awareness where as a leader, you have world-centric care and concern and compassion. The decisions you make have a positive ripple effect locally in your community and also globally and you and your team are committed to making a positive impact on the world, beyond just making money or providing a service.
This mindset is an outcome of either natural evolution or training your mind, and that’s something we’re going to be talking about today.
I’m with our esteemed guest – I’m very excited to talk to Leonard Perlmutter. I’m excited to talk to Leonard, because Leonard’s a yogi he’s founder and director of the American Meditation Institute, he’s originator of the national consciousness month.
As a meditation and yogi student he studied under someone I’m well familiar with named swami Rama – I can’t wait to talk about swami Rama – who came out of the Himalayas to the west and did a lot of good work really validating the impact of meditation through scientific method.
And Leonard has recently released a book called “Your Conscience: The Key to Unlock Limitless Wisdom and Creativity and Solve All Of Life’s Challenges.” That’s a pretty bold claim, Leonard.
Leonard: Thank you very much…
Mark: We all want to solve all of life’s problems, and we know that we have to do it from the level of mind, right?
Leonard: Everything starts with mind, right. I can’t even raise my hand without first entertaining a thought. The mind moves first, the body follows – consequences flow from that. The power is in the mind.
Mark: Absolutely. Well, I’ve said several times that yoga is the oldest mental development program in the world, and it’s unfortunate that most people’s perception of yoga is stretchy, bendy, lululemon yoga.
It’s really not. It is the science of mental development and evolution. And if you take the word spiritual and add it in – so mental and spiritual evolution…
Those kind of all come together into one thing. Evolution is spiritual, it is mental…
I can’t wait. So give me a sense of how you got involved in this work – what were some of the early influences, and how did you meet up with swami Rama? Take us back in time a little bit.
Leonard: Okay.
I would say that since my early childhood, two major principles have directed my life. The first is philosophical – I’ve always had a philosophical lens through which I see experiences.
And the second principle is practicality – I’m a very practical person – if something that I learn does not have a practical application, then I don’t give it too much energy.
And so that led me in my early formative years in grade school and on to high school. I joined the scouts – I was a cub scout, and I was a boy scout, and it was an eye-opener – it was really very, very interesting to me, because we learned practical tools for life and for survival.
In fact, I had a conversation – this is interesting for me – had a conversation with my scout master, years ago… and the motto of scouts is “be prepared.” So I asked him this question, “be prepared for what?”
He looked at me with a strange look. And he says, “how would I know?”
Mark: (laughing) be prepared for anything is what they meant, right?
Leonard: That’s right. And I learned years ago – actually decades ago from my auto mechanic – that if you have the right tool every job is relatively easy.
So, the mind is our most powerful tool. So, that has motivated me to use the mind to be able to animate the body to bring about certain kinds of consequences that I desire… like happiness, like fulfillment, like security, like health…
And that led me to reading all sorts of philosophical books, religious books, and eventually – in 1976 – I found out that swami Rama of the Himalayas had a school in Pennsylvania, where he sometimes spent the summer.
So, I wrote a note – this was well before internet email – I wrote a note and they sent me a list of books. And I just started reading the books, and the first thing I said to my wife – my life’s partner since 1977 -was “gee, this swami Rama fella sounds like a scout master.”
So that’s the way he taught. In a very practical way. So I very honestly sort of began my own personal experimentation in what he was teaching. I had no intention, and I had no desire to meet him, I just wanted to find out what the truth was, and how to get to point b from point a.
And so I practiced. I experimented, and as a consequence I felt better. I felt better physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually… I became more creative in a variety of relationships; I had more energy, and it was a good deal.
Mark: Do you remember what those early practices were? What were you doing that led to those really beautiful results? That you picked up from a book, might I add?
Leonard: Well, the way swami Rama taught was classical yoga science… so the yoga science has different components. There is a philosophical component, a psychological component…
The philosophical is about who am I. And this becomes the building block for everything else. Because of the limitations of our brain and our senses, most human beings believe that they are the body, that they are the mind, that they are their thoughts, that they are their desires, their personalities, their habit patterns…
And even though we have a body, even though we have a mind, even though we have these thoughts desires and emotions with which we have relationships – we are not them. We are something other than that. We are this eternal consciousness, wisdom, bliss and fullness having this human experience through this mind-body sense complex.
Now, by changing my perspective I change my experience and I become more open to challenging faulty concepts that I had and still have on the software of my mind in my unconscious mind. And that detachment helped me to make better choices.
So that philosophical component was first. Then, meditation – seated meditation – critically important. Because that helps us to train the mind in a one-pointed manner – not multitasking, which we all know is impossible. And in order to provide us the delusion that we multitask, what has to happen hormones, adrenaline has to surge through our entire physiology.
And the effect of that is that it depresses the immune system, it depresses the mind and we’re really not as energetic and we’re not as creative as if we were one-pointed. So, meditation trains that one-pointed attention.
And through one-pointed attention, we automatically create a space between stimulus and response. And what lies between stimulus and response, what lies in that space that the culture is invested heavily in annihilating?
What’s in the space between stimulus and response is our freedom to redirect our attention toward the conscience. Which alone can reflect super conscious wisdom from the center of consciousness. That’s beyond the conscious, it’s beyond the unconscious – same portion of the mind where Albert Einstein saw mathematical equations, same portion of the mind where Paul McCartney hears beautiful melodies.
Doesn’t mean I’m going to become a songwriter, Mark. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to become a physicist.
But the more that we can focus our attention, create a space between stimulus and response… that provides us the freedom to check with our conscience and the conscience can then reflect super-conscious wisdom into our conscious mind that can become our thoughts, our words and our actions.
That we are promised will always allow us to fulfill the purpose of our life without pain. And in the process, if I’m willing to commit to the experiment over and over again, in different kinds of relationships; I’ll be building the muscles of my willpower. To do what’s to be done, when it’s to be done and not to do what’s not to be done when it’s not to be done.
Mark: Wow, that’s terrific. You covered a lot of territory there. First off, you use the term “conscious.” Are you equating that with consciousness?
Leonard: The conscious mind allows us to be conscious of something. In other words, the unconscious we don’t have access to unless that which is stored in the unconscious mind travels into the conscious portion of the mind.
So when somebody cuts me off in traffic going 90 miles an hour in a 60 mile zone and I have to slam on my brake in order to avoid an accident, a bubble of anger comes forward from my unconscious mind that I didn’t even know was there. But in that instant, I am aware consciously of anger.
Then the question becomes in that moment when the unconscious has become conscious what am I going to do with that energy? Anger is energy, it’s contracted energy, it’s debilitating – often poisonous.
But I learned in fifth grade – energy – even though it cannot be created or destroyed, it can be transformed.
Mark: So the way you’re using the term “conscious” is really to be aware of awareness – aware of being aware.
Leonard: Yes
Mark: As opposed to like, “use your conscience,” which is more about act from your higher self or your ethical moral self.
Leonard: Well, it’s beyond ethics, it’s beyond morality…
Mark: Beyond all that. That’s right. But when people commonly use that term “conscious,” like you consciously you followed your conscience, we’re really talking about morality.
But what we’re talking about is beyond morality, beyond any construct of the human brain…
Leonard: Yes, what’s interesting is that the conscience which is one of four functions of the mind is the only decision maker. Only the conscience – not the other three functions – not the ego, not the senses, not the unconscious. They’re only advisors. They’re counselors.
But only the conscience can discriminate, determine, judge and decide. And when I learned that it changed my life. Because what it meant was every single choice that I have ever made – and every single choice I will make – has been and always will be made by the conscience. That conscience is the only decision maker.
But it can make two different kinds of decisions depending on how well behaved the other functions of the mind are.
Mark: Right, right. And so you’re saying that if you’re contracted into believing in the identity of “I am this body, I am these thoughts,” generally speaking you’re playing out a script that’s been fed you. Or trained into you.
And oftentimes – or not often – but, in a large sense you could say that script has manipulated us into that lack of freedom… lack of freedom of choice, because you are grabbing toward that with desire, because that’s been programmed by the tv commercials and social media and all that.
So when you train through meditation your mind gets more and more still. And then can reach into or open up to the experience of non-dual awareness or awareness awakening to itself. And then you said that then that aspect of your being then kind of enters your conscious and you make decisions from that perspective.
Leonard: Exactly.
Mark: I mean that space between reaction – which now becomes response – it’s timeless, right? You can take all the time in the world, and it may only feel like an instant, but you have all this time in the world to ask, “what does my conscience or spirit want me to do now?”
Leonard: That’s right. That’s right.
Mark: I love that. That decision is qualitatively different from your perspective how? You mentioned wisdom and access to information that you didn’t normally have – but there’s also other aspects to it, right?
Like, the empathetic or the heart – compassion. What are decisions from that level of conscious awareness look, feel…? How do they play out that are really different than the average or the common?
Leonard: Well, they all uphold the fabric of the individual and of the whole organism. And so when I rely on the conscience to reflect super-conscious wisdom every thought, every word, every act is to be non-injurious…
Why? Because every relationship that I have is truly with myself… even though you and I might have a different body, a different mind, a different personality, a different set of habit patterns – all of those change, they are changeable.
And yet within each of us there is something that is eternal – it is this ocean of consciousness and within consciousness itself resides an intuitive library of wisdom. The super-conscious portion of the mind.
And in addition to that intuitive library of wisdom, the nature of consciousness is bliss and fullness as opposed to lack, which arises when I believe that I am a limited human being. And everything else I can perceive through my brain and senses is an object.
Because that creates a space between me and all these other objects, that I’m aware of. And in the space between the two – between the subject and the object – what lies between them is fear that I might lose something or that I might not gain something. And fear always invites danger.
Mark: I think that’s awesome. Because the super-conscious mind – or the aware mind – recognizes the sameness in all of us, then this notion of not doing anything that’s injurious to yourself extends to all beings.
Leonard: That’s right. And the opposite is true, if I am injurious to you somewhere in space and time something is going to come to me that is going to detract something.
Who Am I? 19:08
Mark: Beautiful. Let’s go back to the philosophy – Ramana Maharshi – “who am I” was his primary meditation. So when you learned about the nature of reality and that question – you started investigating the question – was it a practice for you? Or were you just contemplating it as a philosopher?
Leonard: Both.
Mark: Both, okay.
Leonard: Remember, I’m a practical guy, so if it doesn’t have a practical application, I don’t give it much energy…
Mark: Right, I get that. So let’s describe maybe for the listener, how they can use that as a practice of self-awareness. The “who am I?” Kind of study.
Leonard: Sure. So, again – when you change your perspective, you change your experience. So if I have a relationship in front of me that’s problematic, emotional and I ask that question, “who am I?” That’s a touchstone that brings me into my center.
It’s like viewing the earth from the far side of the moon. It changes your experience, because you have changed your perspective. So you ask that question – it’s a touchstone to your eternal, all-knowing self at the core of your being.
So from that new perspective, I can become more detached in the situation. I can become more compassionate for the limitations – not only of my own mind – but the limitations of the mind with whom I have a relationship.
So I can learn in a practical way to set aside my own limitations – because I have limitations, too – I have plenty of faulty concepts still stored in my unconscious mind that I got from my mother, my father, my grandmother, my grandfather… teachers, celebrities, politicians.
But if I can change my perspective, and I ask that question “who am I? Who am I?” And the answer comes forth that you are essentially spirit having a human experience. I’m more detached, I’m more compassionate… I can set aside my own limitations that are in conflict with my inner wisdom. I can see the limitations that exist in the mind of the person with whom I have a relationship. And set them aside.
And if I am successful in that endeavor, the only thing that would exist between us is love. The most ancient traveler that travels from eternity to eternity. And it is the most powerful force, and it is the basis of all emotions.
Mark: I love that. Love is – and everything less than love simply serves to block it…
Leonard: That’s because anything else you see is ignorance – if I think I’m an individual, then I’m separate and I’m needy. And that love force changes into a desire for an object. And if that desire is fulfilled, it brings about again another change of that love force into fear, that I might lose what I have. Or I fear I might not get what I want. But if that desire is blocked it burns to anger.
So desire, fear and anger… those are the byproducts of not knowing who we are. And so that powerful love force becomes these powerful contracted emotions. And they all spring forth from the four primitive fountains that affect all animals – for food, for sex, for sleep and for self-preservation.
Mark: So westerners are taught, and it’s passed on epigenetically to think that they’re separate, to identify with the body and these desires. And the consumerism to want and grasp for more.
So it’s a difficult leap for someone to just ask this question “who am I?” And immediately get to the “I’m a spiritual being having this human existence,” right?
So, there can be an iterative process to start to examine what you think you are and then to disprove it, right?
So, you started to go through that earlier. Like, first start with the obvious – like, “I am this body. And I am this personality called Mark. I am this person who was a navy seal and has these degrees.”
And you start to ask, “is that really who I am?” The answer to that – when you ask it from a quiet place – is “no, that’s not who I am. None of that really is. Those are the things I did. Maybe I accrued some accomplishments along the way, but it’s not who I am”
So, then you start with the outer and the objective and then you move into the subjective… say, “okay, well, am I these thoughts?” No.
Maybe those thoughts were planted by my parents, like you said, or your grandparents so you’re not your thoughts…
My emotions… no those are sensations in this body. Am I my body? No, you’re not the body. There’s something else going on. So you just kind of keep turning inward, and turning inward, and turning inward, and turning inward until you disprove all of that.
Leonard: But that all presupposes that I have a desire to engage in that kind of an inquiry.
Mark: That’s right…
Leonard: That’s a blessing. To be able to have that desire – even though it’s a small desire – if you have that desire and you feed it, then you will receive what you need.
Mark: That’s right. There’s no turning back. I remember… I don’t know if I read this from Yoga Nanda or maybe Sri Rukhistawar… but it says it takes a thousand lifetimes to find yoga or the science of mental development.
Leonard: Well, it takes a lot of different kinds of experiences to know both what to do and what not to do. Because this is a challenging assignment being a human being. I tell you; this is what I have found…
Mark: (laughing) me as well. Funny, we have that in common. I think everyone listening would agree with that. It’s a challenging assignment, and yoga really can set you free.
And I love that, the freedom… it’s like what Victor Frankel said in “man’s search for meaning,” ultimate freedom is choice, right? So you have the choice moment to moment to choose love, to choose spirit… or to choose contraction and fear…
Leonard: And then then whose life am I really living? I’m in servitude to these faulty concepts that I’ve just picked up along the way. They’re not even mine – they’re just renting space on my hard drive in my unconscious mind.
So, I am not able to create the magnificent work of art that I have the capacity to create; that’s within me.
Mark: So, I want to talk a little bit about swami Rama, he’s a fascinating character…
But you described what we’ve been talking about – understanding “who am I?” And to constantly disprove who you’re not and to move toward who you are – the spiritual being.
And then meditation – which is training, clarifying, purifying and focusing the mind. That takes you from grade school probably up through high school – maybe even college level, right? There’s a lot of work to be done there.
But the yogis of the east – the masters – they were well into the advanced degree territory when it came to mental development. And one of the things that was interesting about swami Rama – when he came to the west, he wanted to have some demonstration of the unique, powerful skills that can accrue to an advanced meditation practitioner.
What Patanjali calls the siddhis and he warns against the advanced siddhis like being able to become as light as a feather so you could walk on water. Well, there’s a famous individual who’s well known for walking on water. Perhaps he was a yogi, right? We won’t go there in this one, but strong likelihood.
But swami Rama was known to be able to produce a tumor on his arm with his mind and then make it disappear. What was your experience working with him directly? And how his mind worked and some of these really fascinating things that he was able to do?
Leonard: Well, he once told a story… when he was young – before he was a swami – he lived with his master in the cave monasteries of Rishikesh in the foothills of the Himalayas. And he evidently had had some kind of major disagreement with his guru – his teacher.
And so the teacher came into the cave where they lived and saw that swami Rama was packing up his belongings. “Where are you going?”
“Oh, I’m leaving. We’re not getting along; I’m not learning anything from you.”
The guru says to him, “well, where are you going?”
“Well, I’m going down the road. I’m going to go to this other cave of this great sage and he’s just marvelous. And he’s going to teach me how to breathe fire.”
“Oh. He’s going to teach you how to breathe fire. That sounds very interesting. How long has he been practicing to develop that technique – that siddhi.”
And he says, “whoa, must be 20 or 25 years he’s been working on it.”
Bengali baba – his guru says to him, “well, gee if he wanted fire, why didn’t he use a match?”
Mark: (laughing) I love it. Why spend all that time to develop a skill when you can be doing something else with your mind? Fascinating.
Leonard: That will help serve your purpose and that work of art…
Mark: Right. But in the case of swami Rama he must have known that the westerners are very skeptical, right? And they’re very a scientific, materialism and if you can’t measure it, it’s not real.
And so it was worth some time to develop the mind’s ability to manifest a tumor or I’m not sure what else he was able to do… but the stories are legion of masters who could do these incredible things.
Be buried alive without access to breath, or even just a breatharian, right? As a yogi principle of being able to live on air.
Leonard: Well, but what about when that guy cuts me off in traffic and I’m blinded with rage and anger – how about being able to transform that anger into positive healing energy, and expansion of my willpower, and an increase in my creative possibilities?
Because I can do that. I can transform the power of fear or anger or selfish desire into energy, willpower and creativity. That becomes a strategic resource, that I can call on in any relationship…
Mark: 100% and you could almost make the argument this day and age that that type of sitting around and trying to practice learning how to breathe fire, or to read minds, or to walk on water is really self-serving…
When the world could use your energy for healing.
Leonard: That’s right, that’s right. What is my contribution here? And I don’t even know the answer to that question, but the more that I become willing to serve the super-conscious wisdom, the super-conscious wisdom will guide this particular mind-body sense complex, to be in service to certain kinds of relationships.
And that itself by definition will create the work of art.
Mark: That’s right. The art of your human experience.
Talk about karma and Krishna and arjuna on the battlefield, and that whole discussion about hey, if you avoid your karma, then you’ll bring suffering to yourself. And if you’ve bring suffering yourself – like we talked about – you’re bringing suffering to the world.
And yet if your karma is something really crushingly hard – like going to battle and killing people – it’s confusing for individuals. So, how can we penetrate this idea of karma? And how that plays out in purpose in life?
Leonard: Well, again, very practically.
So karma… take a look at the law of karma. The law of karma states that thoughts lead to action – whether it’s physical action, verbal, or mental – but thoughts lead to action. And action leads to consequences.
So, I’m a practical fellow – as I mentioned. I start at the end. I look at the consequence that I want to experience. And then I work backwards at what’s going to get me to point b from point a.
So, I need a business plan. I need a philosophy of life that is going to enable me to understand the law of karma, of thought, action, consequence – because I already know the consequence I want. I want to be happy; I want to be healthy; I want to be secure. I want loving, nurturing, creative relationships.
Okay. How am I going to get to point b from point a? Well, if thoughts lead to action and action leads to consequence, the key is the thoughts… and every single thought is only a suggestion… it’s not an imperial command…
And yet every thought has energy that can either be used in the kinetic state – now, in the present moment. Or stored in the potential state for a different kind of relationship that requires it.
When I can understand and respect that law of karma – of thought, action, consequence sequence – then I can yoke myself to basing all of my actions, all of my thoughts and words on the super-conscious wisdom reflected by the conscience.
And the more that I do that, I find in my life that the consequence brings me happiness. It brings me security, it gives me meaning and purpose, and the body health… because there’s a balance between outer action and inner wisdom – as opposed to conflict between outer action and inner wisdom.
Because if there’s conflict between outer action – thought, word or deed – and inner super-conscious wisdom… if there’s a conflict in the mind, there has to be conflict outside the mind.
That could mean the body, or it could mean interpersonal relationships… but that inner conflict is the mother of all problems, so if I ameliorate that inner conflict and I sacrifice those habits that encourage the inner conflict then I diminish the inner conflict. And I also diminish the outer conflict.
We’ve all come to rely on a bunch of gadgets these days and some are better than others
Space 35:31
Mark: So that practice of awareness and being present and creating that space between the thought and the response to allow a response to come from higher consciousness or super-consciousness precludes you from creating any more negative karma.
Leonard: Let’s be honest here; I get triggered just like every human being. There are certain circumstances where my wife taps me on the shoulder and says, “hey, your father is speaking through your mouth.”
Mark: (laughing) I totally get that all the time. Oh my goodness. No matter how hard we work, there’s always these vestiges…
Leonard: And Jesus is on the cross, right? We’re talking about the Christ – this enlightened human being – he’s on the cross, he’s filled with fear, and he’s filled with anger. And he yells out, “why have you forsaken me?”
And yet – as a yoga scientist – he catches himself; he examines it, he sacrifices it back to this supreme intelligence. It’s transformed into energy, willpower and creativity. And he’s able to speak the words, “forgive them father, for they know not what they do.”
Mark: Wow, that’s a really beautiful representation of that practice in action.
So what about this idea that karma follows us through lifetimes? The net sum total of the positive and negative energies that you put out into the world, and you imprint in the world in this lifetime will help decide what kind of experiences you’re going to have next time around.
Leonard: Well, you’re really talking about relationships… because there’s no relationship that’s an accident. Every relationship is the consequence of a previous action providing me the perfect opportunity to self-examine, let go of some obstacle, some faulty concept in my own mind -so that the love force can come through me in a clearer, more meaningful and productive way.
Mark: Beautiful, I love it.
Your book, “Your Conscience: The Key to Unlock Limitless Wisdom and Creativity and Solve All Of Life’s Challenges,” let’s talk a little bit about that. I know we’re running a little short on time, so we’ve got a few more minutes, but I’d love to know kind of what inspired it.
And I mean we’ve been talking of course about the message, but let’s get a little bit more specific about the book…
Leonard: I found myself in February of 2020 in quarantine because of the covid. I was not teaching classes here at the American Meditation Institute. And I started asking myself, “how am I to be of service? What type of action can I take that can be of service?”
And like most people I was watching the news, I was listening to things on the internet and in newspapers… and I saw all this pain that was going on. All this pain and my heart ached.
“What can I do? What can I give people? I have to give people a gift that’s practical, that will help them as a tool to make conscious, discriminating choices that will enable them to become self-reliant and self-confident in their own self. In their own decision-making process.”
And so I thought that the best thing I could do was to give them an understanding of their conscience and the four functions of the mind that need to be coordinated, so that the conscience can reflect super-conscious wisdom.
As opposed to just becoming a rubber stamp of the limited faulty concepts of ego, senses and or unconscious mind.
Mark: I love it. So conscious mind – we’ve talked a lot about that. How do you define ego?
Leonard: My friend the ego. (laughing) first of all I have to say that the ego’s not always wrong. So you and I both Mark need a healthy ego right now to have this conversation. Or to drive an automobile or a truck…
We need a healthy ego to keep us alive. But the ego… there’s a downside to it, because it has such a narrow perspective.
It seems to me that the ego is hardwired to the reptilian brain. And the reptilian brain is heavily invested in self-preservation…
Mark: That’s right.
Leonard: You know, “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to lose the form…” so in service to that desire which engenders a tremendous amount of fear of annihilation, the ego insinuates itself in every relationship, and cuts that relationship in half. And says, “oh, over here – this portion is pleasant. I like it. I consider this good, let’s reprise it.”
“On the other hand, over here this portion of this relationship is unpleasant. I don’t like it. I think this is bad. I want to eliminate this.”
So, what happens is we become addicted to the limited perspectives of the ego, because the ego is so loud and so pushy and so insistent. And so that noise in the mind creates an addiction to going after likes and avoiding dislikes.
But our practical everyday experience has already taught us that that which appears as pleasant isn’t always good for us. And that which is unpleasant, isn’t always bad for us.
But if I’m locked into that limited perspective then whose life am I living? So I have to provide for the ego a pleasant experience, where he gives up – or she gives up – that limited perspective just for the sake of an experiment like brushing your teeth.
The ego first thing is going to say, “I don’t want to do it. I vote against it.”
Of course, of course. Because to the ego it seems like I’m going to be missing out on something that potentially could be really enjoyable. But if I could teach the ego to take a two-minute timeout to brush the teeth, I believe – because I have experienced this with the ego – that the ego will say, “hey, it wasn’t so bad. And I didn’t die by embracing some form of change that I thought previously would have annihilated me.”
Mark: Right. It’s fascinating.
As you’re talking what’s coming up is just how social media and the technologies of today are really training the ego to be dominant.
Leonard: Yes.
Mark: Always grasping, always triggering and always getting pleasure out of the next stimulus – the next hit…
Leonard: That’s because the culture that we have is not a philosophical culture. It is a commercial culture.
Mark: Transactional, right?
Leonard: Yes, it’s transactional.
Mark: So the way out is asking the question “who am I?”
Leonard: The way out is the way in…
Mark: The way out is the way in… you got to go in to get out, I love that.
Leonard: That’s right. And that’s it, that’s the balance – that’s yoga – it’s all about balance of inner wisdom and outer action. So before we commit our assets in mind, action and speech, counsel within. Find the wisdom within you. And then take that wisdom and bring it into the world.
Mark: Beautiful. Where can people learn more about you, Leonard? Do you have a website…?
Leonard: We have two websites – one for the book called yourconscience.org and in 1996 I founded the American Meditation Institute. Swami Rama had sent me a note from India, and it was just a three-word note and he said, “start teaching now.”
(laughing) okay. What? Where? How? None of those were illuminated at all and the only thing that I felt qualified as a westerner – an American who did not grow up with this teaching – the only thing I felt empowered to teach was what I practiced. And I didn’t want any association with anything foreign, so I came up with the best American kind of a name – so I called it the American Meditation Institute in 1996.
And people can see what we offer. We have a foundation course there, which will speak to all of these issues that we’ve had conversation about today.
And that website is americanmeditation.org.
Mark: American Meditation Institute at americanmeditation.org and the book is found at yourconscience.org.
Leonard: In Latin, conscience means with science.
Mark: Oh interesting. So yourconscience.org… and there’s a reason to buy it there or to go learn about it there versus let’s say on amazon?
Leonard: No, no. Amazon, Barnes and Noble… any place that’s convenient for folks.
Mark: Well, Leonard first off thank you for your life’s work.
Leonard: Well, thank you for your life’s work…
Mark: I appreciate that and thank you for bringing the gift of this book that brought us this karma to have this conversation – and it’s very, very enjoyable, very stimulating, my mind is seeing so many connections.
And it’s so needed in this world, right? I feel like our culture – the deck’s stacked against us, the cards are stacked against us – because of the just inundation of information, and constant distraction, and consumerism.
And so people need to fight back. And this is the way to fight back – you don’t fight back through negative action, by fighting what you’re against – that just creates more negative energy and injures your soul…
Leonard: Fight against the darkness…
Mark: The way to fight darkness is to bring more light into the world.
Leonard: Darkness cannot exist when there’s the presence of light.
Mark: That’s correct. So we have to be the light, and we have to let the light in and through us.
And your practices that you’ve described and in your book are one extraordinarily valid way to do that. So thank you very much.
Leonard: Can I just say one last thing?
Mark: Please do.
Leonard: I just want to say to people that have been listening – I don’t want you to believe a word I have said. What I would like is experiment with it for yourself, put on your doubting Thomas hat, experiment with it and see what you experience.
Only then will you experience the truth. And only then will you become self-reliant and not reliant on me or any other outside source.
Mark: 100%. Yeah, we’re seeking autonomy and freedom. And that has to be found within. Thank you again Leonard. It’s been an honor.
Leonard: God bless you.
Mark: God bless you.
Wow, what an incredible conversation. I mean Leonard is the real deal. I love his idea of combining philosophy and practice and making it really practical. I think that all of us really appreciate that.
That kind of mirrors my approach when I started to teach what I now call unbeatable mind to seal trainees. It had to be very practical. I had to take the “fu” out of the “kung fu,” and it sounds like Leonard’s done the same thing.
And the way he talked about how the mind worked was really, really practical and spot on.
Some highlights – I love this idea that with the right tool every job is easy, and the mind is the right tool. I think about if the mind can be made into a wrench, it can be made into a hammer, it can be made into a knife…
So you get to take the mind and mold it to whatever function you want it to serve. And then you deploy that tool, the right tool for the right job…
But you can’t do that if you don’t train the mind. And so that’s what he’s getting at – if you want to use your mind as a sharp knife, you got to train it and sharpen that knife – the knife of your mind.
If you want to use your mind as a sledgehammer, you got to train it to do that. That’s fascinating.
We talked about the science of yoga or the yogi science – and the two pathways that Leonard used to really kind of penetrate the mysteries of the mind. And to develop the mind.
One was to contemplate this question of “who am I?” And to recognize that you are not your body, your thoughts, your emotions and desires – but you’re actually something much more eternal.
You are spirit. You are a spiritual being. An eternal witnessing spiritual being.
Who is also simultaneously having this human existence. So, as a practice you can use this every day to always be asking yourself – in any situation, any challenge – “wait a minute. Who am I here really? Am I contracted into this egoic set of desires moving toward what I want and away from what I don’t want?”
“Or am I something much bigger? Am I a spiritual being having this human existence?”
And from that perspective, you can make a wise decision, a wise choice. Wisdom enters.
And then the second simultaneous path is actual meditation. Sitting and sharpening your mind to single point focus. He called it the one pointed mind; I love that.
The one pointed mind is the mind that can stay radically focused on one thing for as long as you need to. And so this is trainable, and you’ll learn how he trains it in his book “Your Conscience: The Key to Unlock Limitless Wisdom and Creativity and Solve All Of Life’s Challenges.”
We do that through concentration training I’m certain it’s very similar to the concentration training we teach an unbeatable mind. We develop that single point focus through concentrating on a single thing – it can be an image like an image of the box in box breathing. Or it can be a mantra. Or it can be an object outside of you, or an object inside of you.
So there’s plenty of ways to develop the single point concentration. Which then gives you the opportunity to open up space between the stimulus, whatever’s coming in – that tap on the shoulder or that car cutting you off and, in that space, you don’t react with the ego mind – which is tied to that reptilian brain – that’s needing or focused on survival.
But you can have now the freedom to respond from conscience. To release the contraction of the ego and open up to the conscience consciousness or awareness revealing itself to itself. Then we have this opportunity to connect to what he called super-consciousness, which is the wisdom of all things. The archive of all knowledge.
And so you can really bring that into your life and use that for improving your creativity, letting more love and light into your life which will dispel the darkness. Love that.
We talked about karma and how there’s a cause and effect relationship between a thought and then a voiced action or some other action that you take. And then a consequence.
And so you want to have great integrity – he didn’t use that word – but the integrity is the alignment of thought word and deed or action – all in alignment with awareness, a consciousness… love, light vibration as opposed to being fractured or fragmented or unaligned.
Which will then bring injury – and if you’re bringing injury to yourself, then you’re injuring the world or all of humanity, because we are connected at this level of spirit. And it’s only the ego sense of separation that causes confusion in the world.
So he said this all works because just by changing your perspective, you’ll change your life – you change your perspective by understanding who you are. And you change your perspective by developing the skills through meditation, then you’re going to change your life experience…
You change your life experience, then it becomes better because you’re taking conscious control over your mind. Which then gives you conscious control over your body.
We talked about also swami Rama and some of the really interesting things that he and his masters were able to do, and also how they could be obstacles, right? So, we’re not doing the yoga science and mental development so that we can walk on water or manifest things like cancer tumors in our arm and make them disappear.
But we are doing it so we can heal ourselves, and we can live a very long time as long as we’re supposed to so we can fulfill our mission. And so that we can find peace, contentment and happiness in life.
So I thought it was a very, very interesting conversation. I appreciate again you listening or watching this on YouTube. Thank you for your support of the Fifth Plateau podcast. We’ll see you next time.
Hooyah.
Divine out.
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