#63 - Rich Diviney: Developing A Navy SEAL Mindset (The 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance & Mastering Uncertainty) - Choose Hard with Cody McBroom

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to the Choose Hard podcast, the one and only
fitness and nutrition podcast that goes way beyond just
training in nutrition. It helps you choose hard every
day and transform your body and your mind.
Today we have a very, very special guest.
It's an absolute honor to have this man on the podcast.
He has a decorated Navy SEAL. Today we have Rich Davini.
Rich is a Navy SEAL commander who was in the Seals for 20

(00:22):
years, deployed numerous times to Iraq, Afghanistan, multiple
places that he cannot talk aboutor speak with me about.
He's also an author, he's a leader, he's the creator of the
attributes, which is a test and an assessment that you can find
your greatest attributes which are going to help you be
successful in life. And the dude has just had such
an amazing life career, so much experience, so much knowledge

(00:43):
and so much value that he's bringing to this podcast.
He has two books that are really, really popular.
One is the 25 attributes, which we do talk on today, and then a
more recent one called Masters of Uncertainty, which is
something that I just picked up and started reading and
listening to and it's phenomenal.
We're going to talk about this and how you you can really
harness your greatest attributes, develop yourself as

(01:04):
a person, as a leader, as a mother, father, husband, wife,
business owner, coach, trainer, whatever you are in your life,
Learn how to harness the power of your attributes and develop
new attributes or the attributesthat you have blind spots around
so you can be more successful and eventually master
uncertainty because in life, everything to an extent is
uncertain and we need to be ableto perform in those uncertain

(01:27):
moments. So once again, this is Rich
Divini. I'm very, very, very honored to
have him on the podcast and justso unbelievably excited for you
to listen to this. You're going to get so much
value. I highly suggest you grab a
notepad and a pen or you pull out your notepad on your phone
so you can start taking notes. Make sure you click the links in
the description. We're going to give you a
discount code to his assessment,the attributes so that you can
get a cheaper rate and actually take the test to learn more

(01:48):
about your attributes and how you can be more successful by
harnessing the power of your attributes.
And some links to grab his books.
Any further ado? Let's talk to the one and only
Rich Divinny. The greatest things in life all
start with a challenge. You must accept that everything
is hard before it gets. Easy.
Every every every everything youwant in life begins with a hard

(02:10):
path begins with a hard path begins with a hard path.
All right, Rich, as I I was justtelling you before we hit
record. I'm really really excited about
this. It's always first and foremost
just an honor to have you on thepodcast.
You, you have done obviously a lot for this country and it's
you know, I have just become more and more fascinated with

(02:33):
not just Seals, but anybody in the military units, law
enforcement. We work with plenty of people
who are ex military or current military law enforcement as
coaches and fitness and man, youcan learn so much about life and
leadership and business and being a good parent and, and how
to choose hard and do more in life just just by listening to

(02:56):
you guys. So thank you for everything
you've done. Thank you for all the content
and the books and everything you've written and put out.
And I am really, really honored to have you on the podcast and
excited to interview, man. Well, thank you, Cody.
It's it's great to be here. Thanks for thanks for reaching
out and excited to have the conversation.
So thank you. Yeah, so let's before we dive
into your books, I want to kind of go back and really learn

(03:18):
about why you got into the Sealsand kind of pick apart a little
bit of your story so we can havesome background and some
context. And then we're going to kind of
get into some of the lessons that you can really provide the
the audience with from all your years in service.
So first, I don't want to do it not do it justice.
Can you give us in a nutshell, like who, who is rich?

(03:40):
You know what, what role do you serve and play today that you
tell people, I guess I should say, and you know, the years
served in the military, what branch and all that kind of
stuff. Yeah, yeah.
That's a good. Well, in a nutshell, if I were
to give you just a couple words,who is rich?
Rich is a husband and father. Those are my primary identities
and always have been. Well, I guess always since I got
married and had kids, and those are the most important to me.

(04:01):
However, I have stacked a coupleof identities on top of that.
I grew up in in New England and Connecticut.
I always wanted to be growing up.
I always wanted to be a fighter pilot and specifically a Navy
pilot. I have a twin.
I have a twin brother. We both wanted to do that and it
was, it was really the, the early, very early 90s.
So like 19901991, I learned about the Seals.

(04:23):
There was an article, it was right after the first Gulf War.
There's an article about specialoperations that came out in
Newsweek magazine. And I learned about these guys.
I was like, who the heck are these guys?
This seems pretty cool. I subsequently ended up at
Purdue University in an ROTC program and, and really towards
the end of my four years there, ultimately said to myself, when

(04:43):
you get ready to choose what pathway you want to try out for.
And I said to myself, you know, I know I can be a pilot, but I
don't want to always wonder if Icould be a SEAL.
And, and that's really what led me down that road.
Now back in the 90s, no one knewwhat Seals were by the way.
I mean, it was, it was, it was difficult to find SEAL stuff.
There were like 2 movies, you know, tops.
One of them was the Charlie Sheen 1 and, and then and a few

(05:06):
books, mostly from the Vietnam era.
And so, but I knew it was something really special.
I, I like this. I like the, my biggest draw was
the water aspect of the fact that these guys came from the
water and I love, I've always loved everything about water.
Growing up in New England, we were out on the beach and I was
just so comfortable underwater. And, and so that's what I did.
I, I got selected, went to steeltraining in 1996, made it

(05:30):
through thankfully, and then started my career, which was
obviously slow at first, but one911 hit, it got quite kinetic
and ended up doing 21 years in the team's multiple combat
deployments. I think, I think 7 to Iraq and
five to Afghanistan and a few others smatterings around places
I can't talk about. And also I was an officer.

(05:52):
So I ran, I, I commanded Seals troop, SEAL troops, SEAL
platoons, and I commanded a SEALteam.
I also ran selection and assessment for one of our very
specialized SEAL commands. And so during all that time, I
really began to explore and get fascinated with the nuances of
performance and really what whatit was that allowed us to do

(06:12):
what we did in the SEAL teams incombat and otherwise.
And then really in some cases had to be.
I was tasked to try to articulate that stuff, which was
the impetus to everything I'm working on today.
Got out in 2017, retired basically because after 20
years, it's considered retirement.
Got out of the leadership space,decided that that this

(06:33):
performance topic was being discussed by businesses and
organizations and teams. And I felt like I could add to
that conversation. So that was the, the what, what
caused me to write the first book, the attributes in and that
came out in 2021. And then and then we built a
business. My wife and I built a business
around that, which I know we'll talk about.
But then in February released the second book, Masters of

(06:54):
Uncertainty. And that master of uncertainty
book is really the, the book I've always wanted to write it.
It really encompasses a lot of those things that I believe is
what it takes for us as human beings to, to March into
uncertainty, challenge and stress.
And, and obviously it, it, it involves and includes the
attributes to a certain extent. So, so yeah, that's me.

(07:15):
You know, my, my, my two boys are, you know, 20 and 18.
So they're, they're, they're young men now.
But but yeah, having a great time just just doing this thing
and I get to have cool conversations like this one.
Did your brother go into the Seals or Air Force or anything?
He went into the Marine Corps and flew the Harrier for 2020

(07:36):
years, so the jump jet. So I love that.
And then he retired around the same time as I did and, and
flies for FedEx now. So, so he's been a pilot his
whole career and loved it. I mean, I, I lived vicariously
through him because I still loveflying.
I love everything about it. So I lived vicariously through
him and he kind of lived vicariously through me, so.
Are you guys identical? Well, we are.
However, when you go to seal training, your, your body

(07:59):
changes quite a bit physically. So, so at a certain point, I, I,
I, my body changed so, so nowadays it's probably easier to
tell us apart, but our voices are identical.
Even my mom can't tell who's talking if she's not looking at
us. So.
So that's always fun, but. There's nothing the the image is

(08:20):
and I scariest but scary in a cool way. 2 jacked, scary,
lethal identical twins. You know, it's just like.
Well, you know, it's funny you say say that because, because
we're nowhere near jacked, neverhave been, but I'm glad you
brought that up because, because, you know, we mentioned
Jocko and he's a friend and, and, and we, you know, we
actually talked about this, you know, in the early days of the

(08:40):
SEAL teams, and I'll just say early days, when I went in the
90s, no one really knew what Seals were.
All of us Seals, we looked like normal people.
I mean, there's, there was only a, there was only a couple folks
in this like team guys who were like, who looked like Captain
America. All of us just like look like
regular dudes. We were just tough, right?
We could just do the job. And that's really the most
important thing. I think as the Seals gained

(09:02):
popularity and this image began to matriculate through through
society in terms of what Seals should look like, things
changed. But but you know, David Goggins,
who I also know he was, he's an anomaly.
Most Seals don't look like him, or at least used to not look
like him. A lot of guys nowadays, they
are, they look the part they're they're, they look fantastic I

(09:24):
would say. But but back then it was just a
bunch of normal looking dudes sowell.
You know, just from obviously I don't know David, but I I've
listened to his book, read his book and I have a close friend
mentor who is a Navy SEAL. And just from those two alone
being really close to 1, learning from guys like you and
Jocko and and David vicariously,it, it seems that endurance, not

(09:48):
in the sense that you can run ultra marathons, but the ability
to endure. Seems like mental endurance, not
physical endurance. Yeah, it starts there, yeah.
And I don't think that has necessarily anything to do with
the the physical stature of somebody.
No, and it's funny. Athleticism has nothing to do
with being a Navy SEAL. Nothing.
And I was never an athlete. I, I never defined myself an

(10:10):
athlete. I, I played sports, but I was
not an athlete. And but you have to be tough and
you have to be, you have to be in shape enough to, to, to do it
right. But you have to be tough.
The guy who can do 120 push ups without blinking is no more or
less predisposed to make it through SEAL training than the

(10:31):
guy who can do 80, you know, andit's a struggle the whole time.
In fact, the guy who struggles to do 80 may in fact do better
because that guy's used to struggle.
And so, so now certainly athletes, there are athletes who
make it through SEAL training, but they're also Division One
athletes that show up to SEAL training quit the first day or
first week. So, so athleticism has very
little to do with it. It's all mental.

(10:52):
And when we talk about endurance, it's where the mind
takes you. You go to BUDS and it's about
them taking you down to zero andsaying, OK, where do you go?
Where, where can you go from here?
What do you got? And that's what it takes.
And and that translates through all of your career because
combat's even worse than or evenmore, more, more intense, I

(11:12):
guess, in taxing than than SEAL training.
But you can you can apply these principles to everyday life as
well. Which is which is exactly why I
was interested in in writing some books about it.
What was it that pulled you intoSeals?
And is it common that people, they go from not being enlisted
anything to I'm going to make iton the Seals because I don't

(11:33):
hear very many stories. If somebody is, you know, in the
Army and they're in the militaryfor a while, they do deployment,
they come back and they decide they're going to try out for the
Seals. It's usually like people walk in
and they're like, this is what I'm going to do.
Yeah. Well, it's yeah, that's a unique
thing about the Navy Seals and that is guys can go directly
into the Navy and go straight toSEAL train.
They can go to the Navy to become Seals.

(11:53):
Now Army, I think you could do kind of the same thing in the
Army, but because the, the Army's AI guess, I guess kind of
Simply put, a land unit. It's, it's, it's also common for
guys or folks to go into the Army.
They serve in certain places andthey say, oh, I want to try out
for this. In the Navy, it's less, it's
less common for someone to go into the regular Navy and then

(12:15):
from the regular Navy to try outfor Seals.
Typically the path is you're going to go, you're going to
talk to your recruiter, you're going to say I want to be a Navy
SEAL and you're going to look togo straight to SEAL training.
And in fact, those as you know, because you have enough SEAL
friends that the attrition rate for SEAL training is about 85 to
90%. And so, so that's fine with the

(12:37):
Navy because when a guy quits, the Navy says, OK, we'll take
them, we'll just put them, we'llfill it, we'll fill a billet in
the regular Navy, they're OK with that.
But yeah, typically the it's a, it's a very precise mental
vector whether you're officer orenlisted to go to go straight to
the Seals. And then, of course, once you're
a SEAL, you stay a SEAL for yourentire career.
Did you know that the attrition rate was that and it was this

(12:59):
difficult when you went were? You yeah, I knew it to that at
all. No, I mean, I knew the attrition
rate was that you never know howdifficult it is until you get
there. That's always a little bit of a
shocker because because you can't rehearse for something
like that. But, but yeah, I knew the
attrition rate. But you know, it's funny, I
just, I just did a podcast with another friend of mine and his
name is Andy Stumpf. And Andy and I were talking

(13:20):
about this idea that, and he wasinstructor, he actually served
as an instructor for, for a few years, but he talked about how
no one goes to buds thinking they're going to quit.
Every person who shows up basically thinks they're going
to make it through. They're very confident.
Oh yeah, I'll be there at graduation.
But but it's the, it's the Crucible of the experience that

(13:40):
allows for someone to in fact know for sure.
And I, and I say that it was a very respectful way.
The guys who quit buds, there's no, there's no better or worse.
They it's just a specific, it's a very specific niche for a very
specific type of person. And, and if you go, I've talked
to a bunch of guys who've, who've DORD and quit buds and I

(14:02):
tell them the same thing. It's like, listen, this is not
on, this is not you. This is not a measure of you as
a human being. I mean, this, you know, there's
this is it's just not for you. And, and, and not making it
shouldn't. And it's easier said than done,
but it shouldn't derail you fromother endeavors.
It's a very difficult thing for for many guys, of course,
especially if that's their dream.

(14:22):
But but yeah, it's a specific job, specific niche for a
specific type of human being. And and that that number's low.
It was funny. Cody is.
I'll be in a room with them, youknow, because, because a lot of
people, you know, and I think you probably agree with this,
you just wonder if you could do it.
You wonder if I, if I tried, could I do it?
And I've been in a room. I was, I was in fact once in a

(14:43):
room with, with 1010 executives or, or guys, they were
executives. And we're all talking the, the
conversation came to oh, yeah. I wonder if I would make it.
I wonder if I would make it right.
And I, I sat there with them andI said, listen, I, I, I, I
respect this conversation. I think it's fascinating.
However, the attrition rates 90%and I'm already one guy who's

(15:05):
made it through out of all the, all of you 10.
So the odds for the rest of you aren't good.
So which was, which was obviously sobering.
But but yeah, it's a, it's a specific, very unique niche and
profession. For people who don't know more
about this, what is? Can you explain what buds is?
Yeah, BUDS is, is the training pipeline for becoming a Navy

(15:28):
SEAL. It's what it's what a regular
sailor or officer needs to go through to become a Navy SEAL.
And it's six months long. It's in San Diego, CA BUD stands
for Basic Underwater Demolition Slash SEAL Training.
It's six months long in San Diego, CA Coronado specifically.
And, and it's it's broken into 3phases.
First phase is, is, is basicallykick your ass phase.

(15:49):
That's where you have, that's where you have the most quitters
because that's also where you have hell week.
Hell week is really the Cruciblefor, for sealed training.
Holistically, it's the 5th week of training and you start on a
Sunday afternoon in Hell week and you go, they run you all the
way until the following Friday afternoon.
And during that entire seven days or six days, you only get

(16:11):
to sleep for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours.
And that's for the whole week. That's not every night, that's
for the whole week. And the whole time you're
running around with boats, you're freezing, you're cold,
you're sandy, you're you're wet,and they're just kicking your
butt. And that's where you get the
most quitters. In fact, it's very rare that
someone quits after they make itthrough Hell Week.
But then once you make it through, how weak you finish out

(16:32):
first phase, second phase is diephase.
You learn all of your all of your underwater stuff.
And then third phase is land warfare where you learn all of
your navigation and weaponeeringand things like that and very
basic stuff. I say learn buds is is it's less
of a training course than it is a selection course.
It's really it's designed to seeif you have what it takes to do
the job. And then you get a lot of the
more intense and precise training once you're finished

(16:55):
with Buds going to SQT and then of course at the team.
Kind of a silly question, but I I because I've had multiple
people on the podcast who weren't just in Seals and I've
talked to different people and outside of just your biased
opinion, is buds and hell weak? Is this the most difficult as

(17:21):
far as any of the branches in inso on and so forth for the
United States of America? Is it the most difficult
training? Yeah, it's a great question.
And I think, I think that's, I think that question could be,
could be debated very effectively.
So, so I would I would hesitate to to give you a definitive
answer because Ranger training is quite difficult, SF training
is quite difficult. The Air Force PJ training is

(17:42):
quite difficult. I think the, the one factor that
the Navy Seals have that the other units don't have as much
of is this factor of the water. The water is a very, very unique
and unforgiving environment and the fact that much of our
training and our selection and our business is in around and

(18:06):
under the water makes it quite unique.
And I, and I see that even in, in, in other nations, right,
The, the German compstormers or the German Navy Seals, the
British SBS, the Australian SBS special boat service, the, the
French commando you bear. These are all units that because
the water is so central to their, to their training and

(18:28):
their environment. There's a, there's just a
difference in the, in the toughness.
And I wouldn't say 1's more or less tough.
It's just there's a, there's a uniqueness in that type of
toughness to be in that environment and to be able to
survive and thrive and make thatenvironment kind of your safe
space. I mean, the audacity of making
the ocean, which is, you know, cold, dark, wet, crushing depth

(18:50):
and pressures sea life, you know, wanted to get you.
I mean, the audacity of making that your safe spot, I thought
was very cool. And, and, and the saying saying
amongst, amongst Seals was, was if you, if you're ever getting
chased by the enemy, head to thewater because no enemy will ever
follow you into the water. It's there's not going to

(19:12):
because it's, there's, it's justso unsafe, it's so
unpredictable. And so the, the audacity of
that's my safe place. I thought that was cool.
And I think that's the uniqueness of the SEAL teams.
I would imagine in my mind it seems as one of the easiest
places or situations to put yourself in to illicit panic
because you guys have to think, you have to move, you have to,

(19:35):
you can't breathe while you're doing it either and like.
Well, it's more, it's even more than that.
I'll, I'll actually expound uponthat because in fact, I talked
to Andy about this. He, he was a second phase
instructor. So he did the diving stuff.
And, and one of the most, I think the, one of the most
important evolutions in SEAL training and the most meaningful
evolutions to SEAL training is a, is a, is an evolution in
second phase called pool competency.

(19:56):
Pool competency is basically a It's a final training exercise
in. Your open circuit scuba
training, so open circuit just for the audience is the scuba
training that most people are used to seeing.
It's where someone has a mask, aregulator and 2 tanks and when
they breathe in, they breathe inthe water and they breathe out.
Bubbles go up. OK, that's open circuit.
It's a very basic form of diving.
Now the Seals take it to the next level and we learn closed

(20:19):
circuit diving, which is the, it's a, it's a German unit
called the Drager. And it's a, it's a, a unit
that's pure oxygen. It gets you, you breathe in the
oxygen and you breathe out the oxygen and it gets recycled in a
chemical called Sodazorb and gets recycled into your tank.
And so it's called a rebreather.It is bubble less, it's a bubble
less rig. And so, so that's the secondary.

(20:40):
But you have to learn all the basic scuba stuff.
You could show up to Navy SEAL training never having even seen
scuba gear, right? They're going to teach you from
the very basic. So I'll pool comp is an
evolution where after about a week of learning this, even if
you've never seen it before, youare instructed to basically get
to the bottom of the pool, whichis about 15 or 20 feet.
And you, you basically you're, you're kneeling at the bottom of

(21:01):
the pool with your two tanks on your back, your regulator that's
coming into your mouth, your mask, your buoyancy compensator,
your weight belt. And, and you're supposed to sit
there. And at some point instructor's
going to dive down and basicallyattack you.
He's going to basically rip yourregulator out of your mouth, tie
it into a knot behind you, turn off your air, you know, jostle
you around, maybe punch you a couple times and then basically

(21:23):
let go. At that point, your, your, your
priority, your, your task is to solve the problem.
Okay. And by solving the problem, it
means, okay, what's my first priority?
Air. I got to go back.
I got to untie this knot. I got to put my regulator back
in my mouth. I got to turn on my air, get the
air flow going. Once I have the air flow going,
I can actually sort myself and Ihave a little bit more time.
Here's the, the the kicker on this is that is that that

(21:45):
instruction? By the way, once you sort
yourself, you then kneel back down to the bottom.
The instructor's going to come down again.
And the kicker is the instructor's going to do that
12345 You don't know how many times the guy's going to do it
on the last time, whatever he chooses is the last time he's
going to tie your regulator intowhat's called a whammy knot.
It's a it's a knot that no matter how hard you try, you
will not be able to get untied. OK, if you discover or determine

(22:09):
it's a whammy knot, at that point, what you have to do is
what we call ditch and ditch andditch and ascend.
You have to very calmly remove your tanks.
You put them in front of you. Very calmly take your your
buoyancy compensator off and fold that up and put it on top
of your tanks. And then calmly put your weight
belt, your weight belt on top ofthat.
And then very calmly and slowly ascend to the surface.

(22:31):
OK, Now the, the trick is you don't know when that last hit is
coming. And therefore, if you decide
it's a whammy knot and you do that ascent procedure before
it's a whammy knot, you fail thewhole thing.
OK? So you better spend as much time
as possible making sure it's a whammy knot before you make that
decision. Now, obviously one can assume
that this is a a ripe opportunity for panic and fear,

(22:53):
which is exactly why they do it,OK?
They are putting you into an environment where you are
literally your life, your life is literally at stake and asking
you to solve problems and solve the problem.
And problem number one is save your own life.
And so, so I just wanted to emphasize what you said because
you're absolutely right. There's very few, there are very
few environments where you can put someone into a situation

(23:14):
where their life is at stake andyou have to make them problem
solve because you can't shoot real bullets at trainees.
That's, that's, that's too dangerous, right?
Water is one of those environments and and it's a it's
a very unique, unique situation that that really develops us and
we're going to talk about the concepts and masters of
uncertainty, but develops us into these hyper competent folks

(23:36):
who can, who can master uncertainty and execute these
neurological processes. So so definitely.
And correct me wrong, but you can fail that and continue
trying. Is there a point where they say
like you can't? Yeah.
So the, so it's changed a littlebit, but the standard is you,
you, you get, it's done on a, ona Friday, I believe you get one

(23:58):
chance to do it. If you fail, you get another
chance to do it. If you fail, then you have to
wait till Monday where you get athird chance to do it.
And then if you fail that, you get rolled back to the, to the
previous class. So you got a, you got a huge
delay. And then and then ultimately, if
you can't, if you can't pass those, you'll get dropped.
That's that's it's one of the few competency tests in buds.

(24:20):
Most of the most of the most of your responsibility in buds is
just not to quit, you know, but but one of the few tests where
you actually have to do it or else you will fail.
So it's so for some people, it'sfor some guys, it's more
stressful than Hell Week so. And this is, I mean, you guys
take it as far as like people essentially you have to revive
them, right? Like they stay in the water.
And then there are guys who stayin the water and pass out.

(24:42):
Yeah. So all the instructors are, are,
are experts at pulling guys out and, and getting them, getting,
getting them back to consciousness.
And so, and they do it and they've done it many times.
It's not a, not a big deal because I mean, the guys are,
the instructors are so well trained, they're really
phenomenal. So they're on those, they're,
they're looking the whole time. So as soon as the guy passes
out, they're on them and they'reout of the water within seconds.

(25:03):
And so there's never any time spent that would actually do
damage. So, and, and often times in
those situations, as soon as the, as soon as the individual
hits the air, they, they, they come back, they come back.
But but yeah, it it happens. I heard this quote that it
essentially said, you know, at some point you're going to look
back and say that you, you wouldn't change it for the world

(25:25):
because you learned so much, right?
And it was this phrase of going through these difficult
situations and, and trying to realize that as they're
happening, instead of waiting for a situation to present
itself where you can pull from that lesson and go, oh, now I'm
glad that happened. Realize that you will be glad
and then you can embrace it more.
And I'm assuming this Seal's gotto be a lot more accepting of

(25:45):
this upfront because you're going into this, you know what
it is. But you know, as you were
deployed and you were going through these scenarios, which
are truly life or death. Were there plenty of situations
where you look back and whether it was the, the Sergeant or the,
the guy taking you through some of these things that you just
couldn't stand at the time or the, the thing that you kept
having to try again and again and, and working through that,

(26:06):
you really could lean back on itand go, OK, now I get why they
push us so hard and they take usthrough these things because.
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's all of that.
I mean, I don't, I actually don't think you can make it
through buds unless you come to that realization quite quickly
that, hey, this is all for purpose.
This is not just for statisticalnonsense.
It's it's for purpose. Now, you can't, I certainly

(26:27):
can't define or articulate what the purpose is and what's
actually going on. But you, you definitely
understand and appreciate it. And honestly, the, the, the, the
sense of accomplishment that youget every single day at Buds,
You finish a day, you're like, I'm still here.
I think this is where it gets very interesting in terms of the
dopamine reward system. People are quitting all the

(26:49):
time. And one of the weird nuances of
SEAL training is that when you see someone quit, you actually
feel good about yourself becauseyou're still there.
And that's, it's an interesting reward structure.
It's dangerous because that translates often into later on.
Seals eat each other and we eat our own a lot of times.

(27:11):
That's why you get seals bad mouthing other seals and things
like that. But ultimately that, that sense
of accomplishment you have everysingle day because you're still
there is very, very predominant and, and it's just building
confidence the whole time. So, so I think that translates
into the rest of life where, youknow, it's, it's, it's difficult

(27:31):
for anybody to understand the, the growth opportunity of a, of
a traumatic event in the moment,even for Navy Seals, because,
because even if you're not panicked or, or whatever, you're
still working through that trauma and you don't have time
to, to reflect back. But but it certainly is a common
trait for all Seals to to very rapidly after hard situations,

(27:56):
look back and say, OK cool, whatdid I learn, you know?
Yeah, you know, it's bringing upthe dopamine, makes me think of
something I've been wanting to ask you because as I've been, I
listen and read at the same time.
So as I'm listening to you read your book and I've heard you
mention this on podcasts as well, you just, and this is
probably why you're you're also different with Andrew Huberman,

(28:18):
I believe. And as you talk about the
science of what's going on in the brain, it made me really
wonder if either a you got through these things and just
had this insane fascination withwhat was going on in my brain as
I went through this. Or did you learn these things in
the seals or as an instructor? Because you realize, or somebody

(28:41):
or they're already doing this maybe is like, we have to
understand the science of the brain because I never hear
people talk about that. You know, it's, it's you talk
about characteristics and traitsand difficulty, but it's rare
that you hear about the brain science of really like human
performance logically. Well, it's a little bit of both,
you know, for certain concepts like the attributes, for
example, the attributes, the, the realization and kind of the

(29:03):
discovery and, and subsequent research on attributes began as
a, as a, as a task for when I was running this, this selection
and training for, for development group, you know,
and, and that was a very specific selection that we were
basically trying to find out, Hey, why were some of these guys
not making it? They were all, they're rock
stars. Why were they not making it?

(29:23):
That led me down a very specificpath of discovering the
differences between skills and attributes when it came to the
neuroscience. I think for me, I, as I, as I
progressed in my career, I became fascinated kind of
tangentially with neuroscience and what it was that caused us
to do what we do in human behavior.
I met Huberman in 2017. So it was right after I retired

(29:46):
and, and we met because we were at this, this, this, it wasn't
even a conference. It was kind of a planning
session for another executive who wanted to put on, put on a
day of, of, of high performing stuff.
Goggins was there too. David was there.
So we got to catch up. But, but Huberman and I first
met there and, and you know, he was running a a fear lab at
Stanford at the time. And so he was literally mapping

(30:07):
out neurologically what fear looks like in the brain.
And of course he was very interested in hearing what we do
to manage our fear. And so it was really the the
blending of kind of the practical experiential stuff
that we do with the neurosciencethat began to mesh in a very
interesting way. And what I recognized in those
moments was that you can take some of these those concepts and

(30:29):
these even these feats that you see human beings do or Navy
Seals do. And by putting neuroscience to
them, you immediately take the Seals off the pedestal and you
make sure you remind everybody that these are human, you know,
or you take the OR you take whoever accomplished it.
This is this is very human stuffthat fascinates me because as
soon as you do that, you can nowtalk about it to other people

(30:49):
and you can help other people with it.
And so I think the, the biggest thing that I have, the biggest
drive I have with the neuroscience science is, well,
A, it's interesting, but B, it allows to, it allows for a, for
a real synergy and, and congruence of, of, of people
and, and, and, and it humanizes it so that now Navy Seals are no

(31:13):
longer these superheroes, superhumans that do all these
stuff that no one else can do. They are humans that manage
themselves in a very specific way and that can be articulated.
And if it could be articulated, it could be taught, and it could
be practiced. So would you say that I've said
this and I would love to hear your thoughts because you know,
we're in, I'm in the fitness space.
So as we're coaching everyday people, we'll hear people

(31:35):
self-control is an easy one for us to talk about as far as a
trait. And we'll hear even mothers, for
example, I don't have enough self-control to lose this
weight. And I can just stop them and
say, Hey, do you have any kids? Because if you have a, if you're
a mother, you have self-control,you have, you have patients, you
have delayed gratification. You know, you have these traits
that you need to lose weight. You're just not turning that and

(31:58):
focusing that trait or that skill set onto the thing that
you're you're trying to do. Now.
Would you say that most of thesethings that you've developed,
most of these attributes that you talk about in your first
book, are they all like none of them are genetics, None of them
have anything to do with anything special about a person
outside of their experiences andwhat they choose to go through
or practice or spend their time doing in order to develop them?

(32:20):
Well, yeah, that's a great question.
I think when it comes to attributes, there's both
attributes of both nature and nurture.
In other words, there we are in some to some degree genetically
predisposed for certain levels of attributes, but just to level
the level, the, the playing field here when we talk about
attributes, and you know the book I wrote about 25
attributes, attributes just for your audience's sake.

(32:42):
The attributes are the qualitiesabout a human being that tell,
tell us that this person has what it takes to do XYZ, not the
skills, not knowing how to do the job, but do they have what
it takes to do the job. And these qualities are very
important when it comes to performance because they're
driving behavior at very elemental levels.
And the example that I, I'll give that I, that, that allowed

(33:04):
me to kind of solidify this, this fact was I was talking to
an instructor who had been an instructor years before, even
before I'd gone through, throughSEAL training.
And, and he said, you know, there was a, he said, Rich,
there was a story of a kid showed up at SEAL training one
day and he walked in the instructor's offices and said, I
want to be a Navy SEAL. And the instructor said, OK, but
you have to do a swim test. And, and the kid said, fine.
So they took him out of the pool.
Now it's an easy test. It's 25 meters to 1 and 25

(33:26):
meters back to the other. Anyway, this kid gets all ready
to go. He proceeds to jump into the
pool and then proceeds to sink to the bottom of the pool.
And at the bottom of the pool, he starts walking across the end
or the bottom to one end. He touches the end.
He walks across the bottom of the pool back to the other end.
He comes up, he's gasping for air, right, nearly drowning.
And the instructor looks and says, what the heck are you
doing? And the kid who's still trying
to catch his breath says, I'm sorry instructor, I don't know

(33:48):
how to swim. And that point, the instructor
pauses and he looks at the kid and says, that's OK, we can
teach you how to swim. Now the question is, why did the
instructor say that? The instructor said that because
he knew of this kid had the qualities, the attributes to
show up to Navy SEAL training and he didn't know how to swim.
He had everything inside of him we needed for him to be a Navy
SEAL. Teaching him the skill of

(34:09):
swimming was going to be the easy part.
And so, and so when it comes to the attributes, these qualities,
and in the book I wrote about 25, now we have 41 that we
measure. We all have all of these
attributes. We have all you and I, every
single one of us has all 41. The difference in each one of us
are the levels to which we have each attribute.
So, so we take adaptability, forexample, I'm about a level 6 on

(34:32):
adaptability, our, our liker scale on the, on the assessment,
7 high, 1 low, right? I'm about a six on adaptability,
which means the environment changes around the outside of my
control. It's pretty easy for me to go
with the flow and roll with it. Someone else might be a Level 3
on adaptability, which means when the same thing happens to
them, it's difficult for them togo with the flow.
They're still adaptable because all human beings are, but

(34:52):
there's more friction there. There's more challenge.
And so when we think about our own performance, we have to
think about the uniqueness of our character is driven in some
part to into to a degree by the uniqueness of the set of
attributes we have, which ones we prioritize all the way down
to the, the ones we don't prioritize and, and, and our
assessment will helps measure from from your top one all the

(35:13):
way to the 41st 1 that shows your unique performance
fingerprint. And so we talk about nature.
Nurture attributes are elementalin the sense that we have a
stack and an order with which webehave towards, especially
during times of stress, challenge, uncertainty.
At our most raw, this is how we behave.
That's not to say we can't change our attributes.

(35:34):
We can't we, we can develop an attribute we're low on.
We can also dial up attributes or dial down down attributes.
But, but so it's not, these aren't immutable qualities, but
they are fairly tough to move. It takes work.
And so, so I think what you say,what you, what you tell to to
your clients is, is, is right. You can apply the same

(35:55):
attributes that you that you usein parenting to another endeavor
because they're going to in factbe useful there.
Now, this is a great way to start to understand and practice
your capabilities. Understand what type of vehicle.
I always kind of say humans are like vehicles, like we're all
like cars, but some of us are Jeeps and some of us are SUVs
and some of us are Ferraris. And there's no judgement there

(36:16):
because the Jeep can do things the Ferrari can't do and the
Ferrari can do things the Jeep can't do.
But it behooves us to lift our hood and figure out what kind of
car we are because the, the friction in our lives in the
moment might be because we're, we're a Jeep that's been trying
to run on a Ferrari track this whole time or vice versa.
And so so I think what you're saying is true.
Attributes are both nature and nurture.

(36:37):
Just just so that people listening can see how much this
applies to everything. Like, because the first thing
I've thought about is something I've been practicing and saying
in my business for years now as we, when we hire coaches is
like, obviously you have to knowsomething about fitness and
nutrition and stuff. But truthfully, like I, I tell
people the very, a very similar thing as that instructor does

(36:58):
where it's, you know, when we look at movement patterns and
exercise selection intensities and volumes, Rep ranges, rest
periods, macros and calories andrecipes and, and meal planning,
I can teach you so much of that so easily.
It might take us some time depending on how many of those
things you do not know, but I can teach you those things.
But human connection, communication, accountability,

(37:20):
instilling motivation, helping people develop self belief like
those are. Patients.
Patients would probably be a bigone, right?
Yeah. Those are very difficult.
So I look for those things way more than I do what
certification somebody has with training and nutrition.
And you know, my next question, I think you might have answered
it a little bit. So I guess it's it's not if it's
more of how, but you know, I wasgoing to ask is this do you

(37:42):
believe just after? And I think it's more of an
opinion based answer probably. And that's fine.
But over the time of doing what you've done and this assessment
has grown, obviously you've added attributes to it.
Some people will say, hey, like learn your strengths and focus
on those, build your strengths. And other people say like fix
your weaknesses. You know, I was going to ask you
what you think, but you kind of mentioned if you're a Jeep on

(38:02):
Ferrari track, like you need to develop your weakness because
you're on a Ferrari track now. Should the person change the
track they're on? Well, that's a great question
and and I haven't answered that,but I'm glad you asked it.
And the, the answer is, it may be, but it really depends on
the, on the human being and whatthey want to do.
What is more important for people to understand is that is
that there are, they're not really weaknesses, they're blind

(38:26):
spots. I mean, it's to say it's a
weakness is to say is, is for a Ferrari to look at a Jeep and
say you don't have a, a, a powerful enough engine, right?
Or a Jeep to look at a Ferrari and say you don't have powerful
enough shocks or good enough shocks.
It's, it's different we're, we're, we're totally different.
And so, and so for example, though what we say is if, if you
take the assessment, you'll get your, your attribute ranking

(38:47):
right from 1 all the way to 41, your top five all the way down
to your bottom five. OK.
And what I tell people is, hey, when you look at your top five
and bottom 5, you're not lookingat your strengths and your
weaknesses. It's not, it's not like that.
In other words, your success as a human being is as much because
of your bottom 5 as it is your top five.
You're low on an attribute. You're being low on an attribute

(39:08):
might be exactly what your specific niche requires.
In other words, I would say the stand up comic with too much
empathy is going to be a lousy stand up comic.
OK, so, so just because you're low on an attribute doesn't mean
you need to develop. It doesn't mean it's a weakness.
In fact, it's it's likely a strength.
If you're, if you're really rocket and rolling and hubbing
and what you're doing in life, it's likely that you are using
your highs and your lows as strengths in your, in your, in

(39:31):
your lifetime. This tells this allows us to
tell a very different story whenit comes to performance.
And that is first of all, allowsus to eliminate judgment when
we're looking at other people, especially teaming, because a
lot of times frustrations we feel for another person is
because they're low on an attribute that we're high on.
OK, but there are advantages to not being disciplined.
There are advantages to not being patient.

(39:53):
There are there are disadvantages to being too
disciplined, you know, and so, or I'd say blind spots And so,
so we allow people to explore their attributes from an optic
of, OK, what are some advantagesto having this particular stack,
specifically your top five, bottom 5?
And what are some blind spots you have to be aware of?
Because these are your top five and because these are your

(40:13):
bottom 5, right? The person who's high on
decisiveness. And low on patients, OK,
Advantages are that person's going to make decisions quite
rapidly and going to move fast. Disadvantages, they may make
decisions too rapidly and move too fast.
So this is when we have to lean on teaming and other people if
we want to slow some of this down.
So, so I think one of the powersof the attributes is that it

(40:34):
helps people understand their very unique performance
fingerprints without judgment and really become proud of the
vehicle they are. Now, if you decide, if you
learn, hey, I'm a Jeep and I really want to try running on
the Ferrari track. Sure, you can go ahead and do
that. Just understand it's going to be
a lot of work because you're going to be on a you have to
develop a lot of things that aregoing to be not naturally,
you're not naturally predisposedfor, but if you, if that's what

(40:55):
you want, that's cool. That's, that's called free will.
So it's really, I'm glad you asked because it's not about
judging these things and we don't attributes are not about
strengths and weaknesses. It's about your unique
performance fingerprint. I love that and I love that the
assessment is about attributes. It's not it.
It's not, I mean, I hate to sit like there's nothing wrong with
this test, but it's not a strength Finder.

(41:15):
You know, where it's, it's clearly in the title that this
is, which makes you feel like anything that's not on that list
is a weakness and that's an issue.
So I really like that. And I know because of that,
there's no black and white answer to this, but I am curious
if you have found that there areany, even if it's just one or if
there's a few universal attributes that do tend to be

(41:35):
the most beneficial now, And I'mthinking about this 'cause I'm
staring at this book, Masters ofUncertainty.
And I think about adaptability being pretty closely tied to
that. And I can think of a lot of
situations for myself as a business owner where that would
pay dividends. I can also think of reasons why
as a father and a husband and leader in my household, like

(41:56):
being able to stay calm and adapt to the situations is what
allows my family to stay calm and, and be LED.
And there's just so many situations where I feel like
mastering uncertainty and being somebody who is adaptable.
I got to mention like that's a good strength to have no matter
what for anybody. It is, but I'll challenge you a
little bit because sometimes rigidity is what's required in

(42:16):
the moment, and so even adaptability can be argued.
Almost every attribute can be argued a + a pro or a con for a
specific environment. But I'm not going to dodge the
question. I will say this when it comes to
uncertainty, all right, well, I'm going to answer in two ways.
There's there's the attributes that I think are, are most
important for uncertainty. And then the attributes that I
think might be most important inlife, OK, because they're,

(42:38):
they're somewhat different answers.
The attribute that I think is most important for uncertainty
is compartmentalization. And when we talk about moving
horizons, that's what this is, that's what compartmentalization
is. And we, I know we're going to,
we're going to talk about that. We'll get in the neuroscience of
that. I would say when it comes to
life, ultimately, I think that if someone is low on the grit

(42:59):
attributes, courage, perseverance, adaptability and
resilience, you're going to havea, you're going to have a rough
go. You really are specifically
courage and adaptability. I think those, those, if you're
really low on those two things, it's life's going to be a little
bit harder for you than it is other people because a with
courage, you're just not, you'renot used to, you're not
predisposed to stepping into your discomfort.

(43:21):
You're too risk adverse. And we just know life is risky
and then adaptively because you're just, life is always
going to throw changes at you. And so if you can't be somewhat
fluid, then you're going to have, you're going to have some
sort of difficulty. But I still, I still will
maintain the, the, the, the posture that it's, it's quite
relative and quite subjective. So.

(43:43):
A great answer. I we we talk about structured
flexibility instead of dieting with clients all the time.
Because if you're too flexible, you have no idea what you're
you're tracking or what you're looking at or there's no,
there's no metrics to look at you.
I mean, are you making progress?Who knows?
You're not doing anything. You're just too flexible.
You're too open, you're too freewith it.
If you're too structured, it becomes rigid.
And now? I'm I'm looking forward to I

(44:03):
know you and I are to keep in touch.
I hope we do when you when you get through the attributes book
and you read the chapter on discipline.
OK, I talk about this, this, this, this phenomenon called the
self-discipline loser. All right.
And this is someone who's so self disciplined, they're so
rigid that when, when anything interrupts their routine, they,

(44:26):
they're thrown off the rails. And so, and I know, you know,
people like this, I do too, where, where everything about
their it's, it's basically theirinternal environment, whatever
they can control. They are just like bam, bam,
bam, bam, bam. And they know, they know every
they get up at the same time in the morning, they eat the same
thing. They do this, everything is the
same. And when something comes in that
knocks them off, off bouncer doesn't allow them to do that.

(44:47):
They are just completely a mess.They just don't know how to deal
with it. And this is, this is often this,
this manifests often someone who's very under control of
their own Physiology, oftentimesbecause that's very easy for us
to control, but they can't get along term goal accomplished to
save their lives because every long term goal requires
flexibility in the way you execute it.
And so, so there are people who are who are like that.

(45:09):
And we have to, like you said, be very careful.
I like the way you termed that. That's a good way to determine.
I have been that person. So I'm exactly, and then and
then I had a daughter. Yeah, yeah.
Well, kids, yeah, kids will helpthrow throw off your routine for
sure. Yeah, I learned.
I learned from that. OK, so I want to take what we're
talking about and bring it into the book because this is your

(45:31):
second book. And I mean just between the
forward by Andrew Huberman, Simon Sinek quote on the front,
like I knew a media, I was like this is this is going to be good
because I've read from those guys.
Listen to those guys for a long time as well.
And I've heard you say that thisis the book all along that you
were excited about read writing.So what is I, I know there's

(45:52):
three, you have three primary sections, mastering your
abilities, mastering yourself and then essentially mastering
uncertainty, right? And I think you put like
creating masters of but even each of those kind of breaks
into these different ones, like you said, moving horizon stuff.
So I know it would take a four hour long conversation like we
were talking about earlier to gothrough all this, but let's,

(46:14):
let's try to, you know, summarize it because I want
people to be able to understand how valuable this book is.
What was your goal with writing this first and foremost?
Yeah, the first and foremost, the goal was to help people
understand the what is required to actually deal with
uncertainty, challenge and stress more effectively.

(46:35):
And ultimately what are the tools that one can access in
their own life. The first part is mastering
abilities. And that's that simply talks
about those things that we all have inherent to us as humans
physiologically and neurologically that we can
access. And that's that gets into moving
horizons, which we'll talk abouthere in a second.
Mastering yourself talks about those elements about our,

(46:57):
there's aspects that elements about ourselves that are unique
to us, but we still bring into all of our environments to
including uncertainty and it andit influences our behaviors.
OK, now we're talking about objectives, attributes and
identities, right? It's all very unique things that
we bring into these environments.
And then of course, creating master of uncertainties,
creating masters of uncertainty gets into how we do this as

(47:17):
teams. But let's talk about mastering
our abilities. I think if there's one concept,
there's one nugget I think I want the audience to take away,
it's this. It's this one.
And then if they want to check out the books and read about the
other things that that's, that'sgreat.
But this is the idea that neurologically what's happening
to us as human beings when we are in any environment is we're
trying to make certain that environment, we're trying to

(47:37):
create certainty. That's what our brains are
working to do all the time. It does so kind of a long 33
specific things. OK, First is duration, how long
this is going to last. Second is pathway, what's my
route in, out or through? And the third is outcome.
What's the what's the end state of this, of all of this?
When we are in absence of one ormore of those things, we begin

(48:00):
to feel anxious and and fearful,right?
Our our autonomic arousal goes up our amygdeal.
It's tickled. We start to get that anxious,
uncertain feeling. Illness is a great example of
this. OK, so let's just take illness.
So let's take a strep throat. OK?
Strep throat is an illness that we all know about.

(48:21):
We know that none of us die fromstrep throat and we know there's
an antibiotic you can take from strep throat.
So if you and I get strep throat, we are in absence of one
of those factors. In other words, we know the
pathway antibiotics and we know the outcome.
We're going to get better. What we don't know is how long
it's going to take because you may respond to antibiotics
faster than I do, right? So we're in absence of one.
Our anxiety level, our uncertainty level is mild.

(48:43):
Now let's take the flu. The flu is also a known illness,
OK? And we also know that most
people, at least in today's society, don't die from the flu.
But there's no, there's no knownantibiotic or cure for the flu.
There's a lot of ideas out there, but there's nothing you
can take to get over the flu, right?
So if we get the flu now, we're an absence of two, we're an
absence of pathway. We don't know what we need to do

(49:06):
and duration, how long this is going to last.
OK, we know outcome will get better, but we're an absence of
two of the three, which our anxiety level is at moderate
levels. Now let's imagine a disease
shows up and no one's seen it before.
OK, It's raging across the planet.
Some people are dying, some people aren't dying.
There's no known vaccine, there's no cure.
We don't know how long we're going to be in a in on this,

(49:26):
right? It sounds familiar because this
is 2020 for all of us. And we were at that moment in
absence of all three. That's when our anxiety levels,
our uncertainty levels are at the most high.
What Moving Horizons does, it's a technique, it's a tool that
allows us to generate certainty in the moments of uncertainty.
We pick something to focus on and generate our own duration,

(49:47):
pathway, outcome. OK, an example would be seal
training. In seal training, you spend
hundreds of hours running aroundwith these big heavy boats on
your head. OK, you have to run with those
everywhere in first phase at least.
And and you're you're under those things for hours and hours
and hell week. It's all, all the time.
I remember it was 3 in the morning.
We were running with these damn boats.
We'd been doing so forever. It was miserable.

(50:08):
We were on the beach next to a sand berm and I remember saying
to myself, you know what, screw it.
I'm just going to, I'm going to focus on getting to the end of
the sand berm. Now, what I did in that moment
inadvertently, which I didn't know is I created, I picked a
horizon and in essence created aDPO duration from now until end
of sand berm, pathway from here to end of sand berm, outcome,
end of sand berm. And in doing so generated A

(50:30):
dopamine motivation to generate a dopamine shot in my system
that motivated me. And then also when I
accomplished that, I gave myselfa dopamine reward that allowed
me to come back out, pick another horizon and then do it
again. OK, so all moving horizons is,
is you basically generate DP OS generate certainty based on your
environment. Now the question is, how do you

(50:52):
do that? And what are the distances that
you pick? Those distances are what we call
meaningful DP OS OK, meaningful or meaningful horizons.
And the reason why they have to be meaningful is because of this
dopamine reward system. Dopamine is not just a reward
chemical, it's a motivation chemical.
It, it, dopamine is actually what gets us up out of bed in
the morning to do stuff. It, it causes us to do things.
And they've done experiments in rats where they, when they

(51:14):
remove the dopamine from rats, those rats sit there.
They would literally sit in the same spot and starve to death
because they won't do anything. So when we're picking a horizon,
what we're doing is we're actually setting up a system, a
dopamine motivation system. But it's very, it's very
interesting because if we pick ahorizon that's too far away or
too big, we will run out of dopamine on the way and then we

(51:36):
will quit. All quitting is, is you run out
of dopamine, That's, that's you just, you just ran out of it.
If you pick a horizon that's tooshort, then you don't get enough
of a register of a reward to be,to be, to feel good enough to,
to do it again. So the horizon distances are
always subjective to the individual and the environment,
the intensity environment. In other words, the more
intensity environment, often theshorter the horizon, the short

(51:59):
of the DPO. An example of that would be in
SEAL training, you're freezing in the surf zone for what seems
like hours. And I remember being freezing
the surf zone and I remember saying to myself, I'm just going
to count 5 waves. That was my horizon.
Sometimes my horizon was I'm going to make to the next meal.
Sometimes it was, I'm going to make it the end of the day or
make it to the end of the sand berm.
But this horizon shifting is something that we all do.

(52:20):
In fact, every single human being who's listening to this
has done this on occasion. OK, we've all done it often
times, even in your in your lineof work, we do it in the gym all
the time. You know, you don't focus on the
entirety of the workout. You focus on the set you're on,
because to focus on the entiretyof the workout, it's going to be
overwhelming. OK, so we can practice this.
The difference between the gym and, and, and say hell week or

(52:42):
other experiences that is that there's no uncertainty in the
gym. OK, it's all certain.
However, this techniques works with certainty or without
certainty, but certainly in uncertainty, it creates
certainty in that environment. So, so I think if there's one
concept that I, I want to help people learn or get across, it's
this idea of, of moving horizons.
And again, people are like, waita second, I know exactly what

(53:03):
was talking about. I've done that before.
Yes, you have, but now you can articulate it.
And once you can articulate it, like I said, you can practice
it. And once you can practice it,
you can get really good at it. And once you get really good at
it, you can teach other people how to do it.
And that's really what drives meand what makes me excited about
people knowing this stuff. Is, is there ever a point where
you tell people to create New Horizons?
And the reason this comes up is because I can think of a couple

(53:25):
clients that I've helped and worked with that they went
through like acquisition deals where they sell their company
or, and I think of it like, Dang, you've been building that
company for years and now it's gone or, or if you've been in
the seals for years and years and then it's done.
But people like you move on to like really brain and human
performance, writing books, speaking these like, but for

(53:46):
those who don't, sometimes it can elicit depression.
And this is where we see people turn to alcohol and, and a lot
change in life, whether we're talking about an Olympic athlete
who trains their whole life, wins gold, and then they're too
old at, you know, 35 or 40 to compete.
And now what right for the It's still moving horizons to an
extent, But do you think sometimes people struggle?

(54:08):
Well, it's a great again, a great question.
I want to I want to just emphasize moving horizons.
That whole concept is meant for this micro goals, the micro goal
things, right? It's how can I make it through
these moments? OK, what what you're talking
about are objectives, which get into the other factors We talk
about knowing yourself, objectives, attributes,
identities, objectives, attributes, identities are those

(54:28):
things that we bring into environments that are unique to
us that are still driving our behavior.
OK, so an objective is like whatyou talked about, it's a whole,
it's a it's a goal. It's a big, large goal that can
be then chunked into smaller horizons and smaller DP OS, but
they all they have to be present.
You can't DPO your way to a vague purpose, OK?
It has to be, there has to be anobjective, something you're

(54:49):
looking to do and accomplish. More importantly, I think what
you're hitting upon is this ideaof identities.
We've talked about attributes extensively.
Identities drives. So identity, what is identity?
Identity is this idea that that the two most powerful words in
the human language are the wordsI am.
Because everything that comes after those two words,
everything you put after those two words drives your behavior,

(55:12):
drives your identity. The thing that we have to
understand about ourselves as humans, as we are constantly
over a lifetime collecting a bunch of Iams, they could be
really powerful Iams to really benign Iams, right?
I, I went to this high school, Iplayed this sport.
I'm a Navy SEAL, I'm a husband, I'm a father, right?
I'm a Metallica fan, whatever those Iams are.
But every single one of those Iams comes with them or it

(55:35):
conditions and rules that definewhat it means to behave inside
that identity. And those behaviors are being
executed depending in depending on the environment we're in.
And so all this to say is that when you have a very power.
So in any uncertainty, challengeor stress, we will prioritize
will we will, we will behave towards whatever identity we
prioritize. OK, so, and often the most

(55:55):
powerful ones. So in, you know, in Iraq and
Afghanistan, by my priority identity I was behaving towards
was was Navy SEAL. Obviously, when I was at home,
it was husband and father. And you, you would change and
shift. Why does this matter?
Because based on your question, identity is when we are in
absence of a very powerful identity.
In other words, we aren't that anymore.
We feel a significant dearth in ourselves.

(56:19):
OK, This is why guys get out of the SEAL teams and they feel
holy shit, I'm really depressed here or change careers or
whatever because there's a dearth now there's a there's an
absence. The way we get through that is
we lean upon another identity. So I got out the teams in a very
healthy way in terms of my, my psychology, because when I, what
my, my, my husband father identity is one of my power is,

(56:40):
is the, is my most powerful identity.
So when I stopped being a SEAL, I had the husband and father
identity to lean upon. And in, in, in those moments, I
could say, you know what, I'm going to create a new identity.
I'm going to pick something new.I'm going to be an author, I'm
going to be an entrepreneur and work towards that identity.
Now I can put the Navy SEAL identity on the on the shelf
and, and, and honor it and respect it, but I don't need to
be it anymore. And so and so I think what

(57:02):
you're talking about is extremely important because
people who are in those modes oftransition need to understand
that the, the, the insecurity and the, and the, the strife or
the, the, the hardship they feelis because they are an absence
of identity that was driving them for so long.
But all is not lost. You just simply need to put that

(57:23):
away, honor it and respect it. Put it away though, and then
pick a new identity. It kind of relates to the too
much self-discipline or being too rigid and, and you know,
being able to say, like, I have more than one identity.
Do you ever recommend people or,or find yourself seeking for an
identity that's expands beyond just a role?

(57:45):
And I mean that in a way where sometimes people will get they,
they have this debate of like, well, like we have our titles
and our roles and then we have who we are as a person or
identity. And a lot of times I find that
what they're talking about thereis more like standards and, and
sometimes some of these attributes, I would assume like
even just like leadership, like I'm a leader.
Well, leader is many things depending on where you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think, I think again, I

(58:06):
think, I think my sense is you can always put some sort of role
to it. It just depends on how you
define that. I mean, if, if you, if you
choose something, whatever you choose whether and whatever you
call it, it's going to come withsome rules and conditions that,
that, that that you define as behaving inside that role.

(58:27):
So what if you say you're a leader?
Unless it's a specific role, I'ma leader of whatever.
And by the way, you can't call yourself a leader, right?
That's, that's paradigm. You can, you can be in charge,
but you can't call yourself a leader.
That's like calling yourself good looking or funny.
Other people decide whether or not you are someone they want to
follow based on the way you behave, right?
But anyway, if you say I'm a leader, there's certain reasons
why you would call yourself a leader and things that you

(58:48):
expect yourself to do in congruence with that specific
identity. And that then brings it in,
brings in the optic a little bitbecause you're still defining,
at least mentally, the roles. Like what would you do?
Like as a leader, I would never do X, and as a leader I would
always do Y, whatever that is for you.
Same thing as a father, I would never do XI, would always do Y.

(59:10):
So, So, yeah, I think, I think it's really, it's this is all
very interesting because it's very Gray.
It's never black or white, and it's all very subjective.
But I think again, part of the part of the strength of this
stuff is if you start defining it and articulating in in in
meaningful ways, people can start to sort this out on their
own and come up with their own unique little map of who they
are and why they behave the way they do.

(59:31):
Yeah, I love it. I think that, and I can say this
because I'm saying it to you andnot myself, I look at you as a
leader because I think of seals and instructor and then author
slash mentor, slash speaker and a creator and a father and a
husband and so many roles. Like obviously there's an aspect
of leadership and, and developing others and, and
helping others and serving others that you grab onto and

(59:54):
you thrive with. And I, I think that's, it's
almost like a bridge that connects these different roles
and identities because you're able to easily shift from seal
to this next phase because you can translate those things.
That's, I mean, essentially that's what you know, the
attributes book is about. That's what this book is about.
It's, it's identifying those things and being able to use it
in different areas of your life,which is why I think that's why

(01:00:14):
I love learning from guys like you and, and people who have
served so much. It's just so applicable to so
many areas of life as we. Kind of wrap things up, Is there
any aspect of this book or the other that you haven't like you
feel like the audience needs to understand?
I want to be able to plug your assessments.
I think that's going to be huge.But just in general, anything we

(01:00:35):
skipped by maybe? No, I don't, I, I, I think
specifics people can kind of go into the books and, and, and
learn and read about the specifics.
What I will say is that I think and I, and one of the things I'm
proud of is that the attributes,even though I wrote it first, it
was actually there was some unconscious genius there because
it was such a big topic that we actually was able, we were able
to create this platform and the structure that the attributes

(01:00:56):
could kind of help build. So the masters of uncertainty
stuff can fall on that. Because obviously one very
important part of mastering uncertainty is, is to, is to
understand your own attributes. And now we have a system and a,
and a kind of a structure insideof which people can do that.
And I know, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll get the assessment.
We'll offer the assessment to folks.
I think the one thing I do want to, to, to say, and I think one
of the things that drives me, maybe one of my purposes I guess

(01:01:18):
is, is that this excites me because this stuff, this
mastering uncertainty stuff is not only meaningful because
it'll help people deal with uncertainty when it hits,
because it always will, you know, hits without warning.
It'll always, yes, it'll help you do that.
But what's really meaningful forme is that if you get really
good at this stuff, you begin todeliberately step into

(01:01:39):
uncertainty and step outside your comfort zone.
And you and I know and because you, you talk about this in, in,
in what you do everyday, I know you do.
And we haven't even I just met you and I know you do this
right. Our growth, our development, our
evolution as human beings is because we step outside our
comfort zone. That's where we find it.
We don't find it in our comfort zone.
We have to step outside our comfort zone.
And if we can practice these tools and be given a, an

(01:02:02):
opportunity to get really good at this stuff, we begin to find
opportunity to deliberately stepoutside our comfort zone,
deliberately grow, deliberately evolve.
And then this is I think the gift that that guys like me are
given when we go to SEAL training, Obviously we volunteer
for it, But but you, you're leftwith this, this extreme
confidence. And I think this is the way I
would define confidence. True confidence is the idea that

(01:02:23):
I know that as I move through life, regardless of what
happens, I will figure out a way.
I'll figure it out. I'll make something happen, OK.
And then by the way, it's not arrogance at all because you can
be very confident and not arrogant at all.
You can be very confident and humble.
It's again, arrogance is I'm better than you.
Confidence is no confidence is Iknow I can do this.
Arrogance is I'm better than you, OK, But that's true

(01:02:44):
confidence. And I think these tools, these
techniques can allow human beings to build true confidence
and deliberately step outside their comfort zone and then grow
and evolve and start to realize or explore their potential.
So good. The last question I had for you
before, I just want you to mention where people can find
your, your books, the assessment, everything like that
is what does choose hard mean toyou?

(01:03:07):
Oh man, it means so much. I loved.
As soon as you reached out to me, I was like, oh man, I'm
definitely going on this on thisshow because I love the, the
title choose hard means that youare growing.
You're, you're deliberately putting yourself in a position
to grow and evolve. But it's more than that.
You are actually, you are actually participating in your
own longevity and health. I'm not sure if you, if you

(01:03:27):
know, I mean, and Huberman's talked about this, there's a
part of our brain, there's a little part that the
neuroscience have discovered. It's called the anterior mid
cingulate cortex. OK, small part of the brain that
they, that neuroscience discovered that gets, gets, gets
highlighted or turned on when weare doing hard things or even in
anticipation of doing hard things.
But every time we do hard things, this part of our brain

(01:03:50):
grows. And they've, they've linked that
growth to a, the ability to do hard things more consistently.
But also longevity. People who continually exercise
as part of the brain have been proven to live longer lives.
And so, so you are literally with your show encouraging
people to live longer by choosing hard.
And that's what I love about it.I love that.

(01:04:11):
That means a lot, man. And I have heard him talk about
that and I was really excited when I heard him talk about it
because it was right after we rebranded and changed the name
and it started as something thatwe were just telling clients.
And everybody's heart is different, but it was like, hey,
just start with the next hard thing that you need to do for a
positive, better result. Choose that.
It's always going to lead to a better path, you know?

(01:04:33):
Great answer. So where can people find your
books? Where can people find this
assessment? That's going to be huge because
I think people can gain so much value out of that, whether it's
just a parent, it's just an everyday person, it's an
entrepreneur, they have a team, they're leading or anything like
that. Where can everybody find all of
this? Yeah, absolutely.
So books are bixer. Both books are on Amazon, of
course, where books are sold. The attributes.com is our web

(01:04:55):
website. And there you'll find everything
we do. You'll find the books, you'll
find all of our all of our workshops and our assessment.
We're going to, we're going to get you guys a coupon code and
we'll get you a link that can take you directly to where you
need to be from the from the show notes.
But anybody who wants to check it out more immediately, they
can go to theattributes.com and obviously I'm on Instagram and

(01:05:16):
and and LinkedIn. That's where you and I
connected. I think was was Instagram the
first time. So, so richer Rich underscored.
If any, I think is my handle. But but yeah, just follow us,
visit us and and check it out. I will link everything in the
show notes including the link that you guys can get a discount
rate on this assessment which I highly recommend, as well as the
books. I highly recommend those and

(01:05:37):
I'll link his contents. You guys can follow him and
check his stuff out too. So once again, it is an honor to
have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for spending
time with me and I'm really excited for people to listen to
this. Thank you brother, Thanks for
having me.

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#63 - Rich Diviney: Developing A Navy SEAL Mindset (The 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance & Mastering Uncertainty)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#63 - Rich Diviney: Developing A Navy SEAL Mindset (The 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance & Mastering Uncertainty)