MM#81--The 21st Century Superpower

Welcome to the theory to action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time to help you take action immediately, and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.


Hello, I'm David and welcome back to another Mojo minute. So last week we talked about goals are for losers. And at the end of our last Mojo minute, we chatted briefly about mindset and preparation and how they are vital to our success. So if we look around the world and see who is creating some of the best mindsets in their particular field, you know, those mindsets that are committed to the cause of flourishing at the top of their game, and in their professions, you know, the best in their field, you would have to put our US military, special operations guys at the top or at least close to the top of that list. 

For sure. For the last 40 or 50 years, we have figured out the rigorous physical training exercise process. And we've coupled that with a type of mindset that says we will never, ever give up. And for this, I've always admired the grit and the character of the special warriors. I think it's you know, ever since I read The Battle of the 300 Spartans back in college, or maybe when I began to watch that classic John Wayne in the Greenbrae movie, way back when I was a kid. Nevertheless, the admiration of character and an unequaled mindset has always captivated me, especially for these warriors to get through to get them through the toughest training regiments, probably anywhere in the world. 

So all of this leads up to this question, how do we develop such a mindset? How can we train our minds in a similar fashion? Maybe not to go through horrific battle? But just to achieve that, that tip of the spear, that top of the mountain in our profession? How do we develop that winning mindset? Well, last time, we said, we have to win in the mind first before we go to battle. Sunsoo taught us that. But just like in sports, in almost all sports athletes, learn to start to cultivate this mindset. You certainly can't go into the game thinking you're going to lose. Because then you've already lost. Well, how do we transfer this to the game of life? You know, we certainly can't wake up every day and think, Gosh, I'm not going to crush my goals today. That's kinda terrible. 

So with all those questions rattling around, let us turn to former Navy SEAL, Mark Devine, who wrote an unbelievable book, actually titled, well, and unbeatable mind for resiliency and mental toughness, to succeed at an elite level. Dang, doesn't that sound exactly what we need? mental toughness? Yep, got it. Check for resiliency. Yep, got that in the book to check. Mark Devine talks about how some Navy SEALs get to this spot in their minds, and how they can just cultivate that winning mindset, that winning spirit. So our first quote, let's go to the book, quote, I think I've made it clear by now, that seals operate at an elite level because they learn to control their minds and establish the win internally, before they ever enter the fight. This is the first premise, unquote.

Ah, so there's a first premise of creating an unbeatable mind. We need to learn to control our minds. We need to learn to win battles, the small and minor battles of life before we ever enter those battles. Interesting. Now, here's the super cool thing that I loved about his book. And I think I've read it maybe three are four times by now, Devine breaks down for us what those steps are to learning how to control your mind. And here's a quick overview. And obviously, if you want more details I would recommend getting in the book. But here are the steps. Quote step one. The first step is to focus your mind and prevent it from running all over the place. Step two. As you learn to discipline your monkey mind, you will begin to learn to connect with your internal witness. This is the part of you that is untethered from your ego. Step three, this step is to feed your unfettered mind with super food for success. This food is in the form of powerful positive imagery, as well as positive emotions directed toward your future desired state skill or victories. Step four. In this step, you'll activate a daily trading plan to nurture your internal vision through repeated practice, to prepare for the first and final step, which is Step five, and to take massive action, and recruit like minded teammates to align with your vision, and help you win your missions every time, unquote. So that's a pretty cool five step process. I thought, when to when to share that with you. 

Now, obviously, there is a lot of nuance, and there's more details, and how this process happens over these five steps. And it certainly takes practice and hard work over a long period of time to cultivate this type of mindset. And divine help helps us by unpacking them throughout the book. So again, be sure to check out the book to dig further into this process. But in today's Mojo minute, the number one takeaway I want to share is that you have to begin with step one, focus your mind and preventing it, prevent it from running all over the place. What people in the eastern spirituality is called the monkey mind. Like it's swinging from branch to branch, idea to idea to do list to to do list. There's no There's never any focusing. So how about you? Do you notice how often you become distracted by one item after another item and you lose your focus? And how often by doing so we don't create victories for ourselves and how our habits become we lose focus on our habits. And then we're not as productive. 

Now the interesting thing is Cal Newport in his highly recommend a book deep work which we've covered before slightly in Mojo minute 42. Be sure to check that out, told us the superpower of the 21st century is to create deep work. And one of the deep work habits is to not lose your focus. Here's the quote, deep work is so important that we might consider it to use the phrasing of the business writer Eric Barker. It's the quote superpower of the 21st century unquote, dang. Now that's pretty cool that we can even create a superpower for ourselves. But seriously, though, for now, and especially for us, let's focus on how often we lose our focus throughout our days and jot down some notes around that. And then let's begin to cultivate a winning mindset by combining the Navy SEALs number one step and building an unbeatable mind. And then join it with Cal Newports advice in his book deep work about not losing our focus every five to 10 minutes. And by doing so, we will be cultivating our superpower for the 21st century.

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at T Mojo academy.com where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on