21 Powerful Mark Divine Quotes from The Way of the SEAL

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Excerpt: Mark Divine is a force of nature. Read these 21 powerful quotes on accomplishing goals, mindset mastery, controlling your inputs, and taking control of your destiny from The Way of the SEAL (his book) and see for yourself.

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Introduction: You Don’t Become a SEAL by Accident

You don’t become a Navy SEAL—one of the most elite combative forces on the planet—by accident. You become a Navy SEAL because you prove that you’re one of the most elite combative forces on the planet. The amount of hell you have to go through to prove yourself in that world is unlike anything you or I might ever be able to imagine—especially imagine doing willingly. And making it out on the other side of that hellish process is a feat that, to state it lightly, takes an unrelenting amount of physical effort, mental toughness, emotional resilience, and all around grit.

Mark Divine, author of The Way of the SEAL, is one of those elite forces. At twenty-six he graduated as Honor Man (#1-ranked trainee) of SEAL BUD/S class number 170 and served for nine years total on active duty and eleven as a Reserve SEAL. In his book, he shares with the reader powerful exercises, meditations, and focusing techniques that he learned from his journey that will help train mental toughness, improve emotional resilience, and build intuition. While becoming a Navy SEAL may not be in your future, learning these strategies and tactics can undoubtedly help improve your future.

What continues to impress me as I read more into the minds of Navy SEALs like Mark Divine, David Goggins, Jocko Willink, or Leif Babin is, not only the work ethic and resilience (which is to be expected), but the clarity and calm. From what I gather, these are not “blood-thirsty,” “trigger-happy,” violently natured people. These are people who have mastered control over their body and, more importantly, their mind.

As a result of their constant exposure to extremely challenging situations and environments, they learned how to accomplish their mission even when (especially when) everything was going wrong. This is a resiliency that I think we all could use some extra training in—because everything seems to go wrong all of the time in life, eh? But, like the SEALs, we still need to learn how to keep moving forward to accomplish our missions. That’s exactly what Divine sets out to show us.

Mark Divine’s Life Guiding Principles

Before we get to the quotes from The Way of the SEAL, I thought it would be appropriate to share with you Divine’s Life Guiding Principles for tough decision making and for living his best life.  He comments, “Most of us don’t take the time to think deeply about our personal ethos.  I didn’t, until I was forced to.  However, once I was able to articulate it, the stand became a very real and powerful guiding force.  When faced with murky and difficult decisions, I would fall back to my stand and see where a potential choice placed me.  If it placed me outside my stand, then I wouldn’t do it.” This will also give you a good feel for his leadership style and some insight to the beliefs that he discusses in his book. They are as follows:

• Destiny will favor me if I am prepared in mind, body, and spirit.
• There’s no free lunch; I must work harder than expected and be more patient than others.
• Leadership is a privilege, not a right, and I must earn it in the arena of action.
• As a warrior, I will be the last to pick up the sword but will fight to protect myself, my family, my country, and my way of life.
• I will strive to live in the present, resolve with the past, and create my ideal future.
• I will find my peace and happiness through seeking truth, wisdom, and love, and not by chasing thrills, wealth, titles, or fame.
• I will seek to improve myself, my team, and the world every day.

How powerful is it to have a life-guiding list like this? When faced with murky and difficult decisions (which is all of the time in life), you would have something to reference and help guide you forward. This is another reason why I love reading into the minds of elite performers—so much of what they do isn’t a result of genetics or good luck, but as a result of deliberate practice and deep work. That list, and these quotes I’m going to share with you are firm examples of that.

Without further ado, I’d like to now share with you our list of 21 Mark Divine quotes from The Way of the SEAL. These quotes are powerful and have influenced my life for the better in many ways—I hope they do the same for you. And remember, if any of these quotes stand out to you, take note and, more importantly, take action. As Divine points out, “Bottom line: If you lack an underlying commitment to self-mastery and growth, even the best theory won’t help you lead yourself or a team to success.” Don’t settle with theory—commit yourself to self-mastery and growth. Take initiative and take deliberate actions. Today is as good a day as any to begin—for, what other day do we ever even have? Good luck.

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The List: 21 Powerful Mark Divine Quotes from The Way of the SEAL

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7 Quotes on Accomplishing Goals

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“Any plan is better than no plan, and a good plan executed now is far better than a perfect plan executed too late.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“The tougher things get, the smaller your goals should become.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“When it comes to habits, the best approach isn’t to focus on eliminating unwanted behaviors but to replace them with new habits and drown the old out.  This is true of replacing a nasty habit like smoking with a healthy habit like exercise, and it’s just as true with replacing a character habit like laziness with a more useful one such as embracing the suck.  Our habits define us:  Solid character habits define a solid character.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“Whether we’re talking about mental or physical effort, the first step to embracing the suck is to step up and face your fear of suffering.  We all share this fear, which stems from a deep-rooted need for certainty and security.  Pain is your body’s way of telling you that security is threatened because something is out of whack.  However, when you consistently experience the personal growth that accrues from deliberately putting yourself out of balance, such as with hard workouts, you begin to embrace that temporary pain for the rewards it brings.  The fear recedes into oblivion as you embrace the suck.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“Rutted routines that develop from doing the same thing the same way every time—often unconsciously, or at best without deliberate decision-making—are those that stifle creativity.  However, when we create rituals around powerful tools for performance and awareness, such as the morning and evening rituals, or when we train the fundamentals common to our missions or critical nodes, then we are grooving peak performance behavior into our subconscious.  These are good routines that will help unlock creativity and success.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“The morning ritual is particularly effective in its ability to set the tone for a positive, energized day during which you are more likely to use spot practices and implement your new skills to greater effect.  The evening ritual provides the perfect complement, helping you lock in the achievements of your day, glean the most important lessons or insights, and go to bed with a feeling of satisfaction and confidence in what the future holds.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“Get up at a different time every day.  Take a different route to work.  Do not check e-mail first thing, but only twice a day.  Fast for a day or do a juice cleanse.  Make a new routine out of shaking things up.  This will forge new pathways in your brain, help you avoid blind spots and rutted thinking, and spice up your life in general.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

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7 Quotes on Mindset Mastery and Controlling Your Inputs

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“The nature of the outer, conscious mind is to receive input, process it through our story filter, and then make meaning out of it.  A problem arises when too much of what flows through our minds is negative: The conscious mind dwells on negative things and obsesses about them.  Sound familiar?  It’s well known that whatever we focus on tends to become our reality, even if the focus is on not wanting something.  Negative input can plant seeds of destruction in our subconscious mind, which then partners with our conscious mind in a conspiracy for failure.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“Though we’d like to believe our thoughts are under our control, guess again.  Thoughts arise constantly, and many have no business being in our minds, nor do they have a positive purpose in our lives.  Road rage, what goes through your mind when someone cuts you off in traffic, is a good example of an emotion-driven thought.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“Why avoid TV news?  The thing is, most people are addicted to a constant flood of what is passed off as news but is mostly just superfluous nonsense about celebrities, politicians, and minor events.  Additionally, because of the ‘scare factor’ necessary for keeping eyes glued to the screen (which in turn attracts advertisers and income), TV news is notoriously negative and will have a big impact on your subconscious over time—as with any high-functioning computer, the output of your mind is shaped by what you put into it.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“Too many of us succumb to a weak internal story informed by flawed but popular beliefs.  We are reactionary to objective events, easily buffeted by the winds of change.  Pop culture, people we interact with daily, and external events shape and reinforce this subjective reality.  In these instances, we end up being extras in someone else’s story, reacting our way through life, lacking integrity and out of balance.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“Often I feel someone’s negative, needy energy, and I strive like hell to avoid that person or minimize the impact.  I will leave the room when I sense the negativity of a person who has me in his or her radar.  If I can’t excuse myself politely for some reason, I visualize a protective shield surrounding my body that won’t allow any negative energy through.  This works well to keep me balanced in meetings.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“Even though you may not feel or look the part now, you must envision yourself in your ideal state, activating your personal power and living in alignment with your stand and purpose.  I learned in the SEALs that there’s no such thing as perfection, only perfect effort.  Through practicing a ‘perfect’ version of ourselves mentally, we’ll slowly become that person in real life.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“The art of positive self-talk is simply paying attention to your inner dialogue and directing it toward positive, performance-based language.  Most people don’t take the time to sit back and witness their own thoughts, which is an essential step toward realizing that our thoughts are not who we are.  They don’t control us.  They’re just thoughts.  The only power they have is what we give them—what we feed them.  Once you create that mental distance between you and your thoughts, you can start to tame and manage them.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

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7 Quotes on Taking Control of Your Destiny

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“Comfort imprisons us in a low-grade fear of suffering.  We naturally shy from things that hurt, not understanding how much this pattern debilitates us and keeps us from experiencing life at its fullest.  We must define our comfort zone, and then get the heck out of it!”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“Drive is fueled by desire, belief, and expectation that we can achieve something extraordinary through our efforts.  It feeds on discipline in that it becomes stronger as we commit ourselves at deeper levels to our pursuits.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“Discipline is the spark that ignites the fire of a habit.  Those fires must be lit daily, and discipline provides the original source energy.  The word discipline literally means to be a disciple to a higher purpose.  Developing the discipline to train hard every day means you become a disciple—not to the training itself, not just to looking good or stroking your ego, but to the higher purpose of developing yourself fully as a human being and as a leader.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“I believe the world is chaotic and destiny favors the prepared.  Unfortunately, sometimes chaos just refuses the harness, no matter how well you bulletproof your mission and how committed you are to finding a way.  Moving forward despite chaotic conditions—and sometimes because of them—is inherently risky, and since we don’t shy away from risk, you will inevitably experience failure, probably more often than you succeed, actually.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“Failure does not deserve to be addressed with recrimination or pity.  Rather, failure must be honored for the insight it provides.  Failure is the grist for learning; it is our teacher.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“The perpetual winds of pleasure blow you in one direction.  The gusts of pain push you in another.  The problem is this keeps you from living your ideal life.  You’re simply bouncing around.  By defining your stand and purpose, you will be able to use them as an internal GPS.  When the winds of pain and pleasure blow, you won’t change course.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“Ultimately, we need to develop what the Japanese call kokoro, which means to merge our heart and mind in action.  It implies that we are balanced and centered, allowing us to operate in synchronicity with our inner selves, with others, and with nature.  When we commit to integral development and lead with kokoro, we will be 100 percent authentic, present, and powerful.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

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Picture Quotes from The Way Of The SEAL To Share:

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If you enjoyed these quotes from The Way of the SEAL, then you should definitely check out Mark Divine’s book in full. In comes highly recommended.