Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Resources:

Diego’s book is Leading from the Deep. It’s available in paperback at https://amzn.to/4kODtno, on Kindle at https://amzn.to/4kODtno, and as an audiobook at https://amzn.to/4kODtno.

You’ll find more about his projects at https://thewarriorside.com/ and https://thetridentapproach.com/.

Our host Maureen Metcalf posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.

Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI, or check out the Kindle version at https://amzn.to/44buVz8. The audiobook version is now available at  https://amzn.to/4dTCleZ.

Her other 10 books are available on Amazon here.

Books we’re reading for fun or personal development right now include:

• To Stop a Tyrant by Ira Chaleff, on how leaders become tyrants and their types of followers, is in hardback on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3W5XDys and on Kindle at https://amzn.to/420Zvwc. An audiobook edition is coming soon.
• Bedtime Stories for Managers, a collection of short essays from Henry Mintzberg; it’s in paperback at https://amzn.to/4hl6gOb, and Kindle at https://amzn.to/3PYmSiX.
• Take Back Your Power: 10 New Rules for Women at Work by Ancestry CEO Deb Liu, on how to overcome the obstacles women still face in the workplace – especially in tech. It’s in hardback at https://amzn.to/47OUO9E, and audio at https://amzn.to/3Y6EmOQ.
• Covert Cows and Chick-fil-A by Steve Robinson; it’s available in hardback at https://amzn.to/460LnmQ, on Kindle at https://amzn.to/3RVXhZs, and as an audiobook at https://amzn.to/3xPjBgn.

NOTE: As an Amazon partner, we may make a small commission from books you buy through these links.

Other episodes you’ll enjoy:

• From Ego to Impact: Managing with Clarity with Subhanu Saxena
• How Your Personal Practices Make You an Exceptional Leader with Kathryn Goldman Schuyler
• When Leadership Puts Life on the Line with former Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin

Guest(s):

Guest(s) Bio:

Diego Ugalde is a retired Navy SEAL, leadership expert, storyteller, and author of Leading from the Deep. With decades of experience in high-stakes environments, Diego now coaches top executives to lead with emotional intelligence and purpose. His transformational approach blends SEAL leadership with spiritual depth, helping clients unlock new levels of success and fulfillment. He is also the creator of Warriorside, an immersive storytelling experience that reconnects people to their humanity through powerful, vulnerable stories. Diego’s work has been praised for its deep impact, with clients such as Google X and elite leaders across industries.

Transcript
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Maureen: [00:00:00] This is Innovating Leadership Co-Creating Our Future. I’m your host, Maureen Metcalf, founder and CEO of the Innovative Leadership Institute, where we help leaders be future ready. Helping us in this mission today is Diego Ugalde, a retired Navy SEAL leadership expert, storyteller, and the author of Leading From the Deep, we’ll be talking about how spiritual connection and emotional intelligence transform executive performance.

Diego, we’re glad you’re with us.

Diego: I am glad to be here. Thanks for having me here. Appreciate it, Maureen.

Maureen: So let’s jump into a conversation about being a Navy seal. What are some of the most significant lessons you learned as a SEAL, specifically about leadership and how to apply them?

Diego: One of the things that makes the SEAL teams as successful as they are is the culture. Like it is the expectation that not only are you performing, but you’re [00:01:00] performing on an elite level. Like that’s the bottom, the bare minimum. And because of that, because that culture exists. It is those type of people who even pursue to become part of their fraternity, so to speak. So if you show up to the SEAL team and you’re not operating on an elite level, or you are not driven to develop and learn so that you are performing on an elite level and there’s something like fundamentally. Wrong with you, and either it is corrected or you’re sort of expelled out of the, out of the community. Uh, it’s a very interesting culture to be a part of and one that, you know, from moment to moment, you know, the assessments are going on. It’s, it kind of doesn’t matter what you did yesterday, it doesn’t matter, and it’s every day.

And, and we all each other look at each [00:02:00] other. Like, can I depend on you in my worst, most, you know, enormous moments. And we know that other people are looking at us like that because we’re looking at each other like that as well. You know, the, the standard is always there. The truth of of that is, is, you know, where else does that exist?

Not very many other places. And so how then the question becomes, you know, how, how does then all of that mindset or, or acumen or, or all the things, how does, how does that apply to every other organization in the world and. I don’t think it has to be on that level. Like, like there’s a lot of people that we train.

They’re like, oh, like we’re, we’re the Navy Seals of Google, or we’re the Navy Seals of Farmer, or something like that. I’m like, God in heaven, please don’t do that because you’ll, [00:03:00] you’ll be in the middle of lawsuits and like two seconds, your, your building’s gonna burn down next week, or whatever it is. Or, you know, but the whole idea is that is. You don’t have to have the seal culture. What, what you could choose to have is like that deep of an alignment for whatever culture it is that you are trying to create or that, that, you know, as leadership, what, what, what you think is, is if everybody gets behind this and is on board with this type of thing and we’re gonna succeed.

So it doesn’t have to be a carbon copy of it, but the whole idea behind the SEAL team is why it was so powerful is that everybody was in line with it. Like that was the standard. No matter what the standard is, everybody’s in line. Then you’re doing well. That’s, that is one of the things that I learned from leadership, from a leadership standpoint, from the SEAL teams.

Maureen: You know, you mentioned the alignment and [00:04:00] everybody’s looking at you. I think as leaders we often forget that everyone is looking at our smallest moves to decipher what’s going on, things that we may think are completely inconsequential. I show up with a headache and somebody thinks something’s wrong with the

Diego: Mm-hmm.

Maureen: Who am I and how do I show up? Really matters for leaders.

Diego: , I think that there are leaders who are hyper aware of and afraid of what other people might be thinking from everything that they’re doing. And, you know, everyone is different. Everyone is on in a different place or on a different path, and that includes all the other people in the organization.

So there’s just in a sense, like the possibilities are endless, but. Just because we were doing that in the SEAL teams, for example, doesn’t mean that that’s the highest level state of being, of being constantly [00:05:00] aware and concerned with what other people are thinking. I’ve come to understand that that is actually kind of quite a dysfunctional way of, of being, um, number one, because you don’t know where people are.

You don’t know what they could possibly thinking, and all the billions and billions of scenarios that could. Potentially be created and manifested in their mind. And so to be slave to that or to be concerned with that in a like overly concerned, it’s one thing to notice, it’s another thing to alter your state of being because of what you’re afraid somebody else might be thinking.

Like. when you start to get into the whole idea of trust, which is another huge component in the SEAL teams, uh. How can you trust somebody when you know fundamentally they’re not necessarily showing up as they are? They’re not being genuine to themselves, genuine to, and it’s hard to be. You cannot be genuine to [00:06:00] yourself if you’re constantly abbreviating yourself or adjusting yourself in order to not ruffle any feathers or not, you know, disturb. And so the ones who are most concerned or afraid of how that could. Possibly be gone, like they’re all over the map. Sometimes it’s not ’cause they’re bad people at all. It’s just because they don’t know who they are. Because when somebody deeply knows, I mean deeply knows who they are and they don’t have to move for anyone and no one has to move for anyone else. And it’s that kind of anchoring, that kind of stability. That creates these environments of trust and stability itself is when somebody is in that way, in their state of being. So for the leaders who are constantly worried about what other people are thinking, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what they’re [00:07:00] thinking because people are thinking things all the time that they already know.

Who knows what that is? It’s not, they have to be disinterested in how other people are. That’s not what I mean. It’s like, what do I need to do today to, in order to allay their fears is hard. You’ll never get anything done. So be aware of it for sure. You need to listen and connect with people, but still remain as you are. If it’s your highest state of being.

Maureen: So that’s a brilliant lead into the idea of leading from a deeper place that you talk about in your book. When we talk about leadership, we talk about being relating and doing, being. For us at the institute being the foundation of leadership. And then there’s the stuff I do. And so [00:08:00] you’re leading from a deeper place or from a deep place is perfectly aligned.

And can you share with our listeners, ’cause people talk about this, but it’s. One thing to have the theoretical grounding or some words, it’s yet another thing to actually fundamentally connect with your, that deeper part of yourself that many people are unacquainted with.

Diego: That’s the reality of it, what you just said. Whatever it is I’m about to say here in the next minute or two, it’s just words. If people don’t have a visceral connection, understanding, and experience of what it is to actually be connected with who they really are. It’s just words like, oh, that sounds cool.

There’s no podcast, there’s no book, there’s no, there’s no nothing. [00:09:00] can help teach somebody the experience of what it is doesn’t exist with. It’s, it’s funny being in this work, discovering how limiting language is and, and, and, and also misleading because, you know, I can ask. Second grader, what does it mean to be no, tell me.

With full confidence that they feel like they know what it is to be. And that definition is gonna change for people as they grow and their life experience expands and all this I, and if they never leave the space of the thinking mind or the egoic state. Or like the fear of what other people thinking [00:10:00]is, they’ll never know.

You can never know what it is to be, but they’ll swear to God on their life that they know exactly what it is to be. So it’s like, you know, our language is, it is what it is, but for the people who actually bring it into their experience. The actual state of being. They’re the ones who know, and they, they can be in alignment with what that is. And you know, as humans, you know, we’re always kind of tether or, you know, slingshot it back to where we are and going other places and this kind of thing. And when they fall out of alignment with. Who they are to their core, and they notice they can just bring themselves back.

So it’s not going to, you know, not fully in this state entirely. Like there are mistakes are coming. It’s just the way it is.. The only answer to that question can come from people who actually have that [00:11:00] experience. Of who I am, beyond who I think I am, who I, who am I beyond me trying to figure this out. Like these are, things cannot be figured out. They have the knowing comes from within like a well of water. When you know who you are, you know who you are. Like for example, I don’t mean to be so cryptic. I’m not trying to be, I’m also just trying to be honest. Um. If somebody asked me, you know, 10 years ago who I am, I would say like, oh, I’m a Navy Seal. I’m a dad. I’m, I think I’m like the world’s best hugger. Like I’m a medic, like all these things. That’s why I would’ve said who I am, and then years later I’m like, that’s, that’s a thing.

You know, that’s a, like, that’s my shirt and nothing else. [00:12:00] Way deeper than that. And then you, you get to the level where you’re just like, I am, and that’s it. Somebody would’ve told me that 10 years ago. It would’ve been like, doesn’t make any sense to me. What do you, what do you mean you are, you are what? And so there’s a huge disconnect between I think what common cultural understanding of what that is and what, what actually is in deep truth. That wasn’t confusing.

Maureen: So let’s unpack that a little bit because as I tried to figure out who am I. I did, I probably went through five workbooks on Find your Purpose and spent time out in the woods hiking and filling out workbooks, um, and time alone days and weeks trying to figure this out. And part of what I found out was when [00:13:00] I.

I tried to get away from things I kept getting pulled back in. Uh, and so I found a deeper part of myself, but there was also the thing I couldn’t avoid was part of that deeper peace and the literally, I rented a cabin in the woods. And in the midst of job change, I started with two days a week and ended up five days a week by myself kind of navigating through all of the stuff.

And, and so I wonder, and that was just part of the journey, not the entire journey. What was that journey like for you? And What I’m trying to get to is. The words you said will make more sense if people can hear what your story is to, to get from where you were 10 years [00:14:00] ago. Navy Seal dead hugger to I Am because that’s a pretty big jump and it’s more than just days passing around the sun.

It’s, you’ve done different things.

Diego: Yeah, so I, to my awareness, there’s no real way to experience what it is to be. When you’re on the level playing field of what it is to kind of function normally in this plant, on this planet, you know, getting to ju getting to work on time, you know, all the things. The only way that I am aware of to experience these things is to go to what some people call elevated state of consciousness, where you go beyond.

The thinking mind. You actually are in a state of observing all that is. You’re observing your thoughts, [00:15:00] you’re observing your mind, you’re observing even your, your body as though it’s like on a movie screen. Um, and there are many ways to get to these elevated states of consciousness. And one of ’em, one, like the most powerful and the, and the deepest possible way of attaining this is through.

Meditation. Uh, some people get there through psychedelic experiences. Um, vision quests, like real, real vision quests, um, holotropic breathing. So you breathe a certain way for 20 or 30 minutes and you’re, you lose the sense of self. Yeah. All these,

Maureen: four hours for holotropic breathing.

Diego: hours. The experience lasts for four hours, not the number four, but for multiple hours. And there’s other people, like we were talking earlier, I think before we were recording [00:16:00] about Eckhart. Like he, he found it just in massive amounts of suffering and then finally like everything broke and he was just left with all that was just left around.

And he was like, oh, wait a minute. You know? So he found it that way. So there, there are many ways to find this, but it, if, if all of this is done from the place of trying to figure it out, still is the mind. Controlling and creating and lose doing, creating illusion and all this stuff. So I love that I talk about this all the time.

It’s such a great quote from Einstein. So like you can’t solve the problem with using the same line of thinking that you used to create the problem in the first place. So if the mind, and what I am saying is the mind is the one that is actually in the way of experiencing this. So if the mind is being used to figure this out, it cannot be done.

Like, it literally cannot be done. So the way I found it. Uh, of the multiple ways that there are to find it. I, I found it through psychedelics [00:17:00] and there are many different medicine within the plant medicine space. And the first medicine I had ever done was five M-E-O-D-M-T or Bufo, which is like this, uh, you know, it’s a Sonoran desert toad that has these poisonous sacks and they extract a poison and they crystallize it. And then you smoke it. And the interesting thing about it is, is, is we have this component within us that is released twice in our life, once when we’re born and once when we’re, when we die. And so you have an opportunity when you sit with this medicine to to experience what it is to come in and to come out of this world all at the same time. You know, and when and when I sat with it, it was kind of, you know, I didn’t do any research, none of the stuff I was, I was in the healing space with the other Navy Seals [00:18:00] around who were going through their own retreat. I was invited to come observe. They said, Hey, we got an extra dose of this. Do you wanna try it?

I’m like, dude, I’m not in the military anymore. I’m not gonna get, I’m not gonna get in trouble. I was like, yeah, you’ll just do it. Well, what do I care? It was so hilarious because I had no clue what I was about to experience and what one can experience through five MEO is like an immediate snapping out of the mind space. was like, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t control this. I didn’t make it happen. I was just sitting there and in an instant I was pulled out into this, what we’re calling elevated state of consciousness, and I was like in an instant, everything I thought about who I am, even the world around me was completely surface level, shallow [00:19:00] awareness, everything, even like my deepest thoughts I thought. Even those just, and the only way that I know how to explain it, which is almost silly, but I gotta say something I suppose, is you ever seen those videos of like you’re somewhere in the United States and it zooms out and you see the earth and it zooms out and you see bigger planets and you zoom out and you see the sun.

And then you zoom out and you see bigger stars and zoom out and see galaxies and all. It just keeps on going. It’s like, whoa, this place is massive. Well, that’s as expansive as we are inward, like in the inside is that big. And also and coming into real connection with all that is within us, it’s a game changer. And then of [00:20:00] course there’s always like you, you realize you were on drugs, right? And the only thing I can say is I’ve never known truth until I saw it through the lens of elevated states of consciousness. If anything is the, the trip, it’s this life. But real, real being is way beyond. We’re experiencing way beyond. The last thing I’ll say sometimes can be helpful is as far as science can tell, they’re up to 11 different dimensions or more, and we experienced three of those. These dimensions aren’t like through wormholes or in other galaxies or other places in the universe, like, like literally everything is happening here.

We just can’t see it because we’re these three dimensional creatures. What that means is there are eight different additional dimensions going on around us all the time. We just can’t see ’em. [00:21:00] And for example, there, there are scientists that believe that butterflies can’t see how beautiful their wings are.

They’re just floating around just ’cause of the positioning of their eyes in relation to where their wings are. Well, we can see it, but they don’t know. And so when I think about it in those terms, for me, it’s just so easy to be like, of course I don’t, of course I can’t see this because there’s so much going on around that I’m not even capable of seeing.

So it makes sense that there only could be more..

Maureen: So you had your first experience, you zoomed out or zoomed in and saw. A completely different terrain than you had previously had access to.

Diego: Mm-hmm.

Maureen: And then you come back and you say, okay, I was on drugs. For you that didn’t, the journey didn’t stop when the drug wore off. When the elevated [00:22:00] consciousness wore off, then it’s not like you just went back to work and said, that was an interesting trip.

Like I went to Disney World this weekend. You brought that consciousness back and started the process of unraveling who you thought you were.

Diego: Yes.

Maureen: What was that like? Because now you’ve got this kind of disparate holding of who I think I am in one hand, and then I’ve just had this awareness of a completely different experience of Diego in a different context of 11 dimensions rather than three.

That has to be disorienting. And then you go to work on Monday morning.

Diego: Yeah, maybe it was disorienting. Uh, or if you’ve ever had a compass where the needle was stuck and you shake it [00:23:00] up and then it finally finds its way to magnetic north, like I think that’s more of like what it was. It was like a shaking up and maybe a reor reorienting. It cleaned things up and I was in full awareness that I had no idea what, what had just been cleaned up and you know what I mean? Like I just, because I didn’t, there’s so much that comes along with being in those elevated states like I. Like there’s some, knowing there’s all this stuff, but when you come back into normal waking life, you’re still you.

You’re still the one that went into the medicine before we went into the medicine. And something that’s really, really common in this space of expansive growth is that your logical awareness like shoots up. So I was logically aware that I was way more than I could ever imagine, but my state of [00:24:00]being.

Was still down here in this space of well, yeah, but blah, blah, blah. So,

Maureen: Pay the house payment, do the work.

Diego: yeah, so, so in time by integrating the lessons. Bringing into the awareness and staying curious and like literally throwing the word, knowing out into the garbage and just being, maybe there’s more to learn, maybe there’s more to understand.

Maybe this, my state of being slowly, slowly started to creep up with, with this whole idea of I am. And because learning isn’t linear, like you don’t start small and continue, it’s like a plate of spaghetti. Um, there are absolutely times entirely outside of the medicine in a completely sober, sober state where I can experience the whole idea of what it is to [00:25:00] simply be, I think, as far as I can tell.

And then, you know, life happens and all of a sudden I’m heartbroken, or I’m sad, or I’m judgmental or whatever, and I realize that I’m there. I come to realize what that is and I start to elevate again. It’s all good. No judgment. It just is. It’s just, it’s just part of it. The point is still learning, still growing and maybe I still have no concept of what it actually is to be, I don’t know.

Uh, but. You know, it is so easy to be in these places and, and go down this rabbit hole of, well if this, then how come this and all, all this stuff and, and am I doing this right? That, you know, all that. And the, the one metric that I use to check on whether or not I’m [00:26:00] on where I want to be, it is just. How do I feel about things as compared to how I used to feel about things, disagreements, or things in life happening the way they do, as opposed to the way I want them to be.

All of those things. And if I’m just genuinely better off than I would have been in the old way of thinking that that tells me that I’m doing something that I prefer. And that’s it, that’s enough. Uh, whether or not it’s truth, whether or not it’s this or that or whatever, it kind of doesn’t matter. But the key word is being genuinely, I’m not talking about faking it till you make it.

I’m not talking about, shoving it down for later and dealing, or I’m not supposed to feel this way, so I’m not gonna, I’m mean to the core. I just am. Well, even though there’s this hurricane going on, that is what tells me. Maybe not necessarily that I’m doing something right, but that I am doing something that I genuinely prefer, and [00:27:00] that’s enough.

Maureen: So you mentioned emotions back to your Navy seal. You probably didn’t sit around, I’m guessing, and talk about emotions a lot. You’ve gone through this experience and I’m making assumptions about what Navy Seal like is life is like, ’cause I’m not one. Um, now you go through this experience and, and it sounds like you’ve got access and you’ve got tools to metabolize and, and for our listeners, I’m assuming this is more than one time, you didn’t just do something for an hour and then you’re.

You’re you now. But this was a series of altered state use of medicine for a very specific purpose. It’s, it wasn’t recreational. This was journeying for development purposes, and I think that’s important to [00:28:00] say. Um. You now have a capacity to navigate emotions, and I wanna bring this back to a leadership space because as leaders we have to have an emotional acumen and an ability to metabolize that you’re talking about.

Not shove them down and just react to them, but truly own them, process them and use them to. Amplify our ability rather than to dampen our ability.

Diego: One of the things that I think a lot of people think early on in this path is that, you know, emotion is, is to not be you. Not, I shouldn’t be angry anymore. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve healed enough, I’ve done all this stuff. I, I’m angry. Something is wrong. What they find when they stay on this path is that. Anger is a gift, just like [00:29:00] happiness is. It’s a tool and nothing more. There’s such thing as toxic anger, and there’s such thing as toxic happiness. I think there’s all kinds of terms for it. Just like whatever, toxic positivity or something, I don’t know, but it’s the same thing.

It’s just being disingenuous to, to how you are in the moment. The thing about leadership is. You know, there’s a reason why you get paid more money. There’s a reason why you’re in charge of people, and that is, uh, when I am experiencing anger, how am I processing it? Am I, am I, am I dealing with it in an appropriate, productive way, or am I letting it beat me and therefore, I am now? Punishing other people for whatever it is that I might be experiencing. So leaders who punish other people for their own personal experiences, [00:30:00] I mean, it’s obvious to say they’re not operating on their elite level. Well, leaders who experience anger and recognize what that is and that it doesn’t have anything to do with anyone else. This is really hard. This is very, very, very difficult to understand. Whatever your experiences are, they’re rooted within you. It’s, it’s not the other person’s problem. It’s not the other person’s fault when you come to understand this stuff on a deeper, deeper, deeper level. As a leader, you can come to understand that whatever anybody does that angers you, there is something within their actions or their state of being that is reflecting to you.

Parts of you that you haven’t worked out yet for people who are stuck in this. [00:31:00] Mind world, it doesn’t make sense. Wait a minute. They’re the ones who are late every day. Like, what the hell does that have to do with me? The, you know, it is just always them. It’s always that. It’s always that out there. But the people who do understand this is like, I. I’m, I’m upset at my ability to lead, to not be able to show this person away, whatever, to not be able to, really, what it comes down to is control them so that they’re not like, I’m, I’m pissed off at you.

You’re not falling In my world of personal control, that’s another very, very, very difficult thing to lea for leaders to wrap their head around. It is like there’s very little in this world that you can control it. It’s like mostly really limited. To what’s going on inside. Being like a high vibrational being isn’t about controlling the world around you. It is about receiving the world as it is [00:32:00] in in your best state and addressing things from moment to moment, from your clearest mind, from your most grounded, from this state of deeper knowing, whatever it is, whether.

Somebody’s late or somebody did something in the media that just smashed the company’s branding, whatever it is, like all the biggest stuff to all the smallest stuff. This is just as it is, and I’m going to respond in the best possible way because I’m grounded and we’ll address this. And, and a big, like I said, it comes back to control.

So there’s a, there are leaders who believe that as long as they do what they, what they need to do, that people aren’t going to make mistakes. They’re not gonna do the wrong thing.

Maureen: not true.

Diego: it is not true. I don’t care how it just, there’s a lot of people in this space, not only leaders, but humans that believe [00:33:00] if they do everything right. Then there are no mistakes. There is no sadness, there is no struggle, there is no anything. Like, literally everything is coastal and, uh, they’re just coasting. And that is not the purpose of life to my awareness. The purpose of life is to fully experience everything as it is, and you can, you can experience it in any way you want. You can either become a, a drug addict or you can become. A missionary, you can do whatever you wanna do, and it’s up to you how you experience this whole thing. You can either experience by, by arm wrestling against the universe, this isn’t supposed to happen, this isn’t supposed to happen, that doesn’t last long.

Your arm rips off. Or even like, Hey, this is, this is what is happening now. How do we respond and let’s go. And then with leadership on top of that, it’s like, how can I help the person who is. In some way, [00:34:00] because I think this isn’t limited to leadership, but it’s very, very common in leadership, but they feel like they are literally interacting with somebody who is fully grounded, deeply rooted, worked through all their traumas, and is operating at a hundred percent.

And then when they operate outside of those realms, they’re like, man, what the hell’s wrong with you? It’s like, well, everything, just like with you, not everybody you know. Nobody is on this you know thing. And so when they understand that, they’re like, oh, you’re suffering. You’re not at your best. How can I help? That’s that. To me, that’s what leadership is because everybody has a living life outside of the job.

Maureen: So as I hear that, it takes us back to the idea of grounded and I as the leader am okay. I’m safe in the world and I have the capacity to respond to the thing that’s happening, whether it’s a competitor did [00:35:00] something or my IT system isn’t recording things properly, whatever the thing is. I as the leader, didn’t get what I wanted, which is kind of every day.

Um, and. I have the internal capacity and the external resources to move through this in a way that may be painful, but it won’t kill my company and will be stronger after that process, and I can be stronger.

Diego: Yes. These things don’t have to break you.

Maureen: But to get to that point is a significant process.

Diego: Mm-hmm. And the reason why, one of the reasons why it’s so significant is it’s com It it, many ways, it’s completely counterintuitive to what we, what I hear all the talking heads talking about, about what elite level performance is. It’s. [00:36:00] Dominate, smash the competition and suck it up. Just do it.

All those things. These like low hanging fruit taglines of how you should be showing up in the world as an elite level leader. And by, by far, by far, by far, those. Catchy taglines are the things that literally prevent us from actually being our fullest, and one of those words is surrender. Another one of those words is soften, be soft, and you’re never gonna hear that, especially from. Retired, you know, type a Navy Seals what, like, whatever it is, it’s like to be soft is, you know, to be vulnerable is all of these negative things as if it is negative [00:37:00] to experience living, like there’s something wrong. With my life experience because I’m sad there’s something wrong with my life experience because I’m weak.

There’s something wrong with my life experience because whatever it is. And so the control muscle kicks in and just being like, Hey, buck up dude. Like let’s go. And you’re like denying what is, it’s not that. It doesn’t have to be that there’s a whole nother way. This is why that, what you’re talking about of this, this movement is so difficult because we have to undo everything.

I’m generalizing here, but in culture, like we have to undo everything we’ve been taught that it, it isn’t our job to arm wrestle the universe. It is our we, well, it can be if we want it to be fair enough. Like I’ve arm wrestled the universe plenty of times. I’ve [00:38:00] run on broken legs. I’ve done all this stuff to me.

Man, that stuff’s for the birds. What, what if, what if whatever happens in my existence, I focus more. On reconciling and actually being in the state of being okay with whatever happens, and then choosing to do what I prefer to do based off of that, instead of judgment, shame, all the stuff like, like for example, there’s a very, very famous Chinese parable that as far as the way. It’s been translated to me is, is I’d rather be a warrior in a garden and a gardener in a war. And that’s something to aspire to as, as, as if that’s something to aspire to. And what I can say is I’ve coached over 400 veterans in [00:39:00] their own processes of coming home from war and that kind of thing. Is that is one of the foundational elements of suffering itself. It’s like I’m a warrior matter what. I’m a warrior. And what are warriors? Do they prepare for battle or they’re, or they battle. And so what that means is they come home and they sit with their children as a warrior. Go to a restaurant and they sit in the restaurant as a warrior, just in case somebody breaks through these doors with a, with an Uzi out. I gotta know how I’m going to defeat and destroy them. We’re the sitting around the Christmas, around Christmas morning while everybody’s opening presents and they’re sitting there as a warrior and they don’t know what it is to simply be the gardener in the garden. That the only thing that matters in that moment is planting the seed or cultivating the soil, or removing the weeds or whatever, and nothing else. [00:40:00] They’re in the warrior plant. They’re, they’re in the garden planting seeds while they’re looking over the horizon sea, like where the enemy’s potentially coming from.

So they can’t be here. In other words, they’re, they’re living through this scenario as opposed to living. To living. They can’t,

Maureen: just described my upbringing

Diego: yeah.

Maureen: with a dad who was a Vietnam hero. I, and he still worries about placing the bathtub under the bedroom window. So he can shoot at invaders if they come to his house. He’s in his late eighties. That’s still the life, that’s still the mindset. He’s, he, he couldn’t shoot people from his bathtub if he wanted to, but he still,

Diego: and it makes sense to me[00:41:00]

Maureen: mm-hmm.

Diego: because he is listening to very, very, very successful people. Or on the surface they look very successful. Like, this is what you’ve got to do in order to succeed. This is what you gotta do in order to be in man. This is what you gotta do.

And what I see are people who are so broken. That they don’t have the strength anymore, even to lie to themselves. And when you break people open like that, all that’s left is what actually is. And what, I don’t have to tell any one of them. This isn’t the way, because hey, by this point, they know whatever I’ve done, whatever I’ve been doing, it’s not the way, it’s not helping me.

It’s not helping me to be the warrior at my son’s soccer game. Is not helping me. I just got outta jail. So what’s the problem? Okay. Um, but for people who don’t fully break, [00:42:00] it’s like, this is what they say, this is what it makes sense. I am the protector of this house. I’m, I gotta do this. You know, the border’s unprotected and people are calling them from who God knows what country.

Like I gotta be prepared and this is the world that they live in. It’s the world that they’ve created for themselves. It’s so simple, but it’s so hard. But you create the reality that you have, and that’s it. If you choose that, that’s not what you want anymore. You just choose something different. I think about what all this could mean to leadership. In leadership, if you’re in a perpetual state of fear, like everything is gonna go wrong, everything’s gonna go wrong.

And meanwhile, in between things actually going wrong, there’s like this huge blanket of darkness and clouds and fear and shame, and who the hell do I ha hold accountable for all this stuff. Like that’s the thing. But when you are in a softened [00:43:00] state. you are, you do what you can. You do all the training, you do all the education, you know, you talk to the folks and make you do your best to hire people that are aligned with the culture and all this stuff. And you allow them to be as they are and you grow and that’s it. And mistakes happen and that’s it. You know, again, mistakes are happening anyway. Like what is your experience through those mistakes? Is the thing.

Maureen: Diego, as we wrap up one, I just thank you for all you did as a Navy Seal. Thank you for, we haven’t talked about this, but the work that you do with veterans to help them navigate the traumas that they’ve experienced. And thank you for the leadership coaching and training that you provide to organizational leaders across a range.

Is there anything you want to kind of [00:44:00] closing words, share with our listeners?

Diego: Sure. Um, one of the things that I hear almost to the person. When you get involved in coaching or, or whatever it is, it’s like, okay, Diego, listen, I haven’t been through what you’ve been through. I’m just a therapist, or I’m just a executive. This, but, but here’s my stuff. I as if somebody’s suffering or life lessons or whatever are more important or relevant than anyone else’s. And I’ve come to understand that they’re not, it’s all the same. Like it matters just as much. My suffering might have different clothes on it, but in the core, in the, in the, the root of it all, it’s all the same, it’s experience through combat, whether it’s experience through growing up as a child in a [00:45:00] home, or through work or relationships or whatever.

It’s all the same. And what I see is there’s four so far. There’s four really deep common core elements that contribute to anybody’s suffering, and one is being disconnected from the self. Well, not actually understanding or connecting with who we really are. And number two, not understanding the mind for what it is and as importantly, what it is not. Number three, not being present. And number four, being disconnected with the whole experience of loving the self. And so one of the ways, it is funny because this illusion of a hierarchy of suffering exists really, like people don’t give themselves permission to suffer. They don’t give themselves permission to like.

Listen, I’m not a Navy [00:46:00] Seal solo. What, what could I possibly have to complain about? Like that kind of thing. So denying. So one of the ways that we’re bridging this whole idea of helping people to come to understand that, that literally whatever it is that they’re going through, matters just as much as we, we have, um, the Warriors side.

And so we’re a group of veterans that are just going around, um, and telling our deepest, most vulnerable, transformative, visceral experiences. Just to tell these stories, and when people hear that Navy Seals are worried about diapers and they’re worried about impressing their dads, and they’re, they’re like, oh, crap.

I mean like Me too, man. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re all like, you are literally. You matter entirely and you’re the only thing that matters. It gives people permission to [00:47:00] soften. It gives people permission to look inward and be like, well, maybe this whole thing that I’ve been thinking about isn’t, so, maybe there’s another way.

And giving people permission to just consider that can help catalyze them, go onto a path of where they’re able to heal. ’cause that’s really what matters. I think so we love doing that. It gives people a chance to access Navy Seals and they find out, oh, you’re just like a dude. Like, yeah, you’re just a dude.

That’s it. No big deal. Um, it just creates connection and community and, and gives people permission. To really get after some things so that they’ve been holding like your 80-year-old dad. Like, man, [00:48:00] what am I doing? This isn’t helping me. There’s another way. So yeah, it’s a really cool project that we’re working on.

That’s amazing.

Maureen: Diego. Last question. How would people learn about your work, about Warrior Side, about the range of your coaching and, and psychedelic coaching? I believe right.

Diego: Yeah, I’m also a psychedelic integration coach. There’s just so much that happens in a psychedelic experience. They’re like dreams. So it’s like if you ever had a dream that you just didn’t, man, what the heck was that pink elephant doing there? Um. They can be confusing and they can be really, really strong and, and it can be unsettling.

So having a psychedelic integration coach not tell you what this was, but help you find out from the knowing that you have from within, really helps you maximize the potential of that experience. So, yeah. So on, on social media, my biggest presence is on LinkedIn, um, Diego Alde, [00:49:00] and, um. My coaching company, the trident approach.com, the trident approach.com, and then we’re also on the warrior side.com. For the storytelling. We just had a show in San Diego. It’s our first, like our soft opening, which was really great. Our huge, huge, massive opening to the world is gonna be at the House of Blues in San Diego and March 29th, 2025. It’s gonna be like the limousines and the white lights in the sky and all that.

Kind of like that kind of huge thing and, and so we’re really excited about that. And we are also on Instagram under the Trident approach and also Warrior side. So, uh, yeah, happy to connect with people who are like, I’ve experienced everything. I’ve gotten everything. I’ve earned everything. I’ve done everything.

And every, everything is still empty. If that’s you, let’s talk. ’cause there’s all kinds of stuff we can get into.

Maureen: Thank you. [00:50:00] really appreciate the conversation

Diego: You

Maureen: and thank you to our listeners, whatever you have experienced, this idea of finding the deeper connection. Is a game changer for leaders.