Staring Down the Wolf

What does it take to lead courageously when everything around you feels uncertain, complex, and volatile? In Staring Down the Wolf: 7 Leadership Commitments That Forge Elite Teams, retired Navy SEAL Commander Mark Divine argues that the true mark of leadership today is not authority or charisma—it’s emotional and spiritual wholeness. Divine contends that the battlefield of modern leadership isn’t found in boardrooms or warzones, but in the leader’s internal terrain. To transform teams, he insists, you must first stare down the metaphorical wolf of fear within yourself.

Drawing from his own journey—from the SEAL Teams and Zen monasteries to corporate failures and coaching executives—Divine explores how modern leaders can shift from ego-driven achievers to heart-centered servants. His core message: until leaders confront their hidden fears, biases, and emotional conditioning, they will remain limited by old patterns that sabotage trust, authenticity, and performance. By developing courage, trust, respect, growth, excellence, resiliency, and alignment, leaders can create the kind of elite, deeply connected teams that thrive in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world.

The Inner Battlefield: Facing the Fear Wolf

At the heart of Divine’s philosophy lies the metaphor of the two wolves, drawn from a Native American story. The first is the Fear Wolf, nourished by self-doubt, blame, and ego. The second is the Courage Wolf, fueled by trust, compassion, and self-mastery. Every leader, Divine explains, faces a daily choice about which wolf to feed. Staring down the wolf doesn’t mean destroying fear—it means recognizing it, starving its control, and turning your energy toward the Courage Wolf through conscious practice.

From Command-and-Control to Conscious Leadership

Divine compares traditional corporate leadership styles—rooted in control, measurement, and ego—to a commander barking orders from a distance. These methods worked in stable, predictable systems, but in today’s chaotic environment, they fail. He describes how many executives now face what he calls a “crisis of relevance”—trained for a world that no longer exists. To win in modern VUCA conditions, they must shift from rigid control to whole leadership, characterized by moral courage, authenticity, and adaptability.

The key shift is inward. Divine, citing influences such as Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory and Zen teachings, breaks down leadership development into three lifelong journeys: “clean up” (healing emotional shadows), “wake up” (discovering your essential nature), and “grow up” (expanding your capacity for inclusive awareness). Together, these form the foundation of authentic, world-centric leadership.

The Five Plateaus of Leadership Growth

To diagnose where a leader might be stuck, Divine introduces the Five Plateaus model of development. Each plateau represents a shift in consciousness:

• Survivor (first plateau): Egocentric focus on self-preservation and personal security.
• Protector (second plateau): Tribal loyalty and rigid moral absolutes.
• Achiever (third plateau): Driven, competitive, and materialistic, yet often isolated emotionally.
• Equalizer (fourth plateau): Caring and inclusive but sometimes hypersensitive or indecisive.
• Integrator (fifth plateau): World-centric leadership that transcends ego and unites head and heart.

Most people, he notes, hover between the second and fourth plateaus. The fifth plateau, which only about five percent of humanity achieves, represents complete authenticity and wholeness. A leader here embodies compassion, humility, and strength—a “servant warrior” mindset.

The Seven Commitments: A Path to Wholeness

Divine’s framework for reaching that fifth plateau consists of seven leadership commitments. Each represents a virtue paired with a fear to conquer:

• Courage — staring down the fear of risk.
• Trust — confronting the fear of failure.
• Respect — overcoming the fear of judgment.
• Growth — challenging the fear of discomfort.
• Excellence — embracing the fear of being unique.
• Resiliency — defeating the fear of obstacles.
• Alignment — releasing the fear of sharing.

Each commitment integrates practical SEAL strategies, personal anecdotes of failure, and lessons from coaching high-level executives. Courage draws from battlefield risk-taking; trust is embodied through Admiral William McRaven’s transparency after a training accident; respect emerges from Captain Jim O’Connell’s unwavering integrity in war; growth is illustrated through brutal BUD/S training; and excellence is modeled in the innovation of SEAL Team Six under Richard Marcinko. Together, these commitments are designed to help you starve your fear wolf and feed your courage wolf daily through disciplined self-awareness, authenticity, and heart-centered leadership.

Why It Matters Now

Divine concludes that the leadership crisis facing businesses, governments, and even societies stems from internal fragmentation—ego over empathy, intellect over intuition, fear over trust. To heal this division, we must commit to personal evolution and cultural transformation simultaneously. “You can’t outsource transformation,” he writes. “The only transformational leader available is you.” By doing the inner work to integrate mind, body, and spirit, and by living the seven commitments, you don’t just build stronger teams—you contribute to the evolution of humanity itself. Staring down the wolf, then, becomes more than a leadership practice—it becomes a spiritual imperative for the twenty-first century.

Divine begins his exploration of the first leadership commitment—courage—by taking us into the chaos of Mogadishu during the 1993 Black Hawk Down incident. Amid the bloody firefight, SEAL officer Eric Olson and three fellow operators charged from safety into combat to rescue stranded Rangers when an allied unit froze in fear. Their decision to act, despite overwhelming odds, rattled the onlookers into motion and saved lives. For Divine, this episode illustrates what he calls heart-centered courage—action emerging not from bravado or anger, but from purpose and connection.

Training for Risk

Fear, Divine argues, is natural; paralysis is optional. To cultivate courage, you can’t simply will yourself to be brave—you must systematically train for risk. Drawing from SEAL principles, he describes a process called “crawl, walk, run”: start small, master the basics, then increase complexity gradually. For instance, SEALs begin parachute training by jumping from three-foot platforms before progressing to free-falls from 20,000 feet. That same incremental exposure, he says, applies to leaders preparing for high-stakes decisions or crises. As courage grows through repeated practice, fear loses its hold.

He uses SpaceX as a metaphorical training ground for risk. Elon Musk’s engineers call every explosion a “successful test” because they learn by failing forward. Divine suggests adopting that same mindset: expect failure, study it, and keep moving. The courageous leader, like the SEAL or rocket scientist, sweats more in peace to bleed less in war.

Taking a Stand with Heart and Mind

Courage isn’t recklessness—it’s moral clarity in action. Divine draws from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, noting that true courage lies between cowardice and rashness. To act courageously, you must merge intellect (planning, awareness of risk) with empathy (connection to your team or mission). When Divine confronted betrayal from business partners at the Coronado Brewing Company, he faced his fear of conflict and finally took a stand—sacrificing money for integrity. That act, he recalls, was his turning point from ego-driven leadership to authentic command rooted in purpose.

From Fear Wolf to Courage Wolf

Divine returns to his central metaphor: the Fear Wolf and Courage Wolf. Courage flows from the heart, where purpose and love reside. “If courage comes from the head alone,” he writes, “it’s not courage—it’s calculation.” To feed your Courage Wolf, you must embrace vulnerability, align with your values, and commit to doing the hard thing even when the outcome is uncertain. Physical risk (in battle or business) is secondary to moral risk—telling the truth, confronting dysfunction, or admitting mistakes. The courageous leader risks reputation to protect integrity.

Practical Courage Training

• Develop a controlled exposure to risk: practice taking small, real-world risks daily until discomfort becomes normal.
• Lead by example in confronting fear, whether it’s speaking difficult truths or taking responsibility for failure.
• Commit to what Divine calls a “stand statement”—five values or causes you would risk for (e.g., freedom, integrity, service).

Ultimately, courage is the gateway to all other commitments. Without courage, you can’t be transparent enough to build trust or bold enough to grow. The courage to risk reveals what matters most—and, paradoxically, opens the path to peace of mind.

After courage, Divine turns to trust—calling it the essential glue of high-performing teams. His primary case study is Admiral William McRaven, who demonstrated radical transparency during a disastrous SEAL boat operation that could have ended multiple careers. Rather than deflect blame, McRaven took full responsibility, briefed his superiors honestly, and turned the incident into a learning opportunity. Divine stresses that this level of ownership and openness transforms mistakes into trust capital.

The Three Pillars of Trust

• Transparency: Make truth visible, even when it hurts. Hiding failure corrodes credibility faster than any error itself.
• Humility: Admit imperfection. In Divine’s words, “Stop pretending to be perfect, better, or smarter.” Humility connects hearts where ego divides minds.
• Follow‑through: Do exactly what you say you’ll do—especially in the small things. Micro‑actions accumulate into macro trust.

Through McRaven’s story, Divine shows how follow‑through and transparency saved the SEALs from risk aversion. By owning errors, McRaven encouraged experimentation and confidence under pressure. Divine contrasts this with his own failed business venture, Arena Adventures, where withheld communication destroyed relationships. He learned that withholding truth—even from the urge to “protect” others—creates mistrust and disconnection.

Authenticity vs. Vulnerability

While corporate culture often preaches “vulnerability,” Divine reframes it—especially for warrior cultures—as authentic openness. Vulnerability without boundaries can feel unsafe, but authenticity cultivates grounded honesty. When you open your heart to connect with your team while maintaining integrity and discipline, trust deepens naturally. Teams that meditate, breathe, and reflect together—such as Harvard neurosurgeons in their peer‑review “grand rounds”—achieve this level of authenticity without losing rigor or accountability.

Box Breathing and Emotional Control

Divine prescribes box breathing (inhale‑hold‑exhale‑hold) as the foundational trust‑building practice. When leaders breathe deliberately together, physiological calm replaces reactive tension. The mind becomes centered, allowing transparent dialogue instead of defensive posturing. Divine has used this technique with SEALs, executives, and medical teams alike, observing how it creates humility through shared stillness.

Trust, he concludes, is not a single act—it’s a rhythm. Transparency reveals humanity, humility connects it, and follow‑through sustains it. Once trust exists, a team can tackle any complexity because communication becomes fearless and honest.

Respect, the third commitment, turns outward. Divine defines respect not as deference to authority but as the moral symmetry between self and other—honoring the humanity of everyone you lead or follow. His primary exemplar is Captain Jim O’Connell, a SEAL commander called out of retirement after 9/11. Rather than cling to tribal rivalries, O’Connell chose integrity and cooperation, giving newly formed Marine special forces a fair chance to prove themselves during the Iraq War. In doing so, he modeled what Divine calls “disciplined moral integrity.”

Three Elements of Respect

• Integrity: Align words, actions, and moral compass. Integrity isn’t mere honesty—it’s consistency guided by ethical intent.
• Authenticity: Drop the masks you wear for different audiences; lead the same way with superiors, peers, subordinates, and family.
• Clarity: Communicate expectations and boundaries explicitly. Unspoken assumptions breed conflict.

The Fear of Judgment

Leaders often fear being judged—incompetent, soft, or unworthy. That fear fuels masks and double standards. Divine confesses how his own fear of seeming weak led him to micromanage subordinates and partner badly in business. Facing that shadow showed him that authenticity—not image—is what earns enduring respect. As he puts it, “If you spot hypocrisy in others, it’s because you haven’t uprooted it in yourself.”

Genuine Communication

Authentic respect manifests through clear, positive communication. Divine cites O’Connell’s practice of running every order through the “New York Times test”: Would I be proud to read this on tomorrow’s front page? This forced ethical self‑awareness and prevented moral drift. Similarly, entrepreneur Joe De Sena of Spartan Race demonstrated integrity when he refused to certify unready trainers after a brutal 48‑hour event—maintaining respect by holding the line on excellence rather than giving out easy rewards.

Removing Masks and Healing Shadows

Respect begins with self‑respect, which requires confronting childhood wounds and emotional shame. Divine references Bob Hoffman’s “negative love syndrome” and modern shadow‑work tools like EMDR to heal these patterns. Only by integrating rejected parts of ourselves—what Divine calls “staring down the fear of judgment”—can we communicate with honesty and empathy. Respect, then, is less about etiquette and more about wholeness: moral clarity expressed through fearless authenticity.

The fourth commitment, growth, expands Divine’s philosophy into daily practice. Growth, he writes, is the willingness to embrace discomfort as the price of transformation. His model of development, forged in SEAL Hell Week, insists that temporary pain is better than long‑term regret. Those who quit during training weren’t weak physically but trapped psychologically in avoidance. The antidote: consistent exposure to challenge in all domains—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

Challenge as Transformation

Divine draws a parallel between the BUD/S crucible and modern leadership. You don’t need freezing surf or sleep deprivation; you need “deliberate discomfort.” Push 1 percent harder daily—saying no when you habitually say yes, speaking truth when it’s easier to please. These micro‑challenges compound exponentially, much like compound interest. Over time, they rewire your identity from passive reactor to active creator. He calls this movement from horizontal skill acquisition to vertical character growth.

The Power of Variety

Stagnation kills growth. Divine encourages leaders to seek new environments, roles, and communities regularly. Variety—be it through travel, new hobbies, or cross‑functional projects—creates neuroplastic adaptability. Likewise, alternating between leading and following refines humility and empathy. Every few years, he advises, learn something completely outside your profession—a language, martial art, or creative craft—to refresh your beginner’s mind (echoing Zen master Shunryu Suzuki’s “beginner’s mind” concept).

Mentors and Coaches

Growth accelerates within relationships. Divine differentiates among peer mentors (trusted equals who mirror honesty), boss mentors (experienced leaders who challenge performance), teacher mentors (subject experts), and coaches (guides hired for skill‑specific improvement). He recounts how Zen master Tadashi Nakamura helped him evolve from control‑seeking athlete to mindful warrior, and how Executive Coaching groups like EO and YPO foster mutual development through feedback and accountability.

Ultimately, the leader’s duty is twofold: seek mentorship and provide it. Teaching others consolidates your own learning. A team committed to shared growth becomes self‑correcting, resilient, and purpose‑driven—the core of Divine’s “leader of leaders” principle.

Excellence, Divine’s fifth commitment, arises when curiosity meets discipline. He tells the origin story of SEAL Team Six, born from Commander Richard “Demo Dick” Marcinko’s refusal to accept mediocrity. Marcinko’s renegade unit—later renamed DEVGRU—pioneered unconventional tactics precisely because bureaucracy treated innovation as risk. Divine reframes excellence not as perfectionism but as purposeful curiosity that simplifies complexity.

Curiosity Fuels Improvement

Excellence starts with relentless questioning. Why do we do it this way? How can we do it better? What’s the simplest way that still works? Marcinko’s Red Teams broke into U.S. Navy bases to expose weaknesses; corporate innovators can do the same by red‑teaming their own products and systems. Curiosity, when paired with integrity, prevents complacency. It transforms risk from threat to teacher.

Innovation Through Simplicity

Divine injects Zen into the innovation process: simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Like the Japanese designer who perfects form by subtraction, elite teams streamline until only essentials remain. He recounts how Marcinko shortened training cycles from a year to four‑month rotations—freeing operators for family, study, and readiness. This human‑centered simplification improved morale and performance, defying the Navy’s red tape.

Modern Lessons from Fujitsu’s Open Innovation Gateway

Divine parallels SEAL excellence with Fujitsu’s Open Innovation Gateway, where executive Mohi Ahmed rebuilt a bureaucratic Japanese giant using Samurai‑inspired values—humility, curiosity, and simplicity—or “wise innovation.” Stripping hierarchy, he limited his team to four members, emphasizing beginner’s mind and rapid prototyping. This, Divine argues, is modern Bushido: disciplined curiosity in service of humanity.

Focus and Deep Work

Excellence also demands concentration. Divine borrows from Cal Newport’s Deep Work and introduces tools like “circle days”—uninterrupted blocks for deep creative focus—and collective box‑breathing rituals before meetings. When teams breathe and focus together, simplicity is internalized; distractions dissolve. The result is what Divine calls “kokoro”—heart and mind merged in purposeful action—a state where excellence becomes natural rather than forced.

No elite team can survive without resiliency—the capacity to fall down seven times and rise eight stronger. Divine illustrates this through SEAL Marcus Luttrell’s survival in Afghanistan’s Operation Red Wings, the story behind Lone Survivor. Luttrell endured shattered bones, dead teammates, and days in hiding, yet returned to fight again. His secret wasn’t toughness—it was adaptability grounded in purpose.

Adaptability and Elasticity

Divine likens adaptability to elasticity: the ability to stretch under stress and rebound quickly. You train it by deliberately pushing limits, then recovering mindfully. SEALs call this principle Semper Gumby—“always flexible.” In business terms, it means balancing strength (the oak) with agility (the reed). Adaptation requires optimism—the belief that each hit hides a lesson.

Persistence Over Perfection

Failure is inevitable; quitting is optional. Divine recounts his early academic setback in physics, when he abandoned pre‑med after misjudging his performance. Years later, the memory taught him persistence: you can fail and still learn something vital. He connects this mindset to martial arts, where repeated defeats sculpt mastery. Resiliency grows through persistence—sustained effort regardless of short‑term outcomes.

Accelerated Learning and Emotional Awareness

Resilient teams are “learning machines.” Divine encourages continuous self‑analysis: what’s working, what’s not, and what can be improved. Combine measurement with mindfulness. Pausing to breathe before reacting—his Pause, Breathe, Think, Act (PBTA) method—shifts behavior from reactive to responsive. This aligns emotional regulation with the rational brain, enabling learning even under fire.

Resiliency in Practice

Corporate examples abound. Shell’s Gulf of Mexico team trains daily for “no leaks, no harm,” applying human‑performance principles from Sidney Dekker to prevent complacency. They ask, “What are we missing?”—a question Divine calls the purest form of humility. Likewise, humor and camaraderie act as emotional shock absorbers: laughter rebalances teams faster than any policy.

Resiliency, Divine insists, is not endurance alone. It’s adaptability, persistence, and learning unified by optimism. Train your mind like your muscles: stretch, recover, repeat. In crises, breathe and respond with faith instead of fear—and you’ll bounce back stronger every time.

The final commitment, alignment, integrates all others. Divine examines how elite leaders synchronize vision, culture, and action across dispersed teams. His chief example is Master Chief Mike Magaraci (Mags), who, at the helm of DEVGRU, faced the near‑impossible task of aligning fiercely independent SEAL leaders. Weekly “engaged leadership reflection sessions” forced honest sharing of tactics, technology, and morale issues—creating, over time, what Divine calls a shared consciousness.

Battle Communications

To foster alignment, teams need disciplined battle comms: regular, transparent communication modeled on SEAL debriefs. Divine proposes a rhythm of sync meetings—daily for tactical updates, weekly for operations, quarterly for strategy. Each session must address three questions: What’s working? What’s not? How do we fix it? This simplicity prevents “death by meeting” and maintains momentum even in crisis.

Maximize Sharing

Alignment thrives on shared experience and risk. Leaders must literally and figuratively “leave the office” to stand beside their team. Divine recounts confronting a veteran SEAL who avoided helicopter drills due to trauma; only after facing that fear did he regain his unit’s trust. Sharing leadership—rotating decision‑making—also builds empathy and capability. When everyone leads and follows fluidly, a team evolves from hierarchy to synergy.

Radical Focus

Aligned teams exhibit radical focus: collective attention on mission‑critical targets. Divine offers daily focusing questions (What moves us closest to our vision today? What distractions can we eliminate?) and urges leaders to “win in the mind before the battle” through visualization and mental rehearsal. Alignment, he says, transforms many minds into one mind moving toward one mission.

Ultimately, alignment is love in action—unity of purpose grounded in communication, trust, and mutual respect. When courage feeds trust, trust shapes respect, and respect fuels growth, alignment weaves them all together. The result is a team of leaders—resilient, excellent, and heart‑centered—moving as one unstoppable force.

In his conclusion, Divine widens the lens from teams to humanity itself. He argues that our collective survival hinges on leadership driven by unity, compassion, and holistic awareness. The story of sniper‑turned‑conservationist Damian Mander and his all‑female anti‑poaching unit, the Akashinga (“Brave Ones”), embodies this shift from domination to stewardship. Instead of fighting poachers through violence, Mander empowers women from local communities to protect wildlife—transforming conflict into collaboration. This, Divine notes, is what leadership beyond fear looks like.

From Ego to Ecosystem

Drawing on thinkers like Yuval Noah Harari and Ken Wilber, Divine warns that humanity’s core issue is separation—egoic disconnection from nature and one another. Our technologies outpace our consciousness. The remedy is not new gadgets but new awareness: leaders who “wake up, grow up, and clean up.” When individuals integrate head and heart, organizations can evolve from exploiting assets to nurturing ecosystems.

The Leader’s Final Commitment

Divine calls this the eighth, implicit commitment: commit to a mission larger than yourself. Every time you stare down fear, you don’t just liberate your potential—you contribute to human evolution. Courage inspires trust; trust earns respect; respect fuels growth; growth breeds excellence; excellence fortifies resiliency; resiliency enables alignment; and alignment amplifies purpose. The ripple effect is transformational, reaching from boardrooms to battlefields to global causes.

Divine’s final exhortation is both personal and planetary: feed the Courage Wolf daily through disciplined self‑mastery, service, and stillness. Only then can leaders co‑create what he calls “one team, one fight”—a world guided not by fear of change but by fearless commitment to collective thriving. Staring down the wolf, he concludes, is how we reclaim the future.