 How do you survive 50 hours of hell? From Navy SEALs who are punishing you and yelling at you and screaming at you and you're doing physical exercise This guy just did it Steve Costello. How you doing Steve? Yeah, good James cool. Are you really doing good? Oh, I feel a bit run down at the moment after the weekend after some light exercise over the weekend Yeah, good job. Let's have a look at some of your injuries here. Let's before we get in where the injuries Sean It's kind of on my arms bruises Yeah, just cuts we had to do a lot of crawling through form bushes. Yeah. Yeah, and let's have a look at your leg as well Can you that was a yep? That was a pre-existing injury. We can't quite see it. Can you move? Can you get in there a little bit? Yeah, we're gonna move it up. There we go. So what what's underneath that? So a skin infection called cellulitis. So that sounds good. That sounds healthy All right, so you had cellulitis leg injury going into this thing. Tell us what is PCORA? What is it? What is the seal fit? Yeah, it's incredible. It's Just Google Navy seal hell week and it will show you the thing that those guys go through So the seals that have this thing called hell week you stay away for five days And it really is just to weed out the week see who is really committed to this kind of warrior process And my divine a few years ago my divine heads up seal fit He created an equivalent camp which is three days to prepare Seal candidates before they did the real thing and then civilians were saying mark I want to do it myself. So he opened it up to civilians I did marathons when I was younger used to box when I was in college and I was looking for a new challenge My son was four years old I've kind of been in one or two jobs where I didn't feel like I was meeting But my potential and when I heard about kakora, he really got the fire burning again So I wanted to do something when I could where I could really prove myself to myself Yeah, I actually interviewed mark divine on the James Swannick show podcast and my podcast about six months ago And he's a badass now to be clear. I haven't done it yet. I haven't done the kakora I want to do it now. He's asking me questions. I know I keep doing it So mark divine if you're watching this I'm coming to do it that just be go easy on me Can you just be a little easy on me? So, um, okay So walk us through exactly some of the hell that they that they put you through or first of all You you you want to go through the hell why like why do you want to just? Put yourself through hell for three days. I think in society at the moment There's no real tests particularly for guys to prove You know your manliness. There's no real, you know, if you look at the ancient Warrior traditions like Spartans, they all had this initiation process that they had to go through You know in in in the modern world probably the hardest thing you have to do is maybe a couple of exams at university So for me, I was looking for a real crucible experience where At times it felt like I was on the verge of death, but I knew I could get through it through, you know Using a strong mind positivity micro goals and also just preparing physically for Around two years beforehand so you prepared for two years to do this thing two years But where I went wrong for the first year. There was a lack of focus. I was doing everything I was in CrossFit. I was in Seelford workouts I was running I was doing yoga and I had a job at the time where it was taking up a lot of my time And I just got completely burnt out But I think it was more my mind playing tricks just saying Steve you can't do it How can you do 50 hours? So it kind of made an excuse and I postponed it And then what I did at the start of the year was I quit my job And just made preparing for Seelford more of a one thing. So I just focused on doing this as a one thing At the start of the process I paid for some coaching from Ben Greenfield who is a friend of James Ben Greenfield fitness Yeah, and he got out to Ben Greenfield. Hey, man. He done Kokoro two years prior and he gave me a very focused training plan And because I had to pay a bit of money for the training plan It was only 20 minutes that gave me accountability to follow through It almost felt like I didn't want to let Ben down, you know Why bother wasting his time if you're not going to apply what he said to you So he gave me a focused training plan and then it was just Bolstered the wall. I focused doing one thing And luckily I'd weaved into my life becoming a freelancer. So I had a gym in my back garden So I just trained and did freelance work at the same time. Okay, so you practice you mentally prepared for two years You did some physical exercise What happens to explain or describe the process? Maybe not reveal everything because you want people to like go there and kind of be surprised But what were some of the really horrendous things that they made you do and some of like physical Activities and mental activities as well. I think right at the start is um, you have to line up on this Asphalt area called the grinder and you wear in a white t-shirt says your name There's something about putting your name on it makes you feel stronger and prouder You know when you see your own name You stood there you hold in a weapon, which is a PVC pipe filled with sand You got a backpack on And mark divine comes around and comes up to every one of you and he says introduce your name. Tell me what you do And then he asked you questions But the questions he asked you kind of like oh, is he does he not think I'm ready? So he said to me, you know, what's your name? I explained. What do you do? I explained And then he said are you ready? I said, well, I'm ready as I'll ever be and he kind of looked to me and just said Okay, good luck and he also said how old are you and I'm thinking god does he think I look like crap? Does he think I'm not ready? That's already I'm thinking oh, maybe and then he just screams kakora 42 Let's begin and then all of these navy seals and coaches just come running onto this grinder with water There's guys on megaphone screaming at you like back feet belly It's just the idea is just to create absolute chaos. Um, you have to keep hold of your weapon The seals coming around trying to kick it out of your hand if you lose your weapon You've got a bear bear crawl after it you also given a swim buddy So if me and James were swim buddies if James has to go to the toilet I have to go to the toilet with him. If James leaves his weapon. I have to go get his weapon with him so my Swim buddy lost his weapon pretty quickly. I had to go get his weapon Then my swim buddy got tricked in an ice bath He had to keep his head under water in a like a pool of ice for 20 seconds And then I did it as well and that really takes the breath out of you So they gave us a bit of a beat down for about three hours and then we went into what we called the So three hours is still a long. I mean I do work. I've done crossfit workouts that are like seven minutes and at the end of it I'm like But this was like continuous for three hours. I and you were telling me that you'd involve burpees and push-ups Yeah, it was it was calisthenics. So burpees air squats push-ups lots of push-ups But because it's bodywear and if you're quite durable if you've done quite a lot of yoga or restoration You can do that stuff all day. I mean, I can't anywhere. I'm building more for insurance If it was lifting heavyweights, I'd be pretty tired. Okay. So then let's let's get into some some more stuff So we're doing that for three hours, which in itself is a huge herculean athletic task, right? Then what happens? You do a thing called physical standards, so they have physical standards, which is 50 push-ups in two minutes 10 dead hang pull-ups So it's going right to the bottom and then pulling yourself right up and then right to the bottom So it's not like a kicking pull-up. You have to do 50 air squats in two minutes 50 sit-ups in two minutes Wow, and then you have to do a one mile run Okay within nine and a half minutes, which I mean most people could do that now to be clear We're not going to reveal everything that has to happen here We're just going to like skim the surface to give you an idea give you a flavor because again We don't want to give too much away Uh, we kind of want to go in there not knowing some aspects of it, right? And I'll just see I'll just youtube seal for kakora. You you will see for yourself what happens. Yeah So then you were telling me that they there's a lot of hanging out in the lake in the surf where you've got really cold water Splashing over you and that's quite challenging physically and mentally, right? It can be I mean as part of my training I live by the I live close to the ocean So I would do a lot of open water swims But it what made it challenging is that it's at night time and you're just in there for hours So you have to link arms and to keep warm And then you have to walk backwards into the water and it's the pacific So you're going to smash by these waves and then you have to lie down And you don't know when the next wave is coming and then all of a sudden you'll get hit by a wave It just goes over your head. It's going on your nose and your ears And you feel like you're drowning because you're getting dragged back into the water by this by a powerful surf And then you get out you have to do some more calisthenics You have to do this thing called a sugar cookie where you get wet and sandy you roll around in the sand You basically so you can't see any skin is covered in sand And then the instructors will go hit the surf again and you have to run back in And hit the surf now at this point a couple of guys will get in hypothermia And they they have to get pulled out But generally you have to put on a bit of weight beforehand You know if you've got a bit of fat on you You can handle the cold a little bit better And when you say a couple people got hypothermia a couple people have quit by this stage as well Yeah, yeah, I mean when we got to the beach it was dark I'm one of the coaches said something like tonight is going to be the worst night of your life And we're not going to go home until at least four people quit. I'm happy to stay all night I'm wrapped up. I've got coffee. I'm good to go But we're not moving until someone quit. I think in the end three people quit But he did say you know if someone wants to quit now, you know go home And so there are a couple people who do quit right and what do they do to say I'm out? Yeah, just say I'm out You know I quit you know they do everything where it's a choice which I think is great You know you are consciously making that decision set. I do not want to continue in this process Which I think is quite a powerful thing in the actual real nervous heels and make you ring the bell three times Yeah Now there were some mental games that I played with you not the game the fun games But there was some they were challenging you mentally right like you were saying that they'd make you cold They'd promise you a nice cup of coffee and some food and then they'd take it away from you And they're kind of like tricking you Oh, well when people were so we're on the beach for reason and we do this thing It's called nuts the butts where I'm semi-naked and I literally would be hugging James from behind just to stay warm You know you wouldn't do this normally, but you're so cold you have to do it And then you look around there's a guy who's just quit and he's got you know the thermal blanket on his drinking coffee And it's semi-smiling and you're like ah If you kind of nice to be in that van at the moment, but you're like no that's instant gratification You know I'm going to step through the process and I'm know the rewards will be bigger And then you said that they made you climb a mountain tell us about that Yeah, the mountain was an incline like that you had to walk up with this heavy path con And it was dark. I would say this was the hardest bit. We've been awake for around maybe 36 hours Um, it was dark and we're walking up this mountain and I was just hallucinating Tigers were jumping out of the walls Um, I was I guess we're jumping out of the world. You were hallucinating. Yeah. Yeah I'll see I'll see an extravagant buildings in front of me, but there was there was nothing there It was I've never done drugs but I imagine that's what drugs would be like It was the weirdest experience ever And then when I got to the mountain got to the top of the mountain to let us have a rest And I I felt literally plus the death, you know, my breathing was all funny I could bet I was on the floor. I could barely stand up and then They gave us this thing called an MRE. It's uh, it's basically a food in a package Which never goes out of there. It's full of preservatives, but it's about about 3000 calories in it And I scoffed that down within 10 minutes later. I was I was back to life It was all I needed was just something to eat. Yeah, okay. And then uh, what was the lowest point? What was the lowest mental point and Well, and physical like physically and mentally when did you just go? Oh man, I think I'm gonna quit or This is hell. I think two things were hard. One was the mountain I think the other one which I found really hard was um I think it was humility and and ego was um helping other teammates who were Who were struggling? I don't know It was something was starting to grade on me because there'd be maybe one or two teammates Well, I was always having to help them and it's like I've prepared why I didn't you prepare and they say at the start The idea of kakora is not about being the guy who's smashing out 20 pull-ups. It's not about being the guy at the quickest The quickest on the runs It's about being a really good leader and a really humble leader and a really good teammate where You're looking out for other people before yourself and I found that really hard You know, we're not really conditioned that way and decided to look out for other people There's more what can I do for myself? And that was the hardest thing hardest head a lot. I had to get past mentally We also the coach has also said, you know, everyone's in pain So don't they have the same suffering silence because if if you're grunting that's gonna that's gonna weaken me So the hardest thing is, you know, you're really tired But and you want to say you want to complain but you can't because that's going to weaken your teammates Everyone's in pain. Everyone's got blisters. Everyone's tired. Everyone's hallucinating So the main thing was helping teammates who who kind of weren't pulling their way and I've been carrying them all day, but They still added massive value in other Evolutions of evolutions work else So people have strengths and weaknesses. So how many hours were you awake for? 50. So so you don't sleep at all. They don't even let you take a little nap or whatever And change up was a very quick slide, right? Put on some new gear be back in five minutes Everything they give you is an impossible deadline. So you're always failing. So it's always never good enough But you learn to just deal with it. If you go into it knowing that it's not personal They're gonna scream at you. They're gonna Say you're nothing and just see it as a bit of fun That you'll be fine see it as a bit of fun as they Making you swim in the freezing cold pacific ocean and making you do 100 burpees and run up mountains with blisters and yelling abuse at you, right? So 50 hours without sleep now You also have to carry a lot of things and swim across the lake and carry stones We won't go into that now because we again, we don't want to give away too much, but What happened explain that the feeling On that final sort of like couple minutes where mark divine walks out and says You're in kakora 42. What does he say kakora 42 kakora 42 you are secured Kakora 42 or you are secured. What happens in that moment? Well, just before he does a yoga session with you. Um, he's just released a new book called kakora yoga Look before I came across the vines teachings. I wasn't into yoga I thought it was kind of for girls thought it was the spiritual thing But what he's done is he's put He's taken yoga and made it very westernized for athletes So it's more doing movement to make you a better athlete rather than Saying mantras. Look, I know mantras are important, but I think this is make it make made it a bit more accessible So check out his new book kakora yoga So he turns up on um, this camp where we're at and he does some yoga with us And then he says at the end okay lie down in a dead man's pose a dead man's pose It's where you just lie on the floor and he says just relax You've come so far and you're literally ready to fall asleep I was screaming to keep my eyes open Some people were passed out and then all of a sudden these coaches come through get that Throw water all over you puppies back rolls making you do all this stuff just to shock you So you think it's over and then hell breaks loose again and the idea is um Teaching you Look the fight is never over. You've always got to be prepared. You know, there's always going to be curveballs coming in The key thing which I kept saying to myself all weekend was stay stay stay stay in the moment Stay in the moment. Don't focus on the thousand burpees. I've got to do just stay on doing this one burpee Perfectly. Okay, I've done one next one because if you think about I've got to do 50 hours I've got to do a thousand burpees 800 press ups. It's just too much. Yeah, yeah If you're wanting to speak to steve One on one and actually hire him to give you a training workout regime give you some advice Just like ben greenfield gave you gave you some advice You can reach steve. How what email address should they get you at steve w costella steve w costella at gmail.com or you can reach me on twitter My twitter handle is steve w costella So if you're thinking about doing kakora and you really want to get some in-depth knowledge and talk about your situation Reach out to steve at his email address and schedule a time to speak with him on the phone And he can give you a little bit more guide a little bit more official guidance um any final words then on Who it's for and who it is not for like who watching right now should definitely Definitely not do it and who here definitely should consider doing it You will know in your heart as soon as you hear it if it's for you or if it's not If you want to do it, it's a massive commitment. You got to have a strong burning why So my why was I've got a son. He's nearly five I want to be that father who doesn't say tally and you need to do this and that I want to set the example And then hopefully he'll maybe do it himself But I want to be a leader leading the way And then maybe he'll follow in my path if he doesn't as long as he's his own person and takes ownership over his choices I'm happy with that, but it starts with me The second reason was I had a lot of success in my early 20s. I'm now in my early 30s I fell in my late 20s and early 30s. I lost my way So I just really needed to prove myself to myself again. I wanted to prove to myself. Yeah, you've still got that fire in you So you need number one. You need a really strong why Number two, you need to be deeply committed to the process And I think the strong why helps you in the process The seal fit workouts check out the book eight weeks to seal fit by mark define I literally followed the eight weeks to seal fit operator watts To the letter over a 10 week period now these workouts Two to three hours long and then on the weekend you have to go for a long Rock where you put on a backpack you fill it with 20 pounds of sand And you go hiking up a mountain and it can literally take up all your weekend I what luckily, you know, my my son's mom was really understanding would look after him But I hardly saw my family through the training because I was so focused on this on this one thing So it's a big time commitment Uh, you need a strong why? You will get pretty burnt out at times I'm going to be writing an article soon for my body green on how I Incorporated good recovery. Mm-hmm But um, yeah, they're the two main things be prepared to put in the time be prepared Have a strong why and number three, you know, be prepared to fail. You might not make it people prepared really well Um, I think 20 people started on the 13 finished most people quit within three hours What does that tell you that's amazing that you did so you were part of the So a third quit or a quarter quit something like that. I think yeah Let's just we're gonna go out and do a little snapchat now if you're watching this We're gonna go to my snapchat, which is that james swan. I could do a little 10 second daily motivation videos I'm here with steve costello who did the kakora navy seal training the number one tip to get through hell The hell 50 hours here it comes in a snap All right, so we're just gonna send that or it's decided to there we go And your number one tip pretty steve is Go have a strong why you need to remind yourself why you're doing something really hard. There you go There you go. Check me out on facebook as well on facebook live at james swanic All right, there we go. We're gonna send that off Does anyone does anyone have any questions? Does anyone have their own challenges that they're working on at the moment? Yeah, so if you're watching this uh on facebook live as Live if you're watching this live because we are live as we're recording this then go ahead and ask a question of steve costello Uh, if you're watching this on youtube right now Make sure you share this With someone right now who you think might want to do this and also uh tag a friend in here as well If you're watching this on facebook if you're listening on the podcast the james swanic show Please do uh Share this episode with someone who you think might want to do the kakora training And maybe even just reach out share or this with mark divine himself You can actually send this video to seal fit on facebook and mark divine on seal fit as well Do any one of those uh any one of those things? So we had a question here Ron rambish says what sneakers do you wear when you're doing kakora? Um, yeah, I Um enough the call in offs in offs. I think it's In offs two four six. There are really light running shoe the hold up very well You also have to wear special forces boots. I wore nike Special operations boots, but if you're going to do kakora, you need to break in your boots And that means you need to go on long runs with them when you first wear them You need to when you first get them you need to put them in warm water And then put them on and then go for a walk So your feet mold into them a lot of people are being cut out of kakora because they didn't break in the boots And then they've got so many blisters. They just chopped them down. They couldn't start working. So number one get your boots I would recommend the night special ops boots and then The second thing is you need to double sock a weak one a good socks Wool socks and a sock liner And the third thing is I used a goo called hike goo Where you you cover your feet in in hike goo and that stops blisters. Hey, we've got a we've got seal fit Yeah seal fits asking. What was your lowest and highest point in the weekend? So let's deal with the the lowest point. What was the lowest of the low? Probably the mountain because I was hallucinating. I was tired um You know your body saying stop stop stop Um, but there's a great seal fit coach called derrick price Um, he said something when he did kakora of Never make a decision in the dark don't make a decision in the dark things are always worse at night time You mind place tricks but seeing the night time's over and when the sun is rising. It's the best feeling ever So maybe that's the highest point the highest point is wow. I got through that really hard evolution I got I got I conquered the mountain the sun's rising. I know there's only a few hours left easy You know and obviously the highest point is completing a challenge, which was two years in the making Yeah, and that moment was pretty but you're he's very beat up at the moment I saw him yesterday and he looked like death. It was like 36 hours after you completed it And his eyes well, I mean we're wearing swanis blue light blocking glasses right now to to protect ourselves from the The lights here and if you wear these it helps you sleep later on at night And and steve obviously trying to get as much sleep as he can but how like In the in the it's been what 72 hours now since you completed it How did you feel in the first 24 hours? How did you feel in the first 48 hours? And how do you feel now first 24 hours pretty delirious? There was a lot of adrenaline running through me. So Felt pretty good But since that felt to be honest, I felt pretty shocked in last night james was going to take me to la dodgers game I was like james. I need to just go bed I know I had field tickets had field tickets for the la dodgers to take steve's never been on a baseball Never been to a baseball game, but 12 hours sleep was more appealing And then now today feel maybe 10% better But seal fit did say you will feel pretty terrible for a couple of weeks. That's normal when I'm back in australia I have a thing called intravenous vitamin therapy where the stick of needle in your arm and Put a lot of vitamins in you that seems to have with the training Um, but I mean America at the moment. So I'll have to wait until we go home Yeah, so I hope that answered your question seal fit. So Yeah, you still don't look too good to be honest. You look you have looked better How much how much sleep are you planning on getting tonight? You think like like is your sleep disrupted as you say? Yeah, yeah, I feel like I've got a fever and burning up. I'll keep having to wake up and go to the toilet Really? Yeah, I don't feel great. Why do you need to keep going to the toilet? I think it's because I'm having a drink so much water, you know, you're very dehydrated At the end of the at the end of the course. Yeah, but I wouldn't change it for the world is I've never felt worse, but I've never felt better. It's a great. That's a great feeling, isn't it? Never felt worse never felt better. I did a marathon I ran the new york marathon some years ago and at the end of it. I was like, oh, this is painful But at the same time I was like, oh, yes Um, but you did 50 hours without sleeping. It's like I get cranky if I don't get eight hours sleeping You've got to remember you're doing this with world-class coaches who they know just What exactly to say you at the right moment? So at one point I was doing burpees I was getting really hard on one of the coaches says Costello. I've done Um Don't quit on me now and that was enough to just keep me going There was another moment where a coach grabbed me by the shoulder and he looked me right in the eye and said, are you good? And that just kind of gave me strength and also you get strength from saying look, I can't quit on my teammates I need to help them. I'm I'm here for a reason. I'm not here for me. I'm here to help my teammates through it So although you might be in the gym and working out and it's really hard when you've got world-class coaches around you Who have just dominated their field for years and you've got like a bunch of warriors who are just getting after it There's no better feeling you get energy from that and that's what drives you forward. Yeah Steve Costello who completed Kokoro 42 created by Mark Devine and the CO5 team Uh, go ahead and congratulate Steve right now. Leave a little comment down below and say well done Good job. Whatever words of encouragement you have for Steve a Herculean effort He's almost inspired me to start to sign up for it and do it myself. I think I'm Pretty tough. Let's start with a 20x. So if you if you don't want to do kakora, you can do 20x It's kakora, but only over 12 hours or they have other courses where is Introduction to seal fit freedom cost or mark divine's got an outstanding online program called unbeatable mind where it focuses more on the mental aspect Troy, what was your why a really good question? So um, I'm 34. I've got a um, a son called Tyler. He's nearly five Um, I wanted to be a father who Rather than saying Tyler, you need to do this. You need to do that I wanted to set the example and then maybe he'll follow my path But as long as he takes ownership of other of who he is and is not afraid to get after his dreams That's perfect for me. So seal fit which seemed seal fit kakora, which seemed impossible I thought that's a really good example to Tyler in seal for you have to do a lot of log lifting You know pushing logs above your head and Tyler seems to be into it already So if we're out on a nature walk and he sees a log He seems to want to pick it up and push it above his head That was my first why my second why was I wanted to prove myself to myself I had a lot of kind of career success in my early 20s um And then in my late 20s, um, I made a few bad career choices Um, and then I had a son and I just it felt like everything went a bit sideways like life got put on hold And then now that my son was a little bold I just thought right it's time to get back in the game I need to do something where I can prove myself to myself and light that fire in my belly again So it was number one was being an example to others number two was You know, do you want to go through your life always making excuses? So do you want to just set a goal and get after it? And I've always been really into adventure in the outdoors So this seemed like a perfect perfect way to test Do you think do you think I'd be able to handle it Steve knowing knowing me? Yeah, I think you've got a strong mind. Yeah, it was like it wasn't like a yes. It was like, yeah Yeah, maybe I think You have to be really committed You know a lot of people said yeah, I'd love to do Kokoro I was one of those people too, but it doing it and actually doing the work doing the eight weeks to see if it operate awards consistently every day You know, you have to just show up and do it. Um, when I was actually preparing for Kokoro seriously very few people knew about it I just wanted to concentrate on Doing the work rather than just saying I'm doing this It's a big commitment. All right. There you go. There you go. Steve Costello who successfully completed Kokoro 42 Thank you to Mark Devine. Thank you to Seal Fit. Thank you for all the Seal Fit coaches and the amazing team mates Show the injuries again. Show the injuries. Can't really see it Call him through fawn bushes Yeah, a few bruises But yeah, nothing too bad. Yeah amazing team mates amazing coaches It will change your life if you want to do it. Um Absolutely hands down the best program out there at the moment. Okay. All right, so A couple of call to actions just before we go if you want to reach Steve directly Steve W. Costello at Gmail at gmail.com Twitter Steve W. Costello Okay, uh tag three friends who you think should watch this and try and encourage them to do Kokoro Share this to Mark Devine if you can just share it to him. So he sees it. Thank you very much to Seal Fit These are swanis blue blocking glasses that we're wearing swanis glasses.com that help you sleep Steve's going to go and sleep now. I'm going to send him home and have a little bit of a snooze because he needs it, right? Um, and uh, oh, yeah, if you want to listen to my interview with uh, Mark Devine Go to the James swanik show podcast in itunes. I think I published it maybe four or five months ago and listen It's called toughen up go and check it out. See ya