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Rich Diviney spent 21 years as a Navy SEAL, leading and operating on missions around the globe. In that time, he completed multiple combat deployments and had the honor of serving as the Commanding Officer of a SEAL Command. One of his most pivotal roles was running a specialized Selection and Assessment program for one of the most elite SEAL units. He also spearheaded the SEALs Mind Gym to train soldiers minds to perform better under stress. Today, he teaches optimal performance to thousands of business, athletic, and military leaders. Whats the big idea? What makes someone able to thrive in conditions of extreme stress, challenge, and uncertainty? Why do some people falter when the pressure rises, while others step forward with clarity and strength? High performance under pressure isnt limited to Navy SEALs. Its not about being fearless or superhuman. Its about tapping into human capabilities that we all possesscapabilities that can be trained, honed, and applied in any environment. Below, Rich shares five key insights from his new book, Masters of Uncertainty: The Navy SEAL Way to Turn Stress into Success for You and Your Team. Listen to the audio versionread by Rich himselfin the Next Big Idea App. 1. Uncertainty is the only certainty On May 2, 2011, a SEAL team launched one of the most daring missions in modern history: the operation to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. They trained relentlessly. They built a replica of the compound. They rehearsed every move, down to the second. The moment they got on target, everything changed. One of the helicopters crashed. Timelines shifted. Entry points failed. All that preparation didnt mean muchunless they could adapt. That mission succeeded not because they had a perfect plan, but because they knew how to perform inside the chaos. Thats what Masters of Uncertainty is about. Peak performance is a myth. It depends on perfect conditions, and life is rarely perfect. What matters more is optimal performance: showing up with the best you have in that moment, no matter what that best looks like. In the book, I show you how to develop a fluid kind of performance that is resilient and real. Uncertainty isnt a curveball. Uncertainty is the game. Once you stop chasing perfection and start learning to thrive inside the unpredictable, you unlock your true edge. 2. The Mastering Uncertainty Method High performers dont have superpowers. What they do have is a system that allows them to take the raw chaos of a moment and make it work in their favor. That system is what I call the Mastering Uncertainty Method. I built it by observing elite SEALs, world-class athletes, and business leaders who consistently perform under pressure. What I noticed was that they werent calm by accident. They practiced something specific, something trainable. These steps are rooted in how humans are wired. The first part of the methodMove Horizonsis what you do when the world is swirling. You anchor in the present and ask, What do I know? What can I control? Like George, an ultrarunner who started his journey at 450 pounds. Day one: he bought the shoes. Day two: he put them on. He moved horizonsone mailbox, one street corner at a timeuntil he ran a marathon. Then theres Keep Going, learning to set meaningful goals that trigger the brains dopamine system. And Stay Cool, the art of modulating your stress response to stay focused and clear-headed. These steps are rooted in how humans are wired. Once you train them, youll discover you were built for uncertainty all along. 3. Attributes, Identity, and Purpose drive behavior When everythings spinning, we like to believe well rise to our trainingto our values, our beliefs. But the truth is, we dont rise. We revert to our instincts and core wiring. Thats why understanding your Attributes, Identity, and Objectives is vital. Ill never forget one SEAL candidate during assessment who, on paper, was a rock star. He was physically gifted, razor-sharp, and highly trained. But when things got murky and unpredictable, he couldnt make decisions. He lacked the attributes we couldnt teach: adaptability, resilience, situational humility. In that moment, it wasnt his skills that failed him. It was who he was underneath them. This part of the book is about helping you discover who you are when things arent going according to planwhen the tools fall away and only instincts remain. Youll learn to identify the traits that drive you, reshape the beliefs that hold you back, and root everything in a sense of purpose that doesnt crack under pressure. In uncertainty, the person you are matters far more than the roles you play. 4. Dynamic Subordination and trust in teams I love to ask teams, When the plan falls apart, who leads? Because in high-stakes environments, its not always the person with the rank. Its the person with the clarity. We call that Dynamic Subordination. Its a principle we lived by in the SEAL Teams. Leadership flowed to the person with the most relevant expertise in the momentnot the most stripes on their sleeve. That only works in a culture built on trust. Leadership flowed to the person with the most relevant expertise in the momentnot the most stripes on their sleeve. I remember one mission where our comms guynormally the quietest person in the roomstepped up mid-operation and made a call that saved lives. He wasnt the senior guy. He wasnt the loudest. But he had the best information, and we trusted him enough to follow. Most teams say they want adaptability, but they dont build the trust required to make it real. I teach how to build trust, implement dynamic subordination, and create a culture where leadership is a function of moment, not title. When uncertainty hits, rigid hierarchy cracks. Trust flexes. Flex wins. 5. Stress as a performance enhancer Most of us treat stress like the enemysomething to fight off, push down, or escape. But stress isnt the problem. Misused stress is. Your stress responsewhat scientists call autonomic arousalis built to help you. It gives you energy, alertness, even clarity. Its what helped me stay sharp jumping out of planes, navigating combat zones, or stepping onto a keynote stage. The challenge is knowing when to turn the dial up and when to turn it down. This chapter is about rewiring your relationship with stress. Ill teach you the same breathwork, visual cues, and mental framing used by elite performers. Once you stop fearing stress and start partnering with it, you unlock performance you didnt know was possible. Stress isnt the villain. Its the voltage. You just have to learn how to use it. Uncertainty isnt ging anywhere. Its not something we can out-plan, out-muscle, or outrun. But we can learn to meet it with strength, clarity, and purpose. Whether youre leading a team, navigating change, or just trying to show up better in your life, the ability to move forward in the unknown is a trainable skill. One that starts with awareness, grows with intention, and gets stronger every time you choose to lean in rather than pull back. Learn to master the moment youre in. Thats where your power lives. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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E-Commerce
Fashion designers from across North America are bringing together inspiration from their Indigenous heritage, culture and everyday lives to three days of runway modeling that started Friday in a leading creative hub and marketplace for Indigenous art.A fashion show affiliated with the century-old Santa Fe Indian Market is collaborating this year with a counterpart from Vancouver, Canada, in a spirit of Indigenous solidarity and artistic freedom. A second, independent runway show at a rail yard district in the city has nearly doubled the bustle of models, makeup and final fittings.Elements of Friday’s collections from six Native designers ran the gamut from silk parasols to a quilted hoodie, knee-high fur boots and suede leather earrings that dangled to the waist. Models on the Santa Fe catwalks include professionals, dancers and Indigenous celebrities from TV and the political sphere.Clothing and accessories rely on materials ranging from of wool trade cloth to animal hides, featuring traditional beadwork, ribbons and jewelry with some contemporary twists that include digitally rendered designs and urban Native American streetwear from Phoenix.“Native fashion, it’s telling a story about our understanding of who we are individually and then within our communities,” said Taos Pueblo fashion designer Patricia Michaels, of “Project Runway” reality TV fame. “You’re getting designers from North America that are here to express a lot of what inspires them from their own heritage and culture.” Santa Fe style The stand-alone spring fashion week for Indigenous design is a recent outgrowth of haute couture at the summer Santa Fe Indian Market, where teeming crowds flock to outdoor displays by individual sculptors, potters, jewelers and painters.Designer Sage Mountainflower remembers playing in the streets at Indian Market as a child in the 1980s while her artist parents sold paintings and beadwork. She forged a different career in environmental administration, but the world of high fashion called to her as she sewed tribal regalia for her children at home and, eventually, brought international recognition.At age 50, Mountainflower on Friday presented her “Taandi” collection the Tewa word for “Spring” grounded in satin and chiffon fabric that includes embroidery patterns that invoke her personal and family heritage at the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo in the Upper Rio Grande Valley.“I pay attention to trends, but a lot of it’s just what I like,” said Mountainflower, who also traces her heritage to Taos Pueblo and the Navajo Nation. “This year it’s actually just looking at springtime and how it’s evolving. It’s going to be a colorful collection.”More than 20 designers are presenting at the invitation of the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts.Fashion plays a prominent part in Santa Fe’s renowned arts ecosystem, with Native American vendors each day selling jewelry in the central plaza, while the Institute for American Indian Arts delivers fashion-related college degrees in May.This week, a gala at the New Mexico governor’s mansion welcomed fashion designers to town, along with social mixers at local galleries and bookstores and plans for pop-up fashion stores to sell clothes fresh off the fashion runway. International vision A full-scale collaboration with Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week is bringing a northern, First Nations flair to the gathering this year with many designers crossing into the U.S. from Canada.Secwépemc artist and fashion designer Randi Nelson traveled to Santa Fe from the city of Whitehorse in the Canadian Yukon to present collections forged from fur and traditionally cured hides she uses primarily elk and caribou. The leather is tanned by hand without chemicals using inherited techniques and tools.“We’re all so different,” said Nelson, a member of the Bonaparte/St’uxwtéws First Nation who started her career in jewelry assembled from quills, shells and beads. “There’s not one pan-Indigenous theme or pan-Indigenous look. We’re all taking from our individual nations, our individual teachings, the things from our family, but then also recreating them in a new and modern way.”April Allen, an Inuk designer from the Nunatsiavut community on the Labrador coast of Canada, presented a mesh dress of blue water droplets. Her work delves into themes of nature and social advocacy for access to clean drinking water.Vocal music accompanied the collection layers of wordless, primal sound from musician and runway model Beatrice Deer, who is Inuit and Mohawk. Urban Indian couture Phoenix-based jeweler and designer Jeremy Donavan Arviso said the runway shows in Santa Fe are attempting to break out of the strictly Southwest fashion mold and become a global venue for Native design and collaboration. A panel discussion Thursday dwelled on the threat of new tariffs and prices for fashion supplies and tensions between disposable fast fashion and Indigenous ideals.Arviso is bringing a street-smart aesthetic to two shows at the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts runway and a warehouse venue organized by Amber-Dawn Bear Robe, from the Siksika Nation.“My work is definitely contemporary, I don’t choose a whole lot of ceremonial or ancestral practices in my work,” said Arviso, who is Diné, Hopi, Akimel O’odham and Tohono O’odham, and grew up in Phoenix. “I didn’t grow up like that. I grew up on the streets.”Arviso said his approach to fashion resembles music sampling by early rap musicians as he draws on themes from major fashion brands and elements of his own tribal cultures. He invited Toronto-based ballet dancer Madison Noon for a “beautiful and biting” performance to introduce his collection titled Vision Quest.Santa Fe runway models will include former U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland of Laguna Pueblo, adorned with clothing from Michaels and jewelry by Zuni Pueblo silversmith Veronica Poblano. Morgan Lee, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Republicans in Congress are expected this week to reveal whether they are willing to go ahead with President Donald Trump’s suggestion to raise taxes on the rich, which would break with decades of party orthodoxy. After weeks of closed-door talks, the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee is due to unveil full details of tax-cut legislation that would be the centerpiece of a sweeping budget package that also would raise spending on the military and border security. The legislation would build on a measure enacted during Trump’s first presidential term that lowered tax rates, especially for the wealthiest. Late on Friday the panel made some details public, but without providing the outcome on the thorniest matters under debate within Republican ranks. Still unknown is whether the legislation will deliver on Trump’s promises to discontinue taxes on tips, overtime pay and Social Security retirement benefits, and whether the bill would increase the deduction for state and local taxes. That is an issue particularly important to moderate Republicans, mainly in coastal states, as well as to Democrats. Trump has indicated a willingness to raise taxes on the wealthiest in what would be a stark departure from a red line drawn by Republicans for many years. These questions might be answered as soon as Tuesday, when the House committee plans to debate the complex legislation. Republicans did unveil provisions for increasing the child tax credit to $2,500 through 2028, from $1,000. Trump’s presidential term ends on Jan. 20, 2029. The House Republicans’ bill also would reduce some taxes for multinational companies and unincorporated businesses. Republicans also have been at odds over spending cuts to safety-net programs mainly the Medicaid health insurance program for the poor and disabled to offset some of the costs. Trump has privately urged House Speaker Mike Johnson to raise the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans, sources say, though publicly he has been more ambivalent. Some on the party’s right flank have come out in favor of it. Johnson has told some Republicans that he might have to scale back the tax cut package by $500 million to $4 trillion. House fiscal hawks are pushing for deep spending cuts of up to $2 trillion to allow for deeper tax cuts. But some moderates are resisting cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, the crucial food assistance program. Democrats are warning that Republicans could put other social service programs on the chopping block. Their legislation feeds corporate and wealthy individuals greed by abandoning vulnerable children, starving seniors, and cutting off families in need,” a group of Democratic senators said in a letter on Friday. Republicans aim to extend Trump’s signature 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Some of its provisions are due to expire at the end of this year. Hes wanting to help the blue-collar worker,” Representative Kevin Hern, a Republican tax writer from Oklahoma, said. So were going to make that happen. “This is where the rubber hits the road for tax writers, who will be challenged to preserve President Trumps first-term legacy at a fiscal cost that is acceptable to the conference,” said Mimi Bair, a former Republican tax staffer now at McGuireWoods Consulting. “Were all eager to see the tax committee shed more light on how they will strike that balance.” Meanwhile, a handful of Republicans from high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California are pressing for a higher deduction amount for state and local taxes. The Ways and Means committee is expected to offer a $30,000 limit for these state and local taxes, up from the current $10,000, according to a Republican aide. However, these Republican lawmakers have said that is not enough. Either were going to have a bill that has a fix that assuages the concerns of constituents like mine, or we wont have a bill and the tax cuts will expire, Representative Nick LaLota, a New York Republican, told reporters last week. That could sink the budget bill in the House, which Republicans control by a narrow 220-213 margin. Bo Erickson, Reuters
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E-Commerce
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