Diego during his years in the Navy.
Diego Ugalde
Private guide · Presence and personal growth · Navy SEAL veteran
I am a private guide for senior leaders who are disconnected from the people they love and the extraordinary life they sacrificed to build.
The mountain didn’t have fireworks.
It took Diego ten years to become a Navy SEAL. Most people do it in six months. On graduation day he waited for the feeling it was supposed to bring. Nothing came. Twenty years later, retiring as a Senior Chief, he waited again, in silence. It was in that silence that the work revealed itself: it lay within. Walking that path is the work itself.
Who holds space for the people who hold space for everyone else?
The Pursuit
Most people get through SEAL training in about six months. It took Diego ten years. He failed tests, broke bones, and was thrown out. He left, tended bar, sang in a rock band, worked five years as a paramedic, lost seventy pounds in Hawaii, and came back. On graduation day he expected fireworks. There was nothing.
The Summit
So he kept going. Three deployments to Iraq. He was led by, and went on to lead, some of the finest men he has known, and rose to Senior Chief. At twenty years, standing on top of the mountain, he waited again. Nothing. And in the silence, a voice: Everything you have done has been external to you. The one place you haven’t looked is within.
The Realization
He could see a second mountain, the mountain within, its peak out of sight. He retired and started The Trident Approach, and through experiences of elevated states of consciousness he came to understand what the voice had meant. He’s still climbing. And the fireworks he waited for, he’s found, never stopped. They were within him the whole time, waiting for his mind to get out of the way.
How happy could I really be, if this is all it takes?
Before any of this, Diego was sure he was the happiest man he knew. Top down on the Pacific Coast Highway, singing. Someone cut him off, and he erupted. The question that followed cracked a certainty he had never thought to question. Much of Diego’s work goes straight at the illusion of certainty, and replaces it with curiosity.
The first mountain
- Shame
- Judgment
- Anger
- Fear
- Resistance
The mountain within
- Love
- Acceptance
- Patience
- Gratitude
- Curiosity
He still can’t see the top of this one. He refuses to climb it on the old fuel.
Service record
- 1992Enlists out of high school. Boot camp, San Diego.
- Naval School of Health Sciences, BalboaTrains as a hospital corpsman.
- Oakland Naval HospitalRequalifies for SEAL training.
- First attempt at SEAL trainingRemoved after four months, with broken bones.
- Fleet Marine Force corpsmanSaves the life of a Marine in the mountains of Bridgeport, California.
- The years betweenBartender, lead singer in a rock band, and civilian paramedic in Boston, Tampa and Hawaii.
- HawaiiLoses seventy pounds retraining to SEAL standard.
- 2002Returns to the Navy and completes SEAL training, Class 246.
- Special Operations Combat Medic school.
- SEAL Team 2Three deployments to Iraq.
- Naval Special Warfare Unit 2, GermanyCountry officer for Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria and at times Italy, bringing each country’s naval special forces together with the American SEALs training alongside them, and advising ambassadors and generals on multi-million-dollar training operations.
- Special Reconnaissance Team 1, San DiegoLeads a cross-functional team of specialists. One Advanced Special Operations deployment to the South Pacific.
- 2018Retires after twenty years as a Senior Chief Petty Officer, and founds The Trident Approach.
Leadership
Lead medic · Fire team leader · Squad leader · Leading petty officer · Country officer · Team lead
Honors
Navy Commendation Medal with Valor (three awards) · Combat Action Ribbon · Iraq Campaign Medal (three awards) · Sea Service Deployment Ribbon (five awards)
Qualifications
Advanced Special Operations, Level III · Special Operations Combat Medic · Lead Breacher · Static Line Jumpmaster · Diving Supervisor · Fleet Marine Force Corpsman
Commands
SEAL Team 2 · Special Reconnaissance Team 1 · Naval Special Warfare Unit 2 · Training Detachment 2 · 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines · 1st Combat Engineer Battalion
Affiliations, books and press
Books
Leading From the Deep. December 2023. On Amazon and Audible.
Coming next: From the Deep; a Veterans path to Re-Membering with the unbroken self.
Affiliations
Psychedelic integration guide since 2020 with Heroic Hearts Project, The Mission Within, Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions and Warriorside.
You do not need another mountain simply because you know how to climb.