Episode 32 from The Grit Theory.

Today I sit down with Lindsey Mayo and we discuss the new direction of The Grit Theory given some significant changes.

Highlights include:
– Addressing change
– Defining Grit
– Transforming “nouns” to “verbs”
– It Starts With You
– Start Small, Start Today

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The Book: Be Relentless: If the obstacle is the way, then we must be WayMakers.

The Podcast: “Be Relentless Podcast”

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Linktree: Here.

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Episode Transcript

00;00;08;25 – 00;00;15;23

jon

All right. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the great theory. This is your host, Jonathan Mayer. And today I am joined by Lindsey Mayo. How are you?

00;00;16;01 – 00;00;16;21

Lindsey

I’m good. How are you?

00;00;17;03 – 00;00;37;11

jon

I’m doing well. So. Bit of a different flavor, right? We’re going a little bit. We’re going to talk about two primary things day. Have a bit of conversation there. But the first one is what has changed because changes occurred in the second one is where I’m going with the great theory, where we are going with the great theory.

00;00;38;02 – 00;00;48;00

jon

Collectively, all of our listeners and anyone who participates correct. So first, what has changed? For one, Aaron’s not here, but little obvious.

00;00;48;03 – 00;00;49;19

Lindsey

Yeah, I don’t look very much like him at all.

00;00;49;26 – 00;01;16;14

jon

I’m grateful. I’m grateful that you don’t look like Aaron. I think he understands. So real, real short on that. He has to handle some other business, so he’s going to handle his stuff and we were able to part ways with Grayson, protect our friendship and do good things there. So all in all that, that’s positive. It’s always hard to say goodbye to a partner, especially when you build something for a while and put a lot of effort into it.

00;01;16;28 – 00;01;24;12

jon

But it was the necessary call for where he is in life right now. And certainly I respect that, Right? Yeah.

00;01;24;27 – 00;01;27;29

Lindsey

And sometimes it’s hard to to do that.

00;01;28;24 – 00;01;46;09

jon

Yes. Sometimes it’s hard to say yes to those two things. But that’s kind of part of this whole life thing. And frankly, it also, you know, that that change is sparked a lot, which is really the the bulk of what we’re going to talk about today. Right, Right. Where’s the grit theory going? What what am I going to do now?

00;01;46;18 – 00;02;14;03

jon

Right. I think that’s where the discussion comes in because I’ve taken a step back. Like if you if you do anything in something significant, changes in the equation of what you do. Right. For example, here, Aaron’s not here anymore. I have a couple choices I can throw in the towel. That is a choice, right? Oh, dear. That is a choice which I’m not taking.

00;02;14;27 – 00;02;38;13

jon

There’s another choice where I can try to just duplicate what I was doing with Aaron and fixing why my guys, I screwed it up, which I don’t think works well. Right. You can’t recreate something when you’re missing a huge piece of the the equation. And then the third option is I can take assessment of what I’ve done, where I want to go, and what resources I have in front of me.

00;02;38;18 – 00;02;56;04

Lindsey

Yeah, well, you you got into a really good groove together, too. So your conversation is flowing really well. And, you know, you had, you think along the same line. So during your interviews and just, you know, not necessarily interviews, but just when you had guests and things like that on the shows, you’re talking, you know, talking about grit in their stories.

00;02;56;16 – 00;03;01;17

Lindsey

You both had different ideas to pull on and brought a lot to the conversation. So.

00;03;01;29 – 00;03;17;06

jon

Correct. So that, you know, you know, given all that, you just have to take assessment of what’s changed and then what can I do with what I have? Right. Like, you can want the same ingredients, but if they’re gone, they’re gone. So so what are you going to do? Right. And that’s really what I’ve been spending the last week.

00;03;17;06 – 00;03;38;28

jon

We can have pondering, talking with you about going through. So like structurally there’s now a single host. But I plan on having some regulars. Right. Right. Who are on the show quite often like you, I want to have on the show as much as possible. Cook hasn’t been on yet, but love to see him. Billy’s welcome any time.

00;03;39;04 – 00;03;46;23

jon

If Aaron can make it, I’d be sweet and we’ll kind of have this crew. Yeah, there’s going to be a crew who cycles through. Yeah, Yeah. Make it more of a community effort.

00;03;46;28 – 00;03;50;00

Lindsey

People who see the same vision share the same vision. Want to walk the same line.

00;03;50;04 – 00;03;56;20

jon

Correct. So I’m kind of excited to see how that works out, you know? Yeah. And then and gives.

00;03;56;20 – 00;03;58;12

Lindsey

Us lots of different perspectives, too.

00;03;58;21 – 00;04;18;12

jon

It’ll flood with perspectives, it’ll make it fun and entertaining for our guests. It’ll keep the conversation lively and fresh. So on a structural level, excited for that. Yeah, right. And we’re working to get all the back end stuff handled so we can have a near seamless thing there. That’s kind of fun. But those are the structural pieces and those are the easy pieces.

00;04;18;12 – 00;04;31;01

jon

Now that they’re decided, the the other stuff is kind of more fun. And, and I was thinking about the great year because you kind of challenge me. Okay, What’s the goal of the great theory, right? And what are we doing with that?

00;04;32;15 – 00;04;49;07

Lindsey

Yeah. So what’s your direction? What’s your purpose? What’s your statement? Do you have one? Yeah, Those were questions I posed to you earlier this week. So we can actually think about them and not just like, Oh, well, we think it’s this correct. So we’ve actually been able to really go, No, this is it. This is why we’ve been doing this this much more.

00;04;49;07 – 00;04;51;18

Lindsey

And now we really want to press in to.

00;04;52;07 – 00;05;03;01

jon

The really pressing ends what we’re about to jump to. So so to start, I drafted a goal for the great theory, and it’s not complete, but we’re in a journey here to everyone who listens. Everyone who’s a part of this is in a journey, right?

00;05;03;01 – 00;05;04;13

Lindsey

And we want to be really transparent.

00;05;05;00 – 00;05;25;23

jon

Yeah. Like I don’t we’re building this thing right now. So you’re part of building it. So. But the goal I’ll just read it real quick. So my, my goal with the great theory is to encourage people to be brave enough to begin leading themselves so that they can become someone worthy of leadership in their home and after their home, their community.

00;05;26;01 – 00;05;34;19

Lindsey

Yeah, I was just listening to another podcast, Stan Crenshaw’s podcast. He get a journalist on there and she was talking about how rare courage has become.

00;05;35;00 – 00;05;35;11

jon

Yeah.

00;05;36;18 – 00;05;39;22

Lindsey

And it’s kind of one of those things where it’s fizzled out a little bit.

00;05;40;23 – 00;05;41;01

jon

Well.

00;05;41;09 – 00;05;48;27

Lindsey

So, so so that goes in line with what you were just talking about, right? Like you can’t you can’t develop these things if it doesn’t start with you.

00;05;49;08 – 00;06;05;26

jon

Correct. And here’s the direct tie in. Right. So so earlier you challenged me. You’re like, that’s a great why. Right. That’s a great like vision, big fuzzy thing. But how the heck do you apply it? Yeah, and there’s a few thoughts into that. So one, it ties into it directly because the definition for great gets a noun, right?

00;06;05;26 – 00;06;38;07

jon

Right. And the definition is bravery, courage and determination despite difficulty. All right, That’s perfect. Bravery, courage and determination, despite difficulty. Well, how can we apply the big picture to this? I want to encourage people to face difficult things head on where they’re weak. Right. And, uh, earlier this week, I was listening to a conversation in which talking about the idea of a gentleman put forth like the eastern gentleman put forth by Confucius in his works, the, the Analects.

00;06;38;21 – 00;07;02;03

jon

And the central premise is you cannot lead a state without being able to lead your family. You cannot lead your family without being able to lead yourself. Right. And it all starts with the self. So how the heck do you put into action this big goal of encouraging someone to be brave enough to fix themselves so that they can then fix their family and fix everything?

00;07;02;09 – 00;07;14;10

jon

How can they have the courage to challenge their own demons or weaknesses there and softness? Is it starts with yourself. If you’re fat, get in shape. If your money’s not in order, begin to build a budget, you know?

00;07;14;12 – 00;07;14;28

Lindsey

Yeah, small.

00;07;14;28 – 00;07;19;17

jon

Steps. If you can’t sleep, if you sleep in too much, set an alarm and stick to it. Right.

00;07;19;23 – 00;07;34;27

Lindsey

And like Erin had even said, adjust at 5 minutes, you know, wake up 5 minutes earlier than you normally do. Start small or if you need to wake up 15 minutes before you know, just like don’t try to jump the hour because if you’re, you know, want to wake up at five, but you struggle waking up at six.

00;07;35;22 – 00;07;36;22

jon

Yeah, I’d say.

00;07;36;27 – 00;07;37;22

Lindsey

Small steps at a.

00;07;37;22 – 00;07;40;08

jon

Time. The change has to be proportional to the reward.

00;07;40;08 – 00;07;41;28

Lindsey

And then you wake up before I am.

00;07;42;12 – 00;07;46;07

jon

I think the change just has to be proportional to the reward. Yeah, right. And.

00;07;46;07 – 00;07;50;19

Lindsey

And then how willing are you going to be doing it? Like, how willing are you to do it?

00;07;50;24 – 00;08;06;23

jon

Correct. And sometimes you have to build that muscle and you have to have the humility to say to address yourself realistically on what you believe you’re capable of or not. Right. It sounds great when you’re rested and fed at night. Some waking up at 4 to 4 comes. If you wake up at seven every day, that’s a huge job.

00;08;07;01 – 00;08;13;18

jon

So so to your point, if it’s a smaller thing, that’s fine. But like you apply it by doing small things in that grows, right?

00;08;13;19 – 00;08;24;25

Lindsey

Yeah, absolutely. One week you do it this way and then you add on to it. Yeah. So that way it’s accumulating into your change, but is breaking your habits Correct.

00;08;24;25 – 00;08;46;24

jon

And that’s the critical thing because breaking your habits, breaking you conditioned yourself to everyone has I think there’s this fallacy of thought where it’s like, I’m going to rise to the occasion, Right? Right. And it’s false. When something happens, you’re going to fall to the lowest common denominator, right? Whether that’s your training or your experience or what have you.

00;08;47;10 – 00;09;11;06

jon

And if you don’t prepare yourself, if you don’t hone yourself and create something of yourself in the day, in and day out so that you have a threshold that’s higher, when this stuff hits the fan, you’re going to fall to whatever your weakness is. And that’s what we’re talking about here. We want to condition ourselves for chaos. We want to increase our courage and bravery in despite difficulty so that.

00;09;11;06 – 00;09;13;01

Lindsey

And be willing to stand against the grain.

00;09;13;20 – 00;09;28;07

jon

That that’s a byproduct, right? Yeah. If you begin to tell yourself no to things you want, if you begin to make yourself do things you don’t want to because it improves you over time, that grows into have encouraged, have hard conversations with people.

00;09;28;18 – 00;09;28;29

Lindsey

Right.

00;09;29;06 – 00;09;32;12

jon

And over time that grows in courage to act.

00;09;32;19 – 00;09;33;22

Lindsey

Yeah. Becomes bold.

00;09;34;07 – 00;10;02;03

jon

Correct. So. So the seed that I want to plant is the courage to start with yourself. And that’s really a lifelong pursuit in the goal is that over time that’ll create of movement of people who are willing to embrace grit, work to hone it, embrace it and forge it head on. So that they can become agents of good in their communities, their homes and for themselves.

00;10;02;14 – 00;10;02;24

Lindsey

Yeah.

00;10;03;04 – 00;10;05;20

jon

But it starts with the self.

00;10;05;20 – 00;10;05;28

Lindsey

Yeah.

00;10;06;15 – 00;10;08;19

jon

So that’s the thought there.

00;10;09;03 – 00;10;13;09

Lindsey

Right? And that’s kind of the direction we want grit theory to go.

00;10;14;05 – 00;10;19;10

jon

That’s exactly the direction, you know, So we want it to go in. That’s what we’re going to be working to do.

00;10;19;10 – 00;10;24;27

Lindsey

We want to change the noun into a verb because we want to no longer just be a solitary, want to be action.

00;10;25;08 – 00;10;36;29

jon

Yes, we want it to be an action. The noun to the verb. Like you said, I love that the theory to practice. Right. And an idea into a way of active being.

00;10;37;11 – 00;10;58;16

Lindsey

Yeah. And taking the guest stories that. Wow, that sounds great. That’s super cool. But okay, now how do I apply it, right? Like, how do I pull from these different guests and go, This is the grit that I could even apply, You know, this is what they did. And I can for sure take it and apply it as well.

00;10;58;16 – 00;11;24;29

Lindsey

So we want to kind of, you know, sift through and look through our guests and just friends and people and be like, these are common denominators. These are common grounds that we’re seen through people who have grit, who’ve walked the hard way, who’ve purposely chosen difficulty. And this is how we can make it, not make it, but this is how we can show others like, hey, this is a tangible thought, this is a tangible action.

00;11;25;04 – 00;11;41;09

Lindsey

Instead of just going, Wow, his story was really cool. He did have a lot of grit and then moving on with your life. No, I want this to change. You. Like, if this doesn’t change you, if this doesn’t influence you, then we got to find something else that’s going to, you know, in like, saturate you.

00;11;41;19 – 00;11;49;11

jon

It’s it’s 100% true. And it’s amazing how fast this grows. So say fast over the last three years, it’s really tremendously changed my life.

00;11;49;13 – 00;11;52;18

Lindsey

Yeah. Lately. Really. You’re getting. You’re honing it in.

00;11;52;28 – 00;11;53;18

jon

It is honing.

00;11;53;18 – 00;12;06;02

Lindsey

This last year you’ve honed it in that much more. You figured out some small steps to be like, This will have massive change for me. This has had massive change for my family and now I’m getting into my community.

00;12;06;14 – 00;12;19;08

jon

Yeah, right now you’re absolutely right. Right now I am going through the transitionary period of walking into being bold enough, having enough grit. Yeah. To actually speak out for my community.

00;12;19;14 – 00;12;19;25

Lindsey

Right.

00;12;19;26 – 00;12;20;16

jon

And it is.

00;12;20;16 – 00;12;37;09

Lindsey

Quite you’ve done the work for yourself and you’re still doing the work for yourself. So it’s not like, oh, I’ve mastered self, you know, and now I’m going to move on to this next step. No self is always going to be in there because different seasons as we grow and things like that will absolutely always change.

00;12;37;17 – 00;12;50;01

jon

You’re 100% correct. This is a lifelong pursuit of growth that I’m going to have to grow. And everyone he does this has to grow. But I’m just not screwed up enough now that I’m actually leading my family. Well, would you agree with that?

00;12;50;01 – 00;12;50;24

Lindsey

Absolutely.

00;12;50;24 – 00;12;54;29

jon

Well, that you’re the person who matters on that decision, right? Because you’re the ultimate judge of that. So why.

00;12;55;00 – 00;12;58;27

Lindsey

Not, very frankly, tell you if you’re not that and I know you you know I will.

00;12;58;28 – 00;13;19;24

jon

If you don’t know Lindsey, she is very honest and she has told me when I’m feeling in the past. So to hear that I’m. But but now that I have my self in order, right. Like, just like there’s nothing I won’t give up to become a better human being, to better lead you and my family and to better be able to influence things positively.

00;13;19;24 – 00;13;23;29

jon

There’s nothing right. Drinking don’t care. Gave it up right to comfort.

00;13;23;29 – 00;13;35;16

Lindsey

Don’t care. What was it? We were talking with a friend and it was anything that you can sell as long as it’s not my family and my kids or my wife and my children and my dogs. It’s all. There’s a price for all of it.

00;13;35;19 – 00;13;39;21

jon

And the dogs are even. There’s a price. It’s really the wife and kids, right? There’s zero.

00;13;39;21 – 00;13;42;10

Lindsey

Price is zero price. And you can’t pay me enough money for that.

00;13;42;17 – 00;13;49;19

jon

And it’s important, right? But you have to start with the, you know, the enough to realize that you’ve not arrived and then.

00;13;49;27 – 00;13;50;07

Lindsey

Yeah.

00;13;50;07 – 00;13;51;09

jon

And then start putting in the work.

00;13;51;12 – 00;14;15;14

Lindsey

Right. And I’m not saying I’ve arrived. I think there’s absolutely way more growth and things like that too. So I’m even doing the self, you know, transformation and, and pushing myself and making sure that I’m still, you know, walking in that path to be better. But I also see that, you know, our boys are getting older and my family our family is doing well now.

00;14;16;08 – 00;14;31;28

Lindsey

It changes on a drop of a dime around here, drop of a hat, because it just is what it is. But we’re able to get a community involvement going. And that’s been really good and that’s been nice. But it still I still have to work on myself first.

00;14;32;03 – 00;14;46;24

jon

We have to. And I think what you talked about is like, life happens, right? Yeah, dogs die. Yesterday we were nursing over the past few days we’ve been nursing piglets and losing some. And yeah, you know, like, well, we have a small farm, we got the kids, we have animals, we have a lot of liabilities, people, things that we love that can get hurt and die.

00;14;46;24 – 00;15;03;18

jon

And that’s part of life, right? And you have but our resilience, these are building and really what’s happening here. And I want to play with this idea, right? So I’m going to read the definition of grit again as a noun, but I’m going to make it a verb, and then I’m going to say why I want to respond so passionately, why I’m jumping in right now on so many levels.

00;15;04;02 – 00;15;26;20

jon

And then I think that’s a good a good catalyst for us to think about. But grit as a noun is bravery, courage and determination. Despite difficulty, grit as a verb or as as a description would be to be brave, courageous and determined despite difficulty or adversity. Adversity, Right? Yeah. And what’s really transformed me to say, you know what?

00;15;26;20 – 00;15;44;15

jon

Screw it, I’m going to be brave despite discomfort. I’m going to be courageous and push forward. And I don’t care about the difficulty. I’m fighting with everything I have. What am I fighting for? I’m fighting for our country and the rights that it has given us.

00;15;44;21 – 00;15;45;10

Lindsey

And the freedoms.

00;15;45;10 – 00;16;12;26

jon

In the freedoms that it has given us. Freedom is not free. And I want to do everything in my ability. The buck is going to stop with me. It’s not going to my children. By the time they’re grown and can handle this, we will have either protected freedom, we have protected the rights laid out in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution and preserved our democracy and way of being so that we can continue the good and necessary work to improve this world, or we will have lost it by the time our kids are grown.

00;16;12;27 – 00;16;17;21

Lindsey

Right. And terrifying if you don’t understand or grasp that it.

00;16;17;29 – 00;16;28;15

jon

Absolutely. And I am so passionate on board for saying I will not shield my eyes. I will not turn away my gaze from the wickedness I’m seeing, the stupidity I’m seeing in the.

00;16;28;15 – 00;16;30;00

Lindsey

Run that it had on.

00;16;30;00 – 00;16;50;00

jon

Correct. I’m going to wait warning and kill it. I’m going to wage war on divisiveness. I’m going to wage war on the lies. I’m going to wage war on the consolidation of power and I’m going to stand for a limited government, for truth, for unity, for respect and love of one another. Because united as a people, we can stand right?

00;16;50;00 – 00;17;10;10

jon

And if we learn to love and respect each other, if we can just remember that, then we have one heck of a shot at preserving what has made this the greatest country to live in in human history, and what can continue to make it the greatest country in human history. Because our work is not done under the freedoms and auspices that we have on this fertile soil.

00;17;10;22 – 00;17;32;23

jon

And those so many people have gotten fat off of freedom. It’s time to wake up and protect this gift and use it for what it’s meant to be used, not just to continue getting fat. So that’s where the passion comes in from. Why the heck do I care? That’s why I started Entrenched, which is another show that’s directly looking at having intentional conversation across difficulty to build and for.

00;17;32;23 – 00;17;34;01

Lindsey

Comfortable conversation.

00;17;34;05 – 00;17;34;26

jon

Uncomfortable.

00;17;34;27 – 00;17;51;23

Lindsey

Because your partner in that you guys don’t see eye to eye on a lot of the things, but you’re willing to have open, honest conversation and go, You know what? I can see it that way. Correct? And and I’m willing to sit and think on that and see how that, you know, that works for me.

00;17;52;03 – 00;17;52;14

jon

Correct.

00;17;52;22 – 00;18;02;07

Lindsey

And then and then going, you know, I think it’s okay to agree to disagree, but we can still love one another and and have a friendship over this.

00;18;02;09 – 00;18;08;20

jon

What the premise is different and entrenched. We’re looking to gain understanding, to create common ground that we can agree on.

00;18;08;21 – 00;18;09;17

Lindsey

Yeah absolutely.

00;18;09;17 – 00;18;17;21

jon

And be stronger for and respect each other and so that we can then actually have problem solving approaches to the problems. Right?

00;18;17;22 – 00;18;19;16

Lindsey

Right. And the divisiveness.

00;18;19;16 – 00;18;20;20

jon

Yes, the divisiveness.

00;18;20;29 – 00;18;30;18

Lindsey

Bring bring the common ground back to the view instead of like, oh, these are all the things we disagree on. Well, those three things are less than the ten things that we do agree on, and.

00;18;30;18 – 00;18;31;11

jon

They’re less essential.

00;18;31;15 – 00;18;42;14

Lindsey

Right. And they don’t technically, they don’t matter. I don’t care if you like more salt on your food than I do. It’s like the very both eating steak, so. Correct. The salt shouldn’t matter.

00;18;42;26 – 00;18;43;18

jon

Entrenched is.

00;18;43;18 – 00;18;45;29

Lindsey

Fighting. They feel like the salt matters, but you know.

00;18;46;11 – 00;19;17;00

jon

Entrenched is fighting for unity despite differences and doing the difficult conversations to intentionally pursue where we agree so that we can then come back to solving the problems. Yeah, but bring but defining and never forgetting where we agree and where we’re together first. It’s a exercise in the golden rule and learning to treat someone like you want to be treated, to love them, to respect them, despite how different they are, so that you can then stand together in that unity, protect each others rights and freedoms, and then try to make the world a better place from your differences, Right?

00;19;17;00 – 00;19;35;22

jon

Those differences make this place beautiful in the grit theory is looking at creating the courage, the attributes, the grit that’s necessary to have the intestinal fortitude, to engage in conversations like that so we can do the hard work that’s necessary to undo the freaking cancer of divisiveness that’s putting our country right now.

00;19;35;22 – 00;19;36;20

Lindsey

Yeah, absolutely.

00;19;37;05 – 00;19;40;17

jon

Because we got little kiddos who need it. Yeah, goodness sake, we need a.

00;19;40;17 – 00;19;48;20

Lindsey

Generation that comes after us and still we still have a lot of time. Well, we’ll hopefully we still have a lot of time to move as well.

00;19;49;13 – 00;20;15;06

jon

So with that, we’re at a crossroads and we’ve chosen to buckle down, assess everything that’s going on. And what I want to do is with renewed energy, despite the loss and despite the change in direction, I want to attack this thing with renewed energy, with intentional purpose, and push forward to empower people to be able to improve themselves and the lives they lead with those around them.

00;20;15;13 – 00;20;16;28

Lindsey

Right. So action.

00;20;16;28 – 00;20;26;09

jon

Turn it into action. So for today, if we had to leave everyone with one simple way on how they can put some of what they’ve heard today into action, what any ideas come to mind for you?

00;20;26;16 – 00;20;32;05

Lindsey

It goes back to that. Start small. It starts pick one thing and and start changing that today.

00;20;33;06 – 00;20;35;23

jon

No excuse to day to day. Pick something and do it.

00;20;35;23 – 00;20;39;22

Lindsey

Unless it’s the waking up early. Figure out something different. Yeah, Pick a different one.

00;20;39;29 – 00;20;40;28

jon

Yeah. Do something.

00;20;41;06 – 00;20;43;03

Lindsey

Drink, drink an extra glass of water.

00;20;43;12 – 00;20;44;16

jon

So start small.

00;20;44;16 – 00;20;45;23

Lindsey

Whatever it is, it’s all right.

00;20;46;20 – 00;21;00;29

jon

Well, start small. And here’s the line. Bottom line. Right. If what you saw or heard today was if it was impactful to you, please share. Right. Please share it. And if it wasn’t sure, the next one, if it is, when it is. And thank you.

00;21;01;08 – 00;21;16;01

Lindsey

Yeah, I think so.