Episode 37 from The Grit Theory.

Today I sit down with Kyle Lawson, an Army veteran, businessman, and old friend.  As we push in, we find our “common ground” which is the desire to “shift culture to focus on how to solve problems and create positive change”.

We also defined the following 5 actions that anyone can use to help cultivate grit and bring about the positivity we all want and need.

1. Pursue self-awareness.

2. Take personal ownership.

3. Select your heroes carefully.

4. Seek to understand and realize it’s a journey.

5. Be careful who you engage with.

Did you find value in today’s conversation? SHARE IT!

Join The Grit Theory Community Here!

Also, check out Be Relentless: If the obstacle is the way, then we must be waymakers HERE.

Do you want to learn more? Check out:

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

The Podcast: “Be Relentless Podcast”

The Fuel: Sisu Stamina, Performance Evolved

Linktree: Here.

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Episode Transcript

00;00;09;08 – 00;00;35;19

Jon Mayo

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Great Theory. Today I’m joined by Kyle Lawson and this is a fun one for me. Kyle and I served together many moons ago, back when we were baby faced and they have beards. The entire seeing world is now much happier because we’re both bearded, except for my wife. But that’s different. And we’re we just get to have the opportunity, have a fun conversation today and kick things off.

00;00;35;19 – 00;00;37;00

Jon Mayo

So how are you doing, man?

00;00;38;09 – 00;01;00;24

Kyle Lawson

I’m doing pretty good. As we talked about a little bit before, I’ve changed careers like three or four times since, since getting out and all of it’s been rewarding and different, which has been really cool. You know, I went from, you know, instructing at a university to running the industrial line of business and a know solid waste company.

00;01;01;06 – 00;01;10;07

Kyle Lawson

And now I do energy specialization for a firm. So I mean, everything, it’s just been a wild ride.

00;01;10;07 – 00;01;32;23

Jon Mayo

That’s one of the fun things when you exit the service, it’s all about marketability. But we learned so many skills that can be applied to so such a diverse array of industries that it’s really a pick your poison type of thing. But I understand that jumping around in. Good luck on this new venture for you, right? I’m looking at a transition period myself here, so we’ll see how that plays out.

00;01;33;05 – 00;02;02;27

Kyle Lawson

I mean, it’s wild and scary, but it’s also exciting to see, you know, all the fruits and labors and things that you’ve gathered from you know, previous experiences then become valuable somewhere else. They don’t always fit in as a direct one for one, but generally, anything that made you successful in one place is going to make you successful somewhere else, because it’s more about the, you know, who you are as a person and your work ethic and what you bring to the table than it is about, you know, what your piece of paper from school says, unless you’re, you know, in something medical or very specific.

00;02;04;17 – 00;02;28;13

Jon Mayo

Yeah, some very like highly specialized skill craft. But well, let’s take a look. So you and I have not necessarily kept up over the years since we we’ve departed in the first time. I think we really talked to sort of maybe some drive by text was a couple of weeks ago I posted something on Instagram. I’d shared a story in like you sent out this thoughtful message disagreeing with what I post on the story.

00;02;29;05 – 00;02;43;20

Jon Mayo

And I like I sat there like four in the morning when I first read it and I gave myself this hour cool off. So it’s like I need to at least have had an hour of being awake before I respond to anything ever, because I’m not all there and I’m not there, responded back on what I agreed with from it.

00;02;43;28 – 00;02;59;22

Jon Mayo

And then just kind of time went on and that was in earlier episode. Just for context, because we’ve talked about on the show the no jab, no job with five kids like the sign where the sky is looking down and you’re the person who actually messaged me as a kid. That’s a sympathy poster. Don’t like that part of this.

00;02;59;22 – 00;03;29;21

Jon Mayo

And, you know, freedom comes to have freedom of choice comes with freedom of consequences. You can’t you can’t separate those two things. And we didn’t talk for a bit. You reached out after hearing that episode and were like, Hey, man, I just want to make sure you didn’t perceive this a certain way. And we jumped into a conversation from there that spanned about an hour where we got to it was just this refreshing opportunity of civil discourse where we explore some of the topics and sought to better understand one another.

00;03;30;05 – 00;03;56;27

Jon Mayo

And that was really good. So I was curious with that kind of backdrop in which and from there we’re like, Hey, let’s talk again. And that’s why we’re here today. So having shared that context, aside from just wanting to stir some pain, like why in the world that you reach out on that one after all those years? Like what inspired that and and why do you think we keep finding joy in pushing into these types of conversations?

00;03;56;27 – 00;04;18;03

Kyle Lawson

This is just a personal anecdote for me and why I do that. I have found that over the years it is very difficult to find people to have civil discourse with where it doesn’t, you know, basically disintegrate or deteriorate into a, you know, a few of natures or a if you believe this, you have to believe this kind of mentality.

00;04;18;12 – 00;04;44;26

Kyle Lawson

And the problem with that is that not everything from a point of view is mutually exclusive. It’s not everything is if I, you know, believe, you know, segment A, I have to believe Segment B, you know, in the same way that, you know, the world is in black and white. Neither are people’s thoughts. And the reality is, is that I’ve realized as I’ve grown older and my circle has shrunk on who I decide to spend my time with because everyone only has so much bandwidth every day to give.

00;04;44;26 – 00;05;18;22

Kyle Lawson

I only make those type of disagreements and thoughtful comments to people who I think will receive them appropriately and not immediately turn into a scenario where they’re no know, basically ship posting and being crappy to one another. And I liken that to when I remembered all the conversations we had in the service. We were able to do things like that and there’s great value in that, I believe, not just as a society, but I mean even from a friendship perspective, because there’s a lot of people that will never, will never have the emotional and mental capacity and maturity to be able to do that and grow.

00;05;19;05 – 00;05;30;09

Kyle Lawson

And one of the things I truly believe as a person is that to grow as a society and just to better yourself as a person is, you need to be able to do that.

00;05;30;09 – 00;05;51;03

Jon Mayo

Yeah, I completely agree with that. There’s that old cliche quote of like, if you want to change the world, start by changing yourself type of thing. Right? And there’s a bunch of variations of that idea from different sources, But it really does start with you and your personal relationships. So like so having served together, we were essentially, you know, coworkers.

00;05;51;13 – 00;06;26;03

Jon Mayo

So like in the coworking environment, in the friend circles and how like you as an individual and you interact with the world, what you’re describing is just taking the time to engage in that meaningfully and be okay not being right all the time. And by just pursuing more than just like bludgeoning people and being right, right, like having thoughtful conversation and trying to produce solutions together, you know, is what I’m hearing in the in the core of those conversations.

00;06;26;03 – 00;06;36;14

Jon Mayo

And what I recall from what we talked about, because any time we disagreed in the past or recently, it’s been like, hey, why are you thinking this and doing it this way? Because it’s not making sense to me. You know, it kind of it’s born of that question.

00;06;37;09 – 00;07;03;10

Kyle Lawson

Well, and that’s and that’s a lot of what it comes down to is the the weird like, how do I want to wear this appropriately? The path a lot of people’s minds take is that if I’m right, I feel vindicated. You know, this is me. And one of the basis sentiments that has served society well for a lot of years but is against us now is that sense of feeling.

00;07;03;10 – 00;07;20;19

Kyle Lawson

Tribe There’s actually a book called Tribe written by a guy named Sebastian. I can’t remember his last name. It was an incredible book. I read it when I got out of the service and it kind of talks about, you know, how that how that, you know, you search for that kind of like brotherhood, that kind of like team mentality from other areas that it’s harder to find.

00;07;21;03 – 00;07;41;01

Kyle Lawson

But what a lot of people do in this context of it is my tribe is what I believe. My tribe is my political party. My tribe is my I mean, insert whatever you want. My sports team, my anything. And if you are in my tribe, we agree on all thoughts. And then if I win and my tribe wins, we all win.

00;07;41;15 – 00;08;01;22

Kyle Lawson

But the problem is, is that that creates a very me versus you mentality which is acceptable. And, you know, war, sports, certain mentalities where you want to define a winner, a loser. But as a society, as a whole, all that does is divide people to where you don’t find those solid good nuggets of where you cross that threshold together.

00;08;02;00 – 00;08;40;07

Kyle Lawson

Do you find that commonality? You know, in the same way that I think I had mentioned it in our previous conversation, Um, I feel one of the biggest detractors for those who make policy and make overarching decisions for everybody is its they want their tribe, their team to win, not with the underlying core value of what makes society better, what makes Americans better for the purpose of, you know, the country that we’re in or what makes whatever thing better, you know, not having that underlying commonality of we’re doing this for the betterment of everyone is what really deteriorates from that, because then it’s you want your side to win so bad, you’re hurting the other

00;08;40;07 – 00;08;46;05

Kyle Lawson

side to do so. But that’s undermining the fact that the other side is also overall in the same team as you.

00;08;47;12 – 00;09;10;12

Jon Mayo

And the other side is us. You know, and that’s the thing that’s scary about the tribalism is when you kill like, I don’t think as humans we can remove the fact that we’re going to be parts of different groups, right? Like we’re it’s just part of human nature. You know, you had your family unit and then you’re going to have like a tribe and you going to have your beliefs, tribe, whether that’s religion or different things.

00;09;10;12 – 00;09;32;16

Jon Mayo

So I think that’s all good and well. But what becomes dangerous is when you don’t give credence any longer to the overarching what what large scale group in my part of that I’m fighting to have with. Right. And that’s what I’m hearing you talk about is like we are all Americans. So I think America is the tribe and that has been forgotten.

00;09;32;17 – 00;10;05;22

Jon Mayo

Now we’re all part of different subgroups, but at the end of the day, what we do, in my opinion, ought to be subjugated to We are fighting for. So as Americans holistically, regardless of if you’re right, left, agnostic, religious, whatever it may, you know, black, white, whatever it may be, whatever things define you as an individual, those don’t take an unhealthy proportion to the point where now you’re fighting to have that win out over our entire population as the American tribe.

00;10;06;14 – 00;10;29;15

Jon Mayo

Right. And that’s one of the things that when you and I are seeing really the government mandates around the vaccines. And then the conversation went from that to the vaccine itself. And we just we’re going back and forth. But the thing that I remember and please correct me if I’m misremembering that we agreed upon was like, was the fact that we are on the same team ultimately.

00;10;29;15 – 00;10;52;09

Jon Mayo

Right. We want to make sure that we best care for one another and for those who need cared for, while also assuring the maximum freedoms possible and that created an appreciation of beauty for difference, right? Difference of perspectives, difference of beliefs, different of all these things that are held together by the desire to respect and to protect the other person’s rights, freedom and health.

00;10;52;20 – 00;11;15;28

Jon Mayo

So you know that that’s like that core fundamental thing that I want to, at least for us on a personal level, I want to bring that back. I want to speak to speak life to it. I want to be an example of it to the best I can. And I know all so often, but I want to do the best I can to say, Hey, I’m okay if you think I’m stupid and wrong on and I disagree with what you think on this, let’s let’s find where we agree.

00;11;15;28 – 00;11;39;09

Jon Mayo

Let’s identify and define very clearly where we disagree. And then let’s ask, so what does this impact anything or not? And if it does, what can we do to create a solution that we can both shake hands on? Right. I think I think that’s really the premise of this whole country. And that’s, you know, falling to the wayside a bit, which is why it’s so refreshing to find some of these won’t engage in it.

00;11;39;09 – 00;11;41;04

Jon Mayo

But I think we can teach that again. What do you think?

00;11;41;04 – 00;12;04;00

Kyle Lawson

Yeah, absolutely. And one thing I want to say on that that’s slightly off topic, but still relevant, relevant is being able to find that compromise and do those things is what leads to healthy relationships, whether it be healthy friendships, healthy marriages, healthy anything, because to always think that you’re the smartest person in the room that knows everything usually means either.

00;12;04;01 – 00;12;25;26

Kyle Lawson

A If that’s true, you’re in the wrong room or B if that’s not true, which is probably what it really is, that once again, you come back to that community aspect and the the piece of that conversation that really struck out to me. The one thing that we 100% always, always, always agreed on is the freedom piece. And that was the core of my first message that you brought up, which is, you know, freedom.

00;12;25;26 – 00;12;49;09

Kyle Lawson

Responsibility is not freedom of consequence or excuse me, freedom of consequence is not freedom of responsibility, which for people who either haven’t heard that or it’s not as common stance. What that really breaks down to is, is that you are free to make whatever decision you want in life, whether it’s, you know, where you’re getting gas to is to is anything is, you know, divisive as you know, where you stand on politically charged issue like the vaccine.

00;12;49;28 – 00;13;08;14

Kyle Lawson

However, the decision that you are making with that comes with consequences, be them, good or bad. And the problem is, is that a lot of people hear the word consequences. They think negative connotation. But the consequence of working hard is also being successful. The consequence of, you know, being being healthy and doing things to stay healthy means you probably live longer.

00;13;08;15 – 00;13;47;18

Kyle Lawson

You get to do more things with your family and your friends. Consequences go both ways. Um, but the core of that was just the freedom piece, because I’ve always been a big believer of, you know, when you are born as a human being, whether you’re religious or not, you are born with the freedom to make any, any decision that you want in the entire world and to have a freedom taken away from you, you tread into a dangerous terror factory where it becomes what are you weighing your freedom against, you know, all the ways back into when, you know, even the war in the Middle East started where you weighing your freedom versus public safety,

00;13;47;21 – 00;14;05;12

Kyle Lawson

Safety, for example. And then it’s the same kind of scenario with the vaccine. You know, how do you rack and stack that? Which thing makes it appropriate and which you think doesn’t? And no one’s going to ever share 100% belief on that. So where do you find that crossing line to make both parties kind of meet halfway?

00;14;05;12 – 00;14;30;22

Jon Mayo

Yeah. Yeah. And that is really where the work is. One of the things that you start to see is a lot of advocacy, or at least a lot of things that I’m starting to see is a lot of advocacy for. We’re going slow, right? We want to make change, make progress faster. A lot of these things, especially when you look on the large scale, what’s crazy about them is they’re really from the tribe who has the progress, right?

00;14;30;22 – 00;14;52;28

Jon Mayo

Unless they’re approached, like unless they’re intentionally couched in the idea of how do we collectively win as a as a you know, as a people, as a group. So having taken them to account, I’m I’m going to be honest that that just left me. So I’m going to go off another one and they’ll come back. But as everyone’s fighting for progress, they’re go came back.

00;14;52;28 – 00;15;16;18

Jon Mayo

Who has a painful few second span? People now know Oh my goodness they completely left us was so, so terrible. But people want efficiency now, right? People want convenience. People want comfort at the cost of allowing the hard work to happen. And that’s where like when you when you talk about these policy level decisions, these huge decisions, I don’t think speed kills.

00;15;16;29 – 00;15;49;13

Jon Mayo

I think it’s okay to have their more effective system with the appropriate checks and balances to safeguard freedoms over time and to apply best practices as we move forward and to work towards healthy compromise. Right. And that’s one of the things that is so encouraging about engaging in conversations that are based on a disagreement is if you do it with the intent of proving the other person wrong, then you’re just contributing to the problem.

00;15;49;13 – 00;16;08;21

Jon Mayo

It’s gonna be painful. But if you do it, the intent of where can we stand together? Like, I fully disagree with that. You fully disagree with this, but where can we find a place that we can stand together and then begin working on a solution for? That’s refreshing. And that is the entire premise, but that is being cheapened and thrown out as people learn to hate each other more, not trust each other.

00;16;09;02 – 00;16;19;06

Jon Mayo

And in, you know, in the policy political sphere as well, to make it an us versus them thing instead of an US together versus whatever.

00;16;19;07 – 00;16;19;28

Kyle Lawson

The issues.

00;16;20;26 – 00;16;21;11

Jon Mayo

Versus the.

00;16;21;11 – 00;16;41;28

Kyle Lawson

Issue. It’s it was the same thing. Like I was talking about the marriage thing. You have a disagreement with your significant other or whatever. It’s you and me versus the problem, not me versus you, because I think I’m right because then you’re still harming the person that you’re sharing that union with. And that overall union in this case is that, you know, for what we’re talking about as all Americans, but it could be all people, it could be all whatever.

00;16;41;28 – 00;17;04;01

Kyle Lawson

It doesn’t matter that the point remains, I think, to to to to kind of drill down into into that a little, because I don’t want to stay too vague. You see, when you say speed kills in this sense because you want it to be, I guess, taken in a certain light, because I very much feel like a lot of these things be said have been about the vaccine.

00;17;04;01 – 00;17;24;06

Kyle Lawson

And I don’t want to skirt around that too much for anyone that wants to hear about the nitty gritty of it. I’m I would be careful in that verbiage or terminology. And what I mean by that is when you say speed kills, I know you’re talking about appropriate health safeguards to do what’s best for everybody. And I know that because you and I have had that conversation.

00;17;24;22 – 00;17;57;15

Kyle Lawson

But to an outside listener who might not know that or someone who’s on this podcast but doesn’t know you in a work sense, in a friend sense, and someone who has back and forth, I don’t want someone to take that in a way where they think we should go slower despite people dying from that complication or others. What the overall message I believe you meant was, is that if we’re going to make a decision, let’s make the correct decision as we move forward, not what’s the most convenient, that is a 60% solution, but then harms the other 40% that weren’t involved in that majority, which is kind of how I took that.

00;17;57;23 – 00;18;17;14

Jon Mayo

I’m glad you brought that up because in my mind I had a pretty clear trajectory that was not received. So this is super valuable. So when I was thinking to speak part, I was really thinking it like, when you’re making decisions and one group just forces a decision versus having the differences fleshed out and working towards that healthy compromise, right?

00;18;17;20 – 00;18;39;13

Jon Mayo

So like on a personal I think of it like that holistic, there wasn’t a specific instance. It was holistic like how our government set up and even in relationships, right? If you’re if you have a friendship or marriage and you come to an issue like that, you have to work to a conclusion on and either person, you or me, like let’s say, you know, you and I have a disagreement if I’m just like, no, this is the way it is, period.

00;18;39;27 – 00;19;23;10

Jon Mayo

Right? That’s in I that’s to my sword to enforce that. That’s not going to help us build better things. Right? Like our relationship will be damaged from me forcing that one sided decision quickly. Right. As opposed to us working through in appreciating, respecting each other’s differences and then creating a solution. So so when I said speed kills was in the context of difference is good holistically and having three and having the discipline to seek understanding and to respect the other party enough to want to seek understanding and to value that understanding and work towards a solution is something that’s worth the time invested.

00;19;23;22 – 00;19;53;11

Jon Mayo

So it’s very much so. The let’s not holistically let’s engage in civil discourse is engage in these problem solving things and create something that should last better over time because we agree upon the solution, even if we disagree with aspects of it. So so the speed kills portion and that was really looking at the system, not at a specific issue of navigating disagreement, navigating how to proceed on things.

00;19;53;19 – 00;20;17;27

Kyle Lawson

No, And I understand that. It’s just because we had alluded to the vaccine previously and had mentioned you. I don’t want to present a, you know, false narrative narrative, I should say to certain listeners, you might take it one way or the other. I want people to understand that our overarching conversation, we’re using examples, but what we’re really trying to, you know, zero in on is how you cross that bridge.

00;20;17;27 – 00;20;36;04

Kyle Lawson

And one of the things I want to bring up on because I did some thinking about it on how you cross that bridge is actually a model of how I think most problem solving should be done where you work backwards from. So you take whatever the issue is and you go, Well, this is the solution we designed right at the end.

00;20;37;17 – 00;20;56;04

Kyle Lawson

Once both people agree on what solution they want, then it’s just the avenue of how you want to get there. And that is a piece where I think it is easier for compromises to be made. Then when one group, be it politically or anything else, thinks they’re going for a certain solution and another group thinks they’re going for another.

00;20;56;14 – 00;21;02;22

Kyle Lawson

Yeah, and one of the examples I know about that is, you know.

00;21;02;22 – 00;21;02;28

Jon Mayo

It’s.

00;21;03;24 – 00;21;31;26

Kyle Lawson

Kind of a taboo subject, but that’s the point of what we’re talking about here. So, you know, ten, maybe even 15 years ago when you know, in politics people were talking about is same sex marriage allowable or not? Mm hmm. Now, that was a very, you know, divisive, hot topic for a very long time. And where I would say the answer to that solution, that if both sides sides at work back from would have been, well, what helps society the most?

00;21;31;26 – 00;21;51;13

Kyle Lawson

You know, does it hurt anybody to allow this? Is there a negative connotation to a to to allow this? I would feel most people would think, well, no, because if they’re not in my community, if they’re not in my tribe, if they’re not directly negatively impacting me, how does that hurt? And then if you go back from there, that essentially negates the entire issue of should it be allowed or should it not?

00;21;51;21 – 00;22;13;24

Kyle Lawson

Because at the end it’s holistically who does this harm or who does losing? Not at least that’s how I view it. In the same way when people are making, you know, specific loss about like speeding, for example, you may be a comfortable driver to drive 90 miles an hour, but a decision was made that the vast majority of the whole is safer by doing it this way, since the overall goal was safety in the community.

00;22;15;19 – 00;22;23;11

Kyle Lawson

To me, that seems sort of a, you know, okay, duh, that’s fine. You know, same with wearing a seatbelt, you know?

00;22;24;13 – 00;22;41;13

Jon Mayo

Well, yeah. And I think our conversation I think we did a good job of setting up the ideas that we’ve entered into some of the conversation with. Right. And we’re at a point now where we could either land the plane or just continue exploring some of those ideas together. And I’m comfortable doing the latter. And I think that’s what you’re biting at the bit for, too.

00;22;41;13 – 00;23;03;17

Jon Mayo

And, you know, just we get a share of that conversation. So at its core, I agree with you, and I think that’s a wonderful tool. I’ve thought about wording it that way as a practice tool, but like if you want to start with, Hey, where do we agree? Right? You can ask that question. But if that’s not working or a different technique, both are like, I really like what you just brought up.

00;23;03;23 – 00;23;30;26

Jon Mayo

Hey, what do we want to accomplish here? Is really asking the same thing, right? It’s just it’s more pointed. It makes it easier to articulate like we’re, you know, because it’s actions and it’s results driven. So right now I’m just thinking through and appreciating the question. But yeah, you’re absolutely right. If I notice that, like as we start to talk about some of the things that are more relevant, for example, because we left unfinished some of the topics around, you know, really not the vaccine mandate.

00;23;30;26 – 00;23;49;19

Jon Mayo

Well, yeah, the vaccine mandate and some of the decisions and well, how do we handle these things? And of course, we’re not authorities on anything. We’re just two dudes who are trying to navigate this life to the best of our ability. Right. You know, look at all these things. The first question we asked and the thing that continues to motivate us to go forward is like, well, what do we want to accomplish?

00;23;49;19 – 00;24;20;12

Jon Mayo

What we want to accomplish, a result that protects everyone’s freedoms to the best of their ability and also reduces risk and damage as much as possible, right? So that there’s not an infringement in danger on people’s lives to the best of our ability, as you know, more to their freedoms. And that’s where it gets very gray. And you did a good job earlier of highlighting when you start to talk about things that are not simple, are very black and white, it’s very difficult to work through the gray.

00;24;20;27 – 00;24;25;05

Jon Mayo

And that’s where I think the art of it all comes in. But it’s worth pushing into.

00;24;25;24 – 00;24;42;22

Kyle Lawson

Well, and I’d like to make a comment on that too. When you say it’s it’s hard to work through the gray, I think it’s harder and much more of a substantial fight to work through the gray. When you have people that don’t have that underlying first comment that you were alluding to, which is what do we want to accomplish?

00;24;43;02 – 00;25;03;16

Kyle Lawson

Yeah, I mean, and me, like I said, having the privilege of knowing you and knowing that we both stand sort of for the same two things. We were looking to accomplish in the scenario of the vaccine, it was much easier to say, Hey, you know, even though we disagree on this, let’s let’s talk about how this would be in effect.

00;25;03;24 – 00;25;19;05

Kyle Lawson

Let’s give an example of this. Well, you disagree with this example because it’s not exactly apples to apples. It’s apples to oranges. All right. Let’s tweak that. Let’s look at it this way. And, you know, we probably spent 45 minutes of that. Our conversation just saying, well, here’s an example of what I think I poked a hole in that.

00;25;19;05 – 00;25;41;02

Kyle Lawson

Oh, I can see why that’s a valid argument. Let’s look at it from a different angle. And then you would give something and I would do the I would do the the opposite. And there’s just so much to be gained from that because we gained so much ground in 45 minutes as two people. Could you imagine what kind of ground could be gained if everyone shared that underlying mentality of what’s best for everybody?

00;25;41;02 – 00;26;03;15

Kyle Lawson

And we did that from an angle where it’s, you know, for for example, all policymakers, if you had 200 of the most intelligent people always making that decision, or even if you just had 50 of them in there, who were the, you know, even five, Just five, you know, the majority leader here, the one leader, they’re two experts and then a decision maker.

00;26;03;20 – 00;26;24;29

Kyle Lawson

I mean, holy shit. Like just just the gravity of what that could it. I can’t even put it into words because it’s been so long since I’ve seen even even a local electoral debate where people have had a conversation like that, because that and that’s another issue which which will table for later. But just something I want to bring up.

00;26;25;07 – 00;27;00;06

Kyle Lawson

When you have a a debate on something, you were categorically already describing it as me versus you, not not us versus the issues. And I’m not saying that, you know, there’s a perfect word for it, but I’m saying that that’s something that should be addressed because how many times have I seen something on TV or heard on the radio where it’s been one person starts talking about an issue and then another and then another person makes a personal attack, discrediting why they can talk about the issue, completely pulling away from the issue as a whole and what the actual, you know, hopeful solution is, which is what we, as you know, either a constituents or

00;27;00;06 – 00;27;11;04

Kyle Lawson

B people want to hear because we want things to improve, not, you know, deteriorate. And all of that is immediately out, out the window within 2 minutes of every conversation. And it’s just it’s hurtful.

00;27;11;13 – 00;27;34;11

Jon Mayo

It is hurtful. And there’s one quick aside and then I want to respond directly to that. Like we keep referencing the conversation we had and I very intentionally did not just jump back in like, what do you think about this and that? And the reason I’ve not jump back in because we talked about maybe going there again is one, we’re so inundated right now with people talking about the vaccine and the different ways of playing it out.

00;27;34;28 – 00;27;59;16

Jon Mayo

And as I’ve thought about how I’m happy to go somewhere for making new territory together, like if we’re taking new ground, I’m happy to talk about anything that is under the sun with you, regardless of how uncomfortable it may be. But I want to make sure that it’s valuable for both of us, and I want to make sure that it’s also a helpful example for someone who may not have a freaking clue of how to engage in that type of conversation going forward without just rehashing what you and I have already done.

00;27;59;25 – 00;28;20;02

Jon Mayo

So. So just to be clear, why, you know, for the listener, if they’re like, come on, just get into it. Well, that’s why we’re not just getting into what we already talked about, right? We’ll go where the conversation takes us. So that’s the a side. The point, though, to that being hurtful was, you’re right, man. These debates also, I think I think they started I’m not entirely certain.

00;28;20;11 – 00;28;42;23

Jon Mayo

I think the intent was, hey, here’s a problem. Right? Like, let’s look at a political debate between two candidates in an election cycle. Hey, here’s the problem that we’re facing as a country or as a state or as a county or whatever. What is your proposed solution? Right. And as you guys debate debate the debate for your proposed solution, solving this problem.

00;28;43;03 – 00;29;05;16

Jon Mayo

But now when you see it, it’s morphed into this how can I burn this guy? And like, you know, how can I burn them up that I look better? How can I, you know, slay this dude or this girl and, like, be just the higher level being coming out of this conversation who basically won this like high school bullying.

00;29;06;07 – 00;29;06;14

Jon Mayo

Well.

00;29;07;10 – 00;29;10;07

Kyle Lawson

And let’s not move away from that too quickly.

00;29;10;15 – 00;29;10;22

Jon Mayo

Because.

00;29;10;22 – 00;29;33;21

Kyle Lawson

The part I want to bring up about is this We shall have to or you watch or tune into or whatever a debate. There’s sometimes like up to ten topics, you know, what it really should be. And my personal opinion, there should be two, maybe three options. And when someone goes into saying, here’s my proposed solution, I’m tired of hearing the we’ll do this by throwing money at this.

00;29;33;26 – 00;29;58;28

Kyle Lawson

You know, we will accomplish this by allowing something that was previously un allowed or whatever. I want to hear some elaboration because me as someone who I believe to be at least, you know, slightly intelligent, I don’t I don’t want to hear I’m going to accomplish, you know, guns being allowed everywhere because that’s what I believe. That’s great.

00;29;59;03 – 00;30;22;13

Kyle Lawson

But how are you going to do that? How I don’t want to hear we’re going to fix economics by either adjusting wages or trying to do a trickle down effect or anything else. I want to hear how you are going to do that, because the how something is is accomplished. That gray is one what most voters want to hear.

00;30;22;13 – 00;30;42;17

Kyle Lawson

Because even though there are extreme people on either side, whether it be right or left, the vast majority of the people, at least 80%, fall somewhere in the middle. And if how someone’s going to achieve something is going to be detrimental to either your way of way of life or how you want to reach said and and and goal or hurt to many people along the way.

00;30;42;17 – 00;31;04;00

Kyle Lawson

That’s what people want to know. If people don’t care that you want to solve this problem, we know you want to solve the problem, that that that’s why you’re even being given the option chance to be in the position you were in. You know, that’s why you are said policy maker. That is a service based position, which is a completely other conversation on how forgotten that is.

00;31;04;00 – 00;31;23;29

Kyle Lawson

But that’s what it is. And the reality is I don’t want to hear you’re going to fix X, Y and Z because first of all, there’s just a promise that doesn’t mean anything gets pushed through Senate or Congress. So it’s worth literally nothing, which people need to keep in mind when these debates are happening, because someone can say they’re going to give you the world, but it’s not worth anything until anything’s actually come into effect.

00;31;24;12 – 00;31;41;20

Kyle Lawson

The second part I want to highlight on that, most importantly is if you are looking at someone who’s saying they’re going to solve a problem, how are they going to solve it? Because guess what? I can solve violence in the world if I just kill everyone because then there’s no more violence. But the how of us doing that is kind of crappy because we’re all gone.

00;31;41;27 – 00;31;57;21

Kyle Lawson

I can solve world hunger by just giving away food. But you got to think if we just give away food to everybody, how does it impact people who farm and do that for a living? How does it impact the quality of the of the food? Is it going to keep people living or is it going to be like in the dark ages?

00;31;58;00 – 00;32;08;27

Kyle Lawson

You know, how does it impact the how is what people need to zero in on? And I wish I could just you know, if I was influential enough to have a TED talk and tell people that it’s the how.

00;32;09;06 – 00;32;38;03

Jon Mayo

It is, the how and what, one of the things there’s so much we could go there. So I’m going to select one that the idea that it’s theirs to fix. Right. I think that is a fundamental misconception and part of the problem because you touched on the point, I’m going I’m going to merge two together. You touched on the point that our political servants and that’s what they are, are there to serve the people who vote them into office.

00;32;38;03 – 00;33;03;03

Jon Mayo

Right. That’s the entire purpose of the government as we’ve set it up in America. And they their job is not to promise a solution, their jobs, not even to fix the problem. That’s the issue. Their job is to create policies that afford the people, us to fix the problem, to create an environment in which we can resolve the issues.

00;33;03;14 – 00;33;29;18

Jon Mayo

And I think that’s something that is like two steps even further back. Because if if a post is created that allow and then the fundamental issues, the idea of right now is not that we are to take ownership of the problems we see and work to fix them in our lives. Right. If as a me as a guy, you as a guy, everyone we knew, we’re all like, okay, as you go through life, when we see a problem, we’re going to work to fix that problem.

00;33;29;18 – 00;33;53;12

Jon Mayo

We’re going to work to make it better so that tomorrow is better than today, we’re going to do these things. If that was our culture, then it would make sense that we just want our public servants to put into effect policies that help foster an environment that maximizes that in-state right and minimizes things that destroy that opportunity. That’s where you have your speeding.

00;33;53;17 – 00;34;23;04

Jon Mayo

Hey, we’re losing all these people because they’re going 80. We’re going to bring it down 65 and yadda, yadda. This is now creating environment in which we have more people who can create better problems and those who deviate from that are at risk of hurting someone else in that environment. So it’s like, okay, this is a that is an example of a constraint that we place on ourselves or allow in ourselves because we’re seeing certain losses, but we don’t need them to fix, you know, poverty, right?

00;34;23;04 – 00;34;51;18

Jon Mayo

We need them to back their jobs not to be the solution. They’re their jobs not to dictate whether or not we can or cannot do things. It’s to create I think it’s the step back. The misconception. The misconception is that it’s theirs to fix, and that’s the empty promises to give us. But if you look at the how, the how is by educating and empowering us, the people, to fix the problem and to come and to create the framework, to preserve the solutions as we continue forward.

00;34;51;22 – 00;35;18;27

Kyle Lawson

Yet to make the process a durable process. It can’t be this person was in charge, whoever it may be, at whatever level, for two years, four years, three years, your boss at a job and they do a good job of making something go well. And then the next boss comes in and then all of a sudden, in whatever scenario, you know, whether it be work or anything like that, everything change changes and that, I think is one of the biggest issues when you talk about it, because we have ventured into the political pool.

00;35;18;27 – 00;35;51;16

Kyle Lawson

So let’s dive right in. The biggest thing being there’s too much overture, in my opinion, of when someone in place is a policy. I mean, how many times in just my lifetime, my short 30 year life have I seen the same policy pancaked? I mean, I can name a dozen off the top of my head. And the issue that is not that there’s a problem with flipping over, but it needs to be with once again, the how are the why is it flipping over?

00;35;51;16 – 00;36;09;27

Kyle Lawson

Because we have gained new knowledge and we have become more intelligent on the topic due to certain experts that could possibly, you know, dedicate their lives to it. Like one of the examples you and I spoke about in the previous phone call was about smoking. But what I want to highlight on that is that smoking used to be allowed in hospitals and in certain places.

00;36;09;27 – 00;36;21;23

Kyle Lawson

And then and then as we got more intelligent on that, we changed that law. That to me is an intelligent overture. We go, Oh, we become more intelligent on this topic. Let’s move beyond our rudimentary and grow.

00;36;22;10 – 00;36;22;16

Jon Mayo

Hmm.

00;36;23;01 – 00;36;42;18

Kyle Lawson

But the issue I keep finding is, is that where policy makers and decision makers are at, what they tend to keep doing is this group A wanted to do this thing? So I’m going to say I don’t want to because I’m in Group B and the way they find their commonality, their middle ground isn’t how you and I are talking with what’s best.

00;36;42;29 – 00;37;04;16

Kyle Lawson

It’s or I’ll give you this group, but then you have to give group B this. That’s not a real compromise that’s degrading. And that’s the biggest issue I have with that. Policymakers, bosses, any of that. A lot of it is based on trading. It’s I will give you this. You know, hey, one of the examples recently was gun control.

00;37;04;16 – 00;37;33;18

Kyle Lawson

It was I’m going to take away the type of magazines I believe you’re allowed to have in certain states or certain other attachments or whatever. But by doing so, I’m not going to enforce mental health checks on gun on gun control, because that was a big fight and push from the NRA. And I hated both of those compromises because, one, I believe you’re into freedom means you should be able to do whatever you want with guns if you haven’t done anything wrong with them, who’s to say that you can’t enjoy whatever attachment or thing that you want?

00;37;33;29 – 00;37;43;24

Kyle Lawson

I think that’s stupid, but I also think it’s stupid to say, Well, we’re going to take away a safety and balanced check that says if you had some sort of mental disorder, we’re not going to check you on that before you buy a firearm.

00;37;43;29 – 00;37;44;16

Jon Mayo

Absolutely.

00;37;44;28 – 00;38;05;22

Kyle Lawson

Why can’t why can’t you check people and then allow them to have whatever they want? Because by checking them, you are saying I’m going to invent an avenue of which I believe there is safety, because I believe you are mentally and physically sound to make that decision. Well, that doesn’t mean that can’t change later. But you can’t take that away from somebody until they have proven they’ve done wrong.

00;38;05;28 – 00;38;31;18

Kyle Lawson

And the same with you’re innocent until proven guilty. So not to tirade too much into this particular topic, but the the the overarching, you know, message is it’s not about trading. It should be about the commonality of how do we find the best answer to allow everybody their freedoms while also allowing them everything else that they are pursuant to, which is, you know, life, liberty and pursuit of happiness?

00;38;31;18 – 00;38;41;13

Jon Mayo

Yeah. When you prove that doesn’t, you just drop like three, three rapid fire shells on me. So let me see. Let me think for just a second.

00;38;42;06 – 00;38;47;11

Kyle Lawson

I would dissect the way your heart’s content.

00;38;47;11 – 00;39;12;28

Jon Mayo

Well, okay, So first I want to make sure I understand what you started with so that I’m not talking off of misconception, but when you spoke about how you you don’t like the the pancaking of policies that you see in in that there’s this what I understood when you said that was that let’s say you have Republicans come in and make a policy and then four years later, Democrats take the House, you know, take over.

00;39;13;05 – 00;39;31;10

Jon Mayo

They they completely reverse the poll right. And then, you know, later, once the other side gets back and they reverse it again. Right. When you talk about like the pancaking back and forth, are you talking about that like heavy, heavy pendulum swing of like radical shift here and then the next person is in charge, radical shift back.

00;39;31;19 – 00;39;32;22

Kyle Lawson

Yeah. And that’s like.

00;39;32;27 – 00;39;33;20

Jon Mayo

Tit for tat.

00;39;33;27 – 00;39;54;20

Kyle Lawson

Yeah. An example of that was like how Obamacare came. It came about Now not to get into the specifics because he pushed it through in a in a non I mean people can, you know chop it up a thousand different ways. But the point is is that we go from a, you know, virtually privatized health health care system to a gigantic push to more public, to a gigantic push to more private.

00;39;54;20 – 00;40;13;28

Kyle Lawson

And where that becomes painful is on the people that are that are involved in said circles and said spheres. I’m talking, you know, medical professionals. When you go from 100 million people in health insurance to 330 million, which for those who don’t know why I pulled those numbers, there were about 100 million people that were paying for health insurance previous to Obamacare.

00;40;13;28 – 00;40;36;25

Kyle Lawson

And then when that came into play and everyone was involved, these tripled the amount of people that now need medical care without tripling the number of nurses, the number of pays, the number of whatever. And then you went right back to making it one third of that again. So as these, you know, hospitals and groups are pushing up their numbers and doing these things to counteract a knee jerk reaction to something by policymakers, they then have the knee jerk reaction and go back the other way.

00;40;37;05 – 00;40;58;07

Kyle Lawson

And what that comes down to is literally people having jobs or not, you know, the quality of their benefits, the quality of their pay. You know, other people’s individual lives are being heavily impacted by this, not to mention the people receiving care. You know, when you had 100 million people, you could allow for a certain time of product and now you have three times as many people.

00;40;58;07 – 00;41;17;12

Kyle Lawson

You have to see them. Now you’re giving them essentially with rudimentary math, a third of the care you were giving them. So now you’re affecting the people coming in for care, too, and for people who never received any. That’s great. But for people who are used to paying the premium and are now getting a third of that care, you are now basically crapping on what they knew to believe in trust.

00;41;17;25 – 00;41;30;17

Kyle Lawson

So when I talk about the pancaking thing, I’m talking about large decisions like that, because what they do is they drastically change people’s lives over the course of eight years, which is insane.

00;41;31;00 – 00;42;00;09

Jon Mayo

You’re absolutely right. And one thank you for. I’m glad I understood it correctly, because that is how I perceived it. And also the specific example really helps ground the conversation. Right. And I appreciate it because I can better understand what you’re saying. I have a better example to build off of it, and I think there’s value in pointing to specifics and in given that I do agree like having a multiparty government on some level you’re going to have the entire intent is to have corrections on trajectory, right.

00;42;00;18 – 00;42;18;13

Jon Mayo

Like we try this thing and it needs tweaked because it missed the mark here and it needs tweaks because it makes the mark and that’s where the whole counterbalances come between the groups. Right. To help get something more and more on target. What we’re talking about is not that what we’re talking about is we’re going north and now we’re going south and now we’re going north.

00;42;18;13 – 00;42;37;05

Jon Mayo

And now we’re going south where in reality we’re to go north. And you may be more in the east, in other parts of the west. And we’re fighting to get it to as true and north as possible. Right. And that ought to be the goal. And it has not appeared to be the goal for a long time. Instead, it appears to be this tit for tat.

00;42;37;13 – 00;42;56;15

Jon Mayo

My belief system is better than yours. How I see this playing out is better. Yours, damn the consequences, damn the torpedoes. Let’s go full steam ahead so that my group, my tribe can win. And if we lose this fight, we’ll get in power again in a few years. And then we’ll take it right back. And that turns the American people into a frickin tug a rope.

00;42;57;13 – 00;43;30;18

Jon Mayo

And it makes me just kind of question these policymakers. Hey, who are you making these decisions for, Right? Because it’s starting to really feel like you’re making these decisions for yourselves and more people like you because they benefit you and your friends. That’s the perception I’m starting to get. Because if you’re making it for the people that are on the receiving end of these decisions and the people who want to exercise their freedom to build and pursue the American ideal, which is, you know, that we can do better as individuals, as a as people, as a country, then your decisions are going to be made with us in mind.

00;43;30;26 – 00;43;49;20

Jon Mayo

Right. And it’s not going to be this radical shift left, right, forward back. It’s going to be us working on. Okay, we tested this. We did the best we could to come to an agreement. There’s we have these issues that we absolutely disagree on. We voiced it. We’re moving forward because of whoever’s in charge at the time. And but they’ve been noted, They’ve been heard.

00;43;49;29 – 00;44;02;12

Jon Mayo

And we’re going to we’re going to test this because the nature of the system is that in a few years we’ll have the data from that test to then correct course or to make it more effective from those learnings. Right.

00;44;02;23 – 00;44;19;09

Kyle Lawson

So hold on. I want to I want to comment on one thing about that. Yeah. I think I think you just maneuvered those words and I really appreciated it. What I mean by that is and you talk about that that was akin to what you and I were talking about when we were talking about, you know, vaccine efficacy and other things.

00;44;19;09 – 00;44;39;08

Kyle Lawson

You were talking about these tests. So one, I want to I want to note that two, a previous conversation we had that was very well introduced and for the for you, who’s giving me a confused look and the average listener, we were talking about the efficacy rates of how the vaccine works and you know, things we’re seeing with variants and whatnot.

00;44;39;08 – 00;45;02;10

Kyle Lawson

And Jon brought up a really good point of where, you know, there is a testing phase and how certain testing phases are done and the reason why I want to highlight that is because not only is that always how science is operated, but it’s always so every quality and quantitative problem has ever reached its best solution. It’s by testing and refinement.

00;45;02;26 – 00;45;20;18

Kyle Lawson

And you know, that’s not just saying scientific method, that’s just saying if people and I just to take a second to really comment on how I really appreciate how you worded that and honed in on that because it’s so important for people to understand and not to take away too much from those three things, from those three things that you were going to dissect.

00;45;20;26 – 00;45;40;02

Kyle Lawson

So I still want to hit numbers two and three, but to cap the rate on and kind of like finalize where I stand on the number one piece on that, the first topic we talked about, which was, you know, the pancake piece and how it affects people. Yes, people should aim for True North and there should be, you know, spaces there that we’re all trying to reach.

00;45;40;18 – 00;46;09;18

Kyle Lawson

But I feel like that hearkens back to the first commonality brought up in the beginning of the conversation, which is people need to understand the under lying goal of the group needs to be how can we find the solution? And that’s where I feel, where people are missing. And, you know, when you talk about, you know, policymakers doing this for their friends at that, for their friends to make one comment on that, it’s just I’m sorry to say, so heavily into the microphone listening.

00;46;09;18 – 00;46;30;29

Kyle Lawson

But it’s a it’s a it’s a sort topic for me, because when I look at politicians and decisions and my own personal voting, a lot of what I find I find myself running into is picking the shinier of two thirds. I am not voting for who I want to pick because of how they do a majority set up, which is why it’s my personal opinion that ranked choice voting should be a thing in every single state.

00;46;31;23 – 00;46;49;29

Kyle Lawson

So it should be. I get to pick my number one, but if my number one doesn’t get the majority vote so that doesn’t count. It goes to my number two and that’s how it should go no matter what all the time. So you’re not drowned out by I, you know, chose to register as this or as this or as a independent.

00;46;49;29 – 00;47;08;10

Kyle Lawson

And then my voice happened to be drowned out because of the way the Democratic college is set up. And we can get into that some of the time. That’s a whole nother fight. But ranked choice voting is the best thing that should come to every single state ever, because there’s no reason to say that guy on the left holds more things that I believe in or guy on the right.

00;47;08;23 – 00;47;28;22

Kyle Lawson

But then my second best choice is another guy on the opposite side who holds one of those same values, but then a different value. That wasn’t mentioned that I also, you know, put value in as a human being, even though it might not be as high as said decision one. So that that then gives you the the freedom, which I think is the most important thing we have as Americans to have ultimate choice.

00;47;29;02 – 00;47;32;05

Kyle Lawson

And I feel like that’s taken away when they don’t allow us to do that in all states.

00;47;32;22 – 00;47;57;19

Jon Mayo

And I’ll be honest, incredibly educated on ranked choice voting. But from the very limited understanding I have, I’ve liked what I’ve heard of it and how you just described it as essentially, if you’re number one choice of someone who can help resolve, you know, improve things for us through your votes, your vote, is it weighted your next best thought is taken into account on the next year and so on.

00;47;57;27 – 00;48;20;26

Jon Mayo

Okay. Yeah, I think that’s brilliant and incredibly valuable. And I can’t imagine why we wouldn’t do that. And I’m going to look into I made a note to look into it more so I can understand the intricacies, but I can appreciate that. And I think I kind melded the other two points into the response I gave once it confirmed what you meant by pancaking and going back and, you know, flipping back and forth.

00;48;21;03 – 00;48;48;09

Jon Mayo

But the bottom line premise is the issue, right? It’s the it’s the core of it. It’s on the political level that the norms that we’ve become accustomed to this tribalistic us first you level the issues that we’re not fighting for true north No like I don’t know very many people who are fighting for the best for the American ideal, for the best that can help our country be the best country it could possibly be.

00;48;48;15 – 00;49;21;29

Jon Mayo

I know a lot of people where it’s us first. You left first right. Let’s fight this out. I want to win. It’s like, hey, guys, let’s correct ourselves because we’ve gotten far too high and mighty on our own drugs here. And in reality, it’s us against these problems together to make this country better. And I just I really want to take this from the high level to the personal level on how in the heck can we champion that in our own lives?

00;49;21;29 – 00;49;52;17

Jon Mayo

Because like, I’m a dude, I’m a nobody. I live in the country, you know, how can I help champion and bring to life today in my community That as an example, the idea that, hey, I am going to be solutions based, I’m going to be problem solving based and I don’t care if we disagree, if in fact, I welcome the disagreement because your perspective I value because you’re going to see problems in this that I cannot see based on how I think about it.

00;49;52;27 – 00;50;21;09

Jon Mayo

So if we can see the value in that difference and we change the nature, like we need to change the core narrative from what it’s become, which is this tribalistic, don’t trust your neighbor, hate everyone around you. It’s either you win or you lose to a solutions base. Let’s solve problem together and take into account the differences we have and when we come to an impasse, work on it, address it together until we can create a way forward to solve the prompt to the best of our ability.

00;50;21;09 – 00;50;24;28

Jon Mayo

This time around, I’m not sure if I’m doing a good job.

00;50;24;28 – 00;50;49;10

Kyle Lawson

No, you’re explaining it perfect. What you’re basically saying is this you as an individual and this counts for 98% of the entire population, maybe 99, unless you’re one of those very few influential people, one of those big named whoever does that, everyone knows you’re not expected to be an overarching sweeping fix of an issue. But what you can do is affect your circle in a positive manner.

00;50;49;10 – 00;51;09;14

Kyle Lawson

And not to be too cheesy about like bumper stickers and stuff, you see where, where, where it’s like do an act of kindness, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But to some of that extent, it’s very true. Everything you do has a ripple effect on those around you. So for that culture change you’re talking about, people are more solutions based.

00;51;09;28 – 00;51;27;02

Kyle Lawson

The system we’re in right now is built against that. It’s built on let other people solve their problem, like how we were speaking earlier about how the government is like, no, I’m going to do this to fix this. No, no, no, no, no. It needs to be about empowering the individual to fix the problem. As you brought up, which I fervently agree with.

00;51;28;05 – 00;51;54;27

Kyle Lawson

Now the space where I want to get into, where we’re talking about the overall point of how we do that, how we do that is simple. It’s you have a disagreement with your significant other, your friend, your coworker, your boss, you know, your employee. It’s how you approach that difference. And what I mean by that is do you take a constructive approach like you and I are talking about and speaking about?

00;51;55;07 – 00;52;30;02

Kyle Lawson

Or do you take the approach of I have the authority to do this, whether it’s my kids, my employees, or no, or I don’t care how this negatively impacts my relationship, I’m going to take it in this direction. You know, how do you how do you as a person respond to that? And a lot of that comes down to emotional maturity And the you know, there have been numerous hurdles that have impacted the younger generation and the older now, some of it being social media with how people react and stack how they how they compare to a few people, some of it being how people, you know, hone in too much societally on where they

00;52;30;02 – 00;52;51;19

Kyle Lawson

feel they rank based on what they wear to work, what’s, you know, even just as recently as a pandemic, what’s quote unquote, essential? What’s not essential? You know, how how quote unquote, important are you? Well, it’s not how it works because you may not be super important to $11 billion company, but you could be the world to your significant other.

00;52;51;19 – 00;53;18;10

Kyle Lawson

And you should be you could be the world to your kids, to to your dog, to your to your to your friends. Maybe you saved one of your friends lives. God only knows. But the point is, is that your value isn’t determined by that and your value to reach across the aisle and try to and try to be better versus taking your first inclination of being shitty because you want to be, you know, once again, quote unquote, what kids have coined is cool terms.

00;53;18;19 – 00;53;23;21

Kyle Lawson

And even adults older than me, when they say, Oh, you’re savage, you’re sassy, you’re this, you’re there.

00;53;23;28 – 00;53;24;22

Jon Mayo

It’s like queen.

00;53;24;28 – 00;53;36;08

Kyle Lawson

It’s not like, oh, well, that’s well, that’s funny, but. But yeah, you know what? You know what I’m getting at? It’s not it’s not cool to be an asshole and shut people out. That that’s not a win. You’re not a better human being for doing that.

00;53;36;21 – 00;53;37;05

Jon Mayo

Like.

00;53;38;02 – 00;53;58;21

Kyle Lawson

Like you have not, you know, proposed any value. You’ve not gained anything by crapping on your neighbor. So correct? I don’t understand that, that mentality. I just don’t get it. And when I try to reach across to do that, like I pointed out to you, and it’s only with very few specific people, I take the time to disagree with it better.

00;53;59;00 – 00;54;33;26

Kyle Lawson

It’s because I only feel those people will gain on it because I have become emotionally drained from trying to appropriately address issues and problems from a holistically Let’s better ourselves group. With so many people that give the fuck you mentality. And I just can’t for me, bandwidth wise, I can’t do it. So I make the small positive course corrections I can and I feel like if everyone just does that, there’s there’s no way those ripples don’t start as porn ripples and become a tsunami.

00;54;33;26 – 00;54;57;20

Jon Mayo

Yeah, I got excited there for a second and to shut myself back up and listen. Uh, yes, yes. So I jotted down what I think the question that the solution we want, Right? Let’s just put into rapid practice what we’re talking about, the solution we want on a societal level. And if we agree upon that solution or the outcome, I’m sorry, the outcome, not the solution.

00;54;57;24 – 00;55;14;00

Jon Mayo

That’s what we’re working for. Then then I think we can start talking. We can have a little bit of a conversation about, well, how can we start doing on a personal level? Right. And a lot of these ideas we’ve touched on so we we can let’s really work on honing in on that depending on what you think about what I jotted down.

00;55;14;00 – 00;55;35;20

Jon Mayo

So what I drive down is what we would like to see is a shift in the narrative. So bottom line is this We want to change the culture, to focus on how to solve the problems and create positive change. And we want to change American culture in some ways back in many ways forward to how can to focusing in on the problems, how to solve them.

00;55;36;01 – 00;55;46;19

Jon Mayo

And in doing so, how can we create positive change? Is that a fair shift? Is that a fair desire? Do I say that well, or do we need to correct it?

00;55;46;29 – 00;56;06;09

Kyle Lawson

I think you worded it very well. I think the only thing I, I would say is that this is for all listeners, not just us. We fervently identify as Americans. There has been a lot of people who say X, Y, Z is not my president, not this, not that. I don’t care about that. Yeah, me as a me as a person.

00;56;06;09 – 00;56;20;06

Kyle Lawson

What I’m saying is that you live here, right? Your neighbor to your left and your right designated by this geopolitical line is here, Right? So if you want what’s best for yourself and for others, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

00;56;20;16 – 00;56;26;16

Jon Mayo

I’m going I’m going to bite on the piece of bait. You just threw out there, because I think it’s critical to our conversation. So even that we agree, we want to.

00;56;26;17 – 00;56;28;02

Kyle Lawson

I’m glad you noticed it was bait.

00;56;28;26 – 00;56;44;01

Jon Mayo

Yeah. Yeah, it’s yeah, I’m I’m just going to take that. But so just to be very clear, we agree that we want to change the narrative from in our country. This is both on how we interact as individuals and how we see our our public servants. I’m not even going to call them politicians anymore. That’s what they are.

00;56;44;10 – 00;56;50;05

Jon Mayo

But what they ought to be I’m going to speak what they ought to be into existence are public servants. We want to see.

00;56;50;05 – 00;56;51;15

Kyle Lawson

Them sent thumbs up on that.

00;56;51;24 – 00;57;14;08

Jon Mayo

Cool double thumbs up. So what? We want to see us as individuals, as neighbors, as coworkers and our public servants doing is stop attacking each other to try and belittle and win fights to have their tribe win and start focusing in on the problems, how to solve them, and create positive change together for the betterment of our country.

00;57;14;15 – 00;57;34;28

Jon Mayo

So given that we agree on that, it is antithetical to that shift to be not my president, not my, this, not my that. Nope, I fully agree with you. If you live here and you disagree, that’s fine. Engage. Work towards helping solve the problem. Work towards seeking out solutions in.

00;57;34;28 – 00;57;36;10

Kyle Lawson

A constructive way. Change.

00;57;36;15 – 00;57;36;28

Jon Mayo

Yeah.

00;57;37;10 – 00;57;39;13

Kyle Lawson

I need to pin.

00;57;39;13 – 00;57;40;28

Jon Mayo

This needle in a.

00;57;40;28 – 00;57;57;12

Kyle Lawson

Constructive way. And the reason why I’m harping on that so hard is because there are an aggressive amount of people that say, I’m working for change, but they’re working to change from the stance of you are group A, I’m group B, fuck you. And that’s wrong. That’s wrong. You are.

00;57;57;12 – 00;57;58;25

Jon Mayo

Not right.

00;57;58;25 – 00;58;16;16

Kyle Lawson

Actually working for change. You are the person that’s saying, let’s pick up all the toys with your right hand where you’re throwing a bunch of toys on the ground with your left hand. You’re not getting it done. That that way. So I want to make that delineation aggressively clear. If you’re somebody saying, oh, you know, that’s great, I agree with this.

00;58;16;16 – 00;58;38;17

Kyle Lawson

We’re doing this, you need to actually put that into practice. Correct. And sometimes that means not responding to things immediately when you’re angry or involved in a heated argument because you don’t owe anybody your time. You can wait to you have the bandwidth and the emotional and intellectual value like you spoke about when you gave yourself the hour to give an appropriate and productive response.

00;58;38;17 – 00;58;58;29

Kyle Lawson

And then if it doesn’t get there or if you don’t think you have one, you also have the freedom and hopefully emotional maturity and intelligence to leave said conversation and not because there was a slight disagreement, but because you believe there is no more value in it. And being able to draw that line in the gray is what’s going to separate, productive and helpful adults from from the not.

00;59;00;07 – 00;59;28;29

Jon Mayo

Yeah, that spot on man B We live in a time where were the values, the meaning of words, the value of what words are Linguistics is being cheapened, right? We’re living in a time where things like that are fundamentally true or being challenged and said to be untrue in words what they mean. Linguistics holistically has always mattered critically.

00;59;28;29 – 00;59;51;16

Jon Mayo

And that’s what you were just honing in on. Like you’re talking about change. It has to be constructive, right? And that’s why I like the words I wrote down. I very intentionally selective. You know, it’s the focus on what is the problem, how to solve the problem in to create positive change in the reason I put positive in there is because it may not be comfortable, but if it’s positive, it’s going to be constructive.

00;59;51;16 – 01;00;12;09

Jon Mayo

It’s going to be aimed at what? Not attacking, but at solution, right. It’s going to be aimed at the problem, not the person who has a different way of solving the problem. So like every I issue in our speech, you know, you brought up the fact you brought up how I had shared I took some time before responding to you because I didn’t trust my response.

01;00;12;11 – 01;00;44;03

Jon Mayo

First thing waking up in the morning, I want to think about it for a minute from more than just my emotional response, Right. I think that that’s a positive practice to continue in that we should encourage that more so because we need desperately to wake up and be engaged and when you do something like, say, not my president or not my country or whatever, you are at such risk.

01;00;44;16 – 01;01;12;05

Jon Mayo

You forfeit yourself, you become you completely forfeit your ability to help create a more positive environment in which to live. And then one other thing to point this, and it’s I hate it so much, and I know we both I loved serving because I saw I see a during the time in which I served. I don’t know what it’s like nowadays.

01;01;12;05 – 01;01;41;02

Jon Mayo

I know that everything’s in some level of turmoil. I appreciated how what mattered most was us accomplishing our mission, right? It didn’t matter. The person’s background and with very rare exceptions. And those were typically problems that were dealt with because it was off the the actual direction. We want to travel as an organization and there’s plenty of imperfections and and problems.

01;01;41;02 – 01;01;58;03

Jon Mayo

But at the end of the day, when you were sitting in this in this fight, working to solve any problem in the military, it didn’t matter if the person was black or brown or Asian or, you know, whatever the case might be. It didn’t matter what their religion was. It didn’t matter. It’s like, hey, can we solve this problem and how can we do it?

01;01;58;14 – 01;02;29;03

Jon Mayo

And that’s that constructive peace. If we can bring that back to the the entire civilian population, if we can have that as just Americans can foster that, it allows us to do something different. And given that we agree with the ideal, right, this idea of, okay, we want the outcome to be one where we shift the culture to one that focuses on how to solve problems and create positive change through constructive criticism.

01;02;29;03 – 01;02;53;09

Jon Mayo

Right? Oh, I bet on for extreme clarity on the point you brought in. Well, how the heck do you do that? Is Joe Schmo, you know, or as John Napier, who lives the freaking country middle nowhere you know you on the East Coast. And one thing that jumped into my mind was we need to encourage ourselves and others to start taking ownership of the decisions that they make in their lives and the things that they interacted because.

01;02;53;09 – 01;02;55;28

Kyle Lawson

Freedom of choice is not freedom of consequence.

01;02;55;28 – 01;03;15;20

Jon Mayo

It comes straight back to freedom of choice is not freedom of consequence, right? If I but there’s a level of intentionality. You have to be self-aware, and self-awareness is not something we can assume. It’s something we need to teach and encourage. So it’s like, I think that how do we do this? We start making see self-awareness. We start to make personal ownership sexy.

01;03;15;20 – 01;03;45;09

Jon Mayo

We start to make we start to glorify, you know, these things. Instead of glorifying the car, you drive, instead of glorifying the fact that you wonder some argument and you look cool and you made the other person feel like shit instead of those things. I think we can just start by rewarding people who take the time to think through their actions, to think about the consequences of their actions, who take ownership of problems and who try to make this place better.

01;03;45;09 – 01;04;00;16

Jon Mayo

And that really starts. You learn. You cut your teeth on doing that by looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, Hey, what parts of me suck? What parts me do I make me not want to look myself in the eye? And how do I start change that? And what type of person do I want to become?

01;04;00;26 – 01;04;21;06

Kyle Lawson

And what if I take away from that fact? That also comes down to who you’re looking at when you are in that kind of aspect. And I’m talking about like who? Who are your role models? You know, and I’m not I’m not saying just father and son or mother and daughter. I’m saying, who who are your friends growing up that you looked up to because of how they handled situations?

01;04;21;06 – 01;04;41;12

Kyle Lawson

Who were your career heroes, be them? You know, you know, you can point society is like this is wrong or this is right because we glorify X, Y, Z, professional athletes or celebrities that shouldn’t or this that and the other. Because and the reason why I’m being vague about it is because everyone has their own piece of what they look up to and what they aspire to.

01;04;41;26 – 01;05;08;06

Kyle Lawson

But the point is, is that whatever it is that you choose to glorify or venerate as the guidance piece there can’t be forgotten, which comes back down to that ripple effect. Now, now that whether you have kids or anything else, you know, one of the guys that works at my firm, he’s 17 and he told me about an argument he had the other day and then when he got done explaining it and being like, I just can’t understand why they think that way, I said, stop.

01;05;08;29 – 01;05;25;27

Kyle Lawson

You know, his name is his name was Evan. I said, Evan, what you’re trying to say is that you don’t understand where they think that way because you believe something else, correct? And he said, yes. And I said, Well, did you word it in the way that I just said, where? I don’t understand how you can believe that way, because I believe something else.

01;05;25;27 – 01;05;50;10

Kyle Lawson

And he goes, Well, yeah, I’m like, we you attack them, you attack that person in that person’s belief. So even if you’re following statements, well, logical, correct, you know, emotionally inviting anything under the sun, that person has already turned defensive. It’s shut down. You have now taken that ripple effect that you could have caused and essentially frozen that pond, that lake, that ocean over.

01;05;50;22 – 01;06;09;19

Kyle Lawson

You have stopped your own tsunami from forming before it even got started because of how you delivered the message. Once again, coming back to how and that positive impact, that small impact and some of that, I’m not related to anything like that. He’s not going to venerate me or look up to me, but I guarantee you he will remember that conversation.

01;06;10;04 – 01;06;28;28

Jon Mayo

What’s it to you, what you’re saying? There’s two things. I don’t want to lose him. One, we have to stop devaluing it, evaluating the small things because the small things add huge consequences, right? It’s. It’s every interaction with your kid and with your friend and with your your significant other with your coworker that creates the fabric of time.

01;06;28;28 – 01;06;51;12

Jon Mayo

That is our lives, right? That is our country. So like, I think we need to I think one of the things we need to honor, like every conversation like that. Yes, that is the exact opportunity to make positive, impactful change in our day to day, which has ripple effects that can create a tsunami like you’re referencing. And you mentioned something about this instance specifically that I think is very powerful.

01;06;52;10 – 01;07;11;27

Jon Mayo

He came up with this example of I don’t understand how they can’t like, I don’t understand how they can believe that, because I believe this. Right. You just hit the nail on the head of what the promise. I don’t understand. Correct. Did you seek to understand? Did you try to understand? Did you try to put yourself in their shoes?

01;07;11;27 – 01;07;31;15

Jon Mayo

Did you ask questions so that you could gain understanding? Because understanding something does not mean agreement. And I think that’s one of the lies that is being told, is that if you are like, if you don’t agree, then that’s good enough. And that is absolutely wrong. If you don’t agree and you don’t understand the other person’s perspective, then you do not know if you agree or not.

01;07;31;29 – 01;07;33;05

Jon Mayo

You think you don’t agree?

01;07;33;15 – 01;07;35;28

Kyle Lawson

Yeah, you’re an ostrich. Your heads in the sand. You’re not.

01;07;36;00 – 01;07;58;24

Jon Mayo

You’re you’re misguided and it’s like, seek understanding, right? If you’re in a situation. I don’t understand how you can believe that. I do not understand. It’s like, okay, the next thing out of your mouth, if you’re thinking that is I want to understand, right? Like, I think it’s a I think it’s an incredibly good thing to say. I do not understand what the heck you’re coming from, but I want to let’s keep digging because I need to understand this before I can even consider sharing what I think about it.

01;07;59;04 – 01;08;21;28

Kyle Lawson

Because and that’s you don’t see and that’s expansive on so many levels. That’s also saying, you know, somebody brings up a topic that you instinctually disagree with from your personal beliefs, but you but you also personally haven’t done any research on it. You haven’t looked into it, you haven’t become knowledgeable on said topic, whether that’s, you know, politics, medicine, personal health, whatever.

01;08;22;05 – 01;08;42;06

Kyle Lawson

You didn’t do any personal research or seek out any experts on this and you are now going to give your guttural instinctual reaction to something that could be 100% against, you know, all knowledge, all all statistics, all everything that have been proven to be true, all science. And you are choosing to do that because instinctually you think it sounds wrong.

01;08;42;17 – 01;09;04;28

Kyle Lawson

Well, to break that down to a level for people who may not be as well versed into the social science realm, the decision making part of your brain is not the same part that necessarily does lot like magic. And if anyone ever wants to Google like psychology of the sale and check out how salespeople do that, that’s exactly how that’s designed.

01;09;04;29 – 01;09;34;24

Kyle Lawson

There’s a reason why sales are still a thing so, trust me, and believe me on that, there’s a reason why that works. But the point is, is that if you haven’t done your own research, if you haven’t taken the time to better yourself to understand something before you either agree or disagree, it could be either, then you are essentially saying, you know, it doesn’t matter what actually happens, because I believe BLANK Well, that makes your opinion basically worth nothing.

01;09;35;05 – 01;09;55;28

Jon Mayo

You know that the thing that I think comes from this is people or we’re living in an infinite game, right? So some cynic has this great book that talks about the infinite game. And it’s this idea of like, how do you approach problems? Do you approach them as like a finite game or an infinite game? And this is very different from the fact that we are not we are not guaranteed more, right?

01;09;55;28 – 01;10;20;09

Jon Mayo

Like I will die. I may die today, I may die tomorrow, may die many years from now. But my life is a not going to go on forever. So that is not what I’m saying. But but when we look at something like pursuing the American ideal in trying to and fostering the cultural shift that we’re talking about, this is an infinite game in the as in it’s going to outlive us.

01;10;20;09 – 01;10;43;07

Jon Mayo

It’s going to go far beyond us and we need to stop addressing every situation we touch as if it’s the finite solution. Bear is chasing you. That’s a finite situation. You either get away or you die, right? It’s over. If you don’t get away in these conversations, it’s like, I don’t understand. Okay, So I want to seek understanding or like the example you just brought up, you hear something that your gut response is.

01;10;43;07 – 01;11;06;01

Jon Mayo

I disagree, right? I think you can still engage, but how you engage is very needs to be different and it needs to appropriately reflect the situation. So bear with me just for a second. I’m working here. I’m trying So so so what I’m what I’m thinking. Is this right? Let’s say you bring up a topic and my instinctual response.

01;11;06;01 – 01;11;24;13

Jon Mayo

I can’t think of one or I’d give an example. My instinctual response is I disagree, right? I think it’s fair for me to, but I’m uneducated on it. I think it’s fair for me to say, hey, you know, I’ve not heard about this or thought about it or don’t or I don’t know a lot about it. But, you know, this is the first time I’m having a conversation about it.

01;11;24;13 – 01;11;51;05

Jon Mayo

My initial response is, I disagree. Can you help me understand your perspective? Right. And at the end of the day, I would I think at the end of that conversation, if you can gain some, understand their perspective, pause. Right. Hold off on making judgment on what you’ve learned from their understanding and go and then do some research on your own as well, and further gain a start to make a conclusion for yourself.

01;11;51;05 – 01;12;07;05

Jon Mayo

Right. You now have the benefit of saying, Hey, here’s my gut response, but I don’t trust it because I don’t know enough about it. Can you help me understand what you think about this and why? And then you can go and do some research for yourself to kind of further fill in the picture. And then from there make a decision on how you’re going to interact on that topic moving forward.

01;12;07;21 – 01;12;24;06

Jon Mayo

Yeah, the reason I tie that to this finite versus infinite thought is if you think that every single conversation is a life and death fight that you either win or lose forever, then you’re going to engage in the manner that you’re talking about. That’s a problem. And that is like, Oh, I disagree with that. That’s my gut response.

01;12;24;06 – 01;12;53;21

Jon Mayo

That’s stupid, that’s wrong. Shut up. Right. Or how, you know, some rendition of that opposed to if you realize that this is just another bull in the journey to create something that’s better, then you have the freedom in that case to seek that understanding, create a more well informed thought, then engage in it with the correct amount of intention and ownership that you ought to as another contributing member of society.

01;12;53;21 – 01;13;01;28

Jon Mayo

I don’t know. I did some mental gymnastics. They’re working on that thought like live in real time. What do you think? Was it like that or what?

01;13;02;04 – 01;13;38;06

Kyle Lawson

No, no, no. I mean, living in real time is perfect. Let’s be honest. That’s why things have segments on TV and everything else. So it’s not let’s not get wrapped up around being perfect because, yeah, neither of you nor I will ever be perfect. Fact One thing I will say, though, is that something that I would like to hone in on that is that when you said and I believe this is, you know, not verbatim, but close to when you said, hey, I’ve now done my own research, this is what I think about this I want people listening to understand the gravity of that thought.

01;13;38;16 – 01;13;56;12

Kyle Lawson

You can research into something and look into something and maybe you don’t find everything because you’re not a world class researcher. Maybe that’s not your job. Maybe you happened to be subject to the algorithm of X, Y, z Internet search that you did, which pointed you in a certain direction. Maybe the avenue that you did your research from wasn’t from both sides of the aisle.

01;13;56;20 – 01;14;20;22

Kyle Lawson

Maybe it was, I don’t know. But the point is that if you do research, you come to a conclusion. You are not locked into thinking that way for the rest of your life benefit so much more from understanding that people discover and learn new things, whether it’s, you know, John Mayer or Kyle Larson or whether it’s just generic guy A, B or C, or whether it’s, you know.

01;14;21;04 – 01;14;22;03

Jon Mayo

The president Elon.

01;14;22;03 – 01;14;41;02

Kyle Lawson

Musk. Yeah, it does. It doesn’t matter. People grow and learn and people need to be okay with saying I once believed this, Now I believe this. You need to understand that it’s not a hit on your pride to grow and learn more. It’s actually more of a hit on your pride to only think in one direction and follow in one lane of traffic.

01;14;41;02 – 01;15;01;17

Kyle Lawson

You are you are worse off by not growing and saying, Hey, I’ve done better. Which is also part of the ultimate trap that society plays on policymakers. Because if a policymaker says this, that 30 years go by or 30 years has grown by, we’ve grown and evolved on this topic. I no longer believe this. We said this 30 years ago, You know, you’re canceled or whatever.

01;15;01;17 – 01;15;10;29

Kyle Lawson

You know what I’m saying? It it doesn’t matter the realm. You have to be able to grow and understand that it’s not a sign of weakness. It’s it’s not a loss.

01;15;11;09 – 01;15;27;05

Jon Mayo

I love I love that. And thought that jumped out real short. And then I want to I want to keep pulling on the thread that you just shared is, you know, once you research it right. And understand that it’s not going to be comprehensive more than likely, but at least you can better inform your thought. Research isn’t enough.

01;15;28;09 – 01;15;51;03

Jon Mayo

You we also need to slow down and take the time to think through things like distraction, free thinking, driving and thinking, you know, jogging, walking and thinking, sitting and thinking like it’s so easy to go to the bathroom and be on a screen like that. We’re in a position where we are so inundated with the opportunity for distraction.

01;15;51;07 – 01;16;17;20

Jon Mayo

I’m not even going to call it entertainment. And if you never actually take the chance to think, you’re just parroting half baked ideas from a hundred different perspectives without having the actual weight of the arguments that were made that you’re parroting. And there’s there’s an immense amount of value of ask the question, seek understand of how someone else sees it, do the research re self and then give yourself intentional time to determine what you actually think about it.

01;16;17;26 – 01;16;34;20

Jon Mayo

Right? So so that’s that’s one thing. And I think that’s actually a prerequisite to the point that you just that I really admire and want to pull on is we have to we have to this is another thing that’s going up on that list. I’m making a little list of the things that we can do so that when we land this thing, it’s beautiful.

01;16;35;27 – 01;17;00;29

Jon Mayo

We have to give ourselves the freedom to grow in change. That’s the entire point, right? Like if we want a culture in which we’re shifting our focus from attacking one another in mistrust to working as vocal like as collaborators in allies to create a better future in a better today, then you have to give yourself the freedom that through that compromise and through these things, we’re going to grow, we’re going to change.

01;17;01;06 – 01;17;23;19

Jon Mayo

We’re going to see things differently. Right. And I have a really good example that you provided. We referenced it when you sent me that message. I had to take a step back and really think about, okay, what I doing with this post. I shared my story and I’ve realized after reading your message that I disagreed with myself for posting it because because I realized only cried.

01;17;23;20 – 01;17;44;14

Jon Mayo

I didn’t look at it in this perspective. And this took some time. This wasn’t my gut response. That’s why I gave myself the time before responding. Right? But I realized, you know what? I don’t agree with this picture at all. I do not agree with it at all because I had not thought of it through the perspective you brought out, which is, hey, this looks like a sympathy post, freedom of choice, not freedom from consequence.

01;17;45;06 – 01;18;05;05

Jon Mayo

And when that hit me, I say, God, this does this poorly represents. What I was aiming for in sharing it, right? I saw it and thought something completely different and shared it because what I saw completely different. But when you brought that perspective and I gave myself the time to actually think about that and how it fit into what I believe and what I think and the direction of travel, I realized I thought I was wrong.

01;18;05;15 – 01;18;24;13

Jon Mayo

So I own that right. I own that. You, when we talked previously and I adjusted it and I actually said, I have a criteria of things. I have a criteria of a few questions that I have before I share anything publicly. And I added a question based on that learning, which is am I willing to stand by and defend what I share?

01;18;25;05 – 01;18;42;29

Jon Mayo

And if it if I don’t create it. And the reason I added that is because I flippantly posted that picture when I saw it and I saw a connection in my own mind and I put it out there. But you gave me a very low cost, high value lesson in that. I think through that enough. Do I actually stand with that?

01;18;43;09 – 01;19;06;18

Jon Mayo

Do I actually want this to represent me right by me sharing it? Is it actually hitting the mark that I like to have hit? And because of that question, I now in the little bit slower to action, like I’m a little bit more intentional and actually not slower action, a little bit more intentional action. The things that I’m sharing both in what I share publicly and just my thoughts in general, and that I had to give myself the freedom to change, right?

01;19;06;18 – 01;19;12;16

Jon Mayo

Not to be offended by the fact that you called me out, which and it wasn’t like you were calling me out in an aggressive was very constructive.

01;19;12;23 – 01;19;35;19

Kyle Lawson

Let’s hone in on that for a second, because I think that’s an important piece of it. What I said was not you are wrong for believing blank which is the direction a lot of people take. And I want to take a quick second to, you know, really emphasize that fact to anybody listening. And everybody listening when you are even challenged is the wrong word.

01;19;35;19 – 01;19;36;09

Kyle Lawson

When you are.

01;19;37;06 – 01;19;38;18

Jon Mayo

Introducing an idea.

01;19;38;18 – 01;20;00;08

Kyle Lawson

You are bringing bringing debate to a topic, bringing, bringing a back and forth to a topic. It it needs to be constructive because there were 100 different ways I could have worded my message to you. I could have said, That’s f and dumb for believing this. I could have said, you know, this guy is fishing for likes. That’s why he worded it that way, blah, blah, blah.

01;20;00;15 – 01;20;23;28

Kyle Lawson

But what I said was, and I think this is almost verbatim, freedom of choice isn’t freedom of consequence. When you post an ideal or a decision and then choose to hide behind your kids on it, No jab, no job. That’s you searching for an emotion in response to what you want to be as a logical argument. And those two things detract from one another.

01;20;24;06 – 01;20;32;14

Kyle Lawson

It doesn’t mean they’re not factors, it doesn’t mean they’re not important. But you can’t take an emotional response to a logical argument. It doesn’t work.

01;20;32;21 – 01;20;50;17

Jon Mayo

I’m glad I’m glad you brought that up because I was sharing what you sent me, what I synthesized. Right. The core of it, of what I received. And I’m glad that you brought it back to what you actually sent. Because you’re right. What you what you just said was the message. And it was there. There was no attacking it.

01;20;50;18 – 01;21;17;08

Jon Mayo

It was just to me, it was really a question like if we read it, it was really a question without a question mark of hate. But if you look at this, here’s my perspective of looking at this post and the points you made, and I’m sharing this with you because I you right. There was no attack in it, but I could have a response even for me when I read it initially was an attack is why I gave myself the time.

01;21;17;08 – 01;21;39;13

Jon Mayo

And then as I thought through it and I realized, holy crap, he was like, I agree more like I agree with your perspective over what I initially did. So I’m going to just that that’s powerful and I think it’s positive. I mean, dude, it’s so positive that now we’ve talked a couple of times after years of not communicating and or having this conversation that at least I’m enjoying.

01;21;39;14 – 01;21;41;27

Jon Mayo

So, you know, that’s at the end of the day.

01;21;42;00 – 01;21;45;26

Kyle Lawson

That’s a that’s a that’s a meta. There’s two of us in that column.

01;21;45;26 – 01;22;06;25

Jon Mayo

Good. So, like, we’re enjoying this conversation and like, look at the value that came from you having the courage to see something, to think about it, and then to add a constructive thought, right? A thought that was aimed at creating a positive outcome of greater intentionality or whatever your aim was. At a bare minimum, you shared you were intentional with me.

01;22;07;09 – 01;22;17;16

Jon Mayo

And then because we both happened to be fortunate enough to do that, we’re now here having had multiple conversations, holding each other’s thoughts very rekindling that bond from years past.

01;22;17;26 – 01;22;19;03

Kyle Lawson

And happier for it to.

01;22;19;14 – 01;22;39;09

Jon Mayo

Write in having greater respect for one another and just the frickin joy of spending some good quality time hanging out with a dude that we like. Like there’s no losing in this. If you let go of the pride and you give yourself the freedom to grow and change, to actually think through things and not have it be a crisis, life altering event, right?

01;22;39;15 – 01;23;00;12

Kyle Lawson

Well, yeah, but let’s also not forget that when you use the word courage to say something, people need to understand and this is everybody as a as a as a whole. I mentioned that not once, not twice, but three times. The intentionality I had was saying that to you versus just anybody. There are a lot of people that you can and will be constructive with that will not receive that in a positive light.

01;23;00;19 – 01;23;18;27

Kyle Lawson

And that’s exactly what we’ve been talking about, what we want to fix. But because that it doesn’t mean that people should take our story of how positive it was and assume that’s how it will go. There are going to be times when you make a great constructive response to someone and they are going to ram it right back down your throat because it is not a part of the exact thought process they have.

01;23;19;12 – 01;23;38;01

Kyle Lawson

And that hearkens back to one of your earlier episodes of Remember which One it Was be made a really awesome statement, very profound in my eyes about, you know, you and your neighbor watering the same lawn. And if someone is not willing to grow and expand and become a better person with you, you need to take a hard look on.

01;23;38;01 – 01;23;54;08

Kyle Lawson

Does that person really need to be in your life? And there are a lot of people who will say things like, you know, I really agree with what Kyle and Jon had said, but then I realize a lot of my circle is like that, you know, what am I going to do it from by myself? Nobody says you have to be stuck in one circle your whole life.

01;23;55;01 – 01;24;15;17

Kyle Lawson

You create your own circle. Some of it is circumstance when you’re younger and forced to be around people in high school and in certain other areas. But you create your own circle by decisions on where you want to work, who you want to spend time with, the hobbies you enjoy, and then you pick the people out of those things, those activities that you do that resonate with your circle, you create your own circle.

01;24;16;13 – 01;24;43;11

Kyle Lawson

And some people have an easier time doing that based on who they grew up with or what they’re around or any of those, you know innumerable factors, nature and nurture and all that. But at the end of the day, you choose your own circle and it doesn’t matter that you’re across the entire country and where time zones are part now, like, I mean, this circle, us being involved in the same circle even for just these conversations, will, will promote and provide so much more value for people than they realize.

01;24;43;14 – 01;24;58;06

Jon Mayo

Yeah, Yeah, that’s solid. So I think at this point realized one once you and I get warmed up, we’re the two types of dudes that, like a diesel engine, could probably keep going forever. So I think I think.

01;24;58;11 – 01;24;59;21

Kyle Lawson

I think. Be afraid to interrupt me.

01;25;00;05 – 01;25;35;20

Jon Mayo

Yeah. No, no, I mean, like, just in the comments. I mean, our conversation, like, I feel like we could probably talk for the next 5 hours, but I, for the sake of today, I want to bring back and make sure we don’t miss anything on, well, how can we do this right? So what we created in this conversation is the fact that we want to shift our culture, shift the narrative shift what is accepted, norm and glorified from attacking one another in trying to win against your neighbor and trying to make your neighbor the enemy to This is what we want to become a culture that focuses on how to solve the problems that we’re

01;25;35;20 – 01;26;01;13

Jon Mayo

interacting with and create positive change constructively. Right? So with that end state in mind, I started from as we talk to Jordan, five things that we can do as individuals today to bring that to fruition. One, we can encourage personal one, we can encourage self-awareness in personal ownership. The second thing is we need to select our heroes carefully.

01;26;02;05 – 01;26;26;17

Jon Mayo

Who are we emulating? Who would come? What is our ideal? The third thing is seek to understand and realize it’s a journey, not a destination. It’s something that’s going to change over time, but we need to keep seeking it. The fourth was Give yourself the freedom to grow right. Give yourself the freedom to grow. And then the fifth is be careful who you engage with, right?

01;26;26;17 – 01;26;42;04

Jon Mayo

Be selective, be intentional as you do that. So those are the five takeaways I had in the pursuit of how do we foster a culture that focuses on solving problems and creating positive change. Do you think we missed anything then?

01;26;42;04 – 01;27;05;18

Kyle Lawson

No, I. I think that’s great. The only caveat I would make is culture is not flipped. Like the pancake options we have. Culture is built slowly and over time and it’s much easier to tear down a culture than it is to build one. So when you, you know, hopefully everyone listening will aim to do these five things, willing to do a will understand that most likely there will be an abundance of resistance.

01;27;05;18 – 01;27;25;17

Kyle Lawson

And choosing to be the positive culture piece that you are is going to be what makes or breaks that difference. Are you willing to purposely choose to do that over and over again despite these issues? Are you Sisyphus pushing the rock or? Are you? Which is a Greek mythological reference, so I’m not going to dig into it too much.

01;27;25;17 – 01;27;54;04

Kyle Lawson

But the intent is, is that he pushes the rock up the hill every day and he’s cursed by the gods every day to start at the bottom of the hill and push it up again. Are you willing to actually foster that for the sake of the journey and the betterment of those around you as well as yourself? Or are you going to take the easy way out and decide that while this person doesn’t agree with me, even though I feel and believe they are worth the engagement because they are able to honing into these five points, I’m going to choose not to do it because it’s easier to follow something else.

01;27;55;06 – 01;28;21;05

Jon Mayo

That exact fact that this is going to take time and it’s an uphill fight is why it’s absolutely critical that you and I and every single person that listen to this has to begin taking action. Now now.