Episode 47 from The Grit Theory. 

Today Kirk and I sit back down to engage in an explorative conversation that looks at walking through large life changes, leadership, and facing yourself so that you can change what is broken. We had a blast and hope that you do also. 

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;10;02 – 00;00;35;12

Jon Mayo

Hello, everyone. Today I have the opportunity to sit back down with Kirk than ever and who is a dear friend of mine. And we enjoy an exploratory conversation that focuses on big life changes and the opportunity to see that those types of changes present in intentional reflection and being able to adjust one’s course in behavior based on that reflection.

00;00;36;00 – 00;01;02;02

Jon Mayo

We also discuss facing ourselves the good and the bad and how we can use those intentional pauses and facing ourselves to then transform who it is we are into who we want to become. So those are the two focal points of the conversation, and we do our best to explore them thoroughly. Please do note that I have stopped efforts on all other front.

00;01;02;02 – 00;01;29;01

Jon Mayo

So social media the website for some aspects of what I was doing there to focus on providing the highest quality conversations and exploration of thought that I can muster. So if you enjoy the show and you find value in these conversations and in joining me in the journey, please subscribe. Share the show and leave reviews so that we can grow it and spread the value of these conversations.

00;01;29;20 – 00;01;56;24

Jon Mayo

Thank you. Without further ado, let’s dive right on in. You have a page of thoughts, and I’ve got to imagine one or two things as we’re looking at this conceptual question of leadership and self-development and, you know, doing better than doing worse, what what is on your mind or what’s burning a hole in the proverbial pocket.

00;01;57;16 – 00;02;23;11

Kirk Van Everen

Right. Well, so for me, for me, I’m in a position in life right now where I’m very intentionally trying to extract as much as many lessons learned from the positions that I’ve been able to I’ve been lucky enough to have. You know, I’ve been all over the world in the military. I’ve held a wide array of just awesome, fun jobs, two really difficult and painful jobs.

00;02;24;05 – 00;02;47;01

Kirk Van Everen

But there’s lessons to be garnered from all of those things. And, you know, the reason why this is so important is I will be transitioning out of the military this year. I’m in uncharted territory, so I’m trying to make sure my my tool kit is filled with as many tools as possible and make sure those tools are sharp and make sure that they’re as relevant and ready to be applied to whatever my next chapter might be.

00;02;48;01 – 00;03;22;14

Kirk Van Everen

So like many people like you, you know, you can go through life and never pay attention to what you’re going through. And at the end of the day, you’re not going to learn much. Mm hmm. You know, so when you go to the next position or you encounter the next thing, you’re going to make the same mistakes. So I’m very intentionally trying to reach back and collect as many positive lessons learned, you know, because in an effort to just become the best version of myself possible, you know, I mean, a sure way to inhibit that is to not learn from anything.

00;03;22;21 – 00;03;34;26

Kirk Van Everen

So I’m trying to gather all my thoughts and trying to, you know, pull some good lessons learned there. So it’s like, okay, where did it all start? Where, you know.

00;03;34;26 – 00;03;56;22

Jon Mayo

That’s super fun. And, you know, I’ve often had actually your nice conversations are one of the reasons I was like, oh, I want to be more intentional and do this whole show thing at all because it’s a tool to force the thought and conversations and sure. And we have been it co adventures intellectually for a long time. So it’s a lot.

00;03;56;22 – 00;03;58;18

Kirk Van Everen

Of exploratory learning for sure.

00;03;58;26 – 00;04;22;16

Jon Mayo

Yeah. So I’m just so excited to be back on here and just jump into that. And, you know, I was really as I was getting warmed up and trying to get myself into Buy State of Mind because it can be difficult to be ready to jump into like practical life philosophy or trying to make philosophy that’s unhelpful, practical at four or five in the morning.

00;04;22;24 – 00;04;23;05

Jon Mayo

Right.

00;04;24;00 – 00;04;31;03

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah. And it may sound great, but, you know, we’ll see when we actually get the recording here. But all turns out.

00;04;31;19 – 00;05;13;07

Jon Mayo

There’s nothing that is actually going to help D that insight. Like, there’s no stimulant in the world that’s going to get you there. It’s a combination of things, but yet. Yet. Correct. Yeah. Foreshadowing. But, you know, I. I was really blown away, frankly. I was like, oh, did you know when you sent me the video? And it looks like there’s somewhere between, like two and five pages of thoughts associated with this, which we touched on, but like, you know, not to even walk past the importance of taking the the painful importance of taking the time at life junctions to evaluate what in the heck has happened and where in the heck do we want to

00;05;13;07 – 00;05;33;17

Jon Mayo

go based on evaluating what’s happened. Right. Sure. That’s a big deal. So that’s awesome. In it, you know, inevitably this will be part of our exploration of that for you. And a great opportunity for me to to pause. I just this last weekend I had to go pretty introspective and sure, I felt like something was getting out of alignment.

00;05;33;17 – 00;06;03;24

Jon Mayo

So I took a lot of hours over the course of like five days to figure out what it was, but it was like, no more podcasts, no more audible books, limited music, even just silence. So I could just think with that stimulus and I figured out, put it back into alignment. It was good. It was good. Essentially, I was realizing I was starting to alter my behavior to match someone else, but it was becoming less and less effective, and it also was becoming less and less of who I am.

00;06;03;24 – 00;06;25;23

Jon Mayo

So it wasn’t like this severe thing. It was this nominal misalignment or moving from alignment towards something unhealthy and not true to who I want to be in every facet of life, Right? Because I’m trying to destroy the the concept of having multiple versions of myself. Right. And and what do I mean by that? It sounds a little schizophrenic.

00;06;26;10 – 00;06;50;18

Jon Mayo

Simply. There’s a lot of people who are like, there’s home versions, right? And there’s like, Kirk, who’s with Paula, and then there’s Kirk who’s in the office, and then there’s, you know, John’s the saying, you know, I’m the same for when I’m with my family or at work or at jujitsu or what have you. And a few years ago, I started to realize that that was killing me because it was becoming too compartmentalized.

00;06;50;18 – 00;07;13;26

Jon Mayo

And there is, I think, a healthy level of compartmentalization, but it’s different than having if one person is compartmentalizing different aspects of life, to be able to be more present and live more fully. That’s different than multiple personalities is being formed to meet different stimulus in life. Right.

00;07;14;08 – 00;07;52;17

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah. Especially if one of those is not you. I like to think of my personality as a continuum, but so when I’m at work, when I’m speaking to a general, how I compose myself in the moment, briefing just the most critical bits of information being very succinct is a version of myself. And I don’t think of that as being a different person who I am with friends during a Super Bowl game where we’re drinking and having a good time and everybody is, you know, everyone’s just enjoying the camaraderie.

00;07;52;17 – 00;08;27;06

Kirk Van Everen

That’s a different version of myself, but I don’t consider it a different person. And as you as you put it, careful compartmentalization. It’s choosing which which which slice of you to present at that moment, at the time that best fits the situation. I’m I’m a just like anybody else in that sense. I think there’s a something to be said about knowing how to successfully navigate and remain agile on that spectrum and continue on to make sure you apply yourself in the right way.

00;08;27;06 – 00;08;48;11

Kirk Van Everen

So if it’s being present for your family and not being a platoon leader, speaking to your children as if they’re soldiers per say, there’s a there’s a it’s important to build a separate that navigate that. But I personally don’t think of that as being a different person. It’s just a different bandwidth of me on that on that spectrum.

00;08;48;19 – 00;09;10;14

Jon Mayo

One, that that’s a sign, I think, of health, that that’s a sign of that. I was just having a kid and I’m not doing this anymore. I think thankfully it’s been one of the things that became a focal point of like my personal journey right about four years ago was like, Oh man, I’ve gotten so good at compartmentalization.

00;09;10;27 – 00;09;46;28

Jon Mayo

I’ve been doing it so long that it’s it’s almost like there’s a split personality type of thing going on. Right? And as I was looking at it, it went back to childhood. Once the folks got divorced and I was living in two different homes and moving three times a week and, you know, there school and weird changes all the time and everything else, I became as a as a disillusioned, angry, embittered kid, you know, someone one version of myself at father’s house, another at my mother’s, another if I was at church for, you know, at school, all the all those things.

00;09;46;28 – 00;10;09;19

Jon Mayo

And they became very, very different and like to match the environment. And that was because at my core is just in chaos. So I became who I thought would best have the chance to succeed or please me, depending on the circumstances. Right. And, you know, different version of myself when I was with my friends and alone and, you know, run around people.

00;10;09;19 – 00;10;26;18

Jon Mayo

So it was just this interesting thing because I even as a kid, I call this like, yeah, I basically can put on I knew it as a tribe. I had an awareness that I was doing this. And what was crazy to me is when I talk to people, no one ever was like, no one ever thought that it may be too much, right?

00;10;27;03 – 00;11;03;10

Jon Mayo

Like that, which is in retrospect, wild because, yeah, it’s a it was a coping mechanism, but it wasn’t compartmentalization. As a child, there’s no way to know what how to do that healthily. Right? It was like a survival mechanism. So it’s interesting because that compounding over time, I do think produced on health. But what’s nice and this kind of draws in to the type of conversation we’re having is when I woke up about four years ago and realized I wanted to make some changes and there’s incongruities in my life based on where I was and that was causing sickness and problems because it was allowing me to do things I would never do depending on

00;11;03;10 – 00;11;39;23

Jon Mayo

which mode of living I was in right? I began one I knew like, Hey, I want to burn off this Deadwood concept. Like there’s 95% of me that I need to burn off so that the 5% has the chance to grow. That was real. But I also made the mistake at that time of thinking, okay, if I have to burn off 95%, that I have to kill 95% myself, that I just recently, probably the last six months, realized that was another fallacy because you want to burn off the things that are untrue, that that’s the deadwood, the things that are untrue and unhelpful in living a vibrant life need to.

00;11;39;23 – 00;11;40;11

Kirk Van Everen

Die, sure.

00;11;40;28 – 00;11;57;19

Jon Mayo

But that is very different than killing part of yourself to get there. And for a long time I was waging this war against myself to be, you know, like the old Indian quote, Every man is to wolves inside of him, the good and the bad, and which was stronger. So when you see it, like I wanted to kill the bad wolf.

00;11;57;19 – 00;12;16;06

Jon Mayo

And I came to this realization a couple of months ago, I saw this little clip and like, I was just starting to mentally grasp it. And I saw this clip that just helped snap it into place where it was showing the, like, yin and yang symbol, you know, the circle. Sure. And it was like, well, what happens if you remove the light?

00;12;16;06 – 00;12;25;14

Jon Mayo

We remove the darkness. And in either instance, if you remove one, everything becomes nothing, because they only both exist in contrast to each other.

00;12;26;03 – 00;12;57;02

Kirk Van Everen

And you know, the way to look at the two. Yeah. Is, is that the difficulty is the, the pleasant experiences you may have encountered, the failures those in so many ways contribute to who you are as a person. Are you talking about the. Yeah. You remove one of them, the other the other one wouldn’t have been there without like I know so much of how I carry myself as a person and as a leader.

00;12;58;01 – 00;13;20;18

Kirk Van Everen

This is the long, bumpy turning roundabout journey that it took to get to this point. You know, you, you. I would not be here without that other side. Every time I thought I was going in the right direction and I found that I was not. I was disappointed by that failure, but it served as an asthma check to give me pointed in the right direction.

00;13;21;05 – 00;13;32;07

Kirk Van Everen

Now, that’s just another way to look at just that fact, that balance between, you know, how you have you have right to this moment. It’s the combination of everything good and bad that’s brought you to this point.

00;13;32;22 – 00;14;07;06

Jon Mayo

Get your absolutely correct. Because even to the point like pulling on that thread, I wouldn’t change anything now. Right. It’s just kind of fun to look back and explore it. And I feel like it’s helpful for you and I right now because we’re talking. Yeah. Doing that for for the life changing season. You’re walking into like even even the things that like the monster that I became and some aspects in the atrocities that I, I feel I committed, you know, the betrayals to who I want to be and all that type of jazz.

00;14;09;00 – 00;14;29;25

Kirk Van Everen

These are strong where, John, you’re a great guy. I got to do everything I know. It’s all in the respect. I know it’s all relative, but, you know, I just you know, there’s you’re not you weren’t up. You weren’t in, like, you know, you weren’t in, you know, upper war crimes or something like this where that’s fair. But I mean, I would say.

00;14;30;05 – 00;14;30;17

Jon Mayo

Morally.

00;14;30;17 – 00;14;48;13

Kirk Van Everen

Agree. You are definitely your biggest. Yeah, but you are you are, as most people are your biggest critic for sure. You know. And if you don’t if you aren’t, then then you’re you’re going to just make a lot of mistakes and you’re you could become very detached from yourself and from others. So it’s healthy that you understand this way.

00;14;48;13 – 00;14;53;16

Jon Mayo

But there and it’s a fair correction. Atrocities is a strong word. I wasn’t.

00;14;53;22 – 00;14;54;16

Kirk Van Everen

Massacring.

00;14;55;00 – 00;14;55;24

Jon Mayo

Hundreds of people.

00;14;55;24 – 00;14;56;25

Kirk Van Everen

But yeah.

00;14;57;14 – 00;15;32;21

Jon Mayo

There’s aspects that I’ve never talked about and don’t plan on ever talking about and sure. And it’s not to dive into that or make that a big deal. But the point is, even those things that still drive me to never again be whoever it was that was capable of doing those things, which is myself right At this point, I wouldn’t even change those because the pain and the needing to face the implications of those choices sure has undoubtedly created.

00;15;32;21 – 00;15;54;17

Jon Mayo

One of the driving is an aspect of the driving force of whoever I am now. So it’s like even those things which if I was to be able to change anything, would be on that list. Now is a fuel and a motivator in a towards positive life. Giving the positive life giving version of who I want to become because it’s like, Well, that will never happen again.

00;15;54;17 – 00;16;06;01

Jon Mayo

Those how I allowed myself to be that person will never again be allowed to exist, period. And it’s become this one aspect of the fuel that drives the engine forward, you know? Yeah.

00;16;06;11 – 00;16;23;14

Kirk Van Everen

There’s a lot of there’s, there’s oh, man, there’s so much that package there John, because you, you know, you could you could even refer to this as like a moral, ethical forge. I mean, to use the analogy that you’ve mentioned before about the sword, you know, just being bludgeoned and put into the fire, that’s not just like you in the gym.

00;16;24;06 – 00;16;50;27

Kirk Van Everen

It’s not just doing reps and pull ups and a metaphor for physical exertion and like literal pain. It’s also physical or emotional mental anguish, moral and ethical battlefield that you try to navigate as a person. You know, there’s as you know, as you look at, you know, what it takes to forge that that blade at the end of it.

00;16;51;20 – 00;17;17;24

Kirk Van Everen

This is, you know, for an athlete that may just exclusively have that bandwidth or I’m up at four in the morning and I’m working harder than anybody else. But I mean, we’re as human beings where we are not perfect and, you know, another another that. Yeah, right. We you know, we are we are we are apes. We are dangerously close to just being, you know, our chimpanzee cousins by, you know, down at the genetic, you know, down to the genes there.

00;17;17;24 – 00;17;30;22

Kirk Van Everen

So, you know, to think that we are of we’ve evolved out of mistake is just an inherent mistake. To think that. Yeah. And yeah, there’s a lot there.

00;17;31;02 – 00;17;49;15

Jon Mayo

You’re right there there’s so many fun tangents. I just want to throw like some smartass quips that I’m not going to because in the line it’s fun. I love, I love getting to talk to someone who thinks people are inherently good. And it’s because I disagree. But I don’t think that means I have a dismal view of the world.

00;17;49;15 – 00;18;18;06

Jon Mayo

I just think it’s more realistic in that if you if we realize the inherent and monstrosities that we’re all capable of creating and our history steeped in, then it empowers us. It empowers us to continue to pursue the incredible that humans are also capable of, but typically don’t default to right. You remove power like you remove electricity from a country for 30 days and chaos will ensue.

00;18;18;06 – 00;18;36;10

Jon Mayo

And terrible things have the potential happening. Right. But we’ve also created the societies in which we are continuing to evolve what is required of us in life and allows us the potential of creating a more and more beautiful place. So it’s just this fun balance, you know, But super neat.

00;18;36;23 – 00;19;00;04

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah, I see where you see where you lie on the a debate whether humans are good or evil. And the Lord of the Flies concept there just, just, you know, throw, throw like, you know, throw a hatchet into the crowd and let the wolves, you know, look at the people tear themselves apart there. I think that yeah, I’m just like, oh my God, philosophical tangents in an all direction about nature versus nurture.

00;19;00;04 – 00;19;27;08

Kirk Van Everen

But just to keep things on the rails here, you know, at least in the direction of conversation here, we there’s there’s some incredible incubators. The concerted to forge the direction that you go in life. And it’s not always going to be pretty. Some of the best lessons I’ve ever learned were the hardest learned for sure. You know, And I think that, you know, just go ahead.

00;19;27;21 – 00;19;51;19

Jon Mayo

I was just going to say to the point, even the best people I know, like the truest, noblest people I know if left to their own devices without intentional guarding, can find themselves in severely compromised positions, myself included. And that’s what is the base root thing. It’s like, what’s your thing about monkeys, right? Like tribe, like, Oh, I forgot.

00;19;51;19 – 00;19;52;25

Kirk Van Everen

Tribalism.

00;19;52;25 – 00;20;16;20

Jon Mayo

I forget what they call about what they call a group, a troupe of monkeys, I think. But sure, the different groups of monkeys will go and raid and massacre other groups of monkeys territorially. And, you know, so there’s that. Well, at the same time, like, what we have is our intellect to separate us from that. The base just desires to have sex, eat and have have power.

00;20;16;22 – 00;20;24;11

Jon Mayo

Right? So it’s like the good news is we’re not just based creatures incapable of exceeding those parameters. Right.

00;20;25;07 – 00;20;34;00

Kirk Van Everen

I think I think my fiancee may sometimes think otherwise. Okay. Yeah. So it’s a big hairy ape. It sometimes. But, you know, if you move.

00;20;34;03 – 00;20;34;23

Jon Mayo

Between the two.

00;20;35;10 – 00;20;35;19

Kirk Van Everen

Right.

00;20;36;04 – 00;21;08;17

Jon Mayo

In their intentionality, I think in part is one of the things that helps us to transcend the terrible things that we’re capable of. And I think by default would fall to without the correct, without not even the correct, without positive intentional balance. I mean, even look at look at how violent, how much more violent we were and still are in some parts of the world.

00;21;08;17 – 00;21;31;26

Jon Mayo

But we’re globally 100 years ago. Right. And they just just keep putting that back like we have become a species who is capable of less violence over time but is still equally capable of the same destructive habits where you go to parts of the world that are not reaping the benefits of the advances we’ve made, societal like as as a species.

00;21;32;08 – 00;21;34;13

Jon Mayo

You know, it’s it’s just wild. It’s wild. Yeah.

00;21;35;03 – 00;22;03;20

Kirk Van Everen

I think, you know, a great way to summarize it and this is this is the end state of some deep exploratory learning discovery learning, painful learning at that two of us walk through was the you if you need to guard yourself from the things you don’t think you’re capable of because there is this misconception that you can make it through life without making some mistake.

00;22;04;04 – 00;22;35;00

Kirk Van Everen

A lot of the mistakes that are avoided are simply because they were maybe not intentionally avoided. Just the conditions didn’t put you in that position where you had to truly choose. You know, it’s like, okay, of course I would make the right decision and give the lot of $10,000 back. But have you ever had it? What if $10 just sitting there with no one around, just on the ground in front of you, where you individually in that moment, had to actually navigate the moral landscape of deciding what to do?

00;22;35;10 – 00;22;55;28

Kirk Van Everen

Everyone would love to come to the end very, very eagerly say, of course, you’d find the owner of this money. And this is just just a philosophical example here. But, you know, until put into that exact position where you have to make a decision now, this could apply to anything that could apply to, you know, just any moral or ethical dilemma.

00;22;56;13 – 00;23;22;05

Kirk Van Everen

You know, it’s it’s it’s easy to sit on the high horse or armchair quarterback when you’ve never personally had to face those circumstances or had it the conditions rigged against you to the point where you where it was almost you almost deceive yourself that that the choice is even there. It’s a fascinating mental experiment to think that because our default is to assume the best of ourselves.

00;23;23;05 – 00;23;32;19

Kirk Van Everen

But a great good and great. Yeah, a great guard to that is to assume that you are capable of doing such things.

00;23;33;08 – 00;23;35;20

Jon Mayo

Well, and I, I think that’s because we are.

00;23;36;05 – 00;23;40;16

Kirk Van Everen

And yes, the evidence that is the truth right there. Yeah, the.

00;23;40;16 – 00;24;10;11

Jon Mayo

Evidence is overwhelming. And the greatest pushback I get when talking about like I think people are naturally monsters, right, is that I think people think it’s this pessimistic, like nihilistic, ugly view of the world. But really, it’s it’s in my mind, it’s beautiful, because if we look at it realistically, it’s so much more optimistic and hope inspiring because we’re not talking about we are monsters that, you know, in everything is lost and we should have children and we should continue striving to create a brighter future.

00;24;10;11 – 00;24;39;22

Jon Mayo

Like now that that’s the furthest thing from what I’m saying. But like what you just said, the best way to guard from what we’re capable of as monsters is to accept that that is what we are, that or that is what we’re capable of, and that with the right circumstances enforced, we would be at great risk of devolving too, and not allowing the idealistic, naive perception that we are incapable of such things to set us up for failure.

00;24;39;29 – 00;24;51;21

Jon Mayo

Right? Where when the circumstances are presented, we then fall because we don’t think we’re capable or sure of. We don’t rise to our highest expectation, but we fall to our lowest level of of training or experience. Yeah.

00;24;52;06 – 00;25;11;01

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah. The last level of our training. And, you know, that’s I mean, you look at favors that prepared, right? I love that mantra because it implies that there’s so much application to life in that sense. But you know, from a moral and ethical perspective, if you approach things thinking you would just you would just never do that. No, of course, that’s just not me.

00;25;12;01 – 00;25;30;23

Kirk Van Everen

But you don’t run to the mental exercise of what it’s like to actually have to choose you. You may be surprised, and I think that opening yourself up to the fact that you that a monster is potentially still in there, there the monster is in there. My own question, the monster isn’t there. It’s you are capable of doing those things.

00;25;31;18 – 00;25;52;12

Kirk Van Everen

I think it’s more a demonstration of control, if anything. I think it’s I mean, to your point, this is this is affirmation to yourself that you are in control by leading a life where on the one hand, you know you’re capable of something and you accept that, but you choose not to. You you’ve taken the fangs out of the monster that you have.

00;25;52;24 – 00;26;01;01

Kirk Van Everen

You’ve robbed it of control of who you are and what you do. And that’s. Yeah, so I think that’s.

00;26;02;03 – 00;26;23;08

Jon Mayo

What makes that beautiful, is going like this. This connection just happened. I’m having so much fun because we’re doing exactly what we hope to do. And I think this will be a transition to a fresh topic. Also. But what makes this so beautiful is going back to the contrasting darkness. Without white light, without darkness is nothing, right? There’s nothing.

00;26;23;11 – 00;26;49;15

Jon Mayo

It’s just it’s a void. So it’s the same thing. Like what would of the good we’re capable of doing matter if we aren’t capable of of just scary things, you know, Terrible, terrible things. It’s it’s miraculous and beautiful and inspiring. The amazing things that we can create in ourselves and in our communities because it’s not the default.

00;26;50;06 – 00;27;21;25

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah. And you need that. You need the rain to appreciate sunshine. Yeah. It makes the good things. Yeah, it makes the it makes the, you know, the the moments of of generosity and human dignity that much more special and unique when you contrast it to corners of the earth that, you know, I’ve, I’ve gotten to see unfortunately in the different capacities in my job it makes those gestures of humanity that much more significant.

00;27;21;25 – 00;27;23;17

Kirk Van Everen

So and again.

00;27;24;08 – 00;27;49;11

Jon Mayo

And I do think it’s fortunate actually, that you saw that and even though painful, because without seeing them, there’s a greater risk for someone to be mistaken and lulled into a false sense of security and something that is potentially devastatingly dangerous and naive, where in seeing it could help guard them against those things. Right. And being aware that it is, in fact true.

00;27;50;02 – 00;27;54;11

Jon Mayo

But I, I don’t know. I feel like we’ve explored that beautifully.

00;27;55;03 – 00;27;59;07

Kirk Van Everen

And we could put that we could put that down there. I think that was that was that was great.

00;27;59;17 – 00;28;16;00

Jon Mayo

Yeah. I want to throw you in the hot seat, but before I do and you have no idea what that means, but I had this. It’s a simple question. I wanted to paint a picture for you of I’ve changed my environment since we started this conversation, and because we turned off the cameras.

00;28;17;10 – 00;28;18;04

Kirk Van Everen

Oh, God.

00;28;18;16 – 00;28;46;02

Jon Mayo

So I wanted to describe to you what it looks like now. I turned off all the lights, so the only light I have is from the sound spike, jumping off the soundboard, and I have the window open. So it’s like, you know, it’s it’s pre-dawn still, but the sky is starting to lighten. But it’s nice because it’s put me in a clear state just to without you across the table to just explore this stuff mentally without distractions.

00;28;46;02 – 00;28;46;18

Jon Mayo

It’s kind of fun.

00;28;47;08 – 00;28;55;16

Kirk Van Everen

Oh, no, that’s that’s a great way to channel your focus there. It’s like anything you remove certain senses and it sharpens the ones that are still in use.

00;28;56;07 – 00;28;59;07

Jon Mayo

Yeah. So I’m sitting in the dark here like a creeper and.

00;28;59;21 – 00;29;12;28

Kirk Van Everen

I imagine you like just like wearing a loincloth for no reason underneath. Whatever. You just took off in the dark because, you know, this is the return to primal State right now, but while still locked in intellectual debate right now. So this great what.

00;29;12;29 – 00;29;38;00

Jon Mayo

I did put my hood on actually because it is lacking warmth in this room. But what you as you growing like you mentioned right now you’re more heavily introspective because of some transitions. And yeah, you know, we’ve mentioned a couple pages of notes you’ve been collecting on thinking. Is anything on that? Has anything on there been standing out in greater level?

00;29;38;00 – 00;29;49;01

Jon Mayo

Like we’re kind of I’m looking at the the forge at the surgeons table right now. Like is there an idea that you’ve been wanting to explore that we could play with together from that list or not really.

00;29;49;24 – 00;30;17;28

Kirk Van Everen

Well, So there’s, there’s definitely some, some things that are from mutual shared experience that were large takeaways, but that I’ve seen as consistencies between that lower level of leadership and working in the current position of men right now. So, you know, one of the biggest things and this is just from smallest echelon, the section level up to the largest echelon of running theater level operations.

00;30;19;10 – 00;30;54;08

Kirk Van Everen

One of the things that I loved was is the impact that articulating in a unified mission can have towards contributing to one’s passion and motivation at work to bring their best to the table if they know and understand where they fit in a cog of the giant machine and they know what the machine is doing, how how vital that is to the success of the organization as a whole.

00;30;55;02 – 00;31;56;24

Kirk Van Everen

You know? So when we saw it working as a fire direction south battalion level, where, you know, for those that don’t understand what that is, it’s we were we were responsible for processing artillery missions that were sent to us and we would generate the technical firing solution and then decide which artillery unit would shoot the artillery munitions, how much to shoot and where and how and what volume of them in order to achieve the end entity, which typically was to destroy the target and it was a beautiful leadership laboratory for you and me leading that section and I couldn’t help but think about how how impactful and effective it was when we were able to

00;31;56;24 – 00;32;21;09

Kirk Van Everen

convey to the subordinates that we were in charge of what exactly we were doing and why it was important that why being the big emphasis, because they came to work every day wanting to be masters of their craft. And, you know, while this is just a small example of it, that same exact dynamic exists at the highest levels as well.

00;32;22;08 – 00;32;40;28

Kirk Van Everen

So, you know, just as a just as a side, you know, just a side like, you know, tale, if you will. We were talking about this the other day, you know, and I don’t even know if this is true. And I think I may have heard this on a podcast also recently, but it resonate with me big time.

00;32;41;18 – 00;33;08;26

Kirk Van Everen

You know, President Kennedy was at some point touring the nascent space center, as they were, you know, in the first stages of building the manned lunar program that the Apollo missions to send manned to the moon for the first time. Right. And he stopped to talk to this janitor super late, the awesome President Kennedy. This janitor asked him, why are you working so late?

00;33;09;24 – 00;33;47;13

Kirk Van Everen

And he replied that he’s helping to put a man on the moon. And it just underscores the vital importance it is for everyone at all levels, down to the smallest job, up to the most important job, with an understanding, a unified understanding of how they fit into the framework and scaffolding of what what would eventually contribute to be one of the greatest feats of mankind, where each person contribute in their own small way towards one ultimate goal.

00;33;48;16 – 00;34;29;13

Kirk Van Everen

So I think that that sat with me big time because I don’t know what my next job will be. But, you know, seeing in both ends of the spectrum just how vital it is and know, of course, at the at the, you know, the United States Army, Europe and Africa level, where we had the four star headquarters looking at Google Earth level images where you’re just you know, you’re talking about geopolitical balance and and projection of power, where you’re putting certain munitions systems and how far you can range targets and what to destroy in the event of hypothetical scenarios.

00;34;30;17 – 00;35;00;27

Kirk Van Everen

You know, it’s still it’s still wrong. Just this true understanding what our mission was, what our unifying objective was. And on a personal level, I had to think about how that affected my motivation and my passion to do what I do. You know, because you come to work, then with not just whatever motivation you can drum up in the moment, but you come into work passionate about what you do.

00;35;02;01 – 00;35;26;05

Kirk Van Everen

Because if you’re, you know, this is a great topic to dig into as well. But like, you know, the relationship between motivation and passion is is this huge motivation is is almost it’s not too far from emotion. It can be fleeting. It could be disappearing. It could be dramatically fake. Yeah, but if you have passion first, the motivation comes for you.

00;35;26;05 – 00;35;27;19

Kirk Van Everen

You have to work to have that.

00;35;27;19 – 00;35;56;00

Jon Mayo

So let’s pause because before motivation and passion and drive and just needing to find those words. Yeah, you already dropped a lot. But I do agree and think that it’s important to be be part of something bigger than oneself. Right. That’s that’s a lot of what we’re talking about. And then being part of something bigger than oneself becomes a tool that in a leadership opportunity or position someone can utilize to inspire action.

00;35;56;17 – 00;35;57;02

Kirk Van Everen

Yes.

00;35;57;02 – 00;36;21;11

Jon Mayo

And create a culture. And even more so, it was not even more so additional to that. It’s also a tool that we as individuals, I think can use for self-development and the reason I think it matters to be part of a bigger picture is because understanding the why or being in of the why or what have you believing in the why.

00;36;22;00 – 00;36;45;17

Jon Mayo

It doesn’t influence what you do so much as how you do it. Yes. And how you understand the why is that That bigger promise will directly influence how you do things. You know, if part of your why is to do something with excellence, it’s going to influence how you’re doing the same things you could do poorly, right as you strive to do them excellently.

00;36;45;28 – 00;36;46;15

Kirk Van Everen

So yeah.

00;36;46;22 – 00;37;10;28

Jon Mayo

And that’s where it becomes more of a tool. But but here’s an idea to to bring this to the personal. I’ve been thinking about this especially before, you know, some of the life changes of the last couple months. But I was sitting in the same room I’m sitting in now, you know, trying to create value at a job and succeeding at creating more value other places just because there is not much to be requested of me.

00;37;11;29 – 00;37;53;08

Jon Mayo

Okay. And that was like an echo of I guess not a negative echo chamber is a silent chamber. To think for about eight months with less, you know, returning stimulus. And one of the things that I’ve been developing, especially as I’ve changed up the circumstances and now I’m interacting with people pretty heavily, like a lot of people pretty heavily is we’re all whether we think so or not, beliefs or not, how we spend our lives influences humanity and because like the human experience, right.

00;37;53;09 – 00;38;26;19

Jon Mayo

Every person’s life affects the the overarching human experience in one way or another, though it may be incredibly menu or impossible to see. And sometimes it’s not even one human life. Like if you live a life of low impact, then it’s a billion people living a life of low impact that just sustains the environment to allow those who choose to live a life of higher impact, to help influence things, to raise us as a species into a higher level of existence.

00;38;26;27 – 00;38;54;08

Jon Mayo

Right? Sure. Higher level living. So the cool thing on that to to try and hone in the thought and not have too many potential on and helpful tangents is even as one person, if I choose to focus on my fixing myself and becoming the best version of myself, then that spreads into being able to better serve from a position of abundance.

00;38;54;08 – 00;39;06;13

Jon Mayo

My family, which then positions us to better serve and influence a positive trajectory in our community, which then can continue to ripple at whatever level.

00;39;06;13 – 00;39;07;22

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah.

00;39;08;09 – 00;39;32;26

Jon Mayo

You know, so we’re all part of the same group and changes and the more positive momentum we can create, the more we can get the Elon Musk’s of the world and so forth, the Albert Einstein’s, the Martin Luther King’s, the opportunities to make the bigger changes to help shift our trajectory. But we can fuel that in a hundred ways, in many ways in which we’ll never even understand.

00;39;32;29 – 00;39;59;08

Jon Mayo

Right. Because who knows what an action sets off in a chain of events. But we’re all part of this experience in the ultimate trajectory of our of our species. And that’s a lot to try to wrap my mind around. But if we bring it back down to just the three levels of self, family and community, then automatically we’re part of something bigger than ourselves that we owe this version of ourselves to.

00;39;59;09 – 00;40;30;21

Jon Mayo

And that is what it can in many cases inspire action. Even if you’re depressed, unhappy, lonely. It’s sitting in a chair in an apartment somewhere miserable, right? Well, you are part of something bigger than yourself. And the fact that you feel isolated is not proving the truth of that, but it’s a testament. It’s a testament against the systems and lifestyle you’ve allowed yourself to create.

00;40;31;01 – 00;40;41;01

Jon Mayo

And there’s hope in that. And that hope is that it can be changed and that you can tap into that larger system by working on yourself, you know, So. So anyways.

00;40;41;02 – 00;40;41;14

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah.

00;40;41;24 – 00;40;56;05

Jon Mayo

To not circle anything, I won’t repeat anything. It’s an interesting thing because you can bring it back to the individual and then yes, that thought can be applied to all sorts of teams and companies and organizations. But what do you think?

00;40;57;01 – 00;41;22;27

Kirk Van Everen

Well, so I mean, I definitely agree that your you don’t need to look very far to to find that larger level objective, that that greater purpose. You don’t have to look very far, like you said, being a better person so that you can be a better member of your family, to be a better husband, to be a better father, to be a better member of your community.

00;41;22;27 – 00;41;42;25

Kirk Van Everen

You don’t have to look very far in seeing the second and third order effects of your actions. So it puts the onus on you as an individual to make sure that if you are going to have a sphere of influence, what what kind of influence you having on the people around you, because you do have influence, you know, in a little ways that you don’t even know.

00;41;43;11 – 00;42;03;03

Kirk Van Everen

And even if you’re not in a leadership position, I mean, because if you are a leadership position, despite the spotlight on you, it really does really matter. You do have to lead from the front and by example. So, you know, your sphere of influence is more obvious. You can you can see a direct correlation between the mentality and the culture that you cultivate.

00;42;03;06 – 00;42;37;05

Kirk Van Everen

You, you know, in that way you kind of reap what you sow. And the effect has that is immediate on the people around you. But if you’re not in a position of leadership and you’re you’re listening to this, you don’t have to look further beyond yourself as a starting point at all to start building that foundation so that when you do find yourself in a position to have influence, another person, which could be your your brother, your mother, your father, your your children, your coworkers, your work, you know, and then eventually your community and anybody else that you’re entrusted to lead.

00;42;38;09 – 00;43;01;05

Kirk Van Everen

So, you know, you could start there and then and then it’s time your, you know, what you bring to the table will be more refined, will be more developed, will be growth. And intentionality. Because if the effort you put into it to better yourself and when you know one way or another so.

00;43;02;04 – 00;43;23;20

Jon Mayo

Well yeah and I do agree. So I don’t disagree with the premise of like well if you’re in a leadership position, then obviously that the correlation and what you can see is much higher like true. But I do think we all have responsibilities to be leaders, even if it and all of us, it starts with leading ourselves right live essentially and doing that hard work.

00;43;24;02 – 00;43;52;20

Jon Mayo

And then as your capacity grows, your responsibility often follows suit. Right? Because if you if you take some of these miserable and doing like a low end job and they hate their life and they start to put their life in better order and improve their existence by facing the things that make their life hell right, that over time, as your life improves, they’re probably surrounded by people who are potentially in similar position.

00;43;52;20 – 00;44;16;25

Jon Mayo

So they’re either being dragged back into it or they’re the ones influencing positive change. They’re either perpetuating the problem or creating positive change or tension in between the two. And like it becomes, who do you want to be? Do you want to be the one who’s going against that? The negative in the pursuit of the possible, in the positive?

00;44;17;05 – 00;44;31;20

Jon Mayo

Or do you want to be the one that’s just trapped and perpetuating the problem and, you know, it’s not that easy. It’s not that coyly easy, though, just like it is. And it’s not.

00;44;33;11 – 00;44;54;11

Kirk Van Everen

I mean, you’re on a journey right now. I mean, somebody who puts tremendous effort every day towards investment in yourself, mentally, physically, emotionally, all the different spheres of influence that you have. I mean, one could say that you put more effort in than a large percentage of people, and you will never state that. You’ve got to figure it out.

00;44;54;26 – 00;45;04;00

Kirk Van Everen

You’ll never say that because you in a continuous state of improvement. But it’s not to discourage people, but it’s it’s, you know what?

00;45;04;00 – 00;45;27;28

Jon Mayo

It’s more encouraging the journey that you did. But here’s I was able to figure out what I was trying to say a second ago. The great the difficult thing is getting people to stop believing the lie. And the lie is that it’s not easy to begin to take control of your life and change it for the positive and find yourself in greater levels of influencing positive change and existing.

00;45;28;21 – 00;45;55;29

Jon Mayo

The lie is that’s not that easy. And the difficult thing is getting people to stop believing that stupid lie because it’s a lie. It’s not true. It is that easy to simply snap your fingers and choose to begin to take the incremental steps to change the systems that rule your life, to change the habits that are you towards something that is what you want to be.

00;45;56;09 – 00;46;24;25

Jon Mayo

You know it like even if it’s to start walking 10 minutes a day, right? And to do that, say for 30 days. So it’s not infinite to make that single choice and that small thing. Maybe it’s just putting on your running shoes, right? It doesn’t have to be big, but you make the choice. If I’m not going to live this way anymore, in one of the ways I’m going to climb out of it is by putting on my running shoes every morning or walking 10 minutes every day, or I’m going to tell the truth.

00;46;24;25 – 00;46;47;01

Jon Mayo

And if I find that a lie, I’m going to go and own it to make that choice, that I’m not going to live this way anymore, in which I allow myself to lie or I’m going to keep putting off forever, becoming a healthier version of myself or what have you that it is as simple as making the choice and then acting on it in The lie is that it’s not that simple.

00;46;47;09 – 00;47;00;29

Jon Mayo

And the hard thing is to get people to believe the truth and to then act on it. Right? And that’s where it’s interesting, because everyone who does act on it realizes how simple it was in wishes they did earlier. You know.

00;47;01;02 – 00;47;28;03

Kirk Van Everen

Sort of this reminds me of a I don’t mean to cut you off there. It just reminds me an interesting moment in my life that I had. I was I was in my second year at West Point. I got really sick and I was sick for probably a month. I had what they thought was meningitis. At one point they did do a spinal tap where they extract spinal fluid from the base of your spine.

00;47;28;03 – 00;47;51;28

Kirk Van Everen

And then they tested to see if, you know, if it’s meningitis. However, what this did is it put a little hole in the base of my spine and my spine was leaking spinal fluid. So your brain, you are very sensitive to fluctuations in spinal fluid. And what this results in the ending result for me is that I couldn’t sit upright without overwhelming nausea, where I within 30 seconds, I would immediately start to vomit.

00;47;52;18 – 00;48;24;02

Kirk Van Everen

So not surprisingly, this impacted my ability to take tests, sit through just class in general. And I did my head on my table. I looked ridiculous. And, you know, and, you know, in addition to my performance in my in the classroom, everything else essentially tanked. It dragged down my mental my my attitude towards things was very well, I wouldn’t say depressed, but it was it was it was not it was not walking on sunshine, if you will.

00;48;24;18 – 00;48;47;24

Kirk Van Everen

And it the amount of areas of my life that it affected was was way more widespread than I had expected. And I remember getting to this point where I had I had to just I had to stop, identify the things that I was not happy with in my life. And then I sat down and I took a little notebook paper.

00;48;47;24 – 00;49;16;19

Kirk Van Everen

I spent about 2 hours and I labeled from A to Z everything that I wasn’t happy with in my life. And then on the back of that packet, that little pamphlet I wrote, the corresponding just easy fix solution. It was just that first step. It wasn’t the complete playbook of how I was going to claw myself out of every problem, but it was the starting point and I went in as a Z or a one, you know, or A, and then there’d be a solution.

00;49;16;19 – 00;49;50;13

Kirk Van Everen

There would be a corresponding right problem, solution, problem, solution. If I went from A to Z to solution to a problem, or at least a starting point for a solution to the problem. And I stable B sheets of paper. And I walked around with this in my pocket for I think two or three months. And if I was ever in question, I pulled it out and looked at it and it was just this, you know, it was this compass check to make sure it was simple things like I I’m not happy with how I interact with people.

00;49;50;16 – 00;50;10;24

Kirk Van Everen

I’m a very sociable, upbeat, very bubbly person. But I had let my mind drag me down so much with what was going on medically with me that I was over. I was I was passing over opportunities to say hi to people, to smile, to just the way I carried myself. I was just not the same person. So I’m not kidding.

00;50;10;24 – 00;50;36;00

Kirk Van Everen

I walked out of my door and I ran into one of my classmates and she said Hi, and I just smiled. And I said, Hi, how are you doing? And that that effortless, small step in that direction was solution C to problem C, And I’m not even joking. She immediately said, Wow, you’re in a good mood and then she just kept walking.

00;50;37;13 – 00;51;15;22

Kirk Van Everen

And the effect of just taking that first step was was so impactful. I still have stapled sheet of paper. I kept it in my locker a little like lockbox that I had when I was a cadet. I still have this. It’s just it represented just to me that the power of of of introspective thought and and as a stark reminder of the ease of taking that first step and the necessity of self care to get yourself right so that you can give to others.

00;51;17;00 – 00;51;24;06

Kirk Van Everen

So yeah, sorry, I don’t mean to like derail that, but that that just brought up a very good memory for me. And now I’m glad we could dive into that.

00;51;24;24 – 00;51;48;09

Jon Mayo

Yeah, I think it furthers it, not derails it because and what’s so interesting about that solution, right, that the tool you made is being sick caused you to begin to act in ways that were not true to who you wanted to be. Right. Or, you know, the memory of how you were happy before your being sick and what actions that you participated in.

00;51;48;15 – 00;52;13;07

Jon Mayo

Right. So your solution when you got tired of of the change was to face in list out the problem. Right. And yes during that is so important and that’s the most critical thing you have to face the the you said Echelon what I’m saying monster lot. So I’m trying to think of a different word. You have to face whatever the problem is.

00;52;13;24 – 00;52;14;29

Kirk Van Everen

Because acknowledge it.

00;52;14;29 – 00;52;15;22

Jon Mayo

Better. Yeah.

00;52;15;27 – 00;52;16;08

Kirk Van Everen

Yes.

00;52;16;22 – 00;52;46;11

Jon Mayo

The it’s the old concept of whatever’s in the way becomes the way you must face it. You must. And what’s great is you listed out the things that were making your life more and more like health, right? More and more miserable. And once you did that, you had the clarity to at least see with the first, maybe sometimes infinitely small step would be to over time, pull yourself out of that place of unhappiness and discontent and misery.

00;52;47;01 – 00;53;03;04

Jon Mayo

And it was as simple as I’m a social person. My pain has caused me to become unsocial. All I will do is smile and give a greeting of the day, because that is more true and who I am and who I want to be. And therefore I’m going to do it. And boom, you’re starting to correct the myriad of things.

00;53;03;08 – 00;53;26;03

Jon Mayo

The other thing that’s really interesting about that is you didn’t just face the problems. You didn’t have to create a comprehensive solution to perfect, like you said, there’s maybe the smallest first step. But the other thing also that’s super interesting is by the time you’ve inspired to sit down and do this, you have like an alphabet long list of things that need action.

00;53;26;17 – 00;53;27;02

Kirk Van Everen

Oh, yeah.

00;53;28;18 – 00;53;49;14

Jon Mayo

I think it’s true for most people. Like it’s an intentional habit. The first time I received the reward of it was actually this last week, and that moment I spoke about where it’s like something’s coming out of alignment, I need to address it. And it turned out to be a very small thing. It took me a long time to figure it out, which in hindsight I was like, Man, this is annoying.

00;53;49;17 – 00;54;15;27

Jon Mayo

It’s taken me days to figure out what’s out of alignment, what the heck. But in hindsight I’m realizing, holy crap, this is amazing because I became enough of a small misalignment incongruence in my behavior that it was troubling me that it triggered this response to find one one isolated behavioral change that I needed to change, that I needed to fix and reconnect one.

00;54;16;00 – 00;54;19;24

Jon Mayo

Yeah, And how cool is that? Like there is time to get more.

00;54;19;24 – 00;54;41;12

Kirk Van Everen

But yeah, I mean, it could just be that like festering splinter just under the skin, metaphorically speaking. It could be just that simple, but it festers until you draw attention to it. And it also, when you face the problem, you’re also uniquely putting yourself in a position to see the left and right limits of what the problem is.

00;54;41;24 – 00;55;03;23

Kirk Van Everen

And I see a consistency through my life that I have noticed that is also comforting to me is that the problem is rarely as bad as you initially think it is. There’s a psychological element to how you face these problems because the fear of addressing the problem is oftentimes puts you through more stress than just fixing the problem itself.

00;55;03;24 – 00;55;19;14

Kirk Van Everen

Almost inevitably, it’s like just sitting there and you’re looking at an email that you don’t want to open and you put yourself through more dread, just staring at the email, not wanting to address the problem. And this is just I mean, this is like a literal thing. I do this sometimes in a way. Just open the damn email like and you open it.

00;55;19;14 – 00;55;50;13

Kirk Van Everen

And 99% of the time it’s like, okay, that was not nearly as bad as I was expecting. Or, you know, you have the problem. You’re like, Oh my God, this could take me all day. But then you dig into it, you face it head on, and it’s like, okay, this is this is very manageable. So addressing those personal problems, you know, and just a full circle back to you’re saying to this lie that you’re trying to deconstruct and tear down, that there’s the you don’t have to have the whole thing figured out.

00;55;51;15 – 00;56;08;06

Kirk Van Everen

You can, but you could you can do it. I love to approach it from this mentality. I don’t know how I’m going to solve this problem yet. I always try to pair that last part with it. I always try to say yes, because there is a there is an optimistic tone to the way that you’re approaching the problem.

00;56;08;22 – 00;56;32;04

Kirk Van Everen

You are it’s your give your your tipping the cap to your own confidence that you’re going to get to the other side. Right. And it’s and it’s oftentimes that’s all it takes for you to take that first step, which is oftentimes very simplistic in its nature. Just that first step is very simple. It could be, just like I said, walking out the door and just smiling and say hi to somebody.

00;56;32;16 – 00;56;52;11

Kirk Van Everen

It’s so true. It puts you on the path to to improving your overall outlook on life, your perspective on how you’re dealing with things. I, I, I’ve restrained myself from from reacting negatively to bad news. That was I mean, the list is I mean, if I if I wasn’t going to lose signal and run upstairs, I’d actually go get them.

00;56;52;16 – 00;57;05;29

Kirk Van Everen

It’s actually upstairs. But it was very cool just to just to take the you know, take the fangs out of this, like, big scary problem. It’s like, okay, that’s very manageable for step. Okay? It’s also good.

00;57;06;14 – 00;57;45;06

Jon Mayo

Because when you have, you know, 26 things better prom and they’re not identified, you just have chaos. So, yeah, yeah. You don’t even have anything to fight in. One of the things that’s neat that I think clarifies the thread we’re pulling on also is all these responses become the responses we can condition and get better at, right? That’s where it’s like, yes, if you neglect this work for a while, this work being the intentional living to improve on one’s existence, it means if you neglect it, then when you do sit back down to the table to do the work, it’s going to be a longer list.

00;57;45;25 – 00;57;46;07

Kirk Van Everen

Yes.

00;57;46;21 – 00;57;52;15

Jon Mayo

And sometimes you may just air because we’re human and it may be a longer list than you want, even though you’re trying to be intentional.

00;57;53;00 – 00;57;53;27

Kirk Van Everen

Sure.

00;57;53;27 – 00;58;13;00

Jon Mayo

I think like the overarching amount of data points when you need to do this, if you’re intentionally pursuing being better at it is the list will be smaller each each time you have to do like a reset, right? Because it’s like, yeah, I was 26 times the first time I learned to do this, which is amazing. And now it’s like this last week for me.

00;58;13;00 – 00;58;40;02

Jon Mayo

It turned out to be one thing that was affecting a couple of things. It was one one small behavior change put me back in alignment and you know, that’s cool. And the next time it may be three or ten or who knows, But I do think that the more conditioned we become to intentionally weeding that garden, if you will, to stay moving in the direction you want to towards that like true north perhaps whatever that is the the the easier it becomes.

00;58;40;09 – 00;59;12;28

Jon Mayo

There’s two thoughts I want to throw out real quick. One is this last week I’ve come across a number of different data points talking about how those who we perceive as highly disciplined are not exercising a lot of discipline they’ve actually created. They did at one point and they do on some level. So it’s no discredit to them, but they’ve created a habit loop, a system that encourages a normalizes the behaviors that at first took tremendous discipline.

00;59;13;20 – 00;59;25;24

Jon Mayo

Right? So like, for example, a fun one would be like Jocko Willink. It requires less discipline for him to wake up at four every day because it’s become a part of his identity, right? And because it’s it’s part of all these things, too.

00;59;25;24 – 00;59;26;22

Kirk Van Everen

He is who he is.

00;59;27;07 – 00;59;51;21

Jon Mayo

Correct. And what you just said hits the nail on the head who we are. It’s we’re infinitely more motivated to act in line with who we believe we are than what we think we want to do. So, like, if I’m I think from atomic habits, I got this idea specifically, but it’s like if you want to quit smoking, you don’t say, Oh, I’m quitting smoking because then in your mind, you’re a smoker who’s trying to stop.

00;59;52;21 – 01;00;19;10

Jon Mayo

If instead you just change the words to, Oh, I don’t smoke, or I’m not a smoker. When someone offers and you’re trying to quit smoking, it changes the narrative strongly and in the same capacity that that just goes into all this, this changes stuff. The other idea that I think that your list gives us a really good, solid starting point on is this concept of notion versus action.

01;00;20;02 – 01;00;43;00

Jon Mayo

And when tackling the lie of it’s not that easy, right? Because that’s the lie. It is that easy. We just have to act when tackling that motion is such a deceitful son of a gun compared to action. What I mean by that, simply to to bring clarity to what the heck’s the difference? Let’s say we have a desire to get in better shape.

01;00;43;12 – 01;01;05;04

Jon Mayo

Just a real simple version of the bill. Right? I’m fat. I want yeah, I’m unhappy with my physique. I breathe hard going up the stairs. I’m carrying an extra pounds or an extra couple of thousand pounds, what have you. Doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant. And I’m unhappy. So Motion is I’m going to start researching which gym to go to, what equipment I can buy motion is.

01;01;05;04 – 01;01;23;28

Jon Mayo

I’m going to read books on getting in better shape. Motion is. I’m going to think of what do all these things action is. I’m going to put my shoes on or walk for 10 minutes. And the difference is motion makes you feel better because it makes you it makes you feel like you’re addressing the problem. But but it’s it’s not.

01;01;23;28 – 01;01;52;23

Jon Mayo

It’s just like running your wheels in the mud, but not moving anywhere. Action. Even though infinitely small potentially, to start smiling and saying hi inspired, you know, inspires and encourages the genuine change so action can be fueled and informed by that motion, by that research and everything else. But even yesterday, to land this real quick or to try not to dominate conversation.

01;01;52;23 – 01;02;09;02

Jon Mayo

Oh, goodness, excuse me. Even yesterday I was having a conversation with someone who wanted to start a contract with themselves, a 30 day contract to start moving again. They’re not out of they’re not out of weight, but they’re out of shape. They feel like they’re petrified. Right. They feel like they’re getting weaker and more brittle, less limber and flexible.

01;02;09;16 – 01;02;27;14

Jon Mayo

So they want to they wanted to do a 30 day contract focused on getting back some of that just range of motion and in overall well-being. And we’ve been talking about it now for two weeks and they’re like, Yep, I really want to do it. And yes, sure, as a car, I mean, we’ve been talking like it’s come up in conversation for two weeks.

01;02;27;14 – 01;02;54;15

Jon Mayo

We want to do this and how you’re thinking about what you want to do. This is a lot of motion getting you to, you know, and all you have to do is literally walk for 10 minutes. He’s like, Yeah, but you do a lot more than 10 minutes and I don’t want to let you down. And oh, dude, we have this guy named Darren at, at Barnett where I work who just got first place in the Appalachian Ultramarathon.

01;02;54;21 – 01;03;10;06

Jon Mayo

He did 115 miles for first place out of everyone for one of the first 150 miles. He’s going to be on. We’re going to sit down and talk in the next week or two. Oh, nice. Yeah. So that’s that’s kind of exciting. But, you know, he mentioned him and me doing a lot is like, whoa, I don’t want to let you guys down.

01;03;10;06 – 01;03;22;27

Jon Mayo

It’s like, who gives a crap? No, What? What does that matter? What matters is putting action towards who you want to become. Yeah. Is it enough compared to someone else? That doesn’t matter. Are you like, are you even walking 10 minutes a day right now?

01;03;23;10 – 01;03;40;18

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah. Well, here’s. Yeah, this is this is a perfectly You hit the nail on the head for what you use all the time. Compare yourself to who you are yesterday. Correct. Don’t compare yourself to like oh my God. But I can’t run 115 miles an hour, which is extremely impressive. Yeah, more than I could ever do.

01;03;41;03 – 01;03;42;21

Jon Mayo

I could ever do, but could do now.

01;03;42;21 – 01;04;06;16

Kirk Van Everen

Certainly could. You could now. Yeah. Just to preface, I like I’m in need of a fourth knee surgery, right? Yeah, but yes, yes. Yet I can’t do it yet. I don’t know how to do it yet but the but yeah. You’re seeing that there’s comparing themselves, you know. I mean did you walk you walked 10 minutes today. Did you walk 2 minutes yesterday.

01;04;06;16 – 01;04;23;28

Kirk Van Everen

No. That is literally walking in the right direction you know upon attended there so yeah. I mean and you know at its most extreme example you could just say that’s it’s there’s there’s actually to tie this this tiny bit further and there’s walkers and then there’s talkers. Oh look at that.

01;04;24;08 – 01;04;27;23

Jon Mayo

Motionless action And just to give credit where credit’s due, the the of.

01;04;27;23 – 01;04;28;04

Kirk Van Everen

Course.

01;04;28;10 – 01;04;49;01

Jon Mayo

The person who best create or I think most popular coined it compare yourself to who you were yesterday. Not anyone else was. That was Jordan Peterson. So that was not an original thought. I can’t take ownership. I can’t own that. And I wouldn’t want to because he did the hard work to to put it so, so clearly. But it is interesting, right?

01;04;49;01 – 01;05;08;08

Jon Mayo

There’s walkers. There’s talkers. And, you know, I was talking with someone else. I saw them researching gym equipment and we’d been talking for a while in this person is working, you know, like on self esteem and other things and wants to get better shape as a tool. Sure. To come out of that. And so they’re doing all this research, right?

01;05;08;09 – 01;05;25;25

Jon Mayo

All this that makes you feel better but doesn’t get you anywhere. And it was the same type of thought was like, have you even done a walk? Right? Like, have you even have you started any action? Right? Have you even put your running shoes on each? Have you done anything? And if it’s just the research, right, it’s just another cue.

01;05;25;25 – 01;05;45;15

Jon Mayo

I’m seeing this thread right now and we’re discovering this thing of like, Oh my goodness, this needs to trigger in conversation for me and in winner in my own behavior. If I’m wanting to change something and I’m going to Google it, I need to stop and write down. Become more next to becoming less sociable, say hi and smile and then do right.

01;05;45;20 – 01;05;58;12

Jon Mayo

And then when I’m doing something, only then let myself do all the research and the things like that and and go from motion to action. Go from talking to walking. Right. Because then we’re actually moving the needle becoming. Well there’s.

01;05;58;13 – 01;06;23;09

Kirk Van Everen

There’s, there’s a accountability aspect to that. Yeah. I mean that’s, that’s why I carry around this list with me is because I didn’t want this to be just me, you know, putting myself in the back for the first 5 seconds of yes, I’m going to I’m going to make things better. I’m going to solve my problems and then forget the, you know, 2 hours of introspective thought that turned into this list of solutions to my problems.

01;06;24;01 – 01;06;51;26

Kirk Van Everen

It’s very easy to hear about all this great advice for you. Listen to a fantastic speech or whatever. But whether you inculcate that or not and apply that and then put it into action, it’s just words. It’s just it’s just in one ear and out the other. And it may as well be right, if you unless you’re taking this great advice or or adhering to that or actually putting into action the solutions to your problems, then you’re just going to continue to spin your wheels and it’s just going to be a lot of emotion.

01;06;52;19 – 01;07;22;22

Kirk Van Everen

So taking this around with me was my accountability check to make sure that when presented with this scenario, I would do X and I was very rigid with it. I did not break from that for a while because I was so unhappy with where I had fallen. And you know, in relation to where I wanted to be, that I was willing to basically do whatever needs to be done right there in the moment did.

01;07;23;02 – 01;07;37;27

Kirk Van Everen

That’s not to say that you need to wait till you get to that point where you’re in a point of desperation. But I mean, I sure as heck, like, I didn’t trust the fact that I would just magically just start doing everything correctly. It’s just not realistic. It’s a total.

01;07;37;27 – 01;08;01;02

Jon Mayo

Sum. It’s a total sum game. And yeah, I can’t wait to we’re doing this in person because we’ll step on each other much less. But it’s a it’s a total sum game and that’s one of the 75,000 reasons I can’t wait to do this person. But it’s a it’s all encompassing, right? I think we’re too good at justifying mediocrity and lack of action as acceptable.

01;08;01;15 – 01;08;25;15

Jon Mayo

And it’s wrong if we’re doing something that not cause like if we allow ourselves to not smile and say hi, we are allowing ourselves to die and become less of what? Less than who we want to be, which is perpetuating and bringing on our hell. Right? It’s a little bit of a slippery slope argument, but if we are our habits, if we are our daily actions, then then it’s not.

01;08;25;24 – 01;08;45;10

Jon Mayo

It’s just it’s delayed. It’s delayed stimulus, right? You may have to wait six months to see what that small change does you may have to wait a month or what have you. And 11. of clarity, you sitting down for 2 hours and putting together list in my mind is action, not motion.

01;08;45;23 – 01;08;54;09

Kirk Van Everen

If yeah, I was there because because I needed just I needed to do the work to fix the problems that people are even start there.

01;08;54;24 – 01;09;14;10

Jon Mayo

Correct. That was that was walking what would have and here’s a great way to bring it to clarity. Well like how is that action? How is that walking versus talking right that the difference because I’ve really loved the two metaphors were working just for clarity. We have walkers, talkers, and we have motion versus action where motion would be talking in action is walking, right.

01;09;14;10 – 01;09;41;00

Jon Mayo

Just to tie this together and make explicit what I was thinking. But I’m sure if you were like, I’m miserable, I’m going to go read a book about self-help to be less miserable and I’m going to research how to be less miserable and I’m going to do all these things that would have been motion. Now, that may be helpful after you face the problems that you already know are non you like, of course, pursue tools and knowledge to better keep yourself to win.

01;09;41;09 – 01;10;01;11

Jon Mayo

But if that was your solution, I’m unhappy. So I’m going to go read this book or do this research or watch this YouTube thing. And that’s going to be my solution. No, that’s motion. You’re trying to make yourself feel better, the best that can equip your action. But the hard work is sitting down and figuring out what is broken, why or what doesn’t feel right, and how can I start to influence that?

01;10;01;18 – 01;10;37;08

Jon Mayo

And then the further action, the continuation of that is actually following it, holding yourself accountable, reading it, not allowing yourself. Now, which ties into the second thought there. The second point, which is don’t give yourself a freaking out. Don’t you know it is. It is. You’re happiness in your wellbeing are in the balance. Right. Are all of us are And if we justify oh well I’m not going to do this today or I’m not going to do this, the smile and hi this time or whatever else you were voting towards the hell that you’re trying to climb out of opposed to the whatever, more positive life you want to do and like is a strong

01;10;37;08 – 01;11;11;13

Jon Mayo

word. But if you’re if you’re miserable and life is sucking, then that’s what that is, right? If you’re if you’re struggling to find value, if if you can even find value in your existence, then I don’t know of a better word to describe then that is your personal version of hell, right? You’re miserable. Yeah. And allowing yourself to justify that even in something as small as grunting at someone or not even acknowledging them versus smiling and saying hi and feeling more in line with who you want to be or who you believe you are like, Yeah, we can’t.

01;11;11;24 – 01;11;26;08

Jon Mayo

We we have to stop allowing ourselves to accept mediocrity as a standard to live our lives and instead accept, well, am I going to vote to live or to die and even these small things and not give myself an out, right?

01;11;27;02 – 01;11;58;23

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah. I mean, I think you you reap what you sow. Yeah. This earlier but it’s you know, you create the conditions. I mean you have a vote and you have a vote in the outcome of how you live your life every single minute of every day. And to just, just tear at this facade that it’s it’s difficult and it’s this is sweeping life changes.

01;11;59;24 – 01;12;30;16

Kirk Van Everen

You know, it’s not like you know, it’s not like trying to learn Mandarin. It’s it’s it’s it’s putting on those walking shoes, if that’s the problem. I mean, most of the time the solution is not as terrifying as we perceive it to be. And, you know, but just to go back to what we were saying is you you cast that vote towards your overall well-being and happiness and whether or not you’re satisfied with your conditions.

01;12;30;16 – 01;12;54;14

Kirk Van Everen

And if you’re not doing anything about it, you’re not acting, you’re just moving, then you don’t you really do have to blame yourself then if you’re not doing anything about it. I mean, I think that you craft the environment and the conditions. I mean, you may not be able to you know, you have you don’t have a choice in the manner in which you are born and you don’t have a choice.

01;12;54;16 – 01;13;13;03

Kirk Van Everen

Most likely how you die. But I mean, you do have a choice in how you live your days between. And that’s a that’s a just a great quote between the book. Once an eagle, I think just is very applicable here. You do have a manner. Did you have a choice in the matter and how you live your days between.

01;13;14;03 – 01;13;41;06

Jon Mayo

And so one of the things you can do to inspire, like to encourage ourselves and each other, like 1 to 1 of the tools we can employ or the fights we can take on is to stop normalizing misery. And I think that’s what it comes down to, Right? Stop normalizing misery. Stop making it okay to be mediocre and miserable.

01;13;42;04 – 01;13;49;19

Kirk Van Everen

Just accepting your lot in life. Is that what you mean? Like, Oh, well, this is just. I’m just destined to be miserable. Well, I’m destined to just. I’m tired.

01;13;49;19 – 01;14;21;28

Jon Mayo

So I’m not going to say hi and smile like the jump, right? It it is a jump, but the jump, after months of doing that and stop hanging out with friends and, you know, stop working out and stop, you know, so you’re becoming less healthy and you eat more junk food to get your comfort right. If we allow these decisions to continue unintentionally and we’re justifying it all along the way down this slippery slope, then we’re normalizing our misery, right?

01;14;21;28 – 01;14;23;14

Jon Mayo

We’re normalizing being miserable.

01;14;24;07 – 01;14;28;03

Kirk Van Everen

You’re enabling it to you, normalizing what you are. Enabling it.

01;14;28;18 – 01;14;47;07

Jon Mayo

What you’re enabling it. Correct. But the the counter argument to that is to stop normalizing when you see it in yourself or you’re in conversation with buddy or what have you saying. No, man, that’s not good. This is it is serious, right? Why didn’t you walk this morning? Your 10 minutes? Why? Like this is a big you also, you know.

01;14;47;09 – 01;15;20;20

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah. You’re also more it’s it’s easier for you to identify it as being off or being a problem because it’s I think it’s easier these circles back to your ability to recognize a problem for what it is and face it, if you normalize it, then that’s not a problem. That’s just your norm. That’s just your life. You eat junk food, you buy, you know, you like, you know, whether whether or not you know, if you’re like normally a very sociable person and you end up, you know, drifting into being a hermit or whatever, then that just becomes your norm.

01;15;20;20 – 01;15;30;20

Kirk Van Everen

You normalize that that misery. Yeah, I Think that. I think that that’s absolutely the case. Mm hmm.

01;15;31;07 – 01;15;46;13

Jon Mayo

So let’s see real quick. I don’t know about you, but we’ve been talking for almost 2 hours, and I think we’ve had two specific but interconnected, really fun topics to get explore together. Plus getting warmed up and.

01;15;47;17 – 01;15;59;09

Kirk Van Everen

Oh, yeah, we we could easily keep going. But yeah, I think I think we’ve really hit the nail on the head on on a couple of good topics. And it’s been it’s been enlightening conversation.

01;15;59;29 – 01;16;21;12

Jon Mayo

Yeah. And thank you. Well guys, if you’ve made it this far into the conversation, thank you for staying with us. Uh, you probably found some value if you survived on this entire exploration. So please, please share the show and subscribe it. It will help me personally to continue grow it. And I appreciate all the support that those who are listening continue to send.

01;16;21;22 – 01;16;25;25

Jon Mayo

So, Kirk, until next time, looking forward to it, brother, and thanks for jumping on today.

01;16;26;17 – 01;16;35;25

Kirk Van Everen

Always a pleasure. You.