Today I sat down with Kirk Van Everen to engage in an exciting conversation. After years of intentional effort, and hundreds of hours of passion filled work, I have the great pleasure of announcing that I have completed my first book, and it is available world wide through Amazon in hardcover, paperback, and kindle versions. Additionally, after over 70 hours of love filled labor and excruciating detail, Kirk and I finished the audio experience which is available on Audible and Apple Books. 

In todays conversation we provide a sneak peak of the book itself. Additionally, we discuss: 
– the journey that led to writing the book 
– the adventure of recording an audio book and the lessons learned
– the reason for writing the book and more importantly the hoped for impact that the book may provide
– what’s next
If you found value in the show please share it with someone you care for as well as subscribe and rate it!

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 Podcast: “Be Relentless Podcast”

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

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

The Fuel: Sisu Stamina, Performance Evolved

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Episode Transcript

00;00;09;03 – 00;00;51;20

Jonathan Mayo

Hello and welcome back to Be Relentless, the podcast. Today I’m joined by Kirk Van Evren and we get to jointly announce the book that I just finished writing titled Be Relentless. If the obstacle is the way, then we must be way makers. It’s a special privilege to get to announce this book with Kirk because in addition to the years of effort and hundreds of hours of intentional labor that I put into writing, it, Kirk invested dozens upon dozens of hours into recording the audiobook with me, which we explore that journey, both the writing and the recording together in the conversation today, as well as what the purpose of the book is and my desired hope

00;00;51;20 – 00;01;21;04

Jonathan Mayo

and intent in writing it. So without further ado, here’s an excerpt from the audiobook titled The Invitation The Invitation to Live Your Great Adventure within Each of US by the greatest force of nature yet known to our species, the indomitable human will. Yet so many of us spend the overwhelming majority of our lives numb, dissatisfied and dying, all while drawing breath.

00;01;22;03 – 00;01;54;00

Jonathan Mayo

We all yearn to be understood, to be acknowledged, to be loved. We want to be respected. Yet what are we doing to earn these things? So few have taken responsibility for their lives and for the commitments that they have to those around them. Instead, we have chosen to focus on satisfying our desire for more through consumption. Which in turn leaves us feeling dissatisfied, compiling our misery and pressuring us into an ever greater place of isolation and despair.

00;01;55;06 – 00;02;23;10

Jonathan Mayo

We believe that this yearning for more is the desire to do something meaningful with our lives, to exercise sovereignty over our life, to take the difficult path and become way makers. Someone who, in the face of extreme adversity, does not yield, but instead transforms frontiers of obstacles into landscapes of opportunity. This is the potential that lies ready within each of us crying to be unleashed.

00;02;24;00 – 00;02;50;01

Jonathan Mayo

We can be the solution to the troubles that we face in this world. We can create an existence in which we may experience joy, peace and contentment. Though be warned, there is no guarantee that we will see tomorrow, much less the next year or decade. Life rushes past us with cruel indifference, uncaring, consuming each second that ticks by as we progress toward the grave.

00;03;07;18 – 00;03;34;15

Jonathan Mayo

Therefore, it is critical that we do not allow time to pass us unintentionally in whether we are waking up to this realization in our toes or seventies, it is never too late to take the first step to evolve, to create, to love. It is upon us to strive forward, taking relentless action toward the highest version of ourselves and to strip away everything that dares to hold us back.

00;03;36;18 – 00;04;17;00

Jonathan Mayo

So do you accept this invitation, and will today be your first step? Hello everyone, and welcome back to Be Relentless, the podcast. Today I’m joined by Kirk that everyone and we are supported as is tradition by Brandon Kiefer. Right now it’s a short tradition. Started with the last episode but it is a tradition of the less and our intent today.

00;04;17;01 – 00;04;35;02

Jonathan Mayo

What we want to do is announce and explore the book. Be relentless. If the obstacle is the way, then we must be way makers and kind of the full spectrum of what that is, what it’s about to be and launch it into the universe.

00;04;36;18 – 00;05;07;22

Kirk Van Everen

Well, John, that’s quite a spectrum of concepts there. I just know from my perspective how many years in the making went into this book. I think it’s a pretty important thing to bring out because this is not something you just, you know, a rabbit you pulled out of a hat the last minute, not like December timeframe. I know a lot of the writing took place in a very concentrated amount of time, but this is this is years of of introspective thought, coupled with years even before that of personal development.

00;05;07;22 – 00;05;20;13

Kirk Van Everen

And it’s a very, very long journey. And to be concentrated into a book like this, this is immense. It takes a few hours to read this book, but there is so much in this. So maybe you start with that. I mean, where did this all began?

00;05;24;11 – 00;05;45;08

Jonathan Mayo

So where I think it’s like I think everyone who writes anything, they pull on their collective experiences. Right? So do you like, give it a fair starting point? I want to say it’s after I made the decision to leave the military. I remember distinctly having all these ideas that seemed to really be serving people well, but I frankly.

00;05;45;20 – 00;06;10;00

Jonathan Mayo

So I wanted to put them in a book. Right. But I felt this extraordinary imposter syndrome, if you will. But it was like not imposter syndrome was just like, you are not in the position to do this. So the first, like, stab at writing a book was from the approach of I want to gather advice from mentors and culminated together and then put my spin on it at the end and create a book that way.

00;06;10;17 – 00;06;31;25

Jonathan Mayo

So I pursued that with some mutual acquaintances that we knew at the time, with some friends, with some mentors, things like that. And I realized about six months into that effort that I was being disingenuous in that I was really wanting to share the ideas, but I felt like I had to piggyback off these other people because I wasn’t in the place to take responsibility for these ideas.

00;06;32;03 – 00;06;56;02

Jonathan Mayo

And I felt like, well, why should anyone listen to me? And that was about four or five years ago now. And something really cool happened from that point. So I put the book on ice, and over the last five years I have been working on it kind of seasonally, right? I’d say every year it’d be 30 to 90 days of rowing on it, really investing into it.

00;06;56;02 – 00;07;29;19

Jonathan Mayo

And then I’d let it be for 36 months and then another 30 to 90 days working on it. And it just kept coming back. I couldn’t shake working on the book and it really I think the book worked more than me, if I’m being frank. Yeah, but there is this pivotal moment about a year to do, you know, a year and a half ago, two years ago, when I started this podcast in its initial form where I had a face that, okay, if these things are actually going to be accomplished, I’m going to have to get over this imposter syndrome type of thing and find a way to navigate it and I think that was

00;07;29;19 – 00;07;32;05

Jonathan Mayo

a pretty critical moment when I found the answer to that.

00;07;32;07 – 00;07;32;17

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah.

00;07;33;02 – 00;07;47;10

Jonathan Mayo

Because that answer empowered a lot of well, it empowered the book to become a reality and empowered us to essentially create the early universe. It empowered everything that we’re working on at this point. That switch, yeah, at least gave me the freedom to pursue it.

00;07;47;13 – 00;08;09;07

Kirk Van Everen

I mean, you put by being on this podcast and originally the grid theory, right? You were forced to go through this discovery process of how these concepts that you may have pinned to mentors or other people who you admired or looked up to, you know. What made you shy away from writing this book? Initially? But through the podcast, you had to explore from a personal level.

00;08;09;07 – 00;08;50;10

Kirk Van Everen

I mean, you I mean, how many hours of you clocked interviewing people, exploring these concepts, trying to figure out where you fit in the spectrum of all of these very critical ideas, and then reflect on how those apply to you and your life. What an incredible grooming process to refine those ideas, see what still has survived the test of time, and then be able to distill them down into a concentrated book that is that you felt was worthy of being a playbook, a playbook that could be applied to the widest group of people you could you could possibly reach.

00;08;52;03 – 00;09;18;03

Kirk Van Everen

But also being true to yourself. It’s not just saying, Oh, hey, man, pick yourself up by your, you know, like pick yourself up, you know, fall down seven times, get up eight. Like there’s some generic stuff that’s super widely approved when you’re able to get it down. So it’s so deeply personal that after all that process of discovery, you broke those chains and were able to put pen to paper and it be your fingerprint at that point?

00;09;19;22 – 00;09;44;11

Jonathan Mayo

Yeah, I think elements of what you just said are true and other elements are beautiful opportunities to explore what I see as the truth, or at least in the journey, at least in how I engage with it, Right. So, one, I don’t I don’t think it’s worthy so much, or at least I wouldn’t accept that language myself. The shift for me was this magical moment of arrival where it’s like, okay, now I feel comfortable espousing this wisdom from the Hilltop, right?

00;09;44;19 – 00;10;04;23

Jonathan Mayo

That was that’s the furthest from the truth. I’m no, I don’t want to ever be in that place. I hope to die without being in that place after a life of exploration. What changed for me in the podcast was the forcing function with this is I don’t have to be the guru, the subject matter expert, this personal life coach.

00;10;05;06 – 00;10;37;22

Jonathan Mayo

I just have to be someone who’s journeying and exploring through life to the absolute best of my own capacity and try to strive to push that boundary forward every day. And if I do that, then why would I not invite people to join me and ask to join others in that creates this communal movement of let’s journey through life together and explore how we can live it intentionally, how we can maximize it, how we can sing and dance through it, and how we can overcome extreme adversity through it together.

00;10;38;04 – 00;10;54;28

Jonathan Mayo

And that switch. Being a fellow journeyman, a fellow adventurer opposed to being this teacher was the switch that freed me to fully invest in the podcast and to continue to reengage with what is now this book. Over the last couple of years.

00;10;55;26 – 00;11;20;14

Kirk Van Everen

So that’s an interesting distinction there because it wasn’t like you felt like, okay, now that I’m a Pulitzer Prize winning, Nobel Prize winning, etc., where you’ve got these titles and accolades. Your thought was that, okay, if I can help even one person as I go through my own personal journey of growth and development, that’s one more person that that has now been sent on, on a brighter path with whatever they take away from this book or the podcast.

00;11;21;06 – 00;11;32;00

Kirk Van Everen

But you’ve better than just that singular, that single person. You’ve better them in a way that would not have otherwise happened. And that’s worthy, that’s worth it. That point starting, that’s worth at that point writing the book.

00;11;32;04 – 00;12;00;06

Jonathan Mayo

Yeah. And that person is start was me, right? Because I explore in great depth in chapter seven my moment of awareness, right where I realized I need change some things and yeah, in the person I realized that needed to change, that needed help was myself. And I lived by the philosophy that if you work to get your own house in order, then that creates an ongoing source of energy and ability to pour from a cup that’s kind of like overflowing if you picture.

00;12;00;06 – 00;12;00;18

Kirk Van Everen

Glass.

00;12;01;01 – 00;12;22;15

Jonathan Mayo

And if the cup’s overflowing because you’re caring and progressing yourself, then you can continuously give, If you’re trying to pour from a like a half empty glass, it’s going to run out. You’re going to run dry. So that’s not going to work for the long term. So I just had a hyper firm from my perspective, I started by just how can I make myself better today than yesterday?

00;12;23;00 – 00;13;04;01

Jonathan Mayo

And through that exploration and capturing those ideas, it started to put together this operating framework that becomes much more usable to a wider audience. And the show itself was a really powerful forcing function in that it put you in front of other human beings that you’d have to have conversations like this way. And that allowed for the opportunity to step into the arena, if you will, of, you know what, it’s not me than who I’ll bear up under this mantle of responsibility and leadership and take it very seriously and allow it to humble me and continue to refine myself so that I can better serve my bride, my children and my community.

00;13;05;24 – 00;13;14;26

Kirk Van Everen

What advice would you give to anybody that’s thinking they’ve got this repository of life lessons that they’re sitting on, right? Any advice you’d give to somebody who’s even considering writing a book.

00;13;15;20 – 00;13;18;17

Jonathan Mayo

That says, start writing it and, you know.

00;13;18;21 – 00;13;19;28

Kirk Van Everen

Just just write it? Yeah.

00;13;20;06 – 00;13;48;23

Jonathan Mayo

Well, it’s it’s funny. The simple things are often the true things, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy, right? But it is simple. And you just need to write it down like this. What is now the book, Be Relentless is not anything near what I started with five years ago. Not even the parable. The ideas I wanted to share have greatly matured, but the manner of delivery is unrecognizable.

00;13;49;04 – 00;14;14;16

Jonathan Mayo

So I think that if we give ourselves the freedoms, like I already mentioned with the book, I just want to go through this and try to help as much as I can with a heavy emphasis on fixing myself first and then just loving others and pursuing unity and love and betterment with your community. Then I think that it creates this natural refining process that helps to determine the final output.

00;14;14;24 – 00;14;34;21

Jonathan Mayo

And then there seems to be no end to refinement. I mean, I remember listening to Dr. Drew Peterson talk about how he take his book and when he’s going through the editing process. He would break up, take a page, and then he’d take a paragraph and then he’d take the sentence and then he’d rewrite the sentence. So he got that one sentence as good as he could.

00;14;34;21 – 00;14;50;14

Jonathan Mayo

And then he put that back into the paragraph. And he do that with the paragraph to the paragraph is as good as he could possibly muster to make it. Then he did that to the page. I was like, I will never do that. I lied to myself. Three years later, I did it and it was incredibly painful, which I now understand why he said it was painful.

00;14;50;15 – 00;15;16;20

Jonathan Mayo

But that thoroughness, that intentionality of thought down to that level, which we mirrored when we recorded the audible book down to the syllable of how we express the word, that level of care and purposeful action really allowed the ideas to become distilled, at least how I feel into my soul. So like it is who I am. And that’s a good thing because I’m not.

00;15;17;00 – 00;15;34;11

Jonathan Mayo

I want this to be genuine and in my perspective, the last five years of work, the last two and a half for our business, the last two for the podcast, we’re just now looking at the starting line on the horizon. So the starting, we’re just about to get started.

00;15;34;17 – 00;15;34;28

Kirk Van Everen

And that’s.

00;15;34;28 – 00;15;35;17

Jonathan Mayo

Very exciting.

00;15;36;03 – 00;15;56;00

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah, I mean, so to kind of summarize this, I mean you because you start off as saying just just start writing it, right? Do you think that that was when you finally sat down to start typing it? It made it, it almost an inevitability that you’re going to eventually finish, like just bringing yourself to start putting things on paper.

00;15;56;13 – 00;16;02;27

Kirk Van Everen

Do you think that was enough of a catalyst not to say, okay, well it’s just a start, but I started.

00;16;03;23 – 00;16;21;28

Jonathan Mayo

It. It did help because initially, as I mentioned, for me, my, my path on this was very iterative. So I started by just opening up a Google doc and typing into it, right? I just I captured the idea. I made it outline. I thought who I wanted to interview, you know, So that just kind of got the ball rolling, if you will, for sure.

00;16;22;02 – 00;16;31;00

Jonathan Mayo

And I just determined why not right now. Let’s just throw the dice. It did change over time. There was a period where during one of the contracts where I was running every single day, a good amount.

00;16;31;02 – 00;16;31;21

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah, I remember that.

00;16;31;25 – 00;16;47;19

Jonathan Mayo

I would just run with my phone in my hand and I just would speak into it like the entire run. Yeah. And I’d progressed the book that way and the audio quality was terrible, so I wasn’t able to use any technology to transcribe it. So I had a forced I had to transcribe it myself and it.

00;16;48;24 – 00;17;06;22

Kirk Van Everen

Was almost like method acting, though You’re putting yourself into this mentality to tease out what, what threads of concepts are buried deep inside you that are, that are released with enough external pressure, right? Like when it comes out, like you’ve just crushed this piece of coal down and just see what diamonds kind of emerge.

00;17;07;00 – 00;17;29;06

Jonathan Mayo

Yeah, it was helpful because you know, the whole adage of like 30% of it survive type of deal, right. Is accurate because, I mean, I’m running on the roads out here and Peyton, Colorado, which is like the countryside and cars are flying past me at 60 miles an hour. It’s a blizzard outside. It’s blowing wind. So like, I’m yelling over the wind and, you know, the occasional car that screeches by and getting like minor frostbite and stuff.

00;17;29;06 – 00;17;59;00

Jonathan Mayo

And so like that alone, you’re in a different state of mind pushing through when you’re talking about these ideas. But then to get a hear it and rewrite it like that was also helpful. I’m grateful the technology failed because there’s something very valuable, I think, to the cyclical nature of free exploring the ideas. I mean, we’re probably on the bike by the time I hit publish on the book itself, the physical book, I probably looked at every word a hundred times, and then we still caught a couple of things that he corrected as we recorded The Audible.

00;17;59;00 – 00;18;24;25

Jonathan Mayo

Yeah, and there’s something I think that people would find like it is tedious, but there’s something very beautiful about going through that process, polishing it. Yeah, you find that it’s a great many example of the iterative process of growth and life itself. Yeah, you’re like, I have no idea how to make this better. And then you walk through it to record the audio version and you find dozens of ways.

00;18;24;26 – 00;18;29;29

Jonathan Mayo

Yeah, it’s just like, Oh my gosh, you just look at it from this different lens and you find all this value you can still create.

00;18;30;08 – 00;18;40;19

Kirk Van Everen

Well, if you want to, if you want to get a really, really good look on into every single word of what you’ve written, recorded audiobook.

00;18;41;16 – 00;18;42;15

Jonathan Mayo

At least the way we did it.

00;18;42;15 – 00;18;48;15

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah, yeah. That was that was a labor of love for sure. I mean.

00;18;49;01 – 00;19;16;11

Jonathan Mayo

What it’s purpose driven, right? So what I have to trigger and my life’s purpose is and it works beautifully because we align on it and it’s what we’re basing all of our efforts on collectively with everything that we’re doing is how might we unleash the potential, right? So when you have an ideal that you’re pursuing that demands more from you, better from you consistently, that’s a sweet spot to be.

00;19;16;12 – 00;19;36;26

Jonathan Mayo

You know, we didn’t find it. I didn’t find it. It was created. It was forged. And I think within that there’s some value just reflecting on that idea in and of itself, because it’s like, Oh, I’m not waiting for someone to give it to me. I have to go out, hunted down with a club and get it, which is a quote that I want to say it was.

00;19;36;26 – 00;19;58;07

Jonathan Mayo

An old American author wrote about how inspiration is not found like you have to light after it with a club and find it. And I can’t remember the name of the author, Brian, If you could try to find that, that’d be great. But there’s immense power to you just going, doing and oh, I found my thought. I lost for a second.

00;19;58;12 – 00;20;06;16

Jonathan Mayo

But, but there’s something really cool about having a purpose that draws you forward. It demands more of. Sure. And it may be Jack London, by the way.

00;20;09;01 – 00;20;11;08

Brandon Seifert

Yes, it looks like it was Jack Long London.

00;20;11;19 – 00;20;12;05

Jonathan Mayo

Okay, cool.

00;20;12;14 – 00;20;12;26

Kirk Van Everen

Nice.

00;20;12;26 – 00;20;13;25

Jonathan Mayo

Was I pretty good on the quote?

00;20;15;28 – 00;20;19;14

Brandon Seifert

Yeah. It’s better. You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with the club.

00;20;20;00 – 00;20;34;24

Jonathan Mayo

Yeah. Cool. So, like, thank you, by the way. So that’s exactly how this all flows in my mind. But when you’re when you’re talking about going to deliver it, it makes it different because you have to just accept the discomfort of not being ready.

00;20;34;29 – 00;20;53;29

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah, well, I think that you talk about writing a book that inspires people or challenges people to better themselves, right? To to achieve the highest version of themselves, to go out and take a deep, very sometimes painful look inward and to see, you know, where they are and then assess where they want to be and then chart the path to get there right.

00;20;54;07 – 00;21;20;20

Kirk Van Everen

But in doing that, you’re especially when recorded, you know, you’re writing the book, you’re recording the audible version of it. Inherently you have those names to play back to us. We we did not want to just crack the book open and just read it from cover to cover. No, we had to apply the standards that we were challenging other people to, you know, reach up to on ourselves.

00;21;21;04 – 00;21;30;26

Kirk Van Everen

And that standard, I think we did our best came through over 60 plus hours of recording what probably could be read in about 3 hours.

00;21;31;15 – 00;21;49;04

Jonathan Mayo

Yeah, there’s a funny jab there. Then I’ll definitely roast myself on. So I asked Kirk if he would, you know, if you would help me record the Audible in You’re okay, man. I’ll do it. How long do you think it’ll take? I said. Well, this many words, the typical read time is going to be around 3 hours, which the finished product is just over 3 hours.

00;21;49;13 – 00;22;13;07

Jonathan Mayo

So I wasn’t off there where I was just intergalactic lay off exponentially wrong verse, how long it would take to record it, because I forgot that when you have one shot like this, you want it to be as accurate, precise and powerful as humanly possible. So we had care and intention down to how each syllable was pronounced.

00;22;13;17 – 00;22;18;21

Kirk Van Everen

Literally every single syllable. I know I made you record and record and record over and over again.

00;22;18;25 – 00;22;27;02

Jonathan Mayo

And that’s one of the reasons I love you, is because we both are absolutely bloody relentless in our exacting of.

00;22;27;02 – 00;22;30;06

Kirk Van Everen

Excellence. We no pun intended on that being relentless. Yeah. Yeah.

00;22;30;11 – 00;22;54;04

Jonathan Mayo

Well, 100%. But but shameless. But did that we don’t allow it to become analysis by paralysis. But once the vision set, we sacrifice our own sanity to achieve it. Oh, yeah. To what we can with what we know at the time. Yeah. And that meant that, that okay, 3 hours to read. I figured a 910 hour day would be at three X right now.

00;22;54;18 – 00;23;03;29

Jonathan Mayo

We’re somewhere far, far past like 30 I think, which is probably the wrong math, but looking at conservatively over 60 hours of recording for a three hour product.

00;23;04;03 – 00;23;28;15

Kirk Van Everen

Oh, yeah. I mean, it was within the first sit down. It started to dawn us Don on us that we had a responsibility to make sure that the message was delivered as in and as as impactful of as a manner as possible. Sorry, my God. I had a small stroke there and it is as impactful as a manner as we could possibly muster with the equipment that we had.

00;23;28;15 – 00;23;59;13

Kirk Van Everen

Right. So the equipment used the you know, we use the podcast equipment we went through and were reading it and was like, Come on, John, like, stop. And we’re like one sentence into the book at this point. I’m like, okay, start over. We’ll start here and we’ll like intensity, emotion because like, you have to tap into these these parts of your emotional spectrum of where you were in the moment when you were both writing it, and also decide how you want that message to be delivered and conveyed to the listener.

00;23;59;22 – 00;24;18;05

Kirk Van Everen

And if for anybody that’s listening to this, I and for those of you that never have recorded an audible or a, you know, audiobook before, I will I will never discount the amount of work that goes behind the scenes. It is immense. Every single sentence is intentional.

00;24;18;08 – 00;24;35;05

Jonathan Mayo

In a well-done one. Yes. Yes, absolutely. And it was quite a learning thing. It makes me not want to ever do another. I know. But again, I and we also like there’s also all these funny things throughout it, right? We don’t have a soundproof room. So there’s like this giant dog outside where.

00;24;35;10 – 00;24;36;24

Kirk Van Everen

It’s a mastiff, I’m pretty sure.

00;24;36;24 – 00;24;45;08

Jonathan Mayo

Yeah, in your neighborhood and like it start barking periodically. So we’ll have to pause and wait and like, suck it up and then keep going and shut up.

00;24;45;08 – 00;24;58;06

Kirk Van Everen

I mean, to be clear, it’s like 150 meters away. I mean, it’s not like next door. It’s across to another house that’s in the neighborhood, but it would pierce through the walls and you’d see on the audio spectrum, you’d see this little blip of like.

00;24;58;06 – 00;24;58;29

Jonathan Mayo

Yeah, well.

00;24;59;25 – 00;25;23;27

Kirk Van Everen

And I’m like, dammit, stop, rerecord and start over. And it would ruin whole paragraphs, full sections of the book. And it was yeah, it was definitely a fun learning experience, a painful one. But, you know, at the end of the day, though, I don’t regret it because listening to it on the, on the, on the tail end after the thing was cleaned up, everything had that final polish on it.

00;25;24;23 – 00;25;35;20

Kirk Van Everen

60 plus. And again, there might still be low hours well spent, in my opinion. And it’s definitely something that regardless of who ends up listening to it, I’m very proud of.

00;25;36;18 – 00;26;11;02

Jonathan Mayo

Same I actually yeah. You know, like I, I imagine it’s the experience of listening to the audiobook. There’s something unique there when the physical book came in for me as the author, it was like really cool to look at it, right? It’s like, Oh my goodness, all this work, it’s there too. But when I listen to the audiobook, I expire against the book for the first time, which or that’s what it felt like to me, which is really weird because it’s like we’ve looked at these words, I’ve looked at these words hundreds of times, but there’s something different, and it’s what I imagine an actor feels like when they watch a movie they in, right?

00;26;11;02 – 00;26;35;25

Jonathan Mayo

It’s like they saw it all behind the scenes. They think they know it, but then when they watch it, they get the full weight of how it was meant to be delivered. I’m completely guessing there or, you know, imagining, but that is the closest thing that I could think that it would be like. And I listen to it one just to make sure I couldn’t find any mistakes, but to also to put myself in the seat of you know, that possibly slip through or stuff.

00;26;35;25 – 00;26;57;21

Jonathan Mayo

But the second piece is I wanted to see what it would be like to hear it. And I did it where I listen to all my audible books. So it’s like the same type of vibe going on and I really appreciated it. Like I which is a weird thing to say. It sounds like very self pegging on the back, but I really enjoyed what we put into it together to make the audiobook.

00;26;57;21 – 00;27;11;14

Jonathan Mayo

The type of experience it is, is what I’m trying to say in it in that intentionality and how you delivered and how you showed up consistently, like added extra value to it for me, which made me very appreciative.

00;27;12;03 – 00;27;37;07

Kirk Van Everen

Well, one of the questions we asked ourselves, we talk about the differences between the audiobook and the book itself, right? Was like a tangible touching the pages. There’s a feel to it. You have your own voice in your head of the narrative, right? But one of the most important questions we ask ourselves in recording the audio book was what opportunities are present now through the medium of of auditory, you know, the auditory experience that aren’t present through a book.

00;27;37;25 – 00;28;09;08

Kirk Van Everen

And we injected a lot of stuff on into as an answer to that question. We had full blown conversations, diving into personal experiences as they related to chapters of the book, things that we thought we need to expand upon that were, you know, took a concept that, again, this is very distilled book. So there’s there’s concepts that are very, very dense that you could have an or you have had like an entire podcast, like three hour episodes on single single sentences of concept within this book, right?

00;28;09;08 – 00;28;30;25

Kirk Van Everen

So there was an opportunity to take the reader something that may have, you know, accidentally been glossed over, or they hear it, they’re driving it. It may not stick with them. We combed it from, you know, cover to cover and then extracted the most important aspects that we thought needed to be double down on and needed to be elaborated on more fully.

00;28;30;25 – 00;28;47;16

Kirk Van Everen

And then we added audio aspects like, you know, there’s some some small stuff, but it’s just kind of to to, to accentuate the emotional response that the listener might end up experiencing going through and just listening to versus reading the book.

00;28;47;24 – 00;29;08;10

Jonathan Mayo

Yeah, we wanted to curate an experience and that that you could really feel when you’re listening to the book and to your point, in addition to highlighting the certain elements and distinctions, one of the criteria when we went through to see where we could inject these conversations that are part of the audio book was, is this redundant or adding additional value?

00;29;08;11 – 00;29;09;13

Jonathan Mayo

Yes, and I do.

00;29;09;13 – 00;29;28;16

Kirk Van Everen

Remember that White boarded it. We white boarded the concept and we probably had 12 different things, and we just started red panning them and scratching them off like you have record sections like did that provide value? Is this something that’s just we’re just trying to add more minutes to the podcast and then we’re like, okay, we scratch it.

00;29;28;25 – 00;29;30;27

Kirk Van Everen

If it was the true value added, they made the.

00;29;30;27 – 00;29;46;19

Jonathan Mayo

Cut. They made the cut for the book. Yes. Yeah. And that was cool also. And what’s kind of fun now is I’ve already had quite a few people listen to it from like kind of the early Hey guys, it’s ready and the first 15 minutes gives you a full cross-section of the experiences that we’ve tried to put together.

00;29;46;29 – 00;30;04;03

Jonathan Mayo

So you get to see all the unique flavors that we put in this stew, if you will. You know, you get to see all the ingredients. And I think within the first 15 minutes, you get a pretty good idea of what this type of thing is going to be. And it’s either going to turn you off and not be your cup of tea and that’s fine.

00;30;04;14 – 00;30;25;12

Jonathan Mayo

You’re probably not listening to this. If you are listening to this, I think that it will on some level resonate but doesn’t mean a well, you’ll know within the first 1015 minutes. And I think that’s even a service that I’m very grateful to provide to say the listener of the audiobook is that it gives them the same ability of if they spend five, 10 minutes looking at the physical book, they’ll know if they want to read it.

00;30;25;29 – 00;30;57;06

Jonathan Mayo

Now you don’t have to say, okay, and you get to chapter four or five to see if I like the book. And you’ve spent an hour and a half. Now within ten, 15 minutes, you’re going to know if you want to buckle in for the ride or not. So the intent with them, the hope behind that, is that it honors the reader’s time as well, because it’s saying, I appreciate you and I thought your time and I want to give you such a full taste upfront that, you know, if you want to invest the remaining time that it will take to finish the book.

00;30;58;07 – 00;31;26;27

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah. I mean, you know, I don’t I don’t know if you wanted to because I know this this is a this podcast specifically was focused on addressing the book and the launch of the book, addressing the audio, the audiobook itself, and kind of talking to it as well. They’re not specific concepts within the book that you wanted to kind of pry open is just a a taste test of what the reader or listener could expect to extract from this book.

00;31;28;17 – 00;31;56;19

Jonathan Mayo

Yeah, I think that’s a fair question. And he chew on it for a moment. The thing that comes immediately to mind and I put it right on, it’s right on the top of the back cover is essentially what the summary is. And the rest of the back synopsis is the, the invitation to live your great adventure. But the summary is not long and just like the rest of the book ever to be concise, but it is be relentless is the invitation for you to live the great adventure that is your life.

00;31;57;04 – 00;32;08;19

Jonathan Mayo

It is not a how to for success. Rather, it is an operating framework that draws on life lessons and sustainable principles that can stand the test of time. That’s the hope.

00;32;09;28 – 00;32;42;10

Kirk Van Everen

And it doesn’t claim to be. It doesn’t claim to be like the answer. But if you want to take the challenge and you really is, one of the things I wrote in the foreword was that if you if you read this with intention and you look and you apply a brutal level of personal honesty when assessing and taking a look at yourself and seeing where you are in life, and then you use this as you start an operating framework, it’ll it’ll, it’ll chart new paths for you in life.

00;32;42;14 – 00;33;05;28

Kirk Van Everen

I’m not trying to just pump this book up whatsoever. This book. I read it. I was in the back end of the development. You know, I had early, frenzied access to a lot of the editing, a lot of the initial drafts there. But when I was reading through it and I read through it with the intentionality that I think it deserves, I started to see how it immediately applied to my life.

00;33;06;08 – 00;33;29;03

Kirk Van Everen

Right? And everyone’s going to have their own flavor of how this book will will touch them. Right now. It will resonate with them. You know, you may be on some other corner of the world with a completely different socioeconomic situation. You might not have kids or you might have kids. You might be on the top of your game and wanting to elevate it.

00;33;29;04 – 00;33;59;12

Kirk Van Everen

You might be in a real low spot in life, but if you are willing to accept what you see in the mirror and then accept the challenge that you actually address in what’s called the invitation, then there really is no there’s no limit to how far you can climb. And I mean that very seriously. There’s there’s there’s no limit at that.

00;33;59;13 – 00;34;18;25

Jonathan Mayo

No. And we have no idea what we’re capable of if we truly doubt when and what you just referenced it. One of the centric desires in writing this, which is I wanted the book to be less about me and more about the idea. There’s a lot of topics in this genre and in this pursuit, this field that we go.

00;34;18;26 – 00;34;55;28

Jonathan Mayo

That’s a word where, you know, it’s how I made it right and the ideas that helped me get there. And then here’s how you can use them, right? Like that’s I think I just summed up 99% of these types of books, which to a level if even saying it I guess I’m guilty of as well. But my hope that differed is that it’s more of like, hey, here let’s go on this journey together and I’ll explain the personal experience from which I gained it myself and how it was navigated in the instance of we’re currently journeying together and you’ll see in reading it that it’s continues to be a misstep.

00;34;55;28 – 00;35;14;10

Jonathan Mayo

The book is written, but the journey continues right now, and when it ends, we are still continuing. So it’s very much so let us go. Let us not go into that dark night alone. Let us go together. Let us help each other find our way home and let it be about the ideas.

00;35;14;10 – 00;35;47;17

Kirk Van Everen

And but you hold the hand of the reader, though, through exercises. Because one of the first things if I was if I had not know anything about this book is self-help books. Okay? I just have a better attitude. Right? A lot of it, a lot of the stumbling blocks that people have is not understanding how what that first step might actually look like and the right questions to ask really, and you really address that through the exercises that are sprinkled throughout the book and placed explicitly in positions based on the chapters that preceded them to walk through.

00;35;47;17 – 00;36;15;12

Kirk Van Everen

Hey, okay. Regardless of whatever step one looks like for you right now, this is what your next step could look like. And let me walk you through exactly what to do. Here’s examples of questions that you should ask. Even in the audiobook. You break those, you know well the exercises with you. But that’s so critical because that showing people the path sometimes is is is almost indispensable to whether or not they go on the path.

00;36;15;27 – 00;36;35;22

Jonathan Mayo

I think there’s a distinction that I do want to make. The the exercises are absolutely empowering tools so that we can actually put into action the ideas because what’s an idea without action, right. Ripping that right off of the forward to it. But like what is an idea without actually it’s nothing but what I don’t think the exercises do is tell you explicitly how to do it.

00;36;36;14 – 00;37;14;22

Jonathan Mayo

Once again, going back to it being an operating framework, it’s like if you wanted to go and navigate through the forest, you’d be given a couple tools. You’d have a map and a compass, namely, right, maybe a pencil, a few other things. This is meant to provide you the tools to navigate, not the exact path to take. So I think that’s an incredibly important distinction because where I do provide examples of how I applied it and how it’s changed me, where I do provide the framework distilled into a outline or system that or a tool set that you can utilize.

00;37;14;22 – 00;37;32;05

Jonathan Mayo

Right now. The most powerful piece of it, in my mind at least, is the questions and because the questions like the book. Right. A moment ago I mentioned that I wanted it to be less about me, more about the idea of questions. I think do a beautiful job of doing that. It’s less, Hey, do it how I did it.

00;37;32;05 – 00;37;36;19

Jonathan Mayo

It’s more you want to be curious, you want to be inquisitive, you want to explore.

00;37;36;19 – 00;37;38;14

Kirk Van Everen

The prime, the pump, if you will, for the.

00;37;38;14 – 00;37;56;21

Jonathan Mayo

Reader. And it makes it deeply personal to. Them So there’s an intentional air of ambiguity throughout the book where I at least am attempting to achieve an air of ambiguity of removing myself so that the reader can see themself in the book. If someone told me that in reading it, they felt like they were looking to a mirror the entire time.

00;37;57;12 – 00;38;12;01

Jonathan Mayo

Like that would be extraordinarily gratifying because the intent is that they see themselves and their own lives more than they see mine, and that that inspires them to allow us to join one another as we continue forward.

00;38;12;05 – 00;38;40;01

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah. Now that’s I mean, that’s one of the biggest things I thought was essential to you making. This book was showing the applicability, again, not not showing them every single step, but this questions if they answer them truly, they’re going to see the answers to those questions that they ask themselves, are going to show them what path and steps they need to take, especially they’re honest with themselves.

00;38;40;29 – 00;39;02;05

Jonathan Mayo

Yeah, And as far as like personal responsibility goes, you know, like, well, has this affected anyone’s lives? I’m sitting with two gentlemen’s three, including myself, who It’s changed the trajectory of all of our lives, which is one, a beautiful weight of responsibility. And oh, my God, is it humbling? Because you look at it, it’s like, well, if it helps one person, then I’m good.

00;39;02;25 – 00;39;37;11

Jonathan Mayo

That’s already been blessed, manyfold beyond that one person. And it gut checks me daily into how can I pursue it. And you mentioned that I’m very driven. And I think part of that drive is because, you know, not only do I have an amazing wife and sons who look to me that I need to raise, but I have other men and people in my life, in my community that have lived this with me and have chosen to take these ideas on themselves and the trajectories of their lives have changed forward.

00;39;37;11 – 00;40;06;04

Jonathan Mayo

And they’ve communicated that back to me on a on a fairly wide spectrum. That just leaves me floored, frankly. And whenever I start to feel tired or something, I just think about that and it’s like, Oh, well, now, now I’m back on my feet and it’s time to go because there is something beautiful about allowing yourself to be a communal creature and getting the opportunity to be like, Wow, if we made it this far because of this, like who where we are right now.

00;40;06;04 – 00;40;27;23

Jonathan Mayo

This is cool. How much further can we go if we just all keep leading in? And my point in all of this is we’re living it. We’ve been living. If I didn’t live it, Brandon, you and have had the opportunity to have learned about it and then you chose to live it and had you not, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now.

00;40;28;15 – 00;40;56;08

Jonathan Mayo

And Kirk, the same is true for us. When you were on the other side of the world, we’ve been exploring these concepts for years and now we’re here. You, you changed and took risk and sacrifice and sacrifice in many ways of certain comforts you could have to set your trajectory such that your full time emphasis is in us pursuing this, this mission, this vision, the ideas that this book represents.

00;40;56;22 – 00;41;17;00

Jonathan Mayo

So there’s just this level of authenticity, and it is being lived and tested not even just by us at this table. And that’s enough for me, but just so bloody grateful for all these other people who it is and then coming up and hugging and expressing it and all those things where it’s like, we can’t stop. Yeah, this is positively changing lives.

00;41;17;22 – 00;41;21;14

Jonathan Mayo

You can’t stop me. You’re going to kill me. You’re going have to take us out.

00;41;21;19 – 00;41;22;25

Kirk Van Everen

It’s not going to happen. No.

00;41;23;10 – 00;41;25;20

Jonathan Mayo

We’re actually. Do you mind if I do one more thing on that?

00;41;25;20 – 00;41;26;10

Kirk Van Everen

Sure, go ahead.

00;41;26;25 – 00;41;47;01

Jonathan Mayo

Because it’s a it’s a really critically important thing and it took a dark spot to find it. The podcast, as I mentioned, was a refining tool. And if you listen to every episode, you can see where my focus kind of shifted over time. If you looked at it from a macro view, there’s a time where I started to get kind of sucked into politics a little bit, sucked into what’s going on in the world and how it’s being put out there.

00;41;47;02 – 00;42;05;00

Jonathan Mayo

Right. And you help check me out at one point on one of those conversations, right, John, you’re really getting into like a vacuum, man. And You know, we that was just one of the comments you made over many hours of conversation. And I started question myself. I was like, What good is it to spend all my time and energy on these things I can’t control?

00;42;05;11 – 00;42;25;19

Jonathan Mayo

It was creating this bitter, angry nihilism in which I felt helpless and, you know, just pounding it out on the roads, which has been this great period of reflection out here. And through these conversations and stuff, there’s this turning moment where he’s like, and we’ve already talked about start with yourself and allow the cup to overflow and go from there.

00;42;26;00 – 00;42;40;19

Jonathan Mayo

Well, what what yielded that? It was this moment where it’s like, I can’t do a damn thing right now to change these things that are making me angry and burning up my energy, my happiness, my peace throughout the day. I can’t do a damn thing about any of them. I’m not going to change the geopolitical state of the world.

00;42;40;19 – 00;43;00;12

Jonathan Mayo

I’m not going to change these things from where I am right now in my life. But what I can change is myself. What I can change is how I interact with those I’m around. What I can change is how I spend my time. I was like, Well, what if I just focused on that and this is and I won’t allow it to become too repetitive, but that is what triggered it.

00;43;00;22 – 00;43;08;20

Jonathan Mayo

And that’s what triggered that switch in mindset. And then pursuing that kind of sense and a little micro loop back through this conversation.

00;43;08;21 – 00;43;56;05

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was a it really hits you. It makes you reassess how you apply your time and your effort and energy. If you’re expending the fuel in your tank to an end, that doesn’t create some additional good or even worse, you do it a capacity that perhaps even creates anger or resentment or and not to say that you were, but I’m saying in general, if you find yourself in that position and then you get a taste of what it’s like to inspire people and you get a taste of what it’s like to lift someone up and watch them go on their own path.

00;43;56;12 – 00;44;17;27

Kirk Van Everen

To also do that and turn to you’ve expanded your your radius of influence beyond an arm’s length rank. As you talk about starting inward and working on yourself and then working on family and then working on your friends and then your community and watching the ripple effect of that positivity just kind of surge.

00;44;17;27 – 00;44;18;17

Jonathan Mayo

Outward.

00;44;19;07 – 00;44;39;17

Kirk Van Everen

In ways that lift people up and they go on to, you know, with a new renewed sense of of invigorated, invigorated confidence in themselves. And they go on to do great things in their community. You you can’t turn back at that point like this. This is for me. That’s what sold me on on everything we’re doing right now.

00;44;40;00 – 00;45;11;20

Kirk Van Everen

You want to talk about taking risk? I completely change the entire trajectory of my life and restructured everything so that it could be funneled into this endeavor. And it is 100% because I find immense fulfillment in trying to help people at scale. You know, I was able to do this in the Army, very different capacity, but, you know, internationally at scale and getting just to be able to do that and then leaving the army, there’s this vacuum of what am I to do with myself?

00;45;11;24 – 00;45;38;29

Kirk Van Everen

And I knew this was going to happen. And mean you talked for years about, okay, what’s what’s the next chapter going to look like? And as soon as these pieces start to fall into place, I wanted nothing else. I wanted nothing else. Because, you know, while I do need something to keep the lights on and a roof over my family’s head, as those those very, you know, Moore’s Law of core hierarchy like base level hierarchy of needs.

00;45;39;08 – 00;45;54;01

Kirk Van Everen

But if you can get to the point where you’ve got your house in order to use your words earlier and you can help people outside of your immediate radius, it is so addicting, it is so rewarding, it’s so fulfilling. It just it becomes your purpose. Step one.

00;45;54;16 – 00;46;19;12

Jonathan Mayo

It gives life. And you know, two things that keep me on my mind is that despair and isolation and division I felt right was replaced slowly by just ignoring the outside world for a time. And folks, I approve myself alone. And you could ask, well, what’s the switch When you start focusing on helping others, I’d say there is nobody switch.

00;46;19;12 – 00;46;38;13

Jonathan Mayo

You’re always going to focus on improving yourself, but there does come a point where you become aware that you’re also helping others and you have to choose, I think, to intentionally pick like accept that responsibility and to the best of your ability, wield it responsibly. Right. With that in mind.

00;46;39;25 – 00;46;42;02

Kirk Van Everen

What’s wrong? Oh, no, no. Had something to do.

00;46;43;04 – 00;47;01;06

Jonathan Mayo

With that in mind, though? Like, it’s like, what then do you do you just not nothing really changes. I’m still waking up every day meditating on how can I be better than yesterday. I’m still doing all those things, but so then how do you know that your influence is grown? People tell you you don’t choose at some point.

00;47;01;06 – 00;47;28;10

Jonathan Mayo

Okay, now it’s time for me to go save the world. Now it’s time for me to go help someone. Oh, you look like you need helping f off. Yeah, Forget loser like. No, you’re wrong. It’s. They tell you, your community tells you and you choose to continue going forward and accept that and wield it responsibly. Now, in what replaced the despair and the division and all of that hope, unity, love and the courage to continue.

00;47;28;11 – 00;47;28;23

Kirk Van Everen

That’s great.

00;47;29;03 – 00;47;48;13

Jonathan Mayo

And that’s even what I hope this book instills is like hope. Like if I if someone wants to enhance the performance, I think it can help. But also we live in a world I don’t think it’s like new, but life can be hard. So it’s like, well, how the heck do I navigate to something that’s I’m excited to experience?

00;47;49;13 – 00;48;10;01

Jonathan Mayo

And if you don’t know how to do that, you feel trapped. And like a victim, you’re like, You are. But the second that like it’s broken, you start to see hope. And like, it may just be this little small whisper, but if you’re like, what? What if, you know, like, if that comes into mind, like, I see this now, what if I could do it?

00;48;10;16 – 00;48;27;28

Jonathan Mayo

I don’t know how, but what if I could avoid that first step? Yeah, that hope mixed with that curiosity can really change everything. Yeah. And, you know, part of the invitation here is, hey, if we wake up, we can accomplish some beautiful things.

00;48;27;28 – 00;48;48;28

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah, and we talked about this on the last podcast because, Brandon, I talked to you about some of the changes that you were making in your life and how you started to notice the people around you first. It was a you know, it was kind of a lonely experience. You’re speaking a different language than the people around you.

00;48;49;08 – 00;49;16;26

Kirk Van Everen

And just the way that you approach time, the way you approach priorities, the way you approach, you know, responsibility Right. And a lot of people don’t speak the same language, not to say that they don’t have it in their own capacity, but there is definitely a framework that you started to follow and and there was so this is a lonely period that you progressed through, but then when you got to the other side and really it was not just like transitionary moment, like you didn’t suddenly think, okay, oh, now, now it’s my turn to inspire my community.

00;49;16;26 – 00;49;40;12

Kirk Van Everen

Now you just started to notice that people saw you and what you were doing then and that tangential influence that you were having and that you may not have been intentionally doing was happening really unbeknownst to you. But. But that feedback loop confirmed it where they were like, Hey, I’m realizing that. I mean, you kind of speak to that a little bit.

00;49;40;12 – 00;50;09;20

Kirk Van Everen

I mean, if there’s just some of that, some of the observations you have about you’re working on yourself and you’re living a life of, of of like objectively positive habits, positive, healthy lifestyle habits, right. That are done consistently with discipline over time and watching people react to that. Yeah. I mean, what would you say your your feelings are on just seeing that transition of people speaking to that to you?

00;50;11;12 – 00;50;44;21

Brandon Seifert

Yeah. So I would say that it came in two different phases. You know, the first phase is when everyone just kind of stepped back the initial, Hey, you’re, you’re different. I’m going to be the same. I’m going to be over here. And then the second phase when everyone kind of started coming back was how can we how can we change?

00;50;45;17 – 00;50;55;28

Brandon Seifert

Not change is a bad word for it, but how can we go about reintroducing this person back into my life without my life being affected?

00;51;00;11 – 00;51;09;08

Kirk Van Everen

You mean just like being supportive of your efforts? They’re like, okay, I see what you do to me. Like, Hey, that’s pretty cool. You know, just acknowledging that you’re on journey or some path, right?

00;51;09;15 – 00;51;42;23

Brandon Seifert

Correct. You know, it’s like the same, you know, I did 75 hard. Part of that involves no alcohol, you know, it’s like when they decided, okay, I want to buy you a beer. You say, no, they have this like hesitancy moment where it’s just like, yeah, I’m going to I’ll get you a water then. Yeah. You know, you know, people have to realize that you’re trying to do a conscious effort change and then they have to initially accept it.

00;51;43;15 – 00;51;55;16

Brandon Seifert

And just that acceptance I feel like is also making them begin to question themselves. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. In a very simplistic, radiant outwards way.

00;51;55;24 – 00;52;22;14

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah. And again, like not to suggest that like alcohol is evil, it’s it’s really how you, how you it’s your relationship within it with for your life to it. But for the example gave there’s a point where because you describe almost like a second phase and there’s a third phase where it becomes almost admiration for not to say that that lifestyle choice is the change they need to make, but it’s admirable to watch someone working on themselves, especially if they can.

00;52;22;14 – 00;52;47;20

Kirk Van Everen

And then in turn, there’s this moment of reflection. Okay. Hey, like he’s out there killing it. He’s, you know, clocking long hours at work. He’s he’s getting up early in the morning. He’s changed this, you know, in these ten different ways here. There’s this there’s this, like, pregnant pause. They’re like, right. Like, maybe it’s time for for a system update on my own lifestyle choices as well.

00;52;48;01 – 00;53;03;10

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah. Sounds like that’s almost like that. And again, if anybody can manage to find themselves in that position, then that’s success again and again. This is like this is you know, you’re not even intentionally doing it, but you’ve influence them to approach life in a more healthier, positive way.

00;53;03;10 – 00;53;04;16

Jonathan Mayo

And I think that.

00;53;04;16 – 00;53;05;24

Kirk Van Everen

Reassess and retool.

00;53;05;28 – 00;53;39;25

Jonathan Mayo

In the most part in the best of cases. Yes, What I think is incredibly crucial to everything we’re discussing in the book itself is the concept of intentional living, taking radical responsibility and living intentionally. What happens, because I’ve taken a lot of time right now, I’m doing another 70 days on personal contract and joining a buddy and not drinking or doing anything because I want to reevaluate what I’ve learned over the last 18 months of not drinking and drinking and seeing what life looks like now and just, you know, continue moving forward.

00;53;40;07 – 00;53;56;14

Jonathan Mayo

But what happens when it’s like, hey, can I get you this drink? Right, But some experience, What my observation has been, it’s not that it suddenly turns on the light of them joining in the journey. For the most part, it’s more just like it gives them a stutter step, pause or go away. You’re not going drink. Why? In like the first time they do, it’s like, whatever.

00;53;56;26 – 00;54;16;24

Jonathan Mayo

And then the second time it’s like, Dude, what are you doing? And then they’ll like, ask it and you’ll have that conversation and then some, you know, results may vary, but what is interesting is a lot of time it seems that there’s this great discomfort with Holy crap, why isn’t he? And then they ask the question, why? Why am I?

00;54;16;24 – 00;54;38;12

Jonathan Mayo

What is this? And that is so uncomfortable that if you’re not ready to have that moment of awareness and take action, you start stuffing and trying to numb that away as quickly as possible so that you can continue the path, anything that continues, whatever you’re doing, without being disrupted. And I think that’s kind of the default response. And I think that’s what most people do until they’re ready and, you know, and be relentless.

00;54;38;22 – 00;55;06;07

Jonathan Mayo

And we explore the intentional pause, I mean, the intentional cycle versus the default cycle, right? And the default cycle when you have these disturbances in your life is to forget about them as quickly as possible one way or the other. And I do think that is the case. But with enough disturbances, with enough life circumstances, you may get to, you will likely approach a moment of awareness where you have to decide, Oh, I see this clearly enough.

00;55;06;07 – 00;55;25;17

Jonathan Mayo

Am I going to do something about it or am I going to stay the course in? You know, I think the default response to those situations is more, at least for my experience, a bit more, shrugging it off and determining I’m going to acknowledge what you’re doing and say, Oh, cool, man, and then just continue going on my own merry way.

00;55;25;26 – 00;55;48;11

Jonathan Mayo

And it’s funny because it’s interesting because these conversations mean that in some level it’s influencing those around you because you’re having these conversations. And I was thinking back to like, when do you know that you’re have a greater weight of responsibility to your community versus like because you’re being noticed or what have you? And I’m struggling with that even in this conversation, despite everything.

00;55;48;19 – 00;56;17;27

Jonathan Mayo

And I think I think I have it. It’s not that you ever arrive or hit this moment or it’s like, now my focus is shifting from inward to outward. It’s that your responsibility grows. And that’s the best way to put it. Like at first, you know, to use a sports analogy, if you put a barbell on your back to do squats with, you know, one plate on each side, that’s you fixing yourself however much weight, Then when you get indicators that people aren’t just noticing, but they’re curious like, why are you doing this?

00;56;17;27 – 00;56;32;02

Jonathan Mayo

What’s causing you to do it? I want to learn more about it. That’s when you’re starting to get more to it. You’re talking about. Kircher It’s like it’s in it’s influencing them on some level. That’s like the initial sign of someone who’s put an extra £50 on the bar. And then when someone’s like, Hey, thank you for what you’re doing.

00;56;32;02 – 00;56;55;24

Jonathan Mayo

It’s changing how I’m behaving. Now you have an extra £90 in the bar. It’s like, okay, so I’m not I’m never rising, arriving anywhere so much as as we continue to journey forward and explore and adventure, I’m gaining responsibility. I’m getting the strength to bear that responsibility and I’m getting the desire to yield it. Well, that’s the hope at least.

00;56;55;26 – 00;57;20;04

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah. I mean, your capacity, your capacity to bear the responsibility increases. And I think a lot of the exercises within a book help to train that and really it is it’s entirely dependent on how you how seriously you take it, how honest you are with yourself. But one of the things that definitely comes to mind is probably one of the biggest excuses that people have life is they just don’t have enough time.

00;57;20;18 – 00;57;44;21

Kirk Van Everen

And then when I say this, this is a trigger for you, Joe. I mean, this is definitely one of those things where you, I won’t say, get emotional know you will. You’ll definitely get emotional about it because the thing is your your relationship passion, you know, your relationship with time is is different. You’ve redefined it right. You have you use it again and I’ve I’ve I’ve inculcated this into my life as well.

00;57;45;08 – 00;58;07;10

Kirk Van Everen

But you down to the language and how you talk about priorities the words you use when you tell someone whether you can or cannot do something and why. Right. Instead of just saying, Hey, man, sorry I didn’t get around to it. I didn’t have prayer at another time for it. Right. Forcing yourself to come to terms with the idea that it’s just, nope, this was not a priority for me.

00;58;08;03 – 00;58;26;05

Kirk Van Everen

And then the follow up to that is, and this other thing over here was a priority. And this is why. Right? You force yourself to stack those priorities in order and then do that because you have to when you stack them in order, you’re forcing yourself to look at your day in a different way.

00;58;26;07 – 00;58;26;16

Jonathan Mayo

Yes.

00;58;27;23 – 00;59;00;07

Kirk Van Everen

And then one of the one of the outputs of that is intentionality. Yes, You are intentional with how you use your time and when you decide whether you do something or not, it’s deliberate. So when when you told me that you were going to surge to finish the book, the point in time in your life, I remember thinking, how does John have the time to do this on top of the other things that you were tackling simultaneously?

00;59;01;06 – 00;59;28;15

Kirk Van Everen

But you talk about, you know, intentionality and discipline. This is how you do it. I mean, it’s not, you know, that you you speak differently. You don’t you refuse to use certain terms anymore. Correct. Because it really instills and forces and forces these habits that over time change your actions, correct? Yes. That’s just discipline. I mean, that’s really just definition of discipline right there.

00;59;28;29 – 00;59;49;10

Jonathan Mayo

It’s hard to say. Where does it start in your thoughts or your words? And I think it’s both at the same time, frankly, because how do you change your thoughts? I mean, you’re thinking them, but you may hear your words and be like, oh, wait a second, I just make an excuse. So I think it just becomes this like haptic feedback loop of, okay, I’m thinking this, And then I say something.

00;59;49;10 – 01;00;04;29

Jonathan Mayo

I’m like, Wait, that’s not what I was wanting. And like, once you have those little awareness things, you create a cycle of, okay, so it’s not that I have a really funny example about this, but it’s not. So this morning too, two gens were supposed to come out to the Iron Range to do some training. Both of them build one of them.

01;00;04;29 – 01;00;22;26

Jonathan Mayo

So last night I’ll be there this morning and I’m not feeling it. Yeah, I appreciate the candor of that more. Frankly, he’s choosing to prioritize being soft and staying in his bed. And I’m jabbing him right now, jabbing them all day, then coming out and that’s fine. I just want have said I’d come out last night and then the other guy’s like, I give it a 20%.

01;00;23;06 – 01;00;43;12

Jonathan Mayo

I’ve been out traveling this week, so we’ll see which to me is a screaming no. So I’d rather you just say no. So my response to him this morning when he didn’t show up was, have you heard operator’s principal? It’s the 20% think it should down Looks like you’re in the 80 and you know so I was definitely stirring the pot him but it it’s hilarious because where does it start.

01;00;43;20 – 01;01;03;24

Jonathan Mayo

Thoughts and words your thoughts and words do depict your actions over time. Right. And this iterative process. And that was just a fun opportunity to get some jabs out there, but also illustrate the point out of much more appreciated if guys like you know, man, I just finished traveling, I frankly don’t want to come home awesomely. I’ll see you at the other arenas.

01;01;04;10 – 01;01;04;29

Jonathan Mayo

That would have been cool.

01;01;05;06 – 01;01;10;12

Kirk Van Everen

Well, you’re being honest. So in this instance, he’s being honest with you. But it’s really about being honest with yourself.

01;01;10;19 – 01;01;11;01

Jonathan Mayo

Yes.

01;01;11;17 – 01;01;38;12

Kirk Van Everen

That’s huge, because people are dishonest with themselves. You you talk about the intentional cycle in the defaults, like a lot of it has to do with self-deception. Yeah. You are lying to yourself when you tell yourself that you just couldn’t do something or that you were too busy. Or when you really look the cross section you like, you do a soil sample and you dig into the ground and it’s 20%, you know, look dirt without sand or okay.

01;01;38;19 – 01;02;02;16

Kirk Van Everen

And if you do this like soil sample on your time and you’re like, okay, 97 minutes on Instagram and I scrolled, you know, through X, Y and Z, and then I sat on my butt for an hour and I whatever, right. Or I was I sat behind a computer and I was clocking time. The clock’s still going, but I wasn’t doing anything right.

01;02;02;16 – 01;02;24;05

Kirk Van Everen

Like, it’s about not lying to yourself. Yes. And having that honesty it starts with internally. And then, of course, when you when you interact with those around you and you defend your choices for how you’re prioritizing your time, that’s where that honesty extends outward, because you can stand on the ground like, hey, this was not a priority to me last night.

01;02;24;09 – 01;02;41;13

Kirk Van Everen

I was focused on family. You do this all the time. Like, by the way, you I mean, again, this is not just like him. And I say this just because John won’t. But John lives this all the time. And this is a this is a this is not an overnight thing. This is a a long process of of building.

01;02;41;13 – 01;02;54;18

Kirk Van Everen

This is this now muscle memory at this point. But this is not an overnight thing. So for your picking this book up and you want to start don’t think this is going to be overnight. It’s not going to trust the process. Yeah. Yes.

01;02;54;21 – 01;03;08;29

Jonathan Mayo

Yeah. You definitely have to build into it. And in fairness, I mean, you did this morning beautifully. Hey, I’m you didn’t say these words exactly, but this is exactly how I intended it am going to be about 10 minutes late. I’m going to have breakfast with my wife and tend to something like tend to loving her for a moment.

01;03;09;07 – 01;03;38;14

Jonathan Mayo

And that’s where my priorities are. So I’ll be there 10 minutes late. Yeah. And I was like, Heck yeah, I can that every frickin time. Because it’s like, Oh, I have to do something. So I’m going to be late because traffic man, it’s like, don’t make excuses, just own what you want. So like even you doing it this morning, like that type of healthy, it makes such a healthy communication back and forth that I at least as an individual, I so much more prefer someone to tell me, hey like just because doing this is not a priority to me right now doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.

01;03;38;15 – 01;03;55;16

Jonathan Mayo

Yeah, but to be able to have that candle with yourself and then with those you’re in community with is deeply uncomfortable, upfront, and continues to be uncomfortable in certain instances. But to your point, it is radically perspective shifting. Yeah.

01;03;56;07 – 01;04;23;29

Kirk Van Everen

Yes. Yeah, it really is. And watch and watch as your life just starts to change. I mean, it is. It is. You know, again, you don’t just wake up and you’re, you know, as a as a professional bodybuilder like you, it is a lot of time, a lot of deliberate lonely moments of of intentional application. But then you’ll see the results over time and then it and then you look back on it and you won’t.

01;04;24;19 – 01;04;42;07

Kirk Van Everen

It’s hard to look at life, how you used to live it and think about regressing backwards to that. It’s really I can’t see it. I it’s almost impossible for me to imagine it going backwards on that. It’s almost like looking back at high school and thinking about the things I used to care about when I was in high school.

01;04;42;07 – 01;05;02;10

Kirk Van Everen

And then the thing that, you know, the the the growth that has happened in my life, the shift in priorities over time, it’s very it’s almost the same you look back, okay, Hey, it’s about you know, at that time it was about, you know, popularity contests and, you know, being able to quote comedians at at the lunch table or and that was about it.

01;05;02;10 – 01;05;29;10

Kirk Van Everen

Like you didn’t think about anything beyond just, you know, getting a couple of laughs of your friends and making sure you’re wearing brands of clothes. I mean, this doesn’t really apply to me because my dad’s a gymnast as coach. So I wore a lot of like gym shorts and that was basically me. But the point being, though, is that there is absolutely it’s hard to look back at it after you’ve gone through this transition and fall back on it, You know, with enough discipline, enough time, it just becomes the new norm.

01;05;29;13 – 01;05;43;21

Jonathan Mayo

Well, one of the things that shifts in that is that the new norm is one that seeks to create value. And the previous one, especially in our current society, is much more consumption, pleasure seeking based, right.

01;05;43;29 – 01;05;46;03

Kirk Van Everen

You touch on the book like beautifully. Yeah.

01;05;46;03 – 01;05;49;12

Jonathan Mayo

So. Well thank you. I do. I like. Yeah it’s so beautiful.

01;05;49;12 – 01;05;50;18

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah. Yeah. No, I wrote the thing, right?

01;05;50;29 – 01;06;09;28

Jonathan Mayo

No, no, but. But what I mean is I so firmly believe it. We ought to pursue the creation of value, not the consumption of pleasure. And that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy pleasurable things again, drink deep of revelry in the beauty of life and those things. But that can’t be the purpose in my mind. That if your purpose is to.

01;06;10;13 – 01;06;29;14

Jonathan Mayo

I’m going to make this better. What is this? You know, as we keep stating myself. And then from that when I pursue this idea because my self turns into something more than self, it turns into an idea. And that idea I can pursue in that idea becomes an ideal that can then influence and inspire others as well Right.

01;06;29;22 – 01;06;39;14

Jonathan Mayo

And now I’m going to pursue that. And in the pursuit of that, what can be created and that specifically in the book I call pursuing significance.

01;06;40;26 – 01;06;46;20

Kirk Van Everen

Versus just the flashy car, the big mansion, the the trendy clothes, but whatever, and.

01;06;46;20 – 01;07;07;12

Jonathan Mayo

Let those things come right. Like if you if you earn them, fantastic. Yeah. But let’s pursue significance. These types of conversations, the moments with those we love, the things that we can create that have lasting enduring value. Something that when we reflect on our day, right. I’m better for today than I was yesterday. Yeah, that’s cool.

01;07;07;14 – 01;07;07;29

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah.

01;07;07;29 – 01;07;23;26

Jonathan Mayo

That in our lives what some may say, well, it doesn’t matter. We’re all just put in the sense of go ahead. And while this blip in the sand seems to be the most important thing that I can imagine, because it’s the only thing that I can experience. So until that changes, I care a good amount about this blip in time, you know?

01;07;24;01 – 01;07;27;12

Jonathan Mayo

So I want to make it as radiant and brighten life giving as possible.

01;07;27;18 – 01;07;31;02

Kirk Van Everen

Yeah. Oh, very well put on there. So.

01;07;31;25 – 01;07;51;20

Jonathan Mayo

You know, and with the intent of sitting down to explore the book, I think that we’ve done that rather thoroughly and had a fun time jumping through quite a few of the topics. And it’s been a blast. And short of anything that I may be missing, one of the things that I wanted to close on is one, please check it out.

01;07;51;21 – 01;08;47;25

Jonathan Mayo

Right? It’s available on Amazon and Audible at all. The links are going to be available in the show notes as well as on our social media pages and soon our website when we launch that for you, Ali Universe, and then in addition to that, I do want to finish from my perspective on a more succinct reason for why I wrote the book from the perspective of what I hope it accomplishes and for myself, my hope is that it can be a spark of light, life, love, hope in the first step in the path forward that we may have the opportunity to meet each other on that path so we can adventure through this life, create

01;08;47;25 – 01;08;57;09

Jonathan Mayo

something beautiful, create that we can love and cherish, and make this world a little bit brighter than it was before we started this.

01;08;57;09 – 01;09;01;01

Kirk Van Everen

Beautiful. I’m showing it here right now, but I know you mean that, so.

01;09;01;01 – 01;09;03;04

Jonathan Mayo

Oh, yeah. That’s every fiber of my being.

01;09;03;05 – 01;09;08;16

Kirk Van Everen

Yes. All right, cool. Well, it’s been a pleasure, John. Love being on again.

01;09;08;25 – 01;09;30;00

Jonathan Mayo

Yeah, it’s fun. Hope everyone out there has a good day, and we’ll see you later, okay? All right. And that is the show. Thank you so much for listening. If you found value in today’s episode, please pay it forward. You do that by liking and following the show liking following us on social media or sharing this episode with someone you care about.

01;09;30;06 – 01;09;46;23

Jonathan Mayo

All of these things help more than I can put into words, and each action taken to help us spread the word is greatly appreciated. So once again, from all of us here at the UK and brilliant this podcast, thank you for joining us in the journey as we seek to lead maximized lives.