EXPLORING THE TOOLS THAT UNLEASH HUMAN POTENTIAL
Today, we’re delving into the incredible and astronomical chances that brought each of us to this unique moment in our lives. Following that, we’ll discuss various strategies for managing our emotions, emphasizing the critical role of self-awareness. No matter if you’re dealing with grief, loss, or simply a challenging day, our goal is to equip you with valuable insights and practical tools to tackle life’s hurdles with confidence. So, prepare yourself as we embark on this enlightening journey through the world of thoughts and emotions!
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Jon Mayo: 0:08
Hello everyone and welcome to the second episode of Thought Expeditions on the Be Relentless Podcast. Today, brandon and I jump right on in with another one and done topic. We discuss the incredible statistical probability to be, at this moment in time, as the two individuals we are in the place that we are, and how that translates to every person and the beauty that it adds to life, as well as the opportunity that it adds for us to continue to lean into leading Maximized lives. So, without further ado, let’s hop on in. So how are you doing today, bud?
Brandon Seifert: 0:57
Doing good. Apparently, I was tossing an intern in last night. My back’s a little achy, but overall got up nice and early. How to walk with the pups. How are you doing, man?
Jon Mayo: 1:09
Doing very well. Yeah, we’re testing an early recording time this time around, seeing how it works for us, and we are jumping into our second episode of Thought Expeditions. So the experiment is alive and we’re having fun. So what have you cooked up for today?
Brandon Seifert: 1:28
So today I’ve been thinking about the probability of us being here just in general, so probability, as in everything that had to take place for us to even just have this moment in front of us, and why we should treasure each moment in front of us as well. So I know we’ve had a couple of conversations based off of that type of thinking, but I finally decided to actually try to pull up some actual statistics of that. So one of those being the odds of us just being here, let’s start by the odds of our parents meeting is one in 20,000. Now that needs to be multiplied by the odds of that’s just them seeing each other is the odds of 20,000. And that number comes from just the average amount of people that we meet in our lifetime. Could be more, it could be less, but just the difference that we see After that, that odd needs to be taken into account from every other person in your generation, your lineage, basically as far back as we can go in human history, and that puts that in about one in. Oh gosh, it’s a lot of zeros 400 quadrillion, as in the odds. So every, every moment and this is just the basis of where I’ve been kind of going in the past couple days has such insane odds of us even being here to share a moment that is going to be uniquely designed for you, that nobody else will ever experience in front of you. What are your thoughts on living more presently, knowing that everything around you and everything that you’re viewing through your perception is going to be solely linked to what you see? Nobody else will ever experience anything that you truly experience because it’s based off of your perception.
Jon Mayo: 3:44
Yeah, let’s see, i think it’s beautiful And I think that it’s dangerous. On the one hand, it like running those numbers right, which is essentially educated beer math to some level, right, yeah. But in like pulling the statistics, like those statistical calculations are educated beer math to some level, but when you, i think that there’s a helpful exercise in it, because it’s very easy to just fly through everything without taking the intentional time to enjoy the opportunities that are in front of us, right, and that’s obviously a huge theme of a lot of what I’m working on and what we’re working towards and everything like that. But it is insane to essentially say, okay, the odds of being here, us having met, us having this conversation at five in the morning on a Thursday, right, is astronomically wild When you look at it in the scope of all of humanity, as best as we can tell. And then, even if you look at it in the scope of just our lives and the people we’ve met through our lives and the circumstances that have led us to the different situations we’ve been in, it’s less astronomical but still phenomenal, you know. And what I really think it comes down to for me is like hearing those numbers and stuff is. It is a reaffirmation that there is immense value in the gift of living today. And I was having a conversation with a buddy of mine a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about, you know, if World War III is coming and the world is essentially looking like it’s gonna end because of all of these things, then kind of what’s the point? Just a very like the term will come back to me, but he’s just that very nihilistic. You know it’s hard to find the motivation to wanna create value and press in, do those things, and you know, what’s it matter if it doesn’t last, and kind of that type of conversation, right, which is the countervots? And, as best as I can tell, exploring the same topic, is there’s no guarantee that anyone, at any point that’s ever drawn breath, thought that they were gonna actually have a lasting impact, even if that was their aim and pursuit beyond their death, right? Whether it was seeking glory and honor in the Coliseum or in war or in writing through the centuries. There’s no guarantee. And even those who did seek that, and even those who achieved it, it’s not benefited them, right, when they died. What we did with it, whether good or bad, they were positive or negative in their memory. Does it really affect them? And pulling on that thread, like even if we think of, like the Stoics or these other historical figures who have had a huge impact on us, once they’re gone we have no proof that there’s any benefit for the positive or the wrongs they’ve done. And so what did it matter for? Well, we are creating the value of, by adding meaning to the things they did, based on what we believe to be the relevancy of them today. Right, but that doesn’t affect them, to our knowledge. So, if the world’s gonna end, or if things are gonna get rough and we have the gift of being able to be alive right now as evidence of us sitting here, then does it need to matter for more than this moment? Or is this moment for us, and this point in time, the most important thing that we can participate in? and can that be meaningful enough? You know, and kind of thinking through it from that perspective, i think that it’s meaningful enough this is my belief to show up now with everything I’ve got, because right now, one is all I have, and the next moment’s not guaranteed and the past moment’s already a memory that I’ll probably forget. So all I have is this blip that travels through time and space And I cannot definitively state factually what’s gonna be on any other side of any equation. So you pair that kind of logic and parsing it out and then look at the beauty of the odds, the probability of us being here, and then you combine to that the opulence and opportunity of the circumstances in which we are enjoying this conversation, the utilization of technology, the country and freedoms and resources that are in abundance around us and everything else, and it becomes very difficult, or far more difficult, to not begin to feel gratitude welling up within.
Brandon Seifert: 9:10
Right, and that power of now, that mindfulness, i think, is definitely very important. I find a lot of people, including myself, especially myself tend to get sucked into past events that we have no control of changing. We tend to hold on to the bad of the negative, or sometimes we hold on to the good times, putting into perspective that right now is not the best of times, like we try to cling to better times, not living in the moment, and I think the same also happens with us looking ahead too far. I think there’s power in trying to find the direction that you want your life to go in, but living in the moment is the only way that you’re going to achieve it.
Jon Mayo: 10:01
To start changing things. What makes a moment good or bad?
Brandon Seifert: 10:07
It’s all by perception. I’m trying to remember. I think it was like Carl Jung said and don’t quote me on this, but vaguely he said the meaning of events is and always was artificial. We create it. We assign meaning to everything that we discuss, talk about, think about, watch people do, because the moment that we’re perceiving will always be something outside of what we can control for the most part. You know, there’s definitely things that we can change and we can assign different meanings to that way. But say, i watched John push someone into the street. That can be a horrible experience, or I can just decide to not care about it, like no matter what. You always have a choice on how you decide to take feedback from the world around you. And I feel like there’s And I struggle with this where I have a hard time taking that step back to determine actually how I want to feel about something, and that’s where it gets dangerous and that’s where you get sucked out of the moment, because now you’re living in a fantasy on oh hey, that person wronged me, and now you’re playing out a little scenario in your head. But if you decided to stay in the moment, press into. Why am I feeling this way? Now you can potentially round yourself out and get back into the moment and decide to not be affected by these things. You know, how do you feel about that.
Jon Mayo: 12:00
I think it’s a good goal. In the last 24 hours, there’s two situations where that kind of opportunity presented itself, right, and I think that because we’re biological creatures, you know, being human beings, that there’s no like easy button just to hit it and just be like I am completely present and get to experience every moment richly and everything like that. It is a, in my mind, a very worthy ideal to get to pursue, because it allows us the opportunity to not waste what we know definitively or what the only thing that we do know definitively as an opportunity of consciousness in life right, everything else is born from faith or belief. So, given that, as the backdrop, it’s like, yeah, let’s not waste it, and I think that’s the whole premise, right, let’s not waste it. So let’s not rush past it and go through it numb, go through it unintentionally and go through it missing the whole point that we get to only rejoice in the experiences that we have And everything else is a waste or cheapening. And one of them was this you know, this morning, as I was working and preparing to jump on here and having fun, some fun with you, and going through that, i was meditating, praying through like all right provision would be kind of need. I was looking at finances, given current state of not being partnered with another company and building a company that is yet to be creating revenue that actually feeds the people who are creating it. So I’m just looking at it all and I’m kind of feeling that stress creep in, and I had taken some notes a few weeks ago when I was in a moment of strength, so I was like you know what any positive just read through this, because I was starting to feel that like stress come in, and one of the pieces of it was like So now stop worrying about provision and ask Lord, what may I delight in doing today that fulfills my duty to you and allows the freedom you have promised? And that’s a personal excerpt from some papers I was working on for myself, and the beauty of that, though, is that it’s so spot on with this conversation, because I’m not drinking pina coladas by the pool, wasting time. I am diligently working, refining, adapting and honing how I’m utilizing the moments that I have today in a season. That is arguably what I’ve desired for years. I get to focus fully on my family, building the business I love and networking for opportunities, and that is, quite literally part and parcel, what I’ve wanted to do for quite a few years now. Now the circumstances are a little bit different than I had envisioned, but I’m still in this moment, whether temporarily or for the long term, and continue like going down the path of scarcity and losing the ability to experience this because of the stress and fear that can come If I don’t stop that thought process, and going down that path mentally and emotionally would be wasteful. And then I look back on this in the future at some point, probably with the significant opportunity for regret. Right, because I would be like well, i had all that time and I wasted it. Worrying and worrying when it get a job faster. Worrying is not going to make the ULA create resources faster to provide that freedom. Worrying is not going to make any of it better. Right, it’s going to cheapen the time with my family, with my friends. So, reflecting on that, what can I delight in doing today if it fills my duty? And then that you combine that with this idea that the work we get to do is the gift. Like, if you run down that thought process, okay, this is the gift. I have the opportunity to do this. I have the opportunity to rise up and do something of meaning, even if that meaning is just to create the provision so that I may eat today. There’s it’s a different lens to see the equation right, and then real quick. The second instance was yesterday. we have a couple of chicks right now and a couple of baby geese, geeselings, gooselings, however you say it And one of the chicks next was broken. The two boys that were in the cage with them, or like the pin with them, both crying and not excited by it, right. The chick died under somewhat ambiguous terms, in questionable circumstances. I think it probably broke its neck trying to jump through one of the gates, because the kids were walking around in there And they were devastated, right. So, anyways you fast, we bury the thing to help them mourn through the process. Right, we talked through it That night. They both have two very different ways of processing it. One of them is trying to build a lego and stay up, and I go up. It’s 10 o’clock. I’m like dude, it is 10 o’clock, you need to go to bed, it is time. And very proud of him because he communicated extraordinarily well. He’s like dad. I’m trying to not go to sleep because I’m afraid I’ll have bad dreams about the chick dying And I was like, okay, well, let’s talk about that for a second. And then he goes on to unpack how it doesn’t know precisely how it happened, but he’s afraid he may have stepped on it, but he doesn’t think he did, because when he looked it was on the other side of the pen and it was there And he was just struggling with guilt of the situation and wanting to avoid those feelings and wanting to avoid it by all costs. So instead we had the opportunity to feel like hey, man, this is an opportunity, we need to press into it, we need to let it in so that we can let it last, process it, and then, when we’re done processing and grieving it, seeking the understanding that we need to, we can let it go right. So there’s that like quip, let it in, let it last, let it go. And but it was a great conversation because we got to speak through that I said, hey, like if you’re uncomfortable, if you think you may have been responsible, if, whatever these things are, don’t avoid them, think through them And if that brings sorrow or anger or confusion, think through and allow yourself to feel that and continue to seek clarity And at some point through that process, no matter how painful or uncomfortable, the emotion’s gonna start to dry up. And when the emotion dries up, let it go And speak to that right. So we had that conversation. He did My other kid a little bit shorter version just heartbroken about it and sobbing and trying to get through it fast, and it was just affirming him like, but it’s okay, cause they just love these animals. It’s okay to mourn the loss of something you love, right, the risk of loving is loss. But it’s better, in my opinion, to have loved and loosed than it would be to have not had the opportunity to have that connection right, to have those moments shared together. So, anyways, we’ve got to talk through that with him as well, and both of them you could tell we’re much more at peace than able to bed down and knock it up again and not continue to try and avoid it. And they got to go do the work on their own that they needed to do, right. All that to say is you kind of talked about it taking you out of the moment, right When you’re processing the emotions, processing the things. That’s a fairly detailed, multiple-exampled way of working to the point of I would argue that that becomes the moment. And the question is when does it become the moment? We were in the woods over the weekend and one of my younger two one of the twins got separated from his brothers and lost in the woods. We had to search for him for two and a half hours. We started calling in friends and he called fire in search and rescue was getting stood up. It was beginning to mount as each half hour increment increased and we could not find him. And these are like deep woods, like this is nature you know. So there’s no guarantee, there’s no guarantee whatsoever that we’re gonna see him again. There’s no guarantee. And as we were searching and I’ll just keep the details very poignant to this because that’s an interesting story with tons of lessons to explore But as we’re searching, i myself, as the father running through the draws and over the hills and crests and across this country looking for my son, often had to tell my mind and emotions to shut off so that I could stay cognitively in the moment to take action in the way that was necessary to best enhance the capability of me to find and locate my child right, because fears and securities, dark thoughts, all these things came through. And as soon as a dark thought came through and I had gotten what I needed from it for preparation of how I would respond if I’d run the next corner or go across the next, you know, cluster of trees, and that’s what I come across, as soon as that was done I was like all right, shut up and get out. And there was times that literally like emotion, like panic or sadness or fear or anger would well up as I’m running and looking for him. And every time I was like no, not now, later. right, not never but later. stop it F off. I’ve worked to do And I just did that and continued to prepare. okay, i may be out here all night, i may be out here for a few days. What steps do I need to take to stay sharp for that? What steps do I need to take so that I don’t become a liability, and how will this continue? The juxtaposition between those two moments is sometimes you have the luxury of stopping in the moment to process what you need to process And with that luxury of time in that moment, i would say that the processing becomes the very moment to experience because, like you started, this moment was made uniquely for my perception and experiencing of life, right From the perspective of the individual. So it’s like okay, cool, i get to do that. But then there’s moments where it’s unwise to do it in the moment And that’s where you know, as you go to sleep or early the next morning is a great opportunity to recall that and work through it. But in either which way, whether it’s the moment of the early morning or the evening or the moment that you pause and get to process immediately, i think that it’s equally as important as having walked through whatever that experience was in the first place, because what if you mislabeled the meaning that that experience ought to have had for your life, you know? So it’s kind of like finding a new species and then mislabeling it or something, so I don’t know. I think that I think the point of that is, when we look through these experiences, we ought to remember that we are significantly fortunate to get to share in an opportunity where we get to draw breath, eat something today, have something to put on ourselves, not at risk of immediate death, and grow from that. And it’s easy to lose sight of the gift of that, given the abundance we walk in, but we don’t have to lose sight of it. And to your point it’s, you know, to put it succinctly, i think it’s pretty amazing that we’re sitting here and doing this, yep.
Brandon Seifert: 23:59
I definitely agree. Would you say that the The difference in the scenarios is being cognizant or mindfulness in the moment to be present? I see the dangers of falling into these kind of like emotional moments is where you aren’t aware that you’re going through them, you allow yourself to be enamored by them, and then I could see danger in that. But with the way that you phrase that, it’s making me question is that really as big of a danger, as long as we’re still living through our lives in that moment anyways, to process that emotion? So do you think there is a danger side to that as well, or do you think that overall it’s still a processing mechanism for us to move on further down into the to the next stage?
Jon Mayo: 25:04
I think it’s going to be part of the process And I think that there is danger in it, but that sometimes can’t be mitigated, right? So, for example, let’s say you’re just caught up in the emotion and you don’t realize it, there’s nothing you can do, you don’t know, you’re unaware, you’re asleep to the fact that you’re caught up in the emotion, you’re just, you’re fully experiencing it primarily Yeah, now. So there’s really nothing that can be done until you have a moment of awareness and recognize oh, i’m really spun up right now. Right. So I’d say the goal is to create the self-awareness that you gain, the realization that you’re spun up swiftly, right, and I do think that’s a skill we can pursue and cultivate. The years of training and experiences through adverse conditions is what allowed me to immediately shut off the emotions. When I was seeking to find my son Right, like when I was looking for him in the woods, i was hyper focused on the mission, on precisely what tools and actions and the pace of movement. All of these things I have these calculations going in my mind all aimed at one goal, with laser focus and unyielding like unyielding force, right, and that is locate this child. So, when all of the tools and years of training and practice and intentionality and all that jazz came together. I wasn’t thinking like I want to be in this moment. I was not thinking about any of these fun concepts. I was thinking about where is my child and how do I best be an asset and finding him Right? And that’s where, with those, with those guards in place and exercising those skill sets. When the emotion came up, it was an immediate F off, get out of here, shut up, it’s not time for that, it is not time for that. And had I not cultivated those skill sets, had I not done the type of work we’re exploring here, right, i could have been running through the woods and overcome with emotion and become like useless in the search. I could have lost five, 10, 15, 45 minutes being overwhelmed by the weightiness of the situation right, it could have caused me to split the whole time and then become useless and unable to continue searching. It could have caused me to get hurt from lack of awareness. It could have created a liability out of the very person who needed to be the greatest asset, right? So I do think that there’s significant danger, but there’s also the you can’t do anything with what you don’t know. So I think the first step is conversations like this, thoughts like this, us pursuing the very questions we’re asking and then recognizing that at some point in any situation, the light switch is going to turn on and we’re going to realize okay, wait, what’s going on here? It’s kind of like that snap, like okay, wait, something’s happening. What is happening, and in that single moment we get to choose are we going to just ignore it and press back into what we were doing, or can we choose a response that best serves the situation in ourselves? right, and that is an iterative cycle with many failings and successes, but I think, trending over time. If the desire is to make that choice consciously, then when we are drawn up in the passion of the moment, it becomes less at risk of being damaging.
Brandon Seifert: 28:41
Well, it’s a great way to think of that, and also just so it said, i’m glad that everything turned out all right in that. Yeah for you and your family.
Jon Mayo: 28:54
I didn’t want to just bypass that.
Brandon Seifert: 28:57
Yeah, thank you, but there’s definitely a lot to think about with that. I’m glad that we could have a conversation like this and discuss the mindfulness aspect of that And that also helped me work through different kind of notions on, because you can take that one very extreme way where it’s like, hey, you should always try to be present and screw the emotional side and processing and you don’t need that. But there’s a very healthy, necessary side to that and it should be utilized in the proper moment to function best for your life or the situation. And as long as you’re mindful about those type of things, you can make those distinctions And also, through adversity and learning to take these concepts, you can start to give yourself the moment or two to start making those decisions and become more present in those moments through experiences that you can put yourself through now. I would say that a lot of the things that you put yourself through at this moment not many people would consider fun. You know all the ice baths and everything else, but like those kind of small moments that you can press into the uncomfortable gives you the additional space in the sense, to be able to take control of those moments, and that might not even be the reason you’re doing that, and I doubt it is, but going through the uncomfortable will give you that space.
Jon Mayo: 30:47
Yeah, adversity breeds strength. so, very shortly, so that we can work to stick towards the timeline that we’re wanting these shorter form conversations to be, but very shortly, in the same way that we can influence how we think by determining what we say, right, like we discussed in the first episode of Thought Expeditions, you can. we are physical creatures, we’re physical beings. our mind and whatever you know, our mind, soul, spirit, whatever makes me, me and you, you is connected to a meatbag And that meatbag. it controls, it influences a lot and controls our consciousness a lot. right, the primal element of our brain, that historic, lizard part of our brain, controls a lot about how we think. we have these different forces, that nature within our own anatomy and consciousness that are not always in unison, you know, and often are not. Waking up at 3.30 doesn’t feel fun, you know, and I love seeing, i really truly love all the memes online making fun of people doing ice baths and making fun of people waking up early and making fun of people training hard, and because it’s true and it’s hilarious and it’s insane And I think that those who aren’t authentic in it deserve to be ribbed. I think that those who are still deserve to be read. So it’s kind of fun. but the reason to do it is 100%, if I can choose of my own free will to consistently overcome obstacles that I’ve created. it enhances my capacity, in circumstances I don’t create, to have a better response. And very raw and fresh in my mind is what we just discussed with seeking to find my son in the woods. right, i was concerned some you know problem fellow would find him. I was concerned of a mountain line. I was concerned he’d fall and break his neck right. All those fears were getting in the way of me being effective until I told him to shut up And thankfully that was about a five second lifespan because of how laser focused I was in that moment. But yeah, the reason to do the hard things is so that we may respond with better, more capable capacity, which is to say almost the same word twice. but the ability to do more better be a higher level asset when life demands it of us. It’s all preparation and that preparation fuels us And that’s why I’m such a strong advocate of training hard and doing things that require discipline and being unrelenting in the pursuit of those things and being unrelentingly intentional and sitting in front of the mirror because you don’t know when the next emergency is going to happen. And by training like that, not only do you get to go through life without fear and anxiety for when the next moment is going to happen, because you’re preparing for it, but you also get to drink deeper of the pleasant things and have a stronger mindset, or a mindset that might allow you the opportunity to prescribe the meaning to something positively that someone else may see as tragedy. And if that’s not one of the greatest gifts in this one life we get to walk through is to look at a situation and have a positive emotional response on it, and someone else is suffering because of their allocation of thought and emotion to it. That’s a fairly distinct difference in how that thing is experienced. And if our life is a collection of experiences, how cool is it to be able to define that in a way that brightens and makes life better? right, so incredibly fun conversation. It looks like this one was another one and done That’s sir. Awesome.
Brandon Seifert: 34:57
I definitely appreciate the time you took with this and exploring this mindfulness chapter with me.
Jon Mayo: 35:05
Yeah, absolutely, Brandon. Let’s keep pressing in and enjoying these thought expeditions. Thank you for listening to another episode of Thought Expeditions on the Be Relentless podcast. If you enjoyed today’s show and found value in it, please pay it forward. You can do that by sharing it with someone who you think may find value in it as well, or leaving us a five star review wherever you’re listening to this. If you want to learn more about the work on the Be Relentless podcast, the book or CCU stamina and all of the other cool things that we are doing in the ULA universe, go ahead and head on over to ulauniversecom and subscribe. Otherwise, thank you from the Be Relentless team and have a great day.
