Jon Mayo: 0:00
Dude, this is the difficult one. Oh boy, welcome to another episode of Be Relentless and Thought Expeditions. Today we dive back into facing the stronghold and demons of feeling like being a failure, of imposter syndrome of doubt, of fear, of despair and aggressive. Thoroughly, intentionally, seek first principles, thinking as an approach to lay a foundation. Lay a foundation from which we can make decisions that alter the course of our reality. Prior to jumping into that conversation, a couple of fun things to consider. One if you’ve not subscribed over at the ULA universe, you may head over, and if you’ve not tried CCU stamina, you may do so for free. Now, please use Be Relentless at checkout to save 10% and experience the fuel of waymakers. Two by the time this airs, I will have launched Ironfront Solutions. Go ahead and head on over to ironfrontsolutionscom and check it out. We’ll talk about it more next week and, without further ado, let’s press in.

Brandon Seifert: 1:50
Today. I’m hoping we find value out of this because once again on today’s thought expedition I am talking about myself. So overall context is having a growth mindset versus a success and failure black and white mindset. This comes from a realization that I had throughout the past week and so I’ve just been kind of wrestling with it, and so then it also is spurred on by a recent video from Jordan Peterson. But for context I know you know a little bit about my background I’m going to just spit out a couple of things just so anyone listening that might not know can know Once again, not should know my family I am just going through this part of healing. But from about the age of five to about 14 years old I was beaten daily. This is primarily from my brother, who was quite a bit older and stronger than me. Now when I say beaten daily, I mean every single day from that time span from five to 14. And I also mean not average fighting like I’m talking, stomping on the ground until I just don’t want to move, kind of fighting. Within that time I got used to the physical aspect, that that, coupled with the emotional and mental aspects. I don’t think that I’ve gotten past them quite as much as I have, and what I mean by that is the narrative that was trained and instilled in me was the narrative of my life is meaningless, that I should kill myself. I’m the reason that my parents fight, which I was forced to listen to through the door multiple times a week, so I would hear their fighting and be blamed that I was the reason of that fighting and the overall sense that everyone around me was given pain because I was there. So those aspects of me still live, even though I got past the physical Over time. That led to self harm, and I’m talking to suicide attempts by the age of 10. Self harm I didn’t like cutting because I knew it would leave a mark which would mean I would get beat again. So I got to the point where if I did something wrong in school, got a bad test grade or spoke out of turn or made noise and I got talked to about it or anything, I would actually hurt myself because that’s what I thought was supposed to happen if I was bad. Like I said, I was able to heal from the pain, but not the mindset of you’re not good enough, pretty much, and it basically just hit me this past week that I’ve been able to talk about this stuff pretty openly. Like most people that would ask or talk about it, I would spit this stuff out and I think it was more of a just reflection aspect, but not necessarily a healing or deep dive or response to what had happened. But basically, where this is starting to tie in because now I realize I’m just kind of slipping out of it, but I’m going to quote Jordan Peterson a couple times here, because he’s a genius Once a quote, couple are definitions. But the quote is if the cards are somehow stacked against you, perhaps the game you are playing is somehow rigged, perhaps by you, unbeknownst to yourself. And then I’m also going to pair that with a couple definitions of both success and failure that he had provided, which in this context seem very necessary. But success he defines as a comprehensive, singular, overall good thing and a family failure is a comprehensive, singular, irredeemably bad thing. I can’t speak today, so I bring both of those up in context with my past, because this has all hidden me pretty strong this week. But I believe that I am a failure to the point of self sabotage, and that’s through those definitions, but also by my own outlook of just life and how I am putting value to different aspects of my life. I wrote down you know reading my cliff notes here, just so I can stay focused. But yeah, it says that I believe that I’m a failure to the point of self sabotage. I want to know that I’m worth something, but deep down, like when I’m really asking myself and having conversations with myself, I know that I’m not in a lot of the stems from that persona and that childhood I’m trying to think of the word but basically what was instilled on me when I was a child, and so this manifests itself in a couple different ways. But, like I said, I see things in a very black and white success or failure kind of mindset, and this entire journey that I’m going on is trying to be in a growth mindset, and so I’m battling two different mindsets right now, and that could also then even be pushed further, because the people around me that say that I’m growing and doing a good job, I don’t believe that that’s true, because in my mind, I see myself as just a straight failure, because if I was a success, I would feel like a success, and so throughout the rest of my life it’s the way my brain determines success and feels it, but because I fail in not doing as good, or I fail in relationships, or you know, maybe my brain can find any other aspects, any other games that I’m playing and I say games because that’s how those challenges in somewhat seem to me Like. There’s the game of fitness, there’s the game of relationships, there’s different aspects that you can win or losing by this type of definition that I’m living in, that I can fail in, which means I’m on overall singular failure. So I know I’m dropping a lot on you, but I just wanted to kind of like voice all that and then kind of start pulling at some of your ideas. And I don’t believe that I have high standards. Well, I think I do, but I think that I don’t want to lower those standards. I think lowering the lowering of standards to make myself not feel like a failure would be a failure in itself. Yeah, man. So I just dropped a tongue on you. What do you think so far?

Jon Mayo: 10:17
I’m excited to explore this. It’s quite the topic matter If it would be irresponsible not just to state since this is also a thought expedition conversation that by no means a licensed professional or anything like that, I’m just a humble co-adventurer, right. So we’ll explore together, but I do not have the credentials or training to speak as someone who’s like. This is what you should do to fix yourself. Rather, I’d rather explore the questions that you’re posting, and I just want to be very clear with that. There’s a lot tied into it, but if we try to strip it down to its first principle and then I become emphatically obsessed with this concept of first principle thinking because it captures how I really try to see the world on a systematic level and a quick aside just to contextualize what we’re talking about first principle thinking is essentially the attempt to identify the most baseline principle or fundamental element of a thing, right? So two examples in philosophy Descartes, I think, therefore I am could be considered a first principle. Another one would be in looking at how can you affect change or how can you manage change across different industries, a first principle could be that when you have a group of two or more people working together to meet to accomplish a goal. That group is some form of an organization, right? So at its most basic form, human beings working together more than by themselves, is a group that can be managed for change. And that would be the first principle. And then, as you add layers of contextualization, you could end up with something like a church, or the military, you know, or business. So, looking at this through that first thing, it’s helpful for me because there’s a lot of things, whether it be like a creative pursuit or struggling with pain or any of these things that it’s like, how can we find ground, solid ground, to stand on, if we’re facing, like the melstrom and the screaming winds of all of the endpoints at the same time? Right, and you mentioned, in the game of relationships, the game of fitness, the game of business, podcast work, the game of the narrative that you grew up with, right, all of those things are hitting you at one time. So the second, you may taste or see something that you’re like oh, that was good on. Like you do a good workout, right. So you’re like, okay, I did my part today. And then immediately you’re like but I’m alone, I’m a failure, right? Something like that. Like how, I don’t think it’s. I don’t know how to handle them all at once, but if I can strip it down to the core level, it’s like okay, what’s the root? What’s the most simple form? It’s some form of Brandon, without all of the games, right? It’s an individual sitting in a room with just their thoughts. And when we look at that, right, what does the individual sitting in the room, regardless of the games, just as individual think? That’s kind of a threat, because you don’t have to look at all the different outplayings yet. And in that context, you’ve chosen, by both your linguistics and the statements that you made, that you are in fact still a failure, right, and that’s a choice to claim that which is different than what you feel. And I’m of the steadfast belief that words have incredible power and that which we choose to say has incredible power. And I think words, more even so than thoughts, dictate our lives. Because when we say something, it manufactures reality out of a thought that was a wisp of smoke within our minds. And when we say something, it reinforces that thought and, as you have this like self-licking ice cream cone of thought and we’re in speech, it creates a vortex that then affects action and it goes to that old idea of what you think is what you say, what you say is what you do and what you do is who. You are right, which is why in so many of the conversations that we have, mood follows. Action is something that is kind of a drum that we’ve returned to, because another way we can alter the narrative that we accept for ourselves is by drowning out the voices and the thoughts through competent action and the concept there. Like, if we look at personal contracts, which is the solution, I propose a form of a personal contract that is wildly popular and he for so was 75 hard then we can see there that through action, not just once, but days of multiple actions, right, like I think 75 hard is 10 actions you have to do every day for 75 days. When you see, which is 750 actions over the course of that time, with a lot and a lot of them take like it’s like hours of commitment a day with his right and the personal contracts can be that extreme. They can be more extreme or they can be less. They’re hyper focused and intentionally designed from what I propose. But the reason I think that that’s important is because you were asking yourself do I still believe in failure and your answer is yes. So right, right. So, like, looking at that and to keep it conversational, a couple of things that come to mind for us to continue pressing in with is one who says that you should be the authoritative voice on that. Right now, if you disagree with the answer and don’t think that it’s in it and you don’t accept it or tolerate it, which, from observation, would be that you don’t accept or tolerate it because otherwise you wouldn’t keep fighting it, but you’re the difficulties in winning the fight. So who’s to say that? If that’s true, who’s to say that that voice should be the authoritative voice? Or who’s to say that you should ask it often? Right, because maybe there’s not enough action in time that’s passed to be able to actually update an informed response. Right, because I do remember, like when you did 75 heart a year ago, at day zero, it was scary at day 10, you were building in confidence at day 50, you’re getting bored with it and you felt good about it and you felt successful. From what I recall you telling me, and you know, time has passed, fading the memory of the success and competency born of those actions, which was drowning out, I think some of the voices that were influencing the acceptance of feeling like a failure, right, and then the other. Then the other element which is kind of interesting is I just had someone send me a message. It’s an excerpt from Andy, for so as well. Interestingly enough, he’s talking about how real winners as he defines it feel like they’re getting their balls kicked in 90% of the time and 8% of the time. Yeah, I like that. It’s a very powerful alliteration. But yeah, just getting the balls just smashed in 90% of the time, 8% of the time they’re confused. 2% of the time they are winning and they enjoy that moment and then it passes and they’re right back in the fight for the rest of the 90% of the time. And his argument is real winners are made for the fight. They’re made for the 90% where they’re striving forward under extraordinary responsibility in paying the price for it. Elon Musk equates it to sitting on the edge of an abyss eating a bowl of broken glass. Right, Like these guys who are successful, don’t describe it in the most loving fun concepts, but they would never leave it. And the counterbalance that in Andy, for so as clip he’s fighting against. He’s like people think that when you’re winning when you’re doing these things, that you have some like Lottie Dottie, carefree life or driving the nice car and drink a Pina Coladas all day. And sure, some people who have wealth do that, but he wouldn’t. His argument is that’s not a real winner, that’s just someone who’s spoiling themselves with privilege. A real winner is the one who’s in the arena right, and that kind of goes even to Theodore Roosevelt’s man in the arena concept right, the person whose face is marred with sweat and blood, as composed, to the gray and timid souls who never taste victory nor defeat. And when we look at all this, contextualized, to like back to Jordan Peterson, the gold or the value or the version of self that’s desired is behind the dragon that guards it. And in this instance, the dragon that’s guarding it appears to be the 10 years of abuse that you have continued to feed life into, mentally, emotionally, your entire life. And all of that to say. The question comes down to what will you choose to continue to accept? Because in that question it’s not a flippant, just do better, just feel different question. No, it’s not a light switch. But until you choose in state, I reject this as who I am, I reject, I will not tolerate this as how I think anymore. Until that’s a choice that you’re willing to declare, I’m not convinced there’s value and much further exploration.

Brandon Seifert: 22:05
So I’m probably just going to be beating I don’t say dead horses, that’s the wrong phrase, I don’t know, but what is the? What would you recommend on taking as the first step to shifting out of this mindset? In the first place? Because I can? You’ve already mentioned that words have power. I need to be very aware of the words that I’m using, but it’s I’m reclaiming and building who I want to be and the way that I want to think. And that seems very daunting to try to restructure my frame of mind and also just the levels of what I treat, the relationship I treat success and failure with. And the reason I also state that is because the default thought that immediately pops up is this one that I’ve built and have ingrained so far into myself to where this default response to my brain is no longer like a screaming thought. It is the calm thought, if that makes sense. It’s not like I’m yelling at myself or anything. It’s just, it’s a matter of fact, pointed knife that is just kind of driving further in.

Jon Mayo: 23:58
There’s a lot of tactical, actionable things that we can discuss here, but I think, more importantly, it’s like who the hell said this was going to be easy, right, and who said that this wasn’t going to be daunting and take all of you to overcome all of you and more right, like, where did this idea come from that this was going to be an easy thing? I just don’t understand that. I mean, you’re talking about burning, cutting, carving, smashing, obliterating off of you a bunch of shit, like the concept of the forge is not one of hugs, and yet we express extraordinary vulnerability and love there in emotion. That’s not. That’s not what I’m stating. But the idea is like diamonds aren’t formed by laying in the sun drinking pina coladas. They’re formed on underneath mountains, under immense heat and pressure. And when something of utility is made out of metal, it is once again made by burning off the impurities and then, through friction, heat and collision, shaping something that is powerful, and then, by exposure once again to extraordinary heat and cold, it’s made more flexible and more durable and tempered into greater hardness that can hold its edge. So it’s like who the hell said it was going to be easy, and I think that that’s helpful, because if the expectation is that this should be swift, then that’s going to fuel the feeling of failure. Right, like I guess I’m on an Andy for silica kick this morning, but it’s. It allows me to point to someone outside of myself. He’s created the live hard program, which is 75 hard and two, three, like the total, three or four cycles and he does it every year. At least last time I listened to him to, a year or two ago, he’s still doing it every year, the live hard program. The live hard program allows him something when I did the math, like a month off throughout the year of not being on some sort of a regiment and like that roughly 20 days to a month is the only time he drinks, it’s the only time he does a lot of things. Otherwise he’s in this incredibly disciplined cyclical rhythm, year after year after year. Why the hell would he do that? In my mind, the reason why he does it is because he’s realized as a human being that if he doesn’t do it, he begins to fall back retrograde, lose progress. Otherwise there would be no utility in continuing to do it. It’s the same reason for myself that I’m continuing to exact more of myself instead of less. It’s the reason that lately I’ve been waking up at three instead of through 30. Like I swear to God, at some point I feel like I’m just not even going to go to bed. I don’t get it. It’s like, no, I will not wake up before four. Okay, I will not wake up before three. I hope to God I don’t. But if there comes a time I don’t absolutely need to, I’ll probably sleep till four. The point is more so like this is a long game man For myself. I’ve been working at this very intentionally, going from something I hated or where I looked in the mirror I was like you must die To this. It’s been like seven years of very intentional pursuit, once again to set expectations. I think that the element of importance on why this is so important is, like failed expectations burn so much more deeply than actually missing the mark. And if the expectation is that this is going to be a year, and you’re like Superman some of mine because like one of the things that we’ll start about is, this is a lifelong pursuit, you will be better a year from now than you are today If you sustain like, if you press in but you aren’t going to have arrived, you know. And then at some point you string enough of those years together and you’re like, oh, my fundamental understanding of self has changed thoroughly. Right, and that’s the goal here. So it’s like, okay, perhaps just not enough time has passed to allow the change to go. And then the other thing, that’s kind of fun the Butler for the actor who plays the Butler for Batman, which there’s been a thousand of them. I wish they’d stopped bloody remaking the film, but I can offline. I’ll try to describe him to you because you’ll probably help me identify more quickly so we can attribute this quote correctly. But he was talking about overcoming difficulty and he was sharing a story that when he was a young actor he had studied his part and he had to go through a door because a couple was starting to fight a lot, right, and the guy the male in the scene was starting to yell and stuff and he was supposed to knock and go in the door and as part of the scene the male and the couple threw a chair and it lodged against the door. So when he went to open the door it like got jarred, but partially, so it’s difficult for him to get through. He’s like, ah, he sticks his head and he’s like hello, is everything all right? And the guy’s supposed to come in. He’s like why aren’t you coming in? He’s like, well, because the chair’s here. And he’s like use the obstacle. And the guy who played the Butler was like what do you mean? Use the obstacle? He’s like use the obstacle. If it’s a drama, throw it. If it’s a comedy, fall over it, use the obstacle. And apparently that lesson for him really stuck and he uses like a life philosophy and his children know, you know, every time they run into difficulty the idea comes of use the obstacle. How can I utilize this obstacle, even if it provides only a quarter of a percent enhancement to my benefit? Right, even just absolutely marginally. And you know he attributes a lot of that to the success of his family. And then he adds to it rather humorously and then I’ve added to that philosophy of my own, which is, if you can avoid the obstacle, do so at all costs, but if you can’t avoid it, use it. And or the difficulty I’m sorry he said difficulty and it’s like exactly coherent to the obstacles, the way and all of that principle. Yeah, I still am a steadfast believer in the freedom that comes with it, and I’ve had this conversation over the last couple of weeks. Now, right, and this is the culminating event of it in many ways, and I anticipate it to continue on outside of this setting, but I think it comes down. I think it starts with the choice right, you’ve chosen many times to deny it and press in, but there comes a point where there’s, I think, that there’s utility in making like an oath to kill a lie and like in my book, I share where I make the oath when I’m looking at myself in the mirror and that was really important for my journey and from what I understand of, I’d say, the greater preponderance of evidence of the human condition for those who strive to fight this. There comes a point where there’s a choice that’s made that is as extreme as saying I will die before I let this continue and like that was Mike’s instance and that’s like I said. I think that’s the, the majority of shift that occurs to actually enact the change that is required over the decades to make this a reality. And when that comes in, you know well what the heck do I do with all this right, we’re still keeping it so high level what I would do if I was in the precise position and it’s what I’m continuing to do, fighting the demons that I still face Is I would broaden the time horizon and build a greater weight and preponderance of evidence against the lie or against the thing I want to change. And the way I do that is through personal contracts. Okay, I feel like a real piece of shit because I’m drinking too much. Okay, I don’t drink, I don’t drink, I don’t drink, I don’t drink, I don’t drink, I don’t drink, I don’t drink, I don’t drink, I don’t drink. For 30 days, I don’t drink for a year. Right, I’m feeling like I’m losing discipline. I wake up at the same time every day or I have to start over, and I don’t get to sleep in for a single day in any context until I’ve done that. You know, the fitness side, the learning side, the conversation side. There’s so many elements to attack it. But if you’re living day to day without some form of, you know, commitment and it’s like today I’m not going to do this, I’m going to feel good about it, and then you convince yourself otherwise, that makes that day a loss, right, versa when? And then those losses or wins can string together, sporadically, for a couple days perhaps, but then you’re in the. You’re in a much more vicious cycle, right? Whereas if you commit to a personal contract, you elongate the opportunity for the perceived failure to exist. And I know that you’re capable of that because you’ve done long form contracts and stayed the course. And when you’ve messed up you’ve paid the penalties and then you’ve reengaged and stayed the course, right. So it’s like, okay, at this point in the game, if you’re willing to make the decision to say no, I will kill this perception, identity, belief. If it kills me, I will not tolerate it and from this day forward I will not accept it in my speech. Now, how can I put into action so that over the course of the next month, year, decade, it thoroughly dies and I wake up and realize that one day and then we can pull on that thread? But I think that in you know, going back to first principles, thinking, if we simplify down to that decision, followed by action, and then that action dictates and builds up the proof over time, and then through intentionality, you may think it, but you don’t allow yourself to ever say it and the words you say speak the truth into existence that you desire. You’re there, you just not experienced or realized it yet. All right, real quick. There’s no one who can save you, there’s no one who can actually help you. It has, it will be in a will forever be 100% up to you and from my perspective that is such a gift and so free.

Brandon Seifert: 36:36
I think it’s very interesting that, oh God, no, please. I think that you know we’ve been, you’ve been helping me with this journey for quite a while now and it’s like peeling back different layers of an onion, where it’s like you get past what you thought was the hard thing last week and then you keep finding something a little deeper and a little deeper in it, like, I think that it’s Well, I think that it sucks, but I wouldn’t be able to face the things that I’m trying to fight right now if I didn’t do those things in the past. If that makes sense, like, like, if I can still see the successes and the wins that I’ve had in the past, but they’re being drowned out by all of the other negative aspects. So, like, like said, when I went in the 75 hard thing, I, you know I got bored of it, but I failed in three other ways. I remember that one and I remember what that felt like, but I also remember, you know, the overarching failure of that and so, out of that, but of the other aspects Financially, all you know, there’s no point in going into them right now, but Maybe I just got to be very, like you said, very intentional In determining the different games that I’m playing and make contracts for each of those, because when I did do 75 hard, I did feel good. But maybe I just need to step up that game at this point and determine the different places I put value within my life. Maybe I need to Be stricter on.

Jon Mayo: 38:43
I mean, I would agree with that. And there’s a there’s something called the Matthews principle, which is essentially, to those who gain something, they gain more and more and more at an extraordinarily increasing rate, and to those who lose something, they lose more and more and more at an extraordinary rate. And that’s why we see the top 1% of wealth in the world is more I don’t know the exact statistic, but still disproportionately focused right as compared to how it’s spread across the rest of the world. And people are like, oh, that’s bad, it’s like, well, not really. The same is true of talent, the same is true of just about any quantifiable metric. The concentration focuses in an extraordinarily tight area and then is lightly dispersed across the rest. And well, why am I bringing that up? Well, you had that one win when the other areas were losing. You had that one win. Make it another, make it another, make it another. Perhaps be more intentional and set the credit expectations and do it in the other areas. You define value. Yes, man, in every area you have the strength to. In the areas you don’t, you throw on the back burner or on the horizon to get to as soon as you’ve developed the strength and on the idea of, oh, it’s getting harder and that sucks. Yeah, sure does, but it’s going to get harder until we die. But we will grow stronger and, like you said, you couldn’t be doing what you’re doing now without the victories of the past. Yes, there’s this concept of stewardship in which you work to faithfully utilize the resources available to you to maximize their value and not waste it, and with that there’s the concept that as you steward something well, you will be entrusted with more to steward. Right, if you look at work, you do your job well. The traditional path is that you get offered some form of leadership position. If you do that job well, you get to lead more people. That’s kind of like the traditional hierarchical ladder that people strive to climb, and we won’t comment on whether or not that’s always a good thing or not, but that’s a different conversation. But the concept of the idea is okay, you do it well, you get more responsibility. Right, if you are a shepherd or a farmer and you take care of five sheep and you do it well, in a couple of years you may have 20 or 30. Right, if you don’t do it well, they’ll die. You won’t have any more sheep. Well, the the it builds mass. One win in 75 days, as an example, or one win through one contract, becomes seven, eight wins if replicated throughout the year, becomes more, becomes more. And then you, and then the more strength you have, the more you’re able to focus on the others. And like one of the things that’s really interesting, and I was wrestling with this this last week very heavily, because I’m still navigating this period where Provision is not yet Flowing, and I realized like more and more of me keeps getting burned off and it’s like, well, goodness, I really want to learn these lessons faster so I can get to the point of getting through this period To the next one. Right, but the provision flow deal with. The next problem comes and I kind of Realized that that was extremely foolish of me and I was reflecting on how, over the last five, five, six years, every difficulty I’ve had to wrestle with has felt Overbearing to me and I’ve been ready to get through it. But at the same time, every lesson that I’ve wrestled with one successfully accomplished was behind me and had Added to my strength such that it appeared easier than what I was wrestling with At that moment. And you know what difficulties I had to navigate, what pains I had to bear, what responsibilities I had to shoulder. And I realized, oh my goodness and it’s like I knew this, but I learned it on a newer level it saturated and consumed me more deeply. Was that, right now, the mental burden and concern Of feeling the clock tick as Resources dwindle in what can very much so feel like impeding Impoverishment and bankruptcy, which are actual realities and threats, that current obstacle, that current burden Is lighter than what the next one’s going to be, holy crap. And at that moment I was like, oh my goodness, because I was thinking about, oh, I wonder what the next problem is going to be when I look back on this one. And I was like, oh my gosh, I’m probably going to think this one was easier than that one when I get to it, because that has been the trend of every single obstacle I’ve Been responsible for over the last five years. It has gotten, quote unquote, more difficult, more heavy, more Extreme. And I was like, what is going to be harder than this? And I was like, oh my God. And in rest of that I was like you know what, I’m content to find the beauty Through the obstacle here. And I started focusing on what beauty could I find right now? What piece could I find right now? What could I do today that would progress me towards the goals, aspirations, visions, desires of my heart and the goodness of that which I serve today? And can I find strength and nourishment in that, perhaps such that I can really actually live With peace and joy, despite the burden and weight Of the opposite, like of the threats that loom over me. And that’s not freaking easy, man. That’s fight is every day, every single day, that is a fight. Sometimes it takes hours to get back into a headspace that is capable of focusing on right now, and sometimes it takes minutes. But every day I wake up and I see doubt. I wake up and I go shit. I see fear and I don’t try to ignore it, I try to kill it, and that’s why I have that morning meditation. That’s that living document. I wake up and I read that out loud to myself as a action Gamed at killing the lie that’s in my mind, or the opposition that’s in my mind of that fear, and I allow the fear to pass through me. Success is not guaranteed, which actually adds to the sweetness of life, so I allow the fear to pass through me. I claim that which I wish to bring into the world and enact and make real. And then I take further action to do it. And that is not always beautiful, it’s not always perfect, it’s not always great, but to the best of my ability, that’s what I do. And on the days I choose not to, those days are hell, period of story. They suck, they are the worst days. And then I wake up to the fact, hopefully that same day or the next and, god forbid, not longer than that. I’m like oh, this is why you’ve, this is why you’re miserable, depressed and feel broken. It’s because you’ve allowed yourself not to fortify your day intentionally with action that can drown out the chaos of your thoughts, the fear, the insecurity, the doubt, the imposter syndrome and the lies, and therefore they are taking dominion over your mind, as opposed to Allowing the slightest gap of silence in which you can breathe. That’s born from action, that proves, at least in that moment, that you are something different, because when you’re lifting away, you’re disciplined In that moment, when you’re lifting, at your discipline, and that creates enough space to breathe and to grow, and you string enough of that together and that is who you are. You know, and that’s why I said, by doing these things and by like pursuing those things, you are that which you’re seeking to be. You just have not yet experienced or realized it or accepted it as true, and that’s where sometimes, that just takes a thousand iterations.

Brandon Seifert: 48:02
Yeah, that makes sense. Well, hell.

Jon Mayo: 48:16
It’s. It doesn’t change the fact that this still comes back to the decision.

Brandon Seifert: 48:20
Yeah, I mean it’s. It’s clear, I’ve already made the decision.

Jon Mayo: 48:28
I disagree. Yeah, I don’t think you’ve made it fully man like, because earlier at the beginning of the show, when you shared the thoughts, right, you said I am this, I am a failure. You didn’t say I feel like a failure still, but I’m not. And that that’s where I said, like, with pointed specificity, until you say I will never speak that again into reality, I will kill that lie. Right, we can still accept and discuss. Hey, I still feel like I’m failing. Those are verbs, those are actions, those are things. Right, they’re not identity. I am not a failure, I am a waymaker. I will be successful. I am disciplined, I do this. I am compassionate. I do this. I am articulate. I consider my words carefully Before I speak them so that my yes, maybe yes, my no, maybe no, I am. I do repeat, I am. I do repeat until you kill off Murderously, with vengeance, the help provoking lie that allows you to say I am a failure. You will be a failure and you will never escape. So I would agree, on the one hand, that a lot of your actions have said that you don’t accept it or tolerate it, but you’re still fighting, and I would say that you’re going to continue to still be fighting it, but it’s going to be a lot bloody harder to fight it until you forcibly change how you allow yourself to describe yourself. Oh, and one other thing on that the whole Andy forceal thing about being a winner right and feeling like you’re getting kicked in the balls. The other element of that that I had forgotten is one of the reasons it feels like 90% of the time you’re getting kicked into the balls is because typically real winners, as he’s describing it, are highly driven people, and highly driven people never, ever, ever feel like they do enough to meet the expected standards that they’ve set for themselves and that simultaneously gives them a reason and ideal to pursue and drive to accomplish and go faster and harder than they would have otherwise. But it also hurts because it’s like damn, I want to do accomplish this today and I only got 60% of the way there. 30% of the way there, what the hell? And there’s a tension there that we have to learn to live with and thrive in. Thus the feeling of getting kicked in the balls. But that’s the life of someone who chooses this path and I would argue that that’s not a bad, ugly, negative or unhealthy thing. I think it can be created. I think it can be forged into something of immense value contentment, peace and joy, despite living in the tension of striving forward under immense load.

Brandon Seifert: 52:13
Well, thank you for calling me on that. By the way, I appreciate that. Jordan Peterson, what kind of clicks with what you said? Because throughout the multiple videos that I’ve watched on this, I just wrote down a ton of notes. One of them says winning at everything might only mean that you’re not doing anything new or difficult. You might be winning, but you’re not growing, and growing might be the most important part, and that’s exactly what you’re saying. It’s different terms like why would someone that wants to be a success and continue to grow, that’s, you’re never going to be an overarching overall success. You’re always going to be failing in some aspect, which means that you’re growing and determining new values and new places to go, because otherwise everything would be stagnant.

Jon Mayo: 53:13
And to just further substantiate that, I think of how much pain there is. Everyone thinks about the wins. There’s this Nike commercial where Michael Jordan he plays golf right, I’m getting, I know his basketball. He’s talking to the camera and he’s like this many thousands of shots missed, this many hundreds of game-meaning shots missed, this many hundreds of. And he goes through all these statistics of all these failures and he’s like the greatest. And then it talks about who’s the greatest full time and what those wins produced. Right, everyone looks at the diamond. No one looks at the hell that it went. Like all diamonds don’t feel things. No one looked at the process it went through to become the diamond. Right, like Elon Musk is arguably incredibly successful, right, I think it’s hard to do that, but he’s also comfortable being a pariah and is a way like he’s a human and he has errors and all that jazz, but he’s comfortable failing fast. He would rather move so aggressively and so quickly with great intention that they make an incremental step forward despite a failure. And like when he they launched the Starship with all 60 something engines this year, the beginning of this year, and they had to blow it up over water, him and his team celebrated because they gained the data that they needed to, and they had to find success for that launch, not as getting to orbit that would be outrageous success but just getting it high enough off the ground that they could gain data on how it’s performing and then safely blow it up over the water. That was like if we can at least achieve that, this will be successful, if we get into orbit. We’ve been outrageously successful. They’re obviously aiming to get it into orbit right. The world sees it as a failure. You had to blow up your thing. You had to blow up the rocket over the water. It failed. You suck. It’s a failure. Him and his team are celebrating because they gained data to make the next one go higher and the next one go higher, and he started that with the Falcon 15 years ago and he started that with Tesla and he started that with. He developed over his lifetime skills to fail fast and doggedly and dominably, relentlessly, continue forward and doing that with intention, intelligence and adaptation not just stupidly may kill you, but it also may lead to outrageous success, such that it can quite literally, change the world, and he’s an example of someone who has. And to the concept of. There’s no guarantee Tesla is going to succeed. There’s no guarantee SpaceX was going to succeed. There’s no guarantee that boring company was going to succeed or any of the other five companies he’s done as an example here. There’s no guarantee that Michael Jordan is going to succeed with all the failures that he did. There’s no you. There’s no guarantee you could die. But in striving forward to the win you may just succeed. And I believe that I would rather die in the pursuit of that success than not pursued in the first place, which is precisely the sentiment captured in the man in the arena Right. Better is he who’s in it with his face marred by blood and sweat, then those gray and timid souls who’ve neither tasted victory nor defeat. But there’s a choice Do you sit and watch or do you fight in the game and depending on what, that choice is right, you take action accordingly. And on the calling you out piece, I hope to God that’s not a your right drawn moment, because you’ve read never split the difference and that would be the worst and that’s the possible thing. I was so grateful you didn’t say you’re right and instead you thanked me, because that tells me that it may have aligned more with a that’s right type of thing concept, and if that’s true I’m grateful and if not, I’m pissy. But that’s just that myself, because my goal is not to try to bludgeon you.

Brandon Seifert: 57:43
It’s to explore with you. It resonated with me and then, goodness, I’m going to cut this part out. But like, right, when you said it well, maybe I won’t fucking know anymore when you said it, I don’t know if you saw on the camera, but like I was like and then I swapped to this side because like I could feel a tear form and I was like, no, no, we’re not doing this today, why not? Oh brother, that’s a lot of editing to cut out crying and stuff.

Jon Mayo: 58:21
But there’s nothing wrong with allowing something to resonate through you. I don’t hold back my tears in front of my sons when we watch a film and something catches my emotion. Dude, it happened yesterday. I went up to eat lunch. They’re watching Stork, the movie Stork. So like I grabbed my bowl of whatever I was eating and I went and sit on a sip to be with them for a few minutes before I come back downstairs. I’m watching Stork, it’s the end where they’re getting the baby and the girl to their families. And I don’t know what the heck happened, man, but it hit me right in the feels and I’m like I have tears coming down my face and I’m sitting there and I just like it messed me up and I’m just like I just want to be with my sons right now. So like I just was, I really soaked in the moment with them, right, and then I came, but then I was like, yeah, but I also have discipline to provide for them. Oh, this is that whole strength thing I have to cultivate. So I really maximized 10, 15 minutes, really savored it, really focused on it, and they’re like dad, are you crying? I was like, yeah, man, this is beautiful. Like we don’t start laughing and I’m not like sitting there like sobbing, like a blubbering idiot. I just I’m feeling the emotion, allowing them to, and you know it’s really cool. That’s happened many times and like movies will often like I’ll feel them and I’ve given myself over the last couple of years more freedom to do that. Sometimes I’m still embarrassed. I’m like like trying not to like have people see that there’s tears down, like I’m like doing the quick, the quick wipe right. Like I’m not trying to like make a show of it, so like also like try to be sly about it. Like, yes, I was trying to be sly about it, but they caught me. But I’m, but then I don’t hide it or deny it, right, I’m like, yeah, I’m not trying to be like dramatic, but yeah, I felt this, it’s genuine, it’s what it is. But it was really cool as one of my sons were watching a movie and it was this emotional part and I’m I’m welled up because I’m fueling the emotion, right, I’m allowing myself that freedom and which just enriches the experience of watching the movie and going along in the journey with it. And one of my sons looks at me and his tears. He does like the side glance, the quick glance, see what dad’s doing and his eyes are all welled up. And he sees that my eyes are all welled up and our eyes connect. And I watched him release this breath. He had put up and relax and he smiled at me and talking about him getting emotional. This is making me emotional. I realized that in that moment, when he looked at me, he was looking for permission to see how he should respond to what he was perceiving and he saw the freedom to allow himself to experience the emotion and with that he was able to relax into the moment. I saw the tension leave his body and we enjoyed the rest of the movie. So in saying that, it’s like, hey, when we experience something that may be true or freeing or life giving or beautiful or sad or fear, we should embrace it, let it in, let it last, let it fade, so that it may enrich the experience of our life and we may learn from it and it may sweeten our short time here, you know. So it’s like if that was resonating and it caused a tear to come to your eye. That’s beautiful, because in that moment why would I say that’s beautiful? Because in that moment, in that expression of resignation, you were allowing yourself the freedom to realize there is truth in this that could help me to accomplish the very thing which I’m seeking, which is freedom From this oppressive lie as I strive to accept and realize the truth that I am valuable but I am strong, that I create that. I love that. I’m a waymaker, right, and it’s another stone to pave the way for a step forward and that’s beautiful. There’s a funny way of looking at this. There’s this like clip of like some pink-haired guy going off about toxic care masculinity, and then it’s like freaking brochoni On the other end of the conversation, like shirtless and stuff. I was like you got this is just like you have the two dichotomies here and he’s talking about how you need it because when danger comes, you just offload toxic masculinity to the cop with the gun and they’re going back and forth and I’m just like I’m looking at this thing. I was like this is just like comedy. The reality in my mind is, you see, in those two extremes, one real man. That’s the fusion of the two of them and that’s what was so hilarious is like, if you take these two extremes and you force them to live in the tension of being between both worlds, you have something that represents greater strength than either of them apart, because if you’re in touch with your emotions and able to love and be compassionate and empathetic and care, but you’re also willing to spit on your hands and hoist the black flag and lay carnage and flame to the earth and burn it to cinders, then you’re prepared to do what is necessary regardless of the situation. But it takes both, you know. Yeah.

Brandon Seifert: 1:04:15
Just due to time constraints, I think we’re gonna have to call it soon, so can you knock out the the intro.

Jon Mayo: 1:04:22
Yeah, and I would. I’ll trust your discernment, but I would challenge you to heavily consider why we would delete the last part. Yeah, and I’ll leave it to you, but if the goal is to provide value, is there freedom and value in the last part that we discussed? I think so.

Brandon Seifert: 1:04:48
Yeah, in fact, there’s actually like a little funny too, so why not?

Jon Mayo: 1:04:57
Well, and the other thing too is, like you want to look at action of like what type of man are you? You’re courageous. Oh, I don’t feel courageous. Are you going to publish an episode in which we just discussed everything we just discussed this morning for the entire world to hear? It takes courage, bro, yeah.

Brandon Seifert: 1:05:20
It’s true, that’s true.

Jon Mayo: 1:05:27
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 Sisu 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. Thank you from the Be Relentless team and have a great day.