Intro

Welcome to The Corvus Effect, where we take you behind the scenes to explore integrated self leadership and help ambitious family men build lasting legacies for themselves, their tribe, and their community. I'm Scott Raven, and together we'll discover how successful leaders master a delicate balance of career advancement, personal health, financial growth, and meaningful relationships. Get ready to soar.

Military Leadership Foundation

And hello everyone. Welcome back to this latest episode of the Course Effect. Today I am thrilled to be joined by Jonathan Mayo, a strategist, leadership coach, and founder of the Waymaker Movement. After serving as a captain in the US Army, John translated his experience to help high performers become purpose-driven leaders.

Who create lasting impact coaching founders through chaos into enduring value that it lives them. John's approach towards significance aligns perfectly with what we focus on here in integrated leadership through his proprietary frameworks such as the Strive methodology. Way maker philosophy and steward leadership.

He helps individuals and organizations evolve from success to significance. He also has a number of published books, including Be Relentless and Forge Forward. Guys, we're gonna have a blast on this one. So John, welcome to the podcast, man.

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me and for the awesome intro.

know what? I try some days I succeed more than others. I'll put it that way. Right. But you know, in terms of success, let's just start where it began for you in terms of what ultimately led to. Waymaker, which was your distinguished military leadership. Thank you so much for your service and being captain in the US Army.

And I'm curious right off the jump, what were some of the key military leadership experience that shaped your future approach?

Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. I'd say every moment of it. the military's excellent at cultivating leadership if you are awake, intentional, and pay attention.

Well, you know, presence is, a big part of the game in life. I'll put it that way, so,

it absolutely is. and I was so grateful to be surrounded by incredible, soldiers who helped me to cut my teeth and get some of the embarrassing stuff out early, which was fantastic. but then very quickly I realized, this was my observation, everything, whether it's in the military or in life, follows a systematic game. And the first principle to that game is humans trying to do things together. So the more I released trying to be the cool guy. And the more I embraced being a conduit to help my teams accomplish our mission and win the better things went. And very quickly, things became very kinetic and fun ways for us to.

Do what we needed to do, in ways that were not always conventional, but pretty dang effective. So that started this fun adventure.

it strikes me as a little bit strange from standpoint that you obviously have very affable personality, right? You would just come across as fun and cool anyway. Right? Uh, so the fact that you actually had to, I. Tweak it a little bit in order to make it more effective and have that conduit philosophy.

Was that one of the biggest things that when you were transitioning from military service to coaching, that you were like, I am a conduit first. I am a conduit first that you brought for the ride.

I would say that. I am a avid student of life. So from the very beginning it's been a what works, what doesn't, what can I observe and learn and apply. Mm-hmm. So, yes, and, and you know, the other thing is. The leaders I admire most and continue to learn from the, the folks I get to work with, I learn from and everything I do in a leadership capacity now, it's all from this give and take of mutual learning as we adventure forward together.

which feeds this conduit mindset, right? And yes, it has been critical and over time I've been able to articulate it better and more clearly and simply. So in 10 years from now, it'll even be better. So.

Well, certainly, you know, when we get to 10 years and we see how much exponential that you've taken Waymaker from what it is today, right? I can only imagine the level of impact that you will have created, but the creation of Waymaker help us understand some of the key moments that led to the creation of Waymaker.

Creating Waymaker

Yeah, I, I think, uh, I had one critical moment of awareness, when I was serving. I had learned that. I was really good in any environment I was in, but I didn't have an integrated core self that was operating in harmony. And, I was gone all the time. So I was like, you know what? It's time for a change of pace.

It's time for a new environment. It's time to begin integrating these pieces. And from that decision over the following years, the concept of Waymaker was born, in response to. Determining, I'm going to show up as one integrated form of self, which is Jon I'm going to find what harmonizes, strip away everything that interferes and offer myself in service accordingly.

Yeah, and we're gonna get into that because you are singing to the choir when you're talking about focus on integration, focus on harmony balances myth. We're gonna get to that in terms of the core of the Waymaker philosophy, but I think part of it, based on our offline conversation was your observation.

Like you said, you're a student of life. That there was poor stewardship in organizations. And what were some of the biggest things that troubled you when you were seeing the stewardship in organizations?

Servant vs Steward Leadership

Yeah, I, think that it goes to this concept of servant leadership, which is very prevalent, and has a lot of positive attributes, but also a lot of pitfalls. when you're being a servant to something, you're subjugating yourself to it, which Elements of that are necessary, and you can very swiftly put yourself in hot water, when you're stewarding something. On the other hand, you're responsible for outcome of every element of it, from the environment to the resources, to the human beings, to the time, not just responsible for it generically, but to its maximal value creation.

So that, mm-hmm. Minor linguistic shift really upgraded the entire perspective holistically. And I saw a lot of people who were focused on service, um, but that service became segmented, service to the mission, service to themselves. And created ine effectiveness that could often exploit those who they were responsible for stewarding they were simply trying to serve something.

And yeah, that observation was troubling.

Right. And you know, when you talk about service to ourselves, you know, there is an element, we talk about this at Corvus, that you have to have a strong foundation of self and self-leadership to be successful elsewhere, right? So I'm not saying that service to self isn't important, but when that becomes something which breaks.

Trust in others, and I've experienced this numerous times through my professional career. That can be the worst type of stewardship. And I know that you, through your journey also had to have those moments of maybe a tough word, but betrayal that really helped. uh, found the this is what we're not about at Waymaker.

Yeah, precisely. And I, I'd say the reason I like the idea of stewardship is because you are in that equation also, right? It's the environment, the personnel, all those things. But you're a core function of that. And we can only pour from a cup that's overflowing indefinitely. So if you're not tending to yourself, good luck, it's gonna burn out fast.

but uh, yeah, the betrayal piece is there when, when things are not aligned and people don't stand by what they say, bad things can happen, and it, falls to us to transform those bad things into opportunities to do good, which is not always easy and can oftentimes be quite a challenge. So.

Yeah. I can certainly understand that, but I think part of what makes your true North with the Waymaker philosophy so important and keeps you on task so much, is this philosophy of converting high performance. Into significance. One of the ways that we describe it here on The Corvus Effect is we wanna be in the impact game, not the output Game.

Output is important and is critical, but impact is where we want to live. And part of what I know you drive through your philosophy is chaos to clarity through your frameworks. I'd love you to elaborate a little bit more on that.

Chaos to Clarity Framework

Yeah, absolutely. Chaos comes from unintentionally and losing control. And control is a funny word 'cause it doesn't mean you have everything under wraps in your thumb. means that you have self-control to choose your response with great intention regardless of what's happening around you. So all of these things tie together no matter how chaotic, no matter how much is on one's plate.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I like the analogy of like if someone's yelling at you, screaming at you in your face and their nose is touching yours. What most people would do in that moment is take a step back,

right? And that is a great analogy. 'cause that one step back, it allows you breath, it allows your field of view to broaden and it allows you a moment to take in.

And like if you're intentional and trained or just thinking through what you want, whether it's a task list, investors, whatever the case may be, you can then say, okay, all of this noise is around me. What do I need to do? That is of the greatest impact now, and you can begin to have some level of intentionality in your response that can transform that situation.

Right. And I can imagine as you were starting your military career and having to go through the initial steps, basic whatnot, that you. Introduced to those type of environments very early on, very quick, so that you could pay it forward to what you're doing today in terms of, look, I can't lose my cool, I can't lose my focus.

I am just going to get done what needs to get done.

A absolutely. You know, one, one really watershed moment for me. we were in a pretty. Intense by design, training environment, which is what they do. the, military is really good at tearing you down through chaos because you fall to your lowest level of training, not to your highest ideals.

And I was frustrated by something in the situation and I was yelling a couple profanities at a piece of equipment we were working on. And, um, had set a ground rule with my men that. If they ever needed to speak to me human, to human, they had that right when things were not kinetic. And one of my soldiers took me up on that and they let me know, they're like, Hey sir, can we talk?

And the bottom line was, Hey, when you lose your temper, even on that piece of equipment, we all know you weren't yelling at us. But deflates us. It like it discourages us because we're trying our best to help us win and help you win. And that was so critical to me because after that. I swore to myself, I'm not losing my temper like this again, if I need to, I'll go yell at a bush or kick a rock, but I'm not doing it in front of those who I have the opportunity to steward.

I'm going to let them borrow my calm no matter what's happening. I thanked them for that feedback and that was fairly early in my time in serving, and I've carried it with me. From the military across multiple industries, and it has served incredibly well. If I choose to be that calm, that source of calm, no matter how crazy it is, it creates clarity and peace for everyone, and we're so much more effective.

But I can imagine that, you know, regardless of if it's the military or waymaker, you know your entire life has been dedicated to servant leadership to be giving of yourself to others. But givers need support as well, and not just from inanimate objects like Bush's. Right. how did you define, how did you set up your own private confidant network in order to get the support you needed?

Support Systems for Leaders

Yeah, a absolutely. It goes back to that self stewardship, right? If you're not tending to yourself growing and have. Positioned yourself where folks can speak into your life. You're at risk of a lot of bad things that you don't want to, to have. Um, so for myself, I, I founded the Waymaker community. I have mentors and coaches that I speak into my own life.

you know, I've put myself into close knit groups of men and women who will speak very. Candidly to about that which they're observing as we're moving forward. And they have the freedom and space to do that. And that's frankly one of my, you know, greatest superpowers, is the incredible humans that have intimate connection with me and can shoot straight and

Mm-hmm. Now, you know one thing in our offline conversation, right, is you despise it. When people call you a guru, even though you could very well be a guru, you're quick to say, I'm not your guru. Why does that matter to you so much to say I'm not your guru?

The Anti-Guru Approach

It's icky man. It's uh, you know, I work to master my craft, so so like in, no, in no way am I working to downplay or have a false humility, but the way I view. Everything is that I strive to be a conduit. One that once again helps to steward the optimal outcome and in so doing, if the second I put myself in this.

This pedestal of guru, teacher, coach, I lose the ability to learn, just in the linguistic level, not to mention the subconscious. So what I say, like what I've found is most people have a pretty good idea of what needs done. And if they don't, there's ways for us to discover it and they have the best context to the situation they're in.

So I can take my expertise and the skills I'm honing every day. And bring them to them. But it's way better if I do that from approach of listening and responding without expectation of what I think the need is and allowing it to be a process of discovery. And it's great 'cause it sharpens me and we're able to create far more effective solutions, far more swiftly, because I'm listening first and that's why it's, Hey, I'm a conduit, I'm adventuring with you.

I'll bring everything I have to bear. But I refuse those titles very intentionally.

Yes, yes, yes. And I know from a standpoint of

Founder Dependency Problem

who you like to work with, right? Traditionally, founders, right? We're talking revenues anywhere from low end, 5 million to top end a hundred million, but really that they've hit the point of founder dependency. Time constraints. The founder had originally created this business to create, to provide them freedom.

Now they have the prism of a job. Why is this so important to you?

Yeah. I like the term founder 'cause I think it. grabs this psychographic, this idea, like what I found is when CEOs have a founder's mindset, or people claim that title as part of the organization they're building. There's a solution they're trying to bring to the world value that is existentially important to them beyond just the profit margin, right?

and profit is important. However, that addition. Element is so important in flavoring the pot, and that's what I really look for. And then a lot of times, folks, they just get caught up in the chaos of everything they're building and their own success . can be a trap, but it also is a great opportunity.

Yes.

Yeah. You know, one of the things, you know, I have this concept of some of the five villains that I've had to face in my life that helped lead to Corvus. One of them was the Lone Ranger Syndrome, where you go out and you're like, I. I just, handle this myself. It's faster if I get this done. It is a, a villain that always says you're better off just doing it your own way and being independent than driving collaboration to get things done.

Why is that so dangerous for these founders who clearly have been successful in terms of building something of size, but that lone Ranger is getting in their way?

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And the bottom line is you're gonna find your cap. And different people have different. Capacities. Right? That's why the, the range is fairly broad and industry specific, depending on where you are. But you're gonna find a tipping point where you're maxed out and you're likely making yourself the center point of failure, which is a huge, problem, and typically goes directly against the very things that these leaders want.

So, it's like, what is the cost of you doing it is something that's not talked about enough. What is the cost and opportunity and time not to train up and equip your team to be able to take these things so that you can be appropriately focused on the areas that require you, and that, typically unravels a lot a good way.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, you and I talked offline in terms of having very similar viewpoints in terms of three words, balance, harmony, and integration balance. It's a myth. Forget it, it doesn't exist. Integration is the science particularly I. Role integration across all the roles that we have in life.

But harmony is really the art in terms of how we bring this all together for holistic wellbeing in our lives, which is not just professional, but I also know for you, it's also the focus on the personal wellbeing as well.

Integration vs Balance

Yes. absolutely. So like I'm a father to four incredible boys. I am blessed to have an incredible wife and I am a, a man, right? So like.

Yep. Hey, I'm a guy too.

Yeah, so like here I am John, and if I don't have my stuff squared away, then good luck in my marriage. And if I don't have that squared away, good luck in raising these boys.

And if that's all not squared away, good luck creating any impact in the world. people do it, but they suffer the consequences because they're trying to put something into order when they themselves are not. And that creates. Chaos. That over time seems to really present itself strongly, and that's why I have so much focus on, hey, the second we begin to integrate ourselves, we create space that allows things to find the proper tone and create that like melodic harmony type of experience, which triggers a compound effect.

And that compound effect often frees us.

Yep. Now, one thing that we talk about here on the corpus of effect is the three pillars of what we believe makes effective self-leadership. Self-awareness, self-belief. I. Self-accountability. When you are working with these founders and you're trying to show them that change is necessary to get from when they are to where they want to be, which of these pillars are usually the biggest areas of focus?

I would say it's dependent on the the leader

because. Each of us creates our own trappings and perceptions of the world. So going back to where's there the greatest need, I personally do not work to have a conception of where the change needs to occur until screaming at us, because the context of our conversations, and by that point, the threat of questions is typically very revealing.

Mm-hmm. I know one of your go-to starters is the classic, what's keeping you up at night. Right. Which I'm sure that, uh, you know, you'll get the initial, oh, I sleep great. Like, really, really? Why? Why are we talking then if you're, if we, if you sleep great, I.

Discovery Through Questions

Yeah, exactly. And, and, and you know, I have, a nice little repertoire of questions I like to cycle through, depending on kind of the energy I'm getting from whoever I'm speaking with. And, another fun one as well. We have this time, right? What, whatever it is. What would we have to talk about or accomplish during this time for it to be the most valuable time investment you've made this month?

And if they sleep great. That always works, because we find what's front of mind and essentially discover the same place to start. So it, it's a fun thing really is.

Without naming any names. Right. Uh, do you have like a example that's top of mind in terms of, Hmm, that was interesting In terms of the, what am I really probing at? you know, in this discussion.

I dunno it, I think it's more, I. Invitation without expectation to a collaborative space. and, and I found it to be so effective and freeing a lot of the time, the folks that I work with, like going back to why, who do you have in your own corner? A lot of these like incredible leaders don't have anyone.

They are dependent on for everything. So, you know, I find that especially early on in the relationship. A lot of time it's, we hit a floodgate moment where the, gates open things just begin to gush. what I look for in that right to best answer your question, that I can, is I look for a preponderance of data points that group together, that begin to show, pattern.

And in that pattern I began pulling on the thread with questions on that. And that typically helps us to understand, okay. Here's where the block is, and that's really where we can find that either there's a, a self-belief issue or they're not holding themselves accountable to the things they're preaching, therefore, they're not exercising radical responsibility and leading by example or what have you.

Right. And you know, we go back to, something we talked about earlier in this podcast in terms of those who are leading through servant leadership of others also need to be able to get the support for themselves. And like you just said, right? If they're isolated and lonely at the top and they're not getting that support, then there's no way that they're going to be able to sustain this going forward.

Correct. and that's, my biggest critique of servant leadership opposed to steward leadership. I heard this great quote and I can't remember the source, but the idea was if you wanna upgrade your life and your perspective of the world, start by upgrading your language and.

That's where I have such a hyper intentionality on words. because when you shift to stewardship, you're free to not have to serve to every beck and call and whi an emotional reaction and everything that's in your environment because you have to make a value-based judgment on everything you interact with.

So that begins to create a lot of freedom.

Yes, yes. I mean, it's a as simple for me as the moment that I said I reject balance. I embrace harmony, right? Because balance for me is like weather here in Atlanta, you don't like it. Wait five minutes, it's bound to change, right? So I agree with you that I. Words with really powerful definitions can be incredibly important.

And I know in addition to those words, systems to you are also incredibly important in terms of drivers for success. And I'd love for you to go a little bit deeper in terms of how they're meant to develop the intentional rhythms that we're all supposed to be living by.

Systems and Kill It Sessions

Yeah, I, I think it comes down to we have finite mental capacity, right? And with his limited and therefore. We can only do so many things at once. Not to mention so many new things. Good luck, right? That's why we New Year's resolutions always fail. So if we systemize for success, whether be personal action or operating systems for our entire organization to thrive in, the more that we design, implement tests and improve upon, okay, what serves well and free up that bandwidth, the more we're able to keep.

Growing. And you know, the only important caveat on that is if you try to change the entire world at once, good luck. You're gonna and that's where if we can identify, okay, here's kind of our list of areas of focus, and this one's the screaming priority. Then we can apply that limited bandwidth to that priority.

And once it is beginning to transform in the direction we want, we can create a system to ensure its success ongoing. And that frees back up that limited bandwidth for new things to then apply to the next thing. And that as those things add onto each other, it creates a growth compound effect. Yeah.

curiosity, one of my, uh, core philosophies is you have to stop or curtail before you start anything because you've already spent time and energy and you need to claw it back before you bring something new into the world. I'm wondering, do you believe, do you agree that philosophy and how do you employ it as part of your work?

Oh yeah. I love that philosophy. I'm a huge advocate of like, I don't have a name for it, but Kill it sessions, right? Like, let's evaluate how we're spending our time, where our money is flowing, all these things. What's not serving the vision,

what's not serving, what we're doing here? because it's funny 'cause that's oftentimes neglected, but boy, oh boy.

The second you take a look, you're like, oh, this isn't helping us. It's like, okay, well why is it still breathing? You know? Like, let's, and let's remove

Exactly. Put it down. Put down. Right. And I gotta imagine as you're having these conversations with these founders, right. And you know, I'm just gonna make up, you know, some, generic stuff like I'm working 70 hour. I haven't taken a true vacation in three years. I have never had a night where I haven't been on my phone scrolling through emails.

I can't remember the last time that my wife and I went on a dinner date. Right? That all of this is meant to lead to something that's not fragile, that you can then be able to take a look that founder and face and say, if we put these systems In the right places at the right pace, you're gonna be able to step away.

You're gonna be able to have a life.

Yes. Yes. And you know, a, a fun example comes to mind. I, I was working with just such a leader and he was describing the three dimensional game. That was heavily weighted to his business. And I, you know, during this conversation I listened and like 20 minutes later I brought back up this idea of like, Hey, we're playing this three-dimensional game, right?

He's like, yeah. I was like, but the problem is it's a four dimensional game and all the dimensions were in the business, The fourth dimension that was missing was that relationship piece with self and spouse.

right.

that was like this great opportunity because from there we were able to be in articulating things that through very small scheduled intentional actions that were minimal, it created this huge return in those spaces of life that began to trickle into like the health and proportionality of how they wanted their time spent.

And what was interesting is you fast forward about. month and a half and they were doing this, and now they have more energy, zeal, passion to bring to the very business all because they started playing a four dimensional game instead of the three. And yeah, it's, it's just to that point, it's just like a fun recent

that is damn good impact, sir. I'll put it that way. Right. And know part of the way that you also extend this impact is not just. Messaging your core through podcasts like mine, but also your own podcast in terms of being able to be a proponent of this philosophy out in the universe.

Yeah, absolutely. So, I've been doing my podcast, I guess for going on five years, and at this point I really wield it as an ad hoc tool when necessary. When there's a message to amplify when someone I really want to talk to and capture it forever, it's like, let's do this and let's distill it for, I. the future.

Right? Like future, sell, future, whoever. And that's been a lot of fun.

Hmm. Very nice. You know, another thing that we have in common is that we're both members of the outlier project. And you know, one of the things as we were talking offline going into this is how. Impact driven networks exponentially grow. The impact that you can create, and I'd love for you to go a little bit deeper on that in terms of the who's in your life are so important,

The Outlier Project Network

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So like I think most people have heard the study, where it's like, be careful who your closest five people are. Right. they influence you. it's funny 'cause in the last couple years a new study came out and they're like, it's actually not the closest five. It's the total sum of everyone you spend your time with, to me is even more potent because it's like.

Yeah, you think that relationship that you kind of have, you know, kid gloves on and you know, or holding close even though you know it's not good for you isn't influencing you. 'cause it's occasional, it's like no, poison is poison. So you gotta be careful and like, what I love about the Outlier project and shout out to Scott McGregor.

what I love is everyone I've had the opportunity to meet, which is a few dozen now for, great conversations. The focus is on amplifying each other's impact, learning about the other, and caring for one another. It's not an exchanged sales call, which is what we find so much, and that speaks to the quality.

Yes, I agree. Speaking of that quality, as we move towards the close of this episode, I always do a tip of the cap to Randy Posh is the last lecture and at the end of his book, he uh, said this book was written for my kids. Your four boys are now. Listening or have listened to this podcast episode, what's the biggest things you want them to take away?

I want them to live intentionally and unyielding in the pursuit of what they see needed in the world. And that's one of the primary driving forces in Why Waymaker exists. Every book that's been written, every podcast, um, every team I work with, every leader is. I have the immense pleasure and pressure of them watching me, and I wanna set them up for success and raise the bar high so they have to strive violently to get it.

I'm sure they will. I'll put it that way. John, how can people find out more about you, more about the Waymaker movement? give us the details.

Connect with Jon

Yeah, absolutely. the two primary places would be LinkedIn or john mayo.com. Hold the H, right, those two, you'll be able to get ahold of me rather quickly.

Alright. Alright, we'll put those up in the, uh, show links. Right. And then you also are a published author with four books. Do I have that correct in terms of, number of books you have out?

Yep. Four primary books and then a fifth case study.

Okay. All right. And, uh, we'll make sure to, have those, links available for people so that they can, take a look at you in printed form. If there was any one of your published books that you recommend that folks start with, which one would you go with?

Oh, hands down, be relentless. If the obstacle's the way, then we must be way makers.

Alright. Alright. So, you know, we'll, we'll put that one at the front in terms of, uh, letting people find you be relentless and how everything has transpired too, what phenomenal impact that you've created. Any final words before we close out this episode? I.

just gratitude and the invitation without expectation, so thank

Oh, thank you, man. Uh, it is been my honor, right? It's been my audience's honor. So thanks so much for everything that you've done here. And also to my listening audience, thank you so much for spending the time with me and John and listening to this. Please make sure to share this with those around you so that the impact from this discussion can be shared wide and broad.

Subscribe so that your, uh, update for the latest episodes and we will see you next time on The Corvus Effect. Take care.

Outro

Thank you for joining me on The Corvus Effect. To access today's show notes, resources, and links mentioned in this episode, visit www.thecorvuseffect.com While you're there, you'll find links to our free tools and resources to evaluate where you currently stand versus your aspirations with personalized recommendations for action. If you found value in today's episode, Please take a moment to subscribe wherever you get your podcast and share with those who may benefit from it. You won't want to miss future conversations that could transform your approach to leadership and life. Join me next episode as we continue our journey towards building lasting legacies that matter. Remember, it's time to soar towards your legacy.