This week Lara Jones, an award-winning leadership speaker, shares her journey of overcoming significant adversity, including personal traumas and challenges, to build a multi-million dollar empire and become a competitive athlete. The discussion delves into the importance of grit, resilience, and turning negative experiences into empowering opportunities. Lara also introduces her Grit Type Indicator, a system designed to help individuals and organizations assess and develop their grit. Listeners will gain insights into maintaining a growth mindset, the necessity of facing hardships head-on, and strategies for personal and professional development.
Episode Highlights:
04:36 The Power of Grit and Resilience
10:26 The Grit Type Indicator
17:37 Pursuing the American Dream
28:27 Choosing Your Own Grit
29:29 Realizing Your Value and Taking Action
30:34 Facing Adversity and Embracing G.R.I.T.
39:41 Commitment and Accountability
40:32 Developing Good Habits and Simplifying Processes
As the renowned Global Grit Girl™, Lara has channeled her deep expertise and research into creating the Global G.R.I.T. System™. This innovative and tailored framework identifies the four pillars and ‘types’ of grit, accompanied by a bespoke adoption process that transforms theory into action, creating a bespoke quadrant for grit. Serving a diverse clientele, from Fortune 100 and 500 companies, mid-size businesses, elite executives, collaborative teams, to military personnel, celebrities, and individuals, Lara guides you in both identifying your grit strengths through the Grit Type Indicator™ and honing your abilities across all dimensions of grit to achieve peak performance and unparalleled excellence.
You can learn more about Lara here: larajones.com
Episode Transcript:
00:45
Acta Non Verba is a Latin phrase that means actions, not words. If you want to know if somebody truly believed, don’t listen to their words. Instead, observe their actions. I’m Marcus Aurelius Anderson, who I guess today truly embodies that phrase. Lara Jones is an award winning leadership speaker, performer, grit development expert, international keynote speaker and creator of the Global Grit system. She’s also the creator of the Grit Type Indicator, founder and CEO of two global businesses.
01:13
Be a legend and grit global and author of the best selling book, Hunt or Be Hunted. In addition, she’s an executive coach as well as a competitive athlete and a mother. Now that’s a lot of things and we’re going to unpack all those things. She has a track record of skyrocketing companies into multi-million dollar empires. She’s been crowned the worldwide Stevie award winner nine times for woman of the year, female entrepreneur of the year, executive of the year, best female thought leader of the year. And it’s been featured on NASDAQ billboard in New York Times Square.
01:43
for winning an international award for the top grade performance expert of the year, with the most recently being nominated and featured in the prestigious magazine in America’s Top 25. Please welcome Lara Jones. I know I put a long string on that kite, but I really appreciate you being here. And as always, I should have just hit record at the beginning because we started off with the bang, but I think we’re gonna get into some incredible, incredible things today, so thank you.
02:09
Oh, Marcus, it’s such an honor to be here. And thank you for sharing your audience with me today. I am so excited. We definitely should have hit record right at the beginning. We had such an amazing, authentic, controversial conversation that the audience needs to hear. Well, they will. And luckily I took a couple of notes here. So that will allow us to give indication of where to go. And the first thing I would like to speak about is what’s something you address, which I’m sure that you’ve run into. So you’re this grit expert.
02:38
You’re a female and you’re easy on the eyes. So that is paradoxical for many people, probably particularly men. Has that ever been an Achilles heel for you in some capacity? I love that question. Yes, is the answer. Because there are a lot of people out there that would take a look at me and think, because of the way I dress, the way I look, the way I present myself, what does she know about grit? She doesn’t look like she’s been through anything gritty.
03:07
And that’s when, when you start to undermine or, um, what’s the word I should say really, when you start to look at somebody and you, you judge them based on how they’re appearing to you and you don’t actually understand the depth of what they’ve been through or where they’ve come from or take the time to learn about them. That is where you’re either being hunted or you’re being the hunter, right? In that very moment, you actually become hunted. Because let me tell you, I’m always the hunter.
03:37
I’ll always be a step ahead of the game. I’m always, I’m not just one step ahead of you. Like I’m a few steps ahead, right? It’s like a game of chess. Anyone that reads the book, Hunt or Be Hunted, will see that I even start off describing about a lioness. Why? Because the lionesses are the ones that hunt, right? So yes, I have had situations where men have thought, you know, I am easy on the eye and look great on your arm and all of this other stuff.
04:07
But when you actually come to it and you realize, oh shit, she also has a brain. And oh my God, she actually has been through some stuff. Oh wow, how does she get through this? How does she do that? And then they start to learn, oh my God, she’s fricking independent doing all this other stuff. And I’ll tell you this, it’s a plus and it’s a negative because the more they get to know about me, right? The more they realize, oh shit, she’s done this and this and this and this, what hadn’t she done? All this other stuff, right?
04:36
And a lot of times I’ve been forced in certain situations and I’ve had to learn to adapt and overcome, learn how to survive and so forth. But what happens is a lot of men and women can become intimidated by me. And the crazy thing is, Marcus, when you get to know me, like deep down I have a huge heart, right? I’m actually not intimidating whatsoever. I think what happens is as a society, people have become soft.
05:05
And so they get scared when they see somebody that is controversial, that is just gonna say it how it is. And typically the people that say it how it is might not be people like me. And what I mean by that is they’re usually male, they’re probably military, they’re probably, people that have been through, you visibly can see they’ve been through battles. Whereas someone like me, I’ve been through hidden battles. You can’t see it on the outside.
05:34
But if you realize what I’ve been through and I’ve faced some of the worst traumas out there, including the loss of a child and nearly my life, I had eight seconds before I nearly flatlined, I’m very lucky to be alive, that happened three years ago. We can get into that a little bit more later, but with that in mind, I’ve gone through so much that you can’t see, but yeah, I’m still smiling. I’m still here. Why? You know, so it’s…
06:01
It’s interesting that, you know, to answer that question, yes, it has been, sometimes it’s a plus, sometimes it can be a negative. And people often do either underestimate me or they get very intimidated by me. Or there’s a very, there’s few out there like you and a few others that are similar to us that just welcome it. And they’re like, Oh, wow. You know? Um, but yeah, once you get to know me and you understand, even though I’ve gone through all this shit in my life and.
06:29
I’ve kind of been forced to be that independent person that has had to survive, had to adapt, had to overcome. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be feminine, right? It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to bring that side out. It’s just that certain opportunities may not have arisen for me to do that because I’ve always had to be the alpha. But let me tell you, behind every lioness is a lion.
06:56
the more that we understand that as a society, instead of trying to do this role reversal crap, the better we’re gonna become. And that’s not to say that, I’m not trying to say that women can’t be powerful, but I think that we can still be very powerful, but with the support of a more powerful guy. And that might upset some people listening to that, but that’s the honest truth. Let’s just make it real, you know, so. Yeah.
07:26
And again, the deepest scars are often not what we see. That’s often on the inside. We often cover those up. As a society, we don’t want to be the person that has this huge scar on our face or whatever it is. Having said that, that’s where the truth is. That’s where we actually learned who we are. And to your point, being underestimated by men in some ways is an advantage. But as you were saying also, maybe you have a female who sees you, sees your external appearance, and then says, well, what does she know about grit?
07:56
But then when they actually sit down and they hear your story and you go through the layers and you unpack it, now they say, wow, she understands. She’s been there. She’s faced some hardships. She’s had to have grit. And it’s not just this pithy little thing that you talk about at a keynote. It’s actually you’re living it. And that’s why it’s so important. Yep. 100%. 100%, Marcus. You know, it’s one of those things that I think that there’s a lot of people out there
08:27
others as a threat, right? And instead of looking at them as a threat, learn from them. Like, I wanna be around others that have done more than me, that are better than me. I don’t care if they’re in the same space or not. Like, I don’t view them as competitors. It’s let’s learn from each other because I tell you something, like I probably do stuff out there that somebody else doesn’t do. They probably do something out there that I don’t do. And you can learn and adapt and grow.
08:53
So I don’t have this fixed mindset, I have a very growth mindset and that’s actually why I’m hired a lot to help with growth mindsets and human performance and sustaining that high performance and so forth. But one of the reasons that I think a lot of people get scared or they kind of get stuck into this, what I call the fear zone, is because they don’t know any better. They don’t know, they’ve never been taught how to get out of that the right way. So they just run straight back down to comfort again.
09:22
And I mean, I’m just going to throw this out there. I’m actually, I just became divorced, right? So I went through, you know, more things in my life lately than I’ve gone through, you know, over the past couple of years. And I keep saying to myself, when is it going to stop? Like the grit that’s being thrown at me? When is it going to end? And the truth is, it never will. So just get used to it. That’s life.
09:49
There’s always going to be something else thrown at you, but every time something happens, you learn from it. In this situation, I’m like, well, a lot of people have gone through divorce. It’s pretty common. There were reasons I chose to divorce. I think that when you are in situations that you didn’t find yourself necessarily being in or necessarily that you thought, oh, that’s where my life’s going to go, I actually think that’s where the…
10:19
bigger growth happens, right? The person that you’re meant to become, you become during those dark moments or during the times when they’re incredibly tough. And it’s hard to live in that space in the moment. But it’s like, so I talk about this in the book too, that 80% of your thoughts are negative and 90% are repetitive.
10:40
So it means that every time a negative thought is coming in and you’re just brushing it away, think of it like a revolving door, right? Every time you’re pushing it away, that revolving door is just coming back at you harder and harder and harder. So it keeps smacking you back in the face again. Well, that’s because we’re not dealing with it correctly. So the best way to handle a negative thought, because we have them all the time, is to acknowledge it. Not necessarily accept it, but you acknowledge it and you say, how is this serving me? And if it’s not serving you, you put it in a black box, you put it on the shelf.
11:09
And now you’ve freed up space, much like a computer, to allow the positive to come in. Because if you can reframe how you think about a situation, just change one or two words, like when my son passed, I started saying, well, instead of looking at it as though what was taken from me, instead of saying that, I would say, look what was given to me. Or there’s lots of different other ways we can look at it, but when you start doing that and you train your brain in that manner, then the possibilities are endless.
11:39
And so I’ve always said, I want to be around others that are better than me, that have done more than me because I can learn from them. They can learn from me too, right? But be amongst others where you feel like there is fear. All right? Put yourself in situations, choose your own grit. Put yourself in situations where it is hard. Don’t go for the easy option because the easy option, what’s that gonna do for you? Right, where’s that gonna get you?
12:08
right back down to freaking comfort. That’s where it’s going to get you. And then guess what? All the hunters are just going to compete against you and they’re going to win. So, I mean, I just have a very strong view on that. And I think that if you, I’m sorry for my language here, but if you always opt for the comfortable and you never put yourself in a situation of challenge or change, quite frankly, then you belong there.
12:37
And why? Because for me, again, sorry, I’m going to be very controversial. Yes, I’m going to say this, but that’s where pussies belong. I’m sorry, but they do. You want to stay down in your comfort? Go ahead. But I will tell you now, you’re not going to get further in life. You’re not going to achieve that dream. It’s just all talk. And you may as well just whatever you’ve written down as your dreams, just throw it in the bin because it’s never going to happen. You said earlier Marcus about actions.
13:07
Right? That’s how you determine whether someone is true to their word or not. Right? Are you gonna take action on something? And if you are, those are the people that you want on your team too. You want people that are action takers. Why? Because that’s the first letter in my grit system, it’s the G, it’s the get it done. It’s the go getter. Right? You’ve got to have that in you. If you don’t have it in you, it can be taught. I teach it, right? It can be taught, but you have to be willing to want to do that.
13:36
And then people say, well, what if I have feelings around this? What if, listen, you can feel what you want to feel. How you choose to react to it is your choice. 100%. So yeah, we have to get real. There’s a lot of shitty things that happen in life. I’ve been through nine traumas in my life. I was diagnosed with complex PTSD, and yet here I am, still happy, still smiling. I still take very good care of myself. There’s no excuse. And yet I’ve just gone through a divorce.
14:05
I have little children that I have to take care of. I’m a competitive athlete. I travel, I speak, I do workshops, programs. I have my book, I’m an author. I’ve got my grit type indicator assessment coming out here shortly. There’s so many things, so many moving parts. Like if I can do it as a single mom, I’m sorry, but anybody can do it, right? And I’ve, yes, I’ve gone through grief. I’ve gone through trauma. I’ve lost a son. I’ve had to cremate my son. I’ve had, I nearly lost my life. I’ve been beaten severely in my life. When I was in England, I was imprisoned in an apartment. It was horrific. Absolutely horrific.
14:36
You know, I’ve gone through some of the worst things that you can possibly think of. No, I haven’t been in the military. I was married to military and I’ve been in that world for many years. But I would tell you that everyone suffers in their own way, right? Whatever the worst adversity you’ve been through might not be the worst for somebody else, but it’s the worst to you. And that matters. But how you deal with it also matters. Because to me, yes.
15:05
You might go through some shit in your life and through adversity and through, and then how are you going to use grit to get you out of that? Right. Yeah. You made a comment earlier about how that if we hope that it’s going to get easier, it actually makes it more difficult for us. And ironically, the way to make it easier is just to say, I’m never expecting it to get easier because I’m operating at this certain level, as you’re mentioning, right, this comfort level. But when something happens, when things go sideways, we click into this higher gear.
15:35
that we may not have even been aware of that we had. But when we go to that gear enough times, you mentioned what you’ve been through, the military, all these different things.
15:45
We learn to operate at that level on our own volition. We don’t have to have something external to make us get to that place. And now what our norm is, is at least a few clicks higher than what most people are dealing with. And once we’re there, there’s still higher clicks. So if you’re hoping that, oh, I want to do this thing and I wish I could do this and I would love to do that. Well, if you stay at the current level that you’re at, of course it’s going to be impossible. What you eventually understand is there’s going to be certain sacrifices, certain actions I have to take.
16:14
consistently, irrespective of how I fucking feel about it. And once I’m there and I commit to it, all of a sudden I click up that notch and now this is not nearly as daunting. And from that vantage point, we look up and we say, wow, look at all these other things that I never would have thought I could do, but yet I can see how I can get there now. But until you go to that place, until you have grit, until you have diversity forcing you there, and for most of us, just like you pointed out,
16:45
Most of the time we don’t do it on our own. Most of the time it’s thrust upon us. And irrespective of if it’s a thrust upon us or if we’re the ones that are actually driving ourselves, we understand that is the path to, you mentioned earlier about this idea of the hunter be hunted. If you act like prey in front of a predator, you will be treated as such, period. If you hope somebody is going to be nice to you because you’re nice to them, a lot of people see weakness. What you call it machiavellian, you can call it realistic, whatever it is.
17:12
But again, you’ve been through these things in your life where you’ve seen it time and time and time again. And so I always say there’s two ways to deal with adversity correctly or again. So you’re choosing to lean into it, to develop this grid and say, okay, I’m protecting myself for the next time, but now what else can I accomplish now that I’m here? How can I help other people with these things? And that’s why I love your work and your message. Well, thank you, Marcus. I appreciate that. And it’s true. It’s like, once you go through those things and you achieve that new growth.
17:39
that growth now should be treated as your new comfort level. Absolutely. And it’s like, I don’t want to stay in comfort because comfort is where you die, right? I don’t want to stay in comfort. Because that’s what happened to me in a way when after I moved to this country, I’d went through all those traumas, I came to this country, I had nothing, right? I moved from England to America with absolutely nothing other than a laptop and my brain. And I said, I’m going to make this work. I don’t care.
18:02
If it nearly kills me, I’m going to do this. I’ve got to prove to people, got to change their mindset. I’ve got to create that belief. That belief creates the motivation. Motivation influences how you think. If you influence how you think, you’re now altering your brain chemistry and your processes, right? That’s reframing. And if you do that, you can adopt a growth mindset. And if you adopt a growth mindset, you can now apply the very thing it is you’re trying to learn in the first place. So how do you create the belief? You’ve got to change the environment, right? You’ve got to create the environment in which you have the autonomy in the way that you want to learn, and there’s three different learning styles. Visual, listening.
18:32
and practical. And so I was applying the practical element of this and I was saying, listen, you can’t keep doing the same things and expecting the same results, right? That’s a very well-known phrase that’s out there saying. And so I felt like it was my duty at that point that I had to prove to people that I could do this. I said, I’m gonna become an American citizen. I am going to build the American dream and just watch me. And I had people back in England saying I was crazy because I left a really successful career. I was…
19:01
My background was sales. I was a sales director at one point. I helped build companies. I ran teams. I was a top sales executive for a company for a number of years. I did so many incredible things with building these businesses. But when it came to building people, I was like, there’s a gap, right? And that’s where you get thrown into this corporate cog, if you will. And it’s like, listen, we’re still human. We all have emotions and we all have logic. However.
19:30
Some people are more swayed towards the emotions. Some people are swayed more towards the logic, right? If you learn how to marry the two, you’ll be incredibly powerful. Because I know right now, like we have AI, right? So if you want things now, now, now, you can get it now. The problem is that, and it’s not really a problem, but I’m saying like, if you have human beings working for you, if you’ve got them in your team, if you’ve got them, you’re surrounded by them. You can’t get answers now, now, now all the time. Why? Because humans think differently. We process things differently.
19:59
We sometimes have to take time on a decision. Sometimes it’s an immediate decision, but we have to use our emotions and our logic and marry the two. And that’s actually how I got through one of the worst times in my life when my son passed, because I’m so good at the get it done. But the reframing I had trouble with, because I was like, how do I turn something horribly negative into something positive? Well, I was able to do that. And as a result, I was able to impact others through my innovation, like my innovative thinking.
20:27
And as a result, I now have to take responsibility with every action I do or inaction because it has a consequence on how that impacts somebody else. And so when I came over to this country, I said, I’m not giving up. Now there was a period of time when I couldn’t eat for three days, markers. I couldn’t eat. I had no money. And it was a choice between having a roof over my head or having food on the table. So I chose to have a roof over my head. I mean, I was, you know, a single girl and I thought I wouldn’t do so good out on the streets. So, you know, I opted to keep the roof over my head. Well, a little short time later.
20:57
I then didn’t have enough money for rent. So I became homeless, but I slept on people’s couches and I still didn’t give up my dream. And I still remember to this day, my parents have been saying, just come home, Laura, come home. I just said, no, I’m not gonna do that. I’m gonna continue, I’m gonna pursue, I’m gonna show people what I’m made of. And so it creates belief in them. And I had one person say to me, oh, you’re so lucky. You’re so lucky with what you do now and who you are and all of this stuff. And I said, love. I’m like.
21:26
Look, you don’t know the fucking half of it. You don’t know what I’ve been through to get to this point. And that’s what I’m saying, Mark, is people look at me and they think, oh, this like pretty thing, like, oh, she hasn’t been through anything like hard. Really? Try me. So that’s what I’m saying. Like people can underestimate others. You don’t know their backstory. You don’t actually know what they’ve been through.
21:54
And with where I’m at today, you know, going through that obviously did shape me as a person, but I did, I did, the reason I’m telling you this is because there was a point where I started to become comfortable. I met my ex-husband during that period of time, like 18 months in, I ended up having, you know, three children, three boys. And I said to myself, oh, you know, I’ve kind of got this made now. Now he didn’t, he didn’t work. So I was like, you know, building up this business. But I said to myself, you know what,
22:24
everything is on me, but I’ve got to be in control of this. I craved to have someone that could take care of me so they were more of the masculine energy and then I could have my feminine energy come out. But for many years and a period of time, that just wasn’t the case because I had to survive and I’m very used to being a survivor. Doesn’t mean I want to be, it just means that I was forced to be, right? And so anyway, I became a little comfortable in that.
22:53
realm, if you will. And that’s when my biggest adversity happened in my life, which was three years ago when my youngest son passed away and I nearly lost my life. And so that’s, if you take your foot off the gas, you know, in terms of thinking, oh, it’s fine now, like no more adversity is going to come my way. I’ve gone through so much shit that most people by my age would never have gone through. Like you wouldn’t even go through it in a lifetime. But because that happened, that is when I realized, oh shit.
23:24
Like this is a do or die moment, literally. You know, it’s like, do I survive or do I give up? And when I say give up, I mean like turn the lights out. Because that’s how dark it gets, you know, when you lose a child and nearly your life, it’s pretty horrific. And so that’s where, you know, it was four months later and I woke up in my son’s room and I realized, I was like, Laura, you got to wake up today. Your son didn’t. You get to feel the sun on your skin today. Your son doesn’t. What are you gonna do?
23:53
to help other people. Because this is not about you, this is about others. So what are you gonna do with that pain, that grief, that trauma, that adversity? How are you gonna use it as a fuel to help empower other people? And that’s when I started taking responsibility and thought, oh my God, Laura, you have to figure this out and you have to start reframing how you think. You’re gonna be able to impact others and you’ve gotta take responsibility. And guess what I just felt there? Grit. Get it done, reframe thinking, impact others to take responsibility. And I was like, oh my God, those are the four elements of grit, great. But now that wasn’t enough.
24:23
to teach people and get them to understand and believe that everybody has grit. You just have different levels of it. And that’s how the grit type indicator assessment came about. Because I realized that you’ve got the go-getters, the reframe as the innovators and the trustworthy titans. It doesn’t matter like which one you are, right? It matters in terms of different adversity settings, because you might need more of your T in a situation rather than a G or you might need more of your G rather than an R. So you need to understand as a person, where do you sit on that scale?
24:53
And that’s what the grid type indicator does. So it will assess, you know, are you more of a G followed by an R, followed by an I or a T or whatever the combination is, kind of like the Myers-Briggs type indicator, but in grid, right? And so it’s an incredibly powerful tool because it helps people understand not just who they are, but how to communicate with others, right? And when you start doing that, whether it’s in your personal life, your business life, you’re gonna start to recruit people better. You’re gonna start to have larger profit margins. You’re gonna start to be able to…
25:20
better, you’re going to be able to communicate with your family better. I mean, there’s just so many different avenues that it’s such a positive. And I was like, holy shit, maybe I went through this crap because I was meant, I was meant to build this, right. And show people, wow, like if I can apply this to this setting and I can become a more well-rounded grit individual. Wow. Look at the whole game change, right. And I’ve just given you like a tiny snippet of the story.
25:49
But that’s in a nutshell, like how this started to come about for me. And that’s what I’m saying. If you get too comfortable, that’s when grit’s really going to smack you in the face. And then you’ve got to make a decision. Right. You have to make a decision. And that’s actually when I became a competitive athlete as well. It was after my son passed and I just, it was more of a physical thing for me. I just, I, it’s also a way to help deal with the trauma. Um, but it just became something that I could also control and, um,
26:16
often I get people come to me and they say, well, during adversity or grit, we’re trying to use that grit, I don’t really have control. Yes, you do. You do have control, right? You might not have control how the adversity hit you in the first place, but you get to control how you react to it. Absolutely. The way you conduct yourself in the face of adversity is an indication of how you do everything else in your life, from a relationship to a sales call, to dealing with the person in front of you who’s going through the most difficult thing that they’ve ever been through. And I think that that’s
26:46
what we need to understand, these hardships bind us if we connect on a very real, authentic way. But if what we have is just fake and bullshit, of course we’re gonna get ripped apart by the first bump in the road. And that’s why it’s so important, again, with teams, with all the things you’re talking about, with companies, with businesses, we can use that as the opportunity. I say that adversity makes us tighter, makes us stronger, but if they’ve never been through it before. And again, what you’re talking about and I are talking about is the real stuff.
27:15
We have PowerPoints, we speak on stage, but in the middle of it, can you do it? Can you sit with it long enough to actually experience it entirely, because what most people do, they try to just emotionally circumvent it, they try to bypass it. But when they do that, just like you said, that revolving door comes back and it punches you in the face. And guess what? In the meantime, it’s built up a hell of a lot of gravity and momentum. So even if you get past it one or if you push past it once, I always have that analogy that
27:44
If I’m pushing adversity to the side and I walk around it, eventually I just revolve around it. My entire life revolves around this one thing that I don’t have the courage to face. And then what else happens? Now I’m pissed off, unhappy, unfulfilled, and what happens? I take it out on the people around me. Whether it be coworkers, people I claim that I love. And listen, they always say that we hurt the ones we love because we think they’ll put up with our bullshit.
28:14
And they will until they don’t. Yeah. And guess what? Now you have an even bigger adversity than the smaller one that you didn’t have the balls to face in the first place. So what you gonna do now? It’s true. It’s very, very true. And actually this is why I actually decided to divorce. I chose my own grit with that. I didn’t have the divorce, I wanted to. And I wanted to because I realized that I deserved better. I deserved more.
28:43
And when we put ourselves in that situation of, you know something hard is gonna happen and you’re deliberately choosing that, it’s gonna suck in the interim, like just while you’re figuring out all the moving parts and the pieces, but the freedom you’ll experience at the end of it, if you were really just, you know, you realize, oh, I see my value, there’s more out there, there’s something that’s, I’m opening up the doorway now for something better.
29:13
And when I say that, you know, what I mean by that is…
29:18
I think a lot of people, they either see their value, but they don’t do anything about it, or they don’t know their value, so they don’t do anything about it, right? For me, I started realizing and I saw my value, and I did something about it, you know? And like I said, you put yourself in these hard situations, but long-term, you’ve got to play the long game, right? Long-term, where do you see yourself in the years time? Where do you see yourself in three years and five years? I mean, who the fuck…
29:48
No, it could be dead, right? I mean, it’s just, I could die tomorrow, right? That’s basically how I live my life because I did nearly die three years ago. And so I don’t like to waste time. So if you’re in a phase in your life right now where you’re like, oh, this might happen, this might not happen. Could this happen? Could this happen? I don’t give a shit. Just take control and just go do what it is you want to do, right? Because you really could be dead tomorrow. And then what? Nothing else matters because you won’t be here, right?
30:17
Only the people that maybe if kids or whatever, they’re the ones that are gonna get affected if you’re not here. So do what you wanna do because it’s gonna impact not just you, but those around you, right? In a positive manner. And so, like I said, you know, going through grit after grit after grit, you know what? I’m doing it because I’m getting out of my comfort zone and I’ll continue to keep choosing my grit. There’s something…
30:46
Cool, so I’m a competitive athlete for high rocks, so I H-Y-R-O-X, but I just recently tore my rotator cup, so I had to pull out of that race. I’ve got another one coming up. But anyway, there’s something else and I’m like, okay, I’m going to reframe this. I really like, I love to shoot and I love anyone that knows me knows I love to shoot and I love to race cars. I am obsessed with racing. Like I just, I love to race cars.
31:12
So I’m like, well, what if I could do something where I could use my athleticism with shooting? Well, there’s something out there called the tactical games. So I was like, perfect. Why don’t I start doing that? I could start becoming a freaking beast at that or something with racing. So there’s lots of different things that when you face grit, like I said, like I just said, I tore my rotator cuff. It was horrific. It meant I had to reframe how I thought about it. Was it tough? Yes, I’m not saying it’s easy. None of this is easy, by the way. Like it’s not easy.
31:42
But do I choose to not do it because it’s not easy? No, I choose to do it because it’s the right thing to do. And I know that at the end, like the end result, I’m gonna thank myself. I’m gonna look back in 10 years time, if I’m still alive, and I’m gonna say, thank you, Lara, for making that decision back then, because now I’m much happier. My life has gone this path instead of going down this path, right? And there’s a lot of people out there that may not
32:12
They either don’t believe in you or they’ll try and gaslight you. They’ll try and manipulate you. They’ll try to make out that you’ve made the wrong decision, that you’re better than them and all this other shit. You’ve got to believe in you, right? Stop letting other people influence you in that way. You believe in you first, right? 100%. You see your value, use it, take it, go do the things that you want to do. Don’t let anybody else stop you.
32:41
And if that means doing hard things, then it means doing hard things. Does it mean that everyone’s gonna understand? No, hell no. But who cares? They’re not supposed to understand. It’s not their path. I was divorced and I joined the military at 38 years old. How many people do you think told me that was a good idea? Nobody. Everybody was like, what are you crazy? Why are you doing that? You almost have a doctorate in chiropractic. Why are you doing this? Well, no kids, divorced. My great uncle who had passed away weeks after that.
33:11
He was a green braid. I always wanted to join the military. And just like you said, there’s times in this life when you get stopped and you say, is this what you really want? And for me, it was like, man, I can try this now. I can go for this. I always had a bullshit excuse not to. I was out of excuses, right? And once you get into that place and you push yourself, what do we see when people that are successful, right? All these things that you’ve been through, all these traumas, it’s…
33:39
It’s not about having it figured out. It’s about being a hundred percent committed, irrespective of what’s happening. Right? And most people never put themselves in a position where they have no other choice. When you have no other choice, the choice is simple. Is it easy? No. But if the only way out is through, then fucking stop moving. Just get going. Stop waiting. Stop hesitating. Stop hoping somebody is going to give you the answer. Because here’s the thing. When you’re going through it, there’s no answer, no answer that’s ever going to justify what you’re going through.
34:08
So you have to put that aside and say, the only meaning this adversity has or this grit has is the meaning that I assign it right now in this moment. Yeah. And if I assign this to say, this is the thing that’s gonna make me better, it’s gonna be my catalyst, I’m gonna weaponize this, all of a sudden it becomes your leverage, your advantage. But if you say, oh, I’m gonna be a victim for the rest of my life, guess what? Be a victim for the rest of your life. Exactly. You’re choosing that. Absolutely. Right? And I’m sorry, but…
34:37
Whatever you went through, whether it was in childhood, adulthood, I’m not saying that it wasn’t horrible, but I went through some shit myself, right? But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter anymore, right? It happened. It is what it is, right? So how you choose to react to it is what matters in the here and now. And so like I’m a huge believer in obviously facing adversity head on, using that grit and just dealing with it.
35:04
And there was something you said earlier now, I’ve forgotten what it was Mark, because I didn’t want to interrupt you, but you said it and I was like, yes, you hit the nail on the head. Oh, it’s going to, it’s going to kick me later. I’m like, ah, what was that? We’ll have to do like a part two or something. But you’ll call me later and say, oh, I remember what it is. I’ll be like, let’s get back on. We need to add that. Yeah. Um, you know, you said something earlier and I was like, yes. Um, for the life of me, I can’t remember what it was, but here’s the thing. Like I, I really do get tired of hearing people’s excuses. And at the end of the day, that’s what it is.
35:34
And I do say what I think, like I will tell you how it is and why, because I’m a no bullshit person. And I’m really big on that. I think society has become so soft, so soft. It’s not just here, it’s everywhere, right? I just recently became a American citizen, right? Last year. Congratulations, congratulations. And you did it legally. Thank you. I did it legally. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I did. I did that legally, but I’m very proud of wearing my American flag right here. So I am very- I love it.
36:03
a patriot and I will tell you that I earned that. I earned that and it was hard. It wasn’t easy but I appreciate what I have because I earned it and there’s a lot of Americans I meet that like oh they don’t like this country they don’t like this and I’m like do you even realize what you have? Do you even know what you have? Like you don’t. You don’t know what it’s like out there. I’ve traveled to like 28 or 30 countries like I’ve seen life outside of here.
36:32
Right. I know. And I’m like, America is home for me. I love this country. I became an American citizen so I could actually vote because I couldn’t vote before, right? Yeah. Fricking happy. I did. That’s just saying I’m very happy I got to vote. Uh, and I’m, you know, we’re in a period of time now where I am extremely happy with, um, you know, who our president is and you know, why as well. He’s also a no bullshit person.
37:03
He knows the society has become soft. I know it too. And it’s frustrating. And so I’m like, we got it in still grit. And then people are like, well, you either have it or you don’t have it. You’re either born with it or you don’t. That’s bullshit. We’re all born with grit. What changes is the environment that you’re in as you grow up or the environment that you choose to put yourself in as an adult, right? If there was someone, and this is gonna cause some controversy here, Marcus, but if there was somebody on the street right now that’s homeless,
37:32
I would say to them, how did you get here? Walk me through what happened, right? And then I’d be able to pinpoint, okay, well, do you think that was a good decision? No, okay, well, how do we now rectify that? Okay, well, you feel like this happened to you? Okay, how do we rectify that in your thinking? Now, there could be someone out there that’s like, no, I don’t wanna be homeless, I’m trying to do everything that I can not to be. I was homeless myself, so I can say this shit, right? I can say this shit. I will tell you now that I never.
38:00
want to be back in that position where I had no money, I had no place to stay, I had no food. I know what that’s like, right? Did I choose to put myself in that? Could I have got out of it? Yes, I could have got a plane ticket home. I could have asked my family to pay for a plane ticket and send me home, 100%. That would have been the easy option. I chose not to do that. I chose to pursue. I built a company up from scratch. I didn’t have any contacts when I first came out here. Maybe knew like a handful of people, one or two, few people, right?
38:31
didn’t know a lot of people, but I built that into the network that I have today. Why? Because I chose to put myself in certain environments. Right. So that’s, I mean, I could go on and on about this particular subject, but I’m just a huge believer that if you keep choosing to do the easy things, well, then don’t expect to ever achieve your dreams because they’re not going to happen and then stop complaining about it. Stop whinging about it. Just go do something about it.
38:59
Go do something. And if something’s happened that’s not in your control, go do something that is in your control. That’s absolutely it. And I saw your body react when I made this comment. I was talking about the idea of facing hardship. And it’s like, it doesn’t have to be easy, but you still have to have that commitment to get through it. Was that the thing that you were referring to? Or maybe I didn’t jog properly enough? No, I think there was something else that you said, and I wish for the life of me I could remember it. But yeah, I mean, on that note, you do have to have the commitment.
39:29
Right. To follow through. This is, this is another, this is another problem we have. Right. Um, I’m sorry, I’m just, I’m coming up with the problems, but we do have the solutions, okay, Marcus and I do have the solutions. Exactly. But the commitment side. So if you, if you say you’re going to do something, you better go do it. You better follow through with it. Even if it’s like disciplining your kids or something, right? No matter what it is, you’ve got to follow through and you’ve got to do that. The thing that you just committed to. Why? Few reasons.
39:57
Number one, it creates belief in yourself that you can do it. Number two, it creates belief in others that you actually say what you mean and you’re gonna do it. And number three, you’re creating an accountability for yourself, right? It creates discipline. And I’m telling you, discipline, accountability, and having that grit to follow through and having the commitment to follow through is gonna make you grow as a person. That’s what’s gonna change the habits, your bad habits into good habits.
40:26
How do we grow? How do we change? How do we develop this grit? I mean, yeah, there’s an entire system I developed in order to do that. But in a nutshell, you’ve got to change the habits around your belief system. You’ve got to change the environment. So you’ve got to identify the good habits, you’ve got to identify the bad habits, you’ve got to eliminate the bad and keep going with the good. Now, you need to keep yourself accountable with that. So I have something called a habit tracker. I actually do this with clients and so forth, and it’s pretty incredible. But the idea really is at the end of the month, you can see, OK, how many of those days did I…
40:56
Did I do the good habits? And how many of the days did I miss those habits and do the bad ones? Okay, now what caused me to not do the good habit that day? And then you start to reverse engineer everything and you start to backtrack and you look at it. And here’s the thing, Mark, is like, people make things so complicated and it doesn’t need to be complicated. Keep it simple. We try and go off on this tangent and make things so hard and complicated and then…
41:23
It becomes overwhelming and you don’t know where to start. You don’t know what to do. Um, but honestly, if you just keep it simple, I mean, I use something called the Eisenhower matrix and I should talk about that in chapter six of my book. But yeah, I use the Eisenhower matrix. It’s incredible. And I’m like, which box are you in? Right. And most people when I asked them, which box do you think you should be in? They’re like, oh, the urgent and important. And I’m like, no, you want to be in not urgent, but important.
41:50
Because why do you want to live in a state of stress all the time? Absolutely. Right? So I’m telling you, 99% of the time people say to me, oh, I want to be in the urgent and important. That’s where I need to be. Why? And all they’ll say to me, oh, I want to be in the non-urgent, non-important. And I’m like, oh my God, why are you doing things that aren’t even important? Delegate that crap. Right? Delegate it. That’s the sign of a good leader. They can delegate and trust in others to do the job.
42:19
doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily always gonna do the job to your level. But no one’s ever gonna do it to your level. Why? Because you’re the one that’s passionate about it, not that person. So, I mean, honestly, Mark, because I, I feel like I could speak to you all day about this, you know? But yeah, it’s, you got to have the commitment, you got to have the drive, the energy. And then a lot of people will say to me, well, I don’t have the drive energy. And then I say to them, what do you eat? How often do you exercise? How much water are you drinking? And they look at me as I’m crazy. And I’m like, oh,
42:49
This right here, all of your body is your hardware. Your brain is an organ, right? It’s your software. Give it what it needs. If you’re not taking care of your hardware, how do you expect your software to work? It’s pretty simple. But again, people opt for something easy and they’re like, oh, I’m just gonna go get fast food because it’s easy. Or I’m just gonna, I don’t need to drink all that water. I have to pee like 10 times a day. Well, that’s what you’re freaking designed to do, okay? Your body’s made up of like…
43:17
What is it? What’s the percentage of water that is like? Almost 80%. Almost. Yeah, it’s a huge amount that is given what it means, right? So, yeah, I mean. What you’re speaking to with this idea again, like I found that complication equals procrastination. Yeah. And that anything that’s complex is like the enemy of execution. So, again, when you talk to these companies, they’ll spend a quarter of a million dollars on a presentation about a problem that they already know that they have. It’s like, why are you doing that?
43:47
or on a problem that is unimportant. It’s like, this is superfluous. You and I walk in the room, we see the CEOs, we see all the C-suite executives, we sit back and we see them interact for 10 minutes. And now it’s like, I’ve already got about three things on my notes right now that are the real problem here. And it’s this interaction, it’s this lack of respect, that this lacks of, you know, whatever it is. But yet, so what happens? We come in, we don’t do it in front of everybody, but now we can slowly, like you said, peel the onion to ask those questions.
44:15
get to what’s really going on. And back to what you’re saying too, man, if you say I’m tired, then fucking do it tired. If you’re confused, commit, even if you’re confused. That’s the only way you’re gonna know where you’re at. The other part of this is this understanding that you’re always gonna be, there’s always gonna be something. You’re always gonna have some sort of fatigue. There’s always gonna be some sort of, it’s always gonna be impossible. But you have to ask yourself, if I’m doing this for the right reasons,
44:45
I’ll find a way. But if I, but when you ask yourself, am I doing this for the right reasons? You’ll actually understand, oh, I’m doing this for the wrong thing. I’m chasing this fake metric or this vanity appraisal, whatever it is. But if we are doing it for our company, our family, our people, this person is counting on us. That’s where that commitment comes in. That’s where that grit jumps in. That’s where we understand when there’s no other choice, the choice is simple. I’ll get through this thing. I had this thing I called the adversity skill that I just had people do even on their hands.
45:16
and you have them look, what’s the 10? What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever been through? And now you plot where you’re at right now. And lots of times, whatever our 10 is, compared to what we’re dealing with right now, which is traffic, bad weather, a little bit of fatigue, that’s like a one. So if that’s the case, and I know that I’m capable of much more, why am I giving this more gravity than is necessary? Why am I handing my power over to this thing? We hand our power over because it’s easier to hand it over to an external thing than to take ownership of why we are.
45:45
not executing. 100%. And that creates a negative momentum for the rest of our lives. I absolutely love that. Like 100%. I’m afraid I feel like Marcus, the stuff that we could do here, I could use that as well, you know, in conjunction with the grid type indicator, because if they can see that’s a brilliant way of them to be able to see where they’re at, right, and they’re capable of doing more.
46:11
And then it’s like, well, now how do I develop to be able to do that more? And that’s where the grid type indicator comes in. So I like to develop it. I freaking love that Marcus, we’ve got to talk after this. We’ll absolutely do it. See what’s happening here. I know synergy. We’re doing it in real time. You’re hearing it all. The audience is even hearing it. They’re like, Oh my God, I love this. You know, and it’s, I love how they can see, okay, because it’s, it’s visual, right? They can say, okay, I, I want it. I’m, I’m coming to here. I know now I can get to here.
46:42
But how do I do that? And that’s where like if they took the grit type indicated, they can see, well, that’s because like in my case, when I lost my son, I’m a G, right? I’m a get it done person. I’m a very high G, right? I am just, I’m a doer. If I say I’m gonna do something, I do it. And also, oh, that was what just came back to me. You said something earlier. Full circle, I love it. Whatever exactly what it was, but here it is. See, triggered my memory. If you don’t know how to do something, you say yes and you do it anyway, and then you figure it out later. You said something about you figure it out later.
47:12
And that’s so true, right? If you don’t know how to do something, it doesn’t matter. You do it anyway, you just figure it out, right? And that’s where the grit type indicator can help you with that. Cause then it’s like, oh, well, are you stuck in the fear zone? Okay, well now we need to work on the art to get out of fear to get into learning. I actually have this whole, like I usually draw on my whiteboard, but I have like these four semi-circles and comforts at the bottom and growth is at the top. And it’s like, how do we get to this growth? And I say to people, what’s on the other side of comfort?
47:38
And they say fear and I say, okay, what’s on the other side of fear? And I say growth and I say, no, I said, there’s a great big gap that’s missing. Why is there a gap? It’s called the learning zone, but why is there a gap? That’s because as a society, we have this growing need for instant gratification. And so, you know, it’s, if we get stuck in the fear zone and we don’t know like how to get out and we think that, Oh gosh, there’s this, there’s all these.
48:06
troubles that I’ve had, I don’t know, I don’t know the right strategies and tools to get out of that. They’re just going to run straight back down to comfort, right? Or they start to grind and that’s going to that kind of grittiness in them that they’re trying to use that they don’t have the right strategies and tools to get out of in the correct way. That’s just going to lead to high anxiety, high stress, the high stress and anxiety leads to burnout, burnout leads to poor performance and poor performance is going to lead to you getting you fired or you’re going to leave. So now you’re left with low self-esteem, low self-worth.
48:36
the company now has a recruitment issue, right? So how do you get out of the fear? You’ve got to utilize the R in grit. So utilize the G in grit to get out of comfort into fear, utilize the R in grit to get out of fear into learning, and then you use the I in grit to get out of learning into growth, because you’ve got to be able to impact on others through innovation. Because if you can innovate your way out of challenges, they don’t become challenges anymore, they become opportunities, right? And then the T comes in where you have to take responsibility to now…
49:03
make sure that you start that whole process again and your new comfort level now has become your new growth level and so on and so on. And it doesn’t matter where you are in that, it matters that you are aware of where you are in that system. So that’s why I’m a huge believer. And also, by the way, I also love to say this, but grit isn’t about running away from the situation, it’s about changing your perspective in the midst of the situation. That’s real grit. Yeah, you have to stay in the pocket, you have to hold your ground. Yeah.
49:32
You have to maintain, hold the line. And again, that comes back to that commitment idea, right? There’s one level of commitment and that is total. Anything else and that is bullshit. So once you planted your feet, once you’re here, you’re squared up, you’re like, I’m not moving. That’s where the commitment is. And now you can start using grit. You can start using all these things to leverage. But if you have this lack of physical identity and you’re gonna go until it becomes difficult, man, that’s when you’re gonna give up. Most people don’t go to the point of success. They go to the point of the anticipation of difficulty.
50:02
even at the first hint of adversity. And if you give up at the first sign of adversity, you are conditioning yourself to surrender when you should be fighting the fucking hardest. Exactly. So, Laura, I could talk to you forever. I know that you have a hard stop here coming up, but we’ll continue to speak. Where can people learn more about you? Where can they get your book? Where can they hire you to speak, to hire you to come in for their companies? Tell us all the things. Oh, I love that. Well, I have my website, larajoins.com. Obviously, it tells us all about who I am, and so I thought-
50:32
It’s L-A-R-A-J-O-N-E-S. Yes, thank you Marcus for saying that because there’s no you in my name, all right? There’s only one person in the world I allow to call me Laura. It happens to be my best friend’s boyfriend because I have a lot of respect for him. He’s the only person in the world that can call me Laura. However, my name is Laura, L-A-R-A, so it’s larajones.com, but I actually do want to give something away to the audience if they want, right? So they can…
50:56
can actually get something from today. If they want to access my grit accountability guide, all they have to do is text the word grit as gr it to 55444. That’s grit gr it to 55444. And they will receive a grit accountability guide. And
51:17
From that, you’ll be able to just learn some of the things that we’ve been talking about that you can then apply from a practical level. And it’s pretty valuable. So I just want to give that away to the audience for free for listening and taking the time to really learn. Yeah. And also connect with me on LinkedIn. So you can definitely find me on LinkedIn. Laura Jones, Grit Global, and I will come up. And please feel free to connect with me. Tell me that you heard me speak with Marcus on your podcast. And yeah, that’s probably the best way to connect with me. I love it.
51:46
Thank you for your message. Thank you for your grit and thank you for your time. Thank you, Marcus. You’re amazing. Loved it. As are you. Thank you for listening to this episode of Acta Non Verba.
