In today's episode we explore an important quote from the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It's a great reminder that we have to focus upon the life that is actually in front of us and the people that we care about the most.

Don't waste an other day of your life wishing you had someone else's life. Today is a great reminder that what matters is how you show up and commit to the people and situations that surround you.

Grab a free copy of my book Bridging The Gap here:

https://go.jonathandoyle.co/btg-pdf

Hi guys, Jonathan Doyle with you.

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We're going to do a quote from one of my favorite historical.

Skype is amazing.

Not only was it Roman, was he a Roman emperor, but he also started a Hollywood

film with Russell Crowe, Marcus Aurelius, the emperor Marcus earliest.

I mean, Scott has got shops, you know, first century Roman emperor,

Hollywood guy, amazing father of one of the progenitors of stoic philosophy.

It's a life well lived and didn't even have electricity or internal.

And this guy's just rocking the developed world.

Anyway, it's a big buildup.

So let's get into today's quiet, adapt yourself to the life you have

been given and truly love the people with whom destiny has surrounded you.

Okay.

This mirror is one of the episodes we did earlier this week, uh, from, we were, it

was a quote from Soren Kierkegaard around.

And I have some kind of yummy, but it was this quote around the idea of living

the life that you've been given, the unique life that's been given to you.

So today Marcus earliest is telling us to adapt ourselves to

the lives that we actually have.

This there's a bit of a paradox here because in personal development, we're

all about change and, and creating change.

But today it's a quote about adapting yourself to what is, I think we resolve

this paradox by really realizing.

Once we adapt ourselves to our reality.

That's like a launch pad.

If we keep resisting our lives, if we keep resisting the fact that we we're placed,

I was reading a great book this week by a French priest of the 17th century called,

um, I think it was Pierre de Kocide, um, called abandonment to divine Providence.

I was reading that book and he's kind of like going whatever's

happening for you, right?

Is the will of God or he would, you know, you could, whatever your faith journey is,

you could say the will of the universe.

If that helps.

Right.

I get some of them.

We think that we want to resist our lives.

We want to be somewhere else, want to be doing something else.

And he's the paradox again.

Cause of course to have goals, we have to have an idea of a different future

state, but so much of our growth and the beauty of our lives can come from being

present to the life that we actually have.

It doesn't mean we'll stay there for.

It doesn't mean that it'll never change, but there's a certain piece that can come

from accepting where you exactly are.

COVID kind of taught me that because, you know, I was in the U S all the time.

I was traveling all the time and speaking, it was amazing.

It was a beautifully privileged life and just ended in a heartbeat.

And there was, I honestly I'd have to say my credit in my defense.

I didn't spend a lot of time, you know, Upset and miserable about it.

I had to accept that this was the life that this was beyond my control.

And I had to accept the life that I had been given at this particular time.

So that allowed me to go through a long process of

re-evaluating what was important?

What did I want to do?

What ways could I reasonably do it?

But I had to accept my life first.

So this comes back to Marcus.

Aurelius is quite right.

Adapt yourself to the life that you've been.

And basically he says, the next part he says is so you can love the people that,

you know, destiny has placed around you.

So I got three young kids.

I got my wife, Karen, and, um, I think the purpose of much of the whole person

development, motivation space is, is not to be the richest person in the graveyard.

It's really.

You know, as on the motorbike today.

And I, and I drove past a guy that I know who was driving a Porsche, and this

there's only, I think 50 of them in the world, it could be less, could only be 25.

It was a very unique model.

They brought out, I think you bought it a few years ago for about half a million.

If some car nuts will email me now going, I was this model or you got your pricing

wrong, but, but I know that this guy has, you know, has a pretty lonely life.

I really know, you know, now I'm not as judging on another fullness of

his life, but I know that if I had to choose between, you know, Karen's love

for me, my kids and enormous wealth, it wouldn't be a decision, right.

It it'd just be, I'm blessed to love the people that are around me.

So step one, accept your life as it is right.

In all its complexity and difficulty and hardship because

it's the place where you're being called and encouraged to grow.

So you can love the people around you because I think on your death

bed, I think at the end of your life, that's, what's going to really matter.

Like if you die alone in a $500 million mansion with a, you know, a serious.

Wreckage relationships behind you.

You don't win.

That's not a win, right.

A win is to accept your life as the place where you're being challenged to

grow, to contribute as much as you can to developing yourself so that you can

contribute to the people closest to you.

And that's great wisdom for Marcus Aurelius.

Isn't it.

It's like he's reminding us.

What really matters in life is to practice acceptance while

simultaneously holding a vision of change and what's possible for us.

And then learning to really care for the people around us.

You do that.

You win, you win, that's it.

You win.

Can you win?

You really do.

I think, I think you do.

If you grow and become who you're meant to be and care for the people around.

And a whole bunch of other good stuff may happen around that.

Then you win.

You win.

All right, God bless you.

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