“I’d like to be an original… not a pale copy of anyone else.” — Julie Andrews.
Jonathan unpacks why becoming who you really are requires trade-offs. Drawing on Matt Higgins’ Burn the Boats (“If you won’t give things up to reach your goal, it’s probably the wrong goal”), we dig into the hard truth: meaningful results demand sacrifice, not wishful thinking. You’ll leave with a simple framework to choose your goal, identify what must go, and act today.
You’ll learn:
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hello there, my friend Jonathan Doyle with you once again.
Speaker:Welcome aboard to the Daily Podcast.
Speaker:I'm glad you're here.
Speaker:Thank you to the loyal listeners that that join us regularly.
Speaker:It's really great to be with you.
Speaker:Today is the birthday of Julie Andrews and of course you will remember her from the.
Speaker:Inimitable genre defining film.
Speaker:I'm not sure what the actual genre really is.
Speaker:The sound of Music, I'm sure most of you have seen that incredible
Speaker:film, but it's her birthday today.
Speaker:She's one of the, she's one of the good ones.
Speaker:She's a beautiful soul.
Speaker:Let me just share a quote with you that I found from her.
Speaker:She says, I'd like to be an original.
Speaker:To be myself and not a pale copy of anyone else.
Speaker:I think she really embodies that.
Speaker:If you've ever seen her apart from the movie, just she radiates this
Speaker:kind of just inner decency and light.
Speaker:She's just a very beautiful soul.
Speaker:I'd like to be an original.
Speaker:She says to be myself and not a pale copy of anyone else.
Speaker:Reminds me of that famous quote from Oscar Wilde.
Speaker:Be yourself.
Speaker:Everyone else is taken.
Speaker:So that is your homework today.
Speaker:Even though we've just started the episode, your homework is
Speaker:to do you to fight to pray.
Speaker:To actualize, to become who you truly are.
Speaker:This unique potential and capacity that's been given to you alone.
Speaker:I know it sounds somewhat syrupy to say it, but snowflakes right?
Speaker:Not a single snowflake in the whole history of this planet
Speaker:has ever been exactly the same as the snowflake next to it.
Speaker:So I ain't calling you a snowflake, but I'm just saying you get the point.
Speaker:There's seven or 8 billion of us on the planet, but there's only one of you.
Speaker:So what a remarkable thing that is.
Speaker:Even on your worst day, you are meant to be here.
Speaker:There is something unique, special, remarkable about you.
Speaker:This is not an accident.
Speaker:You're supposed to be here.
Speaker:And the greatest return on capital that you can make, the greatest
Speaker:return on the gifts that you've been given is to be fully who you are.
Speaker:To come to peace with that and to serve the world through that.
Speaker:You don't get to, you don't get to do this journey of life by mimic,
Speaker:mimicking and imitating someone else.
Speaker:And the tragedy is that some people try to do that, right?
Speaker:That many you often see it often, don't you, when young people they're not sure
Speaker:who they are and who they are is okay.
Speaker:So they spend so much energy and time trying.
Speaker:To channel someone else's identity, and it's a great tragedy.
Speaker:So my friend, for you today, be who you are.
Speaker:What does that mean in practice?
Speaker:I guess there's a strong element of self-acceptance, of knowing that
Speaker:you've got flaws and quirks and if it's any consolation to you friends.
Speaker:We all do.
Speaker:I just, I know when it's, we walk around throughout each day and we assume that
Speaker:everybody else is completely normal and rational and has it totally together,
Speaker:and we are the only one that has.
Speaker:All these conflicting thoughts and ideas and forces moving
Speaker:around inside us, but we all do.
Speaker:This human journey, this side of heaven is challenging and
Speaker:everybody's carrying something.
Speaker:So don't think that there's any other perfect people out there.
Speaker:'cause there aren't.
Speaker:We're all fighting a great battle, as the philosopher
Speaker:said, and your job is to do you.
Speaker:Is to really just be who you are, that unique and special
Speaker:gift that you have for the world.
Speaker:I just wanna share with you a quick quote from Matt Higgins' book Burn the
Speaker:Boats, which I mentioned the other day, and I came across this reading a couple
Speaker:of days ago where he says this, if you won't give things up to reach your goal.
Speaker:It's probably the wrong goal.
Speaker:If you won't give things up to reach your goal, it's probably the wrong goal.
Speaker:So what I wanted to put into your mind today is this basic idea that anything
Speaker:significant that you would like to change or achieve is going to require
Speaker:from you some level of sacrifice.
Speaker:Yesterday I mentioned certain incontrovertible laws of the cosmos.
Speaker:There seems to be certain ways in which this game has been set up.
Speaker:And one of them seems to be that the attainment of anything
Speaker:significant, important or valuable comes at the cost of something else.
Speaker:Years ago, Karen and I, we were just newly married and we were working at a remote
Speaker:boarding school and this school had a big swimming pool and it was in tropical area.
Speaker:And it morning, the kids in the boarding school, or a small number of them
Speaker:would get up at 4:00 AM and they'd be in the pool by four 30 and they
Speaker:would do two hours of training and.
Speaker:Just before school even started.
Speaker:And then they would do their full school day.
Speaker:As soon as school finished, they were back in the pool for another two
Speaker:hours of training, then dinner, then homework, then sleep, rinse, and repeat.
Speaker:And I remember a few things about that, just being impressed by the
Speaker:discipline, the commitment they just kept.
Speaker:Going and also that these kids tended to be very grounded and you, they were they
Speaker:caused very little issues and problems probably 'cause they were too tired.
Speaker:But I was struck by the sacrifice and the discipline in the attainment of
Speaker:something that was important to them.
Speaker:If, sports always a great example.
Speaker:Music is another one.
Speaker:People who attain at the highest level, they attain because
Speaker:they sacrifice something else.
Speaker:Thomas Soul, my my favorite economist always talks about trade-offs,
Speaker:and that you can only, you can have some things, but not others.
Speaker:And so then life, you get to pick your trade offs.
Speaker:You have to pick off what?
Speaker:What do I want that is important to me and what am I prepared to let go of?
Speaker:That's not you wanna be a great athlete.
Speaker:You've got certain constraints around sleep, around food, around
Speaker:socialization, alcohol, partying.
Speaker:You wanna be a great.
Speaker:Student you, if you wanna do really well at college, university and to attain,
Speaker:then you have to say no to some things.
Speaker:There's this endless opportunity cost.
Speaker:Some things you let go of to attain others.
Speaker:So if there's no area of real sacrifice in your life at the moment for something that
Speaker:you say is important, then what you think is important to you probably really isn't.
Speaker:That's always confronting.
Speaker:People think they should have goals, and the old joke is they should
Speaker:all over themselves that I should want this, I should want that.
Speaker:But you can track how important something is by the sacrifice
Speaker:you're prepared to make to get it.
Speaker:So my life in different dimensions is a pretty consistent series of
Speaker:sacrifices, and it's just hard.
Speaker:In case you're thinking that, that people that attain outsized
Speaker:results just find this part easy and they just love sacrificing.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker:It's just always difficult.
Speaker:It's always hard to just keep going and to keep making the
Speaker:sacrifices that you need to make.
Speaker:So that's the key principle.
Speaker:In summary, you are here for a significant purpose and the attainment of that
Speaker:purpose is going to require you to let go of some things in the pursuit
Speaker:of something more meaningful to you.
Speaker:It is the entry price, it's the ticket price of admission into whatever next
Speaker:step up you are trying to pursue.
Speaker:This is how the game is constructed.
Speaker:Again, we didn't get to write the rules, but we do get to conform
Speaker:ourselves to them, and in this sense.
Speaker:Sacrifice has this intimate relationship to attainment.
Speaker:Alright, that's it for me today.
Speaker:I hope that's useful to you.
Speaker:Look into your life.
Speaker:Where do you need to be sacrificing that?
Speaker:You're not sacrificing?
Speaker:If you wanna move yourself forward, please make sure you subscribe to the podcast.
Speaker:Hit that subscribe button, share this with friends.
Speaker:I'm on Instagram at j Doyle speaks.
Speaker:Everything else you need to know about me is on the website.
Speaker:Jonathan doyle.co.
Speaker:God bless you, my friend.
Speaker:This has been the Daily Podcast, and you and I are gonna talk again.
Speaker:Tomorrow.