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Originality & Sacrifice: Be Fully You—and Pay the Price to Become It
Episode 222nd October 2025 • The Daily Podcast with Jonathan Doyle • Jonathan Doyle
00:00:00 00:07:17

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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:

  • The Identity → Behavior → Identity loop (how action reinforces the real you)
  • A 3-step Trade-Off Audit: pick, price, pay
  • How to set non-negotiables so sacrifice doesn’t become burnout

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Transcripts

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hello there, my friend Jonathan Doyle with you once again.

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Welcome aboard to the Daily Podcast.

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I'm glad you're here.

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Thank you to the loyal listeners that that join us regularly.

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It's really great to be with you.

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Today is the birthday of Julie Andrews and of course you will remember her from the.

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Inimitable genre defining film.

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I'm not sure what the actual genre really is.

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The sound of Music, I'm sure most of you have seen that incredible

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film, but it's her birthday today.

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She's one of the, she's one of the good ones.

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She's a beautiful soul.

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Let me just share a quote with you that I found from her.

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She says, I'd like to be an original.

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To be myself and not a pale copy of anyone else.

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I think she really embodies that.

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If you've ever seen her apart from the movie, just she radiates this

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kind of just inner decency and light.

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She's just a very beautiful soul.

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I'd like to be an original.

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She says to be myself and not a pale copy of anyone else.

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Reminds me of that famous quote from Oscar Wilde.

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Be yourself.

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Everyone else is taken.

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So that is your homework today.

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Even though we've just started the episode, your homework is

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to do you to fight to pray.

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To actualize, to become who you truly are.

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This unique potential and capacity that's been given to you alone.

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I know it sounds somewhat syrupy to say it, but snowflakes right?

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Not a single snowflake in the whole history of this planet

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has ever been exactly the same as the snowflake next to it.

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So I ain't calling you a snowflake, but I'm just saying you get the point.

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There's seven or 8 billion of us on the planet, but there's only one of you.

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So what a remarkable thing that is.

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Even on your worst day, you are meant to be here.

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There is something unique, special, remarkable about you.

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This is not an accident.

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You're supposed to be here.

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And the greatest return on capital that you can make, the greatest

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return on the gifts that you've been given is to be fully who you are.

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To come to peace with that and to serve the world through that.

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You don't get to, you don't get to do this journey of life by mimic,

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mimicking and imitating someone else.

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And the tragedy is that some people try to do that, right?

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That many you often see it often, don't you, when young people they're not sure

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who they are and who they are is okay.

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So they spend so much energy and time trying.

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To channel someone else's identity, and it's a great tragedy.

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So my friend, for you today, be who you are.

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What does that mean in practice?

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I guess there's a strong element of self-acceptance, of knowing that

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you've got flaws and quirks and if it's any consolation to you friends.

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We all do.

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I just, I know when it's, we walk around throughout each day and we assume that

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everybody else is completely normal and rational and has it totally together,

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and we are the only one that has.

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All these conflicting thoughts and ideas and forces moving

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around inside us, but we all do.

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This human journey, this side of heaven is challenging and

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everybody's carrying something.

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So don't think that there's any other perfect people out there.

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'cause there aren't.

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We're all fighting a great battle, as the philosopher

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said, and your job is to do you.

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Is to really just be who you are, that unique and special

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gift that you have for the world.

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I just wanna share with you a quick quote from Matt Higgins' book Burn the

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Boats, which I mentioned the other day, and I came across this reading a couple

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of days ago where he says this, if you won't give things up to reach your goal.

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It's probably the wrong goal.

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If you won't give things up to reach your goal, it's probably the wrong goal.

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So what I wanted to put into your mind today is this basic idea that anything

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significant that you would like to change or achieve is going to require

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from you some level of sacrifice.

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Yesterday I mentioned certain incontrovertible laws of the cosmos.

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There seems to be certain ways in which this game has been set up.

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And one of them seems to be that the attainment of anything

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significant, important or valuable comes at the cost of something else.

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Years ago, Karen and I, we were just newly married and we were working at a remote

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boarding school and this school had a big swimming pool and it was in tropical area.

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And it morning, the kids in the boarding school, or a small number of them

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would get up at 4:00 AM and they'd be in the pool by four 30 and they

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would do two hours of training and.

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Just before school even started.

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And then they would do their full school day.

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As soon as school finished, they were back in the pool for another two

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hours of training, then dinner, then homework, then sleep, rinse, and repeat.

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And I remember a few things about that, just being impressed by the

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discipline, the commitment they just kept.

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Going and also that these kids tended to be very grounded and you, they were they

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caused very little issues and problems probably 'cause they were too tired.

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But I was struck by the sacrifice and the discipline in the attainment of

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something that was important to them.

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If, sports always a great example.

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Music is another one.

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People who attain at the highest level, they attain because

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they sacrifice something else.

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Thomas Soul, my my favorite economist always talks about trade-offs,

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and that you can only, you can have some things, but not others.

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And so then life, you get to pick your trade offs.

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You have to pick off what?

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What do I want that is important to me and what am I prepared to let go of?

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That's not you wanna be a great athlete.

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You've got certain constraints around sleep, around food, around

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socialization, alcohol, partying.

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You wanna be a great.

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Student you, if you wanna do really well at college, university and to attain,

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then you have to say no to some things.

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There's this endless opportunity cost.

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Some things you let go of to attain others.

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So if there's no area of real sacrifice in your life at the moment for something that

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you say is important, then what you think is important to you probably really isn't.

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That's always confronting.

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People think they should have goals, and the old joke is they should

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all over themselves that I should want this, I should want that.

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But you can track how important something is by the sacrifice

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you're prepared to make to get it.

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So my life in different dimensions is a pretty consistent series of

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sacrifices, and it's just hard.

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In case you're thinking that, that people that attain outsized

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results just find this part easy and they just love sacrificing.

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Yeah, I don't think so.

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It's just always difficult.

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It's always hard to just keep going and to keep making the

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sacrifices that you need to make.

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So that's the key principle.

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In summary, you are here for a significant purpose and the attainment of that

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purpose is going to require you to let go of some things in the pursuit

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of something more meaningful to you.

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It is the entry price, it's the ticket price of admission into whatever next

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step up you are trying to pursue.

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This is how the game is constructed.

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Again, we didn't get to write the rules, but we do get to conform

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ourselves to them, and in this sense.

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Sacrifice has this intimate relationship to attainment.

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Alright, that's it for me today.

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I hope that's useful to you.

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Look into your life.

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Where do you need to be sacrificing that?

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You're not sacrificing?

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If you wanna move yourself forward, please make sure you subscribe to the podcast.

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Hit that subscribe button, share this with friends.

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I'm on Instagram at j Doyle speaks.

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Everything else you need to know about me is on the website.

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Jonathan doyle.co.

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God bless you, my friend.

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This has been the Daily Podcast, and you and I are gonna talk again.

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Tomorrow.

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