The hardest part of mindset isn’t knowing—it’s choosing. In this episode, Jonathan shares lessons from running five half-marathons in five days and unpacks Lucille Ball’s line: “It doesn’t pay to get discouraged—keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.”

We’ll explore why our brains default to comfort, how to reframe tough circumstances, and a simple plan to keep moving when motivation dips.

You’ll learn:

• The Act → Reframe → Repeat loop for momentum
• Practical ways to “keep busy” without burning out
• How to build a chosen optimism (even if you’re not naturally upbeat)

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Well, hey there, my friend Jonathan Dore with you.

Welcome aboard to the Dally Podcast.

I hope you're doing well.

For those of you that are following this along with me, I am doing

five half marathons in five days.

Just finished day three this morning.

Woke up really early, about 3:00 AM Uh, did a few things.

At about 4:00 AM I went out and, uh, did my third half marathon

at about 20 2K this morning.

So two more to go.

Why am I doing this?

Look, it's a mystery, but, uh, part of what I wanna talk to you about just

briefly today, kind of ties into it.

Maybe I can answer my own question.

I wanna talk to you a little bit today about mindset, which is one of those

big generic personal development terms.

We hear a lot of.

But look, I, I think I can speak to this because I've been really

bad at it for most of my life.

This is not the podcast where I tell you that I've mastered every single

separate area of motivational personal development, because just like

you, I'm still a work in progress.

But this broad idea that you can literally choose.

What you think about circumstances is a very powerful one.

I wanna share two things with you, uh, on these, uh, half

marathons I've been listening to.

I've been back on Audible listening to audio books because I've, you

know, used to run ultra marathons.

I, I really quickly figured out the best kind of things to listen

to if you're gonna do long, long, long distance running.

So, biography's the other way to go and I just finished.

Like, I dunno how it crossed my path, but Eli Weeby, I just finished his biography

called Mask and it's really interesting.

It's about his life as a kind of super influential, uh, LA nightclub organizer.

It's a really interesting story and it just keeps me company on the runs.

But he talked a lot about mindset, about choosing, you know, how you

filter what's happening to you, and I dunno about you, but I've, I think

I've struggled with this in my life.

It's like, do you not feel that when things are not going your way,

when things are really difficult?

That you kind of go, well, if I feel miserable, it makes sense because

the circumstance is really difficult and it makes sense on one level.

'cause when things are going great, we always feel really happy.

So maybe when things are going bad, it's normal to feel unhappy.

I guess it makes sense.

On one level, I. But there does seem to be this capacity that we have to

literally choose a different mindset, and it's a conscious decision that

we choose to construct a different meaning for the circumstance.

So the quote that jumped out at me today from my sort of notes and research from

the actress, Lucille Ball, who many of you won't remember, but she was mega

famous back in the mid 20th century.

Sort of a comedic actor, but quite brilliant in a lot of different roles.

And listen to this quote from her, she says, one of the things I've learned

the hard way is that it doesn't pay to get discouraged, keeping busy

and making optimism a way of life.

It can restore your faith in yourself.

Now listen to it again.

One of the things I've learned the hard way was that it

doesn't pay to get discouraged.

Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.

A couple of key points here.

There's a lot of action statements in that little short quote.

She talks about keeping busy and making optimism.

So there's an active component here that when things are difficult and

we're facing adversity, we actually have to do and choose different things.

I like how she says keeping busy.

'cause I, I mentioned to you at the start of this message that I would try

and answer my own question, why am I.

Running five marathons in five days, and part of it is because I've, I'm

heading overseas on a speaking tour soon, but I've got this kind of

few weeks of prep time and I'm just somebody that needs to keep busy.

And I'm like, why run five marathon half marathons in five days?

That gives me something to do.

It just gives me this kind of thing to keep my mental focus on.

So I'm the kind of person that I need something in front of me now.

Maybe a bit like, yeah, I'm a bit, I'm a bit of a paradox because

I'm also really good at solitude, sitting quietly thinking, reading.

But I do need to keep busy.

And I like this other term she's got here making optimism a way of life.

For all you optimists out there.

I'm silently judging you because you know, I, I have a melancholic disposition.

One of the great ironies of my life is that I'm, you know, I've, I've

spoken to more than half a million people in live events around the

world, but I'm actually introverted.

You see me on stage.

I seem like an extrovert, but I'm introverted by nature and also

melancholic by nature, which means, you know, the upside of that is you

think deeply, you are, you got really good strategic thinking, but you

can tend to get too introspective.

So I'm married to an optimist who's just like the world's falling apart,

and Karen's like, this is great.

This is great.

There's gonna be something great about this.

So I've had to work much harder at it, but I like these key terms, making optimism.

See the choice component here that we choose to keep busy.

We choose to be optimistic.

So maybe I'm just preaching to myself because something I need to consistently

learn if it doesn't come naturally to me, and it may not come naturally to you.

So in summary, mindset is simply the hard decision.

To frame different meanings around difficult things that you're facing.

So just to finish whatever you are facing in life at the moment, unless

you are listening to this, uh, on a radio station in heaven, you've

probably got some challenges somewhere.

Life might be going pretty well, but I'm sure there's one or two things that

you would prefer were different, or your life could literally be falling apart

and you wish everything was different.

Wherever you are in either of those circumstances, we do get a vote.

We do get a choice in terms of how we construct the meaning of what's

happening to us and constructing meanings that keep us moving forward.

That keep us going.

Yeah.

This is hard.

It's not my preference, but I'll keep going.

I'll keep moving.

I'll keep making this happy and just the keeping busy thing, you know.

So much of the time when people are dealing with things like depression

now, depression's complex 'cause it's got physiological components.

It can have, you know, it can be have a grief component.

Things happen to us that, you know, depression can kinda creep

up for complex, you know, life losses and all sorts of things.

But what I do know after 30 plus years of talking about this kind of content

is that action helps keeping busy, helps keeping focused on doing stuff helps.

All right.

So you got it.

Whatever you're facing, mindset is a thing.

You can choose a meaning and keeping busy and choosing to be optimistic let's

you and I work on that together, right?

Because, uh, I need all the help I can get at times.

Believe it or not, the irony is killing me of, of hosting a motivational podcast.

But I gotta work at this.

You gotta work at this.

Let's work at this together.

All right.

Make sure you subscribe to the podcast, hit that subscribe button.

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I'm on Instagram at Jade Doyle speaks one word, Jade Doyle speaks.

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

Jonathan Doyle dot co.co.

This has been the Daily podcast and you and I are gonna talk again tomorrow.