Artwork for podcast The Daily Podcast with Jonathan Doyle
The Force That Determines Your Future
Episode 2418th March 2023 • The Daily Podcast with Jonathan Doyle • Jonathan Doyle
00:00:00 00:14:47

Share Episode

Shownotes

Is our success in life determined by genetics, luck, talent, or some other mysterious force? In today's episode, I share a powerful insight from neurobiology that will help you realize that so much more is possible if you can learn to do this one thing.

Book a coaching call with me now

https://go.jonathandoyle.co/coaching-offer

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

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

Enquire about booking Jonathan to speak:

https://go.jonathandoyle.co/jd-speak-opt-in

Find out about coaching with Jonathan here:

https://go.jonathandoyle.co/coaching

Jonathan is on Youtube here:

https://youtu.be/7yUCYOGc5Wo

Karen's MasterClass for Women is here:

https://bit.ly/geniusmasterclasskaren

Transcripts

Speaker:

Well, hello there, my friend welcome aboard to the daily podcast.

Speaker:

Have you listened in before?

Speaker:

Are we all friends?

Speaker:

You and I, but if you, if you're brand new listener, welcome aboard of your Regulus

Speaker:

night, it is good to have you back.

Speaker:

My name is Jonathan Doyle, this my friend.

Speaker:

It's the daily podcast.

Speaker:

It is called the daily podcast because yes, you guessed it.

Speaker:

I try to do it every single day, 365 days a year.

Speaker:

Often people go.

Speaker:

Why do you do it every day?

Speaker:

People are going to listen to it every day.

Speaker:

Well, it seems that they actually are listening to it every day.

Speaker:

At least.

Speaker:

My mother and my caboodle, R and S and others.

Speaker:

Depending on the day of the week.

Speaker:

I love doing it.

Speaker:

You know what I'm doing it lately is because I'm learning with you

Speaker:

because I am learning with you.

Speaker:

I'm reading a lot.

Speaker:

I'm uh, I'm alert a lot.

Speaker:

I'm thinking a lot.

Speaker:

And I'm just finding this stuff really helpful.

Speaker:

So I just want to share it with you and hope to be a blessing to you.

Speaker:

Please make sure you have subscribed.

Speaker:

It does make a big difference.

Speaker:

If you could hit that subscribe button here in Spotify or apple

Speaker:

podcasts or Google podcasts or wherever you're listening.

Speaker:

Hit the subscribe button.

Speaker:

It does make a big difference.

Speaker:

And of course there's a YouTube link here cause I'm on YouTube every single day.

Speaker:

And you can find the video version there.

Speaker:

I'd love you to do that.

Speaker:

And of course there is a coaching link.

Speaker:

If you would like to do some private coaching with me.

Speaker:

You just jump on board.

Speaker:

I do a send you a zoom link and we start working together and it's a really

Speaker:

simple process where you and I catch up.

Speaker:

And we identify what needs to change.

Speaker:

What's important to you.

Speaker:

And then I really get behind you as a coach and get you moving forward.

Speaker:

It could be your business.

Speaker:

It could be your relationships could be health and fitness, whatever it is.

Speaker:

Let's get on a call.

Speaker:

So go check out that coaching link friends.

Speaker:

I hope you had a chance to listen to yesterday's episode.

Speaker:

Where I shared some really deep insights from a book I've just

Speaker:

finished by a guy called Jay stringer.

Speaker:

It's a really deep episode.

Speaker:

We looked at shame.

Speaker:

We looked at past scripts.

Speaker:

We looked at what we looked at, what keeps us in failure.

Speaker:

So I really think that was pretty cool yesterday.

Speaker:

So go check it out today.

Speaker:

We're going to keep heading along that same path together.

Speaker:

The, uh, I am on a journey.

Speaker:

I'm on a journey of exploring shame.

Speaker:

I have been reading a whole bunch of books about this this morning at about 5:00 AM.

Speaker:

I had my heavy pack on, I went and did like a long, long rock, long hike.

Speaker:

Listening to an 11 hour book at the moment on a, from a clinical

Speaker:

psychotherapist on shame.

Speaker:

I just think there's a really interesting concept that affects so many people.

Speaker:

So many of us.

Speaker:

At a very deep level.

Speaker:

And I'm currently simultaneously reading Kurt Thompson's book

Speaker:

called the soul of shame.

Speaker:

And the start of this book is a kind of exploration of neurobiology.

Speaker:

It's just this wonderful emerging field that takes, uh, how

Speaker:

would I explain this to you?

Speaker:

If you think of how.

Speaker:

You know, psychology has developed.

Speaker:

I started to say to people that the first psychological textbook only

Speaker:

appeared in 1901 by William James.

Speaker:

It's the first ever book on psychology and you go back further and say, well, a

Speaker:

lot of the great philosophers, even Plato and Aristotle were talking about matters

Speaker:

of the soul, which kind of reflect this.

Speaker:

This fascinating aspect of what it means to be human, this deep

Speaker:

inner state that we all possess.

Speaker:

And then of course, you've got the three VNS schools, the

Speaker:

psychotherapy you've got Freud.

Speaker:

And then color.

Speaker:

And then the third Viennese school with Victor Frankl.

Speaker:

All of this I'm getting at is that it's a relatively new discipline, but

Speaker:

now what we're seeing is the merging of that sort of psychodynamic stuff.

Speaker:

The psychotherapeutic areas, Freud even.

Speaker:

You know, like I said earlier, Plato Aristotle.

Speaker:

All the way through the centuries, but now we're because of the

Speaker:

advances of the hard sciences.

Speaker:

We're able to get a much better insight into the actual physical

Speaker:

working of the brains, neurobiology the structure of the brain and how

Speaker:

to fix how we live, think and feel.

Speaker:

So what's good about this book, soul of shame by Kurt Thompson is that

Speaker:

he's bringing these things together.

Speaker:

He's bringing together the neuro-biological, the spiritual

Speaker:

he's running from a Christian perspective and the therapeutic.

Speaker:

So I just want to give you one quote that really jumped out at me and hopefully

Speaker:

I can really make this useful for you.

Speaker:

He says this, ultimately we become.

Speaker:

What we pay attention to.

Speaker:

And the options available to us at any time.

Speaker:

Uh, myriad, the most important of which are located within us.

Speaker:

One more time.

Speaker:

Ultimately, we become what we pay attention to and the options

Speaker:

available to us at any time.

Speaker:

A myriad.

Speaker:

The most important of which are located within us.

Speaker:

This is a rich quote, my friend.

Speaker:

First thing I want to draw your attention to is firstly, that this

Speaker:

guy is quite brilliant, right?

Speaker:

He's a highly educated person.

Speaker:

And to write a phrase like this, ultimately we become

Speaker:

what we pay attention to.

Speaker:

Think about the profundity of that and think about what it means, if he's right.

Speaker:

If he's right.

Speaker:

He saying that where we place our attention.

Speaker:

Determines who and what we become in the journey of life.

Speaker:

So, as I said yesterday, I want you to understand that there are theoretically.

Speaker:

Millions hundreds, moons, even billions of things that you could

Speaker:

pay attention to at any given moment.

Speaker:

So there's the physical world around you.

Speaker:

There's the temperature in the room.

Speaker:

There's the lights.

Speaker:

There's the things that surround you.

Speaker:

There's the feeling of clothing on your body.

Speaker:

You could pay attention to any of that, right?

Speaker:

Theoretically.

Speaker:

So as we go through life, there's this constant process by which we

Speaker:

make decisions about where we place.

Speaker:

Uh, attention.

Speaker:

So, what I want to do is take a big leap here and think about the times in life.

Speaker:

When we struggle with things like depression or anxiety, for example,

Speaker:

cause they're the big ones that are plaguing so much of modern life.

Speaker:

If we're going through these things, think about where our,

Speaker:

where our attention is now often.

Speaker:

You know, in a depressive state.

Speaker:

Our attention will be upon.

Speaker:

The experience of low energy, our attention will be upon our brain is

Speaker:

a meaning making machine our mind.

Speaker:

So it's looking for meanings.

Speaker:

Why do I feel this way?

Speaker:

Oh, it's because I am ex because I'm no good at, because this person

Speaker:

said this because no one loves me because I always screw up because.

Speaker:

You know, my parents were never there when I was a kid or I never knew my

Speaker:

father or fill in the blanks now.

Speaker:

I'm not diminishing or minimizing the significance and importance

Speaker:

of any of these things.

Speaker:

But what I am saying is that we have this incredible power to

Speaker:

choose where we place our attention.

Speaker:

So, let me give you some obvious examples.

Speaker:

I was speaking to someone just the other day about the

Speaker:

incredible book, the happiest man.

Speaker:

Alive.

Speaker:

I don't know if you've read that Edie.

Speaker:

It's a book by a guy called Eddie Jack, who.

Speaker:

And it blew my mind.

Speaker:

I actually heard the audio version first, and then I bought about

Speaker:

five copies as I do sometimes instead of giving them to people.

Speaker:

So long story short, Eddie, Jack, who.

Speaker:

Survives the most horrendous experience in world war II.

Speaker:

It captured by the Nazis is families killed and.

Speaker:

And just the experiences he's imprisoned in Auschwitz for the duration of the

Speaker:

war, but manages to come out alive.

Speaker:

And I remember exactly where I was.

Speaker:

I was on a long training run when I really heard this

Speaker:

profound part of the book where.

Speaker:

He was repatriated.

Speaker:

Oh, he was, you know, after the war, he emigrated, sorry to Australia.

Speaker:

And set up a life in the beach side area, Bondai, which many of

Speaker:

you would know is kind of like the Copacabana beach of Australia.

Speaker:

It's sort of the beach.

Speaker:

For tourists and stuff.

Speaker:

And he started this real estate business.

Speaker:

And.

Speaker:

But his first son was born Michael and Eddie Jack, who was still dealing

Speaker:

with this profound oppression.

Speaker:

Just just understandably right.

Speaker:

Because it look, think of all the loss and the trauma and the stuff.

Speaker:

So think about where his attention was.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

And his attention.

Speaker:

Was understandably.

Speaker:

Placed upon all the evil, all the loss, all the pain, all the.

Speaker:

You know, the complete lack of justice and decency and all of that.

Speaker:

But his son was born and he was living in this deep, dark depression.

Speaker:

And he had this kind of a piffy when he suddenly realized

Speaker:

that he had to change that.

Speaker:

He held his son in his arms and realized that he had to change and.

Speaker:

I love these stories because you know what he did, he, he just changed.

Speaker:

He just literally changed.

Speaker:

He became a fundamentally different person and started this incredible

Speaker:

real estate business and did all this amazing stuff over the years and

Speaker:

influenced huge numbers of people.

Speaker:

And I'm going to argue that at least a very significant part of

Speaker:

this was because his attention.

Speaker:

Shifted.

Speaker:

His attention was placed upon his son and his attention was shifted

Speaker:

to the time that he did have left.

Speaker:

And his attention was shifted to the things that he could still do.

Speaker:

So let's come back to this Kurt Thompson quote.

Speaker:

He says, ultimately, we become what we pay attention to.

Speaker:

And the options available to us at any time, a myriad, of course, you understand

Speaker:

myriad means multiple, but the most important of which are located within us.

Speaker:

So think about the ability to place our attention internally on

Speaker:

all the things that are missing, all the lack in our lives, all the

Speaker:

ways we've been hurt or mistreated.

Speaker:

We have utter complete freedom to place our attention upon those areas.

Speaker:

Absolutely all the time.

Speaker:

No problems.

Speaker:

But we also have other options.

Speaker:

And friends, if you're anything like me, I have struggled with this because

Speaker:

I've been like in the midst of real pain at times in my life, I've been

Speaker:

like, you want to be justified, right?

Speaker:

You want to, you want to scream at the world, but I have every

Speaker:

right to feel this way because.

Speaker:

And absolutely.

Speaker:

And over many years of speaking on stage, I've taught people.

Speaker:

This principle I've said.

Speaker:

You can come to me and you can list every single thing that's

Speaker:

happened to you, how terrible it is.

Speaker:

What it's done to you, why you are suffering.

Speaker:

And then I'm going to listen to you carefully and I'm going to

Speaker:

listen to you and pathic glee.

Speaker:

And then at the end of it all, when you're finally blown out

Speaker:

all of that emotion, energy, I'm going to say three words to you.

Speaker:

And here are those three words.

Speaker:

And.

Speaker:

Now what.

Speaker:

And now what.

Speaker:

You'll probably right.

Speaker:

And I understand that you would feel this way because what

Speaker:

happened to you is terrible.

Speaker:

But you still have to live.

Speaker:

And you have to find a way to find meaning and move forward.

Speaker:

And I just think that Kurt Thompson's offering is something quite extraordinary

Speaker:

today, which is a decision around where we place our attention.

Speaker:

So Franz, I turned 50 this year on December.

Speaker:

The first I'll be turning 50 years of age.

Speaker:

I still feel about 25.

Speaker:

But I'm just struck.

Speaker:

By the importance.

Speaker:

Of how much time I have left.

Speaker:

And how I want that time to be useful and the blessing and rich and joyful.

Speaker:

You know, some of, you know, I've been camping a lot lately.

Speaker:

I've been taking the kids out and we went out Friday night.

Speaker:

I took them out into the national park.

Speaker:

Um,

Speaker:

Middle of nowhere and it was just the best.

Speaker:

And we're just about, they're all about just to get into bed

Speaker:

in the tent at about 10:00 PM.

Speaker:

And I noticed.

Speaker:

That the moon had come up and we walked around the corner of these

Speaker:

trees and you had to be there I guess, but the moon was just artily spec

Speaker:

tacular, because there was no light pollution and it was just incredible.

Speaker:

And I've got these really good binoculars that I use for hunting,

Speaker:

and I took them out and gave them to the kids and you could see every

Speaker:

crater on the moon and it was like,

Speaker:

Well, I'm telling you this because it was just this beautiful moment of.

Speaker:

Or, and wonder.

Speaker:

And being together and sharing it together.

Speaker:

And I guess that we can choose to pay attention to these kinds of opportunities.

Speaker:

We can choose to pay attention to the things that are beautiful around us.

Speaker:

They're quite extraordinary.

Speaker:

So.

Speaker:

The last thing I wrote in these notes in preparing here is.

Speaker:

Was that this is a discipline.

Speaker:

It's a genuine discipline.

Speaker:

It's very easy to just get on this microphone and say these words and

Speaker:

people like, yeah, yeah, I get it.

Speaker:

I get it.

Speaker:

Yep.

Speaker:

Sure.

Speaker:

I understand.

Speaker:

But how do we actually do this?

Speaker:

Especially if you're not somebody that, you know, naturally gravitates

Speaker:

to the optimistic or the positive.

Speaker:

And I say it's a discipline.

Speaker:

It becomes something that you practice.

Speaker:

And like almost everything that I teach it requires.

Speaker:

Awareness and being awake.

Speaker:

Of removing things in your life that keep you asleep.

Speaker:

So that you are awake.

Speaker:

Because when you're awake.

Speaker:

Metaphysically to life.

Speaker:

Then you can begin to notice things like, yeah, I'm paying attention

Speaker:

to everything that's missing.

Speaker:

I'm paying attention to.

Speaker:

All of these internal states that are not helping me move forward.

Speaker:

I'm not talking about denying what you feel.

Speaker:

I'm not saying you ignore things.

Speaker:

I'm just saying.

Speaker:

You don't have to pay attention.

Speaker:

To all of the things that are not helping, maybe this helps.

Speaker:

Maybe it's like you have a party at your house and you invite 50 guests and.

Speaker:

And 49 of those guests.

Speaker:

Uh, interesting, energetic, happy, positive.

Speaker:

Greg grateful to be there.

Speaker:

And you've got this one guest who's like miserable.

Speaker:

And wants to complain about the temperature in your house, the food.

Speaker:

Uh, remind you that you had a party five years ago, that wasn't

Speaker:

very good and hit their surprise.

Speaker:

Anybody came to this one.

Speaker:

And you have 49 guests, you could be paying attention to.

Speaker:

And those 49 guests are going to help you to enjoy yourself and to learn things

Speaker:

from them and to have a great time.

Speaker:

But you're paying attention to this one guest.

Speaker:

I've done it.

Speaker:

So maybe that's a helpful metaphor.

Speaker:

Don't pay attention to the one guest.

Speaker:

You don't have to deny there.

Speaker:

You just smile and wave, right?

Speaker:

Like, Hey, glad you could make it kind of.

Speaker:

And then go and spend time focusing your attention on the 4

Speaker:

49 guests that really light you up.

Speaker:

To discipline her.

Speaker:

It is a discipline.

Speaker:

All right, that's it for me today, please make sure you've subscribed.

Speaker:

Please make sure you have subscribed.

Speaker:

That's very helpful for me.

Speaker:

Go and check out the coaching link.

Speaker:

If you want to do some coaching with me, we can work on

Speaker:

this kind of stuff together.

Speaker:

We can help you.

Speaker:

I can help you to start paying attention.

Speaker:

Not to what's wrecking your life, but towards you, what towards.

Speaker:

What you want to go towards, if you understand what I mean, I want to help

Speaker:

you focus your attention on the good things and the things that you still can

Speaker:

do that are gonna move you forward to go book yourself a coaching session with me.

Speaker:

All right, God bless everybody.

Speaker:

My name is Jonathan Doyle.

Speaker:

This has been the daily podcast.

Speaker:

I've enjoyed this one.

Speaker:

I hope it's a blessing to you and I'll have another message for you.

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube