There are some truly simple things we can do on a daily basis that can make a huge difference both in our own lives and the lives of both loved ones and complete strangers. When we get trapped in unproductive states we can quickly end up with low mood, low energy or worse. In today’s message I explore one simple approach to life that can make a massive difference.
Grab a free copy of my book Bridging the Gap here:
https://go.jonathandoyle.co/btg-pdf
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https://go.jonathandoyle.co/jd-speak-opt-in
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https://go.jonathandoyle.co/coaching
Transcript
Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle, once again, welcome aboard
Speaker:friends to the daily podcast.
Speaker:I've enjoyed doing this last sort of series of episodes.
Speaker:I've just really enjoyed being back in the studio with my favorite microphone.
Speaker:I know it's a quickie thing.
Speaker:We all have favorite microphones and an eight year old thinking next
Speaker:to the Jonathan know he dyno Alexie have a favorite Margaret finds.
Speaker:It's really strange.
Speaker:It seems to be something very particular to you.
Speaker:I don't, we quirky as human beings ever.
Speaker:I don't know, ever since I first started, um, you know, speaking and doing stuff,
Speaker:I've always really liked good microphone.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Let's see.
Speaker:Let's move on from that important statement.
Speaker:On a microphone quality side.
Speaker:Great to be with you in the studio again today.
Speaker:Uh, really looking forward to doing this message, which I
Speaker:think is a really important one.
Speaker:I think it's going to all help all of us.
Speaker:Really press ahead on that journey of life.
Speaker:Please make sure you've subscribed.
Speaker:My friends hit that subscribe button.
Speaker:It does make a difference.
Speaker:Each day to see the numbers grow.
Speaker:So if you're a new listener, just hit that subscribe button so he
Speaker:can get these to you each day.
Speaker:They're short, they're powerful.
Speaker:They're punchy.
Speaker:They're designed to move you forward on this journey.
Speaker:That we're all sharing together.
Speaker:As we hurdle through the solar system and the wider cosmos itself at breath.
Speaker:Taking pace.
Speaker:Uh, what else?
Speaker:And check out the show notes in the show notes, you can get free
Speaker:access to my book, bridging the gap.
Speaker:You can find out how to book me to speak at your conference, your
Speaker:event, your school, your business.
Speaker:To work with your team anyway, that I can bring years of, I guess, personal
Speaker:development, motivation business experience to a, to what you're doing.
Speaker:I just love being in a room with people.
Speaker:Uh, you know, my audiences have range from over 10,000 people at some
Speaker:major global events that I've done.
Speaker:All the way down to, I have a memory of speaking in Outback
Speaker:Queensland to two people and a dog.
Speaker:I was a nice dog.
Speaker:The dog seemed very appreciative of what I had to say.
Speaker:So, uh, it just, for me, I love getting up there in front of people.
Speaker:So go and check out those show notes.
Speaker:Cause you can find out more about those sorts of things.
Speaker:Today, we're kind of riffing a little bit on this whole topic
Speaker:that I was just talking about, really about the joy that I get.
Speaker:At being in a room full of people.
Speaker:And, uh, my experience over the years has been no matter how jet lag, no matter how
Speaker:tired, no matter how disoriented I am.
Speaker:Something happens.
Speaker:I'm going to get in a room full of people.
Speaker:I just have this energy and desire and passion to just encourage
Speaker:and inspire and motivate people.
Speaker:It's just being there from pub and I was pretty young.
Speaker:I'm thinking about a time.
Speaker:Uh, pre COVID when I flew into Texas.
Speaker:I've been all across the U S and the fluent to Dallas Fort worth
Speaker:got picked up by the client.
Speaker:And we drive about two hours and I had never felt so sick.
Speaker:I was so, so sick.
Speaker:From jet lag and a whole bunch of other stuff and just fatigue and got into
Speaker:the hotel about 2:00 AM and the client was picking me up again at 7:00 AM.
Speaker:And I was wrecked and I was actually really crook and I'm thinking to
Speaker:myself, how am I going to do this?
Speaker:And the next day by the grace of God, I just got up there in front of people.
Speaker:I was like, yep.
Speaker:I want to be here.
Speaker:Bang went for it.
Speaker:So there's something that's special that comes from.
Speaker:Using our gifts in ways that reach and bless and encourage other people.
Speaker:So today's focus is on what I'm calling constant outward, focus
Speaker:on people and service, constant outward focus on people and service.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:We have a huge.
Speaker:Huge problem in the developed world, particularly with mental health.
Speaker:Things like depression, anxiety.
Speaker:Everybody knows that that is a great truth.
Speaker:Now, as I said, in yesterday's episode, I recognize and realize
Speaker:that the basis of mental health issues are complex, profound.
Speaker:That can be rooted in trauma.
Speaker:And all sorts of things, but I wanted to suggest that.
Speaker:At least in my own experience, episodes and experiences of things
Speaker:like depression can come from.
Speaker:Long periods of rumination of getting caught.
Speaker:And trapped in a cycle of focus upon our own suffering and upon our own
Speaker:problems and upon our own limitations.
Speaker:Now this is to make nobody the, you know, kind of, uh, the perpetrator of, I guess,
Speaker:Psychological trauma against themselves.
Speaker:If you understand what I'm saying, it's not like, well, you know, if we're,
Speaker:if we're experiencing depression, we're really doing it to ourselves.
Speaker:I don't want to be flipping about it because again, as I've just
Speaker:said, the basis of this is complex.
Speaker:But I think we can all agree that we've all had times.
Speaker:When we get into negative states and we might feel depressed or down
Speaker:or disillusioned, but do you notice most of the time that the energy,
Speaker:the focus is very much internalized.
Speaker:We spin our wheels, we spin our cognitive wheels.
Speaker:Don't we go round and round and round, and we.
Speaker:Catastrophize.
Speaker:And we think of the worst case scenario.
Speaker:And we think that things are never going to change.
Speaker:I watched a brilliant lecture on, um, depression a while ago.
Speaker:And this professor was talking about.
Speaker:What they call attributional style, right?
Speaker:Attributional style is when we're experiencing negative states.
Speaker:We tend to attribute them to something, uh, that we can't change.
Speaker:And we all, I think they use the terms permanent and pervasive.
Speaker:We believe that whatever's happening to us is permanent.
Speaker:That it is pervasive, which means it's going to impact all areas of our
Speaker:lives and wellbeing and happiness.
Speaker:So again, we see that in negative states, we tend to collapse into this.
Speaker:Unhelpful internal self-absorbed focus.
Speaker:So the purpose of today's message is to offer all of us.
Speaker:Uh, kind of general useful, we would call it maybe a, hermaneutic a kind
Speaker:of system of looking at reality that can offer us a fair bit of help.
Speaker:If you look at things like evolutionary psychology, how we've evolved
Speaker:as a species, how our cognition.
Speaker:And I guess I interface with reality has evolved as we've evolved as a species.
Speaker:We've gone from being an extremely social species to being an
Speaker:incredibly atomized species.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So, you know, we've been homosapien sapiens for about 350,000 years.
Speaker:Give or take for almost the entirety of that 350,000 years, we have lived
Speaker:in incredibly small groups of people.
Speaker:Uh, it's really only you, you would say.
Speaker:You know, definitely.
Speaker:Not so much in pre-modernity, but in modernity, we began to live in
Speaker:slightly larger groups, villages, towns.
Speaker:But for most of our evolution, we've really been in very small groups
Speaker:and taking care of each other.
Speaker:It was a very, very significant part of daily life.
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:Because you had to believe.
Speaker:That the people around you were going to take care of.
Speaker:You.
Speaker:And in response to that, you lived your life with a focus upon looking
Speaker:after the people in your life.
Speaker:So this kind of, um, reinforcement loop, right where, you know, you're
Speaker:going to go and work in the field, or you're going to go hunting because you
Speaker:know that if you get sick or injured, you're gonna need other people to do it.
Speaker:So what I'm getting at is this kind of a modality of existence.
Speaker:Where the fundamental lens by which we looked through, we looked at
Speaker:life was kind of a group lens, um, a taking care of each other lens.
Speaker:And now you look at our culture and we call it atomized.
Speaker:It's a highly atomized culture.
Speaker:So there's breakdown everywhere.
Speaker:So there's breakdown in larger communities.
Speaker:There's breakdown in families.
Speaker:There's breakdowns all over the place.
Speaker:You know, one of the big problems though I often hear about is that, um,
Speaker:you know, sporting groups, volunteer groups, find it harder and harder.
Speaker:To get, you know, volunteers and to get people involved because people.
Speaker:Very much withdraw into their very small circles of existence.
Speaker:You know, he, where I live, we have really cold winters and it's kind of like
Speaker:most of this city goes into hibernation.
Speaker:Like people just stay indoors for long periods of time.
Speaker:But the purpose of this message is to encourage all of us.
Speaker:To begin to think about doing life a little bit differently, which is.
Speaker:Shifting our fundamental way of being, and it's a way of being at the moment
Speaker:that is massively reinforced through media and marketing through social media.
Speaker:It's a highly individualistic, self referential self-absorbed vision
Speaker:of what it means to be happy.
Speaker:How do you be happy where you maximize your own individual success?
Speaker:How do you be happy?
Speaker:You maximize your own sense of personal happiness.
Speaker:The problem with that.
Speaker:Is this not how we've evolved?
Speaker:It's just not, we've evolved to actually take care of each other.
Speaker:So I'm beginning to wonder about.
Speaker:Is it possible?
Speaker:The one of the most powerful ways out of.
Speaker:Depression negativity, unhappiness.
Speaker:The misery that can come from endless self absorption would be too.
Speaker:Refocus a lot of our energy on service.
Speaker:Of people on outward focus.
Speaker:You know, some of these things have come to us in life naturally,
Speaker:like being a parent, for example, with three young kids.
Speaker:You know, Being of service is optional.
Speaker:It's not optional.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:I should say not optional.
Speaker:What is optional is the energy and the joy that you bring to it.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Because it's very, very possible.
Speaker:To do the basics that you have to do as a parent.
Speaker:Well, you know, they haven't starved.
Speaker:They haven't been eaten by wolves.
Speaker:Anything else I've missed.
Speaker:No, that's about it.
Speaker:They haven't starved.
Speaker:They haven't been eaten by wolves.
Speaker:We're good.
Speaker:That's that's one level of commitment and energy given by a parent.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And not having your children eaten by wolves is a good thing.
Speaker:Let me just clarify, right, because just write this down.
Speaker:If you do have your children in Bibles, you have filed at some point.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Now.
Speaker:You can do so much more that, right.
Speaker:And you can do that basic stuff.
Speaker:You can provide food, you can provide shelter, you can provide education,
Speaker:but you can go so far beyond that.
Speaker:And what I've found is that it doesn't make me any less exhausted.
Speaker:I still get tired.
Speaker:I still get, you know, but Karen would say, particularly in the last sort
Speaker:of two to three years, It's had a big effect on me that I've I've changed.
Speaker:She said you've, you've really grown into being.
Speaker:Uh, husband and father, like my, my general focus in life as it should be.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I did.
Speaker:Um, episode a few episodes, go on GT.
Speaker:But I actually get a lot of joy out of it.
Speaker:I get a lot of exhaustion.
Speaker:But I genuinely do.
Speaker:And I know some of you are listening, going, that's not that profound.
Speaker:Jonathan, you just telling us you liked being a father.
Speaker:Well, I do.
Speaker:I absolutely feel incredibly honored and blessed to be one.
Speaker:But I'm trying to point through my experience to something that's
Speaker:important for all of us, which is.
Speaker:The more that we make a gift of ourselves to others.
Speaker:The more happiness.
Speaker:And meaning we will find in life.
Speaker:You know, I started this message that I talking about the experience as a
Speaker:speaker, you know, like I just get on stage and I just want to help people.
Speaker:I just Git my energy externalizes.
Speaker:It comes out of my own sense of internal reality.
Speaker:And I want to send that energy out into the room and, and bless people with it.
Speaker:Now that energy, that experience that I have is no different.
Speaker:In fact to any of the gifts that any of you listening to.
Speaker:To this message might have, for example, Some of you listening to
Speaker:this will be good public speakers.
Speaker:Many of you would rather, you know, tear out your fingernails with
Speaker:pliers and do public speaking.
Speaker:There was a graphic image, very dark keep moving forward, Jonathan.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:You know, many of you would hate to do public speaking, but you
Speaker:would have other remarkable gifts.
Speaker:And if you're listening to this and don't think you do have
Speaker:remarkable gifts, you just wrong because you do, everybody has them.
Speaker:It's just part of the, the price of admission to life.
Speaker:All of us have unique things that are special intrinsic to us.
Speaker:But my point is.
Speaker:The more that you take those natural talents and externalize them out
Speaker:and offer them in service to others.
Speaker:Let's look at so much of our world at the moment, the news cycle,
Speaker:it's death, it's destruction.
Speaker:It's fear.
Speaker:It's loss.
Speaker:It's be afraid.
Speaker:Be afraid.
Speaker:Be afraid.
Speaker:You know, look after yourself, make sure you're prepared
Speaker:for this next terrible thing.
Speaker:It's just us finding what's that stuff anymore.
Speaker:Because I'm just trying to do it on a different level.
Speaker:Now just do life on a different level, which is.
Speaker:How in general, as often as possible can I serve how in general, as
Speaker:often as possible, can I make some positive impact on somebody's
Speaker:life and just keep doing that?
Speaker:Just keep rolling it over and doing it again and again and again, and again.
Speaker:Some of us will do it in big, spectacular ways.
Speaker:And we'll get, you know, national recognition.
Speaker:Most of us will do it in ways that, uh, you know, never going to be recognized
Speaker:more by, by anyone else in the two or three people that you really doing it for.
Speaker:So friends.
Speaker:A summary of this message today is recognized that as a species.
Speaker:We're actually highly optimized to care for each other.
Speaker:Recognize that as a species, we are living under social and
Speaker:cultural conditions and economic conditions and political conditions.
Speaker:That and technological conditions.
Speaker:Everyone's likes w.
Speaker:Will you stop with the conditions, but you get it.
Speaker:We live in this environment where like fish swimming in an aquarium
Speaker:and all of what's surrounding is.
Speaker:Is pulling us away from that natural way that we've been created.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:We have darkness in us as well as light.
Speaker:Yes, we can be selfish.
Speaker:All those things are real.
Speaker:But I think.
Speaker:One of the fast tracks to be happy is just to take the natural, raw material
Speaker:of your gifting and your talent and use it as often as widely, as
Speaker:consistently as possible to bless other.
Speaker:Uh, people.
Speaker:So here's your homework within the next 24 hours of hearing this go
Speaker:and do something for someone go and just do something outrageously kind.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Just go and do something.
Speaker:Just serve, just go serve, serving your family, serving your schools, serving
Speaker:your business, serving your street, wherever you can do anything to help
Speaker:somebody go and do it and then do more of it and more of it and more of it.
Speaker:And it may not necessarily make you rich and it may not necessarily make you
Speaker:famous, but at the end of your life, you will look back and say, you know what?
Speaker:It wasn't that bad.
Speaker:I made some sort of difference.
Speaker:I had rich precious relationships and I did the best I could with what I had.
Speaker:If you can say those sorts of things, then you have one.
Speaker:The graveyard is full of millionaires and billionaires friends.
Speaker:The goal of life is not to be the richest person in the graveyard.
Speaker:The goal of life is to take your precious, beautiful gifts and help the world
Speaker:become a fractionally better place.
Speaker:Because you externalize them and made somebody else's life a little bit better.
Speaker:And now is your chance to make my life a little bit better.
Speaker:Would you hit subscribe, please?
Speaker:If you haven't already joined the podcast, hit subscribe,
Speaker:go check out the show notes.
Speaker:There's a whole bunch of stuff in there.
Speaker:That are.
Speaker:If you want to book me to speak, if you want to get free copies
Speaker:to my book, if you want to get on the mailing list, it's all there.
Speaker:So that's it for me today, everybody.
Speaker:God bless you my name's jonathan doyle this has been the daily podcast and i'll
