In a culture that has elevated victimhood to a fine art many people have learned to find a reason for their failures or poor performance. So many people simply blame circumstances or others for whatever they fail to achieve. However, a small number of people have learned that no matter what the external circumstances may be they take a radical responsibility for their lives and the effort and energy they bring to every worthwhile goal.
If you want to build a new level of success in your life then the first thing to fix is this; you need to take total responsibility for your internal standards and remove all blame from external conditions.
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Transcript
Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.
Speaker:Once again.
Speaker:Welcome my friends to the daily podcast.
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Speaker:I want you to grab free access to my book, bridging the gap.
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Speaker:my original book, bridging the gap.
Speaker:You can go do that.
Speaker:And if you want to book me to speak.
Speaker:Find out about other things, jump across to the YouTube channel.
Speaker:All the links will be here in the show notes.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:It is early in the morning.
Speaker:I've been up since about 3 58 M best time of day.
Speaker:Outside the studio it's foggy.
Speaker:It's cold.
Speaker:It's dark.
Speaker:It's miserable.
Speaker:And I'm in this warm studio.
Speaker:We've had a really cold start to the year.
Speaker:It had to the winter.
Speaker:It's a, I think it's going to be one of the coldest we've had in
Speaker:a very long time, took Karen and the kids up to the, to the snow.
Speaker:Just, I think it was last week, which was really a bit of fun.
Speaker:We don't see a lot of snow around here, so it was good to get up there
Speaker:and experience that as a family.
Speaker:But my friends, it is Blake.
Speaker:It is cold outside, but it is warm here today in the studio.
Speaker:As we discuss today's topic, we're going to talk a little
Speaker:bit about setting internal.
Speaker:Standards.
Speaker:As many of, you know, have you been listening in regularly?
Speaker:I've been coaching a sporting team have been coaching.
Speaker:My daughter's a division two soccer team, and it's been a
Speaker:really interesting journey.
Speaker:I've learned a great deal.
Speaker:They're a fantastic group of young women.
Speaker:It's been a real pleasure to do it.
Speaker:But I've learned a lot in the process.
Speaker:And one of the things I noticed in yesterday's training session, And
Speaker:I spoke to the team about this.
Speaker:So I'm not sort of betraying their confidence in any way.
Speaker:The issue of internal standards now.
Speaker:A lot of times we allow our external environment, other people.
Speaker:Circumstances our energy levels to set our internal standards.
Speaker:So we had.
Speaker:A whole bunch of people training last night and you can truly see the variants.
Speaker:In the level of execution in the training drills.
Speaker:So I think we had about 14 players there last night and you see this diverse.
Speaker:Set of performances.
Speaker:And the drills were requiring a certain level of execution, but it's quite
Speaker:extraordinary to watch that you will have person X who just internally
Speaker:brings a high level of performance, and then you're going to have another
Speaker:player who's just not bringing it.
Speaker:I think if I had one great fascination over these many years in the area of
Speaker:personal development, it would be that it would be that mysterious X factor.
Speaker:That conditions.
Speaker:What we bring in life.
Speaker:It's just, you can have two people coming from the same background,
Speaker:the same difficulties in life.
Speaker:One person.
Speaker:Really struggles to, to grow and develop and develop their potential.
Speaker:Another person just absolutely knocks it out of the park.
Speaker:I saw an interview the other day with, uh, Ben Carson.
Speaker:Who have spoken about in previous years, Ben Carson ran for us
Speaker:president, I think back in maybe 2016.
Speaker:He was a really extraordinary guy.
Speaker:He grew up in the housing projects of Detroit super poor.
Speaker:Uh, no father in the home.
Speaker:Uh, he really struggled with learning difficulties.
Speaker:He had to kind of teach himself to read.
Speaker:He would go and sit in public libraries.
Speaker:Long story short, he becomes a phenomenal world, famous brain surgeon.
Speaker:He said he was the first person to separate.
Speaker:Uh, Siamese twins joined at the brain.
Speaker:And then of course went on to run for president.
Speaker:So this is a guy who's had an, you know, you could actually see his love story.
Speaker:I think it's called.
Speaker:It's something hands.
Speaker:Think it's healing hands.
Speaker:The movie there's a movie about his life is really worth watching.
Speaker:Very moving.
Speaker:So you see this person coming from the most extremely difficult
Speaker:background, who yet makes something remarkable of themselves.
Speaker:So, this is what fascinates me, this sort of.
Speaker:Why do people come from?
Speaker:You know, I mean, You know, I don't want to be unkind, but there's this
Speaker:some public figures these days who've come from a lot of money, but yet act
Speaker:quite reprehensible in certain ways.
Speaker:I'm thinking of two in particular.
Speaker:I won't name.
Speaker:Because it would sound awfully judgmental, be done at anybody's full journey.
Speaker:We don't know exactly what triggers what they do, but.
Speaker:Isn't it true that there's plenty of people that come from a lot
Speaker:of affluence and success, but yet managed to blow their lives up.
Speaker:And there's people that come from.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:Poverty and difficulty and yet managed to make something themselves.
Speaker:And then there's everything in between.
Speaker:You'll get people from poverty who go on to have really awful
Speaker:lives and do terrible things.
Speaker:And people from affluence who build on the foundation they've been given.
Speaker:So look, I think the only thing we can conclude is that all of us
Speaker:have this sort of radical freedom.
Speaker:To decide what we actually want to achieve and contribute in life.
Speaker:And the purpose of today's message is really the link it back to
Speaker:this idea of internal standards.
Speaker:You really, they can't be forced on you.
Speaker:I said to the, to the girls last night, I said, if you will not
Speaker:bring your own internal standard.
Speaker:Then the way that the universe is constructed is that.
Speaker:Someone else is going to enforce a standard on you.
Speaker:You see.
Speaker:You let's just say you don't have the standard of obeying laws or
Speaker:doing the right thing will then eventually if it goes far enough,
Speaker:The police and the legal system are going to enforce a standard on you.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So you can see that if we don't eventually bring some level
Speaker:of internal standards, then.
Speaker:The world around us is going to enforce all sorts of external standards and
Speaker:probably many of them that we want, like.
Speaker:So, what are you doing?
Speaker:This is the great question.
Speaker:This is the thing that keeps me awake at night.
Speaker:How do we do it?
Speaker:I think this just, you have to show up for yourself.
Speaker:You have to kind of go.
Speaker:I don't care.
Speaker:What the weather is doing, what the economy's doing,
Speaker:what the government's doing.
Speaker:What my spouse or kids are doing, I'm going to set my own internal standard.
Speaker:And rather than being a burden, I think it's actually leads
Speaker:to a kind of freedom, right?
Speaker:It leads to a kind of sense of no matter how difficult things are in
Speaker:life, you control the internal standard.
Speaker:You need to define it.
Speaker:You need to know what you stand for.
Speaker:What's significant to you.
Speaker:And again, on that.
Speaker:That may sound abstract when I say at first, but we all carry around within us.
Speaker:This hierarchy of values.
Speaker:Somebody came to me yesterday with a complex decision.
Speaker:They were trying to make.
Speaker:And they made the comment about Dar.
Speaker:They said, oh, look, I'm really, you know, I really indecisive
Speaker:and I struggled with this and.
Speaker:And I worked through this decision process with them and I helped them to
Speaker:see, they had a hierarchy of values.
Speaker:That's where the clash was.
Speaker:That's where the tension was.
Speaker:There were two or three things that they valued that were
Speaker:playing out in this decision.
Speaker:I said, you have to really work out what your hierarchy of values is.
Speaker:What's the most important thing.
Speaker:So we bring this back to the idea of standards.
Speaker:We have to work out.
Speaker:What are the most important things in our life?
Speaker:Is it.
Speaker:Is it success?
Speaker:Is it hard work?
Speaker:Is it loyalty to family?
Speaker:Is it, uh, I'll always try and bring excellence.
Speaker:We have to be conscious of these specific things that matter to us, the things
Speaker:that we say are significant in our lives.
Speaker:Because I really am noticing a culture and a lot of people who are just drifting.
Speaker:And not really taking responsibility for what they bring in the world.
Speaker:And I really, as I say, many times we have a culture that
Speaker:massively empowers that sickness.
Speaker:I think it is a kind of.
Speaker:Mental spiritual sickness.
Speaker:We have a culture that empowers victim hood.
Speaker:We have a culture that empowers, uh, just sort of expecting that
Speaker:the government's going to bail you out and give you whatever you want.
Speaker:And, you know, just yesterday it was, it's funny here in Australia.
Speaker:Uh, two state governments have got together and I think they've just come
Speaker:up with something like a $9 billion.
Speaker:Pre preschool program.
Speaker:It's something way.
Speaker:You know, they're going to pump $9 billion into, uh, you know,
Speaker:Some sort of new fancy, they're going to build some new childcare
Speaker:facilities and do blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:And I looked at it because you know, of course.
Speaker:A lot of the way my background's in macroeconomics, I'm looking at it going.
Speaker:$9 billion.
Speaker:You know, the economies.
Speaker:Train wreck and.
Speaker:And, you know, the Australian population is aging and our productivity is
Speaker:falling and our GDP is stagnant.
Speaker:And yet we're funding these kinds of projects.
Speaker:To the tune of $9 billion of money that doesn't exist.
Speaker:So if you're listening to this guy and we'll talk is a really good thing, I go.
Speaker:But what's interesting to notice about it is, um, you know, somebody in the
Speaker:comments on this article said, well, but you have to realize that our high school
Speaker:we're scores and our university stuff is getting worse and worse and worse.
Speaker:So we're throwing more and more money at the front end, but we're still getting
Speaker:the same results on the back end.
Speaker:But my, my point in sharing this story of these, this is that.
Speaker:You know, honestly, You may think I'm a little cynical, but I don't think
Speaker:it's really about, because some people in government had this passionate
Speaker:concern for preschool education.
Speaker:I think it's just a vote by.
Speaker:I think it's basically just, you know, let's just.
Speaker:You know, throw $9 billion.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And there's elections coming up for one of these state
Speaker:governments, $9 billion, right.
Speaker:And what I'm getting at is that it leads to a sense of entitlement.
Speaker:It may leads to a sense of the government's responsible
Speaker:for providing all this stuff.
Speaker:And just trust me on this.
Speaker:Having interviewed some of the best economists in the world
Speaker:on another show that I do.
Speaker:It's a really strong phenomenon.
Speaker:This moment in history, this vast money printing where sort of government
Speaker:just runs program after program.
Speaker:And we all kind of get hooked on it.
Speaker:We all kind of get expect that, uh, you know, things are just going to
Speaker:turn out exactly the way we want and someone's always gonna rescue us, but
Speaker:someone's not always going to rescue us.
Speaker:What we actually want is not to be dependent.
Speaker:We want to be independent.
Speaker:We want to have these strong internal standards about what we are going to
Speaker:develop, grow and contribute in the world.
Speaker:Sorry.
Speaker:That was a tangent.
Speaker:I'm passionate about it.
Speaker:I think we need to.
Speaker:Stop looking for external forces to rescue us.
Speaker:And just start to bring our own energy effort and talent.
Speaker:And passion and creativity to the world.
Speaker:I just, it bugs me.
Speaker:I just think it's a, it's a victim based culture where expectation of.
Speaker:Being rescued is not particularly good for development now.
Speaker:The last thing I'll give you here is a great quote from Ray Kroc.
Speaker:Ray crock of course, was the founder of McDonald's.
Speaker:It's a China restaurants.
Speaker:You may have heard of it.
Speaker:Ray Kroc says the quality of a leader is reflected in the
Speaker:standards they set for themselves.
Speaker:Could you imagine if our political leaders had, you know, Really high internal
Speaker:standards, really high internal standards.
Speaker:And, you know, As you know, I read a great deal on the founding
Speaker:fathers of the United States.
Speaker:And, and you look at their focus on the civic virtue, personal virtue.
Speaker:You know, coming back to the government example, you know, George Washington
Speaker:famously said that no generation should incur debts, that it cannot
Speaker:discharge in its own lifetime.
Speaker:No generation should incur debts that it cannot par.
Speaker:Discharge payoff in its own lifetime.
Speaker:Can you imagine what that would do for our sort of political system and economy.
Speaker:If you know you couldn't print money and.
Speaker:You know, fund everything with debt.
Speaker:If you couldn't pay it off in your own lifetime.
Speaker:And what I'm getting at again, is that back at that, in that
Speaker:founding era, there was this sense of great personal responsibility.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:There was a strong religious element to it, but for, for many
Speaker:of them, they were humanists and they kind of weren't necessarily
Speaker:coming at it from a spiritual lens.
Speaker:It was just this deep idea that humans.
Speaker:Should have very strong internal standards.
Speaker:And if people, if enough people had strong internal standards,
Speaker:we'd get a certain kind of culture.
Speaker:So friends, that's all I really wanted to say today.
Speaker:I know there's a lot in that as always, but I'm passionate about this.
Speaker:I'm passionate about.
Speaker:How we set internal standards.
Speaker:No one can do it for us.
Speaker:We just have to make this firm decision, not a resolution.
Speaker:I was reading some great stuff yesterday.
Speaker:Resolutions.
Speaker:You know, a very much open to whatever's happening in the environment around us.
Speaker:You know, we can make a resolution, but if things change, we'll let it go.
Speaker:Whereas decisions from the Latin
Speaker:It means to cut off from, to burn the ships, to, to, to break down the bridges.
Speaker:So you can't go backwards and to go forward.
Speaker:If we have these internal standards, we build a different kind of culture.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Practically as you go through your day next 24 hours, 48 hours.
Speaker:Start looking at your internal standards, starting noticing.
Speaker:When your energy's down and you're kind of like, ah, I can just eat this or I can
Speaker:just do that or say this, or it doesn't matter if I do a lousy job on this.
Speaker:Can I give you one last story?
Speaker:Would that be okay?
Speaker:I did tell the girls in soccer a few weeks ago, quick story.
Speaker:Uh, years ago, I was, uh, trying to buy Karen and engagement ring.
Speaker:We've been married 20, almost 22 years now.
Speaker:And I was working about six jobs.
Speaker:I was an undergrad at university of college, and I ended up getting
Speaker:this job as what we call a dish pig.
Speaker:I used to scrub all the dishes in a commercial kitchen and do all the
Speaker:cleaning and, uh, you know, one night.
Speaker:I would die.
Speaker:Everyone would leave and then they'd sort of close up, but I'd be one
Speaker:of the last people there doing all the final cleaning, mopping,
Speaker:all the floors and all that stuff.
Speaker:And it was me and the security guard and, uh, one night I'm.
Speaker:Uh, mopping and I lean right down and a mopping this floor.
Speaker:And as I look across.
Speaker:I see under this big commercial dishwasher, is this spoon right?
Speaker:Up underneath this dishwasher right at the back on the floor.
Speaker:And I could tell her to been there for like, you know, since prehistoric times
Speaker:this thing was glowing, it was that dirty.
Speaker:And I remember this profound moment where I had this strong sense.
Speaker:I thought, well, no one knows that I've seen that.
Speaker:And who cares if it stays there?
Speaker:And then I had this real moment of clarity and I said, Jonathan to myself, I said,
Speaker:you'll know that you didn't do it, that you didn't make the effort to pick it up.
Speaker:So I got down on my stomach on this wet floor.
Speaker:And I sort of crawled under this commercial dishwasher and literally
Speaker:scraped this spoon out with my fingers and, um, and washed it.
Speaker:And I sort of held it up in the air and I was like, LA.
Speaker:I was like this sword from the stone Excalibur moment.
Speaker:But it was a real reminder to me that.
Speaker:Um, it's what we do with, we don't have an audience that really matters.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And this is what we do when we don't have an audience that really matters.
Speaker:So, if you want to move your life forward, if you want to improve your outcomes.
Speaker:Heck of a lot of it's got to do with internal standards.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:That's it for me today, please make sure you subscribed.
Speaker:Go check out the links in the show notes.
Speaker:If you want me to speak at a conference and advent work with your business.
Speaker:Uh reach out to me and make sure you grab that free access to the book bridging
Speaker:the gap that's in the show notes i'd love you to share this with some people if
Speaker:you like what you're hearing just stuff like this long a few friends and say hey
Speaker:you might like this all right everybody god bless you my name's jonathan doyle
Speaker:this has been the daily podcast and i'll have another message for you tomorrow
