Welcome to Jonathan Doyle’s Daily Podcast, where he shares insights on facing fears and embracing challenges for personal growth. In this episode, Jonathan recounts his exhilarating journey up Mount Wellington in Tasmania, confronting his fear of heights along the way. Join him as he explores the universal truth that the most rewarding experiences often lie beyond our comfort zones. Tune in for inspiring stories and practical wisdom to navigate life’s summits.
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Welcome Aboard
Hello there, my friend, Jonathan Doyle, welcome aboard to the daily podcast or video, depending on where you’re watching this. Normally, I’m in the studio doing a straight podcast with intermittent video. At the moment, I’m on a speaking tour here in the beautiful state of Tasmania. So I’m recording this; if you’re hearing it on audio, I’m actually doing a video as well. There’ll be links to that. If you’re watching this on video, there should be podcast links over here. So whatever floats your boat, my friend. It’s an interesting format to do it in because sometimes you just do video and sometimes you just do audio. I’m trying to hit both things off in this one format today, but I really hope I can have something useful for you.
Please make sure you’ve subscribed wherever you’re seeing or hearing. It does make a difference, go and check out the website at the end of this, jonathandoyle.co. or given what I’ve actually been doing today, please make sure you follow me on Instagram at @jdoylespeaks.
Fearless Adventure: Conquering Heights at Mount Wellington
Today I got off stage at about 11 o’clock, and I had the day to myself. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the beautiful city of Hobart, but if you have, you’ll be familiar with Mount Wellington. It is this enormous mountain that rises up from the ocean and the Derwent River. And I always wanted to go to the top of it. And I thought, given that I’m doing an ultramarathon in a few weeks, why don’t I run to the top of Mount Wellington in the 25K return loop. Very steep, and off we go.
But here’s what I want to share with you about it: Hopefully, the editors might be able to sneak some of the footage in from the climb today. But I’m going to tell you something about myself that most people don’t know, I wouldn’t really know. And it’s because I am not super comfortable with heights. Flying doesn’t bother me; ladders, whatever, don’t bother me. But there was something about this day where, most of the time, you’re in the rainforest, working your way up. And then, of course, you come out of that eventually onto this kind of huge rock face. It’s immense, you’re so high up over the ocean. It’s dramatic because you’ve got the Southern Ocean, which just goes down to Antarctica. You start going higher, and it’s quite exposed as you work your way up the rocks.
Fear Demystified: Navigating Personal Challenges
I can’t lie to you. There were moments there today where I was like, this is really hard for me. The first thing about fear is that we all have them, and yours will just be different from mine. Today I was speaking right at a large group of leaders that I was speaking to on leadership formation. A lot of people are terrified of public speaking. I’ve been doing it for so long that I never get nervous. I get focused, but I never get distracted; it’s not hard for me. And I don’t get afraid of it. But I know that for many people, it can be really confronting.
So our fears are very particular to each of us. So they come from our background, our life story; they’re mysterious, but anyway, I’m up there on this sort of cliff face today, heading towards the summit and I’m like, Oh, this is really hard. There’s a couple of moments where I actually was like, Oh boy, and I wondered if I was actually going to be able to push myself through and get to the summit. What I want to talk to you about is this experience because it’s a great metaphor for what happens in life to most of us.
Triumph Over Fear: Empowering Life Lessons
I’ve lived long enough, and I’ve spoken about this content long enough to realize that all of the cool stuff that we really desire in life is often on the other side of either hard work or addressing fear in our lives. There just seems to be this iron law of the universe that we have to push through difficulties and fears to get to the stuff that really rewards us and fulfills us. So I think what happens for a lot of people is that they avoid that. And we have a culture that makes it incredibly easy to avoid staying stuck in comfort zones and addictions.
As I pushed through that fear today, it was quite real for me. Eventually I emerged up on the summit plateau, and then I made it to the summit. So if you follow me on Instagram, you can see a lot of that footage, and it’s awesome. Once I was up there, I was like, This is the best, and the fear just disappeared.
I just felt that I would share this message with you because that experience today is just such a metaphor for all of us. If you look at your own life, now there’ll be things that you’re not doing or avoiding because they hold some charge of fear for you. And I’m not your judge. I’m sure whatever your fear is, there are probably good reasons for it. Maybe from your childhood, maybe from things that have happened. So there’s no point in judging each other’s fears because they’re very particular to us. But once we know them, they are simultaneously an invitation to growth.
The thing that we’re most afraid of is often the thing that, if we can transcend it, will lead us to growth and to the happiness and breakthrough that we often seek.
Inspirational Empowerment: Engage and Connect
So that’s my story from today of just facing what was quite genuine. I’m not just going; I was a little bit nervous. I was like halfway up this cliff. I’m like, What am I doing? Oh no, what if I freeze up here? There’s just this incredible experience of pressing through it and reaching that summit, and that’s life, right?
Identifying what’s important, doing the hard work of approaching the summit, facing the fear, and then pushing through to the other side. That’s life, that’s your life, that’s my life and that’s where all the good stuff is. I want you to be encouraged. I want you to just take from this little, simple story that we’re meant to face what’s difficult. Because if we do, cool stuff happens.
Please make sure you’re subscribed. Everything else you need to know about me is on the website at jonathandoyle.co. Or you can say hi on Instagram at @jdoylespeaks. God bless you, my friends. This has been Jonathan Doyle. This is The Daily Message, and you and I are going to talk again tomorrow.
