The Compound Effect of Small Betrayals — How Character Is Lost One Micro-Decision at a Time

Well, hello there, my friend.

Welcome aboard to the Daily podcast.

I'm here in the studio, and I'm looking forward to this one

because this one is very powerful.

A little inconvenient for most of us, or maybe a few of us, but

it's a really important message, and the title of this one is "The

Compound Effect of Small Betrayals".

"The Compound Effect of Small Betrayals".

I think it was Einstein that said compound interest was one of the

greatest miracles of the cosmos.

When things compound, they build over time, and there is this kind

of recurrence where they amplify and build and build upon themselves, and it

becomes a profound and significant force.

So what happens if when it comes to our own standards,

dreams, goals, and behaviors, we gradually compromise over time?

You see this, right?

Nobody wakes up and says to themself, "How can I become somebody that I truly

don't respect?" Said no one ever, right?

No one ever woke up one day and said, "How can I destroy my life through a

series of ongoing micro compromises that turn me into a narcissistic degenerate?"

No one ever said that, ever.

All right?

We, we, we like congruence, right?

We like to kinda get up each day thinking we're the, we're

the good people in the movie.

We're the good guys, and, uh, everyone else is a little off, but

we're, we're, we're noble actors.

We are always trying to do our best.

So this message is about this very real human principle where over time, if we

are not vigilant, we can gradually lower our standards, the half-truth that we

tell, the small lie, the small compromise.

I'll just do this today.

See, one of the cool things about the way I train at the moment, I'm

on a particular phase of training, is I'm not telling you to do this.

I'm not advocating this.

This is just the program that I'm doing.

I, I weigh almost everything I eat.

So I've got a very dialed-in macros program where I'm sort of certain

amount of carbs, certain amount of proteins, all that stuff dialed in

'cause of the training that I'm doing.

And one of the cool things about doing this regularly- Is

that you don't lie to yourself.

You know, 'cause if you're not, if you're, if you're kinda the way I used to eat,

I'd just be like, "Oh yeah, I'm hungry.

I'm just gonna hit this.

This is healthy." And there's this little kinda half story I would tell myself

that, "Ah, it doesn't really matter."

But building this system around the one I'm using now holds me in a form of

accountability, which has been fantastic for my energy levels and training

outcomes and just general wellbeing.

So I'm just trying to draw your attention to the fact that one of

the less magnificent things about us is that under pressure and fatigue,

we can all learn to compromise.

And if you wanna live a superior life, I love that language, superior life.

It doesn't mean better than anyone else, it just means if you want to

live a quality of life that is really good and, like, you, you're committed

to the process and you're conscious and you're awake and you're trying to

create things in your life and serve people and live at a higher level, you

have to become very vigilant about this.

You know, we're at this moment in history where right across the world there is

a collapse of trust in institutions.

There is a collapse of trust in so-called democratic processes and procedures.

Do you think that the great masses of civilization just woke up last

Tuesday and said, "You know what? Let's completely stop believing

everything the elites tell us"?

That didn't happen, did it?

What did happen?

Well, a series of micro betrayals over extended periods of time.

The small lie, the broken promise, the… You know, one of the things

I notice, um, look, I don't wanna get into the whole political thing.

I don't do that on this podcast.

Not my, it's not my, uh, not my lane.

But I, I said to someone recently, it's very obvious how the entire

political class over the last 10, 20 years have really gone

in for the media training thing.

So you can see that so many of the answers are just, like, very programmed, right?

Um, and I wonder if over time we all see that and we begin to think,

"That's not how real people speak."

There's, there's this very gradual sense of that's not authentic.

And so over time, our entire civilization gradually wears down, not because often

of one great big moment, but because of, you know, compounding micro betrayals.

So just as it goes in the civilization and the nation, so can it go in

our individual lives, that nobody wakes up one day and says, "Let me

live in a really suboptimal way."

What actually happens is that we just gradually enter into that process.

So let me give you a great quote here from the inimitable Fyodor Dostoevsky

And he says this, "Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man or woman who lies

to themselves and listens to their own lie comes to a point where they cannot

distinguish the truth within themselves or around themselves, and so they lose all

respect for themselves and for others."

You see, if we lie to ourselves, we begin to lose-- I mean, gosh, is there a

worse form that if we are fundamentally at war with ourselves, we, we don't

actually tell ourselves the truth?

That the result of that is we lose trust in ourselves.

If we lose trust in ourselves, then we gradually lose trust in those

around us because I think what actually happens is we project our

inattention out to other people.

We assume that if we are internally conflicted, everybody else must be too,

and I think that leads to suspicion.

So the burden of the virtuous life is literally that, to act virtuously, to

do what Aristotle and those philosophers would say, which is the virtuous life,

is that you, you choose virtuous actions over and over and over and over again.

I used to tell this story many years ago when I was working hard to try and

buy Karen an engagement ring, and I had all these jobs and I don't wanna

get to that age where I'm the old guy telling the old stories like, "Back in

my day." But I had this job working, uh, doing dishes in a restaurant, and I

was the lowest person on the food chain.

I, I, I just used to scrub all the dishes and l- I'll give you the short version.

One night, it was after midnight, the restaurant closed up, everybody had gone.

There was just the security guard left and me, and I was finishing

up cleaning the whole kitchen.

And I remember this so clearly.

I'd mopped all the floors.

I got down on my knees to run the mop underneath this industrial dishwasher,

and I remember it so clearly.

Right up under the back of the dishwasher, I saw this spoon, and

it must have been there forever.

And as clear as day I remember this, I thought to myself, "No

one is ever gonna know if I touch that spoon and pick it up."

But then this clear voice inside me said, "But you will know." And I remember

getting down on my stomach, reaching right underneath this thing and pulling

this spoon out with my fingernails and putting it in the wash rack.

And I-- it struck me.

It stayed with me all these years 'cause I was like, I used to teach people this.

It's what you do when no one's looking, right?

That is so significant.

It's who you are without an audience that really matters.

And this is hard.

So if you're hearing this going, I'm making it sound like it's a

really easy process, it's not.

It's not easy at all.

It's really difficult and challenging and demanding to live this way.

It's a cost, it's a sacrifice, it's a burden, it's difficult.

And for me as a Christian, like it requires, you know what St. Augustine

said in the fourth century, that grace builds on nature, and he who made

you without your cooperation will not save you without your cooperation.

Which means there's this compenetration between my will And grace.

You see, 'cause if grace didn't exist and it was just our willpower,

then theoretically we would all just do the right thing all the

time, but we're human and we don't.

We're drawn in all these different directions, and so we need grace, and

we need a deep spirituality to try and ask God to help us to live well.

I'm not trying to preach on you all.

I'm just saying this is the, this is my definite lived experience, that some

of us are blessed with really strong willpower and really good ethics from

a great family life, and some of us have got to work much harder at it.

But we don't want to betray ourselves.

So I just want to ask you, as you go about your day and your evening,

look for those small self-betrayals.

You know, just leaving a mess for someone else.

Hey, I'll give you a great example.

This is a good one.

I was in the gym three or four days ago, and it just messed with me because I'm in

there and I, I, I'm a bit over the top.

I like to tidy up.

Like, I like to keep the place… It's a big gym.

A lot of people come in.

I'm always putting things away that other people haven't.

But this guy comes in, give you the short version, gets those big

bands and he leaves them everywhere.

He just keeps walking around, picking up a different band, dropping it

somewhere, and then he just leaves.

And I'm just like: You can't be serious.

Like, really?

And, and I went and put all the bands away, and it just struck me.

And I'm not his judge.

I'm not… He- maybe he's a wonderful person.

But I thought, it's interesting, right?

For this person, like, he, he just has no sense of this is a shared space.

This is the right behavior in here.

I should do this kind of thing.

And those little behaviors will shape him over time.

A lack of thoughtfulness that… You know, he didn't walk into that gym

and say to himself, "You know what?

I'm looking forward to being really thoughtless.

I'm looking forward to leaving a huge mess for everyone else.

Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha." He did not think that.

But his character up to that point is one where he doesn't join those

dots And the way that we learn to join those dots is by the little

practices that we do day in, day out.

So that's the central message of today, the compact, the compact, the

compound effect of small betrayals.

Do not betray yourself, my friend.

Is there a worse betrayal than betraying ourselves, living beneath

our own standards, doing things that confuse and compromise our own self?

We do not wanna do that.

The burden of a magnificent life is just that.

It's a burden.

I want you to get this, that living virtuously, living is hard y- and,

and we'll still fail, but it's-- I want you to know that it's hard.

It is hard because, uh, you know, years ago… I'll almost finish.

I should wrap up, but I just wanna share this last thing with you.

Many years ago, in my post-grad work, I was, like, fascinated by the

influence of Freud because, like, can I, can I be really bold here?

Most of his stuff is batshit crazy.

It really is.

Like, it's just when you study it and read it, you're like, you know, um, his

basic theory of just, just the interplay of civilization and human sexuality

is so messed up and so reductionist.

But anyway, I was always struck by why he's so influential, and one day I kind

of realized it's like, well, because the basis of Freudian psychology is you've

got these urges, and if you don't use them, you're gonna end up messed up.

And I suddenly realized and went, "Wow".

If you think about it, that's the precursor for the old,

"If it feels good, do it".

And I'm like, that's a really easy for a fallen humanity to do, right?

It's like, go indulge yourself.

Just turn your TV on.

Look at the commercials.

Look at everything.

Consume, consume, consume.

Indulge, indulge, indulge.

And what I realized was what Freud was selling was so successful because

it's easy, 'cause it's really easy to give in to your weaker impulses.

It's really easy.

It's why the great spiritual traditions have this focus on asceticism

and fasting and self-denial and picking up your cross and doing

difficult things 'cause they got it.

Many of the world's great faiths kind of figured out, whoa, if we just do

what we want, it doesn't end well, so we're gonna actually have to f- you

know, restrain ourselves at times I'm on this little thing at the moment

where I'm trying to not say anything about anybody that I wouldn't say if

they were sitting in the car with me.

It's my little challenge at the moment.

It's like one of my kids said to me yesterday, somebody walked into a,

a meeting, and one of my kids said, "Ah, you don't like them, do you?"

And I was like, "Uh, uh, well, you know." I said, "No, no, they're fine.

Like they- they're okay." Like, you know, I didn't-- I, I guess I wasn't

gonna lie, but I also wasn't gonna throw this person under the bus.

Why?

Because it's private.

Because my interactions with them were different, and they were

a long time ago and whatever.

My kids don't need to hear that.

It's not their business.

And it's harder to restrain myself than just to go, "Oh, that

one, that guy, they're terrible.

Sit down.

I'll tell you about them.

It's gonna take half an hour." So the discipline of restraining

yourself is just that.

It's a discipline.

I'm gonna stop 'cause I can go for hours on this.

But I hope some of that's useful.

Don't betray yourself.

Do the harder thing.

Don't lower your standards.

My name's Jonathan Doyle.

This is the Daily Podcast.

Please make sure you've subscribed.

Come and join me on Instagram at jdoylespeaks.

You can find me on the website, jonathandoyle.co.

God bless you, my friend.

Hope it's been useful.

You and I are gonna talk again tomorrow