Originality & Sacrifice: Be Fully You—and Pay the Price to Become It

hello there, my friend Jonathan Doyle with you once again.

Welcome aboard to the Daily Podcast.

I'm glad you're here.

Thank you to the loyal listeners that that join us regularly.

It's really great to be with you.

Today is the birthday of Julie Andrews and of course you will remember her from the.

Inimitable genre defining film.

I'm not sure what the actual genre really is.

The sound of Music, I'm sure most of you have seen that incredible

film, but it's her birthday today.

She's one of the, she's one of the good ones.

She's a beautiful soul.

Let me just share a quote with you that I found from her.

She says, I'd like to be an original.

To be myself and not a pale copy of anyone else.

I think she really embodies that.

If you've ever seen her apart from the movie, just she radiates this

kind of just inner decency and light.

She's just a very beautiful soul.

I'd like to be an original.

She says to be myself and not a pale copy of anyone else.

Reminds me of that famous quote from Oscar Wilde.

Be yourself.

Everyone else is taken.

So that is your homework today.

Even though we've just started the episode, your homework is

to do you to fight to pray.

To actualize, to become who you truly are.

This unique potential and capacity that's been given to you alone.

I know it sounds somewhat syrupy to say it, but snowflakes right?

Not a single snowflake in the whole history of this planet

has ever been exactly the same as the snowflake next to it.

So I ain't calling you a snowflake, but I'm just saying you get the point.

There's seven or 8 billion of us on the planet, but there's only one of you.

So what a remarkable thing that is.

Even on your worst day, you are meant to be here.

There is something unique, special, remarkable about you.

This is not an accident.

You're supposed to be here.

And the greatest return on capital that you can make, the greatest

return on the gifts that you've been given is to be fully who you are.

To come to peace with that and to serve the world through that.

You don't get to, you don't get to do this journey of life by mimic,

mimicking and imitating someone else.

And the tragedy is that some people try to do that, right?

That many you often see it often, don't you, when young people they're not sure

who they are and who they are is okay.

So they spend so much energy and time trying.

To channel someone else's identity, and it's a great tragedy.

So my friend, for you today, be who you are.

What does that mean in practice?

I guess there's a strong element of self-acceptance, of knowing that

you've got flaws and quirks and if it's any consolation to you friends.

We all do.

I just, I know when it's, we walk around throughout each day and we assume that

everybody else is completely normal and rational and has it totally together,

and we are the only one that has.

All these conflicting thoughts and ideas and forces moving

around inside us, but we all do.

This human journey, this side of heaven is challenging and

everybody's carrying something.

So don't think that there's any other perfect people out there.

'cause there aren't.

We're all fighting a great battle, as the philosopher

said, and your job is to do you.

Is to really just be who you are, that unique and special

gift that you have for the world.

I just wanna share with you a quick quote from Matt Higgins' book Burn the

Boats, which I mentioned the other day, and I came across this reading a couple

of days ago where he says this, if you won't give things up to reach your goal.

It's probably the wrong goal.

If you won't give things up to reach your goal, it's probably the wrong goal.

So what I wanted to put into your mind today is this basic idea that anything

significant that you would like to change or achieve is going to require

from you some level of sacrifice.

Yesterday I mentioned certain incontrovertible laws of the cosmos.

There seems to be certain ways in which this game has been set up.

And one of them seems to be that the attainment of anything

significant, important or valuable comes at the cost of something else.

Years ago, Karen and I, we were just newly married and we were working at a remote

boarding school and this school had a big swimming pool and it was in tropical area.

And it morning, the kids in the boarding school, or a small number of them

would get up at 4:00 AM and they'd be in the pool by four 30 and they

would do two hours of training and.

Just before school even started.

And then they would do their full school day.

As soon as school finished, they were back in the pool for another two

hours of training, then dinner, then homework, then sleep, rinse, and repeat.

And I remember a few things about that, just being impressed by the

discipline, the commitment they just kept.

Going and also that these kids tended to be very grounded and you, they were they

caused very little issues and problems probably 'cause they were too tired.

But I was struck by the sacrifice and the discipline in the attainment of

something that was important to them.

If, sports always a great example.

Music is another one.

People who attain at the highest level, they attain because

they sacrifice something else.

Thomas Soul, my my favorite economist always talks about trade-offs,

and that you can only, you can have some things, but not others.

And so then life, you get to pick your trade offs.

You have to pick off what?

What do I want that is important to me and what am I prepared to let go of?

That's not you wanna be a great athlete.

You've got certain constraints around sleep, around food, around

socialization, alcohol, partying.

You wanna be a great.

Student you, if you wanna do really well at college, university and to attain,

then you have to say no to some things.

There's this endless opportunity cost.

Some things you let go of to attain others.

So if there's no area of real sacrifice in your life at the moment for something that

you say is important, then what you think is important to you probably really isn't.

That's always confronting.

People think they should have goals, and the old joke is they should

all over themselves that I should want this, I should want that.

But you can track how important something is by the sacrifice

you're prepared to make to get it.

So my life in different dimensions is a pretty consistent series of

sacrifices, and it's just hard.

In case you're thinking that, that people that attain outsized

results just find this part easy and they just love sacrificing.

Yeah, I don't think so.

It's just always difficult.

It's always hard to just keep going and to keep making the

sacrifices that you need to make.

So that's the key principle.

In summary, you are here for a significant purpose and the attainment of that

purpose is going to require you to let go of some things in the pursuit

of something more meaningful to you.

It is the entry price, it's the ticket price of admission into whatever next

step up you are trying to pursue.

This is how the game is constructed.

Again, we didn't get to write the rules, but we do get to conform

ourselves to them, and in this sense.

Sacrifice has this intimate relationship to attainment.

Alright, that's it for me today.

I hope that's useful to you.

Look into your life.

Where do you need to be sacrificing that?

You're not sacrificing?

If you wanna move yourself forward, please make sure you subscribe to the podcast.

Hit that subscribe button, share this with friends.

I'm on Instagram at j Doyle speaks.

Everything else you need to know about me is on the website.

Jonathan doyle.co.

God bless you, my friend.

This has been the Daily Podcast, and you and I are gonna talk again.

Tomorrow.