The World Is Not Designed to Wake You Up — Why Staying Asleep Is the Default Setting

Well, hey there, my friend Jonathan Doyle with you.

Welcome aboard to the Daily Podcast.

As always, I'm pleased you're here.

I really hope that this will be a blessing for you.

I record content every single day.

There is a huge amount of work involved, and I'm, uh, really privileged to do it

because I never know when one particular idea, thought, concept, story may move

just one of you in a new direction.

Why does it matter?

Because I'm deeply convinced that you have this one single precious life.

With no disrespect to other belief systems, I don't believe that, uh,

this is a dress rehearsal as such.

I believe that this is the one go that we get, and part of the beauty of this

game that we are all playing is to, to live fully, to maximize this ridiculous

potential that every single one of us has.

Does that sound generic to you?

Does that sound sort of too broad?

But think about it really.

Like, if you've ever been a parent You know that when you look at your

child, you, you see these unique capabilities right over time.

And one of the things that will break the heart of any parent is the

sadness you experience when your child is not living this full potential.

And I think that's how God looks at us.

Like, He's not angry.

He's not there going, "Well, I gave you these talents and you're

in serious trouble for not using them." It's not a punishment thing.

It's like it's a grief thing.

It's like we've given these capacities and there's so much we could do.

And if you pay attention, which, uh, is kind of the focus of what this

message will be about, the world is in a place where it could do

with a lot of people who are awake, alive, and using their potential.

And that is the nature of this short message.

Uh, I've titled it The World Is Not Designed To Wake You Up.

I have been saying for many years, and those of you who are regular

listeners know that you've heard me say this before, this system

that we inhabit is optimized for consumption, addiction, and distraction.

Consumption, addiction, and distraction.

So I've got a whole bunch of postgraduate background, and one of the things

I did was, uh, was I was in the business school at Oxford, and I had

a real interest in sort of global macroeconomic systems, debt-based monetary

systems, and central banking theory.

Yes, I know that many of you know me as the guy that does this content, and

that's true, but I've also got this really interesting, uh, side interest,

I guess, in global financial systems.

And one of the things about this system, my friends, is that

consumer-based capitalism is designed to create systems of consumption.

Now, before everybody thinks I've turned into a raving socialist, I have not.

I think Churchill famously said that capitalism is the worst system

ever invented except for every other one that's ever been tried.

So I like to refer to it as the least worst option, but it's a system that

thrives on debt, and it's a system that desi- is driven by consumption.

We need as many consumers as possible to consuming as much as possible.

So we can agree there's a positive, right?

Because as I've said many times on this podcast, I'm a

big fan of flushing toilets.

I'm a big fan of innovation and the incredible things that

entrepreneurs and creators and inventors bring into the world, right?

So I'm definitely not saying that everything about this system is bad,

but can you and I agree That it's a moment in history where the level of

distraction, consumption, addiction is becoming very obvious to us.

I was saying to Karen the other night, my wife, we were talking about our own

kids, and we're sort of blessed that, um, you know, definitely our older

kids have never touched social media.

They're still in their teens.

But we, we sort of said, "Look, we don't want you to have it," and

then it kinda just kept rolling on, and they never really got it.

And I was talking to my wife about just the addiction levels of social media,

and this is not a big-- I'm not gonna go on a big mission here on this, but I was

really struck just by how hard it must be for so many people to deal with this.

Now, I am, as far as I know, just about the most disciplined person that I know,

and I have a rule with, uh, with my social media, I create, but I don't consume.

So I know there's an irony here if you're paying attention 'cause you're like,

"Hang on, you're telling us to create, not consume, Jonathan? We, you know, we

look at your content." Yeah, I get it.

But for myself, I'm really disciplined because if you spend more than about

30 seconds on Instagram, no matter how disciplined you are, you realize

that the most brilliant developers and behavioral psychologists

have created these platforms.

And I heard a speaker saying this recently.

When they were building these i- business ideas, when they were first building out

Facebook and Instagram, they were kinda like, there's all these possibilities

of ways that they could have built it.

But they decided very early in the piece to optimize it for addiction, optimize

it for dopamine, dope- what is it called?

Dopaminergic reward systems, so that the, you know, the, the endless scroll, right?

The endless scroll.

You know how we do that, like we all just scroll content.

That's not an accident.

I mean, there were other ways that they could have chosen to build an ecosystem

that displayed content in other ways.

But they figured out that doom scrolling and endless scroll

created addictive patterns.

So all of this is just a way to say that We're living in this

moment of consumption, addiction, and distraction, and I don't see

why it wouldn't get worse, right?

I don't see why it wouldn't get worse.

I was listening to an entrepreneur the other day on a podcast who's very, very

successful, very influential, and he's built this new sort of immersive online

platform where you use some VR stuff and you go into this world, and he's

raving about the complexity of this world and all the things you can do in it.

And, and there was just this casual comment when the host kind of said, "So

is your hope that people would spend more and more time in there?" And he kind of

just said something like, "Yeah, pretty much like 24 hours a day is, is our goal."

Like he want he wants people, the con- his consumers to, to surrender natural life

and just immerse themselves in this world.

Look, on one level, life's pretty hard, right?

Like you live long enough, you realize that life's got plenty of suffering and

difficulties and challenges and someone says to you, "Hey, come and live in this,

you know, this other world." Yeah, but the problem is, friends, it denies central

things about what it means to be human, to be a physically instantiated mystery

of soul, spirit, and body fused into this one magnificent package, moving through

a physical world, interacting with other beautiful, special people, and that's

what we're optimized for, and experiencing reality and nature and God and each other.

I wasn't planning to go down this detour, but h- here's my

thesis and I am getting to it.

For those of you being patient, thank you.

I guess what I'm sort of wanna offer you in this message is that the

system that we're in requires you to be essentially unquestioning and

to be dormant and to be passive.

I mean, you know, I don't know what the system is.

Often, you know, if you watch The Matrix, you know.

I spoke to a young man the other day, he's probably listening, you know who

you are, hadn't even seen The Matrix.

I'm like, "Come on".

I don't know if there's some great big conspiracy and, you know, some secretive

group of people in a cave running everything, or whether it's just emerged

this way and this is just how it is that the culture has emerged this way.

But the way that it probably wants us is sitting quietly on a couch, consuming

content hour after hour after hour.

And I don't know if you've seen this, but you'll see more and more people now who'll

be watching Netflix while on their phone at the same time, sometimes even with

a laptop on their lap at the same time.

So what is the point of all this in this passive, consumptive system?

I think the risk for all of us is that we don't wake up, is that we don't wake

up, and the moments pass, and the years pass, and the days pass, and your life

looks exactly or worse, actually the same or worse than it did a while ago.

I saw something the other day, I think the average man, like once you get past maybe

like, I don't know, maybe 40 or something, y- I think it's like, I don't know, at

least two kilos a year if you do nothing.

So y- you put on, y- you go 10 years, like you're cracking 20 kilos there, right?

It's like if you're not active, if you're not engaged in the game,

then atrophy, time, entropy, some of you will know what that is, entropy

will just keep you stuck or worse.

You know, many, many years ago, I used to-- When I was first beginning

to speak and train people, I used to say that, you know, the,

the second law of thermodynamics is something called entropy.

So if you can look that up, so the, the, the-- in terms of physics, we have the

laws of thermodynamics, the movement of heat and energy in the cosmos.

And the second law of therdo- thermodynamics argues that energy will

always move from a hotter state to a colder state if, if it's not acted upon.

So it's called entropy.

Things wind down.

You know, the, the, that a moving object eventually comes to rest, right?

Because of inertia and pressure on it slows down.

And I would train people, I would say, "Look, if in your organizations,

in your systems, in your businesses, if you are not doing fresh things,

then you don't stay where you are.

There is no homeostasis".

Homeostasis, if you don't know, is just this process by which our

bodies keep their blood pressure, heart rate, breathing patterns

essentially regulated most of the time.

It's a baseline that we all live on.

But in our lives, in our businesses, in our relationships, if you're not

injecting fresh energy and ideas and effort into these systems, then

they, they don't stay the same.

So you could be listening to me now thinking, "Well, you know, Jonathan,

you know, this is interesting, but I'm pretty happy in life and I've got no

really big goals, and there's nothing else I really, you know, nothing I'm

really chasing. I'm just kinda happy." Friends, I'm, I'm all good for peace.

I'm all good for, like, you know, just being a- at rest.

There are plenty of times, even today, before I was coming in the studio, I've

been training super hard at the moment.

And those of you that follow me on Instagram, well, you know,

you see that every day, right?

And I thought to myself for a second, "Oh, I'd just love to sit

down for a bit." And I will later.

I've actually got a, some really interesting reading

I'm doing at the moment.

I am gonna sit down and rest.

But I was like, "No, I wanna keep going.

I'm just gonna pony up.

I'm gonna go down to the studio.

I'm gonna give my best to people.

I want to be a blessing." Like, I had to bring the energy, right?

So this is what I would like you to think about today.

When you look at your life at the moment, are you really doing

anything that's moving you in bigger, bolder, braver directions?

Are you doing anything at the moment that's kind of moving you

to some better version of life?

I am 52 years of age, and I have never felt more focused, energetic,

passionate, and excited about my own future and reaching people.

I know this sounds crazy.

You're all thinking, "How much caffeine has he had?" But I mean it, because

I've made a whole bunch of choices and decisions that are genuinely moving my

life in a really interesting direction, where I'm serving more people and, and

experiencing more and enjoying life more and feeling more balanced and focused

than ever, and I want that for you.

Like, I'm not here in the studio because I was bored.

Like, I'm not here in the studio 'cause I've learned these secrets

and I'm like, "I'm gonna keep them to myself. I wanna make sure none of these

people ever find out about them." No, 'cause I want you to feel what I feel.

I mean that.

You can hear it in my voice, right?

You can hear it in my tonality.

If I'm on stage, like, whether it's five people… I, I, I said to somebody the

other day, I've done audiences from 10,000 plus to once I was in outback Queensland

and I had this evening event, and the only people that came were two guys and a dog.

True story.

Two guys and a dog.

So as long as I've got at least two guys and a dog, I am bringing the fire.

I am bringing the passion.

So summary of this message is that it is an act of great rebellion to wake up.

It is an act of great rebellion for you to wake up For you to go, "No,

I'm not happy with my body like this.

I'm not happy with my business like this.

I'm not happy with my relationships like this.

I'm not happy with, you know, what I earn or what I'm passing on to my

own friends and family and children.

I'm not okay with it." I don't think I've ever really met somebody that's

been able to say to me, "You know what?

I am completely, utterly happy and at peace."

It's the nature of our human condition.

We're always being called forward into something bigger and better,

a bigger and better story.

It doesn't mean you have to be ungrateful for where you are.

It just means we're designed for more.

We're designed for more.

And in the time that I have left, I refuse to just be a consumer.

Like, I'll occasionally watch some sport, like occasionally,

maybe on a weekend if I've got friends over, I'll watch something.

I enjoy that.

But you will never find me burning hours just like, you know, watching

content over and over again.

Uh, except with one exception.

I've got a flight to Dallas and Palm Beach in a few weeks, West Palm Beach

in Florida, and I got this habit.

Every time I fly to the US, I got a, a bunch of US trips now this year, like,

I always watch The Lord of the Rings director's cut, full three movies.

It's 14 and a half hours to Dallas, friends.

Like, you gotta do something.

So, with the exception of watching arguably the greatest films ever

made, I know some of you don't agree, I just don't consume that

much, 'cause I wanna be awake.

I'm reading good stuff.

I'm training hard.

I'm trying to serve people.

So end of, end of message, but I just want you to wake up, because this system

is not designed for you to wake up.

It is designed for you to stay asleep.

Don't stay asleep.

People need you.

There's ideas that you have.

There's things that you can yet do.

There's businesses you can start.

There's relationships you can yet develop.

There are so much left for you to do, and I don't want you to sleep through it.

Okay?

All right.

I want you to come follow me on Instagram.

If you don't already, you can find me @jdoylespeaks, one word.

Just do a search, J Doyle Speaks, and you can see me doing it there.

Like, I post on stories most of the day, so you'll see literally

what I'm doing day to day.

Uh, please subscribe to this podcast.

If you like it, if you've got a friend or family member that's sleeping, just send

them a message and say, "Hey, your life is just a disaster. You need to listen

to this podcast." No, don't do that.

They won't appreciate it.

But just send it to them.

Just go, "Hey, I thought of you. I thought you'd like this." So

please make sure you're subscribed.

Everything else is on the website.

Uh, if you're on YouTube, I'm there as well, Jonathan Doyle Speaks.

Uh, and my website, jonathandoyle.co, dot C-O.

God bless you, my friend.

I hope that's useful, and, uh, I hope it's a blessing to you.

And, uh, I'm gonna have another message for you tomorrow