You Were Born for Mastery — Why Playing Small Is Betraying Your Potential

Well, hey there, my friend.

It is Jonathan Doyle with you once again.

Welcome aboard to the Daily podcast.

I'm genuinely pleased you're here.

I don't know what you're facing in life.

You could be in one of those seasons where everything is going well for

you, or you could be in one of those seasons where you're like, "Which cat

did I run over, and when did it happen?

Because my life is essentially in the toilet." We've all been there.

I can promise you I've been there.

Whatever you are facing The sun always rises.

Things get better.

You may be in the midst of something really difficult, mental health,

family problems, financial problems.

Trust me, I have lived long enough to know that you will come through anything.

You can.

With the right tools, the right mindsets, you can not only sail through difficult

times, you can actually flourish in them.

I, I can promise you that.

I don't want that to be motivational fluff, 'cause I have lived that.

I have been through some circumstances that are absolutely soul-wrenching, and

by the grace of God, by cooperating, by making good choices, and doing

specific things, I not only survived them, I grew massively through them.

So have that confidence wherever you are.

But that is not the focus of today's message.

Today, w- I wanna share with you something from a book I started reading last night.

It's by Robert Greene, and it's called Mastery.

The basic thesis of the book is just this idea that as a species, we are r-

actually designed to master things, that the incredible mix of our analytical

brains and our bias towards social cohesion and belonging actually drive us.

We have this innate capability to master things, and I think the thesis in his book

is that we're sort of losing it, and one of the reasons we're losing it is 'cause

people kinda think, "Well, technology's gonna do it, right?" I mean, whenever

you're listening to this, you're, you're really with me at the start of the AI

revolution, and isn't it possible that we sort of many of us are already kind

of outsourcing a lot of our reading and thinking and research to technology?

And there's a little section in this early part of the book where Greene's talking

about two really pernicious, always liked that word, pernicious mindsets

that he really wants to challenge, and one of them is the one I just mentioned,

that, you know, we don't really need to push ourselves, we don't really need

to try to become excellent at stuff because technology's gonna do it for us.

And the other one is this idea that sort of seeking mastery in something in your

life is kinda arrogant, and it's all about power, and if you master something,

you'll get more power over other people.

But listen to what he says, and he challenges these two ideas

in a really interesting way.

Listen to these words.

He says, "If you are not careful, you will find this attitude

infecting you in subtle ways.

You will unconsciously lower your sights as to what you can accomplish in life.

This can diminish your levels of effort and discipline below

the point of effectiveness.

Conforming to social norms," listen to this next piece, "you will listen

more to others than to your own voice."

I really like that, that you would listen to others more than to your own voice.

I love this idea of mastery, and it really challenged me.

It was kinda getting late last night, and I'm pretty disciplined.

I, I'm not on my phone in the evenings, and I put the laptop away, and I've got

my pencils, and I'm underlining things in this book, and I'm challenged by it.

And I'm thinking, mastery.

Like, you know, I look at the path of my life and all the speaking and

the traveling, 600,000 people in live events, and all the stuff that I've

done, and even at my age now, I'm like, "Have I even thought about that? Have

I really pursued it? Could I pursue it in the time that I have left?"

And then I asked myself, I said, "What would I wanna pursue?" Like,

I, I, I'll give you a random example.

Do you know the comedian Steve Martin?

Like, look him up.

Like, he's one of the funniest dudes ever.

Uh, the guy is just seriously funny.

But I don't know if you know this, not many people would, but he's

actually one of the best, I mean, literally world's best banjo players.

Like, I don't know how that happened, but just go to YouTube

and type in Steve Martin banjo.

The guy just shreds.

So he has this commitment to obviously his acting craft, but

then he actually has developed complete mastery of this instrument.

So what about you and me?

I mean, there's gotta be some area of your life that you could actually think

about, what have you always been good at?

When I'm mentoring people, I'm like, what, what are you drawn to?

What have you always-- people have said, "Man, you are good

at that. That's your thing"?

So I was sitting there at the bench last night, and I just had this

realization, what's, what's my DNA?

What's my passion?

I, I do it in different ways.

I do it through speaking and podcasts and Instagram and, and live events, but I'm

like, what is it that really I care about?

And it comes back to the three words that are on my logo.

And if you see any of my reels on YouTube or Instagram, you'll see

every one of them finishes with my logo, and underneath it it has three

liberate people's potential.

Every single time it says that, liberate people's potential.

So I'm sitting there last night thinking, yeah, you know what?

If I had to master one thing in life, if I had to become insanely good at one thing,

that's the thing that I would choose.

Because something deep in my DNA, the minute somebody comes to me with

a goal, a problem, a challenge, I'm just like, "Yes! You can do this."

Everything in me wants them to win.

So I was really challenged last night and I thought, yeah,

I do a lot of other things.

I, I have a lot of investment stuff that I have to deal with and business stuff

and family stuff and training stuff.

But if I could pick one thing that I could master, it would be serving you.

It would be doing this kind of content to bless you, to encourage you, to help you

get one big idea through your head, which is that you are capable of so much more

than you possibly imagine, and so many people are living so far underneath what

they could do, and they've accepted it.

And I believe that there is a God in the world, and I believe that there is

also another spirit moving through the world, and that darker spirit wants

everybody playing a very small game.

And if you're listening to me still, I do not want you to

get trapped in a small game.

So let me ask you the question: Where's your mastery?

What are you drawn to?

Maybe go check out the book, Robert Greene, "Mastery." Isn't it amazing

that you can just go on Amazon, trade a few dollars, and get the

insights of these incredible thinkers?

Just whether you read that book or another one, but what could you be great at?

What could you be great at?

You know, a few years ago, I was standing on the main stage of

the convention center at, in St.

Louis, Missouri.

I had 10,000 people in the room, and my message to them that day and the

work that they were doing was, "Why not be great at this?" I said to them,

"You're gonna do it anyway, right?

You're gonna turn up each day and come to your workplace.

If you're going to do it," and there's a vocational element to

this particular audience, I said, "Why not be amazing at this?"

And often people think that's pride, right?

I wanna be humble.

I don't wanna be arrogant.

Friends, it's not arrogant to take the incredible capacities that God

has given you and go big and blow up.

Why not?

What's the o- You know, if you wanna refute this argument,

what are you gonna say to me?

"Look, Jonathan, I think really the goal in life should be a small game."

The goal in life should not be to develop our gifts and talents abil-

and abilities, but I'm telling you, you were born for mastery.

You were born for excellence because when you master something,

do you know what actually happens?

You bless people.

You watch Steve Martin rip a banjo, and I'm like, "That is epic.

I love listening to that guy." I'm not a banjo lover by any means, but I'm

like, I just love watching him shred. You know? Or, or, or just when I'm on

stage and I'm in the zone, I'm just like, "This is what I'm here to do.

I wanna help people." Why do you think you're different?

You're not different to me or Steve Martin or anybody.

You've still got this same capacity and ability.

So that's it for today.

Think about mastery.

Just begin to ask yourself the question, what could you be great at

if you really started to read about it, study it, practice it, learn it?

Become great.

Become a master at the talents and gifts that God's put in your hands.

Okay?

Please make sure you're subscribed.

Come and check me out on Instagram, @jdoylespeaks, one word, jdoylespeaks.

Everything else is on the website, jonathandoyle.co.

God bless you.

I hope this is useful, and you and I are gonna talk again tomorrow.