Join Jonathan in today’s episode as he explores the often-overlooked ingredient for achieving remarkable results in life. Through personal reflections and observations, discover why talent alone isn’t the secret sauce for success. Jonathan delves into the crucial role of relentless effort, drawing inspiration from figures like Kobe Bryant and everyday individuals who exemplify the power of perseverance. Explore how prioritizing this overlooked ingredient over comfort zones can lead to profound outcomes, and learn practical strategies for cultivating your own drive.
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Welcome Aboard
Hello there, my friend. Jonathan Doyle with you, welcome to the Daily Podcast. I have some good news for you today. I am going to pull back the curtain and reveal to you an insight that has had a big impact on me. It’s something that I think can help all of us. I guess what I want to talk to you about is that this is more than likely going to be an area of your life that you’re not paying attention to and because you’re not paying attention to it, you’re not getting the results that you want.
Challenging Assumptions: The Risk of Shared Experience
Now I’m going to take a risk and my risk is that I think this is much more than just my own subjective experience. I think this is something that is probably pretty common to us. And so, let’s talk about it. What I want to suggest to you is that I think that there is probably one thing that you’re not doing that if you started to do it, would have a significant impact upon the results that you’re getting in life, the things that are important to you, the things that you really want to go after,
Let me break this down for you. The way I explain it to people is: Sorry, I’m just taking off my jacket here in the studio. And as many of me broke 12 ribs last week. So it’s a little slow to do, right? We’re good.
Debunking the Myth of Success
I labored under the illusion for many years of my life that the secret source was essentially talent—that there were talented people and then there was everyone else. And if you are successful, the way that you were successful was that you had this talent, got a few breaks, and off you went. And one of the things that helped me understand that this was not accurate was the huge amount of study that I’ve done over the years into the global financial system and commercial banking. We’re not going into that today, but that’s just another area that I’ve done a lot of work in over the years.
I realized that it was possible to make enormous amounts of money with not particularly a great deal of talent, understanding, or knowledge. So that was one of the first times I began to realize that talent seems to be important, but it doesn’t seem to necessarily be the secret sauce that really transforms everything. Because we can agree there’s plenty of talented people who end up with abysmal lives. So what we call Hollywood, we say these people have a talent and often end up in a pretty bizarre place despite the talent that they had.
The Missing Ingredient
I’m going to share with you what I discovered was the missing ingredient. Now, I don’t know if this will be the same missing ingredient for you. I think there’s a good chance it could be. Yours could be slightly different. But here’s where I’m going, I discovered that the secret source that was really missing was work.
So I had plenty of talent. I’d grown up as a pretty dramatic kind of kid. When I was little, I was always doing drama stuff. My parents always joke about it. And I always did well in literature, English, and public speaking. Then I started speaking, and things just went from there, and I had a natural affinity for it, a natural ability to speak and to do those things, and so that was the talent piece.
But then I began to observe some people around me, I can think of two. One is a business partner, a friend of mine, and another is my wife, Karen. Who just had this freakish ability to work. They would just work and work and could just keep going and keep producing no matter how they felt or how tired they were. They could just keep going.
"Nothing will work unless you do."
Balancing Self-Care and Persistence
Now some of you are going to push back and say, ‘Ah, what about self-care and self-compassion.’ It’s a real paradox here, in some sense I think we’ve probably tipped the scales too far. Culturally, I think we’ve become really obsessed with this idea of self-care and self-compassion. But really, self-care and self-compassion are not really how the human species has advanced. The human species has advanced through collaboration, innovation, persistence, courage, and through doing really hard things. Let’s be honest, we do really difficult things and work really hard at them.
So really, what I’m talking about today is power work. And I’m wondering, for some of us, if this, or many of us, could be the missing ingredient. You’re not going to work harder unless you’re really clear about what it is that you really want. And why it matters to you and why you want to go after it. You’ve got to keep doing that all the time, you’ve got to keep working at that. I’ve been really aware of that myself. You’ve really got to stay connected and animated by what it is that you really want. Because it’s hard to force yourself to continually work hard, if you’re not clear about what you’re trying to do or who you’re trying to do it for. Whether you’re providing for your family, a different quality of life, or this particular experience or goal that you have. You’re not going to be, and you’re not going to push yourself to get the work done if you’re not really connected to that piece.
Kobe Bryant's Work Ethic: A Model for Success
There’s more I want to say about this. I don’t know, I’m not a basketball guy that much, but the basketball star Kobe Bryant, who tragically died a few years ago. I listened to a lot of his stuff, and he’s one of the greatest players ever. But in many ways, he’s famous for his work ethic. He had this utterly relentless approach to work. It was clear that he had talent. I was listening to him speak recently, and he said that he had a good jump. He was tall enough—not spectacularly tall, but tall enough. But then it was the work thing. It was just this absolute obsession with work. With becoming the best he could possibly become. By making sure that he’d done every bit of work he could possibly do. So this is something I’m really starting to think about. It’s a meeting place between base talent and work.
Redefining Self-Care: Embracing the Culture of Hard Work
We live in a culture again that discourages us. It’s a very comfort-based culture. I’ve mentioned the self-compassion and self-care piece, and maybe some of you disagree and go, ‘now we need to be much more self-compassionate.’ I think it’s hard to get that balance this time, so you definitely need to back off.
But the fact is, for me, I’ve got these injuries. I’ve been at the hospital for a couple of days. But I wanted to be in the studio. I want to get this done. I’m capable of doing it. Would I rather be lying down? Probably maybe, but I love doing this, and I want to give you good content, and it’s work. It’s got to get done. ’cause it’s got to get out there, and it’s not going to do it magically. I have to do this. I have a little bit of natural talent. I’ve read a lot. I’ve had a lot of life experience, so I can speak a little bit. But I’ve also got to turn up and produce content, get it done, and do it. I might be sore and it might be hard to do.
The Work Ethic Paradigm
So I think that what happens is that if you look at your life, it could be work, it could be something else. But I wonder if there is some particular thing that you’re not doing. And you would probably have a gut feeling of what it is.
But for me, it’s about the work thing. It’s about; it’s just got to get done. We gotta get it done. We’re going to do it. We’re going to keep going. There’ll be time to rest soon enough. And I think that’s where the results come from. I’ve just been listening to a lot of people—a lot of very successful people—talk about it. I think this is crucial.
Prioritizing Action Over Aptitude
Come on, when we were back at school, do you remember there were always those two or three kids who were just in it to work harder. They just did the work. At school we always used to hear all their smarts. I have drummed that out of my own children. Anytime they ever said that kid’s really smart, I’m going, ‘nah, it’s not a thing, it doesn’t exist.’ There’s aptitude, there’s affinity, an affinity with subjects or an aptitude for something. But aside from that, it’s work.
The Essence of Power Work: Aligning Goals with Effort
My friend, if you’re still listening here at the eight-minute mark. Give or take. Then my invitation to you today: if you want to make something remarkable out of your life, if you genuinely want to create new results and have more experiences in your life. To have more beautiful things, more beautiful people. Take that the right way. But if there’s more that you want, then I think this could be the missing piece.
I spent most of yesterday, and I think I did 13, 14 hours straight. And I was just getting through some stuff that had to get done, I think if you stack this, if you just stack it up and do it for long enough, the results will come.
So, my friend, whatever your talents are, they are a gift from God. And I’m glad that you have them. But if you listen to this kind of content, you are the kind of person that wants something out of your life and if you don’t have it yet. Then the thing to do is go to work on you and go to work on developing the output, the focus. Producing what needs to be produced. The last thing I’d say to you is that it’s really hard. It’s really hard. You’ll get tired, you’ll question yourself, you’ll be unsure. But this is what we do.
Call to Connect
All right, please make sure you subscribe. Hit the subscribe button. Go check out the website: jonathandoyle.co. You can book me to speak on consulting projects; that is all there. And I’m on Instagram: @jdoylespeaks. You’re going to find me there and everything else on the website.
My friend, I’m going to do another episode for you tomorrow, but for now, it is my great joy to speak with you. Blessings upon you and those that you love. And I’ll have another episode for you tomorrow.
