448. Passion Struck

Nikki Miller:

Hey everyone. And welcome back to The ONE Thing podcast. We are here with John Miles, who is a leading authority on intentional behavior change, personal growth, and mattering. John, you are truly a beacon of inspiration and transformation, a very celebrated leader, speaker, entrepreneur. You've got an award-winning podcast, but here today to talk with us about your new book called Passion Struck. Thank you so much for being here. We're so excited to have you.

John R Miles:

Well, Nick and Chris, I am so thrilled to be here. And it's such an honor to be on this amazing podcast you two both have.

Nikki Miller:

John, I'm excited to unpack this a bit because I think the book really centers around this idea of living intentionally. And I think sometimes this can feel like a weird conversation for people. I know we've certainly had the conversation where we'll talk about living with intention. And people who are unfamiliar with this concept are like, well, yeah, duh. Like, of course I live with intention. And yet you speak about it a little bit differently. So can you expand, I know it's a broad concept, but can you expand on what does living with intention actually mean to you?

John R Miles:

I think maybe the best starting point is what it looks like when you don't live with intention. So a lot of people hear the phrase, you're living your life on autopilot. And although I think there is some validity to it, I think it's the wrong analogy to how so many of us are living our lives. Because when you are on autopilot, yes, you might be going through the regular motions of life, but you're typically putting your life in a positive direction. When the pilot puts the plane on autopilot, it's generally still going towards the direction that we want.

However, I believe too many of us are living our lives as if we're a pinball, just like the game of pinball, and we keep bouncing off of things because we get absorbed in all the things around us, whether it's our digital addictions, whether it's people telling us how to live. So we start conforming to societal expectations. And really, it's a life not living authentically to who we are.

So to me, that's the primary example of what it means to live unintentionally. It's not being mindful about the choices that we make throughout our days, which then culminate into our weeks and months and eventually our lives. And so living intentionally is really learning how to be mindful and consciously engage in the micro choices that we make throughout our days so that they're taking us closer to our goals, not haphazardly, just bouncing through life.

Chris Dixon:

We talk a lot about this in the context of like purpose. And how do you compare or contrast a purpose in your definition with passion and intention? And how do those relate to each other?

John R Miles:

So as I have looked at this, I am a huge fan of Angela Duckworth's work on Grit. And she really talks about passion and perseverance being the two cornerstones of what grit actually is. I think that those are two sides of the triangle passion and perseverance, but I think intentionality is the missing point of this. And the reason I came to this conclusion is she brings these things up in her book talking about cadets going through West Point.

Well, I had a very similar firsthand experience because I went through the Naval Academy and understanding that experience, passion and perseverance definitely play a key role because you have to be passionate about that pursuit of wanting to get through the Naval Academy. You have to persevere through the arduous things that they throw at you. But I think the missing ingredient and where people need to think about intentionality is you can have passion and perseverance, but if you're not directing yourself towards your goals, your long-term aspirations, then you're going to find yourself on the wrong path.

And to me, when you have that intentionality, it's having that self-control to understand when you were on the wrong path and diagnosing it and then shifting your actions so that you put yourself back on the right path. So that's kind of those three. Now, when it comes to passion and purpose, I think purpose really gets into your why. Why are you doing the things that you do? And your passion is more that inner motivation that then drives that why and engulfs it into this flame of possibility.

Nikki Miller:

John, I love this concept because you're taking two, what I think are two drivers internally, right, in order to get to wherever it is that we want to go. Whatever that goal is, whether it's graduating from the Naval Academy or building the business or growing the family that I want to grow. Like whatever that looks, like whatever your goal is, you have to have the purpose and you have to have the passion and the grit in order to be able to execute that.

But you're talking about bringing in this idea of intentionality. We want to go back to something you said earlier which is around these micro decisions, right? That we have to have intentionality around the decisions that we're making through the day. And I think often when people hear that, it can feel a little bit overwhelming or exhausting, right? Because we're making, as adults, we're making so many team umteen decisions a day. So how do you teach people to bring that intentionality into their decision making? Like, where do they start and then how are they bringing that throughout the day?

John R Miles:

Yeah, I think this is something that I call the psychology of progress and it's the third portion of the book. And I just want to give you an example of this. So a great way to think about this is to think I used to be a cross country and track runner. So I was like use --

Nikki Miller:

You’re on the right place, John. We're both competitive runners.

John R Miles:

Yeah, I loved it. I ran division one at the Naval Academy and actually got to participate in the NCAA championships in both sports.

Nikki Miller:

Nice.

John R Miles:

That was fantastic time. Unfortunately, I have some longstanding injuries from too much running, but I loved it. Well, I could still do it.

Nikki Miller:

We hear that. What race did you run?

John R Miles:

In track and cross country, I ran --

Nikki Miller:

5k?

John R Miles:

5k in high school and then 5 mile in college, but 800 one mile, two mile.

Nikki Miller:

Nice. All right. Well, we'll geek out about that later. Sorry.

John R Miles:

Yeah. I always want to do the steeplechase. And in fact, my teammate was the best in the country at it, but he was also 6”5 and I'm 5”10. So that makes a huge difference.

Nikki Miller:

Yeah, you got to be built for that race. That's like, you got to be genetically gifted for that one.

John R Miles:

Nikki Miller:

I feel like that's almost worse. That's way worse than missing by like 30 seconds, which in a mile, if you're not familiar is a lot of time. And like, to me, missing by that much is so much worse than any other extended period of time. That's terrible. Poor guy.

John R Miles:

No. I mean, especially when you're running a three 55 mile.

Nikki Miller:

Yeah. Oh man.

John R Miles:

Yeah. Well, to me, what I'm getting to in your answer is when you're a runner and you set a goal, such as I want to run a six-minute mile, you're starting point could be that you're at a seven-minute mile. And it's not as if you're going to be able to start going from a seven-minute mile to a six-minute mile immediately. So, what you need to start doing is setting small actions or small transformations that initially might take you to a 650 mile. And then once you hit that, you keep making small improvements in your training regimen that then take you to a 645 and then a 630 and then a 615 and eventually a six-minute mile.

And the same thing comes to our changes in life. And I think what people want to do and why so many New Year's resolutions fail is we tend to want a big bang, these improvements that we want to see in our lives, and it's just not going to happen. It's similar to burnout. It's not as if you reach burnout overnight. It typically happens over a period of years. And so just like getting yourself out of burnout, it's not going to happen overnight. It's likely going to take you a long period of time to break free from it. And the same thing goes with the habitual patterns that you find yourself in.

And this is why learning to make these micro choices is such a powerful behavior change in your life. Because I think a lot of people want to focus on the mega moments in life and think that they're the defining moments. And I have come to realize that it's not those. It's these transition points that we have in life between these mega moments that define us.

And it's something I saw in combat. It wasn't necessarily the actual incident or end game in a combat mission where we had the most fatalities or hiccups. It was typically in the transitions going to or from the operation where you're off guard, you're not as mindful. You think you can be at ease and you're not being intentional about being there in the moment focused and treating the whole thing as a long-term operation. I think the same thing happens in life.

Chris Dixon:

I'm curious if I can ask, what did you do in the Navy, John, after Annapolis?

John R Miles:

I had a great position. I actually worked for the National Security Agency. And so in this job, I got to really do everything that there was to do in the Navy. I got to go on submarines, aircraft carriers, aircraft destroyers, cruisers. And then I served with Naval Special Warfare Unit 10 and 8 as well.

Chris Dixon:

That's so cool. Wow.

Nikki Miller:

Wow. That's cool to get that breadth of experience. I feel like not very many people get to do that.

John R Miles:

No. To me being in information warfare when I was, it was similar to maybe being in the financial function or HR function or IT function in a company because you end up seeing everything across the entire organization and you're not completely siloed. And I've thought the same thing about working for the NSA is you had, as Liam Nielsen would say, we have these capabilities, these unique capabilities, and you can exploit them --

Nikki Miller:

Special set of skills.

John R Miles:

Special set of skills, and you can exploit them in numerous different ways.

Chris Dixon:

We talked about the importance of the big goal and how that fuels your smaller micro decisions. And can you draw, from your perspective, a distinction between maybe milestones that you set? So you say like, hey, I'm running a seven-minute mile. I want to run a six-minute mile. That's big gap between where you are and where you want to be as it relates to that particular goal. So there needs to be some milestones like a 640, then a 630. How do you distinguish between the importance of milestones and maybe those smaller micro decisions that you're talking about where it's like a left turn or a right turn here and how those relate to each other?

John R Miles:

Yeah. Something I have been using for well over 20 years now is something I created called the deliberate action process. And when I was a practice leader at Arthur Anderson, we all got well trained in method one, which was this heavy-duty ERP implementation methodology. And I just found it to be too heavy. And this was before there was agile methodology. So I ended up breaking it down into six fundamental steps that I used in the business world, but also found that I could use in my life as well. And the phases go analysis, prioritization, ignition, execution, measurement and renew.

And so the way I approach this is I analyze, let's just say it's your personal life and you're trying to reach that goal. I would analyze that I'm currently running a seven-minute mile and I want to get to a six-minute mile. So it analyze what am I going to have to do in order to do that, because it's not just your training regimen. It's what you're eating. It's typically how you're sleeping. It's typically mindset shifts that you're going to have to make. It's what resources do I need, et cetera.

And so from that, you then prioritize for this next phase, which I typically do in a one-week or two-week sprint, depending on the magnitude of it, what are the specific actions that I need to take to get me closer to it? And ignition might sound like a interesting word to use here, but you asked me the difference between purpose and passion before.

This is where passion comes into play. Because to me, if you're going to execute on something, you really have to ignite the fire inside of you to take the action to do it. And so this is where ignition comes in, in the form of intrinsic motivation to carry you forward that once you've laid out the actions you want to take, you execute them accordingly. And then I think where a lot of people fail is they don't measure their progress. And that's where the measurement phase comes in. And then renewal is really looking at the measurement, looking at your goal and then renewing yourself to another round of going through this. And for me, this has 10x my life. It's 10x to every position I have been in.

People ask me how did you become a CIO before you were 40 years old for a Fortune 50 company? It's because I deployed the deliberate action process in everything I did. And it just led to constant incremental improvements. It wasn't as if these jobs I got into, I could change these battleships like Dell or Lowe's overnight. It was by making changes every single week or biweekly that you start to gain the momentum to start changing the minds and hearts of people to get them to see that they can do more. And you win them over and you start achieving more in each one of these sprints.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah. That's just what I wanted to ask you on. So analysis, prioritization, ignition, measure, renewal. Is that -- did I say that right?

John R Miles:

Analysis, prioritization, ignition, execution, measurement, renewal.

Chris Dixon:

Got it. Execution. In the ignition phase, you'd mentioned like there's a lot of -- here it's so important just to create like the passion and the drive and like the force behind what you're going to go and execute. Probably an important step here for leaders and igniting others in this, right, if you have a team of people that you're bringing along in this and not missing that it's not just about you at this phase, but how do you ignite the people around you to have a net greater result?

John R Miles:

I mean, that is absolutely the case. And this is so profound in that setting. I think one of the major reasons why we have so much disengagement right now, the reports I'm reading show that there are 900 million disengaged people throughout the world. I mean, that's a lot when you only have 1.2, 1.3 full time workers.

And I think a huge part of that is that these companies aren't developing what I would call a passion star culture. They're not really winning the hearts and minds of their employees and why they're taking the actions that they're doing. And this is why that ignition becomes so important because to get anyone to perform an action, they have to believe in it. They have to be passionate about it. They have to see what is the outcome going to be and why does it make a difference in their own life?

Nikki Miller:

I think this is so important, John. And we do a lot of coaching and corporate consulting, and we see this come up so often when we're consulting bigger companies that they're -- I don't even know if often they would call it disengagement or if they recognize it as that but it's that we don't feel -- usually it comes up as we don't feel everyone is aligned or we're not hitting our goals. That's usually how it's verbalized.

And what we usually find is that no one has actually taken the time to give clarity with everyone on what the big goal actually is, how each of their verticals leads to that overarching vision or goal. And I think often the hard thing to say, the unsaid thing is that often it's because the leader doesn't actually know. They haven't actually taken the time to sit down and think about what are we trying to achieve? And how does everyone's position lead to sort of this incremental change or this incremental step in achieving this big goal?

So when you're -- I know you do quite a bit of consulting as well as having led a huge companies. How do you start? When you have an initiative that you're trying to get everybody on board for, how do you actually start with the analysis together with everyone, because often that can feel like chaos. Are you bringing it to them? Are you bringing them the initial vision and then getting feedback? What does that usually look like for you?

John R Miles:

Yeah, I will answer this by telling you a story.

Nikki Miller:

Please do.

John R Miles:

When I got hired into Lowe's Home Improvement, I was hired to do two things. One, to overhaul their information security and two, to rebuild their information technology operations group. And to give you a little bit of background, at the time I was hired, Lowe's, a couple months earlier, had just undergone the worst hack in retail history. This hack was so bad that the two perpetrators were able to get to the GL on the mainframe. And so, in order to do that, there are a lot of things broken. And it was just so fortunate that a computer operator in the operations command center happened to notice something weird going on in the mainframe, or else these people would have had access to the entire book of business for Lowe's.

So, as I'm going through all these interviews and understanding some of the things that are broken, I end up taking the position thinking it's going to be difficult, but I can do this. Well, my first week, I'm asked to sit down with the head of HR who I'd interviewed with before. And I think we're going to have this conversation about my direct reports and kind of giving me a lay of the land. And that was about five minutes of it.

Nikki Miller:

That’s not the award you want.

John R Miles:

You could have brought this up to me while I was being hired so I knew the full deal of what I was getting into. But as I started -- so to answer your question, as I started to approach this issue and obviously all these things are interrelated, the first step I took was what I think anyone would do is I went out and I talked to my peers. I went out and talked to my peers in the business and my peers in technology. And I asked them what they thought about the group and what was causing all its deficiencies. And of course, what they told me is what I expected to hear. This is wrong with your group. There isn't leadership. Your employees don't seem to give a crap about what they're doing. There's no sense of urgency. There's none of this.

But then I took the next step, which I think not enough leaders do. And that is not only did I go and talk to my direct reports, but I tried to talk to every single person I could in the organization, which meant that I ran a 24 by 7 function. So I had to get up at 2 o'clock in the morning and go to the call center, sit down with the call center folks or go meet with the people in security operations or go to the data centers and meet with the staff. And what I found across the board was that none of them had a clear understanding of how their individual roles mattered. They didn't understand why it mattered to the customer. They didn't understand how it equated to the strategy of the company.

And so I created something that I called the line of sight to answer another part of your question. And that is, I made it very clear to them through a series of meetings that we did what the strategy we were trying to undertake was. But more importantly, how their individual roles not only fit into our strategy, but how they equated to the strategy of Lowe's and to customer satisfaction.

Then I did something that I think a lot of people fail to do. It's impossible to lead a group like this and to be hands on in trying to guide everything they do, especially when you've got 24/7 operations. And this is something I've talked to general Stan McChrystal about. You can't be in charge of all operations in Afghanistan and think that you can micromanage a SEAL team that's trying to take out a cave complex. The same thing with your people.

So you need to be eyes on, but hands off, which in doing so you need to trust in your people. And that if you give them the vision, you give them the proper training. You've got to allow them to make the decisions in the moment that are going to get you closer to the strategy you want to accomplish. And that means giving the keys away to them to start making improvements or to start giving other suggestions that you might not be thinking of because you're not in the same position they are. And that's exactly what I did. And the results were amazing.

Eighteen months later, we went from the bottom two to the top two in the entire company. Employee morale went through the roof. Our effectiveness went through the roof. And it was a completely different organization. Now, did I have to change some seats on the bus? Yes, but far fewer than I think an outsider coming in would have expected.

Chris Dixon:

So the line of sight, you aim for some transparency there, right? You're saying like, help them understand the why behind their job and what they're doing and the purpose of their position. And then in doing that, important to recognize like where the military scene success and like this decentralized command, I think is a term I've heard used around giving like agency to the people in the field who are doing the work to make the decisions that they need to make. And something we say a lot is like authorship is ownership. So not only can they see where their value is, but also that you give them the ability to design the path to that as much as is appropriate for the role.

John R Miles:

Yeah. That and you need to give them some type of measurement of what they're doing. And so we put in all kinds of robust scorecards, but you've got to make the scorecards not only things that the executive staff need to see. You need to also make them relatable to your employees so that they can see the improvements and take ownership of it, which is more important. So they have pride in driving the metrics that you have on the scorecard.

So we had one that would go to kind of the CIO and his staff and then to all of the lows executives, but we also had sub layers that would be team focused or group focused that they would have more pride in. And once they took ownership for those, of course, you're going to drive a much better scorecard that's going up to the executives.

Nikki Miller:

I think this goes back to a really important part of that process that you took us through, which is that measurement piece, right? You cannot hope to change or to affect that, which you do not measure. And so I think that's so important for team members, especially because if you don't give them a direct measurement, then they can feel attached to the goal. But if they don't know how they're doing on the way to that goal, if they don't know whether they're trying to run a seven-minute mile and if they don't know where they're starting at, it can feel really challenging for them.

And I think that's where a lot of employees get disengaged, especially really talented employees. I often say the more talented they are, the more clarity you need to give them on how to win because talented people want to come into an organization, and they want to win. They need to know how to be able to do that. So it's really important.

I'm going to switch gears on you for a second because there was something you said earlier that I want to come back to that I really love your perspective on. You talked about this idea that when, especially the example you use is in the military, where a lot of the accidents happen, where a lot of the unexpected things happen is when you're in the transition piece. When you don't really have a plan, you're not paying as much attention.

And you also talked about in that same thread, this idea of how burnout happens. And you have a concept that I want you to talk about called the anxiety optimizer. And I think it's about how to be on the edge without going off the edge. And I'd love for you to expand on that because I think sometimes this pressure can create that environment where it's like, well, if I feel like I always have to be on, if I feel like I always have to be aware of the danger, I'm going to lose my ever-loving mind and that's how burnout happens. So how do you play on the edge without completely going over, John?

John R Miles:

Yeah, this was one of my favorite chapters to write about. And I actually used two friends of mine in this chapter. One is former Navy Seal Mark Devine. I also have Steven Kotler, the author. I'm sure you guys know who Steven is, who's an expert on peak performance. And then I have NASCAR driver, Jesse Owigi.

And I think being a NASCAR driver is a great way to think about this because when Jesse's story, if you're not familiar with him, he also went to the Naval Academy and he was on one of his cruises and just kept on having this vision in his mind that he wanted to be a race car driver. And so he starts going down this career in NASCAR and in the first eight races that he was in, he ends up wrecking out.

And to think of this analogy, it's kind of like being on a tightrope. And if the tightrope has too much slack in it, you're likely going to fall. If it's too tight, you're likely going to fall so it needs to be just the right balance. And the same thing with driving a race car. So, if you're too cautious, the drivers behind you are going to be more aggressive than you and you're likely going to wreck out because of being too cautious. If you're too aggressive, you're likely going to push the car too far and you're going to wreck it as well.

So it's learning, as he put it, that's where I got that saying how to be on the edge without going over the edge. It's learning how do you take control of your mind so that you learn to be in that high performance zone? And the reason why this is so important is McKinsey a few years ago ended up analyzing, I think it was 15,000 senior executives, and they found out that those who learned how to perform in the zone of optimal anxiety outperform their peer group by over 400 percent.

And if you just put this into what that means, they were able to accomplish in two hours what their peers were accomplishing in 8 to 10. So, if you're able to do that, think about how much more time you can then use throughout your day to engage with your employees to allow yourself to have better work life balance to spend more time on strategy and creativity instead of the task that so many people fall prey to. And so that's why this concept is so important.

And I love talking about Mark Devine’s story in it, because when he went to BUDS, his class started with over 160 individuals. And by the time they were done, there were only 25 or 26 who graduated. But out of those, his entire boat crew graduated. And this was one of the first times that this had ever happened. And the reason why was because he taught them four important skills. One, he taught them breath control. He taught them the importance of positive thinking. He taught them how to use imagery to allow them to think about where they wanted to go as compared to where they were and how to get through it. And then he taught them how to catch themselves before they started to spiral into fight or flight.

And when you can start just perfecting those four things and learn how to do them, which I describe in the book, it allows you to start perfecting how do you yourself catch yourself and have the awareness to understand when unease is creeping in and how to get yourself into that zone and keep yourself there.

Chris Dixon:

It's almost like there's tools to handle the zone, like when you're there and how to maximize being in the zone. If you're trying to create the zone itself or inspire others to get into the zone, what are some of the drivers that would push there? Is it a competition or like healthy drivers? Because I'm sure there's some probably negative ways to end up there too. But like, is it competition or like an antagonist or like, what's the best way to really get yourself into that zone?

John R Miles:

Well, I mean, if you've if you've heard about this, I mean, it's artists losing themselves in creation. It's coders crunching lines until time blurs. It's like for me being an author, you just get in this creative zone and before you know it, you've written 2,500 words and two hours have passed and it feels like two minutes.

So I think the 1st starting point is that you have to have clear goals and those are keys because without them, you're like a ship without a compass at sea. So, good luck finding land. And then I think going back to passion, it's the intrinsic motivation is what fuels this journey. So it's having that motivation that when everything else is around you, it all fades away because you don't need the applause because it's that inner gratitude that you feel that the reward is enough for the work that you've done. So, I think those are two of the starting points.

Nikki Miller:

John, do you think some of this comes back to consistency? Like getting clarity on how to be intentional day to day and then doing that consistently enough to even get in the zone? Because I think that the zone for me is sometimes, I feel like probably misspoken in the sense that people are constantly searching for it. They're like, how do I get in the zone today? And it's not guaranteed that you're going to get in that flow or get in the zone every single day.

But if you're doing the right things consistently, to your point, with writing, like, I bet that when you're writing, you're not in the zone every single time you write, but if you do it consistently enough, then you'll have bursts where you get in the zone and you can get more done than you might be able to on a regular day. I think it's a Hemingway quote, how do you write a book one crappy page a day. And eventually, you'll do that long enough that you get into the zone and you're able to actually produce something that the people love to read. So is it really just about getting clarity on that intentional action and then doing that consistently enough to be able to even find the zone?

John R Miles:

Yeah. I mean, the environment that you put yourself into and I think that's a great example of writing is very important to doing this. So for me, it's that repetition of when I'm writing, I typically like to do it first thing in the morning because that's when I am most alert. But it's that pattern that I go through that I wake up at a certain time, I exercise, I do my journaling, I think about things. And then I know I'm sitting down to now write for a three-hour block. And during that time, I kind of turned everything else off except that focus. And once you get used to that, like anything you would do in life, you realize that that's your productive point. And I find that you get yourself into that zone of writing much quicker, because as you said, it becomes a repetition and a consistent thing that you do.

Chris Dixon:

It's like a muscle build over time.

John R Miles:

Nikki Miller:

Well, I think I love this idea of strengthening that muscle because you talked about this in the book too, that living intentionally is a lot like a muscle too. This isn't something you're going to read the book, snap your fingers and say, oh, I'm an intentional liver now. This takes time and takes practice.

And can you walk through like, what were some of the big challenges that you faced as a, it sounds like this has been something that's been part of your life, whether knowingly or not knowingly. Whether you were able to articulate it or not, sounds like it's been something that's been part of your life for a long time. But can you talk about some of the bigger challenges that you've gone through as you've grown this muscle, like as you've grown through it?

John R Miles:

Yeah. I think one of the most important things that you've got to realize is that in order to become what I call Passion Struck, it's really about aligning your actions with your aspirations and your ambitions. And it's getting those things to work together. And I think we sometimes think that they're not dependent on each other and they absolutely are.

So some of the things that I had to really work through is I had found myself when I got into the business world on a journey that I never thought when I was a kid or even adult, I was going to be on. It kind of happened because after I got out of the military, I did so to join the FBI and my class ended up getting recycled. And so I had to put in a plan B. With that plan B, which was initially supposed to be a few months, the class was recycled for 36 months. And three years later, my life had completely changed, and I found myself working in this corporate career that I never intended to do.

So along that way, I'm one of these people who have who is a high achievers. So I put these lofty aspirations in place, and then you have to be ambitious about what the steps you're taking along that way to achieving them. Well, along the way, I lost myself. I stopped living authentically. And I started really conforming to what I thought success looked like, meaning the money, the positions, the titles, all those things that really just drain you, but don't bring you real satisfaction. I think Henry David Thoreau said it correctly when he described it as this quiet desperation that so many people feel.

So, as I was trying to recreate the life that I wanted, I really had to learn how to tune in and have the self-awareness and introspection to really listen to the internal voice that was telling me I was on the wrong path and there was a different path for me to go on. And that is then really having the self-belief in your uniqueness that you were put here to do something to impact people. But how do you do it?

So this is where the first chapter of my book really came into play where the first principle in the book called Mission Angler, which is really about life crafting. And if you are familiar with self-discrepancy theory, there are really three versions of self, your actual self, your ought self, and your ideal self. Your actual self is who you are in the moment. Your ought self is who you believe in your mind you should be, and it's basically based on societal expectations, your upbringing, the things you think you should do. And then you have the possibility of becoming your ideal self.

So, for me, it was really closing that gap to the future self I wanted to be from following this path that I had been taking to become ought myself, to actually going down the path to how do I start becoming my ideal self or best self and bridge that gap. So, that was one of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome because I think we all find our self stuck at some point in our lives. So, it's how do you give yourself that inner courage to cross that chasm and take the leap of faith into becoming who you aspire to be, not who you should be.

Chris Dixon:

How important is it to draw that distinction between your actual self and your ought self and unpack all that programming and how much does that enable you to even get clear on where you want to be your ideal self?

John R Miles:

Yeah. Yeah. In this chapter, I write about a concept that Benjamin Hardy has written about called The Gap and The Gain. And it's work that he and Dan Sullivan did. And I think too many of us live in the gap, not in the gain. And that's exactly what I was doing. And what ends up happening is in the gap, we're comparing ourselves to others. So as us, as podcasters, it would be like me trying to compare myself to Tim Ferris or Joe Rogan or Andrew Huberman.

In the case of Tim Ferris, he's been doing this a hell of a long time. He is who he is, and for me to think after three years of doing the podcast that I'm going to be Tim Ferriss, I am constantly going to live in this gap because there's no way I can achieve that goal that I'm setting for myself, and so I'm going to be constantly faced with disappointment. And that's what would happen to me every time I would climb the ladder, I was comparing myself to someone else who was farther ahead of me. And I would get upset with I'm not making the progress that I want. I need to keep pushing harder. I need to work harder, which then leads you to burn out.

Where the gain is, is when you measure your progress against your past self, compared to where you are now. And when you start looking at your own personal gains, you start gaining more of that intrinsic motivation, that passion that's going to drive you to continue down the path of becoming your ideal self. So, it's really getting that equation right that I think liberates you to go from what you were asking me, Chris, about the ought self to pursuing the ideal self.

Nikki Miller:

I love that. Well, John, I feel like we could have unpacked this for the entire podcast. So thank you for sharing that model because well, I think this is so important for achievers, especially to give themselves the space and time to make that distinction and to recognize where they might be behaving in such a way that doesn't feel authentic to them.

Like, I think sometimes people get so wrapped up in the achiever mindset that they look up and they've achieved certainly, it drives them, and they achieve incredible things, but is it what they actually want? But again, if you go through that process that you gave, then it's an analysis of, okay, what do I actually want? Where do I want to be? And then going through the rest of the process to build the action and build the intentionality in order to get there. So I'm going to encourage everyone to read the book because that will take them through the process too. And I know you also have a gift for all of our listeners today. Do you want to share a little bit about that?

John R Miles:

Yes. I have two gifts. So in the Passion Struck book, which I'll just put up here, I introduced something called The Five Transition Points on the Journey to Becoming Passion Struck. And on my website, passionstruck.com, if you go right to the top of it, you will see a quiz, takes you about 10 minutes to do. It's 20 questions long, and that will help identify what current stage you're starting in. And it'll give you some immediate actions that you can take to get to the next stage.

I also have a gift I'm giving out that if you purchase Passion Struck, I had a preorder package that I've shifted to make it, I think, even better. So, if you purchase the book, there are things I introduce in it like the deliberate action process that I talked about earlier, but I've included a 70-page eBook that gives you very detailed knowledge of how you actually implement the deliberate action process, both in your personal life or in your professional life.

I also have eBooks on how to develop a success mindset, how to understand the power of mattering and why having significance in your life is so important. I go through a mini course on five ways to discover your purpose in life. And I also give you a reader's guide. If you want to do a discussion guide in a group with your church, a reading group or something that will guide you throughout each chapter of the book. And all those things are free.

Nikki Miller:

Well, thank you so much for sharing all of that with us. And John, we ask every guest on this podcast, what's the one thing that you would want listeners to take away from this conversation, whether it's another gift from you in terms of your incredible knowledge that you shared that they can find in the book or not in the book, what's one thing you would want them to take away?

John R Miles:

So people often ask me, how in the world did you get into alternative medicine? And how did your podcast become the number one alternative health podcast? Because I'm not a doctor and it is all about my own life journey going from where I was stuck and had health issues and mental health issues and emotional health issues and relationship health issues to where I am now.

And what I learned from all of it is that ultimately, it's the choices that we make that determine at all. So if you want to live a long life and you want to have a long lifespan and health span, it all comes down to your lifestyle choices. It's the amount of sleep that you get, it's the food that you're putting in your body so that your gut health is optimal and your metabolism is functioning properly. It's the choices that you make of the people that you put yourself around. Are you putting yourself around toxic people? Are you putting yourself around people who enhance where you want to go in life and believe in you and are supportive?

So to me, it's so important that for people to understand that really everything that you want in life is on the other side of you just making the choices that align with making the actions that you need to take in every moment of life and aligning them with your aspirations and your ambitions.

Nikki Miller:

I love that. And John, if people want to connect with you, where can they find you?

John R Miles:

So the best two places would be my two websites. Personal website is johnrmiles.com. And my other website company website is passionstruck, S-T-R-U-C-K.com.

Nikki Miller:

Thank you so much for being here, John. I'm going to encourage everyone to pick up a copy of the book and to get their gifts that you gave today. Thank you so much for spending some time with us.

John R Miles:

And it was an honor to be here. You guys have such a great podcast. So thank you so much for having me on.

Outro:

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