Shownotes:
Join us for a captivating conversation with John R. Miles, a trailblazer in intentional living and the force behind the Passion Struck® philosophy. In this episode, John shares his unique insights on how to embrace your authentic self and lead a life filled with purpose and passion. Learn about the practical steps and transformative framework that can empower you to make profound changes in your life. Don't miss out on this deep dive into personal growth and leadership that could redefine your path to success. Tune in and start your journey towards a more intentional existence.
About Our Guest:
John Miles is a master at guiding individuals on a transformative journey to unlock their ultimate potential and embrace their authentic selves. As the visionary CEO of Passion Struck®, bestselling author, keynote speaker, and host of the #1 Alternative Health Podcast, Passion Struck, John merges deep insights from peak performance and behavioral science with an innate understanding of the human psyche. His mission is to inspire and empower a global community to live intentionally, moving beyond conventional success to lead lives of profound meaning, passion, and authenticity.
John R. Miles brings to the table a distinguished 30-year career that spans across military leadership, entrepreneurship, global business and technology operations, life coaching, and strategic innovation. His leadership foundation was laid at the United States Naval Academy, marked by distinction as a Division 1 athlete, class secretary, and brigade honor staff member during a significant chapter of the academy’s history.
His approach embodies the rigor of his naval training, enriched with a deep understanding of business dynamics and personal growth, guiding both individuals and corporations towards unparalleled success.
Thrive Global Article:
Igniting a Life of Purpose: John R. Miles on Being Passion Struck
Connect with and learn from John R. Miles
Website
Book
Podcast
YouTube
Instagram
X
About Lainie:
Lainie Rowell is a bestselling author, award-winning educator, and TEDx speaker. She is dedicated to human flourishing, focusing on community building, social-emotional learning, and honoring what makes each of us unique and dynamic through learner-driven design. She earned her degree in psychology and went on to earn both a post-graduate credential and a master's degree in education. An international keynote speaker, Lainie has presented in 41 states as well as in dozens of countries across 4 continents. As a consultant, Lainie’s client list ranges from Fortune 100 companies like Apple and Google to school districts and independent schools. Learn more at linktr.ee/lainierowell.
Website - LainieRowell.com
Twitter - @LainieRowell
Instagram - @LainieRowell
Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available here! And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!
Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌
Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!
Transcript:
Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Hello, friends. Welcome to the show, John Miles. John, how are you today?
John Miles: Lainie, I have been looking forward to this for over a week, so I am so glad to be here. Feel so honored to be able to speak to your audience.
Lainie Rowell: Oh, I feel very honored to have this conversation. I am a huge fan of your podcast, and I've read your book, which this is an audio podcast primarily, but I just want, you to see there's There's some markups, there's some post its, it's been well loved, and I'm excited for you to share your message.
First, I would love for you to just kick us off talking about why is it so important to live intentionally?
What does that mean to be living an intentional life?
John Miles: Something I tried to do throughout the book was to utilize a bunch of quotes from who I thought were vanguards throughout the book to highlight different points of it. And the quote I'm going to quote here is one I wish I would have put in the book and I left out unintentionally.
So speaking of intentionally, but it's by Sharon Salzberg, who I absolutely love and the quote is, there's no commodity we can take with us, there's only our lives, and whether we live them wisely, or whether we live them with ignorance, and that is everything. And the reason I bring this quote up first is there have been a couple works, both scientifically and in palliative care, that really shows the results of what happens when we don't live intentionally.
So one of these that comes top of mind is the book by Bronny Ware about the Five Regrets of the Dying. and her number one regret really complements research that came out of Cornell University led by psychologist Tom Gilevich in 2018. What they're both showing is that when people look back on their lives and they were both looking at people who were in their third quadrant of life, 76 percent of all humans have the same regret, and that is not pursuing their ideal self.
It's not the mistakes that we make in life that we regret. It's the what ifs, the should haves. And so to me, that all comes from when we're unintentional about the life that we are crafting. And it's really, sings true to what Sharon says in her quote, that we can either choose to live our lives wisely, or we live them in ignorance.
And to me, that's the demarcation point between living intentionally or without intention.
Lainie Rowell: I really hear you on that inaction regret, right? The things that we just didn't think to do, didn't maybe take the leap to do. And you mentioned Sharon Salzberg, and you have had so many, I mean, you said vanguard thought leaders, just really, amazing guests on your podcast.
So what I love about the book, and I wrote lots of things down that I love about the book, including the five star review, which I, whenever I find a book is important, I have to do a five star review on Amazon. I think that's like my love language. But what I love is that you take these people who are doing tremendous things in the world and you make it so compelling, so comprehensive, and so actionable.
To me that was how I read the book, is you are taking your wisdom and your brilliance and you're also bringing in all these other people and what they come on the show to share with you. So is it, is it fair to say that's kind of how that relationship has been between the podcast and the book, that there's definitely been some, some feeding of each other?
John Miles: Yeah, I mean there's, that's absolutely the case although many of the interviews I did for the book were before The podcast even existed because it's kind of a funny story how the podcast came to be. I am a first time author and had not historically been an author. I was a business executive for most of my career.
So when I started down this path of wanting to write Passion Struck and it turned out to be written very differently from the way I thought it would be written in a positive way at the beginning. But I would. Talk to agents and I was striking out left and right. I think I reached out to about 80 agents and not one of them was interested.
And they all came back to me and said, You don't really have a platform and no one knows much about you. You're this business guy. How do you even know any of this stuff is going to resonate? And I didn't, to be honest. And so they said, you need to go out there and do public speaking. I started this journey right at the onset of COVID.
And so that was next to impossible. And I'm not sure your experiences with doing virtual talks, but it's not as if you can read. The faces of the audience or know if it's resonating or not. And so after doing some gut searching, I thought that the best way to test this was doing a podcast. And so that's really why I went down the path.
I did have it in my mind that I was going to at least do it for a year because I wanted to give it a fair shot, but I really used it as a litmus test to decide whether or not I was even going to put the book in the world. So, 40 million downloads later thankfully it has resonated.
Lainie Rowell: Well, I'm so glad you shared that, because I didn't know your entire backstory, and I've read your bio, and I know so many things about you, and I haven't even had a chance to So thank you for your service yet, but you have a military background, and if you want to share any of that, please feel free to do so, but I, I really didn't realize the book was first, I kind of thought maybe you started the podcast first, and I mean, if I, if my math is right, you're going to hit 500 episodes this year?
Does that sound about right?
John Miles: Yeah, we just crossed 442. So, at three a week, definitely on pace to do that. And you, you asked me about the book and how I approached it. I read so many books, given I'm a podcaster like you and I read all the books from the guest, I do over 100 books easily a year.
And so I've really trained myself to speed read. But as I have read all these books, And thank you very much for the five star review. There is very much a difference between a book that's actionable, I've found, and a book that you read and it sits on your bookshelf and you never do anything about it.
So when I was writing this, I didn't want it to be a book you read. I wanted it to be a book you lived. Kind of like this book by Sharon Salzberg I'm holding here. Loving Kindness that sits next to me almost every single day and I constantly refer to it for guidance and so that's how I tried to approach the book is I wanted it to be Relatable that people could get through it But also be science backed so that they the reader understood that it wasn't just john pontificating It's these things are really backed either by psychology or behavior science or neuroscience.
Lainie Rowell: And that comes through. So to me it is that beautiful, we know it's evidence based, we also see it in practice through these tremendous leaders and through your work. Tell us just briefly about the Passion Struck model. What does that look like for people?
John Miles: Okay, so, let me give the best kind of manifestation of what this thing looks like. So, I'm gonna go to something that everyone in the audience will recognize, and that is Mickey Mouse. So, imagine you've got Mickey Mouse staring at you. So, the Passion Struck model, if you think about this, it's how I organize the book around this model, but it has really four core components.
The first you can think of as Mickey Mouse's left ear, and that's something that I refer to as mindset shifts. And your mindset is really tied to the purpose that you have in life and your passion, because you need to have that ignition that passion brings to shift the way that you're operating and your mindset really influences your why and how you approach the actions that you take.
And in this model, I also included different components of the Stoics in this. And so it also has reference to those core aspects of the virtues that the Stoics thought were vital. And so that makes up one ear. The next ear, if you look at Mickey Mouse's right ear, is behavior shifts. And your behavior is very much influenced by those mindset shifts.
And it, you can think of, is the how. You put these actions into place and it's really the what that you're trying to accomplish. And then if you think about Mickey's nose, that is what I call the psychology of progress, which is really this whole concept of taking deliberate action, which is based on the stoic virtue of courage and intentionality.
And then you can think of Mickey Mouse's mouth as the last aspect. And this is intrinsic motivation, which is the fuel that powers the whole model. And underneath the whole model is driving our lives in a significant way. In a way that we feel like we matter, not only to ourselves, but to other people, and that we're making a difference for humanity.
So those are kind of the core tenets. And behavior shifts are really powered by perseverance. And as I mentioned before, the deliberate action or psychology of progress is really underpinned by our intentionality.
Lainie Rowell: I love that you talk about the mindset shifts versus the behavior shifts. And I actually want to focus on a couple of the behavior shifts that you talk about. And one of them that I think whether we're talking about in education, or in the corporate world, or wherever the listener happens to be, I think this concept of gardener leader is really very fascinating to me, and I wondered if you'd be willing to talk a little bit more about the emphasis on eyes on, hands off.
John Miles: Yeah, I would love to do this, and this is one of the chapters I enjoyed doing immensely, because it has Two people who I actually believe are two of the best leaders in the world right now.
One of them is General Stan McChrystal, who I interviewed for the book. And the other is Keith Crotch who has been a mentor of mine for, gosh, 25 years now. I met Keith when he was originally the CEO and founder of Ariba. He ended up selling it to SAP. He then became If people don't know his backstory, the chairman and CEO of DocuSign took that to a billion dollar exit, and then most recently was the assistant secretary of state in the Trump administration, although what his focus was on was really trying to blow up entrepreneurship in the U. S. because it's been on a 30 year decline. So as I was thinking about this need to change our leadership paradigm. I was really brought up in the concept of being a servant leader. And for most of my career, I think it really served me extremely well. However, I think that our times are drastically changing and the way that we're operating is very different because the key tenants of a servant leader for me really meant that I had to be face to face with the people I was leading and really serving their needs.
And we're at a point in time now where more people are distributed. Let's just face it. COVID really brought upon a a completely different change. So at the heart of a gardener leader, you can think of it as just as a gardener nurtures their crops, a leader needs to intentionally nurture their team's growth.
It's the process that's involved in having a deep understanding of each individual's unique talents and potential, but it's also coupling them with the right environment and resources for them to thrive. And so at the heart of this is something that I call the eyes on, hands off approach. And if we go to General McChrystal, This is something that I have heard him talk about, but he discusses it in a way that will make it obvious .
If he was the leader of SOCOM or he was the leader of all forces in Afghanistan, he's going to have missions going on all throughout the country or world potentially. There is no way that he can oversee a mission that a Delta Force team is doing or a Ranger operation or a SEAL team and trying to micromanage it.
He needs to understand that he has given his troops the training to understand what they need to do, the guidance and support that they know someone has their back and the ability to be creative in solving whatever issue they come across. So you need to be eyes on and understanding that you train and give your people as much support as possible, but you also need to be hands off in letting them have the autonomy to take the risks and do what needs to be done in that situation at hand.
And I think the same thing applies to whatever work situation you're in as we need more environments where adaptability and responsiveness are really in high focus. We need people throughout organizations with a longer term perspective, but most importantly, we need to cultivate a healthy work environment where we have an emphasis on nurturing and care and creating a positive and supportive work culture. So that's what this is all about.
Lainie Rowell: And to me, I made the connection to an interview that I had done previously with Geoff Cohen, the author of Belonging. And when he described Belonging talking about, it's not that we're all the same.
It's that we all have unique things to bring to the table that once we all are there, and in the right conditions like you're talking about, that's where we can all thrive, right? It's not that we all need to be exactly the same. We're seen and valued for our unique talents, like you said. You also mentioned creating the conditions, and then that creates the sense of belonging, and that can really be something that helps us in this shared purpose that we're in, whatever the field is.
And I love how you are always talking about intention because I think that's something that's really important. And I think it's really easy to lead a distracted life.
We've never had more things vying for our attention than right now. And so I love this constant focus on intention. It does have to be constant. And then I was wondering if you could also tell us about another one of the behavior shifts, and that is Conscious Engager. And you talk about how important it is to be consciously engaged when we're living a Passion Struck life, and so what are some of the strategies or practices we could do to live like that?
John Miles: Yeah, this was the actually the last chapter I wrote for the book, and It wasn't originally one of the principles and as I was going back through my research and the back story of this is I've ended up researching about 750 different individuals to look for commonalities on what differentiates the people who I consider to be Passion Struck from those who are not.
And I kept coming upon this theme that I can't believe I had missed which is the need for intense focus, which is really at the core of being intentional. And so in this chapter, I really talk about the difference between consciously engaging in life and how so many of us go through our lives just subconsciously engaging with it.
And I use the metaphor in this that we often hear that we're operating on autopilot or we're living our life on autopilot. And as I started to think about that, as I was writing the book, I just thought it was the wrong analogy. I don't think that that's how the majority of us are living because when you're living on autopilot and I fly a lot, hopefully the pilot's still putting the autopilot in the positive direction that you're trying to go in, even if they're doing the same things over and over again.
I think the better analogy is that so many of us today are living our life like, we're a pinball in the game of pinball, where we are so distracted by the elements of life, which represent the sounds, the bumpers, all the distractions that fill up the game of pinball, the same thing is happening to us in our life.
And to me, when that pinball is going around aimlessly, and we're distracted by everything around it, and it goes down the gutter, that's the epitome of what it's like to live unintentionally. And so to me, this chapter is really about the principles about what does it mean to, instead of being played by the game, learning to play the game on your own terms, learning to live life on your own terms.
And it really is understanding the core essence of making the most important thing in your life, be the consistent, most important thing in your life. And I borrow some of the work by Stephen Covey in this chapter. Because it really harkens back to one of my favorite ministers when I was going to a Methodist church back in the mid 2000s who did this whole sermon for us that the main thing about the main thing is keeping the main thing the main thing.
And it just sounds so easy when you hear it, but it's so difficult to do. And in this chapter, I also introduce the importance versus urgent matrix, which is a great way for people to analyze how you're living your life. And are you really focused on what you think are the most important things in your life?
Because I find so often that we're focused on what appears to be urgent, but is not important at the detriment. of doing the most important things that are urgently needed in your life. So, those are just some highlights about the chapter, but I I end it by talking about two of my favorite historical figures who were both living pinball lives Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, but through the power of intentionality and changing their life and becoming passion struck in the twilight of both of their lives, completely transformed the way that history sees both of them because they ended up becoming passion struck.
Lainie Rowell: The stories are how we remember, right? And so I do appreciate that you bring to us practices and stories and they're are people who we go, Oh, wow, that's like a really successful person or that person is so wise. And so it really helps us to make those connections.
I didn't mean to hone in on two of the chapters that happened to be right at the end and literally next to each other, but those spoke to me.
Are there any other ones that you want to touch on? Maybe one of the mindset shifts that you want to touch on?
John Miles: Yeah why don't we talk about being an action creator? Because I mean, if, if there's any fault for the book, it's that I've been repetitive on this need for action.
And it is a core theme that I talk about throughout almost the entire book. And the reason I keep bringing it up and I'm repetitive about it is because it's so important. I wanted it to be anchored in people's minds that It is deliberate action in our lives that either culminates in a tsunami of greatness or a valley of despair.
And you talked to me about intentionality, and I think it's important for people to understand what I mean about in intentional action. We were just talking about the difference between being an unconscious engager and a conscious engager. Intentional action is what anchors us in the present. Our lives are all about the power of choice.
And the choices that we make every day, the steps that we take toward a goal and how we navigate our daily lives. And so being intentional is so critical because it's all about the execution of our plans. It's the embodiment of our commitment to growth and progress. So you can think of intention. In that it differs from mere desire.
Intention is the pursuit of a specific meaningful goal. It's a point of achievement that we set for ourselves. It's not just any target. It's a milestone that aligns with our deeper values and purpose. And achieving the goal is fulfilling. It's a chapter in our larger life story. And so when I talk about this, it is really being intentional about making sure that you're aligning the actions that you're taking in the micro choices of your day with your midterm ambitions and your longer term aspirations.
And so I think we get this confused that action, ambition, and aspiration are isolated variables and they're not, they're interconnected and interdependent. Because we can track our actions. We can analyze our productivity and evaluate our efficiency, but these metrics only gain true meaning when they're connected to our ambitions and aspirations.
And so I think that is a really important part that listeners need to understand and educators need to understand. For those who are in the audience, this is something that I'm really trying to get teens and young adults to understand because I think that this is the key to making lasting self improvement on your journey.
Lainie Rowell: Absolutely. I love that. So we've talked about a mindset shift, some of the behavior shifts. I mean, this is a very rich, rich book and I do think it's one that you'll be very happy and get to pull out and get some inspiration, get some practices. It's very actionable. I know I've said that a few times, but that's my favorite type of book. It's going to inspire me, but it's also going to be actionable.
So I want to ask you one last question before I ask you to share how we can stay in touch with you for those who are listening. You've had a lot of amazing, amazing guests.
I know you already mentioned Sharon Salzberg and you've mentioned some of the others, but is there any thing that you from one of your guests or you yourself just cannot tell people enough? Like it is such an important piece of wisdom. that you just love to jump on tables and yell about it until everyone understood properly.
John Miles: Yeah, well, I'll take one from a person who's in the book and I'll take one from a person who's not in the book only because I didn't get a chance to interview her for the book. So the one that I'll talk about that is in the book. is I interviewed a very close friend of mine. He's a Naval Academy classmate of mine.
I've known him since he was 17. And that is astronaut Chris Cassidy. And Chris, if you don't know his backstory, we went to Naval Academy together. He ended up going to basic underwater demolition school and became a SEAL. Ended up being awarded two bronze stars, one for valor. And I cannot tell the audience what he did in. The citation. I have actually read it, but it's classified, but it was probably one of the most profound actions of the war in Afghanistan. And from there he ended up going to MIT and then became an astronaut and eventually became the chief astronaut. And today he's the president and CEO of the Medal of Honor Museum that's being built in Arlington outside of Dallas.
What is so, to me, important about what Chris talks about And I use in the book is this idea that we end up not realizing how important our power perspective is and how we can reframe cognitive restructuring the life that we have around us. And he gives a couple of examples that I put in the book.
One happened when he was doing an EVA or a spacewalk and another one was his experience going through BUDS, but I'll just use the one from BUDS. And that is that. He learned that trying times end, and that in order to get through BUDS, or any hardship, or anything that we want to accomplish in our lives, A great way to think about it is, as if it's an elastic rubber band and that the time horizon can be expanded or compressed.
And so what got him through BUDS, and not only did he get through it, he was the honor man for his class, was that he looked at the micro moments that made up the day. And for him, he stretched the rubber band enough just to make it to the next iteration of training, whether that was trying to get through the exercise he was doing or trying to get to the next meal.
His time horizon was very short and he was very focused on what he needed to do to get through that without worrying about the next step. And I think that that's something that we all can use in our life when situations come our way that we think are never ending, but we can naturally work through them by really boiling it down to the micro moments that we have to get through.
And then another interview. that I did was more recent with Gabby Bernstein. And this interview was one that I got rejected 12 times by her before it came into being over about 30 months. But I had always just wanted to interview her because I think that she just, you know, has a raw, very intentional way about the way she talks and shares her life.
And something profound that we talked about is she was already very well known. Oprah actually named her as being an influencer when she was 34 or 35 who could change the world. And I might have her age wrong, but it was in her early thirties. But at that same time, She has publicly said this, so I'm not sharing anything she hasn't, but she came down to a profound choice.
She had seen a person who gave her a reading and made a tape about it and told her how destructively she was leading her life. She was chasing a whole bunch of addictions because she was dealing with past unknown trauma. But it was causing her to have a drug issue, an alcohol issue, a compulsive work addiction, and a dating addiction.
And her life, although it seemed incredible, was spiraling out of control. And basically the reading was, you have a choice, like we all do in life, like I was talking about earlier. And the choice was, you can either keep giving in to these addictions that you have and not dealing with your trauma or you have a choice to solve that trauma and change the world because you're not going to be able to do both.
And she ended up making the choice to get clean and she's now been sober for years and to deal with the rest of her addictions and you can see what her life has catapulted to now with four or five number one New York Times bestselling books, sold out tours. I mean, you name it. I mean, she was just on the Today Show the other day, but to me, I look back and you can look at her and say, she's done all these amazing things, but it all culminated from a choice that she made to change, and I think we are all faced with those choices in life, and it's what do we do at that moment that defines us, and like for her, it wasn't an easy change.
The changes I've had to make aren't easy changes. And I think the thing that ends up happening is we see people like I profiled in the book, Chris Cassidy, Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, whoever. And we think that their life has been all rosy, but every one of them, when you look at their backstory, there were times in their life where they faced these choices and they choose to pick ones that ended up leading to where they are now.
And it's not just one choice. It's a consistent reinvention of themselves over time Because becoming Passion Struck is a continuous journey. It's not a one time thing So those would be the two that I would highlight.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah, and there's a theme of impermanence through both of those, right? and so impermanence good impermanence keep pushing yourself like when it's rough It will change and we have a lot of things that we can do to move out of that.
And then also the impermanence of like, we need to keep moving forward and stretching ourselves with intention so we're not living a pinball life. So thank you so much for sharing so much wisdom in that little bit of time that I was blessed to get with you.
What is the best way for people to connect with you on the socials, your website, all of that? I'll be sure to put it in the show notes as well.
John Miles: The best way to follow me on any of the socials is to use John with an H, middle initial R. Miles. But you can go to my website, johnrmiles.com or PassionStruck.Com. And from there you can get to the book, the podcast, coaching, everything else that we're doing.
Lainie Rowell: So I'm just going to take a moment to say that your website is amazing, and one of the favorite things, and friends, you may see something like this happen, for Evolving with Gratitude, inspired by John here, the starter packs is such a brilliant way because you have such a huge library of amazing episodes. Again, you're going to hit 500, not too far off from here, but the starter packs are a really nice way to go see, you know, here's what these amazing women are doing. And I love that idea. So I think that's something I might be borrowing if you don't mind.
John Miles: I talk about it at every episode because it is difficult to explore the podcast now that we've had so many interviews and they're difficult to find. But I find if you put them in convenient playlists that maybe pique a person's interest, that it's much easier to consume them and understand what's on the show.
Lainie Rowell: Absolutely. And I really appreciate you packaging them that way for us. So, all right, John, I know I need to let you go. Thank you so much for being here and thank you all for listening.
John Miles: Yeah, Lainie, it's truly been an honor. Thank you so much for having me.