Coming up next on Passion Struck.

You wrote in the book, Becoming Passion Struck isn't a destination. It is the never-ending pursuit of harnessing all that you are in service of realizing your best self so you can help to elevate the bar for the rest of humanity.

Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles. On the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turned their wisdom into practical advice advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become passion struck. Hello, friends. Welcome back to episode 414 of Passion Struck, the number one alternative health podcast. A heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you who return to the show every week, eager to listen, learn, and discover new ways to live better, be better, and make a meaningful impact in the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you simply want to introduce this for a friend or a family member, and we so appreciate it when you do that.

We have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans' favorite episodes that we organize in a convenient playlist that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. Either go to spotify or passionstruck. Com/starterpacks to get started. And in case you missed it, earlier in the week, we had two fantastic interviews. We kicked it off by welcoming Angela Duckworth, number one New York Times bestselling author, of Grit, a Rosa Lee and Agurching Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Angela joined me to help launch my new book, Passion Struck, and we discuss grit, self control, personal agency, intentionality, as well as she gives a sneak peek about her upcoming book. I also interviewed Forrest Galante, the executive producer and host of Shark Week, known as the modern day Charles Darwin. Forrest's dedication to wildlife biology and conservation. It's not just about adventure, it's about making a significant impact on global conservation efforts and changing the way we view the natural world. Please check both of those out. And I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews. If you love today's episode or either of those others, we would appreciate you giving it a five-star review and sharing with your friends and families.

I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners. In today's Momentum Friday episode, I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude for the overwhelming support during my book launch earlier this week. We celebrated that official launch on Tuesday evening, hosted by my dear friend, Scott Simon, a remarkable entrepreneur, author, and founder of the Scare Your Soul Courage Movement. Scott guided me through a series of insightful questions about the book, and I've decided to share that enlightening interview in today's episode. We'll delve deep into the book's fundamental principles and explore Scott's personal insights and takeaways. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your Host and Guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin.

So good evening, everybody. My name is Scott Simon. I am the founder of a courage movement called Scare Your Soul. I am so honored to be with you and to welcome you to this very special event, a book launch for John R. Miles, Passion struck I first met John after the launch of my own book, Scare Your Soul. It was that first frenzied week after the pub date where I was doing interview after interview and podcast after podcast and getting emails from my agent. And she finally picked up the phone and actually called me and said the following, I want you to be on the passion struck podcast. It is outrageously successful and impactful, and you have to meet this host, John R. Miles. So I did some review of what John was doing and familiarized myself with it, and I have to say that he completely blew my mind. This was somebody who was literally interviewing the best of the best, the people that make our world vibrant and purposeful and resilient and engaging. And when we finally met and had the podcast together, he was next-level curious. Our conversation ranged from stories to ideas and mutual loves of human potential.

And in that conversation, it became a game changer for me and my own career, sandwiched in between Seth Godin and Marshall Goldsmith, not bad. The episode brought sunlight to my own ideas and truly shepherded by John and his curiosity. So when he told me that he was writing his own book, I was thrilled, not just for myself, but for you and for the world. People started to notice John's ideas when he started to put them out. For example, Seth Goden said, John R. Miles reminds us that we can lead and contribute with intention if we choose. Chris Carr said, This book will ignite a fire in your belly. So true. And Marshall Goldsmith said, Passion Struck is a transformative book that empowers individuals to unlock their purpose find fulfillment and create the life they've always desired. Awards started to roll in. The next Big Idea Book Club, February 24, Must Read Books Included: Passion Struck. The curators of that award are no less than, by the way, Susan Cain, Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink. Yes, great company. And the book is already winner of the Best Business Minds Book Award for 2024. I want to open up the conversation with John tonight, and we'll have time at the end, by the way, for Q&A.

If you'd like to join in and ask questions, you can also add them into the chat. But I'd like to begin talking with John about something he wrote about how this all began for him. And John writes, I lived what I once thought was a great life, and it most certainly was great on the surface. By all standards, I enjoyed an incredibly successful career. I had I achieved my professional goals of becoming a multi-industry CEO, making it to Fortune 500 C-suite and a practice leader in a Big Four consulting firm, and a decorated Navy officer. I had earned many awards and recognitions that most would die to have on their resume, and yet something was missing. So, John, what was missing, and how did you find it, and what did you do?

Scott, thank you so much for that fantastic introduction. You're an author, too, and I think none of us know when we put something out in the world, how it's going to be received. And I have to tell you, it's quite terrifying in many ways. And two of the first people who ever read this book were Seth Godin and Matt Higgins. And I was so nervous when I sent it to both of them because you got these two best-selling authors. And it turns out, after Seth read it, as you mentioned, he wanted to do the lead endorsement, and Matt asked me if he could write a four to it. So it just gave me that confidence It's Boost that validated that the things that I have in the book were striking a cord. You asked about how I ended up reading this book and what led me here. And I think our lives take Really different paths sometimes than we think that they're going to accomplish. And maybe when I was a kid, we never, in a million years, we'd this dream that I was going to be a business executive. I thought more of being a soldier or being an action hero or things like that.

And so when I went into the military and was getting out, my path wasn't to go into the food group of world. I had accepted an appointment to the FBI to be a special agent. And at that time, During the Clinton administration, it just so happened that it was one of the first times in our history that Congress couldn't get their ink together and pass a spending bill. And we're seeing that play out right now, but it had major ramifications for me on the rest of my life. Because three days before my class was supposed to go, it got recycled. And I had no plan B. I mean, who thinks that your ink behind this is going to get canceled? Not me. And then I asked the detailer, thinking it would be maybe a week or two before I get recycled and go back in. And he tells me it's at least 18 months out, more likely over three years of it. I didn't know what anyone would do in that situation. I did. And we ended up getting three job offers. And I remember one of them was to on the assembly line as a project lead working for Honda.

Another one was as a tester working for Worldcom. And the third one was to take this job with this management consulting firm called Booz Allen. We did the three actions transitioning from the military. The consulting one seemed like the best because I had no idea what to do in the consulting world or business world. So I thought it would give me the best exposure. I think from there, life It takes you on a path sometimes. I call it a portfolio career, where you end up in this place that you never expected, and then you start leaning into it. And for me, the more I leaned into it, it meant, how do I get How do I get the next promotion? How do I get the next advancement? How do I get the accolades, the title, the money, and all those things? And before long, next thing I knew, I'm this Fortune 50 senior executive finding myself at work. But the entire time, it was almost as if I felt I was in a mask raid, and I was wearing a mask every day that hid who I authentically was, because I had transformed myself into something that I never had in my corner who we're wanting to be.

And I think the pinnacle of this, when I was at transition point, when I was a senior executive at Lowe's going to Dell, I just felt this inner sense that something was completely on. And I started to hear this voice come to me, not a schizophrenia voice, but a voice just saying that, John, you're not following your purpose. You have this calling where you're supposed to help. And the words I was given was the helpless, the lonely, the bored, the beaten, the broken, the bad, the win. I'm not going to be useful. But when you're in this bank and you're an executive and you got your whole company and life ahead of you, when you get this calling that's all the way over left field. I did what I think most people would do. I ignored it. And the more I ignored it, it went from a whisper to a louder tapping on the shoulder, to then a kick in the knee, to a push in the back, to biblical events such as scorpions falling from the ceiling, and bed bugs, and termite infestations, and floods, and other things. It just made me realize that the life I was living, I had built this great service to helping others achieve their goals, but I wasn't working to achieve making my own goals a reality.

And that's the brutal foundation that I think all this stemmed from.

You and I share this lovely idea that we have this passion inside of us, and sometimes it gets covered up, and we end up living lives that we think are successful because society tells us that they are. And then we find ourselves in those moments. And you talk a lot in the book about the concept of intentionality. And I'd like to explore that with you for a minute, if you don't mind. I was really struck by the fact that not only do you bring up Thoreau's great quote, which is, The Mass of Men Lead Lives in Quiet Desperation. Inspiration, which is such a cornerstone of what's happening in the world today. But then you go very deeply into the concept of intentionality. And I think that this really is such an evocative part of your book. And here's what you say in the book. Here's what many people don't understand. The opposite of joy is not unhappiness. The opposite of joy is the lack of intentionality in our lives, leading to chronic hopelessness. This state of meaninglessness, akin to nihilism, is a dire condition where the very essence of existence loses all significance. Can you tell us your thoughts about intentionality when you started to see this as a critical aspect in your life?

And how did it set the foundation for your thoughts about passion's drive?

Yeah, Scott, thanks for opening up with that. That quote from Henry David Thoreau is daunting, and it's profound at the same time. And I think the fast-paced, success-driven society that we find ourselves in is becoming just more and more about people living in quiet desperation. And before I touch on intentionality, I just wanted to make this real for people because this is exactly what I felt. I felt like I was weighed down by all the burdens of the world, and I was stuck because we find ourselves in a lifestyle that we have to support. We have the burdens of our payments or a mortgage, the lifestyle that we're leading, and it is so difficult to break away from that. And instead, we go inward. And that's exactly what was happening to me. And I found myself in this state of complete apathy and numbness like I had never experienced before in my life. And it's something I wouldn't wish on anyone else, which is for another reason I'm trying to teach people how to break through and to not be in this quiet state. I think the statistics just alarming. If you look at what Gallup has put out in 2021 and 2022, they said that there are 900 million people in 142 countries who are unfulfilled with what they do in life.

There's also incredible research coming out of Cornell University, led by Tom Gilovich, where he ended up examining thousands of people who were near death, and he ended up asking them what was the greatest thing that they regreted in their lives. 76% of them came back with the same thing. It wasn't the mistakes that they made in life. It was the what ifs, the should haves. And it was this regret of not living their ideal self, of not trying to become that. And so it brought me really to this profound conclusion that just as empathy as a choice, being intentional about where we direct our lives is a choice. And this whole concept of intentionality really took on meaning for me because I'm a big fan of Angela Northwest work. So ecstatic that she helped me actually launch the book today in an episode of passion structure. It was incredible to have someone I admire so much on the show. And I remember reading her book and her talking about cadets at West Point and how it was through passion, perseverance, and physical ability that they say that these cadets graduated. And I thought about that.

And being a midshipman at the Naval Academy, which was a very similar experience, something to me, a dimension, was is missing. I learned that you can have all the passion and perseverance and physical ability that you want in life. But if you're not breaking it in alignment to your aspirations, your core values, and your ambitions, then you're going to Find yourself stuck or in places that are leading you to where you want to go. And intentionality, to me, really comes down to the choices that we make. Every single day, we get to make 60 to 90 and decisions. And so many of them, we end up doing on repeat. We find ourselves stuck in these lives of mediocrity. And being intentional is really aligning those choices or those actions with the ambitions and with the aspirations that we want in life. And to me, that's why it's so profound.

I think part of the wonderful nature of your book is the rich number of stories from luminaries, academics, theologians, thought leaders that you use to great effect in the book. And in talking about this, it reminds me of a story that you told about Mark Benioff, who had had a storied career at a very young age at Oracle and elsewhere, and then made a very serious left turn in his life. Can you describe that story and why that has something to do with the choices that we make about what really means something in our lives?

I have known Mark at this point for over 20 years. I originally met him when he was a vice president at Oracle, and I was a vice president at Lowe's. We were working on this solution to be the home contractor of choice for everyone in America. And as we were starting the pilot projects, we were using Oracle and some other tools to do it. And a little bit after that, he ended up leaving Oracle, which was pretty remarkable because he was the golden child. People thought he was going to replace Larry Ellison. I think he made vice president by the time he was in his mid to late 20s. And he asked Larry if he could go on a Savannah call. I think when he was 31 or 32. And I think he had reached a state that I had breached. I think he was facing quiet desperation. His career, although it was on Fongler, he didn't feel fulfilled by what he was doing. And so he really took a year off and got deeply immense into mindfulness practices and started exploring everything that he could about what is broken in the software industry. And one day, as he tells it, he was swimming with dolphins.

When this idea came to him that on-premise software, which was what everyone was using at that time, meaning running the software in your own data center, was something that could be disrupted. And there was another way of doing it by offering software as service. So he found that to be his life calling. Reenter me, again, now at a different point in my time at Lowe's, we are now one of the first Fortune 50 companies actually using Salesforce, and I re-invigorate my life with Mark. And unbeknownst to me, he lived right down the street from Michael Dell in Hawaii. And the two of them were having a conversation, and Michael signed a deal to implement Salesforce. And he asked, Merck, who would be the person that you would recommend to lead this church? And he mentions me. So it led me to go into Dell. And part of the deal was that when I went to Dell and was implementing this, Mark asked Michael if he could remember me to go on a series of talks throughout the world to talk about this revolution of cloud computing. And Scott, I just have to tell you, we sometimes were at a demo with four or five CIOs, all of them telling us that Merck's idea was full of crap and it would never go anywhere.

Sometimes we're in front of 10,000 people speaking on a stage. But the thing that just never left my mind was just how passionate he was about the pursuit of this problem. And he was never going to let anything get in the way. He was willing to risk it all, whether that meant reputation risk, whether that meant financial risk, whether that meant people telling him he was crazy. He was so convinced that he had this problem that was worth solving, that he was willing to pursue it to the ends of Earth. My journey from this state of quiet desperation to rebuilding it for a plant, it's a little to think about what was that order, that what made him different? What made him go from being stuck to the state he was in? And I happened to be talking to another long term friend, Keith Cratch, who's the former chairman and CEO of DocuSign. And I was explaining this concept to him. And Keith goes, John, what it sounds like is you're talking about someone who's stuck in their life and they become passionate. And the light bulb just hit. If you use that example of Mert Benioff, he felt so many of the qualities that I'll bring to life in this book.

So thank you for bringing that up.

Your stories about Katie Milkman and Angela Duckworth in creating this idea of intentionality and how that was birth was These are just priceless stories, and the book is so incredibly full of them. I want to talk just for a moment. We've now introduced the term of passion struck. I don't want to let it get past us without hearing your views on what that really means to you, what it means to lead a passion struck life. You wrote in the book, Becoming passion struck isn't a destination. It is the never-ending pursuit of harnessing all that you are in service of realizing your best self so you can help to elevate the bar for the rest of humanity. Now, I know that you and I are very service-focused people. We believe very strongly that our destiny and our goal in life is to leverage who we are to serve others. But tell us more about what passion struck really means to you now that you have delved so deeply in it and do it every single day of your life. What is leading a passion struck life?

With a quote by Sharon Salzberg. And if people aren't familiar with Sharon, next to the Dalai Lama, she is probably one of the most recognized authors and prolific people around mindfulness and what that means in our lives. And she has this quote that I love that I'm going to read. She says, There's no commodity we can take with us. There's only our lives, whether we live them wisely or whether we live them in ignorance. And this is everything. And to me, that quote and what it means to be passion-struck correlates so well because being passion-struck is really choosing to live your life wisely. It's this inexplicable drive to mold your life in the pursuit of becoming your ideal self. If people aren't familiar with it, there's something called self-discrepancy theory that has three states in it. There's your actual self, which is who we are in our immediate sense. There's our odd self, which is who we think we should be because of the burdens and societal expectations that are throwing on us. And then it's our ideal self, who we could become. And I think so many of us end up living their life chasing our odd self instead of chasing our ideal self.

And that's the core difference about what it means to become passion stroke. It's undertakingaking transformative mindset and behavior shifts that are required to achieve this state. It's not just about what we do or aim to accomplish. It's fundamentally rewiring how we think, feel, and it's about transcending our conventional achievements to focus on a higher purpose, a purpose that is inextricably linked to one's core identity and values. And to me, that's really what differentiates individuals like Merck Benioff, Oprah Winfrey, Novak Yokevitch, astronaut Chris Cassidy, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, and others that I proofile in the book, because they have not just reached the pinnacle of success in their respective fields. They've shaped their lives to mirror their innermost values and aspirations And it's a relentless pursuit of personal mastery, where success for them isn't the destination, but a byproduct of the passion-strength life.

So with that, why don't we delve into the book itself, and And we'll talk a little bit about, first of all, how the book is structured. How did you decide to focus on mindset shifts, behavior shifts, and the psychology of progress? How was that decision made? And how did you lay out the book in a way that you thought would make the most sense to the reader?

I actually started thinking about this concept at this point about nine years ago. And as I was trying to do me research on how to build my my life back, I started to think about these exemplars that I just mentioned and what separates them from the rest of us. And if I could rebuild my life brick by brick, how do I do it? So I'm doing it more in alignment with the thought that they took. And so what started as me examining 5, 10 individuals over seven years turned into researching about 750 of them. And as I was doing this, I started to see certain patterns emerge. And it originally started with about 30 different things that I saw. But as I really looked at more and more people, I was able to narrow it down initially to 11 principles. And then late in the game, I added a 12th one, which we'll talk about later. But ironically, during the same period of me-search, I also started to get very deep into my own mindfulness practice and into studying psychology and behavior science and disciplines of alternative health. As I was looking at these different principles, it was remarkable that they each ended up correlating to behavior science or to psychology.

And it turns out that they equated to six shifts in mindset and six shifts in behavior. Let me just go through this a little bit because your mindset shifts are the first step where transformation begins. To me, mindset is extremely important because it our beliefs and our values, and it clarifies in who and why and influences how we approach challenges and opportunities. Then behavior shifts come into play because once our mindset gets recalibrated, the next logical progression is to do shifts in behavior. This is where perseverance becomes so crucial because our behavior is the what. It's the direct reflection of our mindset dictating how we act in pursuit of our goals. And then the way that I brought this all together is if you have those two things, nothing is going to happen without deliberate action underneath them, fueled by intrinsic motivation. And so that became really the four components of the book. It's arranged into three sections: mindset shifts, behavior shifts, those 12 make up the Asha Start framework, and then the psychology of progress, which is really this combination of intrinsic motivation, deliberate action, and an overall sense of mentoring in our lives.

I love these shifts, and they all have spectacular descriptors, the mission the Angler, the brand reventor, the fear confronter, the perspective harnesser, the action creator. These are the mindset shifts. But I'd like to focus on one, and you and I have talked about the fact that the mosquito auditor, it really requires and engenders this significant mindset shift. I absolutely loved this chapter. It begins with a question or something you had seen on television where someone had asked what the most dangerous animal was. And one oftentimes thinks of a shark, for example, as being the most dangerous creature on Earth. It's very much not that. Can you describe what you learned about mosquitoes and how that relates to the concept of the Mosquito Auditor?

Yeah, sure, Scott. So as I was approaching this chapter, I was thinking about the framework on how you build your life. And the first principle that I talk about is something called a Mission Angling, which is all about how do you become a life cruiser. The second principle is about how do you constantly reinvent yourself? Something I call brand reventor. So if you think that you've now figured out this path you want to take to becoming your ideal self, and you're going down the path of reinventing yourself, what's the first thing that's likely going to happen? You're just showing up very differently in the environments that you find yourself in and then the people who surround you, and they're going to see something that's different. The way to look at this is something that Jona Berger calls Invisible Influences. And so I was wondering, what do I do with this chapter? And I was on this walk. I happened to turn on, as you mentioned, a program, and the announcement came on and said, we're just the most dangerous animal on the planet. And he asked everyone to comment on it. And the audience was coming back, like you said, with sharks, or snakes, or spaters, or jellyfish.

And it wasn't even remotely close. The mosquito kills more people in a year than all the sharks put together will kill in 100 years. It was an outstanding number, like 1.5 to 2 million people per year. And yet, when we think about the mosquito, especially since I live down here in Florida, where we have a None of them. They're almost invisible. I mean, a lot of times we didn't even notice that they're there until they bite us, or they're a nuisance and we have them blazing, but we just swath them away. And it got me thinking that the same is true for the human mosquitoes who perpetrate our lives. And I just wanted to make the contrast because you brought up Shurfs. And to me, I introduced this in the book because we think that the sharks are these dangerous animals. Well, if you When I think of shows like Shark Tank and Matt Higgins, who is a shark, they're often the mentors that we have in our lives, and they're the people who show up helping us. Whereas these mosquitoes are typically influences, environments, people who are driving us away from the very ambitions and aspirations that we had.

I thought I would do this in a fun way, and so I came up with three different names for these. There are more mosquitoes in this, but I wanted to at least give the reader a starting point. And I define them as the blood sucker, the invisible suffocator, and the peeding. And so the blood sucker, you can think, as Terry Cole, my friend, likes to point out, the boundary destroyers. These people just want to dry on every bit of blood that they can. They ignore your professional and personal boundaries. They make intrusive demands of your time. They question your decisions. They give you unsolicited advice. That leaves you feeling undermined and disrespected. I think we can all relate to those. The invisible suffocator are those pessimists in our life who engage in constant complaining, which contamin in the mood and morale in a team environment or destroy the dynamics of a friend group or family situation. This is like the aunt or uncle who's at the family meal where you tell them you've got this great job opportunity, can only tell you about the negative things that are going to come with pursuing it. And then the peters, we sometimes refer to as pieces of work.

I refer to them as pain in the asses. But these are those people who thrive on drama and conflict. They instigate disputes, they gossip, they create tension and discomfort, and really just ramped havoc on our lives. And so what I really want to do in this chapter is give you this idea of what these mosquitoes are so that you can do something about them. And an easy way to start this journey is just picture you're looking at a target where you're shooting a bow and arrow and imagine a bullseye a couple of concentric circles. And just take 10, 15 people from your life and put five in each concentric circle and win them against this test. Were any of them these mosquitoes? If so, you got a major boundary issue happening. And now, at least, it gives you the ammunition to recognize and then to do something about it.

You have something at the end of the chapter. And by the way, for everybody listening and watching, there is a great deal of information. There resources, QR codes with bonus materials. And I love the fact that there are tangible actions at the end of every chapter. So just to expand on this just for one second, because I love this concept of the Mosquito Auditor, is that you take us through the ability to conduct a mosquito audit, which includes the following steps: identify the energy drains, reflect on your inner circle, evaluate the impact, set boundaries, and seek supportive relationships. So you're, in essence, helping us walk through this process of deeply understanding who in our lives are serving us, who are fulfilling that role that you so ably bring out about the mosquitoes in our lives. Have you heard anecdotes or responses from anybody who you've shared this concept with? Have you heard this resonate with others?

This has got to be one of the topics that has resonated more with anyone. And I ended up being asked to do articles on it in Chief Executive magazine, CEO World, and built in three great publications. You think about how much toxic environments inhibit us. Who hasn't worked in one where you've got coworkers or it could be your boss who's one of these mosquitoes. And it is just something that I think, Rick, we have it on all of us, professionally and personally. So this one really struck a cord with a ton of people.

In In the behavior shift section of the book, you have a chapter entitled The Conscious Engager, which I understand was amongst one of the final ones that you panned. I'm hopeful that you can share with everybody the significance of this chapter for you, and why was it so meaningful for you to write this chapter?

This chapter wasn't originally in the book. I think it was the last chapter, this or the one on the different steps you take on the to become impassion struck. These were the last two chapters I wrote in the book. And this one happened after I had done an interview with Gloria Mark, who's a professor at the University of California, Irvine, and she wrote this book called Attention Span. I I also interviewed a gentleman named Dan Dupani about the same time who's a Hindu priest who wrote a book on Unwavering Focus. And they correlated for me. We live in this digital world right now where our attention span has gone in the past decade from being interrupted once every 8 to 10 minutes to what Gloria puts on a new book is every 45 seconds for some. And it got me really thinking about the life that we're living in. And so many people use the term autopilot. And I think we do find ourselves in this repetitive notion that autopilot convinces. However, what I What I like about the term autopilot is that when you're not autopilot, you're still going typically in a positive direction.

You're still pointing the plane towards a destination. I don't think that's how the majority of people today are living. I think so many of us, and I found myself living this way, can be described more like a pin in the game of pinball, where we are so distracted by everything that's around us, all the bells and whistles of life, all the social media, all the social pressure that's hitting us, that we end up just bouncing the way through our days. And days become months and months become years. And we find ourselves in this pinball existence. And the way that you have to break free from that is by developing the skillset of unwavering focus about the main thing in your life. This chapter reminded me of a sermon that I heard from one of the most prolific ministers I ever went to when I lived in Mooresville, North Carolina. And he did this sermon one time that the main thing about the main thing is keeping the main thing, the main thing. Which, I mean, it sounds jokingly obvious, but it is so difficult to do. In fact, my friend Jim McKelvie, the founder of Square, who I interview in the book, says that the biggest thing he sees that disrupts startups is that they lose the main thing because they get distracted by so many other things, that they lose the inherent value of what they were trying to accomplish to begin with, that major problem that they were trying to solve.

This is something that I saw Mark Benioff do extremely well. He was so focused on that main thing that everything else was just noise. And Steven Covey, who I talk about in this chapter, has a great way for you to think about this. So let me set this up. So there are two ways that you can look at your priorities in life. The best way to do this is to look at your calendar and your checkbook. Where are you investing your time and where are you spending your money? And here's what Steven Covey says, If something is important and it's urgent, then you need to do it. If it's important but it's not urgent, then plan it. If it's urgent but it's not important, then delegate it. If it's neither urgent nor important, then eliminate it. I think it's such a simple framework to use to apply to so many of the decisions that we in daily lives, but so few people do it. And in this chapter, I decided instead of honing in on living individuals, I thought I would go into two stories of two of the most prolific leaders in history, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill.

And I'm just going to share a little bit of story about Abraham Lincoln, because I think we see him now as arguably the greatest president in US history. Yet what people don't realize is that for over 80 % of his life, he self-described himself as living in quiet desperation, as being a driftwood, just going along with the current like a pinball, just bouncing off of one thing to another until he found something so compelling, just like Mark Benieff did, that it lit this in found in him that he couldn't let it go. And slavery and abolishing it became his main thing, and he never determined from it. And from that point, his crew, slowly did. And so I think it's just important lesson, and that's what the whole conscious engager is about. Love it.

I can't let the time get away without talking about the topic of fear. It's something that you and I both ruminate on, think about, work with, try to harness. I know in our work in Scare Your Soul, it is all about pushing comfort zones and doing them consistently and doing them within a community. And you have a absolutely beautiful and powerful chapter about being a fear confronter. I want to read how you begin it very, very simply. Hopelessness is the enemy of aspiration. You are the most challenging critic you will ever face. So with that as a foundation, Tell us a little bit about being a fear confronter.

So Scott, I've got this dear friend Lisa Edwards, and she has this saying that she says to me repeatedly over the past five or six years, and it is so profound. When you look in the mirror, the person who's staring back at you is the greatest individual that you will ever encounter in your life. But in the same respect, that same person that you're looking at in the mirror is also the biggest competitor that you will ever find in your life. And this chapter is really about self-sabotage. And a concept that I often talk about as a way to help people visualize this is something that I call the visionary arsonist. We have this vision for these hopes and dreams and aspirations that we want in our life. And yet we arson the very things that would help us accomplish these goals. Because we become this visionary arsonist, we end up saying in our minds that we can't to life-changing opportunities, whether that's a cause of imposter syndrome, perfectionism, our own limiting beliefs, fear, whatever it is, we put up all these roadblocks in the way from achieving this remarkable life that's just on the other side of our potential to achieve.

This chapter really goes through how do you recognize that you weren't in fear? How do you recognize the fears that are inherently in your life. And then how do you become a fear confronter so that you can move from being a visionary or merciless to becoming that hero of your own story?

Can you give us a sense from your own personal life of what's scaring you these days. You've written this spectacular book. You interview every single week the top leaders in the world on so many relevant and powerful topics. What's keeping you at your edge? What's keeping you being a fear confronter these days?

If I'm honest, I'm about ready to go back out on the keynote circuit, and it's something that I haven't done in a while. I have never been a person who has been very comfortable keynote speaking, even though I've done a ton of them. I have an auditory and sensory processing disorder, and so I lose words, I mispronounce when I'm on stage. So it causes me a ton of anxiety. But I guess the way if I would use your scare your Soul model that I'm approaching this is you can either let that define you or you can do something about it to break through. And so I'm purposely I've laid myself into some pretty uncomfortable situations. For the past six months, I've been taking improv classes, and right now I'm doing long form improv, which, if anyone's done, is quite terrifying. I've also been deeply involved back in Toothmasters, put myself on a weekly basis into two situations where I'm having to push myself to become a better speaker. And this is something that I highlight in the book. This is just one example. But I think one of the biggest mistakes we make is we think that in order to change ourselves, we need to do something huge overnight.

The fact is, is whatever got you to where you were currently didn't happen overnight. So the only way you're going to get to where you want to go is by taking small micro choices that start building upon each other. And that's exactly what this example highlights. By putting myself in these situations, I'm making the choice to put myself in an uncomfortable situation. It's giving me the courage to then the next step. And once you do that, it ends up influencing so many other aspects of your life. And you see this thing happen pervasively across all of it. If I'm being completely honest, that would be the thing right now that you can be most grateful of.

Well, I love it. And I love how you are leaning into what you already know are some areas where some fear resides. And doing it in a way that is lively and fun but pushing comfort zones. I often find that it is the inevitable identity shift that occurs when we take those micro actions and we go from just being a person leading their life, taking little courageous actions to actually being a courageous person living life. And that shift opens up all kinds of possibilities for love and connection and depth and vulnerability. And the last topic that I'd love to explore with you today, and that is the topic of leadership. And for those who know you well and know a passion struck, the concept of leadership is something that seems to flow through so much of your work. And I'd like to explore with you the concept of self-leadership. You discuss in the book quite a bit about transforming leadership. And I'd like to know, how does it redefine self-leadership so that we're leading more intentional and passionate lives?

I believe that in order to lead anyone, whether that's your kids, people at work, anything in your life, it all starts with leading yourself. I think The thing that so many of us can't believe, and it certainly was, is the first thing that tends to go is our own self-care programs, our own self-awareness. And so to me, self-leadership really equates to mind mindfulness and self-awareness and self-compassion, and realizing that we don't have to look at things in our life in a linear way, that it's either or. We can look at it as both and. We can sometimes be self-critical and be self-compassionate. We can work on our mind and our body. The book redefines self-leadership as a holistic approach to living. It's really encompassing clarity of purpose, passion-driven decision-making, and the courage to pursue one's aspirations despite the obstacles that come in your way. It's this really deep dive into understanding one's true passions, values, and strengths And it's about setting a vision for your life, life-crafting it with your core identity and using your vision as the compass to guide your choices and options.

The book is so full of actionable ideas. You and I could have this conversation for absolutely hours on so many different levels. But for those that are newer to the passion struck mindset, the model that you lay out in the book, if somebody was just starting, what would you suggest that they do in terms of an actionable step, a micro-action? Where would you tell them to start?

So I'm going to take a skirt from you, actually, and I'm going to tell them that maybe they should do a courageous auction challenge. And what I'm going to describe is writing a fear letter. So write 11 to yourself, addressing a fear that's been holding you back, and be honest about it. What are your apprehensions and doubts? Portal your heart into the paper because this is a safe space for you to confront your fear. And then visualize that fear's impament that it's having in your life. What would it amount to if you come with this How would it transform your life for the better? What opportunities would it bring to bear that currently do not exist? And then once you do that, identify a small notion that you can take this week to face that fear head-on. It could be making a phone call. It could be signing up for a class like I did. It could be setting a meeting with a therapist or someone who is causing you issues in your personal life. Then take the leap. Commit to doing that courageous action through the the entire week. And then lastly, share the journey with someone close to you, or if you really want to be a Scare Your Soul participant, you can share it with Scott and I and put a hashtag on either Scare Your Soul or passion struck challenge and share it on social media.

But I think that is just one easy way, writing a fear letter that you can take a positive step after today.

Fantastic. Love it. You quote Oprah Winfrey in the book, and She says the following, passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you. And it is so clear to me, and it will be so clear to everybody reading this book, that this excites you. And your words leap off of the page. The concepts are powerful, and I cannot express how honored I am to know you, be a part of your world. I'm excited for everybody who is going to pick up this book and begin leading a more passion-struck life.

One thing I'll talk about is people ask me all the time, who's the book for? And to me, I was trying to write this for a diverse group of people. Because when you look at what Gallup is saying, and 900 million people are feeling this gap in their life, it's a lot of people. So there are really a few different groups that came to mind. One, these people who are stuck, and they're in this life that they just can't seem to pull themselves out of. How do you do it? How did I do it? Another one is, I dedicated the book to my two kids, Josh and Olivia. I want this to be the blueprint for high school students, college students or recent graduates on how you can lifecraft your life the way you want it to be. It could be for the high achiever who wants to get further in their career, but as Monjol Goldsmith says, What got you here isn't going to get you to where you want to go. So it gives you a skillset to understand where you are in your journey, and you can come into the model at any place and take steps to better it.

So it's those groups and even more.

Wonderful. Well, I know we are all going to see you on the biggest stages around the world. I have no doubt that your keynotes will be spectacular. Your improv training and all of the work that you've put in into making yourself a better person, and we're better for it because when you share your ideas, you allow us to be more passion-struck. And that's a very, very special thing. John, thank you so much for inviting me to be part of this And congratulations on your book launch. This is going to be a spectacular period of time for you and for everybody who gets to read this book.

Scott, it was such an honor. And I would just tell everyone, if you like passion-struck or anything that I'm talking about, then you will also love Scare Your Soul because Scott wrote just an incredible book, and has got his own movement, where he encourages you to take courageous apps, similar to what I'm talking about here, to change your life. Because that's all it really takes, is courage to want to change and then to take those necessary steps to do so.

Thank you, John. It's an honor.

Thank you, everyone, for joining. I hope you all love the book. I hope you find it as meaningful as my hopes will be for you to discover what passion struck means to you as well. So thank you very much for coming.

I hope you all enjoyed the show, and I wanted to thank everyone who wrote in this week, and especially those who tuned in to listen to today's episode. Videos are on YouTube at both our main channel at John R. Miles and our Clips channel at passion struck clips. Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passion struck. Com/deals. You can find me on all the social platforms at John R. Miles, and you can sign up for my personal development newslet newsletter, Live Intentionally at passionstruck. Com, or my work-related newsletter, Work Intentionally on LinkedIn. You're about to hear a preview of the passion struck podcast interview that I did with Morgan Housel, a mastermind in the world of finance, behavior economics, as well as psychology, and the author of the international best-selling book, A Psychology of Money, which has resonated with over 4 million readers globally. I engage Morgan in a thought-provoking conversation, diving into his latest work, Same as Ever, a guide to what never changes.

So I have no idea or neither does anybody else, When the next bear market is going to occur in the stock market. But I know with certainty how people are going to respond with greed and fear and uncertainty and their tribal influences and how they interpret the media and the incentives of investors, the incentives of advisors, the incentives of the media. That's never changed, and it will never change. So we know, even if we don't know what's going to change, let's put all of our attention in these things that don't. As a student of history, I'm always most excited reading history. When I read something that took place 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 1,000 years ago, and you realize that if you just change the dates on what you just read from 1823 to 2023, every word would fit right in. So when you find something that doesn't change, you know you found something that's particularly important in the world that you should put a lot of your focus and attention on.

Remember that we rise by lifting others, so share this show with those that you care about. And if you found today's episode useful, then definitely share it with someone who can use the guidance that we gave. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you care about. In the your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. Until next time, go out there and become passion struck.