The Kevin Miller Podcast

#945: Jon Acuff is the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including his most recent, Soundtracks, The Surprising Solution To Overthinking, which is our muse today. This is the second time I've had Jon on The Ziglar Show and he has a knack for bringing profound personal development messages to us in an entertaining and highly digestible perspective. I admire his way to connect with w...

#944: I like mind games because I think that’s what life primarily is. In this episode I wanted to get us focused on what counsel we most desire if it was critical. I asked the Ziglar audience this question; “You must spend 2 hours with someone for pure Q&A, you ask questions, they give answers. Who do you choose? And why?” People came back with answer such as Adam Grant, Matthew McConaughey, anyo...

#943: How would Zig Ziglar’s kid build a business? What you’re about to hear is a grassroots story from Julie Ziglar Norman, Zig Ziglar’s eldest daughter. If you were fortunate enough to hear one of Zig’s last talks, he was always accompanied by Julie to keep him on the target of his message after his fall that would find him sometimes repeating himself. Following his death and the death of her hu...

#942: Which is good news, as that’s a lot of pressure. As you’ll hear in this show, we are all co-creators standing on the shoulders of everyone who we have gleaned from, whether it’s a parent, mentor, coach, or author. The big opportunity is we don’t have to invent something new. And in truth, nobody does. Everything we know, we got from someone. We get to build on it, or just give a different pe...

#941: I’m back with Diana Pavlac Glyer, the award winning writer who spent 40 years studying all things C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien with a special focus on the power of their infamous writer’s group, The Inklings. We’re back for part two as I focus on taking the essence of what propelled these writers to bring monumental works such as Lord of The Rings and Chronicles of Narnia, and discussing how...

#940: We have feelings and emotions we can’t control. We might be able to control our reactions and responses, but our thoughts...they often run amuck. In this episode I pulled out a well known quote from Napoleon Hill, which reads, “You have absolute control over just one thing, your thoughts. This divine gift is the sole means by which you may control your destiny. If you fail to control your mi...

#939: Mastermind groups are very popular, but so is dissatisfaction with them. The benefit is peers coming together to provide support and counsel to each other and to do so effectively requires trust, structure, and some deft facilitating. Diana Pavlac Glyer has intimately researched one of the most successful and well known mastermind groups of all time, which interestingly did not at all call a...

#938: Tom Ziglar recently quipped during a recording, “Do my core beliefs limit or unleash my potential?” It stopped me, as the question itself flips our paradigm. We inherently think our beliefs are simply based on facts. That’s what a belief is, right? And yet what we find in the following conversation is our beliefs can be held in a way that as Tom said, limits us, or unleashes our potential. A...

#937: I’m back with neuroscientist Dr Amishi Jha who schooled us on the power of our attention and what we give it to, in episode 935. This time we talk through her personal habits for success. As you heard in the intro from her, we got into meta awareness, which to me brought me back to something comedian Michael Jr said to me in our recent show together, where he referenced “thinking about what...

#936: I asked the Ziglar audience this question, “If I asked you to tell me the positive attributes of someone in your life whom you like and respect, you'd easily do it. However, if I asked you to rattle off the positive attributes of yourself, how does it initially feel? Can you readily conceive of it or does it set you back a bit?” The responses were compelling. Almost everyone said it caused t...

#935: Dr. Amish Jha is a professor of psychology at the University of Miami. She serves as the Director of Contemplative Neuroscience for the Mindfulness Research and Practice Initiative. Dr. Jha’s work has been featured at NATO, the World Economic Forum, The Dalai Lama's Vision Summit, and The Pentagon. She has received coverage in The New York Times, NPR, TIME, Forbes and more. She is the author...

#943: Zig shares with us that while earthquakes and hurricanes get all the press, much more damage is done overall by termites, who take such small bites we can’t even detect it with the human eye. But take enough over time and they can completely destroy a home. Now take that on a positive spin and it’s the small, consistent, and sometimes seemingly innocuous things we do everyday that lead to ou...

#933: I bring you the habits of former Chipotle co-CEO, Monty Moran. As you hear in the intro, he provides a significant perspective on the concept of what we’d say is doing the right thing, but relating it to our very tangible self interest. If flies in the face of authoritative leadership and management principles the corporate world was originally based on. Which of course is why his story of t...

#932: Look at all the people you follow and let influence you. They are known for something specific, but so often in our business and personal pursuits, we miss this point. It doesn’t mean that thing is all you can offer, but it gives people a needed reference point if you’re to stand out from the crowd at all. Examples from guests on my podcasts: - Dave Ramsey is known for guidance to financial...

#931: In this episode I’m joined by Monty Moran, former Co-CEO of Chipotle. He joined them when they had 8 stores and left after there were over 2,500 and their valuation grew from a few million to $23 billion over his decade with the company. What is interesting is what he cites as the key to the success, and it came from one-on-one conversations with employees, and connecting the company mission...

#930: Even with the best intent we often find ourselves “telling and selling” to influence others. Whether it's to get someone interested in our product or service, trying to express our opinion and perspective on social media, or striving to get employees, coworkers, or our kids to do something. We convince and convince and convince and get frustrated with our lack of influence. In this episode I...

#929: I’m back with Jeff Brown who was with me in episode 927 to talk about the message of his podcast and book, both titled, “Read To Lead”, where our focus was the power of reading and specifically reading to learn, for our daily opportunity to learn and grow and increase our ability and opportunity. This is my habits episode and we talk and walk through Jeff’s daily habits for success. As you h...

#928: In this clip from Zig, he surely does not negate making and having money. He was always outspoken about his joy of nice things. A nice house with a big pool, nice cars, nice clothes and vacations. But in this clip he balances those things with... if they came at the cost of his health or relationships, especially being a devoted father to his kids, he would have been a broken hearted man. Bu...

#927: Voracious reading is going to benefit you by exposure alone. But ultimately the point, or at least the opportunity, is to learn. We all have the access, every day, to life changing books where we can learn from the life lessons and wisdom of the world’s most successful people. Reading however is not by proxy learning and growing. We can read and not ingest. And are we reading the information...

#926: The only thing that makes us any different throughout our lives is the new information we are exposed to and whether it inspires us to take action on it. In this episode I share a story from Zig Ziglar about a very mediocre guy who literally, accidentally stumbled upon a personal development resource that then led to a radical, fairytale life change. From this I asked Ziglar listeners, “If y...

#925: I’m back with Stephen Scoggins, whose rags to riches story I shared in episode 923, and this time we are talking through his personal habits. He shares a lot of heartfelt lessons that resulted in habits which pulled him from homelessness to $100 million dollar businesses, such as the clip I led off with in the intro. You’ll hear multiple concepts on habits that will give you ideas for yourse...

#924: Whose work is better today than it was pre COVID? And why? This is the question I posed to our audience. Tom Ziglar and I talked through the comments and of interest you’ll hear, what business did well, and why. Of more importance however you’ll hear Tom talk about what the uncertainty of the past 18 months has done for businesses and how we must all respond, across the board, as with things...

#923: Stephen Scoggins has a great story of rags to riches that you're about to hear. He had a humble beginning in construction. He was given a chance by a mentor and turned it into success and money at age 21. Then he squandered it all. He betrayed trust. He ended up homeless and almost took his life. He asked his mentor for a second chance, and it was given. Stephen credits his mentor for saving...

#922: Tragedy, trauma, a setback, a challenge. A lack. A break. Those things will never happen to you, right? I often go about life with that perspective, but I know better. I've experienced such things and it's not pessimistic to think something hard will likely happen. So what am I doing now to prepare to weather the storm? I have a clip from Zig Ziglar telling a story of overcoming, made possib...

#921: “I would like to be measured by what the people who learned from me taught other people.” Seth Godin is one of the premier voices of business in our generation. He’s known for his innovative thinking and insight into what I’d cite as business and vocational reform. He’s a true leader in that he’s attracted a massive following of the business world who look to him daily for commentary on what...