The Kevin Miller Podcast

In today’s marketplace, it seems the best teachers, trainers, and guides must also become performers. We call it “content creators” and if you’re not devoting half or more of your time on camera or writing and posting memes, you just won’t get any traction. And I find many of the best teachers, trainers, and guides are not naturally the performing type, and they don’t want to be. And if they try,...

I revere people who have made a significant transformation to their identity. We like to celebrate people who have make huge accomplishments out in the world. But people who actually transformed who and how they are are now my heroes. Now my guest has some big, worldy accomplishments, but I invited him onto this podcast because of his personal transformation. Josh Peck is an actor, comedian, YouTu...

“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.” This is the quote by Holocaust survivor Viktor E Frankl that headlines a new book titled, Dealing With Feeling: Use Your Emotions to Create the Life You Want. The book comes from my guest in this episode, Marc Brackett. Mark is the founding director of t...

We are at an all time high of mental illness diagnoses. Some argue the reason is better diagnostic methods, others because we are just increasing in mental un-health. The discussion in this episode is in regards to the prevalence of mental diagnoses and the impact on individuals. In  Brene Brown’s bestselling book, Atlas of the Heart, she outlines 87 different emotions that are in and of themselve...

We all know the saying and the truth of how much we judge a book by its cover. I feel it is a dramatic metaphor for much of humanity. And I don’t minimize it either. I feel it’s our responsibility to address our “book covers.” I feel we are in a culture that gives a lot of attention to physical aesthetics. Whether it’s how we look or the car we drive or the phone we have and clothes we wear and on...

Here are three very popular topics that I don't think that many people are really driven by; Sell! Control! Lead! My experience however, is we all desperately want the ability to positively influence other people. We have people we care about. A world we care about. We have ideas and solutions we care about for addressing the pain and suffering in the world. We want to be able to impart value to o...

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes". Said Benjamin Franklin. What are death and taxes? Arguably, losses. What is trauma and tragedy? I submit they are losses. And I feel we generally go about our lives, day in and day out, trying to avoid losses. Hoping "that doesn't happen to me." And yet, it's going to happen. We will have a financial fall. We will have a onc...

Who is the authentic you? Some people feel like they remember being an authentic self at some point, and I feel many never experienced it. But I feel we all long to just be comfortable being us. What does that look like? How does it feel? Following is a conversation I had with Dr Thema Bryant. Thema is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at Pepperdine University. She’s an ordained...

I feel we are experiencing a schizophrenic time in our culture where we adamantly believe in our opinions and perspectives, but we have very little true belief in ourselves. We are increasingly insecure and fragile and thus offended and threatened by everything. People seem scared of other people and I’m concerned it belies an innate fear of themselves as well. I grew up entrenched in the Christia...

As you know I seldom talk about current events on this podcast. But a few years ago I did address one. It was the 2022 Oscars where actor Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock. I did not see it and didn’t pay much attention, but then I saw a public statement made by Andy Andrews that caught my attention. I’ve known Andy for some time and had him on the podcast here three or so times and been a gu...

I breathe just to live. I walk to live. I eat, drink, and sleep to live. Is there a benefit to breathing more or differently than necessary? I walk more than necessary for my health and fitness and go so far as to run quite a bit. I don’t eat and drink more for my health but I eat better and drink better. I definitely sleep more than necessary for pure survival. So even though it’s never been a fo...

We all know we have an inner voice, whether it speaks out loud, you write letters in your head like I do, or it’s just the constant stream of thoughts and feelings running amok at all times. A frequent directive is to shut the voice up or ignore it. One this is impossible, and two, that voice is there for a reason and the opportunity we all have is to harness it for our personal success. Ethan Kro...

We all have a primary pattern of dealing with relational conflict. There are a scant few, in my experience, who do it with health and peace. The rest tend to fall into what psychologists have labeled, Fight, Flight, or Freeze tendencies. I’m not a fighter, and viewed myself as generally freezing in the moment of conflict, masked by thinking I was just being cool and calm, waiting for it to just en...

The self-help and personal development world gives primary focus to increasing our performance so we can achieve greater successes in our lives. And it’s true we all are capable of more. Nobody is performing at their max capacity. But we won’t outperform the level of ability we believe about ourselves and all we have to go on is the proof of what we have and haven’t done thus far. It brings to min...

A few nights ago I watched The Matrix with four of my younger kids after one said she didn’t remember ever seeing it. A group of my older kids had gotten together to watch it recently as well. I’m talking the 1999 movie starring Keanu Reeves. It depicts a concept where most humans are inert and simply plugged into a computer program living pretend lives in a virtual construct. There is then a smal...

“No regrets” is an American slogan along with “No Fear” and “Just Do It.” Yet more often than not we don’t “just do it,” having no fear is psychopathic, and having no regrets means you have no sorrow for ever hurting anyone or making a mistake. Regret is simply recognizing sadness or disappointment about something we did we wish we hadn’t, or we didn’t do and wish we had, and Dan Pink’s research s...

I’ve spent a lifetime doing. Achieving and building and creating and adding. And now I find that what I most want is peace. I’m 54 and I’m tired. Not physically tired. But emotionally. The past four years have been a time of deconstructing and dismantling and letting go of most everything I held dear. I have encountered the most difficult time of my life and along with it the most enlightening tim...

I have done a number of podcasts on calling, but as I don’t believe anyone has the definitive definition of what a calling is and what your’s might be, I am a fan of a continued discussion with various experts. I spent many years talking about calling and purpose as some holy grail discovery. Even as I did so many different things vocationally and personally, all the while feeling very fulfilled a...

Do we all have some creative ability in us? Yes. Can we learn and grow to be more creative? Yes. Should we all be living as “creatives?” I question this. But what creativity we have, whether it’s art, ideas, businesses, innovations, or solutions to problems, how can we best go from the idea or concept, to actually doing and delivering something? I don’t want to do something with every creative ide...

In my experience almost everyone has a platform that provide the possibility and opportunity of influence. As a parent, as a spouse, if you work with other people, if you are involved in athletics or go to church, if you’re in school and more. Basically with anyone you are in consistent communication and/or proximity. Though to have influence you must have true relationships. And trust. And for th...

I’m tempted to start by saying, “If you’ve ever gone through a significant transition…” but I’m not going to. I bet everyone listening has had something end that they didn’t choose, and chances are 99.9% that you didn’t come through unscathed. In this episode I’m going to share a message that has been a guiding light to me in recent, difficult times. Every week you tune in to hear me talk with an...

Therapy gives much focus to our past, where modern day success coaching is focused primarily on the future. I advocated coaching and had no interest in the past. That is, until I realized I wanted to understand why I kept repeating the same patterns. Today I feel both are needed in order to better understand ourselves. In the field of positive psychology the idea is to look at your past, and while...

Welcome. I'm Kevin Miller and this is a podcast for your personal evolution.  In this episode  Will A Better World Really Benefit Us & If Not - What Actually Will I’ve struggled with technology and conveniences and efficiency for a long time. All our human advancements with tech and now AI and such are promoted as if they will finally make everything better and us, happier. But I have not experien...

The two primary ingredients we think of in regards to success is talent and hard work. We tend to believe greatness comes from having above average talent and putting in your 10,000 hours. Yet if we audit everyone who has achieved relative success, we find many, maybe even most, do not have either of these. So what did they do? They just figured out what works and modeled it. Ron Friedman is an aw...

We as humans tend to look at most everything with a linear perspective. Like every day and our lives are a straight trajectory that is either getting better or worse, depending on the day. We look at our desires as goals and work towards them sequentially, expecting to get closer every day on this so-called, straight line. My guest in this episode is a neuroscientist who believes this is an errant...