The Kevin Miller Podcast

This is not about working at your passions, or as my Dad, Dan Miller was famous for, finding the work you love. This is more about the tasks and activities you are engaging with in whatever work you are doing. Think about it like a football team. They are all playing football but they aren’t all playing the same position. So in the daily work you do, what position most excites you? What role are y...

As you may have heard on previous episodes here, I’ve grown a distaste for the concept of validation. It seems everyone wants to talk about their feelings and perspectives and then claim their right to be validated, even if their feelings and perspectives are incredibly misguided and harming themselves and others. I began putting my focus on self-validation and fulfilling the need internally inste...

The answer? I fervently believe there is no one answer. After a lifetime pursuing personal performance and human potential, I struggle with anyone who claims to have a so called solution for what it takes to transform us. But, are there principles? And can we gain understanding of core concepts that are nuanced from one person to another? This I do have faith in. So we’re going to talk with someon...

My only family heirloom is my Dad’s 1960s stereo console he had at boarding school. As a kid my parents listened to the music of that time and I’ll always have a special place for the likes of Barbra Striesand, The Bee Gees, and James Taylor. Around the age of seven a family friend gifted me with a transistor radio and though I had a couple dogs, my best friend became music, and the love affair no...

In the past year and a half much of my research on personal evolution has been around the concept of reality and how we perceive it, or rather, how we do not perceive it. As I gear up to offer you some new and I feel revolutionary concepts, in this episode I’m replaying a conversation I had on the topic of reality, with best selling author Jon Acuff. Jon is the New York Times bestselling author of...

One of the greatest joys and fulfillments of life is helping another person. Not through the base obligations we have to family, but to reach out when we don’t have to and help lift another person up. But I find two problems that arise for most all of us; we don’t know where to plug in to really help others and when we do happen to see opportunities to serve they often feel ill fitting for who we...

Most people have heard of The Inklings, the informal literary discussion group based in Oxford, England in the 1930s and 1940s, known for fostering the writing and development of fantasy and other genres and specifically the greatest writings, and friendships, of authors such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, of The Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of The Rings fame. I am a great, great fan of Lewis...

Most of us think of ourselves as adults. But how often are we reacting and functioning with a lesser level of maturity and wisdom than we’d like? Than what is productive? My guest in this show is licensed therapist and holistic life coach, Michelle Chalfant. She has developed a psychological model called, The Adult Chair. She hosts a very popular podcast called, The Michelle Chalfant Show - Life f...

There is a lot of content out these days about attention, attention spans, and distraction. What is with the seemingly dramatic deficit we have with attention? I know for myself, I seem to look for distraction and struggle to focus, even when I’m greatly interested in what I’m working on. I make it harder for myself when I have access to all my internet connected devices. I’m bringing back a conve...

I find there are few things as intoxicating as someone who is really interested in you. You feel they care about you, they value you, and they are curious to hear about you. This is something you can define and do, if you understand the key components. So I have an expert on listening with us. But before I introduce them, one issue that stuck out to me was, the idea of becoming and being an expert...

Monty Moran is the former Co-CEO of Chipotle. He joined them when they had 8 stores and left after they had over 2,500 and their valuation grew from a few million to $23 billion over his decade with the company. This isn’t a podcast about business though. I had Monty on the show because he cites his main key to the success from having one-on-one conversations with Chipotle employees, connecting th...

When you read messages on spirituality, you will find many references on the dangers of what we are attached to. I grew up on the Bible which I feel taught attachment to nothing but God. In recent years I’ve followed the works of Anthony de Mello and Dr David R Hawkins on the dangers of attachment, from a spiritual standpoint. Now however, someone came to focus on attachments from a clinical psych...

I’m bringing back a conversation on the power of reading. Now, this isn’t something you haven’t heard of, but I think we forget the gravity of it, and I want to give quick focus to some new research I’ve done recently. My conversation here is with Jeff Brown, host of the Read To Lead podcast and author of the book, Read To Lead. As you’ll hear, we don’t want to simply read and expose ourselves to...

Our focus is, intuition. When is the last time you even heard that word, much less gave it any attention. When a book on intuition came across my desk, I was hooked. As I studied it, my focus turned toward trust, and faith. What do you put your trust and faith in? For all those who immediately say God, I’m going to ask you to stop, and really consider. God may be one of the things you put trust in...

“I would like to be measured by what the people who learned from me taught other people.” This is what my guest said, and I’ve never forgotten it. Seth Godin is one of the premier voices of business in our generation, and he was one of my first guests when I was host of The Ziglar Show, and this was the second time I had him on a show. Seth is well known for his innovative thinking and insight int...

Would you like to be better at getting yourself to move? When you have an overall desire, but find yourself struggling to take the first step and just get going? I think we all do in certain areas of our lives and from what I experience it is getting worse. So I’ve brought on an expert and we’re going to exaggerate the point to help us better conceptualize what is happening when we don’t move and...

Notice I said “spirit” and not “spirituality.” To me they overlap, but this is not a faith based message. Our focus is, your spirit, which I think of like your energy and your “vibe” if you will. Thinking on spirituality, I grew up in a religious construct where many people who were devoted to their spirituality, had very poor and lacking spirits, in my experience. Think of people in your life who...

When COVID hit we all wore masks, so as not to infect each other or get infected. I and many others perceive that a more dangerous virus is among us, and it’s a victim mindset, which results in a victim identity. So how can we protect ourselves? My guest is Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph. D., a cognitive psychologist who is among the top one percent most cited scientists in the world for his groundbreaki...

What began as a discussion on whether our work must really be so important ultimately came to our need to know ourselves and what really fulfills us individually. And while yes, having meaningful work is profound to the joy of our lives, it’s also not meant to be the end all to our purpose and calling, but a tool. For this conversation I brought on Dan Miller, celebrated career leader and author o...

I’ve given focus to how we perceive our stories. We’ve also looked at toxic positivity and the damage of just trying to paint a pretty picture. We all encounter circumstances and events in our lives that challenge us. From massive traumas and tragedies to just disheartening disappointments. They all matter in regards to how we go forward in life. Following is a conversation that does not culminate...

A book landed on my desk a few years ago called, Ask - The Bridge from Your Dreams to Your Destiny. And lo and behold the author was Mark Victor Hanson and his wife Crystal. Mark is cited as one of the bestselling authors of all-time, as he is credited along with Jack Canfield for the entire Chicken Soup For The Soul franchise which has sold over half a billion books. I took the opportunity to tal...

Most everyone is aware of their personality style. You’ve likely taken one or five personality tests and quizzes where you answer a bunch of questions about yourself. What are your propensities and predispositions? I appreciate them all and have found some value from each in helping me understand and get some insight into myself. Yet I’ve also struggled with them being self-reporting. I find it ha...

I feel most of us are looking for a bit of new knowledge, something to help us improve our results. Kind of like weight loss and you just want to drop 5 or 10 pounds. So you make some little shifts and changes. Then you have someone like a friend of mine who went from morbidly obese to losing well over 100 pounds. Such a life change. This is a story of someone who made a massive change in who and...

I grew up in the world of self-improvement when personality profiles became popular. The idea then was you had a core personality style and it was pretty solid, like your hair color. Culturally we like to label people’s personalities, “She’s a classic type A personality,” and “Oh, he’s super introverted.” In regards to changing one’s personality, I question if we want to change who we are, or just...

I find that when we communicate with others, in any way, we are either helping or hurting our relationship with them. Yet every day, more and more of our communication is digital. I cut my relationship teeth as a kid on Dale Carnegie’s book, “How To Win Friends and Influence People.” But this assumed we were face to face. How do we win friends and influence people from a digital perspective? A few...