The Kevin Miller Podcast

Randy Blythe is the lead singer and songwriter for the heavy metal band, Lamb of God. He writes and sings, you might call it yelling...even growling, very angry, aggressive, and dark music. He has the sordid past you would expect. Severe alcoholism. Jail time for manslaughter charges. You might be surprised, or not, that he's the son of a Southern Baptist pastor. And Randy has just written his sec...

I adore music. It moves me like few other things in existence. There was a time when my family and I watched America’s Got Talent, and it was the breakout singers that we most enjoyed. You may remember Mandy Harvey. Mandy was in college pursuing a vocal music education degree, then lost her hearing. She left the program to pursue other career options, but later returned to music. She ultimately la...

Wrapping up my series on binary thinking and our cultural propensity and judge and reject others with differing perspectives, I am interested in this concept of moral outrage. In my recent discussion with Fox TV personality Kat Timp, she stated that “Moral outrage is often rooted in self-esteem more than altruism.” I intrigued myself with the statement and went and researched it further. What I fo...

I feel if an alien came to earth today and looked at media, whether the news headlines or social media, they’d think we must be near war. Now, with the literal news media who is paid to get readers, they know the value of drama, and if it bleeds, it leads. But with social media, most of what I see we are just inflicting upon ourselves. Somebody makes a benign post that may showcase a like or disli...

In my previous episode I talked with Fox TV personality, Kat Timpf about binary thinking. Right, wrong, black, and white. And our cultural propensity to take a differing opinion or view or belief someone else has, judge them completely for it, and reject them. Kat experiences this frequently when people find out she works for Fox. They label and judge her and distance themselves. Even though they...

My perspective is that we are the most divided culture ever right now. Every issue is a trigger for everyone and you are required to stand on one side or the other or be deemed negligent or ignorant. And if someone aligns with a differing side or perspective, you need to distance yourself from them. To me it feels like we’ve fallen into the most strict, religious culture ever. Everyone has their s...

Talking about a good life feels like speaking to success. What makes it up? And we generally say that we must define this for ourselves. Agreed. However, my guest has been studying this for a long, long time, and to have a good life he’s found it boils down to three buckets. Categories if you will. Jonathan Fields has come to be known as “the good life guy.” He has a wildly popular podcast called...

In my show with TJ Powers, talking through his book, The DOSE Effect: Optimize Your Brain & Body By Boosting Your Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins, he lists out 20 activities to address all those brain chemicals, and I want to give it to you, whether you buy the book or not. If you can add just one to your day, you’ve at least done that to advocate for your mental well being and overa...

In our culture today, the concept of “slowing down” has little attraction. We are enamored with speed. So instead of trying to sell “slowing down” let’s look at what the point of questioning our speed is. Imagine going to hike the Grand Canyon. Or another nearby attraction, Las Vegas. And imagine if your goal is speed. Do you want to just get through either of them as fast as you can? Or would you...

I’m a very visual guy, so I often think of visual analogies to help me better conceptualize a concept. So imagine you are watching a video tape of yourself, sped up to show all your activities for a day. With special attention on how much time you are looking at screens and what you are looking at. How many times do you look at your phone? How many times on your computer are you viewing social med...

Sometimes an analogy comes along that just clicks. It takes information you may have heard before and helps drive it home. That is what happened with my guest in this show regarding the brain chemicals that fuel our drive and motive. TJ POWER is a neuroscientist and innovator in the area of mental health. His work focuses on providing easy-to-adopt, scientifically backed teachings that empower peo...

In the world of personal development you hear a lot of stories of people making huge changes. Rags to riches, zero to hero, and massive life turn-arounds. It makes for a great story, but is it relevant for us? In 2003 I was at a critical juncture in my life where I'd bit off more than I could chew. I abruptly quit my cycling career and business, moved my wife and three kids cross country and start...

Anytime a question like this is posed, you really expect that it’s bait to pull you in and emphasize in this case, how we really, massively need community. I’m not going to do that. I’m quite an introvert and I don’t often enjoy groups of people. I want to look at what community can look like for different people. My muse continues to be Ian Morgan Cron from his new book, The Fix: How the Twelve S...

A couple episodes ago in my conversation with Ian Morgan Cron on addiction and the benefits of 12 steps, he started off talking about the “great human ache” we all feel and are trying to address. Ian is a man of faith, actually an Episcopal priest along with all his other roles. For him the ache is an aspect of separation from God. That is his faith. It may not be yours. It may not be mine. But in...

I’ve often heard addiction debated, as to what really defines it. I typed into a search engine, “How do you define addiction” and this is what it showed; Addiction is when you have a strong physical or psychological need or urge to do something or use something. It is a dependence on a substance or activity even if you know that it causes you harm. It can impact your daily life. I don’t want to be...

Most everyone has heard of the twelve steps concept associated with Alcoholics Anonymous. I bring it here for all of us, whether you think you are addicted to anything or not, which is an arguable claim for anyone. Ian Morgan Cron is the bestselling author of The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery, which has sold over one million copies. He’s a psychotherapist, Enneagram teac...

I don’t think any of us chooses to wear a mask. But creating and wearing them is taught to us from early on. And in some cases, it’s a necessity to survive. Now here we are. Are we wearing a mask? More than one? I’m bringing an incredible show back from the archives. Lewis Howes is the host of the podcast, The School of Greatness, one of the biggest podcasts alive at this point. Lewis is a big, st...

With the big question and quest of what do we actually want for our lives, it strikes me that it is all just an effort to feel a certain way. We strive and strive for this and for that and to me it seems like a great mind game. I am not discounting the things we want to achieve, but I’m questioning some of what we do as a means to an end. I have found myself going after things I think I want. Then...

I recently posted a question on Facebook. The question was, “What is a book you have read, where you can honestly look back and say that after you read it, you made a tangible life-change for the better? What is the book, and what was the change?” About 75 people shared around 60 books. They could easily testify to the knowledge they received from the books, but very few could specify the change t...

I find that people are far more clear on what keeps them from having what they want, than being clear on what they actually want. The job, the kids, the money, the chores, the upbringing, the government, the economy, the devil, and an infinite list of culprits are to blame for keeping people down. For stealing their dreams. For keeping them from what they want. However I find that if you ask the q...

The catalyst for writing my book, What Drives You, was realizing what I most wanted for my children, was for them to know what they truly want, and wrap their lives around it. From this inspiration I realized that while I had always been driven, I had often been unclear what I wanted, and what I was driving toward. As time goes on, I continue to perceive that truly, clearly knowing what one wants...

I get to have deep conversations with people who have had great influence in the lives of so many people. Dr Henry Cloud became synonymous with the term boundaries after his groundbreaking book, Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life, and has influenced millions of people in doing just that, taking control of their lives. I was a mere 21 years old when Dr Cloud’s B...

In the industry of self-improvement and personal and professional development, we are all familiar with the concept of not quitting. Staying committed. But in my experience, personally and in working with so many other aspiring people, we very often confuse the meaning of staying committed and not quitting. Here is a quick analogy: the Superbowl is coming up soon. Each team is committed to getting...

My recent conversation with epic mountain climber Jenn Drummond, and my recent time with all my children has me again focused on the life I’ve emulated to others. I have much in my life I’m proud of, but I’ve also spent many, many years just grinding things out. I chose to have seven kids and adopt two more. Most people respond to that with respect and as if I’ve done something valiant. Maybe I ha...

In yesterday’s episode I was with Jenn Drummond, world-record mountain climber, and talked about her story of a near life-ending car wreck that changed her perspective on life and got her looking at living a life of significance instead of just the so-called cultural success. So she went after the world’s biggest mountains. Why was that significant to her? I’d say…who cares? You might look at clim...