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, it might be embarrassing. So the gap grows between them and the performers who are grabbing the spotlight, getting the attention, and quite possibly selling an inferior offering. What do we do? My guest today is an expert in the world of personal branding. Rory Vaden. I’ve known Rory for about a decade and watched him become one of the greatest influencers to the world’s greatest influencers. His expertise is in studying the psychology of influence – which he defines as the ability to move ourselves, and others, to take action. He’s become a personal advisor to many of the world’s biggest personal development influencers including: Lewis Howes, Ed Mylett, Amy Porterfield, Trent Shelton, Jasmine Star, Eric Thomas, Dr. Caroline Leaf, John Maxwell and more. He is a very in demand speaker and best selling author. His business, Brand Builders Group, has grown to be a powerhouse for personal branding. But you are about to hear a very sobering conversation. You will hear Rory admit that much of the marketing game today disgusts him. And, if we have something of value, we don’t need to become something we are not or do things we don’t agree with, but we do need to care enough about helping people that we are willing to play the game to a degree. Even if it’s not totally comfortable for us. His new book is titled, Wealthy And Well Known: Build Your Personal Brand and Turn Your Reputation Into Revenue. We talk through some of my frustrations, talk about options and solutions, and in the last quarter of the show talk about the necessity to be primarily known for…one thing. And how he believes you are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. You can get Rory’s book, Wealthy & Well Know, totally free, if you’ll go to freebrandaudiobook.com/kevinmiller Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, YouTuber, and social media star. He rose to fame in a lead role in the Nicleodeon sitcom, Drake & Josh, from 2004-2007. More recently he starred in the Disney+ Series, Turner and Hooch and I actually saw him a few weeks ago in an episode of HBO’s original series, The Last Of Us. But his story comes from a troubled home. Josh became…fat. The fat kid. To offload the teasing, he turned to being funny. His run on the Drake & Josh show as a childhood actor was literally as the funny fat kid. The show got cancelled, he turned to drugs and alcohol. Lost all his fat. And didn’t know who he was. He finally wrote about it all in a book titled, Happy People Are Annoying. You’re about to hear about Josh’s journey first hand. You can find Josh anywhere you type in Josh Peck. When we talked here he had 13.3 million followers on Instagram and I saw he now has almost 17 million. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“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 the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a professor in the Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine at Yale University. Marcs research for over 25 years has focused on the role of emotions and emotional intelligence in learning, decision making, creativity, relationships, health, and performance. The quote from Viktor Frankl that came from his time in a concentration camp, and that Marc has devoted his life to, is saying that no matter what happens to us, we get to choose how we respond. And my experience of humanity is that no matter what happens to them, even great traumas, tragedies, and victimizations, what harms them more than the incident or event is how they conceive of it and how they respond. My concern is that culturally we have come into a place where we don’t believe this. We feel it is our right and it’s just, to respond to pain, with pain. And to say otherwise is actually offensive. Looking at the mental health stats these days, I don’t think this perspective is working. This is the conversation you’re about to hear with Marc Brackett. Marc previously authored the bestselling book, Permission To Feel and most recently, along with Pinterest co-founder Ben Silbermann, Marc and his team co-created the Apple award-winning app, HowWeFeel, that was designed to teach emotion skills and enhance well-being. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 themselves, normal and healthy. But when do we go over the line from normal to abnormal? From feeling some depression to being clinically depressed? Having anxiety or an anxiety disorder? Do we need or want an official diagnosis so we can get needed help? Or do we want to deny and boycott any such limiting label? I’ve brought on an expert to discuss it. Sarah Fay is an author, educator, and activist on the issue and has a book titled, Pathological: The True Story of Six Misdiagnoses. Sarah from a young age displayed some unhealthy behaviors and was diagnosed, labeled, and treated. Over the next 30 years she went on to have multiple clinical diagnoses and labels for Anorexia, Major depressive disorder, Anxiety disorder, Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Obsessive compulsive disorder, Bipolar disorder, and has also dealt with alcoholism, being a compulsive exerciser, and many bouts being suicidal. You name the drug, she’s been prescribed it and taken it. Today…she is well, though still accepting of a couple diagnoses and medications, but has much to educate and warn us about regarding our current culture which has nearly half of all Americans being given an official, clinical diagnosis during their lifetime. Sarah Fay writes for many publications, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, and The Paris Review. She is also on the faculty at Northwestern University. She’s the founder of Pathological: The Movement, and you can her at sarahfay.org. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 and on. But I amaze myself with what seems a stark lack of attention to what’s behind the physical accouterments. A big one is how we talk. How we communicate. My guest is communication expert, Michael Chad Hoeppner. Michael is an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School and the CEO and president of GK Training, a firm dedicated to giving individuals and organizations better communication skills. He is a speaking coach to…a long list of incredibly impressive people and organizations. Michael is alone a leader among a growing chorus of voices identifying the link between the physical aspects of spoken communication and broader issues of health and wellness. He has a new book titled, Don’t Say Um: How to Communicate Effectively to Live a Better Life. But as you’ll hear, the title is a bit tongue in cheek. The concepts we discuss go far deeper than our cultural propensity to say, “um, er, like, and you know.” How we speak often gets us judged, for better or worse, much more than what we speak. But we don’t get it. We are intent on what we are saying and talking about and miss how we are delivering it. But how we are communicating really does bely who we are. Using filler words and not addressing our body language doesn’t just make us sound dumb, it honestly questions what level of personal security and confidence we actually have. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 others. This is what influence is. The definition of influence is, "The capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something." A few years ago I sat down with Zoe Chance to discuss what influence really is and how to increase our personal influence. Zoe teaches the most popular class at the Yale School of Management, titled, “Mastering Influence and Persuasion." Her research on behavioral economics, neuroscience, and psychology has been published in top academic journals and covered by the Harvard Business Review, The Economist, BBC, Time, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. Zoe's TEDx talk, How to Make a Behavior Addictive, has more than 700k views. Before coming to Yale, she earned a doctorate in marketing at Harvard and managed a $200 million segment of the Barbie brand at Mattel. From Zoe’s Yale course, “Mastering Influence and Persuasion,” she wrote a book that caught my attention, INFLUENCE IS YOUR SUPERPOWER: The Science of Winning Hearts, Sparking Change, and Making Good Things Happen. Following is our discussion about what influence is, and is not and how to deftly wield influence so you can have the positive impact on the world you desire. Find the book, Influence Is Your Superpower anywhere you buy books and connect with Zoe at zoechance.com Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 once beloved relationship end. We will have a car wreck or house fire or disease. Almost 100% of people will agree it's wise to have money in savings, just in case. Why don't we have emotional understanding and strength in savings, for the loss that will come? My guest is Colin Campbell. On March 14, 2023 Colin and his wife were driving their car, both in the front seats. In the back were their two teenagers, Ruby & Hart. A woman who was driving drunk went through an intersection doing 90 miles per hour and never saw them or braked. She hit the car right at the passenger doors. And Ruby and Hart died that day, while Colin and his wife were able to walk away from the crash. What followed is the dramatic amount of grief you’d likely expect. Colin says, “I always believed, deep in my heart, that my life would just keep getting better and better.” Isn’t that all of us? Waking each day hoping and really expecting things to be ok, and we won’t get the dreaded call or have the accident ourselves. Now I sure don’t want to go about expecting tragedy. But, I have recently gone through the loss of my marriage and family home, two things I literally thought were impossible. I also have nine kids and multiple grandkids. I’ve lost my arrogance to think “that won’t happen to me” and my odds are plenty high that I’ll experience more significant loss. What can I be doing now, to be prepared? This is what Colin and I discuss in depth. Colin Campbell is a writer and director for theater and film. He teaches screenwriting at Chapman University and theater at California State Polytechnic University. Campbell’s highly anticipated solo performance piece titled Grief, will be performed in Los Angeles and New York City this year. His book that I got ahold of is called Finding the Words: Working Through Profound Loss with Hope and Purpose. Before we get started, let me give you this quote from Colin, “A profound loss is when you lose someone, and I’d add, “or something,” that you feel is entwined intrinsically with your identity. In  other words you define yourself partly in terms of this other person or thing.” Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She earned her doctorate from Duke University and completed her postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School. In the world of academia and psychology she is royalty. When we recorded this conversation, Thema was president-elect of the American Psychological Association. She is now president. Other top psychologists look to her for guidance. Thema has half a million people following her on instagram because she is her authentic self. You’ll find her dancing and see her efforts in-play to decolonize traditional psychology and meld science, spirituality and faith, and our very humanity. Thema has a book called, Homecoming: Healing Trauma to Reclaim Your Authentic Self,  and here we take a very base look at the real world issues and hope for today’s mental health desires. Find Dr Thema Bryant’s book Homecoming anywhere and everywhere, and connect with her at drthema.com. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Christian Bible which called us to “love our neighbor as ourselves.” But what if one does not…love themselves? Can we loathe ourselves and really love anyone authentically? In this podcast I sat down with Dr. Wendi Zimmer. Wendi is a #1 bestselling author, mindset expert, professor at Texas A&M University, educational consultant, and the owner of Learning Engaged. Wendi has her own story of struggling with imposter syndrome and self-doubt for many years. She ultimately developed a system to shift her mindset through a concept of self-belief and now spends her time guiding others to do the same. Her new book is titled, Force Continuum: How to Shift Your Mindset to Transform Your Life. A main structure that we walk and talk through is 1) Mindset - what do you want to believe about yourself? 2) Identity - How do you want to be seen? 3) Habits - what do you need to do to get what you want? and 4) Energy - what do you want to spend your time doing? I felt this was a very practical concept on auditing the key areas of our lives and tactfully addressing our mindset. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 guest on his podcast. I find him sober minded and insightful, so when he addressed the event, I took it as an opportunity to discuss the concept of our actions vs our intent. More on that in a minute. If you don’t know Andy, he is a multiple New York Times best seller with his book, The Traveler’s Gift selling many millions. He’s a highly sought for and highly paid speaker, he’s spoken for, by request, four different US Presidents. The New York Times cited Andy as “someone who has quietly become one of the most influential people in America.” I know Andy as someone many big influencers turn to for wisdom. He’s a sage of life changing lessons. So here we talk about the Oscar incident. I for one, feel that someone’s motive and intent behind an action should weigh in and be considered, and failure to do so is negligent. But regardless, many people take our actions at face value and the can have grave consequences. This is our discussion in this podcast. At the time this originally aired, Andy was launching a community called Wisdom Harbour, and  I wanted to have a frank discussion on what he saw as primary cultural needs and from a business interest, why he created the Wisdom Harbour community in response to it. You’ll hear much of his answer is around cultural literacy, but I’m going to take you behind the scenes on why he crafted it the way he did. Find Andy anywhere, just search for Andy Andrews. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 focus, it makes sense that the breathing I do to keep me alive might also give me a benefit if I did more than just the minimums to do so. Breathing brings oxygen into my body. More oxygen, more benefit. As you’re about to hear, the concept of breath and breathing is an incredibly frequent term in spirituality, appearing 137 times in the Bible alone, and it is not in reference to my physiology. In this podcast I sit down with Francesca Sipma, author of Unblock Your Purpose:  Breathwork, Intuition, and Flow State. She is the founder and CEO of Mastry, an online app that guides you through breathwork sessions. Francesca is also the creator of HypnoBreathwork® and a renowned international speaker who has become one of the premier personalities and advocates for the power of breathwork. I found Francesca to be very down to earth and tangible with the concept of breathwork and I’m now a client of hers as well. As you will hear, I am very interested in a method I can practice to alter and enhance my physiology and psychology, without jumping through the hoops of drugs and even plant medicine. You can find her at FrancescaSipma.com and again, the app she created that I’m now using is Mastry Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Kross is a PhD and one of the world's leading experts on controlling the conscious mind. Ethan is an award-winning professor at the University of Michigan and its Ross School of Business and is the director of the Emotion & Self Control Laboratory. Ethan has participated in policy discussion at the White House and has been interviewed on CBS Evening News, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper Full Circle, and NPR's Morning Edition. I brought him on the show after I got a hold of his new book, Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It. That tagline is the hook…why it matters and how to harness it. Not shut it up or out. Connect with Ethan at Ethankross.com Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 end so I could take flight and remove myself. I thought I was valiant for my lack of fighting. Righteous and unshakable. And I thought I was protecting everyone, myself included. I did whatever it took to, choose your word: appease, placate, tolerate, or put up with. What I realize now is I was just being dishonest to myself and everyone, and while I thought I was being strong, I now view it as being incredibly weak. Again, dishonest. And what was really happening is I grew bitter and was slowly building walls with each brick of appeasing. The new term for this and what I now relate to, is Fawning. And this is the podcast today. I sat down with Dr. Ingrid Clayton who is a licensed clinical psychologist with a master’s in transpersonal psychology and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.  She’s had a thriving private practice for more than sixteen years and is a regular contributor to Psychology Today, where her blog “Emotional Sobriety” has had more than a million views. She has now come out with the first ever, commercial book on this concept of fawning, it’s titled, FAWNING: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves—and How to Find our Way Back. Fawning is a hallmark of codependency, and often occurs when we can’t fight or flee because we have to remain in relationship with the person or situation we are struggling with. It is highly relevant to why we stay in bad jobs, fall into unhealthy partnerships, and tolerate dysfunctional environments, even when it seems obvious to others we should go or take drastic steps to try and correct things. Ingrid says fawning can serve a purpose as an emergency adaptive strategy that protects us from losing connection with people we depend on, but it becomes a real problem when it turns from the emergency coping mechanism to compulsory in our day to day lives. The good news of course is we can break the pattern of chronic fawning once we see the trauma response for what it is. I was incredibly excited to talk with Ingrid and this conversation proved invaluable for me. I hope it will be for you as well, as my feeling is that most of us suffer from aspects of fawning in certain relationships and circumstances in our lives. Connect with Ingrid on IG @ingridclaytonphd and find the new book Fawning that is hitting bookstores now. Coming up next, my conversation with Dr Ingrid Clayton on the pervasiveness of Fawning and how to get out of this insidious trauma response. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 mind Roger Banister breaking the four minute mile mark in running, which was deemed humanly impossible, but more importantly the four other runners who then did it within a year. All that changed is once they believed running a sub four minute mile was possible, they did it. Prior, they could not. Most of us are sitting where we are and desiring greater performance from ourselves but unable to see ourselves being at a higher level. If someone came along and ran a diagnostic test on us and said they had proof we could do and be more, I think  we would in short order. To have a performance upgrade we need an upgrade to our identity. I’m bringing back a discussion I had with Anthony Trucks on the topic. Anthony is a former NFL Athlete, American Ninja Warrior on NBC, and prolific international speaker. And he knows difficulty. His mom gave him up to adoption at age three. He then spent three years in foster care amongst neglect and abuse before being adopted into an all white family. He made it to the NFL only to have an injury end his career and from there he spiraled down and lost…everything. His money, his wife to an affair, his children. Most people just don’t recover from so much. His identity was in the trash. But he did recover and now all that pain is the foundation of his platform for overcoming. His journey was one of giving focus to his identity and truly being able to see himself where he wanted to be, and this is the crux of his mission and message. He has a book called Identity Shift: Upgrade How You Operate To Elevate Your Life which contains some key principals I feel are revolutionary for all our efforts to upgrade our personal results. Find Anthony at https://www.anthonytrucks.com/ and check out his podcast, Dark Work Daily. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 small clan of rebels who have escaped and are actually living in the tangible, real world. In the 26 years since the Matrix came out there have been many commentaries on The Matrix being real, in that we are all living a programmed and rather simulated life. Not a true, free, and authentic existence. What strikes me is that real or not, all the things we do in life are simply to feel a certain way. I ask you to ponder this with me a moment as we consider the things we are pursuing, and why. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“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 showcases it’s a massive power if we’ll recognize it and learn from it. Not as he says, reject it or wallow in it. The following conversation was my second time having Dan on the show. Dan Pink is a multi-best selling author, and when I say best selling, I don’t mean one day on an obscure Amazon book category like Amish Romance, but the actual New York Times bestseller list. You’ll likely recognize his books such as A Whole New Mind, To Sell Is Human, and When. His books have sold millions of copies, have been translated into forty-two languages. He also has a TED talk titled “The Puzzle of Motivation” which has somewhere north of 30 million views. I recently saw him being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey. Dan is an author like Brene’ Brown who leads with research, and he’s now turned his focus to regrets with his new book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward. I asked him back on the show the moment I saw the book title and you’re about to hear me dig in with him on how we can harness regret for our progress, not suffer or run from it. Find The Power of Regret anywhere you get books and connect with Dan at danpink.com Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 time. And I am experiencing peace like never before and finding it more fulfilling than any achievement. I will soon be sharing a construct that I have found to be truly revolutionary for my own peace and joy. But I’m concerned that when we look to offer happiness and peace and purpose to the world, we don’t realize that many, possibly a majority of people, don’t really want happiness, peace, and purpose. Or do we simply want to feel good in the moment? We want pleasure and riches and fame, even if we’re miserable at heart? There is some startling research that points to this and I want to talk with you about getting real with what you really want and quite possibly help reveal what is actually driving you and very likely at the root of your continued discontent. I’m going to cite a study that for me, belies a very important and I feel tragically dangerous revelation about our culture today. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 and inspired in my work. It wasn’t until I had kids in high school and became concerned about finding that big, one thing, that I started to understand calling not just as one role, but more as a position I can engage with in many, many areas. A few years ago I sat down with someone I learned to view as a sage regarding calling. My Dad, Dan Miller, famed author of 48 Days To The Work & Life Love. He helped so many people expand their understanding of themselves and what they had to offer. Which was offerings that transferred to many, many applications. He’d so often find someone who had been wildly successful in the corporate world or in business or even areas of life like athletics or politics, but whose role in those areas came to an end. And they had no idea how to transfer their skills to something else. And for that matter, were not clear on what their skills were. And how they related to what really called to their hearts. So in this conversation we discuss the myth of a narrow calling, and even address what a true “calling” is anyway. My father passed away, but his profound work lives on at 48days.com. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 idea I have, but with the ones that matter, I’d be lying if I said I just made them all happen. I don’t always, and I haven’t always understood why. Which is why I have for you today, Zorana Ivcevic Pringle. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle is a senior research scientist at Yale University’s Center for Emotional Intelligence where she studies the process of making something both original and effective, which is how she defines creativity, and explains how turning those ideas into reality always starts with the choice to act, or what she calls the creativity choice. It is a choice that must be made again and again until one’s creative ideas take shape. She has a new book called just that, The Creativity Choice: The Science of Making Decisions to Turn Ideas into Action. In this conversation we discuss not only what it takes to get started with our creative ideas but the psychological and emotional tools needed to sustain the creative process. I really appreciate Zorana coming at this as a true scientist and not telling us it’s just easy. She claims the creative process is hard, and when it comes to the original idea and presenting something useful to humanity, I agree. I feel we do a disservice to people when we try to encompass things into a little formula we sell as “easy.” I find few things of value to be very easy. Simple maybe, but seldom easy.  So here we walk through the three parts of Zorana’s Creative Process and as you will hear, we discuss the  necessary ingredients, but ingredients you must assemble in a unique way for your unique self. You can find Zorana’s book, The Creativity Choice, anywhere, and connect with her at her website zorana-ivcevic-pringle.com Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 that you need to be expressing your authentic self. This is the topic of the episode, and I bring back to you, Brianna Brown Keen. Brianna is an accomplished actress, appearing in more than 20 feature films and 30 television shows and most recently she had a featured role in season four of the Outer Banks series playing the character of Hollis Robinson. She defines her acting role as being “paid to pretend” and cites being in the business of rejection. What attracted me to Brianna was her use of her platform to go deeper with people. She wrote a book called Manifesting Your Mission where she helps guide people to pursue and achieve what they truly desire. Since this conversation, she’s also started a podcast of the same name where you will find one of her initial guests was, me. We talk about using your platform to really engage with people, being yourself, and everyone having art. I really appreciate her place in Hollywood where self-expression, rejection, and acclaim are in a very heightened and exaggerated forms and felt it helped me better conceptualize and better appreciate the challenges we all face. Find Brianna at www.briannabrownkeen.com and tune into her podcast, Manifesting Your Mission Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices