How to Stoke Your Passion with Fortune 50 Executive John R. Miles [Episode #869]

This week’s topic is: How to Stoke Your Passion with Fortune 50 Executive John R. Miles

I am so excited to have my very special guest, John R. Miles, a Speaker, Podcast Host, Founder, CEO, Navy Veteran and celebrated transformative leader in intentional behavior change. He is also the bestselling author of Passion Struck: Twelve Powerful Principles to Unlock Your Purpose and Ignite Your Most Intentional Life.. Listen in as John R. Miles shares his powerful and profound insights on ….. 

TOPICS COVERED

• Background and Military Influence
• Leadership and Teamwork
• Reinventing Yourself
• Intentionality and Purpose
• Passion Struck Model
• Fear and Mindset Shifts
• Reinventing Your Life
• Negative Thought Loops
• Overcoming Fear
• Taking Small Boundary-Shaping Actions
• Building Mental Strength through Small Steps
• Overcoming Challenges through Persistence
• Creating a Positive Environment
• Identifying and Managing Negative Influences
• Setting Emotional and Mental Limits
• Creating a Positive Environment
• Communicating Boundaries and Prioritizing Self-Care
• Optimizing Anxiety and Embracing Originality
• Embracing Originality and Tapping into Peak Performance

 

FEATURED GUEST

 

About John R. Miles 

John R, Miles is the dynamic force behind Passion Struck®, captivating millions with his globally renowned podcast, “Passion Struck with John R. Miles,” and national radio show and cementing his status as a guiding voice in alternative health and leadership. A former U.S. Navy officer and Fortune 50 senior executive, he is celebrated as a transformative leader in intentional behavior change and personal mastery. As an author, entrepreneur, and podcast host, John’s profound insights and inspirational guidance have earned him accolades as a visionary in modern leadership. John is the bestselling author of “Passion Struck: Twelve Powerful Principles to Unlock Your Purpose and Ignite Your Most Intentional Life.”

 

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Other Podcasts you may enjoy!:

How To Find Your Life’s True Calling [Episode #590]

Create Your Vision with Sean Dollinger [Episode #585]

How to Feel Emotionally Lighter in Your Mind and Body in Day-to-Day Life [Episode #832]

How Emotional Intelligence affects Personal Relationships in Your Daily Life [Episode #814]

 

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Transcript:
Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly Snyder (00:01.218)
Hi loves and welcome back to our Monday interview show. I am so excited to have author, speaker, podcast host, founder, CEO, and former US Navy officer and Fortune 50 senior executive with me today, John Miles, who has his new book out. I’m very excited to discuss this. Those of you that are viewing it, it’s called Passion Struck, 12 Powerful Principles to unlock your purpose and ignite your most intentional life. John, thank you so much for joining me here today.

John R. Miles (00:39.989)
Kimberly, I’m so excited to be here. You’ve got such a fantastic podcast. And I love the episode that you recently did with my good friend, Chris Carr.

Kimberly Snyder (00:48.778)
Oh yes, I saw that she gave a quote as well for your book. Everybody’s so interrelated. And so I just loved, you know, your book really stood out to me as it came across my desk. And I think there’s a lot of amazing principles here for us to share. And of course, I encourage everyone to dive deeper into Jon’s book. Speaking of which, we will be linking directly to Jon’s work and this book in the show notes which will be over at mysolluna.com. We will have the show notes, we will have the transcript for today.

Those of you that may not realize this, we are also on video. So if you wanna watch this conversation with John and I, you could head over to our YouTube channel.

Otherwise, if you like to listen while you’re walking your dog, while you’re driving your car, of course we will continue to offer the podcast on Apple, Spotify, wherever you like to listen to our podcast. And a little reminder, we’ll also have over there other links to articles, guided meditations, recipes, other podcasts I think you would enjoy. All right. All that being said, John, I’m so excited to chat with you. Where are you based?

John R. Miles (02:06.945)
I am in Tampa Bay, actually in St. Petersburg.

Kimberly Snyder (02:08.622)
Oh, I spent a lot of time in Florida. I love the warm weather. I absolutely love humidity. So I love it there.

John R. Miles (02:20.753)

Once you get used to humidity, anytime I go to Colorado or the West Coast, you end up just missing it once you’ve gotten adjusted to it. So I completely hear you.

Kimberly Snyder (02:32.246)
Well, we’re between California and we have a small farm in Hawaii. And so when I’m there, I just love the tropical environment. And I love it here too. We’re up in the mountains and it’s beautiful. But if I had my preference, I think that humidity is so healthy. It’s really great for our skin. It’s just great to feel that real moistness. I love it. So one of the… Some people complain.

John R. Miles (02:55.457)
Yeah, absolutely.

Kimberly Snyder (02:58.942)
So one of the things that struck me right away, I wanted to ask you right away, John, you have a very interesting background. And so this book is all about passion, of course, it’s about igniting our creativity. You have a chapter on reinventing yourself. It’s all this innovation. And yet there’s part of your background, which was being in the Navy and in the military. And sometimes when we think about the military, we think about discipline and conforming to the rules. Tell us how that part of your background impacted your work today.

John R. Miles (03:37.077)
Yeah. So even before I went into the military, I grew up in a pretty strict Roman Catholic family. I went to parochial school all the way from kindergarten through high school. And so when I did go into the military, I had already been raised by a former Marine father and a mom who was a bit of a perfectionist, really encouraging us to be high achievers, my siblings and I, and I’m the oldest.

Kimberly Snyder (03:45.302)
Yeah.

John R. Miles (04:05.461)
So you’re right, there was a lot of conform… I have two siblings. I have, they’re both younger. My sister is three years younger and my brother is five years younger. And, but I went to the academy and you’re right, it was structure that was built on a, built on top of conformity and structure that was there before. So obviously a lot of brainwashing during my first 21, 22 years of life.

Kimberly Snyder (04:06.23)
of how many.

John R. Miles (04:35.829)
But I think both really created a solid foundation for me of understanding the importance of values in life and having values that really ground you when you’re faced with those most difficult decisions. The military specifically really showed me how to be a leader and the purpose that a leader really serves in not only leading their people and recognizing who they are, whether they’re in the military or at work, but more holistically and trying to understand what their long-term aspirations are and how you can help guide all of who they are to become something more than that.

And then lastly, I really understood the power of team because nothing happens in the military solo. It is all team function, whether you’re on a seal team, you’re on a ship, you’re on a sub. You’re in a Marine Corps unit. It doesn’t matter. Everything hinges on the power of the team, not the individual.

Kimberly Snyder (05:42.946)
That is such a key part, John, in executing our dreams, isn’t it? Right. Because I know even for me as an author, the team it takes to publish a book, you’re working with the publishing house and you’re working with your editors and you’re working with the marketing team. And if you don’t have these skills, then you know, it’s, you can’t just make things happen on your own. We need that harmony within these teams. And that’s pretty critical part of success.

John R. Miles (06:11.137)
Well, absolutely. I have to say, this is my first novel and the whole publishing world to me was as if I was learning a completely new skill set because there is so much more to this than meets the eye and it is much more difficult than anyone tells you it is to become an established author. I remember having to go out to agents and really I was turned down by like 80 agents. I was at the point where I was going down the self-publishing route. And I really felt nothing wrong with self-publishing. I think it’s a fabulous way to get your message out. But I wanted to have a traditional publisher. And so I decided I would rewrite the book proposal one last time, put all my energy into it, sent it out, and the last five agents, all of them came back and wanted it. And…Shorten with AI

John R. Miles (07:09.585)
And so you just never know. And when people ask me about the process, I just say, get used to rejection and just, you got to keep persevering through it. And even when I had the agent, I had so many publishers who turned me down. So the early part was rejection.

Now that it’s out in the world, I feel a lot of jubilation that so many years of work is now in the hands of people who can actually use it to better their own lives.

Kimberly Snyder (07:37.394)
I have a similar story, John. I also was rejected by many agents. And I remember I come back from backpacking. I was broke. I was working. I was going to nutrition school. I was running around teaching yoga and yoga privates. And then I got this book at Barnes and Noble about how to write a book proposal.

So in the evenings, I was working on the proposal and sending it out. And back to this, you know, some of the principles I want to talk about here in a moment around your minds, mindset shifts. There’s this consistency. There’s, you know, sometimes people think about passion and creativity. Like it’s just kind of like, oh, I just get to imagine great ideas.

But for me, it was that inspired action. It was everyday working on that proposal to move it forward. The things that had helped me being a perfectionist, being really obsessed with getting great grades. There was this drive and it didn’t have to be to the point where my self-worth was tied in the outcomes. But I can say, honestly, John, that training, like you said, that foundation that you also had in your background, that helped to propel my dreams forward.

It allowed me to get up every day and not sink into the self-doubt. Everybody’s saying no, because to move things forward when passion comes in, we need to move it into the world. We need to get our actions behind it. Isn’t that true?

John R. Miles (08:58.413)
Oh, it’s absolutely true. And I have a solo episode I’ve been working on where I recently heard a very well-known self-improvement influencer talk about how confidence is built uh, through the need to take action. And I, I kept thinking about this and action is the first thing that you need to take if you want to have confidence or courage or anything that’s bountiful in your life. And I think the same thing goes with passion. Oftentimes we think that we, we can just stay in the same place that we are. And that passion is just going to find us. And I really believe.

Kimberly Snyder (09:27.022)
Mmm.

John R. Miles (09:42.305)
that it’s when we allow ourselves to grow by taking intentional actions, making deliberate choices that are in alignment with our aspirations and our ambition, that opens up new pathways to then allowing ourselves to experience new ways of looking at things, which then invites your passion or purpose in.

Kimberly Snyder (10:04.618)
We have to start that energy going. And you know, as a student of yoga, to John Paramahansa Yogananda, who brought yoga to the West, uses, he’s talking about some of the same principles that you’re talking about. I noticed in your book, from a yogic standpoint, he’s talking about using our dynamic will. So we start to take that action, and things start to happen. Like you said, I know when I started taking those steps, writing the book.

For example, chapters, you start to feel like, hey, this is actually a possibility. Right? So, so you talk about confronting fear. You have a really interesting term in here in your mindset shifts, mosquito auditor. Can you talk about some of these principles? Maybe actually there’s so many, but I want to start with brand reinventer. And I love how you say, do not be scared to reinvent yourself.
And this one felt really close to my heart, John because I started as a nutritionist and a lot of people knew me for that.

And then it started to expand into the lifestyle. I could see food was not the end all be all, it’s part of it, but I started teaching meditation. I started writing spiritual books as well and all around wellness. So I had to shift my identity and still get really behind that. So when I was reading that section of your book, I really appreciated you saying, you can always reinvent yourself. You can always, you know, shift things and you have to be authentic, but there’s always this opportunity to be dynamic and to not feel stagnant.

John R. Miles (11:36.545)
Yeah, thank you for asking me that. And I’m going to just give the listeners a little bit of a backdrop of how the book is organized. So I have something that I’ve developed that encompasses everything in the book called the passion struck model. And in the book and encompasses three sections, but it really has four key components in it. It’s and what passion struck is, is it’s really a comprehensive approach to personal growth. And it’s built upon.

Kimberly Snyder (11:50.177)
Mm.

John R. Miles (12:04.757)
the synergistic interplay between mindset shifts, behavior shifts, action-oriented psychology of progress and intrinsic motivation, which then all fuels our sense of mattering and that we’re leading a life of significance. And as you just described in these different mindset shifts and behavior shifts, I have some fun names for them because I wanted the reader to remember them and take away. But one of the most important ones that I think I brought forward was this whole idea of brand reinvention.

And as I was studying this chapter, I was reading some of the works of Dan Swabel, who like he was a New York Times bestselling author, and he’s also a partner and research director at Future Workplace. And it’s interesting, he and I did research independently. I looked at about 800,

Kimberly Snyder (12:43.134)
Yes.

John R. Miles (13:04.021)
what I would call luminaries, he ended up looking at 1200, but they both ranged from everything from CEOs to celebrities to authors, politicians, astronauts. And throughout both our conversations, what we both observed was there’s a prevailing characteristic amongst all of them. And that is this consistent pursuit of passion and reinvention. And this reinvention is so important

Kimberly Snyder (13:28.291)
Mmm.

John R. Miles (13:35.765)
We really need to look at our lives as that, especially in the future, they are going to change so much with the evolution of autonomous transformation. And so getting yourself used to flexing the muscle of reinvention is so extremely important. And if you think about some of the vanguards who are out there, Oprah Winfrey, Wayne the Rock Johnson, as just a couple examples.
They exemplify this because once they reach a certain pinnacle that they’ve set from themselves, they don’t just sit there.

And that is their end point where a lot of us do that. We reach a certain plateau and we stop. No, they realize that in order to keep going, in order to continue this and make the impact that they want, they have to continue to push themselves and reinvent and find new pathways. And that’s exactly what this chapter.

Kimberly Snyder (14:13.25)
Yeah.

John R. Miles (14:34.357)
really dives into.

Kimberly Snyder (14:37.13)
I think it’s so important because otherwise it starts to feel stagnant, right? And I was reading this chapter and I was saying to myself, there was a point, John, in my life where I was working with all these big celebrities. I could just keep making a very good living, you know, having private clients and being known as this celebrity nutritionist.

But inside of me, I said, I have so much more to share about this lifestyle and taking my books in different directions and opening up our brand. And so some people would say, well, know, it’s really cushy where you are. Why don’t you stay there? But I think if we, you know, and Deepak Chopra, my co-author a few books ago says this,

I’m paraphrasing here, John, he says something like, you won’t stay in a situation for long that doesn’t feel natural, right? Or we could try to contrive it, but then energy tries to push out and maybe you start not sleeping well or you develop some kind of addiction or distraction or something because the passion wants to come. This prana, this life force, whatever you want to say. If it’s lit up in you, we need to find a way to open a new pathway. Otherwise I can say for myself, it just started to feel like, eh, this isn’t exactly right.

John R. Miles (15:51.681)
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. We all wanna feel that. And it’s such an easier thing to say than to accomplish, isn’t it?

Kimberly Snyder (16:00.818)
Yes. Will you give us some cues in here? Let’s say someone says, let’s make it real world for a minute. What advice would you give John to it? Let’s say a new mom or a mom who’s been home for a while with her kids and previously she had a certain career. Let’s say she was a lawyer, she was something and now she says, I want to reinvent myself. I want to do something else. I have a passion for this. What advice would you give her in this period of really making a huge life shift. I mean, there’s a whole chapter about this, but some top line stuff.

John R. Miles (16:38.954)
I think one of the most important things is to really examine in this new stage of your life what does success mean for you. And I would encourage people to challenge the conventional metrics of success instead of looking at your worth as being aligned to I think what society gravitates us towards, which is wealth and possessions.

next path in your life around personal growth, fulfillment, and most importantly, the positive impact that you can have on others. Yeah, and I think from there, it then really becomes this exploration of discovering your passion and what are your unique capabilities that inherently you can utilize to solve a problem that needs to be solved for others. It could be for you a long forgotten hobby,

Kimberly Snyder (17:12.036)
Mmm, I love that.

John R. Miles (17:34.217)
It could be a cause that you’re deeply passionate about, or maybe it’s a skill that you’ve always wanted to embrace. Whatever it is, it’s this radical self-discovery that’s crucial in transitioning from this point that you’ve been at to this new one where you want to be actively engaged in a new pursuit for this next chapter of your life. And then to me, one of the things I talk about throughout the entire book is the need to embrace intentionality.

And that is to live each and every single day with purpose and make conscious choices that align with your core values and your passions. Because I think intentionality is about being proactive and shaping your life rather than letting the circumstances around you or expectations of you drive it. So those would be three starting points.

Kimberly Snyder (18:23.818)
love that. And I love the part about service. How can I help? How can I make an impact? Because to me, that’s always been my North Star is I want to, I’m so excited to share XYZ. This helped me. I know this can help other people. Now, so to someone listening to this, they can say, oh, I have this thing I want to share. I’m so excited about this hobby.

Let’s talk about another principle, fear-confronter. So that elation comes and often then the voice of doubt in our head comes swiftly afterwards saying, well, is anyone really going to care about what I have to say or can I really make this successful? What are some of your principles? And this was a very strong part as well, confronting our fear and still wanting to move forward, still taking those inspired action steps, John.

John R. Miles (19:17.601)
Yeah, so this chapter is one that really explores the negative thought loops that go on within each one of us. And I didn’t use it in this chapter, but a term that I like to use to describe what’s happening here is we allow ourselves to become visionary arsonists. We arson the very hopes and dreams and aspirations that we want to accomplish.

And so I think a key message I like to share with listeners is that the most profound person, the most incredible person, the most capable person that you are ever gonna meet is the person that stares at you every day that you wake up in the morning. But the flip side of that is the biggest competitor that person is ever gonna face is that same person who’s staring at them in the mirror.

And so what I try to do in each one of these chapters is I try to talk about these principles through my own research that I did on my way to using them. And then I talk about other people. Some are famous people, some not as famous and how they also utilize these principles to reshape their lives. So in this chapter, I have the story of Kirsty Annis, and if someone is not familiar with Kirsty, she was a Marine Corps Staff Sergeant. She’s on her last tour of duty.

And unfortunately, it seems like this is a repetitive cycle that people who are in their last days before leaving end up having incidents happening to them. But she was part of a helicopter crew and she was on her last mission, like down to 48 hours left in country and the aircraft crashes. She wakes up in the hospital and she’s lost her legs, has a traumatic brain injury, a number of other things. And.

Kimberly Snyder (20:56.93)
Yeah.

John R. Miles (21:16.949)
Hers is a pretty extreme situation, but it shows you this choice that you have to make. And not a lot of us are going to have to be faced with what. Herstie had to go through, but she faced the fear of having to live her life completely differently from that point forward. And really she could have at that point put limitations on what she thought was possible, but instead she set extremely ambitious goals.

And one of them is to climb the seven tallest peaks. And so she is, she is well on that mission. She has climbed six of them so far. She’s attempted Everest twice and it’s the last one she has to do. But I think that just gives us an example of if you don’t allow self sabotage and imposter syndrome.

Kimberly Snyder (21:55.455)
Oh my god.

John R. Miles (22:15.525)
and self doubt to cloud what you are truly able to accomplish. You can do anything that you put your mind to.

Kimberly Snyder (22:27.442)
It’s so powerful and it’s true. It’s, you know, other people in a similar position could complain, could play the victim, right? It’s this choice we make to keep moving forward. So for me, John, because fear is such a big topic. And I wrote about that as well in my last book. We all have fear, fear we’re not good enough. We’re not smart enough. Other people don’t care. We don’t have this. We don’t have that.

For me personally, I had to go into that fearless place on the inside. That’s why meditation has been really powerful for me to sit in that and then I start to visualize, you know, whatever the outcome is.

What have you done personally, John, in your life? You know, it could be one of the tools in the book or something that you live when you do, when you are confronted with that fear. 80 people have rejected my book, literary agents or whatever, or, you know, starting out on this book tour for your first book or in the past being in the Navy.

John R. Miles (23:29.773)
Yeah, Kimberly, I think we each have our own journeys in life. And I think it’s interesting because when you meet someone, you don’t know their backstory and you don’t know what that person has been through both the big T and the little T trauma along the way. And for me, I had a big T trauma happened to me when I was about five years old. I was playing tag with a group of friends.
We were playing in between our two houses and we were starting to roughhouse and pushing each other harder, et cetera.

And unfortunately for me, I was trying to run away to avoid being tagged and my neighbor pushed me and between being pushed and my forward momentum of running away from them, it kind of launched me in the air and through a basement window, which caused me to have a traumatic brain injury.

Kimberly Snyder (24:22.997)
Ugh.

John R. Miles (24:27.061)
This had a number of unfortunate repercussions, such as auditory and processing disorder, and headaches, and speech impediments, and a number of other things. And so it put me into this position, and I’m sure you’re familiar with Jim Quick. It was interesting. When I first met Jim, I said to him, you know, you tell everyone you’re the boy with the broken brain, and I’m someone who can absolutely relate.

Kimberly Snyder (24:33.878)
No.

John R. Miles (24:57.249)
to everything you went through because coupled with that, I was an introvert. And so I’m already feeling self-conscious as a kid about speaking up, but now I oftentimes am misstating words or I lose thought or my brain works faster than my mouth. And it got to a point where I was almost afraid in class to say anything because spoken word was so difficult for me, plus with my speech impediments.

Kimberly Snyder (25:02.483)
Hmm.

John R. Miles (25:25.953)
people would laugh because I would mispronounce things or lisp or whatever. And so it taught me though early on that you can either let the situation or the hand that you’re dealt dictate your future or you can do something about it. And so I just started even at a young age, started to take boundary expanding choices to

Kimberly Snyder (25:30.202)
Ugh.

John R. Miles (25:54.477)
create actions that would build more courage in me to step out. And eventually I was able to, to work my way out of it. But, um, as I’ve gotten older, like you said, mindfulness has played a very critical role for me, but I think it’s, it’s like anything that you’re going into. So right now with the book launch, I’m getting ready to go on the keynote speaking tour. I’ve done a couple now, but going back to that earlier injury, it’s not something that has ever come easy or is ever comfortable.

Kimberly Snyder (26:23.914)
Hmmm

John R. Miles (26:24.333)
I’m always worried when I’m up there on stage that it’s one of the reasons I do these podcasts is because I get to continuously practice, but I’m always worried about losing thought. So some of the things that I am doing to get over my fears, that is just an example, is I signed up for improv over the past six months. I first started doing an improv 101. I’m now doing long form.
I’ve gotten myself back to doing toast masters.

So really putting myself in a position where on a weekly basis, twice a week I’m forcing myself into really uncomfortable positions where I’m having to speak a lot. And I think once you start doing this and you start building the confidence, it gives you more courage to then take the next step. And what I would encourage people,

Kimberly Snyder (26:54.263)
Hmm.

John R. Miles (27:16.465)
is I think sometimes what we try to do is we try to take too big a leap. And to me, really what this comes down to is just taking small boundary shaping actions that start leading you down the path of the destination you’re trying to achieve. And they culminate in building upon each other over time.

Kimberly Snyder (27:36.618)
I love that. And it’s very practical. You’re pushing past your comfort zone. You’re putting yourself out there. You’re actually doing something in that area of fear. And I think that is something I really relate to John, because for me, even though it’s not related necessarily to my work, it’s very uncomfortable for me to go into cold water, right? My husband has a cold plunge here and we’re in Hawaii and there’s this waterfall water. And I’ve been training myself over these past few years. What I say to myself is the affirmation, John, I say it’s just sensation. It’s just sensation. I can deal with this, you know, fear or challenge.

And then I go in and then I come out. But it does, it makes me feel mentally stronger. So if it’s in another challenging situation where, oh, like so many writing deadlines, I have to move past this or whatever it is in my life.

John R. Miles (28:20.158)
Yeah

Kimberly Snyder (28:32.354)
The more I exercise that muscle of just sensation and I can move through this, you know, in all these small steps, whether it’s writing that email of someone saying, well, I want to start my new business, or, you know, trying to reach out to this person. Once you do these little steps, it does build that momentum where you realize you can take the next step and then the next step and then the next step and you keep going forward.

John R. Miles (28:57.593)
I have a great example of that. I have a really good friend who’s a retired Navy SEAL. He was for a very long time the only SEAL who’s ever swam the English Channel. And he was telling me about this experience. He ended up coming up with this challenge because he wanted to do something for the Navy SEAL Foundation, but specifically something to honor a fallen brother of his who died in combat.

And he told me that while he was doing this, he was going to school at Monterey in California, and he started to go in the Pacific. And you would, you would think a seal was used to be swimming in the cold.

This wouldn’t be a big deal, but in order to swim the English channel, you have to do it with just wearing a speedo. You can’t be wearing a wetsuit or anything else. So he said he went. So he said he goes into the water and he asked me, how far do you think I got? And I said,

Kimberly Snyder (29:47.283)
Oh my gosh. Come on, it’s already hard enough.

John R. Miles (29:57.481)
Naively a mile. He goes, dude, I didn’t last five minutes and I had to get out. And he goes, I almost threw in the towel then. And then the next day I decided to go in again and I did seven minutes. And then the next day, nine minutes. And he eventually built up, but it took him 13 hours to cross, just to put that in perspective. And he was saying, one of the things that you’re doing when you’re crossing, because the water, even during the summer is 55 degrees. Is you can never stop.

Kimberly Snyder (30:10.955)
Mmm.

John R. Miles (30:26.853)
or your body will go into hypothermia. So he’s like, even when I’m taking refreshments or something else, I’m still kicking as hard as I possibly can to keep going, but to your point, he doesn’t like the cold either, but he found a way through continuously confronting it, that he was able to extend his tolerance to it to the point that he was able to do this amazing thing, honor his teammate.

Kimberly Snyder (30:53.982)
Wow. We’ve had Wim Hof on here as well. I’ve interviewed Wim Hof. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him, John. He’s the one that’s set all these records in the cold. And one of the things he talks about how he gets past this, I’m not saying fear, this discomfort is being so fully in the now. It’s this breath. It’s this moment, right? And then it’s the next moment. It’s the next moment. And it’s the same thing with fear. Instead of all the what ifs, oh, well, what if I fail again like I did in the past? Like it’s past, future.

We’re always just thinking, oh, this, we just stay right here. That’s what’s helped me. I can stay with this sensation. I’m about to go on a live TV show, Good Morning America, I say I’m right here, right here. Don’t think about, like you said, what if I mess up? Like what ifs? Like if I just stay right here in my body and with this situation and I bring my energy, the best outcomes will come. Like I bring it back to this moment and that’s really helped me as well.

Kimberly Snyder (31:58.126)
One of the other principles I want to bring up here that’s really important, and I love this title, is the mosquito auditor. And again, this parallels what Paramahansa Yogananda teaches, which is that our environment is such a huge impact on our success. In fact, he goes on to say that besides meditation, it’s one of the most important factors. So other people around us may echo that voice of doubt in our head bring about fear, they can sort of pick at us.

What do we do? How do we actually control our environment? People will say, well, what about if it’s my relative or it’s my close friend? Like, what do I do? How do I really do this audit that you speak about here and create a really positive environment for bringing our passions forward?

John R. Miles (32:50.677)
Yeah. So this was one of my favorite chapters to write. And it’s, I think it’s important for a listener to understand that these principles all came from studying over 800 individuals. And I found a pattern where these vanguards who profile in the book and many more beyond it use these different life principles to create their best self and the journey really starts with a principle we haven’t talked about called the mission angler where you’re on this path to life crafting. It then goes into what we talked about before with becoming a brand reinventer.

So you figured out this new path that you want to take for your life. You now are reinventing yourself so that you can go on this path to becoming the future self that you idealize yourself to become. Well, what do you think is going to start happening at that point?

You are now showing up as a different version of yourself to the world. And so this is where it becomes so important to consider the environment that you’re in and the people who are around you. So as I was thinking of how to approach this, I like to do periods of mindfulness before I start writing a chapter. And I do that oftentimes either through yoga or through walks.

And this day I happened to be on a walk and I was contemplating these invisible influences. And I had recently read the book by Jonah Berger of the same name that I profile on this chapter. And it got me thinking, there’s so many influences around us that really are invisible.

And some have been there for a very long time. And as I got done thinking about this, I happened to then put my headphones in and I decided to listen to a radio talk show and the announcer just happened to be talking about what is the most dangerous animal on the planet. And callers start calling in and they’re saying it’s the shark or it’s a spider or a snake or what have you, and they were all wrong. And the announcer is like, I thought the same things and what it really comes down to is the mosquito. A mosquito kills between a million and half to 2 million people per year. More than

Kimberly Snyder (34:49.674)
Ha ha.

Kimberly Snyder (35:00.468)
I know.

John R. Miles (35:13.749)
Every single shark death over a hundred years is going to accomplish just to put it into perspective. Yet when we think about these mosquitoes, they’re really for the most part invisible. Oftentimes we don’t feel their presence until they bite us or even if we do hear their buzzing, it’s more a nuisance. And it got me thinking, these invisible influences in our life are like human mosquitoes. And so it led me down this path of defining a few of them.

Kimberly Snyder (35:19.138)
Wow.

John R. Miles (35:42.965)
that I thought people could self, people could utilize to identify people who were around them. So the first I talk about is something called the blood sucker. The second one is the invisible suffocator and the third one is the PETA. So the blood sucker is what my dear friend, Terry Cole, would describe as a boundary destroyer. These are people who are out for every drop of blood that they possibly can. They ignore your professional and personal boundaries.

Kimberly Snyder (36:04.706)
Mmm.

John R. Miles (36:13.345)
They typically put intrusive demands of your time. They question your decisions. They give you unsolicited advice. All of it just makes you feel undermined and disrespected. I think all of us can relate to that one. The invisible suffocator is really known for their negative outlook. These are pessimists who often engage in constant complaining. They dampen the mood. They affect your morale if you’re in a team setting.

Kimberly Snyder (36:27.447)
Yeah.

John R. Miles (36:41.581)
And I think we can all liken it to that family member who we’ve recently probably just spent time with over the holidays, who we tell them we’ve got this amazing news in our life and all they can tell us are the downsides of what that means to us. And then finally we have the PEDAs that some people call pieces of work. I like to call them pains in the ass, but these are people in

John R. Miles (37:10.465)
based on drama and conflict. They instigate disputes. They gossip, they create tension and discomfort, et cetera. And once you understand what these three are, it’s really a gift because now you can look at those people who are in your life and I just tell people to treat it as if you’re shooting archery and imagine maybe 15 of the people who are closest to you put the closest ones in the first circle.

Kimberly Snyder (37:12.856)
Mm.

John R. Miles (37:39.637)
next circle, third circle, and then run this test against it. And if any of these three show up, you’ve given yourself a gift because now you recognize what they are in your life and it gives you the opportunity to make a decision on what you’re gonna do about it.

Kimberly Snyder (37:58.154)
I love the tactile nature that you described this and it is so important that we bring this awareness, right? So I have relatives who shall remain unnamed. There are people that are around that have that outlook. And what’s helped me as you said here, as you talk about in this chapter, John, is first of all, I used to take it really personally.

And then you sort of identify, oh, there’s something here. But then I started to step back and see, oh, this is this person’s outlook on life. It’s not just me, but it’s all around. And some of these relatives spend a lot of time on the news and they get sucked into like the negative cycles and it just affects everything else.

So what’s helped me when I am around some of these mosquitoes is to really intentionally steer the conversation into something neutral that you know, just away from and not share all that I’m doing. Because as you mentioned, it sort of brings about those mosquito attacks. So I’ll be very vague. So there’s part of this discernment about who we’re sharing our, Wayne Dyer talks about this too, who we’re sharing our dreams with in those infancy stages, in the seed stage, because we don’t want that negativity to echo some of our own fear.

John R. Miles (39:15.213)
No, I mean, it’s absolutely right. And I think it all starts and ends with identifying your limits. What are you gonna allow in your life?

Kimberly Snyder (39:20.77)
Yeah.

John R. Miles (39:24.949)
that takes energy away from you because we need as much positive energy as we possibly can muster to make the changes that we want to become the people we want to become. So to me, setting your emotional and mental limits about how much stress that you can handle and its effect that it’s going to have on you is where this all starts and ends because that determines the boundaries that you’re going to put in place with each person and how far you’re going to have to distance them.

I also think it really comes down to the fact that you’ve got to communicate. And oftentimes if you’re not trying to limit the conversation, but let’s say this is one of your best friends and you want to maintain a deeper relationship with them, you’re going to have to communicate those boundaries and that might be really uncomfortable, especially if they don’t react the way that you’re hoping they will react.

And this is where consistency comes into play because once you start showing up differently and you’re putting these boundaries in place and you’re communicating what you want, if they don’t want to adhere to that, there’s gonna be a natural part of you that wants to just back off and not stay on your ground. But when you’re not consistent, it actually does just the opposite. I think we’ve all seen that. So consistency also plays a huge role, I have found. And then lastly, All of this really comes down to setting personal care as a priority because really this is all about recognizing your worth and giving yourself permission to prioritize your well-being.

Kimberly Snyder (41:09.546)
Sometimes, John, you know, because sometimes we think, oh gosh, I don’t know if I could say it to that person. So I’ve been in situations where I have said it, and I’ve also been in situations where I’ve defined it in my mind. And then they sort of like, I don’t know, it’s like a friend or, you know, in-law.

And if I’m steering it this way and they keep going into that negativity, I sort of politely, you know, remove myself or remove, you know, move away from that conversation and so, you know, we just have to be consistent, I think, in the ways in which we show people how they can treat us, right? Because some people listening will say, well, I could never have that conversation.

And I have been direct with a friend and I’m like, look, like this just isn’t happening, you know, and it felt so good to be direct, John, but I’ve done it as well where I didn’t say it, but I defined it and I lived it and then that also helped the situation. What do you think?

John R. Miles (42:08.813)
I think, I think either one can work. Obviously, if you’ve got that family member who you know is just going to agitate the heck out of you, I mean, you can position yourself so you’re not close to them. I mean, that would be the first thing you could do. The second thing is to really be more cautious about what you’re going to share with them and how vulnerable you’re going to be with them. So you don’t give them the opportunity to unload on you.

Kimberly Snyder (42:31.891)
Yes.

John R. Miles (42:35.945)
I think the third thing you could do is maybe you have a sibling who’s there, who you could explain the situation to them. And if you give them a cue, that person can come in and bail you out of the situation or divert the topic or something else. So there’s a number of ways that you can approach this, but, but you’re right. Um, I think with that close friend example, it can be difficult to have that conversation. And sometimes it just means that you have to show up a little bit differently in your approach.

The only thing about that is if they know you well, they’re gonna recognize that you’re using a different approach with them than what you typically have because you’re probably gonna show up a little less open, acting a little bit different around them. And I think intuitively, my friends can sense that when there’s a change. So I think ultimately you can do that for a while before you’re gonna have to confront it.

Kimberly Snyder (43:23.295)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (43:35.99)
That’s right. And it feels good to confront things, I think, when it’s warranted for sure. And again, it’s back to the fear, back to what, you know, my worth, and I don’t need to be in an environment that doesn’t feel supportive. So these are some of part one, as you mentioned, your mindset shifts. And I want to touch on, if we can go on and on, of course, all of this is in the book outlined in great detail, but then you go into your intentional behavioral shifts.

Which makes sense, right? So we’re shifting how we are approaching things and then the outward action comes. And one here that I liked very much was anxiety optimizer. I mean, I love all the names, originality embracer, right? So can you touch briefly on these two? And it goes on and on, but those are two names that really stood out to me of someone saying, well, I do have a lot of anxiousness and you know, I’m not, you know, just no one else has done something this way, this originality concept.

John R. Miles (44:35.177)
Yeah, as I looked at, like, how does some people get so much more done than other people, like how are people able to balance their work and life in a more profound way or how does it seem like someone like Elon Musk can do so much in a day when others cannot and what it all comes down to is how do you put yourself into this zone of peak performance, which is really what this chapter is all about. And it’s how do you properly transformed nervous energy into productive fuel.

And in this chapter, I really examined Mark Devine, uh, who’s a retired Navy SEAL and Jesse Ouija, who’s a NASCAR race car driver. And what I tried to showcase through both their stories is how do you create a situation where you put yourself on the edge without going over the edge and why this is so important to understand how to do this is McKinsey ended up doing this study of thousands of executives.

And they looked at people who were able to do this on a regular basis compared to their peer group, and they outperformed them 400%. I mean, to put that in a different perspective, they were able to accomplish in two hours what their peers were doing in eight to 10. And it’s really about how do you utilize mind control

Kimberly Snyder (45:48.662)
Wow.

John R. Miles (46:04.021)
motivation, creativity, and flow to operate in this zone. So that’s what this whole chapter is really about. And then…

Kimberly Snyder (46:13.332)
And so we can be trained to do that.

John R. Miles (46:18.389)
So how do you train to do that?

Kimberly Snyder (46:18.446)
There’s tools. No, I was going to say, we can train ourselves to do that. We can be aware and then we can take steps to be more in flow and to be more effective with the hours that we are focusing.

John R. Miles (46:34.357)
Yeah. And to me, one of the first things that really starts with is having clear goals because without them, you’re like a ship without a compass and it doesn’t matter how much peak flow you’re going to have in your life, it’s not going to matter. And the other thing that’s key is that it’s your intrinsic motivation that’s going to fuel this journey. So when you know how to tap into that and use it as a powerful fuel that enables this performance at this peak level it completely redefines what you’re able to accomplish.

Kimberly Snyder (47:07.45)

Now, I want to ask you a question, John, about the originality part. There’s, we hear messages like jump on the trends or the fads, or these are buzzwords, and then you can exploit this concept. And then on the other hand, what if you have ideas that are a little bit, you know, counterintuitive or they haven’t been brought forward, right? And this could be someone who’s an influencer on social media. This could be someone looking to, you know, write a tagline for their brand or a strategy.

How does this concept? in your research, how does it play out? One is going with the what’s happening already kind of on a collective level versus I’m gonna forge my own way. And this term hasn’t yet been said or this idea. Do you see what I’m saying, how I’m asking it? Is that clear?

John R. Miles (47:58.133)
Yeah, I mean, it is clear. And in this chapter, I ended up profiling Jeff Bezos, who’s the founder everyone knows of Amazon. But you think about Amazon and a lot of people say, well, it wasn’t an original idea. And that’s where I think they get this whole concept wrong. When Bezos went into this, he wasn’t trying to emulate orders or Barnes and Noble. I mean, that was a starting point.

But what his unique concept was, was that he was going to create an everything store, something that had never existed before he was going to create this. Really this capability that would get you anything that you wanted, regardless of it was home improvement, a book, um, food, regardless. And that was really a novel approach. And I think.

As so many of us approach, whether it’s a work related thing like Jeff or something in our personal life, what we end up doing is something that you and I talked about at the beginning, uh, which is we, we start getting into group think and we start becoming an imitator to the norms that are around us, which if you think about Groupon, who I talk about in this chapter, really what Groupon and then the competitors around them did was they just kept copying an idea.

Kimberly Snyder (49:06.296)
Mm.

Kimberly Snyder (49:09.838)
Mm-hmm.

John R. Miles (49:21.153)
There was really no originality around it. And eventually those ideas went to the wayside. So I think what this is really about is how do you break away from being an imitator to embracing your unique individuality for the world? And I think it all starts and ends with self discovery and really taking the time to understand yourself, what drives you.
And that gets us back to meditation, journaling, et cetera, but it’s really embracing those little quirks that make you different and not seeing them as something that’s a negative, but a strength and leaning more in on them.

Because then that drives cultivating confidence, which then leads you to pursue your passions, which then leads you to making, to taking actions that are more original in nature and not following them. and breaking free from being an imitator. Hope that’s along the lines of what you were looking for me to go through.

Kimberly Snyder (50:27.274)
It’s, it states it perfectly. And I love the Jeff Bezos example where it was, there was innovation within a need, right? And I can say in my life, John, how I’ve reconciled some of these is I’ll get asked to press question and it’s, you know, let’s just say, oh, you know, what is, you know, how do you feel about carbs or meditation or whatever?

And it’s sort of these, these themes that are happening in a larger picture. And I’ll take that opportunity to say, yes, this but here’s my unique take on it, or here’s how I’m thinking about it completely differently. So I find that you can do both. You can bring your originality. You can still be in flow with a collective.

People are looking to solve certain issues. People are challenges, right? So I see what you’re saying and how you lay this out in the chapter where your originality can shine forth, even if it’s crowded or busy. Or I really believe that we have a unique blueprint called the true self. We have a unique.

We have a different way of looking at things when we call it up from the inside of us. And so it’s going to be unique and I don’t think we should shy away from that. And when I started writing books and I started writing about this glowing green smoothie and I had a completely different nutritional approach that wasn’t based on numbers, it was based on digestion instead. And, you know, it was different and I leaned into it because that’s what I felt was the truth and it did stand out and, you know, work very well for me.

So I think that’s a really important chapter, section of your book is to us to realize that originality is this, it’s this gift. It’s this incredibly important thing that we can all tap into, but we need, for me it was silence, stillness, time and meditation to actually be able to hear it in the first place.

John R. Miles (52:16.173)
Yeah, well, I mean, let’s just give two great examples in the health category. I think Dr. Gabrielle Lyon is a great example where there’s so many people now talking about the need to eat a vegetarian diet and to limit meat consumption. And she’s doubling down on the exact opposite that proteins are absolutely critical, which is a really different and novel take than most of the industry is doing. And along the same lines,

I think Dr. Peter Attia is talking about apophagy. And I think, and I believe this, that I do intermittent fasting all the time, yet I’ve recently heard him talk about this. And I also was able to talk to Michael Greger about this. And what they’re both saying is that this intermittent fasting, when you’re only doing this for 16 hours to 18 hours, like I do, the only place that they’ve shown that this actually occurs is in mice.

Kimberly Snyder (52:56.086)
Thank you.

John R. Miles (53:14.877)
If you really want this to happen in a human, it probably is going to take 48, possibly 72 hours to reach a state of top of topogy, which is part of what I’m trying to achieve. And so they’re sharing something that is different than the mainstream and what we’ve been shown. And I mean, those are just two slight examples, but I think it’s. Leaning in on these things. And if you don’t feel like what you’re hearing is the truth really doubling down on what you think is the truth and carving your own path to where you wanna go is a simple way to look at this whole concept.

Kimberly Snyder (53:54.43)
That’s true. I will say Dr. Greger, I have his book here as well. I love that he does go back to the plant-based. He goes back, my friend Dan Buettner here with the Blue Zones when we look at this whole other topic, but when we look at societies over hundreds of years, they were mostly plant-based. It’s lighter, John. This is the one I want to get into this whole discussion.

I’ve read some of that carnivore stuff and I’ll just say as is the micro, as is the macro, Ayurvedic medicine and the yogis have always taught about eating lighter from an energetic standpoint, from a meditation standpoint for the environment, for health, right? So there’s people, again, we wanna be original, but we also wanna be discerning for all of us who we’re listening to, like you said, and what choices feel best for all of us. And…

I mean, it could go on and on. There are so many different principles in your wonderful book here, John, and I appreciate you so much sharing some of your wisdom with us. Passion struck. Once again, the subtitle here, I love the cover with the fire. I’ve been drawn to actually making a lot of my own fires. I love gathering the wood. I love making the fire. I love to meditate with fires right now. It feels like it’s bringing out that dynamic energy of spring. 12 powerful principles to unlock your purpose and ignite your most intentional life. So thank you so much, John.

Where else? Well, I know what the answer to this, but tell us where can we find your book, first of all, and where can we find out more about your work?

John R. Miles (55:31.241)
Two best places that you can go to are either passionstruck.com, which is our company website. Or if you want to find out more about me personally, my personal website is johnrmiles.com. I have a famous distant cousin who used to be a famous rock star. So it’s virtually impossible to get SEO preference over him. So I had to use the R and if you want to find me on social media, it’s John R. Miles as well.

Kimberly Snyder (55:58.934)
Well, John, congratulations on your wonderful book. Thank you again so much for sharing this wisdom, which I know will help so many people moving forward, moving their dreams forward with intention and clarity. So it’s been a real pleasure. And here it is again, once again, folks, Passion Struck.

John R. Miles (56:19.553)
Kimberly, thank you so much for having me. It was such an honor to be on your show.

Kimberly Snyder (56:25.69)
And my loves, please again, check out John’s work. Please check out the show notes, mysaluna.com. We will also link directly there. And we’ll be back here as always Thursday for our next Q&A show. Till then, sending you so much love and take great care.