The Kevin Miller Podcast

In this conversation, Dan Miller, a renowned career expert and author of "48 Days To The Work & Life You Love," shares his wisdom on what draws us to our jobs. He discusses the importance of aligning personal passions with career choices for long-term fulfillment. The dialogue covers generational shifts in work motivation, balancing artistic pursuits with business acumen, and recognizing the value of positive impact in one’s career. Listeners are inspired to reflect on their own career paths and discover deeper meaning in their work.

I’ve spent a lifetime labeled as a high achiever. High performer. I bet you have as well. We have become experts in doing things. Going after things. Getting things done. And there are benefits to this. And yet the consummate mid life crisis is often a result of using ourselves as a tool and not knowing ourselves at all. In my recent conversation with Dr Richard Schwartz, he wrote in his book that our childhood is generally geared around learning to direct ourselves. Not to understand ourselves. And we take this into adulthood and we go and we go and we do and we do. And we often end up at a critical juncture when we realize we’re tired of doing, but we don’t know how to be, because we don’t know who we are being with. This is my story. Maybe it’s yours. Let’s talk.Got a comment or question about an episode? Want to ask a question about your drive? Email me. I don’t want to just talk to you here, I want to talk with you. kmiller@kevinmiller.co. Head to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code KEVIN and depending on the model receive UP TO 39% off or UP TO $300 off!Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/kevinGo to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial.Sign up for AromaTru's Insider Club and today you'll receive a FREE Waterless Oil Diffuser and a FREE lemon eucalyptus oil - that's over $200 in savings. Head to aromatruorganics.com/kevin to take advantage of this exclusive offer.  Kajabi is offering a free 30-day trial to start your business if you go to Kajabi.com/kevinGet 20% off any AquaTru purifier today! Visit AquaTru.com and enter code "KEVIN" at checkout.Go to Quince.com/drives for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Something happens in your life. A stimulus if you will. Something happens, somebody says or does something, and you have an immediate and uncontrollable reaction. Boom. This is natural and it is the human experience. Here is what happens though. Your brain does what it’s made to do. It attaches meaning to what happened. It creates a story based upon the entirety of your life experience and exposure thus far. But here is the kicker. Your brain immediately makes up a story with one motive; to protect you. Life happens, your brain interprets it and creates a story in order to protect you. Comprehending that should cause you to take a big step backward. Whoa! It’s your brain doing what it’s supposed to do, but in today’s world of relative safety and security, is protecting ourselves the most constructive priority? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends. Let’s talk about it for a minute.Got a comment or question about an episode? Want to ask a question about your drive? Email me. I don’t want to just talk to you here, I want to talk with you. kmiller@kevinmiller.co.Head to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code KEVIN and depending on the model receive UP TO 39% off or UP TO $300 off!Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/kevinGo to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial.Sign up for AromaTru's Insider Club and today you'll receive a FREE Waterless Oil Diffuser and a FREE lemon eucalyptus oil - that's over $200 in savings. Head to aromatruorganics.com/kevin to take advantage of this exclusive offer.  Kajabi is offering a free 30-day trial to start your business if you go to Kajabi.com/kevinGet 20% off any AquaTru purifier today! Visit AquaTru.com and enter code "KEVIN" at checkout.Go to Quince.com/drives for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is a common belief and drive that we have good and bad in us. That we are at war with our flesh. We mean well but we fall to this darkness inside of us. I’m a spiritual guy who has placed faith in Jesus. Just my personal decision. I have decided to put faith in the existence of good and evil. But here I’m going to step outside and look at this more scientifically. In the previous episode I talked with Dr Richard Schwartz about the message in his new book, No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. He claims we don’t have a mono-mind, one mind, we have multiples. And they all have a valuable role. They aren’t inherently bad. The opportunity is to understand them, and use them for productive reasons, instead of viewing them as faulty and fighting or falling to them. If you feel you are often fighting with and falling to the bad parts of yourself, you may find great value here.Got a comment or question about an episode? Want to ask a question about your drive? Email me. I don’t want to just talk to you here, I want to talk with you. kmiller@kevinmiller.co. Head to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code KEVIN and depending on the model receive UP TO 39% off or UP TO $300 off!Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/kevinGo to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial.Sign up for AromaTru's Insider Club and today you'll receive a FREE Waterless Oil Diffuser and a FREE lemon eucalyptus oil - that's over $200 in savings. Head to aromatruorganics.com/kevin to take advantage of this exclusive offer.  Kajabi is offering a free 30-day trial to start your business if you go to Kajabi.com/kevinGet 20% off any AquaTru purifier today! Visit AquaTru.com and enter code "KEVIN" at checkout.Go to Quince.com/drives for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode I have a paradigm shift that will alter your drive. We are all raised in the mono-mind belief system, the idea that we have one mind, and from this one mind we have an infinite amount of differing thoughts and emotions and impulses and urges. That we often feel are competing against each other. We think of our good selves and our bad selves. Our healthy and unhealthy aspects. And we get frustrated and feel guilty that our one mind seems so schizophrenic. My guest today has a very different theory and perspective. From his research he believes we have a multiple personality, and all the parts are doing what they are supposed to. If we understand this, we can use them in harmony to help us be our best selves. Richard C. Schwartz, is an American systemic family therapist, academic, author, and creator of the Internal Family Systems branch of therapy. He developed his foundational work with IFS in the 1980s after noticing that his clients were made up of many different pieces or "parts" of their "Self.” Dick is currently on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, and his latest of five books is called, No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. The forward is by renowned music artist, Alanis Morissette who credits Dick’s work with IFS as revolutionizing her own therapy and life perspective and even bringing her to her core spirituality. Famed physician Gabor Maté and psychologist Bessel Van Der Kolk attest to IFS as one of the most innovative and transformational therapies to have emerged in the present century. I sat down with Dick to dig into Internal Family Systems and the message in his new book, No Bad Parts, to uncover how changing our paradigm on the different parts of our minds can significantly alter what drives us for the better.Got a comment or question about an episode? Want to ask a question about your drive? Email me. I don’t want to just talk to you here, I want to talk with you. kmiller@kevinmiller.co.Head to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code KEVIN and depending on the model receive UP TO 39% off or UP TO $300 off!Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/kevinGo to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial.Sign up for AromaTru's Insider Club and today you'll receive a FREE Waterless Oil Diffuser and a FREE lemon eucalyptus oil - that's over $200 in savings. Head to aromatruorganics.com/kevin to take advantage of this exclusive offer.  Kajabi is offering a free 30-day trial to start your business if you go to Kajabi.com/kevinGet 20% off any AquaTru purifier today! Visit AquaTru.com and enter code "KEVIN" at checkout.Go to Quince.com/drives for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I’m looking at what drives someone who is on some of the biggest stages in the world, and the examples we can apply to our own lives. I’m curious about celebrities, and it seems we all are. My curiosity is around why we generally think they have something we don’t. How they got something we don’t have. And we often think of them as more driven than the norm. Chad Jeffers is a celebrated musician. His guitar is featured in the Country Music Hall of Fame. And he’s been Carrie Underwood’s guitarist for 17 years. When you see Carrie on stage, you see Chad next to her. I’ve known Chad for a long time. Chad got picked up by a record label doing his own thing. Why didn’t he keep going that direction? Four years ago we had a long call where he was questioning sticking to the concert tours with Carrie. During COVID he started working in luxury real estate. He also got married and has two kids. But I recently saw him on stage in Vegas lighting up the stage with Carrie. This conversation was fun to question Chad about his motives and what drove him to become one of the top guitarists today, how he balances it with normal life and has the same questions about his journey as we do. Find Chad at chadjeffers.com Got a comment or question about an episode? Want to ask a question about your drive? Email me. I don’t want to just talk to you here, I want to talk with you. kmiller@kevinmiller.co.Head to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code KEVIN and depending on the model receive UP TO 39% off or UP TO $300 off!Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/kevinGo to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial.Sign up for AromaTru's Insider Club and today you'll receive a FREE Waterless Oil Diffuser and a FREE lemon eucalyptus oil - that's over $200 in savings. Head to aromatruorganics.com/kevin to take advantage of this exclusive offer.  Kajabi is offering a free 30-day trial to start your business if you go to Kajabi.com/kevinGet 20% off any AquaTru purifier today! Visit AquaTru.com and enter code "KEVIN" at checkout.Go to Quince.com/drives for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I’m looking at who you are when you’re uninhibited, because it’s a tell-tale sign of what is really driving you. And so often we are blind. I’m not making light of being drunk, drugged, having dementia or dying, but these are methods or altered states that generally bring down people’s shields and we see what is underneath the persona. I’ve witnessed people in all these states and I’ve experienced two myself. I find it very enlightening, and I honestly am concerned about how I do and would fare. I convict myself in thinking about the real me and it gives me two motives; one is I’d like to be the authentic me all the time, so if I was in an altered state, there would be no change. Or two, if I did change in an altered state, what would be revealed? Would I be angry, sad, intense, funny, bitter, quiet, loud…you get the idea. My muse is my recent conversation with Alua Arthur, author of Briefly Perfectly Human: Making an Authentic Life By Getting Real About The End. Alua talked about people at the end of life as they contemplate their mortality and regrets, secret joys, hidden affairs, and dim realities are finally revealed aloud.Got a comment or question about an episode? Want to ask a question about your drive? Email me. I don’t want to just talk to you here, I want to talk with you. kmiller@kevinmiller.co.Head to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code KEVIN and depending on the model receive UP TO 39% off or UP TO $300 off!Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/kevinGo to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial.Sign up for AromaTru's Insider Club and today you'll receive a FREE Waterless Oil Diffuser and a FREE lemon eucalyptus oil - that's over $200 in savings. Head to aromatruorganics.com/kevin to take advantage of this exclusive offer.  Kajabi is offering a free 30-day trial to start your business if you go to Kajabi.com/kevinGet 20% off any AquaTru purifier today! Visit AquaTru.com and enter code "KEVIN" at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode I’m looking at a concept that may be far more effective for motivating us than goal setting. There was a study that showed 80% of people are more motivated by problem solving than goals. What is a problem to consider? Dying. Imagine if you knew you had one year to live? What would you want to do? What would you stop doing? What would matter and what would not? After my recent conversation with celebrated death doula, Alua Arthur, I’m looking at replacing my annual goal setting with annual death planning. Thinking about it honestly feels more orienting and motivating. And after the recent death of my father, it feels radically responsible to my family as well. Hey, got a comment or question about an episode? Want to ask a question about your drive? Email me. I don’t want to just talk to you here, I want to talk with you. kmiller@kevinmiller.cHead to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code KEVIN and depending on the model receive UP TO 39% off or UP TO $300 off!Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/kevinGo to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial.Sign up for AromaTru's Insider Club and today you'll receive a FREE Waterless Oil Diffuser and a FREE lemon eucalyptus oil - that's over $200 in savings. Head to aromatruorganics.com/kevin to take advantage of this exclusive offer.  Kajabi is offering a free 30-day trial to start your business if you go to Kajabi.com/kevinGet 20% off any AquaTru purifier today! Visit AquaTru.com and enter code "KEVIN" at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The point of this podcast is to better fuel your drive so you achieve more fulfillment. I’ve met few people who want to talk about death. We avoid it like…death. It’s black and dark and to be feared. At least in our culture. But seven months ago my Dad got a surprise cancer diagnosis, and he died six weeks later. I was fortunate to walk with him daily until his last breath. I went from zero exposure to death, to full exposure. And it’s altered my life. My brother Jared Angaza was there as well, and he participated intimately as a death doula, walking with my Dad intimately in his personal care and spiritual ponderings. We’d never heard the term “death doula” before. Well, divinely, I was contacted by an agency about having Alua Arthur on this podcast. Alua is the most visible death doula working in America today. She trains and educates other death doulas to walk with people in the end days of their lives, from basic planning to nurturing their souls and the lives of their loved ones. Alua has spent literally thousands of hours with people as they contemplate their mortality when regrets, secret joys, hidden affairs, and dim realities are finally revealed aloud. It is for this insight I wanted to talk with her. Her TED Talk, “Why thinking about death helps you live a better life” has 1.5 million views. She has been featured on CBS’s The Doctors and I’ve now seen her in Disney’s “Limitless” docu-series with Chris Hemsworth. Alua’s journey to death work started when her family fled a murderous coup d'etat in Ghana. She went on to become a lawyer, but after walking with a close friend through his death, she devoted herself to walking with others and educating us on what we can gain in our lives today, from considering our death in the future, instead of avoiding it. I’ll be referencing Alua’s new book, Briefly Perfectly Human: Making an Authentic Life By Getting Real About The End, which is her raw, no holds barred, honest, and frequently hilarious memoir that shares her powerful message with people all around the world. You can also find out more at Goingwithgrace.com. I sat down to talk with Alua about how her insights with death can help us lead more authentically driven and rewarding lives, right now.Got a comment or question about an episode? Want to ask a question about your drive? Email me. I don’t want to just talk to you here, I want to talk with you. kmiller@kevinmiller.co.Head to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code KEVIN and depending on the model receive UP TO 39% off or UP TO $300 off!Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/kevinGo to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial.Sign up for AromaTru's Insider Club and today you'll receive a FREE Waterless Oil Diffuser and a FREE lemon eucalyptus oil - that's over $200 in savings. Head to aromatruorganics.com/kevin to take advantage of this exclusive offer.  Kajabi is offering a free 30-day trial to start your business if you go to Kajabi.com/kevin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Guilt is a primary hidden driver that we’ve accepted as a norm. How much of your lives and actions are being driven by this life draining motive? Probably more than you are aware of. But why, is the question. And how can you stop it? I’m with Valorie Burton. Valorie is founder of the Coaching and Positive Psychology (CaPP) Institute and has written more than a dozen books on personal development. She has a unique combination of research, faith, and personal transparency that inspires people to action and delivers practical tools to find fulfillment and purpose in work and life. Her book, “Let Go Of The Guilt,” is my muse. Valerie’s research into the reality and nuances of guilt and the hold it has on us is profound, which is why I pursued her to be on the show and shine a light on this very insidious and pervasive driver that is leading so many of us to frustration, exhaustion, burn out and unfulfillment. I begin with Valorie’s story. What were her early drivers? What drove her to push and strive and get herself into the Air Force Academy on a presidential appointment, then what drove her to drop out? What drove her to realize how much of her drive was fueled by guilt and what drove her to start a PR firm then abandon it to be an author and speaker? What drove her to marry, then divorce, then to marry again? What drives her today? Type Valorie Burton in any search engine and you’ll find her everywhere, and her coaching business is at cappinstitute.comGot a comment or question about an episode? Want to ask a question about your drive? Email me. I don’t want to just talk to you here, I want to talk with you. kmiller@kevinmiller.co. Head to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code KEVIN and depending on the model receive UP TO 39% off or UP TO $300 off!Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/kevinGo to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial.Sign up for AromaTru's Insider Club and today you'll receive a FREE Waterless Oil Diffuser and a FREE lemon eucalyptus oil - that's over $200 in savings. Head to aromatruorganics.com/kevin to take advantage of this exclusive offer.  Kajabi is offering a free 30-day trial to start your business if you go to Kajabi.com/kevin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices