John Miles | From Apathetic & Stuck to Living Passion Struck: Finding & Filling the Gaps in Our Lives

“I had a split-second decision to make. Do I rush him, or duck and live to fight another day?” ~ John Miles

Guest Bio: John Miles is a leading authority on intentional behavior change, personal growth, and mattering. He is a keynote speaker, author, top-rated show host, and the founder and CEO of Passion Struck®. His award-winning podcast, Passion Struck with John Miles, consistently ranks among the world’s top 100 shows and the #1 Alternative Health podcast. Recognized as one of the top thinkers in personal mastery and a Premier 100 Leader, his influence extends far and wide. With over two decades of corporate and military leadership experience, he’s the trusted advisor sought after by some of the world’s most prominent companies and visionary entrepreneurs.


SHOW NOTES: 

• Website: https://johnrmiles.com/
• Book: https://passionstruck.com/
• Podcast: https://passionstruck.com/passion-struck-podcast/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_r_miles/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milesjohn/

REMARKABLE LISTENER SPECIAL OFFER(S):

• Visit John’s website at https://passionstruck.com/passion-struck-book/# and order his upcoming book, Passion Struck: Twelve Powerful Principles to Unlock Your Purpose and Ignite Your Most Intentional Life, today to receive over $300 in free bonus content.

CORE THEMES, KEYWORDS, & MENTIONS:

• passion, oldest child, traumatic brain injury, Jim Quick, brain, brain trauma, vision issues, fear of rejection, paper route, fear of public speaking, leadership, Ronald Reagan, Reaganomics, entrepreneurship, life turning point, US Naval Academy, Division 1 cross country, division 1 track and field, rugby, integrity, covering up, facing your problems, dealing with you problems, Angela Duckworth Grit, West Pointe, intentionality, abuse of power, FBI, CIA, Arthur Allen, Enron scandal, employee disengagement, Lowe’s, Dell, inner voice, Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, burnout, feeling stuck, home invasion, losing a friend to suicide, hope, Dell CAP consumer advisory panel, EMDR, cognitive therapy, visualization exercises, mindfulness, me-search, mesearch, “me”-search, luminaries, loneliness, empty people, broken people, life crafting, PITA (pain in the ass), setting boundaries, apathetic and stuck, indifferent, Disengagement

Transcript

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John Miles | From Apathetic & Stuck to Living Passion Struck: Finding & Filling the Gaps in Our Lives

Hello friends, welcome to this week's episode of the Remarkable People Podcast, the John Miles story. This week we got a surprise in it for me. As I'm recording the episode with John, I realized we met over 15 years ago and you're going to see a quick mention of it in the episode, but it's amazing how God works everything out.

So everything that's happened to you in life, everything that's happening now. is going to lead to everything that will [00:01:00] happen for your good in the future. In God's glory. So as you listen to this episode, it's like a steam engine. John, you know, he had a traumatic brain injury when he was a kid and he's telling his story and then we get up to his high school days and his college days and going to the U.

S. Naval Academy and he goes from one giant career step to boom, falling out to another giant career step. Fortune 500 company, boom, falling out. Fortune 50 company and you're going to see the journey up and down, up and down. But how it teaches him. From this emptiness and apathy that we've all felt at times, maybe some of you are there now, you feel like your life has no purpose, or you're wondering what it is, and you're, and you're just floundering and dead on the inside, and he's going to show you how to be passion, Struck to kind of find your purpose and fulfill it and make sure your foundation, the legs of your stool are secure and solid on Christ.

And then you can enjoy [00:02:00] and thrive in this world, but most importantly, in eternity to come. So. At this time, get your pens and paper if you're not driving or if you're not at the gym, and be ready to listen to John's story. And remember, it gets better and better and better like a locomotive as the episode goes on.

Listen all the way to the end. If you have any questions for myself or John, let us know, but he's a remarkable man as you're going to see. And then don't forget, Shop at MyPillow. MyPillow sponsors the Remarkable People Podcast so we can stay on the air and continue to bring you great quality content and pay our wonderful intern, right?

So when you shop at MyPillow, I'm not asking you for money. I'm giving you money for free. Use promo code REMARKABLE. You're going to save Up to 80% off everything you order. I think the lowest discount I saw was 30%, but savings on many things up to 80%. Then with promo code, remarkable. Right? Now you also get free shipping for your entire order, [00:03:00] whether you get a mattress topper, whether you get sheets, whether you get slippers, whether you get blankets, whether you get pillows.

It's up to 80% off everything. Every order, free shipping, you save. You keep supporting an amazing American company, right? All their employees, all their affiliates. Then, you help our podcast stay in the air. So it's a win win win. So, check out this remarkable episode with our friend John Miles. After the episode, check out his book and then somewhere after that, or maybe pause right now and go shop at MyPillow.

You're going to get quality products you love or they'll send you your money back. You support our show and you sleep better. I sincerely used MyPillow before they were a sponsor. I use them now and I'm going to use them in the future because it's fantastic comfy stuff. I love it. So that's it. I'm David Pasqualone.

You're you. God's him. And this is our friend, John Miles. Enjoy. 

[00:03:56] EPISODE John Miles 19 Feb 2024: Hey John. How are you today brother? [00:04:00] Hey David. I am so grateful to be here. Thank you for having me. Oh, we're excited. I just told the listeners a small piece of your story on what to expect today, so they're excited. I'm excited. If you were to guarantee whether someone's been with us for four years. Or if this is their first episode, if they listen to start to finish to your episode, what do you guarantee they're going to walk away with?

They'll have tons of gold nuggets of truth, but what's one thing you're passionate about that, you know, they'll get if they just listen. They will learn how to start the journey of becoming passion struck. Awesome. And what's that mean in a quick summary? We'll get into the details, but what's passion struck?

Passion struck means that you have this inexplorable drive to pursue becoming your ideal self. It's when you are able to align your actions with [00:05:00] your ambitions and your longstanding aspirations and have this inner drive that's just like a flame that fuels you to pursue it, no matter what the risks may be.

So, let's talk about every man and woman who's ever lived, good, bad or ugly, they have a past. And that past helps us to become who we are today. So, what, talk about your upbringing, where were you born, what was your upbringing like, what brought you to this place of passion today? Yeah, so I was born in Rochester, New York.

My father is a former Marine who spent most of his life professionally in sails. I was lucky to be raised by a stay at home mom and have two younger siblings. So that was very formative to, I think, who each one of us Became was [00:06:00] having that supportive family behind us. And I think a defining point for me that happened early in my life was when I was five or six years old, I happened to be playing tag.

We were living in Bay village, Ohio at the time, a suburb of Cleveland. And kid just happened to push me from behind and I lost my footing when he pushed me and flew into the basement window and. Had a traumatic brain injury when I was a youngster and coming out of that, it had a profound alteration of my entire life because it led to audio and sensory processing disorders and migraines and field of vision issues.

And. Other things that ended up transpiring, speech impediments. And so it really changed how, even as a young kid, I approached life and similar to people who know the Jim Quick story, I was [00:07:00] also a kid who had a broken brain and that's how I felt inside. And so it caused me to really go inwards. I was already an introvert, but because I had these ailments I kind of hid myself.

So to speak. And so my journey in, from that point into adolescence was really relearning how to train my brain and finding what I was passionate about from a young age going forward. Yeah. And when we grew up, even traumatic brain injuries from a distinct cause. People didn't understand or put a lot of value into it.

Counseling wasn't respected. It was like, there was a lot of shame with having an injury or an issue. So in your area, did they have counseling? Did they have kind of programs to help you develop? Or was it just, Hey, figure it out. Here's the same books everybody else has. Really, the only thing I went to, besides going to the optometrist to try [00:08:00] to help with my vision issues, was I went and saw a speech therapist for years trying to help correct some of those speaking issues.

But for me, I would still have lost words. I would mispronounce things. I still do at times. So for me, being a public speaker has always been. A challenge I've had to overcome, but I, it's always been a passion to be able to reach out to people. So it's something I struggle with, but at the same time I've learned to try to cope with it as much as I can.

Nice. And then when you were growing up, how old were you when that injury happened? I was between five and six. Oh, so you were really young then. Yeah, I was really young. Okay. So now you're growing up. I mean, this is your story. You can share as much or as little as you want from your childhood. We don't have to sit on it, but if there's a lot that happened, we make sure we bring it out.

Anything else between, let's say, your birth and through, you know, high [00:09:00] school, anything else significant that groomed and developed who you are today? Yeah, I was always fascinated with leadership and wanting to learn how to become a better person. And my parents were the type that they would give us the basics.

They would give us a very small allotment of money to do Things with, but anything beyond that we had to fend for ourselves. And so I remember when I was in fifth grade, fifth or sixth grade, I ended up electing to get a paper out because I wanted to take more responsibility, but I also wanted to overcome some of the fears I had with talking to people, especially people older than me, which would happen when I was on the route or, or more when I was trying to collect money from them.

So I started working at a young age. And the more I got into [00:10:00] that, the more leadership and the topic of being a leader started to fascinate me. And so I tried to study everything I could about it. And I tried to put myself into positions where I could become a leader, whether that was on a sports team.

And when I was younger, I played soccer. And as I got into high school, I switched to cross country and track. And ultimately that led to us winning the state championship. In cross country and me winning districts and, getting to the state meet on an individual level myself and, becoming the team captain for both sports.

And I also started working at our local grocery store, Giant Food Mart when I was 14, also to pick up leadership experience. Now, do you remember, was there someone or something that was kind of the catalyst or caught your interest? Like, did you see Ronald Reagan uniting the world [00:11:00] after a terrible, you know, eight years before and the economy in the trash can?

Was there someone in your personal life, like a father or uncle or, you know, grandfather? What, what do you know what caused you to think, I want to become a great leader? I don't remember those aspects. Of Ronald Reagan's tenure. What I do remember is the day that he was shot. And I remember being on the paper route and having some people come out in shock, talking about it.

And that's when I discovered he had been shot. And I think that was a pretty pivotal. moment for me trying to get my arms around why would someone try to assassinate the president and i guess at that point it made me lean in a little bit more on what he was doing Reaganomics and how he was trying to change the alter it how he was trying to change The destination that the U.

S. was heading at that point in time [00:12:00] with his Reaganomics and other things and building up the military, et cetera. But I guess the closest thing I had outside of my father to someone who really impressed me was my grandfather, who had worked for Kraft his entire life after himself getting out of the military and had taken his career to the top of the research and development ranks at.

Craft. And I just always loved how he presented himself, how he handled situations with tact. He was never one of these people who was aggressive. He was able to do it with intellect. And so it really taught me that if you're a leader, you don't have to do it by force. You could do it by moving people through your words, through your actions and your gestures.

And so I think I really inspired. To be like him because I saw him as really a servant type of leader. So there's more tools for a leader than [00:13:00] just a hammer. Is that what you're saying? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And you know, I was thinking about this, this is small, but for our international listeners, or even some of our younger listeners, when John and I grew up.

A lot of us want to work, even as children, which baffles society's mind today that people want to work, let alone children, but the only jobs we get is standing at the corner selling newspapers, you know, sharp, shoes shining, raking leaves, shoveling snow, you know, depending on where you live or being a newspaper delivery person.

Usually little boys and we'd get up super early and ride our bikes and put newspapers all over people's, you know, on the people's porches all around town. So if you're wondering when he says I was a newsboy, that's what he's talking about. It's not a band, right? Not a band, but I mean, I did anything I could to try to make money.

I'd, I'd cut yards, I'd shovel snow during the winters. It was just what you did when we were growing [00:14:00] up. Yeah, absolutely. Redeem the time for the days are evil, right? Work and you're making money and not spending it. I respect that. All right, so go on. So now you're learning about leadership. You're learning about self discipline and entrepreneurship and what we call these terms back then was just work, right?

But now you're in high school. You're getting state championships. Where's your life go from there, John? So David, I had a, a major turning point coming out of high school and deciding where I was going to go to college. I had gotten into a number of public universities, private universities, everyone in my family, meaning my grandparents, my parents, my aunt, et cetera, went to the university of Michigan.

So it was kind of a foregone conclusion that I was going to go there as well, especially when I got in, but I had. This other opportunity that was sitting there as well. And that was the opportunity to go to the [00:15:00] Naval Academy. And as I looked at my trajectory going forward, it, I remember it being a very difficult decision to make, but fundamentally I thought.

My grandfather served, my father served. I want to follow in their footsteps and what better place to go. If you want to learn to be a leader than one of the service academies where teaching leadership is one of the paramount things that they do. So it led me to pursue the appointment to the Naval Academy and going down that path, which I think has been transformational in my life ever since, because not only did it show me.

Leadership and those other things, it taught me what it was to truly be a team member. It taught me the importance of my brothers and sisters in the military to help perform the duties that you needed to perform, to have your back if you're in combat, to, to be there for the ups and lows. And [00:16:00] it really also showed me the importance of The senior enlisted in your success and how, no matter how much knowledge you had coming out of the Naval Academy, it didn't really prepare you to be in the fleet and you really needed to lean on them to gain that experience and to be successful.

A hundred percent. Now, when you went there, obviously change the path that your family's gone on. You are following the footsteps to be in the military. And when you're there, Was it something that you felt you prepared, you were prepared for, or was it something like, wow, this is way harder? Was this way easier?

Where were you at in life when you entered the Naval Academy? So I had the very fortunate experience looking back to go to the Naval Academy Prep School in Newport, Rhode Island before I went to the Naval Academy. And I think that really [00:17:00] was an unexpected gift at the time. It was. Something I really looked negatively on because I wanted to go there directly, but I think that extra year allowed me to mature in many ways.

And we learned so much of the military demeanor. We took many of the same courses we were going to take our plea beer. So when I got into the Naval Academy, I think it made that first year a lot easier for me compared to some of the others who were coming directly from high school. But no matter who you are, it's a big transition.

To go from the freeness of whatever life you had to the confines of being in the military, where they're trying to morph you into the leader they want you to become. Yeah. And I don't want there to be any misconception. I am all for serving the U. S. military. I'm all for, you know, The Naval [00:18:00] Academy, and when I say this, I mean it with respect.

I think it's a good thing. I went to a Christian college because I had a tumor in my head. I couldn't join the service and they were very disappointed. But you have in college, you know, you have rules and regulations and dress codes and uniforms and very high standards and curfews and no opposite sex in your dorm.

And that's not the normal college experience even back then, let alone today. Correct, John? No, it's definitely not the normal experience. I mean, especially plebeier when you're only allowed out one day a week and till, till midnight on that, on that night. So no, it's completely different. Yeah. And the purpose behind that is to make great leaders, great men who are going to have self discipline and control and can follow orders and basically deny themselves.

Correct. I mean, what am I missing in there? Cause I know there's more. No, they're trying to teach you to self [00:19:00] leadership, discipline, boundaries, the essential things that you need to inspire others once you get out there and you start serving in the real service. Excellent. So now you're at the Naval Academy.

You went through your first year of prep school. You're at the Naval Academy. Where's your life go from there, John? Yeah. So I was a division one athlete at the Naval Academy, again, cross country and track for the first couple of years. And then I ended up having a huge issue with stress fractures, which kind of terminated my running career much earlier than I had hoped for.

But I transitioned A sport that I wouldn't have fathomed I would have ever done, which was rugby. And I ended up playing rugby the rest of the time that I was there. But my senior year, I was elected to one of the higher leadership positions at the Academy and was on the Brigade Honor Board. [00:20:00] And it's a high honor to get this position no matter what, but normally.

It's a fairly cake position because there's not that many midshipmen who want to commit an honor offense because if you do, back then it was black and white. You're, if you were found guilty, it was expulsion and there was no ifs, ands, or buts about it. But my, Senior year, it just so happened that we had the largest cheating scandal in the academy's history.

We had hundreds of midshipmen in the class underneath mine who ended up cheating on an electrical engineering final, and it threw the whole academy into chaos. And so it really altered for me the whole trajectory of how I viewed The Academy and then how I viewed kind of my entry going into the service.

And I mean, to kind of put this in perspective, [00:21:00] there were probably three to 500 midshipmen who had cheated on this exam. And we on the honor board wanted this to go through the proper chain of command, and we really felt it was bigger than anything that we could handle, but the superintendent at that time kind of came back and said that.

We were only going to bring forward these, I can't remember if it was 26 or 28 people, but we ended up holding honor boards for those 26 or 28. And about half of them were found guilty. The other half were not, but unbeknownst to me, while this was going on, it turns out one of the other members of the honor board, his father went to West Point and happened to be a general and he was kind of feeding to him everything that was going on.

And so Out in the Baltimore Sun, we would see news reports basically giving a play by play of what was happening at the [00:22:00] academy, and the superintendent did not take kindly on this, and so he would reprimand us hold us on base without giving us privileges and other things because he wanted whoever was doing it to come forth, which they never did, but this investigation by the Baltimore Sun led to the Inspector General for the Navy getting involved and turning this thing into a much wider spread investigation that I was at the epicenter of.

So, I mean, it was really something that not many people, before or after me, regardless of what college you go to, would have, would have been part of, but it taught me a ton of leadership lessons from that experience. Yeah. I was just going to ask, like just some, I mean, I know it's varied and deep, but what are two or three that you like walk away with to this day that like you use regularly?[00:23:00] 

Well, one of them, one of the most important ones. is integrity. And unfortunately, we went to the leadership explained to them the severity of the situation and they chose to cover it up instead of properly deal with it, which ended up leading to the admiral who was in charge being relieved of command.

And, about three or four hundred midshipmen in addition to the 28 who we were brought forth being implicated in this. And it really taught me this important lesson. I am a big fan of Angela Duckworth's work. In fact, my book Passionstruck is built as a foundation, kind of on top of her work on grit.

And ironically, she starts out her own book by studying cadets [00:24:00] at West Point. So my experience would be very familiar with them. And she says, along with research from people at West Point, that it's passion and perseverance and physical abilities which allow cadets to get through West Point. And although I found those things extremely important, the one missing ingredient I found, especially through this experience, was the importance of intentionality.

Meaning, if you intentionally cheat on an exam, there are repercussions of which being kicked out of the very institution you're trying to graduate from and become an officer in. Whereas you can be intentional about doing the right thing. And not taking that gouge and not using it to get an advantage over your other classmates.

I also learned the repercussions of being named as a scapegoat because I ended up graduating. [00:25:00] I ended up going to our follow on master's program, for the discipline that I was doing. And I was about ready to go to the fleet when I'm summoned to my admiral's office. To only hear that I am supposed to report to the Naval Academy in my dress whites the following Monday for what he does not know, but it could impact me going into the fleet.

And so I end up reporting back to the Naval Academy as this investigation is underway now. And I'm met there by two JAG officers only to find out that the superintendent had just tried to pin the entire investigation and its flaws on me. And it turns out he thought I was the one who had gone to the Baltimore Sun, etc.

So I walk into this conference room where it's the superintendent, a few more admirals, a bunch of captains, commanders, and my two legal [00:26:00] counsels as I'm now fighting for my very life and career and whether I'm going to stay in the service or not. And so it just I mean, it, it just Was really a disheartening thing for me of doing, trying to do the right thing, trying to emulate everything that the Naval Academy is about and to see this other dimension of it and how people can abuse their power and the results of that.

And fortunately, nothing ever happened to me. I was never contacted. So I always feared for three or four years while. I was pursuing my career that something could come back. It never did, but it really showed me the importance of what it means to be a leader and to do it. In the correct way, because I certainly saw the incorrect way being shown directly towards me.

[00:27:00] Yeah, and I don't know one instance in my life or those around me like what you were just explaining that if you're honest, you're always going to walk away unscathed. It might be a rough road, but you're going to get through it. But when you lie, steal, and cheat, it might be easier front up front, but you're going to get caught and it's going to be terrible.

So I'm glad you got out of that and he didn't pin that on you. So now you're young. You graduated, you kind of got, I don't want to say a bad taste in your mouth, but you did see the dark side of the organization. Where does your life go from there? Yeah. So I had a great tenure in the military. I got to do everything I ever wanted to.

I went on ships, including destroyers, cruisers, aircraft carriers. I got to serve on submarines. I got to fly an aircraft, got to be assigned to a SEAL unit, and my last tour of duty was doing counter drug interdiction out [00:28:00] of Key West, Florida, as part of the Joint Interagency Task Force down there. And at that point, I had every intention to stay in the service, but this command was just really dynamic, and we served with People from all the other agencies, whether it be the Customs, FBI, DEA, CIA, you name it.

And I ended up being approached by all of them to join them. I ended up applying to three or four, got into all of them, and ended up selecting the FBI and to become a special agent. And so I got out of the military to pursue that. And. I get out of the military on a Monday. I'm supposed to report to Quantico the following Monday, somewhere Wednesday or Thursday of that week.

I get a call from my detailer saying, unfortunately, Congress can't pass a budget and we've been forced to recycle your class. I asked the detailer, what does that? Exactly mean thinking that this was a short term issue and he came back [00:29:00] with you're looking at anywhere between 18 months to 48 months before this is going to clear up and you're going to get to go to Quantico.

And so it forced me to go into a plan B. I never expected. And so I immediately, because I was married at the time, sought employment and I. Ended up doing the first thing that came to my mind to do this was I went to the Naval Academy Alumni Association. And back in the day, we had this big book that had every living service academy from all the service academies.

And I just started going through and looking. Randomly at different people and sending letters, making phone calls. And maybe a month later, I ended up with three opportunities and I pursued the one that was in management consulting because coming out of the military, not knowing the civilian world, I thought it would give me the best leg up and understanding business.

And so I ended up getting a job with Booz [00:30:00] Allen and going into management consulting. Which ended up being, the best choice I could have made because it was kind of a hybrid of you had A lot of MBA types who were there, but you also had military. So I got to serve with both people who were, I'm familiar with from the service and a whole bunch of people who were introducing me to, to new acumen.

So it was a great transition for me. Yeah. And it's interesting because like you said, you had your own plan, you had your own mapping, you thought this is where you're going and then. God just changes things in an unexpected way. I mean, to be frozen a class for up to 48 months. That's who hears of that, right?

When does that happen? And now you, you scramble and find a new alternative and it works out. So now you come on, you're a management consultant. I mean, most people don't even know what that means. They're like, well, what do I do now? Did they put you through another leadership program to train you? Did you just go in and observe?

How did, how did your [00:31:00] career start? Yeah. So Booz Allen was great in that they sent everyone to McLean, Virginia, and we all went through a number of their training programs. So we got the basics for. the fundamentals that they wanted to teach us coming in, but then going in, I worked for a senior manager, who was just a dynamic person.

He had been with them for a decade plus, and he was really my mentor and, and helped me to bridge that gap and to start making progressions. And I really enjoyed my time at Booz Allen, unfortunately or fortunately. I was traveling all the time and we had a newborn and my wife wanted to get closer to home, so she had some more family support.

And so we ended up moving to Houston and I took a job with Arthur Anderson as a practice director, which was a [00:32:00] great promotion for me. I led the cybersecurity practice for the Southwest region and founded the Global Threat Center of Excellence for the entire company. And again, things were going great.

Anderson. Is another was another great example where they sent everyone to St. Charles to learn method one and many of the other things that they taught. But a great company, things were going fantastic. And then all of a sudden Enron happens. So in a period of six years, I have the second opportunity in my life where all of a sudden I have the entire rug pulled out from under my feet and find myself having to start over again.

And reinvent myself and I had the opportunity at that point to continue and to possibly transition to another big four firm. But I was again at this point pretty dismayed by the top leadership at [00:33:00] Anderson and what they were telling us. What happened based on what actually happened. And so I decided at this point to pivot and to go into industry and specifically to try to get some global experience, which I hadn't had up until that point.

And so I ended up finding a recruiter who positioned me at to become the chief information security officer for a company called Lendlease, which is a fifth at the time was a 15 billion Australian based, construction project management. Financial services company. Okay. And then between there and today, take us through the journey, John.

Yeah, I haven't gone through the journey in this much detail ever, I don't think. Yeah, and you can, you can give whatever you want, what you don't, but what we want to do is when you're like, I really learned something here, we're going to stop and then talk about it. So our, not only can we see your success, what you're able to achieve or overcome, [00:34:00] but we're going to reverse engineer it.

So the listeners can too. So that's, that's the ultimate goal, just helping each other and listening to your story. Yeah, so I think something that I would really want to tell people is, and I have it in my book, is I think one of the things that people today, and especially the next generations coming up, are going to have to do is they're going to have to be constant reinventors.

And I have had to reinvent myself. Many, many times. Some of them, as I just described, were not of my influence and they were externally influenced, but many of them have been individually influenced. But I think regardless of who you are, you have to be prepared for the unexpected. And what I learned is that adversity and curve balls and other things are going to hit you.

And you have a choice when that does. You can either sit there and self pity. And think about all the negative [00:35:00] consequences of it, or you maybe do that for a short period of time, deal with that negative outcome and then move your life forward, which is what I had to do in both situations and not look back and propel myself forward because it's not going to do any good sitting there in self pity when you have the power within you to change.

And I think with all the change that we have coming at us with the digital world right now, AI, automation, robotics, et cetera, we're going to face more change in the future, especially the next 20 years than I think people have faced in the past 50 years. And so being able to alter the winds of change are going to be extremely important.

So I ended up leaving Lendlease because I had an opportunity to go to Lowe's Home Improvement and they had just suffered. Months before I arrived, the worst hacking [00:36:00] incident that had ever happened to a retailer, and I was asked to come in and to clean it up, and that was just a profound situation to walk into because it was much worse than even I anticipated it would be, and one of the things that made it worse than I anticipated was I went As you do with all these big Fortune 500 companies through a series of interviews, I was on the job, I'm in my first week, the head of HR asked me to meet with her, and I'm thinking that this is something to talk about, the leaders on my team, to give me more information about what I'm walking into, and she threw me another real big curveball, which they had just done employee satisfaction surveys for the entire company.

And Lowe's at that time had 380, 000 people. We're talking 1800 stores, distribution centers, all these things. She comes to me [00:37:00] and says, out of all the functions in the entire company, you have the lowest engagement scores of any of them in your group. And so, so I'm like, and you couldn't have shared that during the interview process.

But it was a, this turned out to be a huge learning experience for me because I did what any one I think would do. I went out and I started talking to customers, the group, I started talking to my peers, and all of them came back with the same thing. Your group is terrible. They're not performing. You're going to have to get rid of all of them, et cetera.

And, and then I did the step that I think more leaders need to do, which is I met with every single person I could meet with in the organization, even if that meant getting up at two o'clock in the morning. So I could catch the people who were on the call center or working on a watch or working in a data center who wouldn't normally have any face time with senior leadership.

And what I learned was. Really sad to be honest with you. They really felt that their jobs didn't matter. They didn't [00:38:00] understand what they were doing in the bigger perspective of the company and how it influenced customers or strategy or anything else. And so I saw the gap, like it was black and white for me at that point.

I mean, they were disengaged because. They didn't see how they mattered. They didn't see how their jobs were, were having any difference at all. And so what I did is something called a line of sight. I call it a line of sight and I. What I tried to create was a direct way for every employment, regardless if they were sweeping the floor to a direct report of mine to understand exactly how their job impacted a customer or impacted the strategy for Lowe's.

And it was a remarkable journey from that point forward because I knew I can't do this myself. I can only be there so many hours of the day. And I'm running a 24 by 7 operation. But [00:39:00] what I did realize was that if I gave them the tools to do the job, that the best that they could, and I gave them the ability to use their brains to take.

The insight I'm giving them and then to add their own dimensions to it, that this group was really talented and they could propel the team forward. And 18 months later, we took that satisfaction survey again, and we went from the bottom to the second highest in the entire company. And the comp and the whole function went to one of the highest performing.

And it all showed me the importance of having. A passionate culture where people feel like they're listened to and you don't treat them as a number and you don't just treat them as an employee. You treat them as a whole person because for me, it was getting to know them both in their work setting, but also in their personal setting, their aspirations, what they wanted to become [00:40:00] and to help them achieve that.

So that was a huge learning opportunity. And then I ended up spending a number of years at Lowe's. I led all software development. I was the chief data officer and I got recruited to go to Dell. And that was a real pinnacle for me because becoming a CIO of a fortune 50 company before I was 40 was a, was a huge goal of mine.

The learning I had from that experience is be careful what you ask for, because I walked into a situation where I think sometimes the more senior you get, you don't understand. What you're giving up to get into those positions. And what I found was that what really motivated me to be my best was really being creative, was being strategic in thought, et cetera.

And when I went into this role, about 75 percent of my existence was [00:41:00] dealing with office politics and HR issues. And it really was, I went from. What I thought was going to be this incredible pinnacle of my career to really being thrust into a position where it really didn't bring me any fulfillment at all.

And about the same time that I was making this transition I had also started to hear this inner voice that was telling me I was on this, I was on the wrong path. And it was starting to tell me that I needed to do what I'm doing today. And the words it was giving me though, David, were words I didn't know what to deal with.

Because I was told to go help the lonely, the hopeless, the beaten, the bored, the broken, the battered of the world. And I didn't know what to do with it. I mean, it was so foreign compared to what I was doing at the time that I didn't understand [00:42:00] what it meant or even how to get there. So I did what. I think a lot of people, if you read the Old Testament did is they get these callings from God and they're like, what am I supposed to do with this?

This is completely disrupting everything in my life. And they resist it. And that's exactly what I did at first. And I think when you're already on the wrong path, things aren't going ideally your way, but when you start resisting this inner calling that you're getting. I think it only reinforces and accelerates some of those things from happening, and that's certainly what it started to do for me, and I think what I found myself in during this period of time is what Henry David Thoreau calls quiet desperation.

Which I think so many people find themselves living in. And there's this theory called self discrepancy theory that talks about the three versions of self. There's [00:43:00] the authentic self, which is who we are at any given moment of our life. There's the ought self, O U G H T, which is who we think we should be, because that's what society kind of influences us to become, that's what our burdens kind of force us into, and then there is our ideal self, which is who we could become.

And I'd certainly reached a point where I was living out my ought self. And I think I had reached a point that I talk about in the book that I think a lot of us face where I had gotten into this, what I call portfolio career that I had never intended in a million years when I was younger to ever get into it.

I never. Imagined when I was a youngster that I would be sitting behind a desk and wearing a suit and doing that type of job, but it's where I found myself. And after a while, once you get captured in it, it's hard to escape because all of a sudden you're earning the [00:44:00] money. And now you've got to pay for the mortgage and the car and the other responsibilities you have, plus supporting for a family and everything else.

And so I absolutely felt like I was stuck and didn't know how to break free from it. And So I ended up at this point started to feel, I think the onset of, of burnout starting to hit and, was that a point where I was starting to feel emotionally. Numbing happening. And, so I tried to leave Dell and take a position at a smaller company that would give me more freedom and better work life balance since I was working 90 to a hundred hour weeks at Dell, and it was a, it was a great company, a great position where I was the CIO and head of global [00:45:00] operations.

But I think I was just. Stepping into another parallel role, again, stuck in the same position I was, and not doing what I was called to do. And ultimately this kind of all culminated in an event that happened in November of 2017 where I happened to drop my daughter off at, at the, off at school. I went to the gym, happened to go to Orange Theory this day.

And, the fitness class was cut short because there was an electrical fire in their air conditioning system, fire trucks came. And so I went home early and unbeknownst to me, someone had been profiling me and Had decided to use that day because of my typical habits to do a home invasion and to rob me.

And so I got back from the gym, went to go upstairs to [00:46:00] change, to go ride my bike, and was about halfway up the stairs when my spidey senses started going off. And I realized Something was wrong. And then I heard deep breathing as I'm rounding the corner, military training comes in, I'm now looking for a threat.

And there at the top of the stairs was a gentleman pointing a gun at me. And so I had, you know, my life flashes through my eyes and I have two choice, two, just, I have a decision. Am I going to. Rush him where he's got the higher ground and a weapon pointed directly at me, or do I fight, or do I duck and try to fight again tomorrow?

So I chose the latter because I thought it was the safer outcome, and I managed to Get out of the house. I went out the back door. He ended up going out the front door, had a, and, turns out he was part of the rental management company for the [00:47:00] rental house I was in and had a key to the house and my passcodes and everything else.

So, so that event happened. And just as I was starting to process it, I had another Tragic event happened about four or five days afterwards where unfortunately, one of my best friends committed suicide. And so in a matter of. Really, 96 hours, I had two traumatic life events hit me that really woke me up to the fact that I had been spending so much time and aspects of my life making other people's dreams come true, but I wasn't making my own dreams come true.

And it was then and there that I really decided that I was going to heed that calling that I had in my head, figure out how to pursue it. And to rebuild my life brick by brick. Yeah. Now there's a lot to unpack there. So thank you for sharing all that, [00:48:00] John. There are so many of us at different points in our life and some people, like for years, they feel stuck.

They are killing it, their career. They probably have the accolades of, you know, millions of people. If they were looking at their life from the outside. But on the inside, they're empty. So now you're working with Dell, which is like you said, a great organization, but you don't feel any kind of fulfillment or joy or peace.

It just feels empty. Is that correct? I mean, it just felt like what was happening is I was just in this monotonous loop of meetings, emails, presentations that were draining, but they didn't inspire. I, I was getting up every morning, kind of just going through the motions of life, knowing the onslaught of activity that was going to hit me the second I got to work and that I was dreading every second of.

Every day, because I wasn't doing any of the things that [00:49:00] lit me up inside. Plus I didn't, I kind of felt like those employees did back at Lowe's. I didn't really feel like anything I was doing was really bringing about significance because so much of what I was dealing with was office politics and trying to figure out, who's, who you needed to get closer to in that given day or week, et cetera, because of all the.

In our office turmoil that was going on at that point in time. Yeah. And then what years were you with Dell? Quickly. This is a personal question. I'm actually curious. Were you there in like 2009, 10, or was it till not till 2017? No, 9, 10. You were there in 9 10? 11. Yeah. I, okay, I'm saying this, we're on camera and everything.

I think we've met. Were you ever part of their consumer advisory panel? They did that for a couple years? Yeah. You and I have met before. I knew you looked [00:50:00] familiar. They flew me out there in one of those years and I was part of that committee. And I'm like, man, John looks so familiar. And that's where we met.

That's crazy that now it's all coming full circle. So let's do this. You feel the leading of the Holy Spirit. You're in your heart. You're like, this isn't right. You almost get in a conflict that could have taken your life or had you take someone else's, which in society, TV makes it look glorified, but it's terrible to have to take someone's life.

Then you have a friend who commits suicide because there's an emptiness there that only God can fill. And something made them feel like there wasn't hope. Show us, John, where does your journey go and how did you get to this place of passion from an emptiness to full of passion? Yeah, so just to explain a little bit more about what happened is I think once you get this inner calling and you start to resist it, I think [00:51:00] what's hard to do is to, we are so distracted by everything around us that I often say we have two inner voices.

We have the inner voice that we listen to most of the time. That's telling us to just do the same thing over and over again, because it feels comfortable and it's easy and it doesn't take a lot of work. And we're so distracted by raising kids and our jobs and everything else we've got going on that we're not spending time and self awareness that allows us to even have the opportunity to hear the more important voice that's speaking to us, talking to us about our uniqueness and why we're here on earth.

And so for me, once. I started hearing that voice. I then think once you hear it, if you don't listen to it, it starts becoming louder in different ways. And for me, that really had some almost biblical type of events happen to me. I remember [00:52:00] when, after I had heard this and I decided to take the job at Dell, I went home for one of my first trips to go back and visit the family.

I come back and my whole corporate apartment was completely flooded, lost everything that was in it. I go to a new corporate apartment and I'm in it for a few days and I'm in the shower one day. I can't even make this stuff up. All of a sudden I feel this stinging all over my body and I look up and there's actually scorpions falling from the ceiling all over my shoulders.

We end up sticking to this plan. We buy a house, we're in it for maybe a month and find out that the entire backside of the house through the kitchen, everything else has got termite damage that had been repaired and not disclosed. And that we're looking at a quarter of a million dollars to repair it.

Insurance won't cover it. I mean, I can't make this stuff up. Bed bugs. I mean, everything. And I think this is what ends up [00:53:00] happening to us. I mean, this is an extreme version of this, but to me, looking back, I don't know why I didn't hear the wake up calls earlier, but I think it was because I was so tunnel focused on the things that you're talking about.

Success, achievement, money, all those things. And it was so distracting to me from everything else. So getting back to, to this point, Actually, can I add one thing in and you can, you can agree or disagree with me, but I feel as though we need to talk about this. There's so many great men and women who are working hard for the family and they're working at 60, 80 hours a week.

But when you're working that much. You're barely existing and then you're sleeping and then you're eating and you're going right back to work. And the Bible talks about the importance of just meditating and being alone with God and you know, your time with prayer and reading and be still and know that I'm God, right?

And it [00:54:00] might've been, you couldn't hear that because you were just go, go, go, go, go. There was no time to listen. Would you say that's accurate in a warning that all of us as humans need to take to make sure we have time, not just alone for ourselves, but time alone with God? Yeah, I mean, in this particular position, man, it was rough.

I, I had employees in 16 different countries on five continents and my day would start at 5 a. m. with me, Waking up and basically getting on the computer to, to talk to the teams that were in Asia and and Europe. And then I would go in, do my day job when I wasn't traveling two weeks out of the month and I'd come home, do dinner.

Spend some time with the family, and then I'd be back at work probably from 8 to 11 at night, dealing with the [00:55:00] Asian crowd where I had probably 70 percent of my employees. And so there really wasn't a lot, a lot of work life balance, and it was very difficult to break free. I, I just remember at that time, I can't even.

I mean, the numbers were just staggering. I mean, I was getting, I mean, people say I get a thousand emails a day. I mean, I was literally getting over a thousand emails a day. And it, yeah, it was just a lot. And so you asked, like, after these incidents, what was the first thing I, I did? And first thing I did was I realized that I needed to hunker down and if I was going to be this, a better leader, getting back to leadership, I needed to be better at self leadership.

And so I went to a therapist at this point, you know, to try to help me through some of the trauma I was feeling. And I ended up [00:56:00] meeting with him and then I. You know, ended up going through cognitive processing therapy and prolonged exposure and EMDR and those other things. But he really helped me initially just to see my life in a different way.

And I remember after seeing him for about a month, he asked me to sit down and to do a visualization exercise with them. And he had me picture myself walking into a kitchen where there was a stool. Sitting on the stool, but then imagining myself as if the stool only had one major support underneath it.

And for me, it was the daily grind and it was burnout. And it was everything that I was subjecting myself to. And he said, what do you think this is doing to you? I'm like, it's going to kill me. I'm going to topple over. He's like, you're absolutely right. He goes, now I want you to picture that same stool.

And you can picture it any way you want, but imagine it has different, pillars underneath it. And it was a really great analogy for me because I started to think about if I'm going to [00:57:00] rebuild my life brick by brick. Then the pillars that I want to include underneath that are the ones that I've been neglecting.

And so I made them physical health, mental health, emotional health, spiritual health, and relationship health. And so I saw that that was the long term journey I was going to go have to go into, but I had, I think the mistake people make is we try to do too much in one fell swoop, and so I knew I had to start small.

So for me, the biggest thing I needed to get. A grip on was my mental health because at that point, my emotional cup was completely full. I felt completely numb inside. And so I spent really the next two years in a deep period of introspection, doing yoga, learning how to do mindfulness, and really getting to the core of who I was.

And it was during this process where I had already been studying leaders, but I really decided [00:58:00] that I was going to study people who I looked up, I looked up upon. You asked me earlier when I was a kid who I looked up to, I now was looking at people and who I aspired to be. So I started to think about like, how did Dwayne The Rock Johnson go from bottom to where he is?

How did Oprah Winfrey do it? How did people like Mark Benioff? who felt unfulfilled at Oracle completely change his life and do Salesforce. And so I started looking at these people and patterns emerged and I started to use those patterns on myself, doing research. And what I ended up finding is that the more intentional actions I would take that were aligned with the ambitions and aspirations I had in becoming my ideal self, the more.

My life started to change in a positive way and I started to make breakthroughs. [00:59:00] They didn't happen all of a sudden. I think it's almost as if before we had cell phones, you're in a car and you're stuck on the side of the road and you've got two options. You can either push that car to someplace where you're going to get it fixed, or you can sit on the road.

And try to hitchhike. And I took the option where I started to push the car. And of course, when you first start pushing, it's going to be really, really, really difficult. But after a while you get some momentum and then maybe even get a break and you get a downhill and all of a sudden, things start propelling.

And I think the same thing goes. with change in our lives. And so the more things were working, the more I leaned into them, the more I, I studied more luminaries to figure out what they were doing. And it all culminated in, in me finding 12 principles. That kept showing up time and time again, and it ended up [01:00:00] showing up in about 750 luminaries that I ended up studying over a period of about seven years.

And that's what ended up being the 12 principles that make up my book. But what was really unique for me is I think when I hit this point, we. It's rare that we get the opportunity to build ourselves up from scratch, but the great thing about doing it is that you can do it and create a completely new version of yourself.

And for the people who think they can't change out there, I think it's one of the biggest false things that we're taught and that we have agency. We have the power to make different choices. We have the power within us to exploit our uniqueness in the service of others and to become our best self. And that's actually, that's absolutely the process I went into.

And when I was going through this self awareness and Leaning in more to my spirituality [01:01:00] and understanding the calling I'd been given, I really started to do some soul searching into what I was being asked to do. And I think we're best positioned to serve the person that we once were. And I think that there are Hundreds of millions, if not billions of people out there right now who faced what I faced, they're living in quiet desperation.

They feel like their life doesn't matter. And if you don't believe me, all you got to do is look at what Gallup reports. 2022, they came out and said that there are 900 million people in 142 countries who feel unfulfilled. Where you look at the work that Tom Gilovich is doing at Cornell University, where he examined Thousands of individuals who were nearing death and he asked them, what was your biggest regret in life?

And it was completely different than what I expected it to be. It wasn't the mistakes that they had made. It was the what ifs. And the should haves, it was the regret of not becoming [01:02:00] their ideal self. And 76 percent of them responded in that way. So I think this is a very pervasive issue, and I think it's leading to the mental health crisis that we see, to the helplessness crisis, to the hopelessness crisis, and the loneliness crisis.

And what I learned was, it's this Unmattering or anti mattering that people feel that I think I was being called to help solve and to lead people to lives of significance, which is the pursuit of becoming your ideal self, which you asked me at the beginning of the podcast, what I would try to help people to understand.

And so that really became the formation of what I'm now doing. But at the time, four years ago, the word passion struck didn't even exist in my mind. And I think that's an interesting story because I remember talking to one of the people I profile in the book, Keith Crotch, who [01:03:00] some people might know. He founded a company called Ariba.

He was then chairman and CEO of another well known company, DocuSign. And I remember talking to him and I was telling him that I just feel like I'm being called to help people go from being stuck to this. place where they have this just raw energy, like it's like a flame that's engulfing them, where they have found a problem that they're uniquely called to solve and they're going after it every ounce of their body because they, they're finding a crisis in the world.

That's impacting people that they can turn into a better thing. And he said to me, you know, John, it sounds like you're talking about going from stuck to passion struck and the light bulb just went off and that kind of amounted to everything I'm doing now. That's beautiful. So I don't want to skip anything in your life between your birth and [01:04:00] today.

Is there anything else significant that we missed before I ask you a couple more questions? And then we transition to where's John today and where are you heading next? No, I mean, I think the, the biggest probably life event that I had was the birth of my kids who are now 20 and 25 and I ended up dedicating the book to them.

So I mean, that's an important chapter I, I don't want to leave out. Oh, 100%. So now for our listeners, they've connected with you. They know what you're talking about. They feel empty. They're going through the motions. It feels like they're just about to snap or break or quit. And it's, it's getting old, it's getting tiring, but they don't know any other way.

Everybody's life obviously has intricacies and there's differences, but at the same time as humans, we have the fundamental same. What are two or three things people can try at home, John, to at least start getting unstuck, to start getting passion struck?[01:05:00] 

Well, I think that that whole analogy that I, I gave that the therapist gave me is a great one for people to think about in their own lives. Picture yourself on your own kitchen stool and what is holding you up? Are you in balance? Are you out of balance? If you're out of balance, what aspects of your life?

are out of balance because that's typically the best starting point is trying to find out what this most severe gap is in your life that's causing you to feel the pain and anguish that you have and that's generally the starting point that you should start taking to To fix the ultimate foundation that's broken.

The whole concept I call life crafting, and this is the first principle that I have in the book. And in it, in the book, I call it being a mission angler. And I use that analogy because I live down here in Tampa Bay [01:06:00] where we have some of the best fishing in the country. And I know a lot of people who fish and I love to fish.

And when you go out on a day to go fishing, it's not as if. You fuel the boat up, just leave the dock, go to point Gulf of Mexico, drop your anchor and expect to catch fish. No, I mean, if you're a really good angler, you're looking at tides. You're looking at what fish are in season, where people have reported them.

You're using your fish finder. You're looking at moon phases, et cetera, et cetera. But I use this analogy because we become so disciplined. And intentional about how we approach things like fishing. But the crazy thing is we don't do the same thing in the way that we want to craft our own life. And really what I'm telling people they need to do is they need to be really intentional about the life that they want to create.

And I think one of the first things to [01:07:00] start doing on this pursuit of finding your passion or purpose, which is never an easy thing for any of us to do. But I think if you can start picturing in your mind. If you were living the ideal life that you possibly could, what would that look like? Who would you be impacting?

How would you be impacting? Most importantly, how would you be showing up as your authentic self? How would you be showing up in relationships? And then start looking at your actual self and how big is that gap? And go back to that stool analogy and figure out what are those posts underneath your stool.

That are causing you to have this gap and come to the realization that you were likely sitting in the same place I was probably in a different situation for mine, but still living your ought self and not pursuing your destiny of becoming your ideal self. [01:08:00] So I think that would be the starting point.

Typically, once you. Figure out where that new guide post is, that new North Star that you want to build your life to become. The next thing you're going to run into is the barrier of the mask that you're wearing. That hides who you are, authentically are. And so to me, the next major step in the process that I call being a brand reinventor is really starting to reinvent who you are, because that's what it's going to take to do this.

You can't just expect that you're going to go from living the life that you are to becoming. This next version of yourself overnight, it took you a while to get to wherever you are now, and it's going to take you a while to get to where you want to be. The only way you can do that is by starting to take actions that are going to lead you there.

And I think people think that they have to have the courage before they act. And to [01:09:00] me. It's the actions and the results that you achieve that give you the courage to keep pursuing more. And then I think the next piece of advice I would give them is that once you start figuring out this new life you want and you start reinventing yourself, you're now going to start showing up differently in the world.

Your friends and family and other people are going to start noticing a different you, and some are going to rejoice in this new you, but you're going to have others who are invisible influences in your life who are going to start steering you away. from that destination you now want to go into. And so I call this chapter of the book, The Mosquito Auditor.

And really what this is about is, is I was thinking about these invisible influences. I happened to be on a walk and was in a state of mindfulness. And I started to think About how do I approach my advice for this chapter? And I got done [01:10:00] meditating and I decided to put a radio show on and they just so happened to be talking about what is the most dangerous animal on the planet.

And I started hearing the responses and they were the same things I heard in my head. I think everyone's mind goes to a snake or a spider or a shark or something like that. And we were all wrong. It's really this small. Seems like harmless mosquito that ends up killing about 2 million people per year and does more havoc than all the sharks will in a hundred years.

And to me, it was a really interesting moment for me because, similar to how mosquitoes are often invisible influences in our life yet cause havoc, so are the human mosquitoes that permeate our lives, and it caused me to really think about three that I run into more than others, and one is a bloodsucker, another is an invisible suffocator, and the third one is [01:11:00] called a PETA, and a bloodsucker is kind of that person who wants every drop of blood that they can possibly get from you.

And they're going to do whatever it takes, no matter how much harm they cause you to achieve it. The invisible suffocator is that pessimist who we all run into in our life. It's the aunt or uncle at Christmas who we say we've got this great job opportunity and all they can do is give you all the negatives.

that you're going to face in pursuing it. And the PETA is the pain in the ass, or the piece of work that some people refer to it as, and these are the people who gossip behind your back, are constantly trying to undermine you etc. And I use those three as just a starting point, and then what I encourage people to do is to imagine Themselves shooting archery as if they're shooting it at a target.

Just pick the 15 people that come to the top of mine, [01:12:00] put the five closest ones in the center, next five, next circle, next five, next circle. And just think of, do any of them show up as the bloodsucker, invisible suffocator or PETA? I'm sure some will. And at that point you now have a great gift because you now can recognize them, which gives you the power.

To do something about it through setting up boundaries, or if they're causing so much havoc from keeping you from your dreams, you might just have to eliminate them from yourself for a short term or permanently depending on how big a barrier they are to you, achieving who you want to become. So those would be three things.

Beautiful. Thank you so much, John. I know that helped me and it's going to help a lot of people around the world. And also just to, you know, we're born into our family. Some have great families, some it's horrific. And we all need boundaries, like what you're talking about. If they're mosquitoes, even our own father or sister, right.

But we need to make sure [01:13:00] that. In those circumstances, we have to be mindful that God put us in their lives. So where, you know, I might have a neighbor, I can completely cut out. They're a bloodsucker. They're gone, but you need to have healthy boundaries for family members where you're not taking abuse or letting them suck you down, but you're also not cutting them off because they are family for whatever reason.

God put them in your life. Would you agree or disagree with that position? No, I would wholeheartedly agree. And I wrote a whole chapter about it later in the book called the Calvin boundary magnifier. So yes. I mean, setting boundaries, I think the thing people don't realize about setting boundaries is it's really, it gives you self compassion when you do it, but also gives you control of your situation.

And when you're not doing it, it's doing the opposite in your life. You're, you're actually letting people trample on you. So I think it's so important that people understand the power of [01:14:00] Expressing your core values and convictions and sticking to them. Yes. I couldn't agree more. Let me ask you a question.

If this, what first thing that pops into your mind, the goal is to be passion struck, to know God's purpose for our life, what really fires us up, what we love and fulfill it. What's the opposite of the passion struck?

I would say it's, it's being apathetic about your life, or if people aren't familiar with apathetic, indifferent. And I think it shows up in nihilism as we're seeing so many people demonstrate today. But if I would use the exact opposite, it would be apathy or indifference. Yeah, I would agree. And to me, it's better to hate than to be apathetic.

It's like, it's like the Bible talks about, you know, be hot or cold, but don't be lukewarm. [01:15:00] Don't be in the middle. And when we're really dead, like when you're in that position, Adele, I don't want you to, obviously you have friends there. It's a great company. But that wasn't where you were supposed to be.

So you were dying more each day and going through that numbness and that just like almost zombie like roteness to me, that's worse than hating it or even loving your job again, would you agree or disagree? Yeah, I mean, it was, it was like I was stuck in quicksand and I, no matter how much I tried, I couldn't pull, pull myself out of it.

And I mean, ultimately what got me out of it was actually following my core values because I was forced to make a decision that I felt deep inside was the right one to make for Dell. But I knew it was going to have consequences to me personally, if I made it. And I mean, I look back and I don't regret making that decision for one moment because [01:16:00] I'd rather be able to look in the mirror and live with myself and know that I did what I thought was the right thing than to look back and know that I was bullied into peer pressure to do the wrong thing.

Absolutely. So ladies and gentlemen, if you're feeling stuck, if you're feeling dead, if you're feeling exhausted, you're feeling frustrated, thanks for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Go to John's website, buy his book on Amazon, not because we're trying to pump his sales, right? But he found the way out.

The Holy Ghost was talking to him. He listened, he engaged, and now his purpose to help you. Ignite and to have that passion struck. So, John, what's the best way for someone to get a hold of you? What's your website? Is there a social media site that you prefer over others? If someone wants to continue the conversation, buy the book, take a class, do some coaching, what's the next step?

Yeah, David, what I would first like to say is [01:17:00] I read 120 books a year. I'm a podcaster like you, and I interview a ton of authors and read a lot of books, and I'd say 90 percent of them just go on my shelf, or a lot of them go into my public library outside my house that I have for people to take the books, because a lot of the books have great guidance, but I I feel like once you read it, you've gotten the guidance and you're kind of done with it.

And I didn't want Passionstruck to be that type of book. I wanted it to be the type of book that you live. And so I made it to be as actionable as I possibly could to not only give you the principles, but the whole third section of the book teaches you to how to implement them in your life. And then I give QR codes and other things to give you even more resources to do it.

So I wanted to say that. If people want to learn more about me, social media [01:18:00] wise, you can find me at Jon R. Miles. JonRMiles. com is my website. And everything Passionstruck is either Passionstruck. com or the Passionstruck Podcast. Amen. And how often do you run your podcast? Is it a weekly show? A daily show?

I do three episodes a week, two interviews and a solo. Very nice. Very nice. So ladies and gentlemen, check it out. Bookmark that and whether you use an Apple or Spotify. And man, it's been a pleasure spending time together, John, learning from you. She's being inspired by you. And before we end the show, is there anything we missed or any final thoughts you want to leave with our audience today?

Yeah, I'm going to end by telling just a short story. I have a good friend of mine, Andreas Widmer, who started the business school at Catholic university of America. When Andreas was earlier in his life, he was a troubled kid. He had no idea [01:19:00] what life was meant for him. And he grew up in Switzerland. His parents convinced him to sign up, to be a Swiss guard.

He ends up getting selected. He still, to this day, can't figure out why they chose him, but before long, he is a Swiss guard for Pope John Paul II. And he tells me this great story that the Pope, even though he's shepherding a billion Catholics throughout the world, when he's around you, you feel like the rest of the world evaporates.

It's only you and him. In his presence. And it's almost as if the Pope can see right through you. And he knew that Andreas was struggling. And so we started to mentor him and he gave him this bit of wisdom. He said, God puts you here for a reason and you're unique and there will never be another Andreas.

And he puts you here to serve people and to make the world a better place. And it's your life mission to find that calling and to live [01:20:00] better, be better. And make a positive impact in the world. And I think this starts and ends by anyone who's listening today, realizing that the greatest person that you're ever going to meet in your entire life is the person who stares back at you every morning when you look in the mirror, the greatest competitor that that same person is ever going to face is also that person who's looking back at you in the mirror.

But it's up to you to make the choice. Are you going to pursue a life of regret or are you going to pursue becoming the best person that you possibly can? Because ultimately the way it has shown up in my life is it is a choice into how we live every single day, because it's not the big events in our life that define us.

I have found it's the micro choices that we make. In the moments of our lives every single day, then end up defining whether we're going to end up in a tsunami of greatness or a valley of [01:21:00] despair. So make that choice and think about the direction you want to take your life. Thank you so much, John, for being here today.

That is amazing advice. Ladies and gentlemen, like our slogan says. Don't just listen to great knowledge and wisdom, but do it. Repeat it each day so you can have a great life in this world, but more importantly, an eternity to come. So John, thank you again for being here, brother. I really appreciate your time.

No, thank you so much for having me. It was an honor to be here. Oh, absolutely. It was an honor for us. And ladies and gentlemen, we hope you loved the episode. Learn from it. Meditate on it. Apply it. Share it with your friends and family. Check out John's book and podcast. And then remember when you're out there, even if we take a fall, get back up, try again and keep moving forward.

I'm David Pasqualone. This is our friend, John. We love you. Have a great day and see you in the next episode.

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