The Inner Frontier with Jonny Miller

What if stress is less about how busy your life looks and more about whether your body believes it has enough energy to meet what is being asked of it?
Marek Doyle joins Jonny to unpack his framework of “energy security”: the relationship between the resources available to the body and the demands it expects to face. He explains why a manageable gap may produce sympathetic mobilization, while a gap that feels impossible to bridge may lead to a parasympathetic stress response often described as freeze or functional shutdown.
They explore why a healing protocol can work beautifully for one person and do nothing for another, why improving energy availability can briefly make someone feel worse, and why a high HRV score is not automatically a sign of resilience. The conversation also covers embodied safety, secondary stress, metabolic dysfunction, breathwork and how to run more useful self-experiments without blindly chasing a number.
You can expect to learn:
- Why Marek became interested in people who did not respond to supposedly reliable health protocols
- How energy security describes the gap between available resources and perceived demands
- The difference between sympathetic mobilization and parasympathetic stress
- Why coming out of freeze can initially feel like increased anxiety or activation
- How Marek reads HRV as one clue within a larger clinical picture
- Why a high HRV reading can sometimes be misinterpreted
- How safety, prediction, parts work and phobias shape protective responses
- Why “anxiety about anxiety” can magnify the original stressor
- How chronic stress and metabolic dysfunction can reinforce one another
- Why rest, breathwork and somatic practices do not land the same way for every nervous system
- How to think in principles and experiments instead of universal protocols
ABOUT MAREK
Marek Doyle is a functional nutritional therapist and breathwork practitioner with more than 20 years of clinical experience. His work focuses on complex cases where standard protocols have failed, combining personalised nutrition, laboratory testing and a systems-level view of stress physiology.
CONNECT WITH MAREK
- Marek's website: https://www.marekdoyle.com/
- Energy security, parasympathetic stress and mobilization: https://www.marekdoyle.com/?p=48061
- Using HRV to measure stress: https://www.marekdoyle.com/using-hrv-to-measure-stress/
- Health & Humanity: https://marekdoyle.substack.com/
- Marek on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marek.doyle
- Lucid Labs: https://www.lucidlabs.health/
EXPLORE MORE FROM JONNY
- Follow Jonny on X: https://twitter.com/jonnym1ller
- Nervous System Mastery: https://nsmastery.com/
- Stateshift: https://stateshift.app/
- Take the free Nervous System Quotient self-assessment: https://assessment.nsmastery.com/
- Subscribe to The Inner Frontier newsletter: https://ch.kit.com/f2ecbf5169
CHAPTERS
00:00 Nervous System Mastery
01:40 Welcome and why reliable protocols fail some people
08:40 What Marek means by energy security
16:47 Reading HRV in context
23:17 Moving from freeze into mobilization
25:27 Embodied safety and the predictive nervous system
28:35 Rehabilitating cortisol's reputation
35:48 Parts work, phobias and protective responses
39:13 Primary stress and secondary stress
41:10 Why transitions between nervous-system states can feel rough
45:48 Practical ways to investigate energy security
53:48 The loop between chronic stress and metabolic dysfunction
65:21 What can meaningfully change HRV?
75:14 The healing state and the limits of protocols
77:27 Why deep rest may require feeling what was avoided
83:31 Where to learn more from Marek

AI can now write, code, research and build at a speed that felt impossible a few years ago. When a machine can reproduce yesterday's competence on demand, what remains distinctly human?
Dan Shipper is the CEO and cofounder of Every, a media and software company exploring what comes next in technology. In this conversation, we examine AI as a mirror for our values, fears and creative instincts.
We explore why good work still requires taste, how coordinating agents can fry your attention, why Every's aggressive approach to automation has created more human work, and which qualities matter when the ground keeps shifting beneath us.
You can expect to learn:
- Why your first encounter with a frontier model can resemble a psychedelic experience, including Dan's 30-day rule for major life decisions
- How to use AI without sacrificing your capacity for reading, writing and sustained thought
- Why taste, meaning and craft still come from the person using the tool
- What Dan means when he describes AI as a "non-specific amplifier" and a form of "frozen competence"
- Why automating everything possible at Every has created more work for people
- How experts can thrive when competent one-shot outputs become cheap and widely available
- Why curiosity, playfulness, openness to experience and the ability to tolerate uncertainty matter in the AI era
- Why knowledge work remains a process of wayfinding, even as agents become more capable and autonomous
ABOUT DAN
Dan Shipper is the CEO and cofounder of Every, a media and software company that publishes a daily newsletter about technology, builds software products, teaches courses and provides AI consulting and training.
CONNECT WITH DAN
- Every: https://every.to/
- Follow Dan on X: https://x.com/danshipper
EXPLORE MORE FROM JONNY
- Follow Jonny on X: https://twitter.com/jonnym1ller
- Nervous System Mastery: https://nsmastery.com/
- Stateshift: https://stateshift.app/
- Take the free Nervous System Quotient self-assessment: https://assessment.nsmastery.com/
- Subscribe to The Inner Frontier newsletter: https://ch.kit.com/f2ecbf5169
CHAPTERS
00:00 Before we begin
00:38 Annie Dillard, art and writing
04:14 Can AI deepen human craft?
05:43 The slot-machine effect of AI agents
06:55 Dan's "house phone" experiment
08:01 What AI can actually help us create
13:55 AI as a non-specific amplifier
17:23 Why AI companies mishandled the story
19:36 Will AI destroy jobs?
22:35 AI as "frozen competence"
26:11 Are human-AI centaurs temporary?
31:34 Career advice for the AI era
37:19 The traits that matter now
40:08 Every as an AI research lab
42:25 The coherence problem
45:25 Rapid-fire questions
48:00 Superintelligence by 2030?
50:44 Life after superintelligence
52:07 The questions Dan is living
53:02 Give yourself permission

What happens when the habits that made you successful stop making you feel alive?

Scott Britton spent years trying to architect the perfect life through achievement. Meditation, an ayahuasca experience and a growing sense that the old strategy had stopped working pulled him toward a different question: can ambition itself become a path of inner development?

In this conversation, we explore the tension between spiritual depth and worldly ambition, why work can become a mirror, and how to use everyday friction as material for self-awareness. Scott also shares the Freedom Log, the deceptively simple practice he still uses to notice triggers, investigate old patterns and choose a different response.

You can expect to learn:

- Why high achievers often swing from relentless ambition to becoming suspicious of ambition itself
- How work can become a practical arena for self-awareness when you stop bulldozing through discomfort
- What Scott learned from spending a year noticing every moment he did not trust himself or life
- Why money reveals patterns around scarcity, shame, safety and self-worth with unusual clarity
- How your real-time reactions can tell you more than affirmations about what you actually believe
- How Scott defines conscious accomplishment and measures progress without turning inner work into another scoreboard
- How to use the Freedom Log, including Scott's simple sequence: notice the trigger, write it down, then feel it
- Why purpose may have as much to do with your quality of attention and aliveness as any ten-year mountain

ABOUT SCOTT

Scott Britton is an entrepreneur, author, investor and community builder. After selling his company Troops to Salesforce in 2022, he founded Conscious Talent, an executive search firm built around conscious leadership. He is the author of Conscious Accomplishment: How to Use Personal Achievement for Spiritual Growth, writes a newsletter about consciousness and human potential, and hosts the EvolutionFM podcast.

CONNECT WITH SCOTT

- Scott's website: https://scottbritton.me/
- Conscious Accomplishment: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FTDKPT14
- Scott's newsletter: https://blog.scottbritton.me/
- Conscious Talent: https://www.conscioustalent.com/
- EvolutionFM: https://podcast.scottbritton.me/

EXPLORE MORE FROM JONNY

- Follow Jonny on X: https://twitter.com/jonnym1ller
- Nervous System Mastery: https://nsmastery.com/
- Stateshift: https://stateshift.app/
- Take the free Nervous System Quotient self-assessment: https://assessment.nsmastery.com/
- Subscribe to The Inner Frontier newsletter: https://ch.kit.com/f2ecbf5169

CHAPTERS

00:00 Welcome and Scott's turning points
03:30 The "success quest" and its limits
06:07 Why Scott wrote Conscious Accomplishment
11:55 Rehabilitating ambition after awakening
14:15 Work as a mirror for inner development
16:20 Building Conscious Talent differently
23:05 Scott's year of trust
30:00 Money, scarcity and the overpriced pasta
38:36 Learning to read friction
45:28 What progress looks like
56:02 Purpose as a way of being
58:59 The Freedom Log practice
62:48 Making time for inner work
70:02 David Whyte's bell and blackbird
71:36 Rapid-fire questions
77:06 "What is mine to do?"

In this conversation with designer, mindfulness teacher, and friend Jay Vidyarthi — we explore how to reclaim agency in the age of the attention economy without rejecting the magic of technology.
We discuss why mainstream narratives about digital distraction often leave out empowerment, how to build healthier relationships with technology, the nuanced role of AI, the sacred responsibility of attention and why awareness is the first “spell” in your own defense against the dark arts of distraction. Listen to this conversation and learn how to enjoy the best of tech while setting boundaries around the worst of it!
Connect with Jay

📚 Check out Jay's brilliant book 'Reclaim Your Mind'
💌 Subscribe to Jay's free newsletter 'Attention Activist'
Explore More from Jonny

👋  Follow on Twitter/X @jonnym1ller
🫁  Learn more about Nervous System Mastery
🎴  Order our deck of Calm Cards (these make great gifts)
📱  Check out Stateshift — our brand new iOS + Android app
📝  Take the Nervous System Quotient (NSQ) Self-Assessment (totally free)
💌 Sign up to The Inner Frontier Newsletter

🫁 Episode Sponsor — Nervous System Mastery
This is my flagship 5-week bootcamp designed to equip you with evidence-backed protocols to cultivate calm and emotional regulation. Our 8th cohort will run in Fall 2025 ~ and applications are currently open. My sense is that if this conversation resonates with you, then you'd likely be a great fit for our upcoming cohort. This curriculum represents my attempt to distill everything I've learned in recent years about creating the conditions for our nervous system's flourishing.  It's run in an intensive cohort-based way since this is, in my experience, the most efficient way to embody and practice the protocols.
Previous students have shared how partaking improved their sleep and quality of relationships and tapped into deeper states of joy, clarity, and confidence in their lives. We've had over 1000 students have completed this training, and many have said that it has been the most impactful thing they've ever done for their personal growth — so if you're intrigued at all, you can find more details and apply to join this year's cohort over at nsmastery.com

Further Ways to Support the Podcast:
🎙️  I use Riverside to record all of my podcast conversations (it's so much better than zoom for podcasting!)
🎧  I also use Transistor to host this podcast, it's fricking awesome, and I would highly recommend.
😎  RaOptics make the world's best Blue Blockers – I wear these anytime I'm out of the house after dark, and it makes a huge difference!
🤖  I use AI wizardry from Castmagic to help with each episode's show-notes + timestamps
📝  Test out my favourite journaling app using journal prompts that have made a huge impact in my life.

Nir Eyal is a New York Times bestselling author and behavioral design expert. We had a wide-ranging conversation on curiosity, identity, and the unexpected ways that beliefs that shape our lives. Nir shared why curiosity is a superpower for self-improvement, the role of community in mental well-being, why “pills don’t teach skills” when it comes to mental health, why testing and rewiring our beliefs is essential for personal growth, and how living with integrity aligns us with our deepest values.
Show Notes:

 • Why curiosity is a superpower for self-improvement
 • How beliefs shape reality — and how to rewire them
 • Spotting and dismantling limiting beliefs that hold you back
 • The link between integrity, values, and intentional living
 • Why “pills don’t teach skills” in mental health
 • The role of identity and labels in shaping behavior
Connect with Nir

📚 Sign up for his (fantastic) newsletter over at nirandfar.com
 
Explore More from Jonny

👋  Follow on Twitter/X @jonnym1ller
🫁  Learn more about Nervous System Mastery
🎴  Order our deck of Calm Cards (these make great gifts)
📱  Check out Stateshift — our brand new iOS + Android app
📝  Take the Nervous System Quotient (NSQ) Self-Assessment (totally free)
💌 Sign up to The Inner Frontier Newsletter

🫁 Episode Sponsor — Nervous System Mastery
This is my flagship 5-week bootcamp designed to equip you with evidence-backed protocols to cultivate calm and emotional regulation. Our 8th cohort will run in Fall 2025 ~ and applications are currently open. My sense is that if this conversation resonates with you, then you'd likely be a great fit for our upcoming cohort. This curriculum represents my attempt to distill everything I've learned in recent years about creating the conditions for our nervous system's flourishing.  It's run in an intensive cohort-based way since this is, in my experience, the most efficient way to embody and practice the protocols.
Previous students have shared how partaking improved their sleep and quality of relationships and tapped into deeper states of joy, clarity, and confidence in their lives. We've had over 1000 students have completed this training, and many have said that it has been the most impactful thing they've ever done for their personal growth — so if you're intrigued at all, you can find more details and apply to join this year's cohort over at nsmastery.com

Further Ways to Support the Podcast:
🎙️  I use Riverside to record all of my podcast conversations (it's so much better than zoom for podcasting!)
🎧  I also use Transistor to host this podcast, it's fricking awesome, and I would highly recommend.
😎  RaOptics make the world's best Blue Blockers – I wear these anytime I'm out of the house after dark, and it makes a huge difference!
🤖  I use AI wizardry from Castmagic to help with each episode's show-notes + timestamps
📝  Test out my favourite journaling app using journal prompts that have made a huge impact in my life.