The Kevin Miller Podcast

• Authentically Connect With Others By First Connecting With Yourself & Your Motives w/ Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist Charles Duhigg

  If I asked you why we communicate with others, what would your reply be? I think my mind initially went to sharing information. But as you will soon hear, my guest cites that only 15-18% of our daily communications are about mere information. What is the primary reason we communicate then? We communicate to connect with others. My interest then is considering how much of my communication actually results in true connection. I have a world expert with me. Charles Duhigg. Charles is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and the author of The Power of Habit, which spent over three years on bestseller lists is my favorite book on habits. In February of 2024 I had him here on the show for the first time to talk about his then new book, Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. The book has already sold over a million copies and I brought him back on to talk further about my own evolution in connecting, and to celebrate the release of the paperback version of Supercommunicators. Charles also writes for The New Yorker magazine and previously wrote for The New York Times and is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School. You can connect with him at charlesduhigg.com. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  --------  

  46:24

  --------

  46:24
• Hard Resets Of Your Mind To Expand Your Perspectives About Yourself & Life w/ World Record Explorer Colin O'Brady

  I find it rare for anyone to make a big deviation from their normal routine. We work hard to get ourselves to a place where we are managing our lives with stability. We get routines and schedules that feel comfortable, safe, and efficient. I’m growing to appreciate seasons of this lifestyle. And yet, I find a danger of getting into a rut that is hard to break out of, and our minds can get lazy. Breaking out in small, incremental steps may work for some people. But I’m a fan of some hard resets. As I record this intro for the podcast I’m nearing the end of a 72 hour fast. The reason, even though I greatly appreciate the mental clarity and acuity I experience, the reason was mainly to give my body a chance to fully recover and reset itself from the constant barrage of food. In a similar concept, my guest today invites you on a 12 hour walk. In 2018, Colin O’Brady became the first person in history to complete a solo, unsupported, fully human-powered crossing of Antarctica’s landmass. Dragging a 375-pound sled for 54 days across 932 miles of ice. Colin holds 11 world records as a renowned explorer. As this podcast goes live on November 21, 2025, Colin is back in Antarctica on a quest called FURTHER that started on Nov. 5th. Further is a 1,780 mile, 110 day solo, unsupported, and fully human-powered crossing of Antarctica. From ocean to ocean, the route spans not only the continent itself but also nearly 1,000 miles of frozen sea — the ice shelves that flank Antarctica’s edge. I sat down with Colin a few years ago after he had been homebound by COVID, and then up and told his wife he was going for a walk. And right then and from his home, he walked for 12 hours. What resulted was a reset of his mind. Of his motivation. Of his perspective on life. He impacted himself so much that he wrote a book about it, The 12-Hour Walk: Invest One Day, Conquer Your Mind, and Unlock Your Best Life. We talk about our inclination to go from kids, youth, and even young adults with big dreams and ideas, and relegate ourselves to the mundane. But I’m not out to promote you, just do it, go bigger, and do more. I’m not even that interested in talking about how we are all capable of more. I interest myself with how we can be different. Maybe better, but different. And maybe that different is actually…going smaller. Doing less. The idea is more about doing something to shake us out of our mold and get a reset. And from this, consider new possibilities for ourselves and our lives and our overall life experience. Connect with Colin and even watch a live, interactive map of his current expedition, at colinobrady.com. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  --------  

  1:09:02

  --------

  1:09:02
• Severe Transformation: How Accountability & Causation Motivated Andre Norman From Prison Gang Boss To Ambassador Of Hope

  There are plenty of rags to riches stories, that while I honor greatly, don’t specifically stand out to me. But this one…this one did. Andre Norman wasn’t just in prison. And maximum security prison at that. He ran the prison. He was king of the inmates and ran gang activities from within the prison walls. He was granted immunity from most all the rules and regulations by the guards. Then on his way to yet another of 10+ attempted murders, he got a wake up call and realized he was king. King of…nothing. Thus began his journey to educate himself, work out of a 100+ year prison sentence, and become an acclaimed motivational speaker on hope. That is a dramatic life transformation to me. An incredible identity shift. And I wanted to understand the dynamics of his experience. Most of my guests are authors, but I seldom read the books completely. Andre’s book, Ambassador Of Hope: Turning Poverty And Prison Into A Purpose Driven Life, I read cover to cover. His childhood story…I just broke my heart with. He went from prison king to Harvard. Literally. But even amongst the success he pursued, he still struggled. I dig into his story and he brought me to a discussion on the salvation he cites of accountability. And our propensity as humans to get involved in a pursuit out of a strong why, but then lose it to the what of what we are doing. And get lost, or as he did, come back to the why. I think you’ll find this discussion convicting and sobering, as I did. Find Andre at andrenorman.com Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  --------  

  1:03:14

  --------

  1:03:14
• Why We Actually Want To Experience The Bittersweet w/ Acclaimed Author Susan Cain

  We are all aware of the primary categories of our emotions, such as joy, trust, fear, surprise, happiness, sadness, surprise, anticipation, anger, and disgust. But I grew up thinking some of those were good and desirable, and some were bad and to be avoided at all cost. You are either being positive or negative. Now that I’ve let myself freely allow and marinate in so-called “negative” emotions, I feel I missed out on so much. I actually find joy in feeling sad. I don’t let it overwhelm and control me, but I get value from the feeling. I was thinking about movies and found out the most popular movie categories are Adventure 24.8%, Action 23.2%, Drama 14.10%, Comedy 14.01%, Thriller/Suspense 7.3%, Horror 6.4%, and Romantic Comedy 4.3%. Which shows me that we pay money and choose to watch movies that fulfill the wide range of emotions. A few years ago I sat down with an expert on the topic. Susan Cain. In 2013 Susan Cain published her book, QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. It was beyond a best seller. At the time the book had spent seven years on the New York Times best seller list. Her follow up book however, is called Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, and it was an instant New York Times best seller as well. Susan helped me realize the most beautiful and joyful experiences of my life have also held an ache and a longing, and this is what Susan is speaking to. She gives focus to the four Hippocratic temperaments of sanguine, melancholic, choleric, and phlegmatic. Most of our world’s greatest creativity and art comes from a melancholic temperament, but Susan writes, “We’ve organized American culture around a sanguine-choleric outlook (forward leaning and combat ready), while Freud labeled melancholic as narcissistic and the main stream culture often views sorrow and longing as clinically depressed.” Susan asks, “How did a nation founded on so much heartache turn into a culture of normative sunshine and enforced positivity?” What you’ll hear is a candid discussion that gives us permission and inspiration to feel the feels and allow sorrow and longing in, in order to more fully experience joy and beauty. You can connect with Susan at susancain.net Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  --------  

  1:09:53

  --------

  1:09:53
• Challenging Core Tenants Of Human Belief & Consciousness w/ Spiritual Teacher Ram Dass & Parvati Markus

  As humans, we are governed by our core beliefs, many of which we aren’t even aware of. There are so many things we believe to be true and so many foundational concepts of our perception we never question. So in this episode, we’re going to question them. Ram Dass was an American Spiritual teacher, psychologist, and writer. He gained popularity in the early 1960s by bringing concepts of consciousness and spirituality from India, to America.  His book, "Be Here Now" is a spiritual classic selling over two million copies. He began as a professor at Harvard before being fired along with Timothy Leary for experimenting and advocating the use of psychedelics. Now, as a proper Christian, I was fairly unaware of Ram Dass. That is until the winter of 2024 when my Dad, Dan Miller of 48 Days To The Work & Life You Love fame, was diagnosed with cancer. During the six weeks between his diagnosis and ultimate death, he had little interest in any topic other than spirituality. And one of the people he tuned into was Ram Dass. My brother Jared and my Dad would pull up YouTube videos of Ram Dass and I got my first real exposure. My spiritual journey since then has been nothing short of revelatory. And such was my delight when the giant publisher, Harper, contacted me about doing a show on a new book from Ram Dass. What it ended up being was a new book compiled from over 50 talks Ram Dass conducted, compiled and edited by Parvati Markus, who was at the right hand of Ram Dass since the beginning of his spiritual leadership. Parvati is an author of multiple books on spirituality and one of the closest long term friends to Ram Dass that ever existed. In this episode Parvati joins me to talk through key issues Ram discusses such as our human propensity, especially in western cultures, to think in terms of “us” vs “them.” We discuss Judgement vs appreciation. Then attachments and the danger of what we cling to. And we spend a lot of time talking about the dangers of identifying with our roles, which for much of humanity, again, I think exaggerated in our western culture, is all that we know to identify with. The new book, which I’ve read front to back twice now, is There Is No Other: The Way to Harmony and Wholeness. Connect more at ramdass.org. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  --------  

  1:09:53

  --------

  1:09:53

More Education podcasts

Trending Education podcasts

About The Kevin Miller Podcast