The Kevin Miller Podcast

#982: I recently had Ethan Kross on the show, one of the foremost experts in controlling our minds. His new book is Chatter, The Voice In Your Head, Why It Matters, and How To Harness It. That was episode #977. Today I wanted to discuss the concept in union with self-talk and personal affirmations, made popular by none other than Zig Ziglar. Tom Ziglar and I just pulled out all the issues around these concepts and held them to the fire in an effort to help us all literally just roll up our sleeves and start working out in regards to controlling the voices in our heads and getting them working for us in our self-talk. You can get Zig’s self-talk cards free at ziglar.com/selftalk. But Tom and I hit on big ticket issues such as, how many of the voices in our heads are even our own? Why have we agreed with so many of the thoughts and beliefs floating around? Why do we tell anyone else they have more capacity and ability in them but generally don’t believe it for ourselves? Then we land on the daily exercises needed to get the voices in our heads working for us. We uncovered some aspects of this issue we were not even aware of until we got into the discussion. Join us as we take on our voices and self-talk and aim to master them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

#981: In a rare entry into current events, tabloid headlines if you will, I asked Andy Andrews about a public statement he made regarding the culture as it relates to the recent Oscars and Will Smith slapping Chris Rock. My point wasn’t to weigh in on opinion, but as you heard in the intro to hear Andy’s perspective on the symbolism. Andy Andrews is a multiple New York Times best seller with his Traveler’s Gift selling millions. He’s a highly sought for and highly paid speaker, he’s spoken for, by request, four different US Presidents. The New York Times cited Andy as “someone who has quietly become one of the most influential people in America.” I know Andy as someone many big influencers turn to for wisdom. He’s a sage, a jedi, of life changing lessons. He also recently launched a community called Wisdom Harbour, and I wanted to have a frank discussion on what he saw as primary cultural needs and from a business interest, why he created the Wisdom Harbour community in response to it. You’ll hear much of his answer is around cultural literacy, but I’m going to take you behind the scenes on why he crafted it the way he has. If this sounds a bit like a huge plug for his community…it is, but that is not the point. Most of you listening are in the business of influencing others and what I’m giving you is insight into one of our most prolific influencers, and how he’s pursuing his own influence, so you may glean from it. Andy is also headlining for Ziglar on May 19-20, 2022 as keynote speaker for the Ziglar Coach Summit in Frisco, TX which you can check out at ziglar.com/coachsummit. If you are or want to be a coach, don’t miss this. And check out more of what Andy is doing at WisdomHarbour.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

#980: “Have you ever paid for personal coaching? What were the biggest turn-ons and turn-offs?” This is the question I posed to our listeners and the responses were very telling. Number one turn off? Having a strategy pushed on them without feeling heard and understood. A top turn on, individualized guidance. This is a show to help anyone interested in getting coaching or consulting to vet a prospective provider. And conversely it’s highly valuable for providers to hear what people really want. Tom Ziglar and I also talk at length about the differences between coaching and consulting which again will help people know which type of provider they want to hire, or which providers are best equipped to offer. Another big value topic we cover is understanding people are not so much choosing which coach or consultant to hire, but whether to hire one at all, as the greatest competition is doing nothing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

#979: I’m back with Ethan Kross, author of Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It. Ethan is a PhD and one of the world's leading experts on controlling the conscious mind which we discussed in episode 977. Here we walk through his personal habits for success and as all of our habits are generally achieved, or not, as a result of the winning voices in our heads, Ethan has some profound perspectives on how to achieve his habits. Perspectives you’ll be able to harness for yourself after listening to this show. Connect with Ethan at Ethankross.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

#978: How you perceive people and institutions of power and their so called success influences you to the core. So this episode is not a mere discussion on world views and power and morals, but an audit of your own perspective and how it’s influencing you specifically, for better or worse. I was given a VIP ticket to see Jordan B Peterson and as he’s a significant person of influence as an author, speaker, podcaster, and youtuber, I went, out of interest from a few angles. His talk was based on his premise of, “Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions.” He discussed studies on power and bullying from rats to humans and cited the enforcement of absolute power seldom if ever creates success. In fact it generally results in being ostracized, and he did a deft job of turning our paradigms around. The discussion brings into acute question how we define success, and the influential spirit we carry forth regarding those we view in power. And our spirit is my focal point in this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

#977: It’s no secret we all have an inner voice, whether you speak it out loud, write letters in your head like I do, or it’s just the constant stream of thoughts and feelings running amok at all times. A frequent directive is to shut the voice up or ignore it. One this is impossible, and two, that voice is there for a reason and the opportunity we all have is to harness it for our personal success. Ethan Kross is a PhD and one of the world's leading experts on controlling the conscious mind. Which I start the show pushing back on a bit…can we really do this? Ethan is an award-winning professor at the University of Michigan and its Ross School of Business and is the director of the Emotion & Self Control Laboratory. Ethan has participated in policy discussion at the White House and has been interviewed on CBS Evening News, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper Full Circle, and NPR's Morning Edition. I brought him on the show because I got a hold of his new book, Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It. That tagline is the hook…why it matters and how to harness it. Not shut it up or out. Connect with Ethan at Ethankross.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

#976: I asked our audience this question, “If you're having surgery, do you want the absolute best surgeon working on you, or the one with the best moral character? How about an accountant? Car mechanic? Professor?” The responses added up to saying, it depends. Of course everyone would like both, but we have an older culture who generally says character and a younger generation who wants to be given credit for skill alone and I wanted to flesh out where we really put our personal values when it comes down to what we pay for, and what our customers will pay for. The issue was acute when I posed it, as I had a son going into a serious surgery. Do I want the nice doc to work on him, or the absolute best regardless? What it comes down to is not deciding which we’ll choose to lead with in our business and life, character or skill, but how we position ourselves in the public eye. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

#975: Anthony Trucks became a player in the NFL because he followed certain successful habits day in and day out to a somewhat severe degree. The reason he lost his marriage and went bankrupt was from following other habits which didn’t produce such success. Today he talks about his habits progression and pulls out his quest to employ active and passive habits and gives us a great perspective on this distinction, and as you heard, how the good habits we associate our identity with are the most powerful. I highly recommend you listen to our first talk together in Ziglar Show episode 973 where we dig into identity, the message from his book, Identity Shift. Find Anthony’s book, courses and more at anthonytrucks.com and check out his podcast, Aww Shift Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

#974: If you’ve seen the Matrix you remember the spark of the entire movie, when Neo takes the blue pill and he ends up in the construct of what he’s shown is a made up world. Inside here he sees himself dressed a certain way and is told he’s seeing himself as his residual self-image. And there you go. We all have this image of ourselves we believe is simply who we are. It’s our default mode and this is where we generally live unless something significant happens in our lives. Victor Serebriakoff (Sara bria koff) was labeled a dunce at 16 by a teacher and lived the next decade or more believing this, until a job test showed he was a genius, so be believed that too and went on to have many patents and serve as president of the Mensa society. We tend to be what others have said we are and what we’ve agreed with. Unfortunately most of us will never have someone say we are a dunce or a genius and we’ll just go along being…whatever. It’s up to us to claim what we can be and start seeing ourselves differently. This was the message from my previous episode, #973, with Anthony Trucks, and in this episode Tom Ziglar and I talk through it. I actually asked our listeners this question, “Thinking of a primary goal or two you have...can you actually see yourself there? Can you envision yourself as the person in that new reality? Or are you just going after it anyway? Examples: Making that much money, owning and running a business owner, being at that weight, etc...?” This question got very few responses compared to the boatload we often receive. Why? I believe it’s because we don't’ take the time and give focus to our desires for progress, in regards to envisioning ourselves there. And thus we often don’t make…much progress. Thus, why we give it focus today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

#973: The self-help and personal development world gives primary focus to increasing our performance so we can achieve greater successes in our lives. And it’s true we all are capable of more. Nobody is performing at their max capacity. But we won’t outperform the level of ability we believe about ourselves and all we have to go on is the proof of what we have and haven’t done thus far. It brings to mind Roger Banister breaking the four minute mile mark in running, which was deemed humanly impossible, but more importantly the four other runners who then did it within a year. All that changed is once they believed running a sub four minute mile was possible, they did it. Prior, they could not. Most of us are sitting where we are and desiring greater performance from ourselves but unable to see ourselves being at a higher level. If someone came along and ran a diagnostic test on us and said they had proof we could do it we would in short order. But that won’t likely happen, so how can we get ourselves to really see ourselves as a higher performer? To have a performance upgrade we need an upgrade to our identity. I have Anthony Trucks on with me in this episode to talk about it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices