The Kevin Miller Podcast

We look at our workplaces and our relationships with people and our surroundings, and how it affects us. I share a short clip from Zig Ziglar on the importance of healthy relationships and from the message, polled the Ziglar audience with this question, “How are your relationships at your work and how do you feel they affect you, for better or worse?” As Tom and I talked through the comments and people’s testimonies we also got into the literal environment of where you work. Your office, cubicle, even having windows nearby. The point is to bring to light the importance of having a healthy work environment and how it is absolutely affecting your performance. Thanks as always to everyone who commented on my Facebook survey. I invite you to join the conversation, just friend me on Facebook at agentkmiller. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joy. You can truly, literally, manufacture joy. If you want big biceps, you work them out consistently. Simple math. So is creating joy. Happiness is momentary and based on circumstances. Joy is enduring and provides peace and calm regardless of the environmental pressures. I fear most of the culture has given up on joy and has acquiesced to merely seeking momentary pleasures and happiness like the next social media scroll, netflix show, and food or drink. But you are here because you want more. I bring you an expert. Shaunti Feldhahn. She’s a best selling author and social researcher. Keyword there, researcher. She is my guru on kindness who I refer to constantly. I had her on the show four years ago to talk about the research she did for her book, The Kindness Challenge. There are few people I refer to on shows as much as Shaunti. She has now turned her focus to...joy. She wrote a daily devotional called, Finding Joy. But in just a moment you are about to hear us set aside my intended discussion as Shaunti wanted to share her very latest research, since the book came out, on what she and her research team discovered is the number one destroyer...of joy. I mean, you really, really want to hear it. Because what you’ll find is, you are doing it. You are actively engaging, every day, with the number one inhibitor of joy. And it’s something you can take action on, immediately. Connect more at shaunti.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is not an episode of The Ziglar Show, but instead, I’m calling it a new, Friday Feature. Maybe not every Friday, but taking the chance to showcase something new to you that I feel is fitting. A new podcast, product, or service. Today, it’s a 4 minute preview of another podcast I think you’ll enjoy, it’s called One Hundred Percent, with Marcus Lemonis. Marcus is CEO of Camping World, which was founded in Bowling Green, KY where I grew up, so I’ve always had a fondness for the company. Marcus hosts one of the most successful business shows on TV and when I heard he was launching this podcast I reached out for an interview, which I hope to bring you soon. He’s an incredibly successful businessman worth nearly a billion dollars, but what he’s known for is leading with his values of family, community, character and ethics, and it’s from this foundation, and his own money, that he helps small business owners who want his guidance. So in this new podcast, One Hundred Percent, that’s just what he does. When I listened to the first episode, which you’re about to hear a 4-minute clip from, it reminded me of Oprah Winfrey meets Shark Tank, in that Marcus goes straight to the heart in talking to entrepreneurs, how they got started, who inspires them, and the real why behind their business. Not many business shows have people crying in them, if that gives you an idea. His first show features a company with a product for mental health awareness and he brings on Howie Mandel, who suffers from mental health issues and is an advocate for support, and together they give guidance to the couple. Next episodes will feature guests such as Kirsten Bell, Gayle King, Charles Barkley, Kathy Ireland, and Al Roker, as together they talk to budding entrepreneurs. While you’re listening, follow ONE HUNDRED PERCENT WITH MARCUS LEMONIS on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or listen early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. http://wondery.fm/100PercentZiglar | I’d really appreciate hearing from you regarding me sharing this podcast preview with you, and I have another I’ll be sharing soon. Is it a benefit, or an intrusion? Please let us know, email me at kmiller@kevinmiller.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You are not just who you are today, but what you can become, right? This is easy to say and monumentally hard to get any traction with. I play a five minute clip from Zig Ziglar where he tells a personal story of his own journey from a poor to mediocre sales person, to one of the best. It radically changed his life, and the catalyst came from one discussion with a man who simply expressed faith in him. We don’t even know if the faith was legitimate, or a tactic. Either way, it worked. I break this story down to the foundational aspects of understanding we have all simply agreed with expectations for ourselves that are limited. But it’s not a, “You are limitless and capable of anything” message. You aren’t and you can’t. That’s what gives motivation a bad name. Ultimately it’s you literally deciding to have faith you can perform at a higher level. Not with more effort, just...different effort. That’s it. If you were lucky, someone else will come along and say they have faith in you and you’ll believe it and boom...you’ll have more success. But chances are that mystery person won’t show up and it’s up to you to be that person who tells yourself, “Self, I have faith I’m limiting myself with expectations I’ve agreed with and the picture I have of myself, and I’m now choosing to have faith I’m capable of more, so...I’m going to try some new things.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here’s a story that puts all the positive thinking to the real test of life. I appreciate Mike Tyson famously saying, “Everyone Has a Plan Until They Get Punched in the Mouth.” That’s what we all deal with, our good intentions, then the trials that come and punch us in the mouth. That’s what this show is about. Joy was going along in life achieving her goals and becoming a dolphin trainer and filmmaker and living the perspective she got from Zig Ziglar to be joyful in the face of challenge. Then at age 25 she was diagnosed with cancer. The really bad kind. She approached it with an incredibly positive attitude and decided to utilize her love of and expertise with film to document the entire ordeal and capture her triumphant overcoming. But it’s not a perfect story. Along the way she realized the end might not be the triumph she expected. Living. She did live however and today helps kids with cancer through a unique event involving dolphins. We talk through the realities of having hope, losing it, and persevering anyway. It’s a message truly relevant to us all, even if we haven’t been at death’s door. If you visit Joy’s website at Joyclausensoto.com and sign up for her newsletter so you can get her book for free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our focus is goals, and more importantly, actually making them happen. We all, me included, have goals and dreams and desires we want to achieve. However, every day, life happens. The urgent duties and demands we must tend to, then trying to rest and recover and have a break now and then. Those very important goals are never going to be as urgent. We listen to a two minute clip from Zig Ziglar on the issue, thenI polled our audience on some of their tactics and Tom Ziglar and I talk through the need for compassion with ourselves, but also some very real strategies we can use. And know this, there is no one best strategy, and your’s can be as goofy as ever, as long as it produces results. So Tom and I share some of our own as well, and I’ll admit mine often fall on the...not so conventional side. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re back with Mark Victor Hansen of Chicken Soup For The Soul Fame, and his wife Crystal Hansen, to discuss their health habits for success. It’s always interesting with high powered couples to hear what habits they share and where they differentiate. The statement that caught my attention here was Crystal talking about her nutritional journey and us sharing our joy of being foodies. She said her personal goal and advocacy is to, "Love foods more than you ever have, but just learn to love the foods that love you back." That is wise and falls in line with our premise on my True Life podcast that we are and will be creatures of appetite, but the goal is to upgrade our appetites to healthier options. Don’t miss episode 895 where we talked about the Hansen’s message and new book, Ask - The Bridge from Your Dreams to Your Destiny. You can get the book at Amazon and then Mark & Crystal invite you to join them at Askthebookclub.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doing good business isn’t enough to keep customers loyal. I asked our listeners two questions, “How do you create goodwill and customer loyalty in your business?” and then, “What business has your customer loyalty and why?” I was fishing for something Tom Ziglar and I came to in Ziglar Show episode 892 about what some businesses do beyond competing for price and even quality, to wow their customers. We all think we do a great job. A better job to deliver a better service or better product. Yet most every business person I’ve met has some frustration with customer attrition and losing them to competitors. Let’s talk about how you can own your customers for life. This will be significant for all of you with businesses to hear and glean from. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Let’s come back to a basic, common sense skill that has become uncommon. Asking. Asking for help, guidance, insight, advice, and direction. Imagine waking up in the middle of New York City with no phone or map and you must make it to a certain destination for your own saving. What would you do? You’d ask the first person you came upon for direction. But today in our increasingly isolated lives we seldom reach out and ask for much of anything. We seek information to apply to our lives and strive to do it autonomously. We mistakenly think all the leaders and influencers we follow are smarter or wiser than we are. What we find is the people we all look to for guidance spend a significant portion of their existence asking others for guidance. Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of the Chicken Soup For The Soul book and many others that has resulted in half a billion book sales, and his best selling author wife Crystal, have written an entire book on this issue and the grand opportunity we can all claim for ourselves if we will learn how and when to ask for guidance and direction in our lives. It’s called Ask - The Bridge from Your Dreams to Your Destiny and we dig into it here in this episode and discuss why we don’t ask anymore, and how we can get comfortable and proficient with asking and get past our fear and pride. You can get the book at Amazon and then Mark & Crystal invite you to join them at Askthebookclub.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The question is, “Who do you work for?” We hear a true and acute story from Zig Ziglar about two men who started with a company at the same time. 20 years later one was still working for the company and one was the president. A stark difference. The reason cited by the one still just working for the company is he merely went to work for the money. So I put this question to the Ziglar audience, “I work for (blank)”, Who do you do your work for? Who are you serving?” Great responses from so many varieties of industries that really pulls our attention to just exactly what we all are...working for, and we hear from an equal amount of employees and business owners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices