The Kevin Miller Podcast

I asked listeners, “What are the daily small deposits in your life that give you the most payoff?” With most of my guests on the show I do a “Habits” episode with them to hear about their daily habits and routines for success, and I often start by asking them which ones are priority. The most valued. This was in essence the same question, but put to listeners. Some of the topics shared, the favored daily deposits, covered things such as spiritual practices, exercise, healthy food, hugs, alone time, refocusing and reframing, positive input, sleep, and more. Tom Ziglar and I talk through them and share some of our own focal points, one of mine being a striving for light heartedness! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2020 saw a lot of upheaval for small business, few people were untouched by it. In March I saw nearly $10,000 in monthly ad revenue disappear. I was doing work with Pete Vargas, king of the stage, and his entire business disappeared almost instantaneously. “Pivot” became the new buzzword and now we keep hearing stories from people who took a hit, made a pivot, and actually came out better as a result. But some did not, and it’s not because they weren’t brilliant people. Some industries are difficult to pivot in. So I wanted to hear someone in the trenches of small business tell us what they were seeing. Where are there more and less opportunities? Dan Miller is the renowned author of 48 Days To The Work You Love and one of the more renowned career and business coaches of our time. He’s also...my father! If you hear some of his guidance and desire to connect with him you can find him at 48days.com or email him at askdan@48days.com. Next we’ll dive into what’s happening in small business in 2021! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The Ziglar Show I wanted to hear from people who started a personal discipline that was drudgery, and succeeded in doing it until it actually became a joy. Or at least not complete misery. To showcase to us all that the beginning is the hardest part! You’ll hear about exercising and eating healthier, then into interesting areas such as finding nice things to say about your spouse! I kick this episode off with a two and a half minute clip from Zig Ziglar where he discusses the benefits of self discipline. From it I asked the Ziglar audience this question, “What is a healthy habit or personal discipline that started as a chore/drudgery/negative and today is a joy/pleasure/positive?” We heard from so many people about disciplines they started in misery, but today they look forward to. You’ll hear about exercising and eating healthier, then into interesting areas such as finding nice things to say about your spouse! For some the task is now an actual joy, for others just something they have peace with and really appreciate the pay off of. Tom Ziglar and I talk through a lot of the comments and share some of our own stories. If you want to join these discussions, find me on Facebook, my personal page is agentkmiller and the biz page is kevinmillerco Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I have a double Habits episode for you. What are the habits of one of the top 20 wealthiest people on planet earth, and the CEO that runs multiple foundations for him? As of this recording Charles Koch is worth $50 billion dollars and ranked as the 15th wealthiest person on the planet. Brian Hooks is CEO and President of three of Charle’s philanthropic organizations. I had them on together in episode 855 to discuss their co authored book, Believe In People. This is my habits show and I walk through the seven spokes on the Ziglar Wheel of Life and let them tag team on their answers. It was Brian talking about his spiritual habits who said he strives to emulate the attribute of being entitled to nothing and grateful for everything. Charle’s had lots of insight to share and ended by divulging he’s a big Bob Dillon fan!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The Ziglar Show we talk about customer service. And here is the crux; delivering your product or service perfectly and expertly, is...not...enough. That will not win you customer loyalty and referrals. You’ll continually be frustrated at losing clients to competitors. You won’t get the referrals from customers that you’d expect. Delivering your product perfectly is simply meeting the initial hopes and expectations the customer had. Even if nobody else on the planet delivers as perfectly as you do, doesn’t matter. The only way to get your customers to come back to you time and time again and refer others to you is if you over deliver. Nobody does it, but it’s not hard. I asked the audience, “What do you do to create customer or client loyalty? What do other businesses do that earn YOUR customer loyalty?” I’m going to give you a 3.5 minute clip from Zig Ziglar where he explains going beyond customer service to customer satisfaction then Tom Ziglar and I talk through many of the comments to the question and lead a class on how to own your customer for life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you succeed in business? The current corporate culture showcases power and control from the top to manage down to the bottom, and it influences even how small businesses structure themselves. It’s not working. Charles Koch is chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, one of the largest privately held American companies and who Forbes cites as the 15th wealthiest man in the U.S.. Koch Industries has over 130,000 employees. It’s safe to say he has more experience than most of us in this area. Charles is an influential philanthropist focused on developing effective solutions to social problems. He founded a non-profit organization called Stand Together for just this purpose and its CEO is Brian Hooks. Brian is also president of the Charles Koch Foundation and Charles Koch Institute. They have written a book together called BELIEVE IN PEOPLE: BOTTOM-UP SOLUTIONS FOR A TOP-DOWN WORLD, a message of inclusion and empowerment. They show how every single one of us has a gift we can use to find fulfillment and build a better society. And they show that by coming together, we can tackle our country’s biggest problems and help every person rise. Find Charles and Brian at standtogether.org and find their book, Believe In People wherever you get your books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No one listening to this show is unaware of the concept of personal discipline. We tend to think of ourselves and others as either disciplined, or not. When in truth it’s a fallacy. Nearly everyone is disciplined in various areas of their lives, though maybe not the areas that gain the main spotlight and glory. Tom Ziglar and I talk through a lot of the comments as it helped give different perspectives to the concept of discipline. As you will hear however, I give much focus to the danger of believing yourself to not be disciplined, and again, question whether this is actually true. We also cover at length the errancy in relying on our self discipline when we are far better served to create environments where we do not need to rely on our self discipline.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The mere claim to have a formula for any aspect of success initially strikes me wrong, but to a degree, anything can be boiled down to the core ingredients. The difference in my opinion is this formula is less like a cooking recipe you just easily mix and bake and is more like an intense formulaic math equation you must work out. But Steven Kotler does in fact do a masterful job of deducing peak performance down into its essence and from it you can see where you need to give focus and attention and...work. Steven is a New York Times-bestselling author, an award-winning journalist and the Executive Director of the Flow Research Collective. He is literally one of the world’s leading experts on human performance. He’s authored nine bestsellers out of thirteen books total, The Future is Faster Than You Think, Stealing Fire, The Rise of Superman, and Bold and Abundance. His work has been nominated for two Pulitzer Prizes and translated into over 40 languages. His new book is The Art of Impossible and as of the initial publication of this episode there are eight days to go before it’s available and it’s already in the top 5,000 books in Amazon. You can go preorder now! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I kick us off with a one and a half minute clip from Zig Ziglar where he zeroes in on the myth that we should all just love everything about our work. In truth this is a tremendously frustrating issue for many people and a very real question is...just what I posted to my listeners. I asked, “If you have any frustrations with your work, do you feel you need to change the circumstances or just need to change your attitude?” Zig Ziglar was the king of adjusting your attitude to the positive because it makes everything better. But it does not mean that it’s all you should do. There are times when the circumstances themselves are limiting to you being fulfilled in our work and able to bring all you can to the table. So we talked in and around this issue and I believe it will give you great food for thought in regards to your own challenging work circumstances and whether and attitude change is in order, or you really would be best to change the circumstances. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the end of this episode, Matthew thanked me as many of my guests do, for giving focus to this incredibly important, foundational aspect of overall success...the personal habits, and in the last 30 seconds of the show said, "I think personal strategy is so much more important than business strategy, and it's the reason why most people fail in business and life or end up successful and have lost their family along the way.” Which is an understatement to say the least. But it is exactly why I started doing these Habits shows with guests years ago. It reminds me of how so often in the action adventure movies I watch with my kids, a main character ends up hanging by their fingertips on a ledge at a climactic point. And I always point out as I take my parental teaching moment, “To be able to do that, they must be doing their pull ups, every day!” But that is the point. When you see someone respond in a healthy, strong fashion instead of reacting in an unhealthy fashion, it’s not happenstance, but the result of working out that ability...every day. Being Superman and leaping tall buildings in a single bound comes from taking a few steps every day. You can get the first chapter of Matthew Pollard’s new book, The Introvert’s Edge To Networking, at theintrovertsedge.com/networking Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices