The Kevin Miller Podcast

We prioritize and work towards what we give the most value. So how about assigning empowering meanings and value to the things that really matter in your life? To the things you want to matter. That is a mental habit of Rock Thomas, which he shares with us here in our Habits Show. Rock was our guest in show 675 where are focus was changing the way we see ourselves. Other things we hit on, he's 56 and can do 57 pushups and is in prime health. He grew up in a family with no good habits, so healthy relational habits are a weaker area. He highly values a strong work ethic and blind faith. His personal pursuits are the piano that he's pursuing later in life, golfing, biking, swimming and he loves dancing. It was an inspiring run through one of today's premier influencers, healthy life habits. This is a great run through the personal habits of a healthy habits sensei. Get Rock’s book, “The Power of Your Identity”, free, and take the Life Assessment at rockthomas.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everyone is doing it these days, it seems. Meditation was our muse. Everyone is doing it these days, it seems. Meditation is losing its spiritual baggage and going mainstream as the new exercise of today’s greatest leaders and influencers. If you listen to our Habits show you hear it over and over as a primary staple for our esteemed guests consistent strategies for success. So of course I wanted to ask you, the listening audience. Do any of you actually meditate? And why, what do you get out of it. Then I couldn’t help but ask the follow up question, if you do NOT meditate...why not? We received more responses than I anticipated, I honestly didn’t expect so many people to be meditating. But we got into sticky areas, like can you meditate and be a Christian? Can you meditate while driving a car or reading your Bible. I enhanced the conversation of course, by having Jonni Pollard himself co-host with me and folks, he was just brilliant in candidly answering the hard questions. I came out of the discussion more convicted than ever. Jonni is an international meditation expert and guru and in show 671 we talked directly about meditation and freeing ourselves from...ourselves. Again, the point isn’t meditation. It’s a means to an end. It was a fascinating conversation and was prompted by Michael Hyatt sharing that he used Jonni’s top ranked meditation app, One Giant Mind, every day. It prompted me to finally give it a try. And...I’m trying! This is a show worth listening to so you can decide if you want to start meditating, or decide it’s not for you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can you really change the way you see yourself. In all truth, we spent much of this show expounding on how very hard it is, which is why very few people ever do it. Can you? My guest is Rock Thomas. He has a Goalcast video titled “How to Change the Way You See Yourself” that has over 100 million views. Yes, 100 million. He has a hard story. A hard upbringing. It’s not a perfect and pretty story. But from it he has truly done the Phoenix, rising from the ashes to glory. Why do you care? Of course the point is to showcase that if he can do it, so can you. Though there is a rub. If your story is not that hard, not that tragic...and more so if you were fairly privileged like I was, you’re arguably at a deficit. There’s a chance you’ll never want something bad enough to do what it takes. Which is...just the basic ingredients of success, no secrets or formulas; hard work, perseverance, faith, resilience. This is the stuff Rock has devoted himself to helping you with, however. He wrote the book, “The Power of Your Identity” which you can get at his website, rockthomas.com. It goes deep into the power of what we believe about ourselves. We talk specifically about belief in this show. We generally believe things about ourselves because we have stark evidence! But the question then is...is that it? End of story? Or can we begin to believe knew things about ourselves, do knew things, and achieve a different reality? Of great interest to me, Rock states that changing your identity and reality just takes living 4% outside your comfort zone. I bet you haven’t heard that before. We tend to think we have to do a 180 and live radically different. A core perspective Rock shares is this, “The words that follow “I am”, will follow you.” They become your reality. Think about it, what do you say after, “I am?” This is a significant show, get ready for a ride. Get Rock’s book, “The Power of Your Identity”, free, and take the Life Assessment at rockthomas.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hopefully we all know that placing blame on anything or anyone is simply giving our power away. Zig drives home this point with a short message and states that when we stop blaming and take full responsibility for our lives, we free ourselves up to move freely and faster. Hearing these truths and actually walking in them however, are two very different things. Most of the time blame slips in and we don’t realize we’re giving our power to it. When it comes in the form of a person, as Zig points out, it requires forgiveness. From this concept and Zig’s message, I posted this question to the Ziglar listeners, "What is something or someone you blamed that was holding you back, and now you've let go (forgiven?) and have moved on to greater success?" I believe you’ll find the responses comforting and freeing. If someone else can move beyond a well deserved blame, so can you. Tom Ziglar joined me to talk through your heart felt responses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wouldn’t we all like to know what is essential and what is frivolous in our lives? Maybe we think we subconsciously know, but I for one would be interested in getting it all out on the table. This is our habits show and our muse today is Jonni Pollard, founder of the to ranked meditation app, One Giant Mind. He was our guest in show 671 where we discussed, how to free ourselves from...ourselves! No surprise that a mainstay habit of Jonni’s is meditating. But it was the financial spoke where he discussed asking himself what was essential and what was frivolous. I just saw the concept as being relevant to all the spokes and all of life. I also appreciated the guiding light of his Career spoke being another question he asks himself, “How can I be of best service?” Mentally? Another questions he asks, “How can I be better?” It’s a show of brilliant questions. Check out Jonni’s podcast, One Giant Mind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You can’t do it all and chances are 99% you are currently doing too much. But you are stuck, right? Join the crowd. But insanity is doing the same things over and over and hoping for different results, right? In who #663 we talked with Michael Hyatt about his book, ‘Free To Focus’. There are three segments of the book; Stop, Cut, and Act. I really honed in on the difficulty of CUT-ting. STOP-ping to take things into account and chart a course, then ACT-ing on the course...I think most of us do pretty well, and those seem to get primary focus in the personal development sector. But then we generally get overwhelmed. So the middle initiative, CUTTING...realizing everything we say yes to, just adds up to overwhelmedness if we don’t also say NO to things, is what I used as our focal point in this show. I asked these questions to our audience, 1) What are some GOOD things you do in your life, daily and weekly, that might be getting in the way of GREAT things you could invest in? And 2) If half your responsibilities disappeared, what meaningful work would you spend more time doing? In your career/business and personal life? What tasks would you most like to delegate if you could? Then I had Michael Hyatt himself join to talk through your responses! I truly feel you may have a light bulb moment from this show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonni Pollard is renowned for bringing meditation mainstream via his organization and app, 1 Giant Mind. In show #667, Michael Hyatt referenced using the 1 Giant Mind app as part of his daily spiritual habits, and more than half of all guests on The Ziglar Show are attesting to using meditation as a primary part of their daily habits and routines. While meditation seems to often have spiritual undertones to it, it is ultimately brain training. An example; if you are familiar with the sport of biathlon that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting, after vigorously skiing for a distance the athlete must then stop and calm themselves in order to shoot a very small target. In our lives, we tend to go, go, go and then struggle to hit the small targets of success we desire. Jonni uses meditation to help us daily calm ourselves in order to be present and fully useful and able as we target our most valuable goals. It is not rest so much as fuel. Jonni states that most of us are prisoners of ourselves. Of our own minds. We never stop to gain control of and over our thoughts, anxieties, worries, and never-ending duties and roles. We tend to "rest" by escaping and entertainment, which is more like a pause than a refocus and recalibrate. This is an equipping message that really drove home what we are missing and what we can gain with taking a moment daily to really be present in our own minds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever, for your work or personal life, practiced and/or gotten coaching for a presentation? For sales, a live and on-stage presentation, for getting a date or a job, anything? This is the question we posed to the Ziglar audience. Zig Ziglar starts us with a five minute lesson on mastering our personal presentation, whether for sales or in our personal life. Zig mastered sales, then the stage, but even more, he realized all of life is a presentation and how we are perceived is up to us and how we choose and work to present ourselves. Michelle Prince joined me to talk through the many comments on how people have worked to hone their work and life presentations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How would you like to hear an opinion on the most beneficial habits, from one of the most influential influencers in business today? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Having confidence in yourself and faith and support from others is priceless. Yet, there is also something sweet about achieving something others didn’t think you could. Maybe you weren’t so sure either, or maybe you absolutely knew you could do it. The greatest stories are made from the “stupid” ideas that worked, and many worked like magic. What Richie Norton helped us understand in show 663 is that for any new idea to be truly valuable and viable, it must by proxy be “stupid” in that it should be very or at least fairly different than what already exists. If it’s the same as something that already exists and “reasonable”, how can it really be invaluable. Thus I asked this question on Facebook, “Who has achieved something other’s didn’t think was possible or a “wise” move, and you proved them wrong?” And, “What is a business or life idea you’ve had that you or someone else thought (or thinks) might be a stupid idea?” Great, fun responses of course, and Richie joined me to talk through your comments! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices