Three Conversations That Changed How I Think About Being Alive | John R. Miles EP 789

What if flourishing isn't something you achieve someday, but something you practice in the life you're already living? John revisits three transformative conversations that changed how he thinks about presence, purpose, and becoming fully alive.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00John R. Miles?

  Coming up next on Passion Struck, I think most of us have become very good at managing our lives without actually inhabiting them. We move from meeting to meeting, responsibility to responsibility, milestone to milestone. We tell ourselves that when this season ends, when this project finishes, when life finally settles down, then we'll become the person we want to be. But flourishing doesn't happen in some future version of our lives. It happens here, in ordinary mornings, in difficult transitions, in the parts of life that don't feel important enough to deserve our full attention. Over the past few weeks, I've

• 0:42John R. Miles?

  been looking back through hundreds of conversations on this show, and I noticed something I hadn't fully appreciated before. The people who became most fully alive all reached a moment when their old way of operating stopped working. And each of those moments forced them to ask a different question. Today, I want to share three of those questions with you. Welcome to Passion Struck. I'm your host, John Miles. This is the show where we explore the art of human flourishing and what it truly means to live like it matters. Each week, I sit down with changemakers, creators, scientists, and everyday heroes to decode the human experience and uncover the tools that help us lead with meaning, heal what

• 1:24John R. Miles?

  hurts, and pursue the fullest expression of who we're capable of becoming. Whether you're designing your future, developing as a leader, or seeking deeper alignment in your life, this show is your invitation to grow with purpose and act with intention. Because the secret to a life of deep purpose, connection, and impact is choosing to live like you matter.

• 1:52John R. Miles?

  Hey friends, and welcome back to episode 789 of Passion Struck. This month, we're beginning a new series called Flourishing: How Humans Become Fully Alive. In June, we explored the connection crisis, why so many people feel disconnected from one another, from inst- Institutions from their communities and ultimately from themselves. July asks a different question. What does it actually mean to flourish? What does a fully inhabited life look like? And where does that journey begin? I think it begins with presence. Not as a mindfulness technique or a productivity strategy, but as a willingness to stop postponing our lives.

• 2:34John R. Miles?

  Because when I look back across hundreds of conversations on this show, the people who changed most profoundly weren't the ones who had everything figured out. They were the ones who stopped arguing with reality long enough to become fully present to it. So today, I want to revisit three conversations that changed how I think about being fully alive. A Navy SEAL and Paralympian who learned that the life directly in front of him, not the life he had lost, was his actual training ground. An entrepreneur who discovered that extraordinary success could never answer a question he had been carrying since childhood. Am I enough? And a spiritual teacher

• 3:18John R. Miles?

  who learned that healing begins when we stop treating ourselves like machines and become a safe place to come home to. Three completely different stories. One invitation. Wake up to the life that's already here. Each story asks something different of us. Each carries a question worth caring. And perhaps one of them is the exact question that you need right now. So grab a notebook, take a walk, or simply stay with me. And remember, you can watch all of our episodes on our YouTube channels at either John R. Miles or Passion Struck Clips. And if you want the workbook for today's episode, please go to my Substack at theignitedlife.net. Now let's begin. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck

• 4:03John R. Miles?

  and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating intentional life that matters. Now, let that journey begin.

• 4:15John R. Miles?

  I want to start today by talking about Dan Kinnasen. A few years ago, Dan sat across from me in the studio. A retired Navy SEAL, Naval Academy graduate, Paralympic gold medalist, the kind of person who gets introduced with words like resilient, disciplined, and mentally tough. And I think, if I'm honest, that's part of the problem. Because when we hear stories like Dan's, we rush straight to the ending. We see the medals. We see the triumph. We see the comeback. And we assume the lesson is about grit. But when I went back through our conversation this week, I realized the moment that changed Dan's life wasn't standing on a podium.

• 4:59John R. Miles?

  It happened in the snow. And honestly, it wasn't beautiful at all. Now, to understand that moment, you have to understand something about who Dan was before Afghanistan. Dan loved movement. He loved being outdoors. He loved testing himself. Like a lot of people who choose the military, and especially those who make it through BUDs, there's a deep relationship with physical competence. Your body isn't just a body. It's your vehicle, your confidence, your freedom, your way of moving through the world. And then, in September of 2009, everything changed. Dan stepped on an IED in southern Afghanistan.

• 5:44John R. Miles?

  He lost both of his legs. He spent years at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval Hospital, learning how to build a life he never planned on living. Now, here's what's fascinating. When I asked Dan what kept him going during those years, he didn't say winning. He didn't say proving people wrong. He didn't talk about becoming an elite athlete. He said something much simpler. He wanted to be outside again. He wanted to be in the woods. He wanted to move through the world. That's it. Trees, fresh air. Movement and Life.

• 6:25John R. Miles?

  Along the way, somebody invited him to a training camp in West Yellowstone, Montana. Now, if this were a movie, this is where the soundtrack changes. This is where purpose arrives. This is where he discovers his calling. Except, that's not what happened. It was miserable. Dan told me it was dumping snow. His equipment didn't fit properly. He didn't know how to keep his residual limbs warm. Everything hurt. Nothing felt natural. And perhaps, the hardest part of all, he wanted to run. Think about that. He wanted to run. Not ski, not sit, run.

• 7:09John R. Miles?

  He wanted the body he had trusted his entire life. He wanted movement to feel familiar. He wanted athleticism to look the way it always had. And I don't think that's just Dan's story. I think that's ours. Because all of us have some version of an old life we keep trying to negotiate our way back into. The old relationship. The old career. The old identity. The body we had at 30. The certainty we had before the diagnosis. The version of ourself that existed before loss arrived. We keep looking over our shoulder.

• 7:49John R. Miles?

  We keep telling ourselves, "When things get back to normal, when life settles down, when I feel like myself again, then I'll really begin. Then I'll fully show up. Then I'll flourish." But sitting there in that Montana snow, watching other athletes glide effortlessly past him, Dan realized something that I haven't been able to stop thinking about.

• 8:15John R. Miles?

  Reality was not going to negotiate with him. The old story wasn't coming back. And the question wasn't whether he liked that reality. The question was whether he was willing to inhabit it. Whether he could stop treating this life as a temporary detour and recognize that this was his life. This was the path. This was the training ground. And so, something shifted. Not all at once. Not in some cinematic flash or insight. He simply got smaller. Smaller goals. Smaller horizons. One double pole stroke. One training session.

• 9:01John R. Miles?

  One meal. One night's sleep.

• 9:05John R. Miles?

  One day. Instead of asking, "How do I get my old life back?" He began asking, "How do I become fully present to the life in front of me?" And years later, he won six Paralympic medals. But I honestly don't think that that's the miracle. The miracle happened long before that. The miracle happened in the snow. The miracle happened when he stopped postponing his participation in his own life. And that's when the question finally hit me. Not while I was interviewing him. Not even when I first listened back to the conversation. It hit me this week. And maybe it's the first real question we have to answer about flourishing.

• 9:52John R. Miles?

  What are you waiting to begin that has already begun?

• 9:58John R. Miles?

  I want you to sit with that. Really sit with it. What are you treating as a waiting room right now? Where in your life are you saying, "When this season passes, when the kids are older, when the finances improve, when I lose the weight, when I find the right partner, when I finally know what I'm doing, then I'll start living. Then I'll become present. Then I'll flourish." But what if... Flourishing isn't waiting on the other side of better conditions. What if the conditions are the curriculum? What if this difficult season is teaching you something that ease never could?

• 10:37John R. Miles?

  What if the ordinary responsibilities you keep wishing away are actually shaping the person you're becoming? And what if today, this exact imperfect and glamorous day, isn't standing between you and your real life? What if it is your real life?

• 10:57John R. Miles?

  Dan didn't flourish when he stood on the podium. He flourished when he stopped asking reality to become something other than itself. He flourished when he stopped waiting for his old life to return. And I wonder where each of us is still waiting.

• 11:14John R. Miles?

  Waiting to forgive. Waiting to begin.

• 11:19John R. Miles?

  Waiting to trust. Waiting to show up. Waiting for permission. Because maybe the first step toward becoming fully alive is realizing that life has already begun. And the invitation has been here all along. But then I found myself thinking about a completely different kind of waiting. Because what happens when life gives you everything that you've asked for? What happens when the company succeeds? The money comes. The impact is real. The world applauds. The mission matters. And yet, something inside you is still restless. A few months ago, Blake Miposki sat across from me.

• 12:03John R. Miles?

  And Blake forced me to reconsider the stories that we tell ourselves about success.

• 12:11John R. Miles?

  We love the idea that life moves in a straight line. You struggle. You sacrifice. You build. And one day, you arrive. The doubts disappear. The loneliness fades. The internal questions finally quiet down. The story finally makes sense. And if anyone had earned the right to believe that story, it was Blake.

• 12:35John R. Miles?

  It began on a tennis court. And the moment he started talking about those years, I understood exactly what he meant. Because I played competitive tennis for years before I became a long-distance runner. And there's something uniquely revealing about individual sports. There are no teammates, no one to pass the ball to, no one to absorb the pressure when things fall apart. When you win, it's yours. When you lose, it's yours too. And somewhere along the way, performance starts feeling personal. You don't simply play well. You become the person who plays well, the disciplined one, the dependable one, the competitor, the achiever. Blake talked about learning very early

• 13:20John R. Miles?

  that being exceptional felt safer than being ordinary, that winning brought affirmation, that achievement created belonging, that success earned attention. And slowly, almost invisibly, performance stopped being something he did. It became who he was. Now, before we judge that, let's be honest. How many of us have learned the exact same lesson? Maybe not on a tennis court. Maybe your arena was a classroom. Maybe it was a dance floor. Maybe it was your family. Maybe it was a church. Maybe it was business.

• 14:03John R. Miles?

  Maybe you learned that being the responsible one earned love. Maybe straight A's brought approval. Maybe being productive made you feel indispensable. Maybe success became the language through which you learned to matter. And here's the difficult truth. Those strategies work until they don't. Because eventually, if life goes well, you get some version of what you've been asking for. The promotion comes, the company succeeds, the family grows, the house gets bigger, the recognition arrives. People admire you. People respect you. And then, one morning, the question is still there.

• 14:47John R. Miles?

  The question achievement promised to answer. The question you've been carrying since childhood. Am I enough? Blake built one of the most influential companies of his generation. TOMS wasn't simply a business. It became a movement. More than 100 million pairs of shoes reached children around the world. Students studied the model. Business schools taught it. Entrepreneurs tried to emulate it. And Blake became the face of a new vision for what capitalism could be. From the outside, it looked like flourishing in its purest form. Purpose, impact, family, freedom.

• 15:28John R. Miles?

  The kind of life people point to and quietly think, "If I could just get there, everything would finally make sense." But after Blake sold the company, something happened that completely changed how I think about achievement. The next mountain disappeared. The noise stopped. The calendar opened up. The momentum that had carried him for years suddenly gave way to silence. And underneath all of that activity was a question that had been there all along. Not a business question, not a financial question, an identity question. Blake described reaching a point where the accomplishments were still there. The impact was still real.

• 16:10John R. Miles?

  The admiration hadn't disappeared, but internally he was unraveling. Because no amount of accomplishment can answer an internal question. Our worth isn't a finish line. It isn't a market valuation. It isn't public admiration. It isn't headlines, impact metrics, or applause. Those things may reflect our gifts, but they cannot define our humanity. And that's why Blake's story matters so much in a conversation about flourishing. Because flourishing is not the accumulation of achievements. It's the ability to remain connected to yourself, whether the world is applauding or not.

• 16:52John R. Miles?

  And that brings me to the second question I've been carrying with me all week. Who are you when there's nothing left to prove? I want you to sit with that, really sit with it, because I think most of us immediately answer with our roles, our accomplishments, our responsibilities, the things we've built. But I'm asking something deeper. Who are you when nobody is watching? Who are you when the meeting ends? When the children leave home? When retirement arrives? When the company gets sold? When your body can no longer do what it once did? When the applause finally quiets? Would you still choose this life?

• 17:36John R. Miles?

  Would you still organize your days this way? Would you still make these sacrifices? Would you still pursue these ambitions? And if the answer is no, that isn't an indictment. It's an invitation. Because maybe you've been asking achievement to answer a question who was never designed to answer. Maybe you've been using accomplishment as evidence that you deserve to exist. Maybe you've confused proving yourself with knowing yourself. I think that's one of the quietest tragedies of modern life. We become extraordinarily skilled at building careers,

• 18:18John R. Miles?

  companies, families, reputations, and all the while, we remain terrified of simply being ordinary human beings. We know how to perform. We know how to produce. We know how to win. But many of us never learned how to sit quietly with ourselves without asking whether we've done enough to deserve rest. The danger isn't ambition. Ambition can be beautiful. The danger is believing that if we build enough, earn enough, accomplish enough, we finally receive permission. Permission to slow down. Permission to belong. Permission to feel enough.

• 19:04John R. Miles?

  But flourishing doesn't begin with permission from the outside. It begins when we stop performing our value and start inhabiting it. And maybe that's the deeper invitation in Blake's story. Not to reject success, not to abandon excellence, but to hold those things lightly enough that they never become substitutes for our identity. Because one day, achievement stops speaking for us. And when that day comes, the only question that still remains is this. Who are you when there's nothing left to prove? Blake's awakening wasn't that success is empty.

• 19:45John R. Miles?

  It was that success is a terrible place to look for unconditional worth. And perhaps flourishing as something profoundly countercultural of us. To strive, to build, to contribute, to make an impact, but never to confuse any of those things with being enough. Because enough was never something you had to earn in the first place. Blake left me with a question I haven't been able to shake. If achievement can't tell us that we're enough, where do we go looking? Because success can change our circumstances. It can expand our opportunities.

• 20:28John R. Miles?

  It can allow us to make a tremendous impact in the world. But it cannot become our home. And I think that's the deeper longing underneath all three of these questions today. We're all looking for somewhere to come home to. Dan had to stop trying to return to the life he had lost. Blake had to discover that the life he built couldn't answer the questions he carried. And then I found myself thinking about another conversation. One with someone whose entire life's work is helping people heal. Someone millions of people turn to when they're struggling with fear, trauma, addiction, or uncertainty. And what struck me wasn't what this person taught me.

• 21:11John R. Miles?

  It was what she admitted about herself. Because somewhere along the way, even while helping so many other people find peace, she realized she had become a stranger to herself. And I think that might be the most painful kind of disconnection there is. That's where our third question begins. A few years ago, Gabby Bernstein sat across from me in the studio. Many of us look to Gabby for guidance on healing, on fear, on spirituality, on learning how to live with more peace. And if you looked at her life from the outside at that moment, it would have been easy to assume she had arrived. She was a number one New York Times bestselling author. She was speaking to sold-out audiences around the world.

• 21:55John R. Miles?

  Oprah had even called her "one of the next generation's thought leaders." We see a life like that, and we assume it represents inner harmony. We think if someone has that much clarity, that much purpose, and that much impact, surely they must feel at home with themselves. But what struck me most wasn't what Gabby taught me. It was what she admitted. She told me that during some of the most successful years of her life, she was completely frozen from the neck down. I haven't stopped thinking about that sentence: frozen. While helping millions of people wake up to their own lives, she was struggling to inhabit her own body. Her body knew things her mind had not yet learned how to see:

• 22:40John R. Miles?

  trauma, fear, experiences she had survived but never fully witnessed. And because she couldn't yet name the pain, she outran it. Through work, through productivity, through helping others, through becoming indispensable. She became extraordinarily skilled at extending compassion, hope, and healing to everyone around her while treating her own mind and body like an engine that simply needed to keep running.

• 23:11John R. Miles?

  And honestly, I think many of us know exactly what that feels like. Maybe not on a stage, maybe not with millions of people watching. But in our own lives, we become experts at showing up for everyone else. The family, the team, the clients, the children, the community. We answer the calls, we solve the problems, we carry the weight. We know how to be needed, but somewhere along the way, we stop asking a very simple question. Who is taking care of the person doing all the caring? And here's what I found so profound about Gabby's story. Her breakthrough didn't come from another book she wrote,

• 23:54John R. Miles?

  or another audience, or another productivity system. It came when the defenses finally cracked open. When the memory surfaced, when she realized she had to stop managing herself and start relating to herself. She calls this process reparenting, learning to connect with what she calls the resourced self. That calm, compassionate presence inside us that says, "I've got you." Not "do more," not "earn your rest," not "fix yourself first." Just, "You're safe, I'm here, we'll figure this out together." And that idea hit me hard because I spent years in environments

• 24:39John R. Miles?

  that rewarded exactly the opposite. Competitive sports, the military, corporate leadership. Along the way, you learn discipline, execution, resilience, mission focus. And those things all matter. But if we're not careful, we begin treating ourselves the way we treat machines. Push harder, ignore the warning lights, get through today, recover later, optimize the system. And eventually, later arrives. And we realize we've become incredibly effective at managing our lives while remaining completely disconnected from ourselves. Which brings me to the third and final question I've been carrying with me this week.

• 25:23John R. Miles?

  Was I a safe place to come home to today?

• 25:28John R. Miles?

  I want you to sit with that question, not this year, not this season, but today, right now. When you made a mistake, what voice greeted you? When you were tired, did you allow yourself to rest? When your body asked for a break, did you listen? When fear showed up, did you become your own ally or your own prosecutor? Think about the person you love most in this world. Your child, your spouse, your parent, your closest friend. Imagine that they came to you exhausted, ashamed, lost. Would you tell them to work harder? Would you tell them they hadn't earned the right to rest? Would you criticize them for being human?

• 26:13John R. Miles?

  Of course not. You would offer compassion, patience, presence. You would remind them that their worth had never been in question.

• 26:24John R. Miles?

  So why do so many of us refuse to offer ourselves the same grace? Some of us have built extraordinary external lives while turning our inner world into a hostile corporate environment. Performance reviews, impossible standards, no room for failure, no permission to rest, no compassion for weakness. And then we wonder why flourishing feels so far away.

• 26:53John R. Miles?

  But you cannot flourish in an internal environment built on hyper criticism and neglect.

• 27:01John R. Miles?

  Gabby didn't find freedom when she optimized her life. She found freedom when she stopped treating herself like a continuous self-improvement project and started treating herself like someone worth caring for.

• 27:17John R. Miles?

  Three completely different lives. A Navy SEAL on a frozen trail in Montana, learning that reality doesn't negotiate. An entrepreneur at the height of global success, realizing that achievement is a terrible place to look for unconditional worth. And a teacher discovering that true power begins when you finally stop running from your own skin. Dan, Blake, and Gabby aren't delivering answers from a mountaintop. They're offering us three mirrors, three questions to carry into the quiet spaces of your week.

• 27:54John R. Miles?

  What are you waiting to begin that has already begun?

• 27:59John R. Miles?

  If nobody applauded this life, would you still choose it?

• 28:04John R. Miles?

  And was I a safe place to come home to today?

• 28:08John R. Miles?

  Flourishing doesn't mean you stop striving, and it doesn't mean you stop building great things. It simply means you stop postponing your presence because you believe some future version of your life has to arrive first. The curriculum is already here. The training ground is right under your feet, and the invitation to become fully alive is waiting for you the second you decide to step out of the waiting room and inhabit the life you already have. So this upcoming week, don't try to answer all three questions. Just carry one. Notice which one follows you. Notice which one unsettles you. Notice which one feels less like a challenge and more like a homecoming.

• 28:52John R. Miles?

  Because sometimes the questions that stay with us the longest are already pointing us toward the life we're meant to live. And next week, our journey continues. Week two of flourishing is about rewiring, because awakening is only the beginning. Once we become present to our lives, we have to ask a deeper question. How do we change the patterns that keep pulling us away from the people we want to become? I'll be joined by Nick Ortner, New York Times bestselling author of The Tapping Solution, founder of a global movement that has helped millions reduce stress and anxiety, and author of the new book, which is also a New York Times bestseller, Rewired: Change

• 29:36John R. Miles?

  Your Brain, Change Your Life. Together, we'll explore how lasting transformation happens, not through willpower alone, but by working with the brain and nervous system in ways that make change sustainable, compassionate, and real.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  We have something called the negativity bias. We all know it. If someone says, "John, I could say one mean thing to you today, and you will remember it for three years," and the next thousand people that talk to you could say nice things, and it'll be gone. It'll be like, "Well, Nick said that one thing." So our brain does latch on to these things. It's in order to keep us safe. I talk to a lot of authors, and I joke that you haven't made it as an author until you get a one-star review, because it means your book hasn't gone out far enough.

• 30:20John R. Miles?

  Until then, I'm John Miles. This is Passion Struck. I'll see you next time.