Episode 133 - James Miller - Leaders On Leadership
As leaders, we have to take care of our bodies if we want to achieve our goals. It's essential to know that with our daily routines, we could provide ourselves with strategic techniques so that we could be productive and healthy at the same time. Join Dr. Tracey Jones and the executive producer and host of the nationally broadcasted syndicated radio show, LIFEOLOGY, James Miller, talk about shaping our habits and how powerful thoughts are in our personal and professional growth. He shares his insights about loneliness and weariness in the leadership context, giving a powerful message to all of us. He also discusses healthy rituals that are important, especially on how we start and go on about our days. In this episode, James dives into maintaining areas in our lives such as physical, spiritual, and mental levels that we need to nurture to be successful.
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Episode 133 - James Miller - Leaders On Leadership
I am so excited because my guest is James Miller. He is a licensed psychotherapist and the executive producer and host of the nationally broadcasted and syndicated radio show, LIFEOLOGY. James has been in the mental health field for many years. After fourteen years in private practice, James left his thriving practice in the Washington, DC area and created James Miller LIFEOLOGY where he globally helps people simplify and transform their spirit, mind and body. James, welcome.
Thank you so much. I'm honored to be a guest on your show, Tracey.
I'm so excited to hear about your pivots, what you did, and your research into the field. I'm a big fan of yours. For our readers out there, James and I reconnected. A friend of a friend connected us and I reached out to James. Being the super-duper guy that he is, he immediately connected himself and reached back out to me. I'm very excited about where this is going to go.
We're here to talk about the price of leadership. Many people call themselves a leader but they're not willing to pay the price and we call them LINOs, Leaders In Name Only. My father came out with a speech called the Price of Leadership. It was the down and dirty of leadership, and that leadership is tough. Sometimes you're on the leading edge, sometimes you're on the bleeding edge, but it is the only way to do it. We have to be victorious in our struggles.
The first price that he talks about that I would love to unpack these four aspects with you is loneliness. We've all heard that term, "It's lonely at the top." James, in your extensive experience and especially with some of the people that you've worked for, the cases, can you unpack what loneliness in a leadership context means? Maybe a time when you've gone through it, and what you would share with our leaders that might be in a season of loneliness?
When I think of the word context overall, there's a denotation and a connotation. The denotation is what it means in the dictionary, and then the connotation is what you assigned to it or what you ascribed to it. Loneliness is just a word. It can be a concept. When you think of the English language, it sounds like we're making and we assign something to it. If we assign something that loneliness means this, we're bringing in emotional constructs that come together with it, and all of a sudden, it means something greater than what it needs to be. When I think of loneliness, it's not necessarily lonely. It's my ability to take time for myself and reflect. Loneliness is not loneliness. It's a type of reflection. When I reflect, I also rebuild myself.
Just like you, I'm in a lot of media. I do a lot of things, and I’m always talking and listening. The best part for me is when I purposely step aside and reflect because I always ask myself, "What am I learning about myself right now?" When I'm by myself, it's a choice. I don't consider it loneliness. It's a time to reflect, grow, and reconstruct what I'm struggling with or what I'm learning. I assimilate that and then I move forward. There were times in my past when I didn't have that specific understanding of what loneliness was. There were times when I thought I'm the only one who's doing this. In my field, we work with so many people and often, people think they're alone and they're not alone.
Everyone goes through something. We all experience the same type of emotions from love, joy, peace, bitterness and rage. We feel it all. When we understand that we all experience that, now we say, "What do I do with it?" There's nothing new under the sun. We've all experienced and felt this, but if you take an emotional construct or feeling, repivot it and make it what you want, you remove the emotions that go along with it, the heartache, pain and suffering. All of a sudden, that loneliness, that word that could potentially have a negative or hurtful connotation, becomes something great. “I'm lonely.” This loneliness means I get to regrow, rebuild and reconstruct myself. I always take everything and flip it around because I decide what it means, not what the construct is or what other people say that means. If that's the case, you are not leading my thoughts. I'm not leading anything else. I'm not following what other people say is what that means. All of a sudden, I'm beholden to that, "I must be lonely." I'm not lonely. It's my choice to set myself apart to rebuild and regrow.
It's like leadership. There's leadership and then there's this shadow side of leadership. All the four terms that you touched on, loneliness, weariness and abandonment. There's always a duality like nature. I love that you talked about the ebb and flow. The best day of my life, the worst day of my life. I'm still alive. What is the construct? When did you finally break through and get your mind wrapped around that? Emotions drive everything. What would you recommend for people? How do they get their mind wrapped around what you did with words?
I always tell people, “You have a primary response and a secondary response.” If I were to come up and startle you, you're going to be startled and then we laugh because it was me startling you. If you're still startled for the next hour, that doesn't make sense at all. What happens is you have this initial response to something that happens in your life. When you have this initial awareness, "I may have that concept of loneliness," that's the first response like me startling you. The second response is once you have the awareness, what do you do with it. When you have that second awareness of what do you do with it, now it's a self-responsibility that kicks in that says, "I now need to do something." If I do feel lonely, then we flip it to what makes sense for you.
I always tell people it's okay to feel something initially, but as soon as you have the awareness of what's going on, that's when you do something different. In psychology, we have what's called radical acceptance, which is a fancy term that means you take the facts as they are. It doesn't mean you like it and you're okay with it. It simply means these are the facts. When you look at the facts, then that turns your mind into, "What do I do with it?" Anytime someone is lonely, they have a new idea or something is happening with them, that first initial response can have fear and trepidation, whatever it is, but as soon as you're aware of it, that's when it flips over and you make that choice.
Success is like a bank account. Whatever you put into it is what you get out.
That's what I did. Things are going well in my life and I felt like I reached the plateau of what I was doing. I thought, "I want to do something different." As I started to do that, I had a lot of well-meaning people and not so well-meaning people tell me it was a bad idea. We've all heard this. This isn't anything new when it comes to entrepreneurship. The point was I heard that and I had a choice. The not so well-meaning people said things but my choice was, "How do I want to internalize that?" I did not internalize that I wasn't going to be successful. I internalized it into, "That's something I'm going to remember when I am struggling." Every single time I heard something different, I was excited to hear that because now I have more ammunition for myself or more evidence to prove that I must be doing something right. If everybody could do it, everybody would do it.
When I hear something that could be construed as something that could be harmful or that I'm the only one doing it, I flip it around and say, "This is evidence that I can use later when I am struggling," because we all struggle. It’s when I’m 30 years old when things settled in the sense of, “A-ha.” Like many of us, I had a lot of accolades in my twenties. I was a professor at a university and all these things but I wasn't strong in my mind. I was running all over the place. When I was 30 years old, I remember it was January 16, I had this epiphany. I was standing on my balcony. I was struggling with something and I was like, "Why does this seem so hard?" I'm a person of faith so I was like, "God, when is this going to stop?" I felt He was like, "When do you want it to?" I was like, "What do you mean?” That was so eye-opening for me in the sense that if I continue to cause myself to feel a certain way or be in pain or whatever it might be, that's my choice to stay in it.
That is where the first response and the secondary response are. If I'm doing all these things in life and seems hard or whatever is happening in my life, that's the first response until I had that epiphany of if I don't want to feel that way anymore, then don't feel that way anymore. I don't minimize anybody's struggles because it's not always that easy. It is important to know that once you get through the first response, that can be grief. If you're grieving something, you get to decide how long grief is. It's not a one and done. Five seconds I feel this way and then I move on. I would never ever minimize that.
The more you get to know yourself and the more you understand what your options are because there are always options. When we recognize our options, once you realize how long you've been feeling this way, and once you use a radical acceptance of accepting the facts as they are, then you change that. That's something for me when I had that epiphany of if I don't want to feel this way anymore, then don't feel that way anymore.
I'm glad I asked that follow on question. I love how you unpack that and you talked about habits and the power of thought. It's always in here, but you have to get past that reptilian brain response. I love that you look at loneliness as something for this introspection and self-awareness. You said it, how well do you know yourself. That doesn't happen in the presence of many people and others. That is a singular thing between you and God to have that inner dialogue. If you're not a believer, then it's you and yourself. That never happens in a room full of whatever. I love that you looked at loneliness as that time to peel off and get that clarity.
I appreciate you saying that. I remember I was listening to a podcast. The expert on the podcast is saying this wonderful message. I could be a little pragmatic at times, they said a couple of statistics and I was like, "That's not right." It had nothing to do with who this person was. As I was going through this, my inner dialogue was like, "That's a huge blind spot.” Here you are, the quote expert, which I never want to be considered that because I'm still learning. My point was when I heard my inner dialogue, I asked myself, "What are you learning about yourself right now?" At that moment, I realized I'm not listening to what the person is saying. I'm listening for something else. It was humbling. When I recognized that, I sat back and listened. I wasn't listening for any facts or anything else, just the message.
That's one thing that as leaders, we often have to get everything right. It's 100% right all the time and I know I don't get everything right all the time. My point is that as a leader listening to other leaders or other people who could be your subordinates or people who work for you, if you're looking for something to be 100% right, then your motivation for being a leader is off. Your motivation for what's happening is not truly holistic. I always tell people success is like a bank account. Whatever you put into it is what you get out. When it comes to leadership and the success of that, if I'm myopic or only looking at one version of that, I'm not looking at the whole spectrum of what success means or what leadership means. If I'm looking to hear that all the facts are right, which is important, but if I'm not hearing the messaging or how that's being presented, then I'm missing out on so much of the meat of what someone is saying.
At that moment when I heard that, I sat back and I was like, "You're not growing the way you typically think you are.” Here I am thinking I should learn a certain way in a certain format, but if I'm not learning that and I'm not open to hearing what someone has to say, it's a huge blind spot. I love the fact that when we have these moments, they can be very humbling. In order to be a healthier version of oneself, one always has to recognize that you're not perfect. You don't know everything. I always love to flip things around. Everything's like a cube for me. When I move that cube around to look at different versions of myself or what I'm learning, I see so many blind spots. Once again, that’s the first response. The secondary response is what you do with those blind spots.
You talked about loneliness. We're now going on to something tied to that, and that's weariness. Even when you're dialed in, there are varying shades of weariness. How do you stay replenished and recharged? The body is a temple and the mind is a garden. How do you combat weariness? How do you deal with that, James?
I always tell people how you start your day is indicative of how your day is going to go. If you start your day, you wake up and hit the snooze button 5 or 6 times, that's fine. If you know that you've started your day not being prepared for something, then all of a sudden, that snooze button that you hit a few more times and you're late for work. You then start your day in this frenzied moment. The thing that I tell people is you start planning for your day the day before. Plan when you're going to go to bed because sleep is the most important thing. If I know I have a long day tomorrow, I plan my tomorrow by tonight. What time am I going to bed? With that, I reverse engineer things all the time. If I need to be in bed by 10:00, then what am I doing at 9:00 or 8:00? If you look at my phone, I have alarms that go off every two minutes. Some people are like, “You set it for random times,” but that's how my mind works.
When it comes back to weariness, how you start your day means when you go to bed, what time do you wake up? Every morning, this is my routine and it's specific for me. Everyone can have a different version. Because I'm on the radio, I've recorded nine minutes of the characteristics I want to demonstrate that I'm a person that's kind and loyal. I hear all those attributes over and over again. The second part of that is I review my goals. I have my yearly goals, 6-month goals, 3-month goals and daily goals. With that, I update it all the time.
Leadership Growth: Minimizing struggles is not always that easy, but it is important to know that once you get through the first response, and that can be grief, you will get through it. And if you're grieving something, you get to decide how long grief is.
Every morning when I walk my dog, I hear that and that is how I start my day. That strengthens my spirit and my body as I'm walking. That creates my intellect as well. If my day is a little off where I'm a little bit behind and I don't hear that, it’s part of the ritual because healthy rituals are very important, if I don't do that, I know that it's a little off for me. Once I do that in the morning, my spiritual side and everyone can have a different idea of what spirituality means, that's my spiritual side. I also am able to move my schedule around so that I'm in the gym all the time. The gym is not how you look. I do that physically because it burns off any anxiety and stress I may have.
I look at it in three parts. I have my spirit, mind and body, or spirit, soul and body, however you want to call it. My spirit is what I do in the morning. My body is something that I will do every day at the gym or some form of exercise. For some people, that can be their connection with God, their inner cheerleader or that sense of hope, “You can do it.” However you want to view it. That's one thing I look at. The more that becomes strengthened, my body better be strengthened because my intellect is going to continue to rise. If I look at it in a sense of should I want it to, I want to make sure that everything continues to rise at the same level. There are going to be times when my body isn't well but my spirit side, my mental side and my intellect can help me through this. Sometimes when it feels like all hope is lost, I can use my logical mind to say, "You felt this way before, what did you do?" My body allows me to activate that.
It's so important because the more strengthened all three of those parts are in your life, you can always draw on one of them because it's not always going to be throughout the same level all the time. That's the goal, in my opinion.
It comes back to weariness. We're all super busy. The busier we are, we're like, "What's one more ten-minute meeting?" You look at your schedule and you’re like, “I just happen to have a twelve-hour day tomorrow,” which is fine. The point is I've learned how to flex my time to get some self-care. Self-care is one of the most important things to combat weariness because if you don't have healthy self-care, then all of a sudden, you're over-extended and overtaxed. Self-care doesn't mean you have to go to a spa all day. It can simply mean a 5-minute or 1-minute breathing exercise. You inhale through your nose, which decreases the parasympathetic nervous system, which allows people who struggle with anxiety to feel more relaxed, and that gives you more energy.
Learning how to do something as simple as that allows for people to learn how to combat weariness. Weariness is a state of mind. It's not necessarily a physical state. It can be, but weariness is more your inability to find endurance to maintain something. My work is always preventative. The more prevention you have, for me, by my morning ritual and physical part, all that as well is something I do to combat weariness so I don't get to the place where I'm weary. If I do start to feel that, I purposely pull back and understand what's happening for myself and do some self-care.
There's something people can do as well as I have. What I teach in my show is to create two scales for yourself. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 is the highest, how am I feeling emotionally and how am I feeling physically? When I start my day, I create those skills. If I could wake up feeling pretty good, I'm an 8 today with my emotions. If my body is low because I have some allergies, then I would say maybe a 4 or 5. Throughout the day, when I recheck with myself at noon, and I find that the 8 level is now at a 5, what happened from the time I woke up until noon? What was that about? If something happened and it happened at 9:00 AM but it's 12:00 and I'm still struggling with that, let it go. That's something that people struggle with because they don't realize that they can reset at any time.
That little skill of doing the two scales, start in the morning, do one at noon, do one at 6:00 PM, and do one before you go to bed. When you can recognize that, you're training yourself to be able to say, "I'm holding on to something that's no longer important in this moment, but I'm physically or mentally holding onto that. In doing that, that's causing me to not be present in the new activity I'm doing.” That's another way that people can combat weariness. It's by checking in with yourself and resetting until the next time you check-in. The more often you do that, it becomes a natural habit. When it becomes a natural habit, then you don't have to set those times aside. You can immediately feel what that is. You reset, recalibrate, and then move on to the next.
We talk about the three-legged stool a lot. You talk about the mind, body and spirit. We all know that we're congruent and you got to be good with all areas. I love the fact that you brought that if you take a hit to one or if a crisis happens or something that stresses your faith or whatever, the stronger you keep your body. There are times where you're not going to be able to go on, but physically you're going to be healthy enough and of clear enough mind because we still are flesh and bones. That can carry you. I love that you hit on not only do we all know what we're supposed to do, there's a lot of stuff we know we're supposed to do, but you're going to need that.
Look at COVID. You don't know when some scary disease is going to happen. By the way, if you're in robust physical health, you don't have to fear. Maybe a tiny little bit. If people only did that, then they could be like, "This sucks but, in the grand scheme of things, I have this other leg that even though the scariness is coming in, I don't have to yield to that because my body's robust enough that I'm going to get through this." We talked about loneliness and weariness, and all the things you're talking about. When I feel weariest, not good weary where I laid down and go, "I kicked butt and took names," is when I am unfocused. You hit the nail on the head.
Abandonment, we love animals, James is a dog lover. Abandonment in our doggie lingo is a bad word, but in my father's vernacular world of flipping things around, abandonment is you need to be abandoning what you want and like to think about what favor what you want and need. Typically, when I deal with weariness, it's because I've lost my focus. James, can you unpack that for a bit? You shared a lot. You are a focused man. No wonder you're on top of your game, your habits and your shrewdness. I love people that are shrewd because they're like, "All this stuff is going on but I'm laser-focused." Can you share with us maybe a time when you lost your focus or some things you need to constantly be pruning off so you can stay at the head of the LIFEOLOGY ship?
I've reflected many times when I was unfocused. Sometimes people think, "James, you're too focused." The reason why they say that is I remember there was a holiday years ago. I'm sitting here on my balcony, drinking a glass of wine, reading a book and I had my dog on my lap. It was beautiful and I was supposed to go out that night. People were running late and they’re like, "Come out." I thought, "I don't want to do that because I'm 100% content right now. Why would I go out if it's a 50% chance of being content or if I'm liking where I'm at?" I was like, "No, I'm choosing to stay here." People were like, "You're too focused, regimented and structured."
To be a healthier version of ourselves, we must recognize that we are not perfect and don't know everything.
The thing is when it comes down to that, we all can be. The point is that if you know what's working for you now and it's still growing and viable, why change it? Why reinvent the wheel? When it comes to abandonment overall, when you abandon insecurities and many things that hold you back, that's where the liberation happens. There's a quote, "She who returns halfway through the race goes as far as she would have had she continued the race." In other words, you're halfway there and all of a sudden, you're like, "I can't do this." You go back the way you started but if you've gone a little bit further, you're already halfway there. Why not go a little further? That's when it comes to the abandonment aspect of it. The connotation of abandonment can mean whatever you want. The denotation in the dictionary means something that's being forsaken.
When I think of abandonment, it's probably more like your father as well. It’s that sense of if I hold onto things that don't serve me anymore, I can only go as far as I can go. For example, if this cup right here is my goal and half of this is full of things that don't serve me, I've already had my cup full. What else am I going to do? When you think about life and the habit that you have, what works for you and what doesn't work for you? When I think back on my life many years ago, those things only serve me now because I'm at a different level. When someone can be aware of that, then it's like, "Let me revisit this as well."
I talk about the graph of fulfillment. On a horizontal line, if someone were to do this, you'd break your life down into as many components as possible, your relationships, friendships, intimate relationships, health, wellness, finances, spirituality, whatever it might be. When you look at that, on the vertical line, you have a scale of 1 to 10. You take some time and you can use maybe a six-month timestamp. In that, what you do is look at every year in your life. I can look at my health, it will be at this number. Finance is this number. With that, that creates a good snapshot of where you are in your life. If you see that your numbers are low, then this is where that abandonment would come in. What am I doing that's still causing me to feel as I do these things that my numbers are low?
What are these habits or what are these belief systems or constructs that I have in my mind? If those things are holding you back, then let them go. That's something I want. I love teaching that part because it's so important. There are so many things from a seed or a thought that can pull someone back, which as we know, the bigger it goes and the more you water it, it becomes a bush or a tree. It's harder to pull a tree out than it is to just not water a plant. When you think of it in that respect, how do you let some of these things go? I can say many opportunities or things in my life when I realized I'm still holding on to some negative thought structures.
I had Dr. Valerie Young on my show. She is the expert on impostor syndrome. She is a brilliant woman. She was talking about the different aspects of seven different subsets of the impostor syndrome, and 7 out of 10 people feel like they're an imposter. It's learning how to say, "What is it that I'm still doing that's causing me to feel like I'm an impostor?” That's something to be aware of and something to let go of as well. That's how I would describe what abandoned looks like. It's to constantly look at your life and to say, "Where am I not growing and developing?" In psychology, we teach that whatever you think to be true, your thought systems and perspective determines what you feel. Your feelings determine what you do. With that, if my actions are not lining up with where my goals are, then something's happening to my mind or I'm focusing on something, and so that's the struggle.
There are fifteen common thinking errors which are called cognitive distortions in my field, but the lay term is thinking errors. There are fifteen different versions of that. If we think about that, thinking error would be black or white thinking, all or nothing thinking, “I have to do all this. I can't do any of this,” or catastrophizing. Catastrophizing is another fancy term that means you take something and you create a mountain out of a molehill. It's the worst-case scenario. You can think of a thinking error like glasses. Whatever lens you use determines how you see things. When you're aware of this and you can look at this in your life and say, "Why do I always argue with my boss or with this person? Why does it seem like it's so difficult here?" More than likely you or someone is using 1 of those 15 common thinking errors. The awareness you have with that allows you to say, "Let me look at what this thinking error is." I'm the type of person that I put a name on something.
You name it and then you normalize it. You put flesh on it and go, "I can deal with this."
That's one thing with my brand that I try and do. There's always a name. That's why I'll use the terms. People can look it up. I'll use the technical and layperson's terms because there's nothing new under the sun. When people know what that is and they can tap, "I didn't know that that's what that was. There's something for that." That's what happened. When you think of the different common thinking errors and you recognize what they are, that's when you can say, "I don't want this anymore. I'm going to abandon what that is. I'm going to let that go and now I'm going to fill something up just like that cup with something that's healthy and goes back to my self-care, spirituality and intellect, whatever it might be." The recognition of where something is struggling allows you to then say, “Let me find the answer. Let me figure that out and then we reset.”
People say, "I feel," but thoughts is where it starts. People are like, "I'm this way." I go, "As a man thinketh." Everything originates with the thought. This is a process. This is why I love getting older because I know myself better. I want to sit and go away from the crowd. I know people think we're weird, but they're the ones that are weird. People are like, "Tracey, you're such a nut cutter." I'm like, "I know. It's not a reactive thing. It's I'm lasering in. I don't want to waste any more time and I don't want to waste your time. I know me better now.” People think it's a beautiful process.
When I look back in different areas and how I view something, now is different from before. I always tell people, "Is this a good habit? Is this a healthy habit?" Years from now, if I'm getting older and things change in my life, then that habit will be healthier or I will have to rethink what that habit looks like. It's not about you're demonstrating good or bad. I like to think in healthy. When you use a good or bad, it sometimes can go into that unhealthy thinking, black and white thinking, or polarized thinking. Unfortunately, that is not healthy. For me, it's always, "Is this a healthy experience for you? Is this a positive or good experience?" It's not necessarily that. Everything is on a continuum and you get to decide what that continuum looks like for you based on what makes sense for you or what resonates with you.
For our leaders out there too, because you are so versed in the mental health thing, that black or white, either-or, baby out with the bathwater, and you talk about even listen to podcaster, the term is dichotomous thinking. If you get so rigid, that can put you in a DSM personality disorder. I let people know, "We all have these tendencies and we're okay, but it's not healthy even in the littlest bit." Eliminate and eradicate that because I could be, "I was in the military. I'm a rule abider. If anybody was coated black and white thinking, it works for me." I had to look at this and go, "This can be good and this can go off the rails very fast."
Leadership Growth: Loneliness is the ability to take time for yourself, reflect, and move forward.
Everything is with your thoughts. There are five different ways in which people think, and this is my version of it. The way their thinking works is sometimes, and I don't mean this in a psychotic way, if I'm thinking I can hear my own narrative and hear my voice, where other people will hear someone else's voice. For example, I have a lot of people who listen to me. They go, "James, I heard you say this." I don't mean literally hearing but their mind and the way they replayed it, or when they replayed advice that they would give themselves, they would hear my voice.
You have the snapshot, picture or a scene of what that looks like. For example, if someone takes a snapshot of us talking, then that would be the memory they would have, but there was something that goes behind it. The other people have the version where it's an actual scene that plays out like a movie scene, and then other people have a figure of what that would mean. For example, if I were to say I'm depressed, some people would have the casebook study of they would see a cloud over my head. They think more in figures, so it's more abstract. It's not words. The five different ways in which we all think, when you are aware of what that is, then you understand yourself even better.
This goes back to leaders as well. When you talk to somebody, you want to be mindful of how you say something. For example, we'd all hear it in therapy like, "How does it make you feel?" For me, it's one of the most annoying things because that's wrong. What I mean by that is this. I always tell people, "How was that for you?" If they tell me an emotion, then they think at an emotional level based on their thoughts. If they say, "Give me the facts,” that's very linear and fact-based.
It's analytical.
If I say, "How does that make you feel?" and they're analytical, they're like, "I'm not sure." That's a struggle. When you think of the five different versions of how people think, how you think, and then when you hear how they respond, you'll know how it is for them. It creates so much more effective communication. When you tell someone, "How do you feel?" and you hear that their response isn't giving you a feeling or they're struggling with that, unfortunately, you put them in a box. It's not going to be an effective communication style because they're not going to understand what you mean. If you say, "How was that for you?" or whatever terminology you'd like to use, you hear how they respond, then you shift your response to them to match theirs. In that matching aspect, you can now have effective communication and be able to get or achieve the goal that you want.
My father, I was listening to another speech of his and he said, "First of all, there can be no communication without identification." We have to co-identify. I love that you said that because that's a wonderful leadership tip. I'm like you, I’m an engineer. I’m analytical. I want content and you asked me about feelings and I'm like, "I'm out of here." Not that I'm not comfortable with my feelings, I'm incredibly emotive, but we're past that. I love that you said that. Loneliness, awareness and abandonment, the last one he talked about is vision. You hear about the big hairy audacious goal, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah or Nostradamus. I remember as a little kid growing up thinking, "I'm not a visionary. I'm just Tracey." My dad always told me, "Vision is seeing what needs to be done because a lot of people see it and doing it.” Can you unpack what vision means for you? You're blue sky but you're also a blueprint. I love that you bring it down because if you can't apply it, you got to change behaviors and build a life.
If I'm going from LA to New York, it's a long drive. At night I'm driving, and if I can only see 30 feet in front of me because of my lights, I still know that my destination is there, but all I can see is 30 feet in front of me. People can have a big goal, but that's an example of sometimes I know, “What do I do for the next five minutes?” When I'm aware of the vision of where I want to go, then that allows me to say, "Reverse engineer it, then how do I get there?" When you reverse engineer, sometimes it can be, "All I can do is do something for the next minute. I did that. I feel successful. Now, what do I do for the next minute?" When you know that your thoughts, feelings and actions are moving towards that, you know that you're moving towards your vision.
When I was a child, I had audacious ideas. I always tell people, "Go back to when you were a child. You dreamt of something. When you were a child, what did you say you wanted to be?" Sometimes people say a doctor, lawyer, engineer, whatever it might be, but there was a reason why you said it. It could be because your parents wanted you to be that, but when you got a little bit older, you thought more about that. When you're in a latency age, which would be between 7 and 11 years old, a lot of your personality would come out. With that, you have ideas, but life happens to all of us, and we move our lives in a different direction.
What I always tell people when they want to reset themselves is, "Go back to that time when you were younger." Ask people, "What did I say when I wanted to be younger?" Ask your parents or your family, "How was I when I was younger? What were my interests?" When you're aware of that, your life has not tainted a person or made someone jaded because that's what you wanted to do. When it comes down to the vision, "Am I going in the direction I like? What's the feeling I get? What's the fulfillment that I'm feeling?" You can use that graph of fulfillment to determine the direction you're going.
The vision can be this huge thing or the vision could be, "What's my vision for today? What's my vision for the next five minutes?" I always want people to know that when it comes to life, if you're not sure where your path is going to go, you can come back to the smaller moments of, “What inspires me?” A lot of that comes back to when you were a child as well. When people struggle with that, often that is because of their motivation. I'm saying this respectfully, sometimes their motivation for life is a little off and that's where the metrics of success comes in. Sometimes people will be top-heavy and wanting finances. Sometimes they want finances, which is great but then they've lost quality of life. When it comes to the focus or the vision itself, you want to say, “In a perfect world, what would this look like?”
In therapy, we have what's called the magical door technique. You point to the door and say, "If you were to walk out this door and everything and your life was different, what would be different?" They're like, "What do you mean?" "It's a magical door. You walk out the door, what happens?” They say, "My relationship would be different." "Why would it be different?" When you have people think of that, they go through the magical door in their house or their office, and when they have that understanding, it makes them shift to what would be different in their life. Once there's a nudge of a thought that could be different, that seed then allows for someone to say, "A-ha."
Review your personal goals and start your day with a strengthened spirit.
When it comes to my show, I look at my show as the assembly line of self-development. I'm at the very front of the assembly line to say, "Maybe there's something different." With that slight shift in one's perspective or perception, all of a sudden, it starts to create a slightly different vision. What's cool that some people may or may not know about this is if they're trying to do something new. You use that magical door technique before you fall asleep, "What would be different?"
Before a person falls asleep, there's a theta frequency in the brain. There are many different frequencies, the alpha, beta, delta and gamma, but there's the theta one itself and that one is before you fall asleep. The more you think about it and then you fall asleep, your subconscious all of a sudden starts to create that. It's also the unconscious or the non-conscious mind, which is the database of everything you've ever thought. Your non-conscious mind then kicks in, which then says, "If we want to do this, what would need to change?" That's why in the middle of the night, if you've ever woken up and you're like, "I remember what I was going to say." That's because you thought about it before you went to sleep and your non-conscious mind thought about it, it woke you up and you knew what it was.
That's why I always tell people, "Anytime you want to make a change, envision it before you fall asleep. Your non-conscious mind then assimilates that, figures it out, and you wake up one step closer to being that person." Your life circumstances may not be different, but cognitive restructuring has now changed. Your vision is greater because you believe it even more. Vision can be in so many different things, but when it comes to change, it's simply the envisioning of it. Use that magical door technique, walk out the door, and now you start to think what would be different. In that, that's where you will move towards it.
The funny thing is anytime someone says, "I can't imagine doing this again. I can’t imagine this is the rest of my life. We have to do that again,” unfortunately, that is a thought or behavior of mediocrity. It doesn't mean you're mediocre. It simply means the thought structures and the behaviors, you're doing it over and over again. There's very minimal self-development and with minimal self-development, one does not grow and develop and to be able to be that person or to be able to accomplish what they want to do. In your thoughts, if you're automatically hearing that or feeling like, "I don't want to do this," more than likely, what you're bringing to the table is a mediocre presentation.
The habits that have been created have happened so many times and all of a sudden, we don't realize we're on autopilot. Autopilot is good at times but it's not healthy. It's good to be aware that if you're having those thought structures and more than likely you are struggling there, so use the magical door technique. What would be different? “If I don't want to feel this way anymore and if I can't imagine doing this anymore, what would I do?” That allows a person to rethink that. It's like, "Let me try that." One little step away from something is closer to your goal.
Another one of my favorite quotes is, "The last person in the race beats the person on the couch." If I'm the person who wants to do something different, then simply stand up. That's what I tell a lot of my listeners as well. If they're trying something new like, "This is so overwhelming," but usually when they think that, they're usually sedentary. When someone's sitting down or thinking something that's overwhelming, I tell them, "All you have to worry about is standing up. When you can stand up, you see the world in a different way." Your perspective changes because you're at the height of where you typically are. "If I'm already standing up, then let me take a few more steps." That allows for someone to enact their vision by simply standing up. I say that because it's so practical, but all you have to worry about is simply standing up.
Your perspective is shifted. I love that you dialed into the subconscious because somebody like me, I call it the Holy Spirit, Napoleon Hill hit on it, but this divine thing in us that is this huge untapped thing but is a product of everything we've been through and the conscious mind shuts it up. I love the magic door exercise because at night I plan out my speeches or my next day. I'm like you. I'm very structured. I sleep good but I never thought about that. Before you go off, think about structuring that because your subconscious has the power. It has the answers, the conscious, the layers of people telling yourself.
I love that you talked about early childhood development. In one of my classes on pedagogy, when you're nine, that's when you're most likely going to know what you want to be when you grow up. That's why kids can learn languages. The world starts covering you and draining you. A lot of people are like, "Go back to when you're a kid." I'm like, "I never wanted to be a kid. I wanted to be a leader." That is where you were most authentic with who you wanted to be. Thank you for bringing that up because I used to think that was crazy, and then I studied the science of it and I'm like, "It's a real thing."
When it comes to the vision, when I started LIFEOLOGY back in 2015, I wasn't certain of how that would look. My goal, even since I was a little child, was to have my TV show, which we're going to be filming that. When I started LIFEOLOGY, I thought, "I want to do this, but how am I preparing myself for this?" What I did was every day for six months, I did a YouTube channel. If everyone watches my YouTube channel, the content is good. The presentation was lacking, but the good thing is now I have a juxtaposition where I can compare and contrast from where I was to and where I'm at. Where I'm going to be in the future is going to be more polished.
My goal is to do something every single day for six months to practice being on camera again because when I was younger, I did a lot of television films and I was on stage all the time. For me, it had been a while. I was like, "How do I do this?" I would look at my own life and I would read and listen to other people around me, and I would create little three-minute videos. Those little videos are what my brand is about when it comes to the life lessons I teach. We all have life lessons to learn and teach. When I practice that and I practice how to be very concise and very specific, and the goal was to be able to be ready, so then when my TV show happened, I can slip right into that.
Sometimes we forget that vision is seeing something, but if there's no action behind it, then all that is is you're seeing something. I can see a beautiful photo but sometimes I would like to be in that photo. I will envision myself and it's like, "I have this beautiful forest picture here. I would love to be in that," so I can envision myself in that. That's something different in the sense of I can see it but what am I doing to get into that picture? Let me go to a forest or whatever it might be. That's something where you always want to practice. If you see something, how are you moving closer to that?
Leadership Growth: The more you get to know yourself and understand what your options are, the more you can regrow, rebuild, and reconstruct.
When we look back at the mediocrity that one may be experiencing, if I want to get closer, I have to create action, so I stand up, I do something. When you can continually do something to create a habit, as we know it's 63 to 66 times on average, which allows for some of the change their behavior. That's how a habit is created. With that, the more often you do something, the more you can hone your craft. For six months, I went over and above that. That’s something I did every single day. How it rolled out was I did my YouTube channel, then I did a podcast, then I did national radio, and now the next step, the next iteration and on average, it's five iterations per person.
On average, five versions of one's vocation will change over and over again because it builds on each other. The reinvention that people have is five times. That'll be the fifth iteration for me and then there'll be more as things expand. The whole goal is when you can flesh it out of, “What steps do I take to get me closer?” You enact that and you get good at that stuff, then it's so easy to go to the next step. Sometimes when people jump the gun, let's say it's a ten-step process like, "In the first two steps, I got it," but they haven't sat with it. By the time they get to the fifth step because their foundation wasn't as strong as it could, unfortunately, they're not going to fully embody what that change is because they didn't sit with that step.
We're in a microwave society. We want everything right now. To sit in one of those steps can be frustrating and humbling. The point is that it strips away all the other elements of who a person is to sit with it and say, "I got this. Nobody can change my belief system because I understand this 100%.” Everything I do, I want to be a part of the process with a lot of people I work with. I don't want to be considered an expert per se, but I want to understand the nuances of it, so I truly understand it. There's nothing worse than jumping the gun and going farther than you should at that moment because if your foundation and your understanding aren't there, unfortunately, you can only grow as far as whatever the lowest step is.
If I'm trying to be in step 5 and I'm not understanding step 2, I'm not going to be able to understand step 5 that well or appreciate it because my conscious mind or my experience is still at a lower level. When you can slowly build yourself up to that, you'll find that you're so much more empowered because when you have that empowerment, then it doesn't matter what life throws at you. You understand it and you know, "This is where I'm going to go. Regardless of what those naysayers may say, I know that this is the path I'm going to take." We've all had those experiences where we're doing well and then all of a sudden, something happens. As a leader, you can rethink this and be like, "Is this what I'm supposed to do?" Those times at night when people may see you on the mountaintop, but at night when no one else is around and you're like, "I don’t know."
It's the valley of humiliation.
With that, that's when it comes back for me, that moment of reflection, "James, why are you doing this? What is your motivation for this?" There are so many people who have wonderful talents and gifts. Motivation isn't a one and done. It's everything I say. For example, if they see me sitting here, they could ask me, "James, why are you sitting like that?” "Because it's comfortable." "Why did you wear that shirt?" "Because I didn't have to iron it." Whatever it might be, when you ask, "Why am I doing this?" It removes that autopilot concept and make someone intentional and say, "I'm choosing to do this." When it goes back to the weariness that we talked about or it goes back to, "Am I supposed to do this?" You know that I've chosen to do this. It's like that quote, "If I'm 50% there, why go back if I'm halfway there."
Everything is, “Why do you do what you do? What am I learning about myself right now?” The more often someone can assimilate that or incorporate that into their life, they live an intentional life as opposed to a reactive life. If there's reactivity or reaction, what happens is that first response, and then that's the reaction. The second response, “What do I do with this?” There are many entry points in how to live one's life. You just got to figure out which tool makes sense for you based on your personality. Your first time is going to be different from mine. Mine is going to be different from yours and other people as well.
The goal is that when you can use all these different techniques, it's like, "This one works well for me. I'm going to stand up. My perspective is different. It gives me the ability to think." That's multiple ways in which people can understand life. There's nothing cookie-cutter that works. It's simply understanding, "Let me try something.” As we know, you can try something and if it worked, wonderful. If it didn't work, then throw it out. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. You simply say, "What worked for me before, let me do that again." You don't have to be like, "I've never felt this way before." Of course, you have. When you felt that way, what did you do? What worked and what didn't work? You now know, "This didn't work. I'm not going to do that. This worked. I'm going to do that." That then allows a person to have more of a cogent thinking or more lucid thinking where they can say, "That emotion is lowered. I can come from a place of being proactive and create whatever it is I need to do."
I love the fact that you dialed into what I would call it like vision drips. Sometimes we think, "We see this vision." Your driving thing, all these things that you're doing. I look at my journey even back running my company for years. I knew the vision was there. I wasn't sure, but I could see little manifestations and everything I did, even if it was foggy or the fog and friction of whatever you want to call it, I was still moving forward. Now I look at it and for leaders out there, you may not be able to see the mountaintop but you're going to look back at everything like you did, all your rehearsals and practices. You do that not only as continued learning and build your experience, but they all are little manifestations of your vision.
That's important for leaders out there to know because we all think we have to be so clear, and the orders are outlined. Sometimes that happens but sometimes you just get this intuitive feeling and you start going. I heard this pastor talking about the 5 loaves and 2 fishes. He's like, "Remember, there were thousands of people. The people in the back of that crowd, they did not know that a miracle was happening, but they were the recipients of it." I was like, "All these things in life, day-to-day miracles are happening. My vision is being manifested. I may not be able to get up on it and see it but that doesn't mean that all my work isn't somehow going out into the world and doing what it needs to do." I love that you hit on that because people look at somebody like you and like, "If I was that focused, everything would be clear."
It's funny because I'm focused in many ways, but if you look around my house, you can see some drawers that aren't fully closed. The thing is I know my skill set. I'm very good at what I do, and then I'll go back and I'll close this thing. When I would say that I'm focused, I want to be clear that as a content provider, I’m incredibly clear. When it comes to some of my daily things, I don't struggle with that. That's something I do work on. However, let me throw this little tidbit here as well, which is important because everybody has a baseline of what tidiness looks like.
Flex your time to have self-care to combat weariness.
Tidiness is also reflective of the tidiness of one's thoughts or one's emotions. When you know what your tidiness level is in your house, when you take that moment to say, "Let me look around." If someone has dishes in the sink or someone has that, if that's their normal level of tidiness, "I'm doing pretty well." If all of a sudden, you walk into your house and it's like there was a bomb that went off, more than likely, it's reflexive of your emotional turmoil. When you're aware of the emotional turmoil, you're like, "I didn't realize I was struggling with that or maybe I was blindsided." The reason why is because when you can do your everyday chores, you know that you are at the level that's your baseline. If something starts to fall apart, then that's because you're too far in your mind and you're not allowing yourself to do everything you need to do. That's a good way of being aware of that.
If you're struggling emotionally, what you do is you literally clean your space. You put your space back to be tidy or even tidier. Once you do that, it puts all the pieces back in your thoughts as well. That's how you can reset your mind or your thinking. That's why if I see those things, I'm like, "That's my baseline. The doors aren't completely closed. I'm fine." If I do come in the house and like, "What in the world? James, what is going on?" That's why there are so many times we don't realize that they're clues around us all the time to determine how we’re functioning, how successful we are, how well we're doing or perhaps how we're struggling.
It’s going on up in the subconscious.
That's a wonderful technique that anybody can use.
Also, make your bed, that Admiral who gave that speech. If there's anything else you do, you can crawl back in it, cry and hit the snooze. I heard one person on the show say, "Don't call it an alarm clock, call it an opportunity clock." The first thing out of bed, "Alarm. I have to get up and live another day?" No, it's an opportunity clock.
What I always tell people to do as well is if you're trying to create something and there's a block there like, "Why can't I do this?" If you can, simply either sit in a different spot in your house or rearrange your furniture in your office or your house. In doing that, when you're resetting something, all of a sudden, everything looks different. If you're struggling to break the number of blocks, you move in a different position, "My house or my office looks different." You sit down and you're like, “Let me think differently," because you've created a space that is different. The foundation of that space is now different, which then allows you to think differently. Like that diamond that I was talking about. The diamond has all these different facets. When you move that diamond around, all of a sudden, you see different facets. If you're struggling to do that in your mind, move your space around, so you're now sitting in a different facet of that diamond and all of a sudden, you will understand and be able to break through whatever that mental block was.
That's a great way to wrap up the vision because a lot of times, it's there but we're blocking it. Getting rid of the vision blockers is as important as seeing them because if you're blocking them, you can't see them. We unpacked all the stuff here. Loneliness, weariness, abandonment and vision. Anything else from a leadership perspective that you would like to share with some of the folks?
First off, thank you so much. I'm so honored to be a guest here. When I think about this, there's nothing worse than feeling like you are alone. When you're talking to other leaders, be vulnerable and say,
"I don't know how to do this. Can you help me with this?" A leader doesn't have to know everything. Leaders surround themselves with individuals who are the best in their field. If I don't know how to do something, I reach out to someone who does know how to do it. That vulnerability doesn't mean I'm not a leader, it simply means I want to learn, so let me be vulnerable in this because I can't teach vulnerability to others if I'm not vulnerable myself. To be able to ask a question, doesn't mean I'm not good at what I do. It simply means I want to do something.
I would encourage people to ask if they don't know something because there are no dumb questions. It's simply you’re asking a question and you'll get the answer because often that's where that imposter syndrome can come in like, "I don't know everything." No one can know everything. When you ask people, now you know. That's one less thing you have to worry about. I would encourage people to be vulnerable, ask for help and ask for someone's advice. In that, you can then weigh it against your own thought structure or your own vision.
That was Mark Victor Hansen's book, Ask! What does the Bible say? You receive none because you don’t ask, and then authorize it. Speaking of that asking and connections, how do people get in touch with you, James?
Leadership Growth: Weariness is a state of mind. It's not necessarily a physical state but more your inability to find endurance to maintain something.
Simply go to the website at JamesMillerLifeology.com and then you can connect with me there. I'm pretty active on Instagram @JamesMillerLifeology, Twitter @JamesMLifeology, and on Facebook, but that's not my niche, so JamesMillerLifeology.com is the universal spot where you can find me and everything you can think of, every podcasting platform and radio station you can think of, and the name of the show is LIFEOLOGY Radio.
Thank you for your insights, for encouraging me and for thinking with me. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Tracey. I appreciate it.
You're welcome. For our readers out there, if you like what you read, please be sure and hit the subscribe button. Do us the honor of a five-star review and send us a note. More importantly, share this with other leaders out there that are working to pay the price of leadership. To all our tremendous tribe, we are so thankful for you. We couldn't do it without you. You leaders out there, you keep on paying the price of leadership. We are right there behind you and have a tremendous rest of the day.
Important links:
Dr. Valerie Young – LIFEOLOGY Radio episode
YouTube – James Miller LIFEOLOGY
@JamesMillerLifeology - Instagram
@JamesMLifeology - Twitter
Facebook – James Miller LIFEOLOGY
About James Miller
James Miller is a licensed psychotherapist and the executive producer and host of the nationally broadcasted and syndicated radio show LIFEOLOGY®.
James has been in the mental health field for over 25 years. After 14 years in private practice, James left his thriving practice in the Washington, DC area and created James Miller | LIFEOLOGY®, where he globally helps people simplify and transform their spirit, mind, and body.