Passion Struck, with John Miles – Episode 467 of The Action Catalyst Podcast

Author, entrepreneur, Fortune 50 senior executive, and award-winning podcast host John Miles recalls ALMOST becoming an FBI agent, shares a cautionary tale from Microsoft and a story about the man who humbled Jimmy Carter, and explains why there’s no such thing as a practice mentality, the perfect recipe for greatness, the dehumanization of work, being a “gardener leader”, social impact theory, and how to NOT live like a pinball.

About John:

John Miles is a master at guiding individuals on a transformative journey to unlock their ultimate potential and embrace their authentic selves. As the visionary CEO of Passion Struck®, bestselling author, keynote speaker, and host of the #1 Alternative Health Podcast, John merges deep insights from peak performance and behavioral science with an innate understanding of the human psyche. His mission is to inspire and empower a global community to live intentionally, moving beyond conventional success to lead lives of profound meaning, passion, and authenticity.

John R. Miles brings to the table a distinguished 30-year career that spans across military leadership, entrepreneurship, global business and technology operations, life coaching, and strategic innovation. His leadership foundation was laid at the United States Naval Academy, marked by distinction as a Division 1 athlete, class secretary, and brigade honor staff member during a significant chapter of the academy’s history.

His approach embodies the rigor of his naval training, enriched with a deep understanding of business dynamics and personal growth, guiding both individuals and corporations towards unparalleled success.

John’s leadership extends to combat zones, where he spearheaded specialized teams during the Bosnian War, counter-terrorism operations in North Africa, and deployments in Kuwait and Iraq. Notable achievements include forming the Navy’s Information Dominance Expeditionary Corps and earning a Master of Science in Information Assurance.

Transitioning from the disciplined environment of the Navy, John ventured into the corporate world, rapidly ascending to become a Fortune 50 Chief Information Security Officer, Chief Data Officer, and Chief Information Officer before taking the helm as a CEO in various industries. His tenure in the corporate sector is marked by notable achievements, including leading Lowe’s recovery from the most severe cybersecurity attack in retail history, leading Lend Lease to the Network World User Excellence Award, and steering Dell’s transition from a hardware manufacturer to a solutions provider.

John R. Miles’s exceptional contributions have been recognized with numerous prestigious accolades, including the ComputerWorld Premier 100 Technology Leaders Award and CIO Magazine’s CIO 100. He was also a finalist for CISO of the Year and his leadership contributed to his company being named runner-up for the Tampa Bay Technology Company of the Year. His distinguished military service earned him the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, showcasing his excellence and dedication across both technological innovation and national defense.

John is committed to serving others. This philanthropy included roles as the Vice Chairman for the Florida Association of Veteran-Owned Businesses (FAVOB), the board of directors of the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership, and the Catalina Charitable Foundation. As the fundraising chair, he helped raise over $1M in donations for the Warehouse Arts District Association. This funded the creation of the Arts Exchange, which provides low-rent studios to aspiring artists in St. Petersburg, Florida.

He founded the charity Feeding Little Geniuses to provide nutritional advice to underprivileged children and teach them how to live to their full potential. He serves as a business performance expert for Synapse, which is creating the entrepreneurial ecosystem throughout Florida. He has also supported Habitat for Humanity builds for the past two decades.

Learn more at JohnRMiles.com and PassionStruck.com.

The Action Catalyst is presented by the Southwestern Family of Companies. With each episode, the podcast features some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Learn more at TheActionCatalyst.com, subscribe below or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to leave a rating and review!

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(Transcribed using A.I. / May include errors):

Adam Outland
Today’s guest is John Miles, a former naval officer and author, entrepreneur, Fortune 50 senior executive and award winning podcast host, who has established himself as an expert in behavioral change and leadership. His book “Passion Struck”, along with the podcast and radio show of the same name have earned praise from many including some past Action Catalyst, guests such as Matt Higgins, Mark Divine and Marshall Goldsmith. So, John, good to meet you.

John Miles
You too, Adam.

Adam Outland
You know, one of the things that I do like talking to our guests about and I kind of probably wanted to open with you some is focusing a lot on the journey. Most of our guests didn’t necessarily have a master plan from the age of 10. On being where they are today. It’s evolved over time. What was the evolution that you went through different iterations that you were considering doing along the way?

John Miles
Thanks for that question. As I was growing up, I had always had in my mind that I was going to be doing something of impact to others, but I always thought it was going to be in a way of some type of public service, whether that was being a police officer, an FBI agent, fireman, I never really saw myself sitting behind a desk of sorts, I kind of saw myself being out there and living this life of exhilaration, etc. And for me, that’s exactly how my life was going up until about the age of 28. I had gone to the Naval Academy and spent time as a military officer, where I was working at the counter drug mecca for the United States. And in this command, we had all these different law enforcement entities and intelligence entities. And they all asked me to apply and here I am making the choice of do I want to go to the DEA, NSA, FBI, etc. And I ended up taking the route of becoming an FBI agent, and was literally a few days from going to Quantico when my detailer called me out of the blue and said, I’ve got some unfortunate news for you. Congress can’t get their act together, you stronger words than that. And your class has unfortunately been recycled. And to my nativity, I thought he was telling me, I had a couple month delay, and it ended up being closer to a four year three and a half to four year delay. And by the time that the opportunity represented itself, I had been forced to take a Plan B when this plan a vanished in front of me, and that plan B ended up becoming then the next 20 to 25 years of my career, a career that I never thought I was going to get into and was kind of forced to go into because of circumstances beyond my control.

Adam Outland
And in reflection, did you feel like that path was the right one?

John Miles
I think when we get immersed in it, we don’t really think that way. I guess I always had this mentality. Regardless of what I did, I always aspired to do the best job that I possibly could. So before long, I had really excelled at what I was doing, and was on this rocket ship climb to the top, so to speak.

Adam Outland
I think in each phase of our life, we pull and extract different lessons that we end up being able to leverage later on. And I could assume some of the lessons that you might have learned at the Naval Academy where I think you were also athlete as well.

John Miles
Yeah. What’s funny, I think almost everyone who goes to the Naval Academy is an athlete.

Adam Outland
Fair.

John Miles
Yeah, I was highly recruited to be cross country and track runner. And that’s where I got my start.

Adam Outland
What are some of the lessons you pulled from that earlier formative experience that you were able to leverage in your professional and consulting career?

John Miles
I would like to even go a little bit before I went to the Naval Academy.

Adam Outland
Please.

John Miles
When I was coming out of middle school, going into high school, I had always been kind of this chubby kid. And my salvation from that was, I had always been a hard worker, my family kind of gave us the basics. And anything beyond that, we were kind of called upon to find our own way. And so when I was in fifth or sixth grade, I actually started a paper route, and having to do that paper out every day and get that exercise and kind of reshape my trajectory. But I still wasn’t where I wanted to be going into high school. And so I thought, I’ll try this cross country thing, never expecting to be any good at it. When I first started, the seniors on the team, and no dedication or wherewithal to make us a top performing team. And yet, there was this group of sophomores and juniors on the team who were really serious about what they were doing. And I started to watch them and wanted to be like them. And the more I started to enter their circle, which was difficult because they were faster than me, so it meant that if I were going to go out on a training run with them, it was really difficult trying to keep keep up. I stuck with it and the more I stuck with it, the more I started learning that not only were they working out there, but they were also doing things outside of practice, such as trying to get good sleep trying to eat well, and we’re really self supportive of each other. So they were trying to make each other person good because they viewed it as a team effort. And the nice thing about country cross country is sometimes you think it’s an individual sport, it’s actually a team sport. So you win by how your top five or six runners score. So I also learned the importance of support and other things like that. I had a huge issue at first where I was psyching myself out so much before races, to the point that I was I would get physically sick. And I started to approach practice as if it was a race. And it completely changed the way I’ve lived my life up until this day, because if you start treating every day as if it’s a game day, you don’t have that anxiety anymore. So those things were kind of a foundation that when I went to the Naval Academy, I was so glad I had.

Adam Outland
So you’re out at the Naval Academy, you take this kind of windy road that gets you to consulting, and then from consulting into senior executive roles with fairly large companies.

John Miles
Well I started out at Booz Allen and then Anderson Consulting. So I got to work in a lot of large companies, Exxon Mobil, Halliburton companies of that size. But I was also when by the time I got to Anderson, I started practice focused on high growth mid market companies. So I was also working on WebMD in the very early days, and other startups like that, and midsize companies. So I was lucky enough that I had experience doing both. I started a company called LendLease, headquartered out of Australia, and when I started with them, they had about a $15 billion revenue, they were part financial institution, they own the second largest bank in Australia, they had a whole portfolio of mutual funds. They also had a relevant real estate investment crossed area that fueled the other side of their business, which was property management, and construction. And then from there, I went to Lowe’s, where I initially was brought in to fix what had preceded me as the largest hacking incident retail history, and went on from that to lead all application development, and then eventually all big data and integration for them. And then that led me to becoming a CIO at Dell.

Adam Outland
Yeah, one of the things that you write about the need for curiosity, there’s some points that you make about both the need for curiosity and the bias to action. So you know, where did this evolve for you on a personal level? And then how have you explored this over the course of your career?

John Miles
So take us all back to 2011. I was in the process of leaving Dell, because so much of our business model was wed to Microsoft, I had met Steve Ballmer a number of times, who’s the former CEO of Microsoft. And when Steve heard I was leaving, he asked me to come to Microsoft to become the CIO. And as any of these things are, it’s not as easy a process as Steve says, He wants you in this position. And it just happened. So for me, this amounted into something like 16, to 20 interviews that I had to go through. And what I found was that Microsoft, at that time, had a very fixed mindset. And they really couldn’t see how to do things a different way. And on top of that bomber, had this leadership style where he used his size, he’s a large man is a large voice and his intimidation to get things done. So that’s how the rank and file were treating many of the employees underneath them was really an era of intimidation to get things done. And I met this man who had been there for a long time, at that point, who was talking to me about things that were so different and foreign about what Microsoft could be, if they would start doing things differently. And that was sat down Nadella. And this was three and a half years before he took over the role that he has. Now, the reason I’m bringing this all up is I didn’t end up taking that position because I thought I was walking into a toxic culture at the time, which would have been, but if you look at what he has brought into that company, he has really brought in a culture of growth, of constant learning, where he really rewards people for being curious about how to do things differently. But there’s also a culture of deliberate action. And when you combine those things, meaning you’re choosing growth, time and time again, whether it’s in your personal life, or in business setting, and then you’re constantly taking actions that go in concert with that growth you’re trying to creating. It’s a perfect way recipe for greatness. We think that in order to achieve these monumental things in life, it comes down to these grandiose moments. And what I have learned from talking to 50 plus behavior scientists and reading hundreds of books is that’s not how things work. We as humans, are the ultimate learning machine and coupling that with intentional actions that get either you or the organization that you’re working for closer to the long term aspirations and the shorter term ambitions that you’re trying to accomplish.

Adam Outland
It’s hard to maintain a bias for action culturally in companies at scale, right? Is there anything that you could share where companies have worked around that to create a better platform for allowing bias for action?

John Miles
I think one of the leading causes of disengagement and people feeling unfulfilled in work is where dehumanizing work, meaning it is so much about the spreadsheets and top line and bottom line growth, that we’re taking out the human and we’re trying to maximize profits by micromanaging or robotized, or institutionalizing the work that people do. What that approach is doing is it is helping with top and bottom line growth in the short term. But it also weeds out creativity and innovation, because people are so conditioned to doing the tasks, that they’re not really given the white space, to have breaks to be creative to think differently etcetera. And so one of the things I am really calling for is that we need a change in the way we’re leading people. And so you can think of a gardener leader approach is being very much the metaphor of a gardener. And just as a gardener, needs to be there to plant the seeds and give nourishment, them sitting over the plants day in and night isn’t going to make plants grow any better. And so they really need to have this philosophy of being eyes on but hands off. And I first heard about this concept from General Stan McChrystal. And as Stan was talking to me about it, we were discussing his role when he was in charge of all forces in Afghanistan. And there was no way that him in a situation room, or the president back in DC could understand what a green ray team was doing in a mountainside in Afghanistan, and tried to micromanage their everyone movement. So what he could do is he could make sure that those people who were fighting understood the mission, he could give them the best training that he possibly could, he could give them the best leadership he could. But when it came to them executing their mission, he had to be hands off and trust that the tools, learning experiences leadership that they had been given, they would make the appropriate decisions in the fight. And the way we can look at that in the business world today is we can do the same thing, whether it’s a project manager or leading a team or a software developer who might be an individual contributor, you could give them what the destination is you’re trying to achieve, and let them be creative and taking a completely different approach to getting there. But if you do this in an agile way, they’re checkpoints. So if they’re off course, you can quickly get them back on. And it really humanizes the individuals in the process. Do you feel that’s a universal? Like anything, it’s a both and situation, you’re going to have individuals who require more oversight and more hand holding than others. And you’re going to have your breakthrough performers typically, who require a lot less of that hand holding, because they’re free thinking and innovating and inventing new ways of doing things. So to me, typically, what I have found is is employees end up winding up on a chart as either see performers, be performers or a performers who are and I find more of the A performers are able to operate more autonomously, we’re more of your see or be what we used to call as plotters, tend to need more structure in the way that they’re doing things. The other problem I see, we tend to see a person in their current role, not understanding and really taking the time to understand their backstory. And a great example of this as I remember, I had this really talented woman who worked for me at at Lowe’s and I saw her and her current position of being a director underneath me at the time. But what I didn’t understand she had prior to that been a CIO at a smaller company. She had a lot of data experience. Not only that she had started her career in the business side before transitioning into the IT side and really had this wealth of knowledge and I I think we don’t spend enough time getting to understand who the individual is some of their talents that exceed the role that they’re currently in, and how you might be able to utilize them differently. The other side of that is, I also don’t think we spend enough time looking at the person as a whole, both inside and out of work and realizing that, that just is they have career aspirations, they also have life aspirations. And so if you would know that, that developer who’s working for you, is trying to save money to buy a house for his family, and they’re expecting a child. And you somehow bring that into how you’re leading them. And being more understanding of that and acknowledging it 100 times out of 100, you’re gonna get better performance out of the person, because they see you treating them as a human and interested in them both at work, and in their larger success in life.

Adam Outland
I think that’s really well said. You know, I think almost every successful person that we’ve had on his podcast has pulled some of their lessons, not from success, but actually from from failure and shortcoming. A lot of our listeners, it’s really easy to just superimpose on you that Okay, John was always this amazing guy. He did everything right. And the life was just this perfect uphill chart. What were some of the bumps in your road? And where did some of these lessons come in, that you learned not from succeeding, but from from falling short?

John Miles
One of my favorite questions that I that I’ve always gotten in an interview is Tell me about your your strengths and your biggest weakness. And to me when someone answers that question, saying they don’t have weaknesses, or trying to lessen them, I always know that they’re not a good fit, because they’re not being authentic with their answer. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Jimmy Carter, given, he’s kind of at the ending stages of his amazing life. He’s a Naval Academy grad. And I remembered this story, he was interviewing to become part of the spring nuclear power program in the Navy. And this was back in the early 1950s. And during this time, you had Hyman Rickover, the longest standing military officer of all time, he ended up being a military officer. Until his 80s, he was known and feared for how demanding he was in interviews, people would lose their minds trying to think about how to prepare themselves for these interviews. In this case, Jimmy Carter had already graduated from the Naval Academy, he was in the fleet already. And he applied. And he has this Interview with the Admiral now Admiral is talking to him for about two hours. And he doesn’t really do this in a set interview style, he asks Carter to start talking to him about areas of interest and areas that he knows best. And as Carter is going through everything, from navigation to propulsion systems to stoicism, and everything else, he realizes that Rickover is a master and every single one of these topics and an expert in them, and that he is basically being put to task. And so as they’re ending the interview, Rickover asked him one final question. And he said, while you were at the Naval Academy, did you always do your best? And Carter was about ready to answer yes. When he reflected on the conversations that they had been having, and the demand for excellence that Rickover wanted out of the people who were part of the nuclear Navy. And he said, Upon thinking about it, no, I didn’t. I could have studied harder for test, I could have performed better in athletics, I could have learned more about our enemies. And then Rickover ended the conversation with Why didn’t you and that really became this moment for herder of realization that by him not always trying to do his best, it was limiting Him in so many different ways. And it changed his whole approach on life. So I mean, that’s just one example. But I’ve had so many mistakes, and misfortunes and bumps along the way. And that is what has allowed me to learn and become better.

Adam Outland
When you wrote “Passion Struck”, I was advised once upon a time that if you write a book, you try not to write it for everyone, you try to write it for maybe one person that you really have in mind, who did you write Passion Struck for in a way?

John Miles
I guess if I would say I wrote it for anyone. I wrote it for my two kids and their generation, this world that they’re entering professionally is so far different from the life that I entered when we both walked in to it feeling that we were facing change, and things were happening faster than they were for those before us. But change is happening at such a rapid pace now. But not only that, I think we’re at a huge inflection point where the world tends to be cyclical and I write about Something in the book called Social Impact Theory where over periods of time, history tends to repeat itself. And I think we’re at the state now of going into one of these cycles. And we have, over the past 100 years been in the cycle where we are breaking out of people being entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship has been on a decline, ever since the 1970s. More and more people are unwilling to make the risk. And instead, they’re going for the comfort of joining a more established company. But I think we’re entering a state that just as in times before us, there were individual jobs like a blacksmith, etc, a baker that people would do, I think, in this new digital economy, we’re going to have the same thing where there’s a real opportunity for people instead of being employed by one company, where what I have learned working for them is if there’s anything that they can do to make more money or lower expenses, they’re going to take that opportunity at the expense of view, for you to position yourself as an individual entrepreneur, where you’re almost a solo agent working for a collection of businesses and living life more on your own terms. Now, in order to do this, it’s going to mean throwing out the book that my generation and I would say even the millennials, certainly my parents and grandparents generations live by before us that you basically have this recipe you’re born, you go to schooling, get a college degree or go to a trade school, get this job where you kind of lead this portfolio career have kids along the way, you know, retire, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I think more and more people have an opportunity to break out of that matrix that we’ve kind of been confined in and to live their life differently with more freedom, and autonomy. If you look at the whole educational system, the United States, I mean, you look back upon Rockefeller and when his oil Empire was broken up what he and others at that time were trying to do, where they were trying to get rid of free or thinkers, they were trying to create more conformists because we needed people in factories, we needed people doing jobs at that time that were repetitive in nature. And so our whole education system has really been fueled to go down the set path, and I’m talking about and so large institutions, our education systems, and our even government has missed this inflection point that we’re in right now of how the world is changing. And therefore, you can’t rely on those things anymore. If you’re listening to this, you got to rely on yourself and take your own path. To me, that’s really what it means to become passion struck. It’s this never ending desire to try to become the best that you can become knowing that you’re it’s never a finite destination. It’s something you’re always striving to do.

Adam Outland
Yeah, I love that. So just in tie up, one thing that we always do with our guests is is a quick lightning round. These are just short responses, but get some insight for our listeners. And so if you don’t mind for you, what’s one of your favorite quotes that you tend to reference most?

John Miles
Well, there are a ton of quotes that I love. But I think the one that I’ve been using most recently, do you know who Sharon Salzberg is?

Adam Outland
I don’t.

John Miles
Sharon Salzberg is a New York Times best selling author, she’s probably one of the most well known meditation experts in the entire world has been working with the Dalai Lama, since she was in her early 20s. She has this great quote, There is no commodity that we can take with us. There’s only our lives and whether we live them wisely, whether we live them in ignorance, and this is everything. And when I think about what she’s talking about here, I discuss in the book that a lot of people hear this phrase that they’re living life on autopilot. And I think it’s the wrong analogy for how so many of us are living our lives today. Because when we’re on autopilot, we’re typically doing the same thing, but it’s generally taking us into a positive direction. I think the better metaphor for how so many of us are living our lives is a pinball. We let the world around us influence everything we do. And we get so distracted, just as you do in the game of pinball by the noises, the lights in human life, social media influencers, all these people who tell us we need to be more, that we’re not intentional about learning how to play the game instead of it, playing us. And I think that’s exactly what Sharon was talking about here. You can make the choice to live intentionally and live your life wisely, or you can choose to continue to live it as a pinball and live in ignorance and never achieve the potential that you could.

Adam Outland
In relation to that and some of the things that you said, What’s one thing that you own that you should probably throw out?

John Miles
So I remember earlier in my life, it was like I wanted to have bigger and bigger houses, I think we all think about having more than our parents did. And I’ve certainly reached that point. And I’m now in a stage in my life where, you know, both my kids are out of the house, and I’m now trying to downsize. And I recently had had my house on the market. And in order to do that, I had to declutter the house. And so it’s amazing. Once you do that, how much you realize certain things you don’t even miss a month later and what you do mess. So one of the things that I have really missed is I had to put away my record collection and my record player, and I have really missed that enjoyment in my life. But what I haven’t missed was I have a whole bunch of DVDs that I’ve had for years that I don’t know why I’ve saved that I haven’t even thought about watching over the past four to six weeks, so I will get rid of those DVDs. I think another thing that I need to get rid of is right now I looked in my garage, and I love to cook and I think I have five different grilles, so I think I need to get that down to two. But there are a bunch of other other things from shoes and clothing that I need to declutter. And I think Gretchen Rubin has a great book on this where it’s called outer order inner calm, and there is such truth to simplifying your life and how much it will bring you that inner calm and confidence if you do so.

Adam Outland
I love that. You know, we accumulate so much over life and thinking it makes us bigger, but then it actually just adds a lot of stress in many cases and more things to manage right now. I always say I prefer to be friends with a guy that has a boat and have one.

John Miles
Yep.

Adam Outland
I love this. Thank you so much. This has been a really enlightening episode just because of your history being so unique in your pathway and some of the lessons and been frankly, some of the lessons you’ve learned not just from your own life, but from some of the people you’ve interviewed.

John Miles
So I’d kind of like to end on this quote. Buddhist philosopher de Sacco Ikeda said what is defeat in life, it’s not merely making mistake defeat means giving up on yourself in the midst of difficulty. What’s true success in life. true success means winning your battle with yourself. Those who persist in the pursuit of their dreams, no matter what the hurdles are winners in life for they have won over their weaknesses. And I bring that up because I think it was a core kind of a core theme to everything that you were asking me today. And it’s a core theme to my book. And you can find this if you want to learn more about me at John R. Miles Rs, my middle initial.com And if you want to learn more about the passion struck podcast, national strike movement, and some of the educational things we’re doing, and you can go to passion struck.com.

Adam Outland
John, thanks for your time so much today. Great interview.

John Miles
Yeah, Adam, thank you so much for having me. It was such an honor to be here.