Passion Struck with John R. Miles - How to Thrive in 2026: The Power of Dunbar’s Number | EP 711 w/ John R. Miles

Episode Date: January 2, 2026

What if the key to thriving in 2026 isn't expanding your network or chasing global impact, but intentionally shrinking your world to the size your brain was built for?In this first solo episode of 2026, Episode 711 of Passion Struck, John R. Miles explores the profound mismatch between our hunter-gatherer brains (evolved for tribes of under 150 people) and the demands of an 8-billion-person world. Drawing on Dunbar's number, psychology, and the themes of The Season of Becoming, John unpacks why endless social feeds, polarized news, and constant connectivity leave us anxious, burned out, and divided.He explains how focusing on your true "tribe" of 150 restores peace, deepens connections, and amplifies your real impact, without the exhaustion of treating everyone as a potential ally or threat. This isn't about isolation. It's about reclaiming energy for what truly matters: presence, meaning, and relationships that sustain you.If you're entering 2026 feeling overwhelmed by the world's noise or ready to reset for deeper fulfillment, this episode offers a compassionate blueprint to come home to your natural scale.Before the goals and habits, reclaim the space where true flourishing begins.Resources and LinksCheck the full show notes here: All links gathered here, including books, Substack, YouTube, and Start Mattering apparel: https://linktr.ee/John_R_MilesPre-order You Matter, Luma: https://youmatterluma.com/Tribe Mapping Companion WorkbookIdentify Your 150. Release the Rest. Build True Belonging.Reflection prompts and exercises to map your core tribe, name what to release from large-group weight, and create habits for deeper connections in 2026.Download the free Companion Workbook at: In this episode, you will learn:Why our brains are wired for tribes of 150 and how modern life creates constant mismatch and exhaustionThe science of Dunbar's number and its role in anxiety, burnout, and divisionHow shrinking your world restores focus, empathy, and real impact without isolationPractical ways to identify and nurture your true tribe in 2026Why large-group thinking treats others as threats and how small-scale living rebuilds peaceReflections on The Season of Becoming and stepping into a year of intentional presenceSupport the MovementEvery human deserves to feel seen, valued, and like they matter.Wear it. Live it. Show it.https://StartMattering.comDisclaimerThe Passion Struck podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed are those of John R. Miles and do not necessarily reflect those of Passion Struck or its affiliates. This podcast is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment from a licensed physician, therapist, or other qualified professional.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up next on Passionstruck, we are hunter-gatherers with smartphones. That's not just a clever line. It's the root of so much of the anxiety, burnout, division, and quiet exhaustion so many of us feel heading into 2026. We're small group animals. Evolve for tribes of under 150 people, yet we're trying to live in a world of 8 billion. The result? A profound mismatch.

Your brain isn't failing you when you feel overwhelmed by the news, polarized by politics, or drained by an endless social feed. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do, treating anyone outside your natural circle as other, a potential threat, not your tribe. Today, in this first solo episode of 26, we're not adding one more goal or habit to chase global connection. We're doing the exact opposite. We're going to reset your world to the size your brain can actually handle so you can finally thrive in 2026. Stay with me because shrinking your world might be the key to growing your impact, your peace, and your meaning. Welcome to Passionstruck. I'm your host John Miles. This is the show where we explore the art

of human flourishing and what it truly means to live like it matters. Each week I sit down with change makers, creators, scientists, and everyday heroes to decode the human experience and uncover the tools that help us lead with meaning, heal what hurts, and pursue the fullest expression of who we're capable of becoming. Whether you're designing your future, developing as a leader, or seeking deeper alignment in your life, this show is your invitation to grow with purpose and act with intention. Because the secret to a life of deep purpose, connection, and impact is choosing to live like you matter. Hey friends, welcome back to episode 711 of Passionstruck. I can't believe it's already January 2nd,

2026. The tree is down. The inbox is already full, and the world is pushing those familiar New Year, new you cliches. But over the past five weeks, we've taken a much different path. We called this the season of becoming, because before the resolutions come the revelations. We started by remembering how to choose ourselves again, reclaiming our worth after seasons of dimming our own light. We saw courage, not as some rare trait, but as a daily microchoice anyone can make, with Brent Gleason and Henner Pryor showing us the discipline and the signs of discomfort. We discovered how deeply we matter to the people who matter most. That belonging isn't something we wait for, but something we co-create, alongside Joshua

Green, Rick Hansen, Ollie Raisin, Boris McGuire, and Mark Murphy's Wisdom, on Grover. growing the moral circle, tribal adventure, and cultures of true connection. We tap back into play, improvisation, creativity, and flow, proof that reinvention doesn't have to feel heavy through Susan Grau and Ann Libera's beautiful reminders of intuition, healing, and spontaneity. And this week, David Nurse helped us step into the identity that's been waiting for us. While Congresswoman Sarah Jacobs reminded us that even inside constraints, we never asked for, biology, timing, grief, and limits, we still get to author our own story.

For me, the real gift has been watching your messages come in. You told me about the conversations you finally had, the habits you quietly released, the risks you took, the moments you chose yourself again. Those revelations were lived together these past weeks, the quiet choices, the small acts of courage, the moments we reclaimed our own light, they've added up to something unmistakable, you, a clear, braver, more intentional you. And now, as we stand here on January 2nd, the question that's been pressing on me is this. How do we protect that clearer, braver you in a world that's constantly pulling us outward into noise comparison and a crowd

of 8 billion? That's exactly what we're going to explore today. Thank you for choosing passion-struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. So here's the reset I've been living, and the one that's going to define my 2026. I call it the Dunbar reset. In the 1990s, a British anthropologist named Robin Dunbar noticed something fascinating. He saw a clear pattern across primate species, the large the neocortex, the part of the brain that handles complex social thinking, the larger the typical group size. When he ran the numbers for humans, he landed on a number that's haunted me ever since. 150. That's it. 150 is your biological ceiling. The maximum number of stable,

meaningful relationships your neocortex can truly manage at one time. It's the limit for what Dunbar calls social grimmin, the mental and emotional work of tracking who people are, what they need, who they're connected to, and whether they're trustworthy. Beyond 150, we physically can't keep up. The connections don't just get thinner. They break. They turn into acquaintances, contacts, avatars, not real kin. But here's where it gets dangerous. Paul Ehrlich, the legendary biologist, recently wrote a sobering reflection on what he calls humanity's group-size problem. He says we are fundamentally small group animals, evolved for bands of 100 to 200, now trying to survive in a world of 8 billion. And when groups grow too large,

something predictable and ugly happens. We stop seeing individuals with full stories, full lives. We start seeing categories. Our brains take the shortcut. If something someone isn't in our intimate circle, they become the other. That's exactly the biological seed of the stereotypes, the tribalism, the political vitriol, the religious divides, all the myth-making that turns complex humans into caricatures. We aren't being cruel on purpose, we're being maladaptive. We're trying to use a brain built for gathering around a campfire to process a planet connected by satellites. Now, look at your life right now.

It's January, 26. Every algorithm you touch is engineered to keep you engaged with groups of millions, maybe hundreds of millions. It serves your outrage from strangers you'll never meet, comparisons with lives you'll never live, opinions from people who don't know your name. The digital world is pushing you toward a tribe of a billion. Your biology, though, is quietly.

screaming for a tribe of 150. That friction, that group size mismatch, is the silent engine driving so much of the burnout, the anxiety, the exhaustion, so many of us feel. It's why you can scroll for an hour and feel more trained than if you'd run five miles. It's why the world's problems feel crushing even when your own life is objectively okay. It's what Henry David Thoreau meant by living in quiet desperation. Because you're emotionally over leveraged. You're trying to carry the weight of a global village on a skeleton built for a small band of hunter gatherers. I want you to hear this clearly. The anxiety you feel when you look at the world isn't a character flaw. It's not because you're not empathetic enough, or informed enough, or resilient enough. It's biology, meeting,

technology. Erlick warns that if we don't recognize this predicament, we're headed towards a ghastly future of deeper division and despair. But there is a way out. We can't rewire our neocortex, but we can rewire our social world. We can choose to shrink the map so we can finally find our way home. But to find that way home, we have to challenge a modern myth. The idea that bigger is always better for the soul. That's the Dunbar reset, and it starts now, but accepting this science isn't enough. It forces us to confront a question most of us have been taught to avoid. So if we can accept the science of 150, if we accept that our brains are physically hitting a ceiling, it leads us to a radical, almost radical conclusion for 2026. What if the most ethical thing you can do this year is to be

less global. For years, we have been told that to be a good person, a responsible citizen, means carrying the weight of the entire world in our pockets. We're supposed to have an opinion on every conflict, a stance on every policy, awareness of every tragedy across 8 billion people. But pause and look at the results. Is the world more peaceful because of it? Or are we just more exhausted, more polarized, more paralyzed. When you try to care equally about everyone, you end up with the emotional bandwidth to truly care for no one. By trying to be global, we've spread ourselves so thin that we've lost our real agency. And I'm arguing that in 26, the greatest act of social responsibility is to relocalize, to shrink your focus to the scale where your actions, your

empathy, your energy actually moves the needle. And this brings us to the hardest question in Paul Erlick's text. He asks, is there an optimal level of diversity for a given society? That's uncomfortable. It's heavy. But here's the counterintuitive truth. Diversity is a biological strength in small groups, but it becomes a trigger for conflict in massive ones. In a group of 150, your actual tribe, diversity is an asset. You have the person who knows the plants, the person who reads the weather, the storyteller, the healer. You know their names. You know their kids. You see their flaws and their gifts up close. In a small group, intimacy overrides the other. You don't see a label. You see Mark. You see Sarah. But once you scale to millions,

intimacy disappears. Our brains can no longer hold the individual stories of the faces on our screens. So we fall back on those maladaptive shortcuts Ehrlich warned about. We stop seeing humans and start seeing political opponents, foreigners, demographics, to truly value diversity, to live it, not just post about it, we have to return to a scale where we can actually see the human behind the category. You cannot truly love a demographic. You can only truly love a neighbor. The human predicament is that we've built a global society or biology doesn't know how to inhabit. We're trying to navigate a sea of billions with a compass calibrated for a few hundred. So as you think about your intentions for this year, I want you to ask yourself a different question.

What is my optimal scale? If you want to change the world in 2026, stop trying to reach the masses. The masses don't exist. They're just millions of small groups who've lost their way. Your real power is to build one high-functioning, high-intimacy, micro-society. Because, as Erlich says, the first task is to get a portion of society to understand the situation. And understanding doesn't start in a football stadium. It starts at the campfire.

That's where the Dunbar Reset becomes revolutionary, and we'll get practical next. But before we do, before we turn those ideas into action, I want to acknowledge something that always surfaces right about here. The science lands. The biology feels true. But when you start thinking about actually shrinking your world, auditing your connections, pruning the noise, choosing depth over breath, it stirs things up. There's discomfort.

There's guilt. There's the fear of missing out or seeming cold or losing some part of yourself. And every week I hear from listeners who say things like, I get the world is too big, but how do I let go of certain people or feeds without feeling like it's becoming smaller or harder? How do I protect my energy without closing my heart? That's why we create free companion workbooks

for episodes just like this one. They're quiet, no pressure tools designed to help you move from insight to live change. Gentle reflection questions to map your circles with compassion, not cold calculation. Private practices to release distant noise without guilt or drama. Gromps to notice how much clearer and calmer you feel when the outer layers quiet down. Small challenges to invest deeply in your true tribe, so the space you create fills with real connection. Because the Dunbar reset isn't automatic, it's not a one-time decision.

It's a series of kind, intentional choices we practice. One boundary, one unfollow, one deeper conversation at a time. You can download this week's free episode and all the others directly from the post that accompanies every episode. Just head to the ignitedlife.netnet and join the community. It's completely free. Now, a quick break from our sponsors. Thank you for supporting those who make the show possible. I still remember the moment I realized something was off. I was drinking more water, trying to be healthier, but I kept feeling off. Low energy, brain fog, strange skills, skin flare-ups. First, I blamed stress until I dug deeper. Turns out three and four U.S.

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Welcome back. Now, let's get practical because the good news is this isn't just theory. It's something you can begin this weekend. So how do we actually live this? How do we stop being maladaptive in 2020? It starts with a social audit. If your brain only has 150 slots for real, nuanced human beings, who is currently squatting in your mental village?

Is it a toxic influencer whose outrage you've unconsciously adopted? Is it a distant acquaintance from a job you left five years ago? This weekend, I want you to sit down with a piece of paper or your notes at and be brutally honest. Map your actual circles, your inner five, your fifth, you're 50 and your full 150. If someone doesn't belong in that 150 anymore, you have to move them from connection to ghost.

This is something I also talk about in my book Passionstruck when I talk about doing a mosquito audit, getting those blood suckers, those invisible suffocators, those pain in the asses out of your group of 150. Because when you prune the outer noise, mute the feeds, unfollow the accounts.

Step back from the digital groups that drain your battery without ever nourishing your soul. You start realizing this isn't about being mean. It's about biological survival. You're clearing the land so something real can actually grow. Once you've cleared the noise, the next move is to protect the inner rings. We've all done it backwards. We give our best energy to the global audience and hand the leftovers to our inner five. I want you to flip the script in 2026. Make the walks, the 30-minute calls, the dinners with

your five, and your 15 non-negotiable. Put them on the calendar first, before the content, before the hustle, before the scroll. And if you do this audit and realize your circles feel thin, that's okay. That's actually the beginning of health. Don't go chasing followers. Intentionally fill the gaps. Invest in one real-world community. a local club, a faith group, a hobby meetup, a small mastermind, where you can slowly move people from strangers to inner circles. Intimacy almost always requires physical presence. Step three, turn localism into your activism. We have been trained to shout into the void about global crises we can't fix. Paul Ehrlich says our biggest barrier is the sheer size of the groups

we're trying to manage. So in 2026, stop despairing over problems measured in billions. Pick one problem you can actually solve for 150 people or fewer. Start a neighborhood garden instead of posting about food insecurity. Organize a small mastermind instead of lamenting the economy. Start a compassion circle. Coach a youth team. Lead a book club. When you solve a real problem at tribe scale, you aren't just helping. You're creating a sustainable social system that matches our species. It works. It lasts. And it ripples farther than any viral rant ever could. And then finally, for the leaders listening, anti-scale your business. Look at W.L. Goren Associates, the makers of Gortex. They discovered decades ago that once a facility exceeds about 150 people, we starts turning into they. Trust to Rhodes,

bureaucracy creeps in. Their radical solution? Every time a plant hits that limit, they build a new one. They keep the tribe intact. Ask yourself, how can I break my company, my team, my projects into units of 150 or fewer? How can I lead a tribe instead of a workforce? Erlick said the very least we should do is try. Nothing is more impractical than marching blindly into a ghastly future because we refused to acknowledge our own biology. So this year, don't try to be a global titan. Be a tribal anchor. Build your 150. Protect it, lead it, live in it. Because when we fix our groups, we fix our lives. And if this idea of the Dunbar Reset, shrinking your world to grow your peace resonates with you, I'd love for you to help me bring this message to someone else's campfire. First, share this episode with one person in your real 150, someone who needs to hear that their exhaustion isn't personal failure. Second, if you haven't already, leave a quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Those reviews are how new people find us and join this community. And third, I have something very special coming for families in your tribe. On February 24th, 2026, my new children's book

You Matter Luma launches, a story about seeing and being seen, written to help kids, and the adults reading to them, remember they matter exactly as they are. You can pre-order it now at Barnes & Noble, or You Matterluma.com. Every pre-order helps get this message into more small hands and hearts. Thank you truly. Now, let's close with one final reflection and a quiet vow.

We covered a lot today. We've looked straight at the science of Dunbar's number, and the sobering warning from Paul Ehrlich that trying to live in groups of billions is quite simply maladaptive. It's breaking us. But the remedy isn't a new app.

It isn't a bigger network or a louder voice. It's a return. 2026 isn't about the billion. It's about the 150. This year, your goal isn't to be known by the world. It's to be deeply known by your tribe and to deeply know them in return. Let's make 2026 the year that we finally come home to our biological roots. Let's choose the campfire over the stadium. And so here we are, the start of something new, before the world asks you to be anything else. Before the demands of a new year start pulling at your sleeve, we have this one small window to choose what travels with us. Today, you don't have to release everything. You only have to do

one thing. Name one piece of large group weight you've carried long enough. Maybe it's the outrage over things you cannot change. Maybe it's the exhaustion of trying to be seen by people who don't truly know you. Maybe it's the quiet ache of carrying a world that was never yours to hold a Thank that weight for what it once protected. Thank it for the alertness it gave you, the empathy it tried to grow, the connection it reached for. And then with the same kindness you'd give a child who's finally ready to put down a heavy toy, give it permission to rest.

This isn't a resolution. This is a vow. I vow to be gentle with what I release today. I vow to honor the space it leaves behind, and I vow to fill that space with the the faces and names of my true 150. Thank you for walking this season with me. And as we move from this quiet realization into the action of a new year, I have a very special conversation coming your way. Next Tuesday, I'm sitting down with Stephen Post, author of Pure Unlimited Love. It's the perfect kickoff to our new series, The Meaning Makers. Stephen and I are going to explore the biology

and the soul of altruism. What happens to us when we move beyond this? and into the deep, unlimited love that actually sustains a community. If today was about the size of your tribe, Friday is about the spirit that holds that tribe together. It's a conversation that will change how you see your neighbor and how you see yourself. You won't want to miss it. Freedom means a lot to me, but more in terms of honoring the spirit of freedom, which means the positive version of the Golden Rule, which it means much more to me than

the negative version. Do not do one to others, what you would not have them do unto you. Well, I can get home tonight, and if I haven't kicked anybody in the shin, I can probably feel okay about myself, hopefully not. But if I've used my moral imagination, and I've asked myself, how can I contribute meaningfully and positively to the lives around me, then I've fulfilled the golden rule. Until then, you've been passion struck. Choose gentleness over force, choose space overweight and live like the life you're becoming and finally feel it.