Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Nir Bashan on How to Master the Solutions Mindset | EP 706

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

What if creativity was just the spark, and the real power lay in turning ideas into unbreakable solutions?In Episode 706 of Passion Struck, innovation expert Nir Bashan returns (his first appearance was Episode 36) to unveil the repeatable framework behind his new book The Solution Mindset. He reveals why brilliant ideas alone leave most people stuck, and how activating 10 innate problem-solving superpowers can transform frustration into impact.Through gripping stories: a teenager who rebuilt the world’s largest coral reefs by refusing expert advice, a bicycle company that cut shipping damage 90% with one deceptively simple packaging trick, and Norway’s quiet revolution in prison reform. Nir proves that anyone can solve the seemingly unsolvable.If you’ve ever felt paralyzed by complexity, doubted your next step, or wondered how to move from inspiration to execution, this conversation is your clear, practical bridge.Listen. Watch. Go Deeper.Check the full show notes here:All links gathered here, including books, Substack, YouTube, and Start Mattering apparel:https://linktr.ee/John_R_MilesThe Solution Mindset Workbook: 10 Superpower Activation Prompts to Turn Ideas into ImpactReflection prompts + daily practice → Download the Companion Workbook: In this episode, you will learn:The “Just Start” principle that turned a 16-year-old surfer into the leader of the planet’s most extensive coral restoration effortHow untangling complexity with a straightforward filter, like printing a TV on a bike box, can deliver 90% better results instantlyWhy long-term thinking (the kind bourbon makers use for 30-year barrels) creates a deeper legacy than chasing quick winsHow Norway redefined “failing successfully” in prisons to slash recidivism, while the U.S. stays stuck in punishmentWhy positivity isn’t naive, it’s the strategic fuel that powers sustained innovation.Support 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 by guests are their own 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 Passion Struck. For people, I highly suggest that somebody's frustrated at work, things aren't happening. I highly suggest that you step out of that, like, laser focus of what's going on that minute, that day, that week. And start to look at your career and start to look at your life as a long-term trajectory, right? Is it how you treat other people? Maybe you going to work at that particular place, John, isn't about the work that you do. maybe about how you're touching other employees there and how you're helping them through their problems,

how you're making an impact with your community. 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 me, healing, 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 706 of Passionstruck. We're continuing our series, The Season of Becoming, this very real transition between the life we've known and the fuller, braver life, calling us forward.

This last week has taken us across some powerful terrain. We stepped into the wild with Ollie Raisin and Boris McGuire of Safarini leadership, exploring what leadership looks like when you change the environment, not just the mindset. Then on Thursday, in a special live conversation, Joshua Green and Rick Hansen helped us widen the circle of moral concern, reminding us that becoming isn't just personal, it's collective, and it has real-world consequences for how we care for one another. Today, we bring all of that energy home, because after insight, after awareness, after awakening, there's a question that always follows.

Now what? In our culture, we celebrate creativity. We idolize ideas. We applaud imagination. But ideas don't solve problems. Solutions do. And that's why I wanted to share this conversation for you. My guest today is a dear friend of mine. And of this show, Nir Bishan first joined us way back on episode 36 to discuss his groundbreaking work in the creator mindset. Since then, I've watched his work evolve as he's listened to the struggles of leaders and creators worldwide. What he realized, and what we're diving into today, is that while creativity is the spark, it isn't enough on its own. People were still getting stuck between the idea and the result. NIR is a world-renowned expert who has worked with everyone from Hollywood stars like Woody Harrelson to global giants like Microsoft and AT&T. He's back to show us his new framework, the solution mindset. His mission is to move you past the spark and into the solution by codifying a repeatable formula for solving the unsolvable. In today's episode, we discuss the 10 problem-solving superpowers,

why they are innate in you, but likely sitting dormant, the just starting principle, which is why the first step is often the only one that matters in the process of becoming. We go into untangling complexity, how a simple filter can reveal the answer hiding in the noise of a busy life and why positivity is strategic. It's not naive, it's a requirement for, innovation and moving forward. If you've ever felt overwhelmed by complexity, if you've ever had a

great idea but didn't know how to move it forward, or if you're in a season where clarity matters more than inspiration, this episode is for you. Before we begin, a quick favor. If something in this conversation helps you solve a real problem today, share this episode with someone who's stuck where you used to be. And don't forget, you can watch full episodes and highlights on our YouTube channel's Passion Struck Clips and John R. Miles. And lastly, I hope all of you a wonderful holiday season and enjoy the rest of this week. All right, let's move from insight to execution. This is episode 706 with Niribashen. Let's dive in. Thank you for choosing Passionstruck and choosing me to be your hosting guide on your journey to creating an intentional

life. Now, let the journey begin. Hey, Passionstruck listeners, there are supplements and their game changers. Myterpura gummies from Timeline are in a league of their own. They're the first longevity gummy gummy with uralithanae, a powerful ingredient shown to boost cellular energy and improve muscle strength by 12% in just 16 weeks. And I'm telling you, I feel the difference. More energy, faster recovery, sharper focus, all from just two gummies a day. If you want to stay strong and energized now and as you age, then you've got to try Motopure Gummies. My friends at Timeline are offering 20% off just for my listeners. Head to Timeline.com slash Passionstruck to get started. That's Timeline.com slash Passionstruck. Yourselves, well, thank you.

I am so excited today to welcome my friend Nir Bashan, back to Passion Struck, near It is so awesome to see you. I'm so excited we could do this live here today in St. Pete, Florida. Great to see you again. Thank you, sir. Thanks for having me. This is incredible.

I'm so happy to be on this show. I heard just in the other room that you're on episode 600. It's hard to believe. When I had you on, it was episode 36. We were just beginning the journey, and I was so honored to have you back then to discuss your first book, The Creator Mindset.

And I wanted to start today because I think that's a great launching point. You came out with this book five years ago, 2020. And when you look back at the creator mindset, is there a core idea from the book that, as you've now taken this five years into the future, that still resonates as much today or even more as it did that? Yeah, definitely. Good to be on. I kind of want to take some credit for the fact that you're on episode 600.

The creator mindset was all about using creativity to solve problems. And the through line has been always about how to be more creative, how to be more innovative. And it's something that I think it is still relevant as it was five years ago. Wow, that's a long time ago. That was during COVID. Yeah, it was. So I actually waited a little bit to start the podcast because of COVID and not knowing what was going to happen. Yeah.

But I launched February of 2021, and it's hard to imagine. We'll turn the page on 700 episodes here pretty soon. Amazing. Well, after the release of the book, what question or struggles did you feel like you were consistently hearing as you were bringing the creator mindset up into audiences, companies you were working with? The creator mindset was a wide-ranging book. It focused on a lot of issues that people were having. on a broad scale. And a lot of the feedback that I started getting, John,

is, okay, this is great, we understand the background, we get the philosophy of why we're trying to solve these kind of wide-ranging issues, but then people are like, oh, how do you do it? And the creator mindset had some tools in there and had some techniques, but the new book focuses really on taking those wide-ranging ideas with good storytelling and different elements of people,

elements of people throughout the world that are solving problems, but then I give people concrete things that they can do right away to become more creative and innovative. And those are things that people can do at work, they can do in their communities, they can do, I know that mattering and doing things in life that are important, not just for commerce, but important for relationships and important for the world, are something that you're really focused on working on. And so this book, the new book, has a lot of kind of wide-ranging stories, but then it gives people those actionable things that they can do no matter what they want to accomplish. I remember a number of years ago, I had the opportunity to interview Jim McKelvey. And for those of you

who don't know who Jim is, he's the co-founder of Square. And as we were talking about the Square journey, and he's a repeat entrepreneur, I was asking him, like, what is the biggest thing that you coach entrepreneurs about and he said well there's always an inherent problem that needs to be solved so as you were giving these keynotes and you're a real prolific keynote speaker and congrats on now being part of the passion struck speakers bureau love having you thank you for that was there a consistent problem that you realize that there was a gap that led you to writing the solution mindset and what was that gap a hundred percent So the gap is really around trying to apply creativity every day.

People knew that they wanted to become more creative. They knew that it's something that was important to do. But like physically applying it every day, connecting the rubber to the road and making it go was a concern. It was something that people were like, Hey, Neer, I like the keynote, I get it. I'm inspired by the creator mindset. I'm an accountant.

So what does that have to do with me? Or I'm a supply chain manager at a manufacturing plan. How does that impact my day-to-day life? And it really is about connecting the dots for people and letting them understand that creativity is something that is inherent in every human being on earth. It's like a gift that God gave us to be able to go out in the world and solve problems as they come up.

Instead of reacting to them or coming up with contingency plans, This is the one thing that I've found consistently throughout my entire career to work in circumstances that no other solution has worked in. Man, I love that. And anytime I write a book, I try to think of the audience for it. I try to think of the approach.

In the solution mindset, you end up coming up with 10 superpowers. But I imagine there's always a multi-year cycle that goes into writing one of these. When you were creating this, were you thinking at first, this is for individuals, this is for companies, and how did you arrive at 10 superpowers? This book is really all about individuals, right? I've worked with a lot of companies over the years, a lot of different associations. I wanted this book, John, to get people excited. And I wanted to plant that seed very early on that this book is really about a, tool that anybody can use to become more innovative and more creative, especially if people

didn't think that they were creative to start with. And that's the catalyst. So it is written for the individual, the beauty that companies and different associations, people who read it, people have bought copies to give to their entire workforce, it has been about spreading that individual hope and optimism and positivity and allowing people to own their own journey, be happy, be thankful that they get the opportunity to solve problems, which is an incredible thing. Most of us spend our entire life running away from issues, right? But this creativity gives you that power to take on those problems head on and solve them once and for all. Well, and my work on mattering, one of the things that I have found is

that superpowers are innate in everyone. But I think what ends up happening, why people oftentimes don't feel like they matter is because they remain dormant, because we don't know how to turn them on. How did you go about showing that in the solution mindset that these weren't just superpowers, but they're superpowers that you don't just have,

but you actually can use? 100%. So I looked around the world at the 10 most pressing issues that I can find, all kinds of issues from pollution to overcrowding of jails and how we treat prisoners to health care in Japan and all kinds of issues that we are having as a society. And I looked at those issues and said these are things that are able to be solved simply by putting in the effort to go out and solve them. And I found people that are doing just incredible things

that we never hear about, right? Because the media won't report on it. They just won't report on it. So these are, in some cases, everyday heroes who are doing amazing things. They're organizations who are trying to tackle big, hairy problems that the world is facing. So it's surprising that people aren't reporting on them.

Was there like one or two superpowers that jumped off the page? first as the biggest barriers for leaders and organizations. One of the most incredible superpowers is the first chapter in the book, and that talks about Just Start. It follows an incredible person doing amazing things with the environment, and this guy is... Tito Juan Bennett Fort.

Tito one, yeah, Tito. And he's out in the Tahiti. Surfed every day, was a prolific surfer, and still is. One day, his friends all pool together some money and they buy a boat, right? And it's like a rickety boat, it's got holes in it. It barely gets them to their favorite surf spot or whatever. And they notice there's no surf, right? They go.

They've been surfing there since they were kids. They notice there's no surf. And they're like, what's going on here, right? This is the weirdest thing. So they dive down and they notice that the corals bleached out. It's not, you know, what it used to be, there's no fish anymore. So he runs home like all of us would do. And he goes on Google.

what can I do to help with the ocean, to help with coral reef. He gets a few ideas. He goes and talks to these scientists, right? And they tell him, dude, you're 16. You've got to get a PhD. You've got to go to oceanography school. You got to. There's all these things that you have to do before you get out there.

And he told them, and I remember in the interview, it was very specific. He basically told them that I love you guys and I love science. And it's very important to have those scientific backgrounds. and to have that wonderful schooling. But it is far more important to just start, to just get in there and dive into an idea. John, you know this. You've run tons of companies.

You're an entrepreneur, you're a serial entrepreneur. You know that the first step is just getting in the water, just getting to do it. And so he went and just got a bunch of rope, got some coral, and tried it, and it failed. And then he tweaked it, and he tried it again, and it failed. And then he kept tweaking and tweaking. And today he's got the largest coal restoration company on Earth.

And some of those scientists that told him, hey, buddy, go to school or whatever, are now his employees. It's an amazing story because it shows a couple different things. So I have a children's book coming out in a few months. And this called You Matter Luma. And this is exactly one of the things I was trying to showcase in the book is that you don't have to be Elon Musk or Jeff Bay. or the president of a country to make a huge difference. What you have to do is just start, but oftentimes, even with me,

we recently started a podcast network, but I actually thought about doing this four years ago, and sometimes that just starting is the hardest thing. What gets in people's ways before they have that courage, drop moment that they can start? So I am very lucky to be one of the people's ways. be one of the most viral authors on psychology today. So I have an answer for you. It is the fact that we get in our own way. We self-doubt. We get in our minds too much. We start to doubt an

idea and we overthink it and we underthink it. Then we're like, oh, somebody must have done it by now. If it's a good enough idea, it's probably out there in the world somewhere. And then that turns into more self-doubt and more, oh, we'll do it tomorrow. And then tomorrow. And then Tomorrow never comes and next week turns into next month and next month turns into next year. We have to just start. And John, it doesn't matter how we just start. We can be just a baby step for you with the network. There could have been maybe a call with some people who are doing it or just sending an email out to somebody saying,

hey, this is an idea that I have. Those little steps have an amazing chain reaction when we look at creativity happens when Very little things become really big things, but it doesn't happen overnight. It's an evolution, not a revolution. Think everyone's looking for that big moment. Yeah, I got this idea, and it's going to be the next big thing. But those stories seldom happen. It's the little steps along the way that lead to greatness.

Before we continue, I want to pause on something important. Listening to a podcast is one thing. Becoming the person you're listening for is another. Every single week, people tell me. John, I love these conversations, but how do I actually do this in my life? That's exactly why we create companion workbooks for each episode, simple, powerful tools to help you apply what you discover here. For this conversation with Near, the workbook helps you activate the solution mindset in real time with prompts and tools designed to move you from thinking to solving.

You can download all our free workbooks at the IgnitedLife.net. We're becoming isn't passive. It's practiced. Now, a quick break for our sponsors. Thank you for supporting those who support the show. You're listening to Passion Struck on the Passion Struck network. Now, back to my conversation with Niribashon. I think for me, one of the things that was really getting in my way was I was part of Stitcher, Sirius X-S. So one of the most prestigious podcast networks that is out there. And I was making good money from it. So the barrier was I had this prestige from being with what I thought was this big brand. I'm making great money, more money from the podcast than I had before. So part of it was my confidence level in what I'd be able to replicate the revenue from my own thing. But what I

realized with them was that I was in the big scheme of things out of all the different brands that They have a really small fish in a huge ecosystem. And so I didn't feel that inherent push to help me increase my brand. Yeah. To help it grow, to help it become stickier. And I didn't really see this magnifying effect that I could take this on to help other people do what I was doing. And it was because of those additional layers that I thought if I could have more control, then this tiny one show could start impacting people

when you start adding other voices who help magnify it. But once you start, as you say in this story about coral reefs, where you end up ends up becoming a different place completely because you end up hitting different creative barriers that you have to find solutions for. Yep. Which is why I love the whole premise of the book, because you need to have the creative

creativity, but you also need to come up with the solutions to come up with the barriers in novel ways. Yep. So you fast forward, and there's another superpower I want to talk about, which is how to untangle complexity. And I am a huge bicycle enthusiast. I love to ride, whether it's outdoors or on a spin bike. How did you hear about Van Moof printing and having them

solve this bicycle shops issue where I understand they kept delivering bicycles, but they kept on coming damaged. Like, how did you even hear about this story? Yeah, so this is, I have a small and modest research team, and we're constantly generating new report, new studies. I read so many of the latest research studies, more than just the summary and the abstract. I'll read, Oh, chart. Page 622 had the chart in here. And when I first started, I could barely read it. Now I'm like, oh, look, this is really interesting. Honey, check this out.

What are you talking about? I'm like, this is really interesting. One of those studies came in, and it was fascinating. It showed that there was a bicycle manufacturer that kept getting their bikes damaged on delivery. And they were the kind of manufacturer that people love. They were like, oh, I love this bike. I can't wait. I'm so excited to get it. It wasn't a basic bike. It was something that higher-end riders liked and this kind of stuff. So when it came, people were really excited. And it wasn't the basement bargain either. So they were excited. It was an investment. It would come. They would open the box, right? Really pumped. And like the fork would be bent or some parts would be damaged in the shipping. And so this manufacturer said, we've got to solve this problem. So they started by, hey, we're going to put more padding, right? We're going to put more padding.

and we're going to get bigger boxes because that's going to solve everything. And so they did the padding, they did the boxes, and the stuff kept getting damaged, and they loved it. It was a handmade bike, and a lot of love and attention went into this thing, and it still showed up damage. So one day the group got together, and there's something I talk about in my keynotes quite often, which is the 15-minute silly idea meeting. I tell people all the time executives at some of the best companies in the U.S.,

I'd say, how often are you guys practicing creativity? They're like, what? We're just waiting for an idea to come in. What do you mean practicing? I'm like, well, it's something you've got to do every single day to get better at, right? You can't just show up and expect creativity to happen. So I encourage people to have this 15-minute meeting. In that meeting, everybody gets in the room, right, or teams or however you're doing it,

and you come up with an idea, and it could be a silly idea or it couldn't be a brilliant one. Well, this company did it, this bicycle manufacturer did it, And somebody said, you know, on the boxes, instead of more padding, instead of spending all this money, instead of triple packing everything, which was the prevalent wind, we're going to paint the picture of a TV on the side of the box, right? And we're going to put fragile. And in that, hopefully when it gets shipped and handled and the different vendors are delivering it to our customers, hopefully they'll be more delicate with it. and it worked, and it literally cost nothing to a little bit of extra printing cost, but they were able to recoup all of those costs that they put into extra shipping and better handling and all of that stuff, it turns out that all they needed was a slight creative hack

to make people think that it was a TV, and then everyone handled the bike with care. And I love that for a couple of different reasons. One, there was a book that came out a couple of years ago from the Stanford Design School called Idea Flow. Yeah. And what you're describing right there is that whole idea flow process. Just let people shoot out different ideas, whether they're crazy, whether they're not, and find the ones that are the stickiest. So I love that in this example, they approach the whole solution in a very non-complex way. Just treat the packaging differently. And what were the end results? How much did it end up changing? I think the last study that we saw was 90% improvement in the bikes arriving without breakage. Really great result in customers were happy.

They were happy because people were treating the bikes in better shape. The world is full, John, of these really simple solutions, right? But we're too afraid. We're, oh, we're doubting. Oh, we're really successful. So why would we take a risk on something? and we devoid and lose that ability to solve these incredibly pressing problems. In this case, it's shipping.

In the other cases, coral reefs on Earth in the waters of the ocean, simply because we don't take a chance on those ideas. And the results were incredible. The shipping improved, the damages, decrease, all because of an image of a TV, and people thought there was a TV in the box. I want to stay on this theme of untangling complexity because we took an example of a bicycle shop. Yeah.

But one of the things I love about what you do in the book is you're not only talking about small issues. So we were talking about coral reefs, which is a big issue solved by an unsung hero. We talk about a bicycle shop, small business. But you also highlight big issues. So here in the United States, we really need health care reform. in a big way. Big time. Turns out they needed healthcare reform in Japan too. Yes. The end of World War II was a very interesting time. We are an incredible nation and we made the decision then with Harry Truman, who was in office, to not punitively punish our enemies. We did that in

Germany and we did that with the Japanese. We could have easily have said, you know what, we're putting in a government, we're done with you guys, kick out the emperor, the whole deal. But we took a very measured, disciplined, and incredible approach there. General MacArthur was the steward of the Japanese islands for seven years. Seven years. He said, hey, this is about building road. This is about getting back, the Japanese people back to where they can contribute to the world and not become a fascist or a Nazi state. This is about rehabilitation. rehabilitation. And that decision was made. But the actual work, right, the rubber meeting the road, got really bad. Why? Because he got people together in Japan and said, okay, guys, we have to rebuild this road. And they were like, great, that's a committee that meets Tuesdays. So he waited until Tuesday, went to the committee meeting and he said, guys, we've got to build this road. Yeah, but that's on Thursdays, that's a national road. This is a local road. There's a jurisdiction that handles both the roads. then he was like the complexity was insane right everything had a committee everything had all of

these layers that took an immense amount of time to get through right that sound familiar it's the very familiar bureaucracy of a government and a bureaucracy of an organization so he said guys no we're not doing this here's what we're going to do we're going to simplify this whole dang thing okay when we're going to do this road these three committees you guys get together and you figure out how to make one decision once a week on Tuesdays, okay? This isn't, we're not hopping back and forth for three months. And they were like, well, we can't. He's like, figure it out. And they got together and they figured out ways to lower and to minimize the bureaucracy so that stuff can get done. He touched health care too. And he said, hey, if you break your arm

outside of Tokyo at the little local hospital, let's say it's $100 to reset. I don't know the exact numbers. But let's say it is $100 to reset. If you go to the fancy, really nice hospital in Tokyo, it's $300. There's no difference in resetting your arm, right? You broke it, you had a fall, whatever, you break it. The two hospitals are going to reset it the same way. They put the cast on the same way. They take the same x-rays and all of that stuff.

So he made a system in Japan that had one cost per incident no matter what it was. That system still exists today, and it's incredible. get together once a year and the pharmaceuticals and the equipment manufactured and everybody always battle for the prices but once they're set for a year I think or two and people have predictability in that cycle they know that the medicine will cost this much no matter where they go they know that their health care no matter where they go will be consistent and they've gotten the the feeds down they've gotten the expenses down and I would love to do something like that in this country. Well, when you think about it, and my wife is a primary care provider, so does a lot

of prescriptions, I always thought it was just, and still is crazy, that you can go to CVS, you can go to Walgreens, you can go to Walmart, and you have three completely different pricing architectures for the same drug. Wild. And go across the country, they're probably 100. So wild. What you were describing in Japan is they set one price, and that's, and that's, you know, is one price for the entire country. One price is one price is one price. That's it. And it helps the bureaucracy of health care

and all the paperwork and the forearmed and the communication. It helps control their costs. They're actually a nationalized health care system. They take it out of everyone's paycheck every month. And it's set at a reasonable rate. It really that idea of eliminating clutter and focusing on the goal itself,

rather than letting the clutter become part of the solution. The reason I wanted to focus on this is because coming from big Fortune 50 companies, I've seen this firsthand. When I was at Dell, we were in the middle of, I would argue, the largest transformation of the company. It has historically been a hardware provider. People knew it for enterprise servers and your personal devices. But Michael and the board knew that wasn't the long-term destiny to make money.

So they needed to become a solutions-based, which solution mindset company. But in order to do that, it meant you started to have to take these new ideas and you had to get them out of the mothership. So when I was there as they were unearthing going through this idea flow type of concept, new creative ideas, they would actually not only take the idea and assign it to a vice president or director and let them run with it, they mandated that it would go outside of the local area. And even when we were in Austin, there was another building that just housed Dell startups because they didn't want the bureaucracy of the big business to get in the way of them being able

to be agile in the way that they were coming up with these ideas. Do you think that's a way that large companies could innovate without them getting stuck with coming into the slowness of the bigger mothership type of thinking process? A hundred percent. I think that's one of many ideas of how to get really good ideas out of these big companies that in a way the bureaucracy has been set by the company's growth and the company's success. But yeah, they're definitely way there's having that type of separation between the mothership and the startup.

up, there is coming up with surges and acquisitions and acquiring that talent on. There is cultural shifts that can happen, even in a mammoth company with tens of thousands of employees that just shifts the paradigm a little bit. Again, it's not everyone's always looking for the big kind of, oh, this is going to revolutionize everything and change everything tomorrow. But sometimes it's those little ideas, those little movement that can create incredible ripples down the line that are some of the most powerful impacts ever. So I want to switch gears with you, and another one of the superpowers that you have in the book

is to embrace the routine. And what I love about this is that you use a bourbon brand as one of the stories to illustrate this. And for those who are watching, the bourbon brand is Kentucky Owl. And this is a brand that has a long history, but that history, but that history, was one that needed a rewrite. So what did that rewrite have to do with embracing that consistency and establishing a routine? How did those two intersect? Definitely, good question.

In my book, The Solution Mindset, I looked at a company dedicated to the long run, right? And I found two incredible companies. One was a bourbon company. The other is international paper, right? Out of all the companies, thinks the liquor and cigarette business, oh, they're the worst. And even worse than them, the paper industry, right? They're clear-cutting forests everywhere. And it turns out that is

like completely not true. What really is going on is that people are making in the bourbon industry and this company in particular are making choices for the long run, right? Not about, hey, you know, what trend will come and go. How do we make this bourbon last? and take the trip so that when 18 years, 25 years, 30 years later, when we're all gone, hopefully not, but some of the people who work on that bourbon are 70s, 80 years old, they won't be around in 30 years to taste what will come out of that. But their dedication, the quality, and their investment in that long term is incredibly important. So it really is about looking at what we do and distancing ourselves from,

those short gains, John, and start looking and planning on making those long-term gains. Because, in my opinion, those are the really important gains. But we're surrounded these days by social media. We're surrounded by the apps and everybody, oh, look at me. I've got a Maybeck, BMW, or Mercedes, and I'm riding around. Look at me, and I'm taking selfies. But that is not real long-term wealth. That is not real long-term gold generation.

and that is not real long-term creativity. So breaking that down and understanding that these bourbon companies that are making things aren't in it for the initial gain. They're in it to make really good products to last. It reminds me of Dory Clark's work on the long game in many ways is oftentimes we think of things in months, in years, we don't really think about legacy.

Right. So when you think about this topic and you take this to a human level, how could someone apply this concept into their personal life? Yeah, because you have two great brands here. You've got a bourbon brand. You've got international paper. But I also think that this one really applies to us personally. 100%. So for me, it is about recognizing that success comes in long and measured steps.

It's not about showing up one day, coming up. with an idea and having it hit just because you know you wanted it to these are really long-term investments in the case of international paper this is an incredible organization they literally plant stuff now that they'll harvest in 30 years and they rotate the land so that they can get the ground the soil to be fertile to be able to support that kind of thing they have wildlife plans they have all kinds of things that help spread the growth long-term. And for people, I highly suggest that somebody's frustrated at work, things aren't happening. I highly suggest that you step out of that, like, laser focus of what's going on that minute, that day, that week.

And start to look at your career and start to look at your life as a long-term trajectory, right? Is it how you treat other people? Maybe you going to work at that particular place, John, isn't about the work that you do. Maybe about how you're touching other employees there and how you're helping them through their problems, how you're making an impact with your community because you've got this company to invest in doing some work with some charities. People always look at what's going on in the minute and make quick judgments. Oh, yeah, it's not going well. oh, yeah, it's going great or whatever.

But when we start looking at bourbon companies that 30 years to mature, when we start looking at these amazing forests that take all of this time to grow properly before they're harvested, we start to look at ourselves and find that sometimes the goals that we've set out to accomplish are really touched tangentially by an amazing connection to the world, to other people, to our communities, that is incredibly, worthwhile. Thank you, Neer, for sharing that. When I was at Lowe's, one of my peers, Steve Shirley, used to, who was in charge of strategy, used to always say to our CIO, Steve, we need to focus on failing fast and failing often. And our CIO used to always go to Steve and say, I cannot believe

you're saying that. What we should be doing is winning fast and winning often. And he's, well, You win fast and you win often by failing fast and failing often. So one of the superpowers that you highlight in the book is the need to fail successfully, which is exactly what Steve Shirley was talking about. And I had a guest on the show last year. Her name is Robin Steinberg, and Robin is really focused in the United States. She's an attorney on prison reform. And specifically, what she is trying to look at is mass incarceration.

and how it is not only flooding the system with too many inmates, but we keep the inmates in far too long for many of the things that they do. And this is something that you tackle in the book, but you tackle it through another country who has looked at this and seen that there is a way to completely rethink in a creative manner about how do you take these inmates and reform them in a really amazing way. So I was hoping you could walk us through that

because I thought this was a great example of how you reform a large system, but specifically, how does the fail successfully come into play here in Norway? Yeah, so Norway's prison system's amazing. It's like kind of an incredible thing. And what's going on there is the rehabilitation, the focus on rehabilitation, right?

In the U.S., our prison system is lock them up, throw away the keys, and hope for the best. And we have one of the highest recidivism rates in the world. And what that basically means is the rate of somebody who gets incarcerated, gets out, and goes back in. It's something like 70%. I don't know. I forgot the stat. I got to look at it, but it is incredibly high, and it shouldn't be high. So we have a lot of creative decisions being made to improve that in Norway, right?

For instance, there is more common sense in dealing with a prisoner, even if they're prison, even if they've committed some very serious crimes, right? There is less of a focus on punishing, more of a focus on rehabilitation. Incredible things like, hey, you get to go home for the weekend. Imagine that. Imagine a prisoner in U.S. for grand larceny or whatever they're in for going home on the weekend. And you say to yourself, well, why would you do that? It's because our prison population is insanely high.

There is no real focus on rehabilitation, and there should be because there's millions of people who can benefit for whether it's schooling or coaching or just given opportunities that they've never had to reintegrate into society and become contributing members. So what has been done in Norway is people focus on all of these little decisions along the way. Again, it's not, hey, we're going to do some big thing. It is about these little decisions along the way. How long do we incarcerate? What about the weekend? What about a spouse, a wife, or a husband? What about kids?

How do all of these things come together in order to make proper punishment decisions, but also proper rehabilitation decision? And I'm going to take it from Norway to a movie. So let's talk Shawshank Redemption for a second. When I think about that in the Morgan Freeman character read, he's, so here's a guy who's in for killing someone when he was 18 years old. And he keeps going up for these hearings so that he could go back into the general populace. And every time he gets denied until he finally says, I wish I could go back and tell that 18-year-old how stupid he was.

And oftentimes, a lot of these, it's happening to young males, over-indexed, I think, over-female. The research I've looked at, but if you look at what Tim Robbins, the other character in the movie did, is he was trying to create a library. He was trying to create different ways to educate the populace at Shawshank, because he saw that was the best way to rehabilitate. Why do you think that has been such a thing in the states that we're not focused on? Man, that's a good question. I really don't know. I think that we've institutionalized the process and we've demonized the other. Instead of being really creative and innovative and thinking, okay, this is a problem.

How do we overcome it? We've gone back to the English-Australia model where we're just going to put them away, right? We're just going to send all the prisoners away, and we do that today. Instead of sending them away to a different country, we just lock them up. But there's people in prison right now that are on drug charges, there's nonviolence, there's all kinds of reform that we could be doing. And I advocate for using creative and innovative solutions to improve not only our lot, but everyone's a lot on earth.

It is all about finding new ideas and taking chances on them to improve life. When I think about it at a more macro level, it leads to another one of your superpowers when I was thinking about it, which is we should really be questioning the data and looking at it in a different way. If we are having decades and decades

of mass incarceration increasing and we have repeat offenders time and time again, then ultimately, the data is telling us something. And if you keep, where I want to go with this is if you keep treating the data in the same way and you keep getting the same answers and they keep getting worse,

then you gotta change the way that you're looking at the inputs that are causing the data to be where they are, which is my way of getting you to explain why is questioning the data so important. So important. It's so important. We need to look that data in new and different ways, right?

People look at data like, It's the best thing ever, right? Oh, I've got an Excel that shows me a certain thing, and it must be true. The problem is that, yes, there is a lot of analytic data that shows there's recidivism and people coming in and out of prison, but there's also a lot of data showing that there's very focused programs

that are working incredibly well. Some of them are faith-based. Some of them are like work-based where prisoners learn a certain tool, a technique, an approach, a vocation, and they go out there and do really well. And those are underfunded, and the ones that don't work are overfunded, right? It's about getting creative with the data and looking at it and going, okay, cool.

This is an indication of something, but it's not the full story. Yeah, a great story of this from my time at Lowe's was when I took over the IT operations group, I knew I was given a huge issue to solve. We had just come off the largest hacking incident in retail history. And so I was being asked to lead the charge on overcoming that. But I will never forget. I go to meet our head of HR. Her name was Maureen.

And I think we're going to be talking about this and maybe what I need to do on the bus to put in new talent. And she ends up saying, we didn't talk about this during the interview process, but we recently did an employee engagement survey where we're We looked at every single organization for the first time in the company. And in addition to everything else you have to solve, your group was ranked worse in employee engagement in the entire company. And Lowe's at that time had 350,000 associates,

18,000 stores, 1,800 stores, this huge supply, and I have got the worst performing group. So where I'm going with this is there are many ways that I could look at the data. Yeah. But instead of looking at it as, oh, I've got the worst group, I started to look at it as,

what did this employee's data show? And so the number one thing I found was that repeated in their comments was they had no idea how their jobs and what they were spending their time doing, how that impacted the company strategy or a typical customer walking into a low store because they couldn't see the correlation between sitting in a security command center

or operations command center or data center or call center to solving a customer's needs. And so when I started to look at that data, I started to look at it, well, I need to give them a line of sight between why they're coming into work and their impact on a customer having a better shopping experience. So that I just wanted to give for the audience, that is a clear way that you can look at it,

that involves both your books, because there's a creative angle to that, and then there's a solution angle to that. 100%. And that's so important to do connecting the dots. Like most people would go, oh, I've got the worst report in. Well with me, this is the worst thing that's ever happened.

And they give up or they stayed into themselves and work out something for another few months while they're sending resumes, right? But you looked at that and said, hey, wait a second. What can this data do to improve? What can I do to take this? worst scenario and look at ways to improve. And you found it.

You found improving and, hey, it's really about connecting the narrative. The work that you're doing here in this department is really important to that mom and dad in Kansas City who are going and shopping to do their baby's room with paints and all this equipment because these three things, that connects and all of a sudden you've energized somebody. A hundred percent, the data is there not to just depress you. It's there for that you can work on it. It's there so that you can come up with solution.

But the data alone without creativity, without innovation, won't take you to where you want to go. I work with companies all the time, and they're like, near, this is the data set. And we're a car manufacturer that I work with. The EVs aren't leaving the lot, so what do we do? I'm like, the EV's not leaving the lot is the best thing that could ever happen to you guys. And they're like, what do you mean? And I said, you're taking a, you've got to make opportunities. You've got to make lemonade out of all these lemons.

They're like, great, well, how do we do that? And I was like, let's come up with ideas, right? Maybe it's a micro-lease program where somebody leases the V for a month. They're like, how would that work? I'm like, I don't know. Let's figure it out. Is that like a decent idea? They're like, well, yeah, maybe we'll do a three-month program.

Maybe there's something we can do with the rental car companies. And that generates all kinds of ideas. I think most people, when they get this bad data or negative data or tough to deal with data, with a prisoner system, they, oh, that's how things are. And that's how they've been yesterday. That's how they'll be tomorrow. That's the way it is. I've made a life out of questioning that.

I've made a life out of working with people very, and sometimes in a very intimate way, sometimes with tens of thousands of people on saying no, the acceptance of, hey, this is the way it is not indicative of your creative and innovative potential. Listen, we were born with genes. that are turned on and off by creativity. Literally, it was a study came out about a year ago

that found that we are wired for creative and innovative solution. But somewhere along the way, we kind of lose it. We fall in love with analytics. We go to business school, and it tells us, look at the Excel's got everything you want in it. It's every private equity company. Right, ever, right?

So the problem is that's not true. And we've been led to believe that it's true. We need to balance creativity and analytics together in order to get where we need to go. Near earlier today, I recently hired a new PR firm, and one of the areas that they put a ton of focus on is who are your competitors? Who do you compare yourself to as passion struck? And I always hate this question because I don't necessarily, I'm not trying to be compared to someone else. I'm trying to create my own new category, but they, like, insisted. So I said, well, in some ways, you could think of the ecosystem that Gary Vaynerchuk built

with VaynerMedia, Vayner speakers, his V-Friends. You could think of Mel Robbins and what she's trying to do. You could think of Simon Seneca and his optimism company or Mind Valley. But I always thought that there's this issue when you get into a comparison trap. that can halt creativity and halt solutions. And this is actually one of your superpowers. So how does this comparison trap come into it? So I think we live in an unprecedented world

where we can literally pull out a device and see what a competitor doing down the street. We could see real time what is going on around us, and it literally leads to nowhere good. Literally leads to nowhere good. We're constantly comparing ourselves to others and saying, oh, you should have done this, and these guys did that. And what ends up happening is we lose that sense of creative and innovative problem solving that we are innately born with. The beauty of having creativity in your DNA is that the way that you solve problems is not going to be the same way that I solve it.

And it's not going to be the same way that Gary Vanhochuk or whomever. Do you remember when he was doing wine online? Yes. That's how it started. It goes back further than that. So I was talking to Matt Higgins, who wrote the book, Furn the Boat. Yeah. People don't realize it, but Matt Higgins, through his efforts, was the first person who put money into the whole Vayner Media ecosystem.

But Cass and Mike, I can't remember their last names. They developed a company that they ended up selling to Salesforce. And Gary actually begged them, could I have a conference room to use in your corporate headquarters? and he ended up overtaking their conference room, but that's how he got to start. Got it. And he positioned from getting that foothold in the wine industry to then realizing that media was going to shift

and getting ahead of that. And it's very similar when you back into it of Jeff Bezos. So Jeff realized he wanted to create the everything store, but he needed a starting point. So he thought, what better than books to try to disrupt? And so he developed a new creative way to do it and then implemented the solution mindset in order to do it. Yep. But there are two very good examples.

Yeah, it's incredible. So when you think about the impact that you want this book to make, this isn't just about changing companies. This is about people themselves choosing a different solution mindset that they walk not only into their work life with, but their family life. Yeah. So what do you hope that people who pick this book up will take away from it? I hope that people who read the book get energized and realize what a special gift it is to be alive today in a country like this where we have so many opportunities and so much ability to do what it is that we want to do and realize that you have the potential to solve any problem on Earth. There is no problem that is bigger than our ability as a humanity to solve it. I believe that 1,000 percent.

And I've been on a mission now for several years to speak in front of different audiences, to write books like this, to get people really excited and energized about being able to solve problems. And part of that is selfish, right? Because I want people to go out there and solve pollution issues and all the problems that we're having today. that affect my life because I know if I get people really excited and thinking in a new and a different way that our lives will all be better. I'm all about the need to matter.

So I think oftentimes people come up with this huge idea flow and they come up with all these different ideas. So one of the things I wrote about in Passion Struck was something I call the deliberate action process and one of the most fundamental aspects of that process is what I call the prioritization phase. Yeah. You have another word for it.

You call it use a filter. How does someone who has these creative ideas use the filter and then take that chance to implement it going forward? What would be your best advice? So a lot of people have all these ideas, right? Oh, it's the opposite just start problem. They, oh, I've got like 20 ideas. Let's go out and do it.

The issue with that is that sometimes we need to filter out the thoughts and identify and prioritize one of them. So in the book, I talk about that development of a filter through an amazing scientist who took on water in Africa. He traveled and noticed that there are large sections of the African continent where people don't have access to clean water, right? And he thought to himself, well, we got to come up with some way to filter it.

And there was a lot of expensive solutions. There were a lot of solutions that didn't work. work and at the end of the day he came up with a solution that is cheap that requires no moving parts that last like a year or a year and a half and that it's personal and it's basically a straw that you can drink contaminated water from it's incredible they sell it here in the u.s for people camping or explorers or out in the wild or whatever but in parts of africa it's a day-to-day thing and it's basically called a life straw and it filters out all of the negativity and the the contaminants and all the horribleness from the water.

So the way that I use the filter and the way I teach business owners and different employees, people in different businesses, is I teach them, hey, use this filter to start filtering out these negative thoughts, the thoughts that will slow you down. I ask people, okay, cool, what do you want to do? Oh, Neer, I want to build a cart and go out and sell books in it. Okay, cool. That sounds great. Is that your dream?

Yes, it's my dream. But I'm not going to do it. Why? Because the cart's expensive. Okay, cool. Maybe you should build your own card or whatever. it's about filtering out the negative thoughts and amplifying the positive ones. Find a cart builder, partner with somebody to build the cart for you and give them 10% royalty on the sales.

Again, it's about coming up with all of these ideas that get you over a perceived roadblock and filter out the negativity and add some positivity into it. Nearer last question for you before we wrap up is you are on passion struck. You are obviously passion struck about what you're doing yourself. So my question for you is, what does it mean for you to be passion struck? Being passion struck for me, John, is all about really taking ideas and making them happen and energizing people and getting them excited and getting them knowledgeable about their ability and their role in this world.

I think far too many of us have been beaten down by the news, by the press, by what we read and see out there in society, which is all bad news. And what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to amplify the good news, which is 10 times, a hundred times, a thousand times more prevalent than all the bad news were believed this world is to be. There is so much good happening. There are so many good people like you, sir, doing amazing impact. and helping people every single day just become a little bit better.

And you should be on the cover of the magazine. Do you, sir, should be talked about in the news? And yet, well, we talk about the fringe cases. We talk about the cases that don't really matter. For me, being passion struck is recognizing what it's really important. And what is really important is adding positivity, is making things matter, is making your life the short time that we have here, on Earth really matter. And that is what being passion struck means to me. I love that answer,

Neer. And thank you for those plugs. If people wanted to learn more about you in the new book and where they can pre-order it, where are the best places for them to go? Yes, sir. So it's on Amazon, Target, Walmart, anywhere you can buy books. My name is Near Bashan. There's another near Bashan somewhere there on the internet, uploading Minecraft clips. So that's not me. There's not that many of us on Earth. I think there's three or four. My website, my website, site nearbashon.com, N-I-R-B-A-S-H-A-N.com. The book is on Amazon now, all of the fine retailers available for pre-order. So Wiley and Sons' book, in an incredible book, and I hope that it gives you the gift

of realizing how important and how incredible your ability is if you just tap into it and get it out into the world. Neer, thank you so much, my friend, for being here. I was so glad we were able to do this in person. and thank you, and congratulations on writing such a fantastic book. Thank you so much. I think this is an amazing compliment to what you did with the first book and really brings the two together.

So congratulations. Thank you. Really appreciate it. That's a wrap on today's conversation with Nir Breshawn. It's always a pleasure to have Neerback on the show. What I appreciate most about Neer's work is this. He doesn't romanticize creativity. He operationalizes it.

He reminds us that solutions don't arrive through brilliance alone, they arrive through discipline, clarity, and the willingness to engage. Here are a few ideas worth carrying forward. Creativity without structure leads to frustration. Simplicity isn't weakness, it's leverage. And becoming a problem solver starts with investing in yourself. If this episode helped you see a challenge differently, please share it. That's how this movement grows, person to person. And if you want to apply what you heard on today's show, join us at the ignitedlife.net, where every episode becomes a practice, not just a conversation. Also, my new children's book, You Matter Luma, is available for pre-order at Barnes & Noble.

A reminder that problem-solving, compassion, and mattering starts early. You can also find it at You Matterluma.com. Coming up later this week, I'm joined by Mark Murphy, New York Times bestselling author, for a powerful conversation on leadership communication and what takes to be understood in a world full of noise. I happen to come across, and so this is in the 90s, I happen to come across a line that Michael Jordan had said. So Michael Jordan's one day walking off the court and one of the assistant coaches, Tex Winters, the guy who architected the triangle offense, he hollers over to Michael and he goes, hey, Michael, there's no eye in team. And Jordan looks back and goes, yeah, but there is in Wynn

and walks off the court. And I said, yes, that is what I'm. going to, when I someday write a book about teens, that is what I'm going to call it. Until then, solutions don't happen by accident. They happen by design. I'm John Miles. You've been passion struck. Now go live like you matter.