Passion Struck with John R. Miles - The Courage to Become Yourself: Remembering Who You Are | John R. Miles - EP 786

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

In this solo episode of Passion Struck, John R. Miles explores perhaps the deepest form of disconnection we experience—not from other people, but from ourselves.Every stage of life quietly asks us to become someone. Families, schools, workplaces, and culture reward certain behaviors and identities while discouraging others. Over time, the adaptations that once helped us survive can harden into identities we mistake for who we truly are. The result isn't failure. It's forgetting.Drawing on the enduring story of Hook, John examines why Peter Pan's greatest tragedy wasn't growing up—it was forgetting who he had been all along. Through insights from psychology, attachment theory, identity research, and the remarkable conversations that shaped the Connection Crisis series, John explores how modern life pulls us away from authenticity and what it means to finally find our way home.This episode challenges one of the biggest assumptions in personal development: that flourishing requires becoming someone new. Instead, John argues that flourishing begins when we stop performing, remember who we are, and trust ourselves enough to live from that place.In this episode, you'll learn:• Why adaptation is essential for survival—but dangerous when it becomes identity• How childhood expectations and social environments shape the person we believe we must become• What Hook teaches us about memory, identity, and the gradual process of forgetting ourselves• The hidden difference between participating in life and merely performing it• Why success often feels empty when it is disconnected from authenticity• How perfectionism, people-pleasing, hyper-independence, and overachievement become emotional armor• Why self-discovery is never a solitary journey—and how other people help us remember who we are• The profound connection between belonging, mattering, and authentic identity• Why courage is less about reinvention and more about trusting the person you've always been• What it truly means to flourish: returning to the life you already have with a different heart and a renewed awareness of yourselfThis episode is an invitation to stop chasing a better version of yourself and begin remembering the person who has been waiting patiently beneath years of responsibility, expectation, and adaptation. Because the life you've been searching for was never somewhere else—it has been waiting inside the person you've been all along.Passion Struck is the #1 Health and Wellness Podcast and personal growth podcast dedicated to helping people live intentionally, unlock human potential, and create lives rooted in meaning, purpose, belonging, and mattering.Limited-Time Offers:Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at SHOPIFY.COM/PASSIONSTRUCKFunction Health: Visit functionhealth.com/PASSION or use code PASSION25 for a $25 credit toward your membership.FODZYME: Get 30% off your first order at ICanEatAgain.com/PASSIONSTRUCK.Full Show NotesDownload the Digital WorkbookIf this episode resonated with you, please follow the show, leave a review, and share it with someone who may have forgotten a part of themselves along the way. Sometimes, the greatest gift we can offer another person is helping them remember who they have been all along.Connect with John Pre-Order The Mattering Effect: https://matteringeffect.com/Book John to Speak: https://johnrmiles.com/speaking/Keynotes, books, podcast, and resources: https://linktr.ee/John_R_MilesChildren’s Book — You Matter, Luma: https://youmatterluma.com/Substack: https://www.theignitedlife.net/Support the Movement: https://startmattering.com/. Every human deserves to feel seen, valued, and like they matter. Wear it. Live it. Show it.DisclaimerThe Passion Struck podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Passion Struck or its affiliates. This podcast is not a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice.

Hey friends, a few years ago I attended a retreat with about 100 fellow veterans. What struck me wasn't just the camaraderie. It was the conversations. Nearly 90% of the veterans there talked about how psilocybin had become an important part of their healing journey. They shared stories about finding greater clarity, reconnecting with loved ones, and finally feeling like they were moving forward after years of feeling stuck. Since then, I've interviewed neuroscientists, psychiatrists, and researchers studying psychedelics, and it's become clear why there's so much excitement around this field. Emerging research suggests psilocybin may help promote new neural pathways in the brain,

which is why many people report improvements in focus, creativity, mood, and connection. That's why I appreciate what Schedule 35 is doing. They're bringing a thoughtful science-backed approach to psilocybin with precisely dose products, educational resources, and beginner-friendly guidance designed to help people understand exactly what they're taking and why. get 15% off all orders with code Passionstruck at Schedule 35.co. That's 15% off at Schedule 35.com and use code Passionstruck. Hey friends, a few years ago, I attended a retreat with about 100 fellow veterans. What struck me wasn't just the camaraderie, it was the conversations.

Nearly 90% of the veterans there talked about how silo-cybin had become an important part of their healing journey. They shared stories about finding greater clarity, reconnecting with loved ones, and finally feeling like they were moving forward after years of feeling stuck. Since then, I've interviewed neuroscientists, psychiatrists, and researchers studying psychedelics, and it's become clear why there's so much excitement around this field. Emerging research suggests psilocybin may help promote new neural pathways in the brain, which is why many people report improvements in focus, creativity, mood, and connection.

That's why I appreciate what Schedule 35 is doing. They're bringing a thoughtful science-backed approach to psilocybin with precisely dose products, educational resources, and beginner-friendly guidance designed to help people understand exactly what they're taking and why. Get 15% off all orders with code Passionstruck at Schedule 35.co. That's 15% off at Schedule 35.com and use code Passionstruck. Coming up next on Passionstruck. Every stage of life quietly asks us to become someone. Our parents, our teachers, our friends, our bosses, and our culture all place expectations in front of us. Some of those expectations help us discover who we are. Others slowly convince us to become someone else. Over the past month, we've explored what happens

when people, organizations, relationships, and communities lose connection. But I've come to believe the deepest form of disconnection isn't the distance between us and other people. It's the distance that forms between who we truly are and who we've learned we need to become. Today works. exploring the final step in that journey. How do you remember who you are after years of becoming who life required you to be? And what becomes possible when you finally do? 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. Welcome back to PassionStraught, and episode 786. A few weeks ago, I found myself looking through some old photographs. There was one picture in particular that stopped me. I stared at it much longer than I expected to. What caught my attention wasn't the age of the photograph, or the memories attached to it. It was the feeling that I was looking at someone I knew

well, yet hadn't spoken to in years. The experience stayed with me because it raised a question I couldn't shake. When did I stop being that person? As I've reflected on that question, I've reflected on that question, I've realized that life simply keeps asking us to adapt. We learn how to fit into new environments. We take on responsibilities. We build careers. We become leaders, spouses, parents, caregivers, and providers. Over time, those roles become so familiar that we stop noticing how much they've shaped us. Over the past month, we've explored this reality from several different directions. Eric Rees showed us how organizations can lose sight of the people that were created. to serve. Dr. John Lapuma revealed how modern environments quietly influence our health, behavior

and relationships. Greg McEwen and Marcus Buckingham helped us understand the importance of being heard, seen, and value. Katie Morton, Adam Lane Smith, Spencer West, and Adrian Gostick explored the emotional patterns, attachments, expectations, and identities that shape our lives. At first, those conversations seem to be about different subjects. However, looking back, I think they were all exploring the same question. What happens when we become so focused on adapting to life that we lose touch with the person underneath the adaptation? That question matters because adaptation is not the enemy.

Adaptation helps us survive. It helps us navigate uncertainty, responsibility, disappointment, success, and change. But there comes a point where every one of us has to ask whether the version of ourselves that helped us get here is still the version we want leading us forward. Connection was never the destination. It was the foundation, because once we understand belonging, attachment, significance, and identity, a new question emerges, who am I free to become now that I no longer need to spend my life, proven I belong. That question sits at the heart of everything we're exploring in today's episode. Before we begin, if the Connection Crisis series has helped

you better understand your own life, please share this series or this episode with someone you care about. Leave a rating or review on Apple Podcast or Spotify is one of the most meaningful ways you can support the show. Don't forget to subscribe on YouTube, and you can download the companion workbook for today's episode at the ignitedlife.net. Because beneath every role you've played, every expectation you've carried, and every adaptation you've made, there's still a person waiting to be remembered. Let's begin there. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life that matters. Now, let that journey begin. One of my favorite movies wasn't really about Peter Pan. It was about forget

When Steven Spielberg made Hook, he took one of the most recognizable characters in the world and asked a question that almost no one saw coming. What happens if Peter Pan grows up and completely forgets he was ever Peter Pan. When we first meet him, Peter isn't living in Neverland. He's living in boardrooms and airports. His calendar is full. His phone never stops ringing. He's become a brilliant mergers and acquisitions attorney. who measures his days in deadlines, deals, and billable hours. From the outside, his life looks successful. He's respected, he's accomplished. He's providing for his family. But something is missing. He misses his son's baseball game because of work. He snaps at the people he loves most.

Even when he's physically present, his attention is somewhere else. The joy, wonder, curiosity, and playfulness that once to find him have quietly slipped away. Then something extraordinary happens. He's taken back to Neverland. At first, he insists there has been some terrible mistake. I'm not Peter Pan, but everyone else knows the truth before he does. Peter Pan didn't disappear. He simply forgot. And the more I've thought about that story, the more I've realized it isn't really about fantasy at all. It's about us. Because most people don't wake up one morning and decide to lose themselves. Life happens. Responsibilities accumulate. Expectations grow. Success demands more of us. And before we realize it, the roles we've taken on become louder than the person living

underneath them. Peter didn't lose himself in a single deal that went terribly bad. He lost himself gradually. And that's what makes the story so powerful. It feels familiar. What strikes me most about Peter Banning isn't that he's successful. It's how ordinary his forgetting feels. Most of us will never become a high-powered attorney negotiating corporate deals across the world. But most of us know what it feels like to become consumed by the roles our lives require us to play.

At some point, the demands become relentless. There are people depending on us, responsibilities that need attention, bills that need to be paid, problems that need solving, deadlines that don't move, children who need us, parents who need us, work that follows us home. None of those things are wrong. In many ways, they're evidence of a life that matters. The challenge is that it becomes very easy to spend so much time managing, life that we stop experiencing it. We become experts at handling what is urgent while gradually losing contact with what is essential. That's why Peter Banning resonates with so many people. His tragedy isn't that he became a lawyer. His tragedy isn't that he became responsible.

His tragedy is that he became so immersed in the life he was building that he stopped noticing the person living it. I think this happens more often than we realize. A parent wakes up one day and wonders where the years went. A leader realizes they've spent more time managing people than connecting with them. A husband or wife discovers that the routines of life have quietly replaced curiosity. Someone looks around at a life that appears full and suddenly feels an emptiness that they can't quite explain. Because somewhere along the way, they disappear.

appeared from their own story. When Adrian Gostick joined me on Passionstruck yesterday, something he said stayed with me. After spending decades studying workplace culture, he found that healthy organizations don't ask people to wear better masks. They create environments where the masks aren't needed anymore. The more I think about it, the more I believe that principle extends far beyond the workplace. Every meaningful relationship asks the same thing of us. And perhaps that's the deeper warning hidden inside Peter Banning's story. The danger was never that he grew up. The danger was that he became so busy living his life that he forgot to bring himself along for the journey. One of the details in Hook that has stayed with me most vividly over the years is that Peter doesn't remember who he is by himself.

He doesn't sit alone in a room, have a sudden flash of insight, and magically become Peter Pan again. The lost boys remember him first. From the moment he stumbles back into Neverland, they look right past the three-piece suit, the briefcase, and the title. They look him straight in the eye and keep insisting, you're Peter Pan. He argues with them. He laughs at them. He tells them they're mistaken.

You don't understand. I'm an adult. I'm a lawyer. I'm Peter Banning. The remarkable thing is that he's not lying. He genuinely believes it. I think that's what makes the story feel so deeply human. Most of us don't wake up one day realizing we've drifted away from ourselves. We wake up believing we've simply done the responsible thing. We've become the person our families needed. Our careers are rewarded or our circumstances demanded. And then if we're fortunate, someone enters our life who sees something in us that we've forgotten was there. Maybe it was a teacher who recognized a gift before you had the confidence to believe it yourself. Maybe it was a coach who saw potential hiding underneath

your self-doubt. Maybe it was a mentor who leaned across the desk one day and challenged you to stop confusing what you do with who you are. Or maybe it was a friend who looked you in the eye during one of the hardest seasons of your life and reminded you that your value hadn't disappeared. It had simply been buried beneath years of responsibility, fear, and expectation. When I look back on my own life, I can point to those people almost immediately. None of them gave me a new identity. They reminded me of the one I had forgotten. As I've reflected on every conversation we've shared throughout this month,

something finally clicked for me. At first, I thought we were exploring different subjects. Organizations, health, communication, leadership, attachment, identity. Looking back now, I don't think they were different conversations at all. Eric Rees showed us what happens when organizations forget the people they exist to serve. John Lapuma reminded us that our bodies flourish when they reconnect with the environments they were designed for. Greg McEwen showed us that understanding begins when another person truly feels heard. Marcus Buckingham demonstrated that people flourish when they feel seen, and Katie Morton,

Adam Lane Smith, Spencer West, and Adrian Gostick each explored a different way we adapt to survive until those adaptations quietly become our identity. Different conversations, one story. Sometimes another person remembers us before we remember ourselves. And sometimes that's exactly what changes everything. That brings us to what may be the most important question of this entire series. What do you actually do once you've remembered? Because remembering isn't the finish line of this journey. It's just the invitation. Toward the end of the book, Peter finally begins to believe

what the lost boys have been telling him all along. He stops arguing with the story they've been trying to hand back to him. He remembers how to laugh. He remembers joy. He remembers what it feels like to love. And eventually, in one. unforgettable moment, he remembers how to fly. For years, I thought that scene was about a man recovering his confidence.

I don't think that anymore. I think it was about a man recovering his trust. It is the moment Peter trusts that the person he had buried beneath decades of responsibility was still alive inside him. He trusts that the adaptations, which helped him survive, didn't have to define the rest of his life. He trusts that he doesn't need to invent a new identity because the one he thought he had lost never actually disappeared. And once he trusts that, something remarkable happens. He no longer waits for the world to give him permission to be himself.

He gives that permission to himself. I wonder what that threshold looks like in your own life. Maybe it's finally having the conversation you've been postponing, because protecting the image has become easier than telling the truth. Maybe it's letting someone help carry a burden. You've convinced yourself you have to carry a loan. Maybe it's walking through your front door tonight and deciding that the people you love deserve your full attention

more than your inbox does. Maybe it's returning to something that once made you feel completely alive before it became another way of measuring your worth. Picking up the guitar, writing again, building something with your hands, spending an afternoon outside, calling the friend you've been thinking about for months. You don't do those things because they magically solve your life. You do them because they reconnect you with it.

As I look back across this entire month, I don't think these conversations were ever asking different questions. They were all asking the same one. What happens when we forget who we are? The connection crisis was never only about our relationships with other people. It was about the gradual distance that formed between who we truly are and who we learned we needed to become. The courage to become yourself isn't about creating someone new. It's about trusting that the person you've been searching for has been there all along, waiting for you to come home. I've been thinking a lot lately about what happens to Peter after the credits roll.

We all remember the moment he flies. We remember the battle with Captain Hook. We remember the lost boy's sense. Remember, the lost boy is celebrating as Peter finally remembers who he is. But that's not really how the story ends. The real ending is that Peter goes home. He doesn't stay in Neverland. He doesn't walk away from his family.

And he doesn't reject adulthood. He returns to the exact same life he left behind. The same wife, the same children, the same responsibilities, the same career, waiting for him on Monday morning. What changes isn't his life. it's him. He's no longer living as a man who has forgotten himself. He's no longer measuring every moment by productivity or urgency. He returns to his family with a different way of seeing them, and in doing so, the life he already had becomes a completely different experience. I think that's what flourishing really is. It isn't finding a different life. It's returning to the

life you already have with a different heart, a different perspective, and a renewed awareness of who you are. As we bring this month-long journey to a close, I'd like to leave you with three questions. They are questions to answer immediately. They're questions to carry with you over the next few days. Let them sit quietly in the background and notice what begins to surface. The first is this. We're in your life. Have you mistaken adaptation? for identity. Where have you been living from a script that once protected you, but no longer reflects the person you want to become? The second question is one of gratitude. Who helped you remember yourself? Think about the teacher who believed in you before you believed in yourself. The mentor who

challenged you, the friend who stayed when life became difficult, the leader who saw potential you couldn't yet see. Have you ever taken the time to thank them for the role that they played in in your story. And finally, who in your life is waiting for someone to remember them? Someone around you is carrying a burden you can't see. Someone is wondering whether they matter, whether they belong, whether anyone truly sees them. You may become the person who reminds them of something they've forgotten about themselves. Before we can begin a flourishing life, we have to remember the person who's going to live it.

That brings us to where we're headed next. Throughout July, we're beginning a brand new series called Flourishing, how humans become fully alive. Over the past month, we've explored why we become so disconnected. Now we're going to explore what it actually means to thrive. What creates a flourishing life? How do our habits, our relationships,

our environments, and our daily choices shape the person we're becoming. We begin next week with Whitney Otto and a conversation about flow. Because Peter Pan didn't remember himself, thinking harder. He remembered himself by becoming fully present again. Presence is where remembering becomes living. And I think Whitney is going to challenge the way you've always thought about flow, not as a productivity tool, but as one of the doorways into a flourishing life.

You know, anything that we practice, we get better at. So if we are practicing, criticizing ourselves, looking for that part of ourselves we don't like, wishing a part of ourselves were different or all of ourselves were different. We are practicing wanting to be different, want and not liking ourselves and thinking we need to fix ourselves. And that practice can follow us into other areas of our lives, right? Until then, I want to leave you with one final thought. The goal was never to become someone else. It was never about chasing a better version of yourself. It was always about remembering who you are so you could finally live from that place. Because the Life that has been waiting for you was never somewhere else.

It's always been waiting patiently inside the person you've been all along. I'm John Miles, and you've been Passion Struck.