Passion Struck with John R. Miles - What AI Can’t Teach: The Power of Emotional Awareness w/John R. Miles | EP 687

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

What if the most advanced intelligence on Earth isn’t artificial—but emotional?In this opening episode of the new Passion Struck series, The Irreplaceables: Rediscovering Human Worth in an Age of Acceleration, host John R. Miles explores the rarest skill of all in the age of AI: how to feel.We’re racing to make machines seem human while forgetting how to be.Through powerful storytelling and science-backed insights, John reveals how we’ve optimized ourselves into emotional flatlines—mistaking numbness for strength and speed for progress.Drawing from leading experts like Dr. Zac Seidler, Dr. Zelana Montminy, and Dr. Susan David, this episode unpacks:Why emotional awareness is the root of every good thing—love, leadership, creativity, and connection.How “high-functioning despair” is stealing purpose from millions (especially men).The neuroscience behind emotional agility—and how to build it even if you’ve been numb for years.Simple Agility Reps you can practice daily to feel human again.Why the true danger isn’t AI replacing us—but us replacing ourselves.If you’ve ever felt like you’re running faster yet feeling less, this episode is your call to pause, breathe, and remember what makes you irreplaceable.Read the full show notes here:Listen + Watch + Go DeeperAll episode resources—including my books You Matter, Luma and Passion Struck, The Ignited Life Substack, and the Start Mattering store—are gathered here: 👉 linktr.ee/John_R_MilesTo go deeper, download the free companion guide: The Emotional Agility Toolkit — available now at https://www.theignitedlife.net/p/what-ai-cant-feel-and-why-im-scaredInside, you’ll find prompts and “Agility Reps” to help you rebuild emotional awareness, reconnect with your values, and reclaim your humanity in an automated world.Support the MovementEveryone deserves to feel seen, valued, and like they matter. Show it. Wear it. Live it.👉 StartMattering.comSee 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're racing to make machines seem human while forgetting how to be human ourselves. That thought hit me hard the other night as I was scrolling through yet another story about an AI therapist, an AI songwriter, an AI coach. And I couldn't shake the question. If machines can fake empathy, what happens to ours? Because here's the truth. Algorithms can predict emotion, but they can't feel it. They can simulate care. but they can't mean it, and that's the difference. The gap between recognition and resonance is where our humanity still lives. This week, we're opening a new series called The Irreplaceables.

It's about what makes us human when everything else can be automated. 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 changemakers, 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, it's John Miles, your host, your guide, your fellow traveler on this wild ride called Passionstruck. If you're here again this week, thank you. Like, actually thank you. And if this is your first time, welcome. Seriously, you're not just hitting play. You're choosing to show up for yourself, and that means everything. A quick favor before we dive in. Hit and send this to one person who's been running on fumes. You know exactly who they are. are. Drop a five-star review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. It takes 30 seconds and it helps new ears

find these conversations that matter. It means the world. Subscribe to the podcast over on YouTube where we have over 200,000 subscribers. All right, new series alert, the irreplaceables. In a world of deepfakes, bots and virtual everything, what still makes you irreplaceable? That's the question we're answering in this series. Let's be real. Life's moving fast. Your phone buzzes before you blank. Your inbox owns your morning, and somewhere in the chaos, we forget to feel. So today, we're slowing it down. We're starting with the one thing no AI can ever get right. Emotional awareness, not control your feelings, not perform happiness, just noticing. The moment when you go, huh, I'm feeling something, and that's okay.

In this episode on what AI can't teach, the power of emotional awareness we're unpacking why this is the root of every good thing. Love, leadership, creativity, connection, how to build it, even if you've been numb for years. And what happens when we don't? Like the silent crisis stealing men's lives, not from weakness, but from shutting down. The quiet moment when you feel something before you fix it, post it, or push it down. Along the way, we'll revisit insights for my interviews from earlier this week with Dr. Zach Seidler, who revealed why men across the world are experiencing a silent matter in crisis and how emotional restriction, not weakness, is costing lives. We'll also draw from Dr. Zalana Momini, who taught us that emotional fitness

isn't about never falling. It's about building the strength to get back up again and again with intention. So, as you listen today, do one thing for me. Pause. Breathe. Check in. Ask yourself, what am I actually feeling before I fix it, post it, or push through? That little pause?

That's your superpower. That's your errone. replaceable. That's what no algorithm can steal. And remember, I want you to apply what you hear on this podcast. So take the next step. Go to the ignitedlife.net, our substack, where you can get the companion guide for today's episode. Okay. Thank you for choosing Passionstruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. Let's start with a moment you'll probably recognize. It's 6.7 a.m. Your alarm hums. The sun's still asleep. Your thumb? Wide awake. Phone. Unlock. Scroll. Email Slack. Headlines screaming for

your outrage. Your applause. Your anything. Seven minutes in and you've already forgotten why you even picked it up. Sounds familiar? We call this keeping up, but keeping up with what exactly? Here's the dirty little secret of progress. We're moving faster than ever and feeling less alive than ever. Tech promised freedom, it delivered speed, and somewhere along the way, we traded presence of productivity. We didn't just automate tasks. We outsourced our inner life. That's the real cost of this age. Not just jobs or privacy, but emotional displacement. Machines don't need rest. We do. Machines don't feel lonely. We do. And yet most of us live like we've forgotten the difference. Earlier this week, I talked to Dr. Zach Seidler about this.

He's the head of research at Movember and studies men's mental health. Why so many of us are silently breaking, not from weakness, but from performing strength. He calls it emotional lockdown. The script we all got handed is don't feel too much, don't share too much, don't need too much. The result were pros at spreadsheets and amateurs at sadness. We can crush KPIs but can't name what's crushing us. Zach said something in the interview that hit really hard. When we silence emotion, we silence connection. That's the real epidemic beneath the matter in crisis, not just feeling unseen, but losing.

the words to say we feel unseen. Because emotional awareness isn't about being soft. It's about being strong enough to feel in a world that rewards speed over substance. We've bought the lie that faster equals better. But acceleration without awareness, that's not progress. That's burnout in motion. And here's what no AI will ever do. It can't pause in the middle of panic. It can't hear what's not being said. It certainly can't can't feel awe at the sight of rain after a long drought. Those aren't skills, they're signals, they're proof you're alive. And that's what this series that irreplaceables is all about, not beating machines, but remembering what they will never be, wonder, awareness, care.

So let me ask you, when was the last time you slowed down long enough to feel your own life? not post it, not optimize it, just feel it. Messy, real, unfiltered. Because the opposite of speed isn't laziness, it's stillness. And that stillness, that's where the magic begins. Stay with me. Okay, let's talk about numbness, not the dramatic, fall on the floor kind, the sneaky kind that doesn't scream because it whispers.

You're still crushing it at work, still hitting send, still showing up. You just don't feel it anymore. Zach calls us high-functioning despair. The person who's killing it on the outside while the lights go out on the inside. We've studied this for years, especially men, but honestly, it's all of us. We've built a world that celebrates stoic, productive, always on, and quietly shames anything that looks like need. Zach told me, we've raised a generation. that can name every app on their phone, but not the last time they felt joy.

Ooh, that one landed. Because it's not just men. It's men and women, millions of them all over the world. It's the mattering crisis. We're busier than ever, but we don't feel like we matter more. Instead, we feel replaceable,

so we hustle harder, thinking, if I just do more, I'll feel more. But all that motion, it just widens the gap. Numbness feels safe until it's a cage. It's the burnout no one sees, not on the spreadsheet, but in the mirror. The blank stare that says, I don't know who I am when I'm not performing. When Zach's clients finally walk into therapy, they don't say I'm sad. They say, I'm stuck. I'm angry. I don't feel anything anymore. It's not weakness. It's emotional

illiteracy. We never learned the words so the feelings don't vanish. They just hide, and overwork in control, in silence. And that silence, it spreads. Through offices where exhaustion is a flex, through marriages where love becomes logistics, through friendships where I'm fine is the only acceptable answer. We say, I'll feel better when things slow down, but they never do. We have to. Not collapsing under feelings, but moving with them. And here's the wildest part. When men learn to name their emotions, suicide rates drop drastically.

Connection rises. Purpose reboots. That's not woo-woo. That's neuroscience. Your emotions aren't noise. Their data telling you what you value, what you fear, what you need. Ignore them? You lose the map.

Listen, you find your way. So let me get personal for a second. After the Navy, I thought I'd left intensity behind. Nope, I just swapped uniforms. Meetings became missions. Deadlines became deployments. And under all that hustle, I started hearing the hollow hum. The one that says motion, but no meaning.

I wasn't burned out from working too hard. I was burned out from feeling too little. That's the real cost of numbness. It doesn't kill your output. It kills your presence. So here are some questions I'd like to address to you, the listener. When was the last time you let yourself feel joy without earning it first? When did you last say, I'm not okay without apologizing?

And when did you stop performing fine? If you can't remember, it's not failure. That's your starting line. Because numbness isn't the end of feeling. It's a signal. Your emotions are still in there waiting to be found. and that's exactly why I wrote You Matter Luma. You see, this

episode is about waking up the emotional feelings before they're lost for good. You Matter Luma does the same for kids. A little bunny who feels invisible until she learns her emotions, her voice, her light matter. Because emotional fitness doesn't start when we're adults,

it starts the first time a child is told, it's okay to feel. If you have a child, a niece, a nephew, a grandchild, or perhaps it's just the kid in you who's still needs to hear it. Pre-order UMatterluma at Barnes & Noble or at you matterluma.com. Every copy helps you put this message into classrooms, homes, and hearts that need it most. Now, a quick word from our sponsors. Thank you for supporting those who support the show. It keeps Passion Struck free and growing.

You're listening to Passion Struck on the Passion Struck network. Okay, let's flip the script. We've talked about numbness. Now we build the comeback. with the master. Harvard psychologist Susan David, author of Emotional Agility, dropped a line that's reshaped how I think about this topic. Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life. And Susan's framework is gold. She says, first you need to show up. Don't dodge the feeling. Face it. Then you need to step out. See it for what it is. Data, not destiny. And then walk your why. Act on your values. Act on your values. not your mood. We hit the gym for biceps. We meditate for focus, but when do we train our hearts

to bend without breaking? That's emotional agility, or as Dr. Zelana Momini calls it, emotional fitness, not perpetual happiness, but the strength to rise every time you fall with intention. Together they prove a truth we've forgotten. Emotions aren't bugs, they're features. Fear, joy, grief? Each one's a data point about what matters most. Ignore them and you lose your internal GPS. You lose your internal GPS. The real danger isn't feeling too much. It's feeling nothing long enough to forget how. AI, it never has to recover. It never wakes up at 3m. wondering, what's it all for? We do. And that's the point. We've optimized everything except the thing that keeps us human. We push until the body quits, the mind fogs, the hurt ghost. Then we're

shocked we can't find purpose. But here's what Susan's research proves. Emotionally agile people don't just bounce back. They bounce forward. They turn failure into fuel, pain into perspective, setbacks into setup. That's not grit. That's awareness and motion. And it starts with one question, Susan drills into every single client she works with. She asks, them, what is this emotion telling me about what I value? That question is your training ground. The moment life knocks the wind out of you and you choose to breathe anyway. Let me show you how this works in real life. During her interview, Zalana told me about Maya, an ICU nurse who'd seen too much death. One shift, she snapped at a patient's family. Afterwards, she locked herself in the

supply closet and wept. Instead of shaming herself, she did a recovery. rep. She put Susan's framework into action. Maya showed up and paused and said to herself, I'm shaking. Then she stepped out and named what she was feeling. This is burnout and heartbreak. Then Maya walked her Y and did a value check. What is it that I need? Rest, boundaries, meaning. And then she aligned and acted. She took a sabbatical, and then she started a peer support group for nurses. Fast forward. Now she's back, stronger, kinder, more alive than ever. The result, one closet, one pause, one life reclaimed. Maya's story isn't an exception. It's evidence. You see, AI can't sit in a supply closet and feel the weight of a life lost. AI can't look a child in the eye and say, I miss you. An AI certainly can't turn grief into a support group that saves others.

But you can. Here's your real-life agility. rep. First, recall. Think of a moment this week you reacted instead of responding. Name it. Say it out loud. I was overwhelmed. I was hurt. Then do a value check. What does this tell me I care about? And then act. One small move. Text the apology. Take the walk. Close the laptop. That's it. One rep, one story, one muscle growing. Because emotional fitness isn't built in theory. It's built in the mess. feel, fail, and rise anyway. And that rise, it's yours. So how do you actually live this? Because emotional agility isn't something you learn once. It's something you train, like breathwork for the soul, like strength training for your inner life. Emotional agility isn't a seminar. It's daily reps. And the

problem is most people wait for a breakdown to start. Don't. You build this muscle in the micro moments that I talk about all the time on this podcast. There are the spaces between your calendar blocks, texts, and to-dos. That's where emotional awareness is born. In the pause before the reaction, in the breath before the email, in the question before the judgment. Zalana calls these micro-recovers, tiny recalibrations that keep you human in a machine speed world. Let's walk through three with real stories. The first scenario is the morning scroll. And here we're going to feature Sarah, 34 and a marketing executive. Siri used to wake up, she'd grab her phone, and then she'd spiral into comparison before

she took her first drip of coffee. Until one day, she paused. She named what she was feeling. I feel small. Then she performed a value check. She said to herself, I care about impact. And then she took action. She closed Instagram.

She opened her notebook, took out a pen, and wrote one idea. now she starts every day with creation, not consumption. The result, one breath, one pivot, one life reclaimed. Then we have the second scenario, the midday collision. And here we have Mike, who's 42, and he's a vice president at a Fortune 500 company. He's in a lunchtime, important meeting, and suddenly he's cut off mid-sentence. The old Mike, he would do a slack rant. However, the new Mike putting into practice what we're talking about today paused, literally, he counted to three. Then he named what he was feeling. I'm dismissed. Then he did a value check. What is it that he wanted? Respect. And then he realign enacted. He said, hey team, I wasn't finished.

Let me land this. The result? The team respected him more. And that night he slept better. The result? One sentence, one boundary, one later reborn. And then we have the third scenario. This was me last Tuesday. House was quiet. My mind. was loud, replaying a call I had bombed earlier the day where I was trying to recruit a new podcast host under the Passion Struck Network. Old me, I would doom scroll. Knew me, I paused. I put the phone face down, and then I named what I was feeling. This is shame. And then I looked at the scenario and said, what is the value that I want from this? Growth. So I lined and took action. I texted my mentor, and I told him, I just messed up really bad. But here's what I learned. His reply,

I'm proud of you for owning it. What I learned from that is just with one text and one truth, that spiral stopped. These three scenarios aren't hero moments. They're human moments. And they're yours to claim. With the four-step daily rep that we've been talking about, first you pause. You take one conscious breath. Second, you name what it is your feeling. Out loud, if you can. Third, you then name what you value and then align. What does that value point to? And what's one tiny action that you can take? That's it. And science backs it. Every named emotion rewires your amygdala and every aligned action strengthens your prefrontal cortex. You're literally upgrading your brain one pause at a time. You see, AI can't feel the sting of being cut off.

AI can't turn shame into a text. And AI can't choose presence over scroll. but you can. So here's your challenge. Three reps today, morning, midday, night. Then tag me on X or Instagram at hashtag agility rep. I'll rep post everyone I see because emotional fitness isn't control. It's connection and connection the felt kind is the most irreplaceable tech on earth. So as you step back into your day, remember this. Your emotions aren't obstacles to progress. They are progress. They're proof that you're still alive, still feeling, still becoming. That's your edge. That's your humanity.

That's what AI can never teach. If today's episode sparked even one pause, one moment where you felt more alive, more you, then pay the fee. Share this episode with someone who's been running on empty. Leave a five-star rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify. And want to go deeper, head to the ignitedlife.net. Our substack for key takeaways. the agility rep worksheets and companion guides to train your emotional muscles all week.

And don't forget to pre-order my new children's book, You Matter Luma, and Barnes & Noble. Because teaching kids to pause, name, and line, that's how we raise the next generation of irreplaceables. Next week, we continue our series with a special conversation featuring Elias Wise Friedman, or as millions know them as the doggist, on the empathy behind the lens and what dogs can teach us about presence, love, and emotional truth. The dog doesn't have to ask you a question of like, how are you doing? Just being in their presence and they have an ability to listen and sense the way you're feeling. And whether it's eye contact, touch, warmth, letting you connect with them, there's just something that has a powerful way of making you feel better and de-escalating and relieving stress. They're the best listeners.

And even though they don't speak to you, they know exactly what to say. And there's also a stigma around mental health. Not everyone's going to raise their hand and say, I need help. So with a dog, you don't have to raise your hand. They just show up for you. Until next time, live with empathy, speak with intention. And as always, live life, passion struck.