Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Why Life Is About The Journey Not The Destination w/John R. Miles EP 148

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

John R. Miles - Why Life Is About The Journey Not The Destination | Brought to you by BABBEL. Save up to 60 % off your subscription when you go to https://babbel.com/PASSIONSTRUCK. If you discovered this episode of Passion Struck, you are likely on the path of self-discovery and seeking knowledge on how to do it. You are not alone. Often we focus so much on the desired end-state of our goals that we miss the essential part—our journey to achieving your aspirations. I will discuss the impediments along the way to achieving this journey and provide various ways you can stay on track to creating your best life. I do this by using the story of Cheryl Snead, an African American business leader, and philanthropist who understood why life is about the journey not the destination.  --► Full show notes: https://passionstruck.com/life-is-about-the-journey-not-the-destination/  --► Subscribe to My YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles --► Subscribe to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/passion-struck-with-john-r-miles/id1553279283. *Our Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/passionstruck. Thank you, Babbel, for sponsoring the podcast: * This episode of Passion Struck with John R. Miles is brought to you by Babbel which is the new way to learn a foreign language. Save up to 60 % off your subscription when you go to https://babbel.com/PASSIONSTRUCK. CHARITY Vet Solutions - https://vetsolutions.org Heroic Hearts - https://www.heroicheartsproject.org Warrior Angels Foundation - https://warriorangelsfoundation.org What I discuss about why life is about the journey, not the destination: 0:00 Introduction and announcements 2:37 Why life is the journey, not the destination 5:15 How Cheryl Snead adapted and found joy along her journey 10:06 Why do we lose sight that life is a journey, not a destination? 12:35 What are the implications of focusing only on the end results and not the journey? 14:55 How do you focus on and enjoy the journey? 16:41 Why you cannot afford to postpone living the life you want to live 18:30 Analysis and wrap-up Show Links Questions for you and your friends or family members to discuss this episode: Why do we focus on the destination and not the steps along the path? Do you take the time to celebrate the small victories along your journey? What is a recent example of one? What did you find most inspiring about the story of Cheryl Snead? What can you learn about the hindrances that get in our way? Are you experiencing any of them? How? What three things can you do to alter how you approach your journey? What steps will you take after hearing today's episode to change your approach to going after your most meaningful goals? Interested in reading the transcript for the episode   Check it out: https://johnrmiles.com/why-life-is-a-journey-not-a-destination/  My episode on why you should never believe a prediction that doesn't ignite you: https://passionstruck.com/never-believe-a-prediction-that-doesnt-ignite-you/ My interview with Jordan Harbinger on Why Legacy is Greater Than Currency:  https://passionstruck.com/jordan-harbinger-on-why-building-your-legacy-is-greater-than-currency/ My interview with Admiral James Stavridis on To Risk it All: https://passionstruck.com/admiral-james-stavridis-to-risk-it-all/  My interview with Kegan Gill on how to not just survive in life but thrive: https://passionstruck.com/kegan-gill-on-how-to-thrive-in-life/  My interview with Gretchen Rubin: https://passionstruck.com/gretchen-rubin-the-key-to-happiness/ My interview with former Dr. Michelle Segar: https://passionstruck.com/dr-michelle-segar-the-joy-choice/ My interview with David Vago on Meditation:  https://passionstruck.com/dr-david-vago-on-self-transcendence/ Are you having trouble prioritizing yourself   John discusses the importance of self-love in Episode 104 Follow John on the Socials: * Twitter: https://twitter.com/Milesjohnr * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m * Medium: https://medium.com/@JohnRMiles ​* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_r_miles * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milesjohn/ * Blog: https://johnrmiles.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast/ * Gear: https://www.zazzle.com/store/passion_struck/ -- John R Miles is a serial entrepreneur and the CEO and founder of Passion Struck. His full-service media company helps people live intentionally by creating best-in-class educational and entertainment content. John is also a prolific public speaker, venture capitalist, and author named to the ComputerWorld Top 100 IT Leaders.

Coming up next on the Passion Struck Podcast, life is precious and every moment of it should be cherished. Only paying attention to our journey can we truly live our purpose and not merely go through the motions. Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John Armeyles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays.

We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Momentum Friday, an episode 148 of PassionStruck, one of the top 25 health and fitness podcasts in the world. Thank you to all of you who come back weekly to listen and learn, had to live better, be better, and impact the world. In case you missed our episodes from earlier this week, I interviewed Columbia Business School Professor Michael Slepian, who's a foremost

expert in the world on the psychology of secrets. And we discuss his new book, The Secret Life of Secrets. I also had on Dr. Scott Schur, who is one of the foremost experts in the world on hyperbaric oxygen therapy, mixed with integrative medicine and how you can use that to help support things like chronic conditions, but also keep performance. In case you missed my solo episode from last week, it was on the importance of microchoises, something that we're gonna build on in today's episode as well. Please check them all out if you haven't had a chance. I also wanted to acknowledge Stephen Myers,

our fan of the week, Stephen writes, to risk it all. John, the interview you did with Admiral Stavridis was truly incredible. It was very apparent the bond you two shared as veterans. You did a great job leading the discussion, and it was very apparent the bond you two shared as veterans. You did a great job leading the discussion and it was one of the best interviews that I've ever seen Admiral Stavry to give. Nice job. Thank you so much, Steven, for your review and thank you to all of you

who leave ratings and reviews for the show. It means so much in helping us achieve the popularity that we have and for also achieving over a million downloads. And if there's an episode like today's or the ones I've mentioned that you truly love, would you please forward them to friends or family members to share weekly doses of inspiration and get the word out about the passion-struck community? Now, let's talk about today's episode. We all set objectives and aim for certain destinations.

And we do this during different phases of our life. These goals can range from losing weight to achieving an academic degree to attaining a particular position or career aspiration. However, after setting these goals, many people fail to pay attention to the process, dedication, and daily intentions it takes to achieve them. Thus, they miss out on all the opportunities and benefits that come along the journey. I love reading thriller novels. The stories usually have a complex plot with twists and turns that make you eager to understand how the book is going to end.

But if you just skip to the last chapter, you certainly lose the beauty and satisfaction of the story and you won't fully grasp what exactly happened and how the characters develop along the way. The reality of life is very similar. No one knows how our journey is going to end and it is extremely important to have a life plan with things in it that we want to accomplish. However, I have found through my own journey that if we focus too much on the eventual outcome, we not only miss out on many of life's great moments, but we fail to take advantage of the daily opportunities that come along and relationships that we find

along the path to actually achieving our aspirations. So one of my biggest life lessons has been to not wait until I have it all figured out before taking daily intentional action. I've also found it extremely important to try and enjoy the experience of the journey, so I can maximize opportunities that come along the way and become the best version of myself. This frankly hasn't always been easy for me to do, as my girlfriend would attest.

I tend to be my own worst enemy by not celebrating the small victories that come along with the journey, and in turn being overly self-critical. Last week I covered the importance of microchoises and how they are the pinnacle decision points along our journeys of achieving the goals that we want to have in life. In today's episode I'm going to build upon that episode and educate you on why you may be losing your focus along your own journey and present you with ways that you can stay present and successfully enjoy the ride, achieving your goals. To better articulate the point of today's lesson, let us first take a look at successful entrepreneur, business leader, and philanthropist Cheryl Sneed.

We learned how to adapt and make the necessary changes along her life's journey. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life now. Let the journey begin. Cheryl Sneed was born in Anglewood, New Jersey. On May 18th, 1958, she was raised in a loving environment and provided an adequate education that filled her mind with knowledge and allowed her to dream as big as she possibly could. Growing up, she would often ponder what she wanted to do with her life, but didn't really have a clear answer. Then on the night of July 20th, 1969, now aged 11, she watched on TV as Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. And this got her so intrigued for wanting to become an astronaut. As she grew up, she learned that most astronauts had a background in science and engineering. So she

took science and math classes all throughout school, still driven by her long-term goal of becoming an astronaut. Then, when she was about 15, she got on her first plane ride and was very sick. Subsequently, this happened to her on a few other plane rides, and she decided that becoming an astronaut was probably not the best fit for her after all. However, she had developed a love for math and science. Enjoy taking things apart and putting them back together. She loved to design and solve problems, so she made a deliberate decision to pursue her passion of becoming an engineer.

She attended and graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, becoming the first African-American woman to do so. And although she didn't have any exact plan on where to work, nor did she know exactly what she wanted to be past getting her degree. She continued to pay close attention to the process that she was on. More importantly, she intentionally engaged in it. Her actions directly led her aligning a job with general electric.

Cheryl then doubled down on her deliberate choices to achieve her goals, which allowed her to excel in her career at general electric. However, she knew that general electric wasn't the end of the journey for her. It was really only a beginning. So she decided to go and get a master's degree from the Cranet School of Management at Purdue University, and she later received an honorary doctorate degree in business administration from Bryant University. After getting her master's

degree, when the opportunity came to take on an active role in a small business, Cheryl pursued it, she founded Bannaker Industries, which provides supply chain management solutions, value added warehousing, and logistics services. Bannaker is named after Benjamin Bannaker, the first African-American mathematician, astronomer, and inventor. Cheryl pushed Bannaker Industries to remarkable heights for nearly 30 years before her untimely passing, becoming one of the country's most successful women and leaders of a minority owned firm. One of Cheryl's and her company's most notable accomplishments was receiving the U.S. National Subcontractor of the Year in 2008, including a private lunch with President George W. Bush. Cheryl was also considered President Obama's candidate pool for small business administrator in 2012.

During President Obama's 2014 visit to Rhode Island, she actually had the opportunity to meet with him in person. She served on several charitable and for-profit boards, both locally and nationally. She often said, when my career and life's journey is over, I want to be remembered that I managed with enthusiasm, led with passion and led as a servant. From Cheryl's needs story, the following questions can be drawn. Why do we lose sight of the value of our journeys? What are the implications of only focusing on the end results? How do you focus on and actually enjoy the journey?

Listen on as I now delve into each one of those questions. We'll be right back to the Passion Struck podcast. This year, one of my goals is to try to revive my Spanish for an upcoming trip I have to Puerto Rico with Babel, the language learning app, that sold more than 10 million subscriptions. Not only is learning a new language fun, the whole Babel process

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helps you improve your pronunciation and accent. Start your new language journey today with Babel. And right now, save up to 60% off your subscription. When you go to Babel.com slash passion struct, that's B-A-B-B-E-L. .com slash passion struct for up to 60% off your subscription, Babel. Language for life. Now, back to passion struck. So why do we lose sight of the value of our journeys?

As children, we often dream about what we want to become in the future. A professional athlete, a doctor, a lawyer, a fireman, an engineer, a soldier, and so on. It's easy to have a dream. However, none of us are fully aware of the path and the steps that it takes to reach those career destinations. Like Cheryl, many of us choose our focus because of our upbringing. Someone we know or see who's in a profession

or simply because it peaks in interest inside of us. But then we grow up and the reality of our abilities in relation to our refined desires often guides us in choosing a different career path. While some of us end up doing what we dreamed about at a young age, most end up in different places. That is because thinking of the end goal is the easy part. The hard part is identifying the specifics of the destination, developing your process of achieving it, and then actually making the deliberate daily microchois. We also must push past the inevitable barriers that will arise along our journeys.

As you can see, there are many reasons why we fail to achieve our goals. Former US President Teddy Roosevelt famously said, nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain and difficulty. And there's a reason for that. As I learned during my interview with behavioral scientist Dr. Michelle Seager, we are conditioned from an early age to understand how to start and stop but not sustain. And this is where the problem lies. We often lose sight of the importance of our journeys because our minds become so fixed on the end results that we become rigid and

impermissible to adaptation. We often stop because we become overwhelmed by the enormity of what it is we're trying to achieve and the obstacles that we encounter along the way. That is why James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, is so adamant about the power of systems. These systems are the frameworks required for us to build, improve, and execute the actions that happen along our journeys. James Clear also points out another flaw with focusing on the end result.

They are finite. Focusing solely on the end results can cause us to become oblivious to our reality in our current lives and the microchois that are required to attain those goals. We lose obvious opportunities to advance towards the very goals we want to achieve or new ones that could be birthed along the journey. So with that as a backdrop, what are the implications of focusing only on the end results and not the journey? The first is you can get easily bored and distracted. The activities

that lead up to your goal will include mundane and often difficult things to achieve, but if you care only about the end goal and not the actual process and being engaged with it, you will start and stop, but not sustain. Second, it creates self-doubt. Not meeting a goal within your set time frame can feel like failure. Thus, by not focusing on the process, you won't be able to properly appreciate the microsteps that you're taking towards your goal and might begin to doubt your abilities to reach them. Third, it can cause undue stress. Stress is one of the biggest issues that people are facing today, and it's coming in all

kinds of different forms from chronic loneliness, hopelessness, apathy, so many different ways. The problem occurs when we fail to allow ourselves to enjoy the process. Instead, we get caught up in the constant pressure of having to achieve more. This causes unnecessary stress to build up, which is one of the major things that is causing burnout for so many today across the world. Fourth, we become impatient and make wrong choices. We often try to short-circuit the path to our destination. Doing so often causes us to derail ourselves from actually being on the right path. According to research, focusing solely on one's goals can undermine our ability to achieve it. Fifth, it can lead us to losing our joy. There will always be external factors beyond you

that can affect your achievement of your goal. By paying attention only to the goals, you will allow yourself and your joy to be dependent on something that's outside your immediate control and can easily lose it. Do you have a topic like today's that you would like to see us cover? You can reach us at Momentum Friday at passionstruck.com.

Keep your emails concise. Use a descriptive subject line. That keeps things easy for us. Reach out to us if there's a topic you're interested in learning about. There's something that maybe you're going through, any big decision that you're wrestling with, or perhaps you just want a new perspective on work, love, or life. Whatever's got you staying up at night, hit us up at Momentum Friday at PassionStruck.com. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. Now, back to PassionStruck. So now that I've given some of the reasons we shouldn't focus on the end result, how do you focus on and enjoy the journey? Author Lewis Carroll said, if you do not know where you're going,

any road will get you there. Without a destination or goal in view, one will drift around without getting anywhere. However, while looking forward to a goal, you must pay close attention to your plans and the process towards achieving it. The following are ways to focus on, enjoy and get all the benefits of the journey towards achieving your goals. Stay flexible and adaptable so that you will be able to recognize new opportunities and tackle unforeseen challenges along your journey to achieving your goal. Journal or document to highlight and amplify the preciousness of moments along your journey. Keep your attention on what you can control to help you get the best out of your current situations and do your best in the present. Learn and apply patience to avoid making rash decisions and learn how to see in failure lessons that only help you to become better in achieving

your end goal. Stay positive and live every day with gratitude so that you are able to see the good in your journey and to stay both mentally and physically healthy to accomplish your goal. Share your experiences with others to encourage and provide helpful lessons during their journeys. By helping someone else, you will also feel good and encouraged, unwind and engage in fun activities to help you relieve any unnecessary pressure and refresh your mind and body. Prioritize and constantly take action to recognize the resources that are at your disposal and what they can accomplish in the present. And lastly, intentionally celebrate every portion of the journey.

All those important small victories shape you ultimately become and what you accomplish at the end of the day. So I've covered a lot here today, so let me wrap this up for you and synthesize it. Life is precious and every moment of it should be cherished. Only by paying attention to the journey, can we truly live our purpose and not merely go through the motions. In the words of renowned author Greg Anderson, focus on the journey, not the destination.

For joy, it's not found in finishing an activity, but in doing it. This statement succinctly points out that you cannot postpone living the life that you want to live in doing it intentionally. Because as humans, once we reach a mark, we begin to aim for more. As the emotions never last, and will always return to one's baseline. This phenomenon is known as adonic adaptation, and it occurs for both positive and negative events. As long as we are here, our goals will always extend.

So you need to enjoy and focus on each moment. Even the unpleasant ones can teach you important lessons. They can build within you qualities like tenacity, grit, integrity, and discipline among many other qualities. It's easy to believe that you'll start creating the life that you want tomorrow. But so often, we postpone. So so later never comes and motivation dies out. That is why it is so important for us to be intentional about the microchoises that we make every day. That is where you will find

joy. Remember that all you have control of is your present and when you do your best in it and focus on your journey, it can lead to destinations far more unimaginable than what you first dreamed about. Begin with everyday things. When going to work, talk or smile at someone. Watch the sunrise and sunset. Assist someone else with a task and savor every moment of your waking day. When you apply all of these things, you will begin to experience life on a new level and

each moment will be one to be treasured. I wish you a rich and fulfilling life filled with joy, peace, and love in every moment. And thank you for coming here. And I hope this lesson was impactful for you. And if you're new to the show or you would just like to share this with a friend or family member, we now have episode starter packs

that are both unspodified and the PassionStruck website. These are collections of your favorite episodes that we have organized into different topics, such as overcoming adversity, relationship advice, how to lead a PassionStruck life, keep the performance in so many more. Just go to passionstruck.com, slash starter packs to get started.

And if there's a topic like today's that you want me to cover or someone you would like to see me interview, please reach out to us on any of the social channels or send us an email at Momentum Friday at PassionStruck.com now go out there yourself and become PassionStruck. Thank you so much for joining us. The purpose of our show is to make Passion Go viral and we do that by sharing with you the knowledge and skills that you need to unlock your hidden potential. If you want to hear more, please subscribe to the PassionStruck podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you listen to your podcast ad.

And if you absolutely love this episode, we'd appreciate a five-star rating on iTunes. And you're sharing it with three of your most group-minded friends, so they can post it as well to their social accounts and help us grow our passion-struck community. If you'd like to learn more about the show and our mission, you can go to passionstruck.com where you can sign up for our newsletter, look at our tools, and also download the show notes for today's episode. Additionally, you can listen to us every Tuesday and Friday, or even more inspiring content. And remember, make a choice, work hard, and step into your sharp edges. Thank you again for joining us. you