Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Why Personal Growth Comes on the Other Side of Pain w/John R. Miles EP 199

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

Often times hardship halts even the best of us in our tracks. It becomes this heavy weight that stops us from becoming our best selves. But in this episode of the Passion Struck podcast, I will explain why experiencing pain in life allows the vast, dormant power within you to awaken and express itself. I will build upon this premise by discussing my own personal journey and how I experienced pain and grew from it. But, more importantly, I will explain how my story applies to you and how you can turn to experiencing pain as a pathway for personal growth.  -► Get the full show notes for all resources from today's episode: https://passionstruck.com/growth-lies-other-side-of-experiencing-pain/  -► Want the transcript: https://johnrmiles.com/why-experiencing-pain-is-the-pathway-to-growth/  --► Prefer to watch this episode: https://youtu.be/_j9RwbloUY8  --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles --► Subscribe to the Passion Struck Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/passion-struck-with-john-r-miles/id1553279283  Thank you, Ka'Chava and InsideTracker, For Your Support InsideTracker is the ultra-personalized performance system that analyzes biomarker data from your blood, DNA, lifestyle, and fitness tracker to help you optimize your body and reach your health & wellness goals. InsideTracker transforms your body's data into true knowledge, meaningful insights, and customized action plans of evidence-based nutrition, fitness, and lifestyle recommendations.  Just go to https://insidetracker.com/passionstruck.  Ka'Chava is your all-in-one plant-based superfood meal to fuel your mind and body. Packed with protein and the optimal blend of macronutrients + micronutrients. Go to Kachava.com/passionstruck and get 10% off your first order.   Passion Struck Podcast Starter Packs New to the show? These Starter Packs are collections of our most popular episodes grouped by topic, and we now have them also on Spotify. To find your old favorites, you can also browse starter packs for existing listeners. Every week, John interviews everyday heroes from all walks of life. Learn how to subscribe to the show and never miss a new episode and topic. Show Links My interview with Rachel Hollis: https://passionstruck.com/rachel-hollis-becoming-your-best-self/  My interview with Daniel Pink on the Power of Regret: https://passionstruck.com/daniel-pink-the-power-of-regret/ My solo episode about how your environment influences who you become: https://passionstruck.com/how-your-environment-influences-who-you-become/ My solo episode on why your brain dictates your reality: https://passionstruck.com/why-your-brain-dictates-your-reality/ My interview with Ayelet Fishbach, a professor at the Booth School of Business University of Chicago, on how to get it done, the science of motivation: https://passionstruck.com/ayelet-fishbach-get-it-done-find-the-fun-path/ My interview with Katy Milkman, Ph.D. on how to create lasting behavior change: https://passionstruck.com/katy-milkman-behavior-change-for-good/ My solo episode on why micro choices matter: https://passionstruck.com/why-your-micro-choices-determine-your-life/ 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 the CEO, and Founder of PASSION STRUCK®, the first of its kind company, focused on impacting real change by teaching people how to live Intentionally. He is on a mission to help people live a no-regrets life that exalts their victories and lets them know they matter in the world. For over two decades, he built his own career applying his research of passion-struck leadership, first becoming a Fortune 50 CIO and then a multi-industry CEO. John is also a prolific public speaker, venture capitalist, and author. Passion Struck is a full-service media company that helps people live intentionally by creating best-in-class educational and entertainment content.   

Coming up next on the PassionStruct podcast, we have a limited range of resiliency and little tolerance for processing that pain. It's essential to understand that real growth isn't just about recovering from the situation that causes you pain. It's about understanding and accepting that pain and adversity actually help you grow. Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, 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 199 of PassionStruck. Recently ranked by Apple is one of the top five most popular alternative health podcasts.

And thank you to each and every one of you who comes back weekly. And listen and learn, how to live better, be better, and impact the world. And if you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you would like to introduce this to a friend or family member, we now have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans favorite episodes that we organize into convenient topics to give any new listener a great way to get acquainted to everything we do here on the show.

Just go to passionstruck.com slash starter packs where you can also find the starter packs on Spotify. And in case you missed my episodes from earlier this week, they included the one and only Daniel Pink, who is a number one New York time bestselling author of multiple books. And in that interview, we discuss his new New York Times bestselling book, The Power of Regret. I also interviewed Andreas Widmer, director of the author and Carlis Seoca Center for principled entrepreneurship at the Catholic University of America, Bush School of Business, and we discuss Andreas' new book, The Art of Principled Entrepreneurship. I also wanted to acknowledge our fan of the week, Larry Wright, who provided this rating in the

United Kingdom. And Larry Wright's, thank you, Life Changing. John, I stumbled upon your podcast about a year ago, and it just so happens that throughout the past year, I have seen more personal growth than ever before. The topics are carefully curated, and the guests all have insights to share that will motivate you to become a better version of yourself. Thank you for helping others help themselves, And bringing on so many guests that are experts in behavioral change. Your lineup over the past few months has been nothing short of spectacular. Larry, thank you so much for that review. They go such a long way in helping us improve the popularity of the show its rankings. But most importantly, getting people like yourself

to find the podcast and join the passion structure community. Now, let's talk about today's episode. In the world of personal growth, we often discuss resiliency as a parameter for mental performance. But it wasn't until I confronted some challenging experiences from my own life that I understood how much experiencing pain could be a doorway to growth. In reflecting on that experience, however, I had a profound realization, recognizing how far I have come on my personal journey to building resiliency and self-improvement.

I have previously discussed the concept of transition points in episode 82. Transition points are moments that occur between the significant life-altering moments that happen as we go from one stage of life to another. These crucial moments could include losing a loved one, experiencing adversity, being in combat, enduring sexual assault, altering your career path, getting divorced or ending a long-term relationship, or perhaps having a midlife crisis. As significant and impact as the event itself, I believe these transition points along our journey and the choices that we make during them are what truly create growth, or alternatively lead us down the path of personal descent. During times of transition and these sometimes painful and abrupt periods of change, we cease to be our past selves and yet are not quite yet our future selves.

Transitions form a core part of our psyche. They come when you are most vulnerable. When you are faced with the question, will you build resiliency and extreme grit or succumb to the events in your life and become a victim of them. Transition points occur when you need to develop new character traits that will make you so much stronger. Befriend these transition points for what they are, a necessary condition that will promote your evolution to becoming your best self.

The pain we experience in life is actually a medium required for the vast dormant power inside you. To awaken and express itself, I will expand on this premise by discussing how I experience pain and grew from it. But more importantly, I will explain how my story applies to you and how you can turn your pain into a doorway of growth. 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. 7 years ago, I desperately needed to change the course of my life. I knew my life needed to change, but I was afraid to face the work that such a change would require. And I'm sure so many who were listening to this understand what I'm talking about. So my psyche pushed me head

first into it, presenting me with an entire slate of traumatic experiences, a messy end to a 22 year marriage. The loss of what I thought was my dream job of finally becoming a CEO, dealing from the fallout of personal assault when I confronted an armed burglar in my home. And then the icing on the cake was losing my best friend to suicide, and all that happened within the span of one year. I have to admit, my emotional cup was overflowing, and I felt like just one more thing would push me ultimately over the edge. I had also become really great at suppressing

my emotions and internalizing my pain, instead of properly confronting it and choosing to deal with it by seeking external help. But eventually, I did seek out that help. I went through a long period of therapy. They included talk therapy, cognitive processing therapy, neuropsychological testing, and prolonged exposure therapy. It was one of the darkest periods of my life, as I confronted not only my most recent painful experiences, but also that which I experienced long ago during combat and as a child. Eventually, I was able to process the traumas and get past my stock points. I faced the darkest corners and hidden places inside me. I chose to embrace the experience as a season of learning.

That was ultimately a gift and something that would make me a much better and stronger person on the other side. I incorporated it into my sense of self as I emerged a more secure self-aware and resilient person. It was as if I had gone through a metaphorical journey of putting my old self-tarest and awakening on the other side as a new improved version of myself. I emerged knowing that if I could come out at the other side of a traumatic year, I could overcome just about anything that life threw at me. However, I made the mistake of thinking that my transition was complete after that one traumatic year. I thought I had become a stronger

and improved self only to come face-to-face with the reality that I was still using old defense and coping strategies. Additionally, I was still attached to my prior comforts, past conceptions of value, and past self. To grow, I needed to question my beliefs about myself and realize that what I used to value no longer served me. Fully embracing my life's path and direction now requires that I focus less on myself and dedicate my life to helping others overcome their own hurdles to become their best selves. So how does my story apply to you? When our personal security is endangered, most of us default to going on the attack, becoming defensive while numbing our pain in order to sue ourselves. This feeling of safety isn't only in the physical sense, you can also feel unsafe when

you sense an attack on your beliefs, values, and awareness, for which you see yourself and the world around you. To develop resiliency and childhood, you need to feel love and acceptance. This went beyond just being seen, to also feeling like you were protected. As you grow older, you receive subtle signals that you might need to adapt from the person you used to be. You may feel like you need to be more intelligent, more stunning, bolder, more mentally tough, and more like those that you see around you. It was probably the case that you were taught that you could not trust your true self. It may even be that you feel ashamed

of those pieces of yourself that brought comfort to your parents, teachers, and others. You may have even found yourself wearing a mask of pretense covering up who you really were inside. This is not because your parents are teachers or other people in your life were terrible people. They most likely did the best that they could with the knowledge that they possessed at that time. As we know, parenting is most often learned

by examining your own parents, grandparents, and relatives, and how you were raised. Through this lifetime journey of developing yourself, you devise a narrow construct of who you are, the path that you were following, and what your life should look and feel like. When any of this is questioned, sometimes in even the slightest way, it can throw you into a tailspin and an emotional rollercoaster. When we cannot incorporate challenges caused by painful experiences, they ultimately halt

our progress. We have a limited range of resiliency and little tolerance for processing that pain. It's essential to understand that real growth isn't about just recovering from the situation. It's about accepting and understanding that pain and adversity actually help you grow. It's vital for you to understand that every great thing in life comes on the other side of hardship. It's common to recognize pain as a negative experience, and in your desire to avoid as much pain as possible to run from it. Yet pain is an unavoidable consequence of life, and you have to handle hardship whether you like it or not, and try as much as possible

to turn it into a positive learning experience, sort of like the common phrase, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Understanding what comes on the other side of pain can help us do this better. In a recent interview I did with Rachel Hollis, a number one New York Times best-selling author, speaker, and podcast host, she explained it in these terms. The last two to two and a half years for me have been filled with these defining moments. It has been a really hard couple of years on personal levels and professional levels. I have experienced a lot of loss, a lot of grief.

And in that process, as brutal as it has been, I am a completely different person. I'm a completely different mama. I am a completely different person. I'm a completely different mama. I'm a completely different writer. I'm a completely different everything. And not that I would wanna go through something that hard again, but I think that the last couple of years have served as a reminder that every great thing in my life

came on the other side of having a difficult season or a hard lesson to learn. And I find that again and again. It's not fun to walk through those hard times, but I wouldn't trade it for all that I've learned in the process or the life I get to live now because of what I've gone through. As Rachel just explained, Transversing hardship allows you to stand outside of your pain and choose to treat the experience

as one of growth as well as self-awareness. When you allow these seasons of transition and the emotions around them to happen without fighting them or wishing that they were different, you take yourself out of the victim role and instead ask yourself, how can this painful experience serve my growth? We'll be right back to the PassionStruck podcast. To live your healthiest, longest life possible, you need to understand what's going on inside your body. People age at different speeds and generic, annual blood work doesn't properly evaluate your biological age, but inside tracker does. Inside tracker is a truly personalized nutrition and performance system designed to extend your health span

and slow down the aging process. Created by leading scientists in aging, genetics and biometrics, inside tracker analyzes your blood, DNA and fitness tracking data to identify where you're optimized and where you're not. You'll get a daily action plan with personalized guidance on the right exercise nutrition and supplementation for your body. Add innerage 2.0 to any plan to calculate your true biological age and see how you're

aging from the inside out. For a limited time, get 20% off the entire inside tracker store. Just go to inside tracker.com forward slash passion struck. That's inside tracker.com forward slash passion struck. Please consider supporting those who support the show and make it free for our listeners. Avertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals. Now back to the passion struck podcast. Hopefully through this episode you've begun to see a vision for the kind of future that you feel is worth living. Something that is not only worth enabling, but worth fighting for. If you need some

help coming up with ideas for how you grow through hardship, grab a notebook, and try completing these prompts. First, what are the things you love most about your life? Second, if you had one major regret, what would that be? Because what we tend to regret is what we value the most. In both of these instances, I will ask that you focus on the present as well as the possibilities of your future self. If you write down those things that you hoped would have happened

or how you wish things would have been different, it will simply not serve you. Instead, dream of what your life could be outside of your pain and try to be as specific as possible. Ask yourself and jot down the answers to these questions. How would the new version of yourself approach the next three months? What would comprise your days with whom would you spend your time? What great things were in your life

before your painful experience that you have begun to rebuild? What is no longer in your life because you intentionally let it go? What does the best future version of yourself look like? I'm asking you to do this exercise because something powerful happens when you begin to express your dreams. It allows you to cement them in your mind and provides a purpose towards moving forward. By taking these steps forward, you are intentionally not taking control of every part of your life,

but giving yourself the understanding that you are in control of how you move through it. I don't have any more clarity or control of where my life will lead me now than I did before, but I know I will not allow someone or something else to define me. Or rather, in those moments when I do break, and God is it necessary to let yourself break sometimes, I know that I can sew myself back together, more robust than before. I know that I can sit with myself and observe the beliefs,

fears, and emotions that dance around me like flames of a fire. I know that I can feel a seemingly bonimless intensity of pain, anxiety and loss, but that I will be able to breathe again as soon as I stop searching for the bottom and instead allow myself to float in the waters of it all, knowing that the shore is always there. I hope you all enjoyed that today's episode. I want to thank everyone who wrote in this week, and of course, everybody who listened or watched. A link to the transcript will be in the show notes. You can find the video on YouTube at JohnRMiles. Please go check it out and subscribe and join the over 15,000 other subscribers that we have.

Avertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals. I'm at John Armiles, both on Instagram and Twitter, and you can also find me on LinkedIn. You're about to hear a preview of the PassionStruck podcast episode that I did with Laura Vandercam. I knew your time's best selling author, and we've launched her new book, Tranquility by Tuesday. I think everyone needs to recognize that you have some identity that is apart from work and as apart from family. And we've put a lot of effort into work and family. They require a lot of responsibility, very meaningful things, but they take a lot of energy.

And how do we get energy? Well, there's certain things we can do holistically, like getting enough sleep and exercising. But often we draw energy from doing meaningful things that we personally find enjoyable. So I challenge people to take one night for you. One night a week or the equivalent number of weekend hours do something that is not work, that is not family, that you personally find fun. Remember we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with someone you care about or love. Who could use the advice we gave here today?

In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. And until next time, live life hash and struck. Ash and Strut.