Join Purpose Coach Kevin Miller as he conducts deep discussions on personal evolution from his own, curious journey toward greater purpose and deeper fulfillment. Kevin researches and curates the best teachers and guides you may never find, as they are busy teaching in classes, counseling in therapy rooms, researching in labs, and coaching in offices. 

Go from knowledge to integration at kevinmiller.co

*Over 70 million downloads, 300 expert guests, 1,500 episodes...and the journey continues on the podcast evolution from 'The Ziglar Show' to 'The Self-Helpful Podcast' to 'What Drives You' to 'The Kevin Miller Podcast'...

I grew up in the world of self-improvement when personality profiles became popular. The idea then was you had a core personality style and it was pretty solid, like your hair color. Culturally we like to label people’s personalities, “She’s a classic type A personality,” and “Oh, he’s super introverted.” In regards to changing one’s personality, I question if we want to change who we are, or just how we are? I think we all have tendencies we are dissatisfied with. We find ourselves anxious, depressed, worried, frustrated, angry, sad and more. I don’t think we’d look at any of those with desire. I’ve never woken up in the morning deciding to be more worried than normal. Usually the opposite. So, can we change ourselves? My guest is Olga Khazan and she devoted a full year to trying to change her personality. Olga is a staff writer for The Atlantic has also written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and more. She is a two-time recipient of the International Reporting Project’s Journalism Fellowship. Olga said she didn’t like much how how she was being, and with every reason to be happy and at peace, she described herself as fairly neurotic. I appreciate this line from our talk, she said, “What if rather than trying to make everything in the world go my way, I changed the way I responded to the world?” So she had specific aspects of her core personality, she literally wanted to change. And she embarked on the experiment as the reporter she is. She documented it all in a book, titled, Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change. I appreciate that Olga didn’t come out with some big, bold claim, but simply stating what she didn’t like, what she wanted to change, and she documented the journey. And today, she says that yes, she’s still her, but…less neurotic. She’s still Olga, but, enjoying life more. You can find Olga at the Atlantic or on Substack. I felt this conversation helped me better understand and embrace myself, and, consider how I could be me, but better.


Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin

Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Kevin Miller Podcast

Can You Really Change Your Personality? Do You Really Even Want To? w/ Olga Khazan

I find that when we communicate with others, in any way, we are either helping or hurting our relationship with them. Yet every day, more and more of our communication is digital. I cut my relationship teeth as a kid on Dale Carnegie’s book, “How To Win Friends and Influence People.” But this assumed we were face to face. How do we win friends and influence people from a digital perspective? A few years ago I sat down with an expert, Erica Dhawan. She wrote a book titled, Digital Body Language: How to Build Trust and Connection, No Matter the Distance. Erica says if you look at the next text, email, or DM as simply a method to deliver a message and not as a human interaction, you are missing it. If you think your all-caps or exclamation points or brevity or emojis are sufficient, you’re about to be schooled. Ultimately it comes down to this, continue doing it as you have, or realize there is a far greater opportunity for your work and life success if you listen in and hear how you can make some key adjustments and use every text, email, or zoom to solidify and enhance your relationships and significantly increase your relational success. 



Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin

Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How To Have A Compelling & Relatable Online Personality w/ Erica Dhawan

Listen to those three questions again - Can I Succeed? Do I Belong? Am I Loved? I’m tempted to feel those questions address the root issue of every human on earth. As I continue to research personal identity and how we as a culture seem to be more fragile and threatened than ever, I feel these questions are primary. So I had a conversation with Dr Gregory Walton. Greg is the co-director of the Dweck-Walton Labs. Dweck as in Carol Dweck, the legend of mindset. Greg is also a professor of psychology at Stanford. Much of Greg’s research investigates psychological processes that contribute to major social problems. His research is supported by many foundations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As weighty as all this sounds, Greg’s quest is to discover simple psychological shifts that build trust, belonging, and confidence. He’s culminated his findings in a new book, titled Ordinary Magic: The Science of How We Can Achieve Big Change with Small Acts. So can addressing these huge questions be so simple? What I came to as we talked, was, yes, the answers can be simple, because they cut to the root cause issues of ourselves. But. I don’t call them easy. Not at all. At the top of the show I pull this quote out from Greg, “An hour-long surgery can change your life forever. Is there any reason a precise psychological exercise can’t do the same?” But going under the knife is a big decision. So is choosing to believe differently than you have.



Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin

Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Science Around - Can I Succeed? Do I Belong? Am I Loved? w/ Stanford Psych Professor Dr. Gregory Walton

We are at a time when anyone with a message is pushing to have a book and a podcast. I have been in the podcast game a long time and things have changed a lot. But the question of what makes a good podcast and if you should even have one, hasn’t changed. So I’m bringing back a discussion I had a few years ago with Jordan Harbinger. Jordan has an incredibly large and successful podcast with The Jordan Harbinger Show. He started his show from scratch and built it up by doing the hard work and playing the long game. He’s fairly skeptical about podcasting and right at the beginning of this talk you’ll hear Jordan flat out state he feels very few people should start or have a podcast. Do not be disheartened, as he qualifies this throughout the show and I strongly encourage you to listen and I think you’ll find incredible insight into podcasting and whether you will be well served to have a podcast. Or not. This episode will give you some wisdom on having a valuable podcast, and likely save you a lot of time and hassle if you realize it’s not a good fit. If you appreciate Jordan, find him at The Jordan Harbinger Show wherever you get your podcasts.

﻿Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin
Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin Miller | YAP Media

The Kevin Miller Podcast by Kevin Miller | YAP Media

Episodes