Podcast Episode 2
Cultivating A Commonplace For Coaches

Brilliant Miller [00:00:14] So, Dean, good to see you again, my friend.

Dean Miles [00:00:29] Brilliant. It’s always fantastic to see the beard.

Brilliant Miller [00:00:34] Well, thank you. Dean, when we talked about doing this podcast together, we talked about doing this as an exploration, just trying a few episodes, seeing what it was like, seeing who we reached and served, and we’ll know more as we go. But I love that after the first one we did, you had an idea that we call this the coaches’ commonplace book. Tell me what your thoughts are. What does that mean to you and why? Why might that be what we end up calling this thing?

Dean Miles [00:01:00] Yeah, a new term for me. My wife, she’s the smart one in the family. I talk, she speaks commonplace. You can go back to the 16th century. So if you Google this and you’ll see examples of there would be a book in a common place right in the house where things just get captured. So this was the Evernote of the day. So funny. Quips, quotes, proverbs, aphorisms, knowledge, wisdom, recipes, recipes. Yeah, you’re on the same page there when friends and guests would come. So it wasn’t your book. It was just the commonplace book and all really, really fascinating. And so what you and I got talking about what this could be. This isn’t yours. It’s not mine. This is just anyone who’s watching this. It’s your common place to come and share and to come and receive.

Brilliant Miller [00:02:03] I like that idea. And I was first introduced to the idea of a commonplace book through the author Ryan Holiday. You know, the obstacle is the way ego is the enemy. You know, stillness is the key. Really amazing thinker and writer and marketer, by the way, who was at one point in his career a research assistant for Robert Green, the author who wrote 48 Laws of Power and Mastery and All This. And Ryan Holladay wrote a blog about a commonplace book and what one is and how to create one for yourself and anybody who aspires to be a thought leader or an author, you know, to have some version of this. And by the way, there’s a guy named Tiago Forte who’s created a course called Building a Second Brain, where he’s like using technology very deliberately to create kind of a virtual commonplace book. But Ryan says his is physical and he uses index cards. And he said if he were to if his house were on fire, it was one of those things like the photograph of him and a counselor spoke book.

Dean Miles [00:02:56] Right. But exactly. Yeah. Go get it. Yeah.

Brilliant Miller [00:03:01] But I love that this idea that this is it’s not just ours and it’s a place where people can come and they can learn and hopefully share. This isn’t just, you know, we created and sent it out in the world, but people would interact with us as well, inviting them to do so later.

Dean Miles [00:03:16] Yeah. So bring me a wedding that made me think of years ago when I lived in Colorado Springs, Colorado. There was a very became very popular. I called it the source, right, the source club. And it was for executive leaders throughout the community to come on a monthly basis and come see each other. What I don’t like about that idea now is that it was one way, right? That was the source. So you would just always come and take. Always come and take. Well, think about this idea that the coming of the commonplace is that you can give and receive. Yeah, and I like that. I really like that. It’s more inviting to me too.

Brilliant Miller [00:03:52] And we have a structure for this that we’re playing with. So let’s give a listen to the overview of what we’re thinking here. So if we so we have this idea for this kind of game that we thought we would have fun to play. And it works like this: we go to the bookstore, the good old-fashioned bricks and-mortar bookstore that you’ll go to one day and it will be gone. And you will be sad probably when Amazon, the world, or the grocery store and we look at the magazines and we find one that’s in the realm of good living, entrepreneurship, health and wellness, something like that. And we look at the cover stories and it’ll have a little blurb and then we’ll see what we would say as coaches, and maybe we’ll even invite the reader to pause the recording. And what would you say, dear? Dear reader and your listener?

Dean Miles [00:04:41] Yeah, I like that.

Brilliant Miller [00:04:42] But so you’ve gone and you’ve picked entrepreneur. Oh, and I picked Men’s Health. So yours was the one you picked how to inspire.

Dean Miles [00:04:50] Well, that’s a little bugger. My idea. But then it was this one. The science of inspirational quotes. Oh, my.

Brilliant Miller [00:05:00] Goodness.

Dean Miles [00:05:01] I know how much you like those. I know how much I like those.

Brilliant Miller [00:05:04] Yeah. Awesome. And then our thought was, we look at the cover stories. We do pick one, we figure out what we’d say, we’d read the article, we will see what the author of the article says and how much wisdom is in there. And just see if we can improve our own lives, share something that will help people listen, and improve their lives. So I picked Men’s Health and I have a digital version here, so it’s a little hard for me to show, but I didn’t know it when I picked it. It’s the UK version. So when it started telling Weight in Stones, I was like.

Dean Miles [00:05:42] Well, I think you’re going to do this, your version of this with an accent.

Brilliant Miller [00:05:46] Oh, that’s not going to happen. People tell me I already have an accent. It is. You will say, Are you from Canada? Sometimes.

Dean Miles [00:05:54] Hey, okay, fair enough. You don’t have to do it the next.

Brilliant Miller [00:05:57] So the cover, the cover story thing was 18 Ways to Overhaul Your Life. So first of all, do we need 18 if you’re going to overhaul it? One does it.

Dean Miles [00:06:08] Yeah, man, I can’t wait to hear now.

Brilliant Miller [00:06:13] And it’s starting today. So 18 ways to overhaul your life starting today, like right now.

Dean Miles [00:06:19] Yeah. It sounds so approachable. Yeah.

Brilliant Miller [00:06:22] Do you know what it reminds me of? I did a training program with Jack Canfield years ago, and he talked about being on the phone with a client who said he wanted to be healthier and stronger. And he said, What would that mean to you? And he said, Well, I would work out. And Jack said, okay, well then put the phone down and do 30 push-ups.

Dean Miles [00:06:37] And that’s like, yeah, immediacy right now.

Brilliant Miller [00:06:42] Yep. So 18 ways to overhaul your life today. The way this game goes, we begin with our own thoughts. If we were given this assignment by an editor, what would we say? Right. So I know you haven’t read this one yet, Dean. So I’m going to ask you impromptu, what are some of the eight what are some of the ways that you might improve your own life by overhauling it? And what would I say? So here are some of the things that I said, by the way. I said, and this is in no particular order. This isn’t ranked this is just kind of a brainstorm. But I said, do the Life-Changing Magic of tidying up Marie Kondo.

Dean Miles [00:07:21] Have you done that? No.

Brilliant Miller [00:07:24] Ma’am.

Dean Miles [00:07:25] I am. And I’m not going to give you my camera either to show you. You look relaxed. Done it already.

Brilliant Miller [00:07:32] I mean, look at that.

Dean Miles [00:07:33] Well, I tidy this area. No.

Brilliant Miller [00:07:36] Okay. That’s.

Dean Miles [00:07:37] My wife has already improved. Look at this.

Brilliant Miller [00:07:39] So that’s one. And if anybody doesn’t like hasn’t done that already, that process, it’s if it came from a different culture, it came from the Japanese. But I think it can work here in America where our homes are bigger and we probably have more stuff, but that has the potential to transform one’s life. Another thing is I said to hire a coach. Just the act of committing, hiring a coach, hiring a therapist, joining a mastermind group, signing up for a workshop like any of these things giving. But it’s not always additive. I don’t think it has to be addictive, although I’m going to continue with that idea for a moment. Join or start a book club. Right. And this is this idea that who we surround ourselves with, like the only things that are really going to probably change the quality of our lives is who we associate with, what we put in, like what we feed ourselves intellectually and physically. Go on a silent retreat, spend 24 hours in silence, practice, and attack what I’ve heard called a tech Shabbat. So like Sabbath, 24 hours with no technology.

Dean Miles [00:08:43] It’s good.

Brilliant Miller [00:08:44] Call someone and have a complete conversation. Somebody maybe you haven’t forgiven or good. Right. But haven’t told them. Right. Join a support group and then as I said, they’re not all additive and I’m going to using in kind of rapid fire. But some.

Dean Miles [00:08:59] Of them.

Brilliant Miller [00:09:00] Are maybe subtractive, reductive, like give something up, whether it’s sugar, whether it’s.

Dean Miles [00:09:08] Alcohol.

Brilliant Miller [00:09:09] Another one is to sleep and take a nap. And I know these don’t all, like, necessarily overhaul your life. But start somewhere. Like, get a toehold.

Dean Miles [00:09:21] You know? Yeah. I think what you just caught there in my mind was going there to bring brilliant this. What we tend to find, what I tend to find this moment, it’s that’s good for today. I mean, when they do the overhaul, you would go to the mechanic and say, hey, I need you to overhaul the engine. And it’s just good for 24 hours. Right. Right. I mean, so some of these things on your list, I’m curious about what they say on their list. And so let’s listen for when you maybe read some of those in the list. How many of those have any level of sustainability? Over time. Because I think that’s really the essence of overhaul is something that they can last. It’s all day, every day for a really long time, I think. But I think what you’re saying, you’ve got to start somewhere. But how do you keep it going?

Brilliant Miller [00:10:14] Yeah, it’s a great question. And I think the things that will be sustainable are things that we enjoy or at least we don’t experience as upstream or painful.

Dean Miles [00:10:25] Right.

Brilliant Miller [00:10:26] So that’s one thing is to make the game winnable in some way. But what they’ve done, the way that they’ve approached this, I was actually a little surprised because I was expecting a.

Dean Miles [00:10:35] List.

Brilliant Miller [00:10:37] And that’s not what it had. In fact, once I was inside the magazine, there were no numbers. So it wasn’t like, here’s point number one point up to the way that this UK additions of mental health treated this as they actually did profiles.

Dean Miles [00:10:49] Of.

Brilliant Miller [00:10:49] Different people.

Dean Miles [00:10:51] Different women.

Brilliant Miller [00:10:52] And so it was kind of interesting to read through. Like, for example, they did a profile of this guy named Zion Clarke, who he was born with. He’s 24 years old. He has no leaks due to a rare condition called caudal regression syndrome.

Dean Miles [00:11:08] Never heard of this.

Brilliant Miller [00:11:10] Just has no legs. And he may soon be the first person to compete in the Olympics and the Paralympics in two different sports. So he’s very fit. He’s very strong. He’s very determined. He began wrestling at a young age and he won. He was he would beat people with legs and, you know, this condition. But what he talks about here, is he actually got a tattoo. It says no excuses.

Dean Miles [00:11:40] Yes.

Brilliant Miller [00:11:40] And on the one hand. So I left to get a tattoo. It didn’t occur to me. I don’t know that that would trigger maybe a face tattoo would transform. Really?

Dean Miles [00:11:48] Like Post Malone.

Brilliant Miller [00:11:50] He doesn’t have a face tattoo, but he just, you know, this can-do attitude and to never give up and to be committed. And that’s the thing, right? It’s easy to say. It’s easy sometimes to see in another person. It’s not always easy to generate that within us.

Dean Miles [00:12:07] Now, what I like about that is the ethos of no excuses and no explanations. It’s something that can be sustained, right? You get to go to bed and you get to wake up again and remind yourself of this commitment. And then you do it again. And then you do it again. And then you do it again. This can get annoying here. And then you do it again. And then you do it again. And then you. That’s a big difference. That’s when you end up beating people regardless of their privilege or your disability. Yeah, it’s that consistency, man. Is that hard to do?

Brilliant Miller [00:12:46] Yeah, it can be for sure. So Zion was the first of about six people that were featured in this. The next one was a 48-year-old named Jason, who he at his heaviest. And I haven’t I haven’t done the math on this, but he lost 180 kilograms. So that’s like 300. That’s almost £400. Yeah. And one in 400. Right. And he said that was his first step.

Dean Miles [00:13:13] And.

Brilliant Miller [00:13:13] Probably the most helpful was buying a food scale.

Dean Miles [00:13:17] Wow.

Brilliant Miller [00:13:18] Interesting that that small and simple thing and then I love what he said that he said a lot of people go into surgery with the mindset that it will solve their problems, but it will not. He says all their eating issues will still be there. And he said he said, I think that changing my diet ahead of surgery, he did have made things easier. And then he started working out for a few minutes every couple of days, just a few minutes. And now he works out 30 minutes, six days a week. But again, I’m reminded of that small insights by small and simple things are great things brought to pass.

Dean Miles [00:13:48] Yeah. May I look at you? What an inspiring quote. I would like to see the signs while I’m there. Yeah.

Brilliant Miller [00:13:56] So I didn’t put, you know, my food scale on my list to transform your life, but maybe I should have.

Dean Miles [00:14:03] Yeah, I could empty the refrigerator. I was just jotting some quick things down. I mean, by empty, I mean, you know what items are in there that should be in there? Remove those. Yeah, right. Is a good place to start. I wrote it down. Look in the mirror and. Like really look in the mirror. That’s tough for me at times, like when I dream. This is a little bit of a feeling in my heart. When I dream, I have hair. I’m not even joking. Like I have eighties amazing hair. And so sometimes when I look in the mirror, even to this day or I see photos of myself, I’m really surprised because I’ve been bald longer than I had hair. But look in the mirror. Truly look in the mirror. I mean, I guess excuse the metaphor. That’s the mechanic looking under the hood. I mean, it’s really taking all of this in of what and how do we want to overhaul this? I wasn’t put down to describe here, like, what is the current reality to overhaul something we’ve really got to acknowledge. Honestly, what are we really talking about? I’ve heard all kinds of readings behind us and we can get really, really, really excited about how great it’s going to be when we overhaul this thing. Yeah, we have all of the future with the vision board, right? We have all those things and we’re very excited about it. But we have not addressed it. How bad is it, really? Because we’re going to hit that first obstacle. We’re going to quit. All right. It’s too hard, but I really call it the burning platform. So by really staying with right here what’s really true about this and if I don’t change a thing, what am I saying yes to and what am I saying no to? To look in the mirror and describe here. Were you disappointed when you opened up the magazine and there were no numbers?

Brilliant Miller [00:16:02] Well, I don’t normally think of myself as a numbers guy, so I’m not really you know, I wasn’t the one thing. What you’re saying reminds me that I did put it on a list as I was sketching this out is to make a commitment. So like to make a commitment and write it down. And then so did the thing is to tell another person. So the simple act of vocalizing it. Right. And it’s like our minds often seem to have a fuzziness, like a fuzziness in the act of writing, speaking, so forth. So I think that’s the way some of these other men who are featured in the book. I’ll just give you a quick overview of what they said. One of them was actor Jacob Jacob Batalon. I guess he was in Spider-Man. I didn’t know him before. I’ve been watching Spider-Man films for a lot of years. But what I thought was interesting is he has dealt with weight loss as well. And he says that his workouts have turned into his therapy. So I just thought that was interesting. He said by having a regular routine, it had benefits on multiple levels or what I’ve heard as it’s a six-hour procession effect, like the ripple effect that he starts working out intensely and then mentally. So I thought that was interesting. And it says. And here’s the thing. Like this is simple, simple, not easy always. But it says his weight loss journey contains all the familiar aspects. He stopped eating junk. He started eating fewer, smaller meals, and he focused on lean protein and vegetables. He exercised six days a week and sometimes did nontraditional exercises in the backyard like a medicine ball. So part of that was, okay, we already know what to do in many cases, right? But the other part is doing things, even if it’s unconventional, like right there in your backyard with what you have. And he happened to have a medicine policy about one. So he just needed easy. He didn’t have to go to a gym, you know.

Dean Miles [00:17:57] I wonder me. So I wonder how many of these other examples, variants are health-related because if I think about just those big domains of them, there is a physical, there’s a mental, there’s a spiritual, there’s an intellectual split. There’s another one that I always forget. But those are those larger domains. I’ve my experience is that one triggers the others. So when I’m disciplined physically, the rest of those things tend to fall in order. So when I’m disciplined physically, I end up being disciplined, emotionally disciplined, intellectually disciplined, and spiritually. When I stop being disciplined physically, I mean, the wheels come off the bus. I get.

Brilliant Miller [00:18:41] To.

Dean Miles [00:18:42] Yeah, I guess I was alone. No more, faster. I start reading things. I start thinking deeply. But no, we’re not all the same. I think I’ve met other executives and just friends. That when they’re disciplined and intellectual, the rest of those tend to fall in line. So I just wonder, you know, what’s that like for those that are listening? Have you been able to identify that? And then how do you maximize? What do you think? Yeah.

Brilliant Miller [00:19:11] Well, that’s the I think all the way back to the Greek, you know, the maximum a sound of mind in a sound body. And it has clearly these things are related in our day, Descartes in.

Dean Miles [00:19:23] The.

Brilliant Miller [00:19:24] Day, what we call it. Descartes. Cartesian. That’s what we call it. I don’t know.

Dean Miles [00:19:28] What.

Brilliant Miller [00:19:29] The Cartesian duality of the body and the mind and we separate things. Yeah. But at some very true level, they are all. It’s all one system, the mental and emotional. There are just distinctions. But what affects one affects the other? Absolutely. And then the last part of Jacob’s journey that I thought was really interesting and he actually swears in here and I’m not going to swear, I’m not going to quote him verbatim. But he says he ultimately did it for himself and no one else. And then he says, Yeah, I lost an effing shit ton of weight. Because I’m an f-ing g, like that’s how they end the article. My point on that is the identity he had for himself. And here’s the thing. Did he gain the identity after he did it, or was it the identity that fueled him to the achievement? And I would guess it was the latter that he saw himself as an f ing g and f ing g as someone for him who loses weight. And that was what he did. Our behavior always follows who we know ourselves to be.

Dean Miles [00:20:34] Yeah. Well, most of my wife and I have argued this. We’ve been married 31 years. We’ve argued it for two decades. For 20 years. What drives one emotion? Drive behavior or behavior? Drive emotion. Yes. Yeah, I think I think it depends. I’m sure there were some mornings that the F and G got woke up and didn’t feel that way.

Brilliant Miller [00:20:54] Yeah.

Dean Miles [00:20:56] You’re hoping that you have enough momentum. Behind you and just you’ve created this habit that you can then go down there. In a way, it’s always, why are the gyms always down right down there? Does anybody go up?

Brilliant Miller [00:21:09] There to go up there?

Dean Miles [00:21:12] That’s funny, but we could go over to the gym. But then you get that, right? I mean, for women, too, you’re going to get that part jacked up feeling. And then we all kind of feel like our own version of the effigy. Yeah.

Brilliant Miller [00:21:25] You know, a coach of mine once pointed out to me, he said, We often say I’ll do it when I feel like it. But if you pay real close attention, you’ll notice that you’ll feel like it when you do it. Just like Sam.

Dean Miles [00:21:38] That’s a gift. I know. I hate those simple things. I know.

Brilliant Miller [00:21:43] And then it’s very the very last thing here. There’s a guy named Sharif who is 48 years old. He said running helped me get healthy for my daughter. The interesting thing is that I see this doesn’t overhaul your life any more than anything else. This is why I love to say the secret to life is there is no secret. And the point is when I read this article and I read Sharif’s words was and this I think is useful for coaches is leverage in this case, what allowed him to get leverage and actually go out and run and get healthy was for his daughter. And if you had said for his grandma, that might not have resonated. Maybe it would have maybe it actually would have been more powerful. But signing what is that thing that will help people find that motivation to get in action and stay in action? And whether that’s what’s kind of for yourself.

Dean Miles [00:22:34] So, so good. Yeah. I find that many times in my 52 years when I can serve someone else and get out of looking in the mirror, to me seems to be much more sustainable at that point. I don’t give up quite as quickly when it’s doing something good for someone else.

Brilliant Miller [00:22:53] That’s right. And then the very last one I probably said last one three times, but this is a business chef. Some people probably know. He’s a very well-known chef. Evidently, I didn’t know him. Michael Beltran is 36 years old. He works at the acclaimed Miami Seafood restaurant. Not very I don’t it but it says that he shared an entire person’s worth of weight to become a stronger version of himself and for himself. Having a routine that was a huge thing. And then the other person mentioned here is J. He said reaching out helped me stop drinking. So he was someone who had a challenge with drinking. He gave it up and said that he did the old you know, you don’t just kick a habit with nothing. You actually do a replacement. That worked for him where he said to manage cravings, I’d drink a seltzer. I discovered that little things such as chewing gum, sunflower seeds, or decaf coffee could go a long way, and breathing exercises worked if I was out and about. So how interesting that it wasn’t just looking for a substance to replace the substance. You also looked at a practice like just breathing, which was interesting.

Dean Miles [00:24:06] So I like that.

Brilliant Miller [00:24:09] And then sometimes I consciously remind myself of all the progress I’ve made. Just kind of like you were saying, maybe we get enough momentum, and then we use that to carry us through in the moments that we don’t feel like it. But we are we generate that within us in some way.

Dean Miles [00:24:23] You know, the self-talk and kind of go back. You mentioned about telling someone, I’d love to encourage all of us. I bet we’ve told the same person many, many times. Okay, now this time I’m going to do it. Okay. I know now this time you maybe pick someone new to tell you because you may have already cried too many times that person and they’re not going to be the champion. You need to get started. Get someone fresh who doesn’t know that you’ve already failed. X number of times on this. Who really, really believes you right and will root for you? Have you ever had that happen?

Brilliant Miller [00:25:07] I have. And then as you’re saying that to what I’m what’s coming to mind is something I’ve just recently. I don’t know if I’ve learned it or become aware of it. Being reminded of it is the idea that sometimes when we look to change, that can be threatening to the people around us because we all exist as a system, as a member of a family, as a part of a team at work, whatever. And so we might be telling somebody, telling somebody, telling somebody, and it actually, whether consciously or even unconsciously, it might not be in their interest that we change. So like you’re saying, if we’ve tried it, it hasn’t worked to reach outside the norm. Right. Because that’s saying if you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you always got. Maybe we’re fighting someone else.

Dean Miles [00:25:52] Yeah. Made a great point. So maybe.

Brilliant Miller [00:25:56] Okay, so that was the Men’s Health UK edition of 18 Ways to Overhaul Your Life. A few of our own. Buying a food scale. Getting a face tattoo. Those stand out for me. Starting somewhere.

Dean Miles [00:26:10] Can we have some more stories of people that needed to gain weight? Yes. I mean, the kick in that can we not be inspired by that story or I’ll it.

Brilliant Miller [00:26:20] Mythical.

Dean Miles [00:26:21] I guess I gained a person’s worth the wait. That’s me that’s the guy I want to be inspired by.

Brilliant Miller [00:26:28] Okay. So tell us about entrepreneurs and this science entrepreneur.

Dean Miles [00:26:32] Okay. The science of inspirational quotes. The science. Here’s where I started writing it. First, you have to say something. Oh.

Brilliant Miller [00:26:44] That’s very zen.

Dean Miles [00:26:46] Oh. Right. And or record it. Write it down. Write something. But you have to say something. That’s first. Second. My guess is there it needs to be identifiable to an emotional truth. Well, it wasn’t just any quote, right. Besides of inspirational quotes. Yeah, that’s why I’m saying that. Here’s my note. An emotional truth. I think the third biscuit reveal. I grew up on Dr. Seuss. I think it needs to rhyme. Okay. I’m just trying to think. Of what? Right. I’m trying to think what I think is going to be in there because almost every quote listener, feel free to back up. Listen to brilliant. How many of those quotes did you throw out there that was inspirational? That rhymed? I’m telling you, there are so many of them. As I started to think through this for you, I love your mind. Racing here forth is what’s a quote versus a proverb versus an aphorism. I think I’ll look at that one.

Brilliant Miller [00:28:02] Versus a maxim, versus a proverb, versus an axiom.

Dean Miles [00:28:08] Yes. Right. I mean, there’s a.

Brilliant Miller [00:28:10] Versus a.

Dean Miles [00:28:12] Yes. Yes. And so a little bit I was kind of going back to what are all of those right. And what makes them similar? What makes them different? The first aphorism they think was ever recorded, they found. And it’s it was in some reason or it’s let me read this. So comes from the Latin word. So this the first word, a kind of aphorism, means a warm and warmer spicy. Page four means opinion. So a warmer, spicy opinion with ism of just what it means or how it relates to. So I already like that. So it came from the Greek city of Pompei.

Brilliant Miller [00:29:02] So it was land, but it came from the Greek city of Pompei. Uh huh. Why wasn’t it Greek?

Dean Miles [00:29:07] Listen, don’t fact-check me. I found it on Google. I’ll go it. You know. You know it’s true. So among the ruins preserved in lava, I said, rather than lava, archeologists were able to find us on harmed aphorism. Oh. Oh. Yeah. So here’s what it said. Translated into monetary modern English. When you fall at your lowest, that is where you may find your highest friends. Hmm. When you fall at your lowest, that’s where you may find your highest friends. So here’s an example of a proverb. Early to bed and early to rise makes that healthy, wealthy and what makes a man healthy, wealthy, and want to see around early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. That’s a proverb, an aphorism. The early bird gets the worm and its house instinct. How spicy, how warm, how succinct could it be? So I tried to write one. Brilliant.

Brilliant Miller [00:30:12] Could lay it on me.

Dean Miles [00:30:15] What could I come up with? Right. So here are the other ones. We know all that glitters isn’t cold. For all that glitters isn’t gold. We know that one. Yep. Don’t judge a book by its cover. Children should be seen and not heard. Not heard. And we know this. The road to hell is.

Brilliant Miller [00:30:35] Paved with good intentions.

Dean Miles [00:30:37] Amen. All seven times, you get a payment. All right, so here’s was mine. Here was mine to remember. You must not forget. I talk a lot about it. I think it’s about working the brooms.

Brilliant Miller [00:30:52] This is Zen Coal and this is a, you know, koans.

Dean Miles [00:30:57] I don’t think so.

Brilliant Miller [00:30:57] So. Like, what is the sound of one hand clapping? Does a dog have Buddha nature? There are questions.

Dean Miles [00:31:05] Like.

Brilliant Miller [00:31:05] Yours. So say yours again. It’s like. It’s like a poem to remember.

Dean Miles [00:31:10] You must not forget. So I googled that just to see that I read this somewhere. The closest I can find was from someone. I think his or her name is Kaitlyn Rimes. And it’s. Don’t forget to remember. Hmm. So close and actually shorter. So I was I got second place brilliant behind. But I’ll tell you what, it is hard to do. They said the bad news is how to write in that prison is something that can’t be taught. The good news is it’s something that can be learned.

Brilliant Miller [00:31:52] That’s like the only a surfer knows the feeling.

Dean Miles [00:31:56] Right? Or there’s.

Brilliant Miller [00:31:57] Love. When I was learning about surfer culture. Those who know cannot explain. Those who don’t can never understand.

Dean Miles [00:32:06] Yeah, I’ve heard that. Those they can’t do coach.

Brilliant Miller [00:32:13] And these are all garbage, you know?

Dean Miles [00:32:15] It’s all garbage. No doubt about it. All right, let me find the right pitcher. Page 42. I was underwhelmed by the article. Full disclosure, it was just this.

Brilliant Miller [00:32:30] Small one page.

Dean Miles [00:32:32] Just one page. And then they give some examples of some quotes and then break it down, why did it inspire? And so I was close. One is that it needed to have an emotional truth. It had to have truth to it. So for context, a great quote should speak to a universal truth. I could see where you were.

Brilliant Miller [00:32:59] Yeah I can see that.

Dean Miles [00:33:00] Okay. So you’re looking for things around compassion, extra originalism, generosity, balance, and harmony. The values are both universal and personal. Yeah.

Brilliant Miller [00:33:12] I’ve heard that, by the way. I’ve heard it said that the most intimate is universal. So that kind of aligns with that thought.

Dean Miles [00:33:23] I think I would agree. And even the ones that, you know, I can just read the first part of and you could finish it, right? I mean, there is this. I know. It’s it’s universal.

Brilliant Miller [00:33:32] I totally missed a chance there, too, because, as you said, the road to hell is paved with. I could have said, like, you know what I’ve been eating lately or something, you know.

Dean Miles [00:33:43] Yeah, well there is that. Well, I’ve done this to illustrate a learner’s mind. Is that just because we’ve heard the first part doesn’t necessarily mean that this is the only answer. So a group this is a British group that went to five-year-olds. I just asked them the first part. So love all trust. Supposed to be. No one is supposed to be a kid. Five-year-old said to love all. Trust me, you can’t teach an old dog. New math. Strike. Strike. While the bug is close. A penny saved is not much. Right. Also true.

Brilliant Miller [00:34:26] In our family. We have this game will sometimes play where we’ll mash them together. So like, for example, my brother, I love this one. He said you can lead a horse to water, but that doesn’t make it right.

Dean Miles [00:34:41] Oh, I love that. That’s a really, really good way to write your own aphorism.

Brilliant Miller [00:34:46] Snap.

Dean Miles [00:34:47] On to is actually googled to see if I could find an artificial intelligence type of an app for a generator, you know, to put in some keywords or some sort of truths that I’ve experienced in my life and see, can I kick something out? I wasn’t able to find that. Yeah, I’m sure we just inspired some coding guy or gal.

Brilliant Miller [00:35:09] It’s just because there might be a market of like one they might do because.

Dean Miles [00:35:15] There’s no way it’s just me.

Brilliant Miller [00:35:17] Before we leave that first topic real quick about the universal. Yeah, I’m reminded of something I once heard about why Stairway to Heaven is so popular. And it was an analysis of the song. And of course, I looked at the lyrics and it talks about how it uses these universal images of forests and paths and stairways and gold and light and dark and smoke. And so as humans, we really do resonate with symbols and symbolism, right? And so I think there’s something in what you’re saying about truth and emotional truth and these things that are timeless and they’re kind of archetypical. I think that does make for the basis of powerful and inspirational quotations.

Dean Miles [00:36:03] Well, so this is the third part they talk about, is that it needs to come from within. And I think a good quote, an inspirational quote has a note with that symbolism, that noise of a come from within you. But I can identify with it. With those shared experiences. Three to assemble now. Yeah, I can see that. So the second one was it has brevity.

Brilliant Miller [00:36:32] Soul, the soul of whip.

Dean Miles [00:36:36] Makes it makes it memorable. And then I thought I saw a great quote that just makes you see in your head in all caps. Dallas. Oh, that’s right. Come on. So that’s really what a quote. Does it remind you that you are alive? Hmm. My favorite coaching quote is a bye by an author and a New York to become friends with them. Robert Hargrove wrote a book called Masterful Coaching. I mean, it is my coaching Bible. I mean, I follow it to a tee. So fantastic. But his quote is what a great coach and a great leader find each other. Sparks fly and history makes. That made me say yes. It made me build a company around it. Changed my life. Awesome. Silly thing. Right? But sparks fly and mysteries may. I think it’s a favorite coaching quote.

Brilliant Miller [00:37:44] Oh, man. Nothing springs to mind immediately when it comes to coaching. I just think about it. I think about jokes. I think about you know, the guy that goes to the Buddhist hot dog vendor says, make me one with everything. But then the response is, you know, and he goes to pay.

Dean Miles [00:38:08] And he doesn’t get any change back because true change comes from within.

Brilliant Miller [00:38:13] Right. So the thing, when I think about a coaching quote, is that it’s ultimately what we what we’re looking for is inside us. Like maybe the one is you are already that which you are seeking to become. So often. I think that’s true, but it’s a lot of unacknowledged experience that we won’t allow ourselves to believe we are whatever it is we’re seeking to be. So that one is an I would call it a coaching quote.

Dean Miles [00:38:40] I hear a lot of new coaches use the Wayne Gretzky quote, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, and that one and that one’s used a lot. There was another one. Oh, the secret of getting ahead. Is it getting started? By Mark Twain. Disney is a popular one. The best way to get started is to quit talking and begin to rank, Walt said. So I thought I did find it here in the article. Researchers found that people considered aphorisms more accurate if they write interestingly. Accurate, that’s different. It’s interesting. Write this in like them better or they resonate it better. They are found to be more accurate when they write. All right. So I was pretty close.

Brilliant Miller [00:39:33] You were? You were right.

Dean Miles [00:39:36] On. You use a lot of quotes. It seems brilliant. Your recall for them. How do you remember them? How do you get access to them?

Brilliant Miller [00:39:45] Well, first of all, I write them down.

Dean Miles [00:39:48] Do you really?

Brilliant Miller [00:39:49] I do. I collect them. I have a file in Evernote where I keep them. I share them on good living. I have a page of quotations and I realize quote and quotation are not exactly the same thing. But. And I’m an English major, so I should know better. But I use them interchangeably. So that’s one. And then, you know, something for me is that I know language matters. Language matters in a big way. And I think that we use language sloppily.

Brilliant Miller [00:40:18] So what I would say carelessly, sometimes thoughtlessly and the exact words are they’re important. They’re important to me. And I also believe that there’s an energy to communication, that it does actually matter who set it, not, you know, whatever it is, not because it’s simply an appeal to authority, but because it’s different. You know, December to people could say the same thing, but it could land with you very differently.

Dean Miles [00:40:43] Yes.

Brilliant Miller [00:40:44] So it matters to me because I’m always looking, first of all, selfishly, yes, I think we all are to improve the quality of my own life. I’ve heard it was said once that we’re all looking to survive better. Right. So I believe these quotes and when all of my needs are met and I’m very blessed that basically every single me that I have to continue existing on this planet has been met. And what do you what are you looking for? And I’m looking for insight. Information. And these quotations, I believe, have their windows into that. And then I want to share with others things that can help them improve the quality of their life. So I’m constantly reading with the idea of what can I share with others? And quotes are one way to do that.

Dean Miles [00:41:24] Do that. Here’s a question for you. So I remember so when the phone book used to come out and the first time my name was in the phone book. Big deal. The first time I was quoted it. In a news article. Think I think my mom has like 12, 12 newspapers in the tap. There’s something about the first time you were quoted. Do you remember the first time you were quoted?

Brilliant Miller [00:41:58] No, I don’t. I don’t have a specific memory related to that.

Dean Miles [00:42:05] I wonder what our listeners would say to that. I mean, is that something that they strive for, that simply they feel it’s important to them to have sat with something long enough? To distill their idea, and their thoughts down to something that was quotable.

Brilliant Miller [00:42:25] I suspect some of them have and some of them probably haven’t.

Dean Miles [00:42:28] Do you know? Yeah, I’m just curious. I’ve just. We seem to be in social media, you know, Instagram tik tok. We like quotes. Right. I mean, that’s what I see. Probably two-thirds of LinkedIn and whatnot. So what coaches should do with that and how important that should be for them to have their own quotes?

Brilliant Miller [00:42:49] You know, I think that’s a fair question, and I think a lot of it depends on what they want. What are they trying to do? Are they looking at they’re doing this as a part of a marketing exercise and attempting to establish their authority out in the world? Or are they trying to serve people with their ideas right by posting it on social media? That’s one thing. So I think it’s really subjective.

Dean Miles [00:43:11] Well, Tony Robbins, an OP is a good example or a bad example, but many use these things well. I looked at the top 100 most famous quotes. Tony Robbins is on this list. The only impossible journey is the one you never begin. Yeah.

Brilliant Miller [00:43:30] I’ll bet I could tell you at least a dozen Tony Robbins. Robbins quotes like that right now that have stayed with me and many, many more. If you look at my notebooks, many more. But Tony’s a master of the soundbite. But I don’t think it’s because he sat down and he tried to refine it. I really don’t. I think it’s.

Brilliant Miller [00:43:47] Because this is just my experience with Tony. I think he’s refined. Of observing him and learning from him. You know, I’m not friends with him, per se, but I think that Tony really has created such an identity of himself as one who makes a difference in the lives of millions of people, that these words emerge in quotable forms, like a volcanic eruption from somebody who sees himself so fully and so powerfully as in service to humanity. It’s not because he got a team of writers and wordsmith stuff. It’s just a natural expression of who he is or he knows.

Dean Miles [00:44:20] I tell you what I like. I like your version of them compared to what I tend to hear in the local bar when Tony Robbins’ name comes up. Right. Because I think I think there are a fair number of people that think he’s just a marketing phenol and not that it’s really this authentic, expressive volcanic. Yeah. I’m so glad you said that. I wonder what many of us would be like, and that’s refreshing to hear.

Brilliant Miller [00:44:51] Yeah, I know Tony is not everyone’s style. Different strokes for folks. Yeah. I’ve spent literally hundreds of hours in the trading room observing Tony. I’ve even been on his assisting team and helped produce a date with destiny and so forth. And there has been more than one time, many times that I have watched him in action, and I have thought he might be an enlightened master, just like any of the Eastern teachers. I really think and I really do think he cares. He is a master marketer, no question. And he is a master showman.

Dean Miles [00:45:22] Yes.

Brilliant Miller [00:45:23] And he’s a master coach. So I think he’s he’s cultivated that, though. It’s not he woke up one day and this guy got out of bed. It’s he has. Right. He has cultivated that.

Dean Miles [00:45:34] I really like the ISO. Now take it to the average coach that you’ve been coaching for 3 to 5 years based on what you just said, what’s the potential? Can anybody which part can anybody do?

Brilliant Miller [00:45:49] Well, I think the first thing here is that so much of this depends on what we want, because if it’s not important to you to write and you got to really ask honestly, like you were saying, look in the mirror really sometimes and effectively, but what is it they really want? Because we sometimes think we want all we want Netflix to make a documentary about us and we want to have thousands of people pay thousands of dollars to come to a five-day workshop. And we want to have bestselling books and all this. And there’s we can think we want that, but then do we carry that out to its full expression?

Dean Miles [00:46:29] Right.

Brilliant Miller [00:46:30] Right. Or do we want something else? So if you don’t want that, then it doesn’t. I mean, what does it matter? And we’re all our own individuals, right, as well. Like none of us are, Tony Robbins. We’re whoever we are.

Dean Miles [00:46:40] Exactly.

Brilliant Miller [00:46:42] So that’s the thing. I mean, but your question about what’s our potential? I think our potential in some way, I don’t fully understand that our potential is infinite, but our experience is limited. Our experience of life is limited.

Dean Miles [00:46:58] But ultimately what you want.

Brilliant Miller [00:46:59] That’s the I think that’s where it all begins and maybe ends well.

Dean Miles [00:47:04] Maybe if we begin and end with Tony’s quote, it’s only impossible. The only impossible journey is the one you never begin. Right? So you begin and then it’ll take you as far as it takes you. Yeah. If I think about the two magazine articles that we just went over. And what can a coach do with those two topics? One of overhauling and then second around these inspirational quotes. I guess my first thought that comes to mind is, is blending those two is until it’s clear on the inside, it’ll never be clear on the outside. I think what Sam Walton said, something that was close to that there there is a time period, I think, to be an exceptional coach is that you’ve got to feed the system. Right. And just to be taking in these inspirational quotes, inspirational stories. Because it kind of builds out these anecdotes that you start pulling from. A lot of what I’ve done over the 16 years of coaching is my goal is to inspire insight and shift perspective. My ability to do that comes from all the reading I’ve done, all the things I’ve listened to, all the books I’ve read, the movies I’ve watched, and then thought about How can I inspire? How can I motivate? How can I shift? Perspective? So if you’re a coach and you’re asking yourself, how do I overhaul my coaching practice? I would start with really taking an assessment of your commonplace book. What have you captured? Right. What quotes do you know? Think about the type of client you want to attract or the client you’ve had success with. What would you add to that? And how could you use that? That’s what initially comes to my mind if I think about the article we’d use as inspiration.

Brilliant Miller [00:48:59] I like that, and something I like about that as well is that this is not a one-time event. We don’t sit down and read one book or one article or go to one program or have one coaching session with your coach. It’s a process. So there’s this, you know, respect for the process, to see it as a process. That’s one for me. And then the other, as you were sharing about that and if we’re looking to overhaul anything, I think there are three points where we can enter like three doors. One is the purpose. One is the why and sometimes why. It can be actually really disempowering. So I think why is one discipline to be careful with.

Dean Miles [00:49:40] Right?

Brilliant Miller [00:49:41] Just like anyone who’s raised a five-year-old knows why. Why? Why, why? Why, why? Why? But that’s one is understanding the purpose, which is a little different from why. But what’s the purpose of your coaching practice? Why are you, you know, didn’t go back to the why. So that’s one. And then the other is a goal like a specific goal is at a number of clients. Is it a number of revenue is a number of thank you cards, is it some is it whatever like but to be able to quantify it and I don’t think there’s any value in the goal itself but a, it’s who you become in the process and then what you learn, right, and what you do in pursuit of that goal. But I’m a person that’s like set a goal. Sure. But also be okay abandoning it and choosing a new goal, if that’s what suits you for a later point at a future version of yourself. Don’t make a habit of that.

Dean Miles [00:50:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brilliant Miller [00:50:33] Do another talent. But also don’t be afraid.

Dean Miles [00:50:37] Yeah, so brilliant. Great. Take us back because I think there’s more that we can learn from this is that sometimes the Y can be deep, it can demotivate. So you’ve been overt with your level of high expectations or it needs to be perfect before you can take that first step. Is that kind of where you are going with the Y can get in the way and maybe open that up for us?

Brilliant Miller [00:50:59] Well, I will just say from my own life, an example of where this profoundly changed my life was when, you know, for years and years and years and sometimes even still, if I’m honest, I would ask, why am I so.

Dean Miles [00:51:12] Blessed.

Brilliant Miller [00:51:14] When others are not? When there are 2 billion people on this planet without clean drinking water and people that are dying children, 5000 children a day die of diarrhea, preventable diseases. People live in conflict zones. As we know. There’s a lot of suffering on the planet and there’s a lot of physical suffering. There’s a lot of emotional and spiritual suffering. And yet I live a very comfortable life. I’m in the United States of America. I’m very, very blessed on many levels. And I actually felt guilty about that for a long time. Like, why did I win the cosmic lottery? And so many people didn’t, and I couldn’t find a satisfactory answer to why. I don’t know, I’m lucky you know.

Dean Miles [00:51:52] Right.

Brilliant Miller [00:51:53] And when my life changed was when I stopped asking why. And then I shifted and actually found a question. This was the third entry point, by the way, because there’s the purpose, there are goals, and the other is questions. And what’s the question you’re trying to answer? Right. Or you could say the problem you’re trying to solve as somebody who’s looking to overhaul their coaching practice to be clear about any of those, you know, to set a goal for yourself, to write a purpose statement or to ask a specific question. And the question that I started asking and I learned from Tony Robbins, by the way, the power of questions and the question that I created that helped me shift from why to something more empowering was how can I use what I have, what I love, and what I know to bless the lives of others? And that departure from why, why, why, why, why to what? And then less.

Dean Miles [00:52:44] How.

Brilliant Miller [00:52:45] And with whom. Totally changed me.

Dean Miles [00:52:48] Life. That’s so powerful. So that’s what you just took me then? So Marshall Goldsmith. Has a new book that just came out that earned life very influential on my life. His book triggers his book Mojo. His book, What Got You Here won’t get you there. He was asked the question. Success, like where does it really come from? I think this is a big part of what changed my coaching practice. It’s like I know the answer to this question. Brilliant. I got my pen there. I’m like, I’m about to make a lot of money. I’m going to sell whatever he’s about to tell me for free. An example is the answer was so simple and actually aggravating. He said when we do what we said we were going to do. It almost always works. And when we don’t do what we said we were going to do, it almost never works. So when I think about building. A coaching practice making a difference, having an impact on your local community to whatever level that you can make a difference. Using the vehicle of coaching. Oftentimes we will just do what we said we were going to do. It almost always works. And when we don’t. It rarely does. Yeah.

Brilliant Miller [00:54:15] That’s powerful, man. And I, I wasn’t there when Marshall said that, but I love that he did. And it totally squares with two other teachers of mine. Buckminster Fuller said Integrity is the essence of all things successful, and I see that as integrity and not in the moral version of integrity, but literally just what I said and what I did.

Dean Miles [00:54:35] Yeah, I.

Brilliant Miller [00:54:35] Heard another coach describes it as a say-do ratio. I say the ratio was 1 to 1. I love that.

Dean Miles [00:54:42] And that’s that’s.

Brilliant Miller [00:54:43] What Werner said when Werner said, without integrity, nothing works. Right. And I love that because if you think literally of building a bridge if it lacks physical integrity, it won’t work as a building or a bridge. It doesn’t make it bad morally. It just doesn’t work. A car. I don’t want to fly in an airplane without integrity. And the same thing in a relationship on a team without integrity, nothing works. So I love the love.

Dean Miles [00:55:10] I love the example because we thought would give me a list of 18 things over all your life. For many of those examples, they picked one thing. And with integrity. They started. Now. And I think some of them have now been quoted and have turned into inspiration. Right. The science behind this inspirational quote is, to go do something and be consistent. And something about us as human beings. We look in all and reverence because we just know how hard it is. All right. It’s not easy to do the hard thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. You know.

Brilliant Miller [00:55:54] And that’s where I’m totally fascinated. And maybe in our next conversation, if it still feels relevant, we can explore it. But I’m interested in what might be called an effortless success, where it’s less about trying and it’s more about allowing. It’s about alignment, or it’s about discovering our truth and giving it expression. Like, I think the people, I think there’s, there are two kinds of people and there’s nothing simple. So it’s not binary. But there are the people who keep phenomenal success driven by very disempowering emotions. The people who are billionaires or they’re celebrities, but they’re actually miserable.

Dean Miles [00:56:27] If you get a lot of comedians will tell that story. Yeah.

Brilliant Miller [00:56:30] So I think that’s one. And then I think there’s another. And again, there’s probably some overlap sometimes at least to a different class of person that achieves phenomenal success because it’s who they really are. They’re not trying. They didn’t engineer something. They didn’t come up with some life roadmap and then will themselves to achieve it with superhuman discipline. It was like they had a passion, they had a curiosity, they had a desire, and they just moved in that direction. And then people.

Dean Miles [00:56:57] Wonder, Yeah, I wonder if that’s Malcolm Gladwell’s outliers. And if you know the premise of the book that if you live in a certain geographical area in the Bronx, I think it was in 1955, 98% chance you’re going to be an attorney, right? Like what? He talks about Gates. You live within a certain radius of the University of Washington. I think that’s right. You had the mainframe computer. So it was just within that distance where he could ride his bike and break in at night and then do that. Had he lived another mile past that? We probably wouldn’t have what we have today. You know, maybe somebody else would have done something similar, but. There was some level of faith, there was some level of the stars aligned. Now that these individuals still had to take advantage of, they still had to go do something. But you remove going to those elements and that doesn’t work anymore. Yeah. The right time and the right place and the right time in history. Yeah. My business partner and I is often brilliant. If we could go back in 100 years where we think we would be amazing.

Brilliant Miller [00:58:06] You’re already a dude. What are you talking about?

Dean Miles [00:58:08] Oh, this is just. Again, I’m not going to pan to the left or right, so how not try but things to invent. I think I could have come up with the toaster. I think I could have done that.

Brilliant Miller [00:58:20] I wanted to make who made the spoon?

Dean Miles [00:58:22] I want to be that. Yes. See, I mean, that level of simplicity. This mine has the potential to be able to do what you have to do today. Again, don’t change as a rewritten history in my mind. I think I would have been an amazing person in the early 1800s.

Brilliant Miller [00:58:43] Sell yourself short.

Dean Miles [00:58:44] Innovation. You’re still amazing. I hear the effort. Brilliance. I hear the effort. But here’s what you need to remember. You must not forget.

Brilliant Miller [00:58:56] Feels like a tattoo.

Dean Miles [00:58:59] Oh, yeah. That’s not bad. My wife would be very disappointed. Are you sure? Yes, the opposite.

Brilliant Miller [00:59:08] Do you have this conversation?

Dean Miles [00:59:10] Oh, yeah. My wife is not big on tattoos. She’s like, it’s not classic. So both her daughters, we have two boys and two girls. The girls have both gotten tattoos.

Brilliant Miller [00:59:24] She’s not with it.

Dean Miles [00:59:26] No, I blame her. I blame my wife.

Brilliant Miller [00:59:30] She drove him to it.

Dean Miles [00:59:31] He drove them to or they had no other choice.

Brilliant Miller [00:59:35] If you found value in our conversation today, please share this with someone.

Dean Miles [00:59:42] Yeah, I would say very similar. I mean, so as we’re kind of new into this and hearts come from the right place, if you did enjoy it and you want to know if suffering again hit that subscribe button. I hit that bell. Right? So you get that push notification that just kind of helps us. Again, we like talking to each other and we will do that if there’s an audience of zero. But if you did find this helpful, if you got some feedback first, our question for us is to put something in a comment because we will be looking for that. We want this to be as valuable as possible.