Overtime with Outland is Action Catalyst host Adam Outland's reflections and commentary on discussions with each of his esteemed and accomplished guests. In this segment, Adam dissects Episode 467 with author, entrepreneur, Fortune 50 senior executive, and award-winning podcast host John Miles.
Hello, Action Catalyst listeners. This is Adam Outland, and this is another episode of Overtime with Outland. This Overtime focuses on episode 467 with author, entrepreneur, and podcast host, John Miles. We learned a few different things from our interview with John Miles. The first of which is that there's no such thing as a practice mentality.
As a young athlete, John used to have a huge issue psyching himself out before track and field meets to the point where he'd get sick. That changed when, like many great athletes, he learned to treat every practice like a real race and every day like a game day. When you fully devote yourself all the time, the anxiety melts away.
It's something John has continued to carry over into his professional life. John also brings up the idea of being a gardener leader. Just as a gardener needs to be there to plant the seeds and give nourishment, sitting over the plants day and night staring at them isn't going to make them grow any better or faster. Leaders need to have this philosophy of being eyes on but hands off.
The third point was to stop living like a pinball. You may have heard the phrase living life on autopilot, but John thinks that's the wrong analogy. When you're on autopilot, we're typically doing the same thing, but it's generally still taking us into a positive direction. He says the better metaphor for how so many of us are living our lives is as a pinball.
letting the world around us influence everything we do. Just as we get distracted in a game of pinball by the noises and the lights, in our lives we're distracted by social media, naysayers, and others. We're not intentional about learning how to play the game instead of it playing us. You can make the choice to live intentionally, or you can choose to continue to live like a pinball.
Lastly, John brings up the idea that the perfect recipe for greatness has two ingredients, constant learning and a bias toward deliberate action. When you combine those things, choosing growth time and time again, while also constantly taking action that go in concert with that growth, that's when things really start to happen.
John says that most people think in order to achieve monumental things, it comes down to grandiose moments. But that's not really how things work. It's constant forward motion, building upon short-term ambitions towards long-term aspirations. For the full interview and more, check out Action Catalyst episode 467 with John Miles.