John R. Miles

We often tend to think when we're in the military,

or doing an operation when it comes to a SEAL team, that that's the peak experience.

But what I really learned from experiencing them is that it's the valleys, or what I now call the transition points, where it matters the most.

Because it's in those transition points that you're accumulating your micro choices that eventually determine the flourishing in that moment.

In that interview with Adam Grant, I heard you talking about this and I thought maybe you can comment on it.

So given we're in the middle of the Winter Olympics, I want to go into winter sports next.

And I want to tie back Barry Schwartz into this.

Barry told you about how you need to cultivate your life.

I have been doing a tremendous amount of study now on mattering and connectedness, which are actually two different things.

Connectedness is what a lot of people think of when they think of mattering, and it is a relational aspect.

But to me, mattering is the solo human operating system on which connectivity sits.

So when you think of the communities that we reside in, oftentimes we think we just have to find a community, whether it's a church or a special operations team or perhaps Toastmasters.

We think all of a sudden the community just happens to you, but you actually have to cultivate yourself into it.

And where I wanted to go with winter sports is culture.

In the Olympics and alpine skiing, which is probably one of my favorite events, and what you found in the book is that there's this certain city called Norwich here in the United States where they produce more skiers who go on to the Olympics than almost anyone else.

Yeah.

What did you find about Norwich that redefines these communities?

It's interesting, Dan.

I have a really good friend I went to the Naval Academy with.

Turned out he became the chief astronaut.