John R. Miles

And you said this quote, those destined for greatness must first walk alone in the desert.

You literally sold most of your possessions and lived in solitude for years.

What did that season of your life teach you about yourself and also about life?

And I know you're a faith-based person like myself, but when I was reading this and when I thought about my own life,

and periods of time where I've really done deep self-awareness.

I think back to even Jesus's journey of how he spent 40 days alone and would look for solitude when he was contemplating big events in his life as well.

So I really do think there's something about this need for solitude and for rewiring ourselves and coming back to ourselves.

Did that sort of play into it for you?

Yeah.

Well, this whole podcast is all about human flourishing.

And I am a huge fan of Abraham Maslow.

And again, early in the book, before we get into the Maslow chapter, you write about

What any of us really want is to feel truly alive.

And it's interesting because if you look at the work of

Palliative care people like Bronnie Ware or even scientists who've studied tons of lives, what they all come back to is that most people end up living the life that they feel they should and they end up settling instead of living the life that they could, which is one where they flourish in all aspects of it.

Why do you think it is that so few people find that fullness?

I think it's a really important aspect that you cover throughout the book and really uses the foundation.

I remember I was an executive at Lowe's Home Improvement.

I was a VP at the time and

I was on the staff of the CIO and I had four fantastic peers, all of them extremely talented themselves, but we had a lot of infighting amongst us.