Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Why Lasting Change Happens One Small Choice at a Time | Eric Zimmer - EP 772
26 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: Why do massive self-improvement overhauls often lead to burnout?
As I've gotten older, I've realized something. Recovery matters just as much as performance. There was a time when I could push hard, bounce back, and never think twice about it. But lately I started noticing that some workouts left me more drained than energized. My sleep, focus, and recovery just felt off.
And what surprised me is how much of that can start beneath the surface, with markers most people never think to check. Things like magnesium, iron, and even your hormone levels can directly affect your energy recovery and performance. When they're off, everything feels harder than it should. When they're aligned, your body responds differently. That's why I use function.
It gives me real insights into what's happening inside my body, so I can make more informed decisions about my health, training, and longevity. I use this and you should too. Check your health the way I do. 160 plus lab tests a year for $365, plus the ability to dive deeper into your results through Function's connections to platforms you already use, like ChatGPT and Claude.
Join at functionhealth.com slash passion or use gift code passion25 for a $25 credit towards your membership. Starting something new can be terrifying. I still remember launching PassionStruck and thinking, what if nobody listens? What if this completely fails? When you build something that matters to you, there's always the moment of doubt before you hit publish.
But sometimes the biggest breakthroughs in your life start with betting on yourself. And if you're building a business today, having the right platform behind you makes all the difference. That's where Shopify comes in. Shopify powers millions of businesses around the world and gives you everything in one place.
From beautifully designed online storefronts to AI tools that help you write product descriptions, improve images, and streamline your workflow. And when it comes to marketing, Shopify helps you create email and social campaigns so you can actually find your audience. It's time to turn those what-ifs into cha-ching with Shopify today.
Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com slash passionstruck. Go to shopify.com slash passionstruck. That's shopify.com slash passionstruck. Cha-ching! As I've gotten older, I've realized something. Recovery matters just as much as performance. There was a time when I could push hard, bounce back, and never think twice about it.
But lately I started noticing that some workouts left me more drained than energized. My sleep, focus, and recovery just felt off. And what surprised me is how much of that can start beneath the surface, with markers most people never think to check. Things like magnesium, iron, and even your hormone levels can directly affect your energy recovery and performance.
When they're off, everything feels harder than it should. When they're aligned, your body responds differently. That's why I use function. It gives me real insights into what's happening inside my body, so I can make more informed decisions about my health, training, and longevity. I use this and you should too. Check your health the way I do.
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Chapter 2: What are low-resistance actions and how can they help maintain habits?
Coming up next on Passion Struck.
And so how do we live in uncertainty? And so I think the message I would have given my 28-year-old self and I would give my son also is to a certain degree is how do you relax?
into being where you are how do you learn to trust in your ability to navigate how do you learn to say okay i will figure this out i have skills i have strengths i have internal resolve i will be okay and i will figure it out That's what I think it would be really valuable to cultivate. I think it's worth cultivating.
Welcome to Passion Struck. I'm your host, John Miles. This is the show where we explore the art of human flourishing and what it truly means to live like it matters.
Each week, I sit down with changemakers, creators, scientists, and everyday heroes to decode the human experience and uncover the tools that help us lead with meaning, heal what hurts, and pursue the fullest expression of who we're capable of becoming.
Whether you're designing your future, developing as a leader, or seeking deeper alignment in your life, this show is your invitation to grow with purpose and act with intention. Because the secret to a life of deep purpose, connection, and impact... is choosing to live like you matter. Hey friends, welcome back to episode 772 of Passion Struck.
Today we're entering the final week of our May series called Forged in Adversity. And over the course of this month, we've explored what it means to endure hardship, recover from pain, transform adversity into growth, and ultimately turn our struggles into something that contributes to the lives of others.
In case you missed it, last Tuesday, I sat down with Amy Purdy, one of the most inspiring adaptive athletes in the world, whose journey after losing both legs to bacterial meningitis became a powerful conversation about resilience, reinvention, and how adversity can become a catalyst for both meaning and purpose. Then last Thursday, I spoke with Blake Mycoskie.
The Entrepreneur Behind Toms, and the global one-for-one movement about the hidden emotional cost of achievement, burnout, mental health, and why external success can never fully heal the feeling of never being enough. And in many ways, those conversations lead directly into today's episode, because once we begin rebuilding our lives, another question naturally emerges.
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Chapter 3: How can we navigate the 'long middle' of behavior change?
Welcome back, Eric.
Hey, John. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm really happy to be here and I always love to talk with you.
Since I mentioned your podcast, why don't we just start there? Because if people are not familiar with the one you feed, it's definitely a top recommendation for me. And you've been doing it now for a decade, right?
Longer than that, 12 years, which is insane. To me, I've never done anything for 12 years. I guess I've been breathing for longer than 12 years, but for a career or a work type situation that is unprecedented.
Man, I can't believe we're at five years now and it's just to think about doing it for another seven years with how much effort there is to doing a podcast that people don't realize is, it's a lot of work.
Yeah. Luckily it seems to be the right fit for me in many ways, right? I still, there are things, you do anything for 12 years, there's parts of it I think you get tired of. But I still when we hit record and I'm in a conversation with someone like you that I enjoy and respect, I'm just always happy in that space. I just always love that part of it. And so that's what keeps it going.
Last time for the listeners who might've tuned in to our last episode, which was actually, it's about 200 episodes from when this one will air, but it's really only been about 18, 19 months. I'd encourage you to go back to episode 569 if you want to pick up our last conversation. But since then, you have written this amazing new book, which came out at the end of March.
It's called How a Little Becomes a Lot. And it's all about the art of small changes and how they create a meaningful life. And you and I are both huge fans of behavior science. And I remember I was interviewing, I'm not sure if you've ever had her on your show, Michelle Seeger from University of Michigan.
Sure, I've had Michelle on a couple times. And I actually think I quote her in the book at one point. So yes, Michelle's amazing.
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Chapter 4: What is the renew framework for recovering from setbacks?
So why do you think it is that so many people re reject this as an approach? Because to me, it, it makes a whole lot of sense. If you think about. your own life and for those who are listening and you wanna make a change, when we try to go big bang, like 95% of the time, the big bang collapses after a period of time, which is exactly why New Year's resolutions fail for so many people.
But we think that doing these little things is gonna be so difficult to maintain the exact opposite. Why do you think there's such a big gap?
Well, there are challenges to a little by little approach. And a couple of them are in the beginning, you may not see results as fast as a big bang approach. And then the second is there's a well-known thing when people are trying to hit goals, which is often referred to as the long middle. You start out with a lot of enthusiasm.
If you're trying to hit an actual goal, there's often a lot of enthusiasm right at the end. But in between, things can get kind of dry. And so one of the things with the little by little approach is how do I maintain that enthusiasm? desire and drive in the middle. And that largely comes down to seeing and feeling success each time you do the thing that you want to do. Because
is a good feeling inside of us when we say we're going to do something we do it there is an internal good feeling it's subtle we often don't pay any attention to it but one of the things that i try and do is every single time i do the thing that i said i was going to do i try and have a little internal good job and i noticed oh that felt good i did it okay that's part of how we combat that long middle
I remember interviewing Robin Sharma and we talked about that middle phase a lot in the interview. And it's something that I know for myself throughout many arcs of my life, I have stumbled because I think that's exactly where our intrinsic motivation tends to fail when we start hitting setbacks and things like that. What have you found?
enables you when you hit moments like that to be able to persevere and push forward?
Yeah, I have a little framework in the book. It's a little interlude, and it's about how do we handle getting off track? Because if we're trying to make some sort of change that, again, is lasting, there are going to be times that we do that really well, and there are gonna be times that we don't do it so well. There are gonna be times that life gets in the way.
And a big problem is that for a lot of us, particularly the sort of people that read a book like this or people that hire someone like me to be a coach, is they've tried to make changes a lot of times and it hasn't worked. So there's this internal belief that I can't really do it. So what happens is we're going along, things are going well.
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Chapter 5: Why is self-compassion crucial for personal growth?
The R stands for recognize it's normal to get off track. It just happens. It happens to everyone that's trying to do anything long term. The second is to embrace your why. Go back to like, why was I doing this in the first place? Because often that starts to get lost. N stands for neutralize the emotional drama. This is the important one, right? They're all important, but this one in particular.
Don't make it mean anything other than I was doing this thing. Now I'm not doing it. I'm going to get back to doing it. That's about as much story as we need. We do not need all the bad stories we tell ourselves. The E stands for extract the lesson. There might be a reason we got off track. So let's take the vacation one again. I see this all the time.
People are doing really well with some behavior they're trying to do. They go on vacation. The routine changes. Everything comes off the rails. And then when they get back, They have a hard time re-engaging. So that's a lesson. The lesson for me is if I go on vacation and I decide for a week, I don't care about any of that stuff. If I work out, great, I'll do it, maybe.
If I eat like crap, I'm probably going to, all fine. But when I get home, I need to now reset back into doing this thing. Instead of coasting in and the next thing I know, it just fades away. So we need to extract the lesson. And then the last piece is just to walk forward with action. Just do some version of the thing as soon as you can do it. Get back into it in some way, some momentum.
So if I try and be a daily meditator, and over the years, there's times where I'm incredibly consistent with that, and there are times that it's spottier. And so often, if it gets spottier, And I fall off for a little while. The thought of coming back and meditating for 20 or 30 minutes just feels overwhelming to me.
And so I'll go, you know what, for the first week back, I'll just do five minutes. Let me just get back into it. Let me get the consistency going and then I can build.
For me, meditation has always been difficult when I'm in a stationary position. I find that I need to do something that's fluid. So the thing that works the best for me that I do every day is I go out first thing in the morning, very early in the morning. I love it pitch dark.
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Chapter 6: How can we cultivate still points to manage anxiety?
And for the first 20, 25 minutes, I use that period of my walk to meditate and just... allow myself to feel the presence because it kind of sets up the way I want to live out that day. And for me, that works because when I start getting off track from my meditation, I start zoning in again on my five senses and start using that to get myself back into the zone.
Yeah, I think everybody has to find what works for them for sure. And for a lot of people, sitting meditation is not the right thing. And there's a lot of different ways to quote unquote meditate. I, for years, I started trying to meditate a long time ago. And I lived in Columbus, Ohio, and there was no internet.
So all I had were books and some weird guy who taught TM in Columbus, Ohio in the late 80s, right? And I just, I kept reading these books and they just kept talking about breath meditation. And they also talked about meditating like 30 minutes to an hour a day. And That was way too long for me because when I sat down, it was just like it was like a pandemonium in my mind, not a good kind either.
Just was it's like my brain was like, I've been waiting for you to sit down because I've got a lot we need to talk about. So that was really hard. And breath meditation is not my thing. Finally, over time, I decided I would meditate for a much shorter period of time, but I also discovered sound meditation. I discovered going out and just sitting on a bench and just paying attention to the sounds.
And all of a sudden I was like, oh, I see why people like this. I see why this can be soothing. I see why this can be calming. And now I can do breath meditation, but it's because I found another way in. And so I think your point is a really important one, is we have to experiment to find the things that work for us. And same thing with my book.
If you're the kind of person that can do the big bang change, go ahead and do it. Nothing is the right answer for everyone.
Before we continue, I want to thank all of you who continue supporting PassionStruck and sharing these conversations with others. One of the biggest themes in today's conversation is that transformation rarely happens through massive breakthroughs. More often, it happens through small repeated choices that slowly reshape how we think, act, and live.
That idea connects deeply to the work I explore in my upcoming book, The Mattering Effect. And it's also why we create companion workbooks and weekly reflections through the Ignited Life newsletter. If you want tools to help you apply these conversations more intentionally in your own life, you can explore everything at theignitedlife.net. Now, a quick break for our sponsors.
Thank you for supporting those who support the show. You know what's frustrating? Going out to dinner, excited for the meal, and then spending the next few hours regretting it. For a long time, I thought certain foods just didn't agree with me anymore. Garlic, onions, pasta, even healthy foods like beans. It always felt like a trade-off.
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Chapter 7: What does it mean to embrace uncertainty in life?
That's icaneatagain.com slash passionstruck for 30% off your first order. Finally, you can enjoy your favorite foods without the pain. Just go to icaneatagain.com slash passionstruck. You're listening to Passion Struck right here on the Passion Struck Network. Now back to my conversation with Eric Zimmer. Something that you just said about the sound meditation is true for me too.
My favorite time of day is daybreak, 35, 40 minutes before the sun comes up because the world just starts becoming alive and you start hearing all the creatures do their thing. To me, it's just a magical time to experience. Yes.
I wish I got up, well, let me say that differently. There are aspects of getting up even earlier like you do that I enjoy, and it doesn't seem to be my chronotype exactly.
Eric, I want to go to chapter six in the book. One of my favorite things that I like to talk about is something I wrote in my first book, Passion Struck, which is becoming a perspective harnesser. And I think so many of us live in this world where we don't see the world as it is. We see it as we are, which is really what that chapter to me captured. Yeah.
And part of the way I rationalize this is so many of us, especially in the Western world, tend to live our lives as either or, and we have these huge extremes. And to me, a lot of this gets into both and thinking. How does this idea of perspective show up in everyday life that a lot of people don't understand?
I think our natural reaction is that when we look at any situation, we just assume we're seeing the truth of that situation. Yeah. And That is rarely true or it's partially true is the better way to say it. And I think if I could imbue one skill, if I could gift one skill to people, if they want to live a more calm and equanimous life is this one.
Is just because I'm thinking it or just because it appears that way doesn't mean that it is true. We are meaning making creatures. People have referred to humans as meaning making machines. It is simply something you cannot turn off. It happens automatically. We find ourselves in a situation and we create a story around what it means. It happens instantaneously and transparently.
So learning to go, okay, there might be other ways to see this. is one of the best skills in life. I give an example in the book that I think is a useful one for this sort of thing. Imagine you've just moved into a new neighborhood, just moved, but you're a little nervous about it. You're like, well, God, is this the right neighborhood? We just bought a house. I don't know for sure.
Maybe you're like, well, God, a lot of the neighbors' houses are nicer than mine. Am I in the right place? You just, normal anxiety that you would have moving into a new place. And you walk out one morning and you go outside, you see your neighbor and you wave and they don't wave back. A lot of us are going to instantaneously have some version of, oh, A, what a jerk.
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Chapter 8: How can small choices lead to significant transformation?
And all of a sudden I'm spinning. But if we ask ourselves, okay, what am I making this mean? It's such a powerful question because we catch it in the act. I go, oh, I'm making my neighbor not waving back mean that they don't like me and I'm not going to fit in here. Well, what else could it mean? Is the next question that I encourage people to use. And what else could it mean?
It could mean that they didn't see me. could mean they waved before i saw them yeah it could mean that they're having a really difficult morning and they're just zoned out it could mean a lot of things and i don't know which i simply do not know which of those are true and then the final question is also really critical which meaning is most useful to me a meaning where i go
Well, I don't know what happened. I don't know why they didn't wave is a much more useful meaning for my ability to integrate into this neighborhood and build the community that I want. Then the meaning that says that person's a jerk and I don't fit here because all of a sudden now you've created a story that is going to shape the way you see all the experiences where you live.
Another example I give or that I think about with this a lot is after writing a book, there were days that I would write and it was just brutally painful and nothing got accomplished at all. Or what got accomplished was just, I would look at it and be like, that is terrible writing. So my brain could say, see, you're not a writer. You knew you weren't good enough to do this.
You have all these amazing writers on your show. You're not one of them. So that's one meaning. Another meaning I could give is you just had an off day. Everybody has off days, right? You just keep putting in the work and something good is going to come out of it. Which of those is true? I don't know. but we can clearly see which one is useful, right?
The one that says, oh, you just had an off day, keep working, is much more likely to lead me to a good book than the other. So yeah, I think this is imminently practical and we deal with it all of the time in life.
Yeah, man, I can't tell you how many drafts of chapters I end up throwing out.
Yeah. Boy, I don't know about you. The writing of this book brought up self-doubt I have not faced in decades. My just feeling like I can't do it. And luckily, the only thing I can say is the luck part for me is that I've talked to enough people who have written great books to know that everyone feels that way part of the time.
Even great writers that I, five New York Times bestsellers, I'll talk to them and they're like, I just, I don't think I can do it this time. This book, I'm just, what I'm writing is just crap. It's not any good. And they're right that at the stage it's at, it's not great. But there are a lot of stages it goes through, and then you get to the end.
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