Ep #478 Transforming Tragedy into Greatness: Interview with Ryan James Miller

Speaker 1: 0:00

How can hurt, heartache and tragedy become the keys to unlocking greatness? We'll find out on this episode of Shift Shapers.

Speaker 2: 0:12

Change either energizes or paralyzes. The choice is yours. This is the Shift Shapers podcast, bringing the employee benefits industry interviews with individuals and companies who are shaping the industry shifts. And now here's your host, david Saltzman.

Speaker 1: 0:33

And to help us answer that question, we've invited Ryan Miller. Ryan is a performance coach, a consultant, a keynote speaker, and his book called Wounds is a really fascinating read and I commend it to everybody. Go to Amazon, buy a copy. Buy a copy for a friend. It's a very different kind of a read than you may ever have been used to. And with that, welcome Ryan. Thanks for being here.

Speaker 3: 0:56

Thanks, david, I appreciate it. It's good to be able to chat.

Speaker 1: 1:00

Always my pleasure, always my pleasure. So let's talk a little bit about your professional background first, just so folks know kind of how you got to be doing what you're doing.

Speaker 3: 1:08

Yeah, I'll make this brief because if not, we'd be here all day. So I literally fell into sales. I was 20 years old. I was working in the warehouse of an aftermarket parts shop for cars because that's what I loved to do. I saw guys inside the office that were clean All the while I was dirty out in the warehouse. Every single day, I kept begging the CEO of the company to bring me inside and eventually I broke him and he let me jump in that door and I fell in love with the ability to be able to communicate with people. At that time, you know, I thought sales was about convincing people to buy things they didn't want, and so I thought I was really good at that. And I was just a young, ignorant 20-something. And as time went on, I just continued to learn that I had been wired in such a way that I loved engaging with other people, understanding the challenges that they face and figuring out ways to solve the problems and be the hero in the process. So that was just awesome.

Speaker 3: 2:08

Fast forward all the way through to 2011. I had spent time in the automotive industry, in the construction industry, in the print and document management industry, and I found myself on the back end of the recession, without a job. I was one of the top salespeople in the organization, but we were a publicly traded company and we were bleeding money everywhere and they needed my salary and so they laid me off. That was April of 2011. And I started interviewing for other companies and I remember I got a really great job offer to lead a sales team for Xerox. And I called my wife as soon as I walked out the door because she was at home with my two kids, a mortgage and we had $500 to our name. And I said babe, I said I don't think I can take another job. I said she goes what? You didn't get the offer? And I said actually I did, but I just don't feel this is right. And so, like my wife has been so incredible in doing, she said I trust you. If you think you know what you're doing, go ahead. And so that was my dive into sales, training, coaching and consulting.

Speaker 3: 3:12

Along the way, I picked up some chops in the benefits world, I actually went to work for one of my clients for about three years, a regional firm here in SoCal. That was my exposure to meeting great people like you. And so today, here I sit, and the only difference in when I went out in 2011 and what I do now is I've come to realize that the tools, sales tools, sales process, sales strategy is easy. It's simple. Everybody has access to them. I try to give those away as much as possible. What truly makes people successful is themselves, and so I try to help them overcome the self-limiting beliefs, the challenges that they face, the wounds that they experience, and ultimately just become the men and women that they've been created to be, and leverage those things to achieve the lives of their dreams.

Speaker 1: 3:58

It sounds so simple and yet it takes real work to get there. Even for somebody who's been at it as long as I have, every day is a new learning experience, and I'm glad you're doing it. So let's talk a little bit about kind of origins and whatnot. You were a pretty free spirited kid. Is that where your story starts?

Speaker 3: 4:18

Yeah, so you know, before reflecting back in my writing process, I would say that from the time that my parents divorced, I was six, my brother was three and when my dad left he cut up all my mom's credit cards. She didn't have a job because she was a stay-at-home mom and so I had to fight to survive. And it may not have really started at six years old, but pretty quickly I had to become the man of the house. My mom worked two and three jobs for us to be able to survive. So she would go to a day job all day. She would come home, she would quickly make hot dogs and macaroni and cheese, which is what we lived off of for quite a few years, and then she would go to Macy's and work the jewelry department, or you know so she and then she would get home at 11 o'clock at night. She would make sure we were in bed and okay, and then she would wake up in the morning and do it all over again.

Speaker 3: 5:08

So that survival and independence, which was really good to help support my mom, turned into really a lot of ignorance, self-reliance and self-dependence that created what you know you alluded to being that free spirit, because I just started fighting for the things that I wanted. I, you know, started stepping into crowds that I felt I could be accepted into and that led to partying and fighting and getting in trouble with the law, and so I would say it's interesting like what started off as a good trait in learning to you know, be dependent and lead at a young age just went awry because it was so much about self-reliance.

Speaker 1: 5:54

At what point did did stuff start dawning on you that, hey, there's gotta be a better way, Was it? Well, get into your experience in Las Vegas and in a minute or two, but as a child, as a younger guy, did you understand that you were creating as many problems for yourself as you were?

Speaker 3: 6:11

Yeah, you know, it's interesting because as a teenager so it was really my so my freshman year I started dabbling in drinking and smoking pot. But it wasn't really till my junior year that I started living this kind of duality of life in a way, which was my mom had raised me right. So even though I was getting involved with a lot of girls at the time, I was very respectful of them. I tried not to go off the reservation at school and maintain my grades fairly well, but I was still ditching class. I would go out at night and we would party and we were getting into lots of fights just in the local communities of our area. But I would wake up in the morning and it was like what am I doing? But I was so caught up in the acceptance, the popularity, that kind of fun and risky side of it, that it would always draw me back in.

Speaker 3: 7:15

And there's a brief moment that I recount in my book.

Speaker 3: 7:19

But like there was a specific fight that we were in and, long story short, when everybody went to, the six or seven guys I was with went to get in this fight with 40 people, we were far outnumbered.

Speaker 3: 7:34

I was sent back to go get a gun from under the seat of one of my buddies trucks, and when I went back to them later, every single one of them had the living crap beat out of them. I mean, one guy had his head split down to the bone, another one had multiple broken ribs. We rushed two people to the hospital and those were the moments that I was like this is not me, like I was a scrawny, six, 140 pound wet kid at that time. Like I didn't have any place fighting. I didn't grow up in the rough and tumble of the inner city. I just found myself in these places trying to fight for acceptance and found it. And so that was where I started to be like man, like is this really my life? But I just didn't have the wherewithal or the tools to overcome it because I was just too caught up in being drawn in.

Speaker 1: 8:24

We, you know you talk a lot in the book and well, again, we'll explore that as we go along about God stepping in. Sometimes you realize it, sometimes you don't. Squire Rushnell wrote a bunch of books called Godwinks, which is, you know, stuff that happens to you and you don't really realize it at the Time because you're not cognizant. You alluded to being sent back to the truck to get a gun, but there wasn't a gun and the guy who sent you knew that. What's that part of the story about?

Speaker 3: 8:50

Yeah. So what's so fascinating, David, is so. I grew up in the Catholic Church. I Walked away in early high school as late junior high, early high school as most young kids do, you know kind of just figuring themselves out, obviously started getting into a lot of trouble, so I wanted nothing to do with that. I wouldn't come to faith until 2006, which I was 28 at the time.

Speaker 3: 9:10

So this in between this probably 15 to 28 there was so many moments, just like that one that was totally God, because had I been in that situation, maybe I would have been the one that got killed, or maybe I would have been the one that Just got beat up way worse, or maybe I would have been the one that God forbid there would have been a gun and I came back and just pulled the trigger and so it was just. It's so interesting to me how, in moments like that, I can now look back as we all have great 2020 vision, looking backwards and realize that God was he wasn't protecting me from everything, because I had to learn those lessons. I had to get punched in the face and have my teeth go through my bottom lip, like I had, like a lot of those things had to happen, but at the same time, he was just this good father that was Letting me get hurt without allowing me to completely destroy myself.

Speaker 1: 10:09

And the. And yet the message came through your friend, who knew there wasn't a gun in the truck when he sent you back. Did you confront him? Did you talk to him about that afterwards?

Speaker 3: 10:18

Yeah. So this is so crazy because that guy would go on to be one of the biggest troublemakers of everybody. He got into so much and he wasn't like. He was a good guy, but wasn't a good guy like everybody. No, nobody could really completely trust him.

Speaker 3: 10:37

And yet he made this judgment call to protect me in that moment because the girl I was dating was pregnant, and so afterwards I said to him his name was tie and I was like dude, what? What were you thinking? And without even Questioning it, this was like a couple of, I think was the next day or a couple of days later we're in my driveway and he said you, Janet, that was my girlfriend. He said Janet was pregnant. She was already freaking out that you were getting involved in this in the first place. I didn't want to put her in a worse position and I didn't want that baby to be without a father, which, if you read the book, you will later find out that that wasn't my child anyway.

Speaker 3: 11:14

But it was like this is what's so interesting to me Like I don't believe everybody's good. I believe that there is a lot of evil in this world and there are a lot of people doing a lot of evil things. But in the midst of this group of teenage kids that was getting into lots of trouble and fighting and stealing and breaking the law and doing a lot of really bad things, there was still a lot of good deep down in the roots of them. And thank God, me too, because if it was all about evil and ill, I mean I don't even know where I would be.

Speaker 1: 11:46

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Speaker 1: 12:22

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Speaker 3: 13:27

Yeah, yeah. So, as you alluded to a huge country music fan, we were 15, 16 live shows into the year come October of 2017, late September, early October and so my wife Michelle, myself and five of our friends headed to Las Vegas for what was going to be our second year at the Route 91 Harvest Festival. That year was being headlined by Jason Aldean, and he was the one that I wanted to see more than anyone that year. He was the final headliner on the final night, and so we ended up in what was the best from a viewing and experience standpoint, and yet the worst place in that show, because when gunfire rained down later that night, we were on the side of the venue that was closest to the Mandalay Bay, which is kind of crazy to say, because the Mandalay Bay was down the street and across the street, but we were the one that was closest to, and so, even all these years later it's so crazy for me to think about the fact that, so I still can see as I close my eyes the first round of gunfire hit the ground, and so, about 50 feet from us, just ahead of us, in between us and the barrier to the actual stage, there was this concentrated what looked like fireworks going off on the ground, and we were on a combination of turf and asphalt, and I can still see it. It just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Speaker 3: 15:06

Well, up to that point we hadn't seen many mass shootings. Up to that point, I had never heard of any kind of violent outbreak at all at a country concert or festival Like these are people that love each other. There's really even a fight, and so I thought it was fireworks, as did everybody else. It startled us, but it didn't really do anything to disturb what we were doing. So then a second couple of shots fired and then, when the third ones came out, that's when Jason ran off a stage, the lights went down and so the venue was almost completely dark and everybody hit the ground. And I remember. Sorry, sorry if this is long winded and you can cut me off at any time, but I hope you take it.

Speaker 3: 16:00

When that happened, my wife was yelling, screaming, and so I go for her. We'll come to find out. Thank God she wasn't hit, because we didn't even know it was gunfire at that point yet it wasn't 100% sure, so it was just somebody on her. So I pulled this other lady off of her, I grabbed my wife. And as I grabbed my wife, she says oh my gosh, looks like Nicole is hit.

Speaker 3: 16:25

And so Nicole Kamara she was my best friend's girlfriend at the time, a really close friend of ours and she was laying face down and you could see that there was some blood coming from her rear right side, like lower kidney area, and so we stood up to try and kind of like collect ourselves to see what was going on. And as soon as we went to go for Nicole, gunfire again, and as that happened, michelle went to the ground. My wife and I had this split second which felt like a million years decision, which was what do I do now? And the only thing that I thought was like I can't let her get hit. And so I just jumped on her and had a backpack on and I remember just grabbing the straps of the backpack laying on top of her just cringing and waiting for what I felt for sure was coming and by God's grace, you know, I did not and as soon as that pause like this was like his reload moments, we kind of stood up again. But now the crowd is starting. You can tell like everyone now has figured out what is going on, and so I'm not letting go of Michelle because I'm not going to let her get trampled, pulled, dragged through. But Chad, my best friend, he's yelling like we've got to get Nicole, we've got to get Nicole. And so we turn her over. She's bleeding through the front as well and we're trying to pick her up and can't because she's all but dead weight. At that moment the crowd is starting to run.

Speaker 3: 17:51

I'm trying to hold like it's just, it's absolute chaos, and I was actually talking about this the other day. It's like I've never been in war, I was never in the military, I was never a police officer. Like you, don't prepare for things like this. And yet again, god's kindness was him allowing me to have laser focus in the moment on what was important, and that was my wife. So we were able to run to the side. My wife and I were just gunfire and gunfire and gunfire and I guess I'll leave at least this moment and then pause with this was again. There was just this. There's these snapshots. I don't remember everything throughout, but there was this other snapshot, which was when my wife and I ran to the side.

Speaker 3: 18:35

We hid behind these bleachers. There was only about eight rows of bleachers. It was fairly short temporary bleacher area and it was just Sardine cans packed with people underneath. We were trying to get underneath to protect ourselves and couldn't. There was no room. So we're crouched down.

Speaker 3: 18:47

I'm staring at her face. To face Her back is what would be kind of to where the shots were coming from, and I just don't want her to take my eyes off of me. And I looked her in the eyes and I told her I loved her. Everything was going to be okay. The first part I met with wholehearted truth. The second part I had no idea whether or not that was a reality, but I told her I loved her because I felt like there was a possibility that one or both of us was never going to get to say that again. And I was able to, you know, by God's grace, get us out of there. We were able to get to safe haven.

Speaker 3: 19:21

But you know again, it was just. It was moments like that. Excuse me that I don't know. As I reflect back, you know again whether it was Ty and the gun in the fight or, in this situation, the moments of jumping on my wife or looking her in the eyes. It was like God had given me exactly what I needed in the moment to do, what needed to happen, just to survive the next moment. And I don't like that. I want a lifelong clarity of plan. I want to know what's going to work, I want to know how it's going to work, I want to follow through and yet I find which just kind of like gut punches me saying this out loud, even in a season I'm in right at the moment that that's not how God works a lot of times, and definitely not with me.

Speaker 1: 20:14

Yeah, you, you get the test first and the lesson afterwards, and that's really hard and ultimately you did lose Nicole.

Speaker 3: 20:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know that was one of those things where. So, as we ran off to the side, I looked back out across the venue and there's just bodies everywhere people that were injured, people that had already died and there is Chad standing over Nicole, kneeling over her, and you know Chad and I had been. At that point I was 39. Chad and I had been friends from. We were born on the same street. We grew up together preschool, kindergarten, like everything. That was the most he would.

Speaker 3: 21:02

He called me and told me you know that that had in fact happened, that she was confirmed dead, and it was crazy because I saw it with my own eyes. I heard her say like I can't feel my legs, and we knew she was taking her last breath when we were over her. And yet there's always this hope that you either didn't see reality or something would save the day in the moment. And yet I remember man, when I got that call from him and he's screaming because he's still in chaos and we're in chaos down in a basement in the tropicana, and I remember him saying Nicole didn't make it, nicole didn't make it.

Speaker 3: 21:36

And I remember just screaming, knowing that she was gone, knowing what heartbreak he felt in that moment, knowing what that felt like to Michelle and I and all of our friends. Like it was, just, like it's still, I mean, here, it is right. I mean this has been almost seven years and sometimes I can talk about this without batting an eye, because I've said it so many times and other times, and I really think about the moments. It's just like gosh, it's brutal that things like this just tear people apart. And it's not just me, because so many people go through things like this. I'm not sure.

Speaker 1: 22:16

You know the book outlines nine different types of wounds, but I was struck by something that didn't make sense to me until I finished the book, because it was in the forward, and the forward says these wounds can transform us. How can they transform us? And I know you've developed a framework, you call it the wound analysis framework. Would you, would you share that and how that can help us from these terrible, horrible things, these lessons that we need to learn how?

Speaker 3: 22:44

how can they teach us? Yeah, so I hate to admit this in many ways I'm a fast learner, but when it comes to learning my own lessons, I'm not. And so, as you will read in the book, like I made many horrific errors in life and judgment and just committed sins against so many people and things were done to me, it was like, over and over and over again, I wasn't learning my lessons. And so, through the journey from 2017 to writing the book in 2022, but even more so as the book was being written, this framework started to become a reality when a consultant I was working with on a different project was asking me why I was so passionate about helping men specifically. I have a specific area of coaching that I do specifically for men. And he's like why? Why do you care so much? And I'm like because my marriage is broken and because this and because that. And he says do you think it has anything to do with the fact that your dad left you when you were six? And I'm like nope, I said I'm way past that. Like that, I've healed from that. My dad and I didn't talk for 10 years, which I share in the book, and then now my dad's one of my best friends. I'm like that. That that's so past me. He says. I want you to just to take some time to go back and look at that and tell me whether or not this is actually had the impact that that I think it has, and this isn't even his role like his role was to build a marketing strategy was crazy anyway.

Speaker 3: 24:09

So as I dug back in, I realized, david, that I hadn't completely learned. I had almost fully healed, but I had not completely learned from that initial wound of my dad leaving. And as I dug into that and so the framework being this idea that you acknowledge the fact that you were hurt and so I had been able to do that Way back then and then at different periods of life, as I reconciled with my dad, so but, but that's the first thing is like we have to own it. We were hurt, and especially as men. This is way harder for men to do that. I believe that it is for women. Men put up this tough exterior. It's like nobody can hurt me, nobody can penetrate me. I'm like, no, this freaking hurt, like it just in the moment it hurt, this freaking hurt, like it, just in the moment it hurt.

Speaker 3: 25:01

Secondly to that and this is where I really started to understand and gain clarity is to realize the effect Of that hurt, of that wound. And so you know, when you see this thread that's hanging from a piece of clothing and you go to pull it, and as you pull it it keeps pulling and pulling and as it does it's opening a hole somewhere else and it's bunching up the the seam in one spot and opening a hole in the sea, like it's just it's the thread that keeps pulling through. And what I realized was was that wound, was the thread that pulled, like it wasn't my dad's fault and I say this over and over and over again it was mine, it was the impact of my dad. But but at six I didn't have the tools. But then, even when I started to get them, I just pushed them away. But I realized that that was what started me down this trajectory of trying to prove to everybody else that I was something that I wasn't, because I wanted to be accepted. And what was interesting was I was good in school, I was an above average athlete, like I, my my work would have spoke for itself. But that wasn't good enough. And so I had to understand that that ripple that was caused is that thread that kept, as that thread kept getting pulled, had done damage and I needed to understand what damage it did at different stages of my life. But it wasn't just about damage Because, again, just like getting beat up but not to the point of death, or being in Route 91 but not being killed myself or not losing my wife, was okay.

Speaker 3: 26:45

If all of this is happening and I'm surviving it, then there's meaning behind it. And not everybody attributes this, like not everybody believes in God. I respect that completely. Not everybody would even agree with this statement and I respect that completely. But there's this key passage in the Bible, in Genesis, chapter 50, where it says is what man means for evil, god means for good?

Speaker 3: 27:12

And so I had to understand that there is nothing about Route 91 that was good, nothing. Zero, zero, zero, zero. Even you could say, well, there was survivors, yes, but still people died, like there was nothing good. But good can come from it and the good was, even though I had a great relationship with my wife, I was able to better value the precious moments of not wasting every moment with her and with my friends and understanding that if I could survive something like that, then I could survive whining about not getting a business deal that I think I deserved and worked really hard for. And so that's when I say like unlock greatness, people kind of go to the place of, oh, so you're telling me that if I heal from my wounds, that I'm gonna stand on the top step of the podium and I'm like, maybe, but what greatness to me really is above all else and this is the punchline to the whole thing, so I guess you don't even have to read it anymore Greatness to me, ultimately, is understanding who you've been created to be, and living is the best version of that human being to live the life that you dream of.

Speaker 3: 28:28

And I just feel like in a day and age where we're chasing monetary success, for good or for bad, when we're looking to everybody else as an example and as a model of what to live by and trying to bolt on all these new ideas and strategies and innovation, we miss the key and all of it, which is us. We are uniquely wired. I mean, you've been incredibly successful in your career and yet I don't wanna live your life Like I wanna live mine. Now I may be able to learn and glean wisdom and insight from you, but I don't want to model my life after years. I want to live the life that I've been called to, and so that's where this idea of unlocking greatness comes into play. And then what's super cool is, once I figure out who I am, what I'm really good at, and I can begin to heal, then I start to produce the highest levels of achievement in all these areas that I'm focused on.

Speaker 1: 29:24

And that is a great place to end our conversation for today. Folks get the book. It's called Wounds by Ryan Miller Ryan James Miller on the cover. It's a terrific read. It will take you to places that you haven't thought about, but that you should. Ryan, thanks so much for sharing your time and your story with our audience. Thanks, david, I appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 29:45

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