The Deep Wealth Podcast - Unlock Your Deep Wealth—In Business and Life

Resilience Mentor Ken Miller: From Ivy League Kid to Convicted Felon Reveals The One Brutal Truth That Saved His Life And Can Transform Yours (#506)

• Jeffrey Feldberg • Season 3 • Episode 506

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“Always remember it will turn out well.”- Ken Miller

Exclusive Insights from This Week's Episodes

Dive into Ken Miller's electrifying story—from Ivy League success to addiction, homelessness, and prison—to discover how owning your past fuels massive growth. You'll gain battle-tested strategies on resilience, self-esteem, tolerance, and forgiveness that skyrocket your business profits, personal fulfillment, and life mastery. 

04:00 Ken’s origin story, biracial adoption, Harvard acceptance, Dartmouth, and the fall into addiction

08:30 Why Ken says jail, courts, and police were never the problem, the problem was internal

15:00 Becoming “Ken” again, identity, resilience, and rebuilding from the inside out

20:00 Truth with a capital T versus truth with a small t, and why most people avoid real truth

34:00 Daily rituals, controlling your environment, and building structure that protects your future

39:30 How Ken uses prayer to override impulses, align behavior, and stay congruent

43:40 What Ken would tell his younger self, and why it matters if you are struggling right now

Click here for full show notes, transcript, and resources:

https://podcast.deepwealth.com/506

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506 Ken Miller

[00:00:00]

Introduction to Ken Miller's Story

Jeffrey Feldberg: What if the power to rebuild life came not just from having the right tools, but from owning the story you once ran from Ken Miller's life is a powerful testament to that kind of transformation. He went from a top performing Ivy League student to losing everything to addiction, homelessness, and incarceration.

When most people would've given in. Ken made a different choice. He decided to rebuild piece by piece with honesty, grit, and purpose. Today, Ken Miller is a celebrated keynote speaker, mentor and strategist whose message centers on resilience, redemption, and identity. He teaches that true strength doesn't come from avoiding your past.

It comes from naming it, learning from it, and using it as a foundation for the person you're becoming. His story isn't about a fleeting moment of victory. It's about consistent choices, clarity of vision, and the belief that no matter how far you fail, you can always rise again. This is a [00:01:00] conversation about breaking labels, reclaiming your worth, and choosing to thrive, not just survive.

Sponsor Message: Deep Wealth Mastery Program

Jeffrey Feldberg: And before we hop into the podcast, a quick word from our sponsor, Deep Wealth and the Deep Wealth Mastery Program. We have William, a graduate of Deep Both Mastery, and he says, I didn't have the time for Deep Both Mastery, but I made the time and I'm glad I did.

What I learned goes far beyond any other executive program or coach I've ever experienced. Or how about Bruce? Bruce says, before Deep Wealth Mastery, the challenge I had with most business programs, coaches, or blogs was that they were one dimensional. Through Deep Wealth Mastery, I'm part of a richer community of other successful business owners.

The idea shared forever changed the trajectory of the business and best of all, the experience was fun. And we'll round things out with Stacey. 

Stacey said, I wish I had access to the Deep Wealth Mastery before my liquidity event, as it would have been extremely helpful. Deep Wealth Mastery exceeded my expectations in terms of content and quality.

And you know what, my Deep Wealth Nation, why they're saying this is because Deep Wealth [00:02:00] Mastery, it's the only system based on a nine figure deal. That was my deal. And as you know, I said no to a seven figure offer, and I created a system that we now call Deep Wealth Mastery that helped myself and my business partners, welcome from a different buyer, a different offer, a nine figure exit.

So if you're interested in growing your profits, preparing for a future liquidity event, if that's two years away or 20 years away, and you want to optimize your post exit life, Deep Wealth Mastery is for you. Please email success at deepwealth. com. Again, that's success, S U C C E S S, at deepwealth. com. We'll send you all the information about Deep Wealth Mastery, otherwise known as Scale for Ultimate Sale. That's where you want to be. You want to be with other successful business owners, entrepreneurs, and founders just like you who are looking to create market disruptions.

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Ken Miller's Early Life and Struggles

Jeffrey Feldberg: Deep [00:03:00] Wealth Nation welcome to another episode of the Deep Wealth Podcast. Well, Deep Wealth Nation. I love my rhetorical questions and I have one for you right now. When it comes to success, do you know what it takes? And you're probably saying, yeah, Jeffrey, I do. It takes all kinds of zeros in the bank, and I'm gonna tell you that's probably on the bottom of the list.

It does not. So what does it take to be successful, not only in business and in life? To answer that question, we have a very special guest in the House of Deep Wealth. You heard the official introduction. What an incredible fellow, what a journey. We're gonna hear all about that. I'm gonna put a plug in it right there.

Ken, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. It is such a pleasure to have you. There's always a story behind the story, and I know you have this incredible story. What's your story, Ken? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Ken Miller: First of all, I'd like to thank you, Jeffrey, for inviting me onto the podcast and also to the listeners and the individuals that are partaking. I hope this is a value added. I'm just gonna share my story and my experience and my thoughts. Very simply, I'm a [00:04:00] 63-year-old black man today. I was born in 1962.

My mother was a white teenage runaway. My dad was a black pimp and drug dealer. I'm from Irish extraction, so I always tell people I'm black Irish. That's what I am from New York. And I was put up for adoption at birth. There wasn't a lot of biracial children at that time, so I did six years in the foster care system.

Then I was adopted by Irene and Sam Miller. My name is Ken Miller and that was in upstate New York. I was precocious. As a child, and by the time I was 17, I was a National Merit scholar. I was accepted to Harvard. I went to Dartmouth to get my undergrad degree. Unfortunately, that's not what I majored in.

I majored in fraternity with a minor in drinking. got out in 1984 with my Dartmouth BA degree, went into sales, which was very common at that time. And that's just more my [00:05:00] personality and background, even though I thought I would go into law and become, I wanted to grow up to be a politician. Now what kinda weird kid was that in the seventies?

What do you wanna be? I want to be a politician, but that's what I was like. 

Ken's Journey Through Addiction and Incarceration

Ken Miller: so I went into the corporate world, literally the corporate world, worked for 3M com corporation, worked for Kodak and did well for a couple years. And then I had a relapse of my alcoholism and drug addiction, and I was to spend the next 20, 21 years on the streets or in drug treatment.

Or incarcerated. I'm a three-time convicted felon, spent many years behind bars in medium custody prisons with my Ivy League degree. Finally, in 2007, I was released for what I hope to be and expect to be. My last time I just celebrated 21 years clean and sober. So I, the rest of the story I could not share if I [00:06:00] was not clean and sober.

And so after 21 years of being clean and sober and maturing. And learning a lot on how to successfully navigate life. Today. I own five businesses, I am successful and that has to be what your self definition is. And in my definition, I am very success. I have a successful life.

I have a successful wife. I have success within my family unit. I have success in the financial realm, and probably most importantly, I have success in my relationship with self. We may or may not be able to go down that lane, but that's how I define success. Yeah. I have the accoutrements. I have a beautiful home.

I just bought in a new home on five acres and 1.1 million, which is a nice chunk up here in Blaine, Washington, but it's beautiful. And this is what I [00:07:00] wanted and I had the ability to do that and do that quickly. So, you know, again, how we define success I think has a lot to do with how we define success, not how the external world defines success.

So that's a real high level version of my story. But I'm looking forward to this journey. Let's go.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. 

The Turning Point: Embracing Sobriety and Success

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Ken, when I was thinking about today, and I was preparing for our discussion today, the themes, the words that kept on resonating in my mind, it was resilience. Because my goodness, you went to an Ivy League school and then you got your PhD in the school of hard knocks when you were doing your prison term and everything else in between.

And for a lot of people with the background that you shared with us of how you got your start in the world, that's where the story would start, stop, and end. And they would be the victim, not the victor. And so a couple of questions around that. So for starters. What got [00:08:00] you down the path in the first place that got you into some of the problems with jail time and the alcohol and all those other not so great things.

I mean, What was there, looking back at it, was there a particular moment or is just a combination of things? What? What was it for you?

Ken Miller: It was internal. Jail wasn't the problem. Prison wasn't the problem. The police weren't the problem. The courts wasn't the problem. The judge wasn't the problem. The problem was me. I was in an adversarial relationship with myself. was broken when I went to college. What does that mean? I was broken emotionally when I went to college.

My father was a violent alcoholic, my adoptive father, he ended up shooting my mom six times. He came to shoot me and kill me at my job, but the gun jammed. So he wasn't successful in that. he did what he did to my mother. She passed away 30 years later, still with two bullets still in her.

It took out three. [00:09:00] That's a truth. That's a fact. But, so I go to college at age 17, very immature. I had a lot of defense mechanisms to be able to deal with the world because I had come off a core issue of being abandoned. I had a sense of being abandoned when I was four years old. I knew I didn't have a mother, and so I had these core issues.

I had these defense mechanisms. I had these ways of working with the world or trying to navigate with through the world with the minimal amount of emotional pain. The alcohol and drugs, those worked for me because in consciousness, in my daily walk, I'm in this emotional pain truly. suicidal there.

There's so much that's a part of the story, and so I want the listeners to, hopefully there's something they didn't grab on and say, yeah I, I have felt that, yeah, I have been there. I was shame based in my behavior. So there's a lot of things that, you know, that I embrace as a I am [00:10:00] statement. As opposed to a I did, which is guilt.

Guilt, I'm fine with today. I just do not embrace shame. And I speak to that a lot from the stage, and so I had very low self-esteem, I had this look. Of success. had a look that, first of all, that I was non-dangerous. I had a look that I was attractive. 'cause I was I've modeled, I've been in a movie.

I've done a lot in my journey. There's a lot we haven't gone into. But I looked well, I talked well, I handled myself well because, but a lot of that was a facade. Because again, I wanted you to not reject or abandon me. So coming up to this point, and really it begins in 2004, my journey of healing, there was a lot of self-auditing.

There was a lot of self evaluation. There was a lot of looking at my past and understanding [00:11:00] what were the antecedents to my behavior. Because that there's precursors. Why did I feel I had to hurt that person? I put people into the hospital. I've gone to kill people on three occasions. This is your Ivy League business owner today that has.

I have not put hands on anybody in 21 years, ever since I got cleaned up. I was dangerous. I was not a good person. And I'm also, so one of the things when I speak, and I, this is important that I say this, Jeffrey, is I don't speak from a sense of victim or hero. I just state my truth and I'm not a hero.

I've met true heroes, people that have survived situations, things. This is in my estimation and I'm not a victim. The things I did, I did, and I can give you all the rationalizations, intellectualization on why I did it, but then I did it. I did time for a lot of them. 

Lessons Learned and Personal Growth

Ken Miller: I'm [00:12:00] like 1% of them, but here I am today.

I am a kind and gentle man. That's who I am today. So I'm not a real big one on why or what the end, but I know it. Everything I've done, every negative thing that I've done, I'm just talking about the major ones. I know why I did it. Yeah, I know why, and I know why I don't do it today. That's more important.

And then without going too deep into it, you have a relationship with God. My relationship with God modifies my behavior. That's the most important. I'd say that to all the men. I mentor men all over the country, and when I'm mentoring, I'm gonna say, yeah, you speak of this God, but does this God modify your behavior and your actions? the important part, and mine does through prayer and meditation, it modifies my behavior.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Deep Wealth Nation, as you're hearing Ken talk, what I want you to think about directly in Deport Nation, please be open, be vulnerable with yourself. It's just [00:13:00] you, yourself, and you. No one else is as part of the conversation. If you wanna have a friend or a loved one part of it. Terrific. Are there elements of Ken's story that you can relate to, Hey, I didn't have such a great upbringing, or, yeah, I came from a house that was a broken house, or I had substance abuse, or I had violence.

In my life or this or that, and we're gonna come back there, Deep Wealth nation. But I really want you to think about this and offline I was sharing with Ken. Here on the Deep Deep Wealth Podcast, our tagline, helping you extract your business and personal Deep Wealth, we take a holistic view of the whole person because here's the thing, if we get it right on the personal side, guess what?

Your business is gonna be bigger, more profitable, better. You'll have more joy, more fulfillment in your life, and can you are through the heavy lifting that you've done through your journey. You're giving us an insight of what's there, and I don't wanna assume the nice great man that you are today. Was that always there, but it was just being shackled and hidden from any number of circumstances that came up, and [00:14:00] it took you quite some time to be able to clear out all the other things, quote-unquote, to bring out your true self.

Ken Miller: Yes, it was always there. so what was fortunate for me was that I had a model, which was my mother, Irene Miller, and she's one of the, the finest human beings that I've ever met. And I'm 63. I've met a lot of thousands of people. And so I had this model. Her kindness, gentleness, her grace, her tolerance, her unconditional love. I saw that as a model once I be at six years old until she passed away in 2010. The name of my book is Becoming Kin. I wanted to come back to be, kin. 'cause that's not what I was called on the streets. That's not what I was called in penitentiary. I had different names and I just wanted to become kind just a child of God, a kind and gentle man.

That's what I wanted to become, and there was a [00:15:00] journey to become that person there. There's one thing to be broken. The first thing is you've got to realize that you're broken. That's the number one thing that you have a problem, or what I define as a set of circumstances that seeks a solution. That's all a problem is, but you've gotta seek that solution.

You can't just state the statement. Two plus two is not a problem. Two plus two equals is a problem because you're seeking a solution. So when I went to prison in 2004, for three years on my last charge, I made a decision to get well, that's in the physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual realms.

I worked on them, and it's something that you had said earlier about if you get the wellness or you get the inside fixed, it'll increase your business. Not a pushback. You still gotta have the skillset. [00:16:00] You still gotta know what a profit and loss is. You still need to know what marketing is.

You still need to solicit new clients. But I understand. What happens is you create that foundation. That makes it a lot easier to do the things that make business successful or more important than what I call, what make business profitable. If you're choosing to have profit, some people don't.

Maybe they just wanna break even. I've worked in the nonprofit world for years, whole nother, conversation. But the key thing is I built that foundation for everything else.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay.

Ken Miller: a foundation of wellness. And I'm gonna say this, Jeff, and I want the listeners to truly hear this.

I am well, I do life what does that mean? That means when I have the destitutes of life, the ups and downs, I handle them with grace and I solve for the ones I can solve for, and the other ones I just accept that's a truth and I move [00:17:00] on. So what does that mean? I don't read a lot of self-help books. I know I did for 10, 15 years, but what it did is it freed up capacity by being well to go on podcasts to speak, to do a book study club that I do every two weeks to do the mentoring that I do, I can give out because I'm not so much working on me every day.

The other thing is I am good with good. We had this whole thing with the Collins, with the Good to Great series of books and us in the business world. We're very familiar with that series of books, I have strong pushback against that. I do not care to be great. I'm good with good or very good because I do not have or choose to take my capacity of time and money to be great.

I don't, my ego doesn't need it. People who know me love me. I love me, and I'm [00:18:00] good with good. Now I can give out, so just a couple words.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah. My goodness. So much there to unpack. And Ken, I couldn't agree more with you that absolutely we can get the personal side right is not a guarantee for success in business. And I have seen terrific people. I'm talking salt of the earth people. They do not belong in running a business. They really are a better team member.

And I'm with you there, and I think we'd both agree with what I'm about to say. And you can say, Jeffrey OnBase off base. Having the solid foundation. I'm gonna build a house, I'll find, talking about how you moved into the beautiful new house and you just shared with us now, a little earlier in the podcast, how you have this gorgeous new house that you moved into.

If the house was built on sand, there'd be a problem. But if the house is built on bedrock, you know the house is gonna be around there. So are. Personal character, who we are as a person speaks so much in terms of what's going on. And by the way, deep both Nation in the show notes, please click on the links.

We have Ken's book Becoming Ken One Black Man's Journey from Ivy League to prison and back again. [00:19:00] And Ken, I shared this with you offline. I'm gonna share it with Deep Both Nation. It is a PhD. And how to live life and how to come back from setbacks and how to deal with adversity and challenges and what some people would say are just impossible circumstances to be able to come back from.

So can all of that said. When you look back at your journey again from Ivy League to prison and back again, is there one or two lessons that really made the difference or life strategies or best practices, whatever you'd like to call that, that made the difference for you that you can share with deep Deep Wealth nation?

Ken Miller: For sure. There's a lot, but I'll just, I'll do a couple. Number one, the fundamental is truth. That's the fundamental. It's truth It. I define truth in two different ways. There's truth with a capital T, that's God's truth.

And then there's truth with a small T. That's man's truth or my truth.

Okay? There's a thing called gravity, [00:20:00] that's God's truth. If I go to the 19th floor of a building and turned to the people behind me because I've taken four hits of acid and say, Hey, check this out. I can fly. That's my truth. That's my reality. But it's not God's truth. It's not fact. Okay? It's not reality. And one of the most difficult thing for individuals is to embrace and be willing to see truth about self and others.

Okay. So that's number one. Everything come from me and then I'm a real, real big one on self-esteem. Okay. And what does that mean? So, I teach classes on this subject, but I just to go into this real quick, it means efficacy of self,

Which is competency to life.

Do I feel competent to life? To the problems of life. 'cause life is problems. Be honest [00:21:00] with you. Life is problems. And then the other one is, am I worthy of love, self-worth? And I understand those concepts very well. And I have made myself competent to life. And that's a learned, that's a learned skillset.

And so one of the ways you do it is if you so choose, is through mentorship.

Trusted advisors. There's a line in Proverbs. A man of many counselors is a wise man, and so do you have wise counsel? Okay. Because a lot of times wise counsel is not up in, in the brain, in your brain. That's why you need, you need, a third party to co-sign on, right?

Behavior or to. Have say that behavior will be inimical to your long-term wellbeing. So anyway, so we just laid out a couple of them. I'm just a big one on truth, a big one on self-esteem. Another one I'm a big one on. Let's just talk about one more. Let's talk about, there's so many I could talk about.

Let's talk [00:22:00] about tolerance.

So term I use when I have interactions that are negative. With others is friction. Okay. And it's a great term because what friction means and what friction usually entails is that there is two entities rubbing up against each other. It could be verbal, mental, any way, but it creates heat.

Okay? And you can take a, you use the example of two gears. When an engineer designs, they always design in a thing called tolerance, and what the tolerance allows is for the building to breathe the gears to not be so closely en mesh that they heat up. I'll give you an example. If you do not put oil into your car, the pistons will expand through the friction of the heat.

And that's how you get a frozen engine block. [00:23:00] Okay? Same thing. Same thing happens with humans. And so one of the things that I had to learn is that, and this was a great lesson that I learned I don't know if it came from someone else or internal, is that if you say that you disagree or that I said something that doesn't align with what you say. It doesn't mean that you don't like me or align with me. What you're doing is having a concern with the argument, not with me, but I used to personalize anytime someone disagreed with me. Now I have to argue my side even stronger. Now I have tolerance for differing viewpoints. I have tolerance for behavior.

I have tolerance. 

The Importance of Tolerance and Grace

Ken Miller: You have a child, you or have a grandchild, and it's a very good skill set to have, is to have tolerance. That's a [00:24:00] 2-year-old. He did not know what he was doing when he s spilled that. Okay? But a lot of people have difficulty with any entity that causes them any discomfort. Okay, so anyway, that's a big one that I've had to learn and I have a lot of, and what it connects to is a beautiful term that many people use differently, but it's the term of grace. A big component of grace, whether it's God's grace or human grace is tolerance. Okay? God knows that we're not perfect. Therefore he has this tolerance and grace for what we've done. Same thing for me. I'll go one more. I'll peel it away. One more layer. 

Forgiveness and Resentment

Ken Miller: What it allows you to do once you have tolerance, or it makes it easier, is to forgive, and it's one of the key components of wellness, is forgiveness of others and [00:25:00] self. Without it, every time that individual is brought up into the consciousness, or a lot of times you're living with yourself, it creates friction. It creates discomfort, emotional discomfort, and so I have forgiven everyone. Literally harbor. No resentment. Resentment to refill centir means to feel in Latin.

It means to refill a negative emotion. 'cause you can't really have a resentment toward a good emotion to refill a good emotion. But resentment is to refill and I don't refill. My dad shot my mom, I forgave him. speak about it. I couldn't speak about it for years or if I even brought up the memory, all I had was anger and fear.

So now that's gone. Been gone for years, decades. So anyway, those are a couple 


Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. 

The Role of Truth, Self-Esteem, and Tolerance in Society

Jeffrey Feldberg: So truth, self-esteem, [00:26:00] tolerance, as you walk me through those values. And actually offline Deep Wealth Nation

Ken and I were talking and Ken was saying, Jeffrey, and these are my words, not your words, Ken, and you can correct me if I'm off based, wrong based, but you're saying, Jeffrey, with all this AI that's going on, there are some concerns that are there. And what's interesting, Ken, is you shared that with me and you're talking about truth, self-esteem, tolerance.

It seems that this is not just a conversation for an episode, it can be an entire series of a podcast, it seems that. Society, my data 0.01, it seems that we've lost our North Star when it comes to truth, self-esteem, tolerance, the truth. Hey, it's not my fault. It's fault. It's society's fault.

It's their fault, not my fault. I've never done anything wrong and. The victim mentality and then the self-esteem. Everyone's looking at social media and Wow, look how great everyone's life is, and now look at my life and what's not there compared to what everyone else has. And then the tolerance. My goodness, if we just look at the headlines today, there is no tolerance or zero [00:27:00] tolerance in terms of what's going on.

Where we are today, where, it's not my fault and there's a low self-esteem and there's zero tolerance.

How do we get here? What do you think caused that?

The Impact of Digital Communication and AI

Ken Miller: What caused that is the ability to communicate. So much more quickly and to masses. You know, Back in the, day, if you just went back 50 years ago, your ability to communicate to more than 20 people, maybe he could do a party call on a phone line, but there was no way that you could impart your information to the masses.

That's why people who are great orbiters. Were very powerful and they had the ability to impart information to masses in a successful way. Okay. Then with the rise of the digital communications, we have the ability through email, through social media, through other digital means to amplify [00:28:00] our voice. And what happens is that there's so much confirmation bias.

Once we find a lane that we want to go down, we have other individuals that are confirming that our truth man's truth, small T is correct.

Then because we don't have tolerance, my truth supersedes your truth. I'm right. You are wrong. And if you are wrong, it also gives me the ability to put fers or to put cages around you because you're wrong.

And we get This is metaphorical. Okay, because I'm right. I got a thousand people who told me I was right on Instagram or whatever.

the difficulty is that what is the solution? Is there a solution? You know, We talked before we got on. I'm concerned. I'm just [00:29:00] concerned, Jeffrey, and I don't know if the genie's already out the bottle and I don't want to be that person.

I didn't want to come on this podcast and be that person. But especially, let put it this way, social media is a baby compared to ai. It is a mere spec two day old baby compared to what AI now and will be in three to five years if that long. It I cannot emphasize, and like you said, we'd have to almost have a series or there's some great other discussions online.

And what we see, the, this is the deal we talked about truth. Most individuals do not have the capacity to engage in truth. Because to engage in truth means you have to look at both [00:30:00] sides. I have a whole bunch of conservative platforms that I look at because I need to understand. What they're saying. I have a lot of progressive platforms that I look at because I need to understand and believe me, look at me.

I'm a African American, three-time convicted felon, street business owner. I am not progressive in many areas. I'm also not very conservative in many areas. I have my truth. I've looked at both sides and I was willing to do that, but most people aren't. And I just wanna end with this to the listeners, please take the time to understand AI and especially try to understand ag.

I just for your edification and knowledge, okay.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And for the listeners who are saying, okay, Ken, yeah, I know what AI is, but [00:31:00] a GI, I haven't heard that before. So what is a GI for someone in Deep Wealth Nation who hasn't heard that term, or they're not familiar with a GI or what that means and how it's different than ai.

Ken Miller: It's, it is augmented general intelligence. It's AI that teaches itself and really grows exponentially. Makes decisions itself. The AI makes decisions and it is where everybody's trying to go. 'cause they know that's the holy grail. If we're the first country or we're the first business to get to the augmented general intelligence. A lot of people can't understand what that means.

That's why I say you, you need, I don't want to try to do it in a soundbite, but what I'm asking you to do just for your, because once you, I believe once you understand and where we're going. It's going to maybe modify some of your decisions as to where you go [00:32:00] or where you go for you and your loved ones.

I'm a big one on loved ones, okay?

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so, Ken, as we talk about this now, you shared your story, which is just the tip of the iceberg. We've discussed though how today with AI or upcoming A GI and the algorithm that's going on in social media, how it really gets to people's truth, the self-esteem tolerance, or lack thereof.

Daily Rituals for Overcoming Dark Moments

Jeffrey Feldberg: Speaking from yourself, from your journey, what were some, I'll call them, daily rituals or daily habits? That really helped you rebuild in your darkest moments to get you where you are today. And I asked this question thinking of people in Deport Nation who find themselves in their own dark clouds wondering, okay, how did I get here?

But more importantly, what am I gonna do to get back to a better place? So what was working for you? What can you share with us?

Ken Miller: So I'll tell you what works for me, but I have a certain way of thinking.

So I teach a course or a class. It's not a course, it's a [00:33:00] workshop. I think 16 hours on train the Trainer, adult learning, and there are different ways of learning. I'm a concrete sequential, so I'm a list guy. I'm a checklist person.

I'm a spreadsheet person. I am a metrics person. I'm a dashboard person. That's how my brain best works sequentially, concrete specific item. So I'm looking at it right now. I make a list every morning. Every single morning I do this, and I'm also. Very much a creature of habit. James Clear Charles Duhig. But I'm a creature of habit.

I understand habits, I understand how to control my environment. I'm really big on that. As an ex, you can say still, but I as a drug addict in remission, I understand I don't have crack in the cupboard downstairs. Okay? I don't have beer in the fridge. I control my environment. [00:34:00] Okay, so those are three real simple ones.

One, I make a list because the difficulty is this. When I make the list in the beginning of the morning, I have had no input for eight hours, nine

As soon as I walk into my office, I start my morning. Another thing I do is I'm an early morning person, but that's what works for me. My wife's late in the evening, she does a lot of her work.

We both work from home. We own the businesses. I start at like five 30 in the morning. I love it.

There's less interruptions. I didn't say none, but there's less because I got East Coast people. But anyway, I make my list and my brain is clear, and then I start throwing in all this things.

But I am really working on this and I'm working on focus and concentration for 2026. And what, so what I do is I create order. So anyway, those are some of the things I love talking about the tactics, but this is what works for me as a concrete sequential. If you're an [00:35:00] abstract random, it's not gonna work for you because you're not comfortable with making lists, you're not comfortable with checklists or dashboards, I, or metrics.

And it doesn't mean I'm right. You're wrong. I used to think that.

But what it does make me usually. More successful in certain endeavors. There's a lot of successful business people that are concrete sequentials

Because we look at his tasks as opposed to, but then again, there's some great Steve Jobs, great thinkers.

I'm not a big picture thinker, gonna inspire. I'm more like, let me check the box.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Deep Wealth Nation as we're talking about this, what works for Ken may not work for you and that's okay. The takeaway though, Deep Wealth Nation is Ken knows systematically what works for him and he sets himself up with habits, rituals, a bit of both, blended in because he knows when he does that. He has a better than great [00:36:00] chance that his day is gonna be where he wants it to be.

The same reason why a pilot who flies a gazillion flights, why they have a checklist for every flight. Don't they have things memorized that they can just go through it? No. They have a checklist so they don't forget. That's the whole point of things.

Ken Miller: They didn't have that. There's a great book called The Checklist Manifesto.

Jeffrey Feldberg: What I was, yeah. Was thinking and referencing

Ken Miller: Came from the operating room and it came from.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Right.

Ken Miller: From the planes because they work. They work. That's why. 

The Power of Habits and Grinding

Ken Miller: Lemme just talk about one more thing about the habits 'cause I think it's real important. So I understand, and I literally, I've taught a class on this too,

What it means to grind

Who grind. And what a grind is, is something that's habitual for desired result over time that entails discomfort or it's not a grind. Okay? And a lot of people have understand what does that mean? I don't really get it. Think about there are [00:37:00] athletes who are famous for grinding.

And I always give that as an example, the most famous Kobe Bryant.

He went in there at five o'clock in the morning, six days a week or whatever it may be. Think about Muhammad Ali, running, that's grinding. There's discomfort involved in that. Jerry Rice running the stairs, and he would invite other players, Hey, you want what I got come do what I do.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Sure.

Ken Miller: But they were not willing to grind. They weren't willing to accept the discomfort. Anyway, I learned how to grind and for years, to build my business. I don't grind as much. I still, I'm in here five 30, usually six days a week. But that's a habit now. So it's, there's not a lot of discomfort in it.

To me there isn't, but I mainly work four hours, five hours.

A day, and then you know, I'm doing volunteer work or I'm with the wife, or I'm with the kids, or with the grandkids, so,

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, and again, Deep Wealth Nation, what you're hearing from Ken is, Hey, [00:38:00] Jeffrey. A little bit of trial and error, a lot of trial and error, but this is what's working for me. And so, Ken, before we start going into wrap up mode a few more questions for you. And so with what you're speaking about of those habits and those rituals, what I really like about that and Deep Both Nation, what I found, and Ken, I've heard this from you just now, and I've heard this from other people in different words, but it all gets to the same thing.

If we look at quote-unquote life, our life is really a series of strands. One strand over another strand over another strand day over day, and it becomes something massive. It gets momentum. And when we have these rituals, when we have these habits that we can put into our days, our days become weeks, our weeks become months.

Our months become quarters. Our quarters become years, and our years become decades. But it all starts with, Hey, how am I gonna approach today? I have 1,440 minutes. I have a fresh start today. What's that gonna look like? What am I gonna be doing? And I love how you shared for us your particular strategy.

Now for those in both nation with my next question for Ken. Please don't let this throw you off. [00:39:00] And if you're not into this, stay with us. Don't hang up, so to speak. Have an open mind. 

The Role of Faith and Spirituality

Jeffrey Feldberg: I wanna talk about God, Ken, and some people call it God or the universe or something else, but I know you're a man of faith, a man of God, and you said so yourself and that played a big role in your life.

Share with Deep Wealth Nation from a high level of. Why that has made such an important difference for you and how it got you in part from where you are to where you are now today.

Ken Miller: So the term, a lot of times I use a spiritual entity.

I have guys who are Islamic, that I work with, there may be Allah, God, Buddha, whatever, the spiritual entity. So it has to be something that is outside the consciousness of self. Because I have, self will and I have.

God's will slash spiritual entity will. What is Will? Will is the next indicated future thing. I will go to the store. [00:40:00] That's literally my will. My will is my future. Could be short term, long term. So when I'm defining, so this is how it works for me, and hopefully this will help the listener. Very simply, I just define it as God, but I'm just gonna say this right now, I'm not a Christian.

Yeah, even though I, I've used the Bible, but I've also read, the Koran.

Again, there's wisdom in all of those. But what I do is this, I would say 0.5% of my living or awake moments, I may have friction or I may have what I believe is potential friction. And so what I do at that point is I pray. To my spiritual entity, I call God and say, what is your will?

What is the right thing to do? The next indicated correct thing to do? And then I see, does it align with my will? Because remember, my will and many times is trying to do two things. It seeks pleasure and it [00:41:00] tries to put off pain. Okay, there are times I need to absorb pain for the benefit of my wife and the benefit of my children and the benefit of my grandchildren, so I will make that call.

I will do the next indicated correct thing to do. There are times where I'm, it hasn't been lately, but I'll give you an example. There has been times where I had an offer made to me from another female, an offer. Okay? I just leave it at that. You can understand what that means. It entailed pleasure. I'm a married man.

I don't play in the gray. I don't play in the gray. God's will is that I am faithful, which I have been 100% to my marriage. Okay, so God's will versus Ken's will most of the time. There's a thing we call congruence [00:42:00] 99% of the time without even thinking I'm doing God's will. Then there's one or 0.5% of the time I need to go into prayer.

Ask for that. But also you, first you want to indicate what is God's will. And then the second thing, which is just as important, please give me the courage to do the right thing.

And he does. And he does. That's why I have a beautiful life. I have a beautiful life.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Some terrific insights there, Ken. We're gonna go into wrap up mode now, and it's really my privilege. 

Life Lessons and Final Thoughts

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's my honor as a tradition here in the Deep Wealth podcast where every guest is asked the same question. So let me set this up for you. When you think of the movie back to the Future, you have that magical DeLorean car that can take you to any point in time.

And so imagine now, Ken, it is tomorrow morning. You look outside your window. Not only is the Lorian car curbside, the door is open and you're now gonna hop in, you're gonna go to any point in your life, Ken, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be. [00:43:00] What would you tell your younger self in terms of life lessons or life wisdom, or, Hey Ken, do this, but don't do that.

What would it sound like?

Ken Miller: I wouldn't tell him to do, to not do anything. And I'm explain why? Because I wouldn't listened. I had others telling me, first of all, if I saw me, I'd be like, man, this is weird. We can get on Oprah with this. Come on, Ken's right here talking to me. But I had other people telling me what the right things to do were, remember I had good people in my life, my mother, others.

Okay, so that's number one. What I would do is this, I would say to him, Hey, Ken, it's gonna turn out well. You are gonna do what you're gonna do, but it's gonna turn out well. Because it was many times in my journey I didn't think it would turn out well and I was suicidal, trying to kill myself three times.

Three so I could knowing and if I believed it.

In the [00:44:00] end, this too shall pass, and you're gonna be all right. I can't tell you what year or what date, but just hang in there and I'd say that to the listener who's struggling. Okay.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, some terrific words. Hey, always remember it's gonna turn out well and something that remind ourselves of, and just remember that some great words. And Ken, before we officially wrap up. A listener in Deep Deep Wealth Nation, they have a question for you. Maybe they even want you to mentor them, coach them, or have them come to the organization, do a keynote for them.

Where would be the best place online to find you?

Ken Miller: My LinkedIn is Ken Miller 84. That's the year I graduated from Dartmouth. I just always had that as my tag. So Ken Miller 84 is my LinkedIn and I communicate with everyone who communicates with me. So you can go there. There's also my website, ken miller speaks.com, and you can leave me a DM or a direct message there also.[00:45:00]

Jeffrey Feldberg: Nation. The great news is it doesn't get any easier. This is all in the show notes. It's a point and click. And while you're at it again, go to the show notes. Pick up Ken's book Becoming Ken One Black Man's Journey from Ivy League To Prison and back Again to pick up those life lessons and those wisdom from Ken's journey.

He's putting it all out there. He holds nothing back. Ken, it's official and congratulations, it's a wrap. And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. Thank you so much. 

Wrap Up and Call to Action

Jeffrey Feldberg: So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. What did you think? 

So with all that said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. 

Did you find this episode helpful? 

Have you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? 

And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these episodes coming to you.

Are you ready for it? 

The dramatic pause. I'll just wait a moment. Drumroll, please. Subscribe. Please subscribe to the Deep Wealth [00:46:00] podcast on your favorite podcast channel. When you subscribe to the Deep Wealth Podcast, you're saving yourself time. Every episode automatically comes to you, and I want you to know that we meticulously craft Every one of our episodes to have impactful strategies, stories, expert insights that are designed to help you grow your profits, increase the value of your business, and yes, even optimize your post exit life and your life right now, whatever you want that to look like.

And every time you subscribe and a fellow entrepreneur subscribe, it's a testament to how together, Yes, we are. We are changing the social fabric of society. One business owner at a time, one liquidity event at a time. So don't let the momentum stop here. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast channel.

You'll never miss an episode. You'll be the first to hear from the top industry leaders, the innovators, the disruptors that are really changing and shaping the business world, and maybe you're commuting, maybe you're at the gym, maybe you're taking a well deserved break that we spoke all about on this episode.

The Deep Wealth Podcast, it's your reliable source for the [00:47:00] next big idea that could literally revolutionize your business. So once again, please hit that subscribe button, stay connected, inspired, and ahead of the curve. And again, your next big breakthrough moment, it might just be one episode away. Maybe it was even this episode.

So all that said. Thank you so much for listening. And remember your wealth isn't just about the money in the bank. It's about the depth of your journey and the impact that you're creating. So let's continue this journey together. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for listening to this episode.

And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. 

Thank you so much. 

God bless.


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Jeffrey Feldberg

Host