Sept. 1, 2026

The Life You Didn’t Choose: A Reckoning with Who You’ve Become

Show Notes
Transcript

It’s crazy how “life” sneaks up on you and everyone but you is suddenly running your life. You absorb family expectations, cultural norms, and unspoken rules about who we should become. You’ve learned to contort ourselves to fit what the world rewards. Until we finally realize we’re lost. The opportunity, the beckoning, is a reckoning and finding a roadmap back to yourself. To find your way toward flourishing. Guest: Organizational psychologist Tonille Miller.

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The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are

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solely those of the host and their guests and not

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directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W4CY Radio.

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What's working on purpose anyway? Each week, we ponder the

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answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose

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at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their

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lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization

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that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their

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highest potential. Business can be such a force for good

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in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide

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guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we

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all want, working on purpose. Now, here's your host, Dr.

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Elise Cortez.

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Welcome back to the Working on Purpose program, which has

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been brought to you with passion and pride since February

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of 2015. Thanks for tuning in this week. Great to

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have you. I'm your host, Dr. Elise Cortez. Most leaders

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are sitting on untapped human energy, and I help them

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unlock it. I'm an organizational psychologist, logotherapist, workforce advisor, and

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the founder of the Gusto Now movement. But the title

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I live by every day is much simpler. I traffic

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in energy, not the surface level motivation or another engagement initiative,

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but the deeper force, what I call Gusto, the life

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force for performance that drives commitment, perseverance, and genuine ownership

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of a shared mission in the clients we serve. You

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can learn more about us and how we can work

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together at gusto-now.com or visit my personal website, elisecortez.com. Getting

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into today's program, we have back with us today, Toniel Miller.

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She's an organizational psychologist, transformational leader, and former Big Four

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consultant who has spent nearly two decades proving that people

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stuff and business results were never mutually exclusive. Her career

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lives at the intersection of technology, strategy, and human behavior,

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leading enterprise-wide transformations for Fortune 500s, top firms, and high-growth

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startups based on the thesis that high performance isn't accidental. Today,

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we're talking about her newest book, Flourishing From Within, Reclaiming

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Who You Came to Be in a Life That's Actually Yours.

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We'll be talking about how to reclaim your inner authority,

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reconnect with your authentic self, and redefine success in an

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age of constant disruption. She joins us today from Minnesota,

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but home base is Florida. Tennille, welcome back to Working

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on Purpose.

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Thanks for having me back.

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It's so great to have you. You know, my listeners

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and viewers don't know this, but Tennille and I are

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sisters from another, a different mother. That's what we've determined.

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We're so aligned, and I so appreciate and love your work.

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And this latest book really spoke to me as well.

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And all of what you wrote about yourself as well

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and shared was tremendous. So thank you for bringing it

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to the world. And I don't know how you did

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it and everything else you're doing, but thank you.

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Thank you for enjoying it. I appreciate that.

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Absolutely. Absolutely. And to situate this conversation for our listeners

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and viewers, when you were on last time, we talked

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about your other book, The Flourishing Effect, which of course

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is a playbook for creating the conditions for engagement and

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high performance. But this new book, Flourishing From Within, of course,

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the focus is inward. And you've written it to guide

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readers to reclaim their inner authority, reconnect with their authentic selves,

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and redefine success. So where did this book come from,

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and why did you feel compelled to write it?

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Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's interesting because obviously

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this occurred to me, but it's not new. And I

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think it's really occurring to a lot of people right now.

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And we'll talk a little bit about why that is

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in the book actually quite a bit. So for me,

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it's just, I kept seeing in my work with companies,

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just like the work that you do as well, who

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are you working with? Yes, you're changing systems, but you're

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working with people on the individual level. And so that

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means leaders, of course, as well as employees. And I

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just kept seeing that, at least in today's world, So

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few leaders are doing that inner work and people in general,

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I think, but especially leaders. And I focus on leaders

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because you and I both know that if the leaders

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aren't doing the inner work, then the rest of it

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is just off the table. And so I just kept

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seeing that over.

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And over and over again.

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And again, throughout my career, seeing people, meeting people and networking,

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all those things.

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And it's just, you keep seeing the same stories and

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it's so sad.

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And I guess I wanted to take a stab at

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it and say, Hey, I think I might have some

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ideas around this. just based on my own personal experience,

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all the research that I do and, you know, all

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the different case studies and things like that.

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You know, I so appreciate that, Tenille. And just last

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night here in Dallas, I was invited to speak to

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a group of executive people who have all been like

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C-levels or they had their own business and sold it

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and exited or whatever. And I gave one of my

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classic conversations or talks about inspirational leadership, which includes passion, inspiration, purpose, meaning,

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et cetera. And Literally every single one of them, just

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as frequently, just completely leaning and hungry for it. But

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many of them, of course, had said, I haven't done

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this kind of work. So you're right. I completely agree

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that there's an opportunity here to awaken more people to

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this and to stoke their appetite for it and give

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them something to chew on, which I think your book

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does so beautifully.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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And I think the hard thing, and I hope someday

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maybe in our workplaces, in our schools, we do this

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kind of work with people. Because again, if you don't

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know yourself, you can't figure out yourself and you can't

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figure out other people and how to work together and

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all the human things, nothing else matters.

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Knowing trigonometry and knowing AI and.

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All the great things that we're doing and we focus on,

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none of that matters if people are in the mix.

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And hopefully for a while, we'll still be in the mix.

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Yeah. Well, that's why we started the Guster Now movement

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is to double down on humanity in the age of

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AI so that we are extended by AI, not replaced

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by it. That's the whole reason that we started that movement. Okay.

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So let's talk about the game that we're playing here.

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I really appreciate how you situated the chapter. You're not broken.

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The game is. And I appreciate how you situate, you know,

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how so many people are on the outside so successful,

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but hollow on the inside. If you could speak a

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bit to this game that we're in.

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Yeah, I mean, it's interesting too.

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And again, part of this is the fact, and I

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hate to pick on New York City because I love

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it more than anything, but I lived there the last

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15 years and I think it's on steroids there more

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than a lot of places.

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It does exist everywhere. It totally does. But I just

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think because the value system is different.

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The incentives are different, that everything's very different, just the

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way people interact and operate. And I even found myself,

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who is from Minnesota, I found myself even in the

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very early days subconsciously taking on some of those things

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and being like, gosh, this doesn't fit.

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But if I want to survive here, that's what I thought.

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I want to survive here.

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And on top of that, too, being in corporate America

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and being in some of these very cutthroat organizations and

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environments on top of that, it just became very clear

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to me that I was just like, the more I

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saw it, the more I spent time in it. I

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just realized, like, these are all humans at the end

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of the day. Like, these are all souls.

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If you want to get really woohoo, I love. I

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hope your listeners do.

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Me too.

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I'm right there with you.

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Right.

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I mean, we would be yelling at people in a

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board meeting and we're doing this and that. But at

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the end of the day, who are we underneath all that?

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And so just again, I'm giving you a little bit

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of background context there, but I guess it's just something

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I kept seeing.

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Over and over again. And then we talk about the books.

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I was like, where does this come from?

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Right.

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And it's so much conditioning. And again, it starts in

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our family. As we talk about in the book, it

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starts in our school. It starts so young in advertising

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and everything and all the institutions and everything. that by

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the time we get to be, to your point, an

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adult and we're climbing that ladder, we're doing all the

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things we're supposed to do, quote, supposed to do, we

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wake up and realize, well, who am I on the inside?

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I got real good at climbing that ladder, but was

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it my ladder?

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And usually it's not. Often it isn't.

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And then we wake up and our life is either

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over or we're having some problems. Right, right, right, right.

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And I so aligned and appreciated with what you said.

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You said that we are living through a crisis that

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goes Far deeper than economics, politics, or public health, it's

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a crisis of the soul, a collective hemorrhaging for meaning, connection,

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and vitality that's leaving entire generations feeling lost, lonely, and

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desperate for something they can't quite name. And then I

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want to share some stats here that are so sobering,

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and if you could maybe just sort of comment on this.

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You write in your book, 85% of executives report unhappiness

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despite professional success. This one, next one, all of them

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are incredibly sobering. But the next one, teen suicide attempts

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jumped 51% from 2019 to 21. 77% of Americans experience

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regular burnout at work. And one in four of us

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report feeling lonely despite being so connected more than ever.

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Those are incredibly very just in-your-face stats that we just

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can't ignore this stuff. Yeah.

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And this is the thing that trips me up.

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It is that, and I hope I made this point

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in the book clear enough is that not only are

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those sobering, but also if you think about it, it's

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so counterintuitive. And that's why I think we're missing it

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because it's like, we're the most comfortable technically. I mean,

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granted things are a little dicey right now in the

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world in general, we know that I'm not going to,

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you know, I'm not discounting that, but in general compared

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to a lot of things and a lot of timeframes

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and that sort of thing in other countries, if you're speaking,

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speaking about the U S but, we are in a

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very comfortable place in the world, right? As far as like,

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we have more material possessions. We have all kinds of

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kind of quote connection with social media. We have all

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these things and to your point, even success. And unless

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we're doing that inner work, again, it comes back to

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that inner work. We can have all that external stuff,

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but if we don't have that inner foundation, everything breaks

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away and it really doesn't matter at all.

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And so I think that's the most frightening part is

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that we're doing all these things thinking, Oh, I'm going

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to solve the problem. I'm going to feel enough, but

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I'm going to feel all these things. And we realize

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that they're just counterfeits. They're not real. And they don't

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give us what we're looking for, what we're chasing.

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A hundred percent, you know, and I'm, I have had

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enough of these kinds of conversations over the years and

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yours is just taking it to another level that really

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just brings it all together that I realized how much

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of my own life, thankfully to Neil, that I somehow

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managed to swim upstream. I didn't, I just, it was,

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there was just lots of things that happened that made it.

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So I didn't have a traditional education. You know, I

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did it outside the United States by correspondence. So I didn't,

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you know, get plugged into the system where you write

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about how, you know, in today's industrial era, that education

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is prioritized to produce compliant workers who follow instructions, sit

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still and behave I didn't have that. So I appreciate that.

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Then we go on if we can and talk about, well,

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we've been chasing the wrong things. And so the question

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I love that you pose in the book, does this life,

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this specific life I'm living right now, allow me to

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become more full of in myself or does it require

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me to abandon who I am? And I, I think

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that's what we've been talking about here. People are, they're

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so more moored from themselves that they don't know who

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they are.

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Exactly. And I, Oh, we could talk so long about this.

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It's so important.

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And first of all, I'm really glad that you shared

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your context because I didn't realize that.

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And that just tells me that you're a rebel and

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that's why.

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That's why we like each other, my dear. I'm sure

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of it.

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No, it's a beautiful thing. And so we need more

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of that.

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And again, I think especially right now for a variety

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of factors, we can talk about some woo-woo, some not.

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This is, I think, an era where we all need

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to be as authentic to our human nature, our true selves,

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whatever that deepest, weirdest, whatever makes us us specifically versus

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a random template or the random thing on Instagram that

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everybody looks the same way now and all these things.

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we need to double down on exactly who we are.

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And that comes with knowing who we are, which most

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people don't. So to your exact point, if we want

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to avoid all those traps on the external and like

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conditioning and all that, we have to do all this

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deep inner work first. And then again, the flourishing from

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within idea is coming because we're building our inner foundation

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and then everything else is a lot easier and it's

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a lot more true to us and we can be

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happy versus what most people do is building the outside

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and then the inside crumbles.

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Well, and to that point, let's take it one step further.

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I really align with this too. You write in your book,

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but here's what you're discovering. Comfort doesn't produce flourishing. It

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produces fragility. I think that is so, so important to

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understand that. And of course, as a logotherapist, we understand

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through that conditioning that what we need as humans is

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a certain tension between who we are and who we're

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trying to become. We need that. When we don't have

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that tension, we go into apathy. So I really appreciate that.

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And if we contrast that, when you bring in, you

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talk about the concept of eudaimonia, which is often translated

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as flourishing or the good life. And you say it's

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richer than that. It's a life lived according to virtue,

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a life of meaning and purpose, a life of actualizing

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your potential and expressing your highest capabilities. Yeah.

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And this is the funny, I have to admit this.

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My first book, as you know, and just in general,

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a lot of my work professionally, my main career is

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really focused on removing friction in workplaces, making, whether it's

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technology adoption or if it's like leadership connecting with their people,

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whatever that different friction is, which again, I write all

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about that in detail in book one. I have spent

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my career to remove that because I know that like,

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at least my assumption and my experience, I think I know,

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is that the less friction that people have in the workplace,

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the better they can do their work, the more wellbeing

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they have, all the wonderful things we're chasing is that.

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But I will tell you, I think what you mentioned

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just there, it definitely made me take a step back

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because you're right. When we think about flourishing, there has

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to be some friction. There has to be some tension.

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There has to be somewhat discomfort or some discomfort somewhere.

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And so the way I kind of reconcile those is that.

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In the workplace, first of all, there's so much friction

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that we don't control and it doesn't benefit us at

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all that I feel like it is safe to say

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let's mitigate as much as we can in that regard

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just for a variety of factors. But in our personal life,

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I agree a thousand percent. We have to do the

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hard things. We got to have the difficult conversations. We

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have to push ourselves. And to your exact point, I

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think that when we don't, I think a lot of

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the unhappiness that we're seeing, and I don't want to

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stereotype too much, but I think if you look at

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the stereotype of like the person who never left their

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mom's basement and they don't go out and ask people,

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like I look at Scott Galloway's work, right? Like they

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don't ask the guy that people aren't dating. They're not

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asking people on dates. They're not going and going through

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the rejection activity of, you know, trying to get a

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job and they're just doing things online and swiping and

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ordering food and not, you know what I mean? Like

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all those things that are making us more fragile. I

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think that's a great way to think about it as like,

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that's not helping anyone. And then we just end up

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more lonely and more disconnected. Really?

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00:14:23.990 --> 00:14:25.929
Right. I'm sure I saw one of your posts about

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that on LinkedIn and commented on that. Yes. So we

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need to intervene in that drift big time. Yeah. Okay.

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00:14:34.009 --> 00:14:36.149
So now let's go to this. Let's have the good

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news here. And you have a chapter on the good

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news and the way home. And I really love this.

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Now that we've situated how dire things are, let's give

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our listeners and viewers some hope. You say the good

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news is who you are at your core was never

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actually lost. It was buried, suppressed, trained out of you.

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but still there waiting to be reclaimed. Yeah.

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And this kind of makes me, I've been reflecting on

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this even with myself right now, because this is the

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other thing I'll say is that.

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I think that even when we do the work, as you.

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Can probably relate to as well, even when we know

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this stuff, even when we've done this work for other

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people and we do do it on our own, right?

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We do the proactive inner work. We have to keep

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checking with ourselves because I've found that.

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Different times, even right now, I feel like I'm in

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one of those moments where I'm like, Ooh, I kind

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of feel unmoored to use your word earlier, a little

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bit untethered to all the things that were familiar.

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Cause I've had a lot of change in the last year.

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And I kind of have gotten to that point where

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I'm like, Ooh, I don't know. I feel like this

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is a major transition and I.

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Don't really know who I'm going to be next or

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where I'm going to go, but I do know what

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is true.

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And that's the beauty of getting older. You know, what

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is true.

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So even if you don't know everything, you can focus

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on those things. So to bring it back to your question,

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I think that's the key is just knowing, um, really

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understanding like what aligns with us, what resonates with us

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right now, and just continuing to have those check-in calls, right?

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Because then we can go out into the world and

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operate from that place. And then even if we are

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evolving into somebody new or we're put in a new

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city or doing a new job or whatever the case

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might be, we still have that solid core.

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And so we have to keep that solid core. But

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to your point, we have to uncover it first and

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nourish it as we go or it goes away.

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And I think, you know, part of what I am

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so aware of, and I think this is because of

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my focus on purpose, because purpose works in part because

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we're mortal beings and we don't know when we're leaving.

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We don't know when the extra ramp is coming. And

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so I really appreciate it in your book, you say,

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because at the end of your life, you won't be

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00:16:28.570 --> 00:16:31.610
asking whether you did what was expected. You'll be asking

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00:16:31.649 --> 00:16:34.309
whether you did what was true for you. And that

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has been really important for me, Toniel. And that's why

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I have pursued what I've done with Gusto now. And I,

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00:16:39.960 --> 00:16:42.980
you know, it wasn't, it didn't make logical sense. It didn't,

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00:16:43.700 --> 00:16:45.940
It wasn't a safe move, but I did not want

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to get to the end of my life and go,

386
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you know, I didn't have the courage to go after it.

387
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I missed it. I just wasn't willing to do that.

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I love that so much.

389
00:16:53.870 --> 00:16:55.269
I have to tell you not to bring it back

390
00:16:55.309 --> 00:16:56.830
to me, but I'm going to be calling you after

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this sister for some notes. I'm in an exact place

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like that. I made a decision earlier today, which I

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can tell you offline that was definitely not the logical

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or quote smart decision on paper, but just couldn't go

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on any longer the way it was.

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The Life You Didn’t Choose: A Reckoning with Who You’ve Become

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