Why Reinvention Is the Leadership Skill AI Can’t Replace

AI is changing work faster than most leaders can metabolize. 

It’s replacing tasks, reshaping teams, rewriting job descriptions, and forcing leaders to ask a question that can feel both strategic and deeply personal: 

What value do I bring when technology can do so much of what used to make me valuable? 

That question came up in my conversation with Jason Miller, a startup marketer, creative, former LinkedIn and Microsoft leader, music industry veteran, and current leader at V7, where he works at the intersection of AI workflows, trust, and scale. Jason has built a career by doing something many leaders talk about but few truly practice: reinventing before the crisis demands it.  

His message for leaders is clear: in an AI-driven world, specialization alone may not be enough. The leaders who stand out will be the ones who bring judgment, creativity, taste, curiosity, and the ability to connect ideas across disciplines. 

In other words, the future belongs to leaders who know how to reinvent. 

The Danger of Becoming Too One-Dimensional 

Jason made a point that should get every executive’s attention: when your value is too narrowly defined, you become easier to replace. 

In the age of automation, anything that can be reduced to processing, pattern repetition, or producing average output is vulnerable. AI is trained on what already exists. It can synthesize the average quickly. It can generate more content, more analysis, more summaries, more drafts. 

But leadership is not average. 

Leadership requires judgment. It requires knowing what matters, what doesn’t, and what “good” looks like when the output lands in the real world. Jason described this as the underrated value of experience: the ability to recognize quality because you have seen what works, what fails, and what only looks impressive on the surface.  

That is where leaders still have a powerful edge. 

Not because they know everything. But because they can connect what they know. 

Reinvention Before You Need It 

One of Jason’s strongest insights was this: reinvention doesn’t happen because of a crisis. It happens because you need to do it before the crisis arrives. 

That line stopped me. 

So many leaders wait until the market shifts, the role changes, the company reorganizes, or the strategy stops working before they begin asking, “Who do I need to become next?” 

But by then, reinvention feels like survival. 

The more powerful move is to make reinvention a practice. 

That means noticing where you have become too attached to one identity, one skill set, one way of leading, or one definition of success. It means asking: 

Where am I still trying to win with an old version of myself? 

This is where leadership growth becomes pattern work. 

At the core of reinvention is the willingness to break a pattern you have outgrown. Maybe your pattern is over-relying on expertise. Maybe it’s hiding behind polish. Maybe it’s waiting until you feel fully ready before you put your voice into the world. Maybe it’s believing you must stay in your lane to be credible. 

Your greatest strength can also be your biggest blind spot. 

The skill that helped you succeed in one season may become the limitation that keeps you from expanding in the next. 

Chase Your Talent, Not Just Your Dream 

Jason shared a powerful reframe: don’t only chase your dreams. Chase your talent. 

Dreams can be inspiring, but talent gives you traction. Talent shows you where energy, ability, curiosity, and contribution intersect. 

For Jason, that intersection came through music, marketing, photography, video, storytelling, and startup growth. He didn’t become distinctive by choosing only one lane. He became distinctive by letting multiple talents “argue and fight themselves” until the most powerful combination emerged.  

That is a valuable lesson for leaders. 

We often pressure ourselves, and younger professionals, to specialize early. Pick a niche. Build a lane. Become known for one thing. 

There is value in focus. But there is also tremendous value in range. 

Some of the most effective leaders are not the ones who know only one discipline deeply. They are the ones who understand how multiple disciplines fit together. They can translate between strategy and story, data and emotion, technology and human behavior, vision and execution. 

That range is not a lack of focus. 

It is leadership capacity. 

Put Yourself Out There Before You Feel Ready 

Jason’s reinvention didn’t happen in a neat, polished sequence. 

He started writing. He started blogging. He put ideas into the world before there was a guarantee they would land. He spoke for free. He built momentum through consistency, curiosity, and a willingness to be visible.  

That last part matters. 

Many leaders say they want to be known for their ideas, but they hesitate to share them. They wait for the perfect insight, the perfect platform, the perfect credentials, or the perfect timing. 

But visibility rarely starts with perfection. 

It starts with practice. 

Jason’s advice was simple and practical: write every day. Before you check your phone, before you open your dashboards, before you react to everyone else’s priorities, write down what is on your mind. Capture what you noticed yesterday. Name what you are thinking about today.  

That practice does more than improve communication. 

It strengthens self-awareness. 

And transformational leadership starts with self-awareness. 

When you write consistently, you begin to see the patterns in your own thinking. You notice what energizes you. You notice what frustrates you. You begin to discover the ideas that keep returning because they are asking for your attention. 

That is where authentic thought leadership begins. 

Not with chasing trends. Not with copying what performs. Not with outsourcing your voice to AI. 

But with paying attention to what is alive in you and having the courage to express it. 

Authenticity Is a Competitive Advantage 

In a world flooded with AI-generated sameness, having a real point of view matters more than ever. 

Jason said one of the best ways to combat AI fatigue is to have an opinion and be passionate about something.  

That may sound simple, but it is increasingly rare. 

Leaders are often trained to sand down their edges. Be professional. Stay buttoned-up. Don’t be too much. Don’t be too personal. Don’t risk being misunderstood. 

But the leaders people want to follow are not the ones who sound like everyone else. 

They are the ones who bring clarity, conviction, and humanity. 

This does not mean being performative. It does not mean sharing for attention or manufacturing controversy. It means allowing more of your real thinking, real curiosity, and real presence to come through. 

Especially now, when AI can generate polished content in seconds, polish is no longer enough. 

Presence is the differentiator. 

Find Your Place for Ideas 

Toward the end of our conversation, Jason offered advice for anyone who feels stuck or senses something is not working but cannot yet name it. 

Find your happy place. 

For him, that might be a music store, a bookstore, a concert, or a place where ideas can collide in unexpected ways. For someone else, it might be the beach, a trail, a museum, a quiet café, or a room with a blank notebook and no notifications.  

This is not fluff. 

Our best ideas rarely emerge when we are forcing them through an overloaded nervous system. Creativity needs space. Pattern recognition needs quiet. Reinvention requires contact with something deeper than urgency. 

So ask yourself: 

Where do I go to hear myself think? 

And perhaps more importantly: 

Am I giving myself enough access to that place? 

Action Steps You Can Take This Week 

This week, try three practices: 

First, write before you react. Before checking your phone or opening email, spend five minutes writing what is on your mind. Don’t edit. Just notice. 

Second, identify your talent stack. Name three skills, passions, or experiences that make your perspective distinct. Then ask: how could these combine into a stronger leadership contribution? 

Third, share one real point of view. Choose an idea you believe but have been hesitant to say plainly. Bring it into a meeting, a conversation, a post, or a piece of writing. 

Reinvention does not happen all at once. 

It happens in small choices repeated over time. 

The choice to stay curious. 

The choice to build range. 

The choice to be visible. 

The choice to stop leading from the pattern that once protected you and start leading from the potential that is asking to emerge. 

AI may change the tools. It may change the workflow. It may change the pace. 

But the leaders who will thrive are the ones who keep evolving. 

Not because they are chasing every trend. 

Because they are willing to unlock their potential again and again. 

Episode Transcript

Susan Drumm: Most leaders are chasing their dreams when they should be chasing their talents. Today’s guest breaks down the patterns leaders need to disrupt and stay relevant in the age of AI, why reinvention has to happen before crisis forces it, and the simple practice that helps find clarity when nothing else works.

I’m Susan Drumm, and this is The Enlightened Executive, where your personal evolution sparks your leadership evolution. Each week we spotlight cutting-edge strategies to help executives and entrepreneurs grow in leadership and in life.

My guest, Jason Miller, has spent his career in two worlds and refuses to pick one. He’s currently head of growth marketing at V7, the leading platform for AI workflow orchestration. Before that, Jason spent ten years at Sony building campaigns around the biggest names in music.

He’s a keynote speaker, a digital marketing instructor at UC Berkeley, and the best-selling author of Welcome to the Funnel: Down in Front. In his spare time, Jason is an avid photographer, and his concert photography has appeared in dozens of books, magazines, and on album covers.

Well, welcome to the show, Jason. I’m so excited to have you here.

Jason Miller: Thank you for having me. I’m a big fan. I’m thrilled to be here, so thank you for the invite.

Susan Drumm: Yes, yes. So tell us more about the work you’re doing and who it’s for.

Jason Miller: So, well, right now I work at V7, which is an orchestration layer for AI workflows, and that sounds very technical and fancy, but basically we are the trusted layer that orchestrates this new infrastructure of workflows that go across, you know, heavy document processing and places where you need absolute trust and auditability and the ability to scale that. So that’s where I’m at now.

But previously, I worked in the music business and watched the entire music business fight digital instead of embracing it. I think we all know how that story ends. Then I shifted over to B2B marketing, a startup called Marketo many years ago — I think a lot of marketers probably remember Marketo, now Adobe — and then moved over to LinkedIn very early on and built out the team over there.

Then I moved over here to the UK to do the same, and then went to Microsoft for a short little stint, and then decided I’d like to be back in the startup plan. So I’m a startup marketer, and that’s where I like to live these days.

Susan Drumm: Great, great. Well, so tell me a little bit about your point of view in what you do. What’s the thing that you’ve come to believe that most people in your space haven’t caught up to yet?

Jason Miller: I think probably the biggest — I mean, the elephant in the room — is, you know, AI is replacing jobs before anyone can get up to speed with what’s happening next. And I think what’s interesting to me is that, of course, AI can’t come out of nowhere — I know it’s blown up everywhere — but the Achilles heel of AI right now is that it doesn’t understand judgment and relevance, right?

And so I think if I look around at the most successful leaders, or the ones that I look up to, I find that they lead with creativity, with big ideas. They’re inspiring, they don’t stay in their lane, they’re constantly curious, and they’re reinventing themselves every chance they get. They’re this generalist wave across how everything fits together.

So I think that’s probably the biggest trend — entry-level roles are another thing — but for leadership, you know, taste, judgment, creativity, these are things that leaders need to bring to the table to inspire the team, to paint the picture of what’s possible. And that, I think, is what really resonates for me right now.

Susan Drumm: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I do think that — and certainly I’ve done a ton of work with AI, both within our company as well as creating our own AI product, where we have all of our coaching resources, and it’s essentially an AI coach. And the fascinating thing about that is there’s definitely a place for that, this opportunity to bounce ideas off of and have the AI as a 24/7 thought partner.

I also find there’s a place where it doesn’t fit, which is the true inspiration and motivation to get someone to make a change. I’m not seeing that occur, because it’s too easy not to have accountability with an AI — like, “Oh, I didn’t do that,” right? But when you have a live coach and you’re like, “Okay, what is it — you said you were going to do this, what’s getting in the way?” — and to pivot like that.

So I know in my industry, I can see the real difference where AI can play and where it’s beneficial, and what is distinctly human, at least in the personal growth and leadership growth space.

Jason Miller: Yeah, and to further your point there, I mean, if you think about it, AI is trained on average, right? And I think we maybe leaned into it too much, at least on the marketing side. Sure, it can make us more productive, but is it making us more productive at producing things that we don’t need? Are we just cranking stuff out?

And again, I think if you look at what it’s trained on, it’s trained on the average. There’s so much room between just the average and the next level. And I think that comes from curiosity, constantly upskilling. Everyone always asks, “How do I keep up? What’s the secret?” And there is no secret outside of being curious, not being a specialist, and just constantly pushing and reinventing yourself.

Reinvention doesn’t happen because of a crisis. It happens because you need to focus on reinvention before you need it, so it’s there, so you’re constantly adapting and ready.

I’m quite comfortable where I’m at, but I am nervous for, you know, the entry-level jobs and where that goes.

Susan Drumm: Yeah, agreed. I do love this term reinvention, because at the core of reinvention is breaking a pattern that you’re stuck in. And what we talk about a lot here is what are those patterns, where do you need to shift, where are you stuck in something.

In my own life, I’ve tried to always reinvent myself — from going to law school, to becoming a consultant and not even practicing law, to having a degree in acting, and how that all came together. I would have never thought at the time how this would all come together, but I felt the pull to reinvent myself each time, or break the pattern of the mold of what most people would have done.

That very generalist background, as you mentioned, is what served me. How do you see that serving, because that’s a very different mindset than I think — particularly kids today are pushed to specialize very early. For the longest time it was all about what your niche, what your specialization is. Tell me a little bit more about how you think about that and how we need to shift in this era of AI.

Jason Miller: Susan, I was on stage at Turing Fest, which is an AI conference in Edinburgh, and I was arguing with a good panel — it always has to have a bit of an argument, right? If everyone agrees, it’s kind of boring.

But I was arguing with someone I truly respect, probably smarter than me in many ways — it was the specialist versus the generalist. And we get to this point where it’s like, if you’re a specialist — I think, depending on what you’re a specialist in, but the majority of anyone who is sort of one-dimensional — I think you’re easily disposable in this day and age. And I think we’re seeing that through automation.

Anything that has to do with data or processing, I think we’ve figured out you’re probably going to need to spread out a little bit. And we had this term — I used it, it’s a LinkedIn one, from ten years ago, before anybody cared about LinkedIn at this point — we called it the hybrid marketer. I think it’s the T-shaped marketer, whatever you want to call it, but it’s being really good — not an expert, but good — at lots of different things.

Lots of different marketing disciplines, but more importantly — and this is where the leadership comes in — is understanding how these things fit together, and more importantly, in the age of AI, what good looks like when it comes out the other end. And I think that’s the taste portion. And it’s subjective, of course it is.

But the more experience you have, the more times you see what good and bad looks like, the more times you fail — I’m not going to throw out “fail fast” because I think that’s overplayed — but the more you see what works and what doesn’t, and you have that under your belt, I think experience is probably the most underrated skill you can have right now in AI. And that plays into leadership and what you do with that.

There’s a great scene in The Avengers — I think it’s the one right before Endgame. I’m not a big Marvel guy, but this movie changed me, Susan. And there’s a—

Susan Drumm: Really?

Jason Miller: I was watching it on a flight to San Francisco, and there was a scene where Loki and Thanos — Loki says, “If you’re looking for someone to take you to Earth who has experience, I could be of service.” And Thanos looks at him and says, “If by failure you mean experience.” And he says, “By experience, I mean experience by experience.” And the idea is, yeah, Loki destroyed Earth, failed miserably a bunch of times, but so did we all. But we still know what not to do, hopefully with our best foot forward. I think that’s terribly underrated.

Susan Drumm: Well, tell me a little bit about the pattern that you had to see in yourself — which is the inner work maybe that you’ve done. I think every person that’s doing meaningful work now has had to confront something in themselves. What’s a pattern that you used to have in the past, how did that show up, and what had to change?

Jason Miller: I think probably the pattern that was biggest for me, that still lurks here and there, is a bit of imposter syndrome, a bit of routine, right? I was, you know, from the Midwest — I was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in a very small — it’s a very small Midwestern town, very conservative, you know, religious. And there was really no way out of it. We were in between New York and LA, right? So by the time the trends get to us, they’re already gone.

And so I think it’s just a matter of pushing yourself. And I hate to say that so vaguely, but here’s the secret about reinvention, or success, or even thought leadership, or going viral: if it were easy, everyone would do it. But it’s a grind, and it takes a lot of perseverance and determination. And you have to set goals, and you’re going to be disappointed.

There’s a really great reel that my wife shared with me from Reese Witherspoon a couple months ago — did you see this? — where she talked about, don’t chase your dreams. Everyone tells these kids, you’ve got to chase your dreams. And she said, “Chase your talent.” And I thought, yeah, that’s exactly the frame of mind that we need to switch back to. Because I don’t want to kill any inspiration — sure, chase your dreams — but lean into your talents. Not just one, like you said — law school and acting, and how it all pulls together.

The leaders that I respect the most, they have lots of talents, and they sort of let the talents argue and fight amongst themselves until they figure out what those two or three are that they can blend together. And I think if you can take a couple of passions and blend them together, that’s what really makes you stand out and be unique.

It was a struggle, and it doesn’t happen overnight. You have to stick with it. It’s painful. You have to really dive in, and you have to know yourself, and you have to ask the hard questions. And the last thing I’ll say about this — you have to put yourself out there. If you’re an introvert, you’ve got to be comfortable walking into a room and starting a conversation. These are the things I struggled with. I mean, I really like to talk now, I have a big personality, but that’s the heavy metal voice — that’s my metal, my music. And photography and videography, that’s my creative element that I bring together.

So it’s music, it’s passion, it’s marketing — these three things. Axl Rose crossed with Jerry Seinfeld crossed with, you know, Seth Godin. Not that I’m anywhere near his level. But that’s what inspires me, and that’s what makes up me as an individual.

Susan Drumm: Yeah, so I was just going to mention that — you brought in multiple disciplines into the work that you do, right? From music and marketing. Tell me a little bit about how you created that intersection.

Jason Miller: Well, when I worked in the music business, I didn’t want to lose the connection to free music, free concert tickets, and access, right? So I started a blog — and this is part of the reinvention — I just started writing, I started putting it out there. This got me into the B2B space, because it was — from a class, I think, or, no, it was Jello Biafra from the Dead Kennedys who said, “Don’t hate the media, become the media.” If you can’t get the media to talk about you, or get other people to talk about you, just become the media yourself.

And I think that was a big trend, you know, ten years ago, whatever, but it still applies today — greater economy, putting yourself out there. I literally started to blog and write, and it grew into something. But the key has always, for me, been about access. What can you do in your role to get access to something that’s unique, that no one else has? For me, it’s access to concerts, access to photo pits, access to photograph musicians that I love. Videography is the same thing.

And that plays very nicely into the creative space around brand, around marketing, around digital media spend and advertising — it’s all the creative circle kind of coming together. And it’s also quite helpful that I have a full BBC studio here, with terrible lighting, of course — we’ll work on that — but I can film a keynote, I can film a reel, I can film a music video. I was doing photographs of some of our team members the other day to update their LinkedIn profiles.

So there’s always a way to pull it together, but at the end of the day, I think it just makes you a more interesting person. And what better way to combat AI fatigue than to have an opinion on something and be passionate about it?

Susan Drumm: Right, right. So tell me, going back to the pattern in yourself and what you had to shift — was there a specific moment, or conversation, or experience that cracked that pattern open for you? Not a gradual realization, but the moment you saw it and you couldn’t unsee it. Can you take us to that scene?

Jason Miller: I know exactly where it was. I was at the gym on a treadmill, working in the music business — and this is going to really date me, Susan’s going to date me — I was reading Inbound Marketing, the original inbound marketing book by Dharmesh, you know, and Brian, from HubSpot. And I read it, and I thought, there’s a shift, there’s a massive shift happening in marketing. I can do this, I can do this.

And I dove straight in, and then to further escalate it, I went to my first marketing conference and I saw Ann Handley — who I’m sure you know, she’s a dear friend of mine — and she was so inspiring. She is about storytelling, she’s about creativity, she’s about being bold and taking risks. And I’m like, that’s me, that’s what I’m going to do.

At no point did I ever say, “I can’t wait to become a B2B marketer.” But at the same time, I felt that I saw something that I thought I could do during a shift where there were new entrants coming in, and then I saw something that inspired me so much. That was Ann on stage, being this quirky kind of outcast — she didn’t look or sound like any of the other speakers — and I thought, that’s what I want to do. This is my Ann.

And I worked hard, and I wrote for free, and I spoke for free for years and years and years until I built up an audience, but I never stopped, and I never do stop. And I think you’ve got to find something, find an entry point, and then find someone who inspires you so much, and follow them and connect with them. There’s no — you know, I reached out to Ann and got a guest blog on MarketingProfs, and I was breakdancing, I was so excited. But it’s those little things, and momentum, and once you get a little taste of feedback on your own opinions, or validation, it starts to make it easy, and you start to become a bit addicted to it.

So yeah, I think, number one, find an entry point of something that’s open, that’s ready for the taking, and then find that one person, or multiple people, who inspire you, and go get it, you know?

Susan Drumm: Yeah, yeah, I love those two points — and particularly just getting connected to what’s lighting you up today, right? I think some people are in this sort of sea of, I don’t know, nothing. The more you put yourself out there by doing — you’re not going to wait and be like, I’m going to wait to be inspired. Try some things, keep moving, you know? We don’t know how it’s going to work out.

I like to say it’s a little bit like having a flashlight. When you’re going into a tunnel, you can’t really see — you have this flashlight, you can see three feet in front of you. You know how to take the steps forward. And just because you can’t see what’s at the end of the tunnel doesn’t mean the journey isn’t worth taking, right? And so I think that’s essentially what you’re offering — to get out there, find that thing that inspires you, and then, hey, there’s actually somebody who’s doing that work, and they can inspire you to put your own stamp on it.

Jason Miller: Perfectly sums it up. And I think, to add to that — I grew up in St. Louis, I moved all over the country, I live in London now. I’m living a life that I never thought would happen, and it happened because I didn’t wait for opportunities, I grabbed what was in front of me.

It’s interesting — something that kind of frustrates me a bit. There was this trend a couple of years ago about, like, oh, if you want to pick my brain, here’s my invoice, or whatever. And it’s like everyone’s so precious with their time, and I don’t think it used to be like that. It used to be, if you find somebody online and they have some time, they’re happy to chat with you, or you can interview them or something. But now I feel like everyone’s like, oh, my time is precious, you can’t pick my brain.

And I feel like it wasn’t like that when I was starting out. There’s so much out there, and it should be so easy to connect people, but I think everyone’s chasing viral fame and they forgot — you don’t always have to hang out and speak to the most important person in the room. You can find inspiration and knowledge in places right at your doorstep, you know.

Susan Drumm: Yes, yes. When you were going through the shift you mentioned — letting go of this imposter syndrome and getting inspired by something and someone — as you started to make that shift in your career, what was the hardest part of actually changing? What did you have to maybe unlearn or let go of?

Jason Miller: I mean, to this day, it’s being consistent and keeping the momentum and staying inspired, because I see so many people who start something, they’re excited about it, and it just kind of fades away or dies off. If you do find that thing that you’re passionate about, or there’s one or two passions that you can combine, it keeps it interesting. So I’m not just a B2B marketer — I’m a B2B marketer, I’m a photographer, I’m a creative, I’m a music lover.

You have to have a way to pivot when you get frustrated and find that blocker, right? So if I get frustrated with music photography or whatever, I’ll switch over to portrait photography or something. Or if I’m frustrated with demand gen marketing, I’ll go find some inspiration. We went to the Brand Museum in London — I didn’t even know there was a Brand Museum — but it’s just having pivots that are still connected to the overall goal.

And you see that today too — what works on LinkedIn? It’s not about followers anymore, it’s a completely level playing field. It’s about showing up, it’s about being consistent, it’s about having an opinion on something, anything, and not being afraid to share it. There’s a contrarian marketing jerk phenomenon happening right now, where people are just pulling the Donald Trump quotes and stuff and trying to rile people up. But at the end of the day, you have to have an opinion, and you have to be curious, and you have to be consistent.

I feel like I’m dragging this one on, but — ask a question on LinkedIn, you’ll get ten to twenty responses of everyone trying to outdo each other with the best response. If you ask it in a private community that’s trusted, you’ll get ten to twenty answers of people generally trying to help you. And I think that’s the space that I like to sport over to. But you have to be active.

Susan Drumm: That authenticity piece. Well, if there’s one framework or practice from what you do that you’d want every leader listening to practice or think about, what would that be?

Jason Miller: I think there’s a couple of things. One is, every single day, first thing you do in the morning — don’t look at your phone, don’t log in to check your HubSpot dashboard — write down what’s on your mind, how yesterday went. Write something down. That was number one.

Number two, be comfortable on video. I know text-based — I know video is supposed to take off on LinkedIn, or whatever, I know that text-based posts probably still outperform — but I think moving forward, you have to be comfortable on video. You have to be comfortable with yourself, and you have to figure out a way to get your personality to amp it up a little bit.

I’m on TikTok and Instagram, but I focus mostly on Instagram and LinkedIn. But if you look at the loudest people on TikTok, as an example of where this is all heading, right — they’re not necessarily sharing groundbreaking news, they’re likable and they have big personalities. And I think if we can bring more of that into the B2B space and into the leadership space — you look at the CEO of McDonald’s and the videos he does on LinkedIn, he’s like, I want to hang out with this guy. He’s such a cool guy, he’s not stuck up, he’s not buttoned up, he’s just a cool guy, a normal guy with an insanely stressful job, I’m sure.

Yeah, I think it’s just being more comfortable with who you are, putting yourself out there more, writing every single day, and don’t lean in too much on Claude or GPT for your writing. So, I mean, that’s kind of what I would say.

Susan Drumm: And so if somebody is stuck, or sensing that something isn’t working about how they’re leading or living, and maybe they can’t quite name it yet — what would you say to them? Where could they start?

Jason Miller: This just popped into my head, because my daughter was watching Happy Gilmore too last night — I just haven’t seen it — but, this sounds so ridiculous, Susan, but you’ve got to find your happy place, right? You’ve got to find a place where you walk into, or you go to, and you’re just there by yourself with your own thoughts, and you have to be comfortable there.

And I promise you, things will start to enter your mind out of the blue. For example, for me, I love antiques and old stuff, or I love a music store — thank God we still have music stores and bookstores here in the UK. I’ll walk into a music store, I’ll find an old record or a new record. I’ll go to a bookstore — I walked out with ten books once. I think you just have to put yourself out there, find your happy place. My happy place is a music store, a concert, a bookstore — anywhere that I can just grab knowledge and ideas and steal them, put my own twist on them.

So what does that look like for you, Susan? Where do you start?

Susan Drumm: Oh, yeah. You know, I was just, as you were talking, I was thinking about — for me, it’s, I love being in the forest. I love having trees around me. I feel this sense of power and majesty and calm and inspiration from trees — I swear I’m a tree lover, that’s why I love hiking. And it’s funny that I live in the desert, because there’s not actually trees out there, but I still — for me it’s just a different landscape.

I’ll find the tiniest little flower, or the interesting way a cactus is shaped, right? But I love going all over to do that. So I feel like being in nature in general, but in particular being around trees in a forest, is my happy place. There’s something about my energy that just gets connected there.

Jason Miller: I think your blood pressure drops automatically, right? But you point out something interesting — these little details, you start to notice things. I go to the same record store, same bookstore, and I’ll always find something new even if the stock never changes, you know? There’s something about that. I would imagine that a lot of people, if you asked them that question, would bypass it by saying, “Oh, I don’t have time to do that,” or something. It’s interesting.

Susan Drumm: But that would be a good way of measuring — how often are you in your happy place? Is there a way you can at least get there once a week?

Jason Miller: Yeah, I mean — and again, it doesn’t have to be a physical space. I have a record player here with hundreds of records, so my happy place is sitting on my bean bag with my 1970s headphones, reading the album credits or whatever. And it will pop into my head, something.

Susan Drumm: Yes, I could totally agree. For the longest time, I would do my meditations — right before I meditate, I had this spray, like a pine, it was like a pine essential oil, and I would spray that, and then I could go into my meditation even deeper. And I noticed the distinction between that scent and being able to do that.

So even though I can’t get to the forest and I’ve got to start my workday, there was a way I could bring it to me. And maybe that’s an idea for people to think about — not only where is your happy place, but let’s say it’s the beach, and you don’t live near the beach — is there something about the beach you can bring to you that will have you connect back to the energy of that?

Jason Miller: I love that, I love that. And this is one of those things that I think people might think is beyond fluffy, but until you try it, you’re like, I need to do more of this. Then you need to remind yourself that this works and this helps. Every time I have a problem — the biggest challenge, I can’t figure something out — I will perform one of these things that I mentioned, and I promise you, something will come into my mind. Will it be the answer? Will it be the most ridiculous thing ever? Who knows? But something will happen if I allow the moment to happen.

Susan Drumm: Awesome. Well, I really appreciate you coming on the show. Can you share a little bit about where people can learn more about you and your work?

Jason Miller: Yeah, so v7labs.com — that’s v7 — so if you’re interested in AI workflows, agents, and skills, and all the infrastructure of the future, you can look us up there. Jason Miller on LinkedIn, feel free to add me there. On Instagram, I’m Jason Miller CA, as in California.

If you’re ever in London — this is another thing, I’m spoiled that I’m in London, I walk outside and the energy of the city is everywhere around me, and I thrive off that. And I wonder one day if I want to pull an Ernest Hemingway and have a seaside cottage where I retire by the English seaside or something. I’m thinking — not yet, not yet, I’ve got to get this out of my system. But yeah, thank you, what a fun conversation. Thanks again, really appreciate you having me on.

Susan Drumm: Thanks, Jason. And if you like this episode, you’re not going to want to miss my interview with Braxton Kilgo, who helps us discover how purpose-driven leaders turn small acts of kindness into scalable impact. Let’s lead the way.

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