S2 E9: Talking About Persistence With Myles Kennedy

This week on The Hardcore Humanism Podcast we are talking with musician, vocalist and songwriter Myles Kennedy. You may know Myles best as the lead vocalist and guitarist for the hard rock band Alter Bridge, as well as the vocalist on all of guitar legend Slash’s solo records. And now Myles has his own solo album out on May 14th called The Ides of March, which you can preorder now.

One path to leading a healthy and happy life is the ability to identify and pursue our purpose. And ideally, a purpose-driven life can be fulfilling in and of itself, even if we don’t achieve all of our tangible goals. The fulfillment and satisfaction come from having a purpose and putting a process into place to strive for it so that we can live a life that is authentic to us.

Thus, if we spend our time understanding and examining our purpose, working hard to achieve that purpose, and building a supportive community around us, we will attain many of the physical and mental health benefits of living a purposeful life.

That being said, we are still human beings and if we have a specific goal in mind, it can be frustrating if we don’t see results immediately. In fact, one of the biggest barriers to achieving our purpose in life is when we assume that it should take a specific amount of time, or happen in a certain way. But oftentimes it can take years, or even an entire lifetime to achieve our specific goals. And we need to accept that while our effort to pursue our purpose must remain strong and consistent, the attainment of a specific goal may take longer than we’d expected or hoped.

Which brings us to Myles Kennedy. What was interesting about my conversation with Myles is that he exudes rock star – he’s a handsome guy, has a fantastic voice and is a great guitar player. So to be honest I naturally assumed that things worked out for him kind of quickly. But in our conversation, Myles explained how it took him years to build a career in music. And during that time, he often questioned whether things would work out for him as he had hoped professionally.

But Myles talks about how he was able to work through his self-doubt to pursue his purpose in music — a really interesting and exciting concept that he calls “soul investing.” And what Myles is talking about is the perseverance that we need when we pursue our purpose – that investment we make in our authentic self over time. And this is not easy, as the tangible rewards don’t come immediately. But we have to constantly be asking ourselves as Myles did, “How badly do we want it?” And that soul investment will not only make it more likely that we will achieve our purpose-driven goals, but also give is a feeling of fulfillment no matter what the outcome.

Photo credit: Chuck Brueckmann