Miller Hollstein 🧭

Thru-hiker, van-lifer, farmer, baker, author, and now creator.
Living life as a character - guided by something beyond me.
Something internally directing me...

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

I stopped running completely.

My first ultra kicked my ass and tore my body apart.
It was amazing and I loved it, but it broke me.

2 days ago, my friend reached out with a question about running while I was on a hike by myself.

It sparked something.

7 miles later, I wrapped up my first real run since October and the addiction is totally back.

Shout out to my buddy.

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

Most people look fine on the outside long before they feel fine on the inside.

I learned that the hard way.

I was a collegiate athlete. After graduation, I did what made sense — got a job, built a résumé, followed the expected path. From the outside, things looked stable. Internally, something felt off.

It took me years — and eventually a six-month hike of the Appalachian Trail — to realize that nothing was wrong with me. I was simply in transition.

Sport and school had given me structure, identity, and direction. When that structure disappeared, I had to learn how to orient myself from within.

That process became a book: The Trail Provides.

And over time, it became conversations.

Today, I work with thoughtful, capable people who find themselves in identity shifts — career transitions, post-athletic life, leadership changes, or simply moments when the external path no longer feels aligned internally.

My work is not about optimization.

It’s about attention.

It’s about learning how to listen before deciding what comes next.

If you're in a season of transition — and something feels off, even if everything looks fine — you're not broken.

You may just be in the middle of becoming.

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

Heard people talking about "gamifying" life for a while.

And I get that.
I played Skyrim.

But it always felt weird to me... or maybe like it was too much work to keep track of it all?

Anyways, with AI now, I plan on using a blackbox method and just having it track it all.

Thoughts?

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

Yeah dude. Exhausting haha and a bit painful to reset my system from it all

But yeah!! I'm stoked on it, been just dropping ideas in a document, going to have AI help me build it out (into itself?)

Not sure if ChatGPT or another one would be better. I'm a bit of a rookie on the AI front

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

Got sucked into IG.
Got spit out a new person.

Time to get back to my roots.

Also, building an AI companion for myself.

Jarvis for the modern person who wants to gamify their life and take control of their growth.

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

https://t.co/b6P9PUCglr

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

Two days after my book was released, an AI rip-off of it was posted on Amazon.

Almost the same name, almost the same description, almost the same chapters.

But almost doesn’t cut it.

~ ~ ~

That is the problem with the burgeoning industry that seems to be slowly seeping into our everyday lives, whether we like it or not.

AI has its promises, and I, too, utilize it for specific purposes.

But it cannot replace certain things.

Almost, but not completely.

~ ~ ~

As you read my book, I hope it conveys to you how important nature is to me.

But also, how wonderfully deep and grand and mysterious the world is.

The natural world can teach us many things that AI can only tell us about.

Ideas, notions, and lessons that can only be learned through the real world.

Experienced through doing and being,

Through imperfection and error.

Not through an automated output—perfectly curated for us on a screen.

~ ~ ~

Let me be clear: I am not hating on AI.

I think there are many use cases, and it will bring much good into the world.

However, if we rely too much on it, give it too much power, and forget…

Forget what?

How to think for ourselves, how to research and learn, how to interact with one another,

How to wonder, how to question ourselves, how to problem solve,

How to be ok not having something right away, how to be human…

Then, we are doomed.

~ ~ ~

So, as you read these words, just know, I had AI spell check this.

But they came from something weighing on my heart,

Pondered and contemplated by my mind,

Written and transcribed by my hands onto paper,

And entrusted to reach the right people by my soul.

~ ~ ~

Can AI do that? Maybe.

But it wouldn’t be all me.

It would be almost me.

It would have been from “Miler Holstein” like the fraudulent book.

Generic and boring and perfectly made.
But not human, not raw or real.

Hollow and dull.

Just… almost.

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

https://t.co/5MjyRgzWox

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

I can’t believe I am writing this.

What began as a walk in the woods turned into something far larger than I could have ever imagined…

I wrote a book.

---

At the request of my family and friends, I begrudgingly kept a blog on my thru-hike.

“But, I’m no writer! Why would anyone want to hear what I had to say?”

Well, with the incredible support of those few readers, I wrote day after day.

And through that process, not only did the content of my posts shift—from boring, blunt daily happenings to thorough, real, vulnerable explorations of my internal world…

But I found that I loved writing.

And (as prideful as I feel saying this), I was good at it.

The reader count grew, and I started receiving messages from numerous people telling me how much they enjoyed what I wrote and how it affected them.

---

And, with that, I knew there was something more there.
The trail ended, and months went by, but something in the back of my mind kept calling out to me. I had felt the draw and release of my own personal creative outlet.

And I needed to continue it. I needed to write.

But, not only that, I needed closure on this whole trail experience.

So, I set off on a crazy mission to write a book about the lessons I learned while walking across the country.

So that one day, maybe some lost kid would find the permission to go on their own adventure to find what they are searching for.

---

After years of walking, reflecting, doubting, learning, and trusting the next step, The Trail Provides is finally out in the world.

This book exists because so many of you believed in me long before I fully believed in myself—and I don’t take that lightly.

If you choose to read it, I hope it meets you exactly where you are.

I hope you take something away.

Even if all it is…is knowing that you supported me.

Thank you for every message, every share, every ounce of encouragement, and every single person who picks it up and goes on the walk with me.

None of this happens alone.

With much appreciation and love,
Miller

Link to purchase in bio and comment below.

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

Haven't been on here in weeks.
Haven't been happier in weeks.

This is an angry place.

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

If I see the word "optimize" one more time...

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

If you want to design a life that grows with you,
start by making space for change.

Not just reacting to it—
but inviting it.

Curiosity over control. That’s where real momentum lives.

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

Discipline is a muscle.

It doesn’t grow by thinking about it.
It grows by doing.

By choosing the hard thing—daily—and acting.
Over time, that choice becomes who you are.

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

Uncertainty gets a bad rap.

But it’s where growth happens.
Where you meet new versions of yourself.
Where you stretch into possibility.

Comfort keeps you the same.
Uncertainty makes you real.

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

It is ok to feel behind.

But make sure you know where that feeling is coming from.

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

Want to figure out what you’re meant to do?

Notice what lights you up.
Notice what you lose track of time doing.
Notice where your energy expands, not contracts.

Your path is hiding in plain sight.

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

The beauty of nature never ceases to amaze.

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

Van life isn’t an escape.
It’s a return.

To simplicity.
To trust.

To the version of you that always knew there was another way to live.

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

Every day is a new adventure,
And every adventure is a new story.

A new chance to engage with life.

[Miller Hollstein 🧭 @MillerHollstein]

The journey of authenticity is really the journey of coming home.

To your values.
Your voice.
Your essence.

It’s less about becoming and more about remembering.