Hey. This is Ken Jensen. I’d be bipolar disorder in an all natural fashion back in the mid 2000s. And believe it or not, that’s not even the coolest part of my story.

What I learned through that process and what came next and how that applied to bipolar and wide bipolar was ever even part of the process, was mind blowing to say the least.

Bipolar has hidden within its strengths. I’m gonna show you what I mean and how phone up in my life so you can do the same. Welcome to the bipolar Excellence podcast episode 84 after your bipolar disorder.

So an old friend from over a year ago showed up. He is my first repeat guest on the show. Some of you may recall how I said, rather strongly, I wasn’t gonna interview anybody on the show anymore, and I’m sticking to that.

This was sort of, not sort of. This was a completely unplanned thing. and Troy Steven, who is the author of After Your bipolar Disorder. That’s the second book he’s written. He just wanna come back on the show again, and I liked Troy.

And I was I was glad to help out and give him some exposure for his new book, his second book, as well as the publishing company that he runs. So you’ll find out all the details in the upcoming interview you’re about to see.

So, yeah, I really don’t like interviewing people. It’s not a natural flow to me. It not the same as just holding a conversation. If I was good at interviewing, it would be like a conversation.

But I get to focus on what it is, the goals I’m trying to achieve, what it is I’m trying to help my guests do in accordance with I wanna achieve as the owner of bipolar Excellence.

And I don’t really achieve a flow state as well as I’d like with that. but with with Troy, that’s his pen name. So I trip up his name. But, with Troy. He’s such a pleasant person, and I find him very interesting.

And I just just was glad to give him a hand by doing this. And We had a before and after talk, and the after talk led to something interesting. I’m not gonna share the details. because until the thing becomes something, it’s nothing.

But just in, the after conversation, the after show conversation, Troy mentioned something that was put put to him by somebody in his circle that he felt I might want to be part of as well.

And I do. I’ve been here before countless times with with many things for many reasons. So we’ll just see if if if what he suggested flies with the other parties involved, because it isn’t just up to to him and me, then we’ll see.

I’m I’m all the way on board, and I’m excited. If not, it’s kind of I protect my myself from my own over enthusiasm, which is a lesson I learned the hard way after bashing my own face into multiple brick and stone walls years ago.

You get really excited. I get really excited when I hear something cool that I’m about to be part of and either the thing itself never takes place. or it never gets finished or it never becomes what we thought it would become.

And then it dies. that happened to me numerous times before it reached the place that I’m at now. Now And I think this is critical for some of you to know. Now I don’t have a long range link to anybody’s plan that I’m part of.

Not if you were simply a client. You have me while you have me, and I’ll do my damn to get you to wherever it is you’re trying to go next, but I’m not beholden to the outcome.

That’s really what any good coach should that’s how they should look at it anyway. We’re here to help you figure out your answers with the stuff that’s already in your head and heart.

And then in my case, I imagine a lot of coaches. I’m also an advisor and a consultant. I’m gonna throw in my 2¢ where necessary because it’s it’s gonna be required.

But occasionally, and this is part of my larger goal with bipolar excellence, a project will arise that somebody really wants me to be part of that really appeals to me, and I’m I’m gonna get on board. I want that to be the case.

So there’s been a couple of those in the works now. This is the latest. So we’ll just see. I I want this to work. If it doesn’t, I’m not gonna be crushed because I keep a healthy buffer of detachment in place.

So so that if I’d show more things fail than succeed. So to protect myself, again, from my own hope and dreams and wishes and wants and desires.

I just keep it loose, and then we just see we just see how it’s gonna go. That’s good advice for anybody out there doing anything just so your soul doesn’t get crushed.

Should it not go your way. You don’t quit entirely. You you you pick yourself up. dust yourself off, take a look at what happened, and learn. Everything that happens is feedback. Even god awful terrible things is a form of feedback.

Pick a part why it happened, ponder, mull it over, look at things, introspectively, and retrospectively, and try to figure out why things went the way they did. and you will discover gold.

Eventually, a thing will go the way you want it to go. That aside I am officially back to lifting. I got in my 5th lift last night. My body has already responded responding quite well. My body fat starts going down almost immediately.

Not stunningly so, but you can see changes in in various parts of my body that that I know something’s happening. It’s really weird too because I don’t bother weighing myself other than out of curiosity.

Because the only thing that changes really is my composition. It’s been that way for, I’m gonna say 25 years now. Overall, I get heavier each decade. but I also it’s it’s muscle mass as as well as fat.

And the only thing that changes is how much muscle versus how much fat is present. I just wanna be huge and beast like. And so a certain amount of fat comes with that, and I’m I’m willing to accept it and I don’t care.

And it looks fine. I wear it well. if it gets to be too much fat, terrible things happen, and I gotta wear a shirt all the time. And I’m looking at myself sideways in the mirror. sideways being, what are we doing?

We have to get back in the gym. Look at what’s happening. anyway, again, I’m 55 now. I know my body. I know my training. I respond rapidly just to just a touch in the weights again with the intention of doing something with them.

So I’m really happy about that. It’s going well. My appetite doubled almost pretty much doubled by day 2. That’s another thing. Once my body knows it’s game on, I I pivot fast.

Hunger goes through the roof. My desire to drink more water goes through the roof. My my my willingness to cut sugar down. I don’t cut it out. but I cut it way down. that kicks in naturally and I don’t suffer much for it.

I’m glad that, I’m doing what it takes to make my body function the way I want and perform in a gym the way I want. I did do, I’m almost I’m I’m about 290. Now 2 years ago, I could still do 12 pull ups and I had to work my way up to it.

I hadn’t done pull ups in many years. And I did deads and rows and and and lap pull downs and things like this. A bunch of different things working with the hammer machines. strong lats, but not for pulled pull ups.

And I learned, embarrassingly idiously, some years back, handful years back. I couldn’t even do a pull up anymore. I’ve always been able to pull ups my whole life. Well, I learned, how you get them back as you do holds.

You get into the top position and just hold and resist gravity as long as you can and you do sets of that. you’ll find you hold you hold in the top position longer before you even start to dip and you can fight to dip longer.

And you just do that till whenever, and then you get back into doing regular pull ups. And that’s that’s how I did it last time. That’s how I’m doing it now.

I did a set of 3 where I did. I did, what I do with 10 seconds. Everything felt like I had no strength at all. Then on the second rep, my body was in the game. or second set. And I did, I think, I think I did 15 seconds.

And then on a third rep, I fell solid and I did 20 It’s not. That’s holding 2:90 up in the air for 20 seconds. Maybe it was 25. I don’t know. It wasn’t more than 25. And, I fought hard to to to resist gravity on the way down.

I was really happy with myself. Now I haven’t worked it out with any regularity in a solid year. That was too much. my lats and rear shoulders and and the the long head of my triceps were absolutely shredded like shredded, shredded.

I traumatized them. I didn’t damage them to where it won’t work anymore, but I definitely traumatized them. So I needed an extra day off than what I normally would before I could train again.

But even that had an after effect, it was just I don’t know. I’m feeling it. I’m I’m feeling the warrior wake up again, and it feels really good So I’m back in the gym.

If any of you need motivation along those lines, I hope something I said there helped. this is an intro before you get to the the interview with Troy.

I think about this sometimes because, I follow the routine that Mark Marron and what the fuck pod does where he shares a lot about his personal life before he even gets to the guest, and he’ll go on for quite some time frequently before he even gets to the guest.

I often find I like that more than the interview with the guest. I like hearing what Mark’s up to.

So that’s how I shape my show as well. nobody’s brought this to my attention whether they’re yay or nay on it, but I don’t care. It’s how I’m doing a show. It’s how I wanna do it. It’s being done. You’re either in or out.

If you’re out, the chances are, whatever. We we wouldn’t have clicked anyway. If you’re in, that that’s just one more way we can gauge that we’re meant to work together. So that was a stick to your guns when you do something.

You might have to pivot. I might have to pivot somewhere down the line depending on on what does or does not shape up at all of this, but, this is episode 84, and I’m I’m happy doing the show this way.

I’m gonna keep doing the show this way. So I’m video recording this. If you’re listening on just the audio podcast, And I’m messing around with the Vimeo editing tool, which I’ve I’ve attempted in the past and didn’t get anywhere with.

And, tonight, I just figured some simple things. I found a YouTube video that clarified some stuff, easy peasy. And, this was causing me a certain amount of depression because I don’t I don’t have to edit my videos using that editor.

I have been wanting to. There’s certain things I wanna do so that my branding and my website show inside YouTube in a way that YouTube won’t let happen through their tools.

I forget what. I think it’s once I hit a certain amount of listeners or viewership or something.

I don’t know. So you gotta bake them into the video itself. I never bothered because this is a ton of work putting all of this together, and I’m with what what everything else in my life, I’ve been doing what I could do.

So I’ve been really dreading trying to learn this fucking editing, this this this video editing software inside Vimeo.

I’ve made 5 or 6 or 7 attempts in the past. Finally got my head around it. I feel I feel elated. I’m I’m glad that I hung in there and looked at it again.

I’ll be able to do some more things to really polish up my videos right now. I’m just putting together this latest video with an intro maybe an outro. And then, that’s it. that’s I think that’s all I wanted to cover for the moment.

And I think the cool thing with Troy Stevens is He has an entire other world with his skill set, and he that’s not what he wanted to talk about. He wanted to talk about his book and his publishing company.

And I thought that was really cool because in a way, that sort of the the friction I run into withdrawing by by bipolar people who want help with bipolar And and and and they just shoot right past the fact that I’m building something much larger than fighting bipolar off the story of how I fought bipolar and won.

This is always something that’s tricky to me. I don’t know bipolar excellence will remain titled as such.

Right now, it will because as I’ve said before, it’s too much damn work to unknit it and start all over. I will just shoehorn this thing in and then make it go. The Oh, the to do list. The to do list is it’s it’s done.

There’s nothing left on my to do list. that matters in a way that that has to be done before I could start the LinkedIn marketing machine. I am averse to learning something new. It ages me as stressed stresses the shit out of me.

And even though I’ve been wanting to do this thing since I think mid or late spring, trying to get everything else ready and running into other technical issues has making this last too long before I just get on LinkedIn and just do the official marketing sheen that I’ve been trained to do.

And that’s just how it goes for me. That’s just how it goes. And I’m I’m there now. There’s like, I’m looking over here.

There’s 5 or 6 things on my to do list. They’re all long range stuff. No immediate problems. They don’t need to be done potentially if ever. There are things that’ll make things better and cooler, but they do not need to be done now.

To keep me from doing the LinkedIn marketing push. So I’m greatly relieved that I’m finally doing that. I guess the lesson there is, it takes what it takes. You’re you’re better at some things than others.

Don’t fight yourself or beat yourself up too much over the shit you think you should be doing faster and better than what you are. just keep doing something. It’ll happen when it’s supposed to happen in a way it’s supposed to happen.

Sometimes when you hesitate it’s not because you’re really it’s not because you’re lazy. It’s not because you’re, just putting things off needlessly. Sometimes there’s a peace unit knows this is not the way to go.

And you’re chasing after a goal post that was put in put in place by someone else’s well meaning advice who has the life that you want, but it just doesn’t agree with your makeup and one way shape or form.

It doesn’t mean you won’t still have to do it maybe, but maybe it does. Maybe you’re doing something that it look it looked better when that person did it than than what it’s turning out to be for you.

This is a tricky thing you only know with testing and experimenting and and building on the on the fly. And you’ll know you’ll know. If something’s really just giving you an ulcer every time you do it, it’s just not worth it.

It just isn’t even if it sounds like the way you’re supposed to go, And but at least you know. And if you try at something for a very long time, at least you did that.

You didn’t give up so fast that there was nothing to learn. because a lot of people struggle with bouncing from from tactic to tactic instead of implementing just one thing in a strategic form thinking long goal.

They go tactic to tactic. They get shiny object syndrome. Oh, that’ll do it. Oh, that’ll do it. and I’ve done all these things.

Every once in a while, something sneaks in and and I do that again. I catch it faster than before. but I’ll think something will save my ass quicker and easier. And usually for me, it’s technology of one sort or another.

If I can just get some technology to do something I’m doing manual, that’ll speed something up over here, which will speed up something over there and just save me time and hours, stress, labor.

And then I end up losing half a day on the thing that would have everything easier that same day that had I just done it the way I knew how to do it, which might have been rough and not as polished, I’d have got it done in, like, minutes or half an hour, and then I’ve been on my way and through it.

Even that is something that has to happen.

Learning. Learning, testing, experimenting, sampling, seeing where we’re at with something, trying new things. It has to be done in a sensible way, but every now and then some sensible sensibility has to be thrown out the window.

You get better at it as you go. Don’t beat yourself up over it too much. A little bit of beating yourself up is healthy, but not too much. Too much is too much.

You’ll you’ll get all pessimistic and and quit before you ever reach the finish line. Alright. That was 2 sports metal floors and besides the strong man competition. I’m not even a fucking sports fan. I think that’s a signal.

I’m gonna end this here, and this will be the intro. to the interview with Troy Stevens and And if I’m screwing up, if it’s Troy Steven, not Troy Stevens, I can’t remember. I don’t have my notes in front of me because I suck at that.

Okay, guys. Let’s see how this worked. Okay. This is Ken, and I am here interviewing Troy Steven Troy Steven. Troy Steven has been battling bipolar disorder since his first episode in 1993.

He has a masters in Engineering and has worked in the aerospace industry for 25 years. He is the proud dad of 4 children and grandpa of 3 grandchildren. Troy’s passion is writing and publishing books.

His new book is after your bipolar disorder. Welcome welcome back to the show, Troy, since you were here somewhere a little over a year ago, and I was awful excited to see you in my email asking to come on again.

This is this is pretty fun for me. Thanks for coming back again. Oh, thanks for having me, Ken. Good good talking to you again.

It is. we mentioned, Troy and I were talking before the show started. And, Troy used to have a mustache, and my beard is feeling ambiguous about, that the fact that it’s gone, but we’re gonna I’m gonna coax my beard through this.

I should explain, Troy, this beard plays into every damn thing I do online. So I have to listen to the conversation. It’s it’s impressive. It’s impressive. Thank you. Alright. So I guess I’ll provide a little, just a little background.

When Troy and I spoke a little over a year ago, Troy had written a book and he has a publishing company of his own. And he’s since written a second book. And even though Troy is an engineer and quite intelligent.

And that that’s an understatement of massive proportions. His pub his passion is publishing books, and I’m a writer at my core. and I’m I I love books. Books are like people to me. I feel comfortable when I’m in a library.

I feel like I’m with friends, so I’m really curious to hear more about your story, Troy, with how you how you came into the publishing industry, what what kicked that off, how you’ve grown it, and how bipolar ties into it.

Sure. so when COVID hit, I I quit working for an engineering company and was working at home And I wrote my first book breaking bipolar.

Took me about 9 months, and then I published it on Amazon and Hulu and Ingram Spark and other platforms. So I learned all the ropes about publishing books.

And I put an ad out on Craigslist to get a, I will help you edit and publish your books and a couple people hit me up and Since then, I published over 40 books. my company’s called Battle Press Publishing.

I’ve met a lot of interesting people, offers, you know, writing fiction or nonfiction. religious books, the whole gamut children books, and I learned a lot along the way. That’s one thing with respect to bipolar.

A lot of people who are bipolar are very highly intelligent. And so being able to get the disease under control and overcome it, so to speak, although you’re, you know, always in the back of your mind.

Don’t get another bipolar episode happening. But, so I like to tell everyone there’s lots of, you know, there’s hope.

If you’re bipolar, do not give up on hope. If you take the right measures and learn how to manage your illness, then you could you know, exceed in life. Winston Churchill was bipolar. they thought Abraham Lincoln was.

Ted Turner. Kathleen David Jones. There’s lots of people high functioning people who are bipolar that Excel in life. And so, you know, that kinda goes along with the entrepreneurship and getting your own business going and growing it.

I agree. I agree with I agree with all of that. That’s something I I believe when we talked last year, you were only into the thirties in the book that you the amount of books you published.

And now you’re over 40? Yes. Alright. So that’s that’s a bunch in between. Just with one inside of 1 year.

That’s a lot more books that you published. Yeah. And most of them were return return authors that wrote their second book or third book in the series. So people like working with me because I treat every book like it’s my own book.

And they’ll send me their manuscript, you know, Microsoft Word easily, and I’ll edit it. And anything I change, I’ll go put it in a red font. I’ll send them back the manuscript with my suggested edits.

We send it back and forth back and forth until the manuscripts ready to go. And then we do a cover design. Have a great guy that does cover designs. You know, it covers the book.

So — Yep. and then, then publish it, you know, either e you know, publish as a ebook, paperback, hardcover, or audiobook, or all four. on the different platforms. So, yeah, I’m loving it. I like how you mentioned how bipolar.

Either bipolar tends to land an intelligent people or intelligent people seem to be the ones that are more acceptable to being bipolar. but either either way, who knows which, maybe a little of both.

But I found the same thing. I found a lot of people that have buy polar. A lot of them have chaotic worlds because they’re Their minds are too busy and they can’t find enough to do with them or they can’t find something to focus on.

And They’re capable of doing so much, and I believe ordinary life frequently is not enough. that’s a big thing with me. I cannot settle for the status quo.

What seems to make the average person comfortable is me in a depressed state trying to do the same. I I When I was younger, I used to need more excitement and adventure slash misadventure, and and I sought chaos.

And if there wasn’t any, I made it, so I had something to react to. and that’s all since passed. Now it’s more nuanced. It’s more subtle. It’s more about mastering myself.

I found my newest my newest as far as, however long I’ve lived now 55 years, the the last and greatest adventure that I’ve been on for the last recent so many years is the adventure of understanding myself and mastering myself And I find that to be just as thrilling as when I was just out in the tangible world creating carnage and chaos.

And and my my day job, I deal with a lot to have bipolar disorder. And they’re all they’re all some of my most interesting people. Do you think bipolar played a part at all and you’ll be an engineer? Probably so.

I mean, I I always, when I was growing up, I’ve read 10 books a week from the library. My mind was always like that. I played chess. I was a chess champion. math was my, you know, I was the best guy in the class in math and so on.

So that kinda like I don’t know how bipolar fit into that, but that was, you know, the engineering part of me that I was leaning towards. So, how old were you before bipolar became a thing when you could title it as such?

Yeah. See, I was thirty three years old. — That’s same as me. Really? I was probably 202829. I just thought I was going insane. And then they’re like, no. You’re bipolar. And they show me the list.

I’m like, yes. I am in fact all of those things. Yeah. I’m not trying to discount that, you know, I guess Ken and I, we’re in pretty good places right now in our lives, but there is a a a long road before this happened.

I am a co leader of a bipolar support group that needs twice a month. And we have about 10 or twelve people that show up at each meeting.

You know, I’d say the majority of them are on medication. include myself. each of them has ups and downs, and it’s really It’s when I never really wanted to go to the support group meeting once I so I have my first episode in 93.

I could check myself involuntarily into a psychiatric hospital, had a psychotic break. was in there 2 or 3 weeks. Came away heavily medicated. then struggle to try to get my medications right so that the right formula is working.

I was married. 3 kids at the at the time. 3 young children. So I was in the hospital 2 more times, 2005, and 2015. both involuntarily. I threw all my medicines away and went manic.

I guess, leaning up to throw all my medicines away. I was having manic, manic symptoms. And, you know, it just got higher and higher. And so I think the problem was is that I didn’t have the right medications.

I wasn’t doing, like, doing things that everyone should do to have, like, a whole life wellness plan to follow. That’s I talk about in my book where you you master your medications. You you have a you find a good psychiatrist.

You go outside and get fresh air and exercise. You eat right. You minimize or don’t do it all. alcohol, marijuana, and drugs. And, you learn learn mind strengthening techniques like meditation, different things to help your mind.

You try, you know, learn these different techniques that when when things are, like, for example, you start a lot of times people will ruminate where they keep thinking about the same thing over and over and kicking themselves in the butt for something that happened.

Just try to, you know, change that train of thought. So I I what I do is I if I realize I’m doing that, I say the word noise and change my train of thought.

So, anyway, mind strengthening and you learn along the way from my first episode, if I start I could think about my second episode that, hey, the same thing was happening maybe 4.

So I need to do something about it. You know? You get smarter along the way. I guess what I’m trying to say is you have to have, like, a living whole life wellness plan.

A lot of people are suffering from bipolar disorder. 20% suicide rate. So 20% of people I’ve done research you go online and check it out on Google and so on, but, like, approximately 20% of people commit suicide who are bipolar.

It’s it’s the energy. It’s from what I heard, it’s it’s got the highest rate of all the serious mental illnesses.

And and from what I’ve read about schizophrenia and and I work with people who have schizophrenia, that’s something knowing that there’s something worse than that.

And and you and I have lived it. It’s it’s almost surreal. It’s when I think back to what I used to be, you and I you and I had different different well, or sorry. We had similar wellness plans.

The only difference I found some ways of not having to do meds anymore but I know that for many reasons, most people I’ve ever worked with can’t duplicate what I did even though there’s very clear cut steps plans, products, and other people to help.

And I realized there’s a lot of variables involved in in achieving achieving wellness the way I did. And So it would respect to that. You you would need meds just just to keep going so the owner doesn’t take charge again.

And then, some people I think they just feel better on meds and and that’s that. And I tell people I’ll tell you what, if your life works, you’re happy with it, then that’s whatever you’re doing.

Do that. And, it what’s who cares how you got there? If you’re happy and and you can and you can succeed at life, and the onus isn’t leading the way anymore, then then you’ve won.

I was asking you before about engineering and by or the only reason I brought that up? Sometimes this is a very specific thing. Sometimes I miss being manic. because I could consume information the way I think you can organically.

I had a B manic to consume what you sounds like you’ve been doing since you were a kid. I I I, you know, I had to I had to be bipolar in a sense to match your ability to process data.

When my mania went away, I I could not read as much think about as much. I lost that, and you probably are familiar with this. It’s like three-dimensional thinking.

I can make connections in all directions up down behind me in front of me. I could include time for the past, the future, all kinds of anything. I could tie together all kinds of bits of data and experiences to come to a solution.

I have an I have a a a memory of that, an echo of that that I can still I still use when I’m helping people or solving my own problems, but it is not as powerful as when I was manic.

The bipolar side, I could solve the crap out of pro problems if all they needed was some heavy duty thinking about them.

I I know exactly where you’re coming from now, and I agree that when I’m when I’m manic, I could definitely outshine when I’m not manic.

You know? Yeah. Cool. Have those connections and just feel in the flow. And sometimes that’ll happen to me even now, but not you know, not not all the time.

But — it’s not as intense. Right. When I was in that state, you know, doing good things, solving problems. people would even say, how how did you even put that together? and I’d tell him, I don’t know.

I see it all crystal clear. I see all of it. It it and somebody far flung bits of data, and it was It was really amazing, and I could see it all in my head clear as day. Almost like, I think it away. I’m always amazed by painters.

I don’t know how a painter looks at what you and I look at and turns it into an awesome painting. That’s that’s just mind blowing to me. I think with this type of thinking you and I are kicking around here.

I think it’s similar to that because we could we could see it easily, and no one around us can. And then we hand the people to solution and they’re they’re looking at us like we’re magicians.

I’m like, I don’t know. I just see it. It’s right there. But, yeah, I don’t have that like I used to. I have it. but nowhere near. I’m not the Superman with it as I used to be.

Something to strive for. So let me let me ask you this. Did you write a book and then in the process decide to become a publishing company? I I can’t remember anymore. Was that the part of the the the order of events?

Yeah. When I first started writing my book, my first book breaking bipolar, I was just I’m gonna write a book and try to make money off of it and, help other help people who are bipolar and loved ones of people who are about bipolar.

You know, I wanted to just help a lot of people do the best book I could and along the way. And then I figured out. first of all, I tried to go through a vanity publisher called Bookwhip.

And and, they were gonna publish my book for me. And that became a fiasco. just, I sent them a manuscript. They edited it and formatted into a paperback format and ebook, send it back.

I made a bunch of changes. And before they I sent my changes to them, and they knew that I would had to give them the go ahead. They went ahead and published the book on Amazon.

And so here’s this book on Amazon. It’s got errors and issues and needs that it’s big time. You know? usually, there’s a process back and forth back fork till the author says, yeah, it’s good to go.

So I had, like, Better Business Bureau take take my book off of Amazon. So that was my first experience. And, so then I ended up finishing up my book and learning how to publish it as a ebook paperback hardcover audio book.

And then once I got through all of that, it was still COVID time. and I put the ad on Craigslist to try to get authors. And then I got a few authors, and then I went on to fiverr and and put on a ad onto the fiverr.

And got a bunch more authors and off to the races. that’s cool. That’s interesting. I we I think we follow I think we follow a similar general path there.

In this case, with business building, I did the same. Wanna be bipolar. I got way up on a pedestal and started screaming every corner to your tech of Fine to tell them I I found the answer.

I have the way. That was a brutal lesson in reality. How that did not work well. But, I learned a lot about the process of telling the world about what I did.

And then, I got, like, a thirty thousand foot view a bipolar in every sense of of how it affected my life and why, and I started understanding myself in ways that had nothing to do with bipolar.

And and in particular, how I ended up beating it and what what my life became later. And, I became a person that’s settled that certain people are drawn to And I didn’t realize what exactly to call myself or what that thing was.

And now that now that we’re in bipolar excellence, it’s it’s it’s all got to do with that, but We both did the same thing.

We started with bipolar. We defeated it slash managed it out of existence, the ways that we did. We told everyone about it, and then it led to something even larger.

And I think anyone on a growth path experience is that same thing. You start out with one thing because you gotta start somewhere. If you got an idea or whatever and you want out of life, then start building something anything.

Get good with the fact that maybe maybe a nail it, but the chances are slim. Maybe it’s really good. those chances are greater, but probably still sort of slim.

But what you’ll learn from the process right or wrong, you’ll iterate your way towards what you’re supposed to be and It’s it’s brutal. It’s brutal advice to hear, but I think you I’m sure you experienced the same, Troy.

The You keep taking a run at the thing till the thing becomes more polished, and you understand and learn along the way, and you learn more about yourself along the way, And as you do, it shapes the clay better as you keep iterating.

Have you experienced that growing as a publishing company? Exactly. Yeah. You you know, you pretty much have to fail and learn from what why he failed.

And then get yourself back up and go after it harder and keep doing that until you’ve learned enough to get you know, to getting on your feet and stable. And then, you know, you wanna grow up bigger and lots bigger and scale it up.

You keep doing the same thing. and a lot of it, I think his team worked coming into contact with people that’ll help you be on your team. You know, I I I had a girl that was doing social media for me, for about a year.

Like I said, the guy that does my creates my covers for the books. Marketing. that’s how I came up came upon you. I had a girl that was trying to get me on the podcast.

And she contacted you. And here we are. So I think a lot of teamwork, you know, having a good team behind you is important. Just depending. But — Yeah. Yeah. There’s I’m a solopreneur. I do most everything myself until I hit a wall.

And then I’ll go for a while at something because it’s like, you know, it’s like a man stop and ask for directions. There is no such thing. Eventually, you gotta stop and ask for directions.

And, hopefully, you’re not into some dark canyon and it’s, 2 AM in a in a foreign land. But, If I don’t hire someone directly to help me, I I’m I’m building a nice network of friends and supporters on on LinkedIn.

And I’m finding that I’ve heard this advice for years, but you offer help to other people first Just be helpful.

Without asking for anything in return, you do that long enough till people get an idea of what your flavor is and what your intentions are.

If you grab their interest, they’re gonna pick you apart anyway. They’re gonna research behind the scenes. And what you’ll find is over time, you gotta pick out this of waters.

You gotta be patient. Some of these people who turn into friends are very, very powerful allies at the at the least, and they’ll see something to you where they wanna help back.

And I’ve had that happen to me more and more and more lately, and it’s becoming very satisfying.

I do all my own technical everything on my own because I’m capable, but, again, even in my case, I I know what to do, but I don’t know that I’d hire me to do it. If I had the money to to get the best, I’d be like, no. No.

You need this and then hire whoever I point you at next. So you do what you got to to get the thing off the ground and keep it alive and going and have world find you. But then, yeah, as much as you can, you don’t wanna do everything.

That’s that’s not why you You wanna do whatever the the kernel, the core of the dream is. You like you, you wanna publish books. You wanna help people get their books done. You don’t wanna do all this other stuff.

So I would imagine, you know, you already have a team in place, and you wanna you wanna get to where they they do the bulk of that other work so that you can You can help the future authors with their dreams and helping them see the future for what their book might do and what it can be.

Does that sound about right? Yeah. And, so when we when I was talked to you before, I don’t know if it probably at least a year ago.

Mhmm. You’ve you’ve got you I maybe didn’t understand, but now what you’re doing on the LinkedIn and you’re you’re helping small businesses or what what are you doing in terms of helping others?

I help existing small businesses try to scale things up or branch in new areas. Usually, if they want my help, it’s because they’re afraid to make a leap.

And then I focus even more so on people that just have an idea. Something they wanna take big and they’re afraid to launch their business. They’re afraid of the online world.

They’re afraid of learning how to integrate with the real world with brick and mortar buildings and online banking and They need somebody at their back that can guide them through the creation of a dream and take it to the completion, in this case, as a functioning small business.

What I share with people the most is with rare exceptions, one of the best ways to move through life is as a small business owner where you have more charge of of of everything in your life.

And it took me a while to understand I always wanted to be in charge of my life and I realized a lot of people, the matrix life in general society trains people to be drones.

So a lot of people get the feeling that they don’t wanna be drones anymore. They’d like to build something that’s their that’s their own that they they are proud of or excited about.

But then they don’t know how to go about doing it. Then they go online, then they get ripped off by all the gurus that know everything. If you just give $8000, they’ll help you do this, that, and the other thing.

And or to get overwhelmed and information overload. So, basically, I take somebody that’s brand new that has an idea, has a few dollars necessary to invest in it to get it the ground and build somebody to keep parts.

And I talked them through it, and I stay available quite a bit. so that they never feel like they’re alone as they get their baby up and walk him. Oh, that’s great. Sounds like fun too.

I did a lot of this years ago on pro when I say unprofessionally, I I was just doing it. I there was no mission involved. I just found myself somewhere where a lot of small business owners were coming to me for advice.

And at the time, I didn’t even have a small business. And for years, I wondered what that was. Why are they coming to me? They’re making money. Some of them quite a bit. Some of them were millionaires.

They wanted my opinion on things. And for the longest time, I couldn’t figure out what that was. When I’m with people in a room, I tend to give them confidence, and I can help them stay calm, and I can bring them clarity.

It doesn’t matter if they’re bigger than me. It doesn’t matter if they out earn me by Cajillions. People are people are people.

Whenever they’re getting ready to do something new, it’s a little bit scary, a little bit confusing. I know how to lead people through the woods. bring them back out into the into the air into some shiny new land.

And I like to do it a lot with metaphors, apparently. Yeah. Kind of a consultant. That’s great. Yeah. Where do you see Is there a next level for your publishing company?

Is do you hit, like, a certain amount of books and maybe you got another plan cooking in the background? Just curious. My trust over the last few months has been marketing books.

I’m not so a lot of the books I just published, the people pay me for doing the formatting and editing and cover and publishing, and I didn’t get a royalty from the books when they sell.

But about 12 of the books with local authors here in Satellite Beach, Florida, and other other states also.

I did a contract with them where I get 20 percent of the royalties for each book that sells. So now I have 12 books, including my my two books.

That our marketing recently started using Amazon Advertising and you know, about it’s the same thing about I’ve been trying to lose weight for a while, you know, a couple of years atkins whatever k toed diet.

We finally started using Nutrisystem and lost £25. And I was like, finally, I finally found something that works.

You know, to lose weight. Just, about a month ago, I lost £25. And so then I started I’ve been doing all kinds of marketing, social media, all the platforms, Twitter, YouTube, so on.

Trying to get podcasts for my authors and so on. And then I started trying Amazon advertising about a month ago and having great results.

So I’m like, finally, I found something that I’ll sell books. Oh, that’s awesome. That’s where I’m at now, but I’m like, I like to publish a lot more books. you know, Yeah. A lot of the authors I know are writing more books.

So I’m I’m open to accepting new books contracts and so on, but right now as I’m focusing on marketing. Well, that’s cool though that you added the contract part. You that was smart. And that’s a that’s a huge growth step in its own.

Right? Yeah. Definitely. Well, the one thing we didn’t really cover today, what is the name of your new book and and what is it about? Name of the book is after your bible bipolar disorder.

Bipolar heal thyself. and it’s about creating a personal battle plan for battling for overcoming bipolar disorder a little bit like we talked earlier where there’s different parts of the plan.

Mhmm. one of the first one of the first parts of the plan is the contingency plan. Have someone that’s close to you that that knows about your problems with the illness If you get into trouble, start having an episode, call this person.

They’re your contingency, so you don’t skyrocket into mania or into, you know, go down into depression and end up in the hospital.

So contingency plan, optimize your medications, learn how to rank your medications up and down until you’re in the therapeutic level where you’re optimal, you’re thinking, well, you’re happy, You’re doing good.

It takes a while. It takes a long time to find the right medications to that work for you. training your mind, talked about those mind strengthening techniques, train your body, do the exercise and so on.

Having having, I would say, having sex with your partner is good for your mind, good for your emotions, Yes. It is. That’s that’s a street from a Napoleon Hill. — That is.

Other parts of the plan, how to recover from a bipolar episode faster when you, you know, when you’re in recovery, learn about if you’re gonna be in psychiatric hospitals, it’s good to know what what it’s like in there and what the rules are and what the laws are.

I have a chapter in my book about that. I have a chapter about legal rights.

And so the the book is the first in the book is to have a bipolar battle plan, which is really like a whole white whole life wellness plan that covers all the aspects of bipolar, the medication and so on.

And it’s up to you as the person who is bipolar to fit to heal yourself, you know, bipolar heal myself.

Is a is something I like to say a lot, you know, learn all you can about the the disease, you know, You’re the you’re the hero and the story, and bipolar is the protagonist.

And it’s a war. It’s a war. You know? It’s definitely a war. Yeah. That’s what you’re saying.

The whole page of my site, it It’s it’s well, that’s part of that larger view that I realized after I fought bipolar the way I did. Everyone’s at war with themselves. Everyone. But for some of us unfortunate few, it becomes bipolar.

That’s a high level war. That’s a commitment. A lot of energy, a lot of pain, a lot of suffering, but it’s a it’s an ex it’s like an over exaggeration of what everybody’s going through.

And As far as I can figure, it’s why everyone’s on earth. What whatever you believe about whatever. Even if you believe nothing, I think you should at least believe that you’re here to improve.

Otherwise, what are you? You’re in Amiibo. You should be trying to do a little something better with your life. trying to leave them, you know, leave leave the world better than you found it.

Otherwise, you’re an Amiibo or an anarchist. And what you mentioned, Hill thyself, you’re talking and you were talking about self self, there’s self awareness and there’s self responsibility.

My doctor, what kicked off my search to to beat bipolar. Well, no. Let me let me rephrase that.

To survive. I was only looking to survive And if if possible, if possible, if I could get a 5 to 8% reduction in the severity of the symptoms, I would have been ecstatic And I didn’t dare hope for more because I was in such a bad state.

Nothing seemed possible that was anything like wellness, but my doctor gave me a death sentence a literal death sentence.

And he told me, you know, he said, you’re gonna die by cop because you’re that guy. It every time you go off, the Marine Corps comes out of you, cops show up. And he’s like, you’re getting you’re actually improving in this one area.

He said they’re gonna have to put you down to save themselves. And I said, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You’re you’re right. That that’s what this is looking into. Well, what it’s looking to become.

He told me you gotta find something outside of of psychiatry. I just don’t know what it is because I’m a psychiatrist, but he’s like, we have a, you know, we have a medical file and you’re a foot thick.

We’re not helping you. We’re making you worse. Now that’s my case. I realize everyone’s different, and I realize I’m even in the minority how everything went for me.

But he said what was telling as as, as far as heal thyself. I was already on the path even as I was melting down, and I didn’t know it until he said this.

He said the one thing I hate for you out of all my patients is that you’re aware. I’m like, what are you talking about? He said everybody that comes and he was the head of all psychiatry at the Veterans Administration.

And he had hundreds of patients himself. He said everybody comes to me. They want the pill They go home. They take the pill, and that’s it.

He said, you come to me. You want the pill just as bad as them. You take the pill. You go home. When you come back, you have a list of a list of questions about that pill, and you want to know what it’s doing with all the other pills.

And why did I pick it? And on and on and on, he goes, you’re the only patient I have that comes back with questions. And I said, that’s impossible. I’m the only one. I’m like, are you, like, making some strong point? He goes, no.

You’re the only one who asked me why my treatment plan is as it is with you. And he said, because of that, you go home and study all this stuff, he goes, you, like no other patient I have, fully understand how screwed you are.

And he said, I wish you didn’t know what you knew so you could die in peace because you ain’t got long to go. You’re forcing it. And we always yeah.

People always say it was terrible, but when I was with him, I said, don’t sugarcoat it. I wanna hear everything straight. I wanna know what I’m up against. Anna Murray. I need to know my enemy so I could figure out how to fight it.

And he respected that. So he told me that straight out. It still was it was it was hard to hear, especially later, but I needed to know it as like a tactician slash engineer my own life. Okay.

This is what we got. This is how real it’s about to be, and he’s saying something’s gotta be different. I gotta be different. And I was trying to heal myself without string outside the parameters of the traditional way everybody goes.

But now the all these years later, I got better, but one of the things, one of the primary things I’ve always taught people, I said, however this turns out for you, You gotta be aware of all the parts, like never before, and you gotta step outside the parameters or whatever the normal chain of information is to find out if something else might appeal to you or fit you better.

And then I said take responsibility for everything in your life. Everything’s your fault.

Because it is. But, really, what people hear that is they’ve screwed up and it’s your fault, and that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying you are 100% in charge of every aspect of your life, meaning you can’t fix everything.

But how you react is a 100% in your in your control. And by looking in how to act, how to react to different problems, how to become proactive, If you take ownership of that way of thinking, you’ll come up with out of the box solutions.

But you’ve gotta you’ve gotta understand nobody’s gonna come save you.

Not not fully. Take ownership of what you’re doing. Even if you have people trying to save you, become a better partner with them in the saving of you. Stop waiting for someone to save you, and then you do nothing on your own time.

And I think that’s what you’re saying with your plan. A lot of people just take the pills, and that’s all they do. You’ve come up with an entire book on And this, step, step, step, step.

That’s taking charge of your life being responsible. People need to know that about this. Definitely. Gotta take responsibility. You’re only here once Gotta make the best of it.

Yeah. Alright. That’s a pretty powerful point to end on. I think, Troy. do you have, oh, let’s do the thing. Where can people go to get your book or or, anywhere else you would like people to find you online.

Give them give them all the things, please. Yeah. So the new book after your bipolar disorder is available right now on Amazon in ebook or paperback, and it will be available on other stores in a in a month or 2.

My first book breaking bipolar is available on Amazon and a lot of other stores.

Your favorite source, Apple, and so on. So the two books, breaking bipolar, after your bipolar disorder, and then my Publishing company address is battle battlepress.

Media. So battlepress dot me idea, m e d i a is the website. And, you know, if you’re interested in the help when you publish your book or just wanna buy some books, go there. You could drop me a line in the contact form.

I’d love to hear from you. What are you going, everyone? I self published my one and only book, and that process aged me. The system has improved since then, but, it would be much easier if you went with someone like Troy.

Who’s, particularly if you’re trying to publish a story about something that’s so personal and maybe involves a lot of trauma, but Troy does any book under the sun.

If it’s a good book and he can help you work with it, he’s gonna help you publish it.

So I couldn’t recommend Troy more for this. It’s clear how much you care about the people that are writing their books and how you wanna help them guide that thing to completion and getting it published.

And, that’s It’s very scary. This is this is what I say about everything I do too. Very scary to do something on your own.

And if you’re gonna publish a book, Please go look up Troy on battlepress dot media and check out his book after your bipolar disorder and his other book breaking bipolar and make make sure he’s the man for you, but I can’t recommend him highly enough, especially the first time authors.

You don’t wanna go do battle with a big corporation. Go to someone that’s a person and a human and cares about you, and that is Troy.

Well, thank you for having me on this show, Ken. It’s been great. It is, Troy. We’ll have to catch up again in another year or sooner if if if if you explode in some fashion of awesomeness, I wanna hear about it.

I might be able to. Okay. Alright. Thanks for being on again, Troy. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Alright. Everyone take care.