Hey. This is Ken Jensen. I’d be bipolar disorder in an all natural fashion back in the mid 2000. 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 why 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 they’ve shown up in my life so you can do the same. Welcome to the Bipolar Excellence podcast episode 79. Conversations with coaches podcast.

Welcome as well to my freshly cleaned desk because I thought it necessary to get a great big, huge sixteen ounce glass of water Then dump it underneath everything electronic in my world, thereby jeopardizing my entire future in the immediate sense.

That was an incredible amount of rage trying to trying I I had to deal with while sopping up water under all the very expensive electrical equipment.

Oh, man. I lost my shit. I was so mad at myself. I never did that before. And all the years are sitting and eating and drinking at my workstation. This has never happened a little bit, but this was a day lose.

This was the flood. Noah sailed behind my monitor while I watched. Shit. That made me mad. But the desk is nice and clean now. So I got interviewed about a couple months ago on the conversations with coaches podcast.

The guy that interviewed me was named Kevin Stafford, and my god was to get delightful human being to speak to. We knew almost immediately that we were gonna be BFFs. It went very well.

We had a lot of fun. We had each other laughing and enthused right right from the get go. We we were we were talking so much in the The pre interview session that we had to force ourselves to stop and actually record an interview.

And then after the interview, we we just kept going, you know, just just privately between us about how happy we were to meet each other and how cool we thought the other one was and just It was a big love fest.

Kevin, if you’re listening to this, it was such a blast to meet you. And that’s one of the main things of why I do this.

I wanna meet people like Kevin, quite honestly. There’s a marketing angle here, of course. That’s that’s the big thing to spread the word about each other and and to provide value to our audiences in both directions.

Of course, it is. But that’s only part of it. It’s understood. I’ve been on other interviews and not have half as much fun as I as I just did with with Kevin.

And the way our talk went before during and after, seriously, just made me wish that I could hang out with him as a neighbor. And just talk about anything and everything in life to get each other’s opinion.

If you’re watching on the video, I’m messing with my dials and my slides on my massive freaking what do they call this thing? Mixing board. There was no There was no instruction book that came with the Mixon board.

It came as a pack. It came as part of a package deal. From when the podcast answer man still existed, Cliff Raven’s craft, he’s still around, but he doesn’t do that anymore.

I spent $1600 to get this package as a way of holding myself accountable to beginning my dream. There’s a lesson for you.

I wanna wreck recommend this at every turn in your life because I I barely had that money then, but I ended up with this mixing board that’s got knobs and lighters and buttons and holes and sockets and things all over it.

I don’t I only vaguely know what some of it does. And then I’m I’m connected into a recording a a what do you call it? An audio recorder that has a a little peak meter that blinks red, angry when I get too too loud into the mic.

Then I go into an audio software that dampens all of that, but I’m trying to develop a cleaner recording going in, and y’all are just gonna have to suffer through my learning curve.

All my equipment seems to do a good job to where I don’t notice anything when I play things back. You know, I don’t know I don’t notice anything amiss but, you know, trying to get better at my craft.

Thanks for bearing bearing with me through that many side talk about technology. So back to Kevin, I don’t remember exactly what we talked about. I was I was more wired for sound than I’d care to be.

That still happens to me, and it it annoys me about myself. I I it In certain situations, I’ll get real loud and talk fast. And and it’s it’s it’s a bit of I don’t know if you had call it mania.

It is, but I it’s not you know, I don’t know if it’s the official But I get very energized and and information floods out of me in a flawlessly logical fashion, but it’s it’s it’s loud.

It’s fast paced, and I don’t know until later that I that I did it.

And that’s that’s a thing about me that’s always sort of embarrassed me that I I try to get my I try to keep a handle on. I think for the most part, If anybody notices, they don’t seem to care.

I don’t do it constantly, but it has its moments. I did it the other day. We hit we did a a cool thing on LinkedIn. There’s a group of people on LinkedIn, 22 in in particular that wanted to do a an audio gathering.

And there there was a topic of discussion. And, you know, there was about fifty people showed up. And in the end, there was about 19 left.

I ended up speaking on the panel, and anybody could. But but only 3 of us raised our hands to do so. And When I started out talking, I wasn’t sure where we were going with this talk or what they wanted out of it.

And the way my mind works, What got said in, like, the first five minutes, I must have had 8 or 9 or 10 ideas popping in my head about what I’ve been through or what I’m going through that that their conversation already applied to.

And I I did that thing again.

I just I did did sort of a sort of a artful data dump loud talking fast. And then later in the talk, I mellowed out. So I did notice that. There’s something about the start where I kinda I kinda gotta find my my governor as I go.

And the reason I share all this is just in case anybody ever notices that and and wonders if I do, I do. And then even if you don’t, As you go public, there’s shit you do or don’t do that’s gonna it’s gonna bother you.

It’s it’s it’s a part of it’s a big part of why people fear public speaking. I don’t worry about this shit. It’s more a matter of of mastering my craft. And You’re gonna face you’re gonna face similar things.

So I’m being as transparent as I can stomach so that You see, this is episode 79. There were 2 other entire podcasts that I got rid of before this where I did about a hundred episodes in total.

Before that years before that, I did over a 100 YouTube videos that no longer exist. You just go. Just build. I wrote about that in LinkedIn too.

I I’m feeding YouTube. I’m I’m making videos now of of these podcast episodes and then loading the videos into YouTube. And I’m slowly getting better at working that into my process. It’s overwhelming at first.

It’s like anything. There’s so much to learn and and remember and keep an order. And I don’t have anything written down. I just learn as I go and and memorize it as I go. And as long as I do stuff routinely, it sticks.

And then frequently, when I go back, I’ll see something that looks glaringly bad to me, and it it’s everywhere, and then I’ll I’ll I’ll have gone through all the episodes and fixed every single one of them.

That’s only been here or there, but again, I’m messing around with a lot of technology trying to get my my thumbnails right in Canva, and I’m still learning a lot about what there is to even be had inside YouTube studio, which is where you go to enter these videos.

So As long as they’re there and look semi decent and the picture’s clear and the sound is good, and I don’t sound like a complete idiot, I’m happy.

And I don’t I don’t rip apart what I’m doing all that much at all, really. I don’t edit is what I’m saying. I don’t edit any of this. I put it all in raw raw.

Because I don’t have the fucking timer and energy to take take anything one more step than I do. So That’s another thing I find with people is just starting. Or if they’re gonna start something new, starting that.

There’s so many headaches in the way of just learning new shit that you won’t start, which you must. Because if you don’t You don’t. Nothing happens. And then when you do start, you’ve gotta maintain I never, including tonight.

I never wanna do this podcast on Sunday night. I tried earlier in the day to do it, and my energy was just it wasn’t there. Now in part, I’m crystal clear on the fact that I do stuff like this better at night.

The muse is upon me starting later at night. I’ve been outweigh my whole life. If I try to do creative stuff too early in the day or or just the bulk of the day, I I can’t do it.

I can do it right when I get up. I can do it right before I go to bed, but not during the middle of the day. Not much and not well anyway.

I’m working on that because I’m getting really tired. I still have a day job And I’m getting tired of doing these things last minute and then trying to make it all go and then get some kind of sleep. But I almost had it today.

I almost had it. And then on another on a on a little interesting side note if you’re watching the video, you see the microphone on my face. Right? So that became a big war. I have in my notes Move microphone, boom arm.

Well, I got that thing hammer screwed into the desk, and I didn’t know until I tried to to undo it that the little the little handle that tightens the screw for the clamp for the c clamp that holds the boom arm to the desk.

That handle is not one piece with the bolt that’s attached to. It it it itself is screwed on the bolt. And it turns out when the bolt’s really stuck on well, the handle itself will screw off.

And the bolt is firmly in place, you have changed nothing. And the thing was, this has been on my list for many weeks. and I love clearing my list. There’s a lot of things on my list that don’t matter.

They’re just little nice nice twos. And this would have been nice to have moved this. I was like, Alright. I took a nap today before I did this podcast. I had to. And I’m like, let me just knock that out before I go to sleep.

And it turned into that. And I face things like that, like, with the water. It’s it’s just It’s like they’re against you. The words I I think it was Jay and silent Bob strike back.

And and Jay said something along the lines of that. I think the whole fucking world’s against us, dude. It feels like that doing things like this. and running into shit like I can’t get my c clamp from a boom arm to come off.

After taking all my electronics due to car wash unexpectedly, it’s just just keep moving. So I’ve been loading. I I I was 3 episodes behind on YouTube, and finally loaded those 3 episodes.

Then the graphics weren’t matching. Something was changing. Colors and the template I had saved in Canva And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why, and I was letting that sail through.

But then that got under my skin. Like, it’s dark at an older rest. What fuck. So I went in there, and I finally figured out why that was happening and fixed it.

Then I was loading episodes 2 at a time. I did this twice since there’s only 3 of them. And because one’s, you know, different lengths, they would load I thought they would load an order based on title. or date.

They did not. They load an order of how fast they load when you load them. So then I had to delete 2 soaked two times and reload them so that they would display an order and the the list that you make inside YouTube in your channel.

I’ve faced things like this endlessly as I’ve created content over the years. So I I get mad, but I’ve developed resilience to my own sense of rage when these things happen.

It’s I feel the rage, but it’s it’s it doesn’t impact anything, and I just keep moving. If you’re gonna become a content creator, you’re gonna face this over and over and over.

So Now the YouTube channel’s looking tight because it initially had, what do you call it, thumbnails that a software pulled from the post on my website and would just take whatever the featured image for that post was, stick it in place throughout the entire episode and then put little squiggly lines that were a video file.

On top of it, you know, to to then make it a video that could be uploaded to YouTube. So the bulk of my show is these placeholder pictures that are just static.

There’s nothing to see. when you’re on YouTube. And I don’t like that. But again, I I was aware of that going in, and I didn’t have the bandwidth to do anything differently than I did when I did it.

So it went in. And then when the time came around and I got my head clear on whatever, then I switched over to doing these videos.

Which added a massive workload to my day. And then designing the thumbnails in Canva that that go inside the the list when the videos show on YouTube.

Now I imagine a lot of this is boring and dry just to people to some of you that tuning to hear other things, but this is what you’re gonna face. I help people put their dreams together.

I help them market their dreams and get the word out. This is what you’re gonna face, or you gotta have enough money to pay someone due these things for you, and that can run into that can run into a hefty bill.

If I did any any of these things that I do for myself. If I did it for someone else as a freelancer, I could make 5 or $10 a month per person doing all of this shit. No problem.

So that’s what you’re looking at. And if you have that budget, well, then fucking you win. I haven’t had it yet. I’m I’m closing in on it, but it ain’t here yet. So you need to be aware of what you’re up against, but don’t fear it.

This is everybody doing anything online. And if you’re older, like, I am, I just turned 55 the other day. It’s it’s I’m better at this than most people my age. That’s that’s by far. That’s for sure.

I’ve been doing this for decades. But I know if you’re younger than this, you’re probably gonna do this a whole lot quicker and easier. And you might even come up with different tools I’m not aware of to do very same thing.

That’s been made clear to me. The the each incoming generation adapts to and understands the current technology better than the generation that created it.

That’s a thing in science and some field somewhere that I read about. And you know this is true. Younger people can just tear ass through their phones and online and doing all sorts of shit.

And they’re and and we older adults look like we took a fucking brick in ahead when we try to do the same thing, at least as fluidly and quickly as they do.

And then amazingly, I talked to a lot of young people that don’t know how to do any of this stuff that I’ve just talked about on this episode.

So Don’t make assumptions. My kid my kid plays he’s on a 3 monitor thing for playing games. I can’t even my brain can’t even comprehend what’s going on on the screen, let alone what he’s doing on the controller.

And he’s playing the game, and he’s talking to his friends, and he’s typing shit on other websites that aren’t even the game.

And I I I’m it’s madness. It’s madness. It’s like it’s like Let’s do some PCP and Coke and see what we can do with our night.

It I I don’t even I and yet, when when I talk to him about what I do on this show, Here’s no clue about any of it. Doesn’t know how how to go about doing any of it. Just an interesting thing I noticed about life.

So, anyway, the the conversation with Coach’s podcast, yet I went really well, and I was so glad that I got to meet Kevin I it’s being on that show and then doing the thing that I did on LinkedIn just recently was you get to meet your future friends.

If you’re putting something together that’s huge in in sharing your soul with the world and looking do something big.

Gonna be very alone because very, very few people even attempt this. And out of all the people that attempt it, very few get anywhere with it, a lot give up.

A lot just plodd along at a certain level of success or or work effort with no success. It takes a lot to make your dream come true, and you’re gonna need help, you’re gonna need friends, and you’re gonna need new family.

If you’re doing anything like this, you’ve already found out nobody can understand what the fuck you’re doing or why.

Usually, they don’t get anything along the lines of what I just talked talked about with the tech on this on this show today.

You’re very much alone. Steven Pressfield wrote a book I’m pretty sure it’s called. Nobody wants to read your shit. I’m pretty sure that’s the actual title. Stephen Pressfield is a is a ex marine.

I think he’s Vietnam war war era. And he wrote the script to the legend of Bagger vans. He made no fucking money for about 20 years, maybe 17 in that case, looking to become the scriptwriter for something like bagger vans.

He wanted to beat that the whole time. He held day jobs. Most that he hated while he got better and better at his craft of writing at while doing the jobs that he did. They allowed for that.

And then he eventually sold that script. He became an overnight success in 17 years as he puts it. In his series of books, their little books would a lesson, one lesson per page, and they’re not even full pages. and they’re powerful.

Every page is powerful about what it takes to get your vision off the ground and have the fortitude to see it through. and the wisdom to do it well and the grit to take the pain and the loneliness and the frustrations that come with it.

But just like he said, nobody wants to read your shit. As you build something like this, you need to get on shows with large followings like I did with with Conversations with Coach’s podcast. There’s more coming.

I’m gonna be on another show out of India later this month. August 19th is when when I’m gonna get interviewed, and that’s another coaching show. And then there is a show Michael Pacheco, he is the owner of Boxer Media.

And after Kevin interviewed me, He wanted to know if I could be interviewed by his boss who has a a separate show. And we did. I don’t know when that’ll come out, but and it was it was it was different.

My energy wasn’t as high. And Michael hit me with a lot of questions I wasn’t really prepared for, I think, in part, because I appeared to be something more than I was professionally, I think.

And then somehow, we got way deeper into my bipolar story. than I think either one of us meant to. But I believe, you know, that’s powerful stuff.

I I wouldn’t have carried on about it as long as I did. There was a window for it, and he didn’t me, and it sort of went that way. Who knows what happens when they when he does the the eventual edited version?

And I I don’t care. I’m I’m just glad and and grateful to be on the show, but You’re gonna have to put yourself out there. You’re gonna have to meet new people. You’re gonna get put under the gun when you when you least expect it.

And you gotta be able to pivot or deal with it. Or just keep moving even if it’s not going the way you want and living with it after the fact. Because, ultimately, Most people most.

When they consume your work, they don’t see any of the shit that had you freaked out. They don’t hear what you heard. Nothing. All of your concerns and fears and the things that have you upset, they’re not aware of them.

So I’m making you aware of mine so that you can see the disparity between your feelings and and and the general public’s perception, the reality.

You’re good. You’re good. And if you don’t practice, you don’t practice. You have to practice. All of this stuff practice. You get better as you go.

And you have to do it. So bite the bullet and just start going out there and do the best you can knowing that you’re gonna fuck something up. You’re probably gonna fuck things up for quite a long while in the beginning.

You’re gonna get really good, then you’ll fuck up new things. But the longer you do this, as I’m finding, You just don’t care. I didn’t even wanna go to on YouTube.

Like like, I’m a £300 fucking war vet marine weightlifting former security guard in in a violent setting slash bouncer who used to get piled on by Kai to be stopped when he went psychotic with bipolar and alcoholism.

I was all it at, and yet I was terrified to go on YouTube because of trolls.

No. I don’t look forward to trolls. They’re coming one day more likely, but fuck them for 1. And then 2, I I finally reached a point where, like, I’m not letting that stop me that fear, and it was a there was a tangible fear ahead.

I’m not letting them stop me, the fear of what these people might say who I cannot defend myself against.

That’s the most irritating thing about trolls. That’s if they’re even people because now bots do their their thing, and there’s nothing you can do to retaliate.

And I don’t know if it’s the marine in Mira what, but I I can’t stand that that thought that I can’t fight back. And you don’t even want to. You don’t even want to. You you don’t engage.

You you you deflate them by not even giving them energy in the first place, and it’s not an easy thing to do. But I’m ready to do all that because I’m sick of not having that next level of success that I desire and need.

So I pushed through that fear and started putting all my stuff on YouTube. At my age, fifty five, this just started, like, within the last year.

That was a fear I was still dealing with. So here you go. I’ve laid a bit of my soul bear tonight. I hope that motivates and inspires some of you to do the same. Go to bipolarexcellence. com, and please get on my newsletter.

Get the free guide that I put out that has 22 tools within it that will, I guarantee you. will change your world the day you use them. I can’t stress that enough. It isn’t hype. It’s not marketing bullshit. They change my life.

They’ll change yours. And then let’s see what you and I do from there. Thanks for bearing with bearing with me on some of this ranting and and tech sharing shit and yeah. Now I gotta do all the other things. You guys be well.

Kevin Stafford 0:00
 Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the conversations with coaches podcast. I’m your host, Kevin, and I got to tell you, I’m already just beside myself with delight to get to introduce you to and to get to know more about Ken Jensen he is we’ve been chatting before I hit record. And I gotta tell you, it’s just it’s a temptation to just keep him on the zoom all day, it’s temptation, just hit record, never stop recording, it’s a temptation to just stop recording, and then just start a different conversation. I cannot wait to share a little bit of him with you and just get a little bit more of him myself. Let me give you let me introduce you give me the tiniest tiniest taste of who can Jensen is, he is an author, life coach, marine Gulf War vet, former addict and alcoholic and former bipolar sufferer. He’s even been dead a few times and survived to comas, which I both would love to get into. And also we’re here for different purposes. So that’s just there for you to understand about some of some of what makes up Ken’s life. In 2004, he turned all that around, including addressing his bipolar disorder without meds. And now he helps other trauma survivors create small businesses to share their stories. There is so much more to can than even that can contain and that was a heck of a paragraph Ken, thank you for being here today. Thanks for sharing some time and some stories with me and with my audience. And I’m just excited to get to know you.

Ken Jensen 1:15
 Thank you very much, Kevin. I feel warmly welcomed. And I already wish we were neighbors. Okay, well, yeah, I hope we stay in touch and do something again later. And just thank you very much for for having me.

Kevin Stafford 1:27
 I know we’d we’re just getting started with the like actual recorded episode, I can already tell that I’m going to like be coming back as soon as I can responsibly come back to you and be like, let’s do a part two and make it longer, I can already tell I’m gonna want that. So there’s no doubt we’ll be talking again. So let’s go well, it’s even more so than usual. This question is kind of loaded, because I usually say something to the effect of let’s go back to the beginning. We don’t have that kind of time. Anybody has that kind of time. But let’s go back to maybe at the beginning, but like the origin story of your of yourself of your life as a coach in particular, how did you come to the realization or the decision to apply your gifts, your life story, your impact all your skills, to something like coaching to helping other people to, to get through something to develop something to grow into the person they want to be and have the kind of impact that they want to have in their life? How did you how did you come to that decision and realization.

Ken Jensen 2:23
 It didn’t come fast. This, this has been decades long. I’ve had over 50 jobs with a W two I pretty much learned years ago, if I can dance my way through the interview to jobs moot, I’ll figure that out in a minute, I’ll make the right friends, I’ll learn what I got to and I’ll have it, then I’ll get bored and quit. That became clear to me. And in an attempt to find out what my career path was many years ago, you’ll look for that common thread, the only common thread I could see was that people seemed drawn to me. I always had the best stories, whether I wanted to be that guy or not. People felt free to dump their problems in my lap. And usually they were quite severe problems. Even when I was a complete mess. They still come to me with their problems. I was trying to find a job that would let me use that side of my personality. I never did, I never did find a job that did that. And in the middle, my brain just melted down with bipolar. And that’s I literally wrote a book on that it was it was just incredible what I went through and now I came out of it. But at some point, I hired a coach, and who had been following for years. And I told him I said, I don’t know what I am. I just know people want me around and they feel better when they’re talking to me, but there’s never really a focus, but I care that that I handle it right. Like what the hell is that? And he was like, I don’t quite know just yet. But he’s like, What do you feel your greatest impact is I said, when I’m talking to people, he said podcast start podcasting. That was three podcasts ago, I’ve had more coaching from him and other coaches. And And finally, oddly enough, as I was being coached, I still didn’t know that I never heard of I didn’t know what a life coach was. And I finally went and got certified for it. I don’t remember this. Nothing out of the six month course, except this one lesson. It was where I learned the difference between therapy and coaching. I’d never heard until this course. I was being treated by a therapist, which I cared to do well, but I wasn’t certified in and it drained me. And and once they showed me the difference, I could see how I coached other people to great heights and that energize me to no end. And I wanted to be with them more no matter what they were doing. And then then everything came together. Even as I was getting certified as a life coach. The title struck me as too corny, but then I embraced it once I realized what the difference was. And then started going through iterations to like that till now. Now I help other trauma survivors tell them you build a online business to tell their story so that they get the greatest reach, have the life they want for doing it. It’s what I’m delivering and love that and like

Kevin Stafford 4:57
 you’re right like It’s like Sir In terms does carry some weird baggage with it like the term life coach doesn’t exactly have the best baggage that comes with it. But it really does, like it’s a good place to start. And I love that you didn’t let that like that refresh, like, push you away from starting there and be like, Look, I am understanding what this is now, no care what it’s called, or how people have used the term in the past, present or future, I’m going to use this term. And I’m going to allow the use this sort of framework to kind of get into how I want to help people how I want to share this, share my share my stories with people share my impact with people, and really help them get through. And I just love that you just like, I mean, I’m completely surprised that you didn’t let something like that get in your way. i You strike me as the kind of man who does not like very much get in the way of the things that he realizes are important in life.

Ken Jensen 5:42
 No, no things external to me just got easier and easier and easier to overcome. And then it got clear to me, the longer I tried to do this job better, I’m always going to be the biggest thing in my way. So then the job became, if something went sideways or gotten a little wiggly didn’t land like I thought it would would, I would quickly pick that apart and see how to improve or, or if I even agreed with what I just did, because we do a lot of things on autopilot. Frequently for the best of intentions, and because it always worked up till now. And then things don’t work because something’s changed. And and so now, now I take pride in catching myself faster. You’re not always even wrong. You could put you could be better. And you change or something changes to where you have to be better. If you want to stick with this as a career and do no harm.

Kevin Stafford 6:37
 Yeah, right wrong is really easy to get caught up on because it’s it’s it’s, it’s it seems definitive. Not No, I’m not interested in that anymore. And I’m actually actively disinterested in that what I’m interested in is did it work? Like I wanted it to? Did it work? Well, what were the results? And how could they be better? And just like it’s whether or not it seems on By every metric you could see wildly successful, or By every metric, you can see and measure it just it catastrophically failed or anywhere in between. I want that to be my next set of questions. Why did this work? Why didn’t this work? How did this work? What was my role in it? What could my role in it be all sorts of like interesting questions that lead to the next questions that let me get better and work more effectively and grow not just for myself, but with the people I’m working with. It’s just it’s really it’s just, it’s what gets me out of bed in the morning, I used to be looking for answers. And now I just want more questions. I want more work with people. I want to keep growing and going, you know?

Ken Jensen 7:32
 Yeah, totally.

Kevin Stafford 7:34
 Yeah. And the question there, it’s kind of cut it off.

Ken Jensen 7:37
 And the better we get at that I find, we start getting our wish, whether spoken out loud or not. We start drawing people to us that we want to have around us. Even if we haven’t gotten to where we want to get yet you start. You can see him common you can smell it in the air, you know, different people show up and the conversations change a little and you realize like, I’m doing something right here to get what I need out of this. And you just get a sense that you’re handling yourself? Well.

Kevin Stafford 8:07
 Yeah, if you really are putting yourself out there like that, and like you are right you do you really do start to attract not just the people, but the opportunities that kind of come along with that. And it’s like it’s it’s it can be hard to, for lack of a better word quantify, but you can feel it, you really can’t feel it. And that feeling comes from all the work you’ve been doing and are continuing to do. It doesn’t come from nowhere, you’ve been developing the skills and processing, you know, your internal and external work. And it’s like that feeling does come from somewhere. But it’s the feeling that guide you that you can learn to trust. And then it’s just, it’s just there’s no better Northstar for knowing that you’re on the right path.

Ken Jensen 8:41
 Yeah, I agree.

Kevin Stafford 8:43
 I want to talk a little bit, because I’m looking at the Zoom clock making sure I keep I keep this conversation on rails because there’s just like I there’s like a dozen different jumping off points I would love to talk about for another hour or two. But I want to talk a little bit about your your coaching business in particular. And I usually ask this kind of as a two parter to try to get at the heart of what the coaching business really is for you. Who do you coach and how do you coach them? Is what I usually ask them, you’ve kind of already talked about this a little bit, but the who is really what I say kinds of people do you focus on like, are there certain age groups or demographics, certain kinds of entrepreneurs or business owners? Anything, anything that you particularly focus on there? And then the how being more about the sort of coaching techniques you deploy like a one to one small group or medium sized group like mastermind kind of groups? Do you do any sort of coursework that you construct and run keynote speeches or anything like that? Do you? I mean, obviously, you’ve written a book, do you? I mean, do you continue to write for for different publications or for yourself all of the above? I mean, obviously, there’s so many different ways to reach people, but how do you Who do you coach and how do you coach them these days?

Ken Jensen 9:49
 Well, this this iteration is in its early growth stages. So I have I have there’s two different main offerings I have one is for anybody to has just one thing we need to solve. And we just focus on that one thing, no one’s, it’s month a month. But it’s long term, it’s people with a vision. And it can either be people that are brand new, that realize they want to, they want to be heard, they want to be taken serious, they want credibility, they want to make big change in the world. And they want to get paid well to do it. They don’t want to be martyrs. And you can’t, I stress to people, if you really want to do the greatest amount of work with your story, you’ve got to get paid to do it for a number of reasons. And you will help more people way more people than doing this from a soapbox on the intersection. And I also help current business owners because this is again, this is the interesting thing I found out about myself over the years. One time I got pulled into a room of millionaires did the story of how I was even in that room, or near it is too long to tell. But a business owner told me he’s like you need to be at that table. And this is before I knew anything about myself like why he goes you just need to sit and learn and watch what’s happening in here. Nothing ever went further with him and I or that room. But I felt like he knew something down the road. He was a teacher, he knew I needed to see something that I think he even knew I was going to use anytime soon. I don’t need to know it anywheres near anything much about the people I help. They just need someone to talk to them straight, who cares. And helps them sort through their issues. And hear what it is that’s really bothering because they’ll they’ll frequently think it’s the surface thing. It’s usually something much deeper. If I can help them on earth it look at themselves a little differently, I’m big on changing perspectives and reframing. They suddenly get it in them to do the stuff that I don’t even have a clue or half understand because I don’t need to, they just I just keep on moving to what they do. And then I want to be in some fashion brought along not not on, I just want to be involved. I want that to be my network of people. I’ve had it before. But this is the most professional attack on creating that that I’ve ever done. Right now I coach people one on one and I use a mix, I still have a day job and I work with the mentally ill and the addicted. And it is draining, it is draining even on good days, because to remain present. You probably notice just from doing a podcast to remain present. And give him keep your heart out there. But protect yourself. You’re drained. So to my lack of time and my lack of energy. Thank God the internet invented asynchronous coaching software. I discovered that not long ago. So I can do like texting coaching with people through the week, then do live one on ones with them on the weekend because you have to do that as well. And that’s that’s, that’s really the gist of it. Then I offer. I got three courses on my site right now. Each of them ones really are a massive Resource Guide. The other two are what happened. It’s a wellness guide. It’s how I beat bipolar. But it can be used for anything to help people improve their health to to improve their entire lives. And the other thing is the more ethereal, the abstract. Okay, you’re all right, and what you want to do something, how might you how do you got to look at things to do something. And that’s, that’s like my whole business right now.

Kevin Stafford 13:12
 I want to sink my teeth into so much of that there’s a couple of things that you said that I wanted to I wanted to shine some extra light on, there’s one in particular, and this one is a really hard one for a lot of especially like coaches or just people who who are looking to give back and like serve others. It’s something really hard for people to internalize and really put into their business. Your it’s important that you be focused on making money, it’s important that you understand that getting like, you know, building a business and making an income and being satisfied. It’s, it’s almost not even so much about you. It’s important that you get I mean, I’m gonna use this term and it sounds like I’m making a pun, but I’m not I mean it, it’s important that you get buy in from the people you’re trying to help the people that you’re serving. And if you’re just out there up on your soapbox and just kind of throwing your message out there. It could be it could literally be falling on deaf ears, even if it’s people who really need to hear what you’re what you’re saying what you’re putting out there. And what the what the investment these people make in you indicates is that not only are they willing to listen, they’re ready to invest in listening, they’re ready to invest in the kind of change they want to see in their life. And you really you can’t you really can’t coach, anybody that’s not ready. You can’t force someone into that position. They kind of have to be up to a certain level of readiness. You must be this high to ride. I’m remembering from all those old carnivals I used to go to as a kid, there’s a certain degree of readiness you just have to have if you’re going to be able to work with each other and if you’re going to help help someone and it’s it’s really hard for a lot of coaches, a lot of business owners to internalize. And it’s just it’s for a lot of other reasons that we again, we don’t even have nearly enough time to get into. It’s so important. I’m so glad you call that out. It’s just it’s so vital. And so many coaches and business owners trip on that. And also I love the way that you largely acknowledged that you’re not really doing A whole lot and doing, but you’re not, you’re doing so much by not really doing very much at all. Because you understand like, like, every good coach I’ve talked to does, that most of the hard work, the heavy work, the big change is going to come from inside the person that you’re coaching, you just need to get there with them, shoot him straight, you know, hold that space with them, give them the space to remove, let some obstacles kind of move into the center. And then like, you know, help someone to kind of get those obstacles out of the way. And it’s just, it’s really about guidance, you know, you’re not really like, throwing your 27 step system to health, wealth and happiness and just trying to stuff into somebody’s life, it’s gonna be there and just talk with them. And I know, it’s, it’s very reductive, to say it that way. But it’s also it’s the heart of it, you’re just really there, connecting with people building the relationship, holding the space for him, letting them talk, listening to them, giving it back to him straight, and just just going from there. And it’s just, it’s so it’s so simple, and so powerful. And I just I love, I love the way that you frame it and the way that you execute it in your in your life and your business.

Ken Jensen 16:02
 I appreciate it. Yeah, my job. I tend to do the job with my co workers, my co workers, we’re all peers, we’re literally called peers. And everybody has to have most of the people at work, or you have to have been through something before you can get hired. Otherwise, how can you understand the clients and I, I routinely have co workers coming to me with everything. And it’s, it’s, it’s an honor, and I of course, I liked him and I care about some of them greatly. And I take it very seriously that they’re trusting me. And it’s, like I said, a lot of what I get hit with his therapy, which is hard for me. And yet coaching and therapy are almost the same thing. There’s like a light, it’s like a one like two thirds, three quarters, they’re the same thing. And then that last chunk is where they differentiate. And and a lot of it’s really just listening and I love talking it’s I always have to fight to not over over speak. And I’m getting better at it. And I don’t know how to say this without sounding egotistical. I’m gonna keep it vague. I get paid very, very nice comments on a large scale, particularly where I work out to the point that it’s noticeable to me like, how am I blowing up this big, I don’t even know a lot of these people because there’s too many of them in the building. I can’t remember who they are, if they’ve even seen them. And certain people, I keep getting commented on how on a complimented on how well I listen. And it makes me laugh because like I had told you before we started the little micro bubbles of awareness. It you just said it’s that damn simple. It’s not easy. And we’ve got to rein ourselves in. And as coaches we got so much help and advice we got you know, you’re gonna just like you said, you’re gonna cram it down your throat or you’re gonna vomit or run away from you. And get just sit and listen. And I realized and it’s a relief, I realized most of this is just listening. And then waiting for them and giving them little tiny conversational nudges and pointing a couple things out. And waiting for that moment, when you realize you can take them by the hand and run up, run up to the next plateau up the mountain. You just got to be patient. And it requires all this listening and I now now I’m kind of getting off on the hunt, of waiting for the let’s run for the plateau moment. And it only comes by shutting down everything about me that’s big and loud and bold, and being quiet and listening, which is really hard. But I do it. And now so now it’s like I’m digging the mastery of can I contain myself long enough for this person to reach? Are we doing this? Are we running, let’s run, you know, grab, let’s go, you’re a freak, let’s go we run. You gotta you gotta cultivate that into being, we have to hold so much ourselves back until they’re ready for that side of us to show up. But then But then when it comes, then you’ve got to lead. And you got to be loud and strong about it because now they’ve pinned all their hopes on you to some degree to take care of them. Now you have to follow through on what you promised that you were so patiently waiting for it to arrive. Now it’s on you. You get to the next plateau and you begin again, you let them soak and it just cycles.

Kevin Stafford 19:12
 It’s it’s a beautiful cycle. It’s a beautiful circle. And it’s like it’s really, it’s that restraint leading up to that moment of exuberance. And I just I love it in my head it’s like it is that it’s the perfect you put the image right into my head of just running up you know hand in hand to that next plateau and all the work that went into getting ready for that. It’s just in my head I’m like I’m seeing the sun on the horizon and I’m feeling the wind as we’re going up the hill like it really is like the perfect way to describe it. That’s what it feels like it is just an exuberant celebration even as it is just like a giant leap forward and it’s like it takes it takes that patience. It takes that that restraint that quiet work, and then you just kind of keep you start you get you start getting excited because you know you’re hunting you’ve got your hunters eye on and you can see that it’s close. It’s really close. You could feel it used You’re almost like, inside, you’re trying, obviously, you’re trying not to do it outside, but you’re almost like bouncing on the balls of your feet. Oh, there’s just nothing like it. It really isn’t. I love it, man, I could talk to you all day. This is just to go outside and go for a run or a walk or something now, but before I let you go, and I’m going to very, very, very reluctantly let you go for now. And then very, very, very soon. I’m going to have you back on for another like a longer, where where can people just learn more about you who you are, what you do, how you do? Just learn more about you. And also if it’s different, where can people best connect with you if they wanted to reach out and start a relationship, maybe see about, you know, joining on your coaching programs, anything like that?

Ken Jensen 20:41
 Well, my website, bipolar excellence.com. It’s got the podcast, it’s got the newsletter I give away to wellness program right now the whole program. I don’t know if that’ll remain that way or not. I might just give something away simpler just to get the ball rolling somewhere down the road. But right now you get the entire program. And then once you’re on the newsletter, you’ll always be able to find me but you have the podcast and whatever else I might create is all on bipolar excellence.com. And I’m getting ready to do a massive. I’m about to take over LinkedIn. With Justin Welch’s help. I bought both these programs, and they resonated with me something serious, I’m on my third go through. It takes me a while to get my head around some things. And now I got it now. Now. Now. Now I’m getting ready to run myself up that hill. So I’m gonna get very loud on LinkedIn.

Kevin Stafford 21:32
 That’s excellent. That’s excellent. And then then you are in good hands with with Justin. Well, that’s that is it is that I mean, it’s not quite the gold standard, it’s in my opinion, it’s pretty much a gold standard for if you really, if you really want to, if you want to jumpstart your your LinkedIn presence. And it’s the place to be, it’s like it’s the least it’s at least a noisy of all the social media platforms. And so the signal is clear. And I’m able to like I’m genuinely able to make real connections and build relationships there, which is not something I’ve been able to say about other social media platforms for a long time.

Ken Jensen 22:03
 So no, I don’t want to be on the other ones. I’ll be on Twitter as well. But I won’t be focused on business. But on LinkedIn, I only got serious with LinkedIn earlier this spring, because I’m like, that’s what the adults play. I gotta come, I gotta come ready. And I just didn’t feel ready until this spring. And again, it’s like we were saying earlier before we began recording, it’s like there’s there’s certain things in life that I am not afraid of, and I’ve overcome, that would terrify people that are nothing to me, and yet, quivering in my boots a little to go put my profile live on LinkedIn, it’s ridiculous. But I want it to be ready. And like you said, I like LinkedIn, because it’s adult and everybody the underpinning, we’re here to do business in one way, shape, or form. That’s why we chose LinkedIn, you can still have fun, you still have fantastic warm conversations. And you make really cool friends, which I want. I want that I want that awesome network of Chief achievers. And I can’t I know that I learned that LinkedIn is relatively untouched and that they are desperate for content. So right now people if you’re listening and you’re serious about getting found and heard and grow, you can own LinkedIn it’s the Wild West and they are glad to have you that is not going to remain the same for law. No I’m not even a rep.

Kevin Stafford 23:22
 Like it’s not a paid promotion is just not do LinkedIn lovers just really just just espousing the platform.

Ken Jensen 23:28
 gonna bash cabin, this is district ticketless, I wish we were I wish we were porch friends.

Kevin Stafford 23:33
 I cannot tell you I would. At that point, I put a light in my heart that I can’t even describe. So I’m just thinking right now because it’d be so great to be on the porch with a with a cold one just watching watching the world go by. But for now, I’m gonna very, very reluctantly, heave a sigh and say goodbye. Thank you. I just thank you, thank you for being here and talking with me and sharing some time and thank you for being who you are and doing what you do and just growing and evolving and just get this thank you for being you. I know it’s quite it’s corny. It’s almost as corny as life coach but I embrace it. Thank you for being you and for sharing just a tiny bit of your of your day in your life with me today. I just I’m immensely grateful.

Ken Jensen 24:10 
I feel the same about you. Which sounds trite and but it’s not it’s you’re the kind of people i i did draw you to me. That’s my point. I want friends like you. So thank you, Kevin for the same reasons.
Kevin Stafford 24:24
That’s excellent. And hey, to the to the audience listening out there. i If you’ve if you feel like the tiniest sliver as as delighted and joyful and inspired as I do, then go out and work with it. Reach out to Ken connect on LinkedIn and just start a conversation. You won’t be sorry. And thank you for sharing some time with us here today. And we’ll be so grateful to share a little bit more time with Ken and with other coaches very very, very soon. So thank you.