Welcome to the Bipolar Excellence Podcast. I’m your host, Ken Jensen. I’m someone who overcame bipolar disorder in an organic fashion back in 2004. That process taught me a couple of things about bipolar.

I was living life so incorrectly, in relation to what the better part of me wanted and needed me to do, that it took bipolar disorder to shock me into seeing I should go another way.

The fact that it was bipolar that was the change agent meant I’m more creative than most. I have a certain, slightly higher amount of intelligence than the average bear.

And I have a way of seeing life and expressing myself that most around me do not, in such a way that I can have great impact on those who need me most. You might be the same.

I want to help you understand this about yourself and I want to help unlock your greatness and then unleash it on the world in the best and coolest way possible.

Hello, bipolar prone folk! Exciting times! Episode 43. I’m Always Outside Looking In: Is This Wrong? This is the second to last in a series of episodes entitled Life Of An Outsider.

You’ll find a link to that series in the footer of the website BipolarExcellence.com.

I am upset that I ever came up with this plan, but there’s only one left and it’s important. God help me. I came up with this plan sometime ago. I have other series planned, but they will be built differently than this.

And I had more time on my hands. A lot in my personal life changed that robbed me of that time. Technical difficulties abounded. It came out of nowhere. Just you name it. Hurdles got thrown up in my way. But, here’s one of the cool things. When it comes to a podcast, most people don’t even get to do this, this amount of episodes.

It’s something like 10 episodes and they crap out. I made it to what. I made it to 35 and I didn’t crap out. I just got stopped. I fully intended to keep going. And that’s why I’m here now. But most people get to 10 and quit. I ain’t quitting. I just kinda hit a snag. So the other thing is, a lot of people tend to do one episode a week or, or one every bi-weekly or one a month.

I’m way ahead of that. I got, I got in a minute here I’ll have 44 and I believe I started this, in reality, in November of last year. So we got December, January, February, March, April, May. So that’s six months, 44 episodes. That’s a that’s seven a month. So I’m ahead. And then some. I’m seven ahead… of or not seven. I’m seven a month.

So it’s like, Three. If I did ’em one per week, that’s three a month, more than, than the average person podcasts. So I’m trying to teach you. Even if it doesn’t look like an immediate win, it can eventually be a win. Some of you, if you’ve been following along, you’ve seen the big pause. He didn’t, you couldn’t make sense of it.

If you look on the podcast platform, these things are even dated back in December and January of last year. It’s 2022 May. I had a reason for that. Cause I was going to stack a bunch of series and get them all preloaded. So I had this huge, hugely populated podcast with episodes and, and look more impressive when you came there.

I still think that’s a good idea. I don’t think a lot of people bother with that. They just go ahead and start doing an episode in organic fashion. They make a plan for that week. They do that episode and move on.

That would probably be less stressful for most of you. If you’re bipolar prone, you might not be able to help yourself, but to do it the way I did it with this stacks of episodes preplan. Then I did things with the technology that made me have to stick to this initial plan.

To try to undo them, to get to the next part of what happens in this podcast would have screwed everything up. So anyway, oh my God, I’m tired. I’ve done. Not tired winded. I’m actually quite pumped. I started on Episode 36 tonight. I think that was about two or three hours ago. I’m on episode 43. I’m excited.

I’m always on the outside looking in. Is this wrong?

No. I’ll tell you what. You should be greatly relieved you’re on the outside lookin’ in. When you’re trying to fit in, that’s coming from a position of weakness. Now, depending on what your, what your situation is, particularly as an adult, I don’t know. I don’t know how this would even work as an adult so much.

It works more when you’re you’re a kid or a teen, or even in your twenties, you’re, you’re more insecure. You, you can be, and you don’t want to stand out. Cause that’s just too uncomfortable to bear. You need to just be accepted in the group.

I did that well, I did that, I don’t know, well into my twenties. And then when I started not worrying about it, I not worried about it in an unhealthy way. I of just went crazy and just lived crazy and didn’t give a shit what anybody thought.

Now I have that like like an echo of that in what I do now, but now it’s healthier. It’s I’m quite happy, not belonging to anything that doesn’t greatly matter to me. And that list is mighty short. I’m comfortable in my own skin.

I was not, when I was younger. Probably bipolar had a piece to do with something like that. I don’t know. Cause bipolar didn’t actually nail me until my late twenties. But when you’re on the outside, looking in, I think it would behoove you to question why you want in so bad. Is that a thing you even really want to be a part of?

If it is, why? And be honest, be open with yourself. Why are you looking for acceptance in such a way? Maybe it is that important. If I sat here long enough, I could make a list of areas that might be a sensible concern. I just don’t have them in my life. I’m way cool. With being the lone Wolf.

But I’m not really. I am, I don’t hang with a crew. I don’t try to fit into anything. I try to be the best version of myself with the people that I help the most. And the people that I help the most, at least on the, on the paycheck side of things, are people with addictions and mental illnesses. And I find them fascinating.

I find every single one of them has something really positive to be discovered and explored, even if they’ve done some terrible things, which they have, as have I back in the day. Don’t judge. I’m not naive. I get lied to a lot, but I don’t care because it has nothing to do with me. It’s how they’re just surviving.

And I know a lot of people that I deal with that I deal with, if I knew what they really did in certain areas, or sometimes I do, I wouldn’t want them living near me. I wouldn’t really associate with them. But because professionally that’s not what I’m there to do. It doesn’t phase me in the slightest and I just find it that makes them even more interesting.

I, I. I’m fascinated by flawed people. I’m fascinated by suffering people. I don’t wish it on them. It’s not like that. It’s not, and they’re not my entertainment. I’m just really fascinated in what makes a mind go sideways.

What makes a mind get warped? Like that. And then I find the good in that, that I can, and I help the people that it’s my responsibility to help. And I do it wholeheartedly.

On the, on the private coaching side, if you’re working with me, you’ll probably got a pile of all of that in you at some point, but you’ve moved well beyond it. Same as me. And now you’re on some kind of mission. You’re trying to take all of those experiences, good and bad, and turn them into something good and something powerful.

You got something to say, you got a group of people you want to help, and you got a one person you want to help. And you knew that you know the version of you is not the guy to get it done. I want to help you do that.

And the only way you and I I can work together, is if you’ve always been on the outside, looking in, or, or you got there eventually, because you realize you just can’t mesh with the status quo.

And I don’t believe anybody. Life’s going to hand you certain situations where it’s it’s… you’d do well to be part of the status quo. I mean, you would. But for living, for getting out of life what you really want? And for doing in life what you’re here to do, you need to divorce yourself from the status quo as quickly as possible. Or change the definition of what you call status quo.

There’s there’s another sweet spot I like to live in. Status quo is just whatever one else is doing. Well, what if everyone else encompassed a group of people not doing what the herd does? People like us that have fought bipolar and come out with unbelievable awakenings and ideas and passions and skills and visions. And we want to share them with the world.

There’s a lot of us like that. There’s a lot of famous people that you know, right now, you’ve read their books. You’ve listened to their music. You’ve seen their paintings. It’s artists, it’s musicians, it’s it’s actors and actresses, it’s poets. It’s it’s even architects, people, people that do stuff with their hands. There’s there’s people out there that have to be by themselves to do what they do, because it’s the only way they can pull it off.

But if you’re lucky enough to sit and talk them, your life would be changed. A quick example. I, I did that with Brad Douriff, Brad Douriff. He was, he’s an actor and he’s the voice of Chucky the doll. Now he’s been in a million movies, hundreds, hundreds. He was a, when I met him, he was 72. Was handful of years ago.

I got pulled into a music video. And I was like, yeah, I’ll jump. I’d like to be in that. I knew the, I knew the the movie director. And I had a chance at one point to talk to Brad Douriff. I was in the audience, but there wasn’t a lot of people. You know, the pretend audience for the video shoot. He was on the edge of the stage, just gathering himself and cooling off.

And we shot the shit for like 20 minutes. I don’t remember a damn thing we talked about. Cause it was all just…. Life. It was like life stuff. It wasn’t me fawning over the fact that he was Brad Douriff and he seemed to take a liking to me. And we were just two guys just talking about things and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I was on almost no sleep. I was on a 40 some odd hours with no sleep, as it was my wife and my daughter to get to this thing on time. And, and we were beyond exhausted. We were practically hallucinating and that 20 minutes with, with Brad, I was on fire.

I was energized in a calm sense, and I was so honored that I got this chance to be with him. And I built it. I built it.

Because way back when I first started sharing my message of being an outsider and I beat bipolar disorder in an outsider fashion, I started telling the world about that. I got a videographer who was a student at the time, pursuing a career in videography, to shoot a bunch of YouTube videos for me.

They’re gone now, but we shot many, many dozens of ’em. He went on to become a professor at two different colleges and start his own video production company. And it was through him that I got the invite that landed me practically in Brad Douriff’s lap. I got pictures with Brad later, but the, the I got his life story from his girlfriend.

She told me his story for an hour. I would never share what she told me and but it was fascinating and I couldn’t believe… I said nothing. She talked for an hour straight.

I met a guy there who was much older than me, probably in his seventies, who used to work in the garment district in New York city, back when you went in armed to buy dresses.

I was like what? He goes. Yeah. People never seem to understand that about the garment industry back in the day. It was all mob run and gang ruled. And he’s like, you could go in to buy a bunch of clothes. You might not come out. I was like, what?

So all of that came to me because I looked from the outside in, on how to fix bipolar and then worked hard as I could, in any way possible, with zero budget, to share that message. These fascinating people, years later, ended up in my lap.

My point to all of this is if you’re on the outside, always, looking in? Kudos! I do understand that it’s comfortable.

I do understand particularly like with bipolar. It gets very lonely. I could suggest finding my course over at bipolarexcellence.com to show you how I dealt with bipolar. And as you regain your wellness, you won’t feel so lonely. And you’ll learn things about bipolar… stuff I talk about all the time in this podcast… and how to attain them ,to where you may embrace your outsiderness, same as I have.

You might prefer to never go back to trying to be in the thing. you’re outside of. I hope not. The thing is the world is in turmoil right now. It’s 2022. Everything’s a, it’s… the water’s a little choppy out there. People like us are the only ones… because we’re not normal in the best of ways.

We’re not normal. We’re going to look at these problems in a way that everyone else will ignore or overlook or not believe. And we’re going to solve a lot of them.

I want to be at the root of that. I. I just for my own satisfaction, just like when I met Brad and his girlfriend and the guy that did the thing, and I built the kid that the kid that was the videographer, I got him his start.

I got him. I paid him for his free videos by getting him an internship in a professional production company, where I was friends with those people. That is another four years of stories to tell you even what happened because of why I was friends with those people at that facility. And what took place in a facility.

All of this is because. I am constantly on the outside in how I see everything. And I want to be involved. I drew these situations to me. I built them and/or drew them to me. I maxed them out, mostly with no awareness of where they go.

I almost never got paid for any of this ever. And yet my life has been filled with these fascinating moments and events and people and the kind of people and the level of play I’m accessing is getting larger, more important, more impactful.

I want to be a, a bigger player on the world scale because I enjoy it. Not because of the, the more tangible things that come with that, you know, fame and fortune. All right. I don’t care. I’ve had a little bit of ’em, a little bit of fame way back when.

I’m a published author, things really cool things came out of that for a minute and fortune, not, not so much so far, but I’m working on that, but not like I don’t have a list of things I want. I have a handful of things I want. Big house. I want a Jeep. I want my own gym in a barn.

I want a lot of land in the woods. I don’t want to be around any people. I want water nearby. Boom. You just heard my whole list. Don’t care if where I live, nobody knows who I am. Don’t care. I don’t care about any of that.

I don’t buy things so that I can tell to you anybody else look, like I can afford this. I, I hate that actually, but I do want some stuff. I want a better life and I’m building it. But I’m building it by living the life the way I want. And that’s by remaining an outsider and drawing other outsiders to me.

It’s critically important to me that my social circle and work circle is made up of people like you. You’re winning, as far as I’m concerned. You just might be at a phase of this outsiderness that it’s awful damn uncomfortable and lonely.

Hopefully something I say on this podcast or offer on my website will help you mold that into something more positive. And then we can find out what’s actually at the heart of what drives you and just explode it all over the world.

I hope so because it’s going to be yet another awesome story, with another far out person that I either get to tell or just, you know, I just get to live that life. I want to live these lives of you guys with you. And that’s why this whole thing exists. And that’s why I say remain on the outside, looking in.

All right guys. See you on the last episode of this series. (So excited!)