
EPI 68: Struggling With The Fish
EPI-68: Struggling With The Fish
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:26 — 24.0MB)

The fish in question is the Zuppa di Pesce I just had at a great restaurant for Mother’s Day with my wife.
The day and meal left me with no desire to do anything.
Particularly this podcast.
Plus, it’s getting late. As always.
But after I added the video below, attempting to enhance the poignancy of my point, I started waking up!
I’m Not Even Supposed To BE Here Today!
The first time I saw “Clerks” was life changing.
It was clear that “someone new” was on the scene, named Kevin Smith, and that I loved him and all his friends.
There was nothing like this movie prior to its arrival.
It sang to my soul!
I remember I had just quit drinking but was still tripping and smoking weed.
So I got to see this high, an incredible gift in itself!
I’ve since seen this movie a bunch of times and all the rest of Kevin’s movies too.
But all these years later, what I’ve come to really enjoy are his interviews.
I love understanding how his mind works and what drives him.
(This is a theme in my every day life, on the clock or off.)
He’s a creator, like me, but more artistic than informational.
Yet I’ve learned so much from him.
The thing I’ve embraced the most is leading with my true persona. My attitude. My perspectives. My style. My language.
No apologies.
And he always put in the work.
He thinks about fucked up things and usually turns them into something decidedly funny.
Or sometimes he builds things that are incredibly dark.
But he always builds.
Yet he apologizes for very little.
This is that “authenticity” you hear so much about.
It’s also integrity.
I like being me, just the way I am, even though I’m constantly trying to improve.
But my attempts to improve do not include watering down what I know makes me shiny to those with whom I resonate the most.
I’m a lunatic, at times, who knows things and cares.
I’m using that mix to help others tell their stories, adding to mine in the process.
Transcript
Just click the “READ MORE” text below for the transcript!
Hey, this is Ken Jensen. I beat bipolar disorder in an all natural fashion back in the mid 2 thousands. 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 bipolar Excellence episode 68 struggling with the fish. So that was an odd thought that popped into my head.
I went out tonight. It’s it’s mother’s day 20 23. May fourteenth, and I went out for a nice dinner with my wife. We don’t have the time or matching schedules enough usually to do that very much.
And even though we had the time because of the unusual schedules, 1 of us hungry, the other 1 isn’t. So it was nice. We had a nice meal I had Zupa Depeche.
And after all these Zupa Depeche was in me and with the setting sun and the coming war day, I completely lost my will to do anything else for the rest of the day and this podcast had yet to be done.
And that seems to be the way this always will be until I finally retire from my day job, and this won’t be such a struggle for me. Ever the struggle. That’s why I titled it this way.
It’s a fight to put this work in and to keep putting the work in and it has to be done. I I got what happened. Something happened in a few episodes back, and I missed a couple weeks, and it was unavoidable in that respect.
I had nothing left. I was busy with other stuff in my life. Whatever it was, I said I talked about it in that last episode. A couple episodes back.
I don’t even remember which 1, but There was no way and I did not care. I was spent on every level. Tonight is the normal spent. The spent where I just wanna mellow out and do some Netflix before I gotta go to work tomorrow.
God, I can’t I cannot stress. I cannot stress to you listeners how joyful I’ll be when I earn my way out of out of that job and it’s a great job. I’m just not an employee. I never have been.
Nobody should be unless they’re doing it to soothe some ache deep within their soul or you’re at some point in life where you need a job to learn something that you could then 1 day turn into your own business company or service.
I’m not saying you don’t work. I’m just saying you you don’t less people need to be an employee than they realize. That’s what I’m saying.
You’re gonna You’re gonna always work and I think for a lot of people they don’t want the responsibility of being a boss. I know that for a fact actually. I don’t know plan is. They don’t like work, but they don’t know what the plan is.
They don’t hurt responsibility. Life is a lot simpler when you can blame someone else for all your problems. And I’m not that guy. I need to be in charge of my day and I relish it and I want it.
I don’t have enough time to enact all the cool ideas and write about the stuff that pops into my head that I could go on about at length that would be helpful to you in an in an in an enjoyment.
Is that a word? Enjoyable to me to share. So anyway, back to the fish. So that was it for the fish. It it was just me trying to find the gumption to do my job, that being this podcast.
So in the process, I I went and found a clip on YouTube about the movie clerks. I’m not even supposed to be here today. In this Cipes, I’m forgetting I’m forgetting his is Randall and the other guy’s name.
I I I’m blanking. III should be struck down by the movie gods for blanking on on his name. But he’s complaining because he had to come in to work on an off day because somebody else no showed.
And then these 2 buddies argue it out in the in the the mini mart about the other ones, inability to take responsibility for his life and and a bunch of other things.
I put a like a little 30 second clip on on episode 68 on bipolar excellence dot com. It’s funny. If you get the if you get the newsletter, you’ll see it in there as well.
So I’ve always wanted to throw this in. The little clerk the the little clerks I’m not supposed to even be here today. When I first saw that movie, because now we’re gonna talk about that because it matters.
Clarks, when it came out, which was in the early nineties, I can’t remember what year exactly, but when it came out, it was a game changer in movie world.
Nothing like it had ever been made before. Or if it was, it never gotten major play. This was back before the Internet. This was back with VHS tapes. Shit.
I remember beta tapes were still a thing back then. And, you know, you had to be fortunate enough to find certain things. And if they were really underground, you had to know a guy who knew a guy to to find copies of of anything cool.
I kinda missed that little side rant. I kinda missed that because the the the satisfaction of finally getting your hands on the copy is something you’ve been trying for weeks months to find.
There was nothing like it. Now now you can find you can easily find anything you want.
I like that too. I really do. But I do miss the adventure and and the achievement and the victory of finding a copy of something that you only heard whispers of through through side conversations with other people.
I miss everything about the video store and all of that. But anyway, clerks makes me think of all of because there was a video store involved as well.
It’s 1 of the best movies ever. Please go see clerks. So I’m reading on a page I wrote before I made this year episode and what what clerks led to for me. Beyond the enjoyment was I eventually got to know the world of Kevin Smith.
He went on to do bigger and better things and then he he that was a little indie flick and black and white made with, you know, no money and a bunch of local people and friends helped out in the neighborhood.
Which in self is awesome. That’s something I really love about making a small movie that the community can pull and get pull together like that to help the movie makers’ vision come real.
I still love that to death. And I aim to be on projects like that soon. I have been, but it’s been a long time since I’ve done so actively.
It’s 1 of the coolest thing to be in rooms with people like this making a thing come true that probably isn’t gonna make any money or if it does, it’ll be very little, but everybody’s committed to seeing this thing being brought to life.
I I love that so much. I had I had a strong taste of it for a while, and then my life changed and I got I wasn’t back in it.
I wasn’t in it any longer like I used to be. I want that back. That’s part of why I do everything I do now. So I’m watching all of Kevin’s movies.
He, of course, got better with age and he got into other genres and did some really twisted stuff, some really phenomenally interesting stuff. He made some good traumas. Not everything he made was gold but whatever.
Then as I evolved as a human and just wanted to do more with my life, I started finding interviews of Kevin Smith or with Kevin Smith and I liked how he spoke about why his life was like it was and why he did anything like he did.
And it was plainly evident he could give a shit about what anybody thought about what he said or or anything. He’s just gonna Kevin Smith and you can just fuck off if you’re not cool with that.
Oh my God do I love that? The You could say it takes balls but people that really lit lead their lives that way, it it it’s it’s frequently It’s not even balls.
They’re just not bending and they don’t care. So I emulate that most of the time but it’s something I’ve struggled with wondering as I put my message out there.
I I definitely can be too much too soon to new people. Sometimes you gotta get to know me. You gotta get your head around where I’m coming from. It’s some of it’s weird, some of it’s way too aggressive.
Some of it’s very sick and twisted. I’m all of these things but I can I I have no attempt to not be deep? I have no desire to not be these things. I want to improve how I wield these facets of my character, definitely.
But I don’t want them to go away because I enjoy shit out of them. I want to enhance them and use them well, use them better, and draw the other people like that to me.
Or if not exactly like me because as I’ve found, I draw people that are like a hundred percent the opposite of me in every way imaginable, but me being me gives them something they need to pull off whatever it is they’re trying to pull off.
Then I throw some advice around what have you. I have found over the years in very sometimes unique ways, there’s something about having me in your life when you’re trying to get something done.
That people the right people, they gotta have me. They gotta have me. Way back before I started this not only this podcast, but the 2 that came before it that are since long gone.
I remember asking my coach at the time, Jason Leister. He is at sovereign business dot org. Go fall in love with him. You’ll thank me 1 day. He’s 1 of the best people. I told him listen, Jason. I don’t know what my thing is.
All I know is every job and I’ve had every job under the sun, most of them are not related to 1 another, but at every job people seem easy and willing to drop all their problems in my lap and they wanna They want my opinion.
They want answers. They wanna know what they can do about them. I know there’s that. And then I also know that wherever I am I tend to be 1 of the sparks. If not these bar, depending on the size of the organization.
I seem to be the guy that adds some pizzazz to the day and gets everybody else motivated and fired up just being a Luna Luna ticking saying the the fucked up little off off hand remarks I make that I’m I’m awesome with in in a in a conversational setting.
I just know right what to say when and it’s it’s some of it’s just twisted as hell and it’s always perfect and it’s frequently used in a way that takes care of people.
It’s how I am. I can’t sit and, like, say it as I’m talking about it here.
It happens while I’m talking to people. So there’s that when I’m when I’m present, everyone’s more excited and happier and motivated. And I know that when I leave a job which has happened over 50 some odd times now.
I leave a trail of tears in my wake. People are just dirt they When I find people that I used to work with at any of my former jobs, I’ll get some kind of comment like it just wasn’t the same after you left.
Or everybody still talks about that shit you did or in some cases other people quit too. That’s happened more than once too.
Once I left, I don’t know. It it caused the vacuum that no 1 else was comfortable with, and and it it’s it’s literally happened on about 4 different jobs I was at where the people just left right behind me.
I’m not gonna sit here and say I was holding the whole company together, but it’s kinda weird how many people left at each of these places.
In 1 case, it was 55 0. And everybody that I crossed paths with in the in the the the few years right after it all said. Don’t know, man. Something about after you left, that was something happened.
It just wasn’t the same place. I’m sharing all of this because as I started to say about Jason Leister, I asked him I don’t know what the fuck it is about me but I have this impact on people and I don’t I don’t know how to define it.
And I don’t know how to digitize it. I don’t know how to put it on the Internet.
I don’t know how to make money from it. I don’t even know a hundred percent what it is. I’m a great companion. I do a certain amount of crowd work like a comedian. I seem to be a counselor and I’m also a coach.
I’m also a visionary. I’ve helped other people build stuff who’ve gone on to do better than me faster and I was nothing but happy. I said, what What am I? And he was like, well, let’s start with your impact.
What’s your greatest impact? I said it seems to be while people are talking to me. He’s like, then podcast. You need to be on a podcast. That’s how you guys are hearing from from me now. That talk with Jason was many years ago.
And the funny thing is As I’m sitting here talking to you, I do get into a flow state rather quickly and I like executing the act of creating a podcast well, but I’m not even fond of making podcasts.
I’m not. I’m fond of the conversations they will 1 day lead to as you listen to this and decide you wanna work with me.
This this is the price I pay among others to help bring you to me whoever you are to help you understand me and to help you decide yes or no if I’m the guy that that you need to be working with next.
I do it as well so that the wrong people are pushed away.
I don’t want to see them. It’s nothing personal. We just don’t match and I don’t I don’t want to work with anybody that doesn’t want to work with me. I have actually done that in the past and it is a it’s bad juju.
It it never ends well. And I don’t want that. So I build all these things I bill build so I can find the people. I can help the best and enjoy doing so. Enjoy doing it with the most.
So That’s all I got. This one’s gonna be short. More things have been happening. There’s a lot of stuff going on in my my world with my mom’s house, I I put up a go fund me page if you punch in Ken Jensen on go fund me.
You’ll see me with a baby version of my beard with my arm around my dad. If you wanna something there.
I appreciate it. If not, or if you’re looking to build something and reach out to the world, go check out how I built that go fund me page just for copywriting tips and and to see how somebody shares a story online.
It’s not my best work. I kinda just cranked it all out rather quickly as it came about.
But I did edit things as I built I I did want them to be a certain kind of done well a certain amount and it’ll give you an idea of really that’s that’s that’s like a that’s like a a low cost quick lesson on on how you might reach out to the world.
Not exactly true. Go for me page but the words I use and the way I position things and the way I use headings and bowls and images and the words I choose in a way I I use them in the order they’re in to tell a story.
There’s a lot you can pull from that go for me page. If you wanna help my mom, well I love you.
Go do so, please. If not, that’s fine too. Okay. Let’s cut this 1 short because I I am fried and I am still absorbing a lot of whatever is in Zoop at the pest and I’m tired. Alright, guys. Go to bipolar excellent dot com.
If you haven’t in the past and and sign up for my newsletter and you will get my free wellness course I get a feeling it someday. More likely, I’m gonna evolve to the point that it doesn’t make sense to give that course away.
If you need to know how to live life better, heal from hideous things no matter what your problem is and succeed a little a better life. That’s a nice foundational piece for you to have in your arsenal.
Go get my it takes guts to live well course while I’m still giving it away. And tell me someday if it helped you that would be really cool. Alright, guys. Have a good night. And be well.