[00:00:00] Michael Pacheco: Hello, everybody. Welcome once again to another episode of the Remarkable Coach Podcast. As always, I am your host, Michael Pacheco, and joining me today is Ken Jensen.
Ken is a former Marine who has survived one war, a handful of actual deaths. Two comas, bipolar disorder, and multiple addictions. His recovery led to insights he now uses to help others create online businesses to share their survival stories. Ken Jensen, welcome to the remarkable
[00:00:31] Ken Jensen: coach. Thank you, Michael.
Thanks for having me.
[00:00:34] Michael Pacheco: Thank you, brother. I appreciate you making the time to chat with me today. Always with this podcast, when we’ve got a new guest on, I like to just invite you to speak a little bit about yourself and your own words and tell us why it is
[00:00:45] Ken Jensen: you do what you do. Everything about me. Is attached one way, shape or form to my, my, the nexus point, which was bipolar disorder. I had a really bad case of it. And I had in my late twenties and I had every version of it. They cared to give a name to the worst being mixed, mixed. If they call it that still, I don’t really pay much attention anymore, but mixed is when.
You have a bad depression fueled by the energy of mania. I can’t, I don’t have words for how bad that is. It’s a violent depression that comes at you like a physical attack. So I survived all of that and I got put in a coma once off of that from a lithium OD. That happened while I was drunk drinking was a big problem coming out of the Marines, saying that you’re a Marine and your drink is almost a, it’s too redundant.
But even in with that, I was one of the higher class achievers. Unfortunately, I learned eventually I learned a unique outside the system way of beating bipolar. I attempted to make a business out of that and fell flat on my face, really for a number of reasons, but I learned a lot about helping people. I learned.
Things about bipolar that I feel are strengths, and why certain people can end up with bipolar in their life. It’s not always a bad thing, it’s a signal, a symbol. It’s a symptom of something else that is sometimes an awesome something else. But it’s being projected all wrong because you don’t understand what’s going on with you and why.
What ended up happening to me was I realized there was something about me that made this able to come into my life, probably, more than one thing. And it gave me perspectives and an insight to life and people that I, that allowed me to reach people in a certain way. That I started noticing.
It took me years to see what was happening. I just knew everybody liked me. It wasn’t that I was the life of the party. I got some of that in me, but people were drawn to me for some reason. And I’ve had over 50 some odd jobs. I’m a seeker. I learned I’m called, I learned what I need to learn.
I usually don’t even know what that is. I just get sick of the job and I split and I spend my life forever. Whenever I left a job, I left usually a wake of just broken hearts behind me of people that couldn’t believe I was no longer going to be there. I say this not to, not to toot my own horn.
That’d be gross. I just knew it was happening. I’m like, why are people so drawn to me? Eventually I started being told enough that I had a way of saying things was one of the phrases that kept coming up. And then eventually I started realizing the fact that I’d overcome so much. Something comes out of me that I think people pick up on that they realize I can help them.
And I have people come up to me in a grocery store and tell me their worst story the moment we meet. So I put years together trying to figure out what that means. How I can monetize it and build a career out of it because I cannot stand being an employee. I never could. And It’s got me to where I am now.
And I had just pivoted my message on my website. Actually, I don’t directly help people build small businesses as the main goal. Now I realize I’m just beacon of strength and hope for people to then do anything they want to do and succeed at. And in my case, building a small business is what interests me most, but I can help anybody achieve just about anything they need.
If they just need a strong person in their corner with some knowledge and some wisdom. That’s where I’m at right now. I love it. So
[00:04:03] Michael Pacheco: what I’m hearing is that it wasn’t just the beard that was attracting
[00:04:07] Ken Jensen: people. You’re just trying to make a best friend for life now. The beard is a key point of all of this.
It guides me. It tells me things. I’ve learned to trust it. For those
[00:04:17] Michael Pacheco: for those listening to the audio version of this podcast, Ken has a Magnificent beard.
[00:04:23] Ken Jensen: Yes, I do. And it loves being told that,
[00:04:26] Michael Pacheco: can tell us about your clients. Who are your clients? Who do you work
[00:04:28] Ken Jensen: with? Okay. Right now, full disclosure.
I’m at the very beginning of going pro. I help people. In my day to day life, I have a job where I work with the mentally ill and the disabled, and that’s been a theme that’s been recurring over the past five years. It’s the first time in my life there’s been a career theme. I can bounce to anything. I learned that if I can dance to the interview, I’m already smart enough to do the job.
It’s moot. I’ll figure it out later. First time in my life, the last five years, I’ve been helping people. So I realized I’m where I need to be. So right now I’m in the middle of transitioning out of a day job into full time coaching and the people I do coach, it’s, it is people that have issues, but I make clear to them, I can’t help you beat your issues other than I can show you what I did, but.
I’m after people that are looking to do something that’s larger than themselves. And I’m, I want to draw people to me who do not need to be repaired. Then go do something grand because honestly I can do it, but it ages me. Pull someone out of the pit and bring them up to normal and save their soul. So to speak, I can do it.
Cripes, it drains me, and it has nothing to do with the people, it’s just not my thing. But if you say to me, let’s go attack that hill and get to the top, come hell or high water, I got the tools, I got your back, I’m ready to fight my way through anything it is, and I can’t even sleep at night, I’m so excited.
So those are the people that I’m looking to help now, and I’m just beginning to find these people and transition into them. I love it and
[00:05:56] Michael Pacheco: so that leads Beautifully into my next question, which is where do you get your clients and how are you marketing yourself right now?
[00:06:03] Ken Jensen: Okay. So right now the biggest job was revamping the website and a homepage for the millionth time.
I don’t know how many of your people have experience with trying to make the homepage represent. That’s like my, that’s my gremlin. Very happy with it right now. Although I got to freshen up the current video, but I have courses I offer and a couple of different coaching options I offer. And it took me a lot of time with everything that’s going on.
I, I lost. I lost my dad last year and he was phenomenal. He was a King to many people for all the best of reasons. He quietly was helping people in the thousands and we didn’t even know. We knew, but we didn’t know how big it was. So my whole last year of my life has been helping my mom with that transition to include massive renovations in the house and everything that entails.
And in the middle, keep growing my business while doing a day job that drains me. So I’ve been incrementally growing to the point where I am now right on the cost. Of honestly, I’m using Justin Welch’s system to market on LinkedIn. I like everything that’s about and inside LinkedIn, I’m a writer as well, inside LinkedIn, I am starting to find these this happy group of freaks like me.
They’re a little ahead of me in the running, but they don’t back down from just being them in a way that’s completely. out of the norm and they’re just saying things. I’m like, okay, so I’m in here. I have family and I’ve been making friends with a lot of these people with no aim other than to make friends with these people because there’s such a relief to be around people that are authentic, weird, outside the box, fighting the status quo, even within LinkedIn as they use it.
It’s like they’re fighting LinkedIn. I was like, this is nuts. This is me. This is a healthy me. The old me just like to fight anything that was in charge. The end. I’ve that’s some years ago, but that’s what I’m doing now. I’m going to be posting like crazy and linked in and just making very clear and 5, 000 different directions.
What I’m about and who I serve best. Let’s just see what comes out of it. I love it, man.
[00:07:56] Michael Pacheco: Tell me, let’s talk about LinkedIn a little bit more. Are you, is this like a LinkedIn group that you’ve found? Or is just, this is some people that you’ve connected with on LinkedIn. I like I like freaks that, that remind me of myself too.
[00:08:08] Ken Jensen: The reason LinkedIn ever even got any highlighting out of me was. There was a part of me that was always afraid. I had a LinkedIn account forever, and it was a part of me that was afraid to go make noise because I wasn’t an adult yet with my business. I was like, I was always afraid to show up and be unprepared and then be just like caught, so to speak.
And at some point just recently in the last five, six months of my development with getting crystal clear on my message and who I serve, I realized I was ready. I was like, okay, it’s time to go play with the adults. And I don’t like what happens on a lot of the other social media sites.
I’ll just leave it at that. People are just, yeah, whatever. They’re just there for relaxation and whatever. LinkedIn’s where people, we all know we’re there to do business. And I love that we don’t have to hide that fact from each other or play some sort of marketing game. We can just talk about having business, making business.
And I like that it was with, in general, committed people that are looking to play big to some degree. It was only later that I found out there was people just like me with their own quirky set of weirdnesses that then even made it even more fun. I was like, geez, the freaks are in here. They you can be a freak in LinkedIn.
Cause I’m not going to change. I am what I am. And I’m this way 24, seven, no matter what I’m doing. I just curse less depending on the audience I’m talking to.
I was
[00:09:26] Michael Pacheco: telling you, I was telling you before we hit record that before I even met you, I read your bio and I liked you and then you’re just, the authenticity that’s coming through, man is fantastic. I love this. You’re, You’re my kind of people. I love it. Keep doing what you’re doing, brother.
Tell me about your website. So you said you, I’m looking at it right now. It’s bipolar excellence. com. You said you got, you you got the messaging down. It’s something that you think reflects you well.
[00:09:50] Ken Jensen: Yeah. Yeah. Just recently I pinned it all down. Like I got a, I got to do it.
I got to freshen up the video on the homepage. There’s little things here and there, how websites are, you’re always tuning them up, but I’m happy with it. I’m happy with it. About 99%. And a coach I had that, I treasure finding this man. I watched him mutate about four different times and just grow bigger and bigger.
And that was Jason Leister and he’s at sovereign business.org. I’m not affiliate or nothing, I’m just happy he came into my life. . And he told me, I was like, when I way back. Like five, six years ago, I’d been at this for 15 years and then more. If you count the pre bipolar years, when I started trying to do something other than have a job, I asked him, I said, dude, I don’t know.
Are we allowed to curse on this show? Go for it, man. Absolutely. I was like, dude, all I know is when I enter a room, everyone’s drawn to me. And when I leave a job, everyone’s fucking wrecked. And I don’t know what the fuck I am. I just know people enjoy my presence. But I don’t want to be an entertainer, because I thought of that.
Maybe I’m a stand up comedian. If I’m in the zone, I’m funny as shit. But it’s the moment, it’s in the moment with the rights, whatever. I can’t do that, and I don’t want to do that. Yeah. And he said, so when you’re with people, this is when you have your greatest impact? Yeah.
He goes, podcast. They got to hear you talk. Yeah, I said, okay, man. So I had two other podcasts. And then as I learned, I came with the one I have now, which is bipolar excellence podcast. And that I’m really liking how people are receiving that. And I do, I have found a way of making clear that bipolar flavors, everything, but I’m not here to save you from bipolar.
I’m just trying to give some context to what my mind’s been through and what it’s capable of, what I’ve survived, what I’m made of. You got that as a buddy, so to speak. In a business sense back in your wildest play, I dig it. So let’s
[00:11:41] Michael Pacheco: talk more about that because you’ve got a varied background, former Marine all this stuff and bipolar.
the one that you chose to focus on for the coaching, right? Bipolar excellence. Why bipolar? What’s the significance of that specifically on your coaching and your, the way that you coach and the way that help entrepreneurs and
[00:12:01] Ken Jensen: so forth. Okay. So there’s a few answers there.
I’ll try to keep them brief. One was just that when I beat bipolar, I built the biggest soap box ever because to come out of bipolar, it’s like multiple mental illnesses in one. It’s a train wreck of a mental illness. It has the highest suicide rate out of it. Even beats schizophrenia for suicide rates.
You, you, it’s an assault. It’s a very active mental illness that is hard to survive for some of us. So in the beginning, when I beat it, I thought when I started beating it, I didn’t even know what I’d done. I just wanted to get better. I wanted to feel less pain. That’s all I could hope for. Cause that’s all that made sense to me with what I knew.
I ended up beating it. Then I had to be informed that I beat it and that’s an important thing. That’s a whole side story with a very funny writing coach I had. Bipolar became the thing and then I learned the hard way that you can’t build a business out of that the way I was doing it. So I knew that bipolar was the strongest part of my entire life story.
It’s a huge thing to walk out of it. Most people just have it and if it doesn’t take them out entirely, they just suffer with it forever. And they’re told that’s the, that’s it. That’s the answer. So number one, I’m like, no, there’s other answers. Not only that, there’s my way. And later I found out completely different.
Other people had beaten it. There’s a whole world of help that doesn’t get airtime. Yeah. And we know why that is. So why even get into it? Then partly as I started redeveloping all I did, bipolar was hammered into so many things. It was such a pain in the ass to undo the domain and try to rework.
I’d reworked things so many times I was exhausted. So I just kept it. And I realized as well, when you’re trying to coach somebody through something, it hurts that like pain is relative. There’s going to be people that come to me. They already do. They there’s no way they hurt the way I did when I was bipolar and getting arrested and all that.
But that doesn’t matter when you’re hurting and it sucks. And it’s horrible. You hope somebody would help. And in this case, the hurting is one of not succeeding, not reaching and attaining your life goals, hating being an employee. So I leave bipolar in place as an inspiration. I’m like. I beat that.
How hard can it be to help you build a business and keep you motivated and inspired to get over whatever your hurdles are if you’re not in that, you’re that much ahead of me. And the other hand, and in another respect, it seems like these days, everybody’s got a touch of something. So this gives some context to if you are in it and a little bit, and there’s a lot of plenty of successful people that are deep in the middle of something, but they found a way to be successful.
And I want people to know that as well. I’m not Kanye success wise, but he’s a good example. He’s got that demon and there’s many others. And I want to be another one of these people that I’d be like, look, I don’t have it actively. There’s nothing about me that can be called bipolar. It went away almost 20 years ago, but I remember the pain and I take steps.
There’s things I do to make sure it doesn’t come back to bite me. And I want to inspire people that way and give them hope. Yeah.
[00:14:56] Michael Pacheco: I think one of the. commonalities, uh, in life. I’m 43 years old. And one of the, one of the things that I’ve seen that is definitely there’s a common thread that runs through the most highly empathetic people that I’ve met in those 43 years, the people who.
Who care and they give a shit about what people think and how people feel is that they have been through the shit themselves. And that gives you a respect for what it’s like to be down in it. And I say this myself from experience again, you and I were talking a little bit before I hit record.
When I was 19 years old, I went through clinical depression and I was cutting myself with razors and. And I was deep in it as well. At that time I got through it, with help from a little bit of medication for a while. And then just a change in lifestyle was huge for me. A change, major change in lifestyle.
How did you beat bipolar?
[00:15:56] Ken Jensen: Okay, I might as well just give you the nexus point of that part of the story. So I’d reached the end of dealing with, by dealing with meds. Nothing was working. I was not anti meds. I desperately wish they made a med that helped me, but it wasn’t happening. My lip, my I’m a vet, so I’m up at the VA and I’m with the head of all psychiatry.
His guy’s got thousands of patients and all the other doctors answered to him. And he was like a textbook. I like that. He just delivered facts. He wasn’t hurtful, but he didn’t spare me anything. And the way my, my brain was it, I like working with facts. It made me feel like I could do something. So he would tell me things straight out.
And he told me, he said we’ve tried every med and he goes, I’m not your first doctor. You’ve been going to doctors for years, but he’s nothing works on you. It is clear that you’re only getting worse only. It doesn’t matter what pill we give you. And he goes, you and I both know we tried some things just out of desperation that were not even pertinent and they didn’t work.
He said, you’re 100 percent meds resistant. And he said at the rate you’re going to be dead by cop in six months. And I said, all right, why that way? I was used to hearing grim things. So I was like why that way? He was like, come on. He goes, every time you have police contact, there’s more police involved and more to Marine Corps coming out of you.
And he goes, you’re just flat out dangerous at this point. They’re going to have to shoot you just to survive you. And I sat with that. I was like. Yeah, you’re right. I could. Yeah, I agree with that summation. He was like, but, he goes, we’ve exhausted psychiatry as a doctor. As a scientist, I can pin my medical degree on the fact that we have nothing for you and you need to find something outside of psychiatry, but I don’t know what that is.
I only know psychiatry. He’s drink paint if you think it’ll help. What’s the difference? And I, at that point, the only subscription I had was Oh, Klonopin, I think there were 10 milligrams. I had a bottle half the size of my head and the prescription said, take them because the only thing that a tiny bit dented the really scarier parts of the illness.
I go home with a death sentence. Oh, and he told me, he said, I feel the worst for you than anybody else. This is almost like a hint of my coaching future. I feel worse for you than any other client I have. And I said, why? And he said. You’re the only one, I’m shortening this, you’re the only one that after I give you the pill, you come back with a list of questions.
Why that pill? What’s it doing with the other pills? What’s the prognosis? He goes, you have all these questions. He goes, nobody else asks you anything. They just take the pill. I’m like, you’re kidding me. They take all these chemicals and shit and don’t ask you what’s going in or why he goes none.
You’re the only one. And he said, and because of that, you are crystal clear on how fucked you are. He goes, I wish you didn’t know what you knew. So you could die in ignorant bliss. It’s like, all right, I got the facts. I go home. I’m sitting at my, my sitting in my basement, my parents basement. And I’m like, I’m going to die.
I wasn’t scared so much as just depressed about it. And at that point in my life, all I felt was fear, despair, and rage. Those were the only three things I could detect that you could call emotion. I couldn’t feel the energy of people in life anymore. I wasn’t always sure what was a hundred percent real.
I knew the floor was the floor, but it wasn’t clear on its purpose. Shit like that. And I’m sitting there, I’m like, I’m going to fucking die. Holy shit. This is bleak. And I sat with that and I heard this tiny voice in the back of my head. It was the Marine part of me whispering. It was like, this is not the way a fucking Marine goes out, do something, fight.
And I didn’t feel anything like in the movies, I just said, fine, fuck it, I’ll fight. It was two years before I even felt better. But from that moment, I just, I started researching stuff. A magazine came discover magazine science. I don’t know anything about science. It just interested me on the cover of the magazine happened to be, nutrition, can it cure mental illness?
And I was like, Holy shit. First thought discover magazine cannot risk their reputation on this. That’s a covered story. There has to be something to this. I dig into the story company out of Canada called true hope. They’re still there. Everything they said about nutrients match what I learned about bodybuilding and making the body perform so I could get behind that part of the science.
Cause that I was very familiar with. And then I added some other nutrients for particular reasons. And basically I address, I was a lot of times I was a mechanic, a very skilled mechanic on high tech stuff. I started fixing my body the way I troubleshoot a machine and I started getting better. It took four or five months where I could tell anything was improving.
Then as the body started getting better, one day I remember looking in a mirror and pointing at my reflection. I’m like, I think the rest is something to do with you. So then I started looking into the software, found a very particular kind of software from a company called CenterPoint, ends in an RE, changed the guy that invented that, what he had to say about the mind and life and everything.
It was staggering. Changed my life just reading what he had to say. I used this product and it was a definite improvement. And then over time, I actually it about maybe within four or five years after all of this is this was like a three to three year period. And then four or five years later, I wasn’t even doing all the things I did anymore to stay well I had learned how to cope.
Panic has been the only lingering thing, and I can count if it happens one or two times a year. And I know how to cope with it now. And it just cruises through me. It’s a momentary thing. I can have it happen right in front of you, and you won’t know I’m dealing with it. And it passes, because I learned some coping skills for that.
But I also learned People just have fucking panic attacks. It doesn’t mean you got a mental illness. There’s many reasons for a panic attack and that’s all I got. And it’s once a year or two. That’s how that’s how that story went. And cause I was scared. I ran out of money at one point to stop taking the supplements I was taking.
And I asked the company, am I going to go insane? So once down the road and they’re like, we honestly don’t know, but call us, stay in touch cause they work with you very closely and nothing happened. Wow, that’s a hell of a story. It was brutal. It was like I said, I’ve been dead. I drank too much once as a youth, and that was really just a mindless, I have way too much access to a mountain, like a literal mountain of alcohol.
And I drank myself into a coma at 15. And then when I was in my twenties, that’s when I got wasted because at this point, alcohol was the only thing that took the pain away from bipolar, but then the alcoholic crap would kick in and the Marine Corps would come out in all its ugliness. And one night in a fit of rage, I had a whole bottle of lithium, a month’s supply.
Just fuck everything. Not suicide. It was a rage fueled thing. I died. I died multiple times on the way to the ER. In the ER, I died multiple times, and then at one point they called it. And I had to come out to my poor family and tell them, he’s gone. We did everything we could. And then in the back, like in a movie, BOOM!
I do one of those, and they go running back in and keep working on me. And then it turns out some experimental goo they were pumping into me for a thousand dollars a vial, like every two hours, absorbs lithium. They had just invented it. They tried it on me and it sucked all the lithium. It was like, what do they call it?
Chalation? Chalation? They sucked it. It sucked all the lithium out. And I just hung in there long enough because I refused to die. And I lived. And two weeks later I woke up. And this I’ll throw this in and then I’ll let you go. Talk to me. But when I woke up, the first thing I saw was my dad sitting there in a chair.
I didn’t know I’d been out for two weeks. He’s grinning. He’s got some tears in his eyes. He’s army truck driver, blue collar, very nice, but doesn’t not in touch with the motion so much tears running down his face. And he looked at me, and he was like, I gave you this much, you’re hard to kill. And then we busted up laughing.
And that’s when I knew my dad still had my back. And then I just, I still was sick for about three more years after that, but then I found what I found and got better. Yeah,
[00:23:48] Michael Pacheco: that’s crazy, man. Yeah, it’s You know, it’s good to, it’s good to be on the other side of that, I’m sure. Oh
[00:23:55] Ken Jensen: it’s a blessing.
Every once in a while I’ll just let myself just, I don’t know, I don’t know if you’d call it like, like when you look at a car wreck, you can’t tear away. I’ll look at my pasture for a minute and try to really feel it. Just, I don’t know, just to increase my appreciation, just once in a blue moon Christ, I am glad I’m not back.
I’d have given it, back then I’d have murdered someone if you said, if you kill that person, this’ll stop happening, I’d have killed somebody. It hurt so bad and it was so terrifying. Does it ever feel like
[00:24:21] Michael Pacheco: maybe I’m projecting here, for me, when I look back on, on those times in my life, man, it almost feels like I’m watching someone else in a movie through, through a window pane that’s dusty and blurry and you can’t quite it’s just, it’s so far removed from my reality today because I’m on this, the other side of it, it just it’s very strange to look back and think that was once me.
[00:24:47] Ken Jensen: Yeah, I, in one part, my life has been one filled with such extremes. I’m not really worked up over these things, but I am amazed that I pulled through when I was in it. And I think this has more to, I’m not a, I’m not a doctor or anything. I know what I know or feel, think what I think, but I believe.
With the depression part of it, I went through a very strong period where number one, you might relate to this. I hated all happy people. I absolutely hated happy people. Yep. And then I called them normal people. I hated normal people. Yeah. If they were laughing and whatnot, they really had to go and they had to be dealt with.
I didn’t do anything, but God, I hated them. And then you don’t know this and I’ll bet you know this one too. You don’t know that there is an energy and a connection to life and people. That could be taken away from you. You don’t know you have it until it’s been taken away from you. There is something that people feel when they’re talking to each other and just in life around you, you’re used to it.
You’ve always had it, but when you get twisted up like we did, it can go away. And it is so lonely. You don’t feel connected to anything. I used to tell people it’s like I’m watching. You’re all on a TV and I can’t touch the TV and feel like I’m with you. You’re a show I’m witnessing. I’m not in any of this and it is terrifyingly lonely.
Yeah.
[00:26:10] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. Yeah. It’s this is a great conversation, man. We’re getting a little off track, but this is, I love this kind of stuff. Thank you for, being vulnerable and sharing that with us. Circling back to the coaching stuff. I want to make sure that we are able to highlight again, some of the coaching work that you do.
What is a typical engagement with you look like when you’re working with a client?
[00:26:31] Ken Jensen: What I’m about to What I’m about to put in place is some asynchronous coaching, which is like texting. You leave me a video, I do a video reply, then we don’t have to meet schedules. Sure. With whatever agreed upon actual live calls.
Cause you got to do that every couple of weeks or so. And when I’m talking to people, let’s say on the live call, I just listen for openings. I listen for keywords, whatever they’re saying. I’ve learned through my own stuff, I learned a lot of times what people think they want isn’t even really what they want.
And if you keep digging deeper, you’ll find out what the real thing is that’s driving them, that even made them ask that question. And if you can pin that down and help them discover what’s really driving it. They’ll read, they’ll get their, they’ll have moments of awakening. And that is so fun to do when somebody gets it.
I’m coaching a guy right now. Who’s believe this or not, the little bit, me, he’s building a Christian jam band and I’ve been teaching him about it. And yeah, I got a big filter from my end when I’m working with him and he’s great. And he knows how I am, you tailor your.
Presence to your person and I’ve told him I’ve been teaching him about marketing online and what it takes to find people. And this is all brand new to him. He’s older, he’s in his sixties. And he first, everything was unknown to him. And then he was scared of it and he didn’t think he could do anything.
I’ve got him through those hurdles. And then he’s got to the point where he’s getting mad about. Results, but in the sense that he demands more of himself that wasn’t there when we started And he now he’s starting to see where other people fail in their marketing because he needs to reach them and he can’t And he’s who does that?
How come I can’t and I was like Do you remember when I told you two months ago that you needed to build one of these things? You’re in it now from the do you see and you’re now you’re the recipient. He’s oh I’m, like now you get it man. And recently he had two different He wants to make the jam band a hobby and he wants to be a music producer and doesn’t want to make money with the jam band, but he wants to make money.
He’s all conflicted. I said, dude you’re asking the universe of two separate things. It’s not going to happen. You’re just going to confuse everybody. I said, you need to build a jam band for your passion. learn how to be a music producer while doing it, then go do that for someone else, separate of the jam band.
Now you have your cake and eat it too. And that, that took me a couple months to make that realization of talking to him. And that was a huge awakening for him. Like now you can do both without upsetting either camp. Nice. Nice. So you’re,
[00:28:57] Michael Pacheco: you’re, you just said you’re you’re in the process right now of really breaking out and taking this and going pro, what kind of struggles are you running into in, in making that transition and how are you overcoming
[00:29:11] Ken Jensen: those?
Okay. Limited budget’s always been a thing as with all of us that are bootstrapping, if that’s where you’re at. I am the king of reverse engineering. I learned how to read source code on a web page and taught myself web design the hard way that way. And I’ve just been exposed. If you expose yourself to enough, you start seeing trends and habits and patterns and why anything’s built the way it is.
And if you’re patient and persistent, you can find enough free stuff to cob together to make something that performs. Sometimes better, but at least close enough without having to spend any money or too much. So technology had been one, but I’m, I’ve been breaching that easily lately. Getting the message correct.
Like in my case, bipolar is the key, but I do not want to draw bipolar people to me who want to be saved from bipolar. I am not your person for that. You don’t even want me to try. It’s an incorrect fit. Yet it’s the most powerful part of my story. So that was where the biggest hurdle was, you, a lot of your fight is inside your own mind.
It’s you against you trying to get clear on things. And everybody sounds right. I learned that you learned that everybody sounds right. Cause everyone is right. If that bit of information fits at that time, for whatever reason they’re not wrong, but now it becomes one of discernment. Is this right for me right now?
So I’ve learned to say no to a lot of things. And the other thing was confidence in person. I don’t want to get too much. I have no issues with confidence in person for any reason under the sun. Put it that way. Coming online and having my material represent me. Now I’m a scared little girl and I’ve got problems and somebody needs to help me with this.
This is terrifying. Trolls are going to come at me. And I can’t tolerate the fact that I can’t go visit them at their house and like, Why’d you say that? You thought I wasn’t going to show up? That kind of thing. Ha. Getting in their face. Yeah. Like in one of the clerks movies, when Jay and Silent Bob were visiting houses.
So recently I put my show on YouTube. I was terrified to go on YouTube up until two months ago. Terrified because I don’t have it. I did not have it in me to be to deal with trolls in an adult fashion and not let it affect me. But in the last couple of months, so much has been going on so well. I said I, it just went away.
The fear went away. I don’t care. I don’t care what they say. I listened to a lot of Mark Maron on what the fuck pod. I like his style and how he talks to people and he goes through his problems. He’s world famous and one of the best people at podcasting. And he still has issues that I’m dealing with now.
And that’s about it for really major problems. I’ve been overcoming them left and right lately and really finding my sweet spots. And there’s a feeling that has settled in me. It’s funny. I wanted to get out of work, out of being an employee, my entire adult life, and I’m almost 55, but as I built all this, I wanted that feeling that you have as an employee, when there’s no mystery about how you earn the paycheck.
You go to work, you do the thing. There’s a check at the end of the week. I wanted to feel that way about this thing I’ve built. And I now feel that way. Nice. It feels really good. There’s a calm. I’ve known for years. I got this. I don’t know how damn long it’s going to take for the cash to roll in and me to just have the life I want, but I’m not worried about it.
And then just in the last few months, a calm settled upon me. It’s no, I’ve studied enough people ahead of me that were successful. I’m where they are. This is about to pop. I don’t even, I’m not even worried about it anymore. God, that feels good. It feels so good to not worry or even, you get annoyed, of course you get annoyed, you want it now, but I’m not attached to that anymore.
Now. It’s mastery. Huh. Doing the best way I can and serving anyone that comes to me for any reason, the best way I can, the money comes. That’s great, man. I
[00:32:52] Michael Pacheco: want to, and I think I want to take that idea and circle back to what we were talking before about your marketing and your writing and going to be posting on LinkedIn a whole bunch.
I would. Strongly recommend you, as at boxer we do marketing for coaches. This is what we do. I would strongly recommend for someone like you to do videos and post videos on LinkedIn, a whole bunch
[00:33:16] Ken Jensen: like do I’m gonna, I’m gonna, yeah,
[00:33:18] Michael Pacheco: do three a day, man, because you’ve got your, you’ve got a vibe that is uniquely Ken Jensen, right?
There’s, I talked to, I don’t know, a dozen coaches. week. I talked to a lot of coaches and consultants and thought leaders, and you’ve got a vibe. And I think that’s going to be a unique selling point for you and for your coaching. And man, if you can get If you can get videos out there, you’re going to find people that vibe with your message.
And the people that don’t vibe with your message are going to be turned off from it. And that’s great because then you’re not going to have those. Sales calls with people who are not going to buy anyway,
[00:33:58] Ken Jensen: right?
[00:33:59] Michael Pacheco: You’re qualifying your leads right out of the gate by doing video.
And you’re talking about leading with value and how you can help people, right? That’s what you use those videos for is think about what kind of questions can you answer in those videos? What kind of problems can you solve upfront for free? That’s gonna. Get people to know you, get people to like you.
And then when they come to a point in their life, in their professional career, where they’re thinking to themselves. Gosh, I could use a coach. That motherfucker Ken Jensen.
[00:34:33] Ken Jensen: I think that’s exactly the statement I want them to say, because I’ve used that. I’ve used that on people. And I’ve already got, I have a membership to Buffer, which I’m going to load with written and video and audio.
And you just caught me when the whole marketing machine is about to be filled and turned on. I got on YouTube two months ago with a system that takes an audio. It does something to it. So a video presents, but it’s really just an audio podcast. And that’s great. And that, that got me through that fear factor really.
And then I learned how it did it reverse engineered it. Now I figured out how I can get rid of that system. I don’t need it now. I saw what it did. I’m like, Oh, I could do that. I just, I was too busy. I couldn’t figure out the front end. Now I see what they did. I got this. I don’t need them anymore. And then a video is huge.
Cause yeah, it’s. I know my impact on people, and I definitely don’t want to work with the wrong ones. And that’s something I learned from Mr. Jason Leister. He’s you want to do everything you can in your power to piss off the people that are not your people. Totally. It’s not even personal. It’s your filtering so that you can enjoy your life.
Totally. Perfect fit. And you live the life you want and you end up surrounded with people you dig the hell out of to boot, business aside.
[00:35:43] Michael Pacheco: I love that, man. That, yeah, that, that’s fantastic advice. Follow that. Always. Thanks, Michael. That’s fantastic. Ken, what what three books would you recommend all your clients
[00:35:53] Ken Jensen: read?
The first one I remember that really changed my life was Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And it’s why you should not have a job and why you should own a business. Separate from whatever else he says in it, just that one thing. He makes it clear why you should own a business and what that even actually means and how it differs from self employment.
Oh, cripes, you caught me off guard. Three books. I am such a huge book reader. Who else have I read that really changed the whole, everything? That was really the only one. Other than that, there’s a lot of books that have had an impact on me, but I prefer bios. I like reading bios from people who have done stuff.
Okay. Give me some biographies. Let’s do it. Yeah, let me pivot off of books for a second. You want your mind blown? I’m a metalhead. I’m not sure, but I am a metalhead. I grew up in, I grew up in the 80s, caught all the shows. You gotta find the documentary Twisted Fucking Sister, see what, they’re not even a good band, but they have a devout following.
What they went through to reach the top is Greek tragedy epic, and they just kept going. Except for the music, you should watch that.
[00:37:00] Michael Pacheco: Dee Snider’s
[00:37:01] Ken Jensen: a machine, man. I love him. I love him. And there’s just so many bios. I read anything Arnold wrote. I wanted to be Arnold for the longest time.
Cause I grew up in the era of Arnold. He’s the one that got me into lifting. Now I just follow him loosely to just just for inspiration. Cause he’s another machine. Yeah, it’s hard for me to pick books because I’m looking to my right. I got a stack of 50 books I read just in the last six months and there’s 20 waiting in the wings.
It’s hard to remember what even, but rich dad, poor dad, that’s put it this way. That’s the one I gave to my kid. He won’t read it at 18. He’s achieving in epic ways in his style and I love it and he knows what I’m doing and he digs it and I’m letting him do his own thing because he’s incredible.
But I gave him that book rich dad poor dad because I said you need to know why the rat race is a death trap. I need to know that you know why you shouldn’t be employed forever. Unless. It absolutely ticks every box in your life for what you want to do to live a passionate life. You can have a job like that, but damn, they’re awful limited.
And most people don’t have that. They just, I would just say that one just so people get really clear on why they. One of the biggest things about me besides number one, become aware of what you’re not aware of and your life will change. And two, this is even bigger either during or after you become aware, take responsibility for every single fucking aspect of your life.
You, you cannot control everything, but you 100 percent control. Your reaction and that’s how you shape your life and have a better life than everyone around you, or just a fulfilling life. Okay. So book, where did I get that from? In part, a man’s search for meaning Victor Frankl. Oh, there
[00:38:40] Michael Pacheco: you go. That was, so that’s this is another one that was mentioned.
In the last, the podcast that I did yesterday with that guy who was an MMA fighter that I was telling you about. Okay. He also, we were, we talked about Man’s Search for Meaning there as well. That’s how can you not mention that book? It’s such a classic. Nope. Awesome. You have got a free course.
It takes guts to live well. You want to tell us a little bit
[00:39:06] Ken Jensen: about that? No, that just pivoted. That’s back under the paid realm, which I said on my podcast a million times, just so people aren’t surprised. So the system that I created to beat bipolar it’s comprehensive. It’s got videos, written material, action steps, links to all the third parties that I recommend that I used.
To get well. So that’s in my courses. If you go to bipolar excellence. com, it’s one of the courses. I have a course that’s really just all the resources I’ve used from the past up till now that really make my machine go and make my life go. And then I have a you do you course, which is like how you feel about me.
It’s my way of teaching people to embrace that the world. I feel we all know anybody with any sense knows the world’s going through a rapid change on all fronts. All the old systems are dying. And it just is forget how you feel about anything. It just is. And what I learned was, I think it came from the depression era, there’s money to be made when there’s blood in the streets that applies the money but it also applies to any project you’re trying to achieve.
When the system is unstable, that’s when a lunatic like me doesn’t have quite so many eyes on them and other people are looking for an oddball answer. And we meet right now, I feel is the greatest time to attempt to pull off whatever you want to attempt with your life. Because I think maybe all of a couple of years from now, it’s not going to be as easy to pull off now while everything, nobody’s keeping a close eye on anything.
You can make a move. You would have met resistance from whatever the status quo is. Status quo is busy trying to save its own life right now. Now is the time to make moves. Yeah, I love it, man.
[00:40:47] Michael Pacheco: Ken, I want to be respon I want to be respectful of your time. And we’re coming up on the end of the hour here.
Is there anything that you would like to talk about that we have not yet had an opportunity to touch upon?
[00:40:56] Ken Jensen: Just don’t, if you’re listening, if you’re listening, there’s a reason. Stop kidding yourself. If you’re not already successful or trying to be, you heard me and Michael for a reason. That’s your heart, the universe, your soul, whatever makes you comfortable, whatever you believe in, something pushed you here.
It’s time for you to make a move and just know, listen to my story. Michael’s got his, we shouldn’t even be here. And we’re here trying to help you. You can overcome anything if you just decide it. It’s just a decision you make and then you find someone like me or Michael to help you. And now’s the time to do it.
I just, I want people to know they, they not only should do this, they can. Yeah, if
[00:41:36] Michael Pacheco: you made it this far in the podcast, come on, people.
[00:41:38] Ken Jensen: Yeah, really. Come on. What are you doing? Get it done. Get it
[00:41:42] Michael Pacheco: done. Awesome. Ken Jensen, where can people find you online? Where can our listeners and viewers find you
[00:41:48] Ken Jensen: online?
Go to www. bipolarexcellence. com. Everything stems from that. Please get on my newsletter so we can do the thing. You’ll leave. If you hate me, you’ll leave. If you love me, we stay in touch. You know how these things work, but bipolar excellence. com. That’s my entire world and it is growing fast. Awesome. And I need to meet you.
[00:42:09] Michael Pacheco: We’ll also make sure to include we’ll include that link and as well as the link to your LinkedIn on our show notes page because you’re gonna start blowing up your LinkedIn. So make sure to connect with Ken on LinkedIn as well. Ken brother, thank you so much. This has been awesome. I want to thank you again as well.
Our viewers and listeners don’t know this, but Ken and I were supposed to record last week and Ken was kind enough to allow me to reschedule so that I could go. To the library with my 15 month old daughter. So Ken, thank you again for that. That was awesome of you. And thank you for making time to chat with me today.
I appreciate it,
[00:42:42] Ken Jensen: man. You’re most welcome. My kid’s the size of a Mack truck now. And I miss when he was 40 pounds and looking at me like I was God. So I could not deny you that. Opal,
[00:42:52] Michael Pacheco: my baby girl, she’s not even 40 pounds yet. I think she maybe is pushing 30. We’ll see. But yeah, thank you. And thank you as always to our viewers and listeners, you guys are.
Awesome. The show is nothing without you. So your attention is worth everything to us. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this, to watch this, please. If you know someone that you think would benefit from this message, share this with them, share this podcast with them. Give us a give us a share, subscribe, do all the things that you’re supposed to do.
And and thank you so much. We’ll talk to you guys next time.
[00:43:25] Ken Jensen: Take care. Thanks, Michael. See you, everybody.
