#365: Unveil Your Path To True PURPOSE with Ken Coleman Bestselling Author, Ramsey Personality, & Host of The Ken Coleman Show

Clarity is seeing, confidence is believing. And courage is staying and doing and just not quitting. That's courage. Well, you can't get that unless you're wildly clear. And that gives you that confidence to step up. And then, as you know, confidence is the game changer. But people, they go, I want to be courageous. Well, you can't be courageous if you're not first clear, which will then give you confidence. So the formula is clarity leads to confidence, and confidence will give you courage when you need it.

Come on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity, and set you up for a better tomorrow.

Fasten your seatbelt. I'm ready for my close up.

Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet our guest this week. Ken Coleman is the nationally syndicated radio host of the Ken Colman show and number one national bestselling author. He has been featured in Forbes, appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, and the Rachael Ray show.

Bizarre.

Since 2014, he has served at Ramsey Solutions, where he offers expert advice to help thousands of people every day discover what they were meant to do and how to land their dream job. Ken, thanks so much for being here today.

It's good to be with you. It was not a cooking segment with Rachel.

I know that doesn't fit in with like Fox Business and Forbes. What's that?

Well, you know, it's funny. She had me coach two audience members live on her show, women who were trying to figure out a pivot, a professional pivot, a transition. We took two live audience members and coached them on air. It was really fun. I wanted to do a cooking segment, though, I'll be honest.

Well, that makes a lot more sense since that is your wheelhouse and you know, my listeners know my story, that transition and finding help and tips and tools during transition. And there's a lot of people listening to the show that want to enter into transition. So I'm so glad you're here today. But before we get into all of your talents and expertise, I want you to give us the backstory because, Ken, I've known you for a while and whenever I'm going to have someone on my show, I Google them.

Right.

Like, I'm always just so curious about what are people asking? And people one of the most asked questions about you is did he complete college? So I didn't even know any of this. I want to hear your backstory and how you got to finding your purpose, your passion and where you Are today.

Okay, that's really fun. I didn't know that. I don't Google myself. Thank God.

What?

I don't. I really don't. I didn't know that. So that's really fun. So the answer to the question is, no, I did not complete college. I left college twice. Once I was in my sophomore year, and I left to work on a political campaign. 1994, for the politicos of your audience, that was the year of the Contract with America. The Republicans came back into power after like, 64 years. And I worked on a congressional race. We got our heads beat in, but it was really great. I tasted battle. I was a poli sci major at the time, and I went back to college. And it doesn't matter if it's politics or any industry. When you're young and idealistic and you've got this dream and you taste it and then you go back to college, it's like, ugh. I mean, I was so bored. So anyway, I lasted another year, and then I left early this time. I never came back. I went to work on a U.S. senate race, a congressional race, governor's race in Virginia. We won, and I was 22, working for the governor. Had to go buy suits. It was pretty fun ride. So anyway, that's why I never went back, because I was like, why would I go get a poli sci degree when I'm working for the governor? So the backstory is I was a kid who wanted to go into politics. I wanted to help people. I've always been very people focused, and I thought I could do that best in public life, in policy. I'll fast forward. I'm 30 years of age. I see a lot of problems on both sides of the aisle. Hypocrisy. They're not getting anything done. And I'm really frustrated about it. And so I began to question that path. And in questioning that path, I began to question everything. And that's when I went through the process of rediscovering who I really was. And that's when broadcasting became an option for me. The problem was I was 31, 32, no degree, no experience in broadcasting. So very difficult industry to break into because it's small and very, very connected. And so it's like, you got to.

Break Old boys network. That was my old business. Yeah, totally know that.

Of course, you know it very well. You were an executive, and I'm the guy trying to get hired, get noticed. It was that process of discovery and then figuring out, how do I break in While still having to take care of my wife and three kids. That has led to the content that I now do and what I do. It's the basis, in other words, I'm not selling something I haven't eaten myself. And we have a lot of experts today online who they haven't done what they're selling, you know, so from my own journey, I realized it was broadcasting, but not sports broadcasting. It was broadcasting to equip others and encourage others. In other words, the one thing that drives me is I want to help as many people as possible discover their uniqueness. And when they find their uniqueness, to put that into play to where they make a contribution through their work that is meaningful to them. And then you get that right. Success, money, that follows, that's the engine in my mind. And, and then money and success and status and all that. Those are the cars on the train. But if you can get that right, like, this is where I belong. This is who I am. I can do this. I can do it in a lot of different areas. You're example of that. You're a very successful executive and now you're a very successful influencer. So that's the idea that really fires me up. And so figuring that out, I said, okay, if I can bottle up what I've learned and help people escape the agony and the misery that I went through, well, then I think that's a good day.

I'm grateful that you did that, by the way. I love that we share that wine to help people through our own headaches and tragedies so that other people don't have to repeat the mistakes we made. But how do you know? And this is came into my mind when you were describing the situation. It had to be really hard to get in to broadcasting first and foremost versus where you are with Ramsey now. Like, that's next level. At the highest level, you're. You're with a huge brand, huge name. How does someone. Or how did you know when you're getting no's, when you're getting rejected and you're thinking like, oh, do I go back to college? Maybe even I don't want to stay in politics, but I should just to pay. Like you said, you had commitments and you had a family to take care of. When do you decide? Like is a pipe dream. Who am I kidding? Because for a long time that's how I live my life. No, stay with the paycheck. Like, how did you know? No, I got to just keep pushing through.

I didn't know. I believed I think this is what I want people to understand. Took me a long time to figure out the difference between even a statement like I know and then I believe. People of faith understand that, you know, and you can have lots of different faiths in this world. At the end of the day, it's about what you believe and not what you know. And so I loved how you set that up, the pipe dream. Because there were many nights, Heather, where I thought, you know, I started too late. You weren't wrong. You were just late. I had that discussion a lot. I always believed I had the talent to do it and I always believed I had the drive. What I didn't believe many times was that someone would give me a shot.

How did you get the shot?

I didn't. I made the shot happen. So that's the key. I sat around for three years. I would make some connections. I was in Atlanta, which is a big media market, and I got myself on the ESPN radio affiliate. I got myself on Comcast Sports Southeast. I created a segment for that. I went and paid my own money and created a whole concept called Life is sport. And that's on the ash heap of history. But I got myself on the Air 12 state cable network. So I kept creating things because for two, three years I just sat around waiting for someone to notice me. And it hit me one day on my back patio, Heather, you'll love this because you're a no nonsense lady. I was sitting there and I was really having a rough morning and I was journaling and I wrote these words down and I'll never forget it. I wrote down, nobody is sitting around thinking about how they can help Ken Coleman. Right now. They're pretty busy. And I thought to myself, that's essentially as silly as that sounds, and it is silly. But I needed to write that down and see that in that moment to realize that, you know the old phrase, if it is to be, it is up to me. I don't know who we can attribute that to. It's been around forever. But essentially that was the moment when I realized I'm going to have to build my own platform by which I stand and share. And so it changed everything for me. I started doing Saturday radio. I bought my way on $250 for an hour. And I did radio, local talk radio on Saturday afternoon. And let me just tell you something, folks. Those of you who aren't in the Southeast, like Saturday afternoons in the fall, like, nobody's listening to the radio unless it's the football game. And so you Know, going in there and slogging and creating a radio program and doing it as if the world was listening to me, knowing that two people were listening and one was the guy on the board, you know, like, I just had to do it. So I kept doing that, doing that, doing that, doing that. And then, you know, I created a leadership podcast for John Maxwell's company, Catalyst. It was the largest leadership conference in the world. And I was interviewing, you know, celebrities on the stage. That was my idea. Then I started a podcast. I started interviewing all these people like Malcolm Gladwell and Jim Collins, who would come because they know John Maxwell. And so I was really good at going, well, I work for John. John knows everybody. John doesn't want to do a podcast. He doesn't even know what it is. You know what I mean? And so I would create these ideas, and people would say yes and people would say no. I'm only sharing a few of the highlights. So all that to say, I created opportunities for myself. And each time I stepped into those opportunities and I was diligent to do my best and not worry about how many people. And then, you know, so that's where I meet Dave Ramsey. And I interviewed Dave in front of 12,000 people. And he's like, this guy's really good at what he does. And. And then he's paying attention to me, and I didn't know he was paying attention to me. And that's the story, like, just keep showing up, showing up, showing up. You never know who's watching. You just never know. It's crazy. So anyway, all that to say I created opportunities so that I could get noticed because nobody is going to wake up one day and go, that Heather Monahan is awesome. I think. No, they only think that when they see you somewhere or they see someone else talking about you. And that's how your career is blown up. I mean, your speaking thing, I mean, it's just you kept showing up. I'll bet you could tell some great stories of the early speaking gigs that were not glamorous.

One of my favorite clips that I have that of course on Social is it's a split screen. And the beginning of the video shows 30 seconds of me speaking in 2009. And I'm reading, reading from a teleprompter. It's so bad. Cringe worthy. And then it splits to 2019 to my Ted Talk and I'm killing it. Like Bringing the Fire. I love sharing that because I want everybody to know what you're saying. I wasn't born A great speaker. I was terrible. And you always are going to suck when you first show up. You're going to suck at the beginning. But the key is don't let that be the end. Right. You just got to put the reps in. And to your point, I love that you just said that you never know what's going to lead to that door that ultimately opens. That is that catalyst. And I'm literally going through something like that right now. That I met somebody on my podcast three years ago and to see it come full circle now and what's happening as a result, that I would have never known. But I didn't know I was even on that person's radar. But it was because of showing up and serving and helping and like you said, creating things behind the scenes, not knowing where it's going. So I'm so grateful you shared that story.

Yeah, so I got long winded, but that's the idea. Do you believe that if you get a shot that you can deliver? That's what it comes down to. We rarely know. But if we believe, there's a good chance that when you finally get that opportunity to take that last second shot or whatever. And so that's the importance is belief in yourself. And you. You're the confidence queen. You know, I had you on my show recently and talking about confidence, and I think that belief is the foundation of that. Right. It's when everybody else thinks, I don't know, Ken, this is. You're a little too old, buddy, you know, And I just believed. And here's the deal. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But if I'm right and I quit, then I'm an old regretful man. I'm more scared of being regretful than I am of telling stories of dubious things that I tried that didn't work. Because that's the journey.

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But don't you also think, because I'm thinking about your kids, don't you feel proud now knowing what the decisions you've made and what you've created and how you did it and that you did that all right before their very eyes and how that's going to further them in their life of what's possible for them?

Yeah, for sure. You know, there's, you know, modeling the way as a parent is the most important thing we can do. And I think while they were young, early on, they now know the journey. And so when they see things that we, you know, if we're on vacation and somebody stops us and wants a picture and all that kind of stuff, that course that irritates them to no end. But they get that. Like, that's because dad has helped a lot of people, number one. And then they go, and then dad really worked hard and yet he was still here. You know what I mean? Like, I didn't sacrifice my family to achieve the success that's important to me as well. So they know, they hear the stories. Me telling stories of introducing mimes, balloon artists. Like, I was emceeing everything that I could emcee. And I'm 32 years of age and, you know, I was doing any little thing that I could do just because I knew that I needed to be active or else I was going to quit.

Wow.

I love that. I love hearing the story and I love how real and raw it is. So thank you for sharing that for my audience that's listening right now. And there's so many of them that are unhappy at work. Ken, and I know you have coached literally thousands of people live on air on this. What are some of the tips or direction that you provide for people? They might be in corporate America. They might be a company that doesn't treat people well, but they feel like they're locked in because they need that paycheck. How do you advise people to pay, proceed?

Well, first thing I want to point out is we know from Gallup's research about employee engagement. So in other words, what makes someone Come in and engage, like really do a good job. And a lot of it has to do with emotional happiness in the work. And there's three human needs that Gallup has found. They're the gold star. You know that in all of the data that and research they do. And so we know that there are three things. We call them human needs. And for your audience, when I lay these out, you have to ask yourself, where am I? Am I A1 or am I A10? Am I in the middle on these? Meaning and purpose at work is the first need. Do I have a sense of deep meaning when I go in? Whatever the job is, is it meaningful to me or is it just a job, a paycheck, which is very important. There's no dishonor in this, by the way. This is just. Well, we talk about unhappiness that you've hit me with here. We got to look at it. Okay, do I have meaning and or purpose? Do I see a why, a personal why? What's my why at work? Do I get that? Second thing is, am I recognized by my leaders for my unique contribution? Are they saying, heather, saw what you did the other day, that was amazing. You stepped in, pulled that thing out of the ditch. Just your ability to adapt in the moment, your critical thinking, and then you just had a sense of calm. Like that should be a normal thing. And it's not in the American workplace. And I'll tell you why. It's because your leaders aren't getting it from their leaders. This is a top down leadership model and it's humanness. This is the little Ken and little Heather who wanted our mom and dad to notice us and catch us doing something right, Love us, value us. That's the human need. So you have to be recognized for your unique contribution. Not good job. It's specific. The third human need is people want a relationship with their leader. Now that does not mean a best friend. It means they want a coach, a guide, a mentor. So when you don't have that kind of relationship with your leader, doesn't mean your leader is going to always be perfect. Doesn't mean that you and your leader hanging out, having beers together every night, but that you feel as though the leader cares enough about you that they pour into you, they coach you. That's the idea. You know, our friend John Maxwell in his book 21 Laws of Leadership really accentuated this need by the law of the buy in, meaning, you know, until people know you care, they're not ultimately going to give you their trust and Certainly not going to give you their loyalty. And so when a leader doesn't care about you, then there's something missing. You just wonder, do I matter to the leader? Do I matter at all? So those are the three human needs. So I start there. If you're unhappy at work, I can promise you this one or all of those human needs are not being fully met. And so then you have to ask yourself, okay, what needs to change? And in this case, it's almost always the environment itself. You're just not getting that from your leader, and you're probably not going to get it. And so that's the sad reality. So it's about, am I on the right bus, too? Not just the right seat. You can be doing the right thing in the wrong place and be miserable. And that's what causes a lot of confusion for people.

It is confusing because part of this has to do with our age. When you're explaining that and I'm putting back on, like, my corporate America hat. I'm like, no one was giving thoughtful feedback. Everyone's doing double jobs, double work, like there wasn't time. And it was shut up and get back to work. Like, get your shit done. Right? So for me, I think about that and I'm like, yeah, but that sounds more like how life is today, which I know we talk about the impact that has on you today, that people feel like they warn. It's gotta be all this warm and fuzzy. To me, I feel like there should be some businesses need to be profitable, right? We live in a country where people are supposed to be making money and doing well, and businesses need to succeed. But at the same time, people need to be treated as humans. That can get very confusing. And I understand how people could be spun around listening to you explain that. So how can we simplify it for.

Yeah, well, so you're making a very good point. This is the rub. Leaders feel like, well, we have to be high producers. Or I've got to be like, kumbaya. No, that's a false narrative. You know, I think of the great teams in all of sport, and their coaches aren't warm and fuzzy and there's not a lot of Kumbaya at all. Very clear goals. But, you know, Jim Collins talks about this in good to great. He calls this type of leader the level five leader, the leader who is about we, not me. And I would just say, to simplify it, it's, you want to be working for a leader who is about we, not me. And so they're all about the business goals, but that's we. And they're all about helping you to the best of their ability to do your job. That's not me. That's we. I would simplify it to that. Now, I know a lot of people are going, okay, Ken, this doesn't exist. And that's not true. It does exist. That's why so many people in America are not happy. That's why I have lots of callers. We can't solve it on this podcast, but you have to either be a part of the solution by leading up. John Maxwell's got a book called the 360 degree leader. And that's a masterful concept, too. This idea of, can I influence my leader? And the answer is, yes, you can. And to the extent that you can do it, you get to the point where you just realize, I can't thrive in this environment. I'm just hitting this lid, then it's okay to walk away, you know? But that's where we are. And we have a leadership crisis in America of absolute crisis.

There's no doubt we can definitely see that. But I like that you bring this up. There actually are companies out there that do provide a culture, and I've seen it firsthand. The problem is when you've been in one bubble for so long, one industry, one company.

Right?

Right. I was in one company for 14 years. I began thinking that's just the way it is.

Right.

Because you're only talking to people that you work with that are in your arena, in your industry. So what are some of the things people can do when all they've seen is that one bubble to try to figure out which direction to go?

Yeah, that's a great question. You got to go see it for yourself. There's an old phrase, seeing is believing, and you have to reach out to people, you know, and if they're working in a healthy environment, go. You know, I'd like to shadow you for a couple hours. I'll fly in. Like, this seems extreme, but it's not. You have to see it. You know, you have to go, oh, I see the way the vibe is in this building versus the vibe in my building. Because here's what happens. You just nailed something. When a dog has been hit enough, that dog sees every person it encounters as a person who may hit it. As gruesome as that example is, that's what's going on. The cynicism, the lack of belief that I could work anywhere where I'm valued is very real. And that's why I thought it was a really insightful question. So what you have to do is you got to go. Okay, I can now see, oh, there are cultures over here and over there and over there, where they really do care for people and they want the best for people. And I'm not going to be treated this way. And you have to see it. Then once you see it, you have to then go, all right. What would keep me from taking the steps to make the move? This is the thing I encounter the most in my line of work. People know there's something better, but they're so comfortable with the devil they know. In other words, they're miserable. And this is a phrase. The first time I said it in front of a live audience, the whole room went like this. And they all started to write it down, and I was kind of like, I just threw it out. We humans, Heather, would rather be miserable than uncomfortable. Now let me explain that I would rather be miserable going to my job unfulfilled, not valued. Lid on me. I'm not going to get promoted. I keep passing. I would rather do that even though I'm miserable than step out into something new, which makes me really uncomfortable. So miserable is I know what to expect. I'm just biting the stick, getting through to Friday, drinking my face off, living it up on the weekend, and then trying to drag my butt to the office Monday. The human capacity is, we'd rather be miserable because it's what I know. That's why some people stay in bad relationships.

Oh, my gosh. And when you were describing, you know, hey, shadow someone that isn't in a healthy environment so you can see it, what popped into my mind right away. A friend of mine started a podcast about bad relationships when she got out of one because it was, like, fresh in her mind, showed us so well. But now she's in a good relationship. And this is so interesting. She just said this to me last week. She said, I'm so sick of doing my show. I said, why should I get the same dumb questions over and over again? I'm like, why are they dumb now? She's like, because once you see what a good relationship looks like, it's not a question anymore. Like, it's what you're saying. Now that she see it, she can't unsee it. So it's so obvious to her that these people need to leave these relationships, but it's just not obvious to them because they haven't seen it yet. That's so, so powerful. And I'll tell you to Your point being? In a situation where you're uncomfortable to leave. For me, that was fear, though. And I think this fear kind of is real for a lot of people that, am I only successful because of the company? Am I only successful because of the industry, because of the title, because the people surrounding me. If I go make this leap, what if I can't make it? And then everyone that's been telling you you should stay there and you're an idiot and get over it. It's work. And work is supposed to be hard, that they were right and now it's too late. That fear can be crippling.

You're just nailing it. That's the fear of the unknown. There's fear of failure certainly embodied in that. But the fear of the unknown, that's terrifying. So what I coach people with is, well, what is it that we don't know? So write it down like this is coaching 101. What are you afraid of? I'm afraid of failing. Okay, great. What would have to be true for you to fail? Well, I'd have to suck at my job. Okay. What are the chances that you're going to suck at your job? I'd have to steal money and go to jail. Okay, well, you create all these things, and when you write them down and you realize, okay, now this thing that I'm afraid of, where's the evidence that this fear is telling you the truth and thus protecting you? See, fear does two things. Fear protects us. If I get too close to a ledge, I'm overcome with a sense of fear. Oh, I should back up. There's certain death below. But fear also holds us back, Right. I'm afraid that I'm going to fall off the roller coaster and die. And so, little kids, we don't want to ride a roller coaster, right? Then we finally ride it. We're like, dad, I want to be a kid. Fear was holding us back from excitement, in that case, and enjoyment. So all that to say, the fear of the unknown, to me is the most crippling, because fear of failure, I can make people write it down, but the fear of the unknown is just that. If I go and I transition over here, I go to this company, will I be able to get promoted? They can't really give me something, and so I'll push them a little bit. And it's like, well, I just don't know if I'm going to succeed. Okay, why? Where's that coming from? And it comes down to just base insecurity that we all deal With. And it's the fear of the unknown. Why? When we drive into fog, we drive into heavy rain, it's terrifying. We pull the car over immediately, we can't see. And so the idea here is, when you are dealing with the fear of the unknown, go sit with somebody who has the answers. And now all of a sudden, we go, oh, okay, now I can deal with that. And so that's behind the statement. That's what's going on. I'd rather be miserable than uncomfortable, because miserable I know what I'm dealing with, and I can grip through it. What a sucky life. No, thanks. I want the exhilaration of, I may fall on my ass, you know, but I'm not gonna die. I thought I was gonna die, and then I looked into it and I realized I'm not gonna die. I might screw up, I might embarrass myself. I might whatever. And I'm working with that with my daughter right now, who's playing volleyball, eighth grade volleyball, and she's terrified of serving. And I'm just over and over again going, babe, I point out now every time one of her girlfriends hits the ball in the net. And I go, everybody's fine. So the other day, I finally. And she's in tears. And I said, baby, I really want you to tell me this. Dad's not asking a motivational question. I just want to know what's the worst that can happen. Tell me the worst thing in your mind if you. Tomorrow night's game, hit the ball in the net. She's like, I said, baby, I'm not going anywhere. We're not leaving until you tell me the worst possible thing that can happen. And then she finally just goes, I'd be embarrassed. And I go, okay, great. That's an easy trade off for you, enjoying the game of volleyball. And so that's the idea there. We all have to understand that we're all still that little kid who we're just terrified of the unknown. And stepping in the unknown is uncomfortable. It is just knots in the chest, in the throat, dry mouth. I mean, first time I ever did a sports thing, Heather on air, I couldn't barely open my lips. My mouth was so dry. I was just terrified. And then when I got done with it, I was able to look back at it, and it's never happened since, you know, But I was just so geeked with fear, you know, don't screw up, don't screw up, don't screw up, don't screw up. And it was just embarrassing how fearful I was, you know, sweating profusely. It's like riding a roller coaster the first time and then you're always done with it. You're like, I think I want to do that again.

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That just reminded me of the time I interviewed Sarah Blakely on stage and I started sweating so much that my Christian Louboutin shoes fell off and I almost nose planted on the stage in front of thousands of people. And I had to make a joke about it because it was so embarrassing. But to your point, once you break through that, like, okay, I survived, I lived right. I didn't face plant. Thank goodness it all worked out all right. So now I sweat a little bit less when I have the big interviews. But I wanted to say one thing about your daughter. Super important to me because my son is huge into basketball and we're always talking sports here and like, how to push yourself to the next level. One thing that my son has done that's been super helpful for him, we write inside of his new sneakers. For volleyball, for your daughter, for basketball for my son. Through Christ, I can do all things in both of his soles of his shoe. And he has the power of Christ with him, and he knows he cannot fail. And so it's just like this really powerful thing we do every time he gets a new pair of shoes to let him know, when you're out on the court, you're not alone. God is always with you.

Well, you know, I love that you don't want to get me preaching, but, yeah, I think that's absolutely true. And by the way, back to the earlier conversation, if you believe that, then that belief translates, right? If you go, okay, I'm not alone in this deal. And boy, you get me excited right now because this, to me, comes back to creation. And it's like anybody that's ever known you, Heather, your whole life, if I interview them right now, I've spent a week going around interviewing everybody that knows you. There would be patterns. People would tell me she's always been really just gifted at this. It just, she's always been this way. And that's, that's the whole idea when we embrace that uniqueness. And people could say it's always been with her. She's always been good at this. She just always you know, and then you just go, this isn't my opinion. Now this is like belief, because I know it's true because people have told me. They've seen it, I've experienced it. And then you step into those moments of great fear, and that's where courage appears. By the way. Courage never appears unless you're really crystal clear. Like, you've got to be clear, do I have the chops to do this? And in my darkest moments, Heather, I did believe that I had the talent, but I was clear, like, because I had patterns in my life. When I was five, I was in this, and then I was always asked to be on this stage and this and this. People have always said this, my teacher said this, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I was clear that I had that talent that gave me the confidence to step out. But courage is staying. So clarity is seeing, confidence is believing, and courage is staying and doing and just not quitting. That's courageous. Well, you can't get that unless you're wildly clear. And that gives you that confidence to step up. And then, as you know, confidence is the game changer. But people, they go, I want to be courageous. Well, you can't be courageous if you're not first clear, which will then give you confidence. So the formula is clarity leads to confidence, and confidence will give you courage when you need it.

So good and so, so true.

Isn't it true?

It's so true.

Yeah.

No, it's so true. You know, I know that. So for this like whole Gary V. You know, everyone should be an entrepreneur and, you know, forget corporate America fad that's out there. How do people or how do you suggest people know? Because I didn't know. I thought corporate was all there ever was. I didn't even realize entrepreneurial was a thing or something that you didn't have to, you know, be tapped to do. How do people know? Should you even look at starting your own business? Should you even look at doing something on your own? Or does it make more sense to stay in a corporate world?

Okay, I love this question. So there's a three part question that you ask yourself to get that answer. First is, who are the people I want to help? Now we're talking about a work context. So who are the people that I want to help? Second question is, what problem or desire do those people have? And the third question is, what solutions to the problem or the desire do I most get fired up about? Okay, so the reason we ask those three questions is because that's where ideation comes from. And out of ideation comes clarification. So we go, all right, and I'll give you a real life example. So I had a lady call my show a couple years ago. She says, ken, you're not ready for this. I'm very successful. You might get frustrated with me, but I need your help anyway. I said, okay, what's going on? She goes, I'm in pharmaceutical sales. I make $300,000 a year. It's like, great. That's awesome. She goes, can't stand it. I'm dying slowly. Soul is seeping out of my body, and yet I'm not sure what I want to do. Can I have no ideas. Now, I now know that that's not true. That's what she thinks. But I know that she does have ideas. She's just not comfortable enough to say them yet. So we go through the process and I walk her through those three questions. I said, all right, who are the people you want to help? She goes, women. I said, great. I said, what problem or desire do these women have? She goes, they're overweight, stressed out, not eating healthy, low energy. She just blurts it out. I go, fantastic. I go, what is the solution to that problem or those problems that you get most fired up about? She goes, nutrition and exercise. And I said, fantastic.

And I said, she was so clear.

Super clear. But one minute before that, she was telling me in the audience, I don't know what I want to do. So by the way, this leads into your question, which is, do I do it for myself or for someone else? Okay. But I say to her, I'm just curious, do you have a personal connection to this? Which I. Of course she does, right? And she goes, yeah. She goes, over the last six months, I've lost £100. And I said, congratulations, that's amazing. I said, how do you feel now? And she began to weep as she recounted, like, how it's changed her life. So all that to say as an example, what I then walked her through was, all right, so we could look at nutritionist, we could look at personal trainer. We could look at a host of areas. She could go corporate because she's got sale, but she could go into sales for a big time nutrition company. Now she's selling something that she is connected to. So back to the three questions. I've learned this just with hours and hours of coaching, people. Simplify it. Who are the people I want to help? And then the second question is the same question. We're just looking at it from another level, deeper. Because when you start thinking about the people you want to help, you've already begun to identify the problem that pulls at your heart. And by the way, I mentioned desire, too, because you could say, I want to make women feel beautiful and confident. Great. So that could be designing really awesome Christian Louboutins. Hello. Speaking your language. Could be doing hairdressing and things like that. Could be doing makeup, all of which is a form of therapy. You know, I mean, think about it. The hairdressers and the makeup artists of the world are the unsung heroes of therapy because they will listen to women, and they make women feel beautiful. And thus women feel confident when they leave and they get out of that chair. That's. You're not dressing someone's hair. And nobody even says that anymore. I don't know why I've said that. But hairdresser, whatever you call them now. But the point is, is that you have to ask yourself, who are the people I want to help, the problem I want to solve, and the solutions to the problem are desire to get me excited. Therein lie your ideas. And when you write these things down on paper, it's very powerful. And you look at it and you go, oh, okay. I really want to help small business owners. You know, what's the problem? I want to help them with their budgeting and their organization. Great. What's the solution to get you fired about it? Well, I'm thinking about this app.

Great.

So now we might have ourselves an entrepreneurial path. You want to create an app or you want to be a consultant or whatever. So that may be an entrepreneurial work for yourself path. You could have another answer that's I want to help parents. Great. What's the problem? I want to help them with ADHD symptoms and behavioral issues. Blah, blah, blah. Okay, great. Now we get to the fork in the road. Do I want to be an author and expert and go get all that licensing and credibility to be the voice on it, or do I want to go work for a company that's creating those resources and meeting parents where they are? I hope that helps. But that's. That's how we figure it out. And by the way, sometimes it's both. And sometimes I go work for somebody. Like this parenting example that I just used. I go work for this company that's put out all these great parenting resources. They've got PhDs and. And they've got a jamming company, and I'm over there and I'm in sales or whatever. Well, they're paying me to pay attention and learn about the problem that I care deeply about. And so Maybe I'm making six figures for them for 10 years, all the while going over here and getting my PhD or my thing. And then I eventually go from this doc to this doc.

Well, it's so good. And it doesn't seem as risky then at that point in time because you've learned so much, you have so much expertise now in this new arena that you are passionate about. So it makes so much sense. All right, so I know that you have created an assessment. Can you walk us through that assessment, how people can use it and what it's used for?

Yeah. So first, it's an awareness tool. Self awareness is a superpower. So self awareness in the world of work is what the get clear assessment is. So it measures three elements. Talent. So that's what you do best. Think of skills, Strength finders, and Strength Finders 2.0 from Gallup. They measured strengths, and that's all they measured. So this assessment certainly measures strengths, talent, skills. What I do best. The second element is we measure love. And I love this. This is all heart. Like, what work do you look forward to? What work do you lose yourself in? And then the third element is what we call mission, which means if we think of our military men and women, when they go on a military mission, they have a very clear objective, and that's what they're driving towards. In this case, mission is about motivation. I did a bunch of studies several years ago on extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is called good parenting and leadership. It's manipulation. In other words, if you guys hit your sales goal, we have a pizza party on Friday afternoon.

Like that.

Nobody cares about that. That's manipulation. Manipulation is like, tonight, my son wants to go to a football game. I already saw his bedroom today. As soon as he walks in the door, I'm going to manipulate his butt. In other words, be a good parent. I'm going to say, you don't go to the game until that room doesn't look like I need a hazmat suit to enter it. You know what I mean? But that's extrinsic, meaning he'll clean it not because he wants to, but because he has to. Now, intrinsic motivation, this is the juice. I get up at 5am to work out because I care about my stress levels, my heart level, my fitness level, whatever, okay? Anything that you do because you want to do it is truly intrinsic. So this assessment measures the Results of work. There are six intrinsic results in the assessment. Okay. And so it tells you, and many of you never even had a test like this, this assessment, because it's going to show you for the first time this is what motivates me. If my work is producing this, I'm getting out of bed with some juice. I'm jumping for the opportunity even on a rough day, because I know that I'm achieving what I want. And so you take all three elements and it looks like this. If I use what I do best, talent to do what I love, passion to produce results that matter deeply to me. Mission I'm on purpose. And so we take your results and we put it in a purpose statement. So you get a detailed report of what you're talented at, what you're passionate about and what you're motivated by. And we show your top three and then we show you where you score on everything else below average. So you can go, okay, that makes a lot of sense. So that practically speaking, you can look at your assessment results and go, am I spending 75% of my day in my sweet spot using what I do best to do what I love to produce results that matter to me. And if not, it's a wonderful kind of a mirror experience. But not just that, it also helps me see if I'm not in that spot, what does it look like? So it provides a high level job description to where you could take any job description and go. Let me look at this job description and match it up to my purpose statement. And that's what I'm proud of. It's an awareness tool. And my whole driver is to give people clarity on who they are uniquely. Now I can get them confident. And if I can get them confident, the sky's the limit. They're going to step out and do something special. That's the aim. So it's a fun tool. It's helped a lot of people at selling like hotcakes. Kencolman.com It's a get clear assessment, but that's what it is. But more importantly, what it does is give people awareness and boldness, or to use your secret sauce, confidence in who they are uniquely made to be. And when you see somebody doing what they were born to do and you just think that you go, you were born for this. It's wildly attractive. Like people just go. The award shows are where we see it most. You see somebody who's, they've never been on stage before. Life, whether it's America's Got Talent, America's idol and they walk out and they just got this kind of a hurdle mentality. They're barely out of their shell and they're nervous and then they begin to perform and they go from this like turtle mentality to this butterfly, you know, and we all sit there and we get emotional or we look at our loved one in the living room, we smile and what's happening there is we are recognizing one of our brothers or sisters who is so beautifully becoming who they were supposed to be. And it's just obvious and it just makes you happy. You can't not smile because you're like, yeah, good for them, right? Like they've stepped into who they are supposed to be. And it's to me, it's, I'm getting fired up right now. I got goosebumps all over my arms. I mean, it's the, it's the joy of life to see somebody step into the fullness of who they are.

You're obviously living your life's purpose and passion. You can just tell when you describe it. So you're embodiment of exactly what you're teaching and preaching. We can, I'm dying to know, after hearing these stories and knowing, I mean thousands people that you've helped, do you ever follow back up with these people after to hear like what their life is after they make these big changes?

Yeah, yeah. You know, we get a lot of emails. We don't follow up as aggressively as we could, you know, but we do get a lot of follow up emails and those are wonderful testimonials. You know, the ones I get most excited about are the single moms or the women or men that were in poverty levels. Because I'm a huge fan, as we all are. I'm not special in this. We're all fans of the underdog. But I personally, you know, I mean, you've met me, I'm a whopping 59 in shoes. I wanted to play in the NBA. I love the game of basketball. I was the late bloomer. I don't think I hit puberty until I was 32. You know, like I was that kid, you know, I was always the littlest guy and many times the last pick because I was the littlest guy and I had a wonderful childhood. I wasn't bullied. I have a little extra in there for the person who gets overlooked. And honestly, when I started into broadcasting at 31, 32, I had a lot of producers look at me and straight up say, heather. They were like, you're too old, man. I really Root for the people who life has looked down their nose at them or not noticed them. We had a fun story the other day. A lady called and single mom, four kids. And I got to meet her at Ramsey Solutions the other day. She showed up. So crazy. And this won't surprise you. I forget a lot of the calls, and the reason I forget them is because it's so intense in the moment. You know, I have to coach him in six or seven minutes, and so I'm like, it's triage emergency surgery, because I'm on the air and I gotta coach someone, but I gotta make it interesting. I can't drag it. So I'm so intense in the moment. And then I go to the next one, and then you just. It's just kind of like, bring the next patient in. Anyway, she comes up, and I didn't remember. I didn't remember it for a minute, but she single mom. And I told her, after she told me everything, I said, well, then you need to develop the skill of carpentry, because she wanted to go into carpentry. And I said, yeah, so develop it on the side. Do this, do this. And eventually you're going to build it up to the point where you can walk away. And I met her just last week, and she's expecting to make about $90,000 this year, and she's making cabinets.

That was what her passion was.

Yeah. I'm trying not to get choked up right now, but I got choked up in the lobby, you know, because she's out of debt. She was lit up, and she's thanking me, and I didn't do anything. Honest to goodness. This isn't false humility. All I did was see her as who she really is. And in that moment, I'm a coach who just goes, I think you have what it takes, and I think you should do it. But, like, those stories are powerful to me. You know what I mean? Like, I'm glad that I saw her as she is so that more people will see her as she is. You know what I mean?

It's so powerful.

What are you. You're like Barbara Walters. You're like Barbara Walters. You're getting me to cry, Detective.

I swear. But it's so cool to see that you're living your purpose, you're living your passion. You're changing people's lives by speaking truth into them. And I know that this assessment tool is going to help so many people. It's@kencolman.com you got to get clear on you and what Your skills are what your passion, your mission, get your purpose, get it locked down. And Ken's going to show you how. Ken, how can people listen to your show, follow up with you?

So if you're a satellite Sirius XM customer, we're on the business channel every day and the Ken Coleman show on Sirius XM 132, they replay it on channel 111. Triumph, and then podcasts. Wherever you listen to podcasts, we're also on YouTube and kencolman.com if you don't remember any of that.

Well, Ken, thank you so much for all the work that you're doing and all the people's lives that you're changing. We so appreciate you.

Appreciate you, lady. Thank you.

All right, guys, go check out kencolman.com get the assessment and start making some big power moves. We're speaking life into you. We believe in you. Check it out now. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're going to hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably, something will happen. No one succeeds alone.

You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it.

I'm on this journey with me.