If You Want To Turn Your DREAMS Into A Reality, WATCH THIS! | Ken Coleman

No matter how absurd a thought is, if I think it enough, I will believe it. And we now know that those thoughts turn into actions, and so these absurdities in our head become reality.

First thing I want to talk about is what does it actually mean to do work that you love?

Yeah, well, you know, love is the key word in that question. And so what determines love? Two factors. Passion and mission. As you know, this is. That's the kind of the two heart pieces behind my methodology. Talent, passion, and mission. You're on purpose when you use what you do best. Talent to do work. You love passion to produce results that matter to your mission. So to answer your question, you got to have that passion and mission piece for it to be love, because those are the two heart factors. See, talent is all technical. Talent's about. Talent is essentially what we develop into skill. And once we have a skill, think of it as a power tool. Right. I mean, it just does it better, faster. Passion and mission. Well, passion is. I'm willing to suffer for it. The root word of passion in the Latin is pati p a T I. And what it meant in the Latin means in the Latin is to suffer. And the context by which it was used in the old days in the Latin was a thirst that must be quenched. Boy, that's beautiful. That's powerful. See, that's passion. I must do the work because I love the work. I don't know if you've ever had a chance to actually be around what I would call a true craftsman, whether it be a furniture maker.

Yeah.

Artists of any type. Blacksmith, you know, silver. So I've actually seen these people do this. There's this great series on Netflix about glassblowing. These are artisans. These are craftsmen. They love the work. The actual work itself. They love it. Now, the other element is mission. Results of the work that matter deeply to me. So it's not just the craftsmanship that those artisans love. They also care deeply about the result. They want to create a wonderful glass vessel or whatever they would do. Okay. A functional piece of iron that would change the life of a farmer, if you will. So the answer to that question is love. Loving your work is about the actual task or function or role and then the result of the work. You will only love what you do when there's a deep heart connection between the actual work and the actual result of the work.

Yeah, man, that's so good. That's so good. Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of people that are out there walking around right now kind of Sleepwalking, you know. My youngest son just graduated high school probably close to a year ago, the first year out of high school he wanted, he went to college for a little while, trying to figure it out. College really wasn't for him with my other son actually went to college and he's enjoying it. And the number one thing he kept coming back with is, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. And it was crazy because one of his uncles had a quick, you know, kind of a quick snapshot or pseudo uncles, I should say, who was probably in his mid-40s maybe, you know, kind of came up to him and said, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. And it dawned on me, one of the things that you touched on in the book that I think is pretty powerful is this theology about whether or not it's too late to really seek out a job or seek out a profession you love. Break that down for us for a little bit.

Yeah, well, first of all, that's an absolute garbage lie. It's not too late. It's like saying this, it's like saying to the uncle, yeah, you're right. Because the reality is it's too late for you to actually live a decent life, live a good life. It's too late for you to live an excellent life. It's too late for you to love well, it's too late for you to be a productive member of society. Now if I said any of those things, people would hurl things at me. Yeah, but when we say it's too late to discover my purpose and live out that purpose, you are essentially saying, it's too late for me to just be me. The reality is that everybody was created to fill a unique role. That means we are valuable and we are needed. Timeline is irrelevant. Now what we must say is that if I discover my purpose at 55, I may not have the length of time that maybe someone who discovers it at 25 would have. But we also don't know that either 25 year old could die in a car accident tonight. So this idea of, well, it could have been this and it should have been this, that's irrelevant. It's what can it be now? What is your purpose now? What is that unique contribution? Now I think when you talk about purpose, and believe me, Stephen, I'm heading into this, this is a full on journey, man. I mean, you talk about purpose, man, that's a big, hairy word to a lot of people. It freaks them out. But I'm trying to turn the tide on this. And I would say that purpose is as simple as, why do you exist? And you get to answer that. I had a podcaster recently, in fact, last night, young millennials. And they were like, how do you define purpose? And I said.

It'S why we exist. And they kind of looked at me and I said, let me ask you a question. Why does a hammer exist? And they kind of smiled and I said to hammer a nail, why does a tape measure exist? It's to measure length, measure width. I mean, we've made this thing way too complex. And what we've got to do is look at who we are. We have already been created. Just as the hammer was invented to hammer a nail, you were created, invented to do something very specific and unique to you. So your greatness is in your uniqueness. Your greatness is not in your status. Your greatness is not in your bank account. Your greatness is in your unique contribution. You were born for or in a period of time to impact certain people, to solve a specific problem. That is your uniqueness. So, you know, if I'm sitting with your son and the uncle man, we're going to dive deep and we're going to look at the clues as we write about. In the first stage, the two chapters that lead the book off get clear. We'll look at, hey, let's look at the clues. Or, what are you talented at? What are you good at? That's not an accident. And then there's some discovery involved in thinking through and experiencing some things enough to be able to go, I love this kind of work. And then ultimately you go, okay, if I can align that work, I love to produce a result or just to see the result in a way I've never seen the result before.

Yeah, for sure.

That's the clarity that we talk about, as you know, in the book.

Well, and I love that so much. And I think one of the interesting thing is, and you illustrate this perfectly in the book, is the importance of key relationships in my own journey. Coming from homelessness to where I'm at now. I had surrounded by early in my youth, if I said I wanted to be an astronaut, they're like, no one can be an astronaut. I want to be an author. No one can be an author. I remember my first mentor that believed in me. His daughter told me I couldn't become a general contractor at a high level. And it did something interesting to me. I actually went out and intentionally tried to prove it wrong. I got my GC license like within a year. Year or two later. Right. I'm just weird like that, you know. But you talk about these folks that are kind of like energy vampires and I find that people are.

It's almost like they're. They like being surrounded by people that unfortunately suck the life out of them. Would you mind talking a little bit about that? Because I think people need to hear about their circumference, so to speak.

That's super insightful, Steven. I'm so glad you brought that up. I'm going to go right back to what you said because you set it up great. So, all right, folks.

They like being around people that kind of suck the soul out of them, sort of. I'm going to adapt it, but you're absolutely spot on.

We like being around we. I'm going to include myself here. We humans like being around people that validate our feelings.

Yeah.

All right, so stay with me. I'm gonna unpack this, folks. I think it's gonna open some stuff up for people. So stay with me. Let's go. We're gonna come right back here. I write about in the book, this neuroscience that I discovered a couple years ago blew my freaking mind that our brain has got this function and it's actually called the reticular activating system. And drop all the neuroscience. The plain spoken version is it's like a camera. It's the filter of our brain. So whatever we think about, and I don't mean like a quick thought, I mean dwell on the thought stays in our head. And when we dwell on a thought, our brain goes, oh, okay. That's what we're focused on. I need to go take more pictures of that. I need to go find that. Okay. And here's how it really happens. They did a study which I've cited before and I cite it in the book, well known psychology study. They brought a, I think 20 some people in a room and they sat them down and they put a TV screen in there and they rolled tape on a basketball drill. Just three man weave. They're just going up and down the floor passing the ball. And they told the study folks, they said, we only want you to record on paper the amount of times the ball is passed. I want you to focus intently on that and mark down every time the ball is passed in a 10 minute sequence of this drill. So they started the tape and about halfway through they had a guy in a gorilla costume. Walk out into the middle of the drill for about 30 seconds. Yeah, exactly right. Are you ready for this? At the end of the study, they came in and they went through. They said, how many passes? And every record, they said, now, how many of you saw the guy in the gorilla costume? And only two or three people saw the guy.

Wow.

The power of focus. What we think about. They were so intently focused on the task at hand. Right. How many times the ball been passed that many of them? Their brain literally blocked it out. Right? Now we start thinking that we don't have enough talent, that life has passed me by. We start worrying about fear of rejection, fear of the unknown. We start doubting our ability to do something.

And that becomes the thought in our head. Then our brain goes out and takes pictures of that and finds evidence of that everywhere. Yeah. And that coming back now to the question, that's why we tend to hang out with people who are negative doubters, fearful, because they validate our thought. Now watch what happens if we change our mindset and we start becoming expectant and hopeful and positive, and we see opportunity and we see a clear path forward to purpose. When we start hanging around those people, they start to actually drag us down. We go, well, that doesn't feel right. But when we're negative and all that, that goes, yeah, you're right. That's what I've been thinking. Right. As opposed to going, wait a second, man. You're. Golly, you're Eeyore. I don't want to hang around Eeyore. I want to hang around Tigger.

Yeah.

And just one final thought on this. William James, who's recognized widely as one of the fathers of modern psychology, he once said, no matter how absurd something is, if we repeat it often enough or if it is repeated often enough, people will believe it. We've seen this throughout history with great atrocities done by dictators or religious leaders and cults. Okay, we've seen this. You repeat something often enough, it doesn't matter how wacky it is, at some point, people believe it. Now, let's personalize this. Let's change the quote. No matter how absurd a thought is, if I think it enough, I will believe it. And we now know that those thoughts turn into actions. And so these absurdities in our head become realities. And so we hang around people who validate our feelings.

What also seems like. It's almost like the first step in awareness when you're trying to actually begin to build yourself up or take yourself to a new level. You know, your first book, Proximity Principle did a deep dive into getting around the right people and being able to identify the right people. So if I'm going to set out a new course, maybe I'm talking to the uncle, talking to my son. You know, one of the things that I've been trying to encourage them both is where do you want to go? Okay, great. Who do you know that is nearby? There has been close to there, you know, and can you. Can you change out a few people? And I know that the proximity principle is like a pretty powerful principle when you actually fully understand it. Would you mind unpacking that a little bit?

Yeah, because we. That's a part of stage three of the seven stages in the book. And here's what the proximity principle says. In order to do what you want to do, fill in the blank, you've got to be around people that are doing it and in places where it is happening. I'll personalize that I'm 32, 33, realize that politics isn't the path. And through deep discovery and a lot of frustration of which formulates everything, I teach on today and write about today, figure out that it's broadcasting. But I'm 32, 33, no degree in broadcasting, no experience in broadcasting, and at the time didn't know very many people at all in broadcasting. So what's the proximity principle look like? Well, that's how I came up with it, because I was actually on the way in several years ago, the office, and I was going to be a guest on a podcast, and a young man's last question was, if you could sum up your success in breaking into a new industry down to one idea, what would it be? And I was trying so hard to answer the question. First I thought it was a bad question. It's impossible to select one thing. But then I was like, okay, let's try this. And I was sitting at a stoplight, and that's when the idea came to me. I looked back on my journey and I said, the one thing I figured out was I got to be around people that are in broadcasting, and I got to be in places where broadcasting is happening. Okay. And so then I literally got the principle and I set it in my smartphone and boom, started using it on the radio show. And then later it turned into a book. So what did I do? Okay, I didn't have a degree, still don't have a degree in broadcasting. So what I did was I said, okay, I gotta be around people that are doing it. So I started making connections. I started having coffee, doing phone Calls with people that were in sports, tv, political radio, faith based television. I mean, I was just talking to anybody, everybody. And I'd say, can I come hang out and shadow with you sometime or do lunch and ask you questions? The answer was almost always yes. And then I walked in off the street one day and faked my way in to the largest sports talk radio station in Atlanta. And when I got to the sports director, I just said, hey, they just let me in here real quick because I told them I'd take less than five minutes. Hi, my name's Ken. I'm a successful small business owner who's really interested in getting broadcasting. And I know I'm in my young 30s. I don't need any money from you at all. I'm not even here to talk to you about a job. My question is, could you use a guy like me around here two or three days a week, volunteering, just helping out, because that's what I want to do. And the guy looked at me like I had horns coming out of my head.

And then he was like, well, yeah, sure, man.

That's the proximity principle. And I got in a place, a radio station, and started helping out. Getting Sprite doing YouTube research, screening calls for the number one sports talk show in Atlanta. You know what? I actually got on air eventually.

Yeah.

So you know this. I don't speak from opinion. I speak from experience. That's the proximity principle. So you pick the industry. If you get around people that are doing it, that are successful, that are ahead of you, you got to ask them questions. Ask them questions for knowledge. That's facts. Ask them questions for wisdom. You got some options, some choices to make. What would they do? Knowledge and wisdom. SpongeBob is your word. Be a sponge, be humble, be grateful for their time, and guess what? They'll do it. The successful people, in my opinion, say, come on in, the water's really nice over here. And people say all the time, well, kid, I don't have anything to offer them. That's not true. The one thing you can offer a very successful person in this context is value. You go, how am I offering them value? You made them feel valuable because you showed up like a student and said, I want to be like you one day. Teach me, guide me. Come on, man. They're going to feel great about themselves and great about you and so humble, thankful, curious, and say, hey, anybody else that you think I need to get with, would you connect me to them? Any places you think I need to be hanging around, that's how Opportunity eventually shows up to you on your doorstep. So the proximity principle, in short, is if you want to catch a train, you got to go to the train station.

I love that. I love that. You know, it's. It's. It's a great book. It really is. As you can see, I've got the pages marked and all kinds of stuff. It's definitely. It's definitely a highlighter book, folks, if you're looking for a next level, this is next level material here, so you got to check it out. One of the things you talked about that I thought was really interesting, and to be honest, as an entrepreneur of multiple businesses myself, I am guilty of this very thing for a number of years, decades even, and that thing is chasing next or being obsessed with next. You gave me a whole different spin on that in the book. Right. And I wanted to kind of talk about that a little bit with the audience as well, because I feel like as an American culture, we're all, in some cases, chasing or obsessed with next.

To.

It's so true. And we're humans. And because we're humans, there's this condition to always improve and always make progress. And so that's a good thing. But when it's left unchecked and it's. It's left undisciplined, it turns into this obsessive compulsive behavior to always be looking to the next and wanting the next. And what happens is we overlook the tremendous opportunity and the purpose in the now. And so I came up with a quote for myself in the early days when I was really, really impatient. And it was a note that I wrote to myself in my journal. It said, don't obsess about the next.

Because if you do, you're going to miss what you need in the now and ultimately sacrifice the next. There's just something about us humans where we want to jump onto the ladder at rung number three and then climb up to rung six. Try doing that at your house this weekend and see how that goes.

I think that it's very, very hard for younger people. Doesn't matter, the generation, because there's something about youth. Right. The immaturity. And then no matter how old we are, we always have to fight this.

Focus on the next. I mean, we would literally chew our right leg off to be where six months ago we would have chewed our right leg off to be where we are. Right. Kind of a thing.

Yeah.

As soon as we get there, we're like, okay, what's the next thing? Yeah, it's like, I got to win the now, so how can I get better in the now?

Who do I need to serve in the now? What do I need to learn in the now? Who do I need to become in the now? These are the questions that keep us grounded, because the next will present itself at the right time when we are properly stewarding the now.

Yeah.

And that's where entrepreneurs particularly can get in a lot of trouble with a big failure or just by just watering themselves down and getting themselves distracted.

And it's a natural thing. And so I'm now at a point where I have those distractions that can come to me. I'm pretty good about keeping them out of my focus. Because the simple fact is, in order for me to have the most effective impact I can have, I've got to be maniacally focused on the best, not good. Yeah, I gotta say no to the good so that I can say yes to the best.

So does chasing the next, you know, in some respects prevent us from really honing a skill or honing. Honing our craft to a degree?

There's no question. I mean, my goodness, if you've ever watch the true craftsman, the ones I like to highlight are the furniture makers, like, old school, you know.

Yeah, we're talking. We're talking Amish country.

Yes, yes. In fact, I'll give you a great scene for you movie lovers out there, if you've ever seen the movie the Patriot, Mel Gibson, there's a scene early on in the movie where he's in his barn and you come kind of comes in and there's. Yeah, there's all these, like, broken rocking chairs because he's been trying to get it over and over and he can't get it right to where when he sits in it, it holds his weight kind of thing. And we see this pile of old chairs and chairs, you know, because he's so angry because he's beat him to death, you know, but that, that's the. That's the thing. It's like you need to get to the point where you are excellent and flirting with mastery.

Yeah. That before we start trying to do too much diversification now. And there's a school of thought out there that says, oh, the generalists win. And I. And I don't disagree with that, but I'm saying when we've locked in on what it is we're supposed to do. So again, I can only. I can only speak to me personally. Okay. So I have Talked to almost 5,000 callers live on the Air counseling and coaching them in a 67 minutes.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's high pressure. Got to do it.

I've spoken for about eight years or so. I'm now starting to do live Q and A and every keynote I do because it's my. I love it. I love giving a talk and then in that moment, letting the audience immediately pop up and hit me. And I don't know what's coming at me. And I'm okay with it because I love coaching. Well, the reason I put myself in those situations is because the more I have to coach without a safety net, the reason I do live calls and I don't find out now, there's a lot of people in the space that we're in, they'll talk to the callers ahead of time and get all this dossier on all that. And I don't have any problem with that for them. But the reason I don't do it is because I'm trying to become a master at this craft of coaching people to discover and who they are and be the best version. And so the more I put myself in a position where I must listen better.

Dig deeper, deal with whatever's coming at me, then the better I can get at it. Yeah, the better I get, the more effective I am for people. So I believe that once we know what our greatest talents are, then we largely forget our average talents and we absolutely forget our low areas of talent. Just forget about it. Here's the great news. There's people in this world that are really great at the stuff you suck at.

That's true.

That's what's wonderful about this world. And so I want to be. I want to try to master, become a master, become truly great at the things, only the things that I'm really, really good at and the things I really love to do. And I want to get great at delivering results that matter deeply to me. Outside of that, there's somebody else that can do the other stuff. I don't have time for distractions that will keep me from being great in those areas. And the reason it's not about being great for the sake of being great, it's about being great so that the contribution is maximized.

Yeah. Well, even in that example, I mean, there's a certain. You have this quote in the book, says the artistry is in the work. Right. And I highlighted it. One of the reasons. Because even kind of goes back to the story you just mentioned, taking live on air calls, taking live Q and A from the audience where you don't know what's coming. It increases the authenticity of the person who's actually trying to create mastery for the person who's trying to be served. Right. So when you look at it that way, it seems like most of us have been so focused on what we can get and what can we achieve, we've forgotten about what we can do to serve. And at the crux of the book, that's the one thing I keep getting back to. It's not just a paycheck to purpose. It's purpose meets meaning meets significance meets yearning. Right.

Yeah, that's it.

So let's.

I mean. Yeah, go ahead.

I was going to say I want to go back to the first phase a little bit with clarity, because clarity is super important. In fact, I would argue that, you know, you probably should, and this is me, spend 60% of your time in the clarity phase before going into the other phases. Talk to us about the importance of clarity, because that's the one thing that I don't see people going because they have no. No clarity, no awareness. So talk to me about that.

Yeah, I'm so glad you brought it up. So, you know, the first chapter is entitled clarity is your superpower. So I'm pretty. I'm pretty opinionated on how vitally important clarity is. So let's. Let's talk about what I mean by clarity and getting clear first, and then I'll weigh in on why it's so important. Clarity is. I've got to know what I do best. My top talents. Hard skills. People skills. Character traits.

Traits.

What comes easy for me? What do people compliment me on? I gotta know what my area of potential greatness is. That's talent. All right, what do I do best? I gotta know that. Second thing I gotta know is what work fires me up. I think about it. I get a little excited when I'm in the middle of doing this work. Time seems to stand still. I'm willing to suffer failure like the guys throwing the rocking chair in a pile. I'm willing to have calluses to be achy because I want to get it right. That's high emotion, high devotion. I call that passion. What work, what task, what role do I love to do or fill? The third element is mission. What results do I want to create? Yeah, what results do I want to create? I talk to people all the time on my show that go, Ken. I've been a salesman for a long time. I'm actually really, really good. But I don't have any passion, and I find out that. That they actually love the sales part of it. They love connecting with humans and solving a problem. You know what's missing? They're not selling a product or service that they really get excited about. Tell them, go find a product or service that you consume, that you use, that you're passionate about. Go do that.

Yeah.

I interviewed a guy that started the competitor to the Green Egg Kamado Joe. This guy was in high finance, and he loved the green egg. Spending a ton of time of his personal time with the green egg. He became passionate about it and got to the point where he's like, I love the green egg, but it's missing this, this, this, and this. And if these things existed, it would be so much better. And one of his buddies said, you're talking about it all the time. Why don't you stink and go do it? And he did.

Yeah.

And I'm a consumer of the Kamado Joe. Yeah. Better than the green egg. Okay. But it came from an area of passion, you know, like he. He loved cooking on the Joe. And. And he was like, I love it so much that that's what I want to do. I want to create a better version for people. That's the result of the work. So talent, what I do best, passion, what I love to do. Mission, results that matter. So here's what a purpose statement looks like, and I'll get back to finishing the answer. When I use what I do best to do work, I love to produce results that matter to me. That's it. I'm on purpose. And here's the beauty of that. There are multiple jobs, career paths, and even dream jobs in that sweet spot right there.

Yeah.

Where talent, passion, and align and mission are in alignment. That's my sweet spot. And just as when we hit a ball on the sweet spot of the bat, we barely feel the contact, and the ball travels farther and faster, and we sit in awe and watch that. That's what it's like. When we are on purpose in our work. We are doing what we were created to do. People look at us and go, you were born for that. You're a natural. We've heard that. We've said it about others. Now, why is clarity, which I've now defined, so important? To answer your question, clarity breeds confidence, and confidence breeds courage. Say it again. A person who is clear is confident. And a person who is confident will summon the courage. Yeah. When life throws the stuff at us, that courage is needed to get through. Let me explain. If you've ever read a story or watched a TV story or seen some YouTube clip about an everyday person who stepped into a life saving situation almost, you know, without any thought at all. And they risk their life to save the life of another. And if you go back and you read the interviews or you watch what they say, it's always basically, you know, the reporter going, what made you do that to put your life at risk? And they just go, I just acted. I just knew I had to do something. Watch what happened. I just broke it down for you. In that moment, that everyday person came upon a situation where someone's life was in danger.

They were very clear. This is a life or death situation.

Yeah.

Someone must act. That's clarity. Quickly their brain went to confidence. I'm pretty sure I can help.

Yeah.

And then to courage. I've got help.

Watch. Split second. Clarity. Confidence. Courage absent of absence of clarity, you will not have the confidence to step out on the path to fulfilling your purpose.

And absent of confidence that comes from clarity, when life throws its curves at you and its detours and pitfalls and potholes and everything, you won't have the courage to step into fear and doubt and keep on going. You will not. You cannot summon courage from nowhere. You must be clear, which will give you the confidence to actually act. Which is what courage really is. Courage is stepping into fear and doubt. It's not removing fear and doubt. It's not a John Wayne moment where we just go, whoa. And we just act brave. No, no, no. It's coming from somewhere. Yeah. So I like to break it down that way because it accentuates the importance of clarity. You must be clear. And here's why. When I step out and I go, there are going to be times where I fail. There's financial failure there. There's going to be times where relationship crap happens and we can't even see what you know, we're just trying to just keep the house from burning down.

What?

Health. Health stuff happens.

Life.

Life. Yeah.

Get out over our skis a little bit and go, oh, yeah, right. And so what happens is if we focus. Remember earlier in our conversation, if I focus on fear and I focus on doubt, I get my eyes off the prize. I get my eyes off of the mountaintop and fear starts to win. And we go, oh. And so what do I do? I retreat back to clarity. Do I have the talent to do this? Yes. Do I love this work? Yes. Does this work or will this work create results that matter deeply to me? The answer is yes. And so then that's when courage appears and we keep climbing up the mountain.

Yeah. It's amazing. I think, you know, just devil's advocate, let's assume I'm an audience member. Let's assume I'm an audience member right now. And they say, Ken, that sounds amazing. It all makes sense. I still haven't done it yet. I don't know how to get clear. I don't know what steps to take. I don't know how to find my talent. I don't know how to find my gifts. I don't know what's holding me back. Like, how do we help them get clear? Like, you know, one of the things that I loved about the book is this book is full of tools and resources that cost nobody anything. Right. And one of them that you guys have is this one about getting clear. And I think based on how well you articulated the, the need for clarity, I think that if you're okay with, I'd like for you to talk a little bit about that resource a little bit so people can actually take advantage of it to actually get clear.

Yeah. So as you know, we unpack in the book the talent passion mission that I just did. So the way to get clear is to identify what you do best.

Yeah.

What is the work that you love to do and what are the results that you would like to put into the world through your work? That is the formula. I just gave it away because you get it, you got. And so we walk you through some exercises in the book, but it's actually a paid resource. But it's only, it's only 20 bucks with the book is 20. So for 40 bucks you get the book and the assessment. You can buy the assessment alone for 30. Here's the deal. The assessment's a 20 minute online assessment where I wrote the questions and my team, we put it together and it will ask you the questions that you must answer. And then it's going to show you and spit out a report. It'll show you of the 12 universal types of talent, these are your top three. And it'll show you where you score on the rest. Same thing with the 15 types of work. It'll show you your top three work you love and it'll show you where you score on the rest of the 15. And then finally, mission. There are six missional drivers. We know this from psychology research. There's six things drive people. They motivate us. It's results that motivate us. It's our why. So it'll show you your primary one. So that's a Great tool that people can take. And what it's going to do is two things. It'll give you more awareness to where you don't necessarily have to sit and think. Think. All you gotta do is be honest and answer the questions. But then when you get your purpose statement, because you're gonna get a report on talent, passion, mission, then you get a purpose statement that's filled out with those results. And it'll say, I was created to use my top talents of boom, boom, boom to do the work I love, boom, boom, boom. To produce the results that set me on fire. Boom. And so when you get that purpose statement, now you begin to go, wait a second, I'm gonna look out there in the world. And that's interesting to me. And I'm going to see if these job descriptions match up with my purpose statements. Pretty simple stuff. We begin to explore, intentionally begin to see things we never seen before. And the assessment will give you some suggestions, but they're just suggestions. There's no way in an assessment to pinpoint a specific career for somebody. But what we can pinpoint is really, really clear awareness so that you can go, oh, this really does describe what would be an incredible day, week, month, year, 30 year career. If I did this, if I spent 75% of my day doing this, boy, I would feel like I was stealing money. So that's a terrific resource. But to the devil's advocate, you asked a couple things there. And I would say, yeah, it's okay that you don't know what you want to do yet. It's okay that you don't feel like you can identify your talent. But what we got to do is figure out why. Who said something to you, who did something to you, what lies about you. Do you believe Because I'm sorry, we're gonna have to agree to disagree that you don't have talent.

Yeah, right.

We're gonna have to agree to disagree that there's not a type of work that would set your heart on fire. We're gonna have to agree to disagree that there aren't people out there that you want to help with a certain problem. That's the results we're talking about. You're a human, so you don't get to take a pass on this truth. It's just the truth. And I would say that you got to do the work of self discovery. But here's the thing, Steven. People are always looking outward to try to figure it out. Everything I teach, you know, this is about looking inward. Yeah, you're too Busy looking at your college buddies or your high school friends or people on social media, and you're trying to figure out what your thing is. Wait a second. How can you see your uniqueness in somebody else? By comparing yourself to somebody else. So come on. They can call the Ken Coleman Show. Bring me your toughest questions. I've heard them all before. You're not going to stump me because I've talked to enough people to know how we're wired and something's holding you back. And the people that have those voices, that cynic. I'd say, hey, I get it. But I can just tell you that your perspective has been jaded. And we got to figure out how, who, why, where did it come from? And then we get you clear on who you really are. And true self awareness is power.

Let's go. Let's go. No, I think that's great. I want to close out the show with a concept that I love from the book. And there are so many guys. I mean, seriously, this book is full. Full of richness. So make sure you guys go check it out. But you call it the Four filters. Because one of the questions I see a lot with folks is, am I ready to make the jump from something I'm not crazy about to something I love? Like, is there a process you have and you break down these four filters? If you don't mind, just talk a little about that. Because I feel like, you know, people are going to grab a hold of this. They're going to go through your process. They're going to understand at a clear, deep level who they are, why they're here, what they do about it. They're going to see that there's other opportunities. They're going to have courage, they're going to have confidence. They're going to go after it. Right. But more importantly, how do I eliminate the fear and know when it's the right time? Because the last thing we want to do is put somebody in jeopardy and have them jump ship immediately. Right?

Yeah. Are you talking about the four qualifying questions? How do I actually formulate the plan?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because this is great. Because here's what happens. You get all this get clear stuff. You're like, okay, great. Can I know what I want to do? How do I get there?

And I got you covered. And we talk about that and getting qualified. So there's four qualifying questions that once you have a good idea what that mountaintop is, it's literally like Stephen and I going, okay, hey, man, we're going to Go. We're going to go climb this. This big mountain peak in Colorado, and we're like, oh, jazz about it. And after we get done, Jazz about it, we got to go. Okay, so we got to figure out what's the best way to get.

That's probably a good idea. Right?

So. So we're going to go talk to a guide, and we're going to go, what physical transformation do we need? Like, what do we need to get ready to get physical? What equipment are we going to need?

Yeah, maybe some snow shoes.

Yeah, right, right, right, right, right. Yeah. And so that's what we would do in that situation. And so that's the same thing here. So the four qualifying questions, super simple. And it's going to take all the fear out of the journey. And the greatest fear is the fear of the unknown. So I give you these questions so that you go, oh, if I answer these, I've got the plan. Yeah, here they are. The first one is, what do I need to learn? That's the education question. And it doesn't necessarily mean college education or traditional education. It just means, what do I need to learn to be qualified to do what I want to do? Does it need a degree? Maybe not. If it's not the only way or the best way, I say screw the degree. A bunch of wasted time and money. If it's not the only way or the best way. If you're going to be a doctor, it's the only way. Right. And so we understand that. So that's the first question, the education question, what do I need to learn? Second question is, what do I need to do? What experience am I going to need? I got to tell you, man, it drives me crazy. People call the Ken Coleman Show. Ken, I've been applying for all these jobs, and the problem is they keep telling me I don't have enough experience. Well, how am I going to get experience if they won't hire me? I'm like, what's the rung on the ladder below what you've been applying for? I mean, these people aren't trying to mess with your head. Yeah, why don't we step on the right rung of the ladder? So what experience do I need to get? I'm talking entry level. I've got to get some basic experience. So that's what I need to do. The third question is, how much is that going to cost me? There is a financial and cost of. Of our time and resources associated with what do I need to learn and what do I need to do? So the third question allows me to sit down and what's this going to cost me? The biggest cost? Financial. Okay, what's that going to look like based on my financial reality? Now I can go answer question number four, which is, how long is this going to take? It's the expectation question. So the education question, what do I need to learn? Experience question, what I need to do? Economic question, how much is going to cost? Expectation question, how long is this going to take? Right there, folks, you've got all of the information that you need to formulate a plan, and you're going to sit there and go, okay, I got to learn this. Then I'm going to have to do this. It's going to cost me this much. And based on my reality, I think it's going to take me 24 months, 36 months, whatever. But here's what's great about that. Now you have a plan. You can see it, and now you can go, all right, I'm going to steal myself for the journey.

Yeah. Love it. I love it. Guys, it's out now from paycheck to purpose, you go check it out. Make sure you do it. What we covered in today's show was only like, 3% of what's actually in the book. Right. So it's definitely a rich read. If you've been in a career path that has been uncertain or unfulfilling, you definitely want to check this out. Ken, dude, thank you so much for dropping so much value today. I really appreciate you taking the time to spend some time with us.

Anytime. I love what you're doing. You're doing great stuff. I want you to share your story with us, and so we're going to do that, too. So I'm glad to be with you. You're doing incredible stuff. Thanks for having me.

My pleasure. All right, buddy. Take care. See you. If you love that interview, go ahead and check out this next one right here.

Our premise and our philosophy is based on the idea that the way that you break through the wall is simply to become known for one thing.