Waking up hating what you do is such a waste of potential to live a greater life. When we live just to work without getting that feeling of fulfillment, our life becomes stagnant, which then affects us physically, emotionally, and mentally. Someone who is all about helping people move away from that, get clear on what they want to do, and start on a quest for their purpose is CEO of Consulting Resource Group International, Dr. Ken Keis. Together with host Corey Jahnke, they discuss in this episode the process of finding your life’s purpose and really living and leading from an intentional space of embracing one’s life journey. Living our passions and purpose not only benefits us, but it also enables us to offer the best we can to the world. Join Dr. Ken and Corey as they inspire and encourage you to find your purpose and live the best life you can.

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Listen to the podcast here:

The Quest For Purpose: Living And Leading In One’s Life Journey With Dr. Ken Keis

We are excited because we have someone who’s been working in the space that I’ve wanted to help you with for a very long time. He’s been around to talk to the people that are struggling with the things that you’re struggling with. I’m talking about a gentleman who has his own podcast, and I was fortunate to meet this gentleman. I’m going to say that this guy is going to help us out. His name is Ken Keis PhD. He’s an expert on leadership, purpose, wellness, and the foremost global authority on personality and behavioral assessments that increase and multiply your success rate. Ken has co-created CRG, which is Consulting Resource Group International. He founded that in 1979. Many professionals herald CRG as the number one Global Resource Center for personal and professional development. Over one million people in 30 countries and twelve languages have engaged CRG process to enrich their lives. Professionals are impressed with CRG processes and assessments that 80% switched to CRG. That’s a phenomenal number. Dr. Ken, welcome to our show.

Corey, it’s nice to see you again after being on mine. It’s a pleasure to be able to serve you and your readers here.

Can you please give us a little bit of your own background in how you got working on leadership, purpose, and wellness?

It’s a direct route. I grew up on a dairy farm. Dairy farming and being a professional development expert in leadership are close to the same thing. We were talking about before getting on about helping people to get clear in life. I was the third generation firstborn male of Eastern European descent on the dairy farm. Do you think that there was a little pressure for me to continue and hang out on the farm after college?

It was a born thing that was exactly what you were going to do.

That’s what I did. I came back but what happened is both my dad and I wanted to be in charge. My dad being Eastern European, it wasn’t that he wasn’t a nice guy. He just didn’t understand communications or being inclusive. A couple of years after getting back from agriculture college, I left and started to work in the agricultural field. First for the Federal Department of Agriculture as an Inspector in the dairy industry. After that, I worked as a sales professional in the dairy industry. That’s where my health and wellness come because I have a diploma in Nutrition and Genetics.

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Not only did I go into that field, but then I started my own dairy farm. This is my encouragement for everybody reading. I got up one morning, it was 5:30. The sun was coming up. It was a spring day. I said, “Would it be okay if I was here twenty years from now doing the same thing?” I said, “Absolutely not. I’m not doing that.” It wasn’t that dairy farming was bad or that I couldn’t do it well. My whole life, I had grown up with this, but the reality was it wasn’t my passion. I made a determination. Those of you that are from rural communities you’ve heard of the program called 4-H, which is a youth program. I remember being in Toronto, Canada. I’m from Vancouver, Canada.

I was at an event. I was sixteen years of age and I was asked to speak to the sponsors. These are all CEOs of billion-dollar banks. I was scared out of my skin but I was excited at the same time. I knew then that I wanted to be a speaker. Even when I was 17, 18, 19, I was the person that was asked to be the emcee of all the local banquets or many of them. As a result of that, as I moved into my twenties, I was still doing this dairy farm and I said, “I need one to switch.” In the late ‘80s, that’s when I started my profession. You mentioned CRG was founded in 1979 not by me, but by Dr. Anderson. I got connected to them in 1990.

I then started my own sales training company in 1989. That’s how I transitioned. I moved into doing sales training while I still had my dairy farm. I remember being in Eastern Canada and I was doing a sales training seminar for an agricultural group, my brother phones me and said, “Ken, your milker has quit. He’s not going to milk your cows. What do you want me to do?” I’m five-hour flight away from coming home. I said, “What? This is not going to work.” As a result of that, I decided keeping the dairy farm is not something that we’re going to do. I worked it out that somebody took over my herd and I continued down this path of professional development and here we are many years later.

One of the things we talk about in the show is what you said, “Just because you’re in current situations and circumstances doesn’t mean your life has to be that way.” I got the impression that you built a bridge to the new life, is that the way you put that across?

Partly because I knew that I was supposed to be a speaker, but I didn’t know exactly what. First of all, kudos to people who are reading this for growing and developing yourself. I joined the National Speakers Association in 1989, which is the professional organization for those that speak for a living. I was introduced to a member of our chapter and that person says, “Ken, I know somebody who can help you?” My problem was similar to the one you articulate at the beginning of the show. I knew I was supposed to speak, but to who and about what. I had some confusion. I had some murkiness around this so I hired a coach. This is way back when coaches weren’t big and I didn’t even have the money for it, but I knew that I needed it.

I traveled from Vancouver, Canada to Seattle, Washington. My house was about 2.5-hour drive to his location. His name was Mike McManus. I drove there every month for six months, 2.5 hours each way, to have a session with him to help me to get clear in my life. He wrote a book called Source. He was an educator and he was helping teenagers stay in school because they didn’t lack purpose. They hated school. What he found out early in his launch of this book is that adults needed this even more than teenagers. The research is that 80% to 90% of people reading this blog dislike what they do from mildly-irritate to low. That’s not okay. When you get up every morning and you don’t like what you’re doing, then that is going to erode your immune system. It’s going to be frustrating. You’re going to be irritable.

Corey, when you’re on our show, I remember one of your comments is you stayed in being a pharmacist, but you’ve reframed how you’re going to interact. You reframed what you’re going to do and you are going to make it about the people, not about the prescriptions. You shifted that. Here you are a couple of decades later in this profession and being successful in it. For everybody reading, you don’t necessarily have to quit what you’re doing, but you have to reframe it. For me, staying in being a dairy farmer many years from now was not an option. That’s a fair question for people reading is, “If you were doing the same thing 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now, would that be okay?”

For most people, the answer is no. If it’s no, then what are we inferring? We’re inferring this word change. I don’t want everybody to go quit their job as soon as they finish reading this blog. Take this transition time to say, “How do I move towards something and then move away to what I don’t want, but also what am I moving towards?” I spent six months with Mike McManus coaching me to help get clear about what I’m supposed to do, which came up with my life purpose, which I still have. My purpose is to help others to live, lead, and work on purpose in life. The greatest disservice that we do to each other, into ourselves especially, is to not be in our own purpose and in our own passions. The world’s a little stressed. We all have days where we’re not completely plugged in, we’re not completely alive, but how can I have the majority of what I’m doing energize me? Give me an audience of 1,500 people or this show, Corey, and be able to share with individuals, encourage, and help. This is not work. I’m showing up and I’m having fun. Hopefully, that can be the same thing for everybody reading if you do the work.

I love the way you phrased that because one of the things that I believe is that the next five years are going to go by anyway. I’m looking at your website and the question is quite clearly asked, “If nothing changed in your life in the next five years, would that be okay?” Readers, let’s ask ourselves that question and recognize that it is your life. It’s not your father’s life or your brother’s life, it’s your life. Ken, can you give us some hints on how a person goes about finding their purpose?

I’ve written a book called The Quest for Purpose and that frames it all out. Life leaves clues. Lots of times people don’t pay attention to those clues. I’m going to give you several bullet points of things to consider in no sequential orders. I’m dyslexic. I typed and authored four million words of content and no way you could have ever said that I was a writer even in my twenties. I knew I was going to be a speaker, but never an author of a bunch of books, assessments, and tools. Sometimes, there are some hidden gems in my life. For the people that are reading this, there are a couple of ways you can go about doing this. First of all, life leaves clues about what energizes you.

In the book, I asked people to do what I call a positive preview. What places do you like going? Who do you like to hang out with? What do you like doing? What is energizing for you? What are smells, touches and tastes? Do you like to be by the ocean? Do you like to be in the mountains? Do you like to be in a desert? When you’re doing something, what is it that when you do it and at the end of it, you say, “I can’t believe three hours went by? Where did that go?” Life leaves us clues, but we don’t pay attention. I’ll share another story. A lot of times there are social pressures and expectations that come upon us. When I decided to leave the farm, dad said, “I did all of this for you.” We have these pressures and these expectations. Some of you have chosen paths that were social pressure paths, family pressure or even self-pressure where you said, “That’s what we’re supposed to do.”

I remember about a decade ago, a medical doctor hired me as a coach and said, “Ken, I’m stressed. I don’t like what I’m doing. I disliked being a medical doctor.” I said, “You’ve spent thirteen years in school after high school to become an MD and you don’t like what you’re doing. How do you think that happened?” He said, “My parents always wanted me to go down this path.” That is how much pressure he received. He was a very independent person. We worked through it. He is now a professional developer helping other stressed MDs with their practice. He’s a life coach for medical doctors and he loves it. He has the credibility with other MDs who are trying to see twenty patients in an hour. I’m being demonstrative. What it means to be in a clinic? We’re constantly having these patients come and go, all the different things that you have to do with it, the liability, and all these things that go with it. He said, “What if I could take that and create an environment or a process to help my colleagues to reduce their stress and increase their wellness?” He transitioned. He still took all that expertise he had as an MD, but now he moved it into this wellness model, consulting firm, and training for his fellow MDs.

One of the things I see all the time is the prescriptions that result from living a life that is essentially a lie for you. There is no shortage of prescriptions that I fill for physicians who are feeling that social pressure. Not only am I doing something that I don’t like to do, but I also have to put on this face that I’ve got it all together when as you are well aware, many people are struggling just to make it through now. You mentioned wellness being a cornerstone of the work that you do. Can you tell me a little bit about how health and wellness fit into your life and your success philosophies?

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We have what we call a personality development factors model. We have seven different factors that contribute to your personhood. Personality is one, wellness or what we call biophysical self-worth, environmental systems, values or social teachers, meaning all the relationships around you, emotional anchors, events that have happened, and spirituality. All of those seven contribute to who you are. As a person who has a diploma in Nutrition and Genetics, I was working with my dairy farmer clients. Whenever cattle weren’t performing, we were always nutritionally looking at the diet. I’m not perfect just because I teach this. That’s sometimes where I smile and I know, Corey, you smile too, where you have a doctor says, “You need to stop smoking,” as he lights up a cigarette. We have this moment.

The more natural that we can be, the more that we can be active and move. This society doesn’t move a lot. Sitting is the new smoking. There’s mental wellness and I’ll come to that here in a moment as well. There’s nutritional and lifestyle. We have a wellness assessment called the stress indicator and health planner. It’s got 120 questions. They help people to get clear in life, but one of the components is interpersonal stress. You were talking about it earlier where individuals could have this stress over their relationships or their marriage hasn’t turned out the way that they had hoped to, or these items.

Lots of times when we think about life choices is that I might be in the right profession, but doing the wrong job. The nature of who I am from a personality point of view has certain strengths. We believe in a strengths model. There are all kinds of assessments out there that measure that and we’re one of them. For individuals, sometimes I beat myself up or you do when our engagement in a role or responsibility is not sustainable. Where stress and wellness come into play here, if the nature of the work does not match the nature of the person day in and day out, I cannot sustain my engagement. A lot of times this obligation to this job seems to come before my wellness. Some of you as practitioners are micro-entrepreneurs.

We were talking about this, Corey, where you had staff members that you moved around in your practice so that they were doing the things that you dislike doing. They were doing the things they like doing. All of a sudden, you had this team energy that was raised because of your leadership style. That’s what we’re talking about here. No life is perfect. No job is perfect, but how could I have the majority of what I’m doing day in and day out play to my strengths, play to what I like doing. Interest is separate from personality. Personality is how I like to go about doing things. An example is, there are different people in your profession. Some have high level of attention to detail and other people who are more people-oriented like yourself.

You’ve taken this tack that the way that you embrace your job best is that, “I am here around the relationships.” There are other people who are good at the administrative part of the pharmacy. There’s no right. There’s no wrong. There’s no judgment. It was simply different. Can I embrace that? A friend of mine, his son is now a doctor, but when his son was 15, 16, he said to me, “My son’s never going to amount to anything because he’s too lazy. It doesn’t like this.” Now he’s a medical doctor. He’s a pediatrician. He loves kids. He loves taking care of kids. What’s the likelihood? His dad has driven an obsessive entrepreneur and a likable guy. He’s always going. He’s 70. He’s working 12, 14, and 16 hours a day and he loves it. His son was lying on the couch, fifteen years old, and never thought he would amount to anything.

He found his own path, even though he’s completely different than his dad. He’s in space and he’s doing it in a way that serves him. I’m not talking about self-centeredness that’s something completely different. I’m talking about self-honoring. How can I go in a space, in a role, and articulate that? I have enough assertiveness to say, “Corey, you’ve asked me to do this. I’m not trying to be a prima donna. I’m not trying to be better than somebody else, but what you’re asking me to do is not a passion of mine. I might be able to do it for 3, 6 months or maybe even a year but after that, I’m going to quit or you’re going to fire me because I’m not enjoying this.” That’s why I’m talking about these words, intentional and deliberate. When you know that you know that you know, we talked about it in our show with you around self-awareness, then I can make these intentional decisions. This is the framework that we’re talking about.

I want to give a concrete example of what you did a nice job of illustrating. My wife, the beautiful Tonya Jahnke, was a clinic nurse, answering the phones for the clinic. She was getting 600 or 700 phone calls a day and she hated it. She hated it to the point where they fired her. She went to work for the Mayo Clinic hospital on the cardiac floor as a cardiac nurse. Many years have gone by and she won one of the highest awards that a nurse can win called the DAISY Award. She’s still a nurse, but it’s an entirely different stratosphere of nursing for her. I know pharmacists that belong in hospitals that work in retail. I know pharmacists that do great in retail that can’t stand working in hospitals.

What you said about, “Maybe it’s not necessarily the job or the profession, but the way you’re practicing.” That’s an interesting story about your friend who is a pediatrician because there are people that choose the wrong specialty in any job. I want to honor you for bringing that about. One of the things that are fascinating to me is the idea of deliberate success and deliberate leadership. As I’m looking at your website, I noticed you have a book called Deliberate Leadership. Can you illustrate for us what you’re meaning by deliberate?

It’s a sister book to Why Aren’t You More Like Me. It’s our book that I’ve co-authored with Dr. Mitch Javid on this idea of leadership. There are two sides to the equation, which you’ve articulated. There’s the leader, but there’s also the follower. Do you remember the old golden rule, “Treat people how you want to be treated?” My colleague, Tony Alessandra, created a different saying, which was called the platinum rule which is, “Treat other people the way they want to be treated.” When we think about deliberate, one of the things that we teach is a concept called credibility and people understand that. Credibility is established. Every single person reading this blog, you have a level of credibility with everybody you work with, every client you serve, and every patient you serve if you want it or not. It’s the price you pay for showing up.

What a lot of people aren’t conscious of is, “It’s my behaviors I do and I don’t do, which are constantly increasing or decreasing my credibility with other people.” Most people are unconscious of what they did or what they didn’t do. For example, Brenda and I have been married for many years. In the middle of our marriage, we had a tough time. We were separated for a while but when were first got married, we’re both 32. We’re independent adults. We had bought a townhouse in our city, which had a ground-level entrance, a covered car park and the kitchen window looked out to this covered car park. My wife is a teacher by profession. She was teaching English in college as a second language. She is coming home at 9:00 at night. I’m sitting at the table reading the paper. She gets out of the car as she parked. She waves to me. She’s got her arms full of books. She comes to the front door and then she’s angry with me. Why is that, Corey?

What did you do?

I didn’t get up and open the door. No hate for all the readers, I get up and I’m trained now, that was many years later. Was I sitting at the table trying to offend my wife? No. You give me way too much credit that I wasn’t even thinking about it. I was being unconscious. That is one of the reasons why I didn’t get up. Maybe I’m just self-absorbed or reading something. The reality is that when we think about deliberate, sometimes it’s the sin of omission that has eroded your credibility or your relationships. You said, “I didn’t do anything.” That’s exactly the point, Corey. Let’s say I’m a supervisor in an organization. There are a couple of people who are not falling policy. They’re being disruptive. They’re being toxic. I’m the supervisor and because I don’t like conflict, I avoid it. I don’t challenge them. I don’t hold them accountable, but everybody else in the team has to live with this toxicity because I didn’t deal with it, everybody hates me as a supervisor. Even though I don’t have any issues with you or you have issues with me because I’m not dealing with XYZ employee who is being toxic. Lots of times, we’re not deliberate with that.

The other side of this is the way that you need to be led, encouraged, and supervised is different than your colleague more than likely. Every personal style or personality as some people call it, the way that I lead is unique, but the way that you follow is also unique. What we outlined in the book Deliberate Leadership are what are the things that I would naturally do? What are the things that I would need to shift? What are the things that other people who are different or similar to me need from me so that we can do my best to build relationships deliberately? There’s one step in the middle of this that I want to share with the readers. I would say that it’s the number one step that I have to work on constantly every day. We have a three-step process. We do translating. It’s a simple term for saying, “I need to read and say, ‘What does Cory need for me?’”

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Number two step is suspending. We don’t ask people to change who they are. We believe that your personality or your type is consistent throughout your lifetime. Otherwise, you’d be like me and I’d be like you and that wouldn’t be good. However, my totality of who I am, changes, matures, grows, education, all that stuff comes up in play. The number two steps suspending, most of us sometimes in our life have been offended or upset. Dr. Gottman is a researcher out of Seattle, Washington. He works in relationships. Here’s his research. “Once my heartbeat goes over 100 beats per minute, non-athletic I am no longer rational. In other words, I will do and say things that I wouldn’t normally do.” What we teach in suspending is nobody can make you angry unless you let them. Even for myself, I dislike that level of accountability. Even Dr. Burns in his book, Feeling Good, talk about it. Nobody can upset you. Only you can allow somebody else to do it. It is the highest level of responsibility that we need to take. Doctor Gottman proved in his research that if I get ramped up, if I get worked up, then I’m going to say and do something to people that I’m going to regret.

We teach that you need to be in charge of yourself. I don’t care that Corey was inappropriate. I don’t care that Corey said something that’s not permitted here, but how I respond emotionally is always in my court. We teach people how to suspend. We also help people understand what their triggers are. That’s part of the assessment process. I know who you are. I’m getting out of the way. I’m putting myself in neutral. Number three is, “What does Corey need from me so that we can build relationships?” I choose to be intentional and deliberate with my strategy, my approach with you to serve you, not myself. It’s the highest level of respect. It’s the opposite of being self-centered. This takes a little bit of effort. This takes a little bit of work.

Because you suspend or because you don’t get upset doesn’t mean that what the person did was appropriate or permissible. I’m not giving you permission to do something. I am just controlling my reaction. I’m going to respond. I’m not going to react to what you’re doing. These are some of the things that we teach in our different books so that I can be in charge. You’ve met some people where they get ramped up, they’re always upset, they’re worried, they’re angry, and they’re practicing even anger at inanimate objects like their car or their computer. When we practice that response, biologically, then when I get into relationships, I’ll respond the same way with people. We have to manage, develop, grow, and train ourselves to respond in different ways. This is what we mean by deliberate.

There’s so much great stuff in what you shared. The thing I find fascinating being in customer service for many years is watching when a customer or an employee triggers another employee. For instance, one of the things that have always fascinated me is how upset many of the workers will get if a person walks up to the counter and doesn’t suspend their phone call while they’re insisting on being waited on. I’ve had to institute policies about, “Ken, it’s not okay that you are triggered and then you respond inappropriately to the customer because she chose not to get off of her phone.” One of the things I enjoyed about what you were talking about is this business of separating your leadership based on who you’re leading. I don’t think you’re a real leader until you recognized the concept of, “I have to treat everybody the same so that everything is fair.” It fails in business if you ask me.

Form a policy point of view, consistency is relevant. From a relationship point of view in how I interact with you, that’s different. In fact, what will work for one employee in terms of accountability, encouragement or interactions will completely fail with somebody who is different. If you don’t adjust, then your leadership success is going to be accidental instead of intentional or deliberate.

I was thinking about your podcast and folks, his podcast is called the Secrets of Success with Dr. Ken Keis. One of the things he does is he wants to find out who are you as a leader? What was your background? Where did you come from? There’s a specific reason why you formatted your show that way. Can you share us that reason?

A lot of times for people, we know some of the stats and I shared it already. The majority of people dislike what they do from mildly irritate to low. Eighty-five percent of people never read a book after college, scrolling through social media, and reading that stuff doesn’t count. My space is to help encourage others. That’s why we had individuals like yourself, Corey, on our show. We are focused in our show content. What are the things that you’ve done? What are some strategies, and also what was the story? Story encourages people. People remember story. People remember this fact that Ken didn’t open the door for his wife and that upset her. It became a divisive in their relationship. They might not remember the word suspend but they’ll understand the word sin of omission because they didn’t do something. What we’re trying to do in the show, we have 250 shows now and great experts, leadership experts from Dr. Marshall Goldsmith to yourself, to Jim. There are other people that are New York Times Bestseller. It’s to help people to realize their potential in all areas of their life. We also have health experts on our show as well, wellness experts, individuals who help people to optimize their performance in that space as well.

 

The reason I asked that is you have 250 guests so far in your show. I wonder, do you have 250 stories at least of failure?

I have lots of stories of failure. As far as the guests, 250 journeys that have story mixed in, failure, success, difficulties, and overcoming. One of the guests that I’m having recall is a woman now who is a success coach. She was trapped in an abusive marriage. It was an almost fatal car accident that got her out of it. She’s in the hospital, nearly dies from this accident, and said, “I got to leave,” and was having the courage to move on and be free. She’s now remarried. That story was wow. Many people who are reading, you have a story and it doesn’t matter where you’re at. It doesn’t matter what difficulty you’re in. We all can move forward. That’s what we’re trying to do in the show is these 250 stories of where was at? People aren’t born with the spoon in their mouth. They’re just not. They have some journey that they’ve gone through. You’re right, 250 stories of success and failure, growing and still persisting.

I appreciate you flushing that out because you caught on to exactly what I was thinking. A lot of times, I’m noticing in different platforms that I’m involved with that some people have this idea that because I haven’t been able to skyrocket to success in my given field or in the choices that I’ve made so far, that my whole life is in the garbage. You did a nice job of explaining that, “I don’t care who you are.” It’s a journey. I don’t know about you, Ken, but I still walk into the door more often than I don’t.

I do have a story behind that just to encourage people. I got into this profession in ‘89. It’s getting into close to 32 years now. As a young arrogant guy, I said, “It’s not going to take me ten years to get good.” The reality is that it took me ten years to even get basic. I’ve done 3,000 live presentations around the world. For a period of time, I was on the road 300 days a year but that’s for another story. It was a few years ago that something happened and all of a sudden, my presentation capabilities and skills went to a whole new level. I could only attest that it has something to do with maturity and getting into my mid-50s and saying, “All I can do is serve as the best as I can. I’m not trying anymore.”

Remember the desperate kid in high school that wanted a date and could never get one. That was the cool guy who didn’t want a date that always got them. It used to irritate me all the time. It’s the same thing in life for us. When I stopped trying to self-promote and try to contribute at the highest level and serve at the highest level. We have a three-day certification for other professionals from around the world that come and learn about our twelve assessments that we have available. I’m in front of this room and I have people, other doctorates are in the room, people with Master’s degrees, very accomplished individuals, and VPs of large organizations. I pinch myself and said, “How did this happen? What’s this dairy farmer doing with this?” It’s not that I was discounting my worth or anything like that, but I sat in awe and in respect that these people would come and spend three full days with me to at least at minimum, I need to honor them that they would do that. That they would spend the most valuable commodity, time, such as this show, with me, with you. I need to have this mindset that it is a privilege to serve.

I don’t know if you’ve been around these people, Corey, where they almost think that they’re God’s gift to speaking world, to coaching or whatever. It just wants to make you puke. A few years ago, for the most part, I moved from that and said, “You’re amazing, Corey. I appreciate the fact that you would have me on the show that I’m able to be able to serve,” and to be in that mindset. People sniff that out. My abilities and who I am, it now took me nearly 30 years to get to this point. It was not overnight. It wasn’t in three years, it wasn’t even in ten years. It took 30 years to get this level of mastery and maturity.

I appreciate you sharing that with the successful thinkers out there because to me, it’s encouraging when we watch people attain a level of mastery, but know that they have the bumps, the bruises, and the scars that it took to get there. I admire what you said about God’s gift to coaches. I’ve been to seminars where you’ve paid significant money and you didn’t even get to meet the person who is putting on the seminar. I liked the idea that you were talking about grateful for your audience and your family. I believe, and I know you believe that at the end of the day, it’s the people in your life and the people that you add value to that determine whether or not you’re successful.

Nobody can upset you, only you can allow somebody else to do it. It is the highest level of responsibility that we need to take. Share on X

It’s about being rather than doing. I’m not saying that doing is bad, it’s just how can I be? It’s human being, it’s not human doing. I don’t say that I created that saying, but it’s out there. I appreciate your comments around that, Corey. My encouragement to everybody reading is that every single person brings value. Some of you are still searching on what that is. That’s okay. My other encouragement is that it doesn’t matter where you’re at. If you completely detest your job, you don’t know, you like it and you’re not sure. It doesn’t matter. You start wherever you’re at, don’t freak out, don’t get all riled up about it, and take the steps now to be intentional and move along. Don’t beat yourself up for going slow or fast. Go at whatever speed is comfortable, challenge yourself, move forward, make sure that there’s momentum, but at the same time, don’t be obsessing with obsessing. Let that go, be in this space of development, and allow yourself to grow and move into it.

One of the statements I make is that, “If you don’t know your purpose in life, then your purpose in life is to find your purpose in life.” That’s what you’re doing. Based on that discovery then you will have some life directions and life clarity that will support you. Our colleague, Brendon Burchard, who wrote the book, High Performance Habits. There were six habits he identified in his research. The number one habit of high performers is clarity. I know where I’m going, who I am, and what direction I want to go. With that, my encouragement to the readers is that if you’re uncertain and unclear, then your role or responsibility is to get clear. It’s not going. Everybody wants to keep moving. Everybody has urgency addiction. Slow down, stop, and just get clear. Clarity takes 3 or 6 months. Who cares, where are you going to be in five years and do nothing? Take the time to get clear. From that clarity, you will have confidence that will come into the decisions as you move forward.

It’s funny that you mentioned Brendon because one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had was going to Brendon’s High Performance Academy. I sat on the love seat in my office for almost three months going through exactly what you said, “What is my purpose in this world?” Successful thinkers, I want to share Ken’s thoughts that there’s no real stopwatch. Time in that sense is a man-made construct. Take the time you need, but just keep moving in the direction that fulfills you. Ken, you’ve got a lot of cool sites, books and things on the internet. Can you help me point the readers out there to you, how they can work further with you, and get in touch with you?

Thanks for that, Corey. First of all, I have a free gift for everybody. Any time that I’m on a podcast, I give away my book, The Quest for Purpose, which is a step by step roadmap to be able to get clear about what you’re supposed to be here for. If you’re clear then it’s a validation. To find that, go to my speaker site which is KenKeis.com/thinking and you’ll be able to have a hidden URL where you’d be able to download the book. It’s an eBook for you. If you’re a professional developer and you’re thinking about all the assessments and tools that we’re talking about that are available, then our corporate site is CRGLeader.com. Those will be the two main ones. The other thing is that we want to be approachable. If you want to send an email and if you want to send an inquiry, we’ll respond as best as we can. Don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions you might have as a result of our conversation.

If you don't know your purpose in life, then your purpose in life is to find your purpose in life. Share on X

Ken, can you give us some parting wisdom that you feel on your heart to share with our audience?

I sense there might be some people out there that are struggling about value in who they are, and that am I even worthy to be here? My encouragement is you are. When I was eighteen, I held a loaded gun and I wanted to commit suicide. Here I am, many years later, still alive, contributing, and writing all these books. All of us go through stuff. I want to encourage you that no matter what it is, it’s not worthy of these dramatic things. Reach out. You are important and take the steps. Hire Corey as a coach or whoever to serve you. Go get some help from individuals that are willing and able to take you to the next level. I look forward to hearing many of your stories of overcoming, but also breakthroughs that you’re going to have as a result of reading Corey’s blog and you’re taking steps in that direction.

Thank you for that, brother. I want to echo that one of my favorite quotes is Napoleon Hill, the author of Think and Grow Rich. He said, “Nothing that life has to offer is worth the price of worry.” Do yourself a favor. Read this episode a couple of times and recognize what Ken is talking about. If your life isn’t where you want it to be, you can take intentional steps to live on purpose. You can figure out what your purpose is. You know that I believe in you. You know that I love you. You know that Ken and I are here rooting for you. Thanks for reading. I hope you have a wonderful day. Thanks again.

Important Links:

• Consulting Resource Group International
• Source
• The Quest for Purpose
• Deliberate Leadership
• Why Aren’t You More Like Me
  
• Dr. Gottman
  
• Feeling Good
• Secrets of Success
• High Performance Habits
  
• KenKeis.com/thinking
• Think and Grow Rich
• www.Kenkeis.com

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