Day 364: Ken Foster
“… when we ask powerful questions, when we get in touch with what’s working and what’s not working, we can transform every area of our life. We are powerful beings. We are all children of the most high. We can make changes, as long as we’re willing to stop the pain and start looking at ourselves.”
.
.
.
Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Ken, for being part of this Project, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?
Ken Foster: Hi, this is Ken Foster, and I’m an author, speaker, and coach, and I work with individuals that want to grow their businesses and grow their lives and put a lot more money in their pocket.
Toni: Well that sounds like a good thing! So Ken, the first question of the Project is, who do you inspire, and how does that happen?
Ken: You know, I inspire my granddaughter. I inspire my wife. I inspire individuals that have an open mind and they’re at a place in their life where they really want to start to understand the principles of how this Universe works. They want to take their lives to a new level. They see other people living extraordinary lives, and they want a piece of that.
Everybody’s not a superstar. I don’t work with the superstars all that much, although some of them come my way. But what I do is I inspire individuals that are pretty much just ordinary people like myself who want to live extraordinary lives. So they come from all walks of life, and they’re all individuals that are looking. There’s a calling in their soul. There’s a calling inside of them. They know there’s more for them. They’re not sure where it is.
Sometimes they come to me – individuals that I inspire – they’re at a place where they feel like there’s a ceiling over their capacity to grow in their business, in their life. Sometimes it shows up … a lot of times with money with me. People come in. They have a block, you know? The economy crashed and now all of a sudden they’re thinking, “Gosh, I guess I’m never going to have enough money anymore. My bills are always never going to be paid, or my business is going to stay stuck.” I help people really get unstuck and inspired – those that are willing to do the work.
Toni: How do you believe your work helps people to explore their own potential?
Ken: My work helps individuals get to know themselves first. My work has to do with introspection. Introspection is an art of using powerful questions to go within one’s self to be able to bring forth the understanding, the wisdom that lies right within each of us. What I’ve found is a lot of people don’t ask the right questions, so they don’t get the right answers, because the answer is in the question that we ask. So when people start to go within, they start to learn a lot more about them.
Then we start to look at core beliefs. What are the beliefs that a person would have to have to be in the situation that you’re in now – I ask people that – and we look at those core beliefs. Then we look at the attitudes, you know? What is inspiring you? What is taking you to the next level? What’s stopping you?
Then, I help them to set up action plans. A lot of times, we just go back to basics. A lot of people know what they need to do, but they’re not doing what they know, and so I help them to look at what’s working in their life, what’s not working in their life, and then to be able to bridge that gap and to start to empower them to take back … to claim back their power. Their willpower. Their “won’t power.” Their power to manifest their dreams. That’s what I do, and I love doing it with people.
Toni: I love the willpower and “won’t power” – I think that’s fantastic. A lot of people talk about willpower – very few talk about “won’t power,” so I think that’s great. So Ken, what inspires you?
Ken: What inspires me? A good book. I’m inspired when I meditate, when I quiet the mind and still the thoughts of the day and I hear the voice within me speaking the wisdom that helps me take my life to the next level, time and time and time again.
My grandchildren inspire me. I love my grandchildren. They really inspire me. Also, I’m inspired by my spiritual teacher. I have several, but the one that has inspired me the most is Paramahansa Yogananda and his teachings of how to live life on life’s terms. I am inspired by just walking in the forest, just being in nature. Nature is so beautiful to me, so I’m inspired by that.
The other thing that inspires me is when I’m going out for a run or riding a bike. I do a lot of mountain biking. I’m inspired in nature constantly. I’m inspired when I can help others to be all they can be, to really bring their dreams, their gifts, their talents into the world, and help them to stop living the life of unknown fear, where they’re in a place where they don’t even know they’re fearful, but they’re not taking the risk to move forward. And then I see a person and their life all of a sudden just with one phone call or one thought or one idea, and all of a sudden they shift and they’re in this whole completely new place, and their life starts to work again.
I remember a story of one fellow that came to me, a very well known radio show host. His money was … he didn’t have any. He was running out. Bills were coming in. We made one shift for him, and he created $10,000 additional income in the first month, and it’s continued to go up every month since then for many, many months. So things like that really turn me on, and I think it’s when clients are … when I help inspire clients and friends and family, that just inspires me, too.
Toni: Ken, have you always shown up to the table this way? Did you always know that this is what you wanted to do?
Ken: Absolutely not!
Toni: So how did that happen?
Ken: Yeah, my story is … real quick, I started out in sociology and psychology in school. I thought that was going to be my path until somebody said, “You can’t make any money with that!” I thought, “Okay, I better go into business,” which I did. It took me … it skewed from where I was really supposed to be, I believe, in life, but it took me on a path.
One day I woke up, and I heard this little voice say, “You’ve got to feel the pain to make the change.” I went to a therapist that I was in therapy with because nothing was working in my life, and I told him that story. I said, “I keep hearing this voice.”
He was a wise man. He said, “Ken, you’ve got to follow that voice. I can’t do anything more for you.” As I walked out of his office, I thought, “Am I crazy, or is he crazy? He wants me to listen to some voice?”
But I started to ask new questions. I started to go within, and I started to take out the layers of ego and the layers of beliefs that were just absolutely ludicrous that I had been given, you know, as a child, and through parents and teachers and what have you. And as I started to ask, “What’s the truth? What’s the truth here? What’s the truth about me?” life started changing and unfolding for me in ways that it would take us hours to talk about here.
Toni: That’s amazing. It’s just so incredible the stories that come from people like yourself that really … once you became aware that there was something different you were meant to do, that you had the courage to go towards that – and that has been an unintended outcome of the Get Inspired! Project, and people are asking that question all the time – how did you take that first step? How did you know that you were brave enough to go there?
Ken: It was really easy for me. I was in a lot of pain, and pain is a great motivator of men. I was fortunate to have some really good coaches and mentors along the way that pointed that out to me and said to me that life is not a playground – which I thought it was – life is a school. Sure, we get recess, we get time off, but we’re here to predominately learn and evolve ourselves. Evolve our soul and evolve our character.
When I got in touch with that, I heard it in many different ways, and I can articulate it very clearly today. But when I got in touch with that, my life started to change, because I started looking at the results I was getting in my life. I started looking at what was working and what was not working, and daily asked myself what I can do to improve what’s not working in my life.
For instance, one of the questions I still ask every single morning is what can I do to make my wife Judy’s life better today? I ask that question. Stephen Jobs of Apple Computer asked a question for over 25-30 years; he still asks himself the question every day. He asks, “If I only had 30 days to live, would I be doing what I’m about to do today? Would I want to do what I’m about to do today?”
So when we ask powerful questions, when we get in touch with what’s working and what’s not working, we can transform every area of our life. We are powerful beings. We are all children of the most high. We can make changes, as long as we’re willing to stop the pain and start looking at ourselves.
Toni: Thank you for being so honest. Ken, the final question of the Project is, how are you continuing to explore your own potential?
Ken: I stretch myself. Right now, I’m in a new mode for me. I’ve been a speaker for many years. Today I’m putting myself out into the world in many new areas. For instance, this coming week I’m speaking with Chris Howard of Arvee Robinson and a fellow by the name of Joe Nunziata up in Orange County. You can see that at … one of the websites I didn’t tell you, it’s premiercoaching.com/change. So people who have an interest in seeing myself and some of the top speakers in Orange County, California this week, they can see that. So that’s it, man – speaking is stretching me like crazy!
Toni: Well, you have a very powerful presence by phone; I can only imagine you in person. I think that that must be pretty incredible to witness. What else are you doing that will just take you to the next step? Are you still going to be doing coaching?
Ken: I coach weekly. I have group coaching. We also have individual sessions. In fact, one of the things that’s happening is the economy of course shifted for everybody a couple years ago, so I also shifted my coaching programs, and I’ve made it very affordable for individuals to come in and experience the coaching with me.
In fact, if they go to my website – premiercoaching.com – right now, they can get a month’s worth of coaching with me for $97, and it’s not so much about the price – it’s what you get out of it. You know, if you’re in a place that you feel stuck, you feel like you really want to take your life to the next level – maybe you’re living an extraordinary life in certain areas and not in others – that’s what I do. That’s my gift to the world.
So I continue to do that, and what else have we got going? We have a large teleconference coming up where I’m speaking. We’re bringing 50 speakers together in the month of November, so we’ve got a few things on the plate.
Toni: It sure sounds that way. And for just being part of the Get Inspired! Project in our final days, we are thrilled that we took time out of your busy schedule to be part of this, Ken. We can’t thank you enough for that.
Ken: Toni, the work you are doing is absolutely phenomenal. Keep doing it. Keep bringing amazing guests to the world. You know, we all need a voice. I know there’s a lot of folks that are listening to this right now that are thinking, “Gosh, I can speak like Ken Foster – I should be out there.” Absolutely you should! Call Toni and get on her show!
Toni: Thank you so much. Take care, Ken.
Ken: You too, Toni. Thank you so much.
___________________________________________________________
For more information about Ken Foster: premiercoaching.com
.
Post Comment