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EP 216: Giving real people a platform - Ken Stearns

Ken Stearns is a grandfather, father, midwestern boy, writer, speaker, photographer, and lyricist.

He was an international insurance executive that quit to pursue his dreams of traveling the country meeting people, hearing their stories. 

He hosts The Jar Live, a unique podcast that focuses on real people and real conversations.

His American upbringing, living in 5 countries, working in 20 over the last 20 years gives him a wide ranging view on life, people, travel, business, food, culture.

In our conversation we dive into the store of the Jar and how he got to record podcasts with strangers like Tom the Flower man. We talk about his book Dear God and explore how all of this will enable change in leadership in this world.

Guest Links: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-stearns-b104167/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/podcast.thejar

Website: https://www.thejar.live/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ken_stearns/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaTqB1dhDvl0Oh505ysdxTg

Book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dear-god-ken-stearns/1141059687#

Link to the show:

Please find all resources like video, audio, show notes and as well some shorter clips of the episode at the show page: ⁠https://www.jensheitland.com/podcasthome⁠

Give a review:

If you enjoy this podcast, would you be so kind as to leave a short review, It takes less than 1 minute and really makes a difference to convince future interesting guests to join me for an interview. 

Apple Podcast: ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/human-innovation-the-jens-heitland-show/id1545043872⁠

Spotify Podcast: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/7H0GWMGVALyXnnmstYA1NL?si=7307c301794b483e⁠

Connect with me:

Sign up for my weekly Newsletter and get the latest human innovation news into your inbox. ⁠https://www.jensheitland.com/newsletter⁠

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My businesses Businesses:

Innovation Interim Management ⁠https://www.heitlandinnovation.com/⁠

Leadership Education ⁠https://www.wearesucceed.com/⁠

Transcript:

(This Transcript is AI generated)

Ken Stearns

Hello and welcome to the Human Innovation Podcast, the podcast for innovative leaders. I'm your host, Jens Heitland, and today my guest is Ken Stearns. Is grandfather, father, Midwestern boy, writer, speaker, photographer, and lyricist. He is an insurance executive that quit to pursue his dreams of traveling the country, meeting people, and hearing their stories.

He hosts The Jar Life, a unique podcast that focus on real people and real conversations. His American upbringing. Living in five countries, working in 20 over the last 20 years gives him a wide ranging view on life, people travel, business, food, and culture. 

In our conversation, we dive into the story of the. How he got to record podcast with strangers like Tom, the flower man. We talk about his book. Dear God and Explorer, how all of this will enable change in leadership in this world. Please welcome to the show, Ken Stearns.

Hello, ken, welcome to the show. Great to have you. How's it going? 

Thanks for having me. 

It's fascinating. I was digging into your story and I was listening to, I at least, I scrolled through 20 podcast episodes of yours.

Whoa. It was, it's fascinating to listen to the stories from Americans and Oh, that's great people out there. It's super cool. 

Real people have real conversations. Yes. Tell us about the story of the jar. How did you get in deciding that you do something with a jar? 

This is a question that is difficult for me to answer. It's a memory hole for some reason, Jens, and it came out of, what I can say is it came out of a lot of intentional things and those intentional things that I was doing in life.

They came together naturally, and they were not connected, in the beginning. But somehow the know, the evolution that, that creative iterative process. And then I think sometimes it just becomes obvious. , if that makes sense. Yeah. You go through these doors and these curtains and you keep going and you're not sure what's behind the next one, and all of a sudden look and you go, oh, I should just this should happen.

Like it should be like this. A backwards, fast forward. I was a corporate guy in Asia for about 20 years and a career before that in insurance. And so I was doing insurance guy stuff in Asia. I had an opportunity to live in five countries and work in more than 20 over a course of 20 years there.

And towards the end of it I decided I really wanted to work on my third act, in life. What was that third act gonna be? What did I want to be when I was 70? Try to imagine that imagineering process. And I love this, where it's like, what do I want to do?

What are my life skills? And so along that way I started writing a book to become a public speaker. I thought public speaking was something I was good at. I enjoyed it at work. I had a reasonable amount of practice. Yeah. So I thought I could do it.

And so I started writing this book, and then I got the next crazy job. And the book got sidelined, and I had also picked up this unfortunate working title Dear God. And I thought that's gonna kill any kind of corporate speaking career, because it's got the God word in it.

And even though it wasn't religious for whatever reason it just made me pause. And like I said, then I got back into a crazy corporate job and I was back on that saddle and the book got pushed into a drawer forgotten about. And I got outta that crazy job into another crazy job.

And about four years later, I was sitting in this new job in Thailand. And and I knew this was an easy job and my brain was gonna have an opportunity not to pour things into strategies, not to pour my brain power into human relationships at work. So I bought a guitar for myself.

And the commitment I made to myself was, I'm gonna do this for two years. No matter how bad it hurts, I'm gonna to buy a good guitar. I'm gonna treat myself. But to do that, I gotta get lessons for two. You have never played before. I had, this was my third crack. Yeah. Okay. I failed twice. , I failed in fifth, sixth grade, and then I failed when I was about 30.

Huh. Both times gave the way guitar away, gave up. And I thought, man, this time at least two years and I'll make that commitment. And that turned out to be a really important thing in my life because that intentional act that was momentous, pushing me forward in, in a direction, ended up I met a person and that person said, we should write a song.

And the song came from some of the notes that I had written on the Dear God book. I as he prompted me and prompted me, like, every week, let's write a song. We should write a song, we should write a song. And finally I was like, I have some words. I have no idea how to write a song.

Yeah. But I could steal some words from my notes. And so we sat down with a highlighter on a Sunday afternoon and scratched out some verses and a chorus. And over a couple of weekends I wrote my first song and it was like, wow, that is cool. I was addicted, so I had more notes to go through and I wrote a couple more songs, but I was out of notes now cuz the book was just, scratch paper.

And so this forced me weirdly buying a guitar, making this commitment. The universe just got behind me. I met this gentleman who asked me that question. I ran outta words and I started writing the book to satisfy my song writing. Urge , oddly. And before I knew it, I was really in love with the the construct of the book I thought was powerful and I thought there was more to it than just writing a book for myself.

It was really a culmination of a lot of thinking about life. And so the idea of the book is it's letters to God asking, of checking in, do I have this right? Isn't this what this is all about? Don't I have it figured out? God, I think I got this stuff. I got this world, I got this world nailed down and it was, so there's four parts to it.

The first one is self. And this is all about your yesterday's, your today's, and your tomorrows. I call it the battlefield of your mind. Yeah. Love. Everything happens in between those two ears. Yeah. 

I tell you, , especially in the beginning or in corporate and innovation and stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know what people, what the boss thinks about you. Did I do this right? There's a lot of second guessing and thinking about the future but really it's a great conversation about self. Yeah. And then I, the next part to me was my interactions with other people directly.

The relationships that I'd built one-on-one with people. And I really f for whatever reason the words that came to me were acceptance, forgiveness, and compassion. And, and I thought, man, if I could display those things in my interpersonal relationships, that would probably go a long way.

And there's a lot of talk around acceptance now. And for me, acceptance became not, it's not approval. That's different. Right. Approval's different from, I don't have to approve of what everybody else does or thinks or says. But I can accept how they get there.

I can accept your viewpoint. I can accept your, even if it's a terrible viewpoint, I can understand how you may get to that place, and I can appreciate that. It's not mine, but I can accept you as a person and I can be okay with you. Yeah. And then, forgiveness is obviously it takes age to get to a place where you gotta realize forgiveness.

It's not about forgiving the other person. Yeah. It's forgiving yourself, Yeah. And forgiving yourself. For sure. Yeah. And then also forgiving the other person to let go of that and not to hold onto it. Let it. . Yeah. And so it's a great chapter. And then compassion has obviously got some, I'm really struggling, living in different countries where, you know, even like India, a place where compassion on the streets is not always seen and, but yet you're driving around seeing things where you're compassionate soul the heartstrings are just, being played.

And so how, what does compassion mean? And so these are questions I'm asking God. And then the next one was more of a humanity approach. And I called that, love karma and service are the topics we go through there. And it's really about humanity, and I think if we've got love for fellow man, if we've got karma, and I'm sure In Europe, it's the same. I'm sure you have the same old grandma language that we have. Yeah. Which is leave things better than you found it and treat people like you wanna be treated. Yes. The fundamentals of karma for me obviously it's different things to different people, but as a general rule for humanity, I looked at it like that.

And then finally is service, it started as charity, but it was obviously became service because it's service to mankind, right. Service to other people. Can you get to a place? Isn't that part of what life is and about being a human is being in service to other people not just yourself.

And the last one is the book of you. I was calling it kinda the book of you, which is God or creator. Yeah. Or wherever you're at, whatever language you use and wherever you're at on that spiritual spectrum. And so that was faith hope and prayer, meditation, mindfulness on the prayer part.

So it's different words for everybody, but for me I was gonna be pretty blunt and direct cuz it was talking to God. So I couldn't sugarcoat it. I had to get straight to it. Yeah. And so it's really asking God, what are those things, and so it's me writing these letters to test my theories and to let other people read my ideas and reflect on 'em. And that writing that thing was really interesting cuz slowly as it came together, this idea of what do I want to be when I grow up? And how do I get back to America?

Yeah. What am I gonna do? How can I be relevant? And, I had this idea to travel when I retired. take a year off and just come, or, even maybe not retire, but just come back and do something else and travel the US and boy, man, I don't know where these ideas came at the end, it's now back to the question, how do they, no idea.

But it comes from doing these intentional acts. And, all of a sudden the idea to bring the letters from the book and to put each letter up on the computer and to find eight questions from each letter. So it's 48 letter as four letters per topic. And so to go in there and say, okay, you know what is love and to write.

End up with 16 questions around, love. , and to do this with every topic. And it was, or not 16, but 32 questions for every topic. And it was, man, it was painful, cuz I'd already written, you write the book, you edit the book, you re-edit the book. Somebody edits it, they send it back.

You gotta look at the, you've, I've, by the time you finished the book, you're like, I don't wanna see that book ever . And so I got to sit down for a few weeks and create 444 questions that I was gonna print out, put in the jar and travel the country and allow people to pull a question, allow the guests to sit down and pull a question outta the jar and have a conversation around it and pull another question.

And we usually get about 20 questions, per episode. And so it's a good taste, they get a good percentage of the questions and I think what, like you said earlier, fascinating. I think it would be for Europeans, cuz I'm not interviewing people in New York City. Yeah.

You It's not the west coast, east coast right? It's the smallest towns medium size town. It's some big towns. I interviewed eight amazing people in New York City, eight amazing stories. But I'm also getting such a cut across the country, 111 cities. And so it's I've got about halfway through and I've taken a break here in Atlanta.

I restart on Monday. On Monday morning I start back the tour. I got another 50 cities, another 200 people to see where it goes. And so I'm gonna, I'm super lucky. I've, I've got a great halfway point and it's a great time to reflect and to see am I in the right direction, and am I doing the right things still?

I think you are. So what I have seen as well, the engagement of the people on your journey, it's so fascinating. I mean, one part is just seeing the videos on YouTube where people are drawing the question that was like, some people are now don't want to want to know it. Just shoot. 

Yeah. , yes. 

You saw some of this.

Yeah. J just tell them to me. 

Just read it to me. Yeah. And then 

some people are drawing them reading and it's like the brain starts to tick, tick tick, tick. Right. Oh, how do I interpret that? It sounds smart. . which is not at all what it is about. It's, yeah. But it's super cool.

Yeah. 

Yeah. It, you also get to see I, and I think even for like yourself, when you hear the question, There's an interpretation first. Yeah. Huh. Which I'm, really weird Jens. I imagined in a vision so accurately. It's weird to me, like no surprises on the show, but the biggest surprise at the same time was I knew people would answer based on their life experience.

But I forgot that they would interpret it on their life experience. Yeah. So when people started reading the question and saying, this is what it means to me, I was like, no, it doesn't , because I wrote the book, I wrote the question, it means this. And, and obviously of course you just sit back and go, wow.

I had like, okay. So it was my biggest surprise was missing that p part of it because I was so dialed into where the question came from. . Yeah. 

How did it start? How did you find your first person for the first interview? 

Yeah. I let, we'll talk the two cities, the first two cities.

Yeah. Cuz they're they're polar opposites. The first one so I ended up picking a city. My daughter lives in Portland. So I figured I would start, I had this hallway in Vietnam when I was living in Vietnam for the last two years.

And that's where I did most of my planning and a lot of the finishing work. And I had six whiteboards drilled into the wall, down the hallway. Yeah. had the maintenance guy come up and drill these into the wall. And on the opposite side, I had this map of the United States big plastic map.

And I had a dry eraser and I would just play in the mornings with a standing there with a cup of coffee in my towel. And I would just, Draw squiggly lines where I was gonna go. Yeah. Then I erase it and come back the next day and draw another one. And then I realized I wanna follow the sun and, start in April and here's how we'll go.

So I went across the upper United States and then down the east coast and I'll go across to the west now. So I picked Washington, Olympia, Washington. I picked two cities. I go in every state is the capital. Or one, I mean one city in every state. And then I picked something in the middle along the way.

And a lot of it is very random, just looking at a map and just zooming in and go, oh, that sounds like a cool town. 

And this old cities you have never been, or except the big ones. 

Maybe most of the stuff I've never been. Yeah. Never been. Yeah. And so the first one was great. I got back in touch with an old college friend who I hadn't seen in 35 years. He was my anchor person in Olympia. And so it was really great. I got to interview a friend, a person I really didn't know, honestly. Yeah. I knew him from college. Yeah. It's a long, long time ago. , long time ago. And so I actually stayed in his house got to meet him and know him again.

And he was great. And the first guest that he turned me onto, so he was the second guest, but the first guest turned out to be his pastor and pastor Carls episode one, he's Aen, he started, it's atheist, became a pastor. He was raised an atheist and found his way and his spiritual journey's really.

And we just hit it off and it was an amazing, for me, like proof of concept. I left there I was Dr. I was flying, because everything worked out like I thought I did. I didn't screw it up. I got the recording, the questions went good and his answers were like, butter, cuz he's a theologian, right?

Yeah. They 

know how to talk . 

Oh man. And these spiritual questions, right? Jens, I mean, yeah, 

my father was a pastor too. 

Okay, then yeah. You're just, yeah, I know that works. . Yeah, he lays a bass down. He frames it, and he starts to build. It's just, man, it was beautiful. And then I had Tom and a couple more, and we get most of our guests now through a little Facebook post, letting people know we're coming be a guest.

I use LinkedIn. If I have some time, I'll curate some guests in advance. And then the other one is the second city I went to. So I made it a little tactical error. I made a mistake, on my second city. I picked this small ass town, but it was big, it was part of a dam, and I wanted to get up to this big dam in the, after the World War, be between the Korean War and stuff.

The US had this Army Corps of Engineers. And there was a bunch of board engineers that went around and built crazy stuff. They built dams, they did a lot of dams, and then they made parks and lakes and stuff. And so I thought, oh, I wanna go to the Cooley Dam. Built 1940 something, one of the first big projects.

And I picked this wrong place called, I picked, not Cooley Dam City. I picked Cooley City. Somehow I picked the wrong one. . And so I rock up into this town and there's not a stop light. There's not even a stop sign on the road. . It's, I think there's about, you 

have had no, nope. 

Interview set up. I had, so I had my first four all set up and this town, we, for whatever reason, Facebook, no one was replying.

Because there's nobody there, . So I rock up into the city. I do a u-turn in the middle of the road cuz there's nobody there. And there's this bar called cooligan. So I cr cruise into Gans after doing a U-turn, driving by real slow. And I park right in front and I slide in and it looks like this American western bar, real long wooden bar, the liquor behind it, some server a, pool table in the back, karaoke dance hall in the front.

And there's this Harley Davidson looking guy with a big beard. About halfway down the bar sitting there, and I'm like okay. I wanna sit at the bar, but I don't wanna get too close . But I don't wanna be unfriendly. So I'll sit two stools away and sure enough, I sit down and the guy looks over at me after a half second looks over, and it's two in the afternoon.

We're drinking. Yeah. Looks over at me and goes, what's in the jar? And I was taken back. Right. A little bit like, oh, that was aggressive. . And you had your 

job with you in inside of the 

environment? No. I didn't know what he was talking. How did he like, okay. I was like and he goes and he nudges out the window.

Look, he looks like this out the window. He goes, saw he drive by. Ah, so he has seen your van. He saw the van, yeah. And then he saw me park in front, and then I looked out the window and you could see the van. And I got a big logo on the hood. Yeah. And then I thought, oh, okay. So we started talking and, before I knew it, he told me his whole story.

Complete stranger. In the afternoon and somebody in the bar told me his whole story. The next night I was at his house and he was on the show. Awesome. And his wife sat there the whole time. And really great couple. And as soon as we finished, she jumped up out of her chair. You gotta get me on the show tomorrow,

And, and I was just like, what is happening? This is cool. And so I was back the next night they cooked dinner together, we had a couple of beers, we talked I interviewed his wife. Just an amazing, so I pick up people in bars, is how I get some of the is some how I, I get some of the guests 

and it, so right now it's, you already know which cities you want to go from a planning perspective and you're using Facebook to get a couple of people, and if not, then you will find someone. 

Exactly. Yeah. There's on our website we've got, I use a software called Road Trippers. Yeah. And so the whole map is filled up with where I'm gonna be and not the dates yet, but it's laid out.

Yeah. It's laid out usually about, about six, eight weeks in, in advance. I've got the dates laid out. Yeah. So people can have a look at it and they can have a look and see. Yeah. And we're using it now as part of the the booking for people to book. Yeah. It helps them see where they're at and then they can get into the calendar.

It's so cool. I would love to do that in Europe. , 

abso, you could do it. Hey I'll franchise it for free, absolutely. 

I just love the idea is just taking the jar and people are drawing their questions and it's nothing staged. They haven't seen the questions before, maybe. Of course, they have listened to other interviews already.

Yes. But it's not professional podcast guests, which you would think of in other podcasts. Like, if me interviewing you, you know, how to do a podcast, that's easy because you have done a couple of Yes. They have never done anything. That's for most of them, I guess it's their first interview ever that someone is asking them something.

Abso and the, so yes. And then the second part there, there's two more parts of this. The second one is somebody's listening to them. True. Truly listening. Yeah. For one hour and something. Now you, you know, as a guest in your, anybody listening to this show, imagine you actually somebody listening to you for an hour, really uninterrupted, with not coming up with any, not if you're interrupted.

It's more to find out more about what you said. Not about interjecting my truth. Exactly. Not your 

opinion. 

Yes. I, although I do some of that , I mean, I I do at times. But 

it's mainly to to keep the conversation 

flowing. 

Exactly. And it is about the guest. Yeah. And the other thing that you've seen that you're you articulated to before is watching that answer formulate, huh?

There's nothing in the jar that you haven't thought about. Yeah. It's all stuff we think about struggle with daily and or talk, we might talk to people about it a bit, but when you have to crystallize an opinion or an experience and you'll, the gears a turn and when it comes out of people's mouth, even their own wonderment at what they said is so amazing to me.

Yeah. It's like such a special place for me to be helping people and watching them articulate their own truths. Yeah. 

What I love when I listen to some of them, how deep they go into their own story Yeah. And how open they are talking about as well very difficult. It's fascinating. 

I just interviewed this morning on, I have a mental health podcast.

I started as a, as a counter to this. Yeah. And this morning I had on Jessica Hasley she was one of my guests. And I don't know people's stories beforehand. Right. And she was sharing how she lost twins at 26 weeks and had to deliver them after she knew that they were al they had already passed.

And she shares a story, and it's just like, I mean, people have got such strength. Yeah. We don't give them credit for that. They can get through this stuff and the, like you said, so open and people wanna share their story. They want people to hear. It's powerful. It's really powerful and I totally, I so much appreciate that about the guests.

Yeah, I think there's a lot everyone can learn from that as well. Thinking about an international perspective, so me sitting here in Europe, being in the, let's say the European Western European bubble, everyone has opinion in these days. The whole world is split apart in the moment, and we discussed about that as well.

Yes. In the pre chatt, couple of weeks ago, just seeing normal people from different parts of the world, which you don't see in the news because the new news are just showing, Hey, there's a bomb, there's this that's bad. Yes. It's politics. It's not normal. , and I mean, you have lived in different countries.

I have lived in different countries. One of the examples, I lived in Russia and I've met people, I have good friends in Russia. Yes. And now we are in this situation where the world is bonkers and we don't see the normal people behind things. We just see the politics. And that's what I love about the people on your podcast, including yourself.

Obviously it's normal people. They have a normal life and difficult situations like everyone is facing Yeah. In certain times of their life as well. So it's so much relatable and that shows how close we are together though, that we are far away each other. Yeah. 

And the I, the part I've been really so happy about is there's no politics on the show.

Yeah. Never comes in. Yeah. And it's just, it's not even. It's not part of it. I mean, there might be some couple people of allude to it, and I have a couple that are a little spicy . And, but they're spicy and the whole thing. Right. The whole thing's spicy. Yeah. Yeah. You can't, you can listen to it and to get, even my daughter who is she's like my good litmus test, for, what's socially, what's okay and not okay.

And what is acceptable . Yeah. Yeah. When we like, dad, you can't say this, she'll keep me outta trouble and keep me in line. And I thought some of the people I've had on, cuz you've, if you've followed some of those, I've had some really religious people on people of faith.

And it comes out in the questions, like you said the design and my hope of the show, the way that it was constructed I'm so happy to hear you say it cuz it, it makes me feel pretty good, is that their story comes out. And that's what I want. I want people able to be able to tell their story, but I'm not a good interviewer.

And people typically aren't good storytellers. , it's a craft and it's their first time being. 

Right. I, as I said, you are a fantastic interview because what, at least for me, like, like I said as well before we record it, he, you bring so much from your executive life into this mm-hmm which is not visible in the way how you do it, but the questions you ask, they're more like a leadership coaching questions, which get the other person talking open up in ways.

Yeah. Which I guess you couldn't do that if he would not have the executive experience and leadership. 

Yeah I think for sure it's almost like I don't even notice it. Right. For sure. I don't notice it. It's become my style. And it, and I think, yeah, I didn't maybe give myself enough credit on the interview side.

But allowing people to tell their story and then through the book and through the questions is like, I'm still sometimes just going, man it works. This is cool. And people do get to tell their story and we don't have to be contrite or, making sure we get it in.

Yeah. It just comes, they read a question and it just comes pouring out like you saw, so many times. 

Yeah. How do you document the totality? I've seen YouTube videos , where you link the different stories together when you go into one tower. Oh yeah. The one city, yeah. Yeah. You drive with your van and then you film yourself in the van and then have the different interviews.

Do you document that more? 

We stopped that. It was of pricey. I mean, to put that together was honestly not cheap. And I wish I could have kept it going. Cuz that could be almost a show in itself. I was about to say. It was really put together as a pitch for Netflix.

Yeah. That's a Netflix show, the way that's put together. And the gentleman that did that is a smart guy, really creative. But I had to, I had to keep the team thinner and thinner, the farther I got away from my last paycheck. And this is all me.

I get the idea. Yeah. You. And so I gotta make sure finish the project, make sure I keep going. But that's a good documentation. So I take a film of everything, so I have at least one camera running. So I have enormous library Yeah. Of the conversations and everything.

And so that part's good. I know I've got it stuff, all the gems are there and there's so much good stuff in the library. 

Shout out. If there's anyone out there who wants to dive deeper into that and support Ken, reach out to him or to me. I happy to connect you guys, . Ah, 

that'd be awesome.

I'm working now. I 

honestly think this just the documentation as well, your journey on how do you meet. If we take the example with the colleague in the bar, how do you meet this guy? Imagine this would be all documented. That's almost like, like you say, it's a Netflix series where people are just interested in how do you hit up different people on your road?

How did you meet people? What's their story and how does that work? Because that's real life. It's not set up in like, in, in the other things which is all trimmed and everything is politically correct. This is just normal life. 

Oh, it's real. It's real life. I had an another slight one, another fun one like this, very similar.

I was in Des Moines, Iowa. I mean, it's just middle of the country, right? It's Yeah, I've heard . Yeah. It's near Chicago. It's stead center in the country, and it's basically cornfield, Jens as far as you can see. Yeah. . It's just cornfield outside of, outside the main city. And I was stay at this place and I was walking to this restaurant, go get some lunch, and it was a, it's a bar pub kind of a place.

And I've got kind of a walk, funny pace, and I'm walking, I look over as this other guy about my age, know, looks a little like me, and he's kind of walking in the, we're we're dia we're gonna meet and we're gonna meet at the front door, and it's obvious that our we're gonna actually collide.

Right. Our paths are crossing . And I've learned along the way that, you know, almost, there are no accidents, there's no coincidences. , especially when you're doing what I'm doing, which is completely open to the uni and just. , I'm out there. There's nothing like you said, prescribed or scripted.

I haven't closed those doors. Yeah so it's open, right? It's not a, it's not a prescribed, so I'm open, so I have to remain open. And so anyway, sure enough, we get there and we both wanna hold the door for each other and we're kinda laughing, right? And we like, and it's this awkward man, it's like a bromance already.

Yeah. at the front door, right? Yeah. . And it was like so awkward. It was like, okay, he, we both went into the bar and then he went to go sit down in somewhere and I was like, awkwardly trying to find a place not near him, because , cause that's just too weird.

I'm still resisting the force at this point. And sh I can't, there's no space. There's only one spot in the bar. Left next to him, next to him, . And Okay. go over and I'm like I guess we're meant to meet each other, and so we start talking a little bit and I share within my business card I have these unique business cards that has a question on one side from the jar.

Love that. That's cool. And my contacts on the other side, so I sit with people and I say, how about a question of the day? And I'll fan out about 10 business cards. Yeah. And, pick one. And then that's their question of the day. And we talk, and then I introduce myself.

I met Tom Bozeman. Tom was the flower king of Iowa. And he's got a story, and the next day I was at his house hearing his. Fantastic story, amazing person, great heart. But you know, there it was just, I was supposed to meet him, supposed to hear his story for whatever reason, I, maybe, I don't know yet the real, the final reason.

But it's interesting. So I met Tom so another guest like that, and there's several stories like this. 

Yeah. That's super cool. What did you learn about people in general? So you have been living in Asia for quite a long time. Yeah. Going back into your home country, which I did couple of years back as well.

Yes. And it was very difficult for me. How was that 

for you? I've been watching expats come and go. Y right. And I've seen it. Right. I know. That's trouble, right? Getting back is not easy. The integration. Yeah. And even my daughter went back and had a struggle.

I mean, honestly, she really struggled, went back and it was hard for her. There's no manual, there's no help, there's no guide. Nobody gives a fk. You're just on your own. So I thought, I thought this is also a really good therapeutic way for me to get back and meet Americans.

Yeah. And reintegrate back into my own country. Cuz I, I was a bit of a foreigner, honestly. Yeah. Right. I mean, I hadn't, culturally and, you politically, I didn't know that. I had no idea on the pulse of America. I knew what c n n told me, but , I didn't know what was really going on.

So it was really good to, to use that to meet people and to find out at the end, we're all human. Yeah. We have a lot, we have way more in common than what. Social media and the news would like you to think. Yes. I I came up with this idea of the bell curve, or analogy back to the bell curve, right?

Which is most of us we're in the middle on all of the human, especially everything in the jar and human stuff, and real life things. Family, self, love. Worried about the future. Think about the pa. All these things we're right, smashed up against the middle, and you could be a little bit green or you could be blue, but you're gonna be darn, you gotta, you know how much a crossover stuff there is too.

know, On this one, on this topic, you're here, but on that topic, you're here. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're, if you of take that, that median and you fat it out a little bit, we're all the same now. Somehow we've let the fringe elements on the sides. , with the clown horns and the cars. Yeah.

And the, and the microphones and the spotlights, the clown shows on both sides of any issue are all the ones that seem to somehow get the attention. And that's what we're supposed to believe is real life. Yeah. And real people. But you know, I think we can remind the audience that no, , you have a lot more in common with the person in front of you in the car than you think the person next to you on the train.

We're all human. The part that surprised me, or the takeaway was the strength of humanity is really, the human spirit is unbreakable. Yeah. I mean, we crack, we bend sometimes, smooshed, but somehow it regains its shape and and I think, for anybody listening, you're going through a tough times.

Man, keep going. , it will end right. And there's light at the end of the tunnel. You just gotta keep moving. The spirit is strong, man. I'm blown away by what people can go through in life and still wake up the next day. 

Yeah. True. What can we learn from this as if you would go back, if we just take an idea, you would go back to corporate as a leader, what would you take out of your experience now with meeting all these different people into a leadership role?

God, I'd be way more human. . Tell me more. I would be so much more of a human. My leadership style before. pretty open and very supportive. , very coaching like. Yeah. I think you picked it up in my questions. Yeah. My, my leadership style is very supportive, very coaching based.

The idea is to build people, support people. Yeah. And my belief is almost everybody I come in con, if you're in a role, you probably can do that role. And you probably can excel at it at some point, given coaching and time and support. But I was also a salesperson and I was also a sales executive ultimately at a high performing organizations.

Yeah. Where accountability was a real thing. And sometimes, , we didn't, metrics were, we measured daily metrics. I've been in places where you get hourly metrics. We look at, phone call, like, you manage when you start reviewing call centers , you look at it, you look at it hourly.

And I think sometimes getting caught up in that pursuit of achieving goals and targets and goal setting. I love to set, crazy goals for, for companies and for teams, individuals. I would be softer in a way, more supportive more in touch.

I think I can say it best like this. I now know that I don't know what people are going through every day, despite the face that I'm talking to in a meeting. No matter what smile they put on or the attention face or the, the, they look like they they listening to me. I don't know what's going on in their head and what they're dealing with.

and I would give a lot more grace as a leader. And is that 

because we are not that open in the workplace where we talk about these things? Or is it ooh what is the reason 

for that? Yeah. Yeah. We're not vulnerable at work. For sure. So I think it's, it culturally, I don't think in corporate life you're allowed.

Right. I don't think it's a permission that's given. Why not? Yeah. It's a great weakness. Cuz it would show weakness the higher you go up, that you talk to some of these New York traders, right? They're savages, . As soon as somebody shows weakness, right? Yeah. They're gonna kill, they're gonna, they're gonna destroy that person's weakness to kill 'em so they can climb on top of their head, and push 'em under the water.

Yeah. . So I think there is that perception that's what it is. One is perception. Two, it's stigma. You don't want to be that person with this and you may not escape that if somebody labels you. Yeah. I had this idea to use the jar in a corporate setting. You and I are got a lot of very similar backgrounds and we've been to so many team buildings.

You think of all the team buildings you've been to and at the end of the team building, everybody goes away and, you and what skills did you pick anything up? What did you pick? What can you use in the, the last go around the room? What did you learn? Yens this week that you can, you're gonna, the one thing you're gonna go back and, implement tomorrow, in your business.

And and those are like team or team building trying to get to become friendly with somebody. But the team building is really, it's never the vulnerability and I never get to know the person. So what if we had a jar, what if it was you and 50 of your teammates and we put two of us in a table in the middle with two chairs with the jar.

And you picked a question and I read it to you and you shared your answer. And then I picked a question, you read it to me and I shared my viewpoint and all these human topics. And I suddenly got to know Jens, the human. Like you said, the storytelling comes out, the life comes out to the questions.

And if I had that view of who you were as a human, I would think, I would not in have to interpret what you meant when you said something in a meeting, when you wrote an email. Yeah. That I got snarky about . Or you didn't approve something cuz you're the c F O and I know it's because my boss doesn't like you.

Or, I'm gonna put some reason behind that. and then I, but I know you as a person and I think I got some compassion for you now. I understand how you think about, your past, what hap maybe even I might, you might even share part of what your past was and I'd be like, whoa. I think that skillset of being able to have some grace for people, some compassion for people, an appreciation that we don't know what people are going through.

And maybe those are conversations as leaders, we can have one-on-one and be open to being approached. 

Yeah. What I was just thinking while you said that, how do we get us closer to that? I know it's very difficult because organizations are set in this way. Like you said, you have been in sales, which means you are measured from A to Z.

Yes. And that's. Highly likely not going to change quickly, , because that's how the business is measured. So I was just thinking what if we would change the measurement of success?

The we have an old, there's a couple of these insurance adages one of these training programs. And, but this one is a steal over from other corporate stuff, but it's what gets measured gets done. Yeah. 

Especially in Germany. , , 

I love, Hey man, that's what you can count on.

And it's a great culture to a point, right? To a point. As long as, I guess what your point is, as long as the ruler that you're using is the right one. Yeah, exactly. And could you change that ruler? What if the KPIs are more human focused?

Yeah. Different indexes. How people in the company, what you know, eh, it's culture in a way, right? It could be part of the culture. Yeah. But 

culture is not really measured today. It's just something that happens. I always say yes, culture is the thing when the boss is outside of the room, what is happening inside of the room when the boss is not there?

That's a genius definition. 

Yeah. I've stolen it from someone else, but I dunno. Yeah. It's all right from whom. But it's so true. That is real. Cultures like what? The stuff that's happening when the boss leaves the room. If everyone is chatting about the boss, then you know what's going on. If everyone is just themselves, 

Yeah.

I'm trying to think of what that means, right. The impact. Because when you hear it, it's powerful and then you start to think about it. And you're right. If it's negative, if, and if it's people in fighting or if, and it means when you may say, mean to leave the room, it's really not being in that space.

And what happens at the ground level, what are people talking about at the cubicles? Yeah. And you know Exactly. And the, what is the tone of the emails going back and forth, these communications. And that's the culture. You're absolutely right. That's set by the boss, honestly. 

Yeah. And there's a huge leadership part of that.

And just taking, looping us back to your story and what you experience with the people you interview. What we see right now in this world is the, like the dividing part. , yes. But in the end, what we also see is, hey, we are the same. So if we are fundamentally are the same, , why can't we be the same in the work environment?

Why can't we only do this at home when there comes a stranger with a jar? . 

Yeah, . We get into our tribes at work. Yeah. I think, we are tribal by nature and I do think you get into these little tribes at work. And I think, once soon as you go tribal then there's the they and them and us and them.

Yeah. Kind of mentality. 

We need to figure that 

out somehow. I, it's a great point. Something that I'm gonna ponder now.

Yeah. It's good. . Give me that thought of, and how can I impact that at work? Right. How does that message how do I craft that into a message with a CEO O Exactly. Because they'll, they'll feel it, right? If you get a CEO e o with that and they will absolutely resonate with them. like, ah, yeah, that's my, that's in the dark corner and I don't really want, I don't think about it cuz I can't solve it.

That's 

the difficult stuff. Exactly. Yeah. And you can't change that in one 

day. No. Absolutely not. I would argue though I'm still I'm that theory of when we humanize each other and we under, and we got an appreciation for who we are, the road I've walked down and I can see that and I can find some acceptance with other people.

And I think it is that, through that acceptance, that understanding comes that kind given some grace, you know Yeah. Give people some grace. I wish I had that skillset when I was an executive. A wee bit more . I apologize to everybody that ever came in contact with me,

But 

that's also good because being open and say, Hey, I learn because we always learn it. Yes, I did mistakes yesterday, but I don't need to do them tomorrow again. 

Yeah. I'm a different person than when I started. I had some inklings I would be different or I would be impacted or touched or something, but I didn't know I would be changed.

Yeah. I'm truly changed I'm on that road where I can accept that the next part of the journey, the second half is gonna have an impact on me. I was 

about to say you are only halfway through. 

Yeah, I'm only halfway and I'm just getting my head around it that I am different and

I'm open to change. I'm trying to become a better person out of this. And I think and that part's surprised me. And I'm still of struggling with it in a way. Yeah. Yeah. 

Do you have any idea where you will 

end up? I don't. I don't know where it's leading me. I've gone, this is of a fun, I've burnt my boats.

That's good. I burnt my boats I don't know where I'm going. I don't know how I'm gonna, I don't know how I'm gonna get there. I have a roadmap. I'm driving somewhere. Yeah. And I've I was sharing this with a couple people. Some people have asked me this question in different formats or different ways, guests and stuff.

And I did have this very, this Irish lady, this kind of older Irish lady said, oh, there's an Irish saying the path will rise to meet you. Yeah. And so I'm sure we have the same German saying. I was gonna say, there must be something in German . Yeah. 

How is it said in so in, in German, and it is basically the road shows the road if you yeah.

The path shows the road. It doesn't really work in, in, in a direct translation because it's a weird saying in John, but it's means. . 

Yeah. The path will rise cuz it, no, the path will rise to, I'm on a road, I'm on a path of something or actually I'm not. I feel like at times I've got a machete and I'm going through the, sometimes it feels like I got a machete and I'm going through the jungle, honestly,

And sometimes it feels like I'm, on a skateboard going down a pretty steep hill . But 

that's what is me, that's also the exciting part. Just, yeah. I mean, we know each other a couple of weeks and I just follow you in social media and it's like, oh my God, that's cool.

That's cool. And discovering you and backtracking you because we didn't know each other. Yes. Yeah. So it's just fascinating to see the different stages where you have been in, in the past. And of course, I will follow you now going forward as well. Intrigued to see where this is going and happy to support in any way I can on the road.

Yeah. 

As well. I love that. Yeah. And so thank, and it's really appreciated. I'm, to keep the journey going, to keep discovering stories and to see where it leads Yeah. see what can we do with this and what comes out of it. And I hope it's something way bigger than myself.

It has been about giving real people a platform to share their story. And hopefully those stories resonate with other people and they can get strength from it, become better people change and it's great to hear that as you listen to it, what you get out of it, it's powerful for me.

Yeah. It's 

super good. Let's use then to get into the last part of the podcast. Mm. Where I ask a couple of questions. That are connected or not connected to our conversation. Let's see, , let's see. I, first, I always call them rapid fire uh, questions, but then people always says like, but they're not rapid fire.

They're tough . So yeah I've changed them a little bit. But, let's see. , 

have you ever faced a machine gun ? It's also pretty tough, . 

So if you could work with a project that's impacting every human on earth, what project would you choose to work with and why would you choose to work with that project? 

Mm. Work with a project that's affecting everybody on earth? Yeah. It would be re I think right now it's gonna be something mental health. And I've gotta think about who, who have I seen globally and I haven't seen that project yet. And I'm now in this space of mental health and I want to find that.

Who's really driving a conversation, like I'm trying to do, to get this kind of conversation. Cuz the jar is ultimately has really been a mental health journey. Yeah. Now if I look back on it, right? Yeah. It's a lot about mental health. Or just, awareness in a way. Mental awareness, mindfulness.

I'd like to find that project. So I don't have the name, in, in a way, but I know what I want to do now. Yeah. Is to find who's in that space of mental health, who's trying to make changes and I think at a big level we can talk about certain things. Awareness. There's a lot of things you can do at that global level.

But for sure the action is gonna be very localized. Yeah. And I want to find someone who gets that and is in that space. I'm looking for that partner. Actually, I'm looking for my other evangelist right now in this space. So if there's anyone 

out there, reach out to Ken . 

Yeah I'm looking for my fellow evangelist , 

Next question, what advice would you give to a young innovator that's just getting started? 

Momentum? Couple things and I talk about momentum being just start. Just do it and just go, yeah. Don't think too much. Cuz you'll, you might eliminate a possibility.

You might miss an opportunity to learn by mistakes. Embrace mistakes, make a lot of mistakes. Because that's, . And you know this, to quote some, to quote, some genius guy I saw on LinkedIn, his name named Jens Heitland he said, if you wanna double your success, you need to know your face need failure.

Yes. Double your failure. Right. Not mistakes. Failure mistakes. I think I, you're right right word is failure. Because you're trying, and a mistake is doing is making a mistake, but a failure is trying something and, not achieving what you wanted to achieve. But you, the learning out of that is probably more powerful than what you would've achieved on that single thing.

Yeah. And, so I like to combine, momentum. Keep moving, keep going. Don't stop. And be intentional. Don't be, silly about it. Have some in a lot of intentions behind it. And be willing to make mistakes. I'm failure. Be willing. Okay. It's okay to fail. 

Love that. And it's quite interesting a as well, like you said already, we have a couple of things in common.

You are on that journey. You are going from a corporate executive role into, I call it startup role right now. Yeah. Where you are in, I'm a start really as a startup, you are treating yourself like a startup. You are on the journey to figure out what it is, and you're, and that's a place to be. I think a lot of people out there can learn from people like you who are just having the balls and doing things.

Yeah. 

I, it's powerful moments, you know, when I when I quit, when I called up and, had the words come out of my mouth, that I was done the flood of emotion. So powerful and scary, so powerful. I was terrified. I was half crying. Yeah. I wasn't crying.

I was choked up. Yeah. My emotion was just, I just stuck right here, , and just did this thing of being free. I called it a free, I end up writing a song called Free Man. And really the free Man story is about being in corporate or being a kid and having anything possible in front of you, and you dream whatever you want to be.

But as life is, you make sacrifices, you do things and you end up somehow in your own prison of your own making. And how that journey, how that happens. But you know, at the end it's having the faith in. To believe in yourself that you can, you, there is something else, and you can find that way out.

And me finding my way out, believing in myself. Yeah. And the kind of, the turning point of the song is, I beared my soul. Not for everybody. I beared my soul just for me, and looked in that mirror and, having that real conversation with that person behind the facade, behind everything into my soul. And having that conversation with myself about what do you wanna be? And finding that courage to do it. Knocking those walls down, finding your, and I found myself bit by bit. Yeah. So bit by bit you go into that prison corporate, the corporate jailhouse , but coming out of it, that re-entry is, it's bit by bit.

It's a step-by-step process to to come away and to have the courage to go do it. Yeah. 

You have a fascinating story, Ken, and I'm really eager to see you succeeding. Wherever your journey will go. How can people reach out to you? Where can people find 

you? Yeah. Yeah. I think that the greatest landing spot Yenz is the website.

Yeah. www.thejar.live. 

Now we'll put that into the show notes so that people can follow you wherever you are. Yeah highly recommend everyone. Have a look at the YouTube channel as well. Yeah. That's, there's, I love the videos where like, there was one moment where you spoke, I think to the producer.

See, I've, I'm effing it up right now. I'm . It's so human as well, that part. So I really love that. It's not fake. It's just who you 

are. I'm so vulnerable on that show. It's so embarrassing. . But 

that, That's where I say I would love to meet you in one of the bars and have a beer with you.

Same. Yeah. And maybe one day we will make that happen. It 

may happen. I, just a note for listeners on the website, if you go and then, we'll, I think it asks for your email or something. If you follow those steps, 

you'll get the first three letters of the book. Yeah. So I've put it up as a pdf. Now you go in there and you'll get a, you'll get a link and you can download part of the book for free. That's cool. 

Awesome. Ken, thank you very much for being on the show. It was a pleasure having you. Looking forward to see your journey 

evolving.

Yeah, thanks Jan, so much for the support. It's truly appreciated.