The fragility of life has been an ever-present reality in my life recently, especially with the passing of a dear friend, Jesse Lee Ward. Jesse's journey and her unwavering spirit, combined with the wisdom from Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, has led me to reflect on the profound importance of purpose. What is it that makes your life worth living? What drives you to get up each morning? This episode is all about understanding and leaning into that purpose, with insights from our recent 21-day Extraordinary Habits Challenge.
As I share my own journey, I focus on the transformative power of gratitude and connection. I believe it's essential to not just feel gratitude but to express it. This simple act can create a ripple effect in your life and the lives of those you appreciate. Imagine a life where gratitude isn't just a fleeting thought, but a daily practice. A life where you make a conscious effort to appreciate the people in your life and let them know it. This episode will guide you on how to do that, along with sharing practical tips like time-blocking, mirror work, and affirmations to help steer your life towards your goals. So, let's embark on this journey together - towards a purpose-driven life, filled with gratitude.
Welcome to the ATLG podcast I am your host Ken Joslin, former pastor turned coach & host of CREATE, the #1 Faith-based Entrepreneur conference in America. My mission is to help faith-based entrepreneurs become the best version of themselves by growing in our Core 5: Faith, Health, Relationships, Business & Finances. You can get more information as well as join our FREE Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/676347099851525
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it on social media and tag Ken Joslin.
The fragility of life has been an ever-present reality in my life recently, especially with the passing of a dear friend, Jesse Lee Ward. Jesse's journey and her unwavering spirit, combined with the wisdom from Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, has led me to reflect on the profound importance of purpose. What is it that makes your life worth living? What drives you to get up each morning? This episode is all about understanding and leaning into that purpose, with insights from our recent 21-day Extraordinary Habits Challenge.
As I share my own journey, I focus on the transformative power of gratitude and connection. I believe it's essential to not just feel gratitude but to express it. This simple act can create a ripple effect in your life and the lives of those you appreciate. Imagine a life where gratitude isn't just a fleeting thought, but a daily practice. A life where you make a conscious effort to appreciate the people in your life and let them know it. This episode will guide you on how to do that, along with sharing practical tips like time-blocking, mirror work, and affirmations to help steer your life towards your goals. So, let's embark on this journey together - towards a purpose-driven life, filled with gratitude.
Welcome to the ATLG podcast I am your host Ken Joslin, former pastor turned coach & host of CREATE, the #1 Faith-based Entrepreneur conference in America. My mission is to help faith-based entrepreneurs become the best version of themselves by growing in our Core 5: Faith, Health, Relationships, Business & Finances. You can get more information as well as join our FREE Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/676347099851525
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it on social media and tag Ken Joslin.
Speaker 1:
Good morning, fam. Welcome to another episode of as the leader grows podcast. This is coaching with Ken. I'm super excited to be able to spend the next 15, 20 minutes with you guys Talking about some things that are super on my heart right now, which I normally do, as at the time of this recording I had a Friend of mine, jesse Lee Ward, who passed away from stage four after colon rectal cancer.
Speaker 1:
I had the opportunity and privilege to meet Jesse last year. I was in California with my good friend Randy, going at Ed, my Lets house with a few dozen people for a little after party at after Ed's book release, and I got to connect with Jesse. We actually were on the same flight as well, so we get to connect and just following her journey has been absolutely amazing. And couple that with a couple. Couple that with two other things. One I just finished for the second time Victor Frankl's book Man's Search for Meaning, and so I don't know if you've I don't know if you've read that book, but I highly, highly, highly. As a matter of fact, I was on the phone this morning with my two oldest daughters, 27 and 24. And we talked about the book today, about how really life all boils down to purpose, like why did God create me? What does this look like? And the one thing about Jesse Lee that I loved in her last few months because it was a very sudden and diagnosis and a very, very quick, quick process for her. And even you know, 11, 12, 13 days ago she shot a video and said her pet scan was good. And the next thing I know I get my good friend, emily Ford, reaches out and says hey, pray for Jesse Lee, she's not doing well. They were pretty close and and the next thing I know, two or three days later she's, she's passed.
Speaker 1:
And it was just a, it was a punch in the gut and it literally is a reminder for every single one of a scripture says that our life is like a vapor, like we really have no idea how much time we have left, and we're also so, I said, coupled with a, with two things. We're also in the middle of our 21 day extraordinary habits challenge inside of our GSD community, where we've got a group of entrepreneurs who have committed for 21 days. Today, at the time, this recording is day 14 for goals, gratitude affirmations and top three writing your goals down, business goals down, personal goals down. Really, for us inside of GSD we refer to it as our core five faith, health, relationships, business and finances. And if you're an entrepreneur and you're looking for a community, I'm just telling you there's, there's hands down. There's none better on the planet than the group of people that we've assembled that are really going after becoming the best versions of themselves. But really we're in day 14 of the extraordinary habits challenge that, coupled with the book that I literally finished and I'm halfway through the second time again I shared with both of my daughters today about it. This morning we did a.
Speaker 1:
I did a three way call with my 27 year old and 24 year old is it both? Where one's a teacher just graduated with her master's degree from UAB back in Birmingham and she's teaching fourth graders inner city loves it and my 24 year old daughter, who's on staff at Hollins College probably the premier ministry college for your, for your college in the world right now. It's literally like a military academy, if you will, for kids that feel called to do full time vocational ministry or even full time ministry in their workplace and it's just, it's a phenomenal. Phenomenal thing that they're doing is we're on the phone this morning and I'm running through Victor Frankl's book man search for meeting and sent them a link is that I want you guys to read this because if you've read the book some of you guys already are like, yes, I know where Ken's going. If you've read the book man search for meeting the first probably two and a half hours two hours and 45 minutes is divided into two sections, may even be three. Three and a half hours is very, very heavy.
Speaker 1:
It's very hard to listen to because it is his eye witness and personal experience accounts from the concentration camps in World War two, from Auschwitz to Dachau, to all the things that happened his wife, his wife, his parents, his son all lost their life in the gas chambers and just his account and recollection. I mean it's literally. It's like when you listen through the book it's like you're there and you know we're now I don't know 80 years past all of that. And now it's it's almost like it didn't even happen and, as my daughters and I were just kind of walking through that today, and really he makes a twist at the very end, talks about how you know the reason that the ones that made it through made it through was because they realized that there was a purpose for them, that they had not yet lived out their purpose and there was something for them when liberation came. And he talks about his logos therapy that he created for patients. And so when he got out of the prisoner of war camps, the concentration camps watched thousands and thousands of his fellow Jewish people slaughtered, murdered by Hitler and his SS guards. He talks about how the main reason they made it through was the conversations between themselves of there's purpose for when we get out. And so when he got out, he started his practice back up. He was a psychiatrist and he dealt specifically with Jewish people who were former concentration camp prisoners of war, who were very suicidal, and he never lost a single patient never lost a single patient to suicide because he got them back in touch with purpose and meaning. It's funny.
Speaker 1:
I mentioned my daughter doing some inner city schoolwork. She's in the fourth grade and you know I took her to Haiti for the first time when she was probably 13 or 14 years old, I believe. She's been to Haiti three times on the mission field and she's been to Guatemala City and the first time I took her man. She just really attached to some of those children, so it's amazing to watch her live her life out as a fourth grade teacher and she was just talking today with us about one of the students. He's in a fourth grade and when he doesn't do something right, he gets angry with himself and she goes literally dad, he bangs his head against the brick wall and so she's. She's walking him through and some of these children that they have in there, who's who are just in very, very difficult parenting situations, walking him through.
Speaker 1:
Purpose you know you have a purpose. You have. You have meaning in your life. I love you. This behavior is. You know we can't do this inside the classroom and and I want to help you and just listening to her talk about that really is the purpose and the meaning behind everything that she's doing, which is which goes, just so correlates with the book. And so we're in the middle, like I said, of our 21 day extraordinary habits challenge with our community. Right now We've got dozens of entrepreneurs that are have committed to goals, gratitude, affirmations, top three writing your goals down every morning. Business, personal you know your core five faith, health, relationships, business and finances.
Speaker 1:
Gratitude you know getting gratitude off of paper and getting it on your phone is kind of my, it's kind of my thing. We talk about it all the time. It's not good enough to put gratitude on paper, but you really need that gratitude to transfer from your paper. It's great for you to go. I'm grateful for these things. Literally. My good friend Irwin McManus says gratitude is a lubrication. It lubricates the brain. It makes the brain function at a higher level. You need your words to work better at it. Let's all say it. But my thing is is like it's great for you to function better, but get it off a paper and pick up the phone. Let two or three people a day know how grateful you are for them.
Speaker 1:
I sent two dear, dear friends of mine a text yesterday and I just said I'm paraphrasing it I just said, hey, I want you guys to know that I love you very, very much and your belief in me and in what God's called me to do inside of our GSD mastermind and inside of our community and inside of our Create conference that we do twice a year. Twice a year, our faith-based entrepreneurial conference and mastermind. Man, you literally have been a source of encouragement at a level you probably don't even understand, and I sent that to them yesterday morning as I boarded my first flight and I want to encourage you. Gratitude's great, but I want you to get it off a paper and put it in your phone. Send people voice texts. Send people texts and send them a video text.
Speaker 1:
Pick up the phone and call somebody and just let them know how grateful because you want to talk about you want to talk about a multiplication effect in gratitude. It doesn't just affect just you, but it also affects the people that you're grateful for. Man, there's nothing like getting a phone call. And it also positions you because every single one of us, when our phone rings, we look down and we see the name. We have one or two responses. Oh man, I can't wait to talk. Randy Garn called me this morning. It was early, it was like 6.15. I was up at 4.30, randy and I were texting back and forth at 6 and then about 6.15 my phone rings. We spent about 25, 30 minutes on the phone talking. When Randy Garn calls me on the phone, I get stoked. I can't wait to talk to him.
Speaker 1:
Everybody has the people in your life and in your phone that when your phone rings, you're excited to talk to that person because you know when you leave that conversation or you leave that encounter with that individual. You're going to be better because of it, don't you want people? When you call them? When they see Ken Jocelyn on the phone, they're like dude, I can't wait to talk to him. When they see, fill in the blank, whatever your name is, those of you guys listening to this podcast, they're like man, I can't wait to talk to him or her.
Speaker 1:
Because when I get done, I know I always feel like there's nothing that's impossible. I always leave encouraged, even if it's a difficult, even if it's a difficult conversation. And one of the ways you can do that and position yourself to be able to breathe life into people and add value or the term that I like to use be a life giving friend or a life giving relationship is to encourage people, is to be an encourager. So get it. Your goals. Gratitude. Get your gratitude off your paper, on your phone affirmations. What are you saying to yourself? Are you doing mirror work to really to literally rewire your neuro pathways to who you desire to become? I say a lot when you act like you belong in the room, you'll get in the room. When you act like you belong in the room if when you act like you're a business of two million or three million dollars a year, you'll become a business of two to three million dollars a year If you, if you, if you do the things that four and five million dollar a year companies do, you'll become a company of four or five million dollars. It's literally you have to do the things that they do. So when you're, when you're doing your affirmations, when you're speaking things to yourself and rewiring your neuro pathways, what you're doing is you're you're creating a new mindset for you, and when that mindset begins to form and that mindset comes into fruition, what happens is you look up one day and you wake up and you're like, wow, I am the person that I've been, that I've been telling myself and committing myself to become, and then it's crazy what happens after that.
Speaker 1:
So, goals, gratitude, affirmations, top three. What's your top three? My top three today? Sundance, rmi podcast and our new VSL that we're doing. I've got three huge, huge rocks I'm moving this week. Hence all the calls, hence all the the excitement that's going around. So, in our 21 day, extraordinary habits sounds those. There's three things. There's three components of that that I want to talk about, why they're so important.
Speaker 1:
That's goals. I just talked about goals writing those down. I do it twice a day, every day, and learn that from Grant Cardone. It's huge. Let's say you don't hit 365 days. Let's say you hit 300 times 300 days and you write them down twice a day. That's three, that's 600 times a year. You're writing your goals down. The majority of people do not write their goals down more than maybe once, twice, a few times a year. Listen, when you write your goals down like that and I have to again we're not looking at it from a competitive standpoint, but literally, if there's somebody that's in the same vertical, same field you're in and you're writing your goals down and your goals and then dictate your goals, it doesn't. Writing goals down doesn't do anything unless then you take your calendar and your time and then you back up and create action, steps and plans, a roadmap to be able to get to those goals. But when you do, I'm telling you it's super powerful. And then your scoreboard In our GSD planner you can go to growthstackdrivecom forward slash planner.
Speaker 1:
You can grab one of these. I'm telling you it's a game changer. They're 30 bucks, that's shipping and everything. We don't make any money off of it. It's literally something I created to help in the process. When we talk about extraordinary habits it really is incremental, not monumental. The concept I created about three years ago small, daily discipline, decisions over time, always equal monumental results. And when you get, when you commit, it's a 60 day planner. When you commit for 60 days, that's 50 cents a day. Guys, come on growthstackdrivecom forward slash planner. When you commit to goals, gratitude affirmations and then top three and then your scoreboard. Your scoreboard is the very last thing I do every single day. That scoreboard is and here's the importance Every single one of us have been to a T-ball game.
Speaker 1:
You know there are tons of kids on the field. They don't put like nine or 10 on the field, there's like a hundred. There's like kids everywhere. Parents are there, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles. A lot of noise is loud, a lot of energy, their cheer in their clapping. Kids have no idea what's going on there in the field picking dandelions, chasing butterflies. Little Johnny steps up. He hits the ball off the tee after he swung and missed five times and he hits it down the third baseline and he runs to third. Coach has to grab little Johnny pointing to first. So Johnny knows where he's supposed to run. He runs the first base, even if they get him out, which they hardly ever do. Everybody's just having fun, excitement, energy, all of the things, and at the end of that hour everybody goes home and nobody knows who won Because we don't keep score.
Speaker 1:
This is why your scoreboard in your planner is so important. How did I live? I was a nine yesterday. I rated myself. I had a great day yesterday. We had a couple sign up for our GSD Elite Mastermind at 50 K. They're going to be in Sundance with us November, the first through the fifth, with just some really dear friends like Vic Keller and Randy Garn and Erwin McManus and Gary Brecca and Sage Brecca and just all the people that are in our masterminds. Going to be a phenomenal, phenomenal. Three, three and a half days, and it was a great day yesterday. I've given myself probably five tens, maybe six tens, over the last two years since I created this planner and those have all been after one of our create conferences or after one of our masterminds, and I usually am around eight and a half eight, eight and a half nine and I've never I've had one seven, which is a bad day for me. That's a bad day. I've had one seven. That's a bad day. I've had one in two years, just one.
Speaker 1:
But when you do your goals, you do your scoreboard. And the third component of that is when you time block. I have four color codes in my Google calendar. You can look at it every day. I post a picture of it from time to time green, blue, green, yellow and red Blue is my personal time. So for the first couple hours a day, my gym time, my goals, gratitude affirmations, top three, my podcast, my quiet time, which is the first thing I do.
Speaker 1:
When I get up, I put a worship song on screenshot I put on my Instagram. I go straight to my you version. I'm in the book of John right now, the first book of the gospel, first book of the New Testament, actually, not first. The fourth, matthew, mark, luke, john, the fourth gospel and the fourth book of the New Testament. And I read that right now.
Speaker 1:
As soon as I'm done with that, with that devotional you know it gives me a little thing to share I text that over to my guys on my text thread, the guys that are in my corner, and I send it to them and just, I usually share thought that morning. Hey guys, it's Wednesday. Man, let's go get it today, man, jesus, jesus paid an ultimate price so we could live a life of legacy and make impact. And I send that to the guys and it normally gets our text thread just rolling for the day. Hey, gary Breck, as a matter of fact, gary and Gary and Brian Covey's Brian showing pictures from Iron Tribe, brent Gove showing pictures. He's on the golf course, randy's on a run yesterday. So it's just, we're just constantly encouraging and sharpening each other. So that's the, that's the time blocking aspect.
Speaker 1:
So why are goals scoreboard and time blocking so important? Here's why I want you to write this down. If you're not driving your car and you have got a pen, I have my. I literally have my Mont Blanc in my hand and my notepad and my and my planner in front of me. Here's why goals scoreboard and time blocking are so important. Because regret is expensive. Regret is expensive. You do not want to. I just turned 55 in August. You do not want to live with regret. The cost of regret is way more expensive than the cost of taking time each day to write down your goals, gratitude affirmations and top three.
Speaker 1:
The second half of the day to look at your wins. Where did I win today? Literally yesterday, I have. I have Stephen Kelly on my, in my wind block, on my, on my planner. Stephen Kelly, 50 K, yay. I wrote with like three escalation points and then, and then, 1% better. How can I get 1% better? And mine was focused like did, did I make the most of every minute yesterday? And I didn't, and part of the reason was because on both of my flights back to back the Wi-Fi was in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out, so I felt like I didn't squeeze every ounce of potential out of the time I had. Yesterday Goals, gratitude affirmations, top three wins, 1% better goals again, and then your school board second half of the day. And why those things are so important is because regret is expensive.
Speaker 1:
I just want to encourage you to listen to this podcast today. Couple things If you've not got a planner, go grab one. They're 30 bucks. Go grab one ASAP. Get one. Commit to yourself, because regret is expensive. Every single time you put off something, every single time you delay, every single time you procrastinate, it costs you.
Speaker 1:
Now here's the big thing, and I'll go back to Jesse Lee's life, and one of the things that she did that I absolutely loved was she shared this whole journey with people like she was so open of. This is what the journey looks like. You know, any year ago she had no idea she had one year left live. Six months ago she had no idea she had six months left to live. We hung out last I think it was like last November we were at Edmonds house in California and in Palm Springs. She had no idea, but yet she lived every single day. She lived life to the fullest, making the greatest impact that she could make, because she was driven to help people and because she knew the truth that regret is expensive. I didn't get a chance to talk to her In the last few months since her diagnosis, but I know several really, really good friends, including Emily Ford, that did, and I tell you the one thing, that the one thing that she didn't live with was regret, because she squeezed every ounce of potential out of every single day.
Speaker 1:
Goals, gratitude, scoreboard, time, blocking those things are super important. Oh, I was doing my fork. My four color codes blue, green, yellow, red, blues. My personal time is where I work on me, greens where I make money, yellow is where I work on my business, not in my business, and then reds when I spend time with people that I love. And the reason those are important is because regret is Expensive.
Speaker 1:
You do not want to pay the price of regret and you don't have to. And here's the amazing thing I don't care what you did yesterday, I don't care what you did for the last month, I don't care what you did this year or last year or the last five or ten years, and neither does God. What matters is what you're going to do with this moment, right now, and what you're going to do in front of you. There's a reason. There is a reason that the windshield of your car is about six or seven hundred times bigger Than the rear view mirror. Most of us, a lot of us, we can get stuck looking in the rear view and looking at the mistakes and looking at I mean always something this different, always something this different when in the reality, man, I, we're our windshield is so much bigger because God has so much in front of you. So I want to encourage you go school board time blocking. I promise you you do this, it will make a difference in your life and you can forego the cost of regret and you can literally dive into the experience of fulfillment. What does it look like for me to live a life and become the best version of myself?
Speaker 1:
Guys, thanks for joining us again on another episode of coaching with Ken I'm. I am honored, I'm super honored, that you guys take time every week to listen. We've hit record downloads several hundred a week now. I think we were up to 400 downloads last week, and here's the reality. I mean we don't promote this. I don't really, we don't Promote it on my Instagram page, but I mean we don't run ads, we don't do anything and our podcast just continues. We've literally tripled the number of downloads over the past couple months than we had before, and I just want to say Thank you, number one, for helping us get the word out.
Speaker 1:
Two ways you can do that. Number one subscribe. Number two snap a screenshot of this and Share it on your Instagram page. There's a lot of people to do. When you do, I always reshare, and when I have a guest, I'm dropping an episode with Dr Elizabeth Frederick this week, which is phenomenal. She is one of the top Therapist dating relationship experts In the country. Her Instagram page is fire. Just such great information and great insight on how to how to live your life become the best version when it comes to your relationships. So it's amazing. I guess the third thing you could do is stop by. Leave us a five-star review. I would greatly appreciate that. And until next time on coaching with Ken, I'll see you next week, thanks, I.
