Episode #103- Spiritual Coaching and Small Business? Coach Ken Davis offers entrepreneurs his secrets!

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BIO:

[Download .PDF Now! Episode #103 Show Transcript]

Ken Davis Coaching offers his students a path to success in all area of life.  He spend most of his life as a computer technologist, but has always been a Coach!  After thirty years of working in technology, he was able to move from First Tier Technician, to Manager and finally, Project Leader.

INDEPENDENTLY:

Ken pursued his interest in Metaphysics, Philosophy, Quantum Physics, and a host of other spiritual disciplines.  He is an IPEC Certified Empowerment Coach specializing in Energy Leadership.  Also, he spent ten years in the U.S. Coast Guard, as well as a Certified Personal Trainer and Kettle Bell Enthusiast.

Ken Offers personal spiritual coaching, in-home, online, and public workshops, as well as presentations.  It’s non-denominational and confidential.

Please join Ken as he places a Metaphysical spin on running a small business in today’s market.

LINKS:

www.kendaviscoaching.com

www.kendaviscoaching.blogspot.com

EMAIL - Ken@KenDavisCoaching.com

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Q & A for  Episode 103 – Ken Davis [50:13]

August 25, 2010

Q: How did your background – with your background, how did you decide to be come a life coach?

A: Ken Davis (Life Coach): Well, if you listen to my mother tell it, she says I’ve always been a life coach.  I mean, really.  I’ve always been a life coach.  I’ve always been a mediator, a co-thinker, a celebrator, an encourager.  She says I’ve always been that way.  But we didn’t really know that that was called life coaching.

Q: Just take a brief moment and give us a quick synopsis of what your background entails, that led to the life coaching.

A: Ken Davis (Life Coach): Well, let me tell you – I was 11 years old, and I saw this rather intense discussion.  When I was young, my brother and I used to visit my mother’s parents’ house, in Valdosta, Georgia.  Her father, my grandfather, was a deacon in the Methodist church.  And he took his religion very seriously.  And I remember witnessing this argument – the only way I could describe it is an argument.  And that – it went something like this.

My mother was saying, “I can’t go.”  My grandfather was saying, “You’ve got to go; I’m concerned for your soul.  I’m concerned for your salvation.  Please go.”  I had no idea what they were talking about.  Go where?  Come to find out they’re talking about going to church.  And that Sunday, I had an opportunity to witness this – I don’t know how to describe it, but this very intense and loving intellectual discussion about going and not going.  And it was a discussion without words, but I could see the intensity of their face; their eyes said everything.  Their eyes said, “I love you, but I just can’t.  And I can’t accept your position.  And I will always love you no matter what.”

And I just had a moment of wondering what could be so very important that would cause two people who are so committed to each other to be so diverse in their opinion.  I never realized until many years what that was about, but it started my search, my questioning in my mind, about how much love there was between them, and how they could be so diametrically opposed.  My mother won the day that day; she said she couldn’t go, she couldn’t do it, and she wouldn’t do it, and she didn’t.

But that wasn’t nearly as important to me as why this discussion took place in the first place. So that began my long, long journey.  A journey that I took a break from on the day that I broke my neck.  I won’t give you the details of that; let’s just say that a young man who had found an interest in girls was no longer that significantly interested in the spiritual pursuits.

So as a young man, there I was, in the midst of enjoying my youth, and I had an automobile accident in which I broke my neck. So this was a time to take pause; a kind of involuntary vacation, as it were.  And here I was, wondering how it was that I got into this mess, you know?  Here I am, laying in bed, my neck is in traction; they’re talking about vertebrate and what they’re going to do with them to put me back together, and… So I had a lot of time to think about and return to this great struggle that I saw, and decide what it meant to me.

And I began to do things to get back on track.  I studied the Bible.  I did a lot of reading.  I studied the Tao Te Ching, I became a member of the Ancient Mystic Order of the Rosy Cross, I did the S-training – just all these things began after I broke my neck.  Or, shall I say, resumed after I broke my neck.  And by and by, I came to understand that everything that I was reading, everything that I came to understand was about something that was apparently bigger than me.

And I came to understand that no matter who you are or what you’re doing, this is your agenda.  Even people who don’t believe in God:  this is their agenda.

Even people who seem to be committed to politics.  Underneath it, this is their agenda.  They’re committed to business, to success.  Underneath that, this is their agenda.  To find out what’s true for them; to answer for themselves what was right about this question, this question of who we are and what we’re doing here.

So I discovered that for the most part, we presume that only pastors and ministers are on that path, or whose job it is to talk about that journey.  But that’s simply not true.  As it turns out, as it turns out, there is, has always been, a group of people who have been there for us in our lives, whether as a mentor or our parents or our best friend.  And at some fundamental level, we’re asking those questions that have to do, ultimately, with who we really are, okay?

It turns out that life coaching is a person who’s professionally engaged in understanding who you are in the face of what you’re up against specifically.  It’s a very functional aspect of searching for who you are.  Whether you are running a corporation; whether you’re a member of a team in a small business, trying to accomplish something; whether you’re between jobs, the question of, “What am I doing here?” seems like a question that is very pragmatic.  But underneath that question is always, “Why am I doing?”

So I found that there was an opportunity to be a concrete participant in people’s journey, and it was called life coaching.  I was a personal trainer at the time, and someone said to me, “You know, you’d make a good life coach.”

But even if you’re not interested in life coaching, there’s this guy that I’ve always found an interest in listening to him speak.  When he talks, it always brings me home to who I am.  And this guy – turns out he has the life coaching school.  Now, this idea of life coaching was something that had just come into my life, through no related connections with this person.  So here this phrase “life coaching” had come up for me in a discussion with someone that had nothing to do and no knowledge of that discussion.  I thought that was more than mere coincidences.  By the way, I stopped believing in coincidences some years ago.

So when I went to hear them speak, this person – everything they said had very little to do with what I came there to hear.  But underneath everything he said was a complete explanation for why I was there in that room.  And that is spiritual context: a way of understanding what we’re up to in a very direct, comprehensive spiritual context.

And so I decided that this was the path for me.  Life coaching became my training, at that point.  I went through months of training in life coaching, an organization called “Ipec”.  And Ipec training I found to be very powerful and very clear, and in fact, I knew it was the right place for me just listening to the person who ran the coaching school.  Just listening to him talk.  That’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

I’ve been a professional coach; I’m an ICF-certified professional coach.  I  graduated from an ICF-certified organization, and that’s International Coaching Federation.

Q: Could you tell me, with the background that you have, what set you apart from other life coaches?

A: Ken Davis (Life Coach): Well, the thing that sets me apart is this idea that we can address our issues and have them solved is not unusual in life coaching.  What sets me apart is I’m not looking for a temporary solution to your immediate problem.  I am looking and I am looking to make a permanent shift in your way of looking at things.  And in permanently shifting the way you look at things, the problem that you had actually no longer becomes a problem.  And you find – you’ll find that the – that permanent shift that’s created by my coaching transfers beyond the problem that you’re having to other areas of your life.

In other words, we’re talking about core energy coaching, it’s called.  We’re talking about shifting your consciousness, shifting your view.  Course on miracle says – the course is not about changing the way – well, the course is not about changing the way, the world.  It’s about changing your way of looking at the world.

Q: Okay.  So, I’m a small business owner, and I’m struggling right now – struggling with the economy and struggling with employees, juggling making decisions.  I’m cutting back.  And I’ve looked at your background, and I’ve listened to what you’ve had to say.  Hopefully this podcast might be an instrument to help with that.  And I simply can’t understand the connection of the handshake with what seems to be maybe quantum physics philosophy, with trying to build wealth, to generate money.  Can you – can you help explain a little bit about the handshake that goes along with that?

A: Ken Davis (Life Coach): For the most part, we try to build money because we think that money is going to make us safe.  Now, if we understand that that’s really what we’re up to, we can discover a sense of safety that will actually free us then to make money. It’s kind of counter-intuitive.  But I don’t know if I can relate this in very common, common terms.

You know how you’re in the singles’ scene?  Some of us still remember that.  The person, man or woman, who’s out there, desperate to find a partner – whether you’re a guy or a gal.  That is one of the main things that gets in the way of you finding one, the sense of desperation – this fear, this lack of peace that you have.

So if we address the issue of peace in your life, then the world opens to inspiration.  If you look at the successful people on this planet, you will find that they are successful because there’s space in their life for inspiration.  Now, I don’t mean, say, inspiration that you think of when you see someone that’s having this “Aha” moment all the time, this idea of being anointed or touched or in some kind of airy-fairy state of transcendental enlightenment.  I’m talking about something very concrete.

I’m talking about a state of being open to the flow of life.  To having creative ideas come to you.  To having – do you understand what the word inspiration – where that word originates?  Where that – what is the root of that word, inspiration, Salondra?

Q: In the sense that you are defining it, probably not.  Why don’t you help us understand a little better about inspiration?

A: Ken Davis (Life Coach): Well, inspiration basically means consistent with spirit, or in the spirit.  Or to be inspired is, in a sense, to be anointed.  Let me tell you something.  There is a way to measure the level of consciousness.  It’s a simple – well, simple.  It’s actually a very sophisticated – a very sophisticated assessment that you can take.  And you’ll get a numeric score of 1-7.  Very few people are scoring 7, okay?  Or even close to it, okay?

But the difference between 2.5 and a 3, which 3 is actually a very high score, represents a 20% increase in your financial success.  A 10% increase in self-described leadership abilities.  A 14% greater sense of personal freedom.  A 20% increase in overall energy level.  17% improvement in your time management.  Now, this is an assessment that actually measures your level of availability to inspiration on a scale of 1-7.  This assessment – just half of a point difference between 2.5 and 3 has shown those by-studies, those improvements that I’m talking about.

So if we talk about coaching someone to, whatever they are, to remove a sense of fear, to allow a greater sense of peace, their openness to being inspired magnifies their ability to be successful.  I’ve had several clients who decided to do the assessment with me.

Q: .  Now, we’ve heard so much of Ken in the media about the laws of attraction.  It’s been on – it’s been everywhere.  I don’t even know if you could consider the law of attraction a slightly overused term.  But tell us – how does the law of attraction come into play with today’s entrepreneurs?

A: Ken Davis (Life Coach): Well, there’s several levels on which it works.  First of all, the way the mind works is this:  You do not know or recognize anything that your mind cannot conceive of.  That is to say, everything you know of, you know of because there’s a concept in your mind about it that you can hold and demonstrate and understand, if not communicated.

Native Americans who first had white settlers come to their shores would look out on the harbor and there would be these tremendous boats, but they couldn’t see them, because they had no concept to understand what a boat was.  A ship that was – a canoe that could hold dozens of people was not a concept that they understood.

So they would look out and they would see nothing there.  Or they would see something their floating, but not – it had to connect with anything they understood.  They required the shaman to present to them the concept of a canoe that could hold dozens and dozens of people before they actually recognized ships in their harbor as something more than large trees or rocks or something bizarre that they didn’t understand.

Natives who were first exposed to Polaroid pictures of themselves,  when they were shown the picture of themselves, they wouldn’t even see themselves.  What they saw was a concept they could understand – a brightly colored leaf.  They had to be introduced to the concept of picture-ness.  So there’s a lot of misunderstanding about the law of attraction.

And for the most part, the misunderstanding goes something like this.  If the mind does not recognize something, then the mind can’t see it.  If you can’t be grateful for something, then you don’t know you have it, or to say the other way, if you don’t know you have something, you can’t be grateful for it. If I am grateful for something I do not have, and I genuinely am aware of it in my consciousness as a gift to me from me, and I am grateful, I’m accessing a part of my mind – a part of my mind that is now conscious and aware of those ships in the harbor.

Gratitude opens the recognition that you have.  Having-ness is actually a concept, okay?  But let me explain something to you.  Most of the time, what we ask for, if we got it, we’re scared witless.  And, without going into a long understanding of what fear is, if it was scared witless, then there are blocks to our experience of it.  No matter what you pray for, no matter what you set yourself up to be attracted to, your fear will stand in the way of you knowing it conceptually.  Now, you say, “Well, Ken, how can I be afraid of a million dollars?”

Well, ask – there’s many people that you can think of, if you just do a minimal amount of research, who have a million dollars, and they’re not happy.  Their life you wouldn’t want, or you’d say, “Well, if I had a million dollars, it would be different for me.” Well, the fact is – The fact – exactly my point.  If  you have any doubt in your mind, I invite you to be very suspicious about having what you want .

Q: As a life coach, and, let’s face it, this is a business for you as well – how do you manage skeptics?

A: Skeptics?  I don’t.  I don’t have to manage skeptics.  I start with where a person is.  I’m – it’s not my job as a life coach to change their beliefs.  I start with – wherever you are in this process of understanding who you are, and what your’ comfortable with. And my job is to find out what’s working for you and what isn’t working for you.  It’s not my job to tell you what to believe and what not to believe.  Okay?  Because, in the end, you must know for yourself.  You must discover for yourself what’s true for you.  I’ve talked to many of my clients, and my beliefs are not the same as theirs.  And that was fine; it didn’t matter.  The thing that I understand very clearly is what’s true.  And what’s demonstrably true is that we can’t deal with anything that raises our fear level.  Okay?  So introducing a truth – I don’t care how true it is – that makes you fearful is not a successful process.

Q: So with what entrepreneurs and business owners are facing – and I’m sure there’s a lot of fear.  There’s a lot of uncertainty?   ): Now, for the most part, we think, “Well, you know he really worked hard, and that’s why he was successful.”  No.  He’s really a good martial artist.  I mean to tell you there are actually better martial artists that have lived and died.  He just happened to be very good.  His primary role in life – he would have told you in his life, is that he’s an actor.

All the input he put into making himself successful would have mattered not one bit if he couldn’t say two words with clear English.  Britt Reid.  And I kid you not, he got the role that made him famous, and introduced him to the world because among the Chinese that auditioned, that were also actors, that were also into martial arts – he was the only one who could say, “Britt Reid.”  So if you think that your success is directly related to the effort, the work that you put into it, you’re sadly mistaken.

Most anyone who’s ever been tremendously successful will tell you that there is an X-factor that is beyond time and space that shows up, that opens doors.  When I tell you one thing, your hidden fears will stand in the way of that X-factor every time.

A: Ken Davis (Life Coach): Well, let me put it this way.  If you eliminate any amount of fear in being one of my clients, you will see a shift in what shows up for you in your life.  Let me tell you something.  For the most part, we’re convinced that this is a stimulus response universe.  You put this input into it and you get this output.  Well, actually, it turns out that’s not true.  Do you know why Bruce Lee is so famous right now?

Q: Ken Davis (Life Coach): Yes.

Q: If we remove barriers and go through this process of being grateful and have gratitude, that just might translate into wealth, more success – am I on the right path here?

A: He’s famous not because he spent years as a martial artist; he spent years training as an actor in China, in the Chinese opera, and he made several very, very popular films in China.  He is famous because in America, he got a part in a TV show called A Green Hornet.  Do you remember that TV show?

Q: What is a typical day like in the life of a life coach?

A: Ken Davis (Life Coach): Well, you get up in the morning, and if you’re like me, you have automated yourself to the point where you can go to your email and see your appointments for the day, so you know what your day looks like.  You have a call at this particular time; you have a workshop at this particular time.  You have a task you’re working on.  I’m writing a book, so I have a certain amount of time delegated to that.  And I can see where in my schedule I need to do this and that, and feed myself, and when to stop working and relax, that kind of thing.

And I’ll tell you – I have to do that too because I know I’ll get people that say, “Well, you know, can we have a session at 10 o’clock on a Sunday?”  And sometimes I really like having sessions late, but there are times when my family looks at me and they say, “Mm, I don’t know, Ken.”

And I realized that what I need to do is designate that time for myself, so I can truthfully say, “That time is blocked off; it’s committed.  You need to pick another time.”  So here I have my schedule of blocked-off time for myself, calls, workshops, and things that I need to work on.  And so my calendar is set up so that 15 minutes before a call, I get a reminder.

Your call is going to be such-and-such a time.  And I have my coaching call, and we have our sessions, and the interesting thing about coaching is that we may talk for half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour – but the real work is done between the sessions.  So after having an understanding of how well my client did with the work we decided to do, then we decide where we’re going in that session, how we’re going to deal with it, you know, how we’re going to move forward.  And before the session’s up, there will be an agreed upon list of things that the client will address and tackle and see how well they do.

Q: And so you get homework, huh?  Assignments?

A: Ken Davis (Life Coach): Exactly.  And of course with all my assignments, the clients have three choices always.  They can say, “No, Ken, I can’t do that at all,” “Yes, I can do it just exactly the way you said it,” and, this is my favorite, “We can do it, but I’d like to alter the assignment this way.”  Okay?  Any one of those approaches is perfect, and it creates a coaching point to start for our next session, always.  And my agenda is always the client’s agenda.  The client’s agenda is always to remove the blocks to the success that they’re trying to have.  Whatever that is.  And that’s the marvelous thing about coaching.  It’s not about my agenda – it’s not about the agenda, the organization, the persons, and it’s not about my agenda as a friend or relative.  It’s about the client’s agenda; what they’re trying to get done.

Q: Now, I read something as I was conducting my research in order to prepare for this conversation that we’re having.  And I see here that you are – you mentioned you’re a certified personal trainer, so let me get this – let me get this straight. We can come to you, we can be coached, and we can probably learn time management and how to remove fear and barriers.  And we can also get a six-pack as well?  Is that what happens?

A: Ken Davis (Life Coach): That’s right.  Sometimes the fear we’re trying to eliminate shows up around our tummy.  Or, if you’re in my family, around  your behind.

Q: So you’re a certified personal trainer as well?

A: Ken Davis (Life Coach): Yes.

Q: Do you have anything other than what we’ve previously discussed – any little phrase or words of wisdom that might help someone, you know, move to the next phase of their journey toward entrepreneurship?  Anything that you’d like to share?

A: Ken Davis (Life Coach): What I’d like to share with you is that in all your pursuits in this business, know that you’re not alone, number one.  Number two, understand that what you’re really attempting to do is way beyond business success.  And business success is just your way that you’re using to get to your actual goal.  And I urge you to take the time to understand for yourself what that is, so you can be honest with yourself about what you’re up to.  Okay?

Now, I say that because if you understand that’s truly what you’re up to, then the ups and downs of business don’t drag you up and down with the business.  That who you are is not your business.  This will give you tremendous freedom to have your business work for you, and not be the victim of your business.

Q: Do you use a particular media or particular methodology in marketing and getting the word out about your lifestyle management and coaching business?

A: Ken Davis (Life Coach): Well, there’s some things that I do.  I have a blog, and you can see my blog at kendaviscoaching.blogspot.com.  So that’s one way I have.  Of course, if you go to my website, kendaviscoaching.com, you’ll see the link for my blog.   Also word of mouth, of course.  I also talk to others about my coaching.  One of the things I do is I have – I am the mediator of a course in miracles study group on Mondays here in Morristown, New Jersey.  And I talk about my coaching from a non-dualistic perspective.

Marketing is a very interesting thing.  Right now, I have kind of scaled back my marketing.  I am allowing the business to come to me at this point,  because at a time – this is a time in my career that I really need to scale back, because of the things I’m doing.  I welcome new clients, of course, and I have clients right now. But as far as marketing is concerned?  I look at it this way.  And a lot of people – a lot of coaches have problems in marketing, because they feel that they’re a service-oriented organization, a one-person organization, but an organization nonetheless.  I look at it like this.  If you are a cobbler, and you don’t hang the shingle out in the village where you do your cobbling, then the rich man who needs the cobbler, not knowing you’re there, will go to the village that has one.  It is a service to the person who can afford your services to know that you are there, so that they can have the option to use your services or not.  So I invite you entrepreneurs to think of your effort – your effort to put yourself out there is offering the opportunity to be available.

Q: Could you please give me some information about what would be one of your biggest challenges that you had to overcome in going through this regimen of becoming a life coach?

A: Ken Davis (Life Coach): Well, there are many people who’ve decided that they want something, but they’re not really willing to do the work internally to have that thing.  And so when I’m being honest with my client about what it takes, what’s necessary, and being honest with them about what they’re saying and what they’re doing, and the consistency or the inconsistency of it, often a client will walk away.  And my challenge had been, in the past, to understand that that is their process.  That my interaction with them is maybe the thing that sets them to a new level of honesty, so that they can actually have the thing that they said they wanted, okay?  I might never see it in my relationship with them, and that’s okay.  So it can be challenging, because I have a desire to be of assistance.

Q: So in closing, the last question that I have is, is there anyone that you would like to give a shout-out to in this podcast?

A: Ken Davis (Life Coach): Oh, well, of course a shout-out to your husband, Mike.  You know, there are a few people I’ve worked with in the past in my technology profession.  Any of them that know me, I would like to give a shout-out to.  And I just want them to know that I forgive them and I ask that they forgive me.  Lord knows as I look back, I can see some of the crazy things I did on my path to understanding who I was.  And so I have to know that there were people around when that happened, and, you know?  Before we go I’d like to introduce to your audience several books that they should consider reading.  Now, you’ve heard my quote from the course on miracles already.  Busting Loose from the Business Game by Robert Seinfeld.  Completely recommend that to any entrepreneur.  Also a book by my mentor. It’s called Energy Leadership by Bruce Schneider.