About Ken

 

 

I am the author of the book “Strategies, The Magic Key”. I live with my wonderful family including our cat Trixie in a beautiful part of Minnesota, nestled only steps away from a large nature reserve that includes several lakes and activities like downhill skiing and snowboarding, miles of paved and natural trails for jogging hiking, biking, rollerblading, cross-country skiing and an Olympic ski jump (No I have never tried the ski jump).

 

I am an avid reader and never tire of learning and talking about human behavior and the possibilities for improving our lives and our relationships with others. I work quite a bit from home and enjoy the latest technologies that allow me to connect with people globally. I especially enjoy working directly with people to make positive shifts in their lives, this helps me too as I continue to refine the practical application of the knowledge  I both learn and develop.

 

 

What can I offer you?

 

I think this is a fair question that any author should be able to answer.

My background includes working with thousands of people globally who are all experiencing some sort of intense challenge, many of them on crisis and suicide lines. Through this experience and with my desire to make a real difference longterm, I realized better tools needed to be developed, both for people who want to improve their situation and for people like myself who want to help others.

 

Using my background in general semantics, NLP, Gottman level I and II training, strategic intervention, spiral dynamics as well as a good set of practical personal and business street sense, I set out to create usable and effective tools anyone could easily use.  As I see it, part of the problem is that psychology and behavior really are interesting and cool, most people I talk to agree but are put off because it’s usually not presented in a way that they like. It’s usually dry and comes from some position of superiority that turns people off. My thought is that ideas, no matter how brilliant, are worthless if they are not practical or appealing for people in everyday situations.

 

I have made a simple blueprint that sharpens our intuitions about human behavior that can be overlaid onto other psychological ideas such as Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Although based on rigorous psychology and philosophy, I want this to be the kind of experience that is accessible and enriches the lives of its readers. It is also very important to me that people feel as though it is the kind of book that they could give to a teenager, someone getting married, or for someone with a lifelong challenge, knowing that that person will change their life for the better having read it.

 

 

Yes,  I have specialized in things besides PD & writing.

 

Pursuing my natural tendency to fix things up, I spent my teenage years working and fixing up old cars. Wanting to do things I love and still pay my bills, I started buying and restoring distressed real estate. That led to a long and amazingly diverse set of practical business experience as a real estate investor and broker. From management and sales of several types of commercial and residential income property, to owning and/or running various properties, real estate sales, and management companies.

 

Looking back, if I had to choose my favorite part of real estate, I would say that I enjoy working with single and multifamily residential properties because of the huge amount of interaction with great people.