Being defeated in an election does not mean that you are a failure, nor does it mean that any other type of success you have is for nothing. It is all about perspective, your willingness to share more of yourself, and what your true purpose is and remembering that commitment. Today's episode features my interview with Ken Krawchuk, current 2026 Pennsylvania Libertarian Governor Candidate, in which he shares his wide, diverse experiences in the information technology (IT) field, his authoring of two books, and his successful radio show on WWDB 860 AM, The Pennsylvania Project, all has cumulative effects from being involved almost 10,000 days within Toastmasters, and beyond.

Guest Bio

Ken has been a registered Libertarian since 1993, and served two terms as Chair of the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania. He’s run for public office ten times, including four runs for Abington Township commissioner, once for US Congress, twice for State Representative, and three record-breaking runs for Governor of Pennsylvania. In 2000 he sought the Libertarian nomination for US vice president, ultimately placing third in a field of five, as chosen by the delegates. He currently serves on the Libertarian Party Judicial Committee at the county, state, and national levels and is a candidate for the Libertarian Party for the 2026 Pennsylvania Governor's race.

Ken is a Philadelphia native now living in nearby Abington Township. He and his first wife Roberta have been married seemingly forever, and have three adult daughters and four grandchildren (so far).

Website: https://www.pennsylvaniaproject.com/

• Toastmasters International -Home (https://www.toastmasters.org/) - Interested in learning more about how Toastmasters can increase your self-confidence...even get over asthma attacks like our guest did? Check out this website to learn more about you can improve your communication and leadership skills, anywhere in the world! Check out the "Find A Club" button on the page to specifically learn about clubs close to you (or even meeting online or hybrid!)
• A Starship Story (https://astarshipstory.com/) - Learn about his book, "No Dog On Mars", plus more fiction writing that he has written on this website.
• Atlas Snubbed (http://atlassnubbed.com/) - Read more about Ken's book, "Atlas Snubbed", on this website and pick up a copy for your own enjoyment.
• Ken Krawchuk's Pennsylvania Governor Race 2026 (https://www.kenk4pa.com/) - Follow along Ken's campaign for 2026 Pennsylvania Governor by visiting this webpage!

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Intro/Outro By: Michael Dugan, Podcast Host: Voice4Chefs

Welcome to the podcast where relationships, confidence, and

determination, all converge into an amazing, heartfelt experience.

This is Speaking From The Heart.

Welcome back to episode number 16 of Speaking From the Heart.

Today, I'm really excited for our guest, Ken Krawchuk.

Ken is somebody that has been one of the inspirations for me to start podcasting

as a result of his own show that he has on WWDB 860 AM in Philadelphia

called The Pennsylvania Project.

Ken has been a registered Libertarian since 1993 and he's been able to

serve two terms as chair of the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania.

He's run for public office over 10 times, which includes four runs for Abington

Township Commissioner, once for US Congress, twice for state representative

of Pennsylvania, and three record breaking runs for the Governor of Pennsylvania.

In 2000, he sought the Libertarian nomination for the US Vice

President, which ultimately placed him third in a field of five.

He currently serves as a libertarian party judicial committee at the

county, state, and national levels, and as of this recording, he had

kicked off his campaign for being Libertarian Governor of Pennsylvania

in the future election of 2026.

Ken's been an information technology professional.

first one being Atlas Snubbed, which we talk a little bit

about in the interview, along with no Dogs on Mars: A Starship Story, which is set 33

years in the future during the days when Mars is in process of being colonized.

Ken's also been a Distinguished Toastmaster.

He's been in Toastmasters, which we talk a little bit about his long, impressive

career, and I really enjoy the fact that in this episode we really got to be able

to have a casual conversation that then turned into some of the most important

lessons that he has learned throughout his journey, not only as being a professional,

but also running into the political realm.

With that, let's go to the episode.

We're here with Ken Krawchuk.

Ken, thanks for sharing your heart with us.

Hey, Joshua.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Yes, I am excited because you are one of those people that has lived

a very dynamic life and continues to live a very dynamic life, and I'm

really excited to have you on the show.

Ken, there's so much that I could easily start off with as a question and

Why?

No, I'm just kidding that.

No, I'm just kidding.

What motivates you to do all these things?

My audience heard about your impressive background that has spanned many decades

running even into the Libertarian Party and running for governor.

What motivates you to just give back in that way?

That's an easy question because it has to be fun.

If it's not fun, then Kenny don't play that.

I love my career.

I love my job.

I love going out camping; put a pack on my back and climb outside of a

mountain on the Appalachian Trail.

I like the public speaking.

I like the political debates where it's easy to make the

other guys look like idiots.

It's all comes down to, I do nothing but fun.

I've had jobs where, turned out it was nothing but heads down spreadsheet

work, and it's like, "oh, come on."

You try it out for a month or so, you say, "no, this ain't me," and you move on.

When you were trying those things and moving on, what would you say was

one of those jobs that you had that you went in there and you thought, "no, no

way, I'm not going back", might have been one of those jobs that you had one

day, or maybe you had for a few months and said, "this isn't a good fit."

Can you tell us about one of those situations?

Oh, sure can, and I always give them time.

One day, two days; one week, two weeks; even that's not enough,

but there was one, it was for a place that does insurance software.

I used to have an insurance agent license that was one of my many,

many careers, and they hired me for that but it was a startup.

If they had maybe a hundred, 110 people, and the place was growing so fast that

it was a mess, so they would say, "All right, Ken, go out to these clients

and pitch the software and get 'em converted over", and I say, "Fine.

If I go in there, start to do that..."

"Oh wait, I need the documentation."

"Oh, that's not written yet."

"Okay.

They're asking for the documentation."

"Well stall, put them off."

"Say what?"

They want ME, to lie, to a customer?

I've been a consultant now since the late seventies, aren't I?

Do the math?

What's that?

Come out to be about 40 some years.

Mm-hmm.

In every case, I'd like to leave there with the people saying, "you know,

Ken, we'd hire you if we could.", but this place, it set me up for failure.

Don't stay around with something that sets you up for failure.

It's not fun.

When you ran for Governor of Pennsylvania or, even the subsequent years

after that, and I'm sure that there has been a little bit of a sting of thinking,

"Man, I lost, I feel like a little bit of a failure, or do you not feel that way?"

No.

What's your goal?

When you do something like this, you have something in mind that you want to do,

and victory is what you define as victory, and going into it, there was no illusion

in my mind that I was going to win.

I mean, it was in the cards, but the deck was pretty well stacked against

me, but look, I'll give you an example.

The 2002 race for governor; in order for the Libertarian party to be

considered a real political party under the law, we needed to get a certain

number of votes, and that was my goal.

It's 2% of the highest vote getter in the prior election for that district.

That's how the law reads.

Pretty complicated.

Mm-hmm.

But that came out, it was about 40,000 votes.

That was my goal, and I hit it.

I got, I guess it's around 42,000 votes, something like that.

The party was ecstatic with me.

Hallelujah!

Now people could register as a libertarian, we could appoint people

directly into special elections, we had a monopoly on the libertarian name.

It was the first time we had done it, and I set records in the party.

No governor candidate ever done that well, and I was the only statewide candidate

running that year, so everything was on my shoulders and our party leadership did

not like me and did not want me to run.

So that was a, "haha.

Gotcha."

Even with all those people that were against you, even your own party,

what has driven you to continue to be involved, because I've seen that even

after all these decades, you still are an active participant even in the party.

What has kept you to stay involved?

I'm having an impact.

I could see it, and it's not just, not only on the opposition, but

also people inside my own party.

I've had strangers walk up to me and they shake a Pennsylvania

Constitution at me saying, "I never read this until you mentioned it.

I didn't even know this existed.

I'm surprised the things I've learned out of this.", and they're just so

many things, and I have political victories like my hometown, I

defeated an anti-graffiti ordinance.

If you had graffiti, they were going to come onto your property

without your permission, cleaned it up, bill you for the cleanup and

sentence you to community service.

Well, I dubbed that the Persecute the Victim Act, and had that

defeated, so many other things.

I go into a big, long list of victories that we've had, court case

victories, and as long as you're making headway, as long as you're seeing

positive stuff, does everyone work?

No, never.

Never works out that way, but you learn from it and you move on.

What I like about Toastmasters is that you learn what you could be doing better.

I will leave in the show notes too for those that are interested about

joining Toastmasters because it has helped so many people, and Ken, you're one of the

many guests that have come before that, and will continue to come after, that have

really benefited from the program, and I overemphasize the importance of that,

which I want to get into a little bit later with your own show that you have.

I had one last thing wrapping up your politics.

I don't think I really realized this on a personal level and reading your

biography made me want to ask you this.

You ran for US Vice President in 2000 for the Libertarian nomination.

What would you say was the biggest difference between going for something

like that role, which is national as opposed to doing the governor race?

Was there a big distinction?

No, actually it was the other way around.

Now I had run in 1998 for governor and I was new.

I'm mean it, I had been a Toastmaster for one year and I just wasn't that

polished, and I got nominated in April for a November election, and there just

was not time to get ready or anything like that, but it was so much fun.

I had a good time doing it, and it was 98 race and our convention

in early 99, I told the party I had a great time, I learned a lot.

I want to do it again, and I spent three years getting ready for it, and

the 2002 campaign, it remains my most successful campaign by any measure.

Between 98 and 2002, my campaign manager, guy out in Western Pennsylvania, he says,

"Why don't we try for Vice President?"

I'm like, "What?

Are you crazy?"

I'm not a national guy.

I'm a state guy.

I like Pennsylvania.

I know Pennsylvania.

I know the laws here.

I know the Constitution, but he said, "No.

Think of it this way.

We could practice."

The goal of the Vice President race was to practice for a Pennsylvania race,

and I figured if I could put together a national race with national volunteers

all over the place, well Pennsylvania would be a piece of cake, and as it turned

out, it was easy in comparison, plus now I had a national base of people who

knew me from outside of Pennsylvania: donors, volunteers; it was just great.

In fact, it was in 2004, a bunch of people put together an exploratory committee

to run me for President, and I actually did a couple of interviews along that.

I really didn't want to really be vice president, it was meant to be a practice

race, and I told delegates that too.

The one interesting outcome of all that, on the first ballot,

there was no clear winner.

It was 40 some percent, 40 some percent, and I had 9%.

What I did is I stood up there, I wasn't going to win.

I went up there and says, "You know, I'm going to do the honorable thing here.

I'm going to step aside so we don't have to do another ballot, and I'm

gonna be casting my vote for Art Olivier from California," and Art

became our Vice Presidential candidate.

In 2000, I personally chose the Libertarian Party's

Vice Presidential candidate.

Never imagined something like that would ever happen.

That has to be empowering too, to kind of know that I got

these cards in my deck and Yeah.

I know that I could continue to play it, but I'm not going to get anywhere with it,

and we want to show unity, so I'm going to throw my chips in and say, "This is

who I'm going for, and that's who it was."

Yeah.

Yeah.

I get so many compliments after this, like, "Dude, you got class."

Yeah.

Wow.

Nobody told me that before.

I wish more people would tell me I have class, but I think I

continue to buck that trend myself, which, speaking of bucking trends, you

really do that because of Toastmasters.

The audience knows a lot about your record of being involved with it,

and how many days have you been involved with Toastmasters now?

Let's see.

As of this recording?

9,350.

Okay, so-

That's- I remember the first- I remember the first of the

month, the first of every month.

This year is 9320, so today's the 30th, so I add on 30 days.

You have almost 10,000 days in Toastmasters, right?

Yeah, and it's already on my calendar to celebrate.

See, Ken, for my audience, Ken, I know would definitely have this number

memorized, or at least have some quick calculation to be able to say it right on

the recording, so I'm glad that we got it.

You going to talk more about Toastmasters?

Yeah.

Actually I wanted to ask you about that.

When you have gone through almost 10,000 days of doing this communication and

leadership experience, why do you stay in it, and what would you say to somebody

that is looking to find not only their voice, but also maybe pick up a couple

extra skills along the way for their personal and professional development?

Oh man.

There's just so many things about it.

I joined because I wanted to get more active in politics and before I was

a Toastmaster, I used to get asthma attacks if I tried to speak in public.

Wow.

People who know me now, they're like, "Oh yeah, come on, Ken.

That's not true," but it is.

I remember going to see my Congressman, Larry Coughlin, when they were putting

up the space station, wasn't up yet.

I went to ask him about it halfway through my question, I

couldn't breathe; it's terrible.

A guy came up to me and he says, "Oh, you nervous?"

I says, "Yeah, right.

Some people get butterflies; I get terradactyls.", but he says, "no,

you ought try joining Toastmasters."

Change my life, absolutely, completely.

By the time, I joined in 97, by the time the 2002 race came around, I had it down.

I knew what I was doing.

Nothing would shake me.

I was meeting Tom Ridge and Ed Rendell and all these big national

big wigs; didn't matter to me.

The cool thing is, I was in Toastmasters for that, but at that point, it turned

around the other way because there are other people who are coming in

who get asthma attacks when they're trying to speak, and I was there to

not pay it back, but to pay it forward, but that's only half of it because

I belonged to three different clubs.

It was four.

I let one go.

I belonged to three different clubs.

5, 6, 7 times a month, somebody is saying, "Ken, you're

starting to pace a little bit."

"Ken, watch how fast you're talking there."

"Ken, watch out for this."

I'm constantly honing my game, so I'm getting two things out of Toastmasters:

first, I'm helping others like they helped me, and second of all, they're

helping me like we help others.

I talk all the time, not only just for the radio show, not just Toastmasters,

but I'm a professional public speaker.

There are people who actually pay me to speak and I know people

who would pay me to shut up.

Well, don't worry, well, I'm not paying you to shut up, that's why

I asked you to be on the show for sure.

I wonder, when you are talking about these people that have gone through

similar experiences like you with asthma and have gone through things like

this when they're considering joining Toastmasters, pivoting back a little bit

with even the campaigns that you've been involved in, have you used those skills

in Toastmasters to help people that are being groomed into your campaign to help

you become maybe the next forerunner, maybe somebody to help another person out.

Have you been able to do that and make relationships with people and tell

us a little bit how you've done that?

The first one that comes to mind is a guy named Richard.

He's been in the party longer than I have.

Not many people have been in the party longer than I have.

I'm getting to be a real gray beard, but I talked to him into

joining Toastmasters, and he and I were, I would call him my nemesis.

We weren't arch enemies, we're on the same side, but just didn't always work out.

All of a sudden, this guy went from being a pain in the butt to

a competent communicator, and he is using my own tricks against me.

Hmm.

You know, and now he and I, we're the best of friends.

We've gotten past that early stuff, but that's a good example.

Another one is in the Libertarian party, they play a drinking game.

Every time I say the word "Toastmasters," everybody has to take a drink.

I'm taking one right now.

No.

Alcohol.

Mm, I'm sorry.

Didn't have that all night.

It actually happened earlier this year at the state convention.

I stood up and told people that I would be available to run for

governor in 2026 if the party wanted me, and I talked for only about two,

three minutes, wasn't that long.

After I sat down, one of the delegates gets up, says, "Yeah,

point of personal privilege.

Somebody should check in to Ken's background.

I think he's a federal agent because he did not mention Toastmasters."

That was the first time that you never mentioned Toastmasters.

Yeah, so thank you very much for that.

Ken, I know that you've been an author of a few books and I mentioned to

the audience already about Atlas Snubbed and No Dogs on Mars: A Starship Story.

Do you want to elaborate a little bit more about those books and maybe how

you got about the influence with them?

There's a deep, dark secret that very, very few people know.

You know, David Easlea, one of our fellow Toastmasters.

Yes.

I've known David since the mid- eighties, so he knew me when, so you

could double check these stories with him.

I wasn't born yet, just to put that in perspective.

Yeah, whipper-snapper.

David and I, we did a lot of fantasy war gaming together: Dungeons and

Dragons type of stuff, fancy board games, but I wanted to get into writing.

I wanted to foster a writing career, and David says, "Oh,

you ought to run for office.

You'll have to write a lot of speeches," and that's actually what happened.

I'd said, "Yeah, I want to do a writing career," so I wound up doing the political

stuff and then public speaking, and now I'm writing speeches all the time.

My show is weekly and I usually have two 10 minute speeches, each show.

How many shows have I done now?

Over 200.

Do the math.

I've done about 500 speeches just for the radio show.

Wow.

It's a lot.

Anyway, I had started off to foster a writing career.

It turned into a public speaking career, which I never expected,

and then it went back to writing again because with the first book,

Atlas Snubbed, it's 700 pages long.

It took me 11 years to write the thing, and that was fun too.

I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't fun.

That was the culmination right there.

It's a sequel to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged which had some mistakes in it.

I learned that because when I was running for public office, Ayn Rand is

the matriarch of the Libertarian party.

She doesn't like us, but too bad, we like her.

She made mistakes and I had to defend some of her mistakes on a

philosophical level out on the campaign trail, and that's what the book was.

It was the result of the 2002 race.

I had just finished re re ree rereading, Atlas Shrugged, 2002 in December, and

I said to my wife, "we're going up Christmas visits," and I said, "Boy,

it's shame the book ended right there.

You know, there's starvation fighting in the streets and everything.

Somebody should write a sequel."

In one of those moments that get down to history, my wife

said, "why don't you do it?"

Mmm.

That was it, and it's just a continuation of everything

else that I have been doing.

What was your influence about the No Dogs and Mars?

How did that come to be about?

Oh, come on man.

I'm a space buff.

I already mentioned, I was following the Space Station years ago.

I've been following Elon Musk since 2003.

Okay.

I subscribed to Aviation Week and Space Technology, which is an insider's

magazine, and they were making fun of him.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Here's this rich Playboy.

He's the co-founder of PayPal; give you an idea.

He took his PayPal fortune, and he turned it into his car company, Tesla

and SpaceX, but I was following him the whole time and he's my hero.

There's no question.

There's a from the heart for you, man.

That is from a heart, and as somebody that is autistic

that I found out just recently, I definitely relate to learning a

lot more about how Elon's journey has been as it relates to that too.

He's definitely has done a lot.

I don't know if you even knew about that, but we'll talk about that maybe

after this, but I want to spend a little bit of time now about your

pivotal project that you've been doing, The Pennsylvania Project, which I

have been honored to be one of your cohorts a few times on the show.

Mm-hmm.

I know that you have brought toastmasters in to give them some

insight and some valuable experience when it comes to communication by

reading the advertisements for the show.

They even banter with you on the variety of different topics that you cover.

Walk us through a little bit of how you got started with that, because I think

a lot of people are interested in my audience about how you start things.

How do you start anywhere?

I'm really curious if you could share that with us.

Wow.

Well, for me, I think it'd be different for a regular person.

Yeah.

I'm not a regular person, right?

I'm not a regular person either.

Yeah, I know.

When I ran for governor in 2018, one thing I did, it was a very good

race, I did it very well, wasn't quite as active as my 2002 race.

2002, I took nine months off from work and just did it full-time,

that wasn't the other case.

What I did do is every Wednesday night at 8:00 PM, I did a 10 minute

talking to people, and different issues, and it's Facebook, so you can

communicate back and forth, they would ask questions and things like that.

Race was over in the end of 2018.

In February of 2019, I get a call out of the blue from WWDB Radio saying,

"Ken, saw what you're doing, you did that", for, we did 78 episodes total.

It went for a year, year and a bit, not a year and a half almost,

and he says, "and you were there every week and you did a good job.

You got a good grasp.

You're well communicate well.

How would you like your own radio show?", and me, seconds go by in

silence, and I say, "What would I say?"

He said, "Anything you want."

" Can I have guests?"

"Anything you want?"

"Can I run commercial?"

"Ken, you're not listening; anything you want," and the first one aired

in April of 2019, and I've been on the air for over four years now.

My contract, they keep renewing it.

They love me.

I love doing it, especially you mentioned, I bring Toastmasters on.

So far I have had over 100 different Toastmasters on the show, and of those

Toastmasters, four of them have gone off to start their own radio shows.

That's the big thing.

I got a call out of the blue from the radio station, but now I'm an insider.

I'm in the business.

If you want a radio show, I can get you on the air.

I had one of your success stories, Chris Hulse, as the very first guest on my

show to talk about his travel podcast Off The Beaten Path, but I know that for many

people knowing you, Ken, you definitely bring those opportunities to people.

My question is, Why?, Going back to the original first question, why would

you bring other people into this?

I mean, you could have this be your own show and you could talk about anything

you want, like you said, the radio station told you you could do anything you want.

Anything you want.

Why this format?

Well, it's two separate questions there.

You know, why do it?

Yeah.

First of all, it's, it plays into everything that I want to do.

I can do the writing, I can do the public speaking, I can help fellow

Toastmasters, I can get the message out that we, Libertarians, believe

you have the right to live your life your way, providing irrespective

rights and property of others.

That's a message that deserves to be repeated, and I think

everybody believes that.

Do you believe that?

Put you on the spot.

Do you believe you have the right to live your life your way as long as you

respect the rights and property of others?

I have to put the link in the show notes of the episode that I was the cohort

on in which I took the libertarian quiz and I, no, it wasn't the libertarian quiz.

What was the quiz?

Can you remind me?

The world's smallest political quiz.

Thank you.

Yes, I took the quiz and you could find out the results of that, but I

leaned all over the spectrum, I think when I took it, and I have to say that

even to this day, I'm sticking to what I said a couple years ago on that.

Okay, and you're going to remind us?

I don't remember.

That's why I have to put the link in so that everybody can go and listen

to it, which is a free advertisement for you, Ken, because then they

actually have to go to a website and go listen to your radio show then too.

Pennsylvaniaproject.com.

Yeah.

Tell us a little bit about not only what you do as part of the show, for

those that are not familiar with it, but also, where can they access it.

Well, you go to Pennsylvaniaproject.com and there's a link

there it says episodes and that'll get you to all 200, however many episodes.

It's also on iHeartRadio, iTunes, Spotify, and a plethora of popular

podcast providers, if you want to get alliterative, we're all over the place.

Just Google Pennsylvania Project.

You'll find it.

It's easy enough.

Atlassnubbed.com for that book.

Astarshipstory.com, and it's not just a novel there.

I have a whole bunch of short stories that are out there for free, including one

that I wrote when I was in high school.

It's a joke Star Trek episode from the original series.

Being a Trekkie myself, I know that I enjoy that so much.

Ken, I want to wrap up as we get closer to the end of time with this question,

because it's been on my mind, especially as of lately, and reading through some of

the things that you've accomplished, I'm kind of curious on your take of this too.

There's a lot that's changed over the last several decades when it comes to politics

and even just the way that we communicate with each other, and I just had a guess

in my last interview episode in which we talked about that a little bit.

He was a reporter for over 25 years.

He runs his own storytelling business now, talking to people

and helping them to craft their own stories too, but I'm wondering, do

you see it as being more divisive?

Do you see it as being more inclusive?

Do you see it as we're not getting to be heard?

Not only from what you've done personally as being a candidate, but just combining

all the things as being a radio show host, a Toastmaster, what's your take

on it and do you think that we can get back to some sort of discourse, if there

has to be any sort of change of that?

Absolutely, and I can get into details on that.

If I didn't see the progress, I wouldn't be doing this, but we Libertarians,

we were founded in 1971, and we are the third largest party, hands down.

We outnumber all the other third parties put together.

We're still growing, and the community is coming together, the

political community, because right now only about half the people are

affiliated with one party or another.

All the rest are independents, they're libertarians, maybe they're greens

or whatever, so I could see that the shift that's going on, and I'm going

to be recording a show later this week that's going to have the thing that is

going to change how everything is done.

The problem with our political set up is the way that we vote, because

when you go to vote, all you can do is say, "I like this person."

Odds are you don't like that person.

Odds are you're picking a least of two evils.

Pew Charitable Trust did a study, and they found that more than half the people

didn't like either Trump or Hillary.

Right?

What's missing, not just a button to say, "I like this person.

I vote for this person.", because when they see that

vote, they think, "they love me.

They love everything about me.

They love...", I'm saying it's not the case.

They don't see you holding your nose when you're pushing that button.

What's missing is a button to say, I disapprove of this candidate.

There's a system.

Roy Minet is a retired physicist who came up with a setup and he was telling

us, he had him on the show talking about this, but what you do is he's

called " approved disapprove voting".

You could vote for two and they get a plus one and a plus one, and you could vote.

For one, you disapprove and they get a minus one, and you add up all the numbers

and the one with the high score wins.

You can say, "I don't like this Trump guy, I don't like this Hillary guy,

I don't like this libertarian guy," and you can actually lower their

score and if their score goes below zero, they're kicked out of the race.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Now if we had that, something to measure how much you dislike somebody, we

would not have had a President Trump.

We would not have had a President Hillary.

We would not have a President Biden; we'd have somebody else.

Yeah, and I would've never wanted anybody else except you

to be on this episode so that I could interview you, so there's no

disapproval, there's no approval.

It's just the fact that you are here, and I hope my audience got a lot

today out of not just what you have done in your rich career, which we

could easily talk about for hours upon hours, but I think that for you, Ken,

you, to my eyes, have represented a lot of people might been afraid to

step up and be able to be a voice.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that you are doing that consistently.

Yeah.

Time and time again, and I really appreciate you being here, sharing your

heart with us on Speaking From The Heart, and I thank you for your time today.

Oh, I thank you for the opportunity, and you just tell people,

for my governor race, kenk4pa.com.

Great.

Just check out my stands; they all go back to the same thing.

Your life, your way, as long as you respect others.

It's the golden rule, and what else do we need in politics more than that, right?

I'll make sure that that's put in the show too, so that people

can check that out, and you're right, I think that we definitely need those

sort of rules so that it helps us out.

Ken, thank you again.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Joshua.

I appreciate the opportunity and the chance and keep touching the heart.

Going in one more round when you don't think you can.

That's what makes all the difference in your life."

That quote, which is from Rocky Balboa, really one of the most influential

fictional characters made by Sylvester Stallone, has been one of many in which

I aspire to, and it reminds me of the interview that we just heard between

Ken and I in which has been one of the most colorful careers of anybody

in which I've interviewed so far on Speaking From The Heart, and I really

enjoyed our conversations being that Ken, being a radio show host, podcaster

extraordinaire himself, he has been able to interact with people from all kinds

of diverse, situational backgrounds in which all of us can learn important

lessons about civil discourse and the importance of understanding and learning

to provide not only opportunity for those people to have a voice, but to

be able to respect and thoughtfully and articulately reply to such comments.

I think that for many of us, we can often say the phrase, "I disapprove

of this", and say that to anybody that is consistently not meeting our

mantra, but I love Ken's viewpoint.

I love the fact that he does challenge that.

I known him personally to be able to do that and do it so well, that with

such clarity and conviction makes me wish that I didn't have to edit

these episodes down for filler words and things of that nature, because I

struggle with being able to have that articulation even a decade later.

You say what, Joshua?

You say that, as a public speaking coach, you struggle with those things too?

Absolutely, and that is what I'm willing to admit even on this show

about the importance of being able to be open and having a conversation

about the things that we can defeat the cycle on, and defeating that cycle

is exactly what I think Ken has been out to challenge every single time.

It's been very hard, even for some people, to be able to do that and in coaching,

especially, one of the biggest obstacles that you have to work with when it comes

to business owners, individuals that are trying to challenge ,themselves or even

present on a topic of your choosing, is about thinking of how to diffuse

those different viewpoints that are going through our minds and thinking

about how we can overcome those people; how we can overcome those situations.

I can say for most certainty that we probably would never think to run for

the Vice Presidency of the United States on the Libertarian ticket, or maybe

even have the political courage to step up and even be a commissioner, to be

a representative, but, I know that I have some of those people listening to

this podcast, and I have some helpful words for you, especially from what I've

heard from today's interview with Ken.

It's not just about the things that we say and do that create that opportunity.

It's about how we take action; how are we able to consistently prove

our value when we know that sometimes those obstacles are very challenging.

It's easy to go into the stereotype of thinking, "no, I don't provide anything.

I am no good to anyone", and that's simply not true.

As a matter of fact, I have said that voice to myself for over 30 years,

and here I am, conquering my imposter syndrome, and sometimes that is tough to

say that you need to make that change to make that value happen in your life, but

Ken was able to do that numerous times:, writing two books, being able to be a

Toastmaster for over 9,000 days, to be able to say to all of us that, "yes, I

learned some important lessons along the way, and I had to brush the dirt off my

pants and get back up and keep going."

Ken is one of those people that I have to say has helped me to see

what the bigger picture is when it comes to professional development,

leadership development specifically, and knowing that it doesn't matter

what you have to say; it has to be well articulated, and it has to have context.

Those are the two things that are really important so that we can have a

thoughtful, considerable conversation amongst other people that we might have.

Sometimes, even having that conversation is very tough in itself, but I think

Ken demonstrated today that it could be really important for us if we can continue

to push ourselves with competition.

Being able to do it with double digit runs for all kinds of offices

has certainly shown the value of what he's been able to achieve.

It's been able to show him through his professional career as an IT administrator

and also being able to build things that were mostly from scratch in a

world that was rapidly advancing, that he, amongst others, can change the

course of what our civilization has.

We're not perfect.

As a matter of fact, I have my own quote in which I think of all the

time, which I've mentioned at least in one other episode, that my political

science professor has mentioned to me time and time again when I went

to school, and it's from Aristotle.

Aristotle said that human beings, essentially, all of us, and

I'm paraphrasing here, human beings are political animals.

We all have civil discourse that we have that we want to be socially connected.

We want to find our own way in which we want to establish our government.

We all want to find ways in which we can participate, whether that is

through volunteering or providing civil service, which I've had the

fortunate opportunity to do at the state level for over a decade.

I think Ken said it very well with one quote that he made towards

the end of our interview, which he paraphrased, but I was able to look up.

Plato once said that those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished

by being governed by those who are dumber.

Now, that's pretty darn rash, but Plato has some words of

wisdom that are within that.

Those who are too smart, we can be that smart.

We have to be able to understand that we need to converse.

We do need to share what we have.

Ken didn't have to accept my invitation being that he has been so successful in

many ways, and even if you want to say that he has lost, that, he was a big L O

S E R; I'll let you spell that out and say it out loud on your own, but he wasn't.

He wasn't at all, and that's what makes this really differing for

many other characters that might come through in your life that want

to tell you what the quote unquote business is that you need in your life.

It's about being genuine.

It's about seeing what's inside of your heart and unlocking that unlimited

potential, knowing that you are going to make mistakes, but you can learn from

them; that by the process of growing, by stepping aside fear, you can have

what all things all have together, meaning we are capable of being some

of the best versions of ourselves if we just stand out of our own way.

That is what makes us all winners, in all political races, in all careers

that we do, but more importantly, in how we give ourselves value.

Thanks for listening to episode 16 of Speaking From the Heart,

and I look forward to hearing from your heart very soon.

Thanks for listening.

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