Forged with Pasha & Mick

You Start Becoming What You Believe with Ken Harvey

Episode Notes

A high school coach told Ken Harvey he was a loser and would be a loser all his life. Ken had just dropped out. He was seventeen, labeled a quitter, with no grades, no money and no plan, and for a while he believed it. Then came the lowest point of his life, a moment on his knees, and two words he says he heard back: purpose and destiny. What followed reads like fiction. A junior college in Oakland he had to save up to reach, having never been on a plane. Then the University of California, Berkeley. Then the twelfth overall pick in the 1988 NFL Draft, six seasons with the Phoenix Cardinals, five in Washington, four straight Pro Bowls, 89 career sacks and a place in the Ring of Fame. But the part Ken wants to talk about is what came after, because when the uniform came off he ran again. In this conversation with Pasha and Mick, he is sixty-one, still asking what he is here for, and has stopped running away from things in order to run at them. This one is about labels, second acts, and the small moments that change somebody's life.

What This Episode Will Forge In You:

• You Become What You Believe: Ken is precise about how a label does its damage. People do not have to say it. You see it in how they look at you, you sit with it long enough that you start believing what you hear, and then you start becoming what you believe. His way out was not positive thinking, it was hearing that he had a purpose and a place, then humbling himself, going back, and putting a vision in front of the belief.
• Learn to Run Toward Things Instead of Away From Them: Ken frames his own life through Moses: the prince, then forty years of wandering, then the assignment. He ran away from school as a kid, and the same instinct made him a linebacker who ran into people for eleven seasons. When football ended he ran again, this time in broad daylight, shaking hands and shutting doors at the same time. The skill never changed. Only the direction did, and he says that is usually all a lesson is.
• The Small Thing You Barely Remember May Be the Thing That Lands: Ken took his dad to the 1989 Pro Bowl and quietly asked a player to go say hello to him. His father talked about it like a kid. That thirty-second favor became Ken's whole standard for how to treat people, and it is why he writes children's books for kids who have never seen themselves as the hero of one. You almost never learn which moment mattered, so the answer is to give it anyway.

Quotes That Hit Like A Hammer:

“You start believing what you hear and you start believing what you see around you, and then you start becoming what you believe.”

“I'm taking you back and trying to teach you how to run into stuff as opposed to away from stuff.”

“Sometimes lessons in life are just perspective. It can be the same thing, but it's the way you see it.”

Questions This Episode Answers:

• Can one label from a teacher or a coach shape your entire life?
• What makes a smart kid drop out of high school?
• How do you come back from the lowest point of your life?
• How does a high school dropout end up at UC Berkeley and in the NFL?
• Why do so many athletes struggle with identity after they retire?
• What does it mean to run toward something instead of away from it?
• Is it ever too late to start something new?
• How much difference can one small act of kindness actually make?
• Why did an NFL linebacker start writing children's books?
• What are the three things that make somebody great at what they do?

Connect & Discover Ken:

Touching Heart: touchingheart.com

LinkedIn: Ken Harvey

Books: owlpublishinghouse.com/books-by-ken-harvey

When Chocolate Milk Moved In: Order on Amazon

Come Find Me: Order on Amazon

If This Episode Hits Close to Home:

Ken speaks openly about the lowest point of his life. If you are struggling, you can reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988 in the U.S., any hour of any day.

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988lifeline.org

FOLLOW FORGED:

Pasha Palanker

Website: pashapalanker.com

Instagram: @pashapalanker

Mick Hunt

Website: MickHuntOfficial.com

Instagram: @mickunplugged

LinkedIn: @mickhunt

Ken talked about wanting one book to plant one seed in one kid. Forged is putting 20 copies of each of his books behind that: comment or message the show and we will get one to you. If this episode moved you, share it with someone who needs it. Let's support humans doing great things.