← Excellent Executive Coaching: Growing Your Business and Enhancing Your Craft.
Excellent Executive Coaching: Growing Your Business and Enhancing Your Craft.
EEC 401: From Ivy League to Prison and Back Again, with Ken Miller
00:43:01
Ken Miller is a recognized speaker, author, and fundraising strategist whose powerful life story—from Ivy League success to incarceration and redemption—inspires audiences to lead with authenticity, resilience, and purpose. How did your journey...
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- [00:05]
A
Now how does one transform from being in a foster home, being a drug addict and incarcerated, to being a successful mentor, business owner and helping others transform? But how is this possible? So let's ask can Ken Miller's fascinating story. Welcome to the excellent executive coaching podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Katrina Burus. And today we have Ken Miller. Ken, most welcome.
- [00:43]
B
Thank you. I want to welcome all the guests and individuals that are listening. Thank you, Dr. Burroughs.
- [00:49]
A
So you know, Ken, you have an unusual background. So you had, you've been from Ivy League to prison. So tell us what got you into prison after being in an Ivy League addiction?
- [01:03]
B
Real simple, as a substance misuse problem. I was addicted to crack cocaine. And that will get you 20 years being homeless and on the streets are incarcerated, which is part of my story.
- [01:18]
A
So was it when you were at the university or before you were at the university? At what age did you start being addicted?
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B
Age 17. Began drinking in college, in a fraternity. And I was very quickly, probably within two months, a full blown alcoholic. And then I was exposed to drugs and got addicted to those also while in Dartmouth College.
- [01:47]
A
Wow, that's incredible. Now how could you finish your studies?
- [01:52]
B
I barely, you know, I tell everybody I majored in fraternity and I minored in drinking. That's what my degree was.
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A
Yeah, but I mean, congratulations. So help us understand what made the turnaround. There's a lot of people that go through, you know, difficult, even a lot of alcoholics that go through very difficult moments. What was the trigger for you to change?
- [02:19]
B
Pain. Pain in the present? September 22, 2004 I was in a lot of pain.
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A
I've been physical pain, psychological pain, emotional, emotional, emotional pain.
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B
And physical too. I just had my jaw broken, so my jaw was wired shut and I was obviously on the streets homeless. But it's the emotional pain. I had lost hope, any sense of the future having anything but pain in it, whether it's emotional or physical. And I got to a turning point. I was arrested for sales of a controlled substance, $10 rock of crack cocaine. And I was sentenced to six years in the penitentiary. And so I did three years and I've been clean and sober ever since.
- [03:08]
A
Well, that shows a lot of strength on your part. What was it like when you first went to prison and you had to wean off the drugs, the alcohol? That must have been a tough transition.
- [03:21]
B
It can be, you know, different drugs have different. You call. Weaning off cocaine is not that bad. It's not like heroin or even methamphetamines, but it Was still tough. The thing is that you're so used to daily to taking in a substance to change your reality because that's what a drug does. That's all a drug does. And when you're without that after doing that for months or years in a row, it's very difficult for you psychologically, mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. And so I had difficulty when I first came in, but I overcame that and now I'm on the other side. And I've been there for that way for a few decades.
- [04:06]
A
Yes, you certainly have rebounded beautifully. Just for those listeners that might be having that kind of problem, what was okay, you were weaned off, but did the prison at all help you? What helped you get through this?
- [04:23]
B
At that time, prison was the best thing that ever happened to me. The best because it gave me a controlled environment to work on self. Because I was lacking in those four areas. Physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. And I needed to work on all four of those areas because I was very damaged when I went into prison. Damaged is probably the best word. And most men and women that go to prison are damaged. And so I went there and I worked on each and every one of those four areas to become the person I am today. And it was a journey and some were easier than others. But I got to the other side and at least allowed me opportunity to, once I was removed from prisoner, left prison to make some decisions with at least some sanity or clear headedness to be able to make that next decision on what do I do once I get out.
- [05:23]
A
So in prison, what helped you work on all those different aspects?
- [05:28]
B
Okay, I'll talk to each of them. Physical. I went into prison 165 pounds. I'm six foot two, I'm 205 now, so 40 pounds of muscle. That's muscle. It's muscle. So I went in there and I remember I had. My jaw was wired shut, had some difficulties with my eyesight. Anyway, so physically I was a mess. So I started lifting weights, eating well, because you don't eat well on the streets. I used to tell people my diet was Doritos and natural ice beer. That was my diet on the streets.
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A
Oh my.
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B
And so I go in there and I eat well and I start lifting weights and I. So the physical was taken care of. Then you go to the intellectual. What happens is if you do not use your brain, it literally atrophies. And I'm talking about the amount of information that it stores, remembers, can bring up to be able to articulate whatever you're wanting to say. So I started reading and in one year I read 160 books in one year, because I write down every book I read. Since 2004, I've read about 1100 books, but one year I did 160. So that worked on the intellectual. And then the key ones really were the emotional and the spiritual. So I went to counseling, and that was phenomenal for me, that was probably the key. And then the spiritual. I looked into a few different religions and went to a few different groups while in. And I have a very strong spiritual grounding today, and I am emotionally well.
- [06:59]
A
Thank you. Thank you for sharing that because I think it will be very helpful for other people. Yeah. So how did your journey from give you this resilience? When you came out of prisons, then you had. It was not only personal transformation, which you explained, but then have the resilience to not go back.
- [07:18]
B
Well, I made the decision actually one month into my incarceration that I was going to do whatever I could do to not return to using a substance or misusing a substance. And once that decision was made, and it was a decision between me and God, and once that decision was made, I haven't even wanted to use. But it didn't mean that I didn't have areas I needed to grow. And there's a lot of areas I needed to grow emotionally, especially, and in my interactions with others. And so when I got out, I continued to do my best to put in into succession a number of good decisions. And I made a lot of good ones, I made a few bad ones, but they weren't ones that encompassed using chemicals. So that was really good.
- [08:15]
A
So what was the good ones and the bad ones? Because when you've had a certain lifestyle, okay, you get out, but you have to recreate a whole new world that's not dependent on any. So how did you sort of surf through these decisions and what, you know, difficulties did you overcome?
- [08:36]
B
Great question. And I want to tell you why It's a great question. I speak about this often. It's changing of communities. You said world, but it's the same thing we're talking about. Had to change my communities because I was in a community we called the streets. I was in the streets. So when I did three years, I got out of prison. I was bused from Carson City to Reno, Nevada, and I was let off on the bus. Off the bus two blocks from where I was arrested. Two blocks, okay? So I was back in that same world. And I could take a right or I can Take a left. Okay. And the right was to go to the halfway house. The left was to go back onto the streets. Remember, I'm a three time convicted felon. I've been to prison three times. The first two times I went right back into that community of the streets. This time, even though it took me 20 minutes to make that decision, I'm literally sitting on, standing on the corner trying to decide which way was I going to go. After three years of penitentiary, after many meetings, emotional, physical, everything, I still struggled. But I did, I went to the halfway house. And you know what helped me at that point is I began working with a sponsor. I also acquired a couple mentors, individuals I could look up to. But I changed completely my community of individuals that I associated with and or tried to emulate.
- [10:04]
A
Okay, that's wonderful. So you found new mentors. And then of course, you go to a place where you have no friends because you have to start all over again. So did these mentors sort of palliate? I don't think that's a word, but sort of help you transition to have some kind of initial community?
- [10:24]
B
Well, the initial community is the halfway house. So a halfway house is either coming out of drug treatment or you're coming out of some type of incarceration. And you go to a location that's halfway being integrated back into society. But you're run. A lot of people either are coming off a drug treatment or you're coming out of prison. And actually they're damaged too. Okay. So my predominant community early on was the rooms of the Anonymous programs. That was AA and na. Those were my rooms. And there's individuals that have many years, just like I do now. I have 21 years coming up on, 21 years clean and sober. And so I got around those individuals who were positively doing life without picking up a chemical. So that was my first community. And then I, of course, I had communities within my work environment. And many of those people don't have a substance misuse problem. And so I associated with them. And then I had some, you know, some family members that were great, you know, obviously. And so I created a whole new community. Whole new. And then the other community, I may have contact today with two or three people out of the hundreds that I knew from prison and streets. Maybe two or three. That's it. Because they're not where I'm at. Or. Yeah, they would just say that they're not where I'm at. But if they are, hey, we can still be friends, we can still talk, we can Still Facebook or whatever.
- [11:55]
A
I see. What was it like to go back and see some of your friends still in the same situation?
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B
Sad. Sad. Because what happens is literally the way that you look at the world changes. And sometimes I would see individuals on the streets that I knew doing the same because I can just tell by what they're doing or how they're walking and what corner they're on, what they're doing. And there's sadness, and then there's a sense sometimes of joy that I'm not there because I was there for 20 years, 20 years on that same corner. Quote, unquote proverbial corner. And I also. And the sadness is I know how much pain they're in. I know how much pain they're in. And it is painful to be an addict, especially a street level addict, but any addict. Okay.
- [12:53]
A
Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. So you create a new community. You have mentors, you are seeing friends somewhat few. And you understand their pain they're going through. So how has this experience helped you in the more business world to help individuals and organizations?
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B
Easy. That's easy. Number one, I have empathy and sympathy for individuals as individuals. So even though you're a client or I'm coaching you or working for you, your organization is connected with one of my organizations. I still understand that you're human. What it allowed me to do, especially early on, it allowed me to have a lot more grace in dealing with people. Yeah. You know, show me at a meeting or you're late often to a meeting, or you don't get the work done. Whether you're a staff member, a contractor, or, you know, a client that I'm working with, I have a lot of grace. I have a lot of what the word I use is tolerance. And I had to learn this because that's not the way I was when I first came out. Because there's not a lot of tolerance on the streets. There isn't. For different reasons. I don't need to go into. But there isn't. But I had to learn tolerance in the business world because if you don't have tolerance, it's just like two gears. Just like two gears, it creates too much friction because there's no space between the teeth of the gear. And it creates friction, which is heat, which is discomfort. Okay. And pain. And so I had to learn tolerance. And this is one of many lessons I've learned that I've been able to take from my experiences on the streets or learned while I was getting well from the streets.
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A
Yes. Why is There no tolerance on the street. And then how did you build that tolerance?
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B
Why is there no tolerance on the street? Because tolerance, if you have tolerance on the streets, people will treat you in a specific way which will take advantage of you.
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A
Okay?
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B
So the biggest word, in fact, my next book that's coming out that I'm writing with a gentleman named Dr. Will Moreland, is on respect and disrespect on the streets and in. And in the boardroom. But what does that mean? And so what happens is, if you give tolerance, let's say this, I am an individual that deals drugs, and I give you some drugs on, as we call a front. Pay me back when you get paid or sell the drugs, and then you don't do it. And everybody knows that, hey, I can just rip off Ken. I can just, you know, get a front, and he'll never pay me back. I cannot tolerate that as a code of the streets, because you will then take advantage of me. Okay, so that's the streets. So how I learned, again, is coming off, I can't take the world of prison and take the world of the streets. Or for other individuals that are listening, I have to look at what are my scripts. And a lot of times we get them from our family, we get them from our colleagues, we get them from our co workers or environments in college, whatever it may be. But we have these scripts that we believe we have to play out. A lot of times we don't even know they're unconscious scripts. And I had to break those. First I had to identify them, and then I had to break those scripts that were inbred in me because I'm not in that community any longer.
- [16:31]
A
So what made you identify those scripts?
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B
Pain. Always pain for me. And when I say pain, that's the broad term I use. We can just call discomfort. So if I have a situation where someone is ill at ease or uncomfortable or has indicated to me that they're in pain and it's because of me, I have to look at me, okay, and try to understand what is the truth of this situation or this event or this interaction. And then I can almost say it's a skill I have. I can go in and look at all of my antecedents to all of my actions. I can also. And I've spent time. I spent a few years working on this. What are my core issues as a child, as a adult, as a teenager, but they all really came out of my childhood. And we didn't really get into this, Katrina, but I spent six years in foster homes. I'm a foster child. That is what imprinted me, okay? Literally. And then I dealt with a lot of violence growing up. A lot of violence. My father shot my mom six times. Came to shoot me at my job, shot her at her job. They'd been divorced for five years. They weren't even in contact. But he went over a job, shot her, and then came over to shoot me. But the gun jammed. I mean, literally jammed. Okay? True story. It's in my book. I have a book called Becoming Ken. That's great. But all I'm saying is this is what I tell people and explain to them when I went into the penitentiary. But really, for my whole life, until I got. Well, I was damaged, and what I mean, damaged. And so the way I interacted with the world was for self protection. And there's things that I would do, and there were scripts that I needed to play out.
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A
So things that you would do. So explain what you do. And scripts that you were telling yourself. And then what are the new scripts?
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B
Right. What would I do?
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A
Yeah, Give an example.
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B
Oh, easy, easy.
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A
Okay.
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B
Because I got to make sure. Because I want to keep it as clean as I can. So from where I'm from, which is the streets and the penitentiary, you cannot call me a punk. The word punk, you know, like punk music, all that, but it's nothing to do punk music. But you can't call me a punk. There's three words you can't call. One starts with a B, one starts with an N, and other one is punk. Okay? If you call me that in the penitentiary or on the streets, automatically, I will fight. I won't even warn you. It will be a fight, okay? That's what I would do. That was the action. That's the script that I was taught. You can't ever let a man call you out and call you a B or call you a punk or call you an N. Okay? Period. So that's a script. And one of the things that I teach on Katrina, Dr. Burris, is that I teach on gap control when I work with men. So I work with men all over the country. And when I'm working with these men, I said, let's work on some gap control. And they're like, what do you mean? What do you mean? I said, well, gap control, very simply is we have input coming in from external sources. And what we're trying to do is not react, but with forethought, act. And how can we expand the gap between the input and the output, okay? And Most of the time that output is verbal. I will threaten you first. Usually that's what most of the guys I work with. And then they may go to the physical. But the problem is, can you put some time in between that? You can go in there and cognitively look at. Why does this feel as a threat? Why do I feel fear? Why do I feel anger? And I've done all that. I've taken away the power of all three of those words. And it took me a couple of years, believe me, working on it, because I had to identify what words are my trigger words. Okay, and then what? I already knew what the script was. I already knew what the script was, but now why do they affect me so much? Why? They're just vibrations of the vocal cord, okay? And so anyway, so that's what I do with scripts. Those are former scripts. And right now, and be honest with you, there's very, very few scripts that I have. The only script that's similar to this is if you threaten or hurt my family. That's it. If you threaten or hurt my family, I have a responsibility to protect my wife and the children and the grandchildren, period. That's. You can call it a script. I don't care if people don't agree with that. I don't care. You know what I'm saying? But that's me. Okay? That's it. That's it. You can call me anything you want. And there's another one, is. Yeah, there's one that's sort of famous in our. In the male world and in the male word, you cannot spit on another man. And that's very rare, but I've had it happen to me. And literally instantaneous. I punched him instantaneous. And I'm not proud of that. But that's. Again, that one, I don't know, I don't. Probably will never happen to me again. I haven't. We call it touch someone. That means physically engaged with an individual in a violent way. In 21 years, since I've gotten cleaned up, I haven't threatened anybody in 10, 12, 15 years.
- [22:11]
A
It's a huge self control. And I want to underline what you said, which I think is very important. It's, you know, they're trick. You identify the trigger words, you create when you hear it. You create space between impulsively reaction, right? Instead, step back, take a time, a pause to think out what's happening, what you feel, and then act in a more positive way. Or let's say something that you wouldn't be ashamed of if you look back at the situation, would you say that's the case?
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B
Yeah. Something I think I'll put me back into prison. Let me, let me explain one thing about where I'm at.
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A
Yeah.
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B
I'm a three time convicted felon.
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A
Yeah.
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B
If I pick up a fourth felon, a felony in the state of Nevada, let alone California, I'm a habitual criminal. The judge told me next time I came into his courtroom it was 25 to life.
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A
25 to life. I see.
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B
Okay, so. And now we were close to that. But this is another important thing I want to share with the audience. Sometime the action is to run away. It's to get out of the situation because you can't think enough or go into the cognitive part of the brain because you built up this anger and, or fear. You just got to get away. And I've done that. I've run physically ran from situations where I just knew I didn't have, I couldn't cognitively, intellectually try to understand this situation. All I knew was I was in danger of doing something that was going to be inimical to my long term well being, period.
- [24:01]
A
Thank you for sharing that. So with this extensive experience of self control, of awareness, I would say, and how best to act after a difficult situation. How do you help other individuals in this situation?
- [24:19]
B
So how I help them. So let's say what I do, I'm just talking about in one area. Let's just talk about mentoring. I have been mentoring over 15 years. I am also going to be writing a book about mentoring in communities of color. Yeah, okay. But I've been mentoring and I have explicit, what we call explicit contract mentoring. First of all, mentoring is free. Always. Mentoring is open ended. Always. And when I mentor young men, young men of color, I very simply, the first meeting, what I say to them, I have one responsibility to you and that is to engender dreams. What is your dream? And I even say this to them. I give you permission to dream. And then I shut up. You say, why do you say that to a grown man? Because many people have taken away their ability to dream. Oh, you can't do that. Oh, you'll never do that. Or you can't or why do you think that you would be able to do that or have your own business or you know, accomplish this or be on the stage of speaking. They get that from their family, their parents, their, you know, colleagues, their siblings. So I have to say that, and I do say that I give you permission to dream. Then I shut up and then I do my best to engender dreams and I could go into that. I'm not going to go into it because I want to go back to the original question. Every man that I've ever worked with in both, and I've worked with probably a hundred. Every man that I've ever worked with, both as a sponsor in the anonymous programs and as a mentor, we deal with the emotion of anger. It is something that as men, we have to deal with. Okay, under. And then what I do when I work with them, I always say to them, under all anger. And I have never been able to define it, not having an underlying current of fear, period. Never. And I've looked at it for 10, 15 years. And then what we want to do is we want to peel away so we have a outer manifestation of the fear, which is anger. Because you can do a couple of different things with fear. You can remember fight, flight or freeze. Okay, Those are the three. Three. Most people know fight and flight, but they don't remember. There's another thing you do with fear, which is freeze. Okay, but we're going to talk. This is the fight part of it, but underneath fear, because fear, all fear is, is the future anticipation or expectation of pain. That's all fear is. It's an expectation of pain one second away or six years or a year away. Okay? But it's an expectation and anticipation of pain. And then we talk about what is the pain. And one of the most important things, because it was important for me. And I'm not saying I have the all the answers on mentoring, but I've been very successful in the mentoring. And how do you measure that? We can talk about that. But the thing I always do when I work on the pain aspect of it is I say to them, what is your self talk? When this happened, what did you say to yourself? Oh, man, he disrespected me. Oh, man, I can't believe he said that to my wife. Oh, man, I've had some doozies. Okay? And then what we try to do after that, and this is the hardest part, we peel down to pain, self talk, and then what's the core issue? What's the core issue? So this is what I do a lot when I work with guys, and I don't do this all the time with guys. A lot of time we're just talking about something in the business world or something in their personal life or family. But what we. A lot of times I talk about is, again, what is the core issue? And that's a Hard one because what we need to do is go into rooms, there's a door, there's a long hallway and the door says 12 years old. Door says 1976. Door says, you know, 24 years old. And behind that door are memories that we don't want to bring to light. And I say, hey, let's go in that door together. You know, whatever you say with me is going to stay with me because I build trust and sometimes it takes a little longer with some of the men. But remember, I've been working with some guys for 15 years. I'm meeting them on the 23rd of July and I meet with them four times a year. I mean four times a year for an hour. But you can always contact me in between and I will, to the best of my ability, put down what I'm doing and answer. I'll always answer within 24 hours. That's what I do. But anyway, we look at the core issue and I had a core issue and I know what my core issue is and I worked on it and I'm so much more comfortable with knowledge of what those core issues are. And I'm also very knowledgeable on my self talk and what I say to myself.
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A
So what would you say is your core issue?
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B
Dying alone.
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A
Really?
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B
Yep. 100 dying alone. Because I came. What the reason was is because for my first six years, of course I've only cognitive three of them. So starting at three, my earliest memories are three. And I knew I was a foster child. How do you know that? Because you go to foster homes like every two weeks, every month, every three months you go to a new foster home. Because I didn't know that. I just remember the first time I went to a foster home. Everybody was crying in the living room and I didn't understand why. Everybody crying. This is. My sisters and brothers are crying. I didn't know they were a foster family. And I was leaving at age 3 to go to my next foster home and they were crying because they, they were going to miss me. I must have been a pretty good three year old, I don't know. But my core issue is that I was going to be alone because I knew that my mother didn't want me. I know she didn't love me. And I was to find out later that she did love me because I finally, I did the DNA and met her, you know, after all these years. My mother was a white teenage runaway. My dad was a pimp and drug dealer in New York and she was 17, oh my God. And mixed child in 1962 with the father being a pimp and drug dealer, married. Wasn't going to work, wasn't going to happen in this Irish Catholic family.
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A
Okay. Wow.
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B
But I understand that forgiveness. I've forgiven everyone.
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A
So when you went to see her again, what was that like?
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B
Oh, it was incredible. Absolutely incredible. I mean, just incredible. I don't. So this is a incredible story. So I grew up. I did my first six years on Long island as a foster child. I get adopted at age 6 by Irene and Sam Miller, move up to a small town called Bloomingburg, New York. Okay. Population, let's say 150. We didn't even live in this, in the town. We lived on RD1, Winterton Road, Rural Delivery One. That was our. Our mailing address. The mailman knew everybody lived on the road. So you could do RD1, rural delivery. Everybody had rural delivery one Winterton Road. So we're out, way out in the country. And we moved to Alaska at age 12, mainly to get away from my father. My mother and I moved to Anchorage, Alaska. Years later, I do the DNA, they show that it's a woman named Joanne Horn, which blew me away. There's a story behind that. And I looked and I. To see where she lived. And she lived in Bloomingburg, New York. Like, what? So I talked to my cousin and I said, this is who I am. Can you contact Joanne and see if she would. Would want to meet me? And she did. So I flew over there like a month later, set up the time, flew in there, sat down with her at the kitchen table, had corned beef and cabbage. Irish. Okay. Sat down there. Now remember, I'm two miles from where I grew up from age six to 12. Two miles. And I sat down, I showed her pictures of me as a child. She says, I met you. I said, what? I met you when you were a kid. I met you at Elizabeth Potts house. Because Elizabeth Potts was the only black Catholic family. She had gone to the Catholic Church because she was visiting her brother in the early 70s who lived in Bloomingburg. She went to visit her brother, went to the Catholic church, met Elizabeth Pott, went to bring her something from the potluck or whatever. And she remembers seeing me playing with the Elizabeth son. And I'm like, I had never even mentioned the pot. I never called her. She was Aunt Betty to me. She was really my aunt.
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A
Oh, really?
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B
Yeah. And I'm like, isn't that something? That was her biological son that she saw? And this is my biological mom. I Never had a clue. I don't even remember her. She remembered me when she came in to deliver that pot. And I was like, you're talking about. You can't make this stuff up. So anyway, the experience was wonderful. But this is another. I'll just say this real simple. My mom lied to me. She lied to me to protect herself and her self talk. And I'm cool with that. After she passed away, which was about two years later, I asked her sister, aunt Cookie, you know, about a situation, you know, about my father, because she said she had been raped by this guy in the rooming house. And I was like, okay. And I already had a sense that there was more to this story. And I asked my Aunt Cookie, and I said, can you just tell me the truth? And, you know, mom's passed away. Da, da, da. And she was quiet because that was the. You know, she's. Am I betraying my sister Dada? And she told me the truth. She said, yeah, me and mom wouldn't visit, try to get her out of that situation. And he came to the gun with. He came to the door with a gun. So, y', all, we need to leave. So. And because he was the pimp and the drug dealer.
- [34:36]
A
Yeah, right.
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B
She was living with him.
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A
Yeah, she was living with him. But she had a child. And you were in foster care at 3 years old?
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B
I was in foster care from childbirth. So what happened was.
- [34:49]
A
This is such a cool story.
- [34:51]
B
So what happened was she gave birth to me, and I got adopted when I was born because she said, ken, I wanted you to grow up with a Catholic family because she's Irish Catholic. So this white couple that's Catholic adopted me. And she said, usually they don't allow you to see the child because you're putting up for a gun or meet the parents.
- [35:17]
A
It's a closed adoption, in other words.
- [35:20]
B
Right. In New York State. Closed it down. But for whatever reason, they let her hold me for like a day or overnight or whatever. And then she met the couple. So she thought I was adopted by this white Catholic couple.
- [35:36]
A
I see.
- [35:36]
B
And you'll see in my paperwork that I was, you know, I was born October 15th. In January, I went back into the system.
- [35:44]
A
So not only were you adopted first by discussing, but then you went to a foster home.
- [35:50]
B
So I'm adopted at childbirth. A lot of kids are. Unfortunately, my tan didn't go away in those three months. They didn't want to adopt a mixed child. This is 62 white folks weren't adopting black children in 1962. Okay. That didn't happen until Angeli Jolie. I don't know. I'm just kidding.
- [36:11]
A
That was a joke.
- [36:13]
B
But they weren't. That's just not the way the world worked back then, okay? And what they realized is that I had black in me. And they sent me back three months later. And then I went into the adoption. I went into the foster care system. And the foster care system is, you're in there until you get adopted. And so, as my mother says, I called my mother and mother that adopted me. She said, kenneth, we were adopting another child and going through all the paperwork at the Windham Agency in New York, oldest adoption agency in the United States. And it was like $1600 in 1968, which is a lot of money. But she wanted a child. She didn't have any children. And she said, sam, my dad, was doing all the paperwork, and it was like. She said it was like a mug shot book. Just hundreds of black children. And she was just leaving through the book, and she saw my picture and she said, stop the press. I want this one. I want this one. I know. That's beautiful. Bring tears in my eyes. And my mother was the most phenomenal woman I've ever met in my life. Phenomenal woman. Because when I got adopted at age 6, I could not read. I could not write. I could not tell time. I could not even tie my shoes. And she taught me to read that first summer with phonetics, phonetic cards. Taught me. And I cried every day because I wanted to play. I'm six years old.
- [37:45]
A
Yes.
- [37:45]
B
Sit there and look at th. Ph.
- [37:52]
A
Yeah. And so after her.
- [37:53]
B
What happened with me after I was.
- [37:56]
A
Adopted and you were adopted, and then you were no longer in foster homes, right?
- [38:01]
B
Of course not. Yeah. You're adopted.
- [38:03]
A
Yeah.
- [38:03]
B
And it's interesting. I don't know. A lot of people don't know what the adoption system is like, but first of all, adoption in the world. There's only two countries in the world that have closed adoption. I've done a lot of research on.
- [38:16]
A
This because I see that.
- [38:18]
B
And the two countries are New Zealand and United States. And in the United States, it's by state. So every other country, it's open adoption, which means at age 18 or 21 or whatever it is in that country, you can find out who your birth parents are. Only countries you can are New Zealand and United States, and then it's by state. So if I had been adopted out of, let's say, Pennsylvania at 18, I would know who my biological parents are. But New York And I remember Oregon were closed because they had closed it in 1936. Well, they reopened it back in. It was like 2020. People fought and fought, especially you know, adoptees to open it up. And we were just one of the few states which was New York. So again I did it. I couldn't get the records, you know, by going to the state, you know, the registered office. And so I did the DNA and then they did open it up later. But I already knew, you know, the information and some of it was incorrect, but I did know what they call non identifying information. Excuse me. Then I got the identifying information when they opened it back up in 2020.
- [39:37]
A
And I guess that close to see your biological mother helped you close a lot of questions you had, I imagine, just to know what really happened.
- [39:49]
B
Yes, but that wasn't what I was really looking for. It wasn't intellectual. I really wanted to forgive her. And that sound, it might sound a little. Remember, I'm clean and sober. I'm clean sober at this point, 12 years. And I wanted, I wanted also her to see that I turned out all right. Oh turned out all right. And that I loved her. And I did. And I, you know, I used to go back two, three times. I'm the trustee for her nephews and niece, you know, I handle that. And we built. It wasn't long, she only lived another couple years. But we built a relationship and she was so happy to turn out. And the crazy thing, remember most of the rest of the of the family. This is Irish. So you got like 10 or 11 kids know about me.
- [40:41]
A
Uh huh.
- [40:42]
B
And but they were so welcoming, so welcoming. And so, and I'm still friends with her. And then I had three half sisters that I didn't know about. So and I went and visited all of them and built relationships with all my half sisters.
- [41:00]
A
How wonderful. My goodness, what a story. I hope you write your book.
- [41:04]
B
I did.
- [41:07]
A
When is it being published?
- [41:09]
B
It's already been published. In fact, I'll just put it up real quick.
- [41:13]
A
Yes, please.
- [41:14]
B
Oh, it's called Becoming Ken.
- [41:17]
A
And where can people get a hold of the book?
- [41:20]
B
Amazon.
- [41:21]
A
Amazon.
- [41:21]
B
It's Amazon, Audible, ebook, hardcover, soft cover.
- [41:25]
A
So it's Becoming Ken by Ken Miller for the listeners to hear it. So. What a wonderful story. We're coming at the end of our session unfortunately, but maybe we'll do another session on your book. Totally on your book.
- [41:42]
B
I would love to.
- [41:43]
A
So tell me, why do you only work with men of colors?
- [41:48]
B
The need is so great. The need is so great. That's why. Remember I was locked up with them. I was on the streets with them. And so many times it's a problem that they don't have a black male, older role model that they can emulate or that believes in them because their dad's in prison. My dad was in prison.
- [42:10]
A
Yes.
- [42:11]
B
Things of that nature. That's why.
- [42:13]
A
Okay, so tell us where people could get a hold of you.
- [42:17]
B
Real simple. LinkedIn. KenMiller84 is my handle on that. And, and then there's website on the screen. And again, I just want to thank you, Dr. Bird.
- [42:26]
A
Thank you.
- [42:27]
B
Very interesting and I'd love to come back anytime. Thank you.
- [42:30]
A
Thank you.
- [42:32]
C
Thank you for listening to the excellent, Excellent Executive Coaching podcast. You can subscribe to all Future podcasts@excellentexecutivecoaching.com join us each Wednesday to learn more about the latest trends in leadership techniques and bring your coaching to the next level. To learn more about Dr. Burris CEO mastermind, use the contact form@excellentexecutivecoaching.com.