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Nov. 20, 2022

Interview with Ken West

Interview with Ken West
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Author Ken West is our guest today. We discuss his high regard for Ayn Rand and her philosophy, and how it has enhanced his life and writing.

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Show notes with links to articles, blog posts, products and services:


Episode 60 (34 minutes) was recorded at 1900 Central European Time, on November 11, 2022, with Ringr app.. Martin did the editing and post-production with the podcast maker, Alitu. The transcript is generated by Alitu.

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Transcript
Blair:

Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Blair:

Good evening to Martin.

Blair:

How are you, Martin?

Martin:

Thanks, I'm fine.

Martin:

Yourself there?

Blair:

I'm good.

Blair:

Listen, this is episode 61 of the Foxhole

Blair:

podcast, and today we have a great guest.

Blair:

Ken west focuses on how you can achieve a

Blair:

successful, balanced, and productive life.

Blair:

His writing covers two major themes how to

Blair:

preserve, protect, and defend freedom, and how to flourish in freedom.

Blair:

Ken is a former paratrooper who served in Vietnam and the author of seven books.

Blair:

Ken, how are you?

Ken:

I'm good.

Ken:

I'm good, Blair.

Ken:

Thank you.

Ken:

And it's nice to hear both of you, you and

Ken:

Martin.

Ken:

Thank you for having me in the secular

Ken:

foxhole.

Ken:

I appreciate it.

Ken:

Especially on Veterans Day.

Blair:

Yes, that's right.

Blair:

Today is Veterans Day.

Blair:

And that is wonderful.

Martin:

How do you commemorate that, Ken?

Ken:

Well, in the United States, I don't particularly commemorate it because I was in

Ken:

Vietnam many years ago.

Ken:

And I have a quick story.

Ken:

I was in a foxhole in Vietnam.

Ken:

And there's an old saying about there are no

Ken:

atheists in a foxhole.

Ken:

Well, that's not true.

Ken:

I remember being in a foxhole where I had a little free time and I was reading Iron the

Ken:

Objectivist, which my parents used to send to me in Vietnam.

Ken:

And Iron Rand's writing.

Ken:

I think it kept me sane, kept me alive in many

Ken:

ways because it kept my mind alive.

Martin:

Intellectual ammunition also?

Ken:

Oh, absolutely.

Ken:

And especially I was drafted.

Ken:

I didn't agree with the draft.

Ken:

However, I had a choice to make whether to go

Ken:

to jail, run after Canada, or bite the bullet and just let myself be drafted.

Ken:

So I was drafted, and I learned a lot by that.

Blair:

Okay. Yeah, I was too young and then too old.

Blair:

Too young to be involved in the war.

Blair:

And then I guess when it finally was ended by

Blair:

Nixon, more or less into it, I didn't have to worry about the selective service or anything

Blair:

like that.

Ken:

Well, that's good.

Ken:

You're fortunate because the draft iran had a

Ken:

lot to say about the draft, and she did.

Ken:

And I'll talk about my books later, but one of

Ken:

the books I wrote recently is more of a booklet called Mandatory National Service a

Ken:

Threat to Liberty.

Ken:

And it deals with an extension of the draft

Ken:

that's been proposed where everybody, all men and women, are required to spend a year or two

Ken:

of service to the nation, no exceptions.

Blair:

Right.

Ken:

And even though right now that's not being talked about, as far as I know, I wrote

Ken:

the book just to help people prepare for such a thing and give them some intellectual

Ken:

ammunition to fight it.

Blair:

Right.

Blair:

Let me circle back quickly, Kent, to the rest

Blair:

of your bio.

Blair:

Actually, I forgot to mention that you

Blair:

currently publish a newsletter on LinkedIn called Write for Your Life.

Blair:

And you also write for the online publication Matrix Gazette.

Blair:

Not to be confused with the movies, I hope.

Ken:

No, I didn't come up with the name.

Ken:

The person that I work with on this

Ken:

publication who's a cartoonist, he came up with The Matrix, and I said, okay, we'll go

Ken:

with it.

Blair:

Okay. Now, actually check that out.

Blair:

There hasn't been that many recent articles,

Blair:

if I may, or did I miss something on The Matrix?

Ken:

Oh, there's been quite a few articles.

Blair:

Okay.

Ken:

Although we were in a hiatus for a while when one of our It person couldn't work

Ken:

anymore, so we ended up putting it on hold for a while.

Ken:

But I just recently wrote something called The Wave that wasn't, which is about politics.

Ken:

It's about the midterm election.

Ken:

And one of the things I've always been

Ken:

interested in is politics and political philosophy.

Ken:

And of course, Rand's work helped me develop my themes on that.

Blair:

Yes. Now, in the green room, we did talk about you wanted to mention specifically

Blair:

her influence on you and your writing.

Blair:

Could you go into that?

Ken:

Yeah, I'll be glad to.

Ken:

What's interesting is I've always been a

Ken:

reader.

Ken:

In fact, my heroes I think I would say most of

Ken:

my heroes have been writers, starting with Thomas Payne, the famous pamphleteer who wrote

Ken:

Common Sense.

Ken:

And then I discovered George Orwell, and I

Ken:

read 1984 and Animal Farm and then all his other novels, lesser known novels.

Ken:

And even though he was a socialist, he was an honest socialist.

Ken:

And 1984 was a wonderful expose of what happens under, I can't say it totalitarianism

Ken:

up until I discovered Rand, I thought, well, orwell I really appreciated his writing.

Ken:

And then one day I was in a public library, and I discovered Atlas Shrugged, and I

Ken:

happened to pick up a copy, and I started reading.

Ken:

And then a week or two later, I was finished with Atlas Shrugged, and it literally changed

Ken:

my life.

Ken:

And I know a lot of objectivists will say

Ken:

that, but it's true.

Ken:

What it did for me was it opened my eyes.

Ken:

I saw things differently.

Ken:

Just one quick example.

Ken:

I was going to Northeastern University, and I was under the Coop plan, which means you work

Ken:

half a year and you go to school half a year.

Ken:

One of my jobs was at a factory in downtown

Ken:

Boston, and I would have to take a bus every morning, bright and early, and I think it was

Ken:

during very early.

Ken:

So the sun was rising as I was going past the

Ken:

Boston Edison plant.

Ken:

I don't know if you're familiar with Boston,

Ken:

but they had all these smokestacks in the distance, and the sun was hitting them.

Ken:

And I looked at them a lot differently than other people.

Ken:

In fact, most people in the bus were either sleeping or not paying attention.

Ken:

But I'm looking at this incredible industrial site, and they said, wow.

Ken:

And of course, partly that was from Brands influence.

Ken:

She did a sense taught me to look at those things, pay attention to them.

Ken:

So after Atlas Shrugged, I finally read The Fountainhead.

Ken:

And then I read everything.

Ken:

And I subscribed to all her publications.

Ken:

And back when she did speeches at the Ford Hall Forum, I attended all of those.

Ken:

In fact, I had a two word conversation with Rand once.

Ken:

I have to tell this quick story.

Ken:

I was waiting to get into Northeastern

Ken:

Auditorium on the night that Iron Man was speaking.

Blair:

Okay.

Ken:

And the crowds were incredibly large.

Ken:

People from all over the world actually came

Ken:

to these lectures.

Blair:

Yes.

Ken:

And I was at a side door because I figured I could get in, make sure I get a seat

Ken:

in the auditorium as opposed to one of the outside rooms.

Ken:

So I'm standing there in line, waiting for the doors to open, and suddenly there's an

Ken:

entourage walking beside me, beside the line, and they stopped because the doors weren't

Ken:

open yet.

Ken:

So I turned, and right directly beside me was

Ken:

Iron Rand.

Blair:

Oh, my gosh.

Ken:

So I can imagine that we all have thought about what we say to Iron Rand.

Blair:

We could possibly oh, why? Yeah.

Ken:

So I'm looking at her for 1 second.

Ken:

She looked at me, and all I could say was, hi.

Ken:

I'm literally I feel so embarrassed for saying this, but that's all that came out of my

Ken:

mouth.

Ken:

And then Rand looked at me, and she said,

Ken:

hello.

Ken:

And then the next thing you know, the doors

Ken:

opened and Iron Rand and peak off, and the rest of our entourage went into the

Ken:

auditorium.

Ken:

But that was my two word conversation with

Ken:

Iran Rand, and.

Blair:

I'm sure that was enough to last a lifetime.

Blair:

Believe me, it was.

Ken:

But I wish I could have spoken to her longer.

Ken:

I did see her again when the Ford Hall form did a dinner for her, an honorary dinner for

Ken:

her, with her.

Ken:

She and her husband attended.

Ken:

It was a Boston it was at a Boston hotel.

Ken:

And Rand was one of their biggest straws, if

Ken:

not the biggest.

Ken:

So they appreciated the fact that she came

Ken:

there every year, and she really made the photo form into quite an event.

Ken:

So I was sitting, eating dinner, and Rand and her husband, who was a very distinguished

Ken:

looking man, was sitting at a table.

Ken:

And then I realized everybody had hardcover

Ken:

editions of Atlas Shrugs.

Ken:

And I'm thinking, Why are they doing this?

Ken:

And then I realized suddenly that they were going to get rand was going to have a book

Ken:

signing.

Blair:

Oh, my.

Ken:

So what did I do? I left the hotel, ran outside, ran across the

Ken:

street, almost got run over.

Ken:

This is on Boyleson Street in Boston.

Ken:

And at that time, they had still had bookstores, functioning bookstores.

Ken:

And I went in, found a paperback copy of Atlas.

Ken:

They didn't have a hardcover edition.

Ken:

I ran back, and finally, the line had already

Ken:

formed, and I finally got it signed by Iron Rand, and I still have that paper back.

Ken:

I wish I had had a hardcover addition because there'd be acid free paper, but whatever, it's

Ken:

there.

Ken:

And unlike my other copies of Atlas Shrugged,

Ken:

I don't write in that one, obviously.

Blair:

Yes. No.

Ken:

Beyond that, rand, of course, as with all of us, her ideas, her philosophy, her

Ken:

personality, everything about Rand.

Martin:

She.

Ken:

Influenced my life in every way.

Ken:

And I made a mistake.

Ken:

I've always wanted to be a writer.

Ken:

I made a mistake of trying to write like

Ken:

Heinrand, and it's always a big mistake to try to copy somebody else's.

Ken:

She is unique.

Ken:

So anyway, I want to start from it and let you

Ken:

well, I was.

Blair:

Just going to continue on theme of how she influenced you in writing.

Blair:

I mean, after your initial four way where you tried to copy her, what did you learn about

Blair:

that, and how did you self correct, if you will?

Ken:

Well, eventually I realized I couldn't.

Ken:

It was a mistake to write like her.

Ken:

It just sounded it sounded phony.

Ken:

It was me.

Ken:

But what I did realize is that I had enough knowledge, enough interest, that if I was

Ken:

willing to write something here's the real key about writing.

Ken:

A lot of people think that when they start writing, they have to be perfect right off the

Ken:

bat.

Ken:

It doesn't work that way.

Ken:

First draft is, you know, you don't just sit down and write a masterpiece.

Ken:

You start somewhere.

Ken:

And I think what finally got me to really

Ken:

write because here where I was, was a writer, but I wasn't writing enough.

Ken:

I ended up finding a book.

Ken:

This was not by Rand.

Ken:

The book called The Right to Write, and I mentioned it only because it was an important

Ken:

book.

Ken:

It's not by an objectivist.

Ken:

In fact, she probably but her suggestion in the book was to buy a journal, get a fountain

Ken:

pen, and write in it every day, every morning.

Ken:

And there's no wrong way to do it.

Ken:

You just start writing.

Ken:

I started doing that, and that was over 20

Ken:

years ago.

Ken:

And now I'm on journal number 89.

Blair:

Oh, my.

Ken:

Currently.

Ken:

And because every single day I have written

Ken:

something, and sometimes it's just whatever's on the top of my head, sometimes whatever it

Ken:

is, you strengthen your ability to write.

Ken:

Now, the way Rand influences me is her ideas,

Ken:

her philosophy.

Ken:

When I wrote Get What You Want, up until I

Ken:

read Rand, I didn't understand the idea of the primacy of consciousness and the primacy of

Ken:

existence.

Blair:

Okay.

Ken:

And the primacy I've noticed that well, let me backtrack it just a minute.

Ken:

I wrote At What You Want after I had been I had been summarily fired from a job many, many

Ken:

years ago, and that was in 2009, and I didn't know what to do at the time.

Ken:

The job market wasn't a good one.

Ken:

So I started putting together what my thoughts

Ken:

on basically, I started analyzing myself.

Ken:

So I created a process where you self analyze,

Ken:

and then you come up with a plan, find out what's really truly important to you, and then

Ken:

come up with a plan to achieve it and take action.

Ken:

Now, I mention this because at the time I don't know if you've read a lot of selfhelp

Ken:

books, but I have, and most of them come from a primacy of consciousness viewpoint.

Ken:

Whereas just positive thinking or just imagine there's nothing wrong with imagining things,

Ken:

but the real key is to find out what the reality is and base your decisions on reality.

Ken:

Reality of your own values, and the reality of what's available.

Ken:

So I think when I wrote Get What You Want, it's one of the few self help books that's

Ken:

written from a primacy of existence viewpoint, where nothing in this is wishful thinking.

Ken:

It's more, what do I want, why do I want it, and how am I going to get it, and what steps

Ken:

am I going to take to do it.

Ken:

And I've used this particular book, that

Ken:

process.

Ken:

I used it to actually publish the book, and

Ken:

that's how it came out.

Ken:

I used my own process that I was developing,

Ken:

said, I want to start writing books.

Ken:

And so that's how that came about.

Blair:

Well, that's great.

Ken:

And again, RAN's writing.

Ken:

Again, her writing always is.

Ken:

Her thoughts and her philosophy always are in the back of my mind.

Ken:

They're always behind.

Ken:

They're just in everything I do.

Blair:

Yes, I think most of us try to live like that, actually, but we obviously use our

Blair:

own interpretation of that, or as much as we can.

Blair:

Correct, because we are individuals.

Blair:

I don't denigrate myself because I don't have

Blair:

orange hair, which has happened.

Ken:

Let's hope not.

Blair:

I know that happened yesterday, those kinds of strange things.

Ken:

What helped my writing process also is after that, I had attended an objectivist

Ken:

conference, and during that conference, Richard Salzman to say he's one of the

Ken:

speakers.

Ken:

So I ended up he was running an association,

Ken:

the association of Objectivists Businessmen, and he was also the writer for their AOB News.

Ken:

And I saw him, and I thought to myself, I'm not the most outgoing person in the world, but

Ken:

I thought, Let me just go talk to him and say I enjoyed his lecture, which is what I did.

Ken:

So he started talking to me, and I found out that he lived in the next town over for me.

Ken:

I lived in Beverly, Massachusetts.

Ken:

He lived in another adjoining town.

Ken:

And I told him at that time I was the president of the New England speakers

Ken:

association.

Ken:

I may be an introvert, but I learned that

Ken:

introverts can be great speakers if they want to be nice.

Ken:

So after speaking with him for a while, he called me a few days later and asked me if I'd

Ken:

be interested in taking over AOB and the publication.

Ken:

So that's what happened.

Ken:

So once I took it over, I discovered that I

Ken:

could not write like Richard Salzman.

Ken:

And there's the beginning trying to copy

Ken:

somebody else's method, or doesn't work that way.

Blair:

Right.

Ken:

But Richard had back then, they didn't have email, and well, there was email, but it

Ken:

was mostly people would actually send letters by stalemail.

Ken:

He had a whole file of letters people had sent him that he didn't really have time to respond

Ken:

to.

Ken:

And I started reading them, and I read how

Ken:

people were speaking at various events, speaking out against rent control or zoning

Ken:

ordinances, people who had written a letter to the editor that was published in one of the

Ken:

local newspapers.

Ken:

And I looked at that material and I said, now

Ken:

that if we're going to have a newsletter, why don't I start getting some of this material

Ken:

into the newsletter? So I ended up calling every one of those

Ken:

writers who I wanted to, I thought was worthy of being in there, and asked them if they

Ken:

would let me publish either what they wrote or the news about what they did.

Ken:

Their activism, surprisingly, nobody refused.

Ken:

Everybody was very keen on doing that.

Blair:

So nice.

Ken:

So I think the one thing I did with the newsletter was get it out on time and increase

Ken:

the size of it, because newsletters really should have news in them.

Ken:

So I focused on the news aspect, what was going on, and I discovered that the writers

Ken:

that I published in AOB News were people who were applying objectivism in their life.

Ken:

A lot of times it was politically, but not always.

Ken:

Sometimes it was just somebody who changed their jobs based on realizing what they

Ken:

really, truly wanted to do.

Ken:

And it was all about application of Rand's

Ken:

philosophy.

Ken:

And that's what I focused on in AOB News.

Blair:

Great.

Ken:

The one problem there was, I was also the president of the association of Objective as

Ken:

Businessman, and I'm more of a writer than a businessman, at least at the time.

Ken:

That's what I thought.

Ken:

So eventually, the running of the association

Ken:

was taken over by a guy named Peter Murphy, who I believe now works for Richard Salzman.

Ken:

And I focused entirely on the newsletter.

Ken:

And eventually I got it up to, I was telling

Ken:

Martin earlier, up to 28 pages.

Ken:

This was a print publication.

Ken:

It wasn't online.

Ken:

And I can remember going to the post office

Ken:

with carts full of newsletters having the mail, they see me coming, and they kind of

Ken:

made space for me.

Ken:

Anyway, what ended up happening with AOB News

Ken:

is, as the editor of the publication, I usually had to write an opening piece or a

Ken:

lead article, which I did and I enjoyed doing, and especially regarding politics, this was

Ken:

back when Clinton was president.

Ken:

There was plenty to write about.

Blair:

I was going to say, that's great.

Blair:

That's great, Ken.

Blair:

The purpose of having you on, though, was to have people hear about you and let them learn

Blair:

about you.

Blair:

We want to have you back next year for your

Blair:

latest book called Your ego.

Blair:

It's your salvation, not your original sin,

Blair:

which is very much the crux of the issue, isn't it?

Ken:

It is, in fact, ego has a bad rap.

Ken:

Most of the modern literature on ego is that

Ken:

ego is not your real self.

Ken:

Somehow, ego is just something you have to

Ken:

deny or squash down.

Ken:

Nothing could be further than the truth.

Ken:

Your ego is yourself.

Ken:

This is how you it's your whole conception of

Ken:

yourself and what makes you an individual.

Ken:

In fact, Rand and both Ludicrous and Rand both

Ken:

had great quotes on what an ego is.

Ken:

And it's more about egoism than just ego, but

Ken:

ego.

Ken:

The basic premise of this book is that if you

Ken:

want to achieve anything in life, you have to at least develop as much as possible a strong

Ken:

and healthy ego.

Ken:

A strong, healthy ego, in my own estimation.

Ken:

But I figured, okay, what is the real key to developing an ego?

Ken:

And partly it is understanding what it is and taking action.

Blair:

Yes.

Ken:

In fact, I have a quote here at the beginning of the book saying no matter what a

Ken:

man was and what he may become later in the very act of choosing and acting, he is an ego.

Ken:

That was Ludwig von Mises.

Blair:

Okay?

Ken:

So I think the purpose of that book was to kind of rescue the idea of ego and let

Ken:

people know that you need a strong, healthy ego.

Ken:

As opposed to what I would call an inflated or phony ego.

Blair:

Right.

Blair:

Phony sense itself or something like that.

Blair:

I've always been attracted to Ms. Rams.

Blair:

Your ego is your conscious mind.

Blair:

So it is yourself.

Blair:

It's your consciousness.

Ken:

It is.

Blair:

And for me, that just blew all the cobwebs out and just, oh, wait a minute.

Blair:

That's what this that is a great.

Ken:

That'S the value of rent.

Ken:

She could blow away the cobwebs quite

Ken:

effectively.

Ken:

And that's the wonderful thing about I'm Rand.

Blair:

You know, although our podcast is one of many in the Objectivist world, sadly,

Blair:

Objectivism itself still has barely a toehold in the culture.

Blair:

I mean, I guess we're gaining in a certain sense because millions and millions of people

Blair:

have read her.

Blair:

But that's it.

Blair:

They'll read the novels, and those were great, but they don't only like one in a million.

Blair:

Go look at her ideas behind it.

Ken:

Well, that could be true.

Ken:

Blair.

Ken:

I have a slightly different take on that because a lot of people living I'll give you

Ken:

one quick example.

Ken:

The company I work for now, part time, the

Ken:

former chairman and founder of the company she was founded in 1984, and she was in New York

Ken:

City, in Manhattan, and she found a copy of Atlas Shrugged and read it somehow she could

Ken:

not put it down.

Ken:

She didn't sleep.

Ken:

She just read it.

Ken:

And as soon as she finished that book, she

Ken:

started her company.

Blair:

Wow.

Ken:

I think perhaps I mean, Dagney Tagget alone is such a great role model.

Ken:

I remember hearing a Boston broadcaster one time on the table of television, mentioned

Ken:

that the image of Dagny tagged the character of Dagny Tagget, gave her the courage to

Ken:

pursue her career in broadcasting.

Ken:

So I don't know if you remember Trump, when

Ken:

Trump had his Secretary of State who ended up getting ended up leaving probably couldn't

Ken:

stand with Trump.

Ken:

His favorite book, he had said, was Atlas

Ken:

Shrugged.

Ken:

So there's a hidden there's an underground

Ken:

yes, there is.

Ken:

Of individuals who are living their life and

Ken:

they're motivated by Rand's ideas, but it doesn't mean they're all involved in

Ken:

politically or, you know, the politics is the last thing we're going to see.

Blair:

Right, true.

Ken:

And aesthetically, when you look at yes, there's horror shows up there, but look at

Ken:

some of the objective art, the wonderful art that's coming out of a guy named John Wasps.

Ken:

I don't know if you familiar with him.

Ken:

And there's some incredible cut error art.

Martin:

Gallery.

Blair:

That's true.

Ken:

And then also look at all the conferences going on.

Ken:

There's Craig Biddles.

Ken:

There's Craig Biddles.

Ken:

Concerts, the Ironman Institute.

Ken:

Conferences, the Atlas Society.

Ken:

There are so many, and it's too bad they can't it's too bad.

Blair:

Buying forces.

Ken:

I know.

Blair:

Well, you're right, though.

Blair:

There are some currents going the positive

Blair:

way.

Blair:

Yes, that's true.

Ken:

Yeah, I certainly believe so.

Ken:

And it doesn't I think, in fact, if Rand was

Ken:

still alive, she would probably be you know, she was a great reader of the news.

Ken:

She read everything, including The New Yorker, the New York Times, and she got a lot of her

Ken:

material from reading the understanding, the reality of the political climate at the time

Ken:

and the cultural climate.

Blair:

Yes.

Ken:

You may not realize this.

Ken:

One of the popular authors today, I think he's

Ken:

now gone.

Ken:

I mean, he's still writing Dean Kuhnz.

Ken:

Of course, he writes semi horror stories, but he writes hundreds of books.

Ken:

Well, I read something that he wrote many, many years ago, saying that Rand was one of

Ken:

the great thinkers and at some point in the future, her ideas are going to make a

Ken:

tremendous difference.

Ken:

So I thought that was interesting to read from

Ken:

just this popular author.

Blair:

Yeah, that is good.

Blair:

I've not known that.

Martin:

And that could maybe be for next time, also ending here and what you are doing right

Martin:

now in business.

Martin:

And also you see the potential with this

Martin:

association of objective businessman, maybe in a new format, a new version and a development,

Martin:

and you see lots of entrepreneurs, but even at the question but Randy's inspiration, it's

Martin:

reading it's on the bookshelf.

Martin:

So, for example, like a podcast like

Martin:

Entrepreneurs on Fire, I think they have a top list of books.

Martin:

And when I did a search fair, it was plenty of guest there that recommended brand books.

Ken:

Yes. And you, Martin, are doing a tremendous job with Lyceum, and I think you're

Ken:

on the forefront of this.

Martin:

Yeah, it was by my friend Jerry and others.

Martin:

And I started the magazine, and we had it at a big book fair in Gotenburg.

Martin:

But then the Internet came along also, and that's what I say now.

Martin:

It's easier to find.

Martin:

It could be a jungle out there, but easier.

Martin:

But, yeah, you do it in different ways in division of labor.

Martin:

And here I could find it now with the podcasting.

Martin:

In the podcast.

Ken:

What's wonderful about the Internet is I was speaking to you before the show is that if

Ken:

you want to publish a book, self publishing now is probably extremely easy, relatively

Ken:

speaking.

Ken:

What's difficult is writing a book, having a

Ken:

clear idea of who your audience is, and writing a book that people will want to read

Ken:

and pay for.

Ken:

So, of the seven books I have out, some of

Ken:

them are doing well, others are just sitting there.

Ken:

But the physical act of publishing them as a self publisher is relatively simple.

Ken:

In fact, I've written some articles about that that are available on that newsletter that you

Ken:

mentioned, the LinkedIn Right for Your Life newsletter.

Ken:

I have devoted that to how do you write more, how do you publish what you write, and how do

Ken:

you monetize what you write? And that's my focus on that newsletter.

Ken:

And I encourage anybody.

Ken:

The newsletter is free.

Ken:

Please take a look at it if you're on LinkedIn.

Blair:

All right?

Ken:

And as far as The Matrix Gazette, that's more of a political and social commentary, and

Ken:

it's a mixed bag.

Ken:

But I think I enjoy writing about politics.

Ken:

In fact, again, I bring at the back of my mind and everything I write is the idea of how do

Ken:

we encourage freedom? How do we get people to realize the danger of

Ken:

big government? Of course, we see it all the time now.

Blair:

Not only that, but the unity of big business and big government.

Ken:

Yes, and it's funny.

Ken:

In Atlas Shrugged, of course, rand showed

Ken:

quite clearly the difference between the business people who were government, who

Ken:

basically made the backroom deals.

Blair:

Cronies.

Ken:

The capitalist cronies, as opposed to the hack Reardon and others.

Ken:

Almost all, when you think about business heroes.

Ken:

In fact, I think it was Jobs and Musk and various others.

Ken:

Almost all of them have been motivated by Rand.

Ken:

When they give a summary of what books have motivated or have made the most impact on

Ken:

their life, an incredible number of entrepreneurs have mentioned Atlas Shrugged

Ken:

and The Fountainhead.

Ken:

So her influence is there, and we can feel it

Ken:

even today with the secular Foxhole.

Ken:

You have a wonderful broadcast here.

Ken:

You've had some incredible guests.

Blair:

Thank you.

Ken:

And I'm glad you're doing it.

Blair:

So are we.

Blair:

But speaking of that, I do have some previous

Blair:

engagements that I do have to prepare for.

Blair:

Understood.

Blair:

But it was today's guest.

Blair:

The ladies and gentlemen, has been Ken West,

Blair:

author, businessman, and objectivist.

Blair:

Ken, thanks for landing the Foxhole with us

Blair:

today.

Ken:

You're welcome.

Ken:

It's been a pleasure.

Ken:

Blair.

Ken:

Thank you.

Ken:

And thank you, Martin.

Martin:

Thanks. And I will do a cliffhanger here.

Martin:

So for next time, what would you bring to the foxhole?

Martin:

Very short when Ken objectivist.

Ken:

Okay.

Blair:

All right, gentlemen, thank you very much.

Blair:

And thank you very much.

Blair:

We look forward to having you.

Blair:

Hopefully in January you can.

Martin:

Yeah.

Ken:

Thank you, Blair.

Ken:

I look forward to that.

Blair:

All right, bye bye.

Ken:

Bye bye for now.