Today we’d like to introduce you to Benjamin King.
Hi Benjamin, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Although my childhood was mostly happy and adventurous, it was also dampened by internal fears, anxieties, and the struggle of finding my identity – who I am. My family moved over 33 times by the time I was a young teenager. This transient beginning to life, along with the deep insecurities, resulted in a significant lack of education for me. I had less than 3 years of schooling by the time I started high school. I felt crippled by my struggles and the negative beliefs I had about myself.
Despite the setbacks I felt in my life, I learned to adapt and sprout where I was planted. I started experiencing breakthroughs when I began acting at the age of 14. When I could pretend to be someone else in front of an audience I felt accepted and eventually realized I could pretend be anyone and anything. My imagination could create what I would then embody and express. It helped me feel real, connected, and passionate. My confidence grew and I began to experience personal growth and success.
I went on to graduate and then achieve a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting at Brigham Young University. After 14 years in the performing arts, however, I reached the end of that path and embarked on a new journey of developing a methodology to help people discover themselves and experience breakthroughs of their own. I became an entrepreneur, worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs and learned volumes about success, motivation, psychology, philosophy, and what matters most in the human experience and its ultimate potential.
Influential teachers, thought leaders, sacred scriptural writings and ancient philosophies like Taoism all helped shape within me a holistic understanding of the world and the ultimate potential of society. Like a gradually rising sun, I began grasping the truth of happiness, peace, harmony, wholeness, health, healing, freedom, and liberation! I needed to share these transformational truths and principles, but I couldn’t just talk or lecture about these. I had to help people embody them as an actor would. I was then introduced to an ancient Chinese mind-body practice that would do just that. Qigong (chee-gung) is a powerful practice that is over four thousand years old. It’s one of the most effective methods of cultivating health and integrating body, mind and spirit. It also became instrumental in how I help people gain deep, embodied cognition of the important truths and timeless principles for balance, happiness, harmony, and making the world a better place. In 2018 I became certified as a Qigong (chee-gung) practitioner and established Blue Petal Foundation.
My focus now is to empower people, strengthen families and unite communities to cultivate the lasting change we all hope for in society. This is what I call The Way of All Life, the dynamic balance that sustains everything we all naturally hunger for and seek to sustainably enjoy.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
At the very beginning of my Qigong training I was dealt a series of blows that were the most painful and devastating experiences of my life. I had just torn my Achilles tendon and required surgery. I then experienced the icy cold blast of rejection and betrayal from a business partner, as well as my Qigong peers and teacher, who quite honestly used fear-based tactics to control and take advantage of some situations that injured me. My contract with a business had ended and there was absolutely no income. I was stacking credit card debt just to keep up with the 9-month Qigong certification training. So, despite that time period as being the most physically, emotionally and mentally painful time of my life, my wife and I learned so much and deepened our spiritually and faith in God. We were (and still are) truly blessed.
As you know, we’re big fans of the Blue Petal Foundation. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
The mission of Blue Petal Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity, is to strengthen society in The Way of All Life. We focus first on helping individuals and families understand a holistic paradigm, learn how to cultivate deep healing and self-transformation and how to govern in wisdom according to principles of balance and harmony.
Through this, they become empowered and inspired to contribute to the communities they belong to. The very principles and truths that cultivate healing, happiness, and prosperity in the individual may also be applied to help society experience the same. This is an especially important time to understand and apply these principles and practices as we are immersing into an unprecedented degree of division and contention on so many levels.
I believe people of light naturally gravitate toward each other and look for ways to do good. I hope to be there to help inspire the vision and provide a platform.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Having a vision of your life with a core spiritual connection is fundamental. In addition, developing resilience is irreplaceable. The opposition and hardships will either break a person or catapult them upward. The difference is found in their resilience and faith to gain wisdom from the experience and continue on.
Contact Info:
- Email: ben@bluepetalfoundation.org
- Website: bluepetalfoundation.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bluepetalfoundation/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BluePetalFoundation
Image Credits
Kiana Miller and Tammy Anderson Ward
