“To be able to understand what somebody goes through at the beginning of the process was valuable. I’m glad I kept my eyes open and worked my way up to the company and ended up on my own because now I can create a culture where people want to come to work.”
Ken Rusk never got a college degree, but he successfully rose through all the challenges and become the President of Rusk industries, entrepreneur, and author of Blue Collar Cash. He considered himself a professional ditch digger and a proud advocate of setting your goals and following your dreams. He dug his way to a successful life, a shovel of dirt at a time, and is now sharing his experience and teaching blue-collar workers to do the same.
Blue-collar jobs can be the path to success that may overlook.
“If you are a contrarian thinker, when everybody else goes this way, then maybe you should go that way. You’re going to make a great life, and you’re going to make a lot of money in the blue-collar world.”
Join us as we listen to another story of a successful entrepreneur and learn how setting a crystal clear vision can help you achieve your goals even without getting a college degree. Create your own path to success and fulfillment and take advantage of the blue-collar positions.
Website: https://www.kenrusk.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-rusk-2656a7175
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KenRuskOfficial
Facebook: https://facebook.com/KenRuskOfficial/
John: Thank you for listening to the Business Sphere. Don’t forget to share this episode and subscribe. My guest today is Ken Rusk, a Blue Collar entrepreneur and author. He never went to college and instead succeeded and built his own businesses in the trades. Ken believes Blue Collar jobs, can be a path to success that many overlook. Thanks for joining me today Ken.
Ken: I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
John: So I’m excited to have this great conversation, but before we start, I would love for all the listeners to know a little bit about your expertise, how you became who you are today?
Ken: Well, I’m basically in the construction business I’ve gotten involved in several different things over the years, but quickly the way it started when I was 15, my high school shared a fence with an industrial park and after school as kids, we would walk through a hole in that fence and we go through the industrial park to the carryout just to hang out after school. That’s what we did back then so, but I always walked when I would go through this fence. I would see all this activity and all this energy and things that young kids like, you know, like dump trucks and tow motors and backhoes, jackhammers. And, you know, people milling around. And so finally one day know, I knew someone that had worked there and I said Hey, What do you guys do here? And he said Well, we’re basically ditch digger. And I said, well, I can do that. You know, I need money like anybody else. So for my first used car, taking my girlfriend, up for pizza, maybe go bowling with my buddies or whatever.
So I signed up and I dug a lot of ditches in the summertime and when I wasn’t at school in the winter, I would go in the office and work to kind of learn the whole thing. So, just a few short years after that, I was 19 years old. I was thinking about college or not to go to college. In my summer of my 18th year when I was graduating, I just remember the owner came to me and said, hey, look at. You know a lot about this business. You’ve been here. We’re gonna open up franchises around the country. Do you wanna be involved in that? So I jumped on that bandwagon, did that for three or four years. Made a lot of mistakes with other people’s money as they say, and then settle down in my own office. Eventually in Toledo, Ohio and we started with six people. We have nearly 200 today and it’s been quite a ride.
John: Wow, and so right now how many years has it been? that you’ve been in the same industry?
Ken: Well. I hate to say this, but it’s like 43 years now, so It’s been really interesting. It’s been great. I wouldn’t have changed anything for I would have done anything different.
John: But 43 years in the same profession, in the same trade. and with all this disruption of technology and with all what’s going on, you’re in trades and trades don’t have as much change. Right? So I think people have to realize for all the listeners that, I know everyone wants to get, you know, to go to school. To get formal education to learn about the fastest, brightest AI, The greatest speed of Internet and different software and crypto and nfts. But in reality, if you simplify life to trades, you still have a great opportunity to be successful.
Ken: Yeah. You know, it’s great to say that because I actually have a sticker on my computer that says simplify at it, and I’ve had there for probably 10 or 15 years. And again, the greatest part about being in the Blue Collar field today Is it’s this supply of workers is shrinking so drastically, and the demand is increasing. And for anybody who is paying attention in high school, Okay, ECON 101 supply and demand, you can’t mess with. It always works. And so where supply is low and demand is high, that’s where the money goes. You know. So that’s just one part of it.
The other thing is that people don’t realize about Blue Collar careers is, you know, it’s different than sitting on the 15th floor of some office building in some cubicle where you don’t know, you know, you’re just part of a big machine and you’re not quite sure how you fit in and you kind of work for Friday, right? When you’re in a Blue Collar field. You can get to control your own input your own output, you get to control the quality of that, you get to control your time, your schedule, and many times you get to control your financial gains. So, when you look at a Blue Collar career today. A lot of these same characteristics and benefits are the same as they’ve always been. It’s just now you have a better opportunity to make a great financial life for yourself because not many people are willing to do that anymore.
John: And I love, you saying that because I deal with, so my agency is digital marketing and I deal with lot of trades from plumbers roof, Contractors, general contractors, electrical people, concrete contractors, everyone in the trades needs a digital presence. However, there’s labor shortages. There’s always a supply-demand issue of good quality. Professionals to do the actual work and if you provide a unique selling proposition or you’re a go-to provider, that does really solid work, replication solid, you understand how the price and serve clients, you’ll have a successful Thriving business that will endure any peaks and valley in any changes of the environment right? So.
Ken: Yeah, and another good point there is that. Because it’s so hard to find good qualified people. Companies are having to drastically improve their cultures, their hiring cultures. You know we have in our place, we have a private chef who drives around in a van and feeds our crews on site. Okay, we talked about all the different types of celebratory things you can imagine, you know birthdays and anniversary’s and weddings and babies and all those kinds of things we celebrate. We have lots of contests. We have music and color and goal setting and you know.
A lot of driven, focused, team-oriented kind of stuff and I’ve noticed over the last few years because of the shortage of workers, a lot of other companies are now asking me, hey, what do you do? How do you do this or how do you do that to improve the culture because? Yeah, you can find some, but retaining them is a whole other story. So. The other benefit right now is. If you got, you know if you’re willing to look someone in the eye and give him a firm handshake, God forbid you’re early to the interview and you have a good reason for being there. You’re gonna get, like, lifted through the vortex of a you know promotions and whatnot a lot faster than you were before when you were competing with a bunch of other people, so just to know the reason to go into our field and really make a great life for yourself.
John: And so what are some of the things that you’ve seen over the course of 40 plus years in terms of not just your clients, but your employees because retention is so important. You nailed it, taking care of the culture, the values has to be in line. Timing has to be right as well and the goals right like. I was able to learn a lot of this incorporate to then implement in my own company and I really feel that the staff make the company. The people in the company are what you know is perceived in the outside world, right? Of how you’re gonna, you know, be taking on new clients, how you, your reputation is so. What have you done differently in the course of 40-plus years and what have you seen?
Ken: Well, you know It’s pretty interesting how this evolved. I call it like it’s almost like there is a 3 tiered confluence. It’s working against our industry right now and basically, it started in my mind. It you know and when I was in high school, every high school had shop classes. You could walk past the woodshop, the metal shop and mechanic shop, the home economic shop, maybe even a hairdressing you could do all these different things and you would almost accidentally discover how great some of these fields are. Well, you know, they took a lot of those classrooms away and they put computers in those rooms. And I have nothing against computers. We have to learn that stuff. I understand that. But why did it have to be a binary choice?
Meaning one over the other. Why couldn’t we have had both? So you’ve got that one problem then you’ve also got the problem that. When I was younger, we would go in the backyard with my buddies or my brothers and we build a tree for, you know, hammer lumber, nails. We just go do it. Well. Now kids are building houses on Minecraft on their cell phones, and it’s not the same experience, you know that. So if you have that coupled with the shop class missing and then you know colleges, I have nothing against college, Okay? If you’re gonna operate on my silver so I can get back on the golf course, I want you to know everything there is to know about a knife before you pick it up. And certainly, that goes with teaching and engineering and you know, architecture or handling money, whatever it might be. But colleges are really good at marketing themselves in a way that makes parents think I have to send my kid to college or he or she will never amount to anything. So now you have those three influences working together to really hurt our industry. However, if there’s a contrarian thinker, Okay, when everybody else goes this way, maybe you should go that way. And now is the time to do that because you’re going to make a great life and you’re gonna make a lot of money in the Blue Collar world.
John: Yeah, you know choices right? We’re very fortunate here in Western culture to have the ability to choose the career path. That we decide and the upbringing of how to evolve your child, right? education to, you know, curiosity to play or work or, you know, playoff devices or whatever it is and parenting is a huge component of it all, right? So you know when you have children, I would imagine. And you’re bringing them up and also your new employees who are probably different. Then their peers, right? Because most people will say I wanna go to college. I want university, I want to be a doctor, dentist, or whatever. Right? I wanna be engineer, nurse or whatever. Which is fine, but there’s only so many of them that say I wanna be a auto mechanic. I wanna dig holes for a living. I wanna play on a truck. So as a parent, what do you say to those types of people? Because you know there are. It’s Okay to be different as well.
Ken: Well, you know, this is getting so bad in my book. Blue Collar cash. I talked about the Blue Collar crisis that we’re experiencing right now and it’s so bad that I actually, I wrote an open letter to parents a couple weeks ago. It’s on my website at kenrusk.com. And in the letter I said. I understand you’re thinking. Okay, I’m a parent too, so. I understand that you gave birth to your child and you fed your child and you clothed them and you protect them and you sheltered them and you housed them and you did all those things and you educate them along the way. And now you think, that in order to complete the parenting process, I have to get this kid into a college and get him or her a degree. Well, that’s where the formula kind of falls off the map, because if you think about it. 167 million people work in the United States today.
They’re just take the U.S. About 77 million of those people do something with their hands, so nearly half the people are doing something in an infrastructure way or some supportive role, so we can’t put 167 million of our future kids into college or who’s gonna do all these things. I mean, you can’t go to. You can’t get out of bed, get dressed and go to work without probably crossing over a 100 Blue Collar jobs along the way in some way, shape or form. Whether it’s the door you open is the car you turn on, it’s the road you drive on. Okay, the bathroom you use whatever. The building you go to. You can’t cross it without crossing a lot of these Blue Collar jobs, and I just think we need to get back to what economies need, which is a really proper balance of Blue Collar workers and a white-collar worker as well.
John: And I love this discussion because parenting and the way perception is. And a lot of people want to take the easy way out, right? They know how hard it was for them. First-generation, second-generation immigrants, and they want a be easier life, however, is that teaching your child? The best thing for opportunities, because like you mentioned, there’s low supply right, huge demand for these jobs. So your competition level to get interviewed, to get high-paying jobs, to move up the ladder, to support your lifestyle, right, it’s a lot easier when there’s. Less, you know, challenges well less competition, but when you’re going into this new AI world and everyone is going into computers and learning about Minecraft and all that stuff, everyone is also trying to gravitate towards that. So what do you say to parents on that front?
Ken: Well I look at it this way. Okay, in the letter I wrote. Just so you know. It is okay if your child doesn’t go to College in fact, if they learn in a tactile way or in a hands-on kind of way, it’s better off if you don’t send them to college. Okay, just consider this for a second. Let’s assume you have a college and that college costs you forty-fifty thousand dollars a year all in. Room and board, books, food, travel, everything, tuition the whole nine years. Over four years, that’s $200,000. If you don’t have an absolutely good reason to go to that school within a specific job, waiting for you on the other end, that’s $200,000 in debt. You’re going to have to pay off. Now, you can start right now in a Blue Collar field and earn $50,000 a year in an apprenticeship cost you nothing, Okay?
Now, in four years, you’ve earned $200,000 a year. That’s a $400,000 swing in your asset base. By the time you’re what, 23-24? I mean, that’s enough to get you started on your first house. Your cars, your 401K program. Whatever you decide, you want. So, you at least have to consider that math parents before you automatically send someone into school, especially if they don’t have a really specific reason for going there and you know they come out the other end with a lot of debt and maybe they’re good at beer pong or something like that, but they just get one of these bland degrees that they never use. So. It’s just a consideration and all I’m saying is have an open mind, look at all the options of which there’s probably five or six ways that you like successful, and we’ll talk about the vision of that. I hope because you have to start with that in order to make the best decision in which path to take.
John: Yeah, and that Career choice is so you know when you’re 20, you’re really young, right in the world of living and life, right? It’s all about experiences and it’s all about, like living through different jobs, different people, different perspectives, learning. And at that age to decide on your career path five 5, 10, 20 years down the road is very difficult to predict. The outcomes and it’s even you’re not even sure. So just to give you a perspective, I have 20 different jobs before I went into college and it gave me a huge perspective on a little bit of what I liked.
What I didn’t like, who I like working for with the type of personalities, type of industries, type of work that I like. So it’s all about trying to figure out what’s best for you based on your you know what you enjoy doing, right? What do you look forward to every single day to say? Right. I wanna be an expert at this because this is, this so that that planning like you mentioned, that vision, that goal setting, a lot of people don’t really understand it. When they’re in their 20s and they don’t have guidance, they don’t have people in the same. You know, circle to give that advice that they need because their circle of influence is peers. They’re friends, and most friends have parents that will just pay the ride, right. It’s different when you’re Blue Collar, I wouldn’t imagine.
Ken: Well, yeah, you know. It’s an interesting point because. We all have these choices, but I believe that and the book talks most of the book is talk, talks about vision. Okay, now when you talk about your dream vacation, you say the word dream vacation dream means that you’re envisioning this in your mind. You’re thinking about your building pictures, about this in your mind. Every one of us is really good at planning a vacation. We anticipate the beach or the ocean or the beach chair, the beach towel, you know, your umbrella, your sunglasses, your bathing suit, your sandals, your drink, your music, you anticipate that and you can’t wait to do that five or six months in advance and you plan it impeccably. Okay.
Well, why should life be like that? So many of our kids are living this if then life. If you go to high school and if you get good grades and if you get a scholarship and if you get a college degree and then if you get a good-paying job then you can live your life well. I think of it as entirely the opposite of that. I want to know what my then is now. I wanna know what my want my life to look like first. You know, how do I wanna live? What do I wanna live in? Where do I wanna live? What kind of car do I wanna drive? Okay, I’ll pick up truck. A van, a car, an electric car, scooter, motorcycle, whatever. Right. What kind of pet do I want? A dog? A cat. And if So what kind? What color? What would you name it? What’s my gift back moment, my charity. What’s my hobby? Moment look like? What’s my vacation moment look like? Draw all that out and really clear detail. Understanding that you probably will never pull your car out of the driveway. Put it in drive and then not know where you’re going. You always have a destination in mind. You always anticipate going somewhere. Why shouldn’t our entire lives be like that? Anticipating all these things along the way? Because when you anticipate something, you kind of draw yourself to it, your brain is very powerful in that way. So let’s start out with a really crystal clear vision of what you want your life to look like, and then you can choose one of five or six different ways to get there, one of them being college.
John: That’s amazing in the clarity that you have to have, and the mentors are cultures or the people within your circle, because the circle of influence plays a huge role on deviation in terms of life career choices, decisions that you make every single day. The people that you surround yourself with, and it could be good and bad, right? Because one wrong mistake. Can set you back some years or time as well, so trying to figure that out and the earlier able to do it the better it is. So how do you?
Ken: There’s a there’s an interesting. Study that done by the University of Virginia Tech and they took 100 people. And they said, raise your hand if you have real clear goals. And you know, in the very near future, only twenty of them raise their hand. Okay, so let’s move them up to the side. Now you’ve got this 20. Now they said, Okay, tell me specifically about these goals and what they found out was 16 of them were just kind of hopes and dreams and wishes and maybes in some days. Move them to the side four left. Okay. All four of them decided to actually write them down in a crystal fashion. Okay, with three of them, then sucked, that piece of paper in a drawer somewhere hardly ever looking at it. One and only one out of 100 in this study decided to take that piece of paper and put it up on the wall.
Look at it every single day and like, live that whole process. Well, they interviewed those people later in life and they found that they made nine times more money. That one person, then the other hundred Okay, in their lifetimes. Now, to me, it’s not necessarily about the money part as it is being driven. Okay, having that entrepreneurial spirit in you, which we all have, by the way. And so I can’t impress enough on parents how important it is to ask your kids. What do you want your life to look like? And then? And then let’s pick the best path to get there, because there are several and you know you and only you know which one is right for you too. To make that happen.
John: And that’s amazing. So let’s take a little pivot on the business itself, so. I know you mentioned digging its construction, I would imagine and how did you pivot away from you know that franchise model? Starting your own and why and how did that, you know, begin, and how did you grow it from there?
Ken: Well, first off. I decided I was tired of living out of a suitcase when I worked for. Yeah, the franchise. I actually own two of their franchise currently. I started from scratch. Because back then, it wasn’t like you opened a McDonald’s and you know, 99% of the work was done for you. You just had to learn how to run it and then just go open it and people would just flood into here in your front doors for cheeseburgers and French fries. Right? So we had to start from Ground Zero, right, to start from scratch. But we had a method. We had a process. We had a patented process and we use that and to improve homes, so. We started with sticks. We built it all the way up to 200. But along the way, I was able to do the other things that I’ve always wanted to do, which was I invested in other construction companies and in other businesses. Okay, I was either actively involved or passively involved in those things. Now, When I say that digitating was probably number 99 on the list of 100 things, I thought I was gonna doing be doing I’m I believe that because I wanted to be a racecar driver. Okay, that’s what I wanted to do. So you remember the old cartoon speed racer? Well, that was me. I wanted to be that guy.
So. The point is, if you keep those dreams in the back of your mind, then as you get to be able to afford to do those things, they come back. I mean, I have some cars now, you know, I raise them a couple three times a year. I get my racing fixed and I go to the track and do all that. It’s a blast. So the point is you can start somewhere. Work your way, even if it’s a business that isn’t exactly perfect for you, I mean. If you think about it, we don’t. We don’t live to work. We work so that we can live and as long as you have that clear vision in front of you, you can start out a job that maybe not about it. Not a lot of other people are doing. Make a lot of money doing it and then invest in other things along the way to the point now where, you know, they call me this. Business entrepreneur, I mean, thank you for that. But you know, I’m not special. I mean, I can teach anybody to do this. So it really is something just to start with that vision and to work your way up through the construction industry and then just have these things kind of happen for you as it’ll keep your eyes and ears open. And these things happen.
John: And I love the fact that you’re mentioning like you can start anywhere from the bottom. don’t start thinking you’re gonna be the owner or you’re gonna be like the business owner that’s been doing it for 20-30 years. You have to start. And get experience. Learn the ropes like you mentioned you bought into two franchises and it was all about learning the systems, processes and building the foundation to start your own. To then, learn and make tons of mistakes. I’m sure to then hire more and have better systems and retention of clients and staff and all these things and it’s still that evolution of it’s never perfect and it’s always gonna continue growing and learning. It’s that whole evolution of business ownership.
Ken: Yeah, there. This is a really good point because. You know, I started at the bottom at the most entry-level job there was. And I’m so glad I did because. Now I have a complete understanding of what it takes to retain someone to do what I did. So. I always say this at my meetings. I can’t get what I want, nor can this company get what it wants or needs until. All of you get what you want and need first, and it’s absolutely true because they are the input. Okay, they’re the beginning of this process. So for me to be able to understand what somebody goes through in the beginning of that process, it was invaluable.
So I’m glad that I started at the very bottom. I’m glad that I kept my eyes open and worked my way up through the company and ended up in my own business because now I can create a culture that’s really cool that people want to come to work at and we retain people and we have a lot of fun doing it. But I understand what they go through and I can also teach them and I can teach them. Go financial gain and the power of Young Money and all those really important things that you wish you know you wanna wait till you’re 45 and go “Oh my God, I wish someone had told me that. You know, when I was 20”. So it’s a real joy for me to be able to give back in that way for these younger people and figure out a good way it would make life happy for themselves.
John: And I and you mentioned great things like context and perspectives and you being able to live it before that, that rollercoaster of the riot, right, that you were on because people then will respect you. They understand that you’ve actually lived as well and then they will listen because you’ve lived through it. So giving that guidance and I wanted to ask you like, did you have? People, mentors, coaches or people that you looked up to, that you gravitate towards in your circle of influence from family or other employers that you had to, you know, really learn from because it’s hard to learn on your own, everything.
Ken: Yeah, yeah, I would say this. I was just always pretty where I used to move lawns and really nice neighbourhoods. And I kind of looked around and see what was going on. And I used to work. You know, my boss was pretty successful and he had me do a lot of things for him, you know, personally in that. So I got to see how he lived. And my father, you know, he was a really hardcore, tough marine. And he would say, hey, I did it. I made it. Now you guys go make it on your own. So there was that drive and he kind of put a little perfectionism into us when we were younger kids and all that stuff was really good.
But. I need to say this when it comes to being an entrepreneur and people say, oh man, you know, you’re lucky you’re that entrepreneur guy and I’m like, well, okay, well, let’s talk about that. You can’t take a crayon and a piece of paper and draw entrepreneur. I mean, there’s you can’t draw that right other than to write the letters, right. So entrepreneur in the book I read a lot about these characteristics like persistence and resilience and faith and courage initiative, you know, charity, humility, all these types of things. Well, I look at it this way, every one of us. If given the chance to create a drawing of what we want our life to look like. In crystal clear, colorful, vivid fashion, every one of us has those characteristics of I’m being an entrepreneur inside of them. They just need a reason to come out. They just need a reason to wake up and go. Okay, now I’m going to energize. So if you can, you know, you find me one kid. Or I can work with who I can get a real clear vision with for what he or she wants for their life. You’re gonna see entrepreneurial spirit awaken in them and it’s going to be like, wow. Ken, thanks for helping me do that. Now get out of my way and let me go do it.
It really is amazing how little credit we give ourselves for the ability to be responsible for ourselves and make things happen. For ourselves, like we have, we had the effect of all these other people. I mean, who but you knows what you’re passionate about? Who? But you knows what you’d be good at, what you’d like to spend time doing? Who? But he knows what you want your life to look like in the best path to get there. So rely on yourself. You know this and look for those mentors. And this is going to be really good for you. Especially like I said in the Blue Collar side of things nowadays.
John: and it’s hard to get self-motivated, it’s hard to see and Look at hindsight and backup couple years down the road, right. So it’s good to be in alignment with people that you want to be like. And this is why I learn in my early days as well. My circle of influence. I’m an immigrant from, you know, Vietnam. My parents left the war and resided in Canada and we didn’t have that circle of people. So for me, it was Ultra curious. And I was like trying to learn and observe professions, careers, niches industries and trying to figure out, like, oh that nice car who’s driving? How did they earn it? What did it take?
And that’s the curiosity. And once you start trying to figure out like, what triggers people, what made them become who they are? What are the values? what some of the habits, what were some of the perseverance like hard work, and determination and grit, and all that stuff. But people still got to put in the work it doesn’t happen overnight, and therefore when you start having these goals and visions you got to put together a road map, you go to figure out what you need to do to get you closer to that end goal, right? And have milestones within it. And these are things that a lot of people don’t. Really understand when they’re 20 or when they’re just starting their career.
Ken: Yeah, you know. I think it’s really important to ask yourself often, why am I doing this and you just alluded to that. Okay, you constantly, you know, people say, well, you gotta work hard, Okay, why you gotta work hard so you can get somewhere? Okay, what does that mean? Well, so you can start making money. Okay, good. So now I have this paper in my hand. Now what? Okay, well, then you know you need to move up in life. Well, draw that. What does that even mean? Okay.
I mean, these are all these old, you know, adages that you heard as a kid. Well, in my mind, if you don’t have a picture. In your mind of where you’re headed, a really clear picture, Okay? Hard work is gonna be great, but if it’s not hard work motivated by something, it’s probably gonna Peter out at some point or level off, you know what I mean? So I always think that you know. Vision is something that makes somebody driven. Whenever you hear them say well, man, that guy or that girl, she’s really driven. What does that mean? Okay, what it means is they know what they want exactly. And they know where they’re going and how to get it. And I think that’s the difference. We stop and today’s society. We stop at the platitudes. We stop at, he’s driven or she’s moving up, or they want to get ahead.
We stop at those platitudes, ’cause they don’t mean anything. Okay, people think they do, but without an absolute clear like I wanna know what kind of pick-up truck you want. What color is it? What brand is it? When you gonna buy it? How much you gonna put down? How much are you gonna save per month? In order to make that happen. And I wanna know the start date and the end date. You put that together and I want you to tell me the, today you’re going to pick this up. I don’t care if it’s five years from now. You put that kind of goal together. Now you’re onto something.
John: That’s amazing. And these are, you know, you being an entrepreneur started from the bottom to where you are today and then inspiring others, making impact on employees and other people writing that book. It’s inspirational. And it’s really clear to me that you have a road map. You figured it out because even in today’s society and world with all this news and, you know, whatever is going on, you really need to focus on present life, and being in control of what you can control because everything else is noise and people get distracted. Oh, shiny object syndrome. Oh, I want in crypto because I heard a friend make thousands of dollars, but no one talks about the thousands of other people that lost their, you know, everything, right, life savings.
So having clarity on that and then understanding what really it takes so. And I really still feel that it’s that circle of influence where you are the average of five people that you spend the most time with, and you really need to figure out what your road map looks like? What are your smaller goals? And it could be I want a car, I want a home. I want a nice vacation. I wanna. XXX I wanna have financial freedom, Why? like you mentioned so that I can travel. I can do sports. I can do things that I’ve always wanted with my family. Right. Why? So that these memories are cherished or whatever these experiences.
So all these things are. It takes time to learn, right? And I’m at a different stage than you are. ’cause. I’m not there yet, but I’m learning and I’m curious, and that’s why we’re having this conversation, Ken. But I love it because it makes you wonder. Like, Okay, what’s next? What’s my 5,10, year trajectory? And I just put together a 10-year road map for my company. And I put these different goals for each employee. I do semi-annual goal sessions with my client staff, right? So that gives them clarity on personal and business goals and initiatives. So I’m doing things that I know work for me and I’m implementing it and I’m having fun along the way.
Ken: You know, this is such a powerful tool in it. In our office, we have these huge black plaster, black glass boards. They’re big boards and they’re marching well. They’re kind of like those. Those boards you see in front of a restaurant with a multi-coloured letter out for the Margarita special today. Okay. So we have giant boards like that. And the goal that I just mentioned with the pickup truck. Clear, concise, specific goals. Those are written by our staff on these boards for everyone else to see. So once you put a goal up there, you are committing to this thing and everyone else knows it. There’s a begin date, there’s an end date, and there’s like a $42 a week savings for this or whatever it might be, and it’s specific. Right. So now you have this circle of influence of people that are seeing you in, you know, getting something and then they’re motivated to do it as well.
The thing I would caution about circle of influence is this. You have to make sure that your circle of influence is actually moving you forward, so it’s great to have a circle of influence that does that, but you need to recognize one of two things, either a, I really don’t have a circle of influence, so, therefore, I’m gonna do this from here. Okay. I’m gonna make this happen myself. Or the circle of influence that I have isn’t supportive. They were like, man, that’s risky. I don’t know if you should do that, you know, maybe just be safe and stay where you’re at, you know, don’t try to go after it. That’s not supportive either. So. You know, circle of influences can be very important as long as they own the gold as much as you do. They have their hand on your shoulders so that when you trip and fall or stumble, they pick you up. If you wanna turn around, they push you right back down the path. You know you can’t get off. So it’s one of those things that. They’re either very highly effective or they can be detrimental and you have to know the difference between the two.
John: And it’s great that you’re mentioning this because family can be positive or negative, friends can be positive or negative, and therefore you might need a different circle of influence. And like you mentioned, your employees, your staff, the culture that you’re building, the community that you’re building. It could be a couple people that hold each other accountable, or people that you can envision that will push you along, guide you, give you support, inspiration right, and have milestones and check-ins and this is where the focus group is masterminds. Having people that are same page having full clarity of what they want is so important in people’s lives and I didn’t learn about this until I was probably in my late 30s, right? I’d even know existed. But I was kind of doing it, just picking people that I kinda wanted to be like ’cause I found them very successful or whatever. It was interesting how people you know, figure it out or they have. If I was able to know there was access and resources of people like me out there, I would go and pay for that. It’s like it’s crazy. But a lot of people don’t even know that this exists.
Ken: You know, if in the book Blue Collar cash and I encourage everyone to get it. If you only read one chapter of the 10 chapters, I write a chapter called this Some Dares Club versus the two Bears Club and I kind of I’m a golfer and I’m a member of a Country Club, so I kind of like this example to two different country clubs. One of them is called this Sunday or Country Club and once called the 2 Bear Country Club and man, you wanna talk about the stark difference of the membership that belongs to the Sundays club versus the Two Dares Club.
It is unbelievable the actual either lack of effectiveness or total effectiveness of those two different groups of people, and obviously, the two days club is smaller because not as many people are willing to do, you know, to get involved in doing something right now and just to give you a quick example. If someone walks up to you and says, hey, you know what, someday we should do lunch. Well, you should whip out your phone and say, how does next Tuesday look? When you do that, they’ll look at you like you’re from Mars, because nobody does that. They just kind of blow it off. And yes, someday let’s do that. Be great. See you later. So. If you just read one chapter, that’s the chapter to read because it literally will change your life the minute you read it. As to how you start thinking from this moment forward.
John: And that’s amazing. And it’s crazy that you’re mentioning this. I haven’t read your book, to be honest, but I’ve been implementing these things like every Friday, picking up my contact list and say Let’s go for coffee this day. Right? And it’s just trying to reconnect and kind of just get in the loop of catching up. But I’m very, you know, trying to make sure that it’s in my calendar and I do it, go for lunch, go for whatever coffee, whatever it is, just so that I’m taking initiative. And then I’m at fault for not doing anything I’m not relying on anyone else, right? So it’s like doing these little subtle things have. You know, it made me become way a more accountable and feeling way more. I don’t know full, I would say versus success, success I don’t even know what that meant or means. But for me, it’s a little being full. In family relationships, experiences everything, and that’s more important in my stage in my life currently.
Ken: My, one of the guys that I used to work for a had assignment is desk and it said. You create everything in big letters. You create everything that happens. Now, most people would take that as a very positive motivational sign. And they should. However, if you’re not getting the result that you want, if you’re not getting the things that you want to have happen if you’re not exercising discipline and hard work and initiative, then you are creating the life you don’t want. So be very careful how you look at that sign, because if you truly create everything that happens, then you create the good and you create the bad, don’t you? and that’s why I say it’s something that we really need to take stock in because most people stop at you know the psychological platitude of “Go get them!” and set a goal and do those things but that doesn’t mean anything if there isn’t a specific roadmap you know what I mean, like what am I doing where? Am I doing it how am I going to get it?
How much money am I saving for? When am I going to complete this thing, start and finish and like I said before the power of vision. You’ll know this because you probably have friends and I’m speaking to anyone now, you’ll probably have friends who say when they’re telling you a story they’ll say Do you see what I mean? and they’ll say do you know what I mean do you see what I mean what they’re asking you to do, is they’re asking you to try to visualize the pictures that they have in their head as they’re telling you this story you know do you see what I mean and that’s what they’re asking you to do so they’re trying to get you to visualize what they’re trying to say in picture format there is nothing more powerful in the human brain than the ability to visualize something, and then go after and get it that’s just my opinion I don’t have any college degrees I don’t have any letters after my name. I certainly don’t have any training and life coaching, okay although I consider myself an involuntary life coach for a lot of times with people, but it is amazing to me the power of vision and how that can move your entire life in a positive direction.
John: That’s amazing I love how you, have taken what you know and enjoy the process right? and making an impact on others and you know as we become more wise with experience, and you’re noticing a lot of different people’s perspectives and how they judge things they say things they, their work habits and whatever success or not success, it’s like you have control right? everyone can do what they want in life they can absorb whatever content, that they want they can read books, they can watch pot listen podcasts, watch videos go on news sites social media whatever. But if you spend so much time absorbing and not doing and taking action then, what’s the whole point right? like a lot of people would just get stuck on writing it down and saying all these things listening, absorbing content but never doing anything with it. So what do you say about taking action on holding people accountable, because that’s probably the last final stage but I think it’s the most important starting stage of it all.
Ken: Yeah, now i’ll say this in the book I talk about the five steps, the first one is to congratulate yourself because you’re now starting to think like that one out of a hundred, you know if you go to set a goal a real crystal clear goal and you go to like you want a new car, you want a vacation or what safer house whatever, congratulate yourself that you’re now thinking differently. It’s almost like when a smoker quits and they say okay I’m now a non-smoker I just decided that right now it’s the same thing, congratulate yourself for thinking differently, identify the goal that you want crystal clear draw it out make sure you can see it, then start to put the path together, like you know I want to buy this car, I’m going to save a hundred dollars a week for the next year for a down payment, that’s the path those are the steps.
Then you actually go to your payroll clerk and you put this into action, hey payroll clerk can you take 100 bucks and just put it into that account where I can’t get to it, and 52 weeks from now I’m going to come back and ask you for that money so I can go do this thing. But then the next step is one of the most important ones is that mentor is sharing it with somebody else, you know what I remember when I was younger, and i my first time I jumped off the high dive, and I write about this in the book as well, you know we were used to jumping off the diving board that’s three feet off the water, and you know there was several other layers and one time I went up to the ten-footer and I was young probably six years old and I remember, as I’m climbing that ladder I’m getting nervous and I’m looking down at my buddies, and three or four of my buddies were down there and they’re all like, you got this you can do this, go do it so then I step up on the board and I’m walking towards the edge and I’m like nervous I’m holding onto the rails, and then you get out to the end and the board starts doing this a little bit you know it starts moving, and I look down at those guys they’re like, you got this you can do it, and then I finally I launched.
But I don’t think I would have hit that water if it weren’t for those guys, for my buddies so you know holding yourself accountable is real simple, you know you’ve got a January 1st, and you’ve got a December 31st, those are two really good times to reflect on where your life is going. Now I do it all the time, but if you only do it once a year? Did I gain anything last year? Because if I didn’t then what I’m currently doing? Isn’t working or that goal isn’t good enough, it doesn’t drive you, doesn’t get you out of bed thinking about it. So you know be real cautious on what goals you pick, you have to own them want them, you have to have to complete these things and then put someone on your shoulder with you to help take you down that path you’ll certainly be glad you didn’t, you’ll become a goal-crushing machine if you employ that type stuff.
John: That’s amazing, realistic goals that are achievable having milestones and growing right? like you always constantly need to challenge yourself and reflect. So during my meditation in the morning, I’m always looking at how grateful and you know that gratitude, you know slowing down and living presently and all that stuff, but a lot of people just don’t do it because they’re busy or there’s an excuse or whatever it is right? it’s so important to really have that state mentally, clarity and slow down because everyone’s rushing and they don’t even know why they’re rushing and what they’re rushing to, and if you slow down and figure out like these are the pillars, this is why I’m doing it for that end goal, and if you slow down a little bit because everyone’s rushing, you’ll get there faster quicker and it’s more strategic right? and you’ll enjoy the process, versus being stressed over certain things.
Ken: Yeah, that that is so important that’s a great point that you made because, if you anticipate all these different things vacations and whatever, you’re going to anticipate them at different time frames some of them are going to be immediate goals, like I could start working out today, okay some of them are going to be long-term ones like my 401k program, some of them are going to be medium like 1, 3, 5, 10-year things but if you anticipate all these different goals, it actually frees you up, to have time to be more present, you know it’s the people that have the stress and the angst and the fear and they’re always chasing something you know they’re trying to pay a bill down, or they think someday I’m going to get this so I’m just going to keep wishing for it that’s that life is a lot more stressful and unproductive and unrewarding, so you can have five or six goals going at the same time I know I always do, and you just kind of follow life because once the goals are set in stone you just kind of breathe and march your way toward them and they happen, so in a sense the more you do from a long-term perspective, the more freedom you have to be present and to be spontaneous. And I write about this in the book, comfort peace and freedom is what you’re after okay, we’re not all going to go after mansions and yachts and 15 cars and become music stars or whatever, you know god bless the people who can do that there’s no doubt, but when I have people make these drawings they’re all very very different, but they don’t all have huge houses, I mean some people have a really cool, calm, comfortable, peaceful and free nirvana that they’re going after, and that’s perfect because now you have this ability as I said to be very present, very calm enjoy life be spontaneous, and do those types of things that sometimes we miss out on.
John: And being realistic, and I love you mentioning that because people always want to be the next bill gates, or they want to be like Mark Zuckerberg, or you know any of those billionaires there’s only so many of them in reality in life right? and there’s millions of others that are just content and happy with fulfilling their smaller goals, and desires right? so play with that and growing up I always wanted to be an NBA superstar, I saw Michael Jordan and then, yeah, quickly when I didn’t make the high school team I realized I had to pivot, I had to figure out another career choice and aspiration, but I enjoyed that hobby I realized that I’m not gonna be a star, but i can still enjoy the leisure aspects of having fun, and so you gotta be realistic about everything you do and not you know go crazy i would say.
Ken: Well yeah, you know I just talked to a gentleman who’s in he’s in the basketball industry the NBA industry, and he was a real interesting guy and one of the things that he said was, I think there’s like 350 NBA players in the entire league, okay there’s probably three million people that want that job okay, so you have to think about it you know if you’re going to be an NBA player, you’re going to be an NBA player I mean if it’s in your DNA, if it’s in your life plan to become Lebron James, that that’s probably going to happen in Wayne Gretzky, or you know Romano Rivera or you know a lot of these. These sports figures you know Tiger Woods, or whatever. they’re those people they that was like their destiny to be there and that’s okay, but you have to think and then you use the term realistic if there’s 3 million people going for 300 jobs, that’s tough so you got to have a plan b and that plan b better be, what am I going to do for myself in the you know in the event that that doesn’t happen right ?
John: And even those 350 NBA players there’s only five percent of them earning x amount more than minimum right? which is survival for a lot of real jobs right, like yeah right and they only have a duration of a couple years, right. So if you think about it and like I’m very realistic about, like trying to teach my son you know just letting him figure it out and be curious, but for me it’s like the odds, like it’s you just look at the masses supply and demand you look at different career paths, and look at different situations about life and who you want to be surrounded by and what you want to do, but it’s all about like enjoying the process, like you mentioned that journey of life stages and you know from career, to then maybe it is figuring out if you want a family, marriage and all that to then have building a foundation of a home, and some sort of equity or life right, like to have choice freedom to then do things right because a lot of people are busy, with a lot of different life stages that you have to figure out. And that career path gives you a good foundation to figure out like what you want to do, and how to do it but it gives you a lot more a choice if you have clarity, like you Mitchell.
Ken: Yeah, I think you know life is to me has always been about balance, and I don’t think we’re built to wait till we’re 70 to start living, I just don’t think that’s the way people are built. So you know you’ve heard the stories of people that saved their whole life, and they never went anywhere, and then they got to retirement and then god forbid one of them, you know gets sick or passes away, and they don’t get to take the advantage of all that work. So I think there’s a balance to life where you have to fill all the buckets, you have to fill the spiritual bucket, you have to fill the financial bucket, you have to fill you know your hobby bucket, your donation bucket, your relationship you have to fill all those buckets evenly and that’s why I say you know, don’t wait till you’re seven years old to take up golf, play it now I mean you know life has no guarantees to it. So if you live a balanced life the whole time and you keep your options realistic, and you paint the picture of what your perfect nirvana is, you’re going to find yourself having a very stress-free life, one that 90% of the people out there don’t have, because they just don’t have the information in front of them and you know what’s really funny about this, it’s so simple I mean what I’m talking about, if I can do it trust me anyone can do it, so it’s just so simple to get this information out there and to start putting it into practice, and I just I wish more people would do it which is probably why you and I are talking.
John: Well Ken this has been so much fun, I really enjoyed our conversation what’s the best, way people can reach out to you, check you out or if they have any ques questions?
Ken: Well a couple things, number one you can go to kenrosk.com, you can also go to kenruskofficial, on all my social medias you can see what we’re up to there, but I did want to mention one thing, though I do have this course, that I put along with the book, and you know I didn’t write this book to make money, I mean I my life has been was really good before I did this so, I tend to donate a lot of my proceeds to charity when I have book sales. Which is great because it’s been a bestseller, and I’m just thrilled to death about that. But so what I do is for every 99 course somebody buys its eight-week course takes an hour a week it’s real simple, and it but it’ll change the way you think. For every course that I sell I donate one to someone in need or someone that they want me to donate it to. So if you buy the course for 99 bucks you’ll get a free book with it. And you’ll know that you’re not only helping yourself, but you’re also helping somebody else because a course and a book will go to somebody else in your name. And i just think it’s incumbent upon all of us to give back as much as we can, and I’m doing my part to make that happen.
John: I love that Ken, because making an impact paying it forward, sharing, abundance because you realize what it took but there’s a lot of people that need help, need support, need guidance. So I love that, well thanks a lot Ken I really want to appreciate, this was a lot of fun and we’ll stay in touch because you’re not too far from Canada, I know you’re in Ohio so maybe one day we’ll get together thank you.
Ken: Yeah that’d be great, I really appreciate you having me today, and you know have me back anytime I love talking about this stuff so I’m happy to help anytime I can.
John: Perfect.
