From Ditch Digger To Successful Entrepreneur with Ken Rusk

As a host who's witnessed firsthand the profound impact of personal trials on life's direction, I bring you an episode that questions the traditional paths to success and fulfilment. My guest, Ken Rusk, a blue-collar sage and entrepreneur, shares his wisdom on finding prosperity outside the realm of academia. Together, we unravel the thread that success isn't exclusively reserved for college graduates and that the trades can offer equally rewarding opportunities. Ken's insights into goal setting and financial freedom provide a fresh perspective on crafting a purpose-driven existence that many might overlook.

The conversation takes an intimate turn as I reflect on my daughter's illness and the life lessons it imparted. This pivotal moment led to a deep introspection on what truly constitutes a meaningful life—comfort, peace, and freedom. Through this lens, we discuss how today's job-seekers are reshaping the landscape with their unique set of skills and aspirations. Our dialogue weaves through the importance of choices, the joy found in various professions, and how the impact of our work can resonate far beyond our job titles.

In a chapter dedicated to growth and leadership, I reveal the transformative steps of transitioning from chef to thriving business owner. Emphasizing the importance of making oneself replaceable for the sake of company progression, I highlight the power of delegation and empowerment within a team. As we close, the conversation turns toward personal development, with Ken suggesting a chance for listeners to invest in themselves while aiding veterans. This episode isn't just a discussion; it's an invitation to consider alternative routes to success and to dare to walk them boldly.

Key moments in this episode:
03:03 Ken Rusk's Journey from Ditch Digger to Successful Entrepreneur
07:49 Characteristics of a Successful Entrepreneur
12:49 The Inspiration Behind 'Blue Collar Cash'
15:15 Redefining Work and Life for Fulfillment
21:50 Creating a Shared Vision for Success
23:12 Reflecting on Personal Vision and Family Dynamics
27:16 Embracing Masculinity in Today's World
32:11 Maximizing Time: A Life-Changing Perspective
38:16 Empowering Leadership: Making Yourself Irrelevant

How to reach Ken:
🕸 https://www.kenrusk.com/
IG https://www.instagram.com/kenruskofficial/
FB https://www.facebook.com/KenRuskOfficial
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-rusk-2656a7175/
X https://mobile.twitter.com/KenRuskOfficial

Chapters

• 0:00 Success Through Trades
• 10:31 Discovering Paths to Comfort and Freedom
• 19:26 Defining Masculinity and Shared Vision
• 27:58 Time and Technology in Society
• 37:11 Empowerment and Growth in Business
• 43:49 Transformative Self-Improvement Conversation

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You know, I remember a time being said that there was the only surefire way that you could be successful was you needed to get a college degree, and almost any degree. But just get something. The truth is that very few of us really truly need a college degree to make it successful in our careers. Sure, if you're a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant, but for the rest of us, what we need to do to find success, at least in my opinion and my life, was doing something through the trades. I started off my career as a chef and I really enjoyed that journey and that time in my life, and I think it's true for a lot of us and so how we define success really is going to be determined on how we look at and reveal and look at how education reveals itself to us. So today my guest is going to share some keys on what he believes are a path to success and how. This is how he has used these keys to guide hundreds of people in his work.

Speaker 1: 0:55

Now, before we get into that, I just want to remind everyone that you know, today being a man has never been more challenging, and for some of us that can be a very deep pain in our hearts. It's a pain of loneliness and it's a pain of unworthiness, and it's always usually masked by our anger and our resentment. It's all because we're uncertain and afraid to take that next step. So if you're tired and fed up of where your life is at, then I'm going to encourage you to start your hero's quest. It's an opportunity for you to become more, accomplish more and live more than ever before. Just go to memberstheawakenedmannet and start your quest today. With that, let's get on with today's episode.

Speaker 2: 1:36

The average man today is sleepwalking through life, many never reaching their true potential, let alone ever crossing the finish line to living a purposeful life. Yet the hunger still exists, albeit buried amidst his cluttered mind, misguided beliefs and values that no longer serve him. It's time to align yourself for greatness. It's time to become a revolutionary man. Stay strong, my brother.

Speaker 1: 2:05

Welcome everyone to the Revolutionary man. Stay strong, my brother. Welcome everyone to the Revolutionary man podcast. I'm the founder of the Awakened man movement and your host, Alan DeMonso. Before we get started, let me ask you a couple of questions.

Speaker 1: 2:15

Do you love your work Like I mean, really love it? And if so, that's great. But if not, what keeps you showing up at work every day? You know, if you're like many men who don't, who really don't like their work, then I got to hear you. I hear that that's can be very painful.

Speaker 1: 2:31

And I think back on my life, where careers have started and while they were inspiring in the beginning, at the end they became very dreadful and a drag to get up and go to work every day. And we stay there because we have convinced ourselves that we have bills to pay, we have mortgages to cover, families to support, and all of those are true. But, as Thoreau says, the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, but no more so. Today, my guest shares how he transformed his life from being a common man to becoming totally uncommon. So allow me to introduce my guest.

Speaker 1: 3:05

Ken Rusk spent his younger years digging ditches and working in construction. He never went to college. Instead, he made goals, planned and worked hard for 30 years. Today, Ken is a very successful entrepreneur with multiple business and revenue streams, and he specializes in mentoring and coaching hundreds of young people in such areas as short, mid and long term goal setting. He uses life visualization, career paths and sound financial planning to help these individuals, and he's passionate about helping people achieve their dreams, regardless of the educational background or past. Welcome to the show, Ken. How are things, my friend?

Speaker 3: 3:44

Great Alan, Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 3:46

Yeah, thank you so much, and we're on the American Thanksgiving weekend. I really appreciate taking a little bit of time away from your family to do this. There's so many men out there that really want to get to know you a bit better and understand your story, so I always ask my opening question for all my guests is always to tell a story about their hero's dress quest, their journey, and so tell us about that time in your life when you knew things had to change. What did you do about that and how did that experience shape you into the man you are today?

Speaker 3: 4:14

Well, you know, for me, I was always someone who wanted to be in control of my life and my income and you know the work that I performed and whatever. And I never, really I never really fit into the typical molds of going to college. Actually, my high school shared a fence with an industrial park and there was a hole in that fence that we used to cut through after school and go hang out at the carryout when I was 15. And I used to pass all these businesses that were hustling and bustling and energetic and all the things that young guys would like. There was construction equipment and people milling around and just a lot of energy. So I wanted my first full-time job. So I actually went in and asked them what they did. I knew someone that worked there and they said, well, we dig ditches. And I said, well, I think I'm qualified to do that. I wanted to buy my first used car, I wanted to take my girlfriend out for pizza, whatever, go bowling with my buddies, and so I did that and that worked out.

Speaker 3: 5:10

For three or four years I would dig ditches in the summertime when I wasn't in school, and in the wintertime I would work in the office after school. So I kind of got a well-rounded sense of what the business was like. And when I was 18, they said listen, you can either leave and go to college or you can come and you can stay and we can work in this business and we're going to expand it to open up businesses all around the Midwest of the United States and we want you to be part of that. So I did. I lived out of a suitcase, I chose that path and opened up businesses from scratch all over the Midwest. And then, when I was 23, I said you know enough of living out of a suitcase. And moved to Toledo, ohio, and opened up my own company, started with six people and now I think we have nearly 200. So it's been one heck of a ride.

Speaker 1: 5:54

Outstanding. Just love that story. I mean, like much like yourself, I was always attracted to that. So that other, the being able to be creative and doing things with our hands, and whether it was digging ditches or or learning how to cook, and I was really inspired by him. You know I'm 57. So the TV shows. There was no food TV like it is today, where it's all cool and sexy, right, I had Graham care, the galloping gourmet, If you remember that show that's that's what I would rush home from school to watch.

Speaker 3: 6:21

Yeah, you're going back a few years for that one.

Speaker 1: 6:23

Yeah, and but we have something that inspires us, right, and then you get that opportunity. And you know, what I really liked about your story is you. It sounds like you had a bit of an advocate there to help you, and how great of a conversation to have with such a young individual to say, hey, you can go to college or you can stay here and learn and grow. So maybe expand a little bit more on that, because that's really the work that you're doing now, and so tell me a little bit more about how you're using that to help people.

Speaker 3: 6:50

Well, yeah, so my, I had really two advocates, if you will. One was my father, and he didn't go to college either, and he ended up becoming pretty successful. So he said, listen, you know, it sounds to me like the path you're taking is as good as college as college can be. I mean going to open businesses from scratch with other people's money and making mistakes and figuring out how to how to get it done, and repeating that over and over that. That was pretty invaluable for me. So, and the gentleman that I worked for was a pretty flamboyant guy and he lived very well. I was kind of like his fixer for a little while, helping him get things straightened out, set up. You know anything he wanted to do. He wanted to buy something. He sent me to go buy it for him, and so I had a lot of knowledge of how you could live really well by watching others, and so that translated pretty well for me to say, well, okay, so if they're in control of their own destinies, why shouldn't I be in control of my own? And that, right there, cemented the idea for me that I was going to run my own company. I was just going to be my own boss and do my own thing and what I think.

Speaker 3: 7:50

I think what most people don't understand about blue collar jobs and trade jobs, to begin with, and running your own company is you get to control your input, which means you can control your output and the quality of that output. You get to control your day, your time, your schedule. You get to control your financial gain in most cases, and I just don't think you get that in the 15th floor of some skyscraper and selling medical supplies out of a cubicle and you don't really know how you fit into the whole world out of a cubicle and you don't really know what's it. You know how you fit into the whole world. So, yeah, for me it was. There was no question I was going to run my own show, or at least try, and, and that's what I did.

Speaker 3: 8:32

And so the, the, the entrepreneur, that spirit, and again, I always caution when we talk about this. People say, ken, you're lucky, you're one of those entrepreneurs. I don't think you can. You know, if I gave you a piece of paper and a pencil and I said, draw entrepreneur, you can't. It's just like a vague term, but there are several characteristics that I write about in my book Blue Collar Cash, things like persistence and resilience and faith and courage and humility and generosity and vision and all those kinds of things that that initiative, those kinds of things that are important. But every one of us has those characteristics or qualities within us. We just need a reason for them to come out.

Speaker 3: 9:11

Alan, I think that's the biggest mistake people make when they oh you're lucky, you're an entrepreneur guy. So the thing that I think good entrepreneurs tend to end up doing to grow is they surround themselves with entrepreneurial thinkers, and these are people that don't necessarily want to maybe take the risk of buying 40 dump trucks, like I did, or all the nightmares that go along with running a company, which are short-lived and you overcome all those challenges, but these are people that really want to work within an organization, feel like they own and run that organization, at least their department or their section. And, man, you surround yourself with a group of those people. Just get out of the way, because they're going to help you take your company way further than you can do it yourself.

Speaker 1: 10:00

I love that, the concept of an entrepreneur, and because, and like you said, there's a bunch of characteristics and I want to get into into your book in a little bit. But I think about how not everyone who is going to be cut out to be an entrepreneur and and they may want to do that, and then when they really start to get into it, they maybe recognize that the risk, tolerance or whatever their, whatever their makeup, their beliefs or limiting beliefs beliefs, I'll even add is is what's preventing them. And so, as you've been, as you were, started to do this work and you started coaching and mentoring. You know young individuals. What characteristics are you seeing that they're coming today? What's brain? What are they bringing to the table? And even though some of these that you're talking about are latent, what's really going on for them?

Speaker 3: 10:43

You know there's, it's, it's, it's. It's strange because the interview I've probably done 2000 interviews in my career and I mean that the, the, the interviewee is different. I mean he or she is coming in with a different set of expectations and they may be unprepared in some ways, but very prepared in others. And what I'm finding that's really interesting is it's okay, you know, the a lot of these kids because of the, the screens that they're staring at all day and the instant gratification and, you know, comparing themselves to everybody else on the planet.

Speaker 3: 11:18

There's a lot of, there's a lot of selfishness that comes from those things.

Speaker 3: 11:22

And I don't necessarily mean selfish where you win and someone else loses, I mean selfishness where you focus on you. And so when the interviewees that are coming in now, they're a little more selfish, and that's okay, because if they come into my interview and say, hey, you know, I've got 30 choices because everybody's looking to hire right now, what's in it for me to work here for you, I'm okay with that attitude, because if I can answer that question and I can answer it to their satisfaction and we both win in that conversation, then I'm going to win, the company's going to win in the end. So I really don't mind if someone comes in and says you know, I have all these ideas, I have all these plans for myself. I want to work for myself first and you second. I'm good with that, because if they're winning within the organization, we all do so. Surround yourself with as many selfish people as you can in that frame of mind and that new definition that I just talked about, and yeah, you're going to win big time no-transcript.

Speaker 3: 13:01

Alan, that never happens. So my daughter actually kickstarted it in a not so good way. She suffered from a very serious illness when she was 12. And that lasted four or five years. I mean her mother and I were pretty afraid for four or five years. She's healthy and everything now and in fact she just had her first child. So she came through it pretty well.

Speaker 3: 13:22

But I remember being in a lot of doctor's offices and oncology rooms and you know ultrasound rooms and waiting rooms and blah, blah, blah. So you have a lot of time to think. So I kept thinking what would I tell her if I could write her a long letter about what she should be chasing in life? You know what, what, what should she be really after? And the words comfort, peace and freedom just kept showing up. And and I could, I could see these words everywhere. I mean, I would see them all over the place, kind of like when someone says, if you see your first yellow Volkswagen, then all of a sudden you start seeing them everywhere. So yeah, those three concepts kept showing up and I said, well God, there's got to be a story here.

Speaker 3: 14:00

And then I started interviewing all of my buddies who were blue collar entrepreneurs and very successful, and all the unbelievable challenges, both personally and professionally, that they overcame to become successful. And I started coming up with all these characteristics, and so that made it another story. And then there were their stories, and then Nicole's story, and then my story, and pretty soon I had 80,000 words and a very sore wrist and 12 legal pads full of ink. So it it. My wife said to me you know you have a book here, right? I mean, you know you've got a book here.

Speaker 3: 14:35

So, alan, I literally Googled editors in on Google and found some guys in New York that were awesome and they were friendly and not condescending and very supportive, and they had a whole group of ghostwriters that could help me clean up what I had done. So the next thing we know, they put a book proposal together. They found me an agent, which I never thought would happen, and that agent took me through a whole slew of publishers and they became a bidding war for this book, which blew me away. And, yeah, it became a bestseller last fall. And and here we are, so it's, it's been a hell of a ride, that's for sure.

Speaker 1: 15:12

Yeah, outstanding. I love that. I love that. And what I really appreciate about the direction that you're going with this is that your book is called blue collar cash. But you also asked the question well, why blue collar? And because and we've kind of started off in the in the introduction they're talking about the choices between how do we want to see ourselves? And I can remember as a kid, in high school, and you know doing all these different tests and you know aptitude things and you know what was going to be, what would my future look like? And then it would lay out a half a dozen different options for you and one of them being, you know, working in the culinary field and and some others and some other areas. And so when you're asking that question, why blue collar? What are you trying to get at with that?

Speaker 3: 15:56

Well, yeah, I mean, the book is a little bit. You know, I had some other titles for it. My one title was the path a ditch diggers guide to comfort, peace and freedom, which I thought was interesting. But the publisher wanted to go with Blue Collar Cash because there's such a crisis going on in that world right now, which is true.

Speaker 3: 16:16

I think that the point of it is it really doesn't matter, alan, what you do for a living, as much as it matters what you do with what you do for a living, as much as it matters what you do with what you do for a living and I know that sounds controversial, okay, not all of us can love selling Ferraris every single day. You know what I mean. But if you have a real reason for working, you can take any business my business. You can take ditch digging and make it fun and make it, you know, sexy and romantic and and aggressive and and rewarding and motivating. You can do that within any office environment. The jobs are changing and they're tough. I get that. But if I see myself winning every day and the people around me are winning every day, it really doesn't matter how we get there.

Speaker 3: 17:00

The purpose of this book is to say to you there are about six starting paths to success is to say to you there are about six starting paths to success. College is one way tech or trade school, apprenticeship, working right out of high school, a military career. I know a lot of amazing pilots, amazing F-16 pilots, that have great careers, mechanics. All of them make a killing, great career, great pension, and they go on to retire early and get other jobs and make double salaries. So it's nuts.

Speaker 3: 17:28

So all those six pathways lead to an eventuality. What is your eventuality? Well, that is that I live the life that I want. I live the life that I see for myself, my own personal nirvana, if you will, my comfort, peace and freedom. So yeah, I want to know, nirvana, if you will, my comfort, peace and freedom. So yeah, I want to know, alan, what that is.

Speaker 3: 17:48

First, let's not say if I do all these things right, then I get to live right, I get to live the way I want. If, then I would rather start with the then and come back to now. Because if you know what you want your life to look like going forward and you have that out in amazingly detailed, colorful, vivid pictures and images somewhere where you can see it every day, twice, three times a day. It's not going to matter how you get there, as long as you get to what you want.

Speaker 3: 18:18

No one's ever rolled up into my driveway and looked at what I've accomplished and seen all that I've collected and said, wow, man, what's a greed you have. I mean, they say to me how did you grind this life out? I'm happy to tell them that. End of the story. But yeah, it's just kind of a misnomer that that's the way it has to be that you live this. If, then, life no, you should start with the then and come back to now, because, at the end of the day, we don't live to work. Okay, we work so that we can in fact live, and it's the living part that I'm so so much interested in.

Speaker 1: 18:52

Yeah, I really appreciate that, that sentiment, and especially that last part of all. You know living to. You know working to live or living to work, and I think in my mind I don't think I know in my earlier career it was all about the work and I didn't choose to live and even though I was extremely passionate about, about being in the culinary field, it was so I was so blindsided by the other parts of my life a young family, starting and buying homes. You know all the pressures that that we get into and it ultimately cost me, my family and you know my bankruptcy, everything, like I lost everything.

Speaker 1: 19:26

And I think what I like about what I know, that I like about what you're saying, ken, is you're you're talking about. Do you have a purpose, you know, and how are you going to live this purpose? And it can be in whatever way that you want and and in when it comes to our careers and our professional lives, there's lots of different ways you can do that, but doing it from a way that that resonates with yourself, so that you can stay, you know, whole and complete, as I like to say, as especially as men, because we can tend to be pretty. You know we have lots of silos that we just, you know, put things into and then we can't. We can't seem to go from one to the other, and that's when we get into trouble. We can really, we can really hurt ourselves. So tell me how you've been able to overcome that piece as part of us being men.

Speaker 3: 20:10

I think. I think the difference is that men used to happen to life and now life seems to happen to them, and that's that's the key difference. I mean they, they wake up and go. Well, someday, if I get lucky, this is going to happen and there we go, I'll have this really cool life. So, yeah, it's really tough, because when you draw and, by the way, when I talk about drawing things out that you want to acquire, I'm not just talking about physical things.

Speaker 3: 20:45

I have a lot of cars, I collect cars, but it's not the cars, that is the thing. It's the memories I create with those cars, where I go, racing with my buddies, going on the weekends, creating memories here, going there, you know, driving these amazing places in Northern Michigan. Then I go, I mean it's, it's all those kinds of things. So you know I talk about draw what you want your house to look like. Draw what you want your transportation, your cars, to look like. Draw what you want your pets to look like a dog or a cat. Which color? What would you name it? You know what I mean. I draw. What would your vacations look like if you could take them? What kind of memories would you hope to create there? What's your give back moment? What's your charity moment? How would you spend time, your time, talent and treasure, giving of yourself to others? What about your spiritual moment, your health moment, your sports moment, your hobby moment? These are all things that you need to have crystal clear in your own mind.

Speaker 3: 21:41

And the definition of, in my opinion, the definition of a man is someone who can guide his family towards that shared vision. Okay, and I'm not saying you got to do it alone. I mean I'm sure you know the rest of the family helps out, but you know, having your family supports you and being able to go get that shared vision and it's very important that I mean shared vision because they all need to want that you need to include your family in on this drawing, okay, and and when your kids support your wife and your wife supports you and you know your kids support you and you support your wife and you know you have all that balance. That, to me, is a true definition of a man someone who can guide his family to that shared vision.

Speaker 1: 22:27

Man, I, what I really like about what you just said there, ken, is about the shared vision, because I've seen in my work with the men's work that we do is that one of the things we ask the guys to do when they first do onboarding with us is to really develop and craft a personal mission statement, vision statement, just like you would do in business, but for yourself. Ask them to touch in all different aspects of their life, not just a profession, but their relationships, emotionally, you know, financially, spiritually. How does that vision look like? And then the, you know, and it's implied that they, they need to do share this with their, with their family. But I, what I really like about what you just said is that I'm going to look at making that a lot more explicit, because you're absolutely right, cause that was the, that was the default on my end.

Speaker 1: 23:12

My, my first wife, you know, came along for the ride, but it wasn't necessarily. I don't think she necessarily bought into the vision. She was just coming along for the ride and and how could things have shaped differently had that, had I shared that? And so I really think that really brings together a lot of stuff that you've been saying and some of the work that we're doing here is that we do all this work and we think, yeah, everybody should know this, but have we really talked to our family? Have we sat at the dinner table?

Speaker 3: 23:51

You know, american Thanksgiving this weekend talked about our vision, and what does that look like? That's exactly right. You know, the assumption is always there that he is just going to know and knows best. For no, I mean, if you think about it. So there's, there's a vision board. Is is one thing, and I, I wholly advocate for that. Sharing that vision board and making sure that it is a shared vision with your family totally advocate for that as well.

Speaker 3: 24:10

There's one difference, though those visions will remain just dreams and hopes and wishes if they aren't absolutely planned for, and so one of the things we talk about is the best way to anticipate the completion of a goal is to walk a path toward it, and I mean a crystal clear, defined path. So if you want to save $5,000 for your first car, then that's $100 a week for a year, or it's $50 a week for two years, or so on and so on and so on. So you need to have the day, the vision of what you want. You need to have that very first week. Okay, this Friday, 50 bucks is going away. I can't touch it, I can't see it, I can't get my hands on it and in, you know, 24 months, that new car is going to be sitting in the driveway, because then you and your wife and your family get to anticipate that eventual completion of that goal. And you know, two years goes by. You know two years goes by in a flash. Ok, I've put goals out two, three, five, seven years. I've put goals out. I even have goals that are 10 and 20 years out.

Speaker 3: 25:20

So if you think about those types of things, the best part about life is you know how we anticipate a vacation. You know, you plan it all out and you got the for me it's a beach, okay. You got the suntan lotion, you could smell the copper tone. You know you got the umbrella and the drink and the music and the sand and my boats, and you got all that stuff right. You plan it all out and then you anticipate it for months, three, four months. Man, spring break's coming. We're going to go have fun.

Speaker 3: 25:46

Well, there should be spring break moments throughout your life. It's whether it's your house, your car, your family, your education, your spiritual moments, your health moments, your, your, your I mean what handicap you want to make it down to on the golf course. All of those things should be, you know, they should correspond with anticipation. At the same time, these things can all consecutively happen. The difference is the time to completion might change for some of them, but you're still on this master path of seeing all these things kind of move forward at different paces. And man, your family, just gets to look at that and go, wow, we're gaining on what we are and what we want to be. How cool is that.

Speaker 1: 26:31

Yeah, absolutely. And because they see progress right. Right, there's opportunity, you've got milestones in place, right, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a marker. It gives you an opportunity to celebrate along the way. And then you see, and you see the results of it. Man, when you get that first, when you start to get those wins, then things start to start to change and shape. The excitement level rises because it's a shared vision.

Speaker 1: 26:54

Everyone's got to play in their part in some way, shape or form and allowing that opportunity for it to grow and flourish, and so I'd like that, that, that, how, how you've really mapped that out. You know, and as we're talking about, I know a lot of all the work we do here is all around masculinity and helping men really understand who they are as men and so they can show up and be the best fathers and leaders and husbands they can. But the ideology today is that that is truly, we're really at war almost with being what, what it means to be a man, and and so what are your thoughts about what's happening today and how and how are you, how has your work impacting and helping to, you know, re, re, clarify what it is to be masculine, to be a man?

Speaker 3: 27:34

Well, I can tell you in my business, and I'm just fortunate but you can't. You can't spend eight hours with a jackhammer and not become a man, or or do the things that we do. That's very physical work, it's very demanding work, it's hard, it's hardcore, but it's it's. It's unbelievable because we're changing lives when we do it. Well, my fear is this. My fear is so.

Speaker 3: 27:58

When I was younger, I had four brothers. We would run around the yard, we we in the woods, we'd ride our bikes, we'd fall down, we'd hurt ourselves, we'd make tree forts up in the tree, like 20, 30 feet in the air, hoisting lumber up there and hammering nails, and that was also ripe with scratches and scars and I mean. But all those things that we did because we weren't staring at these stupid things all day long. Ok, so when you, when you take the fact that the average screen time for a young boy is four to six hours a day, I mean what else could they be doing? I'm sure I said this on Fox News the other day If the parents filmed them staring at a screen for four hours, they would probably be horrified, right? Because what other things could you be doing? Four hours a day? That's 20, 24, 28 hours a week. What else could you be doing in that time?

Speaker 3: 29:05

To learn tools and to learn skills and to learn cooking and to learn you know how to create.

Speaker 3: 29:13

You know cleanliness for yourself and organization and how to plan and how to execute alpha plans and how to negotiate and how to debate and how to do all these other life skills financial planning for yourself, personal finance don't get learned because we're staring at these stupid screens. And that's really the scary thing for me, because young girls are comparing themselves to the most perfect people on the planet. Or are they the most perfect people on the planet? Are they only temporarily looking that way because of some AI generated thing? It's insane that these young people are put in a position where their legs and their arms and their bodies aren't being used because they're sitting there behind this electronic device. That, to me, is the scariest thing of all. So I think if someone voted in that, hey, you know, you get a half an hour a day or an hour a day to look at that thing, otherwise it gets locked up and you're out doing something. That would be my vote, that's for sure.

Speaker 1: 30:20

Yeah, absolutely. I. I recall on the on the show I had a gentleman and he was dealing with, talking about the digital, what the digital world is doing for us today and how it's impacting, you know, children and all of us and and in his, one of the things he talked about would have was having digital free time each week and at meal periods and different, and really incorporating that and as the you know, as whether you're a father or do it as a, as the couple, the parents, but to really be conscious and putting that forward to, to try to minimize that. And so when you were talking about the, the, the screen time, for sure, that was the first thing that came to my mind. The other one was I think it was Brian I learned this from Brian Tracy, I think he mentioned years ago that you know 10,000 hours to be able to master something, and right, I read that, I read that book you know, at 20, even if we just did 20 hours a week at on screen time, that's 50 weeks.

Speaker 1: 31:10

That's a thousand hours and less than 10 years, cause you know you're on there for more than that. You know you're going to have mastered a skill. And so the question I asked myself whenever I, whenever I get distracted or ask you know, guys that I'm working with is if you didn't do anything, you didn't decide to learn a skill and you just kept doing this, in 10 years, what, how much would your life change? Well, your life won't change at all because you didn't learn anything, you didn't grow. But if you took that time and you dedicated to well, this time, these four hours, I'm going to spend towards learning something about understanding a financial statement, or I'm going to do spend some time and getting better at my craft as a podcast.

Speaker 1: 31:47

Whatever it is you're doing, the point of it is that there's so much time we have. We all have the same time, but it's how we're allocating it. I think is really what you're saying is what are we consciously aware of? Putting those steps you talked earlier about? You know, not just having a shared vision, vision, but the plan steps all the way through it and those are the minute things, that the stuff in the day that can get lost, and then we find ourselves behind.

Speaker 3: 32:11

You know there's a. There's a really funny story that I write about in Blue Collar Cash. About one Christmas, my office staff decided to buy me a clock, and this wasn't a clock that tracked your life. It was a clock that erased your life minutes and seconds and hours at a time. So you put this clock on your desk and then you hit 78 and three quarter years, which was the average life expectancy at the time, and then you subtract your age and then you hit go and it literally starts telling you how many hours and minutes and seconds you have left to live according to that, and it starts spinning them off like a timer, like a countdown, and at first I thought, well, this is kind of cool, I can kind of see how I spend my time. And then it was like it became full-blown paranoia. You'd look at this clock and be like, oh my God, like you know, six hours just went by. What did I accomplish? What did I do?

Speaker 3: 33:11

But one of the things that it taught me, before I smashed it into pieces and threw it in the dumpster, was you really need to be cognizant of the time you spend doing these idle things. There is so much that the world has to give you. If you want to grow, you have to cut out the things that don't support you or don't make you better or maybe even take you backwards Things like drama and negative emotions and those kinds of things you or don't make you better or or or maybe even take you backwards. You know things like drama and negative emotions and those kinds of things and and really make the choice for how you're going to spend these precious again seconds and minutes and hours that you have, because you know you wake up and I'm sure you've done this many times. How the hell did I get to be 57? Okay. When did that happen? How you know? When did that happen? What happened to 40 through 49? Right.

Speaker 3: 33:58

So yeah, if there's one, if there's one asset that we should value more than gold or money or anything else, it's, it's time, because you give a guy a hundred million dollars but he's going to die in a week, that doesn't help him a whole lot. So it's. It's really. It's really something that I would encourage. I would encourage almost anybody to get one of these clocks and just look at it and go, wow, there's another way to do it too. They've updated it. They have a little map, a wall map now, and it has 4,000 weeks Apparently. That's how many weeks we get, and you start scratching those off and, um, it gets pretty scary that when you see how you're, how you're either spending your time wisely or wasting it completely yeah, absolutely talk about.

Speaker 1: 34:42

You know, getting a little bit of reverse psychology in in front of you, and I do can. Just, I was, I was having angst just hearing you talk about the clock, because a lot, of many days, many of my days, end by as I, as I reflect on what I was to get done and I have my, my, my tasks, the things I'd like to get accomplished, and I'm man, I don't know if I got enough done today. Maybe I should grind a little harder. And then I remind myself, yeah, I tried that once before and it didn't. It didn't turn out well for the rest of our part of my life, but absolutely, what a great way as a, as a reminder for how we're spending our time, and it doesn't necessarily need to be in our profession, but it's.

Speaker 1: 35:20

How are we spending that time that we did? Did we remember to? You know it's our, it's our anniversary. Did you remember? Did I remember to the order of the flowers? Did I remember my kid's birthday? You know the things that are that we just tend to forget because it's just life Right, and you know the things that are that we just tend to forget because it's just life Right, and, and you know, those are the stuff that I think is really important. I'm sure you've read a couple of books along the way and things that have, you know, really inspired you. Tell me about a book that that you read, that really had an impact on you and what was the message that you took from it.

Speaker 3: 35:53

Well, I would say that you know, this is an old standard it took from it. Well, I would say that this is an old standard. It's funny about this book is it's been a bestseller almost every year since its existence and it continues to be, and it's called the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and there's just some good stuff in there that you can use right away. And that's one of the things about my book that I like is the fact that you can read it and you can put the things that I put in there. You can use them this afternoon, like you don't have to wait, you don't have to go to committee and discuss the possibility or whatever.

Speaker 3: 36:24

In fact, a lot of companies are using it as like a book club thing where they read it with a bunch of people and then they actually put these policies into play, because the power again going back to the the power of entrepreneurship, is just so amazing and companies are. You know their results are just flying once they decide to embrace this. But I think the big thing for me was you know again these habits that people have, how to communicate, and you know how to run your day and how to be organized and all those other things. That's a book that I read, that and I mean it's still sitting over there on the shelf and yeah, that's that's one that that's a good one, that one will be around, and again it's. It's just as true today as it was when it was written final 30 or 40 years ago.

Speaker 1: 37:06

So yeah, I love that book, One of the one of my all-time favorites as well. Along the way, you must have had a few mentors. You talked about a couple advocates, your father. You know another gentleman, maybe even even more recent, but tell me about a piece of advice that you were given, maybe the best piece of advice you were given, and how has it served you to what the work you're doing?

Speaker 3: 37:27

I think. I think this is one that I watched. I never really heard this advice, but I kind of watched this one so you know when, when you you're, you're either running your business or your business is running you. You've heard that right. So if you go home and tell your wife or your husband or whoever, and you say, man, you should have seen what I did today. I fixed this, I changed that, I altered this, I built that. I told people to do this and told people not to do that. You know, and you know it's 78 hours in in the week. Look at me, go, is that really how you effectively want to be spending your time? You know what I mean Running your company. So I took it the complete opposite way. I knew that I couldn't do it all by myself if I wanted to grow. Opposite way, I knew that I couldn't do it all by myself if I wanted to grow.

Speaker 3: 38:19

And so I think the best piece of advice that I didn't hear but I watched was make yourself as the owner of the company. Make yourself irrelevant to your company, and I don't mean irrelevant to the point where you don't watch it anymore, you go play golf and don't care anymore. I'm talking about the day-to-day tasks that happen in that company. You need to be absolutely relevant to doing those things. And people say, well, I can't afford to have other people do all those other things. I'm saying you can't afford not to, because if you really want to grow and you assign all these tasks to other people, and then they have a reason and a want themselves for winning, just like you do I mean, they all have their vision boards too, right, so they will help you take this company way further than you can do it yourself.

Speaker 3: 39:03

And you have the luxury now of kind of plugging yourself in wherever you want to. It's kind of like you're hovering in a helicopter above your building and you tear the roof off and you look down in and you go, oh, I might want to fix, or oh, I might want to fix or help, I might want to do this or get involved in that or whatever. But you have the choice to do that versus being just thrown into the mechanics of it every day, all day long, and now you can't see, besides, who you are. And it's tough because a lot of people that have businesses that have these huge egos and they're like, oh no, it's my company. I can't do that. Baloney the smart one is the one who sees enormous growth because he gave up where she gave up, a lot of that control versus just hovering over it all day long. So, yeah, I think that was probably the best advice I've ever gotten.

Speaker 1: 39:54

And I just love that. One Cause, one reason why I like that. I think back to earlier in my career, like I said as a, when I was a chef and and doing that and and I can remember being caught in and that's. I was saying what you were, we were talking about why, you know, I gotta be the guy doing this work. I gotta you know I'm I'm doing that work. And then what is that? My career was stagnating.

Speaker 1: 40:15

The moment that I was willing to let go of a couple of things and really become a mentor and a teacher and train people and allow them to give them an opportunity to grow and learn, then that freed up my time to do something else, and so you're talking about it, even as a business owner. It's even more critical that if we can separate ourselves from that and, like you said, it wasn't that it's not about not being present and not being aware of what's going on. The potential challenges that are that are that organizations facing. You're aware of it and you're involved in it, but it doesn't have to all run through you. You're there to guide and steer that ship like a true captain.

Speaker 3: 40:56

I think. I think your awareness of your company quadruples by being less aware of what you do day to day. Because, again, if you're stuck in one office doing one specific thing, you're not seeing everything else that's going on around you. So give that piece up, no matter how important it is. Give that piece up. Believe it or not, there is another human being in this world that could do that just as good as you can. Okay, so find those people and empower them.

Speaker 3: 41:23

And here's another thing so, if these folks are winning, reward them for the win. Because if your company is at X level let's say X level number is at 10Xx because you're running the show like a crazy person, but it gets to 14x because you gave up all that control take some of that 4x and give it to them. You didn't have it before, it wasn't yours before, so you're spending money that wasn't even yours. So give them some of that 4X. They will go crazy. You know what's going to happen Next year you're going to have 18X, okay. So it's really amazing the power that giving a group of entrepreneurs and the letting them go and rewarding them with what they create for themselves first and oh, by the way, you second. Everybody wins that way.

Speaker 1: 42:15

And just love that. You know, Ken, we've been all over the place today. We talked a little bit about your book, about what it means to you know, really choosing how our lives and how we want to make a life for ourselves, A little bit about masculinity as well. But if there was something we didn't get a chance to talk about or one lesson that you'd like us to, our listeners to take from our conversation.

Speaker 3: 42:41

What would that be? Well, I would say you. There's two things. Number one you, and only you, know what your favorite color is, your favorite number is, your favorite car, is your favorite food. I mean, nobody else knows what your life should look like for you, but you, so empower yourself to take, take back that control. Okay, that's number one. Number two, and before I wrote this book, my world was already very good, okay, so I didn't do this for money. In fact, I donate most of the money to charity anyway and have for a very long time.

Speaker 3: 43:09

What I did with the book is I created a simple course that goes along with it. It's eight sessions, it's 45 minutes a session. You can do this in a weekend or two weeks or whenever, and it talks about how to take the things that you read about in the book and absolutely implement them today, this afternoon, change your life like right now, okay, not someday. So I've seen courses for 800, a thousand, 2000, $5,000, weekends, no wrong, this is $149, I think it is Currently, it's $129 actually and for $129, you get a free $25 book, which is the blue collar cash, and you get this course.

Speaker 3: 43:49

So for dinner and a movie on a weekend, you can literally change your entire life, and I implore people to do it because if they, if they choose to buy this course and take it, there is no doubt guaranteed that they will think differently the minute they're done. They will think about their life in a whole different way the minute they're done and also if they do that, you know they're going to allow me to donate money to a veteran or someone else who needs this course for free. So if you help yourself, you're going to help somebody else and you know you can find all of that at KenRuskcom and I hope people take advantage of it, because I like not only to help you but to help others at the same time.

Speaker 1: 44:29

And I just love that, and I'm going to make sure all that information's in the show notes as well as anywhere else that you're on in social media. Make sure that folks have an opportunity to reach out and get ahold of you. I just want to say thanks so much, ken, for being on the show today. I really appreciated our conversation.

Speaker 3: 44:43

Absolutely. I'm happy to be here. I come back anytime, thank you.

Speaker 2: 44:54

Thank you for listening to the Revolutionary man podcast. Are you ready to own your destiny, to become more the man you are destined to be? Join the brotherhood that is the Awakened man at theawakendmannet and start forging a new destiny today.