149. Crafting Your Own Success Path with Ken Rusk

💭 What does it mean to be truly rich?

Ken Rusk helps individuals follow a purpose-driven life without having to follow society's definition of a “rewarding life”.

Ken illustrates how shunning the traditional education route at 19 led him to a flourishing business empire, proving that success doesn't always come with a degree but can be built with ambition and the right mindset. He shares personal stories that underscore the beauty in creating memories, finding joy in simple moments, and serving others. We unpack how setting clear, purpose-driven goals can activate your entrepreneurial spirit, leading to a life where freedom and personal satisfaction are not just dreams but daily realities.

Join us for this transformative dialogue and start constructing a life of comfort, peace and freedom.

🌐 Connect with Ken:
• Website: http://kenrusk.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-rusk-2656a7175/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kenruskofficial/

📚 You can purchase Boo's book at Amazon:
• Blue Collar Cash: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WSB5WRP/

Book Mentioned:
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Book by Stephen Covey

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:26

Hey everyone and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Ken Rusk. Ken is the President of Rusk Industries but, more importantly for today, he's the best-selling author of a book called Blue Collar Cash, and he helps individuals find their purpose and to follow a life that's based around that purpose and helps them discover that you know you don't necessarily have to follow society's path around going and getting that degree and following the path that everyone else has done for you to find a life that's worth living, a rewarding life. So I'm really interested in today's discussion to see where it takes us. So, without any further ado, Ken, I'd love to hear about your background, your own background, and what led you to want to give back in some way, the way that you do today, to other people.

Ken Rusk: 1:18

Well, you know, it's interesting because when I was younger, I had a lot of part-time jobs, and one of the things that that taught me when I was 11, 12, 13 years old was that you could kind of control things. If you wanted something for yourself, you could work a certain amount of time, make a certain amount of money and then acquire that thing, whatever it might have been. So I learned early on the control of you working with your hands and making something, so that you can start to think about what your life could be looking like. You know, as you go forward.

Ken Rusk: 1:46

I remember when I was 15, my high school shared a fence with an industrial park and we would always cut through a hole in the fence after school and go through the industrial park on our way to the carryout store where we kind of hung out after school, which is what kids did back then and it was always interesting because I would see these hustling and bustling, energetic businesses that were just coming, and so at one point I said you know, I need my first used car. So I remember I checked into one of the businesses and I knew someone that worked there and I said what do you do? And they basically said we're ditch diggers. We dig ditches around old houses and try to get them safe and comfortable and dry, and so I'm qualified to do that. So again, I wanted to buy my first car, take my girlfriend out for pizza or go bowling with my buddies, whatever. And so I did.

Ken Rusk: 2:31

And I did that for three or four years. And it's an interesting story because in the summertime I would work out in the field, in the wintertime, when I was in school, I would work in the front office. So I kind of learned both sides of the business, if you will. And that came in very handy because when I was 19, I had the choice to be going to school or they came to me and they said we want you to open up franchises around the country, and I thought to myself well, that could be pretty cool. So I did that for four years, lived out of a suitcase, and if you've ever done that, you know how that works. And so finally I settled in Toledo in 1986. That was 30 some years ago, and we started with six people and now we have nearly 200. And it's been quite the right.

Mick Spiers: 3:12

Well, congratulations on your success. And you're right, there are those folks in the road. You could have gone to school or you could have followed this opportunity that was put in front of you. What was your decision making at that point? What made you think, okay, I'm going to follow this, I'm going to see where this takes me.

Ken Rusk: 3:27

Well, I just knew. You know there's several different ways to learn right. There's learning tactically, there's learning by hearing, by seeing, by doing and by reading. And I just I couldn't sit for four more years in a classroom setting when I had already had the taste of working for myself and creating success through my own efforts. So I really love the control of that. I love the fact that I could control my input, my output, the quality of my output, the amount of work I did, my day, my schedule, my time, and I could control my financial gains.

Ken Rusk: 3:59

So I thought to myself, why wouldn't I go learn how to open businesses from scratch, basically using other people's money right, and get them in a position where they're successful, and then go on to repeat that and repeat that over and over? Because I thought that would be one heck of a college degree in itself. You know the real world of building a business from nothing and to me that was very pointed. I got paid to do it, I didn't have to pay to go to do this and it ended up teaching me and training me how to open my own business. And you know, for anybody that's out there listening, there is no more freedom than opening your own business. I know people say you're married to it, you're a slave to it or this or that, but if you do it right, it's the best thing in the world.

Mick Spiers: 4:39

So there's definitely this element of experiential learning, and exactly what I'm hearing from you is you could have gone and done a four year degree in business management, or you could have gone and rolled up your sleeves and opened a few businesses and in the construct of you use the term using other people's money. There was a framework around you, but you're out there. You were every day rolling your sleeves up and helping other people open franchises is what I'm imagining here. So tell me how you got that learning like. So what element was there? Was the mentoring there? Was it all? Just, you know learn by mistakes. Tell me more about your learning experience.

Ken Rusk: 5:15

Well, that's a great question. So because I had learned so many different aspects of the company, the company thought I would be valuable out in the field Opening up these different companies, but more and more so being focused in different types of departments. I mean, I knew enough to be dangerous in every one of these places, but my specialty ended up being marketing. So, you know, I literally opened up all centers from scratch and placed ads and set up conventions and did all those kinds of things to try to generate interest in our company. And it was interesting because it was a little bit of trial by fire. I mean, each town is different, each setting is different.

Ken Rusk: 5:52

And I remember just going in saying to myself well, I've never done this before, but if I did, this would be the first time, this would be the first step that I would do, logically, and that kind of carried the day, the more you ask yourself, well, I've never done something, but if I had, what would I have probably done to make it work? The more you begin to follow those steps and eventually you've actually done the thing. So, yeah, there weren't a whole lot of mistakes, but there was a lot of nuances to try to work through in these different cities and towns and I had a blast doing it and I learned a lot at the same time.

Mick Spiers: 6:23

So what I'm hearing there, ken, is someone that's quite T shaped is a term that's often used for an individual like you. So I'm seeing someone in front of me that had done everything from dig the dishes dig the ditches, sorry to front office to back office, like you'd been involved in different elements of the operation, but then to make your T shaped. That the deeper part was, yeah, you had a thirst and an understanding for marketing and then, when you're the person that gets pushed out into the field, that marketing prowess, together with a broad understanding of every part of the business, was what made you successful in helping those people establish their franchise in that new city, in that new market, as you called it. How's that sit with you?

Ken Rusk: 7:05

It's right on. The only thing I would add to it is I had a very strong will to gain that picture that I had in my mind, and then eventually on paper, of what I wanted my life to look like. And so you know I think you know you've never really gotten in your car and turned it on, put it in reverse, backed out into the street and then put it in drive and said I have no idea where I'm going right now. I mean, you always have a destination, right. It's like planning a vacation. We're all really good at planning vacations, okay, so why don't we take that same skill and apply it towards our entire life? Why aren't we good at planning the roadmap to our first house and the roadmap to our savings account, the roadmap to our career, the roadmap to our sports and our hobbies and our give back, charity moments, and even what our pets going to look like a dog or a cat and what color? What would you name it right? So for me, I had a very strong sense of what I wanted my life to look like, and I started drawing things out and putting them on paper and leaving them out where I could see them, which is an easy skill to do, but for some reason it's pretty rare in its in people implementing that.

Ken Rusk: 8:09

So I think if you have a reason why you want to be successful, all those entrepreneurial characteristics come out in every one of us. I mean, when someone says you're lucky, ken, you're one of those entrepreneur guys, I say okay, well, here's a piece of paper and a crayon. I want you to draw entrepreneur for me. They can't, because an entrepreneur is literally a set of characteristics that every one of us possesses within ourselves as long as we have a reason for them to come out. Otherwise they kind of laid dormant in there and and not get used. Your brain is amazingly powerful machine If you have it to be used properly. So I think if you find a reason to do whatever you want to do, that has to be the strongest driver and then everything else follows suit.

Mick Spiers: 8:51

So I want to want to paint a bit of a picture of my own to here, ken, and see how this sits with you and this idea about planning out your life and thinking about what your life will look like, because I see this in some people and it's I'm going to say that there's a spectrum and you seem to be uniquely placed on this spectrum.

Mick Spiers: 9:09

So one is the fly by your CDP pants and just go about existing no really plan whatsoever. You just jump from job, job or you're following more societies plan for you than your own plan. Then, if you swing it all the way over to the other side of the spectrum, you've got people that develop these very detailed plans and I want to be a VP by the time I'm 30 and I want to be a president by the time I'm 40 and becomes so detailed it becomes a bit rigid. But that's not what I'm hearing from you. I'm hearing more like a visualization of your life, about what kind of life you want, as opposed to this kind of prescriptive plan. Am I getting the right message here?

Ken Rusk: 9:48

You're 100% right, because when someone says I want to be a VP by the time I'm 30, my first question is why? Okay, well, I want to be a VP so that I can have this position in the company and maybe this salary level, and then, okay, but why do you want that? So you have that right now, how is your life going to be different? Well, then I can start living the life the way I wanted to. Okay, boom, now I got. Now you're onto something I can deal with that.

Ken Rusk: 10:13

You want to live in a certain place, you want to have certain things, what we just covered, what's on your vision board? Because, to me, we don't live to work. We work so that we can in fact live. And I'm interested in what the living part is. Okay, because two thirds of your life is living. The other one third of your life is working. So what's the two thirds look like?

Ken Rusk: 10:34

Because that should be the primary driver for anybody in life. No one ever rolled up into my driveway and saw my house and my cars and the things that I've accomplished and said, wow, what degree do you have? I mean, it's never been that. The question usually is how did you grind this life out.

Ken Rusk: 10:51

I'm happy to tell them that because I started with a vision of the different things and again I need you to understand it's not about having a car as a possession, it's about the memories you create in that thing.

Ken Rusk: 11:02

Like I might have a sports car, but the fun part is racing around the track against my brothers and my friends, you know, at high speed and having a blast doing it. That's the memory part, the exhilaration part that you get from a thing like a car. So, whether it's a golf trip and I see, I think I see golf clubs in the back there whether I see you know, I've been to Scotland many times playing golf and it isn't the golf club, it isn't the ball or the course, it's the memory that you have from doing all those things. So for me it's all about I'm going to create as many memories as I can, I'm going to surround myself with the memory of those memories in some way, whether it's a picture or a movable frame or whatever, and enjoy this thing we call life, because it's the living part that really matters at the end.

Mick Spiers: 11:46

I'm loving it, ken. And the two key things I'm hearing here are the powerful question why? And then this thirst for memories, creating memories and then being able to appreciate and have gratitude for those memories as you create them. So, coming back to your ditch digging and the car it wasn't. The car wasn't the goal. It was taking your girlfriend on a date was the goal right. So is why do you want that car? Why do you want that thing? It's to create those experiences and memories. That's really cool.

Ken Rusk: 12:14

Yeah, I mean, if you think about it, if you've ever looked at a brochure, you go to a car dealership and they used to give you a little book, and the book had a bunch of pictures of the car, right Well, it never just showed you the transmission or the wheels or the engine or the car itself in black and white. It always had a picture of you maybe throwing bales of hay in the back of your pickup truck at work, or, like you said, you're taking your girlfriend out in the Corvette and you're going out on a dinner date or whatever. There's always something you're doing with that device, not just the device itself. And so I agree with you it's very important to be thinking about what memories you want to create with the things you acquire, versus just having them.

Mick Spiers: 12:53

I'm going to share a story with you, ken. I'd love your view on this, and my view is that we lose sight of this Like you haven't, clearly, and you help others to regain sight of this, but I think something happens in our life where we lose sight of what's important. So I'm going to share a story about my son. He turns three in a couple of months, right, so he's two years old, almost three.

Ken Rusk: 13:13

Congratulations.

Mick Spiers: 13:14

Thank you. And we're in a position where we could buy him whatever toy he wants, right, so he can have all the toys he wants. He can have all the material possessions that he wants. Not quite we're not ridiculously rich, but he can have material things that most kids would want.

Mick Spiers: 13:27

You know what his favorite part of the day is, Ken? He helps me take the garbages out and he gets really excited about it. He goes and puts his shoes on, and why does he love that so much? Because we do it together and because he feels helpful. That's his two things. He loves being with us, my wife and I. He loves time. Time is his most precious gift, and the second one is he loves to be helpful. He loves if we're cooking. He likes to be next to us and helping Whatever we're doing in the house. He grabs the vacuum and wants to help us vacuum right. So time and I'm going to say service is his thing. How does that sit with you in terms of like the kids' view of the world versus something happens in our life that we start losing sight of that?

Ken Rusk: 14:06

Well, I mean, I can remember when I was six years old we used to buy a very small boat, a wooden boat. They call them limans. They're very small, basically day boats Like you just go around for the day. And we'd buy one that was all beat up at the beginning of every year and my four brothers and I, my father, we'd spend two months just fixing this thing up, sanding it and painting it and working on the engine, and then we'd drive it around for the summer and then we would sell it at the end of the summer.

Ken Rusk: 14:32

I'm fifty-some years old and I'm telling you about our memory that I had when I was six. So if that doesn't answer the question, I don't know what does your son is going to say to you in 20 or 30 years hey Dad, do you remember when we used to cook all the time on Saturday mornings or we'd sit around and eat bowls of cereal and watch cartoons or whatever? He's going to remember that stuff. And I think what happens is, as adults we tend to get into this transactional kind of living where there's a set of bills we have to pay and we have to find a way to work enough to pay those bills and we forget about. Well, why are we doing all of this? Like, what's the why in all of this?

Ken Rusk: 15:09

And that's not philosophical, it's pretty much basic human instinct. I want to live a life that's fulfilling. I want to have things around me that create memories, I want to have people around me that create memories and love, and I want to have a balanced life where I can be healthy and I can be challenged and I can work, but not too much, and I can, you know, give back to others and help. There's a balance there, which is why I talk about the five gallon bucket head in the book. It's so important to balance your emotions and it's free and it's easy and you need no training to do this whatsoever.

Ken Rusk: 15:41

I mean, you know, people might be surprised to find out that I have no college degree. I never spent a day working for a degree long term, and it's just for me. It was all about living a very balanced life and I think there's a lot of lessons in that. So, yeah, I agree with you Some of the most precious moments we have in our life is when we were kids and we were free and stressless to do the things that we wanted to do so yeah, I'm congratulating you on your son and the things that you do together. I hope you continue that.

Mick Spiers: 16:08

Yeah, I think you can appreciate that. So I'm loving this thought about fulfillment and I'm hearing this word balance as well, and I think a lot of us once again, we lose track of that somewhere along the line. I want to come back to your fork in the road right, so I'm talking about here. You've got that opportunity to go and follow this and help this business to create franchises all over the country. I'm going to make an assumption. Assumptions are always dangerous, ken, so you just tell me if I'm wrong. I'm going to make an assumption that at least some people whether it was your parents, your grandparents or other people in your circle at the time would have been asking you the question are you sure, ken? Like, aren't you going to go to college? What I'm getting here is about that almost societal expectation, that peer or family pressure about no, no, no, ken, you don't do it that way, you do it this way. Did that happen and how did you process that?

Ken Rusk: 16:58

I would say a couple of things. So my father never went to college and he was able to be very successful grinding out life, starting trimming lettuce in a grocery store and then eventually owning a big brokerage company later in life, I mean about the same time that I started to branch out on my own. He never offered us an easy path to anything. It was always you had to work for everything that you had. So I kind of had that influence as well. But I will tell you that when I asked him about the question of college, he said well, you can go to college and do that and get the degree and be all that that is. But it sounds to me like what they're asking you to do is a pretty darn good business school so, and you're going to get paid to do it. So he left the decision to me, but he opened the door for me to at least accept that, and that's the thing I think parents need to understand. You as a parent are definitely the traffic cop in your child's future. I mean, you're seeing what your child is capable of on the one side and you're hearing from teachers and guidance counselors and colleges on the other side, and you're that middle person who's trying to direct what you think is best for your child. What I'm saying is don't fall into the trap of thinking it's college or else it's never been true. There's always six different paths, you know a tech school, a trade school, a military career, working right out of school or going to college. There's six different paths that you can choose to get to the place you want, as provided you know what that place is first, and that's the case that I try to make. I mean, by the time you set your feet on the floor this morning to get out of bed to the time that you went to your office or school or church or wherever you went today, you crossed 10,000 blue collar jobs that are still viable today and very well paid. So it's never going to be to me.

Ken Rusk: 18:44

I've said this before and it's a bit controversial I don't necessarily care what you do for a living. I want to know what you do with what you do for a living, because if you craft the financial revenue that you get from a job, if you craft it properly and build the life you want for yourself, it's the life you want for yourself that matters. And you know, ditch digging was number 99 on a list of 100 things that I wanted to do. I wanted to be a race car driver, okay, but I knew that I had a path to controlling my own destiny.

Ken Rusk: 19:14

And guess what Racing cars came out later. I mean, I still run around the track with my cars or with my brothers and friends, like I said before, and that satisfied that little thing for me to be a race car driver. So you know, allow the universe to show you, or allow yourself to show the universe, maybe, what you can be good at, because there's lots of ways to make a living, lots of ways to be successful again, provided that you know what. You want that to start from the very beginning.

Mick Spiers: 19:40

Yes, I hope I sunpacked that a little bit more so definitely hearing that there's multiple paths towards getting towards the life that you want. So when you help people and you've got different programs associated with this and they start with that blank sheet of paper, how do you help them find that visualization of the life they want?

Ken Rusk: 19:58

Well, it's simple. You know, I've done this with people that were 13 years old and I've done it with people that are 53 years old. Okay, you just say to yourself if you could surround yourself with the words comfort, peace and freedom and those are the three words that I just couldn't get out of my mind when I was writing the book what would that feel?

Mick Spiers: 20:16

like.

Ken Rusk: 20:16

What would it look like? I mean, close your eyes and say if I could have this kind of house and again, not everyone's going to chase megas, 15 cars and mansions and all that kind of stuff. I mean, you know, everyone has their nirvana, everyone has their man. If I could live like that, that would be really cool. Well, describe that for me then. What does that look like? Well, if I could live in this kind of house out in the farmland, or if I could, you know, drive this kind of pickup truck, or if I could have these kinds of dogs, or if I had maybe I had a wife and a couple of kids, or a husband and a couple of kids, and you know, if I could do charity, volunteer work, and if I could be a golfer, you know, if I could have that balance in my life, that would be really cool. Well then, let's just get together and start drawing that, because, you know, I'm sure you've heard of Tony Robbins I was able to interview Jerick Robbins, who's his son, and he explained something to me that I think everyone needs to hear.

Ken Rusk: 21:10

So, when you have a thought in your head that you see a picture and you have a thought, it's like a neurotransmitter, shoots this thought, like an electronic thought, back and forth very quickly. The more you stare at that picture on a daily or weekly or monthly basis, the more that thought process becomes one solid current of electricity. And what happens in that particular case is your brain kind of acts like it already owns that thing. And so what it does? It sends these involuntary and voluntary signals to the body to create a pathway to go get that thing. That's why they say what your brain sees it attracts itself to. Well, attracts means it takes certain actions to make that happen. So it's so powerful to have somebody draw out that nirvana and then have them hanging on the wall and look at it day after day that it actually becomes part of their life, it becomes part of their DNA and then their body takes over and it makes those things happen. For yeah.

Mick Spiers: 22:07

So I'm loving the element of the visualization and I'm then imagining the action towards achieving that nirvana that you're looking towards, and then visualization plus action can take you a long way to get there, an element of manifestation, if you like, and I can definitely see that journey. I want to come back to these comfort, peace and freedom words, ken, and I've got to tell you when I was listening to you, sometimes when I try to understand it, I start thinking of, well, what would be the opposite of that? And then I started to think of many people's lives are the exact opposite of that, ken. I see it on the tram every day. I see people that if I replace the word comfort, it would be the word stress and getting by and getting through the week. The word peace would be replaced by sometimes toxic relationships, but I'm going to say the pressure of relationships that are not quite working, whether they're in the workplace or at home.

Mick Spiers: 22:59

And freedom, no, it's almost like attachment and dependence, where they've got a mortgage to pay. So they do everything they do every week to get back to paying the mortgage. But coming back to your question, why are they paying the mortgage? They've lost the why and they've replaced comfort, peace and freedom with kind of stress, toxicity and dependence. How does that sit with you? I mean, I'm thinking about people listening to the show Ken that may be going on the ladder, not the former. How does that sit with you? I'm going to say it's a good question. I'm going to say it's a good question. I'm going to say it's a good question.

Ken Rusk: 23:26

Well, again, I look at it this way. So everyone has the ability to get themselves into a certain situation. Okay, but that situation just like your body itself. I mean, I've heard that the cells in your body turn over every five or six years, which means you literally recreate yourself every half a decade, right? So I look at these situations and say, if somebody's feeling that way, if they're feeling stressed, or if they're not feeling comfortable, if they're feeling uneasy, or if they're feeling confined or whatever, they just have to take whoever it is in their life, whether it's their spouse, their family or a family friend or a mentor or someone they can confide in. They just have to sit down and say, okay, I'm living, but I'm not living the life that I want. Okay. So I need to kind of figure out today what the next five to 10 years is going to look like to create the life that I want for myself, because that can take many forms.

Ken Rusk: 24:23

If you want to get beyond what you're doing. There's at least in the United States today you can up job all you want. I mean, there's so many people looking to pay big dollars to get people to work in their organizations that construction jobs are now starting at $30 an hour. So right out of high school, you can make 75 grand a year in construction. That's just the beginning. Then you move on to the you know 90,000 and six-figure jobs, and they're plentiful, they're everywhere.

Ken Rusk: 24:50

So I guess what I'm saying is you just have to say okay, I don't feel like I'm in control of my life, I feel like everybody else is in control of my life. Enough of that, that stops today. I'm going to sit down and reset my life, and even if you have to take a step backwards for a year or two to take a giant step forward, you got time. I mean, it's all about getting to where you want to be. So you literally have to draw out what you want your life to look like as it relates to comfort, peace and freedom, and then go get it. And because I don't want to say it's as simple as that, but your brain is an enormously powerful tool and you will do the things that you need to do to make that happen, I promise you.

Mick Spiers: 25:29

So you did mention before that you helped people from three to 53 do this. I want to talk about those ones that maybe are listening to this show and have fallen into that later stage and are feeling confined. They're feeling like, yeah, but it's too late for me, et cetera, and you're saying that, no, it's not too late, you can do that. What about these words that we said before about this confinement? And they do have bills to pay every month, they've got mortgages, they've got a family to support. How does someone like that make the progression? Is it different to how a 23-year-old would make the progression compared to a 53-year-old? Tell us more about that.

Ken Rusk: 26:05

I think so, because a 23-year-old probably doesn't have things to shed, whereas a 53-year-old probably has more things to shed. So you have to think about clearing your life out. And I have to tell you, if you read the chapter on emotions, where I talk about the five-gallon bucket, the top of our brain, I make the analogy that your head is like a five-gallon bucket, and I use five-gallon buckets because our company uses them by the hundreds every year. The top of your head is typically where your emotions are stored. I call it the fifth gallon, the top gallon, and you can only employ a certain amount of emotions in that gallon or they're going to spill over. You can have frustration, anger and jealousy and uneasiness and try to throw joy and, you know, spontaneity and appreciation and admiration in there at the same time. They just fight each other.

Ken Rusk: 26:58

So you literally have to say to yourself I first need to clear my head of all the noise that I'm currently putting into it, okay, and then I have to say, all right, enough is enough. Let's look around, let's see what I can change, alter, improve, reduce. Let's get to the place where I am me again, because you're the only person that knows what that is. And I would tell you this the last time that 50-year-old held a crayon in their hand they were probably five years old, but they were at their most stressless time, their most creative time, their most worry-free time. They would open up that box of crayons and someone would say draw me a rocket or draw me a horse. And they would draw or a sunset or whatever. They had the freedom and the ability and the kid-like you know exuberance to go ahead and do something like that. I'm saying reset yourself, take that box of crayons out, take that cardboard okay, that poster board. Draw what you want your life to look like, compare that to how it is and then start making those changes.

Mick Spiers: 28:01

Yeah, all right. So I'm definitely hearing like a from and a to position, and then, after you've got the from position, you know where am I today? Where do I want to be Starting to work on what needs to be challenged, what needs to be ditched? I'm hearing like so this stock take starts with decluttering what in my life is not bringing me joy, what is not bringing me to use your word before comfort, peace and freedom. What are the things that I do today that do not at all help me achieve a life of comfort, peace and freedom? So let's start ditching those and then we can start filling the bucket back up with things that do enable us to bring joy and fulfillment and bring us comfort, peace and freedom. How does that sit with you, Ken?

Ken Rusk: 28:42

It's right on, because and I need everybody to know this you are in control of this. Okay, if you focus on the good, then that's where you're going to live. If you focus on the bad guess what? That's where you're going to live. The problem with your brain is it's so powerful that if you focus on the positive things, it's going to take you there. If you focus on the negative things, it's going to keep you there.

Ken Rusk: 29:05

Your brain is like a camera. It's a series of pictures and it inputs emotions based on what it sees. So if you're constantly seeing these pictures that aren't supportive of the life you want, you're going to live in that world for a long time. But if you change that lens and say, okay, enough of that, I want to be me, I want to be the me that I've always dreamed that I could be and start putting those pictures in your head, get them down on paper the act of taking them from your head to putting them on paper is like a promise to yourself that this is my new person, this is who I am now, and it's going to happen for you. I guarantee it.

Ken Rusk: 29:41

I've been doing it my whole life. I've done it when I had, when I didn't have a nickel rub together. I still do it today and, more importantly, there's 200 other people here that I coach all the time on how to get to where they want to be, and they're from all walks of life, they're from all financial situations and they start straightening themselves out pretty quick this way.

Mick Spiers: 29:59

So let me share what I'm taking away from that.

Mick Spiers: 30:01

Ken, I'd love your perspective as to whether this reflects accurately what you're saying.

Mick Spiers: 30:06

So I'm almost hearing like a cycle, and the cycle could be a virtuous cycle or it could be a spiral, and it could send you in a downwards, or it could send you in an upwards cycle, and the cycle I'm hearing is Fueled by perpetual confirmation bias.

Mick Spiers: 30:20

So you'll start seeing the things that your brain has told you. Right, then I'm hearing the power to break it through Visualization and to start rewriting the story that you keep telling yourself. Right, because the most powerful story in the world is the story you keep telling yourself in your brain about who you are, and if you keep on telling yourself a story of I'm the person that slogs away to pay a mortgage and I'm stressed every day, blah, blah, blah, you will always be that. But if you start telling yourself a different story of no, I'm, I do this because and you'll start Elevating the spiral towards more a virtuous cycle that starts lifting you up, how does that sit with you, though? The confirmation bias is the power, but you've got the power to reframe it, and you've got the power. You can hold the pen and you can rewrite that narrative.

Ken Rusk: 31:06

If you think about a guy like Elon Musk or Steven Jobs or even Bill Gates, okay, people think they're geniuses and they are. They're very brilliant people. They're very bright people. But why are they brilliant and why are they bright? They are brilliant and bright because they asked questions about what if, what if we could do this, what if we could do that? And if you use the words, what if you? Really what they're telling you is can you see the pictures in my brain right now that I'm trying to get out like, do you see what I mean? They ever heard someone say do you see what I mean? They're asking you to see the pictures they have in their brains. Right, that's what they're asking you to do. So they're special people, but they're not unique. They have the same brains that we all have and the ability to access the visual side of your brain is not unique to certain few people. We all have that ability.

Ken Rusk: 31:54

Just to go back to the vacation thing I'm planning a vacation. I'm gonna go to Florida. I'm gonna sit in the sun, the hot, warm sun. I'm gonna feel the breeze on my face. I'm gonna have my sandals and my lounge chair and my Suntan lotion that I can smell and the drink I can taste, and the music that I can hear and the sand, and it's gonna be beautiful. You have all those visuals that you put into your head and you anticipate that for the next two or three months until you go. Do it. Use the same power of designing your vacation to design the rest of your life. It's free, it's easy, requires no training and everyone has the ability to do it. So, yeah, you can reset yourself at any moment in time. You just have to take time, sit in a quiet place and get to it.

Mick Spiers: 32:38

Yeah, I love it. Ken, this has been a great discussion. I've really been stopping and reflecting and thinking on my own life throughout this and I hope the people that are listening to this, whether they're on their way to and from a job or whatever you're doing now I hope that you're listening to what Ken is saying and start thinking about what you could do. What does your life look like today? What do you want it to look like, and what actions Can you put in place to start doing that? What if I was able to do this? So thank you, ken. This has been absolutely wonderful. Like to now take us to a rapid round, these are the same four questions we ask all of our guests. So, first of all, ken Rusk, what is the one thing you know now that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Ken Rusk: 33:17

That I controlled my future. I mean, it took me a few years to learn that and you know, when I look back, I controlled all of it. I just had to allow myself the ability to the permission to go do it.

Mick Spiers: 33:29

Yeah, nice, okay, very good. What's your favorite book?

Ken Rusk: 33:32

My favorite book I mean it goes way back, but it has to be the seven habits of highly effective people, because there were some things I learned in there that that helped me to Communicate the way I was trying to think. You know, sometimes you can have a thought, but to articulate it to be convincing is another thing, and I recommend every person read that book. It's very, very helpful.

Mick Spiers: 33:51

Maybe even multiple times on that one. Yeah, that's a good one. All right, what's your favorite quote?

Ken Rusk: 33:56

I think it's this if you think you can or you think you can't, either way, you're absolutely right.

Mick Spiers: 34:03

Yeah, brilliant. Oh, it's a Henry Ford very good quote. I love it. And Finally, how do people find you? And in particular, I'm not just saying here Of course there's blue collar cash and the book, etc. But you help people do this very journey we've been talking about. So how do people find you? How do people get involved?

Ken Rusk: 34:20

Well, a long time ago I decided, after I wrote the book this is a couple years ago I decided I'm not gonna write a book that people read and just leave it on the shelf and say, oh yeah, I read that book. Well, how did it change your life? Well, it hasn't really yet, but I'm gonna get to it someday, right? So I created this course and I've seen courses that are so expensive it makes me laugh. You know, $700, $2000. No, I created a hundred and twenty nine dollar course. You get a free twenty five dollar book with it. It's eight sessions, it's 45 minutes per session.

Ken Rusk: 34:51

So for the cost of a dinner in a movie, you can flip your life completely on its end and start new, and I tend to. You know, as I told you earlier, I've been very fortunate. I've been very successful in this business and others. So this is kind of my way of giving back to people. I donate most of the money I make on my book anyway. So to take this course, you can find it at KenRuskcom. You can see the book there in the course. I encourage people to try it. It's a great way to say I'm gonna take information that I learned and I'm gonna use it today, not tomorrow, not someday, but right now, and you'll see difference in your life. I guarantee it.

Mick Spiers: 35:27

Outstanding Ken. It's been such a pleasure having you on the show today. Congratulations on your individual success in life. I'm talking Thank you for the service that you now give to others and thank you for sharing your wisdom on the show today. Greatly appreciate it.

Ken Rusk: 35:40

It's been a great time. Thanks for having me and love to come back anytime.