The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast
The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast celebrates the magic of live music through sharing personal stories. Each week, our guests will share their stories of different shows that were memorable and meaningful to them. We’ll also have concert reviews and conversations with musicians and crew members who put on those live shows. By sharing their stories, we hope to engage you - our audience - to relive your live music memories also. So please join us every week as we explore the transformative power of live music that makes attending concerts not just entertaining, but essential. This is The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast, where every concert tells a story.
The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast
Episode 044 - Ken Rusk - The Interview
This week, I talk with Ken Rusk, an accomplished entrepreneur, mentor, and author of the bestseller 'Blue Collar Cash.' Ken shares his journey from running a construction business to helping others achieve fulfilling careers, and reveals his surprising musical pursuits. Dive into Ken's story of learning drums at 48, his take on the value of blue-collar work, and how he intertwines hard work with living a comfortable, peaceful, and financially free life. Discover how Ken's approach to visualization, generosity, and life planning can offer you a new perspective. Plus, don't miss Ken’s memorable concert experiences and his upcoming musical endeavors. It's a conversation that's sure to inspire and entertain, this week on The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast!
00:46 Introducing Ken Rusk: Entrepreneur and Music Enthusiast
01:23 Ken's Musical Journey: From Kiss to Playing in Bands and Live Performances
05:53 Ken's Career Path and Blue Collar Cash
12:17 The Value of Blue Collar Work
24:24 Comfort, Peace, and Financial Freedom
32:20 The 10,000 Hours Rule: A Path to Mastery
35:58 The Life Clock Experience
40:04 The Power of Generosity
44:20 Music Memories and Favorites
49:20 Final Thoughts and Farewell
Connect with Ken at kenrusk.com.
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Welcome to The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast. We're here to share the magic of experiencing music together with strangers and friends, and to get to know our guests a little bit better through their experiences with music of all kinds. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and I do this podcast because I relate to people best when talking about music, finding out how someone got into music and how listening to and making music helped shaped who that someone is today, allows us to get to know and understand one another better. Today, we're welcoming Ken Rusk to the show. Ken is an entrepreneur, a mentor, a business coach, and a best selling author of the book Blue Collar Cash. His work is split between running his own construction business, Rusk Industries, and helping people to find their own way into a career that's both fulfilling and lucrative for them, be it a white or a blue collar career, with the ultimate goal of building a life of comfort, peace, and financial freedom. Oh, and he's also an amateur musician. I'm very excited to have him share his story with all of us. So let me welcome Ken to the show. Ken, thank you for joining me today.
Ken:Thanks Alex, I really appreciate it, looking forward to our discussion today.
Alex Gadd:So before we get into your life story, how did music come into your life?
Ken:You know, I was probably the same as most young people. My very first album was, uh, was a Kiss album. And I literally had, you know, Detroit Rock City and all those. I had a big album with, I took the cellophane off and I put it on the record player. And That's how we did it. I mean, I was lucky because we were able to rig kind of a bass speaker to the regular speakers that were there. So, I burned that whole album up. I listened to it like crazy. And, you think about people who do air guitar, right. I was always an air drummer. So I always went towards the, the air drumming side of things. Um, I just loved it. And what's interesting is I always loved music. I always loved all different kinds of music, which was really cool. I wasn't just stuck on like one type of genre, if you will. But, um, I didn't start drumming until I was 48 years old. Actually really drumming. So I, one day I said, you know, I'm going to do this. I went out and bought myself a beautiful rack with DW drums and laid it all out. I even bought like one of those multicolored lights that would spin around inside the drum and make it look cool. And I had no teaching. I literally put a set of headphones on. My first song was Like A Stone by Audioslave. And I just slowly went with it until I could split my brain enough to do four things at one time, which was like being born again, it was so hard, but yeah, it was a lot of fun. And I, I still do it to this day and I love doing it.
Alex Gadd:So how long did that take just in general terms? From the day you sit down with your new kit, you put your headphones on, you try to play Like A Stone, how long before you were adept enough to feel like you could play out with other people
Ken:Well, the one thing that I learned, first off, I learned Like A Stone in one day. That, that was the, I mean, as soon as I got the fact that I could separate my two feet from my hands, that was, that was an epiphany, but I would say it was about three or four months before I could feel like I could go out and play with my buddies, which we did. We made babysitting money back back in the day, but it was it was so fun because I suppose with a guitar and and the purists are going to disagree with me But with a guitar everybody knows you made a mistake if you if you if you're off whatever With with the drum as long as you keep the basic beat your fills and your rolls and everything you do around that They're all just creativity. So I I don't think i've ever played the same song the same way twice and most people don't know that. So I could just sit back and hide and as long as I could keep that same beat going, I could kind of do what I wanted. So I didn't feel the pressure to be perfect, I guess is what I'm saying.
Alex Gadd:You know, I think that for rock-n-roll music in general, unless it's very specific and very orchestrated, the looser, the better. I like my music to be a little messy. And I think that's what rock-n-roll is all about. Do you play out with a band today?
Ken:I haven't Played out with a band in in a couple of years, but we are getting that back together as they say, you know, we go through families and this and that. My son in law can play seven or eight different instruments and he has a friend that can do the same. It's it's so much fun, you know, I remember We we would go to these small bars where you wouldn't see six people in there And we would say, you know, we want five hundred dollars to play and the bar would say there's no way I can afford that And we would say look back at them and say no, there's no way you can't afford that because we're going to bring you 300 people and so get ready for that. So we would. We would advertise and we would have 300 people go to these these little bars, and they'd run outta booze and beer and they'd have to run down the street to buy more. It was, it was an absolute blast. I remember one time we colored ourselves all up for Halloween, and no one even knew who I was. I looked like a zombie and I had it all professionally airbrushed, and I played and there was, you know, paint all over my drums. It was, It was amazing. And, uh, it, it's such a great feeling when you get a crowd going. I can only, I can only imagine what somebody like Pearl Jam goes through who I just found out is touring the U.S. and I'm going to get some of their tickets, so.
Alex Gadd:next year, hopefully they'll be out again. I agree with you. I've only played in bar bands and cover bands, and it has been an absolute joy. And I'm, I'm looking to get a new band together. So anyone out there listening, hit me up. We got to put a band together in Southern Connecticut. So that does lead into your life story though. You are a self-educated, self-starter and so let's start at the beginning of that. Your book, and one of the reasons we're here today is to promote your book Blue Collar Cash, which I read and made some notes and I loved it. Thank you. for for
Ken:you. Thank you.
Alex Gadd:Your book is really about and, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's about how there's no one path to success, and everybody needs to really look inside themselves and find their own path to what success looks like. I mean, at a very high level, that's what, to me, I took away from the book.
Ken:Well, yeah, you know, one of the things that, that I, I found was back about 30 years ago, the, the naturally occurring choices. Like shop class, or military career, or going to college, or just going right into the workforce. Those choices were slowly eliminated from the psyche of high schools, and from guidance counselors, and from even parents who were hoodwinked into thinking, You can only be successful if you go to college. I mean, that has simply never been true and it isn't true today. It's especially less true today than it's ever been with supply and demand the way it's working. So I don't necessarily care if you want to be a blue collar, white collar, pink collar, whatever color you want to be. My premise is, Alex, that you need to figure out what you want your life to look like and why you're doing any one of those collars before you set out and do it, because the real goal of life is to set yourself on a bunch of different timed pathways to different things that you want to manifest into your life. That's a fancy way of saying, I want a bunch of things, I want to live a certain way and I need to think about those things every single day and how I'm getting on my path to getting those things. Because once you start out with what you want your life to look like, which is the main goal, by the way, then the rest of your choices kind of open up for you. I mean, you don't live to work. You work so that you can live and it's the living part that I'm interested in because there's lots of work that'll get you there it's not just one pathway and that's why I thought I needed to say something because all these people were thinking, I got to shove my kid into school, he or she's going to have all this debt, they're going to come out with a degree, and at least I did my job, but they can't use their degree, they can't make the money to pay the debt off, and there's more ways than that, and I just had to stop that madness if I could, just for a bit.
Alex Gadd:So let's talk about your background. You graduated from high school and you had been a working class kid. Your dad was successful in the grocery business. But yet you still understood the need to work and you did all kinds of kid jobs that I did. Delivering papers and other things like that, but at some point, right before you graduated, I believe there was a business right next to your high school that changed the course of your life Can you talk about that a little bit?
Ken:Yeah, so, my father was successful, but he was successful later on, meaning, I was already 16, 17, 18 by the time he got to be successful. I watched him grind out grocery store jobs, being a guy that chopped lettuce to stocking shelves to doing all those things when I was a young, young kid. I had four brothers and we lived in a very small house. He was a Marine and he ran it like a barracks, which was fun most of the time. But he you know, he would say, you know, I can do certain things for you, but if you want beyond that, then you have to go out and figure out a way to get those things And so like you said earlier Yeah, I did a lot of part time jobs early on, but what I recognized was the beauty of trading labor for something I wanted to come into my life where it was as simple as a aluminum baseball bat or something like that. I thought, well, that's pretty cool. So, as I was younger, and as I was looking to get into some of these more serious jobs. The things got bigger, you know, aluminum bat turned into your first new used car and then your first apartment and you had to find a way to cover those things. So, there was a business next to my high school and we used to cut through the fence after school to go walk to the carryout and we would walk by these businesses. There were several of them. And this particular one had a lot of grown up Tonka toys, you know, backhoes and all those kinds of things. Dump trucks and people milling around. And so I thought, what's going on there? I knew someone that worked there. So I said, Hey, I think I can do this. They said, well, we dig ditches. And I said, fine, I can do that. So I literally dug ditches in the summertime. And then in the wintertime, I worked in the office. And it was great because I learned the front half of the office and the back half of the office. I learned kind of the whole thing. And that helped me out because when it came time to talk about college, my father never went to school. Some of my brothers did, some of them kind of didn't. And so it wasn't like you had to. So I said, you know, they came to me and they wanted me to open up franchises around the Midwest. Like go out there, start this business from scratch, even doing the build out of the office, ordering the phones, the computers, everything. And so I did that. I'm 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 years old. And I got really good at kind of opening these little hubs and then moving on to the next one, you know, Chicago, Columbus, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh. And you get tired of living out of a suitcase, but you're getting great experience that way. So then finally we moved to Northwest Ohio, which is where I live today. And, started my company there with six people, and I think we have, nearly 200 today, so it's been a hell of a ride.
Alex Gadd:I love that story. I do believe that your twenties are for that. If you sacrifice some of the comforts that you might see on social media, it really pays off. And you talk in the book, you give a basic compounding interest story, that underscores, value of putting in the work, putting in the savings, doing the things that you need to do to build the foundation for a happy, successful life, in your twenties, or even in your late teens and that compounding effect really pays off down the line. Can you, Can we just define blue collar? I think It's a term that a lot of people use and maybe people don't even understand why they're using it these days.
Ken:Great question. A very long time ago, when things were just being built, infrastructure was just being built. Railroads and bridges and highways and canals and all that. Typically, if you were an educated person, you would walk around with a suit on and you'd have one of those high plastic white collars that you would snap on to your suit and you could interchange that plastic collar with almost anything you were wearing. And that's, you were typically more educated and you were typically in a more professional career like an architect or an engineer or teacher, whatever. Those were considered white collar jobs. So the guys that were out there working, digging, constructing, building, maintaining, whatever, they typically wore blue jeans and blue jeans shirts. They called them dungarees or there's lots of Levi's, a lot of different names back then, and they were blue collar clothing. So literally the collar was blue because the shirt was blue. those were considered blue collar workers and the white, the white collar workers were considered white collar It was as simple as the clothes that they wear. The thing that's different today is the demand and the skill level, you know, supply and demand is a funny thing. It's like, you know, dying. It's unbeaten, okay? But blue collar is the same way, so By the time you put your feet on the floor every day to the time you walk through your house, get ready and then get in your car and go to church or school or your office, whatever, you're still crossing about 10, 000 blue collar jobs or more that are still viable to this day. And, they stigmatized those people back in the day, because they were more laborer type people. But try to hire an electrician right now, or a welder, or a plumber, or,
Alex Gadd:Plumber. Yeah. It's almost
Ken:And how long does it take, and how much are they charging you? Well, supply and demand is a funny thing like that, because if, if you choke down the supply of those types of people, guess what happens? Where supply is low and demand is high, that's where the money goes, and that's what you're seeing today. I love it. I, I think it's fantastic, because some of my friends, including myself, I mean, it's, it's where all the money is right now is to be in that type of work.
Alex Gadd:You use the term in your book, what is blue collar cool?
Ken:It's interesting because when my book got published, Blue Collar Cash, when it got published, my, my publisher, Harper Collins, one of the, the managers that was working there that gave me my deal and she actually won a bidding war of seven different publishers, which is a whole nother story I can't even believe that happened but she said the reason I picked this book is because all of my friends that are that are making any money and have any type of lifestyle are all blue collar entrepreneurs and here I am. I went to this ivy league school I've got this huge debt and I don't know when i'm ever going to pay it off and i'm making money Yeah, but I mean those people are just cool. They're loving life and they don't talk about it You know what I mean? They don't, they don't go around and say, well, I went to Wharton or I went to Harvard or I went through whatever. I mean, they, they don't even do that. They just kind of live their lives. They live great lives. They make great money. They don't talk about it because nobody asks them. And so they just have this calm, cool about them. And so my, my whole thinking was blue collar cool is the way to describe people that you don't even know how successful they are, but you're shocked to find out. And you never heard it from them. You heard it from somebody else who maybe knows them better than you do, but they're in charge of their input. They're in charge of their daily input and the quality of that input. They're in charge of their output. They're in charge of their day, their time, their schedule. They're in charge of their financial gain and they're in charge of their future. And so they have this coolness about them that they're the ones, I mean, it's up to them and them only, but they love it that way.
Alex Gadd:Having gone to college and not being a blue collar worker, I see the, the the value of it now that I'm older and I wish that there had been a book like this when I was younger.
Ken:Yeah, thank you.
Alex Gadd:Yeah, it's great. Do you have a sense of how someone might decide whether college is right for anyone or not?
Ken:Yeah, so if you look up different ways of learning, you'll see that there's half a dozen ways of learning, okay? One of them is called tactile, okay? Tactile learning is with these two things. I'm pointing to my hands now. Where you immerse yourself in handling something, touching something, fixing something, working on something, and your whole life, you attract yourself to what you're interested in. If you were good as a kid, at building things or breaking things and fixing things or maintaining things or growing things or whatever, then you really need to take a look at if that's kind of your happy place, don't necessarily leave that just because someone tells you you have to go to school So that's one way the other way is if you went to any Lowes or any Home Depot or Menards, or any of those types of places, and you just went to the commercial desk where they supply all the contractors and you say do me a favor, just tell me what's missing in this town. They will tell you. Oh, yeah, all the stonemasons are retiring. No one's building outdoor kitchens anymore. No one's doing this. No one's doing that. The ones that are left are booked out for like a year and they're making a killing. They'll tell you everything you need to know about what's in demand in your area. And as a businessman, you don't necessarily care what it is. I mean, I could probably flip my whole staff to selling windows tomorrow or roofing, or selling kitchens or whatever. It's not necessarily the end game thing as much as it is that entrepreneurial fun of running your own company. And so if you feel like you're an outside person or you feel like you like to work or build or do things with your hands, consider looking at one of these careers, consider going to these stores and finding out what's missing in your town. But at the end of the day, Alex, the driving factor of all this is why are you doing any of it? Which is, I need to know what your comfort, peace and freedom picture is. I need to know what your nirvana looks like. I need to know what your 5, 10 and 15 year picture looks like. If I took a thousand piece puzzle and dumped it on your dining room table, and then I walked away with the box and never showed you the box, you'd be in a world of hurt to try to build that puzzle, right?
Alex Gadd:Sure.
Ken:You might get the edges, like the easy pieces that everybody does, but then you're like, well, what the hell am I building here? I don't even know what it is. You take that box and you set it on the table standing up. You're going to look at that box. If there's a thousand piece puzzle, I'll bet you look at that box 5, 000 times You're looking at that box like constantly. Well, it's driving your, your thought as to where you're building. Why wouldn't you use the same exact thing in your life?
Alex Gadd:That's a great
Ken:look at that thing, look at that puzzle piece, draw what you want your life to look like. Make that picture crystal clear and colorful and crisp and concise and detailed. And then look at it constantly and your mind will automatically attract itself through reticular activating systems and all those other processes. It'll attract yourself to all those things and that's the beauty of life is to live in anticipation of everything,
Alex Gadd:That's a beautiful way to put it. Now, I was a kid who went to college and had no idea what I wanted to do when I finished. I was completely at sea. And so I goofed around for a couple of years and was a bartender and a disc jockey at a radio station. I really fell into a career that I just stuck with because that's what I was doing. I've never had that vision, and then I got laid off at the beginning of this year, and I started doing this podcast because I thought, you know what, if I'm not going to have a job and I need to find something to do, I'm going to do something. I love doing and I, I have a clear vision for what it is. I may not reach it. I may be. I started too late or whatever, but I'm going to give it a go and I'm going to shoot for the stars, so now I have that clear vision, at a much older age and I'll take it. You know? How did you, learn things like your reticular vision? I mean, you, you clearly have a bigger picture view of the world than many people do. So you've learned a number of things along the way. How did you come to all this knowledge?
Ken:well, I
Alex Gadd:And that's a compliment. I only
Ken:thank you. Thank you. I I think it started with I obsessed about things I wanted. If I wanted an aluminum bat, I had a picture of it I tore a picture out of the magazine and stuck it in my bed and I just looked at it when I was, 11 years old and I thought about hitting home runs with it or you know, whatever hitting down first base third base. I thought about living, working, hitting, having, holding that bat and the funny thing is We are all born with the same brain, meaning the same ability to use vision. I mean, Elon Musk is a bright guy, no doubt. Okay? Steven Jobs, bright guy. Bill Gates, bright guy. All the people that have done that but every one of them started with the words"What if?" What if I could do this and what if I could do that? Well, the words"what if?" is nothing more than them looking at pictures inside their head. And what what happens is and I got this from Tony Robbins' son and Jairek Robbins, actually What happens when you stare at something that you have these? These electronic impulses in your brain that fire back and forth, uh, like a signal. And the more you stare at something, the more those electronic impulses not only get closer together, but they get faster to the point where it's almost one conscious stream of thought. Well, then what your brain does is it goes out and seeks those things. It goes out and finds a way to get those things through your actions, through your awareness, through your decisions, through your opportunities, and you don't even know it's happening. You just want these things so bad that your body involuntarily manifests those through action, not just through thought. And I thought, well, God, how, how unbelievably powerful is that? You know, they say we never use more than 25 percent of our brain. Guess what? The other part is it's that visionary side. So it's free. You don't have to pay for it. I mean, you just start, you just go to a quiet place and start thinking about what you want your life to look like and only. In a way that only you can come up with. No one else can tell you this. So, why aren't we doing that? Because, it's hard enough to walk through life, but if you have a computer up here that you're not using, that you suddenly turn on, and now that computer can help guide you like a GPS to the way you want to live, why wouldn't we do that? And so, that's, to me, whether it was my first Camaro or the, again, the aluminum bat, or having some money in my pocket, or taking my girlfriend out for pizza, or going bowling with my buddy, whatever it was, I could see it there, and therefore I found ways to bring that into my life. What happens is, the things get bigger, they get more expensive, and you find ways to match it. And so, you kind of like do this, you know, this chase, this anticipation chase, you know, you actually get it, you start over, you keep going, and it just keeps building to the point where you end up going, wow, I guess I figured this out, this life's pretty cool. And it's only because you allowed a dormant part of your brain to turn on and start working for you.
Alex Gadd:Thank you for sharing that. That's really helpful. You talked about it a few minutes ago, but let's get into it,'cause this is really the, the basis of your approach to life, it seems, which is the concepts of comfort, peace, and financial freedom. And you connected them in a, in a triangle or a pyramid. Can you talk about how they're connected?
Ken:Yeah, so, great question, thank you for asking it. My, when my daughter was 12, she got cancer, and It was a rough time for her and for my wife and I. I mean it, five years of, of nightmares. Um, but I kept thinking to myself, because you have a lot of time when you're sitting in oncology rooms and waiting rooms and doctor's offices and all that kind of stuff. What, what would I, what would I tell her if I could write her a letter? What would I tell her about what she should be anticipating or what she should choose to chase in life because you always need to be pursuing something. and so It occurred to me that everyone has a different version or vision of their perfect Nirvana. Some people are going to be rap stars. Some people are going to be influencers. Some people are going to be business people. Some people are going to be self employed. Some people want a McMansion and a yacht and 15 cars. Other people want a quiet house in the country. So I thought they're all right Every one of them is right, okay? So, why don't we find what the right is? And the right to me was, what is your level of comfort, in many different definitions of that word, where does your peace come from, based on that. And then because of the comfort and the peace, What freedoms do you have that you otherwise wouldn't have? Have you gotten rid of stress? Have you gotten rid of, you know, dependencies? Have you gotten rid of toxic relationships? Have you, have you gotten to the point where you can be spontaneous? Who's, Alex, who's spontaneous anymore? Nobody is. We're all so planned, right? So, comfort, peace, and freedom, each one of those words has about five definitions within it, but I believe that they're all connected in a triangle because I believe one is interdependent on the other. The more spontaneous I am, the more free I feel, the more free I feel to have the ability to go find peace. Okay, walk my dog in the park versus stress out in a minivan. I mean, you have all these choices and they're right there in front of you. So as you look at these concepts, You start with one. Where am I most comfortable? Am I comfortable in my own skin, in the way I'm perceived, in the way I see the world, the way others see me? Load that up on yourself first. Like, who am I? What's the best version of me? And then start going to places you find peace and then hopefully that gains you the freedoms that you're looking for.
Alex Gadd:Another interesting thing you shared in the book, you shared a number of really interesting stories. I don't want to give them all away,'cause people need to go buy Blue Collar Cash, but, I do want to talk about, you, you shared a story about Minnesota. Now, Minnesota, not the state, but a person, that really resonated with me. Could you just give a quick summary of that story and why that's important?
Ken:Yeah. So this falls Right, back in the conversation that I just had about freedom, about freedom and peace. So I took a bunch of people to, Cancun to a Club Med years ago. And when you go there, they put these colorful wristbands on your, on your wrist. And what that does is if you're yellow, that means you're there from Tuesday to Tuesday. If you're blue, you're there from Wednesday to Wednesday. So the people walking around know how long you are gonna be there, or if you just got there, or if you're about to leave. And it's great because it helps their service people immensely. Well, this one gentleman, we would go to the bar every night and you know, you pay for your drinks with these little beads that you would buy. And this guy had like seven or eight of these wristbands on and very tan. And so one day I'm sitting there and I'm like, so what is your story? What's for all the wristbands? And he says, well, I'm from Minnesota. He said, What I do is, every year in March, I fire up my lawnmowers, I get everything ready, I hit the ground running in April, I mow lawns, and I cut grass, and I trim trees and bushes, and I mulch, and I do all these things with my two buddies, and we bust our butt all the way through to December. And then when I'm done, I put all my stuff away, clean it all up, and he goes, I get on a plane in January, February, and March, okay? I just go. For eight, 10, 12 weeks, I just go from one club med to another. I just bounce from one to the next, to the next. And I just hang out for two or three months. And I was like, you gotta be kidding me. He goes, Nope. I can have a very nice little ranch house, a five year old pickup truck that runs like a top. I don't need fancy things. Uh, and to me, freedom is everything, freedom and the ability to explore. And I thought, well, that's just an amazing story, right? Cause that was his nirvana. So I never got the guy's name. I literally, the next couple days, I went here, he went there, and I never saw him again. And so, I never forgot the story, but it was such a beautiful story, because that's what his Nirvana looked like. It looked like sunsets on beaches, and that was cool by him, it was cool by me. And so, when I wrote this story, I wrote it from the perspective of the guy from Minnesota, because I didn't, I think I called it the grass cutter from Minnesota, because I never knew his name. So, hey, if you're out there listening, you know, look me up, because I'd love to know who you are. But, um, that was a life lesson I learned from a complete stranger and I never forgot it.
Alex Gadd:The reason it resonates with me is going back to what you said before, everybody's ideal life is different and they're all right. And so judging and, and feeling like less than, or you're a failure and I felt that way in the past, but it seems to me to be so counterproductive and reading your book really reinforced for me that everything is okay if it's okay with you and it's good for you. It's fine. There's no need to feel shame. And you talk about all these things in the book in much greater detail.
Ken:It's interesting that you say that because on your wall behind you, you have a Rolling Stones poster, right? So, I thought I was doing good because I saw the Rolling Stones like four or five times, you know, I thought that was pretty cool. I was at a book signing, uh, several months ago and the guy had a Kiss shirt on and I was like, wow, that's pretty cool, you know, because Kiss was in town here in my town. And he came to see him, and um, I said, that's pretty wild, and he said, you know, I've seen Kiss over a hundred times. And I said, you've been to a hundred Kiss concerts? He said, yeah, I've seen them over a hundred times. And guess what? That was his thing. That was his nirvana. He must have traveled the entire world to see Kiss a hundred times. But that's what, that's what, that was his thing. And, and he was happy as a clam, and, you know, He got in his van and drove around the country. I thought, well, hell yeah, why not? If you can figure out a way to get that done. So you never know what people's, uh, what, what they're anticipating, what they're chasing, but you know what? Every one of us is right in our own way. And that's the beauty of it.
Alex Gadd:Yeah, it's funny you say that, because I've interviewed at least five people on this podcast who have seen over a thousand concerts and have seen bands, single bands, more than 250 times. And I just, I can't even conceive of that. And I've seen like, Springsteen's my guy. I've seen him 40 times. There are people who've seen Springsteen a thousand times.
Ken:I mean, wouldn't he have to know who they are in the front row by then? I mean,
Alex Gadd:He recognizes some of them apparently, but they're, it's just amazing. And again, that's what they do. They save up their money and they go to Europe. They go on tour. They do whatever. And it's fascinating. I do want to talk about a couple other things while I have you here. You talk about Malcolm Gladwell's ten thousand hours rule or, approach to learning. And you said that that's an opportunity, not something that should be looked at as an impossible hurdle to overcome. Talk about that a little bit, if you would.
Ken:Let's assume that, I'll use some generalities, let's assume that you go to school for, you know, 40 to 50 hours a week, okay? That's 2, 000 hours a year. And in four years you learn X, Y, and Z. There's your eight to ten thousand hours right there, okay? Now, you could learn a trade, a skill, um, learn how to open a flower shop or hairdressing place, a butcher shop, a carpenter, you could be a carpenter, a finish carpenter, you could do whatever. Learn how to become a stonemason, whatever. In the same time that you go to college, you could become an expert at one of those things, which catapults you into the financial world like crazy because of the supply and demand. So there are people who actually get out of high school and start throwing rocks around that probably take two, three times the income that a fresh college graduate would take when he or she gets out of school. And so the 10, 000 hour thing. It's for real, because in this day and age, there's so few people that are willing to go into those trades that when a guy like me finds a new person, like a brand new baby bird, I am going to covet that person. I'm going to take them under my wing. I'm going to show them everything I know. I'm going to give them everything I got because there's less and less of them around to do this with. And those people shoot up the ladder way faster than they ever did before. And the other thing, Alex, is, you know, you can run your business now with a cell phone and a pickup truck. I mean, you don't need, I had long form graph paper and pencils and calculators. You can call in payroll from your phone. You can pay your bills and order things. And it's crazy how much easier it is to start your own business now than it was then. Like you mentioned in college earlier, 40 percent of kids go into college not knowing why they're going. I did this research for the book. 25 percent of them, when they get there, change their degree. Another inefficient scenario. But here's the worst one, Alex. Only 1 third of college degrees ever get used, ever in people's careers. So you're talking about a wholly inefficient system. If that was a company, they would go out of business for lack of effectiveness, right? If the college system was a company, they couldn't survive. So it's amazing to me that the reason that is is because you know, I'm not an anti college guy if you're gonna operate on my shoulder So I can get back on the golf course I want you to know everything there is to know about a knife before you come at me with it I get that. If you're gonna be a doctor, a nurse, Engineer, teacher, financial person. Yeah, you have to know those things But if you're just going because someone says you have to go and you don't you know, you get good at beer pong Man, there's a whole lot of better ways to spend that ten thousand hours.
Alex Gadd:Yeah. I'm a walking billboard for that. I wish I had known or thought that through properly when I was 18. What is a life clock and what was your result of your experience with a life clock? This may be my favorite story in the book that I'm willing to share now because there are a couple of great stories I'm not sharing because I want the readers to read them. But the life clock one was too good not to bring up.
Ken:So it was a December one year and early on in our business and we were having a tough year and, um, the Christmas party was really small. It was like six of us, maybe a bottle of champagne and you'd exchange gifts. And it was a quickie thing that, you know, thank everybody for what they did. And there wasn't many people at this particular one. So. I got this clock. It looked like a spaceship. It was painted candy apple red with like these starbursts on it, you know. And so it's a clock and it said life clock. So I'm like, okay. So I plug it in the wall. Get out the directions. It says enter your age, enter the time of year it is, enter all these things and then hit go. So I did that and immediately it calculated based on an average of 78 and three quarter years of life. It calculated how many hours, minutes, and seconds I had left to live. So, it starts spinning backwards, like seconds, like on a timer, like watching the last 10 seconds of a football game. And I'm going, Wait a minute. This is, this is kind of freaking me out a little bit, right? So I'm looking at it and I'm going well Let's see if I can take advantage of this. So now I'm like, okay, I'm gonna be Mr. Efficient. I'm not gonna talk to that particular guy for that particular subject because that's a waste of my time. I'm gonna do that. So I started getting really efficient with my time and other people's time. I was bugging the hell out of everybody else is you know, can you do this this way or can let's do it this way We can save some time. I you know, it got into this real almost paranoia kind of thing So it's at one point. I remember I I remember I was gone for the weekend and I came back and I'm like Oh my god, 72 hours have disappeared. What am I gonna do? So then I went on vacation, came back, you know, a hundred some hours disappeared. What am I going to do? And then I got to the point where I hated this thing,'cause every time I came in, it was just erasing my life, you know. Like some demon sitting in my, even when I turned the lights off to close the door, it was staring at me with its lights. And, um, so I, it came in one day and I took that thing and I freakin put it on the ground and I just smashed it with my foot. And, uh, broke into a bunch of pieces, but then it didn't die because the batteries were still in it. I unplugged it, but it was still alive. So I killed this thing and threw it in the dumpster, but it had performed its job, which was don't waste time because as you get older, and I know you're going to agree with this, um, free time, spontaneous time, time with your family, time time for yourself is by far the most valuable asset you will ever have in your life.
Alex Gadd:100%. The tagline of this show is"Life is short, so get those concert tickets." And so this one was a home run for me. The lesson you learn from this. And, and it's funny, you called it, you ended up calling it a death clock, didn't you? It wasn't a life clock.
Ken:I did. I called it the death clock. I was like, die, death clock, die.
Alex Gadd:Sounds like a Twilight Zone episode,
Ken:really. I think everyone. Yeah, everyone should have one of these just once even if it's for a week Everyone should have one of these because you will find yourself going I am not wasting one more minute And and it it it really does wonders for it
Alex Gadd:Okay, I have one more book related question. There are a couple other things in the book that I encourage people to go out and buy. There's a couple of questions that you ask that people can answer that help them start their own path. Uh, there's some steps that they can follow. There's a thought exercise called how to build a skyscraper, which someone should read about But I do want you to talk about why you've believed generosity is the key character trait that everyone should focus on that will lead to all other successes and possibilities.
Ken:so Thank you again. I I've always believed that giving back was an important thing but it really turned a corner for me when my daughter got sick because a complete stranger my daughter was a couple hundred miles away, in a camp, and um, four hundred miles away. And we knew that she was sick, um, and we had an opportunity to go see the number one ranking person in her field in Philadelphia. And um, I was telling my friend, I, I really gotta go get her, I gotta get her to this place, these people want me there Monday morning, there's normally a three month waiting list, because normally she sees 60, 70, 80 year old people, but this was a 12 year old girl. And, um, this was like the person in that field. So a total stranger stepped up and said, Here's my plane. Take my plane. Go get her. Fly her wherever you have to fly her. Just make sure you get that little girl healed. And even when I say those words, all that stuff comes back. But, um, I saw him a few months later and I said, what do I owe you? And he said, you don't owe me anything. And I said, that's a big number. And he said, to whom much is given, much is expected. Just remember that. And I never forgot that. And, and my, my, uh, in the last 20 years, my generosity has gone on full turbo charge. I mean, it's now something that I do myself. I, I always did it, but it was much more involved with time and talent not just treasure and I involve everybody here in the same thing. We're building now peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by the 300s in 30 minutes We do that once a quarter and we're we're helping people with christmas lists And we're we're doing all these things where we get involved and actually do we build dinners for Ronald Mcdonald House uh parents and All these things that we do and I have to tell you something You never want to do charity where you go I mean, it's okay if you go to a black tie event and you're bidding on something that you hope to win And then the money goes to charity because in effect you're given three thousand dollars for that trip to cancun But the money does go to charity, but you're expecting something from it. That's fine, but I don't necessarily think you should expect something from giving. But there is something to the fact that the more you give, the more you seem to be blessed. and I can't put my finger on it and you shouldn't do it for that reason. And if there is such thing as karma that way. I believe everyone has the ability, whether it's, I mean, for, for 55 dollars, you and six people can go build a spaghetti meatballs and garlic bread in a salad for someone at Ronald McDonald house who's never going to meet you. They're never going to know who you are. But, their kid who's sitting across the street suffering from some terrible disease, they're going to have a nice home-cooked meal that evening while they're suffering doing that. And those are the kind of things that we're just built and meant to do, and so that's why I decided to put it in the book.
Alex Gadd:Thank you for sharing that part because, you know, the book is about, it's got cash in the title, but it's really not about cash. It's about the freedom to live a life of fulfillment and happiness and peace and comfort. And by driving that through generosity, it's almost a, it's almost a false pretense. Like you're, you're offering it as, as about money, but it's really not about money at all. It's about fulfillment, isn't it?
Ken:Well, it is. You know, My original title was The Path, A Ditchdigger's Guide to Comfort, Peace, and Freedom. And I was overruled by some very smart people in New York City to put that that title on it, which is fine. You know, it was my first book. I wasn't even an author, so who am I to judge? But, um, Yeah, this is the title. and I said, well, all right, well, let's go with it. And it worked out. It became a bestseller, which, again, is, is mind blowing to me. Yeah, I agree with you. The book is a lot more about how you see what your future could be than how dime.
Alex Gadd:All right. I have a couple of music questions to wrap up because it is a music podcast. I don't want to disappoint my listeners.
Ken:Absolutely.
Alex Gadd:First concert you attended.
Ken:Uh, Prince.
Alex Gadd:Oh, wow. Where?
Ken:was in, uh, Richfield, Ohio. Very long time ago, um, between Cleveland and Akron. The Coliseum isn't even there anymore. They tore it down. It's been so long. But yeah, it was Prince.
Alex Gadd:Yeah, but a lot of great people used to play there.
Ken:it was awesome.
Alex Gadd:Yeah. Wow. Prince. That is a great first concert. Wow. Most memorable concert you ever attended.
Ken:Um, God, that would have to be Pink Floyd in Indianapolis because they had this crazy thing in the middle that was covered in black sheets. But then, um, on Shine On You Crazy Diamond, that thing came off and it opened up like this pineapple and it just shot lasers all over the place. And it was mind-blowing, I mean, people were just out of their brains when this thing happened. It was really cool.
Alex Gadd:Excellent. Now, first time you performed music in front of people in a band, how old were you?
Ken:I was, uh, 49.
Alex Gadd:And the next time you're building your band now, do you have a name for this upcoming band?
Ken:Well, the band's called, um, Dead Roses after, uh, after
Alex Gadd:The Rolling Stones. Yeah, Alright, uh, The most recent concert you saw.
Ken:most recent one would have been, Jason Aldean, downtown Toledo.
Alex Gadd:Nice, how was that?
Ken:You know what? We have this venue here and it's 8, 000 seats and I have these first in line seats where I get like first dibs on them. I never sit in the pit area because it's insane down there, but I'm two rows up. So I can see over everybody's heads and I've had people flicking their, their guitar picks to me. That's how close it is. So they're, they're just good. I mean, Chris Stapleton was amazing. Kid Rock, I saw there. A lot of great acts there for this little, tiny venue, um, 8, 000 seater, but it's a
Alex Gadd:Yeah.
Ken:get up close and personal with people. It's, it's awesome.
Alex Gadd:That is great. I miss the 8 to 10, 000 seat arena, mini arenas. I love those, those places.
Ken:Jett there, believe it or not. I
Alex Gadd:Oh, she's so good. I saw her, I saw her in Minneapolis once and it was
Ken:yeah, there's a lot of good people that come to this little venue in Toledo, Ohio.
Alex Gadd:That's great. Favorite musical act?
Ken:Oh, it's gotta be Pearl Jam. And that's what I said earlier. I'm gonna go see them here. Uh, hopefully in May There you go,
Alex Gadd:great. I, yeah, I saw them in Austin last year. They were amazing. Love them. Uh, the, your favorite musical venue that you've ever been to? Favorite place you've ever seen a concert?
Ken:You know what I I saw a concert in um, this, this art museum in Detroit. And I can't think of the name of it now, but it's downtown Detroit. You walk in and it looks like the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling. I mean, there's all this beautiful artwork and it's all ornate and it's just absolutely wonderful. I can't believe I can't think of the name of it now. It's downtown Detroit. And the funny thing was, I went to see Neil Young. I took some friends of mine. And when we got there, we're sitting in like the third row and it's rather calm. And I'm like, why is it so calm? Well, they were doing a play. So I, my buddies are like, you took us to a play. And I said, it wasn't supposed to be a play. It was supposed to be a concert. Neil Young and his wife and a bunch of people, they're doing this play. And then all of a sudden Neil goes, ah, enough of that. And he threw everybody off. And then, you know, Crazy Horse came walking out and then he jammed for two hours and I was like, I was so thankful because I was like, Oh my God, I took him to a play, but yeah, it worked out really well.
Alex Gadd:Bucket list, the musical act that's still performing that you haven't seen yet, but you most want to see
Ken:Oh, wow. You know, I got to see, uh, uh, I got to see, um, the lead singer of Zeppelin at the Zoo last year. He's got a new band. That's kind of like.
Alex Gadd:the Band of Joy, Robert Plant.
Ken:Yeah, the Band of Joy. It's kind of like a rockabilly kind of thing on his song Fantastic and oh my god, but I'd love to see Zeppelin if it ever came back together
Alex Gadd:Oh man, me too. I miss them. They, they did that reunion in London and of course I didn't fly to London, but today I would fly to London to go see that. Yeah. Do you have any concert tickets for upcoming shows?
Ken:Yeah, i've got Jason Aldean. I've got Keith Urban's coming back. I've got John Pardi's coming back. Those are all country. Um, I do have the Pearl Jam tickets i'm waiting to get right now um Believe it or not, there's a knockoff band called Brit Floyd, who is an absolute perfect replica of Pink Floyd. Down to the three singers that he has on the right hand side, the three female singers. Everything. They're awesome. And I go see them every year and I'm just looking over at my safe now because I have three or four sets of tickets in there. I'm trying to figure out who they were too.
Alex Gadd:That's great. Well, Ken, that's all I've got for you today. Did I not ask anything that would be important for our listeners to know about you, the book, your your love of music, anything?
Ken:The only thing I would say is, you know, a lot of times when people read books, you got to get something out of it and it can't just be shelf help, as they say, you know, if you're going to read a self help book, you need to, you need to use something. So I built this course. It's eight sessions. I go on and I preempt the course by three minutes of video. So there's 24 minutes of listening to me. Okay. Three minutes at a time, you take this course and it forces you to do the things that we talked about today. It's called The Path to a Successful Life. It's on my website at KenRusk.com. And um, if you buy the course, you get a free book with it. I donate the money to first responders' kids. I give free courses to first responders kids and um, people that are coming back from the military. So, um, I really believe that if you've dodged bullets in your life, you shouldn't have to worry about anything the rest of your life. Um, defending our freedoms. And so, I really try to help those folks out. So if you do buy this course, you not only help yourself, but you're going to help somebody else in the process. And you can find that at KenRusk.com. And I really hope you do because the people that have taken the course it's it's it's been really well received and people like You know what? I'm looking at this world a whole different way now. So
Alex Gadd:That's admirable. And I congratulate you and I thank you for sharing your story with us
Ken:absolutely. Thanks Alex. It's been it's been a blast This was fun.
Alex Gadd:Thanks, Ken. And that's it for today's conversation. Thank you for joining us. We'll be back next Tuesday. And if you like what you heard today, we'd appreciate it if you would subscribe or follow and like to make sure you get notified about every new episode and please tell your friends. Also a reminder that we release a playlist for every episode. So look for The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast Playlist on Spotify every week featuring the songs from the bands that Ken and I talked about on the show today. So please check that out. Additionally, we want to know what you think. Please leave us a comment. We'll try to respond to all of them. We love hearing from you. Thank you. The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast is a World Highway Media production. I'm your host, Alex Gadd. And until next time, remember that life is short. So get those concert tickets.
Ken:how long do we go? I mean we could have gone
Alex Gadd:52
Ken:could have gone another hour. That was good. That was a lot of fun.