Out of the Blue - The Podcast: Finding the Way Forward
Out of the Blue-the Podcast features interviews with inspirational survivors of traumatic out of the blue events who have overcome unimaginable challenges, sharing their stories of resilience and triumph. By sharing these stories, "Out of the Blue" aims to create a community where others who have faced similar hardships can find solace and strength as together, we find the way forward.
Out of the Blue - The Podcast: Finding the Way Forward
76,000 Miles and Counting with Rusty "The Walking Man" Nosser
A man sits on a curb after three nights in the woods, ready to surrender. Then a familiar face appears and everything changes. That’s the spark that propels Rusty Nosser, “The Walking Man,” from rock bottom to a life driven by purpose, faith, and relentless motion.
We talk through the moments that shaped him: the hunting accident at 23 that left him blind in one eye, the bleeding ulcer that nearly ended his life, and a years-long family estate battle that taught him to let go of vengeance and hold tight to discipline. Rusty shares the blunt question from his mother — "Are you going to beat this or is it going to beat you?" — that became his daily compass. He breaks down how power-walking became his craft and calling, touching on his experience training the mind to “tolerate the hurt” when the bear jumps on your back in a marathon.
From the Oxford, Mississippi town square to races in Dallas and Eugene, from local headlines to USA Today, from a self-written book to a feature film in development, Rusty’s journey shows how consistent action and a clear mantra can rewrite a life. He’s logged more than 76,000 miles — three trips around the Earth at the equator — waving to drivers, pointing back in thanks, and reminding us that progress is built one step at a time.
If you need a blueprint for resilience, you’ll find it here: faith in a higher power, three achievable tasks a day, strong boundaries with compassion, and a body cared for like the only home you have.
For more on Rusty: https://rustythewalkingman.com/
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Welcome to Out of the Blue the Podcast, a platform dedicated to celebrating inspirational stories of resilience, transformation, and those life-changing moments that truly come out of the blue. I'm your host, Renan West, joined today by my amazing daughter and co-host Jackie West, our marketing manager, a professional musician, and Ricky Hiller. Today's guest is someone whose story embodies perseverance and purpose. Rusty Nasser, known by many as the walking man, has faced more challenges than most. Born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Rusty grew up an athlete and an outdoorsman and went on to study at Ole Miss, where he graduated with a degree in integrated marketing. Life seemed steady until a series of hardships, including two near-death experiences and a difficult divorce, forced him to confront life at its toughest. But Rusty didn't stop there. Instead, he turned to a passion that became his calling, a competitive speedwalker. He has since earned multiple titles, founded Global Productions, and has a walking man a parallel line, and continues to inspire his community by showing up each day in neon gear, dancing through the streets of Oxford. His motto is simple, but powerful. You do not give up. Rusty's journey is captured in his book Walk of Life From Death to Glory, which is now being adapted into a feature film starring Athlete and performer Brooke Logan. His story has been spotlighted on Prime 7 media with esteemed host Logan Crawford, and his life continues to be a testament to the power of resilience, faith, and forward motion. So join us as we walk along Rusty through trials, triumphs, and the unstoppable spirit of a man who refuses to quit. Rusty, welcome to Out of the Blue the podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, uh Vernon, very much so. I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, you're welcome. So glad to have you here, Rusty. So let's you, I know you I I I really don't think I mean Jackie, we'll we'll we'll we'll add the odd question here and there, but boy, I think you've got a lot to tell us. So let's start at the beginning. Remember, we said the out of the blue event to say that really, if you wouldn't be here today if it didn't happen, what's where did it all begin?
SPEAKER_01:I would say toward in the middle of of what people tell me it was a journey, uh it wasn't it maybe the lowest part is when you are out there by yourself. People will learn this, that I was on, I was on, I was in a town, not in my hometown. I was left there. I was by myself for three or four days. I actually slept in the woods uh trying to figure out what to do. I would get up and go to an indoor, outdoor mall. They had shops on the outside, and you could go inside, they had shops on the inside. The man walked in that was from my hometown that I had not seen in 40 years, and we embraced and talked. I knew who he was. He went to school with my older brother, and we visited for about 20 minutes, and he finally said, Well, let me take care of my business, and if you're here when I come back, we'll visit. And you know, I had to leave. I said, That's fine. And I was at that point that I was ready, almost ready to capitulate because I was tired. I really was tired. He came back by. We talked a little and we said goodbye. He walked out to the curb and got into his car. He turned around and went out to the street to leave, and he got to the end of the parking lot. He stopped the car. I saw him stop. He turned around and he came back to the curb where I was sitting at. I went out and said, you know, Johnny, you okay? You know, what's wrong? He said, What are you doing here? And I really didn't want to talk about it. I said, No, Johnny, I want he said, No, what are you doing here? So I told him a little bit because he knew all the family and he knew all this stuff. He said, No, you come get in the car. He said, get in the car. And I wouldn't get in the car. He said, You have always been one of the good guys. He said, You get in the car. I got in this car, he took me to a hotel, he put me in the hotel and gave me$300. And from that moment on, everything else, as you look back, went up, up, up, up, up. So that person, and I wrote this in the book, that person was my guardian angel. That was my guardian angel that, and people have told me, somebody sent this person down to you. After all these years, I kind of figured out that it was my mother because of something else that happened. But from that point on, everything flipped around and went north, not south. And I would have to I would have to point to that. That was my guardian angel right there.
SPEAKER_03:What was the what put you out there on the road that night? Was there something going on in your life? Did you have was it a divorce thing?
SPEAKER_01:Or my family, uh, when my parents died, they had the same will. And it was just a matter of who died last. And I was finding out some stuff, and they they got me, they took me over there to a hospital of which they released me. They did not come get me, and they they left me out there. I didn't have a lot of money. You know, you understand? I was in hospital for two days. Uh, I had a laptop computer, believe me, of all things. And I would I would go down there to this mall and get on the laptop during the day, figuring out what I needed to do. Luckily, I grew up as a Boy Scout. I hunted and fished all my life. I took going into the woods, which I understand is not normal, as a camping trip. We used to camp. So that's how I persevered through all that. And it it passed. It was, it got to be okay, you know. But you you think about being safe, you're you're in you're in survival mode, okay? So you're looking at a place on the side of the interstate that you can see the interstate. There were woods all behind you. I knew nobody was gonna come through those woods like that, and that's why I stayed for three nights. Wow. But I made it.
SPEAKER_03:And that's when the gentleman came and saw you at the after three nights.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:It's like almost like um, like you say, you you think it was after years you've thought about it, you think it was your mother that sent this gentleman to you. I understand that feeling, you know. You when you are on your own and um things seem down and hopeless, even, and then something comes you you have to think that someone out there what's out there in the blue, when we say out of the blue, we talk about what's out there. Like maybe that is our mother, and maybe that is people that it is.
SPEAKER_01:There were people in my whole journey, and there are there are so many twists and turns on all this, but there were more people that helped me on the outside than my family never did on the inside. And that's why I don't talk to them to this day. And and when we finally, we finally went to had to go to court about all this, it took them 17 years to close a family estate. Nobody believes that. The national media does not believe that. They told me it was something worse than that. I always tell people, I said, well, look, who persevered? Who persevered? It was me, not them. I guess jealousy and greed took them down, and I preach that to this to this day. Jealousy and greed will take you down.
SPEAKER_03:I 110% agreed. My own life experiences would back that up a million percent. I've seen it happen in my life, and I'm sure other people have it well, people that are listening right now. So it's like in the Bible, it says, I don't like quote quote, but I can do another Bible show, but vengeance is mind set the Lord. I've read that in the Bible. That's right. And it's so true that you just gotta let go. That's another saying I love let go and let go on.
SPEAKER_01:I would go it at one point, I would go up here occasionally and and and isn't getting it off your chest. I would go talk to my preacher in the church I belong to. He told me two quotes that I that I listened to. He said, number one, don't become vengeful because all it's gonna do is destroy you. And he also told me, he said, Rusty, you're walking through hell. He said, You know what hell looks like. He said, Why do you want to stop in hell? He said, just keep walking, you'll walk out the other side. Yeah, you had to to go through all that stuff. People uh to this day, they always tell me, we don't know how you survive that. We don't know how you made it through that. I said, it was probably with the grace of God because you know it's one, two, three times that you've almost died. I said, somebody's looking over you. And I've heard that a thousand times in my life. Somebody heard it yesterday. Somebody says, God got a plan for you. I said, thank you. I said, but I've heard this before and I appreciate that. But so it must be the first, it's the first thing that people say when they when they find out what happened, you know. Uh you're out there, you're 23 years old, um, you're on top of the world, you don't have a you don't have an issue or problem in the world. You go duck hunting. Me and my first cousin, we were tight, we got a big family and cousins and so forth. And we we paddled into a flooded bean field that was on a my my parents and my uncle's good friend, big farm on the Mississippi River, coal, and and the the ducks that were falling down were what you couldn't have made a movie any better than what we saw that morning. We were excited, shooting out of the boat, shoot, shoot. Finally, we decided to get out of the boat. And I told him I was gonna walk up the tree line and get on up there some ways and keep the ducks flying back and forth. I walked away, excited to shoot it. We turned, he turned, the ducks fell in, and he shot me at about 40 feet and knocked me off my feet. Of course, most people know that I'm blind in my right eye because of this, and uh, but I lived through it. And that's what I always tell how quickly your life changes around. What you're in that situation, what do you do? You know, it's it's it's pandemonium, your adrenaline is flowing, and my poor cousin who has now passed away, he froze. He he couldn't move, he didn't say a word. And how do you get out of there? He he freezes. I'm shot. I had to put him in the boat and paddle out to get some way we're gonna get out. And but your but your life changes like that, you know. Absolutely it it does something to you, you know. And I had numerous surgeries and so forth, and it never it never worked out, but we tried. Me and my parents went all over the country. We went to Boston, went to Miami, Florida, UCLA Medical Center, Houston, Texas. Didn't work, but we tried. And that's what I was getting back to. What when it was all said and done, what my mother said to me when we got home, and that was after almost two years of wishing and hoping, she was she was a retired nurse and a surgical nurse on top of that. And she was tough like this. She let you have your pity party for about 10 minutes, and then she sat on the bed and she said, What are you gonna do? Are you gonna beat this or is it gonna beat you? And that became my riley cry for the rest of my life. I listen, I think about this every single day.
SPEAKER_00:I love that she asked you, like she gave you the option. I feel like that puts you in such a position of um self-empowerment, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Well, my parents were good about making you uh think, and that actually became my rally cry. And I have taken it with me for for up to my life until today.
SPEAKER_03:That is something anybody out there listening, you can have that's a that's something we all can use. You know, I love that statement. I mean, that really comes up. I I come up across lots of times things that I'm ready to, you know. I've heard someone say, Don't quit before the miracle happens, you know, because that's right, it might be one second away and you're gonna quit.
SPEAKER_01:I use the analogy of there's a story I listened to one time called the 51st door. They said you can go knock on 50 doors, and nobody they shut the door in your face, and you're about to ready to give up. But that 51st door, somebody opens it and lets you come in. And things can change like that, you know. Uh, but this the second time is, you know, is is when I was I had a bleeding ulcer. Now, I did not know, I I did not have any pain at all. At that time I was married, my ex was out of town. I had gone to watch an old miss football game with friends, and I can't, I drove home. I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't barely make it. I can't, I had to put my head back on the rest, crawled in the house, crawled on my knees in the house, and I had dogs in. And my dogs were Australian shepherds and they're smart. And they came in, and the the daddy doll was licking me on the face, licking me over the face. Finally, I got up and got in the bed, and I went to lay down. I felt decent, went to sleep, woke up about seven o'clock the next morning, and I couldn't move. I could not move. All I could do is reach for the phone, and I called my parents. At that time, I lived on the lake. They lived 25 minutes away, and I said, Something's wrong, come get me. I can't move, and they did. And when I got, they took me to the emergency room. When I got there, they threw two pints of blood on me in a heartbeat. I mean, it was quick. And they got me settled, they put me in the room, they had thrown me an ICU, they gave me some more blood, they gave me staph infection on top of that. And people asked me on the TV interview not too long ago, did you see the light? I said, Well, yeah, I did see a light. You know, uh, I I don't tell people all this often enough. Uh, I actually saw what I believe to be Jesus. People might think you're crazy, but you when you lived it and you go through that, and it was it was like, it's not your time. You got to go back, you gotta go back. And I woke up as I'm leaving six weeks later. I knew all the doctors there at the time. One of them said, I didn't want to tell you this when you were in the hospital, but since you're leaving, that Sunday morning, he said, if you'd have laid that bed, you'd have been dead by noon. You were gone. He said, You should have been gone now. I had a hemoglobin of four, which is practically dead.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my god, that's low.
SPEAKER_01:That's low. That's what I had. And so that's when people started saying, you know, you got you got something else going on here. I've even said it, you know, you escape death once, you can chalk it up to luck, you got death twice. Something else is going on here.
SPEAKER_03:What do you think that is? Was it something inspiring you to you think it was something from out of the blue, something from Ohio Paul, something from Jesus? Yes, I do. Telling you you have a purpose.
SPEAKER_01:I did not believe that at first, but then when you look back in my story, and this happened, this happened, this happened, this happened, and it kept going. When you thought that the end of the road or you got into a tough spot and you didn't know really what to do, something happened that opened the door. And now that I look back after all these years, yeah, there's definitely a higher power. Because I don't think you can chalk that up to luck when it kept happening, happening, happening, happening. I believe it to this day, is it was my mother. That's what I believe. But it took me years to figure that out. I didn't do that overnight, you know. It took me years to do that.
SPEAKER_03:But the purpose now, that's where we go into your your your journey now. That's we take us well, where when you started becoming the walking man when that, how old were how old were you when that began?
SPEAKER_01:Well, it got me back. Now I grew up an athlete. I played football, basketball, baseball, I ran track, I played tennis, swam, I did all this stuff. My former brother-in-law of my ex-wife's side, they used to do a lot of walking around the country. He said, You ought to try this. Now, what a lot of people call it speed walking. There's a there's two differences. There's speed walking and there's power walking. What I actually do in the media got it wrong years ago, is power walk, which is like that, but a little bit different technique. I started doing this. I end up, you know, I was I was in North Carolina racing, I was in Boston racing, I was in New York racing, uh, I got sponsored a little bit in Nashville, Dallas, Texas, Los Angeles, Eugene, Oregon, and the newspaper here, I would train around this town every morning. Every single Monday through Saturday, I would walk around the town square. The town is a square, it's got the courthouse in the middle, and I walk all around there. And they found me on Facebook and they wanted to do an interview, and I wouldn't do it because back then I wouldn't talk about the story. And my friends got a hold of it. Go up and tell this story. I finally agreed to go up there and I told the story. Now I knew they would put it in the newspaper. I didn't know they were gonna pop it on the front page. I really did not know that. That's where I lost control of the story that it went kind of bowel. Then came the state newspaper on the sports section. Then came the USA Today. They did a video also. Their video is still on the internet. Producers came and we did, we did four documentaries in Dallas, Texas, is where the ESPN came and talked to me. And he said, You need to write the you need to write the story. And I said, I'm not author. I'm an athlete. I don't I don't know anything about it. And we kind of we talked, but we parted ways. But when they popped this about the in the local newspaper here, they got a hold of it and they said, We told you to write the story. So I agreed to write the story. And lo and behold, at the end of it, the people from California called me, and I still think to this day it's ESPN, and they wanted to come talk to me about my story. I said, You can come down here. I'll meet you in Memphis. I'm not gonna let you come here yet. I met him in Memphis and they wanted to buy my rights and I wouldn't sell my rights. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that. I got a hold of the professor here at Ole Miss in the theater department, way up top. He said, Come over here, I'll talk to you about it. And he helped, he said, I'll I'll help you. And I wrote this thing. My own words, pretty much my own words. And they it is right there. I got the whole thing right there. That's that's probably uh close to a two-hour movie, but it's there's a lot of things in the in the racing, and a lot of things that happen along that way that's gonna make it uh jaw-dropping because people won't believe all of it, you know.
SPEAKER_03:Tell us a couple of those jaw-dropping moments. I'm all curious.
SPEAKER_01:Going through the going through the well, one of them had to be Eugene, Oregon. I was up there. It's 40 degrees and it's misty rain. You know how it does in the northwest up there. And uh that was probably the most miserable race there is. Now, you understand that a marathon is 26.2 miles and you're out there for almost six hours.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Dallas, Dallas was the one where there was a guy named, and he's in the book called Sato. Sato was a champ, and that's why ESPN came and talked to me because I upset Sato. Those moments like that you will never forget in life. And it's it was like after all that had happened, all the good stuff was coming behind it, see. I go out there every morning, still, I put in five or six miles every morning, and people toot the horn, they still toot the horn. That was a focal point of the whole town, was people would toot the horn and wave, and I would always point at them. And I I did it in the newspaper when they did the article. I said, I didn't want them to get the wrong idea. I said, that is my way of recognizing you. So they would toot the point, and I would point at them, and that's gonna be shown in the movie too. You know, that's what I did. You know, it it's it's it's it's been a hell of a journey. Uh I didn't ask for it, but you know, when it came and happened, you you know, you you got to open the door, you know. You know, and I always say this when you do a marathon, it's you against you. And you it all boils down to your mental toughness because that's you know, no matter who you are and how well you are, the bear is gonna come jump on your back. And you have to be ready for it. You have to be in the right mindset to push through that uh to get to the end.
SPEAKER_03:That's that must be something that anyone that does cross-country long-distance running must deal with that.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. I don't care who you are, it's gonna hit you, and that's where your mental condition comes in. You have to be strong-minded. A marathon is gonna hurt. You train yourself to tolerate the hurt. That's what you do. You train yourself to tolerate this hurt. They asked me not too long ago, was I gonna race again? I said, guys, I've you know, 10 years of doing professional marathons and training like that, because it takes a lot out of your day. Oh, yeah. All I did was eat, sleep, and train. You know, you get to a point you maybe gotta have Yeah, you know what the training is. I mean, you're training that you're training three or four hours every morning, and it's I tell people it is not about just the training, it is about what you eat.
SPEAKER_00:I just wanted to say that something that I thought about when you were talking about being ready for the the bear to jump on your back, um, kind of at all times. Um I went back to a race that I did um a 5k in high school. And um I remember my coach saying, You might be nervous right now because you haven't started physically running yet. But the race doesn't start right now necessarily. You are the way that you are right now is the way that you are while you're running, is the way that you are when you're done with the race. So just be in everything that you've been working on in yourself now and when the race starts and through it.
SPEAKER_01:I'm I'm the kind of person now. I know you don't know this. I am I am five foot eleven, I weigh about 192 pounds this morning. I keep in shape. And when you when you I can I'm the I'm the guy that goes from here to here real quick. I have a mindset. I I that's how I think. I go from here to there real quick, and I can do the same thing out there. I can I change my pace, I can change, I can walk on the heels of my feet first, or I can come down on the balls of my feet first. Then I throw them off. I say, look, I can actually change the way I walk and rest a certain group of muscles. I learned that over the years. Uh your muscles get tired and you change the way you do it. I can walk with my legs, or I can walk actually with my hips and leave my legs, you know, do it. I've always been very quick-footed, very quick-footed. I'm still pretty quick today. You know, I work on it every day. I believe now that if I ever stop, it's over with, it's done, I'm done. They, you know, they said ESPN said I had a God give me talent. I never thought about that. I never, you know, it's what I did every day. You know, it's just my natural DNA. So I don't think about it. I just like I told them, look, I just do what I do because I can do what I do. And that's to them, you know, they see it different to me. I never thought about it like that. I never did, you know, I never did.
SPEAKER_03:So well, I think, Busty, this is such an amazing thing to hear about this, how you always choose to get stronger. And um, that's been like, and I love your your powerful motto, which is you do not give up.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's don't never give up in life. Never give up, never give up. And you know, it there could be, you know, other things that happened and so forth, but uh when I hit that mindset, you know, that I'm gonna make it and things were happening good, then you I've I was feeding myself. If if I if something didn't work out quite right, I'm gonna make it work out, I'm gonna find a way to make it work out. You know, that's how you persevere in life. Uh you know, success does not drive up in your driveway. You have to go out there to it. And that's just my motto. I mean, just go get in life what you want. You know, you you don't just because too many young folks get out there and it's something can be hard, they just give up. They just give up. No, you don't you don't do that, you know. You gotta go get it. You gotta go get it. You gotta go get it.
SPEAKER_00:And also, like when you when you've chosen something to remind yourself that you chose this, you're choosing this.
SPEAKER_01:I choose it. I do.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So that card, like you can write, I choose I choose this. And like if you forget, you can just look at the card, like, oh, I choose this.
SPEAKER_01:I choose this. That's exactly right. Uh I I do not having come from, no, we grew up in a in a big family, you know. Well, parents taught us well, and whatever the hell, because I didn't live down, you know, with them in this latter part when all this mess happened. I didn't always look back. What in the hell happened to them after my parents left? I do not know. They've always told me that your parents are turning over in their grave. I said, Well, they probably are, because if my mom and daddy were still living, they would never have let this go on. Never, it wouldn't happen. I could tell you they were that kind of people. You know, we always were close nicked family. But having said that, you get you get into the winning attitude, and you're going this way, and that's what you're gonna do. You know, if somebody don't want to do it, fine, you have a nice life. I'm going this way. You know, I've already been that way. And I try to teach people without being a teacher, you know, take the extra step. Go the extra mile, it's never crowded, you know. And if you if you if you get to the if you're gonna get to the top, sometimes the top can be lonely, but it's peaceful, you know. So I'm a happy person. Yeah, I'm a happy person, and and I treat everybody good and I do what I need to do, and I use my head about what I'm doing out here. That's not always easy about what you gotta do, but I persevere. You know, I'll I'll figure a way out. That's why they call me MacGyver. Yeah, I'll figure the way out.
SPEAKER_03:God bless you. God bless you, Russell. This is good stuff. I think we've when we're talking about the Audience that we play to with Art of the Blue, everybody's, you know, we want to figure out what is it about what's out there. And I think your life shows that whatever is out there, you've you've identified in your heart and mind as to be your mother, and you've identified as you have higher power. And it's it's like that is alone uh isn't enough. You have to be able to act on these things. You can't just like a lot of people will um a major uh issue people have sometimes I think is they think they're gonna manifest it by sitting and thinking and manifesting, but you have to get out there and do it. It's like if you if you if you don't get out there and do it, even if it's just a little bit every day towards that goal, I think you're gonna see something happen. They will get to the top. Like, I think I love what you said about that extra mile because it's not gonna be crowded. Think of that.
SPEAKER_01:It's not there. That's right, it's not there.
SPEAKER_03:You know, not a lot of people take going the extra mile, that's why it's not crowded.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. But you know, and I I always try to tell people everything I did and have done, it's in my heart. I do it because I want to do it, I do it because it's me. There's nothing false about that. I do it because I love it, and I have I have pure intentions about it. And when you when you come from that way, people tend to feel this when I've talked to them, that the emotion of it and what you your excitement in doing things, it it it rubs off on people. They they see this to be true, you know. Um and I just use my my my talent of what I do out there uh because I enjoy it. I mean, I can put on like I told you, I was a DJ in college and I can put on music. I know music, and I that's part of the story was I use I used headphones at first. I went out there and I would dance in the street out there to this stuff, and that's how people started watching me do all this stuff, you know. And uh you you might not think that a man is 70 years old can step it. I can step it because I've never quit. I've never quit. And lifting weights helps you too. I lift a lot of weights and keep myself, my muscles, you know, toned and strong. Strength tree. I've been doing that for 20 years. That's why I was telling you, if I ever stop, it's over with.
SPEAKER_03:I hear you.
SPEAKER_01:But I keep on doing it every day. I keep on doing it.
SPEAKER_03:That's a really good message for people that hit the ages 65 and above. Don't stop living your life.
SPEAKER_01:Because if you do No, don't do no, don't do that. Don't don't stop at, you know. Uh I have I have been out here for almost 20 years walking in the streets out here, crossed 76,000 miles last week, last week trying to make a hundred thousand miles.
SPEAKER_03:Wait a minute, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I crossed it last week.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, your total mileage for not just one week.
SPEAKER_01:The total mileage, yeah. I mean, I keep up with it every day. I have it on my phone on my my Apple here. Yeah, and I put it, I keep up with it. We did a we did a documentary when I hit 50. I have now hit hit 76 past 76,000 miles. Wow. One of my one of my fellow runners who's on Facebook with me, but I've never met him and might not ever meet him. He told me that. He said, Rusty, he said, do you know that at the earth at the equator, around the earth at the equator is 24,901 mile.
SPEAKER_03:You've gone around three times.
SPEAKER_01:Three times. It's 74,703 miles. He said, You have been around the earth three times. You know, but you know, and I appreciate that because I tell people that now he told me that. I didn't, I never thought about that, but it's true. You know, that's a lot of miles. There's a lot of issues out here, you know. It's it's uh and I and I tell them, they said, I'm gonna go out there and walk with you. I said, Well, I've been doing it for years. I haven't seen anybody meet me out there yet, you know, before coffee, before I go, you know, but yeah, it it's I enjoy doing that, and people have gotten so used to seeing me out there, you know. Like I said, they'll they'll wave and they'll hunt the horn, and they still do it to this day. And people, I will stop sometimes and even talk to somebody, you know. But I am, I am probably when I'm walking and did racing, I'm not the same person. Every great competitor has a mean streak in them, and I have one too. You know, I just it's like you want to, I don't know if I describe it right, you want to fight. You want to do, you know, I'm gonna fight. It's like I did, yeah. It's like I did football. I'm gonna take you down, I'm taking you out. You know, I have that mentality, and the light switch comes on when I go out there, but I keep it out there. I keep it out.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you use it, you use that for a good purpose. It's that's you know I can relate to this almost like last week. Something happened in my life, and I got angry about it and ended up making myself do more to overcome it. And I found myself doing like I'm working on my own challenge because I had I had gotten cancer, and then I got a thing in my brain, and I lost the right my right leg, and not lose it physically, but I lost my brain, wasn't reaching it. And I have been fighting to get that back, and when this this thing happened, and all of a sudden I was so mad, and I channeled that right into doing something, and I got all the strength came to me. That anger became like a fire, and it's so important. I can't you can't forget that. That anger isn't a bad thing, it's almost like your animal self being part of you. I have making it part of the whole time, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and you are exactly right. I mean, I was like that in in in in football. I was like that when I got to college, played a lot of basketball, got really good at I I mean, I look back and you know, you you have that main streak, and every I don't care if you're Tom Brady, who you are, you're gonna have a main streak in if you're if you're an athlete. You have to win that.
SPEAKER_03:You gotta win.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you want to win. And that's what I'm saying. You have you have that at that attitude.
SPEAKER_03:You have to get a covaco. Win so many things in yourself, in the world, everything.
SPEAKER_01:And and I'm I'm kind of a uh I'm kind of a hyper person myself. You know, I walk fast every day, you know. I walk out, I can move walking, you know, and move around and and but it's all good. You know, I I I try to treat people like I want to be treated.
SPEAKER_02:That's it.
SPEAKER_01:I will help somebody if they truly need help. Okay. I've always been that way. My my parents taught me that. Um, you do what you can to help somebody. I don't mean you go overboard. I'm not helping you for life, but I will help you. Because if if you give continuously give help to somebody, then they're gonna get dependent on you. They're not gonna get up and do it themselves. So you have to have you have to have boundaries. And but to help them go and push them in the right direction, I'll be there all I'll be there every day, you know. I'll be there every day.
SPEAKER_03:What we've been hearing is sort of Rusty Nasser's uh guide to having a great life. And that what what would you say? That's right. If you would have okay, we're getting near the end. We want to leave everybody with the final um uh speech of some sort that uh to write instructions. Now what would Rust Rusty Nasser's what would you list a bunch of things that you say uh I don't care how many, three, five, list a few things that you think are essential to real living a full life, Rusty, and getting all your dreams to make them come true. What would they list be?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, based on yeah, based on my personal life, okay. I'm gonna say number one, you gotta have faith in God and gotta have faith in yourself because, like I told you, if you don't have that, you're gonna make this a lot harder than what it needs to be. Number two, you gotta go out here and make up your mind. This is what you're going to do. And you know, you can you can start on your own journey by yourself and do what you need to do. You might have friends around you, you might have family, they might not support you. You you have to kind of in your own way distance yourself. It's not that they're bad people, they just can't go where you're going.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And and do it one step at a time. And when you start making progress and you start understanding what you're doing, how much better you feel, then you'll take the next step and you'll go to the next step. Um whatever that step is. You you I always strive to be the best person I can be every day. That's my goal. I want to be better tomorrow than I am today. And that just means that you stay constant in what you're doing. Consistency leads you to where you need to be. And the number one word that you need to go to have to get there is what I did is discipline. You better learn discipline. I get up every morning at about 4:30. I get up and eat a little stuff. I go out there and hit that street every single day except Sunday, because it puts me in a good mood. You become a positive person doing this stuff. You don't have to accomplish everything at one time. You accomplish, I wake up, I say, look, I got three things I'm gonna do today. A, B, C. And when you do that, those three things, you have you have felt that you have accomplished and you feel good about what you did. If you're trying to look at 15 to do and you can't do it, you're gonna feel like you're defeated. Right. Just do three things. That's all you need to do. And every day you just move forward higher and higher and higher. And tell people the last thing most of the take care of your body. It's the only place you've got to live. Your body's the only place you got to live. So you better take care of it. If you don't have time to work on your your wellness, you're gonna you're gonna find it, you're gonna find time to to work on your illness. So true. And and so that's true. I eat healthy, I really do. But I had that cheat day on Sunday. You know, I'm going for my MMs, and I'm going for something like that because I'll eat them. But you gotta have a you gotta have a cheat day, okay?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you gotta have a little fun.
SPEAKER_01:I and I do not share my MMs with nobody. I don't. I eat every one of them I can. I'll eat them. I eat every one of them.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I can tell you this. What wrapping it up, I'm gonna say everybody's listening. If you follow the things that Rusty is explaining here, here's a man who's how many marathons have you run? Maybe over 20, 20, 10 years of marathons and probably a few a year.
SPEAKER_01:No, I I did, I did, I did 10 professional marathons. I did, I trained for one every year. Uh 10 years. And that's what I did. That's what I did. But I but I've been out there for 20 years walking.
SPEAKER_03:So, yes, I'm just gonna say, you've run 10 marathons. You've covered almost 75,000 miles on walking. And if you're gonna take some advice on how to live a good life and live it right, this is the man to listen to. Live it right, find a connection with your find, get get God or a higher power in your life. Say what you're gonna do, do it, and follow the instructions of Rusty. Get out there and make it happen. Don't quit. Don't you do not. Here's I'm gonna say it one more time. You do not, according to Rusty, you do not ever give up, right?
SPEAKER_01:Don't give up, don't give up. Go the extra mile, and you will find out that things happen when you just think you're gonna quit, is when it happens to you. Because that's what happened to me. I was about to give up until this happened to me, and that man came, and it all turned around. So, yes, it can happen, it does happen, and it will happen. And I tell them all the time, keep going, keep going, you know, it'll turn out good.
SPEAKER_03:So, thank you, Rusty. Author of walk of life from death to glory. Yes, soon to be a motion picture. So if you want to get a movie made about your life, listen to Rusty and do not you say it, Rusty. I'm gonna let you have the honor. What is it, that phrase?
SPEAKER_01:What are you going to do? Are you gonna beat this or is it going to beat you?
SPEAKER_03:You do not give up, and that's Rusty Model. Thanks for joining us today, Rusty. What a great, inspiring episode of Out of the Blue, the podcast. Thank you, Jackie. And um, oh my god, I hope to see you again, Rusty. We're gonna check back with you because we're gonna follow you along your career and your wonderful things exploding.
SPEAKER_01:I'll I'll certainly appreciate that. Jackie, I'm good to talk to you. See you too, dear. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, thank you for your inspiring story. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01:I appreciate it, my dear. And you take care of yourself. You too. Okay, have y'all have a good one.
SPEAKER_03:You too. Bye, everybody. Thank you for joining us here on Out of the Blue. Out of the Blue, the podcast. Hosted by me, Vernon West. Co-hosted by Jacqueline West, edited by Joe Gallo. Music and logo by Vernon West III. Have an out-of-the-blue story of your own you'd like to share? Reach us at info at out of the blue-thepodcast.org. Subscribe to Out of the Blue on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. And on our website, out of the bluepodcast.org. You can also check us out on Patreon for exclusive content.