Ken Rusk, the bestselling author of Blue Collar Cash and founder of Rusk Industries, shares profound insights on leadership, entrepreneurship, and designing a fulfilling life. He challenges the conventional narrative of sacrificing the present for a better tomorrow, advocating instead for building a clear life vision and living proactively. Ken emphasizes the importance of creating autonomy for employees, encouraging them to work for themselves while contributing to a greater company mission.

He recounts how personal hardships like his daughter’s battle with cancer and life lessons reshaped his priorities. Ken’s unconventional approach includes empowering employees to set personal goals, fostering ownership within teams, and enabling leaders to focus on visionary tasks by stepping back from operational details. His actionable advice inspires business owners to rethink their roles and embrace the concept of becoming "irrelevant" to daily operations, unlocking potential in their teams.

Want to learn more about Ken Rusk's work? Check out his website at https://kenrusk.com.

Connect with Ken Rusk on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-rusk-2656a7175.

Key Points with Timestamps

• 00:01:11 - Introduction of Ken Rusk, author and founder of Rusk Industries.
• 00:02:24 - Ken explains the importance of living for life, not work.
• 00:03:29 - Personal wake-up call: Ken’s daughter's cancer diagnosis reshapes his life goals.
• 00:07:02 - Ken encourages designing life goals like planning a vacation.
• 00:10:06 - The fallacy of the hero entrepreneur; becoming irrelevant to daily operations.
• 00:12:14 - Building entrepreneurial teams that drive growth independently.
• 00:16:36 - Ken shares how empowering employees creates loyalty and synergy.
• 00:23:34 - Using personal goals to inspire employee-driven results.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment of my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on the show.

00;00;51;10 - 00;01;11;16
Craig Andrews
Today I will welcome Ken Rusk. He is the president and founder of Rusk Industries. He's got a bestselling book called Blue Collar Cash. And he has a course called The Path to a Successful Life. And Ken and I just spend some time chatting in the green room, and I just,

00;01;11;16 - 00;01;20;20
Craig Andrews
I can't wait for this discussion. I think anybody running a business, regardless of what your business says, whether it's blue collar or not.

00;01;20;22 - 00;01;25;27
Craig Andrews
I think Ken has a message that will resonate. And,

00;01;25;27 - 00;01;27;19
Craig Andrews
and so,

00;01;27;19 - 00;01;29;13
Craig Andrews
Ken, welcome.

00;01;29;15 - 00;01;32;00
Ken Rusk
Thanks, Craig. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

00;01;32;03 - 00;01;53;03
Craig Andrews
Absolutely. Absolutely. So we were talking. Yeah, we talked about a lot of things. I want to revisit some of those things as as we talk. But, you know, it's really interesting. The, you know, our society, we you know, I grew up in an generation where everybody was pushed to go to college. I went to college, I went to good student high school.

00;01;53;03 - 00;01;56;22
Craig Andrews
So I went in the Marine Corps first thing college. And,

00;01;56;22 - 00;02;15;25
Craig Andrews
but we're kind of waking up to a time of, hey, you know, it's the blue collar. Guys are really making the, the bank these days, but I think your message before we dig in, all that your message is really about just figure out who you are and do that.

00;02;15;27 - 00;02;17;22
Craig Andrews
Is that.

00;02;17;25 - 00;02;24;06
Ken Rusk
Yeah, that's absolutely right, Craig. I mean, if you think about it, you know, we don't necessarily work.

00;02;24;06 - 00;02;39;09
Ken Rusk
We don't necessarily live to work. Okay. You've heard that before. We work so that we can, in fact, live. You know, there's 24 hours in a day you're working eight hours of those, you're hopefully sleeping eight hours of those, and then you're doing something else for eight hours of those days.

00;02;39;12 - 00;02;57;13
Ken Rusk
And I have always wanted to know what that extra eight hours was, because there's a reason everybody goes to work. And I think you should know what that is. And and for me, you know, the real win at the end of the day is not the degree you have on the wall, or necessarily even the position you have as much as it is.

00;02;57;16 - 00;03;14;23
Ken Rusk
You know, I don't necessarily care what you do for a living. I want to know what you do with what you do for a living. In other words, how have you created a life for yourself regardless of what you do? What did that look like? Did you start out wanting to know or seeing that very clearly? And then did you go after it?

00;03;14;23 - 00;03;19;24
Ken Rusk
Because at the end of the day, living well is obviously is a win, right?

00;03;19;27 - 00;03;29;15
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well then you had you had something hit you in life, you know, kind of one of those wake up calls that made you reassess that. Well what was that?

00;03;29;17 - 00;03;52;18
Ken Rusk
Well, yeah. You know, one day my daughter came to me and said that she had a dark spot on her eye and she couldn't figure it out. And we took her to one doctor, an optometrist. And that led to an ophthalmologist. And that led to an oncologist. And that led to the Cleveland Clinic. And then in Philadelphia, I center and called Wills Eye, and she actually had cancer and,

00;03;52;18 - 00;03;55;20
Ken Rusk
12 year old little girl, you know, playing softball and,

00;03;55;20 - 00;03;56;20
Ken Rusk
just unbelievable.

00;03;56;21 - 00;04;04;16
Ken Rusk
So you have a lot of time to spend when, you know, that's a very scary five years for us to get her her, you know, well,

00;04;04;16 - 00;04;18;01
Ken Rusk
for her mother, for myself and for her, obviously. And I'm sitting there in these oncology rooms and, you know, ultrasound rooms and doctor's offices, and I'm thinking if I could teach her something about life, what would it be?

00;04;18;02 - 00;04;35;19
Ken Rusk
You know, I've been chasing dollars my whole life. I've been building companies my whole life. What would it be? So I just thought, you know, everyone has their own version of what they want their life to look like. And the three words comfort, peace and freedom just wouldn't go away. Craig, I just couldn't get rid of these words in my in my mind.

00;04;35;19 - 00;04;58;19
Ken Rusk
So I knew that would have been part of the book. And so I just started writing letters to her about what I thought she should be chasing. And it is your own version of comfort, your own version of peace, and your own version of freedom. And everyone has their own idea of what that is, you see. So it's not like we're all chasing yachts and 15 cars and mega-mansion and being influencers or rap stars.

00;04;58;19 - 00;05;11;29
Ken Rusk
I mean, we all have our own perfect way that we want to live. Why aren't we starting to explore that? Look at that. Because that should be really the driver of whatever you do for a living. White color, pink collar, blue collar, whatever it is.

00;05;12;01 - 00;05;15;20
Craig Andrews
So my wife shared a statistic with me.

00;05;15;20 - 00;05;17;03
Craig Andrews
She was studying,

00;05;17;03 - 00;05;25;15
Craig Andrews
suicide rates. Weird subject. If you had to guess, a demographic that had the highest suicide rate. What? Which demographic would you think it'd be?

00;05;25;18 - 00;05;32;29
Ken Rusk
Well, first off, I know it's the military, unfortunately, but I would say beyond that, probably well-educated people.

00;05;33;02 - 00;05;36;29
Craig Andrews
Middle aged men, middle aged men,

00;05;36;29 - 00;05;37;26
Craig Andrews
have the highest,

00;05;37;26 - 00;05;56;09
Craig Andrews
suicide rates. And I think some of what's behind that is they spent so much of their career getting to one point, and they're now kind of stuck. They have a family and they're not happy with what they're doing, but they feel stuck.

00;05;56;11 - 00;06;03;17
Ken Rusk
Well, I can I can totally see that happening because again, there are so many people that have this,

00;06;03;17 - 00;06;20;12
Ken Rusk
if then kind of lifestyle, okay, if I go to high school and if I get good grades and if I get a scholarship and if I go to college and if I get this degree that everybody wants me to have, and then if I get a good job and if that job pays well, well, then at some point I can start living my life.

00;06;20;14 - 00;06;42;11
Ken Rusk
I think that is absolutely backwards. And that's why I said earlier, I think people need to, you know, when you think about it. Correct. Everyone's really good at planning a vacation. Okay, I'm going to go to the beach and put my feet in the sand. I'm going to put on my Coppertone number eight suntan lotion. I'm going to get the umbrella out with my margarita and get my music on the warm breeze and the ocean coming in.

00;06;42;11 - 00;07;02;07
Ken Rusk
I mean, I just love it. And we anticipate that for 3 or 4 months. We call it spring break, right? And we know it down to the most minute detail. Well, if we're so good at planning vacations, why are we good at planning all aspects of our life and then living that anticipatory fashion the same way you would a vacation?

00;07;02;09 - 00;07;15;15
Ken Rusk
We've all been trained to do this already. It's not that difficult, but when you have your whole life kind of going on different paths and you're you're progressing towards that, that eventuality, it makes your life a wholly,

00;07;15;15 - 00;07;18;24
Ken Rusk
I mean, a completely interesting way to live. And,

00;07;18;24 - 00;07;22;17
Ken Rusk
you don't just wake up and go, well, I guess I'll wait for life to happen to me.

00;07;22;23 - 00;07;30;16
Ken Rusk
No. Hell, no. You got to start happening to your life. And I think that's that's what's missing in most of these things.

00;07;30;18 - 00;07;49;16
Craig Andrews
So here's the tension in that the, you know, so the first category you mentioned, you're like, okay, I need to do these things. You know, if I'm a business owner, I need to get my business to this point so that I can do these things. And what you're saying is that it's that's backwards.

00;07;49;18 - 00;08;08;18
Ken Rusk
Yeah, that's absolutely backwards. I knew I had a whole collection of things that I manifested into my life from the time I was 23, when I first opened the doors of my company to, to this very day. Okay. That you have to have you have to have a life for everything. Okay? People are like, you know,

00;08;08;18 - 00;08;11;25
Ken Rusk
well, you're lucky you're there's an entrepreneur guy wrong.

00;08;11;27 - 00;08;26;23
Ken Rusk
Here's a cran, here's some paper draw entrepreneur for me. You can't because it's just a concept, right? You can't draw that word. What is an entrepreneur? An entrepreneur is someone who has vision, discipline. They have,

00;08;26;23 - 00;08;29;07
Ken Rusk
they're resilient. They're persistent. They have,

00;08;29;07 - 00;08;33;01
Ken Rusk
initiative. They have faith, they have courage, they have generosity.

00;08;33;01 - 00;08;40;21
Ken Rusk
They have humility. But the reason they have those characteristics, Craig, is because they're after some greater picture for themselves.

00;08;40;24 - 00;08;58;24
Ken Rusk
And that's why I say you can't just wait until somehow you get money to start living. Although it's not even about money, it's about the memories you create with that money. My point is, start out with a very clear picture of what you want your life to look like, and then take one of the hundred different paths to getting there.

00;08;58;27 - 00;09;14;18
Ken Rusk
Because my my thinking is the eight hours you spend at home with your family and your friends, and whatever you do is more valuable than that. Eight hours you spend at work every day because you really are working. So you can live. And let's start exploring what that means.

00;09;14;20 - 00;09;28;14
Craig Andrews
You know, so. Break that down. Help me visualize what that would look like for, let's just say me as a business owner or someone else as a business owner.

00;09;28;14 - 00;09;36;12
Craig Andrews
How do you. Because I think that's the tension, right? Anybody who has a business, they just, you know, you never. I remember telling my wife once,

00;09;36;12 - 00;09;37;09
Craig Andrews
she said,

00;09;37;09 - 00;09;41;17
Craig Andrews
she was wanting to do, you know, go away for the weekend or spend some time with family.

00;09;41;17 - 00;10;06;04
Craig Andrews
And she said, but imagine you're busy at work or you're behind on at work and said, Karen, I'm always going to be behind the rest of my life. I'm behind. That's just it. We gotta make choices. Outside of that. And so but how do you how do you break that down for a business owner that's trying to figure out how to make these choices?

00;10;06;06 - 00;10;26;01
Ken Rusk
Okay. So there is no there. Let me just put you this way. So you go home and you brag. Not you specifically, but a business owner and goes home and brags to his wife or her husband. Man, look at me, I change this, I fix this, I design this, I created that, I yelled at this person. I held that person accountable.

00;10;26;05 - 00;10;30;05
Ken Rusk
I motivated this guy, okay, I did all this stuff.

00;10;30;05 - 00;10;35;19
Ken Rusk
I worked 70 hours. I don't know my kid's first name or what sport he plays in, and,

00;10;35;19 - 00;10;48;05
Ken Rusk
I have diabetes, high blood pressure. And, you know, I'm stressed to the hilt, but I have a few bucks in my pocket. There's no hero in that. That's why I keep telling people that there's no hero in you saying, man, I'm this person.

00;10;48;05 - 00;11;04;01
Ken Rusk
I do it all. I'm the owner. I'm the big guy. I'm all that. That to me, is a fallacy. Find me the guy who can run a company and work 40 hours a week and still play golf, still hang out with his kids, still take his hobbies, still be hanging out with his wife, walk his dog in the park.

00;11;04;03 - 00;11;22;14
Ken Rusk
That's the guy. Or that's the girl that I'm telling you is the one that's the real winner. Because they figured out a way to make their themselves irrelevant to their company. And there goes the bomb. I can hear all these people in your audience going, what do you mean? I I'm oh, I own the place. I can't become irrelevant to it.

00;11;22;16 - 00;11;41;29
Ken Rusk
Well, you better become irrelevant to it, because if you're so deep in the trenches, how can you be the visionary? How can you be the leader, the motivator? How can you drive this company not one mile into the future? Ten, 15, 20, 100 miles into the future? How can you do that if you're just stuck in the mechanical part of your company?

00;11;41;29 - 00;12;14;18
Ken Rusk
So starting tomorrow, go in your company, offload everything you do other than the visionary driving part of your business, because in order for you to pull that off, you're going to have to create a network of entrepreneurialism people around you. Now, what is an inntrepreneur and Inntrepreneur is something where maybe they don't want to take the risk of buying 40 dump trucks like I had to do, or the workers comp or the Labor Relations Board or any of those kinds of things that come into play.

00;12;14;20 - 00;12;38;21
Ken Rusk
From, from a risk perspective. But yet they still want to feel like they have some leadership. So give them a division, let them run it, let them do the input, the output, the cost, the budgeting, the results, the financial statements. Let them create ownership within the ownership of your company and then just reward them for it. And here's what's going to happen, because it happened to me.

00;12;38;24 - 00;13;01;22
Ken Rusk
You're going to have this group of entrepreneurs that are going to push you in that company way further than you can ever push it yourself. So again, let go of the ego. Stop trying to be the hero, become irrelevant to your company. You will love your life and you'll probably have 30, 40, 50, 60, 100% more results in your company than you've ever had before.

00;13;01;25 - 00;13;04;22
Craig Andrews
Yeah, you know, I last year I read,

00;13;04;22 - 00;13;19;17
Craig Andrews
Lee Iacocca autobiography, and he he said that he didn't work weekends. Sunday night, he would go in and he'd review what was coming up in the next week. And that was the closest thing to working a weekend that he'd do.

00;13;19;17 - 00;13;28;00
Craig Andrews
And. You know, and, and of course, he was doing this while he was turning around, you know, Chrysler,

00;13;28;00 - 00;13;32;14
Craig Andrews
and and just doing what everybody thought was impossible.

00;13;32;16 - 00;13;33;02
Craig Andrews
And,

00;13;33;02 - 00;13;47;17
Craig Andrews
and I think what you said is the to have to be able to have that vision, to have that creativity, it's hard to have that have that when there's so much pressure. That's just more turning the crank when things.

00;13;47;20 - 00;14;22;09
Ken Rusk
Exactly. I mean, you have to remember that if you and I talked about this in the book, your brain can only take so much input and, and, you know, import export kind of thing. And specifically when it comes to emotions, if you've got stress, fear, frustration, jealousy, paranoia, you know, if you have those types of things running around in your brain, which a lot of entrepreneurs have, you don't have room for spontaneity, creativity,

00;14;22;09 - 00;14;23;16
Ken Rusk
innovation,

00;14;23;16 - 00;14;26;00
Ken Rusk
you know, deep thought.

00;14;26;03 - 00;14;47;13
Ken Rusk
You know, maybe curiosity about the future. You don't have room for those things. So you're going to be stuck in this mechanical thing and you're going to wake up 1020, 30 years later going, what the hell happened in my life? When in fact, you allow life just to happen to you and you just spent your life reacting to everything like someone reacts when they open the door in the wintertime?

00;14;47;15 - 00;14;52;14
Ken Rusk
Well, I better put a coat on. Right. You just react to all these outside.

00;14;52;14 - 00;14;54;06
Ken Rusk
You know, these outside sensory,

00;14;54;06 - 00;15;08;23
Ken Rusk
whatever you want to call them. Senses and you don't ever proact. You don't ever get out of this thing and go, wait a minute. I'm supposed to be looking way ahead driving this thing. How can I do that if I'm stuck with these tools in my hand?

00;15;08;23 - 00;15;37;01
Ken Rusk
So I'm just encouraging people to understand, and and I'll tell you why this is so important to me. I one time took a bunch of these entrepreneurial candidates in my in my conference room, and I said to them, I said, hey, everybody, here's a little piece of paper and a pencil. I want you to write down how much more this company could do this year than we currently have been doing, because we were we were rising, but stock and and rising and stock and rising and plateauing.

00;15;37;03 - 00;15;44;10
Ken Rusk
And I gave them all a piece of paper, once you know it, that their numbers were all 1 to $2 million that year, higher than mine was.

00;15;45;12 - 00;15;45;23
Ken Rusk
And

00;15;45;23 - 00;16;16;27
Ken Rusk
and I didn't even show my number because I was too embarrassed. I didn't even write it down. Okay, you are your own self limiter. I guarantee it because you're just one person, one body, one mind. And chances are, there's a lot of people around you that have given the devices and also given the ability to share in that newfound money, which cost you nothing as a as a as a entrepreneur, business owner, you better do that because that company and those people will drive it way further than you can do it yourself.

00;16;17;01 - 00;16;33;10
Ken Rusk
I'm proof from the pudding. It happened to me. I we've never looked back since that day that was 15 years ago. And we've never looked back. That every year they just keep hitting their numbers and they they win off of it because they get to share in the the newfound money. But why not? It's not my money to begin with.

00;16;33;14 - 00;16;36;07
Ken Rusk
They help me find it. So let them have.

00;16;36;09 - 00;16;39;07
Craig Andrews
Well, you know, I think one thing that everybody, you know,

00;16;39;07 - 00;16;56;05
Craig Andrews
everybody runs into is we, we have assumptions. And that's some of what you're talking about. And we have these assumptions end up being limiting beliefs. And I you know, I think about one guy, a guy named John Spoelstra, his son is, the coach of the Miami Heat, but he was the,

00;16;56;05 - 00;16;57;15
Craig Andrews
the president of the,

00;16;57;15 - 00;16;59;08
Craig Andrews
Portland

00;16;59;08 - 00;17;03;20
Craig Andrews
Trailblazers, back in the 80s before Paul Allen bought it.

00;17;03;22 - 00;17;06;28
Craig Andrews
And he would do these little sessions,

00;17;06;28 - 00;17;12;25
Craig Andrews
strategy sessions and where they were talking about growth. And one guy said, why don't we buy a satellite? And,

00;17;12;25 - 00;17;28;11
Craig Andrews
you know, which is, you know, a little more, you know, a little more accessible these days. That was back then. And first it sounded like a crazy idea. But as they explored it, that ended up to leading to them syndicating their games, it became a make them buy a satellite.

00;17;28;11 - 00;17;46;12
Craig Andrews
But they rented time on satellite. But he would've never come up with that idea on his own, because it just seemed crazy. And it's one of his employees that was bold enough to say something that maybe, at first blush, sounded stupid, and then him to sit back and say, well, let's let's flesh that out.

00;17;46;15 - 00;17;50;01
Ken Rusk
Well, and I can tell you, you know, you hit it on the head there, there is,

00;17;50;01 - 00;18;07;28
Ken Rusk
there's probably several satellite conversations in every one of your listeners businesses right now that are undiscovered, because no one's asking the question, or at least they're not even giving them a platform to ask the question, okay? They're not getting them in a room and saying, hey, everybody, why don't we do this?

00;18;08;00 - 00;18;21;29
Ken Rusk
We're at, let's say, 10 million in revenue. Do you think we could get to? Well, you guys tell me, what can we get to? They'll come back at 12 and then you say, okay, great. Now when we do hit 12, I'm going to share part of that with every one of you. And we're going to do it in Cancun.

00;18;21;29 - 00;18;25;22
Ken Rusk
It's them all inclusive. In February of next year.

00;18;25;24 - 00;18;26;15
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00;18;26;17 - 00;18;49;16
Ken Rusk
Get out of their way Craig, because they're going to come. First off it's a free vacation. Secondly, they probably wouldn't book an extravagant thing like that on their own. Okay. But thirdly, they feel in control. And you've just launched the entrepreneurial spirit of a half a dozen or so people around you that are going to take this thing and like one of those long rowing boats, you know, you're just the guy screaming the horn in the back.

00;18;49;16 - 00;19;09;12
Ken Rusk
They're all just rowing this thing as fast as they can, and you're getting over the finish line and they get rewarded on a monthly, quarterly, yearly, and then trip wise basis. And again, they feel like they're in control of their own departments. I don't go in there and micromanage any of these people I am I see what they're doing.

00;19;09;12 - 00;19;34;02
Ken Rusk
I see their results. I, I kind of the good news is I feel like I'm above the building, hovering in a helicopter, and I'm looking down at these different pieces and parts going, okay, I can plug myself in there tomorrow I'll plug myself in there and that's the beauty of doing it. The freedom you get to become that entrepreneur you've always wanted to be is just amazing, because you literally have no daily routine anymore.

00;19;34;02 - 00;19;41;07
Ken Rusk
You just kind of plug yourself in where you see fit. They love it, I love it, and the whole thing just kind of moves forward well.

00;19;41;07 - 00;19;58;08
Craig Andrews
And one of the things I hear you talking about and that that that's like a big subject for me is autonomy. And I'm looking at, you know, I look at it from like marketing and sales processes where a lot of marketing and sales, a lot of sales strategies try to take away autonomy. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00;19;58;08 - 00;20;09;04
Craig Andrews
If you want to drive sales up, give your prospect more autonomy. The more they feel like they don't have a choice, the more they're going to resist moving forward. And the,

00;20;09;04 - 00;20;20;22
Craig Andrews
and I remember seeing all the way back in the pandemic, I started seeing some really weird behavior at the grocery store. That just was weird and not not, let's just say, not good behavior.

00;20;20;24 - 00;20;21;24
Craig Andrews
Was a little bit rude.

00;20;21;24 - 00;20;22;25
Craig Andrews
And,

00;20;22;25 - 00;20;42;20
Craig Andrews
rude in Texas, where, you know, we're heavily armed state people are normally very polite here, and, and, and the thing that hit me, I was like, these people have had their autonomy taken away, and they're acting out. They're misbehaving. We see it in kids. You you put the restriction on kids.

00;20;42;20 - 00;20;57;18
Craig Andrews
And I'm not saying that you shouldn't have restrictions, but usually when they're acting out is often where they're trying to test those boundaries. And what you're saying is give people the autonomy to go do amazing things.

00;20;57;21 - 00;21;24;01
Ken Rusk
How else would you ever discover what they're capable of? I mean, you'll start to learn things that. Here's a great example. We had a receptionist here, Sharp Gal really sharp, and my bookkeeper got in this horrible accident. She'd been with me for 20 some years at the time. Like my sister, practically one of the very first employees we had incapacitated, to the point where she couldn't do that job anymore.

00;21;24;04 - 00;21;51;01
Ken Rusk
So, you know, we're having this discussion. We're trying to hire somebody else. You know, this gal at the front desk is handing me all these applications. And finally, one day after we interviewed 5 or 6 people, she said, you know, I used to be like an assistant controller at my last job. And I'm like, you're kidding me. I mean, that's exactly what we're looking for right now.

00;21;51;03 - 00;22;20;27
Ken Rusk
If she wouldn't have said that to me, okay, she wouldn't be the vice president of our company right now, vice president, controller of our company right now, because she was an absolute perfect fit, perfect match. And we started we started putting it out there that we are in need of this service. And but, I mean, if I had just gone the traditional way thinking, oh, she's just a receptionist and I'm going to hire off of it indeed or something, I would have never seen this perfectly polished gem sitting right at the front desk.

00;22;20;27 - 00;22;46;05
Ken Rusk
So to your point, if you don't know the history, if you don't know the personal lives, if if you don't have them chasing something within your company is, then you got people that are just either polishing a seat or waiting for Friday. And that's just no way to to to grow a company. So, you know, we actually have a big black glass board in the hallway.

00;22;46;05 - 00;23;08;21
Ken Rusk
It's like eight feet by eight feet. And you can't work here if you don't have a a goal written up on that board in precise, actionable language with timed pathways. And you know, today's January 1st I'm going to Scotland to see my cousin. It's going to cost me $4,000. I'm going to save 40 bucks a week for two years.

00;23;08;24 - 00;23;34;14
Ken Rusk
In January of 2027, I'm going to Scotland to visit my cousin. Sign dated for all to see. Craig because now, now you've got at least a couple of hundred people chasing something for themselves, which in effect means they're working for themselves first and you second. And that's okay. That's how you want it to be. Not the opposite where I tell you what to do.

00;23;34;14 - 00;23;41;19
Ken Rusk
And if you're lucky, I'll give you some money. And. No. Screw that. That's that's the old way of doing things. And that and that certainly didn't work these days.

00;23;41;21 - 00;24;01;13
Craig Andrews
Well, you know, that ties into something you you mentioned in the green room. You said something when I, when I heard it was like, this is a controversial statement. You said that you want employees to be as selfish as possible. And I think most people will find that shocking. What does that mean? And what why is that? Why is that make sense?

00;24;01;16 - 00;24;04;26
Ken Rusk
Well, if you took the word selfish in a literal sense, that would mean,

00;24;04;26 - 00;24;19;21
Ken Rusk
you know, someone who is gaining for themselves and hurting others at the same time. You know, typically I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about someone who is focusing on themselves and they're working for themselves first in the company. Second, let me explain why I say that.

00;24;19;24 - 00;24;47;09
Ken Rusk
So most companies are linear creatures. You have input coming in from the one side, which is typically people, activity, work creation, product or service. Something is created. Right. And then that product, there's a price tag put on that product and then it gets sold delivered, implemented and then paid for. And hopefully at the end of that line there's profit.

00;24;47;12 - 00;25;07;02
Ken Rusk
Well, guess where you are as a business owner. You're at the end of the line. You're hoping that there's something in it for you. And all that activity clears. So why wouldn't you want the people working within that lineage between you and them? Why wouldn't you want those people to win as much as they possibly can for themselves?

00;25;07;05 - 00;25;27;26
Ken Rusk
Because if they do, they're likely to be loyal. They're likely to stay here. They're likely to work harder. They're likely to to be efficient. They're they're they're they're wholly focused on their next win for themselves. And the only way they can do that is by being really good at what they do. Think of what I just described there.

00;25;27;26 - 00;25;54;11
Ken Rusk
I've just described a Super Bowl winning winning team. And and you're the you're the, the owner sitting up in the in the box. Kind of like watching this whole thing happen. If you have enough people that are working for themselves, then you have synergy and momentum like you couldn't build. You couldn't build it on your own. Because no matter what you say, no matter how motivating you are, you're never going to fill it.

00;25;54;11 - 00;26;04;10
Ken Rusk
Check the boxes for all those people. They need to check their own boxes, and once that happens, get out of the way because they're going to take this thing way further than you can take it yourself, I assure you.

00;26;04;12 - 00;26;09;02
Craig Andrews
Well, well. And you know someone else, another,

00;26;09;02 - 00;26;11;21
Craig Andrews
general manager from the 80s that reminds me of is,

00;26;11;21 - 00;26;29;05
Craig Andrews
Jack Walsh. Yeah, he said he doesn't want managers. He says managers control people. He said, I want leaders that are having to learn how to run so fast that they can barely stay ahead of the people they're leading because they're energized.

00;26;29;08 - 00;26;29;23
Craig Andrews
And,

00;26;29;23 - 00;26;32;14
Craig Andrews
and that's really, you know, and that's really it,

00;26;32;14 - 00;26;41;02
Craig Andrews
you know, and I think back to the, you know, when I went to, coma back in 2021, and I look at what my team did,

00;26;41;02 - 00;26;54;16
Craig Andrews
they, you know, I think they would say that they were doing it for me. But when I really look at what they did, because they went so above and beyond, I think they were doing it for themselves.

00;26;54;18 - 00;27;07;16
Craig Andrews
You know, not not in a, you know, a selfish way, but they just they each had a, a motivation and that made them one step up and deliver their best. It was amazing.

00;27;07;18 - 00;27;36;16
Ken Rusk
Well, yeah. And if you think about it that says by something in their self, I mean whatever that motivation was, whether it was to show you how good they were or or to or to honor you in the fact that you were ill or to, you know, keep their job or to create a future for themselves. Some security, all those things are, you know, in a positive way, self-centered things, their preservation, all things.

00;27;36;19 - 00;27;39;21
Ken Rusk
And that's okay. That's what you want.

00;27;39;21 - 00;27;39;28
Ken Rusk
Here's.

00;27;40;06 - 00;27;49;12
Craig Andrews
Here's here's where it gets weird. They were being told I was going to be dead in a few weeks. That's the one job security.

00;27;49;14 - 00;27;56;24
Ken Rusk
Like. Wow. Well, well, then it might. You just call that divine intervention? That maybe. But,

00;27;56;24 - 00;28;05;12
Ken Rusk
I again, I applaud every one of them because, you know, they did some great things and you obviously made it through and, you know, things are good now. So that's that's awesome.

00;28;05;14 - 00;28;14;15
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, can this is just been really interesting I love I love the perspective. There's so much we could have talked about.

00;28;14;15 - 00;28;22;09
Craig Andrews
Yeah. We talked about you know what what the education systems producing maybe that's discussion for another time.

00;28;22;09 - 00;28;31;27
Craig Andrews
But I think I really like the points that, that you've made here. And I think it's valuable to aim by whether they're in a blue collar job or not.

00;28;31;29 - 00;28;36;04
Craig Andrews
And I think people would want to reach out to you. How did they reach you?

00;28;36;07 - 00;28;42;09
Ken Rusk
Well, they can go to Ken Ruskin and you'll see the book there again, Wall Street,

00;28;42;09 - 00;29;04;27
Ken Rusk
the Wall Street Journal, in their in their wisdom, somehow made it a bestseller. I, I'm I'm wholly blessed. I'm eternally grateful and shocked at all at the same time. So what I did is I wanted to make sure that I put this course as a, as a finisher to the book, because so many times people read books, they put them up on the shelf, and then you ask them, well, how did that book affect your life?

00;29;05;02 - 00;29;16;22
Ken Rusk
Oh, that was a good book. I don't really remember what I, I don't really remember what I did because of that book, but I did read it. So I wanted to make sure that I could get this course out there that people could take. And,

00;29;16;22 - 00;29;28;00
Ken Rusk
it's eight sessions. It's only 45 minutes a session. You can get it done in a week or a month, but I guarantee you it will change the way you look at this afternoon in your lifetime.

00;29;28;00 - 00;29;46;13
Ken Rusk
Not next week, next month, next year. You will change the way you think today. Guaranteed. This thing is $179. I donate the money to charity. Anyway, my life was good before I wrote this book and it wasn't about that. This is all about my to whom much is given, much is expected moment. And,

00;29;46;13 - 00;29;50;16
Ken Rusk
I want to make sure that I cut the learning curve for leaders and entrepreneurs that are coming up behind me.

00;29;50;19 - 00;29;54;13
Ken Rusk
And so I wanted to put this information out there that can help them do that.

00;29;54;16 - 00;29;57;12
Craig Andrews
Well, that's, that's awesome. Well,

00;29;57;12 - 00;29;59;04
Craig Andrews
I hope people reach out and connect.

00;29;59;04 - 00;30;00;28
Craig Andrews
I just appreciate the,

00;30;00;28 - 00;30;04;18
Craig Andrews
the vision that you brought to this. Thanks for being on Layers and Legacies.

00;30;04;18 - 00;30;07;29
Ken Rusk
You got, Greg. Thanks for having me.

00;30;07;29 - 00;30;34;23
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Alize for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this

00;30;34;23 - 00;30;36;18
Craig Andrews
episode on social media.

00;30;36;20 - 00;31;00;02
Craig Andrews
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00;31;00;04 - 00;31;08;09
Craig Andrews
Please go ahead and subscribe your thumbs up! Ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show. It means a lot to me.

00;31;08;09 - 00;33;10;14
Craig Andrews
It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Alize for me.com. or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.