#642： Finding Money and Meaning in the Blue Collar Trades
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Summary
When it comes to living their best life and building substantial wealth, many young men s first thoughts turn to developing a new app or starting a popular YouTube channel. They don t think about digging ditches. That s how my guest today became a millionaire.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast. When it comes
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to living their best life and building substantial wealth, many young men's first thoughts turn
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to developing a new app or starting a popular YouTube channel. They don't think about digging
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ditches. That's how my guest today became a millionaire. He thinks more folks should
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consider seeking not only financial success, but true comfort, peace and freedom by rejecting
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today's standardized white collar career path and looking into alternative routes through
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the skilled trades. His name is Ken Rusk. He's a construction business entrepreneur who's
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also been a life coach and mentored to hundreds of his employees. And he's the author of Blue
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Collar Cash, Love Your Work, Secure Your Future and Find Happiness for Life. Ken and I began
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our conversation with how a guy who got a job digging ditches in high school and skipped
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college went on to create a multi-million dollar construction business. We then talk about how
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there aren't enough people pursuing blue collar work and how this skills gap regarding the
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trade is driving up demand and in turn, the potential income to be made in this field.
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Ken talks about the cost benefit analysis of going to college versus learning a skilled
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trade and the advantages to the latter. He then explains the often underappreciated reward
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of blue collar work, which he calls the step back moment. From there, Ken shares some stories
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of folks who found fulfillment pursuing blue collar work, even made the switch later in life.
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Along the way, Ken shares the life advice he gives employees and job seekers about how to manage
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their money, set goals and pursue their own version of happiness and success. After the show's
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over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash blue collar cash.
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So you are the author of the book, Blue Collar Cash, Love Your Work, Secure Your Future and
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Find Happiness for Life. And you yourself are also a blue collar construction entrepreneur.
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In fact, you've been called the million dollar ditch digger. Well, tell us, let's talk about
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your story, how you got to where you are. How did you become the million dollar ditch digger?
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Well, you know, it's kind of interesting because when I was 15 in high school,
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in order to, you know, after school, we would go to the local carryout and hang out there for a
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little while, like a lot of kids did. And in order to get there, I had to cross through a fence that
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connected my high school with a small industrial park. And I used to walk by this building every day.
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And this building had a lot of energy coming in and out of it all the time. And one day I decided
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I knew some people that worked there and I walked in and said, what do you guys do? And I got hired
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in. And this was a company that actually dug ditches around houses to correct wet basements
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and crawl spaces. And so that's what I did. I dug ditches in the summertime and in the wintertime,
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And from there, so you were doing this in high school. When you graduated high school,
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did you go to college or did you think, I'm just going to stick doing what I'm doing right now,
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digging ditches? You know, it's funny because when I was in 10th grade, I remember the teacher
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saying, you know, raise your hand if you're going to college. And I remember only about a third or
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a half of the guys did that in the school, in the classroom. And I thought, well, that seems pretty
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balanced, you know, because some kids are going on to a trade or a skill or working in a family
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business or what have you. I was one of those people who I had some brothers who went to college
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and I thought, well, that's just what I'm supposed to do. So I tried doing it for just a couple
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of months. And it just was, as I was approaching going to school, I knew it wasn't for me. And as
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I went into the classroom, I thought, you know, this just isn't for me. I liked making money. I
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liked working with my hands. I liked being outside. And so, yeah, I stuck with ditch digging.
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Well, yeah, you had a conversation with your dad where you had this opportunity where your boss,
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I think he wanted you to hit the road to help build some franchises for the business. And you were
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saying that I can do this or I can stay in school. And your dad was like, sounds like you know what
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you want to do. So go do what you want to do. Well, you know, if you think about it, you know,
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I had some skills from working in the office and I was just dangerous enough to send to a new place
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to help them open. And here I am, a young kid, and I'm going out and I'm building out office buildings
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where we were going to put these franchises and hiring people and, you know, pulling permits and
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doing all those kinds of things. And I just thought to myself, you know, what a better education than
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to go learn how to open a company or something on someone else's dime, if you will. So, yeah,
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I took all the skills that I learned from, you know, doing the actual work, the jackhammers and
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the dump trucks and the shovels, and I kind of put it to good use.
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So you're doing this, you're working for someone else, you're traveling the country,
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helping opening these franchises, these offices. At what point did you springboard on your own?
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Well, I, you know, since I was younger, I always kind of wanted to be in control of my own destiny.
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And I think that was the important thing for me. At some point, you know, if you're living out of a
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suitcase for three or four years, that gets pretty old pretty quickly. And so I remember I came home and
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talked to my wife and we had an opportunity to move out to Toledo, Ohio, which is a couple hours
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away from where we had grew up. And yeah, we took it. We just, we jumped on it. We, we got a small
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loan and we came out here and we opened the company up in 1986 and we've been doing it ever since.
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And is your company, you're, you're still digging ditches that you're coming. Is it a contracting
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Yeah. It's, it's, um, you know, we started with like six employees and now there's,
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and there's nearly 200 of us. And, um, we, that's what we do. We, uh, we, we, we waterproof
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foundations and basements and we jackhammer up floors and we dig a lot of ditches. And, uh, you know,
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that, that opportunity has helped to kind of springboard some other construction things that
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I'm involved in and some investments and things. And, and so it's, it's been a pretty good ride so far.
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Yeah. So the book's about, you're making the case for blue collar work and you start off the book
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talking about how in America we're having this crisis with the workforce, particularly there's
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a skills gap. What is the skills gap and kind of walk us through like what, what's, what effect is
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it having on the economy? Well, you know, back in the seventies and eighties, when I was in high school,
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there was shop class and you could learn welding and plumbing and carpentry and electrical,
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and you could learn car mechanics and home economics and all those kinds of things.
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At some point somebody decided, well, let's, let's take, let's get rid of all the lathes and all
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the equipment and all the tools and let's put computers in those rooms. Now, obviously we had
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to learn how to use computers. That's, that's a given, but I never really thought it was a binary
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choice, one or the other. I mean, why couldn't we have both? Right? So it, that started a process
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where millions of kids just didn't discover by accident what, you know, how cool it is to build
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something or to create something or to weld something or to bake something or to fix something.
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And if, if you put that scenario on top of the fact that, you know, now these kids are growing up,
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unfortunately with just cell phones and games in their hand and, you know, iPads and that kind of
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thing, we don't have a lot of discovery of, of blue collar work where you're working with your
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hands. And, you know, the, the perfect storm of those two confluences along with we're funneling
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everybody into college. We're really creating this giant gap of people willing to work with their hands
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and it's creating a huge supply and demand issue. And as you know, anywhere supply is low and demand
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is high, that's right where the money goes. Do we have any idea, like the numbers of like how many
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jobs are going unfulfilled because people can't find qualified candidates?
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Well, I'll just put it to you this way for every five electricians whose average age right now is in
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the mid fifties for every five electricians who are retiring, there's only one coming online.
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So you can figure out real quick what's going to happen there. If that continues, there are millions of
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jobs that could be filled that are going unfilled. And now people are waiting, you know, weeks and
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months just to get a plumber out to their house or to get a finished carpenter out or a stone mason,
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like in my case. Well, that's an interesting point. So another factor contributing to the crisis is that
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you have a lot of people who are in the trades right now, they're about to retire and there's no one
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there to replace them. So there's going to be even more of a, of a skills gap.
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Yeah. A quick, quick example. I had a stone kitchen built in my, on my back deck a few years
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ago. And here's a guy who he's, he's a great, a great businessman. He rolls up in my driveway in
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his brand new pickup truck. He jumps out with his coffee in his hand, his t-shirt and his jeans and
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his boots and his guys follow him in the dump truck. And they get out and they open the doors and
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they crank up the Led Zeppelin and they spend the day building these, these beautiful outdoor
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kitchens. I mean, that's what they do. It's, it's artwork. And do you know that guy wants to retire
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now and he has nobody to leave his company to, and here's the guy who is making well over six figures,
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um, doing what he loves to do. Uh, just imagine if you could find a young person who could shadow him
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for a few years and then take that over, he would have an instant success. All right. So as you said,
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there's this gap here, but there's a, there's a high demand, but little supply. So that means
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there's an opportunity for people if they want it. Well, I've always said, you know, you should be a
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contrarian thinker. If, if everybody's going in this direction, perhaps you should go in the opposite
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direction because there's going to be a supply problem there. And, you know, as most, as most
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contrarian thinkers do, they're looking for lucrative opportunities to appear on that side,
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which in the blue collar world, they definitely do. Do you have any idea? So you mentioned the
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stonemason guys, he's high in demand that has no one to, you know, sell his business to so he can
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retire any other industries or trades where you've seen there's a high demand for because there's just
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simply not enough workers or skilled workers for it. Absolutely. I mean, you know, welding is one
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finished carpentry is one. You can talk about energy, whether it's alternative energy or it's
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new or traditional forms of energy. There, there's all kinds of, of, you know, you're talking about
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transportation, you're talking about medical, you know, there, there's a lot of places that are
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looking for a lot of people and can't find them right now. And, you know, this goes into my next
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question or this next point you make in the book is that, you know, in America, we've been,
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you know, for the, I'd say for the past 50 years, been told if you want a stable career,
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that's lucrative, that will provide you a good living, you have to go to college,
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but you're making this point. Okay. Actually in the trades, there's a high demand, but low supply.
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So you can actually make decent money. And so I think a lot of people don't go into the trades
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or they, or they sort of snub their nose at blue collar work thing. Well, you really don't make
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that much money. What are, I mean, give us the kind of ideas, numbers that people could make in
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different trades or blue collar work that they could make right after finishing trade
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school? Well, yeah. I mean, if you're a good finished carpenter, you can make $50 an hour
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in, in welding, you can make $48 an hour. If you're a plumber, you can make in the forties
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as well. And, you know, God forbid that you do that for yourself. And then perhaps if you're any
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good at what you do, which again, in, in this day and age, as long as you show up, shake someone's
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hand, look them straight in the eye, be on time and do reasonably good work, you're going to be
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popular, right? So God forbid your business grows. And now you have other people that you have to
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hire on to help with you. And now you're, they're working with, with, and for you. And you're charging
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those rates. You could see how a contractor can easily make six figures. There are some areas in
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the country where they're hiring plumbers right out of their tech school at, at 90,000 a year in,
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in places like Atlanta. So, you know, if this continues, you're going to have blue collar
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workers making as much or more than family doctors, because that's what we're seeing now.
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That's amazing. Okay. So you're this contrarian guy, you're telling people to go, you know, zig
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instead of zag. And you make these points, go, go back to college. You know, we've been told this
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idea. You got to go to college. That's what I was told. I went to college, but you make this point
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that yes, if you get a college degree, you can earn good money, but getting that college degree,
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I mean, the amount of debt you have to take on to get that, that piece of paper can set you back.
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And you don't really have that issue as much with a skilled laborer or a blue collar job.
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Well, first off, you know, just so you know, I've never seen a finished carpenter not have any work
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to do in a good economy or a bad economy. I mean, they're just that much in demand because,
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like I said, there's so little people getting into that field. But, you know, if you look at it this
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way, let's assume that you pay a typical room and board 40 to $50,000 a year to go to school and you
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do that for four years. I mean, that's about $160,000. Okay. Up to 200 in some cases. Now,
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now let's say that you're someone who says, I'm going to forgo that and I'm going to get a job
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working with my hands and I'm going to get one of these jobs that pays me 25, 30, $40 an hour.
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Now I'm making 50,000 a year while I'm learning this skill. That's 200,000 over four years. Now you
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have a net asset change of negative 200,000 to positive 200,000 or a $400,000 swing. People really
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need to consider that when they think about, you know, putting assets together and starting
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their life down the road to what they want to build for themselves.
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It's okay. That's something to think about. And so that you do this really great sort of cost
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benefit analysis between college and going into a skilled trade where you take into account, okay,
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how much debt you're going to have to get. And then also, are you able to even be able to get a job
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in your degree after you graduate from college that will pay you enough where you can,
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you know, not only pay off your college debt, but put a little aside for a home and the car and
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those nice things that we all work for. Well, you know, if you look at the current situation,
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the way it is right now, let's take the opposite effect. If there is a huge demand for blue collar
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workers and low supply, then that might be because everyone is being funneled through college.
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So it only stands to reason that on the opposite side of that scale, there's an oversupply of college
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graduates with lessening demand. So now these college kids are coming out of school and they're
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hoping to find these jobs that pay them 70, 80, 90,000 a year. And yet the average last year was
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just under 50,000 with a four-year degree. And now you're saddled with all that debt.
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You might be in your mid thirties before you start building wealth. If you have to pay all that
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off. Right. But then if you add a, if you can be, you know, young man, 22, right out of trade school
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and saving up for a down payment on a house. Yeah. I mean, you know, a lot of times when,
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when, you know, some of the people that I coach, one of the things that I'll tell them is,
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okay, you know, you just were offered a job at, let's say 45,000. I want you to say,
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thank you for paying me 42,000. And they say, well, what do you mean by that? And my point is,
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let's take the first 3000 that you're offered. And let's just put that right out right away into a
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401k or some type of an investment account. Because in 15 minutes, you can build yourself
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into millionaire status by the time you retire. It goes like this. If I put $60 a week, which is
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3000 a year, if I put that into a 401k and I put it in a, in like a growth mode type of basket,
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if you will, I can save that money for 10 years and then stop saving the money on the, on the 11th
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year. And by the time I retire, I'm going to have over a million dollars in my retirement account.
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So imagine being 21 years of age and saying, wow, my retirement is handled now. And then,
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and then starting to do the other things you want, like you said, save for a house,
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save for a car, whatever that might be. My theory is you don't miss the money that you never had.
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So you can't spend what you never had. So if you live your life on 42,000 instead of the 45,
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that first three goes away and your retirement's covered.
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So not only college is expensive, you got to take out an enormous amount of student loans,
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but also you got to, you got to take out four years of your life. Let's compare that to like
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trade school. How much on average would someone pay to go to trade school? And how long does it
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take to get certified and, you know, becoming a plumber or electrician or whatever?
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Trade schools are typically a year to three years maximum with most of them 18 months to two years.
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And they cost about 10 to 12, $13,000 a year, depending on where you're at.
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So you can see the cost benefit right there, right out of the bat. And again,
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you can work right away and start earning money, which is, which is really kind of cool.
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Let's talk about some of the, you talk about some of the social pressures that keep people
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away from blue collar work. And, you know, one thing that people are told is, well, you know,
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don't go into the trades because it's just not as meaningful. Um, office work is where I don't,
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I don't know, office white collar work, you know, becoming an accountant or a doctor or a lawyer,
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there's more meaning to that. What's your response when people say that there's no,
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Well, there's a, first off there, there's two things. When you, when you talk about ditch
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digging, you're talking about drying up a wet, damp, smelly basement. Okay. That causes mold
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and mildew and all types of airborne allergens to float throughout the house. So I can show you
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letter upon letter upon letter where our customers over the years have written us and said,
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my son suffered from asthma. He had to take all these pills. He had to be on a, on a inhaler at
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night. And now he no longer has to do that. You know, my, my grandmother had all kinds of arthritis.
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Now that the dampness is gone, she can move around the house and doesn't have any breathing problems.
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So there, there is, there is a silver lining in every type of work that you do. What I like to
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call it is that step back moment. If you're someone who is, let's say building that outdoor
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kitchen, for example, you know, you're putting the stones up, you're doing your thing, you're
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making this thing beautiful. You're creating this work of art and you get to step back at the end
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of the day and lean on your shovel and maybe sip on your pop or whatever and say, I did that. I
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built that. That will stand the test of time. It's a beautiful thing to see. And, and again, it's,
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it's, it's my creation. So there is, there's a heck of a lot of meaning inside of blue collar work
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because you get to see the beginning to the end where if you're, if you're in an office job
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and I'm not saying they're not important or rewarding, but a lot of times you never get
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to see the beginning. It's all the way to the end of what you're, what you're involved in.
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We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.
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And now back to the show. And it sounds like with blue collar work, like every job is going to be
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different. You have to be creative and be flexible. And because every situation, if you're, say you're
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being a carpenter or you got to work with what you got and you have, you have to work with a
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budget. And then that gives you chances to, to be creative and do, do fun stuff and like use your
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brain in a way that's really satisfying. Well, you know, in the book, I talk a lot about comfort,
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peace, and freedom. And those are three words that I think everyone should aspire to when it comes to
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what they want their life to look like. And that's, that's really a lot of what the book is focused
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on is how can you think better? How can you plan your life in a really concrete, mechanical,
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absolute guaranteed way? Not just, you know, some theory or some, you know, maybe or someday,
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but an actual today plan. Because the more you're able to plan your life, the more you're able to say
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to yourself, you know, maybe it doesn't matter so much how fancy what I do for a living is.
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What's more important is what I do with what I do for a living. How do I create my own base? How do
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I create my own future, my own wealth going forward? And I think that's a really important
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thing that people need to think about. Yeah. That's a big thing throughout your book is that
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you want people to actually figure out what they want and enjoy in life or what they want to,
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because you spend most of your life working. So if you're going to do that, you want to might as well
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spend most of your time doing something you actually enjoy and not doing something you think you
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should be doing because your parents or friends or what society kind of pressures you saying that
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you should do that. You know, it's really easy for everyone to look at the television or watch a
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music video and think, wow, you know, my life would be perfect if I had a mega yacht and six cars and a
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mansion and all those other kinds of things. But I got to tell you, I do know some successful people
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who are miserable, okay, because they don't have control over their lives. And that's why I think it's
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very important. I talk about it in the book specifically to get what you think would make
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your best life down in front of you on a piece of paper, draw it out, be very crystal clear,
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you know, work on it for a couple of weeks, just like you'd work on a puzzle at your kitchen table
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and really put that thing together and then keep it in front of you because only 1% of the people
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that when we talk about goals are willing to write it down and keep it in front of them.
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The interesting thing is that same 1% earns eight times more money to nine times more money than the
00:21:39.760
people that don't have goals. So it's such an easy thing to do. I'm shocked that they don't teach this
00:21:46.240
in high school. And, you know, it's in just a few short days, you could be well on your way
00:21:52.640
to the path that you think would go, wow, that would be one of my best lived lives.
00:21:58.120
So you obviously are a great example of how a blue collar job can lead to a meaningful,
00:22:04.460
well-paying work. And what's interesting too, a lot of people think that if they go in a blue
00:22:07.700
collar work, that they're just going to be working with their hands and there's no,
00:22:11.400
you don't have any higher level thinking, but okay, as we said, skilled labor requires higher level
00:22:16.560
thinking, requires to be creative and think outside of the box. But then also in the process,
00:22:20.800
you've got to learn about developing a business like on the fly, instead of having to go to,
00:22:24.880
you know, get your MBA, you just, you learned how to do this stuff on your own because you had to
00:22:29.700
learn it to grow and keep your business going. Well, you know, I've always said, if you do great
00:22:35.420
work and, and like I said, you're on time and, and, and you have a great reputation, the money will
00:22:40.160
take care of itself. But what's great about living in, in these days, these economic times, the way we
00:22:47.320
have them and with the technology, you can run a whole business from your cell phone and your pickup
00:22:52.760
truck. I mean, it's, it's insane how easy it is. You can do payroll, you can do accounts receivable,
00:22:58.440
accounts payable, you can order your inventory, you can do all of these things sitting behind your
00:23:03.060
steering wheel. And that's, that was a barrier to entry for a lot of people in, in, in, you know,
00:23:08.280
recent days, because I got to have an accountant, I got to have a, you know, a payroll clerk. And
00:23:14.400
I mean, I have to have all these people to do all this stuff. Well, you know, that stuff is kind of
00:23:19.800
gone now. So it has never been easier to open your own company. I encourage anyone who, who has a
00:23:27.740
passion for doing something with their hands to go out there and try it, you know, shadow somebody,
00:23:32.620
learn from somebody, you know, get that 4,000 hour thing down where you master it. Like they,
00:23:37.860
they talk about in the book, the outliers, and then go out and try your own thing. I mean,
00:23:42.840
it's never been a better time to do so. Well, in the book, you, you highlight people you've worked
00:23:47.340
with throughout your career who have started blue collar careers, a lot of great stories. Is there
00:23:53.580
one in particular you could share with us that you thought was really impactful? Yeah, I have a
00:23:59.080
gentleman, his name is Mark, and he went through some really traumatic times with his, his parents
00:24:06.060
passed away in, in a horrific crime early on when he was only 17. And he kind of drifted around
00:24:13.100
wondering what to do. And he went to work for a box company where they would pack things up and ship
00:24:20.320
them out. And he knew he had to go to school, but he really didn't know how to do that. And he
00:24:26.200
decided he wanted to be a lawyer because he had dealt with the lawyers from his parents' wills and
00:24:31.100
whatnot. And so he just went to a law school in town and said, you know, I want to sign up.
00:24:37.820
And they said, well, okay, where did you do your undergrad? And he goes, undergrad, he goes, I went
00:24:43.540
to high school out in, in, in Oak Harbor. And he says, uh, well, no, where did you go to college? He
00:24:48.620
goes, well, this is college. I'm here to sign up for law school. So he didn't even realize that he
00:24:53.120
needed to have a degree before he went to law school. Since then he, uh, he went back to the box
00:24:59.060
company and he just kept looking at around and figuring out ways to do things better, quicker,
00:25:03.540
faster, and what have you. And he kept rising up within the company. Well, at some point he was
00:25:10.320
controlling with his own company, more than 300 trucks a day, ships, airplanes, trains, shipping
00:25:17.540
things all over the world. He had a very successful career and, um, it was all because, you know, he
00:25:24.480
decided to figure out how to build a better box. And didn't he, he sold the business and kind of
00:25:29.660
enjoyed retirement for a bit. And then he got back into the game again. Well, first off, thank you for
00:25:35.160
reading the book. Cause that's exactly right. He's the, he's the epitome of the American dream
00:25:39.840
because not only did he sell the business, you know, he went out and wrote his Harley for a while.
00:25:44.160
And then he drove his boat around and he went fishing and snow skiing and did all of those things.
00:25:48.260
And then he said, you know what? I'm still in the game. So he went out and started another
00:25:52.960
company and that company is as big or bigger than his original one. So he's, um, he's quite
00:25:58.560
the guy, but there, there again, this is the point that I want to make to everybody. You
00:26:03.440
know, the difference between an entrepreneur and, and anyone who might be listening out
00:26:08.300
there right now is just your ability to see what you want your future to look like. It's
00:26:12.960
real simple. It's not complicated. And, and, and once you get that vision clear in your
00:26:19.080
mind, all the characteristics that entrepreneurs have persistence, resilience, you know, integrity,
00:26:25.960
all those characteristics that we talk about in the book, they show up in almost every
00:26:31.240
human being. I mean, it's like they're in your closet behind your shoes that you haven't
00:26:35.460
worn in a while and you just got to get them out. This is a very important point because
00:26:40.480
once you see what you want your life to look like, it's pretty much get out of my way. I'm
00:26:44.980
going after it. So you mentioned earlier, some ideas for people, if they want to get
00:26:48.980
into blue collar work, you know, shadow somebody, if you see something you're interested in, do
00:26:52.300
it, uh, go to a trade school. And this seems like if you're like a young man, just starting
00:26:56.500
out pretty easy. Cause you don't have any, you don't have a lot of responsibility. A lot
00:27:00.720
of people not depending on, you might not have a lot of bills, but let's say you're an
00:27:03.560
older guy. You're been in a career 10, 15, 20 years. You're not happy with it. You're
00:27:09.100
just miserable. And you've, you're, you often find yourself wistfully thinking, man, if
00:27:13.080
I can just go dig ditches, that would be it. Like, have you worked with people who've made
00:27:18.880
a career change from say like a white collar profession to a blue collar profession? And
00:27:23.700
if so, like, what, what do they do to make that transition successful?
00:27:27.760
You know, here's another case where technology makes that easier than it's ever been. There
00:27:32.660
are a group of woodworkers in the United States. They call themselves part of a woodpreneur
00:27:37.300
group, like entrepreneurs with wood. And in most cases, in a lot of cases, you'll see,
00:27:42.460
that they had jobs and the wood part was like their hobby on the weekends. So they kept at
00:27:49.700
it and they did their craft and they enjoyed doing what they were doing. And in a lot of
00:27:55.000
cases, they would build this beautiful furniture. And then they simply went on the internet and
00:27:59.120
they got an Instagram page or whatever, Facebook page or whatever they do. And they started putting
00:28:04.200
their products on that on the net. And it became what is now popularly called a side hustle.
00:28:12.440
And so they slowly converted themselves from their day job, their office job to this business. And
00:28:20.300
just about anybody can do that in any kind of product. You know, I knew a gal who was a full time
00:28:25.800
waitress and she's in the book as well. And she always would wait on this gentleman who wanted to
00:28:33.240
bake bread and she would sell his bread on the weekends at golf courses and home improvement shows
00:28:41.200
and anywhere people would gather. And pretty soon she sold enough bread to where she got a little
00:28:47.240
space and started baking her own bread. And then he retired. And then now she has this huge bakery,
00:28:53.620
which is just down the street from my house. And she's delivering two to three thousand loaves of
00:28:59.820
bread a week. I mean, it's crazy how, you know, something that you can start on the side can really
00:29:06.040
turn into something. And the reason I say it happens is because if it's driving you that, if you see it,
00:29:13.040
the laws of attraction will take you there. That's what your brain does. And it's just awesome to see
00:29:17.960
how that works. Yeah. I love about all the stories that you highlight in the book is how it just,
00:29:21.920
it didn't happen. It wasn't like, it didn't happen overnight. It just sort of happened.
00:29:25.640
They just took one step. They did the next best thing basically. And it eventually got them to
00:29:30.540
where they were. Like you talk about the guy who started off, like now he designs golf courses around
00:29:36.040
the world. But that way that started was like, he just answered a, like a landscaping job thing.
00:29:42.640
And it sort of snowballed into him becoming a golf course designer.
00:29:46.840
Art Hills is one of the most famous golf course designers in the world. I know him very well.
00:29:52.780
I've played golf with him. He actually belongs to the same club that we do. He's a legend in golf
00:29:57.800
course design. And the funny thing about his story is he, he, he was a landscaper and he was hanging
00:30:04.020
around doing landscaping and, and, and making a good living. He was doing really well again, good work,
00:30:10.260
quality work on time, you know, honest and ethical and all that. And at, at one point he decided,
00:30:17.640
you know what? I don't want to snow plow in the winter time. I don't want to go invest the money
00:30:21.820
in plows. They always break down. You have to work at night. I just don't want to do that. So he, he,
00:30:28.520
he talked to his, his workers and he said, what should we do in the winter time? And they got the idea
00:30:35.820
that they wanted to design golf courses. So he literally put a $17 ad in the newspaper that said
00:30:42.980
golf course designer for hire. And he got his very first job. And now I think he's up to nearly 300
00:30:50.080
golf courses, you know, a large portion of the, well, I shouldn't say a large, but probably 40 or
00:30:55.020
50 of them I've played on. And it's just the most amazing story. And it was so much fun to write this
00:31:01.780
book because the more I interviewed people, the more I got these just awesome stories.
00:31:06.140
And, you know, I could have put 50 people in this book and, you know, I had to will it down to where
00:31:10.160
it is, but, uh, it's been a, it's been a great experience to hear some of these, uh, some of
00:31:14.340
these really good stories. That's funny. Like that, the golf course thing, that started off as a side
00:31:18.440
hustle basically. And then it, and then it turned, it morphed into what he does for a living.
00:31:24.380
Yep. That's exactly right. Um, and have you seen that sort of same thing in your career? So you
00:31:28.300
start off digging ditches, trying to, you know, fix people with these swampy basements.
00:31:31.780
But you said since then you've added on to what you do in your business. Like, how did you figure
00:31:37.160
out like where there was opportunity that was sort of like, cause you couldn't do go, like you
00:31:41.520
couldn't go off the wall. Like you had to be like the things you did had to be adjacent to what you
00:31:45.600
currently do. So how did you figure that out? Just talking to clients and seeing what they needed?
00:31:50.880
Yeah. You know, I, I had an opportunity to help two other guys start a very small housing
00:31:57.100
development out in Branson, Missouri. And, uh, you know, I, I was looking to invest in some other
00:32:02.060
things. I like building things. I've, I've built two of my own houses. Now I've built three or four
00:32:07.620
office buildings that my company's been in and we're about ready to build another one.
00:32:11.200
And I always like to be around the construction part of that. So when this opportunity came up,
00:32:16.560
I said, well, I'll, I'll help you invest in this. It's only 27 lots. It wasn't a very big
00:32:21.380
development, but it was more of a resort kind of thing on a lake. And I really got into, you know,
00:32:27.880
building these houses and designing the houses and, and, and making them look really cool and
00:32:32.240
landscaping them. Cause I did a lot, a lot of landscaping as a kid as well. So it was fun to do
00:32:37.000
all those things. And, you know, now I'm, I'm blessed. I'm, I'm very fortunate to have been able
00:32:43.200
to be successful. And so now I invest in other type of construction things. We do fire retardant
00:32:48.980
chemicals now and some other things. And it's just been a really good, like you said, a natural
00:32:54.460
progression to go to that next step and to, uh, to, to open up some of these other companies.
00:32:59.840
So we've talked a lot about the pros of blue collar work. You can make good money. It's cheaper
00:33:04.180
than college. You know, there's a high demand for it. You can, there's a lot of flexibility. You can
00:33:07.940
be your own boss. What's been the hardest part that you found like sort of the trouble spots
00:33:12.060
with your career in, in, in the trades and the blue collar work?
00:33:15.500
Well, I, I think in this, this is what out of necessity, what brought on some of the,
00:33:22.860
the coaching that I do, I think to, to get other people to believe that this is a really
00:33:31.240
honorable path and you know, there, there isn't a stigma to it. You know, I remember being at a party
00:33:37.920
and you know, the moms were all talking about how proud they were of their kids and where they
00:33:42.380
were going to school and their degrees they were going to get. And I remember one of them saying,
00:33:46.740
oh yeah, well, I don't know whether it was her son or somebody else, but he's just going to be a
00:33:51.200
plumber. Okay. Just going to be a plumber. Well, just going to be a plumber means that that guy now
00:33:57.060
has 10 employees, four vans, and he's making an absolute killing. So it's, it's a stigma that is
00:34:03.620
undeserved. And sometimes it's almost a default stigma that is put on this work, which is totally
00:34:10.420
undeserved. Okay. So for me, I had to build a, a culture in my company that was so cool that people
00:34:18.940
wanted to work there. And that's where the coaching came in. I don't have any absolute professional
00:34:24.740
training and coaching. I became almost an unwilling, or I should say involuntary life coach.
00:34:30.580
I love doing it, but talking to these people about the paths that they can take and how much
00:34:37.260
control they can have over their own lives and their own financial futures is, is really something
00:34:41.780
I enjoy doing. But it, you know, it's, it's hard to convince people to come that way sometimes.
00:34:45.740
Right. There's another example of your natural, just sort of the iteration of your career.
00:34:49.560
You went from digging ditches to now you're, you're coaching people to help them dig ditches.
00:34:55.460
That's true. Well, Ken, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more
00:34:59.520
about the book and your work? You know, it's, it's great that you asked that question. I,
00:35:04.640
I have a Facebook page called Ken Rusk official, where we talk a lot about the content of what
00:35:09.080
we're doing with, with celebrating the blue collar worker, but the most and best feedback I've gotten
00:35:14.620
for the book so far, which is amazing is if you're a business owner and you want to build a team of
00:35:19.960
really awesome entrepreneurial employees who are loyal and stick around, that's a good place.
00:35:26.000
Buy the book and then give it to them. If you're a parent, grandparent, aunt, or uncle,
00:35:31.120
and you have somebody that you want to kind of mentor, you should give them this book and read
00:35:36.940
it yourself and give it to them and then share. I've had a lot of that going on, which has been
00:35:40.700
great feedback. Or if you just feel like you're in your mid, like you said, in your midlife and
00:35:45.160
you're kind of stuck and you're not hitting your goals, this should be a great book for you to have.
00:35:48.820
And you can get it at bluecollarcash.com, but you can also get it at Amazon, Barnes and Nobles,
00:35:55.140
Indie Books, and Apple Books, anywhere that books are sold.
00:35:58.620
Fantastic. Well, Ken Rusk, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.
00:36:02.320
My guest name is Ken Rusk. He's the author of the book, Blue Collar Cash. It's available on
00:36:05.700
amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find out more information about his work at his website,
00:36:09.780
kenrusk.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash bluecollarcash,
00:36:13.960
where you can find links to resources, where you can delve deeper into this topic.
00:36:18.820
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast. Check out our website at
00:36:27.160
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00:36:30.640
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