Blue Collar Work Can Generate More Wealth with Ken Rusk #277

career paths, and some sound financial planning as well. He is passionate about helping folks achieve their dreams regardless of their educational background and and now with his recently published book Blue Collar Cash, Ken explains that blue collar trades are a source of pride and how you can find your version of happiness by pursuing a good old fashioned craft. Our economy is in desperate need of skilled trades people and we are pumped to talk about that as well. Ken,

thank you for joining us here on the podcast. Great guys, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Hey, We're glad to have you Ken. And the first question we ask everybody that comes on the show, Matt and I we love craft beer. We're drinking one now. It's it's something that we do. We're willing to spend extra money on great beers. You know, while we're intentionally saving and investing for the future. So like, what's your splurge, what's

your craft beer equivalent? Well, you know, it's funny because I I'm I'm a golfer and I really love the game of golf, and I have a bunch of buddies and we traveled around the country playing it from great courses and it's just one of those things where invariably I have to come home with a golf shirt. And I gotta tell you, I probably have way too many golf shirts in my closet, and every time I come home, my wife is like, okay, another golf shirt. So now the new rule is if I buy one, I have

to donate one to somebody else. And that's just fine by me. Keep the closet not two packed? Right exactly where all have you played? Me? What I really to ask is have you ever traveled abroad to play? Because I hear, you know about folks sometimes taking trips to Scotland and you know, playing on some of those old courses and it's supposed to be amazing. You know, we just got back from Scotland. We we did play the old course, and um we played in Ireland and we've

been all over the place. I mean, it's it's I've played in the Caribbean. I've played you know, Pete Die courses and Cabos and Lucas and all over the place. So it's it's it's just a lot of fun. It's kind of a passion of ours, and it just gives you one more reason to travel, you know, Yeah, I love it alright. Well, can tell us about your your path into blue collar work? You know, did you go to a four year university or did you know early on that you weren't interested in that road more traveled?

You know, it's for me, it was pretty simple. I got into working with my hands really early. I started digging ditches when I was fifteen years old at a company that was located right next to my high school. And um, you know, I just always like being outside. I like, you know, having my jeans and my boots on and you know, my t shirt and going outside

and just grinding out a good solid day. And I did landscaping, and I did all kinds of I did hardscaping, all kinds of things that that required me to work with my hands. And I just really loved the control of that. I loved that I could control my input and my own output. And and so I tried going to college, but it just didn't work for me. And so Ken like, what what job was it that made you think, I think I'm gonna stick to blue collar work for the rest of my life. Like, this isn't

something that's just fun for now. I like get in my hands dirty, but it's something I want to dedicate my life too. Well, you know, the the the company that um I worked for where we repaired foundations on old basements, and it was, you know, it was dirty, sloppy work, it was hard work. It was almost like one of those micro dirty jobs situations where you're running jackhammers and you're breathing in dust and it's it was just one of those things. But the greatest part about

it was it was very lucrative. And you know, I tended to do that in the summertime when I was in in you know, office school, and in the wintertime I worked in the office. And it was really a neat, neat place to work because no matter what position you had, you could kind of control your own income through how much how much work you were willing to put in and bonus programs and incentives and that kind of thing.

So I just kept earning my way up and and and seeing that I could again set my own income levels. And it was good because you know, I wanted the same things as everybody else did. I wanted, you know, my first used car. I wanted to be able to take my wife or at my girlfriend at the time out to dinner and buy a pizza or whatever the heck we wanted to do, go to the movies. And and it was it was neat because I could work and then reward myself, and then I could dream a

little bit bigger and work and then reward myself. So I've been with that same company now, um, for you know, almost forty years or Okay, So then you know, why are you still to believer and more people pursuing blue collar work in our society? Well, yeah, I look at it this way. I am a huge believer in supply and demand and and that is then is a a power force in our economy that it just can never

really be denied. And and um, you know, some people argue it can, but that's only usually when it's manipulated one for one reason or another. But for me. You know, I I've always kind of been like a contrarian thinker when it comes to opportunities. So I looked at the fact that you know, nearly everybody um is getting you know, corralled into going to college, whether they need to or want to, whether they have a specific reason too or not. And I always say from the outset guys that I'm

not an anti college guy. I'm more of an anti college is for everybody guy. And and and the reason is simple. I mean, if you're going to operate on my knee, or if you're gonna build a building or engineer something, or if you're going to teach somebody something or manage people's money, yeah, you need to know everything there is to know about those particular situations. But notwithstanding that, there's such an amazing shift towards everybody's got to go

to school. And and again, I like to be kind of contrarian in my in my thinking there when it comes to those opportunities, because you know, if if we are over supplying the market with non specific degrees, and what I mean by that is those degrees where people just go to school to get something they're never going to use, you know, they get really good at beer pong for four years, but they don't really come out

with anything that's really solid. If we're gonna oversupply society with that, then that means we're undersupplying society with welders and plumbers and carpenters and electricians, and so the money has to naturally flow that way because we're supply is low and demand is high. That's usually where it goes. I feel like you're underselling the usefulness of beer pong as a light skilled you know, so, uh, just kidding it. It seems like too candidate that we put such a

high priority on high school students. We used to experiencing something like shop class when I was in high school, even you know, twenty years ago, shop class was kind of on its way out, and so working with your hands that that's just not something that people even have access to as they're growing up in school. So why why do you think there's not so much of an emphasis on things like shop class or or learning how to fix things like as you're growing up these days. Well,

it's it's real simple. We had this kind of confluence of of of three two or three different factors that are causing this. So so if you look back into the seventies and eighties, they decided to eliminate shop class in favor of you know, getting computers in classes. And

you know, again, we had to learn computers. That's really important, I understand that, but not at the expense of of shop class, of millions of kids discovering, you know, even accidentally how cool carpentry can be, or a mechanics, home economics, whatever.

And so you know, you couple that with the with the situation that now kids instead of you know, going in their backyards and building tree forts, you know, they're building it on computer screens like with like Minecraft and stuff like that, so they're not really experiencing the real sense of hammering a nail, okay, and or or you know, changing the oil in a car or whatever it might be.

So I think what happens there is if you couple those two situations with again this this societal expectation that if you don't go to school, you won't amount too much, which is crazy on the surface. You kind of have this whole stigma that comes out of oh, you know, well my kids going to this school, my kids going to that school. Well you know her kids just gonna be a plumber. Well, okay, let's talk about just gonna

be a plumber. I know that kid, and that kid now has four vans and you know a half a dozen guy and he's making a killing doing plumbing. So you have to think of it in terms of really what you want your life to look like and then how to go get it. Yeah, it's it's unfortunate right that there is such a stigma around I think some of these, some of these trades at least, and it makes me too. It makes me wonder when I was a kid growing up, we didn't have shop class like

we had tech lab. Shot class was replaced with tech lab and it was almost maybe a blend between shop class and computers a little bit. But it makes me wonder, you know, how different my life could be right now had I actually gone to shop class. When when you're not exposed to some of those things early on, like I love what I'm doing now, however, you do kind of wonder had you learned different skills early on, what

kind of effect that would have on you. Well, you know, I can tell you that I've I've had some amazing feedback from the book and some of it has been surprising. I've had emails from people who said, you know, I'm stuck in a cubicle. I'm in my mid thirties, what do I do? Can you help me? And uh, you know, it's it's one of those situations where I look at

you know, how sorry that situation is. I remember I rented a car not too long ago, and this is when I first started writing the book, and I had to leave this my car at the shop for like three weeks because they had a big complicated repair they were making under the dashboard. So they sent me to rent this car. I get to the rental place and there's a kid standing behind the counter and he's trying

to put his best foot forward. He's got like three different pieces of suits on and and he's he's doing the thing. You know, he's really trying to make it work. Fifteen minutes into talking to this kid, he's like, you know, I'm eighty thousand in debt. I went for just a regular old bland business degree. I don't know why I did that. Now I'm making, you know, twenty eight thousand at this car rental place, and I don't know how I'm ever going to pay that off that could have

been my first house. And I just feel really bad for for those situations where people just kind of like blindly follow again this societal this new societal norm that they that's your only path, because nothing could be further

from the truth there. Yeah, can I want to ask you to, um, the how has COVID nineteen impacted maybe your advice in regards to people pursuing blue collar work, Like have the those blue collar jobs in any way been been affected by by the coronavirus and kind of yeah, and on your advice for people pursuing blue collar work

in general. This is an amazing, um silver lining if there is one, because so many people are staying home and they're realizing you know, um, I think part of the greatest part about COVID is, you know, now I'm seeing kids ride their bikes in the neighborhood and dogs walked, and you know, hey, how about that frisbee that we used to play with. I mean, those things are being thrown around, and you know, backyards are being used, barbecues, whatever,

had whatever you want to do. But the cool thing is is families are staying home and they're looking around and they're realizing, you know, there's so many things I could do to make my place better. Right, So now all of a sudden, those people are realizing, I tried to hire a guide to work on my deck and he can't get to me for four months. You know, I tried to get this plumber over here, and he's charging me a fortune to come now, but he'll charge me less if if I if I wait for ninety days.

So it's it's insane how how people are coming to terms real quickly with man. You know, I got three or four kids. There's no way that all of them can be meant for school if if, in fact, some of them happen to be more tactle type, you know, people a gal or or a guy where they would rather work with their hands or pursue a skill or a craft or something like that. So I think if there is a silver lining here, it is anything having to do with recreation or repair or improvement or replacement.

Those things are so hot right now that some of these parents are going, you know, maybe we should rethink this automatic process of us just going into debt and sending you know, kid number two, three and four into college. Yeah, so you know, you hinted a little bit about supply and demand. So we're gonna take a quick break, but after that break, we're gonna talk about the demand for these trade jobs. We're gonna talk about the opportunity that's there and even to you how much one might be

able to make. And so we'll get to that right after the break. Alright, we're back from break. We're talking with Ken Rusk about blue collar work and how it can actually generate more wealth and and can um let's talk about the opportunity that individuals have with blue collar work,

and let's talk a little bit more about supply and demand. You, um, you can you give us some specifics on the supply of college graduates and the demand of their industries with that of like the supply of blue collar work and then the demand for for those killed trades. Can you give us any any more specifics on that? Well? Yeah, I mean I can point to one example. You know, um, we are right now at one of the highest most

record home building periods um in many many years. And you know, I personally know of of some large track home builders that are setting all time records. Well, that requires a lot of people doing a lot of things with their hands, from from concrete to you know, to fabrication, to carpentry, to plumbing, to electricians too ruffers, to landscapers to road builders to anything that you can see that

that creates or build something. You know, they're they're talking about they want to put together this new infrastructure stimulus bill with with within the government that's gonna put even more pressure on a blue collar crisis that already exists. So again, you know, it's it's it's it's a funny thing, but you actually have finished carpenters now that are making more money than family doctors. And guess what they're doing it without two fift thousand dollars of college debt that

will take twenty years to pay off. One of the things that I like to talk about is I call it, you know, this this asset swing. And it's a real simple story. But let's assume I go into college and I'm spending forty to fifty thousand a year. Okay, four years later, that's what a hundred sixty to two hundred thousand dollars. Right now, I'm paying that money and I'm not earning anything at the time. So let's let's Conversely, UM talk about a high demand job like UM like carpentry,

for example, or or plumbing or electricians. So those folks are going right into a job that pays them forty to fifty dollars a year to start. So four years later their asset base is plus two hundred. The other guy or gal their asset base is negative two hundred. So you're talking about a four hundred thousand dollars swing in the first four years of a young person's life. That's that's huge when you think about a house, a car, starting a you know, you're you're saving these accounts, maybe

you're four one k. Yeah, that's a big swing. And and and I when I whenever I tell that story, I get a lot of parents that look at each other like, Holy God, what were we thinking? And it's just it's just one of those things where it's it's the information is right there. I mean, I'm not making this up. It's it's right there. You just have to look at and really take a good look at you know, what am I really doing for my kid in his

financial future? Yeah? I mean, and like you said, you're not against college, right, Like, if if that's something that you want to pursue and you know you want to pursue it, then yes, higher education is the right answer there. But yeah, I agree with you. I think you know, blindly kind of going down the path of college and not exactly knowing what you want to do, you know, and paying a lot of money for that isn't the

you know, the most wise move. Yeah, and not assessing the alternatives, yeah, which is Yeah, that's why we're talking with you, Ken. You know, you're you're talking about like some of these skill trades, right, you talk about carpentry, like an electrician. What other industries are going to need more workers here in the future. You call what's currently happening in the of her market essentially a crisis, you know, in the American workforce, but you also consider the crisis

to be this golden opportunity for many folks. So yeah, can you talk to us more about about this growing demand and like specific industries and jobs as well? Well? Sure? I mean I can tell you that any anything in energy, whether it's um new energy or existing energy. You know, you're talking about windmills and solar and and and all those kinds of things. Um you're talking about even even still natural gas and oil extraction. I mean those those things are red hot and out in certain areas of

the country. You can make a killing doing that. We're seeing for welders and mill rights, we're seeing just an incredible amounts of money. I know a gal she was fighting to get through her two year degree and it took her like several years, and she had a couple of kids and so that interrupted it and whatever, and she needed one more class to get over, um, the finish line on this two year degree. And and she had asked her friend, she says, what should I do here?

And her friend said, you know, I took this welding class. It was a blast. You should you should give it a shot. And um, So she took this welding class. And she was very detailed, and she was very calm, and she was very patient, and she was a really you know, she was really a good at welding. And before she finished the class, she had a job. And now she stands on top of three foot windmills and she she, uh, she's making about a hundred fifty dollars a year doing that. And she never thought for a

second that would be anything she wanted to do. So it's incredible. I mean when when you when you think of that, you know, we're seeing thirty eight forty two, forty six fifty two an hour for you know, electricians, plumbers, welders, um, carpenters, and those are the people that are just working within

some other company. I mean, if you know, Lord knows that, if if you find a way to maybe get busy enough and you have a couple of people working for you, well then you know, the sky's the limit at that point. Now you're talking about you know, big money there. Yeah. Yeah, in in your book, can you mention that some plumbers in Atlanta coming straight out of tech school or making ninety dollars a year? Yeah, I was like, wow, okay,

all right, so that's pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty insane. Um. And obviously there are lots of blue collar workers who make less than doctors and lawyers. You kind of made that distinction. But but what sets apart the blue collar workers who end up being able to make higher salaries from the ones who end up having a career where they where they make more of like an average income. Well, you know, that's that's the first three chapters. Because to me,

what what what sets people apart. Is what I call the entrepreneurial spirit of spirit. And you can be an entrepreneurial employee for somebody else as well. But whenever I think, and this is what I do when I coach people. One of the first things that I talked about is, you know, why are you here? Why are you working? What's your endgame look like? And they look at you like you know you're from Mars when you asknet you live? Really,

I literally get them to draw it out. I will tell you that I've I've had many many people in my in my day, I get a white post board in a box of Crayola crans, you know, the old sixty or four box of Creola crans, and I have them, I have them draw out what they want their life to look like. And I'm talking about are you a house person, a condo person, an apartment person in the city. Are you a pickup truck person or a minivan person or electric car person? You know, let's get some detail here.

Are you a a dog person or a cat person? And if so, what kind of dog and what would you name it? What's your hobbies look like? What's your give back moment look like? To society, draw all that out. You know, what are your vacations feel like to you? And then you create that old that that that that puzzle of nirvana that you would really want to go after.

And I can tell you, guys that to the person, once they get that picture completed in their mind, they begin to discover all the entrepreneurial characteristics like perseverance and and you know, resilience and uh and morals and character and all those things that you know, drive and and um, all the things that you need to become an entrepreneur. It's almost like those characteristics are just buried in your closet behind the shoes you haven't worn in a long time. Yeah,

they're stuck behind the golf shirts. And and it's amazing the evolution of the human of the human mind when someone sees exactly where they're going, because then the entrepreneurial spirit kicks in and they basically look at you and say, hey, thanks for the training. Can I just get out of my way and let me go do it? And I can tell you that that sets them apart is is people that that know what they want from their life. They have their comfort, peace and freedom, picture all drawn

out and those that don't, those that just live for Friday. Yeah,

I mean. So on how the money. We often talk about the why behind your money, and I think sometimes folks might be tired of hearing us talk about that, but we feel it is so important to identify that why because once you have that purpose, once you have something that you're working towards, like, you figure everything else out, like all the details, all the nuts and bolts kind of fall into place, and you figure out how it is that you want to achieve, you know, the vision

that you have for your future. So those goals of saving and investing more become less onerous, less burden some and they're more like they're freeing. It's like, oh, yeah, I'm doing that because it's for me, you know, as opposed to because some financial person and somebody who thinks about money a lot told me that I should. You know, we could go on with this particular part for hours.

Because one of the things that I try to do um with anyone, especially young people that that I meet with, is I try to get the retirement part of their life out of the way. And what I mean by that is if somebody walks up to you or you're going to an interview and some or someone says, Hey, I'm gonna pay you forty five tho dollars a year to do this job. The first thing I want you to say is thank you for paying me forty two thous dollars a year, because I want you to eliminate

that first three thousand from your mind. You never had it, you never got it. It was never in your paycheck, you never saw it, you never experienced it. So therefore you can't spend it. Because if you take the first sixty bucks of your money and throw it into a four oh one K when you're twenty one, by the time you're thirty one, you can stop saving money and have over a million dollars in your four o one

K account. So imagine being twenty one and sitting at the bar with your buddy and you're sharing, you know, a couple of beers, and you look over to him and you say, yeah, I'm twenty one. My retirement is covered, it's spoken for, it's done. I mean, your light years ahead of everybody else on the planet who frets saving for retirement almost their entire life. Yeah, that's true. When

you think of the power of young money. It's it's really insane, you know, how how you can make those things happen for yourself and just not even think about it anymore. And this is simple, This is simple stuff that it's so intensely powerful that it amazes me that they don't teach this stuff school. Yeah, I agree, it's

um I think. Yeah. A lot of our listeners have reached out and they're like, man, I've never I've never heard some of these things, like some of the things that that Matt and I talked about on the show what or what two seventy episodes in and it's like, it's just a shame that that people that there's no shop class in school, and that there's no personal finance

class in school. Um hey, can we have so many more questions for you that we want to get to, including like how people make that transition into a skilled trade or into blue collar work. And we'll get to a few of those questions right after this break. Al Right, we are back from the break and we are talking with Can Rusk, author of Blue Collar Cash and Can we've been talking about kind of how the world sees

blue collar work. We've talked about now the opportunity that exists out there right just how I think many many more folks need to consider a skilled trade over just blindly going to college. Let's talk now a about how to kind of make that happen. You know, you you touched a little bit on just some the different degrees from the different programs that you need to take in order to partake in some of these skilled trades. What does that normally look like? You know, what are the

education requirements for a lot of these jobs? Like, obviously you don't need that four year degree, but you know, do you need to attend like a two year trade school typically? Well, you know, it's it's it's funny because on my Facebook page, you know, we have um a long discussion, We've had it for for years now about you know, the best ways to do this, And every time I put up the question, you know, is it better to go to a tech school or to an apprenticeship?

It's crazy the amount of engagement that I get on that question from oh my god, is it ever? I can tell you it appears though that the apprenticeship wins. And and I'll tell you why, um and and both of these pasts are perfectly correct just so you know, but because there's such a demand for anyone who's willing to put down their their game boy and and pick

and pick up a hammer. Um, once you find an individual like this as a boss, you tend to throw everything you have at that person in like a really concentrated way. So instead of taking maybe you know, seven or eight years to to learn and get good at something, you can accomplish that same goal in just a couple

of thousand, maybe three or four thousand hours. And so there there's a lot of people that say, jump right in, you know, find someone that's good at what they're doing, and just you know, glean everything you can off of somebody like that. And one of the reasons that is is because you know, the other issue that we have is the skilled tradesmen are beginning to retire, tradesmen and trades women. And you know, for every five electricians that retires right now, only one is coming on board to

replace them. So and this is going to create even more pressure on that industry. So yeah, it's a good idea to go to school, to go to a tech school. Um, if you're gonna do something really detailed, real specific, like electrical work, that kind of thing, UM, welding, that kind of thing. If you're doing something more handsy where you're you know, it's it's more of like a carpenter trade or uh you know, brick laying or stonemasonry work that

kind of thing. You know you can do a little more apprentice work with that, and um, you know it's it's insane. I have a guy that um that worked on an outdoor grill area in my house and he works with with hand cut stone. He's an artist. It's

amazing to watch this guy work. And just to give you an opport, an idea on the opportunity, here's the guy that shows up in my my art every every day with his brand new pickup truck and he comes out with his jeans and his work boots and his T shirt and he's he's got his coffee in his hand, he's got led Zepplin cranked up really loud, and he's got his three or four people that come to work with them, and they build these amazing pieces of art,

whether it's stone fences or gates or kitchens or whatever. And this guy wants to retire. He's making north of um six figures in a big way like not just a hundred, he's making north the two and he does no one to leave this company too. Wow. So so you just imagine this guy. I had to wait six months for this guy. You just imagine the reputation and the work that this guy has and the list of customers that are constantly calling him back to do more,

more stuff. And if you were, you know, a bright eyed young guy or gal that said, hey, you know what I'm I think I see an opportunity here. You could work with this guy for a couple of years and take over his company and have your life set for you. So and that's happening all over the place. I hear that story all the time. Yeah, and various different industries, right right, Yeah, I think we're all four.

We could like the idea of jumping into something, jumping in the deep end, immediately making some money, even if you're not making a lot. But it's man, it feels so good to not have to fork out a lot of money for education. But that being said, you know you mentioned house of these skills like they do require some specialized training. What is the what is the range of costs on some of these different programs that folks and you go to is it is it all over

the board or yeah? Is it within like a tighter range than we would think. Yeah, it's it's typically for I read the other day that a lot of these these tech schools are between eight and twelve, sometimes thirteen thousand dollars a year to get that done. But here's the difference. The difference is when you're going to these places, you're also working, and so you're making money at the same time while you're doing this, and you can work.

You can work a lot of hours while you're in some of these schools, So it's kind of a school and work combination in many cases. So it's not like you're you know, you're you're going to Uncle Sam and borrowing all this money for for for this these classes that you're never gonna have to repay because you don't have to think about, you know, some of these people then they go to school, they're they're also borrowing room and board and the borrowing meal plans and everything else.

But you don't have to you don't have to do that in this case. So it's it's it's a much much slimmer way to get through an education. And then get right to work making some really good money. So ken for our younger listeners who haven't really started their career yet, or for the parents of like late middle school, high school kids, and they're like, oh man, they're good with their hands, they really enjoy building stuff. What are

the next steps to getting started right? We've talked about trade schools, but but what are the what are the best ways for for these the younger generation. If they're like, man, that sounds good and I want to avoid the debt. I see how bad things have gotten for my peers who have graduated college with tons of debt and then don't have a job lined up. How do they get

started in the blue in a blue collar career. Well, you know that this is this is probably one of the most heartening um kind of feedback that I've gotten um from the book, because what's happening is parents are reading this book and then they're they're reading it first, and they're giving it to their kids to read, and they're having these amazing conversations, honest conversations from their kids that they wouldn't have had otherwise, because it just opens

up a whole new line of thinking. That is, you know that is anti the typical societal norm of just corralling people through. So in that situation, I think what you do is is real simple. You get either part time jobs or you get summer jobs in in areas that you have some interest. You know, if if you leave my office and go the two miles to the three way, you're gonna pass you know, forty help wanted signs.

So you have the ability to job shop like you've never had before, especially if you're willing to do something and work with your hands and be outside and do those kinds of things. So you can always be a very an intern or a very part time apprentice for you know, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, any of those types of trades and just just immerse yourself in it and see if any of those things grab your attention. Okay, that's

a really good way to do it. Another thing that's gaining gaining steam and popularity are these gap years where instead of jumping right into school, you tend to take a little time off and you experience some of these things and see if there's anything out there that that really that hits you. But I can tell you if you spend any time around a construction site or any time even in in in some of these manufacturing places

where they make these cool things. There's just there's just this way of you kind of understanding and kind of almost your mind draws itself to what you might be good at and and and the problem is is that only you know what you could be good at, only you know what you were meant to be, Only you know, um, what your life could look like. So if you pair up I always call it this way, instead of waiting for life to happen to you, you have to happen

to life. So I think if you can find a vocational passion and pair that up with with some really great opportunities that are out there right now, um, you're gonna have your true value, your true comfort, peace and freedom, that's for sure. Ken Like several times there, you know, when you're talking about folks considering blue collar trades. You know, you say, a guy or a gal, can you speak specifically to what it looks like for a woman to

enter the blue collar world? What do you think are the best opportunities for women in the blue collar space. You know, I've had the opportunity to interview three or four gals that they have done just that. One of them was a YouTube influencer, and UM, you know, there's a heck of a lot of that going on. You know,

I don't know much about it. It's kind of the wild West, but there's a whole lot of um incubator businesses that are happening um on the internet and um and again those are things that people start right out of their houses, um and and and they've done some just amazing things. I've talked to some influencers who you just can't even believe what they're doing. The other gal

that I mentioned earlier was the welder. I mean, you know, women seem to have patients that men don't have in detail, so when it comes to welding, that's a really really sought after characteristic. And I think there's all kinds of opportunities in that particular space. And once again, you can even see some some gal welders on the internet, and we've built these whole communities around what they're doing. It's

it's really cool. I I UM. I interviewed a gal who left a waitress job to start selling bread for a bread baker. He retired and now she built She built her own um bread store where she's now baking two thousand loaves a week for the local businesses around um And and she had no skills, no education whatsoever. And then another gal. You know, one of the things that I talked a lot about is be willing to

do things that other people aren't. Okay, Um, this gal, believe it or not, started driving a gravel truck, a dump truck, and now she's got twelve trucks. She runs her own gravel truck company and she's killing it. And I just I just love it because here's this, here's this really nice, petite gal with his hard hat on, and she stands in front with her arms crossed in front of her fleet of these huge twelve ken Where's that she's got? And it's just a really awesome photo.

And I'm just so I'm so proud of her. But you gotta remember this. If there's a shortage of blue collar workers, and most people typically think of that as a male dominated industry, then if you're if you're a gal and you're willing to do it, man, you can write your own ticket right now. You're probably gonna stand

out absolutely. Yeah, Yeah, that's cool. Hey, can I know too, that we have a lot of listeners who are work in a desk job and maybe they're working from home right now, and maybe they're even making decent money, but they're also a lot of people are just tired of it. And you know, just the way you feel working in front of a computer for eight to ten hours a day, right and blue collar work, especially after this conversation, might

start to sound more appealing. So so how do you suggest people who feel that poll start to make that transition? You know, what one of the things that you can do um nowadays that you couldn't do years ago. You know, if you're trying to open your own company years ago, you know it required accountants and lawyers and you know bookkeeping and you know pieces of graph paper and pencil and all that other adding machines and all that. Well, now you know you can run your own business off

of a cell phone. That has made it the barrier to entry just kind of disappear for a lot of people. So what I've seen a lot of which I think is really cool, is almost like a transitioning from the cubicle to being your own your own boss. And what I've seen, like I'll give you a great example. There's an entire community out there that does woodworking and they build and they build furniture, they build tables, they reclaim old barns, they work with wood and they love it.

And what they did is they took like a weekend hobby and they turned it into a side hustle and they literally started and I'm talking about hundreds of different people here, not just not just a few. They have a community now. And you know, one guy is building these amazing you know, river tables with with lacquer in them and they're just gorgeous. And another one is doing

rocking chairs, another one's doing this and doing that. But what they did was, you know, they got on the internet, they built themselves a website, they put these products out there, they sold them on the weekends, and then slowly they transitioned away from their day job to just doing this wood working for a living. And again why because no one else is doing it and there's demand for it.

So you know, I think, I think if you're sitting in a in a cubicle right now wondering, or you have a weekend hobby or a skill or a craft that you really like, you might want to try that slow transition away from what you're doing and getting that side hustle to be lucrative enough that that it can

support you and what you need to do. Yeah. I love that it doesn't necessarily have to be a hard transition, you know, like a clear mark where Okay, I used to be an attorney, but now I paint watercolors, you know, Like it doesn't need to be this dramatic thing, you know, or not water colors. But yeah, now I'm a stonemason. I like how it truly can be something that is more transitional. And that's something too that you can do when you have put yourself in a good position financially. Right.

Uh So, if you have taken those steps early on to make sure that your tirement is going to be in a good place, there is a little less pressure to continue down that professional path that might be causing you so much stress or literally sitting at a desk, you know, for eight hours, like Joel talked about, like that like might literally be killing you and instead being able to get outside would just do so much for yourself. Yeah,

and this is a really important point. And if you know, for the for the listeners out there, one of the things that you have to make sure that you do if you're going to do this, is you have to turn this from a Sunday goal into a two day goal. I mean, this is something that you need to say, Okay, I'm gonna start working on this right now, and you need to give yourself a finite amount of time to make that happen. Like let's assume you say, okay, I'm

gonna transition over four years. Okay, so now you're working from four years from now backward towards today. So you literally have you know, two hundred weeks to figure out um from where that transition ends and you're in your new career back up all the way to today, and what little mini goals you have to hit along the

way to make that happen. You mentioned financially, you mentioned, you know, product wise, you mentioned the marketing wise, setting up your company, getting the website done, and just working yourself back to now, you know, setting up weekend places where you can sell these crafts or these these products wherever that might be, and work your way from four years or three years or five years whatever you want

it to be, working that backwards towards today. So you have a really clear begin date and end date and an absolutely path to get there. Otherwise this would just be one of those frustrations that kind of haunts you for the next tent or fifteen years that you never really get done. Well, can that's some awesome practical advice to wrap this conversation up. Thank you so much for joining us today. And where can our listeners find out

more about you and what you're up to? Well, if you go to um ken rust dot com that's Ken Rusk dot com. You can see what we're doing there. You can also go to uh Ken Rusk Official, which is my Facebook page, which has a lot of great stuff there. We we post um every couple of days and we have a blog as well. And uh and um. You know you'll you'll see the book you at Amazon, You'll see it at Barnes and Noble's indie books as well. Don't forget to support those individual book bookstores. You can

find it pretty much anywhere books are sold. Awesome, Well, Ken, thanks so much man for joining us on this. You know, for this conversation, I feel like there's been a lot of insight here that our listeners, you know, it's going to cause them to think through things in a way that they haven't before. And uh, and I think that can only be a good thing. So we really appreciate your time. Thank you. Well, you're welcome, and to everybody out there, you got this and let's let's let's go

make it happen. You you know, I've got confidence in you. I know you can make it happen. So just start today and get her done. You're the man. Thanks Ken, You're welcome. Thank you, Joel Maye. What a great conversation we just had here with Ken rusk Uh. You know, when we talk about money here on the show, like we can talk about it in a few different ways, like you can there's different ways that you can earn money.

There's different ways that you can manage your money, and so spending is you know, included in that and being frugal and whatnot. And then there's things that you can do on the back end of that as well, which

is like investing your money for the long term. And we don't often talk about some alternate ways that you can earn money, right, Like we talk about side gigs and things like that and starting your own business some but we're getting a raise and talking to your employer about that, Yeah, exactly, Like those are all good avenues, but we have not yet talked about you know, not going to college. Uh, and just the opportunities that exist

out there for skilled trades. And I'm so glad that we got to talk with Ken and a true professional. He's lived it and he's advising others on this as well, and he's got a balanced approach to it. He's like, I'm not the anti college guy, and that's great because college is for a lot of people, but it's also

a lot of professions. Like there's some professions that you absolutely need it, I'm not Yeah, like he said, I don't want a surgeon operating on any who hasn't been to college, and I completely agree with him, But there are a lot of people who a blue collar career makes a whole lot more sense. And my big takeaway, but let's get to that's here is the supply and

demand factor, and supplying demand basic economic principle. And when you look at the supply in the labor force right now, um, there's not a whole lot of supply when it comes to people that are willing to work in blue collar industries. But there's a whole lot of demand. And so that does mean you'll be able to make a whole lot more money often times in the blue collar space than you would be even after getting a four year college degree.

One of the things I read in Ken's book, he said that one in four college graduates makes just as much as a high school graduate does. Um. That that people go through all that work, all that time, all the all the debt load that they take on, and then at the end what they have to show for it is they're making just as much as someone who didn't even spend there or four years in that way and take on all that debt. That's a sobering statistic.

And so yeah, it's really important, especially for for young kids or people maybe feeling like they're in a debt end career that they don't enjoy anymore. Well, look at the demand out there and be part of the supply, part of the supply that potentially makes a whole lot more money, um than you're currently making or than you otherwise might if you took the traditional career path. I love a dude. I'm glad that was your takeaway. Yeah,

you want to be that supply. You want to be able to meet that demand that's out there, you know, Like he even talked about the Stonemason's He's planning his his workout for six months in advance, Like that is insane. And it's a perfect example that that demand is there. All right. But now it's my turn, time for my little takeaway. And I say a little take away because I feel like it wasn't this huge, you know, complex idea, but it was rather simple. And it was when he

was talking about a gap here, right. I think in our culture, we don't value, we don't prize the gap here. I think a lot of times if you hear somebody's taking a gap here, they're just like, oh, you're just wasting time. Yeah, you see that as like, oh, you must be trying to go find yourself. If you're lucky, maybe you can do some traveling that kind of thing.

But instead, the way Ken presented it, this is a great opportunity to decide, uh, and to really think through if it makes sense to take on a boatload of student loan debt, which most folks are are doing these days, if it makes sense to dedicate four years of your life towards something that you're not even totally sure, word, that's gonna go. And so I loved how he's that gap year script and you kind of flipped it on

his head a little bit. And he pointed out how this is a great opportunity to maybe discover something that you have never even considered doing before. It's not something that you learned about in high school because they're not teaching it in high schools anymore. But it's an opportunity for you to discover a passion of yours, something that you're really good at, and something that could also allow

you to make a lot of money. This just gets me excited for all the high school students out there who might be hearing this, because I think this really could be life changing. This. This doesn't have to be gap here and now I'm going to go to New Zealand kind of thing. This could be like gap here. Let's think about what trade I could potentially do, uh, something that I already have an inclination towards. I don't

think Americans are allowed in New Zealand anyway, right not now? Yeah, But I liked how he said just being on a work site, sometimes your mind will naturally find what it is that you want to do. Like you naturally will gravitate towards it. It's sort of like, you know, like Harry Potter, when the like the wand chooses him. I think maybe the skill can choose the individual as you're kind of drawn to that, and I like how that can maybe just a different approach to a career. Yeah.

I think that's a great takeaway. Man. I feel like he framed a gap year in in just a wonderful way where a gap here makes a whole lot of sense, and I think it makes sense for more and more people right now as the value of a college degree with coronavirus remote learning is coming into question even more. Exactly good stuff. All right, Let's get back to the beer that we had on the show today, Matt. This

one was called rhymes with Purple from Bromari Brewing. You you picked this berliner of ice with a bunch of different berries in it up for us while you were in Asheville recently. What were your thoughts on this beer? Well, first, I will say it is very very purple. It's it's like as we poured it. I don't know if I've ever seen a more purple red beer, but it's called it rhymes with purple, and it's got with like six different berries going on in it, and it is very tart. Man.

That's that's the first thing that I noticed. Um, it was really tart, but at the same time it had like a nice medium body and so it's kind of lush, uh, kind of coated your tongue a nice little bit, but with it being a Berlin device as well. And then it had that kind of chewy, weedy finish on the tail, and so it was a fun, kind of refreshing beer, but while at the same time, you know, it had

that substance to back it up. I really enjoyed it many It was like a bouquet of berries, I would say, yeah, but not like overly perfume, you know, like it was all in the flavor. Not because sometimes you smell it, you know, you kind of give it a sniff before you taste it and you're like, oh, it's like too much perfume, you know, But not this one. It's all

it's all on the taste. Yeah, a little bit velvety, I thought, but just like a richness from all the fruits that's present, and definitely a nice amount of tartness at the same time. This was a well balanced Berlin vice that that I really enjoyed. I love fruited beers, I love fruited sours. This one was was really tasty, So yeah, Mad props to Bramari for this one, and thanks to you for picking it up. Yeah, man, Happy Tomari.

They're making a lot of good beer up that way up there in Asheville, North Carolina, so look them up if you happen to be in the area. And dude, that's gonna be it for this episode. Listeners can find our show notes up on our website at how to money dot com and we'll make sure to link to Kin's sites there as well. Yeah, and if you're a new listener and you enjoyed this conversation with Kendall, we have a lot of other interviews that you can check

out as well, with with lots of interesting people. And you can check out all of our episodes up on how to Money dot com. And don't forget to subscribe on your podcast or so you never miss an upcoming episode. Alright, Matt, Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.