Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am
Speaker 1: Matt's and today we're talking blue collar work and how
Speaker 1: it can generate more wealth with Ken Rusk. I guess
Speaker 1: today is Ken Rusk. Ken. He specializes in mentoring and
Speaker 1: has coached hundreds of young people in goal setting, life visualization,
Speaker 1: career paths, and some sound financial planning as well. He
Speaker 1: is passionate about helping folks achieve their dreams regardless of
Speaker 1: their educational background and and now with his recently published
Speaker 1: book Blue Collar Cash, Ken explains that blue collar trades
Speaker 1: are a source of pride and how you can find
Speaker 1: your version of happiness by pursuing a good old fashioned craft.
Speaker 1: Our economy is in desperate need of skilled trades people
Speaker 1: and we are pumped to talk about that as well. Ken,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us here on the podcast. Great guys,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Hey, We're
Speaker 1: glad to have you Ken. And the first question we
Speaker 1: ask everybody that comes on the show, Matt and I
Speaker 1: we love craft beer. We're drinking one now. It's it's
Speaker 1: something that we do. We're willing to spend extra money
Speaker 1: on great beers. You know, while we're intentionally saving and
Speaker 1: investing for the future. So like, what's your splurge, what's
Speaker 1: your craft beer equivalent? Well, you know, it's funny because
Speaker 1: I I'm I'm a golfer and I really love the
Speaker 1: game of golf, and I have a bunch of buddies
Speaker 1: and we traveled around the country playing it from great
Speaker 1: courses and it's just one of those things where invariably
Speaker 1: I have to come home with a golf shirt. And
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, I probably have way too many
Speaker 1: golf shirts in my closet, and every time I come home,
Speaker 1: my wife is like, okay, another golf shirt. So now
Speaker 1: the new rule is if I buy one, I have
Speaker 1: to donate one to somebody else. And that's just fine
Speaker 1: by me. Keep the closet not two packed? Right exactly
Speaker 1: where all have you played? Me? What I really to
Speaker 1: ask is have you ever traveled abroad to play? Because
Speaker 1: I hear, you know about folks sometimes taking trips to
Speaker 1: Scotland and you know, playing on some of those old
Speaker 1: courses and it's supposed to be amazing. You know, we
Speaker 1: just got back from Scotland. We we did play the
Speaker 1: old course, and um we played in Ireland and we've
Speaker 1: been all over the place. I mean, it's it's I've
Speaker 1: played in the Caribbean. I've played you know, Pete Die
Speaker 1: courses and Cabos and Lucas and all over the place.
Speaker 1: So it's it's it's just a lot of fun. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a passion of ours, and it just gives
Speaker 1: you one more reason to travel, you know, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love it alright. Well, can tell us about your your
Speaker 1: path into blue collar work? You know, did you go
Speaker 1: to a four year university or did you know early
Speaker 1: on that you weren't interested in that road more traveled?
Speaker 1: You know, it's for me, it was pretty simple. I
Speaker 1: got into working with my hands really early. I started
Speaker 1: digging ditches when I was fifteen years old at a
Speaker 1: company that was located right next to my high school.
Speaker 1: And um, you know, I just always like being outside.
Speaker 1: I like, you know, having my jeans and my boots
Speaker 1: on and you know, my t shirt and going outside
Speaker 1: and just grinding out a good solid day. And I
Speaker 1: did landscaping, and I did all kinds of I did hardscaping,
Speaker 1: all kinds of things that that required me to work
Speaker 1: with my hands. And I just really loved the control
Speaker 1: of that. I loved that I could control my input
Speaker 1: and my own output. And and so I tried going
Speaker 1: to college, but it just didn't work for me. And
Speaker 1: so Ken like, what what job was it that made
Speaker 1: you think, I think I'm gonna stick to blue collar
Speaker 1: work for the rest of my life. Like, this isn't
Speaker 1: something that's just fun for now. I like get in
Speaker 1: my hands dirty, but it's something I want to dedicate
Speaker 1: my life too. Well, you know, the the the company
Speaker 1: that um I worked for where we repaired foundations on
Speaker 1: old basements, and it was, you know, it was dirty,
Speaker 1: sloppy work, it was hard work. It was almost like
Speaker 1: one of those micro dirty jobs situations where you're running
Speaker 1: jackhammers and you're breathing in dust and it's it was
Speaker 1: just one of those things. But the greatest part about
Speaker 1: it was it was very lucrative. And you know, I
Speaker 1: tended to do that in the summertime when I was
Speaker 1: in in you know, office school, and in the wintertime
Speaker 1: I worked in the office. And it was really a neat,
Speaker 1: neat place to work because no matter what position you had,
Speaker 1: you could kind of control your own income through how
Speaker 1: much how much work you were willing to put in
Speaker 1: and bonus programs and incentives and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So I just kept earning my way up and and
Speaker 1: and seeing that I could again set my own income levels.
Speaker 1: And it was good because you know, I wanted the
Speaker 1: same things as everybody else did. I wanted, you know,
Speaker 1: my first used car. I wanted to be able to
Speaker 1: take my wife or at my girlfriend at the time
Speaker 1: out to dinner and buy a pizza or whatever the
Speaker 1: heck we wanted to do, go to the movies. And
Speaker 1: and it was it was neat because I could work
Speaker 1: and then reward myself, and then I could dream a
Speaker 1: little bit bigger and work and then reward myself. So
Speaker 1: I've been with that same company now, um, for you know,
Speaker 1: almost forty years or Okay, So then you know, why
Speaker 1: are you still to believer and more people pursuing blue
Speaker 1: collar work in our society? Well, yeah, I look at
Speaker 1: it this way. I am a huge believer in supply
Speaker 1: and demand and and that is then is a a
Speaker 1: power force in our economy that it just can never
Speaker 1: really be denied. And and um, you know, some people
Speaker 1: argue it can, but that's only usually when it's manipulated
Speaker 1: one for one reason or another. But for me. You know,
Speaker 1: I I've always kind of been like a contrarian thinker
Speaker 1: when it comes to opportunities. So I looked at the
Speaker 1: fact that you know, nearly everybody um is getting you know,
Speaker 1: corralled into going to college, whether they need to or
Speaker 1: want to, whether they have a specific reason too or not.
Speaker 1: And I always say from the outset guys that I'm
Speaker 1: not an anti college guy. I'm more of an anti
Speaker 1: college is for everybody guy. And and and the reason
Speaker 1: is simple. I mean, if you're going to operate on
Speaker 1: my knee, or if you're gonna build a building or
Speaker 1: engineer something, or if you're going to teach somebody something
Speaker 1: or manage people's money, yeah, you need to know everything
Speaker 1: there is to know about those particular situations. But notwithstanding that,
Speaker 1: there's such an amazing shift towards everybody's got to go
Speaker 1: to school. And and again, I like to be kind
Speaker 1: of contrarian in my in my thinking there when it
Speaker 1: comes to those opportunities, because you know, if if we
Speaker 1: are over supplying the market with non specific degrees, and
Speaker 1: what I mean by that is those degrees where people
Speaker 1: just go to school to get something they're never going
Speaker 1: to use, you know, they get really good at beer
Speaker 1: pong for four years, but they don't really come out
Speaker 1: with anything that's really solid. If we're gonna oversupply society
Speaker 1: with that, then that means we're undersupplying society with welders
Speaker 1: and plumbers and carpenters and electricians, and so the money
Speaker 1: has to naturally flow that way because we're supply is
Speaker 1: low and demand is high. That's usually where it goes.
Speaker 1: I feel like you're underselling the usefulness of beer pong
Speaker 1: as a light skilled you know, so, uh, just kidding it.
Speaker 1: It seems like too candidate that we put such a
Speaker 1: high priority on high school students. We used to experiencing
Speaker 1: something like shop class when I was in high school,
Speaker 1: even you know, twenty years ago, shop class was kind
Speaker 1: of on its way out, and so working with your
Speaker 1: hands that that's just not something that people even have
Speaker 1: access to as they're growing up in school. So why
Speaker 1: why do you think there's not so much of an
Speaker 1: emphasis on things like shop class or or learning how
Speaker 1: to fix things like as you're growing up these days. Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's real simple. We had this kind of confluence
Speaker 1: of of of three two or three different factors that
Speaker 1: are causing this. So so if you look back into
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties, they decided to eliminate shop class
Speaker 1: in favor of you know, getting computers in classes. And
Speaker 1: you know, again, we had to learn computers. That's really important,
Speaker 1: I understand that, but not at the expense of of
Speaker 1: shop class, of millions of kids discovering, you know, even
Speaker 1: accidentally how cool carpentry can be, or a mechanics, home economics, whatever.
Speaker 1: And so you know, you couple that with the with
Speaker 1: the situation that now kids instead of you know, going
Speaker 1: in their backyards and building tree forts, you know, they're
Speaker 1: building it on computer screens like with like Minecraft and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, so they're not really experiencing the real
Speaker 1: sense of hammering a nail, okay, and or or you know,
Speaker 1: changing the oil in a car or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: So I think what happens there is if you couple
Speaker 1: those two situations with again this this societal expectation that
Speaker 1: if you don't go to school, you won't amount too much,
Speaker 1: which is crazy on the surface. You kind of have
Speaker 1: this whole stigma that comes out of oh, you know,
Speaker 1: well my kids going to this school, my kids going
Speaker 1: to that school. Well you know her kids just gonna
Speaker 1: be a plumber. Well, okay, let's talk about just gonna
Speaker 1: be a plumber. I know that kid, and that kid
Speaker 1: now has four vans and you know a half a
Speaker 1: dozen guy and he's making a killing doing plumbing. So
Speaker 1: you have to think of it in terms of really
Speaker 1: what you want your life to look like and then
Speaker 1: how to go get it. Yeah, it's it's unfortunate right
Speaker 1: that there is such a stigma around I think some
Speaker 1: of these, some of these trades at least, and it
Speaker 1: makes me too. It makes me wonder when I was
Speaker 1: a kid growing up, we didn't have shop class like
Speaker 1: we had tech lab. Shot class was replaced with tech
Speaker 1: lab and it was almost maybe a blend between shop
Speaker 1: class and computers a little bit. But it makes me wonder,
Speaker 1: you know, how different my life could be right now
Speaker 1: had I actually gone to shop class. When when you're
Speaker 1: not exposed to some of those things early on, like
Speaker 1: I love what I'm doing now, however, you do kind
Speaker 1: of wonder had you learned different skills early on, what
Speaker 1: kind of effect that would have on you. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I can tell you that I've I've had some amazing
Speaker 1: feedback from the book and some of it has been surprising.
Speaker 1: I've had emails from people who said, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: stuck in a cubicle. I'm in my mid thirties, what
Speaker 1: do I do? Can you help me? And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those situations where I look at
Speaker 1: you know, how sorry that situation is. I remember I
Speaker 1: rented a car not too long ago, and this is
Speaker 1: when I first started writing the book, and I had
Speaker 1: to leave this my car at the shop for like
Speaker 1: three weeks because they had a big complicated repair they
Speaker 1: were making under the dashboard. So they sent me to
Speaker 1: rent this car. I get to the rental place and
Speaker 1: there's a kid standing behind the counter and he's trying
Speaker 1: to put his best foot forward. He's got like three
Speaker 1: different pieces of suits on and and he's he's doing
Speaker 1: the thing. You know, he's really trying to make it work.
Speaker 1: Fifteen minutes into talking to this kid, he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm eighty thousand in debt. I went for just a
Speaker 1: regular old bland business degree. I don't know why I
Speaker 1: did that. Now I'm making, you know, twenty eight thousand
Speaker 1: at this car rental place, and I don't know how
Speaker 1: I'm ever going to pay that off that could have
Speaker 1: been my first house. And I just feel really bad
Speaker 1: for for those situations where people just kind of like
Speaker 1: blindly follow again this societal this new societal norm that
Speaker 1: they that's your only path, because nothing could be further
Speaker 1: from the truth there. Yeah, can I want to ask
Speaker 1: you to, um, the how has COVID nineteen impacted maybe
Speaker 1: your advice in regards to people pursuing blue collar work,
Speaker 1: Like have the those blue collar jobs in any way
Speaker 1: been been affected by by the coronavirus and kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: and on your advice for people pursuing blue collar work
Speaker 1: in general. This is an amazing, um silver lining if
Speaker 1: there is one, because so many people are staying home
Speaker 1: and they're realizing you know, um, I think part of
Speaker 1: the greatest part about COVID is, you know, now I'm
Speaker 1: seeing kids ride their bikes in the neighborhood and dogs walked,
Speaker 1: and you know, hey, how about that frisbee that we
Speaker 1: used to play with. I mean, those things are being
Speaker 1: thrown around, and you know, backyards are being used, barbecues, whatever,
Speaker 1: had whatever you want to do. But the cool thing
Speaker 1: is is families are staying home and they're looking around
Speaker 1: and they're realizing, you know, there's so many things I
Speaker 1: could do to make my place better. Right, So now
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, those people are realizing, I tried
Speaker 1: to hire a guide to work on my deck and
Speaker 1: he can't get to me for four months. You know,
Speaker 1: I tried to get this plumber over here, and he's
Speaker 1: charging me a fortune to come now, but he'll charge
Speaker 1: me less if if I if I wait for ninety days.
Speaker 1: So it's it's insane how how people are coming to
Speaker 1: terms real quickly with man. You know, I got three
Speaker 1: or four kids. There's no way that all of them
Speaker 1: can be meant for school if if, in fact, some
Speaker 1: of them happen to be more tactle type, you know,
Speaker 1: people a gal or or a guy where they would
Speaker 1: rather work with their hands or pursue a skill or
Speaker 1: a craft or something like that. So I think if
Speaker 1: there is a silver lining here, it is anything having
Speaker 1: to do with recreation or repair or improvement or replacement.
Speaker 1: Those things are so hot right now that some of
Speaker 1: these parents are going, you know, maybe we should rethink
Speaker 1: this automatic process of us just going into debt and
Speaker 1: sending you know, kid number two, three and four into college. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, you hinted a little bit about supply
Speaker 1: and demand. So we're gonna take a quick break, but
Speaker 1: after that break, we're gonna talk about the demand for
Speaker 1: these trade jobs. We're gonna talk about the opportunity that's
Speaker 1: there and even to you how much one might be
Speaker 1: able to make. And so we'll get to that right
Speaker 1: after the break. Alright, we're back from break. We're talking
Speaker 1: with Ken Rusk about blue collar work and how it
Speaker 1: can actually generate more wealth and and can um let's
Speaker 1: talk about the opportunity that individuals have with blue collar work,
Speaker 1: and let's talk a little bit more about supply and demand. You, um,
Speaker 1: you can you give us some specifics on the supply
Speaker 1: of college graduates and the demand of their industries with
Speaker 1: that of like the supply of blue collar work and
Speaker 1: then the demand for for those killed trades. Can you
Speaker 1: give us any any more specifics on that? Well? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I can point to one example. You know, um,
Speaker 1: we are right now at one of the highest most
Speaker 1: record home building periods um in many many years. And
Speaker 1: you know, I personally know of of some large track
Speaker 1: home builders that are setting all time records. Well, that
Speaker 1: requires a lot of people doing a lot of things
Speaker 1: with their hands, from from concrete to you know, to fabrication,
Speaker 1: to carpentry, to plumbing, to electricians too ruffers, to landscapers
Speaker 1: to road builders to anything that you can see that
Speaker 1: that creates or build something. You know, they're they're talking
Speaker 1: about they want to put together this new infrastructure stimulus
Speaker 1: bill with with within the government that's gonna put even
Speaker 1: more pressure on a blue collar crisis that already exists.
Speaker 1: So again, you know, it's it's it's it's a funny thing,
Speaker 1: but you actually have finished carpenters now that are making
Speaker 1: more money than family doctors. And guess what they're doing
Speaker 1: it without two fift thousand dollars of college debt that
Speaker 1: will take twenty years to pay off. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I like to talk about is I call it,
Speaker 1: you know, this this asset swing. And it's a real
Speaker 1: simple story. But let's assume I go into college and
Speaker 1: I'm spending forty to fifty thousand a year. Okay, four
Speaker 1: years later, that's what a hundred sixty to two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Right now, I'm paying that money and I'm
Speaker 1: not earning anything at the time. So let's let's Conversely,
Speaker 1: UM talk about a high demand job like UM like carpentry,
Speaker 1: for example, or or plumbing or electricians. So those folks
Speaker 1: are going right into a job that pays them forty
Speaker 1: to fifty dollars a year to start. So four years
Speaker 1: later their asset base is plus two hundred. The other
Speaker 1: guy or gal their asset base is negative two hundred.
Speaker 1: So you're talking about a four hundred thousand dollars swing
Speaker 1: in the first four years of a young person's life.
Speaker 1: That's that's huge when you think about a house, a car,
Speaker 1: starting a you know, you're you're saving these accounts, maybe
Speaker 1: you're four one k. Yeah, that's a big swing. And
Speaker 1: and and I when I whenever I tell that story,
Speaker 1: I get a lot of parents that look at each
Speaker 1: other like, Holy God, what were we thinking? And it's
Speaker 1: just it's just one of those things where it's it's
Speaker 1: the information is right there. I mean, I'm not making
Speaker 1: this up. It's it's right there. You just have to
Speaker 1: look at and really take a good look at you know,
Speaker 1: what am I really doing for my kid in his
Speaker 1: financial future? Yeah? I mean, and like you said, you're
Speaker 1: not against college, right, Like, if if that's something that
Speaker 1: you want to pursue and you know you want to
Speaker 1: pursue it, then yes, higher education is the right answer there.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I agree with you. I think you know,
Speaker 1: blindly kind of going down the path of college and
Speaker 1: not exactly knowing what you want to do, you know,
Speaker 1: and paying a lot of money for that isn't the
Speaker 1: you know, the most wise move. Yeah, and not assessing
Speaker 1: the alternatives, yeah, which is Yeah, that's why we're talking
Speaker 1: with you, Ken. You know, you're you're talking about like
Speaker 1: some of these skill trades, right, you talk about carpentry,
Speaker 1: like an electrician. What other industries are going to need
Speaker 1: more workers here in the future. You call what's currently
Speaker 1: happening in the of her market essentially a crisis, you know,
Speaker 1: in the American workforce, but you also consider the crisis
Speaker 1: to be this golden opportunity for many folks. So yeah,
Speaker 1: can you talk to us more about about this growing
Speaker 1: demand and like specific industries and jobs as well? Well? Sure?
Speaker 1: I mean I can tell you that any anything in energy,
Speaker 1: whether it's um new energy or existing energy. You know,
Speaker 1: you're talking about windmills and solar and and and all
Speaker 1: those kinds of things. Um you're talking about even even
Speaker 1: still natural gas and oil extraction. I mean those those
Speaker 1: things are red hot and out in certain areas of
Speaker 1: the country. You can make a killing doing that. We're
Speaker 1: seeing for welders and mill rights, we're seeing just an
Speaker 1: incredible amounts of money. I know a gal she was
Speaker 1: fighting to get through her two year degree and it
Speaker 1: took her like several years, and she had a couple
Speaker 1: of kids and so that interrupted it and whatever, and
Speaker 1: she needed one more class to get over, um, the
Speaker 1: finish line on this two year degree. And and she
Speaker 1: had asked her friend, she says, what should I do here?
Speaker 1: And her friend said, you know, I took this welding class.
Speaker 1: It was a blast. You should you should give it
Speaker 1: a shot. And um, So she took this welding class.
Speaker 1: And she was very detailed, and she was very calm,
Speaker 1: and she was very patient, and she was a really
Speaker 1: you know, she was really a good at welding. And
Speaker 1: before she finished the class, she had a job. And
Speaker 1: now she stands on top of three foot windmills and
Speaker 1: she she, uh, she's making about a hundred fifty dollars
Speaker 1: a year doing that. And she never thought for a
Speaker 1: second that would be anything she wanted to do. So
Speaker 1: it's incredible. I mean when when you when you think
Speaker 1: of that, you know, we're seeing thirty eight forty two,
Speaker 1: forty six fifty two an hour for you know, electricians, plumbers, welders, um, carpenters,
Speaker 1: and those are the people that are just working within
Speaker 1: some other company. I mean, if you know, Lord knows that,
Speaker 1: if if you find a way to maybe get busy
Speaker 1: enough and you have a couple of people working for you,
Speaker 1: well then you know, the sky's the limit at that point.
Speaker 1: Now you're talking about you know, big money there. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in in your book, can you mention that some plumbers
Speaker 1: in Atlanta coming straight out of tech school or making
Speaker 1: ninety dollars a year? Yeah, I was like, wow, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, so that's pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty insane. Um.
Speaker 1: And obviously there are lots of blue collar workers who
Speaker 1: make less than doctors and lawyers. You kind of made
Speaker 1: that distinction. But but what sets apart the blue collar
Speaker 1: workers who end up being able to make higher salaries
Speaker 1: from the ones who end up having a career where
Speaker 1: they where they make more of like an average income. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's the first three chapters. Because to me,
Speaker 1: what what what sets people apart. Is what I call
Speaker 1: the entrepreneurial spirit of spirit. And you can be an
Speaker 1: entrepreneurial employee for somebody else as well. But whenever I think,
Speaker 1: and this is what I do when I coach people.
Speaker 1: One of the first things that I talked about is,
Speaker 1: you know, why are you here? Why are you working?
Speaker 1: What's your endgame look like? And they look at you
Speaker 1: like you know you're from Mars when you asknet you live? Really,
Speaker 1: I literally get them to draw it out. I will
Speaker 1: tell you that I've I've had many many people in
Speaker 1: my in my day, I get a white post board
Speaker 1: in a box of Crayola crans, you know, the old
Speaker 1: sixty or four box of Creola crans, and I have them,
Speaker 1: I have them draw out what they want their life
Speaker 1: to look like. And I'm talking about are you a
Speaker 1: house person, a condo person, an apartment person in the city.
Speaker 1: Are you a pickup truck person or a minivan person
Speaker 1: or electric car person? You know, let's get some detail here.
Speaker 1: Are you a a dog person or a cat person?
Speaker 1: And if so, what kind of dog and what would
Speaker 1: you name it? What's your hobbies look like? What's your
Speaker 1: give back moment look like? To society, draw all that out.
Speaker 1: You know, what are your vacations feel like to you?
Speaker 1: And then you create that old that that that that
Speaker 1: puzzle of nirvana that you would really want to go after.
Speaker 1: And I can tell you, guys that to the person,
Speaker 1: once they get that picture completed in their mind, they
Speaker 1: begin to discover all the entrepreneurial characteristics like perseverance and
Speaker 1: and you know, resilience and uh and morals and character
Speaker 1: and all those things that you know, drive and and um,
Speaker 1: all the things that you need to become an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1: It's almost like those characteristics are just buried in your
Speaker 1: closet behind the shoes you haven't worn in a long time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're stuck behind the golf shirts. And and it's amazing
Speaker 1: the evolution of the human of the human mind when
Speaker 1: someone sees exactly where they're going, because then the entrepreneurial
Speaker 1: spirit kicks in and they basically look at you and say, hey,
Speaker 1: thanks for the training. Can I just get out of
Speaker 1: my way and let me go do it? And I
Speaker 1: can tell you that that sets them apart is is
Speaker 1: people that that know what they want from their life.
Speaker 1: They have their comfort, peace and freedom, picture all drawn
Speaker 1: out and those that don't, those that just live for Friday. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean. So on how the money. We often talk
Speaker 1: about the why behind your money, and I think sometimes
Speaker 1: folks might be tired of hearing us talk about that,
Speaker 1: but we feel it is so important to identify that
Speaker 1: why because once you have that purpose, once you have
Speaker 1: something that you're working towards, like, you figure everything else out,
Speaker 1: like all the details, all the nuts and bolts kind
Speaker 1: of fall into place, and you figure out how it
Speaker 1: is that you want to achieve, you know, the vision
Speaker 1: that you have for your future. So those goals of
Speaker 1: saving and investing more become less onerous, less burden some
Speaker 1: and they're more like they're freeing. It's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm doing that because it's for me, you know, as
Speaker 1: opposed to because some financial person and somebody who thinks
Speaker 1: about money a lot told me that I should. You know,
Speaker 1: we could go on with this particular part for hours.
Speaker 1: Because one of the things that I try to do
Speaker 1: um with anyone, especially young people that that I meet with,
Speaker 1: is I try to get the retirement part of their
Speaker 1: life out of the way. And what I mean by
Speaker 1: that is if somebody walks up to you or you're
Speaker 1: going to an interview and some or someone says, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pay you forty five tho dollars a year
Speaker 1: to do this job. The first thing I want you
Speaker 1: to say is thank you for paying me forty two
Speaker 1: thous dollars a year, because I want you to eliminate
Speaker 1: that first three thousand from your mind. You never had it,
Speaker 1: you never got it. It was never in your paycheck,
Speaker 1: you never saw it, you never experienced it. So therefore
Speaker 1: you can't spend it. Because if you take the first
Speaker 1: sixty bucks of your money and throw it into a
Speaker 1: four oh one K when you're twenty one, by the
Speaker 1: time you're thirty one, you can stop saving money and
Speaker 1: have over a million dollars in your four o one
Speaker 1: K account. So imagine being twenty one and sitting at
Speaker 1: the bar with your buddy and you're sharing, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of beers, and you look over to him
Speaker 1: and you say, yeah, I'm twenty one. My retirement is covered,
Speaker 1: it's spoken for, it's done. I mean, your light years
Speaker 1: ahead of everybody else on the planet who frets saving
Speaker 1: for retirement almost their entire life. Yeah, that's true. When
Speaker 1: you think of the power of young money. It's it's
Speaker 1: really insane, you know, how how you can make those
Speaker 1: things happen for yourself and just not even think about
Speaker 1: it anymore. And this is simple, This is simple stuff
Speaker 1: that it's so intensely powerful that it amazes me that
Speaker 1: they don't teach this stuff school. Yeah, I agree, it's
Speaker 1: um I think. Yeah. A lot of our listeners have
Speaker 1: reached out and they're like, man, I've never I've never
Speaker 1: heard some of these things, like some of the things
Speaker 1: that that Matt and I talked about on the show
Speaker 1: what or what two seventy episodes in and it's like,
Speaker 1: it's just a shame that that people that there's no
Speaker 1: shop class in school, and that there's no personal finance
Speaker 1: class in school. Um hey, can we have so many
Speaker 1: more questions for you that we want to get to,
Speaker 1: including like how people make that transition into a skilled
Speaker 1: trade or into blue collar work. And we'll get to
Speaker 1: a few of those questions right after this break. Al Right,
Speaker 1: we are back from the break and we are talking
Speaker 1: with Can Rusk, author of Blue Collar Cash and Can
Speaker 1: we've been talking about kind of how the world sees
Speaker 1: blue collar work. We've talked about now the opportunity that
Speaker 1: exists out there right just how I think many many
Speaker 1: more folks need to consider a skilled trade over just
Speaker 1: blindly going to college. Let's talk now a about how
Speaker 1: to kind of make that happen. You know, you you
Speaker 1: touched a little bit on just some the different degrees
Speaker 1: from the different programs that you need to take in
Speaker 1: order to partake in some of these skilled trades. What
Speaker 1: does that normally look like? You know, what are the
Speaker 1: education requirements for a lot of these jobs? Like, obviously
Speaker 1: you don't need that four year degree, but you know,
Speaker 1: do you need to attend like a two year trade
Speaker 1: school typically? Well, you know, it's it's it's funny because
Speaker 1: on my Facebook page, you know, we have um a
Speaker 1: long discussion, We've had it for for years now about
Speaker 1: you know, the best ways to do this, And every
Speaker 1: time I put up the question, you know, is it
Speaker 1: better to go to a tech school or to an apprenticeship?
Speaker 1: It's crazy the amount of engagement that I get on
Speaker 1: that question from oh my god, is it ever? I
Speaker 1: can tell you it appears though that the apprenticeship wins.
Speaker 1: And and I'll tell you why, um and and both
Speaker 1: of these pasts are perfectly correct just so you know,
Speaker 1: but because there's such a demand for anyone who's willing
Speaker 1: to put down their their game boy and and pick
Speaker 1: and pick up a hammer. Um, once you find an
Speaker 1: individual like this as a boss, you tend to throw
Speaker 1: everything you have at that person in like a really
Speaker 1: concentrated way. So instead of taking maybe you know, seven
Speaker 1: or eight years to to learn and get good at something,
Speaker 1: you can accomplish that same goal in just a couple
Speaker 1: of thousand, maybe three or four thousand hours. And so
Speaker 1: there there's a lot of people that say, jump right in,
Speaker 1: you know, find someone that's good at what they're doing,
Speaker 1: and just you know, glean everything you can off of
Speaker 1: somebody like that. And one of the reasons that is
Speaker 1: is because you know, the other issue that we have
Speaker 1: is the skilled tradesmen are beginning to retire, tradesmen and
Speaker 1: trades women. And you know, for every five electricians that
Speaker 1: retires right now, only one is coming on board to
Speaker 1: replace them. So and this is going to create even
Speaker 1: more pressure on that industry. So yeah, it's a good
Speaker 1: idea to go to school, to go to a tech school. Um,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna do something really detailed, real specific, like
Speaker 1: electrical work, that kind of thing, UM, welding, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. If you're doing something more handsy where you're
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's more of like a carpenter trade
Speaker 1: or uh you know, brick laying or stonemasonry work that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. You know you can do a little
Speaker 1: more apprentice work with that, and um, you know it's
Speaker 1: it's insane. I have a guy that um that worked
Speaker 1: on an outdoor grill area in my house and he
Speaker 1: works with with hand cut stone. He's an artist. It's
Speaker 1: amazing to watch this guy work. And just to give
Speaker 1: you an opport, an idea on the opportunity, here's the
Speaker 1: guy that shows up in my my art every every
Speaker 1: day with his brand new pickup truck and he comes
Speaker 1: out with his jeans and his work boots and his
Speaker 1: T shirt and he's he's got his coffee in his hand,
Speaker 1: he's got led Zepplin cranked up really loud, and he's
Speaker 1: got his three or four people that come to work
Speaker 1: with them, and they build these amazing pieces of art,
Speaker 1: whether it's stone fences or gates or kitchens or whatever.
Speaker 1: And this guy wants to retire. He's making north of
Speaker 1: um six figures in a big way like not just
Speaker 1: a hundred, he's making north the two and he does
Speaker 1: no one to leave this company too. Wow. So so
Speaker 1: you just imagine this guy. I had to wait six
Speaker 1: months for this guy. You just imagine the reputation and
Speaker 1: the work that this guy has and the list of
Speaker 1: customers that are constantly calling him back to do more,
Speaker 1: more stuff. And if you were, you know, a bright
Speaker 1: eyed young guy or gal that said, hey, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm I think I see an opportunity here. You
Speaker 1: could work with this guy for a couple of years
Speaker 1: and take over his company and have your life set
Speaker 1: for you. So and that's happening all over the place.
Speaker 1: I hear that story all the time. Yeah, and various
Speaker 1: different industries, right right, Yeah, I think we're all four.
Speaker 1: We could like the idea of jumping into something, jumping
Speaker 1: in the deep end, immediately making some money, even if
Speaker 1: you're not making a lot. But it's man, it feels
Speaker 1: so good to not have to fork out a lot
Speaker 1: of money for education. But that being said, you know
Speaker 1: you mentioned house of these skills like they do require
Speaker 1: some specialized training. What is the what is the range
Speaker 1: of costs on some of these different programs that folks
Speaker 1: and you go to is it is it all over
Speaker 1: the board or yeah? Is it within like a tighter
Speaker 1: range than we would think. Yeah, it's it's typically for
Speaker 1: I read the other day that a lot of these
Speaker 1: these tech schools are between eight and twelve, sometimes thirteen
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year to get that done. But here's
Speaker 1: the difference. The difference is when you're going to these places,
Speaker 1: you're also working, and so you're making money at the
Speaker 1: same time while you're doing this, and you can work.
Speaker 1: You can work a lot of hours while you're in
Speaker 1: some of these schools, So it's kind of a school
Speaker 1: and work combination in many cases. So it's not like
Speaker 1: you're you know, you're you're going to Uncle Sam and
Speaker 1: borrowing all this money for for for this these classes
Speaker 1: that you're never gonna have to repay because you don't
Speaker 1: have to think about, you know, some of these people
Speaker 1: then they go to school, they're they're also borrowing room
Speaker 1: and board and the borrowing meal plans and everything else.
Speaker 1: But you don't have to you don't have to do
Speaker 1: that in this case. So it's it's it's a much
Speaker 1: much slimmer way to get through an education. And then
Speaker 1: get right to work making some really good money. So
Speaker 1: ken for our younger listeners who haven't really started their
Speaker 1: career yet, or for the parents of like late middle school,
Speaker 1: high school kids, and they're like, oh man, they're good
Speaker 1: with their hands, they really enjoy building stuff. What are
Speaker 1: the next steps to getting started right? We've talked about
Speaker 1: trade schools, but but what are the what are the
Speaker 1: best ways for for these the younger generation. If they're like, man,
Speaker 1: that sounds good and I want to avoid the debt.
Speaker 1: I see how bad things have gotten for my peers
Speaker 1: who have graduated college with tons of debt and then
Speaker 1: don't have a job lined up. How do they get
Speaker 1: started in the blue in a blue collar career. Well,
Speaker 1: you know that this is this is probably one of
Speaker 1: the most heartening um kind of feedback that I've gotten
Speaker 1: um from the book, because what's happening is parents are
Speaker 1: reading this book and then they're they're reading it first,
Speaker 1: and they're giving it to their kids to read, and
Speaker 1: they're having these amazing conversations, honest conversations from their kids
Speaker 1: that they wouldn't have had otherwise, because it just opens
Speaker 1: up a whole new line of thinking. That is, you
Speaker 1: know that is anti the typical societal norm of just
Speaker 1: corralling people through. So in that situation, I think what
Speaker 1: you do is is real simple. You get either part
Speaker 1: time jobs or you get summer jobs in in areas
Speaker 1: that you have some interest. You know, if if you
Speaker 1: leave my office and go the two miles to the
Speaker 1: three way, you're gonna pass you know, forty help wanted signs.
Speaker 1: So you have the ability to job shop like you've
Speaker 1: never had before, especially if you're willing to do something
Speaker 1: and work with your hands and be outside and do
Speaker 1: those kinds of things. So you can always be a
Speaker 1: very an intern or a very part time apprentice for
Speaker 1: you know, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, any of those types of
Speaker 1: trades and just just immerse yourself in it and see
Speaker 1: if any of those things grab your attention. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: a really good way to do it. Another thing that's
Speaker 1: gaining gaining steam and popularity are these gap years where
Speaker 1: instead of jumping right into school, you tend to take
Speaker 1: a little time off and you experience some of these
Speaker 1: things and see if there's anything out there that that
Speaker 1: really that hits you. But I can tell you if
Speaker 1: you spend any time around a construction site or any
Speaker 1: time even in in in some of these manufacturing places
Speaker 1: where they make these cool things. There's just there's just
Speaker 1: this way of you kind of understanding and kind of
Speaker 1: almost your mind draws itself to what you might be
Speaker 1: good at and and and the problem is is that
Speaker 1: only you know what you could be good at, only
Speaker 1: you know what you were meant to be, Only you know, um,
Speaker 1: what your life could look like. So if you pair
Speaker 1: up I always call it this way, instead of waiting
Speaker 1: for life to happen to you, you have to happen
Speaker 1: to life. So I think if you can find a
Speaker 1: vocational passion and pair that up with with some really
Speaker 1: great opportunities that are out there right now, um, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have your true value, your true comfort, peace and freedom,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. Ken Like several times there, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're talking about folks considering blue collar trades. You know,
Speaker 1: you say, a guy or a gal, can you speak
Speaker 1: specifically to what it looks like for a woman to
Speaker 1: enter the blue collar world? What do you think are
Speaker 1: the best opportunities for women in the blue collar space.
Speaker 1: You know, I've had the opportunity to interview three or
Speaker 1: four gals that they have done just that. One of
Speaker 1: them was a YouTube influencer, and UM, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a heck of a lot of that going on. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know much about it. It's kind of the
Speaker 1: wild West, but there's a whole lot of um incubator
Speaker 1: businesses that are happening um on the internet and um
Speaker 1: and again those are things that people start right out
Speaker 1: of their houses, um and and and they've done some
Speaker 1: just amazing things. I've talked to some influencers who you
Speaker 1: just can't even believe what they're doing. The other gal
Speaker 1: that I mentioned earlier was the welder. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: women seem to have patients that men don't have in detail,
Speaker 1: so when it comes to welding, that's a really really
Speaker 1: sought after characteristic. And I think there's all kinds of
Speaker 1: opportunities in that particular space. And once again, you can
Speaker 1: even see some some gal welders on the internet, and
Speaker 1: we've built these whole communities around what they're doing. It's
Speaker 1: it's really cool. I I UM. I interviewed a gal
Speaker 1: who left a waitress job to start selling bread for
Speaker 1: a bread baker. He retired and now she built She
Speaker 1: built her own um bread store where she's now baking
Speaker 1: two thousand loaves a week for the local businesses around
Speaker 1: um And and she had no skills, no education whatsoever.
Speaker 1: And then another gal. You know, one of the things
Speaker 1: that I talked a lot about is be willing to
Speaker 1: do things that other people aren't. Okay, Um, this gal,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, started driving a gravel truck, a
Speaker 1: dump truck, and now she's got twelve trucks. She runs
Speaker 1: her own gravel truck company and she's killing it. And
Speaker 1: I just I just love it because here's this, here's
Speaker 1: this really nice, petite gal with his hard hat on,
Speaker 1: and she stands in front with her arms crossed in
Speaker 1: front of her fleet of these huge twelve ken Where's
Speaker 1: that she's got? And it's just a really awesome photo.
Speaker 1: And I'm just so I'm so proud of her. But
Speaker 1: you gotta remember this. If there's a shortage of blue
Speaker 1: collar workers, and most people typically think of that as
Speaker 1: a male dominated industry, then if you're if you're a
Speaker 1: gal and you're willing to do it, man, you can
Speaker 1: write your own ticket right now. You're probably gonna stand
Speaker 1: out absolutely. Yeah, Yeah, that's cool. Hey, can I know too,
Speaker 1: that we have a lot of listeners who are work
Speaker 1: in a desk job and maybe they're working from home
Speaker 1: right now, and maybe they're even making decent money, but
Speaker 1: they're also a lot of people are just tired of it.
Speaker 1: And you know, just the way you feel working in
Speaker 1: front of a computer for eight to ten hours a day,
Speaker 1: right and blue collar work, especially after this conversation, might
Speaker 1: start to sound more appealing. So so how do you
Speaker 1: suggest people who feel that poll start to make that transition?
Speaker 1: You know, what one of the things that you can
Speaker 1: do um nowadays that you couldn't do years ago. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're trying to open your own company years ago,
Speaker 1: you know it required accountants and lawyers and you know
Speaker 1: bookkeeping and you know pieces of graph paper and pencil
Speaker 1: and all that other adding machines and all that. Well,
Speaker 1: now you know you can run your own business off
Speaker 1: of a cell phone. That has made it the barrier
Speaker 1: to entry just kind of disappear for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: So what I've seen a lot of which I think
Speaker 1: is really cool, is almost like a transitioning from the
Speaker 1: cubicle to being your own your own boss. And what
Speaker 1: I've seen, like I'll give you a great example. There's
Speaker 1: an entire community out there that does woodworking and they
Speaker 1: build and they build furniture, they build tables, they reclaim
Speaker 1: old barns, they work with wood and they love it.
Speaker 1: And what they did is they took like a weekend
Speaker 1: hobby and they turned it into a side hustle and
Speaker 1: they literally started and I'm talking about hundreds of different
Speaker 1: people here, not just not just a few. They have
Speaker 1: a community now. And you know, one guy is building
Speaker 1: these amazing you know, river tables with with lacquer in
Speaker 1: them and they're just gorgeous. And another one is doing
Speaker 1: rocking chairs, another one's doing this and doing that. But
Speaker 1: what they did was, you know, they got on the internet,
Speaker 1: they built themselves a website, they put these products out there,
Speaker 1: they sold them on the weekends, and then slowly they
Speaker 1: transitioned away from their day job to just doing this
Speaker 1: wood working for a living. And again why because no
Speaker 1: one else is doing it and there's demand for it.
Speaker 1: So you know, I think, I think if you're sitting
Speaker 1: in a in a cubicle right now wondering, or you
Speaker 1: have a weekend hobby or a skill or a craft
Speaker 1: that you really like, you might want to try that
Speaker 1: slow transition away from what you're doing and getting that
Speaker 1: side hustle to be lucrative enough that that it can
Speaker 1: support you and what you need to do. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: love that it doesn't necessarily have to be a hard transition,
Speaker 1: you know, like a clear mark where Okay, I used
Speaker 1: to be an attorney, but now I paint watercolors, you know,
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't need to be this dramatic thing, you know,
Speaker 1: or not water colors. But yeah, now I'm a stonemason.
Speaker 1: I like how it truly can be something that is
Speaker 1: more transitional. And that's something too that you can do
Speaker 1: when you have put yourself in a good position financially. Right.
Speaker 1: Uh So, if you have taken those steps early on
Speaker 1: to make sure that your tirement is going to be
Speaker 1: in a good place, there is a little less pressure
Speaker 1: to continue down that professional path that might be causing
Speaker 1: you so much stress or literally sitting at a desk,
Speaker 1: you know, for eight hours, like Joel talked about, like
Speaker 1: that like might literally be killing you and instead being
Speaker 1: able to get outside would just do so much for yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is a really important point. And if you know,
Speaker 1: for the for the listeners out there, one of the
Speaker 1: things that you have to make sure that you do
Speaker 1: if you're going to do this, is you have to
Speaker 1: turn this from a Sunday goal into a two day goal.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is something that you need to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start working on this right now, and you
Speaker 1: need to give yourself a finite amount of time to
Speaker 1: make that happen. Like let's assume you say, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna transition over four years. Okay, so now you're working
Speaker 1: from four years from now backward towards today. So you
Speaker 1: literally have you know, two hundred weeks to figure out
Speaker 1: um from where that transition ends and you're in your
Speaker 1: new career back up all the way to today, and
Speaker 1: what little mini goals you have to hit along the
Speaker 1: way to make that happen. You mentioned financially, you mentioned,
Speaker 1: you know, product wise, you mentioned the marketing wise, setting
Speaker 1: up your company, getting the website done, and just working
Speaker 1: yourself back to now, you know, setting up weekend places
Speaker 1: where you can sell these crafts or these these products
Speaker 1: wherever that might be, and work your way from four
Speaker 1: years or three years or five years whatever you want
Speaker 1: it to be, working that backwards towards today. So you
Speaker 1: have a really clear begin date and end date and
Speaker 1: an absolutely path to get there. Otherwise this would just
Speaker 1: be one of those frustrations that kind of haunts you
Speaker 1: for the next tent or fifteen years that you never
Speaker 1: really get done. Well, can that's some awesome practical advice
Speaker 1: to wrap this conversation up. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us today. And where can our listeners find out
Speaker 1: more about you and what you're up to? Well, if
Speaker 1: you go to um ken rust dot com that's Ken
Speaker 1: Rusk dot com. You can see what we're doing there.
Speaker 1: You can also go to uh Ken Rusk Official, which
Speaker 1: is my Facebook page, which has a lot of great
Speaker 1: stuff there. We we post um every couple of days
Speaker 1: and we have a blog as well. And uh and um.
Speaker 1: You know you'll you'll see the book you at Amazon,
Speaker 1: You'll see it at Barnes and Noble's indie books as well.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to support those individual book bookstores. You can
Speaker 1: find it pretty much anywhere books are sold. Awesome, Well, Ken,
Speaker 1: thanks so much man for joining us on this. You know,
Speaker 1: for this conversation, I feel like there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of insight here that our listeners, you know, it's going
Speaker 1: to cause them to think through things in a way
Speaker 1: that they haven't before. And uh, and I think that
Speaker 1: can only be a good thing. So we really appreciate
Speaker 1: your time. Thank you. Well, you're welcome, and to everybody
Speaker 1: out there, you got this and let's let's let's go
Speaker 1: make it happen. You you know, I've got confidence in you.
Speaker 1: I know you can make it happen. So just start
Speaker 1: today and get her done. You're the man. Thanks Ken,
Speaker 1: You're welcome. Thank you, Joel Maye. What a great conversation
Speaker 1: we just had here with Ken rusk Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: when we talk about money here on the show, like
Speaker 1: we can talk about it in a few different ways,
Speaker 1: like you can there's different ways that you can earn money.
Speaker 1: There's different ways that you can manage your money, and
Speaker 1: so spending is you know, included in that and being
Speaker 1: frugal and whatnot. And then there's things that you can
Speaker 1: do on the back end of that as well, which
Speaker 1: is like investing your money for the long term. And
Speaker 1: we don't often talk about some alternate ways that you
Speaker 1: can earn money, right, Like we talk about side gigs
Speaker 1: and things like that and starting your own business some
Speaker 1: but we're getting a raise and talking to your employer
Speaker 1: about that, Yeah, exactly, Like those are all good avenues,
Speaker 1: but we have not yet talked about you know, not
Speaker 1: going to college. Uh, and just the opportunities that exist
Speaker 1: out there for skilled trades. And I'm so glad that
Speaker 1: we got to talk with Ken and a true professional.
Speaker 1: He's lived it and he's advising others on this as well,
Speaker 1: and he's got a balanced approach to it. He's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not the anti college guy, and that's great because
Speaker 1: college is for a lot of people, but it's also
Speaker 1: a lot of professions. Like there's some professions that you
Speaker 1: absolutely need it, I'm not Yeah, like he said, I
Speaker 1: don't want a surgeon operating on any who hasn't been
Speaker 1: to college, and I completely agree with him, But there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people who a blue collar career
Speaker 1: makes a whole lot more sense. And my big takeaway,
Speaker 1: but let's get to that's here is the supply and
Speaker 1: demand factor, and supplying demand basic economic principle. And when
Speaker 1: you look at the supply in the labor force right now, um,
Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot of supply when it comes
Speaker 1: to people that are willing to work in blue collar industries.
Speaker 1: But there's a whole lot of demand. And so that
Speaker 1: does mean you'll be able to make a whole lot
Speaker 1: more money often times in the blue collar space than
Speaker 1: you would be even after getting a four year college degree.
Speaker 1: One of the things I read in Ken's book, he
Speaker 1: said that one in four college graduates makes just as
Speaker 1: much as a high school graduate does. Um. That that
Speaker 1: people go through all that work, all that time, all
Speaker 1: the all the debt load that they take on, and
Speaker 1: then at the end what they have to show for
Speaker 1: it is they're making just as much as someone who
Speaker 1: didn't even spend there or four years in that way
Speaker 1: and take on all that debt. That's a sobering statistic.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, it's really important, especially for for young
Speaker 1: kids or people maybe feeling like they're in a debt
Speaker 1: end career that they don't enjoy anymore. Well, look at
Speaker 1: the demand out there and be part of the supply,
Speaker 1: part of the supply that potentially makes a whole lot
Speaker 1: more money, um than you're currently making or than you
Speaker 1: otherwise might if you took the traditional career path. I
Speaker 1: love a dude. I'm glad that was your takeaway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to be that supply. You want to be
Speaker 1: able to meet that demand that's out there, you know,
Speaker 1: Like he even talked about the Stonemason's He's planning his
Speaker 1: his workout for six months in advance, Like that is insane.
Speaker 1: And it's a perfect example that that demand is there.
Speaker 1: All right. But now it's my turn, time for my
Speaker 1: little takeaway. And I say a little take away because
Speaker 1: I feel like it wasn't this huge, you know, complex idea,
Speaker 1: but it was rather simple. And it was when he
Speaker 1: was talking about a gap here, right. I think in
Speaker 1: our culture, we don't value, we don't prize the gap here.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times if you hear somebody's
Speaker 1: taking a gap here, they're just like, oh, you're just
Speaker 1: wasting time. Yeah, you see that as like, oh, you
Speaker 1: must be trying to go find yourself. If you're lucky,
Speaker 1: maybe you can do some traveling that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But instead, the way Ken presented it, this is a
Speaker 1: great opportunity to decide, uh, and to really think through
Speaker 1: if it makes sense to take on a boatload of
Speaker 1: student loan debt, which most folks are are doing these days,
Speaker 1: if it makes sense to dedicate four years of your
Speaker 1: life towards something that you're not even totally sure, word,
Speaker 1: that's gonna go. And so I loved how he's that
Speaker 1: gap year script and you kind of flipped it on
Speaker 1: his head a little bit. And he pointed out how
Speaker 1: this is a great opportunity to maybe discover something that
Speaker 1: you have never even considered doing before. It's not something
Speaker 1: that you learned about in high school because they're not
Speaker 1: teaching it in high schools anymore. But it's an opportunity
Speaker 1: for you to discover a passion of yours, something that
Speaker 1: you're really good at, and something that could also allow
Speaker 1: you to make a lot of money. This just gets
Speaker 1: me excited for all the high school students out there
Speaker 1: who might be hearing this, because I think this really
Speaker 1: could be life changing. This. This doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: gap here and now I'm going to go to New
Speaker 1: Zealand kind of thing. This could be like gap here.
Speaker 1: Let's think about what trade I could potentially do, uh,
Speaker 1: something that I already have an inclination towards. I don't
Speaker 1: think Americans are allowed in New Zealand anyway, right not now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: But I liked how he said just being on a
Speaker 1: work site, sometimes your mind will naturally find what it
Speaker 1: is that you want to do. Like you naturally will
Speaker 1: gravitate towards it. It's sort of like, you know, like
Speaker 1: Harry Potter, when the like the wand chooses him. I
Speaker 1: think maybe the skill can choose the individual as you're
Speaker 1: kind of drawn to that, and I like how that
Speaker 1: can maybe just a different approach to a career. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's a great takeaway. Man. I feel like
Speaker 1: he framed a gap year in in just a wonderful
Speaker 1: way where a gap here makes a whole lot of sense,
Speaker 1: and I think it makes sense for more and more
Speaker 1: people right now as the value of a college degree
Speaker 1: with coronavirus remote learning is coming into question even more.
Speaker 1: Exactly good stuff. All right, Let's get back to the
Speaker 1: beer that we had on the show today, Matt. This
Speaker 1: one was called rhymes with Purple from Bromari Brewing. You
Speaker 1: you picked this berliner of ice with a bunch of
Speaker 1: different berries in it up for us while you were
Speaker 1: in Asheville recently. What were your thoughts on this beer? Well, first,
Speaker 1: I will say it is very very purple. It's it's
Speaker 1: like as we poured it. I don't know if I've
Speaker 1: ever seen a more purple red beer, but it's called
Speaker 1: it rhymes with purple, and it's got with like six
Speaker 1: different berries going on in it, and it is very tart. Man.
Speaker 1: That's that's the first thing that I noticed. Um, it
Speaker 1: was really tart, but at the same time it had
Speaker 1: like a nice medium body and so it's kind of lush, uh,
Speaker 1: kind of coated your tongue a nice little bit, but
Speaker 1: with it being a Berlin device as well. And then
Speaker 1: it had that kind of chewy, weedy finish on the tail,
Speaker 1: and so it was a fun, kind of refreshing beer,
Speaker 1: but while at the same time, you know, it had
Speaker 1: that substance to back it up. I really enjoyed it
Speaker 1: many It was like a bouquet of berries, I would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: but not like overly perfume, you know, like it was
Speaker 1: all in the flavor. Not because sometimes you smell it,
Speaker 1: you know, you kind of give it a sniff before
Speaker 1: you taste it and you're like, oh, it's like too
Speaker 1: much perfume, you know, But not this one. It's all
Speaker 1: it's all on the taste. Yeah, a little bit velvety,
Speaker 1: I thought, but just like a richness from all the
Speaker 1: fruits that's present, and definitely a nice amount of tartness
Speaker 1: at the same time. This was a well balanced Berlin
Speaker 1: vice that that I really enjoyed. I love fruited beers,
Speaker 1: I love fruited sours. This one was was really tasty,
Speaker 1: So yeah, Mad props to Bramari for this one, and
Speaker 1: thanks to you for picking it up. Yeah, man, Happy Tomari.
Speaker 1: They're making a lot of good beer up that way
Speaker 1: up there in Asheville, North Carolina, so look them up
Speaker 1: if you happen to be in the area. And dude,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be it for this episode. Listeners can find
Speaker 1: our show notes up on our website at how to
Speaker 1: money dot com and we'll make sure to link to
Speaker 1: Kin's sites there as well. Yeah, and if you're a
Speaker 1: new listener and you enjoyed this conversation with Kendall, we
Speaker 1: have a lot of other interviews that you can check
Speaker 1: out as well, with with lots of interesting people. And
Speaker 1: you can check out all of our episodes up on
Speaker 1: how to Money dot com. And don't forget to subscribe
Speaker 1: on your podcast or so you never miss an upcoming episode. Alright, Matt,
Speaker 1: Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.