← Confessions of an Implementer
Confessions of an Implementer
From Cycling to Coaching: The Path to Peak Performance with Scott Rusnak, Expert EOS Implementer
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to Confessions of an Implementer, a podcast by Talent Harbor. We share unique stories of implementers and the companies they've transformed to give you a rare glimpse into the successes and the challenges of the system in action. I'm your host, Ryan Hogan. Let's jump in. Welcome to another episode of Confessions of an EOS Implementer, proudly presented by Talon Harbor. Today. I am thrilled to welcome Scott Rusnack, who's joining us on the podcast. Scott is an expert EOS implementer with some of the most incredible amazing stories of perseverance, grit, tenacity. Was a cyclist, still cycles today, but was cycling at some of the highest levels early on in his career, had amazing coaches and has translated that both into an incredible EOS practice, but also a professional coaching practice. And he's also written the book the Entrepreneur's Field Guide, which has some really good framework for how to think, structure and execute in life. And so we talk about a lot of those principles. We talk about setting 90 day goals, we talk about this idea of your close circle and how large those circles should be, what all of those circles mean. But really just incredible valuable conversation. I hope you enjoy the show. Thanks for listening. One of the first things that stood out to me in the book, it was in the first, probably 10 pages, and it was this quote, and it said, from today forward, you must ask yourself one simple question. Will it make my bike go faster? And I read that two or three months ago, I highlighted it, I put it up on a whiteboard because, well, I do ride, but I don't ride anywhere to the degree that you ride. And so for me, it's not about a bike, but that sentence is so powerful. Will it make my bike go faster? And I think that's really saying, like focusing on a goal, figuring out that focus.
- [02:06]
B
I took that from a stoic philosophy of making every decision to make sure your life goes in the direction you want or what have you. And for me, back in the day, I was trying to become this Olympic level cyclist. Didn't quite work out. I got close and my coach said to me, I need you to make every decision that you make every day, the rest of your life, with your bicycle in mind. Will it make it go faster? And I'm obviously not an Olympic level cyclist today. I'm a business coach. But what that allows me to do is say, okay, tomorrow I got a full day session. What's going to make me operate at the most optimal level? Diet, exercise, what am I putting in my mind and into my body? And it's really helped me in my entrepreneurial, my executive coaching practice and cycling as well. So something I still stand by and.
- [02:53]
A
Are you finding general themes for larger themes? So when you think about the session that you have this week and you're like, in order for me to come and bring the best of myself, these are the different things that I'm constantly thinking about and evaluating, making sure I'm either doing or maybe even more importantly not doing. When you think about kind of bigger picture. So maybe not something that's happening this week or maybe not this month, maybe not this year, but something like where you are starting to like really figure out your own personal North Star. How do you adapt that type of mentality into that type of situation?
- [03:25]
B
Great question. In my family, so our kids are 26 and they're 28. They live in two different countries and they're successful because we push them pretty hard and they realize there's no entitlement in our house. But in our family we've got these 90 day priorities. In the US we call them rocks, but there's a 90 day priority. We're all going to get together somewhere. This summer we got together for a family wedding in Revelstoke, British Columbia. This fall we're going to get together in Vancouver, British Columbia, because my oldest son lives there. So my North Star is I'm going to plan these incredible events with people that matter the most to me and I'm going to have a lot of them in my upcoming future. So I can get excited about it and I can really stay focused on where we're headed.
- [04:06]
A
Got it. So let's talk about the cyclist stuff because obviously you got incredibly good. And one of the things that I read in the book was you were able to maintain your heart rate at 190 or above for two hours and your VO2 levels and everything else. And so you're going down this path. You found an amazing coach, you're cycling with the biggest names in the industry. What happened to where you found a calling and started to go off in a different direction?
- [04:33]
B
I started to realize that some of the guys I was racing against maybe had a VO2 max that was 2 1/2% better than mine. And people are like 2 1/2% doesn't matter. Well, it really does. Over the course of an hour or two, that's five, ten minutes or that's a certain degree of power or ability to do things. But I got to the part where I knew what I was really good at in cycling and My coach said to me, hey, you need to take a look at this, what it looks like for the rest of your life after sports. And he got me super focused getting back into university, really getting dialed into getting my degree. And that whole cycling background allowed me to get grabbed just after college into this new and upcoming tech world, which was the most bizarre thing. I never thought that would happen.
- [05:19]
A
And what was the tech venture right out of college?
- [05:21]
B
I'm not going to take any credit for it. I got really lucky. So let's just get one thing straight. My degree was in recreation and leisure studies. I thought I was going to run a ski resort or something like that, but I had this really cool girlfriend and she got nabbed up by this corporate group and for some reason they thought I could be successful. So I got grabbed by Xerox Canada and they taught me a lot about technology and scale and how you communicate with people and allowed me for a couple years to get a nice baseline. And then with a good friend of mine, we started a business called School Logic. We competed against Apple on the biggest stage, which, let's just go back to cycling. If you're doing everything, ensuring that you're putting the right reps in place, you can take on the biggest in the world and sometimes you can win. And we did a pretty good job of doing that.
- [06:08]
A
What do you think contributed to that win? Because you're right, you're going up against the biggest name in the industry and you found a way, I'm going to.
- [06:16]
B
Say grit and tenacity, but also my lack of business training in university. And I went to a really good university in Canada, but I have no clue about accounting or, hey, how do you market against Apple or how do we build a team? I just knew if I worked with people who had the same kind of values as me and the same kind of drive and we had this big picture outlook. We were going to get there so we'd fail every day. But losing wasn't going to be an option. There was no freaking way we're going to bleed through our eyes to defeat Apple. And we did in the right arena.
- [06:49]
A
It sounds like you were very early on a lot of things, but early on on this idea of culture and finding people that behave the same way. There's a lot of talk out there around getting different perspectives and viewpoints and diversity and all of these things, and that's incredibly important. But the behaviors, the guardrails in which we think and rationalize decisions generally has to be the same. And what you just Talked about there in the very early days was the grit and tenacity and that shared experience of like, we're just going to win. How did you create an intentional culture? Or how did you go about finding the people to bring into that team? Especially if you didn't have an accountability chart and weren't operating on eos?
- [07:31]
B
Yeah, what was EOS back then? It was SOS back then. The Scott operating system, which sounds for a lot. But the thing I realized through cycling and hockey is if you're going to build a great team, there's no I. There's no letter I in team. And when I met people that we wanted to bring into our group, I wanted to see some sort of competitive behavior from their past. I don't care if it was chess, checkers, archery, band, class, whatever it may be. I wanted to know that they had fought for something on their own, and Mommy and Daddy didn't pin a medal on them just because they showed up for soccer practice. I wanted to see someone who had pushed through to get to where they needed to go. And we were lucky, man. We were kind of first to the scene in that tech world. Hung onto some people's coattails and just went for it.
- [08:19]
A
That's incredible. I never even thought about that before of looking for some sort of competitive. Like, to you, that's very natural because you grew up in kind of this space and you understood how you think and what your background looked like. And I think I'm going to steal that from you now. Is that something that you continue to do? If you're looking for people to bring on your team, are you still looking for those, or have you honed it down even further?
- [08:40]
B
Man, I got goosebumps. So I do that with my clients and I tell them after. So, as you know, we have this tool called the people Analyzer at eos. And for me, there's the get it, want it capacity. I look for people when I'm having this potential onboarding conversation. What's their capacity to push through? Have they put in the reps? Can you tell me something about your past? In high school or middle school, you had to push through on a team that maybe wasn't perfect for you. So I ask those questions of potential clients. They might think they're interviewing me, but I think I'm interviewing them to a higher level because I want to see if they've really got what it takes.
- [09:19]
A
And that's important, too. And we hear this a lot of when we're going after great talent, we're trying to bring people inside of the organization. There's this whole idea that they have to align with the core values that's also on the people analyzer. And I think people are starting to realize, especially in the EOS ecosystem, of even if it's a vendor, if it's a partner, if it's a customer, everybody that you're engaging and interacting with, if there's a misalignment in values, it might not be a positive relationship. And if it's a client, you might still get the money. But is that money worth the friction or other things that are going to come along with that when you're interviewing clients or when you're thinking through, like, is this person going to make sense? Is that because the way that you push organizations or the type of style or coach that you are, Someone has to have a certain tolerance for suffering.
- [10:09]
B
For sure they do. Sometimes in the session room, people don't exactly like me, and that's okay. I'm not here to be your best friend. I'm here to be a coach. And you might not like the method today, but you're going to love the results in 18 to 24 months. And I say to CEOs or CEOs who bring me in for that initial meeting, if you've got a team of seven to eight people, you better be ready for some change, because two or three of those people won't be with us in a year because I don't know if they're the right fit. So it's pretty rare that the entire team sticks together. So I need to make sure that that CEO COO have got that past of pushing through, because there's going to be a fair amount of adversity in that first year.
- [10:50]
A
And a big part of what you do, and especially the stuff that's outlined in the Entrepreneur's Field Guide, is you bring a lot of these principles, the principles of understanding who we are, why we operate. You talk about environments and some other really, really interesting topics. How do you focus on EOs? And then you've got the coaching stuff, like you got a lot going on.
- [11:14]
B
Yeah. And then chuck in EOs, live speeches or talks that I do every 30, 60 days. There's a lot going on, but I don't feel overwhelmed. I live a designed life where I know that I'm doing two or three sessions a week. I've got a buffer day where I'm preparing. I've got a free day, which was yesterday, hung at the beach with my wife and our dog and we served, we're able to get our head straight for the rest of the week. So I don't look at it as a lot of sessions or a lot of work now. Back when we had kids, when they were in middle school playing soccer and they're in school, I don't think I would have been able to pull this off to the degree. So I'm an extremely lucky, blessed 58 year old guy who feels like he's 21 in energy, but I feel like I've got all this wisdom and knowledge that I can help pass along to all kinds of people.
- [12:00]
A
And what are some of the similarities and differences? So when you're coaching an organization and it's a room and it's a team and you're trying to help them understand who they are and how they operate, their core values, their 10 year target, kind of all of these principles and then you change that into coaching, you're coaching individuals. What are some similarities or differences as far as how you help an individual kind of find some of those things versus how you help an organization identify those things?
- [12:31]
B
Wow. Is that the perfect question or what? One of my favorite things to do is to dig into well designed life. I firmly believe that if you're going to have a successful business that we help design, you've got to have that well designed life. So you got to mesh them together. And I've built something called my accountability plan so that when I work with executives it mirrors a lot of the stuff within eos, but I take it deeper. Where do you live? Who do you hang out with? Yes, we can apply the core values and the people analyzer to those people. What's your purpose? Why are you doing this work thing and why are you doing this with your family? So I go incredibly deep with all those areas and then I asked them to picture themselves 10, 20, 30 years from now. And I'll shout out to Bryn Gibbs from Consumer Fusion. I'm doing that work with her right now. And over the course of the last year she just had this sense of relief going, you know what, Everything's going to be okay, we're headed in the right direction. So I try to mesh them both together.
- [13:29]
A
Ryan, that's awesome. That epiphany of like everything's going to be okay and we're heading in the right direction. Does that come from long view thinking? So one of the things, especially like where we're at with Talon harbor today and when we're in the moment, we're working in the business, it's like, it's never enough. We got more to do all these different things. And then you pull up to 10,000ft and you're like, oh, wow, we've made a bunch of progress. What do you see as far as when you have that type of epiphany?
- [13:57]
B
Yes. So I prescribe by an interesting way of waking up every morning. And I promise I'll answer your question, I'll go around about it for a second. But when I wake up in the morning, I don't turn my phone on the news or music. I lay there in bed for five, 10 minutes and I just give gratitude to what we've accomplished in our life. My marriage with my kids, then with my family. It's like, you know what? This is pretty darn good. I never thought that a kid from Western Canada could live in San Diego and split his time in Scottsdale. Pretty cool at that part. And then I think about my coaching practice and then goosebumps really start to kick in and it's time for me to get out of bed. But I just go back to that baseline that if I live with those core values and I do the right thing, it's all going to work out in the end.
- [14:43]
A
You strike me as the type that, that in addition to those five to 10 minutes, you probably have a further morning routine. Do you have things that you're checking off the list kind of every single day?
- [14:53]
B
So I don't have a checklist per se. I don't wake up and say, okay, here's the things. But the night before I go to bed, I have a checklist. Okay, here's what I'm gonna accomplish tomorrow and the rest of the week. Here's what the quarter and the year looks like. And yes, I'm looking at Friday 7th November or of February going. I have an annual planning session that day, so I'm looking far ahead as well. So the night before I get it all straight so my subconscious lets me sleep. The next morning when I wake up, I'm not doing much for the first hour. Our dog probably wants to roll around the floor, so I'll do that so serious stuff can come later.
- [15:28]
A
I love what you just said there of once you get the checklist or you get the stuff kind of out of your head at night, subconscious, and it gives you the permission to sleep or it alleviates that. My brain runs constantly and if I don't put that stuff somewhere then it will clutter up everything we're doing, including sleep. And so I love that little kind of pro tip that you threw in of you kind of dump it all on a piece of paper and you're good to go until the next day.
- [15:51]
B
You are. And I also look at, hey, what am I eating? What am I drinking? How am I exercising the day before? As you get older, that sleep thing becomes a big deal. So it's super important for me. And then if I do wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning, I now remind myself that I've got nothing to solve and even if I was up for the next hour, I probably wouldn't solve it properly anyways. So I try to go into a little bit of a meditative routine and typically I get myself back to bed without worrying about too much.
- [16:21]
A
You commented on this idea of finding our purpose and understanding why we do what we do or why we're chasing or what it is that we're chasing. How do you help your clients on the coaching side really start to understand? When I think about the purpose of a company to a certain degree, and I realized, yes, it's hard to get it right and yes, but it still seems a little bit further on the nose than trying to justify and understand our purpose or why we do things. Personally, what are some kind of techniques or strategies that you use to help people identify that?
- [16:51]
B
I try to get them away from the business output side of purpose. Hey, we're going to move a million stones today. What kind of purpose is that? That's a business objective. I go to a great client of mine, Stevens Lineweber Construction in Phoenix, Arizona. Their core purpose is promises made, purpose promises kept. You would have no clue that they're in the construction business, but that's how all of their 200 staff wake up every morning, realize they're going to make a promise, they're going to keep the promise, they're going to follow through. Now, to take it even further back, when I met my first cycling coach who was spectacular, he said, I'm going to leave you in a better place than I found you, but you got to put the work in. And as time has gone on with my mentor, he said, you know what, Rusnak? I think that your purpose is to make sure that each and every person you come in touch with leaves in a better place than you found them. So now that's my purpose. It scares me, it frightens me, and I realize that I've got to do that at the supermarket. I'm not much for standing in line when I get an airplane, but it allows me to behave to a degree that won't embarrass my family or myself.
- [17:58]
A
That's so interesting because like what I just heard you said there is your purpose has evolved. And it's evolved through maybe self reflection or people and so purposes or what we believe we're here to do or why we're doing what we're doing evolves over time. And I'm assuming that's from kind of all the different kind of environmentals experience and things that we're perceiving on a daily basis.
- [18:18]
B
The Olympics are hot on the schedule right now, and I realize this podcast will come out later, but the athletes that had talked about, hey, I'm doing this for my mom that is in hospital, I'm doing this for my family. That X, Y and Z, those are the people that really push the limits because it's not about themselves, it's about other people and the ones they love. And when your purpose involves that, it becomes a heck of a lot easier to dig in and make things happen.
- [18:46]
A
And a part of the purpose and a part of this framework is our own personal core values or what is our personal value structure with a company. And especially using the EOS framework, we run an exercise. And that exercise is like think of one, two, maybe three people inside the organization that just exude what you believe this organization stands stands for. Write down some of their attributes. The list is now 70. We keep kill combined and we take that all the way down to hopefully five, but somewhere between three and seven. When you're doing that same exercise personally, how do you do that? How do you start to understand what are my values?
- [19:23]
B
I go back to how my mother raised me. Do the right thing, don't embarrass me. I was called to the principal's office quite often. So do the right thing became a pretty important value to me. Do what you say became even more important as I started move through life because there was so much going on. So do the right thing, do what you say. And then it just comes back to that purpose. I've got to leave people in a better place than I found them. And if I stick to those three areas, it helps a lot. And I bring those into my personal and my business life as well. I really don't think you can have business values and personal values. First of all, I don't know how you would keep track of it all. But you're just one person, you're not two.
- [20:04]
A
Is this something that is intrinsic and the actions are just natural based upon kind of these things. And so it's more of an identification of how you already operate or are these aspirational for personal values and something that you're looking at on a daily weekly basis? It's something that you're reflecting on and making sure that you're living up to your own standards.
- [20:27]
B
Well, it was aspirational maybe about 18 years ago when I was 40. Let's say my ego was a little bit big back then. And when I realized that the value humbly confident was out there, I was then challenged with the fact that maybe you should just leave your ego at the door. Maybe a little more humble, think less of yourself and think more of others. That value was aspirational. But I really hope to this day that people like you know, the guy is relatively humble. I'm not perfect all the time. We all beat our chest. But those values have gotta be aspirational. You gotta really push yourself and at times you should be on the edge of your seat if you're not living and breathing with that value in mind.
- [21:07]
A
And one of the things that your book talked about was this idea of aligning values with your actual goals. And is that just making sure that the values of the compass making sure that it's pointed in the right direction towards what those goals are. What does that mean to align your values with your goals?
- [21:24]
B
You're not going to step on people's heads as you move along. Now we talk about standing on the shoulders of giants. No problem. You've got people that'll help get you there, but you're not leaving a bunch of dead bodies behind you. Because if you got all these people under the bridge, they're going to catch up with you and things are not going to work out properly for you. I'll go back to the sports world. When I was competing, a lot of the guys that I was competing with were on the Lance Armstrong program and they're not alive to this day. Some of them are deeply regretted about what they did and they're incredibly unhealthy. So they didn't do the right thing to get to where they wanted to be. And sadly enough, not very many of them are doing well anymore.
- [22:02]
A
Interesting. You also talked about, this is potentially one of my favorite parts of the book and something that I've been incredibly focused on. And so I do apologize. I might have a bunch of questions on this one specifically because it's this idea of the Dunbar and you kind of took the Dunbars concept and put it into your own model because 150 is quite a few individuals and so you've got this principle of 5, 15, 38. Let's start there. What is 5, 15, 38? And then we can dive in.
- [22:28]
B
Well, I was lucky enough to be in the UK forever ago to see a football match. That's soccer in our terms. And there's a speaker named Robin Dunbar, and he's a British scholar. He came up with this number called Dunbar's number that said human beings cannot have more than five to six incredibly tight relationships at one time. And that's a wife, possibly kids, a mother, a father. What have you. Those people who know your values, they know you better than you. So that's your inner circle. And then he went on to say, there's about 15 other people that you might have known throughout your life. They might have come into your life last five, ten years. Once again, they know your values. They know you incredibly well. They can poke you in the nose to say, hey, look, you're going in the wrong direction. But they'll also be there to help you. You typically experience really neat things with those people every 30, 60, 90 days. So the five, the 15, that's your inner circle. And then he went on to say your outer circle of people you can have a real connection with can't be bigger than 150 people. And he went to medieval times and proved that when villages or groups got bigger than 150, there was crime, there was terrible things happening, society, theft. But when those villages, those communities stayed small, people stayed true to who they were. So I have flipped his number on his head to a certain degree. And I've got five in my inner circle. Then I've got 18 that I'm pretty tight with. I don't see them every week, but it's typically about every 90 days. My ski buddies, my surf buddies, mountain biking buddies, and then 38. So a little antisocial. I'm not as social as everyone thinks I am. I'm certainly not an extrovert, but we don't have any family in the States. Everyone's from Canada, but I've got a group of 38. Some are Canada, some are here, some are in Europe. And once a year I'm seeing them and having really cool activities. And then times during COVID I was able to jump on zoom and really connect with those folks. I realized that LinkedIn and Facebook and all these other things have got thousands and thousands of connections. You can't truly be connected to those people and live a fascinating life.
- [24:36]
A
For the five is the five generally immediate family. So, for instance, like we have a household of six. Is my like five or six automatically installed? And now I'm focusing on the 15.
- [24:47]
B
To 18, quite possibly, unless your mother in law is living with you. If you really don't want to hang.
- [24:52]
A
With that, put her in the 150 bucket.
- [24:54]
B
Yeah, the further bucket.
- [24:58]
A
Awesome. So now when you're starting to think through the 18, because this is kind of where I'm at. I read the book, I was super inspired. I created this list, I use Evernote. And so I kind of created my own map. And a big part of that map that I've put together is this notion of the Dunbars or even yours, because 150 is a lot of people. And so I've been trying to sort through the names and are these people that have naturally like come into your life and you're looking through or at a certain point, did you create some sort of intention into going out hunting and finding and establishing relationships with people that you felt there would be mutual benefit for the relationship? And there's a shared set of values.
- [25:37]
B
Definitely a shared set of values. But I'm a very slow mover when it comes to really bringing people close into my life. Back when I was young, it would take minutes. Okay, we're buddies, let's go. Case in point, on Friday we're headed down to Baja California with a former client who's become a really good friend. I've known him for 10 years and now we're starting to do more and more. And he's definitely in my 18, so it took a while. And I'm not intentionally looking to grow my 18 to 20 or shrink it down, but it's those people that I get a ton of value from. We've got like minded things we're trying to do, or we're trying to push each other to do different things that will take us outside of our comfort zone but keep us aligned.
- [26:17]
A
And when you think about that, like we just stood up a CRM platform and I think about CRM reminds you of everything. It's like, oh, you haven't reached out to this person a while or you set a reminder for this and you can kind of automate some of these things. How do you remember? Let's start with the 18, the family and the people that are close to you. It's hard to Forget that the 18 and making sure that you've either had that phone call, that touch point, you flew out to Europe, whatever that case is. How are you staying on top of managing those 18 relationships?
- [26:48]
B
The best part Ryan is, it doesn't take any work. They show up, I show up, and it just happens. Good friend of mine that I've known for 30 plus years, he was in San Diego this summer. Him and his wife were like, what do you think? We ride from Madrid to Porto and then maybe check out Lisbon next May? I'm like, perfect, when do you want to do it? So it just happened. And I skied with him last year, and that was super cool. So it's just that kind of connection where things come together and it just happens. So it's really fun.
- [27:16]
A
And then now when you get into the last bucket of the 38, is your kind of hypothesis here that all of these things kind of happen natural and you're backfilling them into buckets? Or is it more like. No, there is some intent that happens behind these. It's not all natural. And then how do you get into the 38?
- [27:33]
B
Yeah, it's kind of funky. I don't say, hey, you're in the 38. I can't hang out with you this week. That's not the case at all. But my brother, who lives in the Yukon Territory, he's in the 18. So I'm a little bit more objective about, hey, here's when we're getting together. The other 38. I know that I think it's December 18th. For three days, I'm going skiing with four of my ski buddies. They're in the 38. I haven't told them that, but I know them that well. They're going to do the right thing. So we've got that planned. I know that the end of next February, I'm going heli skiing with another group of buddies, and three of them are definitely in the 38, and five or six of them, I don't know, but I know I've got the right people that I'm going with. And again, Ryan, I wish I could say there's some kind of algorithm I have. Might have run some software companies that couldn't code in day. If you ask me, I think ones and zeros or something, but it just comes together naturally, and it's pretty wonderful.
- [28:26]
A
Got it. Not to go off on a tangent, but I have to ask. Heli skiing sounds intense. Amazing. Something that everybody should experience. How do you get into heli skiing?
- [28:35]
B
You need a mentor to say, hey, look, I grew up skiing, so I can sort of go backcountry and do whatever I need to do. Mentor of mine, Mike Mueller, about 18 years ago, he's like, hey, we're all headed out. Helly skiing. You're coming, period. No question. Like, well, my kids, my life. He's like, you're coming. So he kind of dragged me by the throat when he went. And it's not as intense as you think it is. Like, you take the helicopter up, you do avalanche training. There's definitely intermediate heli skiing runs, and then there's some steep and deep. So you surround yourself with the right people. My mentors in my 18. You keep yourself really mentally sharp and physically sharp. I still have a ski nuptial. Some people sign prenuptials. I have a ski nuptial. I have my 20 ski days a year at minimum, so I'm not letting that one slide.
- [29:23]
A
What's your favorite resort, Just out of curiosity?
- [29:25]
B
It's tricky. Revelstoke, British Columbia, has the most vertical in North America. Fantastic. Great for heli. But Park City is a real favorite of mine because I've got so many friends that have got homes there and they've combined the canyons. And it's just such a massive resort now that you can really get around on your skis.
- [29:43]
A
Okay, I took that as a note. I'll have to check out Park City. This year. You've talked a little bit about this notion of routines and waking up. And in the book, you go deep into this premise of energy zones. What are energy zones? How do you think through energy zones? What is that all about?
- [29:59]
B
Well, I'm going to go back to when I turned about 40. I just didn't have the. That I used to. The zip and the Zigger wasn't there. And I met a really cool doctor. She's like, look, you're going to always have days you can push through, but it's not five days in a row like you used to. So you've got to have these days where you're doing absolutely nothing. Like, nothing hard. No hard work, no anxiety. Then you've got to have those prep days and then some focus days. So what I did is I looked at it and said I can have three high energy days a week, two sort of buffer warmup days, and then two days with pretty chill, almost nothing. And so that's how my week looks. But then I put that into my day as well, realizing, hey, I'm going to wake like this. And then about an hour later, I'll start looking into what happens. And today is a buffer day for me. So it's. Let's do this podcast. I've got a talk. I'm doing this Afternoon. And then tomorrow is a high energy day. I'm going to la. I've got a session. Friday is not. But I know next week there's three sessions. And so I've got to really preserve my energy and think about diet, sleep, exercise, so that I can really knock it out of the park next week.
- [31:09]
A
Will you eat differently based upon different things that are coming up? Like, I'm sure you seem like the type that will not eat a whole bunch of junk food. So do you take it even to another level of science where you're dictating what you're going to consume based upon what's on the horizon?
- [31:26]
B
You can't put diesel in a Tesla and you can't. I don't know, what car doesn't take electric. You can't plug in your electric thing into that diesel truck across the street. So you've got to realize what kind of engine you have. And I get my blood work done every 90 days. I do a pretty good hair sample every 180 days. And my doc knows what my markers are. So realize that no dairy. I try to stay away from bread. I'm not gluten free, but I know what's going on and I really try to stay dialed into that protein. Yes. Making sure that I end the day with the right stuff. Lots of fiber, because nobody needs a coach showing up. That's not healthy. So it's really important to me to be able to bring it on all accords.
- [32:05]
A
That's awesome. Sorry about that tangent. You said it. And I was deeply curious about how you think through that.
- [32:10]
B
It's a good one. In fact, I pushed myself about a month and a half ago to say, and I really like a blanco tequila. I'd have a nice double with you and a little grapefruit juice in it from time to time. But I pushed myself and I said, I don't want any hard spirits in the house this summer. We'll have some wine. We'll have a glass of wine if we want. And you know the crazy thing that's happened is without doing anything, I've lost three pounds. I feel faster, I feel fitter. And my intention wasn't to lose any weight. So I just think when you dial any of these little things from time to time in business or life, it just helps you take it up a conch.
- [32:43]
A
I love that. And we actually just did something similar in this household. I think my discipline. I don't know if a great client or what for you because my discipline is terrible. And so what I do to move forward and set goals and things like that is set the right environment. So, for instance, upstairs right now, if there were a whole bunch of donuts, as soon as we hung up, I would go and I would crush all those donuts. And so what I know is if we don't bring that stuff in the house, I'm not going to go out. I don't crave it. And so I kind of build my environment in my life around the notion of if it's here, I'll do it. And so let's just keep stuff out of the house. And so back to your alcohol comment. Same thing. And it's been an incredible journey since.
- [33:24]
B
Well, I have the saying that willpower doesn't work. I don't care how strong you are. If you got ice cream, if you got whatever it is in the house, when the party's over, throw it out. Why are you keeping that around?
- [33:34]
A
I'd love that. That's going to be one of the leading quotes for this podcast. When the party's over, throw it out. You talked about energy zones like the blue zone, the green zone, red zone, blackout. Kind of the rhythm in life when you think through these different kind of color zones and where your energy is. 1. Have you figured out kind of do you run the same pattern every day? Ish. Like, I'm sure if you got better sleep or worse sleep or ate something that maybe was kind of foreign or something like that, it might change. But do you generally see the same type of color zones based upon the hours each day?
- [34:08]
B
Yeah, to a certain degree. Much like when I want to go for a hard three hour smack it out ride. You've got to warm up to get into that ride. And there's spots during the time that you can put in seven to eight really strong efforts or, or if you're putting an hour interval in, you can do it, then you can't do it all day. So definitely I wake up, I call it the blue zone. It's complete clarity. It's like the ocean on a flat surface. Your day is just clear. And then I start to transition with this green zone. And that allows me to start to become aware of what's coming up and what's going to happen. And right now we're in a focus moment. So we'll call this a red zone moment where we're focused and we're really digging in. So when we're done, I'm going to shut it down, I'm going to put my legs up the wall and I'm going to think about what we did and what's coming up. So you've got to go through these cycles of ups and downs during the day because if you're always running at 100%, you're just going to burn out and explode.
- [35:02]
A
I hadn't thought about it. It's almost like there's always a consumption of energy. So it doesn't matter whether you're in the blue zone. The blue zone, the heightened state. The water's very still and there's a lot of clarity. There's still energy being taken away. It's just to a lesser degree. And then some of the things you talk about is kind of the recharging moment.
- [35:20]
B
It's huge. Energy preservation for me is a big deal. And in EOS terms, we've got the delegate and elevate checklist based on Dan Sullivan's unique ability. And for me, one thing I love doing is preserving my energy so that when the time is right, I'm on. And when the time is off, I'm going to lay on the floor on my foam roller for an hour if need be, just to recharge.
- [35:42]
A
This is a new question. I've never asked anybody this, but it feels like you would have one of the better responses, which is what's been the most gratifying, challenging, hardest thing that you've done?
- [35:52]
B
Not coaching my family. I'm a coach. People want answers. They want direction, they want to be pushed. For me not to give advice, for me to take my foot off the gas, for me to have a relationship with my two sons, I met my wife. I could tell them what to do, I could tell them what I think. But I just have to go through this discovery phase of asking them what they want. What do they want? The day, the week, what do they want to look like in 10 years? How's that going to apply to that? So there's many hard things, but right now, that's the hardest thing, is trying not to coach people who aren't my clients.
- [36:26]
A
That makes sense. How do you define success and all of the things that you've accomplished on the sports side of it, the heli, skiing, the coaching business, the eos. How do you define success for yourself?
- [36:39]
B
Well, when we go back to the map, we talked about my accountability plan. There's this legacy piece that says, I want to be able to provide this for my family, even if I wasn't here tomorrow. And I feel like that's there and there's no entitlement. But I feel like that's okay. On the flip side, I take a look at my kids and how my wife and I have raised them. Her mainly. It's pretty incredible. They're doing well. And then I look at all the hundreds of clients I've worked with through the years, and the letters and the emails, whatnot I get. That gives me an immense source of joy. Happiness is one thing, but joy is ongoing. So the joy that I get from seeing my clients become successful, my kids be successful, my family, that's pretty darn cool.
- [37:20]
A
When did you know you were going to be a coach? Because reading your book, you were coached quite a bit. And then there was this. When did the epiphany come of? Like, oh, wait, actually, I'm a coach, too, and I can help people achieve what they want to achieve out of life.
- [37:34]
B
Yeah. Even in middle school and high school, I was helping other kids do different things. I got a kick out of it when I went into college. I'd run summer camps, I would help kids, and I would coach a little bit. And then, actually, when I became not a bad cyclist, my coach said, hey, there's Olympic certifications and all the rest you should get because there's some other people you can help. So when I started to dig into that cycling coaching a little bit deeper and realized the art and science, wow, this stuff can also apply to business. And there were a lot of guinea pigs back in the late 80s and 90s that I was coaching, and they didn't know. And then when they realized, hey, this guy isn't bad, then it just kind of all headed in the right direction. So I was passionate about it. I wanted to do it, and it's worked out.
- [38:16]
A
You answer one of my other questions in flight. Because immediately I was going to say, well, how do you get started in something like that when you don't have any experience? And who are the guinea pigs? And you identified it out of the gate. When someone's reading your book, what do you hope for them? What do you hope? The biggest takeaway is there's amazing framework and I have a ton of notes. And again, I'm trying to put together my own map based upon a lot of the theories and the principles in there. What is your hope for people that are reading this book?
- [38:45]
B
Couple things, two sides to it. I want you to laugh at the first part. That a high school dropout who's dyslexic, hyperactive, could barely get through college, can put his head down. And if he's really focused on something, he'll Figure it out. But to figure things out, you need a lot of who's. So the how is I'm going to figure out. But you need these who's in your life that are going to help you get there. So I had a couple ghostwriters help me. A lot of other coaches dig into the book. You can't do it all yourself. You can stay focused and you got to align yourself with those right people. You're five, you're 15, you're 38 or 150 and they'll help push you there if your intentions are right.
- [39:21]
A
And where do you see yourself in 10 years? You talk a lot about being able to envision and kind of put yourself like, where do you want to be? Where does Scott want to be?
- [39:29]
B
Yeah, so I've got a seven year target. So when I turn 65, I know that my coaching practice will be similar, maybe shrunk down a bit, about 15 clients. Right now I run around 20 clients. I'll probably be doing less talks. Like I know next year in Madrid and London, I'm doing a talk, I'm doing a talk in Bogota. Maybe that slows down a little bit. So that's 65 now. Earlier this year, I was riding bicycles with a really good friend of mine named Renee Bohr who wrote how to Be a great boss. He's 72. He's like, you know, Scott, you'll always have energy. I've got that energy, I've got that passion. But the universe will conspire and you'll know when it's time to slow down. And he's decided. He said, look, I'm retiring. I'm like, we're going to stop abruptly. He's no, I won't take on any new clients and the ones that want to keep me will keep me around. So he's going to slowly sort of wind his practice down and if I can walk in his footsteps, I'd be pretty stoked.
- [40:21]
A
That's awesome. What are some of the challenges that you see? So someone's read your book. Maybe they're putting together a map. Maybe it's someone that you're coaching. Like we talk a lot on this show about some of the common challenges that businesses have to face with eos. What are some of the common challenges that you see when individuals are trying to put together a map or trying to take control and architect their own life?
- [40:44]
B
I look at life and I'm not a big stock market guy, but I work with a lot of financial firms. A lot of my Friends get worked up about it. Oh my gosh, the Dow is down 500 points today and they just, ah, what am I going to do? No, no. Can you tell me what it's going to look like in 30 years? I want people to have big picture thinking so that they can plant the tree today and in 30 years they're going to have this thing and it's going to grow because it's a pretty darn good chance that if you do the right thing, it's all going to come together. So big picture thinking, don't get too focused on what's going on every second, but make sure you do the right stuff every day because that tree will probably look pretty good in 30 years.
- [41:21]
A
And is that a constant reminder? Like, is one of those things, like, let's say you put together a map. Is it sometime throughout the day, Each and every day, you're looking at the map just to remind yourself, hey, this is where you believe you're going. This is kind of those short term plans and these are the values that you're following, or do you think it just comes a little bit more natural? Like after that's in place, it comes more natural now.
- [41:43]
B
So on the weekends, typically on a Saturday, my wife and I have a routine. We'll go for a walk with our very exuberant dog, Roxy. But for about an hour, hour and a half, we'll have a conversation about what's happening, where are we going, what does the year look like? Hey, what does this or that look like? So we're pretty aligned on that. So it's become a lot more fluid now. In my 30s, it was very structured because I was super driven. And this is what it's gotta look like. Rich dad, poor dad. I gotta align all this stuff. It's changed, it's more fluid, but it's still there.
- [42:14]
A
Got it. So Scott, someone that's listening to this podcast right now, and they're like, Scott aligns with my values. I used to be a football player in high school. I think he would love me. What are you looking for in clients? Like, do you look for people that are local or are you like, I will take clients from anywhere just as long as our values and other things match. What do you look for in your clients?
- [42:35]
B
First and foremost, let's go back to that coaching element. I want to see people that absorb coaching but has put the work in themselves to really punch through. So I love to hear about people's backstories, much like yours. It's super fascinating. I should be interviewing you, by the way. But people with fascinating backgrounds have had some failure and pushed through. I love working with those kind of people. And then I'd like to know a little bit more about their own personal life, what they day to day looks like and what they want as well. So that's number one. Now I've got to be careful. I didn't used to travel so much, but now I've got this private equity firm called Sylmar Group and they're trying to change the water industry and they're absolutely incredible. And so we've got two offices now that I work with in San Diego, two in la. They've just come into agreement with some in Chicago, normally go to Connecticut and there's no way, three years ago I would have been like, yeah, I'll go and do that. I love these guys. I love their cause, I love what they're trying to do with water. It's this resource we don't really pay attention to enough. So I'm getting on the old iron lung to fly around to help them out and I'm stoked about it.
- [43:44]
A
That's awesome. And so if someone just listened to that and they're like, Scott needs to be my implementer or I'd like to explore coaching, how would they find you? How would they get ahold of you?
- [43:53]
B
First I'd ask them to go see their doctor because maybe they need to have their head examined. So after they've gone through a proper CT scan, they can go to my website, ScottRusnack.com just hit me there. I've got some kind of cool videos that are coming up on that as well pretty soon. So they'll be able to see a little bit more about my follow through and some more of my quirky stuff.
- [44:17]
A
By the way, we were talking about this before the show, but I can't wait till your videos come out because you said you kind of go a little bit deeper into some of the topics and other things that's in your book.
- [44:25]
B
Yeah. So we're taking the book off of Amazon. We won't go into all those reasons and we're going to put it on our own website. And with the book, when you buy the book, you get six key lessons that I'll teach you that are part of my EOS Live talk and your who's the architect of your life Talk. So I kind of bring them all together and it's pretty fun. So the six lessons will really help people get dialed in.
- [44:46]
A
Awesome. All right, last question. If you could have a beer with any implementer, who would it be?
- [44:53]
B
Implementer. Yeah, gosh, we drink a lot of beer at eos. I actually think one of the earliest implementers ever. And you can laugh, but I think Charles Lindbergh was an implementer and he wasn't an EOS implementer, but what he implemented was pretty cool, by the way. That guy was a visionary and a really cool vision and people went to work for him. He had some really bad spots in his life, but he pulled through. So if he was an EOS implementer, I just broke all your rules. I'd love to have a beer with him.
- [45:25]
A
I love it. Scott, thank you so much. That's awesome. And that's actually one of the most creative answers I've gotten from that question. But Scott, thank you so much for coming on. Your book has had a pretty big impact in my life, and as I've started to put this framework into action, I'm still way behind on the numbers and the circle, the close circle, because I was waiting for this conversation to understand how much intentionality goes into that. But I appreciate you coming on and sharing your story, your experience, everything else, and it was great having you.
- [45:55]
B
Most fun I've had in my backyard in San Diego for a long time. So thanks a lot, Ryan. You're awesome.
- [46:00]
A
Awesome. Thanks, Scott. Confessions of an Implementer is brought to you by Talent Harbor. To find out more about Talent harbor and our fractional services and talent search solutions for businesses, visit talent harbor.com and then make sure to search for Confessions of an Implementer in Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Make sure to click subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. And on behalf of the team here at Talent harbor, thanks for listening.