Tony Rubleski - From Rock Bottom to 10 Bestsellers: A Brutally Honest Blueprint for NOT Quitting

Tony Rubleski  0:00  
You learn what not to do, and sometimes you have to get out of your own way. And in the book, I make a very strong case that many times I would self sabotage, not knowing why until I had mentors or coaches or time to reflect. Go. Wait a minute. There's some other reasons there, not because you're a bad person, Tony, you're human.

David Bush  0:19  
Welcome to the Business builder's playbook, the show that breaks down the systems and strategies behind Predictable Revenue Growth to win in business. In each episode, we're diving into the proven strategies that separate the winners who scale from the losers who fail. This show is sponsored by bdr.ai the AI powered business development platform that automates your outbound prospecting so you can focus in on closing deals instead of chasing leads. But let's get started. All right. Well, welcome everybody. Hey, it's my pleasure to be able to introduce you to my friend of over 20 years. We were just talking about that before we went live, and Tony and I connected two decades ago, and it's, gosh, it sure seems like it was just yesterday when we were talking about we talked maybe it was maybe book two or three, and now here you are. Man, you've been having books come out like they're babies. Man, it's like you are just launching this thing, and mind capture has become just a household name. You've been all over the world talking different organizations, and I'm super excited to be talking about the the newest bestseller, about to be launched here, and excited to get everybody aware of what you're doing and how you're helping people and your story. So thanks for joining me today.

Tony Rubleski  1:36  
Tony. Well, it's a pleasure, my friend. And you know, I was thinking about that we were before we got on the call. Here is a, oh, we're just 20 years ago. So I'm, number one, grateful we stayed in contact and you've got some new ventures. I have another new book out here. You know, so delighted that you asked me to come on. So I hope this will be of massive value to your audience.

David Bush  1:54  
David, yeah, well, let's, let's jump right into it. I mean, tell us kind of what brought you to this point of give everybody a little bit of background of your story and what brought you to the point where you have decided to publish another book and give us a little bit of the journey up to this point.

Tony Rubleski  2:15  
Well, thank you, first and foremost. And I think if anything, David with the book 10 you know, I've been full time now, 21 years. So I've been unemployed that long, and a lot of what people ask me, and even my family goes, what do you really do? So here's my best definition. I write books, I speak on them, and I teach companies and organizations on the topics of that. So it's been a wild ride. You know, I know hundreds of paid gigs the last 20 years, lots of companies, great organizations, big, small, and all in between. And this latest book has been on my mind for about three years, and I finally got it done. And I'm not saying to take away from the other books, but it was a goal by age 50 to have a book looking back of what happened the last 20 years as a paid professional speaker and a writer. So the subtitle David is the 50 lessons from the pages written books and the stages of life. So, you know, 53 years old, now I'm grateful every day that I'm still here and we finally got this done. And I will tell you, it's hard to look back and curate what's the value, not just for my own story, for my kids and my team and clients, but for for people that have never, never heard of me. So it's saying, what's the value from these lessons of not quitting? And it took the longest of all the books to go through that I had some points where I got really busy, David, life happens to us all, and I'm like, I'll get to it. And eventually, last summer, I said, you've got this thing about 75% done. Push it over the line. And I made a goal at any event, I was at last year in Sedona, Arizona. I said, Look, by the end of the year, I want that manuscript going to press. It's a life goal. I felt like some internal clock was telling me get this thing done finally. So I would like to think it was easy, but to curate these 50 lessons was fun, challenging, and it took a little longer than I thought. So here we are, and we launch next week. So I appreciate you being one of my first interviews. So how cool that the old guard here, you know, yeah,

David Bush  4:09  
and you've given me some good amount of information regarding the book, but it still is yet to be published, and you're getting one of the first copies there in your hand. So I get to be the first interview that you get a chance to do, but walk us through and talk us a little bit about how your thinking about fear and discipline and execution has evolved from your first book that you wrote, because this is kind of, you know, some decades later, and obviously, maybe some evolution in your thinking has taken place.

Tony Rubleski  4:37  
Great question. I think, if anything, when you look back 2223 years ago, when I wrote the first mind capture book, I was a rookie. I was 31 years old. Really had inferiority complex at that time. Right now, they call it imposter syndrome, but this is long before social media. David and I was like, who am I to write about marketing and sales or getting attention, or what I call mind capture. I knew I wanted to. Continue to write and teach. I left corporate America was very successful there with a couple of different industries, and had this strong compulsion to teach. When the book came out, some big endorsements came down from people in the industry, and it kind of freaked me out. I'm like, Who am I at? You know, 31 to know about all these marketing ideas that these people that I look up to are endorsing me. So I felt like there was a torch of responsibility, to not let them down. David and the last 21 years self employed. You know, since the first book came out, it's been a wild ride. More good than bad, but there's been some major things that have happened that I'm going to put out there in the new book that are going to shock clients, shock some long term fans of my other word go. We did not know that, and it's not to omit or to hide. I just felt like it's time to put it all on the table. And people have heard different things, or they've written about in different books, but I haven't put the full picture on display of the challenges too, and in the age of social media, Dave, everyone wants the 32nd now it's down to eight second, you know. Give me the reel. Let me watch it real quick. So to curate and make it of interest to the reader, we're about to find out next week, the Advanced Reviews came in a solid but when you get it out to your current fan base of readers and new people that are ordering the book already, the rubber will meet the road. But to me, to go back to your question, I think the biggest thing with is wisdom, and you learn what not to do, and sometimes you have to get out of your own way. And in the book, I make a very strong case that many times I would self sabotage, not knowing why until I had mentors or coaches or time to reflect. Go. Wait a minute. There's some other reasons there. Not because you're a bad person, Tony, you're human. And everyone thinks that you have your life perfect, that you're on stage in front of 500 people, you're a speaker too, David, you train. They all think we have it figured out. We don't. We're human however. We're allowed to reinvent the change, and that is the beautiful gift. So the book is not about, you know, Lois Tony, and I'm not trying to embarrass anybody, but there are some very revealing things in there that I made sure that my partner, my family, our team, our marketing team, that we'd look at this and say, Is this okay? Because you don't want to hurt people ever. And some of the stories in there, we've changed some names, obviously protection, but I didn't want to omit things that I thought. Don't paint a full picture of how challenging David it is to be out there as an entrepreneur. And also, what are the success stories when you believe. So it's a balance of both throughout the book. More good than challenge, but there's three or four things in there that was kind of like cringing. You got to put it in there, and the team's like, You got to leave that in there. It's, it's not reality, if you don't put the real big challenges that came up that almost knocked you out of the game.

David Bush  7:39  
Yeah, it's, it's hard to talk about something in in true fashion with the title don't quit and to to just do it, do the things that you are being called to do without really sharing some of the struggles you know. They say that your your mess turns into your message. You know, right, your test term in your testimony and and you, you were vulnerable. And I realized that 20 years down, I've got a little gray hair, maybe a lot of gray hair, but I didn't realize how being vulnerable was so valuable to people that had kind of, you know, they'd, they've seen the social media version of everybody, but what they wanted to really see was the vulnerability, and what were the the tests and messes in Tony's life that he had to push through? He had to not quit. And so I'm just curious, was there any one story that was kind of like, this is this is being vulnerable, super vulnerable, and I'm putting myself out there. And how did you process through to, you know, be willing to find the confidence and to kind of say nay to the fear, and have more of the faith to say, you know, what somebody else needs to hear this story,

Tony Rubleski  8:50  
one jumps out immediately, David, and there's three or four big ones, but this one was the one that I struggled about. I prayed on and I talked to my partner about it, made sure she was comfortable. Is that I had a relationship, and it happens all the time to everybody, and it didn't end, you know, perfect there. That's painful for both sides. And little did I know that it would turn into a stalking situation. So it was difficult for me to be like, do I put that in there? Do I am I trying to, like, attract more of that? But the team is like, no, there's a lesson there that people are going to go through breakups and how you process it, and it's under the chapter, ironically called forgive. So it's not me being mean, and this person might pick the book up, I wouldn't doubt they're going to get and go, that's me. But it's written in a way that it's not hurting them, naming them. And it's kind of like been a couple years now, but I want to be very intentional, and that's why I asked my partner, Sheila, I said, are you okay with us? I asked our team, and they said, Hey, you're good to go. So that was difficult, and I really thought for weeks on that, and we put it in there, and I feel good now about that, because. Lot of people in where I lived at know this, so it's nothing new, but it was put upon me, and it could have been very embarrassing situation. It was a lot of it was on social media, so a lot of people knew about this, but I wanted to present my side of the story, not about my ego, but about forgiving and moving on from this and it, it took every ounce of me not to want to sue and get lawyers all involved. And great wise counsel and my faith lock said, back away, let it go. And we did. So I struggle with that, David, because some people like, well, is that contradictory? You're putting in there? No, that's a big part of the journey. And also another reason that took so long to get the book done. I had about a year was like, you get that one year, and it seems like everything that can go wrong is happening, but on the other side, there was miracles occurring of good things at the same time. But I had to quickly say, You know what? We got to let that go. What are the lessons from that? So that's a big one.

David Bush  10:55  
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Tony Rubleski  12:23  
Couple things. The first one is, I remember the day very well, April 10, 2017 I told my wife at the time I got that morning, I said, I have to tell you something. I think I have a gambling problem, and I knew it'd be tough. But that night before, at midnight, I surrendered, literally, my faith walk, and I put this in the book. I said, Lord, take me. I'm done. And I knew it was gonna be difficult David and I got that morning, she had every right to be mad at me. And that began a 13 month process of getting into 12 step to realizing that I am an addict and I need to get rid of this gambling thing and there's no way to poo poo around it. I am not you know, trying to claim that it was a redemption story, I heard a lot of people, and ironically, on the other side of that, I did, I gave a TEDx talk a year and a half ago called how gambling saved my life. So it took me years to process it, to move on one day at a time, to finally tell that story, especially in a TEDx environment, you're going real public then. And I opened up with a story when I told my former wife, who I made amends with, the marriage did not work, but she granted me amends, which was a gift, and I moved back to the Midwest, so that story is in there, and I look at and go, sometimes, Tony, you've got to get out of your own way. And that's the deep message I put this book is our own criticism, our own self talk, is either making us stronger or it's bringing us down. And you and I, we coach people. We're leaders. David, we love people. That's why we do what we do. However, sometimes the privacy of our own home, or those quiet nights where I'm in a hotel room or I'm on the road or I'm in an airport, life happens. Temptation does occur. And then we talk about taming temptation throughout the book on the poster child, and the goal is every day of sobriety now, eight plus years, almost 3200, days without a bet is that I've said you learn the lesson from it. You don't do it again. You cannot touch that, and you will not touch that each day. You have to look at that. So those lessons who would have thought would end up in a book, you don't set out when you write a book looking back on 20 years to have these things happen, but they do to us, and it's also proven to me that we're human, that we're going to make mistakes. Give yourself some grace, learn the lesson and move forward from

David Bush  14:40  
it, yeah, that's so good. I appreciate you sharing that. And I was watching a video today that was talking about, you know, asking the question, who's the biggest problem in your organization? And for me, I know exactly who the person is. I look at him in the mirror every day. Right? And you know, I have to continual, continually remind myself of what's true and what's a story that I've created about that truth. And that's where I think that, you know, all of us need to be in that mindset of, we got to stop telling ourselves stories about things, especially stories about fear, and I know that you talk about how to overcome those fears when when you have an idea, or when you have something that is maybe like hindering you, but you know that there's something that you've been called to do or to be or to have, what are a couple of strategies that you're using personally and that you're coaching others on to overcome that fear and to just do it.

Tony Rubleski  15:46  
Powerful question. And again, this is the first interview I've done, David, so this is a this is your I'm speaking from my soul. There's nothing rehearsed here. Okay, I think a couple things jump to mind is that when you're ready to go, you got to take action, and we can ruminate. That's something I learned in 12 step years ago with my sponsor, is sometimes we can overthink. And those of us that are entrepreneurs, we get paid to think and create ideas. The thing is, the ideas get moved into action. Is implementation. That is movement. So there's a couple answers to that. Taking action is critical. Converse at the same time is also stepping back sometimes, and meditating and reflecting on it. Prayer, I got saved on April 10, 2017 that's that I surrendered to God. So regardless of your faith, walk on here, that was the best blessing of all, out of all that crash, all that look, that dirtiness, was saying, right, Lord, I'm coming home again. I remember I looked up is exactly mid I said, I am done. Take me. I surrender. And I fell right to sleep. David, little did I know till months later in a meeting, I'm like you got saved that night, Tony, in more ways that are even spiritual. So on the other side of it, I talked about that in the TEDx talk, and I didn't really hammer home the whole higher power component, because you can't talk about politics or religion. So I want to be very respectful of a global audience, but I know now that, looking back, that was the best thing. It was a series of other issues, besides the gambling that I had been running from, not processing. An out of control ego, an unhealthy ego, to me, is very dangerous. So it's pondering, it's reflecting, it's praying and asking yourself a third point to this question, why are you doing it? In the book, I talk about making our list of reasons why you want to pursue something, career, a job, a hobby, weight loss, new business venture, David, when you write those down in tandem with your goals, I didn't know this to like, four or five years ago. I'm like, wow, I've always been a goal setter, okay, an athlete, a cheater, achiever, a leader. I've started companies, and I've always thought, Okay, I'm goal driven, but those days, you don't feel like doing it. Those list of reasons why, and I put a few in the book that I use. I want people to make their own. They give you the extra oomph to get to take action until the habit is formed. That's usually where you're kind of stuck in no man's land or purgatory, because there's days you're like, well, I'll get to it later, and you don't then a year goes by. Then two quick example is the book. This took a lot longer than I thought. Eventually I said, You need strong reasons, which I did in May of last year, to finish that book by December 31 and we got it done so those things, whatever you have to do to push yourself over the line, legally, ethically and morally to get to the goal. I can have several ways to help you do it if you want to. And I'm sure all of your listeners have different little internal things they do consciously and subconsciously to push them to take action.

David Bush  18:43  
Yeah, and you've talked a lot about just your own entrepreneurial journey, and you were brutally honest in the book about kind of the the role that they signed up for. And I'm curious to know, how did you blend the brutally honest part about like what Elon Musk says entrepreneurs is being an entrepreneur is like staring into the abyss and eating glass. That's the way that he uses that can kind of scare a few people away from, you know, continuing to stay persistent and consistent and overcoming fear when that's kind of what the description is by many entrepreneurs. So how can you give entrepreneurs some hope on the other side of the struggle and the challenges that come with being an entrepreneur?

Tony Rubleski  19:31  
I had not heard Elon's quote, so thank you for that. I want to draw a parallel to my mentor of almost 30 years, Dan Kennedy, the marketing master, the king of no BS, Dan would say, I've heard him say it many times in seminar rooms. Being an entrepreneur is the loneliest job in the world, in my sort of wisdom the last 10 years, is if you let it be, there are more resources now, David, you're a top coach entrepreneur like I am, to find. Coaches and mentors. I'm looking at a massive bookshelf in my office here. There's mentors from the printed page. The last 20 years, you have mentors on YouTube, you have mentors at conferences. So it doesn't have to be that way. And I think the challenge is, going back to their Dan kennedyism, is we underestimate the difficulty of the task we look at online, going this, these kids are making millions of dollars off of YouTube videos and views and creating content. These content creators, that's good. I say, well, let's see where they're at in 10 years. Is it sustainable, or is it a fad? Or is it? Hey, it's 10 million views. I made my $4,000 check, whatever it is from YouTube, for example, and that's it. So the staying power, that's a big thing that was, I want to convey in the book, is there are things you when you're in the low valleys. There's resources there, if you're humble enough to ask and do some research and invest not just in yourself David, but the coach or the mentor you hire. And it could be online, it could be face to face. It could be a chamber leads group, a CEO round table, whatever you've got to do, there's no shortage of help out there. If you look on the other side of it too, you've got to watch who you're getting advice from Tony Robbins taught me this as a puppy. The fastest way to grow a company, I'll paraphrase him, is to find a mentor that's 20 years ahead of you and model them. So thank God I got around Tony Robbins book when I was 19 years old, when I was in college. Was in college, I went to Barnes and Noble picked up, awakened the Giant Within, and it changed my entire time, my frame of thought, David, I'm like, I'm not learning this at college. What is all this? So it opened my mind to possibility that there were other paths of coaching, mentorship and learning.

David Bush  21:39  
Yeah, having the experience of others compresses time, and it also builds up faith and belief. And so having those mentors and having resources like your book is just going to give another example of how somebody overcame the messes, the tests, the challenges, to continue on, and because of you not quitting, you just continue to move forward and accomplish some of the dreams that you've accomplished. 10 books that's pretty extraordinary.

Tony Rubleski  22:07  
So let's kind of who's doing them, like, like you said, someone else is putting these books out under my name.

David Bush  22:12  
Hey, you just weren't you're just warming up. I know that you'll be climbing the ladder and being out there like John Maxwell and Brian Tracy with over 100 books. I'm sure you

Unknown Speaker  22:20  
stick well, thank you, my friend. Thank you for the vote of confidence.

David Bush  22:25  
So out of all the 50 lessons, is there one specific lesson that you could share with the audience today that would be something that everybody could apply whether, regardless of whether they're working as an entrepreneur or they're thinking about a business or anywhere in between.

Tony Rubleski  22:43  
Yeah, one came up this morning. I did a training for a group of insurance agents on Microsoft Teams, and the session was on referral marketing. It's where I've gotten a really good name, from Remax to John Deere teaching referrals all over the world the last 20 years. And I said, here's the thing I want you to think about this year, because you join me and you gave me your time, is ask for more. So the big answer that it's there's a specific chapter called ask for more. Pretty self explanatory, is ask for more from life. David, you never know until you ask. And to me, there's so many years where I've been on a roll. I was asking for more. Wasn't begging, I wasn't demanding, I wasn't being rude. I was thinking bigger, like, why not give you a quick example? Yesterday morning, I called my Chamber of Commerce. Said, Hey, I've got a crazy idea. I'm gonna be back in town next week. We're launching the book. They do. What are this pretty common in Chamber of Commerce world, ribbon cuttings for new businesses. I said, what if we did something where I brought the new book over next Monday on launch day, and we put a ribbon around it. We had you cut the big scissors, like a book launch, like the 10th Anniversary of book celebration with the Chamber staff. They're like, we've never heard of that. I said, Well, I know it's last minute. I'll come meet you. I said, When is your office meeting? They're like, Monday? Well, I'm going to be around. Shoot me back. They literally got back with an hour. They got it to the chamber president, Mark. They're like, Hey, Mark approved it. Come to the chamber office. Monday, we're gonna do our first ribbon cutting for a book launch. So it's fun. It was a spontaneous idea. I thought, you know, I don't have a physical office near the chamber, why don't we just go to their office, bring the book and have fun. I said, we'll promote it down to our list of several 1000 people. 1000 people online. It's great PR for the chamber, and hey, you're going to promote it to the chamber. It's a win, win. They're like it was the quickest thing, but it didn't make any sense. But I wasn't afraid to ask them. So those two examples that happened today, the training and asking the chamber yesterday. It's you don't know until you ask David. And I think as we get more wisdom, we think, Well, I don't know if that'll work, or, you know what? Why work? Why not? And there's specific examples in the book I talk about when I met Mick Fleetwood from Fleetwood Mac, many years ago at a speaking event in Las Vegas. The promoter, I won't want to give the whole way book away of here, but it was my favorite story of meeting anybody on the. Circuit. I'm a huge rock and roll fan. Fleetwood Mac's, one of my favorites. Grew up listening to rumors like everybody else. That's a Gen Xer, and I persisted with the promoter, like, hey, you know what? I've got to catch a flight. I got the rumors album here. I won't say a word. Can I at least, you know, maybe get an autograph. And he's like, I don't know. And Nick's busy, and the sponsors only, I said I won't say a word. And in the book, I talk about what happened, and it's one of those rock star moments that I look back and I'm so grateful David that I asked several times, almost like a fan boy, to get the autograph, because it turned into a much bigger experience I ever thought by asking and not just saying, Okay, no problem persisting to get that autograph on that rumors. I'll be from Mick Fleetwood. Yeah.

David Bush  25:44  
Well, that whole process of asking you get, don't you won't, right? I mean, if you're not going to ask, you're only going to get what people have planned for you, and most people don't have planned that much for you. And so it's all going to be reactive. And I remember that training from a long time ago. I, I don't know the name off the top my head, but there is a a TEDx talk from a guy that talks about asking, and I don't know if you remember who that is, but yeah, he went around and he just basically kept asking people for ridiculous things, like he said things like at a at a burger place, you know, he would eat his burger, and then he would take his box, and he'd say, do you guys do burger refills? And the people go, No. And he goes, why? And he just followed up every question, like ridiculous question, like he went to a person's house that he didn't know, and he knocked on the door and he said, Hey, can I plant a flower in your backyard? And they go, No. He goes, why? And then their comment was, Well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't keep the flower alive. And you, you basically would ruin or waste your flower. But you know who you should contact is, you should walk across the street to my neighbor's house. She loves flowers, and she'd really appreciate a flower, so then he got an opportunity to go to somebody else and plant the flower. And that's kind of the concept, is you have the courage to ask, and you ask the question, why? When they say, No, you might find out something that is a small obstacle or barrier standing in between you and what it is that you ultimately want. And that's just taking that fear and setting off to the side and then having the faith that somebody is going to say yes. And once you get those yeses, you become a lot more confident. And I know that there's a lot of entrepreneurs right now that are watching this, and they are stuck. They're overwhelmed. They're stuck, and you have some strategies of what you have done to overcome being overwhelmed or being stuck? Would you share one or two of those strategies to maybe inspire those entrepreneurs that are just stuck in a bad situation or in their fear or anything of that nature?

Tony Rubleski  27:55  
Excellent question. And thank you, David, because now I'm going to look up that TEDx talk. I want to watch that. And the flower story is very cool. So I appreciate you sharing that. Back to Me. Couple things come to mind to that question of being stuck. First thing is, remove yourself from the situation and get out of there. And it could be you go take a trip for a day or two, you get out of your head space of the proximity of where you're at, and you say, I need to remove myself and go to, like a boot camp. Maybe it's a seminar. Maybe you take a long weekend and you go get in your car and your cruise, you take a little two or three day getaway, but something that gets you out of the proximity of where you're at geographically with your business and your head space. So it gives you a fresh sense of scenery, and it gives you possibility what's interesting, when you travel into a flaring areas, I can go like Southern California, for example, or Phoenix, Tucson, or, excuse me, Phoenix Scottsdale, you see a lot of money there. Okay, there's different parts of any major city have the high end neighborhoods you go to those parts the country, realize there's abundance all around you. It's getting out of your paradigm of being stuck and telling yourself, you know, this is a massive universe. The Earth itself is full of abundance. Here's a little weird trick that I do, and I'm it's not in the book, but I feel it coming to me. Sometimes I walk into a grocery store and I go right to the produce section, and I'll stand and go, Wow, look at all this fresh, amazing food. There's no shortage. And my kids have caught me a couple times. Dad's doing the gratitude experiment where he's like, Oh my God, look at all this. There's so much here. And I know it's very simple. David, I don't know if it's something when I turned 50, a few years ago, I like things simpler. And it goes into one of my favorite quotes. I'm a quote junkie. Albert Einstein, the definition of genius is making the complex simple. We're buried in data. We have no attention span anymore. It's down to eight seconds. It's less than a goldfish. I have the data in the documentation to prove this, but what I'm saying is stop and look around. You go. There's so much here. Now you still have to take action. I do have a bone to pick with some of these. Folks are like, just manifest and manifest and think about it. It'll happen. Bs, David, I've met many of these people like you have in the industry. They'll tell you, for example, the movie, the secret that was big in the mid 2000s I've interviewed Jack Canfield, the star of that movie. I've met half the people in that movie, and I've spoken with him. They said they left out one thing, visualize, manifest, but you got to take action. So break out of your funk and say, I need to go somewhere new and look at what's going on around me. Gratitude is a great way to do it. Get out of your space for a day or two, travel, go to museum. So I'm giving you simple things that don't cost a lot of money. It costs a little bit of time, but most entrepreneurs the first 510 years struggle with cash flow. So you've got to look at what suits your situation. Do you have more time available, or do you have more money? The other thought, too, is by going to a seminar or an online coaching program, you know, coaches have coaches. I've had two coaches recently. That recent bent my mind. I thought I knew a lot it wasn't to make myself feel better, to get me kind of inspired. The old dog needs some new tricks and needs some new energy. So I'm kind of going quickly here, kind of parceling in and out of the book. And some of this is not in the book. But the thing is this, you decide each day, what if this is it? I don't mean to be fatalistic. David, the last chapter in the book is called Ashes to ashes. And I have some quotes there from the band Kansas, dust in the wind. And it's rock and roll is a big deal to me. His lyrics, music is very emotional, but I look at Encino at the end of it. Are you gonna look back on your life if God, or your Creator, your higher power, gives you a long life, and say, Wow, I did. I did a lot. I don't want to have any regrets. David, I don't mean that to be reckless or foolish, but enjoy the journey, even the valleys you're constantly learning. You've heard this, many of my biggest valleys on the other side have been massive opportunities, not because I set out to do that. Let me get this straight, because it's being recorded here. Do not go out and do dumb things. To say. I want to write a book on this or learn a lesson from it. Many people don't recover from that, so I'm saying is stop. So you know what? I'm in charge here. I need to break out of this funk. I need to remove myself physically, or get around someone that is farther ahead, that can inspire me. And that's what great coaches do. Consultants, how are you to find a David? You've been a top coach for over two decades, and I look at and go, coaches have coaches too, because I have days. I'm like, Man, I need a pep talk. I can do my best, but I go to coaches, I go to videos, I go to my library, anything I can do some days to override that negativity. I employ those resources. Yeah, so good.

David Bush  32:40  
Yep. Coachable. I remember back in the day, when I was working with a lot of coach trainers, I heard Pat Williams define the word coach by the town coaches. And it was a town in Hungary, K, O, C, S, and a coach takes a person from wherever they are. This is the place that coaches were founded. It was stage coaches, where, basically they built stage coaches. And the reason why they built these stage coaches was to take people from wherever they were to wherever they wanted to go. And so if you have a destination that you want to get to, you need a coach. You need a stage coach, or a business coach or a mentor, mental coach that's going to help you to think like the person you need to think like, so that you can become the person that you'd like to become. And I want to have you share the answer. There are just two questions I want to wrap up with, and I'm going to give you a little bit of time to think of it, and I'm going to show everybody a little bit about the book. So the two questions I want you to be thinking about is, what one thing specifically would you like readers to do because they read the book, and then what would be the impact from this book that you'd like to see? So one thing that you'd like readers as a whole to do be have because they read the book. And then what would be the thing that you'd like to see out there in the world because of this book. So take a little time to think about those, and in the meantime, I'm just going to show everybody your website. So mind capturedroup.com is the website they can get more details about the book. I'm sure that we'll put a link in the description of this video so that everybody can gain access to it. But this is a great little overview of the video. Nice little picture of this hunkalicious guy. Tony robleski, so nice. Nice Photoshop there. No, I'm just joking. I'm a health coach. David, yeah, you've been in the gym more than me, but cool for you. But little bit information about the book. So mind capture group.com is the place that they're going to want to go to gain more information about the services that you offer, and then we'll talk a little bit about that. But did you come up with any answers on what you want people to do specifically as they get done reading the book, and then what would be the impact that you'd like to see this book have on humanity?

Tony Rubleski  35:01  
Um, wow. The first question, many thought tracks appeared, I'll go with my first gut instinct is to at least read it, to give it the gift of time. Anyone that comes up to me says, Hey, I read your book. I'm like, thank you so much. Like, what do you mean? Like, you gave me the gift of your time and attention. That is rare. Most people make it to maybe page 20 of any given book. David, that's it's known in publishing circles. It's just they quit. So I'm hoping, with it being short, compact chapters, they look at it as, like maybe once a week. Some of the Advanced Reviews were, hey, that you could look at this, each chapter as maybe once a week. They're simple. There's maybe some pages or two or three, some are five or six pages. But they read it, and they go, okay, I can do this. And they can flip in and out of based on the chapter heading, and say, this is more relevant for me right now, for my work life, for my career, for my family, for a personal issue. And they can go back to the book, almost like an active journal. Okay, that would be the first goal. And with that, they never wanted to waste their time. They find it entertaining and also very educational. That was the hard balance. I don't write a lot of non fiction where I reveal this much, David, it's more tactical. Here's how to get more customers, how to follow up. Here are campaigns. So I had to dig in to a space of writing that I didn't know I had, and there's no way I involved with the book. We're gonna we're gonna we're gonna sell that. We're gonna be like, Hey, we didn't use any AI to write this book. Nothing. Nothing wrong with that. This was written from the gut and the heart and the mind and wisdom. And Kelsey Sanders, my editor, did a heck of a nice job cleaning up. Okay, so I could not, not give her credit. Okay, so that's having a good team. So they take away one or two ideas from the book, and maybe they pass it along. Your second question, if you could help me out again? Because that's really deep. I've never been asked that. So if you could ask me again,

David Bush  36:49  
yeah, the impact on humanity? I mean, if, if the people that read this book did what they have been challenged to do by you, what would be the impact that you would begin to see as the ripple effect would start to take take place. I mean, what would you see would be the measurables or the successes that you would begin to see because people acted upon the things that you've just given them.

Tony Rubleski  37:15  
I think the big takeaway, back to the first answer was that I didn't waste their time. But more importantly, the the impact of that book was down the line, because who knows, in the scheme of how small time is, if anyone remember this book 100 years from now? However, if it inspired entrepreneurs to grow their company instead of quitting and they hired 100 more people, the force multiplier effect, which I'll probably never know, is maybe they had the confidence to grow the company, and a year later, they hired down 20 more people. Two years later, because of something they read the colonel, they hired 50 more people a few years later, and that force multiplier, which I've had this happen with my other books, years later, someone comes to, Hey, I saw in Omaha, I wrote a book because you I'm like, Whoa. Where you get emails, David, you've had this with your clients and your author as well. You have no clue where it's going to go, and I would just hope that people you know what I thought about quitting, I read your book, or someone referred it to me, and I didn't quit, and I wrote a book. I built an empire, I built a business. I gave more money to my charity because we had more profits. I figured out there's a chapter about giving and tithing, however you define it. When you give. It's very hard to be down David. I've had to be years where I wasn't making as much money. I still tithe, and I don't throw it out there to be like holier than thou or virtuous signaling, but it reminds me I still have a lot of things that I'd be grateful for, because I haven't hit my goals or my expectations yet, I can still give and tithe Time, money or resources. So I'm hoping that people go, Wow, because of that book, I didn't quit, or I gave it to my son or daughter, and they're like, Wow, this is I've never heard such things, and I think it's also a direct two by four to a lot of the social media right now where people are so negative. David, it's easy to go online and be a troll and be dark and negative and cynical and snarky. That's what most people do. However, if we can have a little revolution of light here, they might sound maybe a little new agey, but I'm serious, we'll go, wow. I've got to watch what I'm putting up online, not to caution them or censor them. I'm a big free speech guy, because that's how I make my living, is freedom of speech and knowledge. What I'm saying is, let's change the conversation. Let's celebrate positivity, success, hard work, that sometimes it takes people 510, 15 years to be successful, not six months on Instagram. So again, I use social media. I'm grateful for it. However, to me, it's a misrepresentation of reality of being an entrepreneur. It's not overnight success. You get on a podcast, you write a book that's sometimes many, many years to get there, David, and usually you got people that are that are close to you, they're doubting you the whole way. Talk a lot about that in the book. Doesn't mean you cut your family off and you're mean to people. That's hypocrisy, to me. But you got to be careful how much time you give them or how much you let them into your head space. So the book also has a lot of inspiration in there to get you through those days when you're maybe it's you in the book and you're like, Okay, I've got to get something out of my I gotta look at this, because everyone around me is crazy. I'm just joking, but they're driving me crazy because they don't believe in my dream. They're negative. Maybe you have what I call a former enemy. There's a little bit of that in the book that you use to forgive and you let them inspire you. David, I mean, I put in the back jacket of the book, I'm holding it up. I dedicate the book to a lot of my doubters, not to be mean, but you've inspired me to not quit. And some of those doubters were people that were rarely close to me at one point. And it's not about revenge, it's say, You know what get after it even more. David, so hope there's some nuggets there. You've given me some really good questions, my friend, I don't usually get. These are not general questions, like, why'd you write the book? What do you know? Tell me about it. You've really made me think. So I appreciate that.

David Bush  41:04  
Yeah, well, I really appreciate you sharing some of the insights and giving us a quick preview on it. And make sure that everybody checks out the website, mind capture group.com, and they'll get more information about the things that you do, the speaking services and the books and 10 of them, man, I'd, I'd love to see the 10th book, 10x and have a kind of cast a shadow beyond the grave after your farewell and gone, that there's going to be something that is about this book that's going to be world changing, and because you have been vulnerable today in sharing some of the things that didn't go Well in your life, and how they played into your life, and overcoming and not quitting, it just brought me back. There's one of my favorite quote, my favorite poems, and I I might get a little emotional reading it, but it is. It's something that all of us need to hear. And it's a poem called Get up and win the race by D H, dr, d h, d Groberg, and I'll put the link inside the description, but it's it goes like this, whenever I start to hang my head in front of failure's face, my downward fall is broken by the memory of a race, a children's race, young boys, young men. How I remember? Well, excitement, sure, but also fear. It wasn't hard to tell they all lined up so full of hope, each thought to win the race or tie for first or, if not that, at least take second place. Their parents watched from off the side, each cheering for their son. And each boy hoped to show his folks that he would be the one. The whistle blew and off they flew like Chariots of Fire. To win, to be the hero. There was each young boy's desire. One boy in particular, whose dad was in the crowd, was running in the lead, and thought my dad would be so proud. But as he speeded down the hill and crossed a shallow dip, the little boy who thought he'd win lost his step and slip, trying hard to catch himself. His arms flew every place, and amidst the laughter of the crowd, he fell flat on his face. As he fell, his hope fell too he couldn't win it. Now humiliated, he just wished to disappear somehow. But as he fell, his dad stood up and showed his anxious face, which to the boy so clearly, said, Get up and win that race. He quickly rose, no damage done behind, a bit that's all and ran with all his mind and might to make up for his fall, so anxious to restore himself, to catch up and to win. His mind went faster than his legs. He slipped and fell again. He wished that he had quit before with only one disgrace, I'm hopeless as a runner. Now, I shouldn't try to race. But through the laughing crowd, he searched and found his father's face with a steady look that said, again, get up and win that race. He jumped up to try again. 10 yards behind the last if I'm going to gain those yards, he thought, I've got to run real fast, exceeding everything he had, he regained eight, then 10, but trying hard to catch the lead, he slipped and fell again. Defeat. He lay there silently. A tear dropped from his eye. There's no sense in running anymore. Three strikes, I'm out. Why try? I've lost. So what's the use? He thought, I'll live with my disgrace. But then he thought about his dad, who soon he'd have to face, get up and echo sounded low. You haven't lost it all. For all you have to do to win is rise each time you fall. Get up. The echo urged him on. Get up and take your place. You were not meant for failure here. Get up and win that race. So up he rose to once run once more, refusing to forfeit he and he resolved that to win or lose, at least he wouldn't quit. So behind, so far behind the others now the most he'd ever been. Still he gave it it. Gave it his all, and had had ran like he could win three. Times he'd fallen, stumbling three times he rose again. Too far behind to hope to win, he still ran to the end. They cheered another boy who crossed the line in one first place, head high and proud and happy. No falling, no disgrace. But when the falling youngster crossed the line in last place, the crowd gave a cheer, greater cheer for him for finishing the race, and even though he came in last with head bowed low, unproud, you would have thought that he won the race. To listen to the crowd and to his dad, he sadly said, I didn't do so well. To me, you won. His father said, You rose each time you fell. And now when things seem dark and bleak and difficult to face, the memory of that little boy helps me to win my own race. For all of life is like that race with ups and downs and all and all you have to do to win is rise each time you fall. And when depression and despair shout loudly in my face, another voice within me says, Get up and win that race. And I think of you, Tony as being a guy that has fallen and you have gotten back up, and you're continuing to run like you're going to win. And I think that there's going to be a tremendous amount of cheers and applause when you get up on stage and talk about these principles and vulnerability with, you know, apology, but without regret, to say, I'm going to continue to get better because of those mistakes, and I'm glad that you wrote the book, and I'm glad to be one of the guys that gets a chance to share your message with others. So keep on getting up, man, keep on and winning that race.

Tony Rubleski  46:38  
Brother. Well, David, huge. Thank you, my friend, because this is, this is nerve wracking. I'm nervous. I've done hundreds of interviews, podcasts. This is a whole new realm, so I appreciate you your honesty and your belief, because we don't know. We just don't know, and this is the first interview. So how fun to do? You know you and I go back so far, and I appreciate you, my friend.

David Bush  47:02  
Likewise. Make it a great day, everybody. Thanks for tuning in to the Business Builders playbook. If this episode gave you some plays that you can start running in your business today, hit subscribe and share with another revenue leader who's tired of the pipeline grind building Predictable Revenue isn't something you figure out alone. Whether you're looking to automate your prospecting with bdr.ai or you just want to talk through the growth challenges you're facing, reach out. We help business leaders just like you to build systems that actually scale. And if you're ready to stop being your company's Highest Paid Prospector, let's have a conversation. Reach out to us@bdr.ai until next time, let's keep building. You.