Humble Beginnings Make You with Jerome Rerucha

Welcome to this edition of the million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

I'm here with Jerome Ruruka and he is the creator of the fitness integration technique. He's a guest lecturer. Why do they call you guest lecturer with Erconia? He's a trainer of the Erconia Lasers all over the country. And as we talked about earlier, that's the Rolls Royce of lasers and, and has been doing that for many, many years and he's in touch with top athletes and top fitness people all over the country. Never stops traveling and never stops learning and developing himself. Got a lot of new products that he uses and he fortunately he is able to make a lot of those available to the public. But one of the things that we were talking about earlier, Jerome, is getting started. You don't necessarily, it's not everybody gets. Has the advantages of an inc. You know, the, the warm environment, the good coaching, the good encouragement to get started, good resources and. But that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be held back from where you want to go forever. And you didn't really start with a whole sack of advantages.

No, no, it was humble beginnings. That's to say the least, whether you look at the town you came from or the family you came from, you know, not necessarily congruent ideas on what I really felt like my life purpose was. And so yeah, you pretty much started from the bottom. Not a lot of support. But you always observed that it's like, okay, what is in my area that can help me? And I did turn out to have a pretty significant lifting career. And whether it's luck was habit, but a lot of people didn't take that advantage. There was a person who moved to the high school and he was actually one of the teachers and coaches right at my time in high school there. And he was a past competitive lifter. So as time did go by, it was really excellent. The foundation that I did get now, that relationship didn't start off roses by any means. He was a very hardcore person. And I kind of alluded to it. I come from a family that really advocates being in extracurricular activities. I'm a super small town farm kid. And you were born for one purpose and that's to work on the farm and everything else is. Makes no sense that you would do so anything as far as, you know, going to basketball camps or lifting Camp, anything like that, that just wasn't like, why would you do that? You know, so there was no opportunities to do those things, but either trying to rebel in a positive way, when it did come time where I was going to dedicate myself to lifting, you know, he was there. Even though he was a very driven person, he would just tell people, if you're not going to go to these camps, if you're not going to do these things don't even come out. So when it came to the point of time for me to ask him for help, he wasn't very ambitious to do so just based upon you, why would you waste my time? Type of deal. But I pretty much knew at that time, you know, I knew differently too, of how I got to that point, and that I would do what was necessary to, I guess, either win it over or whatever it was, but that was it. And then even from a workout perspective. So I was the class, we had a couple of us, and there wasn't much of a weight room at the high school I went to. So we raised the money doing all sorts of things to build the weight room. And we were even in shop class and we built the equipment and, you know, raised a bunch of money for the equipment as well. But since we weren't playing sports for school, we were just lifting weights and we wanted to compete in powerlifting, which was not a sport in that school. The school ended up kicking us out of the weight room. So he raised the money, we built the equipment. Like we didn't do anything wrong, but they're like, well, you're not played school sports, you can't use it, get out. And that was it. And so, you know, it was just one of those things. You just address that problem. And we lived in the middle of nowhere. I mean, I'm from a farm and you know, the next town is 20 miles away. So it's not like, oh, I'll just go to this gym over here. Well, there was no gym, so we just built our own equipment. And one of my friends had a. A Quonset on their farm. There was no heat, no air conditioning. It's just we didn't have a wind chill in the building. So that was it.

The thing is that when you started.

You had this.

You went a small school, not a lot of different things, but not only you, but there were some other dumbbells around there that wanted to lift weights too. I mean, in spite of. Yeah, it makes a big diff. You know, it. It makes all the difference in the World to have a couple of other people around you that are interested in the same things you're interested in. You got to have somebody to bounce ideas off. Probably you wouldn't have been able to get started in the body, in the. In the. In the lifting world and everything at least the same way without some other people going along with you. Had the similar interest you could bounce ideas off of and things like that.

Yeah, there was no doubt me and one other person were the leaders of that movement. But, you know, like any high school, there's a bunch of kids that, hey, you could play sports. We kind of did. It's like, I'm just not really a team sport person. And even then wrestling could be perfect for them or whatever. But, yeah, we kind of had this drive thinking of the weight room. There wasn't a weight room at the school. So like I said, we just took it upon ourselves, started raising money, making the equipment kind of odd that we then still didn't get to use it for very long.

Got thrown out because. Got thrown out because you were saying that you weren't playing team sports. So they threw you out of the gym that you built.

Yeah. And there was nothing we were doing wrong in school. It's not like we were acting out, getting in trouble. So you're in detention.

Let me. Yes. You probably didn't get an award for building all that stuff, an initiative award, or a big thank you for building this gym that the football team's going to use.

Oh, no, none. No. And I was friends with everybody. I was a real social person. But yet, you know, those were the things at a young age you just overcame, you know, and it did kind of develop, and it really kind of hardened, that drive. You know, you always kind of had a drive, and for whatever reason, nobody put it in me. I. I suppose you could say some people tried to beat it out of you almost. But it was, you know, the more you told me I can't, the more it hardened things. And I just wanted to do positive things. And to this day, that. That drive is pretty irrationally intense.

Yeah. And let's think about that. Is like early resistance hardens your desire or washes you out to go do something else. Don't you think? You know, it really makes you see a lot like, is this worth it? You know?

Yeah. There's a lot of people quit along the ways. And sometimes if things are so hard, I always. I do say, you know, it's like, you know, God will throw a wall in front of you, and sometimes it's to test your character because you're supposed to fight through it. And other times he threw a wall in front of you because you're just to walk around it, you know, and that's a little bit of the art of life. It's like, all right, is this challenge, am I supposed to knock this wall down or am I just supposed to walk around it? You know, those are things I ask myself all the time when things are uncomfortable and hard.

And sometimes it's like he wants you to go in a completely different direction.

Yeah, yeah, that's that aspect. Hey, there's a wall there. I don't know what else I could do. I put a wall there for you to go a different direction.

Right. So keep those, keep the intent up things. Not all these things are happening just. Just to torment you. A lot of these things, a lot of it. You know, you. Successful people allow themselves to be steered in terms of they, you know, things happen. And the way they interpret it allows them to be steered, to make, you know, improvements, adjustments, look for extra help, or to re, you know, retreat, regroup, and then come attack again. You know, they never quit, but they. Sometimes they do retreat, regroup, rethink, get some, you know, resupply, and then come back again, you know?

Absolutely.

That's what the Ukrainians need to be having in the back of their mind is celebrating the Russians running away. When they run away, the suckers can run but come back, you know.

Yeah.

And so if they ever get themselves some planes, I think the Russians will be right back in it. But unfortunately, in fact, that's really the key to the war. We get to talk war strategy here. Knock these suckers out before they rebuild their air force, you know.

Yeah.

And retrain their pilots because once that happens, they get the factories up and everything. You are screwed because, you know, unless the. The NATO decides they're going to defend the skies there. But.

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Anyway, enough.

You got to look for opportunities, windows of opportunity. You got to look for them. And you know, hesitation does not help you when there's a window of opportunity.

Yeah. And those, you know, no window stays open all the time. Now when you, how far did you make with this, you know, with the, you know, the lifting and the gym? You had the passion, you had other things that you did, did, would. Was that, did that kill the weightlifting thing until you went to college and things like that or what?

Not really. So I did start going into my senior years where I drew a real hard line and it was going to be a regular part of my life and whatever else I needed to do on the farm would be done. You know, I can work weekends, I can work after I get done lifting, you know, all those types of things. And then I did take a year off. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was always kind of a little slow developing because you just kind of had to figure things out on your own. So initially I never thought of going to college. I thought, well, I'll probably end up going to a trade school. I always wanted to do strength and conditioning fascinated me, but I didn't want to do the extra schooling to be a full time strength coach. So I'm like, I'll see. But just because I had questions, I'm like, you know, I'm going to get my resources, I'm going to just work, I'm going to try to save some money for whatever I decide to do hereafter. So there again, I was still lifting, just saving money, working menial hard labor jobs. And then it ends up turning out I did end up going to college in kind of an odd story, a little. So I was so detached from reality. But you wouldn't know it if you knew me as a kid. Like, I wasn't socially awkward, I had tons of friends. You only went to a high school of 400 people. And I'm sure I was friends with 350 of them. So I never really thought of going to college. And literally I had no idea you had to take SAT tests or ACT tests to be allowed to go to college. I just figured, hey, if you had the money and you go. So as I take a year off out of high school and then it's like, okay, I'm going to go to college. And the only reason I really ended up conclusively going to college was one of my oldest friends. We're still friends to this day, but I've Known him since he was 4 years old. And we went through grade school together, went through high school together, ended up going to the same college. But obviously I was behind him then at that time. And the day he told me, not once, that we knew each other the entire time. So at the end of our senior year, he was like, yeah, I'm going to go to college. And I was like, you. Like, you're. You're going to college? Like, I mean, we were like equals in life with what we're doing. I'm like, that blew me away. He was just so nonchalant. Well, yeah, of course I'm going to college. Like, I'd never heard him say this, and I was like, holy crap. Like, he's going to college. Like, why shouldn't I go to college? Like, that really was a definitive moment. But even at that time, I had no idea about the acts and sats. So I know people study farm and do all sorts of things. I. I just showed up for the test. I didn't study. I never even heard of these things before. So I think I passed by one question and that was it.

Good. Good enough. Yeah.

You.

You got in. And so where did you. From the. You know, we're talking about, you know, passion and developing passion. And a lot of times you develop a passion in something like wanting to pursue the lifting. You know, you were going to go to school and get an education, but your passion was, you know, the lifting and the powerlifting and with an inkling for strength and fitness. It's really interesting how these things that kind of float around in our mind as general ideas or general interests that attract our attention early in life wind up being what we wind up doing down the road. And you don't think of it half the time, you know.

Yeah, but.

But as you went through that thing and you saw that passion grow, for your passion will not grow unless you start having some success, you know, and it's like a business, you know, you're not going to be passionate about your business idea, your breakthrough over. At some point, you got to have some success. When did you start getting some success? And then once you get the success in that thing, you, you know, you, You've got, You become. You become a different kind of person because you become a person who can commit to things. You've convinced yourself you can make them happen. And so now the things that follow in line, you know, you're like a bulldozer attacking them. And it's like this. This guy. Well, we won't. We won't go there, but, you know, but it's just like once it's in there, you just see like, where did that come from? Well, the guy was already like that. You know, he, he might have been retired for a couple of years. He might have been over here, you know, just kind of biding his time on something. But no, that's who he really is, you know.

Yeah, go ahead. Well, the first time it probably was a measurable success was again, just my junior summer, going into my senior year is when I started lifting. And it was, it was a major switch that I flipped. I always knew it was in me. Nobody else knew it was in me. And truthfully speaking, prior to that, it was groomed to where it wasn't going to be in you. But nonetheless, there was just.

Now, what is that? What does that mean?

Well, this isn't going to be a oh, woe is me type of person, but. But there was, you know, it just, it just wasn't like on my parents radar. You know, they're not bad people, but in that aspect, like, they thought lifting weights is the most selfish, egotistical, worthless thing you could do and you're a horrible person for doing it. And that's probably a soft way of saying it, so.

Oh, really? Oh, yeah. So it probably didn't say it once.

Oh, thousands, you know. Yeah, you were just told thousands of times. It didn't start and stop with them either. Just, you know, I mean, it came from every direction.

What are you doing?

You know, like, yeah, what a selfish waste of time.

Yeah. What did you accomplish? You lifted it up and you put it down. What are you doing?

Well, and when you are epically weak, when you start like you are epically weak, like, there's no sign or chance like there's any ability there at all, you know, so, you know, it's kind of like, yeah, okay, I get it, but whatever. I mean, there was a little bit of an innate thing that was planted in there. And, and so I went from, like, literally, I, I guarantee half the girls in high school could outlift me going into my senior year, guaranteed. But anyway, in eight months, I went from being one of the weakest people ever to when I did compete, I did win the outstanding lifter award of the state, which was pound for pound as I competed at 165. So in eight months I started, I was 150 pounds. And I, I started lifting because I just wanted to get as big as I could. So, I mean, I just started eating massive amounts of food on the day I committed and never missed a workout. It doesn't matter if there was a blizzard, you know, we found a way to make it work. There was just no way. If it was Christmas, I lift before anything happens on Christmas. You know, there was just that, that just happened because once you're going to disobey, you might as well go all in with it, you know.

Right.

So, so, so that being said, you know, I did, I, I watched it ever since I was like a freshman. You know, there were some people competing so I'd kind of look and see and knew what was a little bit required of it. So I had no idea. I didn't set out. I just set out to do the best I could and get started. But yeah, so even that first competition of the Northeast State, you know, we won that and got the outstanding lifter award and then we won state pretty similar with that went to teenage nationals. So yeah, a span of, you know, just three years I went from, I started maybe I could squat 95 pounds legally when I, I first started. And then three years later I didn't do it. Legal depth when I say this, but I did put 700 pounds on my back when I was 19. So I, I started when I was almost 17. And yeah, it was just, I just unleashed a monster that I always knew was in there but nobody else did.

So, you know, the point is when you start epically bad, you give yourself the opportunity to have epic progress.

Yeah, there is. So, so that's the thing. I can take generally anybody and I mean there's some really hard gainers out there, but I could take the person. I tell people all the time, I'm like, I'll let you pick first. You give me all the misfits in the school and I'll train them to you. I will promise you that, you know, I will instill a monster in those kids.

And once you know how to do that, you can go in and make, transfer that into all kind of other arenas.

Thanks for listening to the Million Dollar Mastermind.

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