Frankie Russo With The School of WHY

Intro: [00:00:05] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for high velocity radio

Lee Kantor: [00:00:15] Lee Kantor hear another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today. On the show we have Frankie Russo and he is with the school of Why? Welcome Frankie.

Frankie Russo: [00:00:25] Hey, man, thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:27] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about the School of Y. How are you serving, folks?

Frankie Russo: [00:00:33] All right, great. Well, the school is basically an extension of the two books that I’ve written. One was the Article II about five years ago and then Breaking Wide, which actually hits the stores on Tuesday. And the School of Y was something that we started because we found that there was a need to take the principals and all of the different pieces from the books that I’ve written, which are mostly about finding and mastering your purpose was the first book, and then the second book is about hacking and rebuilding what we call strategic emotions for authentic success and ultimately being able to turn your passion and purpose into profits. And so the School of Y is a place where people can come together. It’s a community with people that are mentoring each other, as well as that are coming in, working the steps from the book together. So there are ten steps from our books, and it’s the School of Y is basically working those steps, one on one with mentors and sponsors that are working with other people to help them to master their purpose and really break their y. And then as the workshops come together this year, we’ve been doing more group settings so that people can experience working these steps as a group. So that’s really the biggest thing we focus on, mostly entrepreneurs, because that’s been my experience. But we also work with musicians and athletes, as well as just really anyone who’s seeking to hack their current life to rebuild a better future.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:12] Now, I’m sure it’s no accident that why is the operative word here? Is it a lot of people with focus on the what of what they do or the how of what they do? But you’re it sounds like your center or your foundational piece is the why? How did you kind of come about that?

Frankie Russo: [00:02:31] Yeah. So actually started about 15 years ago. It was of all things, I was in the mortgage business and I was had a lot of young people that were up and coming. And of course, this is before the mortgage crisis hit. So just about anybody could could be involved in mortgages back then. And and I had a bunch of young guys that were all starting to follow me and work with me and all this and that, and I needed a way to kind of really train them to rethink the way that they interact with people that they’re going to work with. And a lot of them, you know, always when it comes to finance and money and banking, everything is always about what is the numbers right or how is this going to work? Or how long is it going to take or when can we close? And I had to really find a way to train them to start with asking the question, Why are you here and really getting down to the why? Because why if we know the answer to why? I realized early on that tells us the motive, right? If somebody knows why somebody would have, let’s say, killed someone in crime mysteries and detective work, we then have a motive, right? So but if you can figure out what the motive is, you can then use that to create motivation. And so that’s where it originally started at. And then that basically evolved from being about business and doing deals and success. It matured to being more about purpose because as I kind of kept going down my own journey over the last 15 years, I realized that success and making money and being successful in business started to matter less and less as I actually became more successful and I started to realize that having a purpose was actually more important than just being successful.

Frankie Russo: [00:04:16] And so the Y started to become about having a true purpose and figuring out why I’m here, and as I’ve kind of uncovered that it’s become a passion of mine and I found that a lot of other people are, they’re rarely asking that question. It’s like you said who, what, when, where, how often all those questions or questions I’ve got to ask every day to survive. I don’t actually have to ask the question why in order to survive, I can never ask that question and still survive. But if I want to really thrive and I want to fulfill and master my purpose on why I’m here and how that affects the people around me, in the community, around me, I’ve got to be asking that question. And it’s a question that sometimes can be really uncomfortable. And it’s it takes a lot of work and it’s going to continue to rediscover it. That’s one of the reasons why I wrote breaking why as a follow up to the art of why. Because even in the last five years, I’ve gone through a lot of stuff that really forced me to kind of break my own rules and break some of the things that I had even laid out in my first book. And what I learned was that that’s that is part of the ever evolving. Life that we’re living, we have to constantly be reevaluating and even breaking our why so that we can continue to grow and evolve.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:34] Now how do you create an environment of trust and vulnerability that allows a person to truly answer the why? Because a lot of times you’ll ask, like, why? Why do you, you know, why do you want this job? Or Why do you want to do whatever you’re trying to do? And it’s like, Oh, to make money or I got to feed my kids, or, you know, it’s something surface level, it isn’t really getting to the heart of what the real why might be that is motivating them.

Frankie Russo: [00:06:00] Well, so the thing about getting doing the work that I do around this deeper, more vulnerable experience with people, especially like in business for me, it actually came from going through a lot of difficult times for myself. So about almost 14 years ago, I got sober from drugs and alcohol. So that was one of the first real big times as an adult that I had to ask the question Why am I here? And I was forced to get a lot more vulnerable because I needed it to save my life. And so I find that the people that not everybody’s ready to ask this question, right? So it’s it’s it’s not this book and this journey isn’t for everyone. These this is for the people that are willing to to really dig deeper, to go deeper and and that want something more than just checking boxes and getting a check and and want to go and make their life more meaningful. And so the thing is, is that the first step in this journey is that you don’t really even start the work unless somebody is ready and not everybody’s ready. And a lot of times what makes us ready is experience, sometimes pain difficulties, setbacks. Those are the types of things that that kind of bring us to that sometimes bottom, if you will, that forces me to really start asking some of these questions because just asking the other questions isn’t working for me. So most people don’t start this process unless something is broken or something isn’t right, or there’s just something they’re no longer able to accept about their life or their situation.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:42] So there are some clues. There are some breadcrumbs that are happening for this person to say, You know what? Maybe I’ve got to take a step back or I got a way to beat and really look at things because what I’m doing now isn’t getting me where I want to go.

Frankie Russo: [00:07:58] Absolutely, and and a lot of times, some of the greatest things and the most successful people, it happens after what feels like major setback, you know, because like somebody who has maybe dreamed about starting their own company but is always working, a job is going to look at being fired or laid off as this massive setback. Like they’re going backwards. But how else are they going to be in a position to start something fresh and new? If they weren’t first forced into that uncomfortable position, and sometimes it is powers greater than us and call it the universe, call it, you know, corporate America, whatever the point is, is that it’s when we get to that place of feeling powerless, that we have an opportunity to rethink what what it is that we’re going to do to to regain power and to regain our life back. Right. And it’s easy to just go along to get along and just kind of follow the status quo or just follow what we think we’re supposed to do or what people tell us we’re supposed to do. And you know, those are the those are the times when you want to go deeper. I mean, to me, the the biggest lessons that I’ve learned, the best teachers that I’ve had has been pain. And as much as I wish that wasn’t true and I hate going through it. I always try to make the most of it. And a lot of the book is about how to maneuver that first from, like what I call the up steps. So the first five steps of the school y are about how to get started and really digging deep into like where we’re going. And then the second five steps are more what I call the lifestyle steps, and that’s where the ongoing daily work has to happen in order to continue to evolve and continue to be able to run the race that it takes to fulfill your purpose and fulfill your wife.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:54] Now, do you think the fact that so many people were, you know, a lot of people are using the term, this great resignation where a lot of people are, you know, kind of pulling the rip cord of their old life and saying, Look, after going through this pandemic, there has to be more. I’m not going to tolerate certain things anymore. I am going to find my passion. I am going to find my purpose and I’ll figure out the money part down the road. Do you think that this kind of line of thinking this art of why this school of why is the path for a lot of people when it comes to kind of reevaluating where they’ve been and where they want to go?

Frankie Russo: [00:10:32] A hundred percent. A lot of this book is about my experience, other people’s experiences that have gone through just that at different moments. For me, I thought that my life was over. You know, when I got sober at 13, 14 years ago, right? And also at the same time. Granted, that’s when the mortgage crisis hit. So I lost my business and I lost my marriage and I had to get sober all at the same time. So obviously, if you don’t rethink your life in a moment like that, you know, chances are it’s definitely going to get worse. So it always can get worse as something I’ve learned and I decided to do something different and I walk to work. I saw my sports car walk to work for a year decided I was going to do something very different, got into a business where I could build a name that wasn’t about just money or success and build something with true value and also focus on challenging myself to give back to others and to mentor other people and to sponsor other people, whether it be in a 12 step program or whether it be in in business. And that was a real kind of driver for me to create the school of why and these books in this community so that we could have a place for people that are entrepreneurs or maybe aren’t as aren’t aren’t going through something that would put them in a 12 step program, but create a similar type community to really grow together, build a team because that’s that’s something that I was blessed with 11 years ago, was a really powerful mentor who became like a business father to me.

Frankie Russo: [00:12:12] And that changed the course of my career. Ok. And so I know how powerful that can be, and to be able to share that with other people is important to me, and I think it’s important for all of us, no matter where we’re at, to be sharing and our experience with someone else in order to be a that in and of itself is a big part of what I think our purpose is in this life is to help others. And the tenth step is all about basically taking the experiences from these steps and then giving it back, and that’s really where it starts to come alive and stay alive.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:46] Now, for the folks that are interested in this, obviously the books are the starting point, but now you’re kind of evolving this into a community in a sense of. Really, people helping people in terms of getting the most out of their shared experience and helping each other go through this transition. Can you talk a little bit about if you were new to this where you would start and what the steps are to really ring out the most value from it?

Frankie Russo: [00:13:15] Yeah. So the first place you start is to get the breaking wide. So in the breaking my book is the the initial steps and the basic curriculum of the school life and to work the steps, the written portions which are in the book on their own and then to reach out to our school community to get plugged in and talk about ways to talk with us about what type of role they’d like to play as it relates to being a sponsor or being sponsored. And one of the cool things about it is that there’s no real money involved. So it’s not like a community where you’re paying fees and getting referrals and all that kind of nonsense. Those things might be a byproduct, but this is really about being able to have a mindshare and a community and coming together mostly so that each person in the community has a place where they can give back. So that’s really the theme is that everybody, including myself, is there to give back as opposed to just get so the way that we get or receive in this community is by giving back, but reaching out to the school or Frankie Russo or any of the social media platforms that I’m on right now, I like to keep it very personal. And so I’m encouraging people to reach out to me that way. But the first step is absolutely getting breaking WHI-, which is available on Amazon Books a million Barnes and Noble, all the main booksellers and starting the process on their own. And I usually encourage people to read through the book first and then come back and do the exercises. It can be difficult to do the exercises as you go. But I find that most people have have enjoyed the experience better by reading the book and then coming back to do the exercises.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:11] Now is there anything that listener could do right today based on your knowledge and past experience today that would help them move the ball and help them find this piece and this kind of life of meaning that your book talks about?

Frankie Russo: [00:15:32] Absolutely. You know, if somebody just wanted something to do today, it would be to start off by asking themselves, you know, the question of why am I here in this moment and why am I here on this Earth? Those are two big questions that we have to start asking ourselves. And then what I usually will do is have people list things that they used to love as a child or in their earlier years. See, most of the people I work with are just getting started up or they’re stuck. A lot of them are stuck. And some what I’ve learned is that if you can tap into what we loved when we were just a child, those things that were important to us back before we started to change is to start to remember those things and think about what would it take to bring those things back to the forefront. And one easy way to do that so list things that used to love as a child the earlier years that you didn’t. You don’t do anymore because of busyness or life or your situation or others opinions. And then you use that list to kind of help you uncover what are the things that now today you’re passionate about? Because tapping into what I’m passionate about is an important component of understanding my purpose. So those are some, some initial things, and there’s a bunch of other opportunities of what you can do. But but starting to kind of look at why am I here? Am I fulfilled asking those questions and starting to do some of that work of of looking within because the school is really about looking inward to be able to create what you want outward?

Lee Kantor: [00:17:02] Now, if somebody wants to learn more about the books and or the school of why, what’s the website one more time?

Frankie Russo: [00:17:08] Yeah. So it’s Frankie Rousseau or the School of Wired.com, and it’s

Lee Kantor: [00:17:13] The last school of why the school of why

Frankie Russo: [00:17:18] The School of Wine.com? That’s right.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:21] Well, Frankie, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work, and we appreciate you.

Frankie Russo: [00:17:26] Awesome. Well, thanks so much for having me. I’m really excited to have been a part of your show.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:31] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on high velocity radio.