Tony Rush: Why the Value of an Event Is What You Do With It Afterward

You told your boss you were sick. Or you just didn’t say anything at all and hoped nobody asked. Either way, you’re sitting in this room instead of at your desk, and somewhere in the back of your mind is the question of whether the lie, or the vacation day, or the flight, was actually worth it. Tony Rush opens by naming that directly, thanking the room for making the sacrifice it took to be there, before getting into what he actually came up to say.

He spent hours on the phone in the early days of his business, burned out, comparing himself to the people around him who were doing far better financially. What changed wasn’t a new script or a better close. It was a single piece of advice he got at an event when he was stuck: get what you came for.

Why does an event change people faster than a video ever could?

Tony draws a hard line between change and transformation. Change is what happens to a plate of mashed potatoes when you add garlic. Transformation is a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, something that isn’t recognizable as the thing it used to be. Watching a training alone at your kitchen table can change what you know. Sitting in a room where everyone around you is already living the outcome you want does something different to your belief about what’s possible for you specifically.

That’s the real value of showing up, and it’s also the part most people misunderstand. The value isn’t the two or three days on site. It’s what gets carried out the door afterward.

get what you came for, you know, and the value of an event is not what happens at the event. Is it, it’s what you do with it when you, when you get home. And I went to that event with an open mind and I was willing to be wrong about what I thought I knew about making money.

Willing to be wrong is the operative phrase. Tony describes sitting in a session, quietly disagreeing with something being taught, then catching himself: the person on stage was earning a quarter of a million dollars a month, and Tony wasn’t. He set his ego down long enough to borrow somebody else’s good thinking instead of defending his own results, which up to that point had been broke and struggling.

What was actually standing in his way before that shift?

For years, Tony believed a version of himself had to show up to succeed, some polished, corporate-sounding hybrid of himself and the top earners he admired. He describes literally changing his voice when the phone rang, performing a script instead of just answering as himself. The exhaustion wasn’t from the volume of calls. It was from being somebody he wasn’t for six or eight hours a day.

The breaking point came from a simple realization he heard put into words at that same event: there’s a capable person already sitting in your seat, and trying to be a louder version of somebody else is the thing actually holding you back. Once he stopped auditioning for a role and just started being Tony, the calls got easier, even before the results changed.

Why does he say there’s no difference between the top earners and everyone else in the room?

This is the part of the session built to dismantle the excuse Tony hears most, the quiet belief that whatever worked for somebody else won’t work for the person thinking it. He’s blunt about it: people will grant that someone roughly like them could do this, right up until it’s their own turn, and then a private exception shows up. He calls it out directly, more than once, refusing to let the room hide behind it.

“There’s no difference between me and you.” He backs it up with specifics rather than a slogan. He uses the same lead capture pages as everyone on his team. He built his early results on borrowed presentations and a system other people had already tested, not a personality nobody else could replicate. The only real gap, he says, is time in the chair and a few decisions made a little earlier than someone else’s.

Why should anyone believe they already have what this takes?

Tony makes a case that’s easy to breeze past because it sounds almost silly at first. The hardest thing anyone in that room would ever do, they’d already done, and done it as a toddler with no memory of the struggle. Learning to balance on two legs after falling on a padded diaper repeatedly. Getting a spoon to your own mouth. Building enough language from nothing to ask for something you needed. Every person in that audience had already conquered problems that took real persistence to solve, long before anyone told them they weren’t capable.

Somewhere around six or seven, he argues, most people get their wings clipped by well-meaning adults and then by peer groups that reward blending in over standing out. The skill for pushing through difficulty was never missing. It just got buried under years of being told to keep the bar low. Tony’s own proof came from a period where he couldn’t afford a small toy for his son, followed a few years later by an invitation to walk his own path back toward people already living the way he wanted to live.

What he’s really handing the room isn’t a pep talk. It’s permission to stop auditioning, borrow good thinking without shame, and trust that whatever got you through the hardest years already proved you have what this takes.

Watch Tony Rush’s full session, including the rest of his story about meeting his wife and the road to Denver, free, when you Create your free account.

The full session transcript follows below.

Transcript

Hey, real quick, I want to acknowledge some fantastic ladies over here. DJ Lady Splash, would you guys give it up for these guys? Y'all have been doing the deal. Look at it.

All gangster. All gangster looking, too. Fantastic. We appreciate you guys being here.

Y'all have made it so much fun today. Fantastic. Hey, so I get to talk for a few minutes. Hang on.

He's taking my picture. Matter of fact, give a hand to our crew. Todd, Mike, Ed. All the guys on the crew.

Aren't they doing a great job? Is this a beautiful event or what? Very cool. Hey, I do want to share a few thoughts for you guys.

I've been listening to the speakers from backstage most of the day. My topic is to talk a little bit about the importance of being at events, which is a little bit of an obvious message for those of us who made the sacrifices. And I know a lot of you guys took off work and lied to your boss. And lied to all kinds of people.

I mean, I've heard some stories. And you know who you are, right? But seriously, we know that coming to an event like this, often, especially in the new days of a business, it takes something, doesn't it, to get everything going. And you guys did it.

There's a lot of people who got started the same day that you did in Empower Network. And they're not in the room today. And everybody's where they are for their own reasons. But.

You guys did it. And being at events, matter of fact, let me share this with you. So, quick story. Jessica and I, did y'all enjoy my wife, Jessica, this morning and all the ladies?

You can tell I'm a good salesperson just by looking at my wife, right? You look at me and you look at her and you think, that guy can sell. Like, baby, if you just marry me, it'll be world travel and fun and rock and roll and jewelry. And it'd just be the finest decision of your life if you had just married me.

And six months later, we're in this. Conflict. Concrete block house, eating ramen noodles and heating the house with the oven. And she never once backed up and said, now, what was that pitch again?

She never backed it up on me at all. She has stood by me, so she's fantastic. I love you, baby. You're in here somewhere.

You know. But what I was going to share with you, too, about events is Jessica and I had our first breakthrough at an event just like this one. The thing about events is that they're. I like this word, transformation.

I like that word better than change. You know, because if. Say you got some mashed potatoes and you put garlic, roasted garlic in them, you've changed them, right? But if you've got a caterpillar that becomes a butterfly, that's a transformation, isn't it?

It's just it's something totally different than you started with, right? You guys get that. I love that word and it keeps popping up in my mind all weekend as I've listened to all these excellent speakers and my friends share from their hearts about what this is really about. You guys get that we all came here for the money, right?

But the dirty little secret of Empower Network is that we are a leadership factory disguised as a business opportunity, right? This is about. Yeah, it's about transforming yourself. It's about becoming the most powerful and best version of you.

It's not. You're not trying to be Tony Rush. Although I do have this sexy southern accent due to why y'all laugh, but you're not trying to be Lawrence Tam or Tracy Walker. And these are all wonderful people to mastermind from that are wonderful people to have in your life.

But nobody can do you better than you. Nobody can do you better than you. And when I got that. Yeah, right on.

When I got that because I used to be the guy. Now, this was back like when I used to work the business with a telephone, which I don't I don't do that anymore. I have actually not made a phone call in like 18 months. Isn't that cool?

Because I was burned out on the phone. I was like, you know, six, eight hours on the phone calling and calling and calling and calling and calling and calling and calling and calling and calling a hundred people get 97 voicemails. You know, if you do get them on the phone and you book them to the presentation, you call back and they've gotten abducted by aliens or they don't live. Jose doesn't live here anymore.

You know, or he moved in the last 37 minutes that you were listening to a business opportunity pitch, you know, but. When you get it that. Like like when I was on the when I was working on the phone, it took me a while to get that I was enough. Because I had these people around me who were just knocking the cover off the ball financially, you know, and I thought if I could just be a little bit more like, say, John Lavinia.

Or if I could be a little bit more like, say, Kevin Connect. Then, you know, I would I would have these results. And so if. How many here have ever done any phone prospecting, by the way?

Real quick. Yeah. All right. So here's what I would do.

The phone rings and I'm like a madman. I'm running through the house. Be quiet. Get that dog out of here.

Oh, God. OK. This is Tony. Can I help you?

Yeah. She responded to my nationwide ad campaign and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. Because I thought I couldn't just be Tony.

I had to be this. I don't know what that was. It was freak. You know, it was just some freaky hybrid.

What is like trying to be some. Corporate guy and all impressive. And and I remember I remember one day when I just got tired of that act. And it comes from being willing to just get that.

There's a pretty powerful person sitting in your seat right now. You're enough. You really are enough. Right.

And I'll tell you where I got that. I got it at an event. I got it at an event. I was stuck in my business.

We're making a little bit of money, but stuck. And plateaued and, uh, went to an event in Dallas, Texas, several years ago. And, uh, matter of fact, I'll take a quick story. Don't let me forget where I'm at.

Okay. It's your responsibility to know what I'm about to say. Okay. But Hey, so seriously, and we have security and all these really like, you know, people here.

So, but what I, my evil scheme was in Dallas at this event was I'm going to sneak in the room with a piece of paper with my name on it. And I'm gonna put it on the front row. So, you know, I went past the. The guard dogs and under the laser beams and pass the security guard.

I had a black Ninja costume, the whole thing, you know? So, and I get down front and I'm like, you know, reserved for Tony and Jessica rush. And there's this guy out of the corner of my eye and I'm like, oh crap, I'm busted. And I look and here's this other guy.

He's, he's looking at me and he's, you know, he's writing his name and I'm writing my name. We put the papers down and we're like booking it out the back. And I said, um, Hey man, I'm Tony rush. It's good to meet you.

And he said, I'm Kevin connect. It's good to meet you too. That's how I met him. Isn't that cool?

Wasn't he awesome this weekend? Yeah. So that's how I met Kevin scheming, scheming and sneaking. But, but here's the thing at that event, I ha I was stuck and I had the wonderful advice to, Hey, look, get what you came for.

That's what somebody told me. Somebody get that. I can't do everything. Tell them all.

I wasn't gonna say tell them, I'll call them back, but that's not gonna happen either. Is it, but I, um, somebody said, Tony, get what you came for, you know, and the value of an event is not what happens at the event. Is it, it's what you do with it when you, when you get home. And I went to that event with an open mind and I was willing to be wrong about what I thought I knew about making money.

Does that make sense? I was willing to be wrong. My best thinking has gotten me where I am, which is broken, struggling. And.

And, and a little bit of on the right track because I'm at this event now surrounded by people that are living the way I want to live. So, but the most powerful thing I can do is to borrow the good thinking of people who are living the way I want to live. So I was willing to be wrong about what I thought I knew. And I would hear things from the stage and I would, I would sort of disagree with them, but I'm thinking, well, yeah, but that guy's making a quarter of a million dollars a month.

He obviously knows what he's talking about. And I would put aside my ego. I would put aside my ego and I would say, well, that guy's making a quarter of a million dollars a month. If you allow it, all this wonderful stuff you've heard, you've got pages of notes, you've shot tons of videos, but it's all for nothing unless you allow it to change how you think.

And the changes that come from this are huge guys. I remember my, my sons are here. I think you got to see them all on stage. One of them got a new camera.

Did y'all see that? Funny. I thought I was getting a camera, but all three of my boys are here and it's not been that many years ago. When, um, we were in toys are us and my little boy said, Hey dad, look at this in this cool star Wars toy.

And I said, yeah, that's cool, buddy. That's good. Maybe, maybe we can get that for you for Christmas. Maybe you can get that for your birthday.

And the truth is I didn't have $7 and 25 cents in my pocket. Grown adult. Didn't have $7. And $7 and 25 cents in his pocket to buy a star Wars toy.

That was my why I just got tired of being the dad that said no all the time. You know, I just, I just got tired of looking everywhere in my life and feel like it was getting smaller and smaller. And I'm so grateful, so grateful to have found this community. You know, not my first rodeo, but the best thing I've ever been a part of the smartest financial decision I've ever made.

That now if, if, if I could, if I could, if I could, if I could, if I could, if I could, if I could, if I could, if I could. Now, if, if I'm somewhere in my, my son wants to learn to play the guitar, well, let's everybody else to get a started guitar. I get to get him the guitar that, you know what, if he really loves guitar and decides to be a professional musician, well, he learned on the guitar. He's going to be able to be on stage in front of 5,000 people with, you know, he doesn't have to trade up down the road.

Yeah. And that's what's possible for you guys. You guys. If I could, if I could wave a magic wand and really get you guys together.

Get anything is, there's no difference between any of us and you. This, there's, you guys, I'll tell a quick story. I have, oh wow, I have more time than I thought. I always, I always have less.

I always expect them to bring the sniper in at any moment. Take him out. He's three minutes over. Get him off the stage.

I was, you guys have heard me share this. Some of you have not. I want to share it because it's important. Jessica and I were in Puerto Rico at an event several years ago.

I can take you to the stage. It was the exact spot in the hotel where she said this. It blew my mind. We were, we'd made a little bit of money, not a lot, but our sponsor was, you know, a big fancy pants guy in the company.

And he, he, they were at like this special part of the resort and they had their own pool. And he said, hey, would you and Jessica like to come swimming with us this afternoon after the meeting? And we said, oh yeah, that'd be great. So he tells us how to get over there and we got over and we're in the pool and here come the owners of the company.

You know. Just private little, you know. And then here comes the other owner and his wife. And then all of a sudden the entire executive leadership council.

And Jessica and I, new in the company, relatively new, find ourselves floating around for a couple hours in this wonderful luxury environment at the El Conquistador Resort in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. And yeah, great place. Go, take your family. It's awesome.

Especially if you golf, which I don't. I suck at golf. Matter of fact, I suck so bad at golf I have decided to just hate golf. I just.

I don't actually hate it. I actually had to decide to hate golf. But I can put a monster number on the scoreboard. Score card.

I don't even know what to call it. So we're coming back from the pool. And I can take you to the spot in the hotel. We, you know, go up to the room to get ready for dinner.

And what I said was, listen to my language. Isn't it awesome that we got to hang out with those guys? And Jessica said, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. But as long as you see them as different from you, you'll never be them.

Isn't that awesome? I love you. Isn't that amazing? And because that wall, like some people think that like we're something special because we've done this or that.

Now, Vic may actually be an alien from another planet. He, I, he, I'm just saying he could be. He, he, there's possibility that Toby Black may not. Be from Earth.

But other than those two, no, I'm kidding. But we're all, there's no difference between us. There's no difference between you and I. Okay, let me think.

The only difference would be maybe I got here a little before you. A little bit of time. And perhaps I've made a few decisions you haven't made yet. Would that be fair?

That's about it, right? I use the same lead capture pages. I use the same presentation. Right now, are there some skills to learn?

Yeah, but they're in the products. We let you look over our shoulders. Hey, here's how I write my emails. You know, it's in the 15 K, one of the finer portions of the 15 K I might add, but seriously, like where else can you look over the shoulder of people that are making six figures a month and just copy, you know, in school we got in trouble for copying, right?

I had the little, I never did learn my, my 11 multiplication. Well, it's not, I know my leavens. They're easy. Duh, but it's like, I don't know what 11 times 12 is and I can add it up in my head, but not with 5,000 people looking at me.

So, but like, so like I cheated on that test in third grade. I actually had my little, you know, you know, but here cheating is okay. We invite you copy, copy sheet off our paper. We don't mind, right?

We want you to copy. So there's no difference between me and you. There's no difference between me and you. There's no difference between me and you.

Isn't that cool? Isn't that awesome? There is no difference. Whatever you've got in your head and it doesn't apply to all of you because most of y'all are bad-ass, but there's a couple of you who have got this thing that, well, I'm special.

I know that Tony was broke 18 months ago and he came out of it. He came out of it, but I'm special. That won't work for me like it worked for him because they have this one little excuse, right? My precious.

Yeah. So you see somebody like say me who was broke 18 months ago because of some stupid decisions, made a lot of money, lost it all, you know, cashing in change at the coin star machine in the front of Winn-Dixie. Yeah, you know that machine too, don't you? You all know the machine, but he only had the, you know, courage to yell.

So cashing in some coins to go buy some sandwich meat and some loaf of bread, right? So I was broke 18 months ago and now I'm not. And some of you guys have been broke and I tell you that you can be on this stage in Denver and you want it, but you say, oh yeah, let's park there for a second. Who's going to be on stage in Denver?

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Right on.

Very cool. All right. I'm going to look for you. Every one of you.

And it will be a big stage. It'll hold a ton of people. But some of you want it. And if I ask you, do you believe you can have it?

It's kind of like, well, I believe it. I believe someone can have it. I believe people like me. I believe some people that are sort of like me can have it.

But I've got my precious, my precious little excuse that all the reasons it wouldn't work for me if I didn't have it. Yeah. If it worked for you, it won't really work for me. Well, of course, Tony, you can do it because you've got that sexy southern accent.

I don't have that. You know. Or like Vic, who has an unpronounceable last name. I don't know how to say his last name.

And maybe that's why he's like, you know, he made a million dollars in the last sentence I've been talking. You know. He does that. I saw him in the dressing room backstage.

He just twitched his little finger and a million dollars came flying in the door. You got to show me that, man. He's awesome. But like, we do that.

Isn't it amazing that, now here's, now let me share this with you too. How many parents we got in the room? Yeah. Now, kids are awesome.

Agree? Kids are awesome. All right. Now, how many people in the room were once a kid?

Wait a minute now. Where's everybody that just said kids are awesome? Kids are awesome. Kids have got it all figured out.

Most of what we teach in personal development is actually just trying to get all the crap out there. You know. You know. We're trying to get all the crap out that we didn't have when we were five and six.

Agree? Yeah. Like, let me, let me share this with you. I'm not being funny.

I promise you I'm not being funny. The hardest thing that you'll ever do in your life, you've already done it. And I'll give you a couple of examples. And I'm not being funny, but it's, it's funny when you think about it.

When I watched my youngest son, Easton, I was in a much better place financially when he was born. I could kind of really, I was home. I could really kind of experience his learning more so than when Will and Pate were, were younger. We were broke and I wasn't home a lot.

But with Easton, I had the opportunity to watch some of the really cool stuff that happens with, with children in that, that early, those early stages of development. I've been watching Chris Campbell's little boy walking around and, and Mike Hobbs, a little fella. It's so wonderful to see the kids here, by the way. But imagine how hard that is.

Like, I know you can't think back. But like, remember. No, you don't remember, but it's like, you see all these people walking around on two legs, but you're like crawling around and you're like, how do they, and you're like, well, I want to do that. And you get up on your feet and you fall over on your big padded diaper butt, right?

And you look around and you go again and, and, and when do you stop? You've never seen like an 18 year old still wearing diapers sitting on the living room rug. Like we're, we're badass. We're designed to be unstoppable.

You know? We just don't have any quittin' sense. You know? We just do it.

You're sitting at the table and it's a little frustrating because you look around and here's all these grownups talking and eating and doing all this and you're like, this is advanced physics trying to get a Cheerio in your mouth. You know? It's cause it's like, you think about what you got to do. You got to get the Cheerio on the, well, first off you got to hold the spoon with the right side up and then get the Cheerio on the spoon and balance it.

And then you got to get your mouth open at the same time that the Cheerio is near. It's just, this is big deal. This is big. Right?

Or language. Language. Learning. How many people in here can speak more than one language?

Right? Okay. Good. Cool.

I speak English and Southern English. Y'all. But, but here's the deal. It's like, that scared me.

I just got a glimpse again of the, I was like, what is, God, it's huge. It's following me. Um, but like language, like you hear these people talking. You know?

The complicated that is to actually figure out how to put some sounds together in a way that you can tell somebody else that you need a little bit something more in your sippy cup. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. And with a very few exception of you, I think all of us have conquered those three things.

Right? I promise you the hardest things you've ever done, you've already done them and we don't give ourselves credit. Okay. So we run into this thing of, you get up about six or seven and naturally there's a need for some organizational structure and we have parents and teachers and we have people that, you know, they're, they're guiding us.

We can't just be unbridled chasing butterflies. We got to kind of focus a little bit, but we also run into the flip side of that coin is, you know, get your head out of the clouds, you know, come on back down to earth. You know, you're not going to be. That sounded like somebody opened a Coke.

Who did that? That was, can I have a sip of that Layla one? Okay. Yeah.

But like seriously, like, um, you know, all of a sudden around six or seven, we get our wings clipped a little bit, don't we? And we, and even if it's not done deliberately by say an authority figure, you get around peer groups where the status quo is the, is the chief aim. Don't set the bar too high, you know, fit in, keep your head down. It's, it's, it's.

It's rather insidious, actually, it robs us of our power and you, you see these kids and they become, you know, seven years old and 10 years old and 15 and 20 and, and their whole focus seems basically to not stand out and they've somehow bought the BS that they can't be, do and have what they want in life because they're restricted to this, this thing. And you see it all the time in like, it's like, well, why would I go try out for that play? I'm no good at that. They'll just laugh at it.

They'll just laugh at me. Or why would I, why would I go ask that girl out? She's way out of my league. But I did, didn't I?

Yeah, I did. Hey, you want, you guys want to hear how I met Jessica real quick? All right, so here's how I met Jessica. It was in the theater.

I, I took theater in school and Jessica was at this play, awful, god awful play. It was just wretched. And so I'm standing in the lobby and there's a, now pay attention closely, there's a guy and a girl in the ticket booth. And I'm standing in the lobby.

And this girl comes out of the auditorium and I, I'm pretty sure it's not quite how it went, but in my mind she sort of floated like a, sort of a flower on the wind, floated over to the ticket booth. And, and I'm just like, I'm like that cartoon wolf that's, you know, the little hearts, you know? And, and I'm like, oh my God. So talk, talk, talk, talk.

And then she leaves and I float over to the ticket window and now there's a guy and the girl in the ticket booth. And I'm like, who was that? I am in love. And the girl in the booth starts cracking up and I said, why are you laughing?

She said, that's his girlfriend. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, sorry dude. She's really attractive.

Yeah. But not to be deterred. I decided to go into stealth mode and so I waited about 15 minutes and I eased backstage and there she was standing in the wings and I laid one of the smoothest lines in the world on her. Here's what I did.

So I walk up, she's like right there and I walk up, not like that really. You're Jessica Donaldson, aren't you? And she said, yes. And I said, yes.

Yes. Cool. But we get that stuff, right? It's like, how am I going to get this girl?

Why? She wouldn't go out with me. I would never get that part. And we sell ourselves so short when there's something amazing about you.

You're powerful. You really can do what we're talking about all weekend. You can have the life you want. You can have it.

You can have it. You can have it. Right? Right on.

So two quick things and I'm done. I love you guys more than I've ever loved any group of people. I love seeing you. I love looking in your eyes.

I love hearing about your goals. I'm so excited that so many of you have come up to me in the lobby and said, I will be in Denver. You'll see me. I will look you in the eye and say, I made it.

Who's going to do that? Cool. Right on. That's cool.

And matter of fact, would you guys like to get a little taste of Denver? Just 40, maybe just a few seconds of Denver real quick. We have a, we have a video clip. Let's roll that real quick so you guys can get a glimpse of what we're going to be doing.

You've never seen anything like it and it's getting bigger. An all out rebellion, 100,000 strong, a community, a movement, a force of nature. The Empower Network wants you July 19th through the 21st in the Mile High City of Denver, Colorado. Don't be a wussy.

Don't be a wussy 2013, July 19th through the 21st, Belco Theater, Denver, Colorado. It's going to be great. You guys will be there with me. I'll share this with you real quick.

You guys have already purchased over 3,000 tickets to this event last night. If you don't have your tickets yet, you've got instructions on your phone. Get your tickets. I cannot wait to see you on the stage at the Belco Theater.

I love you guys. Thank you for your attention. Appreciate you. Folks.

This is the Belco Theater. This is the Belco Theater. This is the Belco Theater. This is the Belco Theater.

This is the Belco Theater. This is the Belco Theater. This is the Belco Theater. This is the Belco Theater.

This is the Belco Theater.