Spartan Leadership with Josh Kosnick

Good and Great Are the Enemies of Possible™️ Leadership and business coach Josh Kosnick has conversations with some of the greatest minds in leadership both in business, community, and politics. Guests provide insights from years of experience, delivering powerful messages to help you live a more inspired and impactful life.

Spartan Leadership with Josh Kosnick is a education podcast hosted by Josh Kosnick, with 260 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Josh Kosnick hosts Spartan Leadership with Josh Kosnick, a education show with 260 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Spartan Leadership with Josh Kosnick

  Ken Rusk | The Ditch Digger Who Built a Nine-Figure Empire — Comfort, Peace, and Freedom Without a Degree

  Aug 17, 202647 min

  Send us Fan Mail Ken Rusk was 15 years old when he walked through a hole in the fence behind his high school, into an industrial park, and asked a construction company what they did. Their answer: we dig ditches and fix wet, smelly basements. Ken said, “I thought I was qualified for that,” and took the job. He never went to college. In 1986, he founded Rusk Industries in Toledo, OH with six ditch diggers. Today it’s a portfolio of construction companies with over 200 employees and nine figures in revenue. Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Blue-Collar Cash. Fox News contributor. Publicly endorsed by Tony Robbins. In this conversation, Ken and Josh dismantle the college lie (only 1 in 3 degrees ever get used), walk through Ken’s 5-step Path, and unpack why Ken funds Trump Accounts for his employees’ kids, launched a bourbon company for Gold Star families, and taught his framework to female inmates. Plus a first look at Ken’s new book, Rockstars and Rainmakers. CONNECT WITH ME HERE: Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Twitter TikTok YouTube SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST HERE: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube

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  Spartan Leadership with Josh Kosnick

  Your Best Customer Is Dying. Now What?

  Aug 10, 20261h 24m

  Send us Fan Mail In-N-Out took 80 years to become a legend. Raising Cane's did it in 36 — with worse chicken and a better marketing team. Two founders sat down with Josh at the Book & Bourbon Club fly-in to debate what actually wins in 2026: the slow, silent build or the personal-brand turbocharge. Guests: Dennis Leis (investor, MetPro, LRT, Whole Body Fitness) and Trace Miller (founder/CEO of Konala — high-protein drive-thru restaurants, konalafranchise.com). Three debates, no filler: The personal branding debate — can you still grow a massive business silently? The In-N-Out vs. Raising Cane's case study, the "sellout" question every founder wrestles with, and why your best customer is literally dying every day. The AI debate — Dennis is all-in, Trace is skeptical, and Josh is in the middle. China just passed a law that you can't lay someone off and replace them with AI. Salesforce is cutting tens of thousands. Only 2% of the world is actually using it. What "ethical capitalism" looks like when the tokens cost more than the labor. The hiring debate — Dennis hires for his weaknesses and openly admits he has zero desire to be a CEO. Trace wants to grow into his weaknesses, Gymshark-style. Two founders, two very different answers to the oldest question in business. Plus Dennis unveils the AI-powered talent-matching platform he's building in beta — outbound recruiting for cultural fit instead of skills-first hiring. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Follow Dennis Leis: Instagram @dennis.leis Follow Trace Miller & Konala: konalafranchise.com Book & Bourbon Club: joshkosnick.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Books mentioned: • Raving Fans — Ken Blanchard • Unreasonable Hospitality — Will Guidara • Good to Great — Jim Collins • Blue-Collar Cash — Ken Rusk ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Follow Josh Kosnick: Website — joshkosnick.com Instagram — @joshkosnick LinkedIn — linkedin.com/in/joshkosnick Subscribe for weekly conversations on leadership, faith, and building a life worth living. #SpartanLeadership #JoshKosnick #DennisLeis #TraceMiller #Konala #PersonalBranding #AIinBusiness #EthicalCapitalism #FounderPodcast #HiringStrategy CONNECT WITH ME HERE: Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Twitter TikTok YouTube SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST HERE: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube

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  Episode #259

  Chris Welton

  Aug 3, 202655 min

  Send us Fan Mail Chris Welton was born with one hand. He's a performance coach, TEDx speaker, and international bestselling author of One Jordan — and he built his entire professional network by mailing strangers a single Jordan sneaker with a note: want the other one? Give me a call. It worked on Damon West. It worked on Ben Newman. It worked well enough that John Maxwell built a keynote around the strategy and started naming Chris from the stage — Chris found out because strangers began messaging him on LinkedIn mid-talk. In this conversation, Chris and Josh get into what separates lived adversity from performative resilience: the four ways people show up when adversity hits, why Chris intentionally puts himself in brutal physical situations before life does it for him, and what happened at HYROX in Dallas when he went face-first into the turf twenty meters from the finish and his wife told the paramedics to back up. He also opens up about mental health, PTSD, and why men his size don't have those conversations. In this episode: - The One Jordan strategy and why most people aren't bold enough to try it Why the gap between top producers and mediocre performers is smaller than you think - Victim, Survivor, Warrior, Architect — the four adversity paradigms - The Adversity Accelerator: training for hardship before it arrives - Why Chris moves foster-care kids to the top of the resume pile - Accountability versus ownership, and what it costs teams when leaders get it wrong - The sentence his grandmother said to him 47 years ago that shaped everything Connect with Chris Welton: Website: https://chriswelton.live Instagram: @onehandatatime Podcast: One Hand At A Time Book: https://onejordanbook.com Connect with Josh Kosnick: https://joshkosnick.com Life Quotient Assessment: https://www.joshkosnick.com/assessment Spartans — share this episode far and wide. CONNECT WITH ME HERE: Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Twitter TikTok YouTube SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST HERE: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube

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  Episode #258

  What Marcus Aurelius Got Wrong About Legacy

  Jul 14, 202623 min

  Send us Fan Mail Most people think legacy is something you build at the end — a monument, an inheritance, a name on a building "someday." That's the first lie. The second one is even more common: legacy is what you leave behind. In this solo episode, I break down the two lies about legacy almost everyone believes — and why both of them are keeping you from building one right now. Inside this episode: • The moving-truck moment that made me question everything I'd chased • The three questions I asked myself in the field — and the sad answer to all three • Why your legacy is a Kairos problem, not a Kronos problem • What Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Deuteronomy actually say about inheritance (hint: it's not the greeting-card version) • Marcus Aurelius vs. the Spartans — and the tension that reframes how you should live today • The one question to ask yourself before you go to bed tonight If this hit you, share it with one person who needs to hear it today. 📖 The Kairos Code audiobook launches August 1. Join the launch team → kairoscode.com/250 Connect with Josh Kosnick: https://joshkosnick.com/connect Chapters: 0:00 What did you leave in someone today? 1:17 Welcome + audiobook launch team (Aug 1) 2:18 Two lies people believe about legacy 2:51 The boxes in the basement 4:56 If you died tonight, what would they say? 6:09 Lie #1 — Legacy is a future event 7:14 The to-be list and the to-feel list 8:38 The DM that arrived 8 years later 10:46 Lie #2 — Legacy is what you leave behind 12:57 My father-in-law's boots 14:01 What scripture actually says 16:25 Why I started this podcast 17:25 Marcus Aurelius pushes back 19:08 The Spartan view — timē and kleos 21:08 Kronos vs. Kairos 22:03 What did I leave in someone today? #SpartanLeadership #Leadership #Legacy #Kairos #FaithInBusiness #JoshKosnick #TheKairosCode #Mindset #Entrepreneurship #SelfImprovement CONNECT WITH ME HERE: Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Twitter TikTok YouTube SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST HERE: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube

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  Episode #257

  Why People Say “You Don’t Change” (And Why They’re Wrong)

  Jul 7, 202622 min

  Send us Fan Mail People don’t change. It sounds wise… until it quietly wrecks your life. In this episode, Josh makes the case against one of the most common lies in our culture: that you’re stuck with who you’ve always been. He breaks down why that belief feels safe, how it kills growth in real time, and what the science and lived stories say about actual transformation. You’ll hear: • Why “people don’t change” is self-protection, not truth • How your brain and nervous system can actually rewire over time • Why the “21 days to change your life” idea is wrong (and what really happens) • Real examples of addiction broken, bodies rebuilt, and generational patterns ending • A practical framework for what change requires: decision, plan, repetition, community, faith This isn’t motivational fluff. It’s the uncomfortable reality that change is hard, slow, and still completely available—if you’re willing to pay the price in repetition. If you’ve ever looked at your own story and thought, “Maybe this is just who I am…” ,watch this before you decide that your past gets the final say. Connect with Josh Kosnick: joshkosnick.com #SpartanLeadership #Leadership #BusinessSuccess #Mindset #Entrepreneurship #SelfImprovement #Podcast #JoshKosnick #SpartanMindset Support the show CONNECT WITH ME HERE: Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Twitter TikTok YouTube SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST HERE: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube

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