Fear: The Ghost Standing Between You and Success | #Success - Ep. 02
20 Jan 2025 · 15 min
Russell Brunson breaks down four ways to beat fear: reframe it as excitement, accept worst-case scenarios, focus on serving others instead of yourself, and act despite being scared. He quotes a 1920s book calling fear a ghost that knocks success from your lips, and shares stories from wrestling to cliff-jumping to show how repeated exposure works.
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This is The Russell Brunson Show. What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to The Russell Brunson Show. That's kind of repetitive now that I say it. We are in episode number 2. And as I told you guys last time, we rebranded the show to The Russell Brunson Show so I can talk about all the things I'm excited by. And we're going to be rotating through marketing, selling, success, personal development, a whole bunch of fun things. And today we're going deeper into some of the secrets of success. Some of you guys know we have a really cool platform called Secrets of Success. In fact, you should go to secretsofsucces.com and go sign up for the newsletter. But today I want to talk about just some of the things that I think are, I don't know, we don't talk enough about those. We talk so much about marketing and business and sales and how to go, you know, get the sale, how to write the script, how to do all sorts of stuff. A lot of times we don't talk about the things that are actually holding us back. I remember one of the first times I had a chance to hang out with Tony Robbins and, you know, Tony's such a giver. He's always like asking questions and stuff. And I can't remember exactly what he asked, but something around like, you know, like, how our people are doing, how he could help and things like that. And I said, it's interesting. I'm like, I feel like it's weird for me 'cause I'm teaching everybody the exact same tactics, right? Here's the step-by-step ways to do things. And I'm like, some people have tons of success and a lot of them don't. I don't understand it and it's frustrating me. And I remember Tony, he kind of laughed. He's like, well, the problem, Russell, is that you think that, you know, success is all about the tactics. I'm like, isn't it? He's like, no, no. He's like, success is like 10% tactical and 90% is psychological. It's the things happening between your ears, your brain. And you know, if you're, how confident you are, if you're willing to do these things, if you're too afraid, like all the kind of things. He's like, most people struggle with the psychology, not the tactics. And he's like, you're one of the best in the world at giving people the tactics. But he's like, but the problem people are getting stuck on is the psychology. And I remember after that, I was like, well, do you wanna come speak at my next Funnel Hacking Live event and help people with the psychology? And luckily he said yes. And he's spoken now, I think, 4 of our Funnel Hacking Live events. And the last ever Funnel Hacking Live's coming up soon, Funnel Hacking Live 10. And Tony is doing like a 3 or 4-hour-long keynote to help, again, help people with their psychology 'cause it's such a big part of it. And so in this episode, I wanna talk a little bit more about psychology, about the things in our heads. And when I do these episodes on Secrets of Success, I'll probably jump around different topics, different ideas. But for this one specifically, I wanted to talk about a concept called fear. How many of you guys have fear right now? You have fear, fear of success, fear of failure, fear of all, like fear's such a big thing, right? And I don't know, I don't, it makes me laugh. A lot of you guys know Annie Grace. She's someone in my inner circle, in my Atlas Group. She helps people overcome alcohol addiction. And anyway, we were having this conversation one time. She's like, Russell, I'm convinced that you don't have an amygdala. Did I say that right? I don't know if you have an amygdala. I'm like, what's that? She's like, this part of your brain that like, that makes you have fear. She's like, you have no fear. You just go do things all the time. And I kind of laughed. And the reality is I do have fear, but I do things anyway. And I started thinking about that. And I was like, what can I help people with? That so many people are struggling with fear. In fact, I'm curious, for those of you guys listening right now, how many of you guys' fear, that is the thing that's holding you back from, like you just know, like you wanna do the thing, but the fear is holding you back and it's driving you crazy. If so, that's what this show's gonna be about is actual fear. In fact, a lot of you guys know I collect old books and I got this book in the mail on Friday and I was going through, I got a whole stack of a lot of books, but I found a new author. Again, I'm always looking for really cool authors in the personal development space. I love like the years like 1897 to like, 1920, that's the window that I love the most. And so this is an author named Dr. Frank Crane. If you're watching the YouTube version, as you can see, here's a copy of the book. And I was going through, I got like 10 different booklets from him, and this one said fear on the front. It's got this big picture with, I don't know, snakes and a crazy mask. And so for, you know, it kind of jumped out at me. So I always like just like browse through all the books I get just to get ideas. And the intro of this book was so cool. So I'm gonna share this because this is probably where some of you guys are at right now. So it's called Fear by Dr. Frank Crane. And this is what he said. It is safe to say that no good work was ever done in fear. Until you have struck the shackles of fear from your hands, you can do nothing. Until you get the grip of fear loose from your minds, your brain is not efficient and you cannot remember well, think straight, nor imagine constructively. Until you purge the poison of fear out of your heart, your emotions, instead of giving you power and pep, will cause you only shame and confusion. Fear is your greatest enemy. It is a ghost. It is nothing at all, but it is no less terrible for all of that. It is the ghost that knocks the cup of success from your lips when you're about to drink. Oh, I love that. Imagine you got a cup of success you're about to drink. It says fear, uh, fear is the ghost that knocks the cup of success from your lips just when you're about to drink. It is fear that reaches out its ghostly hands to strangle you in crisis just when everything depends upon you. It is fear that tangles your feet, hangs down like a millstone around your neck on your journey, dims your eyes so you cannot see the truth, roars in your ears until you cannot see the music, all about you, fevers your blood, unstrings your nerves, and pours its senile impotence into your cup of life. You have one big battle, that is to conquer fear. That done, the world is yours. Your own will come to you and the stars in their courses will fight for you. What a cool introduction about fear. So fear is the enemy. That's what we have to beat. That's what we gotta figure out how to dominate. And so I wanna talk about that during this episode because again, for some reason I have the ability to plow through fear. I don't know exactly why, but these are some of the reasons, some of the lessons I've learned along the way. I've got 4 of them here that kind of walk walk through, and hopefully one or two or all four of these things will help you guys in your journey so that the cup of success will not be knocked out of your lips as you're about to drink success, uh, because I want you guys to be successful in all areas of your life— in your business, your family life, your personal life. And so that is kind of the goal and the game plan. Okay, so let's jump right in to ways to overcome fear. And this is not an exhaustive list. Maybe I'll do an episode 2 later with some other things. These are just the first 4 I want to talk about today that I thought were really impactful and important. All right, number 1, you guys ready for this? Number 1 is I want you guys to understand that fear and excitement feel the same, okay? Now the first time I really understood this, again, you guys know I do Funnel Hacking Live, it's this huge event, we have 5,000 people, and for whatever reason, every time I'm about to walk out on the stage, I get so much fear and anxiety where I'm sweating, I'm shaking, I'm nervous, like my stomach's just like in a knot, and I'm like, it's all these things, right? And it's funny, people always, you know, the other speakers at Funnel Hacking Live will come back and they'll be nervous and they're like, So Russell, when do the nerves go away? I'm like, I don't know. It hasn't happened for me yet. I've been doing this for 20 years. I still get nervous every single time. And I remember I would talk to people. I'm like, I'm so nervous. I'm so anxious. I hope it goes well. Like I have all these things. And I remember one time, this is like, man, probably 3 or 4 years ago, Annie Grace was again, here's another Annie conversation. But Annie was speaking on stage and she saw me backstage. She's like, how you doing? I'm like, I'm just nervous and excited. And like, all right, but I'm nervous. I'm like, my stomach's tied in knots. And she pulled me aside. She said, I want you to understand something. She's like, if you look at like what happens inside your body when you are nervous, you have fear, and when you're excited, it's literally the same chemical reaction inside your body. Okay, the only difference between fear and excitement is the meaning you are attaching to it. And she's like, instead of when you're going out saying, I'm nervous, I'm so nervous, I'm scared, I'm nervous, like this thing, she said, just change it. Say, I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited. And I remember like, at first I'm like, that's too simple. That's not gonna work. You're crazy. But that day later on, I was about to go on stage again and again, all the butterflies and the nerves and I'm like, ah, and I just, I stopped a second. I'm like, I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited. And what's crazy is like, it felt like excitement. And I was like, huh? And I was like, I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so excited. But it changed, like just by changing the meaning of the feeling inside of my head, it changed the experience. Then I went on stage and it was like, oh, I didn't have, like I was still, I still had fear, but I changed it to excitement. And it, like, the fear and excitement felt the same, right? And so that was really interesting, is changing the meaning. And so for me now, it's interesting, whenever I'm going into a situation and I feel the fear, and you guys know, I don't know what fear feels like to you, but like for me, it's like this knot in my stomach, my hands start sweating, I'm like cold, it's like a cold sweat, or am I cold, like almost shaking sometimes, 'cause I have shivers, but like I'm also sweating, and I hate that feeling. And I just change, I'm like, I'm excited, I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so excited. And it's crazy how just changing the meaning and reattaching the meaning will shift the entire the entire experience for you. I remember going to Tony Robbins' Date with Destiny, and you know, if you haven't been to Date with Destiny yet, it's amazing. I went, man, it's probably 14 years ago now, because Colette, we just found out she was pregnant with, um, with our son Aiden. In fact, we hadn't told anybody yet when we were at Date with Destiny, and Aiden's now 14. So, uh, we're there at Date with Destiny, and Tony starts talking about, uh, how we have to become masters of the meaning that we attach to things. And he talks about how what happens in, in our brains is like our brain is always looking for meaning, right? So anything happens, it's trying to attach a meaning to it. So in the future, that thing happens, then the meaning just shows up like in real time, subconsciously, boom, it's there and the meaning shows up, right? So you're walking down the street, someone punches you in the face, right? First time you get punched in the face, you're like, what's happening? Like you don't know what's happening, right? And your brain quickly starts creating a meaning for that. So in the future you get punched in the face and all of a sudden someone punches you in the face, like you instantly, like your subconscious jumps directly to like, this is a fight, you know, I'm angry at this person, you come back at them and you're able to be combative with them instantly, right? Because the meaning is there subconsciously, just shows up the second you need it. The problem is that most of the time, like our brains don't always attach the right meaning, but it always starts showing up that way, right? And so what Tony talked about is like, if somebody punches you, you have to stop for a second and like the first meaning is gonna be negative. It's gonna create a fight and a battle, right? Versus stopping and say, okay, someone punched me. What's the situation? Let me quickly attach a meaning, but let me figure out the situation before I attach a meaning to that thing, right? And by shifting the meaning, it changes the experience, right? Maybe the person hits you because you were in the way and the fire was coming in there trying to get you out of the way, right? And if you stop for a second, it gives you a window to like actually change the meaning. Now, punching is probably not the best example of that. One of the other things, this was a really cool exercise. This was like life-changing for me actually at the same Date with Destiny. I remember Tony, he wanted us to think about an experience we had recently that was hard for us. I still remember for me like what the experience was. My wife and I had an argument that morning and then we're both down at Date with Destiny. You know, we're sitting in different areas of the room because you're supposed to sit away from your spouse. And so we're sitting there and they said, pick a situation that made you mad recently. So I was like, oh, I know exactly what it is. He's like, write that at the top of the pad, your pad of paper, right? He's like, then draw a big line down the middle. He's on the left-hand side, he's like, I want you to write every single meaning that you attach to that experience. And I was like, oh, well, she doesn't love me and she's blah, blah, blah. You know, I was like, you know, and she's whatever. And I wrote down all the different meanings that I attached. And it was funny because it felt good. I was like, oh, angry about these different things that, the meanings I was attaching to this thing, this situation that Clint had gone through earlier that morning. Right? And so I had a whole list of them. And then Tony said, okay, now what you do is on the other side of that line, when you look at the thing you wrote, and I want you to write the opposite. Okay? So instead of like, Clint doesn't even love me, it's like, man, she loves me so much that whatever. Right? And then I figured out the next meeting. And then he's like, have you write the opposite? And so I'm writing the opposite of every single thing. And at first I was like, this is so stupid. I write the first one, the second one, and by the third one, I had like that light bulb moment where I was like, oh my gosh. And I remember actually breaking down in tears and I was like, I was like, all the meanings I attached to that situation that I thought were real, subconsciously they showed up like that, right? All those things, all of a sudden stopped. It was like none of those meanings were real. And I looked at the opposite and I was like, that's probably actually true. Like, Klete's scared, she's nervous, she has fear, she has these things, right? And it was the exact opposite meaning. And that was like life-changing for me. And, you know, learning from Tony is like you have to become a master at meaning, like attaching the correct meaning, because two different things can happen and the different meaning you attach will change everything. In fact, I remember one story he told. He told a story about there are two people who come to, I don't know if it was Date with Destiny or UPW, I can't remember the exact details. I'll probably mess the story up, but hopefully the story, like the meaning behind this will hopefully come out correct. But he said that there were two people who were both at UPW, and both of them had served in Vietnam, I believe. And both of them at Vietnam had friends who were shot and had died while they were there, right? And they had witnessed the death of their, like one of their friends in Vietnam. And he said what was crazy is that now this is like whatever, 30, 40 years later, one man was very successful, had a lot of, you know, really positive things happening. One person had a really horrible, really hard, really bad life. And he was interviewing both of them, and he said that You think about both of them 40 years earlier, whatever it was, both had had almost the exact same situation happened, right? Both of them were holding a friend, got shot in Vietnam. Both, like, both of them held their friend while they had died in their arms and just had this thing, right? And one of them attached the meaning that, I can't believe my friend died. People are so cruel. This is what human beings, this is what human beings are like, right? And attached that meaning. Where the other friend said, man, I can't let my friend die. Life is so short. I got to make sure I live to the best of my abilities. Right? And so like same situation, different meaning. And now you look 40 years later, like how different those two experiences, like one person was because they're like, "Man, life is short, I gotta make meaning, I gotta like have relationships," stuff like that, built this beautiful life because of that situation where somebody else said, "Man, people are bad, people are cold, people are ruthless," had built a whole different thing, right? So it's looking at these two completely different situations all based on the meaning that was attached, okay? So fear, like number one here is like we have to become really good at attaching meaning correctly. And so when you have fear, just realize that like the, what's happening inside your body, the chemicals, the feeling, all that kind of stuff is the same with fear and excitement. And only different is the meaning you're attached to. So the very first thing is learning how to attach the correct meaning to something, okay? If you attach the meaning of fear, you're gonna be fearful. It's gonna take you on this path. You attach the meaning of excitement, it's gonna make you excited and it'll take you on a completely different path. So step number 1, is changing the meaning from fear to excitement.
Okay.
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Step number 2, you have to become okay with the worst-case scenario. I see so many people get stuck inside of fear because they're scared to death of the worst-case scenario. Now, story behind this, I remember I have a friend, his name's Chad Wolner, he's a chiropractor. And Chad, I met him probably over a decade ago now, and he's a great chiropractor, came out of chiropractic college, he worked for somebody for a while and he wanted to start his own business, started his own business, launched it, you know, did all that, he bought the chair and the office and like spent a lot of money building out his practice and he tried to launch it and it wasn't going really well and he kept trying different things to market it. He was trying, he was running different ads, like all sorts of stuff and just struggling and struggling and struggling. And we became friends during this time. So we got to know each other and we would talk about business back and forth a little bit. And then one day I got the call, right? It's probably 10 o'clock at night, maybe 11 o'clock at night. And he called me, he was in tears. He's like, hey, I've tried everything. He's like, we're about to go bankrupt. Like, I can't afford the bills. No one's coming in. He's like, dude, you're the best marketing guy in the world. You're my friend. Do you mind just like coming in and let's just like, like, give me, like, tell me what you would do if you were in this situation. And I was like, oh man, you know, no stress. No, you know, I was a little nervous. I'm like, yeah, I'd love to. So we go to his office, I guess like 10:30, 11 o'clock at night this time. And I think he was waiting for me to wave some magic wand. Like, oh, here's the secret funnel. Here's the secret thing. And I started asking questions and things like that. And what I realized is that he was so stuck with fear. Like fear was so tight that he was not able to move forward. And I realized after talking to him for 15, 20 minutes, I was like, I don't have a secret marketing thing I can give him. But I was like, what I can give him is like, he has to become okay with the worst case scenario. And I said, and I told him stories about myself. I had the same thing where until I was okay with the worst case scenario, I couldn't move forward. I said, okay, well, Chad, what's the worst case scenario? Let's say that like, this whole thing collapses and like business fails. Like what is the worst case scenario? He's like, worst case scenario, I go bankrupt. I was like, hey, write that down. You go bankrupt. I was like, hey, what does that mean? Like what's the worst? Like if you go bankrupt, like what's so bad about that? He's like, well, if I go bankrupt, then, you know, my, I don't know, I can't remember, my in-laws will think less of me. Okay, write that down. In-laws. Like if I go bankrupt, I'm gonna lose my house. I can write that down. You lose your house. And I'm gonna, you know, have to go and like often move to a different area of town, maybe different city. You have to move. And then your kids won't go to the school they're going to right now. Your kids aren't going to school. And like we list out every single one of the worst case scenarios. If he goes bankrupt, what's the worst case scenario? And we sat down and I had this Whole list of everything. I said, "Okay, now we gotta go through these things. Number 1, you go bankrupt, you lose your house." I'm like, or if number 1 is bankrupt, like, number 1, you go bankrupt. Like, who cares? The founding fathers of our country gave us the bankruptcy laws so that entrepreneurs would have the ability to risk. Like, most successful entrepreneurs I know have gone through bankruptcy at least once, a couple of multiple times before they became, before they had success. So worst case scenario, you're like all the other great entrepreneurs of all time and you went bankrupt. I'm like, "Are you okay with that? Like, could you survive if you go bankrupt?" He's like, Okay, like, okay, I could do that. Right? And I go to the next thing. Okay, next thing is that you're gonna lose your house. I'm like, who cares? Like, your house is, I'm like, your house is great, but like, there are better houses. Like, you lose a house, like, you know, we went through like, okay, if you lose houses, okay, okay. Then went through the in-laws and then we went through, and then we went through every single thing. The time we were done, I was like, hey, so worst case scenario, all those things, are you okay with those kind of, those worst case scenarios? He's like, actually, yeah, I guess worst case, like, I could deal with all those things. I'm like, hey, now, like, now you look at the worst case scenario, now you gotta run forward as fast as you can, right? Like, I took, like, again, most people are so scared of worst case scenario that they can't move. Like, the fear's just tight, like, grab them, they can't move. And it was interesting because after that, like, it was cool because then he started running and then he literally saved his own practice. It wasn't like some marketing secret. I just helped him to like, to overcome fear, like to be okay with the worst case scenario. I think a lot of people, it's like, you know the worst case scenario, but you're trying to think about, you're trying to be positive. Don't think about it. So you just like, you block it off so it doesn't come out there. And it's like, Instead, you gotta stop and you gotta look at it directly and stare it in the eye. Stare that fear, stare that worst case scenario in the eyes. Look at every single thing, list them out, write a piece of paper, every single thing, and then be like, I'm okay with that. Worst case, I get that, I get that, I get that. Okay, I'm okay with that, I'm okay with that. You go through all the worst case scenarios and it's like, okay, I can deal with that. Now you're free. Now you can run forward, okay? Another good example, if you guys have seen the third Batman, the one with the Banes in it, there's a really cool story. All my Batman nerds, you know what I'm talking about? Like where Batman, like Bane breaks his back and throws him in this pit where, you know, only one person's ever escaped from the pit. They have to go and they have to like, if you remember, you have to like climb up this thing, you have to jump to try to like climb out of the pit. But everyone who tries falls and they fall to their death or they fall and they break their, you know, whatever. And no one's ever made it except for one person's only made it. And so Batman's trying for a whole bunch of time and trying and trying and trying and every single time he fails. And I can't remember, it's been a while since I've watched the movie. But basically what happens then, Dave, is he realizes he's like the rope. So what do you do is you tie a rope around his waist so that worst case scenario, if he jumped and he missed it, he wouldn't die, right? So he keeps jumping and like falling on this from this rope and it's just like jacking his body and everything. And so finally he realizes, in fact, I think they'd ask like the one person that actually escaped, what did they do? And so they jumped without the rope. And so he decides, he takes the rope off and he goes last time and he jumps and he actually makes it, right? And what happens is like that thing, the worst case scenario, that thing holding him back, right? The rope that was there to protect him kept him from leaping as hard as he needed to go. When he didn't have that rope and he had to go 100%, right? 'Cause there's no other options, then he succeeded and got out of the pit, okay? The same thing's true with us. Like we have to like cut the rope, look back, worst case scenario, I'm okay with that, and now we can go forward, okay? So step number 2 to really smash fear is you gotta become okay with worst case scenario. And this is hard. A lot of times it's looking at those things like, man, that would suck, that would be horrible. Okay, but if it happens, I'm gonna be okay with that, right? You gotta become okay with the worst case scenario, okay? Alright, so that's number 2. Number 3, number 3 thing, and I actually heard this, Shawn Stevenson is a friend I had who passed away a couple years ago. He was a speaker and he used to speak at big events, and he actually spoke at the second ever Funnel Hacking Live. They called him the 3 Feet Giant. He's this little tiny dude, he's awesome. I miss Shawn, he was one of the coolest guys ever. But anyway, he did a course on public speaking, just a great speaker, and I remember listening listening to it. And he said something that at first, it's funny, 'cause at first it bothered me 'cause I, again, I would always speak at stage. I still got nervous, still got nervous. And he said something in his presentation, or the course he had, he said that if you have fear when you're speaking, he's like, the problem is that you're focusing on you and not them. He's like, when you're focusing on your audience, you're not gonna be scared. When you're focusing on you, that's when you have fear, right? 'Cause you think about that, when fear's coming, it's like, I have fear 'cause what if I make a mistake or I look stupid or I decrease my status or like all these different things, right? All the things that are happening that's creating fears 'cause you're focusing on you, you, you, you, you, you, you, right? He said, when you're focusing on them and the audience, how do I serve them? How do I help them? And you start shifting your focus from you to them, then fear goes away. And I remember again, I hated that. I did not want to believe him because I was just like, no, I still get scared. I'm focusing on serving them. But I didn't realize it for a couple years that how right he was. When I shifted from like, I wanna give a really good presentation so that I look good, so people talk about me, to like, all right, these are my people, this is who I'm called to serve. How do I get through them? How do I help them? How do I serve? Like, what are the things I'm gonna get? Like, I was so focused on them understanding and getting the thing I need to get from them. When I shifted the focus to that, the fear, the anxiety lifted, and it changed everything. So understanding that if you are still feeling those fear, it's because you're worried too much about you. In fact, it's one of the worst-case scenarios, right? Like, I'm gonna feel stupid, I'll lower my status, all those kind of things. Where versus shifting to like, okay, I'm building a business, I'm speaking, I'm doing whatever the thing is you're trying to do. Like, it's about them, it's about the people I'm serving. And you focus on that and shift focus from you, it goes away, right? Think about like, if you were to like listen to all the stuff in your head that's going crazy when you're trying to do something, right? All of the chatter in your brain, if you actually stopped and they started writing out what you're doing, like what's the chatter? She was like, what if I look stupid? What if I trip? What if I, whatever, what if my words don't come out right? What if I talk too fast? What if I stumble? What if I blah, blah, blah? You know, it's like those things that's causing this fear and anxiety versus like, I'm here, I'm a conduit for God. Like I'm supposed to talk and share with some of these people. I'm just gonna focus on them and the right things will show up. And you know, if I mess up, like you make that shift, it's crazy. And so whenever you have fear, start focusing more on the people you're serving than yourself, and the fear will subside. Okay, now number 4. This one's gonna be a little hard for some of you guys. Sometimes you got to do it scared. Sometimes you got to do it through fear. Okay, that feeling is going to be there, right? It's going to keep showing, it's going to keep popping up. Sometimes you got to do it scared, and it's hard. The key to this though is like practice. Practicing and practicing and practicing. I think about this like, like again, I was funny that Annie said that I've got no amygdala. Like she's like, you have no amygdala. How are you able to say go? You have no fear. Like I have fear. But the reality is like I've stepped into the fear so many times. I stepped into the fire so many times. I'm okay with it, right? I think about myself like I was a wrestler growing up, right? I was a wrestler in college, in high school and college. I was a state champion in high school. I was an All-American in high school, ranked in the top 10 in college. And so you look at that, like every single year I would have, you know, during the season I have 40, 45 matches, or the off-season I have 100 matches. I have like 150 or so matches a year for a decade. So that's like what, 1,500 or so matches? Before every match, so much fear. So much like consistently every single night, especially like wrestling good guys, you walk across the thing, you see that, and like, Literally both guys are warming up. We're staring at each other, trying to stare each other down, trying to act all tough, trying to like, you know, just try to intimidate the person. You come out, shake their hand, trying to be intimidating, right? The whole time you're just like so much fear and anxiety, right? I remember before match, like I get so sick to my stomach. I'm warming up, I'm stretching, I'm looking at the other guy, just like all the thing. But as soon as they said your name, all right, Russell Brunson, you're match number 2. And like, and then the match in front of you gets done. Like, like you had to walk out. You didn't have an option. Right? Like, the guy gets pinned, the match enemy gets over, and also my name pops up on the screens. It's like, I have to go. So in wrestling, I'm taking my, you know, I have a singlet underneath my sweats. I take my shirt off, take my sweatpants off, and I walk out there and I shake hands and whistle blows and you go. There's no, there's no like waiting and, you know, it's like you have to go. I think about this, I don't know if you guys do cliff jumping. I used to do a lot more of it until last time we were at Pirate's Cove for my Atlas group and I jumped off a 40-foot thing and smacked my ear and I couldn't hear. Anyway, I had all sorts of weird things. So I probably don't cliff jump now very much. But when I would cliff jump, so I found like in Pirate's Cove, if you haven't been there before, it's one of the best places. But there's this big pirate house, it's insane. And in the middle of it, there's this big huge pool at the bottom. And then there's this pirate mast that goes up about 40 feet. And so you have to climb up this mast. You're climbing it, you're climbing, it gets higher and higher. And then there's like, there's 3 levels. And then the top level is called the crow's nest. And there's a big like fake skeleton guarding the crow's nest that says, "You can't go beyond this point. Do not go up here." And so like to get past it, it's like climb behind this thing where you're like dangling, barely holding on to climb past this like big skeleton warning you from going up there. And you climb into the crow's nest at the top and you get up there and you stand there and like the wind blows and this thing's moving, like rocking back and forth and back and forth. You look down, you see this huge pool of water way down at the bottom, but the pool seems so tiny. You're like, if I jump and the wind blows a little bit, I'm gonna smack into the rocks, right? Like it's that kind of scary thing. And what I found is like, if I stand up there, the longer I stood up there looking, the harder it was. I stand up there, it's like, oh my gosh, I'm going to die. I could hit that. I could hit that. I'm so nervous. I'm so scared. And like, and I had times I sat there for 10, 15, 20 minutes. I couldn't go because it's just like so much fear, so much anxiety. It's like, ah, right? What I found was like, if I was going to go cliff jumping, I couldn't think about it. So I would go, I'd climb, I'd climb, I climb the crow's nest. I get to see the skeleton. I climb behind it, get up top. I get to the top. So I looked over the top. I had to run and jump. Like if I thought for a second, it would just slow everything down, right? I had to do it scared. I had to do it anyway. I just had to go. Right? The longer I sat there thinking about it, the harder it was to do. The wrestling was nice. I had no time to think about it. Like as soon as it popped up, like Russell Brunson, you're up. Like I had to go. There's no way I could. I couldn't just wait inside the mat like, I'm nervous, I'm nervous, I'm nervous. But cliff jumping, I can sit there being nervous for a long time, right? Sitting in the ice bath. How many of you guys ice bath? The ice bath is one of the worst things in the world and one of the best things in the world at the same time, right? It's so— I don't know about you, but it sucks every single time. And so when I pull the top of my ice bath off, I take my shirt off and get down to my to my whatever, if I hesitate for 10 seconds, then I'm hesitating for 10 minutes, right? But as soon as I take my shirt off, pants come off, I got my tighties on or whatever, and then I just gotta go, I have to go immediately in, and if I do that, then I'm fine. But it's like, if I hesitate for 10 seconds, it's over, okay? And so for jumping off a cliff, I can't hesitate. Ice baths, I cannot hesitate. Also, I started doing peptides this year. Have you guys done peptides? If you haven't, peptides are amazing. There's so many cool use cases, but I'm taking peptides for 2 or 3 things. The only problem with peptides is the peptide, you have to give yourself a shot. Okay? I am scared to death of needles. So the very first time I had to give myself a shot, I get my peptide, get my thing in there, I check it all out. And then you can give shots in places. I'm gonna give a shot in my stomach. So I pinched my little stomach and I sat there and I was like, oh, okay. Took me over an hour. Took me an hour. To sit there just to like finally do it. And I was like, that was horrible. I gotta do it again tomorrow. Okay, so tomorrow I go down there, same thing. I'm waiting, I'm waiting, I'm waiting, you know, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 25 minutes. And my wife's like mocking me. She's like, Russell, you're such a wuss. She grabs hers, boom, shoots it in 2 seconds, she's done. And so for me, I was like, okay, I gotta do this scared. I just gotta do it. The longer I wait, the longer, you know, the more painful it's gonna be. And so I thought about cliff jumping. If I get up there, I just have to jump. Ice bath, as soon as I'm able, I jump right in, right? Same thing with this. So for me right now, peptides, I go and I fill up the syringe, I turn it around, I put the alcohol wipe on your stomach, and boom, I just jam it in instantly. I don't think. And then I don't think fear— there's no fear, no chance for fear to show up, okay? And so sometimes you got to just do it scared. Just got to do it. Like, stop thinking and worrying and all that kind of stuff, right? And so those are the things I want to share with you guys. Again, there's a lot more things, uh, to overcome fear, but for me, those are the things that, that have meant the most, okay? So number 1, Understand that fear and excitement are the same feeling cycle, or not psychologically, but inside your body, chemically inside your body, it is the exact same thing, things happening. And you got to become good at attaching the correct meaning, changing the meaning from fear to change it to excitement. That will, like, that's a huge simple thing you can do. Number 2, you got to become okay with the worst-case scenario. Look at, again, making a list of all the worst-case scenarios. If you fail, what does that look like? Look at all of those and go line item by line item by line item. Becoming okay with the worst-case scenario. I can do that worst-case scenario. I can do that. I can live with that. I can live with that. And as soon as you're okay with the worst-case scenario, it'll unbind you and give you the ability to move forward. Number 3, understand that fear all comes when you're focusing on you, you, you, you, right? And in your business, in your life, if you're focusing on who you are serving, it'll take that fear and it'll take the pressure off when you start focusing on them and not focusing on you. And then number 4, sometimes you gotta do it scared. You gotta go out there and just jump off the cliff, jump into the ice bath, give yourself the shot, take the thing, just do it. Just don't sit there thinking about, thinking about like, worrying about it, right? You just gotta jump and it's gonna be uncomfortable, but it's the thing, it's the secret, it's the thing that's gonna get you to be successful. So those, you guys, are those 4 things. Those are 4 ways to overcome fear that I think will be helpful. Those are the core 4 things I do. Again, we'll probably do fear episode number 2 someday in the future, but those are the core things. It all came again from me reading this book Fear by Dr. Frank Crane back in, I think this was published in 19— 1921. So I believe that all the best writing happened from like the 1900s to 1920s. Like, that's kind of my— that's the era that I love the writing the most. But just a couple of things that, again, for me, says, until you purge the poison of fear out of your heart, your emotions, instead of giving you power and pep, will cause you only shame and confusion. Okay, so you gotta purge the poison of fear out of our hearts. It says this ghost of fear is the thing that knocks the cup of success from your lips just when you're about to drink. Drink, right? Don't let it knock the cup of success. Like, just go and drink it. Again, don't hesitate and wait and wait. That fear you're gonna miss your shot, right? Just take the drink. Um, and then this is, um, this is— it pours its senile impotence in the cup, in your cup of life, right? Like, that's how bad fear is. And says you have one big battle, is to conquer fear. With that done, the world is yours. Your own will come to you, and the stars and their courses will fight for you. So overcoming fear, you guys, is the key. Because again, like Tony Robbins said initially, right? Like 10% of this is tactical. Like you guys have my books. I got DotCom Secrets, Expert Secrets, Traffic Secrets. That's all the tactics you need, right? It's the psychology. It's like getting rid of fear so you can do the thing is one of the big keys a lot of us are missing. So with that said, you guys, I wanna help you guys overcome fear. So I hope these 4 things helped. Feel free to listen to this episode again to go through those things and start going through 'em, right? Figure out how you can attach to different meetings. What's the worst case scenario? I gotta become okay with that. How do I shift my fear of focusing on me to focusing on them? And then how do I just do it scared? How do I jump off the cliff, jump into the ice, whatever it takes for you just to do it? And we overcome those things, it'll change everything for you. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Russell Brunson Show. I almost said the Marketing Secrets Show. This is episode number 2, all about fear. And I hope you guys enjoyed it. If you did, please share with somebody else. If you have anyone you know in your life, it could be a family member, it could be friends, it could be something, who's struggling with success because fear keeps holding them back, send them this episode. It would mean the world to me. And other than that, if you guys enjoyed this episode again and you like the new format, please let me know. If you're watching YouTube, let me know in the comments down below. If you're listening to the podcast, take a screenshot, post that on your socials and tag me. Let me know. It would mean the world to me. And if you want to get, you know, find this episode other places, again, go to russellbrunson.com. You can find links to the podcast, the YouTube channel, all the other places where we send this stuff out to. I appreciate you guys for listening. I appreciate you being part of the show. I hope you enjoyed it. And I will talk to you guys on the next episode. Thanks, everybody.
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