(MS) FHL 2023 Recap & Imperfect Presentations

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Welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. My name is Russell Brunson, and I'm what you call a serial entrepreneur, but with a twist. You see, 50% of my time, I'm the CEO of ClickFunnels, helping over 100,000 brands to grow their companies with funnels, and the other 50% of my time, I'm actually in the trenches using ClickFunnels to grow the startups I believe in. During this podcast, I'll take you behind the scenes and show you how we are bootstrapping ClickFunnels and my other businesses from startup to 9 figures and beyond. Welcome to the show. Hey, what's up everybody? This is Russell Brunson. I wanna welcome you to the Marketing Secrets Podcast, but I also wanna welcome you back from Funnel Hacking Live. Some of you guys just got home, or maybe you're traveling home right now. Well, by the time you're listening to this, you're probably home, but anyway, we got home yesterday. We normally stay for a couple days afterwards, but our kids came this year, and they had school, so we jumped on a plane the next day, flew home, and now it's Monday, post-FHL, and Colette asked me, what do you wanna do today? And I was like, well, I don't know. I just wanna go do what I normally wanna, like normally I'm like, I can't do the stuff I wanna do 'cause I'm working on a presentation or an event or something. And I was like, I wanna go read. I wanna go record a podcast. I wanna go talk. I wanna go just think. And so that's what I'm doing today. It's just been really nice. A lot slower pace and just kind of doing the things. Like I spent half the day thinking about like, what are the big dominoes I gotta knock over in the next 90 days? In my core companies to build, hit the goals I have for the rest of the year? What are the big dominoes I gotta do with my family, with my wife? What are my big dominoes with my kids? And so it's kind of fun to sit down and just map some of those things out and start thinking about that today. And then, you know, I wanted to actually come in the studio. I mean, I have a little, it's like a 3x3 room, little podcast studio where I record this podcast sometimes, but also recording audiobooks. And during Funnel Hacking Live, I talked a lot about the secrets of success. Project. And one of the bonuses I'm giving is gonna be audios to a book that I spent $1.5 million for. And so I wanted to record one of the books today. So I'm gonna go grab that here in a minute and read it. And I'm so excited for that. And anyway, just a lot of really fun, exciting, cool things. So anyway, I just want to kind of give a recap of FHL. In the past, I've done like a day-by-day recap, every speaker and stuff like that. And honestly, I don't feel like doing that this year. I Whenever I do that every year, like usually I'm like, part of me, I'm like, I feel like I'm gipping people out, those who didn't show up. You know, like, do I give them all this stuff? But also it's like, I'm not giving you enough, like, without the feeling of the experience, without the emotion, without the network, the environment, the atmosphere, like you don't get the same, I don't know, you don't get the same thing. You know, even last year we did an encore after FHL and I actually just today kind of said, let's don't do the encore. I don't know, there's something about being in the room and you watch it secondhand and you don't get it. And then it's like people like, oh, well, you know, I don't have to come in person because it's going to be shown later. It's like just today I canceled. I'm like, no, we're not doing encore. Let's just, you know, those who were there got to experience it and those who didn't, like, they missed it. And so, yeah, so like I didn't want to go speaker by speaker because like, even if I tell you, like, here's my big takeaway, like you're not going to get the takeaway without the experience and the energy and the pre-frame, the post, and all the things based on it. So I did want to share some stuff that I thought would be hopefully helpful for you, whether you were there or not. If you were there, maybe it'll be insightful as well. But, you know, preparing for an event like this is always hard. It's fun for me because like I get asked people in our community to speak and a lot of them, you know, they get a 28-minute presentation and they'll spend 3 or 4 months perfecting it, which is what's so cool because then you hear these guys speak like their presentations are flawless because they've prepared for it. Like they know this is a big shot on a big stage. They want to be perfect. So they practice and they prepare and they hire people to help them coach through who've spoke in the past, and so their presentations nail it. For me, it's hard, 'cause I had 11 presentations this FHL, and so I can't practice and perfect 11 presentations. It's like, I gotta do my best and go out there and give 'em. And for a lot of it, stuff that I've thought about or talked about a lot, some are easy, but there's a couple that I really care about and I really put a lot of time and effort into. One of 'em was actually, at the end of this presentation is where I, Offered people the 2 Comma Club X coaching program. But leading up to it, I gave a presentation showing how I have a goal to try to do $100 million in recurring revenue in the Secrets of Success business in the next 2 years. And so I kind of mapped it, walked through it. Here's the step-by-step process. Step 1, I'm doing this. Step 2, and I walked through the whole thing and it was like, it was one of the presentations I was most proud of. I got, people were blown away by it. Just kind of see the whole thing broken down. But what was kind of cool is, if you look at the way we structured Funnel Hacking Live this year, in fact, I got so many people that told me this was their favorite event ever, and the reason why is because of this one thing that we did. Now, Funnel Hacking Live in the past, we have a lot of speakers talk about different things, different avenues that are cool, but this year everything was kinda wrapped around this concept and the principle of the linchpin, right? And so it's like, based on that you have to build email lists, and then you gotta have traffic, and then you gotta have a continuity program, and then a MIFKI, and then more traffic, and then dramatic demonstrations, and then more traffic, and then live events, and then more traffic, And so what I did is one of my first presentations, I explained the whole linchpins, people saw it, and then the next two days we had people teaching just on email lists, just on continuity, just on MIFKIs, just on dramatic demonstrations, just on traffic, like going through each of the pieces. And I had a video in between each one kind of re-syncing it back to the framework. Like, okay, you know, Devon, who would typically intro the speaker, he would intro the video, and then I had the video and it was me saying, okay, now inside the linchpin there's this piece, and this is why I had so-and-so come speak here, 'cause they're gonna show you exactly how to do this. And it would show the framework and show this is the piece, right? And so every presentation that was tied to the linchpin would sync back to that. So it got people back focused and like, oh, this is where this fits in. Oh, this is the context of where this fits in the grand scheme of things. And that was really cool. So again, I taught the linchpin and then we had everybody teach pieces of it. And then that presentation was me saying that, let me show you the whole thing as a whole as I'm executing how I'm doing it step by step. It was so cool. So that's probably my favorite presentation that I did give. There's another presentation I was excited to give and man, I just ran out of time. It was my intro presentation. Last year's intro presentation was called the Driven's, or Driver, sorry, the Drifters Versus Driven. And it was really good, I feel like. I was nervous and awkward a little bit. In fact, I replayed it a couple episodes back ago so you may have heard it. I was nervous back then 'cause, I'm always nervous, especially first presentation at Funnel Hacking Live. You walk out and there's 5,000 people and you're like, It's always a little nerve-wracking. So, but I was proud of that one, but I wanted, this year I had a bigger vision. I've been working on this Secrets of Success book for way too long and finally getting to the point where I'm feeling, I have the frameworks and stuff figured out and I wanted to, I was just really excited to share with it. The problem is partially I ran out of time and partially I just kept changing it and tweaking it and changing it and tweaking it. Even on Monday we got there, my family went to Disney, I spent all day Monday rewriting it, and then Tuesday I woke up Tuesday morning and I didn't love it, so I redid the whole thing again. And then that night we took everybody out to Universal Studios. We rented it out with a huge party with all the Inner Circle and 2CCXers, had a huge party there, which was awesome. And I came back that night and I didn't like it, and I tried— I worked on it until like midnight. I was gonna wake up at 6 in the morning, keep working on it, but I, I couldn't fall asleep. So like, and I got up at like 1 o'clock and from 1 till like 3:30, I worked on it again. And then I fell asleep and only got 3.5 hours of sleep that night. I woke up and then I was working on it and then I had to go down and get my pictures and everything happening and the doors open and I just wasn't, I didn't finish it. Like I have these, I have the thoughts in my head. I know what I wanted to share, but like I just, I didn't get it done. It wasn't done in time. And then like I didn't have time to practice it. Like it was just all the things, you know? And so when the presentation started, the beginning I felt was really strong. I was really proud of it actually for probably the first third of it or so. And I started getting in the spot where I could just, I could feel it not quite hitting, not quite landing. And so anyway, not super proud of it. I mean, it was great. People were like, it was amazing. I'm like, no, it was good. It wasn't great. And I didn't explain things I wanted to correctly. In fact, it was funny 'cause everyone's like, it's great, it was fine, don't worry about it. But I just had this like uneasy feeling. So like I came back my next session afterwards and I told everyone, I was like, yeah, I was like, I didn't, you know, hopefully this will give you guys permission that, you know, for you just to go publish and put things out there. But I told this story Basically, I told the story of Dean Graziosi. We were at this mastermind group and we were sitting around a campfire and Dean talked about— I shared the story in Traffic Secrets, but I talked about how a good comedian will, you know, you'll see him on stage on The Tonight Show or something and do his 10 jokes and they all land and like, hey, he's the funniest guy in the world. But what you don't see is behind the scenes where He's going out and he's giving a presentation, he's going to a bar, he writes 10 jokes, he gives them all, only 1 lands and the other 9 are bombs. So he goes back home, keeps the 1 joke, writes 9 new jokes, goes to another dive bar, does it again. This time he lands 2 jokes, 8 flop. He comes back, deletes the 8, writes 8 new ones. Now he's got 10 jokes, goes to the next place, this time 4 land, right? The 2 that landed before plus 2 new ones. So he deletes the next 6 and he does the back and forth until he's got this killer presentation. You know, hits the big leagues. And for me, I've been giving presentations on the success stuff I've been trying to share for the last 2 or 3 years, and like, I just haven't like nailed it yet. Like, I'm getting closer and closer. There are parts that have been amazing. Times in Mexico when we had the inner circle that were super powerful, and different places, but like, I just haven't been able to like, to get it to land yet. And this was another test of me trying, and it partially landed, but not fully landed, and like, ah, it was just frustrating. But I would share with everybody, as I said, do you guys realize, I mean, how many of you guys remember the very first time I taught Traffic Secrets from the stage of Funnel Hacking Live? You know, I can't remember what year it was, but I was like, who has ever seen that presentation? A bunch of people's hands went up. I said, you're all lying, because I was so embarrassed after it came out. I literally deleted that video from all the archives. Like, it's out of our, like, we don't even have a copy of it anymore. I was like so unproud of it. And that year, Dana Derrick's had an event, so he invited me to it. So that was my next time teaching Traffic Secrets. I kind of bombed there as well. And then I did a 2-day event for the 2CCXers. On Traffic Secrets, which was better, but it helped me think through a lot of the things and get things organized in my thoughts. Oh, then I started writing and I wrote the book and the next FHL I gave a presentation and it landed on Traffic Secrets. And I was like, for me, it was the same way. That's how I developed it. Anyway, so I'm kind of in the same spot with this stuff. It's like, it's in my head, it's there. I just haven't figured out how to like perfectly organize it. I'm excited to. But this year, like the title of it was so cool. It's called The Calling Versus Resistance. And then it's like the calling, the calling that we hear, right? We have to go out there and we wanna go and like try to take over the world. And I think most people in our community have felt that before, right? Like there's these desires, these things that make us wanna go and pursue something. We may not see the finish line or understand what it is, but we have this desire to move forward, right? But as soon as you have this desire to move forward and you decide I'm gonna make a commitment, I'm gonna go do this thing, then instantly comes resistance. Resistance, the book War of Art by Steve Pressfield, such a good book, fast read too, by the way, but talks about like the hardest thing a writer has is not writing a book, it's sitting down to write the book. Like it's the resistance that keeps you from just doing the thing, right? And like, that's the resistance, that's what's holding us all back. And so it's interesting 'cause he, I talked about that in The Thing, just like the resistance, like as soon as you commit to something, then it's like everything, the resistance hits, right? Like I don't wanna do the thing, you're laying in bed, alarm goes off, comes off, like I don't wanna get out of bed, I don't wanna work out, I don't wanna do this thing. You're drawn to your phone, to social media, to Facebook, Instagram, to this, to that, to check your emails, to listen to your podcast. Like the resistance is pulling every direction except for the thing that is your calling. Like its entire goal is to detract you and derail you from that, right? And Napoleon Hill talks about how the devil wants you to drift, right? And I kinda explained that that's the whole point, the resistance is trying to get you to drift, to become a drifter, as opposed to someone who's pursuing something, chasing a dream, someone who, you know, our theme this year for Funnel Hacking Live was being a dreamer of the day, like someone who's pursuing their dreams and chasing, someone who's actually driven. So it's these two things, right? Similar to the Driven Versus Drifter presentation, but it's a bigger thing where it's like the calling you feel versus resistance holding you back and like that battle back and forth and how to combat that. So that was like the theme I was trying to deliver. And I, again, I kind of got there. And I want to talk a lot about like your conscious versus your subconscious mind, how you have to use your conscious mind to train your subconscious mind to do the things you want. And then how, Fear comes in, how you have to protect yourself from fear and block that stuff. And then from there, like, you know, we have to build out the habits and routines consciously so that we can train our subconscious mind. That's the next piece in the puzzle, right? And then from there it's coming back and like, we have these beliefs that keep us from it, right? And it's like, I wanted to start teaching about like self-image psychology. Like our self-image is the thing that causes the things. How do we change our self-image? And using Maxwell Maltz's theory of the mind. And like, anyway, I was like, all this stuff I wanted to share and I just got clunky and I couldn't quite get it. And then I wanted to title it in the end to the hero's journey and like, It just didn't land. I could feel it, like I was giving up, like just messing up in places, not explaining things the right way. And like, I was trying to explain how your conscious mind has to choose the thing you want, like it chooses your definite purpose, right? And then it's gotta train your subconscious mind to do it. So it does that by creating habits and routines to train the subconscious mind. And so you do things over and over and over again. I talked about wrestling, how like, you know, The training of it is how you turn something instinctual. Like, it becomes instinctive, then you can, like, then you can, that's how you win is through instincts, not through consciously thinking about a move, right? If I'm wrestling someone, if I'm consciously like, oh, I should shoot right here, as soon as I think that, it's already too late. Like, I missed it, right? The goal is to train it so many times that your subconscious mind knows the second you feel this, that boom, it hits it, right? And that's true in all aspects of life and business and all of your reactions and things that happen and how do you train that? Anyway, someday I'm gonna get this thing in a way that I can explain it to you guys. Yeah, I just gotta put it in a book. I've written this book and rewritten it probably 4 or 5 times now, but I think I'm finally getting to the precipice, the spot where I'm like, I'm about ready to deliver this and share with you guys. So anyway, that was my intro presentation that I was trying to nail. Didn't feel like I nailed it, but it got me excited to I was like, after I was done, I was kind of bummed out 'cause I was so tired anyway and that kind of bombed. So the first day was harder for me. It was like hard to be excited. I was so tired. Jocko came that night and presented, which was awesome, but man, I was on 3.5 hours of sleep plus like me not feeling like I nailed my first presentation. I was so tired and so like, ugh. But then that night I passed out, got like I think 7.5 hours of sleep, woke up next morning, was on fire. Day 2, 3, and 4 was just flawless. Like one of the best events we've ever done. So anyway, for those who were there, that's a little behind the scenes what happened. Those who weren't there, again, like, man, if I had a friend who's putting— spending $4 or $5 million to put on a party for me and spending weeks of his life trying to craft messages in a way that will transform everything, you curate an event. You know, we had Andy Grammer come, we had a private concert to like, make it like— it was— make it so fun. Like it was just You guys, it's worth your time, energy, and effort to really figure out like how to get there. I promise you it's worth it. This year's Funnel Hacking Live's gonna be a little different coming up. Right now Funnel Hacking Live is in September. And it used to always be the first quarter of the year, which I liked better 'cause it's like New Year's resolutions, we're all like beginning of the year, we're kicking it off. Like that's how we used to do it. And then when COVID came, it kind of threw everything off and we got bumped down to September. And I'm trying to bump it back. So Funnel Hacking Live, this was Funnel Hacking Live 9, Funnel Hacking Live 10 is gonna be moving to next February, so it's like, I think 17 or 18 months away. So it's a ways away, so because of that we decided in between there to do a smaller, like a virtual one. So we're gonna be doing Funnel Hacking Live 9.5 next September and then 10 will be in February of that year. So anyway, depending on when you're listening to this, we are selling tickets, we had event sale pricing where you could get 9.5 and 10 for the price of 9. Or sorry, for the price of just 10, plus the $200 discount. So basically for like, I think $797, you get tickets to both of them. So if you wanna be part of that, go to funnelhackinglive.com. If it's still there, then there's an opportunity there to get tickets to both events for the price of one, plus the $200 discount. So this is the cheapest they'll ever be. We'll be selling just the tickets to virtual alone for $500, and so you can use them at $297, which is insane. So go and grab them, funnelhackinglive.com. That's kind of it, you guys. Anyway, I hope you're doing awesome. I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode, and those who were there, I hope we served you and gave you an experience that will literally change your life forever. You know, we spend so much effort trying to curate something that'll give you literally that life-changing experience. I feel like we did it. I feel like it was such an amazing experience. Hopefully it was for you as well. That said, thank you guys so much for being part of our community, for being a Funnel Hacker, for believing in us, for for being around now 9 years in a row amongst the ups and the downs. You know, it's been, it's been a brutal road. It's— there's positive times, negative. You're at the beginning when you're succeeding, everyone's cheering for you. After you're at the top, everyone's trying to tear you down. Um, and we felt that both directions. I'm just grateful for those who are hardcore, like not our fair-weather fans, but the ones who have been here from the beginning, those who are still here, those who, you know, are cheering us along during, you know, the battles we're going through as opposed to turning their backs and, you know, doing what some people do. So grateful for you guys. It means the world to me. You know, in football and other, other, I mean, any sport, you know, there's the fans that like when you're winning, they're on there, they're on your side and they love you. And then this, the, you know, when the team's struggling or whatever, then, you know, people quickly forget you and shift over. And just grateful for the people that aren't fair-weather fans who are here for the, they're here for it all. You know, we are giving literal blood, sweat, and tears putting in, you know, all of our money investing into this thing that we are creating for you that we believe in, that we think is going to change your life. And so anyway, just grateful for you guys who were there and appreciate you all. So that said, I'm going to go grab a book. I'm recording a book for the Secrets of Success membership site, which is launching here in about 2 weeks or so. So in fact, if you want to, if you're interested in helping us promote it, we have a 2-tier affiliate program coming out. You basically give away some unpublished Napoleon Hill books for free to your list and from that build a ton of recurring income. It's literally the greatest opportunity ever. So if you go to secretsofsucces.com/jv, go to that page, you can become an affiliate there. Like I said, it's a two-tier affiliate program, so you can invite your friends and people you know to promote as well and you can get paid really well first tier and second tier and help us with launch coming up, it'll be a lot of fun. So that said, thank you guys so much. Appreciate you being part of this and we'll talk to you soon. Bye everybody.