The Big Secret: Personal Risk

Welcome to Marketing Your Car, the podcast for funnel hackers everywhere. You're now part of a small group of underground entrepreneurs who are trying to change the world through the products and the services that we believe in. But because we don't rely on venture capitalists, we don't have financial safety nets, so we have to do things differently. We have to do things smarter. We do that through an art and a science we call funnel hacking. This podcast will give you a glimpse at the daily life of a funnel hacker, so let's get started. Good morning everybody, welcome back to Marking Your Car. It's a rainy, rainy day here in Boise. It's like a monsoon outside, which is kind of fun. But it's still spring break, so I'm gonna go get some stuff done, ouch, the next 3 hours, and then I am coming back to go roller skating with the kids. And my kids have never been roller skating before, so it's gonna be kind of a big deal. And really hard, I'm sure. But it'll be fun. So, alright, so what I want to share with you guys today, this is kind of, a cool, interesting thing. I had my call with Tara a couple days ago, and on there we were talking about some of the things that make people successful or unsuccessful, and there's a lot that goes into it, but one of the things was like really kind of interesting and fascinating as we were talking about it is one of the biggest reasons that people don't have success, and it has to do with, can you guys guess? Drum roll please. The personal risk involved. And notice it wasn't just risk, 'cause there's risk in everything, right? Like, oh, what if I lose all my money? Or if I, like, there's always the risk of whatever you're gonna try, but it's like the personal risk. Like, how will I personally cope with this if I fail? What's gonna happen to me as a human being? What are people gonna think about me? That'll be the worst thing in the world. And it's interesting because like, maybe it's because, so most of you all know at this point, hopefully, that I'm Mormon. And so I spent 2 years on a mission. So I was in New Jersey, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. And I spent a lot of time knocking doors and a lot of people telling me no. A lot of people yelling at me, a lot of people cursing me out in their native New Jerseyan tongue. And it was fun, right? It was scary at first though, I'm not gonna lie. I remember my very first day on the mission. Went out there with my companion and we started knocking doors. And I always assumed that I was gonna watch him knock for 3 or 4 weeks and then when I was ready I would go and do it. But that was not the case. The very first door he knocked on, he did his little thing, and the next door he knocked on the door and said, "You're up," and stepped back. And I was like, "What? No!" And so I'm like, "Uh," and I was like all nervous, so I'm like, "Hey, my name is," and I'm just totally stuttering through this thing, and about halfway through this, this cute little lady answers. I'm like, "Oh, she's gonna be so nice. We're gonna teach her and it's gonna be so great." And then boom, she slams the door in the middle of my thing. Mid-sentence, mid-word probably, I'm like, "Huh." I was like, "Well, that's awkward." I remember at that time, I turned around in the driveway, we were walking back out, and there was these cars driving by, and they started honking, and I was like, "Oh," 'cause I remember I grew up in Utah, right? So there's always people, when the missionaries drive by, you honk and you wave, like, "Oh, it's the missionaries," right? So I hear this honking, and I'm like, "Oh, cool, these people were like, I'm a missionary now, this is so cool, they're gonna wave at me." And then I look back, and these guys were waving at me, but not with the same wave that I was used to doing when I saw missionaries. They were honking and they were like sticking their heads out the car and they're flipping me off. They're like, "Go back to Utah!" And I was like, "Oh man, these people hate us." And at first it was really, really hard. But then, as I knocked on more doors and more doors and eventually thousands and thousands of doors, I stopped, I like disassociated myself with rejection, right? It's like, they're not rejecting me, they're rejecting something else and whatever, it's all cool. And I was fine with it. And it's interesting if you look at, this is a side note for those who wonder, so if you look at like network marketing network marketing or like door-to-door sales, you notice one common theme. Like 90% of all the network marketing companies are founded in Utah. 90% of all direct, like door-to-door, like Cutco knives, alarm systems, pest control, they're all founded out of where? Utah. And the reason why is because they have all these Mormon missionaries who spend their whole life knocking doors for 2 years and getting rejected. They have foregone, or they no longer care, they don't have like this personal, fear of rejection, and so they're able to do those things, right? And I think maybe I'm kind of lucky because I had that so many times being rejected that I don't really fear that that much anymore. That's what keeps a lot of people back is just that fear of like, what if? What are people gonna think? If I try this and I don't succeed, like all the personal risk of putting your person out, like putting you out on the line, it's scary. It's not so much the financial, I think sometimes we hide behind the financial risk, like oh, is it gonna make sense or not make sense? In fact, this is funny, at Grant Cardone's event, after we came back off stage, I was in the back and he was like all excited about the presentation and everything and then he was like, I'm gonna get out there and tell everyone to buy it. They don't have money, they should buy anyway. 'Cause what, if you're already broke, what's an extra $1,000 on your credit card? Like it doesn't matter, like just buy it. And I was like, I first kind of laughed and I'm sure that's one of his closing techniques. But I was like, it's so true. If you're already in debt, what's an extra $1,000? But no, it's like the personal risk of like, what if I try this and I fail? That's the real fear. It's not like, oh, my credit cards are almost maxed out. Who cares? That doesn't really matter. I'll send them. It's that personal risk of like, what if I try this and it doesn't work? I tried all these other things and it didn't work. In fact, I think that I have a lot of friends and family members who've gone to a lot of school and they keep going to school and they've got like, they get their bachelor's and their master's and then they keep going on and on and on. And I think part of them is like they like learning but they're so scared of like jumping and trying that they never do it, right? Like being an entrepreneur is less about like learning in a formal setting. Formal setting's like the safe, happy place that like nothing could possibly go wrong and like you study and you learn and you take a test and you fail it or pass it or whatever. But like there's no personal risk. Personal risk ever. People like staying there forever. Being an entrepreneur is the opposite. Like, you're out there with no shield, no breastplate, no nothing. You're running out and people shooting arrows at you like crazy. And if you're so scared of personal risk, you're not gonna be willing to run out there, like, you're in trouble because it's tough. Like, honestly, it's funny, like, the problems you have when you're small versus the problem you have when you're big. Like, I remember being smaller and trying to figure out, like, how to make more sales. Now, like, we're so big, it's like, how do we slow sales so we can keep up with customer support and with the technology and all the other, there's a whole new set of issues to come. But every single day there's something. In fact, I remember I heard, I think Dan Kennedy said that like, he's like once every month an entrepreneur will face a decision that either bankrupts their business or takes it to the next level. And that was back in direct mail days, right? And radio, TV, stuff like that. And I'm like, nowadays, I don't know about you, but for me it's like daily thing, every day it's like, All right, put it back on, like okay, what's the choice? And like, if, and I gotta take personal responsibility, like look, this is my choice, I think it's gonna work, but I don't know, but let's just go, boom, and then we just, we take it and we go and we go and we go. I think instinctively you get better, but I make a lot of mistakes still. But instinctively get better and better and better at it. It's interesting to me, like in my, inside my coaching programs, one of the biggest things that people I let everyone in my inner circle vox me. And essentially, most of the voxers that I get are people telling me, this is what I want to do. Do you agree with that? And it's interesting because what they're looking for is confirmation. And again, there's nothing wrong with this. I'm just kind of explaining it. It's interesting as I watch it. What they're looking for is they're looking for somebody else to hand the personal responsibility to if it fails. Like they want to be able to say, well, Russell said this, and so if it goes wrong, you know, Russell told me this, as opposed to like, this is my business, my life, I'm gonna try it out. And I'm okay with that, I don't mind it. In fact, it's what keeps me sharp and keeps me going, and like, and it's really, really fun, like I enjoy it. So I'm not saying it's negative, I'm saying it's interesting that that's what most of the questions are that come to me, is more like they know the answer, they just wanna be able to, get me to approve it so that way if it goes wrong, they've got somebody besides themselves to place the personal responsibility on. And it's just fascinating to me, like that's even at the higher levels, that's still like the fear of like personal responsibility, the personal risk, like those things that go into it. And so I don't know the right answer to that other than you should all get door-to-door sales jobs or become Mormon missionaries and just go get rejected for 2 years. I know for a lot of you guys that's not the right answer, but like It's becoming okay with that and realizing like, what's the worst case scenario? Like if I try this thing and it fails, does anybody really know? It's like the whole credit card thing. Like an extra $1,000 on my credit card, like does that really matter? Like does anyone really know that even exists besides me and maybe my spouse? But like, anyway, that's, I don't know the right answer to that, but it's becoming okay with that, the personal risk. 'Cause you gotta do that or else it's gonna be really hard to jump. Otherwise you're gonna be stuck in this learning mode. People always tell me they have information overload. What I found with pretty much all of them is that it's because they're so scared of the personal risk involved that they like the safety of learning. So they study and they learn and they study and they learn and then they don't do because they've learned so much. The information overload's the way to take personal risk off of them. Like, I got so much stuff from all these people, I don't even know what to do. And so they claim information overload and then it gets them frozen in a spot and then they can just keep learning. So now they gotta learn through this information overload and they're just stuck in the safe place that the school system screwed us up giving us. And I think you got to get out of that. I think you got to get out of the learning and that constant that and just jump. Just running and jumping. And so for you, and I'm talking to you who's listening to this, not everybody listening, just to you, you've got to be okay with that. If you fail, it's not that big of a deal. Nobody else even knows what's happening besides you. That's what you got to understand. It's like we all think everyone's looking at us, but the problem, the reality is that everybody is looking at themselves and we're all so self-conscious. I'm as guilty as everybody else. We're so self-conscious of ourselves, right? So they dress what we do and we do our hair and we do our, like all these things, we're so self-conscious of ourselves and we don't want anyone else to think something about us. But the reality is everyone's doing that. Everyone's looking at themselves. No one's looking at you. And so when you understand that, I hope that gives you permission. Nobody's actually looking at me. Nobody really cares. I have people come up to me and they're like, And they start confessing all their failures to me and I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. They're like, well, like, and they have all these things. In fact, it was interesting, I was at Boise State was wrestling UVU and the head coach at UVU was my old high school Greco and freestyle coach. One of my favorite people in the world, look up to him like nobody else. And so I'm at the tournament and Boise State beats UVU and after the match I run down, I'm so excited to see him. I'm like, Greg, how's it going? And he looks and he's like, well, you saw how bad it was. And he's like, you know, starts kind of like justifying why they lost. And I was just kind of smiling like, dude, I don't even, I didn't even watch the match. My kids were running like crazy. I don't even know what the score is. I'm just excited to see you. And he was like, he was like embarrassed that they lost and like, and trying to like shift that personal risk on like, here's the reasons why we lost, trying to justify it. And I'm like, I just wanted to see you. Like, I don't even care. Like, I couldn't have cared less. Who won. I was just excited to see you. And I think that's what we all gotta understand. Like, nobody else really cares about you and what's happening that much. Like, it's all you, and you're putting the stress and the pressure and all those things on you. And if you take that off a little bit, then you're okay. Like, look, if I risk and if I fail, like, what's— like, honestly, what's the worst-case scenario? Like, who cares? Like, no one really is looking that close. It's you. It's you becoming okay with you. Because that's a big part of it too. Yeah, you gotta become okay with you. Huh, anyway, that's interesting. The personal risk and responsibility is just more like you becoming okay with yourself. 'Cause nobody else really cares. Anyway, I don't know if that helps or not, but I hope it does. This rain outside is now shifting to snow. It's crazy, crazy. Weather's insane. Anyway, everything's turning green here in Boise between the cold winter, the long snow in the winter, and this, so kind of fun. Alright guys, I'm gonna go in and get some stuff done before I go roller skating. Appreciate y'all, hope you had a great day, and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks so much for listening. We hope you enjoyed the behind-the-scenes look at our funnel hacking projects. You can also watch the Funnel Hacker online reality show and watch us build and launch funnels live at www.funnellhacker.com. FunnelHacker.tv. If you'd like to come hang out with your fellow funnel hackers, come join our Facebook group at www.projectclickfunnels.com. Oh yeah, and don't forget, you can get a free MP3 player with the first 257 episodes preloaded at marketinginyourcar.com. Join us next time, and remember, you're just one funnel away from your dreams.