The Five Turning Points Of Conflict

Welcome to Marketing in 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. What's up everybody? My second podcast in one night because I love you guys so much. Anyway, got to the office, had an incredible time going through all the cool stuff I was sharing with you guys with the team and getting it built into the book and then working on Funnel Hacker TV and, oh, so exciting. So many fun things happening. Anyway, I wanted to come back and check in with you. I'm driving home right now. It is snowing. It's incredibly cold right now. I forgot to wear a coat 'cause I'm a genius and I'm driving about 1 mile an hour 'cause my car does not do well in the snow. So this way we're all hanging out. If I die or something, I can let you know to let my family know how much I love them. So that's kind of the game plan. No, just kidding. Nice thing is that the drive from my house to the office is like all back roads, which is why I do Marketing in Your Car because there's really no fear of scariness. For all of you guys who yell at me every once in a while like, Russell, don't do the podcast while you're driving. You're gonna kill the baby animals or whatever. So do not worry. It's all good. All right, so with that said, I think I just offended like half my audience. All right, I will repent by sharing some magic, cool stuff with you guys, if that's okay. All right, so earlier I talked about the hero's two journeys and hopefully got you guys some cool ideas and thoughts on that. Now I wanna talk about the conflict, the piece in the middle, right? So the conflict is what creates the emotion for the story and it's key. And so, you know, I've been working off of this epiphany bird script, which has been good, it's working awesome. But I think tonight I'm gonna rebuild that and tie it more into this, 'cause when I saw this, piece of it, we started looking at it like it's insane. Oh, it's so cool. So if you're envisioning, in fact, you guys should all do this along with me. Picture like one of my sketches from my books. At the top of your sketch, you can write out the 5 turning points of conflict, okay? And then there's gonna be underneath there, we're gonna have 1, 2, 3, and then underneath that, 4 and 5, 'cause there's kinda, it didn't fit 5 across in a big line, at least with all the text I have. So if you look at any story, the backstory happens, right? We get to know the character, we fall in love with them, we've got this relationship, and then they physically leave their location, they're about to leave something, The first thing they do when they leave, the reason why they leave, it's like they're introduced or they're given a new opportunity, okay? Which is actually really symbolic if you start listening back to my old podcasts and talk about this whole new opportunity thing we're talking about when you're building your culture and trying to build a following. So the character gets this new opportunity, that's turning point number 1, right? It's like, hey, Lightning McQueen gets this shot to go race again for first place. What other movies? Rocky gets this opportunity to fight Apollo Creed, right? Like everyone, there's opportunity that happens, right? And so they physically leave wherever that, they're going to this new place because new opportunity and, it's hard to read my handwriting here while I'm driving, but they're moving to a new situation, right? So that's the first turning point of conflict is this new opportunity that's presented to them and then they move into a new situation. The first thing in a new situation, it's all about getting climatized and just kind of figure this thing out, it's kind of cool. And then all of a sudden then the second turning point of conflict happens. This is called the change of plan. So number 2 is the change of plan where it's like, hey, I thought I was going here for this thing, but then there was a change of plans. Something changed, right? So Lightning McQueen, he was leaving to go, if I can pull out all the stories while I'm doing this all at the same time. Lightning McQueen is going on this journey to California to go race, but then there's this change of plans and now he's stuck in Radiator Springs, right? And now he's gotta figure out how to get out of this situation. There's always like this change of plans, right? Like my potato gun story, I had the first opportunity, I was like, I can sell things on the internet. I start doing that, it's awesome, making money, Then all of a sudden Google slaps me, there's just now change of plans. So I had to change my plans and focus, move things around, and then we start making progress within this new realm that was different than what we thought it was gonna be, right? So this progress happened, which then brings us, excuse me, brings us to turning point of conflict number 3, which is called the point of no return. Now in every story, the hero comes to this spot, a point of no return, where it's like they're sitting there and they can either go forward or they go back to their old life. And it happens in all the movies, right? Where Nemo's gotta decide, like, am I, or not Nemo, but the dad is gonna decide, like, am I really gonna go after this Nemo or am I gonna go back and, like, this is a scary journey, am I really gonna do this or not? Michael Hague talked about the movie The Firm. I'd never seen the movie The Firm, but I read the book when I was in high school. And in that scene, the guy that's the lawyer, if you look at that, like, he has the opportunity to work the best law firm law practice in the world, right? And he gets in there and he figures out like, hey, this might not be what I think it is. Like, these guys are actually bad guys. And also it comes to this point of no return where it's like, he's got two options. The FBI's contacted him saying, look, you're working for the mafia and you can help us take them down. And he's gotta decide like, do I go with the FBI and try to take down this law firm that I thought was my future? Or do I go back to the law firm and make money off the mob and know that things are wrong? And then he has this point of no return where he has to decide one way or the other. Either he's with the good guys or the bad guys. And every story's got that, right? The point of no return. And so they've got to make the choice. And finally they make the choice. As they do that, then it adds this whole new level and layer of complexity and complication, increases the stakes. Because now it's like, alright, you picked the FBI. Okay, now you've got to take down the firm, right? Or whatever the story is. So the point of no return, that's where they've got to go to the next part of the story, right? So they're going through this thing, new higher stakes. And then what happens typically is that you hit turning Point number 4, which is the major setback. So this is where you hit something that's like, where you've got this plan, everything you're trying to focus on, all of a sudden, all is lost. You get the setback and the thing you've been trying to do is no longer possible. It's gone. All hope is lost, right? It's gone. You've no more opportunity for that thing. And then all of a sudden there's this one little glimmer of light that's like, the only way this can actually work if this thing happens, okay? It's interesting, like Michael Hagen was talking about conflict, said that the conflict has to be so insurmountable that it's almost impossible, otherwise people won't care, right? So it's like, this thing has to be so huge that it's impossible, 'cause that's what creates the emotion, that's what makes the desire, right? That's what gets us excited and built by into the character. And so right here is kinda the last thing, everything's going along, it's been harder and harder and harder, and all of a sudden it's like, boom, this major setback, you're like, I can't win. There's no way I can win, it's physically impossible. And less, and there's like this little glimmer of hope, like unless somehow I can get to that, but it's like, that's not possible. The odds of that are almost zero. But you have to look at that and say, okay, well, we have to do one last shot. This is our final stand, right? So that transitions you to the final push, which pushes you to turning point number 5, which is the climax of the event, which is boom, here's this huge thing that's about to happen. It's the climax. And that is usually the end of the story, right? The big thing happens. Lightning McQueen does the race. He, in a climax, you can win, you can lose. It depends, but a climax is usually where, again, it's the death and the rebirth of what we talked about last episode, which is the death of their false beliefs and the rebirth of the new person. And it's the climax, right? Where they become who they're supposed to become. And that's the last big turning point, the climax. And then after that, then the movie has to show the aftermath. Because the aftermath is a couple things. First off, it shows us that the hero completed their journey. They got what they were actually looking for. They may not have won what they wanted, right? Like Rocky didn't beat Apollo Creed in the first one, but he accomplished it, right? That's when Adrian runs out, "Adrian! Rocky, I love you!" Right? Like, this is the aftermath. Like, we saw he hit his goal, so we feel complete as the viewers of it. You see who they've become. You see that they were able to cast off this identity they had and become something different. And they have new beliefs and new faith in themselves. And that's what the aftermath is all about and kind of wrap up the story. And yeah, so isn't that cool? I know it's kind of hard to hear through a podcast. It's easier when you read it. So that's why you got to get the book when it comes out because it'll make more sense. You'll see the diagrams and the graphs. But it's cool, right? The 5 turning points of conflict. Turning point number 1 is the opportunity opportunity that they take. Turning point number 2 is the change of plan. Turning point number 3 is the point of no return. Number 4 is the major setback. And number 5 is the climax. And then there's a little arrow going between each of those ones. So the arrow from the opportunity to change of plans is called the new situation. Then we're going from the change of plans to the point of no return. That's the progress pushing to the point of no return. After they've gone through that, there's an arrow that says complication and higher stakes. That arrow pushes you to the major setback. And then there's an arrow that says final push. That pushes you to the climax, and then we have the aftermath. So, oh crap, sorry, slipping a little bit, someone slammed their brakes on in front of me. Anyway, so there you go, the 5 turning points of conflict. So based on that, 'cause that's the overarching theme of all movies and most stories and novels and things like that, I'm gonna take the old epiphany bridge script that we've been using up to this point and try to see how I could, if I can weave it into that. And I was playing today with that, I was telling a bunch of my stories, but kind of with this overlay on it, and it was interesting how much more the more full it made the stories. Which is cool because I was thinking like my potato gun story, which hopefully you guys have heard a billion times by now, so annoying. But no, when I told the old Epiphany Bridge story, it worked, but it wasn't quite as emotionally impactful, and so I laid this on top and I was like, okay, what was the new opportunity for me? Okay, new opportunity for me was I wanted to make money, I learned about internet marketing and selling information products, boom, which led me to this new situation where I created a potato gun product, boom, boom, boom, and started making money off selling it and life was good, and then all of a sudden, boom, number 2, I had this change of plans where Google slapped me and all of a sudden I wasn't profitable and I was like, oh crap. And so I'm trying to figure out in this new world what do I do and I'm making progress, I'm trying different things and I'm moving along and I'm having a little bit of success here and there but a lot of things aren't working and all of a sudden I come to number 3, boom, this point of no return which is basically my wife who's supporting me is like, hey, are you gonna help support us or are you just gonna be broke our whole lives? And I'm like, no. She's like, okay, well, you either gotta make this internet thing work or you gotta start focusing on school so you can get a job someday and I was like, Oh, there's my point of no return, right? And so I'm thinking like, what do I do, what do I do? Like, I hate school, I'm barely graduating, like, I'm not gonna get a good job, like, or over here I can try this thing that's not really working but I love it and I believe in it. And I'm at the point of no return, finally say screw it, I'm not gonna focus on school, I'll get enough so I can get my degree and I can wrestle but I'm an internet marketer, this is who I am, who I wanna become. And so I transition and I start trying to figure some things out. So that's my point of return, I start on this journey and then we're going through and let's see, let's see, so then we had a major setback. So then I've tried everything, nothing seems to work, I'm about to give up and all of a sudden I get a call from my friend and he says, Russell, all my sites are failing as well, I figured out this thing, it's called an OTO, it's called upsell. You know what? There's a ray of hope. Like, what if that worked? If that worked, like, holy cow, that would change everything. So I'm like, okay, I gotta try it out. And so I take this one last Hail Mary pass. I throw an OTO in there, turn my ads campaign back on, and boom, it worked. And we started selling products again profitably and things were good. And that was the climax, number 5. We start selling, profits coming in. Potato gun market's not huge, but we've learned the model and now we start doing other businesses and now I look at the aftermath and it's like, holy cow, because I did this thing called funnels, everything's amazing. So anyway, and I'm not sure on there, the internal, external, like the journey of achievement is to be successful online, which I hit, and then the second one is the journey of transformation, and I learned that it's not just trying to sell products and being transactional, but it's creating experiences for people, and it's serving them at a higher level, like that's the power of an upsell, the power of a funnel is that you're looking at your clients and like how do we actually change their lives? And we do that through the process we take them through and I discovered that, then it boom, became everything. Now I focus on transformation and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, who knows? Anyway, there's me telling the story while I'm holding my paper trying to go through the process. But you see how more full that is? Like it's showing all the stuff. So anyway, I hope that helps. I'm almost home. If this didn't help and you're completely confused, I totally understand, do not worry. The book will be out soon, you can read it in there and it'll make way more sense, I promise. The book eventually will be an excellent book expertsecrets.com. I think the page is blank right now, but someday it'll be there, so, if I finish it, so cross your fingers. Alright, that's all I got. Thanks everybody, we'll talk to you guys all again soon. Thanks so much for listening. We hope you enjoyed the behind-the-scenes look at our funnel hacking project. You can also watch the Funnel Hacker online reality show and watch us build and launch funnels live at www.funnelhacker.tv. If you'd like to come hang out with your fellow funnel hackers, come join our Facebook group at www.profunnelhacker.com. 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.