The Strangest Secret

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. Hey everyone, this is Russell. Welcome to Marketing Behind Your Desk. So my commute from my house to my office is like 10 seconds now, so I don't know how to keep marking your car. We have to change the title or something, but I'm here and I got something cool for you guys. So we moved in the office, we moved our books on the one really cool bookshelf, and then like as I was putting all the books up, I was like, I want to read this book and this book. And so as I've been coming, I've been grabbing different books. So today I grabbed The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale. And I don't know if you guys have ever heard this book, but it's like the beginning, the foundation of the personal development industry, I think. I'm pretty sure like he wrote this book, or did it— I think it was a record back in the day. And then like that's what sprouted out all personal development. So it's kind of like the beginning. And we heard a beep in the office. Think it's a fire alarm? Oh crap. Steven, good thing Steven's packing heat. We've got my bodyguards here packing heat. He's literally on his elbows crawling out to go kill somebody and protect us from imminent danger, doom. Anyway, so while he's trying to kill these people, I'm gonna give you guys a message about the strangest seekers. First off, if you haven't read this, the book, it's like 15 pages, so it's like you can read it in a very short period of time, or you can try to find the record. I'm gonna try to find the record on eBay. That'd be kind of cool. Anyway, so in this book, he's talking about The fact that, well, okay, he said he's talking about, and this is written way back in the day, so this is a long time ago, but he's talking about how if you look at people that are over 65, that at the time there were 14 million people, he said of that 14 million, 13 million of them are broke and they rely on other people. He says it's amazing that by the time you're 7, you've learned how to read, by the time you can make a living by the time you're 25, but the majority of people by 65 have not learned how to become financially independent. And it's like, that's crazy. How is that? Not happening. And then he talked like, what's the definition of success? And he said, the definition of success is not like this, that you achieve something, but the definition is, is like the pursuit of that. So the pursuit of something is success. So it says like, it says the only man who succeeds is the man who is progressing, realizing a worthy ideal. So if you're pursuing something like that, that's the definition of success. It's not so much that you have it, it's that you're going forward. And, I should almost just read you guys this whole book. It'd only take about 15 minutes, probably less than that actually. But I don't want to spoil the surprise. I want you guys to go out there and find it on eBay or on Amazon or whatever and get it. It'd be worth it. Anyway, he's talking about how like, so the next chapter is all about goals. He says like the key here is goals, like setting goals and like moving towards those goals. And he talked about like if you take a boat with a crew and a captain and they say, this is where we're going, like 99.999% of the time they get there. So if you took a boat, took the crew off and the captain and just like set out of the harbor and like pushed it out, He says that 0% of the time we'd ever get there. Yet that's how most people function in their life. They wake up and they're just like walking and stumbling and, and, and things like that. And then one thing, if I can find it real quick in here, he said that was super, super cool. Oh yeah. So this week he said, he said that, I was interested, he said that, that society was not set up to keep people from winning. The society was set up to keep people from losing. It's like, look at the American society. It doesn't really care if people are winning or whatever. It's just that it's trying to set up so people don't lose. And so it's become super simple. It's easy to get a job. It's easy to make enough money to survive. And he says that, he said, why do people not succeed? He said the reason people don't succeed is because they conform. He says that conforming is the opposite of success, which is so interesting. So it's not— it's not— what if I can find the quote right here where he said it— the opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice. A lot of people think like the opposite of being courageous and going forward is being a coward. He says no, it's not. So the opposite of of courage in our society is not cowardice, it's conformity. So it's conforming to the world around us and just like, and conforming to that. And then, um, like I said, he said that, um, the, the, the government, the world, the way it's structured is to protect people from failing. And so that's why everything's so easy because of that. We have to conform to do that. And so like 95% of the population conforms to get a good job so they can not fail. And so they can, you know, get a steady paycheck or whatever. I mean, it's not just for, for money, but for anything in life. Like, like, I don't like, I think about wrestling, like let's say you're doing sports, like it's way easier to just, you know, just kind of go through the motions than it is to try to win. And so just kind of conforming and doing the normal, what everyone else is doing, is like the lowest thing. Anyway, it's hard to like tell a book that you just barely, Red. Anyway, so he kind of goes on from there, success and goals. And he said that this is the key to success. And so the key to success is this: we become what we think about. He says, let me say that again, we become what we think about. And then he goes through and starts talking about all these, all these different quotes from different people, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, a man is what he thinks about all day long. William James, the greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their life by altering their attitudes of their mind. He's got this quote after quote after quote, all these people. Shakespeare, our doubts are are traitors and make us lose the good we oft win by fearing to attempt. And on and on. And like, all these things come down to like, we are what we think about all day long. And that is the strangest secret. Like, that's, that's kind of the key. So at the very end, it says, we become what we think about. That is the strangest secret in the world. Now, why do I say it's strange? And why do I say it's a secret? Actually, it isn't secret at all. It's the first— there's a big word that's not in our vocabulary nowadays— the first something by some of the earliest wise men. And it appears again and again throughout the Bible. But every Few people have learned it, understand it, and that's why it's a secret and why, and for some equally strange reason, it virtually remains a secret. So it's kind of the message of this book. And like, hopefully this podcast for today is like, is a couple things. First off, it's what are you thinking about? Like, what, what's the goal? What's the thing you're driving towards every single day? If you don't have that, then you're just like the boat that's wandering, it's going to crash. And the second part of this is like understanding that just conforming to the standard is the reason why, you know, the majority of the population by the time they're 65 have not learned financial independence, which is like 65 years is not how long it shouldn't take that long to learn and master financial independence. Like you should learn that earlier in life, but because it's easier just to conform and just to slip back to, to doing the status quo and just doing what it takes to not lose, which is what our whole society is built upon. Most people go that way. And so for you guys who are here listening to this podcast, like, I know that's not what any of you guys want. And so it comes back down to like setting a goal. Like, what do you want? Where are you going? Having a very clear path and thinking about it and visualizing and trying to figure out how to get there. And if you do, man, lo and behold, you get there. I said it's weird that like 99.999% of the boats that set a destination get there. Same with airplanes, right? There's a tiny fraction that crash and burn, but mostly if they've got a direction and a destination they're going, they get there. And I think the same thing for you guys. If you got that, like what's your destination, where are you going? Alright, if you've got that and you think about it and it becomes the thing that you're looking for, like you'll get there. It's not that hard. You just gotta think about it and then work to make that thing become a reality. So that's what I got for today, guys. The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale. I think they said this is like where The Secret, like the movie The Secret, came from, which that movie's a little cheesy. Conceptually it's pretty cool, but then I, I guess one scene the guy's like, yeah, I thought about I wanted a coffee and then somebody brought me a coffee. Like, that's not what this is talking about. Like, that's stupid. This is talking about like, what do I want in my life? And I want to be able to see it visually and then I go and I chase it. Like, for me, I remember when I got started in this business, man, 13, 14 years ago now, like, I saw people ahead of me. I saw, for me, my first mentors were like Armand Moran and John Rhys and Marlon Sanders and Jonathan Mizell. And like, these are the guys that I saw initially and I saw what they were doing. I was like, I was like, that's what I want, like I need that, I gotta figure that out. And it wasn't easy, like, but like, you know, conformity's easy, like, and it's not, you know, it's not, what do they say, it's not easy but it's worth it, like that's definitely the thing. Same thing like, that was my goal, so I started like looking at what Armand was doing, I was modeling him, like if you look at my first 3 or 4 sites, like they were identical to Armand's, he had a, like I funnel hacked him as close as humanly possible, like my sites, Armand always had a picture of his head on the header, so I always had a picture of my head on the header, and then like I just, I modeled him identical, 'Cause it was Armand, like that's who I wanted to be like, and I had a vision and that's where I was going. And then I went to my very first big seminar, and that's where the first time I saw people speak and sell from stage, and I was like, holy crap. Like I remember seeing this dude get on stage and does his pitch, people were in the back room, I was doing the math, and I was like, he made, I don't know, it was like $50,000 in 90 minutes. And I saw the next guy do it, next guy did like $130,000 in sales. I watched thing after thing after thing, and I was like, Okay, I don't know how to speak. I'm scared of the people and getting on stage. But like that thing, that skill, I could learn that. Like that's— and so that became the destination. And for the next 3 years of my life, I learned how to speak and sell from stage. And it was hard. It was not easy. It was embarrassing. Like the first, I don't know, 10, 15 times I got on stage and I do my pitch and nobody would move. That's humiliating. It sucked. It was so embarrassing. But I knew where I was going. So I'm like, I gotta get there because that skill, if I can get that skill, holy crap, that'd be cool. And so I stood up in front of 100 people and then 500 people and then 600 people, and I did the thing, and then I crashed and burned. And I was like so embarrassed. I remember, I think I've told you guys this before, first time I was so embarrassed because usually like when you speak, all the other speakers that are selling from stage as well, like, hey, how'd you do? What are your numbers? Like, how many did you close? And so I did my first pitch and like nobody budged. It was like the walk of shame to the back of the room. It's like everyone's like waiting, you know, just not running to the back and buying. I was so embarrassed and I didn't want to go talk to their speakers, the promoter, the other attendees. Like, I was humiliated. So I like went to my room and like, I still remember, I, uh, I've never, I'd never before like ever rented like a movie on TV in a hotel room before. So I went to like the movie section and I started watching movies. I watched movies for like 3 days in a row. Every movie that was there that I felt comfortable watching, I watched. And I remember ordering, uh, coconut shrimp and Häagen-Dazs ice cream like every hour on the hour. And I was like, I'm not going anywhere. I'm I'm not leaving this place. I don't want to eat. I just want— like, because it was so humiliating, but I knew where I wanted to go. I knew the destiny. Like, that's— I gotta figure this thing out because people are doing it and they can't be that much smarter than me. I'm sure they're more talented than me, but they can't be that much smarter than me, right? Like, I just got to figure it out. And so I kept doing it and doing it, and eventually I got to that destination. So for you guys, find the destination, set the goals, think about it all the time. Go read The Strangest Secret. It's literally like a 5-minute read. It would take you less time to read than it was to listen to this podcast. And that's all I got, you guys. So, that said, appreciate you all having a great day, and we'll talk 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.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.