How I cast a $1B Vision...and delivered on it.

What's up, everybody? This is Russell. Welcome back to the show. Excited to be hanging out with you guys today. And today I want to talk about a topic I haven't talked a lot about with you guys, which is leadership. And more so than leadership, actually, very specific part of leadership, which is how do you. First off, how do you capture a vision, right? And then number two, after you've captured the vision, how do you actually share that vision with other people, right? To get people to want to follow you, both like customers, but also employees and partners and team members. How do you cast a vision, a way that gets people to. To want to come to you? And this is actually a really interesting question. I got it from one of my friends. It was after Funnel Hacking Live. You know, obviously, if you guys, you know, if you've been following the clickfunnels movement for the last decade, like, we built a huge business and a brand, and every single year, we did this big event, and this was the last one. Funnel icon live 10. And it was a little after I got off stage, I got the message from my buddy, and he asked me, I said, you know, how do you do that? He's like, I want to do that in my business. Like, our company's growing. Things are good, but I really. I want to figure out how to cast, like, first off, how to capture that vision, right? Like. Like, what is the vision? How do I find what the vision is for my business? And number two is, after I have that, how do I get the right people? So that's what I'm talking about today. Because, as you know, without a vision, the people perish. And our job as visionary entrepreneurs is to cast that vision. When you cast that vision, your people will come to you. Okay, you've probably heard me, you know, talk about this before, but a lot of people are scared. Like, I don't want to put myself out there, my vision out there, because people are going to make fun of me. And the reality is, like, I promise you, people make fun of me more than probably anybody, right? We spent just on one event last week. We spent a million dollars in ads. My face was everywhere on the whole Internet. And guess what? A lot of people don't like seeing my face everywhere, all over the Internet. And there's, like, all sorts of people talking trash in the comments and things like that, right? Like, when you put yourself out there, there's gonna be people who do not like you, and they're gonna be vocal about it, but your job is not to speak to everybody, right? Your job is to talk to the people you've been called to serve, right? And so when you put your vision out there, people who'll be offended, who'll be annoyed, people who don't care. But when you do it correctly, your people will hear you, right? And they're gonna come to you. And you have a chance to serve them and change their life. Okay? We are visionary entrepreneurs. We are the dreamers. One of my favorite quotes is from T.E. lawrence. He says, all men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind, wake in the day to find that it was in vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men. For they must act out their dreams with open eyes to. To make it possible. I love that quote. It's like a rallying call. We had that on the back of the T shirts one year. Funnel hacking live. Cause I love it so much, it's kind of funny. I have an aura ring, so I sleep every single night. It is funny. My wife and I always tease. Cause my wife, she sleeps so good every night. Her REM and her deep sleep's like at 25, 30%. Mine always like, my REM's like at 3% or 1% or 2%. And it bothers me because she always has these amazing dreams. She tells me these dreams. That is so cool. I don't remember any of my dreams. But then I found this quote. I teased her. I'm like, well, I'm a dreamer of the day. So that's the difference. Like you dream at night, but I dream of the day. But it's such a powerful thing, right? That's our job as visionary entrepreneurs. To be the dreamers of the day. I'm gonna read the quote one more time. Cause it's so powerful, I want you to like to rehear it. Cause some of you guys want to roll back on the thing. Instead, I'm just gonna share it with you, okay? So once again, all men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was in vanity. The. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men. They may act out their dreams with open eyes to make it possible. Such a powerful thing. Okay, so I'm gonna go through this. I've got a bunch of notes here I'm gonna go through. And there's basically three kind of phases I'm gonna walk you through. So the first phase, the first step, whatever you wanna call it, first secret. If you're Russell Brunson? Oh, I am. Secret number one. Step number one, whatever you wanna call is actually, you have to become a leader. And this is an interesting thing because, I don't know, like, I've never really taught leadership before. I don't love reading leadership books even. But the reality is that people want to follow a leader. Like, you have to be willing to step up, be that leader. And most people in this world do not want to be a leader. They are scared to death of leadership. Right. And it's interesting if you've read the book Atlas Shrugged, it's one of my favorite books. But there's a scene in the very beginning where Daphne is on the. You know, she's the head of the railroad. She's on the railroad train to get stuck. And, you know, this train's been stuck for, like, 20, 30 minutes. She comes out and she's like, why is it not moving? Like, oh, the light turned red. And they're like, well, like, how do you fix it? Like, well, I wait for someone to fix it. Like, well, is there any issue? Like, no, you could go. But, you know. And the railroad workers, like, they did not want to take the responsibility on their own shoulders. They refused to do that. Right? And finally, she's like. She's like, I'm Dagny Tagger. I'm the president of the road. Like, you're going to go. And, like, so if you go, you'll take. Like, if something goes wrong, it'll be on your shoulders, not ours, right? She's like, yes. And, like, she was willing to step up and, like, and take that. Right? And then. And take the responsibility if something went wrong. Like, that's what leadership is, right to be willing to say, this is the direction we're going. If it's not right, I will take extreme ownership over the thing. Because most people will not do that. Okay? They're so scared of getting in trouble or breaking something, they don't want to have the responsibility. They'd rather do nothing. In fact, this is why the whole. I'm not going to get political because I don't care about politics. But it's like the whole situation we are in as a country is because nobody wants to step up and do the thing and then take accountability, whether it fails or successful, right? So if you're gonna be a leader, it's one of the core things. You gotta be willing to be the person who's gonna take extreme ownership. Like, just, I'm doing the thing, and people look up to that. People are looking for that. They're begging for that. Like, they desire that so bad. I think it was Jay Abraham who once said. He said people are walking around with, like, a cord coming out of their umbilical cord. And he said they're secretly, like, they're looking for a leader they can plug into, right? They're looking for something. So the masses, the most of the people you are trying to lead, like, they're walking around looking like, I want to plug into something. Like, I'm looking for that. You're looking for the person who's going to step up, right? That's what you, as a leader, have to do. Okay. The next thing I have in my notes here is that if you want to be a leader, you have to bring energy to the table. Now, it doesn't mean you have to bring Russell Brunson energy or Gary Vee energy or Tony Robbins energy. You got to bring your energy. But the right level, right? And when you do that, there's a really cool. In fact, it's so funny. When I got in this business, I used to hate when people talk about energy. I'm like, it's so cheesy. So, ugh. I used to hate that, right? But as I've done this more and more, like, it is insane how powerful it is. Like, the energy you bring to a situation will attract the same type of person. Okay. In fact, I bought. I don't know what they're at. I bought some tuning forks. I heard this is a thing. I don't know if it really is or not, but it illustrates my point, so I'm gonna share it with you anyway. Okay. This is when you get two tuning forks, right? Two different ones, and you hit one over here, one over here, and. And they're two different vibrations. But you bring them together, what'll happen is that they sync vibrations. So eventually they're both the exact same vibration, same vibe, right? And so what you are. The energy you're putting out in the world, you will attract people with the same vibration as that, right? So you gotta put those things out there. So if I come into a room and I'm like, hey, guys, what's up? What's gonna happen? Everyone else in the room's gonna lower down to that energy level, right? And so you have to understand, like, you're in charge. Like, as a leader is like, the energy management of the room. Like, when we look at Funnel Hacking live, we have 5,000 people in the room. Like, my number one role is energy management. Like, getting people's VI high enough, they can learn, they can listen, they can pay attention, right? Same thing in my inner circle. I told people, mike, we have two days. We're sitting in a room talking about our businesses. Like, it's really easy to fall asleep and to doze off. And my job is energy management. I gotta raise the vibration of the room and keep it up here. That way we can learn, we can focus, we can grow. Because if it's not, it's gonna be off, right? And the same thing is true when you're trying to attract people. Like, they are attracted to your vibration. So if your vibration's like, oh, woe is me, things are sad, you're not gonna attract the right people. You're gonna attract other people who are like, oh, life is hard. Woe, what was me, right? You don't attract what you want. You attract who you are. This is the Myron golden quote, right? You don't attract what you want. You attract who you are. Okay? We talk about this, like, selling, like, if you wanna be someone who goes out there and you wanna sell thousands of courses, you never bought a course, guess what? You're not gonna attract who you want. You're attract who you are. If you're someone who's too cheap to invest in yourself, guess what? You're not gonna attract the kind of person you want who's gonna invest in themselves. Okay? I remember Dean Graziosi launched a $100,000 mastermind. I literally was the first person to write a check. And he's like, you don't even know what it's about. I'm like, I know. But I know that if I am going to try to ask people for $100,000 in the future for my masterminds, I've got to be willing to be the person to do that. Because I'm not going to attract who I want. I'm going to attract who I am. And I'm the kind of person who invests $100,000 in my education. Okay? When I did my million dollar seed offer, guess who the very first person to buy it was? It was Myron Gold. Why? Right? He told me, he's like, because I wanted to sell a million dollar offer and I needed to be the kind of person to spend a million dollars offer. If I'm going to be asking something because I don't attract who I want, I attract who I am vibration. It is huge. Okay? Now, it doesn't mean again, you don't have to have Russell Brunson vibration. It's Interesting. I feel, I look at successful companies and organizations and I look at the leader and the team around leader, very similar. Like, Jeff Walker is a great example. Jeff's been doing this game for, you know, I mean, back when I got started, he was getting started. So it's been 20 plus years he's been doing this game. And if you look at like when my organization, his organization try to work together, it's interesting because like we have different vibrations. I'm like the Russell Brunson, let's go vibration. Like, that's our people and there's that that's happening. Jeff is very much more conservative, like slower energy, things like that. And the people in this team are that way now. It doesn't mean that he's right, I'm wrong. It's not. I'm saying you're gonna attract the people that are similar to you. So you look at Jeff's entire team, I remember every conversation. I'm like, this is so fascinating. They're all Jeff Walker's energy. That's the energy level that they're all sinking to, right? My people sync to my energy. And so it's just fascinating. And so it doesn't mean you have to have the wrong energy. It's just bringing the right energy. Your version of that, your version of like high energy doesn't have to be Russell Brunson energy, right? You know, your version of that is going to attract the right people. Okay? So if you want to be a leader, that's a big key. Okay. Next thing about leadership I want to share is you have to have standards. What are you for and what are you against? What are you like, what are you not willing to allow happen? What are you willing to allow happen? Right? Your people are looking for that. They're watching you. They're seeing like, does Russell bend in this situation? Does he not? What does he do? Right? And you can make mistakes. I've made a lot of mistakes. I've had apologized to my own team about stupid stuff I've done in the past. Right. I apologize to our community. I literally at funnel hacking live, apologized again to our community for stupid things I did. Like, it doesn't mean you have to be perfect, but you have standards, right? You set a standard and you stick to it and people relate to that. And again, sometimes they're gonna hate you for your standards, but other people are gonna be attracted to you because of those standards. Right? Like, that is the key, what you're trying to do. In fact, I found a. This is something I'VE had multiple people on my team tell me this is why to this day they've stuck with me even though, you know, through ups and downs the last couple years. September 11, 2021 I made this post and what happened is set this whole thing off. This is during the whole pandemic. All the things I'm sure you remember, but there was a time in that season when we literally had people coming to our office asking how many employees we had and then trying to force us to force our people to do things. Which I am not okay with. I'm okay with everyone. Like I'm people choosing what they want to do. Totally cool with that. I think everyone should have freedom of choice. But for me to force something I do not agree with. And that night I posted this and I'm just going to read it because this was like me setting a standard for myself and my team. And again I have people to this day are like because of that post is why I am here and I'm not going anywhere because like I saw your standards and I aligned with that and I want to be part of that. So this is what I wrote. I said what happens when you take away freedoms from prime movers, AKA entrepreneurs? For anyone? For anyone wondering how this plays out? Reed Atlas Shrugged when the government comes in and takes your takes away freedoms and makes it so that the pride movers don't want to produce anymore. Well, the ending isn't good for anyone. There's three statues I had commissioned that will be standing in my office soon. The first represents Atlas, my entrepreneurs holding the way of the world on their shoulders. This is a responsibility we happily bear. The second statue is Atlas shrugging and the third is him walking away from it all. We are quickly seeing the government overstepping the reach and taking away our freedoms. I don't get political ever. Online. I don't care if you're on the left or on the right. I don't care if you get a jab or not. And as long as your choices don't affect my ability to produce, I am fine. Then you do you as Voltaire said, I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. But when you try to take away my freedoms, this affects everything. For the record, I won't take away my employees freedoms if it means I have to pay fines to protect them, I will. If it gets worse, perhaps that will be the point that I shrug and I walk away. I hope not. I love what I do. I Love producing. I love my life. Our estimates now show that ClickFunnels has conservatively created close to a million jobs and counting. When entrepreneurs start to shrug and walk away, we are all in trouble. Fight for everyone's rights, even if you disagree with what they want to do with those rights. Okay, boom. Set the standard. This is what I believe right for you. Does your team know the standards? Like, they put those things out there. You need to be willing to put those things out there because people will be attracted to that. It's interesting. In a day and an age where us as humans are more and more soft, it's interesting, like, you don't attract people with. With that. You attract people with standards. And the higher you set your standards, the higher those people will come to you as well. Next part of leadership, you've got to be in the trenches with your team. I think the reason why my team will produce so hard and they work so hard is they know that I am producing hard and I'm working hard. They know that I'm here late nights, I'm here early mornings. I'm killing myself on the weekends. I'm like, stressed and anxiety, all the things. And they see me doing it, and. And because of that, they're willing to do as well with something really cool happen. Bill Allen became our CEO for the prime mover side of our business, our info coaching side of the business, and funnel hacking live. We'd done last day. It's crazy. Everyone's like, you know, our team's stressed out of the max, and we're ready to go and, you know, go, leave and go party and go, whatever. Get out of Vegas and go do whatever, right? And Miles and Clayton, who run our events, they were trying to leave and they went down. And if you guys are funny with these big glow sticks, we have like 5,000 times two. So 10,000 of these glow sticks, and everyone's whacking around. When Tony Robbins on stage, it was really, really fun, right? And the hotel said they refused to clean it up even if we paid a fine. They refused to it. So Miles, clean it down. They're by themselves cleaning this whole thing up. And Bill called Miles, like, hey, just go on and come hang out and, you know, go enjoy. Go enjoy Vegas. He's like, oh, I can't, because we got to go clean up these things now. What some types of leaders do is just like, oh, well, okay, Let me know when you're done. We'll see you. Right? But Bill, who's again the CEO of the company, he's got his own successful company. Like, he. Of all the people, he shouldn't have been down there. But Bill stopped everything, grabbed his kid, started running down the hall, grabbed the rest of the team. As many people as he could went down there, was down there cleaning the entire thing with everybody, right? Guess what? Miles Clayton, our team, like, they will go. They will do whatever Bill says at this point, right? Because he lives in the trenches with them. Wasn't just, like, him trying to lead from afar and, like, whatever. It's like, he was down there doing it. Like, that's. That's what. That's what people need to see, is they want to see, right? And then the last thing. This is actually Tony Robbins thing. I heard him. My very first UPW I ever went to. He shared this. And it has such a big, profound impact on me. Every time I think about leadership, this is the quote that, like, pops back in my head. So this is one of Tony's frameworks. He calls it the three mandates of leadership. The first mandate is when something happens, you have to see it as it is, not worse than it is, okay? What most people do, what the 99% of people out there who are looking for leadership, they're gonna see something. Oh, this is way worse than it is. Like, no, you have to understand, like, leaders, they see things as they are, not worse than they are, right? So that's the big thing. You have to be able to say, this is what it is. It's not worse than this. This is what it is, right? That's step number one. Step number two, after you've done that, then you need to see it better than it is, okay? This is where vision comes from, okay? I saw it as it is, not worse. Worse is the opposite of vision. I see it as it is now. I see it better than it is now. That's vision. Okay? This is good. But there's great over here. And then the last step in Tony's three steps is then you make it the way you see it, okay? That's the job now to go out there and to move heaven and earth and do everything you need to do to be able to go and actually create that thing and make it happen. So those are the three mandates of leadership so powerful. Again, number one is, see it as it is, not worse than it is. Number two, see it better than it is. And number three, make it the way you see it. That's what leadership. That's what vision. That's what all those things are, okay? So that's the first thing I want to kind of caveat. This entire. This show is just like, leadership, because I don't ever talk about it, but those are the. And again, there's been books written. I've got a book right here from John C. Maxwell about leadership. Right. You know, like, there's been millions of books written on us. Like, this is not a, you know, all things, but these are the things that, for me, that I feel are the most important. It's the things that have had the biggest impact. A lot of things weren't things I was thinking about. I just did it. And then I see the, like, what happens on the other side. I'm like, oh, wow. And I see, like other people's teams and other companies. It's like, that's why those people aren't having the success, right? Because the leader's not leading. And when the leader was willing to lead, that's when everything changes. And if you've been a leader in the past and you've forgotten yourself, that's a big step too. Like, come back and, like, remember who you are. At Funnel Hacking Live this year, I did a presentation at the very end. It was called One Funnel Away Evolution. It was like part two of my One Funnel Away pitch from Man. I did an event or I did a presentation in 2017 talking about one funnel away and this was part two. And in there I talked about how over the last couple years how, like, I forgot who I was. Right. It happens to all of us, all leaders. You forget who you are. And I was lucky enough to have somebody who is a leader who had a set aside, high standards. Andy Elliot. I went out to his office and like, at the presentation, I talked about that, how that, like, helped, like, Andy helped me to remember who I was after. I remember, like, oh, yeah, I'm Russell Brunson. I'm gonna step back in this calling. Like, it's been crazy ever since then. Like, this shift I've seen in myself. And you've probably seen it, you probably felt it if you've been following me for a long time, right? And so, yeah, leadership is such a. Such an important part of the game. Okay, all right, so number one is you being the leader. Step number two. Okay, I got three steps here. So step number two is how do you then capture the vision? And my friend that vox me asked that. He's like. He's like, are you just sitting around, like, thinking about things or like, how do you find that? And so it's such a good question. And it's a hard one to answer. It took me a while to think this. Like, how do I, like, how do I see the visions I see? Like, what does that look like? The first one, the first note that I have here is like that. I think there's like, who is it that inspires me? I need inspiration. Like, you don't just come up with a vision just like out of thin air, right? It's like you're looking at inspiration in a lot of different places. Like one of my buddies, Dan Usher on my team, who does a lot of our film stuff, he spends, I don't know, half his. I'm probably exaggerating, but he spends so much of his time actually watching film and studying inspiration, getting ideas from other people. And then from there is where his creativity and his vision comes, right? It's not just like looking at a blank slate, like, okay, like brain, be creative, come something. It's like, no, like you gotta look at a lot of inspiration, right? A lot of people like hear me talk about funnel hacking. Look at one thing and they copy it. It's like, no, that's not what funnel hacking is. Funnel hacking is, look at like everyone doing what you wanna do. What are they doing? Why does it inspire you? And from there, what you do is you get influences from four or five things and then you remix them and then boom, you create something that's your own. I remember I asked Dan about that. I'm like, how do you create your. He creates these things for us called after movies. Like so funnel hacking live happens and they make, they take all the footage and they build these like, it's like a trailer for the, for the event that just happened, right? It's an after movie. And that's what he told me. He's like, I look for inspiration from 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 different places, right? From there I'll find three or four things that really inspire me. I take those ideas, I remix them, and then from there, boom, I create my own thing, right? I started thinking about that. With me, it's like very similar. I'm looking at a lot of things. Like I think about just pre click funnels. I remember going to ClickBank's offices. Like ClickBank is here in Boise, Idaho as well. I remember walking in, I saw their office and they had like this international team that clocks on the wall and all this stuff. I was like, God, I wish I had a business like this that actually mattered, right? Clients and clocks and like all. It was such a cool thing. Then I remember going to, I Flew out to my friend Andrew Fox, who is in the. He's in Ireland, and we went on his yacht. And I remember being in the yacht that night. And then that was the same time that the movie Social Network came. I remember going, like, leaving the yacht, went to the Social network and watched that. I remember seeing that. And there's that scene when. When Zuckerberg was like. And he's talking to the Napster guy, what's his name anyway, and he's like, he's like, you know what's cool is, you know, a million dollars isn't cool. You know, it's cool is a billion dollars. I remember thinking like, God, I want a billion dollar idea, right? And then, like, and I'm looking at businesses and brands and companies. I saw, like, when Ryan Dice and Perry Belt were doing traffic conversion, I saw that and like, and from these things, I saw Dan Kennedy, I saw Tony Robbins, and I saw all these different things. And from that I was like, okay, I like pieces from all these. I love traffic conversing. I love Ryan and Perry teaching. I love Tony Robbins guy who's jumping around in energy. I love the personal development stuff. I love Dan Kennedy because of the learning. I'm like, how do I take those and create my version of it, right? Boom. Insert Funnel Hacking Live. What's Funnel Hacking Live? Right? It's the education from trafficking. It's like the story. Education stories from traffic conversion. It's the content from Dan Kennedy and it's the energy from Tony Robbins. Boom, boom, boom. Remix Funnel Hacking Live. This is my version because I love Tony stuff, but I wanted more tactics. I loved Dan's stuff. I wanted more energy. I want. I love Dice's stuff. I wanted more, you know, like, people from the community and like, from there is how we remix Funnel Hacking Live. Right? Clickfunnels. I was like, we're using this software and this, like, all these different things to build our stuff. It's like remixing. Boom. This is our version, right? So what inspires you? Like looking at that, spending time with it. Like, really, you know, a vision doesn't come from a new thing. It's coming from a remix of stuff that's good. Like, I take three or four really good things and from that I can create something that's great. Okay, so that's the first thing to think about. Number two is like, what is your art? People get inspired by art. I don't know how to explain that better than. It's like, for me, my art was funnel building. Like, it still is funnel building. And that's the thing that I love. Like, it's the. So it's like, I'm looking at these different inspirations through the lens of, like, what is your art? What's my art? Right? So for me, it's like, you know, Dan, Kennedy, Tony, they're teaching their things, but my art's different, right? And so I'm figuring out, like, the art that I had. And then from there. From there, I started kind of mixing my things together. Okay. Next thing about capturing vision is initially the vision's not going to be clear at the beginning, and that's okay. I think a lot of times we're waiting for, like, this thing to appear. Like, wait. As soon as I get the vision, then I'm gonna move. And I don't think it works that way. I think that. And you think about faith doesn't work that way. Like, what does? Like, how does faith work? Like, faith is all about, like, you see a glimpse of, like, somebody that you feel like you need to go the call, the contribution. I feel like I need to go that way, right? But then the path is completely foggy and overgrown, and you can't see it at all, right? The vision is not clear. But in the pursuit of the vision, you start moving towards the direction, right? You get into momentum. Then, like, the pathway starts getting clear. I always think about this, like, stepping into the fog, right? You can't see anything. You step in the fog, and so you just step down. Boom. Like, the fog parts a little bit, and you can see a little bit forward. You take the next step. Boom. And it keeps partying and partying. And if you keep going moving forward in faith, then it shows up, right? And I think. I don't know. I believe that God gives us these ideas, and he's like. He plants these little ideas in our head, right? And we have the idea. And he's like, is Russell gonna be a good steward of this idea? Let's see. And, you know, plant this idea, and then, like, see what he's gonna do, right? And then if I do nothing with it, he's like, hey, Russell's not a good steward of ideas. That's it. There's no good vision there, right? But he's like, I'm gonna give him a little vision. I'm gonna give him this thing called Zip Brander. I'm gonna give him this thing called Article Spider. I'm gonna give him. I think these are my first ideas, right? And I like, okay. And I take the idea. I do Something with it. And God's like, wow, okay, He's a good steward of this idea. Let me give him another idea and another idea till eventually he's like, hey, click funnels. And then even as I clickfunnels, I didn't know where I was gonna go. She's like, here's the first part, right? I'm gonna tell you just enough. So you're excited that you're gonna take the next step of faith and. And the next step of faith. Next step of faith. So that's how God's dealing with us. I'm sharing that because for step three, it's going to be how you're going to deal with your people as well. Okay. Because if. Yeah. So the vision is always clear. A good example, more recent for me in my life is these old books, right? It's such a weird thing. Like, you know, I bought a first edition Book of Mormon seven or eight years ago and that was like a one time thing. And then I bought a bunch more like four years later. And then I started like, just like piece by piece. I got excited and like, there's something where I got excited about old books, I got excited about Napoleon Hill, I got excited about this. And like, and, and I didn't know where I was going. I felt like there was something. I'm like, I'm like, somehow this is going to be. This is going to change the world somehow. I don't know how yet or where or when, but I feel like this is something. So I just kept pursuing the thing, right? And opportunities come to me, things would show up. And a lot of people thought I was crazy. A lot of people thought I was insane. People thought, in fact, people were like, should we. Do we need to call somebody to like have an interventionship with Russell? I was like, ah. I'm like, I wish I could explain to you as my vision, but I don't. It's not clear enough for me to explain, but I know there's something and I'm moving towards it because I move in faith. That's what I've been doing my whole last 20 years. And people thought I was crazy. Every step along the way, people thought I was crazy. You know, starting an online business, I thought I was crazy building a software company, I thought I was like, you know, everything we've done, people thought are crazy. And every once in a while I forget that because the people in my immediate, like around my world, like, oh, this is awesome. Like the funnel hackers, the prime movers, like my people like, they're all excited. But I always remember this, like, when I go to a bank that asks for money. So, for example, I build this crazy library with all these old books, and I go to the bank, I'm like, hey, I need, like, a 15, $20 million loan. And they're like, why am I. I'm building a big building. There's gonna be naked statues of Atlas in the middle of them. Then there's gonna be books there, and there's gonna be an event center, and people are gonna come, they're gonna look at my books, and then we're gonna do events, and we're gonna record the events, and it's gonna be awesome. And they're like, what? They're like, that's not. None of that makes any sense. I'm like, no, it makes total sense. People aren't gonna fly here to go look at your old books. I'm like, no, they will. No, there's no precedent for that. It's not a real thing. This is all in your head. It's not real. I'm like, I have a really good track record. Look at clickfunnels. Here's this big business, $100 million plus a year. This is a brand I built. Trust me. This is another thing that's gonna work that doesn't make any sense. Even clickfunnels. Because it's software. There's no tangible assets. It'd be easier for me to borrow money from a bank if I was a chiropractor or a dentist with assets. Cause, like, oh, well, you feel I can repossess your assets with clickfunnels, I can repossess code. It's so hard. So every time I think that I'm inside my world, I'm like, oh, everything I'm saying makes total sense. Because all of you guys get excited. My team gets excited. And when I go to a bank, it's like, oh, no. I forget what I'm doing is not normal. I forget that sometimes. In fact, I have a quote right here. This is such a good quote. It says, the reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. Okay, I think when you look at this, like, your vision, like, you become an unreasonable man, right? This is what people are looking for. Like, when you're trying to capture something, like, I'm not looking for logic. Oh, this makes a lot of sense. I'm gonna build this. We're going to do this, like, it's the unreasonable idea. Like that's the interesting vision, right? That's something people plug into. That's where they're like, wow, this is different. This is, this is not what I've seen before, right? And so I think a lot of times it's that it's like putting out ideas that are just, they don't make any sense and people are like, I don't really know what he's doing, but man. And there's something exciting about that. I want to be part, I want to plug into, I want to plug into that thing, right? So again, the quote one more time because it's so good. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable. Man. Such a cool thing. Such a cool thing. Okay, before I jump into step number three, I got a really quick ad read for you guys from the greatest company in the world. It's called Click Funnels. Now obviously if you want to sell your stuff online, you're going to need a good funnel. But if you want a great funnel, then you're going to need to use ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels is the number one funnel builder in the world, helping more first time entrepreneurs to lead their 9 to 5 and to launch their dreams than any other company in the world. ClickFunnels was built for the dreamer and the doer. And you can get a free 14 day trial by clicking on link in the description or going to clickfunnels.com YouTube right now. Click funnels because you're one funnel away from changing the world. Okay, let's move on to step number three. How do you cast the vision? And how do you cast the vision in a way that's going to attract a players to come to you, right? Both from customers, but then also employees, partners, things like that. And so there's a couple things. Number one is you have to live this, right? I wasn't trying to attract people into Click funnels. I was just obsessed with my art. I was obsessed with, I was doing it and people saw how excited I was. I was living it every single day. And people were like, I want to be part of that. That's such a big part of it. It's like you got to live your mission, you got to live the thing, right? Some people are just, I don't know, they're creating it. They're trying to create this vision over here for something that they're not actually obsessed with. They're not living it, right? Like, you've got to be the one living this where people are like, wow, whatever that guy's drinking, I need some of that. That's a big part of it, right? That's one of the things you got to do. The next thing I had here is you've got to create a really great opportunity for those people, for the A players. Like, what's the opportunity for them, right? Everybody's looking for an opportunity. They're trying to figure things out. And they. And good people, the A players, they have a lot of opportunities. So what's the opportunity for them? Like, why should they step into your world? What does that look like, right? Number one is like, they gotta feel part of the vision, right? So I started sharing the vision. Like, oh, that's cool. I want to be part of that. It's the first part, right? But then next is like, how do you create an opportunity for them? You know? A really good example is Dave Woodward. Dave was someone who me and him. Like, I met him initially, man, probably 10 years before ClickFunnels. And I cast a lot of visions with him. I tried to do things. I pitched him on a lot of things. And a lot of me's like, oh, it's cool, it's cool. But, like, it wasn't the right thing. And I was okay with that. He was okay with that. And then eventually, I remember when ClickFunnels came around, we were probably, I don't know, five or six months old. And he knew how passionate I was about it because, like, he saw me glowing up and fired up, right? He remember, he started coming to the events, and he came to him when I spoke at Traffic and Conversion, and he saw me living it. So exciting. And then he came to me afterwards. He's like, I want to plug into that. Like, I feel the energy of this. It feels bigger than, like, than just a software company. It feels like something like, I want to be part. Like, what does that look like? And I didn't know, but I was like. I was like, dude, if you want to come be part of this, like, we'll figure out an opportunity. We'll figure out a way where this will be very. Like, this will be amazing for you, right? And so we started trying to figure out that opportunity for him. And again, at first, I didn't know what it was. Same thing with Todd Dickerson. When I plugged in Todd, like, he didn't come initially for, like, this is how much money you're gonna make. Here's the salary, here's the paycheck, right? He came because he's like, there's something here. Like, we can do something. Like, he's like, my skill set, but your skill set. We can do something really, really cool, right? And Todd works, as you probably heard the story, he worked for free for a year before he ever asked. In fact, he never asked for something before. I. I find this smart of like, I should pay you something so you don't leave, right? And then. But then inside of that, it's like we're creating a world where they can thrive, right? How do you create an environment where the. A players can. Can, like, long term? Like, I can, I can plant my flag here because there's opportunity. Like, I could build a business. I could get equity, I could get profit share. I could like, whatever, like the, the thing that they desire. Like, how do you build that opportunity for them as well? Right? That's a big part. And the last thing I kind of had here was just understanding that the same way that when God's revealing the vision to you, he doesn't show you everything up front. And the same thing is true when I share my vision with people. I can't. If I were to share with my team everything that's in my head, it would overwhelm them, it would stress them out. There are a few people I can pitch and catch with 100%, but there's not a lot. Right? And I know that. And so I share with them what they need to understand for the next step of the vision. Right. I remember her Mosi spoke at Funnel Hacking Live five or six or something, and he was doing a sales presentation. The thing he said was so cool. He's like, the problem most salespeople have is that they. Is that they're selling the trip, not the destination, right? Like, let's say you're going to Hawaii. You're selling a trip to Hawaii. Like, you sell the palm trees and the coconuts and the like, like the beach. And like, that's what you're selling, right? You're not selling. All right, you're going to go on an Uber to the airport. They're going to sit on a plane for 22 hours, then you're going to like, all the little things. That's what most people are doing, right? So I'm casting a vision. I'm not casting, like, okay, you're going to jump in an Uber, then from there you're going to do this and you're going to do like. Like, you don't sell that, right? I sell them like, this is what Hawaii looks like. I've seen it. It is beautiful. You guys are want, like you're going to want to come to Hawaii. I promise you. It's amazing, right? And they're like, okay, like that's the vision you're selling them on. But you don't tell them all the other pieces because that'll overwhelm, it'll stress people out. But after they're sold on the vision and they're part of it, they plugged in and they understand it, then you can start revealing, okay, here's the path. Here's the things we got to do. But they got to be bought in first. If they're not bought into the strategy, the vision, the thing first, they're not going to be willing to put in the effort it takes, right? Think about this. I think about this all the time. Like, had I have known what it was going to take, in fact, I would say probably once a month I get somebody comes and be like, hey, Russell, I've got a billion dollar idea. Like, I'm gonna share with you. You're gonna make so much money. I was like, no. They're like, why not? Like, I have a billion dollar idea. I do not want another one. I know what the destination is to build a billion dollar thing. And I have been on that path. I've been doing it for the last decade. I have no desire to do it again. Cause I know what it's like. So when people pitch me on a billion dollar idea, I'm like, that's the last thing in the world I want right now is another billion dollar idea, okay? Because I know what it's like, right? They always say, like, the reason why we're successful entrepreneurs when we're younger is because we don't know any better. We don't know all the pitfalls and the stress and the ups and the downs and all things are going to happen for us to be successful, right? We don't know about those things, okay? And so what we see a vision, like, I want to do this thing. And so you go down and you're willing to do the things, you're willing to go through the pain, you're willing to go through all the steps in the destiny, in the trip, in the travel, because you're trying to get to that destination, right? And so for you, it's the same thing. Understanding, like if you try to spew out, like, okay, this is what's going to take and we're going to have to kill ourselves and da da. Like you don't tell people that up front because that's not how you sell them, right? You sell them the vision. Here's the destination, here's where we're going to go. It's going to be hard, but together, if we combine our forces, this is what's possible, this is what we can do. Right? They get bought in the vision and then they don't care about like the rest of it, Right? You know, like after we got, we bought into the clickfunnels vision, we started running and we were doing the thing and it was like, I can't tell you that. Like, I wish someday I'm going to write a book. I bought Bootstrap.com a long time ago specifically for the purpose of writing a book. To tell the clickfunnel story. Someday. So someday you guys will hear the story. But it has not been sunshine and roses, like building a billion dollar brand. No, it is. It is not. The things that I deal with on a weekly basis are things that would have crushed me had I. If I'd have had to deal with one of those things a year ago, right? Things I deal with hourly, daily. How much you have to increase your capacity to handle a thing is so much, right? Anyway, so someday I'll tell the full story, but just understanding that the job of yours is to cast the vision and then people start running and then what will happen is that your capacity will increase. The trials, the headaches we had year one of ClickFunnels or things that like now I solve in a text message like, boom's done, right? And they're like week long, you know, month long. Stress, anxiety, da, da, da. Right? And the things I'm doing with now I never could handle back then. And so that's what's happening to you. Like you're sharing the vision. People come on board and then they're going to go through with you, right? And it's going to break them, but it's going to increase their capacity and break and increase the capacity. And along the way you're going to lose people. There's people who are like, I can't do this anymore. I'm out. I cannot handle the heat, I can't handle the pressure. And that's okay, right? People are going to leave, they're going to. They were part of your vision for a while, but now they're not. That's okay, right? But there's gonna be people who keep going and they're gonna go through this Refiner's fire with you, right? Of breaking down and increasing capacity. Breaking down, increasing the capacity. And you look at them a decade later when they're still with you, right? Those are your A players. Those are the ones. But it's because they. They bought into the vision initially. So those are some of the things. Again, I don't think it's a complete answer. I don't think it's the best answer, but it's the best answer. I have to kind of recap the things that I talked about, right? Number one was you have to step back up and become a leader, right? You have to. You do that by the energy, the vibration you bring, right? By raising your standards, letting people know about their standards, living in the trenches with your team, and then understanding the three mandates of leadership. See it as it is, not worse than it is, See it better than it is, and make it the way you see it. Okay? Step number two, we talked about how to capture it through figuring out, like, the inspirations, looking at those things, right? What's your art? Being the unreasonable person and understand the vision is not going to be clear, but your job is to go out there and keep stepping forward and going through it, right? And the last step was then how to cast it right. Living it every single day, creating opportunities for the A players, and then selling people on the vision or the destination, not on all the steps inside the trip. We do those things. That's the things that I've done successfully over the years to build up click funnels, the brand, the people, the team. And I'm going through the process again right now. Like, we're in the middle of casting new vision, and there's a lot of pain with that going through it, but also a lot of excitement, and it's really, really cool. So for those of you guys who have a funnel, I want you to understand if you have a funnel but it's not converting, the problem 99% of the time is your funnel's good, but you suck at selling. If you want to learn how to sell so your funnels will actually convert, then get a ticket to my next selling online event by clicking on link in the description or going to selling online.com YouTube right now. All right, with that said, you guys, I hope that helps you guys to figure out how to capture and cast the vision as a leader. Hopefully it'll help you to have a vision so your people will not perish, and hopefully it'll help to change your business and your life. If you enjoyed this episode, please let me know. Please share with other people. It Mean the World to Me. If you're on YouTube, make sure you like subscribe. Comment down below. I read all the comments, which is really fun. If you're listening to the podcast, please go leave me a review. Mean the World to Me I appreciate you guys. Thanks so much for listening. And I'm gonna end this one where we started with one of my Favorite quotes from T.E. lawrence all men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake up in the day to find it was a vanity. But the dreamers of the day, they are dangerous men, for they may act out their dreams with open eyes to make it possible. Thanks so much you guys. I appreciate you. Become a dreamer of the day.