The Pride Cycle, And How It Affects Your Company

What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson and welcome to a late night Marketing Secrets podcast. So the big question is, how are entrepreneurs like us who didn't cheat and take on venture capital, were spending money from our own pockets. How do we market in a way that lets us get our products and our services and the things that we believe in out to the world and yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing Secrets. Hey everyone. I'm in my home tonight right now. My wife and my kids are asleep. I'm about to head to bed. I still got kind of a stuffy nose. Monday, my cold went away. And then Todd and Ryan and Karen and Nick and everybody, a bunch of people flew in town this week to do a big hackathon and working on some new updates in Click Funnels and Click Funnels, Action XMD and a bunch of just insane cool things we'll be showing at Funnel Hacking Live. And we basically pulled two all nighters in a row and lo and behold, my cold came back. So now we have official proof that sleep does correlate to if you're gonna get sick or not. So yeah, you should sleep more often. So tonight we actually went home early. It's a little after 10, so I'm gonna get some sleep tonight, which I'm excited for, but wanted to share a quick message with you guys that I thought was really cool. I was kind of just catching up with my voxers and my inner circle members and answering them. And I had a really cool conversation tonight through Voxer with one of my inner circle members. He's a ClickFunnels member 2 comma club winner and inner circle member is named Akbar Sheikh. A lot of you guys may know him. He's very prominent in our community. And it was a really cool conversation. And I'm not gonna share the whole thing because, you know, first off, just confidentiality with my clients. Second off, it doesn't matter. Kind of the end result of what we talked about ended up being really cool. And I thought I'd spend a little bit sharing with all of you guys because I think it's important. So what Akbar, he was talking to me was just basically talking about, you know, business owners who and entrepreneurs have success and then a lot of times they stop being humble. And there's a concept, there's a concept called the Pride Cycle. So those who, you know, went to seminary like I did, there's a concept called the Pride cycle. This is how the pride cycle works. Okay? So first is you are humble, right? And you're eager to learn and try to grow, whatever, right? And then you, because of that, because you're humble, you start having success. You start learning and growing and developing. And then you go in this circle, right? So those who are listening, you can't see my finger, but those are watching. I'm making a circle, my fingers. You start going up, you're having success, you start learning, and more good things happen. And all of a sudden, you get to the very top, and boom, you're having success. And then what happens? We're start having success. We start drinking our own Kool Aid. We start becoming prideful. We start thinking, man, I am amazing. And what happens at the top of that? Then this is the backside of the pride cycle, where then the Lord or whoever it is humbles you. And basically you become humble until the point you end back at the very bottom and you cycled. And then hopefully you're sufficiently humble where you can learn and grow. Then you start this process up again, and you go up, and then you get top of the cycle. And then usually people at the top become prideful, and then they crash again. So this is pride cycle, right? And this is happen all day long. It's been happening since the beginning of time. You can see it in political leaders, religious leaders. You can see it in people, humans, authors. Like, anyone in your own life, you've seen it. I guarantee you've seen it. If you step back and look at your own life, you've seen the pride cycle, and it's a true thing that's happening, right? And so we were talking about that. It's like, people a lot of times ask me, like, russell, how come. How do you stay humble with things happening? And I was like, because I'm scared of the pride cycle. I've gone on the full loop, and the bottom's not very much fun. So I'm trying to figure out, like, how do I stay up here? And the thing that I know is that when you're prideful, you have to crash. If you believe scripture, you know, it says the Lord will have a humble people. Either you will be humble or he will humble you. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna be humble because I don't want to be humble. That sounds horrible. And it's interesting. I was. Next thing I kind of told Akbar about, I had a friend, I was in Mexico and this marketing thing, and I was talking to this guy who became a Friend later. And he's super wealthy, you know, buys and sells businesses and makes, you know, a ton of money. And what's interesting is we were talking. He wanted to hear my story. So, of course, as most entrepreneurs do, I tell him the highlight reel about how cool I am. And he's like, oh. And not impressed. I'm like, huh? And he asked me. He's like, so, have you always had success? And I was like. And I kind of told him. I'm like, well, twice. I pretty much bankrupted my companies. And. And he's like, well, tell me that story. That story sounds more interesting. So I kind of tell him the story. And then he's like, good. Good. I'm like, what do you mean, good? That's not good? And he's like, no. He's like, you cycled? He said, I'll never work an entrepreneur who hasn't cycled at least once. I was like, what do you mean, cycled? And he said, you built a company, you've crashed. He's like, if you haven't cycled, he's like, you're still going to drink your own Kool Aid, read your own bio, and believe it. And he's like, it's not going to be good. And I was like, oh, how cool is that? First off, cycling sounds way cooler than failing. But second off, I was just like, how interesting. It's the pride cycle, right? He would. He only works on who's at least cycled once because they're sufficiently humble that they listen to advice and they're gonna. They're gonna grow. And so Akbar and I were kind of talking about this, and then his message back was like, well, he's like, I've been down the bottom. He's like, but I've gotten the spot where I'm kind of top. He's like, I don't want that to be part of my story. I don't want the crashing part of my story. Like, what do I do? And so I just wanted to share this piece of advice, because this is kind of what I told him, and I think that it's important for all of us to think about. So what I told him, I said, well, first off, from, like, a business, like, basically, I learned is like. Because he asked, he's like, is it about diversification? Is that the key? And I was like, well, kind of like, I believe in diversification in some things, but not your business. I think everyone should go, like, whatever you want, whatever your business is going to be, you should go all in. Like, you should diversify your business. I think having multiple businesses is the fastest way to destroy your business. And I know that from personal experience, from a decade of it. So this is not me just philosophying. This is me doing a lot of businesses, and none of them could grow having a sole focus. You're not diversifying your businesses. You're diversifying the pieces around your business. Like, where are the singular failure points? For me, my first time or the second biggest big business crash was I only I was relying on one merchant account and that was it. And it's like, ugh. And so it was like, diversification of merchant accounts to protect myself. So if this goes out, this goes out. Like, I have protection. Right? That was number one. Then, like, diversification of traffic sources. Like, yesterday, yesterday's podcast, I talked about the Facebook slab that's coming. It's like, if all your eggs are in the Zuckerberg basket, like, you could be in trouble. I know so many people that all their eggs were Google's basket was ppc. And PPC shifted business is gone when they went to SEO. And SEO shifted business is gone. Like, diversifying your traffic source. Like, you need to make sure you're getting traffic from at least two sources. If you have a salesperson, at least two sales guys. If you got a programmer, at least two program, like diversification inside the business to protect it, but not diversification of your business. Like, you shouldn't be doing five different businesses. That's the opposite of good. That's number one. And then number two is trying to remain humble. And it's hard sometimes, right? Like, it's just like, I need to keep myself sufficiently humble because if not, I'm going to be humbled. So it's like, what does that mean? Well, for me, it means praying to God. It means not being a jerk. It means remembering that it's not me. Like, it's an amazing team of people remembering that the only reason I've been given these gifts and these blessings is because there's a purpose for it. I'm trying to help other people. If I lose sight of those things, man, my head can grow fast. And I understand. Like, I have a fat head anyway. I can't wear hats. This is actually a true story. I can't wear hats because I have a fat. My circumference in my head is enormous. I've tried my whole life to wear hats, and I can't. You'll never see me in a hat ever, because my head's so fat. So my head will Continue to grow and swell. So that's like. Number two is like, just being aware of it, Being aware of where you are in this pride cycle. Like, if you are sufficiently humble, that's good. Like, stay there. And then as you start having success, like, try to stay humble because it's hard. Number two thing was, I look at all the people that I know that have over the last 15 years of doing this, and I've seen people go through this cycle. The ones that don't make it back up are the ones who are too prideful to learn. Blows my mind. Between Christmas time and now, I've had three close friends who have had big businesses who have crashed, who come to me saying, hey, Russell, I see what you're doing. Is there any way I could come to your office and shatter you to see what you're doing so I can understand it, so I can get my business back up? And all of them are close friends. And I was like, yeah, I would definitely be game for that. But first you got to read my two books, Read ExpertSecrets and.com Secrets. Because, like, that's like, that's the foundation. Read those and then let me know and then you can come. And so I told them that, and none of them have read the books, and none of them will come. They won't learn. And I'm like, oh, you kidding me? Like, I feel like. I feel like at this time in my life, like, I'm the top of my game. Like, again, this is me and my head starting to swirl. Like, I don't think there's a lot of people who understand marketing better than me at this point. Marketing and sales. Like, and not just because of the big ego, but just, like, I've dedicated a decade and a half to this, right? And, like, at a high level, like, super intense, super immersion, super. Like, not just theory, but testing, testing. I don't think there's many people that are more than that, but I also think there's more people that study more than me. I still study because I want to stay sufficiently humble. Like, I'm always learning. Like, I'm in mastermind groups. I pay other people for coaching. I have multiple coaches happening all the time on my phone. If I was to show you my ibooks account, I have, I would say, conservatively at this point, probably 350 to $400,000 in courses on my phone that I listen to every single day. Old school stuff, new stuff. I'm always trying to learn because I don't want the market to Shift and me be left behind. I need to be sufficiently humble so I can continue to learn, so I can see what's happening, be aware of the trends, be aware of the evergreen things that are never going to shift. And just like I'm always learning partially for me also. I heard Rich Sheffern say this one time, he's like, I get paid to think for a lot of people. And he's like, that's why I have to learn and study. Because, like, then I share with other people and I'm thinking for other people. I feel like I feel an obligation that too. Like, I have a lot of people following me, listening to me and like, I need to consume and learn and keep on top of the game. So I continue to give back because I get paid from every from my tribe to contribute back. So that's number two. And then the third thing is sometimes we need to cycle and sometimes it's not always because you're prideful. Sometimes just you're going in the wrong direction. I look at, I look at my business over the last 15 years, like I was running in a direction and I thought it was right at the time and maybe it was right at the time. Like, I learned a lot of things, met a lot of people and we serve people as best as we knew at the time. And then everything crashed and because that thing shifted and then I started running this direction, running the best I could, best I understood. I made a lot of mistakes, but met amazing people. I learned, I learned, I learned build this thing up. And then it crashed again and then I shifted. And I look at during those times, like during the crashes, I was just like devastated. Like, I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was, you know, I thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, but it didn't work. So apparently something was wrong. And a lot of times maybe it's not because you something wrong, maybe it's that God needed you over here, but you're running this direction. So he had to like to force this thing so you'd be humble enough to listen to move and then boom, humble enough listen to be able to move again. And you know, I look at my life now, I look at the path, I look at the people that I met because of these things that I wouldn't have met otherwise that have built clickfunnels. I met Todd because of a crash here. I met Dave because of this. I met Brent, I met John, all these people on my team, Ryan, like all these amazing. And I mean there's so many on my team I could go on for hours. But those people were like, I picked up each of those during these journeys, these ups and these downs that came to part of our team that made the foundation that we needed to be able to build click funnels. And I look at now my life like man, can you like those, those things were necessary. So sometimes, you know, you could be doing everything right, but you just have to trust God. God may need your business to crash for him to get you to where he needs you at and just being okay with that. And like okay. In fact I was talking to who was it the other day, someone the other day about that in my, in my own life. And I was just like, you know, clickfunnels is awesome. I love it. I believe it's my mission. But maybe there's maybe like this might be not be the end mission. Maybe there's something I supposed to do over here. And maybe like what does that mean? Like I don't know yet. I just need to pay attention and try to be sufficiently humble. So like when it comes it's like, hey, I need, you know, maybe, maybe the business crashes. Maybe I need to sell the business, maybe I need to keep it forever. Like I don't know. But it's trying to like be humble enough to listen so that we know like what's the plan? Where are we trying to go? So kind of stepping back and putting our faith in God and saying, look, I'll go where you want me to go. I'll do what you need me to do. If you need this to end, that's okay. And what am I gonna learn from this and where am I gonna go from here? So anyway, I hope to help somebody out there who's listening because it's, it's, it's pretty cool, pretty special. So there you go. There's the pride cycle. This is seminary, early morning seminary. I didn't go to early morning seminary. Seminary 101, but that's what happens. And so for you guys to understand that like, hey, where are you at in this pride cycle? Are you at the bottom? Are you humble? So awesome. Like cherish that. Study, learn, grow. Like stay humble. And then you start coming up towards the top. Stay humble because that crash is never fun. But if you do crash, understand there's a purpose for it. So hope it helps you guys appreciate. You all have an amazing night. I'm gonna get to bed, get a couple hours sleep before the morning. Waits a few hours. So much fun. Alright, we'll talk to you soon. Bye. Want more marketing secrets? If so, then go get your copies of my two best selling books. Book number one is called Expert Secrets and you can get a free copy@expertsecrets.com and book number two is called Dotcom Secrets and you can get your free copy@dotcomsecrets.com Inside these two books you'll find my top 35 secrets that we've used to become the fastest growing non VC backed SaaS startup company in the world.