There are two types of people in this world…
In today’s episode Russell talks about going to the NCAA Wrestling Tournament with his dad. He also talks about important lessons he learned from his dad.
Here are 3 cool things you can look forward to in this episode:
So listen below to hear two important lessons Russell learned from his dad and how they have helped him in his life.
---Transcript---
Good morning everybody. I hope you guys are doing amazing. My name is Russell Brunson and I want to welcome you to Marketing In Your Car. Alright guys, it’s a beautiful day, beautiful day. I’m excited. I got my haircut yesterday as some of you guys heard, which is nice. I wanted to add, I was thinking about as I was getting my haircut, and there was one other thing. I was telling you guys about my OCD with socks and stuff. I realized another reason why I hate socks. I’m going to talk about one more thing with my OCD-ness and then we’ll get back to business.
So you know when you have pants on, like Levis and shoes and socks, you have white socks underneath right. And you sit and when you’re standing your pants are the right length most of the time, but sometimes you sit and they come up and you can see your white socks. And it feels like your high watering. I hate that too. When you have sandals on and flip flops and you sit down and your pants are a little bit higher, nobody knows. You got white socks on, everybody knows. So another reason why I hate socks.
So now that we are over that, let’s get back to work. This morning was awesome. I woke up early and went out there and was doing squats and legs. Had a good leg day, and at the end of leg day I thought I’m going to do box jumps because that would be a great way to destroy my legs at the end of leg day. I learned a very valuable lesson that is important for all of you guys who do legs and that is, don’t do box jumps at the end of leg day. Because somewhere in the ten, you know I did three sets of ten box jumps, the higher ones, At was at three box jumps left and I slipped and smacked my shin in two spots on the box and I’m bleeding, and I got a goose bump the size of a golf ball on my leg. And then right above it is bleeding like crazy. So that was not fun. So another lesson to learn today.
Today I’ve actually got two important lessons that actually are useful, as opposed to the ones I gave you yesterday and today. I hope that you made it through yesterday and now you guys are prepared for some good stuff. I’m going to teach you guys two lessons that I learned from my dad that have been vital to everything in my life. I think that they are helpful for you and for your kids, and for your everybody who you work with and have a chance to serve. So I’ve been thinking about this a lot because my dad and I, next week are actually going to the NCAA wrestling tournament. So as you guys know I’m kind of obsessed with wrestling. With wrestling, we’re not on TV, we don’t get people to show up at our matches. IT’s kind of like a sport that gets very little love right. So the once a year when it’s a big deal and we’re actually on ESPN, maybe it’s ESPN 2 I don’t even know, but we’re actually on TV is the NCAA wrestling tournament. So a couple of years ago my wife and my dad surprised me. They booked me a trip out to the NCAA’s. I didn’t know, they basically said, here’s airplane tickets, you’re going somewhere. And I kind of knew, I’m like, well I know NCAA tournaments this weekend, everyone in the airport’s got cauliflower ear, kind of know what’s happening right. So I’m getting there and they were like, “When you land in Denver, open this package but don’t open it before.” So I land in Denver I open the package and there’s two tickets to the NCAA tournament, and it says meet your dad at terminal whatever, and it was just the coolest gift, I had no idea he was coming. And I went over to that terminal, and my dad was there and we went to the NCA together and had a great time. That was probably 5 or 6 years ago.
I’ve gone back once or twice since them. Deagan Smith, my man, invited me a couple of times. We, I think two NCAA’s ago, he got me front row tickets. So I flew in, got front row tickets to the finals, we watched the finals together, and I flew out, which was so cool. This year Deagan was like, “Hey you going?” and I was like, “I don’t think I’m going to go this year. I just have so much stuff happening for the live event. You know, if my dad went with me, it’d be worth it.” So I texted my dad, “Hey dad, if I get tickets to the NCAA, you in?” and he texted back “Yes.” I was like, “Cool.” That was before church a couple of weeks ago. So after church I called him like, “Hey I just wanted to make sure you’re in.” and he was like, “We better be going, I’ve been telling everybody that I’m going to the NCAA tournament.” So I’m like, “Sweet man.” So we bought tickets. It’s in Madison Square Garden this year in New York. So we got a place downtown where we’re going to be staying. We got 12th row seats, we were trying to get front row seats, but they were gone. So we got 12th row seats, which is pretty sweet. It’s going to be fun, so I’m excited and looking forward to that.
So I’ve just been thinking about my dad a lot and actually called him on, what was it, my birthday, Tuesday was my birthday. He called me on my birthday and we talked for an hour and it was super fun. So I started thinking about him and just cool stuff I learned from him. There’s two lessons that I think were really important that I wanted to share with you guys.
Lesson number one, my dad used to always tell me when we’d have our little dad conversations, you know when we’re driving or whatever. I don’t even know how it came up, but I remember him saying this multiple times and it having a really big impact on me. I remember just always hearing this thought in my head, but he used to tell me, he said “there’s two kinds of people in this world Russell. There are people who are really good at finding problems, that’s the majority of the world. The second kind of person are people that are really good at finding answers. You wanna make sure that you’re the type of person that finds answers.” And I remember hearing that and I thought it was cool, but it didn’t make sense to me then. Then I fast forward and I start this business and I start doing things and I realize that’s how the majority of the world is. They’re finding problems all the time right. They come to you here’s a problem, here’s another problem, here’s a problem and they’re just all about finding problems. It’s about as hard to find a problem as it is to find a solution.
As I started this business and I realized that people always have these problems I thought, I went back to my dad’s lesson and I l thought, You know what, there’s a lot of problems out there and I don’t want to be the dude who always finds problems. I’m going to be the guy that finds solutions. Man that’s served me my whole life. It’s served me so much in my business. You look at why we create products, we’re creating answers to people’s problems. So problems are everywhere. We just gotta figure out how to solve those problems and people will give you insane amounts of money for that. I look at my coaching program, I look at our software, I look at all the stuff we do, it’s all, we’re the second person. We’re the people that are finding solutions or finding answers. That little nugget that he gave me probably when I was ten or eleven years old and I repeated it a few times throughout my childhood, has meant the world to me.
So that’s the first one, I’ll repeat that. There are two types of people, people who find problems and people who find solutions. Make sure you’re the type of person who finds solutions. So that was number one, which is so cool on so many different levels. So there you go.
Number two, this is a lesson that was a lot more subtle, and I guess it was a lesson at first I thought was more of a guilt trip, but man it worked. My parents were really good at giving us chores and making sure that we worked and were producers inside of our family. It wasn’t like we didn’t have work to do, which I’m grateful for, I hated it at the time, but love it now. So one Saturday, as they’re giving out the chores to everyone, for the Saturday day, my chore was to go and clean his car. So I went and I washed the outside of it, and I washed the inside of it. I’m spraying the windows, doing all that kind of stuff, and then I came in to my dad and said, “Okay dad I’m done. Do you want to come look at it?” and he looked at me and said, I can’t remember exactly, but basically he said, cause I asked him, “You want to come look at it and make sure it’s good and I can be done?” and he said, “Are you proud of it?” and I go, “Am I proud of it?” He said, “If you’re proud of it, then you’re done.” And I remember thinking, huh, am I proud of this? I was thinking in my head, I know that I cut corners, I was trying to get done so I could go goof off. He’s like, if you’re proud of it, you’re done. I remember thinking, I’m like, “let me go check again dad. I’m going to go back and check.” So I went back again and I started looking around and I realized that I wasn’t that proud of it. I had just gone halfway and did a couple of things, so I went back in the car and I did it right. I did it in a spot where I was proud of it. I came back and I said, “Dad I’m done. Do you want to come look?” He said, “Are you proud of it?” I said, “I am.” And he said, “Okay then you’re done.” He didn’t even have to look at it, he knew if I was proud of it that I had done it. And I think that, again another lesson that served me my whole life. I look at what I do in wrestling, in business, in parenting, in all the different things that comes back to me. “Are you proud of it. Did you do a good enough job that you are proud of it, and if you did then you’re done. If not, then go back and do it til you’re proud of it.”
Anyway, just kind of a little thing that has meant the world to me. There you go, there’s two amazing lessons from my dad. He’s just an amazing guy, amazing entrepreneur, amazing father, amazing friend. Someone I look up to. I’m excited next week to spend some time with him, it’s going to be amazing. Hopefully those lessons that have meant so much to me have meant a lot to you as well. It’s something you guys can take from this podcast. Alright guys that’s it for today, I’m at the office. Got an amazing day today, and I’m excited. So I appreciate you all, thanks for listening. If you’ve enjoyed this, please share with your friends, your families, anyone you think would benefit from it. Post it on Facebook, Tweet it out. Instagram it. I don’t even know if you can Instagram it. I’m becoming an Instragramer, I don’t even know how that works. Anyway, if you’ve enjoyed this then it’s your obligation and duty to share it. I’d appreciate that. And that’s it you guys, thanks so much for everything, have an amazing day and I’ll talk to you all soon.