The second super power that you need to add that’s, unfortunately, invisible to the entrepreneurial eye.
On this episode Russell talks about being able to set long term goals to help you focus today and stop chasing all the shiny things that you see along the way. Here are some interesting things you will hear in this episode:
So listen here to find out how to add another super power to your entrepreneurship.
---Transcript---
What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson and welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about being an entrepreneur and sometimes it might not be good.
Alright everybody, so as you know, I love entrepreneurs. I am an entrepreneur; I’m obsessed with entrepreneurs. My entire goal in life is to help entrepreneurs change more people’s lives because I think that we are the only types of people that can. Because we’re the only types that are crazy enough to risk everything we have, our money, our time, our energy, our talents, the pursuit of creating something amazing that will change other people’s lives.
Some people think entrepreneurs are greedy, all they care about is money and I don’t believe that’s true. I believe some are, yeah, there’s definitely some that are. But I think that a lot of people, the entrepreneurial spark starts because of money, because of the desire for that, but I think for most of us, and you’ll find that out if you’re still in the path, as soon as you start making money it starts becoming stupid. You actually don’t care about it all because it’s really not that cool. So there you go, for those of you guys, I hate to ruin the surprise for you, but when you get there, nobody actually cares about money. It’s just the thing that you desire at first until you get it, and then you’re like, huh, that was actually not nearly as cool as I thought it was going to be.
But the cool thing is in the interim as you start doing that, you start serving people and you start seeing their lives change and you’re like, “Holy crap, that was actually awesome.” So that’s kind of the thing.
Like I said, I love entrepreneurs because they’re the people who care enough to risk life and limb, everything they got, all their time, energy, money, talents with the hope they can actually help other people. So first off, I love you guys. I’m going to stay there. Second off, I also realized that while we have super powers, kind of like the X-men. It’s funny because a lot of people talk about how entrepreneurs have ADD and it’s like this bad thing. And while I agree that most entrepreneurs have ADD and things like that, those things they are not disabilities, they’re super powers.
I remember watching the movie the X-men the first time, one of the multiple one’s in that franchise. I remember watching it and there’s these people, the X-men who they think can fly and they can disappear and do all these amazing things, but the mortal humans are like, “We need to get rid of their super powers.” And they’re trying to get rid of these super powers. And it’s just like, even some of the X-men are embarrassed of their super powers and are trying to get rid of them.
And it’s just like, you don’t understand, those super powers are what makes you amazing. Don’t get rid of those things. So I feel that way, a lot of times entrepreneurs are the people like, “I’m trying to get my kids not to have such ADD or quit fidgeting.” All these things. And it’s just like, dude, that’s why they’re great. Don’t stifle those things.
So I’m saying those things in caveat because I also understand there are some things that us entrepreneurs are not good at, especially me. Some of you guys know, if you listen to the podcast, I recently hired a consultant, Jeff Woods from The One Thing. It’s funny because when I first read that book, I kind of hated it. Because I was like, “I don’t want to focus on one thing.” And now it’s interesting as I progress in my career and my life, I realize more and more how important that, the focus on the one thing actually is. In fact, it’s essential to everything. I look at my entrepreneurs and most of them that join my inner circle. They come in 50,000 ideas and my entire focus for the year number one is to get them to kill all their babies, AKA their little businesses and focus on one.
It was just hard, it was hard for me. But I couldn’t go, I couldn’t break the 2 or 3 million dollar a year mark until I killed all my babies and focused on one. And as soon as we did, we went up from 2 or 3 million dollars a year to 70 or 80 million dollars a year, within, not a very long period of time. It’s crazy. Crazy. Within a couple of years.
So that’s one thing that I’ve learned. Entrepreneurs, we have these tendencies that cause greatness, but also tendencies that cause tend to kill us. One of them is we have a thousand businesses, we have all these babies we love and things like that. But during my consulting call this week with Jeff, from the One Thing, it was interesting, he kept telling me, “You gotta stop acting so entrepreneurial.” I’m like, “But you don’t understand. That’s my super..I’m a super entrepreneur.” And he’s like, “I know but entrepreneurship got you here. But to get to the next level, you have to start running and understanding and thinking like a business owner.”
And he keeps trying to get me to figure out what’s my goal someday. What’s this goal I’m out here for? And it’s tough because I started going through this exercise and I talked about it a couple of podcasts ago. It was weird because I realized that all my someday goals, I accomplished like 18 months ago. How weird is that? And as I’m going through this exercise, I told him “I’m really frustrated. I feel like I have perfect clarity and vision with what’s going to happen over the next 6 months, a year, maybe 18 months. After that it’s like a dark cliff.” And I remember as I told him that he kind of laughed. He was like, “Let me show you something.” Because it was a voice call, so he flipped his camera on Skype and said, “Let me draw a little picture for you.”
And so for those of you guys who are listening, I’m going to try to describe the picture, and for those watching, I’m going to try painting it with my finger. I’m in my car right now. But he said, “Look at this. This is a timeline right? So it starts at the left and you have this timeline. This is when you’re born, and this is when you wrestled, and this is when you started your business, and this is when Clickfunnels launched, and this is when Clickfunnels took off, and here you are today. This is the timeline. So we judge our time based on these landmarks that happen throughout time. Most entrepreneurs, we’re visionaries so then we look at the future we see all these possibilities.”
So if you look at this graph I’m drawing from the left to the right, it’s very linear and then it hits modern time and from here it shotguns out. So going up there’s one thing and then there’s another one. There’s like ten things shooting out from this. Almost like, it looks like a broom almost. It’s like a stick with a timeline and then it breaks off into this broom with all these possiblitites, all these things fanning out that I could go. And he says, “The problem with that, we see all these shiny objects, so we chase those things. Entrepreneurs become great when they’re able to focus on one thing. But what most entrepreneurs do moving forward, they get stuck because they can see forward 6 months. In 6 months there’s like 4 or 5 things that they could hit. These 4 or 5 shiny objects. And you go like a year and there’s more. The further out you go the harder it is to see and about 18 months it gets so….that fan of things going outward from where you are today, gets so wide it gets really hard to start seeing things. That’s why entrepreneurs are really good at seeing about 6 months to a year from now and knowing the steps to take and they’re running and doing all those kind of things, but you go past that and it’s kind of a black hole.”
“What we do with The One Thing and focus on is figuring out like a laser, instead of…..” I wish I could draw a picture so you could see it better, for those who are listening. But instead of having this thing fanning out where you’re trying to hit all these shiny object what they do is start with the someday goal. Where do you want to be someday? And getting crystal clear on that. Someday I want to be, and this is like in the future as far out as you can think. Where do you want to be, what do you want life to look like?
So I’ve spent the last 3 ½, 4 weeks trying to figure that out, which has been really, really hard. So just so you know, it’s not an easy thing. So you figure out, here’s the someday goal and from there it’s like, okay now we gotta reverse engineer timeline backwards of all the milestones we have to hit to be able to get to that one thing. So we reverse engineer. So okay, 5 years, where do I need to be in 5 years from now to be one track to hit my someday goal? And then, now I crystallized my 5 year goal. Now what do I gotta be in a year from now? And then where do I gotta be this month? This week? Today?
And then we focus on just the one thing that we’re going to accomplish that going to achieve that next landmine, not landmine. Landmines explode. The next landmark, and the next one and next one and next one. Man, it’s been a fascinating exercise. The business ones are harder to explain, but I’m going to show you really quick, one for my personal life. One of my thoughts in this exercise, what will it mean for me to be successful as a father? So I’m like, okay for me to be successful as a father, and obviously my belief’s may be different from yours. But for me, I’ve got three boys. I want my 3 boys to go on missions and I want all my 5 kids to get married in the temple. For me, that would be ultimate success as a father. So I’m looking at someday goals, is that.
So essentially it’s like, okay where do you gotta be in 5 years from now for you to be able to accomplish that? In 5 years from now, my boys who are 11 ½ almost 12, they’ll be 17. They’re a year away from preparing for their mission. At that point, where do I have to be 5 years from now, if they’re going to go on a mission by the time they’re 18? I’m like, oh my gosh, they’ve got to be able to….all these things. That’s only 5 years from now, which is crazy. Then I’m like okay, from there, 1 year from now where do you gotta be to be on track for your 5 year goal? 1 year from now they’ve gotta do…I don’t have my kids doing…. All the sudden it shifted my whole perspective. Based on that, what are you going to do a month from now, a week from now, and today? What’s the one thing I need to do with my kids today to be able to hit that goal 5 years from now? I’m like, oh my gosh, I’m not doing anything related to that.
I found the same thing in business as I looked at my someday goal, my 5 year goal, my 1 year, my week, my month, and today, I looked at my to-do list, there wasn’t a single thing on my to-do list that got me moving towards my someday goal. I was like, how fascinating is that? I have all these shiny objects, as entrepreneurs do, they’re good, they’re creating revenue and doing stuff, but none of them lead me to my someday goal. It makes me start rethinking everything, it’s so fascinating.
So what I want you guys to do, because we’re all entrepreneurs, and I don’t think about this naturally, none of us do. It’s all the different type than us. But Jeff keeps telling me, “you need to stop acting entrepreneurial. Stop acting entrepreneurial. Figure these things out. Reverse engineer, then you can go get them really, really easily. But right now, you have no focus, you’re accomplishing things, you’re making revenue but you’re never going to hit your goal because you don’t have one. You don’t have a target.” And it’s been interesting for me.
For me, I’ve been really spending, honestly almost a month now, what’s my someday goal for my business? And I’m trying to make sure, all my core people on my management team, my company, my cofounders, my partners do they have the same someday goal as I do? Because if my someday goal is to do this, and theirs is this, the direction we go is completely different. We were thinking, just yesterday, or Monday we had a meeting with my partners and I was talking about this, and I wanted them all to say their someday goal and they’re all like, “well we just want the same someday goal as you.” I’m like, “No, think about it. If it’s different….my goal is this, yours is this, this goal may require us selling Clickfunnels, but this goal requires us not selling CLickfunnels and if we have different someday we’re running towards and yours requires selling Clickfunnels in 3 years and mine requires us never selling it, or selling it 30 years from now, everything we’re doing is going to be completely different. We gotta be on the same page with our someday goals or else we’re all screwed.”
So that’s what we’re going through now, having all of them kind of figure those things out. And then next it’s going to be fun, start doing some of the people inside my team, “What’s your someday goal? Where are you trying to get to?” and then reverse engineer things from there. It’s just interesting. I’m doing it with my business, in my personal life, with my health, with spirituality, all the different things in my life because it’s interesting, as soon as you know where you’re trying to get to, you start looking at the to-do lists you have right now. It’s interesting how none of your to-dos actually advance you towards your someday goal. All it’s doing is killing all these shiny objects that you have sprouting out from where you are right now.
So he says our life should be similar to the timeline prior, where you’ve got, I’ve got I was born, I started wrestling, I launched our first company, we launched Clickfunnels, Clickfunnels took off, and here we are today, and this should be like, “okay, then we did this” We should be able to see that timeline moving forward in the future as clear as we can see it going backwards. As soon as you can see it as clear going forward as you can going backwards, that’s when you stop acting entrepreneurially, which I hate saying that. But you start acting with intention. And it’s like, these are the steps to get to that.
It’s so simple when you look at it now, but I’ve never thought of it that way. I’ve never looked at it that way. And it’s funny because I’ve always felt like I’ve been a visionary, I know where I’m going, I know the steps. And it’s true, I know the steps for 6 months, maybe a year from now, but past then it’s invisible to me. And now that I’m doing this it’s like, holy cow, I’ve got this clarity of this is what I gotta do this year, in five years, all these landmarks to get to that end goal.
Anyway, it’s been a fascinating exercise for me. Like I said, it’s been a month and I’m still trying to, I keep re-tweaking my someday goal and re-tweaking my teams. But I think it’s worth doing. Again, in your personal life, your business, all these different things, that way you’re acting out of intention and you know where you’re going as opposed to just being entrepreneurial and killing and hunting the stuff. There’s nothing wrong with that, that’s what makes us great, the reality is none of you guys would have gotten to the point you are now if you weren’t acting entrepreneurial. Because most people, they plan so much and they don’t do anything. The whole ready, fire, aim thing. I believe in that.
It’s like, okay, here are twenty objects, I’m just going to run and throw a bunch of crap against the wall and see what sticks. There’s that part of the processing that we needed to do to find what’s going to be ours. But after you know that and you’re on the path and you know those things, now it’s like okay now let’s start acting intentionally and really get to what we want.
You know when I was wrestling, it was easy. I was like, “I want to be a state champ.” That was so clear in my mind. That’s all I cared about, thought about. You know, 8 drinks lefts, that’s all I did. I wanted to be a state champ. And then I hit it and then I was like, “I want to be an all American.” And then I hit it and it just became really, really easy. And I think it’s, again for me, as we started this exercise, all the goals I had in business had been accomplished 18 months ago. And for the last 18 months, I think that’s probably why this year was crazy for me, I did a lot of stuff. We launched two books, Expert Secrets and the Funnel Hacker Cookbook. We did 5 events. It’s been crazy and it’s because I don’t think I had a focus, so we were just trying to do more.
While that can be good, it’s very entrepreneurial, it can wear you out and can make your life suffer because you don’t know where you’re going so you’re filling all the void with stuff, to-do’s, tasks, ideas, projects, books, holy crap, you see my list. While these things sometimes fill you up, it doesn’t get you towards your goal necessarily. Not that they’re bad, they may have still been landmarks that I needed to do to get there, but I probably would have acted a little differently.
In fact, it’s funny I was doing this one thing, I can’t ruin the secrets, but this next project that I was going to try to get done this year, I’m like, it’s not, my ego wants it done this year, but there’s no purpose. So we set a date for next August to do it. I’m like, “What? That’s almost a year away, I’ve never had that much….” But strategically planning it out, that’s when it fit, that’s when it actually made sense. That’s what got me towards the next goal. It’s been fascinating.
I wish I could show you all the aha’s I’ve had personally with my own business, but it would take forever. Hopefully you’ve had one or two for yourself and as you do the exercise, I promise you guys, it’s fascinating.
So there you go, I hope that helps. Quit acting entrepreneurial, not 100% though, we need you. We need you to be a little crazy, that’s what creates the change and the stuff. I don’t want to take that super power away from you, okay. That’s your X-men super ability, but understand that maybe you can fly right now, but think if you had laser eyes too, now you got two super powers. So maybe it’s not stopping acting entrepreneurial, it’s getting your second super power.
Yes, yes, that’s what it’s called. Oh, this is the second super power, that’s way better. Keep being entrepreneurial, we adding a second super power. I’m titling this podcast that. There you go guys, appreciate you all. If you enjoyed this episode or it helped you at all, please share it. If you’re in iTunes I just found out that there’s a little button that you click and there’s a thing to share an episode, it gives you a link. Take that link, it direct links to this episode and you can go share it with your friends, family members, anybody else who’s an entrepreneur, anyone on your team, in fact, your team, your partner, your employees, so all you guys can focus and figure out where you’re going. Thanks you guys, appreciate you all, and we’ll talk to you soon. Bye.