Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - 10 Years Ago In Fiji...

Episode Date: September 18, 2019

My surprising transformation from my last trip to Fiji to this trip... On this special episode recorded in the Namale Resort in Fiji, Russell reflects on the last time he was there, and how different his life is than he had expected. Here are some of the cool things you will hear about on today's episode: Where Russell's business was when he first went to the Namale Resort ten years ago. What he thought he'd be doing in ten years, and how it's different from how it actually is. And why Russell and Tony Robbins both believe people overestimate what they are capable of doing in a year, and underestimate what they are capable of doing in a decade. So listen here to find out how Russell's expectations from ten years ago differ from his reality now. Transcript - https://marketingsecrets.com/blog/242-10-years-ago-in-fiji Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bula, everyone, this is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Today, I am messaging you guys from the beautiful Namale Resort in Fiji, and I got something really cool I want to share with you guys. So, the big question is this. How are entrepreneurs like us, who didn't cheat and take on venture capital, who are 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 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 answer. My name is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing Secrets. All right, everybody. So I am in Namali, like I said, which is actually Tony Robbins' private resort here in Fiji that he bought like 30 years ago and over the last 30 years has been developing it into what it is now. And we just got done with a big, huge mastermind meeting for everybody who was part of the mastermind.com launch.

And it was a top 10 affiliate that's got to come to here. So we had so much fun with some amazing people. it was obviously Tony Robbins and Dean Graciosi and you have Jenna Kuchar who's the number one affiliate, Lewis Howes, Brian Delaney, Nick Unsworth, I'm gonna forget his names right now that I'm on the spot but anyway some amazing marketers a whole bunch of different industries and it has been really fun this last week. Masterminding, hanging out with them, and now we are actually packed up and about to head out. And as we're getting ready to leave, I was just thinking about a lot of things. Now, some of you guys know, if you've been following me on Instagram or Facebook or anything,

I actually had a chance to come here 10 years ago. In fact, it was almost 10 years ago to the day. It was crazy. And when we got here, this time was kind of special. We got here, and the car drove up, and when you come to Namale, there's all these, um, amazing Fijians that come and they greet you and they sing to you. And Tony was there. So it was kind of cool. Tony's there singing and give us all hugs and everything as we, as we got here, um, which was really special. And then they started taking us to our rooms and they said,

Hey, uh, Colette and Russell, you guys are in the Bula house. We're like, what? We're in the Bula house 10 years ago, which was crazy. Um, to have a chance to come here with our kids. And I'll kind of tell you that story here a little bit more in a minute. But we're at the Bula house and as we're walking through, it was so cool because we're like, oh my gosh, I remember being here a decade ago. And I remember there's a spot in the floor. I was like, that's where I was the very first time that I emailed Dylan Jones, who was one of the original co-founders in ClickFunnels. I'm like, I emailed him there the very first time, asked him if he wanted to do some design work for me.

And he said, yes. And we communicated while I was sitting in that spot right there, which was 10 years ago. And it's, um, it was kind of crazy. And so, um, as Clyde and I were leaving, you know, getting ready to leave, they were walking around the resort and kind of looking at stuff and talking about, um, the last 10 years. And it's crazy because I, Tony, if you've ever been to Tony event, he says this a lot. He says that most of us as humans will underestimate, excuse me,

we'll overestimate what we can do in a year, but we'll underestimate what we can get done in a decade. And I was talking to Kletta, I said, you think about this 10 years ago, we were here. I was on top of the world. I, I thought I knew everything. I thought I was, you know, I thought I was, you know, I don't know. I was definitely not the same Russell I am now. I was more impressed with myself, I would definitely say. And I remember being here and speaking and, you know, I'm, what am I? I'm 39 now. So I'd have been 29 years old. So I'm a 29 year old kid, you know, at Fiji, speaking at Tony Robbins Business Mastery. And I'm just thinking I'm on top of the world. And, uh, and what's crazy though is after we were there, so we were here, you know, it was in summer 10 years ago. And then we went to date with destiny in December of that year, my wife and I, uh, at the time we had about a hundred employees and, you know, business was

doing, doing okay. Not great. Um, we were making a lot of sales, but the revenue was really, really small looking back now. Um, and then, uh lot of sales, but the revenue was really, really small looking back now. Um, and then, uh, in January that year, it was like January, I can't remember, 19th or something is when all of our merchant accounts got shut down. And it was the first time that I had ever like had a, had a real legitimate struggle and everything got shut down and ended up taking us almost three years to recover from that. So I was 10 years ago. So next three, right? So seven years ago to set that many years to like recover from this thing where like, I owe the IRS a bunch of money. I had all these, these debts and back taxes and like all, like, it was crazy. And I'm not going to go deep in that story. Some of you guys have heard me tell before. Um, but it was a really dark, scary time. I went from having a hundred employees down to

like down to 20 down to like five and just trying to figure out like how in the world do I keep the doors open, how do I keep paying the bills, how do we survive? You know, and it's crazy. In a matter of six months from being here in Fiji, you know, six months later, I lost almost everything. And then, again, it took like three years to like get out of the hole, get back on top, you know, have some success.

And in that journey of those three years is where I had a chance to meet Todd Dickerson, who's the co-founder of ClickFunnels. And I had a chance to meet him and start working with him. And again, some of you guys have heard this story before. I won't go too deep into it because just for time, but you know, he started working with us back when I had no money to even pay him. And he started working for free and he worked for free for an entire year. So that was seven years ago, right? Maybe eight years or whatever that was, seven or eight years ago. And then a little bit after that is when we had that different ClickFunnels. We spent a year building ClickFunnels. Okay. And that was, so six years ago,

we had the different ClickFunnels. Then five years ago, ClickFunnels launched. And the last five years have been insane. As you've probably seen, in fact, our five year ClickFunnels birthday is next, is a week from today, actually, from the day I'm recording this. So in one week, it'll be our five-year birthday. So in the last five years, we've just been running like crazy. And it's just crazy as I think about this, like, because I'm back now in Fiji at the same spot. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, last time I was here, I thought I had everything figured out. And little did I know, six months later, my whole world would get flipped upside down.

My business would crash. I'd lose everything. I'd lose friends. I'd lose teammates. I'd lose, like, everything I'd built at that point that I thought was so impressive and so special was gone. And then, um, and then the rebuild happened. And it's crazy because, um, as I was walking with Colette today on the beach talking about it, I started thinking, I told her, isn't it interesting? It comes back to Anita Robbins quote. I always overestimate

what we think we can do done in a year, right? Like I thought that, you know, a year from me being in Fiji, like I remember sitting in the, in the, the event and teaching my session, listening to everybody else's. I'm like, oh my gosh, like, you know, I'm going to go from, I think I was about eight or $9 million a year at that point. I'm going from 8 million to 80 to a hundred. Like I had these visions of what I was going to do. Right. And I thought, you know, next year or two, I'm going to be this, this number. And I wasn't right. In fact, I was the opposite. The whole thing crashed and I lost almost everything. Um, and then, uh, but then it kept working, kept working, kept learning, kept growing, kept failing, kept trying, kept failing, kept failing, kept failing, kept failing. Then had a little success and a little success and a little success

and it built upon each other. The first one built the second, second, third, and now over 10 year window, which literally is almost 10 years to the day, a 10 year window. Um, I never would have guessed in a million years, we'd have a company that we should do over $150 million in sales to share. Evaluation is pretty close to a billion dollars right now. Like I never would have fathomed that was possible. Um, so I, I underestimated what I thought was possible in a decade. Now I'm here a decade later looking at it. And, um, and so I wanted to share that for a couple of reasons. Number one is just for myself to remember, like, you know, I could go back home and in six months from now, I could lose everything. I could lose ClickFunnels again. I got

to be okay with that because I have no idea what the Lord, you know, or what God or whatever you want to call it has in store for you. Like, what are the lessons you need to learn to become who you need to become, right? Like, there's no way I could have became who I am today had I not had these struggles and these trials, right? So it's kind of reminding myself of that. Number two is helping me and hopefully all of you guys realize that you know sometimes we're we're trying to like i can get this business to start i gotta have a success i need to make sure it's making money right away i gotta you know like we're always pushing pushing pushing trying to make it happen today but it's like look just keep you know keep moving forward keep doing your thing but realize that you that all of us like

what we think is possible in the year is probably not going to be possible but what we think is possible in a decade we can do so much more of that. But it comes back down to like planning these consistency that, you know, moving it forward, doing something, trying, moving forward, doing something, trying, moving forward. And that consistency is what gives you the ability. So in 10 years from now, everything, everything's changed. And so hopefully it gives you guys some, some faith and some hope for those who are struggling right now who are, you know, have been working hard towards a goal and you're six months or a year or two years in

and you're not hitting where you want to be. Like it's okay. Like you're probably overestimating what's possible in a year but you're underestimating what's possible in a decade so keep moving forward. You gotta put 10 years into this, 10 years in this business

into whatever it is you're pursuing, whatever it is you're going for and in a decade from now, you'll be shocked at what's possible and so I just thought it was kind of cool because I'm here literally staying in the same place, literally at the same resort, same place. Um, all these things, 10 years later to have this like rare glimp, uh, rare, um, chance to, to look backwards and be like, Oh my gosh, like he was right. And here we are now on the other side of a decade. And it's pretty amazing. So I'm excited.

I'm excited for myself. I'm excited for you. I'm excited for what's going to happen over the next 10 years of my life and my business. What's going to happen over the next 10 years of your life? How many people's lives could you affect? Could you change in the next decade if you just keep pursuing what you're pursuing

with the intensity you are right now and not slowing down and not giving up? If you knew that, if you knew that like, oh my gosh, it's not going to pay off this year, but in a decade, it's going to pay off a million times more than I ever thought was possible. If you knew that and you believe that, like, what would you do differently? How would you act differently? How would you, how would you plan? How would you prepare? How would you move forward? What would you learn? What would you focus on if you were looking at a bigger picture, 10 year glimpse as opposed to a one year glimpse? Um, and so that's kind of the reminder for me and also for you. And, um, I hope this helps and I hope that someday you guys have

a chance to be sitting in Fiji here with me and we can talk about it and be like, Oh my gosh, Russell, you're right. I didn't, I listened to that podcast episode five years ago, eight years ago. And I didn't, you know, I was struggling. I didn't know what was going to happen. I had been trying this business or trying this thing and nothing was working. And now here I am a decade later and oh my gosh, like you're right. You, I persevered past the, um, past the year mark and then the three year mark and the five year mark and we got it. In fact, it's crazy. If I would've looked back, if I would've looked back even five years ago, five years ago,

ClickFunnels hadn't launched. If I'd looked back five years ago and talked to that Russell and been like, hey, remember five years ago you were in Fiji. Like, are you close to where you thought you were going to be? And I'd have been like, I was making way more money five years ago. Right. Uh, I was having way more success. Like I was on top of the world. I thought I had everything figured out. And, and I, and now five years later, I'm not gotten back to where I was at. Like what, what's wrong with me? What am I missing? Right. But I was laying the foundation for something bigger and and greater

and i didn't even know it at the time a lot of things you don't understand or see till you look backwards um but anyway i hope that gives you guys um some uh some belief in what's possible for you as well so that said we are going to be jumping on a plane uh we've got like a little flight back to the main island here in fiji and then 11 hour flight back to the states um And then we'll get home and go see our little kids, which I'm so excited for. And then we get back to it. The Traffic Secrets book was submitted last week. So I got the edits back from the publisher today. So that means I get to kind of go through it one last time before it's done.

It's out of my hands. We're also this weekend going to be doing a live reading of Traffic Secrets, which I'm really excited for um because um when i edited the dot com secrets and the traffic or the expert secrets book um before i like sent the final one in i recorded the audiobook and when i record the audiobook i found a whole bunch of like issues like like mistakes i didn't notice when i was just editing like reading it over and over again so i was like i don't have time to record audiobook so we're doing a live recording. And anybody who's got a ticket to Funnel Hacking Live

has an opportunity to kind of come to that and listen in. That's happening this Thursday and Friday. So that means if you haven't got your tickets yet to Funnel Hacking Live, now is the time. Go to funnelhackinglive.com. Also, just kind of exciting thing. We've got some really fun plans. My brain's been spinning on some changes to this podcast

to a bunch of other cool things that'll be coming out here in the very near future. So I look forward to sharing those things with you as well. But I want to thank you guys right now for being faithful subscribers. And we're gonna keep rewarding you with more amazing, cool stuff coming up here in the very near future.

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