Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - What To Do When You Get Attacked On Social Media

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

What happened to me this weekend, and what you can learn from it. On this episode Russell talks about the events of the past weekend and how he handled the situation when it got tough and gives some solid advice about the best way to get through it. Here are some of the helpful things you will hear in today's episode: Find out what Russell decided to do instead of fight back. Hear why Russell is okay, but his friends and family had a hard time with the situation. And see why in the end, Russell believes the whole thing turned into a good thing and an important conversation. So listen here to find out how Russell was able to handle the tough situation of when people attack you on social media. Transcript - https://marketingsecrets.com/blog/315-what-to-do-when-you-get-attacked-on-social-media Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When it comes to Smart Water Alkaline 9.5 plus pH with antioxidant, there's nothing to overthink. So, while you may be performing mental gymnastics over whether the post-work gym crowd is worth it, if you'll be able to find a spot for your yoga mat, or if that spin instructor will make you late for dinner again, don't overthink how you hydrate. Life's full of choices. Smart Water Alkaline is a simple one. Hey, what's up everybody? This is Russell Brunson.

I want to welcome you back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Today, I want to talk to you about how to diffuse intense social situations. So, the big question is this. How are entrepreneurs like us, who didn't cheat and take on venture capital, we're 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.

Alright, so this is kind of a hard podcast to make. And I'm not going to go into the details because I don't want to, to be completely honest. It's a hard battle to win. I don't think you can win this battle. But this last weekend, I was trying to participate, trying to be helpful, trying to do what I thought would be best in situation. And I'll leave it at that. Obviously, it's been a crazy, it's been a last crazy three months or so since this whole coronavirus has hit. The last week of escalation has been even harder, I think. Anyway, but I was trying to do my best on social

to help and to be helpful, and what I thought was the right path, looking back now, I understand why it wasn't. But I didn't understand at the time. But I was doing my best. So again, I think we should all give people some grace as they're trying to figure these things out and try to do their best. But anyway, I'll step back.

So what I want to talk today is about is more the, like what happened as far as how I kind of dealt with the negativity of the social media part. Because that's what I think a lot of people in our world who are trying to teach, like, you need to be publishing every single day and putting things out there. It can be hard when you do and people beat you up and they beat you up bad. And I got beat up pretty bad this weekend, I'm not going to lie. It was emotional for me, for my family, for people I know. It was tough.

And I think that it could have gone a couple ways. It could have gone a lot worse. And I think there's some things I did that were good, some things I did that were bad. And so I just want to kind of comment on them. So hopefully it'll help you guys as you're trying to figure this out. You know, as people who are trying to publish and trying to influence, trying to help and trying to serve, you're always in the limelight. And I'm kind of lucky because I've been doing this now for 18 years. And so my skin has gotten thick. I've taken a lot of, you know, a lot of beatings in the years, which is why, you know, some people are like, well, you're not more social about this or less social or different things like that. And it's just because I've been, I've had a chance to

to get beat up a little bit. And so for me, as tough as this weekend was, it was bearable for me. It was like, okay, well, that was not pleasant, but it was okay. But I know a lot of people around me, like my wife and her family, and people who go to church with me who are like the first time ever seeing a debate

happening on my fan page, and people who are angry at me and yelling at me, and all this craziness. It was just like, oh, I got people in my ward here for our church, it's like our congregation, who are writing letters and putting them in my mailbox and making sure I was okay. It's funny because they don't,

for most of them, this is the first time they've been or witnessed a social fight. I think it's been really tough for a lot of them. Not fight, but a social like discussion a heated discussion you know um obviously with me running as many ads as we do um i see this stuff every single day in my comments and you know those who have run paid ads you know that um the the comments are really brutal and people beat you up and um again i've been doing this for a long time so i've i've got pretty thick skin around it but most people around me that i love don't and so sometimes it's hard because even if

you're like i can handle this um the harder part is not like me handling it seeing my wife crying as she's reading stuff or um you know like that that's the harder part of this so um but i wanted to i want to talk about this because um you know for for me i was again i had good intentions but i was trying to post i was trying to help um you know so that that's the the first step of it and then when you get people who are viciously attacking you because of like what do you do and how do you do it and and it's it's tough because like what i felt like was i was standing there like walking like hey how can i help how can i help and also like a punch in the face, like, ah, like, what are you doing? I'm here to help, you guys know that, right?

Like, and a punch, and a punch, and a punch. And what is your instinct reaction? Well, for me, especially for me as a wrestler, someone who, like, I love combat sports, I love fighting, I love wrestling, I love, like, that's how you, that's it, like, it's on, let's go. And so, for me, it was like getting punched, punched, and if you had four or five punches, like, you just let's go. And so for me it was like getting punched, punched, punched.

And if you're at four or five punches, you just wanna fight back. And I know I had friends and family members like, I wanted to go and post and tell people all these things, and some people did, which didn't help. And I remember in the moment I was just like, oh, I wanna like, I wanna go defend myself. I wanna go out there, I wanna like,

I wanna attack back at these people. There's this stuff that's happening. Um, and so, um, as I sat there, uh, I tried to do something that's hard and it was hard for me. And I'm telling you this because hopefully this will help you, um, if, and when these things happen to you. So instead of me doing the default Russell, which has become defensive and go and try to go and attack, um, instead I stopped and I was like, okay, I'm going to try to listen as painful as it is. I'm just going to listen. And so I, I, uh, the post, like I want to pull the post down so badly, but I let, I say I kept up for over 24 hours. I let people come in and post. Um, and I try to just read and listen and like, try to like, okay, let me put myself in their perspective.

Let me put it in myself in, in their, in their feet. Like, how are they feeling? Like, why are they so defensive? Why is this happening? And I really tried and it's hard. Like, I'm not going to say that I have perfect, perfect empathy or understanding by any stretch of the imagination. Cause I don't, um, um, but I tried to listen and instead of me doing what I would normally

default do, which is fight back. I stopped and said, what if they're right? What if what if what if what if what if I'm looking this is wrong? What if like how can I defuse this? And I realized that the way to defuse it was not to like hold my ground and be right, because being right is not always right. Instead, I said, I'm going to try to go the other way. And so to the people who were the most vocal to me, I tried to reach out to them and ask for their help.

And so instead of fighting back and being like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I said, you're right. Can you help me? Help me understand. Help me be better. Help me figure this out. And it was crazy to see how taking that stand instead of what, you know, your gut instincts are, the fight or flight, instead of to like to humble and to like ask for help, it changed and diffused the situation almost instantly. And it gave me this really cool window during it, but then afterwards to really actually start to understand.

And for that, I'm super grateful. I don't think it was a matter of who was right or who was wrong. I think that in this situation, we were both right. But because we have different perspectives it doesn't look the same I think when I was able to find out the other person's perspective I rise oh I think I'm still trying the right thing but maybe I did it wrong maybe I didn't go about the right way and anyway it was it was it was good and I'm grateful for the moment that happened.

So I'm telling you this because as you go out there and you try to change the world in your own little way, just like I'm trying to do and you're trying to do if you're listening to me, there are going to be times that you are going to get beat up bad and your instincts are going to be to fight. And I want to challenge you to not fight to instead to stop and to listen try to put yourself in their shoes try to have empathy and instead of fighting back um ask for understanding like respond to the comment like you're probably right in this situation and I don't understand why but I would love to figure it out like let's can we can we jump on you know messenger and talk and you can you message me can we call? And by doing that, it shifts the conversation.

It shifts the everything. So anyway, that's kind of what we did this week. And I wanted to kind of show you guys because, again, I got hit with it hard, harder than I've been hit with in a long, long time. But when all of a sudden, I think it turned out really good for me, for my community, for our company. And so anyway, I just want to put that out there as a way to navigate these really strange times

that are hard to navigate, where people are struggling, they're hurting, they're in pain. So anyway, I hope to help somebody because i'm sure that right now either you are vocal or you're not vocal but regardless of your vocal you're not vocal right now uh you're feeling the pressure and the stress and then not knowing what to do or how to do it and you're probably gonna do it wrong um the biggest thing is is don't don't respond the gut instinct way which is is to fight back. Instead, stop and say,

okay, I'm going to try to humble myself. I'm going to sit back. I'm going to ask questions. I'm going to put myself in a situation. I'm going to try to have empathy, and then I'm going to ask for help. I think if you can do that, like I said, it changes the situation,

the conversation, and it ended up turning into a really positive thing overall. So there's my feedback, my ideas, my help. Take it for what it's worth. I think the last thing too is just to kind of come back. For me doing this now 18 years, it's like I've gotten thick skin. You've got to kind of start growing thick skin because no matter what you do, not everyone's going to love you.

Even if it's like, I don't know if you guys remember the Seinfeld episode when someone didn't like Jerry and Jerry's mom's like, how can you not like Jerry? Like he's the good. And it's like, no, like some people aren't going to like me. And it's like, same thing. I'm like, how can you not like Russell? How can you not like so-and-so like, like they're trying so hard. They're super nice. Like they're like, which is some people aren't going to like you and they're not like what you have to say, what you believe. Um, and that's okay. You gotta be okay with that. Uh, you still gotta love them, um, and respect them and, um, and do your best. So anyway, take that for what it's worth. I appreciate you guys for listening. Uh, hopefully you enjoyed

this episode. If you did, please take a screenshot of it, post it on your social channels and, uh, let me know, tag me on it. It'd be fun to hear your comments and your feedback. So thanks so much. You guys appreciate you. And, uh, we'll talk to you soon. Bye everybody.