Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - When Your Ceiling Becomes Your Floor: The Hero’s Journey to Your Next Level | #Success - Ep. 61

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

In this episode of The Russell Brunson Show, I’m taking you back to the old-school “marketing in the car” days - recording behind the wheel on my way to a Prime Mover event here in Boise. Before I get into business, I share a recent family adventure - an Alaskan cruise to celebrate my parents’ 50th anniversary - and a surprising rabbit hole I fell into after watching Titanic on the ship. That led to a fascinating question: if you could watch any moment from history as if it were on tape, what would you choose? From there, I shift gears into the core message I’m bringing to the Prime Mover group: the real meaning of the hero’s journey, and why the skills, habits, and patterns that get you to one level in life or business often become the very things holding you back from the next. Whether you’re going from zero to a million, a million to ten, or ten to a hundred, each leap requires you to “burn down” the old way and rebuild yourself from the ground up. Key Highlights: How an Alaskan cruise, Titanic, and a thought experiment led to a powerful question about perspective The “heavenly blockbuster” concept: replaying moments from history - or your own life Why the hero’s journey always starts with being unqualified for the challenge ahead How your subconscious ceiling becomes your subconscious floor - and why that’s both good and bad Wrestling stories that reveal the painful but necessary process of leveling up The dangerous comfort of your “ordinary world” and how to step beyond it Bottom line: Growth is a game of constant reinvention. To win, you have to be willing to let go of what made you great at the last level so you can step into the unknown and become who you need to be for the next one. This episode is both a personal reflection and a roadmap for anyone ready to answer their next call to adventure. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sellingonline.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clickfunnels.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Special thanks to our sponsors: NordVPN: EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://nordvpn.com/secrets⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Northwest Registered Agent: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠northwestregisteredagent.com/russell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to start your business with Northwest Registered Agent. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: Get a $100 credit on your next campaign at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn.com/CLICKS⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠RocketMoney.com/RUSSELL⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Indeed: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job’s visibility at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Indeed.com/clicks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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this is the russell brunson show what's up everybody this is russell brunson i want to welcome you back to the show and i am right now driving to downtown boise for a prime mover event so i got 21 minutes in the car and i thought let's go old school marketing your car style podcast and hang out with you guys as i'm driving so hope you don't mind um i've got so many fun things on my brain that want to share with you guys um and more of the podcast recently's been more video-based and things like that and there's a lot of different things but like i just miss this hardcore old school me sitting in the car sharing my thoughts with you guys hopefully you enjoy this episode as well um and uh we'll see where we see where we go from this um we're doing these prime mover events

once a quarter and this is people who join the prime mover coaching program and they come to boise and it's really cool experience they come in and they're all learning how to do one to many presentations and stuff like that um but then here they come in um after somebody's made uh after they make 10 000 with their first one to many presentation. They get an award and they get a picture with me on stage with this. I'm going to go to some pictures with everybody and I'm going to drop some gold nuggets and then they have a chance for two days to network to mastermind and we got some really cool speakers coming in and just a really special event.

So I'm excited to go see all the peeps today. If you're listening and you're there, what's up? I can't wait to see you here in a minute. Anyway, what I wanted to do today I was just thinking about like, okay, so for the last week, um, I have been gone. My parents celebrated their 50th anniversary and they wanted to take all of their kids and their kids' spouses. So no kids, just, uh, the adults on in the Alaskan crews. And apparently 22 years ago, my mom's parents did that with her and just kind of wanted reenact that with all of us. And so we had a chance to do that for the last week. So we've been on a

cruise ship and seeing Alaska and it's been really fun and exciting. Uh, and we just got home like two days ago and now we're back to the, back to the swing of things. Um, but it was really fun. So you know, uh, the Alaskan cruise, you, you see Alaska and you get see a lot of stuff. It's different than, like, I've been a lot of like Caribbean cruises and Mexican cruises and stuff where you're like, there's a lot of sun and sun decks and stuff. Where here it's like way different where you're, it's snow and there's, you know, there's snow everywhere. Like it's like a whole different thing, right? And one day you go and you like go by this huge glacier, which was really cool. And we got to watch this glacier and see things like break off of it. And it was really fascinating. And then,

of course that night we're sitting in our in our room clinton and i each other on the tv and they have all these like pre-built movies and most of them are like alaska movies you know so like one was the proposal with ryan reynolds the thunder bullocks we watched that one night which is really fun and it's up it takes place in one of the cities we visited and then we watch these other alaska like this great race alaska movie where everyone's making these boats in there doing this huge race and that was really fun and then of course the iceberg night we're like Titanic we have to watch you can't not watch titanic after you've been sitting there um in glacier-filled waters in a cruise ship right like it's kind of creepy and morbid and scary and all the

things but like you kind of have to i think so we totally watched titanic on the boat while we're drifting past iceberg so um that was that was really awesome and it was interesting afterwards on flight home i started like thinking about titanics i started like youtubeing all these videos about history of titanic how they found it again like all sorts of stuff and it was a very fascinating rabbit hole um that had really fun time going down but there's one thing that came to my mom mind that I wanted to ask you, okay? So as I, we're watching the movie, I told Colette's, I'm like, like, not this would be cool to see, but like, it would be kind of cool to actually see this in real life, I experienced it. And then I was like, I wonder if when we die

someday, we're up in heaven or wherever. And it wouldn't be cool if it's like the entire world's there, like on, in my head, I think like video, you know, like here at Blockbuster, there's all these videos. Like, here's 1912, 1913, you know, and you can see anything in the history of all time. Like, what do you want to go and watch? Right. Like, and this morning, I was working out with my trainer and I asked them, I was like, if you could go back in time and like, when you're having to watch any experience from this world, like, what would you want to see? And that started the most fascinating conversation. So that's my first question for you is if you could go and do that, like, what would what would you want to see throughout history?

You know, one thought is like, I'd love to see the Titanic. It'd be cool to actually witness that. I mean, it's horrible as it is. It'd be cool just like to see it, understand and like, wow, that was crazy that happened. Um, you know, like what, like other like big wars be cool to like the Roman Colseans back in the day to see like when they had the gladys you were fighting like that it looked like UFC was a different like how tough are those guys versus nowadays got that that'd be really fascinating to see I'd think it'd be cool to go and actually see your own birth and see what your parents were like when you know when they were pregnant with you and they were excited or scared or whatever like experienced that like watched that whole

part and I just thinking about all these parts of my life of fun to go back and put a video and push play and watch and then this part throughout history so I'm curious for you like what would that be if you could see anything throughout history go push play on it you know when you're up there when you're in the heavenly blockbuster and you're grabbing out any VHS tape from any situation of all time what would you would you go watch so anyway that was a fun conversation this morning with my traders we were just kind of going back and forth and like talking about all of that like I'd love to see like George Washington like when like anyway so many cool things so all right with that said you guys didn't come

here to talk about that though we came to talk about business and marketing and sales and and all that kind of stuff. So I want to kind of share with you. Kind of want to be talking about down with the Pride mover group today. I only have about an hour on stage, I think, and we're doing pictures for part of that. So I don't have a ton of time. But I was thinking about what I want to share with those guys. And I love to share with you as well.

I have some other. I mean, I have an hour-long presentation. I probably got 10 more minutes here. So it's not going to be the full thing. But just some ideas for you guys to start thinking through. And what I was going to share with these guys is just talking about like the hero's journey right and you've heard me talk about it a lot um it's become really popular in the last you know five or six years it's like i discovered it for myself and then i wrote

expert secrets about it and then ever since since like i hear people all sorts of people talking about it maybe it was just always there and i just had never seen it before but i see more and more people talking about the hero's journey so i'm not going to go deep into what it is but it is interesting that like we go on this journey right and this journey of transformation like uh there's a journey of achievement like you try to achieve something but then in the the process you hit the hero's second journey which is a journey of transformation who do you become along the way right and think about this like um when you do that right the how to explain this like the hero starts the journey in his ordinary world right and then he leaves the ordinary world to go on this journey uh and he goes

through the whole process and if you look at the very end of the hero's journey the hero returns back home with the elixir he like he found the solution to the problem comes back and he returns back his home and like has the has the answer right um and so that's what happens but then what happens is you're back in your you know the story ends and you go back to your ordinary world and you have this new thing and you're now at a new standard new level and things have changed right but then you get the next called to adventure and what's interesting is every time you get a call to adventure and you go on a new journey um you're not qualified for the journey when you leave right otherwise it wouldn't be a journey if you already qualified like you just go get the thing right it's like you get called to something

that you're not yet qualified for therefore you must grow and you must stretch and you must change And so what happens is like, at a subconscious level, right, like your subconscious mind is your ordinary world. It's the world you live in all day long, right? And if you get called on this on, on a journey on your next, you know, called adventure, next thing you want to go accomplish and go do, your subconscious mind that those patterns you have are, it's the ordinary world again, right? And if you went on this journey and you go and you solve the problem and you return the elixir

now that, you know, like you solve this and you upgraded your, you know, you increased your standard you're now a different person you became something different but now that's your new person and your next called adventure like now where you are today now becomes your ordinary world once again right and you have to level up again so a good example this when i was wrestling right like when i was wrestling in high school um i got really good right uh i was a state champion my junior year my senior year um i took second place in the nation was an all-american um right and so like i like i had gotten to a certain level like i was really good my subconscious everything was like i like it was that that was where i was at right and i'd gone on this whole journey and it changed my whole life and it was amazing but now that that um ben hardy calls like

he talks about like your subconscious um ceiling becomes your subconscious floor like you've upgraded to that where the thing that was your ceiling before now it's become your your your floor and that's now your new ordinary world and then you get called on the next adventure so for me it's like when i got done wrestling in high school then i got uh offers to wrestle in college so i got called in this new journey and so i go this new journey i remember showing up the wrestling room coming in and i'm like i took second place in nation i'm going to stay chairman. I'm really, really good. And we were walking in.

And guys who were third to fourth string were destroying me. Like, it was not close. Like, I was like a beginner. And I realized that, you know, what had been my subconscious ceiling, you know, and now was my new floor was the beginning. It was my ordinary world. And for me, I had to change who I was or I was not going to be good wrestler at the collegial level, right?

And I remember, like, a lot of the patterns and the things that had served me in, at one level were the things holding me back from the next level. And so I remember, like, one of my coaches was just, like, you're standing to Hall at Hall. And, like, I had been wrestling for five years at that point where I would stand in my stance and it was always good enough to beat everybody in the nation. You know, I took second place in the nation. Everybody won. All the one people I beat with that, right?

And I get to college, and everybody's just picking me apart. It's like, your stance is bad. You got to redo your stance. And I was like, but I've been doing this for five years. Like, this is my subconscious patterns. Like, you have to delete that because it's wrong and restart over and rebuild these new patterns. And I had to relearn how to wrestle, relearn everything from the ground up. And then over time, it got better and better and better, right?

And I went on my college journey for five years. By the time, my fifth year was over, like, I had become something different. I become, you know, I was at the next level. And that took a couple years off from wrestling. And some of you guys may have heard this story, but a couple years later, I decided I wanted to compete for Olympics. So I went to compete for Olympics. And I, in true Russell Brunson fashion, I found the Olympic Greco wrestling coach. I hired a move into Boise, Idaho, opened a facility, moved a whole bunch of people training for Olympics into Boise.

And I started training with these guys. and really quick, I realized, holy cow, there's another level. And even though I'd got to a certain level in my collegiate career, that, you know, that, that, that, that, the thing that, you know, initially was like this, the ceiling, like, I can't get the thing. I eventually, that ceiling become my floor, became my ordinary world, and now I'm going into my new adventure, and, like, the level between where I left off and where the next level was so different. And, like, for me, it's probably the reason why I never got to the spot where I was able to competitively compete at that level, because, I had to rewrite everything. It was like starting over from scratch once again. And I see the same thing in business is interesting.

Like the skill set from going from zero to a million dollars is very specific, right? That's what we train people on in these prime mover events. And inside of the click funnel's world, it's like there's very specific things. You have to learn a master to go from zero to a million. But then the jump from million to 10 is completely different. Different skill sets all together. It's not the same thing. It's like getting better at the skill sets that took you one to million is not what gets you from

million to 10, right? It's like, okay, that subconscious, the subconscious ceiling. me hitting some of conscious floor now that's my ordinary world and I got to start this journey again you're starting the process again right and now I got to go and like learn how to do the things and going from 10 million to 100 millions and the whole other level like so every single time you go on this journey to reach a goal and you come back you return to it looks like I now know how to go to a million dollars like cool next call to action is you got to go to 10 and it's like but I don't know how to do that yet it's like exactly like you're starting over from scratch and a lot of the habits

you have in the past that were really good that served you at one point are the same things are going to hold you back now and you have to relearn those things like it's this this constant upgrading of yourself, of your skill sets, of your talents. It's just a fascinating thing. And so I want to talk about that with these guys and hopefully with you a little bit, just thinking about that, like, what is the thing that you're trying to accomplish? And if you're setting any kind of goal worth anything, you're not currently qualified to do the thing.

You don't have the skill sets. Like, that's it. Right? And you're like, I can't figure this out. Like, good. That means you don't have the skill sets. You shouldn't. Otherwise, you pick the bad goal, right?

If you pick the right goal, it means you don't the skill sets. It means now you've got to learn everything. And the hard thing is that we already accomplished something earlier, right? We already went on our hero's journey. came back and we're very proud of the skill sets that we have we have to realize for you to get the next level you have to burn down the thing that you created to be able to rebuild for the next level and that's where most people aren't willing to do it their ego gets in the way um the whatever gets in the way they're not willing to do the things they need to do to get the next set of skills

um and that's the game i'm doing i'm honestly in my personal business right now i'm going through that as well right like um the skill sets that got me and click follows to the level we were at is not the skill set to get to the next level. And so, well, you'll see. You'll see the next six months what we're doing and what's happening. And some of you guys look back on this podcast, like, oh, Russell, I saw it. I saw how you level up your skills.

I saw what you were doing. I saw how you were changing things. Because I just know that where I'm at today, continuing to doing what I'm doing will not get me the result I'm trying to get to. I have to learn how to do something completely different if I'm going to actually accomplish and achieve that thing. and so that becomes the game. It's like, how do I actually do that?

What does that look like? Who do I need to become next? And what things from my past that were my crutches that got me to a certain level are the things that are holding me back now from getting to the next level? I have to learn those things, understand, and break them, and then rebuild my new patterns. Okay. The subconscious floor I have right now is my ordinary world. And I've got to look at it.

What's the ceiling I'm striving towards? Like, that will now become, you know, that's where I'm trying to get to. And when I get there, that'll become my new ordinary world. Right now, I'm leaving this ordinary world that I understand that I know that I've mastered over the last decade and I'm stepping to something completely different, completely new. And I'm excited to see where it goes. It's fun. I look after that lens, it's like, oh, this is actually really cool.

It's not like everything in the past is failing, it's not working anymore. It's like, no, I'm going to the next level. Therefore, the things that got me, you know, things that made me a good high school wrestler are not things that made me a college wrestler. Things got me from zero to a million, not things got me from a million to 10. things got me from 10 to 100 not things get me from 100 to a billion like they're different skillsets different things different conversations different mindset different everything and so that's the game I'm trying to figure out and to play and to win so I'll take you guys on the journey

through these podcasts and different places as I'm going through this myself and hopefully like leave breadcrumbs of what I'm learning along the way but I do think that is the the question we should be asking ourselves and trying to figure out and understand so that said I appreciate you all I'm almost downtown I got to go out of park get over to the event, which starts in 40 minutes. And I hope you guys are all amazing. Yeah, cool stuff happening. If you don't know yet, we're launching a new platform in a couple of weeks called OfferLab.

If you go to OfferLab.com, you can get on the pre-launch list and see what's happening. There's some really cool things happening there. Yeah. It's phase one of the new Russell. So if you want to sneak deep behind the scene, that's all beginning there. All right. Thanks, thanks everybody. And we'll talk to you also.

Thank you.