Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - You Asked For It! Interview With My WIFE! (Part 1 of 3)

Episode Date: August 5, 2019

The #1 request I get from our listeners is they want to hear behind the scenes from my wife's perspective on what it's like running an entrepreneurial family. On today's super special episode, part one of three, Russell and his lovely wife, Collette are interviewed by Joshua and Ashley Latimer about what it's like to be an entrepreneurial family. Here are the questions Russell and Collette answer in part one: What is the best/hardest thing about being an entrepreneur? How is it possible to aggressively pursue business dreams but still have a happy home life? And finally, they talk about one of the hardest times in their life and how they got through it together. So listen here to finally hear Collette give her first interview on what it's like to be married to Russell. Transcript - https://marketingsecrets.com/blog/229-229-you-asked-for-it-interview-with-my-wife-part-1-of-3-part-1-of-3 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Seekers Podcast. I am so excited for the next three episodes for you guys. This is gonna be so cool. All right, so the number one request I get by far from all of you guys, from all of people listening to the podcast, from all my final hackers, every final hacking live, everything people ask is,

we wanna hear from your wife. How in the world does she deal with you as an entrepreneur? How do entrepreneurial families work? How do we like, we get so many questions for Colette all the time. And I'm not going to lie, I'm very protective of my beautiful wife. And, um, you know, this is not her world. She doesn't step on stage and speak in front of thousands of people. She doesn't feel comfortable there. Um, you know, the first couple of years of events, she didn't even come to him. She stayed at home and supported us and took care

of the family and, and things like that. And it was just something that I was always kind of, um, nervous introducing her to. And the very first Funnel Hacking Live, I remember she came to it and she said she walked in and she saw the audience and she started bawling. She's like, oh my gosh, I had no idea that this is what was actually happening. She was like, I'm supporting you and doing these things, but I didn't know the fruits of it. And it's fun because every year she comes to Funnel Hacking Live now, she's sitting on the front row and she's like, I don't understand half the things you guys are saying,

but I just love the energy and the people and the stories. And anyway, she is my favorite person on this planet and I'm so grateful for her. She's sitting on the front row and she's like, I don't understand half the things you guys are saying, but I just love the energy and the people and the stories. And, um, anyway, she is my favorite person on this planet and I'm so grateful for her. She's amazing. And, um, I always say that you can only be as successful as your spouse will allow you to be. And so without her, there's no way that I could have become who I've become. And there's no way that I could have, um, you know, form this team and build click funnels and all the amazing things that, um, the fruits of all this, this, uh, work we've been doing for the last decade and a half would not have been

possible without my wife, Colette. And so, um, it's funny because people always want to hear from her and I always just tell them no. Um, but I'm very impressed. Some of my friends, the Latimers, um, Josh Latimer joined my inner circle a little while ago and he played things so well and went to, uh, he came the very first Fun Locking Live and the first thing he did is he ran up and found my wife Colette and, and kind of put this in perspective. Most people, when they see me at Fun Locking Live or the airport or anywhere, they run and they like, they like push my wife aside and like, Russell, uh, they don't even pay attention to her. And it's, it's, um, that's how you tell if he failed the test. If you didn't say hi to my wife and didn't acknowledge her, you failed the test. That's basically it. If you ever want me to call you back or pay attention,

how you treat my wife is how, uh, how much attention I will pay back to you. So it's kind of funny because people always just like brush her side and just ask me the question. It's like, ah, he has missed it. You missed the, you know, the most important thing in the world. I mean, you didn't even acknowledge it. And Josh was the opposite way. He first thing he ran up to Colette and said, Hey, I'm here to thank you. He's like, I know the sacrifice that my wife's gone through for my business to get here and I know the sacrifice that you're going through

behind the scenes every single day and just so grateful for you. And so because of that, my wife knew who he was and because when he asked, can I do this thing, he'd opened a door and he'd planted the seeds. And so reluctantly, I finally said yes. And him and his wife are working on a really cool project. In fact, it's not all live yet, but if you go to honorandfire.com, so H-O-N-O-R-A-N-D-F-I-R-E.com, Honor and Fire. As of right now, there's a family

checklist system there, but they're building a whole system for entrepreneurial families. And what they're doing is super cool and it's fun and I want to share with you guys. But this interview is part of one of their training courses they have for families and so they allowed me to be able to share with you guys. And so you guys have a chance to hear 10 questions with my wife and I talking about entrepreneurship and families and how it all works together. So this is the very first, we're going to break this into three episodes. Episode number one, we're going to cover three questions that they asked. The very first question is what is the best slash hardest thing about being an

entrepreneur? Number two is how is it possible to aggressively pursue business dreams, but still have a happy home life? And number three, talk about a hard time in your life. And so we're going to share those three questions on this episode. And then come back tomorrow, we'll share with you guys episode number two. So after this is done, pause your phone and go to honorandfire.com and go opt in. Get the family systems checklist from the Latimer family. And this will help you to grow your family, to be able to have a successful business and a family at the same time. So I want to thank the Latimer family for allowing us to share this interview with you guys. And again, go to honorandfire.com to go opt in.

And with that said, we're going to keep the theme song. When we come back, we're going to listen to the first of three segments of the interview with my beautiful wife, Colette. 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 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. Hey, my friends, how the heck are you? I'm so excited that you're here hanging out with us. You get to look behind the curtain in terms of business and family in a way that I've never seen done before. We're going to ask Colette and Russell Brunson some questions about their family, their culture, their story, and just the raw truth about the good and the bad and how it's really hard to grow a business. It's really hard to be married.

It's hard to be a parent. And you mix it all together, and it's like this cocktail of potential destruction. But they're still there. And it seems like they love each other. I'm pretty sure they love each other. So thank you, Russell and Colette, for being here. How are you? Doing amazing.

Glad to be here. Yeah, super excited. Doing my wife on camera for the first time. It's exciting. It's a big deal. You're going to owe Colette big time. We got to think of something really epic to send her because I know this is not in your comfort zone, but it's going to help so many people.

It's inspiring to them. So without further ado, the first question is an easy one, I think. And the first question is, what is, from your perspective, the best thing and the hardest thing just about being an entrepreneurial family? Because this is a weird lifestyle. What's the good and the bad from both of your perspectives? You want to start? Go ahead. You can kick it off. All right, I'll start. So I think the best part, at least my belief, the best part is all the people we have a chance to serve. That's why we do Fun Hockey Live and these events.

And now it's funny because now it's like we're internet celebrities. At the airport, people come to us. At the weirdest spots, people run to us. And the consistent theme is like, oh, my gosh, you changed my life. You changed my life. I think that's the best part. I think it's fun to see the kids. The kids will be like, dad got spotted again, which is, I think, we were at the waffle place

the other day and some guy came up and was like, Russell Brunson, you changed my life. My kids are like, my dad got spotted again. I think that's the best part. The hardest part is like, it's just hard. I don't know. It's hard because it's like, like you there's there's there's three big aspects there's like the marriage there's the kids and there's the business and all of them take a lot of time we did the love language test our kids on sunday and all except for one of our kids love language

is quality time it's like all the time to go around we got so many kids you know i think the hard part just is sometimes you get caught up in the business side it's like i gotta remember like this is what's actually most important how do I shift my focus back to them and how do we you know how do we break away from I think I think sometimes business you if when you're having success you get like the the positive feedback all the time you know and then you go home and it's like oh my kids are struggling here and it's it's it's harder you don't get the immediate positive feedback so a lot of times I think it's just like okay but this is the most important part we got to go and do it i think that's the hard part sometimes and i think let's see the best thing for me i guess it is it is seeing how lives

are changed and things like that is super empowering um i remember one of the first mental hacking lives i went to i just had n Nora and I walked into the room and I'm like, what's happening? Like these people are here with you? Being at home with all the kids sometimes, you know, he goes and he does this thing and then I'm home. And then so my eyes are really open to that first funnel hacking experience when, and I had a moment, I was super hormonal anyway, but just bald. And I did the ugly cry for a minute. So I'm like, wait a sec. So that's really cool.

So the best thing for me is to see him chase his dream, change people's lives. But also like for being at home too, being able to be at home with my kids. And so that's really, really cool. I think it's opposite. So the hardest thing for me sometimes is being spotty. So I'm like, oh today but whatever it's fine we're real people um so sometimes that's hard for me or sometimes I'll get super excited to see Russell they're like Russell Brunson and then they push me out of the way or you know I'm like oh big mistake big mistake no just kidding i don't care but yeah so sometimes it's true though if you guys want to be smart like this is why we're

on interview right now josh is a very smart man the first person he said hi to was colette and now we're here and so if you were the other way around it doesn't work that way so um yeah it's funny we're on the plane the other day and someone ran up and was like like all excited to meet me and he's from rexburg which where cluck grew up let's say i'm from rexburg he's like oh and just kept going and it's just like all right we think i'm not gonna remember your name now i couldn't have done anything without her and that's the reality right i mean when you're doing marketing and you're the face and you're being the charismatic leader and stuff, that's one thing. But there's times when you're frustrated and you're breaking down and you're like crying and it's hard. And

ClickFunnels wasn't always a hundred million dollar thing. It was an idea and Todd's coding. And you're like, the dynamic is so hard when you're launching something and this is everything. And so it was totally authentic, the whole say thanks to colette because click funnels did change our life joining inner circle changed our life i mean for lots of reasons but i know that that doesn't happen without her doing all kinds of stuff holding you up doing just it's it's huge and i know that other married entrepreneurs know exactly what we're talking about right now um real quick, I forgot to ask in the beginning, how long have you guys been married? I think a lot of people probably know

your story in general, but how long has it been? How many kids do you have? Tell us about that. So we've been married almost 17 years. It will be 17 in August and we have five kids ranging 13 to four and yeah okay yeah we've been married 17 years in july yeah that's awesome oh wow ready for question number two yes how is it possible to aggressively pursue business dreams and still have a happy healthy home life that's my question um um you know it's it's interesting um it's been it's kind of weird right now we've had a lot of friends who are in business recently who have made the split and it's like oh and i don't know it's it's every time it happens it's like it's like heart-wrenching for us it's like oh like you did the hard things together and then like when you're supposed to be celebrating

us when they they split it's it's tough um you know there's a there's a quote that that um that uh this guy named david omake said he said that no success can compensate for failure in the home and um that's like a thing that like rings my head all the time when i'm at work and i'm like stressing out all sorts of stuff and then you know it's like kids wrestling practice happening or we gotta do this or whatever and it's like my head the easy thing is just like oh i i'm too busy i can't do that but then like that that quote comes in my head like no success can compensate for failure in the home and a lot of times i just have to stop like the day's done i gotta i gotta be done even though like there's so many things are happening there's so much stress and anxiety and like

a billion emails i don't answer to in 500 voicemail you know and like all these things it's like i just have to stop and like and come home and um and i think that's that's a big part of i think the other thing that's been really good we kind of learned this early in the marriage um like i think sometimes you know there are times when you like you have to pull an all-nighter or you have to go be gone for a weekend and i think um at the beginning of our marriage i was really bad like letting her know that until it's like 9 39 and i'm like she's like where are you like oh i'm not coming home tonight like and then that's when the friction would always happen and i think i got better like knowing like okay next week todd's coming to town there's probably gonna be a night or two that's gonna be it's like when you were like aware of it then it's like then it was okay

and we're able to kind of like just figure things out and so communication um i think is a big thing you know i don't think we're the best communicators we're still learning that part of our life we're still learning that part of our life. We're still learning that. But I think as we've gotten better, like that, that's where it's like, I'm able to go really, really aggressive because I know that like, she knows that I'm gone this time and she can support it and then vice versa. And it's just, it helps to, you know, helps to kind of even it all out. Yeah, no, I second that a hundred percent.

I think communication is huge and we're not the best at it. And it's been a lot of I mean, sometimes, yeah, upset and sad, whatever, the emotions that come there angry, you know, there are a lot of people that do this journey. And then, you know, sometimes it's so hard that the marriages do fail or the partnership fails. So I really feel blessed because I really feel it's also attitude. And I feel like we've portrayed a lot of positive energy to our family and to our kids. And then they kind of see that too. And I just think it's really a neat thing that as aggressively as this entrepreneurship world is and as fast and furious as Russell's brain works and goes, it's really cool for them to be like, oh my goodness. But it's for me too, as a mom, seeing a couple of the kids, their brains kind of taking over and starting to aggressively have these dreams.

And I'm like, how do I, you know, but it's really cool. Like, how do I keep that a healthy thing for them and say, discourage them and be like, wait, wait, wait, let's do these other things first. It's hard sometimes when Dallin like has this million dollar idea, like you're your homework. You're like, you know, it's like, I want to do this. You have to do your homework.

You have to like, not discourage them while it's like yeah it's tough well i know you guys are believers too and that's you know like a consistent theme like with a lot of the high achievers that we're going to be interviewing for this is like that's an anchor i know that's a huge part of your life as well right we love jesus and we're a christian family and stuff um question number three i'm going to ask you about a time when it was really hard, which maybe that never happened for you. But, you know, you were talking about love language.

I think there should be a book called The Fight Language, too. Ashley's fight language is passive aggressive. So, like, she doesn't talk. She doesn't talk. I'm getting better. I'm getting better. When she doesn't talk, I tell her to stop yelling at me because I say that that's the equivalent of yelling. It's just a different methodology. You should tell me to write that book. That'd be the greatest. Right. So, so tell us about a time on your journey. Whenever, whatever comes to mind,

when it was really hard, maybe there's friction, maybe it's financial uncertainty. God knows you've went through a lot of that. Um, and how did you get through it? Um, okay. Let's see. What's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson. I've got something really cool for you today from my friend, Taylor Wells. And Taylor spoke at our last funnel hacking live because I wanted him to share a really cool concept about what he calls the revolving pricing method. And today he decided to sponsor the podcast to give you guys more access to this super cool strategy that you are going to love. It's something we've been implementing

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And if you go over to wealthyconsultants.com slash secrets, you can grab the revolving price method book and over $150 worth of bonuses and get this all. It's at 70% off. And I promise you guys as a customer of this, you are going to love it. So if you're serious about growing your business with real stability, this is the model you need to add into your funnels. So go over to wealthyconsultant.com slash secrets, grab your 70% off deal, and let's start turning your clients into long-term revenue. Again, that's wealthyconsultant.com slash secrets. Do not miss out. Hey, this is Russell Brunson. And I want to jump in really quick to share with you a new assessment I found out that is insanely cool. You guys know I'm obsessed with personality profiles and assessments, but this one is different because not only does

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Again, it takes you 10 minutes, but even in a 10-minute session, you will get something that is so insanely valuable to help you understand yourself, to make sure you're working in a spot that's going to give you the most joy, number one. But then number two, it's going to make sure that you are, with your teams, getting them in the right seats as well. So anyway, I love this assessment. Go check it out at workinggenius.com and enter the promo code secrets for 20% discount. Take this test for yourself and for your team. And I promise you, it'll change the working dynamics

amongst everybody and help your company to grow. There's been a lot of it. It's like, it hasn't been a sunshine and roses as much as people think. No, it's really a hard journey. I want to say I was, I'm going to start with Ellie. Like when I was pregnant with Ellie, I feel like I was kind of struggling with my identity a little bit and, um, um, things like that. Uh, what was I going with this? But I think back, our marriage was kind of struggling and, um, was it a seven year niche? No, maybe it wasn't. Okay. It was a seven year niche. And, um,'t okay it was a seven-year niche and um i was really going through a funk and he was going through a funk and we were trying to figure out things and you guys therapy is amazing like do it so hard times through marriage and then business so i

would say it's good to have coaches it's good to have like tonybins changed my life. Like I went to that UPW that I came home on cloud number 10,000. And I feel like I came home a better wife and mom. And I feel like you need to redo that because I feel like then all of a sudden you go down that slippery slope again. So relationship wise, I'd like 2007 ish. But then business wise, 2010, we took a pretty big hit. And but communication. So I didn't really know and so I'm like let's go to Disneyland let's go to Disneyland he's like we're broke and I'm like what like I thought we were rich I was trying to protect her from this one day I can totally relate totally relate sometimes I was like oh i need to i told my mom i went to sorry

this is about you guys i went to the atm and i was like mom i don't know if i can get 40 out to go to the garage to a garage sale and she was like okay so i look at my bank account and it's like multiple figures like thousands and thousands and i was like she's like so are we good like yep i guess we're good you never was just like, you never know. We could go buy a house maybe. I don't know. What do you want to go buy? It's so exciting this entrepreneurial world.

Yeah. I think I was thinking about that for me, the hardest is, and I shared the story of Fun Locking Live and it's funny because after I first clicked him up, that hit me. You remember you're like, I didn't do all of that. I'm like, we're a partnership. he held a lot of information from me and so at that it was dallas i believe and i was bawling my eyeballs out so i'm

like you were going through that alone and that's not okay yeah so i was trying to keep it a secret from her because i i'm the man i don't want to like true you know and like and i was always we always had enough money i know like back then like basically we got a paycheck every single month. It covered like all of our living expenses. And I was like, as long as that doesn't shift, then her world doesn't have to shift at all. So I didn't want to like put any stress or stress or pressure on her and the kids. It's like anything like that. If it ever got worse, like that, I didn't like lower that, you know, then I'd bring

it up. I was like, I can't do this. I'd go every single day and just, you know, we had, um, man, it was horrible. We laughed like 70, 80 people in one day. We like lost all of our emergency accounts. We had, it was just battle after battle. It was like a year of just like the most stress and pressure ever. But I think one of the most impactful moments of that whole journey,

I don't remember where it was in the timeline. All I remember is that I was trying to take all this pressure and this burden myself. Cause if I give it, it was my fault. I'd messed up. And, and that was not just keeping it from her, but it was keeping it from God, keeping it from everything. Every one morning I was just like in the room and I was just, it was a disaster. And I, I didn't know what to do and I didn't want to go in the office, but I had to, and like all these things. And I was just like in tears. I just remember, I don't remember this. I remember remember you grabbing me like pulling me to my knees and um you know we need to pray right now and um I think you prayed for me and prayed

for the business and prayed for everything and it was one of those moments where I was just like I'm not alone you know I have my wife I have God I have other things and I have to like I need to rely I can't keep relying on myself and that was like really the turning point um for me and so that was definitely the hardest part and then the probably the coolest thing that came from that and helped me to be more more open thank you so much for sharing that I mean that that is heavy stuff that's exactly what we're looking at because I know that that's the case for everybody in their own way. Like that's the reality. Cause we,

when we're front stage, you gotta be doing the thing, right? But there's all this stuff happening behind the scenes. It's just incredible. Did you have something you wanted to add to that? No, I was,

it was funny because I was thinking of that exact same story. Like when I grabbed him and I pulled him down, I'm like, we need to pray. Like anyway, so it was really cool that you shared that, felt that energy. Want more marketing secrets? If so, then go get your copies of my two bestselling books. Book number one is called expert secrets and you can get a free copy at expertsecrets.com. And book number two is called.com secrets and you can get your free copy at.comsecrets.com.

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