The Russell Brunson Show - The Pride Cycle, And How It Affects Your Company

Episode Date: February 9, 2018

Understanding the "Pride Cycle" can keep your business protected from yourself. On today's episode Russell talks about the pride cycle and how he stays humble. Here a few of the amazing things in this episode: Find out what the pride cycle is and why you have to go through it to learn how to stay humble. Hear how Russell keeps himself humble so he doesn't have to go through a third crash. And find out why sometimes pride isn't the reason for your crash, you just needed to go another direction. So listen here to find out how to keep yourself humble in your business so you don't have to be humbled. Transcript - https://marketingsecrets.com/blog/the-pride-cycle-and-how-it-affects-your-company Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With TD Direct Investing, new and existing clients could get 1% cash back. Great! That's 1% closer to being part of the 1%. Maybe, but definitely 100% closer to getting 1% cash back with TD Direct Investing. Conditions apply. Offer ends January 31, 2025. Visit td.com slash dioffer to learn more. What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson, and welcome to a late-night marketing secrets podcast. 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 answer. My name is Russell Brunson and welcome to

Marketing Secrets. Hey everyone, I'm in my home tonight. Right now, my wife and my kids are asleep. I'm about to head to bed. I still got kind of a stuffy nose. My Monday, my cold went away. And then Todd and Ryan and Karen and Nick and everybody, a bunch of people flew in town this week to do a big hackathon. And working on some new updates in ClickFunnels,

ClickFunnels, ActionX, MD, and a bunch of just insane cool things we'll be showing at Funnel Hacking Live. And we basically pulled two all-nighters in a row, and lo and behold, my cold came back. So now we have official proof that sleep does correlate to if you're going to get sick or not. So yeah, you should sleep more often. So tonight we actually went home early. It's a little after 10, so I'm going to get some sleep tonight, which I'm excited for. But I wanted to share a quick message with you guys that I thought was really cool. I was kind of just catching up with my Voxers and my Inner Circle members and answering them.

And I had a really cool conversation tonight through Voxer with one of my Inner Circle members. He's ClickFunnels member, Two Column Club winner, and Inner Circle member's name is Akbar Sheikh. A lot of you guys may know him. He's very prominent in our community, and it was a really cool conversation, and I'm not going to share the whole thing, because, you know, first off, just confidentiality with my clients, second off, it doesn't matter, kind of the end result of what we talked about ended up being really cool, and I thought I would spend a little bit sharing it with all of you guys, because I think it's important. So what Akbar was talking to me was just basically talking about, you know, business owners who, and entrepreneurs have success. And then a lot of times they, they stop being humble. And there's a concept, there's a concept called the, the pride cycle.

So those who, you know, went to seminary, like I did, there's a concept called the pride cycle. So those who went to seminary like I did, there's a concept called the pride cycle. This is how the pride cycle works, okay? So first is you are humble, right? And you're eager to learn and try to grow or whatever, right? And then you, because of that, because you're humble, you start having success. You start learning and growing and developing

and then you go in this circle, right? So those who are listening, you can't see my finger, but those who are watching, I'm making a circle with my fingers. They start going up, you're having success. You start learning and more good things happen. And all of a sudden you get to the very top and boom, you're having success. And then what happens? We'll start having success. We start drinking our own Kool-Aid. We start becoming prideful. We start thinking, man, I am amazing. And what happens at the top of that, then this is the backside of the, of the pride cycle where then, uh, the Lord or whoever it is, humbles you. And basically, um, you become humble until the

point you end back at the very bottom and you cycled. And then hopefully you're home sufficiently humble where you can learn and grow. And then you start this process up again and you go up and then you get top of the cycle. And then usually people at the top become prideful and then they crash again. So this is pride cycle, right? And this is happening around all day long. It's been happening since the beginning of time. Um, you can see in political leaders, religious leaders, you can see it in, uh, people, humans, authors, like anyone in your own life. You've seen, I guarantee you've seen it. If you step back and look at your own life, you've seen the pride cycle and, uh, and it's, it's, it's a true thing that's happening. Right. And so, uh, we were talking about that. It's like,

you know, and I, people a lot of times ask me like, Russell, how come, you know, how do you stay humble with things happening? And I was like, because I'm scared of the pride cycle. I've gone on the full loop and, uh, the bottom's not very much fun. So I'm trying to figure out like, how do I stay up here? And the thing that I know is that when you're prideful, you have to crash. If you believe scripture, you know, it says the Lord will have a humble people. Either you will be humble or he will humble you. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to be humble because I don't want to be humble. Like, that sounds horrible.

And it's interesting. I was, next thing I kind of told Akbar was about, I had a friend, I was in Mexico and this marketing thing. And I was talking to this guy who became a friend later and he's super wealthy, um, you know, buys and sells businesses and makes, you know, a ton of money. And it was interesting as we were talking, uh, he wanted to hear my story. So of course, as most entrepreneurs do, I tell him the highlight reel about how cool I am. And he's like, Oh, and not impressed.

I'm like, huh? And he asked me, he's like, he's like, so have you always just had success? And, and I was like, huh? And I kind of told him, I'm like, well, twice I pretty much bankrupted my companies. And, uh, and, um, and he's like, well, tell me that story. That story sounds more interesting. So I kind of tell him the story. And, uh, and then he's like, good, good. I'm like, what do you mean good? That's not good. And he's like, no, he's like, you cycled. He said, I've never worked with an entrepreneur who hasn't cycled at least once. I was like, what do you mean cycled?

He said, you built a company, you've crashed. He's like, if you haven't cycled, he's like, you're still gonna drink your own Kool-Aid, read your own bio and believe it. And he's like, it's not gonna be good. And I was like, oh, how cool is that? First off, cycling sounds way cooler than failing. But second off, I was just like,

how interesting, it's the pride cycle, right? He would only work with someone who's at least cycled once because they're sufficiently humble that they'll listen to advice and they're going to, they're going to grow. And so Akbar and I were kind of talking about this and then his message back was like, well, he's like, you know, I've been down the bottom. He's like, but I've gotten to the spot where I'm kind of top. He's like, I don't, I don't want that to be part of my story. I don't want the crashing part of my story. Like, what do I do? And so I just wanted to share this piece of advice because this is kind of what I told him. And I think that, um, it's important for all of us to

think about. So, um, what I told him, I said, well, first off from like a business, like basically I learned is like, cause yes, he's, he's like, is it, you know, is it about diversification? Is that the key? And I was like, well, kind of like, I believe in diversification in, in some things, but not your business. I think everyone should go like whatever you want, whatever your business is going to be, like you should go all in, like you should diversify your business. I think having multiple businesses is the fastest way to destroy your business. Um, and I know that from personal experience from a decade of it. So this is not me just philosophizing. This is me doing a lot of businesses and none of them could grow. Um, having a sole focus. You're not diversifying

your businesses. You're diversifying the pieces around your business. Where are the singular failure points? For me, my first time, or the second biggest big business crash was I was relying on one merchant account and that was it. It was like, oh. It was like diversification of merchant accounts to protect myself. If this goes out, this goes out, like I have protection, right? Um, that was number one. And then like diversification of traffic sources. Like yesterday, uh, yesterday's podcast, I talked about the Facebook slap that's coming. It's like, if, if all your eggs were the Zuckerberg basket, like you could be in trouble. I know so many people that all their eggs were Google's basket was PPC and PPC shifted businesses gone. Um, when they went to SEO and SEO shifted businesses gone,

like diversifying your traffic source, like you need to make sure you're getting traffic from at least two sources. If you have a salesperson, at least two sales guys, if you've got a programmer, at least two program, like diversification inside the business to protect it, but not diversification of your business. Like you shouldn't be doing five different businesses. That's the opposite of good. Um, that's number one. And then number two, um, is trying to remain humble.

And that's hard sometimes, right? Like it's just like, I need to keep myself sufficiently humble because if not number two is trying to remain humble. And that's hard sometimes, right? It's just like I need to keep myself sufficiently humble because if not, I'm going to be humble. So it's like what does that mean? Well, for me, it means praying to God. It means not being a jerk. It means remembering that it's not me. It's an amazing team of people.

Remembering that the only reason I've been given these gifts and these blessings is because there's a purpose for it. I'm trying to help other people. And if I lose sight of those things, man, my head can grow fast. And I understand. Like I have a fat for it. I'm trying to help other people. If I lose sight of those things, man, my head can grow fast. And I understand, like, I have a fat head anyway. I can't wear hats. This is actually a true story. I can't wear hats because I have a fat. My circumference of my head is enormous.

I've tried my whole life to wear hats and I can't. You'll never see me in a hat ever because my head's so fat. So my head will continue to grow and swell. And so that's like number two is like just being aware of it, being aware of where you are in this pride cycle. Like if you're sufficiently humble, um, that's, that's good. Like stay there. And then as you start having success, like try to stay humble. Cause it's hard. Um, number two thing was, um, I look at all the people that

I know that have, um, over the last 15 years of doing this. And I've seen people go through this cycle. Um, the ones that don't make it back up are the ones who are too prideful to learn. Blows my mind. Between Christmas time and now, I've had three close friends who have had big businesses who have crashed, who come to me saying, hey, Russell, I see what you're doing. Is there any way I could come to your office and shout at you and just see what you're doing so I can understand it, so I can get my business back up? And all of them are close friends, and I was like, yeah, I would definitely be game for that.

But first, you've got to read my two books. Read Expert Secrets and Dotcom Secrets because that's the foundation. Read those and then let me know and then you can come. And so I told them that and none of them have read the books and none of them will come. They won't learn. And I'm like, oh, are you kidding me? I feel like at this time in my life, I'm at the top of my game. I don't think there's a lot of people who understand marketing. I feel like at this time in my life, I'm at the top of my game.

Again, this is me and my head starting to swell. I don't think there's a lot of people who understand marketing better than me at this point. Marketing and sales. Not because of the big ego, but I've dedicated a decade and a half to this. At a high level, super intense, super immersion, not just theory, but testing, testing. I don't think there's many people that know more than that, but I also think there's more people that study more than me. I still study because I'm just, I want to stay sufficiently humble. Like I'm always learning. Like I'm in mastermind groups. I pay other people for coaching. I have multiple coaches happening all the time on my phone. If I was to show you my iBooks account,

um, I have, I would say conservatively at this point, probably 350 to $400,000 in courses on my phone that I listened to every single day, old school stuff, new stuff. I'm always trying to learn because I, because I don't want the market to shift and maybe left behind. I need to be sufficiently humble so I can continue to learn so I can see what's happening. Be aware of the trends, be aware of the evergreen things that are never going to shift. And just like, I'm always learning. Partially for me.

Also, I heard Rich Sheffrin say this one time. He's like, I get paid to think for a lot of people. And he's like, that's why I have to learn and study. Because then I share with other people and I'm thinking for other people. And I feel an obligation to that too. I have a lot of people following me, listening to me. And I need to consume and learn and keep on top of the game. So I continue to give back. Because I get paid from my tribe to contribute back. So that's number two. And then the third thing

is sometimes we need to, to cycle. And sometimes it's not always because you're prideful. Sometimes it's just, you're going in the wrong direction. I look at, um, I look at my business over the last 15 years, like I was running in a direction and I thought it was right at the time, and maybe it was right at the time. I learned a lot of things, met a lot of people, and we served people the best that we knew at the time. And then everything crashed because that thing shifted. And then I started running in this direction, running, running, running, doing the best I could, best that I understood. I made a lot of mistakes, but met amazing people. I learned, I learned, I learned, built this thing up and then it crashed again. And then I shifted. And I look at during those times,

like during the crashes, I was just like devastated. Like I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was, you know, I thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, but it didn't work. So apparently something was wrong. And a lot of times maybe it's not because you something wrong. Maybe it's that God needed you over here, but you're running this direction. So he had to like, to force this thing. So you'd be humble enough to listen to move. And then boom, humble enough, humble enough, listen to be able to move again. And, um, you know, I look at my life now, I look at the path, I look at, you know, the people that, that I met because of these, these things that I wouldn't have met otherwise that they've built click funnels. Like I bet I

met Todd because of a crash here. I met Dave because of this. I met Brent, I met John, all these people on my team, um, Ryan, like all these amazing. And I mean, there's so many on my team that I could go on for hours, but those people were like, I picked up each of those during these, these journeys, these ups and these downs that came to part of our team that made the foundation that we needed to be able to build ClickFunnels. And like, at now my life, like, man, can you like, like those, those things were necessary. So sometimes, you know, you can be doing everything right, but you just have to trust God. God may need your business to crash for him to get you to where he needs you at. And it's just being okay with that. And like, okay. In fact, I was talking to, um,

who was the other day, some of the other day about that in my, in my own life. And I was just like, you know, ClickFunnels is awesome. I love it. I believe it's my mission, but maybe there's, maybe like this might be not be the end mission. Maybe there's something I should do over here. And maybe like, what does that mean? Like, I don't know yet. I just need to pay attention and try to be sufficiently humble. So like when it comes, it's like, Hey, I need, you know, maybe, maybe the business crashes. Maybe I need to sell the humble. So like when it comes, it's like, hey, I need, you know, maybe the business crashes. Maybe I need to sell the business. Maybe I need to keep it forever.

Like, I don't know, but it's trying to like be humble enough to listen so that we know like, what's the plan? Where are we trying to go? So kind of stepping back and putting our faith in God and saying, look, I'll go where you want me to go. I'll do what you need me to do. If you need this to end, that's okay.

And what am I gonna learn from this? Where am I gonna go from here? So anyway, I hope that helps somebody out there who's okay. And, um, what am I gonna learn from this? Where am I going to go from here? So anyway, I hope that helps somebody out there who's listening. Um, because it's, uh, it's, it's pretty cool, pretty special. Um, so there you go. There's the pride cycle. This is a seminary, early morning seminary. I didn't go to early morning seminary, seminary one-on-one. Um, but that's, that's what happens. And so for you guys to understand that, like, hey, where are you at in this pride cycle? Are you at the bottom?

Are you humble? So awesome. Like cherish that, study, learn, grow, like stay humble. And then as you start coming up towards the top, stay humble because that crash is never fun. But if you do crash, understand there's a purpose for it. So hope it helps you guys. Appreciate you all.

Have an amazing night. I'm going to get to bed, get a couple hours of sleep before the morning waits a few hours. So much fun. All right. We'll talk to you soon. Bye. 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 Dot Com Secrets, and you can get your free copy at dotcomsecrets.com. Inside these two books, you'll find my top 35 secrets that we've used to become the fastest-growing, non-VC-backed SaaS startup company in the world.