As I was writing the Traffic Secrets book today, I had a big ah-ha, and I think I’ve reverse engineered it to show you how to have the same thing in your life. On today’s episode Russell talks about why he’s taking his family on a Disney Cruise. He also explains his secret to having a big aha while writing his newest book, Traffic Secrets. Here are some of the insightful things in this episode:

-- Find out what Russell’s family’s super bowl goal was for them to go on a Disney Cruise.

-- Hear why Russell thinks that immersing yourself in a topic for several days is the perfect way to receive inspiration.

-- And find out how you can follow Russell’s lead by immersing yourself in any topic that you are interested in.

So listen here to find out why Russell thinks immersion is the key to making connections that you may not see when just dabbling.

And today was cool because I was doodling this thing and it just didn’t make sense, it made sense but it wasn’t right and I don’t know why. It’s close, but something is missing and I don’t know what it is. I kept trying and tweaking and doodling and changing, and then all the sudden it was like a bolt of lightning I had this aha, an epiphany, inspiration, revelation, whatever you want to call it. This concept popped into my head and I was like, “Oh my gosh, is that true?” And I started looking at, and started looking at it and it was like this connection that had been sitting there for 15 years right in front of my face, and I taught around it, done around it, our team is doing parts of it unknowingly.

-- ClickFunnels: Everything you need to start market, sell, and deliver your products and services online (without having to hire or rely on a tech team!)

-- DotComSecrets: Get a free copy of the "Underground Playbook For Growing Your Company Online With Sales Funnels."

​-- Expert Secrets: Get a free copy of the "Underground Playbook For Converting Your Online Visitors Into Lifelong Customers."

-- ​Traffic Secrets: Get a free copy of the "Underground Playbook For Filling Your Websites And Funnels With Your Dream Customers.

Hey, what’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, I want to welcome you to a very late night Marketing Secrets podcast.

Hey everyone, I hope you guys are doing awesome. I am actually at the office. It is almost midnight and I came to the office to grab some books because I am heading out on a Disney Cruise in the morning with my kids. It’s kind of fun, we’re going to be there for a week, it’s for Spring Break. But what’s even more exciting, I don’t know if I told you guys this story or not. But when Alex Charfin, he was one of our Two Comma Club X coaches for the very first year of Two Comma Club X coaching program, and his event which was amazing, he taught a bunch of stuff.

And one of the things he talked about was every company needs a hall of fame goal and then they need a super bowl goal, and then from there you reverse engineer. You know, your monthly goals, your weekly goals, your daily goals, stuff like that.

So we were thinking about like, that’s kind of cool. So we set a hall of fame goal for our family. I think I did talk about this once. So that was really cool. And then we set a super bowl goal. So for us the super bowl goal was, we’ve been having this goal to try to read The Book of Mormon as a family, for pretty much forever and we never have done it. So we set a goal like, if we can do that, we’ll do a big prize.

So we told the kids, “When you win the Super Bowl you go to Disneyland, where do you guys want to go when we hit our super bowl goal?” and they’re like, “We want to go on a Disney Cruise.” And we’re like, “Okay.” So we booked it out and it was like 6 months ago or so. I’m setting the alarm right now, so you’ll hear beeping noises. Anyway, so we went and we’ve been reading it and they got it done on Sunday. So we’re excited so we’re going on this Disney Cruise to celebrate.

And what’s crazy, as soon as the Disney Cruise is over we will be coming home and my kids are going to fly back to Boise with Brent Coppieters and his family, Brent has been one of my partners now for forever, he’s also coming on the Disney Cruise with us. He’s bringing his kids, they had the same goal and they also hit it.

So anyway, it’s kind of fun. They’re going to take our kids from Orlando back to Boise and then Collette and I are going to be flying to Puerto Rico to go to this mastermind group. If you’ve been listening to my podcast for a while you remember I did this secret illuminati men’s retreat thing, I don’t even know what to call it anymore. Anyway, we’re going part two of that and it’s going to be in Puerto Rico where Brendon’s got a house I guess. And we’re staying at some nice fancy pants place. So we’re flying from there, and we’re going to be there for a few days and meet with a bunch of cool people.

I can’t tell you all the cool people, I probably can’t tell you any actually. I probably shouldn’t say, but there’s going to be some amazing people there, so we’re really excited to do that and it’s going to be cool. So that’s what’s happening. I just got, my favorite part of going on a trip is coming to the office and looking at all my books and figuring what three books am I going to bring on the trip. So that’s what I just did right now. I picked my three books and now I’m heading back home to go start packing. It’s midnight, our Uber gets here at 4:30 in the morning. So in 4 and a half hours from now we’ll be in an Uber, so hopefully we get it all done in time.

Anyway, So I wanted to jump on today because a lot of cool things have been happening. So first off, again this is going back in time. For those of you who are my hardcore podcast listeners, I’m talking to you right now. Remember I talked about this goal I had this last year to transition away from being the all star on my team to being a coach and the pain and fear and all the things that are associated with that.

Well it’s crazy because it’s actually happening. You know Funnel Hacking Live happened and two weeks later we had our whole team come out and I kind of cast a vision and then our team grabbed it and Julie is managing the whole marketing team right now, which used to be what I would do, and she’s running with it. And then I took this week off, I’ve been writing the book, I’ve been at my house this whole week writing the Traffic Secrets book and working on the re-writes for the Dotcom and Expert Secrets books, which has been really fun. In fact, I showed you guys my process for writing books now, it’s really cool. It all happens in trello and it just makes it so much easier.

But I digress, that’s a lesson for another day. But I do want to tell you that my process is different from some writers. Some writers, like Julie for example, Julie Stoian, when she sits down, she wakes up in the morning, sits down and she writes. She’ll like just pound out, I don’t 25 million words in like an hour and a half and she’s done.

My brain does not work that way. For me it’s like, I sit in front of a pad of paper for hours, like 5 or 6 hours, just thinking, trying to connect the dots. I’m doodling and scribbling and trying to draw a picture that explains this thing that I know, that’s in my head, and then when the picture is right, you guys have read my books and stuff, when the picture is right, then I can sit down and write the chapter really fast because I’m just explaining what’s happening in this doodle right, in this picture.

So today I had a really cool experience. It doesn’t happen often, but when it happens it’s so cool, it’s special. I hope that you guys have a chance to feel this, but when you’re focusing on your craft and you’re geeking out and you’re learning and you’re in this immersion phase and you’re trying to like, I don’t know. For me, it’s almost like a spiritual thing, I pray before I start writing the books, I’m hoping for inspiration and those things are happening and I’m sitting down and I’m writing, writing, writing and doodling and trying to figure things out.

And today was cool because I was doodling this thing and it just didn’t make sense, it made sense but it wasn’t right and I don’t know why. It’s close, but something is missing and I don’t know what it is. I kept trying and tweaking and doodling and changing, and then all the sudden it was like a bolt of lightning I had this aha, an epiphany, inspiration, revelation, whatever you want to call it. This concept popped into my head and I was like, “Oh my gosh, is that true?” And I started looking at, and started looking at it and it was like this connection that had been sitting there for 15 years right in front of my face, and I taught around it, done around it, our team is doing parts of it unknowingly.

All the sudden it just popped in my head and I could see it so clearly and I was like, “Oh my gosh.” And basically I switched the doodle and move this thing here and all the sudden it’s like, it worked. And it was this whole new, I can’t even explain. And I remember I took a picture of it and sent it to a couple of people on our team and I was like, ‘I have to explain this to you guys because I think this is brilliant but I might be missing something.” So I voxed and explained it and I listened, I watched as they each listened and like, ‘Oh my gosh, where did that come from?” I’m like, ‘I don’t know. It just, when I was deep in immersion and focusing and meditating…” I don’t meditate, but doing the thing, these connections start appearing.

And it’s funny because I remember that happening a lot of times when I did the Dotcom Secrets book and the Expert Secrets book, where it’s like, it’s funny now when I go back and read those books right, I look at some of the old programs I put together, I’m like, ‘Where did that come from? I don’t remember that concept, that idea. That’s not from me. That’s not something I made up. Where did that connection come from?” And it’s really interesting.


So I share because it’s such a cool thing and if you haven’t experienced that, I want to encourage you guys to create something. It could be a book, it doesn’t have to be a book, it could be a course, be a product, whatever. I hope all you guys write a book, I think there’s, actually writing a book, sitting down and writing it because it’s different than reading a book and transcribing it and all that kind of stuff. But actually writing a book and sitting down and putting pen to paper and typing out the words to try and figure things out.

But I’ve had similar experiences when I study a lot, when I’m not just dabbling, but I go into immersion where I’m like, “Okay I’m going to spend three days, I’m going to learn this topic. I’m going to read everything and listen to every podcast and I’m just going to geek out and immerse myself where all the sudden these weird connections you don’t normally see start showing up where you’re like, oh my gosh this ties into that, which makes this possible.” It’s the coolest thing.

So it happened today and I’m grateful for it and I just wanted to say it for a couple of reasons. Number one, hopefully it’s a hook to make you want to read the book someday and be like, “What is that thing Russell’s talking about?” And you’ll see it in secret number one. It’s literally the core thing about moving towards pleasure and away from pain. There’s the hint for my die hard’s who are going to be looking for that in chapter one.

But more so, I want you guys to experience that. I think that when we really get into the process where we’re creating something special, something new, creating something that we’re guided and we’re inspired. These things aren’t off the top of our heads. I’m not smart enough to figure that out. It’s because I was sitting I was thinking and I was focusing for a long enough period of time that it put myself in a situation where I could receive those ideas and those thoughts and be like, “Hey what about this? Did you ever think about this? Look at that.” And you start looking at things differently and it’s amazing.

But you only get that in times of immersion. That’s why I struggled with school I think. School’s not immersion right. School is like, everyday you go to this class for an hour, this class for an hour, this class for an hour. The next day you start over and then you have homework assignments all over and tests. You never get to get deep with anything so you never see the connections.

But something like this where you’re like, I have to go through everything I know for the last 15 years and break it down into something so simple for everyone to understand, and boom, that’s where the revelation, the ideas, the aha’s, the epiphany’s, whatever you want to call them, I don’t care, that’s when your brain starts making those connections. So anyway, it’s special and it’s cool and I hope you guys all have a chance to experience that.

If not, if you haven’t, I encourage you to figure out something you want to geek out on, and take an extended, like a three day weekend and during that weekend go buy like, go and, let’s just say…The first time I ever did this actually, I’ll tell you the first time because maybe it’ll give you some ideas. I kept hearing people talk about NLP and I didn’t even know what NLP was, and I looked it up and it was like, Neural Logistic Programming. I was like, “What the dump is that?” I don’t even know what that phrase means, it’s so weird.

But everyone kept talking about it, and I was like, I have to learn this, I have to figure this out. And I didn’t have a lot of time because I was in school and I was trying to figure out my business and I was wrestling and all these things. But I was like I’m going to find some time and I’m going to block out three days and I’m going to learn this. I’m just going to, like I have to speed learn it, because I don’t have time. I have to get back to work after three days.

So I went and I bought, I think I bought three or four books on NLP, and this is before podcasting was really big, but I found a bunch of different audios of people who were teaching NLP, NLP practitioners, people doing NLP for sales and for motivation and for leadership and things like that. And I ordered a whole bunch of stuff, so over the next two or three weeks I was getting stuff from eBay and Amazon and all these places and I had this stuff.

And I sat down and I said, “Okay, I’m going to learn NLP as quick as I can.” So I’m not a fast reader typically, but I sat down and I started reading the book as fast as I could just to understand the concepts, and I would listen to audio and I would watch a video, or read another book. I kept going, and in a three day period of time I started learning and all the sudden, again, because I was in that immersion state, all these connections start popping together, that I don’t think I would have seen if I had read a chapter in a book each night, or even one chapter each week or whatever most of us do.

It was that time of immersion where my mind was in it for a long enough extended period of time that these connections started appearing. You know, I think that’s a big reason why we do the one funnel away challenge, why there’s so much success with it, because we’re forcing people to go through two years worth of training in 30 days. It forces you to a state of immersion where you gotta figure this stuff out. It makes connections and things that you wouldn’t have seen normally, all the sudden start appearing. “Oh my gosh, that’s how this works. That how Russell did that. I saw that over here and ahh!” And the light bulbs go off. That’s my real goal for sharing that with you.

I hope that helps. Anyway, I’m hoping it happens some more during this book. It was really cool, it was really fun and it just makes it exciting to keep moving forward, knowing that these things are coming. And hopefully they’ll keep coming to my mind and hopefully it will be the things that you need to unlock whatever you’re stuck on in the future.

So there you go. I appreciate you guys all for listening. Now it’s time to go create something. Go find your immersion weekend, lock down for three days, pick a topic. It could be anything, it could be funnels, could be copy, could be traffic, could be Facebook ads, could be Google ads, could be Instagram, pick anything that’s exciting to you. It could be speed reading, it could be biohacking, it could be losing weight, it could be gaining weight, it could be running faster, it could be jumping higher, it could be…I don’t care. Pick something that’s exciting for you and go and get topics from 5 or 6 different sources and then just speed geek out and learn about it for 3 days straight and see what happens, see the connections that up in your mind and you will love it.

Alright, that’s all I got you guys. I appreciate you all, thanks for listening. And I will talk to you guys all again soon. Bye everybody.