When all is said and done, I think we’ll be shocked at how similar all of our problems in this life really were. On today’s episode Russell talks about an epiphany that he had in Kenya. Here are some of his awesome thoughts from this episode:

-- Why seeing people fighting for food in Kenya helped Russell gain a new perspective on trials.

-- Why he believes that everyone’s trials, while different, are the same in magnitude.

-- And why you should serve your customers with empathy, because you don’t know what kind of trials they are currently struggling with.

So listen here to hear why Russell believes trials are different, but we’d all be shocked to learn how similar they are in magnitude.

And I remember looking at these kids and they had the biggest smiles on their faces and they were so happy. And I look at that in perspective to sometimes I see my kids or other people’s kids I know who are sitting playing video games on these Xboxes and Playstations and all these expensive things and they’re angry and they’re sad and they’re miserable. And I started thinking about that perspective, just like, “Wait a minute, am I the one that’s blessed or are these guys the ones blessed?” Here they are, in the middle of nowhere, they don’t know about all these other things, and look how happy they are. There’s not depression there, there’s not suicide there, there’s not all those things that plague everybody here often.

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What’s up everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today I want to give you a perspective change.

Hey everyone, so I’m outside in my yard walking around, and it’s a little bit cold, but I had a thought that I wanted to share with you guys today. And it’s a thought about, you know, people will talk all the time about how they’re blessed, or how lucky they are to live here, or to live in this time of life, or all the different things. And I think it’s good. I always think about that, how blessed I am and I feel beyond blessed.

But I remember a couple of years ago was the first time I had a chance to go on a trip to Kenya. And while I was in Kenya, man, one of the most amazing experiences ever, but while I was there, my wife and I had a chance to go and build schools for these kids. And I remember walking, the very first day we got there, and we’re sitting there in this little village and this car pulled up, and all these people start swarming the car. And in the car, the back of it, there was a couple of these I don’t know, corn or some kind of food, and they dumped them out and the car drove off. And all these people swarming towards it with cups and they’re grabbing their food out of it, and they’re fighting over it and stuff.

And I remember we’re walking towards watching this thing happen. And I look over to Collette and she’s just bawling. Her face is just, she’s crying like crazy. I’m like, uh, one of those things where you’re just like, I wasn’t expecting that, you know. And I started getting emotional, it was really hard. And that whole week was amazing, you know, spending time with the kids and seeing them in these humble circumstances where if they’re getting one meal a day they’re lucky. And it’s not the kind of meals we eat.

And I remember for the first part of the trip sitting there and thinking, “Why am I so blessed? Why am I so lucky? Why was I born here in America and have all these luxuries, and food, as much as I want, and money, and running water, and toilets?” You know, how blessed I am. And then, again, I am. But it was interesting as I started watching throughout the rest of the week, I started looking at these kids out there and I remember my wife and I saw these kids and they had a tire, a bike tire and a stick, and they were playing for hours, hitting the bike tire with a stick and having fun and all these things.

And I remember looking at these kids and they had the biggest smiles on their faces and they were so happy. And I look at that in perspective to sometimes I see my kids or other people’s kids I know who are sitting playing video games on these Xboxes and Playstations and all these expensive things and they’re angry and they’re sad and they’re miserable. And I started thinking about that perspective, just like, “Wait a minute, am I the one that’s blessed or are these guys the ones blessed?” Here they are, in the middle of nowhere, they don’t know about all these other things, and look how happy they are. There’s not depression there, there’s not suicide there, there’s not all those things that plague everybody here often.

And I just had this perspective change of like, maybe they’re the one that’s blessed, maybe I’m the one that’s cursed. Maybe I was cursed with blessing and riches, all these things. You know, I have different trials and temptations and problems because of it. It was one of those moments where you’re just like, I wonder if I’m seeing this whole thing wrong.

And I remember hearing a quote from somebody, and I can’t remember who said, I wish I could find it again. If not I’ll just quote it as my own. But they said, when this life is over and we have a chance to be back with our maker, that we’ll be shocked at how similar in severity all of our trials were in life. I started thinking a lot of times we forget that the person who may seem like they have it all, they’ve got the money, the houses, the cars, they may seem like they have all this stuff figured out, but maybe they’re struggling in their marriage or their family or depression or things like that.

And someone who is seemingly so poor and they have nothing, yet they’re happy and they’ve got family, and they’ve got that part of life figured out. And I think all of us are going to be shocked someday when we do have a chance to be back with our maker and we sit there. I think sometimes we think, that person got lucky, this person got lucky, and I think we’re going to sit there and we’re going to listen and we’re going to realize that all of our trials were the same. Different trials but the same severity. We all had the same, when all is said and done, the rules were the same. That we’ll be shocked at how fair this life actually was.

I know that’s hard to hear, especially for any of us who are going through trials, or are going through trials, and you look at everyone else, “Everyone else’s life is perfect except for mine.” I don’t think that’s true. I don’t believe a just loving god would give one person more trials or harder trials than somebody else, I think he gives us all the same. Obviously the trials are different, we each get our own bag of problems, bag of blessings, bag of opportunities, whatever you want to call them. But I definitely think that when he was creating this whole thing, he wasn’t being unfair, unjust to anybody.

So I think it’ll be interesting. So with that said, I want you to look deep inside yourself, look at the pain that you’re personally going through right now, whatever it might be, and look at the people around you that you love and realize that everyone’s got the same severity, the same trials. I shouldn’t say that, not the same trials, the same severity of trials. We’ll all be shocked when this life is over and we realize how similar in magnitude everyone’s trials and problems really were.

Anyway, I hope that helps you to have more compassion, more love on the people around you, and when you’re serving realize you’re serving people who are struggling just like you. And whatever you can do to help them get out of pain, hopefully it will help you get out of pain as well. Alright, that’s what I got. There’s your marketing secret for today. What does that have to do with marketing? Everything. Hopefully it gives you empathy. Empathy is the key to understanding and serving your customers.

Alright, with that said, appreciate you all, have an amazing day, talk to you soon. Have an amazing day.