Did your business get demolished because of the Corona slap? If so, here are the new rules of how to play and how to win. On this episode Russell talks about the game of being an entrepreneur and how part of playing is adapting to when the rules change. Here are some of the awesome tips you will hear in today’s episode:

-- Find out why in the 18 years Russell has been involved in online marketing, he has had to change the way he plays the game so many times.

-- And see why if you do not adapt to the changes, and continue to fight for the rules to go back to the way they were, you won’t make it in this business.

So listen here to find out how you can go with the flow, and learn to play the game when the rules are changed.

So I started thinking about that and I think for all of us, we have to understand that, and I’ve been doing this now, I think I’m in my 18th year almost of my online business ventures, that’s crazy to think. Anyway, 18 years I’ve been playing this game, and the rules for me have changed a lot. I remember getting hurt and upset every single time. My first was with Google, I had my first Google ads account working, I’m like, “I’m making money.” Then I got slapped and I was like, “Uh, it’s over.” And I remember being mad and angry, and like frustrated.

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Hey everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about a new way to play the game.

Alright everybody, I hope you are all surviving your quarantine time. And as you know now we are playing a little bit different of a game. The rules have changed, the game that’s played has changed, and I bet for a lot of you guys now, you are annoyed and frustrated, and you are mad at all the things that are happening right. And I want to tell you guys a story because I was thinking about this today.

When I was growing up I remember I would play games with kids sometimes, and the kids would literally, in the middle of the game change the rules. Do you guys remember this as you were growing up, some of your buddies and stuff? They’d change the rules of the game in the middle of it, and you’re like, ‘It’s not fair. That’s not how it works.” And they’re like, “But this is how it is, this is how we play, this is the new rule.” And it kind of ruins the game. You get angry and you fight at each other and eventually stomp off and you don’t talk to them for like a week or whatever, until you make up and then you play another game, right.

And I remember that’s how my life always was. And then fast forward to this amazing time, when I started having kids. And as a lot of you guys know, we’ve got 5 kids. We’ve got twin boys that are 14, all the way down to a 5 year old girl who is the cutest thing on this planet, Norah. So we’ve got 5 kids and I remember as I started, as I was an adult, a parent and I started playing games with the kids as they got old enough, we’d start playing these games and in the middle of the game, they’d literally change the rules.

They’d be like, “Okay Dad, you can’t do that now.” And I’m like, “Why not?” they’re like, “Because this is the new rule. This is how it changed.” And I remember getting slightly annoyed, but you’re like, whatever. It’s my kid, it doesn’t really matter if I win or not, I’m just here to play the game. So you go with the punches, you change, they change the rules, you play, they change the rules again, they play. And you just keep, when they change the rules you kind of shift to it, and you keep adjusting and keep playing. And when all is said and done you have a good time with the kids, and you know, it’s fun.

And I started thinking about this right now. It’s been interesting watching as the whole Coronavirus has been hitting and happening, and what’s happening. Because what happened for everybody is the game changed. The rules changed in the middle of it and it didn’t make any sense. And I think a lot of people, they’re taking it very much like 12 year old Russell did, where it’s like, “You can’t change the rules, that’s not how it works.” and getting all angry and upset. And you see that in so many people who are struggling with this, where it’s like, ‘Now I have to work from home. Now I can’t do this, now I can’t do…” all these rules and things and you get annoyed by it.

And there’s other people who are just like, “Okay, the game has changed, the rules changed. Cool, how do I play with the new rules, the new confines of what’s happening? How do I play the game now, and how do I win?” and those are the ones who aren’t as panicked, and less freaked out. And they seem to be the ones who are surviving and thriving right now, versus others who are still just angry, “You can’t do that. You can’t change the rules on me.”

So I started thinking about that and I think for all of us, we have to understand that, and I’ve been doing this now, I think I’m in my 18th year almost of my online business ventures, that’s crazy to think. Anyway, 18 years I’ve been playing this game, and the rules for me have changed a lot. I remember getting hurt and upset every single time. My first was with Google, I had my first Google ads account working, I’m like, “I’m making money.” Then I got slapped and I was like, “Uh, it’s over.” And I remember being mad and angry, and like frustrated.

And then it was like, “Okay, based on these new rules, how do we play the game?” and from that is where we discovered this whole concept of funnels. We have upsells and downsells and we make more money, and now it doesn’t matter if the ad cost went up, because now we’re still back in. And that worked for a while. And then we got Google slapped again later, and I was like, “Okay, based on these new rules, how do you play the game? Okay now it’s SEO, what are the rules of the game? How does it work?” and we figured it out. We played the game at a high level. We started making a ton of money and we’re like, “This is amazing.” And then boom we got slapped again and everything changed again.

So the game changed and we had to change our process and our plan and our map and those things again. And that worked for a little while, and then we got slapped again, and it got changed. And it got to the point where somewhere in the last 18 years, I don’t know where, I got so used to that, that it’s just like, when the rules changed it wasn’t this annoyance, it was, ‘Okay, rules changed, how do we play this game now based on these new rules and the new things?”

And I think that when you fight against the rules, you kick against a lot of times, where sometimes we think we’re going to fix it or change it, but usually we don’t. Especially when you’re playing with your kids, a little game with your kids, they’re the ones in charge because then they start crying and it’s like, “Ah.” Right now we’re like, “We’re not the one’s in charge.” It’s the government and the health professionals and the politicians. They’re in charge, it keeps changing the rules.

And they’ve done it with us with advertizing. I remember a decade ago, they shifted the advertizing laws where all the sudden it became harder. It was like, all the stuff we were able to say we couldn’t say anymore. And then they shifted again, and taxes shift and the things keep shifting and I think that when we get annoyed with it, it makes us shrink down, and we stop being creative, we stop trying to figure it out. And eventually we end up losing the game and they win.

And I think if we look at it differently as like, “Okay, this is a new game, there’s new rules. I gotta figure out how to play it.”

I remember going to Tony Robbins Business Mastery event, he talked about this. He talked about how, I can’t remember the numbers, like % of your income you should put into an investment account, or % into an investment account. He’s like, “Most people if I tell you that, if I say you gotta put % of your money into an investment account, you’re like, ‘I don’t have that kind of money, I can’t afford it.’ But the government came and said, ‘Alright, we’re taxing you an extra 20%’ you’d be annoyed and you’d kick and you’d scream, but then you’re an entrepreneur and you’d figure it out. You’d figure out ways around it to make an extra 20% to cover your taxes, so you’d be fine.”

And he said, “It’s the same kind of thing now. You know, in this thing, change the rules of the game yourself, figure out how to make an extra 20% and start putting that away into your investment accounts or whatever.”

So it was kind of interesting thinking about that, the rules keep changing and I think the more we get angry and kick against it and fight against it, it’s not necessarily going to serve us or serve the people that we’ve been called to serve. It’s going to be harder. But as soon as we come back and say, “Okay, the rules have changed, what are the new rules of the game, there’s new rules, how do I win?” and that’s what we should be looking at, is that. Understanding the rules changed.

The same thing happened to wrestling. Every single year they have new rules, and it’s like, “These are the new rules.” And some things we were doing the year before all the sudden now are illegal. Or something that used to be illegal is now legal. It’s like, it’s coming back to, “Okay, what are the rules today, how do I play this game, how do I win?”

I think if we all start shifting our mindset to that, that’s how you’re going to dominate right now. Because the rules just got shifted up, everything’s changed around, and anybody who’s sitting there fighting, trying to get back to the old rules, is going to lose this game. And anybody who’s looking at it saying, “Okay, based on this what are the new rules of the game? How do we play, how do we win?” Start looking for that and figuring it out, boom you can go and you can tackle it.

Anybody who lost their, who’s job or who’s business got shut down, the rules of the game just got changed on you man, and you’ve gotta sit back and be like, “Okay, what are the new rules, how do I play within these rules and how do I win?”

Tim Ferris has a book, the Four Hour Work Week, which is still one of the, such a good book, one of the original online marketing books, and he talked about this when he, I can’t remember what style, some style of karate he wanted to go and compete in. So he started and he figured out like, what are the rules, how do I win this game? And he wasn’t the best person, but he, I think he ended up winning the world title or something based on, he figured out how do you win this game. And there were a couple of different ways to win, and one was you can disqualify someone by doing some move or doing something. So he figured out how to do it, went to the highest levels, and won. He won the game, he won the title, he won everything. Even though he wasn’t the best technician, the best thing, but he figured out what are the rules of the game, and how do I win? And then he went and he won.

So for you guys right now, again the game has changed, the rules have changed, we gotta figure this out, and now that you kind of know that, through that lens I want to highly recommend for you guys to figure it out. Be like, ‘Okay, what are the new rules, how do I play and how do I win?” And stop worrying about the old rules, stop worrying about what used to be or what could’ve been, start focusing on what is today. And the faster you get that realization, the faster you make the shifts, the faster you start working towards that, the quicker you’re going to be successful and get back to normal life.

Anyway, I appreciate you all, thanks for hanging out today. I hope this helps, if you got any value from this, please screenshot this, tag me on social media, and share with other people and let them know that they should come subscribe to Marketing Secrets podcast so you can get the most up to date ideas, concepts, strategies, tips, tricks, and things to help grow their company as well. Thanks so much you guys, and I will talk to you all soon. Bye everybody.