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534 - What's the ROI of Your Vacation?

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534 - What's the ROI of Your Vacation

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Episode Recap:

Some cool thoughts from my vacation, as well as my process on what to read, why to read, and how to read, and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. I hope you enjoy!

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Marketing Secrets podcast
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Marketing Secrets podcast
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Best Quote:

I've been two, two and a half years working on this project, and I've deleted the book twice. As of today, I have no word written other than the title, which is Secrets of Success, which Tony Robbins told me he didn't like that title, which makes me sad. Because I'm going to call it that way anyway. Someday, he's going to tell me he actually likes that title. Anyway, it's actually funny. Jeff Walker hated the name DotCom Secrets. He was like, "That's the worst name of a book ever." "Oh, thanks."

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Transcript:

What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I just got back from an amazing week with my family on Lake Powell, no cell phones, no TV, no anything other than a boat, a surfboard, my brain, some books, and my family. So I got some ideas, some things I want to share with you, and I hope you are feeling great today.

All right, everybody. So we just got back to the office after being gone for, man, almost two weeks, between the drive times and all the things. But went down to Lake Powell and had an amazing time with our family. We started learning, or not learning, a couple years ago, we started going to Lake Powell, which is Southern Utah's amazing lake. And we rented a houseboat, we have some friends we go with. And then we get down there, and we surf. We wake surf for a week, three or four times a day, and it's really, really fun.

Some of the interesting things about it is when we're out there, we have no internet, no cell phone, no TVs, no anything. We're just there with our family, which is such a cool thing. Our family, and then our brains, and for me, I bring some books, and all that kind of stuff. It's just such a cool time to disconnect. But for me, I'm sure, like a lot of you guys, vacations are hard. They're stressful sometimes. They're like, "Oh, this is so hard to break away and go on vacation." But at the same time, it's so good.

But it was interesting. One of the things that was on my mind a lot, and I want to share with you guys, and this, I don't know if I'm the same, if all you guys are this way or not, which is totally cool if you're not, but I've been totally geeking out recently on personality profiles and tests, probably because we're launching our new personality company, which, in fact, it's actually live now. If you want to go to understand.me, you can go and you can register and sign up for a free account, and then you can go take this test in 16 personalities and love languages and all different tests. And then you put in your information, and it pops out a page.

So I think if you go to understand.me/russellbrunson, you'll see all my personality profiles in case you're wondering who I am. But you can go and create it for free and set it up. And then what I'm going to do, and I think all you have to do is go link in your Instagram profile and Facebook profile, everywhere, to your page. And that way, people can see who you are and your personality, which is kind of fun.

Anyway, I digress. I'm telling you this because, like I said, I'm just so excited, having so much fun with personality profiling, all that kind of stuff. And one of the things I found about myself in the DISC test, there's a section called the Motivators, which you have to pay, I don't know, extra 50 bucks or something to get the Motivators, but it's worth it. So I got my Motivators. So in there, it shows you these different things that motivate you. And my number one motivator, which is interesting, is ROI. And I thought it was confusing, because at first, I'm like, "ROI? I don't..." If you know anything about me, like in business, I'm very good at marketing and sales, but I'm not a numbers person. I don't look at my balance sheets. I don't look at all that kind of stuff. I have people that do those things to report back in layman's term what they mean, so I can make choices and things like that.

So first, I was like, "That doesn't make any sense." And then my coach, Mandy, Mandy Keene, she's our Inner Circle coach. She also coaches me. She said something interesting. She said that the ROI is not like, "What's the ROI of your balance sheet?" It's the, "What's the return on your investment of every situation?" So for me, it's like, if I'm in a conversation with somebody, what's the ROI? What's the return on this time I'm putting to this? If I'm reading a book, or if I'm watching TV, or if I'm in school, if I'm learning something, if I'm at the office, every situation, if I don't see what the ROI is in this situation, I really, really struggle, which is, I think, the reason why I struggled in school so much. I just could never understand the purpose, which most of us probably deal with that, especially the entrepreneurial types who are just like, "This doesn't make any sense. Why are we doing this?"

Anyway, so I wanted to share that, because, for me, that's my biggest motivator is ROI. So I started looking at this whole trip and everything I was doing. And sometimes there were points where I'd be annoyed by something, and I didn't know why, I was just frustrated. And looking at it through that lens like, "Oh, it's because I don't see what the ROI is in the situation." And I'd be annoyed. So this time, I tried to be more aware of that, which was really interesting.

Like for example, we had a five hour drive from Boise down to Utah to stay at my parents' house, which is halfway. And in my perfect world, I'd be listening to audio books from five hours and learning a bunch of stuff. But when I've got my wife and kids and all the chaos and all that kind of stuff, if I listen to audio books, I feel like a jerk. My wife's dealing with managing all these crazy kids in the car, and I just kind of checked out to hang out in this other land where I'm listening to books and learning and stuff. So I always feel... I don't feel good typically doing that. So usually, listen to music, and we'll hang out, and we'll talk, which is great. But I think in the past, it would always leave me frustrated like, "Oh, I could be learning. Five hour drive, I could listen books on 2X speed. That's 10 hours of reading I could've got done." So I think in my head I'd be annoyed, because I'm like, "Oh, what was the ROI of the situation?"

But this time, I was conscious of it. So I was like, "Okay. The ROI is I got five hours with my wife and my kids." So I was like, "How to make this fun?" And by figuring out what the ROI was going to be, as I entered the activity, instead of just subconsciously being annoyed, it was really cool, because I enjoyed the drive. It was really fun. And who knew, my wife was really, really fun to hang out with. I'm just kidding. I knew that. But it was a really... It just changed the experience for me, which was cool.

On the boat was the same thing. I don't have internet or cell phone stuff, so I'm like, half the time, "Oh, I could be emailing. I could be doing these things. I could be doing so much stuff." Instead I was like, "What's the ROI of this situation, with my kids, with this specific kid, with this thing?" And it just made those moments a lot better for me.

So anyway, just the thing to... For those of you guys who are motivated by ROI of a situation, it's just, when you become conscious of it, then you can look for the ROI. And all of sudden, you're like, "Oh, this may not be the ROI that my brain defaults to, but as a whole, it's really, really exciting." So anyway, I wanted to share that.

But then more so, I want to share, because I brought... I don't know, I'm weird. My wife always teases me. But I have a huge backpack with 10 books I brought with me to the lake. She's like, "Are you ever going to read these books?" I'm like, "Yes, I am." And I did. I actually read four books, which was really fun. But it was... I want to share this with you guys, because I think too much in our industry, especially, everyone's like, "You got to read more books, read more books." So everyone's reading books, but they're just reading to read. There's no purpose. They're just like, "Oh, I'm trying to learn something. I'm trying to read." So they read, and they keep spinning their wheels, but they've... They feel like they're doing the right thing, because they're reading. Therefore, they... You know what I mean? And I don't think it's necessarily always positive.

So I want to share the way that I read, specifically what books I brought on this trip, and why, and the purpose behind it. Because again, I'm very ROI driven so, "What's the ROI of me reading?" I'm not just going to read a book to read a book. There's got to be a purpose. So for me, some of you guys know I'm working on my fourth book. Oh, so exciting. I'm really excited for this one. I put in more time and effort into this one than I... Well, that's not necessarily true. DotCom Secrets was probably the most effort I put into a book, because it was a decade of my life to learn the things, and then I wrote it.

But this one's kind of similar. I think I've been two, two and a half years working on this project, and I've deleted the book twice. As of today, I have no word written other than the title, which is Secrets of Success, which Tony Robbins told me he didn't like that title, which makes me sad. Because I'm going to call it that way anyway. Someday, he's going to tell me he actually likes that title. Anyway, it's actually funny. Jeff Walker hated the name DotCom Secrets. He was like, "That's the worst name of a book ever." "Oh, thanks."

Anyway, I digress. So I'm writing the book, and I have this working hypothesis in my head. I've got these frameworks, I've got the structure, I have these things I think are true. So when I was reading, I'm like, "Okay, based on this book that I'm trying to write, these are the different things." In fact, I have my backpack here. I'll pull out... So the things I'm trying to... Things I understand at a level, I'm trying to get deeper understanding. That's what a lot of these books are for. So there's a book called The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Dr. Joseph Murphy, which, by the way, is insanely good. But I'm trying to figure out subconscious mind and how it fits into this vision of my head of how things work. So I brought that book, and I got halfway through that one.

What else did I get? Fit Soul. This is Ben Greenfield. Ben Greenfield is the man. He's one of my favorite people right now. But he wrote this whole thing in Fit Soul, which he talked about The Hero's Journey through the lens of Jesus Christ, which was really, really fascinating. And I'm doing a lot of hero's journey stuff in this new book, so I wanted to read that chapter. I think it's chapter nine. It is one of the best things ever written. Ben Greenfield's definitely Christian. I'm Mormon. He's not Mormon. It's interesting though, because his view on Christ and the atonement and sacrifice for, through the lens of The Hero's Journey... There are some things I could argue doctrine, like "Ah, I believe this a little differently in that, whatever." But as a whole, it was one of the greatest things I've ever read, ever. I've listened to... He did a podcast episode. He read that chapter. I've listened to it a ton of times, and I've got the book to read it, to really dissect it again, which was cool.

I brought The Writer's Journey, which is Christopher Vogler's book on teaching the story structure of The Hero's Journey. It's similar to The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which is Joseph Campbell's book that Star Wars is based off of and everything. Joseph Campbell's book is hard to read though, much, much more hard. So The Writer's Journey is Christopher Vogler, who worked at Disney. It's kind of his adaptation of The Hero's Journey, and simplified. Anyway, so I wanted to go deeper and re go through the structure of stories, so I got The Writer's Journey from Christopher Vogler. I brought Outwitting the Devil, because, come on now, it's seriously my favorite book of all time. So read, brought that again, specifically because I'm going deep into, what I believe, are the two types of people, like people who are drifters and people who are driven. So I got that.

The Alignment Effect by Tyler Watson. He's one of my Inner Circle members, who's super cool. And he does all this change stuff, not talking about the mind or subconscious mind or anything. His is all based on your body, in the cells, and cell memory, and things like that. And I was like, "I want to understand what in the world he's doing and how he's doing it." And I learned some really cool stuff about... Like in the new book, I was already writing a lot about addictions. But he talks about addictions and allergies, and these are two things that your body starts, either you become physically addicted to something, or you have allergies that push you away from something, and how these things are stored in your cells and your body. And it was super fascinated to read that. Try to figure out how what he's talking about fits into my understanding and my belief of all these principles.

I also brought Napoleon Hill's book. It's actually a book series he wrote in 1919 inside of a magazine that nobody... I don't think anyone has access to yet. I found an original copy of it, which is crazy, so I've been reading it. He used to sell it for $50 back in 1920, or 1930, or something like that, which I think the equivalent today, like $3,000 for this book. So I got a copy of it, so I've been reading that as well, which was super cool.

But anyway, if you notice, I wasn't just grabbing books to read, to read. For me to be like, "What's the ROI of this situation? Why am I reading these books? This seems stupid." For me, it's like, "Okay, here's this framework that I've created, that I understand at a level, and I'm trying to get deeper understanding it at every single piece of it. So who has written things similar? Or who's written things different? Who's written things pro it? Who's written things against it?" I think a lot of times, we like to just read things that strengthen our own beliefs, which is good. But also, sometimes it's good to read things that question your beliefs, that are different than what you may have thought or assumed.

My goal is not to write a book that is going to be what I think is correct. I want to write a book of what is actually correct. So if I can learn something that dissuades myself... Like Tyler Watson's book, this was completely new. I don't even know. This was a whole new thing, and I'm like, "Do I believe this? Do I not believe it? How does it work? I got to understand it." And I read it, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, there's some cool things I learned from this." And then I messaged him on the lake, I'm like, "Dude, we need to talk. I need to interview you. I got to figure out how this fits into my understanding of success and all these kind of things." So cool, right?

In this book, I'm talking a lot about personality and personality assessments and things like that. Excuse me. And I've read a lot of books on personality stuff, which I love, but there's also, one of my friends, Ben Hardy wrote a book called Personality Isn't Permanent. And he actually hates personality tests, which is funny. The first time I met him, I literally asked him, "So what's your Myers-Briggs?" And he looked at me and he's like, "Dude, I hate personality profiling. I don't believe it. It's fake. It ruins people," blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. I'm like, "Really?" And then six months later, he came out with a book called Personality Isn't Permanent. I'm like, "Oh, great. I'm the idiot who asked the guy, who wrote a book about why he doesn't like personalities, his personality type was, which is embarrassing and awesome at the same time.

So anyway, I had that conversation with him and read his book. And it's cool, because he gives you a different perspective. I'm like, "Cool." I could just double down on this one thing, but I want to hear both sides of it, so I can understand it different, so I can make sure that I write a book that's going to be the most correct thing I could write. It's never going to be perfect. It's never going to be the best until someday when you know we know everything, but I want to do the best version I can. So I'm reading with intent. I'm reading, looking for the ROI. I'm very, very specific.

So for you guys, maybe you're not writing a book, but I want to make sure that when you are reading books, or studying, or learning, or whatever, that you're doing it with intent, getting out the maximum ROI. What is the reason why you're doing this course, or this event, or this thing, or this course, or this podcast? Why are you doing them? And understanding that there's a purpose behind it. If you know the purpose, then cool, do it. But if's not a purpose, maybe find something that... I could've brought a dozen other books. It would've been really fun to read and fascinating and cool, but they wouldn't have served the actual purpose, like, "What's the ROI on that?" I wouldn't have had anything specific that I could do.

Anyway, that's what I wanted to share with you guys. So it was fun. I had a great trip. It was good to get away. Good to be back. Good to catch up on... I'm in the middle of the catch up zone, trying to catch up on all the things, which is always a little overwhelming at first, but it's also fun to get my hands back dirty. We have so many fun projects and things coming out. ClickFunnels 2.0 launches, I think, in 88 days. In fact, if you go to... 88 days, 20 hours, 30 minutes and 36 seconds, at the time I'm recording this.

So actually, if you go to CF2point0.com, but spelled out, so CF, the number two, P-O-I-N-T, the letter zero, .com. There's an early bird list, where you can get on the early bird list, and actually you will get ClickFunnels 2.0 24 hours before the rest of the world does. So go get on the early bird list. So working on that. In fact, there's a 20 minute mini documentary about ClickFunnels 2.0 and the creation and how and why and all the things. So cool. So anyway, go check that out. CF2point0.com. And again, the two is the number two, and O is the number 0, but everything else is spelled out. It's a weird domain, but it's awesome. Go check that out.

Check out understand.me as well. Go sign up, get your free personality profile. Take all the tests, plug it all in, get your free page, which is exciting. And I don't know. A whole bunch of other stuff. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm excited to be back. I got some fun ideas and content stuff I want to do. Some new podcasts I want to do. Anyway, there's... I wish there are more hours in the day. So much I want to do and create. But it's been fun to think about different ways to serve you guys as an audience.

And this year, Todd and I... It was interesting. In January, when we started this year, I had written down, literally in the first issue of the NO B.S. Newsletter, that my word for the year is momentum. And then talking about it later, it's like, "Hey, my word for this year is momentum." And we've never had a word. That was a weird thing to do anyway, and then, in fact, we both did it and both had the same word. This is the year of momentum. Everything's picking up, and now we're in, what? July? ClickFunnels 2.0 is launching in 88 days. The momentum's picking up, and we're steam rolling. We're moving forward. And some amazingness is about to happen. Ah, so many fun things. All right. That's all I got. I appreciate you guys. Thanks for listening. Thanks for hanging out, and we'll talk to you guys all soon. Bye, everybody.

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