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(Q&A) Balancing Act: Navigating Marriage / Kids and Entrepreneurship...!

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(Q&A) Balancing Act: Navigating Marriage / Kids and Entrepreneurship...!

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What are the secrets to having a successful marriage and family life, while still being a full time funnel hacker / entrepreneur!?!

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So many people getting into business who they get into business so they get free time so they can spend more time with their family. And then when push comes to shove, they push out their family and spend all the time in business. And it's hard because it's alluring. Most of us get our needs met in business really easily.

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Transcript:

Russell Brunson: What's up everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today we're going to be talking relationships. We're going to be talking spouses and funnel building and a whole bunch of fun stuff. So, this is another Q and A show, we've got some really good questions coming in from our audience, so thank you so much for submitting them. If you want to submit a question, hopefully get answered live on the show, go to marketing secrets.com and submit your audio question there. But today's question is actually coming from Nicholas Tellis and he asked a really good question about relationships and spouses both in the beginning and long term. And so with that said, I'm going to listening to his question and we'll come back with some answers.

Nick: Hey Russell, this is Nick. Can you cover the top five, seven things that helped you and Collette maintain not only your marriage in the beginning, but even this far into your entrepreneurship journey? What would you encourage those out there who are actually on this journey of entrepreneurship that also want to not only get married but maintain a family as well? I know, as entrepreneurs, especially even funnel hackers, it can be a lonely road, but it doesn't have to be. It's those you get to share that journey with. And I know there's ups and downs. Not every relationship's like, "Oh, it's going to be rainbows and unicorns," but I'm just curious that if you had to share a few secrets, the ones that impacted you and Collette the most, that we could take away as well. Thanks. Much love, love what you do. Have a wonderful day.

Russell: All right, Nicholas. So first off, that is a great question and I wish I had a book that could say, here's all the answers, but I'm still learning it all. And you can ask my wife, it's something I'm working on all the time. But there are some things that have definitely helped from the very beginning and things that help today. So I'll kind of share a couple ideas. These are a couple tactics. It may not be the overarching strategy, but some things will help you. So at least hopefully, will help you. Again, I've been married now for over 20 years, so I'm pumped about that and hopefully married for another a thousand years. And so I'm trying really, really carefully and I'll step back. In the new book I'm writing, that's hopefully someday will be published, who knows? But in that book, one of the things I talked a lot about is values.

And it's funny because I'm not a big believer, not that I'm not a big believer, we just haven't like... Inside ClickFunnels, I've never had, when people are like, "What are your core values?" And it's like, "Here's six words, these are my values." I think values that people traditionally do are shallow. But as I started looking more at just values from what do I actually value? Not like courage, determination, hard work, the cliche stuff, but the things I actually value. In fact, at 2CCX, in the Inner Circle, we took them all to Mexico last year and we did this really cool exercise where we had everybody write down on little sticky notes, all the things that make them happy. So people wrote all these different things down and everyone had these sticky notes, like a hundred sticky notes. I said, "Okay, now take these sticky notes and I'm going to group them together based on things."

So everything related to work or your mission or your family. So everyone grouped them together. And from their hundred things that made them happy, everyone had five or six core things that they valued. I did this exercise with my kids as well. It was really cool. I remember Dallin, one of his core values was expression, how he expresses himself personally, which I didn't know. It was fascinating. I'm like, "Oh, I didn't realize that." But he took all the things that made him happy and he grouped them together and he's like, "All these are related to how I express myself". Which is interesting. And so as you start looking, you start seeing your values. And so typically, we have five, 10 different core things that we really, really value. And what's interesting is, for most of us, the thing that you value the most, will become your God.

And so, if you read the scripture, that's why there's so much emphasis on love God first, because whatever you value the most will become your God. If it's music, and that's where you spend your time, that becomes your God. If it's business, that becomes your God if it's whatever that is. And so, I started looking at my values and God is definitely a big thing, but wasn't number one. If not, it's like I'm making something else. And so, I'm a big believer in understanding that and then dumping more time into the thing that you need to value the highest. Which is for me, personally, I'm like, I'm going to try to spend so much more time this year, read New Testament and diving back into Christ's life cause I want to make sure that's my number one value. But shortly thereafter, is my family. My wife and my kids are the number one, the number two value in this thing.

And so with that, it's like, okay, knowing that whatever I value, I've got to dump time into it or something else is going to surpass it. So if I value my business the most, put all my time there and then it's going to surpass it eventually. So first is understanding that the thing you value is where you're going to be putting your time. So making sure that if you want a relationship with your spouse, you've got to value it, which means you got to put the energy into it or your kids. So many people getting into business who they get into business so they get free time so they can spend more time with their family. And then when push comes to shove, they push out their family and spend all the time in business. And it's hard because it's alluring. Most of us get our needs met in business really easily.

I get them easier. My needs are easier met in my business than they are in my relationships with my wife and my kids. I have to work harder on my wife and my kids to get my needs met. And so, it's easy to default. And so, it's understanding those things inside of your own mind. I can go to the office and create a video, put it out there. I get a hundred people to tell me, oh, that was a great podcast, that was great, whatever. So my needs get mad. I'm like, oh, I feel good about myself. Or at home, I have to go and my teenagers, I love them. But man, they're hard. I do not get instant feedback when I try to help them and try to serve them. In fact, usually it's negative. Usually they're angry at me, they're mad. Or same with a spouse, you put in time to your spouse and it doesn't always come back immediately.

And so it's hard because we'll, as humans, it's like a river coming down a mountain, the water will go to the easiest path. And so by default, we'll go to the easiest path. And by doing that though, by going to ease traditionally, that's where you lose the thing you actually want. The thing that we value the most when we actually sit down and think about it is usually not going to be the easiest thing. Valuing God's not the easiest thing. Valuing our family and is not always the easiest thing. So it's just being aware of that number one. Number two then is really understanding.

There's so much to this, right? And a lot of you guys know I'm big into personality profiling, but in fact we're soon launching a new company, Understand dot me. If you go there, you can go and sign up for free account and take all the personality profiles and see what you are and all these different things. But a big key is understanding your spouses and your kids, their actual personality. What do they need? For me to feel loved, I have to have physical touch. Seems like I'm touching me. Put an arm around me for you to feel love. You tell me and where's the affirmation is my number two. So you tell me I'm great, I feel loved. You touch me, I feel even more loved. But if you buy me a gift or do acts of service, it doesn't make sense to me. And my wife's opposite than me.

So if I come give her a hug, she's like, I don't get it. Why are you doing touching me? But man, if I go spend quality time with her, she lights up. So I have to understand, I have to speak to her in her love language. I can't speak to her in my love language and she's got to speak in my, and we have to have this communication. My kids, I know my kids right now. I've had them take the profile so I know which things make my kids feel love, which things don't like some of my kids, Nora, it's time I got to spend time with her. I got to spend an hour under the stairs in the Dollhouse playing with Barbies or else she doesn't feel loved. I got other kids who are physical touched. I give them a hug and tickle their back for five minutes.

They're good to go and it's fast. But I have to understand those things. I have to understand what are the pauses I got to put into every single person for them to actually feel love and understanding that and then consciously doing it because it's not a subconsciously, typically I got to consciously do it because their love language is not mine. If their love language is the same as mine, consciously, it's really easy. So that's one thing, just understanding these dynamics. Right? Okay, so there's the first thing. Now I'm going to go back in time. So things I learned back in time, I don't think Collette, I would still be married if I didn't learn a couple of these different hacks. So hopefully, here's a couple that'll help you. Number one, I would be at work having fun, all doing the thing and getting all my needs met.

And she's at home with twins, who are great, who are crying, who are pooping, who are doing all this stuff. And so I'm having the best time do stuff. And I messaged her how great. Like, "Having so much fun. They're like, oh, I'm going to here late takes, I'm working on a project, I'm so much fun. And I come home late. And it was like, that was brutal. It was hard because she's doing all this work, not happy, not struggling. These things. I'm having so much fun and I'm doing, and then I'm not coming home and I'm spending too much time away. And that was really hard. And the compromise, we eventually came to over, who knows? Months, weeks, years. It could have been, I can't remember. But the thing I realized was if it was five o'clock at night and I told her I was going to stay till 10 o'clock working on a project, meltdown.

But if I told her, "Hey, on Thursday, Friday, Todd's flying to Boise. I'm going to be pulling all nighters Thursday night and Friday night. Are you cool with that?" She'd be like, "Oh sure." And then she could mentally prepare for it. She knew it was going to happen and then it was fine. But I couldn't tell her like, "Oh, I'm not going to home. I'm going to be home late tonight because whatever." If I told her that, nightmare. If I told her Thursday and Friday I'm pulling all nighters, she's totally fine. But I had to prepare her for that. That was a big thing for us. Other thing I've realized when I'd go on events and trips or I'd be going on these trips and having so much fun meeting people and going out to eat and having those fun things. I'd call her at night all excited.

And when I did that, calling her excited again, she's at home by herself with the kids and it created this divide. And so, I started realizing I'm not going to tell her about all the insanely cool things I'm doing. Not because she doesn't want to know, but especially in the moment when she's struggling, I got to be there for her. As much fun as I'm having, the phone call at night is about talking to her about her and her frustrations and her struggles. And I'll tell her when I get home about how much fun I have, but not in the moment. In the moment, I'm out having fun. She's at home being in charge of everything. And if I'm rubbing in my excitement and fun on her when she's in the middle of this pain, it is not a positive thing. And so I got really good at delaying me, telling the stories of the great stuff to a spot where we were both happy.

And like, "Oh, tell what happened last week. It was so cool." And this and this, we can enjoy it together. Versus Colette, I know you're with the kids right now and I know I can hear them crying in the background. Let me tell you about the cool thing I just did, what I just experienced. It was understanding when to talk about things and timing those things had a big difference on us. So those are some little things as we were growing, as we were going through it. Nowadays, I think the bigger things are just understanding, again, her priorities. What is she looking for? My wife's got very specific things she wants to do, so I got to make sure that she's able to do those things. And then by doing that, she lets me do the things I want. Not that it's like, "You can do this, I'm going to do this."

It's not that way. It's me understanding what are the things most important to her and then I'm going to move heaven and earth and make sure she can go do those things. And then by doing that, she's more cool when I'm like, "Hey, I want to go and I'm going to fly across the country and go look at a small book." She's like, "What? Why would you want to do that?" "I don't know, but that's what brings me happy. She's like, "Cool, go do that thing." And then she's like, "I want to go do this thing." Cool. And being okay with it just, does that make sense? It's not a compromise. That's not what I'm saying. 'Cause that's not the thing. It's more understanding that she's got to do things, bring her happiness. And if I'm try to pull her back on that, then she'll resent when I'm trying to get happiness for myself.

But if I'm like, "Yeah, go do those things." Like let her pursue the things that bring her happiness, then she's cool with me pursuing things that bring me happiness. Does that make sense? It's those type of things. If you have studied Stacey and Paul and relationship development, one of the biggest keys that I've learned, and it's been hard, this is the hardest thing, I think it's drilled in humans, but it's this process they call demand relationship. Where the way that we try to get what we want is by demanding it. Demanding our kids do this, demanding our friends do this, demanding our spouse does this. And it's interesting, if you study Stacey and Paul, they talk about back in the day, that was possible, right? 'Cause the husband and the wife been married and divorce was illegal. So the husband would demand would do these things and she had to do them cause of nowhere to escape.

And as soon as the power player, who's demanding stuff, as soon as the opposite person has the ability to leave, then demand relationship breaks. It doesn't work anymore. Which when, I don't know, whenever divorces became legal and then the person could leave, it changed the thing. You see the same thing with kids where a parent will demand relationship with their kids and force them to be with all these kind of things, but as soon as the kid turns 18 and they have the ability to leave, then the person goes nuts. And it's like, it's hard because in our head, we just want to force people to do what's the thing that we value the most. And we try to force them to do it, thinking that by force them to value the thing that we value, they'll eventually start valuing the thing that we value. But it doesn't happen that way.

Instead, it pushes them away. And then when they have freedom, when they're able to leave, when they're able to escape, then they hate the thing that you value because you were demanding it to them. A good situation I'm seeing now, I want to value God as number one. I want my kids to value him as number one as well. And so, we try to do these things with our kids, and when we introduce some things we value and we show them why we're excited and we show happiness to why we value this thing. Then our kids value. When we try to force our kids, you have to do these things, you have to believe these things, we have to do these things. Then it pushes them away. And they may do it while they're with you, but then they resent you as soon as they leave, they fall away from the thing you value.

I think this is one of the biggest struggles we have as humans. And this is a tangent, who knows? Hopefully, you guys are getting some value on this, but each of us have things we value, the people we love, we want them to value the same things we do. That's why we connect with people who have the same values as us, right? It's like, "Oh, they value the same thing I do. So we connect really easily, but when someone's values are different than ours, that's what we struggle. Or when you and somebody have the same value in one thing, but in different values, something else. That's why I always say you never want to meet your heroes, right? Because typically you're heroes, you value them because of one thing, right? I'll use Dan Kennedy as an example. Me and Dan Kennedy have huge value on marketing and persuasion and sales, but we have different very, very different religious values and beliefs.

And I meet Dan Kennedy, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing." And then I meet him and they're like, "Oh, we value these things differently." That's when most people are like, "Oh, don't meet your heroes because they're going to disappoint you because you value the same thing in one way, but something else you value differently." And what I'm learning now is I can love people for the things that we value the same, and I don't have to judge them for things we value differently because then you ruin these amazing relationships, right? Anyway, I'm going on a tangent, Nicholas. Sorry about this, man. Hopefully you guys are all getting some value from this. But it's interesting and I think it's understanding that we can love somebody for the things that we value in common, but we don't have to hate them because we value other things differently. And I think that's why we have frustration with kids or with spouses where we have, and I think the more things you and your spouse value the same, the easier life is, right? But when you value something that they don't and vice versa, it gets really hard. Or if two of you guys value something for a while, but then eventually the values, someone's values shift or they change the things they actually value now isn't the same as it used to be. It causes frustration, right? That's what's interesting.

Just as a side note, because this is a marketing podcast, the things that you value that you put into the universe, the people who have similar values will come to you. That's why Myron Golden says this a lot. He says, you don't attract who you want, you attract who you are. The values you put out there that people see, they're going to be attracted to that. So if you're like, "Oh, I want these kind of people." But if you're not that kind of person, you're not going to attract those kind of people. It's just interesting. So anyway, there's some deep tangent stuff that I haven't spoken publicly enough to know how to clearly explain it, but that's a big part. Anyway, so that comes back to what we were talking about earlier with demand relationship. In any relationship where I'm trying to demand somebody to do my thing, it causes problems.

So if I'm like, "Hey Colette, I want you to come with me to this trip. We're going to look at an old book." She doesn't value it, she doesn't care. She may do it because she loves me, but it's going to be this weird thing where, and same thing where she's going to do something that I want to be able to give her the freedom and the space to pursue the things she values. So she'll give me freedom of space to pursue the things I value. And I want to give my kids the freedom of space to pursue the things they value as well. And yes, I want them to value the same things I am. And so I'm going to use persuasion and influence to try to tell stories and show the reason why these things I value make me happy. And if they can see that they actually make me happy, they're more likely to value them in the future versus me forcing them to try to make these things.

Does that make sense? Anyway, ramblings with Russell. Hopefully you guys got something from this. So anyway, I hope it helps, man. Again, I don't have a perfect, but it comes down to these kind of things like thinking through these things. What are their personalities? What are their love languages? What are the things that they need to actually feel happy? And what are the things they value? How do I encourage them to pursue the things that they value versus the things that I want them to value? And this is the hardest thing. 'Cause we want somebody to value. Because we value it so much, we know it's good for them, we want to force it upon them, but if they don't value it, then I can't force it. So instead, how do I help them pursue the things that they value and be excited for them as they're pursuing it and legitimately excited for them, even though sometimes it may drive you crazy.

And then by doing that, I feel like the more you allow other people to do that, the more that they're... And this isn't perfect, some people aren't, but the more that traditionally, they'll let you pursue the things that you value as well, which with my wife has some the greatest things. She knows I'm obsessed with these old books. I'm obsessed with marketing and business. And so she allows me to pursue these things with all my heart and my mind. And she knows I love them and she loves me. So therefore, even though she doesn't understand them but doesn't care about them, she allows me to pursue them. Because she's like, "Man, look how happy Russell gets because of these things. Look how happy these people get on top of it. And then, I got to give her the same dignity and respect though, otherwise it causes the imbalance and the problems and the issues.

So anyway, hope that helps. I had no idea. We went on a huge tangent. I should re-listen to your question, Nicholas, to make sure we answered it. But anyway, again, these are the things, I don't have the actual answer, but these are things I think through a lot that are running my head and that I'm trying to figure out for myself and for the people that I love the most, the people that I value. How do I help them to pursue the things? And that's what I love about this business for me. I'm enabling people with tools and technology and information to help them to pursue the things and to promote the things that they value the most. Not necessarily the things that I value, but the things that they value and that brings me happiness. So anyway, there you go. Hopefully you guys got something from this.

If you did, please share this podcast with other people. If you didn't, don't tell anybody. Just skip to the next episode. Anyway, I had fun. Answered some questions today. Again, if you guys have questions you want me to answer live on the show, go to marketing secrets.com. There's a block there where you can submit audio questions. And I've been going through and answering them. All the ones that ask real legitimate questions. Half of your questions you guys are submitting are weird, customer support issues. This is not a customer support hotline. We've got support, yeah. On the footer of any email or website, there's a link to our support. Click on it. My support team, we've got 200 plus people who man support, they can answer support questions. I'm here to answer your strategy questions, so if you got one for me, go to marketing secrets.com, submit it, and hopefully it'll end up on a future episode here in the Marketing Secrets show. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you guys all soon. Bye, everybody.

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