I wasn’t sure if I wanted to share this one. In this episode, I take the hot seat in an impromptu interview led by my good friend Annie Grace during a late-night session at our recent Inner Circle meeting. Annie, who is renowned for her work with This Naked Mind, proposed an intriguing idea to uncover the secrets behind my productivity and how I manage to accomplish so much. After some contemplation, we decided to go ahead with this interview, and the result was an insightful and engaging conversation that I believe many entrepreneurs will find valuable.

During the session, Annie asked a series of compelling questions that dug deep into my daily routines, my mindset, and the strategies I use to get things done. We discussed how I handle numerous projects at once, each with the potential to generate significant revenue, and how I maintain my energy and enthusiasm amidst a packed schedule. The feedback from those in the room was overwhelmingly positive, with many entrepreneurs resonating with the insights shared and finding reassurance in the challenges they face.

Key Highlights:​

This episode is heavily-packed with actionable insights and real-life examples that I hope empowers people like me who want to get a lot done but who may have a hard time getting their team to follow their lead. After decades of leading, I can’t write a book on leading and productivity, but hopefully this provides a better understanding of the dynamics of working with or as a high-performing entrepreneur. Tune in and let me know if you want more like this!

But had that happened before I had that reawakening, I don't know if I would've survived through it. But I had that reawakening, I was on fire, and then that hit and I was able to endure and come out on the other side excited still about life and about what we're doing and what we're creating.

Russell Brunson:
What's going on, my friends? This is Russell. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. I am excited for this episode. This is one that was really, really special to me, and I've fought, going back and forth, like, "Do I share this with everybody? Is it more private? Is it more personal?" At at recent Inner Circle meeting, we were planning on doing some late night session and trying to map it out, what I was going to do, and I remember Annie Grace, most of you guys know Annie, in our community, she runs This Naked Mind. She helps people overcome alcohol addiction. She's awesome.

And she asked me actually, she was like, "I would love to actually interview you on stage about how you get so much stuff done." She's like, "I'm trying to figure out how in the world you accomplish so much," and she's like, "Can I do that?" And I was like, "I don't know how to explain how I get so much stuff done. I don't even know how to explain it." She's like, "Exactly. That's why you need me to come up there and interview you and pull these things out."

And I went back and forth, I'm like, "I don't know if we should do this or not," and finally we decided to do it. And so, one of the nights at our Inner Circle meeting, we did a late night session and I went on stage and she had a really fun chance to ask me all these questions, and it was really cool what came out of it. It was really powerful. Those who were in the room, we got such good feedback. Everyone was like, "This is huge." I think a lot of it was the entrepreneurs were like, "Oh my gosh, I'm not weird," and the other people who work with entrepreneurs are like, "Oh, now I know how to actually work with my crazy person on my team who is insane all the time."

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. I'm excited to relisten to it when the podcast goes live, and I hope you guys enjoy it, as well. It hopefully gives you some insights on how I get so much stuff done, gives you some ideas on how you can get more stuff done, and again, if you are the crazy entrepreneur, hopefully it makes you feel more heard and seen, and if you are someone who serves an entrepreneur, that you can see that maybe they're not as weird as you may think or maybe we're may more weird than everybody thinks. Who knows? Anyway, that said, I hope you guys enjoy this episode, if you do, please reach out to me and Annie, and whoever else, and let us know that you liked it, and if you want us to keep dropping more really cool stuff like this. All right. Thank you so much, and we'll talk to you soon.

In the last decade, I went from being a startup entrepreneur to selling over a billion dollars of my own products and services online. This show is going to show you how to start, grow, and scale a business online. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. I'm on the hot seat tonight.

Annie Grace:
This is my living room, so we're just going to pretend you're not here. Yes, yes. I've had my way. This is the living room. So over the last, I guess, seven years, I have become good friends with Russell and Russell, Eileen, and I talk a lot and we have kind of this front row seat to how much he is doing. And I keep thinking, "I don't understand," and I want to just go up to him and be like, "Is it flesh? It is bionic? Is it robotic? I can't understand." And then, I had a theory that, maybe, James' protein powder wasn't really cake batter, maybe it was actually some other substances and those were being intravenously fed.

And I've had all of these questions, and I keep saying, "Russell, if you are my friend, you have to tell me how you get so much done." And in this room it's GCD, get crap done. It's not GSD. All right? And so, I was like, "If you're my friend, you have to tell me." And Russell just says, "I don't know. I don't know." And I was like, "There's got to be a better answer." So I am taking a massive risk tonight, and I'm pretty nervous, because I'm going to challenge myself to try and find out. So I'm going to be the investigative reporter, and I have a lot of questions, and I've been watching him, and I'm going to try to unpack, for all of us, because how many of you would like to know how he does this? Say, "Yes."

Audience:
Yes.

Annie Grace:
How cool would that be if we could all kind of walk out of here, if we could walk out of here with one-tenth of the productivity that Russell brings into every day, how many of you, that would change your life? Say, "Yes."

Audience:
Yes.

Annie Grace:
I mean, it would be amazing. So before we got on stage I was like, "Well, I mean, I know of a lot of stuff you've been doing, but I think it would be really cool to write it all down on the board." And Russell's like, "Oh, well you don't know very much of what I'm doing." And I was like-

Russell Brunson:
I haven't shared most of it.

Annie Grace:
He's like, "There's a lot of things that I'm doing that you don't know anything about." I was like, "Really? Okay." So we did.

Russell Brunson:
And real quick, each one of these is a separate project that we are doing actively now, since last Inner Circle meeting.

Annie Grace:
So this is since last meeting. Okay? And if you had to assign a revenue number to the average project on this list, each one had a big blue bullet, what would you assign the revenue number?

Russell Brunson:
A minimum of million dollars to start the project, so that's kind of the baseline. Will this add an extra million dollars to the bottom line or not?

Annie Grace:
It's just a Two Comma Club project. On this list, you guys ready for this? All right, give it a hand. Give the list a hand. You guys ready for this? I know it's the evening. What is even happening right now?

Russell Brunson:
I think I have a problem.

Annie Grace:
These are not small things. You know what this one says? "I'm writing a new book called Secrets of Success." You know what this one says, "Oh, I just did a whole new onboarding for all of ClickFunnels." Right? You know what this one says? "I don't know. I'm just doing a whole e-comm funnel, partnership and JV thing to take all of Trey Lewellen’s stuff into e-comm." Right? "I did a linchpin curated event. I did a category curated event. I did the Atlas meeting." It's unbelievable to me, unbelievable. And all the while, he also bought a movie theater. Did anybody know that Russell bought a movie theater?

Russell Brunson:
By this time next year, this meeting will hopefully be in the movie theater. It's insane.

Annie Grace:
All while being canceled. Give it up for Russell. All while being canceled. All right.

Russell Brunson:
I'm going to walk you guys through all these ideas, because they're all so cool. We spent three or four hours... Anyway, maybe we'll get into a couple of them.

Annie Grace:
If it goes really wrong, then we're all very-

Russell Brunson:
I'll just tick through all the ideas.

Annie Grace:
... interested.

Russell Brunson:
Here's what we're working on.

Annie Grace:
If we can't get anything. All right, so my first question is really important, how do you relax?

Russell Brunson:
That's a great question. It's interesting, I think about my growing up, I went to school and I really struggled in school, so that was painful and stuff. And then, I'd go to wrestling practice, which was not easy. Any wrestlers in the room? Wrestling practice is not easy, it is the toughest thing you'll ever do, and that's how I relaxed. It was like my stress release. It was the thing that got me to survive, but it wasn't easy. It was the grind that was the relaxing thing, so, for me, this isn't the part that stresses me out, it's the other stuff that's harder. Do you know what I mean?

Annie Grace:
It's the unstructured Saturday. Nothing to do.

Russell Brunson:
Yeah, way harder.

Annie Grace:
And you're supposed to just be present and-

Russell Brunson:
It's so hard. You're like, "What do I do?" We just got home from a cruise with our family, which was so much fun, but we're sitting on the cruise ship and I'm just like... that's stressful. I don't know what to do with my hands. My brain... I'm picking ideas, thinking about this for now, and you're like, "Oh," and it gets cool. But yeah, there's that.

But also, this might be a better answer. So, for me, I feel like a lot of what I do, and probably what you guys do, as well, is we're entertaining people. So, for example, Funnel Hacking Live, four days of killing yourself, you're so tired, and when it's done, the only thing I want to do is go to a movie and have someone else entertain me. So a lot of times we're dead tired, everybody's tired and I'm like, "Let's watch a movie." And they're like, "What? It's like midnight." I'm like, "I need people to entertain me now." So when I do get to the end of something, I try to do something where someone else is entertaining me. I really can just sit there. Yeah.

Annie Grace:
Yeah, I love that. And one thing you said to me was that, actually, this is the thing that gives you energy. So energy's interesting, because energy becomes infinite. If the thing you're doing gives you energy and actually burnout only happens when the thing you're doing is draining your energy. And so, how did you switch, or did you ever have to switch, from feeling like you have to do stuff... One of the things I'm so struck by about you is that I don't think there's any have tos up here, it's all get tos. And so, do you have a filter that you only do stuff that you are excited about and you want to do and is that conscious or unconscious?

Russell Brunson:
I think it's part of it, because I do know the times where it's like... and we all have these, there's these projects you have to do that are so much harder and so much more painful, and so I try to wrap those around a lot of stuff that I do want to do. Let's say there's three things I got to do today and one that's like, "I would rather die than do this," I'll do the first one first, so I get the energy momentum happening, so it's like, "Okay, the fun stuff's happening." Then I'm like, "Okay, it's done," and then I'll go try and get that other thing done, but I have the carrot at the end knowing that, as soon as I get this done, then I get to go do that other thing, which is back to the exciting part.

And so, I'll structure projects or things in my head that I got to do, wrapped around that, because if I start with the worst thing, then I don't have enough energy to ever get the thing done, and then I'm sitting there for four hours just like... But if I get myself into momentum initially with like, "What's a fun..." If I look at the projects right now, the one that I'm probably most excited for out of all of these is ___ which is just this insanely cool project we're working on. It should be rolling out, hopefully, this month and I won't tell you much about it, but it's this new software product that's so cool.

And so, what'll happen a lot of times is that my partner that's working on it right now, in the mornings, he'll send me some videos of what he did. He's a coder that works all night long, so he's coding all night, sends me the thing. So I'll wake in the morning, I'll see the videos, I'm like, "Oh, this is amazing," and I'll spend time going back and forth and just dumping all this stuff on it.
And then, he's all excited and I'm all excited. And then, I'm like, "Okay, now I got to go do one of these," and I'll go pick something that I may not like as much, and I'll try to get it done in like, "Okay, my goal is to get this done from 9:00 till 11:00." By 11:00, if I can get this done, then go back, and I can remessage ___, we can talk about the thing and how it's going to... or the next project that's fun, and I try to make that and make it finite.

Because if I'm like, "I can get this project done that I don't want to do," and if I don't have a timeline, it'll bleed forever, because I'll just stall so long that it never gets done. So if I'm like, "I have from 9:00 till 11:00." I got two hours, I go, and then I try to get it done as fast as I can and get out of pain, so then I can get back to the fun ones.

Annie Grace:
So basically it's the exact opposite of Brian Tracy's book Eat That Frog. Right? Which is great, because-

Russell Brunson:
That frog is depressing. I don't want to each it.

Annie Grace:
Nobody wants to eat the frog, which is so interesting, because I was thinking, Russell's like, "Well, what if I can't tell anybody how productive I am? What if..." And I'm like, "We're trying to understand you. We're not trying to understand a system or a process, we're trying to understand you." And there's something so important in that, because I think what Russell just told us is that he literally runs on a fuel source that is enthusiasm and is fun and is joy.

And if you think about that, there's actually measurements done where higher emotions vibrate higher, which means they have more energy. So those emotions like joy and gratitude and enthusiasm, they literally have more energy. So just because you're running on that fuel source, you have more energy. How many of you are running on a fuel source, like excitement and emotion in your business?

Audience:
Woo, woo, woo, woo.

Annie Grace:
How many of you feel like that is a goal for you? You want to make that switch, you want to make that switch? That's amazing. Of those of you who are running on that fuel source, are you making a lot of money? Yes. There's a lot of thumbs up, and I think it's, literally, directly correlated. And sometimes we think it has to be so hard, and I think one of the most fun things for me is thinking, "Oh, to be next to somebody who's so enthusiastic and so passionate," and so I feel like that's secret number one. It's like you've got to be running on the fuel that creates more fuel. Right?

Russell Brunson:
One thought on that, too, that's interesting is just vibration, that concept, I'm not a woo-woo guy, so I remember people talking about vibration and people's vibes, and I thought that was the dumbest thing ever, but then I started actually seeing it in action. And someone told me, I don't know if this is true or not, actually it is true, because I literally bought a set of tuning forks last week and we tried it. So they told me this is true and it proved it. If you take two tuning forks that are different levels and you whack this one and you whack this one here, they're two different sounds, you can hear each sound separately by your ears. Then you put them together for like 30 seconds, and then you put them here and it's the exact same sound.

So they'll take the higher frequency, lower frequency and it goes together and that's how vibrations work with tuning forks, so we actually made reels about it. You'll see it here next week or so. So I bought tuning forks to prove the model. But what's interesting is I notice that with myself and other people, and so I remember, actually Dave Woodard and I had this conversation four or five years ago, where we come into the office and typically you come into the office Monday morning, everyone's at a vibe where it's just like, "Weekend's over, I'm just kind of here."

And so, if I came in and I was like, "Hey, guys. How's it going?" That was the entire office, for the rest of that day, was that way. And so, I started noticing, if I came in up high, I bang my tuning fork and it was this high level when I came in, what happens is, there's this weird tug of war and you can physically feel it. Especially, I do this with my kids now, and I can feel the tug of war with my kids. My kids wake in the morning, especially my teenagers like, "Hey." "How's it going buddy?" "Hey." And I'm trying to come up here, and it's this tug of war where they're trying to get my vibe to match theirs and I'm trying to get there, and it's this...

But you see it in the office, I come in, and if I come in with this vibe right here, within two or three minutes, everyone else comes up, and then the entire production of everyone is better. And so, I told Dave about that, so when Dave was here, every time he'd come in the office, he's like, "Oh..." and it was this level, and so we'd always do that. And I remember days I'd be sitting in my car as I'd pull up just stressed out or depressed or whatever the thing is, and I'm like, "If I walk in like this, everyone's going to drop down and nothing will be done today, as a whole." So it's like, "Okay, change the vibration, get it up here, and then come in really high."

And I actually forgot about that for a long time, until probably a month or so ago, because I was going through a lot of low vibe things in my life that were just pulling me down, and I started noticing just the energy around me was horrible and I forgot about it until I found an old magazine from 1913 that had an article about vibration. Anyway, because I'm weird, and it talked about that and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I forgot." And so, for the next week, I consciously made an effort to do that, and the office shifted. And then, we'd have our morning meetings with all the partners in ClickFunnels, and I'd notice that I was coming in just like I was, and so I started shifting that, so I'd come in like this, as high as possible.

And what's crazy is by the time we do our five-minute call every day, by the five-minute calls, everyone's energized. And what's crazy is then they go and they do their breakout meetings with their teams, but their entering that breakout at this level, and it just starts bleeding down through the entire company, entire infrastructure based on, if I'm willing to come in with this high level of vibration, then everything else moves faster, and if I don't, then everything slows down to a halt. It's really crazy.

Annie Grace:
Okay, well it's not woo-woo. It's proven with EMRIs. There's an electromagnetic resonance to our emotional energy, and actually your emotional energy is 70%. So we think it's how much we sleep or how much we eat. It's not, it's what we feel. And so, it's contagious, literally contagious. So you're taking and you're pouring on the infinite fuel source. If you think of a little kid, right? Little kids can go forever and ever and ever. There's no end to it, because their work is play. Their work is joy. It's just the funnest thing for them. There's no end to it.

And so, you're taking that, and then you're giving it to the people below you, and how many of you come here for some of that Russell energy? Right? We're in the room for some of that energy. We pay a lot of money for some of that energy. It's like being in his proximity, we're like, "Oh my gosh." How many of you feel that at Funnel Hacking Lives times 100? Yes? It's why we keep coming, because it's not woo-woo. It's the truest thing, and I think it's a huge reason you get so much done.

Russell Brunson:
Yeah, anyway, interesting. There you go. Who knew?

Annie Grace:
Okay, we're done, we're done. Great, awesome. So when you are thinking about something new that you want to do and you get super psyched about it and you're so stoked, specifically, how do you communicate that to your team, and then when do you decide to hand it off?

Russell Brunson:
Cool. Initially, I don't communicate to my team, because if I come in too fast like, "Hey, guys. Here's the next project, la, la, la," and I get all excited, in their mind they're like, "Oh my gosh. You're going to give me another project," and they're stressed out and there's anxiety. So I don't initially pitch my entire team on an idea.

And this actually comes back, so when I was in college, and I was first starting this business and it was just me, I would have an idea, but I knew that to accomplish an idea and get it done, there were a lot of steps, right? For me, it was I needed to create logo and the logo gives me energy. Then I got to buy domain and create a logo, and then I was doing a lot of programming projects. I have to hire a programmer to program it, and then I got to hire a designer to make the design, then I got to write the video.

There's all these different pieces. Right? And all of them take different amounts of time, and so I started looking, when I have an idea, what are the things that take the most amount of time, and I start doing those. For example, ___ which is a ClickFunnels tool you guys are going to freak about when it's done. It's insane. But we had the idea for that, and so I didn't tell anybody. Didn't tell Todd, didn't tell Brent, nobody knew about it at all other than me and this one person who was working on it. And I knew because the thing that takes the longest is the programming. Programming takes the longest. And so, I wasn't sharing with anybody, I was just like, "Hey, here's the programming, and we're going to start."

And so, he started programming, started working on it. And then, I was like, the second thing that takes the most amount of time is the animation, because I want to make an explainer video. And so, the explainer video animation I know is going to take about six weeks. And so, the next thing I did is I wrote a script, sent it to the animator guy, pitched him on it. I was like, "Hey, here's the script, start storyboarding it, start getting it together." So he's working on that, putting the whole storyboard together, starting animation process, because those two things are the biggest pieces.

And now, what's happening is these things are getting done in this silo without anyone knowing about, and it gets to a certain spot now, where now it's something cool I can show, then I go, I'm like, "Hey, guys. I'm working on this thing called ___ It's really cool," and they're like, "What's that?," and I show them the video. And all of a sudden their energy levels like... They're not like, "Oh, crap. We got to do this work." They're like, "Holy crap, that's amazing." I'm like, "Here's the script I wrote," and they're like, "Oh, I see the vision." Here's the thing, and all of a sudden now everyone's got energy and everyone's on board, and then now it can catapult.

And this came from back in the day when I was doing these projects, is I didn't have a lot of money, but I had a lot of ideas, and so I would go to... does anyone here remember scriptlance.com? A couple of old school people. It used to be called Scriptlance, and then there was one called RentACoder, and then there was Odesk, which became Upwork. But anyway, it was just a programming site. So I would have an idea, sitting in class, and I would just post it. I'd open Scriptlance and I'd be like, "Hey, I'm trying to build a software program that does da, da, da, da," and I'd list a bunch of stuff out. And I'd submit the project, and within 30 seconds, I'd have people from all around the world bidding on this project, and they're all bidding on it. I'd just watch all these people coming through.

And then, what would happen is I had no idea who was going to be good, who was going to be bad, but the bids were usually like, "I'll do it for $50, I'll do it for $20." And so, I'd hire like three different people to do the project, because I didn't know who was going to be the best, which was going to be the fastest, so three people did the project. But then, I would probably do three or four of those a day, just getting people starting on stuff, and I'd get them started on these projects, because I have no idea if they're going to have wings or not, and so I'm just kind of starting them, just to see if they go anywhere, if they die or what happens.

And then, from that, the best stuff rises to the top. So that's kind of the first part of it, and the second piece of it is... do you guys know what a Gantt chart is? Is this a thing most people know about? I didn't know about this until a year or two ago, but in my head I'm like, "I know that, again, ___ the programs take this long, the video takes this long, so I'm doing those pieces. And then, the next part, next part." And so, what most people do when they're trying to build something is most people think a singular line, like they're doing on project. And so, they're doing, "I got the first step and the second step and the third step," and by the time it's done they have the project and either it works or it doesn't work.

But, for me, I have that, but I'm doing 20 of them at a time, because I have no idea which one's going to be good or going to be bad, which one the program doesn't work or the idea doesn't pan out or I get two steps in and I'm like, "This is actually stupid, and we're going to kill it." So I'm doing 10 at a time. I'm starting with the big things first, and then what'll happen is, eventually, some of these projects will get close to the finish line and then I'm like, "Oh, this turned into a good idea," and then we'll grab it and start running with it. That's why there's so many projects here. You guys haven't heard of them, my team hasn't heard of half to them, because they don't even know about them.

I'm just doing these things, I have people priming projects, I'm working on different things to see which ones come to fruition where it's like, "Oh, this is going to be something amazing." And somewhere along the line that's when it's like, "Okay, now this is something we're actually going to execute on and finish, and then I can bring it out. But I'm working on multiple things simultaneously.

We had one business we were doing a couple years ago, I was a partner in it, and that was the biggest problem I had, is that they did everything so singular that half the team was sitting there waiting for their times. They're sitting around doing nothing and nothing stressed me out more than knowing that I'm paying somebody to do something and they're not doing something. Right? Or they're doing the wrong work, so I was like, "I'd rather have everyone busy on different projects, to make sure everyone's always busy, and then when the right things come together, it's like now we can actually do this, because we have all the pieces." Does that make sense a little bit?

Annie Grace:
Okay, so there five principles in there. Did you guys catch any of those? Oh my gosh. Okay, so number one-

Russell Brunson:
Explain my brain, please. I'm so confused.

Annie Grace:
We just have to translate for a minute. Holy crap. Sorry, I mean, I guess that was okay. It's usually a much worse word out of my mouth. Anyhow, so first of all, how many of you also feel like you have so much more capacity than your team and your team feels like the bottleneck? And it's so frustrating and it's like, "Oh, if I put all this on my team, I'm going to break my team"? And how many of you have been told, at one point or another, but you have to focus, you have to focus, you have to focus? Yes?

And so, you feel this constant tension and this constant frustration, because you know you could be doing a lot more, because all these other people, they need to do things one at a time. You don't work like that. You work in this abstract way. You have a ton of ideas and you don't want to just focus. So Russell just told us that the thing that gives him the energy to do the work he does, is being able to stay in the things that he loves to do with a big part of his time. And then, he separates that from his core team, so that they're not scared of it. Right? And they're not feeling overwhelmed by it.

But then, he, with all of these tools that we have, we all have Upwork, we all have Fiverr, we're all really good at starting stuff. He is starting and testing and learning with these projects before they ever come to the team. And then, there's something else you're doing that is mind-blowingly cool. He is selling his team on the idea before he's asking them to do anything. What? That is so cool. You're making a video and selling your team on the idea. I mean, I know you were the greatest salesman. So is there anything you don't sell? How does this work out with your kids or at home? Are you selling them on eating their vegetables?

Russell Brunson:
Oh, 100%. Everything.

Annie Grace:
Everything. Tell us more.

Russell Brunson:
People call it bribery, but we're just creating an offer, right? If you eat your vegetables tonight, the first thing I'm going to do... Yeah, I'm creating an offer for them. That's basically all it is. Right?

Annie Grace:
So cool. Oh my gosh. Oh, wow. That was really good.

Russell Brunson:
Interesting.

Annie Grace:
Yeah, it's so interesting. So then, your team gets excited?

Russell Brunson:
Mm-hmm.

Annie Grace:
And then, you actually step out at that point?

Russell Brunson:
Yeah.

Annie Grace:
Because one thing I notice about you, in my interactions with you, you feel very present, you feel very here. You don't feel like you're pulled in 10,000 different directions. You're doing what you're doing. You're sitting in the backroom, you're going to our rooms today. With this list I would be like, "Oh my gosh. He's going to be the one in the back of the room on the laptop the whole time," but that's not true, because once you get it to a certain point, the handoff feel like it's a relay race. It feels clean. And how do they loop you back in?

Russell Brunson:
Yeah, so a big part of it, as you guys know, there's a lot of parts to the business, so to me, my favorite part is the idea, the creation, I'm a really good starter. And I remember Alex Mendoza, one of my first mentors back 20 years ago, he said, "There's two types of people in this world, there's starters and there's finishers." He's like, "Figure out what you are and surround yourself with the others." And so, I am definitely the starter in ClickFunnels, we have a couple other starters. For the most part, it's like I've got 400 finishers wrapped around me to finish stuff.

And this part of the process took me a long time, because I didn't have the write “who” for a long time. But, for me, what happens now, so I get the projects, I get excited, there's a point where I introduce it to the team, I show them, they all get excited. And then, I've got a really, really good project manager, her name's Morag, she lives in the UK. And so, when we get to the spot where it's like, "Okay, this has gone from a Russell I'm playing with playdough, creating stuff, trying to see what's going to be amazing, where it's like, 'Okay, there's something here.'"

Then, what's nice is that I'm not showing up to the table with like, "Here's an idea, go run with it." Usually, I'm showing up with, "Here's the domain name, here's the logo, here's the script, here's a bunch of tangible assets." So I'm not taking unorganized matter like, "Good luck." I'm taking stuff, organizing it, and saying, "Okay, here's the foundational pieces that you need to be able to execute on this." And so, I give more like, "Here's all the stuff I've already created that's the beginning points of this." And then, the next step that I'm able to do is I try to see how am I going to sell this? I'm thinking about that.

And so, what we'll do a lot of times is I'll spend time on my side actually pre-funnel hacking, because what I find is that if I give me team like, "Here's the funnel we're going to build," they go and build it and it comes back like, "Gah, what were you thinking? Didn't you see what I see?" And they're like, "No, apparently not." And so, what I'll go do is I'll go through and I'll actually go funnel hack. Let's say it's the book that we're putting together, I'm doing a book funnel, even though I've probably done more book funnels than anyone on the planet, step number one is always go back through. I look through my old swipe files, book funnels, I try to find new book funnels, I funnel hack as many as I can. I'm looking for all the elements and ideas.

And so, I'll gather all that data, that information, and then what I'll do is I'll sit down, excuse me, and I'll make a video for Morag showing her the whole process. And so, I use a reMarkable. Do you guys know reMarkable? Is that a reMarkable? No, that's an iPad.

Annie Grace:
iPad.

Russell Brunson:
So I use a reMarkable, mostly because I can project it on my computer screen really easily. But you guys know what they are? So it's a little pad, so I project it on my screen. Yeah, there's one right there. I don't ever take notes on it, I just use it for this one part of the process, so you can share it to your screen, and I literally just draw the funnel. I'm like, "Hey, Morag, there's going to be a funnel like this," and I map out what the entire funnel's going to look like, and I'm a screen capture video of it. So she sees me map out the funnel. And then, from there I say, "Okay, now here's examples." And so, I'll have a Trello board with all these different funnels like, "Here's this one, this one, this one. I love how these guys did this part of the block. I like how this one did this. I like the structure of this. I like how they positioned the upsell."

So I walk through the different funnels that I've pre-done and I pull out the ideas that I want to make sure that we incorporate. And then, I'll go through what the offer's going to be. So I kind of get through all that kind of stuff. So I give her all that, and that's kind of where it's now out of my brain into somebody who's competent hands, so now I'll run with it. So Morag will take that, and then she'll go through, basically like, "This is what you said, Russ, let me make sure that's correct." So she'll use, I can't remember, one of those programs that you can wire frame out your funnel. Miro, I think. Wait, what was-

Annie Grace:
Giro.

Russell Brunson:
Yeah. No, Giro is ours. Anyway, I don't know what it is. Because I can doodle, but when I have to do it on the software, it takes me so long, I just do it. So I just doodle it. She goes and makes a map, and then comes back and says, "Is this what it's supposed to look like?" I was like, "Yes, except for this is wrong, this is wrong," so she'll tweak it around till she gets the framework correctly. And then, when she has that done, then she'll go back through and she'll take my video and she'll clip out all the parts where I'm talking about specific things and she'll say, "Here's all the stuff for the copy, for the copy editor, here's all the stuff for the designers." And so, she'll chop it all up.

And then, she has a meeting with all of them saying, "Okay, here's Russell's new vision, and then she'll explain it, assign everything out, task it all out. They do it in some other project management system, because as much as I think I'm a project manager, you could ask Jenny this, she does her stuff in Monday, and if I walk past her desk and Monday is open, she literally will hide the screen, because she's like, "Every time Russell sees it...," I get so much overwhelm. I'm like, "What's happening?" And I'm like, "Please," and then I start getting upset, I'm like, "These people are doing this..." So I don't want to see the project manager process, because it stresses me out, and I try to interfere with it, and then it derails everything.

So it's kind of out of my hands, at that point. And then, the only last piece, and we talked about this, actually, during the Atlas meeting, is the copywriters used to take that and they would try to write the copy, but then it would come back and it never worked right. And so, what they do now is, Heath, who's our main copywriter, or Jared, who writes all the emails, they'll message me ahead of time and say, "Hey, Russell, pitch me on a product. Tell me why I should do this." And so, then I'll Vox and I'll drive around for 15, 20 minutes, and I just pitched the product from every angle I can think of. And it's like I'm selling, I'm telling stories. As many different ideas or variations or hooks or things that I can do, and I'm just acting like I'm pitching it to you guys or pitching it somewhere.

And now, they've got a 10 to 15 minute video of me pitching all the products, the upsells, the downsells, pulling in my stories that I would actually share, and that's where they start the copy from. And by shifting it that way, it's been like night and day in our copy, because they would sometimes take something and they would write the sales letter, I'm like, "Where did you get..." I'm like, "Why won't you use my stories about this?," and they're like, "We don't know your stories. We don't know what any of these things are." So that's how I kind of lead with it. And, at that point, it's out of my hands, and then I kind of forget about it for a while.

And then, Morag goes and works with the designers, the copywriters, the funnel builders, everything, and they start working and it's kind of out of my hands. And then, it's just happening. So right now, Morag's probably working on, I'd say, probably a dozen of these actively right now. And then, every night I get a Voxer from her, before she goes to bed, that just gives me an update on each project like, "Hey, just so you know, Heath's working on this, so and so's doing this, da, da, da, and this is the one thing we need you to review. Copy's done from Heath, if you can review this and if it's good, then they'll start design on this tomorrow." So it's kind of a real quick recap.

Because, for me, in Myers-Briggs, 16% there's the loop openers and the loop closers, so I'm a loop opener, and all the people around me are loop closers, right? But my problem is, when the loop's open, in my head, it's always there. It'll be 3:00 in the morning, and I'm like, "Oh, did they do this?" I start stressing about those things, and I can't sleep at night, if I don't know what's happening. And I can't see the project management boards, and so it's nice to get that update every night at the end of the day, and I see that and it's like, "Oh, cool. Everything's moving forward, everything's been taken care of. I just got to look at his one thing," and then the loops are closed, and then I'm able to delete it from my brain and not stress about it. Otherwise, it just keeps me up all night.

Annie Grace:
All right, wow. So there's a lot there. So, first of all, what you said you did is basically how many of us have a new idea, and then we're literally handing our teams a blank canvas and we're giving them paints and paint brushes and we're saying, "Okay, I'm going to tell you what my idea is, and you're going to paint it"? It's so frustrating. And Russell does not do that. He just told us that what he does is he hands his team a paint-by-number, with all the colors and all the numbers and all the paint colors.

You do so much work up front. Abraham Lincoln said it like this, he said, "If you have three hours to cut down a tree, spend the first two and a half sharpening your ax." And so, you do so much upfront work, so that when things come back to you, it's just your vision and it's so clear. That's just amazing.

Russell Brunson:
Yeah. It's shifting it this way versus how I used to do it. Before, I'd come back and I'd get so frustrated and so upset, and now, when it comes back, and there's always stuff I got to tweak and stuff, but it comes back and it's like, "Oh, yeah. You guys did awesome. Tweak this, this, this, but this looks amazing." And the longer you work with a team, the better they get at understanding your feel and stuff, and so it just gets better and better over time, but yeah.

Annie Grace:
Is this helpful?

Audience:
Yeah.

Annie Grace:
Yes? So helpful. And how many of you are getting distinctions for your own business? Wow. How many of you are feeling a little bit like, "Oh, I wish I would've known that before"? But that's okay, because now is now. Right? I always feel like that in this room. I wish I would've known that before. Anybody wish they would've known this stuff before? Yeah, a little bit of that. But it's so good to know it now.

Now, the other thing that Russell just taught us, is he taught us that Russell has created his entire business around who Russell is. How many of you feel like you have to accommodate your team? And there's frustration, because it's like, "They like things a certain way." And did you go through that, until you've reached this point, where you've literally... this is Russell's way? Was there a point at which you'd get a project manager or you'd get somebody on board and you're trying to work their way?

Russell Brunson:
For sure. In fact, it's interesting. So for the Atlas meeting, we had Mark Ford speak to us on Monday. Do you guys know who Mark Ford is? His penname is Michael Masterson, if you've ever read a Michael Masterson book, but Mark Ford. So he went into Agora when Agora was doing about $8 million, he came in and kind of partnered with Bill Bonner, took it from $8 million a year, to right now they do multiple billion dollars a year. And Mark was the chief growth strategist that built the whole company up. But he said something on Monday that, it gave me so much permission, because I don't know about you guys, I feel like I'm annoying my team half the time. I'm just like, "I'm sorry guys." They're like, "Will you just stop working so hard?" I'm like, "I don't know."

He said a couple things. Number one, he said the default of a business is zero. Left to its own devices, a business is not profitable. It'll go to zero. He said, "If you look at it, if you, as the entrepreneur, stop showing up, very quick you'll see that the cost will go up, the profit will go down and all of a sudden it gets to zero. That's that natural state of a business." He says, "Your job, as the entrepreneur, is to become the irritant." He's like, "It's like a clam and there's the sand in there, and the sand inside the clam is the irritant, which creates the pearl." He says, "Your job, as the entrepreneur, is to become the irritant, otherwise it's all going to go to zero."

And so, your team is going to drive you crazy, it's going to be the most frustrating thing, but you, as the irritant, is the secret sauce. All of profitability all comes from you, as the irritant. That's where you get the spread, that's where you get margin. And, for me, it gave me this permission of just like, "Okay, I forget about that." Maybe I am annoying them, but the reality is that's my job, that's my role, otherwise I don't create profit. And I told Todd this, I Voxed Todd and he was like, "Yeah, there's all the operators, and then there's the irritators. Me and you are the irritators, and the operators got to figure it out."

I'm like, "Yes, that's the..." Anyway, so that gave me permission, just this week, to even do it more so. Because yeah, a lot of times I feel bad. That's the thing, the reason why I do so much ahead of time, because I feel bad about it, like I'm giving them more work and more stuff. But, at the same time, they want to impress you and they want to win for you. You know what I mean? If you have the right team, they want to succeed, as well, so it's really cool, because we got to this point now where it's like I give them the stuff and they come back and everyone's having more energy. It's more fun for everybody. And so, it's taken us a while to get there, but the last, man, couple years, has just been magical with our team.

Annie Grace:
Yeah, that's so cool. So I'm sure it doesn't always go right. And so, it comes back to you sometimes and you're like, "Wow, this was one degree off, and now we ended up 500 miles to the south." So how do you manage that, manage the interaction with the team, and then maintain your energy and come back to the place of enthusiasm?

Russell Brunson:
Yeah, so this is one I struggle with a lot. In fact, most you guys know Jenny, Jenny is the one who helped me the most with this, because people would send me something and I'd be like, "Oh." And so, what I would do is, I hated giving people feedback, because, in my mind, if I give them feedback, they're going to be upset. It was hard for me to comprehend that, "No, people actually do want feedback. They want the criticism." But a lot of times, it's hard for me, too, because I don't know how to give feedback on this, I just know that I didn't quite do it right.

So what I've been doing recently, that actually has been kind of fun for me, is let's say it's a funnel, they send me the funnel back and I'm doing the final review and it's like, "Ah, the message was wrong, and this was wrong, a couple things were wrong," what I'll do now is I log into ClickFunnels and I do a screen capture, and then I fix it, but instead of me just fixing it and being annoyed, I'm fixing it and I'm coaching them through it. I'm like, "Hey, a couple things. You know it's above the fold, the headline's just not grabbing me. I wouldn't stop on this, so let me think through a couple things," and I'll show them my process and I'll show them me going and looking at headlines and swipe files and trying in ChatGPT to write headlines and trying to find the right hook.

And so, I'm making the fixes, but not in a silo when I'm annoyed and angry. Instead, I'm fixing it and I'm talking through why I'm fixing things. And then, when I'm done, I tell them, "Hey, I've made these tweaks. Watch this video to find out why," and then they watch it and they're like, "Oh, that was so cool how you did that. I never knew..." It gives them the insights. Before, I would just be annoyed, fix it, and then not even tell them we had launched and it's just so frustrating like, "How do they not see this?" And now it's more fun where I feel like I'm the finisher, like I'm coming through and doing the last coat of polish on the end.

And what was interesting is the first time I did this, I had to do a lot of polishing to get it well, but then it's less next time and the next time. And a couple times, I get back and I'm like, "Yeah, that's awesome." ___ one of the projects up there, they sent me the sales letter for this Monday before the Atlas meeting started and I opened the page and I went through it. I was like, "Dang." I went back and I was like, "That's perfect. I have nothing." It was awesome. So that doesn't happen every time, but the more we do it, the more they learn how to polish, as well.

And the goal, I think it was James Frill, when he was working with this, I think, but the goal was when you bring something back to Russell, don't bring a huge problem. The goal is to bring a six-inch putt. You're coming in, I should just be able to like, "Oh, yeah," and just finish it off, but I have to be okay with that I shouldn't be annoyed by the fact that I got to finish it off. For me, it's actually more fun. It's like, "Hey, we're launching this tomorrow," so I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to go do my final touches," and it just becomes a fun thing now, instead of an annoyance. And then, that's how I'm coaching them through that step in the process.

And I let everybody watch it, because then it starts training the funnel builders and the designers and the copywriters all together, so they're all kind of seeing each other. And then, they all become better together, as opposed to in a silo, where they're all just not understanding the method to the madness. They're all able to say, "Oh, this is why Russell's changed the headline and the copy, because he's trying to get something before the first..." whatever the thing might be or around the call to action box, he's trying to structure this way, because of blah, blah, blah, blah. And then, now they're all on the same page, so the next time it comes through, the designer will design it right, the copywriter will write it correctly and, if not, they have checks and balances like, "Remember Russell said last time to do it this way?" "Oh, yeah," and they help each other, as well.

Annie Grace:
So who's freaking out right now and being like, "I would pay a lot of money for those videos"? So that's just a little product idea. How cool would it be if Russell's feeding back to his team and he's like, "This headline was a little bit off. Oh my gosh. You guys should really do this here. You missed..." You should definitely-

Russell Brunson:
How much would you pay for that? Just kidding.

Annie Grace:
I'd make a trade. You could sell my Voxers. All right. Oh, that's so cool. One of the things that you've talked to me a lot about, because sometimes, well, I can be sensitive, it's embarrassing, but it's true, and so sometimes Russell just ghosts and he ghosts with a vulnerable question out there and just 10 years later he's like... And you're like, "Wait. Hi." And then, so you told me once, you're like, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to ghost, but I block my time. And so, I do this thing here and this thing here, and I have this compartment here and that compartment there."

And it helped me just understand and be in relationship where I don't have to be all sensitive and feel like, "Oh, Russell's ignoring me." But can you talk more about that, especially in this huge context?

Russell Brunson:
Yeah. Yeah, how do I explain it correctly?

Annie Grace:
I just made myself sound really needy. I am not that needy.

Russell Brunson:
And this is the introverted part of Russell, it's the reason I struggle face-to-face, one-on-one, because people ask you questions and sometimes it's like, "Uh." You want to know what my number one fear this, this is so pathetic, my number one fear in life is picking up the phone when someone calls me or to call someone. I can't think of anything worse than that. It stresses me out so bad.

Audience:
Yeah!

Russell Brunson:
Yeah. It's the worst, right? I have friends, I'll text them and the phone will ring, and I'm like, "Why are you calling me? I just texted you. I don't not want to talk about it," and they'll put you on the spot, they'll ask this question and you're just like... Oh, it's the worst for me. And so, I try to not have active communication in real time. Not always, but for the most part, partially, because if you respond back to someone, say someone emails you and email them right back. They're like, "Oh, Russell's here. Real quick, let me ask...," and it opens up this thing where I'm like... and 12 emails later, and I'm just like...

So what happens is I'll get an email and I'll see it, but I don't respond to it or I get a Voxer message and I'll listen to it or I'll see it, but I don't respond right away, because if I do, then it starts this open dialogue that stresses me out. So what I usually do is I wait, kind of like Dan Kennedy. Dan Kennedy it's all through fax, right? You can't email him, you have to fax him. So first off, I'm going to think through the fax more, and then when I send it to him, he's got time to think through it, respond, and send it back correctly, where he's able to respond instead of react. Because sometimes someone will message me and I'm sure I've blown up on a... probably Bart the most.

He'll send something, ahh, and I'll just respond back and I'm like, "Ah, I'm such a jerk," and I don't want to do that. So usually I'll wait. It's happened more than once, admit it. I'm so sorry. It's Bart, though, it's worth it for the relationship, I love the guy. But you know what I mean? So I try to compartmentalize stuff, and so that way I have times where I'm just doing Voxer right now or I'm just doing Slack or just working or whatever those things are, and I try to separate them.

Annie Grace:
And can you expand it even into... because you talked to me about how you do it with family, how do you fit in wrestling and family and work and the 10 different businesses or 50, whatever?

Russell Brunson:
Yeah, so everything's got to fit in the time blocks. Right? And so, for me, it's like my kids are waking up at 7:00, I know that, and so if I want to either work out or to write, I have to do it prior to that. And so, depending on if I want to work out or write or both, I have to make sure that time happens ahead of time. Right? So that hour is sacred, nothing else is happening. And then, I go to a separate office that's close to my main office. It's the spot I go and do just by myself. And I go in there, and I have about an hour and this is just my personal reading time, and not just any kind of reading, this is typically I'm reading scriptures or things that I'm probably not going to get during the rest of the day. The rest of the day, I'm going to listen to podcasts and other stuff like that.

And so, usually from 8:15 till 9:00 or so, that's when I'm reading scriptures and I'm kind of in that state, separate away from the office, nobody can bug me, I'm just kind of by myself. And then, usually about 9:00 we have our very first five-minute meeting, so I jump on that real quick, which means I do the quick meeting with everyone on my team, five minutes ends, and now I'm officially... now I'm Russell, I'm in work mode, and now I can do stuff. I'm still work mode, but I'm separate from the office, and so, still, this is my time where I'm writing. I'm doing stuff. I'm trying to get the Russell work done, as much as I can.

Because as soon as I go to the real office, it's hard to get an Russell work done, because everyone's got a question or a problem or a fire or something. So I try to spend as much time there as possible. Ideally, and this doesn't happen most of the time, but ideally it's from 9:00 till 12:00 I want to be in there. And then, when 12:00's over, then I'm leaving the... In fact, one of my friends was like, "Russell, you're the biggest hermit. You never leave the office, you never want to get on podcasts. You never want to do anything, and that's why I'm like a hermit trying to do that stuff." And then, I'll leave and I walk 100 yards to the ClickFunnels office, and I'll walk in. That's when everyone's there, and now I'm like, "Okay, now, that window of time, I'm here to work with everybody."

So I come in, this is when Morag's got all the projects for me to go through. I review them all, I have meetings with people, and I'm trying to do stuff. And I'm still trying to get as much stuff as I can, so I can get back to focused work time, but it's different, because that time's more also for the teams and stuff like that. Until 5:00, or during wrestling season it's 3:00 that I'm out, whenever that is. And again, I'm not the best at this, but I try to just separate things where it's like when I'm in the office, I'm in the office, when I'm at wrestling, I'm at wrestling, when I'm at home, I try not to let those things bleed over.

I try to be present as much as I can, and I think it was Sharfin, I almost did a Sharfin accent, and then I didn't, so that's good. He help coach 2CCX like four or five years ago, and he had everyone in the program doing those time studies, where you track, every five minutes, what you're doing. And it was crazy, because most of the people in 2CCX, they were doing the time studies, the thing at the end, they're like, "Whoa, I did the whole time study and I found out I was only working an hour a day," or whatever. That's the majority. 95% of people, that's what it was.

And that, I can't comprehend, because if you look at my actual day, there's no moment where I'm not doing. It's very few and far between. And so, I think in an eight-hour day, I'm getting seven and a half hours worth of stuff done versus most people get an hour done or maybe two hours. Right? So I think that's a big part of the productivity, but then trying to be super present. So when I'm home, from 5:30 to 9:00, I'm Dad, and from 9:00 to 11:00 I'm husband, and then I pass out. And so, that's kind of-

Annie Grace:
And do you love it?

Russell Brunson:
Huh?

Annie Grace:
Do you love it?

Russell Brunson:
Which part? Passing out or-

Annie Grace:
All of it?

Russell Brunson:
Oh, yeah. All this stuff.

Annie Grace:
The whole day?

Russell Brunson:
Yeah, because every single part is special to me, right? I love waking up early in the morning and writing, I love working out in the gym. I love hanging out with the kids in the morning. I love driving Aiden to school. I love being in my little hermit office by myself, reading books by myself with nobody else around. I love being in the office with the people. I get energy around. They're sharing ideas and seeing if the teams lighting up or not. Right? Yeah, all the parts are fun, but each one's a little bit different, so I got to be there, and then try to be as present as possible.

Annie Grace:
How many of you are getting a new vision for what could be possible, if you just put yourself first, literally ruthlessly, and said, "I'm going to set this up exactly how I want it to be"? Is anybody having that experience? Yes?

Audience:
Woo-hoo.

Annie Grace:
How cool is that?

Russell Brunson:
Here's one thing to think about, too. I started looking at where I was wasting time. The only spot I was wasting time was Instagram and Facebook. And so, what I did is I bought a second phone and I call it my social phone, it has Instagram and Facebook on it, but I leave that at the office and it's in a certain spot. And so, my phone that's on me doesn't have those things, and that shifted everything.

And so, if I want to take a picture of myself to post, I take it, and then I Vox it or I text it to the social phone. If I'm doing a thing, then I text it there, and then, once day, I probably spend 15 minutes where I grab my social phone, I post the things I did, I swipe through a couple of stories, and then I'm done. And then, it's separated from me. And that alone was one of the greatest things I did for myself. An extra $300 a month for another phone bill, but man that saves you five hours a day of just being able to be present and only actual social for 15 minutes.

Annie Grace:
Well, considering each one of these is at least a million, your dollar per minute time, I mean, it's probably-

Russell Brunson:
This is expensive. Yeah.

Annie Grace:
... a thousand dollars a minute, at this... It's really important.

Russell Brunson:
That's right.

Annie Grace:
And for all us, that's really true. I think we should consider, especially I didn't hear him doing dishes or laundry on there. Right? You hire that stuff out. Really consider what your dollar per minute, dollar per hour time is and value it in that way to do the most, and then love it all along the way.

Russell Brunson:
I think that's my biggest pet peeve is if I give someone a project and I didn't give enough upfront stuff and they do the work and they send it back and I'm like, "Ah, you spent a week on this, which sucks, number one. But number two, I paid you for that week and it was a complete waste." That drives me crazy. I hate wasting my time, I hate wasting other people's time. And so, that's one of the hardest things. The more prep, you can give people less... I just want people to not have to waste time, because it drives me nuts. You know what I mean?

Annie Grace:
So I have two more questions for you, and they're both a little bit vulnerable. Are you good with that? You're like, "What?"

Russell Brunson:
Let's do it.

Annie Grace:
Okay, well the first one's not really that vulnerable-

Russell Brunson:
As long you don't call me, it's fine.

Annie Grace:
... but I'm going to make fun-

Russell Brunson:
Just kidding.

Annie Grace:
... of you.

Russell Brunson:
Okay.

Annie Grace:
Okay, so was here in November for Inner Circle meeting? Yes? And who just had a giggle a lot when somebody asked Russell what his org chart looked like and he gets up there... Yes? Does anybody know? Oh my gosh. So Russell gets up there-

Russell Brunson:
I'm so embarrassed.

Annie Grace:
... and he draws one circle and he's like, "Me," and then he draws one circle that's like, "Jenny." And he's like, "And I'm out. I got nothing else." There was no other circles on the whole chart.

Russell Brunson:
I'm sure what else happens after that.

Annie Grace:
And it was so good. And then, you told me backstage that you actually had them cut that from the video, so it's not in the recording, y'all. You had to be in the room.

Russell Brunson:
I was so embarrassed, because I was like, "Let me share my org chart," and real quick I was like, "I have no idea what it actually is," as I'm drawing the circles like, "Huh? I think we have a COO, a FO," like, "Uh, I don't even know." It was embarrassing.

Annie Grace:
So the thing about that, again, back to the principle that we're not trying to figure out what the Harvard book says about productivity, we're trying to figure out what this human being says about productivity. And I've had huge corporate jobs, I've been chief marketing officer governing 28 countries at a time, and I've never in my life met somebody who's as productive as Russell Brunson. Never in my whole life. And so, if we unpack that, there's a lesson in there for us, which is stay in your lane. Russell does what he is best at, and you don't even put room in your brain for the things that are not your zone of genius. Can you talk more about that?

Russell Brunson:
Yeah. It was actually interesting, so some of guys have met Kevin Richards, he's our COO right now, and when he came into our business, he's like, "This is Russell Brunson and you have this big..." and he came in and it was this weird thing, because first he starting running the marketing, and then, eventually, he shifted over and started running the whole operations of the company, and I remember he's asked me, he's like, "I don't feel like you like me or you're not coaching me through what you want me to do or anything." And I was just like, "I have no idea what you're supposed to do. That's why you're here."

Annie Grace:
How amazing is that?

Russell Brunson:
He's like, "Really?" He's like, "Would you rather have me do it this way or this way?" I was like, "I don't care. I just want to build funnels. That's what I'm here for is to build funnels. All the rest of this is just chaos that was created, because I was building funnels and I don't understand any of it." And I was like, "You have full permission to do whatever the thing is that operations people do. As long as I can build funnels, I don't really care. Make sure we don't go bankrupt, make sure I can build funnels, I have the right people around me. And then, all the rest, I don't know even how to help you."

But it gave him permission, he's like, "Oh, okay." But at the beginning, he thought I was going to come in like, "Here's my process and how we should do it." I know nothing about that. I literally just wanted to build funnels and now you guys are all here in Boise and it's so weird to me that anybody even cares about it, but I became so passionate, so I was able to focus on that. I remember, it's interesting, a lot of times in church they talk about... and I do believe this is true in so many aspects of life, you figure out what your weaknesses are and your strengths can become weaknesses, that's a good thing, except for in business. In business, it's the opposite. I do not want to spend any time on my weaknesses. Any second spent on a weakness is just a waste of everybody's time. Right?

I only want to spend time on my strengths. I don't make money when I'm working with my support team to figure out how to optimize support. I make no money. I make no money when I am trying to figure out where the... I make money when I'm on video. I make money when I'm writing emails. I make money when I'm creating offers. So I should only be doing that. And any second I'm not doing that, the entire company is suffering because of it, and so my team knows that I got to protect Russell so he can do the thing that actually makes money.

In fact, I remember when, it was the first week Jenny started working for me, it was really fascinating, I had my lunch real quick and I make those protein pancakes real quick, and I put it in the sink and I started washing the dishes or something like that, and she's like, "Let me do that." She's like, "Your brain's too valuable to spend time washing dishes." First I was like, "No, no. It's fine." Then I was like, "Huh. The fact that I'm spending five minutes washing dishes is the stupidest thing in the world."

Annie Grace:
$50 grand.

Russell Brunson:
You know what I mean?

Annie Grace:
I calculated it.

Russell Brunson:
And it gave me permission to like, "Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense. I should only be doing the thing that actually makes me the money in the business." And so, over the years I've gotten better and better at that, where it's just like, "What do I like to do? What am I the best in the world at?" I'm like, "I should only be doing that." If I'm not figuring out an offer or creating a product or a funnel or something tied to that, or making content, everything else is just kind of pointless. And so, yeah, but it takes a while, you have to train yourself, because at least, for me, I feel guilty all the time lie, "Oh, I should be doing this," or "Oh, I should be in these meetings."

And literally, I have, now, someone who goes to meetings for me, Mike Tagger, you met him the other day. He goes to these meetings for me, and then he'll come back and if there's something important, he'll tell me, if not, then he just runs with it. And I'm like, "If you can figure it out without me, go for it, but if you have questions, let me know, and I'll steer you in the right direction." But just the least possible I can be doing, the better.

And that frees up so much time that I can be working on 25 projects at a time, because I don't have to worry about all these other things. I just have to worry about parts that light me up, that are fun, that are exciting, that I wake up in the morning, because I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to talk about ___ I'm going to be talking about the Secrets to Success book I'm writing right now. I'm going to be talking about the three print newsletters I wrote in the last 30 days." All the things are fun now, it's exciting and I get to focus on those things that give me energy and that are fun.

Yeah, because every time I get into other things, I just... Do you ever feel this way, like you're running, you're having so much fun, and then something happens and you're like... and the momentum stops and then to get back momentum is so hard? So the more that people around you can protect you from that, so you can stay in momentum, the better.

Annie Grace:
Oh, who feels free? Who feels like, "Wow"? Yes? Oh my gosh. Wow. We have so many shoulds for ourselves, but we're all in this room because we each have this unique thing that your neighbor can't do, and the person down the street can't do, and who feels like they should be doing the thing the neighbor does. Russell, when's the Super Bowl? Right?

Russell Brunson:
We found out Sunday morning. I was at church and everyone's like, "Who's going to win the Super Bowl tonight?" And I was like, "The Super Bowl's tonight?" I was like, "Who's playing in it?"

Annie Grace:
Well, one year, he had us all on a boat to The Bahamas and we were like, "Oh, it's the Super Bowl," none of us knew. But the point is, we feel, even as independent thinkers, even as round pegs in square holes, we feel so much conformity and so it's so freeing to hear Russell just be Russell. I knew this was going to be the most valuable hour of the entire week for me, and it totally is. So there's a quote that I had written down before this, and so often we're looking to people who have all sorts of credentialing and things like operations or productivity and Russell was pretty resistant to doing this. Is that fair to say?

Russell Brunson:
I was like, "I don't know if I know what I'm talking about." Yeah.

Annie Grace:
It took a lot of persuasion. Eileen is not feeling so good, but she was the main persuader, because that's what she does best in the world. And she was really trying to persuade him to do this, because she's like, "There's something in there," because you are doing what you're doing unconsciously. You're doing this unconsciously, but we've already learned that he's putting a fuel source in, which is energy and enthusiasm, he's choosing himself first, ruthlessly, he's incredibly intentional. He's handing things off, he's taking tons of time to sharpen the ax, he's giving his team a paint by number. There's so much of what you're actually doing to do all of this, which is just unseen, until it gets surfaced, which is so incredible and exciting.

Russell Brunson:
One of the things I was thinking about, if you were to come to my office and see it, a lot of you guys would probably think it looks all organized. It's like chaos. This is what my brain looks like, and I think for a long time, I struggled with that. Everyone's like, "What's the project management system you use?" And I was like, "Well, last week it was a pad of paper, and then the next week I found some software that was project management, so I put it all in there, I ran that for two weeks, then it stressed me out, so I deleted that. And then, I found a whiteboard, and I did that, and then stressed me out.

I think I drive Morag and Jenny and Kirsten and all these people crazy, because it's changing all the time, because none of the systems work fully how my brain works, but I don't get upset about it. I just delete and start over like, "This makes more sense today." And then, two weeks later I'm like, "This makes more sense today," and they all know I'm going to change the entire process every two weeks, because it just stops working. It'll work for a week and I'll be like, "This is the greatest tool ever. I love it," da, da, da. And then, it breaks because I'm breaking it, and then I'm like, "Ah, delete it again, start over again."

And so, it's not pretty. I think that's the problem, is, at least for me, when I try to make it pretty like, "What's the perfect system that's going to make this thing so I can do it all?" And the perfect system is a thing that I'm going to break every two weeks and start over again, and that resets my head, so I can refigure it out and then get reexcited again, and then it breaks again. So it's not necessarily pretty, so I don't think it's like, "Oh, here's the software I use." I don't know, it just changes.

Annie Grace:
But what you're showing us is you're embracing yourself fully, in a way, where you just don't get upset. You just said, "I don't get upset about it, I just do it my way." And I do the same thing. I have 10,000 different places I write, and Brian's like, "You're a proliferator. You just make chaos. It's just behind you."

Russell Brunson:
I'm an agitator.

Annie Grace:
Yeah, and so you don't make how you are wrong. And then, by doing that, and by sharing it with us, you're giving us all permission to not make ourselves wrong, too, which is such a gift. It's awesome. So the quote was, "When setting out on a journey don't seek advice from people who have never left home." And I think it's so interesting, because even though this isn't what you teach, this is one of your zones of just incredible, incredible genius.

And so, I want to finish us off with this question, which is the vulnerable one, but you told me a few months ago that you'd been really stuck and you'd lost some of that enthusiasm and you'd been in this place, and there was one thing... Do you know what I'm talking about? I hope you do, because if you don't, I don't know that... you read something in a book and it catapulted you back and you remembered and it was like this instantaneous sort of reignition of reminding you of who are.

Russell Brunson:
Yeah. Do any of you guys listen to my podcast?

Audience:
Woo, woo, woo, woo.

Russell Brunson:
In December I did a podcast, I remember I was in the library sitting on the floor just... Anyway, I was like, "I am really struggling," and I did this whole podcast about it. And a lot of you guys actually messaged me. It was interesting and I was burned out and tired and, honestly, the last year and half, two years of my life, has probably been the hardest. I lost my closest friend. Business, there's ups and downs. It's been a hard season for some things. The world's crazy right now, there's a lot of that kind of stuff, and I just felt beat up.

And so, I grabbed some old magazines, because that's what I do. It was Robert Collier's Mind Inc. magazine that I'd found from 1913 or, anyway, whatever it was. And I'm reading through there, and it was interesting, because, I don't know, it was like he wrote this for me 100 years ago and left it behind so I could find it some day. And all of the articles in this magazine were talking about courage and stepping into who you are and the people that have success aren't so much the smartest or whatever, it's the people who have courage enough to do the thing, and to move through it.

And I don't remember exactly what it was, but that was the thing where I'd forgotten my calling or forgotten the fact that I was the one who was supposed to do it and thinking, "Oh, there's other people that are better. Other people are doing these..." It was just a wake-up call for me, of just like, "No, it's not like I'm doing this because it's fun." It was like, "You're called to do this. There's something bigger than you, and you got to quit whining and step back up and become a man and step back into your calling."

And it was just like a really cool call back to me of just remembering who I was. And it's interesting, you look at every movie that happens, right? The hero loses his way, and there's something that happens where he gets called back. Think about The Lion King with Simba and when his dad comes back and talks to him, it reminds him of who he was. And, for me, that's what it was. It was in January, and I just got reminded of who I was. And what's fascinating about this is I was on fire. I messaged you guys and all these things were happening. It was really cool.

And about a week after that is when, some of you guys probably saw, an incident happened at a wrestling tournament that, honestly, is not a big deal, other than the fact that somebody caught it on video, and I have a big name and it went viral in the wrestling community, the business community, everyone in every industry around me wanted to take shots at me, and it was probably the most brutal three weeks of my life. I'd say, conservatively, over 1,000 death threats, whole bunch of stuff, it was bad.

But had that happened before I had that reawakening, I don't know if I would've survived through it. But I had that reawakening, I was on fire, and then that hit and I was able to endure and come out on the other side excited still about life and about what we're doing and what we're creating. And anyway, so yeah, I don't know.

Annie Grace:
Oh, Russell. This was awesome. I think you're a little bit less bionic, but only a little. And I think it's so important for us to, especially hear that thing at the end, because you can hear everything else and you can be like, "Oh, well that's just Russell." But even Russell loses his way, even Russell goes through the deep woods, and forgets who he is.

And I think that's why rooms like this are just such a gift, and for you to have created this space for us is, from the bottom of my heart, for the last seven years, this has kept me alive in a really big way. I know that's true for so many of us, because, for you, it's dead guys reminding you of who you are, and some of us, friends. But also, that's our job for each other. Right? Just to remind each other of who we are when we forget, because it can very easy, because it can be a very lonely road. And, from the bottom of my heart, thank you and let's give it up for Russell Brunson.

Russell Brunson:
Oh, thank you.