When Your Ceiling Becomes Your Floor: The Hero’s Journey to Your Next Level | #Success - Ep. 61

17m
In this episode of The Russell Brunson Show, I’m taking you back to the old-school “marketing in the car” days - recording behind the wheel on my way to a Prime Mover event here in Boise. Before I get into business, I share a recent family adventure - an Alaskan cruise to celebrate my parents’ 50th anniversary - and a surprising rabbit hole I fell into after watching Titanic on the ship. That led to a fascinating question: if you could watch any moment from history as if it were on tape, what would you choose?

From there, I shift gears into the core message I’m bringing to the Prime Mover group: the real meaning of the hero’s journey, and why the skills, habits, and patterns that get you to one level in life or business often become the very things holding you back from the next. Whether you’re going from zero to a million, a million to ten, or ten to a hundred, each leap requires you to “burn down” the old way and rebuild yourself from the ground up.

Key Highlights:

How an Alaskan cruise, Titanic, and a thought experiment led to a powerful question about perspective

The “heavenly blockbuster” concept: replaying moments from history - or your own life

Why the hero’s journey always starts with being unqualified for the challenge ahead

How your subconscious ceiling becomes your subconscious floor - and why that’s both good and bad

Wrestling stories that reveal the painful but necessary process of leveling up

The dangerous comfort of your “ordinary world” and how to step beyond it

Bottom line: Growth is a game of constant reinvention. To win, you have to be willing to let go of what made you great at the last level so you can step into the unknown and become who you need to be for the next one. This episode is both a personal reflection and a roadmap for anyone ready to answer their next call to adventure.

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Transcript

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ClickFunnels because you're one funnel away from changing the world.

This is the Russell Brunson show.

What's up everybody?

This is Russell Brunson.

I want to welcome you back to the show.

And I am right now driving to downtown Boise for a Prime Mover event.

So I got 21 minutes in the car and I thought, let's go old school, marketing your car style podcast and hang out with you guys as I'm driving.

So hope you don't mind.

I've got so many fun things on my brain that I want to share with you guys.

And more of the podcast recently has been more video-based and things like that.

And there's a lot of different things.

But like, I just miss this hardcore, old-school, me sitting in the car, sharing my thoughts with you guys.

Hopefully, you enjoy this episode as well.

And we'll see where we see where we go from this.

We're doing these Prime Mover events once a quarter, and it's people who join the Prime Mover coaching program, and they come to Boise and it's a really cool experience.

They come in, and they're all learning how to do one-to-many presentations and stuff like that.

But then here they come in.

After somebody's made, after they make $10,000 with

their first one-to-many presentation, they get an award and they get a picture with me on stage.

I'm going to go to some pictures with everybody, and I'm going to drop some gold nuggets, and then they have a chance for two days to

network to mastermind.

And we've got some really cool speakers coming in, and just a really special event.

So I'm excited to go see all the peeps today.

If you're listening and you're there, what's up?

I can't wait to see you here in a minute.

Anyway, what I wanted to

today, I was just thinking about like, okay, so for the last week,

I have been gone.

My parents celebrated their 50th anniversary, and they wanted to take all of their kids and their kids' spouses.

So no kids, just the adults on an Alaskan cruise.

And apparently, 22 years ago, my mom's parents did that with her, and so she kind of wanted to reenact that with all of us.

And so we had a chance to do that for last week.

So we've been on a cruise ship and seeing Alaska, and it's been really fun and exciting.

And we just got home like two days ago, and now we're back to the back to the swing of things.

But it was really fun.

So, and you know, the Alaskan cruise, you see Alaska and you get to see a lot of stuff.

It's different than, like, I've been a lot of like Caribbean cruises and Mexican cruises and stuff where you're like, there's a lot of sun and sun decks and stuff.

Well, here it's like way different where you're, it's snow and there's, you know, there's snow everywhere.

Like, it's like a whole different thing, right?

And one day you go and you like go by this huge glacier, which was really cool.

And we got to watch this glacier and see things like break off of it.

And it was really fascinating.

And then, of course, that night, we're sitting in our, in our room, Clint and I, each on the TV, and they have all these like pre-built movies.

And most of them are like Alaska movies, you know.

So, like, one was the proposal with Ryan Reynolds and Thander Bullocks.

We watched that one night, which was really fun.

And it's up, it takes place in one of the cities we visited.

And then we watched these other Alaska, like this great race, Alaska movie where everyone's making these boats, and they're doing this huge race.

And that was really fun.

And then, of course, the iceberg night, we're like, Titanic.

We have to watch.

You can't not watch Titanic after you've been sitting there

in glacier-filled waters in a cruise ship, right?

Like, it's kind of creepy and morbid and scary and all the things, but like, you kind kind of have to, I think.

So, we totally watched the Titanic on the boat while we're drifting past icebergs.

So, um, that was that was really awesome.

And it was interesting afterwards on the flight home, I started like thinking about Titanics.

I started like YouTubing all these videos about the history of Titanic, how they found it again, like all sorts of stuff.

And it was a very fascinating rabbit hole.

Um, I had a really fun time going down, but there's one thing that came to my mind that I wanted to ask you, okay?

So, as I, you're, we're watching the movie, I told Clettis, I'm like, like, not this would be cool to see, but like, it would be kind of cool to actually see this in real life, like experience it.

And then I was like, I wonder if when we die someday, we're up in heaven or wherever, and wouldn't it be cool if it's like the entire world's there?

Like on,

in my head, I think like video, you know, like here at Blockbusters, all these videos, like, here's 1912, 1913, you know, and you can see anything in the history of all time.

You're like, what do you want to go and watch?

Right.

Like, and so this morning I was working out with my trainer and I asked him, I was like, if you could go back in time and like when you're having to watch any experience from this world, like what would you want to see?

And that that started the most fascinating conversation.

So that's my first question for you is, if you could go and do that, like, what would you want to see throughout history?

You know, one of the guys, like, I'd love to see the Titanic.

It'd be cool to actually witness that.

I mean, as horrible as it is, it'd be cool to see and understand.

And like, wow, that was crazy that happened.

You know, like, what, like, other big wars would be cool.

It'd be cool to like the Roman Coliseans back in the day to see when the gladiators were fighting.

It looked like UFC.

Was it different?

Like, how tough were those guys versus nowadays, guys?

That'd be really fascinating to see.

I was like, it'd be be cool to go and actually see your own birth and see what your parents were like when you know when they were pregnant with you and they were excited or scared or whatever and like experience that like watch that whole part and i just think about all these parts of my life fun to go back and push and put a video and push play and watch and then just part throughout history so i'm curious for you like what would that be If you could see anything throughout history, go push play on it.

You know, when you're up there and we're in the heavenly blockbuster and you're grabbing out any VHS tape from any situation of all time, what would you would you go watch?

So anyway, that was a fun conversation this morning with my trainers.

We were just kind of going back and forth and like talking about all of that.

Like I'd love to see like George Washington like when, like, anyway, so many cool things.

So, all right, with that said, you guys didn't come here to talk about that, though.

We came to talk about business and marketing and sales and growth and all that kind of stuff.

So

I want to kind of share with you, kind of, I'm going to be talking about down with the

Pride Mover group today.

I only have about an hour on stage, I think, and we're doing pictures for part of that.

So I don't have a ton of time, but but I was thinking about

what I want to share with those guys.

And I'd love to share with you as well.

I mean, I have an hour-long presentation.

I probably got 10 more minutes here, so it's not going to be the full thing, but just some ideas for you guys to start thinking through.

And what I was going to share with these guys is just

talking about

like

the hero's journey, right?

And you've heard me talk about it a lot.

It's become really popular in the last, you know, five or six years.

I feel like I discovered it for myself, and then I wrote extra secrets about it.

And then ever since since, like, I hear people, all sorts of people talking about it.

Maybe it was just always there, and I just had never seen it before.

But I see more and more people talking about the hero's journey.

So I'm not going to go deep into what it is, but it is interesting that, like, we go on this journey, right?

And this journey of transformation, like, there's a journey of achievement, like trying to achieve something, but then in the process, you hit the hero's second journey, which is the journey of transformation.

Who do you become along the way, right?

And I think about this, like, um, when you do that, right?

The how do I explain this?

Like, the hero starts the journey in his ordinary world, right?

And then he leaves the ordinary world to go on this journey.

And then he goes through the whole process.

And you look at the very end of the hero's journey, the hero returns back home with the elixir.

Like he found the solution to the problem, comes back, and he returns back to his home and like has the has the answer, right?

And so that's what happens.

But then what happens is you're back in your, you know, the story ends and you go back to your ordinary world and you have this new thing and you're now at a new standard, a new level, and things have changed, right?

But then you get the next call to adventure.

And what's interesting is every time you get a call to adventure and you go on a new journey,

you're not qualified for the journey when you leave, right?

Otherwise, it wouldn't be a journey.

If you're already qualified, like you just go get the thing, right?

It's like you get called to something that you're not yet qualified for.

Therefore, you must grow and you must stretch and you must change.

And so what happens is like

at a subconscious level, right?

Like your subconscious mind is your ordinary world.

It's the world you live in all day long, right?

And if you get called on this, on a journey, on your next, you know, call to adventure, next thing you want to go accomplish and go do,

your subconscious mind, that those patterns you have are um it's the ordinary world again right and if you went on this journey and you go and you solve the problem you return with the elixir now that you know like you solve this and you upgraded your you know you increased your standards you're now a different person you became something different but now that's your new person and your next call of adventure like now where you are today now becomes your ordinary world once again right and you have to level up again so a good example this when i was wrestling right like When I was wrestling in high school, I got really good, right?

I was a state champion, my junior year, my senior year.

I took second second place in the nation as an all-American

right and so like I've gotten to a certain level like I was really really good my subconscious everything was like I like it was that that was where I was at right and I'd gone on this whole journey and it changed my whole life and it was amazing but now that that

Ben Hardy calls like he talks about like your subconscious

ceiling becomes your subconscious floor right like you've upgraded to that where the thing that was your ceiling before now it's become your your floor and that's now your new ordinary world and then you get called on the next adventure so for me it's like when I got done wrestling in high school then I got offers to wrestle in college so I got called on this new journey it's like oh this new journey I remember showing up the wrestling room coming in and I'm like I took second place in the nation I'm gonna stay champ like I'm really really good and we're walking in and guys who were third to fourth string were destroying me like it was not close like I was like a beginner and I realized that you know what had been my subconscious ceiling you know and now was my new floor was the was the beginning like it was my ordinary world and for me I had to change who I was or I was not going to be a good wrestler at the collegiate level, right?

And I remember like a lot of the patterns and the things that had served me at one level were the things holding me back from the next level.

And so

I remember like one of my coaches was just like, you're standing too tall, tall.

And like, I had been wrestling for five years at that point where I would stand in my stance and it was always good enough to beat everybody in the nation.

You know, I took second place in the nation, everybody at one.

All the one people I beat with that, right?

And I get to college and everybody's just picking me apart.

He's like, your stance is bad.

You got to redo your stance.

And I was like, but I've been doing this for five years.

Like, this is my subconscious pattern.

It's like, you have to delete that because it's wrong and restart over and rebuild these new patterns.

I had to relearn how to wrestle, relearn everything from the ground up.

And then over time, I got better and better and better, right?

And I went on my college journey for five years.

By the time my fifth year was over, I had become something different.

I become, you know, I was at the next level.

And then I took a couple years off from wrestling.

And some of you guys may have heard this story, but a couple years later, I decided I wanted to compete for Olympics.

So I went to compete for Olympics.

And I, in true Wrestle Brunson fashion, I found the Olympic Greco wrestling coach.

I hired him, moved into Boise, Idaho, opened a facility, moved a whole bunch of people training for Olympics into Boise, and I started training with these guys.

And really quick, I realized, holy cow, there's another level.

And even though I'd got to a certain level in my collegiate career, that,

you know, that, that, this thing that,

you know, initially was like this, the ceiling, like, I can't get the thing out.

Eventually, that ceiling become my floor, it became my ordinary world.

And now I'm going into my new adventure.

And like, the level between where I left off and where the next level was so different.

And like for me, it's probably the reason why I never got to the spot where I was able to competitively compete at that level because

I had to rewrite everything.

It was like starting over from scratch once again.

And I see the same thing in business.

It's interesting.

Like the skill set from going from zero to a million dollars is very specific, right?

And that's what we train people on in these prime mover events and inside of the click for those worlds.

Like there's very specific things you have to learn and master to go from zero to a million.

But then the jump from million to 10 is completely different.

Different skill sets all together.

It's not the same thing.

So like getting better at the skill sets that took you from one to million is not what gets you from million to 10, right?

It's like, okay, that subconscious, the subconscious ceiling became the subconscious floor.

Now that's my ordinary world.

And I got to go start this journey again.

You're starting the process again, right?

And now I got to go and like learn how to do the things.

And going from 10 million to 100 million is a whole nother level.

So every single time you go on this journey to reach a goal and you come back, you return to the licks, like, I now know how to go to a million dollars.

Like, cool.

Next call to action is you got to go up to 10.

And it's like, but I don't know how to do that yet.

It's like, exactly.

Like, you're starting over from scratch and a lot of the habits you have in the past that were really good that served you one point are the same things are going to hold you back now and you have to relearn those things like it's this this constant upgrading of yourself of your skill sets of your talents um

it's just a fascinating thing and so i want to talk about that with these guys and hopefully with you a little bit just thinking about that like like what is the thing that you're trying to accomplish And if you're setting any kind of goal worth anything, you're not currently qualified to do the thing.

You don't have the skill sets.

Like, that's it.

Right?

And you're like, I can't figure this out.

Like, good, that means you don't have the skill sets.

You shouldn't.

Otherwise, you picked a bad goal, right?

If you pick the right goal, it means you don't have the skill sets.

It means now you got to learn everything.

And the hard thing is that we already accomplished something earlier, right?

We already went on our hero's journey, came back, and we're very proud of the skill sets that we have.

We have to realize for you to get to the next level, you have to burn down the thing that you created to be able to rebuild for the next level.

And that's where most people aren't willing to do it.

Their ego gets in the way,

whatever gets in the way, and they're not willing to do the things they need to do to get the next set of skills.

And that's the game.

I'm doing, I'm honestly in my personal business right now.

I'm going through that as well.

Right.

Like the skill sets that got me and ClickFunnels to the level we were at is not the skill set to get to the next level.

And so,

well, you'll see.

You'll see the next six months, what we're doing and what's happening.

And

some of you guys look back in this podcast and be like, ah, Russell, I saw it.

I saw how you level up your skill set.

I saw what you were doing.

I saw how you were changing things.

Because I just know that where I'm at today, continuing to doing what I'm doing will not get me the result I'm trying to get to.

I have to learn how to do something completely different if I'm going to actually accomplish and achieve that thing.

And so that becomes the game.

It's like, how do I actually...

How do I actually do that?

What does that look like?

Who do I need to become next?

And what things from my past that were my crutches that got me to a certain level are the things that are holding me back now from getting to the next level?

I have to learn those things, understand them, break them, and then rebuild my new patterns.

The subconscious floor I have right now is my ordinary world.

And I've got to look at what's the ceiling

I'm striving towards?

Like that will now become, you know, that's where I'm trying to get to.

And when I get there, that'll become my new ordinary world.

Right now, I'm leaving this ordinary world that I understand, that I know, that I've mastered over the last decade.

I'm stepping into something completely different, completely new.

And I'm excited to see where it goes.

It's fun.

It's like it, like, when I look at it that lens, it's like, oh, this is actually really cool.

It's not like everything I did in the past is failing and it's not working anymore.

It's like, no, I'm going to the next level.

Therefore, the things that got me, you know, things that made me a good high school wrestler are not things that make me a college wrestler.

Things got me from zero to a million, not things that get me from a million to ten.

Things got me from 10 to 100, not things that get me from 100 to a billion.

Like, they're different skill sets, different things, different conversations, different mindset, different everything.

And so that's the game I'm trying to figure out and to play and to win.

So I'll take you guys on the journey through these podcasts in different places as I'm going through this myself and hopefully like leave breadcrumbs of what I'm learning along the way.

But I do think that is the question we should be asking ourselves and trying to figure out and understand.

So

that said, I appreciate you all.

I'm almost downtown.

I got to go figure out how to park and get over to the event, which starts in 40 minutes.

And I hope you guys are all amazing.

Yeah, cool stuff happening.

If you don't know yet, we're launching a new platform in a couple weeks called Offer Lab.

If you go to OfferLab.com, you can get on the pre-launch list and see what's happening.

There's some really cool things happening there.

Yeah.

It's phase one of the new Russell.

So if you want to sneak deep, guys, see, that's where it all beginning there.

All right, thanks, everybody.

And talk to y'all soon.