Leadership & Vision: How to Capture and Cast a Vision That Inspires Growth | #Success - Ep. 13

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This is the Russell Brunson Show. What's up, everybody? This is Russell.
Welcome back to the show. Excited to be hanging out with the S today.
And today I want to talk about a topic I haven't talked a lot about with you guys, which is leadership. And more so than leadership, actually a very specific part of leadership, which is how do you, first off, how do you capture a vision, right? And then number two, after you've captured a vision, how do you actually share that vision with other people, right? To get people to want to follow you, both like customers, but also employees and partners and team members, right? How do you cast a vision away that gets people to want to come to you? And this is actually a really interesting question.
I got it from one of my friends. It was after Funnel Hacking Live.
You know, obviously if you guys, you know, if you've been following the ClickFunnels movement for the last decade, like we built a huge business and a brand and every single year we did this big event and this was the last one, Funnel H I have 10. And it was a little after I got off stage, I got a message from my buddy.
And he asked me, I said, you know, how do you do that? He said, I want to do that in my business. Like our company's growing.
Things are good. But like I really, I want to figure out how to cast, like first off, how to capture that vision, right? Like what is the vision? How do I find what the vision is for my business? And number two is after I have that, how do I get the right people? So that's what I'm talking about today.
Because as you know, without a vision, the people perish. And our job as visionary entrepreneurs is to cast that vision.
And when you cast that vision, your people will come to you. Okay.
You probably heard me, um, you know, uh, talk about this before, but a lot of people are scared. Like, I don't want to put my, my, myself out there, my, my vision out there because people are gonna make fun of me.
And the reality is like, I promise you people make fun of me more than probably anybody right we spent um just on one event last week we spent a million dollars in ads my face was everywhere on the whole internet and guess what a lot of people don't like seeing my face everywhere all over the internet and there's like all sorts of people talking trash in the comments and things like that right like when you put yourself out there there's gonna be people who do not like you and they're and they're gonna be vocal about it but your job is not to to to speak right? Your job is to talk to the people you've been called to serve, right? And so when you put your vision out there, there are people who'll be offended, who'll be annoyed, people who don't care, but when you do it correctly, your people will hear you, right? And they're gonna come to you and you're gonna have a chance to serve them and change their life, okay? We are visionary entrepreneurs. We are the dreamers.
One of my favorite quotes is from T.E. Lawrence.
He says, all men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind wake in the day to find that it was in vanity.
But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they must act out their dreams with open eyes to make it possible. I love that quote.
It's like a rallying call. We had that on the back of the t-shirts one year, Funnel Hacking Live, because I love it so much.
It's kind of funny, I have an aura ring, so I sleep every single night. It is funny, my wife and I always tease, because my wife, she sleeps so good.
Every night, her REM and her deep sleep's like at 25, 30%, and mine always is like, my REM's like at 3%, or 1%, or 2%, and it bothers me, because she always has these amazing dreams, and she tells me these dreams, like, that is so cool, I don't remember any of my dreams. But then I found this quote.
I tease her. I'm like, well, I'm a dreamer of the day.
So that's, that's the difference. Like you dream at night, but I dream in the day, but it's such a powerful thing, right? That's our job as visionary entrepreneurs to be the dreamers of the day.
I'm going to read the quote one more time. It's so powerful.
I want you to like to rehear it because somebody has to want to roll back on the thing. Instead, I'm just going to share with you.
Okay. So once again, all men dream but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was in vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dreams with open eyes to make it possible.
Such a powerful thing. Okay, so I'm going to go through this.
I've got a bunch of notes here I'm going to go through. And there's basically three kind of phases I'm going to walk you through.
So the first phase, the first step, whatever you want to call it, the first secret, if you're Russell Brunson, oh, I am. Secret number one, step number one, whatever you want to call it, is actually you have to become a leader.
And this is an interesting thing because I don't know, like I've never really taught leadership before. I don't love reading leadership books even.
But the reality is that people want to follow a leader. Like you have to be willing to step up and be that leader.
And most people in this world do not want to be a leader. They are scared to death of, of, um, of leadership.
Right. And, um, it's interesting.
If you've read the book Atlas Shrugged is one of my favorite books, but there's a scene in the very beginning where, uh, Daphne is on the, you know, she's the head of the railroad. She's on the railroad train to get stuck.
And you know, this train has been stuck for like 20, 30 minutes. She comes out and she's like, why is it not moving? And they're like, oh, the light turned red.
And they're like, well, like, how do you fix it? Like, well, I wait for something to fix it. Like, well, is there an issue? Like, no, you can go.
But, you know, and the railroad workers, like, they did not want to take the responsibility on their own shoulders. They refused to do that, right? And finally, she's like, I'm Dagny Taggart.
I'm the president of the railroad. Like, you're going to go.
And, like, so. So if you go, you'll take, if something goes wrong, it'll be on your shoulders, not ours, right? She's like, yes.
And she was willing to step up and take that and take the responsibility if something went wrong. That's what leadership is, right? To be willing to say, this is the direction we're going.
If it's not right, I will take extreme ownership over the thing because most people will not do that. Okay.
They're so scared of getting in trouble or breaking something. They don't want to have the responsibility.
They'd rather do nothing. In fact, this is why the whole, I'm not going to get political because I don't care about politics, but it's, it's like the whole situation we are in as a country is because nobody wants to step up and do the thing and then take accountability, whether it fails or successful.
Right? So if you're going to be a leader, it's one of the core things. You got to be willing to be the person who's going to take extreme ownership.
Like just, I'm doing the thing and people look up to that. People are looking for that.
They're begging for that. Like they desire that so bad.
I think there's, I think it was Jay Abraham who once said, he said, people are walking around with like a cord coming out of their bill gold cord. And he said, they're secretly like, they're, they're looking for a leader they can plug into, right? They're looking for something.
So the masses, the most of the people that you are trying to lead, like they're walking around looking like, I want to plug into something. Like I'm looking for that.
You're looking for the person who's going to step up, right? That's what you as a leader have to do. Okay.
The next thing I have in my notes here is, is that if you want to be a leader, you have to bring energy to the table. Now it doesn't mean you have to bring Russell Brunson energy or Gary V energy or Tony Robbins energy.
You got to bring your energy, but the right level, right? And when you do that, um, there's a really cool, in fact, it's so funny when I got in this business, I used to hate when people talk about energy. I'm like, it's so cheesy.
So, oh, I used to hate that. Right.
But as I've done this more and more, it is insane how powerful it was. Like the energy you bring to a situation will attract the same type of person.
Okay. Um, in fact, I bought, I don't know whether I bought some tuning forks.
I heard this is the thing. I don't know if it really is or not, but, um, it illustrates my points.
I'm going to share with you anyway. Okay.
It's when you get two tuning forks, right? Two different ones and you hit one over here, one over here, and they're two different vibrations. But you bring them together.
What'll happen is that they sync vibrations. They'll eventually they're both the exact same vibration, same vibe, right? And so what you are, the energy you're putting out in the world, you will track people with the same vibration as that, right? So you got to put those things out there.
So if I come into a room, I'm like, Hey guys, what's up? What's going to happen? Everyone else in the room is going to lower down to that energy level, right? And so you have to understand like, like you're in charge, like as a leader is like the energy management of the room. Like when we look at funnel hacking, I've got 5,000 people in the room.
Like my number one role is energy management, like getting people's vibration high enough. They can learn, they can listen, they can pay attention.
Right. Same thing at, um, in my inner circle, I told people, like we have two days, we're sitting in a room talking about our businesses.
Like it's really easy to fall asleep and it does off. And my job is energy management.
I got to raise the vibration of the room and keep it up here. That way we can learn, we can focus, we can grow.
Cause if it's not, it's going to be off, right? And the same thing is true when you're trying to attract people. Like they're attracted to your vibration.
So if your vibration is like, oh, woe is me, things are sad. You're not going to attract the right people.
You're going to attract other people who are like, oh, life is hard, woe is me, right? You attract, you don't attract what you want, you attract who you are. This is the Myron Golden quote, right? You don't attract what you want, you attract who you are.
Okay. We talk about this like selling, like if you want to be someone who goes out there and you want to sell a thousand dollar courses, you never bought a course, guess what? Okay.
You're not going to attract who you want, who, who you want. You attract who you are.
If you're someone who's too cheap to invest in yourself, guess what? You're not going to attract the kind of person you want. Who's going to invest in themselves.
Okay. I remember Dean Graciosi launched a hundred thousand dollar mastermind.
I literally was the first person to write a check and And he's like, you don't even know this about it. I'm like, I know, but I know that if I am going to try to ask people for a hundred thousand dollars in the future for my masterminds, I've got to be willing to be the person to do that because I'm not going to attract who I want.
I'm gonna attract who I am. And I'm the kind of person who will invest a hundred thousand dollars in my education.
Okay. When I did my million dollar seed offer, guess who the very first person to buy it was? It was Myron Golden.
Why? Right? He told me. He's like, because I wanted to sell a million-dollar offer.
And I needed to be the kind of person to spend a million dollars on offer if I'm going to be asking something. Because I don't attract who I want.
I attract who I am. Vibration.
It is huge. Okay? Now, it doesn't mean, again, you don't have to have Russell Brunson vibration.
It's interesting. I look at successful companies and organizations, and I look at the leader and the team around the leader are very similar.
Like Jeff Walker is a great example. Jeff's been doing this game for, you know, I mean, back when I got started, he was getting started.
So it's been 20 plus years he's been doing this game. And if you look at like when my organization and his organization try to work together, it's interesting because like we have different vibrations.
I'm like the Russell Brunson, let's go vibration. That's our people and.
And there's that that's happening. Jeff is very much more, you know, conservative, like slower energy, things like that.
And the people in this team are that way. Now it doesn't mean that he's right.
I'm wrong. It's not, I'm saying you're going to track the people that are similar to you.
So you look at Jeff's entirety. I remember every conversation.
I'm like, this is so fascinating. Like they're all Jeff Walker's energy.
That's the energy level that they're all sinking to, right? My people sink to my energy. And so it's just fascinating.
Like, so it doesn't mean you have to have the wrong energy. It's just bringing the right energy.
Your version of that, your version of like high energy doesn't have to be Russell Brunson energy, right? Your version of that is going to attract the right people. Okay.
So if you want to be a leader, that's a big key. Okay.
Next thing about leadership I want to share is you have to have standards. What are you for and what are you against? What are you not willing to allow happen? What are you willing to allow happen, right? Your people are looking for that.
They're watching you. They're seeing like, does Russell bend in this situation? Is he not? What does he do, right? And you can make mistakes.
I've made a lot of mistakes. I've had to apologize to my own team about stupid stuff I've done in the past, right? I apologize to our community.
I literally, at Funnel Hacking Live, apologize again to our community for stupid things did. Like it doesn't mean you have to be perfect, but you have standards, right? You set a standard and you stick to it.
And people relate to that. And again, sometimes they're going to hate you for your standards, okay? But other people are going to be attracted to you because of those standards, right? Like that is the key what you're trying to do.
In fact, I found this is something I've had multiple people on my team tell me this is why to this day they've stuck with me, even though the ups and downs the last couple of years. September 11th, 2021, I made this post.
And what happened is set this whole thing off. This is during the whole pandemic, all the things I'm sure you remember.
But there was a time in that season when we literally had people coming to our office asking how many employees we had and then trying to force us to force our people to do things, which I am not okay

with.

I'm okay with people choosing what they want to do.

Totally cool with that.

I think everyone should have freedom of choice, but for me to force something, I do not agree

with.

And that night I posted this and I'm just going to read it because this was like me setting

a standard for myself and my team.

And again, I have people to this day who are like, because of that post is why I am here

Thank you. That night I posted this and I'm just going to read it because this was like me setting a standard for myself and my team.
And again, I have people to this day who are like, because of that post is why I am here and I'm not going anywhere. Because I saw your standards and I aligned with that and I want to be part of that.
So this is what I wrote. I said, what happens when you take away freedoms from prime movers, aka entrepreneurs? For anyone wondering how this plays out, read Atlas Shrugged.
When the government comes in and takes away freedoms and makes it so that the prime movers don't want to produce anymore, well, the ending isn't good for anyone. There are three statues that I had commissioned that will be standing in my office soon.
The first represents Atlas, my entrepreneurs, holding the way of the world on their shoulders. This is a responsibility we happily bear.
The second statue is Atlas Shrugging, and the third is him walking away from it all. We are quickly seeing the government overstepping their reach and taking away our freedoms.
I don't get political ever online. I don't care if you're on the left or on the right.
I don't care if you get the jab or not. As long as your choices don't affect my ability to produce, I am fine, Lynn.
You do you. As Voltaire said, I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
But when you try to take away my freedoms, this affects everything. For the record, I won't take away my employees' freedoms.
If it means I have to pay fines to protect them, I will. If it gets worse, perhaps that'll be the point that I shrug and I walk away.
I hope not. I love what I do.
I love producing. I love my life.
Our estimates now show that ClickFronts has conservatively created close to a million jobs and counting. When entrepreneurs start to shrug and walk away, we are all in trouble.
Fight for everyone's rights, even if you disagree with what they want to do with those rights. Boom.
Set the standard. This is what I believe.
For you, does your team know the standards? If they put those things out there, you need to be willing to put those things out there because people will be attracted to that. It's interesting.
In a day and an age where us as humans are more and more soft, it's interesting. You don't attract people with that.
You attract people with standards. And the higher you set your standards, the higher those people will come to you as well.
If you've been following me for any amount of time, you know, I always talk about as you're growing and scaling your company, the most important thing is finding the who, not the how. Who is the person that can help you drive more traffic? Who is the person that could be your CEO? Who is the person that could build your funnels? Understanding the who will dramatically speed up the growing and the scaling of your company.
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Are you hiring? Indeed is all you need. Do you ever get one of those ads that makes you go, why am I even seeing this? Not long ago, I kept getting served ads for these super fancy chef grade pots and pans, like premium artisan cookware.
And I'm sitting here thinking, you guys, I barely even know how to boil water properly. I'm more of a protein bar and a podcast guy.
Now I'm not knocking the product. It just wasn't meant for me.
And the real problem is that the company probably paid good money to show me that ad. And that's why I always tell marketers that relevance is everything.
And that's where LinkedIn ads comes in. This isn't your average ad platform.
It's a network of over a billion professionals and targeting options are insane. You can target the exact buyers by job title, industry, company size, role, seniority, even skills and company revenue.
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S terms and conditions apply only on LinkedIn ads. Next part of leadership, you've got to be in the trenches with your team.
Um, I think the reason why my team will produce so hard and they work so hard is because they know that I am producing hard and I'm working hard. They know that I'm here late nights.
I'm here early mornings. I'm killing myself on the weekends.
I'm like stressed and anxiety, all the things, and they see me doing it. And because of that, they're willing to do as well.
Something really cool happened. Bill Allen became our CEO for the Prime Mover side of our business, our info coaching side of the business.
And Funnel Hacking Live, we'd done the last day. It's crazy.
Everyone's like, you know, our team's stressed out of the max and we're ready to go and, you know, go leave and go party and go whatever, get out of Vegas and go do whatever, right? And Miles and Clayton, who run our events, they were trying to leave and they went down and if you guys are fun, I can't even have these big glow sticks with like 5,000 times too. So 10,000 of these glow sticks, everyone's whacking around with Tony Robbins on stage.
It was really, really fun, right? And the hotel said they refused to clean it up. Even if we paid a fine, like they refused to do it.
So Miles and Clayton are down there, cleaned this whole thing up. And Bill called Miles, like, hey, just go on and come hang out and go enjoy Vegas.
He's like, oh, I can't because we got to go clean up these things. Now, what some types of leaders do, it's just like, oh, well, okay, let me know when you're done, we'll see you, right? But Bill, who's, again, the CEO of the company, he's got his own successful company.
The only thing, like, of all the people, he shouldn't have been down there. But Bill stopped everything, grabbed his kid, started running down the hall, grabbed the rest of the team, as many people as he could, went down there, was down there cleaning the entire thing with everybody, right? Guess what? Miles, Clayton, our team, like, they will go, they will do whatever Bill says at this point, right? Because he lives in the trenches with them.
It wasn't just, like, him trying to lead from afar and like, whatever. It's like, he was down there doing it.
Like that's, that's what, that's what people need to see as they want to see. Right.
And the last thing, um, this is actually Tony Robbins thing. Um, uh, I heard him at my very first UPW ever went to, he shared this and it has such a big profound impact on me.
Every time I think about leadership, this is the quote that like pops back in my head. So, uh, this is one of Tony's frameworks.
He calls it the three mandates of leadership. And the first mandate is when something happens, you have to see it as it is, not worse than it is.
Okay. What most people do, what the 99% of the people out there who are, who are looking for leadership, they're going to see something like, Oh, this is way worse than it is.
Like, no, you have to understand like leaders, they, they, they see things as they are not worse than they are. Right.
So that's the big thing. You have to be able to say, this is what it is.
It's not worse than this. This is what it is.
That's step number one. Step number two, after you've done that, then you need to see it better than it is.
This is where vision comes from. I saw it as it is, not worse.
Worse is the opposite of vision. I see it as it is.
Now I see it better than it is.'s vision, okay? This is good, but there's great over here. And then the last step in Tony's three steps is then you make it the way you see it, okay? That's the job now to go out there and to move heaven and earth and do everything you need to do to be able to go and actually create that thing and make it happen.
So those are the three mandates of leadership. So powerful.
Again, number one is see it as it is, not worse than it is. Number two, see it better than it is.
And number three, make it the way you see it. That's what leadership, that's what vision, that's what all those things are.
Okay. So that's the first thing I want to kind of caveat this entire, this show is just like leadership because I don't ever talk about it, but those are the, and again, there's been books written.
I've got a book right here from John C. Maxwell about leadership, right? You know, like there's been millions of books written on it.
So like, this is not a, you know, all things,

but these are the things that for me that I feel are the most important.

So things that have had the biggest impact.

A lot of things weren't things I was thinking about,

I just did it.

And then I see the, like what happens on the other side.

I'm like, oh wow.

And I see like other people's teams, other companies.

It's like, that's why those people aren't having success, right?

Because the leader is not leading.

And when the leader was willing to lead,

that's when everything changes, okay? And if you've been a leader in the past and you've forgotten yourself, that's a big step too. Like come back and like remember who you are.
At Funnel Hacking Live this year, I did a presentation at the very end. It was called One Funnel Way Evolution.
It was like part two of my One Funnel Way pitch from, I did a presentation in 2017 talking about One Funnel Way. And this was part two.
And in there, I talked about how over the last couple years, how I forgot who I was. It happens to all of us, all leaders.
They forget who you are. And I was lucky enough to have somebody who is a leader who had to set aside high standards, Andy Elliott.
I went out to his office. And at the presentation, I talked about how that helped.
Andy helped me to remember who I was. And after I remember, oh, yeah, I'm Russell Brunson.
I'm going to step back in his calling. Like it's been crazy ever since then, like the shift I've seen in myself and you've probably seen it, you probably felt it.
You've been following me for a long time, right? And so yeah, leadership is such a, such an important part of the game. Okay.
All right. So number one is you being the leader.
Step number two. Okay.
I got three steps here. So step number two is how do you then capture the vision? Uh, and my friend that Vox me asked that, he's like, he's like, are you just sitting around like thinking about things or like, like, how do you, how do you, how do you find that? And so, um, it's such a good question and it's, it's a hard one to answer.
I got, it took me a while to think through this. Like, how do I, like, how do I see the visions I see? Like, what does that look like? Um, the first one, the first note that I have here is like the, the, I think there's like, who is it inspires me? I need the inspiration.
Like you don't just come up with a vision just like out of thin air, right? It's like, you're looking at inspiration in a lot of different places. Like one of my buddies, um, Dan Usher on my team, who does a lot of our film stuff.
Um, he, he spends, I don't know, half is, I'm probably exaggerating, but he spends so much of his time actually watching film and studying inspiration, getting ideas from other people. And then from there is where his creativity and his vision comes, right? It's not just like looking at a blank slate, like, okay, brain, be creative, come something.
It's like, no, you got to look at a lot of inspiration, right? A lot of people hear me talk about funnel hacking and look at one thing and they copy it. It's like, no, that's not what funnel hacking is.
Funnel hacking is look want to do what are they doing why does it inspire you like and from there what you do is you get influences from four or five things and then you remix them and then boom you create something that's your own i remember i asked dan about that i'm like how do you create your he creates these things for us called after movies like so funnel hacking live happens and they make they take all the footage and they build these like it's like a trailer for the for the event that just happened right it's movie. And that's what he told me.
So he's like, I look for inspiration from 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 different places, right? From there, I'll find three or four things that really inspire me. I take those ideas, I remix them and then from there, boom, I create my own thing, right? I start thinking about it with me.
It's like very similar. Like I'm looking at a lot of things.
Like I think about just pre-ClickFunnels. I remember going to ClickBank's offices.
Like ClickBank is here in Boise, Idaho as well. I remember walking in, I saw their office and they had like this international team that clocks on the wall and all this stuff.
And I was like, God, I wish I had a business like this, that actually mattered, right? Clients and clocks and like all, it was such a cool thing. And I remember going to, um, I flew out to my friend and Andrew Fox, who, uh, is in the, he's in Ireland and we went on his yacht.
I remember being in the yacht that night, and then that was the same time that the movie Social Network came out. I remember leaving the yacht, went to the Social Network and watched that.
I remember seeing that. There's that scene when Zuckerberg was like, and he's talking to the Napster guy.
What's his name? Anyway, and he's like, you know what's cool? A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? It's a billion dollars.
I remember thinking like, God, I want a billion dollar idea, right? And then like, and I'm looking at businesses and brands and companies. I saw like when Ryan Dice and Perry Belcher were doing traffic conversion.
I saw other, and like, and from these things, I saw Dan Kennedy, I saw Tony Robbins, like, and I saw all these different things. And from that, I was like, okay, I like pieces from all these.
Like, I love traffic conversion. I love Ryan and Perry teaching.
I love Tony Robbins. I was jumping around in energy.
I love the personal development stuff. I love Dan Kennedy because of the learning.
I'm like, how do I take those and create my version of it, right? Boom, insert Funnel Hacking Live. What's Funnel Hacking Live, right? It's like the, it's the education from trafficking.
It's like the story, the education and stories from traffic and conversion. It's the content from Dan Kennedy and it's the energy from Tony Robbins.
Boom, boom, boom. Remix Funnel Hacking Live.
This is my version because I love Tony's stuff and I wanted more tactics. I loved Dan's stuff.
I wanted more energy. I love Dice's stuff.
I wanted more, you know, like people from the community and like from there is how we remix Funnel Hacking Live, right? ClickFunnels. It's like we're using this software and this, like all these different things to build our stuff.
It's like, okay, remixing, boom, this is our version, right? So what inspires you? Like looking at that, spending time with it, like really, you know, a vision doesn't come from a new thing. It's coming from a remix of stuff that's good.
Like I take three or four really good things and from that I can create something that's great, okay? So that's the first thing to think about. Number two is like, what is your art? Um, people get inspired by art.
Um, I don't know how to explain that better than, than it's like, for me, my art was funnel building. Like it still is fun.
And that's the thing that I love. Like it's the, so it's like, I'm looking at these different inspirations through the lens of like, what is your art? What's my art? Right.
So for me, it's like, you know, Dan Kennedy, Tony, they're teaching their things, but my art's different. Right.
And so I'm figuring out like the art that I had. And then from there, um, from there, I started kind of mixing my things together.
Okay. Next thing about capturing vision is, is initially, um, the vision is not going to be clear at the beginning and that's okay.
I think a lot of times we're waiting for like this thing to appear like waiting So like in the vision, then I'm going to move. And I don't think it works that way.
I think that, and you think about it, faith doesn't work that way. Like how does faith work? Like faith is all about like you see a glimpse of like some way that you feel like you need to go.
The call to contribution. I feel like I need to go that way, right? But then the path is completely foggy and overgrown and you can't see it at all, right? The vision is not clear.
But in the pursuit of the vision, you start moving towards the direction, right? You get into momentum. Then like the pathway starts getting clear.
I was thinking about this, like stepping into the fog, right? You can't see anything. You step in the fog and so you just step down, boom, like the fog parts a little bit and you can see a little bit forward.
You take the next step, boom, and it keeps parting and parting. And if you keep going, moving forward in faith, then it shows up, right? And I think, I don't know, I believe that God gives us these ideas and he's like, he plants these little ideas in our head, right? And we have the idea and he's like, is Russell going to be a good steward of this idea? Let's see.
You know, plant this idea and then like see what he's going to do, right? And then if I do nothing with it, he's like, hey, Russell's not a good steward of ideas. That's it.
There's no good vision there, right? But he's like, I'm going to give him a little bit of vision. I'm going to give him this thing called Ziprender.
I'm going to give him this thing called Article Spider. I'm going to give him that.
These are my first ideas, right? And I'm like, okay. And I take the idea.
I do something with it. And God's like, wow.
Okay, he's a good steward of this idea. Let me give him another idea and another idea.
So eventually, he's like, hey, ClickFunnels. And then even if I click funnels, I didn't know where I was going to go.
It's just like, here's the first part, right? I'm going to tell you just enough so you're excited enough that you're going to take the next step of faith. And the next step of faith, next step of faith.
So that's how God's dealing with us. I'm sharing that because for step three, it's going to be how you're going to deal with your people as well.
Okay. Because if, yeah, so the vision is always clear.
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And then, um, and then I started like, just like piece by piece, I got excited. And like, there's something where I got excited about old books.
I got excited about Napoleon Hill. I got excited about this.
And like, and, and I didn't know where it was going. I felt like there was something I'm like, I'm like, somehow this is going to be, this is going to change the world somehow.
I don't know how yet or where or when, but I feel like this is something. So I just kept pursuing the thing, right? And opportunities come to me, things will show up.
And a lot of people thought I was crazy. A lot of people thought I was insane.
People thought, in fact, people were like, do we need to call somebody to have an intervention with Russell? And I was like, I wish I could explain to you as my vision't, it's not clear enough for me to explain, but I know there's something and I'm moving towards it because I move in faith. So I've been doing my whole last 20 years and people thought I was crazy every step along the way.
People thought I was crazy, you know, starting online business. I thought I was crazy building a software company.
I thought I was like, you know, everything we've done, people thought I was crazy. And every once in a while, I forget that because the people in my immediate, like, around my world, like, oh, this is awesome.
Like, the funnel hackers, the prime movers, like, my people, like, they're all excited, right? But I always remember this, like, when I go to a bank and I ask for money. So, for example, I'm building this crazy library, right, with all these old books.
And I go to the bank, I'm like, hey, I need, like, a $15, $20 million loan. They're like, why? I'm like, I'm building a big building.
There's going to be naked statues of Atlas in the middle of them. And then there's going to books there and there's going to be an events there and people are going to come and they're going to look at my books and then we're going to do events and we're going to record the events and it's going to be awesome.
And they're like, what? That's not, none of that makes any sense. I'm like, no, it makes total sense.
Like people aren't going to fly here to go look at your old books. I'm like, no, they will.
And they're like, no, there's no precedent for that. They're like, that's not a real thing.
Like this is all in your head. It's not real.
I'm like, I'm like, I have a really good track record. Like look at ClickFunnels.
Here's this big business, $100 million plus a year. Like this is a brand I built.
Like trust me, like this is another thing that's going to work. Like it doesn't make any sense.
Even ClickFunnels, like because it's software and there's no like tangible assets. Like it'd be easier for me to borrow money from a bank if I was a chiropractor or a dentist with assets.

Because like, oh, well, you feel I can repossess your assets.

With ClickFunnels, I can repossess code?

It's so hard.

So every time I think that I'm inside my world, I'm like, oh, everything I'm saying makes

total sense because all of you guys are excited.

My team gets excited. And when I go to a bank, it's like, oh no, I forget.
What I'm doing is not normal. I forget that sometimes.
In fact, I have a quote right here. This is such a good quote.
It says, the reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. Okay? I think when you look at this, like your vision, like you become an unreasonable man, right? This is what people are looking for.
Like when you're trying to capture something, like I'm not looking for logic. Oh, this makes a lot of sense.
I'm gonna build this. We're gonna do this.
Like it's the unreasonable idea. Like that's the interesting vision, right? That's something people plug into.
That's where they're like, wow, this is different. This is, this is not what I've seen before.
Right. Um, and so I think a lot of times it's that it's like, um, putting out ideas that are just, they don't make any sense.
And people are like, I don't really know what he's doing, but man, and there's something exciting about that. I want to be part, I want to plug into, I want to plug into that thing.
Right. So again, uh, the quote one more time, it's so good.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. Such a cool thing, such a cool thing.
Okay, before I jump into step number three, I got a really quick ad read for you guys from the greatest company in the world. It's called ClickFunnels.
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ClickFunnels, because you're one funnel away from changing the world. Okay, let's move on to step number three.
How do you cast the vision? And how do you cast a vision in a way that's going to attract A players to come to you, right? Both from customers, but then also employees, partners, things like that. And so there's a couple of things.
Number one is you have to live this, right?

I wasn't trying to attract people into ClickFunnels.

I was just obsessed with my art.

I was obsessed.

I was doing it.

And like people saw how excited I was, right?

I was living it every single day.

And people were like, I want to be part of that, right?

Like that's such a big part of it.

It's like you've got to live your mission.

You got to live the thing, right?

Some people are just, I don't know,

they're trying to create this vision over here

for something that they're not actually obsessed with.

They're not living it.

You've got to be the one living this

where people are like, wow,

whatever that guy's drinking, I need some of that.

That's a big part of it.

That's one of the things you've got to do.

The next thing I had here is

you've got to create a really great opportunity

for those people, for the A players. What's the opportunity for them? Everybody's looking for an opportunity.
They're trying to figure things out. And good people, the A players, they have a lot of opportunities.
So what's the opportunity for them? Like why should they step into your world? What does that look like, right? Number one is like they've got to feel part of the vision, right? So I start sharing the vision and like, oh, that's cool. I want to be part of that.
It's the first part, right? But then the next is like, how do you create an opportunity for them? You know, a really good example is Dave Woodward. Dave was someone who, me and him, like I met him initially, man, probably 10 years before ClickFunnels.
And I cast a lot of visions with him. I tried to do things.
I pitched him on a lot of things and a lot of me is like, oh, it's cool, it's cool. But like, it wasn't the right thing.
And I was okay with that. He was okay with that.
And then eventually I remember, um, when ClickFunnels came around, we were probably, I don't know, five or six months old. And, um, and he, he knew how passionate I was about it.
Cause like he saw me glowing up and fired up. Right.
He remember he started coming to the events and he came to him when I spoke at traffic and conversion and he saw me live in it. So exciting.
And then he came to me afterwards. He's like, I want to plug into that.
Like, I feel the this. It feels bigger than just a software company.
It feels like something. I want to be part of it.
What does that look like? And I didn't know. But I was like, dude, if you want to come be part of this, we'll figure out an opportunity.
We'll figure out a way where this will be amazing for you, right? And so we started trying to figure out that opportunity for him. And again, at first I didn't know what it was.
Same to Todd Dickerson. And I plugged in Todd, like he didn't come initially for like, here's how much money you're going to make.
Here's the salary. Here's the paycheck.
Right. He came.
Cause he's like, there's something here. Like we can do something.
Like he's like my skills up with your skills. Like we can do something really, really cool.
Right. And Todd works as you probably heard the story before he worked for free for a year before he ever asked.
In fact, he never asked for him before. I, I find the smartest, like I should pay you don't leave, right? And then, but then inside of that, it's like we're creating a world where they can thrive, right? How do you create an environment where the A players can like long-term, like I can plant my flag here because there's opportunity.
Like I could build a business, I could get equity, I could get profit share, I could, like whatever like the thing that they desire. Like how do you build that opportunity for them as well, Right.
That's a big part. And the last thing I kind of had here was just understanding that the same way that when God's like revealing the vision to you, he doesn't show you everything I'm from.
And the same thing is true. Um, when I share my vision people, um, I can't, I can't, if I were to share, if I were to share with my team, everything that's in my head, it would, it would, it would overwhelm them.
It would stress them out. There are a few people I can pitch and catch with a hundred percent, but there's not a lot.
Right. And I know that.
And so I share with them what they need to understand for the next step of the vision. Right.
Um, I remember, uh, Hermose spoke at funnel hockey live five or six, like something. And he was doing a sales presentation.
The thing he said was so cool.

He's like, the problem most sales people have is that they're selling the trip, not the destination, right?

Like, let's say you're going to Hawaii.

You're selling a trip to Hawaii.

You sell the palm trees and the coconuts

and the beach and that's what you're selling, right?

You're not selling, all right,

you're gonna go on an Uber to the airport.

They're gonna sit on a plane for 22 hours.

Then you're gonna, like, all the little things.

That's what most people are doing, right? So I'm casting a vision. I'm not casting, like, okay, you're going to jump in an Uber.
And then from there, you're going to do this. And you're going to, like, you don't sell that, right? I sell them, like, this is what Hawaii looks like.
I've seen it. It is beautiful.
You guys are going to want to come to Hawaii. I promise you.
It's amazing, right? And they're like, okay. Like, that's the vision you're selling them on, right? But you don't tell them all the other pieces because that'll overwhelm and it'll stress people out, right? But after they're sold on the vision, right? And they're part of it and they plugged in and they understand it, then you can start revealing, okay, here's the, here's the path.
Here's the things we got to do, but they got to be bought in first. If they're not bought into the strategy, the vision, the thing first, they're not going to be willing to put in the effort it takes, right? And think about this.
I think it was all the time. Like, had I have known what it was gonna take, in fact, I would say probably once a month, I get somebody comes to me like, hey, Russell, I've got a billion dollar idea.
Like, I'm gonna share with you, and you're gonna make so much money. I was like, no, like, why not? Like, I have a billion dollar idea.
I do not want another one. I know what the destination is to build a billion dollar thing.
And I have been on that path. I've been doing it for the last decade.
I have no desire to do it again. Okay.
Cause I know what it's like. So when people pitch me on a billion dollar, billion dollar idea, I'm like, that's the last thing in the world I want right now is another billion dollar idea.
Okay. Because I know what it's like, right.
They always say that like the reason why we're successful entrepreneurs, we're younger is because we don't know any better. Like we don't know all the pitfalls and the stress and the ups and the downs and all things are going to happen for us to be successful, right? We don't know about those things.
Okay. Um, and so what we see a vision, like I want to do this thing.

And so you go down and you're willing to do the things you're willing to go through the pain.

You wouldn't go through all the steps in the desk and in the trip and the travel,

because you're trying to get to that destination. Right.
And so for you, it's the same thing.

Understanding, like if you try to spew out, like, okay, this was going to take, and we're gonna

have to kill ourselves and like, you don't tell people that up front because that's not how you sell them, right? You sell them the vision. Here's the destination.
Here's where we're going to go. It's going to be hard, but together, if we combine our forces, this is what's possible.
It's what we can do, right? They get bought in the vision and then they don't care about like the rest of it, right? You know, like of it. After we bought into the ClickFunnels

vision, we started running and we were doing the thing. And it was like, I can't tell you that.
I wish someday I'm going to write a book. I bought bootstrap.com a long time ago, specifically for the purpose of writing a book to tell the ClickFunnels story someday.
So someday you guys will hear the story. But it has not been sunshine and roses.
Like building a billion dollar brand. No, it is.
It is not. Yeah.
The things that I deal with on a weekly basis are things that would have crushed me had I, that if I had to deal with one of those things a year ago, right? Uh, things I deal with hourly daily, like, like, um, like how much you have to increase your capacity to handle a thing is so much. Right.
And, um, anyway, so someday, someday I'll tell the full story, but just understanding that like the job of yours is to cast the vision and then people start running and then what will happen is that your capacity will increase. Right.
Um, the, the, the trials and the headaches we had year one of ClickFunnels are things that like now I solve in a, in a, like boom, it's done, right? And then they're like week long, month long, stress, anxiety, da, da, da, right? And the things I'm dealing with now, I never could handle back then. And so that's what's gonna happen to you.
Like you're sharing the vision, people come on board and then they're gonna go through with you, right? And it's gonna break them, but it's gonna increase their capacity and break and increase the capacity. And along the way, you're gonna lose people.
There's people like, I can't do this anymore. I'm out.
I cannot handle the heat. I can't handle the pressure.
And that's okay. Right.
People are going to leave. They're going to, they were part of your vision for a while, but now they're not.
That's okay. Right.
But there's gonna be people who keep going and they're going to go through this refiner's fire with you. Right.
Breaking down and increasing capacity, breaking down, increasing capacity. And you look at them a decade later when they're still with you.
Right. Those are your A players.
Those are the ones, but it's because they bought into the vision initially. So those are some of the things.
Again, I don't think it's a complete answer. I don't think it's the best answer, but it's the best answer I have.
To kind of recap the things that I talked about, right? Number one was you have to step back up and become a leader, right? You do that by the energy, the vibration you bring, right? By raising your standards, letting people know about their standards. Living in the trenches with your team and then understanding the three mandates of leadership.
See it as it is, not worse than it is. See it better than it is and make it the way you see it, okay? Step number two, we talked about how to capture it through figuring out like the inspirations, look at those things, right? What's your art? Being the unreasonable person and understand the vision's not gonna be clear, but your job is to go out there and keep stepping forward and going through it, right? And the last step was then how to cast it, right? Living it every single day, creating opportunities for the A players and then selling people on the vision or the destination, not on all the steps inside the trip.
We do those things. That's the things that I've done successfully over the years to build up ClickFunnels, the brand, the people, the team.
And I'm going through the process again right now. Like we're in the middle of casting new vision and there's a lot of pain with that going through it, but also a lot of excitement.
And it's really cool. So for those of you guys who have a funnel, I want you to understand if you have a funnel, but it's not converting, the problem 99% of the time is your funnel's good, but you suck at selling.
And if you want to learn how to sell so your funnels will actually convert, then get a ticket to our next Selling Online event by clicking on link in the description or going to sellingonline.com slash podcast right now. All right, with that said, you guys, I hope that helps you guys to figure out how to capture and cast the vision as a leader.
Hopefully it'll help you to have a vision so your people will not perish, and hopefully it'll help to change your business and your life. If you enjoyed this episode, please let me know.
Please share with other people. It'd mean the world to me.
If you're on YouTube, make sure you like, subscribe, comment down below. I read all the comments, which is really fun.
And if you listen to the podcast, please go leave me a review. It means the world to me.
I appreciate you guys. Thanks so much for listening.
And I'm going to end this one where we started with one of my favorite quotes from T.E. Lawrence.
All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find that it was vanity.
But the dreamers of the day, they are dangerous men,

for they may act out their dreams with open eyes to make it possible.

Thanks so much, you guys. I appreciate you.
Become a dreamer of the day.