My Two Biggest Take-Aways From The Inner Circle

If I could sum up the theme of the last eight days, it would be this…

On today’s episode Russell talks about the two biggest take-away’s he got from the Inner Circle.

Here are some of the informative things you will hear in this episode:

• Why entrepreneurs, including Russell, should focus on just one thing at a time, rather than a thousand things, as they tend to do.
• Why it’s important to open yourself up and be vulnerable to your audience.
• And what some of the things you can do to be able to achieve both of those goals.

So listen below to hear about the two most important things Russell learned from this Mastermind Group.

---Transcript---

Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson and welcome to a late, late night. I guess it’s not that late. You guys have hung out with me when it’s like 4 in the morning. So a kind of late night of Marketing In Your Car. Alright, it’s 10:15 I’m driving home from Barbacoa. If you guys ever come to Boise Barbacoa is by far the best restaurant here. We had a group of some of the people in our…anyway, they came to dinner with us. Sorry my brain is so fried.

It’s been insane the last, and you guys heard me talk about this, but over the last two weeks, we’ve done four mastermind groups of 25 entrepreneurs in each group so we’ve had a hundred entrepreneurs come through. And what’s amazing, compressing decades into days is literally happening. It’s insane. I was able to get insights from a hundred different business owners on what’s working right now and get feedback on ideas. There’s so much gold and so many little tangible takeaway’s that I wish we had 8 days and I could share them all with you guys.

But I thought you might be interested in, “Russell, what’s the core thing?” People always ask me, “Where do you think internet marketing is going? What’s on your mind right now?” But it’s crazy because there were two definite things over the last 8 days. What’s cool is the last two days Garrett White and his wife attended the inner circle the last two days and so for those of you who know Garrett, he’s pretty intense and it was just cool because a lot of stuff we’ve been talking about everyday were dramatically amplified in this last two days. He brought a bunch of cool tools and things that we’re going to be adding into Inner Circle meetings from now because it had a huge impact.

Anyway, there were two core things that if I was to give you the most important pieces of this, and I feel bad because no matter how cool I try to make these sound you are going to be like, “Oh cool. Awesome. That sounds great.” But it’s like when you see it happening in the room, when you see an entrepreneur who’s trying to so hard to not only change the world but to change themselves. And there’s this pressure and this stuff we’re hitting against and you see when this is given to them, it’s this release and I can’t tell you how many people broke down in tears, myself included over the last 8 days, which was unique. That’s never happened in my groups before, to be honest. But it happened consistently, a lot of times because of these two things.

And again, when I share these two things they’re almost going to seem to simple and I don’t want you to dismiss them because of the simplicity. Because they are probably, my guess, are the two issues that most of us, me included, in this have the biggest problem with. So you ready for them? Drum roll please.

In all seriousness, I just wanted to make sure you, I try to build up the drama so that you pay attention, but please pay attention because these are important. The first thing is focusing on one thing. Sounds so simple, we’ve heard it a million times. But all of us entrepreneurs are doing more than one thing. How many things are you doing right now in your business? If it’s more than one, you need to stop. I’m talking to myself right now, and you included. What’s the one thing you’re trying to do?

And it’s kind of a sub-thing from that, I can’t tell you how many people have things that are successful that they stop doing. Whatever’s working, keep doing that. We keep looking for what’s the next thing. It’s just the nature of entrepreneurs. What’s next? We’re adding things we’re layering things, we’re doing things. One of the pro’s and cons of the Dotcom Secrets book, I talk about a concept called the value ladder, which is vitally important to the long term growth of a company, but it’s also one of the things that stifles someone from immediate growth because they’re looking at what’s next. So some of those things, it’s important to understand and to know where you’re going, but not to get caught up in this value ladder of, “Whatever is working, I made a thousand bucks last week, gotta build a high ticket item.”

No. just do one thing on the value ladder and master that. Make a million dollars on that and then you can go and layer stuff, but don’t do that now. Look at what’s working and do more of that. Just do one thing, focus on one business, one core part of your business and have people on your team focusing on one thing. There’s a million different angles that that matters and is important, but it’s all coming back to what’s the one thing. And if you focus that, you can call it the 80/20 if you want. What’s the 20% that gives you 80% of the results and focus there.

Because for some reason we get caught up in all these things that don’t actually impact or do anything. So that’s number one, focusing on the one thing. And the second thing, and this one’s hard. It’ something I’ve struggled for a long time. Years and years and years. I still struggle with it. It’s something that I don’t think was essential even ten years ago, but now the world we live in today, it’s the only thing that matter. It’s the most important thing. And it is being vulnerable with your audience in all situations. Not just selling, but definitely in selling.

We had people in our group who I’ve known for a long time and for whatever reason, because of the environment and the people and the situation and whatever, were finally willing to get vulnerable and share things with the group that they normally wouldn’t or have never shared before. And because they were vulnerable people connected and it opened up so many things.

Because they opened up and they were vulnerable with me and other people, it was just great. I wish I could share stories but some of them are……they’re all way to personal of stories for me to tell. They’re not my story to tell, so I can’t. But because they shared those stories, they were able to have the breakthroughs that they needed.

And the same thing is in your selling. It’s hard, especially when we’re communicating with our audience, the front that we have, you guys know. Here’s Russell on stage, he’s got stage presence or whatever. There’s this thing, but the reason people connect with me is not because onstage I seem like whatever, it’s because I’m vulnerable, it’s because I share things like this through my podcast and through Snapchat. I share things like that through videos. I’m vulnerable, I open things up. As embarrassing as it is, I’ve cried on video. But that vulnerability is what causes connection, which lets people in and let’s people trust me, which is the reason why I’ve got so many great connections to so many great people, is because of that.

And I think about areas of my life that I’m not happy, it’s primarily tied to me not being willing to be vulnerable. Because I’m afraid of fear or rejection or fill in the blank, whatever fear it is for you. So this isn’t just a business lesson, this is a everything lesson. Being vulnerable, because as soon as you are it softens the people to whatever it is. If you’re trying to build a relationship, or you’re trying to sell something, whatever it is. Trying to build a connection, it’s you opening yourself up and being vulnerable that allows people in.

It’s scary because sometimes people are bad people and when you open things up, they say bad things, do bad things, I get that. But I feel like putting your barriers down and opening yourself up is what allows amazing things to happen. and those two things, it was really coming back down and saying, “Look, focus on one thing, number one. And number two, be open, be vulnerable, share your story and then don’t do it once or twice, but do it consistently.”

It was funny, in the last group, again I wish I could share the stories, but they’re too personal. But someone was talking and it was just Garrett kind of came back and said, “Look, for me to learn my message this is what I had to do. I did a podcast everyday for 600 days. I did warrior weeks, every month for 76 months. I did video on Facebook three times a day for 5 years. I did this and this and this and consistently.” And when he said that I said, “How many Marketing In Your Cars have I done? I’ve probably done, I don’t even know what episode we’re on. 3 or 400. I’ve podcast, I’ve blogged. I’ve done this so many times.” And Garrett asked me, “Why do you keep doing them.” I said, “I’m still trying to learn my message.”

And he’s like, “Do you hear that. Russell’s been doing this for 12 years and is still trying to figure out his message.” So for people that come in and try it once and to dabble and…..”I did a podcast and it didn’t work. I tried a webinar and it didn’t work. I did whatever and it didn’t work.”  The difference between me and them, I didn’t stop. Garrett didn’t stop. The successful people don’t stop. How many webinars did I have to do to learn to discover, to create, whatever you want to call it, the perfect webinar. It was a lot, it’s in the hundreds and hundreds.

The Clickfunnels webinar alone I’ve done at least fifty times. Over and over and over and over again to learn my message, to learn how I tell my stories, to learn all these kinds of things. So if you want to be in this game, you want to succeed in this game and you want to change yourself. You want to change other people. You want to change the world. It’s a commitment, a sacrifice. And again, the two things.  Number one, focus on the one thing, focus on that thing. Number two, focus on consistently doing it over and over and over and over again. And open yourself up and being vulnerable. That’s how you cause those changes.

I hope that helps you guys. Again there’s, laced inside of that, probably a hundred pages of notes for myself and action items and to do’s. Those are definitely the overarching things that I think everybody can gain value from. I wish and hope that someday each of you guys will have a chance to experience our inner circle, not because I want or need money, that’s not the point of this group. But because of the transformation that comes from it. It’s a group I love, I care about all the people in it. I’ve built some friendships and relationships that will last the rest of my life.

I care more than you have known about, about all your businesses. But these ones I have a chance to really affect and be a part of. With that said, someday I hope to have you in our group so you can be part of it, you can experience it at that level. Because that’s where I feel the best transformation I can provide people comes from.

With that said, I’m getting close to home. I’m really tired and kind of thirsty. So I will talk to you guys all again here, very soon. Probably a few days. I need a couple days to chillax. Next week though, next week’s crazy because I have got to finish the Expert Secrets book. I found out for me to have the printed copies in time to give them out to all of the attendees at our live event, funnelhacking.com, I have to have the final draft to the editor by the end of next week. So I am spending next week in a hard core editing, rewriting, book focusing thing that’s going to be crazy intense, but will be good. So that’s what I’m doing next week, so I’m sure I ‘ll be sharing some of the ups and downs of the immersion week I’ve got next week to finish my book. Appreciate you all, talk to you again soon.