Do You Ever Take A Break?

The answer may shock you…

On this episode Russell talks about how he is able to take breaks and spend enough time with his wife and kids and yet still meet deadlines.

Here are some cool things to listen for in today’s episode:

• Hear how Russell was able to pass his classes and get on the honor roll at BYU after barely graduating from high school.
• Find out how he was able to take what he learned on how to pass classes in college and apply it to his business.
• And hear how he is able to meet deadlines and still spend a ton of quality time with his family.

So listen below to find out how Russell is able to have a successful business life without sacrificing his family life.

---Transcript---

Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing in Your Car.

Hi everybody, welcome to today. I hope it’s been amazing for you. I’ve been having an awesome morning routine. I’m working on trying to perfect my morning routine, making it a consistent part of my day and trying to figure out what things I like and things I don’t like, and a whole bunch of really fun stuff like that.

I had a good one today. I had a really fun, woke up early in the morning with Nora about 6:30 and then played with her while I was getting my supplements ready, and she fell asleep and went out to the new wrestling room and worked out, and then I got back from there, went and woke up all my kids and jumped in the pool and swam.

Anyway, it was amazing. I’m really liking the new morning routine and trying to get it perfected because I might – I may have just bought WhatsYourMorningRoutine.com. I may be making a video here in the near future showing it. I’m trying to perfect it right now because what I have found is that what you do in the morning is kind of what the rest of your day is going to be like.

How do we perfect that? I’m excited. Anyway I had a really cool question this weekend from a friend and a listener. I thought it was something that’s probably good to touch upon. His question was, “Russell, do you ever take a break or are you always working? Are you home for a little bit and then try to sneak back out to go back to the office and things like that?”

I thought that was a good question that I wanted to address for a couple of reasons. First off, I don’t want you guys thinking that all I do is work even though I do a lot of work. Second off, I want to kind of just address what the purpose of our whole reason why we got in this business is for.

That’s my game plan for today’s message. The question is, “Do I ever take a break?” The answer is yes. In fact, I try to take more breaks than I do all-nighters — a lot more of them. You know, I’m a big believer – in fact, I spoke this weekend at one of my friend’s events.

One of the people asked me a question like, “Russell, how do you get so much stuff done?” and I kind of told him, “You know, the way I get lots of stuff done is probably kind of messed up compared to how the rest of the world gets things done.”

I talked about when I was in college, you guys know I really struggled in college but I remember I had this I think engineering or some kind of class. I remember in that class they talked about a concept called JIT production — just in time production — where you get everything done just in time for things to be done.

I remember when we talked about that, it made sense to me. I remember thinking about as a student, I always struggled with, “Hey, you’re going to have finals at the end of the semester.” A lot of my friends who were really good students would be good at every night, they would study for 20 or 30 minutes.

By the time the final came, they knew the information and they would pass the test. I could never do that. I tried. In fact, I guess that’s why I think I hated high school was I was always trying to study. “Just study so you know all this stuff better,” but it seems so pointless. Why am I – anyway, it just drove me crazy.

I remember my first year in college, I went to BYU. I shouldn’t have been at BYU for a lot of reasons but the main one was I wasn’t an academic smart kid. In fact, I applied for BYU and I got a letter back saying, “Sorry Russell, you’re not smart enough to attend our university.”

I was like, “Oh, that sucks,” and then two weeks later, I was at the high school national tournament. I ended up taking second in the country, came in All American, and when I was there, all these coaches started, “Hey, we want you to come to ASU, we want you to come here,” all these places.

Then I remember that day I saw the BYU coach. He said, “Hey, we want you to come to BYU.” I said, “I can’t. I applied and failed.” He laughed and said, “Don’t worry, we take care of our athletes.” The next week, I got a letter from BYU saying, “Congratulations, we reevaluated your application and you’re in!”

I ended up going to BYU. I was there and school was not a little bit harder, it was a lot harder, way over my head. I had to really work hard and focus to be able to just pass whereas high school I could just do what I needed to do, and I would pass. This is like just to get a passing grade, I had to work really hard.

BYU, they have a testing center. What happens is final weeks, everything shuts down and you can pick whenever you want to take your finals. I’m taking my math final Monday, my science final Tuesday, and whatever that is.

What I would do is I would schedule my test so Monday night at 8 PM, I’m taking the math test. I wake up super early Monday morning, and I lock myself in the basement. I would read the entire math book in a day so everything is in my head.

Then I would go take the test, and pass it. Then the next day, “Okay, today is science,” and I would wake up super early, study for 18 hours, learn everything, read the entire manual again and jump in and take the science test and pass. I would do that through all my tests.

It gave me the ability to compress what most people were doing over six, eight, ten weeks, whatever and get it done in a day and still be able to pass. I actually got really good grades at BYU. I actually even made — you guys will be proud of me — the honors list.

I was on the athletic honors board which was pretty cool since I never got over a 3.0 in high school, and got a 3.4 at BYU and I was on the board of the smart athletes, smart student athletes which is still funny to me.

Anyway, I was looking at my business and it’s very similar. I don’t plan things well. We have our certification program coming up in two weeks. Everyone is like, “Hey, what’s the plan? What’s happening? We need a schedule. We need dates and times, all this stuff.”

I’m like, “Do you guys honestly think I’ve started preparing it yet? That would be foolish of me.” If I started preparing now, a couple things would happen. First off, I’d get scope creep. It would getting bigger and bigger, and I would somehow magically fill all of the time it would take for the next two weeks.

Nothing else would get done. That by the way is why most entrepreneurs are failing in life because you try to plan things out six weeks, eight weeks, ten weeks in advance. Because of that, you spend so much time doing all the stupid stuff that doesn’t matter, you never have success.

Whereas for me I say, “Okay, the certification program is this date.” I back up to how long I think it’s going to get that done. For me, it’s about two days of planning and preparation. I know the two days prior to the certification program starting, I’m going to start working on it.

During that two days, I’m going to call my wife and she will know ahead of time — plenty of time, two weeks in advance — that I will not be home these two nights. I’m going to be pulling all-nighters, whatever it takes to get this stuff done, and she’ll be okay with that. Now this is a lesson for the men.

If you call your wife at six PM the night of and say, “Hey hun, I got to pull an all-nighter tonight,” she will resent you and be upset and angry. You tell her two weeks in advance, she’s cool with it, not a big deal.

That’s what I do. I tell her two weeks in advance what’s going to happen. Then I get in there and lock myself down. I don’t leave until it’s finished. Now most of the time you guys hear from me are during times like that when I’m in crunch time and I’m pulling all-nighters because that’s when it’s really fun to talk to you and share stories.

That’s what’s happening but that is not an all the time type thing. They’re very finite periods of planned crunch time. It’s just like me going to college. I’m locking myself in the room and reading the entire exam book so that when I take the exam, I’m prepared.

That’s how I work on my life. In between those times, I have a lot of things that are happening but I’m very big on deadlines. I know that this is due on this date, and then I backdate what I need to get done, and then if it’s going to be one of those things where I know it’s going to be a lot of extra time, then I know it’s going to be an all-nighter or whatever, I just plan that ahead of time.

But most of the time I don’t. Most of the time, my goal — and I’m not perfect at this but I’m trying to. I’m getting better at it is that I try really big to be present wherever I’m at. For example, this week my goal is I’m working — it’s 10:30 right now. I woke up this morning and did my morning routine, hung out with my kids, had some fun, hitting the office now, 10:30.

I will be leaving the office at five o’clock today. On my drive home, I’ll talk to some of my coaching clients to get that done. When I get to my house, I will turn my phones off. I will leave them in the car, and I will be present for my wife and my kids.

That will be my break. That night, I will come home, we’re going to goof off and have some fun, jump on the trampoline with them, have dinner. We might go on a walk, put the kids to bed. I’ll hang out with my wife. We may watch TV, whatever it’s going to be but I’m present and there with them in that time.

That’s my break. The reason why my wife is okay with me saying, “Hey, these two days, I’m not coming home because I need to get stuff done,” because the other days, she knows that I’m there and I’m present and I’m hanging out with them.

I’m trying to make those times as amazing as possible. That’s kind of how I do it. Yes, I do take brakes as often as possible. In fact, everyday I’m trying to take a break from five or six o’clock at night until midnight.

Some of my friends always tease me, “Russell, how in the world do you do all this stuff plus have time to watch all these shows and all this other stuff?” That’s why because I know that when it’s time to get crap done, I get crap done and when it’s time to have fun and just be present, I make that time and I try to protect it and guard it as much as I can.

Again, I’m not perfect. If you ask my wife, she’ll say, “I know Russell sneaks out. He checks his phone sometimes,” and I’m not perfect by any stretch but I’m trying to be and I’m getting better at it. While you guys hear a lot of the crazy all-nighters and those kind of things, that’s not the majority of my time.

If it was, I would burn out and crash, and be really tired, and I wouldn’t be able to have a functioning life and family, and kids, and everything else that’s really the reason why we got in this business. I tell entrepreneurs all the time that one of the biggest challenges they’re going to have is not becoming success.

It’s going to be when you become successful, you’ll become so addicted to the process that a lot of times, you will give up the main reason why you got into this. You know, people get in because they want time freedom, more time with their wife or kids, or their family, whatever it is.

They become so addicted with it that they give up their wife and kids and their family, and they keep doing it. I’ve been in that spot in my life before and in my business before. I’m trying to make up for those things now and make changes, and try not to have that.

I just want to stress for you guys that this whole business, this game is fun. It’s too much fun sometimes but it’s not the point. I think that sometimes we think it’s the point. I had a friend recently who was having some marital issues and was struggling.

It was an issue between the business and their spouse. I just said, “Look, this business is a game. It’s stupid. It has no real purpose whatsoever outside of something to entertain us. Your family is the only thing that really matters.”

There’s a famous prophet in our church and he said, “No success can compensate for failure in the homes,” David O. McKay. I’m a big believer in that. In fact, one of my close friends and mentors, David Fry, every time he speaks on stage, he says that.

He says, “Before I get started ,I want to talk about something important.” He says, “No success can compensate for failure in the home.” It’s true. Business success, this stuff is all stupid. It’s a game. It doesn’t matter.

When we die, it’s gone. The only thing that really matters is our relationships, our family, what we do with our spouses, how we treat our kids, and who we help them to become. Don’t forget that part. Don’t get so obsessed with the journey and the money, and the joy outside that we forget about the reason why we actually got in this business, the reason why we actually do what we’re doing.

Hope that helps you guys a little bit. If you haven’t take a vacation for awhile, schedule one in. Block out the time. I was listening to Garrett J White, the master coach and mentor, friend, and a really cool guy. The message he keeps sharing over and over again is talking about if you want to have it all, you got to schedule things.

You got to schedule time for your wife and for your kids. You need to have date night once a week and all these kinds of things. It was just really kind of refreshing, the message for me this morning as I was thinking, “Yes, I’m moving towards that direction of having more fun.”

In fact, my wife and I had an amazing date last week. You know, normally when we’d have a date, we’d wait two or three weeks before our next date. This morning, after I listened to Garrett, I walked into the house.

This is after I got out of the pool with the kids. I said, “Collette, we got a date tomorrow.” She said, “What is it?” I said, “I’m not going to tell you. Just bring your swimming suit. It’s going to be amazing.” That’s the game plan.

Once a week, a bunch of other cool stuff; anyway, appreciate you guys. I’m at the office, going to put in a full day and then go home and take a break and be with the kids, be with my wife because that is why we do what we do.

I hope you guys have a great day today and we’ll talk soon.