The Pre-Game Show Before My Firework War

What I learned about calculated risk after having three people shoot thousands of dollars worth of fireworks at my head…

On this episode Russell talks about the firework war he is driving to. He discusses looking at the worst case scenario and figuring out if something you want to do is worth the risk.

Here are some fun things you will hear in today’s episode:

• Some of the injuries that occurred last year and what Russell and the other people in the firework war learned from them.
• Why looking at the worst case scenario made it clear that a firework war was actually worth the risk.
• And how you can apply the concept of looking at the worst case scenario to your business.

So listen below to hear why having a war with fireworks is actually a good idea.

---Transcript---

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

All right, guys and gals, tonight is a special night and I am bringing you along on the journey because you are special to me. You guys listen to me every single day, so because of that you get in on a part of my life that most people do not get to know about.

Today as I record this it is the Fourth of July. It is 9:46 P.M. and I am currently heading to our second annual Firework War. Some of you guys may be thinking, “What is a firework war?”

Well, what is a firework war? Imagine the most immature men that you know, people like me and the people I like hanging out with, and imagine that we go to one of our friend’s house who has a huge basketball court. We bring a bunch of pallets, obstacle courses, and a bunch of things, and we play three-on-three fireworks where we are shooting 400 roman candles and thousands of bottle rockets.

We also have the big bottle rockets, like the actual rocket heads. We have mortars; we have firecrackers; we have fountains; we have all sorts of stuff. We have enough stuff that we will be blowing things up for at least an hour, maybe two.

We spent at least double what we spent last year on it and it is insane. My wife is convinced I am going to die; my kids say I am going to die, but I am not going to die. I didn’t die last year. Last year we did have a few casualties. This is what makes me laugh because the guy kind of deserved this.

If you were going to a firework war and you knew the whole point of the game was to shoot fireworks at each other point-blank, not far away, but like point-blank fireworks, you would think you would wear long sleeves and pants, right? But, no, this dude wore short sleeves and shorts. Halfway through the firework war he got hit right in the arm with one of the big bottle rocket things and it totally put him out. It popped a blood vessel or something and it was spewing out blood. Luckily for us, the guy who has the house where we do the firework war, his dad is a doctor, so we had medical supervision on staff during the war. We had it wrapped it up and he was fine.

At first we had these fountains and we thought they were going to be dumb, so we didn’t use them. Then we found out if you light a fountain, they run for five minutes sometimes. We would light them and lob them over to the other guys’ side. One of them landed inside the box of fireworks and started setting off all of these other fireworks.

We were just thrashing these guys and they got so upset that the one guy picked up a mortar. Before we were shooting mortars in the air just for fun, just to kind of scare people and stuff like that. But he picked up a mortar, turned it at us, and shot it, and the kick-back from the mortar came back and smacked him in the collar-bone and actually shattered his collar-bone. He had to head to the ER. After he headed to the ER, we pulled somebody from the audience in and we continued the war. It was awesome!

That is what we are doing right now and it is going to be awesome. I am ten minutes away from it and I am excited. We have been working all week going to get all the fireworks. We mapped it out way better this year than last year. We realized which ones were our favorite kinds of fireworks and which ones were kind of lame. From that we got the right ones which is awesome.

The guys with whom I am playing have spent all day today setting up all of the obstacle courses. In fact, they did it in the middle of the obstacle course where we were kind of fighting. It is not an obstacle course. There are barriers and stuff so that when we are advancing and trying to attack them and they are trying to attack us, we are kind of safe. We have barriers and things we can hide behind.

In the middle of it, he took about $300 worth of fireworks and set them up all around this thing. We bought a bunch of this long fuse and with it we wrapped everything around. At the end for the grand finale, we are going to light that fuse and all lay on the ground and watch as $300 worth of fireworks go “pop-pop-pop-pop!” It is going to be amazing.

Another cool thing he does is to stream music, so we have music happening. There is a bleacher so that friends and family can come to watch. It is pretty intense. This is what is happening tonight and it is crazy.

Somebody has to be thinking, “Russell, why would you go and shoot fireworks at your friends?” like that is the stupidest thing in the world. There is a reason, not that it is a good reason. Hopefully, this will be the little nugget of value I will drop on you guys tonight before I go get fireworks shot at me.

For me it is assessing risk, right? My wife says, “What if you die?” and I say, “I’m not going to die.” Worst-case scenario based on last year is that I shatter my collar-bone. We know that was because of a mortar, so this year I am not shooting mortars at people. Boom! That possibility goes to almost zero, right?

Number two, you might get hit in the arm with something, so I wore long sleeves. I’m smart enough to cover that one, so the risk drops even lower. We have goggles and everything. Worst-case scenario, my hands might get burnt. In fact, I am betting they will get burnt tonight. They just do; that is part of fireworks.

That is the worst-case scenario. I cannot think of anything worse that could happen. For me, it is all about calculated risk. I am looking at something and saying, “What is the calculated risk in this thing?” Best-case scenario, we have an amazing time and it is awesome. Worst-case scenario, I burn my hands. I can deal with that, so it is okay. I can take the risk.

The same thing happens in business. When I get into business, I look at calculated risk. If this thing bombs, what is the worst-case scenario? If it is not that bad, I just do it. A lot of us do not think about what the calculated risks are. We just know there are things that make you nervous or keep you from moving forward and all of that kind of stuff, and you don’t.

However, you want to sit down and say, “What is the actual risk? If I do this and it doesn’t work, what is the worst-case scenario?” After you figure out the worst-case scenario, you have to be okay with it. If you are okay with it, you can run forward.

I did a whole podcast, probably about 100 episodes ago, talking about the worst-case scenario. The title probably was “Worst-case Scenario,” so, if you are interested in how I deal with that and how I use it as a tool to move forward quickly in business and in life and everything I want to accomplish, go back and listen to that podcast.

For tonight, worst-case scenario is that I am going to have an amazing time. We actually do have someone who is coming to film the whole thing, so I will have video footage. He is going to make a war documentary, so he is probably going to post that online somewhere. Make sure you are on my email list and make sure you check it out because it will be amazing.

That’s it, you guys. I am signing off. I am about to go blow someone up and I am excited. I appreciate you guys listening in. Have an awesome Fourth of July. If you are not in America, whatever you are celebrating this weekend, celebrate and have a good time. I will talk to you guys next week when we are back at the office.