Teachabilty And “The Profit”

Lessons learned from the dumb entrepreneurs on the new show “The Profit”.

---Transcript---

Good morning, everyone, this is Russell Brunson. It’s an early morning, and welcome to Marketing In Your Car. Hey guys and gals, so I hope you guys are doing awesome today. I’m actually, it’s 6:30 in the morning and I’m driving to go work out. And this is a testament of the power of hiring a coach. It’s freezing cold right now, and I would be sound asleep right now, if it wasn’t for the fact that I have a coach waiting for me at the gym.

It’s little things like, you know, obviously, I sell coaching so I believe in it a lot. We talked about why you need a good coach. But this is kind of just, you know, for me it’s such a big thing. I know how to work out, I know how to lift weights, I know how to do all these kinds of stuff, but just the fact there’s someone there waiting for me is what gets me out of bed and gets me to go and do the thing that I need to do.

So, if you don’t have a coach yet, in whatever area of your life you’re struggling with, go get a coach. I’ve got life coaches to help me in my personal life. I’ve got business coaches. I’ve got weightlifting coaches. Go find a coach as quick as you can. And if you need a coach in the marketing business, go to 30DayShortcut.com, we can help you out there.

Anyway, so today what I want to talk about is the other reason why I’m really tired today, is I found out about a new show, and I’ve been up all night watching episodes of it. So I think I got like four or five hours of sleep last night. So the show is called The Prophet. It’s on CSNBC. And I first, I remember seeing commercials for it and I was like, I didn’t really think too much about it.

And then Daegan Smith told me, he said, “Hey, that show is awesome, you should watch it.” And so I went to my TV and we have, like, it’s not TiVo, but it’s like the generic brand of TiVo, right? So we TiVo’ed it on our TV, and I never watched it. And then two nights ago, I was bored and my wife had already passed out. I was sitting in bed and I didn’t want to fall asleep yet, so I went to our recorded shows list and I saw that.

I saw The Prophet in there, I’m like, I might as well watch an episode. So I pushed Play, I started watching it, and I have not been the same ever since. The show is amazing. It’s all about this dude who takes struggling businesses and turns them around. It shows him going to these businesses and what he does, he basically comes in and gives them money, just to get in their business, to get things fixed up.

He has his team come in and they turn it around. He takes complete control for a week, and then he re-launches it. And if the people, if the entrepreneurs aren’t morons, and do his job, he turns them around into some amazing things. The first one I watched was, he went into this, I think 100carcash.com, or something like that.

Anyway, and he took this business that had been struggling and turned it around. And then by the time the show had aired, maybe a little afterwards, he had already, he had turned them all to a franchise and franchised it. I mean, almost 100 locations around the world. Which is amazing. So, that’s kind of the power of what he does.

And then last night I watched two other episodes, and it was crazy. So, the first thing that’s interesting is I feel bad for him, and for anyone who’s coming in to entrepreneurs’ business. Because entrepreneurs are like the most stubborn, hard-headed people in the world. Like, this lady last night, on the popcorn episode, she’s like, “My business is $2.5 million a year. I don’t need anybody, blah, blah, blah.”

You know, like, this total attitude. But her business is broke, it’s on the brink of bankruptcy. She’s borrowed money from everyone she knows, and you know, she made $2.5 million, but she didn’t make anything. Like, the business is negative. There were like almost $400,000 in cash that was gone, they couldn’t find it. There’s no record of it.

Anyway, and every single episode she’s like, he’s butting heads with these entrepreneurs who are so stubborn, because they’re so in love with their baby. And so it’s one thing that kind of made me realize as an entrepreneur, I’m probably the same way. We’re oftentimes not as humble or teachable as we should be, because we think we know everything because it’s our business.

And it was interesting, recently I was selling something to a group of people who were kind of more of my peers. And we were selling something that’s not cheap, it was $25,000 or $100,000. And I had a lot of my friends who were on the webinar where I sold it. And they, afterwards, messaged me, like, “Hey man, can you hook me up for free, can I have some of the thing?”

I was just like, man, you guys are not willing to invest in your business. You’re so hard-headed, you think you know everything, you’re not willing to invest. And it just blew my mind, and entrepreneurs, I think, a lot of times are that way. So that was the first thing I wanted to kind of just put out there, is that all of us, as entrepreneurs, we need to not be so hard-headed.

I was listening to a course from Kevin Trudeau, who is not doing too well in the news right now. But in there he talked about a concept called the Teachability Index. He talked about how people are more teachable during — like when you’re a kid and you go to school, etc, you’re super teachable. You’re soaking up everything that’s coming in.

But somewhere along the line, usually about time you graduate college, you think you know everything and your teachability index drops to almost nothing because you know, you’re just kind of set in your ways. You know everything there is. And I think entrepreneurs are the same way. When we begin, we’re like sponges and we’re soaking up everything.

But somewhere along the line we think we know everything and our teachability index goes to almost nothing, and we are stuck in our ways. I think all of us, as entrepreneurs, could really benefit a lot from stepping back. And try to become more teachable and kind of forgetting, you know, forgetting you know everything. And trying to start over and find good coaches, good mentors, good books, good courses. Whatever you can to help increase your business and becoming teachable again.

So, anyway, I had a lot of other cool stuff I wanted to talk about today, but I am at the gym and my session starts in two minutes, so I am going to jump in there. Just kind of one last thing I want to mention about The Prophet before I go. First off, go watch it, guys. Go find it, I don’t know if it’s on Hulu or whatever, but go and find it and watch it.

It’s probably one of the best entrepreneur shows I’ve ever seen. And second off, two of the three episodes I’ve seen so far, the entrepreneurs screwed him in the end. Just totally unethical and just didn’t hold up their bargain, their word. And it’s just sad to me to see how quick they’re willing to just, how low people’s integrity is.

I mean, it’s especially interesting just the fact that they were live on TV. They were live on TV and still doing this, makes me always wonder. So, make sure you have integrity in your business. People will know if you have it or don’t have it, and people — I mean, just be a good person, that’s all I can say. Have integrity, do what you say you’re going to do.

And if you screw up, then tell people you’re sorry and kind of go from there. So, that’s it for today, you guys. Hope you have an awesome day. Go work out, if you haven’t yet. It’s good for your body, it’s good for your mind. And go get a coach to help keep you accountable and help you doing what you need to do. Thanks, everyone, and I will talk to you all soon.