Do You Ever Find Yourself Uninspired and Not Wanting To Publish?

On this episode we answer a question from one of our listeners.

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---Transcript---

What's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson, welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Tonight, I'm going to have a special episode, actually. Someone on Instagram, who I've become friends with recently, been talking back and forth, asked me a really good question about feeling uninspired, and low confidence publishing and wondered what I do to keep myself confident and motivated. And I think the answer may surprise you. So, I wanted to do this as an episode instead of just responding back to him directly, and hopefully it'll help a lot of you guys out as well.

All right everyone, so like I said, one of my new friends Alex, he had posted on Instagram or he actually sent me a DM, a question, and I thought it was really good question. I think it's something that I know I personally deal with way more often than I'd like to admit, and I'm sure a lot of you guys do as well. And so I thought I would, instead of just responding to him personally, respond through a podcast and hopefully it'll give you guys some value as well. So this is what he wrote.

He said, "Hey man, question for you. If you ever find yourself feeling uninspired, low in confidence to publish every day or put yourself out there, what are some of your go-to activities to create lasting peak state again, where you feel full of fire, belief and vision. I'm in a spot that haven't been in a long time. I'm committed to breaking out of it, and I have faith that I will. I have a feeling that finding the right catalyst to help spark the fire again is the key." Anyway, so I thought it was really good question. And again, I think my answer may be different than him, or even probably most people think.

And so to put it in context, I'm going to give you a quick glimpse at my life recently. It's summertime here at the time that I'm recording this, and I've got five amazing kids, three teenagers and two younger kids. And my teenagers have a party every night, something planned with friends and everything. And there's no school. And they're like, "Well there's no school tomorrow." I'm like, "Yeah, but I still have to get up tomorrow at six. I still have things to do. I still have all this stuff." My poor wife and I, usually during school time we put them to bed at nine and we've got two hours by ourselves before we pass out. Where now they're getting home from friend's houses around 11, and then we're trying to put them to bed. And then it's midnight, and then one, and then one thirty and then we're so tired.

And right now is a really busy season, we are like 60 days away from Funnel Hacking Live. P.S. if you don’t have your tickets yet go to funnelhackinglive.com. And I find myself now every morning, literally waking up and I am feeling, I think exactly what Alex is feeling. I wake up and I'm tired, I'm uninspired, I have low confidence. I don't want to publish. I don't want to talk. I don't want to get a bed. I don't want to work out. It's tough. Today, I set my alarm for six and I snoozed it for an hour and a half. I kept pushing it over and over and over again. And I actually, this morning as I was going to the office. I was like, "Why am I struggling so much?" And I start thinking back, and I think in my mind, I think in most of our minds, we assume that we're always like, there are seasons and times when we're on fire and full belief and vision, all these kind of things.

But when I started like really looking back, I started thinking about different parts of my life, especially some of my favorite parts of my life. And if I really remembered, I try to... I think most of the times our memories remember the good things and we fade out the bad, right? It's like, when you have a baby. Five minutes after my wife gave birth, if I was like, "Let's have another baby," she would probably strangle me. But then, a day goes by, then a week and then a month. And within three or four months, you forget the pain. All you remember is this cute little baby and you're like, "Oh, we should have kids again. It was so much fun." And then all of a sudden you're pregnant. You're like, "What was I thinking? Why didn't somebody tell me about this?"

I think it's the same thing in life. Like if I honestly think back, I think back about wrestling. That was my first passion, my first love. I remember winning the state title. I remember these big things that are amazing, but if I'm really honest, I try to remember the practices. I remember cutting weight. I remember not eating for four or five days in a row, every single week for my entire high school career. And cutting weight, and not having energy, and being tired in class and like cutting weight. Those who've cut weight know what I'm talking about, but I was doing that. And I don't think that there was a time when I was really... It didn't feel good, I didn't enjoy it. It was hard. It was miserable. But then the thing at the end happened, and it was amazing.

And because I had this desire, and this belief and this hope in the thing at the end, that's why I kept doing it. Cause I was like, "Ah, someday I want to win a state title. Someday I want to be an All-American, someday." And I had these things, so I put myself through these things. And then afterwards I hit the goals. You don't hit the goals and you remember the positives, and you remember these things and you kind of fade out the negative. But the reality is that a lot of times going through the stuff, like the day by, day by day, you don't come into it super inspired, and tons of energy, and high confidence and all those things that we think we are, or we're looking for, we're thinking it's going to happen.

At least not that I remember, as I'm trying to be completely honest with myself, I'm remembering the practices and leading up to them, and most days I didn't want to go to practice. Like I did because when I got into it, I enjoyed it. But going to practice, I would dread. And then fast forward, most of you guys I think know, I had a chance to serve a mission for my church for two years. And so for two years I was on this mission, and I'm knocking doors, and I'm teaching about Jesus, and doing these things and had a great experience.

Looking back now, it's one of the greatest highlights of my life. If I remember, every morning waking up, and we'd wake up super early, and study scriptures and do these things, and we were tired. And those who haven't been on a mission, or have never seen like the Mormon missionaries before, like you don't get to go on dates, you don't get to call home, you don't get to... You're with a companion and you don't go to movies, you don't have a TV, so it's tough. I remember every morning waking up, and knowing I had to go knock on doors, knowing I had to go do these things and dreading it. Like, ah it was hard consistently.

And then we're going out and knocking door, and usually within doing it for a little while, it'd become fun. And we'd talk to people, like I enjoyed it. And as I'm enjoying it, I'm like, "Why was I so complaining? Like why was I so tired this morning? Why was I so miserable? I actually enjoy this stuff," but I still did. And if I look back on my mission now, it was two years I was out there. Like I would wage, I would bet that most mornings I woke up dreading having to do the work I actually had to do.

And now I started thinking about this, about my entrepreneurial career. And again, I think back about all the highs and the big wins and all these kinds of things. But if I'm completely honest with myself, throughout the day by day, and the week by week, it was not sunshine and roses. I didn't wake up inspired, and excited and have tons of confidence and wanting to publish. Like it came... Usually me waking up and dreading it, and then going and doing it. And then as I started doing it, it was like, "Oh, I actually do enjoy this. This is kind of fun."

It was weird to me because two days ago I was working on this webinar, and all day at the office I was having fun, I was doing it and I got home. And then first I was excited, "Tomorrow's going to be fun to work on it." But then again, my evening happened and it was crazy, and kids get to bed at midnight and I'm asleep at 1:00, and my alarm is going off at six in the morning and I'm just dreading going the office. Like, "I don't want to open the slides. I'm too tired. I don't want to work on it." And like, I'm miserable. Right? Uninspired, low confidence, like all these things.

But I woke up, I did the thing, got out there, got to the office and started working on it. And then as I got back into it again, it became fun and I enjoyed it. And then eventually I'm going to do this webinar and I'm going to be stressed out. I'll probably pull all-nighters ahead of time, and then do the webinar and it's going to make a bunch of money. Then I'll be able to celebrate and all I'm going to remember is the celebration. Right?

The baby came out, we made a bunch of money. Someone got baptized. Whatever the result was that I was working towards. And I'll Remember that, and it's all I remember is like how great it was. I mean, we did this event, the Funnel Hackathon event. It was interesting because, I was teaching a webinar model. I was like, we launched ClickFunnels... I always tell them they should do a webinar a week, every single week for a year. And I was like, "I tell people that, but that's not what I did." I was like, "I was doing at least a webinar a day, some days two or three webinars a day."

And if you've ever done a webinar, like a two hour webinar, it's like working a nine hour or eight hour workday. Right? So you're doing three back-to-back-to-back, six hours of straight webinars. Like in my head, I remember this amazing thing in me, closing sales and like how amazing it was. But if I'm honest with myself, It was horrible. I couldn't talk, I was tired. I had no energy. I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to do the second let alone the third webinar that day, knowing that tomorrow I'd wake up and do it again. And it's just interesting because I think our brain blocks out so much those things.

So I'm not saying that we can't be inspired, have high confidence in those kinds of things. But my bet is in most situations, most mornings you're going to wake up and you're going to be uninspired, you're going to have low confidence. You're not going to want to publish. You're going to want to go out there. You're not going to want to do a webinar, you're not going to want to publish your podcast, you're not going to want to knock doors. You're not going to want to go read a book, you're not going to want to write a book. You're not going to want to... Whatever the thing is.

Because that's the reality of life, at least as far as I've experienced it. I try to think back like, when were the mornings I woke up super excited? And there have been some, I can tell you there have been, but they are few and far between. The thing that gets me moving in the morning is not the feeling of inspiration or confidence or anything in the morning. It is the vision of the thing at the end. It was me knowing I wanted to win a state title. Not just knowing I want to be a state champ, but knowing like in my heart and my soul and my gut, that's all I wanted. That's all I wanted in life was that, I wanted to get my hand raised. And it's because of that I was willing to go through anything.

My coach has said, "You got to lose 30 pounds this week." Which happened every single week. I was like, "Okay." They're like, "Hey, you've got to go run four miles right now. You got to do this." Like I just said yes to everything, because that was the goal. That was the... Like, whatever it took to get there, I was okay with it. So the vision, the goal is the thing, but it doesn't mean you're going to feel the things I think we want to feel. I want to feel like, wake up in the morning, I want to go run. I want to go do these things. I want to go... But I don't think I ever feel those things. And maybe I'm the one that's messed up, I don't know. But if I'm honest with myself, I don't remember really feeling those things.

I don't remember any morning when my alarm went off and I woke up feeling like I wanted to go run, feeling like I want to go lift weights again. Maybe every once in a while, but it was rare. The thing that was a constant was like this North Star, it was the vision. And again in high school, it was winning a state title and it was being an All-American, that's all I could dream about. Like I'd sit there without any food or water in my stomach for weeks... For not weeks, but days at a time, miserable, cutting 25, 30 pounds a week, every single week, week in and week out, over and over and over again. Being thirsty beyond any kind of anything you can imagine. For those who have never cut weight before, you think that that being hungry is hard. Like people who skip a meal and they're like, "I'm so hungry." Like hunger pains are easy. Thirst pains are bad. Like you skip water for a day, your hunger pains disappear and you can not eat for a week. Fine. But that those thirst pains like keep you up at night.

But again, like what was the thing? It was the vision and it was doing it when you're not inspired, doing it when you don't feel like it, because you're normally not going to feel like it. Like right now, we're 60 days away from Funnel Hacking Live, I have so much work to do. We are rebuilding three different coaching programs and I'm tired. I've got six core presentations, nine total presentations that I haven't started on. I'm rewriting a core webinar that I have to do. We've got film dates. We've got events. We've got... If you guys saw my schedule for the next 60 days, you'd probably laugh or cry or a little bit of both.

And I tell you what, I don't want to do most of it. But guess what I do want to do? I want Funnel Hacking Live to happen. I want... When it's over, the night Funnel Hacking Live ends, when I go to bed at night, there's this feeling that I don't know. It's not as good as getting my hand raised and wrestling. I'm not going to lie, but it's this feeling. And I felt it before, I feel like when the whole thing's done, and you see people and you see their change, and you see them leave and you get to go home and be in your room for a minute and just be like, "We did it," that feeling, that vision and seeing like the ripple effect that will come from that room, from the 3,500 people who will be in the room, that ripple effect that will come out from there around the world. That vision of that. Like for me, it's a tangible visually. It's like, I can see...

For me, it's like I see the audience, I see this huge rock going boom, and hitting it. And the ripple effect goes to 3,500 people in the room. Then from there, it goes out to millions and millions of people around the world. That vision of that is what gets me moving and going. And for some reason, I wish... I keep thinking or wishing that vision would make it so I woke up every morning inspired, excited, with energy, but it doesn't. Because the reality is, if that's all it was, was the vision. I think we'd be able to... If the vision affected us, so we felt so good that was easy, then it would be easier. But for me at least it doesn't. So anyway, if any of you guys got a secret, let me know.

But for me, it's just waking up thinking about, this is the thing. This is what I'm working towards, I want it, I'm going for it. And then start the process. And like I said, after I start the process, usually it feels good, but it's that initial momentum that's not fun, right? Like the initial waking up and going to the gym is not fun, but then when you start lifting. It's like, "Oh, I actually enjoy this." Getting up, getting dressed, getting to the office, not fun. Start working your slides, you're like, "Oh I actually enjoy this." This podcast episode for example, my brother who does my podcast is going out of town. He's been asking me for a week and a half for three episodes. And right now it is 11:27 at night, and I've been dreading this podcast all day long.

I've been thinking about it and like talking myself out of it, like dreading it. Literally, I don't want to do this podcast. I don't want to do it. I'm tired, I just want to go to bed, I got so much stuff. Like I finally got my kids to bed. Now, last thing in the world I want to do is publish my podcast, the last thing I want to do. But now I'm 14 minutes and 25 seconds into it, and I'm actually really enjoying this. I could go for the two hours. Like I'm feeling the energy now, right? But initially you don't have it.

And so I think that's the biggest thing is just, understanding that it's the initial momentum. That's the hardest part. In the morning you wake up and you're out of momentum, like getting back into momentum. That's a hard thing. And so most people, most humans on this planet never get back into momentum. They're just like, ugh. They just stop, right? So the thing that's going to get you from this stagnated stop spot is like, either the memory of the vision or the dream of the vision.

When I was wrestling, it was the dream of being a state champ. Right now it's the memory of last years Funnel Hacking Live and the experience that I felt afterwards. Like, that's the thing that gets me out of bed into momentum, and with the momentum I start feeling more inspired, I start feeling more confident. I start listening, they start happening, but they don't happen right out of the gate.

Most mornings, you're going to wake up not wanting to do with the thing you got to do. You're not going to feel good. You're not going to feel inspired, have confidence, any of those kinds of things. So it's like, you got to have this vision that pulls you into momentum, and then momentum picks up and that's when you start feeling good and start having fun. And right now, I want to go film 12 more podcast episodes, which is good because my brother told me I need to give him three by tomorrow. So, this is the first one, I've got two more tonight and I'm really excited about one of them, so I'll probably do that one next because now I'm in momentum. I'm feeling good. And anyway, so I hope that helps. I think the biggest thing that I want to share is just that if you're struggling every morning, for any of you guys, like that's okay. So do I, every morning,

Very, very, very rare do I wake up and like, "Yes, let's go. Like, this is the thing." It's unfortunately not there and I don't think it's there for most people. And if it is there for you, that's amazing. Like run. That means you're waking up already in momentum, start running. Don't stop. But for most of us it's, man, making that vision. It's like what we talked about for wrestling, so clear, so vivid, so real, that you would go through anything to get it. First time I saw someone win a state title and I was like, "That's what I want more than air," literally, like more than food, more than water, more than friends, more than anything. And it became that real, that tangible that vivid where I could feel it, taste it, touch it, like smell, I could envision it. Like that's when I was willing to do anything and I did do anything, like literally.

Insane things we did to get that goal. And same thing rings true in business. Right? Like when we started building ClickFunnels and I started seeing... At first it was hard for me, because I didn't know it was going to become what it was. Like I'd tried to build ClickFunnels three times before and every time we'd fail. So Todd's like, "I'm going to build ClickFunnels." I'm like, "Cool," so we started building it. But as soon as I saw it and I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is really good. Okay. Like, all right." And I saw the vision what it could be, then it was like crazy. But again if I remember back, we used to do these hackathons. Todd would fly out before we launched ClickFunnels and spend three weeks in Boise. And we would go all day, all night and like sleep for three or four hours, get back up and keep going.

And I don't think it was fun. Like looking back now, the nostalgia of it's amazing. Like, oh these were like the greatest times of our life. Like times I'll never forget, but in the moment they were horrible. I did not enjoy them. I was tired. I was miserable. I missed my family, missed my kids, missed my things. We didn't know if this was actually going to work. Like, there's all these things, but we did it because I'd seen the vision. Todd had seen the vision. We knew that there was something there. And so we pushed, and we pushed, and we pushed, and we grind through it. And now looking back, those are some of the best times.

So, you got to do it in spite of the uninspired, in spite of not feeling worthy, or ready or whatever. Get yourself momentum, like hook to the vision, hook to the thing you have and it start running. So anyway, I hope that helps. It gives probably not the answer you're looking for. I wish I had a better secret magic button, but it's just understanding and realizing every morning, like, "All right, I don't want to move, but I got to. Let's go." So, I hope that helps. Thanks so much everyone for listening, and have a great night and we'll talk to you all again soon. Bye everybody.