How To Choose Between Head And Heart

Russell and Alison answer another question from the recent “Ecomm Vs Expert Smackdown”. 

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Russell Brunson:

Hey everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I'm back with some more Q&As from the e-com expert SmackDown that Alison Prince and I did last week, and this next question was a really fun one. The question they asked was, as they're pursuing their business, how do they choose between their head and their heart? This person asked a question, their heart had an idea and a passionate thing they wanted to do, but they didn't know if they saw the clear path. How is it was going to make money? How is it going to do all these things versus their head. Oh, there's other ways I can do this that are very numbers based. I can make money faster and all those things. The question was, how do I choose between my head and my heart?

So I think it's something a lot of us struggle with because all of us have these missions, right? We're called on this mission. Then part of it's like, oh, I got to make a bunch of money. And the yin yang between that, and how do you figure it out, and what do you do, and which one do you follow? Do you follow your head or your heart? So I think that this question was very relevant and timely for most of us, and hopefully for you, and hopefully my answers and what Alison and I give back will be useful for you as well. So that said, we're going to queue up the theme song when we get back. You have a chance to answer this question. How do you choose between your head and your heart?

Brent Coppieters:

This is from John. He says, "How do I choose between my head and my heart? My heart tells me that I should pursue one direction, vision, and path. And this feels like my calling from God to empower men, in particular husbands, to overcome destructive, addictive behaviors. But my head says that I should pick a more practical direction, a product or some other safe bet. How do I go all in and follow my heart when self-doubt and fear are so strong?"

Russell:

People look at my business today and they're like, "Oh, Russell, you picked such a good market. You picked funnels." And, of course, that's the big thing. This is amazing. But I want to rewind back 18 years ago. 18 years ago I started learning about this and I was like, "This is the greatest thing in the world!" And I started telling everybody. I told my mom about it, my friends about it, my family about it, and they're like, "Oh, he's crazy," right? And I was like, "None of my friends want to know about this. I gotta tell someone about it. So Brent was here for this. I literally bought radio ads in Boise, Idaho saying, "I'm doing an event talking about marketing and sales funnels, and how you can grow a business online. Dah, dah, dah, dah." I ran radio ads because I was so excited about this topic. And guess what? We got a dozen people who responded to radio ads.

Like sweet, rented a Holiday Inn. We got things set up. I got there. I had a presentation. I had my shirt and tie on. I was all ready. People showed up for the event. The first event was supposed to have, I don't know, 50-60 people that had RSVPd from the radio ad. Two people walked in and I was like, "Oh, crap." And I'm like, "Well, we should wait a minute or two to see if anybody else comes in." And then no one came in. I'm like, "Well, all right." And so I did a presentation to two people talking about funnels. And then two hours later, the next group was supposed to come in, like one person came. The next group, three people came in. So that day I was expecting to teach a bunch of people about funnels, but nobody cared.

But guess what? I didn't care because I loved it. I was obsessed about it. I was passionate about it. So I talked about it, I talked to about it, I talked about it even though nobody was there. Then I did another event and guess what? Nobody showed up. I did another event and very few people showed up. I did another one and another one and another one, and I did it because I care about the topic, because I'm obsessed with it. I did it because I loved it, and I would've done it even if nobody ever showed up. Now, guess what? Because I love about it so much and I kept doing it and kept doing it, this is the heart stuff. I kept doing it and kept doing it and kept doing it, eventually other people started getting excited. Other people started seeing the vision. Other people started showing up. And now 18 years later, you go to Funnel Hacking LIVE and there's 6,000 crazy people in the stands who are all obsessed with funnels like, "Oh Russell, you're a genius. You picked the greatest market ever." No, I picked a market that was not there, but I was obsessed about it and I cared about it. And so for you... What's his name? John?

Brent:

Yeah.

Russell:

If you're excited, if you're passionate about that, don't... If you're going to say, "What's going to make me the most money the fasted?" Don't go that way. Look at like, what do I actually care about? Funnels are not making me the most money the fastest by any stretch, but it was my art. It's what I cared about, it's what I wanted to do all day. All I wanted to do all day is talk about funnels. And there was no market. Nobody cared about it, but I kept talking and kept talking until people cared about it. And that's what we have to do, especially on the expert side.

If you're excited by it, this is your art, this is how you're called to change the world... Like your people might not be ready for you, but you might not be ready either. Most people who came to my event 18 years ago in the Holiday Inn in Boise, Idaho with the two other people you'd have been like, "That guy has no idea what he was talking about," right? Because I didn't understand my framework, so I didn't know how to talk. I was awkward. I was nervous. I was all the things. I wasn't ready either, but I would never become ready if I didn't start. And I kept talking about, I kept talking about. So this is the heart stuff. If you love this, if this is your art, this is your passion, this is your mission, you've got to go out there and start doing it. Start talking today.

That's why I always tell of people, if you want to do this, start publishing somewhere. It can be a blog or a podcast or a video, just doing something, because a couple things will happen. Number one, you're going to feel awkward when you first start because you're like, "Oh, nobody's even listening." And the good news is that at the very beginning, you're probably going to suck, and so it's good news that nobody's listening, okay? But if you keep doing it consistently, eventually you're actually going to get good. And the longer you do it, the longer your dream clients, the people you've been called to serve, will have to actually find you.

In Traffic Secrets, I'll probably mess up the quote, but Nathan Barry wrote a blog post and I quoted it in the Traffic Secrets book, but it was called endure long enough to get noticed. In the blog post he talked about how most of us... There's so much content between Netflix and Disney blog, all the shows. There's so much content happening that most of us don't jump on the new show. We wait for season one, season two, season three. If after season three or four people are still talking about it, then we're like, "Okay, I'm going to go dive into this thing because it's endured long enough to get noticed."

And the biggest thing is true for us as well. At first, no one's going to pay attention. But you keep doing it, you keep doing it. And if you are willing to out survive it because you're so passionate about your art, and you keep doing it, and you keep doing it, and you endure long enough, then your people have a chance to find you. So that's the key. Don't do the practical thing like, "Oh, I'm going to go get a doctor's degree," or whatever. Do the heart thing, but don't do it because I'm trying to start a business right now. Do it because you are actually called, because you love the people, because you want to change their lives. And if you keep doing it, and you're passionate, and keep talking about it, eventually they'll come. But you’ve got to double down.

Alison Prince:

Can I ask you a question? Do you think your passion helped you to get through the hard days, to help you to keep showing up, versus let's say you are an accountant. You're like, "Oh, I got to show up again." Do you think showing up from your heart versus your head helps you to get through the harder times?

Russell:

100%. Your head... Yeah, yeah. Because for me, again, it wasn't... I think you're the same way. Whether you made money on this or not, you're here to serve people because you love this. You change your life. You want to change... That's the biggest thing is the heart is like it doesn't matter if it succeeds or it fails. Some days we have big sales days. Some days we have no sales days. But we keep showing up because this is my calling. This is something that I believe in. I'm so passionate about it. Even if somebody doesn't buy something, but they hear something that gives them that shift, that means the world to me. But if it's in your head, maybe you'd make more money in the short term, but in the long term... The legacy flows through our VIPs... I did a private session to you guys yesterday morning talking about our Super Bowl goals and things like that. You want to hit what is your Hall of Fame goal? It's going to be hard to hit up here. It's going to be coming from here.

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