Sales Funnel Radio SFR 276: Making Peace With The Past
Anyone can make extra money on the side.
But the moment you get serious about having a big impact on others, you'll be forced to deal with a lot of your own skeletons in the closet…
I love my childhood, but just like anybody, there's a lot of garbage which can come from things that were even unintentional.
So this episode’s a little bit different.
Recently, I took a five-mile walk around where I grew up, I wanted to face some skeletons in the closet to help me move forward.
You have to will your future into existence.
… but that’s waaay harder to do if you’re still hiding from your past!
BECOMING AN ENTREPRENEUR…
Oftentimes, we think that if we leave, go somewhere, or sacrifice time to go and build something, we'll miss out on things.
But it's just not the case.
I walked through my childhood haunts and it's pretty much exactly the same when I was last here.
And so you're NOT really missing out on anything by choosing to go sacrifice some…
- Time
- Comfort
- Pressure
... in order to create the life that you really want!
You'll realize that ‘the sacrifices’ aren't really sacrifices at all.
So with that, let's cue the ghosts; it’s gonna be a little bit raw.
VISITING WITH SKELETONS
I grew up in this house…
...and I’m walking down memory lane here.
I was at a Russell Brunson event in Denver, (which is where I grew up), and on the first day, I just couldn't get an idea out of my head.
I was like, " I gotta go walk around where I used to live."
It was an hour's drive, so I jump in an Uber and did some filming…
I'm the eldest of six kids…
When I was growing up, we weren't poor.
My dad was an executive at IBM most of my childhood and he started two companies and ran them.
I watched him be an entrepreneur; he changed my life, and obviously, my mom did too, of course - she gave me life.
I love my parents and my family - they are amazing; they taught me so many things.
All those yard stories I tell you about - the yard’s behind that house.
All the times where we ran from golf course rangers...
… the golf course on the other side of the house across the road.
My family doesn't live here anymore….
I knocked on the door here and I was like, "Hey, I used to live in this house."
That's probably weird... but from age 5 to 20, I lived in this house.
During my late teen years, I was in and out, but I officially left the when I was 20.
DOCUMENTING THE JOURNEY
One of the purposes of Sales Funnel Radio was to do something kinda ballsy - I wanted to leave my job and document all the aspects…
… and Sales Funnel Radio has been an awesome platform.
As you grow up, there's a whole bunch of stuff that happens to you, and one of the purposes, (like I said), of Sales Funnel Radio, is to document the journey.
And over the last 3-6 months, something different is going on for me, so I want to document that too!
And so, this is me documenting the garbage that I've been trying to fix… and WHY it’s sooo important for my success.
FACING GHOSTS
I believe anyone can make money in this game, but there's a certain spot you hit where you stop and you can't go any further into the future until you find some way to shake hands with your past.
...and that's what I'm trying to do.
A lot of you guys have reached out and been like, "Steven, take more time for yourself."
I actually take more time for myself than you might realize or know that I do, and it’s because of systems and processes - I've gotten good at them.
I haven't built a funnel since November of 2018
I’ve maybe built a single squeeze page or something like that…
But for the most part, I haven't touched my own funnels. I don't do much on my podcast episodes anymore.
- It's the system.
- It's the team.
I have incredible teams and incredible funnel builders - they’re awesome.
Q: So what it has allowed me to do?
A: Let me tell you...
I've never been able to go spend time on myself because I've always been in a job.
I've always had to work, work for somebody else.
I've worked in...
- Construction jobs.
- Discount Tire.
- A plastic factory - that was my first job.
- Pool Maintenance - I was a pool boy.
- A golf course across the street.
- A clothing store
- Sports store.
... I did all kinds of stuff.
I had 16 jobs by the time I left home
(... a lot of side stories there)
But here’s the point…
If you don't learn to make money for the sake of making more money in general, do it for the hidden benefit of being able to spend money and time on you.
Because I just want to share a pattern that I'm noticing.
If you’re feeling stuck, you need to find some way to shake the hands of your past
… and, frankly, you may not enjoy it.
I'm not saying that my past is super dark, but there's a lot more dark than I've ever let on…
… which is super challenging.
There was a lot of death when I was growing up - there was some intense crap that went down.
ARE YOU A STUDENT OF EXCEPTIONS?
I grew up in Suburbia and which was great.
It's not like I was fearing for my life, it’s wasn’t like it was The Bronx or anything…
But any childhood has something inside of it, usually, and I'm kind of a student of exceptions...
There's a lot of stuff that I've done in my life that isn't the norm.
… and that was a pattern I started exhibiting as I was growing up.
I almost got kicked out of high school for selling pens.
If you guys know the Columbine shooting, that's right over there - my wife and her siblings went to college there.
I went to their rival high school, which is just a mile up that direction
A lot of things happened, and …
Trying to figure out ways to be okay with ‘where you've been,’ for some reason, is super important for where you're trying to go.
MONEY AND GROWTH
A low month for me now is 100 grand.
...and please don't feel weird about that - as I said, I'm just documenting.
We’re only halfway through the month and we’ve almost hit 200 grand.
I'm helping people, lives are changing, it's profitable and everything's going the way it's supposed to go.
There have been ample times when it's NOT been that way… and you all know those stories.
But I've always wondered what you would spend your time when you’re able to make enough cash to buy back your time?
Well, one of the most natural things that you go spend your time on when you start buying some of it back is working on yourself.
Right now...
- I'm going through EMDR therapy
- I have a massage therapist.
- I have a chiropractor.
- I'm getting my blood work done.
I'm doing all kinds of stuff to help my longevity - 'cause I'm realizing the mission that I'm on is larger than me, and it's an honor to be able to go do this stuff.
I really believe that…
In order for you to move forward, you really need to find a way to shake hands with the past and stare those devils in the face.
You don't have to hug them... but give them a nice, enthusiastic high five.
You have to like everything that happened but you'll find that it's so much easier to face the future and do the things that I'm teaching you how to do.
The content that I give away is not normal, I know that - I teach you stuff that most people charge for.
I'm trying to help you make money, but so much has to happen inside your head if you're really trying to make this a career.
If you're gonna be a leader, you gotta have your head on.
And there are increasing levels of self-discovery and personal development that I've been going through…
A few weeks ago, I told my wife, "Man, I can feel like I’m being required to level up."
… it was scary!
And this happens every three months now!
FACE YOUR FEAR!
Sometimes people reach out and ask:
- "Steven, do you ever have fear?"
DUH!
- "Steven, have you ever been afraid?”
UH - HUH!
- “Stephen, is there any weirdness that you're trying to overcome?”
YEP!
#FACT: EVERYONE goes through that - there's no one who doesn't.
Funnily enough, I can teach you the formulas that cause cash, and you can make it without going in any of this stuff, but there comes a spot where you have to go and finally say, "You know, I got to work on me."
.
The whole point of this episode is:
Don't try to hide from stuff in your past that keeps nagging at you.
You know what I'm talking about when I say that 😉
I don't know your past, but I do know there's probably something there.
And if this prompts you and you're like, "Oh, crap. I got to work on these things."
*DON’T HIDE FROM THEM*
YOUR ATTRACTIVE CHARACTER MAY NOT BE WHAT YOU THINK...
You'll find that a lot of the things that you weren't amazing at are the very reasons why you become follow-able online.
- I was super overweight - 35% body fat
- Double chin - working on the triple.
...and I was getting picked on a lot in high school.
This is NOT a pity party - I just want to illustrate a point.
One day I was walking through the hall and I was like, "Man, I'm freaking sick of this, I'm gonna lose weight"
I started lifting every day, and I lost 45 pounds nine months later.
And I guarantee, it's highly unlikely that you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio and you don’t have some of those things in your own past, right?
We entrepreneurs tend to enjoy the triumph, and we tend to enjoy the journey as much as the end prize
...which, on the outside, can look really weird to a lot of people.
Don't apologize for that.
Just understand that you also don't need everyone to like what you do or agree with it.
CONTROL YOUR DEMONS OR BE CONTROLLED
As I walked around, I listened to music for some state control because some things are a little bit triggering for me still.
I once heard Tony Robbins say he’s thankful for his history, and he's got a crazy history…
My history is awesome compared to Tony Robbin's history - it's nothing like his at all.
But I thought it was really cool when he said that he's thankful for his history because of what it turned him into.
As I was driving over here in this Uber, I was sitting in the back seat, and I was trying not to cry.
I was like, "Man I don't know if I wanna burn the house down or hug it?"
It's not like things were being imposed on me, but there's a lot of crap that can go on.
I have a very hyperactive, observant noggin... and, for quite a while, it was just really hard to own me.
A SOLID SENSE OF SELF
One of the best things you could ever go to do in your entire life is to develop a solid sense of self, and that's what my wife and I have been focusing on like crazy.
In order to do that, we've had to confront some beasts in the closet and actually shake hands with some personal devils that not a lot of people actually want to confront.
It's hard enough for people to be honest about the fact that they have things in the closet that…
- They're not proud of
- Happened to them
- They’re not over yet
- They’re affected by things emotionally that logically they should not be affected by, but emotionally, they are.
Man, those are some of the best gifts you could ever give to an audience - EVER.
It's one thing to become aware of those triggers, and it's another to look at them, start to pull them apart and willingly dive back into them to make peace.
USE YOUR HEAD...
When I was 18 years old, I used to longboard down this road barefoot.
My brother would follow behind me in a car, and I would go 45 miles an hour down this road.
We watching this cool TV show where these guys would study some martial arts, and this dude kept getting choked out…
So they tied a rope to his head, tied it to a car in neutral, and he pulled the car with his head.
We were like, "Oh my gosh...”
I had this little Volkswagen Jetta, and we tied a rope to our heads and pulled the car with people in it - it wasn’t easy!
We had some beefy necks after that one.
MAKE PEACE WITH YOUR PAST
Make peace with the past, (and again, you may NOT like it), but do it in a way that you make enough peace that you can move forward, and say:
"Hello future, that I can totally have. All the stuff that I'm learning from Steve Larsen podcasts and all the stuff that he does, (or whoever it is that you're following), I can go do all this.”
The thing that most holds people back is NOT confronting those things in their past which are hard.
And usually that's why people are self-medicating...
When you find people here who usually have some kind of addiction, don't look at them and be like, "I would never have that kind of addiction."
Man, that person might be going through some crazy stuff, and their way of ‘numbing out’ is their addiction.
And if you have stuff in your past, look around in your life and you'll start to notice that you've been numbing out too.
So ask yourself…
- How are you doing that?
- How can you change it and switch it around?
...that's my challenge to you!
ENTREPRENEUR MOTIVATION
#1: Focus On Revenue - become a highly, money motivated Capitalist Pig, but remember that…
The intent is what matters
….so what's you're intent?
- Is your intent to show the world you're better than everybody else?
If that's why you wanna get rich, I have a bit of an issue with that!
- Is your intent is to have some personal triumph?
That's different, that's okay! I'm totally for it.
- Is your reason to get fabulously wealthy to turn around and enhance your own life, confront your own demons and figure out how to bless humanity?
Then you’re in the right space and you’re following the right guy - that’s what I’m all about here.
If you’ve got stuff from the past, find a way to give it an enthusiastic high five... and keep moving forward.
MY KEY TAKEAWAYS
***Side Note
*Do not walk five miles in dress shoes*
Holy crap, my feet were wrecked! Five miles is not that far, but in dress shoes…
I got blisters on my feet!
So…
Other than learning that dress shoes are as uncomfortable as hell, I had two major realizations as I walked around:
#1: When you're a kid your perception is different.
You're small, physically, and as I'm walking around I'm like, “This is NOT as big as I remember.”
I went back to my high school and elementary school.
My middle school is super far, so I wasn’t gonna walk all the way over there.
But anyway…
Our perceptions of how things were in the past are often not how they really are - it's just our perception of it.
So besides the fact that things are NOT exactly how I remember, (which is actually really cool and freeing in some things), the second thing I've noticed is that…
#2: This is largely the exact same place.
My family moved here 26 years ago when I was five years old.
And now, there's been a little construction and the trees are a little bigger, but besides that, everything is pretty much the same.
I left the area for two years on a mission for my church. And when I came back, I assumed that...
- All the stuff would be different.
- Many of my friends at the time would've gone off and done cool things, that they’d be active participants in their own life.
...and that just wasn't the case.
It was eerie to me how much the exact same everything still was as when I left.
So my takeaway from this (and it’s actually been healing in some regard), is …
Our pasts will often look at us and they have a very convincing beckoning cal and tight grip on our current psyche and how we decide to behave in the present with our goals, what we go for, and the things we moving towards.
But if you actually go back to where some things may have happened..
- To you
- For you
- Against you
... or whatever it is.
Most human beings on this planet have something that was kind of crazy in their past.
If it's a bad memory, and you think, "Oh my gosh, that was terrible and everything. That was crazy."
(And I’m not saying it wasn't)
... but if you go back and you start looking at it, (which I'm doing right now)...
I'm like, "Huh. That was speaking louder in my head than it needed to be".
Now I realize that I can be like, "Bring it on!"
I know this is different to what I usually talk about, but I wanted to talk more about what's going on personally.
I talk about the cash, which is great... and everyone should be, in my opinion, highly money motivated with great intent for the right reasons…
#HelpPeopleCreateValue
But there's so much mental stuff (when you start getting serious about the game), that you gotta start working through it.
And for me, walking around my old haunts has helped me to:
- Make peace with certain demons
- Realize that some of the demons were just in my imagination means I can say, "Hey, shut up. You're speaking louder than I should be letting you, and it's not fair to my future."
I'm NOT trying to have you open up a can of skeletons and get vulnerable in unhelpful ways.
However, I am trying to be vulnerable to document some of the things that I've been going through... 'cause they've been very real for me.
...especially the last three to six months.
It's like somebody opened up skeleton cans and just dumped them all over my head.
I was like, "Oh my gosh, I gotta go deal with those junk before I can actually move forward and move on".
I wouldn't recommend going after all these things at once, just choose one or two at a time and start going after them in order to make peace with your past.
#GetRichGive Back.
Alright!
*YOU* reading this right now!
You're in one of two scenarios...
Either…
You're currently selling a product and you've got a slick sales funnel and traffic...
There are ads and you have content, bringing in new customers. You have upsells, downsells, and phone sales.
You've almost automated it, making money while doing everyday things.
Either that's all set up and going…
OR…
The second option is you don't have any of that, and you're still trying to make this work and tie all of these pieces together.
If you want my help, just go to capitalistcoaching.com and see where you can get started.
It took me a long time to get the skills for all this to get moving…
- Writing the sales letter
- Making the sales videos
- Building the funnel
- Writing follow-up emails
- Promo campaigns
- Promo emails
- Fulfillment plans
- Fresh new ads
... there's A LOT.
And the path to move forward is different for each person.
So I created capitalistcoaching.com for you to check out where *you* need to start.
Whether you're just starting out with…
- No product
- No list
- No single clue on what to do next.
OR…
If you're like one of our BIG corporate clients who just need to add more revenue and scale your offer, go to capitalistcoaching.com.
I don't really believe in shortcuts, but I do know you can speed up the path on the journey.
Figure out the BEST place to start by going to capitalistcoaching.com now.
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