- Hey, come on in.
We're gonna show you the big reveal of our sweet room.
- (laughing) So worried about this.
- [Blonde Woman] Wow.
- [Russell] Tada.
(all laugh)
- [Russell] Every day when you have success,
there's a story there that's more valuable than the success.
When you fail, there's a story there
that's more valuable than the failure.
It was the story you need to inspire people
to sell your next product, to do your next thing,
to create your movement, to calm a new segment
of people into the marketplace.
Whatever it is for you, the stories the key.
Keep your eyes open for stories
that are happening around you.
- Okay, we are packing to go to
the Entrepreneur of the Year event.
We're so excited.
Hey Colette, what are you doing here?
- Hey hey, I'm getting ready to go over
to some event, I don't know.
Some black tie event.
- Oh man, you so excited?
We are living out of the basement.
That's why everything's out here
instead of in our bedroom (laughs).
There you go.
- Earlier this year I submitted
for the Entrepreneur of the Year
of our region and I won it, which was really cool.
And then basically all the regions get together
and do a national tournament.
I was all excited to go to this national thing
and compete and see if we could win
the National Entrepreneur of the Year award.
- Are you sad or are you happy?
Mom and dad are gonna be gone.
You get to play with grandma, it'll be so fun.
(woman laughs)
Aww, I love you, baby.
Always late, I don't know what it is.
Always late.
Dave, what's going on?
- We're late to the airport, again.
- Ugh, it's always my fault.
This was kind of Dave's fault, a little bit.
- This was so my fault.
I really thought, oh, no problem, we got plenty of time.
My wife's like, "Um, doesn't the flight leave at 1:30?"
I'm like, yeah, what time is it?
She goes, "It's 1:15."
I'm like, okay, I better pack.
- But this is the thing about flying private.
They're on my schedule, I'm not on theirs.
So we will show up when we want to.
So Dave, how you feeling about the competition this weekend?
- I'm so nervous for Russ, you have no idea.
Because there's nothing more frustrating
about competing when you can't do anything.
It's the lamest type of competition you could ever have.
It's like, we're just gonna think about
what you did and talk about it,
and whoever said it, we're gonna use their recommendation
and hopefully that's good enough.
- Unless we win, then we thrash
them all because we deserve it.
If we lose, though, we have tons of excuses.
(both laugh)
I thought if we're gonna do this,
we should make an experience out of it, right?
That way we can do an episode of Funnel Hacker TV.
That way it's not just like me going somewhere on an event.
I go to a lot of events and it's just boring.
So I'm like, how to make this memorable for me
and for my wife, and for anyone else we want to bring?
The question I have for you guys is,
if ClickFunnels was to get its own jet,
what would you think about that?
(rock music)
- I was actually visualizing
the gears on the fin last night.
- [Dave] Ooh, I'm loving that.
- If you can visualize it, it can happen.
- [Dave] Absolutely.
- [Russell] We made it.
How late are we, Dave, for context?
- [Dave] 27 minutes.
- [Russell] 27 minutes.
- It's like, well, we can just fly there,
or what if we did it upright and rented a private plane?
So we rented a private plane.
(rock music)
We are landing in Salt Lake right now
to pick up some of my special guests.
I'm excited, it's my mom and my dad, so this is fun.
My mom and dad, amazing human beings,
my dad's a great entrepreneur.
But they've been very frugal their entire life.
They always fly coach, they always do everything.
So last time we flew into Boise and I bought them a ticket.
I bought them first class, and they were like,
"What, we can't do first class," anyway.
But my mom saw a video of me in a private jet,
and she's like, "You can't fly private.
Everyone dies private," anyways,
so she's convinced it's really, really bad.
I messaged my dad a couple days ago and said,
"Dad, this is the plan, we're picking you guys up
in a private jet, hope that's okay.
You job to go tell mom and convince her it's okay."
So her first thing is she started freaking out, I guess.
Thinking it was a little puddle jumper plane.
And then I write, no, it's an actual airplane.
It's a jet, it's gonna be alright.
Flew down, picked my parents up in Salt Lake.
My mom was certain she was gonna die on the plane.
She read a book about someone who got
in a plane wreck one time, so because of that
she was convinced that certain death
was the only possible outcome for this vacation.
It was really hard to convince her
to go, but she agreed, finally.
- We don't even fly first class,
so to get on a private plane is almost unbelievable.
Incredible, we're excited.
(chill acoustic music)
- Dave just talked my mom into flying the airplane.
- [Man] There you go.
(chill acoustic music)
- [Russell] How was it, Mom, did you survive?
- I'm, so far so good, thank you.
- My mom just started telling these guys
about what Russell's as a little kid.
Let's here the real stories.
- He would get all this mail, this junk mail,
and he would just put it in his bedroom on the floor.
Also, once they got to high school, or junior high,
I can't remember, I made them do their own laundry.
We do his laundry and he'd just throw that,
after it was all clean, onto the floor
with all his paperwork, 'cause it couldn't be
on the bed because he had to sleep in the bed.
And the room
just get bigger.
- I was a junk mail hoarder.
(acoustic music)
- You would think that we would be able to be treated
with the utmost respect, and unfortunately,
for some reason we have all double beds.
Usually you would come here to celebrate
and you would want at least a king size bed
to be able to celebrate the success that you're having.
So we're getting one that has a king size bed.
It's a Murphy bed, so it actually pulls down from the wall.
- Come on, we're gonna show you
the big reveal of our sweet room.
He's so excited.
- I'm so worried about this.
- [Blonde Woman] This is hilarious.
Where's the bed?
(all laughing)
- Oh, no way.
- [Blonde Woman] Oh my goodness, it has lights?
- [Colette] Watch this.
- [Russell] Here it goes.
- [Blonde Woman] Wow.
- [Russell] Tada.
(all laugh)
Woo-hoo.
- I'm so sorry.
- [Blonde Woman] Light show and everything.
- We flew private, because we want
to make this a nice experience,
but we don't have a bed.
(all laugh)
(swing music)
The night we got there, they did it right.
They had this huge dinner with this amazing buffet.
It was amazing.
I've been to a lot of buffets.
This was like four steps past
anything I've ever been to before.
This dessert bar, they literally had a donut wall.
Alright, this is the donut wall.
Infamous.
They had chocolate covered bacon.
They had this thing that looked like a big ice cream bar
with tons of different ice cream flavors,
but it wasn't ice cream, it was cookie dough.
It was a cookie dough bar.
What in the world, what kind'd you guys get?
- I got chocolate chip.
- [Russell] Chocolate chip?
- [Woman] Chocolate chip, chocolate chip.
- [Russell] Everyone picks chocolate chip.
It was insane, because they scoop out tons
of cookie dough into the thing,
and the desserts alone were, ah.
I was just telling Dave, I feel like
we're on Pleasure Island.
I'm Pinocchio, and we're about
to turn into donkeys any minute now
after having cookie dough bar,
donut bar, marshmallow bar, so.
- I'm actually getting sick to my stomach right now.
- It's so worth it.
Anyway, it was amazing.
Then there was the Kelly Clarkson concert.
She did this huge show for us, a private event.
♪ Guess this means you're sorry ♪
♪ You're standing at my door ♪
I'm like, for example, Jennifer Garner came and spoke.
It's funny, I tease my wife, I think everyone's allowed
to have one celebrity crush, right?
She's totally my celebrity crush.
Ever since 13 Going on 30 I was like,
she is the coolest, ever.
- I'm a little nervous about what she can get out of me,
so it all has to stay in the room.
- She was so amazing, not just
from a point that I have a crush on her, right?
But just insanely amazing.
- Give yourself room to not be a perfect parent,
to not be a perfect, but when you get the chance be perfect.
(strings music)
- Ready for our black tie event?
- We're ready.
- You feeling good?
- I don't know.
- Looking good, dang.
And then I forgot my name tag.
I'm surprised you never got it.
- (laughs) No.
But you know what does surprise me?
- What's that?
- That we're not gonna be late.
- We're gonna be on time.
- Russell Brunson on time? - Well, it's gonna be
really close. - As usual.
- Look at this guy, ow ow.
- Let me turn that around.
You actually look a ton better than I do.
- I don't know, look at that.
- [Colette] (gasps) So pretty.
- Alright, so what's happening right now, guys?
What are we about to do?
- About ready to go on a fun little yacht.
Actually a little dinghy, but we'll call it a yacht.
- You excited for this?
- Yeah, I'm excited.
Treasure moments that are special with your man.
(brass music)
- [Dave] Russell Brunson.
(women cheer)
- [Russell] Most of the companies
who were there had all raised money.
I think there's probably half
a dozen of us who are bootstrap entrepreneurs,
and the rest were all VC -backed.
It's funny, 'cause I was talking
with Dave about this ahead of time.
I'm like, in the bodybuilding
world, there's two competitions.
There's one that's the bodybuilding competition.
Everybody comes and there's no rules.
They never say, "Oh yeah, go do steroids."
but they don't test for it, right?
So because of that, that's where you get guys
like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno.
These dudes who are insane, who you look at
and you're like, "That can't be human."
and you're like, "Oh, it's because they're not human.
They're on steroids," right?
There's that turn, but then there's the natural
bodybuilding contest where you have
to not be on steroids to qualify,
and those guys look way smaller.
They look amazing, but you put them standing next
to each other, it's like, "Well, that dude's on steroids."
There's a difference, right?
I feel like it's the same thing here.
The Entrepreneur of the Year award
is all these dudes who are on steroids,
who got two billion dollars in funding,
and there's people like me who are the natural ones
who showed up, and you look at us
by ourselves we look good, but you look standing next
to somebody who received two billion dollars
in funding, it's like, how do you compete with that?
It's fascinating.
We just got done with EY Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Our battery's almost dead.
We didn't win, but we lost to that guy right there,
who started Groupon and this
is his new company, so that's okay.
In our category we lost to Thomas Siebel,
who is Marc Benioff's old boss.
- A billionaire.
- We lost to a billionaire who has given 300 million
to philantrop, philampro, I can't say the word.
- Philanthropic.
- We'll take the loss, but.
I lost to the billionaire, but the billionaire
was all 'roided out, so I don't feel too bad.
And then the dude who won Entrepreneur of the Year
overall in all the categories
was the guy who started Groupon,
which actually was really cool.
Groupon was his sixth business and then he took it public,
and now this is his new business,
which was confusing, but it went
from zero to two billion dollar valuation,
or, excuse me, a billion dollar valuation in two years.
Good morning, good morning.
We are packing up and heading out of this place.
- Heading out of Palm Springs.
- What was your favorite part about the week?
- Oh my gosh, actually having my wife here
probably was my favorite part, but aside from that,
actually being here with Russell was a ton of fun, too.
- Yes, I take number two.
(calm music)
I didn't win the contest, and it's funny
'cause some people reach out and are like,
"Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."
It's funny because I didn't care.
I wasn't going into it to do it.
I'm always going into things looking for the story.
What's the story I'm gonna be able
to tell because of this experience?
I'm always talking about with you guys
that you need to be building up your Rolodex of stories.
When I do a webinar, the reason I can do webinars
so fast, and I can crank 'em out
and I can sell well is because I've got
this huge Rolodex of stories I've been building
up for over a decade that I can pull
out really quick at a moment's notice.
So I'm like, what are the stories
that I can pull out of this experience
that I can use in other things?
When I spoke at the TedX event
and I did the 3.2 million dollars in sales.
Everyone's like, "Oh my gosh, you made 3.2
million dollars in sales," and I'm like,
yeah, that was cool, but I've got a story now.
That story will make me 10 times that 3.2 million.
To be able to tell that story about
how I'm the highest paid public speaker in the world.
How I netted a million dollars an hour.
All those things, I will sell way more product
from that than I ever did from
the money that I made at the event.
I'm looking for this story.
For me it's like, this whole thing happened.
I didn't win it, but for me the story
is this whole thing I shared with you guys today,
this natural versus unnatural.
And I probably should, we are gonna be building
a Bootstrap Entrepreneur of the Year award
and a thing, and it's gonna be a movement
and a big thing based on this story.
The fact that I lost, I'm so grateful
that I lost because now I have this story
about, hey, I lost, but I was going
up against people who are on steroids.
It's like bringing a gun to a knife fight.
Let's come back and let's build
the natural bodybuilding contest for entrepreneurs.
Now I have a story I can share,
and a reason and a purpose and a thing
that's gonna call to all of my people.
It's gonna call out to the bootstrap entrepreneurs.
People I love serving are gonna here that message
and be like, "Yes, that's who I am."
They're gonna hear my voice and they will come to me.
That's the magic is, in the experience
I'm looking for the story.
Again, I respect the people who
took our money, who build these companies.
Some of them are curing cancer.
Some of them are doing artificial, amazing things.
I'm grateful for them. - Cool stuff.
- But I want to celebrate entrepreneurs
who didn't do it that way.
Entrepreneurs who are bootstraps,
had to figure this stuff out on their own,
who had to risk their own money,
their own energy, their own time,
having it all on the line, 'cause those
are the stories that really inspired me.
If so, we're calling our shot.
We're gonna have the Bootstrap
Entrepreneur of the Year award.
- Call the shot.
- It's gonna be amazing.
That said, we're gonna go inside and get warm,
'cause Dave is freezing over here.
Amazing trip. - Wear a coat when you land
in Boise, it's 26 degrees out.
- See you guys next episode.
(intense music)