# Entrepreneurial Scars

- Link: https://jarvislegacy.com/podcast/entrepreneurial-scars/
- Published: 2017-06-08T22:54:00-07:00
- Author: anchorwave

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Entrepreneurial Scars

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Why these things can and should move you forward as opposed to pulling you backwards.

On this episode Russell talks about having entrepreneurial scars and why you should
embrace them rather than be embarrassed of them. Here are some of the insightful
things to listen for in today’s episode:

 * Why it’s okay for entrepreneurs to fail and how to embrace your failures.
 * Why taking risks and failing can be important for the future success of your 
   business.
 * And why Russell thinks bankruptcy was not only a gift from our founding fathers,
   but also a gift from God.

So listen below to find out why it’s okay to fail, as long as you are able to learn
from your mistakes.

—Transcript—

Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome to Marketing Secrets. Today’s episode
is called entrepreneurial scars.

Hey everyone, so I wanted to, honestly, this podcast I just wanted to hang out with
you guys and talk because it’s been interesting. I’ve been working with so many 
entrepreneurs and recently just as I’ve been working with some people and watching
people who had insane amounts of success at one time and then who had something 
happen. A failure, a bankruptcy, whatever, just fill in the blank. The second time
around, a lot of times, they really, really struggle.

I start looking and I’m like, why are they struggling? They had this huge success
and it’s almost like they have fear and embarrassment like, “I failed in the past.”
As I kept talking about this with some of the guys on our team it was like, it’s
almost like they have entrepreneurial scars. It’s interesting, us as a person who
went through the process, a failure, a lot of times there’s ups and the downs it
hard. We have scars, emotional scars, but I think sometimes we feel like those scars
are on our faces and other people can see them.

What’s interesting is that people don’t. Those are just things that are inside of
yourself. But because they’re there and you feel like they’re there and other people
can see it, it keeps you from having success the next time. Because there’s so much
fear around these scars, these things. And as I was talking about this, this morning,
I shared a story and this will hopefully kind of tie these things together a little
bit better for you. I’m not going to name names or anything.

But there was a guy I know and he was a successful politician. At the top of his
game, doing everything amazing and people loved him. And when you saw him in that
spot, and it’s not like national politics, I don’t know anybody in national politics.
I don’t follow politics at all. But it was a local person. And you saw him on the
news and all this other stuff and he was dynamic, charismatic and everything was
awesome. And then he got caught up in this political scandal or whatever and it’s
funny because, again, I don’t follow politics, and I don’t care that much. But I
was aware of the things that happened, and he’s no longer in there and there was
someone else.

Then fast forward 3 or 4 years later, I met him. What’s funny, it was in a different
situation, and he wanted to talk about business stuff. And I was really excited 
because I was like, “I know who this person is. How cool. I want to meet him and
talk to him.” And as I talked to him, it was funny, not funny I shouldn’t say that,
it was interesting to see the scars that he’d gotten from this thing were so deep,
he was struggling to progress in other parts of his life. Business and all these
other things because of the scars he got from this thing that didn’t work out right.

You look at the thing, it wasn’t good, but 3 years later, I’m almost surprised that
I knew about it, but I did. But he was carrying those scars in his conversations
with you. If he would have come in the way that I’d seen him before, confident and
all sorts of things, I probably would have done the business deal with him, but 
because he had these scars and just the way he approached me, he didn’t have the
certainty or all these things. They were gone and I could feel it. And that uncertainty
kept me from doing the deal with him.

And I remember thinking after I finished, I could tell he was still carrying around
the fear and embarrassment and shame of that thing. I don’t care about that thing.
I couldn’t care less. Move on with your life and come back. That person I saw on
TV, if you would have approached me that way, I would have done this deal.

The same thing is true with entrepreneurs, there’s someone I know who is super successful,
knew how to funnel, blew up and made a ton of money and then it went away and now
they’re kind of struggling. And what’s interesting is I know that back story because
I know the person and things like that. Even with that, I look at the person like,
this person is a rock star. They’re awesome. They’re amazing. But as I see them 
interact with other people, I see these scars that this person has are keeping them
from taking over the next thing.

And it’s funny because I don’t think 99,9% of every single person in the world has
any idea, their little scars are there for this person, but because he knows that
they’re there, because he knows he failed. He knows that things disappear and didn’t
work out the way he wanted. He has this fear and has these approaching the next 
situations, he’s struggling because of that. Because of these scars.

And I think it’s interesting that these entrepreneurial scars that we have, first
off they’re invisible. Nobody sees them.  Some people may be aware of them, but 
nobody sees them except for you. So because you are so aware of these things, it
keeps you from having the confidence and success you need to move forward.

It’s funny, I was talking to an entrepreneur who was about to go through bankruptcy
and they were freaking out and so scared. And I kind of asked them why and they 
didn’t say, “Because I don’t want those scars.” But what they said afterwards was,
If I get out of bankruptcy, what’s my wife going to think and my in-laws and family?”
all these things and I was like, “You have to understand, bankruptcy, think about
this, failure for entrepreneurs, the founding fathers of this country gave us bankruptcy
as a gift, so that entrepreneurs like us would risk and try and move forward and
roll the dice and hope for something. And if it wasn’t for that gift, and you may
think it’s a gift for the founding fathers, but I think it’s a gift from god. But
if it wasn’t for that thing, America wouldn’t have succeeded as a nation. Everything
that’s amazing wouldn’t have happened if entrepreneurs didn’t have that risk.

If it was like, if you go bankrupt you go to jail until you pay off all your debts.
Not a lot of people would have taken the risk, I don’t know if I would have taken
the risks. But because the worst case scenario is bankruptcy, you clear off your
balance sheets and start over. That’s the worst case scenario and that’s the greatest
gift we have.

So if we hit that and we go through it and all the sudden we have these scars, I
went through bankruptcy and have all this fear. Then you go through the next thing,
it’s like, no, that shouldn’t be a negative thing. That means you tried, you attempted.
Even after you attempted and had success and it went away, you had success.

I remember I was doing a deal with this guy who was super successful. In fact, he
did these consulting things where it was 500 grand a day with a minimum of ten sessions,
so it’s like half a million bucks to get this guy to work with you. And I had a 
chance to hang out with him and I was talking to him and talking strategy and he
was asking about my story. I tell him my story and I’m pretty open with things now.
I have realized that my scars are what actually draws people to me. That’s why at
Funnel Hacking Live I spend an hour and a half on stage talking about all my failures,
it draws people toward me, which is kind of making the point at the end of this 
podcast.

But I’ve had my share of ups and downs. And as I told him the whole thing he’s like,“
Oh good.” And I’m like, “What do you mean, good?’. And he’s like, “you cycled.” 
I’m like, “what do you mean cycled?” And he’s like, “Entrepreneurs who haven’t cycled
at least once, I refuse to work with them.” I’m like, “What does that mean?” “Cycled
means you build something up and then you crash. If you haven’t cycled yet, then
guess what? You’re still drinking your own kool-aid. You still believe that you 
are the most amazing human being on Earth. You don’t realize until after you cycled,
that it’s not just you. You aren’t the greatest thing to walk this planet. There’s
market conditions, there’s people, opportunities, luck and all these amazing things
that happen that make you possible. That make you as an entrepreneur successful.”

And as he said that, first off I was like, that feels better. Cycling sounds way
better than failure, than bankruptcy. But I thought it was interesting that he wouldn’t
work with entrepreneur unless they’d cycled once. And I was like, Man, how many 
people go out there and do their big risk and have some success which gives you 
all t his pride and confidence and stuff. And then you lose it and because of that
failure you never try again. Or you try it but halfway because you feel like you
have these scars and you feel like other people are judging you or you are judging
yourself for all these kind of things. Where the reality is that we don’t se those
things.

Nobody knows about the failures until you tell them about it. But if they do know
about it, it doesn’t really matter. In fact, as I found as I share my scars, it’s
draws people closer, like I mentioned earlier. I think the reason people will do
business with me a lot of times is because I’m vulnerable, I share those things.

So for you guys, I wanted to talk about it today because first off, it’s okay to
have those scars, but don’t hide them. Share those things. When my kids get injured
and they’re super cute and do it all the time, I tell my boys, “Chicks dig scars.
That’s a good thing. That’s awesome. Black eyes are awesome.” I remember one of 
my black eyes I got in wrestling; I don’t know if you guys are watching the video,
you can still see the scars over both of my eyes. I had this one where I hit my 
buddies knee and my eye had swollen shut and I had 15 stitches and couldn’t see 
out of my eye for 4 or 5 days. I was at school and I was all embarrassed because
of the scar and as I was walking around people were like, “Dude your eye looks awesome.
You’re a wrestler.” People connected with that more than me looking good and my 
hair being, worrying about what I look like.

So I think the moral of this podcast and I want you guys to understand, is that 
we all have entrepreneurial scars. If you don’t have them yet, you’re going to have
them. But don’t let those keep you from the next success. My friend who is a politician,
I don’t care what happened. He could go and do and be successful, but because he’s
carrying these scars, he’s not. You have to be willing to get rid of those, or not
get rid of them, embrace them and share those things. Look, I screwed up, this is
what happened. But this is what I’m doing now and this is what I learned from it,
how I’m changing.

If I look back on my career, there’s a lot of things I’m embarrassed about. Things
I messed up on big time. Maybe I should do a podcast someday about my biggest regrets.
I have regrets in my business. There’s things I did that I’m embarrassed about, 
I wish I wouldn’t have done. Looking back now, I would have consulted myself, “Do
not do that.” But I wouldn’t have known the path unless I’d gone down some of these
paths and realized what things weren’t right.

I’ve always tried to be fair to my customers and my employees and stuff, but I’ve
made mistakes, and I’ve sold things that I thought were really good and found out
later they weren’t. There’s things I’m not proud of, but if I let those scars keep
me, how many people’s lives that we’re touching and effecting now that wouldn’t 
have been touched had I not embraced those scars and told people, “Look I messed
up in the past.” And I have, and we all do and it’s okay. But I don’t want you guys
to not progress because of that.

Hopefully this gives you some comfort. Look, if you’ve gone through bankruptcy that’s
okay. If you messed up and did something stupid, that’s okay. That’s what this life
is about. About making those mistakes and owning it, and if you do it’s almost like
plastic surgery. It makes these scars disappear. But they don’t need to disappear.
Like I said, embrace it. Because that’s what’s going to draw people to you.

So I hope that helps. It was on my mind today, I though it just want to share it.
I hope that that was good for you guys. Again, as entrepreneurs, we’re risking stuff
every day. We’re risking our name, money, other people. I wake up in the morning
scared with 119 employees as of today. If I screw up, how many people lives have
I let down because of that. Those things are real to me and I understand that. But
I’ve got to risk those things because how many people’s lives can we effect because
of those things.

And if you’ve gone through bankruptcy, don’t let that stress you out. It’s a gift
from the founding fathers, from God. It’s given us the ability so that we can risk
and not lose everything. We can risk……..and if it wasn’t for that, again, progress
would stop if entrepreneurs weren’t risking. So it’s not a bad thing. If you….

Anyway, I just wanted to give you guys that as a gift. And if you any of you guys
are struggling, some of you probably are. Some of you guys are going through bankruptcy
or gone through bankruptcy. Maybe it’s not bankruptcy but you failed. You launched
something that didn’t work. You built a team of people and the product didn’t work
and you had to fire people or let them go. All the ups and downs and disappointment.
As entrepreneurs you have so many things on your shoulders and I get that.

I hope this message helps relieve some of that pressure for some of you guys. Because
if you don’t keep risking, trying, keep getting those scars, where is the world 
going to be? Where are you going to be? Where’s your family going to be? Where are
the people you’re serving going to be? They need you and it’s worth the risk, worth
the sacrifice, worth the fears. Because if you’re going to affect those people, 
when you deliver on what you know you have and you change their lives, it makes 
it all worth it.

It’s interesting, just to kind of close this down. I looked at where our company
has come to where we are today. And I looked back during my last cycle. 7 years 
ago when everything collapsed around me and I thought the world was coming to an
end and I was depressed and sad and scared and all those kind of things happened.
Looking at it now, if I didn’t go through that, Clickfunnels and this process never
would have happened. I never would have met Todd, I never would have met who built
Clickfunnels. I never would have built this team. I never would have had the opportunity.
I wouldn’t have known the things I know to be able to execute on this. A lot of 
things we’re steering clear from today are because of the mistakes that happened
back then. And if I would have made those mistakes today, some of them would have
been catastrophic. Way more people’s lives would have been effected.

Whereas, I had a chance to suffer those things, get those scars on a smaller scale,
so I don’t have to have those things now. Hopefully, if I learned my lesson which
I’m trying to do. So look at those things as gifts, embrace them, share them, and
don’t hide from them. Because those scars will draw people to you and we all have
them. Don’t let that keep you from your mission.

Hope that helps. Appreciate you guys and see you guys all on the next episode of
Funnel Hacker, no that’s wrong. What is this episode? Marketingsecrets.com. So sorry,
I was recording Funnel Hacker TV earlier today. So marketingsecrets.com podcast.
That’s what this is. By the way, if you want to go see our tv show, go to funnelhacker.
tv, we have a whole bunch of behind the scenes episodes, a couple of new episodes
as well of different stories. In fact, by the time this is live, the same day, we
have our next show going live. So go to Funnel Hacker TV as well, check out the 
shows.

If you like the podcast, please share it. Please go to iTunes and leave me a review.
I don’t care if you give me one stars, two stars. If you give me five that will 
be way cooler. Please do that. Thanks again for everything guys and I will talk 
to you all again soon. Bye everybody.