Why I Hate Running And What That Has To Do With Your Business - a podcast by Russell Brunson

An interesting glimpse of why I struggle at running, and how it might relate to you if you’re struggling in your business.

On this episode Russell talks about running with Collette on his family reunion and realizing why he has always hated running. He relates hating running to the way other people hate running a business, and gives some helpful advice about how to enjoy the journey. Here are some of the awesome tidbits to listen for in today’s episode:

• What made Russell realize the reason he hated running.
• How running is similar to running a business and why “looking at your feet” is the reason you aren’t enjoying it.
• And why you have to train yourself to look up to be able to enjoy the journey of running a business.

So listen here to find out why you need to stop looking at your feet while you run, just like Russell.

---Transcript---

Hey everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I am so excited to have you here today. Today I am going to be talking about why I hate running, what that may have to do with you if you’re struggling in your business.

Alright so I hope, first off, that you are all doing amazing today. I am at the office preparing for a flight tomorrow. I’m actually heading out to Atlanta to speak at a big event with Tony Robbins, which is kind of cool. I was going to officially retire from speaking this year, but then Tony is like, “Hey, do you want to come speak in front of 6,000 people?” and I’m like, “You know what, the answer is always yes.”

So I’m going there and it’s going to be really fun. And I’m doing a whole new presentation, which means I have been killing myself for the last day and a half trying to create a whole new presentation, because I only have 60 minutes, and I’m selling a $500 One Funnel Away Challenge kit, which is something different than I’ve ever sold before. I usually sell $3,000 from stage. So I have less time, a lower ticket price, but I’m doing it because I’m testing my material.

If you’ve been listening along for a while, I’m testing this presentation because of the speaker team we’ve been building. We’re really struggling getting people to allow them to come speak for 90 minutes and sell a $3,000 product. Most of them are like, “We want an hour long presentation and we want you to sell a $500 product.’

So speaking at this event, besides speaking at a Tony event with $6000 people, which is exciting anyway, it’s forcing me to create this presentation that then the speaker team can use, as long as the presentation goes well. So it’s going to be fun. I’m excited to see how it all goes. So hopefully it works, so wish me luck.

But I digress, today I want to talk to you about something else actually. Basically what I want to talk to you guys about is, last week we had our family reunion up at Bear Lake. I was going to say Bear Lake, Idaho, but it’s on the Utah/Idaho border, so it’s actually Bear Lake, Utah. I was with my family and we had a great time.

But what’s interesting is, my wife and I were like, ‘This family vacation we’re going to be healthy and we’re going to do all these things.” And it’s funny because each night a different family member has the dinner and then everyone makes a dessert, and we’re like, uh. So every year I go and gain like 15 pounds and I come home and it’s like a month and a half to lose all the weight I gained on the family reunion.

So this year I’m like, “I’m going to be healthy.” So day one we were super healthy. They had pizza and I was like, ‘I’m not eating pizza. I’m just going to eat salad.” Which was sad because the pizza looked so good. But I just had salad, didn’t have dessert. Then day two, the next morning, we woke up and Collette and I went running, which was awesome, I’m going to talk about that in a minute. So we went running and the next morning I was sore, and then they had dessert and it was so good, and they dinner and dessert, and by the end of the week I didn’t make it to our goal at all, but we had a good time.

But I tell you that because the first day we went running and we were going to run every day, but we only ended up running one day. So yeah, you know, we try but sometimes we just can’t do it. But we went running and so we’re in this trailer park that’s kind of up on a hill. So we run down the hill of the trailer park, then we ran across the valley, a beautiful green valley, then we ran up to this golf course, then we turned around and ran back. And I think the whole route was around 3 miles or so long.

So we were doing it and we’re having fun, and it was interesting, after we got to the golf course and we’re running back we’re running down this hill and it overlooks this huge valley and you can see the lake, it’s beautiful. And as we’re running down my wife is talking about that, ‘Oh, look at the lake, look at the thing.’

And I remember being annoyed for a second because I was looking at my feet as I was running. And I’m like, ah, I was kind of annoyed, and I look up, and then when I did look up I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is beautiful out here. Look at this whole thing.” And I started looking down at my feet and I kept looking at my feet and I stopped looking at my feet and look up again, and look around and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is beautiful.’

And then I had this epiphany and I Collette, I said, “You know what I realized? Whenever I run, I’m always looking at my feet. My whole life and I don’t know why.” I think it’s because of wrestling, when we run typically it’s not long sprints, or not long marathon style running. Wrestling is more like, a lot of like ladders, where you’re running to the ten yard line and back, and the twenty yard line and back. So you’re watching your feet because you’re going in, out, in, out. So I watch my feet when I run.

And I was like, I told Collette, “I realized why I hate running, I think. We’re doing this huge run in this beautiful spot and the whole time I’m looking at my feet and all I see is my feet and I miss seeing everything else.” After I started looking up I said, ‘I see why people like running now, because you have this beautiful view and you’re seeing this scenery and seeing all this stuff, but I’ve always missed it because I’m always looking at my feet.”

After I said that I tried to make a conscious effort to look up while I was running the whole time, and it was really hard for me because I kept forcing myself, you know my pattern or whatever, my body kept looking down at my feet, looking at my feet because that’s what I was so used to for almost 40 years now of running, was looking at my feet when I ran.

So I’d look up and I’d enjoy it, and then I’d slip back into my pattern of looking down at my feet again. Like, ah, look up. And I’d look up and I’d enjoy it.

And as I was thinking about that while I’m running I was like, oh my gosh. This is a metaphor for so many things. So many things in life that we struggle with, it’s because we’re not looking up and looking at the scenery. I think a lot of people get into business and they’re looking at their feet right. They’re looking at the stress of like, ‘I don’t have the money. I don’t have this.” And all the things that happen when you’re trying to start a business and trying to launch your company and trying to grow it, and looking at their feet. And because of that, they hate it, they’re miserable, they’re not happy and they’re not enjoying it.

I think about why do I love this game so much. I love marketing, I love business, I love all this stuff that we talk about. And I think metaphorically in the business I’m always looking up and looking around as I’m moving forward and I’m enjoying this process and the journey and the people I’m meeting. And I’m enjoying it and that’s why I love business so much. Whereas I think so many people are  looking at their feet when they’re in business. And they’re looking at the stuff that’s stressing them out, what they don’t have yet, what they wish they had, and all those things as opposed to looking up and looking around.

So I wanted to share that metaphor with you because I think, hopefully it will helpful for some of you guys. If you’re not enjoying this business journey it means you’re probably looking at your feet. So I’d recommend doing what I had to do to enjoy my run the other day. Stop looking at your feet, the day to day, the things that are moving forward, because those things they’re not necessarily a lot of fun, but when you look up and look around you start seeing the people and the vision and the business and the lives you’re changing. Those kind of things, that’s what gives you the fuel and the excitement to wake up every single morning, to keep going forward, and keep having fun, and keep trying to change people’s lives.

Anyway, I hope that helps somebody out there. I thought it was really interesting as I was running, and I was like, “man, I bet you my whole life I could have actually enjoyed running had I looked up.” So I’m going to start doing that more often, because I’m trying to, I have a goal this year that by Christmas at the end of this year to be in the single digits body fat percentage, to be like 9% or 9.9, whatever. Just under 10% body fat, which I haven’t been in 7 or 8 years. So that’s one of my goals is to try to hit that this year, which means I have got to go put in some road work if I’m going to do it. So to do that my whole goal is to start looking up and enjoying this journey because if I do I’ll stick with it, otherwise I’m just going to see my feet, it’s going to be ugly and I’m going to be bored.

So probably can use that advice in more than just your business and your running as well, it’s probably applicable to a lot of things. So alright, I’m going to leave you there with that. I hope that you got some value with that, and start looking up when you’re running. Appreciate you all and talk to you all soon. Bye everybody.

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