Podcasts about m16s

California lawmakers tried to pass AB 1333, a bill that would have forced law-abiding citizens to “retreat” before defending themselves—even in life-or-death situations. But thanks to massive public outcry, activism, and law enforcement opposition, the bill was KILLED before it could be voted on! In this episode of Gun Owners Radio, we break down: What AB 1333 would have done and why it was so dangerous How gun owners, advocates, and even sheriffs fought back Why this rare victory matters for the future of self-defense laws What comes next in the battle for gun rights in California Plus, we discuss: Gun Truth of the Week – Why women who resist with a gun are 2.5x less likely to suffer serious injury and how criminals pick their victims based on WALKING STYLE. A groundbreaking new firearm invention – A magnetic buffer tube that reduces recoil AND generates electricity! Could this be the future of shooting? A shocking defensive gun use story – A security guard takes down a suspect who crashed into a dispensary with a car! Important legal & legislative updates – What's next for SB2 and AB 1092 (extending CCW permits)? Sam the Gun Man vs. the Toughest Gun Trivia Questions! – Sponsored by SEAL1, this week's question: "Before the U.S. supplied M16s and M1 carbines, what French guns did the South Vietnamese commonly use?" Can Sam get it right and keep his streak alive?​

After hospital kidnaps toddler, judge blocks removal to another hospital and demands the child be taken off life support, killing her. Doctors said they had to euthanize the child because she's "in pain". So how does this compare to abortion where the child's pain is not a factor, where the mother is the sole determiner of whether the child lives or dies? Meanwhile, Macron says to Israel, "stop killing babies". He's not talking about abortion. But pro-life means pushing against abortion, euthanasia — and war How does France, Israel, Gaza stack up on abortion? And why won't GOP and their talking heads show what abortion looks like so we can actually stop killing babies? "Nukey" Halley says don't judge abortion. "Ethicists" push bestiality and pedophilia, because, hey, don't judge me. Analysis shows NYC data about Covid DEATHS was a TOTAL LIE — there was NO "CURVE", but a spike that was a SEVEN-FOLD INCREASE even though ambulances and ER admissions were a tiny fraction of what they typically were. Pandemic lies don't add up China remains locked in a downward spiral that began with lockdown. NYC is the same, but Trump praised Cuomo as better than DeSantis because he'll say anything to get elected, no matter how obviously false. His audience called him out on the lie Entire local government thrown out in election — ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL, and we can win there. Big defeats for Biden on Pistol Brace and "Ghost Guns". Biden withholds M16s for Israel because he doesn't want civilians, ANYWHERE, to be armed FBI and media stoke J6 MANHUNT narrative, portraying J6 as dangerous fugitives. The political persecution ramps up against those Trump abandoned, nearly 3 years after they were set up. Internet blackout in Australia shows the vulnerability of a cashless society. China is buying up US gold because the price here has been artificially depressed. Arbitrage, baby.Find out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.comIf you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-showOr you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @DavidKnightShow@protonmail.comCash App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Money is only what YOU hold: Go to DavidKnight.gold for great deals on physical gold/silverFor 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to TrendsJournal.com and enter the code KNIGHT

After hospital kidnaps toddler, judge blocks removal to another hospital and demands the child be taken off life support, killing her. Doctors said they had to euthanize the child because she's "in pain". So how does this compare to abortion where the child's pain is not a factor, where the mother is the sole determiner of whether the child lives or dies? Meanwhile, Macron says to Israel, "stop killing babies". He's not talking about abortion. But pro-life means pushing against abortion, euthanasia — and war How does France, Israel, Gaza stack up on abortion? And why won't GOP and their talking heads show what abortion looks like so we can actually stop killing babies? "Nukey" Halley says don't judge abortion. "Ethicists" push bestiality and pedophilia, because, hey, don't judge me. Analysis shows NYC data about Covid DEATHS was a TOTAL LIE — there was NO "CURVE", but a spike that was a SEVEN-FOLD INCREASE even though ambulances and ER admissions were a tiny fraction of what they typically were. Pandemic lies don't add up China remains locked in a downward spiral that began with lockdown. NYC is the same, but Trump praised Cuomo as better than DeSantis because he'll say anything to get elected, no matter how obviously false. His audience called him out on the lie Entire local government thrown out in election — ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL, and we can win there. Big defeats for Biden on Pistol Brace and "Ghost Guns". Biden withholds M16s for Israel because he doesn't want civilians, ANYWHERE, to be armed FBI and media stoke J6 MANHUNT narrative, portraying J6 as dangerous fugitives. The political persecution ramps up against those Trump abandoned, nearly 3 years after they were set up. Internet blackout in Australia shows the vulnerability of a cashless society. China is buying up US gold because the price here has been artificially depressed. Arbitrage, baby.Find out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.comIf you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-showOr you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @DavidKnightShow@protonmail.comCash App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Money is only what YOU hold: Go to DavidKnight.gold for great deals on physical gold/silverFor 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to TrendsJournal.com and enter the code KNIGHT

Find  M16s, Find other guns, 22 cal conversion kits, cartridge conversion cylinders for BP revolvers, Single actions, 22 LR revolvers, Homestead rescue, Soaring crime, will primers return? 

Welcome back! This week we quickly recap, talk about sober October and why I'm doing it. I then talk about my love for comedy over almost anything, I talk about an option to suicide, an argument with my brother, the Iranian Revolution 2022, the Italian PMs statement, the random delivery of M16s, and the large breasted Canadian teacher. Love you all and see ya soon God willing, IA

Today the boys start off by immediately going off the rails and talking about dinosaurs and special effects. Eventually, Jack saves the episode by bringing it around to the original topic, which is the most amazing loot drop in history, where a couple found some legit M16s in milsurp crates. Oh also we talk about Battletech.

Order my new book, The Pursuit Of Excellence https://bit.ly/thepursuitofexcellence Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12    https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Stan Johnson was hired as Loyola Marymount University's men's basketball head coach on March 20, 2020. The 2020-21 season saw meteoric growths across the board for LMU men's basketball. In his first season as head coach, Stan Johnson guided his team through the COVID-19 pandemic and posted a winning record in the WCC for the first time since 2011-12. Notes: “I escaped a war at 10. I come from really the gutter in this business. I don't come from a tree,” “I was at gunpoint at 10 years old with 15-year-olds holding M16s. We got evacuated on a war jet on a mining strip. We came to this country with three bags. That stuff, I think, has helped shape me for this task that I have.” "That gives you empathy and understanding. It makes you relatable to all people." “Being lazy is disrespectful to the people that believe in you.” Focus on proving your supporters right. The people who love you and root for you. Prove them right... The purpose behind "Coffee With The Coach" during COVID... I wanted to "Win The Wait." Don't just wait it out... Win the wait. Culture is a set of behaviors... How do we want to behave? It's a life thing. It's not just a basketball thing. Stan has weekly "Culture Meetings." Their structure: Academic highlights Habit share Success hotline -- a pre-recorded hotline with a quote/saying Thought of the day What's happening in the world? Culture emphasis of the day Their core values: Selfless - LM Over You. When you're truly selfless, you care about the greater good... It comes back to you Connected - You need great relationships. Relationships over championships. Relentless - Attack everything we do. It's not just basketball. What do you want to be remembered for? Do your daily behaviors align with what you want to be remembered for? Consistency is what transforms average people, companies, and teams into GREATNESS. Anyone can do it now and then. GREATNESS is found in your ability to bring your best every single day. Keep Going. Don't mistake silence for weakness. Smart people don't plan big moves out loud. Holding people accountable - Truth helps. It doesn't hurt. The greatest form of love is discipline. Stan is known as one of the best recruiters in the country... What does he focus on? Relatability - "I can relate to people from all different backgrounds." Sincere - "I say how I feel." Relationships with family - Stan recruits all the members of the family. The must-have qualities to be a coach on his staff: Must be really good people (most important) "They gotta be smarter than me. I want them to stretch me, and hold me accountable. They must be smart." Passionate - They need to love it. Questions he asks when interviewing someone to be on his staff: What do you want to be remembered for? What are your expectations? (Mine are high") How do you evaluate yourself? What are your relationships like with people you've worked at before? Do you become friends with them? How he develops his assistant coaches: Give them big tasks to be responsible for... Their mission: "Take people to places they can't take themselves." Your competition isn't other people. Your competition is your procrastination. Your attitude.Your ego. Your blaming. Your complaining. Your ability to stay in the past. Your bad habits. Your jealousy. Your comparison mindset. Your inability to dream bigger. Compete against that. “Anytime your gonna grow, you're gonna lose something. You're losing what you're hanging onto to keep safe. You're losing habits that you're comfortable with, you're losing familiarity.” Keep Going. You attract what you are, not what you want. If you want great things to happen, then be great with your habits and your daily process of becoming. Keep Going. Rejected to Redirected… Keep putting your butt on the line. Don't get boxed in. Who knows what you could be? Put yourself out there…

As the Taliban advanced on Kabul last weekend, the Afghan military retreated. They left behind weapons — combat aircraft, armored vehicles, machine guns and ammunition.Much of it had been provided by the US.Related: How the Kabul airport went from calm to chaos On Monday, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that the US does not want to see any US-made weapons fall into the hands of what he called "people that would use them to harm our interests." Related: This Afghan interpreter helped the US Army Special Forces. He's desperate to leave Afghanistan."I don't have an exact inventory of what equipment that the Afghans had at their disposal that now might be at risk," Kirby said. Jodi Vittori, a former US Air Force officer who served in Afghanistan, has a unique perspective on what this could mean for Afghanistan.Vittori now co-chairs the global politics and security program at Georgetown University and she joined The World's Carol Hills to talk about how the Taliban might use weaponry left behind by Afghan Security Forces. Related: US biometric devices are in the hands of the Taliban. They could be used against Afghans who helped coalition forces. Carol Hills: How significant is this weaponry?Jodi Vittori: We're not 100% certain how much equipment the Taliban have acquired because we haven't always taken terrific accountability of what equipment went where, at what times, particularly when it came to small arms. We have a better idea with aircraft. And what is the situation with the aircraft that was left over? A number of American aircraft flew to Uzbekistan and so did, of course, the pilots and the aircrew associated with them. But the Taliban have captured some American-made and other aircraft. We know that because they've shown pictures of them. Some of those aircraft were not operational at the time, however. And we do have reports that the Taliban are looking for aircraft pilots and aircraft maintainers that might be able to get that back into the air.Is there a possible scenario where the Taliban could coerce US-trained pilots still in Afghanistan to fly the remaining aircraft? Absolutely. I could see plenty of possibilities of being able to coerce pilots, unfortunately, not only threatening pilots with their own lives, but the lives of their families. We see continuing reports of the Taliban, for example, the blacklist, saying that if certain people don't turn themselves in to the Taliban, they will punish the families. So, they are certainly more than willing to do that. I can imagine they would be willing to do similar with pilots, as well. And, you know, if you're the pilot and your family members are being threatened, that's ... a hard thing to turn down. But bottom line, as somebody who served in the Air Force, is your sense that the Taliban don't instantly have an air force of their own. They need either other people or parts to make it work?Yes. They're going to need support of those former helicopter pilots and so forth that were serving with the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. But also, do remember, the Taliban took over Afghanistan without an air force. Air force is a nice-to-have for them, but it's not the need-to-have it was for the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. Do you know why Afghanistan's aircraft were not destroyed when the Taliban took control of the capital?I presume just because it happened so incredibly quickly? There just wasn't time to destroy all of those aircraft. It does take time to do that with explosives and so forth. Hopefully there weren't any deals made that involve those aircraft. We don't really know what completely went on at this point with the various Afghan senior leadership, individual generals acting on their own initiative when it came to negotiating with the Taliban.What about other hardware that the Taliban may now have? Howitzer artillery, machine guns and rifles, night-vision goggles? How easy will it be for the Taliban to get these into the field and operational?They should be relatively easy to get into the field and operational. [We've] seen lots of pictures of [Taliban] with US small arms, for example, M4s and M16s already, fighting. They've had long experience of using captured US Western gear, so they should be capable of putting those in to fight fairly quickly.It's interesting, there have already been protests in Afghanistan and the Taliban have been using violence to quell them. Over the weekend, the Taliban said hundreds of its fighters were heading to the Panjshir Valley, where there's strong resistance. Do you think that all these captured weapons will change the Taliban's approach to stifling dissent? I don't think it will change the Taliban's approach to stifling dissent because the Taliban have often been very willing to use violence to stifle dissent their entire reign, since they first came into being and since 1994. What it does do is it gives them additional capabilities, just an overwhelming amount of potential weaponry that they can use to stifle that dissent, whether it's in individual small villages, whether it's in cities or whether it's taking small arms and larger artillery pieces and so forth as much as they can given road networks and so forth up to places like the Panjshir Valley.This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

America is leaving Afghanistan. President Joe Biden has set a September 11th withdrawal date and things are continuing apace. As America packs up its gear and goes home it's leaving behind something far more valuable than MRAPs and M16s—people.For two decades individual Afghans have stepped up to help the United States and as it leaves the battlefield, some of these interpreters are being left behind.With us today is former Marine Sergeant, Afghanistan War veteran, and Purple Heart recipient Michael Wendt. He's an advocate for interpreters and recently published an op-ed in The Hill titled “Getting Afghan interpreters out of Afghanistan isn't progressive: It's the right thing to do.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

TranscriptWhat is a military-grade weapon? Should any of the firearms currently on the market in the United States be considered military-grade? Specifically, is the AR-15 a military-grade weapon? These questions are difficult to answer because “military-grade weapon” is another term in a long list of terms being used in the gun debate that have no specific, relevant meaning.  But, for the sake of argument, I'm going to attempt to find a working definition of “military-grade” in this episode of the Self-Evident podcast. So, here we go.  Full-Automatic FireThe most obvious firearm feature that we can universally consider “military-grade" is the capacity for full-auto fire or the ability to simulate or approach full-auto fire. That's because a full-automatic weapon is what's considered an area weapon, meaning it's designed to saturate an area with gunfire far beyond what's possible with manual pulls of the trigger. Area weapons fall into a broader category of weapons that are considered mass casualty devices, meaning their design fulfills a specific military need to cause mass casualties in an opposing force.  Because the civilian application of a firearm for self-defense falls quite exclusively into situations requiring what are called point weapons, firearms designed to deliver purposeful, precise, and controlled gunfire, there is an established tradition in American law that civilians do not have a protected right by nature of the second amendment for area weapons and mass casualty devices. This allows us to classify, based on existing law, Light Machine Guns, Assault Rifles, and Submachine Guns as military-grade weapons (legally, they are classified as machine guns). This also allows us, generally, to classify a semi-automatic weapon modified in some way to simulate or approach full-auto fire as a “military-grade weapon”.  However, if the limit of our definition of “military-grade” is only on the capability for full-auto fire, the debate would be closed. Manufacturing full-automatic weapons for general civilian use is already banned and the sale of existing full-automatic weapons is highly regulated. The highly complicated process for acquiring one of the little over 500,000 existing automatic weapons in the hands of civilians is so complicated and rigorous that their use in crime is virtually non-existent. There have only been three reported incidents of full-automatic weapons used in crimes since 1934 and none of these incidents were mass shootings. Additionally, the Vegas Shooting remains the only occurrence of semi-automatic weapons modified to simulate or approach automatic fire by use of external devices and those devices (bump-stocks) have since been banned. So, if we are to extend our working definition of “military-grade” to include any of the firearms currently on the market for purchase by the general public, we're going to have to discuss other firearm features. Since the AR-15 is the weapon most commonly accused of being military-grade, let's see if we can find a feature that helps in creating a broader definition of “military-grade” that makes sense. In this episode, I'm going to break down the features of an AR-15 to see if any of them can be highlighted as a feature that makes a weapon “military-grade.” The features of the AR-15 style rifle that I'm going to discuss will be semi-automatic fire, ammunition capacity, ammunition caliber, weight, length, material, grip style, attachments, and butt-stock modifications. Most of these features have either former laws, current laws, or proposed laws that would affect them. Does Semi-Auto Fire Make a Weapon “Military-grade”?Alright, so far, we've established that full-auto weapons, or machine guns, are already well regulated and that in order to have a working definition of “military-grade” that applies to firearms on the civilian market currently, we need to establish another firearm feature that can be considered “military-grade” beyond full-auto fire.  The first AR-15 feature we're going to discuss is the most striking feature that makes the AR-15 attractive to mass shooters: semi-automatic fire. Semi-automatic fire means simply one-shot for one trigger pull. It's called semi-automatic because while it's not full-automatic, the action of the weapon still automatically loads another bullet into the chamber after the fired projectile leaves the barrel. This means the user can release the trigger and pull it again to fire another shot. But a user cannot fire successive shots by merely holding down the trigger.  Semi-automatic fire was first developed in the late 1800s. It was a vast leap forward in firearm capability over the single-action firearm. A single-action firearm required the user to perform a manual operation to place another round in the chamber after he had fired a shot.  While a user could fire a single-action firearm rapidly, such rapid-fire required quick and jerky motions of the action or even creative handling of the weapon, the kind of stuff we often see in westerns. Semi-automatic fire not only made rapid-fire a standard feature, it allowed a user to maintain rapid-fire with a firm, steady grip on the weapon impacted only by recoil.  It is common among those who have little experience with firearms to mistake the term semi-automatic with the burst-fire capability of some modern assault rifles. Burst-fire is a modification of full-automatic fire that allows a user to fire a proscribed number of shots with each trigger pull instead of maintaining full-auto fire until the trigger is released. Burst-fire has no unique legal definition. The government considers it full-auto fire and regulates weapons capable of it as machine guns.  It is the rapid-fire capacity of semi-automatic weapons that can make mass shootings so deadly. Most mass shooters use semi-automatic weapons, inviting a conclusion that this feature of an AR-15 is what attributes most to its lethal nature.  However, is it reasonable to assert that semi-automatic capability makes a weapon “military-grade”? Semi-automatic weapons make up the bulk of modern weapons used by civilians for over a hundred years. In families with hunting and firearm traditions, most kids get a semi-automatic .22 as their first rifle. Mine was a Ruger 10/22 when I was twelve years old.    Semi-automatic weapons are so common in America that even the Federal Assault Weapons Ban left large swathes of them untouched and fully legal (there were 650 firearm exemptions). This was because even those who designed the ban had to concede banning all semi-automatic firearms would ban almost every popular weapon on the market.  Clearly, the semi-automatic feature is far too common in civilian use for us to credibly use it as the feature that defines a weapon as “military-grade.” In fact, purely semi-automatic weapons are surprisingly rare in military use. They are virtually non-existent outside of sidearms and designated marksman rifles. This fact, combined with the vast civilian use of semi-automatic weapons, makes it the most consistent feature of civilian-grade weapons.  This means we're going to have to continue looking at the AR-15's other features as we keep trying to define “military-grade” in a logical and usable way. So, let's discuss the next AR-15 feature so often treated as “military-grade”: ammunition capacity. Does Ammo Capacity Make a Weapon “Military-grade”?The noted phrase thrown around by those who back gun control when it comes to ammo capacity is "High-capacity." "High-Capacity Magazines" are a top target for gun regulation. Some states already have heavy regulations on what they define as high-capacity mags and on the weapons that can use them. Specific to the AR-15's ammo capacity, it has several standard magazine options which include 10, 20, and 30. Far less common, but still available, are 50-round drum-mags and 100-round dual drum-mags. Given the ability to quickly reload an AR-15, ammunition capacity beyond the standard magazine options has not played as significant a part in making the AR-15 more lethal in its application as some might assume. But it does play a role if the shooter knows enough about the proper operation of his weapon.   The ability to maintain a steady barrage of fire leaves fewer gaps for a driven response against the shooter. It can also allow a much higher saturation of fire at the start of a shooting if the shooter targets tightly packed crowds or if the shooter is placed at a choke point. If a shooter overcomes the higher chance of the weapon jamming, a far clumsier reload, and the increased difficulty of storing and concealing such large magazines, the shooter achieves the potential for using what would otherwise be a point weapon as an area weapon. However, military and law enforcement rarely use mags beyond 30-round capacity, if ever. This is because most drum-mags are known to jam. Also, experience has shown that the pause in shooting forced by a reload keeps the weapon from overheating, avoiding weapon-crippling malfunction. Constant reloads also help combat the effects of tunnel vision. In fact, the M16 was first fielded in Vietnam with only 20-round magazines because the military did not yet consider the available 30-round magazines reliable enough for the field. Drum magazines in use by active shooters have malfunctioned and jammed. Specifically, the Aurora Colorado Shooter may have been able to kill many more than just 17, given the confined space and the locked exit, if he had not used a 100-round dual drum magazine that caused his weapon to fail repeatedly. Yes, most weapons in use by the military use detachable magazines with a capacity above 20, even the ones that aren't semi-auto. There are reasons for this. However, using the ammo capacity as a way to classify a weapon as military-grade runs into the same problem that trying to use the semi-auto feature does. Most semi-auto weapons use detachable mags or have internal magazines with considerable capacity. Remember that Ruger 10/22 I got when I was 12? It has virtually all the same magazine capacity options as an AR-15. Most popular, and even outdated, semi-automatic pistols have extended and drum magazines designed for them as well. So, once again, we're talking about the vast majority of civilian-owned firearms. All of the same problems that I discussed earlier, in regards to semi-automatic firearms, also apply to weapons that can use large magazines. To classify firearms as military-grade based on their ability to accept large magazines would be to classify most civilian-owned and used guns over the last century as military-grade. Clearly, ammo capacity doesn't make for a military-grade weapon. But, in this aspect at least, gun reform activists have taken a different tact and gone after the magazines themselves. They argue if they can ban magazines beyond a certain capacity, then semi-automatic weapons become far less deadly. They also assert that just as there is no civilian need for an area weapon, like I talked about earlier, there is also no civilian need for high-capacity magazines. They're saying that instead of classifying weapons as military-grade we can instead classify accessories, like high-capacity magazines, as military-grade. With this one, the devils in the details. As I mentioned before, the military and police do not use drum magazines because they are unwieldy and highly prone to causing weapon failure. They're also difficult to carry effectively on your person. Mass shooters have only used drum magazines in a few instances. It is arguable whether they afforded any impact on the number of casualties since the perpetrators of most of the worst mass shootings used only standard-size magazines. Clearly, to have an impact, a ban on magazines would have to target more than the 50 and 100-round drum magazines. So, what would be a sufficient number to specify? The amount would have to be surprisingly low to have any impact.   Do you remember what we talked about earlier with M16s in Vietnam, how soldiers only had 20-round magazines? Any surviving Viet Cong can probably attest to the M16's effective use even with 20-round magazines.   So, we're left with the smallest AR-15 magazine size: 10. But, if you've been paying attention to the pattern here, you'll probably see the issue. Most of the semi-automatic weapons in use by civilians, especially pistols, have a standard mag capacity larger than ten. The reality of the vast majority of civilian semi-automatic weapons is that what most gun-control activists deride as “high-capacity” is actually standard capacity. Once again, we are forced to conclude that ammunition capacity, whether of the firearm or the magazine, is not reasonable grounds to consider a weapon military-grade. Alright, so thus far we've discussed semi-automatic fire and ammo capacity. We've been forced to conclude that while both features make the AR-15 a capable and formidable firearm, it is not possible to use these features as the foundation for a workable definition of military-grade. The majority of civilian firearms over the last century have these features. Since such weapons are in common usage by civilians, we could not reasonably call any of them “military-grade.”  So, next up in the features we're going to discuss is caliber. Does Caliber Make a Weapon “Military-Grade”?The caliber of the typical AR-15 is .223 or, as NATO designates it using the metric system, 5.56x45mm. While there are certain specification differences between ammunition labeled as .223 and 5.56, many popular AR-15s can shoot both. So, we'll consider those differences as beyond the scope of this discussion. The definition of caliber is the size of the barrel through which the projectile travels. This means that an AR-15's barrel is in the ball bark of .223 inches, or 5.56 millimeters, in diameter.     The .223 is a bottlenecked, intermediate round. It was developed along with the first assault rifle variant of the AR-15 (later dubbed the M16). The developers had three clear goals in mind. First, to decrease weapon recoil compared to the full power cartridges used by battle rifles. Second, to increase magazine ammunition capacity and the single soldier's combat load. And third, to provide higher velocity compared to slower moving and larger rounds.  Intermediate cartridges are directly related to the development of the assault rifle class of firearm. The term assault rifle derives from the German World War II weapon Sturmgewehr 44 (literally Storm-gun, meaning a weapon to storm or assault an enemy position). The Sturmgewehr is considered the first assault rifle and utilized the first intermediate round, the 7.92x33mm Kurz.  Alright, so why did assault rifles so rapidly become the standard-issue weapons of militaries across the world? Because it bridged the gaps between three different classes of firearm: carbines, submachine guns, and battle rifles. Now, a squad of soldiers could carry only one type of firearm utilizing the same ammunition, and capable of fulfilling the roles once carried out by three different weapons. An assault rifle had the length and light-weight of a carbine, the rate-of-fire of a submachine gun, and could approach the accuracy and effective distance of a battle rifle.   So, does this allow us to use the ammunition caliber of an AR-15 as the basis for considering it military grade? Not quite. There is one small problem with this approach. An assault rifle, given its selective fire capability, meaning it has the option for automatic fire, is considered by US law a machine gun and is highly regulated (as I discussed earlier). An AR-15, to be manufactured and sold to the general public, cannot have selective fire capability. A civilian AR-15 is purely semi-automatic. Therefore, we cannot classify it as an assault rifle. In the civilian market, it is often either classified as a carbine, a modern sport rifle, or sometimes within the broader definition of varmint rifle.  It is my opinion, and the view of many firearm experts, that absent the selective-fire function, the advantages of an intermediate round are, in many ways, canceled out. Without selective-fire, an AR-15 becomes either just another carbine (in its shortened form) or a substandard battle rifle (in its full-size form). Higher ammunition capacity and compactness can be achieved using true carbines (many of which fire pistol rounds). And, better performance and lethality can be achieved with a true battle rifle (which uses larger full power cartridges). The AR-15 is the most popular civilian firearm because it's affordable and highly customizable. Most true carbines and true battle rifles are two to three times the cost. That many consider the caliber to be sub-par is reflected by the prevalence of modifying AR-15s to either use pistol ammunition or full-power ammunition. This can better match a civilian AR-15 into a civilian weapon class.  Even the military is trying to improve upon the 5.56/.223. There have been many reports over the last fifty years of the M16 failing to provide sufficient stopping power. The most famous instance was in the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993. Rangers, SEALs, and Delta Operators all reported that indigenous militia high on narcotics were able to withstand a considerable amount of direct hits before being taken out of the fight. The US Army and the US Marines have been working to develop a round to better bridge the gap between standard intermediate rounds and traditional full power rounds for years. This includes the ongoing attempt to adopt the 6.8 Remington. Many improved intermediate rounds resulting from these efforts are in use by special operation units.  Given that civilian AR-15s are using such rounds as 6.5 Grendel, 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.8 Remington, 7.62 NATO, and even .30-06 and .300 Win Mag, I could claim that civilian innovation has surpassed slow-moving military bureaucracy.  We can conclude that the AR-15, absent selective-fire, falls into the broader category of carbines and battle rifles. This conclusion, and the reality that its caliber is less efficient within those categories, makes it impossible to designate the AR-15 as military-grade based on caliber. The vast majority of carbines and virtually all battle rifles are more effective than the AR-15 in their roles. This means classifying only the AR-15 as military-grade would be to arbitrarily classify a single weapon that's arguably less effective than other similar firearms available on the civilian market. And, if we expanded the definition to include all carbines and battle rifles, we would once again cast too broad a net. We would render most civilian weapons utilized over the last hundred years as contraband.  We must conclude that caliber is not sufficient grounds to consider the AR-15 a military-grade weapon.  At this point, we still only have one firearm feature that allows for a classification of “military-grade”: full-automatic fire, a feature already under intense regulations, regulations that have proven sufficient to keep such weapons from being used to perpetrate crimes. Thus far we have discussed three features of the AR-15 rifle: semi-auto fire, ammo capacity, and caliber. In each case, I have established that each feature is common, and even sub-par, in most civilian-used firearms over the last century. We are forced to conclude that we cannot use any of these three features to classify the AR-15 as military-grade without likewise classifying most civilian-owned firearms. So, let's quickly discuss the three final features of the AR-15 that we're going to consider: light-weight construction, length, and accessories. Does Lightweight Construction Make a Weapon “Military-Grade”?The typical AR-15 uses a lightweight polymer construction. In its early military application, this allowed for several things. First, it lowered the cost of weapon manufacture. Second, it freed up weight in a soldier's basic combat load for other necessities and options, including more ammunition. Third, the polymer construction was better suited for humid climates. An interesting anecdote from the Vietnam era is the story of the M14. Their wood stocks would often crack in the early years of the Vietnam War. Despite it being arguably the best battle rifle ever made, this specific failure ended up being one of the main factors that led to their replacement by the M16. However, in the last fifty years, lightweight polymer construction has become a mainstay in the civilian market as well. Some of the most popular pistols on the market, including the Glock and S&W M&P, are predominantly constructed of polymer. Every type of firearm, including shotguns, hunting rifles, and even revolvers, can be purchased with a polymer frame. Females especially purchase and use polymer weapons for recreation and self-defense due to their lightweight. Maybe in the early days of the military's adoption of lightweight polymer weapons, an argument could be made for it being a military-grade feature. But polymer weapons have flooded the civilian market over the last fifty years and are now a typical, if not prevalent, feature in civilian firearms.  Does Length Make a Weapon “Military-Grade”?So, what about length? Unbeknownst to many outside the firearms world, length is probably the most lethal feature in a civilian firearm. Statistics estimate that the United States has averaged around 33,000 firearm-related deaths over the past decade. Two-thirds of those deaths are suicides. Of the remaining deaths, firearm-related homicides, most are perpetrated with handguns. This is because the criminal element is better served by firearms they can easily conceal, both before and after the crime.   The AR-15 is a tactical weapon. This means it can be altered significantly for different applications. While a shortened barrel and butt-stock may decrease an AR-15's effective range, it makes the weapon easier to conceal and more effective in close-quarter situations. The AR-15 can be designed or altered to be extremely short. The National Firearms Act of 1934 designates such a weapon as a Short-barreled Rifle or SBR. Anyone who purchases or creates a weapon fitted with a butt-stock that has a barrel shorter than 16 inches must register that weapon with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (the ATF). Possession of an SBR that an owner has failed to register is a felony. Moreover, no one can transport an SBR over state lines without filing proper documentation with the ATF. It should be noted that a felony firearm charge is serious business for a gun owner. If convicted, you could lose your right to bear arms permanently.  These regulations have ensured that criminals have largely been unable to use SBRs in their crimes. Most SBR owners have modified their weapons aftermarket and registered them appropriately. Mass shooters have typically used their weapons as they were when they purchased or obtained them. The notable exception is the AR pistol. Since an SBR definition requires a butt-stock, an AR-15 with its butt-stock removed is legally considered a pistol.   Such weapons have been used very rarely in active shootings. Nevertheless, there's currently an open debate about whether we should close the AR pistol “loophole” in SBR laws. But this topic is beyond our present discussion. Our focus is on whether the features of the AR-15 can allow for a designation of military-grade. The danger and lethality of easily concealed weapons factor mainly in civilian use. While the military does use the M4 Carbine with a 14.5-inch barrel, it applies it as a carbine for tactical situations and not for its ability to be concealed.   I've often argued that it would make more sense to designate weapons with barrels between 12 and 16 inches as carbines. I don't think a weapon becomes truly a functional SBR until the barrel is shorter than 12-inches. I handled M4s often in the military, and I would not confidently say that the 5.5-inch difference between an M16 and M4 makes it that much easier to conceal, even with the telescoping butt-stock.  It makes a world of difference in close quarters combat, which translates to excellent home defense usage in the civilian world. But concealability? There's no advantage at all. So, given that lethality by-way-of length is a specifically civilian application, we cannot consider it a feature that allows a designation of military-grade. Further, handguns are what law-abiding gun owners carry for self-defense and what criminals typically use to perpetrate crimes. Going singly after the AR-15 for its length options, while leaving handguns alone, would do little to deter firearm violence. And, going after handguns would once more target some of the most prevalent types of civilian-owned firearms. While the length of long guns is concerning for their lethality in criminal use, current laws already deal with that concern, and there are ongoing debates about updating those laws. Specific to the question of designating the AR-15 itself as military-grade, the options of varying lengths do not meet the threshold.  Do Accessories Make a Weapon “Military-Grade”?So, what about all the bells and whistles? There are a lot of accessories available for AR-15 style rifles. For the most part, these accessories break down into optics, grips, flashlights, and lasers.  The AR-15 is indeed one of the most versatile weapons for attachments and upgrades. It can be outfitted with various types of attachment rails, the most common of which are Picatinny rails. However, Picatinny rails and similar attachment points are general innovations in firearm technology. They are far from unique to the AR-15. When it comes to civilian firearms, Picatinny rails have become a standard form of attachment point for optics and other attachment options on most civilian firearms, including pistols, shotguns, and hunting rifles. Since most AR-15 accessories are designed to attach to Picatinny rails or similar attachment point technology, they can be attached to any weapon likewise equipped. Once more, we're talking about trying to class an AR-15 as military-grade using a feature that more or less every firearm on the civilian market could have. There Is No Single Feature That Makes an AR-15 “Military-grade”Alright, so we've been through just about every specific feature we can consider when it comes to the AR-15: semi-auto fire, ammo capacity, caliber, light-weight construction, length, and accessories. In each instance, we've had to determine that each of these features are standard across all weapon types on the civilian market. So, here's the major conclusion we are forced to find: The AR-15 cannot be considered military-grade by way of any single feature. Each major feature of the AR-15 is not only present in other common civilian firearms; they are prevalent. There is no way to classify the AR-15 as military-grade based upon any one of its features without similarly designating the vast majority of civilian firearms.  Does a Combination of Features Make a Weapon “Military-grade”?But we're not done yet. Let's discuss one last recourse for attempting to define the AR-15 as military-grade. What if we try to build a definition of “military-grade” based on a combination of the AR-15's features. After all, this is exactly what the former Federal Assault Weapons ban tried to do with its legal definition of assault weapon. As students of recent history may recall, the Federal Assault Weapons ban enacted by President Clinton took the route of combining AR-15 features to create a legal definition for an assault weapon. Listeners should note that the term assault weapon exists in legal language only. It has never been considered an actual category of firearms among enthusiasts, developers, historians, in law enforcement, or in the military. So, let's take a look at how the Federal Assault Weapons Ban defined an assault weapon and see if it aids in creating a working definition of a military-grade firearm.  The Federal Assault Weapons Ban defined a rifle as an assault weapon if it was 1) a semi-automatic rifle with 2) detachable magazines that had 3) two or more additional features from a list of five features: folding or telescoping stock, pistol grip, bayonet mount, flash hider or threaded barrel, or grenade launcher.   If we adopt the same legal definition that the FAW used for assault weapons as what constitutes a military-grade weapon, then the AR-15 clearly falls into that category. Based on our discussion so far, I'm sure it comes as no surprise when I tell you there are problems with this definition.   As we established earlier, the main aspects of an AR-15 that make it lethal are its semi-automatic capability and its detachable magazines. The additional features required in the definition of an assault weapon amount to little more than aesthetics specifically designed to target typical AR-15 style weapons. But any AR-15 can be modified to eliminate these additional features. Just Google “California Compliant Firearm” and you'll find a myriad of AR-15 designs that overcome the FAW's definition of assault weapon.  Some of these firearms are silly, look ridiculous, and many even impact their effective use to a certain point, but most of them maintain the two effective aspects of the AR-15 we've discussed: semi-automatic fire and detachable magazines. These firearms frustrate the legal definitions of assault weapons due to their alterations and would escape our attempts to classify them as military-grade if we used the same definition. But, crucially, these weapons are not truly diminished in their function. They are still functioning AR-15 style weapons that ultimately have no diminished lethal capacity.  Clearly, a definition of military-grade crafted on the assault weapon language of the FAW is essentially a hollow definition if the goal is to decrease the level of firepower available to a mass shooter. There is no escaping the facts of the AR-15's functionality: the main features that make these weapons deadly are semi-automatic fire and detachable magazines. And, as I've demonstrated, there is no way to craft a definition of military-grade using those features because they are typical in civilian use over the last century.An Insurmountable Fact  So, here's the insurmountable fact of this whole discussion: the AR-15 is little more and little else than the most popular semi-automatic firearm among numerous and plentiful civilian-style semi-automatic firearms. There is not a single feature of an AR-15 nor combination of features that can overcome that fact. No matter the moniker we attempt to apply, whether it's “military-grade” as we have entertained in this episode, “assault weapon” as the FAW tried, or the other popular definitions such as “weapon of war” or “military-style”, the features of the AR-15 itself are far from unique in the civilian world.  Abandoning All PretensesAs a final exercise, let's abandon all pretenses of weapon classification. After all, the AR-15 is indeed the weapon of choice for mass shooters. Let's entertain the idea of banning the AR-15 specifically based on that fact alone. Surely, that will have some impact, right?  Doubtful. There would still be popular and effective semi-automatic firearms on the market, like the SCAR, ACR, Steyr AUG, AK-47, FN P90, or HK MP5, only to name a few. Sure, many of these guns are far more expensive than the AR-15 and some of them are less reliable, but will something as small as a price tag dissuade a mass shooter? Not likely. Alright, so let's say we expand our ban to cover all semi-automatic firearms that are AR-15 style. Now we've made a dent, right? Once again, no. There are many, many battle rifles, carbines, and demilitarized submachine guns on the civilian market, like the M1 Garand, the M1 Carbine, the M14, and civilian variants of the HK G3, FN FAL, and Thompson Submachine Gun. Once again, these weapons are often higher in price, but many of them could actually prove to be more lethal in an active shooter situation than an AR-15, a discomforting thought when mass shooters are unlikely to be dissuaded by a higher price tag.  So, what if we at least just reintroduce the Federal Assault Weapons Ban and just beef it up by specifically banning all AR-15's, AR-15 style weapons, and any semi-auto originally designed for use by the military? Even that still wouldn't keep a mass shooter from getting his hands on a weapon with the same capabilities as an AR-15.  The Ruger Mini-14 Ranch Rifle was specifically designed as a varmint rifle, and while it has variants designed for military use, it has only seen limited law enforcement action. It is a weapon built from the ground up for use by civilians with a specific civilian application. It's the big brother of the Ruger 10/22 I mentioned earlier, the one I got when I was a kid.  Built on the same idea as that .22 rifle, it's beefed up to the .223 round the AR-15 uses. It was designed with ranchers and farmers in mind to take out varmints and critters as small as prairie dogs and as big as coyotes without having to use the much bigger and much higher velocity rounds that most hunting rifles use. The semi-automatic capability is valuable because we're talking about small fast-moving critters that are gonna run out of sight or jump in a hole before you can reload a single action weapon.   Again, this Mini-14 is designed with no military or police function in mind, and yet in some ways, it's better than the AR-15. Its design is newer, and its internal workings are far more rugged. It uses what's called a gas-piston rod, which leads to considerably fewer malfunctions than the AR-15, which utilizes direct-gas impingement. Without getting too nitty-gritty, this means that if you fire an AR-15 one-hundred times, it will likely jam, but if you fire a Mini-14 one-hundred times, it likely won't.  There Is No Neat Line of Separation Between Military and Civilian FirearmsThe reality of the firearms world is there's no neat line of separation between military and civilian firearms. Throughout the history of firearms, military and civilian innovation have coordinated and fed off of each other's developments. The idea of a weapon being specifically military-grade does not bear out with the facts. Even the restrictions on full-automatic weapons had more to do with law enforcement being outgunned by criminals in the '20s and '30s than it did with any specific “military-grade” weapon classification.  The goal of gun control activists is to push back against the growing occurrence of mass shootings. Their singular focus on firearms, and specifically on the AR-15, does not serve their goal. Mass confiscation of the majority of civilian-owned guns, removing all semi-automatic weapons, would be the minimum needed confiscation to impact the options available to a mass shooter.   Even this draconian, and likely impossible, approach would not remove the threat. The University of Texas tower shooting killed 18 and wound 31. The shooter predominantly used a bolt-action rifle. The D.C. Sniper killed 17 and wounded 10 utilizing an AR-15 variant, but not in a way that maximizes the weapons capabilities. The tactics he utilized would have led to the same results with single-action weapons, possibly with worse results utilizing a gun designed for long-range effectiveness.   Sadly, government gun control is not the sweeping solution most activists think it would be. Many have called for at least a return of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. But the Columbine Shooting took place when the FAW was in effect, killing 13 and wounding 24. The modern trend of mass shootings began during the FAW and picked up momentum despite its provisions.   What we're dealing with is a trend that parallels the dramatic increase in suicide, self-radicalization, and endemic anti-social behavior. These conditions lead to behaviors that culminate in violence and death. Removing only one of the many possible means to this inevitable end would solve very little. Crafting pseudo-definitions to justify banning or seizing firearms from law-abiding citizens is not an answer to the problem.   This Isn't “Gunsplaining” and It Isn't “Preaching to the Choir”If you've stayed with me up to this point, thanks for going down this rabbit hole with me. I've said nothing most firearm enthusiasts don't already know and, honestly, there are going to be many who just don't even see the point. In their view, anyone who, at this point, still wants increased gun regulations just isn't even worth engaging with. Conversely, there's going to be a lot of people that just roll their eyes at my “gunsplaining” and will disregard my attempts to lay out the facts. They'll wrap up this entire discussion in a “he's just a gun nut” bow and move along.  But I think it's important to keep having these kinds of discussions. First off, I refuse to give up on my fellow Americans, even if they totally disregard and disrespect my perspective. The growing instinct among many Americans to disengage with those they disagree with is a troubling trend that I refuse to take part of. And secondly, I think it's important to reassert the importance of highly relevant perspectives. A solid principle of the progressive viewpoint is the idea of “governing according to expert opinion.” There are few on the Left who would craft plumbing laws without consulting plumbing experts, electrical grid guidelines without consulting electricians, fiscal matters without consulting experts in economics, and on and on. Specific to recent events, the clarion call on the Left has been “follow the science” as they've argued to defer to the knowledge of epidemiologists and other scientists in facing the COVID-19 pandemic. And yet, there's a glaring disconnect in this typical approach to public policy when it comes to firearms. Because they “just want to do something” in the face of what they feel is a runaway epidemic of gun violence, they are latching onto policy ideas that experts and enthusiasts in the firearm industry can clearly demonstrate will have no meaningful impact, and yet these experts and enthusiasts are wholly disregarded as self-interested “rednecks” who want “big guns to compensate for their insecurities.”  Well, I hope I've demonstrated in this podcast that I'm more than just a gun nut clinging to my gun and spitting in the face of all reason. I'm hardly an expert in this topic, yet I've still presented what I feel is a very salient and persuasive argument on behalf of my perspective. I hope there a few hearts and minds out there that I've touched and, at the very least, some of you might be a little more educated about the reality of firearms.  We Either Have a Right to Bear Arms or We Don'tAt the end of the day, we either have a right to bear arms or we don't. That's what this debate always boils down to. That's the reason why so many proponents of the 2nd Amendment, like myself, refuse to compromise any further, because when the current proposals on the table fail, gun control advocates will only seek to go further. I know that sounds like a slippery slope fallacy, but it's not. A slippery slope fallacy posits a domino effect of unconnected consequences. What I'm talking about is a simple consideration of cause and effect. Gun control advocates religiously believe that violence and mass killings can be halted by tightening up the laws regulating the purchase and ownership of firearms. They will continue to advocate for increased regulations, no matter how many victories they have, until they've accomplished their goals. And if, as I argue, their proposed laws fail to accomplish their goals, the only inevitable conclusion will be an eventual assault on the very right to bear arms itself. Now, don't get me wrong, the 2nd Amendment not only says “shall not be infringed”, it also says “well-regulated”. I have never been against reasonable laws that do not violate the fundamental right to bear arms. The 2nd Amendment isn't a free-for-all, as some of my more extreme libertarian friends might view it. But what we currently have is far from a free-for-all. Not only are firearms well-regulated currently, there are many instances where they are highly regulated and several instances where the right to bear arms is indeed infringed, especially in coastal states like California and New York and, tragically, in most of America's inner-cities where the vast majority of African Americans live. Well, I better wrap this up now. This is obviously something I'm very passionate about and I could go on and on. As I said, hopefully, I've accomplished something with this deep dive. If you have any thoughts, be sure to leave a comment or reach out to me on Facebook or Twitter. Or, you can email me at JustinStapley@TheLibertyHawk.com. Oh, and be sure to give a rating of the podcast on your favorite podcast app, and please consider subscribing to the Self-Evident on Substack or Youtube. Until next time, stay free my friends. Get full access to Self-Evident at selfevident.substack.com/subscribe

It’s definitely December because holiday movies are streaming everywhere. But it feels like we’re in the middle of election season with the flurry of energy surrounding the upcoming Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs. In this week’s episode, we’re joined by one of the architects of the political transformation of the Peach State—New Georgia Project Action Fund CEO Nse Ufot. We introduce a new segment called “Don’t Get Me Started.” In this inaugural take, we sound off on the Democratic hand-wringing about the purported negative electoral impact of activist calls to defund the police. [4:26] We talk to Nse about how community organizers won Georgia for Biden, what it’s going to take to make it happen again in January, and the multiracial coalition that’s putting in the work(we also learn about Nse’s long-standing relationship with Oprah!)[14:45] References Nse Ufot - @nseufot - CEO of The New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan effort to register and civically engage Georgians. https://ngpaf.org And She Could Be Next - Documentary https://andshecouldbenext.com Emily Badger // The New York Times - How Atlanta’s Politics Overtook the Suburbs, Too https://nytimes.com/2020/12/09/upshot/atlanta-suburbs-democratic-shift.html Carlos Granda // abc7news - LA school district returns grenade launchers; keeps armored vehicle, M16s https://abc7news.com/lausd-los-angeles-unified-school-district-grenade-launchers-department-of-defense-weapons-program/314715 Rashawn Ray // Brookings - What Does Defund the Police Mean and Does It Have Merit? https://brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/06/19/what-does-defund-the-police-mean-and-does-it-have-merit Donate or Volunteer  Donate - The New Georgia Project Action Fund https://secure.actblue.com/donate/new-georgia-project-action-fund-1 Volunteer - The New Georgia Project https://mobilize.us/thenewgeorgiaproject

Tonight I will be talking to three guests. My first guest Adam is from Florida and will be sharing an encounter he had with his parents while driving. They saw a Skunk Ape on the side of the road. Many years later Adam and his brothers ran into something much worse. -- Jack writes "I am a retired U. S. Army (Rank Removed). I have had three combat deployments, including one as a commander in Iraq. Here is a synopsis of my encounter… It was the summer of 1988. I was a cadet (officer in training )through ROTC in college. I was at Ft Lewis, Washington for the summer. We were on maneuvers in the woods early in the morning. Our platoon was being trained by two Army Special Forces Non commissioned officers. We were on patrol in the middle of nowhere… probably 10 miles from the housing area of base. We had been choppers out as part of the training exercise. I still remember the name of the training event… “Adventure Challenge.” While out in the woods on patrol, we all heard something walking parallel to us. I was so dark- I could not see my hand! This thing continued walking… crunching while we walked, stopping when we stopped. Finally, our green beret instructor went out there. After about a minute, he comes running back telling us to get out of there. All we had were M16s with blanks… we were training, so no live ammo. I have more to tell if you want to hear.” -- Emily writes "My husband and I had an encounter with something large in the woods of Southern Missouri on June 2nd of this year. In the afternoon I heard a huge tree fall in the woods in the direction of the river about 5 minutes after my husband left me at the camp to walk down to the water. About 30 seconds to a minute after the crash I heard 3 tree knocks, a pause and then 3 more with the same pattern on the opposite side of the river. A couple of times we heard snorts that sounded like wild hogs but never saw anything. I had gone to the tent around 10:30pm. My husband stayed around the campfire until around midnight. He went into the road after putting out the tiki torches and fire and heard a growling. He is not one to be freaked out by noises and such but he was a little unnerved by it. He got into the tent and told me about it. We talked for a couple minutes before saying good night. Less than 5 minutes after we stopped talking we both heard rustling in the leaves from a distance, we both lifted our heads and listened intently as the footsteps came closer. We both agree the footsteps were heavy. I have hunted in the woods before and it was not a deer. I would describe the sound as walking in the woods with boots on. My initial thought was maybe this is The man we rented the camping site from messing with us and it's part of the experience, but then realized he would be stupid to do that for fear of being shot. Bigfoot never crossed my mind. I was frozen in fear! It walked directly behind our tent. Probably within 3 ft of our heads. It sounded like it walked around the campfire ring and then off into the woods toward the water. We were absolutely silent while it was in the camp. As soon as we realized it had walked away, I began shaking uncontrollably! I have never felt fear like that and have never reacted to fear that way. My husband was trying to reassure me when we heard it returning about 2 minutes later. I grabbed the key fab to our van and hit the lock button so the lights would light up and hopefully scare away whatever it was. I did that 4 times and it walked off into the woods on the other side of the road behind our tent. We heard what sounded like a fight going on between two animals in that direction and I hit the lights again a couple times and the noises stopped. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep in the tent anymore so we moved into our van for the rest of the night. I didn't look for Bigfoot signs because again Bigfoot didn't cross my mind until we got home that evening and we honestly thought it was probably a bobcat, but after looking at pictures of bobcats we both agree a bobcat wouldn't be big enough to make the sounds we heard. My husband has never been a believer in Bigfoot. I have been a believer for years but have never had an experience like this. I played several videos of animal sounds for him trying to identify the growl he heard. He said no to everything except supposed Bigfoot growl. He said that is very close to what he heard. In the same video of the growl you can hear footsteps of the creature and they sound almost identical to the steps we heard that night. We heard snorts again the next morning but could very well have been hogs. I sent a text to the owner the next morning asking if he knew what it might be. He said most likely deer...or Bigfoot! Then he listed several other animals he knew were on the property. I know none of the animals he listed could make those sounds...except Bigfoot. I haven't been able to stop thinking about this experience since it happened. A couple days after we got home I sent a text to the owner of the property and told him about the experience and asked if he had ever had any experiences and if he was serious about his Bigfoot comment. He said he was intrigued and wanted to know more so I shared our story. (I get the feeling he knows more than what he has told us) He said he did catch something on his trail cam the night of June 2nd and then directed me to his Facebook page where he had posted it. It was an orb. The time stamp says 11:11pm. 45 minutes before our encounter. I thought it was creepy! I'm convinced more than ever that it was Bigfoot that visited our camp that night. I just had to share!"

OMG wait til you listen in on this! Steve Larsen has coached... COACHED HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE INTO MILLIONAIRES HE’S THE ‘ONE FUNNEL AWAY’ COACH FOR CLICKFUNNELS DEVELOPED HIS OWN CASHFLOW-CAUSING FRAMEWORK THAT HAS WORKED IN EVERY INDUSTRY Steve Larsen: Once every three months, I ask myself five questions. And I say, How well are we generating leads? How well are we converting on those leads? How well are we delivering what they bought? The fourth question is how well are we retaining them? And then the fifth is how well are we upselling? And then off of those, that's actually what makes a lot of decisions for the following three months. To find out more about Steve check out: https://stevejlarsen.com https://offermind.com/offermind-2019 Want clarity and effective strategy for your business? Sign up for your free strategy call with me at: http://mariagudelis.com Love n light to you! Maria --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/maria-gudelis/message

Brandi Benson joins us to discuss her book, The Enemy Inside Me – A Young Soldier's Unexpected Battle With Cancer. Brandi Benson had only recently come into her new life as a Soldier in the U.S. Army when she was sent to wartime Iraq, just months after basic training. She forms a mental picture of the threats she might face, composed of M16s, hand grenades, and land mines. Her first encounter with a dangerous threat comes during an aero plane ride to a hospital in Germany and ironically propels her toward an internal battle that leaves her reeling in shock. Once a vibrant 24-year old wearing the picture of fitness and perfect health, Brandi faces a different type of war that requires new weapons: hope, faith, and strength.  This memoir is a moving, yet true account of a young Soldier's fight with cancer that begins miles away from enemy lines.  In this tear jerking story she shares her journey of her Ewing Sarcoma diagnosis during her deployment to Iraq in 2008.  Her journey is a gripping reminder that every moment is a gift and every breath is a blessing.  Listeners are welcome to dial in at 657-383-0898 to join us!

What's going on, everyone? It's Steve Larsen, and today I'm gonna share with you guys how I was able to make the transition from employee to entrepreneur boss.   I spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now, I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   Join me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best Internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.   What's up, guys?   Hey, so as I started getting ready to make the jump, I wanna talk to you guys real quick about something that was really, it was hard for me. It was challenging for me. It was my biggest fear.   One of my buddies I'm talking to, well before I left, but I told him I think I need to leave my nine to five. (You can apply this to yourself regardless of what you do, right?)   I was like, "Okay, I gotta go, I gotta go, and I gotta think about, I gotta think about how I'm gonna handle this." And he goes, "What is your biggest fear?  Is your biggest fear that you're not gonna make enough money? What is the fear?"   And I said, "No, actually, my fear is not about the revenue.  I've been a part of a lot of these funnel things now and launched enough kind of on the side while I've been here. I think I've got that part." (Not to say that I'm amazing, you know. Anyway, you get what I'm saying.)   "The part that is freaking me out the most, the part that's freaking me out the most is that I'm gonna be sitting by myself alone looking at a wall with no one to crack the whip. You know what I mean? I'm gonna be sitting there by myself in an isolated room."   In ClickFunnels environment, there's energy. There are people running around over the place. There's "Hey, let's do this" and "Let's do that."   So even if there was a day when I felt kinda tired, I don't know if I wanna do this right now. I still had other people and other processes and things and place to pull me along and to hold me accountable.   And I said the thing that was freaking me out the most when I left was that I'm not gonna have that.     I was talking to my wife about this. It was the biggest fear I have; do I have the discipline to continue to show up every day like I'm going to war?  Do I have the discipline to show up day in and day out to show up and act like, "Okay, today, the goal is to make a sale." You know what I mean?   Do I have the discipline to just do revenue-generating activities and not get distracted by things that are easier? Instead of like going in and trying to make the sale, "What's more comfy for me?" You know what I mean? You guys know what I'm talking about?   So  I just wanna share with you guys how I'm able to go in and stay structured, personally, day in and day out.   Now I'm not perfect like this, and I don't want you to think that I am. I'm not.   I really only listen to like two or three people. I listen to Russell Brunson's stuff. I learned marketing from him. I learned business structures from Alex Charfen. And I listen more about closing and what to do with cash when you have it from a lot of Grant Cardone stuff. And those are kinda my three. That's about all I listen to.   Sometimes, I listen to some Pat Flynn. Pat Flynn on Smart Passive Income. His podcast, that was one of the first shows I ever listened to that started teaching me about this world.   Anyway, so there's a few people I listen to, but really, it's just them -which gurus did they learn from, which books did they study, which courses did they go to to learn how to be where they are, right?   When I'm done diving through all their stuff, I just go the next level deeper with them. And that's kinda how I make sure I put the blinders on and not get distracted with my education. So it's been kinda cool.   So this was a serious fear of mine though, right? When I leave, how will I maintain discipline? Will I? And it's funny now that I'm thinking about it, but that was eight months ago, nine months ago, and that's kind of a weird thing to be afraid of, but not really...   And funny enough, one of the things I would teach at the funnel event, (the Funnel Hackathon Event -  FHAT) was this very thing.   Funny enough the thing that people was asking about after a while, after like the first day and a half, I've had another day and a half with them, pretty much every question turned into, "How do you keep your energy so high, Stephen? How do you stay checked in so often, Stephen? How do you... "   And I was like, "Why are you guys asking me this?" I didn't say that. But I was thinking it was like, "Why does everybody ask me that question?" It almost frustrated me.   I was like, "Well you just freakin' do it? You don't overcomplicate it - you just do it."   But it's funny because like as I started leaving, I put my foot in my mouth because I realized, "Oh my gosh, I have the same fears." As I started leaving nine to five, I was like, "Holy crap! How am I gonna do that? How am I gonna stay motivated?"   So I just want to teach you guys just a few things that I do to keep myself checked in, day in and day out. Again, I'm not always perfect at it. No, but I'm like 99% on certain aspects of it. Other parts, I'm like 50%. Other parts, I'm not so good at - and I'll get better.   There's a guy; I can't remember who it was... He was getting a Ph.D., and what he chose to study was Will. He choose to study willpower. In fact, I think I have his books somewhere over there. Anyway, I'm gonna keep going here though. Let me tell you the lesson.   Here's the lesson, what I learned from it:   He went in to study and do a Ph.D. dissertation on willpower, and what causes humans to have such high will, right? And he ended up getting like depressed about his studies by the time his study was over because he found out that basically, willpower doesn't work.   In fact, I think that's the name of the book, Willpower Doesn't Work.   He found out that willpower is a terrible thing to put your faith into. Willpower is a terrible thing for you to bank your success on. And I thought how interesting is that? He said the thing that does work though is environment.   Think about this, okay? Walk with me for a second on this...   If I go ahead and I start saying things like, "Man, I need to be better," 'cause a lot of guys say that to me when they hear my episodes. "Oh man, I need to be better. I need to be so much better. I need to be doing this. I should be doing that. I need to stop doing those things. I need to stop doing that."   The first step is recognition of what you need to change personally in order to become what you're supposed to be. So you gotta recognize it, right?   "Oh man, I'm gonna do this. Oh, look at that. I don't like this part about me. Or I do like this part. I'm gonna go change that. Or if I just did this differently my business would boom."   The problem is that you were literally basing all those decisions on your own willpower.   It's one of the major reasons why on January 1st, we all come out of the gate with this massive New Year's resolution goals-  "I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna change the world. I'm gonna be over here, and I'm gonna do that."   And by week two, we can't even name what the goal was anymore. You know what I mean?   He said, so rather than focused on will, rather than focused on willpower, you need to focus on environment. And with that in mind, that's one of the ways I've been able to keep such high intense pressure, right?   Pressure makes diamonds baby. I don't want to take pressure off me. I want good pressure, right? There's bad pressure too. I don't want bad pressure. I want good pressure. I want the pressure that creates diamonds.   I want the pressure that creates me into a better person. I want the kind of pressure that forces out the bad parts of my character. I want that kinda pressure in my business, in my personal life. That's good pressure. But if I just use willpower on it, eventually, it's gonna get really uncomfortable for me.   I'm the source of the willpower. It's not sustainable. What's sustainable is environment. Willpower, you gotta get rid of that crap after a while. It's a good kickstart, but it's habits and environment that'll help you win.   And that's what the guys was saying in his study. It has everything to do with environment.   And so there is a specific place, physically, that I need to be in when it's time to work out.   There's a specific place, physically, that I need to be in when I'm gonna sleep.   It's the reason why I don't do study, and I don't do work in bed, right?   I know lots of you guys would just roll over and grab the laptop and start right there. I'm not trying to do that. I'm trying to isolate.   There are certain environments where certain things happen that they should not happen in other places. It's part of the way that I've been able to structure this stuff. Environment plays a huge role.   When I walk into my office door right there, I can't explain it, I don't know what it is, but I'm on. I'm ready. And it's because of training myself that way; this is my environment to produce. This is my environment to go to war. This is my environment to be a killer, right? It's my environment. I've trained myself that way.   I don't sleep in here, I eat in here a lot (if I remember to). But I make sure that there is a specific environment for the core activities of my life.   Down right below, I'm in the second floor of our house right now, literally right below me is my gym - in the third car garage of our gym. The third car spot bay is a home gym that I built.   It's so funny like how well this has worked. When I walk out there, and I put my feet on that mat -I got that thick hard gym mat, and I got a full weight set. All the dumbbells, the bench press, it's a full setup. Got a squat rack, all of it.   I got that dummy Poverty. You guys have seen him. I brought him on here a couple of times and different places.   Willpower is no longer what I'm betting on in order to work out. I've already done 80% of the work which is just to show up and do what that environment is conducive of. Work out, right?   A lot of guys have asked me like, "Stephen, how do you come up with your podcast ideas?" I set up this screen, I got two lights right here and I got this camera on this tripod. And sometimes, it's when I'm sitting down with this setup ready, and I'm standing in front of the camera and I pace.   I will pace back and forth, and I was kinda going like this, "Okay, what it is that the community needs? What is it that they've been asking? What's something that I can share and be valuable?" I'm kinda going back and forth...   I don't wait to set this stuff up. I don't wait to have all of my ideas in place to set up my equipment. I just set up my equipment. And now, I'm in the environment and the flow starts. Does that make sense? This is one of the biggest things I could tell you.   If your spouse is like, "Hey, why don't you come work on the couch while there's a movie going?" Very few people can sit there and actually be productive, I mean truly - without watching the movie. Very few. It's because that's not the environment it was meant for.   Now, when all we have is a couch, and I didn't have a specific office, (technically, this is a bedroom - it's a big one though), there was literally the same seat or two in our couch that I would sit. It's the same seat. And it was a certain time.   It was about 5:30 in the morning, I'd get up. And if I wasn't gonna bike in and be in the office at 6 AM, I sat right there 'til about 8:30 and I just work on my own funnels. That was my environment.   Here's another one. Something I said I'd do, I tried desperately hard, I'm still not amazing at this. Like last night, my flight came in at like 2 AM. It's ridiculous by the time I get to sleep...   Anyway, I was flying like crazy over the weekend. So I'm so tired my voice is kinda shot, so I'm so sorry.   But anyway, I don't set my phone as the major alarm clock anymore as much as I can. In hotels, sometimes I can't help this. But I set my phone, if it's the alarm clock, I set it across the room. Because willpower, when I'm tired, does not work. The alarm goes off, and I wouldn't even think about it...   There have been times where I've snoozed like four times before I've consciously remembered, "Oh my gosh, I set my alarm for this time because I had to get this thing done." You know what I mean?   I don't wanna bank on willpower. I'm gonna bank on environment. And so I set that clock across the room.   Now I have a specific $7 alarm clock that's really freaking annoying. You know, beep-beep-beep. Like I hate that thing. Oh my gosh. But I set it up across the room, sometimes in another room to get up and start moving, get that blood pumping.   Sometimes, I just stand there, like, "Why am I awake again? Oh yeah, 'cause I gotta do this, this, this." Does that make sense?   Environment. Huge, huge, huge, massive accelerant right there.   If you can start to control the environment and the things that you do in those environments, massive, massive, accelerant.   Sometimes, one of the issues that I found is that people will try to relax in the same environment that they work in. That's very hard for me to do. 'Cause when I'm here, I'm going to war. That's what my mentality of it. I'm here to conquer. I'm here to dominate. I'm here to get filthy freaking rich and then give it all away when I die to charities. You know what I mean?   Like that's it. That's what I'm doing. Solving legitimate massive problems, right? Provide a huge incredible value. Get rich, and solve huge humanitarian issues. That's my goal guys. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing. That's why I'm doing all these stuff. I really want that, okay?   But I can't be in a relaxing environment in the same environment where I am trying to do that. Where I'm pacing around - and I've got Vitamin C caffeine running through my veins - I've got dubstep step music going through my headphones, and I'm in front of my whiteboard trying to solve something. That's hard for the human brain to do. So I just separate environments.   That's one of the major answers to the question, "Stephen, how do stay so productive?" It's because I dedicated certain spots to do certain things and not do certain things. You understand? Massive help. Massive help.   I cannot do all of my relaxing things in the same place I'm doing my work, intense things.   I'm not going to eat my meals on the gym mat where I work out. You know what I mean? Like, no, that's crazy. Well, like, shoot, there are certain places we eat meals. Kitchen table, right? The countertop, whatever. And that's usually where it happens. We do that with the way we eat, we do that with the way we sleep, do that with the way you work. Do that with the way that you take care of yourself, your self-care.   Anyway, so that's one of the first answers, I would say. You guys start controlling your environment.   If you feel like, "I've been doing this stuff so long with no traction." It's probably 'cause of your habits. It's probably where you're trying to be successful and control your environment, 'cause willpower doesn't work. It's all about environment. That's the first thing I would say.   The second thing I would say is that I am not very good at time. I'm just not. I'm not good with time. And so one of the tricks that I noticed...   I was doing some trial runs to see if I could handle having a lot of discipline at home. I remember a Christmas time right before I left ClickFunnels. It was either Christmas or Thanksgiving, right before I left my nine to five...   I was like, "Let's do a trial run." Do I have the discipline to produce for like nine straight hours? I'm not gonna take a freaking lunch break - that's stupid. I could eat while I work. So I'm gonna get up and let's just act like a normal nine to five, or eight to five. Really, it's nine to six. That's about how long, but nine to six. And no breaks.   I don't really get up. I get up to go to the bathroom, get water, food, but I eat it all right back here and I just stay at it.   I don't know how you guys take lunch breaks. Somebody gets you to, let's go to lunch. Like, no "No, I'm not gonna go to lunch." Anyway, side rant right there. But I'm not gonna go to lunch.   Anyway, it's funny how many people ask, "Let me buy lunch." Like what if you bought it through Uber Eats and sent it to my house? I'm cool with that. Anyway, I'm not gonna go to lunch with you. Why would I waste two hours? Not that it's a waste, but it is for me. You know what I'm saying?   Like, in that environment, I'm in the zone. You know what I mean? When 9 AM hits, I'm ready to rock - hopefully, earlier than that. But anyway, so the first thing: environment - 'cause environment is the thing that does work.   The second thing though is while I was doing that trial run on, I think it's during the Thanksgiving break, so I didn't have work anyways. But I was like, "Let me do it here and see if it actually works out." Here's what's interesting about that...   Because I did not have, I didn't need to be in the chair, I didn't need to be behind the computer, the work always has to be behind the computer, but whatever the work is because I didn't have a certain time, there's nobody else I was accountable to...   The first two days, I was really good at coming in at like 9 AM. I was really good at coming in. Then it was like 9:15. And then like 9:20, and then 9:30, and then 9:40, right?   And then I would end the day as disciplined either.   When I was at ClickFunnels, I'd work about until six, have dinner with the family then I come back, stop at 10, so I can get up early. I'll stop at 11, I'll stop at 12. No, let's just push to 2. You know what I mean?   Like the schedule thing, I suck at time management. I do, and I'll admit it. I'm not ashamed at that. But a business can't run like that...   So this is one of the tricks that I've used a lot. I have used many times. I actually used to use this in college. I hated doing early morning classes, but I noticed that when I started my classes at about 10 o'clock in the morning, I would do almost nothing from the time I got up to the time my class happens at 10 o'clock. And it was like that for a whole semester.   I was like, "Huh, what if I chose to do 7:45 AM classes every morning? Let's see what happens. Let's check it out."   It was a little more painful sometimes, especially when I was like little late on an assignment, or not late but like pushing up to the edge, which is pretty much every assignment.   So I would get up at seven and just haul. Just push, just go super fast to campus. Go flying into class. But I noticed that when class was over at 8:45, I would make fantastic use of the time since I was already up. I was already awake. I was already doing stuff.   But on the days when I didn't have class until nine, I would just sleep in a little more. I wouldn't do anything else with the day. And so one of the things that have been really, really powerful for me, is I set appointments early in the day every day.   If I don't have an appointment, I make sure that I have a sense of accountability to something or someone. And now I'm practiced at it.   You guys know I was in the army for a while, right? I went and enlisted, and when I was done, I came out as an officer. And I remember when I went to basic training, there some guy who was 15 seconds late to this formation that we were doing And he didn't have all those crap with him.   We were doing something. I can't remember what it was. We hold our M16s with us. We had our weapons and shooting range or something like that, and we're gonna go on like six days or something...   Anyway, the dude didn't have all these crap together. And so the drill sergeant put everybody in a front leaning rest position. He just goes, "Attention! Front leaning position, move."   Then what you do is you just hold the push up position. That's it, with all of your gear on. And you put your M16 across the top of your hands. You have two liters of water on you, 40 pounds in your pocket, and you just hold the push up position.   We held that thing forever, while we waited for the dude to pack in front of the rest of the platoon. We just sat there. Hands shaking, you start freaking out. You try to self-talk, like "Yeah, you got this."   What they teach is that if you are the weak link, if you do not show up on time, if you cannot get your crap done, you actually are making the rest of team suffer.   They would not make the guy was late. They would not make the guy who was not packed. They would not make the guy who was late on the run get punished. They would make everybody else get punished for his mistake.   There's some psycho-ness to that if you think about it. But there's a really powerful crap behind it too. And it's the state that I try and stay in.   I got a little bit of a team now. I got like six VAs on my content team. I got other team members that I'm starting to look out for and grab as well. And if I don't have my crap together, if I can't get my butt in the chair at the right time I'm supposed to, if I can't get the stuff to the people that I need to, I literally am making the rest of the team unable to be successful in what I've asked them to do. I literally set up my team for failure if I do that.   That's not fair - that's not fair to them. It's not fair to what I'm trying to get done. And it's because of me; it's on me. You understand?   And so one of the things that's super, super helpful if you have a hard time getting where you need to be, just set appointments. Be active, have appointments.   There have been times where I've set appointments with people for the sake of having the appointment. That's it. Just getting up, just being where you need to be. The body and mind can handle far more than you think it can.   And so when I sit down and I'm like, "Oh man, I really don't wanna do this thing. I really don't wanna do that. I feel a little bit lazy. Let me just relax tonight..."   I'm not saying I don't relax. I really have been a lot, actually. It's been really cool. I've been really level-minded lately. I've been doing a lot of meditating, which have been very helpful also. Using that muse headband thing, it's been super helpful. Maybe we'll toss the link out to that somewhere. But that's been really, really helpful for me...   But what's been cool is by strategically just having a full, having a calendar where I'm accountable and responsible to somebody at a certain time in the morning.   I don't wanna feel like an idiot, and so I get my crap together, and I do it. Does that make sense?   So you can use, like, if you know you're like, "Hey Stephen, I'm really bad a time management too." Great, that's fine - you have two options:   #1: Get really good at time management - that could take a long time.   #2: If you're one of the people who's like, "I don't wanna feel like I'm an idiot or I don't wanna feel like I'm letting somebody down..." Man, use that fear to your advantage.   Start setting up things in your life to create barriers, to create constraints.   I get up, I exercise in the morning, most of the time, and I was traveling. That's why I got back super late. Holy crap. So I don't know. But my normal day, I get up, I go, and I lift really, really hard...   There's a future date that I'm preparing for, even though it's not for another four or five months, I don't wanna look like an idiot at it. That's one of the motivating factors I have for me for working out every day.  I remind myself of that. I really don't wanna be late today. I don't like to be a freaking idiot at this thing that is coming up. (I'll tell you guys what it is when we move on, but that's what I'm doing.)   I've been working my face off. I work the entire weekend, no breaks, working straight for 21 straight days. You know what I mean? I could take a break. You know what though? We got people coming over, we got this, or I got an interview.   That's why I have interviews at Tuesdays at 9 AM. I do another people's shows. It's mostly for me to get my butt in the seat.   So I'm giving you several things, several tools that work with here. Because funny enough, if you just...   More than half of success is just showing up. I know I'm gonna dominate what I'm going for because most people are too afraid to even show up. If I'm just here, then I'm the only option for people to consume.   If I'm just here, and I have my products out there, I'm the only option for people to buy when they wanna buy something. Does that make sense?   The game is really easy now. The game's super easy now. It's really easy to dominate a space. The incredible, ridiculous lack of discipline in society now mixed with such an abundance of education, of knowledge.   YouTube, and Google, and I can find out the answer to anything I want, pretty much, just by freaking searching it; if you couple that with this extreme lack of discipline...   Man, like, I want everyone to change. I want everyone to be like killing it, but if they're not willing to, it's like all easier for me to just go dominate a marketplace, right?   So I'm trying to give you guys a few different tools to understand how I do what I do. To show up, just be there. Just get in the freaking seat, right?   #1: willpower doesn't work.   #2: Set things early in your day for the sake of being where you need to be.   #3: You have got to have a full schedule.   That doesn't always mean like you're hanging out with other people and you're like, "Hey, I'm gonna do this or I'm gonna do that or whatever." But I pack my day.   Entrepreneurs are not very good at judging how much time it takes to get something done, right? We're not. But I would rather expect and run like crazy to get this list of crap done and get like 70% of it done than just be realistic and try and do this one thing today. You know what I mean?   I wanna stay hungry. I'm trying to stay hungry. Pack the day. Idle time, that's bad. That's bad. Pack the day. Have a ton of crap going on. Keep a full schedule. That's one of the ways that I push so hard as well.   There's stuff I've agreed to. I'm not totally sure yet how I'm gonna fulfill on it, but one thing I've noticed is that every time I take on stuff like that, I personally have to grow in order to match the opportunity I've been given. If I just push hard at it, I never know the answer ahead of time, but I always find it in the middle of looking. Meaning, I have to actually be walking then I find the answers on how to get something done. Huge lesson to that.   Some of you guys are religious. I'm religious. Moses and the red sea, baby. That thing did not start splitting until he was walking in the freaking water, right? Go back and look at it. He didn't split that thing and then wait for it to go. The dude got wet before it moved, right? It's the same thing.   You got to be willing to get uncomfortable in order for your goals to happen. There's a level of personal fulfillment required, right? The level you develop will be at the level of your success on the other side as well.     I'm trying to share with you guys little tiny things I've done to help make sure I've been successful along the way.   I am terrible at some things in my life. And that's cool. Whatever. Everybody is, right? But rather than be like, "Oh, I'm so crappy at this or this... let me just take this whip and just whip myself all the time. I suck at this. Time management, you piece of crap. You got me bad. I can't do what I want to in life..."   Instead, I call out my own crap.   I figure out exactly what I can craft around my life to create a positive constraint. Positive constraint. Positive constraint. Not all constraints are bad.   And when you're willing to submit to something like that, you learn the discipline to actually execute on those things.   That's why I'm doing what I am. That's why I can do what I can.   So again, just to recap real quick.   #1: Willpower doesn't work. It's all about setting up good environments. These are very simple things that I've done.   #2:  If you have a hard being in places you're supposed to be, set appointments just for the sake of getting there. That has helped me tremendously. I've used that multiple times. Multiple times.   On Tuesday, I have to be somewhere at nine. On all Fridays, I have to be somewhere at nine. Thursdays, not yet, but my discipline's really good. I've been a lot better at that stuff now.   So anyways, I work my face off when I finally get there. So instead, what if I just work on getting there? Mondays, there's a place I have to be right at nine.   Wednesdays, I can't remember. But I think it's kinda like flex time. Anyway, right?   So again, willpower doesn't work. It's all about environment. Number two, you have got to set up things to get you where you're supposed to be even just for the sake of being there because more than half of success is just showing freaking up. Because no one else is gonna do it. Not many people do it.   When you're the only option, guess what? You get paid.   #3: You gotta stay busy. You gotta pack that schedule, you gotta keep it busy, you gotta stay full and be productive.   I would rather make mistakes of ambition rather than mistakes of sloth. I am not a man to make mistakes of sloth. I will not be that character.   There have been so many freaking things that have not worked out that I've launched. Who the freak cares? I don't care. Because I've been in the act of just being in motion. Just being in motion causes amazing productivity, causes ideas to come.   Some people are like, "Stephen, how are you gonna ever run podcast materials? Stephen, how did you come up with that idea? Stephen, what books can I go read to learn, offer creation like you have?"   Man, I don't know. Those are things that I've learned while in the act of doing them. Some things you can't learn from a book.   So anyways, just know that those are three of the things that I do to stay productive.   My fear of, "Am I gonna have the discipline to stay hungry when we make that first six figures?”  -Which came really quick, same with the second one.     Last month was really awesome. Am I ever gonna sit back and go, "You know what... we did really good." That is the scariest mentality. Oh my gosh. I am fighting complacency. I'm doing everything I can to not get complacent.   I can find great funnel builders. I can find great copywriters. I can find and train good marketers. I can find and train. You can learn how to do a lot of this stuff. I can teach you how to do a lot of stuff.  The thing that nobody can teach you that you have got to get serious about is hunger. How can you stay hungry? It's challenging at first, and you're not gonna find the answer. You might try like this little tweak here, that little trick there. It might take you some time to figure your own system. But if you are not hungry, I can't have you, alright? If you're not hungry, it doesn't matter what I try to teach you.   If you're not hungry, I mean, like. "backed against a wall, you're gonna figure out a way" hungry. If you can't do that, it doesn't matter what you're trying to do. You're not gonna make it. That's why I'm trying to do this episode.   I've had the shocking amount of people reach out and be like, "How do you keep the mentality you do?" I was like, "Well, I just make sure I stay hungry. I just make sure I stay hungry."   I could pay myself a lot more right now, but I'm scared to do so. I kinda want to double or triple how much I pay myself for now, but like I'm nervous because I wanna make sure that I'm hungry. Will I maintain that hunger?   I don't have mechanisms in place yet to maintain that next level of responsibility. That's what I'm thinking about. I'm like, "Crap. I don't know that I can stay hungry?" That's more important to me.   There was a product that I was being offered percentage of. And I said 'no' to it. And it shocked a lot of people. Like why would you say no to that? And I said that because (I don't think I actually would have), but my fear of not staying hungry is so strong. It's got me everything. It's the reason why I've done what I have. I'm hungry.   My fear of not being hungry outweighs my fear of I don't know what to say in this podcast episode.   My fear of becoming complacent, my fear of that vastly outweighs my fear of I've never done a webinar before, and I've never written a script before, and I've never... Scary, right?   My fear of oh man, I've never introduced Russell on stage; that pales in comparison to my fear of becoming complacent.   And I'm begging you to not become complacent.   If you've gotten squishy and fussy and you've gotten too nice a life - you gotta get uncomfortable. You gotta get uncomfortable. I try and do something that freaks me out as regularly as possible.   There's a really good quote that I've heard. It's from David Goggins... He said the worst thing that can happen to a man is for him to become civilized. And I kind of believe that. I'm not here to be comfy You know what I mean?   It is not an easy task to create a freaking blue ocean. You're like, "Stephen, I got this great product, and I got this great offer around it, and I got this great marketing message around it. And I got this great thing around it, but I just don't know, like I'm really nervous..."   If you're not willing to become the character you're not gonna give birth to a blue ocean.   Be willing to be uncomfortable. That's part of the price. Funny enough though, it's really not that freaking scary once you do it. It's just like riding a bike for the first time or the first time I was driving shift, driving stick in a highway. You know what I mean?   It's like learning to walk. Like anything else, just downplay it, cause you should. 'Cause it's not as scary as you think it might be.   Anyways, it was a long episode. But I just want you guys to know a little bit more about how I do what I do and the mentality that I'm trying to stay in at all times.   #I'm trying to stay hungry.   # I'm trying to say yes to things that I should say yes to.   # I'm trying to create positive constraint in my life. I   # I'm trying to make sure that what I'm doing with my personal discipline is on purpose. There's intention behind it. That it actually is counteracting and adhering to my personal defects, my character defects.   I have character flaws; everybody does. But sometimes, people use that as a crutch to not do stuff. You should use that as a crutch to do stuff. Just create things around it. Create positive constraints and craft success environments, right?   Some people, they might look at celebrities on TV and be like, man, they're so lucky. "They're so lucky." Did you sit on your freaking couch for years doing nothing with your life? You know what I mean?   Are you are comparing where you are to that person? How much discipline does that person have that you don't? I beg you to learn discipline. I beg you to get it. I'm not perfect at it. I'm really not. But I'm trying.   Those are some of the tricks I've used in my personal life to maintain speed, right? And now that a lot of the speed with the business has been set up, I have this massive realization...   I was at Alex Charfen's event last week. I realized that I have done so much, sprinting and running and setting systems and processes and marketing and revenue and pulling stuff up in the business setting,  that I've been neglecting my own needs on a few things. So I'm gonna go start leasing those things back in.   There's no such thing as perfect balance. I believe in obsession.   So before I keep going on the soapbox, it's been a long episode...   Those are some of my tricks guys. I hope you guys enjoyed it.   If you guys like this podcast episode, please go rate and review it on iTunes or YouTube. That actually means a lot to me and helps the show a ton. And thanks so much.   Bye guys. Oh, yeah. Obviously, our funnel's already dead if you can't even get anyone opt in, right? So I spent four hours teaching an audience how to get high opt-ins when they work, when they don't work.   If you want access to that member's area, we can watch those replays. Just go to freeoptincourse.com to create your free member's account now.

WHY I get so excited for Funnel Hacking Live... Hey, what's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Oh yeah. I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine-to-five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business. The real question is, "How will I do it without VC funding or debt? Completely from scratch?" This podcast is here to give you the answer. Join me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels. My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. What's up guys? I am so freaking excited for Funnel Hacking LIVE. It is coming up. Just to be clear, I've had a lot of people reach out and say, "Oh, Steve, now that you're leaving ClickFunnels, are you gonna keep podcasting and publishing and doing their podcast?" Please understand that this is my own show and it's not affiliated at all with ClickFunnels. I just happen to be a ridiculous fanboy of everyone over there, what they do. They're changing the world, and so that's why I talk about it so much. Also, besides the fact that I've worked there. It's just a lot of part of my history, and I have massive, ridiculous respect and love for Russell and what he does. And, frankly, when you've made the kind of money he has, he obviously very easily could kind of drift off into the night, and he doesn't choose to do that. He decides to continue to go out and change stuff. So, anyways, I'm excited for Funnel Hacking LIVE. If you are not going, please find a way to get there, okay? I'm not being paid to say that. I am trying to help you understand and get to the spot that changed my life. It changed my life for me when I got there, and it was amazing. It changed everything. To be around the right people, to be around the right information, to be around the most cutting-edge stuff ... Anyways, there's my pitch for you. Hey, I have for the last several episodes been teasing you guys with this idea that I've got something special for you who are coming, and I do. I'm sure we're gonna meet anyways, but I really want to meet you guys if you're listening to this, okay? And so, I've got something special for you. I went out and I grabbed these sweet little flash drives and these flash drives ... What I'm gonna put on them is pretty incredible. I have been going out ... And if you haven't been noticing, I've been building a bunch of funnels live lately. It's been a lot of fun. I've built, maybe, nine of them and each one of them is about five hours long. I build them from scratch and I record myself doing it, and I do it in front of a live audience. And I've been doing that for the last, I don't know, four months, five months, something like that. And it's been fun. I've really, really enjoyed going through and doing that. It's a ton of work, oh my gosh. But I teach for the first fourth, the first third, something like that, and then I build from the ground up and everyone asks questions while I go. So it's extremely in-depth. Every single thing I place on there is on purpose. Everything has a purpose, and it's all part of the strategy. Anyways, I hope if you've been able to watch those, it's been kind of awesome... Well, when ... It's probably, like, what, three years ago? I built this funnel. It was probably the fourth or fifth funnel I'd ever built. The first funnel I'd ever built was, I told you guys, it was a smartphone insurance funnel. It went well. It was kind of a break-even business. If I had known more at that time, I would've kept it going and sold something more expensive on the back end because we were getting customers. Break even, which is awesome. That was our first funnel, first attempt, which is pretty cool when you think about it. It's awesome. But, shortly after I started building all these funnels for all these other companies. I was ... A lot of you guys know, I am actually just barely leaving the Army right now. Paperwork in the government takes a long time to do what it's supposed to, I guess, and get the final signature. I don't know what it does. It must just sit somewhere and have a four or five month timer on it, and then someone walks up, signs the last thing, and hands it back. I don't know, but everything's out of my hands. I'm in the middle of leaving the Army right now. As soon as the last signature happens, I am completely out of the military. Anyways, so I enlisted first, and I went through basic training and I loved it. It was hard. It wasn't impossible, though. I was actually hoping it'd be a little bit harder, but there were some challenging moments. There was some challenging aspects to it. I didn't eat that much. I still actually slept pretty well for the most part. We didn't really eat, though, that much, which was ... I lost 15 pounds, and I went in weighing, like, 170. I was really skinny when I came out of basic. It was crazy. So that part was challenging, and there were some challenging aspects along the way. So I get out, and I was officially in the military at that time, and when I get in college and start building these funnels, build the smartphone insurance funnel, build all these other things. And what ends up happening is ... I was in a program called ROTC, and I became an officer when I graduated. However, we wanted to put on a fundraiser. We wanted to put on a mud run. So what we did, was we put together this track. It was a 5K mud run, you know what I mean? Like, there was mud everywhere, obstacle courses all over the place. We had cool fire pits you had to jump over. We had spots where ... We made it military style, you know what I mean? You ran with M16s through all the stuff while we had simulated explosions going on around them. It was really, really cool. And we put this awesome course together and they're like, "Hey, how are we gonna get people?" I was like, "I've got it. I've been learning about this thing called ClickFunnels. I know none of you know what it is. I'm gonna go build it, I'll be right back." And I spent probably 40 hours. I didn't totally know what I was doing at the time. I was just kind of figuring it out as I went, and I was talking to Support pretty much every single day. A couple times, actually. I became "that guy," you know what I mean, to Support, probably. Which is fine. I was learning. And I went through and I was building all this stuff and I put together this event funnel. And it was the first time I ever did anything like that. Well, from that event funnel, I went out and we started promoting it, and we got it on the news. We got it in newspapers. We got it on our school ... And we went, basically, the equivalent of what a Dream 100 would be. We ended up getting 650 people to my first time ever building a live event funnel. 650 people to a live event. We ended up raising ... We collected $7,000. We raffled off an AR-15. If you don't know what that is, it's like an M16, but the civilian version. And we went out and we raised all this money and donated it to the Fisher House Foundation. Which, the Fisher House Foundation is the ... It's pretty awesome. When a soldier gets wounded and they get flown to a hospital, the Fisher House Foundation funds the expenses for the family to fly out to whatever hospital the soldier is being taken care of in. So they can actually go see their loved ones while they're in the hospital getting better. So we were able to make a good donation there, which is awesome. It was a really, really cool experience. So, it's very fascinating, though, because very shortly after that funnel ... No joke, meaning, the event happened ... A lot of people don't know this. The event happened and the next week I was at my first Funnel Hacking LIVE event. When I bootstrapped my way to that event. That was all literally a week after we ran that mud run, which was the funnel that I built to get people to it. I was like, "This is working. Holy crap!" And I was building it for other people. And I was like, "What if I did this for this event and it worked?" And we ended up straight cash, and I bootstrapped my way building more funnels for other businesses to get to that Funnel Hacking LIVE event. Well, lo and behold when I got hired, time came for Funnel Hacking LIVE again, 2017. And I had the complete, ridiculous, insane honor of helping build, obviously, like every other funnel that I was there for ... Helping build the funnel for Funnel Hacking LIVE 2017. Guess what? Same process, okay? I literally funnel hacked, basically, Russell's 2015 event funnel for my mud run funnel, and then I went through, and I was at the 2016 one. And when the 2017 event came along, I was like, "Sweet. We're gonna build this funnel." And guess what? Obviously, the page looked different. Obviously there was better sales copy than I ever wrote, that first time I ever built that mud run event funnel, that 5K ... We called it the 5K Warrior Mud Run. Obviously, it was to a higher quality, but it was the same funnel. And I went through, and I was like, "This is so sweet. Holy crap!" And I went through and I got the extreme, ridiculous honor of building this thing and putting it altogether for the 2017 Funnel Hacking LIVE. Well, I am extremely ecstatic. In just a few weeks here, like, one week to be exact. I get the honor of going again to Funnel Hacking LIVE and meeting those of you guys who are also coming, and guess what I want to give you? I went through, and I've been building these funnels live. Let me go full circle with this, okay? You're like, "Man, Steve, you're going all over the place." Just follow me for a second, okay? I've been building ... When I left working there, which crushed my insides. I just felt like it's something I had to do. It crushed my insides when I left that job. I was like, "I've gotta go put in stone a lot of these very specific lessons and tactics and tricks that are very funnel-specific. I've gotta go put those down in stone." So that's why I've been building live a lot of funnels. There's been a group of about 40-50 people that have been joining me for the majority of these funnel builds for the last five months, and I have the recordings of all of them. I have the share funnels. I have the email sequences. I have how it works in each industry. I have other ridiculous stuff that I put inside of it... And my plan is to sell those ... A lot of people have asked me, "What are you doing with these, Steven?" Well, number one, I've been putting them in my product for my webinar. A lot of you guys have been going out and buying that product just so you can get the funnels, which is awesome. There's like, eight, of those recordings in there. Almost literally every single one of them's in that product... But a lot of you guys, though ... Like, the ones that ... There are others that I've been obviously not including that did not apply to the product that I've been selling. So, anyways, my plan is to be able to give you some of those funnels, as well as the five hour recording of me, first of all training you on that funnel. When to use it, when not to use it, the order in which to use it, the best scenarios to use it in. And then me actually building it. But then also, the share funnel itself. The email sequences with it. The pdf map that shows you how the whole thing works from a top level view, 50,000-foot view. And I want to give the event funnel to you. Now, obviously it's not the Funnel Hacking LIVE event funnel; however, it is the same funnel. Does that make sense? I went through and I built it ... I don't know when that was. It was recent, and that was one of my favorite ones ever. I want to give it to you guys for free. It's my future plan, though, to sell them individually anywhere for $400-$500 a piece because they're freaking awesome and they're worth more than that. I don't start building funnels for somebody until the $50,000-$100,000 range with royalties in the back. They're definitely worth $500, okay? Anyways, I want to make them $1,000 each, but I wanted to make them more available. So, it's the training, it's the funnel, it's the email sequences/other sequences that come along with it. It's the pdf map, and it's when I went and did a full training on the event funnel itself. It's like five hours. It's a live Q and A in front of a huge group, which is awesome. Anyways, so I wanted to give that to you. I'm gonna put that on the flash drives, and I've got like 60-70 flash drives, and it says Steve Larsen on them. And I want to be able to give them to you, though, at the event. Here's what I'm asking for in return. Yes, I am a marketer, so what I'm gonna ask is that when you come up to me, you say a little magic phrase so that I know that you are one of the people who are listening to this show. And here's what I ask from you. That we take a picture together, and you post it on your Facebook profile. That's it. Say, "Hey, I'm with this good looking champ right here," of whatever. Does that sound good? That's all I'm asking for in return. This is me pitching. Sounds good? I told a story to break and rebuild your belief about the importance of an event funnel and what it can do. And then what I do, is now this is me putting the offer out. Sound good? And what I'm doing, is this is call to action. You're gonna walk up to me, and this is what you're gonna say. First of all I'm gonna say it. Actually, you know what? I'm not gonna say it. I need to tell a story to help explain it. So what I'm gonna do, is ... When I was in the Army in basic training, I went in the middle of winter. And winter was rough, guys. Winter was rough. It was a stupid decision to go to basic training in the winter because the drill sergeants totally took advantage of it. There were ice storms all the time, and just out of a mental toughening factor, they'd leave us out in the ice storms in shorts and a t-shirt for hours. And you'd just be sitting there at the position of attention, which means you can't move. The only thing you can do is move your eyes, but even then you're just supposed to look straight forward. So you're staying completely still, just freezing your butt off, and there's these ice storms going off. And you're just, "Ah!" And one day, we were practicing taking over areas. Like, "How do we enter in an area and take over that position?" There's 200 of us. Can you imagine handing over a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds M16s? There's gonna be some coordination. There's gonna be a plan. So we were practicing taking over, and I was significantly older than most of the rest of the people there. I was in college. That made me very different. I was married. That made me very different. I had a kid. That made me very different. I was a very different scenario. I was running side businesses. That made me very different. I was a very different kid than the person that was already there. But anyways, we were practicing taking over these areas, and we get to this field, and the field is flooded. It had been raining/ice falling. Not snowing, it was either ice or rain. It was sleeting for the last several days. And I went and they were like, "Hey, we're gonna practice taking over these areas." And we were kind of walking through the scenario, so it wasn't run at full speed. We're all doing it half-speed. And they're like, "Okay, Larsen. You're gonna run out here, and you and this guy, you're gonna dive on the ground and you're gonna interlock your feet. And you wiggle your foot, and that's how you would talk back and forth to each other. So you don't have to actually speak with your mouth. Your feet are interlocked. Just one of the foots of the guy next to you. Does that make sense? So I went out and I go out there and they're like, "Okay, get down right here." And where they pointed was this, probably, like, six inches of water. It was a lot of water. It was a full out puddle, and the drill sergeant knew that, and they were smiling at me. And they wanted to make it crappy, and I was like, "Okay." And if you've ever seen the movie Unbroken, this is nothing like that intensity, but please understand that's what I was trying to do. I was trying to say, "Alright. Bring it. I can take it." So I laid down, and what happens when you get in cold ... It's 33 degrees outside. It was not quite cold enough yet to freeze, but it was so cold that ... It was almost ice. Guys, I'm laying in six inches of water, 33 degrees. Freezing. Massive wind coming in. Nonstop wind. And I'm laying in water. It's now almost completely covering my entire body, and I'm laying in it completely still in the prone holding my weapon with our feet interlocked. And my first thought was, "Oh my gosh." What happens when you get in water that's that cold ... If anyone's ever taken an ice bath before or if you've ever had the luxury of Russell throwing you in the middle of his Cryosauna, your body starts to shake. And what's happening is, when you start shaking, the capillaries are cinching up and the blood is sucking out of your capillaries and rushing to your organs. And that shaking feeling is kind of your body trying to get warm, but also after a while your body just kind of sucks the blood out of it. That's why your fingers start to turn a little bit blue, it's because the blood's taking out of your extremities towards your organs to keep them warm. And when you stop shaking, you know that you are starting to head towards a dangerous area... So, I was shaking. I was like, "Oh my gosh," and I just started yelling. I was like, "Whoa, yeah." I'm gonna react to this well. I'm gonna react to the scenario well. I cannot control what is happening to me. I can control my reaction to it. So I'm going to change the way I view this. And I'm going to start yelling, and I'm going to get excited. And I'm gonna be bigger than this situation because we did not go back for a long time. I stayed wet for a long time. My feet were gray, I don't think they're supposed to be that color, when I finally took my boots off. But I was like, "I'm gonna react well. I am going to choose how this happens. I'm gonna choose the outcome of this scenario." And it was the first time ... It's not the first time, but that was a very vivid time that I was like, "You know what? This is an important opportunity for me to learn something if I choose to." So this is what I did. I stood up when the drill sergeants weren't looking. I stood up and I started running. I started running and I started jumping in the puddles of water next to all the other soldiers. And I started playing with them. Does that make sense? I started making it this thing ... We were in a slow speed, kind of, environment. This was not like ... We weren't running this at full space. We weren't being ... Anyway, we're all holding real weapons, but we were jumping around. We were being safe, but we were jumping around, we're splashing water. And I was like, "Woo! Yeah!" Jumping around. And people were like, "Larsen! Shut up! Shut up! I hate you!" And they're swearing on my unborn, future children at the time. They're like yelling at you. They're like, "Oh, I'm gonna kill you. You're dead tonight. You're dead. We're putting soaps in our socks and hitting you." They're threatening me with all this stuff, and I'm jumping around, and I was just doing what I could to react appropriately to the crappy scenario I had no control over. And I started saying this phrase, and it sounds stupid, but it's what I want you to say to get the flash drive. Okay? Don't mess it up. There is a vernacular to it. It sounds very simple, okay? I started going ... And what I would do is I would start saying in my mind, "H!H! OO BAYBAY!" and I would start yelling that. I would start yelling it. "H!H! OO BAYBAY!" Don't jack it up. This is how you do it. This is how it's spelled. It's h ... This is all in caps. If you're writing it, it's all in caps. Massive 72-point font. Bold. It's H!H! OO BAYBAY. It's baybay. Not baby. You're not, "Oh baby." No. None of that weak crap. You're gonna reach down. You're gonna grab your boot strings, and you're gonna go "H!H! OO BAYBAY!" And you're gonna scream it. And when I see you, that's the phrase. Because you're probably gonna be tired at Funnel Hacking LIVE. You are probably ... There's probably so many things gonna be lodging into your brain that you've never considered. New connections, new ideas, new things to take your business to the next level, that often a lot of times what will happen is if you are not in the correct state of mind, you will miss it. And I don't want you to. This is all about self-state control, and you've gotta get good at it. I believe in it, and it's the reason Russell and I were able to build funnels at the speed we were. We didn't always feel like it. We're tired most of the time. But by choosing my state ... Yes, even on the internet when I'm sitting in my office by myself and there's no other person around me to cultivate that energy, I choose the outcome. I choose the scenario. I'm sorry, I don't choose the scenario. I choose the way I react to it. Which, that is what determines the outcome, funny enough. Not the scenario. How many people have you ever heard of who were super poor, terrible with life scenarios, and then they turn it all around? Why? Life didn't dish them up this amazing card deck. It's the way they reacted to it that determines the outcome. I use that phrase in so many ... Guys, when we were ... Later on, just to keep the military thing going on ... Honestly, I use it in so many areas. I still do today. We were doing gas chamber ... I don't know if I've told this story before, but we were doing gas chamber training, and I put my gas mask on. I put my gas mask on, and it's CS gas. If you don't know what CS gas is, it's not fun. It gets inside of your ... As soon as you breathe it or it starts to seep into your skin, it literally makes all of your glands and your pores start to ... The equivalent of defecate, okay? You have no control over your nose and you start to get these disgusting runny noses. Your eyes start to get all red and watery. It's pretty nasty stuff. And it's basically riot control gas. But, they really increased the dosage for my group. Because they want to teach you how to use gas masks. So we're all lining up there, and people start kind of freaking out and kind of hyperventilating. We're all standing outside of this gas chamber, and we all got these gas masks, and they all start practicing. "Gas! Gas! Gas!" And we all put our gas masks on. We have to do it within seven seconds, seal it, clear the mask of any gas that actually might have gotten in while we were putting the mask on. So, you blow air in and then you grab another valve, seal that one off, and then suck in really hard, and it seals it to your face. It's not comfortable. And they're like, "Okay, we're gonna go in," and we start going into this gas chamber, and it was a little bit freaky, I'm not gonna lie. You get in there, and it's thick, green smoke all over the place. You're like, "Crap, I really don't want to breathe this garbage. Oh my gosh, I hope I sealed my mask correctly. H!H! OO BAYBAY!" Does that make sense? All these fears, "Scared! H!H! OO BAYBAY! Let's just do it, baby, and you just jump out the plane, build the parachute while you fall." That's why I say that phrase. Does that make sense? It's crazy, though. Some girls in there started freaking out, and they had to physically grab this girl and shove her against the wall and tell her to settle down. It was a little bit ... Anyway, and then you take the mask off and you start doing exercises in there, and it was not fun. People were throwing up. That was a terrible experience. That was not fun. But that's what I'm saying, though. You don't always have control. In fact, you almost never have control over the scenarios in your life. And when you're given a little bit of rope to have control, you take that rope and you run 15 miles with it and you go as far as you can with it. Most of the time, it's about reacting appropriately to the actions that are handed to you. That's, like, 90% of why I do what I do, guys. That's, like, 90% of the reason I've been able to do what I do. It is a mentality. I hate the phrase, "Oh, it's all about ... I do mindset coaching." Like, okay, what does that mean? I don't understand that. To me, though, that is what that means. State control. That means something more important to me than mindset training. That's what I do, though. It's about how I react to the scenarios given to me. Very rarely do I ever have a great deck that is just given to me. I believe in luck, I just don't believe in chance. Does that make sense? Luck. Have you ever heard the quote, "Luck is where preparation meets opportunity?" I think that's how the phrase goes. I can't remember. "Luck is where preparations meets opportunity," or something like that. I believe in luck, I just don't believe in chance. I believe that if I work my absolute guts out, I will be ready for the opportunity that just kind of comes my way. And it will be handed to me because I've been running. I'm already in motion. Opportunity goes to those who are already in motion. It is so frustrating to try and coach individuals who are not in motion yet, and their main hurdle is for me to help them get in motion. Oh my gosh, that is a rough scenario. Oh, just be in motion. I don't even care if you're running the wrong direction. Just be moving, and you will find guidance as you move. It is so much easier to steer a moving canoe... Have you ever sat in a canoe before? I was in scouts. I got my Eagle Scout award. I went and did all this other stuff. It's a lot of fun, right? But paddling ... I've been in many canoes before where you're paddling, and if you're trying to just coast along with the river, it could be a little challenging, if you're moving at the speed of a very still river, to actually steer. It's way easier to steer when you're going somewhere. You control the speed, rather than try and drift. Drifting with the paddle is, like, worse than not having a paddle at all. You don't have a paddle. You've got ClickFunnels. You've got the best marketing out there. You've got the best of the best of the best. The only thing that's up to you is to start rowing. I don't care if you're going the wrong direction. So, the phrase is, "H!H! OO BAYBAY!" And you've got to say it like that, or I'm not handing you a flash drive. I'm excited for you to get there. I'm excited for you guys to feel the change if you want it to be there. You guys, understand that I had so much belief that if I just got in the room ... If I just got in the room, my life would change. That was my belief. It was that strong. That first event I ever got to when I did not have the discretionary income to actually pay for something like an event and I bootstrapped my way there. And because of that, it did change. And when I got hired at ClickFunnels, 20 minutes after my interview, they give a call, and they said, "Hey, you're hired. We want you to sit next to Russell," and I was like, "What?" I was trying to go for a sSupport position. I just wanted to be near where the action was. I was like, "Are you serious? Of course. You're gonna pay me to do that?" And I called my wife, and ... Years of struggling ... I was in motion. I was in motion, and that's why I feel like it came my way. I did not have all the answers, but I had enough to see the three steps in front of me. I knew where the peak was. I could not see anything in-between. And I called my wife, and I said, "Babe ..." I was trying not to cry, but I was also losing my voice because I was just yelling I was so excited. I was like, "Babe, our life just changed." I was driving the five hours back to where my family was. Less than a week later, we were living in Boise, Idaho. What I'm trying to say is ... I said, "Babe, the course of our life just changed. The outcome of where we were going to go, it's different now." If you choose it to be ... It's the reason I get so freaking pumped about Funnel Hacking LIVE. If you choose it to be, Funnel Hacking LIVE is that for you. It was for me. It is not a trite thing. It's not just another event. I will tell you from working there from my own experience that every individual who works at ClickFunnels is there to change the world. It's an active conversation. Unfortunately, that's an awkward conversation for most other places in the world. It is an active ... "How can we change the world?" Like, "What? Who talks like that?" Those in the ... Just like Steve Jobs said, "Those who are actually gonna try and change the world are the ones that actually do." And they are. It's the reason I get so pumped about it. They changed my world. They're changing everyone else's world. They're changing industries. That's why I get so pumped about it. People are like, "Man, you're a freak show about Funnel Hacking LIVE." Yeah I am. I get more pumped about it than Christmas, every other holiday. It literally is ... And it's because of what it can do for you. To be in a room with that many other millionaires, to be in a room with that amount of mental ... Top of the line stuff, you guys. And software. How often do you get the marketing education and technology blend in the same sitting? That's so freakishly rare it's ridiculous. You get both at Funnel Hacking LIVE. The top of the top, the best of the best. The who's who are all there. And if you're like, "Steve, I still don't have my ticket." Well, you've got, like, a week. Find a way and get there, and know that it has the power to change your life and put the course of your life on a different outcome based on how you react. So you come up to me. I've got ... There's two things on them. Number one, I'm gonna give you guys the event funnel. Some sweet training on there. I'm gonna give you guys ... There's a whole bunch of other stuff that I'm not gonna advertise, okay, that's really, really cool. I've got some extra little Easter eggs in there for you. But you walk up to me, and you give me the most interactive, "H!H! OO BAYBAY!," I will give one right back, so long as my voice is not completely gone, and let's take a picture. You post that up there. I will give you a flash drive. On your Facebook profile, and I will hand it off to you. Sound good? Alright guys, that is the prepare for Funnel Hacking LIVE plan. I would start going through. I would re-listen to any ... If you've got a Funnel Hacking LIVE ticket ... I know because I built the Members' Area, okay? When you got a Funnel Hacking LIVE ticket, you also got access to the 2015, 2016, and 2017 replays. I have been ... I'm almost done listening to all the replays again. Yes, I do listen to them all the time. I just reread 108 Split Tests. I am re-listening to tons of stuff. That's how I'm preparing, guys. Prepare. Put yourself in a state-control. Choose. Decide the outcome. Decide the outcome before you actually start the event. How crazy of an idea is that? That's what you can do with this. So, go out and start preparing. Re-listen to the past episodes. They came with your ticket this year, which is awesome. Go and actually start re-reading Expert Secrets. Re-read [inaudible 00:30:00] Secrets. Re-read 108 Split Tests. Go through the Funnel Hacker Cookbook. Go through those things, and start consuming that stuff. Get yourself in a state to receive. Most of you guys are coming to my Mastermind the day before. I'm very excited to have you guys. It's gonna be great. It's a small group. I'm excited it is. So, very, very excited to have you, though, and I am excited to meet you. Excited to meet you guys over there. Give a high five, brotherly hug, whatever. Give me a little state-controlled shout out. A little, "H!H! OO BAYBAY!" And we'll take a picture. You post it up there, and my thank you is a flash drive with the event funnel. The event funnel, as well as a whole bunch of other goodies that I'm just gonna toss on there for fun. I've only got, like 60 or 70 of them, so ... Anyways, thanks guys. I appreciate it. I know this was kind of a different styled episode, but you need to know why I get so pumped about it. Someone was laughing at me. They were like, "You get that excited about it?" I'm like, "Okay, let me tell you why. It's because I chose it to be and it's because I knew ... I believed that Russell knew how to get me to the next spot." Half of you guys are still trying to decide if this stuff works. Get past that freakishly stupid doubt, and go and just believe it. Take a chance. They're not paying me for this. They don't even know I'm doing it. I just know it works. Before I knew it worked, I had to believe that it worked. There's nothing that's gonna happen. I'm not gonna actually act unless there's just this little inkling that it could possibly actually work. You've gotta get there. Drop the other doubts. Choose the outcome before the event starts by your state-controlling self. Prepare like crazy. I've got some cool goodies for you. Come give a little state-controlled shout out, "H!H! OO BAYBAY!" And come on out and say hi. Let's take a picture, and I'll give you guys some sweet stuff as a thank you. And hopefully you guys can get out there and start crushing, as well. Alright guys, thanks so much. And I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I certainly did. We'll talk to you later. Thanks for listening. Please remember to write and subscribe... Hey, you want me to speak at your next event or Mastermind? Let me know what I can share that would be most valuable by going to stevejlarsen.com and book my time now.

This is one of the biggest lessons I've taken right from the desk of Russell Brunson Hey, what's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. Now here's your host Steve Larsen. Steve Larsen: What's up, guys? Hey, I'm thinking here that I'm going to change up the intro music to this thing at some point. I'm excited. I can't believe that we're going to hit episode 100 in a few episodes here. That's ridiculous to me. I can't believe how fast that time has gone first of all or that I've had a hundred things to say. I just hope that you guys look back at each one of these episodes and you might think, "Hey, those were great episodes." I'm sure there's one or two where maybe something was weird or whatever, but I just appreciate the loyal following this show has. Just a big shout out to all of you guys. It's Christmas time and I'm not sure what faith you are and that's obviously not the purpose of this podcast, but we celebrate Christmas. We're putting up Christmas lights. It's getting cold outside. Been with my little girls and my little one just turned four and I have another two year old, and then my wife is three months pregnant as well. Super excited for the new arrival... Anyways, I always love this time of year. It's been a lot of fun. A little more focused on family time and things like that. It's been a whole lot of fun. Tonight we're putting together a gingerbread house and it was just one of those like cheap kits from Walmart. The thing totally collapsed like five minutes in. We ended up just trying to make this massive pile of sugar and candy and nastiness. It's actually a whole lot of fun. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. My little ones just whenever my back was turned kept like sneaking over and grabbing like big old handfuls of icing and like just stuffing it in their face. That is so nasty. Oh man. Anyway, it's a lot of fun. Hey, this has been an awesome last few days. Obviously not just family wise, but also with you guys. Big shout out to those of you who joined me on my last live funnel build. I've been doing those pretty regularly. For the next while, it's going to be pretty much every Saturday. As I build out whatever funnels I actually need, I just might as well flip the camera on and you guys can watch and ask questions while I'm actually building it. It's been a lot of fun. The last funnel that I just built was an application funnel. Honestly, the application funnel is probably one of my favorite ones to build besides the webinar funnel, free plus shopping funnel, eCom funnel. I like them all. Membership areas. I like them all. Honestly, what's cool about the application style funnel is how much it actually has an effect on your business. I think it was Frank Kern that said that there's really three things that every business needs ... Actually I think I've sent this list before as well, but whatever. He said, "Number one, you need to be having ... Just charge higher prices." He said, "Number one, you need to have higher prices. Just charge higher prices." If you just raised your prices by 10%, I doubt that anyone's going to leave just because of that. If they do, so what? You lose one or two, but the raised price of everybody else more than covers what they left with. You know what I mean? Most people are not going to bat an eye at all. You know what I mean? Prices go up. Everyone kind of expects that. Same thing with yours. They should go up. You should just charge more money. Figure out how to charge more money... That was his number one. Number two what he said was that you've got to have somebody in the backend calling all of your current customers to sell them a high ticket thing in the back, whatever that is, a five grand, 10 grand, 15, 25 grand thing, whatever it is in the backend. Whatever you're selling on the front, all those customer who are buying, just have somebody calling and selling those big things in the backend. A lot of the Inner Circle from Russell Brunson is always shocked at how fast that doubles their business. It's fun for me to read and hear about a lot of the comments because they'll be sending messages to Russell and whatever and be like, "Oh my gosh. Why aren't more people just selling something high ticket on the backend? It will double everything." I know. Those messages come pretty frequently as we tell people to do that kind of stuff. Figure out what you can sell that's high ticket in the backend and then the third thing he says is that figure out how you can sell things not on the internet. In reality, I mean the internet is fantastic. It's really, really cool, but when it comes to big sales, the internet's really not that effective for it. You got to change the selling environment, whether that's on the phone with those high tickets sales in the backend or direct mail or whatever it is. Somehow figure out how to sell not just online. It's funny because a lot of the data that's out there that we've seen shows that. That those who have both online elements and offline elements to their funnels actually make more money, rather than those who just stay online. Anyway, kind of fascinating. It was probably about two and a half years ago. I was getting ready to become an officer in the Army. I was in the ROTC program. I had already gone through basic training and gone to that fondness and actually really enjoyed that. Well, we wanted to do like a cool little charity run. What we did is we got together and we decided that we would do this 5K warrior mud run. This mud run was ... I mean it was awesome. It was totally legit. Anyway, it was awesome. We had literally like flame throwers actually. We had all sorts of like these dummy M16s laying all over the place. They had to run and sprint around with this stuff and climb these massive walls and jump through stuff. I mean it was really fun. It was legitimately quite a massive operation to pull off. Well, I was getting good enough with ClickFunnels at the time and ClickFunnels had been out for a little while at that time now. I guess this was ... No, this was about ... Holy crap. Yeah, that was about two and a half years ago. That's crazy. ClickFunnels had been out for a little bit at that time. I was getting good enough with it and I already had paying clients and I was traveling all over the place filming gurus in their events. Then I would go edit the video and then make a funnel for the video. That's kind of what I was doing at that time. It was before working for ClickFunnels or anything. I decided like how cool would it be if I built an event funnel for this mud run? What I did is I went and I put together this funnel and I kind of thought okay, on this very first page, there's a point to all this of course, on this very first page, we'll sell the ticket. We'll them what it's about. It was for a charity cause that would connect wounded soldiers. It would reconnect wounded soldiers with their families whatever hospital they were being kept in. It was a really awesome charity that we did it for. I mean it was so fun. It was so fun. The first page is sold the ticket. The second page told them more about information, things like that. When it was all said and done, I flipped basically the entire event funnel and we raffled off like rifles, like M16s and stuff, right, or 15s. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Really, really enjoyed the whole thing. You know what's interesting is we had 650 people, 650 people show up. Three new stations. I got on TV because I was one of the main guys running it. I was in charge of huge portions of the program. It was over like 70 people and then another like 50, 60 over my actual unit. I mean I was super busy at the time, but it took me 30 hours, 40 hours to really polish it up, make it look awesome, but I built this sweet event funnel. 650 people. We raised a lot of money. We gave a lot to charity and it was just an awesome time. It would not have been possible without ClickFunnels. Now again that was before I worked for ClickFunnels and that was before all of that happened. What's funny is when the mud run ended, a lot of you guys know that story that I was really poor. I didn't have money to go to events. I didn't have money to do that stuff. I was trading tickets for funnels, right? I was trading airline tickets. I was trading event tickets for funnels. I was just bootstrapping. I was just finding a way. I knew that I needed to get there. What's funny because like two days after that whole event funnel ended, after that mud run ended, I went to San Diego on another person's dime because I was building funnels for him, and I went to the first funnels hacking live event. It was literally five days ... From the time that event was over, the mud run was over, I was hired at ClickFunnels like a week and a half later. I mean it was really, really fast. The whole thing was crazy fast. Maybe two weeks later, maybe. Anyway, it all went really, really quick. What's been interesting is I have always had ... What I'm trying to get to here is I'm trying to portray a lesson that has always been ... It's never been illicitly stated while sitting next to Russell, but is certainly a strong lesson. He might have said it once or twice. I can't remember, but like I had always thought ... Now think about the Frank Kern quote, right? Number three, how can you sell besides online, right? I went to Russell's event and he gets on stage and he's got the sweet event funnel obviously that he sold Funnel Hacking Live 2016 with. I go and I stand and I'm watching this stuff and I'm like, "Oh my gosh. This is so cool." I see him pitch certification and I was like, "I've got to get in this." I didn't know how, but I was like calling my bank. I was trying to get loans. I knew I would be better off ... Again this was like a few days before I got hired, certainly a day or two before I put the application in. Anyway, it all happened so quick. It's crazy, crazy fast. All of it. Anyway, Russell was selling at his event. Lo and behold, right? Not online. He found another way to sell besides online that he was selling at his own event obviously. Of course, he would. As I've progressed sitting next to him, what I have learned and noticed and we have implemented and put in place and I've done myself in many other places and especially in another industry really strongly, even in this one, is I have learned that everything you do as a marketer revolves around events. Your ability to create events. What is a webinar funnel, right? You're creating an event online through a webinar funnel, right? You're putting together an event online, right? It's the same thing. Auto webinar funnel. Now you're mimicking one. You're trying to make them feel like it's a live event, right? Now anytime that you are putting anything out online ... Russell's book launch. That was certainly an event, right? We built an event around it. When we had the Viral Video launch, we literally said, "Okay. We could just make this video and we'll just put it out there." We're like, "How can we make this more awesome. Oh my gosh. What if we actually rented the Boise State Stadium? Yeah. All right. Cool. What else can we do? Let's get Gary V. there. Oh my gosh." They're like, "Oh, let's get all these influencers there. Let's send out these really, really cool invites to get them there also. Oh, let's do bubble soccer." You know what I mean? We created an event around the launch. Okay? Every single time we have ever launched anything big or one of those big players like that, every time we've always put an event around it. What I've learned and what I've implemented on my own and a lot of you guys know I'm heavy in MLM, in the MLM industry and in other places as well, I have done that very thing and it's ridiculous what it does when you start putting all those kinds of events. Literally the only reason for this episode is what I'm trying to tell you to do is like figure out ways to create events around your marketing. Put these events around your marketing, whatever you're launching, any funnel you're putting out there. If you've already launched something, it's not that you can't create an event either. Again even though it's already launched or put out there, toss another bonus or two in there and call it something special as they buy the original product that get the other two with it. You know what I mean? You can figure out how to do that, but just have an eye for it... The whole thing is about you creating events. Okay? Sorry. There's two other places I'm trying to take this here. I was in Dallas two or three weeks ago. Holy crap. That was like three weeks ago. Time's moving. Oh my gosh. Anyway, I was in Dallas a few weeks ago and I was sitting down with ... He's the guy who created I believe ... Don't quote me on this, but I believe he created the company Travelocity. Huge guy, right? I mean extremely successful, right? Another guy who had done half of a billion dollars in sales. Another guy that runs all of the events for The ONE Thing. I can't tell anymore than that. [inaudible 00:13:29] Crap. Whatever. Anyway, but it's interesting. I was sitting there will all these guys and it was interesting listening to all of them. I could not believe how fortunate I was to spend an entire day with these individuals. I was sitting in Dallas. It was the day after I spoke. I happened to be there and I thought I might as well stay there and listen to what they had to say. I was sitting there and I was listening. There was this basically the equivalent of an event funnel that they had put together to help launch a certain product that they have coming out. They showed me the video and I'm being tender with this, okay, as I say that. I'm not trying to make fun of it or anything like that, but I lost so much interest after 30 seconds. I couldn't believe it. I could not believe how bored I got. It was like an awkward kind where I was uncomfortable to be sitting there continuing to watch this six minute video or whatever it was. I was like, "Ah-ah." It was the kind of video where I was like, "Oh man." There was like a billion things in red flags screaming through my head on what is wrong with this event video. Again not trying to throw rocks here. I'm just going by comparison. Okay? Here's another example. Have you ever seen the event funnel video that T&C puts out for their event? It is so boring. Oh my gosh. Again I'm not throwing rocks to the dude, but there's an art to this thing. Okay? All it is is Ryan Deiss standing up saying, "All right, guys. It's that time of the year again. We're going to have T&C and there's going to be this many people and this is what we're going to talk about." Okay. Now contrast that experience with the videos that Russell puts out about his event. Okay? If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go to funnelhackinglive.com and watch the video from this last year and you can even watch the previous two years also on that very first page up on the header. I know because I was heavily involved in the construction of it. Up in the header, up at the top there. You can watch it and just pay attention to your emotions. How do you feel as you're watching those videos? I'm filled with hope when I watch them. Huge hope. I'm filled with this enabling power. I feel like I can go take on the world when I watch those videos. I am not kidding. You guys will laugh at it, but Russell and I literally will play that video on ... We have listened to that over and over and over and over while we're sitting in the office working. We love the video that much, which might sound kind of weird. Anyway, that's what I'm trying to say with this whole thing is that think and feel your emotions while you're watching your own sales videos, while you're watching your own event funnel videos, while you're watching any of the videos that you put out there. It's all about emotion. You know what's funny about this podcast and what I've noticed about it, when I first started this podcast, the structure for each episode was very different than it is now. Well, not very different, but it's evolved. I would tell story for like 60% of the time and then I would give like some kind of tip or content piece the other 40%. What was funny about the whole thing is people kept saying, "Please give us more tips." I think people kept trying to tell me like, "Stop doing 60-40. Do like 20% story, 80% tips and tricks." I think I did that for an episode or two and it just felt weird. There was no story behind it to help it actually sink in. Funny enough, whenever I would do the heavy tips and tricks type of episodes, everyone forgot that crap anyway. Unless you wrap your marketing messages in stories, unless you wrap your events in stories, unless you are publishing stories, no one's going to remember what you're saying anyway. Story is what drives emotion straight into the heart where we remember the tip or the fact or whatever it is. Just that one little golden nugget. What I did when I was in Dallas is I said, "Okay." I'll try to say it nicely. I was like," Hey, great job on the video. Can I just show you this other one by contrast?" I pulled up Russell's video and we watched it. At the end of it, they were like, "Oh my gosh." I was like, "I know. What did you notice?" He's like, "Well, Russell's not talking about the event himself." Right? He's not talking about the event itself. It's a ton of testimonials. It's a ton of people talking about how much ClickFunnels has changed their life. It's a ton of people telling many stories and many epiphany bridges all over the place for this one overarching epiphany bridge story. That's it. What I'm trying to say here and what I'm trying to invite you guys to do is that I'm going to be building an event funnel this next Saturday. You guys should get this episode by the end. If not, that's totally fine too. Just know that I'm building a lot of funnels over the next two Saturdays especially as I prepare to leave ClickFunnels, which I'm super sad about still, which might confuse a lot of people for me to say that. I am quite sad about it. I've had many freak out moments. If you want to watch me build my next event funnel, go ahead and you can to salesfunnelbroker.com/live. Salesfunnelbroker.com/live. That's going to be kind of my HubSpot place for any funnels that I'm building live in the future. You can keep checking back there. If something's already gone through, there might be bit and pieces of replays, things like that. Anyway, there'll be stuff on there for you to go check out. Anyway, that's all I was trying to say with this is that when you think about the three things that Frank Kern says, right, just charge more money, have someone calling people in the backend and find a way to sell in other environments, well, one of those ways is events. I can tell you from personal experience, I've got a lot of people, 650 people, to my first event ever doing that. That's crazy. Now granted obviously I didn't do it on my own. I had a team. I can't take full credit for that, nor would I try to. However, we've built a lot of event funnels and events is marketing. Events is marketing. All right. Go think through the next event that you're going to put out. It doesn't have to necessarily be something physical. It can be totally virtual. It could be online. It could be whatever, but create events. Events naturally create urgency. They naturally create scarcity because it'll never happen again, which is like the biggest two tools that you have as a marketer. All right? If you want to come join me on the next funnel build that I do, go to salesfunnelbroker.com/live. Guys, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Appreciate the involvement. I batch record pretty much all these episodes. For me, I feel like I haven't put an episode for a while, but I know they've been dripping out to you pretty consistently, which is great. I have an awesome assistant for that and I will be interviewing her shortly, so that you guys can find out who she is. She does an awesome job with my podcast. Anyways, guys, you're all awesome. Appreciate you and get out there and crush it. Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your prebuilt sales funnel today.

Woo hoo, what's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Secret MLM Hacks Radio, oh yeah. Here's the real mystery, how do real MLMers like us read and cheat and only bug family members and friends who want to grow a profitable home business? How do we recruit A players into our down lines and create extra incomes yet still have plenty of time for the rest of our lives? That's the blaring question in this podcast we'll give you the answer. My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Secret MLM Hacks Radio.   Hey, I still jam out to my own intro, I love it. Had a lot of fun making it. Hey guys, I'm glad you're here. It's been a busy week. A lot of stuff, busy weekend. A lot of stuff has been happening. I pretty much spent the entire weekend either filming or preparing to film. What I've been filming is if you guys have been following this podcast at all, you know that I have a really awesome course coming out that basically helps you learn how to automate the recruiting process. It actually literally helps me automate the down line duplication process, pretty amazing, but in order for you to actually do that, there's a lot of elements you had to go through.   Anyway, what I did is I spent a lot of time this weekend getting together. I actually printed out these massive three foot by three foot boards and what happened, it was about a week ago I stood up and I was like, "Hey, I'm ready." The course is ready to go, this whole thing has been in beta for the last year. Now, great results, had a ton of people get recruited to what I do without actually me even talking to them. I mean, the process works, I know it works. What I've been doing is just putting into a format course-wise that is easy to digest but then also go and apply so that you can do the same thing. I was like, "Hey, I'm ready to do this." I set up this home studio.   I told some of this to you guys earlier but I set up my home studio. I got a few softbox lights and got my camera set up. I've done this several times before in creating info products and such. This time it's a little bit different though because I stood up and it was like, there's like a big brain fog. I was like, "Something is missing." The framework is missing. I understand, I was like, "Hey, I know each of these modules are going to be about but what ... How should I start this? What's the thing that's going to help everyone understand?" What I did is I sat down and I acted like a kid, I'm a kid at heart till I die and I started drawing and I drew out a picture that represents each one of the modules.   It became so much clearer, holy crap, to both teach and I know it will be easier to understand and it will be easy, you know what I mean? Anyway, super exciting, very, very exciting. What I did though is first I drew them out. I'm not an artist at all, right? I just grabbed a legal piece of paper, a legal pad, and just drew it all out and I made the graph and I was like, I should go find some graphic artist to make, basically to draw out these images, hand draw them and try to make them at least look somewhat good. I went through and I just could not find anyone good. I went through and I was like hiring this person, hiring this person, I was on Freelancer.com just like hiring out all these people and it was terrible.   Finally, I found some guy. He went through and he sketched it out and with literally hours to spare I went over to Kinko's and I print these massive three foot by three foot board so anyway it was a long story but that's what's been going on over here. I just barely filmed the intros to each one of these modules and I'm super excited. It was cool because every single time, this is why I always encourage anyone who's done MLM to go start publishing and I know I've said that before in a very recent episode but when you do so, you learn your craft so much deeper than if you just kept it inside your own head. The ability to go teach somebody else, here's an example, I was in the army for a little, all right?   There was a guy, we're out shooting one day, we were shooting and we're practicing, we're holding our M16s, we're out there, we're shooting and that was a pretty good shot. I only missed a few rounds when I was at basic training and I won a phone call home which was cool. I won the phone call home. I shot, I wouldn't say a ton but I did shoot quite a bit growing up and I always had a fascination with guns. Anyway, I was shooting and I was in the army. I'm shooting and I hit my targets, I got really nice grouping and the guy next to me, he's not even hitting the paper. I was like, "Dude, are you okay?" He's like, "Yeah, I don't know what's going on, man." I look over and he's like, "My gun won't fire, man. My riffle is not shooting."   I was like, "What is going on?" I was like, "It's so weird." I look over at him and we're really, really close to each other so every time he shoot, the little shells and I promise that I'm going to a place with the story, okay? Just bear with me for a second. Every single one of the rounds would hit me in the face and they are hot, they're coming out of the chamber basically, they are right out of the magwell. They come and they hit me in the face from the guy on the left, that's the way that you eject and I notice that the guy to my right, there's no ammo coming out. He was not shooting. I look over and he's like, "What is wrong, man?" He's getting really frustrated and I look and his magazine is not only upside down it's also backwards.   The bullets were literally facing him. I was like, "Dude, what are you doing?" He's like, "Oh, sorry man. Okay, sorry about that." He's really, really embarrassed because he kept acting all macho like he knew what he's doing and so I helped him actually load his weapon. He start shooting, he start shooting and he's literally not hitting any of the paper at all. I was like, "What is going on?" I lean over, I was like "Dude, are you okay? You're not even hitting the paper," let alone any kind of grouping. He's like, "I don't know what's happening, man. I'm looking through my sights, I'm seeing it all," and I lean over I was like, "Man, the front sight is up but the back sight isn't," which basically means the back is all free flowing I mean, the bullets could go anywhere at that point, right.   I was like, I have flipped up that back sight and he start shooting and he's still not hitting the paper. I was like, "What is going on?" I look and his settings are set to 500 meters rather than 300 meters, basically it means these bolts are lobbing way over top of the paper. I was like, "What the heck?" You know what's funny though is the process of me doing that, of going side by side with him like that. I learned my own riffle even more deeply and I already knew those concepts but because I was able to teach, because I was able to be a coach I was also able to understand more of my own craft. When you go out and you start teaching people and you start telling people about the MLM, you start saying, "Hey, this is amazing.   This is something, it's very, very helpful for you to go start publishing," because you learn with your own thing and so that's what happened I mean, the last few days especially. I was standing up in front of the camera and I was like, "Hey, I got this cool thing coming up," anyway, I finally got them printed out in these massive three foot by three foot boards. It's really, really helpful to do that. The first module is all about how you become attractive, it's all about how you attract people to you through several different ways. In each of these modules are several hours. They are massive, they're going to be really, really helpful, they are super cool. I'm really excited to make them.   The second one is all about how you get paid to prospect so even if someone doesn't join your MLM, you actually get money. I'll tell you, from personal experience, with no ad spent last year, this system made for me 50 grand, $50,000 even when someone didn't even join I was still getting paid. It's going to show you how to do that, how do you actually get paid when you prospect people. The third module is all about how you actually duplicate yourself. What actually is it that you need to do in order to become duplicatable, such a good module. Massive, anyway. No one teaches this stuff, this is why I get so animated about it because I don't know, anyway, whatever.   Module four, what I'm doing is I'm showing more about down line management and simple tweaks you can do both to your culture, both to yourself, that will keep people with you longer and keep them engaged in your process but then also specifically how you can, there's a really easy way to rob your down line that most people don't think about and I want to show you how to not do that which actually results in more money too, which is awesome. Then, the fifth module that was all about how you, I call it pick up your megaphone. Anyway, I don't want to jump more into that but anyway so I'm super stoked so there's a picture now for each one of these things. While I was teaching, my own craft became more clear to me.   It happens every single time. It's kind of a roundabout way of me bringing this full circle so I'm sorry, I know, kind of been scatterbrained all over the place for this episode but I learned that there's really only two currencies that you have in MLM. There's only two. There's only two advantages you can really have inside of MLM, right. Here's number one. You guys obviously know this because it's something I talk about all the time, you have the same product as every other person. The exact same marketing, same messaging, same website, same scripts, literally you get MLM and it's broken out of the box.   In my opinion, very strong opinion, very backed up opinion, MLM is broken out of the box. You get something that's pretty broken. Number one, one of your currencies, one of the things that you have that's a value the others are not going to be able to have or not have as easily or something that makes you stand out. One of your currencies is your ability to take that MLM and turn it into a new offer. How can I make and make it seem like if I join your MLM, how you're going to make me feel like that's a new opportunity? How you're going to make me feel like that's something that's brand new?   You know, that's what the course goes over to but how amazing is that? Just to realize, "Oh my gosh, that's one of the currencies I have." That's one of the pieces of value. If you can figure that out, you're going to have people running to you and begging to join your down line which is what's been happening to me which is really exciting, right? Now again, I'm not here to like, "Look at me versus you," that's not what I'm talking about but I'm just trying to show you what I've been doing that's been working. It's awesome. Anyway, number one, the first currency you have, the first real piece of value you have and the opportunity you have is how do I make it seem like joining my MLM, how do I make it seem like joining my MLM is a new opportunity.   How do I create an offer out of that? Okay. If you can create an offer out of your MLM that's massive, massive value. Now, someone said to me recently because I was talking to them about it, they're like, "Wait a second, but my MLM is the offer." No, no, no, no it's not. Go back and listen to a few, I can't remember what it was, a few episodes ago I talk about how you create an offer out of your MLM. The course goes way more in depth with checklist and everything. How do we make a new opportunity out of ... How do I make an offer out of a product? Usually an offer is made up of whole bunch of tiny products, right.   They are a whole bunch of products and the value of them together is far more than what you're actually charging, that make sense? When someone joins your MLM you might say, "Hey, when you join my MLM you get X, Y, and Z with it," meaning I'll give you this course that teaches how to talk to people or I'll give you this CD, you know what I'm saying? That's how you take and you package that together and you say, "Hey, look, you want to join the MLM?" You're not bribing them, it's literally part of the offer. Does that make sense? Anyway, that's the first currency. Currency number one, how do you become a new opportunity, how to create a new offer, make it seem exciting like you're different from everybody else like no one else can do what you have. Does that make sense? How do you do that?   All right, that's currency number one. That's the first piece of value. The second piece is you as a leader. Currency number one, how do I make my MLM seem like a new opportunity? That's one of the upper hands you have on every other person out there. The other thing that you have and in my opinion, the only other thing you have is you as a leader. There are some people who are so convincing in whatever they argue that even if they're wrong you still believe them. Does that make sense? We call that the attractive character. If your attractive character is so confident, right, absolute certainty and you're showing your back story and you're talking about things you believe and don't believe meaning you're showing polarity and you're showing your back stories and all the parallels and all the things that ...   I mean, if you're an actual leader, that is a currency in MLM but most people aren't and most people don't want to be or they'll just, "Hey, this is a get rich quick thing, I just got to get a few people in there to make tons of money in a few years," that's not how it works. What the course also goes through is how to become that kind of person and hey, it's a formula honestly and how you appear to be like that. Guess what, I was not this way even a year and a half ago. Me being a super forward and being more, my polarity has increased and it's because of a formula that I've been following that I teach inside the upcoming course which is awesome.   Anyway, those are the two currencies though. Number one, think yourself why would somebody join me over somebody else, and if you can't answer that question then you seem and you're going to appear just like everybody else. Sad truth, hard truth, but it's a truth. That make sense? Number two, the second piece of currency you have is are you a leader. Are you somebody that other people follow? If you can't answer that question, guess what? I don't believe that leaders are just born, you become one. I was voted the nicest kid in high school on my graduating class out of 600 people, the nicest kid. Guess what? It was not because I was nice. It was because I was really shy. I had a fear of adults, very strong fear of adults.   I always thought they're always right, that I always had to kowtow to them, that make sense? There's something to be said about respect for sure and I'm not telling that to go respect adults or whatever. You know, obviously I am one but you know what I mean? I had this really, I mean it was bad. I had to overcome that. If you don't feel like you're a leader, if you don't feel like you're an attractive character, that's okay. There is a formula to it. Okay? If you start hitting these points and you start to actually get some motivation behind it, people are going to start following you because you will become, there's a science to becoming an attractive character and actual science to it.   Anyway, those are the parts I'm going to go through. Hopefully this episode, I know it's a little bit scatterbrained but that's where my thoughts have been and I think that it's going to be really, really helpful to some people who might still be struggling with some of the concepts I talk about on this podcast and more specifically the depth I'm about to jump into with this actual course. Go figure all the things that I talk about inside of Secret MLM Hacks. They are all marketing principles and I'm teaching you actually how to market inside of an MLM so anyway, excited you're here, glad you're here. Hopefully that helps. Again, think through how you can create a new offer.   Number two, think through how you can become an actual leader, a more strong leader, one that is not afraid to stand up in any kind of opinion. It's important to become opinionated, very opinionated in what you do. That doesn't mean we have to be a jerk but you know what I mean? Anyway, hey guys, thanks so much. Hopefully this has been helpful and I will talk to you in the next episode. Bye. Hey, hey, hey. Thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback for me. Do you have a question you want answered live on the show? Go to secretmlmhacksradio.com to submit your question and download your free MLM master's pack.

The Pianist Makes The Music. Not The Brand Of Piano... Hey, how's it going everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. And now, here's your host, Steve Larson. All right, all right, so about what was this, probably, three or four years ago, a lot of you guys know I was in the Army and a lot of my stories come from the Army. I'm so sorry that it's just that way, it's just that was a lot life altering things that happen when you're in that kind of situation. Anyway, there was this guy who was, he was kind of a hotshot to be honest. He thought he was anyway, right. He gets out there and he always tries to take charge and he's trying to be the man, which is cool, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be the man and a lot of people want to be the man and that's fine if you know what I'm saying, but this guy he put his uniform on and he'd go out there and he would try and start barking orders around and stuff like that. Well one day we decided we got to go practice shooting, so we go and we get our M16s and we practice shooting and we're sitting out there at the range and it's freezing out. There's snow everywhere, so we're laying tarps on the ground and we're basically kind of laying in water again ... I've done that a lot. If you listened to my last episode at all, I talked about that a little bit. There's a point to this story that's very strong, by the way. He lays down right next to me and he starts, they're like okay ready, fires ready, take your aim, fire. We start shooting and we're practicing shooting at different distances, you know 300 meters, 200 meters, different distances and you've got to lob the bullet after 150 meters so you start aiming up just a little bit. I'm a pretty good shot, I got what was it 36 out of 40 hits, which is awesome. It's really good. I actually won a phone call home in the middle of basic training cuz of that, which is really cool. I'm a pretty good shot, I've really liked it. It's funny my mom was like, and my wife and everyone, was like "why are you such a good shot" and I was like "Honestly, halo and call of duty." I think that's, I don't why besides that. I actually did shoot quite a lot growing up... Anyway, so we're shooting and this guy he's laying down right next to me and he thinks he somewhat of a hotshot, right, and he kind of rubbed me the wrong way a little bit. I learned to become really good friends with him. I'm shooting and I'm having really tight groupings, and I'm doing really, really well I can tell. The guys next to me has still not even fired a single round, okay ... Some of you guys are probably thinking, Steven, what does that have to do with sales funnels, I promise you that there is a huge lesson because I keep getting asked this. Okay. Anyway, he goes out there and he, he's like "Larsen, dude, my weapons not firing, man, what the heck's going on with this thing?" I turn over and I look and his magazine, which is what holds the bullets holds the rounds, his magazine is in upside down. I was like what the heck, it wasn't just upside down it was also backwards. The bullets were literally facing him... I was like "Was that a joke, are you kidding me?" He's like, "No, sorry I've never really done this before. I've never really done this before." I was like okay that's kind of weird, and he turns around and he puts his magazine in the right way. He lays down and the next round of firing comes up. I've gotten really tight groupings, I start shooting again. I'm doing all the correct, you know there's five different senses and you think through all your senses. You think through different breathing patterns. There's a natural pause in your breath when you're about exhale and inhale, that break in between is when you fire. All these things are running through my head... I really do like to shoot, and again there's nothing going. The kid next to me is not shooting. I was like "Dude, what's wrong? Are you okay?" He goes, he didn't even like pull the action back and actually put a bullet in or something like that, and that round stops or whatever. I'm looking at my shots and I'm like man that's a really tight grouping. I was getting better. I was really exciting. We do this again and he starts shooting but he literally has nothing on the paper at all. He's not even ... not just on the target, his rounds are not even hitting the paper. I was like "Dude, what's wrong?" He was like "I don't know what's going on, man. I'm putting the front sight on the target." He didn't have his rear sight up and then he didn't have it set to 300 meters, he had it set to 500 meters. Anyway, it was like a ton of iterations over and over and over again that I had to coach this kid who thought he was a hot shot in the most basic function of being a solider, right, shooting. He didn't even know how to, ugh, it was so frustrating to me. From that very moment on he stopped acting like a hotshot. He stopped acting like this kid who knew everything and he became real after that. Why do I bring that up? What's the whole point of that? You can hand me pretty much any weapon and I'm going to be able to shoot it pretty consistently over and over and over again, because I have practiced the talent of shooting. We'd lay on the floor and we'd smack our elbows, bam, bam, bam, smack our elbows on concrete as hard as we could over and over and over again because it helps build up stability if you're laying the in the prone for a long time, so your arms don't start shaking. Bam, bam, bam, I'd smack my elbows into the concrete and it hurt like crazy at the beginning, then pretty much I got a whole bunch of resistance that built up inside of my elbows. I'd bam, bam, bam, smack it up. There's all these different things, these breathing patterns, all the things you do with your body, mentally what you're doing, the state you'd go into when he was about to shoot. It's very different than if you're actually in a war zone, but the same principles apply no matter what weapon you hand me. What does this have to do with building sales funnels? Everything! It has everything to do with everything. Why does this have everything to do with everything? Because, you guys, the point I'm trying to make right here, maybe I should go ... Here we go. I played piano for a very long time... This one should bring it home. I played piano for a long time. When I was eight years old, my mom started teaching me piano lessons. She taught piano lessons out of our home for a long time. I hated it. I hated the fact that it was my mom. I hated the fact that she made me practice all the time. It drove me nuts. So from ages 8 to 14 she pretty much forced me to do piano lessons and I thank her like crazy although I hated it. Well when I turned 16, 17 years old, I was like crap the ladies really like this, so I re-taught myself and I got pretty good. I haven't played for like eight years since then, but ... Now I can sit down at any piano, it didn't matter on the brand, it didn't matter on who was around me. It didn't matter if it was even completely in tune, I could still make a really cool song from the piano. Same with the drums. I play the drums, full kit, for about four or five years. It did not matter on the brand. It did not matter what kind of drumsticks I was using. I could still make really cool beats. I still keep beats. I play in a band for a little bit. I sang in a band and it was awesome. It did not matter. Now, okay, the question that I'm trying to address here is that I get asked like crazy, okay, we just finished this campaign and I get asked like crazy, can we have like, what was it 2400 people watching live this webinar that Russell was doing. I was moderating. I was reading all the comments. I was trying to answer as many questions as people had. The questions that continue to pop up and that still can pop up all the time, I still get them. I've been getting them for a long time. What webinar software should I use? What's the best, who's the best copywriter? What's the best color for my button? It's stuff like that where you're like, okay stop focusing so much on the tools. Stop it. The tools, talent is not in the tools. There's been a whole bunch of people coming to say "Okay, if I only had this kind of equipment, I would be successful. If I only had the top brand of computer or MacBook, or whatever then I would be allowed to go out and get my actual funnel done." If I only had ... the best car then I would be the best racer. It's like that's so backwards you guys. That's not true at all. Today I heard Russell ... Russell sat back and he said "hey, you know what, I'm not trying to brag, but I'm just trying to tell you that it has nothing to do with the tools." It's funny he said that because I've been thinking about this before he even brought it up. I've had this podcast planned, and I was like hey, it's cool he's talking about it. He said, "Look you could take away click funnels. You could take away any of my branding. You could put me in a market where I don't even know the product. You could put me in a spot where nobody knows me. Take away all these elements and I still would be able to make a million dollars really quickly because of the principles, because of the talent, because of the person growth that I've had in this certain area" right, this is him speaking. I was like yeah, that's really cool. It's super true. That's the way, a lot of you guys though, what I've been noticing is hey I'm going to go build a sales floor, I'm going to go build this business, I'm going to go do this, but I would actually be successful at it if I just had this. Now, the tools matter a little bit to a degree, right. Going back to the shooting thing, if I was going to shoot with something that was super rusty versus something that was nice and clean, I mean that matters like 10%, 90% of it though is seriously the talent inside of you. 90% of the time the tool really doesn't matter. Stop making the tool an excuse to not act. Now, like I said sometimes the tool really matters, like no one else does what Click Funnels does. I mean you should use Click Funnels, but what webinar software should I use? Man, just use freaking webinar software. What chat box should I use? Google chat box and click on the first one and get it. You know what I mean? Like there's this whole part that it really doesn't matter but people get caught up in it like crazy. It drives me nuts. Just choose one. A musician makes a crappy piano sound good. It has nothing to do with the brand. It could even be a little bit out of tune, and it would still sound amazing. You see what I'm, do you guys get the point? Stop blaming the tool. Stop saying, the tool is what it is. The musician makes the crappy piano sound good because he is the talent, because the person is the talent, not the piano. Not the brand, not the tool. The tool really doesn't matter that much. You can't obsess over tools. What you need to do is personally obsess over being good, being the best. Being amazing. It will just distract yourself to death with these tools. Focus on being the best. Guys one of the reasons I sit next to Russell, the reason I am Russell Brunson's funnel builder, the reason why, is because three years ago when I saw Click Funnels come out, it just barely left beta. I had been building funnels and other businesses and stuff on word press and other things like that and I was hustling, and I still am hustling, right. I slowed down a little bit to just catch my breath. I went like eight months with barely sleeping. These last few months have been awesome, but I can feel myself trying to get into another hustle mode again. I'm trying to figure whether or not I should. I know how to hustle. The reason why I sit next to Russell, is because three years ago when Click Funnels came out and left beta there was this really powerful moment for me where I was like okay, I'm going to learn this or I'm going to fail. Meaning there was this whole, I got, it's not that I wasn't serious before, but I put my pride, I put my name on the line. I decided to go out and start building funnels... What I would do is I would go stand in front of the mirror, you guys might think I'm weird for this but whatever, like it worked. I would stand in front of the mirror and I'd look myself dead in the eye and I'd get kind of psyched up and stuff like that, and I would just take my fist and I would start like punching the counter as hard as I could. Boom, boom, boom, and I'd be like I WILL BE THE BEST FUNNEL BUILDER IN THE WORLD! And I would yell at myself. The only reason I'm not yelling now is cuz it's like 1:30 in the morning and I just had to get this off my chest and my kids are sleeping like two rooms over. I would start slapping the counter as hard as I could. I would look myself dead in the ... and it's not that pain and pleasure are the only things that should motivate you, that's not true at all, but I was just trying to capture this feeling that I just needed to be the best. Now, I'm not saying I'm the best funnel builder, but I will say that I've built probably more funnels than 99% of the people on the planet. 170 in the last year. Like holy crap, man, that's a lot of funnels. Collectively they have brought millions and millions and millions of dollars. Even by themselves, there's several funnels that have brought in a million bucks just on their own. It's amazing. Super, super cool. The reason why is because I stopped blaming the freaking tool. Okay? I stopped blaming something else. I looked at myself and I started obsessing over me. My expertise. Was I the best? If someone handed me a microphone and said you have 20 minutes on stage, what would I say. Okay. Sometimes that's hard to do. Don't point the finger out. Point it back in and go okay what am I not good at yet? That is literally the reason I went and did door-to-door sales was to get better at sales and to take a crap ton of objections. That's why I did it. I didn't necessarily like, I really hated it to be honest, but that's why I did it. Look at yourself and craft your life. When you start doing that and you actually get really clear on your goals amazing things happen, you guys. It's nuts. Two things are going to happen. Number one, you're going to get a dump load of opposition. You'll get it from family, unfortunately. You'll get it from friends. You'll get a whole bunch of, unfortunate on that as well, you'll get it from people who you didn't even know. People will come out of the woodwork and just tell you that you're going to flat out fall on your face. I don't even know who you were before I started going down this path and trying to do it. They'll just, anyway they'll just run right at you and just tell you, you can't do it. Because they can't, or they've go excuses and they think that they also apply to you. The second thing that's going to happen, though, is you're going to start carving this line in the sand. You're going to draw a line in the sand, and you're going to start getting people coming over to your side saying yeah, Steven, you can do it. You can go pursue being the best funnel builder on the planet. Try it. Just go for it. See what happens. Am I? Nope. But I know I'm really good. Amazing things has happened because of that, right. Very intense, very focused, all the way through as much as I could. Studying, I mean, I can honestly say I earned where I am. I'm very proud of that. I'm very proud of that. But for a while it was, I mean I went through the same thing I'm tell you right now. It's not that I didn't go through it either. For a while I blamed the tool. Oh the market was bad. When I did real estate and I was trying to flip contracts in the closing period for ten grand more than I got them under contract for, and it worked. I got seven houses under contract, a couple multimillion dollar pieces of real estate and just, I wasn't experienced enough. I didn't know what I was doing. I had no idea. I didn't even know the vernacular of that industry. I was just taking massive action and I had tons of these people come in and try to help me and all these things going on, and it failed. I did not succeed in that... For a long time I blamed, oh it was the market. Oh it's because of this guy, because of that guy, and it was really, really easy for me to go blame and put the finger outward. All I'm trying to do is tell you guys stop blaming the tool, stop obsessing over which tools you use, and just start obsessing over you. Are you good? Be the best version you can be of your own self. To do that, you need to see, yeah, focus on my strengths, but there's also a few weaknesses that I can't progress without overcoming as well. It's like that Robert Key Saki 00 quote I was just talking about a few episodes ago, like as soon as you start down the path of entrepreneurship, there are character flaws that will blow up straight in your face and you are not going to be able to progress in business until you address them. That doesn't mean you've got to fix everything in your life, but it might mean you need to outsource, and go okay, you know what I'm not good at taking picture, let me go find some guy who's good at taking a picture. You overcame that. Does that make sense? It's the same thing. Anyways that's all I wanted to do in this podcast was just tell you guys, I hope you see, it's like ... The tool barely matters you guys. It is so much about you. Are you good? Are you passionate? What's the thing that gets you excited? Are you really, really good at it? You can either be the first or you can be the best, which one are you? Lots of time I'm not very good at being the first so I try to be the best, and you know what? If I'm number two, like I'm trying to be number one, but there's a lot of great things that come as number two also, not that I'm settling at all, cuz I'm not, but man really, really cool, anyway, I hope that makes sense, what I'm trying to say here guys. Don't distract yourself with the tool. Don't obsess over tools. They matter like 10%, the rest of you is the other 90%. You've got to personally obsess over getting good. You get to sit down and ... Anyway just don't distract yourself with tools, that's all I'm trying to say. Anyway, guys I hope you're doing well. Sorry I had to talk a little bit quiet on a few of these. It's super late. I just had this on my mind. All right, guys, I will talk to you later. Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? 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Crunchyroll Features Editor and Customer Support Lead Nate Ming joins Evan and Victoria to talk about anime devils and the differences between selfie sticks and M16s.   Sorry for the earlier audio quality on this episode! We've fixed it up so it will be better for your listening pleasure. News Evan's impressed with Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F's Theatrical Run Victoria -Studio 4°C Announces Global Netflix Streaming Plans for Anime Nate shares the backstory of Fanart Friday - Drunkyroll Edition as the column approaches its 4 year anniversary Anime Evan starts the endless Case Closed manga Victoria realizes why Shimoneta isn't for her Nate's blown away by SCHOOL-LIVE! and is also keeping up with Monster Musume, Ushio and Tora, and Gangsta Evan manages to visit the screening of Shunji Iwai's The Case of Hana and Alice Victoria loves everything about Akame ga Kill except the main two characters Nate picks up the Japanese volumes of Kongou Banchou You can reach Nate with every support ticket you make on Crunchyroll or on his Twitter account. You can find more episode of Crunchycast on Crunchyroll, iTunes, Stitcher Radio, and our Libsyn page. The CrunchyCast is hosted by Victoria Holden and Evan Minto and produced by Miles Thomas and the Crunchyroll Brand team. If you have any questions for our hosts, you can reach us at CrunchyCast@crunchyroll.com, or on Twitter at @SailorBee and @VamptVo respectively.  The opening and ending music in CrunchyCast are produced by Noah Hafford, who can be found at his SoundCloud.

Love the Twilight Zone as much as I do? In writing and recording this anti-rant, the title of a lesser-known episode of that show came to mind: People are alike all over. Watch The Twilight Zone - The Obsolete Man on YouTube right now. Seriously, do it now. -- I never read YouTube comments, but I broke my rule about that today when I popped over to a classic episode of the Twilight Zone. I couldn't help but laugh at the responses people had. If you haven't seen the episode The Obsolete Man, stop what you're doing and go watch it now. It's right there on YouTube, it takes 25 minutes, and nothing you do for the rest of you life will matter until you've seen it. I'm only slightly exaggerating. So, comment after comment on this video compared The State in this story to the Obama administration, and more than that, said that essentially this is what liberals want. Everyone who said that is so drastically out of touch with the world around them it's downright silly. If you live in North Korea, Crimea, Iraq, maybe Venezuela, then this story is definitely more than just allegory for you. But if you live in the United States of America, and more to the point if you're as white and male as the most vocal of Republicans often are, comparing this episode to the world you live in today is just hyperbole. More than that, though, saying that your political opponents actually want the distopian totalitarian society depicted here takes the kind of oversimplified sense of black-and-white us-and-them morality that is usually responsible for creating oppressive dictatorial regimes in the first place. But of course conservatives look at The State in this episode and they see the liberal agenda (as they see it). It's an evil entity trying to take away the personal freedoms they hold dear. But guess what? Liberals look at this same totalitarian future and they see conservatives creating it. It doesn't matter that the State here has outlawed religion and conservatives are all about religious freedom. The State has also outlawed poetry and literature of any kind, and I know a lot of liberals who love those things. How could they possibly not vilify this fictional State just as much as any conservative would? How cartoonishly detached from human experience do you have to be to think that average ordinary people are somehow the physical embodiment of everything you hate just because they voted differently than you in the last election? It's so preposterous when you step back and look at it. Look, every hardcore liberal thinks they're a righteous freedom-fighter. Look at Occupy Wallstreet, pissing on cop cars and causing a public nuisance. Look at PETA harassing celebrities and trying to force everyone into veganism. Look at pro-environmental nuts burning down Hummer dealerships and ironically doing more harm to the atmosphere than every vehicle on that lot ever would. And every hardcore conservative thinks they're a righteous freedom-fighter as well. Look at the TEA party spouting racist nonsense in place of actual ideas to improve our democracy. Look at gun rights advocates who carry M16s into a Starbucks and scare the crap out of everyone. Look at pro-lifers murdering abortion doctors, because apparently life is only sacred if you haven't been born yet. I'm not a liberal, and I'm not a conservative. I wouldn't even call myself a moderate. I'm just someone with enough perspective to see you people are all the same. There's only one person in the US who honestly thinks a totalitarian dictatorship would be what this country needs, and it's me. Make me the leader of everything; at least I'll be altruistic enough to look out for you. Everyone we've got in office right now is looking out for their own interests, not yours. Liberal, conservative, doesn't matter. Everyone thinks the government is corrupt, and they're all right. They didn't get to the top without making some bad deals with some rotten people. So, ever wonder how government of the people, by the people and for the people could so completely miss the mark when it comes to looking out for the interests of the people? Take a look at yourselves, look at how you treat each other, how you vilify everyone who doesn't fall in line with your ideology, and ask yourself honestly, which is more surprising: that a government by the people is dysfunctional, or that it ever functioned in the first place? If vilifying people you don't like helps you sleep at night, then good luck to you, but don't ever forget, every villain thinks they're the hero of their own story. And as long as we're talking about great Twilight Zone episodes, did you happen to see one called The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street? Give it a watch. It's pretty good.