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Untold ideas are already dying....

Hey, guys. I am very excited for this episode...

I've actually had this episode on my mind for, I don't know, it's been a while. I've had a hard time trying to figure out how to actually present it. I want to walk you through a little bit of, I don't know.

About four years ago I decided that I would create, every January 1st, I would go and I would create a video that would basically publicly declare my financial goal for the next year, and it's the scariest thing that I do pretty much every single year.

It's interesting what has happened though because of those videos. They're on YouTube. If you go to my YouTube channel, you can check it out.

About four years ago, it's me, I'm in the army, I've got a shaved head, and I'm like, gosh, you know what guys, if I could just make an extra $1,000 a month that would change my life. That's where I was.

I was like, hey, and here's my plan. That was the video for that year.

Then three years ago I was like, "Hey, if I could just do $3,000 a month that would be crazy. Oh my gosh, that would change my life." It's crazy, because what I do then as I go through each one of the months and I say, hey, here's what I did, here's how I did.

Then the year before this one, I was like, "hey, I just want to do $30,000 a month". That's excluding salary income, excluding any other income on the side. Just my own stuff.

I'm pleased that I hit that several times this last year, which is awesome. I want you to know that that's on the side, working for somebody else more than full-time doing ... Still have a family, two kids, a wife. You know what I mean?

This is not meant to be that video, but about four-ish years ago. Let me check actually. About three-ish years ago, I so badly wanted to be able to just start being around other people who shared my common interests. I was in college at the time.

It was 2015. It was wrapping up the year, and I just wanted to be around other people. I felt like I was very alone, funny enough, even in my marketing degree, my marketing classes, which I love school for the environment it gave me to learn, but I didn't actually learn that much stuff that I use now, hardly at all, which is true for pretty much any education now.

That's fine.

I had been following Russell for quite some time at that time, and I knew that Russell was really into things like masterminds, and he had this Inner Circle and stuff like that.

Honestly, before Russell, before I ever knew who Russell Brunson was, I thought masterminds ... I'm just going to be open and honest with you. Because I had no other expectations at all, I thought masterminds were a way to get more money from people.

I didn't know what they were.

I had no idea if there was any kind of value or anything like that. My perception was just that it was a high-ticket experience to hang ... It was a reason to hang out with people who paid you a whole bunch of money to hang out with them. You know what I mean? That's what I thought it was.

Then when I saw that Russell was doing masterminds and he came out with his Inner Circle, I was like, huh, that's kind of ... Pre-Russell my attitude towards masterminds was very like, "Meh. You're just trying to take my money," or something like that. You know what I mean? That was my attitude. It's more of a scarcity mentality as well by then. This is like three, four years ago now. A lot's changed since then.

After figuring out who Russell was though, and after seeing more of what he was doing with his Inner Circle and more what he was doing with that, it became very apparent to me very quickly that this was not a normal thing, that this was an extremely rare opportunity to learn in some really, really high-speed ways.

I was seeing the results that some of these people were coming out and saying like, "Hey, I've got these results, X, Y, and Z." And be like, "Holy crap. That's awesome. You get that from the mastermind?" I had to change my mentality. I had to change the way I was looking at it. I found myself really wanting to go attend one of these masterminds. Granted, they're not all the same. The only thing I knew of Russell at the time was his DotComSecrets X product, DotComSecrets book was out, and I had read that definitely by this time. I believe so, anyway. I really just wanted to learn more from him, and I really, really wanted to get into his Inner Circle.

I knew I did not have 25 grand though at the time to be able to do something like that.

Fascinating, right? Fascinating experience. Fascinating predicament. I know if you're listening to this podcast right now, you've probably been in the same boat before. You've probably experienced it before, be like, "Hey, I wish I could be a part of this program. I wish I could do this or that." The FAT event and funnel hackathon event, secrets masterclass, 2 Comma Club Coaching, he has few different names for it. That's 15 to 25 grand, and for very, very specific reasons.

I understood the reasons. I understood why he was charging that much, but I was in college and I still wanted to be a part of that. One day Russell sent out this email, and in fact I can tell you it was December 14th, 2015 at 5:44 p.m. I remember it.

I remember this moment. This was a huge moment for me. I went and I actually found the email. I found the email, and Russell said, "Hey, look, there's 74 out of 100 spots taken. As you probably know, I have a small group of entrepreneurs that I personally coach and I call them my Inner Circle. For the past two years, I've had dozens, and dozens of success stories come from this group, in fact."

Anyway, he went through and he started talking about it, saying, "Look, this is a new development. I'm going to say that when we're at 100 spots I'm going to end it." I was devastated. I was so devastated. I remember exactly where I was. I was in the campus basically rec center. There was a pool in that room or in that building.

I was standing in the hallway and I was walking down in the stadium steps, the basketball stadium steps. Smell of chlorine from the pool from several rooms over was in the air. It was quiet. I was one of the only ones in that room standing in the middle or almost in the middle of the basketball stadium. It was quiet, and I remember reading this email, and I remember out loud actually saying, "No! No! Crap. No!"

I was pissed that he was closing down his Inner Circle at 100 people because I knew I would make it somehow, but I knew I couldn't make it at the speed he was filling it. I just knew that I couldn't make it. I was like, "Oh my gosh. No." I remember I sent a message to my wife, and I was like, "He's closing it down."

She didn't really know what it was at the time still, or what I was really doing or what I was into and stuff like that. She said like, "Oh, that's too bad." ...